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godslino · 2 months

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GUTTER BALL | changbin first date series. one night stand to lovers.

pairing: changbin x fem!reader word count: 5.2k genre: non idol au, fluff warnings: implied sexual content, swearing, mentions of drinking summary: a one night stand with changbin ends in pancakes and the promise of a date. the rest is history.

a/n: finally! the changbin chapter! i just want to take a second to say THANK YOU for all the support you guys have given this series so far. reading everyone's comments is genuinely the highlight of my day and i'm so happy you're all enjoying it. please remember that both my taglist and my requests are open, so don't be shy. once again, any and all feedback is appreciated. you guys are awesome, happy reading <3

The first thing you notice when you wake up is that this is not your room.

Blackout curtains, a lamp on the bedside table painting the walls in a warm glow, navy blue sheets that are pulled over your bare chest and—oh.

Oh.

“Fuck,” you mutter, throwing your arm over your eyes, “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

Everything comes flooding back in an instant: the bar, dark curly hair, one too many drinks, a voice low in your ear, stumbling through his apartment door, the most ripped arms you’ve ever seen, and that tongue—

The sound of a door unlocking shakes you from your thoughts, followed by shoes being kicked off as you scramble to sit up and hug the sheet tighter around your body.

What was his name—Changbin? Changbin. That sounds right. At least from the memories you have where it was coming out in strangled moans from your throat. Which is dry, by the way, undoubtedly from the amount of alcohol and the…strain it was put through.

You don’t really have time to unpack that particular part of last night’s events when there’s a knock at the door—funny, because this is his room.

Flattening your back against the headboard, you clear your throat as best you can, “Come in.”

When it opens, Changbin’s head pops through, tufts of his hair sticking out from under a baseball cap. “Hey,” he says softly before stepping all the way in. He takes one look at you, your hands holding the bedsheet in a death grip, and wordlessly walks over to his dresser.

“I bought food,” he says with his back turned, pulling out a sweatshirt. He pulls out a few sweatpants too, shuffles through them until he finds some with a drawstring, and then turns back around to face you with the clothes held in his hand.

He looks…apologetic? Nervous? Really, really cute? That’s not a question, actually. He is cute.

You’re not sure if it’s the fact that you’re seeing him in better lighting for the first time, or maybe because you’re sober, or maybe because the only other image you have of him is when he’s hovering over your body and making you see stars, but you can’t help the little fluttering feeling that starts in your chest when he gives you a small smile.

“Your dress is kind of…I, uh…it’s ripped.”

Your eyebrows shoot up in shock at the same time you feel heat rush to your cheeks. “Oh,” is all you can say as you desperately try to remember that part of the night. Hands are all you see, big and strong, and you silently let your gaze fall to them as he moves forward to place the clothes at the foot of the bed.

“Yeah,” he rubs the back of his neck, “You can have these. They should fit you, and I don’t mind losing them. Consider it my reimbursement for ruining your dress.”

You lean forward slowly, still holding the blanket to your chest, and Changbin has to stop himself from staring at the exposed skin of your shoulder when your hair falls forward in the process. “These are—” your eyes go wide, “Balenciaga?!”

He blinks like you didn’t just name drop a brand that sells singular articles of clothing for double your paycheck. “Yeah?”

“I can’t take this.”

“Why not?”

“This costs more than me,” you say incredulously.

He moves to argue, but then a slow grin starts to spread across his face. He tones it down, minimizes it to a single upturn of the left side of his mouth. “I mean, you don’t have to wear anything. I don’t mind either way.” Changbin smirks, and you narrow your eyes.

“However,” he continues, “I would really, really like to see you in my clothes.”

🎳

“He gave you a what hoodie?” Felix’s voice is distant on the other end of the line. The clicking of his keyboard stops, there’s a rustle, and then suddenly his mouth is a lot closer to the speaker than it’d previously been.

Changbin’s en suite is huge, just like his bedroom. Once he slipped out to give you privacy, claiming he was going to set up the food, you’d allowed yourself to fully take in your surroundings. A california king sized bed, a walk in closet, an attached bathroom with a balcony.

You sigh, leaning back against the marble sink. Changbin’s sweats sit low on your hips, his hoodie all but swallowing your figure into the material.

“That’s not the point, Felix. Were you even listening to me? An entire five minute monologue about how I’m in his house and all you care about is the Balenciaga?”

“Does he have any, like, really hot friends?”

“Felix.”

“Wait. Is he really hot?”

“Felix!” you bring a hand to your forehead, using your thumb and middle finger to rub at the spots just above your eyebrows. “You’re not helping here.”

“Okay,” Felix says, his voice low, “It’s just that I’m having an issue seeing what the problem is.” You pinch the bridge of your nose to fight the oncoming headache as Felix rambles on.

“This guy brought you back to his place, rocked your world, and then what? Cuddled you? Bought you breakfast? Gave you his clothes that are worth more than my car and is now waiting for you to come out of his bathroom and enjoy a nice meal? And that’s bad because…?”

“You know what? I’m hanging up.”

“The hell you are! I left my fucking fortnite match for this! You’d better go out there and—” You slam your phone down on the bathroom counter, the sound echoing. If Felix wasn’t going to validate your very unnecessary nerves, then so be it.

You stare at yourself in the mirror, unfamiliar with the person looking back. It’s a little jarring, the sight of you in someone else’s clothes. A man’s clothes, no less.

It’s been a long time since you’ve had anything close to this sort of…intimacy. Hookups are normal for you, sure. But the mornings after are usually never more than a hurried goodbye as you gather your things and haul ass out the door. Most of the time you don’t even stay, sobered up enough after your post-coital state to slip out into the night and call an uber.

Your memory had come back in full as you were slipping Changbin’s clothes on once he left the room. The sex was great—amazing even. But afterwards, when he turned over and slipped an arm around your waist and hooked his chin on your shoulder was what really scared you.

Okay, maybe scared is an exaggeration. You aren’t scared, it’s just been a while. So what if you don’t crave male validation? Sex is the fun part anyways. Dating doesn’t necessarily go well for you, and feelings are definitely off the table when it comes to hookups. Because that’s all it is: a hookup. Changbin is no different.

You give yourself a total of thirty more seconds before braving a step out into the hallway, sheepishly peeking around the corner.

The apartment is unsurprisingly huge as well: a high ceiling, intricate marble flooring, a chandelier hung in the center of the living room that reflects the sunlight coming in from the floor-to-wall windows on the opposite side.

“Woah,” you say to no one in particular, walking into the dining room area, “This place is intense.”

Changbin looks up from his phone. His hat is off now, a mop of curls sit messily on his head, thick-rimmed glasses are situated at the tip of his nose, his arms—straining against the fabric of his black t-shirt—rest heavily on the table. You watch as he lets his eyes travel the length of you, painfully slow, something unreadable behind them.

“Food’s ready,” is all he says with a smile.

You sit down across from him, eyes wide. It’s like he bought out the entirety of an IHOP while you were asleep. There’s pancakes and waffles, hash browns and toast, an assortment of fruit, two different omelets, two cups of coffee, and at least five different types of syrup options.

“Are we…” you trail off, meeting his expectant gaze, “…expecting other people?”

Changbin nervously scratches his chin. “No, uh, I just—I didn’t know what you liked. And you were sleeping, so…yeah. I tried to cover all the bases.”

When you don’t respond, your eyes transfixed on him, he clears his throat. “Please eat,” he says, extending a hand to gesture at the food, “Let me know if there’s anything else you want.”

“Thank you,” you say, grabbing a fork. Changbin waits until he’s certain you don’t immediately hate it and then starts to eat, too.

It’s quiet, comfortable, sounds of cutlery clinking against plates are the only thing filling the silence as the two of you try to soothe your hangovers with full stomachs. You steal glances at him throughout, watch the way his lips pout when he chews, and then shyly look back down at your plate when he catches you staring. It’s kind of sweet, the idea that he did all this despite only having met you twelve hours ago.

It should be more awkward, too. You’re going to have to talk at some point. There’s an elephant in the room that’s shaped a lot like post-nut clarity mixed with morning-after regret and neither of you are making a move to address it.

“So um, about last night…” Changbin starts a few minutes later. He looks nervous, like he doesn’t know how to vocalize what he plans on saying next.

You nod, putting your fork down. This was to be expected. “I’ll be out as soon as I’m done eating, don’t worry.” Changbin’s head snaps in your direction. “It was really nice of you to get food and stuff, so thank you. I can put my dress back on too so that way I don’t have to take—”

“What?” Changbin furrows his eyebrows, “No. Wait. I’m not kicking you out, Jesus.”

You blink. “You’re not?”

“Of course not.” He stills. “Is that how these things usually go for you?”

Well that isn’t exactly a question you planned on answering. What are you supposed to say? Yeah haha I actually just kind of leave before they have a chance to come back from the bathroom?

“I mean, is that not how it goes for you?”

The blush that spreads across Changbin’s cheeks is hard to ignore. “I don’t—uh…I don’t do this.”

“You don’t buy girls breakfast after you sleep with them?”

“No I don’t—I don’t bring girls home.” He admits.

Oh.

“So I’m…?” The first, you want to ask.

“Yeah.”

Oh.

You’ve never been in this situation before. Apparently that’s Changbin’s specialty: helping you experience things that you normally wouldn’t.

“Listen,” he starts again, licking his lips. His leg is bouncing nervously, visible through the glass table. “I didn’t intend to sleep with you last night. Not because I didn’t want to! Fuck, I—I wanted to. And it was…God, it was amazing. But I feel kind of bad, because everything is out of order and I don’t want it to seem like I’m only trying to ask you now just because I want to get in your pants again or something but like—”

“Changbin,” you cut him off, “Breathe. You don’t—whatever it is you want to say, you can say it.”

He visibly relaxes as soon as his name comes out of your mouth.

“Can I take you on a date?”

There’s a long silence that follows, one that makes you question whether or not he actually said what you think he did. It feels a little surreal, not just the situation but Changbin himself. You went into this blind, completely void of any expectations, but somehow came out of it with—

“A…date?” you ask hesitantly.

“A date.” He repeats, more confident this time. “A real one. Not just a hookup. I mean, I thought you were beautiful—still do! That’s why I approached you at first. I wasn’t expecting to come back here but we were both drinking and then one thing lead to another and your face was so close and I—”

“Okay.” You say, stabbing at a piece of pancake with your fork.

“Okay?” Changbin asks, blinking at you like he didn’t hear correctly.

“I mean,” you swallow your food, “Typically I’d say you’re just trying to sleep with me, because what guy does all of this for a girl he knows literally nothing about?” Changbin nods in understanding. “But we’re kind of past that, aren’t we? So clearly you don’t have any other motives.”

He shakes his head vehemently. “No. Nope. Definitely don’t.” You quirk an eyebrow at him, to which he visibly pales. “Wait, not like that. I just mean that I’m motivated by the fact that you’re beautiful and I want to get to know you not…anything else.”

When you laugh it’s soft, no more than a few heavy exhales out of your nose. Changbin wishes he could hear it more, could get you to open up to him. “I’m not too sure there’s much you’d want to know.” You admit.

“Well that’s for me to decide, isn’t it?”

His tone is different now, much more confident. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s more at ease with the conversation, or maybe it’s because he wants to prove you wrong. Either way, it makes anticipation stir deep in your gut. Changbin is different, a good different.

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”

“So it’s a date?” He picks up a piece of watermelon with his fork, holds it out to you in some sort of a toast.

“Depends,” you poke another piece of your pancakes and let it hover in front of your face, “Are you gonna buy more of these?”

“I could make that happen.” He smiles, and for the first time you let yourself get lost in it.

“Then yeah,” you push your hand forward, clinking the sides of your forks together, “It’s a date.”

🎳

changbin [8:30am]

for you 🥞

you [8:31am]

are you going to do this every day?

changbin [8:31am]

absolutely

what kind of a man would that make me if i didn’t deliver your pancakes in the morning?

you [8:34am]

a normal one

changbin [8:34am]

sounds boring

do you want syrup with those?

🎳

“I can’t believe you’re doing this.” Felix says, leaning against the doorframe. He watches as you adjust your hair in the mirror, a wary look on his face from where you can see his reflection over your shoulder.

It’s been two weeks since you and Changbin hooked up. You’ve texted nonstop since then, most of it just casual conversation. It’s kind of nice; you get to hear about his day, what songs he’s currently listening to, and find out that he’s one hundred percent committed to the pancake bit. You let him know more about yourself too: your job, your annoying coworkers, which one of your comfort shows you’re rewatching for the fourth time. Changbin makes it a point to text you every morning and every night. You open your eyes to a pancake delivery and then close them after answering the question of: What type of pancakes do you want tomorrow?

Today, it was blueberry. Because today is the day you’re finally going on your date—and because Changbin’s sheets (that you haven’t stopped thinking about for some reason) are blue.

“What’s there to not believe, Lix?” you ask, turning to face him.

“I’m just worried.” He says, walking forward to place both hands on your shoulders. His face is serious, eyebrows pulled together slightly in that concerned look you know too well. Felix has seen firsthand what your last relationship did to you, spent nights with you tucked under his arm as you cried it out and he shoveled ice cream into your mouth. So yeah, he has the room to be worried.

“What if you mess up and I lose my chance to be his friend so he can give me a Balenciaga hoodie?”

Record scratch. Freeze frame. Whatever the hell happens in the tv shows. You shove his arms away with a scoff, rolling your eyes when he stumbles to the side as he laughs.

“You are so annoying.”

“And you better not ruin my chances of getting with one of his producer friends!” Felix calls out as you walk towards the living room. “I saw a cute one on his instagram. Don’t know his name—there was no tag, but oh my God, I love his nose.”

“You went through his socials?” you ask in disbelief, staring at him as he bends down to rummage through the fridge.

“Uh, yeah? Had to make sure he wasn’t some sort of weirdo that could possibly turn out to be a serial killer. Please, I’m not that bad of a best friend.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.” You smile, laughing at the pout he shoots your way.

Changbin’s got his hands in his pockets when you swing the door open. His hair is even fluffier than you remember, a white t-shirt hugging his chest perfectly beneath his jacket and—the glasses. The damn glasses. Your stomach starts churning at the sight, the smallest of cracks in your reserve starting to form.

“You’re early,” you say, giving him a questioning look.

Changbin shrugs. “I was excited.”

“Sweet talking to me isn't gonna work, you know?”

“I don’t have a reason to sweet talk, I’m just being honest.” Changbin’s teeth are white when he flashes them, bright and sincere. He makes talking so easy, like he’s practiced it a thousand times. You like that.

“Well,” you clear your throat, “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” Changbin grins, grabbing your hand and leading you down towards his car.

🎳

Changbin, as you come to find out, is full of surprises.

First, he’s ridiculously good at driving. One hand on the wheel, the other mindlessly playing with yours where his hand rests on top of your thigh. The way he maneuvers the car is, well, it’s hot. It’s also really hard to focus your attention anywhere but his hands, especially when you know what they can do.

Second, he’s really, really silly. Most of the usual small talk made on a first date was done over text since it took so long to find a day that both of you were free, but that just made it so falling into step beside one another was that much easier.

Changbin isn’t afraid to sing along with whatever song is on the radio. In fact, he’s actually really good at singing. Well, when he’s not forcing the dramatics and belting at the top of his lungs while he pretends to romantically serenade you in the passenger’s seat. You can’t help but giggle, swatting his hand away when he makes exaggerated gestures in your direction during certain high notes.

Third, he makes your heart flutter. And not just the usual Oh you’re cute kind. No. Changbin makes your heart feel like it’s going to melt into the floor, all of your senses hyper aware of every part of him, wanting and craving more even when he’s right next to you.

He makes you laugh at unexpected times, encourages you to keep speaking if you ramble on for too long about something completely random, and his smile—oh man. Maybe Felix was right to be worried. Not about you messing up, but about you being absolutely head over heels for this guy.

By the time Changbin pulls into an empty parking spot, the two of you have settled into a natural back and forth that has your head reeling with how much fun it is.

“A bowling alley?” you ask, turning to him. Changbin turns the car off, stares at you in expectation. “You spent, like, five minutes telling me that you were taking me to the one place you feel most at home and it’s a bowling alley?”

“Woah, hold on. Are you mocking me?” Changbin smiles again, and suddenly nothing else matters.

“No I’m just—I feel bad.”

His eyebrows furrow. “Bad? Why?”

“I’m gonna, like, kick your ass at this. You know that right?” You say, chuckling.

Changbin stares at you for a moment, and then he’s laughing. A high pitched, steady trill of laughter that sends you into your own fit of giggles just from the residual joy that’s oozing out of him.

Once he’s composed himself enough, he points a finger in your direction, “Oh you are so on.”

The alley is pretty empty, the only other bowlers being at a far lane at the end of the building. Changbin takes the liberty of paying and grabbing both of your shoes, and you silently follow behind him as he leads you to your assigned lane.

“Weight?” he asks, tying his laces.

You glance up from your own shoes, watching as he shucks off his jacket. His arms flex nicely under the material of his shirt, straining against the fabric as he ties a knot.

“Huh?” you ask, not entirely present.

Changbin stands, smirks slightly. “What ball weight do you use?”

“Oh, uh, an eight please.”

He nods and disappears off towards the racks of balls, leaving you alone to scold yourself.

“Christ. Get a grip.” You mumble, smacking your forehead lightly with the palm of your hand.

It’s been a while since you bowled. When you were younger, your dad used to take you every once in a while and marvel at how good you were. That was a long time ago, when you had the time to enjoy things rather than work nonstop to keep yourself afloat. It’s kind of bittersweet being back in an alley, different circumstances but still the same familiarity.

Changbin comes back with two balls in his hands and places them on the ball rack. He glances over to where you’re keying in the names, smiling softly when he notices that you put him down as BIN.

“Ready to have all of your hopes and dreams crushed?” you ask, knocking your shoulder with his.

Changbin fakes a stumble, rubs his arm like you full on punched him. “Oh God, I don’t think I can play now.”

“Nice try sweetheart,” you scoff, picking up your ball just as the screen signals for the game to start, “Watch and learn.”

You move up to the beginning of the lane, trying to ignore the way Changbin whistles playfully when you do. The ball fits perfectly in your hand, round and smooth. One deep breath, you pull your arm back, slowly walk forward, and bend at just the right moment to send it off with a thud as it hits the lane. You watch with your breath held, hope that you’re able to prove you’re not all talk, and smile proudly when the ball goes crashing through the center pin, knocking them all out.

Changbin’s jaw is on the floor when you turn around. “Your turn, hot shot.” You say sweetly, patting his shoulder as you plop down in the seat next to him.

He clears his throat. “Alright.” He grunts, stretching his arms for dramatic effect. He lets out a loud yell, one of those Hoo! noises that people make before they’re about to do something crazy.

As he lines up to go, he turns, kisses his hand and blows it in your direction. “This one’s for you!” He shouts, winking when you hide your face in your hands out of embarrassment.

You watch as he rolls it forward, leans his body to the left when it curves way too far to the right, and then your hand is flying to your mouth to stifle your laughter when the neon pink ball goes straight into the gutter.

“Ah!” He screams, throwing his hands up and behind his head. He whirls around, points an accusatory finger in your direction, “You did this!”

“Me? What’d I do?”

“You distracted me!”

“I did not!

“How am I supposed to focus when the most beautiful girl in the world is watching me?”

“I—” you scoff, fighting the blush on your cheeks as Changbin walks toward you with a shit-eating grin, “Shut up. Stop that.”

“Stop what?” He crouches in front of you, trying to catch your eyes when you avert his gaze.

“Stop sweet talking. That’s a violation of the game rules. Cheating. You’re trying to distract me.”

“Trying to distract you or trying to get you to fall head over heels for me?”

You blink, “You don’t have to try and do that.”

Changbin searches your eyes for a long while, like he’s trying to decipher whether or not you’re being sincere. It looks on his face is one of disbelief, like it’s hard for him to be convinced that you reciprocate any of what he feels.

“Now who’s sweet talking?” He laughs.

“I’m not sweet talking, I’m just being honest.”

“That’s my line!”

“Well,” you say, standing to take your turn, “I wasn’t gonna steal your bad bowling skills was I?”

The game continues on after that. Changbin somehow manages to score three more gutterballs until you decide to take pity on him.

“Here, like this,” you say, walking up behind him. Changbin freezes when you press yourself up against his back, your hand steady on his forearm as you adjust his positioning.

“This is a little—”

“What? Don’t like it?” You giggle.

He clears his throat, “Quite the opposite, actually.”

When he sends the ball straight into the middle of the pins, earning his first strike of the night, he can barely contain his excitement as he yells, picking you up and spinning you around while you laugh and throw your arms around his neck.

It feels like floating, being with Changbin. He’s goofy and sweet and he knows exactly how to push your buttons all while making you feel as though you’re the only girl in the world. His smile is as bright as the sun and the way his eyes lock on to yours at any given point in time have you wishing you could lose yourself in them forever.

🎳

In the end, you win. It’s not a surprise to either of you, but Changbin couldn’t be bothered to care less. It doesn’t matter to him, not when he feels like he’s won the lottery every time you smile in his direction. And if that wasn’t enough, when you silently slip your hand into his as the two of you walk back to the car, he swears that he’s the richest man alive.

The feeling is mutual for you, too. Changbin has a way of making you feel like nothing else exists, not when he’s grinning at you from ear to ear and making you laugh so hard your stomach hurts. He’s unprecedented, a stroke of good luck, someone who came into your life when you least expected it.

Changbin, to you, is uncharted territory. He laughs loud and smiles unabashedly. If there’s a lull in conversation he’s not afraid to fill it with one of his many noises or silly dances. He says what he thinks and doesn’t care if it’s too cheesy or makes your cheeks turn just a shade darker with embarrassment.

Changbin is consistent; the first guy that hasn’t thrown you for a loop when it comes to figuring out who he is and what he likes. Changbin is someone you could see yourself falling in love with, one terrible pick up line at a time.

“So…” he says as soon as he walks you to your front door, “I had fun.”

You laugh, glancing down at where he has your pinkies linked on both hands. He’s so cute, everything about him. Changbin, Changbin, Changbin.

“Mmhm, it was really fun teaching you how to bowl.”

Changbin groans, leans his head against your front door. “I was under pressure.”

“That’s okay, I thought it was cute.”

“Hm. Does that mean I didn’t ruin my chances at a second date?”

“Depends,” you say, moving your hands up to clasp behind his neck. Changbin’s immediately fall to your waist, almost like second nature. Right, right, right. Everything feels right. “You could come inside and show me if it’s worth it or not.”

“Jesus,” he mumbles, “Don’t do that. You’re gonna drive me crazy.”

Changbin’s words are slow, each one more breathless than the last. It’s almost intoxicating.

“Maybe I want that.”

“Good,” he whispers, leaning down to brush his nose against yours in silent question, “Because I’ve been crazy about you since the moment I first saw you.”

When his lips finally connect with yours, you’re thankful for the grip he has on your waist that prevents you from stumbling. Sweet like the syrup he bought for you that first morning, kissing Changbin is like nothing you’ve ever felt before. It’s not hurried or messy; it’s not done with the intent of something more to be given. It’s slow, purposeful, Changbin takes his time like he’s worried if he doesn’t you might break right beneath his fingertips.

He hums softly when you tangle your fingers in his hair, pulls you closer until you’re flush against him. Chest to chest, heart to heart—Changbin holds you like he never wants to let go.

When you finally pull away, his eyes are glossy, shining with adoration. You could get used to that.

“So you don’t want to come inside?” You ask again, smiling when he bites his lip.

“Not tonight babe, it’s only the first date. I don’t put out like that.”

You scoff. “Yeah? Well you definitely put something somewhere when I was—”

Changbin cuts you off with a palm over your mouth. “What kind of pancakes do you want tomorrow?” He laughs.

“Mmrrnnf.” You say, muffled his hand. When he removes it, you push your lip out into a pout. “I don’t want pancakes—just want you.”

Changbin closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then lets his forehead fall against yours. “You’re making it really, really hard to hold myself back right now.”

You giggle, jutting your lips forward to give him a quick kiss. “Good, it’s working.”

He sighs. “Second date, and then maybe we can talk about…other things. But right now, I just want you to enjoy this. Let yourself settle with the fact that I really, really like you. This wasn’t just a one night stand for me, nor did I ever want it to be.” He plants a kiss on your nose, “I’m kind of, like, crazy about you.”

“Me too,” you say quietly, “About all of it. I want to keep seeing you, Bin. I want to see where this goes.”

Changbin beams. “Good.” He leans down to kiss you one last time, nothing more than a press of his lips to yours, but it’s more full of emotion than the last.

When he pulls away and starts walking backwards to head back down to his car, he feels like he’s on top of the world.

“I’ll text you in the morning?”

You nod. “I’ll be looking forward to it.”

“Good,” he says with a wink, “The pancakes are on me.”

There’s a tug in your chest at his words. It’s crazy how something so small, something so simple can make you feel so strongly for someone. But you guess that Changbin is just like that.

And when you open the door, Felix’s entire body falling over the threshold from where he was leaning against it, you can’t even be bothered to get mad.

[tags: @palindrome969 @summergirlsmj @n1staytiny @strwbrrychannie @drhsthl @shays-library @giuliadesu @jisunglyricist @itsgghowitsgg @snowyquokka @caitxx1 @skzstarnet] **colored tags indicate my inability to link your account. this could be due to an error when you filled out the google form or you do not have tags on.

#changbin x reader #skzstarnet #changbin fluff #changbin smut #changbin angst #changbin scenarios #changbin imagines #changbin au #changbin one shot #changbin fanfic #changbin fic #stray kids fanfic #stray kids fic #skz x reader #first date series #first date series : gutter ball

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jilixthinker · 27 days

Note

hii 👋🏻 i don't know if this has been written before but i saw it in a comment and wanted to read it for skz.... 👀

🎀you are asking to put a ribbon on his d🎀 aaaand the reactions and maybe the events that follow 🤭🤭

it could be changbin or 3racha or skz all separately, whatever you want 🩷

candy boy

=͟͟͞♡ changbin × fem!reader

=͟͟͞♡ ribbon challenge

word count: 1.2K

content warning: explicit sexual content, established relationship, sub!changbin, oral sex (m receiving)

a/c: this took forever and i am very sorry! but Binnie was so perfect for this and I just needed to give it a go. hope you’ll forgive me hun ❤️‍🩹

=͟͟͞♡ please consider reblogging if you like my works!

Changbin eyes are pleading, lashes long and pretty against his full cheeks and a tiny tear nestled on the corner of his eyes. He’s been watching you for several minutes now, as you diligently apply some makeup on his face. The blush you did choose for highlighting his features is of a pretty cool shade of pink, and it matches the lipstick that you carefully selected between the ones he picked earlier. It’s a little bit sticky on his lips, and it shines as if it was a layer of caramelized sugar. It surely gonna taste sweet.

“Baby…” he whispers, a small whine escaping from his parted mouth, “how long is it going to take?”

You finish brushing the blush on his cheekbones and pout at him. “Binnie, you promised that you were going to stay still.”

Changbin shifts from his position. He is sitting on a chair, in front of the wall mirror of your bathroom, and he is wearing nothing but a big fluffy sweater. Pink, of course. His plush thighs are parted and the shiny head of his small cock is peaking out from the soft bush of jet black hair just at the end of his happy trail. That is soft as well, you know that. He always use shampoo and conditioner on that as well, and you always spend an insane amount of time caressing and twirling your fingers around his curls. But not today. Today he has to wait.

“Yes, I know – but…” he continues, puffing some air out. The fabric of the sweater accentuates the softness of his chest, and you softly let your hand fall in between his clothed pecs, “it kinda hurts now.”

Your gaze ends up on the soft pudge of his tummy, barely covered by the only piece of clothing he is wearing and you pinch it between your thumb and index, making him shiver. “Does it?” you ask, fake sweetness on your tone. “That’s because you got all hard while I was making you pretty, baby. If it would have stayed soft, it wouldn’t hurt for sure”.

Changbin sighs and his cock twitches in between his legs. “I tried,” he insists, “but you keep touching me, it’s not my fault.”

That’s not completely untrue. You have been teasing him for the last 30 minutes. Your thighs purposely brushing against his bare skin and hands wandering on his chest and shoulders, lightly grazing at his nipples from above the fabric. He’s been waiting for you to finish his makeup, as you asked, but he got hard, that was almost inevitable.

But he was the one asking for this in the first place. You were peacefully testing some new products that you’ve been wanting to try for a long time, and he interrupted you by showing you a tiktok video of some guy doing something called “ribbon challenge”, demanding your attention and pleading you until you finally gave up.

And now there he is, flushed and aroused, pretty makeup applied on his round and soft face, and a small tight ribbon tied at the base of his chubby tiny cock.

The ribbon is pink – as his sweater and as his face – and the tie is constricting his length at the limits of decency. If he just had stayed soft, it wouldn’t hurt. But you did nothing to make him stay soft.

“And what do I have to do about it?” you ask. Your lips find their way to the soft spot behind his ear and you place a humid kiss there.

Changbin hiccups and a pleading whine leaves his lips once again. His cock is bobbed against the fat of his inner thigh and the curls above it curls are glistening with a few drops of white precum. The ribbon stands cutely just an inch below that, the pink color in contrast with the redness of his length. The tip leaks just a pearl of dense liquid from the slit and Changbin eyes run to yours.

“I’ve been good. Please. Please, I’ve been good. Am I not pretty?” he asks as his cock tries to gain some friction by closing his legs a little. Your own knee quickly stops the movement, slotting in between his sturdy thighs.

“You are so pretty, Binnie. The prettiest,” you concede, pressing another languid kiss on the corner of his sticky lips. “I was just teasing you. What do you want, baby? You want my lips?”

Changbin almost mewls at your question and he nods furiously, making you chuckle. “Yes, please. Please, your mouth. Need s’ much, Binnie needs it.”

His cockhead bumps again his belly as you shift from your position to kneel down on the floor. The slap on the skin is lewd and wet, and it draws a thin stripe of precum on his bellybutton. Changbin soft grunts are delicious and you always try to elongate this moment more than you can just to feel him becoming restless under your touch. But today you played with him enough, and you decide to give him what he’s asking for as you lower you face, filling your lungs with his strawberry scent and finally mouthing at his shaft before grabbing the base of his cock with two of your fingers.

Changbin hisses what sounds like a curse, and you cup his balls with your other hand, suckling just at the gummy tip and swirling your tongue around it. “Like this, baby? My sweet candy boy wants me to eat him up like this?” you breathe, giving another kitten lick on the underside of the puffy head.

Changbin gulps again. “Yes. Oh god, please, yes. Thank you, thank you.” he pants out, teeth biting the fat of his bottom lip.

You smile mischievously as you grip his length, slapping his cockhead against your tongue. You do it a few times until Changbin is a shivering mess above you, and a spurt of white liquid shoots out of him. You use your thumb to spread it on your lips, mimicking the way you applied the clear lipstick on him.

“Baby, ah– please,” he keens as you slap his cock on your wet muscle a few more times before his hips buck forward and you curl your fingers around the base of his length once again. He lets out a shuddering breath, and with a quick movement you sink your head down to engulf the entirety of him.

