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en-ternity · 11 months

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⋅ GENRES: strangers to lovers & summer romance; angst, fluff & smut

⋅ PAIRING: street racer!Heeseung x fem!reader

⋅ WORD COUNT: 26.8K

⋅ WARNINGS: illegal street racing (oh, really?!); mentions of alcohol, implied driving while drunk; a fight scene, mentions of blood and bruises; Heeseung is flirty and it’s a concerning warning; skinny dipping; unprotected sex multiple times

TRACK 01 OF TAKE MY HAND

Heeseung had never believed in love, at least not the real thing — not the capable of awakening his soul and bringing peace to his mind type of love.

It happened to other people, in other places, but not to him in the small county of Hongcheon. Yet, it did.

In the summer of his twenty-four years, you came into his life, and from the moment he saw you, he knew he was gone — heart on the flatline.

Lee Heeseung wasn’t the type of person to obey the speed limits. He maybe once was, but after so many years in the race, he had become too impatient for it.

He liked the speed. He liked how the sound of the engine muffled his heartbeats, the way the gear stick felt familiar against the palm of his hand, and above all — he liked how, even if for just a few moments, he was capable of being free from everything.

If someone ever dared to take the road up the hills, it wouldn’t be hard to find him there — beneath the scorching sun and leaving only the idea of the memory of his black BMW as he raced through.

And it hadn’t been different on that first afternoon of summer.

Heeseung stepped on the brakes, raising a trail of smoke as the car squealed through the asphalt before coming to a stop. It didn’t take long until Jake followed suit, pulling beside him with his showy Camaro. However, the breeze barely had time to heal from all the racing noises before Heeseung shot the car forward and back, causing Jake to laugh loudly. Both of them, connoisseurs of the street races, knew Heeseung was inciting another race, even though they had just finished one.

“We have to head back,” Jake shouted. “Or else we are going to be late and Jungwon is going to be mad — I don’t like it when Jungwon is mad.”

The clock of the BMW showed precisely half past six, and the town was right beneath them. If they followed the speed limits they would arrive just on time, but if they didn’t — the possibilities were infinite.

“To the town’s entrance then?” Heeseung asked, making Jake laugh once again.

“Just down the hill,” he agreed. “It's summer and the highways are going to be full.”

“Deal.”

Jake stepped on the gas pedal, making the Camaro wail with no previous warning. It was a glorious car — with its capacity, Heeseung always thought it was an almost equal competitor to his BMW M4, but Jake always messed up the shift from the fourth to the fifth gear. It doesn’t matter how many times he raced, Jake always lost the precious second between them, and Heeseung always used it to blow by.

Through the rearview mirror, Heeseung saw Jake laughing at the already lost competition, but he didn’t hold to it for too long. Between a turn and another, Hongcheon spread beyond him, the beautiful town embroiled in the middle of a steady chain of hills and a sparkling river. The sky was an ideal shade of orange above it all, with not a single cloud to shade the late sunset.

The summer of his twenty-four years was beginning, although Heeseung didn’t know what it truly meant — yet.

┈┈┈┈

When you agreed to join your family on their annual summer trips after years of fully dedicating yourself to the university. You surely didn’t expect your first night away would be so university-like.

Your parents had chosen Hongcheon as the destination, a stunning and peaceful county just one hour away from Seoul. With a rented house on the hill and a back garden the size of a park, you expected a lay-down vacation — full of ice teas and watching sunsets on the back porch. Perhaps it would have been if the county wasn’t as well Hayoung’s hometown, your cousin and friendly guide as she entitled herself while she pulled you out of the front doors and into the summer night.

By the time you arrived at the house of whoever her colleague and party hostess was, the place was already full to its end, the strum of a low bass blasting through the opened door, and the interior heavy with the smell of alcohol, cigarettes, and too many damp skins.

“Hayoung!” someone screamed above the loud music.

The stranger stopped before both of you, his lazy smile and unfocused eyes only advising he was already wavering between the states of soberness and drunkenness.

“Who’s that?” he asked, pointing at you with the tip of his beer.

“Y/N, my cousin.”

“Lovely, I didn’t know you had one,” he said. You furrowed your eyebrow at that, a perfect mirror of your cousin’s reaction. If there was something to say, you didn’t know what it could be, and neither did Hayoung as she preferred to change the topic.

“Have you seen Sunhae?”

“Rooftop with that Jungwon guy of hers and his friends.”

“Thanks,” she said, fingers already curling around your elbow and guiding you away.

Everything that happened from the front hall to the rooftop was forgotten before the next step was taken. People stopped Hayoung to greet her and asked who you were in confusion. You shouted your name at strangers, and they shouted theirs back, both ends pretending it would be something they would keep and remember for more than a couple of seconds. A woman pressed two bottles of soju into your palms, the only thing you would have truly appreciated in the meantime if they clearly hadn’t been opened and were already missing a few sips when she did. You preferred to abandon them somewhere within the stairs.

Hayoung opened the rooftop door, gesturing for you to go in first, and when you did, immediately Hongcheon’s summer shrouded you. The music became just an echo through your feet and the darkness of the interior was taken by string lights hanging on the wooden beans. You had to blink a few times to get used to it, and only then you saw Sunhae, that Jungwon guy of hers, and his friends — the four of them focused on a dartboard poorly placed in one of the beams.

Sunhae was the first one to notice you, running to your cousin and briefly hugging her before she turned to you.

“Hi, I am Sunhae,” she said, her tone so cheerful that it was difficult to not feel welcomed. “Hayoung’s roommate in the university dorms, but you probably know it.”

“I do,” you smiled. “I am Y/N.”

“Oh, I know,” Sunhae laughed. “But those guys probably don’t know you and you probably don’t know those guys.”

“The smallest black-haired one is Jungwon,” she started. However, she didn’t need to finish her sentence for you to know it — not only because the stranger at the front hall called Jungwon hers, but because as soon as her eyes landed on him, it glinted. The silliest yet most honest indication of being in love. “My boyfriend.”

“The silvered-haired one is—”

“I am Jake,” he said, turning to you and extending his hand. “Jungwon’s roommate in the university dorms.”

He seemed so eager to share his role in Jungwon’s life that you couldn’t help but laugh at it, soft and airy, allowing the sound to blend in with the breeze.

“Y/N,” you said, taking his hand and shaking it.

As you looked at the last of them, he was already watching you. And there’s no way it hadn’t been something crafted inside of your mind, but for a brief moment, time seemed to have stopped. Ranging a little bit so, many years later, when that night became just a memory of your youth days, you would still remember how despite the warm weather he wore a leather jacket, a plain black t-shirt, and a silver necklace that glinted almost as much as his eyes beneath the summer sky.

“I am Heeseung,” he said, moving his gaze at Jake for a brief second before he turned back to you, smiling. “I don’t think I have something special to state.”

His accent didn’t escape you. You had already noticed the difference between Seoul and Gangwon residents, the way people from the province rolled the vowels and cut the end of the phrases making it hastened, but if anything, it only made his voice warmer.

“It’s nice to meet you,” you said. Heeseung extended his hand at you. It was a little bit too late for the greeting but you took it anyway, allowing him to fold his fingers around yours.

“Are you good with darts?” he asked.

“Darts? I think I can make my way through it.”

“Great,” Heeseung said. “I don’t want to lose and Jake is terrible at it, so you are my new partner.”

When you didn’t oppose it, he used your connected hands to pull you to him, and suddenly he was so close and the air stuffy. He smelled like the summer nights, like the brisk breeze of the county, like peonies, but as well as the leather of his jacket, and something that you remembered from the day your father taught you how to drive, the smokey scent when you couldn’t pull the car up the hill and forced the engine to its maximum.

“Should we bet?” Sunhae suggested. “We always bet.”

“Drinks?”

“Boring,” she paused, just for a brief moment before her face lighted up as if she had been struck with a great idea. “The carnival always needs volunteers.”

“It doesn’t seem bad,” Hayoung said.

“To operate the tents, but the losing team should volunteer to wear the sheep costume and hand the flyers.”

You laughed at the absurd, and Heeseung’s eyes landed back on you again, his eyebrows lifted as amusement rushed through his face almost too fast to be noticed.

“Are you fine with this?” he asked.

“We aren’t going to lose, are we?” you asked instead, and his eyes glinted playfully at you.

“No.”

“So I am fine,”

“Do the honors, princess,” he said, extending one of the darts.

The nickname tingled through your body, making heat grow into your cheeks. Yet, Heeseung didn’t realize what he had said until a second later when your hand hung above the extended dart for a heartbeat more, but if anything, his smile widened.

Hayoung decided to be just a watcher together with Jake, making it you and Heeseung against Jungwon and Sunhae.

As the night went on and the party began to wind down on the floors below, you thought the bet had long been forgotten until Jake called everyone’s attention.

“Last round before we run out,” he announced. “Y/N has to score more than thirty points to have a direct win.”

“Excuse me? How much?” you demanded, making him laugh at your uneasiness.

“Thirty,” he repeated, enjoyment rushing through each pronounced letter. “or else you give an opportunity to Jungwon and Sunhae to win and Heeseung is wearing a sheep costume — not that I am hoping for it.”

You looked at Heeseung, uncertainties swaying your gaze. He hesitated only for a moment before he stepped behind you, one of his hands slightly resting on your waist as the other folded around your hand, positioning it.

“It’s her turn,” Jake protested.

“The dart is in her hand,” Heeseung replied with mischief.

Your head turned to him, drawing out a question. However, his breath brushed through your lips, the bitterness of the beer he had been drinking reaching through your tongue almost as if you were the one drinking it, and you allow it to slip and slide away, everything on you focusing on the small pressure of his fingertips on your skin.

“I am holding it for you,” he whispered, voice winding through your hair. Heeseung moved both of your hands, and you looked forward in time to see the dart sticking precisely at the center of the dartboard.

Jungwon screamed, abandoning the dart he wouldn’t have any opportunity to use on the table before he took Sunhae’s hand and rushed to the rooftop door. Jake laughed, following behind, and then you understood that it was their thing. Jake meant it when he said to run out. It was their way to leave and your chest ached to see this inner thing of theirs.

Hayoung stepped past you, a gentle smile traversing her lips before she as well rushed through the door, leaving it open for you and Heeseung.

There was a small pause, a small gap in time as he reached for the top of your head, threading his fingers through your hair as he gave a soft and quick pat.

“Thank you for saving me from the sheep costume,” he said, all mischief and teasing as he stepped back. You prepared yourself to hear him leaving too, the sound of his steps echoing together with the now turned-down music, but he didn’t walk away. Heeseung just stayed still, waiting for you to look at him so he could slightly tip his head at the door.

He led you downstairs, and when someone stumbled on you, he took your hand in his, pulling you close to him and shielding you from the party still going through the corridors until you are out into the warm summer night again. The stars hung so low in the sky, none of you really could tell if it was too late or too early.

“Can I drive you home?” he asked.

“With all due respect, I don’t trust drivers like you, Lee,” Hayoung interrupted. “And you have drunk too much, I am taking my cousin back home safely.”

“Fair,” Heeseung exhaled, looking at where your cousin stood. For an instant he faltered, his shoulders tightened as if he suddenly was carrying some weight. However, when he turned back to you, it was gone, he was smiling again. “Am I seeing you at the carnival?”

“Yes.”

His thumb brushed softly against the back of your hand before he let it go.

“Until then, princess.”

Hongcheon was unbelievably warmer than Seoul. The sun had long disappeared through the horizon, yet remnants of the summer heat still lingered in the breeze, caressing your skin with a certain overprotective tenderness as you stood in the middle of the carnival.

You immediately could tell the place had some story with the county. The food carts were old in a lovely way, the tint faded with the number of years of the sun setting on them.

Heeseung was the first one to notice you lagging behind, head turning to everything but the group. You had already collected your picture of Jungwon in sheep costume, but even as you did it, you seemed distracted.

His hand met your elbow, startling you for a second before you noticed it was him.

“Distract much?” he smiled. “Are you alright?”

You exhaled, and the Ferris wheel spilling its mechanical music together with the coin-toss machines stole the sound of it.

“Sunhae made fun of me when I said it.”

“Sunhae would make fun of the world’s end,” he said. “Tell me, what’s it?”

“I have never been to a carnival and my mouth is watering to taste those toffee apples.”

“Toffee apples?” Heeseung asked, but there was no judgment in his words. Although he kept his smile, he didn’t laugh like Sunhae, he didn’t murmur city people beneath his breath like Hayoung. Heeseung simply looked between you and the toffee apple cart, his eyebrow raised before he held his hand at you. “I would prefer you telling me you never had snow cones or corn hot dogs, but fine.”

“I have never tried those too,” you said, placing your hand in his.

“And never rode bumped cars or a carousel?”

“Never.”

“We should do it in the proper way then,” he said, slightly leaning into your direction. You brightened at it, and he knew even though it seemed like a silly program, there was nothing he should rather do tonight.

He guided you through the crowd, hand clasp against yours. The line for the toffee apples was small, but the bumper cars seemed enormous just like all the other attractions, and Heeseung started an ask game. You liked the way he did it. It was more that he genuinely wanted to know about you instead of the polite questions to prevent a conversation from ending. But only when you were on the top of the Ferris wheel, summer breeze musing your hair in a way only the county’s warmth could manage, did he break the question he wondered the most.

“You really never went to a carnival?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why so? There aren’t any carnivals in Seoul?”

“There are,” you said. “There was one in the same avenue of my middle school actually, it’s just a thing of mine. My parents never had much time to do those types of things when I was younger, they were just starting their business, and because of—”

“Well, I never had real friends during this period, they always wanted something from me. They invited themselves to my house, but it was because of the things I had and not because of me.”

“So somehow I was always too lonely to go. Of course, I had other friends during high school and I do have friends in University, but things are different,” you explained. “So yes, I never went to a carnival.”

When you finished, Heeseung had been silent for so long that you thought he had zoned out — leaving you to talk to the furor of the place.

But you looked at him, and he was there — staring at you with the oddest expression someone had ever turned on you. The deliberately unnerving, otherworldly stare that lasted several more seconds than was comfortable for two strangers who aren’t really strangers anymore, and your cheeks grew warmer. You were not sure why you decided to tell him about your life like this, you had met him just a few days previously. But it was summer, the season when people do things they would never think of, it was late at night, the world so warm that it felt safe to let secrets be spilled in the wind, and Heeseung — he felt safe too.

He leaned in, and his eyes flickered beneath the night, mischief glinting as if he wanted to tell you the most beautiful thing he had ever known.

“It sucks,” he said, however, and you laughed at this, head thrown back, the sound so carefree and soft it was impossible for him to not smile back at you.

He reached for the bar behind your shoulders, coming so close you didn’t only hear the next words, but you felt them rushing through your skin.

“But if you ever decide to binge all the attractions of a carnival again, or if you feel like doing anything you couldn’t — I am here,” he said, reaching for the top of your head, his fingers threaded through your hair as he gave the same soft and quick pat he did on the night of the party.

┈┈┈┈

There was something special about the night, an unfathomable pleasure in even the tiniest things.

By the time Heeseung and you left the Ferris wheels, the crowd was still far from thinning and the night far from giving away. Laughter filled every single gush of breeze together with the summer heat.

The only place left was the coin-toss machine to binge all the carnival attractions, and Heeseung immediately guided you there, fingers twinned on yours, he didn’t seem to want to let you go, and you didn’t mind it.

