"I Cannot Make You Understand. I Cannot Make Anyone Understand What Is Happening Inside Me. I Cannot

suck, and i cannot stress this enough, my cock to the fucking base

I hope the fic you are working on right now finds a reader who will think about it constantly for years

Sentinel's Serenade | c.sc

pairing ➳ bodyguard!Scoups x heiress!reader

genre ➳ drama, angst, romance, smut.

word count ➳ 29.5k (i'm sorry)

warnings ➳ car crash, ptsd, flashbacks of war, panic attack, murder, violence, guns, blood, death, fingering, unprotected sex, edging, female oral, arguments, coups is an a-hole but he has reasons, he was also in the military, Jun is a bad guy here(im sorry), jihoon blesses us with his special appearance.

synopsis ➳ As you start digging up an accident that has been brushed under the rug, you make an enemy who is out to get you no matter what. Amidst all the chaos you develop feelings for your bodyguard who has built walls of steel around him.

"This is your new bodyguard, Seungcheol." 

Your head tilts upward, as you scan the man standing in front of you with careful eyes. He's tall and broad; exactly how you'd imagine a bodyguard to be, along with an emptiness in his eyes, so cold and robotic that would only be achievable after being through some heavy shit, you assume. Your father continues listing off his certifications and qualities but your brain doesn't capture much after hearing that he can speak sign language and is an ex navy SEAL; too busy getting distracted with his handsome features and dissecting him as much as you can just from looking.

The man isn't handsome in the typical sense, definitely not the handsome you're used to seeing in magazine covers and charity galas. No, he's ruggedly handsome, shielding himself with a tough exterior, his thick brows knotted in a frown and his full, red lips set in a grim line, blond hair brushed back neatly. 

With the way he looks in that expensive suit hugging his body, he could pass as a business tycoon but his aura is completely different; alert, strict, impenetrable.

His hand reaches out for yours to meet in a handshake after your father is done introducing him. You watch his extended hand for a while, observing little scratches and cuts that seem to still be healing on his knuckles before meeting his hand. As expected, his palms are calloused but cool. His grip is firm, just like the look in his dark eyes and for some unknown reason tingles shoot down your spine.

"Choi Seungcheol, ma'am." His voice has a deep timbre to it. It'd be perfect for audiobooks, you muse idly.  "He is to be with you whenever you are going outside till the foreseeable future." Your father states. There isn't much room for arguments here and you aren't too bothered having a shadow because this isn't the first time. 

You had a personal bodyguard six months ago and the man sustained a serious hip injury due to...circumstances involving you. Now that you are back and ready to face the world, you know that keeping a personal bodyguard is a wise decision, even if your father may have assigned him with ulterior motives. 

It's okay, the games are just beginning and you are playing for the long haul.

—

"Met your new guard on the way. Guy's a robot." Chan says as he strolls into the library with his hands in his pockets. You assume he's talking about Seungcheol, who is currently stationed outside the library room even though you told him to take a break.

A copy of Jane Eyre sits open on your lap as you look up to meet Chan's eyes. Offering him a small smile, you motion him to sit next to you. Your younger brother had been out of the country due to business for the past few weeks so it has been a while since you last saw him.

"So you are really going back to work?" He asks, a soft, concerning note to his voice as he sits down next to you on the divan. You sigh and give him an exasperated look. 

"I'm more than ready. Sitting idle hasn't done me much good." You sign. 

His eyes watch the movements of your hands before he murmurs, "It will be tough, you know... without your... voice. I don't want you to get into any trouble, especially after everything."

"I'll manage." You sign. You will. 

It has been six long months since the accident. Six months since you lost your mother. Six months since you have last uttered a word. Six months since you have been at work.

Six months since your life has completely been turned upside down. 

You have been thrown entirely off track, the reigns of your horse being snatched away by a dark force plotting far worse things.  But you will uncover them. No matter how long or what it takes. 

"Dad thinks you're not ready yet," Chan comments, breaking your train of thought. 

You huff out an annoyed breath. 

"I don't really care what he thinks you know," you sign and your brother snorts, looking at you with a fond, amused expression. "It will be hard." He says absent-mindedly. "To adjust back to everything."

You nod because you know it will be. You have already heard the board members express their dissatisfaction over you returning as the CEO. Lee publishing has been in its prime since last year and they're afraid it's gonna lose its position with a mute CEO. Funny how they forget you are the one who brought it to where it is today. Lee Publishings, your family's publishing company was handed over to you by your  grandfather. He started it from scratch and it became the first successful family business before he decided to hand it over to you when you became twenty. 

Your bond with your grandfather was always special, maybe because you both shared the same love for books and sense of humour. You grew up watching him read and collect books and naturally you picked up on that habit. As you grew up you watched him work closely, helping him wherever you could with the company which led him to hand it over to you. 

Not your father, your brother or any of your cousins but you.

He was lucky enough to watch you take on the role and make the company flourish for all three months before he passed away peacefully one night in his sleep. 

The feud began after that as your uncle, Jin Lee and your father started expressing their concerns, saying that you wouldn't be able to rule over the company well now that your grandfather wasn't here to guide you. While your uncle wanted the publishing house for himself and his useless son, Jun, your father wanted to hand the company over to Chan, believing that your brother would be a better president, and offering you the role of the vice president instead. It came to you without any surprise because your brother was always your father's favourite child.

You, however, had stood your ground and promptly refused, challenging them to try and take it from you. Thankfully, your brother was on your side, saying that it rightfully belonged to you and you were more than eligible to rule over it. Chan's disinterest may have backed off your father temporarily, you can tell, but your uncle is still desperate, now more than ever.

"You are going to move back to your place soon as well," Chan complains with a pout, breaking your train of thought. Giving him a sad smile you open your arms, inviting him for a hug which he gladly accepts. After one week of staying at the hospital and your mother's burial, you decided that you would stay at the mansion you grew up in, essentially your father's house, instead of your own apartment in the city, for the foreseeable future. This mansion held a lot of memories for you, especially with your mother. Breakfast in the garden, late night talks in the huge library and sipping on tea while watching the sunset together through the large window in the west wing.

You could never imagine a life without your mother yet here you are, living one. But it is time you slowly start going back to where you belong.

"It will be lonely here without you…and mom," Chan whispers.

You can only blink back your tears and hug him tighter.

—

Just on your fifth day back, you realise that things are not going to be anywhere near easy for you, not that you expected, but still.

The moment you get to work on Wednesday morning, there is a commotion outside the main entrance of the building which leads your driver to drop you and Seungcheol at the underground entrance. You are greeted by the bleak face of your secretary as you walk to your office, who announces that the vice president is there to see you. Once you enter your office, you indeed find vice president Jun, your dear cousin, sitting on your seat with the face of a cat who ate the canary.

Seungcheol, who is always trailing behind you like a shadow, moves— to drag him out of your seat no doubt, but you raise your hand as a gesture to tell him to stop.

"Good morning, Miss Lee. Though it doesn't look like a good morning for you," He grins, standing up and rounding the desk lazily while tilting his chin at the coffee table where the morning paper is lying. You pick it up and in bold letters on the front page, the headline greets you with: "President of Lee Publishings Accused of Employee Mistreatment."

It goes on and on about some bullshit of how you have been treating employees badly and holding their salary because you have apparently returned with a nasty temper as you can't speak anymore. You can't help but scoff, because the reality is far, far from what the paper says. 

Ever since you've been back at work, all you've ever done is stay inside your office and go through all the pending documents and close deals that were hanging. Your only human contact has been your secretary Hansol and your bodyguard, both of whom have more similarities to a wall than a human. Your previously bubbly secretary has turned awkward now, probably because you have lost your voice and holding a conversation with you proves to be hard. Seungcheol, on the other hand, is like a robot who stands by your door all day and only answers your questions as briefly as possible, most of the time with a yes or no.

Your hands form fists at your sides as you glare at Jun, who stands there, pridefully evil, watching you with a satisfied grin on his face. "Things are looking rather bleak for you," He tuts in mock sympathy as he strolls towards you, hands in his pockets. As he comes to stand right next to you, his hand reaches out for your shoulder to pat you but Seungcheol grabs his wrist and twists it, making him shriek in pain. 

"Fuck! Let go, you asshole!"

"You do not have permission to touch her," Seungcheol calmly states, still not letting go. You sigh and sign Seungcheol to kick him out, which he does immediately while your cousin screams in protest as you walk to your desk and sit down, rubbing your temples in frustration.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Seungcheol asks after closing the door behind him.

You watch him for a while, your mind running a mile a minute as you think of a thousand ways of payback. But then you remind yourself that you have to approach this calmly.  So you force a smile and sign. 

"Send my secretary in. —

A couple of days later, you are not pleasantly surprised to see your father waiting to greet you at the front of the house when you return from work.

Just as Seungcheol opens the car door for you to get out, your father marches towards you.

"What did you do, girl? I told you to stay put! Your uncle Jin is here to see you!" His tone is not friendly. In fact, you pick up heavy disappointment, which you expected. This was bound to happen after you fired your cousin Jun from his position today. 

You smile calmly at him before turning to Seungcheol and signalling to him that he is relieved of his duties. He looks at you warily and you have a feeling he wants to say no but he ultimately just nods and takes his leave, driving away the car to park.

"He's waiting for you in the backyard." Your father announces. As you start walking away he yells, "You better fix what you have done today! The company won't last if you keep on making hasty decisions like these!"

Deciding to ignore him you walk to the backyard with unfaltering steps and find your uncle standing there with arms crossed, feet tapping furiously. You approach him with a smile, not a friendly one but the subtle smile of challenge as he takes furious steps towards you when he sees you coming.

"You! What have you done, _____? You fired my son from his position!" He hollers, marching to stand in front of you, fury blazing vividly in his eyes. 

Silently, you hold eye contact with him.

"You think you can do as you please after you get into an accident and we'll just let you? Who do you think you are to fire my son?"

You smirk before producing your notepad from your bag and start scribbling.

"I'm the president of the company and based on our investigation your son was found guilty of spreading fake news about me mistreating my employees. The reporter who got paid to write it confessed himself."

You hold out the notepad for him to read.

"How dare you believe a lowly reporter over my son? Over your own cousin?" Your uncle is livid. "If you keep behaving like this then I'll retract all my assets shared with your father. You know I can take over the Lee Enterprises anytime if I want."

You roll your eyes. Yeah, do whatever you want.

You start writing down. "If you have nothing productive to say I suggest you leave now and have a chat with your precious son. I have had a long day."

As soon as he reads the words written on the paper he bats the notebook away from your hand, making you gasp. The look in his eyes is akin to a madman's as he takes a threatening step towards you and leans in to whisper in your ear. 

"If you don't want to end up like your mother I suggest you start behaving, ______." He sneers.

Your whole body freezes up like a block of ice as your breath catches in your lungs. Your uncle's eyes are cruel, threating, filled with a layer of secrets that you're desperate to uncover as he takes a step back. The look of panic on your face brings satisfaction to him as watches you for a few moments, letting his words sink in and challenging you to do something about it before he smirks and walks out of the backyard.

Your legs, which have been shaky until now finally give up and you fall on the perfectly trimmed grass, your breaths coming out in the form of pants. 

The horrible realisation sinks into you. 

Your suspicions were true. 

His words just confirmed that which means you need to up your game. Immediately.

You're surprised at how quickly, how easily you think of one person when you need someone to help you. 

Hands shaky, you type a message to Seungcheol.

— There's something different about Seungcheol the moment he arrives at your front gate in his BMW. As you watch him get out of the car and jog towards you, you realise it's his fit; he's not wearing his typical two piece suit. 

No, he's dressed in a fitted white polo and black slacks, the polo so tight that you can see the bulging outline of his chest and arms. Despite the negative thoughts brewing in your head you get distracted for a second as you ogle him unashamedly and take longer than you should to respond to his question. "Are you alright, ma'am? I wasn't expecting you to call so late."

You roll your eyes. It's only like eight in the evening. Though you can see why it was unexpected for him because he is relieved from duty as you get off work in the evening. Not replying to him, you tilt your head towards his car, indicating to him to open the passenger side door. He looks doubtful for a second before following your instructions.

"Where would you like me to take you?" Seungcheol asks once you're both inside the car and he has started the engine. You sigh and sign, "Somewhere far and quiet."

His thick brows knot into a frown as he thinks for a few seconds before simply nodding. Then, surprising you, he reaches over and pulls your seatbelt across your chest, which you just realised you forgot to put on. His being so close lets you get a really good sniff of his cologne and once again you get heavily distracted as you start wondering what he'd do if you leaned into his neck and wrapped your arms around him.

Where are these thoughts coming from? 

You have no idea. This is not the first time you've had them, though.

It is like this new disease you have caught. Your mind goes haywire whenever you look at Seungcheol for a second too long. The first time it happened was right after the rumour of employee mistreatment broke out and you were leaving from work. Even though you took the back exit through the underground parking, the press mobbed you, throwing a string of questions at you while their cameras kept flashing repeatedly.

Seungcheol, of course, managed everything very efficiently and got you away safely. The way his hand squeezed your shoulder, his face hovering near yours while he asked if you were okay was a feeling that has managed to stay with you very vividly even now. You were a bit spaced out but not for the reasons he was thinking; it was just that he looked too attractive and his touch felt too comforting, even though he was merely doing his job.

You are a tiny bit ashamed to admit that he has made your heart flutter since then, with every little thing he did. 

You don't get to dwell on your day dreams for too long because he's leaning back in his seat and pressing the accelerator, making you jerk softly.

A quiet thirty minutes of drive later you discover that Seungcheol has taken you to the beach right on the outskirts of the city. It isn't something you were expecting but you realise it is something you definitely need. 

As he parks the car on a small cliff overlooking the entire beach, you hear the soothing sounds of the wave crashing into the shore clearly. 

And it brings back vague memories of your childhood, when your mother took you to this beach because she loved the air here so much. As if in a trance, you get out of the car and stand by the cliff, letting the cool sea breeze wash over you as the salty smell in the air invades your nose. Your bodyguard stands by you silently for a while and without looking, you can tell that his eyes are on you, watching you carefully.

Sometime later, he breaks the peaceful silence, "Would like to eat something? There are a few food trucks nearby." He moves his head to motion at the food trucks parked far away, their lights blinking. Shaking your head no, you fill your lungs with the cool night air by taking one more deep breath before moving to the back of the car and leaning against the trunk. Seungcheol follows you as you pat the space next to you for him to come and stand. 

He does so and you let out a heavy breath before signing. "I need you to do something for me. Something that has to remain a secret."

Seungcheol raises his brows slightly before frowning. He doesn't reply immediately and you stand upright, holding eye contact with him. "It is very important to me, Seungcheol. I need to know if I can trust you to keep it a secret from everyone," you sign.

"Okay, ma'am." He finally responds. 

"Even from my father," you sign. "I know you're working for him but for this task, I will pay you separately so you will only answer to me about this, okay?"

"Okay ma'am."

"Good." You huff out a breath. "You are from a prominent security company, right? I need you to look into a man for me. Jin Lee."

"Your uncle?" He looks bewildered. "Yes. I need his whereabouts on 23rd March of this year. And I need to know who he contacted before this accident. Any call or bank transfer that seems remotely out of place, you look into it for me, okay?" He pauses for a breath before replying. "Okay, ma'am."

"Just call me ____, Seungcheol."

— On the weekend, you have lunch with Chan in the garden of the mansion, the place where you two had lunch with your mother, as he eagerly asks you about how you have been doing and assures you that he is here if you need anything. After lunch, you see him off for a meeting before aimlessly strolling through the hallways of your house by yourself.

The cleanup at your place has been completed so you are planning on moving back tomorrow and you realise it will be a while before you come back here. Through your walk, you come across a painting hanging on the large hallway towards your father's office that makes you stop to stare. 

It is a picture of your mother with you and Chan, taken when you were about twelve years old. It is your favourite picture in the entire house, maybe because you have a memory attached to it or maybe because it's simply magnificent, the three of your smiles shining so brightly.

It was a gift from your grandfather to your mother on her thirty seventh birthday and she had it hung here, right in front of a large set of windows that overlooks the garden. The afternoon sun falls right on the picture, casting it in an ethereal glow and it is almost like your mom is here, cheering you on with her beautiful smile.

With a soft sigh and tears withheld, you say goodbye to the picture and walk away. You are aiming to go straight to your room but the loud voices coming from your father's office makes you stop.

You realise the door is just slightly opened and you walk over to shut it but stop in your tracks when you hear your uncle's voice.

"You better get your daughter under control or it will not be good for you!" He is shouting.

"Are you threatening me?"

"I am warning you, brother."

"Jin, please, just let her be for a while. She has lost her voice. I am sure she will not be able to perform like before. Then you and the board can fire her."

You are somewhat hurt by your father's words but once again, they do not come to you as a surprise. "Exactly! Why should I let the company go to waste because of her poor performance? You tell her to fuck off or I will remove her myself!"

"Jin, please. You already got rid of Aileen. You do not have to go any further.

Your world has come to a stop.

You forget to breath, as you simply stand there, stunned, convinced that you heard wrong.

You had to have heard wrong.

"I got rid of her and I'll get rid of you too, if you don't listen to me! Don't forget I own the shares of the family hotel just as much as you do. It will not be a challenge to turn the board of directors against you. Imagine what will happen after that? Your most lucrative business will be completely mine and your dear son will become penniless."

There is no reply from your father. Or maybe there is but you do not hear it.

There is a deafening ring in yours ears as you muffle your sobs by clutching your mouth tightly and making a beeline for your room.

You cannot believe this. You absolutely can not. It is something you could not have imagined even in your wildest nightmare. Your father knows your uncle killed your mom, yet he is staying silent. Why? Why!

Granted, your parents were never happily married and growing up you have heard that your father has mistresses. It never bothered your mother because their marriage was only a business agreement in the very first place and she had all her attention focused on you and Chan. But to think that he is letting her killer walk free is unbelievable.

After all he lived with her, his wife, the mother of his children for so many goddamn years!

By the time you have entered your room, you are full on crying, ugly and loud. Tears are blurring your vision as you flail around the room, helplessly, aimlessly, devastatedly. 

And before you know it, you are throwing the thousand dollar porcelain vase by your bedside to the ground.

The piece shatters into bits and the sound oddly satisfies you, prompting you to throw another one. And for the next few minutes you throw anything you can find in your room, not caring how valuable they are, not caring that a shard of glass has ripped the skin below your left thumb, making you bleed.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck you! Fuck all of you!" You yell at the top of your lungs, not caring to keep up the facade anymore.

Once you have run out of energy, you stop to look at the mess you made, glad that the messy room and the pain from the cut on your hand makes your mind go blank for a while.

But you do not miss the small, almost inaudible creak of the door to your room. Your head whips into the direction to see none other than Seungcheol, standing right out front, his eyes wide and his lips parted in a small gasp of surprise. 

You forget to breathe as you realise he might have been standing there for a while and he witnessed everything. 

Everything.

He knows your secret.  He knows that you are not mute. Before you know it, your feet are moving as you push open the door and yank your bodyguard into your room, not before glancing left and right down the hallway to check anyone's presence.

As soon as you lock the door, you press him against it and lean on your tiptoes, inching your face closer to him as you whisper, "Keep. This. A. Secret."

You had meant for the words to come out threatening but your tear stained eyes and cracking voice doesn't help establish that image.

Seungcheol stares at you with a gaze you are quite unable to decipher. His eyes are soft, full of wonder and you think you can almost spot admiration and something more in them and for a moment, you find yourself lost in the sea of his gaze. 

"______". He calls your name softly. His hands come to your upper arms to hold you gently as he puts some distance between the two of you before ushering you towards your bed and making you sit down. "Your secret is safe with me," he confirms as he sits next to you. "But I am glad you can speak again." He murmurs, giving your shoulder a soft squeeze as he looks around the room you just trashed.

You let out half a sigh of relief, knowing that your secret is safe and you find yourself speaking before you can even think. "I got my voice back quite a while ago. Two months after the accident, actually." Seungcheol's head whips towards you, his eyes widening in surprise.

"My uncle seemed very happy when I lost my voice and he was being weirdly nice to me. I already had my suspicions that the accident was an inside job so I pretended to act mute." You whisper, eyes trained on the floor.

How right you were!

It was an inside job but it had its roots spread out much farther than you thought. Your uncle killed your mother while your father sits there in silence despite knowing that!

The thought makes you shake your head as a dry, mirthless laughter wrings out of your throat. Your head falls back as you laugh like a mad woman as Seungcheol watches you, absolutely perplexed.

He gently tries calling your name. "______—"

"My father knew!" You are yelling between laughter. "He fucking knew!"

The poor man only looks more confused.

"He knew— he… he knows my uncle killed my mom but he is staying silent! He said it himself! I heard him! Do you understand, Seungcheol, my father is turning a blind eye! He is choosing to save his fucking business over me, over his children!"

Seungcheol looks absolutely baffled upon hearing your words as he falls silent with a bleak expression. He does not have the adequate words to respond to that and he simply does not know what he can do at this point to make you feel better.  However, he takes notice of the cut below your thumb and reaches for your hand, setting it down on his thigh while he takes out a handkerchief and gently ties it around the injury. "You hurt yourself," he states quietly, almost to himself before meeting your eyes. "I know what you heard was painful but you need to take care of yourself. For your mother, at least."

And the damn breaks.

You break into a full on sob as you wrap your hands around his large shoulders, molding yourself against him as you cry unceremoniously in his chest. Seungcheol's arms wrap around your body in an effortless blanket of security as he rests his chin on top of your head and strokes your head while you try to burrow yourself deeper into his chest. 

It takes a while for the messy array of tears to subside and once you have calmed down a little, you take notice of his white shirt which is now completely wet where you rested your face. "I'm sorry," you croak weakly, trying to pull away but he holds you by the arms and makes you face him by tilting your chin with his finger.

"There is nothing to be sorry for, okay? Now tell me what I can do to make this a little better. Just so you know, my team is almost done digging up about your uncle. We should have a solid update tomorrow."

A small sob of gratitude and relief escapes your throat and Seungcheol immediately shushes you, his eyes helplessly searching for yours. "C-can you please ask them to look into my dad as well," you hiccup, saying the words you never imagined would come out of your mouth. "I need to know his whereabouts before the accident."

Seungcheol assures you with a nod while his hand strokes your back soothingly. Exhaling a loud, defeated sigh, you wipe your tears and mutter. "Please help me pack my bags, Seungcheol. I am moving back to my place. Tonight. I cannot stay here a second longer."

The man looks like he wants to protest but goes against it and simply nods, getting up to retrieve your bags from your closet.

After hastily packing your belongings you waste no time to march out of the house with Seungcheol trailing behind you. You leave a note on the kitchen, simply saying something came up and you had to leave early.

You are extremely grateful that you do not come across your father because one look at him and the ticking time bomb inside you would explode and you definitely cause a scene.

As the night grows deeper slowly, you isolate yourself in your room once you come back to your apartment. Despite Seungcheol's insistence, you tell him to call it a day and lock yourself up in your room, throwing yourself a pity party. It has been a while since you had such a restless night— the last one being after the accident, and it takes a long long time for sleep to come.

When your eyes finally fall shut, hues of orange and blue have already grazed the sky. 

—

You do not feel like your best self in the morning but the news Seungcheol brings is enough to get you back on track. 

The manila file sitting on your desk is a gold mine, it's contents spread throughout the surface as you sit in silence, hands linked together under your chin, your brain finally connecting the pieces together.

Seungcheol's friends found a shady bank transfer made by your uncle, two weeks before the accident. The tip led them to an old gang who, after applying some tactics, admitted to taking money from Jin Lee in order to commit a hit and run. After digging around some more they found papers that now lie on your table, a clear proof of your uncle's deal with the gang, which they kept as insurance. Among the documents, one particularly catches your eye.

It is the information of the driver of the truck that hit your car. 

The picture is like a jolt of electricity through your system as you are immediately taken back to the scene of the crash, the moments after where you were hovering over the brink of consciousness. You remember seeing a man peeking into your wrecked car, a man with a scar on his left cheek and all this time you could not fully believe that to be real.

But it was.  You did not imagine it. The picture on the document is that of the driver you saw that morning, the man with a scar on his left cheek, his eyes dark and blank, his lips twisted in a line of malice.

"_____?" Seungcheol's gentle voice guides you out of your head. "My friend had his confession recorded. Would you like to hear it?"

"Of course."

"I need to warn you…it is pretty detailed. About the accident, you know." He looks guilty, even though he has no reason to be.

You swallow a lump in your throat as your heart beat picks up. Are you really ready to revisit that morning? Relive all those feelings?

You have to.

Seungcheol pushes a voice recorder towards you on the table, pressing a button to turn it on.

"I was told that there would be only a girl and her bodyguard in the car! I swear I didn't know her mother would be there as well! I did not mean to kill the woman! After I hit the car, I went to check and…and the older woman was dead! The girl looked barely alive and I didn't think she would survive…."

There is a buzzing sound in your ears. It is deafening.

You are transported to a void where these words keep repeating and repeating, pulling you down, sucking you deeper into a pit of despair.  It hurts so much you are sure death would be easier.

Your head hangs low, silent tears trailing down your cheek as you stare at your lap. Seungcheol calls your name multiple times, asking if you are okay but you cannot bring yourself to form a reply.

The pain, the guilt, the shame, the anger— everything is overwhelming. These feelings consume you whole and dry you out until you are left with an unbelievable urge to scream and holler and cry. 

"______, please, can you hear me?" Seungcheol's touch on your shoulder makes you jolt. You look up to find him standing next to you, eyes glazed with concern as he peers down at you.

"I am fine," you reply after taking a shaky breath.

"Are you sure? Maybe you should call it day—"

"Seungcheol?" You interrupt him. You wipe the tears clean and sit up straight. "Can you call my lawyer? I need him here as soon as possible."

