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kisskissbanggang · 9 months

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Jumpspace Renegade - ep. 17 ✨🚀

[5.4k words, 20min. read - Stray Kids Multi Fic, Scifi!au, Choose Your Own Adventure - Jisung x Fem. Reader - NSFW/Smut - Vaginal Sex, Vaginal Fingering, Hooking Up, Navigating Feelings, Platonic(?) Intimacy, Ominous Plot Hints, Reader has a Another Terrible Idea, We Have to Figure Out What to Do on Sentury Station, Dressing Up, Crumbs of Backstory, Who the Hell Knows What Minho is Thinking, Chan is Not Completely a Dick?, Always Check the Tags]

[Author's Note: This is the end of season 2! Stay tuned for polls and updates about the series. Thanks as always for coming along for the ride! 💕]

[Author's Note #2: This episode is late! Voting closes on Saturday, 10 pm PST]

[Episodes on Fridays 7pm pst, Polling closes Saturdays 7pm pst]

[Series Masterlist | Come Say Hi!]

You were frustrated, hungry, and disappointed.

And confused.

Because the disappointment didn’t feel just like disappointment. Maybe you felt a little heartbroken, finding out that you were likely never going to see Seungmin again after his negotiations at Sentury.

But for now, you were hungry.

You surveyed the kitchen, hoping to see if Jeongin had left a plate out for you. Finding none, you checked the warmer. There was a plate inside, but it’d been picked clean, leaving a sad corpse of dinnerware covered in crumbs. Dejected, you grabbed an energy bar and nibbled on it while you walked back to your cabin.

In the cool air of the workshop, Felix was reclined in the hammock set up by the workbench, hanging all the way down from the catwalk. Changbin was preoccupied tuning up the four-wheeler. Someone, at some point, had written “PLACE FELIX HERE” in the middle of a circle on the cargo basket, the permanent marker ink shiny in the overhead lamps.

Just when you thought you’d slink by, letting the duo go about their business in peace, Felix’s smooth voice made you pause.

“You excited to go to the Station?”

When you turned back around, Changbin was chuckling and shaking his head. “You know it’s only folks who’ve never been that are excited to go,” he teased Felix.

The ranger’s giggle was deep, comforting despite being foreboding. He lazily kicked his feet where they hung over the side of the hammock. “Doesn’t mean she can’t be excited to dock tonight. She’s never been, after all.”

You hopped up to sit on the workbench. From here, you could see Felix looked a little bashful, maybe surprised that he and Changbin were back to bantering. But your confusion multiplied.

“Wait,” you shook your head, “tonight? I thought we were docking tomorrow!”

Felix and Changbin looked at each other, and then at you. The blonde pointed to another digital screen, like the one in the galley, this one on the wall by the door back out to the common area. Sure enough, the time and date had changed to Galactic Standard. The ship must’ve passed a Federation satellite at some point.

You were internally screaming, but you tried to remain calm on the outside. “Well,” you heavily sighed. “I’m not even sure what to expect at Sentury. All I know is the Station is huge and there’s some casinos.”

“Some casinos?!” Changbin roared out a laugh, popping his head out from where it was focused on the four-wheeler’s engine. “There’s dozens of casinos at Sentury, maybe even a hundred. You’ll find some of the best gambling of your life there.”

“It was our home base for a few months,” Felix clarified. “Some great nightlife there, if you’re into that. They don’t even follow a day-night cycle, so you’ll run into folks out having a good time or the worst night of their life at all hours.”

You somewhat recalled this, that Felix and Changbin were a team before joining Chan. Something about Changbin rigging slot machines and Felix shaking down tourists and high rollers.

“Well I’m excited to go,” Changbin snickered to himself. “Always something going on. We just have to finish prepping first.”

The urge to share everything that had gone down was nagging at you. Felix and Changbin were clearly experts on Sentury, but you were more than a little wary of how eager Changbin was to cause some ruckus, apparently.

“Do you need any help?” you cautiously asked. “Preparing, that is.”

A soft sigh could be heard from the hammock. “I still have to do inventory and secure the lockers,” Felix explained. “Anything bigger than a blaster needs to be deactivated or emptied before we disembark. I don’t think we need any help–”

“Or,” Changbin stiffly cut in, “maybe you could ask Nova to do the thing.”

“The thing?” you repeated.

Felix’s blonde head peeked out from the hammock. “Chan just asked if I could grab a trunk we nabbed from Floree Outpost out of the cargo hold. You don’t want to–”

“Sure!” you instantly nodded before you hopped off the workbench. “It’s no problem at all.” You could sense Changbin’s concern over Felix, and what could it hurt? There wasn’t anything to do before docking tonight.

You strode over to the mini-lift down to the cargo hold in the workshop, hearing your racing heart booming in your chest while you descended.

Tonight.

All this groundwork you wanted to do had to be done as soon as possible.

You punched the button for the lights when the lift hit the ground. The cargo hold was still an indecipherable mess in your eyes. If there was any method to the madness, you’d yet to find it. You entered the winding labyrinth of crates and boxes, trying to figure out what the hell you were looking for when you came across your old boots.

They smelled like your old apartment, something you never even considered to have a smell before.

What had it been, a week? A very long, exciting, terrifying week?

It felt like you’d been away from T’kaarm for decades.

“Looking for something?” came a voice, making you look up from the maze of cargo.

Hyunjin was leaning out of his cabin from under the stairs. You waved in greeting although you weren’t quite sure why, but Hyunjin waved back.

“A trunk? Apparently?” you asked. “From Floree Outpost?”

The appraiser nodded dutifully and made a bee-line down a path of crates. You could somewhat see him moving things out of the way, shuffling items around before he came up with a giant foot locker. The thing was gaudy, shiny magenta with gold curlicues decorating it and brass hardware. A large combo lock was on the side handle.

“Exciting,” Hyunjin laughed. “If Chan wants this, something interesting must be going on. Been hearing funny stuff about Sentury lately.”

There was that nagging feeling again, but just like with Changbin, Hyunjin came with his own risks. The appraiser was way too gossipy for your preference to ask for his help, even if he knew just about everything.

“You excited to go for the first time?” Hyunjin asked, leaning on a pile of crates.

“Er, I think so,” you waffled. “I hear there’s great night life.”

Hyunjin let out a guffaw, his laugh bright and airy. “Who told you that? Felix?”

You sheepishly nodded before Hyunjin walked back in the direction of his cabin, waving you over after him. “I love those two, him and Changbin.” Hyunjin picked up his tablet and typed something in before presenting it to you. On the screen were two mugshots: Felix, having the time of his life with a big grin on his face, and Changbin, quietly proud and giving a dazzling smolder for the camera.

Some time had clearly passed since then. Felix’s hair was a daring shade of blue, while Changbin’s was a cute chestnut brown. Felix even had some cute extra piercings and a large love bite on his throat, while Changbin was apparently hiding all sorts of tattoos under his long-sleeve shirts if the mugshot was anything to go by.

“Look at ‘em,” Hyunjin cooed. “Felix is blacklisted from practically half the clubs and bars in Sentury, and Changbin’s not even allowed on a casino floor. Any of them.”

“Shouldn’t they have made bank then?” you wondered out loud.

Hyunjin shook his head. “They didn’t hit all these establishments, mind you, they just created enough of a reputation to become a preemptive issue. Keep a close eye on them when we disembark, and if anyone asks where they are–”

“I don’t know anything,” you innocently raised your hands.

“Exactly,” praised Hyunjin while he looked at his wristwatch. “Now come on; it’s almost time for dinner.”

You spied the time he was looking at. “Dinner?! It was just breakfast!”

“A good crewmate is hungry when the clock says to be,” Hyunjin chided. “Much to learn, rookie.”

You sighed and returned to the trunk to haul it upstairs, fully prepared to drag it over to the lift before you realized that it was actually surprisingly light. It was difficult to figure out what was inside the foot locker; nothing was rattling inside. The most awkward part of getting it up to the common area was simply the size of the thing, trying to maneuver it up the tight staircase. You had to admit, you were still hungry.

Something smelled amazing when you got up to the galley, and you dropped the trunk by the booth before heading into the kitchen. It appeared that Jeongin was finishing getting everything set.

“Looks good, chef,” you complimented, peeking over his shoulder to the stew he had going on the stove.

“Thanks,” he humbly replied. “I’m getting more comfortable not having Felix right here to help me.”

You raised a curious eyebrow. “Didn’t do much cooking before this?”

Jeongin shook his head. “Never got a chance to learn, so Felix has been teaching me.”

“You’re doing great,” you reassured him.

“Excited to go to Sentury?” the cabin boy asked. “I’m a little nervous, honestly.”

“What?” you involuntarily laughed. “You’ve never been?!”

“No!” Jeongin laughed back, his eyes turning up into charming crescents. “Last time we passed through, Chan refused to let me go, ‘for my own good,’ he said.”

Internally, and although you’d never admit it, you commended the captain a little bit for that one.

“It’s funny,” Jeongin continued, “Lee told me something similar recently, like, when he was still in the brig. He said I should be getting off the ship and exploring as much as possible, also ‘for my own good’.”

“Is that what made you look for Jisung back on Phaborus?” you smirked. He simply nodded in return. “And were you nervous?”

“A little,” he admitted. “I know it makes me sound like a pussy, but just a little.”

“Nonsense,” you shook your head resolutely. “Doing shit when you’re nervous helps you to not be nervous the next time.”

The cabin boy smiled again, softening his sharp features, but the mention of Minho turned the wheels in your head. It felt a little selfish, but it was worth trying when you had a chance.

“Want help? I can take Minho’s food to him.”

“Sure!” Jeongin brightly agreed. “Gives me a chance to eat. Do you remember the combo?”

He asked as if you ever knew. When you shook your head, he dug in his pocket and fished out a keycard, just like the one Chan had given you. You tried not to squeal in excitement when you quickly fixed a bowl for Minho and rushed off.

Thoughts were racing through your head before you stumbled into the workshop, apparently interrupting something when you heard Felix curse from the loft. He and Changbin ducked down behind the couch, and you surreptitiously ran into the alcove between your and Minho’s cabins. You took a moment, though, pausing to make sure you had a game plan, a stance you were actually holding.

It sucked to think that Minho set you up.

Largely, you admitted to yourself, because the idea was ridiculous. In order for that to happen, Minho had to have made sure the ring not only made it to you in the first place, but that you would make it onto the ship. Yes, it was convenient that the crew got the lead, picked up Minho, and then picked you up, and you had it – but it was only that. Convenient. And conveniences did happen, you reminded yourself.

You beeped open Minho’s door to find him examining his stubble in the mirror again, but not the one on his closet door. He was sat on the windowsill. Someone, at some point, had not only brought Minho a change of clothes, but a hand mirror and a razor. He looked comfy and refreshed in some cargo pants and a hoodie.

“Remind me what you said about facial hair the other day?” you nonchalantly asked. You helped yourself to a bite of food from his bowl, marveling for a second that Jeongin did do a good job.

“Dunno,” Minho shrugged, “but I miss growing it. When was the last time that you saw a Marine with a beard?”

You shrugged back. Actually, you don’t think you’d ever seen a member of the Federation military with facial hair. Minho cleaned off his razor in a cup of water at his side.

“That’s because,” he continued, pulling the skin on his chin taut, “they neutralize the follicles on your face in orientation. Hurts like a motherfucker, but it’s supposed to enforce dress code. Takes some folks years to grow it reliably again. I’m still patchy as hell.”

You watched Minho shave for a little bit, lamenting that it maybe was somewhat attractive.

But you wanted to calm that relentless thought in your mind.

“Hey,” you bluntly changed the subject, “my Clessorian ring. Did you know about it before I came aboard? Like, did you know it was on T’kaarm?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Minho staunchly answered.

“Was it ever in your possession?”

Minho rinsed his razor in the water cup beside him and patted his chin dry with his hoodie. “Sure was,” he nodded. “You done eating my food?”

You swallowed your spoonful of stew before handing the bowl to him. “And what did you do with the ring?”

The bounty met your gaze but it was hard to read. “I got rid of it. Too much trouble. You excited to go to the Station?”

This was a satisfying enough answer for you. You walked back to the door. “Not really,” you shrugged.

“Smart girl,” he praised. “I knew I liked you.”

Minho was giving you an odd look. You pointed at the bowl in his hands. “Your food’s getting cold,” you told him, before you promptly left.

The loft was empty, the workshop was empty, and the galley was empty when you entered it. You scarfed down a quick bite to eat before you crept upstairs. The boys were all assembled in the back of the bridge, with the trunk from Floree Outpost at the center. Hyunjin, Changbin, and Felix were all squished together on the couch. Chan sat at his console. You could hear faint music from the nav office, implying Seungmin was busily at work inside. Mysteriously, Jeongin and Jisung were nowhere to be seen.