“How does it work?” you asked, taking him to the machine which caught your attention. It didn’t have a claw like the conventional ones, and the prizes stood on shelves — all of them way more expensive than stuffed animals.

“You select the number of the prize you want,” Heeseung explained. “Then you use the hammer to hit this handle here.”

He had to speak loudly for you to hear him beneath the sounds of the machines, something he thought to be inconvenient, so he inclined his head, his lips just centimeters apart from your ear before he continued.

“Based on the strength you used it will give you a number, if it’s the same number as the prize you selected, you win.”

“Seems rigged,” you said, turning to look at him. “But I want to try.”

Heeseung stared down at you, amused eyes shining beneath the colorful lights from the toss-coin machines.

“Ok,” he exhaled. “What prize do you want?”

“The analog camera,” you said, a single finger prodding the smudged plexiglass.

Heeseung was fast on taking off a coin from the pocket of his jeans, tossing it inside the machine and allowing it to glow, the music turning even louder. You watched as he fumbled through the buttons, putting in the number for the analog camera.

“Do the honors, princess,” he said, handing you the hammer.

However, when you hit the handle the number landed far from the desired one. Your lips curled in discontentment, and although Heeseung thought your expression was the cutest thing he had seen during his twenty-four years of living, there was a certain urge in him to make it disappear.

“Let me try,” he said, taking his wallet from the back pocket of his jeans and putting a few of the spare coins he had in.

You handed him the hammer a second before the machine shone again, the mechanical music turning a bit louder to indicate it was ready for another failed try.

“Definitely rigged,” he exhaled. But again and again, Heeseung seized the wallet from the back pocket of his jeans, counted his coins, and inserted it in the machine. On the fourth time, he got tired of the whole process and simply asked you to hold the wallet for him.

Two couples waited behind and you smiled apologetically at them before you turned back at Heeseung.

“Heeseung, it’s ok — it’s forming a line.”

It was the first time you had ever said his name, and it caught him off guard. Not only because of your accent, but coming from your lips, it sounded soft and slow, almost as if you had stolen it and made it all yours.

“One more time,” he asked. “Just one more time.”

When he hit the handle again, you inclined yourself to his side, an innocent act for a better view of the changing numbers, but suddenly you were so close, and your perfume attained so strongly on his lungs that it felt more intimate than it. For a few seconds, Heeseung stayed still, unconsciously allowing his thoughts to slip away as he remained, once again, completely lost in the sense of you.

At the party, he thought you smelled like sunlight, like the spring flowers, and everything about warmth, but no, it was sweeter than that. Like sugar in the air, like a promise.

Your breath brushed through the exposed skin of his neck, leaving goosebumps on its wake and he barely noticed the numbers moving and reaching the exact digit for the analog camera.

“You did it.” you gasped, your hand reaching for his almost unconsciously. “Oh my, you did it.”

His gaze fell over you and he smiled — truly smiled. Heeseung grinned like a boy. The innocent act reflected through his eyes for a moment before he bent in and took the camera box and extended it for you.

“You should keep it,” you said. “It was all your perseverance.”

“It’s yours,” he replied. His delight was almost palpable.

“Come on,” one of the women behind said. “Take that box and give your boyfriend a thank you kiss.”

She had the same hasted accent as the Gangwon’s residents, and it took you a heartbeat longer to make sense of what she had said, but when you did, you immediately could feel the heat growing into your cheeks.

“He is not— he is not my—” you started, looking back at Heeseung, but he only held your gaze steadily. His eyes still sparkling with the echoes of his laugh and you let everything go with a single hitch of breath.

He reached for your hand again, the gesture already rushing through your skin with a familiarity that made your heart ache. He guided you away from the machines, yet the furor of the place was still high and wild, almost muffing his question when it finally came out.

“Can I kiss you?”

Heeseung didn’t seem the type of person to falter easily, but you could swear he was on the verge of it. He moved continuously through your silence, fingers tickling on yours, a shoulder twitched. He shook his head, just slightly, as if he was fixing his bangs, but it was just an attempt to hide the shyness in him.

You didn’t notice you had been holding your breath until a second later, when you felt your lungs loosening with the single word of confirmation you managed to utter.

You looked up at him and the carnival lights gilded your skin, holding you so preciously beneath the dark sky that Heeseung started to have second thoughts.

The moment seemed to take forever, it seemed to take no time at all. Your simple yes unfolded within the summer breeze slowly, blending together with the echoes of the night as he leaned in, reaching for you — his lips hovered just a few inches from yours as if he was checking if you would regret and move away. However, when you didn’t, he kissed you, his lips touching yours just for a second.

Heeseung pulled back, and the glittering carnival dazed both of you. Everything about the place invaded your senses for a quiet moment before he leaned in and kissed you again, this time with more feelings than thoughts. He slid a hand behind your neck, angling your head up and making your lips part for him.

Of course, you had been kissed before. However, never that way. Heeseung wanted to relish it, feeling you through each passing second of your connected lips. He did not want to let it go, memorizing you through each heartbeat as he just grazed his mouth against yours, catching his breath before he kissed you again and again.

You felt a laugh forming in the deep of your chest, but when it rolled out of your lips, preventing Heeseung from kissing you, he wasn’t annoyed at it. He just laughed back at you and you were so lost on him, and in the sound of it, that it took you a while to notice it was the very first time you were hearing him do such a thing.

“Can I drive you home?” he asked. “I promise I haven’t drank anything today.”

┈┈┈┈

The first time you had ever seen a BMW coupé had been during the summer of your first year in high school. Your father had thought it was a nice thing to take you and your mother to a car show, or perhaps he just wanted to go and pretended to genuinely think it was a nice plan. Anyway, you still remember how he followed the air around the car with the palm of his hands, the closed roof, and the fine lines of the only two doors of the gray BMW before turning to you.

“Should I buy it?” he had asked, making your mother grunt. It was a playboy’s car from her point of view, made for trouble and disorder.

And that was exactly Heeseung’s car.

The BMW M4 had been parked outside the carnival field, the street lamp sparkling through the black tint of the car. You manage to control your laugh for most of the way to your rented house, but when Heeseung stopped at a traffic light, the roar of the engine being the only audible thing through the night you couldn’t help but let it escape.

“What’s this?” Heeseung asked, slightly turning to look at you. The red light turned his hair copper, and maybe it had been because you are still high on sugar and him, maybe it had been because you had already shared too much with Heeseung, but you told him about that summer afternoon too.

“So you are telling me, your mother wouldn’t approve me?” he asked, a hint of tease in his tone. You doubted Heeseung worried about what your mother would think seeing him park the BMW in front of the house, yet still, your mind faltered.

“I-” you started.

But you were saved by a car coming beside the BMW. The sudden sound of tires squealing stormed through the once quiet street, but instead of pulling and staying still, the car kept shooting forward and falling back.

“What’s he doing?” you asked.

Heeseung didn’t reply to you, his hand had tensed above the gear stick, and he looked away, ahead to the road.

When the traffic lights turned green the other car blew by, a flash of white paint in the middle of the night.

“He wanted to incite a race,” Heeseung whispered. Your lips parted, not sure if it was for a genuine surprise or if your subconscious meant to say something, but Heeseung seemed unnerved and you let it slip and slide as he drove away.

┈┈┈┈

“Heeseung?” you called, in the same soft way, allowing it to echo through the interior of the BMW. He looked at you, just for a second taking in how your eyes were squinting as you looked through the lens at him before the analog camera flash came off.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“I hope so,” you said. “Imagine me using the whole film to find out I did it wrongly.”

Heeseung hummed at that, the sound coming so softly. He had parked in front of your rented house for minutes now, but you didn’t attempt to leave and he didn’t attempt to make you do.

“Thank you for tonight, and the camera,” you said.

Heeseung could feel the way the night was ending without a single promise of tomorrow. A full period instead of a break, and he disliked the thought.

“I want to see you again,” he whispered.

“I want you to see me again too.”

A laugh escaped from his lips, unintentionally too happy as he reached for his phone on the console and handed it to you. You took it without a second thought, typing away your number and when you handed it back to him, you leaned in, catching his bottom lips with yours. It wasn’t the same kiss he had given you in the carnival, lips touching just for a bare second — it was longer yet just teasing, before Heeseung could hold you, you had gone. You had slipped out of his reach and his car, rushing through the garden of the house and the front porch.

Heeseung couldn’t help but laugh at your doing, tilting his head at the window, he looked up at the sky. At Hongcheon there were never enough streetlights to obliterate the stars completely, and for the first time in a long while, his breath came easily beneath all of this.

Heeseung had been a stranger on that first night of summer. He had been a confidante at the carnival. However, you had no idea who he was on the streets.

This part of Hongcheon was endlessly flat in comparison to the rest of the county. Meanwhile where you have been taking residence was built in the middle of emerald hills, this place was spread out over flat and dried fields.

You were aware it was somewhere at the outskirts of the county, so you weren’t surprised when the modest avenue ended on a highway. What surprised you was that instead of the normal traffic, a line of cars had been parked on the sides, their noses pointing at the middle of the highway, headlights illuminating what the streetlights couldn’t.

People circulated everywhere — around the cars, above the cars. Their cheers seemed to pierce through the closed windows.

For some long seconds, you thought Sunhae had indicated the wrong turn and Hayoung would make her way back through the road. But instead, she kept going, finding a place to park in the long line.

A few meters ahead two cars loomed, their speeds being nowhere near the legal limits as they passed by you and drifted a few meters ahead, tires squealing and leaving angry marks on the asphalt.

“What—” You started with an exasperated slowness. “Is this?”

“An illegal race?” Sunhae replied.

“And what are we doing here?”

Hayoung and Sunhae exchanged a knowing look above the gearshift, and no one needed to be a genius to know they were silently talking with each other.

“We came to watch?” Sunhae said. It had been an affirmation, but the way her voice raised at the end subtly turned the period into a question mark.

You felt your body turning cold. It wasn’t like you had prepared yourself to watch a street race when you had woken up that morning. It wasn’t like you had prepared yourself to participate in something illegal when you entered Hayoung’s car that night. She had messaged you telling you to be ready at nine and that was simply what you had done. Pretty dress, high heels, and pins on your hair.

As if she thought about the same thing, your cousin met your gaze through the rearview mirror.

“I can take you home,” she said.

“It’s alright,” you whispered, and although it carried all your uncertainty, it was enough to make them both leave after a single harsh breath, gathering in front of the car’s hood.

“Jungwon— he casually races,” Sunhae said as you joined them. It was so loud outside that she had to incline herself to speak to you. “Jake too, so you know—”

Hayoung slapped her arm to shut her up. However, you had already seen him, or rather his car — the black BMW spun through the highway, raising a trail of smoke before it lushly parked along the cars at what you judged to be the starting line.

Your breath shuddered out of you. The breeze subtly echoed beneath all the noises as Heeseung climbed out of the car and joined Jake and Jungwon in the small circle of racers.

There was something unfamiliar about him — something ferocious, noisy, and unsettled. This wasn’t the Heeseung you had met at the party, much less the Heeseung who had led you through the carnival with his hand curled on yours. This was the Heeseung who fit the BMW, the leather jacket, and the mischievous grin. This was a Heeseung you weren’t sure you knew who he was.

Heeseung had been smiling at everyone, but he faltered when he spotted you. He had this inconvenient feeling that he had stopped in time. His surroundings kept going, blistering in the loud engines and cheers, but he was stuck on how you were there, suddenly seeing this tainted part of him.

He didn’t remember taking the decision to move. He only knew he did, giving one step in your direction before Jake held his arm.

“Later,” he said, like a reminder. And Heeseung forced himself to retract, to place his bet along with the rest of the racers, forcing himself to hear about the course he knew all too well. He forced himself to walk to his BMW and turn the key.

He eased his foot off the clutch, pressing down on the gas he managed to hold the car in check. The engine was alive beneath him, the sound quelling his heartbeats as he reached for the gear stick. He closed his eyes at the familiarity of the moment, but as soon as the darkness welcomed him, you were there again — burning like sunlight.

He turned his focus back to the streets in time to see the light switching, the red turning into green and without any prelude, the car burst from the starting line. The street lights flickered and flared above him.

Heeseung knew this place well enough to not need to think before exchanging the gears, he just kept in mind he needed to come back faster than ever.

┈┈┈┈

“I will take the awkward exchange of looks as a confirmation that Heeseung didn’t tell you about all of this,” Hayoung said, taking your attention from the highway ahead. The racing cars had already disappeared into the distance, leaving only the idea of the memory behind.

“He didn’t,” you admitted. “It’s not something you can say to someone you don’t know, right?”

“Well, I agree,” she said. “But you are my cousin, he knows me, and he has stuck on you since the party, he should have—”

“It’s alright,” you replied.

You knew Hayoung wasn’t the type of person to give up easily on a discussion, so the moment she opened her mouth to say something more, you turned away, taking in the furor of the place. The cheers had eased, for a great part, but everything was so loud still with the sound of those car’s engines.

“How long does it take?” you asked.

“Not much, they just take the next return and come back here.”

It didn’t take long at all.

The familiar BMW was the first one to pass the finish line. However, Heeseung didn’t slow, he didn’t even look back as he won the race. His car only came to a full stop once he was in front of you — the driver’s door being hardly pushed as the headlights kept flickering through the night.

“Please, let’s talk,” he said, his gaze meeting you as if there were no one else in his eyes sight.

Hayoung reached for you, squeezing your arms as if she was attempting to give you assurance.

“It’s fine,” you said, meeting her gaze. “Sunhae is probably staying with Jungwon, are you alright with driving back alone?”

“Of course,” she replied. “I came thinking it was how my night was ending,”

“Just fasten your seatbelt, and hold on tight, I still don’t trust them on a wheel.”

When you turned back at Heeseung, he had already walked toward you, causing you to bump into him. His hands immediately found your waist, preventing you from tripping. But even as you stood completely still, he continued holding you, his fingers coming up and down through the bodice of your dress.

“Princess,” he said. It almost didn’t sound like a call, but a plea. A longing where it was supposed to have just the tease you were already used to.

“Alright, let’s talk.”

Heeseung guided you to his car, one of his hands sliding to the small of your back as he opened the passenger door for you, waiting for you to slip in before he closed it with a soft slam.

The drive was surprisingly quiet. Heeseung hadn’t spoken the whole way back, he just stayed there — occasionally brushing his gaze towards you as if with a single moment he hadn’t checked on you, you would disappear without a trace. Only when you had reached the town did he speak, but it had been so soft it almost got lost in the breeze before you could even clasp them.

“Is it ok if I take you further into the hills?”

“Yes, of course.”

Heeseung drove into the hills, passing the entrance to your rented house without a second look and going further onto bendy roads that all of a sudden spread on an open field. The town shone beyond it all.

“A few years ago they were going to build a dozen houses like your rented one,” he said, stepping on the parking brake. “They prepared the field but for some reason, they gave up on it.”

“I come here with Jake and Jungwon a lot to — race.”

And that was it, the breaking word.

Heeseung slid his hands through the wheel, slowly bringing them into his lap before he decided to rest it above the gear stick.

“I am not used to telling people about it.”

“I can understand why, genuinely” you said. “So you don’t have to tell me anything that you aren’t comfortable with.”