When you feel him twitching against the roof of your mouth, you detach from his cock with a pop, hand lazily cupping one of his balls and rolling it on your palm. “Binnie, baby,” you coo, “I want to have fun too.”

Changbin pants heavily and hisses a painful whine at the loss of your heath. His cute face is flushed with a thin layer of sweat and the lipgloss is imperceptibly smudged on the corner of his lips. “W-what do you mean?”

You smile, and you nose at his tummy, biting it softly. “I mean…” you puff as you start a slow rhythm of stroking his aching girth, “that it would be so nice if you could pop that little ribbon with this cute little cock of yours. What do you think about that, baby? Can you get hard enough?”

Changbin eyes are glassy and teary, but he nods nonetheless. “I can. Binnie can.” he mutters in between his teeth, cock already engorged and impossibly red under your lustful gaze. “Binnie can make it,” he assures you with devotion. “Can make it pop.”

©️ jilixthinker, 2024. please do not copy, translate, or republish my works anywhere.

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bluejutdae · 3 months

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How boyfriend Stray Kids says I love you without saying I love you | Changbin x you

genre: romance

warning: implied fem!bodied reader

a/n: I will eventually do it for all of the members but I still don't know the order or when.

• Talks about making a family together

Changbin is a family man. And sometimes you’re laying on his bed, playing with each other’s hands and he smiles, looks at you and says something like “I hope our kids will have your nose, it’s so pretty” or “when we’re old, we’ll have matching chairs in our garden, so we can watch the sunset everyday”. The certainty in his words warms you up. He has no doubt he’ll marry you and you’ll have a family together.

• Shows you off

No matter how you’re dressed or how your hair looks, Changbin thinks you’re the most beautiful human being ever. And he tells that to everyone he talks to. You’re waiting in line for your coffee order and he smiles politely at the barista, places your order and asks them if they’ve ever seen someone as beautiful as you. At this point, you let it happen, there's no point in protesting anymore... You walk into the dorms and he starts calling out to the other boys to show them how pretty you are today, how shiny your hair, how pretty and only his you are.

• Lets his guard down

Changbin is always busy, always on top of something, always aware of cameras and fans. But when he’s with you, he can let his guard down. He doesn’t have to smile or else people think he’s pissed off, he doesn’t have to be the hyung, the pillar, the shoulder. He can relax and lay his head on your lap, almost purring, basking in the moment while you run your fingers through his hair. When he’s alone with you, disheveled hair and wrinkled shirt, nothing matters but you…

• He's silly and loud

Just like he’s comfortable enough to let his guard down with you, Changbin is extra silly and extra loud when he wants to show you how much he loves you without outright saying it. Loud giggles and tiny punches. He runs to you, moisturizing mask on his face, and tries to kiss you, chasing you when you run away. When he catches you, the whole dorm knows. Loud cries of victory, a king proclaiming that the beast has been defeated and he saved the pretty princess…

• Holds you tight

Whenever he’s particularly stressed or tired, you know, because he undress you slowly and shows every inch of your body his devotion. He holds you tight, deep inside you, whispering how perfect you are, how lucky he is, how he wants moments like this to last forever. He doesn’t let you go even when you’re done, when you’re both spent and sweaty. He holds you tight, almost afraid that if he lets you go, he won’t be able to have you with him for the rest of his life.

#skz #stray kids fanfic #stray kids imagines #stray kids scenarios #stray kids x reader #bluejutdae #stray kids #changbin x you #changbin x reader #seo changbin #Thiana writes Changbin #changbin scenarios #changbin imagines #changbin fluff #changbin fanfic #changbin fic

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mykoreanlove · 4 months

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dummy, dummy, I love your tummy

„Binnie, let me go. I need to get ready!“, you whined for the tenth time in a row. Changbin had to attend his company’s Christmas dinner and had asked you to accompany him. This was actually a great deal to you, since the two of you hadn’t been dating for long.

His hands roamed your backside and hugged you tighter, pressing you onto him.

„But I wanna stay like this, with my baby girl on top of me.“ God, he was stubborn sometimes. Luckily, you knew how to play him.

„Binnie, listen. If you let me go now I’ll wear that red dress that you bought me.“

His eyes perked up, he was all ears now. „The red one that exposes your whole back or the other red one that accentuates your tits perfectly?“

Changbin loved gifting you presents, he was obsessed with spoiling you.

You chuckled and placed a quick kiss on his lips before getting up.

„The second one.“

You took your time and placed special effort into your look. You wanted him to be proud of you, you needed him to show you off.

„Baby girl, we’re going to be late. Hurry up please?“

He was shouting from the corridor, already waiting for you. You took a last glance in the mirror and evaluated your look. „Hmmm, something is missing.“ Quickly, you put on the last piece and went out.

The moment Changbin saw you, he was starstruck. Eyes wide open, jaw on the floor, drool coming out of his mouth - he was whipped.

„Fuck, you look gorgeous baby girl“, he stuttered. He cleared his throat, trying to compose himself. „You kinda look like Jessica Rabbit.“

Laughter filled the apartment as you grabbed your coat.

„Wait“, you felt his hands on your body. He was looking at you intensely as his fingers explored every inch of your clothed corpse.

„Something’s not right“, he mumbled to himself.

„What do you mean?“, you asked in confusion.

Changbin grabbed the hem of the shapewear you were wearing. He eyed you cautiously. „Baby, are you wearing spanx?“

Your cheeks reddened and you looked down immediately. Your stomach had always been your insecurity, so naturally you hid it as best as you could. You grabbed his hands and pushed them off you, smiling sadly.

„Yeah, the dress looks better that way. Come on, we‘re already late.“

You proceeded to the door but your boyfriend grabbed your wrist and yanked you right back to him.

„We’re not going anywhere as long as you haven’t explained yourself. Why are you wearing this? Isn’t this uncomfortable? Can you even breathe properly?“

He was seriously concerned for you.

„It is tight yes and breathing is a bit harder now, yeah. But I have to wear it, Bin. Otherwise I look like a fat whale.“

Your words stung, you saw it in his flinch. „You think you look like a fat whale?“

Shit, how did this turn into a story about your insecurities? You couldn’t talk about it so you just nodded your head. Changbin let out a deep sigh and got on his knees.

„What are you doing?“

He pushed your dress up and stripped you out of your spanx. „I am taking this off.“

„What? No!“ Panic shot through you as you pushed his hands away. „I need them. My stomach is fat as fuck and everybody will see. I really need it.“

Tears streamed down your face. Changbin looked up at you, defeated and heartbroken.

„Why do you hate yourself so much?“

His question caught you off guard.

„I don’t hate myself“, you sniffed in response. „Yeah right“, he snarked. Now, you got angry. Who was he to judge you like that? You turned around and walked into the bedroom. „You know what? I think it’s better if you go on your own.“

For a brief moment you had hope that he would come in and get you but he didn’t. You heard the door lock and broke down on the bed.

Changbin was right - you hated yourself. And now you despised yourself even more for ruining this special night. You cried mercilessly as you sat on the bed thinking about your misery. If only your stupid pouch wasn’t there, if only you had a flat stomach like all the other girls - then you‘d be good. Then you’d be happy.

About an hour later you heard the door open again. Changbin barged in holding another pair of spanx in his hands.

„Let’s go“, he ushered you.

You looked at him confused. „What?“

„I said let’s go. I went out and got myself a pair of spanx, too. If you wanna hate yourself then fine, I’m with you on this one. Let’s wear this shit together.“

Was he kidding?

Changbin stripped down his pants and got into the shapewear, trying his best to hide the discomfort he felt. He grabbed your hand, wiped away the remaining tears and kissed you on your lips. „Let’s go, y/n.“

The Christmas party was lovely but you could hardly concentrate on anything. Your eyes wandered back to your boyfriend, especially to his waist to be precise. He looked uncomfortable and had trouble breathing but he still flashed you his brightest smile. He barely ate anything, he was feeling too nauseous for that. He didn’t say a word and suffered through it but you knew how it felt to wear the spanx.

He was a real soldier, that one. You chatted with his colleagues and his boss, received a lot of compliments for your dress and played some games before you called it a night. Changbin was too busy to properly talk to you, yet his eyes never left you.

As the two of you made it back home he sighed in relief, ripping the spanx off him. „Fuck, let me get rid of this shit. I feel like my organs shrank.“

His actions really made you think. You undressed yourself and looked at your body in the mirror, freeing yourself of everything, too. The spanx left red marks on your body, further proof of your self hatred.

Changbin hugged you from behind, his sad eyes had returned. You grabbed his arms and squeezed his biceps, a ritual you had invented for when you felt overwhelmed.

„Why do you hate your stomach so much?“ He calmly spoke to you through the mirror.

„Because it’s fat. It’s too thick. I want to be skinny like other girls. I want to have abs. But it stays like this no matter what I do.“

It took courage to confess but you were glad you did.

„Do you like my body, baby?“

You laughed. „Of course I do, look at you. You’re like a sexy beast.“

Changbin chuckled. „Well, I hated my body for a long time, baby. All the other guys were slender and skinny but I couldn’t be. I starved myself and tried to lose weight but my body refused. Until one day I finally understood that I don’t have to look like that. I don’t have to look like someone else. I have to look like me baby, and that’s more than enough.“

Tears started flowing again as you felt for him, too.

„You don’t have to look like other girls. And you don’t have to have their abs. Baby girl, all you gotta do is look like you. And you are so beautiful, can’t you really not see?“

Changbin placed his big hands on your stomach, softly, and held you for a while.

„I love your curves. I love your tummy the way it is. I think you are the most beautiful girl on the planet. I don’t want you to change. At all. I wanna buy you sexy clothes and dress you in them. I wanna parade you around and show everybody how fucking gorgeous you are.“

He got on his knees again and turned you around. Changbin left sweet kisses all over your stomach, each one accentuating his honest words. „You may not believe me now but someday you wil, y/n.“

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straylightdream · 5 months

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what am I missing? ~ 3racha

act six: “baby you need to relax for me.”

feat: bang chan x f.reader, seo changbin x f.reader, han jisung x f.reader

↳ in your mid to late twenties you’re left wondering if you missed your sexual awakening. With a the help of friends you start to really find yourself.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: for the story as a whole angst, a little fluff, body image issues, and self doubt, cussing all smut warnings listed below for what is in this story.

series masterlist

𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐝𝐛𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐬.

𝐚𝐧: I couldn’t leave you guys on a cliffhanger. these will be shorter Drabble style chapters. 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰. Please fill out this form.

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: nipple play, clit and vaginal fingering, lots of dry humping and some dirty talk. for the story as a whole, oral (fem & male receiving), piv, unprotected sex, groping, threesome, use or traffic light system, choking, and spanking, more warning to come.

Sitting on his lap you can’t help but feel self conscious about your weight. His hands rub your sides as your lips move together. After your first kiss he wasted no time pulling you as close to him as possible.

“You’re so pretty,” he says with his lips against your jaw. Closing your eyes you tilt your head to the side to give him more access to your neck. “What do you want me to do?” His strong hands moves down you back and grabs your butt squeezing it harshly before pulling you forward grinding you against his already hardening length.

“I don’t care what you do, just keep touching me,” you moan rolling your hips forward.

Leaning your head back you press your chest against him. “I want to see you naked so bad,” he groans.

Pulling back you quickly remove your sweater. You sit there on his lap in your bra and a pair of leggings. He paused for a short moment before he grabbed your boob in his strong hand and squeezed the sensitive flesh earning a moan from you.

“Pretty, can I take this off?” He’s moved on to playing with the strap on your bra.

“Please.”

He reaches behind you removing your gray colored bra with ease. He leans back and just stares at you for a long moment. His warm eyes stare at you like you’re the only thing that matters.

“You’re killing me each time you grind on me.” He sounds so turned on with his voice low. He leans forward, taking both your bare breasts in his hands. His hands are rough. He pinches your nipple causing you to moan.

“Are you sensitive here?” He grins, flicking your hardened nipple. You can’t think you just nod. The moment he takes your breast in his mouth you can’t help but roll your hips forward. You know you have to be soaking wet from just dry humping each other and from him playing with your boobs.

“Where do you wanna do it?” You moan as he bites your nipple gently.

He pulls away looking at you with a lust filled look in his eyes. “Right here on the couch. I want you to ride me.”

You pause feeling very self conscious about you putting your full weight on him.

“I have condoms in my room,” you pull away from him fully. Getting off his laps you smile, “please be naked when I get back.”

The little laugh that passes his lips reminds you that the boy you’re about to have sex with is still your goofy best friend Chan.

Running off to your room you make quick work of removing your legging and underwear leaving yourself completely naked. You feel slightly embarrassed at the idea of walking back into your living room completely naked. You pull on your short robe before grabbing a row of three condoms.

Walking back into the living room your mouth practically waters at the site of Chan full naked sitting on your couch. He’s fully hard and the moment your eyes lock he strokes his length.

“Why am I the only one naked?” He raises his eyebrow. “Come here,” he signals you to come towards him. Walking over to him you stop right in front of him. You drop the condoms onto the coffee table. He stands up and unties your robe. He pushes it off your shoulders leaving you fully naked.

“Can I touch you?” You can’t help but smile when he’s asking for your permission.

“Of course you can.”

“Turn around for me.”

Silently you follow his command. You take a deep breath wondering what he has planned. The moment you feel his length poking against your back you close your eyes. One of his hands grabs your hip pulling your back flush against his. He feels like stone against your soft body. His strong hand splays across your stomach causing you to take a deep breath.

“Baby, you need to relax.” He never called you a baby before.

His hand makes its way down your stomach. The moment his hand touches your folds you can instantly feel yourself getting wetter. He draws figure eights on your sensitive clit while he leaves a trail of wet kisses up the base of your neck.

“Fuck,” you moan.

“Can you come just by me playing with your clit?” There is something about Chan talking dirty to you that is absolutely intoxicating.

“Please.”

He works his hand down lower and starts pumping one finger into you. The only sound in the room is your heavy breathing as you focus on the feeling of his hands on you. He moves his focus back to your clit. With each pass of his fingers you feel like you’re losing your mind.

You fall apart moaning his name. You leaning back on him rely on him to help make sure you don’t fall. “That was amazing.” He pulls away from you but holds into your hips helping you stay up.

“Baby how did the boys before not know how to make you cum like that?”

Turning around you look at him and even with his lust filled gaze and his dirty talk he is still your sweet best friend. “No one has seemed to care about my pleasure before, other than Bin.” You feel dirty mentioning your and your other friend's name right now but you want him to know the truth.

He takes your face in both hands and leans forward to gently press his lips to yours. “You’re always my main priority in life.”

Pulling away from you he sits back down on the couch like he had been before. Walking toward him you reach down and pick up the packets of condom. You tear one foil packet off and hold it out for Chan. He tears it open and rolls the rubber down his length.

“Come here,” he says softly.

You slowly crawl onto his lap. You hover over his length for a short moment. He leans forward pressing a gentle kiss to your collarbone. Slowly you sink down to his length. You gasped as you bottomed out. Your hands rested on his chest as you stayed still for a moment adjusting to his size. He’s longer than Changbin and hits parts deep inside you. All the oxygen seemed to be sucked out of the room and you needed each other to breathe. His hand rests below the underside of breast. His thumb drags across your skin helping you relax.

“Hey,” he whispered, catching your attention.

“Yeah?”

“Baby you need to relax for me.” His sweet words cause you to smile.

“You’ve never called me baby before this.”

“Should I stop?” He cocks his head to the side.

“No, I like it.” You couldn’t never get tired of hearing him call you baby.

“Can you move for me?”

Silently you nod.

You started to move slowly up and down his length. The only other sounds passing your lips were pants and soft moans. You don’t think anything has ever felt nearly as inmate as what was happening between you and Chan. Your hands gripped his shoulders as you continued to ride him. His hands moved from the underside of your breast down to your soft sides. He helped guide you as he moved up and down his length.

You gasped and leaned forward resting your head against his shoulder. Your lips gently nipped at his shoulder. You knew you were probably going to leave a mark reminding you both of what had happened between you on your couch.

With each thrust the coil in your stomach tightened. Leaning up you pressed your lips to his for a hungry kiss. He knew you were close by the sounds of your needy whimpers. One of his hands moved down to where you were joined and his fingers toyed with your sensitive nub.

With your lips ghosting his you moaned his name as he pushed you over the edge. As your walls pulled on his length it didn’t take too long for him to hit his high and spill inside you in the condom. You sit still with him snug inside completely while sitting on his lap. Your forehead was resting against his as you both your breathing was uneven. His hand moved up and rested on your cheek and he placed a wet kiss on your lips.

“Can we move to your bed to cuddle?” He asked.

“Of course.”

Curling up in your bed you both were still completely naked. “What happens now Chan?” You weren’t sure what any of this means.

“I don’t think it’s right I get in the way of you exploring yourself like you want to,” he sighs curling up behind you. His body is spooned against yours as his hand rests on your soft stomach.

“Are you okay if I see Changbin and Jisung?” He wants to say no desperately, but he knows he can’t be selfish right now. He feels selfish enough that he slept with you so he could have at least part of you.

“Yeah I’ll be okay.”

“Okay,” you whisper.

“Thank you for today. You made me feel really good about myself. You made me feel like I was sexy.”

He presses his lips to your shoulder for a gentle kiss. “Baby you are sexy.”

“Are you going to stay the night?”

“I’m going to stay until I have to leave to go home and change for work at six in the morning.”

You fall asleep wondering what happens after this night you shared with Chan and what happens if/when you sleep with Jisung.

Regarding taglist:

If you aren’t interacting with my writing outside of liking the new post I’m gonna have to remove your name from the taglist. You will also be removed if I try to tag you and your blog is listed as "invisible". If you've changed your URL and didn't let me know I will also be removing your name. I’m sorry for the inconvenience but my interactions outside or likes feels like it’s nonexistent right now. All of my taglist are still open though. If you request to be added to one via this form, I kindly ask for interactions in the form and feedback and reblogs. To be quite honest, those really encourage my writing.

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jae-bummer · 6 months

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Un-Breaking Up

Request: i’m not sure if your request are still open honestly it’s my first time requesting ever. do you think you could do one of 10, and 13 with changbin, they were exes and something happened either one could say 10 and then they get stuck together, idk this was a big brain fart

Prompt:

10) “Was it worth it?”

13) Oh no! There's only one bed!

Pairing: Stray Kids Changbin x Reader

Genre: Angst (with a happy ending)

Song rec as you read: Top or Cliff - KIM SEJEONG

"What do you mean there's only one room left?" you hissed into your cell phone.

"They overbooked for the weekend," Chan sighed on the other end of the line. "We reserved the rooms when you and Bin were still together."

"And I told you I would pay the extra to get my own room," you groaned. This could not be happening.

When you had agreed to go on this friend-cation, you had been blissfully wrapped in the throes of love.

Now, you were stranded at the airport with a headache and an ex-boyfriend hailing a cab.

"It would have been nice for you to tell me he was on the same flight by the way," you scoffed.

"You literally booked the flights together-"

"You said he was going to change them to come in earlier! With you!"

"I thought he was!" Chan gasped. "Look, if you can't suck it up and be an adult for five minutes-"

"It's a twenty-minute drive," you pouted.

"And rooms are already sorted, so you guys are just going to have to figure it out," he sighed. You could almost hear him, miles away, shaking his head in disappointment.

"Can't he like...stay on your pull-out couch?" you hedged. "I'm sure your partner won't-"

"Oh, they will very much mind," Chan chuckled. "Plus, Changbin paid his portion just like everyone else. He's not getting downgraded to my loveseat."

"He's small enough to fit damn near anywhere," you muttered.

"Y/N," Chan said slowly, careful to keep his annoyance reigned in. "We'll see you soon, okay?"

"Just say you hate me," you complained. You knew you were being dramatic, but you were in too deep to turn back now. It really wasn't your intention to be a brat, but you and Changbin hadn't seen each other in weeks. Your friends had inadvertently become children of divorce, so you knew Chan didn't deserve the grief you were giving him.

"If by hate you mean love," he said cheerfully. "Now get your butt here. I'll see you in the morning."

Rolling your eyes, you hung up the call and shoved your phone in your pocket. Turning on your heel, you marched over to where Changbin was shoving suitcases into the back of a taxi.

"Everything okay?" he huffed, pushing the very last of the luggage into the trunk. "What did Chan say?"

"That you've been invited to sleep on his pullout couch," you smiled brightly.

"Y/N."

"They couldn't get us separate rooms," you muttered, crossing your arms. "And we have to make do."

Changbin's eyebrows shot up. "I'll pay the difference."

"Tried that," you sighed. "They literally have no more room."

"They always have more room," Changbin grumbled, yanking his phone out of his pocket. "Even if it's an executive suite."

"By all means," you hummed, sliding into the back of the waiting car. "If you think you can do something literally no one else could, go ahead."

Choosing not to acknowledge your comment, Changbin joined you in the backseat. Careful to keep a sufficient space barrier between the two of you, he informed the driver of your destination before getting on the phone with what you assumed to be the hotel concierge.

No matter how charming he could be, the fifteen minutes he spent on the phone yielded no results. As he hung up, you could see how ruffled he was. Leaning his head against the window of the taxi, he slowly exhaled.

"Let me guess?" you remarked. "No matter how much money you threw at the problem, it didn't work?"

Taking a deep breath, he swiveled toward you. "I was just trying to help-"

"No one asked," you said sharply. "I tried to fix the problem and couldn't. So did Chan. I don't know why you thought you could come in and save the day-"

"You used to like it when I saved the day," he bristled.

You knew you weren't being fair and simply picking at him just for the sake of picking. "I used to like you in general, but here we are."

Changbin closed his eyes and leaned back into the seat. Luckily, the hotel was already coming into sight. Unluckily, you would still be stuck together for the next few days.

"Shit," Changbin said, stepping into the hotel room.

Yanking your suitcase over the lip of the door, you made your way into the room, stopping just behind him. "What-"

The words were erased from your tongue as you took in your surroundings. The room was gorgeous, and admittedly, pretty romantic. You were greeted by a small seating area and a low table decorated with rose petals and snacks. Looking further into the room, you could see you had your own private pool outside, intimate and moody with low lighting. The thing you had avoided recognizing though was perhaps the most obvious.

There was only one bed.

"Perfect," you croaked, completely exhausted by this whole situation. "Absolutely perfect."

"I could try to-"

"My guess is," you said slowly. "That they are so fully booked, that they won't be able to move us to a room with two queens."

"But you don't know that for sure," he said with a small nod, trying to convince himself. "I'll go to the front desk."

"Knock yourself out," you sighed, leaning against the wall to begin sliding slowly down it. It was time to accept defeat. "Better yet actually knock yourself out."

Changbin shot you a dirty look as he yanked the door open and disappeared from sight.

Too bad he was back within ten minutes.

"Let me guess," you smirked. "They are fully booked and won't be able to move us to a room with two queens?"

"You don't have to gloat," he pouted, plopping on the edge of the bed. Looking helplessly around the room, his focus landed on the two armchairs in the seating area (very much not a normal, pull-out couch.) "I can just make a pallet on the floor."

You felt a small pang in your chest. As much as you didn't want to admit you had any threads of care left for the man in front of you, you did. And unfortunately, you didn't want to condemn him to sleeping on the floor. "That wouldn't be fair to you."

"It is what it is," he sighed. "And I'm not going to subject you to laying in a bed with me when you don't even want us to be in the same room."

"Stop being dramatic," you scoffed, totally projecting. "We can make a pillow barrier. Plus, I really don't want to hear you complain and make me into the bad guy."

"Y/N," he groaned. "It's not like that."

You chewed on your lip, knowing it wasn't. Changbin had honestly been much more charitable than you had even tried being since the two of you had broken up. You had pinned most of the reasons for separating on him, so maybe he had taken it to heart.

Choosing to ignore his protests, you began to unpack instead. Leaving the top two drawers in the dresser open for him (a habit from when you were dating) you silently moved your clothing and essentials to various parts of the room.

"Do you mind if I shower first?" he asked. His tone was careful, as if he was waiting for you to explode.

You hated it.

"Go for it," you answered.

He moved quietly toward the bathroom, leaving you with only your thoughts as you heard the click of the lock.

Moving toward the bed, you shoved your face into a pillow to let loose a mix between a groan and scream. Sometimes it just helped to make nonsensical sounds when you were feeling frustrated.

It was difficult being around Changbin again. Even though the two of you had broken up, there were feelings there. You had been so desperately in love with him at one point, you just assumed you would be a little bit in love forever. You thought the two of you had been bulletproof, but in one evening of anger, you managed to break both your heart and his (and still clung to the rationalization that it was all his fault).

You knew who he was when you had started dating. Seo Changbin, member of Stray Kids, producer in 3racha, gym rat, and lastly, boyfriend. All of those things came first, and you were so, so tired of being the last checkbox on the list. After being cancelled on for maybe the hundredth time because there was some sort of work emergency, you had had enough. His things were waiting in boxes when he had eventually shown up, and you had endless reasons for why you didn't want to continue forward.

When he begged, you had shut him down. Looking back now, you knew it was because you were afraid. It was easier to have a hard break than admit that you were both flawed people who weren't trying hard enough. It was easier than actually making the effort and being uncomfortable. You werent't ready for that advanced level of vulnerability.

Changbin was one of the softest and squishiest individuals you had ever met, which made it even harder. Any form of neglect he had stumbled into subjecting you to had never came with a hard edge. When he apologized, he was genuinely sorry. He was too good and pure to have to deal with you being upset over something he loved. He dreamt of being an idol before he even knew you existed. It would be the best for both of you if you just stopped interfering in his success.

Maybe the thing that hurt you the most though was seeing how it seemingly didn't affect him. He continued forward like nothing had happened, even treating you as a friend whenever you happened to run in the same circles. That was when you decided you couldn't like him, even if you loved him. It was easier to be annoyed than show how hurt it made you.

It was sick to say that you had wanted him to be just as miserable and lost as you were.

As you heard the water cut off, you pushed your face away from the pillow and took a deep breath. It was just a quick trip. You could be cordial for the sake of your friends.

You heard him before you saw him. With the phone glued to his ear, he was chuckling at someone on the other line. It was difficult not to ogle at the water droplets still decorating his shoulders and collar bone, even though he was technically fully dressed in a tank top and shorts.

"We need to redo the guide," he instructed. "I might be able to break away for a little bit and record something.

Yes, I know I'm on vacation, but we're already behind."

After a few more minutes of arguing, he hung up, and tossed his phone onto the bed.

You couldn't help yourself. "Was it worth it?"

"Hm?" he asked. You knew he had to pull himself out of his own thoughts before he could address yours.

"Was it worth it?" you repeated, crossing your arms.

"The shower?" he asked, lifting his brows and smiling his patented one-sided smirk. "Absolutely."

"No," you croaked. "Working. On vacations, in what's supposed to be your free time. Was it all worth it?"

He plopped on the edge of the bed, keeping his back to you. "We're talking past - past tense here...aren't we? Not the call I was just on."

Your silence was answer enough.

"I like to think it was," he said quietly, tilting his head to the side as he made a hissing noise to reprimand himself. "But as days go by, the more and more I wonder if I was wrong."

You chewed on your lip, not at all knowing what answer you had expected, but that wasn't it.

Looking over his shoulder, he slowly pivoted his body to face yours. His expression softened as he said quietly, "Is that why you hate me?"

Your jaw dropped open as you floundered for one of your knee-jerk, cutting responses. His face conveyed such helplessness.

"...I don't hate you, Changbin," you said quietly. Surely, he had to know that.

"I don't think I would blame you if you did," he chuckled sadly. "I put just about everything before you, didn't I?"

"It wasn't a matter of putting things before me," you said slowly. "It was a matter of putting things before us. We were supposed to be a team."

The old adage that time heals all wounds was at least proving itself to be slightly true. It was definitely easier to speak on how you were feeling now that you had put some space between yourself and the initial confrontation.

Changbin nodded slowly. "I wanted to be better."

You tried to take the ice out of your tone. "I did too."

"Then why didn't we try?" he asked, looking toward you with watery eyes.

You tried to focus on your breathing. If Changbin cried, you were absolutely going to cry.

"I thought...I thought that I had done so badly as a boyfriend," he continued. "And that's why you treated me like I was an inconvenience once we broke up."

"You were an inconvenience," you grumbled. "Only because I was still so upset...and you were acting like everything was okay between us."

"I don't know how to act otherwise!" he contended. "We broke up and I still loved you. Treating you any other way would have hurt my heart, and I'm too selfish to do that on top of what was already done."

"Huh," you hiccupped, feeling the tears come despite your best efforts. "I really goofed, didn't I?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, furrowing his brows.

"I was the one who did the breaking up, Bin," you said quietly. "I tried to tell myself I shouldn't feel bad because it was your fault. You were the one who was always gone, but I didn't try to talk to you about it. I let it become this completely...other thing inside of me. It was like every time you cancelled, I added it to this stack until it finally tumbled over."

"But I should have realized on my own," he asserted, standing up to move closer to you. Dropping to his knees in front of you, he gathered your hands in his. Looking up through his lashes, you could see the toll the last few months had taken on him.

You were foolish to think he wasn't suffering in the same way you were.

"We can blame ourselves all day," you sniffed, finally letting the tears run over your cheeks. "But it doesn't change the fact that we broke up...and now we're here."

"So we un-break up," he mused, saying it as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

"Un-break up?" you muttered.

"Mhm," he hummed, easing up from his knees to sit beside you. Wrapping an arm around your shoulders, he tucked you into his side.

"It's not that easy," you hiccupped, shaking your head but making no attempt to untangle your body from his.

"Who says it can't be?"

"We're different people now, Bin," you maintained. "Do we even know if we can be that safe space for each other? It ended so poorly last time, and-"

"Because we let it!" he argued. "But we know now-"

"Do we?" you interrupted. "We don't actually know how to fix what happened. We walked away."

"And here we are, walking back," he chuckled, shaking his head. "We can try, really try...if you think it's worth it."

You chewed on your lip, looking toward him. His eyes were still a little puffy from his brief crying episode, but it was definitely the same Bin you had fallen in love with months ago. His dark hair was beginning to dry in its signature messy curls, and his even darker eyes watched you carefully. There was a fire there that had been extinguished for so long, seeing it again caused your heart to skip a beat. Now that you had opened the door, he would push as hard as possible to make his way back in.

"Y/N?"

"I may not be worth it," you laughed grimly. "But I know you are."

"I didn't know we were throwing a pity party," he teased. "I should have bought streamers."

"I take it back," you grumbled. "You aren't worth it."

Changbin's grin was wide as he wrapped his other arm around you and squeezed you tightly. "Of course, you're worth it, silly."

"So we're doing this," you whispered into his bare shoulder. The smell of his shower gel was still heavy on his skin, encouraging you to inhale deeply. For the first time in weeks, you felt at home.

"Hell yeah we are," he chimed. "We're going to do the shit out of this."

You laughed as you pulled away from him. You wanted to look into his eyes. He needed to understand.

"Starting now, we both promise to do better," you nodded slowly. He nodded along, eyes wide. "Which means, do you really have to work while you're here?"