Beyond the front window, a gargantuan, revolving, metal mass of a space station could be seen in the distance. This had to be Sentury.

“Enough bullshit,” Changbin ribbed. “We finally get to see what’s in this thing?” The mechanic pointed at the trunk.

Meanwhile, Chan pointed at you.

“It’s for Nova,” he cryptically explained. He tried the combo once before he broke the cheap lock with his bionic hand. Inside the tacky trunk was a tangle of fabric, all shiny and satiny textiles. The captain pulled out a couple items, revealing them to be showy dresses, the kind you’d wear to nightclubs.

Well, not you, but the kind that you could wear.

Chan plonked the dresses into your hands. You scanned the room, confused, and caught Seungmin peeking from the nav office.

The crew were tittering and giggling. “So,” Hyunjin grinned, “it’s true about Sentury, then?”

“Is what true?!” you demanded.

The captain waved a dismissive hand at you, and then at the peanut gallery. “So we grabbed this trunk off a couple resort hostesses back on Floree Outpost,” he flippantly explained. “Pick one or two outfits you like, just to last you until you find something at the Station. And you’ll need to name an escort from the crew.”

“Excuse me?” you gawked, your arms limp in front of you.

“That’s new,” grumbled Changbin. He dug in his pocket, counted a couple credits, and placed them in Hyunjin’s waiting hand, having apparently lost some wager.

You spiked the dresses at Chan’s face. “Can someone tell me what the fuck is going on? What’s with the dresses? Why do I need an escort?!”

“It’s fine, babe,” Felix soothed you. You and Chan both turned to face him. “This happens sometimes with regime changes. Whoever runs the Entertainment Bureau gets to make the rules. One time, the Director was super into bikes so everyone was big on street racing for a bit, you know?”

“Okay, sure,” you huffed. “But what changed for there to be assigned escorts now?”

Chan mumbled something and you whipped around to look at him again. He met your eye and reluctantly began explaining. “From what I gather, the Director must have one hell of a crew of dancers or hostesses or something because ladies have preference on the Station. Their own security checkpoints, their own transports, their own reserved sections in bars, clubs, even casinos–”

“And still no decent shopping, I bet,” Felix complained. Changbin and Hyunjin nodded in agreement.

The captain shot the three a look, gaining their silence before continuing. “The escorts have been used before, when valuable cargo was moving through Sentury. It’s basically naming your one trusted contact. If you have this escort around, they’re permitted with you, no questions asked. If someone’s with you who isn’t your escort, they can be separated from you at any time.”

“And what if I don’t name one?” you asked.

“Apparently,” he began, “one will be assigned to you. From our crew or from the Station, I don’t know which. On the flip, I’ve actually heard of cases where an escort isn’t even named, but instead a crew member is indicted. Can you fucking imagine? Even a whole crew one time, holy shit.’

“Maybe they deserved it,” Felix shrugged.

The captain and the ranger began bickering while you regarded the dresses in the trunk. Not to be that person, but you never really had the occasion to dress up back home. You sneakily pawed through the trunk while the boys were busy arguing, sort of indulging and taking a look. One little number did catch your eye, a slinky, shimmery, champagne-hued dress.

“Is that the one?” Chan asked, almost warmly, but catching you off-guard nonetheless. “Try it on!”

“Now?” you whined.

“He has a point, love,” Changbin admitted. “Don’t want you looking frumpy when we disembark. We can make adjustments but we can’t do magic.”

“Fine,” you huffed, ready to turn heel down the stairs.

“Oh my god,” the captain grumbled, “just try it on here, you prude. None of us are looking, no one is gonna care.”

You were this close to tearing Chan a new asshole, breaking his knees based on principle alone… but he sort of had a point. He’d said you were part of the crew. The crew all lived in these tight quarters, seeing each other in various states of undress on regular occasions – why shouldn’t you act like part of the crew?

“Whatever,” you relented. “But if I hear one catcall, it’s gonna be a bloodbath.”

“Such big talk coming from you,” Hyunjin giggled, sliding off the couch and looking through the trunk himself. Changbin and Felix were reading something on the appraiser’s tablet. Chan even had his hands over his eyes, rich coming from the one man present who’d seen you naked.

Regardless, you were modest about it. You turned around, swiftly slipping off your shirt and pulling on the dress, finding just enough stretch in the fabric to fit around your shoulders and hug you around your waist. Then you tugged off your bottoms, yanking them over your sneakers. You turned back around, admitting to yourself that you felt really good in the garment – when you noticed Seungmin staring. His cheeks rouged immediately, his face going pink when he tried to look busy and not like he was just watching you change.

The boys all turned their attention to you when they no longer heard your clothes shuffling. Chan looked you up and down but didn’t say a word, while Felix and Changbin nodded their approval. Hyunjin, meanwhile, nudged your hip with a pair of high heels from where he was digging in the trunk. Once again, they were in your size despite never confirming it for him.

“Oh, no,” you refused, “I’m not ready for that.”

“Then practice, you maniac,” Chan complained, taking the heels from Hyunjin and pressing them into your hands. You scooped up your clothes from the floor. “Go practice, make sure you’re presentable, and pick an escort,” the captain directed.

You sighed hot into your chest as you defeatedly nodded, turning so you could head down the stairs.

This was a lot to take in all at once.

Just like you’d considered who to conspire on Jisung’s lead with, now you were wondering who to name as your escort. They’d have unquestioned permission to accompany you.

Did that mean you could force someone to help you?

Like… if you named Seungmin?

Or you could even indict someone, apparently.

Could you even… name Minho as your escort?

That’d probably make Chan snap. Hilarious.

A rush of footsteps in the stairwell startled you, and you turned to see Hyunjin jogging down to the galley. He held out an equally gaudy train case he must’ve found in the trunk.

“Chan, that idiot,” Hyunjin smirked, “he didn’t think to give you these.” He opened the case, revealing a mess of costume jewelry, hair clips, and makeup. He then produced a small clutch purse from under his arm and held it out in his other hand. “You’re going to look amazing. Don’t overthink it.”

The appraiser pushed the case into the growing pile in your hands before heading back down the stairs to his room in the cargo hold. You were left alone with a lot to figure out. Dazed, you walked back to your cabin, lost in thought – when you ran face first into Jisung, leaving his room. He looked particularly cozy today, with a tank top and some shorts, with a backwards baseball cap holding his fringe back. It was still taking some adjusting to see him without the eyepatch.

The pilot looked thoroughly caught, his eyes wide and his face paling, which interested you until his eyes shifted down from yours, down your collarbones and onto the dress.

“I, uhm,” you struggled to explain, “I have to name an escort.”

Jisung’s eyes lit up and he pumped his fist a little. “Fuck yes,” he cursed in celebration. “I fucking told Changbin. But… are you going to disembark? Like that?”

The look you gave must’ve been brutal with how Jisung clammed up. It didn’t help that, following your criteria, you were still pissed at him. “Er, I mean,” he babbled, reaching forward and brushing a tendril of your hair out of your face. “I just think you can do something nice, really look the part, you know?”

You continued to stare, confused. Jisung sighed helplessly and grabbed your elbow, herding you into his cabin and closing the door. He sat you down at his desk, where he had a small standing mirror that you could see yourself in. The pilot brushed his fingers through your hair, a bizarrely soothing sensation, and began parting it and sweeping your hair in different directions. When you were about to ask him what the hell he was up to, he pointed at the train case.

“What’s in there?”

Instead of answering, you simply clicked open the case and gestured for him to take a look. Jisung peered inside, stroking his chin, and then picked out a couple pins before grabbing a hairbrush. Now you could no longer hold back the question you were dying to ask.

“Jisung,” you pestered, reaching back and grabbing his hand, “what the fuck are you doing?”

“I dated a couple dancers before,” he shrugged. “You pick up a thing or two. And you deserve to look nice, don’t you think?”

Stunned wasn’t exactly the right word here, but it’s what came to mind. Jisung whipped your hair up into a casual updo with some loose tendrils framing your face, and then dug into the train case. He held up a few options before holding up two sets of simple earrings for you. When you picked the modest golden hoops, he grabbed a matching bracelet and slipped it on your wrist. You sat still when he applied some light makeup, adding just a little drama to your eyes and a hint of shimmering highlight.

It was ridiculous, how your heart skipped a beat when you looked in the mirror.

You reminded yourself to stay pissed at Jisung.

“Alright,” he nodded approvingly. “Now the heels.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” you stubbornly shook your head. “I haven’t worn heels in years–”

“It’s like riding a bike!” Jisung refuted. “Besides, look at these. Wide platform, ankle strap, chunky heel – you’re going to be perfectly fine. May I?”

You swallowed hard when Jisung knelt down and spun you in his desk chair so you were facing him. He pulled off your ratty sneakers and delicately slipped your right foot into the shoe before buckling the ankle strap, and then repeated the process with the left. Jisung’s gaze felt piercing when he looked up at you, and you caught yourself feeling all vulnerable again. He got up to his feet and stepped back.

“Well?” he asked. “Is it true? You can’t walk in heels?”

A small sigh escaped your lips before you got up.

You took a confident step forward–

But you over thought it. Your weight shifted weirdly, sending you stumbling over your own feet and into Jisung’s quick arms, where he awkwardly caught you but shifted you over so it looked more like he was dipping you during a waltz.

You blinked at him, haloed by the lamp in his room. “It’s too bad I’m still mad at you,” you joked halfheartedly, “because that was pretty smooth.”

“Yeah,” Jisung nodded, a little dazed. “It’s a good thing you’re still mad at me, because you look amazing.”

“Thanks,” you replied, trying to crack a lighthearted smile, “I just got my hair done.”

In a moment of terror, you realized that Jisung was leaning in towards you, and you pushed a hand into his face, smushing him back and off of you until you were properly standing up on your feet again.

You were both a little out of breath. “You, er,” you fumbled, “you didn’t formally pitch a plan to me yet, remember?”

“You’re right,” Jisung agreed, nodding and taking your hand in his. The tension was ballooning in your chest. “Can I talk to you?”

Your chin dipped in a weak nod while you leaned back to sit against Jisung’s desk, but he followed you, stepping between your knees. The following minutes were dead silent. Jisung tentatively kissed your cheek, which you permitted. He then brazenly slid his arms around your waist, and you gasped when he kissed your neck.

“I wanted to see if you’re interested in a plan of mine,” Jisung explained into your skin, his voice breathy and needy.

“Yeah?” you replied, way too into this already. Your breath hitched when his teeth grazed your pulse.

“I know a guy, at the place I mentioned, Sunrise Casino–”

“How many guys do you know?” you teased. Jisung’s fingertips pressed tough into your waist, despite his muffled chuckle.

“I know a guy, okay?” he repeated. “He just works a door, but he’s a guy. And I haven’t heard from him in weeks–”

Jisung exclaimed as you grabbed onto his tank top, reeling him in and kissing him properly. He melted into you then, spreading your knees so he could slide between them. His fingertips found their way down below your waist, and you hissed out a curse when you felt him tease his touch inside of you.

“Okay,” you breathlessly nodded while you pushed his shorts down under his erection, “so you haven’t heard from your guy. What then?”

You gasped into Jisung’s mouth when he kissed you again, his tongue hotly writhing against yours while he pulled his fingers out to massage the tip of his hard length against your entrance.

“What then, Jisung?” you repeated, teasing him to keep up with your little game. He sank into you then, pulling a full-bodied moan out of both of you.

“Then,” he groaned, “that means I have to rely on the one other guy I have at the moment, a jewelry dealer. He should have some direction for us to go and try to find the safety deposit box while we try to build some contacts on the inside, grease some palms and gather some intel– oh fuck–”

Jisung shuddered, getting a little distracted fucking you in earnest on his desk. He thrust into you hard, almost grinding his hips into you so he could really rub into your sweet spot. You kissed down his neck, sucking a little love bite into his collarbones. His eyes were squeezed shut, savoring the sensation of your walls enveloping his cock, and you reached up, cupping his face and encouraging him to watch you.

“Come on, tell me the rest,” you urged.

“Then, once we get a solid lead on the whereabouts of the payload,” Jisung panted, “we’ll have to decide if it’s smarter to go after it ourselves or try to make a deal–”

“That is the simplest, most run-of-the-mill plan I’ve ever heard,” you giggled, but cried out when Jisung kissed you hard again.

“It’s harder when I don’t have a guy, okay?” whined Jisung. “I gotta start all over again, do some groundwork–”

“Then I can help you,” you offered, whimpering when Jisung started pounding into you at just the right angle.

“Then I did it?” he asked eagerly. “You’re not pissed at me anymore?”