“I wanted to,” he said. “At the party, I thought of asking if you wanted to go watch the race. At the carnival, I thought of telling you,”

“But you are so—” his gaze encountered you, taking in your whole being before he stopped, letting the words slip and slid away with a single hitch of breath. He couldn’t simply tell he thought you shone like a heart of gold. It was foolish, cringe even. So Heeseung stayed silent, turning back to the town and watching it spread beyond both of you, the interlocked pattern of colored lights.

It made a strange image of him, he seemed so grandiose mirroring all those lights that it somehow made him frail. And it suddenly occurred to you how Heeseung was good at only allowing people to see what he wanted them to. He wanted everyone to see him as confident, bright — ferocious during the races and you wondered what it meant that he allowed you to see through the fissures.

His shoulders tightened as if he suddenly was carrying some weight — whatever he was about to tell you, it was something he had been keeping for himself for years.

You reached for him, palm resting above the back of his hand on the gear stick.

“My parents studied their whole lives together,” Heeseung started, the words leaving his lips clumsy and strangely by the unused of being said. “They started dating during high school and my mother got pregnant not long after their graduation. But there was the thing — they are too young and my mother knew it.”

“Although she tried to endure it, someday she simply couldn’t anymore and left.”

You hadn’t noticed your grip above his hand had tightened until you felt Heeseung shifting beneath your touch, turning his palm to you and slowly interlacing your fingers.

“I am so sorry.”

“It’s alright, honestly,” he replied. “It’s not like I remember much of her — and I grew up well with my grandma and father.”

“A few years ago, my father got really sick — after his funeral, I took his car, it was such an old Toyota. I bet it was the first time it ever really raced,” he smiled, but there was an ache in it, a sadness that you could almost reach. He looked at you again, as defenseless he had ever been. “I found the street racing spot by accident. But they said I was good and I kept going.”

“First it was for freedom, but the money became a great necessity after a few months — my grandma couldn’t work, I had to give up on the university.”

“You did what you could,” you whispered. “It’s alright, Heeseung.”

The moment seemed to stretch, seconds feeling like minutes and when you lifted your interlaced hands to your lips, kissing the back of Heeseung’s hand, you didn’t know how long had passed.

“Do you want to race right now?”

“I do.”

“Take me somewhere?” you asked.

┈┈┈┈

When the BMW reached the town’s outskirts, Heeseung allowed the car to climb in speed, his hand curling familiarly around the gear stick. He never took his eyes off the road, and you saw on his face how much he loved it. The bright and long-acquainted happiness he had with the speed.

Your heart quelled every time Heeseung did a turn, and he reached out, letting go of the wheel and searching for you through the small inches in between.

“I am here,” he said. You pinch his fingers lightly because you knew — and it made the whole difference.

Heeseung only dropped down a few gears near the edges of the county, being caught on the invisible line separating the road from the beach.

You opened the window, allowing a gust of summer air to spread through the car as a laugh escaped from you, unhesitating and unselfconscious. The sky was impossibly clean tonight, making the sea an endless reflection of the stars.

You didn’t ask Heeseung to stop — you didn’t need to. The moment he looked at you, taking a glimpse of your sparkling eyes, and lips tugging with the echoes of your laughter, he just knew it was the right thing to do.

You leaped from the BMW before Heeseung had even turned the engine off, already barefoot and rushing through the white sand as his phone chimed at the console. His grandma probably, Jake or Jungwon, there was no one else, but the problem with having so few people in his life was that he had to pick up.

“Summer is indeed the best season,” Jake said at the other end of the line. “I got the money for you,”

“Do you have any idea how much you made tonight? I am blasted.”

“You said it last week when Daekho exposed how much he got,” Heeseung pointed out, a soft chuckle escaping from him.

“Trust me this time,” Jake said. “I am genuinely blasted. But talking about Daekho, he said he saw you a few nights ago, and you turned down a race — you never turn down a race.”

The sound of your laugh echoed through the night, causing Heeseung to raise his head to you and the view suddenly made him stop, phone still on his ear, mind in the middle of a phrase he would never say.

The moon was barely a quarter of what it could be, but it stood high and bright in the sky, bathing you as if you were something so precious that it decided to shine a little bit more just because of you.

You had walked into the sea, the water hitting your thighs, damping the hem of your dress. The camera he had won for you in the carnival was in your hands pointed at the satellite, and he wondered if you were taking it everywhere. It was something so simple, but it brought a warm sense inside of him.

As if you had felt his burning gaze over you, you turned to him, meeting his gaze through the windshield.

You were already painfully beautiful like this, but the moment you smiled at him — something stirred and moved inside of him.

“Hee?” Jake called by the other end of the line.

“It was on the night of the carnival, Y/N was with me,” he replied. “Jake, listen, I have to hang up, I will call you tomorrow.”

“Are you still with Y/N?”

“Yes.”

“Oh! Have fun, mate.”

Heeseung threw the phone back into the console, taking off his shoes, he followed you down the shore and into the sea, splashing farther into the water until his jeans were damped to his knees.

“Your jeans,” you gasped, but he only shook his head, he could care less about it.

“Are you carrying it everywhere?” he asked. He wasn’t looking at the camera, yet something incited that everything about his actions was about the small object now hanging by the security strip on your wrist.

“Yes.”

For a long and unsettled moment, Heeseung stared at you, his chest heaving with his deep breaths. He took one more step to reach you and suddenly, he was so close and the night so still. All you could feel was the calm rhythm of the sea beneath your feet, the soft hustle of his breath against your skin before a cold wind blew through, sweeping your hair out of the pins and to his cheeks, causing him to lift his hand, twisting the loosened lock between his fingertips before he brushed it behind your ear. It was a ridiculous thing to do. The wind kept blowing through and loosening it, but he didn’t mind doing it again and again. Until he decided to simply hold it, palm resting against your cheek as his fingers twined on your hair.

Heeseung called for you, and your skin tingled beneath the moonlight. No one ever said your name like he did — so slow and deliberate as if he wanted to taste the sound of each letter rolling through his tongue.

You couldn’t help but lean yourself into him, fingertips against his abdomen as you caught his bottom lip with yours. It wasn’t the first time you had given him this soft, teasing, and too-quick kiss. In fact, Heeseung already considered it something of yours, and he had scrutinized this so many times that his hand was fast on moving further into your hair, holding you still.

“I am not letting you slip away tonight,” he whispered.

“I would never,” you huffed. And Heeseung laughed at that, the sound blending with the summer breeze for a short moment before his lips slid over yours easily, perhaps too easily.

When he kissed you at the carnival, there was something of searching and discovering on it, but here — with his thumb caressing the sides of your neck, and your fingers slipping precisely to where his heart thrummed against his chest, it was all knowing. His tongue brushed against your lips, and you opened your mouth for him, letting him slide his tongue over yours. You could feel him groaning, his whole body reacting when you curled your fingers on his t-shirt.

You gasped for air, pulling away. But, Heeseung was still leaning in, eyes closed, lips parted as he followed you through the few inches you created.

“Princess,” he called. “I thought you were not slipping away.”

“Sorry,” you said. However, Heeseung just shook his head in reply, a mischievous grin spreading through his lips as he brought your face back to him, but instead of catching your lips again, he pestered you with quick kisses all over your face.

You laughed, not sure if it was because of his doings or the ticklish feeling of his lips smoothing your whole face. But even to your own ears, you sounded so happy — so happy beneath all of this.

As the night wore on, the temperature dropped and you shivered in the cold, immediately causing Heeseung to shrug his leather jacket off, draping around your shoulders and adjusting it the best way he could despite the difference of size.

It smelled like him. The strong scent of leather blended with car exhaustion, but also the sweet scent of peonies and the brisk breezes of summer nights.

“We should go back,” he said, looking up at the sky. The stars were already starting to low, weakly gleaming through his eyes. “It’s late anyway.”

┈┈┈┈

“The princess is back in her castle,” Heeseung said, making a chuckle escape from your lips.

However, instead of finding something to reply, you simply reached for your seatbelt, unfastening it a second before your hands curled at the sleeve of his jacket, starting to pull it away.

“It’s alright, give me back another day,” he said.

“Alright,” you whispered. “Thank you for driving me home again — I hope it isn’t out of the way for you.”

“I could lie and say you are worth the trouble just to sound like a nice guy,” Heeseung started, the corner of his lips tugging up. He was fighting a battle with a smile and almost losing it. “I live two streets down from here, a beige house with a brown roof and matching shutters.”

“It seems pretty much like most Hongcheon’s houses,” you replied, slightly leaning to his side of the car, and Heeseung reached for you promptly.

The porch lights were on, gently illuminating your face with little strips of gold. He traced each one of them with the tip of his fingers before he finally gave in and smiled. You were so beautiful, he could die all day and every night just to miss you.

“You are right, but there are remarkable things about it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Heeseung echoed. “You will always hear a culinary program coming from the TV, it will be my grandma in the living room, and the place always smells like something just baked — it is also her.”

“Seems cozy.”

“Also, the garden is full of white flowers — really easy to find,” he continued. “But in any case, the number is two hundred fifteen.”

Just like the whole town, Heeseung’s house was a remnant from the eighties — with its pale walls, brown roof, and matching shutters, it blended in with all the other houses on the street. But as Heeseung described, the house sat in the middle of a garden, the white flowers accompanying you through the whole path from the sidewalk to the front porch.

The door opened at your first knock, quickly revealing an old lady. It wasn’t necessary to wonder about her — not only because you knew Heeseung lived with his grandmother, but because her appearance was uncannily like his. Although she carried some signs of age on her gray hair, the shiny doe-eyes peering through the curls were there, seeming to be a family thing.

“Good afternoon,” you started, a tentative smile tugging on your lips as you looked at her. “I am Y/N, Heeseung’s-”

“Heeseung!” His grandmother screamed, startling you. “Why there’s such a pretty girl asking for you at my front door?”

Heeseung appeared at the end of the corridor, eyebrows furrowed. He seemed as braced as anyone could be standing barefoot in washed jeans and a white tank top — until his eyes landed on you.

“Y/N,” he called, pronouncing your name with the same deliberate slowness he had on the previous night and making your skin tingle.

In your periphery, Heeseung’s grandmother drifted her gaze between both of you, taking in how Heeseung reached from across the corridor — with his expression smoothed, his eyes were allowed gleam beneath the sunlight and his lips to tug into a smile too genuine to be only politeness.

When he reached the door, she turned around, leaning to his side as if she was about to whisper a great secret to her grandson, but instead, her words were spoken loud enough for both of you to hear.

“Invite her inside,” she said, walking away and leaving both of you a little bit astonished.

“I just came to bring your jacket, I don’t want to bother you.”

“You would never,” he answered. His fingers curled around the door handle, opening it a little wider as he completely ignored how you had extended the jacket at him. But although his actions seemed confident, he slightly inclined his head, shaking it as if to fix his bangs, but you had already seen it enough to know, he was embarrassed.

You brought the jacket back to your chest, hugging it as you stepped inside. Immediately, the comfortable smell of chocolate surrounded the air. Heeseung wasn’t lying when he told you about the never stopping oven, just like he wasn’t lying about the culinary program always on the selected channel of the television. But you wished he had told you about everything else too, so at least, you wouldn’t be so surprised right now.

You had grown up with a meticulous amount of order. The houses you lived in were always spacious, squeaked clean, minimalist even, so you didn’t know how to react as soon as you caught sight of the inside.

It was tiny, even if taken in comparison to the row houses on the outskirts of the county, and was made even smaller with the amount of plants scattered through the corners.

Afternoon sunlight spilled from the back windows of the kitchen, batching everything until it reached the entrance corridor. You couldn’t tell if the warmth came solely from the sun or if it had something to do with the beige walls, the mismatched colorful furniture, and the small chaos only houses built with love are capable of possessing.

Everything felt so cozy and summer-made that you couldn’t imagine a better place to spend the season in.

“Princess,” he called, and you hummed, turning to look at him. However, Heeseung was already bending on a knee, fingers fumbling through the straps of your high heels and removing them, one at a time.

“Now you are ready to go.”

“Thank you.”

Heeseung stood up, bottling out the sunlight with his real height, casting you in the shadow. And if it wasn’t enough to make you coil, the way he reached for you, hands cupping the sides of your neck was.

“You are good at reading between the lines,” he said.

“Am I? Or had you been just insistent?” you asked, making a chuckle escape from Heeseung. It was a soft, almost not there thing, but you could feel it rushing through your cheeks, the hustle of his breaths warming your skin.

Heeseung leaned in, catching your lips with his. It wasn’t his intention to make it fast, but the moment his grip tightened on your skin trying to bring you closer to him, his grandma screamed again, demanding both of you to come to the kitchen.

┈┈┈┈

The kitchen felt fuller than ever — not that it was a difficult thing, just like the whole house, it was tiny, scarcely giving enough space to three people to walk through, but there was something about having you there that made it full in a different way.

You were polite enough to ask if his grandmother needed help, and his grandmother was amusing enough to allow you, leaving Heeseung to watch from the kitchen table as you learned how to prepare a chocolate tart with an unreasoning smile.

“When Heeseung was younger, chocolate tarts with strawberries were his favorite,” his grandmother told you. “He always asked how would he leave me if I am the only one who knows how to prepare it in the way he likes,”

“But now that I am teaching you, he may leave me and go with you.” she finished, causing Heeseung to choke on the air. However, you only laughed at it, head thrown back. The sun had started to set by that time, sprinkling through the windows in tones of orange and pink, but when it reached you — it was all gold.

He knew his grandmother had said something else, but it sounded a world apart from where he stood. You had looked at him, your laughter had turned into a soft smile and it suddenly made him comprehend why the kitchen felt fuller than ever.

You not only materially filled the place, but you also filled it with warmth and light.

“Hee?” his grandmother called. He hadn’t been paying attention to the conversation for some time now and before he could state it, the house phone rang, saving him from another embarrassment.

He stood up, walking out of the kitchen as you both were just making sense of the phone ringing.

“You and Y/N have mobile phones, you know it, right?” Jungwon asked at the other end of the line.

“What?”

“Y/N was supposed to meet Sunhae and Hayoung in the drive-in cinema, she hasn’t shown up and is not picking up the phone.”

“And how did you figure she is with me?” Heeseung asked, his eyebrows involuntarily furrowing in confusion.

“You didn’t pick up when I called too,” Jungwon sighed. “Just tell her that the girls are waiting inside.”

Jungwon hung up so softly, it took another second for Heeseung to notice he did and another one to let go of it.

“I didn’t realize the time,” you explained, as soon as he was back.

“I can drive you there,” Heeseung said.

“Do you need to leave?” his grandmother asked. “Already?”

“I am supposed to meet my cousin and her friend.”

“It is a shame that it was so fast, but it was lovely to meet you,” his grandmother said, taking your hands in hers. “Please — please, come back.”

Although the moment seemed to be crafted in the warmth of the summer sunset, there was something frantic about the way she was holding you. Heeseung’s grandmother squeezed your hands almost as if she didn’t want you to walk away from her house — almost as if she was afraid you were taking something important together with you. And it took you anew.

You looked at Heeseung in search of answers, but he just returned your gaze as confused as you.

“She surely will, grandma,” Heeseung said, a gentle smile playing at the corners of his lips. However, it only made her squeeze tighten on you, just for a brief second before she let you go.