—

Bad news awaits you the next day when you return home from work. 

As usual Seungcheol walks you to the door of your apartment but you realise something is up when he abruptly stops after stepping out of the elevator and turning towards the door to your place. Following his line of sight you realise he has taken notice of the slightly open front door to your house. 

Your heart drops as a small gasp leaves your lips.

Someone broke into your place. And it does not take a genius to guess who Plus it also confirms that your uncle has found out you have been snooping around. A calm man like him does not make a move unless things are really dire and this proves that he is desperate to get that evidence out of your hands.

Seungcheol tenses up beside you and uses a hand to push you behind his body in a protective manner as he steps closer to the door. With the other hand he pulls out his revolver, holding it out and pointing it straight.

"S-Seungcheol—" You start panicking.

He shushes you before you can say much, eyes trained forward as he takes measured steps. Swallowing the bubble of fear, you hold his back as you follow him into your apartment. 

The storeroom which is right on the left after entering is the first place Seungcheol checks, and when he finds it clear he pushes you inside haphazardly.

"Don't come out until I get you." He commands, shutting the door on your face and clicking the lock before you can even process anything. Baffled, you stand still inside the dimly lit room, carefully listening for any sounds, while a thousand different thoughts run through your head.  This building is one of the most secure residential buildings in the city and breaking in here is quite literally impossible. Which means it is clear your uncle bribed someone on the inside and the realisation of how scary things are getting dawns on you, making you chew nervously on your lower lip as you start to grow restless.

Thankfully, a quick while later Seungcheol opens the door, a wary look on his face and you can immediately tell something is wrong. As soon as the door opens, you push past him and head for your bedroom, only to find the place absolutely trashed. Everything is a mess; from your bed to your closet to your dresser and it is evident that someone took their sweet time to comb through every one of your possessions and as you take in the havoc, the last of your doubts go away.

They were undoubtedly looking for the documents and the recorder. 

Your hands fist at your sides as tears of anger and frustration gather at the corners of your eyes. It only amplifies when you see one of your most precious belongings lying face down on the floor— a picture of you and your mother taken on your eighteenth birthday. 

Immediately you kneel and pick the frame up only to find it broken, making you heave out a helpless cry of anger. As you clutch it to your chest, your eyes scan the mess around you and a sense of doom settles in your gut. So this is what your life has come to now.

"Come. You're not staying here." Seungcheol's quiet command disrupts your thoughts.

"W-what? What do you mean? Where am I gonna go?" You scramble to stand up.

"At my place. This place isn't safe, _____." He pins you down with a serious look. "Pack your essentials and I mean absolute essentials. Your passport and any important papers."

"Wait, I—"

"Now." He commands. "I am gonna make some calls to find out who did this. Be ready in ten." He is walking out of the room while dialling a number, leaving you flabbergasted.

A while later you sit on the passenger's seat next to Seungcheol as he pulls the car out of your underground parking and onto the busy street, eyes focused on the road in silence. The only sound surrounding you is the sound of the bustling city and it isn't enough to ease the thick tension in the car. Seungcheol's jaw is clenched and his lips are pressed into a thin line as you observe him while he stares straight ahead. "What do we do after going to your place? I can't just hide forever." You break the silence with your words, your eyes trained out the window. It looks like it's going to rain.

"You'll stay in my place until the threat is removed. I'll soon receive the CCTV footage and from there on we can track down who ordered to invade your home." He declares.

"It was my uncle." You say without much thought.

Seungcheol turns to look at you for a beat before focusing on the road again. "You sound sure." He murmurs.

"Who else would it be then? He is after the evidence." You reply. Seungcheol remains silent for a beat before agreeing with a hum. Another silence follows after that. You take occasional, shy glances at him while he drives and when the car stops at a red light in an intersection, you call for him, making him turn his head to look at you. "Seungcheol?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you. For today."

He stares at you quietly, not blinking. "I just did my job."

"No, you are doing a lot more. You are helping me out in so many ways and I can only keep myself together thanks to you."

He only stares more at you. His gaze is intense and his eyes are hypnotic; if you stare too long it unnerves you, dissects you open. "You will be fine, _____." He replies after a long pause. "With or without me."

His words trigger you. 

With or without me?

You want to yell that he has to stick around however long you want him to but his cold demeanour makes your thoughts appear silly, even to yourself.  You are clearly looking for something more, much more than he wants to give you.  You know he would probably burn the world for you, not because he loves you but because he is a loyal person and probably because he pities you. 

Just a little bit. And you accept that. — Seungcheol's place is a canvas of grey and black and white. It is minimalistic and clean, a one bedroom apartment on the tenth floor in a quieter part of the city. As he walks you through his humble abode, he gives directions on where everything is and finally opens the door to his bedroom, leading you in before announcing. "You take the bed. I'll sleep on the sofa."

You do not protest because you know he would never listen. Instead, you almost ask him to share the bed with you but prevent going with it because you cannot trust yourself to remain professional while he sleeps so close to you with that tempting body of his.

"I'll leave you to rest. I'm going for a grocery run. Do not open the door for anyone but me. If there is any problem, call me." He uses his no nonsense tone and you fight the urge to roll your eyes. 

"Okay, okay." You watch him leave before shutting the bedroom door and sitting down on the floor, letting out a deep breath, one you've been unconsciously holding for a while.

As you watch the orange sky from the large window of Seungcheol's bedroom, the events of the last forty eight hours wash over you. You can't help but admire yourself at how calm you are. You woke up feeling numb today and you've been functioning on autopilot the whole day. Seeing your place ransacked did evoke some emotion within you but then again, deep down you were expecting something like this to happen once you had the evidence. 

You're running on pure adrenaline and you know you cannot stop until you have put your dear uncle behind bars. 

And maybe, even your father. 

He's an accomplice, no? He knows very well who killed his wife yet he decides to keep quiet, which makes him more vile to you. You find more hatred towards your father brimming within you, than towards your uncle. Yes, you expected him to play unfair but your own father knowing the culprit of your mother's death and simply burying it under the rug?  That, you absolutely cannot tolerate. 

A number of different scenarios run through your head on how you can bring them down. Despite having this irresistible urge to just run to the police with the recorder, you remember your lawyer's words.

It won't be enough. 

A few documents and a tape of confession are not enough to bring a man like Jin down. He has very strong connections with law enforcement and an even stronger set of lawyers. You need a solid witness. You need to catch him red handed. You need to create a scandal he can't recover from. You need to gather more proof. Proof so irrefutable, that his entire empire comes crashing down. 

And good for you, your uncle has already started setting up his doom. Trashing your place was his first mistake, the first piece of the domino. Now, it is a matter of time until everything collapses. You pray he will keep on making more mistakes. 

In fact, you know he will. He will do anything to get his hands on the evidence and you will stack all his actions against him at court. And when the time comes for the nail to hit the head…

You're going to be the bait. —

Somewhere in the middle of the night, you wake up from your sleep. Falling asleep came to you easily after eating the dinner Seungcheol cooked and then curling up in his bed where the sheets smelled subtly like him. It led you to have the best sleep you had in a while but now that you are awake, there is an itch in your throat, making it dry. 

So, quietly, you get up from bed and walk to the kitchen, a small light in the hallway guiding you to find a glass and pour yourself some water. 

As you sit on one of the breakfast stools and gulp it down, you watch Seungcheol sleeping on the sofa. The blanket that was probably on top of him once has fallen on the floor, the small space clearly not sufficient for his large frame as almost half of his body hangs out of the sofa. You almost feel bad for him and wonder how he can sleep in such a tiny space but it is pointless to feel guilty. He would never take the bed, no matter how much you offered.

As you take the last few sips of your water, you catch the moonlight draping over half of his face, casting it in an ethereal glow. It's stunning how beautiful he is. His usual stoic face is now relaxed, his full brows not knotted in a frown, his long eyelashes resting against his cheek, his plump full lips parted just a tiny bit. 

Unashamedly, for the nth time, you find yourself wondering how it'd be like to kiss him. You can't remember the last time a man made you feel like this, if ever. Your relationship with him should be strictly professional yet as you spend more time with him your mind keeps on entering forbidden territories.  Which is sad because you know he feels nowhere near that for you. Maybe he even has a girlfriend, or a wife— though you see no ring in his finger. Maybe a divorced wife with whom he parted ways begrudgingly, someone who still haunts his dreams. 

As you conjure up various scenarios of his relationship status, Seungcheol stirs in his sleep before a quiet groan escapes his lips.

You crane your head to take a better look at him, to see if he's awake but you soon realise he isn't as another pained groan leaves his lips, his large body shuffling in the congested space.

Is he having a nightmare?

You immediately get up and dash towards him, turning a light on the way and kneeling right beside the sofa. There's a light sheen of sweat coating his face and his eyebrows are marred in a frown as his eyes remain squeezed shut, his body writhing desperately "Seungcheol? Seungcheol!" You yell, grabbing his shoulders and trying your best to shake him out of whatever that's haunting him.

"No! No! Please, no!" The pain and helplessness in his voice halts your breath as you continue to shake him awake while his hands come to grab your arms in a tight hold, almost like an anchor. His grip only grows stronger as he yells in protest and you try your very best to wake him up once more. "Seungcheol! Please! Wake up! It's a nightmare!"

A set of blown out pupils look at you the next moment, and in a moment of silence a small shaky breath leaving his lips before they part slightly in shock. Then, before you know it, you are falling on your ass as Seungcheol shoves you away and scrambles to the farthest corner of the sofa. 

Even though your ass hurts, you know it was an unintended reaction. You whisper in a voice so soft as if you're talking to a wounded animal, "Seungcheol, it's okay. You're safe. You were having a nightmare."

The man sits still, hugging his knees as he still tries to catch his breath, a horrified look on his face. Not being able to bear it anymore, you immediately move to him and even though he flinches and tries to move away at first, he gives in when you wrap your arms around his shoulders. 

Soon he's burying his face on your neck as his large body curls around you, his hands gripping your night shirt tightly as if he's trying to mould himself into you. You feel his harsh pants on your shoulder so you try your best to soothe him, rubbing his back in repeated motions while whispering words of solace.

"It's alright, Seungcheol. I'm here. I have got you. It was just a bad dream."

You don't know how long you hold him like that but it seems to be a while, which feels too soon to you because Seungcheol pulls away from your arms before scooting away, putting a little distance between the two of you. He doesn't meet your eyes as he sighs, annoyed and dejected, while rubbing his temples.  "Are you okay? Would you like some water?" You offer. He shakes his head, looking down, his usual stoic mask settling back onto his face. 

"Why are you up?" He asks, his tone somewhat snappy. You frown. "I got out of bed to get a glass of water. You were having a nightmare, Seungcheol. Are you sure—"

"It's fine. It happens."

You are stunned at his lack of care. Is this a daily occurrence? Does he wake up every night, alone and screaming from his nightmares? Why is he allowing this to happen? Does he have someone to talk to? You want to ask all these questions but then decide against it due to the situation. Instead, you shuffle a little closer to him and start fixing his messy hair with a soft touch.

Seungcheol completely freezes at first and you expect him to bat your hand away but he doesn't. So you bite your lip to hide your smile as you finish fixing his hair before wiping the sweat off his brow. 

But you don't get to go far with that because Seungcheol grabs your wrist in a gentle hold, stopping you. His eyes scan over the length of your arms before he meets your eye. "Are you okay? I hurt you, didn't I?"

You simply shake your head and offer him a small smile which doesn't seem to convince him. His brows frown once again as you see him start overthinking so you put a stop to them. "I'm fine, Seungcheol, really. If you should be worried about anything, it is yourself. You're not on duty right now, you know. You can relax. I'm not a priority now." His eyes bore into yours and for a moment you see something foreign in his eyes. Something akin to vulnerability, longing, maybe even desperation.

"Go back to sleep, ____." His voice is gruff. "You've had a long day."

You want to protest but decided not to as huff out a breath and cast one more longing glance at him, hoping that maybe he would change his mind, before retreating to your room.

— It's ten o'clock when you wake up. 

Your first thought is that you are late for work, which makes you sit right up, ready to bolt out of bed but the next moment you realise it's a Saturday.  And you are not at home. You are at Seungcheol's place.

So you take your sweet time leaving the bed and freshening up, shuffling through Seungcheol's products in the bathroom. You also sneak in a sniff of his aftershave and cologne, smiling at yourself at your perverseness.

When you step out of your room, you find Seungcheol sitting on one of the breakfast stools, going through some documents with rapt attention. You stand by your door frame for a while, admiring his built frame from behind, his large back muscles and shoulders stretched beneath a white tee but you don't get to stare at him too long because his head turns around and catches you in the act.

"Good morning, _____." He greets.

You clear your throat, shuffling to the kitchen counter and pour yourself a glass of water, pretending as if he didn't just catch you eye fucking him. "Good morning, Seungcheol." Your voice is soft.

"Would you like to have breakfast now? I can make you some toast and omelette." He kindly offers. "There's also cereal if you want."

"I think I'll go with the cereal," You murmur, taking a seat opposite to him. You haven't had much of an appetite for the past few days which isn't really a surprise considering the situation.  Seungcheol goes back to scanning the documents in front of him while you sit in silence, sipping your water. You wonder wether you should bring up last night, maybe ask him if he's okay now but you have a suspicion it won't be received well by him. As you chew on your lip and debate the idea, Seungcheol looks up to meet your eyes, his face ever so serious.

"You have to take a break from work for a few days." He announces.

"What? Why?"

Probably for the first time, you see him hesitate which stresses you out. "What's wrong, Seungcheol? Tell me."

"You have received a few death threats, _____. I found them in your mail. For the time being, you need to lay low, appearing in public puts you at risk. In fact, we're leaving for a safe house today."

"Wait- what?" Your brain is trying hard to catch up. "Safe house? What are you talking about? I'm not safe here?"

"They know your address, _____. It won't take them long to get mine. I need to get you to an untraceable place."

You don't know what to feel or even how to react. You're at a loss as you try to figure out your next move. "What do those threats say exactly? Can I see them?"

Seungcheol's face hardens. "No. They're not pretty to look at." His voice brings shivers down your spine as a wave of nausea hits you. You had no idea your uncle could stoop so low. But then again, he's a murderer so you shouldn't have underestimated him. 

Seungcheol must have seen your face pale because he calls your name firmly, grounding your attention to him. "You are safe with me, _____. You just have to trust me, okay?" You find comfort in his eyes so you find yourself nodding immediately which satisfies him. "Get ready. We'll leave in two hours."

"Where are we going?"

"Don't worry about that."

"Does my father know?"

"About the death threats? Yes. He didn't seem too concerned about it though. Said it might be a prank."

Somehow, you're not surprised.

"But not about moving you to a safe location," Seungcheol adds. "No one needs to know about that. It's safer that way."

"Even my brother?"

"Yes. I suggest you call him and tell him you'll be out of reach for a while."

You deflate at that. Chan is going to be worried. And how on earth are you going to explain everything to him when all of this eventually unveils?

Seungcheol gets up, gathering all the papers and just as he turns to leave, he stops. "Oh, and ____? Don't come near me when I'm having a nightmare next time."

What?

"But Seungcheol—"

"For your own safety, _____. Don't. This is not a request." He doesn't wait for your reply but marches away as you silently watch his retreating form, lips pursed in annoyance.

The little appetite you had for breakfast is ruined as you go back to your room, cursing his stubbornness. As you pick up your phone to check for any important messages, a text from your dear father greets you. Your bodyguard told me you received death threats. Maybe it is better for you to stay at home and not work. For your own good, you should seriously consider giving your position to someone else. His flagrant attitude makes your blood boil as you fist your hands around your phone in a death grip before tossing it onto the bed in a fit of rage.

This day has not started off well.

— Two hours later you are well on your way to the safe house with a bag packed containing your absolute necessities. Your bodyguard has confiscated your real phone and gave you a burner instead just to be cautious.

Seungcheol, as always, drives the car in silence, the features of his face set to a grim expression. The air is thick with tension and you debate putting the radio on but even doing that feels too awkward.

"How long is the drive?" You finally ask, desperate to lessen this weird tension.

"We're taking a train from the station."

"Wait, what?"

"It is quite far. Driving there is going to take way too long." He calmly replies, eyes focused on the road. Sighing, you lean back and rest your head against the headrest. You let your eyes wander outside the window, watching the people, the view passing by while your mind runs rampant with all kinds of thoughts; anxious, restless.

A while later, you take notice of something in the rearview mirror and finally voice out the concern that has been bugging you for a while. "Seungcheol?" There's a touch of panic in your voice.

"Yes?"

"See that black Mercedes? It has been following us for a while…I think." You stare eagerly at Seungcheol waiting for his reply, waiting to be told that you are wrong but instead, a small, amused smile graces his lips.

"So you noticed, huh?"

It feels like your heart is going to drop out of your ass.

"What do we do?" You whisper, sitting up straight and craning your head back to take a proper look at the car. Sure enough, the SUV is right behind you, not even trying to be discreet anymore.

Fuck this crap, seriously.

"Trust me, I have got a plan. You just need to do as I tell you, okay?" He assures, his voice composed unlike yours.

"O-okay."

He turns to face you for a beat, giving you a reassuring look before continuing to drive in silence for a couple more minutes while the Mercedes stays on your tail. "Hold tight. I'm going to speed up. There's a parking lot about a mile from here. We're going to stop there."

"WHAT!"

You don't get your reply because the next second, the car is zooming forward as Seungcheol steps on the accelerator. You are gripping the dashboard and your seatbelt with your dear life as Seungcheol speeds through the lane like a madman, swerving every now and then. The Mercedes chasing you has a hard time keeping up with Seungcheol's viciously smooth driving because in a moment's time you are in the parking lot where Seungcheol parks the car in the corner farthest from the entry.

"Listen to me very carefully, ____." Seungcheol says as he turns the engine off and removes his seatbelt. "Crawl to the back and lay low, okay? No matter what happens, what you see, you do not make a move until I come get you, do you hear me?"

Your throat feels like sandpaper as you whisper. "Y-yes. Yes I do."

"Good." He squeezes your hand. "Now crawl into the back."

You do as you are told, moving into the backseat and crouching down as Seungcheol exits the car before locking it. You peek through the tinted window, watching with bated breath as the black SUV pulls up and two bald headed men exit the vehicle which parks right by the entry. They walk to Seungcheol, their stances predatory as they talk about something you cannot hear.

Next thing you know, one of the men is throwing an uppercut towards Seungcheol which fails to land because your bodyguard steps back, avoiding it easily.

Then, a full on fight ensues as the two men attack Seungcheol unsparingly. Seungcheol does not fail to keep up as he easily avoids them and counterattacks. Very soon, he is landing a kick on one of the men that throws him down to the ground with a harsh blow before grabbing the other guy and holding him in a chokehold. Soon, his body slumps to the ground.

Is he dead?

The other guy, meanwhile, recovers and charges for Seungcheol and you notice a bit too late that he has a knife because he manages to land a slash on Seungcheol's chest, making him stumble back. "Seungcheol!" Your hand unconsciously reaches for the door handle, tugging it to get out and help him. Alas, you can't do that. Fortunately, though, Seungcheol seems to not require any help as in the very next moment Seungcheol attacks the man, snatches the knife from him and bashes his head against the trunk of a car once, twice, thrice, making him fall into the ground, unconscious.

The breath you were holding finally escapes your lungs. Seungcheol dashes to the car the next moment, opening the back door and dragging you out by the arm before you can even say something.

"Come on. We don't have time."

"Wait, where are we going?" 

"There's a five minute shortcut to the station from here," he says, leading you by holding your hand as his legs pick up speed. "We have to run because they are expecting us to move by car. Come on!"

And so, you let him guide the way, his hand holding yours tightly, as you take the underground exit of the lot. You run for your life, your legs going sore but you manage to keep going just because of the adrenaline.  Soon enough, the station comes into view and Seungcheol picks up speed as the whistle of the train echoes through the air, informing its departure.

"Oh crap, we're not gonna make it!" You yell. "We will. Just keep running," Seungcheol hollers back as you both run parallel to the train that is slowly picking up speed. Suddenly Seungcheol lets go of your hand which throws you into a moment of panic but you keep running as you start to guess his plan.

You watch as he bolts for the entrance of the last carriage and in the blink of an eye, jumps inside.

"Holy shit." You curse. The next moment, he turns around and leans out the door, holding out one of his hands for you to grab onto while the other grips the handle by the door.  "Come on! Grab my hand!"

Your legs are so tired they feel shaky, ready to collapse any moment. Still, you run with all your might, holding out your hand, reaching for his. 

"Just a little bit! You can do it!" He encourages as the rhythm of the wheels intensifies, letting you know you do not have much time.

Oh shit.

Grunting in frustration, you put all the bridling remnants of your energy and dart forward which seems to be just enough, as your hand touches Seungcheol's. The next moment he grabs onto your hand and in the blink of an eye he is tugging your full weight and pulling you inside the carriage.

Upon entering, you collapse on the floor, panting loudly as Seungcheol lets go of your hand and cranes his neck out the door as if looking for something. Even though you are wheezing for air, you follow his line of sight and see two men running after the train as if they were chasing you. By now the train is moving at full speed, crossing the end of the platform, making them slow down and watch helplessly. "Who…are…they?" You choke between breaths.

"Your uncle's men." Seungcheol replies nonchalantly as he shuts the door and kneels next to you.

"How long have they been following us?"

"After we got to the station."

"Why didn't you say anything!"

"I didn't want to scare you." He replies, his hand wrapping around your shoulder. "Don't talk, just breathe. You did well."

You don't know if it is the intensity of the situation or the adrenaline crash or his words that make you slump in his arms, your body resting against his as you catch your breath. The feeling of his warmth against your body is something you are extremely grateful for at the moment.

"Please tell me you have tickets." You pant, resting your head against his shoulder.

"Of course. First class." _____ Five hours later, you are at your destination.

It is a cabin in a small town full of greenery and old architecture.  It is very picturesque, located in between a vast area of mountains, somewhere you'd come to spend the summer with your family maybe. Even though your situation is the farthest thing from a vacation, it doesn't stop you from admiring the beauty before your eyes.

"The place is very beautiful, Seungcheol." You admire the surroundings as well as the cabin.

It's somewhat isolated from the town, shrouded by the forest, as the nearest market from here is about ten minutes drive.

"Thank you, my grandfather made it. He left it for me." He provides as he carries your small bag from the car he borrowed from a friend here and unlocks the door with a key.

"We should do something about your cut." You mention worriedly, crossing the threshold as you see him slightly wince while moving. The bleeding seems to have stopped after he put some pressure in the wound but it still needs to be cleaned.

Hearing your words, he looks down to see the wound before shrugging, "It's fine. The bleeding has stopped."

You expected him to say something like that so you take matters in your own hands. "Is there a first aid kit here?" You ask as you pad to the bathroom, looking around carefully and sure enough, inside the cabinets under the sink, there's a first aid box.  Seungcheol murmurs grumbles of protest as you come back to the living area and ask for him to sit on the spot next to you on the couch.  Thankfully he listens to you. As he unbuttons his shirt, you disinfect your hands while trying your best not to peek at the delicious row of abs that comes into display. As his wound comes into view you cannot help but wince at the sight, which doesn't go unnoticed by your bodyguard. His hand immediately reaches to take the cotton swab from your hand, murmuring. "I can do it myself."

You tsk in disapproval, sending him your best scolding glare before resting one of your hands on his shoulder for support and gently swiping on the wound with the swab dipped in antiseptic with your dominant hand. Seungcheol sits still all through it while you hold your breath, channelling all your focus on the task at hand. 

It is scary; being this close to him and for some reason the act of cleaning up a cut is turned into something way too intimate by your brain. So, you don't dare to look in his eyes, afraid of what you'll see in them but terrified of what they will make you feel; something you can not resist or put a lid on, like the urge to cup his cheeks and kiss those irresistible lips.

You must be swiping at his wound with your face mere inches away from touching his chest for way too long because one of Seungcheol's hands comes to grab your wrist, stopping your movements.  "I think that's enough," His voice holds the aloofness that you are used to which makes you sigh.

"Does it hurt? Do you want a painkiller?" You still find yourself asking.

Seungcheol frowns. "No, ____. I'm fine. It's just a cut, I won't die."

"Still—"

"Maybe you should focus on yourself. You have had a long day—"

"Why do you always do this!" It takes a few moments for you to realise you are yelling. You stand on your feet, hands fisted at your sides as the first aid kit falls on the floor from your lap, spilling its contents all over.

"What do you mean?" He asks and you absolutely loathe how his voice never changes, laced with that touch of monotony and indifference.

"Ugh, Seungcheol! Why do you always push me away! I want to help you! I'm just trying to take care of you!" This, however, seems to evoke an emotion from him because he is immediately on his feet, glaring at you, his large body towering over you.

"It is not your job to take care of me! If anyone here is going to take care of someone, it will be me making sure you are alive, is that clear?"

"I'm just trying to help you yet you keep pushing me away—"

"I do not need your help!" His voice is a roar of thunder, making you gasp as you take a step back. You've never seen him like this nor did you imagine someone so unbothered and composed had a side like this. "Who are you, huh? Why do you keep stepping over the line? Did I ask for your fucking help? I'm the last person you should be worried about, Ms Lee, you understand that?"

By now, angry tears have gathered in your eyes. Not wanting to cry in front of him you bite your lips and push past him as you run towards your room. "Fuck you, Choi Seungcheol!" —

You spend a long time in your room, crying and cursing him out before eventually falling asleep out of exhaustion. 

When you are awake from your slumber, the clock reads 2 in the morning. Disoriented and irritated and hungry, the first thing you do after emptying your bladder is go hunt for something to eat. Even though you intended to avoid Seungcheol, it is impossible not to come across him as he sleeps on the couch in the living room, this one thankfully big enough for him to comfortably lie. 