“No,” you shook your head, “I’m not pissed at you anymore, just make me cum, holy shit–”

Jisung nodded obediently, desperately grasping onto your hips and consistently thrusting into you at a steady enough rhythm. Almost risking ruining it, he sucked a thumb into his mouth before leaning you back and caressing your clit. You tensed then, grabbing onto his arm and crying out when you hit your climax. You were seeing spots, you finished so hard. Jisung came a moment afterwards, pulsing inside of you and practically collapsing, limp, on top of you where you were uncomfortably half-reclined on his desk.

The two of you took a minute to catch your breath, with Jisung’s lips buried in your neck and tickling you when he breathed. At some point, his ball cap fell off, and your hands ran through his hair and massaged the back of his neck.

“I guess that just means you need to name an escort then,” he mumbled against your skin.

Even though you were dazed, you still tried to consider this.

But you were still seeing spots.

Well, no you weren’t.

You saw a spot.

A light. On Jisung’s talk box by the door.

Someone was listening to you.

Your eyes widened in horror at this realization, but you kept this to yourself.

You were landing soon, and you needed to name an escort.

And some asshole was spying on your conversation.

You considered your options again. Jisung was an obvious choice, but it made sense to widen your resource pool. There was Seungmin, obviously. Even though he had business on the Station, maybe he’d actually help you if you named him. There was also Hyunjin, who was a clear wealth of knowledge despite being a gossip. You even humored the idea of naming Jeongin, who was green enough that you knew he’d help you with little to no arguing. Chan was an option as well, you supposed. He had skills and experience, and maybe naming him would help you keep a close eye on him. And there was Minho, obviously, a delightfully funny idea that’d stun you if it actually worked. Getting Minho’s help and getting him out of his cabin? Who knew what that would get you. And, of course, that left Felix and Changbin. A duo that already had a valuable reputation on Sentury, and knew the ins and outs better than the whole crew, most likely. Even though they’d hardly be able to accompany you anywhere, you considered that you could accompany them wherever you wanted. You wondered, for a brief moment, if you could name two escorts.

Sentury Station wasn’t too far off by now. All that you had left to do was choose who to name.

#straykidsland #neverendingdreams #stray kids smut #han jisung smut #han jisung x reader #ALWAYS CHECK THE TAGS 💕#this was such a fun season to write!!#i can't wait to start on next season there is SO much planned for Sentury #i just have a lot to take care of in the meantime #a couple series - some halloween prep yknow?#ANYWAY all these options are good but some of them are VERY good.#I trust you know which 😌#the author always craves chaos as you know #BUT maybe the funnest option 👀 includes not trying to keep someone from leaving #just saying OKAY LOVE YOU BYE

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moonjxsung · 2 months

Text

Reckless Convictions

Pairing: Han Jisung x fem reader

W/c: 31.5K

Warnings: masturbation, perversion, use of pet names, breast/nipple play, clitoral stimulation, unprotected sex, dry humping, trespassing, sex in a semi-public place (no one is around), fingering, cum eating, mention of cheating

Synopsis: Your senior year of college takes a strange turn when you develop a relationship with your professor.

18+. Mdni!

•

The first time you come across a coda in a piece of music, you are to ignore it. You may only jump to it once you’ve begun from the da segno symbol, and played through until reaching the written indication to return to the coda.

If we've passed the coda once, let this be our sign.

Come back to me.

•

Upon entering your senior year of college, the news is broken that the old lecture hall on the east side of campus is officially on its last leg as a functioning location for classes. You’re made aware of this through an email from the school’s president, detailing the intricate plans to demolish it entirely and build a new gymnasium in its place. And for the most part, the students are happy about this fact, whispering excitedly amongst themselves as they traverse the grand cherry wood flooring and picture all of the new sporting equipment this facility will soon house. They speak of the bright painted walls that will represent the school’s colors like every other new modern replacement for the old-fashioned buildings- cobalt blue and white, resembling that of a dentist’s office on most days. And they make sure to voice their very robust distaste for the spiral staircase that leads to the second floor of the lecture hall, the stairs always announcing the late arrival of students with the deafening creak of wood and a tarnished banister.

Yet as you hoist your bag further up your shoulder and follow a trail of students into the lecture hall for your first day back at classes, you can’t help but feel sorry for the old place, always having loved the courses you took here. A philosophy course one semester, where the ancient feel of the building only made stories of Greek myths more vivid as they graced your imagination. A writing course the semester after that, where your professor could hardly be bothered to properly read your essays, despite the attention to detail you gave to them. And now this course- the only remaining course with afternoon availability, something about the history of classical music.

One glance around the room tells you all you have to know about this course- it's full of students who couldn’t care less about courses pertaining to music, especially not general education ones for mindless credits. You reckon all of the students here would rather have landed art analysis, or even some form of a writing course, yet instead they’ll be stuck learning about Bach and Mozart for the next few months. Of course you’re not bothered by it, being a music major yourself, but it’s painfully evident in the way that they keep their faces glued to their cell phones and blow bubbles of gum as you wait for the arrival of the professor. The rows of chairs are fuller than you’d anticipated, groups of friends chatting amongst themselves, while those sitting alone are busy on their laptops or with headphones blasting muffled music.

You settle on a spot in the middle, away from most of the students already acquainted with each other, and cross your legs as you wait in silence. While the others groan about their courses and inquire about their remaining credits, you take in the sight of the lecture hall- it’s just as massive as you remember it from last semester, the ceiling housing patterned medallions and hanging pendant lamps that give a dim glow to the room. The seats are just as uncomfortable as you remember them, too, folding suede brown chairs that jerk violently if you move a little too much, and at the very bottom is a crescent-shaped desk and a tall podium reserved for the professor. It’s a little old, sure. And it smells like mothballs on most days- but it’s a shame to tear down someplace so historical like this.

Your course is set to start at three, and at almost five minutes past the mark, the students are visibly confused by the absence of a professor. You can hear them murmuring and speculating about canceled courses or retired professors, and it’s then that you realize you’re not even sure who the professor is. So you reach into your bag, pulling out your schedule for the one class you have today, and printed in bold black text to the right of the course name is the professor’s name.

Mr. Han, it reads, and you scan the name over a few times before shoving the paper back into your bag. You conclude he sounds like an older man, probably a little irritable toward students who couldn’t care less about music history. And he’s probably late to most of his classes like he is today, not bothering to be punctual for a group of students who will grow to despise him mere weeks into the semester.

A little past the ten minute mark, some students have begun to pack their belongings, ready to depart from the confines of the lecture hall and go inquire about why there’s no professor assigned to this course, maybe even beg for a switch of classes. And then, as though he can sense they’re making attempts at an escape, a man you can only assume to be the professor shoves past the double doors, a leather laptop case slung over his shoulder, making his way to the desk in rushed motions.

“Sorry, sorry,” he calls out, hoisting his bag over the desk and motioning for students to take their seats again.

“I apologize,” he reiterates, sighing deeply, hands tucked in his pockets as he glances around the room. It’s then that you notice he’s drenched, stringy black strands of his hair falling into his face, droplets of water speckled on the thin wireframe glasses that sit on his sharp nose.

And your second observation- he’s not old. In fact, he’s nothing close to the likes of the average professor- he’s attractive. Not just attractive- he’s alluring, captivating, like a model cut out from the thin pages of an editorial magazine. He’s tall, with a slim frame that contrasts his broad shoulders and sculpted biceps that protrude through the sleeves of his collared button up shirt. The white fabric clings around his broad chest so erotically, patches of dark gray rainwater conveniently providing you a better view, and his shirt is tucked into a tight pair of khaki slacks, hugging his toned thighs and leaving little to the imagination. He’s not even dressed provocatively, you mentally remark to yourself. He just looks like that.

All of this so perfectly complementing his flawlessly sculpted face, an angular jawline that clenches as he speaks, and plump pink lips that pull back to expose a pearly white and perfectly straight set of teeth. His pronounced nose bridge is made more attractive with his geeky pair of glasses, and those eyes- big and brown, framed by thick black eyelashes that flutter as he pulls off his glasses and wipes the lenses with the cuff of his sleeve.

“Lots of traffic when it rains,” he says sheepishly, pinching the frame of his glasses with two fingers and setting them so delicately back on his face. “It won’t happen again.”

And then he pulls his hands out of his pockets, leaning against the podium at the front of the room and taking a good look at the array of students.

“Welcome,” he announces, giving a small nod before continuing to speak. “My name is Professor Han. I’ll be your instructor for the duration of this course.”

He pulls back from the podium, shuffling through the leather bag on his desk and pulling out a stack of papers. The first student to the left is handed the stack, instructed to pass them to the back of the crowd as he explains it’s your course syllabus.

“Pretty much everything you need to know is listed here,” he says a little louder, as the room teems with echoing chatter. “I accept late work up to a week after it’s due, with a point subtracted every day it’s late. If you’re going to be later than 15 minutes, please don’t show at all. The stairs are too loud. Food and drinks are permitted, just don’t make a mess. And do whatever you want with phones and laptops, just shut off the sound.”

He paces back and forth as he speaks, his wet shoes squeaking along the tiled flooring as he does. He wears canvas sneakers with his fancy teaching attire, and he pulls them off remarkably well.

“A little bit about me,” he then says, and you perk up at his words, intrigued by just everything about his presence. “Been teaching here for about five years now, since I finished grad school. I love music, and I love music theory, so you’ll hear me talk about it a lot in between historical lectures. I teach three classes in total, all pertaining to music history, and in my free time, you can usually find me doing something related to music. Any questions?”

The class falls silent as his gaze scans the room, his curious eyes falling over the rows of seated figures who in reality, desperately want to ask him questions, but they’re also painfully shy in his presence. He gives a little nod as he takes note of their blank stares- and then his gaze falls momentarily over yours- staring directly into your paralyzed figure, almost as though he’s challenging you to ask him something, anything. But you don’t- you just remain seated, staring back at him, hoping the glowing blush on the tips of your ears doesn’t pick up under the dim lighting of the room.

“Okay,” says Professor Han, clasping his hands together and gesturing to the board behind him now. “Let’s see if I can figure out how to use this projector this time around.”

Lucky for you this semester, your schedule is sparse throughout the week, just a total of three classes on varying days. Which means you have ample free time to laze around your dorm when you’re not attending courses. Students make the most of their senior year, scoping out parties and sneaking out late at night to catch a movie or a quick bite- and you would join them, if you had people to join.

It’s not that you failed to make friends in the duration of your college career- in fact, you made solid efforts to befriend most of the people you came across, sometimes even allowing yourself to be dragged to a party and entertain mindless frat boys. But none of them stuck around, and you quickly realized they were much further from the simplicities you actually enjoy about college. Like the coffee shop on the second story of the student union, where the barista always adds a little too much caramel to your lattes. Or the windowed seat at the very back of the 8th story in the library, where when it rains, you can watch lines of people rush to their classes with hands over their heads and desperately clutching their umbrellas. Even your dorm room is a preferred spot for you, where you often find joy in curling up under your covers and getting lost in a good book. And although you’ve grown to love being alone, it’s a little jarring some nights, like the following Friday in your first week when almost everybody is out at a party, and the return to your dorm room is pitch quiet as you walk down the carpeted hallways. As you swing your door open, you gasp at the sight of your roommate, who’s not usually occupying her side of the room- not unless she needs something.

“Oh,” says Mina, as she places a stack of folded clothing into a large duffle bag and zips it up. “I didn’t know you’d be here today.”

You chuckle softly at her remark- of course you’d be here today. And the day after that, and the day after that… you’re always here. It’s Mina who seldom graces you with her presence, usually too busy at her boyfriend’s dorm or out with a group of friends.

“I’m here,” you say sheepishly, assuming your spot on the edge of your bed. Mina says nothing, raising her eyebrows a little and nodding, and you can tell she’s thinking about what a pathetic life you must lead.

You and Mina have never quite gotten along- not for reasons much more complicated than disagreements regarding her cleaning style or her boyfriend coming over unannounced. You’re simply from two separate worlds, and it’ll remain that way for the next few months until you graduate.

“I’m going to my boyfriend’s,” Mina announces unsurprisingly, hoisting the duffel bag over her shoulder. “I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Okay,” you say to her finally. “Have fun with Lucas. I’ll see you on Monday.”

She seems to roll her eyes as she makes her way out the door, not so much as a goodbye from her. And when the dorm is all to yourself again, you reach for the book on your shelf, one you’ve gotten halfway through since yesterday’s time spent alone, and curl up under the covers, the sound of gentle rain tapping on the window behind you.

By the time Monday rolls around, you’ve almost forgotten entirely who your course professors are.

It’s always taken you a few months to get situated with their lecture styles, and on occasion, even their names- but this semester in particular feels so unimportant. It’s your final one, after all, and while students talk excitedly about plans for the future and their graduation parties, the only thing you’re looking forward to is the physical degree you’ll get to leave here with.