┈┈┈┈

By the time Heeseung parked the BMW on the outskirts of the drive-in cinema, the movie had already started, Rachel McAdams dancing beneath the street lights with Ryan Gosling on the big screen. And even though you knew you were late, you stayed still, watching as the scene unfolded.

People had different favorite scenes of The Notebook, the kiss in the rain, perhaps the beach when they said the famous If you are a bird, I am a bird. However, for you, it always had been this one — the real beginning of everything.

Heeseung looked at you, but he didn’t say anything about you being late, and how your cousin was annoyed somewhere inside, if anything he reached for the space behind his seat, taking the same leather jacket you had left in one of his kitchen chairs a few hours previous, and put it on your lap.

“The temperature always drops during the night,” he explained.

“I just gave it back to you.”

“Give it back to me another day.”

You looked up at him, and he smiled. The words had left his lips effectively, even with a note of tease on it, but still carrying a real meaning, Heeseung wanted to see you again tomorrow. And because you wanted to see him again too, you nodded, slipping the jacket through your shoulders.

“Alright,” you agreed.

“Alright?” he echoed, leaning across the gearshift. Heeseung reached for you, his lips finding yours at the same time his fingertips pressed to the side of your neck. You tasted like chocolate and strawberries that night, the sweet delation you had been stealing the ingredients while preparing the tart, and he couldn’t help but smile.

If the whole afternoon hadn’t been homey enough, this — this kiss had been.

“I should go,” you whispered, drawing back, yet you were so close to him still, each word had been a brush against his lips.

“I know,” he replied, with a small sigh. Heeseung was reluctant to pull himself away, but he did, letting you slip from the BMW and walk into the cinema.

You tightened his jacket around your body, tugging the collar up to your mouth. His scent was already starting to fade in, giving space to yours, only when you snuggled your nose on, you could feel the odd combination that Heeseung was. All mischief and sweet, all substantial and soft.

A nearby car left the windows open, the radio connected to the big screen loud and allowing you to hear the exact moment Gena Rowlands asked James Garner:

“Did they fall in love?”

“Yes, they did,” he replied.

Saturday’s nights smelled like car exhaustion and burnt tires, like the leather of Heeseung’s jacket and his peony perfume when he brought you closer to him, lips against yours, fingers threading on your hair. Saturday’s nights were the break of the perfect serenity of Hongcheon, the whispers of the emerald hills turning into the loud sound of the racing cars beneath the street lights.

Heeseung had never missed a race, leaving you behind with Sunhae, Hayoung, and a kiss.

“Be my lucky charm once more, alright?” he always whispered, an amusing smile playing on his lips before you both broke into a laugh.

However, tonight he parked his BMW on the sides of the highway, joining the long line of watchers instead of racers. Heeseung didn’t say anything as he slipped through his door, leaving you to sit still, watching him walking to your side of the car in confusion — on any other night he would open the door for you, intertwine your finger, and take you to where Hayoung and Sunhae waited. But with all the unknown turns, he took you to the front of his car.

He sat on the hood, and it was necessary just an exchange of gazes for him to bring you to his lap. His arms came around your waist, coaxing you to come closer enough to feel his breaths rushing through your skin.

“Are you alright?” you asked. “You always race.”

“Jake and Jungwon had made a bet among themselves, they said I couldn’t join because I win way too much,” he said, leaning on you, his forehead meeting your temple. “Apparently, since I got my lucky charm, I am not letting them have the first place.”

You knew it was just a lie — a tease, Heeseung was one of the favorites before you had even stepped on Hongcheon, but you let him, brushing his nose down to your neck and tickling you with his breath.

A few meters behind, in the middle of the highway, the racers were already in their places, the engines roaring as they held the cars in check. Jungwon had his hand out, pointing at Jake through the opened windows as if to remind him of their secondary bet. If you focused enough, you could almost hear them laughing beneath the furor of the place.

“Did you meet them here?” you asked. “Jake and Jungwon?”

“No, we met at the university,” Heeseung said. “When I dropped out, I think they thought I was slipping away, so they started coming back during weekends to visit, and when I told them about the racing they decided to join,”

“Something for us three to do still.”

“They are good friends.”

“They are,” he agreed. His tone was calm, with the same warmth you were used to, but you could pinch the small longing it carried. Everything Heeseung had given away after his father’s death weighed on him still. You reached for him, fingers spreading beneath the collar of his jacket and t-shirt, finding his bare skin. He shivered at your touch, snuggling his nose a little deeper into you.

“I am very lucky,” Heeseung whispered. “About everyone I have in my life.”

“They are lucky to have you too.”

“Do you think so?”

“I am sure so,” you said, and you didn’t need to look at him to know he was smiling at it.

┈┈┈┈

Through the weeks you had watched the races, you had never seen Jake win, and perhaps that’s why his reaction had been so amusing to you.

His Camaro squealed through the asphalt, passing the finish line with a lush drift before he came to where you stood together with Heeseung, hurling his window open.

“Let’s go,” he shouted.

“Where?” Heeseung asked.

“Beneath a bridge? The bar? I don’t care!” Jake exclaimed, quickly stealing a laugh from you. “I won and Jungwon is paying for everything tonight!”

The Camaro wailed with no previous warning, disappearing through the highway in a flash and leaving no further choice aside from following him.

The bar made a home on the outskirts of Hongcheon, coming so close to the coast that even at night, you could see how sunlight and bracing breezes had worked on this part of the province.

It held no signs, no shining lights, the facade had nothing but a worn-out red tint and a black door. It simply was called the bar because —

“What else do you call a bar without a name?” Heeseung asked, opening the door for you.

You knew it had to have a name, but instead of debating you allowed it to slip away with a single shake of your head before you stepped past him.

The interior was darker, blasting in some electronic music, and although there were just a few tables, this late at night people were already too high to prefer to sit still instead of being on the dance floor, leaving a bunch of options for you.

Hayoung sprawled herself on the nearest chair, immediately being followed by Sunhae and Jake.

“I am getting the drinks,” Jungwon announced. “Is everyone getting beer?”

“A coke,” Heeseung said. It didn’t require explanations, but he did anyway, shouting above the loud music. “I have to drive Y/N home.”

“OK, lover boy,” Jake laughed. “Why don’t you help Jungwon get everything?”

With his ears tingling, Heeseung was too embarrassed by the nickname and the situation to oppose, so he just turned around, following Jungwon through the furor of the place.

Jake waited until both of them were far, and completely out of sight before he stood up, just to claim the chair by your side.

“You bewitched him,” he said. “Have been ages since I last saw him like this.”

“Like this?” you echoed.

“I have known Heeseung for four years and something now, so I can tell after his father’s death, smiling and chuckling around — it simply wasn’t him,”

“Also not drinking because he has to drive?” Jake laughed, this time so loudly, you could swear it somehow echoed through the place. “He never once cared about it and by never I mean even before his father,”

“Believe me, Y/N, whatever spell you put on the man — you saved him.”

You blinked at Jake, not knowing what to say. And before you could think about it, Sunhae’s hand met yours from beneath the table, taking your attention.

“I love this song,” she said, dragging you through the crowd and into the dance floor. Everything happened so fast, a lost breath between what Jake had said, Sunhae’s hands clasped on yours, and Hayoung’s laugh because for once she wasn’t the one being forced to the dance.

Sunhae encouraged you too. However, your eyes kept traveling to the table, waiting for Heeseung to come back, to notice your absence and search for you.

You looked at each for seconds too long, his eyes lingering, hands caught in the middle of scattering the drinks through the table.

It was stupid honestly, how whenever he thought he was used to your beauty, you managed to surprise him, standing in a new light and taking him anew. You were bathed in the shine of the red and purple flashing from the fairy lights, eyes sparkling, lips a little bit parted with rescue words ready to slip through. However, you didn’t need to pronounce any of those. Heeseung was already walking towards you, acting as if there was no one else in his eyesight.

He only stopped behind you, hands finding your hips — bringing you close to his chest, aligning your bodies in all the right places. It wasn’t the rescue you were expecting, but you forgot about it the moment his laugh echoed through your body.

It’s not that you doubted Jake, but you couldn’t imagine a Heeseung that didn’t laugh like this. The sound was so perfect that it hurt you to imagine a period in which it never existed.

Heeseung seemed created for this joyful and unconditional happiness.

As he leaned on you, you could feel the ghost of his smile on your skin — his breath brushing through your shoulders before he found the base of your neck with a kiss. You tilted your head back, and Heeseung took the opportunity to trail you with kisses, reaching your earlobe with an exasperated slowness before he pinched the sensitive skin.

“Hey, princess.”

You turned around, pressing your fingertips against his chest. In the middle of the furor of the place, you still could feel the cadence of his heart, the way it hammered against your touch.

“What-” he started, but the rest of his question was cut off — taken by your lips on his. He gasped at your sudden action, yet it was muffed when your tongue slid against his. You were demanding in a way he couldn’t remember you ever being. Your fingers curled on his t-shirt, pulling him closer, and he allowed himself to grip your waist. Your dress was so thin, he could feel your skin beneath it, all warm and his as he ended the small inch you failed to.

He kissed you deeper, a little messier, and a small whine escaped from you.

“Go get a room in the name of lord,” someone screamed, so close it hadn’t left any doubt it was for you and Heeseung.

You both parted, lips swollen from kissing, sucking, and causing you to bury your face in his chest, but Heeseung only laughed — the same joyful and happy sound echoing through your body before he reached for the top of your head, tangling his fingers on your hair as he gave a soft pat.

“I think we can call it a night.”

┈┈┈┈

It was later than usual when you arrived at the rented house that night, far later than when your parents used to recoil to their room. But when you stepped inside, the lights of the back porch were still on, a faint echo of a conversation coming through the opened door — not only with the two known voices of your parents but with a third one.

“Grandma,” you smiled.

If you weren’t so happy, you would have stopped for a few seconds, taking note of Heeseung’s jacket still hanging on your shoulders and your still a bit swollen lips. You would have taken a moment to compose yourself. But you only rushed through the house, and the back porch, hugging the old lady.

“When did you arrive?” you asked.

“I am pretty sure the sun was still shining, but someone seems really busy this summer to care about answering her phone.”

“Sunghoon has been complaining about it,” your mother added. “Send him a message once in a while — the boy has been wondering about you.”

“I am sorry,” you said, more directed to what your grandmother said than to your mother.

“So please, enlight me,” your grandmother asked, hands traveling through the collar of Heeseung’s jacket, preventing it from slipping away before she pinched your cheeks. “Your parents were telling me, were you with Hayoung or the mysterious guy in the black BMW?”

You gasped, embarrassed and surprised Heeseung had been the topic of their conversation.

“This same car has dropped you here a lot through the last month,” your father pointed. “We were just wondering if we ever going to meet—”

“His name is Heeseung,” you said. “Lee Heeseung.”

“Right, why don’t you invite this Heeseung to lunch on Monday? Some of my friends are coming here.”

The house on the hill had been a dream for any Hongcheon resident. It used to be just an old and abandoned three-story construction until some businessman decided to buy it and renew it to make a summer rented house — then, it became too grandiose for the modest town. All made with white bricks and having Greek columns supporting the roof, it could be called a manor instead. And ever since the first moment, Heeseung wasn’t amused that your family was the one renting the place for the summer.

It fitted you, the class, the grandiose, the evergreen garden that bloomed flowers throughout the whole year. You were made to this, and he would be lying if he ever said it never scared him — he would be lying if he ever said it wasn’t scaring him now.

The driveway was full beneath the summer sun, your father’s black suburban leading a line of parked convertibles and worth-it sedans. Heeseung was glad that at least his BMW fit in the whole scenery because he wasn’t so sure of himself.

As he walked through the driveway, he noticed the front door hung open for anyone to come inside, but there was something about the idea of not having the small break between the knock and the door swinging open that made him anxious, tugging on the sleeves of his dark suit with frantic hands.

He stood there, unsure of what to do, but you came to him, rushing through the living room, white dress swirling dangerously around your thighs before you hugged him.

“You came,” you whispered, words threading through his hair.

Maybe it had been the summer heat, maybe it had been the sweetness of your perfume, and the way you had turned the full force of your joy into his direction. But instead of replying, he just stood still, lost in the sense of you.

Only when you stepped back, he reminded himself. You took sight of him, and your eyes flicked beneath the afternoon sun. You never have seen Heeseung wearing anything that wasn’t a combination of his jeans, shirts, and leather jacket, so the full view of him in a suit and a tie astonished you.

“Is it too much?” he whispered.

It was, it really was, but you were so happy he was there — so happy he cared that you let it all pass with a single shake of the head.

“They settled the lunch in the back garden,” you said. “I am just afraid you will get a heat stroke.”

Heeseung exhaled, a bit too harshly as he slightly inclined his head. But he didn’t need to finish his small rite, shaking his head and pretending to fix his bangs like he always did, you already knew he was embarrassed. So you didn’t say anything as you interrupted him, taking his hands in yours, and guiding him further into the living room. You didn’t say anything as you reached for his shoulders, rushing your hands beneath the heavy suit and removing it.

Heeseung was well aware the piece was cheap, probably the cheapest suit you have ever touched, but still, you folded it with so much care before you placed it over a nearby couch — with so much care, he couldn’t come into peace about what he was supposed to do with himself.

“Princess,” he called, not because he had something to say, but because he thought if he didn’t make something factual, he would fade between a touch and another.

The memories of Saturday were still too vivid and too triggering late at night, and to add something else seemed too much.

You hummed in reply, reaching for his tie, fingers curling on the dark material before you tugged him to your height. When he bent in, your breath brushed through his cheeks, warm, and teasingly.

However, despite the confidence of your actions, your cheeks were rosier than before, an adorable denounce you were a little bit embarrassed too, and that was it — you had broken the spell. Heeseung laughed at you, the pleasant sound echoing through the whole room at the same time the invisible weight he carried on his shoulders was lifted.

“You don’t need to worry about anything, you know?” you whispered. “I am here.”

“I know you are,” he whispered back, spreading his palms on your waist, fingers accidentally tangling on the laces of your dress as he brought you closer.

His nose brushed against yours, and your lips parted, just enough to taste the sweetness of the tea on his breath. Chamomile and honey, his grandmother’s favorite combination to calm any nerves down.

“Now, this is what I call a worth-it movie scene,” your grandma interrupted, making Heeseung step back. “Is this the infamous Lee Heeseung?”

“Yes, grandma,” you said, hurriedly. “This is Heeseung, my-”

You stopped, all at once, mind still stuck on him, and that one never once confirmed word. And perhaps you had been there for so long that your grandmother laughed out loudly, being followed by a more shy and reserved Heeseung.

“Don’t worry about explaining it to me, darling,” she said. “It might be hard to imagine, but I have been this age before.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Heeseung,” she continued.

“Pleasured to meet you too,” Heeseung replied, extending his hand at your grandmother. But she ignored it, preferring to instead, take him in a long and tight hug.

“Now hurry to the back garden! Her parents are asking about you already!”

┈┈┈┈

“I have a feeling your grandmother would love to meet my grandmother,” Heeseung whispered against your ear. And you laughed at that, soft and genuinely — allowing the sound to blend with the furor of the back garden.

Everything was happening there already. The air was smokey with the marinated meat left on the grill, encircled with the flowers growing on the bushes. Children laughed as they ran through the greenish grass, and adults scattered themselves on the long table, talking above their crystal cups with an enthusiasm that only came from too much happiness, too much alcohol, or both.