He smirked, letting out a small chuckle. "Starting now, I am going to be so present in this relationship, you're going to get sick of me. You'll be begging for me to go to the studio."

"Somehow I doubt that," you sighed, lifting a hand to cradle his jaw. He tilted his face, nuzzling your palm before dropping a soft kiss there. "But I'm excited to see you try."

#seo changbin #stray kids #skz #stray kids changbin #changbin x reader #changbin angst #changbin fanfic #boyfriend changbin #stray kids x reader #skz x reader #stray kids fanfic #stray kids angst #skz angst #skz fanfic

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violetsiren90 · 10 days

Text

The Light of Your Eyes

Pairing: best friend's younger brother!Changbin x f!Reader

Genre: one-shot; friends to lovers; smut and fluff; hurt/comfort

Summary: Can the gentle touch of an unexpected pair of hands on your body heal the wounds of your soul?

Content warnings: 18+ (minors, dni), age gap romance (consenting adults); mentions of break-up and unhealthy past relationship dynamics; depression and anxiety symptoms (mild); MC has self esteem struggles, some are body-image related; the ex was low-key emotionally abusive tbh 😒; depictions of alcohol consumption (no drunkenness); depictions of food and eating (MC has a moment of negative thought patterns in regards to food consumption); gaming/watching movies; emotional breakdowns; kissing (so much kissing, guys); Fluffy fluffy FLUFF 💕; making out; interrupted shenanigans; cuddling; shirtless Binnie 👀; strong and gentle Binnie 🥺💘 ; working through FEELINGS 😅 ; breast play; nudity; oral sex (f. receiving); feedbag position; confessions and new beginnings.

Word Count: ~9300

Author's Note: Well, here it is - my first Binnie fic! I wanted to make it as sweet and sexy as he is...which, I know, is impossible, so I gave it my best shot! Hopefully, it's something worthy of his face-claim. I'm not going to make any judgements as to whether I feel it fits the bill, but rather like the man himself, tell you to be the judge of your own opinions! Jutdae!! 😂💗 But in all seriousness, if you decide to read this story, thank you! I hope it brings you something warm and fuzzy!

*The poem at the beginning is an original, and is what inspired this story!

Acknowledgements: I cannot thank @moni-logues enough for beta reading this for me, and for all her hype and humor and general human decency - this story wouldn't be what it is without her! 💖

As always, if no one has told you today, please know that you're loved, and worthy of love! 🧜‍♀️💜

the

Bright color of my laughter and the

Melody of the curve of my hips and the

Soft velvet of my irises

seemed

To have taken their first breath,

Opening gently - like flowers perfuming my soul

- When bathed in the light of your eyes.

"Changbin? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question," he says with a little smirk, whipping a dish towel over his shoulder as he shuffles back to let you in.

Fair enough, you suppose. You are showing up without notice. Not that you ever need to give his sister any notice - as your best friend, there's a key with all the others in your purse that unlocks the door you're closing behind you. You wouldn't have even knocked had his car not been parked in the driveway.

"Where's Nari?" you ask, glancing at the gaming console hooked up to the massive flat-screen, and a bullet blender cup half filled with something thick, pale and probably protein-packed sitting on the coffee table.

"She went out of town for the weekend," he calls, heading back toward the dining area. "Last minute work thing."

Damn.

Your apartment is boring and barren and lonely. You wanted to hang out. You've been coming around more than usual – almost as often as when you were in grad school together. But Nari had her own life, you understood. You had your own life too.

And then three months ago, on New Years Eve, your long-term boyfriend called it quits. It wasn't as if you were heartbroken. Not really. The relationship had been sick and slowly dying. But returning to a life lived in solitude was proving a difficult adjustment – especially navigating the new and constant stillness which left you the mental space and dexterity to run up against the shadows of wounds unhealed. And you didn't feel like growing into your EQ. You felt like distracting yourself. So you ended up at your bestie's place more often than not, these days.

You sigh, trailing toward the kitchen. You won't stay long - if her younger brother is house sitting, he'll probably have people coming over. It's Friday night, after all, and he's twenty-four years young.

The sound of running water, and music from a little speaker playing a catchy beat laced with fast-paced rap draws you into the warmly-lit, open kitchen. You recognize the voice on the track.

"This new?" you ask, dropping your bag on a barstool and rounding the island to where Changbin is up to his elbows in suds at the sink. He's in a black band tee and bright blue joggers, his curly dark hair unstyled.

He looks over his shoulder and nods.

"What do you think? Wait, no, lemme start it over..."

You smile to yourself as he hastily dries his hands and whips out his phone, pulling the track back to the beginning. He braces himself against the edge of the sink, gnawing on his bottom lip as he bobs his head with the lyrical punches and runs.

You smile to yourself, leaning your back against the counter beside him.

"This is good, Bin," you nod earnestly.

"Yeah?" he asks, returning to his soapy task.

"It really is. Hyunjin's pretty damn fast. Not as fast as you, but who is?"

You grin, bumping your hip into his side.

He smirks down into the bubbles.

He's wanted to make music for as long as you've known him, and even fifteen years ago he could spit out a diss track that would have you wetting yourself laughing. He and his buddy, Hyunjin, met in high school and started messing around with music senior year. They committed to the dream, and both worked full-time gigs - Hyunjin as a tattoo artist and Changbin as a personal trainer - while promoting their artistry in their spare time. Production was a tough road to take when they were counting on nothing but raw talent and guts, but you'd always been an unflinching supporter.

"We've got a gig next Saturday...at The Eight Ball," he remarks, looking over at you as a proud smile presses a tiny dimple into his bread cheek.

"What?!" you squeal, turning to smack him on the arm. "Dude, that's fantastic! Oh my god, congratulations!"

"Thanks, and ouch!" he replies, rubbing his arm with a pout that you ignore. It couldn't possibly have hurt him, not with those biceps.

He moves to the fridge, a grin still plastered on his face.

"You should come!" he urges over his shoulder as he appraises his sister's stash before grabbing an energy drink. "I know the boyfriend isn't into rap, but you could come with Nari..."

You scoff softly.

"Doesn't really matter what he likes anymore," you mumble bitterly.

Changbin freezes as he's about to crack open the beverage in his hand.

"Wait, what? Did you guys...is that over?"

You purse your lips and nod. Changbin looks completely taken off guard in a way that surprises you.

“When did that happen?”

You reach back to clutch at the cold tile of the countertop.

“Beginning of the year.”

He scratches his head.

“Nari didn’t…why didn’t you say something?”

You shrug, your eyes falling. For reasons you'd never considered, you’d rarely brought your ex around or even brought him up to Changbin.

He turns to the still open fridge and swaps out his energy drink for two beers, opening both and sliding one across the island between you.

"How you holding up?" he asks in earnest concern, a little furrow appearing between his dark brows.

You want to tell him that you're fine - it's what you've been telling everyone else - but from the way he holds your gaze before letting his eyes search your face, he's looking for a real answer. You pull your lip between your teeth. You're not ready to form the words that spell the truth. He sees it.

"Ah," he waves dismissively, "Fuck that guy. You're too good for him anyway. What an idiot."

You blink, a little smirk tugging at your lips.

"You don't have to hate on him just because we're-"

"I'm hating on him because I hate him," he stares at you unflinchingly, taking another swig of his beer. "He wasn't good to you, didn't make you happy. I'm glad he's gone. Seriously, fuck him."

You didn't expect that sort of reaction out of Changbin. Not that you expected anything, but the strong, certain tone he took in regards to your ex's unworthiness has a tiny little warmth glowing in your chest. It was like him to feel strongly and take a stand, but to have his conviction aimed at you...

"Thanks, Bin," you murmur softly, hiding your smile behind your beer.

The young man nods, and his lips part as if to speak when his phone buzzes in his pocket. As he answers the call - clearly, from the nature of his greeting, one of his buddies - you're reminded that you’re trespassing on his Friday night. Draining your beer, you grab your bag and slip out of the kitchen.

You huff a little sigh as you pull on your shoes, lingering listlessly for a moment before pulling open the door. The thought of going home has your stomach churning. You can't go back and be alone there.

You can't.

You have to.

How pathetic could you possibly get? you consider sickly, staring out into the darkness. Your self-loathing and mounting anxiety battle for dominance as you will yourself to take the step over the threshold that will carry you to your car…

Click.

The door swishes shut, and you blink in confusion before you note a bulky arm stretched over your shoulder, hand pressed to the wooden frame below the peephole.

You turn into Changbin's frame and he jostles backwards, hand dropping to your shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asks, a little smirk playing on his lips.

You try to get your bearings as you resurface from the flash flood of inner turmoil, blinking up at him in confusion.

"Uuhh...home?" you answer, jerking a thumb back toward your intended exit.

Changbin shakes his head.

"You just got here."

"Well...I came to see Nari but she's gone, so..."

When the faintest shadow of hurt seems to flicker over his features at your words, you stammer to clarify.

"Bin, it's Friday, I- you've got plans, right? I don't want to be in the way...Like, it's really nice seeing you don't get me wrong, but, it would suck to have one of your sister's random friends underfoot if you're...if..."

You trail off. He's watching you in amusement now, arms crossed and bottom lip pulled between his teeth, one eyebrow cocked just a little higher than the other.

"What?" you press him, now a bit self-conscious at your rambling and still on edge from the surging anxiety of moments ago.

Damn, what was with you? You'd been a mess lately, and now you couldn't even get your words out with Nari's kid brother?

"I do have plans."

Changbin's words interrupt your muddled self-assessment. You glance up at him.

What? Okay, that's what you had been trying to...

"I plan to kick your ass at Super Smash Bros Brawl," he quips, turning to round the couch and settle in front of it before reaching for the blue controller discarded on the coffee table.

Huh?

You watch him start up the game and move through selections. Shuffling toward the back of the couch, you place your hands on it. He wants to hang out? Now that he found out you'd been dumped. Nari's away, so he's falling into stride, you think to yourself. You sigh. You should be grateful. Instead, you feel like a burden.

"Um, Bin..." you murmur, "You don't have to do this..."

"Do what?" he asks without looking back. "I'm not going easy on you, if that's what you mean. And I'm using Kirby - nonnegotiable."

Your heart melts a little as your eyes rest on him. He's always been a good guy, and it was like him to do this sort of thing - look out for someone when they were feeling low. Leaving simply because you don't feel worthy of his care and attention risks hurting him more than you.

You slowly slip out of your shoes and cross into the living room, retrieving a red controller from atop the console before sinking onto the carpet beside him. You toggle through your choices before landing on Link. Changbin glances over at you disparagingly.

"Link sucks."

"Kirby sucks."

"Hey!" Changbin, practically shouts in your ear, "Don't insult my widdle cutie guy..."

You grimace theatrically at the baby talk.

"Don't ever do that again."

"Or what?" Changbin challenges as he immediately unleashes a combo move that has your character hurtling toward the edge of the battle stage.

You hop around, avoiding him and trying out different button combos. It's been forever since you played this game. Your ex had been a Halo enthusiast. You were never big on first person shooters, but you tried to get into it for his sake. He hadn't the patience to help you learn, though, and after a couple of sessions of grimaces and apologies on your behalf mumbled into his headset, he'd stopped taking you up on your offers to join him.

Kirby darts back and forth across the screen after you on stubby pink legs. Eventually you get the hang of things and are returning his attacks, though he easily bests you in an embarrassingly short sequence of moves.

"Sorry, I'm no good at video games," you mumble apologetically.

The smug look falls from Changbin's face.

"Why are you sorry?" he raises a brow, dropping his controller into his lap, a little smile still playing on his lips.

You shrug. His smile fades.

"Who says you're no good?"

Shit.

You shift your focus to the screen and toggle for a new character.

"Best two out of three."

You can feel his eyes still on you as you opt for Princess Peach.

Two out of three turns into five out of eight, and around eleven out of twenty, the doorbell rings. When Changbin turns in surprise toward the sound, you take the opportunity to deliver a critical blow, winning your first match of the night. He rolls his eyes as you giggle wickedly and moves to answer the door.

You pull your phone from your pocket reflexively to check the socials you've deleted, before sighing and tossing it across the room to land on the carpet with a thud.

"Did you just throw your phone?"

Glancing over your shoulder, you catch him shooting you a quizzical look over a stack of pizza boxes tall enough to feed a small army. Clambering to your feet you trail after him into the kitchen.

"You do have plans, you liar!" you elbow him as he opens the top box and pulls out a slice, hissing as the melted cheesy overflow burns the tips of his fingers.

"Ow!" he snaps up a napkin and cradles it under the steaming piece of pizza, shaking his other hand before holding up his fingers in front of you.

"Blow on 'em," he whines.

You raise your eyebrows.

"You're joking."

He pouts and you want to laugh. This big, grown man is seriously going to give you the lip right now?

"That's what you get for having no patience, Bin..." you tsk disapprovingly.

He lets out a little disappointed sigh.

"Meanie..." he grumbles, and lets his hand fall.

You return your focus to the obscene amount of food now stacked on Nari's kitchen table.

"So, I'm sure people are going to start showing up, so I'm just gonna..."

Changbin hands you a paper plate with two slices of pizza and heads to the fridge where he fishes out two more beers. You stare at the plate in your hand.

"I...Bin..."

"What, you don't like sweet potato?" he asks with a smirk, cracking open a can and handing it to you.

You blink at him in confusion.

"Please enjoy this meal compliments of Han Jisung, who never remembers to update the address on his delivery app. Now, load up on pizza and let’s get back to it because I'm not trying to let you act like you came out on top from winning that last match on a fluke."

You scoff at his last remark. Watching him pile several slices onto his plate, you take a bite of yours. It tastes good, and you realize as it hits your stomach that you haven't eaten all day. When was the last time you ate a real meal? When was the last time you wanted one?

"Noona?"

Changbin's voice makes you realize you had zoned out and when you blink up at him, there's just nine inches of disposable dinnerware between you. His lips are pursed and his eyes trace your features, their gaze gentle but searching.

"You alright?" he asks.

There it is again; the concern. He isn't just checking in. His voice is soft and low, like his eyes. As a rule, Changbin's voice is strong, resonant - saying everything from his chest without even trying. So when he's gentle, when he pulls himself back...

"Do you miss that guy?" he murmurs.

"No!"

You say it so quickly.

Changbin nods.

"I'm just..." Fuck, why are you suddenly so emotional? "I think I'm...adjusting. Y'know?"

He nods again slowly. Then he reaches up and touches your face, dragging his thumb over the side of your mouth and suddenly your brain waves flat-line. Your eyes widen and your lips part, but before you can even process what's happening, he drops his hand to swipe it on a napkin.

"Had sauce on your face," he mumbles, and you can't read his.

His mouth is tugged up in a small smile but somehow it looks sad, and his eyes look like they're still asking a question that was never really answered. Before you can consider any further, he picks up his plate and heads back toward the living room.

You follow him, still half in your head.

When you sit down next to him, there's something hanging unspoken in the foot and a half of space between your bodies. Something has shifted, gone taut.

Shit, had you made him uncomfortable? Why had you stared at him like a weirdo when he...wait, he touched you...

Your eyes shift over to where he sits beside you. He runs a hand through the wavy hair over his ear. Has he always been so beautiful? He turns quick enough to catch you staring and you put your plate out of your lap. The pizza smells so good but suddenly you can't touch it.

Changbin initiates another round, which you lose in record time. Your stomach grumbles.

"You better eat if you're going to have any hope of beating me again," he goads, finishing off his third slice to abandon the crust with the others on his plate before launching another game.

"I had enough," you deflect, pushing your plate toward him.

"You took two bites."

"I need to cut back."

"Like...go on a diet?"

"Yeah."

His brows furrow and his tongue slips between his lips as he sends Kirby into a hammer flip that lands as a critical hit and you wince.

"What have you eaten today?"

"What?"

"You heard me."

"I...I don't know. I..."

Your stomach twists. The hunger is there, but so is the anxiety. The fear of being judged for eating too much or too quickly or...

The game pauses. Your plate slides back toward you over the carpet.

"The rest of that piece. Or whatever else you want. But something."

His voice is gentle but firm. You sigh.

"Fine," you murmur, grabbing the half-eaten slice.

You take a bite, and slowly raise your eyes to his as they regard you patiently.

"Sorry," you mumble, covering your mouth, shifting away from him.

"Why now?"

"I make gross noises when I eat."

"What? No you d-"

A hand tugs at your elbow. When you look back toward him his handsome face holds so many things, and you watch as they take turns seizing his features. Horror...pity...anger.

"Who told you that?" he asks lowly, but it doesn't sound like a question. "Noona..."

He squeezes your elbow.

You feel everything you've been shoving down in your chest begin to well up.

Fuck, no!

Your lip trembles.

He's shifting to face you.

You shake your head and press your eyes shut.

Your hand is encompassed in a larger one.

"It's lies, all of it," Changbin whispers with desperate conviction...and your dam breaks.

He pulls you into his arms as you sob with abandon. One of his hands encircles your waist tugging you against his broad, warm chest, and the other slips to brush tenderly over your nape as you tuck your face into his neck.

"He's a liar...shhhh...he's a lying piece of shit," he insists earnestly, into your hair. "You're perfect. He's the one who needs to fix himself. You're so, so perfect."

Perfect? You let your heart hold the word in its palm for one precious moment before pushing it away. Your heart had never been one to accept gifts it didn't think it deserved.

You weep and weep in his strong arms until you run out of tears, and then he holds you while you breathe. As the catharsis of your breakdown begins to settle in, you wonder at the comedown - a softer, warmer one than you've ever known – and you consider the loveliness that has broken your fall.

Soft and firm, everywhere he touches you. And warm. So warm. Not just the heat radiating from his body like a furnace – the velvet rasp of his voice, the absolute and unfaltering nature of his embrace.

Your hands move tentatively against his back. Soft cotton stretches and bunches between your fingers over his sturdy frame. Where your face is pressed to his collar every breath draws in a comforting combination of detergent and cologne. When you close your eyes and sigh, letting your weight sink against him further, you feel his arms tighten in response.

"Sorry," you croak feebly.

"Stop," he implores you, "Every time you apologize, I want to sock that guy in the face."

"I...I'm so stupid, I didn't even really realize..."

"No," his arms squeeze you again, "He had your trust. It was his job to protect you."

Protected. That's how you feel right now. Safe. So, so safe. Letting him hold you and reassure you felt good...it felt right. But yet again, the voice in your mind that liked to remind you how much of a burden you always were speaks up in a sickly whisper.

You pull yourself slowly from his arms and off his lap. Drawing yourself up to stand, you wipe your hot cheeks, puffy red eyes finding his like the needle of a compass. Unprepared for what awaits you in his gaze, your knees nearly give out beneath you.

Changbin is looking up from where he kneels before you, the yearning in his eyes unchecked as they burn with an unasked question and an unspoken promise.

"I should go," you whisper, barely able to form the words.

"Don't," he says, standing.

"If I stay I'll just wreck your night," you mumble.

"You could never," he insists, lips tugging into a little smile. His eyes are still pleading.

"Changbin..." you breathe, suddenly drowning again in the fizzy serotonin his words ignite in your chest. "You don't want..."

"You let me be the judge of what I want."

His hands find your arms and he pulls you in. There are centimeters between you. His eyes rest on your lips. Your heart hammers in your ears as your brain begins to malfunction the way it had when he touched your face...

"D-do I have something on my-"

Mouth? His.

The whole of your being floods with something beautiful and ineffable at the touch of his lips and no voice, no doubt, no force in the world could be stronger than the one that pulls you into him. Your arms fly up to wrap around his neck and tug yourself impossibly closer. His hands drop to your waist, pressing desperately in kind, and your bodies mold together. You flush with heat, sparks igniting in your belly and skittering through your veins as his lips move against yours. He stumbles back, pulling you with him as his knees buckle at the edge of the couch, and your body spills over his lap.

Your fingers card into his hair.

His hands drop to the back of your hips.

Your tongue brushes his bottom lip.

He moans.

At the gorgeous, deep sound from his chest, you pull back, fighting the smile that pulls at the corners of your mouth. What the fuck is happening right now? You don't get much time to consider as his head falls against the backrest and his eyes flutter open.

"Sorry," he grins bashfully. The tips of his ears burn pink.

"Now who's apologizing for no reason?" you tease, pressing your hands to his chest.

He smiles so sweetly in return you feel you might physically melt. And then the smile fades and the lids of his eyes grow heavy and he leans up to claim your mouth.

His lips taste the same as a moment ago, but their press is slower, hungrier. His hands are powerful and assertive as they hook under your thighs and pull your hips flush against his own in a single tug. You gasp softly against his lips and you feel his smirk. You feel his smirk and something else - something beginning to press up into your ass through your jeans.

Licking into his mouth, you push down, grinding your hips over his in a slow, deliberate undulation. The groan that falls from his lips unlocks something inside of you that needs to know every sound he makes and how to elicit them. Your mouth drops to his neck.

Suddenly, he's gripping your waist and pivoting to lay you on the cushions, slotting himself between your legs. You're still dizzy from the sudden rush of movement, when your legs curl around his hips and over his ass and–

A loud buzzing from the coffee table has you mourning the press of Changbin's lips to your throat as he glances at the caller ID.

"Shit!" he scrambles to sit up, hand still gripping your thigh above your knee when he presses the phone to his ear.

"Hey," he runs a hand through his hair. "What? Nothing. No, I didn't forget. I will, I will."

You recognize his tone of voice. There could only be one person on the other end of the line. You sit up, your head beginning to clear as the reality of the situation washes over you.

"Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Be safe. Love you."

Changbin presses the end-call button and tosses the phone onto the cushion beside him. He leans back against the couch and claps his hand against your leg with a sigh.

"She really knows how to wreck a moment for me."

You crack a wry smile.

"I mean, it's probably for the best that we don't desecrate your sister's couch."

His eyes widen as horror, disgust, and amusement wage war across his features. You burst into a fit of giggles. He feigns a gag. You laugh so hard that you snort.

"S-sorry," you clap your hand over your mouth, still tittering while your ears heat in embarrassment.

Changbin's face softens again. He reaches for your hand and pulls it from your face, threading his fingers through yours.

"Cut it out."

"What? I can't be embarrassed about snorting like a pig?"

"No. It's cute," he smirks.

"It is not!"

"Mhm. Everything you do is cute."

He glances over at you, a lopsided smirk on his perfect lips, his eyes sparkling. He means it.

You fluster, gaze dropping to your enjoined hands, and concentrate on tracing little patterns on the back of his with your thumb. He sighs.

"Wanna watch a movie?"

The request takes you by surprise and your heart squeezes. If it was any other guy, the night would have been over. For the fourth time tonight, you had been about to head for the door, and for the fourth time, Changbin makes you feel wanted. So you stay.

You grab a big, fluffy blanket from the basket in Nari's room, and when you return, Changbin has the lights dimmed and Your Name ready to go on the TV. You smile as you settle in beside him, tossing half the blanket over his widespread legs.

"We don't have to watch this just because it's my favorite, you know," you insist, but he shakes his head.

"Taki's ma' boy," he smirks, shooting you a glance as he presses play on the remote.

You're not quite sure what it means, but you feel your heart skip a beat just the same.

You love this movie. You love that you've seen it enough times that you can talk through it. You love that Changbin is more than willing to talk over the film himself. You're not certain when it happened, but by halfway through the movie his arm is stretched out behind your shoulders and your head rests on his bicep.

"Do you remember seeing this together in the theater?" he asks suddenly, tilting his head toward yours.

You grin.

"You cried and Nari gave you shit about it," you recall.

"You bailed me out. Told her all the sniffling was you. Never even teased me about it either."

Changbin smiles down at you, his eyes sentimental.

Butterflies flutter their delicate wings in your ribcage. How does he make you feel this way?

Your eyes dip to his lips for a moment. Sighing, you nuzzle into his shoulder, hiding your face as much as seeking his warmth. His arm slips off the back of the couch to curl around your shoulders and pull you into his side. The movie plays on.

When the credits roll, Changbin stretches and yawns, and watching him it dawns on you that, working at a fitness center, he's an especially early riser.

"We should call it a night," you offer, standing and stretching yourself, but you're tugged back down into Changbin's lap, yelping as you topple onto him.

His arms encircle your hips as he regards you with a sleepy grin.

"What, do I live here now?" you tease.

"Stay the night," he urges, tightening his arms around you. "You really want to drive back now?"

You chew your lip, eyes tracing over his face. This is all more than a bit unreal, and you haven't given yourself even one second to process what's happening, lest you utterly panic. All you know right now is that your little ship had been sinking and he had hauled you into a lifeboat. Everything outside of him seems like a raging sea.

You nod.

"Okay," you whisper, combing his hair away from his forehead. “I’ll stay.”

His eyes dip shut at your touch and the butterflies flutter gently once more.

A few minutes later, you take Nari's room and slip into a pair of her cotton shorts, which do basically nothing to contain your ass, and tug on a plain white tee that stretches snugly over your torso. How a big guy like Changbin could have emerged from the same genetic pool as his teeny tiny sister was beyond you. As you glance in the mirror, your heart sinks. You don't like how the tight fit is pressing you out everywhere you're most self-conscious. But, they are just pajamas, and they're all you have at your disposal.

As you're about to head into the master bathroom to finish your nightly routine, you remember that the toothbrush and toiletries you keep on hand at Nari's are in the little half-bath attached to the guest room. You groan, glancing at yourself again in the mirror, and pull a blanket around yourself before crossing the hall.

Hoping Changbin hasn’t yet fallen asleep, you knock hesitantly on the door. You hear the bed creak before the door opens to reveal a head of mussed hair and hands scrubbing over bleary eyes. But it's not what you notice. Your apology for rousing him dies on your lips as your eyes glue themselves to his bare chest. Blinking dumbly, your eyes climb from his soft stomach subtly rippling with the presence of strong abdominals up to a pair of impressive pecs with wide-set, dusky nipples. His flannel pajama pants settle at his hips, accentuating how his body broadens as it rises from his waist to his full chest and wide shoulders flanked by bulging biceps. Thick. He's so fucking thick you could bi-

"...Noona?" he rumbles, his voice husky from sleep. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing...sorry..." you rush out, ripping your gaze up to his. "My toothbrush is in your room – I mean! in your bathroom. That's where I usually stay, so...but I didn't think you'd be asleep. Sorry, I can just..."

He rubs over one of his eyes with his palm as he steps aside.

"You can grab it."

Right. You shuffle in awkwardly, trying not to step on the blanket dragging around your feet. As you cross the dark room, you try not to dwell on the rumpled sheets of the bed that speak of his body having lain between them, or the soft smell of his cologne hanging in the air. You quickly retrieve the little toiletry bag and, as you move to squeeze past Changbin at the door, he eyes the fluffy shroud you're clutching to your chest.

He raises a sleepy eyebrow.

"I'm sure Nari has pants you could..."

"I'm wearing pants!" you bluster, "They just...don't fit."

You move out of the doorway to make your way back to your room, but a hand cups the side of your face and turns it as soft lips meet your forehead.

"Good night, noona," he murmurs with a little smile before retreating back into his room.

You stand in the hall, staring at his door, the butterflies absolutely aflurry.

Despite your best efforts, you can't sleep. Your mind is full of the last five hours. Full of Changbin.

He had kissed you. You had kissed him back. And it had felt...

You roll from your side to your back, sighing up at the dark ceiling. You chew on your lip as you remember breaking down and his arms around you. You would usually feel regretful and ashamed after baring yourself like that to someone. You despised moments of weakness. But you couldn't bring yourself to hate the moments in his arms. You didn't regret them. In fact, you wanted him to hold you again. You wanted to feel vulnerable in his hands, and you wanted him to keep you safe.

You feel heat rush up from your neck as you recognize these feelings.

You must be absolutely shameless, you conclude in wonder. You should be freaking out right now - this was Changbin, for Christ's sake – Nari's brother! You should be wondering what happens next, and what all of it means...but even so you can’t bring yourself to care. All your mind can focus on is how his arms felt like waking up after a nightmare to song birds and soft sunlight.

After an hour or so of tossing and turning, the salty pizza from dinner has you parched and slipping out to the kitchen for a drink. You pull a glass from the cupboard and fill it at the fridge, gulping down the contents to refill it again. Suddenly, you feel two strong arms snake around your waist and you start, sloshing your water and smacking the back of your head into the man holding you. You hastily set your glass down and turn in his arms as he lets out a groan, one of his hands releasing you as it flies up to cup the front of his face in pain.

"Bin, oh my god! Are you okay? You scared me!" you chide with a chuckle as you reach up to push his hand away and brush the tips of your fingers across his nose.

He pouts down at you and you smile.

"Did I wake you?"

He huffs.

"Yeah. To get your toothbrush. Then I couldn't go back to sleep."

"Sorry," you groan, still stroking over where you had struck his face. "Does it hurt?"

He nods.

"Kiss it better," he mumbles cutely.

You roll your eyes, but lift your lips to comply when suddenly he interrupts the motion with the soft press of his mouth to yours. It's slow and sweet, and you're struck all over again with how quickly you melt at his touch - a sensation you cannot imagine ever growing accustomed to, but to which you are fairly certain you are in danger of growing entirely addicted.

"Bin..." you whisper against his lips, "Bin, what are we-"

"Liar," he murmurs, pulling back.

Your mouth parts in confusion as you stare up at him, still drunk on his lips.

"You said the clothes didn't fit. You should wear this all the time," he smirks as he squeezes low on your waist.

Your cheeks heat as you remember what you're wearing, but you don't have long to be anxious over it as he presses his lips to your nose...the corner of your mouth...your jaw. You tremble as you lean into him, fingers splaying over his warm, bare chest.

"Let me show you," he whispers against your skin.

"Sh-show me...what...?"

He draws back, pressing his forehead to yours.

"How perfect you are."

You still, eyes flicking up to his. They're dark and tender and pleading. You let out a little shuddering breath.

"I...you don't have t-"

His arms hold you closer, gentle but insistent.

"Let me," he whispers, the tip of his handsome nose brushing over the dip of your cupid's bow. "Please. I want to."

You swallow, eyes dropping to his lips. You want it too, you find. You want his hands and lips and eyes all over you, bringing warmth everywhere they meet your aching body. You nod and take his lips again with yours.

"Yeah?" he murmurs against them.

"Yeah," you breathe, slipping a hand up the back of his neck and into his hair.

He groans in response, deepening the kiss as he licks at your parted lips and when your tongues brush, sparks burst in your belly. You feel it all slipping, the masks, the walls - every barrier you hold up to shield yourself from not being enough. His arms are strong and his lips are tender and you can't focus on anything but the perfection of being so utterly held.

His mouth moves to caress your jaw, under your ear, down the column of your neck, and suddenly you feel the edge of the counter pressing into the small of your back. His hands grip your waist and he hitches you onto the tiled surface with ease. It's cold against your bare legs, but you don't have more than a second to register the discomfort as Changbin nudges his way between your knees. He runs his hands over your thighs as his eyes trail from your panting lips to your lightly heaving chest.

You feel your nipples pebble under his gaze and a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, his eyes glinting with mischief as he runs a hand up your side, over your shirt, to rest under the swell of your breast. He flicks a thumb over the hardened bud and you whimper and jump. He laughs softly, his smirk spreading into a full smile as he squeezes your breast and brings his eyes to yours.