There's a small lamp in the corner of the room and the light from there is falling on one side of his face, highlighting his cheekbones. 

You stand still for a moment to make sure that he's actually asleep, before tiptoeing to the kitchen. Pouring yourself a glass of water and you think of something easy to make that will not wake up the moody bastard in the next room. 

However, you don't get too far with that thought because a moment later, you hear an all familiar groan float through the quiet air of the night. It is Seungcheol. And he's having a nightmare. Once again. It's like deja vu.

All his commands of not helping him fly out the window as you run to the living room. Before you can reach there, however, you hear a crash and upon entering you see Seungcheol, wide awake and sitting on the floor on his hands and knees, his entire frame shaking violently as he keeps uttering something under his breath, still stuck in his nightmare. 

Your heart drops when you see the glass showpiece on the centre table shattered on the floor, along with the pillows and blanket that were previously on the couch. "Seungcheol!" You yell as you rush to him, carefully avoiding the broken shards of glass and sitting on your knees next to him as you try to get him out of his head and focus on you. His blown out pupils meet yours as his hands shake and his breath comes out in struggling pants. 

He's having a panic attack.

"Seungcheol!" you call for him, trying your best to keep your voice stable which proves to be hard as your heart breaks for the man, hating seeing him in this state. 

"Look at me. Listen to my voice. Breathe. Breathe with me. Look at me. Breathe, just breathe, you're going to be fine."

And so for the next few minutes, you try your best to calm the agitated man down, holding his body next to yours as you run your hands along his back, up and down, up and down.

You realise he's back to normal when the shuddering stops and his body remains immoblie next to you, as if he has fallen asleep.  You know otherwise because when you pull back to take a look at his face, you find his eyes open, that familiar, empty and aloof gaze replacing the panicked ones. His lips are set to a thin line and you feel his whole body stiffen next to yours and just like you know he is back to normal.

This time, you do not ask him if he's okay or if he wants anything. Instead you get up from the floor quietly and go to the kitchen where you quickly make him a warm cup of tea.

When you return, he's still on the floor, sitting with his back against the sofa, hands resting on his knees as his head hangs low. Silently, you walk over and sit next to him before extending the steaming mug towards him.

You hold your breath, waiting for him to reject it and start spewing mean words at you but you are to be amazed. 

Surprising you, he does none of those things but accepts the mug and takes a small sip. A tiny smile of victory graces your lips as you settle your gaze forward to the empty wall and sit in silence next to him. 

As the steam gradually disappears from the mug and his dejected posture becomes tense and uptight, you know he's about to tell you off.  Your guess turns out to be correct because just a moment later, he sets his mug down on the floor and turns to face you. His voice is stoic when he speaks, "I clearly told you not to—"

"Do you want to talk about it?" You interrupt him with a soft voice. He appears stunned as his mouth opens to say something but closes back to a tight line.

"I used to have nightmares as well, after the accident." You whisper, leaning back to the sofa, your unfocused gaze settled on the  walls of the cabin as your mind disappears in the depths of the memories of those gruesome nights.

"I'd wake up screaming and crying. Every damn time I'd see the crash so vividly and the moments before it, my mom's desperate eyes at mine, her fading words, telling me to hold on, telling me that she loves me..." You lose your voice with a choke as tears blind your vision. A hand comes to rest on your shoulder gently and gives you a reassuring squeeze. It takes a few moments for your brain to process that it's Seungcheol and you are pleasantly surprised. 

Your eyes search for him, and his face is solemn, his eyes showing just a reflection of kindness and sympathy. With a sad smile, you wipe the tears threatening to fall from your eyes. "It was horrible at the beginning when I couldn't speak. I'd wake up distressed and not finding my voice would make it even worse. For the first two months, Chan stayed with me every night. He'd try his best to calm me down but every night I'd be just as scared to go to bed."

"Eventually, the nightmares didn't come as often. Especially after I realised I could speak again and I was remembering bits and pieces of the accident and my suspicion was growing. I haven't had any nightmares for a while now but I remember how they made me feel. How awfully...real they felt." You sigh, shuddering at the thought.

A few moments of silence pass by as Seungcheol's hand drops from your shoulder. You don't expect him to spill his heart out but you are grateful that he didn't push you away and listened to you and comforted you. It is more than you ever thought you could get from him. Having this simple, somewhat bitter moment of intimacy is enough to soothe your love starved heart.  However, you realise it's a night full of surprises when Seungcheol starts speaking. "I was in the military, as you know. I joined when I was eighteen. I lost my parents the year before so it was just me and my grandfather." His voice is quiet as he fixes his eyes out the window, looking at the dark night sky.

You follow his gaze and make a quick observation that there are no stars tonight, just an empty, dark sky, before setting your gaze on Seungcheol's face. 

"My grandfather served in the military during the early years of his life and I wanted to follow his footsteps. The first few years were tough but good. I enjoyed them as they kept me busy and focused. During my fifth year in the military, my grandfather passed away peacefully in his sleep. I was on break at that time so I was there with him in his last moments. However, it still broke me. Sending him off was one of the hardest things I had ever done."

He pauses, making you hold your breath and anticipate his next words. His expression is unreadable, his sharp gaze focused outside when he continues.  "I returned to the military a different man. My life as a soldier became everything to me. I worked ten times harder than anyone else as the military turned into my entire life. I jumped through the ranks very quickly and went on various missions as a SEAL. All of them were dangerous but successful as I led my teams out safely each time. Until Sudan."

There is another heavy pause as you feel the air thicken with tension. You know the worst part is about to begin and as you observe his gaze become more and more unfocused, you can't help but dread whatever is coming next. "It was a humanitarian mission. Me and my team were tasked to rescue some families from a group of local terrorists. They were held inside a camp in the middle of the desert. The infiltration was successful. But, just as we were escaping, the terrorists found out and came at us with double manpower. They had a couple of high powered explosives which we were unprepared for because they were not supposed to have such weapons."

"As my team and I were exchanging fire against them, a bomb went off right next to me. It is the last thing I remember before waking up in a hospital bed a week later."

"The explosion fucked up left leg. I needed three surgeries and months of rehabilitation. But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part is that it cost three of my teammates their lives."

Oh Seungcheol. Tears are beading down your eyes as you let his words soak into you.

"It happened almost six years ago but it still haunts me. How I fucked up. How I killed them." "Seungcheol, no!" You scold, your voice not as powerful as you'd like it to be as it breaks mid way. "You did not kill them, you hear me? It was an accident. A horrible one but it was not your fault in any way. They died honourably and think of all the others you saved, all the times you led your team out of harm successfully. Think about all the lives you have saved, all the people you have helped." Your grip is strong on his forearms as you turn him to face you fully. His eyes meet you; bleak and hopeless and the urge to wipe away all his pain soars within you. It's a shame you can't do that so you do the next best thing you can think of.

You pull him in a tight hug. You wrap yourself around him, resting your chin over his shoulder as you close your eyes and hold him tight, the act a bit hard due his huge build. For several long moments he doesn't hug you back until you finally feel his warm hands creep on your back as he rests his face against your neck, cocooning your body with his.

You swallow a sob and blink furiously to drive away the tears, your hands stroking his hair in gentle motions. "It's alright, Cheol. You are going to be just fine. It is all going to be okay."

His response is to hold you tighter and you welcome his vulnerability, his pain and agony with open arms, breathing it in as if it is your own. Long moments are spent as you two remain in each other's embrace until you finally sit back to take a look at him.

"Maybe you should talk to a therapist?"

"I did," he sighs, running a hand through his soft locks. "After the accident, I saw one for almost a year. I was prescribed so many medicines and I almost got addicted to them even though they weren't doing much to help. So I decided to quit altogether and moved here, in his cabin. I stayed here for about six months, trying to pull myself together before an old friend of mine called, asking if I wanted to join his private security company. I agreed because I couldn't live in solitude any longer without killing myself and now, I'm here." You nod, watching him intently as you two sit with mere inches of space between each other's faces. In the back of your mind, you realize that this is the most intimate you have been with Seungcheol and probably you will ever get to be so you can't help but speak the next words. "You are so beautiful, Seungcheol. Inside and out. You are such an amazing person.I only wish you would know that." Your words can barely be heard because you speak so softly but it contains emotions from the deepest, rawest part of your heart. Sitting with him on the floor, in the middle of the night at a cabin in the woods, talking about your deepest traumas and secrets is something you never thought you would experience but now you realise, it is a treasure, a moment of profoundness that you will carry close to your heart for the rest of your life.

Seungcheol's eyes widen for a fraction upon hearing your words before he shifts, trying to pull away from you but your strong grip on his hands stops him. Once again, you find yourself confessing. "Ever since you've come to my life, I feel hopeful, even though we are going through so much trouble. I want to live again and I feel happy and hopeful when I look at you. And I can never thank you enough for that."

Seungcheol's Adams apple bobs as he swallows and the expression on his face is so vivid you realize you have left him speechless. A small, shy smile sets on your lips as you squeeze his hands softly, your thumb stroking over his bruised knuckles.  While your mind swoons over how tender this moment is and how beautiful he looks and how soft his lips appear, he inches his face closer to you before pressing his lips against yours.

At first, you believe it's a dream.

It is bound to be, no?

Blinking multiple times, you make sure that it in fact is not a dream but it seems to take too long because Seungcheol is pulling away from you, the apology right there at the tip of his tongue. However, you do not let him speak the words he doesn't mean. Instead, you do what you have only done in your late night fantasies, you cup his cheeks and pull his face down to yours, meeting his lips in a fierce kiss. You do not even think of holding back, pouring every bit of passion and need and admiration for him into it. 

Thankfully, he reciprocates, cupping your neck and jaw, tilting your face for better access. 

And it's wonderland. It is everything you imagined and more, everything you want and need, everything that can heal you.

In the rosy haze of desire and desperation, your hungry hands travel down to the hem of his white t-shirt, tugging on it in a futile attempt to get it off. The action gets the attention of Seungcheol as he dettaches his lips from yours, taking a look at your face.

"_____—" he makes a weak attempt to stop you but his words die on his tongue as you hastily stand up, dragging him with him. Pressing a soft finger on his lips, you shush him as you bring your face closer to him and whisper in his ear. "Don't push me away Seungcheol, please. I need you. And you need me too."

There is a battle in his gaze as he stares at your longing visage for a moment with a clenched jaw before muttering a curse underneath his breath. The next moment, you are being carried to your bedroom and in the blink of an eye, you are standing in front of your bed with his frame towering over you.

"You wanted this?" He teases but his eyes are lit with a fire that is inextinguishable as he takes off his shirt and even in the dimly lit room, you do not miss the carved perfection of his body, littered with scars here and there. In vain hope, you pray that your face isn't visible as you ogle him but you know it is because his unrelenting stare breaks your skin into goosebumps. 

As you are stuck in a trance of lust, he takes a step closer to you before his breath grazes your ear. "Lift your hands, angel."

The next moment, he pulls your nightshirt off your body, leaving you only in your sleeping shorts. He wastes no time, attacking them right next as they come off with a tug and you fall into your bed. You have no time to overthink or feel shy because Seungcheol cages your body underneath his as he crawls to you, a dark look of hunger on his face. 

"You are a fucking temptress, you know that?" He grunts, a calloused thumb reaching out to stroke your cheek. You lean into his touch, eyes falling closed at the contact as a soft sigh escapes your lips but the next moment Seungcheol is grabbing the back of your neck and pulling you in for a heated kiss. 

It's all teeth and tongue as he devours your mouth, two tongues entangled in a fierce rhythm of tango before finally letting you gasp for air.  "Crawl up," his voice is that of a quiet command which you follow instantly, letting him sit comfortably on his knees as he spreads your legs wide.

The very next moment a squeak leaves your mouth as Seungcheol pushes his index finger inside you, your wetness granting easy access. He makes a noise, something akin to an animalistic groan as his digit easily slips inside. 

"Fuck, you're so wet for me," he murmurs as he inserts another finger and then another before curling them inside you.

"Seungcheol!" You yell, grabbing the sheets as your hips lift off the mattress due to the electrifying jolt of pleasure. Your reaction makes him grunt as he fastens his face and you feel your legs tremble, making you think that you are going to come already. 

Your core tightens around his fingers as more wetness leaks from you, only amplified when he brushes his thumb against your clit. Another gasp and a shudder of your body makes Seungcheol smirk as he whispers, "Gonna come, angel?"

You nod your head aggressively, your hips chasing his fingers in their own rhythm and just as the tingles of your release soars in your body, Seungcheol removes his fingers.

"No!" Your protest is immediate but the man only gives you a cruel smile as he makes a show of licking his fingers clean. The act itself is extremely hot and you cannot help but release another groan of frustration. 

"Seungcheol! Please let me—"

"You are gonna lie back and let me eat your pussy now, hmm? After I'm satisfied, I will let you come." He announces, lips hovering over your thighs, the touch of his warm breath giving your goosebumps. The low gravel of his voice paired with the way he keeps looking at you from between your thighs makes you swallow thickly before lying your head back into the pillow, a shuddering breath leaving your lips.

"Good girl."

Good girl.

Your core clenches deliciously.  However, you do not get to soak in the warmth of his praise because the next moment he flicks your clit with his tongue and your scream pierces the night air. Your body writhes while he holds your thighs open in a strong grip, incoherent gasps and curses of pleasure falling from your lips. Seungcheol is like a man starved, as he eats you out mercilessly, his tongue going deep inside your most intimate parts. You can't remain still, tears of pleasure stinging your eyes as your body shakes and pleas fall from your lips.

"Oh f-fuck! Seungcheol! Please!" 

You yourself do not know what you are begging for. It's the sweetest torture, one you want to end but also continue forever.

Your release has wet your inner thighs and paired with Seungcheol's saliva they drip down to your asshole but Seungcheol doesn't stop. He brings his attention to your hard, swollen clit now which he flicks repeatedly with his tongue.

"Fuck! I can't! Please let me come!" You are convinced your voice can be heard from miles away. "You wanna come?" He grunts between breaths, voice muffled.

"Yes, yes! Please!"

"Then come. Come for me, my angel." The command has your toes curling as he gives a harsh suck to your clit and in an instant, you go off like a firework. The heated coil in your belly snaps as your body twitches, sending you headfirst into an orgasm so good, so deep, tears drip down your eyes. All through it, Seungcheol keeps sucking your pussy, almost making you numb before stopping with a final, sloppy kiss on your clit and sitting back.

Even in the darkness, you see his lips shine with your release.

"You are an aphrodisiac, angel." His words caress your skin as he leans forward and presses soft, tantalising kisses on your jaw and down your throat. 

"Please, fuck me now," your voice is a cry of plea as you chase his lips for a kiss. He entertains you, tangling your mouths in an embrace of passion as you taste yourself on his tongue. One of his hands moves down amidst the kiss and your foggy brain registers that he's taking off his sweatpants. 

With a soft groan he takes off his lips from yours and frees himself from your entangled limbs, standing up to kick his boxers and sweatpants down his legs. 

And oh dear lord is he a view. You admire him in his nakedness in the half lit room, drinking every inch of him. You can't stray your eyes from his cock, hard and leaking as you gulp and send a prayer to the sky, marvelling at his size.

Seungcheol crawls back into the bed, his movements akin to the grace of a panther, his eyes lit with ferocity and huger as he pins both your wrists over your head with one hand.

"I'm going to fuck you so good you will be ruined for any other man." He promises, giving you a delicious shiver on your spine. You want to scream that you don't need any other man, you never will but the thought dies in your mind when you feel his tip prodding at your core.  He slides in easily, almost embarrassingly easy as your sopping cunt welcomes him with wide open arms. A guttural groan escapes from his throat as he buries his head in the crook of your neck, spewing curses. The sound makes you clench around him which makes him curse again.

"You are so fucking tight, fuck!"

You can only respond in an incoherent hum as he starts moving inside you, making you throw your head back and let out a loud moan. He raises his head to look at you and your eyes contact and in a second, everything becomes more intense. The look in his eyes is ever captivating and ruthless while he pistons in and out of you tirelessly, hitting that sensitive spot inside you perfectly each time.

"You're going to be the death of me." He whispers, almost as if he's talking to himself. His mouth works on your jaw, moving down to your throat and sucking harshly on the soft flesh, making you shudder in pleasure. "Seungcheol!" You cry. "Harder! Please!"

"Any harder and I'll come right now."

"Do it! Come inside me!" All other thoughts and worries have left your mind and beg him for more, already cock drunk.

"Fuck, you sure?"

"I'm on pills, Cheol. I'm sure," you pant, clutching onto his back as he increases his pace, leaning back to sit on his knees as his hands move to your waist, holding you in a bruising grip.

"Gonna fill you up then, angel. Make this pussy bleed my come." He promises with a snark, his eyes trained on your face as he delivers one particular thrust that has you arching off the bed and seeing stars.

Then there is a brush of touch on your hard clit and a quiet command of coming which has fireworks exploding all throughout your body. You cry out, from pleasure and pain so addictive that white spots dance in your vision, hands twisting the fabric of the bedsheet so hard it would be no surprise if they tore.  The next moment you feel Seungcheol release inside you and the feeling of his warm cum coating your insides gives your body another round of shivers as you completely blank out. You are transported to a hazy place where you feel like you are floating through the air as you lose all sense of connection from this world.

It takes a while for you to recover and once you do, you realise Seungcheol has slumped over next to you as his breathing gradually returns to normal. You turn your head slightly to look at him and just as your eyes meet, he makes a move to get up.  Your hand immediately latches onto his arm. "Don't go." You croak.

"I need to clean you up." His voice is quiet.

"Later." You whisper, begging with your eyes. "Just lay with me for a while." He remains still for a moment, probably battling with himself before lying back next to you. He stretches one of his arms and you quickly use it as a pillow, shuffling closer to his body and resting your palm on his chest. Seungcheol tenses next to you but you don't let it get to you as your hand gently strokes an old scar right beneath his chest. Just as you are almost falling asleep, you feel his hand wrap around your waist, holding you softly and a smile graces your lips.

I love you, Choi Seungcheol.

— The next morning, Seungcheol starts avoiding you like you are the plague. As soon as you step out of your bedroom, Seungcheol, who was sitting in the living area quite literally bolts outside with his laptop and everything, throwing a curt good morning to you and not even sparing a glance.

You are hurt, to say the least. While a silly part of you expected that maybe you would wake up with him in the same bed and have breakfast together before some more lovemaking, the realistic part of you did not expect him to act like this. 

Like nothing happened.

Or worse, acting like what happened was a mistake.

Does he really think that last night was a mistake? 

It hurts to even think that he might believe that so you push that thought away with all your might. Instead, you focus on making yourself a nice breakfast before soaking in the tub for a while as you try to focus all your attention on plotting your uncles demise.

Once you are nice and clean after the soak, you find Seungcheol in the kitchen, drinking something from his mug as he talks over the phone with someone. You wait for him to finish, using the spare time to admire how good he looks— slightly messy hair, an old grey t-shirt and grey sweatpants. Once again, your mind travels to how good he railed you last night but before it can travel too far, you shake yourself back to the present.

"I need to talk to you." You announce as soon as he sets his phone down. Seungcheol's head snaps up to your voice and a grim expression settles on his face before he murmurs. 

"There's nothing to talk about. Last night was an accident. We were both vulnerable and it just... happened." It's like someone ripped your beating heart off of your chest or dumped you into a bucket of ice or better yet, did that together. Yet it still wouldn't hurt as much as his words pierce through you right now, leaving you utterly speechless as you just blink repeatedly, trying to make sure you heard that right. "It was not an accident, Seungcheol. You know it." Your voice is deathly quiet and you can feel yourself on the precipice of snapping.

"The hell it wasn't, _____." He snaps. "I am your fucking bodyguard and you are my client. I am not getting paid to take advantage of you!"

"Take advantage of me?" You seethe as an overwhelming urge to punch something, like his face, overcomes you. You have to take a deep breath in to form the next words. "I am not some helpless, pathetic girl that you can take advantage of. Whatever happened last night was real and with our consent. The man last night was the real you, the one you keep hiding, not this!" Seungcheol clenches his jaw, running a frustrated hand through his hair. "Either way, it should not have happened. We, you and me—" he points between the two of you. "It does not work. It won't."

"Seungcheol— "

"That's enough _______."

"No, tell me. Enlighten me, please," Your voice drips with sarcasm as you take a step towards him, crossing your hands in front of your chest. "Why do we not work? What delightful, eye opening information has been revealed upon you which led you to this wise conclusion?" The twitch in his jaw clearly tells you that he does not appreciate your sarcasm but you've had enough of his stubbornness, especially when it is clear that he wants you as well.

"So far, I'll I've heard is that I can't have you not, I don't want you. Quit playing games with yourself Seungcheol!"

"I am fucking loose grenade!" His scream is abrupt, making you jolt. The veins in his neck pop out as he steps back, his frantic eyes glaring at you. "I cannot keep you safe! Not from myself. I am a man whose past haunts him. I can't fucking sleep at night without getting nightmares and smashing things! I cannot pass a day without the guilt of my past following me! I am headed towards hell and I cannot drag you down with me. I am not the man for you, _____, try to understand!"

"I think that's for me to decide, no?" You take another step towards him, trying to calm him down.

"No!" He yells, stepping back. "Enough! Just— enough. This conversation is over. I'm going out and when I return, we will pretend that none of this ever happened."

"You fucking asshole!"  You normally do not curse.  Out loud at least. Your mother had a strict rule of no bad language and you and your brother followed that rule to a t. No matter what you have encountered so far in your life, nothing gave you the urge to curse half as much as you want to right now.

"That's right. I am an asshole." He states calmly, sparing you a blank look before turning and heading for the main door.

"You fucking son of a bitch! I did not want to talk about this in the first place! When I said I need to talk with you, I meant about my uncle, you idiot!"

He stops in his tracks before slowly turning his head to look at you. "What about him?" His calmness makes you absolutely livid and even though you try your hardest to form words, the only thing your tongue seems to want to utter are curse words.

"It doesn't concern you anymore, asswipe." Seungcheol's lips form a thin line as he watches you quietly for a few moments.

"Do not do anything stupid,_____." He has the nerve to order you before marching out of the house, slamming the door loudly behind him.

"Go to hell, dickhead!" —

The rest of the day is uneventful as you two mind your own business, avidly avoiding each other. After Seungcheol leaves and blesses you with solitude you pace around the house angrily before going for a walk in the forest behind the cabin.

It is not dense or uncomfortable as a walking trek has been premade and you take a long walk which helps you clear your head just a bit. It takes your mind off of your stubborn bodyguard and back onto your uncle as you think of ways to trap him in a position he cannot easily get out of, as early as possible. With the plan you have in mind, it proves to be a bit hard, because you are staying in the middle of nowhere and your uncle has no clue where you are.

You walk home an hour later with a less obscure mind and send Chan a text through the burner phone, letting him know that you are alive and well. 

Your brother video calls you soon after and you almost forget that you are supposed to be mute at the joy of seeing your brother. It kills you that you have to lie to him but you bite your teeth and do it, telling him that work got too overwhelming and you are taking some days off and promise him of your quick return. You know your brother is not stupid and he has started doubting you but he is kind enough not to push you for more, which you are grateful for.

Seungcheol returns home a little after noon with more supplies. You act like he does not exist as you finish your lunch and retire to your room where you spend the rest of the day, lying in your bed and staring at the ceiling, thinking about everything and nothing. As the skies bleed to dark, dinner time rolls around and you two eat separately. Once again, Seungcheol makes no attempt to talk to you or acknowledge you just like you are doing but it still infuriates you, which you try to control by doing copious amounts of yoga in your room, before finally falling asleep quite late.

However, disaster strikes with the arrival of dawn, as the first rays of sun kiss the sky. 

You are snapped out of sleep as you open your eyes and find Seungcheol hovering over you, shaking you awake.

"Wake up, _____! Your uncle is here. He found us!"

Immediately you bolt upright, half thinking that all this is a vivid dream. As your panicked eyes meet his, your shaky hands clutching his biceps and you whisper. "W-what? How? I- I don't understand."

"I don't know either." Seungcheol grunts, craning his neck to look out the window. "There are two jeeps heading towards us. You need to get out."

As if on cue, you hear the loud roar of the engines as they come to a stop right in front of the cabin. Seungcheol helps your shaky form out of bed and ushers you down the stairs. 

"Take the back exit. Hide in the forest until I come for you. If I don't, call Jihoon for help. His number is here. And take this." he explains, handing his burner phone and a gun to you but your brain is stuck in a loop, not processing that there is a fucking gun in your hand.

"What do you mean if I don't? You are coming with me—"

"No. I will hold them off while you escape. Go, now." He orders, pushing you towards the back door of the kitchen. 

"_____! I know you're in there! Come out while I am being nice and maybe we can come to an agreement! You do not want to end up like your mother, do you now?" Your body freezes as you hear your uncle yell from the front door. The anger evoked from his words makes you want to stay and confront him but Seungcheol keeps pushing you, telling you to run.

And so, sparing one last longing look at Seungcheol, you tuck your weapon in your waist and run. You have not gotten even fifty feet away from the cabin when the first round of shots echo through the air. Your blood freezes as you come to a halt, turning your head around to look at the cabin as gunshots echo through the air.

You have to swallow a lump in your throat as tears gather in your eyes, the temptation to go back increasing. But you know going back is not a good idea because it will put Seungcheol's life at risk, more than it already is. So you keep moving deeper into the forest, the treks familiar because you have been here before and you make your way through very easily. When you come across a small cliff shrouded by thick bushes you decide to hide there, waiting to see if your uncle's men come around here. Confirming your guess, they do, after a while as they jog through, looking around for you. However, they fail to estimate your hiding place and continue deeper into the forest down the trek and just then, an idea forms in your head.

You have to go back.