And as you took the last steps to the garden, your father approached, a glass of his favorite champagne already hanging in his left hand, as he held your mother’s with the other. He kept his hair slicked back, proudly showing the significantly graying hair at the sides, meanwhile, your mother kept simple but still too lined up. And even if Heeseung hadn’t asked about it, their attire gave away their successful work in business, suddenly making Heeseung more comfortable in his own attire. You had finished removing his tie and rolled his sleeves up, but he was still way too formal for his daily basics.

“It’s great to finally meet you,” your father said, extending his hand at Heeseung. “Y/N has been safekeeping you the whole summer.”

You weren’t sure if your father had said it intending to be funny or to call both of you out, but if anything Heeseung took your father’s hand, shaking it with the best smile he could.

“It’s great to meet you too sir.”

“Please, no sir — we are all family here,” your father said, and your mother smiled, extending her own hand to Heeseung.

“Y/N can guide you through, but feel free here, Heeseung,” your mother said.

A phone chimed in the middle of the conversation, and you immediately recognized it as your dad’s.

“Excuse me,” he asked, taking the device out of his pants back pocket.

“Sunghoon!” your father greeted. Heeseung could notice your switch of emotions, the way you stiffened as your smile disappeared with a hitch of breath. “Oh? Perhaps I overestimated the driveway?”

Another pause.

“Do you see a gate on the right side? I am going to open it up to you, park at the side — no, don’t worry.”

Your parents walked away and Heeseung reached for your hand, pinching you gently, but because he was too respectful he didn’t question the reason behind your reaction. Not even when a brown Range Rover came into view, and Sunghoon left the car like a gush of winter wind, greeting your parents and giving a fine bottle of wine like the old acquaintance he was. Not even when Sunghoon approached you, lips curling on a fond smile, eyes gleaming, not being able to hide the irrational happiness of simply seeing you.

You slipped from Heeseung’s touch, allowing Sunghoon to hug you, and when his arms involved your waist, bringing you tantalizing closer as his lips chased for your temple, something settled inside of Heeseung. Strong enough to make him dizzy, great enough to ache.

He had never considered himself a jealous person, but perhaps he simply never cared about something enough.

Sunghoon not only had the type of face girls in this county would make lines for, but he knew how to wear his money well. His car was impressive, a Range Rover velar with a customized mental brown tint that matched the tone of his silk button-down, and he made a strange image near you, almost too fitting. Almost too perfect.

“Hee, this is Park Sunghoon, son of my father’s business partner,” you said, drawing back. “Also my classmate at University and friend.”

“Lee Heeseung,” Heeseung said, his voice sounding pleasant enough as he extended his right hand at Sunghoon. However, he had stepped past you, pulling himself between you and Sunghoon and making it clear his true feelings.

Your palm met the back of his shoulders almost unconsciously, spreading your fingers and feeling the warmth of the sun beneath the cotton of his shirt.

Sunghoon straightened himself to his full height, but took Heeseung’s hand anyway, shaking it for a brief moment before he turned back to you.

“I have been calling,” Sunghoon said.

“I am sorry, I haven’t been much on the phone lately.”

“I know, your mother told me — what reminds me, I have something for you,” he said. “Please, wait a moment.”

“I-” you started, but Sunghoon was already walking back to his car, opening the door and reaching for something on the passenger seat. You barely had looked at Heeseung, noticing his clenched jaw before Sunghoon was back.

“I heard you have been obsessed with a disposable camera,” he said. “So I bought this while I was in Japan last week, I think something higher quality would be better.”

Sunghoon extended the box to you, and immediately, a gasp escaped from you. The box was completely black, except for the Fujifilm logo and the camera’s name, both of them shining in metallic beneath the afternoon sun. You never had searched much about cameras to be an expert, but you knew enough to comprehend, it was outstanding.

It easily outmatched the camera Heeseung had gotten you on the night of the carnival, and even so — even so, you still preferred Heeseung’s. You liked the analog camera — you liked the retro feeling it had. You liked how your grandma had laughed when you first appeared with it, telling you it looked so old, but this small sudden thought made you realize the reason you kept it safe with you wasn’t because of the item itself, but because of the memories you kept collecting with Heeseung throughout the month.

“Sunghoon, it’s really nice, and I appreciate the thought, but I can’t accept it.”

“Why?” he asked, frowning. Eyebrows brought together, the smile he carried just a second gone, everything on his face giving away he was faltering inside.

Sunghoon had always been unable to hide his emotions, ever since you knew him. Everything was always there, just a sight away.

“I-” you started, tongue almost rolling into the lie that it was too expensive, but what was a few billion won for him? What was a few billion won for your family? He was going to laugh as soon as you finished the phrase.

“I am already content with the camera Heeseung gave me.”

And that was it, you had broken both of them with a single phrase. Heeseung eased beneath your touch at the same time Sunghoon’s lips parted in an exclamation.

There was a small fraction of a second that you thought, Sunghoon was about to say something as he looked between you and Heeseung, but he let it all go, turning to the long table settled in the middle of the garden, and listening to your grandma summoning everyone to eat.

“I am going first,” he said. “I haven’t greeted your grandma and my parents.”

As Sunghoon walked away, Heeseung reached for you, fingers intertwining just to bring you close to his chest.

“You didn’t need to protect the camera so fiercely.”

“It wasn’t the camera,” you said, and he smiled down at you because he knew.

┈┈┈┈

At the table, everything seemed even more chaotic. Near the extremity, Sunghoon’s father was telling a terrible joke. You smiled, just politely, tightening your grip on Heeseung’s hand as you guided him farther. In the middle, people talked loudly about politics as if it was the most pleasant topic for a summer afternoon. Your head spun just by hearing the names.

You ended up sitting at the other extremity, across from one of your mother’s oldest friends, Mrs. Choi. She smiled easily and talked about her life even more easily. Everything there was to know about her, you have listened at least once, or perhaps twice, not that you considered her a bother. She was someone easy to be with, so when she turned her head at you and smiled, all you could do was smile back.

“Y/N!” she exclaimed. “Exactly the woman I was looking for.”

“Is that so?”

“My niece got into Seoul National University too, she is starting in autumn,” she said. “She is considering moving to the dorms, do you still live there?”

“Oh, no,” you replied. “The dorms are great, but I couldn’t adapt very well to the community kitchen and decided to move to a studio nearby.”

“Is it that bad?”

“No, I just dislike cooking with strangers passing by.”

Mrs. Choi laughed at it for a blissful moment before she turned to Heeseung.

“And you?” she asked. “Do you study with her in Seoul too?”

“No,” you promptly said. “Heeseung — he stays nearby.”

“Oh, and what are you going to do once the summer ends?” she asked. “You two are together, right?”

The question was crafted in mere curiosity, but all at once, you faltered as if you had been verbatim attacked. Your hands fell on the table, fingers too weak to do anything aside from staying there.

Heeseung knocked his knee against yours, a reassuring gesture that he was still with you.

“Seoul is just a couple of hours away,” he said. “Whenever she wants me to — if she wants me to, I would drive anywhere just to see her,”

“There’s no one else in this world like her.”

He spoke it easily behind a glass of iced tea, almost unwittingly, but the words ached within you so wonderfully simple and warm. You wished you could hold them in your palms, keep them between your fingers, just so you could press and feel them whenever you were faltering.

┈┈┈┈

Aside from Mrs. Choi telling for what you suspected to be the third time about her month-worth trip through Europe. Nothing happened between the main course and the dessert.

Heeseung’s hand had found comfort on your knee, the soft pressure of his thumb drawing tiny circles through your skin as the end of the afternoon approached, the sun lowering into the chain of hills, the sky turning into a vivid orange that only summer sunsets managed to. But only when Mrs. Choi excused herself, saying she wanted to catch the first stars, you allowed yourself to put your hand above Heeseung’s, leaning closer, your cheeks almost touching his so you could whisper.

He didn’t think it would make any difference at all. There were so many things happening still that no one would notice if you screamed at him, but he liked how your perfume was everything he could breathe, all sweet and flowery. He liked how you spoke so closely, almost giving him a taste of the strawberry cocktail you had tried.

“Take me somewhere?” you asked.

Heeseung looked at you. He intended to ask if it would be alright to simply leave like this. However, when your gazes encountered, remnants of sunlight reflected through your eyes, glistening the color with a goldish light that made you feel like part of the sky rather than a material thing and everything he could do was nod, using your already connected hands to pull you up and away, until you had reached his BMW.

He drove you further into the hills with the windows down, and the headlights only illuminating as far as the next turn. He reached for the same open field he had taken you on the night of the first race, but instead of stopping, he kept going, away and away — until you were so far from the town that all you could hear were the soft whispers of the night when he turned the engine off.

It wasn’t quiet, but silent. Something you never had experienced while living in the city.

“Look to the sky,” he asked. And you did, looking up through the window.

At Hongcheon there were never enough streetlights to obliterate the stars completely, you could always get a glimpse of them, but there, so up through the hills, the stars were so bright they almost formed a river, a stream of light against the dark.

“It’s beautiful,” you whispered.

“It really is.”

You turned to look at Heeseung, but he had his gaze already fixed on you, his eyes gleaming, lips curling on a fond smile. He had no embarrassment in letting you know he had been like this for the whole while. And when you reached for him on the gear stick, spreading your palm through the back of his hand, Heeseung promptly moved beneath your touch, turning his palm into yours and intertwining your fingers.

“What are you thinking?” you asked.

Heeseung didn’t reply — not right away, he allowed the question to hang within the seconds, blending with the summer breeze as his gaze lingered on your face a little too long to be incidental before wandering through the sky.

“The day we met, I was racing with Jake,” he said. “I remember looking down on Hongcheon and thinking about how summer was starting,”

“I just had this feeling that something was coming — something great.”

“Was it?” you asked. “Great?”

“Wonderful,” he whispered.

You leaned across the gearshift. And Heeseung let go of your intertwined hands to cup your face, his fingers preferring to thread through your hair instead, bringing you closer so his lips could graze yours, a new kind of kiss, parted lips that were barely there.

It was slow in a way you couldn’t remember it ever being — it was lazier in a way that only came with the acknowledgment of something none of you were going to name yet but knew was there.

Heeseung slid his seat all the way back, subtly pulling you to him. The BMW didn’t have the back seats, and it didn’t give much space. But you moved anyway, your knees straddling his hips, your palms pressed to his chest, the soft rhythm of his heartbeats against your touch.

His heart skipped a beat when you slid your hands down on his torso, feeling the warmth the sun had left on his skin before you curled two fingers on the first button of his shirt. But if anything, Heeseung just nodded at you.

You were aware he was watching you, burning you with affection and fondness as he accompanied every move you did to open button after button. Your fingers splayed over the just exposed skin of his chest, brushing through his whole extension until you reached to his neck, threading your fingers in the hair at his nape, and angling him to you. Heeseung shivered beneath your touch, a small growl escaping his lips.

“You are my downfall, but as well my saving, princess,” he whispered. “I hope you know it.”

You caught his bottom lip on yours, once, twice, enough times to feel brave enough to brush your tongue against it, but Heeseung was already on it, sliding his tongue against yours. He kissed you deeper, messier — needier. And if it wasn’t enough to make you whine, when he shifted beneath you, pressing the solid length of himself against you was.

Heeseung cursed when you grind against him, sliding his hands up to your thighs. He never had relished your sundresses as much as he did now, passing the hem of it with no ado, and pinching his fingers on your bare waist. He held you still, lips leaving yours just to find your neck, trailing down to your shoulders with an open mouth and making you shiver despite the heat wrapped around the car.

“If you keep going one more minute — I am gone,” he murmured.

“Hee, please.”

“Please what, princess?”

“I need you.” He chuckled at the way you had said it, all whine, soft and pure.

He pinched you again, just to make sure you were looking at him, but you were — you always had been, cheeks flushed, and eyes a bit too bright, almost making him forget what he was supposed to say.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I need you to be sure.”

“I am.”

You could hear him swallowing beneath the silence of the night, reaching up on you — brushing his hands through your ribcage, drawing your dress up to your shoulder, and allowing it to fall somewhere over the console.

He barely gave it a moment before his fingertips ran for the clasps of your laced bra, opening it.

“I didn’t think our first time would be in the front seat of my car, but how can I say no to you?” he said, leaning on you. His forehead landed on your collarbone with a gentle thud, drawing the tip of his nose along the swell of your breasts as his hands found your hips, burying his fingers on your skin. “You are so pretty.”

“Did you think about it?” you asked.

He had heard your question, and understood it, but he also had heard the way your breath hitched in surprise because you never thought you had this effect on him, and instead of replying, he pulled one of your nipples into his mouth, sucking it to a solid point and making your back arch. The act alone was so pleasurable, a desperate sound escaped through your lips before you couldn’t even notice it.

Desire swirled through his eyes and he brought you close to him, rolling his hard length against your center as he moved to the other nipple, his tongue drawing a faint line into your chest.

Heeseung only drew back to savor your reactions, the way your eyes closed, your mouth parted as the most pretty sounds continued to escape through.

“Hee,” you whimpered. You have never heard your voice so desperate like this. You have never felt so desperate. And that was exactly what broke him, the way you called for him so softly and whimpered, so full of wish. He could give you anything even if you never asked.

You reached for his low abdomen, feeling his muscles tense and contract as you fumbled through the waist of his pants, but before you could do anything, Heeseung stopped you — his fingers curling around your wrists.

“I am here,” he said. “I promise I won’t tease you anymore, so let me take care of everything.”

The rest of the clothes were taken off laboriously, Heeseung sliding your panties through your ankles and allowing them to join the rest of your attire before he reached for the button of his pants, getting a little shuffling underneath you as he pushed it down to his tights together with his boxers.

He took himself in his hand, hard, long, and already pushing into you. His breath hitched at the feel of you, whispering your name, pronouncing it with the same deliberate slowness he always had and you couldn’t help but moan at the whole feel of him, fingers curling on his shoulders, head a bit thrown back.

There were silver stripes painted across your skin, the moon appearing behind the trees, invading through his opened window. And you were so pretty like this — so pretty, Heeseung had no second thoughts before meandering his arm around your waist, bringing you close to his chest as he pulled out to the tip and back into you.

It was slow at first, all about him discovering the new shape of you, but soon enough, it was confident, knowing. He knew exactly how to move, how to make you tighten around him, and his name to escape from your lips a little bit more frantic.

Your fingers spread through his neck, trying to angle him up to you, stifling all your whines against his tongue, but Heeseung only buried his face in the curve of your shoulders in response, his heavy breaths against your skin.

“I want to hear you,” he mumbled. “Please.”

Despite your shyness, you did as he asked, giving him all your noises, whimpers, and the soft, snuffled sounds, allowing them to blend with the summer night and the way he kept whispering for you to not stop.

“Heeseung, I-”

He moved, focusing on you, eyes encountering yours for the first time, all dazed and captivated, and he let out a gasp of breath as he leaned into you, forehead brushing your own.

“That’s ok, princess,” he whispered, pressing a little bit deeper, a little bit harder. “I am here, come for me.”

You clenched around him, thighs shaking as the knot in your stomach broke loose, just a few moments before he followed you.

Heeseung swallowed your last whine, catching your lips on his as he slipped out. His fingers smoothed your skin, thumbs drawing full circles as he sat you down on his thighs.

The car went quiet, scratched only by the soft rustle of the leaves outside and Heeseung’s heart slowly coming into peace beneath your fingertips.