"Your pretty body likes me, noona," he puffs proudly, massaging you deftly through the soft cotton of the tee.

You don't have a witty retort. Your body likes him so much that it frightens you. And with the deep affection you already feel, have long felt, for him...

You reach to gently tangle your hand again in his coarse, dark curls. He glances up, a sweet little smirk tugging at his pretty lips again.

"Bin..." you sigh.

"Hmm?" he hums as he slips his hands to your bottom and tugs you forward so that you're flush against him.

You dip your head and your lips ghost his.

"Nothing," you whisper, and you kiss him again. Again and again.

His hands slide from your ass to slip beneath your shirt at your lower waist and he kneads the soft flesh above your hips.

"So soft. Feels so good," he groans into your mouth.

You moan as the walls of your pussy contract. You're beginning to ache, beginning to drip – and his words seem to affect you as intensely as his touch.

He moves his lips to latch onto the soft skin of your neck and suck, his hands bunching your shirt up and up until his mouth pops free from your skin and he's pulling the thin garment over your head and tossing it aside. The cool air pricks your skin and you become keenly aware, for the briefest moment, that you are sitting on your best friend's kitchen counter, stripped down to her sleep shorts, with her brother between your thighs. As your brain races to decide whether to find that incredibly arousing or absolutely panic-inducing, Changbin's cherry lips rewire your neurological pathways in favor of the former when they close around your right nipple. Your head lolls back, colliding with the cabinet door and it clatters.

"Shit..." you hiss softly, threading your hands into his hair and gripping it by the roots.

Your eyes slip shut and you focus on the sensation of his warm tongue slipping over the peaks of your breasts, his strong, smooth palms cupping and caressing. And then you feel his little puffs of breath and the nudge of his nose at the valley of your chest as he groans and smushes your tits up to meet his face.

"I fucking live here now," he mumbles into the globe of your breast, and despite the heat of the moment, you softly laugh. You laugh and you feel his smile pressed to your skin.

Then suddenly he's pulling you into his arms in a bridal carry. You know he's strong, as you wrap your arms around his neck, but can't push away a pang of self-consciousness as he bears your weight.

"Bin, I'm so heavy..."

"You're not."

"I don't want you to..."

"Stop it," comes his voice in a soft, deep command as he halts in his tracks to kiss you.

He kisses you and kisses you until you believe that he could carry you until the end of time, and then he takes you into the guest bedroom and sits you gently on the bed. The bed with the mussed sheets that smell like him. The sheets that he's leaning you into as you push yourself to the middle of the bed while he hovers over the top of your body, his lips never leaving yours.

As he sinks down over you, the weight of his body pressing you into the mattress has warmth licking through your veins. You move your hands to caress over his broad back, feeling his muscles ripple beneath your fingers as he shifts to prop himself up on his elbow. You use the free space to trace your hand down his chest and abdomen until you reach the waistband of his pants. If he'd just push himself a few inches up you could...

He pulls away, just barely breathless, and his eyes find yours. He reaches down with his right hand to pull yours gently from between your bodies and to his lips, before threading his fingers through yours and pressing your joined hands into the sheets beside your head.

"I want to eat you out."

He says it so simply, so confidently, and you can feel more arousal gush to join what's already begun to paint your inner thighs.

"Fuck..." you breathe, your fingers trembling in his grasp.

"Can I?" he asks, kissing your lips softly again.

For a moment you're afraid of what saying yes will mean, of the intimacy of it all, of the possibility that you won't measure up, someway, somehow, or maybe...that you will - and what in the world you would do with that level of acceptance...

You let out a shaky sigh, as you hold his gaze. It arrests you and washes over you. You remember his eyes as he knelt on the living room floor, and all they pleaded with you to disbelieve, to unlearn.

Yes. Yes...If it's him, you want it, whatever it means.

You surge forward, pressing your lips to his, your hands weaving through his hair, pulling him in. He lets out a tiny whimper as you devour him, kissing him with determined abandon until you have to come up for air.

"Yes, Bin, yes," you shudder into his mouth as he pants over you. “Yes I want you to.”

In answer, he presses one last tender kiss to your lips before moving to kiss down your body. He moves slowly, but with purpose, pressing an adoring mouth to every part of you that’s bared. He kisses your ear, your neck, your collarbones…he moves over your shoulders and down your right arm to the tip of each finger. He kisses your breasts and down your stomach. He kisses your belly button, and over your hips and down your left thigh. He kisses the inside of your knee, and bends your leg to kiss over your calf and down to your ankle.

You can barely watch him, as he brushes his lips over you, but he flicks his eyes up to yours so often you don’t dare look away. There is something flickering in his gaze, something like a challenge - daring you to contradict, to doubt what he seeks to impress upon you - and you begin to feel something strange and new. Something you’d never found at the touch of a lover, blooming in your chest and unfurling like a proud little flower under the sun: the strong, heady beauty of esteeming yourself worthy of his desire. It terrifies you a bit, and the ugly voice that has heckled you so often tries to cast doubt, but Changbin’s lips and hands are too persistent and assured for the harbinger in your mind to linger long. And the tidal wave of lovely feelings crashing over you threatens to destroy the shabby prison your heart has lingered in for so long.

Changbin lays his head on your thigh as he brings his hand off the other to cup your pussy over the softness of your shorts. His groan is nearly as loud as yours when he rubs over your mound, and it makes you impossibly wetter. He’s so unabashed and liberal with reacting to what he enjoys, and he is clearly enjoying you as much as he ever has anything.

He moves to bring his face to your clothed cunt, hovering over you for a nanosecond to catch your eyes as he mouths down over you. Your jaw drops open, and when his teeth scrape dully over your clit, your hips jerk and you fist the sheets. Changbin pulls back with a smirk, and sits back on his knees between your legs. He pulls one of your legs up to lean against his shoulder as his hands instinctively knead over the muscles of your calf and thigh.

“Do you trust me?” he asks, with a little smile.

You nod with one of your own.

“I’m gonna lift you, okay? You can hold onto my legs, but I’ll have you, so don’t worry.”

You bite your lip and nod, suddenly a little shy. Look at him. Where did he get all this confidence?

He drops your leg briefly to tug off your shorts and panties, cursing at how wet you are, and gently slipping two fingers to brush between your glistening lips and over your clit. You gasp at the sensation - his fingers deft, his touch soft but firm where you ache for him. And then, suddenly, he is sliding your legs back up to rest against his chest and shoulders. His hands slip down to your hips and he effortlessly tugs your ass over the incline of his thighs and flush with his abdomen. Your heart starts to thrum in your chest. His body is warm and sturdy against the soft plush of your ass. Heat floods your cheeks when you sense a slickness against him where your arousal has begun to smear against his stomach. He, however, is far less bashful. Widening the gap between your thighs, he dips his head down, inhaling deeply.

"Fuck…" he murmurs, squeezing your legs where he holds them.

When he raises his eyes to yours again, they’re unlike you’ve ever seen. They’re dark and hungry and hooded in a way that nearly intimidates you. His expression is full of heat, and manly in its sudden gravity. He watches you as he slips his thumbs under your waist and, slowly with strong hands, pulls your hips up beneath his chin. Your legs bend at the knees and drape around the crown of his head. Your spine curves where your upper back is flush with his thighs, your arm on either side of his kneeling form, and as he embraces you tightly around the hips and waist, you feel nearly every ounce of your weight suspended in his hold. The blood rushes to your head where it lays against the mattress, your neck curving just shy of his knees, offering a clear view of his gorgeous face as he wastes no time in pressing his open mouth to your labia.

Your core muscles flex in response, hips pressing higher against him as you feel ripples of exquisite pleasure trickle through your body from above. The smooth muscle of his tongue slips past your entrance and begins fucking into you. Your head swims, the slightest dizzying restriction of oxygen dampening your ability to focus on anything but the bliss of his hot, wet mouth. Being tasted has never felt this intense. You whimper, your hands reaching around his body to find purchase on his muscular ass. You feel the press of his throbbing erection into your back as his tongue fucks unhurriedly into you. He’s rock hard, and all for you. From the sight of your naked body, the feel of you in his hands, the taste of you on his tongue. From the sounds pouring off of your lips as he worships your sex.

Your legs begin to shake. You’re so totally in his hands. He holds you, lavishes you, consumes you. Nothing stands between you and ecstasy, and you can feel your climax fast approaching as pleasure ebbs and flows like a crashing tide on the rhythm of his firm, languid strokes.

"Ch-Changbin! Nhhh!" you mewl, you voice throaty and muffled from your position.

He growls against you and you nearly cum then. One of his hands drops to squeeze the soft mound of your right breast. Your cheeks burn, sweat beginning to bead on your forehead and neck. You can feel your pussy throbbing - hot and sticky and swollen with stimulation - as he devours it like the flesh of ripened fruit. His lips encircle your clit and suckle as the tip of his tongue flicks over the erect peak of your bud.

And then it all goes white. You lose all sense but feeling as you rock your hips up to meet him, the tension in your abdominals adding sinfully to the fluttering pulsating of your pussy. There’s nothing but you and him and his arms around you and his mouth against the most intimate parts of you as your orgasm washes over you in electrifying slow-motion, pulling you under a tidal wave of bliss for what seems like an eternity. Your lips part in a silent scream of his name, your eyes pressed shut, as he works you through the longest and most intense climax your body has ever experienced.

You feel him place one last sweet, gentle kiss to your cunt before moving the hand on your breast to one of your thighs as he guides you back down onto the bed. You’re panting and boneless as you watch him draw an arm over his cum-slicked chin and cheeks. For a moment he simply looks down at you, a victorious air about him as his eyes trace your sated features and his gorgeous chest heaves with labored breath, then he crawls forward on the bed, stretching himself out on his side next to you, his body flush with your own. He slips his hand over the soft skin of your belly and rubs it soothingly as he watches you with a little grin.

“You good?” he asks in a raspy murmur.

You reach for his face, bringing it to yours as you kiss him with what wherewithal you have. You pull away, still breathless.

“Am I good? Seo Changbin, I think I could fly.”

His answering smile is so filled with joy and pride and affection that you think you truly may have sprouted wings. You roll to your side to press yourself against him, your hand tugging at the waistband of his pajamas, but he takes your hand again in his.

“Not tonight.”

“Why?”

“Tonight is yours.”

“Bin…”

“I’m yours.”

You blink up at him, his head resting on his hand, his eyes sparkling and soft.

“If you’ll have me,” he raises your hand to his lips to kiss your knuckles. “You don’t have to answer right now. I know you’re going through a lot, and this is all…new.”

He smiles again, glancing down as his features take on a boyish shyness.

“But I care for you. And, however things work out,” his eyes lock with yours again, “I’ll always protect you.”

Your heart stands still. There are things that are too deeply lovely for words to be wasted on them. Any words but three - three that are already deeply true, but which have begun to mean something beautiful and different tonight, burying themselves like a little seed in your heart that needs time to grow. So for now you let yourself cry tears that fall like raindrops in the sunlight, and drift to sleep with the steady beat of Changbin’s heart.

“Ay!” Nari’s voice cuts through the din of chatter as her hand shoots out to narrowly prevent a fellow patron from snagging the chair beside her. “Sorry, seats are taken.”

She takes a sip of her beer and stretches her short legs as far as they will reach across the two empty chairs beside her.

“The guys are gonna have to hustle if they’re gonna sit with us,” she says reproachfully, dark brows rising as her eyes scan the venue for the bodies that belong in the seats you have been desperately attempting to reserve for the last hour.

The Eight Ball is crowded to bursting, and you scan the stage for signs of the evening’s openers. Checking your phone, you find that it’s nearly eight. You also find a text that brings a smirk to your lips.

“What?”

You glance up at Nari, who’s staring at you suspiciously.

“Nothing…” you mumble, flipping your phone back over onto the table. You sip your cocktail through a straw.

“Are you texting him?”

You nearly choke on your drink.

“What? Who?”

“You know who,” Nari mocks, narrowing her eyes at you. “The jerkwad.”

“Oh my god, Nari, no!” you sigh, as your phone buzzes again.

She glances at it.

“Then what was with the look? Who are you…”

“Are these for us?” a voice belonging to a smiling, dimpled young man in a black hoodie with a matching beanie pulled over his head saves you from further explanation.

“Jesus, Chris, finally,” Nari admonishes as he takes the seat next to you, pulling her legs off the remaining chairs to free them up for the other two men that follow behind him.

The freckled blond pulls Nari into a side hug which she returns, booping his nose before leaning across him to peer menacingly at his friend.

“Yo, Jisung,” she barks, “If you’re gonna order several hundred pizzas, how about taking some with you next time? My fridge is still stuffed.”

The young man blinks wide, surprised eyes at her before his brain catches up with her scolding.

“Sorry, but it wasn’t my fault!” he insists poutingly. “I ordered them because Changbin asked me to and then he canceled gaming weekend ‘cause he had a girl over.” he grumbles, causing the other two to snicker.

“Nice,” Chris giggles.

This time you do choke.

Your eyes fly to your best friend, watching the barrage of questions bubbling up on her face when a voice cuts through the din, silencing the crowd and unknowingly saving himself for the time being.

“Good evening, Eight Ballers!” Changbin rasps into his mic as Hyunjin waves, as ridiculously beautiful as ever, beside him.

You look at Changbin’s eyes.

They’re bright and confident and determined. You smile and cheer when he finishes introductions. As the band hits the first few notes of the opening number, his gaze finds yours, and it’s full of so many things.

His eyes sparkle with seven days worth of secrets – of waking up to your eyes and arms, of a weekend of nothing but bare bodies and hearts, of weeknight phone calls until the wee hours of the morning…of a new way of caring for each other that you’ll eventually tell the others, but that is just yours for now.

As you look at him, so full of adoration, you hope you can offer him even a fraction of the new world he’s only just begun to share with you – and the reflection you see a little more beautifully each day in the light of his eyes.

-Fin-

168 notes · View notes

moni-logues · 2 months

Text

A Simple Favour

Pairing: Changbin x named reader (afab, she/her)

Genre: fake dating, friends-to-lovers, smut

Summary: Your temper got the better of you and you lied to your sister. Rather than coming clean, you get your best friend playing pretend, too.

Word count: 21.5k 💀

Content: fingering, protected sex, discussion about sex toys, some very uh, unshowered sex lol, reader is called Miki (Mikyong)

A/N: ahhhghheghhef my longest ever one-shot and first ever fake-dating fic is here!!!! And it's BINNIE!!!! this all started with this post and I truly never had any intention of turning any of them into proper fics. But then.... but then I honestly couldn't stop thinking about this Changbin and so I wrote a scene and then another, and then another and suddenly, it was happening! I HAVE given reader a name, because it's frankly annoying af to not be able to call your reader anything and I don't like using 'y/n' lol so hope that is ok with y'all hahah

Thank you to @minisugakoobies for beta-ing and @violetsiren90 for all the sprinting and enthusiasm!!!!!!!!!

* * *

“I need to ask you a favour.”

“Yeah, ok, sure.”

“No, no, I need you to hear what it is first.”

You sat down next to Changbin on the sofa and it was only then that he started looking as if he was paying attention.

“Ok...”

“I need you to be my boyfriend.”

Changbin was out of his seat before the word had come to an end.

“What?!”

“Not really!” you cried, immediately standing up again, hands raised, trying to placate him. “I just need you to pretend to be!”

“What?!”

You groaned loudly and tipped your head back to shout at the ceiling. Then you motioned for him to please return to his seat so you could explain.

“I... may... have... toldmysisterthatwe’retogether.”

He was on his feet again, roaring.

“WHAT?!”

“It’s not my fault, ok?! You know how annoying she is!!!! She won’t stop going on about how we act like a couple and how we’d be good together and why don’t we just get together and don’t I see and no one else wants to go out with me anyway, what, do I think I could do better and I just fucking snapped!” You gripped him hard on the arms and stared, wide-eyed and grimacing at him. “I couldn’t take it anymore,” you told him through gritted teeth. “I snapped. I told her we were already dating but trying to keep it quiet until we knew if it was going anywhere.”

Changbin did exactly as you had not a minute before: looked skyward and groaned all too loudly at the ceiling of your apartment.

“So you mean to say that your sister now thinks we’re a couple?”

“Yeah... and I mean, Chan, too, obviously. He was there.”

Changbin closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“You mean my best friend Chan?”

“Hey! I’m your best friend!”

“Not anymore!”

He took a few steps away from you and shook his head, shook out his arms, rolled his shoulders. You did not know if you would be able to convince him to go along with your charade. It wouldn’t have to be forever, not even for long; you just had to find a way to back out of it that left both your names untarnished. Couldn't be that hard, right?

“Please, Binnie,” you began, tone softer now, sweeter, pleading just a little. “I know, I suck. But my sister sucks more and I really just want to get her off my back for a bit and I promise I will sort it out. I promise I’ll let us break-up quickly and you’ll come out smelling of roses! But please, please back me up on this.”

He turned around, looking at you seriously.

“What exactly is involved?”

“Well, y’know, if Chan asks about it or something, just... go along with the lie. You don’t have to do anything really.”

“Except for the lying and deceit and stuff.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause in which Changbin stood, staring out of the window, hands on his hips, deliberating. Then he turned sharply to look at you.

“I have a date tonight. Can we start tomorrow?”

You inhaled sharply through your teeth, eyes shut tight.

“Nope!”

You winked an eye open to see how he’d react. There was outrage on his face.

“What do you mean ‘no’?!”

“You can’t go on a date with someone else if we’re together!! What if someone sees you?”

He shouted again at the ceiling.

“I was going to get laid tonight!”

“Sorry!”

You cowered, made yourself as small as possible, watching him as he nevertheless unlocked his phone and fired off a quick cancellation text.

“I’m going to make you pay for this, you know,” he told you as he typed.

“I know. I deserve it.”

“Fine,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll do it.” Then he flopped back onto the sofa and patted the seat next to him. “But to be absolutely clear, I am not going to your stupid family lunches.”

“Actually...”

You were at your stupid family lunch. You had been going to Sunday lunch with your family for what felt like forever. At first, you and your sister schlepped way too far outside the city to your parents’ house, but now your sister hosted. Your sister and her husband, who just so happened to be best friends with your best friend. Why did the world have to be so small?

This time, your boyfriend was here, too. Sorry, your ‘boyfriend.’ It had taken a thousand favours owed and promises of future gifts made, but Changbin finally agreed to come, and you had agreed the rules for this deception:

1. You and Changbin had been dating for a ‘few weeks’ (since you got drunk at the river and decided to say ‘fuck it why not?’ to the whole thing).

2. You made the first move.

3. When in public together, you would always be prepared to act like a couple, should you run into anyone you knew.

4. Changbin would lead and you would ‘yes, and’ him, no questions asked.

5. Absolutely no dating other people, just in case.

6. It was your job to find a way to end it that made both of you look good – or at the very least, made Changbin look good.

7. No one—and that meant no one—else could know that it wasn’t real.

Just as you were walking up to your sister’s front door, Changbin added another: you would give him servings of everything first – including seconds and thirds, even if they came from your own plate. He knew your mum and sister cooked well and he was going to enjoy at least some part of this afternoon. You felt you had no choice but to agree.

“Hello,” you called as you entered your sister’s house, without enthusiasm.

You had been dreading this since the second the words had left your mouth the previous week. You could have just not lied; you didn’t have to have said that you and Changbin were dating; you could have controlled your temper even a little and not have got yourself in this predicament. You could even have swallowed your pride and embarrassment and told your sister it was a lie, that you had said it to try to shut her up. It wasn’t like it would’ve been the first time you’d told her how annoying she was.

But you hadn’t. You had lied and now you were sticking to the lie and Changbin was fully involved (if not invested) and you were about to spend an afternoon pretending to like him.

You liked him fine, as a friend. You liked him a lot, even, as a friend. But he wasn’t That Guy to you. He’d never elicited so much as a single butterfly in your stomach. Not a flitter of a wing or twitch of an antenna. He was just Binnie. And you knew he felt the very same about you.

“Finally,” your sister said by way of a greeting as she came down the stairs. “You’re late-”

“No, we aren’t,” you snapped back, fully prepared to argue further but the look on your sister’s face took you by surprise.

She was surprised.

“Oh, Changbin! I didn’t know you were coming.”

There was a sly smile on her lips as if there was a joke you weren’t in on, but you didn’t have capacity to be annoyed by that; you were waiting with bated breath to see what Changbin would do.

“Hi, Hanbyeol,” he said, as polite and charming as he might ever have been. “Miki said she told you I was coming. I hope it’s alright I’m here.”

“Of course it is! The more the merrier, right?”

She winked at you as she walked past into the kitchen, and you rolled your eyes.

“Absolutely!” Changbin responded, following her, grabbing your hand and tugging you along, too.

This was going to be a very long afternoon.

The very longest afternoon of your life. When Changbin had made you promise to ‘yes, and’ him, you had thought he meant go along with his concocted story of your first date or something.

You hadn’t expected... whatever the hell it was he was doing.

The first time he called you ‘baby,’ you literally, physically flinched and had to try very hard not to scowl. The second time, the only thing that might have given you away was the flare of your nostrils. The third time, you dragged him off away from everyone to hiss viciously at him.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“What?” he asked, with as much innocence on his face as he could muster.

“Calling me fucking ‘baby?’ Why? Why would you do that?”

“Aren’t you my baby?”

“For fuck’s sake, Binnie! NO, you know I am not! What are you doing?”

“You said I could play this however I liked and you also said I wouldn’t have to do anything but here I am, in your sister’s house, performing my perfect little tush off to keep your lie intact! So suck it up, baby: this is how Changbinnie dates!”

You rolled your eyes and swore under your breath once more.

“So you mean to say that you’re going to make this as painfully cringe-worthy as possible and embarrass us both?”

“Both? Oh, I’m not embarrassed!”

He didn’t wait for your comeback to that one and strode back into the kitchen, leaving you quietly seething but not yet regretting sticking to your lie. You could cope with an afternoon of this.

Which is what you thought until you actually sat down to eat and Changbin made you stick to your word and serve him first. It was almost impossible to do it with a smile on your face – you were sure you resembled some kind of grotesque, with a rictus grin and clenched teeth – but you did your best. You really tried to be sweet to him, to pretend to care that he got the best cuts and biggest pieces of meat, that you were happy for him to take the last dumpling from your plate.

You were sweating from the effort of it. You have never wanted to leave your sister’s house more. You felt suffocated. Hot. Uncomfortable. Embarrassed. Your parents were there; they also had to think it was real and you hadn’t considered the implications of him meeting the parents until it was too late. Suddenly, this felt serious.

You had thought it would be easy pretending that you and Changbin were together because... well, you did spend a lot of your time together as it was. You were close. You were so close that it was what got you into this mess in the first place! If you already acted enough like a couple for your sister (who barely ever saw past her own nose) to see it, then the job was already done – you had thought.

You had underestimated Changbin. Of course you had. His mischief, his love of performance, his inability to not do something that he knew would stitch you up in some manner. They all combined into what was sure to become your absolute worst nightmare and there was no one to blame but yourself.

You were just going to have to find a way out of it and quick.

* * *

“Changbin! How nice to see you again!” Hanbyeol crowed the next week when you dragged him along for a second time.

“Of course! The food last week was so good, Hanbyeol, I had to come.”

She actually blushed.

“Please, Changbin, call me Hani.”

You rolled your eyes; she was too easily flattered and Changbin was a little shit.

You hadn’t planned to make him come again. You would have preferred that he didn’t. But... Well, your sister just knew how to press your buttons. She had expressed her surprise at your apparently real relationship with Changbin, even uttering the words ‘I didn’t really believe you.’ She had then proceeded to lecture you on how to behave in a relationship and warn you of all your ‘usual tricks’ that apparently kept romantic partners away. You had been so thoroughly goaded that you had hung up on her and immediately dialled Changbin, telling him, in no uncertain terms, that he was ‘coming next week even if I have to kill you and drag you there.’

He had put up a fight, but the food really had been that good (your sister had many flaws, but cooking was not one of them) and he let his arm be twisted in far less time than before.

He behaved in much the same way as he had but, this time, you were prepared for it. You had braced yourself. You even managed a real smile at Changbin at the dinner table, despite the fact that he, once again, ate the last dumpling from your plate. He didn’t up his game or do anything more to try to embarrass you this time – perhaps he hadn’t expected your quick adjustment; he had overestimated your temper – but you were glad for this. You had to admit (for a microsecond only) that he might actually be a good boyfriend.

Neither of you had had any serious relationships in the time you’d been friends. When you met, your relationship was in the middle of a breakdown and your ex had moved out before you and Changbin had become firm friends. Changbin had dated, a lot, but none of them seemed to stick. Sometimes, he was sad about it; he would show up at your door with ice cream and his favourite blanket (yes, really) and you would coax the story out of him, trying not to press too hard on his bruised pride, his wounded heart. Sometimes, he chucked them before it got that far.

You’d actually not really spoken about relationships all that much. You assumed Changbin didn’t want anything serious because he never had it. You assumed that he assumed you wanted to be single because you (mostly) were. You shared horror stories from occasional bad dates and Changbin sometimes made you pick out his outfits, but you didn’t talk about them. You didn’t talk about your fantasies and dreams, your ideal partners, ideal relationships; you didn’t talk about how much you really did want to have one. You weren’t single because you didn’t want a relationship; you were single because you didn’t know where to find one.

You had burnt out on the apps in double-quick time and weren’t really sure where else to find anyone. You would never take up your sister’s offer to set you up, which might honestly have been cutting your nose off to spite your face because you did like Chan and she was happily married to him, but there was simply no way you would ever have been able to live with her smug self-satisfaction if she had been the one to introduce you to a life partner. And that left you with very few other options.

* * *

Having a fake boyfriend—who was your best friend at that—turned out to be quite a lot of fun. You did all the same things you usually did, plus handholding when in public and tolerating whatever cutesy baby-talk Changbin threw at you during your family lunches. That was easy.

Your friends were outraged when you told them. Not because they opposed the union but because you hadn’t told them before. They went back through your friendship with a fine-toothed comb, pointing out signs and hints that they had known ‘all along’ that you were into each other.

There were no signs. There were no hints. Because you weren’t into each other. But you let them have their fun because it helped sell the lie you were trying to peddle.

* * *

“Sister,” your sister began, on the phone to you almost two weeks after your second lunch.

“What, sister?” you replied, already unamused.

It wasn’t that you didn’t like Hani. She just... rubbed you the wrong way. A lot.

“You and Changbin should come on a double date with us.”

“What?”

“A double date. Me and Channie; you and Changbin.”

“Ugh.”

You didn’t have a much more articulate response than that. Really? Why? Why did she always have to suggest these things? Why did she need to be so nosy? So many of the thoughts that stuck in your brain when it came to your sister began with the word: why.

“Why?” you asked, already trying to think of excuses not to go.

“What do you mean why? It’d be perfect! Channie and Changbin are friends; you and I are sisters; we all already know each other! You’re always such a spoilsport!”

“But Binn- Changbin and I have already been for lunch twice; that’s basically the same.”

You had stopped referring to him as Binnie since you had starting ‘dating’ him. You had deliberately not thought about why that was.

“It’s not the same at all! Lunch is casual and boring! Our parents are there! We should go on a real date, have some fun!”

“Maybe your relationship needs a fun injection but mine doesn’t.”

You could see her rolling her eyes, hear the stomp of her foot on the floor.

“Kim Mikyong,” your sister said and needed to say no more. When she full-named you, you knew it meant she wasn’t taking no for an answer, and you had given up fighting her on it because she showed surprising restraint in using it.

You sighed.

“When do you want to go?”

“Ah! Perfect! I’ll ask Channie and get him and Changbin to set it up! It’s going to be so much fun!”

She hung up without bothering to say goodbye and you looked at the phone in displeasure. You didn’t even know if Changbin would agree to it. It had taken so much coaxing to get him to lunch.

And this was going to be so much worse.

But you’d been wrong before.

Changbin lived two floors above you and, shortly before half-six, he was knocking at your door to pick you up for your date—your double date.

You opened the door and surprise swallowed your greeting. He looked good. He looked like he’d put effort in. You remembered the outfit from one of the times he’d asked your advice; he’d worn this outfit on a date before. Your first instinct was to be peeved that he was recycling an outfit for your date. Then you remembered that you were only pretending to be together. And then you thought, actually, that maybe it was sweet he had put together a Date Outfit for the occasion.

You’d put on a dress and everything, too.

“You look nice,” he said, still standing in your doorway.

“Thank you,” you replied sincerely. “So do you.”

It was quiet in the lift as you descended, and you jumped a little when Changbin took your hand as you left the building. He looked at you, quizzical.

“Sorry, just forgot what we were doing for a second.”

“Hey, I’m happy not to hold your hand, but this was your rule.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine; it’s good. I mean, we should. It’s safer. We should. I just- I just forgot; surprised me.”

You squeezed his hand in yours, because it was there to squeeze, and you realised you felt nervous. Your sister had been right: this was different. Lunch was casual. This wasn’t. You tried to remember how your sister had previously acted on double dates, but she hadn’t been able to get you on one since you were with your ex and that was a long time ago now.

You wondered how Changbin would act. He had been so keen to play the game and embarrass you up until now; would tonight be the same? He seemed normal so far, but he didn’t have his audience yet. And everyone was still sober.

Your sister cooed and stretched across the table to you and Changbin, grabbing your hand and his forearm and giving a squeeze.

“Oh, I’m just so happy!” she exclaimed, and you could tell by the way she scrunched her nose as she smiled that she was in one drink too deep. “I want you two to be so happy! Aren’t they happy, Channie?”

He grinned at his wife and nodded before turning towards you.

“Are you happy?”

You shrugged which was very clearly the wrong answer.

“Mikyong!” Hani hit the table with her palm.

You shrugged again.

“What?! What do you want us to say? I’m not going to fucking rhapsodise about it at the dinner table!”

That was a mistake. You’d have seen it coming one bottle of soju ago and you wouldn’t have set foot in that trap.

“Then I will!” Changbin said, tossing back his maekju, punctuating the end of his sentence with the thunk of the glass on the table.

You groaned, inwardly and then out loud. Changbin turned to look at you, a sweet, shit-eating grin on his face.

“I feel honestly amazed,” he began, his eyes widening in what you knew he hoped your sister would take for some kind of wonder or awe. “It seems so weird that we didn’t see it before.” He took your hand, and you clenched your teeth so hard your jaw hurt. “It feels so natural to be together, y’know? I’m more than happy! I’m comfortable and content; being with your best friend is the greatest thing in the world.”

Hani cooed for so long, you worried she’d run out of breath. She held a hand to her heart, and you almost thought you saw tears in her eyes. She could give Changbin a run for her money in the dramatics department. You didn’t see Chan’s reaction because he hid his face taking a drink. Changbin had promised, as part of the rules, not to tell anyone else and you trusted him, but Chan would be the person he’d tell. Which worried you. Because you could fool your sister; your sister was a fool. Chan wasn’t.

You kicked Changbin as you got up from the table and made sure you walked behind your sister and brother-in-law so you could punch him in the arm for good measure.