The universe is on your side because you realise after some peeking around and shuffling through trees that there is another road that you can use to go back to the cabin. This one is definitely unused and riskier but you are determined to make this work. So, with a deep breath you jog through the narrow, muddy lane and soon enough, you find your way back.

The cabin is now quiet, eerily so.

The back door remains open, granting you access and you carefully step one foot in, holding your breath. 

It is a mess; bullet holes scattered around, a few bodies slumped on the ground, specks of blood all over the floor. The scene is bone chilling and you have to take several deep breaths to calm down. You can hear noises coming from somewhere in the house, grunts and yells, as if people are fighting, which is what is undoubtedly happening. No matter how severe your urge is to follow the sound and make sure Seungcheol is okay, you decide against it, putting faith in his capabilities instead and sending a prayer out to heaven. Careful not to step on any blood, you make your way through the mess and gingerly climb up the stairs, pausing to make sure no one is around. The coast is clear, thankfully, as no one is upstairs and you head straight for the little storeroom next to the bedroom, where you kept the very little belongings you brought with you.

You took special care to hide your prized possession, the evidence file. It stays secure inside a special compartment Seungcheol showed you that is situated under the wooden floor. Quickly removing the carpet, you open the hatch and look inside to make sure the files are there.

And they are, thankfully. Picking them up, you hold them to your chest and close the hatch, putting everything in its place while holding your breath through all of it. In the next second, the voice you dreaded echoes through the air.

"I believe I am going to need that, _____." 

You whip your head back to see your dear uncle standing at the door frame, lips twisted in a diabolic smirk like he got you just where he wanted to.  "I knew you would lead me to the evidence, niece. I just had to wait. And I knew you would contact your dear little brother no matter what so I put a little tracker on his phone and it led me here. Easy, no?" He shakes his head,  laughing cockily at his plan.

Your blood runs cold as your fingers grip the envelope tightly.

"Over my dead body." You hiss.

"Oh yeah, and my men told me you could speak?" He taunts, shaking his head some more. "Can you imagine my surprise when I heard that? Tell me, were you faking it all along? To what, get some pity points?"

"You will rot in jail, asshole. I will personally see to it." You seethe, clutching the folder tighter against your chest.  Your uncle's face loses its amusement as he stares at you for a while, cold and unblinking before reaching back and pulling out a gun. Your heart skips a beat as he points it right at you.

"The file, ______. I am not here to play games."

"Never." There is an immediate deafening noise of gunfire, making you squeeze your eyes shut and for a horrible moment, you think he has shot you. Opening your eyes, you see there's a hole in the roof where he has aimed his gun before pointing it back at you.

"Don't make me kill you like your mother. I need you alive for all the other plans I have."

"She was your sister in law!" You cry.

"She was a thorn in my way!" He seethes. "A conniving bitch trying to take the company from me and my son! Always challenging me! Always speaking against me!"

"It was never yours to begin with, you ugly old man! She knew you would steal it from us!"

"I dare you to speak one more word and the next bullet will be in your hand and the one after that will be in your leg. I won't do the mercy of killing you, _____. I will put you through hell on earth before I grant you the freedom of death." He sneers, eyes fueled with hatred. You swallow, your breath coming out in heavy pants as you decide on what to do next. 

Finally, with a defeated sigh you raise your arms in surrender and take a small, tiny step towards him, trying to appear as meek and harmless as possible. "You could have not killed her. You could have sent her away if she was a problem." You whisper, voice cracking. "Huh," he scoffs. "As if that bitch would listen. The only way was to get rid of her. For good. I knew she would be in the car with you that day and I planned to kill two birds with one stone but alas, that didn't happen" He shrugs, pouting. "It's alright, though. I know how to use it in my favour. I have so many plans for you. You're gonna come with me and sign off—"

"Drop the gun, Jin."

Seungcheol!

It is Seungcheol, pointing his Glock at the back of Jin's head as he appears behind him all of a sudden. You are flooded with gratitude so big tears come to your eyes and hope flares in your chest seeing him alive, hurt and dishevelled but alive. However, your hope is quick to die down when Jin speaks the next words.

"You sure you wanna do that, son?" Your uncle remains unaffected as he slightly turns his head, his words directed to Seungcheol. "You pull the trigger and by the time it has hit me I can pull the trigger as well and her brains will be splattered all over these walls. You don't want that, do you? Besides, I know as a matter of fact your boss here wants me alive. She has grand plans for me, is that not right, _____?"

His eyes pan back to you, the evilest of smiles on his face as you grit your teeth, trying to keep yourself from doing anything rash.

You underestimated your uncle for sure.

"Drop the gun, son. I won't say it again." He orders, taking a menacing step towards you. "You drop it and nobody gets hurt. I need this bitch alive for everything I have planned." Seungcheol's eyes meet yours and the helplessness and frustration is visible in them. You watch with bated breath as he slowly points the gun away from Jin's head and sets it down on the ground, raising his hands in surrender. A satisfied smile sets on your uncle's face and he lets his guard down for a moment, a fraction of a second, which Seungcheol takes advantage of.  In the blink of an eye, Seungcheol jumps on him, grabbing his legs and dragging him down onto the floor. His grip on the gun falters, letting it fall on the floor and as he makes a move to reach for it, Seungcheol kicks it to the farthest corner of the room.

A scuffle between them ensues and Seungcheol tries to overpower Jin and pin him down onto the floor. However, your uncle, the master of playing dirty, manages to pull a switchblade from his pocket and slashes Seungcheol on the arm, making him fall off of him. "I'm gonna fucking gut you, you son of a bitch!" He yells, charging for Seungcheol as he pins him down, aiming the blade towards his throat but Seungcheol stops him with a practised move. An intense battle of power ensues but you've had enough as you reach  for the gun Seungcheol gave you, tucked at your waistband.

Pointing it straight at Jin's head, you yell. "Drop the knife, Jin! I really don't want to kill you!"

"You don't have the balls to shoot me, bitch!" He yells back, not even glancing at you, busy subduing Seungcheol as he stabs him in the shoulder. That motherfucker!

He underestimated you greatly.

Furious, you pull the trigger and the bullet lands right where you aimed it, Jin's knee. With a howl of pain, he falls off of Seungcheol who quickly gets back up and wraps an arm around his throat in a chokehold.

"You filthy little bitch! You fucking —"

Seungcheol tightens the grip on his neck and after struggling for a few moments, Jin passes out, making you sigh in relief as you step back and lean against the wall. "You shot him." Seungcheol's voice is laced with bewilderment as he watches you with a look of surprise and admiration. "Self defence," you shrug, closing your eyes and inhaling a deep breath. "Tie him up. I'll call the police."

— Fifteen minutes later the cops arrive with blaring sirens followed by an ambulance. 

As soon as the ambulance comes to a stop, you are dragging Seungcheol towards it, yelling at the staff to get a look at his shoulder, around which you have wrapped a cloth to lessen the bleeding. As a responder attends to Seungcheol's injury, two policemen rush into the house when you tell them that the culprit is tied up inside. 

You stand out front with your arms crossed, the morning sun now high in the sky, the warm rays caressing your face as you watch your uncle being dragged out of the house and into one of the police cars. He is yelling and cursing his complaints, his eyes filled with hatred as they come in contact with yours. 

Your body goes rigid, the revelation coming upon you that he is done for and he knows it. You know he is definitely going to deny everything but he has another surprise coming his way.

An officer comes to you, talking about the next procedures and asking basic questions but you cannot quite register his words as your body finally gets off the high of adrenaline and realisation hits you like a bulldozer, it's over.

It is over. You got him. 

I got him, Mom. I will make him pay.

Seungcheol, who sits at the back of the ambulance while a nurse gives his shoulder a temporary fix, listens to the officer carefully, answering his questions in your place before thanking him as he takes his leave. 

"Are you okay?" Seungcheol's uninjured hand comes up to gently touch your arm, making you jump as you are snapped out of your reverie.

"Would you like me to look at you, ma'am? The responder offers as she takes off her gloves. "You look pale." You shake your head, swallowing as you wrap your arms around yourself. Seungcheol gives your hand a tug, making you sit next to him.  "Please take a look at her." He says to the nurse, who nods while he shrugs off the blanket sitting on his shoulder and wraps it around yours with his free hand. 

"Breathe, _____." He speaks softly, his hand holding yours. You nod, focusing on your breath for the next few minutes as the nurse does a quick check up on you. There are a lot of unshed tears within you and a lot of emotions you need to let out but you just cannot bring yourself to do that right now. There is this numb feeling all over you accompanied by an overwhelmingness.

And you know very well the war isn't over just yet. You have to make sure your uncle ends up behind bars. Even though you have some control over your emotions right now, you remember that you have to explain every hideous detail to Chan and you know will break down then. You know you will break down again when you visit your mother's grave but you know this time, you will feel less guilty of being the only one surviving, less in agony because you have avenged her.

"I have called my lawyer. He's preparing all the documents. We should head home now." You speak, eyes staring at the sun shining over the hills and the lush greenery.

This place is magical. You want to come here again, someday.

"Okay," Seungcheol agrees as his hand comes to rest over yours and he gives you a reassuring squeeze. Your eyes pan back to his face, littered with cuts before settling on his shoulder.  You open your mouth to scold him for getting hurt when he sighs. "What were you thinking, _____? I told you not to come back to the cabin. Your uncle had you just where he wanted. You could have been seriously hu—

"I had a plan, Seungcheol."

"What plan?" He looks annoyed. A soft smile graces your lips as your hand travels to the front pocket of your shirt. You pick the pen sitting there and hand it to Seungcheol with a mischievous smile. Frowning, he examines the item carefully until it dawns on him as his eyes widen. "This has a camera!"

"Yep! It can record audio and video very clearly. I had it on me for a while and as I was hiding in the forest I suddenly realised that I couldn't get better proof against my uncle than right then. So I went back to be the bait."

"Still, you don't realise how risky—"

"Trust me, I do. But I had no option. Besides, my gut told me that my uncle really didn't want to kill me unless he had to because after everything that happened, I was more valuable to him alive than dead." Seungcheol stares at you, all a loss for words before shaking his head in disbelief. 

"Wanna know something more fun?"

"What?" He is wary. "The documents I hid? They are not the real ones!" You cannot hold back a laugh as Seungcheol looks as you, more perplexed than before.

"I mean, come on! I'm not that stupid! I wouldn't carry them with me knowing my uncle is looking for them! I hid the original files in Chan's safe after I had him promise me not to touch them."

"Wow…" Seungcheol shakes his head in utter disbelief as he tries to wrap his head around everything. "Still, if I hadn't come for you on time…"

"I knew you would, Seungcheol. I believed that deep in my heart." You whisper, fingers lacing with his as your eyes meet. Seungcheol swallows and looks away, blinking. With a soft sigh, you stand up. "Are you sure you can travel this long in the car? Should I call in a helicopter for you?" Seungcheol rolls his eyes, standing up as well. "It's a fucking graze, _____. I have had way worse and I survived. I will be fine. I already feel fine." Your eyes narrow at him and you want to reprimand him but you cannot find it in your heart to do so. With a sigh, you usher him towards the car. "Let's go then. I'll drive."

— The next 48 hours pass by in the blink of an eye as you go through the most hectic time of your life. 

The first thing you do upon entering the city is sit down with your lawyer for a detailed discussion on the next steps you are going to take and hand the video recording to him. After that you ask Chan to come over to your place where you explain everything to him from a to z. It proves to be one of the worst moments of your life as you watch your brother's face pale with every word you utter and by the time you finish explaining everything he goes as still as a statue before abruptly taking his leave.

The next day you are asked to give a statement to the police along with Seungcheol which takes quite a while as you explain everything in detail. During that time the news breaks about your uncle getting arrested and charged for both murder and attempted murder leading to a flock of reporters chasing you down wherever you go. 

The stocks of the company are also affected as a side effect of the scandal and you have to spend a good amount of time in the office as you try to reassure everyone and get everything under control with your business partners.

On the third day after Jin's arrest, the police officially read out all the charges against him and announce the dates of the trials which sends the press into a second round of frenzy as they try to get your opinion on it, mobbing you whenever you step outside.

Your father is also taken in for questioning where he, thankfully, admits to his crimes and then he is also arrested with the charge of withholding information. He claims that his brother was blackmailing him so he had to keep the murder a secret. Whatever his reason was, you do not care anymore.

You refrain from engaging with the press as much as possible, other than the press conference arranged by your company that you had to attend but you do not make any comments about your uncle or father, just announcing that they will be punished accordingly and you and your brother will do your utmost best to protect the company. 

Amid all of this, Seungcheol refuses to leave your side, even with his injured shoulder. 

The wound was not deep but he was advised not to move the shoulder too much, an instruction he didn't pay any heed to when he was protecting you from the fleet of reporters. Taking it a step further than that, he called his friend over from the agency, the man called Jihoon, to be your second bodyguard because he believed that he was not functioning at his best.

Overall, it turns out to be a crazy, sleep deprived but exciting few days as you see all the pieces of the puzzle fall into its rightful place.

What is not exciting, however, is the straining relationship between you and your brother. After your confession to everything, he grows quieter and avoids talking with you unless it's absolutely necessary, which you understand and respect. He is processing the murder of his mother and his family members' participation in it and you also understand he feels betrayed because you kept so much information from him.

Still, it hurts.

This is why it is a surprise when you see him walk through the double doors to your office on a weekday morning as you were going through the legal statements of the company. "Chan!" You gasp, rising from your chair, eyes wide open in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

He gives a half hearted shrug before sitting down on the couch by the floor to ceiling windows, his gaze focused on the skyline.  "I had some things to tell you." Okay... You chew on your lip as you walk over to him and take a seat in front of him. You watch your brother stare off into the distance out the window before he finally heaves a long sigh and looks at you. The sadness and exhaustion are clear in his eyes and it breaks your heart. This whole media circus has not been easy for him either, especially because he knew nothing of what was going on and the press attacked him like a bunch of piranhas.

"The week has been crazy for you." He states, matter of factly. 

You give him a small, sad smile. "Same goes for you."

"Yes. I am feeling a lot of emotions together however..." he stops for a second before boring his gaze at your eyes. "I cannot help but feel betrayed."

"Oh Chan—"

"No, it's okay." He holds up his hand, stopping you. "I know that was not your intention and it is not your fault. It is none of our fault. I feel betrayed by this... family, this situation. I feel so angry that all of this happened right under my nose and I—" he huffs, dragging a hand through his hair as his voice fades. "I knew nothing about it."

"It is not your fault."

"It kind of is." He grunts. "I...I should have been more careful, more aware—"

"You couldn't have prevented it, Chan. It would only get you hurt in the process."

"Exactly! It would and that's how it should be. We're a team, you and I. So I should be equally responsible but only you got hurt in this process. You have been carrying all this burden with you since the accident. Not to mention the crazy stunt at the cabin. Are you insane, _____? I saw the video and he had a gun for fucks sake!"

"So did I!" You admonish. "Besides, he wasn't going to shoot me."

"You couldn't be sure!"

You drag out a sigh in surrender as you admire your brother for a silent moment as he suddenly reminds you of Seungcheol. "Whatever it was, it's in the past and I am safe now. However, I am sorry. For lying to you, for keeping you in the dark."

"Yes, I am actually quite mad at you for acting mute in front of me." He narrows his gaze at your face. 

"Well at least you learned sign language because of it!"

He snorts and you chuckle, a more comfortable silence falling between the two of you as you stare at each other for a while with melancholic smile on your faces. After a while, he announces, "I am going away for a while."

"What? Where?" You gasp.

"I don't know where, actually. Somewhere with a beach and lots of sunshine maybe. Away from…here." He smiles faintly. "I just...I need to be away for a while and process everything and simply be in my own company. I just need some time, sis." Tears shine in your eyes. "I understand." You whisper.  You really do but it still pains you because you feel responsible for breaking his heart.

"Take all the time you need. I'll handle the business while you are gone."

"Good. I know you will manage it well, maybe even better than me," he gives you a smile, a real one that reflects the shine in his eyes and you mirror it back. He stands up, buttoning his suit jacket. "Oh, by the way, what is going on between you and your hunk of a bodyguard?"

"Hm? What do you mean?" You feign innocence, avoiding his gaze, surprised at his observation. "Oh please." He gives you an it-is-very-obvious look. "The chemistry between you two has been explosive from day one. You always have that dreamy look in your eyes when you look at him."

"I do not!" You gasp. "Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night." He shakes his head in mirth. You huff out a dejected breath of surrender. "It doesn't matter anyway. He doesn't want me."

"Should I beat him up?" He asks casually, making you snort.

"You would lose, you know." You roll your eyes. That makes him laugh before he takes a step towards you. "I would deprive you of a hug but since you are already heartbroken, come here." 

You immediately get up and wrap your arms around your brother in a tight hug. You sniff, holding back tears as he pats you in the back, and you whisper. "I will miss you. Text me every now and then."

"Will do," he promises with a smile, pulling back and squeezing your shoulder. As he starts walking, he yells over his shoulder, "Do not think of getting married to that hunk while I'm not here though!"

"Yes, sir!" Rolling your eyes, you yell back and watch him walk out the double doors before plopping back on the couch, an eerie feeling of emptiness settling in your chest.

It takes a while for you to realise that tears are streaming down your face. Upon realisation, you simply hang your head low, letting them flow and stare at the floor, vision blurry as you play back the events of the last 6 months in your head. 

A soft knock at the door makes you snap your head up, breaking your trance as you quickly swipe your fingers below your eyes, head turning to see who enters. 

It's Seungcheol, composed in poise and grace as he steps inside before coming to a stand beside you. Silently, he asks for permission to sit, something you have told him multiple times not to do and when you give him a nod he takes a seat opposite to you. "You have been crying," he states quietly as he regards you with a knotted brow. You sigh and blink a couple of times before asking. "I'm fine now. What's the update? Any problems?"

He shakes his head. "Things are under good so far. You still need to give a formal statement at the fundraisers event next week, so you have to prepare for that."

"Hmm," you nod. "What brings you here, then? Are you feeling okay? I told you to take a day..." Your voice fades as you watch him produce a white rectangular envelope from his pocket and push it towards you on the table.

You have a sinking feeling in your chest that it is a resignation letter. 

"I am submitting my letter of resignation." He says, as calmly as ever, his eyes straight on yours. Your mouth opens but fails to deliver the words as you tilt your head to the side, processing this action. 

You have no problem with him resigning. In fact, you had planned to fire him after this hellish week ends so that you two could have a discussion about where your relationship stands, without all these professional restrictions limiting you. However, knowing Seungcheol, you have a sinking suspicion that he isn't quitting so that he can address his feelings for you but so that he can escape. 

Still, you decide to feign ignorance.

"Good. I was planning on firing you anyway. Not that you were bad at your job, you were the best but you need to rest, Seungcheol. And I have Jihoon now so I'll be fine." You nod as you pretend to go through his letter but inside, your hearts thuds so loudly you are afraid it will burst. 

"As of today, I am relieving you of your duties, Choi Seungcheol." You offer him a shaky smile. Seungcheol nods, his face as impassive as ever and you just cannot tell if he is heartbroken or relieved. His body language tells you that he is ready to get up and leave but you do not let that happen so easily.

"Now we can finally talk about our relationship." You speak, trying to keep your voice as stable as possible. Seungcheol visibly tenses as his face loses some of its colour and immediately you know this is not going to end well. 

But you are adamant on seeing this through.

"There is nothing to talk about." His voice is quiet, almost inaudible as he sits there looking like a petulant child lying to his parents. You have to take a deep breath to compose yourself. 

"You can do many things, Seungcheol but you cannot lie to me." You keep your voice as gentle as you can.

Your ex bodyguard seems to agree as he lets out a dejected sigh and stares at the floor very attentively. You watch him with intent for a few long moments, giving him time but ultimately when he remains as stubborn and unmoving as a mule, you break the silence. 

"I will lay all my cards on the table, Seungcheol, since you can't seem to do that. I have feelings for you, Seungcheol. Feelings that are very, very deep and real and I'm willing to act on them. Do what is necessary to make this work— make us work." 

He is quick to disagree. "Those feelings that you talk about, they are not love, ____. It is temporary. The last few weeks have been intense and it's just your body's natural reaction —"

"Do you love me, Choi Seungcheol?" You interrupt him, looking him straight in the eye.  The man looks like he swallowed a sock and you would feel bad for him, maybe even laugh at his reaction if the situation was not so dire.

"It does not matter." He looks away. You have the urge to hurl something at his head; the lamp next to you seems very tempting, but you fight it by clenching your fists a few times, trying to put yourself in his shoes.

"Seungcheol, I heard you that day in the cabin. I hear you now and I completely understand your fears. But I am here and we will work through them. It will take time but I'm ready, no matter how long it takes. I just want you, Seungcheol, and it kills me because I know you want me too yet you keep punishing yourself."

By now you have learned to read the man well and what might be easily overlooked by others comes into your notice; like how he clenches his fists and how his Adams apple bobs as he heavily swallows. The look in his eyes is that of a pure battle, one that he is fighting against himself and it's hard to watch. You are about to stand up and hold his hand when he suddenly moves onto his feet, his posture rigid as he glares down at you.

"I do not want you. What happened at the cabin was a mere moment of weakness. And you don't want me either, ______. You will soon realize it."

This gaslighting asshole!

"So you are going to lie to yourself till the very end?" You hiss, standing up and stepping closer to him, meeting his eyes with an equal glare.  "If anyone is lying to themselves here, it is you." He spits. "Our relationship was supposed to be professional from the start. I am a bodyguard and you are merely one of my protectees. Let us end it that way." He takes a step back while you watch him with a flabbergasted expression at his audacity. He uses your moment of weakness to say. "It was nice working with you. Hopefully, you won't need me again. Goodbye, Ms. Lee." The next moment he is pushing past you as his footsteps echo on the cold marble floor, the sound similar to that of your heart as it cracks.

"If you walk away now, I will never forgive you, Seungcheol!" You yell, voice cracking as tears gather in your eyes, your gaze focused outside the window, your back facing him. No reaction comes from behind you except for the footsteps which come to a halt. 

"Do you really want to end it like this?" Your whisper is followed by silence but through the eerie quietness in the room, you know the words reach him well.

His reply comes a few seconds later, in the form of footsteps that echo farther and farther away from you followed by the sound of the door opening and then closing and then utter silence. —

The fundraiser's event is going in full swing, bustling with people when you arrive. Draped in a red silk dress and diamond jewellery you look like a million bucks but in reality you feel nothing like that and you have no desire to be here whatsoever. But you know it is necessary to make an appearance as the host because it is extremely important to show up after the scandal to assure everyone that things are going well. Except they are not. While your professional life has slowly started getting back to its normal place your personal life has plummeted because all that you have done in the past week is mope around and curse your ex bodyguard and bitch about him to your current one, Jihoon.

The best way you can describe Jihoon is a grumpy cat. He talks very little but whenever he does, he's always huffing and complaining. But you see his softer side peek through from the little acts he does for you like making sure you eat your meals properly, checking up on you after your crying session and preparing all your documents and briefing you every morning. His tsundere antics and his silent company have probably been the only driving force that has kept you sane after Seungcheol dumped you.

The event is taking place in a banquet hall in the city centre and once inside, Jihoon guides you to a private resting room where you get ready for the opening speech. "I don't think I will stay till dinner. It is okay I leave after the speech, no?" You ask Jihoon as you finish revising the script. "Maybe mingle with people a little bit. Behave like a human instead of a broken hearted ghost" he offers, his tone dry as usual. You sigh and shake your head at his reply as you smooth your dress and step forward, waiting for the emcee to call you on stage.

Once on stage, you stand behind the podium, the tireless flashes from the cameras giving you a headache and you have to try your very best to plaster a smile on your face as you greet the guests and start your speech. Jihoon stands a few feet away from you on the stage, his eyes scanning the crowd carefully as he receives constant updates in his Bluetooth. However, not even two minutes into your speech, a man causes commotion as he tries to get on the stage, yelling some nonsense about how you are a fraud and a money launderer. You are baffled as you watch the security planted at the perimeter of the stage get a hold of him and drag him out while whispers and murmurs echo among the guests.

"He looks drunk," Jihoon says as he steps close to you to make sure you are alright. "Ignore him. He shouldn't have been allowed inside. I will have a talk with—" He pauses midway in his sentence as eyes focus on something behind you, on the other side of the stage, his pupils widening. You can barely process the change in his expression before he tugs you away and shields you with his body as you two roll off the stage.

The next moment, an explosion echoes through the air. There is a ringing in your ears as Jihoon covers you, the echoes of the blast intensifying the headache you already had. You feel disoriented as Jihoon helps you to stand up and ushers you towards the resting room backstage while you hear screams echoing from the guests, their heavy footsteps scattering all over. "Wha- what is going on?" You cry, confused as Jihoon shoves you inside the room. "It is your cousin, Jun."  What!

"Lock the door. His men have blocked the exits. I need to clear them before I come get you. Do not open this door, is that clear?" He orders you and before you can form a reply, he is gone. Confused, scared and exhausted, you fall onto the ground, head in your hands as you fail to wrap your head around the situation. Of course, you knew your cousin was sour after his father's arrest but you never thought he would go this far. What is he thinking? What does he want?

You hear commotion spread outside, things crashing and even a few gunshots. As you step closer to the door to get a better listen there is a loud bang, as if someone is trying to break in.

Absolutely terrified, you step back, frantic eyes looking around the small space for a weapon.

If you knew the night would end up like this you would have brought a fucking gun with you.

Speaking of guns, a gunshot echoes through the air, making you duck your head as you scream. Another gunshot rings through the air and you realise whoever is on the other side is trying to come inside.

You can only pray it is not your fucking cousin, who is a maniac, apparently.

A broad, mean looking thug bursts through the door just as it opens and when his eyes land on you, he points his gun at your head. "Do not think of doing anything smart, woman. If you don't want me to blow your face off, you do as I fucking tell you to." Swallowing, you nod, holding your hands up in surrender.