“Yours,” he whispered.

You drew back, just a bit, hands slipping from his neck and spreading through his chest for support. The moonlight picked strands of his hair, reflected through his damp skin. You couldn’t make sense of what he had said.

“What?”

“Early — when you were introducing me to your grandmother, you didn’t know what to title me,” he explained. “I am yours, no titles required.”

“My Heeseung?” you asked, not being able to control the small smile forming on your lips.

“Yours,” he agreed.

August arrived in Hongcheon as it always did in Seoul. Although summer was still there, painting everything in vivid and full colors, rain clouds lingered in the sky, holding the heat during the day and causing the air to sting with the threat of a storm at the end of the night.

Only that at Hongcheon, the air also stung with the rumble of engines, the smell of car exhaustion, burnt tires, and worries on Saturday nights.

You pulled Heeseung’s jacket tight around your body, tugging the collar up to your mouth and purposely breathing on his peony perfume, allowing it to be the only thing in your lungs as you looked around. This part of the county was so flat, anywhere you looked the low canopy of dense gray clouds seemed to meet the asphalt, and the idea of Heeseung being caught in the rain made your heart falter.

You still remember when Heeseung raced you to the coast, the world was just a blur beyond the windows, the roads too slippy beneath the BMW’s tires. He didn’t need water in the middle of all of this to make it harder.

“They are coming back,” Sunhae announced.

You looked at the highway in time to see headlights breaking in between the asphalt and the clouds.

“Seems like lover boy is leading this week.”

“Damn, I bet on Daekho,” Hayoung cursed.

“You have a crush on him.”

“He is handsome? yes,” your cousin admitted. “Would I mind if the boys gave me his number? Definitely no, but no. I am not twelve to have a crush.”

Sunhae replied something, bringing out the most genuine laugh from both of them, but you were already a world apart, taking in the familiar sound of the BMW’s tires squealing through the asphalt, raising a trail of smoke just a few moments before Heeseung threw his door open, seizing to the roof to slip out faster.

You didn’t remember the decision of moving, only that you did. When Heeseung stepped in front of his headlights, you were already there, threading your fingers in the hair at his nape, bringing his forehead against yours at the same time his hands found the bodice of your dress beneath the thick material of his jacket, brushing his thumbs shamelessly through the curve of your breasts.

“I was worried,” you said.

“Why?”

“It’s going to rain soon.”

“I told you I would come back in one piece.” Heeseung laughed at you, all fond and appreciative before he pestered you with quick kisses all over your face, but when he chased for your lips, you froze beneath his touch, all at once, the wandering fingers in the middle of a brush, the small smile gone.

But only when he followed your eyesight did he notice the reason why.

Sunghoon approached across the highway, his brown Range Rover parked just behind. With all the furor of the racers arriving, and the people shouting, none of you noticed the Range Rover coming in the wrong way. It blended in the middle of all the other fancy cars, yet Sunghoon — Sunghoon could never blend in a place like this.

Heeseung thought the formal attire was a requirement both of them had created for your parent’s lunch, but looking at him there, at eleven o’clock on the night of a Saturday, he wondered if the man ever wore anything that wasn’t dress pants and silk button-downs.

“What a sight,” Sunghoon said. “I hope you both are enjoying the remaining weeks.”

“After all, what do you think’s going to happen by the end of summer, Heeseung?” he asked, but Heeseung didn’t reply.

“Well, let me tell you then. Y/N is going back to the city — back to the best university in the country while you will be here,” Sunghoon said, his hands gesturing to the surroundings with an unmistakable repulse. He didn’t need to finish his thoughts, the sentence had already been completed before he even spoke it, but still, Sunghoon seemed to relish his mind so much that he had to. “At this end of the world, earning your dirty money.”

“Shut up,” Heeseung hissed.

“What? Do you think she likes you?” Sunghoon laughed, head thrown back, but there was no humor in it. “C’mon Heeseung, we both know she is too good for you. It’s pity, and as soon as she is back in Seoul, she will forget this moment of charity,”

“So enjoy fucking her while you can.”

You felt Heeseung stiffening, his jaw clenching beneath your thumbs at the same time his hands slipped away.

“Hee,” you called, but it was too late. He had let you go, fleeing through the space between you and Sunghoon.

Heeseung grabbed Sunghoon’s button-down, twisting the thin material between his fists. He didn’t seem to think about the consequences of his actions — he simply did it, using his grip to push Sunghoon onto the Range Rover’s hood. The sound of the body hitting the brown-tinted metal was almost imperceptible amidst the sudden cheers.

“Not the car.” Sunghoon hissed.

“Not the car?” Heeseung echoed, mockery pushing through each pronounced letter. However, he seemed to concur, ripping Sunghoon from the car hood and allowing the latter to stumble back to his feet.

It happened too quickly for you to process. You didn’t even see who launched the opening blow; you only knew that it happened, getting them into a real fight.

Heeseung laughed in the middle of the chaos, something you always thought to be soft unfolding sharply within the night.

He stopped, pointing at his own face as if to encourage Sunghoon to throw another punch. But the moment Sunghoon did, he went down to the dirty asphalt, Heeseung above him.

“Heeseung!” you called again, more urgently. But he seemed to not have heard you — fist still ready and in the middle of another throw before Jake finally reached them.

“Stop it, you are ruining your damn face,” Jake said, hauling Heeseung up by his shoulders.

“Leave,” Heeseung hissed to Sunghoon. “Before I end you,”

“I have been wanting to do it already.”

Sunghoon stood up, touching his pinkie finger to his lips to check for blood. He had so many bruises on his cheek and hands that the lips seemed the least problem. However, you couldn’t feel sorry for him — not with how he straightened himself, adjusting his button-down and giving you an awful smile.

“You know it’s not over, right?” Sunghoon asked, finally turning to his car.

The Range Rover’s tire squealed as it bit into the asphalt, drifting through the highway. And only when the car disappeared from view, did Jake let go of Heeseung’s shoulders, allowing him to turn back to you, panting, and bleeding.

Despite his state, Heeseung couldn’t feel anything — think about anything. The place still had the smell of car exhaustion and burnt tires, and the air still sting with the upcoming storm, he could hear the commotion of the people around, but everything seemed so subtle that even when your perfume came to his senses, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was just his desperate mind searching for something to hold on in the middle of his numbness.

Yet, he felt your arms around his neck and your warmth against him was enough to pull the world back to its axes. He hugged you back, arms involving your waist, head leaning on your shoulder, the slope of his nose pressed to your neck. He could scent the dirtiness of the race on your skin, the smoke of the cars, and exhaustion, but beneath it, there was your sweet perfume.

“Hee,” you called. There was no reprehension in your tone, it brushed through his skin just like it always did — soft, and all yours. You weren’t sure if you wanted to say something more, it had just slipped through.

Heeseung drew back, just enough for his lips to trail your cheeks, kissing the tears you haven’t realized you had shed.

“I am sorry,” he whispered. “I am so sorry, princess.”

“Just let me take you out of here, hm?” you said.

Heeseung was surprised that you settled yourself on the driver’s seat of his BMW. But he said nothing as he followed you, taking the passenger seat instead. He said nothing when you stepped on the pedals, pulled the first gear, and drove away. Heeseung waited until you both are already far away from the street racing furor, and you a little bit more comfortable with the fourth gear.

“I didn’t know you could drive.”

“I got my driver’s license as soon as the law permitted, but it was because my dad wanted me to,” you said. “I don’t really enjoy it in the city, there are too much traffic, lights — people.”

He chuckled at your statement, it was a minuscule sound spreading through the night before he reached for your thigh, his palm resting warm and wide on your bare skin.

“You look stunning like this.”

“You are so flirty.”

“I am just telling you the truth,” he said. Your mouth parted, a small incredulous sound leaving your throat and Heeseung couldn’t help but laugh — not the sharp laugh he had released with Sunghoon, but the one you loved, the soft, beautiful, and capable of twitching your heart one.

He rested his head on the seat, but not for a single second he allowed his gaze to move away from you as you drove back to the town.

┈┈┈┈

By the time you reached the main avenue, everything had become so silent, it was easy to think you and Heeseung were the only people left in the world. All the stores had closed for the day, turning their signs off and leaving only the 24 hour convenience store to cast an artificial light among the street lamps.

“I will stop to get something to clean you,” you said.

“You don’t need to, princess,” he replied. But you had already parked in the shade of the walkway outside the glass door, reaching blindly for the space behind the seats in search of your purse.

“Don’t move,” you told him. Yet still, Heeseung did, fingers coming into the encounter the sides of your neck, thumbs caressing your skin, and subtly turning you to his side in an attempt to make you stay.

“You really don’t need to,” he whispered.

The sky was dark with dense clouds. The only source of light was the fluorescent lamps from the convenience store, and with him trying to pull you against him, making you shadow this small sort of light, it was difficult to see his face, but there was something about the way he had said it, so frail, and wheedling.

“Let me take care of you,” you asked. “Please.”

And that was it, even if he never told you, there was this thing inside of him — this inability to simply say no when it was you to receive this small rejection. Heeseung would do anything you asked, in a single heartbeat.

So he waited in the warmth of the BMW, watching as you slipped through the convenience store’s door, his leather jacket still hanging tightly around your shoulders as you scanned the aisles. He felt himself ache just looking at you, chest too tight to breathe, eyes all soft, and when you came back, opening the passenger door, everything he did was slid the seat all the way back, allowing you to climb to his lap, knees around his hips as he reached for you almost unconsciously, hands resting at your waist, thumbs drawing slow circles through the thin material of your dress as you scattered your new purchases through the small space between both of you. A bottle of antiseptic, two packages of cotton, and a bunch of bandages, Heeseung was sure you had bought the whole first aid session from the convenience store.

But before he could joke about it, you turned the car’s light on, and beneath this sudden clarity, you frowned, eyebrows up, lips pressing into a thin line. The wounds were worse than it seemed, there was a cut over his eyebrows, bleeding as a darker bruise spread over his left cheek. You reached for them, the tip of your fingers wandering through his skin as if you could erase them with your bare touch.

“I am sorry, Hee,” you whispered.

“Why are you asking me sorry? I was the one fighting.”

“If it wasn’t because of me, Sunghoon wasn’t going to be there.”

He winced when you touched the cotton on him, gripping hard on your waist. The antiseptic burnt through his cuts.

“What are you to him?” Heeseung asked, so low that if you weren’t paying enough attention to him, it would have slid and slipped away within a moment. “I know you told me he is your father’s business partner’s son, and you both study together, but why does he-”

He stopped, all of a sudden, his eyes preferring to focus on the windshield instead of you.

“Sorry, I trust you, it’s just — he is right, you know? You are too good for me, and I am afraid of how many men you have wrapped around your finger.”

“Heeseung, don’t-”

“I am talking about how you treat me,” he said. “Princess, you never get angry. You didn’t get angry when you found out about the racing — you are not angry right now. I don’t know what you are made of, but surely it’s too good for me.”

“I do get angry,” you whispered. “I am so angry with myself right now. I just wish I could make you understand that you are everything to me, Heeseung. I just wish I could find the right thing to say, the right thing to do, but it seems like the more I try the more I hurt you. I-”

You let go of his face, catching his hand instead, his knuckles were an angry red, with blood dried, and settling in the lines of his skin. You brushed cotton soaked in antiseptic across this new area, hoping he wouldn’t notice the tears coming once again with your head turned down.

But he did. Heeseung was always watching you too attentively.

“I am sorry, princess.”

Heeseung hugged you, his arms embracing your waist as he brought you as close as he could, resting his head on your shoulders, his nose pressed to your neck. He could scent the dirtiness of the race on your skin still, the smoke of the cars, and exhaustion, but beneath it, there was your sweet perfume. There was always your sweet perfume.

“I am so sorry,” he whispered.

Heeseung hasn’t cried — not even once, being it for his mother or for his father. However, when you pulled him tight against your shoulders, fingertips too warm against the sides of his neck, he found himself sobbing like he couldn’t remember ever doing. The forgotten feeling of the tears running down his face slowly becoming familiar once again.

“You don’t have to,” you whispered. “You never have to feel sorry for me.”

You angled Heeseung’s face to you, resting your forehead against his, cleaning his tears with the soft pads of your thumbs. He took the opportunity to catch your bottom lip, pinching it between his a few times before it turned into a real kiss, but you drew back, wrinkling your nose.

“You are tasting like antiseptic,” you said.

He laughed, throwing his head back and closing his eyes for a long moment before he straightened himself back, brushing a stray lock behind your ear.

“You always do,” Heeseung whispered. “Say the right thing, do the right thing.”

“You do too,” you confessed. “What you said to Mrs. Choi — driving to Seoul whenever I want you to, it—”

“Was the simple truth,” he completed. “It takes just an hour to arrive there, and considering I am following the speed limits, what you know I only do when you are in the car.”

“I can come and go twelve times a day, you know?”

It was your turn to shy away, focusing on the collar of his t-shirt instead, playing with the kneaded material with the tip of your fingers.

“You spoil me too much.”

“I can handle a spoiled little princess,” he said.

“Can you?”

“Definitely.”

Heeseung slid his hands to your neck, his thumbs pressing gently into your skin as he tipped your head, angling you so you had to look at him, take in his gleaming eyes for a quiet second before he kissed you, and this time you didn’t draw back, even with the taste of antiseptic and blood when you brushed your tongue through his bottom lip, earning a groan as he parted his mouth for you.

Outside the car, a rumble of thunder echoed through the halted avenue, immediately bringing the awaited storm, the heavy raindrops tapping the BMW windows, but if anything you curled your fingers on Heeseung’s t-shirt, bringing him as close as you could.

The cadence of his heart matched with yours. And it was so easy to believe you both were the only ones remaining in the world — so easy.

┈┈┈┈

The storm didn’t cease as Heeseung drove you to the rented house, pounding harshly on the windshields as thunder kept breaking through the sky.

His hand seemed to hitch above the gear stick, ready to pull the engine a little bit harder, simply because he knew he could do it — Heeseung had perfect control over the BMW, but you seemed uneasy with the harshness of the storm, and he laughed, reaching for you instead, resting his palm between your tights through the rest of the drive.

Heeseung usually parked on the street, headlights illuminating the garden’s patch for you as he watched you walk away, his leather jacket on your shoulders, high heels hitting the rocks, but tonight, he passed through the gates, stepping on the brakes only when your door was just one jump away from the stairs.

“Is it your father?” he asked, taking your attention to one of the rocking chairs on the porch. As if he had listened to Heeseung, your father stood up, as intimidating as someone could be in a blue-striped pajama, and hair down.

“I should greet him,” Heeseung mumbled, and you nodded, although you thought it wasn’t the best night. You had done your best to clean him, however, the metallic scent of blood was still surrounding the air, quietly yet effortlessly being a constant reminder of the early incident.

The clock on the BMW showed precisely one in the morning, you had never arrived so late, and you tried to convince yourself that was the reason why your father had decided to wait outside for the first time during the whole summer. You tried to convince yourself that if Heeseung remained a few steps behind, your father wouldn’t notice the bandage on his eyebrow, and the darkening bruise on his left cheek.

But there was already something different in your father, something fierce and overprotective. The moment you stepped closer, his hand rested on your shoulder, subtly pulling you away from Heeseung.

“Give his jacket back,” your father demanded.