“What the fuck was that?” you hissed, face hot with alcohol and anger.

“What was what?”

“That disgusting little speech you gave! ‘Oh, it feels so natural! I’m so content!’. Are you fucking kidding me?”

Changbin chuckled and nuzzled his nose into yours.

“Oh, baby, don’t you feel the same? You’re going to break my heart!”

“Shut the fuck up! How am I supposed to break us up when you say shit like that?”

He shrugged.

“I believe that is your problem. Besides which, you promised I’d come out smelling of roses so I can say as much saccharine, embarrassing crap as I like and you can just ditch me like the cruel and heartless being you are. Problem solved.”

“And you want everyone to pity you for having your soft heart broken by me? Because that’s what’ll happen! They’ll ooh and ah and ‘poor Binnie’ you for weeks. And how are we supposed to continue being friends if you’re that heartbroken?”

You could tell by his silence that he was annoyed to not have a quick retort.

“See? You’re trying to embarrass me and make me squirm and yeah, it fucking works, but you’re also prolonging this! You’re making it harder than it has to be!”

“Oh, whatever!”

The four of you stood on the subway, going in the same direction for at least part of the way home. Hani and Chan only had eyes for each otherour sister claimed they were ‘still newlyweds!’ but you didn’t think that, after over a year of marriage, she had any right to do so. You were glad that they were busy being moony-eyed at each other; it meant you and Changbin could relax a little, finally out from underneath the scrutiny of the pair. You weren’t holding hands, but you leant a little against his solid body, letting him support you as the train twisted and jostled you.

You wouldn’t have cared—wouldn't even have been looking--a few drinks ago but you couldn’t tear your eyes away from the two of them. Envy grew like mould in your heart. You were happy for your sister, of course you were, but you wanted that. You wanted it for yourself. You wanted someone to look at you the way Chan was looking at Hani right now. You wanted marriage. You wanted that happily ever after shit that you knew didn’t really exist, at least not like in all the stories. But you wanted someone to believe it. Wanted someone to promise it to you even if it was beyond their power to enforce.

It made you bristle, made you annoyed. At anyone. Everyone. Hani. Chan. Changbin. Yourself. You’d made this bed. It wasn’t as if you had been dating anyway, but now you had removed that as an option; you couldn’t even try to find what your sister had and it was all your own fucking fault. You watched as Hani took hold of the lapel of Chan’s jacket and lifted onto her tiptoes to press a giggly kiss to his mouth; you didn’t manage to hold back the scoff, didn’t manage not to roll your eyes.

Your sister rolled hers in return and tutted.

“What, Miki? I can’t kiss my husband?”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“Your face says it all. Kiss your own boyfriend, why don’t you? And stop looking at mine.”

“He’s not your boyfriend.”

“No, he’s my husband and you’ll never get one if you keep going around on dates with a face like that.”

“Hey,” Changbin says, smiling beneficently, “I like her sour, ugly face.”

You punched him hard on his left pec and he ‘oof’ed quietly but it didn’t stop him smiling.

“Yeah?” Hanbyeol challenged. “That’s a face you want to kiss, huh? Really? Don’t believe you.”

Changbin reflected her challenge in his eyes as he looked down at you.

“Maybe I don’t want to kiss him,” you spat, glaring at your sister, ignoring Changbin’s offer.

“Oh, Mikyong, you are a bitter old maid, you bitch. Let your boyfriend kiss you if he wants!”

Did he want?

Your heart was beating faster than you’d have liked. Your mouth went dry when you finally turned to Changbin to acquiesce. This hadn’t been part of the deal. Did he really want to do this? You didn’t. This was weird. It would be weird! How could you pull this off? It was your first kiss! Changbin was about to kiss you for the first time! His face was leaning down! He was really going to do it! How could you let him get this close? How can you pull away without ruining everything? What should you-!

His lips were soft and the kiss was gentle. Lasted no more than a second. It took longer for you to come around from it, your mouth pouting and open, looking at Changbin as if you were lost and he would show you where to go. He lifted one side of his mouth in a lopsided grin and winked.

That broke the spell.

“Happy now?" you asked your sister, your ‘ugly, bitter old maid’ face back on-screen.

She rolled her eyes, good-naturedly.

“Whatever, Miki. You are so easy to tease.”

She said it all looking dreamily at her husband and it made your stomach drop. She only had eyes for him. He only had eyes for her. You were desperately trying not to look at your ‘boyfriend.’ You didn’t know where he was looking.

You got off the train a few stops later, leaving Chan and Hani on it. You were itching to be by yourself. You had to process what had happened. Changbin had kissed you. Kissed you. Sure, he was goaded into it; he did it because your sister told him to. But he still did it. You didn’t know how you felt about it. After just ten minutes, you were starting to believe it hadn’t even happened, that you had somehow imagined it. Because you and Changbin didn’t kiss. Even though you were pretending to be together. You didn’t kiss. That didn’t happen.

Changbin walked you to your door when you reached your floor and you turned in the doorway, looking at him as sour as you’d ever been.

“Going to try to kiss me goodnight?” you asked, jeering and hating yourself for it.

Changbin looked at you, a little hurt, a little annoyed, a little fucking tired of your prickly temper.

“No,” was his simple reply.

You didn't say anything back, but he didn’t leave, so you each stood in silence, one either side of your doorway. You knew he wanted to say something as mean-spirited as you had; you knew he was better than that so he wouldn’t.

He turned his body slightly away, as if to leave, and then looked at you, mostly just sad, you thought.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. We haven’t talked about that; we haven’t agreed anything on that. I just thought you’d want to show your sister. Prove it or something. So I’m really sorry. I’ll see you later.”

He was walking away and you could taste something bitter in your mouth: your own temper, your impatience with people, your totally unfair expectations of people that were better than you but liked you anyway.

Steeling yourself and clenching your fists, you followed after him.

“Changbin,” you called softly, prompting him to turn around.

You took his hand in both of yours.

“I’m sorry, too. Sorry I’m such a bitch. The kiss was fine. Thank you. It was good. Probably necessary; I don’t know. Thanks. I guess. Sorry.”

Changbin just laughed and pulled you into a rib-squeezing hug.

“You are so fucking stupid.”

He was very, very right.

* * *

Changbin knocked at your door and entered your apartment with far less cheer than he might normally. You hadn’t spoken about the kiss since it happened and there had been no repeats of it. Things had fallen back into your new normal ‘friends who are pretending to be more than friends’ sham.

“What’s wrong with you?”

He sat on your sofa and looked up at you, still serious.

“Remember how you asked me for a favour?”

You asked him for lots of favours but you immediately knew which he was referring to.

“Yes.”

“Remember how you said it’d be over quickly?”

“... Yes.”

You did not like the direction this was heading in, but he was owed, you knew that, so you determined to meet your fate with grace.

“Remember how the very night you asked I had a date?”

“Yes.”

“Remember how long ago that was?”

“... A month?”

He hummed and nodded.

“I was going to have sex that night, but I didn’t get to. Why?”

“Because I made you cancel so you could fake-date me.”

“Exactly. Know what that means?”

You couldn’t see where he was heading because- well, you could see, but you didn’t really know what the favour was going to be. You weren’t sure you wanted to find out.

“Uh, I don’t know.”

“It means it’s been well over a month since I last had sex. Because of you.”

“I’m sorry?”

He chuckled and his face brightened.

“I don’t want you to be sorry, babe-”

You had long stopped flinching at the terms of endearment as they leaked into your non-fake-dating time, too. If Changbin had noticed, he didn’t let on, but you were aware every time he called you anything other than your name.

“-I’m just saying. Aren’t you bothered? It’s not like you’ve been getting any either.”

You shrugged.

“No. I guess I’m not that bothered? I don’t know; I’ve been longer without. A month isn’t exactly that long. And it’s not like there aren’t ways to entertain myself.”

“Don’t you get bored of that though?”

You laughed.

“Did you really come here for masturbation tips?”

The tightened curl of his lips and aversion of his eyes told you he was embarrassed and he was never embarrassed.

“No,” he answered pointedly. “I actually came to suggest that we have sex.”

“What?!”

The shock brought you out of your chair. He could not be serious.

“What?” he returned. “We’re already fake-dating! Why not make a bit of it real? It doesn’t have to mean anything. Except both of us getting some... release. Relief. Call it stress relief! From the stresses of pretending to be dating. It’ll make the pretence easier, too, since it doesn’t seem like you are going to actually break us up anytime so-”

“I am! I am! I’m working on it...”

You couldn’t help the whine that crept into your tone. You were working on it. Or at least, you had been. It was too difficult. How could you find a way for your relationship to end and for you to remain friends at the end of it? And with each day that passed, it got harder, because your ‘relationship’ had gone on longer. And everyone was expecting it was getting more and more serious – especially as it was built on the foundation of your very solid, very real friendship.

“Ok and while you work on it, we could be having sex.”

“Changbin...”

He regarded you carefully and you looked back, hoping you looked as pathetic as you felt.

“You don’t have to say yes. I won’t take it personally. I just... I honestly just really want to get laid and you are the only person I’m allowed to have sex with at the moment. So you’ve really stitched me up here.”

You sank down next to him on the sofa and laid your head on his shoulder.

“I am sorry. I really didn’t mean for it to go on this long. I didn’t mean to stitch you up. It’s kind of got out of hand--. I actually didn’t mean to create this mess at all. My sister sometimes just brings out the worst in me.”

“Yeah,” Changbin replied, patting your knee. “Family can do that.”

There was a brief lull and then Changbin slapped his own thighs and stood.

“Well, if you don’t want to have sex, I’m out of here.”

“I didn’t say that!”

He raised an eyebrow at you, and you were furious that your cheeks had the audacity to warm. You were a grown woman; he was a grown man. You should at least be able to talk about sex. You did talk about it! You had discussed it!

But it was different when it was this – the two of you having it. Together. There was a line there. And he may have made some good points (you weren’t getting any; as long as you were pretending to date each other, you couldn’t sleep with anyone else; it would make the pretence easier), but suggesting it didn’t have to mean anything? Surely it meant something. It had to mean something! Friends didn’t just fuck their friends. That never worked. It always made things weird.

Weirder than they already were? Wasn’t it already weird that you pretended to be together whenever you saw any of your friends, any of your family? Wasn’t it already weird that Changbin was so used to calling you ‘babe’ and ‘baby’ and god knew what else that he said even when you were alone? Wasn’t it already weird that you didn’t hesitate anymore, that the words ‘I have a boyfriend’ fell from your lips without your even having to try? Wasn’t it already weird that you were... getting used to this? Enjoying it even?

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to. I also didn’t say I did. I don’t know. Don’t you feel like it would be weird?”

He shrugged.

“Maybe. Kind of too horny to care.”

“Seo Changbin!”

“What?! I'm being honest!”

“I’ll think about it, ok?”

“Sure. No pressure. I mean it.”

“I know.”

You did know. You would trust him with your life, and he was the softest little goober you’d ever met. That he might pressure you was not your concern at all.

You were true to your word: you thought about it. On and off over the next couple of days you thought about it. How much further over the line was it, really? You held hands. You had already kissed, a little. Ok, once. Was sex really such a leap? It would lend a lot of credence to this stupid lie you were both living. And you would get to have sex.

But it would be with Changbin. What if he was bad at it? What if you discovered you were bad? What if his dick was weird? What if he liked stuff you hated? Or vice versa? You didn’t know if you believed that sex could be Just Sex, but, even if it could, that didn’t mean it wasn’t complicated. There were factors. A lot of them.

A week and a half later, you thought you were experiencing déjà vu when Changbin entered your apartment again, asking for a favour.

“Sex again?” you asked as you shut the door behind him.

“Not exactly. It’s more embarrassing.”

You did not attempt to hide your glee.

“I love it; please ask immediately.”

“Last time I asked about sex, you implied that you didn’t get bored getting yourself off. I’m asking, how? ‘Cause I’m looking at my hand like it’s my fucking enemy at this point.”

You laughed.

“Do not laugh!” he shouted. “I’m in actual need. I’m in agony. Please. Tell me how to make it more interesting for myself.”

“I mean... Firstly, we have different parts, so my experience is not directly applicable to you. Secondly, how can you be that bored? Have you seriously never gone this long without sex in your adult life?”

He shrugged but you recognised the look on his face: the one where he tried to hide a smug, gloating, little grin.

“Are you seriously telling me you haven’t gone more than two months without sex?”

“I haven’t had to!”

“Oh my god.”

You were in half a mind not to help, feeling like it might somehow expose you as undesirable, because you had been more than two months without; two months was currently very much in your rear-view mirror at that point.

“Well,” you began, leading him into your bedroom, “for a start, if you’re only using your hand, then you are in for a treat. An entire world awaits you.”

You knelt down next to your bedside cabinet and gathered all your toys, laying them out on the bed with a flourish. Changbin looked a little overawed.

“That’s a lot of stuff.”

“Yeah and you know you have to use them all at once?”

For a second, he believed you and his eyes grew as wide as you had ever seen them before he scowled at you.

“Shut the fuck up. I came to you for help. You owe me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m just teasing. Now, like I said, a lot of these won’t be applicable to you, or might be but I cannot vouch for any kind of pleasure or satisfaction because most were designed for vulvas and vaginas and not penises.”

“I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

“Oh, now who’s teasing?! You want help or not?!”

“I do! Sorry! Fine, carry on.”

“Ok, well, this,” you held up a rather unwieldy, slightly inelegant thrusting toy, “is my favourite. It does not look sexy but it sure as shit feels it. The problem with the others-” you gave a sweep of your hand over a few other insertables on the bed- “is that I have short arms and sometimes I just can’t get the angle I need and keep a firm grip on them, right? Which is why this one is so good.”

You stopped yourself just as you were about to- to what? Demonstrate? You put it back down on the bed in a hurry.

“Ok, well, I don’t need anything like that.”

“No?”

“I top.”

“Right. Ok.”

You lifted another, much smaller toy.

“That looks like something you’d use to clean your face.”

“I cannot recommend it for that. If you want to get someone to squirt though, she’s your man.”

Changbin looked surprised.

“Ever made anyone squirt?” you asked, not sure if he would answer.

He shook his head.

“No, me neither... Except myself. With this. I’m not saying it’s guaranteed but she knows how to get the job done, y’know?”

“Huh.”

He took it from you, examining it as if he could learn its secrets from looks alone.

“It’s a suction toy,” you clarified. “Works on the clit. Sucks. Hard. Not entirely sure what you might get out of it, but y’know, if you want to give it a try...”

You laughed, feeling a little heat on your cheeks. It was both exceptionally weird and very not weird to be talking to Changbin like this.

“Isn’t that weird?” he asked, looking at the toy in his hand like it was a live grenade. “To use your sex toys?”

You shrugged.

“They’re clean if that’s what you mean.”

“Wasn’t suggesting they aren’t. It’s just... Isn’t that kind of intimate?”

You hadn’t thought about it before, but he had a point. And the more you thought about it, the more intimate it seemed. These toys, all of them, had been used on you, had brought you to climax over and over again in the time you’d owned them. They knew your secrets; you were exposing your secrets to Changbin by even showing them to him. If he used them, too? A shiver like ice water slipped down your spine.

But he was the one who had previously suggested you have sex. This was less intimate than that, right?

You shrugged.

“It’s just a thing, really,” you replied, even though it wasn’t at all what you thought. You moved the conversation on quickly. “I guess you’re not interested in butt plugs if you don-”

“I didn’t say that.”

You looked at his face but he was looking at the spread on your bed, his eyes roving across the row of plugs on the right.

“Ever used one?” you ventured, a little tentatively, not sure if it would constitute a slight to suggest he had or hadn’t.

He shook his head and you noticed the tips of his ears redden.

“I probably don’t need to tell you to go careful,” you began, taking a few of the options away, the ones that were too big, a little too intimidating for a first-timer. “But you should go careful. Start small, start smooth. And never, ever insert anything without a ba-”

“Yeah, I know!”

His ears were redder now. He still had your suction toy in his hand and you could see how tightly his fist was clenched around it. It confused you because Changbin couldn’t possibly be that embarrassed. Could he?

Silence fell and you weren’t sure what to say. Should you tell him which one to pick? Did you have to advise him how to use it? How could you do that when you had no idea the sort of things he liked? You wiggled your toes in your socks and tipped up lightly onto them before bringing your heels back down.

“Ok,” you began slowly when it was clear he wasn’t going to speak. You picked up a little purple plug, soft silicone, bubbles of increasing size. You handed it to him and shrugged. “Give something like that a try. See how you like it.”

Changbin didn’t look at you. He looked at the plug. He put the suction toy back down on the bed and continued to look at the small, beaded rod in his hand.

“Uh,” you continued. “Ever used a cock ring?”

He let out a comically enraged cry and stalked from your bedroom.

“Bye!” he called, not looking back as he pulled open your front door and let it slam shut behind him.

“Hey!” you shouted after him, catching his arm just as he walked out your front door.

He stopped and turned.

“You know the internet exists, right? Wouldn’t that have been less embarrassing than coming here and asking me?”

He scowled, let out another anguished shout and stalked off.

You laughed because you had to laugh, because he could have just used the internet—it would have been quicker, easier, less embarrassing, and probably more helpful. But he didn’t. He came to you and asked for your secrets. You didn’t know what that meant.

There were nerves fluttering in your stomach that made you feel awkward and self-conscious. It felt like a line had been crossed somewhere. Not a bad line? But a line nonetheless.

You returned to your bedroom and surveyed your collection left on your bed and wondered if you might take a few for a spin yourself. You decided not to. Changbin was in your head and if there was one person in the world you did not want to be thinking about, it was him.

* * *

You tried not to think about it anymore. Sex. Changbin. Any thoughts that involved either sex or Changbin. Nothing that strayed into that territory. It was a hornet’s nest, you’d decided. Nothing good could come from opening that can of worms. He could use each and every single one of your toys if he wanted but not your body. No. No. Nope.

But you were having trouble focusing your mind. You were ovulating and this month in particular was being a real fucker. Your body was punishing you for being single. It was sick and tired of preparing a baby house and having you not put a baby in it. It was doing its damnedest this month to make it happen.

You were out of your mind horny.

You were beginning to sympathise with Changbin. You were, unfortunately and no matter how much you tried not to, thinking about his offer. His request. You were thinking about doing him, and yourself, that favour he’d asked.

It couldn’t be that bad, could it? It could be good. He’d made some fair points. And you were curious now, you had to admit. You’d not, before this whole fake-dating thing, given much thought to how Changbin fucked, but your curiosity had been piqued. You hadn’t had your butt plug returned and you could only assume that meant he was enjoying it, though he hadn’t confirmed either way. You wondered if you could entice him to spice things up a little more. You wondered what he did. What he sounded like. What he-

“Fuck!”

You slammed your hands down on your desk and took a deep breath. You were not supposed to be thinking about this. You were supposed to be—you moved your mouse to wake your monitor—creating yet another tedious spreadsheet.

You: you working rn?

Bin: no. gym

You: later?

Bin: come over after work

‘Oh good’, you thought to yourself sourly, ‘that gives me four more hours of this. I’ve got to stew on this for four fucking hours before I can even broach the topic.’

The thought made you sick. You didn’t examine why. You worked for five more minutes, messaged your manager to say you weren’t feeling well and logged off.

Then you left your apartment and went down to the gym.

* * *

You were having a great day. A fantastic day, in fact. That was what you were telling yourself. Because you were about to hit a new deadlift PR and that made it fantastic, as long as you ignored everything else going on in your life. Which is exactly what you were doing.

You were looking down at the bar on the floor, heavily loaded, and you were talking to it nicely. You were a team: you, the bar, the weights on either end of it. You were a team, and you were going to do this thing together.

You took a deep breath, taking no notice of the guy a few metres away who was watching you. You didn’t care about him. You never cared about men in the gym because the gym was yours. And no two-bit, ’roided-out gym bro was ever going to put you off your stride. And certainly not today. Let him watch. You’d show him.

You adjusted your feet and shook out your hands before placing them on the bar. You favoured a mixed grip. You got into position, took a breath in, braced your core, and lifted.

It flew.

This was not a weightlifting gym, or anything close to that; it was the gym in your apartment building that came ‘free’ with your exorbitant rent, so you had to carefully lower the weights back to the floor. Then you allowed yourself a loud, crowing whoop and a double fist-pump.

You stood straight, victorious, not even trying to hide the grin on your face and, when you tuned back into the world, the man who had been watching you was clapping. You whipped around to face him, assuming the worst, assuming he was patronising you or mocking you, but he grinned brightly at you.

“PR?” he asked.

You nodded dumbly.

“Nice one. Congrats. You made it look easy.”

He smiled and nodded once at you and then turned back to his own workout: a push day, it looked like, as he sat down on an inclined bench and lifted two enormous dumbbells to his shoulders.

Huh.

That was nice. You didn’t have many nice interactions with men at the gym. Men like him anyway. He was big, hulking, probably bulking given the softness of his skin on his arms, the fit of his tight T-shirt. You’d noticed him before, once or twice; he must live in the building to be using the gym but there were hundreds of people living here so that didn’t help much. He lifted heavy and kept to himself. That was really all you knew.

It distracted you somewhat from your victory, this guy. This nice guy who might actually have been normal. You turned back to the bar and tried to get back in the zone, remember just what you were doing. But that had been it. You were going to PR the fuck out of this lift and then stretch yourself into oblivion.

It was only when you were moving to the free area, walking past him, that you realised you hadn’t responded when he congratulated you.

“Thanks, by the way,” you said as you passed, timing it carefully so you wouldn’t take him by surprise with 20 kilos above his head.

He smiled again.

“You’re welcome. You’re not trying for more?”

He nodded to rack, where you’d put everything away. You shook your head.

“Quitting while I’m ahead.”

“Well, you really did make it look easy. I reckon you’ve got more in you.”

He meant with regards to deadlifting. He meant he thought you could probably take another five kilos, or maybe even ten, but it was exactly the sort of thing you needed to hear at that moment and a lump formed in your throat. It took you off-guard and you felt your cheeks heat. You just nodded and moved quickly to the floor where you put yourself in child’s pose to hide your face.

You focused on counting your breaths and moving slowly between stretches. You didn’t look his way again when you left. You returned home, sat heavily on your sofa and cried.

That had been your first interaction with Changbin. And for a while it was your only interaction. Your workouts didn’t overlap and you didn’t see him in the corridors.

Then you walked into the gym on a grey, cold November morning, barely awake and not looking forward to exercise. There were a few others there already: a much older man walking slowly on the treadmill, a very bendy woman working through some yoga on the mats, and that guy. The one from your deadlift PR.

You were pleased to see him, though you couldn’t have said why. He had, technically, made you cry. Even though it wasn’t anything at all to do with him and everything to do with your relationship falling apart around you and your self-worth being at rock bottom and your absolute desperate need for a win, even a tiny win, anything.

Still, it was nice to see him again.

You took to a treadmill to try to shake off your sleep and then moved slowly through an upper body workout. Everyone always said they hated leg day but you? You hated arms; you hated chest; you hated back and shoulders; you hated pushing and pulling. What you wouldn’t have given for squats that frosty morning.

You had just placed your dumbbell onto the floor with an unforgiving thud, setting your timer for a 30-second rest when he approached you.

“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” he began, and he did sound it, “do you have just a minute to spot me?”

You couldn’t answer immediately. You? He wanted you to spot him? He could probably bench you; how on earth would you be any good to him?

“Me?” you asked. “Are you... sure?”

He just looked towards the old man on the treadmill (yoga woman was already finished and out of the gym) and shrugged. You giggled and stood.

“I’ll do my best.”

“Thank you!”

You followed him to the squat rack and tried to do your quickest maths to calculate the weight he was attempting. You grimaced internally; that would break your fucking back. But you didn’t want to make him feel nervous or to knock any of his confidence, so you pretended you were confident, too, offering up your arms as he lodged himself beneath the bar. You kept your hands hovering as he stepped back, as he lowered, as he pushed up.... It was shaky and slow and you were genuinely worried for a second that you would have to really do something, but he made it. He took two steps forward, dumped the bar on the rack and let out a cry that was far too loud for the hour.

You laughed.

“PR?”

He grinned.

“You know it.”

“I wish I could say you made it look easy but...”

He laughed, properly laughed, and shook his head.

“Why are you trying to ruin this moment for me?”

You laughed in return and introduced yourself.

“I’m Miki.”

“Changbin,” he offered in return, holding his hand out for you to shake.

And that had been that. Somehow, though you didn’t quite know how, your workouts began to coincide more and more; you began to chat between sets; he continued to ask you to spot him despite knowing that you could do no such thing. Then one day you asked him to hang out outside the gym.

Now you couldn’t shake him. Even if you’d wanted to. Which you didn’t. Never had.

* * *

You could literally feel yourself salivate as you watched him lift and you could not believe yourself to be such a basic, animal being. Humans were supposed to be above all that ‘in heat’ stuff, but apparently you weren’t. You were watching him—leg day, beautiful leg day—deadlift, watching him hinge, watching the tension on his face, the pump in his quads.... You had officially crossed the line into creepy, but you couldn’t help it.

You were hot. Literally, physically too warm.

“Binnie!” you shouted, striding across the room to him. It had slipped out, the first time in two months you’d referred to him as something other than ‘Changbin’. You didn’t even notice.

He looked at you, confused.

“What are you doing here?”

“Couldn’t wait until tonight. I need to talk to you.”

“Is everything ok?”

You shrugged, as if this was casual. As if you were about to say something normal to him.

“Everything’s fine, but...” You scanned the room to make sure it was empty. “Look, I’m here to take you up on your offer.”

The confusion did not leave his face.

“Offer?”

You shrugged again.

“Favour, request, whatever. I want to have sex.”

His mouth dropped open and he blinked twice before his brows furrowed again.

“What?”

“You heard! I want to have sex!” You whispered it, hissed it even, despite the empty room. It was embarrassing to be asking.

“Ok,” Changbin shrugged.

You had been expecting a fight, you now realised. You had thought he would protest a little – not necessarily against the sex itself but the fact that he had already asked and you’d turned him down. You thought his ego might make him string it out a little, make you work for it.

“Ok, so are you finished here?”

There was the surprise you were after.

“Now?”

“Yes, now!”

“I’m- I’m at the gym!”

“So finish.”

“Well, I...”

“I’ll wait if you really haven’t finished your workout.”

Taken aback by the turn of events, Changbin looked a little dazed and nodded.

“I only have a couple of sets left,” he said and you nodded.

“Cool, I’ll wait for you upstairs. My place?”

He shrugged, looking as if he had no idea what the right answer was.

But it had to be your place. It had to be on your ground, not for a home advantage but... something like that. Somewhere you felt in control. Somewhere you felt comfortable. Somewhere you knew exactly what your bed was like and where the condoms were.

You decided to take the stairs, initially, because you had energy to burn. Then you realised that tiring yourself before the sex was an even stupider idea than the sex itself, so you opened the door at the top of the next flight of stairs and used the lift.

Bin: gonna shower. Be there in 15?

You: no come now.

Bin: ???

You: what?

Bin: I'm sweaty

You: so?

When he didn’t reply again, you assumed he was ignoring you and showering anyway, but then you heard the beep of your keypad and the door opened.

“Can I just ask,” he began, no greeting, “before we do this... What the fuck has got into you?”

“What?”

“You were not exactly up for it when I asked about it and now you’re skipping work to fuck me? You’re not even letting me shower?”

Your face heated with embarrassment, but the mere fact that you were asking for this gave the game away anyway, so was there really any shame in it?

“I’m ovulating,” you stated, as if that would explain it.

It would, to you. Possibly to anyone else who menstruated. Changbin looked at you wild-eyed.

“Uh...”

You saw his hands just barely raise at his sides, his right foot stepping backwards as if he were trying to surreptitiously retreat.

“I’m not trying to get pregnant, you moron! I’m ovulating and that means I am out of my fucking mind with- with wanting to get laid! I am desperate.”

“Well, you sure know how to make a man feel desired.”

“Oh, shut up. You know the situation we’re in and you said as much to me last time: there is no one else we can fuck right now, but if I don’t fuck someone, I’m going to lose my mind.”

“What happened to your arsenal of toys?”

“Not the same and you know it. I just need to be fucked right now. I am desperate; don’t make me say it again!”

You couldn’t help the impatience and frustration in your tone and you knew it wasn’t sexy, wasn’t encouraging, but there was nothing you could do about it. You were beyond help of any kind other than his cock stuffed inside you. It just happened to make you a little less nice.

“Don’t shout at me! It’s no wonder you’re single if this is how you proposition men!”

“This is not how I proposition men! You propositioned me first! I’m just taking you up on it!”

“Well I’m not going to do it if you’re going to look that fucking angry the whole time!”

“I’m not angry; I’m frustrated!”

“Potayto, po-fucking-tah-to!”

“Are we doing this or not?!”

Changbin didn’t answer immediately and you swore to yourself that, if he said no, you would be fine with it. You would not explode and die right there on the floor of your living room. And you would not hate him forever.

He jabbed a finger at you.

“We’re doing this but you have to not be a total cunt to me the whole time.”

You decided not to hesitate. You didn’t have the patience for taking it slow anyway but one of you had to be decisive; it would be awkward if there was hesitation and stumbling and embarrassment. He had just confirmed his agreement. He had said you were doing it. So you had to do it. Do the damn thing. You grabbed the front of his T-shirt and pulled him towards you, crashing your lips into his.

It was nothing like the first kiss. That was gentle and short and chaste and this was everything but. Before you’d snaked your tongue into his mouth, he had hoisted you in the air. You wrapped your legs around his waist, and he carried you to the sofa and lay you down. He moaned when you sucked at his tongue and you moaned back, your hands already pulling his shirt up his chest.

His skin was damp and sticky with sweat, salty when you put your mouth on it. You didn’t care. You liked the soft animal of his body, liked its power, liked the way it was firm under your hands, unyielding. Liked the way he could so easily have his way with you if he wanted; it’s not like you were weak yourself but Changbin was stronger and you knew you couldn’t take him in a fight. You wanted that. You wanted all that used against you right now. Not to fight but to fuck. You wanted him to fuck you so hard, you couldn’t stand. You could already feel the intense ache in your core as it radiated heat. You needed to be touched. So badly. Now that it was actually happening, you couldn’t believe you had let yourself go so long without it.

“Binnie,” you panted, clutching the waistband of your trousers, shuffling them down, trying to discard them. “Binnie, touch me, please.”

He responded with a nip to the delicate skin of your neck and a hand sliding down your stomach.

“Fucking hell,” he breathed when his fingers found your wet slit. “You weren’t kidding.”

“What?”

“You are desperate.”

“Shut the fuck up, Changbin,” you spat, with perhaps too much bite.

His fingers withdrew and he leant up on his hands, looking down at you with his brows raised.

“You can’t ask me to touch you and then speak to me like that when I do.”

You rolled your eyes and gave him a simpering smile.

“Aw, does Binnie not like it when I’m not nice to him? Oh, poor Binnie,” you cooed in a baby voice. “Does Binnie like praise, huh? Want me to praise you?”