So this is how it goes down, huh.

The man produces a handcuff from his pocket and tosses it towards you. "Put it on your hands! Now!" With shaky hands, you pick it up and just as you are about to fasten it around one of your wrists, there is a gunshot. You are sure you have been shot as you shut your eyes tight but start to think otherwise when seconds pass and you still feel your heartbeat.

Peeking open one eye you see the thug slumped over on the floor, a clean bullet hole on the back of his head. And in the doorframe, stands Seungcheol, a gun in his hand.

Choi Seungcheol.

Wait, what? How?

Your brain is struggling to catch up as you blink again and again to make sure of his presence. Indeed, he stands there, dressed in a black suit and tie, specks of red on his white shirt as he pants heavily.

What on god's green earth—

"Come on, you need to get out!" He yells, stepping inside the room, reaching for your hand and dragging you outside with him.  You cannot get a word out as you let him lead you, absolutely thunderstruck because of his sudden presence.

What the fuck is he doing here? How did he even know what was going on?

You are so baffled that you cannot speak these thoughts out, simply following him as he carefully guides you towards the exit, his gun drawn in alertness. Just as the backyard of the venue comes into view and Seungcheol is about to usher you outside, you hear a voice yelling from the other side of the hall.

It is your cousin's voice. "Let me go you fucking assholes! I am gonna blow that bitch myself! I am gonna tear her up into fucking pieces! How dare she take what is mine! That's slut! I am gonna…" 

Seungcheol almost pushes you to move as you get stuck in a trance of his mean words. "It is okay, Jihoon has him. Come on."

As if you are functioning on autopilot, you let him guide you outside into the open field and underneath a small sitting area where fresh air finally hits you, letting you breathe in a lungful. Seungcheol informs the other security about the update over his comms as you watch him in silence. When he is done, his eyes finally meet yours and in an instant everything that had gone down in the last month flashes through your head, giving you goosebumps. 

There is a moment of silence as you watch him with a blank expression while he looks around uncomfortably. Finally, he decides to break the silence with a chuckle. "I leave you for a few days and this is what happens?" 

His tone is full of amusement. The nerve of this man. You, however, find none of this amusing. It gets your blood boiling as you hear him say the words, your brain finally registering everything and you simply cannot hold yourself back anymore. The next thing you do is strike a clean, sharp slap on his cheek which catches him off guard as he stumbles a few steps back. His eyes widen in shock, his hand moving to cup the cheek which is turning bright red, like your palm.

You poured your heart and soul and all your pent up emotions into that slap so you pray it stings like a bitch.

Your hand does for sure.

"I deserved that-" Seungcheol starts to speak, holding up his hands but the moment he opens his mouth you are on him again as you grab him by the collars, triggered, "How dare you come here, you scum!" You hiss, tugging at the fabric of his collars while a bewildered Seungcheol tries to gently pry you off of him. "How dare you have the audacity to show up after everything you said?"

"_____, you are gonna hurt yourself—"

"You quit! You made it clear that you had no interest in me, Seungcheol! So what gives you the right to come here and save me, huh?" You are seething, emotions so strong you feel like choking and if you were a cartoon character, visible steam would be coming out of your ears.

"_____, please—"

"Who gave you the right to be a hero, huh? What made you come here? Tell me! Talk, you asshole!" You yell, shaking him, tugging on his collars repeatedly as a wild rage takes over you.

You are going to murder him.

"Because I am in love with you!" He yells back, making your grip falter for a second which he uses to quickly free himself, taking a few steps back as you stare wide eyed at him, panting.

When you finally get enough air in your lungs and process his words, really process them, your wry laugh echoes through the cold night air like mockery. "Fuck you, Seungcheol. I have had enough of your bullshit." You spit, pushed to your limits.

God, give me patience.

"I know," he whispers, taking a step closer while you take one back. "I understand what I have done and I do not expect you to forgive me at all. I just need you to know that I fucking love you and I am so fucking sorry. I know I am late but I am here to stay—"

"No you are not," You snap. "Get the hell away from me before I take a gun and fucking shoot you." 

"If that's what will make you happy..." Seungcheol calmly reaches for his gun as you watch him, alarmed. He takes it off of the holster and holds it out towards you. "Shoot me as many times as you want. I deserve it.

This fucking man—

"Guys, can we do this weird foreplay somewhere else," Jihoon yells from behind you as you spin to see him jogging towards you two. "You need to get out of here, _____. He's saying that there are still explosives in this compound."

"What!" You shriek but before you can get another word out, Seungcheol is grabbing your hand and dragging you with him as he starts sprinting. "Keep me updated," he addresses Jihoon who nods, talking into the comm to get a car at the rear entrance for you.

"Let go, you asshole!" You hiss, trying to pry his fingers off your wrist which proves to be a challenge while running full speed in high heels. "God damn it, Seungcheol, I will fall!" And you almost do so, as you misstep and stumble but the man is quick to catch you and before you can even think, he is throwing you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.  "Put me down, you pig!"

"As soon as we get to the car, angel."

Which is quick, thankfully, because the next moment he is putting you down and holding the passenger side door open for you and despite wanting to resist him, you know the wise idea is to leave right now.  As soon as you are inside the car, he shuts the door before running to the other side and before you can even put your seatbelt on, the car is moving.

"Jihoon will be fine, right?" You ask half mindedly as you turn your head back to look at the venue which gets smaller every passing second. "He will be fine," Seungcheol grunts. "The police have been informed as well as the bomb disposal team." "What about my cousin?" Seungcheol remains quiet for a moment, only staring ahead on the road. "Him? He's  alive, unfortunately."

"What do you mean?" You ask warily.

"I shot him. The bullet hit his abdomen. He won't die, don't worry. That depraved asshole doesn't deserve that mercy." You sigh, rubbing your temples as you lean back into your seat. "What the hell was he thinking?"

"He wanted to hurt you, humiliate you, _____. He had plans to hurt you horribly." Seungcheol huffs out a breath, shaking his head and clenching his jaw. "He has gone insane." That is all he provides, making you fall silent for a moment. "When will this stop." You whisper to yourself. "I never considered him to be a threat."

"I should have. You locked up his father and made sure he could never take over the company. He was a huge threat that I failed to notice." He murmurs.

"Don't start, Seungcheol," you snap at him, irritated. "I'm still tempted to shoot you. Your duty was over the moment you handed in the resignation letter and walked out of my life."

"My biggest mistake." He whispers to himself but you hear it. 

Tired, frustrated, scared and angry, you decide not to engage in this conversation further as you look out the window and wonder what is coming next.  Another media storm for sure.  More interrogations, more meetings with your lawyer.  At the same time, however, the edge that you have been feeling for the last week is gone. The fact that your cousin never came up to you or tried to retaliate his father's arrest in any way made you wonder but it never occurred to you that he could turn violent, insane. 

Jun was after all a puppet, who only did things after his father made the way for him his whole life.

Today was a different case, it looks like. Anyhow, it is somewhat of a win for you because you miraculously got out unscathed and the threat has been neutralised. However, you are sure many have been injured and your reputation has taken a severe hit today. The upcoming months will be very hard, harder than before…

The next coherent thought that comes upon you is that you fell asleep. You open your eyes realising that the car has stopped and the time on the dashboard says about thirty minutes have passed. Blinking, you shift in your seat and find Seungcheol, sitting next to you, watching you with a look that is foreign on his face, something close to adoration. Clearing your throat, you remove your seatbelt and sit up straight.

"How long was I asleep?"

"Not long enough. We just got here." He announces as he moves to open his door. "Come on, let's go inside."

Once you are out of the car, you realise Seungcheol has taken you to a five star hotel and seeing the confusion on your face, he explains. "It's safer here. Can't take any more risks tonight."

He casually slips his hand into yours, making you frown and drags you towards the hotel. Your tired body cannot put up much of a fight so you follow him begrudgingly and you are quickly escorted to the penthouse suite thanks to his prior booking.

Upon entering the suite you walk straight to the master bedroom where the king sized bed calls for your tired self as you sit down and take off your heels, throwing them away on the carpet over the floor with a soft thud, exhaling a loud sigh. Seungcheol follows you and remains quiet as you sit in silence at the edge of the bed, too wired, too disoriented to do anything. Normally, after everything that happened with your uncle your decision making skills have significantly sharpened but having Seungcheol near you, his stupid confession ringing in your head is fucking with your brain. And as if that goddamn man can read your mind, he kneels in front of you on the floor, one of his hands softly touching your knees as he utters. "You need to rest, ______. I will handle everything else. It is all under control now, trust me."

"Why do you do this?" You croak, pushed to the limits of exhaustion, your eyes trained somewhere in an unfocused gaze as you fidget with your hands. "Why do you push me away and then come back running at a time like this?"

He is silent for a long time while you fight to keep your tears at bay.

You will not cry in front of him.

"I am sorry." He only whispers, his fingers softly stroking your knee as his head lowers and his gaze falls down on the floor. "I was foolish and...scared. That night after we slept together you…you said out loud you loved me and I panicked. I was— I am a danger to you. But being away from you for a week was a pain unlike anything else. I went back to that cabin and I slept in your bed and the sheets had the faintest of your smell. Weirdly, your scent and everything you left behind soothed me and I didn't have any nightmares in the past week. But every morning I woke up and there was a sinking feeling in my stomach that only grew each day until I couldn't bear it. I realised that you really were an angel who saved me, brought lightness back into my life, and gave me a new purpose, a new dream. I realised what an idiot I was and I came to the city on Wednesday night. Believe me when I tell you that my intention was to just stay away and make sure you are okay. I knew what I had done and I was in no way worthy of showing up in front of you but I had to intervene tonight, _____. Your life was in danger."

The air conditioner in your room suddenly feels chillier as goosebumps prickle your skin, making you shiver. Seungcheol takes notice of it and stands up quickly to take off his jacket before draping it over your shoulders. He stands in front of you in silence, fingers hovering over your now covered shoulders while you stare at his shoes, your head going blank but also running a mile a minute. The frustration and overwhelmingness bleed together until you can't tell one emotion separate from another.

All of a sudden, Seungcheol's thumbs caress your cheeks while the rest of his fingers softly cup your jaw and it is only then that you realise you have been silently crying. He oh so gently wipes your cheek dry while uttering, "Please don't cry. I know I hurt you. I promise I will leave as soon as I make sure you are going to be okay." Instantly, a part inside your brain is flooded with panic as it screams no. You don't want him to leave when you remember how hard the past week was on you and how many times a day you would revisit that night in the cabin, the moment you two shared and how it proved to be the anchor for you throughout everything that happened after.

You were— are mad at him but you still want him near, crazy is it not?

You keep thinking of how safe you felt the moment Seungcheol found you in tonight's chaos, how just his presence made you fall asleep so easily when for the last week you could not fall asleep without the fear of nightmares.

Yes, they have returned. But you don't see the accident anymore, you see your uncle chasing you around the cabin while you call for Seungcheol but he doesn't come, no matter how much you beg.

And after tonight, you wonder what more nightmares await you. So when you utter the one, very powerful word, you tell yourself that you are doing this for yourself, to be selfish and not for him, which is not a lie entirely. 

"No."

Your left hand reaches to grab the fabric of his shirt and you fist it tightly in your hand. "Don't leave."  You don't dare to look at him, scared you will break once you do and instead focus your gaze on the patterns of the carpet while holding onto his shirt. The next moment Seungcheol is sitting next to you and in the moment after he gently wraps his arms around you, your head falling perfectly against his shoulder while your arms snake around his waist after a moment's hesitation. 

His warm touch soothes your back as his other hand cups the back of your head, softly stroking it with his thumb. A small whimper comes from your mouth as quiet sobs escape from you and you hide your face and weep, trying to stifle the sounds.

"I am so sorry, _____. I am sorry for everything." Seungcheol whispers, voice thick with emotion. "I will make everything better, I promise. I will stay as long as you need me and then… " There is a moment of heavy pause. "When you don't, I will follow you around like a lost puppy for the rest of my life." Thinking about the rest of your life and not having Seungcheol in it makes you sob harder and if you had energy you would scream at him and tell him to just shut up. Instead, you cry, cry your heart out, promising yourself that from tomorrow you won't. 

Tomorrow another battle begins. 

As the night grows deeper, Seungcheol holds you tighter and your sobs gradually fade and before you know it you fall asleep on his shoulder. Seungcheol stays still for a while longer to make sure you don't wake up before gently picking up your sleeping form and setting you down on the bed, fixing the pillow underneath your head and covering you with a blanket. Despite his desire to crawl into bed and sleep next to you, he resists it and instead takes the loveseat in front of the window, where he sits and watches your peacefully sleeping form, before falling asleep himself with a heart full of gratitude.

— You watch the steam from the mug evaporate into the air before taking a small sip. The tea is slightly bitter and hot, just as you need it.

After waking up and taking a quick shower, here you sit, by the window of your penthouse suite, sipping tea, treating yourself to a quiet peaceful moment before your hectic day, which you are frankly not prepared for, begins. 

You woke up to an empty suite, with no sign of Seungcheol and it almost made you wonder if last night was an entire elaborate dream. But then you found his tie lying on the loveseat which acted as a reassurance of his presence, weirdly bringing solace to you. 

After waking up, you realised your phone's battery is dead, which became another source of peace for you, because you know otherwise, it would have been blowing up with calls and you wouldn't have gotten the good night's sleep that you got. 

There's a sudden sound of the door opening that alerts you, making you crane your neck to see the visitor. Seungcheol walks in, dressed completely differently from last night, looking delicious in a light blue polo and white pants. On his hands are two shopping bags and behind him is a hotel staff member who pushes in a huge breakfast trolley. "Good morning, _____." Seungcheol meets your eye as he sets down the shopping bags on the edge of the bed and thanks the staff as he takes his leave.  You watch Seungcheol take off the lids covering the food while speaking, "Breakfast is here. I have asked for a bit of everything you like. And I have got new clothes and some necessities for you. They are in the bag," He points to the general direction as he starts stacking pancakes on a plate for you. You are quite surprised and flattered and you cannot come up with anything else to say but, "Thank you."

For some weird reason, you feel shy and awkward around him as if you are a newborn fawn. Maybe it is because none of you are addressing the elephant in the room; last night's conversation and instead acting like you have known each other for years. "It's my pleasure," he smiles at you, a genuine smile that shows his dimples and makes your heart gallop like a horse. Handing you the plate, he takes a comfortable seat in the chair in front of you and watches you dig in, a look you can only describe as fondness sitting on his face. Feeling shy, you cover your mouth as you chew. "Stop looking at me." 

"You look a bit tired. Did you not sleep well?" He asks suddenly.  "I had a good sleep, thank you." You inform, surprised how he noticed.  You have been feeling a little sick after you woke up despite having a very good night's rest. A headache has been creeping up on your temples but you are trying hard to ignore it because this is not the time to get sick.

You have a long day ahead of you.

Making you jerk, Seungcheol places his palm on your forehead out of the blue as he checks your temperature and an unpleasant look settles on his face. "You are getting a fever." "No, I'm not." You direct your focus on cutting your pancakes, using too much pressure. Ignoring you, the man dials a number on his phone and asks for some cold medicine to be brought to the hotel room to whoever is on the other side. "I just told you, I am fine." You frown, annoyed. He hangs up and stares at you as if you are speaking a different language. "You are not. You need to take the medicine and get some rest."

"Now is not the time for me to sleep! Do not play doctor!" You snap, setting the plate down with a loud bang as you clutch the fork and knife tightly in your hand. Seungcheol does not react to your outburst but simply changes position as he comes to sit next to you.

"Your cousin is in custody. I talked with your lawyer this morning, he is preparing everything well. There is no way he is getting off. Jihoon and his men already testified to the police so you do not have to meet with them unless you want to add something. If you do, I will arrange a phone call with the station. The legal department is working on a statement and it will be released today in a press conference. The CFO will read it out." He informs, casually. 

"You are sick, _____. And it's okay .You went through a lot. It is okay if you take a break today. No one is asking you to go out there and face the demons. You need to rest. Your body is asking for it." 

His voice softens as one of his hands comes to rest on your thigh gently. The assurance in his voice paired with the tenderness in his eyes makes you swallow a lump in your throat and blink back tears. "Still..."

"Finish your breakfast." He says as he reaches for the plate while taking the fork and knife out of your hand and cutting it into bite sized pieces. "And you should probably call your brother today, by the way. The news of last night's events will reach him sooner or later and I think it would be best if he heard it from you."

You nod, feeling sad. Chan just left for a vacation one week ago. When he hears about this, he will definitely catch the next flight home.

"If you do not want to call him, I can do it for you." Seungcheol offers as he finishes his task and hands the plate and cutlery back to you.

"No, I will do it." You murmur and silently go back to eating. Seungcheol watches you in silence for the rest of the meal and after you are done, the staff returns to clean up and drops your medicines. You take them and then sit in your bed idly, watching the city skyline through your window, trying not to overthink anything. You can hear Seungcheol talk over the phone in the other room before he steps back into the master bedroom to check up on you.

"If you feel too sick, let me know. I will take you to the hospital." 

You softly nod and turn your head to look at him. He appears worried, his eyes glazed with concern, his brows forming a knot as if he's trying to read you. After a moment, you silently motion him to come sit by you on the bed which he diligently follows. 

His hands reach out to hold yours, his thumb gently stroking your skin as he gazes into your eyes, leaning closer to you, his eyes searching for something in yours. His bangs fall forward, cupping his temples and you itch to brush them away.  "Tell me what you are thinking." He whispers.

"You have pretty hair." You reply honestly and he chuckles, shaking his head before his face becomes serious.  "I missed you." His voice is low, almost inaudible as his gaze falls down to your linked hands, as if he is ashamed to meet your eyes when saying that. "I missed you too." You reply honestly, once again. Seungcheol seems surprised to hear that and you cannot help but roll your eyes.

"Oh please, Choi Seungcheol. Don't act like you had no idea." Your head rests against the headboard as you make yourself comfortable and scowl at him. "You knew very well how much effect you had on me and you knew damn well how much I loved you."

"Loved me?"

"Okay, love you—"

"Wait, no— you...love me? Really? You didn't say it that night in the heat of the moment?" You only realise then how you just casually spat it out, again, and immediately, heat blooms on your face. You avoid his gaze, snatching your hands from his grip while he looks absolutely stunned.

"Whatever." You mutter, scooting down on the bed, reaching to grab the sheets and hide yourself in them but Seungcheol stops you as he cages you between his arms, his face hovering dangerously close to yours, his perfume and aftershave blending into an addictive scent that makes your brain hazy with need.

Control yourself, woman! "Answer me. You love me?" "Ugh, you heard me the first time," you groan, trying to twist away from him but he stops you by cupping your chin and making you face him. 

"Wanna know something?" He whispers, inching his face closer.

"What?" You are breathless.

"I love you too, ____." He replies, his lips ghosting over yours. You anticipate a kiss but he doesn't, instead tucks your hair behind your ear as he whispers in your ear. "I am so deeply, madly in love with you it is embarrassing."

The words are music to your ears and your insides swoon as you close your eyes and relish them, pressing your lips tight to prevent yourself from breaking into a maniacal grin. Seungcheol shifts his weight back and rests himself on his one palm as his other hand softly cups your face. "And I am sorry, once again, for what I did to you."

"Good but I am still mad." You try your best to appear stern.

"I know." His expression is solemn. "I plan on making it up to you until my dying breath."

When did he become so romantic?

"You may start by cuddling me," you whisper, almost shy, carefully watching his reaction. He immediately proceeds to get under the sheets with you and carefully engulfs you into his large arms, your face resting against his solid chest as his hand strokes your hair soothingly. Your arms move to snake around his waist as you feel yourself relax, his arms feeling like the safest, most comfortable place in the entire universe and you never, ever want to leave.

"I love you, Seungcheol." Your voice is muffled against his chest.

"I love you more, angel. So much more."

1 month later 

The view around the cabin is just as pretty as you remember it. The setting sun of dusk casts it in a beautiful glow which you stop and stand to admire. 

Beside you, Seungcheol finishes parking the jeep and unloads the overnight bags from the trunk. 

"What are you looking at?" He asks when he comes to stand next to you, fishing for keys from his pocket in one hand.

"It's very beautiful." You murmur, eyes glancing over the view before settling down on the man next to you. He is dressed in a grey t-shirt, his blond hair looking as gorgeous as ever, if not more in the golden hour and you know, he is undoubtedly the epitome of beauty. 

Seungcheol meets your stare with equal sincerity as he reaches to hold your hand, whispering. "Yes, it is." You know he is talking about you.

A light, gleeful laugh escapes your lips as you playfully push him with your shoulder. He grins and drags you with him inside the cabin.

It is hard to believe that this place was a crime scene about a month ago. Seungcheol did some thorough renovations and now the place looks more beautiful, cozier than ever.

As much as your heart wishes to stay in this little piece of green heaven forever, this is a small weekend getaway that Seungcheol organised and initiated by picking you up early from work today. You did not complain because the past few weeks were tough.

Getting your company back together after the fundraiser's incident and making sure you are still in the market is taking a lot of well thought plans and manpower and instructions. You have help, of course, from Chan who immediately rushed home from his vacation when he heard about Jun's attack on you. Seungcheol also has been helping you a lot, though you officially denied him the position of your bodyguard. 

He then started working as a security consultant at his friend's company and has been assisting you however he could throughout the past month. He also started therapy again and so far his progress is remarkable. He is a lot less self sabotaging and he has not had a nightmare ever since you got back together, much like you. Not to mention he has been working extra hard to make it up to you, always catering to your every little need and never asking for anything in return or initiating anything, even though you have noticed multiple times how his eyes trail you around hungrily. 

So far, you have only rewarded him with kisses because it was too much fun to watch him silently suffer.  However, you plan to change that this weekend.

"Let's watch the sunset together," you propose as Seungcheol drops your bags in the bedroom. He agrees and you two walk back outside to the patio, hands linked where you stand and gaze at the setting sun. Seungcheol's arms wrap around you protectively from behind and his chin comes to rest on your shoulder.

"We need to get groceries." He murmurs absentmindedly as he presses a soft kiss on your neck that makes you sigh in pleasure. You hum, offering that you could just order takeout. As the sun dips beneath the horizon, Seungcheol takes occasional peeks at your face, admiring the mesmerised look in your eyes. His heart beats loudly, wild in love as he imagines the rest of his life with you and how it would be to watch you watch the sunset.

Delightful. Like the delightful secret he is hiding. A huge secret that has been burning holes in his pocket for a month.  After the night of the attack, the next morning when he went to shop for your clothes at the mall, a ring caught his eye in a jewellery store and he purchased it right there, intent on putting it on your finger someday.

He has been carrying it ever since, waiting for the perfect moment to get down on one knee.  Maybe this weekend will carry that moment, maybe not.

Either way, it is fine. He is not in a rush. He knows he will get down on one knee when he deems himself worthy enough of you. Though, logically it might never happen because no one is worthy of a person as beautiful, as amazing as you. But he will work very hard to be worthy of you, now and every day that he has on this planet. Seungcheol smiles to himself, agreeing that he's a very lucky bastard. "Cheol?" You call him by his nickname, breaking his train of thought. "Hm?" "I love you." You whisper. His next words are the sweetest serenade. "I love you more, angel."

A/N: If you have made it this far, congratulations and a huge thank you for taking the time to read this mammoth of a fic! I genuinely put my blood, sweat and tears into this and believe me when I tell you that my wrists hurt like hell. Still, I am glad I could share this with the world and I'm very proud of myself for successfully putting the conjectural idea from my head to the paper. It took a lot of time to come up with the idea, finalize it and stitch the pieces together so please leave a review and reblog! Your thoughts and comments really make my day. Wishing you a happy October! As a side note, I am swearing off of writing fics over 20k words. When I tell you that this app whopped my ass while posting this! My god! I was seriously considering breaking it into two parts. If you are reading this now that means I have hopefully posted it without trouble. Anyway, toodles!

© startlightxsvt 2023 | All rights reserved. Do not copy, repost, translate, adapt, or repurpose any of my works.

---

I just want to cherish what it is we have now

𝑆𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑝𝑠 𝐹𝑖𝑐 𝑅𝑒𝑐𝑠

♡ Fluff || ୨୧ Angst || ★ Smut || ꗃ SMAU || ⌗ Series || ✿ Drabble || ♤ Mature (No smut) || ✹ Humor

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Tomorrow tonight ୨୧♤♡ -> @cheolbooluvr

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Push it down (Sooner or later it all comes out) ♡★⌗✹ -> @dontflailmenow

summary: thirsting over your ex’s best friend in general is a bad idea. given that you and seungcheol have never gotten along, it’s even worse. when you accidentally stumble across his stream, though, and he finds out? all bets are off.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ After Class ★⌗-> @rubyreduji Part 2 , Part 3 , Part 4

summary: Professor Choi makes sure to always take care of your needs after class.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Down bad (so so bad) ♡★ -> @lovelyhan

summary: it’s not like you’re curious about how the word would taste in your mouth whenever seungcheol calls himself daddy while talking to kkuma. nope. definitely not. 

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Wedding night ♡★ -> @onlyhuis

Synopsis: seungcheol just wants to treat his wife right on their first night together as husband and wife.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Bite that lip ♡୨୧★ -> @beahae

Summary: Seungcheol knows you're really close with his whole friend group. But now that things have... quietly been developing between the two of you, he would love it if you'd cool it with the heavy flirting with the other guys.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Amortentia ♡୨୧ -> @http-mianhae

DESCRIPTION ᝰ Being head-over-heels for the Gryffindor captain is harder than it seems, especially when everyone knows about your little crush on Seungcheol and he takes it lightly. Until when you’re partnered up and forced to be in each other’s lives on a daily basis, that’s when things take a bit of a turn

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ BIG COCK: for dummies ♡★ -> @ncteez

summary: the one where you find out that your boyfriend has a huge cock and you’re not entirely sure if you can take all of it. 