“What?” you asked, not because you didn’t understand, but because the harshness with which he had said it surprised you.

“You heard me.”

You looked back at Heeseung, mirroring his perplexed expression. He had extended his hand at your father, but it had been ignored by the latter, and Heeseung used his still extended hand to reach for his jacket instead.

There was a moment of silence between you, the only sound coming was from the rumble of thunders, but it wasn’t the cause of the changeless in the air, making it halted and heavy enough to be felt, thick with a tension you weren’t used to.

“I am sorry for bringing Y/N late, sir,” Heeseung started. He had stopped a bit farther away, the rain plugging on his hair, running through his shoulders, and soaking his t-shirt. “We—”

“You should go back home, Heeseung,” your father cut. “As you said it is late, and I need to have a serious talk with my daughter.”

“I will call you later, Hee,” you promised.

Heeseung nodded at you, stepping behind at the same time your father guided you through the door.

The clarity of the interior of the rented house took you anew, making you blink several times before you could take the form of your mother sitting on the couch, a first kit aid settled on her lap, and a bunch of cotton as dirty as the ones you left on Heeseung’s car discarded on the table in front of her.

There was no real indication of Sunghoon’s passage through the house, but it wouldn’t take a genius to know it was all his doing.

And although you could feel your body cooling, you weren’t surprised when your father finally broke the question.

“Has Heeseung ever raced with you in the car?”

You felt a little lurch at that. The idea of lying seemed to attempt you. It would be so easy to simply say no — so easy to let that night be buried as a secret between you and Heeseung. However, you had allowed the question to hang in for too long, and when you noticed, it was already too late to do so.

In the middle of your silence, your mother released a tortuous sound, closing her hand above her chest as if something inside of her hurt — and perhaps, it did. Her tears streamed silently beneath the night’s light.

“I asked him to do it,” you finally said. “Please, let me explain, Heeseung-”

“Stop it right now!” your father burst, a single hand coming harsh against the nearest wall.

Your father never had screamed at you, not even once. And the sudden ferocity in his voice tore the small thread keeping you from breaking.

“Sunghoon appeared here, bleeding because your boyfriend — a street racer,” he continued, pronouncing street racer with the same repugnance as he would say bandit. “beat him, and not only this, Y/N, you go to his races!”

“What if the police appeared? All the years you dedicated yourself to get into a good university, to stay at the top of your classes — the future you have been working so hard for, all of suddenly thrown in the trash because of a guy?”

“I don’t know who you are anymore, but you surely are not the daughter I raised.”

The living room fell silent at this and only then you noticed how fast your heart was beating. It hummed against your ears, so loud you couldn’t even think.

Your father turned to the stairs, leaving you behind without a second or uncertain glance. He had already declared everything he wanted, be it with words or not. Your mother remained, but if she was going to say something, she let it all go with a single shake of head before she trailed helplessly after him.

You didn’t follow them up the stairs, but instead, you stood still, staring so long into the walls that when you finally reached for your phone, it took a while for your vision to focus.

“Princess?” Heeseung called. Your heart tethered itself, just his voice was enough to make you stop trembling. “I was waiting for you.”

You breathed in, perhaps so harshly that it made him stop at the other end of the line. You weren’t sure how long had it been since your father shoved Heeseung away from the front porch, you only knew it had been long ago, perhaps a lifetime ago, yet — he was still waiting for you.

Heeseung would always wait for you.

“I am sorry,” you whispered, because you were — because you weren’t sure what else you could tell him. “I am so sorry.”

“Sunghoon told your parents about the racing, didn’t he?” he asked. His question didn’t carry the madness or annoyance it could be expected if made just a few hours earlier. Instead, he sounded pitiful.

Heeseung knew his secret would someday come between both of you. He knew it from the moment he had first seen you at the party. You were French dresses, high heels, golden pins on the hair and champagne on the weekends. You had the world at your feet, meanwhile, he barely had a place for himself.

“He did,” you admitted.

He closed his eyes to calm his pulse, and before he could doubt the wisdom of saying it, he did.

“Maybe we should take a break from seeing each other,” he whispered.

“Hee-”

“Just for a few, princess,” Heeseung said. “It will do no good infuriating your father more.”

“I don’t want it to be just a summer thing, you and me,” he continued. “I will do anything to prove my worth to your father, but for now I think we should slow down a bit.”

“You are worth it.”

“I am glad you think like this,” he said, a pinch of a smile in his voice. “Let’s keep calling, alright?”

“Alright.”

Heeseung was the one to call you the next night.

It was precisely at the same hours you had called him, almost as if he had programmed it because he knew it would be safer for you.

You made your way out of bed, walking to the window seat just to curl yourself there in the middle of all the pillows.

“Princess,” he called as soon as you picked up. “Have you looked at the moon tonight?”

With a tethered heart, you turned to the windows, following the moonlight through the clouds above before you exhaled, stuck by the quiet beauty.

“Not until now, it’s beautiful,” you said. Your voice sounded muffed into the pillow.

“Bad hour?” Heeseung asked. “We can hang up.”

“No, please — keep talking, I want to hear you.”

“So suddenly,” he laughed. “What do you want to hear about?”

“Anything, I just want to hear you.”

“Have I ever told you what I studied at university?” he asked. Although you knew Heeseung had been a university student for a few semesters, the question took you anew, you never have stopped to think about what would have been his major. And perhaps because he noticed the reticent on you, he continued without your answer. “Architecture.”

“Really?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?” he laughed.

“I didn’t!”

“You did.”

“I just never stopped to think about your major,” you admitted. “How was it? The university?”

“Glorious and terrible days,” Heeseung said, making you laugh. The sound surprised you, making you press your fingertips against your lips. There was no better way to sum up university life.

“Did you used to live in the dorms?”

“Yes, with Jungwon and Jake,” Heeseung said. You could hear a subtle longing in his voice.

“It seems interesting.”

“It was a mess — we once set off the fire alarm, and the whole building had to evacuate at two in the morning.”

“No.”

“Yes,” he said. “It seemed like a great idea to cook inside the room back then.”

Hours passed this way. Heeseung told stories of his old dorms, and their uncomfortable beds, his university, and its old mismatching buildings. He perfectly surrounded how much he wished he had stayed there, and only gave brief pauses to hear your laugh, the soft hitches of your breaths at the other end of the line.

Heeseung suddenly fell silent, only the ruffle of his sheets being heard.

“How is Seoul?”

“Beautiful and lonely.”

“Do you miss it? Even if it’s lonely?”

“No,” you said. The speed the words have left your lips surprised you, but still, you continued. “I wish I could stay here. Would you build me a dream house here?”

“I never got my architect license,” Heeseung said. “But if you tell me about your dream house, I can find you something.”

“I want to live in the hills.”

“Should I buy your summer house then?”

“I dislike big houses.”

“So do I,” Heeseung said, immediately pressing his lips in regret. It sounded like it was his dream house too. You could almost picture him — the way his head would bend down before he shook his head in an attempt to cover his shyness. Your lips curved with the image.

“Heeseung?” you called. He only hummed in reply.

“Do you prefer a single-story house or a two-story house?”

“Two-story, especially on the hill — you must enjoy the whole view.”

“With a front porch and a balcony on the second floor?”

“I like the idea.”

“It’s settled then,” you said. “Please, find me my dream house — don’t forget the garage for your BMW, I will also be bringing my Jeep.”

You had hung up so softly, it took him several seconds to notice you did.

It had already been a week when you waited for the house to turn into nothing but the summer breezes coming from the forgotten opened windows before you leaped off the bed, moving as quietly as you could to the front porch.

Beyond the garden, Hongcheon was so calm that you were afraid your whispers would unfold too loudly through the night. However, you sat down on the stairs still, your bare feet brushing through the warm grass as you unlocked your phone, reaching for the single contact you could possibly want.

It rang just a single time before Heeseung picked it up.

“Princess,” he said. You could swear he was smiling at the other end of the line.

“Take me somewhere?”

┈┈┈┈

Heeseung parked his BMW a little bit farther than the conventional, the headlights turned off. He didn’t wait for you to come to the car, the moment he pressed the parking brake, his door was opened and he rushed to you, his warmth involving your waist in a familiarity that made you ache. He swirled you, just once — pulling you out of the ground as his nose buried at the side of your neck, inhaling every little detail he could before he put you back on your feet and drew an inch away, just enough to encounter your gaze beneath the goldish street lights.

His bruises had gotten older, and lighter, already turning into a greenish tone and therefore making it more difficult to look at. But still, you reach for it, the tip of your fingers softly pressuring against his sensitive skin.

Heeseung leaned his forehead against yours. And all of sudden you could scent him, the summer he carried beneath his skin together with peonies. There was no scent of car exhaustion tonight, nor the scent of his leather jacket as he only wore a gray t-shirt and his washed jeans, but it was still very much your Heeseung.

“I missed you,” you said, voice nothing more than a soft whisper.

“I missed you too.”

┈┈┈┈

Heeseung drove you through the dense wood outside of the town, going down on a patch not meant to be passed through, but he seemed to know where he was going, and it was enough for you to adjust comfortably on the seat, bare feet up, legs clutched to your chest. Your dress slipped down on your thigh and gathered in the crease of your hips, showing off way too much but if anything Heeseung’s hand left the gear stick to rest on it, fingers spreading on your bare skin.

The clock on the dash told you the sun was closer to its rising than its setting, yet still, you could feel the warmth of the day brushing through the open windows of the BMW. Everything outside smelled like the moistness of the late summer.

“Where are you taking me?” you asked.

“It’s a secret.” Heeseung replied with a broad smile.

He dropped down a few gears just several minutes after, parking the BMW. The headlights only lit rocks, and only when you slipped out of the car you saw the swimming hole, pooled in the moonlight.

Heeseung stepped forward, kicking off his shoes first, and then pulling his t-shirt and jeans, allowing everything to fall with a dull sound on the ground.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking a night swim,” he said, a split second before he jumped in.

Heeseung submerged, his skin sparkling beneath the moonlight glow and the BMW’s headlights, all the drops catching the silver lights as he threw his head back in a laugh.

“Aren’t you coming, princess?”

You could feel Heeseung’s eyes burning your skin, watching you attentively as you slid the straps of your dress away, allowing the thin material to fall.

He said nothing as his gaze traveled down on you, accompanying each of your moves as you reached for the back of your bra and unclasped it. He just stood there, taking the angle of your shoulders, the swell of your breasts. Heeseung was cataloging every inch of you and checking if he hadn’t let anything escape at the first time with adoration.

As you sat on the rocks, feet reaching the water, the cold made it difficult for you to breathe. But before you had a chance to give a better consideration, you snuck in.

“You are crazy, Lee Heeseung,” you gasped.

He laughed at you, allowing the sound to resonate within the night once again as he ended the few inches between you, coming so close you could lift your hand and touch his damp locks, brushing it away from his forehead with no effort despite the height difference.

“But you love me,” Heeseung whispered, taking you anew. The words had left his lips so softly that if you weren’t paying close attention to him, you would believe it was just another passing breeze through your skin.

“Yes,” you whispered back. “I do love you.”

It was a strange thing. Over the past months, he had seen it in your eyes, tasted through your lips, and felt it through every one of your touches. Yet, the impact of how you wordly confirmed you loved him, lanced through his body.

He looked at you like you were a dream to him, and perhaps you were. You could hear the slight tremor in his breath when he exhaled. And the words that came later ached within you.

“I love you too — I love you so much.”

Your hands found the back of his neck, bringing his forehead against yours at the same time he grabbed your thighs, pulling it around his hips. The familiar pressure of his fingertips drawing patterns through your skin before he hitched you higher, your upper body floating above the water.

For such a dark place, there was a great deal of illumination and you could take sight of yourself. Your hair clung to your body, dribbling at the curves and emphasizing the swell of your breasts. The view just seemed to enchant Heeseung even more, his doe-eyes sparkled beneath the moonlight, shining like stars before he went down on you, trailing your stomach with soft kisses.

He whispered your name. The almost never said word grating over your skin.

“I can’t get enough of you,” he said. “I never can get enough of you.”

The headlights of the BMW went off, and Heeseung straightened you back to him, shivers spreading through your skin as his hands slid through you, tracing the slick ridge of your spine before finding the sides of your neck in the dim light.

You were unsettling, skin sparkling in the moonlight glow, and the moment you met his gaze, Heeseung felt completely dazed. His thumb pressed against your lips, just enough for you to part them for him, and allow your tongue to slip through the tip of your finger.

“What are you doing to me?” he groaned. But he was soft and gentle with it, a hint of a laugh when he kissed you.

Heeseung seemed so happy tonight, all crafted on the unconditional gaiety he deserved. And you weren’t willing to let the night end. You weren’t willing to let go of him — not now, not in a few.

Your fingers curled on the hair at his nape, pulling him closer, trying to end a distance that didn’t exist anymore. You could feel Heeseung entirely. From the way he shivered beneath your touch, to the way his breath hitched when you slipped down, mouth running through his throat.

“I want to stay with you.”

“Then stay with me,” he whispered. “For as long as you want.”

┈┈┈┈

Heeseung’s house was as lovely as you remembered — even now, when he closed the door behind you, cutting the only direct source of light, the house was radiant as if it had its own sun.

He stepped past you, reaching his hand out behind. At first, he just pinched your fingertips, but as he guided you through the stairs, he laced his fingers on yours, pulling you closer to him and guiding you through the corridor. He was skilled in finding the most silent places on the wooden floor, allowing your breaths to be the loudest thing resonating through the whole place.

The second-story was tinier than the first one, just a narrow corridor with three doors. Heeseung brought you to the nearest one, turning the light on, you blinked at a blue-tiled bathroom.

“You can go in first,” he told you, walking up to the shower, he turned the knobs and checked the temperature for you. “I will find you some clothes and — everything.”

You barely could nod before he stepped out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Heeseung left you alone to shower, giving you enough time to fill the whole space with a sweet-smelling soap and when he did come back, he didn’t look at you, being deeply focused on the task of leaving the clothes at the sink.

“Hee,” you called. He raised his head at you, meeting your gaze through the fogged glass at the same time you tilted your head to the space in front of you in an unspoken invitation.

Even with the distance you could notice how his breath got caught, a moment of hesitation passing before he reached for the collar of his t-shirt, discharging it and then, his jeans, stripping it down together with his underwear. But all of a sudden, you understood why he was acting like this.

Both of the times you had been together, it was beneath the moonlight, hidden within the night. There was something unduly intimate about the fluorescent lamp above you. It illuminated every sinewy line of his body as he came to a stop in front of you. And it took every ounce of you to reach for the shampoo instead of him.

“Let me-” you started. However, Heeseung had kneeled in front of you, with no second thoughts, he just did it — meeting your gaze through his eyelashes, water pearling on the end for a second before he closed his eyes.

You threaded your fingers through his hair, and he threw his head a bit back, his palms spreading through your hips for support. He honestly didn’t know what to do with himself there. Heeseung couldn’t remember a time someone touched him so gently before you, not because you thought he was breakable, but because you thought he deserved this.

He allowed you to rinse his hair, only standing up when you subtly tap his hands. And then, he let you smooth over his bare skin, starting with his shoulders, and rubbing down to his chest, he groaned when you reached for his low abdomen, fingertips hovering dangerously close to his aching length.

“Princess,” he called. However, his words left his lips with no warning.

“You are hard.”