His face hardened but he didn’t tell you it was over, that if you were going to behave like that, he’d change his mind. He didn’t say anything and you knew it was because you were right but he didn’t want to tell you. That was one benefit of sleeping with someone you knew so well. You could read him. You didn’t need him to confirm.

But you also weren’t great at being nice. Praise was not a thing that came naturally to you. And he had said you weren’t allowed to be a total cunt to him. That was fair. You rolled your eyes.

“Fine, I’ll be nice,” you huffed. “Promise.”

It was Changbin who rolled his eyes then and looked as if he didn’t believe you but didn’t care either way. He lowered himself down and brought his lips to yours.

His kiss swallowed the loud sound you made when his fingers found their way south and made their entrance. It had been too long since someone else had got you off. Way too long. You knew it from the way your walls were already spasming, your muscles tightening, your breath catching.

“Harder,” you gasped when he let your mouth go. “Harder, faster, please.”

There was a minute pause in which he registered your instruction and then he complied, but it wasn’t enough.

“Seriously,” you continued. “You don’t have to be nice to me. I want more.”

His eyes met yours and when he raised his brows this time, your stomach swooped; it was dark and promising and there was something in his eyes that said he was going to give you everything you wanted.

He slid another finger inside you and drew back so he could focus his other hand on your swollen clit.

You couldn’t speak. You whimpered and keened and nodded; you clutched at Changbin’s arm and the sofa cushion; you arched your back and drew your feet in. You came with a loud cry and your body flopped backwards, your chest heaving as you got your breath back, your body shaking just a little.

“Thanks,” you panted.

Changbin laughed.

“You’re welcome.”

You pulled him closer, slipping a hand around the back of his neck to bring your face to his, to kiss him, hard, deep, indulgent.

“Where do you keep condoms?” he broke away to ask and your mind was still dazed enough that it took you a second. You shook your head, tried to clear it, and pointed into your bathroom. Changbin moved off you and you stumbled as you got to your feet. He was rising as if to go himself, but you waved him off, sat him back down.

The few steps between him and the bathroom gave you a second to catch your breath, to anticipate what was about to happen with a buzzing kind of glee wailing in your head (and elsewhere). You felt greedy. Insatiable. You wanted to take an entire box of condoms out there and use them all. You wanted to break yourself on him, break him, until there was nothing left of you but dust.

You took one foil packet from the box and returned to Changbin who was still standing next to the sofa, waiting for you. His black shorts hid the damp spots of pre-cum but couldn’t hide the tent of his erection. You felt your mouth water at the thought of it. An icy streak of doubt passed through you when you realised you’d never seen it before. Never had cause to give it any thought at all. What if it was disappointing?

Then Changbin dropped his shorts and his boxers, and you let out a breath you hadn’t realised you were holding.

“Thank god,” you muttered under your breath, not intending for him to hear, but he cocked his head at you.

“For what?”

You snorted.

“Thank god you have a nice dick.”

He laughed and you could almost see his pride swell in the way he tucked his shoulders back and raised his head a little, the ever so slightly bashful grin that nevertheless carried a certain smugness. You had never known how he did that: vulnerability and arrogance at the same time. But then again, he was a Leo.

You wasted no more time. You pushed him back onto the sofa, tore open the condom packet, and rolled it down his length. You held his cock as you positioned yourself over him, making yourself sink slowly. Making yourself take him inch by inch not all at once, because you would never get this first time again and you wanted to savour it. You wanted to remember exactly how he felt, his girth stretching you in a way that bordered on but didn’t cause pain.

When he was fully sheathed, you sat your full weight on him and took his face in your hands. You kissed him, sloppy and wet and full of tongue, then slowly began to roll your hips. He groaned, squeezed at your glutes, tipped his head back and sighed.

“Fuck, you feel amazing.”

You nodded, but he had his eyes closed, and you remembered just exactly who it was you were dealing with.

“You, too,” you replied. You tucked your face into his neck and keened as you adjusted your angle. You didn’t really talk much, usually. Weren’t sure what to say. Knew you had to say something. You kissed his neck to buy some time, sucking a bruise into his soft skin, tasting the salty tang of his sweat. “Fuck, Binnie,” you whispered. “So good.”

Lame. But you didn’t have the headspace to dwell on it because it was so good. He fit you just right; you were tight and wet and hot and your legs trembled every time the head of his cock squeezed past your g-spot.

“I’m gonna flip you,” he grunted, having noticed it, feeling the clench in your walls with each pass.

Then without another second’s delay, he did, and you were on your back and he was drilling into you with hard, precise thrusts of his hips. You let your head tip back and your mouth hang open, just as he had only moments earlier.

“More,” you murmured as you felt you lose yourself to it. To him. To the pleasure of it all, the pressure building, coiling like a spring. This was exactly what you had wanted. Needed. The relief of it was breath-taking and that was before the orgasm hit you.

Then it slammed into you like a train on a track and you cried out. Your eyes squeezed shut and your muscles tensed hard and your cunt clenched tight around Changbin’s thick length. He grunted, he gasped, he cried out, too, spilling into the condom and letting the tension in his body go, just enough to relax, but not so much to crush you.

When you opened your eyes, stars danced in front of them, the ceiling of your apartment temporarily transformed into a night-sky kaleidoscope. You brushed the hair from Changbin’s face.

“Relax, Bin, you can’t crush me.”

He snorted lightly and let himself put his weight onto you.

Maybe he could crush you. But you could take it. For a moment at least.

“Thank you,” he said, his breath coming in heavy gasps, his stomach pushing against yours with each inhale.

You laughed breathily, your lungs buried under his weight, trapped.

“You’re welcome.”

He lifted his head and the look on his face was hesitant, possibly even a little shy, but you knew what he wanted because you wanted it too. You drew his face to yours and kissed him, soft and sweet, then a little less, then a little deeper, with a little more urgency, your tongue dancing with his, his teeth biting down on your lips, little moans escaping the both of you.

It lasted longer than you had intended. So long that you wanted to go again, that you’d recovered enough to want him some more, to want seconds and even thirds. The box of condoms in your bathroom cabinet sprung into your mind and your heart quickened.

“Hey,” you said quietly, holding his face back from yours so you could look in his eyes. “Do you want to do that again?”

It took a second for your words to register and he didn’t reply except to bring his lips to yours once more. He twisted his body so he could rest on his forearms above you, then he put his weight onto his left side, his right hand trailing down your body as he kissed you.

“Ok, now I really have to shower,” Changbin said, standing from the sofa with a long, tired groan.

“You can shower here if you want,” you said, twisting around to watch him get dressed.

He smiled but shook his head.

“No way. I’ve never known a single person who takes less care of their skin than you do. Your soap would strip me like paint thinner.”

You snorted and rolled your eyes.

“Whatever. My skin is just naturally soft.”

Changbin chuckled.

“You keep telling yourself that, babe.”

You rose, too, as he reached the door and, without realising it was happening, he turned with his hand on the doorknob and you kissed goodbye. It wasn’t until the door was shutting after him that you realised it had happened. Was that weird?

You didn’t have the energy for it. You showered quickly and flopped onto your sofa for an ill-advised, late-afternoon, post-coital nap.

* * *

The next morning, you woke late and rushed through your morning workout, your morning shower, your breakfast, and hurried out of the door to the office. You made yourself a coffee, logged into everything, and then sat staring blankly at your inbox.

You had sex with Changbin. Twice. You hadn’t given it enough thought yesterday—not after and certainly not before. But that was crossing a line, right? Sex changed things. You had put him off the first time because you thought it would make things weird, that it would be weird.

But it hadn’t been. It wasn’t awkward or embarrassing. It was good. So good you’d asked for it again. So good that you could still feel it in your body as you twisted vacantly from side to side on your chair. It had been good for him, too, right? He had been vocal (that much you had expected) but was that acting?

He had been a very convincing fake boyfriend so far. Maybe it had just been a continuation of the act.

Except it had been his idea. In the first place, anyway.

You could feel yourself getting tangled up in knots, so you had a stern word with yourself and set up blocks on your phone so that you might be able to focus better.

The frustrating thing about it was that you couldn’t talk to anyone. You couldn’t go to any of your friends and say ‘oh my god, I slept with Changbin’ because, as far as they were concerned, you’d been sleeping together for weeks—months!—now. It couldn’t be new, couldn’t be news.

You stopped at the shop on the way home for a bottle of wine, then you took it two floors beyond your apartment and let yourself in.

Changbin was on his sofa, shaking a protein drink in a plastic bottle. He looked surprised to see you.

“Look,” you began immediately, plonking the bottle onto the coffee table and retrieving two glasses from his kitchen cupboard. You placed these on the table and poured a generous glug of wine into each. “I have to talk to you and you are just going to have to go with it because I cannot talk to anyone else about this, alright?”

“Ok.”

You took a deep breath and blew it out sharply.

“I slept with Changbin.”

His eyes narrowed and he looked from side to side and back to you.

“Uh... You know I’m Changbin, right? That’s me.”

“Yes, I know!” you shouted, flinging your hands up, sloshing wine over the rim and onto your trousers. “But I can’t tell anyone else, can I? Because then they would know we haven’t been sleeping together! So you are the only person I can talk to! Just go with it.” Then, to let him know you actually really needed this, you added, “please.”

“Ok.”

“I slept with Changbin,” you repeated.

“Right,” he started, and you could tell he wasn’t quite sure what response was the right one. “Uh, how was it?”

“Honestly, really fucking good.”

He grinned, his proud ego shining through, and you slapped him hard on the arm.

“Shut up!” you hissed, even though he hadn’t said anything. “I’m saying it was good.”

“And that’s... bad?”

“No! ... I don’t know! I don’t know anything! Isn’t it weird? Why did we do it? Why wasn’t it weird?! Aren’t you confused?!”

Changbin looked away for a moment and thought it over.

“I’m not confused.”

“You aren’t?”

He shrugged.

“Should I be?”

“It doesn’t affect you at all that we slept together?”

“Does it affect you? Affect you how?”

“I don’t know!” you wailed.

“It’s like I said before, we’re pretending to be dating so we can’t sleep with anyone else. It’s, what did I call it? Stress relief.”

“You also said you were too horny to care if it was weird, but now we’ve had sex, so the... the pressure is gone, right? As in... We’ve had relief... Does that change things?”

He shrugged again and it lit a match of frustration within you.

“Changbin! For fuck’s sake, stop shrugging! Stop being so unbothered by this!”

“Why do you want me to be bothered?! It sounds like you want it to be weird, to come between us, or ruin our friendship or something!-”

“-Of course I don’t!”

“Then why are you here insisting things have to change?”

“I don’t know!”

A loud thumping from the apartment next door broke the tension and you both slumped back on the sofa. You would have to stop shouting if you were going to continue this conversation because Changbin had lived here long enough for you know that that was a polite warning call.

“If it’s made you feel uncomfortable, we don’t have to do it again,” Changbin said, his voice softer now, quieter.

“I’m not uncomfortable. I could never be uncomfortable with you. It just... I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking it. You’re right. It was just sex. And we’re just friends.”

“Exactly.”

“Ok.”

You drained your wine glass and re-filled it, putting your feet up on the table as Changbin switched on the TV. He took a minute selecting something to watch (opting for a youtube video on the best mechanics of the Romanian deadlift which was not as boring as it sounds) and, once it was playing, he picked up his wine glass and asked, without looking at you.

“But where does that leave us, exactly? Re: sex. Is it off the table?”

You took a minute to think about it. You didn’t want to say no. Because you knew what it was like now. You knew what you’d be missing. And, if he was right, then it wouldn’t change anything between you. You could have it all. But saying yes still felt like saying something. And you weren’t sure exactly what.

“It’s not off the table,” you answered quietly, your glass perched on your lips so you could take a drink as soon as the sentence ended. You took a gulp larger than you’d intended and tried not to choke.

“Ok, then.”

* * *

It was so not off the table. It was so on the table that it almost became a permanent fixture. It seemed silly not to. You couldn’t sleep with anyone else while you were pretending to date each other and the seal was well and truly broken. It didn’t feel as though you had anything to lose, not since it became clear that it didn’t change things between you.

If anything, it made things better.

It was as if a barrier that you hadn’t known existed between you had dissolved. Pretending to be his girlfriend was so much easier now. You’d always felt awkward about the physicality of it: having to hold his hand, make sure you were near him, the occasional jeering pressure to kiss in front of people as if you had something to prove to them. It was easy now because you’d touched far more than just his hands, kissed him in ways that would be indecent viewed by an audience.

“You guys seem good,” Chaeyong commented lightly from across the table.

You raised your eyebrows in surprise.

“Uh, we do?”

“When did we seem bad?” Changbin asked at the same time.

“Honestly, no one had any hope of the two of you making it,” Seungmin added. “You were always so weird with each other. We thought you might have broken up but didn’t want to tell people or something.”

You and Changbin exchanged a quick glance and you tried not to make it obvious when you gulped and found the inside of your lip between your teeth.

“You mean you think we were pretending to date?” Changbin asked, thoroughly convincing in his bemused scorn.

“Fuck knows! But something was going on, for sure.”

“But you seem normal now.” Chaeyoung smiled sweetly and she looked innocent but, truthfully, she had been your biggest concern: nothing got past her and you were worried that she was still unconvinced.

“Gee, thanks.”

Thank god for Changbin, who was unflappable in the face of his own deceptions.

“We’re saying we’re happy for you, idiots,” Seungmin offered with a withering glare before turning to his other side, where apparently the conversation was of greater interest.

You turned to Changbin with a slyly triumphant smile on your face, which he returned exactly. You didn’t stop yourself leaning forward to kiss him and he didn’t stop you either.

* * *

For the first few weeks of your ‘relationship’, you had genuinely spent time and effort trying to think of a way for the two of you to end it. None seemed satisfactory. You weren’t really an experienced liar (not to this extent) and they all seemed transparent, lame, obviously made-up. It was as if you had never experienced any sort of relationship before because you just couldn’t think of a reasonable way for you and Changbin to stop dating.

Frustrated by your lack of progress on the topic, you thought of it less and less often. Then you and Changbin started sleeping together and you stopped thinking about it altogether. This situation was working out quite nicely for the both of you. All the fun parts of a relationship with none of the drawbacks.

You were enjoying it so much, you were annoyed you hadn’t thought of it before. And it seemed like the feeling was mutual. Changbin hadn’t raised the topic of your break-up; he still called your pet names and kissed you in public.

You had been sure, when you first suggested it, that it would be a disaster. But your desperation to get one over on your sister had been just enough to override that worry. Now, you were certain it was the best idea you’d ever had, and you were very nearly grateful to Hani for forcing it.

“Hey,” Changbin said softly, catching your hand and dragging you away from the group.

It was summer and the river park was busy. You had amassed a greater group of people than you’d expected – word going around to friends of friends of friends – and your absence from it would not be noticed quickly.

Not that anyone would care if they did notice. You were a couple now; you were allowed to disappear by yourselves.

“Have you met Sakura?” he asked.

“Uh, yeah, Felix’s friend, right?”

He nodded.

“Yeah, I mean, we met today. I don’t know her. Why?”

“She asked me out.”

“What?! Doesn’t she know you have a girlfriend?”

It shouldn’t have bothered you. Because you weren’t his girlfriend, not really. You didn’t have any real claim to him. In fact, this should probably have happened before now, you told yourself. Changbin was a catch; he was hot and fun and kind and, frankly, anyone would be fucking lucky to have him.

But you had him. As far as anyone knew anyway. Hadn’t you literally been introduced to Sakura as his girlfriend earlier that day? Where the fuck did she get off asking out your boyfriend?

Changbin shrugged again and you felt your hackles raise.

“I guess she forgot? I don’t know.”

“Well, why are you bringing it up to me? Obviously you said no.”

“I said no.”

“So why bother telling me? Are you saying you want to go out with her?”

“I was just checking whether or not I’d ever be allowed to go out with anyone again. Y’know, if you were ever going to end this thing like you promised you would months ago?”

You started. He hadn’t brought that up for ages. You hadn’t thought about it. You felt strongly that you should not admit to not having thought about it.

“Of course, I’m going to end it,” you hissed. “Want me to do it right now so you can go over and tell Sakura you’ve changed your mind?”

“Don’t overreact, Miki. This was always going to end. You specifically promised me that it would, in fact.”

“And it will! I actually thought we were both ok with things as they were, since we’re both getting something from it, but fine. I’ll have your break-up ready for you tomorrow.”

You didn’t wait for a response. You stalked off, too angry to notice that you were leaving your phone and your bag and everything else in the park. Too angry to turn back when you did notice. You walked, with heavy, angry footsteps, for a mile or two in the direction of your apartment which was still several miles away. Then you stopped and stood and didn’t know what to do. Your heart was still pounding, your breath coming heavily because you did not commit yourself to cardio in the way you did to lifting, and you were still shaky with anger.

You could not turn back. The horror of the embarrassment you would feel having to return after storming off was too strong. But you couldn’t walk all the way home. You weren’t even sure exactly which way to go, having never done the journey fully on foot before. You were stranded. You knew your only option was the river. But you decided you would rather die than go back there. You would rather sleep on the street than show your face.

You continued to stand there, waiting for your anger to fade, to be replaced by worry and, yes, embarrassment. You tried to guess what time everyone would start leaving. It was still light (such was the curse of the summer months) so it was entirely possible that some would stay late into the evening, the night even. You couldn’t stand out on the street for that long.

“Hey.”

You whipped around at the sound of his voice. He was five feet away.

“What do you want?”

You could see him biting his tongue, being the bigger person.

“Thought you might you need this,” Changbin said, holding out your bag.

“Whatever,” you replied, neither turning away nor reaching out for it.

“Well, if you don’t want it...”

He went to turn, to walk back the way he had come, but you snatched your bag from his hand. Before he could react, you put your feet to asphalt, as quickly as you could without running.

“You’re fucking welcome!” he shouted after you.

You were seething again, your stomach roiling, your blood boiling, sweat pricking in your hair. You walked to the nearest subway station in a kind of red haze, barely aware of your surroundings, cognisant only of your own body and its rage.

He didn’t call you the next day.

Or the next day.

Or the one after that.

You wondered if that was it. If that would do it. Break you up. Was it already over? The thought pained you, but you were still angry with him. He had pulled you aside to tell you that another woman was interested in him; he had suggested he was interested in her. But he was supposed to be yours.

He wasn’t yours. You repeated it to yourself, knowing that it should help, that it should make it not hurt, that it should make you not angry with him, that it was the truth. But it didn’t work. You couldn’t make it go away.

He didn’t call you for a full week and you were scowling at lunch with your sister and her husband, your parents, too. Chan asked if he could speak with you. It shook you from your sour stupor and you followed him without hesitation.

“So what’s up with you and Changbin?” he asked, casually, as if he weren’t kicking a hornet’s nest.

“Nothing,” came your sullen reply.

“Ok... So what’s up with you and Changbin?”

You scowled some more and kept your mouth shut.

“There’s obviously something going on between the two of you, and he won’t tell me what it is so I’m asking you. It sucks to see you two like this. You know how happy Hani and I were about you two getting together....”

If you hadn’t been so self-indulgent with your week-long bad mood, you might have sensed his tone, caught the micro-expressions on his face that were giving you an opening. But you had been self-indulgent, so you missed them all.

“If he won’t tell you, I don’t see why I should.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything, but I thought I would ask you myself before I tell your sister.”

He had your full attention now.

“What do you mean tell my sister?”

“I mean tell her that I’m worried that something has happened between the two of you. You’re fighting or not speaking or somethin-”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I know both of you? Changbin has been out of sorts all week and you have barely touched your food, barely uttered a word except to be as horrible to your sister as you’ve ever been.”

Chan never told you off. He never told anyone off. You felt chastened and shamed but that only fuelled your anger.

“Fine, I’ll go.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“I’m clearly not wanted here if I’m so horrible to your precious, little wife-” You saw the way his jaw clenched and you knew that he would kick you out himself if you said much more; it felt good, pushing that button. Made you feel like you had a little bit of control, a little bit of power. “As if I ever gave a shit about her anyway. I only come to these stupid lunches because my parents make me. I hate coming. I hate Hani. I hate you. And I fucking hate Changbin!”

Chan said nothing. He looked at you with dark, furious eyes and took hold of your elbow. He escorted you carefully to the front door, waited while you put on your shoes, handed you your things, and shut the door firmly behind you.

You wished you could scream. You immediately ordered a taxi and waited impatiently until you got home. Then you picked up your pillow, pressed it to your face and let rip. You raged until your head hurt and then you fell asleep on your sofa, waking in the small hours of the morning with a sore neck. You climbed into your bed and tossed and turned. You did not sleep. You refused to get up.

When the sun was high in the sky and streaming into your apartment, there came a knock on the door. You thought for five seconds about ignoring it because you weren’t expecting and didn’t want to see anyone. Then you got up to answer it anyway.

“So apparently you hate me,” he said in greeting.

Changbin stood at your door. He didn’t let himself in. He knocked. He waited for you to open it.

Then he said that, and you bit back before you could stop yourself.

“Isn’t the feeling mutual?”

Changbin sighed. Rolled his eyes.

“Ok, let me know when you’ll stop being a cunt and maybe I’ll try again.”

He walked away and you let him.

* * *

You kept waiting for him to come again. He didn’t. You waited for him to call or text. He didn’t. As time went on, you had assumed you would care less, get over it, stop being bothered by it. You didn’t.

It had started to hurt. It began as a needling kind of pain, sharp but small. Then it began to grow and now you woke with a hole in your chest and bitterness in your heart.

You thought about him all the time. What he must be telling people. You had refused to talk to anyone about it, refused to go out, shut yourself up in your poky apartment waiting for it all to go away.

It didn’t.

There was a knock on your door and you jumped, because it had to be Changbin. Because who else could get into the building?

Your body physically withered at the sight of your sister.

“How did you get in here?” you asked.

“I know your building code, Miki. I know your door code, too, but I didn’t want to just barge in.”

“Why not? You love barging in. You love poking your nose in where it’s not welcome.”

Hani did not reply. She sat on your coffee table and gestured for you to take a seat opposite her on your sofa.

“What do you want?”

“I came to see if you wanted to talk about it.”

“Talk about what?”

Hani closed her eyes briefly and you knew she was rolling them beneath her lids. She was too polite to just do it outwardly, even though it was obvious how she felt.

“You and Changbin haven’t been speaking much, huh?”

“Fuck off, Hani.”

“I know he misses you.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I’m married to his best friend, M-”

“I’m his best friend!”

“Ok, ok, I’m married to one of his very close friends. Chan says he’s miserable and I know you are, too.”

“You don’t know anything.”

“I don’t know much, I’ll admit that, but that’s because you don’t tell me anything. Have you ever considered that I’d be less ‘fucking annoying’ if you ever let me in? If you ever volunteered information about yourself and your life? I don’t like being the person you think I am. I know you think I’m hen-pecking you, I’m a nag, I’m just like Mum and all the much less kind things you’ve said. But I’m not. You just think I am because you take every question as an attack; you think every inquiry is an interrogation.

“You are the spikiest person I’ve ever met and the reason I was pushing the boyfriend thing with you is because you’ve got worse since you and-”

“Don’t say his name-”

“... Since the break-up. You were spiky before but now you’re mean and you’re bitter and miserable. And I know you want to be happy, so I pushed it. And then you got with Changbin and I was so happy. You were so happy. Now you’re going to ruin it all by being your-.”

“That’s why I think you’re a cunt,” you interrupted. “I’m going to ruin my relationship by being myself? Thanks a fucking bunch.”

“I was going to say you’re going to ruin it by being your worst self. Your scared self. Your angry, short-tempered self that lashes out at people. You have a soft centre, Miki, but you also have a moat full of spikes and a portcullis. You have thorns and a dragon guarding you.

“But I saw the way you looked at Changbin and I haven’t seen you look like that for a long time. Even towards the end of your last relationship, you’d lost it. But you had it back. And I don’t want you to throw it away.”

You didn’t reply because you didn’t have anything to say. You couldn’t argue with the truth, but you weren’t going to tell her she was right. You couldn’t take it.

You’d spent your whole life feeling like the fuck up, the first pancake, compared to Hanbyeol and her ability to get everything right. She had one boyfriend before she went to university and they were sweet and innocent and didn’t even sleep together. Then she met Chan on her first day at university and they’d been together ever since. She graduated with a perfect degree and got a good job on a good career path and has been walking it ever since.

You slept with your first boyfriend at the age of 15 and he promptly dumped you. You spent four years on an art degree that went fucking nowhere and did nothing for you. You’d had jobs and quit jobs and been fired from jobs; you’d dated and had partners and dumped them and been dumped by them. Nothing stuck.

“You don’t know anything,” you mumbled sullenly back, your fire extinguished.

“I would if you told me.” But she wasn’t chastising, wasn’t telling you off. She was just saying it, softly, gently now.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s ok. You don’t have to talk about it with me if you don’t want. But you should talk to Changbin. He really does miss you. And I really don’t want you to miss out on what you had with him because you’re afraid or being stubborn. Sometimes you have to meet people halfway, Miki; it’s not fair to make him come to you every time.”

She stood and left your apartment without another word. Your bottom lip wobbled.

Was it too late?

You didn’t know where to start. How to start. What to do. Who to turn to. The only person you could talk about this with was Changbin because he was the only person who knew the truth. It wasn’t even a matter of your pride anymore; it would have felt like a betrayal to reveal the secret to anyone else. But you couldn’t just go to Changin, half-cocked, with nothing in your head but a jumble of half-formed sentences and no idea what you really wanted.

You let another week go by.

The gym felt stuffy. You were sure the aircon wasn’t working properly because it should not have been that warm in there, even if it was over 30 degrees outside. You were dripping with sweat and looking around, praying for chalk so you could dry your hands properly. You had given up on the barbell because you didn’t think you’d be able to grip it with such wet hands. You were miserable and grumpy, and the workout sucked.

Then Changbin walked in.

You felt sick. Your first instinct was to hide, but there was nowhere to hide. And he’d already seen you. Your eyes caught and he slowed to a stop, just looking at you. You had to make the first move. You knew you had to.

You stood from the bench and walked towards him, crossing your heart and hoping to die that he wouldn’t walk away.

“Hi,” you said, your voice small.

“Hi,” he returned.

You could barely look him in the eye. You hadn’t prepared for this.

“It’s pretty unbearable in here, right now. I think the aircon is broken,” you offered, cursing yourself all the while.

Changbin seemed surprised and he nodded with a small ‘oh’.

“I think I’ll be fine,” he said. “I wasn’t planning to be long anyway.”

“Right. Yeah. Ok.”

It was tugging at your heart, this need to say something, this inability to do so.

Changbin waited only a few more seconds and then he pointed beyond you and began to move away.

“Wait!”

He stopped.

“I... can we talk? Sometime. Not now. Later. I don’t know. I- I... We should talk.”

You kept your eyes trained on the ground and could feel his gaze on you. He answered slowly.

“Yeah, ok. Text me or something.”

You nodded and scarpered, workout unfinished, but you reached the lift and breathed a sigh of relief. Had that been so bad? You’d survived. You were still in one piece. And he’d agreed to talk to you.

Part of you wanted to go back and tell him, actually, it has to be now. You wanted to get it over with. Another part of you wanted it to never happen. You still didn’t know what you would say to him.

You stood, nervously, outside his apartment, waiting for your courage to build to a sufficient level for you to knock on his door. It was taking its sweet time. You weren’t sure if it would ever get there. Your palms were sweaty, the backs of your knees, too. You realised the last time you were this nervous to speak to someone was the day your last relationship ended and you stood outside your shared apartment, waiting for the courage to go in and end it. Have it ended for you. Not by you. You had certainly never been this nervous with Changbin: not the first time you went to your sister’s pretending to be together, not the first time you had sex. You had always felt comfortable with him.

Now you didn’t. And that was on you.

You closed your eyes, gritted your teeth, and knocked. The door opened almost instantly.

“Oh. Hi. That was quick.”

“I know; you’ve been out there for ages. I’ve been standing here waiting for you to knock.”

“Oh.”

Your face flamed so hot, it made your eyes sting. Changbin stood back and gestured you into his apartment. You waited for him to sit on the sofa and then you took your place on the floor, just off to the side. Somehow, you didn’t feel like you could sit equally next to him. You had apologies to make, grovelling to do.

Changbin waited.

“I’m sorry,” you offered first. The easiest thing to say because it covered all manner of your sins.

“What for?”

Less easy.

“Everything,” you choked. “For making you pretend to be my boyfriend, for not breaking us up, for my short temper and impatience, for overreacting to the Sakura thing, for not speaking to you. All of it, really.”

You heard him take a deep breath but didn’t dare look at him. The silence felt stiff. You couldn’t say anything more even if you’d wanted to. You needed to know what his response was first.

He sighed.

“They’re not the things I want you to be sorry for... I suppose I should apologise, too.”

“What for?”

You were struggling with the silence. If there was one word that could never describe you or Changbin, it was ‘quiet.’ You would have needed more hands to be able to count on fingers the number of noise complaints he’d received from his neighbours. It was never like this between the two of you. It was never awkward like this.

“I don’t want to say it,” he said eventually. “I feel like shit and I don’t want to say it because I’ll feel even more like shit.”

“I don’t want you to feel like shit.”

“That’s how you’ve been treating me.”

Tears pricked in your eyes and you did your best to swallow the anger that was rising with them. Your temper was the reason you were in this mess; it could not get you out of it. But Changbin continued before you could find a word to say.

“I got it wrong, obviously. I thought it was going somewhere. Not at first, obviously. But something had changed and I thought, ok, maybe something is happening now. Maybe this... Maybe this could be real. Then it went on longer and longer and I realised how stupid I was to think that. Because you didn’t want anything more. That was clear. That was really clear and I should have seen it long before I did.”

He sighed heavily and fell back against the sofa cushions. You risked a peek and saw him contemplate the ceiling.

“I made the Sakura thing up.”

“What?”

“I made it up. Of course she didn’t ask me out! She had been introduced to us together. You were introduced as my girlfriend; why would she have then tried something? I just had to see how you’d react. I wanted to... test, I suppose, how you felt.”

You took your time speaking because you could feel your rage simmering in your gut. You were trying so hard not to be angry, not to react. But he’d lied to you. Manipulated you. This was his fault and all this time you thought it was yours? Why would he do that?

“Are you going to fucking say anything, Miki?”

‘Yes,’ you thought, ‘just as soon as I can stop seeing red.’

“I don’t understand.”

The words were sharp in your throat, painfully clawing their way out. You could feel Changbin’s patience ebbing away, too, and the whole situation was as if you were dancing on a tightrope. You had thought it would be easy to straighten out: an apology, some reluctant forgiveness, a few jokes and things would be back to normal. Guess not.

“It made me feel used.”

His confession was small. Small and quiet so you knew it was real, that he wasn’t after a reaction or a fight. He was just telling you the truth.

“Used?”

“I was up for it, at first. I agreed, I didn’t have to but I did. I signed up for it. I know that. Pretending to be your boyfriend was fun to start with. Making you squirm. Though, to be honest, it wasn’t fun that you were so... disgusted by the idea of us being together. The way you flinched every time I touched you or looked nauseated half the time at the thought of us so much as kissing. That wasn’t exactly a balm to my ego. But I could take it. And you got used to it, I thought. Got less disgusted.