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ She's in the rain ୨୧ -> @onlymingyus

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Crossing Boundaries ♡★ -> @wonusite

summary: ❝ Seungcheol has always demanded that all of his employees keep professional boundaries, but it frustrates him that his son’s nanny is a little too good at keeping things professional. ❞

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Driving me crazy ★-> @1-800-hwahui

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ laundry and jiu jitjsu ♡✹ -> @cheolism

summary: after seungcheol leaves the laundry unfolded on your bed before going to his jiu jitsu lesons, you decide to take action.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Terrifyingly innocent ♡୨୧★ -> @twogyuu

Synopsis: Fearful of losing her, yet unwilling to leave; this agreement between Seungcheol and his best friend’s little sister was meant to be casual and temporary, yet he finds himself growing more attached to her day by day.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ inflection point ♡୨୧★ -> @lovelyhan

summary: you love yoon jeonghan. no, scratch that. you fucking adore yoon jeonghan; so much that the moment he asks you to be in an exclusive set-up with his current partner, you accept the offer in a heartbeat. what you fail to consider, however, is who your boss’ boyfriend actually is.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Hello tutorial ♡♤✹ -> @97-liners

it’s your final year of college, and you’ve been elected president of your sorority. this is all great and fine, but as the semester goes on, you find yourself having repeated run-ins with the president of the fraternity next door in a series of unfortunate coincidences (that might not actually be coincidences, as you come to discover).

or

in which you’re trying to deal with your crush on seungcheol in a normal way, but the meddling kids are making it harder than it needs to be.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Found you ୨୧♡ -> @thedensworld

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ In the eye of the beholder ୨୧♡★ -> @cheolism

summary: when you don't like how you look in the mirror, your boyfriend decides to take it upon himself to worship you.

❙❘❙❙❘❙❚❙❘ ⌕ Frozen cold proposal ♡ -> @cheolism

summary: seungcheol is stubborn and decides to try and make soup over the fire. you stumble upon a surprise in his pockets when trying to huddle against him for warmth.

[ More Scoups fic recs will be updated ]

Want more Seventeen fic recs? -> Click here

Seventeen Reaction: Strange First Impression

Thanks for the request anon!

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MASTERLIST

CHOI SEUNGCHEOL

Choi Seungcheol is the type that will bring it up all the time. He didn't even know you when he saw it happen. He was just chilling at a party and turns to see the chaos of someone having overturned the beer pong table by accident, sending cups and booze flying everywhere. He saw you covering your face in shame and laughing. He wrote you off a someone who has simply had a little too much to drink and didn't think anything else of it. But then he met you again through mutual friends. As he gets to know you, he realizes this behavior was nothing like you. So of course he brings it up all the time to tease you and watch as you blush about it. He finds it cute.

YOON JEONGHAN

He watches your face contort into horror and confusion as you mishear the person you're talking to. He can't help but laugh as you talk very heatedly with the person across the table from you, obviously offended not by what they said but by what you thought they said. He falls in love when he watches you burst into laughter after realized your mistake. He continues coming back to the coffee shop and is happy to see that you're a regular too. When he gets the courage to talk to you and then keep talking to you, he realizes it's a habit of yours to mishear people when conversing. He'll make a few jokes about it here and there. One day, several years into your relationship, he'll admit how he fell in love with you and what he witnessed that day.

JOSHUA HONG

He watches in absolute fascination at the entire dance routine you pull out to make a crying toddler laugh. The poor kid had fallen and dropped their ice cream, and you, depsite not knowing the child at all, seemed determined to get him to smile again. He shyly looks away anytime you turn towards him, but he really can't stop watching. He finds the routine as funny as the toddler, but he's also really touched that you'd go that far out of your way to make someone else smile. The next time he sees you in the park, he asks you out immediately. He won't tease you about it, maybe only when he asks if you're going to do the routine for him when he's sad. But he feels ready to settle down with you from the very beginning.

WEN JUNHUI

He's always happy to match some chaotic energy. Which is why it doesn't phase him at all when he sees you dressed in ridiculous costume in the park. It had been a dare from your friends, but you strutted around confidently. When he finds out you have mutual friends, he asks one of them to introduce you. Jun loves having the first impression of seeing you dressed up in the park because he knows you'll be on board to do lots of fun stuff. The two of you always have a very fun time together.

KWON SOONYOUNG

Also not really phased. In fact when you're friend introduces you to each other, he'll bring it up quite casually, "Oh you're that person that was dancing around in that fruit costume on the street corner the other day!" You were absolutely mortified that he had seen that. "Yeah, my boss was trying to advertise a new smoothie we started selling." He finds how flustered you got over it quite cute. And later on in your relationship he most definitely makes up a nickname for you based off of the fruit costume you were wearing.

JEON WONWOO

Tbh, he's a bit intimidated by you. He had seen you before, volunteering to help out a street performer. The performer has you doing all sorts of ridiculous and embarrassing things to draw laughs from the crowd. But you take it in your stride, laughing along and happily going along with the performance. He's in awe of your confidence. So when you actually meet, he's a bit shy around you. But he's interested in you from the start after hearing your laugh that day. He'll never work up the nerve to tell you the first time he actually saw you lol.

LEE JIHOON

Honestly, he's a bit judgmental. Seeing you do a tiktok challenge with friends in public, he thinks of you as high energy and overwhelming. But then he actually meets you and realizes that might be good for him. Your friend had orchestrated the video, not you. But you had gone along with it. He feels like he learns a lot from you and your willingness to try anything. He admires that even if you don't go out of your way to think of new things to try but you're willing to try it out if someone else suggests it.

LEE SEOKMIN

Will also mention it to you right away. But in an excited way. "I know you! I saw you chasing after that squirrel to get your keys back in the park! That looked like fun!" You laugh and tell him it was not as fun as it looked. He loves telling people that story all the time. In a joking way or in a sentimental way, no matter how he's telling it, it's getting told for sure. It's in puns, in introductions, in speeches. Seokmin literally cannot stop telling everyone that the first time he saw the person he loves, they were chasing down a rodent that had stolen their keys.

KIM MINGYU

Mingyu loves when people are able to make him laugh. Your friend had been doing a public art instillation and it led to you being dressed up in some wild bird costume. But then her flyers got caught up in the wind and you went to chase after them. The first time Kim Mingyu saw you, you were running down the street, yelling at people to move as you chased down a flyer, and waving your arms (wings?) dramatically through the air. Since you were in costume, he didn't recognize you when you met each other at a party. He tells the story of seeing a person running around in bird costume as an anecdote. Your friend (who was the one running the instillation) starts laughing loudly and explains that was you. To his relief, you're laughing about the fact that he brought that up. You two hit it off right away. You're the one that tells the story of how Mingyu first saw you all the time. Mingyu likes calling you Birdy to tease you.

XU MYUNGHO

Just kind of baffled by you. If he sees you doing anything strange and out of the ordinary out in public before he knows you, he'll probably avoid you lol. When he realizes the two of you are in the same circle of friends, he'll keep things polite but remain distant. But overtime he'll learn more and more about you and realize he was being a bit too much on the judgment front. He makes an effort to get to know you and not what he assumes about you. One day he'll admit his first impression of you and you'll both laugh about it.

BOO SEUNGKWAN

You know that when he sees you doing a comedy schtick to make your friends laugh, he's joining in, no questions asked. It's weird thing he sees you doing that ends up being the reason you meet. Seungkwan is down for literally anything as long as it gets a laugh. So he's so excited to meet someone as committed to the bit as him. It's the very thing that attracts him to you in the first place.

VERNON CHWE

When he connects the dots that you're the one he saw trying to fly several kites simultaneously that one random day, he is completely baffled. In day to day life you don't seem like someone who goes out of their way to do something illogical. He probably won't bring it up to you unless you do something similar again and give him the chance to reference it. He finds it really funny that most days you seem really chill, then you'll get these random moments where you want to do something completely strange.

LEE CHAN

Would like to think that he's as spontaneous as Seungkwan, but definitely is more like Myungho. When he sees you doing something strange he's probably a bit more on the apprehensive side lol. But he's a lot quicker to warm to you once you actually meet. He'll probably be curious about what he saw you doing and ask a lot of questions about it. He thinks you're pretty cool for putting yourself out there. He doesn't really reference it unless you do first once his own curiosity has dimmed.

handsomest prince in the whole world!!!!!!

in the comfort of shared proximity

── inspired by taylor swift's lover ; "and at every table, i'll save you a seat, lover."

wonwoo x reader, established relationship, fluff, 558 words

in the years that you had been together, wonwoo had formed a habit that never fails to touch your heart and soul. like a traveler following their north star, he unfailingly gravitates towards you. as though there was no other place on earth that is better than the spot beside you; like every seat, every corner, every inch of space in this world was meant for the two of you to be together.

at dinner parties, where the room is buzzing with people you know, he would navigate through while slowly making his way around the smalltalk, but his destination is crystal clear. he would slide into the chair next to yours, as if the other ones don't quite hold the same allure. there, your fingers would brush against his, and that delicate touch was enough to form your own little bubble amidst the sea of chatter and laughter.

"my favorite spot," he'd always say, his voice is low and quiet, as if it was a secret that nobody else could be a part of. and as he smiles, you could feel right then and there, your heart growing double in size.

during nightfall, in the tranquil embrace of your shared bedroom, you often sit side by side with only the soft glow of your bedside lamps. the pages of your respective books are illuminated, and for a moment, the two of you get lost in different worlds. but then your shoulders brush — a subtle reminder that no matter where life takes you, you have a home and a bed and a person to fall back to.

"you're right," he'd murmur, breaking the silence as he traces shapes onto his page, "this book does remind me of us." and under the low light, you glanced at him. he looks so peaceful. there is truly no place and no feeling better than this.

even on those long nights when hunger suddenly strikes and nothing is as appetizing as a bowl of cereal, you find yourselves on the kitchen floor. it's 3 a.m., the whole world is deep in slumber, the soft crunch of cereal and your hushed exchange of memories is music to your ears.

through fits of giggles, he'd say, "this is a five-star dinner to me." and with that, you spent what felt like hours, just telling each other stories in between spoonfuls. this is your own slice of the world and you make your own rules.

but it's not just in these specific moments that define his affinity to be close to you. it's in the intimacy of your fingers intertwined with his as you watch a movie on the comfort of your couch. it's in his proximity that anchors you amidst the chaos of a crowded room. it's in the way he seeks your skin in his sleep, his hands reaching out to your touch because it's the warmth he needs, even under the softness of your shared blanket.

every instance with him is an echo of love. it reminds you that for him, every moment is a chance to bask in your presence. with wonwoo, there is a seat for you at every table, not out of habit, but out of love — a love that treasures closeness even in moments of silence and revels in the happiness that is found in simply being together.

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˗ˋˏ Between Glitz and Glamour ˎˊ˗ | 18+ Only

synopsis: love collects like the number of pearls on a string – scintillant under the shining spotlight, two ends clasped together to make one. however, one unforeseen tug can scatter the pearls, making them roll, bounce, and clack against the illegally sticky floors of the speakeasy. but one can’t help but chase the jewels, especially the one carved in the shape of lee jihoon.

member: lee jihoon

genre: angst, drama, romance, 1920s period piece | smut

tags: cursing, drunk characters, emotional constipation, food/drinks, jealousy, opposites attract, smoking, s2l // sax, settlements, and speakeasies | blindfold play, fingering, lap dances, mirror sex, oral, overstim, pet names (baby, daddy, whore...), pnv, pussy slapping, squirting...

wc: 15k

beta reader reviews: "OKAY DADDY I'M NOT GOING TO FIGHT YOU" - @multi-kpop-fanfics // "GODDDD I can't do this" - @heartkyeom // "HAHAHHAHAA FUCK IM IN TROUBLE" - @playmetheclassics

a/n: hihi you may see some recognizable characters sprinkled throughout the fic (hint @onlymingyus's duo). and giving a hugehugehuge thank you to my beta readers. this is a big piece I've been writing for months so thank you so much <33 chapters are separated and named by seasons for easy navigation - nu ♡

himbocoups's masterlist

one - spring

Sleek oiled hair with expensive Brilliantine and the tiny stray strand that falls from the slick that brushes against his forehead, the man’s Adam’s apple bobs and lowers as the man swallows another sip of his Manhattan. An amber drop seeps from his lips, seesawing on the rim of the stemmed cocktail glass he holds steady against his lips before racing downwards against the outside of the glass. He sets his drink on the sticky Oak tabletop before the drop of liquid can collect on his finger, never once breaking eye contact with his spoil for the night.

Dark brown eyes quickly flick from the woman’s eyes to his pant leg that rests against her inner heel, brushing against the open skin like a curtain as she unconsciously shifts her balance to her tiny kitten heel. She traces a manicured finger over his exposed collarbone, letting her hand glide downwards until it rests on his chest. Dorothy, she reminds him of her name, like the one from the novel. But he hasn’t read a novel since grade school, let alone hold one in his hand. He deceivingly nods like he understands her reference. Truthfully, he can’t even hear her over the live band and tonight’s drunk rowdy crowd in his speakeasy.

The Diamond Glass – an ironic name given the speakeasy’s connotations. Hidden in plain sight in the heart of the city, the speakeasy isn’t as transparent as the name suggests. And Lee Jihoon – as cunning as his cat-like features – operates his mom and pop grocery store front during the day and his speakeasy during the night, strictly and smoothly running his businesses like the automated belts in Ford’s motor car factories. A mastermind with too much money to blow and a throttle of criminal cohorts he calls his family, the man can’t help but let loose once in a while, especially when it comes to taking someone new home every so often.

And Dorothy, beautiful feathered brooch-wearing Dorothy with big brown eyes and arched eyebrows, is someone who Jihoon is willing to take home…or even in the kitchen pantry if he kicks the cooks out. But a disapproving look from his younger sister from across the bar is enough to give him second thoughts about taking her old classmate from high school home or anywhere, really. He clears his throat, two rough coughs with his hand brought up to his mouth, and peers at the woman in front of him. She doesn’t seem phased by the little break in their interaction and moves in to leave him a tiny product-stained peck along his jawline.

This action alone is enough to have him immediately forget about his sister’s disapproving looks and pull the lady into him by her waist, a tiny oop emitting from her matte-colored lips.

“Darling,” The word rolls smoothly off the tip of his tongue, landing softly against her cheek.

Before he can make another move on Dorothy, he feels a soft tap against the outside of his heel. And before he can even make the decision to ignore the tap, he hears the ever-so-familiar sound of shattering glass against his beloved speakeasy floors from across the room. The figure of a darting bouncer toward the center of the crowd and the manager, Seungcheol, following closely behind is enough for Jihoon to excuse himself from the self-proclaimed novel character Dorothy to attend to a crowd transforming into the shape of a circle.

He sees her for the first time in his life with her dirtied flimsy party dress, and the skirt under her knees, as she reaches around blindly for something probably important to her. There are a few clutched in her right hand, opalescent pearls, probably fake; her other hand is limp, tucked against her waist as if she doesn’t want anybody to notice her injury. He thinks if he turns his head back to Dorothy, he would be able to become ignorant of the fact that there’s shattered glass near the back of her heels, the same glass that he brought in the other day.

An entire five cents gone, just like that. He is forced to think, adding a note to his mental managerial book.

Mingyu probably kicked the man out, he hears a patron say to another person who asked. The man tried absinthe for the first time. Now he’s absent before the pianist can perform his set. Poor lady…poor lonely lady with her fine pearls. Heard that was the only drink she was clutching onto the whole night before the man knocked her over. Never seen her around before.

“Hey.” Seungcheol taps his boss’s shoulder, the other hand pinching the bridge of his nose in an act of annoyance. “Take her to get patched up.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” he scowls. “Manage your patrons better.”

Still, he shuffles over to his customer and lifts her up by the waist, heaving her onto the nearest bar counter, probably separating two people from their conversation. He doesn’t care if they complain, for all he cares, they already paid for their drinks.

“You didn’t have to set me on the counter,” she says while fiddling with the fabric of her dress, her eyes never looking down to meet his. “Just a scratch on my hand, that’s all.”

Someone passes him a bag of ice wrapped in a dishcloth. The bartender probably, she remembers. She remembered him complaining in passing about how it gets so rowdy in this speakeasy, yet they can never find the time to restock their simplest first aid supplies. Something about how the big boss is stingy, but he can’t complain because he’s getting paid well.

The palm which holds her injured hand is warm and a little rough around the tiny calluses, a stark contrast to the cold ice which hits her outer hand and the soft and regularly washed dishcloth which creates a nice barrier to stop the coldness from stinging.

“The fabric isn’t flimsy, you know. It just looks that way because of how I draped it.” The comment comes out of her mouth compulsively, as if she needed to somehow bring up the topic in case he was staying silent because he was silently judging her getup. She can’t read him well, not under the lights and not even when his eyes flick to every other woman except for her. “I can ice it myself.”

“Nonsense.” He is curt with his words. “This shouldn’t have happened to you. My workers should’ve been better at watching out for rowdy customers. Please accept my apology on their behalf. Write down your bank account number, and I’ll pay for your dry-cleaning and for a new string of pearls.”

She thinks that maybe he isn’t as stingy as Joshua says or alternatively, maybe he can say those things simply because he’s wealthy. Either way, Lee Jihoon is just as handsome as the crowd says. It would be such a loss if she didn’t use this chance to strike up a conversation with him. For all that matters, he would be onto the next gal the moment he’s finished taking care of her.  

“Take me on a date,” she squeaks, heart pounding like footsteps on the pavement. “The pearls are fake, an-and I can clean the dress myself.”

“I don’t do dates, princess.”

“Then a non-date? With me.” This time, there is a bit more confidence in her tone. But it isn’t enough to shake him.

“Look.” He sighs and drops the melting ice bag onto the counter near her thigh. “You look like you’ve never stepped into a speakeasy before. You probably came here on a dare with one of your girlfriends from grade school, talking about how you need to step out of your comfort zone a little more and is now all balled up. I’m a criminal – dames like you should never be stuck on my bunch.”

“Then I’m a criminal for coming here voluntarily. Aren’t I?”

two - summer

Standing ovation.

He didn’t even know that a standing ovation could happen at a community theatre performance, but here he is, standing on the risers after the final Summer show, waiting for the second lead to finish talking to an important-looking man in fine business attire.

In his arms is a beautiful assembly of white and purple, a small handwritten card from the heart tucked in the middle of it all. This is the first time he attended a musical, and this is the first time he willingly attended anything for anybody outside of his family. Now he’s worried his sweaty palms left damp marks against the brown paper packaging of the bouquet he shopped for with his sister last night.

A couple of children’s costumes push against his backside while they run down the risers, but he doesn’t care. His eyes are trained on her – a light brown wig done in a giant updo with a giant white feathered attachment stuck at the very top and rosy floral clips trailing down the sides. Her stage makeup sparkles under the hot stage lights, a scintillant glow across the apples of her cheeks. She quickly maneuvers her flowers to one arm so she can reach her free hand out to receive the man’s business card. She thanks him as he walks away, leaving her in the middle of the stage, giggly and filled with glee. With brilliant white teeth and lips stretched thin, she practically bounces in her spot until she pauses for a minute, turning around to look for something or someone so important that she would rather share her happiness with them.

Maybe there is a part of him that wants to call out for her, for her to notice him then, and for her to notice him when he was in the crowd. He wants to convince himself that it shouldn’t be him who she’s looking for. But it’s not like Lee Jihoon would ever admit his feelings, not even months after spending time now and then with the tailoress who crawled on the dirty and sticky speakeasy floor to pick up her fake pearls.

God, her and her pearls, he thinks. There was no way he could ever end up with someone like her, practically floating around with her head in the clouds, dreaming about the day she would become a star. Too trusting of others, too gullible, too into him – he wonders why he would even allow himself to be cajoled into attending a stupid production by someone as idiosyncratic as her.

The tight grip around the metal rail loosens when she makes eye contact with him, eyes widening like her smile. And as vague as it sounds, it makes him feel lighter. Better even.

Noticing her friends crowd around her, he mouths “hallway” to her and slips into the darkness. He thinks it’s in his best interest if he doesn’t check to see if her eyes stayed trained on him when he left his place on the risers.

It’s not long until someone grabs his wrist guiding him along the hallway, past the green room, past the rest of the cast. Left behind in her wake is a trail of African Orange Flowers, Amalfi Lemon and Orange, and the powdery floral scent of the powder she uses to refresh her clothes. Coty’s Cyphre, the one she bought back in ’17 – her only perfume that she uses for special events. The liquid in the whimsical rectangular glass bottle that sits on top of her dresser is starting to turn a light amber hue, but she insists on saving each drop. It’s most condensed on the hand pulling his wrist, the same hand that slips downwards, interlocking both hands in a magnetic pull.

Finally seeing her up close, her big doe eyes staring at him and the meticulously swept-on stage makeup, he forgets he has flowers for her in his hands. He snaps out of his trance when he hears the soft muted crinkling of the brown paper packaging being removed from his arms. She stands in front of him in her empty dressing room, holding the bouquet like a newborn, and lowering her head to smell the flowers – eyes closed to breathe in the sweet floral scent deeply with a sigh.

“I uhh.” He quickly brings his right fist up to his mouth and clears his throat. “I liked the performance. It was nice.” He can’t look her in the eye – doesn’t even know what to say especially now that her dress’s strap slipped off her shoulder, bringing her collarbone into view. She must think he’s the daftest person in the world, and he almost crumbles at the thought of her seeing him through his hubris.

“What about me?” She blinks. Dropping her flowers on the counter where the wood meets a long wall of mirrors, she tests the waters by slowly crossing his threshold. One buttermilk-colored gloved hand glazes his tweed vest, but of course, she can never elicit a reaction from him. “What did you think about me?” She asks him, palm now fully against his vest.

If it were physically possible, Jihoon stutters without muttering a word – caught red-handed by the woman in front of him. Truth be told, he wasn’t really paying attention to the musical. Falling asleep during the last half of the first act and waking up when the orchestra started the entr’acte, he knew he should’ve stayed home after an especially rowdy night at the Diamond Glass. And he would have if it weren’t for his sister, who quite literally dragged him out of bed and kicked him to the curb.

I really don’t get why she likes you even though you’ve been dragging her along for around two months. You don’t even seem that interested in her, she told her older brother. So either end the situationship or make it a relationship. But after the musical! So don’t you dare come back until tomorrow morning…Seokmin’s coming over. 

But what does he think about her? What does he think about the woman in the bouncy polka-dot dress whose entire being is too utterly obsessed with him, the one who only talks about her dreams while floating on her imaginary clouds, the one who buys cheap costume jewelry whenever she can hoping one day she would trade her precious pearl necklace for a new one? The one whose lips he has to cover while in bed because her vocal cords aren’t the only things that he’s plugging.

Simply put, he thinks her to be annoying. They have almost nothing in common. He cannot stand the fact that she’s so dizzyingly ditzy that she cannot go a day without dreaming or talking about the glitz and glamour of her potential stardom, living in a constant state of hypotheticals. She somehow latched onto his side like a cat’s claw in a woolen sweater or a parasite who is too cheerful and optimistic even on bad days. Yet, despite everything, he doesn’t mind having her by his side.

“Come on Hoonie,” she whines. “Tell me.”

God, how he hates that nickname. Usually, he would tell her off for using that nickname but she’s a couple of centimeters away from completely pressing herself against his frontside, and the only thing he can concentrate on is definitely not her performance.

But it doesn’t matter anyway. While a celebration happens on the main stage, in an empty dressing room, two people try to devour each other like it is the last time they would ever meet. A few fallen stray petals crumple under the sole of his shoe as he rubs himself between her closed legs. Groaning as he feels her squeeze him between her bare thighs, sliding with ease as her warm juices lubricate his naked organ, he covers her mouth from behind as he slowly pushes himself into her.

And everything feels warm, hot – clothed bodies pressed against each other, the row of bright lights above the wall of vanity mirrors, her breath as she moans into his large palm over her mouth, and her spongy inside that often invites him in secret. The habitually voluble woman is reduced to nothing under his touch and tries to refrain from audibly moaning, knowing that she would be punished if she were loud.

So she finds something exciting in whimpering into the open air, feeling him twitch inside of her with every mewl that enters his ear as he slowly fucks himself into her. The more high-pitched she gets, the more it arouses him to the point where he completely loses his nonchalant front. The hand which once covered her mouth is now tilting her chin upwards as his other hand grabs her by her waist. And he watches through the mirror how her eyes roll upward as he ruts himself into her, smirking at how she melts against his chest, aching and begging him for more.

That isn’t to say that maybe the thought of how good the reflection of the two of them together looks crossed his mind once or twice. But he pushes the thought aside like the rest of his feelings for her and instead pushes deeper into her, moaning when he feels her convulse around him.

“Ah fuck babe,” she gasps while her knees bend towards each other, palms pressed against the mirror as she recovers from her high.

“Watch your language,” he instinctively mumbles, pushing her forward so that her elbows rest on the vanity. He lifts the hem of her skirt above her ass, bunching the costume fabric in his hand and laying it on top of her back. Her use of his pet name completely slips his mind as he sighs while slipping back inside of her, feeling the tight cushiony cunt squeeze around his cock. Any tighter he might have to fuck her on the floor to stop losing feeling in his legs.

The louder the party is downstairs, the more confident she is in moaning out loud. And the sounds coming from her mouth fuels his lust. His cock feels hard as hell, and he is so close to finishing. A trail of profanities rains from his mouth, praising her, commanding her, and telling her how he feels at this moment. And she smiles that lazy smile reflected in the mirror as she hiccups while the tip of his organ threatens to penetrate more than just her walls.