Mondays are for your intermedia course, led by a professor who dismisses the class early almost every chance he gets. Wednesdays, you have another writing course, and you have to stop yourself from dozing off while students review their essays dissecting music theory during critique sessions. And Thursdays are spent in the old little lecture hall on the east side of campus with Professor Han. You’ve forgotten about him by the time your first official class with him rolls around, and you mentally scold yourself for dressing so casual in his presence when you remember how attractive he is.

When he saunters in, much earlier this time around, the students cease their chatter, and all eyes are on his handsome figure as he makes his way to the podium. He wears fitted slacks again, a knit sweater tucked into the belt that hugs his thin waist, and a collared white button down is visible at the neckline. His jet black hair is styled neatly out of his face to reveal his chiseled features, and his wireframe glasses are absent this time around, emphasizing the big brown eyes that peer back at his students.

“Good afternoon,” he says to the class, and they utter mumbled replies back at him.

“I hope you all had a good weekend,” he then remarks, pulling his laptop out of his bag plugging in a series of wires to set up the projector. The class remains quiet at this, not a single word from any of the students as they sip coffees and navigate their own laptops in hushed motions. Professor Han looks up at the class as his fingers hover over the mouse of his keyboard, his lips pulling into a grin, eyes forming little crescents as he lets out a soft chuckle.

“Come on guys,” he says dramatically. “Why are you so silent? You’re killing me.”

It’s the first time the classroom fills with laughter, and Professor Han seems to relax a little as he takes in the sight of smiling faces. He’s not quite sure he’ll ever get used to the silence that falls over college lectures, especially in the awkward first few weeks, when students are too scared to even look him straight in the eyes. And what Professor Han never quite grasps is that the students aren’t afraid of him- they’re intrigued by him, just the way that you are.

The girls wear full faces of makeup to a single 3pm lecture in hopes that he’ll take special notice of them, and the boys almost seem to mirror his dapper choices of clothing, trying their hand at knit crewnecks and slacks with canvas sneakers. Anybody who knows him concludes he’s just about one of the coolest professors around, yet he’s too consumed by his passion for music and theories of composers to take notice of anybody’s fascination for him.

And aside from that fact, he’s a professional at his job, only here for the purpose of lecturing and distributing course materials. He doesn’t make friends with other professors on campus, he doesn’t traverse these buildings when he doesn’t have to be here. And he certainly doesn’t care to know any of his students beyond the space of these four walls.

The projector starts up with a low hum, and a slideshow is promptly shone onto the wall across from you, a painting of some historical figure accompanying the title slide.

“I want to preface this lecture by saying that this particular composer is often deemed one of the greatest of his time, which is true for the Baroque period, and untrue in comparison to some of the other greats.”

There are stifled laughs from around the room as he makes his way to the screen at the top of the wall. As he transitions to a speech about the Baroque period, he reaches up to pull on the little string that dangles from the center, and your eyes can’t help but observe his lean figure as he does. The hem of his sweater is untucked from his slacks momentarily, revealing the small waist he flaunts beneath such a broad chest, and one hand reaches down promptly to cover himself again. It feels so wrong losing your focus from the lecture like this, your mind wandering places you know it shouldn’t be. Yet as he speaks, you can’t help but imagine what the rest of his chest must look like underneath the oversized knit that swallows his sculpted figure. Your eyes graze briefly over his navy slacks, ones that hug him so generously, and down to the stylish canvas sneakers he wears, the same ones he wore last time. They squeak along the tiled floor as he paces, hands gesturing passionately as he recounts the history of Johann Sebastian Bach, who you’ve only just realized this lecture is about.

“Not only was he a composer, but he was an organist, a harpsichordist and a violinist,” he explains, clicking the little remote in his hand and proceeding to the next slide. “He was a prolific part of the Baroque period, and he’s well-known today for some of his most famous instrumental and choral pieces.”

He paces the room confidently as he speaks, head down most of the time as he details accounts of Bach’s life, seemingly having memorized most of it.

“Does anybody happen to know any of his orchestral music? There’s one in particular he’s very famous for.”

The class falls silent again as Professor Han scans the room, pausing from clicking through slides as he awaits an answer. Nobody says anything, and all that fills the air are the sounds of keyboard clicking as they do their best to mindlessly copy his words. Without a second to properly think it over, and before you can even begin to doubt yourself, your hand is shot straight into the air, heart racing as his eyes fall to your seated figure, and then he gestures toward you, a small smile on his face.

“Yes!” he says enthusiastically. “Go ahead.”

“Brandenburg Concertos?” You voice quietly, a slight tremble in your voice as you speak. You’re not sure you’ve ever done adequate research on Bach- let alone any classical composer. But you are familiar with German history, and the Baroque period and the grand titles of symphonic pieces are still ingrained into your memory from years of piano lessons.

“That’s correct,” he replies, an amused breath escaping his lips as he speaks. His gaze lingers on yours for a second- just a brief second, not enough for the students to imply anything.

And Professor Han is admittedly fascinated by you himself, the question always marking the course as his first official question of the semester. One he’s never gotten the right answer to until now. In fact- one he’s never even had a student take a stab at answering until now. He’s well aware that no normal college student is going to have the Brandenburg Concertos in the back of their mind like the rest of the frivolous knowledge that dwells there, but perhaps he’s finally been assigned a student who gives the slightest shit about this course and its materials.

“Sorry- what was your name?” Professor Han then asks, the corner of his lip pulling into a half-smile before he proceeds with his lecture.

Students in front of you crane their necks to get a good look at you, and the peers on either side of you glance at the single sheet of notebook paper on your desk, scribbled with sparse notes in dark blue pen.

“Y/n,” you finally respond, your voice coming out more timid than you’d hoped it to. You feel microscopic with all eyes on you like this, quietly praying he’ll proceed with the lecture so that you can go back to admiring him from afar and in the comfortable silence of your thoughts.

“Y/n,” he repeats, giving a small nod, and then he finally transitions to the next slide.

Professor Han might not care to be on campus when he doesn’t have to- but that certainly doesn’t mean he’s generous about early dismissal when it comes to his courses. The analog clock above the doorway counts down the seconds before he finally dismisses his students- and even then, he’s not averse to keeping students a few minutes past to wrap up his lectures, either. While it’s a trait most students despise during their classes, not a single student utters a word of dismay when he requests just five minutes more of their time, their eyes still fixated on his pacing figure as he rushes through the remainder of his slides. He has a way of encapsulating a whole room when he speaks of ancient composers, like he’s meant to be up on a podium recounting Bach’s concertos. And the students soak up every last second they get to be in his presence, a sort of melancholia present in the room when they finally file out the door for the afternoon and back to their dorms.

When you find yourself lingering in the classroom a bit longer than the other students, completing the futile task of shifting around papers in your bag, Professor Han seems to take notice, glancing at you over the screen of his laptop and observing the way you shuffle about in the now silent room.

“Brandenburg Concertos, huh?” He calls out to you, and your gaze falls to him, where he’s seated at his desk, the familiar wireframe glasses now sitting upon the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah,” you respond, a little unsure of how to entertain the conversation without coming off as painfully awkward as you truly are.

Professor Han chuckles a little, and then he glances back to his laptop, typing something as he continues speaking.

“Nobody’s ever gotten that one right. In my five whole years of teaching.”

“Really?” You reply, thoroughly surprised nobody’s heard of the most famous orchestral pieces by one of the most significant composers.

“Nope,” he says plainly, shaking his head to affirm his answer. “Are you secretly a composer or something?”

It’s your turn to chuckle lightly, approaching his desk with your bag slung over your shoulder as you shake your head.

“Just years of piano,” you say to him.

“Piano? Very tricky instrument, it’s good to pick up when you’re still young.”

“I’ve been playing competitively for ten years,” you explain to him, heartbeat quickening a little as he lowers the screen of his laptop to make eye contact again.

“Wow,” he breathes out, thoroughly impressed by the fact. “I might have you teach a lecture or two, then.”

You chuckle in unison with him, shrugging as he pushes his glasses a little further up on his face.

“Convince them to put a piano in here and I’ll think about it,” you say to him. “I need a few course materials.”

“Deal,” he replies, narrowing his eyes a little as his lips pull into a smile, flashing you his perfect set of teeth. He glances around the room momentarily, and just as you think the conversation’s over, he sighs deeply, pushing back his laptop screen once more and continuing to type.

“Pity they’re tearing it down, though. A piano would have been a nice addition.”

It’s your turn to glance around the room, craning your neck up toward the tall medallion ceilings and elegantly crested walls. The room looks even more beautiful at this hour, rows upon rows of vacant brown chairs folded neatly back into their place, beams of afternoon sunlight streaming through the long glass windows on either side of the room.

“It is a shame,” you echo, grazing your fingertips along the smooth wooden finish of his desk. He seems to be lost in thought as he stares at his computer screen for a brief second, eyes glazed over as he remains silent. There’s not a sound in the room as he pauses his typing- no students remain in the hallways, no one taking notes in the stillness of the lecture hall. Just you and your professor, in silent thought about the unfortunate fate of the grand lecture hall.

“Maybe next year I’ll be teaching in a gymnasium,” he says finally, shooting you a sad smile and shrugging.

And then he winks at you- nothing romantic behind the gesture, just a brief blink of his left eye as he lets his gaze fall to yours.

And for the second time in the confines of this grand lecture hall, you pray the dim lighting doesn’t reveal the growing blush across your cheeks.

As the weeks pass, Professor Han’s lectures are stuck in your head like the piano melodies you’re so acquainted with. Beethoven Fidelio. Le nozze di Figaro. Adagio Cantabile.

The titles of famous composer pieces circle your mind like they’re suggestions by him, to you. And you like to think they are, when he’s slipping comments into his lectures about which pieces are his favorites, which are the most evocative and which ones he’s listened to the most.

The other students sit absentmindedly as he lectures, hearing the words he utters and writing notes like they’re translating his musical language to one they can comprehend. But they’re not listening to him- you’re certain they’ll never understand it the way that you do.

“Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake was my first piano recital piece,” you’d told him once after class. And the way his face lit up when you did, indulging you in a long list of reasons why he deems Tchaikovsky his favorite composer of the Romantic period.

“Only a genius could have produced 1812 Overture,” he said to you excitedly, throwing his head back in disbelief and slouching back in his swivel desk chair as he collected his thoughts.

“That’s the one he used real artillery as background noise in, right?” You had responded, a bright smile on your face as you spoke the common language only the two of you seemed to understand.

“And church bells!” He had responded excitedly, clasping his hands together as he recalled the booming melody.

And then he had played it for you- despite the two of you already knowing the piece very well. His slender fingers hovering over the keyboard of his laptop, searching for the overture he’s listened to almost daily in the duration of his career as a professor.

As a quiet stillness fell over the lecture hall following the departure of the last few students, the speakers echoed with the booming instrumentals of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture- the entire four minutes of the song. You watched in fascination as Professor Han gestured at his all favorite parts, waving his hand in the air to mirror the harsh eighth and sixteenth notes that span the intricate melody. Excited chuckles escaping his lips as the familiar sound of cannons could be heard in the background, followed by the lull of harmonious church bells.

It was then that he turned the music down a few notches, explaining how he helped teach this piece back when he still worked as a musical director. You recall the fleeting sadness that seemed to overtake him, his smile faltering a little as he seemed to think back to his time there. And when asked why he didn’t teach anymore, he had simply shrugged, failing to give you any sort of explanation for it. He just kept his gaze on his desk for a moment, snapping out of it seconds later, turning the volume up again and waving his hands in composing gestures as the song reached its end.

It was also the first time you recall feeling a little sorry for him, carefully observing the way these talks of music and composers seem to bring out a sort of sadness from within him. The dichotomy of him against the overtures he’s so drawn to- their booming crescendo notes and tempos noted allegro con brio, and yet when the lecture hall is empty and he’s all alone, he carries himself like a somber melody, beaming only with the mention of music and then shrinking like a diminuendo set of notes, dying down until a silence falls over the two of you again.

Some several weeks in, you’re certain the fascination is no longer rooted in lust, but simply a desire to speak this mutual language of music with him, the only time either of you ever really feel heard.

If someone were to tell you that you’d ever find interest between the pages of a course-assigned college textbook, you would have taken them for a complete liar. And yet you can’t help but find yourself engrossed in the textbook for this course, the thick red book taking complete precedence over the stack of unfinished books on your nightstand.

Weekends are spent flipping through the pages of quotes by famous composers, stories detailing their fast-paced lives and detailing all of their greatest accolades. You carefully study the music sheets, too, reading between the staff lines the same way you scan the plain text of the chapters. It comes to you easily, translating quarter notes to melodies you hum to yourself, reading key signatures like novel dedications.