“Then we started having sex and things changed. You changed. And I didn’t really know what it meant but I know you well enough that I knew not to push too hard. I guess I thought, at some point, you would come out and say it. But you didn’t. At all. Things carried on exactly as they were and I realised that’s what you wanted. You didn’t want me for anything more. You wanted to have sex and pretend we were together but you didn’t want to be together. You didn’t want me. You just wanted me to keep up your pretence to get one over on your sister; you wanted the convenience of, I don’t even know what. It was like you liked the idea of being with me but not the reality of it. And I got sick of it, ok?

“That’s what made me feel like shit. That’s what made me feel used. And I know you; I knew you were never going to talk to me about it. So I made up the Sakura thing. I wanted a reaction from you. I wanted to see if you gave a shit at all.”

You wanted him to continue, to say things so that you didn’t have to. Because you did give a shit. You were incensed that Sakura dared to ask him out. You were angry with him because you felt like he wanted to go out with her. You felt betrayed by it. Abandoned. Rejected. Surely that had been obvious by your reaction. Surely you didn’t have to say that now?

Though you still weren’t sure what it meant. Hearing Changbin spell it all out like that: his hurt, the word ‘disgusted’, his hope, your inability to communicate being thrown in your face when you had hoped it was a secret. You didn’t want him to see you like that: inept and selfish and inconsiderate. Used. You had used him. Your first instinct had been to kick back at that, deny it vociferously, scream at Changbin and call him every name under the sun, storm out.

But you weren’t doing that anymore. You weren’t going to let your temper ruin this. Again.

Or you were trying.

“Obviously I give a shit,” you said sullenly, a little sulkily despite your best efforts.

“I don’t know.”

“How can you say that you don’t know? Don’t you know me?”

“Yeah, I know you but I’m really beginning to see the limits of my knowledge. I can’t know everything, Miki. I can’t read your mind. Sometimes you have to say things. Sometimes you have to say things even if the other person already knows them! Things need to be said. They need to be heard.”

“What things?”

“I don’t believe you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” You could hear your voice rising but couldn’t stop it.

“Yes, you do!” His was rising, too. “You know exactly what I’m saying and you know what I want you to say but you won’t say it and that’s the fucking problem, isn’t it?”

You opened your mouth to argue back but he got in first.

“Or you really, actually don’t know what I’m talking about and that, in itself, is a problem. Either way, you need to figure it out.”

His tone was final. Conclusive. Dismissive. But you had only just got started so you weren’t going to leave just yet.

“Why do I have to figure it out?”

“Because it’s your problem!”

“No, it’s not! You’re the one who lied about Sakura! You made this mess!”

Changbin got to his feet.

“I made this mess? This entire thing was your idea! I have followed your lead the entire time and you have led me down a fucking merry path! Do you kn-”

“I’ve been leading?! You’re the one who suggested we have sex!”

“You’re the one who took me up on it! And I’d never have suggested it if we weren’t trapped in a situation of your making!”

“You didn’t have to go along with it!”

“You asked me to! You’re my friend! Friends do each other favours! Of course I was going to say yes!”

“I didn’t force you to!”

“Friendship forced me, you idiot! But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t understand that.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

You were interrupted by a knock at the door. Changbin answered and it was building security, here to offer up yet another warning regarding the noise. Changbin apologised, promised to keep it down and returned to the sofa.

“Ball’s in your court,” he told you. “It’s up to you.”

“What’s up to me?”

You made the mistake of looking up at him and his glare could have turned you to stone.

“Don’t act stupid, Miki. You figure it out.”

You wanted to argue. You wanted to have this out right here, right now. Arguing cleared the air. You had been getting somewhere before his pathetic, meddling neighbours had gone and complained about the noise. Maybe you should have made him come to you; your neighbours had never complained, never even made a peep. Maybe you should have gone somewhere open – the park, the river, somewhere you could shout at each other amongst all the noise of the city.

You didn’t want to leave.

“Will you just go?” he asked, impatience ringing clear as a bell through his tone.

You bit the inside of your lip to stop yourself saying no. Then you let it go.

“No. I’m not leaving.”

“I don’t have anything more to say to you.”

“Well maybe I have things to say to you!”

“Do you?”

Yes. No. Maybe. They were there somewhere, the words you wanted to say, the words he wanted to hear. You knew they were there, germinating somewhere deep and dark and bloody. You weren’t ready for them to sprout, to grow, to bloom.

“Miki, I don’t want to ask you again. Please leave.”

When you remained sitting on the floor, he sighed and turned the TV on; he watched and didn’t look your way. He kept watching and didn’t glance down even once.

You knew you weren’t going to say anything but leaving felt like defeat. It felt like walking away. It was walking away. You didn’t want to walk away from Changbin.

You had no choice but to.

* * *

“Can I talk to you?” Chan asked, the following Sunday.

You didn’t get the sense this time that you were in trouble, but you knew you would deserve it if you were.

“I wanted to apologise,” he began and you started.

“You want to apologise to me?”

“Yes. I should have known better than to ask you so directly about you and Changbin. I just didn’t know how to tiptoe around it and, to be honest, I was kind of worried about Changbin; I was thinking of him, not you. So I’m sorry for pushing it.”

No wonder Hani fell in love with him.

“You don’t have to apologise to me, Chan. I should be apologising to you. I was rude; you were just being nice. I appreciate it, actually, that you came to me yourself before siccing my sister on me. I didn’t mean what I said.”

“I know you didn’t.”

“Did you tell Hani I said it?”

He chuckled.

“No, of course not.”

“Good.” You paused. “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok. Air cleared. We’re all good. But... can I ask now about you and Changbin? He said you talked.”

“Then you probably know everything already.”

His eyebrow quirked and you weren’t too angry to miss it this time.

“What?” you asked.

“I don’t think I know everything.”

“Enough.” You shrugged. “He says the ball’s in my court, but I don’t know what to do with it.”

“Don’t you?”

You could feel your conversation with Changbin started to repeat itself.

No, you did not know what to do with the ball and you were getting pretty tired of holding it. It was Changbin. Your Binnie. Not your Binnie. Just Binnie. He was your friend, your best friend. He was your fake boyfriend because your sister had bugged you just one too many times about it. He was your friend-with-benefits because you couldn’t both keep the lie going and sleep with anyone else. He was...

He had said he felt used. You hadn’t felt like you were using him. Or maybe you thought you were using each other, in which case it was fine. You were both benefiting, weren’t you? You got all the perks of a relationship with none of the obligations. It was ideal. It was really the perfect situation. You had thought.

Changbin obviously didn’t feel the same. You kept running it through your head, the things he had said:

“I thought it was going somewhere.”

“Something was happening.”

“Maybe this could be real.”

It wasn’t real. That was the whole point. It wasn’t supposed to be real.

But your anger when Changbin lied about Sakura was real. The sense of betrayal you felt. The abandonment.

Your comfort with him was real. The ease you felt in his company. The joy and contentment in just lounging around together, with no pressure to be anything other than who and what you were.

Your pleasure was real, once you started sleeping together. The literally toe-curling, hair-raising, blood-curdling ecstasy he ripped out of you. Gave to you. The soft sweetness of his kisses and the unyielding strength of his body; his smooth, golden skin, and curly, black hair. The noises you’d never heard him make before that you could now conjure up whenever you liked, that echoed in your dreams. All of that was real. It was more than real; it was animal. It was pure. It was mindless and easy and natural.

Natural, too, it became when you kissed outside of the bedroom. When you leant into him and he pulled you close with his arm around your shoulder. When he held your hand. When he placed a protective hand on your back on the subway, in a bar queue, just letting you know he was there. He was there for you.

He was right that you’d felt awkward at first. That you hated the pet names and the embarrassment that came with them. You hated him for being mischievous and jeopardising the whole operation by testing your non-existent acting skills. You weren’t sure when that feeling stopped. You were sure it was before you slept together but then you remembered the watershed that occurred afterwards.

An invisible wall between you had disappeared; a veil had been lifted. It was as if all your interactions with Changbin before that moment had been happening behind a barrier. You were holding hands through the holes of a fence, one of you on either side of it. You were clinging to each other from far away.

Then suddenly, you weren’t. You were on the same side of the fence. You were not just close but united. Joined. One.

It hurt your heart to think about it. It hurt so much. It hurt like a break-up. It hurt like heartbreak.

So you knew the answers. The answer. But you didn’t want to.

You looked up at Chan, the inside of your lip torn to shreds. You shrugged.

“I don’t know what to do,” you said, and it came out tight and choked, tears you hadn’t realised were there stinging in your eyes.

Chan pulled you into his arms for a hug and, on any other day, you’d have shoved him off, but it came as a relief. You leant into him and wrapped your arms around his waist.

“You’re a good brother,” you said quietly, trying not to sniffle. “I’m glad Hani married you.”

“Thanks, Miki. That really means a lot to me, you know.”

He rubbed your back and you felt like the world’s most pathetic loser, and sickeningly grateful for Chan at that moment.

“You and Bin can work it out, I promise.”

You could only hope that was true.

* * *

You sat with the answer for longer than you should have. You should have taken it to Changbin as soon as you knew the truth. You even knew what was stopping you. But that knowledge wasn’t helping you get past it.

You lay on your sofa, rotting, hoping to decay to the point that your decomposing body could leak into the cushions and you could become one with it. You stared at your ceiling. You were putting it off. You didn’t want to do it, but doing anything else felt like defeat, felt like shirking your responsibility, felt like running away. So you just lay and stared and waited for something to make you move.

The longer you left it, the harder it would be. The longer you left it, the less likely it was that Changbin would respond how you wanted him to. Because you were leaving him hanging. Stringing him along—you had been stringing him along, however unwittingly, for weeks now. That wasn’t fair and he had every right to be angry, to dislike you, to not want anything more. To have changed his mind.

God, you hoped he hadn’t changed his mind.

You could scarcely believe that it had been three weeks now that you’d not been speaking. Three weeks with just one argument between you. No wonder it felt like a break-up. Your relationship might technically have been fake, but you had dug deep enough to realise that your feelings weren’t.

You cringed to yourself. You hated that. You hated thinking about your feelings. You hated that they existed. You hated that they hurt so much, all the time. You hated how much you missed him, how scared you were to lose him.

That was enough, you’d decided. It hit you over the head, your oldest friend, impatience. You had had enough of this, you said to yourself. Rip the fucking plaster off and, if you bled all over the floor, so be it. At least maybe you’d bleed to death.

You took the stairs to Changbin’s floor and hammered on his door. No answer. You let yourself in, using his door code.

“Binnie?”

The apartment was empty.

Not wanting to lose any momentum, not wanting either to give him any notice, to initiate any contact that might psych you out or knock you off-course, you decided to head to the gym. It was as likely a place for him to be as any.

You were right. He was on the floor, stretching, when you entered. That was good; that meant he had finished. Also good: the gym was empty but for the two of you.

You strode over and sat next to him. You placed your hand on his arm. You knew what you had to tell him but hadn’t quite picked the words. They were never your strong suit. He turned to look at you, his face an open question, and shuffled into a more comfortable position.

The words didn’t come but the impulse did. You leant forward and kissed him. Tentative, hesitant, light. The second seemed to stretch forever; you were desperate for it to end and dying for it not to. Your heart was pounding so hard, you could hear it in your ears. Your body was flushing warm, running hot and you could feel the heat from him, too, though you knew his wasn’t anything to do with you.

The second finally ended and you pulled back, but only barely, just enough to see his eyes, usually so intense but, at this moment, open, sparkling, asking.

You kissed him again. You hadn’t meant to; it happened without your say so. This time, he responded. You felt his lips move against yours, his head turn so they slotted together, so he could run his tongue over your bottom lip. You moved your hands into his hair, damp with sweat, curling at the edges of his face.

“Binnie,” you whispered, when his lips left yours a second time.

“Miki,” he returned.

“I want to tell you-”

He interrupted you with his mouth on yours again. You made a noise of protest, but it was weak and you didn’t follow through because it had hit you, how much you missed this. How much you wanted it. How much you had liked it at the time and not allowed yourself to notice.

You had to be closer to him. You shuffled on your knees and sat yourself in his lap; he pulled you to his body until his sweat soaked through your shirt. Your mouth journeyed across his face, to his jaw, walking a trail down his neck, kissing wet drops of sweat from his skin.

“Miki...”

“Binnie...”

Your mouth reversed its travels and you sucked his bottom lip between yours, sank your teeth into it gently and then not so gently. The groan he made, deep in his chest, lit you up on the inside, burning hot now, your own sweat starting to prickle on your skin.

Before you lost your mind completely to the heat and the haze, you pulled back. You pressed your forehead against his and took a second to get your breath back, breath you hadn’t noticed he had taken.

“I need to tell you,” you repeated. “I have to tell you things.”

You felt him nod against you.

“Ok, you can tell me.”

“I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t the thing you wanted to start with. You wished you could have said it all without having to apologise. But you’d done things that you were sorry for and he had to know.

“I’m sorry I’m so stupid and I’m sorry I used you and I’m sorry I don’t know how to be honest with you and I’m sorry I don’t know how to feel things and I’m sorry I shouted at you and was a dick to you and said I hated you. I’m sorry I did all this stupid shit. I’m sorry I didn’t notice. I'm sorry I didn’t realise. I’m sorry I didn’t speak to you. I’m sorry for all of it.”

His lips were back before you had even closed your mouth. You pushed against his chest with your hands.

“Stop kissing me! I have to say stuff!”

“I know, but I have stuff to say, too, and I want to say it like this,” he replied, pausing between each clause to press his mouth against yours, staying so close that you could feel his lips move as he spoke.

“You said I had to go first,” you reminded him. “Let me go first.”

He huffed but leant back a little and you did the same, the air between you clearing just enough for you to remember how nervous you were, how terrified, even though he’d just been kissing you, even though you sat in his lap with his arms around you.

“It started out not being real,” you began. “It really wasn’t real and I intended for it to never be real because I just wanted Hani to leave me alone and I was going to end it. I swear. I was racking my brain trying to come up with a good solution. Especially because you were being so annoying! I thought you wanted it to fail because you were winding me up so much. And you were right, I fucking flinched and I hated it; it made me so uncomfortable because it was so weird to have you doing that. We didn’t do that!

“Then you kissed me on the subway and it was... nice. And then horrible because it shouldn’t have been nice! And then we had sex and it was... more than nice. And I... I didn’t want to break us up anymore because I liked how it was. I kept saying to myself that we had all of the perks of a real relationship with none of the drawbacks but what I really meant, though I didn’t know it, was that I had all the security of a relationship with none of the risk.

“I didn’t want to risk it. Having feelings. Going there. With you, especially. Not because—not because I d--... Not... It was you, Binnie. You were my best friend. I trust you with everything. You know all of my stupid secrets; you’ve seen me throw up on the street; you gave me food poisoning so bad I literally shit myself in your doorway; it’s you--”

“Can I make a recommendation?”

“What?”

“Maybe don’t talk about shitting yourself while you’re trying to confess your undying love for me?”

You slapped him hard on the arm.

“Shut the fuck up! I’m being fucking vulnerable here, you prick!”

He laughed and you let him kiss you, just a little, just long enough for the flash of your annoyance to fade.

“My point is,” you continued, pushing back against him, “that if you didn’t want me, who the fuck would? You are the person who could... You’re the person who could hurt me the most. Out of anyone. Out of everyone. If I didn’t have you, if you said no, if I fucked things up, who would I have? I didn’t want to lose you.”

“So you kept me at arm’s length and pushed me away and didn’t speak to me for weeks.”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

Shame flamed on your cheeks. It swallowed your voice, made your throat tight and your eyes sting. You dropped your gaze, focusing on your hand around his bicep, your ragged thumbnail that you had chewed to bits. You watched it raise and lower as Changbin shrugged.

“It’s ok. I did it, too. I could have brought it up. But I didn’t. Because, honestly, I knew it would go badly and I thought it would be easier to fight than talk about it. I thought you would find it easier if I pushed you to be angry rather than pushing you to be... open. I thought if you really felt anything, it would come out in an argument. That wasn’t fair of-”

“No, that is pretty much right on the money. You’re right. It’s so much easier to be angry with you than... than this.”

“Are you still angry?”

You shook your head. You were as far from angry as you’d ever been.

“Are you still angry with me?” you countered, swallowing hard.

“No.”

A sigh of relief.

“Tell me, then,” he whispered, his lips moving against yours in anticipation of a kiss.

“Tell you what?”

“What you want.”

And it came out easily.

“You.”

* * *

#skz fanfic #changbin fanfic #skz x reader #skz smut #changbin x reader #changbin smut #seo changbin #seo changbin fanfic #changbin fic #skz fic

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setsugekka · 1 year

Text

❥hedonism (m)

↳ Spring break with your boyfriend Jisung was supposed to be relaxing, except for the fact that you desperately want to fuck his best friend, Changbin.

han jisung x fem!reader, seo changbin x fem!reader — friends with benefits, drama, porn with plot, explicit sexual content. [10,2k wc] cws: infidelity!! themes of sexual incompatibility, bad decisions, alcohol consumption, penetrative sex (protected), rough sex, dirty talk, praise, Changbin has a Big Dick, play possessiveness.

Jisung was kind.

Kind is enough, isn’t it?

Really, Han Jisung was so much more than the absolute, resounding kindness that he showed you, and everyone else, equally. He was attentive — so interested in you and everything that made you, you. All of your bizarre, niche interests, Jisung was always there to listen. In the early months of the relationship, many late nights were shared together talking about your goals, your futures, your dreams — both individually and in a potential state of togetherness. An almost blind, hopeful optimism that he showed that admittedly; you hadn’t shared, but being with Jisung changed you in small ways. Very particular ways. Ways that you thought made you a better person.

For yourself. For him, maybe?

A man that physically, perhaps strayed a bit from your usual type of interest. Not bad, far from ugly, but not the usual visual appeal that would have piqued your interest in an instant. You considered that this was perhaps a bit of the oil on the proverbial flame of your love for him, and you did love him — quite early on, at that. Only weeks into the relationship, that the L-word was dropped from your lips — holding hands and stargazing one humid, summer night. Jisung reciprocated with what felt like the absence of a second thought about it, as if he had already known long before you had, and still, only weeks into your partnership with him.

Within the throes of the honeymoon stage, everything seems surmountable — if even paid the smallest modicum of acknowledgment to begin with.

But you loved him. You loved the way he smiled at you and was tirelessly into you and all of the quirks that came with. It was easy to discuss the future with him; timelines for marriage, kids, careers…all of the future life goals that would result in the make or break of any relationship. The concept of “insurmountable”, never an issue with Jisung. He was on board with you, with anything that resulted in you.

And in the bliss of new relationship energy, it’s easy to miss the warnings — when someone looks at you with all of their love and adoration, sometimes it’s easy to tell yourself, “we can get past this,” about anything. Everything, even. “We can work through that,” “it’s not a big deal, I can live with that.”

You always want for it to be true, and we’ll do everything to make it such. Everything to compartmentalize our wants, our needs. We tell ourselves that no one will ever, truly, be perfect — that we will always have to give something up for all of the other shining attributes of someone.

Jisung could never make you come.

It wasn’t necessarily inexperience, at least, not based on his tellings. Not a lot of experience, but plenty — and the same for yourself, you knew how to make yourself come, and ultimately, that’s always what it would come down to. In the beginning, hours could be spent in the attempt; a ready and absolutely willing partner, trying to learn the ins and outs of your body and preferences, only to fall flat every time. Multitudes of failure eventually beginning to weigh heavy on him — not by his own admission, but you could tell — sessions began running shorter and shorter, with less emphasis on attempting to reach a place that was seemingly unreachable altogether, for him.

The two of you gave up talking about it, supplemented with toys. Both of you happy enough with the arrangement — but neither thrilled by it.

Spring break rolls around the corner and Jisung tells you that he and seven of his guy friends are renting a large home for two weeks — partying and lounging and other such debauchery to take place, you sigh and smile at him — Jisung’s youthful enjoyment of the world always being such a bright spot to your otherwise regular outlook on the world around you. It’s not that you were negative, or dull — Jisung just shone so brightly in comparison. It was a light that you never wanted to see go out, and to the best of your ability, this was your goal.

And you loved him, as he loved you — what else could there be?

Around the eight month mark of your partnership, Jisung invites you out to dinner with all of the guys he would be sharing a place with for the upcoming weeks. Most of them you had already met in smaller groups or circumstances; Jisung conning them into third wheeling a date of yours that you later had to apologize for, and your wonderful, hopelessly optimistic boyfriend having only realized the error of his ways after the fact. Naturally. It was so Han Jisung of him.

Gripping tightly to his hand as the two of you enter the establishment — a large BBQ joint halfway across town — a bit closer to where the shared home would be, but not far out from your own apartment, either, Jisung strokes your thumb with his own in an effort to share his positivity with you through contact. He pushes the door open and motions for you to enter ahead of him, only whispering “it’ll be fine, don’t worry, you know most everyone already, just be yourself” as you walk by him. Smiling at the words, you catch eyes with one of the friends you are familiar with, and thankfully, the one that you had gotten along with the best, as well.

“Get over here already,” Minho says, quickly standing upon seeing you and shouting across the restaurant, so loudly that it’s almost embarrassing. “We’ve been waiting!”

“You know Jisung takes forever to get anywhere,” you respond when you finally reach the large table, reaching towards the man and hugging him as a hello.

“Hey!” Jisung retorts, but unable to refute the claim. He instead opts for introducing you around the table. “You know most of these dummies already, but the two you haven’t met—” he pauses to point at them, as if you’re incapable of the process of elimination yourself. “Seo Changbin, Kim Seungmin”

“Nice to meet you,” you say, and the two of them allow for the same in response.

Everyone is kind, which you expect. You don’t take Jisung for the type of man who could involve himself with the type of people that weren’t — despite all of the varying personalities present, everyone was more than happy to welcome you — include you, invite you back to the house to show you around. You explain that you have work in the morning and thus can’t, but that you’re sure you’ll be over soon, and everyone begins talking amongst themselves about how to plan for the welcoming party, as if you were moving in, or something. It’s heartwarming, being so welcomed into a group of strangers.

Jisung’s hand moves to your thigh as he sits next to you, laughing with his friends, and squeezes it lightly — affirmation that he’s there and he’s proud of you, that you’re doing great and he always knew you would. It feels nice.

It also feels bad.

You hate to admit it, so you wouldn’t even consider doing such — gun to your head and all — but it’s the man sitting on the other end of the lengthwise table that unfortunately catches your eye a bit more than you had liked. The truth was, that all of Jisung’s friends were good-looking men; in fact, you wondered how he managed to wrangle up so many to begin with, but the thought is fleeting and replaced by the attention served on Changbin. Black t-shirt and short, brown hair, nice lips and even nicer arms. Certainly a man that works out, cares about the way he looks, and wants everyone to notice it.

And you are, much to your guilt.

But you figure — nothing wrong with looking. Everyone looks. A common and damaging misconception within a relationship that ones libido simply dies for all others upon entering a monogamous partnership with another person — that both parties are to never see, experience, acknowledge the existence of another attractive human being ever again; and if you do, that you’re wrong, you’re broken, you’re a bad person. It’s bullshit.

However, suppose it does become a bit trickier when the object of your admiration is one of your partners best friends.

The part that you do allow yourself to experience guilt over, is the subtle wishing in the back of your mind — that maybe Jisung had looked like that. That yes, all things considered, Jisung was the perfect match — and yet, you can’t help but yearn for more.

A starkly human flaw, the innate pursuit of perfection. Of pleasure.

You’ve lost count by now, how many times Jisung has been unable to get you there, without battery powered assistance.

And you want nothing more than for this to be enough, so much so that you’re willing to lie, and pretend — to him, to yourself — that it is, that you’re happy with this, that you’re fulfilled.

When Jisung asks in one particularly low moment, unable to deny himself of the desire to seek the praise that he feels deep down he does not deserve, you cave and grant it to him.

‘Do you miss it?’

The feeling of coming around hands or mouths or other such appendages that were not your own, and in these moments of complete vulnerability, what is one to do but lie?

Are you strong enough to bear the burden of the truth? Be the deliverer of it?

And you believe in the moment, that the both of you are simply agreeing to exist in the fairy tale of satisfaction, because the alternative is far too great to take on.

But you do remember what it’s like — a memory brought closer and closer to the forefront of your mind each and every time that your loving, wonderful, boyfriend fails. Each and every time.

“Hey uhh—” you shout into the front door of the home, seemingly empty despite you having been invited to be there. “Is anyone…home?”

You hear vague sounds akin to a television in the living room and take it upon yourself to enter — you were invited, after all. Kicking your shoes off and dropping your bag, you carefully tiptoe through the hallway entrance towards the sounds of people talking through a speaker — and turning the corner, you’re delighted to find someone, after all.

Not who you’re looking for, however. far from it.

“Oh shit, sorry, I didn’t hear the door,” he says, sitting up from the couch and fumbling for the remote to turn the volume on the television down. “Our door bell is broken, so—”

“It’s fine, sorry for just walking in, Ji—”

“Nah, it’s cool,” he says, waving a hand without a care in the world about who walks into their home, seemingly. “It’s spring break, we figure people are just gonna be coming and going anyways.”

Seo Changbin. He apparently only owns black shirts that fit his figure exquisitely.

You wish that you could be a bit more vague about your carnal interest in the man, however, when he catches the way you watch him. The two of you make eye contact for a moment and you can feel your ears pick up heat. Changbin doesn’t break eye contact first — peculiar — a game to him, perhaps?

You’re not happy about the way this situation is already beginning to get out of hand, either.

“You want a drink?”

Words so sudden, you barely even hear them over the sound of your thoughts of Changbin bending you over the back of the couch he’s currently seated on and turning you out. Guilt. You shouldn’t. You can’t. Stop.

You stutter for a reply, “um, water is fine, yeah,” and watch as Changbin chuckles to himself as he stands — walking towards, and then right by you on his way to the kitchen.

But not before flashing you a knowing raise of his eyebrows as he passes.

“Do you know when Ji will be back?” you ask, tone far more wobbly than you had wanted it to be. Pathetic.

You watch Changbin move through the kitchen, opening numerous cabinets in an attempt to find a glass before eventually locating one and heading into the fridge thereafter. “Probably like, 10-15 minutes? He and Hyunjin ran to the store for alcohol and shit, shouldn’t be long it’s not far.”

Raising the glass as if to inform you of it’s ability to be retrieved, you head over to the kitchen island and take it from his hand, sipping gently from the rim, attempting to ignore the way the man is watching your every move as you do.

“Are you staying the night?”

It shouldn’t be that jarring of a question — in fact, it’s a pretty normal one for a housemate to ask, but your thoughts running rampant in all of the directions that they shouldn’t be has you far more susceptible to the horrors of, well, Changbin saying anything to you at all.

“Yeah, think so,” you reply, sheepishly. Since when are you sheepish, you wonder?

“Cool,” is all he says, grabbing a sweater off one of the swiveling chairs and heading towards the staircase — presumably up to his room. You think for a moment, that you made it out relatively unscathed from this interaction.

“Y'all keep it down then, alright? My room’s right across the hall”

And it’s cheeky, based on his tone. Likely not meaning anything by it, but the thought of Changbin being able to hear Jisung fuck you makes your skin run hot. Would he listen? Would he want to listen? Would he…jerk off to it? Then the thoughts of him touching himself, hand wrapped tightly around himself at the sounds of you…not coming.

A bit of a damper on the impromptu fantasy.

But it’s just in that moment that you hear Hyunjin and your man barreling through the front door, with what seems like twenty bags of assorted alcoholic beverages, bottles and mixers, with more still in the car, as Hyunjin happily informs.

There’s a certain moment that night, when Jisung is grinding into you — lips pressed against your neck and a hand wrapped in your hair — that his pelvis hits just right and you’re so close; so, so, close that you just about resort to begging for him not to stop, to please get you there, please topple this one issue that grows and grows but can’t be spoken about. You think again, about Changbin telling you to keep it down, and in a moment of weakness you cry out louder, and it truly does almost get you there.

Almost, which unfortunately only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades.

Music booming, red solo cups littering the lawn like flowers on a cool autumn day, the nine of you arrive to the home of the party — with no idea who anyone is, including the host. Typical for spring break — almost an alternate reality that plays by completely different rules.

Quickly, everyone ends up off in different directions, the majority off to talk to someone that strikes their fancy, leaving you and Jisung together as the only couple in the “house.”

“Guess it’s just you and me tonight, babe,” Jisung says with a smile, “let’s get drinks.”

Unfortunately, one of the positives of Jisung being such a social butterfly, also tended to ring negatively in scenarios such as this. The type of man to make friends with any and everyone in his immediate proximity, and with alcohol added to the mix, meant that you often found yourself on your own and making due with the time. This wasn’t necessarily a problem — as a woman being entirely capable of taking care of yourself — but it was a tad bit frustrating, heading out into the back yard through the sliding glass doors of the massive home to find a makeshift dance floor, and dozens of people sloppily dancing to house music on the destroyed lawn beneath their feet.

Having not yet had enough to drink, dancing would not be in the cards for you.

…Unless?

“Where’s Ji?”

A familiar voice, not always welcomed.

“Last I saw, he was upstairs with a group of people discussing whether or not the US government has been hiding the knowledge of having found intelligent life on other planets from it’s citizens.”

You watch Changbin pause before raising an eyebrow and giving a sort of assured nod, “yeah, that sounds right.”

“What’re ya drinkin’?” you ask, and you think it’s the alcohol that allows you to play it so cool. Maybe you weren’t even that hot for the man after all, finding yourself perfectly capable of being normal in his presence now.

“Gin, you?”

“Straight?” you ask, stricken with horror. Visibly taken aback.

“Yeah, I’m cultured.”

“You’re insane.”

“I can be both. Want to dance?”

The abruptness of the question takes you aback again, because the two of you were not talking about this so where did it come from? But Changbin just watches you — completely straight faced, waiting for a reply.

“Yeah, I guess.”

You realize shortly after agreeing to this — reaching the dance “floor” and feeling Changbin’s strong hands on your hips, that this was a mistake — and all of that stuff that you thought not all that long ago about being totally fine about this man, were in fact, alcohol-induced psychosis, because you were not fine, and not even a little bit.

Changbin turns you around to face away from him, ass pressed up against his groin, and you know that realistically you can’t feel his dick, but you can feel the natural hardness of the bulge from wearing tight jeans, and you swear it makes you dizzy. Fingers digging into the natural divots of where your hip bones are and strong, tight chest pressed up against your back, you can feel the heat of his breath against the back of your ear — your neck, and your skin burns from the contact — from the closeness.

From how much you shouldn’t be indulging in this right now, because your wonderful, loving boyfriend is just inside.

And he feels you tense beneath his grip, leaning down closer to your ear, “are you alright?”

You consider it confirmation that you should pull away from the man, so you do. You apologize, citing how he did nothing wrong and you just need some fresh air from the crowd and quickly make way from it, nearly running off and to the side of the house — dark, much fewer people — only a handful there to partake in other such party substances not allowed inside of the home: hosts request.