“Be mine, yeah?” She manages to ask him while he pulls her head back, her fake pearl necklace coming into view.

“You’re asking? Fuck. Okay fu-Jesus. Bend over. M-more for me, baby. More.”

With one easy yank, the brown wig slides off her head and collects in his fist. He thinks nothing of it and drops it on the floor next to a pile of fallen audition flyers, continuing to ram into her from behind, never missing a beat. Jostled around with each hard thrust, each remaining bobby pin that once held her wig in place fall to the floor one after the other.

Plink. Puh-link. Plink. 

The answer to her original question is still left unanswered.

three - summer

“So, when is your girlfriend coming?”

Lee Jihoon looks up from the several small plates of food in front of him to see his younger sister cocking an eyebrow at him before she looks at the spread of food he prepares. Quick to notice the slight pout of her lips and the soft twitch of her eyebrows, he knows a light-hearted complaint is about to come out of her mouth.

“It’s a double date, but you’re only serving us canapés. What do you want me to do? Starve?” She places a hand on her hip in disbelief.

“I never said it was a double date,” he corrects her while swatting one of her hands away from the deviled eggs, never batting an eye. “I only said we are going to taste test new finger foods for the speakeasy.”

“And the girlfriend?” She sneaks a bruschetta from one of the plates when he looks away, dumping the pile of finely diced tomatoes tossed with balsamic vinegar and spices into her mouth before following it with the piece of soggy-crunchy bread she holds. “W- where is sphe?” She asks him with her mouth full, swiping the edge of her mouth with the side of her pointer finger.

“Finishing an audition so she’ll be a bit late,” his tone is as monotonous as ever. He doesn’t pay her any mind, not when he’s stressing over minuscule plates of finger food.

It is a particularly slow Thursday night. The grocery store’s customers start to dwindle as Seokmin helps the remaining customers checkout their items before he can close the shop to restock and sneak his boss’s girlfriend into the speakeasy. And the younger sister who stands in the kitchen behind the speakeasy’s bar can’t help but stare at her older brother who somehow manages to assemble different types of small plates for four people at once. But it’s the fact that no amount of magnesium can fix his almost permanently clenched jaw that she knows something is bothering him.

“Hmm…” She takes his used cutting board and a stack of dirtied plates away from his area to bring to the sink to rinse. “I don’t like it,” she tells him while dropping the stack in the sink, wincing at the crashing sound.

“The bruschetta you stole?” He asks over his shoulder. Albeit, the way his tone angles upwards at the end, a squeak that he tries to hide by clearing his throat, is a clear tell that the quality of the food, or at least something related to tonight, greatly concerns him.

“No. It’s actually really good.” She restacks the dishes in the sink, thinking that it would be better to wash them all at once after dinner. “I was talking about you. Something’s bothering you.”

“You’re bothering me.” He frowns in his spot, bending over to adjust the garnish on one of the plates. “Go bother Seokmin. He’s probably crying while he’s running the grocery store alone without you by his side.”

“He’s a big boy. He can handle it,” she muses, humming while wiping her hands on a dishtowel.

“I’m telling you to climb up your thumb.”

“And I’m telling you that you have girl problems.”

Before he can turn around to confront his sister about minding her own business, two familiar voices enter the speakeasy from the hidden hallway connecting the employee room of the grocery store to the speakeasy’s office. Head perking upwards like a sleeping cat when they hear the familiar clinking of keys on a chain when one unlocks the front door, Lee Jihoon’s entire attitude and disposition seem to shift into the positive. And the sister almost snickers at the sight.

---

Clearly less stressed than before, Lee Jihoon still walks around more reserved than usual. He left the small talk to the others and only chimed in when spoken to. But the one hand that found a home around her waist, on her shoulder, in her hand, said something otherwise. And maybe it’s not a lie when others say that being around your favorite person could make all your worries go away. The way that his tiny fangs come into view when she gushes about her audition, the unnoticeable squeeze he gives her hand when she talks about calling off sick for work in order to practice for the audition, and the blush on top of his already flushed face when she tells the other couple that she couldn’t have done it without him by her side…it did make his worries go away, at least for the time being.

Two hours later, the siblings are once again in the speakeasy’s kitchen, cleaning the used and empty dishes while the other two chat away near the stage where they plan for a duet in the future. There is an empty bottle of homemade red wine left to dry next to the dish rack. He sits by himself on the stool near the sink, holding a half-filled wine glass in one hand, promising to finish off the rest of the bottle by himself before his team comes in to open the speakeasy within the next hour.

“Hey, be honest. What’s eating yo-”

“She told me she loved me this morning.” He cuts off his sister’s question while staring at his sorry expression through the soft reflection against the burgundy-red liquid.

“Oh…OH?” She doubles back.

“I wasn’t able to reciprocate it,” he sighs. “It came out of nowhere.”

There isn’t anywhere to sit so she decides to squat next to him, taking the glass out of his hands so she can finish it for him. Of course, she would be worried about the man who never seemed to be able to keep a relationship or even enter one look so distraught over a quip in his relationship. Finding out it was about the question of love, she can’t help but pry more out of him, never experiencing this kind of talk with her older brother in the past. But when she sees his eyes squint at the hem of her everyday dress draped across the dirty kitchen placemats and him immediately getting up from his stool so she could sit, she knows that he would be fine.  

“What’s next? Do you think you’ll have to break up with her?” She tries to push his buttons.

“No.” He hears the familiar tuning note in the distance, echoing throughout the empty speakeasy. “Maybe I would be able to reciprocate it someday,” he mumbles while scratching the side of his head.

She chugs the rest of the wine, earning a disapproving look from her older brother, and rinses the glass in the sink.

“I think I’ll have my gentleman walk me home now…leave you to work.”

He takes her glass out of the sink and immediately washes it again, not trusting that she could truly clean it in her inebriated state.

“Make sure he gives you his jacket. It’s starting to get chilly outside.”

“How can it be chilly? It’s only the beginning of Summer.”

“Also, don’t walk. Take my breezer keys from my office drawer,” he tells her while she hugs him goodbye. “And tell him to drop her off, yeah? She must be tired.”

“From the audition?”

“Yeah…the audition.”

“Are you sure you don’t love her?” She squeezes his shoulder. “Don’t think too much about it, okay?”

“I-” He looks like he is about to say something but drops the notion. “Get home safe.”

It comes out like a sigh – a dilatory action to avoid her question. 

four - summer

There are only a few ways to command a room in a crowded speakeasy on an especially sweltering hot July Summer night. And only a few can truly get the room to become so quiet that everybody inside can hear conversations outside of the sturdy soundproof walls of the speakeasy.

She stands onstage next to one of the lead singers of the week. Seungkwan, the lead’s name, tries to pry open the newspaper to the right page but struggles to find any grip between the smooth-printed paper and his dry fingertips. The action causes the crowd to groan, but a singular and sharp shh sound emitted from the speakeasy’s owner’s mouth at the back of the crowd causes the entire crowd to acquiesce and grow silent again.

Seungkwan swipes the tip of his pointer finger across his tongue and rubs the wetness against his thumb. The younger man smiles when he finds his grip and immediately flips to the right page, right to the location of the musical advertisement. He shifts his body away from the eager dame, oscillating ball to heel, who is dressed like a patron of the Ritz just for this special occasion. Left pointer finger skimming through the cast members, he skips ahead and heads straight to the ensemble.

From the crowd beneath the stage, one could see the top of the singer’s head, eyebrows, and a pair of eyes right above the top of the newspaper. The man on the stage holds the newspaper to the crowd, showing them the content like a schoolteacher reading to their class.

“Ensemble!” he yells. “And the understudy for the lead!”

The ebullient cheers that follow the announcement fill the speakeasy – a newfound cause for celebration. A regular in this establishment is about to star in a mainstream musical and they are all about to get bragging rights. And the dame whose name is printed on thousands of newspapers stands on stage, quite clearly in shock. Lace-gloved hands covering her mouth and the recovered fake pearl necklace hanging from her neck, she can only allow tears of joy, of jubilation, to fill a reservoir in her eyes. Months of hard work, hours upon hours of practice, sore muscles, and a dream to work toward – there’s a realized catalyst to her belief that nothing that she had worked toward, worked for, and dreamed about had ever gone to waste.

And he, Lee Jihoon, continues to stand in his place at the back of the Diamond Glass, unmoving like the Statue of Liberty. He sees his Ritzy moll under the spotlight, shining, scintillating in all her newfound glory. Where he would usually be focusing on the crowds of men with fat pockets rushing to the bars, he can’t help but keep his eyes on his girlfriend.

His mouth moves on its own. Opening. Tongue touching the back of his front teeth. The last syllable forms a pout. Three words formed without any sound.

The thing is, she sees him. Even from the stage in the front of the room, the only person she can clearly see silently supports her from the back of the crowd. To her, he is, and always will be, her only glowing entity in the pitch dark. And she directs a fabulous smile at him. She knows.  

---

“F-fuck!” Her stomach jolts when she feels his thick fingers exiting her leaking cunt.

“Aww my baby is so vulgar, isn’t she? Wanting to fuck in public while everybody else is getting drunk and celebrating her?”

The owner of the Diamond Glass leans back into the beautiful moss green leather executive chair with the cherry wood elements that his workers gifted him on his past birthday. Spread across his matching cherry wood desk are the gams belonging to the woman the entire speakeasy is celebrating. And the new musical actress shudders at the feeling of her naked and throbbing core against the cold office air while she lies with her back against the desk, dress pulled up and bunched around her breasts. And he smirks in his seat, his left hand moving to his neck to loosen his necktie while his right hand reaches into his desk drawer to draw out a long wooden object. 

“Left or right hand, baby?” He asks her while palming himself in his seat, his zipper already down and his erection dripping with precum.

“L-Left,” she stutters while staring at the ceiling, heart beating fast.

“Left what?” He spreads his thighs a little more, relaxing into his seat while he slowly strokes himself to the fleshy sight in front of his face.

“Daddy,” she chokes, her back arching off the wooden surface, fake pearl necklace clacking against the desk, her wanting to feel anything and to be given anything by the man who sits behind his desk.

He moves the oblong object into his left hand and rubs the precum off his head with the pad of his right thumb. Like a painter branding their work of art, Jihoon marks her soft nub with his precum, smearing it on her as if he is marking his territory. And she moans from his touch, every inch of her body prickling with heat.

Thinking for a couple of seconds while stroking himself with his right hand, he finally decides, “We’re not leaving this room until we see your pretty pussy squirt on daddy. Hold still for me Sweetheart.”

With no time for her to react, he brings the object down on her opening, fast. The slapping sound of the wooden ruler against her fragile clit rings throughout the room – threatening to drown out the sounds of people partying on the other side of the guarded door. The euphonic sound of her squealing, the way her thighs close and immediately open like the whore she is, only edges him more.

He slaps her pussy again, bringing down the makeshift paddle quickly. Then again. And again.

She cries in response, tears leaking down the sides of her face as she calls out to him Daddy, daddy, yes! Daddy – s-shit. Please! More! Use me. Withering in her spot, she feels nothing but the euphoria and the stinging sensation that makes her sex clench, builds her high, and causes her eyes to roll to the back of her head. And he relishes in watching and hearing her positively react, feeling his high build in the palms of his hands.

However, like the businessman he is, he thinks what is in front of him is not enough. So he drags his heavy seat closer to his desk till his face is directly in front of her cunt when he is seated. And he knows that he didn’t take that much time to adjust his seat, but her fingers are already dipping into her sopping cunt without permission – a dainty middle finger slowly and repetitively entering her sex and pulling out while she sighs in relief.

Irritated by her actions, he uses his precious ruler to nudge her hand away from her cunt. He drops his ruler on his desk and immediately, by bringing his empty hand against her cunt and feeling her jolt under his fingers, pulls his hand back to slap her again.

“Whore.”

This single word leaves his mouth, laced with disgust. But it causes her to reach her high, her body jolting as she comes. He uses this moment to put his face against her cunt, burying his tongue in her folds, licking and prodding while his strong hands grab hold of her thighs to steady her while she shakes against the tabletop. He lets himself be buried in her cunt, pushing his nose against her nub and lapping her juices like it’s his only source of water. Teasing her with the tip of his tongue, he kitten licks her cunt until she shakes under his hands and sends a long and flat stripe up her folds.

Overstimulated by him eating her out while she orgasms, by him punishing her by sticking his tongue up her vagina, all she can do is slur her cries – so, so, so entirely intoxicated by him against her sex. And the frail cry turns into a scream when he pulls out his tongue and slaps her one last time – the sharp pain against her bodily exhaustion causes her to squirt, wave after wave, coating his unbuttoned button down and lubricating his open and exposed chest.   

Her high blinds her so much that the can only see the deep red marks his fingers left on the outside of her thighs and the splotchy purple along her inner thighs when she recovers in the morning.

And the poor part-time bouncer, the law student with the circular glasses, can only keep a stoic face as he stands on the other side of the door. Because he knows that if he even reacts, even hints to others why he is guarding the office door, he would suffer a fate a lot worse than being fired from his boss’s precious speakeasy.

five - fall

He arrives home at around two in the morning and finally gets to enter the comfort of his bed at around three. The girlfriend who was lying in bed awake, waiting for her boyfriend to come home, is now completely lost as to why her sweetheart would even start an argument with her saying that she should have gone to bed without him. For months now, all she wanted was communication from someone who loves knowing everything and every single detail about everybody around him, but she can never seem to scratch more than his surface-level answers. And everything she does at that moment, including being awake for him, seems to tick him off even more than it should. And she is frustrated, not knowing what to do or how to confront him.

“You’re upset,” she points out.

“I’m not upset,” he retaliates, his tone a lot harsher than how he meant it to sound.

“You didn’t call me ‘Babe.’ You didn’t greet me when you came home.” She sits up from her side in his bed, the bedsheets falling just below her neckline. She hugs the sheets tightly to her chest. “You’re clearly upset.”

Truth be told, Lee Jihoon is definitely upset. They are in the middle of their first mini-argument, but it is hard to even begin a full-fledged fight when one side is extremely talkative and open about their feelings while the other side is the polar opposite. And the polar opposite in this situation only wants to sleep in his king-sized bed, too tired to even talk to her. Because in his heart, he knows that he would accidentally take his frustrations built from an amalgamation of happenings out on her through his language, and he knows that the only way to avoid that outcome is to avoid her altogether.

Continuing to look at his ceiling, he stubbornly ignores the woman he holds so precious to his heart, thinking that it would be better that way.

“Lee Jihoon,” she says his full name. “Talk to me. Why won’t you talk to me?”

Muscles tense under his blanket when he hears his name, and he stiffens in his place in bed. He can feel her getting more upset with every second he spends ignoring her – but it’s not like she isn’t used to him ignoring her. That’s how their relationship started anyway.

He knows he could just tell her. He knows he doesn’t even need to look her in the eyes to talk to her, to tell her how much of a bad day he has had. Just a couple minutes explaining how he is upset because the police stopped his men from unloading the grocery stock truck when they mistook the contents of the truck for alcohol, how the police almost found out about the speakeasy, how Seokmin proposed to his sister without his permission, and how he punched Seokmin would have been enough to put the both of them at ease.

But he is as hardheaded as they come, and he doesn’t have an answer for her – he doesn’t know why he won’t share his feelings with her.

A scintillant flash glimmers at the corner of his eye, and his bedroom is much too dark for any regular object to be shining so brightly. So he turns his head toward the object only when it catches his eye another time.

Lo and behold are two brilliant diamonds sitting proudly on her earlobes. And for a man who has seen all of his girlfriend, he has never seen them before – no matter how small they are.

“What are those?” he asks her, sitting up to get a better look at the earrings. And he frowns when he sees something prominent missing from her neck. “Where’s your pearl necklace?”

“Tossed it,” she answers a little too nonchalantly for his liking – as if the necklace that she always wore around her neck as a reminder that she would make it big and replace it with a chain of real pearls someday meant absolutely nothing to her.

“What?” His mouth is agape. His stubborn demeanor attenuates while his curiosity slowly appears.

He thinks that she’s joking – playing a little prank on him. But when he sees her staring at her manicured fingertips, pushing back her cuticles with her thumb, he can only accept the fact that she may not be joking. And it stings him a little because of the number of times she firmly turned his offer to buy her a piece of jewelry – a pearl necklace – as a gift, taking umbrage at his thoughtful request.

“Oh, Hoonie. I know you’re about to lecture me about sticking to my dreams. But I got my first big paycheck from the musical, and I saw how glittery and beautiful the diamond earrings looked at Tiffany’s in the department store so I had to buy them.”

Suddenly, his skin under his latest sleepwear under his heavy duvet blanket feels unbearably hot. He feels agitated by her actions even though it doesn’t pertain to him at all. And even more so, he finds himself furrowing his eyebrows at the way she shifted from being upset with him not wanting to talk to her to suddenly forgetting about her anger just because of some real diamonds from the cheapest section. The thought of everything upsets his stomach and makes his jaw clench so hard that one accidental budge could grind his molars flat.

He knows that he can be a bit of an ass all the time and that before he took their relationship seriously he was still flirting with other women while she stupidly latched onto his arm in his speakeasy. He hates hearing his workers tease him about becoming the type of man who would finally settle down with a lovely dame. Nevertheless, her name used to only form from his lips, while they now form from the innermost portion of his heart. And still spends nights wondering how the hell someone like him can manage to fall in love with someone like her – especially the “live in the moment” type of person.  

“Aww,” she whines while shaking his right arm. “I know you’re doing your dumb calculations in your head. It’s fine. I still have leftover money from when I worked two jobs.” She pauses and continues in a sultry voice, holding his right hand in one hand while she tiptoes her fingers along his bicep, “And, I also had enough money left over from this shopping spree to make another purchase.”

She moves before he can ignore her out of spite, letting her bedsheets fall to the mattress as she stands on her knees. Under the yellow light emitting from the art deco nickel-plated lamp from Jihoon’s bedside is a silhouette, a shadow of her figure, cast against the wall. Milk yellow satin bows that sit on top of her shoulders keep her chemise from falling. And the lingerie itself, a square neckline lined with thin hand-embroidered lace, cinches at the waist and drops downwards in a pillowy-soft see-through fabric. The same thin hand-embroidered lace forms garters around her thighs, holding up knee-high socks with tiny bows sewn in the front.

“You don’t want this?” She teases him by letting go of his hand to trace a finger along her neckline.

“Fuck, baby,” he breathes, holding out his right hand for her to take again. “Of course I want you. Let me take care of you tonight.”

“No, Love.” She crawls over to him, moving her right thigh over his legs until she straddles his hips. Griding down on him, she places her hands around his neck. “Let me.”

Not able to keep his cool-headed persona, his head tips backward so a soft moan can naturally escape his lips. On his lap is the weight of her entire body – random atoms bundled so tightly, creating cells, creating organs, creating and completing the love of his life. He misses her pearls, the stupid piece of cheap jewelry that tarnishes with every scratch against hard surfaces – like his skin when her nails dig into them, leaving bright and stinging red trenches masked by the fire he feels at his core.

The love of his life on top of him, feeling and teasing herself, calling herself names that may never leave the bedroom…he almost wants to bend her over the bathroom sink to wash her mouth, scrub it raw, and peck the pouty lips and then the eyelids where her lashes tickle his bottom lip. Reveling in his private lap dance as much as a man can at half-past three in the morning, he can only stare at her with so much love that the feeling alone sucks and strips away the color in the life around him. And when his mouth is stuffed with her soaked undergarment and she reaches for his pants, he knows he is done for.

Bedsheet roughly thrown to the side, and the weight of its fall knocks over today’s unread paper placed towards the edge of the nightstand. The paper falls to the floor along with the bedsheet and opens to the entertainment page. Leading Lady FIRED, the headline reads. A summary of the contents is as follows: leading lady was fired because she was caught auditioning for another role while she was supposed to be at practice for her current musical, her no-name understudy will take over her role for the rest of the season, and critics hypothesize either the birth of a new shining star or the failure of an entire production caused by a chain of events.

six - fall

A giant star follows the signature that finishes with a flourish, etched with the black expensive ink from the solid gold Sheaffer “Propel – Repel – Expel” Pencil from the Giftie Set that is supposed to come out at the end of October for this upcoming holiday season. The owner of the receipt that is now etched with the signature of someone famous thanks the musical actress again – still trying to fathom how such a famous actress shops at the same local grocery store as she does – before leaving through the front door.

Chic coffee-colored suede fabric of the light long coat in Philippe et Gaston’s winter collection – not yet released and imported straight from Paris – flows and flaps against the current that rushes in when the patron with the signature leaves the grocery store. Once again, the coat peacefully settles right above her calves when the wind breaks its trail. The actress tucks her pen back in its leather case where the second pair of the Giftie Set is missing – in fact, the matching retractable fountain pen rests in the lapel of the grocery store owner’s coat at all times. She drops the case in her black clutch and snaps it close. Old cut, 0.40-carat yellow and platinum diamonds – two of them in oval drops – collect and accentuate the front of her open collar, gifted by her loving boyfriend. They sparkle against the afternoon sunlight that shines through the shop’s open windows, glimmering and glistening like the love they are meant to represent.

The understudy-turned-leading lady adjusts how her white cloche hat sits on top of her head before turning to look at Seungcheol who leans against the wall behind the cashier counter, furiously whispering into the telephone. It seems as if he doesn’t want to be disturbed, or even be acknowledged. He quickly hangs up the phone and rushes through the backdoor, straight to his boss’s office.

The second owner of the store, the sister, recommends the newspaper with the musical reviews to a customer. There’s a sly smile on her face, the hidden excitement of knowing that the actress whose glowing musical reviews in the newspaper is only a few feet away. Still, she maintains her polite and professional front.

Softly humming to herself while walking around the store, the actress thinks about the items she wants to pick up for her new agent before she meets him for the first time at the radio station. She settles on a soft drink for him and water, no, tea for herself before going to the counter where her fake sister-in-law waits.

“You waiting for Hoon?” the younger one asks while grabbing a brown paper bag from under the counter.

“Yeah,” she sighs while unclasping her bag so she can reach in to grab her coin pouch. “I was supposed to remind him about the radio show today, but he left the house in a rush. I rang him a few times, but I couldn’t even reach him.” She shakes her head while unzipping her coin pouch with her gloved hands.

The cashier tsks and pushes the outstretched hand with the coins away, “Just take the bag. You know my brother will come for my head if he finds out you visited and paid for something. How can I wear a veil during my wedding if I don’t have a head?”

“And you know it hurts my dignity knowing that I can afford at least two drinks,” she pushes back. “Plus, Seokmin would love you even without that pretty head of yours.”

“Take the bag, and bunk off. Dingus,” she mutters, her cadence eerily mirroring that of her brother’s.

“Don’t call her a Dingus.” Jihoon’s voice appears out of nowhere. He finishes tying his apron around his back before shoving his sister to the side. “Only I can call her Dingus.”

“Nobody can call me a Dingus,” the girlfriend remarks and proceeds to drop her coins in the tip jar before taking her bag of drinks from the counter. “Flag me a cab, yeah? I came to remind you about today’s show.”

Immediately acquiescing to her request, he nods his head and quickly scrambles to meet her on the other side. He grabs the paper bag from her arms, afraid that it may be too heavy for her, and guides her to the front of the store. From there, he brings his thumb and pointer finger together and puts them between his lips, whistling loudly to flag a cab.

“Today at three,” he smiles at her. “I didn’t forget.”

A cab pulls to the curb before he can strike up a conversation with her, and he has no choice but to help her in the cab and hand the paper bag back to its owner. And it hurts him a little more when the cab driver drives off before he can kiss her on the cheek. But watching her head pop out of the window while the cab drives away and that big smile of hers coupled with a waving hand, he can’t help but feel like the luckiest man on this Earth.

---

“You closed the shop early and demanded us to come in not for training but because of your girlfriend?” Chan, the part-time bouncer slowly asks as if he is trying to understand his boss’s thought process. “Hoonie wants us to help him get a radio shout-out from his kitten? Meow?”

Mingyu immediately tosses the student over his shoulder and heads over to the speakeasy before Jihoon can physically lunge at his worker. Seungcheol, who may be the only employee who can physically restrain the man without getting fired, lets go of Jihoon when Mingyu and Chan are finally gone.

“Anybody who stays for the entire duration gets a bonus,” Jihoon growls while straightening his collar.

The rest of the group nods and mumble among themselves as their boss adjusts the radio they have all crowded around to the correct frequency. Instantaneously, a familiar laugh fills the tense atmosphere and eases everybody it reaches.

Wow. I can’t believe both of you knew what you wanted to be and where you wanted to go since you were kids, the radio host recounts. Your parents must be so proud.

They are. A masculine voice – the seasoned musical lead. They have a collection of posters from all of the musicals I’ve been in…signed by the cast and everything. They’re so special to me.

That’s so sweet of them to do so, the host responds. Speaking of special people, and I’m pretty sure everybody tuning in wants to know, does our leading lady currently have someone special?

Jihoon’s ears perk up when he hears the question and immediately glow bright red when he notices several pairs of eyes trained on him. He shoots a glare at his crowd before awkwardly adjusting in his seat while he waits for his beloved to respond.

Oh, me? She giggles. I’m happily single.

And the answer shocks everybody – the grocery store becomes so quiet that you can only hear the hums emitting from the refrigerators.

So you’re saying if you’re single and your handsome co is also single, the host presses, then that means there’s a chance that the two of you could possibly become a couple by the end of your season?

Laughter – hearty guffaws from the radio and small awkward hiccups on the other end of the radio.

I mean, the host recounts, word on the street is that there are quite a few kiss scenes in this musical. Not to mention the chemistry the two of you share on stage and off stage. No wonder it’s so popular!