And the book ignites a sort of spark in you again, reminding you of the days you still spend in front of the monochrome keys for hours, memorizing pieces and adding in your own annotations along the treble and bass.

So when Mina comes home one afternoon, desperate to borrow your textbook, you’re admittedly vexed by the request, reluctantly reaching into your bag to retrieve it for her.

“I didn’t know you had this course,” you say to her, wiping fingerprints off the matte cover and carefully handing it to her.

“Yeah, it’s the worst,” she says, making no effort to avoid transferring new fingerprints onto the cover as she stuffs it into her bag. “But the professor’s hot.”

And her mention of him is somehow vexing to you- of course she only sees the young, attractive professor he is, and not the sheer brilliance behind his lectures. Of course she doesn’t care to understand his background, his favorite historical pieces or take notice of the way he lightens up at the mention of his old days as a musical director. She’s just like the other students in your class- hearing him, but not really listening.

“Professor Han?” You inquire, knowing very well he’s the only professor who teaches that particular course.

“Yeah,” she says, reaching into her duffle bag and shuffling around for something. “Pretty sure he’s the only reason people still show up to that stupid class. I wonder if he goes for younger girls.”

She chuckles as she pulls out a tube of lipstick, uncapping it and reapplying the dark red tint to her pouty lips.

“I’m going to my boyfriend’s,” she then says to you, tucking the tube of lipstick back into her bag and pivoting to face you. “I can have your book back by Monday.”

“Could you have it back by early morning?” You say to her, voice almost cracking as you plead so desperately. “I really need it back before my quiz.”

You’ve already practically memorized the chapter you’re being quizzed on, but you’re always well-prepared for quizzes and tests in Professor Han’s course, reviewing the textbook a thousand times to earn the highest grade possible. You’d be ashamed to score any less than remarkable on his tests, feeling a need to prove to him that his course is something you take just as seriously as he does.

“I guess,” she says furrowing her brows a little at your desperation. “I’ll try to have my boyfriend drop it off before my class or something.”

“Tell Lucas it’s important,” you relay to her, as she keeps her gaze on yours. “I really need to pass this quiz.”

“I said I’ll try,” she emphasizes, making her way to the dorm with the same pink duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

And then she’s gone again, not so much as a wave goodbye as you’re left alone for the weekend.

By the time Monday rolls around, Mina is nowhere to be seen. She does this sometimes, spending entire weeks at her boyfriend’s apartment and ditching a long list of her classes.

Except along with the absence of your roommate, comes the absence of your textbook.

Lucas never shows on Monday to return your textbook, and Mina is completely MIA when you try to call or text. So by Thursday, you have no choice but to attempt your quiz without having read the textbook chapter a millionth time.

“Welcome, welcome,” Professor Han calls out as students take their seats. “Put your phones away and get out a pen or a pencil. We’ll start the quiz in a few minutes.”

You occupy the seat at the very front, where you always do now, and wait patiently as he digs around his bag for the stack of quizzes.

“This quiz covers all of chapter 7,” he says, passing along the stack of papers and instructing students to distribute them across the room. “You have 30 minutes from now. If you have questions, please raise your hand and I’ll come to you. Other than that, good luck.”

And the room falls silent as he makes his way back to his desk, the etching sound of pencils scribbling on paper as students begin their quizzes. You swallow nervously, scrawling your name across the top of the paper, and then let your gaze fall to the first question.

Name one the symphonic pieces Ludwig van Beethoven was famous for.

Your lips pull into a knowing smile as you pencil in a response with ease- Symphony No. 5, the same one you discoursed with Professor Han about just last week.

What time period defined Classical antiquity?

Between the 8th century BC and the 5th century AD, you write down quickly, moving on to the next question.

From his desk across from you, Professor Han glances over the screen of his laptop at your slouched figure, observing how you pencil in responses quicker than any of the other students, without even taking a moment to think over the answers. He smiles to himself a little, amused at the clear indication of the only music major in here, a clear liking for this subject the way he has, unlike the students rushing through his course for credits. His eyes fall back onto his laptop screen where he begins to work on an email, and yet before he can continue, you’re sauntering over to his desk with your quiz in hand.

“You’re finished already?” He inquires, lowering the top of his laptop to meet your gaze.

“Yes,” you say simply, sliding him the sheet of paper and giving him a little nod.

He grasps your quiz between his calloused fingers, and just like you assured him, every line is complete with a clear response in pencil.

“I can grade it right now since you’re the only one finished,” he asks, a challenging expression on his face as you stand confidently across him.

“Sure,” you say, gesturing to the paper as he retrieves a red pen from his bag.

You watch with bated breath as he scans the first question with the tip of his uncapped pen, giving a small nod as he then moves on to the next. The second question is the same, Professor Han looking it over and moving on to review the third now. Your heart beats wildly in your chest as he reviews your answers, despite being confident you’ve gotten at least the majority of them correct. Your gaze averts his seated figure as strands of his hair fall into his face, head hanging over your little sheet of paper as he checks and then double checks your responses.

“Yeah,” Professor Han finally says, sitting up straight once more and fidgeting with the red pen he neglected to even make use of. “It’s all right.”

He looks up at you with a curious expression, a kind of twinkle in the big eyes that are magnified by his geeky looking glasses. And his lips quiver with the intention to say something to you, but he can’t quite find the words. He’s simply taken aback by your skill, never having seen somebody share this similar level of knowledge regarding music history as he does. He wishes you would stay and discourse all your favorite pieces with him the way you normally do after his lectures, but the rest of the class remains quietly scribbling down their own answers, probably most of them incorrect like they usually are, and he can’t possibly request your presence for much longer in an unassuming fashion.

“You can leave early,” he whispers so as not to disturb the other test-takers, giving you a small nod as he slides the quiz into his bag.

“Really?”

“Yeah. That’s all I had planned for today. Just read chapters 8 and 9 for next class.”

You begin to pivot on your heel, excited to depart from class a little bit earlier today and hopefully catch up on other course work, despite this being your favorite class. But his words make you stop in your place, turning to face him once again and shrugging sheepishly.

“Professor, I…don’t have my textbook,” you say awkwardly, fiddling with the sleeve of your sweater as you speak. “My roommate borrowed it last Friday and I haven’t been able to get a hold of her. If there’s a PDF you know of, or maybe a library rental-”

He doesn’t let you finish before he’s reaching into his bag again, pulling out his own textbook and sliding it across the desk to you.

“Take mine with you,” he says confidently, giving you a thin-lipped smile. “Just remember to bring it back next week.”

“Are you sure?” You question, taking the thick book from his grasp and flipping it over to examine the cover. It looks a little different than yours, a varying colored font on the cover and much yellower, older pages, but it’s the exact same book as the one you’ve familiarized yourself with so well already.

“Positive. I think you’ll enjoy the next two chapters, too. Lots of piano stuff.”

He grins as he finishes, flashing you his signature toothy smile, and you feel your heart flutter at the fact that he’s even remembered you play the piano.

“I’ll tell you what I think,” you reply, tucking the book under your arm and smiling back at him. You hope that nobody behind you suspects why you’ve been standing at his desk for just a little too long, but you’re entranced by his presence in the silence of the room, wishing so badly you could stay and ask him about all of his favorite pieces like you normally do after class is dismissed. But you can’t be sure if they’ve taken notice, and you make your departure, anyway, giving Professor Han a small wave as you finally make your way out of the class and to the hallway.

Inside the lecture hall, Professor Han observes the remainder of the students working on their quizzes, not missing the way they visibly struggle to comprehend some of the questions or make guesses to material they should definitely know by now. And it’s a familiar sight to him, seeing his students disregard the course entirely and drag their feet just enough to pass the course.

You seem to be the only exception, though, thoroughly understanding and even enjoying the course material. And try as he might to brush off the thought of you, he can’t seem to, fascinated by the way you not only hear him, but listen to him, making his role on campus feel a little less futile- something he hasn’t felt in a long, long time.

His brows are furrowed as he works on his laptop, the room teeming with the scribbling noises of doubtful penciled-in answers by students on their quizzes and the subsequent erasing because they simply don’t know. But you know- you always know. Like the passing moments after class in which you indulge him in a fact about your journey as a music major, and he’ll often gift you with tales from his days as a prestigious symphonic director.

And you always send him off with a benevolent wave, tucking your hair behind your ear and sauntering out so gracefully, your short skirt flowing with your purposeful strides back to your dorm room.

Not that he’s taken notice of you, of course. Not that he sometimes prays you’ll be the last one out the room so that he can try to impress you with a fact about his musical knowledge or earn little anecdotes about your life he pieces together. That would be entirely inappropriate considering he’s a professor and you’re his student- and no fleeting amount of finally feeling listened to could change that fact.

Conversely, is he wrong to admit to himself that he’s fascinated by your musical knowledge? That the silence of the room is more unnerving when you’ve already gone home for the day?

Furthermore, that he doesn’t feel like such a loser when you beam at his stories and press him for more details about his musical career? Of course he can’t admit it to himself, because that would be entirely inappropriate- he’s a professor, and you’re just a student. But as he remains in front of his laptop, his eyes scanning the room at the students who are lost in thought- or lack of, rather, there’s only one empty seat in the front row. A seat typically occupied by your graceful presence, where you do your best to avoid making heavy eye contact, too, tucking strands of hair behind your ear and smiling at all his jokes. And inappropriate as it may be to admit it, he misses you when you’re not around- musical conversations, the sight of your delicate figure seated and paying attention to him and only him. Learning, listening.

The library is empty that same weekend, the gentle tap of rain on the window closest to you making for a peaceful ambiance as you settle on the velvet cushions of the vacant sofa. In your possession, a warm cup of coffee, as well as Professor Han’s textbook, held tightly in your grasp as you navigate to the inside cover.

Mr. Han, the inside hard cover reads, written neatly along the bolded black line. You smile to yourself, grazing the tips of your fingers along the black sharpie, imagining how he’d looked when he first penned it in. Probably the same way he does now, his big eyes blinking as he cocked his head in concentration and grasped the pen between his slender fingers.

You wonder briefly how old his book is- it appears much older than yours, the pages thin and worn like it’s something he’s utilized for a good while. Your fingers skim the smooth stack of pages before thumbing to the inside, landing on chapter 8 as he requested for this week’s reading assignment. And you smile as you do, taking careful note of the state of his book pages.

Surrounding the small black text, in disarray and almost indistinguishable in loopy blue penmanship, are his annotations, carefully analyzing the sentences as though he’s studied them a million times.

“Written at just five years old!” One sentence reads, underlining a sentence describing Mozart’s Minuet in G major. You can’t help but chuckle softly to yourself, fascinated at the fact that he annotates with the exact same level of enthusiasm he speaks of these pieces.

Another annotation specifies how Mozart’s music was tuned to 432 hertz, a frequency commonly associated with instilling a sense of peace and calmness within one’s body. And as you continue reading the bolded text of the chapter, his annotations provide a clearer image into the history of the composers, detailing minuscule facts about their lives and their music. They aren’t facts mentioned in the book, but rather ones he seemed to know based off memory alone, and you’re impressed he’s able to retain such a vast collection of information pertaining to the subjects. Some excerpts are simply marked with a “wow!” Or a series of exclamation points, and you find yourself endeared to how much of a clear liking he’s taken to the work of a textbook chapter.

As you skim a paragraph explaining the intricate work of Piano Sonata no. 12, his familiar blue annotation catches your eye again, except this time, it feels as though it transcends the page and speaks to you.

“Listen to this one,” it reads, underlined twice in blue pen. And for a moment, the thought overtakes you that he may be telling you to listen to it.

The sentence looks so intentional, almost begging for you to give into the simple request. The implication of underlining it not once, but twice, knowing he’s the only one reading this book. Except maybe he had intended to lend it to you, so that you might take the suggestion and listen to it like he had when he annotated it.

So without another second wasted on analyzing his intentions, you pull out your phone, popping in your earbuds and selecting Mozart’s Piano Sonata no.12 from a list of classical pieces. The piece is almost 20 minutes long, a fact which you find comfort in, knowing you get to think about Professor Han for the entirety of the 20 minutes you’re listening to his suggestion.

The notes begin short and vibrant, melting into one another with such fluidity and color. You shut your eyes to the flowing melody, letting yourself melt with the harmony and become one with Professor Han’s recommendation. And 30 seconds in, there’s a shift, from the joyful tune to a more rushed one, notes transitioning to staccato touches along the keyboard and picking up in pace. Like a gentle stride to a fast-paced sprint, similar to many of the tunes you lose yourself in completely while performing.

Then back to a gentler tune again, the pace slowing down once more and moving again in gentle strides. And just as you think it’s died down, the tune assumes both tempos- fast and then slow again, from a relaxed stroll to a purposeful sprint, in the direction of resolution and with every intention of taking your emotions for a wild ride in the process.