Back up against the wall, and finally a moment to breathe, you gasp for the air that you feel you had been starving yourself of the entire time you were in Changbin’s grip, but it’s only moments later that you find the same familiar visage having followed you, slowly popping from around the corner to find you, but stopping quite distant from your own stature.

“Look,” he says, hands in the air as if surrendering to whatever fate you have in store for him and his misdeeds, “did I do something wrong? I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable—”

“No,” you cut him off, swallowing hard, “but we…we shouldn’t do that.”

“What? Dance?” he asks, surprise lacing his tone as he slowly steps closer to you again. “Is Ji that jealous?”

You don’t know the answer to that question, you don’t really want to have to find out.

“No, that’s not it,” and you pause, because you hadn’t thought the answer to this question through beyond this point, and are now left searching for it in the moment. Not ideal.

“We just shouldn’t.”

Watching Changbin watch you in silent response, you think that you can literally see him come to the obvious conclusion. Finally. Much to your disappointment. You had wanted to get away with this for a little bit longer; only exchanging hurried glances towards the man, his body, his build. Wasn’t thinking about him during sex with your boyfriend punishment enough, and for everyone involved?

And yet, he chooses not to say anything. Breathing heavily through his nose and dropping his head down with a smirk before raising it again only slightly to look up at you in the dark through his eyelashes — you can’t help but think of how unbelievably sexy he looks right now, in this moment. About how none of the other people here know who either of you are — or Jisung — how easy it would be to get away with something, anything. Just to scratch the itch. Just to get it over with. It could be enough, maybe, to never have to deal with this ever again. Would that be so bad? So wrong? To put this to bed…and not even literally.

You hate the way that you want it so badly — him to come to you, press you into the wall and lips into yours. To feel his strong hands on your body again, maybe even a little more. You know, just to get it out of your system, of course.

But Changbin remains firm in his stance, playfully pointing at you and grinning.

“Be good,” he tells you, before turning back from where he came, and leaving you in the darkened shroud of the side of the house, breathless and embarrassingly wet.

A couple of nights later, when the nine of you go to dinner again, it’s not intentional — you ending up sitting across from him, with Jisung to your right, but here you are, regardless.

It’s evident from a lack of change in the overall atmosphere, that Changbin had mentioned nothing to your boyfriend about that night at the party — of which you are thankful, not quite sure how to explain that one away, but your personal, and quite specific atmosphere with him, seems irrevocably different. Slouched in his chair carelessly with arms crossed, it makes him look massive for a man that all-in-all, is not that large in stature — but still, the positioning of his arms over his chest certainly makes aware all of the muscle and veins in his forearms. For your viewing pleasure, but likely not purposefully. 'Be good,' you remember. It echoes in your mind ever since that night. Be good. Be good. Behave.

But it’s the knowing glances that the two of you share over the table, eye contact that lingers a bit longer than it should — than it does with any of Jisung’s other friends — something shared only between the two of you. A secret. A longing, albeit, maybe only one-sided. Changbin knows that you want him, that you desire him. The word “crave” comes to mind, and you’re guilty just at that, with your boyfriend sitting just beside you, a loving hand on your leg — completely unaware of all of the ways that you wish it were Changbin’s hand — splicing together memories from the other night in your thoughts in an attempt to experience what it would feel like if it were him instead.

You tell yourself it’s normal, to desire others. It is. But you worry that everyone has a breaking point, eventually.

“Since you’re part of the group now—”

The words shake you from your fantasies, realizing that you’re being addressed, and your attention turns to the man speaking — Chan — reaching towards you in an effort to get your phone from you, and you recognize the gesture immediately despite having only just been lost in your own mind.

“Might as well add you to the group chat, so you know what’s going on at any given time, yeah?” he finishes, typing into the front of your phone as you watch him. You don’t respond, not much time to before he’s already handing your device back to you and you look at it; indeed, it’s a group chat, and everyone is there.

By phone number.

You want to be better, stronger than this, you think to yourself as you leave the restaurant, heading to your own home this evening with work in the morning. Jisung kisses you goodnight and thanks you for coming out and tells you how happy he is that you get on so well with his friends. How it means so much to him that all of the most important people in his life are good together.

You feel bad, but not bad enough.

Sitting in the drivers seat of your car and watching Jisung head back inside, you pull your phone out and go through the contacts of the group chat, locating Changbin’s number right away. It feels bad, it truly does. You keep reiterating this in your mind — and begin to wonder if you’re trying to convince yourself of the fact, rather than truly experiencing the guilt you once did.

Taking a breath, you open an empty message box with Changbin’s number — it only takes you a moment to think of something to say. Something to lie. It’s pathetic how desperate you are for interaction, for attention from this man, this man who is not your partner.

>hey, I think I left my bag in the restaurant, can you check for me?

Only a few short moments pass before the screen illuminates with the speech bubble to indicate one typing up a reply. Your heart leaps into your throat, and you take the time to contemplate the blurred lines of what constitutes an affair, and how surely they were blurred.

>you didn’t, and you know that, didn’t I tell you to behave?

Humiliating is the only word that comes to mind upon being so easily seen through by this man, this man that you barely know, have barely interacted with.

You find it intriguing, however, that not once has he threatened to tell Jisung. Perhaps there’s nothing to tell, after all. It’s always so easy to convince oneself that there is a perfectly reasonable explanation behind every sinful, wrongdoing.

You don’t respond. figure, that’s enough disgrace for one evening.

Coming down from your own, self-induced orgasmic high, Jisung rolls off of you and to the side, chest heaving and grinning as he looks over at you. You pretend to be as worn out as he seemingly is. You wish you were. He kisses you, lovingly, able to taste all of the adoration he has for you on his tongue and you know it’s times like that and in spite of everything else, this is the man that you love. This is the man that you admire.

But you do not desire him. Is everything else enough? Is lust that heavy and all-consuming?

"I’m gonna run for a drink, do you want anything, babe?” you say, rolling off of the bed and pulling your socks back on. You watch Jisung shake his head slowly, post-orgasmic smile still gracing his features. You loved the way he was so absolutely enthralled by you. You wished you felt the same, but maybe this is enough.

2:37am reading on the clock in the hallway, you tiptoe out of the room and down the stairs towards the kitchen with the only lights on being from the stove top, as to not leave the unfamiliar home completely pitch black in the depths of night. Pulling your over sized hoodie down and a bit over your panty-clad behind despite being in the company of no one and look around for a clean glass among the numerous filthy ones strewn about the counter tops.

"Looking for this?”

the words startle you so much you just about scream, heart dropping into your stomach at the sound of another human being accompanying you, even worse, when you recognize them better than you had hoped.

Changbin stands up from his previous squatting position, handing you an empty cup that he had found rifling through the cupboards where the pots and pans were typically held, another in his other hand.

“No one does dishes,” he laughs, “you might wanna wash that before you use it, though, it was pretty far back there.’

"So it seems,” you respond, normally, turning towards the sink and running water through the item in your hand.

“There’s cold water in the fridge.”

“Tap is fine,” you answer, finally filling it and turning back towards the man, pressing the rim to your lips and taking a sip. You laughed to yourself in silence — about how much the current scene reminded you of the first in this house. The atmosphere, however, had certainly shifted since then.

You allow yourself a moment to gaze upon him during a few of the minutes he spends looking down and at his phone. White tank top hugging his torso paired with gray sweatpants that you found yourself eyeing a little bit too much, you’d have been lying if you said you weren’t curious. Obviously.

He looked unbelievable. Broad, strong, masculine.

“Have fun?”

It takes you a moment to follow the question — what he was inferring, and once you do, absolute horror takes you — visually, physically, mentally. Oh God, he heard? you think to yourself.

You wonder if that’s why he’s awake right now, but it’s the least pressing matter on your mind, surprisingly.

“Oh my God, you heard us?” you gasp into the plastic cup, it echoing your sounds in a somewhat humorous way, and Changbin chuckles under his breath.

He doesn’t answer for a few seconds, finishing up with his phone before dimming it and slipping it back into his pocket. Chewing on his bottom lip, he finally graces you with a response.

You sort of wish he hadn’t, though.

“I heard him, not you.”

It’s a somewhat innocuous statement on the surface level. Jisung isn’t a quiet lover by any means, that much is true, but it’s the implications beyond that, that really pain you — and also ring painfully true. Does he…know?

You swallow hard, the sexual tension building once again, and with how little clothing the both of you are currently wearing, now certainly needs not be the time for these kinds of games. You apologize to him hurriedly, insisting that you’ll be more mindful next time and keep it down and in rush turn towards the refrigerator next to you — half in an attempt to release the strain on the situation, and half because you really fucking need that cold water now. Bending over and reaching in, you seek peace inside the iciness of the container — taking a deep breath of relief inside of it before reaching for what you had intended to retrieve.

But the devil waste no time in doing evil deeds.

Pressing up against you from behind, Changbin reaches into the icy box as well — your entire body stiffening beneath him at the contact, and any relief that the cool air had granted you — be it long gone, now, replaced with fiery hot contact of very few layers of clothing between two people.

You had almost forgot what desire felt like, and it was engrossing.

Changbin feels heavy and hard against you, his body heat immediately engulfing you and setting fire to your skin — the feeling of him on top of you like this, his pelvis pressed firmly into your back side — you think for a moment that you’re absolutely not strong enough for this, that you cannot handle this torture. Your mind races at all of the ways that Changbin could have you right then and there, and you wish that he would. Imagery of being bent over the counter top with panties around your thighs; held down, in place, unable to move or escape or do anything except take him — the thoughts presenting a dull throb between your legs when surely — it’s only been seconds before Changbin is pulling back and away from you with the container of butter in his hand.

“Sorry, needed to grab this.”

The thing about guilt, is that it becomes easier and easier to manage the longer that one is forced to do so. You realize that this rings true as you tell your boyfriend that you don’t feel well, and that you’ll be in the bathroom — you’re hopeful that your completely adoring, attentive boyfriend let’s you be without checking up on you just this one time — as you quickly rub your fingertips into your panties, chasing a high that comes all too quickly for your liking, and given the circumstances. Biting back your moans as to not allow them space to echo while you come, you realize that the only person you hope to hear you, is Seo Changbin.

A pool party, how incredibly frat of them, you think.

But it’s charming, and all in good fun. People from all around the neighborhood come over bringing food and drinks and all sorts of different things for fun — some bring party hats — who knows why, others bring floaty pool toys as if they’re children, and one couple even bring a llama, no one entirely sure what for, but not willing to ask any questions about it, either.

Holding Jisung’s hand as he attempts to light one of the barbecues, you sort of chuckle at his inability to manage such a menial task — watching him huff and puff in discontent at all of the ways the charcoal won’t catch flame for him, he finally pulls his hand from yours to look around the vicinity for something in particular.

“Have you seen the thing for the lighter fluid?” he asks, already flustered and whipping his head about in an attempt to locate it. “It’s like a…uhhh…like a red canister…”

“It should be in the side house,” Minho pipes up from the pool, “that’s where all that shit is kept.”

“I’ll get it, babe,” you assure, kissing him on the mouth before running off towards the direction dictated to you.

Reaching the old, worn down shack, the door inside rests ajar, but you scurry inside all the same.

And it’s becoming comical all of the ways in which you find yourself in this situation.

Changbin looks up and behind him from his squatting position, emptying ice into coolers and placing beer bottles inside of them.

“What’s up?” he asks, and you explain the charcoal debacle.

You’re reminded of his body pressed up against your own again. You think of what the two of you could get away with right here, right now, party guests being none the wiser.

And it must have been obvious, when he stands up, wiping his hands on a nearby towel before turning towards you.

“What’s going on with you and Ji?”

The question just about knocks you on your ass.

“Wh-what—”

“Come on, this isn’t…” and he pauses, thinking through his words perhaps a bit more delicately. “This isn’t…right, so what’s…”

It feels bizarre, the sudden coming to head of the situation at hand. Changbin acknowledging in words that there is, in fact, a this, and that whatever this was, was wrong. Not okay. Well upon it’s way to being extremely fucked up and morally reprehensible — on both of your parts. You’re Jisung’s girlfriend, but Changbin is his friend. There’s no innocent party, there.

Suppose, for the first time in a long time, honesty may be the best policy.

“I love Jiji, I really do—”

“But…”

“But…he doesn’t—” and now you pause, also thinking of how to delicately word this. You don’t want to humiliate your boyfriend, it sounds so pathetic when you try to say the words to someone else. To someone else you want to do all of the things for you that your own man can’t, at that. More salt in the wound.

“He doesn’t get you off?”

You don’t say anything, just a disheartened shrug of the shoulders, and Changbin’s expression Changes from concern to confusion. “He’s selfish? I never would have expected—”

But you cut him off, “No, no! He’s not, it’s not that, it’s just—”

And then his face switches back. Back to concern. “Oh — oh, he can’t.”

“Yeah.”

The two of you stand in silence for what feels like forever, and you laugh internally, thinking about how it’s the first time you’ve been in the presence of this man and not been thinking about all of the ways you want him to fuck you. The irony being, of course, that the conversation topic be about sex.

“I mean, that’s tough,” he starts again, visibly uncomfortable and likely unsure how to help. You think that Changbin might have realized just a bit too late that he was out of his depth with this one. “Sexual compatibility is a big deal in a relationship, y'know?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t think I should tell you to break up with my best friend,” he says, trying to lighten the mood, “but I don’t know…has it gotten better at least? Over time?”

And you’re reminded of that time that Jisung almost made you come — the time you were thinking about Changbin, instead.

“A bit.”

Upon an awkward lull in the conversation, the two of you exit the side house with the items that you had both entered for. Hyunjin walks by at just the same time and makes a passing comment about what were you two doing in there in a joking manner, to which you playfully slap his arm and tell him to shut up. Changbin acknowledges it little, only looking down to you with what you can only deem as sympathy.

But you don’t want to be pitied, you want to be fucked.

After the party and upon returning home, you dig your phone out from your bag to find a notification — a text from Changbin, much to your surprise.

>I won’t rescue you

You know what that means. You also know that dick can’t save you. It doesn’t stop you from wanting it, anyways.

Two hours into your attempted home improvement escapades, with a puddle on the ground in your bathroom and what you can only suspect is something or another missing from this tubing, you decide to call it quits and ask The Men if they can make themselves useful to you.

>do any of you know anything about plumbing or can you only do beer bongs?

Hyunjin: come on that shit was cool

Jeongin: idk if we told you but he puked for like two hours after that btw, it ruled so hard

Hyunjin: dude shut up

Chan: @Changbin knows some shit about plumbing, he’s fixed some stuff for me before

Changbin: yeah whats up, gimmie your address i’ll take a look at it in like, an hour

You send your address and dim your phone, only to receive another notification immediately after, but it’s another text from Changbin — this time, privately.

>this better not be a ploy to get me alone in your apartment, I told you to behave.

And it wasn’t, but now you can’t help but acknowledge the fact.

When Changbin inspects the scene, he apologizes for assuming the worst of you, making a joke that he actually wishes you were just trying to fuck him, because the drainage situation is a disaster. The two of you laugh, but in only about twenty minutes of work, the man has everything under control, your drainage fixed, and even wiped up the floor for you. A true gentleman.

The problem lie in all of the very specific ways that Changbin’s muscles flex beneath his shirt as he work — turning nobs and forcing things back into place — undoing all of the nonsense you had inflicted, you’d be lying if you said it wasn’t sexy. It was incredibly sexy, almost painfully sexy watching him work. You try to ignore it. You have to ignore it.

Changbin stands, behind against the counter and arms crossed as he looks at you, just having finished his handyman work. You think of all of the ways that you could be better, should be better.

All of the ways that you’re not.

It’s accidentally forceful, the way you slam yourself into him and press your mouth against his own — months of pent up, sexual frustration finally snapping and it’s all that you can manage to not immediately reach for his belt and start unbuckling it. You settle for hands against his chest to feel the muscle beneath, the muscle you have been dying to feel this entire time, and it’s every bit enthralling as you knew it would be. Part of you wishes that Changbin had been stronger, strong enough to pull you off of him, to stop you, to not kiss back.

But he’s not.

There’s reluctance at first, you can feel it in the tenseness of his mouth as you kiss at him, before you melt it away and he begins meeting you halfway with equally sloppy, needy presses of his mouth into your own, and you’re surprised that he’s the one that quickly reaches for your pants — unbuttoning, zipping, and roughly pulling them down mid thigh — not even bothering to take your panties with them. Taking you by the arms, Changbin spins you so that the two of you switch places, just as hastily dipping his hand into the already wet fabric and finally getting to feel the effect he’s had on you in such a short amount of time.

It’s embarrassing how wrecked for him you already look, with him only now pressing two fingers inside of you, and you think that nothing has ever felt more heavenly.

Reaching his free hand up and around the back of your neck, he pulls the two of you closer as he settles into a fast pace with his fingers; the drag against your walls already allowing you to build a familiar burning in your abdomen, the muscles of your thighs tightening with the promise of finally getting what you’ve been wanting. He continues kissing you, hard, before dipping down and pressing lips against your neck — slowly dragging up against your ear, the hot breath of his arousal echoing into you. You know he wants it bad, you wonder if it’s just as bad as you do.

There’s something about telling a man that another man can’t make you come. Something primal. Ego.

"I wanna hear you so bad,” he finally groans, the first words spoken since the encounter started despite it only being less than a minute in. You cry out in response, it’s the promise of release that he’s bestowing on you, and that in and of itself is almost enough to tip you over the edge.

“But we can’t do this.”

The words take longer to register than the immediate feeling of emptiness in your core does. Changbin stops, pulling his hand from you and takes a number of steps back from you altogether, leaving you reeling, fucked out, and with a ruined orgasm on top of it all. Figure, you didn’t need to step out of your relationship for this.

That thought makes you feel bad.

Through messy hair you watch the man before you. The way his chest heaves, the way he closes his eyes in an attempt to gather himself. Gather his sanity. Gather his ability to make good choices.

You look down at the tenting in his pants, and you’re so sure you’ve never wanted dick this badly in your life.

If the topic before, prior to now, was ‘what constitutes the blurry lines of an affair?’ you were sure it was crossed now. It doesn't feel as good as you thought it would, but that might be because you didn’t finish.

“I’m gonna wash my hands, and then I’m gonna go,” he says, and it’s non-accusatory, with no particular tone to it at all. As if he is genuinely just informing one of his plans.

Once Changbin leaves, sitting on your couch and scrolling on your phone, you contemplate all of the ways in which you’re terrible, and once you stop scrolling long enough to make a decision, you realize there’s comfort in simply knowing, accepting.

Turning speaker phone on, the line rings a couple of times before there’s a sing-song answer on the other end. He’s always so happy, he really thinks he’s the luckiest guy in the world.

“Hey babe, can you come over?”

You’re a little bit thankful that the next few days are just working and being home, granting you much needed time to recuperate, but with the end of spring break now right around the corner, you knew you had one more house party to attend — held by your very own boys, naturally, it would be necessary that you attend.

And you haven’t seen Changbin since he was at your apartment, but with Jisung not mentioning a single awkward word about it, you can only assume that not a word was spoken in any direction on the matter.

Not one for dressing up, jeans and a t-shirt suit you just fine for this gathering, and it’s only natural that Hyunjin make some snide comment about it upon your entering — playfully, of course, the two of you had become much closer over the two weeks time, but he certainly always had something to say…a blessing and a curse, but mostly a curse.

When 3am rolls around and dozens of party attendees find themselves littered across the living room, dining room, and even kitchen floors — much to your disdain, as someone having planned to stay the night at that home.

Even Jisung — party extraordinaire, passed out early — in his own bed, of course, because he falls asleep to watching Parks & Recreation after three beers.

Slipping down the stairs and finding the scene before you, attempting to reach the kitchen for food or a drink is akin to braving a minefield; bodies thrown about every which way, and it’s only catching movement out of the corner of your eye that pulls your attention away and to the man you had hoped to get through this evening not seeing. You watch as he quietly dips down into a hallway that you’re unfamiliar with, and you question what he’s got hiding down there.

You know it’s a bad idea, maybe he’ll just tell you to fuck off, that would be the best outcome.

“Hey!” you whisper-yell down the hall towards him as he disappears into the doorway, but he hears you, popping his head back out to find out where the sound had come from, and immediately catching eyes with you. You motion a sort of “what are you doing” in sign language that doesn’t exist, and he motions for you to come with him.

So many mistakes begin with good intentions. It’s not about being stronger than your desires, it’s about never being in a position in which you have to be.

Hopping among strung out bodies, you finally make your way to the door that leads to what you now understand to be the basement. Changbin heads down first, turning an old lightbulb hanging from the ceiling along the way to illuminate the path, and the wooden stairs creak with every step taken on them.

“I had no idea this was even down here,” you say in amazement, finally able to gaze around the space once you reach approximately the third to bottom step.

“Yeah, it’s basically a whole other home down here,” he explains, pointing in directions as he does. “Kitchen there, bedroom over there, and a bathroom to your left.”

Changbin pulls ahead as you stop to take the sights in. Despite the stairs showing their age, the rest of the interior appears well taken care of — glossed and polished wood adoring the kitchenette, bar, and majority of the tables in the living space — along with comfortable looking plush couches and an enormous flat screen television on the other end of the room.

“Drink?”

You think it’s amusing the way Changbin likes to pretend nothing has ever happened, no matter the circumstances.

“Sure.”

Standing next to the man, you watch the way his hands work in twisting and shaking items to makeshift bar tend in the moment; how his forearms flex, veins protruding, and you feel bad at the way that you still want him so bad, even after everything. Even after last time. After him walking out on you due to guilt, shame. You still wanted it.

He slows in his movements, looking at you as you watch him, and when you raise your gaze up to meet his eyes — you find something different within them.

Suppose, that’s what broken resolve looks like.

In a flash, Changbin slams everything in his hands down, taking you by the arms again just like he had before, only turning you this time, and pushing you towards the other side of the kitchenette — shorter counter, shorter sink — but he bends you over it all the same.

It happens so fast that your head spins, him having you at his mercy like this — that you barely even have a moment to register his hands on your pants again, ripping your jeans down your legs again, and shoving his hand inside your panties — all just as he had the time previous. Pressing his middle finger flat between your folds but with no intent to penetrate you, he growls at the overwhelming wetness you’ve been harboring for him this whole time, though not much time at all, maybe ten or fifteen minutes between meeting on the staircase and now, and still…soaking for him. Maybe a better man could resist the temptation, but it’s not him.

"God,” he groans into your shoulder, using his body weight to hold you down and in place. “You want it that bad, huh? I get you this wet?”

You don’t answer, still reeling from the motions, feeling his finger against you, and now weak at the way that he’s talking to you — it’s devastating when you feel the loss of his hand from you again, and you think, “not a second time,” unsure if you can even survive being left in such a state again.

But your mind is put to ease, at the sound of his belt buckle clattering throughout the basement, alongside the gentle swoop of the fabric of your undergarment being pulled down your legs.

You feel him adjusting from behind you, going through all of the motions necessary to eventually fuck you, and you’re absolutely beside yourself at the thought of finally having it. Excitement, anticipation, all bubbling in your abdomen — alongside the pulsing ache between your legs of wanting him, you can hear him tear open the package of a condom, and it’s jarring in a particular sense. Not the existence of it, but what the condom entails.

“Did you bring that…for this?” you ask, shaky in voice from desire and also uncertainty of the reply following.

Changbin forgoes answering right away to instead focus on rolling the rubber along himself, carefully beginning to line himself up with you from behind with the tip of his cock gently prodding at your entrance before speaking. “Unfortunately.”

A man worn down. Disappointed, but a slave to desire all the same.

With the answer, his initial push begins. Slow, gentle — you realize in the moment that you’ve never seen his cock, and thus have no idea what you’re “working with” so to speak, but as he pushes deeper, with more force, the stretch of his girth becomes so quickly overwhelming, tears threatening the corners of your eyes, your fingers desperately dig into the metal of the sink in front of you — begging for any kind of purchase at all, before Changbin stills inside of you, buried completely, and presses his mouth against your shoulder. “God you’re—” he begins, needing a moment to collect himself a bit more before finishing his sentence. “Small.”

You don’t know if that’s the case, or the inverse, but either way, you’re sure you’ve never been this full — the way you can feel every pulse and throb of his cock against your walls, you relish in the thought of what it’ll feel like when he comes — you almost wish he hadn’t brought a condom. A heinous thought born of desire, the most wicked trait.

“Are you sure?” he asks, and it’s a little late by now you think, but you nod all the same; desperate, whiny requests for him to move following immediately after, and he’s more than happy to oblige.

Withdrawing almost fully, Changbin pushes back in again, slowly, feeling the drag of his cock against your insides and reveling in the warm wetness. Taking into account how easy the glide is before gaining speed, or force — but it’s easy, the way you’re soaking for him and have been for weeks — almost humiliatingly so, that it’s so easy to take him with how big he is and how there was no foreplay. Your body telling on you with how happy your cunt was to accommodate him, you wish in the moment that you could have feigned at least a tiny bit of disinterest.

Pulling his body off of yours, Changbin settles one hand down onto your waist, the other pressing upward and taking purchase into your shoulder for more leverage to pull you down, on, and against him — it’s then that you finally feel the full force of his drive into you, the first sound of skin against skin that you had been craving for so long, and already — between the painful crave of him leading up to now, the thick drag of his cock, how he pulls at all of your walls and nerves with every drive and withdraw. It’s so fast that you can feel the promise of orgasm bubble up within you, something the man had yet to grant you, and you could only pray that he would be so generous tonight.

“Can I fuck you harder?”

The question sounds stupid to you, but you don’t have it in you to discuss it, only answering in babbling “please's” that sound on the brink of tears and just the sound of it is enough to make his length throb inside of you with want — the scene of a woman so fucked out for his cock that she can barely even speak anymore.

So, Changbin makes the executive decision to stop asking you to. “Jesus, okay,” is all he answers at the sights and sounds before him, driving into you once hard and fast and eliciting the most obscene cry out from you.

Settling into a brutal pace, it’s not long before you feel the promising loom of orgasm approaching — your knees threatening to buckle beneath you — you reach one hand forward in an attempt to hold onto something proper, but Changbin only digs his hands into you harder. “I’ve got you,” he grunts, following with a “fuck,” as he feels the walls of your pussy clamp down around him. Your whimpers get shorter, louder, in almost an instant, and he has no choice but to fuck you through it without so much as a plan of how to help you get there — frankly, because he didn’t think it would be this fast, this easy.

“Already? Fuck, so tight,” he groans, still maintaining his drive against you, and it’s then that he says the words that you’re not sure would ever be spoken of ever again. Words so obscene, so reprehensible, that you didn’t even know Changbin had it in him. The man of relatively good, upstanding, morality. Better than you. Better than this.

“Can’t even tell Jisung’s ever touched you, fuck.”

You wish it weren’t the thing that sends you barreling over the edge, too. The absolute repulsion of it. So incredibly fucked up and unkind to a man that has done nothing deserving of it. Of this.

But nonetheless, you come, and painfully hard, at that. Muscles tightening against one another with such force that it feels stifling, like you can’t breathe. A breathless, almost silent orgasm ripping through your body as the object of your desire fucks you through it, hard and fast — little effort on his part, really.

“Miss it, baby?” Changbin whispers towards you, and you wonder what’s gotten into him now, not that you’re complaining, but the once docile, reluctant man has slowly fallen away for this aggressive, dominant man — a man taking great pleasure in claiming your body for his own cock, instead of your boyfriends. His friends. “Miss coming around a fat cock?”

You whimper out in affirmation, largely due to the fact that the way he’s talking and the relentless stretch of him is getting you close all over again, and at record speed.

Hearing the way your voice breaks, you hear him chuckle from behind you between hard thrusts, “close again?” and you nod. “How can I get you there?”

But you can barely speak, only the sound of “r-rub-” managing through your lips but thankfully it’s enough to get the message across — pulling his hand down from your waist and snaking it down your front and between your thighs — rubbing sloppy circles in the vague area in which your clit should be; not being familiar enough with your anatomy yet to be able to hone in on right where he need to press, but the effort is enough that your second is quickly approaching, and threatening to tear his first from him as well, his panting and groaning weighing heavier and heavier on your ears with each passing second.

“Close?” and you know he’s asking you because he is, but he wants to get you there first. You nod quickly, biting into your lip, begging for a second release to take you and that he can pull it from you.

And oh, can he.

“God, I want to come into this little cunt,” he growls, still fucking into you hard and fast, the sounds of impact radiating through the basement without a care in the world who could possibly here them. “It’s mine now, anyways, isn’t it?”

The question makes your head spin. Genuinely light-headed at the implications.

“Isn’t it mine? Shouldn’t I be able to come in what’s mine? Whose is it?”

Only a loud whimper escapes you, your orgasm now quickly threatening to rip through you, and you don’t want to say it. You don’t want to answer the question. You don’t want to…

State the obvious.

Changbin repeats the last question again, and with you teetering on the edge of orgasm, your resolve comes crumbling down.

“It’s yours, it’s yours, it’s yours!”

You repeat the chant a handful of more times as you come undone around his dick all over again, and it’s all that he needs to pull the same from him — walls clenching hard around him and stripping him of his release in a loud, throaty, groan. Changbin fucks you through the both of your highs, slowing with each thrust and pulling from you before he gets too soft — tying off and disposing of the condom in quick, record time.

You wonder if it’s because it signals all of his worst choices, in succession.

With so many packed suitcases and other such bags near the door, you find it nearly impossible to locate your shoes, but you’re happy about one thing, and that is the fact that you simply just get to slip your shoes on, and drive home to your comfortable apartment, without having to worry about doing any packing or unpacking.

The guys all crowd around the door to say goodbye, thank you for coming last night and spending so much time around — how much of an absolute pleasure it was to have you around so often. How much they love you.

How much Jisung loves you.

It causes a twinge in your stomach, hearing the words. Jisung pops up from the left side of you and curls his fingers in between your own just before kissing you on the side of your head and thanking you for spending so much time around these “losers” as well.

You can’t help but lay eyes on Changbin; leaned up against the wall, arms crossed, with the rest of the guys — quiet, but not any different than that of typical Seo Changbin. So cool, calm, collected — like nothing ever happened.

Like nothing was ever said.

Pulling you from your thoughts, you hear Chan make some off-hand comment about a girl that Minho had allegedly slept with during the week, and although denying it, Chan simply won’t hear it.

“Dude whatever, I know what I saw,” Chan says, stuffing a pair of basketball shorts in a bag of his, “Changbin was there, he saw it too.”

And Hyunjin laughs from the kitchen, still attempting to pack up left over drinks from the weekend. “Changbin won’t say shit though, that man is like a vault,” he starts, pausing only due to the fact that he just about drops a half full bottle of tequila on the tile floor. “That man is where secrets go to die, never to be heard from again.”

Your eyes pull towards the person in question again, slowly turning back towards you from his gaze at Hyunjin behind him — a smirk on his face, and just the ever so delicate presence of him chewing at the bottom of his lip to make eye contact with you before speaking.

“You have no idea.”

♡ send me your thoughts and feelings in my ask.

—this is a oneshot, there will be no part 2.

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