Heeseung chuckled at your statement, leaning on you, his lips met your ears, scattering shivers through your body despite the warm water.

“I have been struggling with it ever since you took your dress off in the swimming hole,” he confessed.

“Then I should take care of it,” you said, reaching for him, hand wrapping around his length. He cursed when you rolled your thumb through his tip, but he allowed you to stroke him at your pace nonetheless, edging him until his breaths were heavier, shorter, gasping as the only thing passing through his lips was your name, all wishful.

His head dropped forward, burying his nose against your shoulders, and you had to ask him to move, to look at you, to allow you to kiss him tantalizingly sweet, and nothing like the way you kept touching him. Nothing like the whine you accidentally let escape.

Heeseung drew away, all of a sudden before he grabbed your thighs, lifting you easily — perhaps too easily, and making your legs fold around his waist.

“You have been taking too much care of me, let me take care of you too,” he asked.

The bathroom felt smaller, brighter, and softer as you nodded, allowing Heeseung to push himself into you, calling your name, pronouncing each letter with an unreasonable fondness, and turning it into a mutter singing through his pulses.

His moves were careless this time, gone on all your teasing, but he still managed to make you tighten around him, fingers curling on the hair of his nape as your mouth parted against his.

Heeseung swallowed your noises, pressed kisses on your lips as he felt you shaking, spread his palms on the back of your thigh to hold you through your high, and helped you stand when you felt too weak to.

He turned the knobs, letting the bathroom fall silent before he wrapped you both in towels, his hands never letting you go as he guided you to sit between his legs at the toilet before he started rubbing your hair.

“Sorry, I don’t have a hair dryer,” he said.

“It’s better this way,” you admitted, your voice almost sounding purred as you inclined your head back. Heeseung chuckled at your actions, but if anything, his fingers worked slower, rubbing your hair with gentleness until it seemed dried enough to let you slip into the oversized t-shirt he had brought you.

You weren’t sure what time it was, but when he opened the door to his room. The world outside seemed vivid in comparison, a mist of light blue and purple coming through his opened windows.

Heeseung climbed to his bed first, subtly tapping the space at his side in an invitation, and when you followed, he pulled you against him, fitting your body to his — tangling you as much as he could into the circle of his warmth.

“Can you say it again?” he whispered. “What did you say in the swimming hole?”

“That I love you?”

“Yes.”

“Heeseung, I love you,” you said, leaning into him, your forehead on his shoulder, fingertips pressing against the exact place above his heart, feeling the cadence of his whole being as he exhaled, reaching for you too — curling his fingers above yours.

“I love you too, princess.”

The room fell silent, just the soft hustle of his thumbs brushing the inner curve of your wrist, slowly and carefully, causing you to close your eyes. And for the first time, you fell asleep to Heeseung’s beating heart.

You woke up to the summer sunlight filtering through the still-opened windows of Heeseung’s room, the morning glow reflecting through the wind bell and dappling the room in a dozen of colors.

Heeseung was still asleep, the calm rise and fall of his chest beneath your fingertips. He held your hand exactly where you had left it above his heart last night, fingers curled around yours still. You didn’t want to slip away, not yet. But your sore throat hurt and the only cup of water visible had been dried by summer heat.

He stirred when you slipped away from his touch, but he didn’t wake up. His face remains calm, the dark curls of his hair shadowing his eyes as you left the room.

When you approached the kitchen, you heard the soft hustle of dishes echoing, drawers opening and shutting as a secure sign his grandmother was awake. And suddenly you were conscious of your current situation.

Heeseung had gotten you an oversized t-shirt, leaving barely anything of your thighs to see. Yet, the idea of her finding you in nothing but her grandson’s t-shirt as the first thing in the morning seemed somehow worse than coming in a mini and tight dress. But she only turned around to your presence, a smile spreading through her lips before she reached from across the tiny kitchen, taking your hands in a familiar squeeze.

“My dear,” she breathed out. “I had no idea you were here! Are you hungry? I have just prepared a few sandwiches and iced tea.”

“No- I don’t want to bother.”

“Just make me company for a few, I have to leave soon anyway — book club.”

“Oh, seems interesting.”

“Not at all, just a bunch of old women talking about romance books, but I should leave the house once in a while, you know? Not to mold,” she said, making you laugh.

Heeseung’s grandmother poured two cups of iced tea, handing one to you without any further speaking before she sat on one of the kitchen’s chairs, and gestured for you to do the same.

It was relaxed at first, all about her talking of her early years in this small county as the sun kept coming up, but then, she became stiff, approaching the moment Heeseung’s father died.

“It was a tragedy for me, of course. But it ruined Heeseung — I thought I had lost both of my son and grandson that night. You should’ve seen him a few years ago, you wouldn’t even recognize him — he was so lonely and gloomy, even with Jake and Jungwon nearby.”

“But you appeared here — right here,” she continued, pointing at the front door. “I haven’t seen him smile like that in months.”

“I know he is involved in something I wouldn’t be proud of — but he is a good person.”

“He is,” you whispered, not because she needed confirmation, but because it was good to say it out loud. “Heeseung is the greatest person I have ever met.”

┈┈┈┈

When you got back to Heeseung’s room, the morning sun had already given in, allowing the afternoon light to bathe his room entirely.

Heeseung had rolled in his sleep, his back now turned to the place where you had been and the sun perfectly angled upon him. The waves of his dark hair glinted in errant streaks of gold and his skin seemed warm.

You climbed the bed, wrapping your arms around his waist. He still had the sweet scent of the shampoo you both had used late at night, but you could swear there was something brighter on it, something like a change. You spread your fingers above his heart, feeling the cadence of his being.

Only when you had soothed, Heeseung reached for you too, his hand resting right above yours, intertwining your fingers together and letting you know he was awake.

“Where did you go?” he asked, his voice horse from sleep.

You had listened to his question, but you didn’t immediately reply, allowing another moment to hang as you came even closer against his sun-warmed skin, kissing his shoulders.

“I was talking to your grandma.”

“Somehow, it worries me.”

“Why?”

“Wasn’t she exposing me or something?”

“Yes,” you smiled. “People have something to tell me about your past.”

“Exactly — what if they tell you something that makes you want to leave me?” Heeseung asked, although there was a hint of entertainment in his voice, your answer was solemn.

“I doubt it can happen.”

Heeseung rolled to you, blinking with the sudden clarity. His eyes gleamed beneath the morning light. The brown dark mesmerizing turning hazel before he reached for you — fingertips tracing your face with a delicacy you imagined people devoted only to precious things.

His lips found yours easily, just like they always did. His hands spread across your cheeks, fingers brushing and tangling through your hair as he brought you closer as if he believed his existence lay in the acknowledgment of you — on how your heartbeats resonated together, how naturally your hands curled around his shoulders, and the sensations your bare fingertips are capable of drawing on his skin.

His tongue slid against your bottom lip, softly yet demanding, and you obliged immediately, letting him press his tongue over yours in a way that made your body filled with warmth.

You sighed into him, and Heeseung moved swiftly through the bed, hovering above you, his hands promptly leaving your face just to find the crook of your knee, lifting it to his hips before he leaned in, kissing the pulse on your neck. His lips moved tenderly against your skin, pinching as his hands found the hem of your — his shirt, working it up to your thighs, your waist. He paused only to slip it over your head.

His hands splayed through your waist, holding you still.

“Tell me what you want me to do,” Heeseung said. “I will do it.”

You grazed on him, eyes dazed as your fingertips found his lips in a silent and almost unconscious wish. Heeseung smiled as he glided away from your touch. Because he understood you just too well — because he was willing to do anything you asked him to.

“Y/N, my princess,” he confided. “My love.”

“Don’t get me wrong, I loved having you in my car, and the shower, but having you here — all pretty on my bed, I will take my time with you.”

His fingers dug at the crook of your knee, lifting your leg to his shoulder as he finished moving into the space between your legs. He traced a path of kisses over the inner of your thighs, greedy, pushy, and purposely avoiding the place where you needed him the most. He had said he was going to take his time with you, and apparently, he meant to be true to his words.

You whined at his actions, and he chuckled, giving one final kiss before he allowed his tongue to run between your lips, from the bottom all the way to the top. It was warm soft licks, before he gave your clit an attention that made your legs shake.

Your fingers tangled in his hair, nails scratching lightly against his scalp, just enough pressure to make him shiver beneath your touch. Heeseung deepened and you knew even with your eyes closed that he was giving you his sweet smile.

You made a lousy sound, clapping a hand over your mouth to stifle it before Heeseung reached for you, intertwining your fingers, bringing it far from your lips and down into the mattress.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “I want to hear you.”

He moved onto his knees, hair mussed from your fingers, lips rosy, and you would have felt embarrassed if he wasn’t looking at you like there was no one else in this world for him, but he was, and you reached for him, pushing at the waistband of his sweatpants, removing the only thing preventing you from feeling him fully.

His sweatpants hit his bedroom floor with a soft and ignorable thud before his lips were on you again, tongue pressing against yours, tasting like you still.

You folded your legs around his waist, thighs clenching around him, squeezing him almost unconsciously as he crowded into you, one forearm on the pillow by your head, holding himself over you as he pushed into you.

He hissed, looking down between your bodies, eyes glazed as he watched how you fit together. You sobbed when he clutched at you tighter, fingers spreading through your waist as his hips stuttered with impatience and greed.

“Am I hurting you?”

You shook your head frantically, fingers spreading at his neck, angling his forehead against yours, pressing kisses to his jaw, cheeks, and lips, mumbling how it was alright as you felt yourself coiling tighter and tighter, and Heeseung’s rhythm becoming languid.

He came when you did, as defenseless and relinquished as he could be, pulling away almost as if it broke him to let you go.

Heeseung lay by your side, and when you turned to him the sun dazed you. He shielded your eyes, resting his fingertips lightly by the side of your temples as you moved closer to him.

This time around, none of you bothered about clothes, cuddling as the rhythm of your hearts slowly came in pace with the whole summer.

“I never have and won’t ever love anyone the way I love you,” he whispered, breath threading into your hair like a secret.

“When I have to drive you back — let me try talking with your parents.”

┈┈┈┈

The house on the hill seemed as imposing as it did a few weeks ago, the three-story construction shadowing both of you from the golden sun as you walked through the driveway. Heeseung said nothing as you stopped on the front porch, he said nothing as you turned to him, reaching to his neck, threading your fingers in the hair at his nape, and angling him down to you.

He let you smooth him, brushing your nose against his, catching his bottom lip between yours in the taunting kiss he knew never in million times grow tired of.

“I am here,” you whispered, so softly, he almost didn’t hear it beneath the sound of his throbbing heart.

“I don’t want to lose you,” he said, and it took all of your strength not to wilt as you brushed the pads of your thumbs along his cheekbones. Heeseung always spoke his confessions easily, almost unconsciously, leaving the words to scatter and ache within you all alone.

“You won’t,” you said. “You won’t ever lose me.”

“Of course, I consider a lot of what my parents tell me, but Heeseung,” you paused, allowing his name to scatter through the breeze, all soft, and yours. “No one can carry my life for me, at the end of the day, I want to be with you, and I will be.”

“There’s no one else in this world like you,” you whispered. It was a phrase stolen from him, yet, it seemed effective. Heeseung tried to prevent his happiness from materializing through his smile because he knew he would look like the fool he was for you. Yet, you could see his happiness in his eyes. The tiny dazzle they had as Heeseung reached for your waist, drawing you impossibly closer to him.

“I am ready,” he said.

You opened the door slowly, and your parents together with your grandmother were revealed to be in the living room. A deck of cards being quickly forgotten at the center table as your father stood up from one of the couches.

The afternoon light turned everything dazing.

“Me and Heeseung — we would like to talk with you,” you said.

There was a small pause, a small gap in time when no one moved, no one breathed. But then, your grandmother reached out, enclosing her hands on yours and Heeseung’s wrists, dragging both of you to the couch too.

“We should listen to what the youth has to say,” she smiled.

Heeseung would be lying if later on he said he remembered perfectly how the moment unfolded. He remembered you had taken his hand on yours, caressing the back of his hand. He remembered your father had sat back on the couch, running his hand through his hair. He remembered your mother nodding in encouragement. However, he had no memory of how he did start talking, how the story of his life simply was spread beneath the passing minutes.

Yet it did and when he finished he noticed everyone was listening to him, not letting the moment escape like him.

“How old were you?” your father asked. “When all of this happened?”

“Twenty-one.”

“It’s too young,” the man sighed, looking at your mother. They were silently talking, and Heeseung had this impression that he had encountered something too intimate — too unique of people who loved each other so he turned to you instead.

You had your gaze already fixed on him, eyes gleaming, lips curling on a smile.

“Do you love her?” your mother asked. You stopped all of a sudden, surprised by the sudden question, but Heeseung didn’t falter for even a second before he replied.

“Yes, I do.”

“Then that’s what matters,” she said. “I have been telling Y/N’s father, we surely do not approve your way of earning life, but it’s on both of you. I raised her wanting the best, and by the best, I mean her happiness — if you can guarantee me that. I don’t mind the rest.”

“And as long as you don’t race with her in the car,” your father added.

“I won’t, sir.”

“Please, no sir — we are all family here.”

By the time Heeseung’s BMW reached the invisible line dividing the road from the shore, the sun had dipped to touch the horizon, the last sunset of the summer illuminating the ocean with straps of gold.

Your parents already had taken the road back to Seoul. Meanwhile Hayoung, Sunhae, that Jungwon guy of hers, and well, Jake were getting ready to take the opposite turn and go further into the small county — back to the university’s dorms, and its routine.

However, despite the gloomy sensation of the end, it seemed unbelievably peaceful, and vast.

You didn’t wait for Heeseung to turn the engine off, you leaped from the BMW the moment he parked, already barefoot and rushing through the sand as your laugh echoed through the cooling breeze.

Heeseung followed you, slowly, taking in how the water was hitting your thighs, damping the hem of your dress. He wasn’t surprised when you turned to him, the camera he had won for you at the carnival in your hands.

It seemed a lifetime since you both had been there, it seemed like no time at all.

“It’s the last one in this film,” you informed him, eyes squinting as you looked through the lens at him. “Do it prettily.”

You gave him no time, the flash came off, confusing him for a second before he saw you still grinning as you brought the camera away from your face, and he took the last step to reach you, palms spreading through your thighs, lifting you to his waist.

“You seem too happy to someone who’s going back to Seoul to start another university semester,” he said.

“My boyfriend is going with me, so of course I am happy.”

“Is he?” Heeseung asked.

“Yes, going to spend whole weeks with me.”

“Seems like he spoils you a lot.”

“He does,” you confirmed. “He says from the moment he saw me he was gone, willing to do anything I asked for.”

He laughed, throwing his head back, allowing the sun to bathe his skin, his mussed hair, beams of light simply not being able to not reach for him. He was all crafted on the unconditional gaiety he deserved as he closed his eyes for a long moment before he straightened himself back to you.

Your fingers spread through the sides of his neck, scattering shivers through his spine.

Heeseung had never believed in love, at least not the real thing, not the capable of awakening his soul and bringing peace to his mind type of love.

It happened to other people, in other places, but not to him in the small county of Hongcheon. Yet, it did.

As you leaned on him, forehead resting against his, lips brushing in a tantalizing kiss, he knew, that’s exactly what you had given to him, and he hoped he could give it back to you forever.

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