You scan the text again as you listen, indulging yourself in the complex history of Mozart’s experience writing the soulful piece, one he was presumed to have written in either Munich or whilst visiting Vienna. And you read Professor Han’s annotations in the process, heartbeat quickening as you allow yourself to imagine they’re all for you.

“This part is the best,” he annotates, referring to the melancholy movement that begins at nearly seven minutes in. It’s much slower, assuming a minor key and with little resolution at the end of every measure. Dragged-out half notes make up the majority of the piece which bewitches you, your mind racing with thoughts of Professor Han and his little inscriptions jotted down just for you.

The piece sounds a little like him- robust and enchanting, but with something more behind it all. Perhaps a story that’s dying to get out, a history he keeps tucked away in the back of his mind or even a secret he harbors. You think back to the way he gets when he speaks of his favorite pieces and his favorite composers- undoubtedly full of life and glowing with passion. And yet when questioned about his time directing, he’s quick to pull back again, shifting back into the professional composure he wears everyday, simply there to lecture from his memories alone and assign textbook pages as homework.

You’re not sure you’ve ever met somebody who mirrors your passion for music so well- like the two of you speak a language nobody else seems to comprehend. Even his annotations must look like gibberish to the masses, who probably wouldn’t bother to tune into Mozart’s Sonata no. 12 for the sole purpose of understanding him through it. Your alphabet transcends the English language- perhaps the two of you speak only in treble and bass, utilizing the eight notes available to you on a pin-straight staff and yet producing hundreds of thoughts in the process.

Ones that yearn to know him beyond the confines of a classroom, to understand who he was before all of this, before he was stuck in the old hall to the east of campus and made to preach to students who couldn’t give less of a shit about it all.

But you do- you always do.

And as the third movement begins at the 12-minute mark, the sounds of distressing melodies and ill-paced harmonies flooding your ears, you grasp a red pen in hand, leaning over his textbook and inscribing similar annotations to his.

“I love this one,” you scribble alongside his words, smiling to yourself as you converse on the thin pages of his old textbook. It doesn’t cross your mind once that your annotations will exist on the pages for eternity- in fact, you hope they do. You hope his message is received on the pages as much as they are by every inch of your yearning soul, that the bright red pen you wield contrasts so clearly against his blue marks and provides reciprocation to all of this passion.

“The third movement is my favorite,” you then note, scribbling something about the melody in juxtaposition to the evocative choice of tempo. And your annotations continue, and continue, all through the page, as though the book is yours and not something entirely borrowed.

The final paragraph is concluded by him with a simple sentence- one that critiques the lack of resolution.

“Discoordinate, fading notes,” it reads. “Feels like it’s missing something.”

And a bold decision it is, to make a record of Mozart having possibly forgotten something. But music is only reflective of your own emotions- perhaps it’s not Mozart forgetting something, but rather Professor Han feeling as though something’s missing. To you, the piece ends here- discoordinate fading notes that serve as the resolution. To Professor Han, there’s still something beyond those final few eighth notes, like the song isn’t reaching its full potential.

Beside his comment, one last penned-in annotation, one that you observe for a good while, reading it once, twice, and three times over as he practically offers a suggestion to Mozart himself.

“Coda?” It reads simply.

A coda- somewhat of an epilogue in music. It’s ignored the first time around- not really regarded by the musician until the da segno- to which a musician then plays until the indication to jump to the coda. And the coda serves as a resolution to the entire piece, typically a sonata, concluding with triumphant notes and the complete opposite of fading discoordination like Professor Han is so averse to.

You bring your red pen down to his comment, hovering the ballpoint tip over the paper for a moment, before making your final annotation along his pages.

A circle, with a cross in the center- a coda, a musical epilogue, an offer for resolution.

“Here’s your textbook,” Mina says casually when she finally returns that week, tossing it beside you on the bed and averting your gaze.

“Thanks,” you reply, entirely failing to confront her about having returned it a week later than you’d originally requested.

“I shouldn’t have even borrowed it,” she says with a frustrated huff. “I failed his stupid quiz.”

“Chapter 7?” You question, unsurprised by the admission to you.

“Yeah,” she replies, hoisting herself over her duvet and spreading her arms out behind her. “I don’t know a single person who’s passing that useless class.”

She keeps her gaze on the wall for a moment, and then she glances at you briefly, her expression unreadable as she speaks.

“Can’t believe I also have to waste my time at the stupid extra credit thing this week,” she announces, huffing as she concludes her speech.

You continue working on your laptop, not yet meeting her gaze as she rants, her legs dangling carelessly over the edge of the bed.

“What extra credit thing?”

Mina turns to look at you again, furrowing her brows together, almost in disbelief at your words.

“The extra credit thing Professor Han emailed about? There’s an exhibit at the art museum nearby for famous dead composers or something. If you turn in a ticket for proof you attended, you get like, 10 whole points or something.”

You stop typing on your laptop momentarily, glancing over the top of your screen to meet her gaze at last, a small smile tugging at your lips.

“This week?”

“Yeah,” she says, frowning slightly as you turn back to the computer. “You didn’t get the email about it?”

“I guess I didn’t,” you say to her, beginning to look up the event online. “I’ve been so busy.”

In reality, Professor Han’s email missed your inbox because you weren’t invited, consistently boasting an A in his class all semester. The extra credit is only intended for students like Mina, who are well on the route to failing his course without some form of extra credit. But to you, the event won’t serve as extra credit- it’s just an excuse to catch a glimpse of Professor Han again, maybe gain more insight into his favorite pieces and converse with him beyond the four walls of the lecture hall.

The rain is still coming down in sheets by the time your next lecture with Professor Han rolls around, the class much emptier than usual, most students opting to remain in the comfort of their dorm rooms. Professor Han produces a thought-provoking lecture on Mozart this time, conveying many of the works you read about in his textbook. And when his lecture concludes, he leans back against the podium, thanking all students who did attend today, an unspoken race against the clock unfolding as the two of you stall and wait for the rest of the students to clear out.

When the class is finally empty, he beckons for you with two fingers, remaining slouched against the podium and crossing his muscular arms out in front of him.

“I have your book,” you say to him, reaching into the bag slung around your shoulder.

He accepts it from your grasp, glancing at it briefly, before setting it down on his desk and folding his arms again. You want him to open it, to read your annotations and feel heard like the purpose your little scribbles are intended for. But he doesn’t- he just leaves it there, keeping his gaze on yours and remaining silent for a minute.

“What did you think of chapters 8 and 9?” He asks finally.

“Good stuff,” you say, giving him a shy nod. “I was familiar with a lot of it, but definitely still some new pieces I hadn’t heard of. I’ll try to get around to them when I can.”

Professor Han nods, and then you watch as he sprawls his hands out behind him, leaning back against the podium still and crossing his legs at the ankles.

“There’s an exhibit at the museum across the street later tonight,” he says, voice trembling a little as he speaks.

He’s not sure why he’s even bringing it up- maybe because he’s trying to keep the conversation course-related. It’s definitely not because he wants you to be there- a reckless way of thinking indeed.

“I know,” you say to him with a knowing smile. “I was wondering where my invite was for the extra credit.”

A breathy chuckle escapes his toothy grin as he holds his gaze on yours.

“You have a perfect score,” he replies in a low voice. “The extra credit is for people who are failing my class.”

“It can’t also be for art enthusiasts?” You retort, a teasing smile tugging at your lips. “Maybe I want to tour the dead composers gallery, too.”

Professor Han wants to entertain this- so, so badly. He wants to drop the professional act and flirt with you like you’re so clearly doing to him- but he can’t. You’re just a student, and it would be wrong to toy with the imbalance of power he holds over you. Still, there’s no reason you can’t also show to the exhibition, as a student who simply wants to partake in a walkthrough of the subject at hand. He can’t prohibit you from going, after all.

“I can’t give you any more credit,” Professor Han says with another breathy chuckle, cocking his head to look at you a little better. Your eyes sparkle as they stare back at him, a giddy smile plastered on your face and your hair tucked behind your ears between laughter as you meet his gaze again.

“But I can’t stop you from going, either.”

At this, he pivots on his heels, turning around to reach into the leather bag by his laptop. You watch curiously as he pulls out a small piece of paper, handing it to you and saying absolutely nothing.

But one glance at it tells you exactly what it is- a ticket to the exhibition, one that’s already been paid for. You remember Mina telling you she had purchased her ticket already, meaning this one was purchased for you- by Professor Han.

“Really?” You question with wide eyes, examining the ticket and then looking back at him with an excited smile.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Professor Han reiterates. “You asked for extra credit. And you bought that ticket yourself.”

At this, he cocks his head a little, and then he shoots you a wink the same way he did once before. Only this time, your heartbeat quickens at his actions, ones that seem to desperately seek out attention from you and even make attempts at getting closer to you.

“I wanted extra credit,” you repeat to him finally, shooting him a wink, too. “And I bought this ticket myself.”

The so-called “dead composer’s gallery” has been an extra credit assignment of Professor Han’s for all five years he’s been teaching. It’s hosted in the art museum right by campus, the same few paintings of composers he lectures about making the rotation every fall to tell stories of their lives and flaunt the work they produced. Students don’t typically care for it, showing up to walk the duration of the gallery in a rush, flashing their ticket to Professor Han and collecting an easy ten points so as not to repeat his class.

He’s aware of the fact that they don’t read a single one of the bronze plaques that detail the names of the composers, or that they audibly insult the paintings, despite Professor Han being within earshot of them in the quiet space that houses the art. But for him, it’s simply a way to avoid teaching the same set of students a second time. One semester of watching them drag their feet is enough, he’s always thought to himself.

Professor Han has walked the exhibit a plethora of times, thus he usually shows in a simple sweater and some jeans, and the students marvel at the sight of him dressed so casually unlike at his lectures. And despite the exhibit being no different than the last few years, he feels compelled to dress up for this visit, admiring his efforts in the mirror as he adjusts the collar of his white button-down and centers his tie.

Of course, deep down, he’ll never admit he’s dressed up for you tonight, his mind racing with the unprofessional thoughts that you might show up just for him. He’s usually a mere spectator at these exhibits, silently assuming a spot in the corner of the room as the students make their rounds and eye him nervously. He emphasizes the notion that asking questions is encouraged, or that the students are free to chat with him about their favorite paintings and apply them to his lectures. Yet they never do- they just pace the marble floors at an expeditious pace and send him off with the wave of their ticket, not a single painting having resonated with them in the process. Some of them even groan, or verbally complain about the task, as though Professor Han’s forced them here tonight, and not the near-failing grade so many of them are stuck with. As though he’s not doing them a favor by offering extra credit for such an easy task, and an enjoyable one at that- or at least to him.

Wet sneakers squeak along the marbled floors as the students make their rushed rounds, many of them accompanying groups of friends as they stifle laughter at the art and then make their departure with the flash of a ticket in Professor Han’s direction. He remains in the corner of the large gallery room, one hand shoved in the pocket of his black slacks, the other grasping a folded pamphlet as he skims the artist names and waits for students to approach, should they require his attention. Yet it’s a futile task, having been at the event for nearly two hours now as the students come and go.

Admittedly, and with all the profound guilt weighing deep in his chest, Professor Han can’t think about anything except for you, desperately scanning the halls and glancing at the doorway for the familiar sight of you sauntering in, a beaming smile on your face and purpose in every stride. The exhibit is near closing by this point, just a handful of students remaining as he glances around the room and watches them rush to finish touring the display.

And embarrassingly enough, he counts down the seconds on the silver wrist watch he wears, hoping maybe you’re just running late by chance.

As the little hands on his watch tick in seconds, and you’re still nowhere to be seen, the thought suddenly overtakes him that this is all so stupid. What is he thinking, waiting around for a student like this- one he teaches, and one he’s tried his best to avoid having non-platonic thoughts about? It's silly. Not to mention- wildly inappropriate.

As Professor Han gathers his canvas bag hoisted over a nearby bench, and sends the last handful of students off with a polite bow, a quick turn of the corner confirms his first theory.

“Hi,” you say to Professor Han, bowing to him and tucking a wet strand of hair out of your face. “Sorry, I was running a bit late. Lots of rain outside.”

Professor Han can’t help but hold your gaze momentarily, enchanted by the sight of you, despite coming to the conclusion that this is wrong. If it’s wrong, he’ll have to sort out the logistics some other time- because you standing in front of him like this, dressed much more elegantly than he’s ever seen you, a smile on your face and already glancing around at the gallery at the works of art- everything about this feels right.

“Hi,” he says back, a nervous exhale escaping his lips as he does. He silently prays you can’t tell that he’s been waiting around for this all evening, longing to see you just once tonight and maybe talk about musical composers the way he’s been dreaming of.

“Vivaldi?” You question, brushing your way past him to the giant painting across from you, depicting the famous composer in a red robe clutching his signature violin. “I’m assuming, by the violin.”