The door to Jihoon’s office slams shut, echoing throughout the establishment. It is only then that the employees of the Diamond Glass finally notice that their boss has angrily left the scene.

seven - fall

Holding her jaw open with one hand, Jihoon bends over and watches his spit fall onto her awaiting tongue, how the liquid bubbles and collapses against the papillae of the muscular organ. Once he shuts her mouth, his hand moves back to her throat where he can clearly feel the way her Adam’s apple bobs against the palm of his hand when she swallows his spit.

Every time he squeezes her esophagus, her velvet walls clench and flutter around his cock while she prays and begs him to take off her blindfold.

But he doesn’t respond. Even when he hears her beg, her: Daddy, Daddy, please. Please take off my blindfold so I can be a proper slut, so you can ruin my pussy. Use me, please. He doesn’t budge. Not today.

Tonight, Lee Jihoon is not taking any requests: he only has one goal on mind.

He has her body memorized – the familiar feeling of hitting the exact spongy part to cause her to orgasm, how much pressure the rough pads of his fingertips must exert on her clit. He rolls his hips for her to take him in deeper until his throbbing tip reaches an end, and he extracts himself and thrusts inwards without pause. The hand around her neck loosens and travels downwards towards her breasts, cupping, squeezing, and pinching the nipples until they turn into sore and hard little nubs. He massages them and watches how they fill the gaps between his fingers with every rough squeeze.

She’s as loud as ever. Back arching, she begs her boyfriend to make her feel good instead of playing with her. She’s already tired of being used despite her excessive begging.

As much as he knows exactly how to make her come undone, he knows exactly the steps he has to take to make himself feel good in her. And he grabs both thighs, pushing them back and spreading them wide to give himself a better angle. Roughly, he rocks his hips into her tight little pussy with so much force that it sends her sliding a few inches backward, the bed creaking.

“Oh- FUCK!” she gasps.

Thrusting aggressively, he bites his bottom lip while he stares at the headboard ahead of him. His fingers dig deep into her thighs and she struggles to moan as her entire body jostles up and down in repeated motions. Everything comes out in segments.

He fucks her roughly and without any ounce of kindness. And when her pussy could clamp around his cock just a few moments ago, it fails to hold on the more she becomes his personal fucktoy instead of his girlfriend. She’s confused and horny, her pussy feeling sore yet amazing while being ripped apart by his thick and veiny cock; he’s close to his release.

The thing is, she’s not even close to coming when his hips jerk and buck in place before he finishes in her. He silently pulls out, rolls off his condom, ties it, and tosses it in the trash can while leaving her in bed. He doesn’t even give her a second glance when he tells her he is headed for the roof.

“What the fuck,” she mutters under her breath while she plants her feet against the mattress. She rips the blindfold off her face and decides that if he’s not going to help her finish, she would do it herself.

If he doesn’t need her, then she sure as hell doesn’t need him.

---

She watches him from the door to the roof as he inhales and lets the pillowy smoke flow out of his mouth. It’s interesting to her how the length of a couple of days can turn two people, as close as they are, into complete strangers. And she is lost as to how such a loving man, no matter how cold he may seem to those who aren’t acquainted with him, could ever act as if his love for her somehow became conditional. 

People say that love can keep people even in the coldest and darkest places warm. Maybe she does believe it to be true, but now, staring at the man she loves the most from a few feet away, the warmth feels more like a memory than a presence. Midnight air nips at her skin, raising goosebumps and causing her arm hairs to stand straight, while he looks blissful or at least contented to be alone with his pack of cigarettes. She doesn’t even know that he had a pack on him. 

People also say that love can make you become either really brave or really dumb, but that’s like comparing apples to oranges. Even she is confused about whether or not confronting him at the top of his brownstone tonight is the bravest or dumbest thing she can do. But her actions happen before she can really register what is it that she wants from him. 

“Is this about me not kissing you before I got into the cab the other day?” Okay, at least it comes off as a passive joke to hide her anger. “It’s because we were in public.”

“Since when have you ever cared about kissing in public?” he gruffs, making it a point to turn his body away from hers. 

His irritable attitude towards her makes her tick. And she scoffs, “Stop bullshitting me, Jihoon. If you miss a kiss, then you can make up for it later on. And I did.” She marches towards the side he is facing and leans against the half-wall balcony. “Remember how we promised to always be open about what’s bothering us? Like the night where I bought the diamond earrings and you were pissed about the engagement?”

“Oh, so it’s my fault.” He rolls his eyes. His temper isn’t the best either. 

“When the fuck did I say it’s your fault?”

“Watch your mouth,” he mutters. 

“Watch my mouth?” she criticizes his hypocrisy. “You won’t even open your mouth to tell me about what’s bothering you. What am I? Some sort of scapegoat for your anger?”

“My anger?” he asks, pointing at himself with the hand that holds his cigarette between his knuckles. His question is rhetorical as well as the answer, but his ego refuses to accept the fact that she isn’t wrong. 

“Yes, your anger,” her voice suddenly calmed. “Please work with me here. Can’t you see I’m trying to solve whatever this is between us? Is it because of Jeonghan’s comment? About how he heard about the unscripted kiss during one of our scenes?”

“So it was real,” he scoffs, turning his head to look at the view ahead of him. He wishes that the soft breeze which tickles and ruffles the tops of the several rows of trees below him can also whisk him away from this conversation. 

“Acting, Jihoon. It was just us acting.” She can’t believe the productive conversation she imagined having with his is taking a turn for the worst. 

“Why don’t you just date him instead because, apparently, I’m not your boyfriend anymore.” His retort is unfairly childish, but it implies some of his underlying concerns are slowly making their way to his surface. His mouth tastes dry and the warm and fuzzy high he felt before she disturbed his peace is already gone. He taps the ashes away against the brick edge before bringing the bud to his lips again. 

“Is this what was bothering you the whole time? The scripted radio show?” She sighs and brings her hand up to her temple to pinch and rub away the pain. Instead, she only feels a swelling sensation form and collects in the inner corners of her eyes. “It was the first time I met this new agent. And I had to listen to him because of his experience in the industry. He said that revealing our relationship might ruin my career, especially taking into consideration how hard I’ve worked for it. So I couldn’t discuss the boyfriend thing with you ahead of time because it was sprung on me the minute I sat down with him.” 

To her side is a man who had grown accustomed to having a cup of tea every morning instead of his usual cup of coffee after learning that his girlfriend doesn’t drink coffee. A man who regularly keeps his kitchen shelves stocked with various teas around the world as his way of saying how much he loves her, he could help but appease his curiosity as to what some measly leaves could offer to a person. The difference in caffeine made him feel a bit woozy at first, a remarkable We should call you Woozi with an I from the way you keep slipping in and out of consciousness from the one called Vernon. But now, he finds pleasure in walking around with a white mug, the tea bag’s string expertly looped twice around the top of the mug’s handle, tucked between his knuckles and mug.  

She knows how much of an asshole he can be, how hard it is for him to physically say “I love you” when others are around, and how he finds it challenging to even begin to open up and talk about his problems. But it may be her greatest downfall, believing that she could completely change a man whose flaws drew her in like a moth towards an open flame.

“I hate it when you smoke,” her voice quivers. She feels small next to the well-built man beside her, but she doesn’t know whether or not she should continue to try to reason with a brick wall. “It’s bad for my lungs.”

The thing is, Lee Jihoon is a good listener. Probably trained by his sister after taking care of her by himself for so many years, his listening skills make up for his lack of good communication skills. And he snuffs his half-burned cigarette against the brick edge, tossing it to the floor of the roof and rendering it destroyed with the heel of his shoe.

When he wraps her in his arms as a way of saying Sorry, I was in the wrong, she notices how cold he must be feeling. His cold skin immediately burns hot the moment it comes into contact with hers.

“I’m sorry. Don’t cry.” His apology is muffled against her strands of hair. “I really do love you.”

“Do you think we’ll be fine?” She asks him. It’s more of a need for confirmation – the reason for confirmation is murky.

“I don’t know.” His heart feels like it’s beating harder than usual, and he’s pretty sure she can also feel it. “I’ll try.”

Jealousy is a vile disease that can overtake and completely alter a person. And she realizes that the man who usually instills jealousy in those around him is also capable of being infected.

eight - winter

Tonight’s drink of choice is his usual Manhattan poured into a whiskey glass and garnished with a fresh slice of lemon instead of his usual olive, cherry, or lemon peel twist. However, it sits untouched on a handmade coaster on the desk in its owner’s office while the owner is nowhere to be found. Condensation on the outside surface of the glass pools at the bottom of the circular glass, held together in a ring thanks to cohesion forces. The cubed block of ice that sat in the middle of the sink now floats to the top in a sort of watery layer just above the alcohol. Pitch-black is what describes the office – nobody would even know Lee Jihoon considered drinking alcohol tonight, let alone visited his office.

Joshua thinks his boss is probably in his office calculating the cost of each ounce of alcohol against the recipe for every drink, knowing how stingy he can be. He also notices the lack of a cheerful presence that makes his boss’s ears flush bright red. But he doesn’t say anything about it, after all, bartenders are always here for the gossip but never participate in spreading gossip.

Jihoon sits in the dark of his grocery store near the entrance where the porch light shines brightly through the glass windows. His shoulder blades, especially the upper area towards the middle of his neck and shoulders, are screaming in pain. And the empty crate he uses as a stool is anything but comfortable.

It’s not a particularly big grocery store. It’s more like a rectangular hole-in-the-wall about the size of the speakeasy's kitchen. There are open crates of neatly stacked fruits and vegetables in front of the counters for customers to choose themselves while all of the other goods are behind the counters. Where walls of groceries line the four walls and the walking space is only large enough to have five different customers comfortably shop at once, Jihoon feels that the tiny front for his speakeasy becomes his sort of personal sanctuary. His sister is barely at home now that she’s in the process of moving most of her stuff to Seokmin’s place, and the tiny changes he made around the house to accommodate his girlfriend remind him too much of her. His office is much too cold and stress-inducing to be in alone during Winter. And the speakeasy is noisy and rowdy where his presence only instills fear in others or causes him to be whisked away in some conversation he doesn’t want to take part in.

So sitting in the only place he can seem to find comfort may be the only way he can truly accept the fact that in the ninth month of getting to know the woman with the big dreams and fake pearls, she is slowly becoming a stranger to him as he is to her.

A single kiss, a peck on the cheek is what she would leave him with before parting every time he dropped her off at the backdoor of the matinee. Now she has a private chauffeur who picks her and her agent up to bring them to wherever her schedule needs her to appear. And it tore out a piece of his heart when she told him that it was for the best especially when she started developing a strong hatred towards speakeasies. In fact, most of their more recent fights were about his job and how she can’t be around people who are associated with something so illegal and vile.

For two people who spent the majority of the year together, each recent meeting feels like an awkward exchange between two people whose lives are moving ahead with barely any space for the other to exist. Where one is preparing for the end of her musical run and the new musical production she’s been cast in, the other one is busy switching seasonal grocery stock and preparing his speakeasy for a VIP. She’s been on more fake dates in a week with her co-star in an industry-fueled scheme to generate more revenue before the musical run ends than she has in a month with her real boyfriend. Even the thrill of sneaking around with each other seemed to have worn off.

One is a woman who came from nothing and now has everything she ever wanted and wants more. The other is a man who came from something and is content with what he has.

Perhaps the thing he most wants is to understand her just a little more. He doesn’t understand the new words and phrases she integrated into her daily jargon and wonders about what or how she thinks of him now that she is on the way to having everything she ever wanted. It’s not like he wants more, no. He’s truly content with what he has. But he can’t help but wonder if love is just the beautiful landscape she spends some time driving through on her road to the glitz and glamour of stardom. If he is simply a backdrop, then why did she even want to pursue him in the first place? Why did he allow himself to fall in love? Why was she so adamant about picking up all of her phony loose pearls when she doesn’t care about buying real ones anymore?

Jihoon knows that life is as fragile as the soft waxy pear he holds in his hand – how a fruit could be so delicate to the touch, but farmers still swatch on a layer of protective wax to keep it from getting bruised and dehydrated with hopes that the fruit would journey safely into somebody’s grocery bag. One single and firm squeeze of the fruit in his palm could turn it into mush and have the juice drip down his fist in globs. Driving a single stomp through the barrel of neatly stacked pears would not save them from becoming absolutely demolished. Protective wax does nothing. Trying to protect himself from getting hurt like that thin coat of fruit wax does absolutely nothing as long as he is in love. And love may just as well be something as fragile as life.

Hand reaching for nothing and hitting the inside of an empty crate, Jihoon quickly retracts his hand while feeling a bit embarrassed for not noticing that he’s done stocking the pears. Having nothing to do causes a wave of loneliness, no, nostalgia to wash over him like the moonlight over the tumbling ocean waves. The fact that she brings up the fact that he owns a speakeasy every time they argue is frequent enough that the thought always lingers at the back of his mind. He can’t comprehend how she somehow started hating speakeasies almost overnight and hates the fact that he is the owner of one. She tells him that it would be better if he left the speakeasy to Seungcheol to manage the grocery store full-time. Looking at everything around him from the walls of products to the shiny wooden floors to the long flowerbeds placed against the walls of windows, he doesn’t know if he could ever give up the speakeasy to work at a place he loves so dearly. Maybe one day in the future when the Prohibition gets lifted, he would turn the speakeasy into something else.

Right now, he is not willing to give up something that he loves. The Diamond Glass is his home, and his employees are his family members. Giving up something as precious as his speakeasy is not something that he would even consider putting on his bargaining table even if it means losing the love of his life. Unwillingness to give up on something he loves for someone whom he loves results in him thinking about the version of his love in the darkness of the grocery store. The version of her with the flimsy dress, the version of her as a fling, the version of her he was afraid to love, the version of her as his love, the version of her he is growing apart from – he thinks about them all. Imagining an alternate universe where she is as unchanging as he is, a version where they can wake up in bed together only to laze around till four in the afternoon – it might be a selfish concept, he thinks. Previously uninhabited space in his brain, now filled with her to the brim, he’s not strong enough for it to spill over until it empties.

A flood of light washes into the grocery store at an angle when the employee door behind the counter opens. Choi Seungcheol stands at its opening with an unsmiling look on his face. Jihoon looks back at the older man, pausing before he sighs and wipes his hands on his pants.

“They’re in your office,” Seungcheol tells his boss.

“Who the hell let them in here?” Jihoon sighs while standing up, stretching his back before heading towards where his employee stands. It doesn’t take many contexts to fully understand what Seungcheol meant when he used the pronoun. Even more so, Jihoon immediately deduced the topic of the incoming conversation and the approximate amount of time the less-than-amicable conversation would take.

“I dunno,” the older man shrugs. “It’s not like we can turn them away. We do need business with them.”

nine - winter

Bursting through the office door and swinging the door open with so much force that the door ricochets off the wooden doorstop and wobbles while being supported by its hinges, she stomps with a fury unmatched by no other. In her wake are a scorching fire and the apologetic part-time bouncer who tried his best to stop her without ever laying a hand on her.

“I-I’m sorry. I tried,” the bouncer with the circular glasses tries to explain himself to his boss. “I-I told her that today’s not a good day, and that you’re-”

“I’m going to make you develop a complex,” the boss seethes through his teeth without moving his mouth to attempt a straight and dignified-looking expression in her presence. Capping his solid gold Sheaffer pen from the old gift set, dropping the expensive item on his stack of papers, and leaning back in his office chair with an annoyed expression on his face is more than enough to send bouncer out the door, scrambling and slamming the door shut behind him.

Jihoon doesn’t respond to his girlfriend, though he makes sure to look at her, studying her smudged stage makeup and the new expensive decoration that hangs from her neck. Silence between the couple becomes a waiting game, a game that anticipates the drop of a guillotine strong enough to cut the tension developed. Pulling the lever, she slices through and continues the journey she embarked on since her last show.

“Lee Jihoon,” his name cracks like a lightning strike – powerful yet lonely – emitted from her atmosphere. “How could you?”

Outside the guarded office door, the VIP speakeasy crowd roars in laughter and cheers. Glasses clink and specially ordered wooden chairs scrape against the sticky floors while speakeasy singers entertain their audience for the night. If Lee Jihoon is the owner and boss of this establishment, then the middle-aged woman who sits at the circular mini table right in front of the stage is the king.

This middle-aged woman with a kind face whose deep smile lines appear when she smiles at others in her acknowledgment is the sole supplier of the Diamond Glass’s alcohol. One misstep, one thought of collusion against her, one simple miscalculation on proposals can erase the Diamond Glass from existence including its workers, leaving the local police with a cold case unsolved for years because they would have nothing, to begin with. Hoping to never upset the king before the Prohibition ends, Lee Jihoon will do anything to maintain his healthy and trustworthy relationship with her and her cohort.

Right now, with her in his office, there is so much more than just simply trying to be business partners with the speakeasy’s current private clients. Because of this, agitation is what makes his leg shake. Fear is what causes him to snap at his girlfriend. Ultimately, this sparks a negative chain reaction foreseeable by anybody since the beginning of Autumn.

Get out are the only two words he can manage to snap at her. His right pointer finger pointed at his office door and his right arm trembles in its extension. Himself, the man sitting in his office chair, feels nothing but anger and fear from seeing his girlfriend in a place in which she should not be seen – a place she upbraided and proclaimed to be untenable in its legality.

“How could you?” she asks again in an accusing tone, her hands forming into tight balls of fists so that her knuckles visibly pale. “You liar. You promised you would be there for my last show. Why weren’t you there? You have so many employees working for you, and you’re not even out there. You’re just sitting in your office doing something you can do another time. Everybody’s partners were there for them at the afterparty yet I rushed here.”

Jihoon sits up from his seat, folding his hands on his desk. He takes a good look at the musical actress in front of him – prim and proper looking, her hair styled in neat curls, and the elegant and flowy black Lanvin Robe de Style which he finds to indicate she took time to change out of her costume into something non-inconspicuous. Paris’s House of Creed’s Angélique Encens set to be released in the early 1930s floats around her like a thin veil of mist. The sensual powdery-floral cut by the salty ambergris beautifully blended with vanilla and tuberose was said to be a pre-release gift from the founder of the perfume house. He thinks about the time when she accidentally dropped the perfume bottle she bought back in ’17 on her wooden floors. She thought nothing of the accident – no indication of dejection while picking up the broken pieces of glass and causally mentioned the perfume incident in an interview. The next day, a fresh bottle and a bouquet of roses were gifted to her from the perfumery. He’s not sure if the new bottle ever made it out of her closet. He’s not the type to compare himself to others – no, his confidence and self-assurance are too high for that – but he can’t help but wonder whether or not he can say her name the way he used to.

When you love someone, a name isn’t formed from the mouth but from the heart. The image of her in his head, once formed and sculpted from his skinny love, still exists in his hippocampus. Happiness when he sees her, the rush of dopamine when he feels her fall asleep again him after a long day, never originated from the limbic cortex. Fully believing it, even now at this moment despite the circumstances, he believes it was passed to him by her. Where her name is formed from his heart, she is his entire heart. And it hurts him to even consider the fact that she he holds close to his heart may just as well walk away with a piece of him that would never be returned.

It is the last time he says her name from his heart. He tells her to leave, that it’s not safe. He doesn’t want his bodyguards to ever lay a hand on her. It’s for the best, he tells her. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. He’s afraid of the fact that literal gangsters in the building would scare her, and he’s not about to compromise her integrity. For her sake, he feels that keeping the fact to himself, letting her walk over him if she has to, may keep her safe.

“But there’s no tomorrow,” she almost wails, stomping her feet even. She’s frustrated that she had to attend the party celebrating the end of the season alone, frustrated over his stolid attitude over everything. She just wishes he could’ve been there with her experiencing one of the most important moments of her life.

Shooting out of his chair, sending it backward from the force with which he pulls himself up, he slams his hands on his desk. “Leave,” he yells at her.

“Choose,” she lays down her ultimatum for him. “Me or the speakeasy.”

“Diamond Glass,” he chooses without hesitation. Albeit, the expression he notices form on her face causes him to feel restive in his response. “Me or your fake boyfriend?”

“Fake boyfriend?” She feels her skin prick with coldness. “Do you have to bring him up every time we get into an argument?”

“What?” The tone of his voice is anything but amicable. “So you’re only here to argue with me for a little bit before you storm off to your little boy toy. What happened to compromise? What happened to me being the most important person in your life?”

“Compromise?” She seethes. “I literally told you that my new agent sprung it upon me when I met him.”

“The easiest phrase you can say as an actress is ‘no comment.’ Or are you so far up your ass and your glitz and glamour that all you can do is be hotsy-totsy with all the men around you? Do you even think about me? Or do I only appear in your mind when you need me?”

“So what about me living the life I always wanted? So what if I have to fake date rich men while keeping this persona they built for me? Men, any men, regular men, rich men, they can all get in and out of relationships and marriages whenever they please and they wouldn’t be shamed for it. They can marry whenever and whoever they please and not be looked down upon. This includes you, Jihoon,” her voice dips when she says his name. There is a crack in her voice that Jihoon absolutely hates hearing because it means anything but her happiness. “All they want women to do is marry and have kids. But I get to escape that expectation because of my job. The leading lady was fired because she auditioned for another job. So what if the world found out that the understudy had a boyfriend? I would be a joke. I would be forced out of the industry, blacklisted for not taking my job seriously.”

“Why do you care so much about what other people think?” He almost wants to shout at her, to hurl his chair against the wall. “Given my connections, you would never be forced out of the industry.”

“You don’t get it do you?” Her knees buckle. “I never wanted to rely on you.”

“Then what did you want me for?” He can’t contain himself anymore. He shouts at her in frustration. “A good fuck? A summer fling? Someone to fix because your life was so boring before me?”

“I just wanted you by my side,” she shouts back.

“And I was always by your side.” He’s so frustrated that tears well up in the inner corners of his eyes. “I was always by your side even when I wasn’t in love with you. I was by your side this whole time even if you never felt it. I was by your side even when I didn’t understand. When I didn’t understand why you loved me. When I didn’t understand the words that came out of your mouth. When I didn’t understand why you don’t even look at me the way you used to.”

“And what was the way I used to-” She cuts herself off, stopping so she can point her head to the ceiling so that he doesn’t have to look at her sob. “Fuck.” The realization slaps her in the face.

“Shit,” Jihoon has no choice but to cuss. His face stabs with pain, and his arms feel numb. But heaping globs of tears stream down his face, and he breaks down on his spot – choked sobs and trembling shoulders, unable to look her in the eye. He also realizes the same thing – she doesn’t love him anymore.

Lee Jihoon doesn’t remember how he ended up in the middle of the VIP party’s crowd, drunk off of giggle water. Tonight, he can’t even bring himself to flirt with the woman who he plants himself behind, bringing her ass to his dick while she grinds on him on the dance floor. Everything feels so foreign to him – letting go, straying from his usual Manhattan, people prying him off of someone new, crying, being single, sobbing, crashing on someone’s couch, blacking out. He doesn’t know who he is or where he is. The only thing he remembers is seeing a piece of his heart leave when she left him in his office and the realization that they are no more.

Not even a sense of familiarity can rush over his inebriated self when he feels a heavy blanket cover his shivering body. Seungcheol, no; his sister, no; Seokmin…the king? He can’t quite differentiate whose couch it is that he is laying on or who it is who is consoling him.

“We can never go back to who we were before love,” the unidentified voice reassures him. “After love, we are just as different. But it takes time to create a better us than who we were when we were in love. After all, time and feelings change. You have loved yourself before, Jihoon. And you will love yourself again.”  

“Feel broken,” he manages to slur through his tears. He hasn’t stopped crying since being dragged out of the speakeasy “Gone.”

“But it doesn’t mean you can’t find yourself in the future.”

epilogue - spring '39

Lee Jihoon carries a toddler in his arm, someone whose eyes curl the same way he does when he smiles. He hands him an apple, a gorgeous waxy Red Delicious that is arguably too big for the toddler’s hands.

“Hold tight,” Jihoon tells the child. “Or it would fall and roll away. Then we can’t sell the apple.”

But the fruit immediately falls from the toddler’s hands, bouncing and rolling towards the other side of the newly renovated grocery store.

After all these years, the mom-and-pop grocery store manned by the Diamond Glass’s workers and families still stands proudly while facing the busy street before it. And the Diamond Glass, converted into a bar, has since made a name for itself after the Prohibition. The establishment with its criminal origins, instead of deterring people away, only attracts and appeals to the public.

The bell above the front door clanks when a new customer steps inside. And the quick burst of air caused by the act of opening the door drowns out what the new customer says to their driver.

In the meantime, Jihoon sighs and looks at the child in his arms – the kid whose lips quiver from making a mistake. He decides to let him go and squats to tell him that his mom would send him into exile if he ever made him cry. “Even worse,” he whispers to the child, “Seokmin would cry if he ever saw you cry. And you know how much your dad cries. But go get Uncle Seungcheol for me. We need more people in the front.”

A few minutes after the boss feels a gentle tap on his right shoulder. But he chooses to ignore them and instead calls for Seungcheol to help with the customer. He feels the tap again, this time with a little more pressure. So he turns his head from his stack of apples on the ground, looking up at the customer standing behind him.

She holds the dusty and bruised apple in her outstretched hand. And he notices the freshly coated swatch of lacquer that decorates her nails. His eyes trace up her gams to her tweed Chanel skirt and the matching blazer which sculpts her shoulders. In contrast to her expensive designer wear is the scuffed and faded pearl necklace which sits proudly around her neck – a contrasting centerpiece to her outfit. And he can tell that they’re fake, just like the ones that scattered and clacked against his once illegally sticky speakeasy floors.

Seungcheol’s head pops from the doorframe to the employee door behind the grocery store counter. “Who is it?” he asks his boss.

Jihoon looks at her in her eyes, the same pair of twinkling eyes he could never forget, and answers his question, “An old friend.”

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