“Yeah,” Professor Han says, turning to face the painting, too. “Kind of a scary dude, isn’t he?”

Professor Han realizes you’re the first student to make a single comment about one of the paintings here- a fact he’s well endeared by, and simultaneously completely unsurprised by.

“Debatable,” you respond. “For his portfolio alone, sure. But if we’re talking looks, I think Brahms might win this one.”

Your eyes shift to the left of Vivaldi’s at the cold stare of Johannes Brahms, a long white beard and a sharp mustache framing his glaring eyes. Professor Han laughs lightly, and then he takes note of the way you cock your head at the bronze plaque, reading a detailed little account of Brahms and scanning the art as you do.

“Brahms wasn’t scary,” he finally says with a shrug of his shoulders. “He was actually really lonely.”

“Yeah?” You question back, observing the way he stares up at the painting.

“Yeah,” he affirms. “There was a long-standing rumor that he had a crush on pianist Clara Schumann- of course she was already married. Some think Clara may have cheated and secretly reciprocated feelings for Brahms, too- but regardless, he died alone.”

The space is quiet between you both, a sort of melancholia falling over you two as you piece together the story in your mind. You can’t help but imagine how lonely it must have been for Brahms, keeping his love for Clara a complete secret in the presence of her spouse. A love so strong and so unmoving that he chose to die alone rather than find a woman that served as replacement for the love he felt for Clara.

Your mind paints images of Brahms and Clara together, his gaze fixed on hers and so helplessly in love while she was wed to another man all along.

“That’s tragic,” you say finally, feeling a pit form in your chest. “What a lonely life it must’ve been.”

Professor Han seems to take note of your change in tone, perking up a little as he chimes in again.

“He still had his music,” he says to you. “And a very successful career.”

And your head cocks again at Brahms’ face across from you, a stoic expression in his eyes and his thin-lipped pout- almost as though he was hiding part of himself from the masses all along.

“But he didn’t have the one thing he wanted,” you finish telling him.

Professor Han says nothing, giving a small bow to the painting with his arms tucked behind his back. He searches for the words to say, ones that might comfort you in this pity you take on him. But he can’t, feeling as though you may be right.

Brahms had music, a successful career composing everything from Wiegenlied to Symphonies 1 and 3, a long list of credits and enough fortune to travel the world when he wasn’t producing excellency. But he never had Clara Schumann- a tragic unrequited love he took with him to the grave. Could the tender touches and kindred soul of a lover ever be replaced by half and eighth notes on a staff? By the wave of a baton in a sea of brass and wooden reeds? Was he happy, simultaneously getting everything he wanted and nothing he dreamed of?

Johannes Brahms never had Clara Schumann. And conversely, perhaps Professor Han will never get close to what he wants, either.

The dead composer’s gallery quickly proves to be a lot more tragic than you’d anticipated. The paintings are beautiful- grand golden crested frames that house detailed depictions of famous composers, wearing powdered wigs and fancy dress robes. And every stride to the next work of art is accompanied by Professor Han’s tragic, detailed account of their love lives.

“Tchaikovsky was gay during a time when it was highly illegal,” Professor Han explains. “He had a long list of gay lovers with whom he’d write romantic letters to, and he came under heavy scrutiny when it was made public- especially since he was already of a low social class.”

“Must’ve been terrifying,” you tell him, narrowing your eyes at the intense stare of his painted portrait. “What did he do?”

Professor Han is quiet for a moment, glancing over at you and parting his lips as though he’s going to say something. But he simply remains silent, staring back up at the painting and swallowing nervously.

It’s only when you glance over at him, raising your eyebrows a little in the direction of his looming figure and almost gesturing for him to continue, that he reluctantly provides an answer to your question.

“He married a student,” Professor Han says quietly.

And he understands very well what the implications are here, producing stories of instructors being romantically involved with their students, when he’s here with a student himself.

Here with you, the very same student he’s been waiting on all evening. The student he’s enjoying telling stories of composers and their romantic involvements to, and the same student he’ll find any excuse to spend more time with once the dead composers gallery is already closed for the night.

“They didn’t last, of course,” Professor Han then continues. “It was impulsive, and they were severely incompatible. Not to mention his heart already belonged to another.”

It’s your turn to get quiet, simply nodding at his words and piecing together tidbits of Tchaikovsky’s tragic romance.

“Professor,” you say to him suddenly, turning to face him with a small smile on your face. “How do you know so much about the romantic histories of famous composers, anyway? Is this part of your lecture style?”

Professor Han chuckles lightly in response, his eyes forming little crescents as his lips pull back into a big grin. He looks much happier here like this, compared to the way he carries himself during his teaching- more laid back, comfortable, even.

“I think you have to understand where they fell short in romance,” he says, maintaining the same warm smile on his face. “It’s where most of the passion, and pain alike, stemmed from in their pieces. The sheer intensity of some of the orchestral or symphonic pieces, they’re…” his voice trails off momentarily, observing a painting of Mozart on the wall in front of the two of you, whose story he hasn’t even indulged you in yet as the museum staff prepare to close for the evening. He tilts his head to one side, pondering his words briefly and giving a little nod before continuing.

“They’re all crafted from yearning in one way or another.”

The evening rainfall is torrential outside, the sidewalks almost empty as people seek shelter in the safety of their cars and apartments. Once you’ve both exited the museum, Professor Han remains under the concrete roof that spans the entrance, looking out at the glistening pavement roads that reflect with red and green traffic lighting.

“Are you parked on the street?” He asks hesitantly, his hands shoved in the pocket of his slacks as he awaits your reply.

“I walked here,” you say to him, a light chuckle escaping your lips. “My dorm’s just a few blocks away.”

His eyes widen at the admission, thinking back to where his car is parked, just around the corner in the museum’s designated parking garage. He debates offering you a ride, but he knows it’d be in his best interest to avoid being alone in a car with the one woman he so dangerously can’t stop thinking about.

“Do you need a ride?” He then asks, the words leaving his lips before he can even stop himself. It’s like he’s overtaken by another version of himself- one who can’t cease this little chase you’re indulging him in, too.

“I don’t want to burden you,” you respond, a sheepish smile on your face as you try to veil the fact that you’re elated he’s even offered.

One more chance to make things right- and yet there’s no discernible boundary between what feels right, and what is right.

“It’s not a burden,” he affirms. “It’s not safe to walk home in this rain.”

Your gaze meets his, a sort of triumphant smile pulling on your lips as he cocks his head in the direction of the parking garage. There’s no distinctive plan either of you have in mind, but you’re also drawn to each other, admittedly wanting nothing more than to find little excuses to put off your departure for the evening.

He begins in the direction of the garage without even waiting for verbal confirmation, and yet he doesn’t have to, because you’re already trailing alongside him like it’s been your plan all this time. You maintain a giddy smile on your face as you both brave the rain together beyond the concrete ceiling of the museum entrance, tucking your necks into your shoulders and laughing as the rain drenches your clothes completely, strands of hair falling into your face and dribbling rainwater down your glowing cheeks.

“It’s just past here!” he calls out over the deafening sounds of rainfall, squinting his eyes amidst the drops of water that weigh on his eyelashes and making out the faint outline of his car in the dimly lit parking garage.

You trail behind him as he gestures for you to follow, also catching a glimpse of his parked car in the garage, seemingly the only remaining one at this hour.

Professor Han opens the passenger door for you, stringy pieces of hair falling into his face as he gestures for you to get in. And you do without hesitation, smoothing down your skirt and occupying the sleek black leather seat. When the door is shut, there’s a brief silence that falls over you as he makes his way around to the driver’s side, and you catch a glimpse of yourself in the rearview mirror. Your makeup is a little smeared from the rain, wet hair slicked down and your clothes clinging to your figure with dampened spots. But for the first time in a long while, you look happy, finally making use of your time beyond the walls of your dorm room.

Professor Han slides into his seat at last, the door shutting promptly beside him, and he runs his slender fingers through the slick black strands of hair that fall into his face. You watch him curiously, heart racing at the sight of him so close to you, your bodies almost touching if not for the center console that so conveniently separates your yearning bodies. Drops of rainwater find purchase on his bent knees, further dampening his slacks as he wrings out his jet black hair over them. And he chuckles as he does, a little embarrassed he looks so disheveled in your presence.

When he hears you reciprocate with a gentle laugh, he turns to look at you, and it’s then that he realizes how dangerously close he is to you.

From this proximity, he can make out the spheres of rainwater that collect on your blushed cheeks, every last speck of mascara that collects under your eyelashes and flutters as you blink curiously at him. He can distinguish the lipstick you’ve strategically worn just for him, one that almost mirrors the natural pink shade of his pouty lips. He can feel the clear tension that bubbles over the center console as you lean in just a little, not enough to graze his mouth over yours, but certainly enough to feel the sharp breath that escapes his lips as he leans in, too.

And just as your eyes begin to shut, with every intention to kiss him right then and there, the sound of distant rainfall lessening as your rapid heartbeat fills your ears, he pulls back again.

“Sorry,” Professor Han remarks quietly, resting his hands on the steering wheel and shaking his head as though he's physically ridding himself of the urge to kiss you.

Your eyes open again, met with his trembling brown pupils that fixate on the dashboard in front of you both. And then he starts the car without another word, not yet backing out as he sits with his thoughts for a moment.

You desperately want to think he was going to kiss you, too, but you feel painfully stupid for being turned away like this in his car. Maybe it’s not how you’ve been reading into- maybe this is strictly a teacher-student relationship the way it’s supposed to be.

“Do you want to go back to your dorm?” He asks amidst the silence, not meeting your gaze. He’s scared he’ll get the urge to kiss you again, or that you might clock how nervous he is to be here with you.

You’re quiet for a moment, a little angry with things as you ponder the question. He’s not quite telling you to go home- but he isn’t asking you to stay, either. He’s just putting the ball in your court- both a safe, and a risky play at hand.

“No,” you voice finally.

He just nods at your response, clicking his tongue once and waiting for you to say something else. But you don’t- instead, you wait for him to say something else, too.

“Do you want to get out of the rain?” He then asks in a quiet voice, not specifying where that may imply. And although he doesn’t, you nod in agreement, meeting his gaze briefly as he reciprocates with an affirmative nod of his own.

Professor Han may have physically refuted the notion that kissing you in his car was anywhere near appropriate- and yet at this hour, the only place he can think to seek shelter from the rain with you is his apartment.

His apartment is nothing special at first glance, just your typical run-of-the-mill unit on the third floor of his building, but at a closer inspection, everything is exactly what you’d expect it to be.

Music sheets scattered along tables and couches, scribbled hastily with notes and annotations, much like his textbook was. A studio piano against the wall of his living room, the leather-seated bench that accompanies it stacked high with music theory books and more sheet music. The walls are decorated with rows of photographs, ones that you wish you could derive answers from, much like the dead composers gallery.

“Sorry for the mess,” he says sheepishly, peeling off his coat and draping it over the back of a chair.

Your arms are folded behind your back as you traverse the wooden floors as though this place is a museum, too. You relish in the sight of every decorative item, every sheet of music and every placement of his old-looking furniture, like it might give you more insight into exactly who Professor Han is. It’s just like he is- classic, enchanting, captivating.

“What are all these?” You ask him, pointing to a wall with a neat collage of photos.

At a closer inspection, you realize many of them include him, presumably from several years ago. He’s blonde in one of them, wearing a black pinstriped suit and a stylish pair of silver earrings. Another one shows him with midnight blue hair, the cool-toned hue contrasting rather beautifully against his tanned skin. His hair is still black in many of them, but he looks younger, dressed casually with a big smile plastered on his face.

And the most fascinating quality in all of them- he looks important. Like he’s a notable figure among the other subjects, usually standing in front of a podium or a music stand, sometimes with a baton grasped between his hands and raised in motion.

“Are these from your directing days?” You then ask, knowing the answer already.

It feels a little wrong to be seeing the photographs, almost as though they’re not supposed to be visible to just a student of his. They’re a glimpse into another life he’s lived- one you’re too late to be a part of. And more importantly, one he hasn’t seemed to be interested in talking about. You remember the times he’d brush off the mention of directing, change the subject or even just respond with an absent shrug. And yet standing in front of the proof it happened, you can’t help but probe for answers, feeling as though they might provide insight into who exactly he is underneath this pensive mask he wears.

“Those are from my directing days,” he confirms with a sad smile, making his way over to you and staring up at the wall. He examines one in which he’s in the middle of composing, stick held high in the air and a concentrated expression on his chiseled face.

“You look really cool,” you tell him, and he laughs lightly in response.

“Thank you,” he replies politely. “I always felt cool.”

You begin to tell him that he’s still cool, the way he captivates a whole room with lectures about famous composers and music theory he just knows offhandedly now. But you quickly get quiet again, not wanting to overstep any boundaries.

When you turn to face him again, you’re well aware of how close he is to you, droplets of rain still gliding down the bridge of his nose and onto the damp collar of his dress shirt. You also notice he’s wearing his glasses again, which remain the only dry part of his attire.

He seems to take notice of the heightened proximity for the second time today, too, making his way over to the couch and sitting on the edge of the velvet green cushions. But his gaze still remains fixed on yours, admiring the way you peer at his space.

“Professor, can I ask you something?” You say to him, approaching him cautiously, yet keeping a comfortable distance from him.

“Anything,” Professor Han replies, swallowing nervously and resting the palms of his hands flat on his knees. His long legs are draped over the edge of the couch, bent at the knees and spread so that he’s comfortably resting against the back of the cushion.

“You didn’t tell me about Mozart,” you say to him, twiddling your fingers in front of you. “What was Mozart’s love life like?”

Professor Han thinks it over momentarily, his eyes darting to the ceiling as he recalls Mozart’s romantic involvements. And it doesn’t take long, because it’s another tale he knows very well already.

“Well he lived with a family during his time in Vienna,” he explains. “They had a daughter named Constanze, who he took a particular liking to.”

You nod at his words, approaching him a little more now and observing the way he tenses a little, yet also noticing he makes zero effort to move away.

“His father didn’t approve,” Professor Han continues, eyeing the gentle sway of your skirt as you near him. “And yet when Mozart moved out, they maintained a relationship in secret.”

“A secret relationship?” You echo, and he nods affirmatively. “And then what happened?”

“Well,” he begins, dropping his hands to his sides as you stand right in front of him now. “Mozart wrote Constanze’s disapproving father a very famous letter. And they later married.”

“A letter?” You question. “Do you recall what was in the letter?”

You eye him from above, your thighs practically grazing his kneecaps as he remains seated in front of you.

And then in a painfully slow movement, all the while reminding yourself not to rush it, your hands find his, intertwining your fingers together and allowing you to pull yourself even closer to him, effectively slotting yourself between his knees. Professor Han’s breath hitches in his throat as you do, his heart racing wildly in his chest, pulsing reminders grazing his conscience that this is wrong. Yet juxtaposed against your delicate touches on his skin, and your curious eyes awaiting a resolution to his story, he can’t help himself.

“The letter?” He asks nervously, and you nod at him.

“Yeah. Do you remember it, by chance?”

Of course he remembers it- he could recite it in his sleep if he wanted to, every last word and emotion ingrained so deep within his soul as though its memorization was some requirement to work in a music-related field. But he hesitates to utter the words, knowing that if he does, they serve as permission for this- all of this, to indulge himself in all his reckless convictions right here with you.

“You don’t have to,” you say to him shyly, loosening your grasp on his fingers.

And you refer to both the utterance of Mozart’s letter, as well as the actions you know are bound to unfold if he does.

“No, I…” he interrupts, a sharp breath leaving his lips as he speaks. “I want to.”

A small smile tugs at your lips, tightening your grasp around his fingers once more, and then you wait for him to begin.

Professor Han takes a deep breath, some form of a prayer or maybe a beg for absolute forgiveness to a higher power racing his mind before he speaks again. And then, with all the weighing guilt in his heart, he begins to voice the letter back to you.

“I must make you better acquainted with the character of my dear Constanze,” he begins, finally allowing you to pull yourself onto his lap and steady yourself with two hands on his strong forearms.

“Keep talking,” you say to him, reaching out to tuck a strand of wet hair out of his face.

“Her whole beauty consists of two little black eyes and a pretty figure,” he continues, swallowing nervously at every tender touch you produce against his skin. His hands rest on the curves of your waist, delicately grazing up and down as you watch him curiously. Your legs bend to straddle him, skirt flowing over his black dress slacks and draping over the fabric of his crotch, where he can feel himself growing unbearably hard for you.

“Mhm,” you say, two hands now grazing the fabric of his silk black tie and loosening the knot at the collar.

“She likes to be neatly and cleanly dressed, but not smartly; and most things that a woman needs, she is able to make for herself.”

At this point, Professor Han’s tie is completely undone, your nimble fingers now undoing the buttons of his shirt and grazing fingertips along the exposed strip of his chest to you.

He pauses momentarily, eyes fluttering briskly as he relishes in the sensation of your skin against his. And then in one swift motion, your hands tug the fabric of his tie toward you, grazing your open mouth over his and pressing a short, chaste kiss to his pink lips.

He waits for more, but you don’t indulge him just yet, pulling away to stare into the swirling galaxies he houses in his big eyes.

And before he can finish reading the letter, you’re speaking again, putting out the same words he completely intended to produce.

“I love her, and she loves me with all her heart,” you say to him, finishing Mozart’s signature letter for him. “Tell me whether I could wish for a better wife.”

Professor Han says nothing, his eyes widened with shock for a moment as you toy with the fabric of his tie. He wasn’t expecting you to know the tale, let alone echo the letter back to him- one he’s had memorized for most of his life.

“Mozart’s letter to Constanze’s father,” you voice with a small shrug. “It’s always been one of my favorites.”

And Professor Han can’t take it anymore, finally allowing himself to pull you in by the small of your back, desperately gripping his fingers against the fabric of your shirt and locking his lips with yours once again. His kisses are purposeful, and needy, but he’s still gentle with you, guiding you further down the length of his legs until you’re sat right over his crotch. The two of you say nothing in between kisses for a good while, remaining like that and exchanging gasped breaths into each other’s mouths as his hands explore every inch of your still-clothed body. Your arms wrap around his neck, pulling him into you and arching your back into his touches. And when his hands graze the length of your skirt, tenderly stroking up the skin on your inner thighs, you chuckle lightly into his mouth, well amused by the actions as though you haven’t wanted it all this time, too.

“Is this okay?” He says nervously, pulling away momentarily to scan your expression.

“It’s more than okay,” you say to him, toying with his tie again. “I’ve wanted to do this so badly.”

Professor Han chuckles lightly, not wanting to admit he’s been thinking about it, too. Maybe externally you’ve already taken note of the way he stares at you as he speaks during lectures, or the way he eyes your short skirts when you assume your seat in his classroom. But you don’t know the nights he spends alone in his apartment, desperately fucking his fist to the thought of you bent over the podium in his lecture hall and filling the space with your erotic moans. Or the way he’s had to divert your gaze in class sometimes, lest he accidentally flaunts a hard-on for the whole class to see, because he knows his mind will run someplace it shouldn’t be.

He’s completely ridden with guilt, his sleep schedule almost nonexistent as he spends hours after he’s already tucked himself into bed, praying the universe won’t punish him for thinking about a student like this.

But he can’t help it- not when you saunter into his classroom so confidently every week, speaking of composers with the same level of admiration he shares, earning the highest grade possible and taking a genuine interest in his life. He’s almost angry at the reality of it, questioning constantly why you hadn't crossed paths before he became a teacher.

“Where were you during my college days?” Professor Han says out loud, a sort of disappointment evident on his face as he speaks. “I wish I’d known you earlier.”

You chuckle in response, one hand tangling in the back of his hair as you rub in gentle massaging motions.

“What’s wrong with right now?” You retort, trailing one finger over his plump lips.

“What’s wrong is that I’m your professor,” he emphasizes, scoffing lightly. “Everything about it is wrong.”

“I’m an adult,” you respond, pulling him in by his collar to work kisses down the column of his neck. “And I want this.”

“Yeah, but…” he begins, the guilt weighing heavily on him all over again.

“You don’t want this?” You then ask, pushing yourself off him briefly and holding eye contact with him. He looks as nervous as he always does when he’s near you, his eyes wide with fear and his timid movements conveying a clear reluctance to reciprocate the affection.

“I do want this,” he mutters sheepishly, knowing it’s also not in his best interest to lie to the woman he’s been leading on for several months now.

“I can leave,” you say to him finally, acknowledging how scared he sounds at the prospect of being here with you. “I won’t tell a single soul. It’ll be like it never happened.”

And Professor Han’s eyebrows arch up in an almost pleading motion, not verbally conveying anything, and yet telling you all that you need to know in the process.

Without saying anything back to him, you reach down to pinch the bridge of his wireframe glasses between your index finger and thumb. His glasses are fogged up, resting almost crookedly on his face when you pull them off, snapping the frame shut between your teeth and setting them on the couch beside you. You can hear Professor Han’s breath hitch in the back of his throat, nervously awaiting your next move and practically shifting total control over to you, who wastes no time reattaching your lips to his and humming into his mouth. He looks completely helpless under you like this, beads of sweat forming on his temples, indistinguishable against the rain droplets that still grace his attire. When you pull away, you examine his chest again briefly- the very same one you couldn’t seem to look away from on your first day of classes. His broad pectorals jut out against the thin white fabric of his button-down shirt, almost completely see-through all drenched in rainwater. And two buttons reveal his sharp clavicles to you, but you’re still just as eager to see the rest of him.

So in slow movements, you graze your hands down lower, snaking off his tie and discarding it alongside him with his glasses. Your nimble fingers work his buttons now, undoing them one by one, pulling open the hem of his shirt so that his chest is visible to you, and when the very last one is undone, you practically tear open both sides of his shirt, allowing the fabric to drape down over the couch and slouch off of his shoulders.

His waist is a sight to marvel at, delicate yet still muscular, made even more erotic in contrast with his broadened shoulders that span much wider than his hips. And your lips quickly find every curve of his chest, pressing a trail of kisses along his clavicles, up to the crook of his neck, down where his nipples protrude and along his shoulders, which tense up beneath your touch.

“Fuck,” he breathes, shutting his eyes in blissful pleasure as your kisses turn a little harsher, pulling his flesh between your teeth and sucking small bruises onto the raised goosebumps that grace every inch of him. You can feel him shift beneath you, trying his best to keep his now swollen cock at a distance from you, as though the act might be less incriminating if you can’t feel his physical yearning for you. And yet it’s enough for you to take notice, scooting closer to him with a smile on your face as you meet his lips once more.

When he feels you squeeze your thighs around his still-clothed cock just once, enough for the friction to emit a bead of precum from under his slacks, his hands find your waist again, tugging lightly at the fabric to signal you to remove it.

“Can I take this off?” he asks in a low voice, his eyes now hooded with lust, lips parted at the sight of your body practically grinding onto his.

You don’t reply, simply crossing two arms over your torso and pulling your shirt off over your head. It’s discarded along with the pile of other things, and then before he has to ask, your bra joins it beside him, too.

Professor Han feels as though he might finish right here at the sight of your breasts on display for him, your hardened nipples protruding generously with arousal and practically begging for his touch. He feels his mouth water with saliva, desperate to take you in his mouth, but somehow even with you straddling him like this, he’s too scared to make a move.

“Professor,” you say to him quietly.

“Hm?” He responds.

You say nothing back to him, blinking innocently down at him and waiting for him to act upon his urges. You know what it is that he wants so badly- and you want it, too. But you want it to feel as mutual as the yearning has, for some confirmation neither of you are manipulating the other into this. His eyes don’t leave your breasts, examining the way your chest rises and falls with every heavy breath as you wait for him. And then he meets your gaze again, a sharp breath escaping his lips as he does.

“Jisung,” he says, now chuckling lightly. His hands snake up your sides, rising higher, and higher, until they’re resting on the mounds of your breasts, not yet making contact with your hardened nipples.

“What?” You hum in response, a small smile on your lips as he watches you carefully.

“That’s my name,” he now says, leaning in to capture your lips in a kiss again. As he does, his hands move lower, until his slender fingers are sprawled out over your nipples. He doesn’t stop kissing you, moving his hands in gentle kneading motions over your breasts as his kisses turn more eager.

“You don’t have to call me professor,” he says in between kisses, hands now reaching around to pull you in closer, gripping your ass just as tenderly the way he did your breasts and desperately grazing your smooth flesh against his calloused fingers . “Just call me Jisung.”

As you smile into the kiss, he flips up your skirt, looping one finger into the hem of your panties and toying with it as he adjusts himself below you. He tugs at your panties just an inch, now transitioning his movements to find the buckle of his pants, metal clinking between your bodies as he unfastens it and snakes it out beside him.

You pull your own panties off as he unbuttons his slacks, awkwardly parting from you momentarily to rid himself of the still-drenched fabric. And then all that remains are his boxers, his erection pitching a tent against the constricting fabric as he resumes his kisses.

“Jisung,” you breathe into his mouth, earning a toothy grin from him against your parted lips. “I love it. I love your name.”

“You’re welcome to say it whenever you want,” he says back, running his hands along the small of your back.

“Just me?” You ask teasingly, tangling two hands in his ebony hair.

“Just you,” he emphasizes, grazing his fingers along your inner thighs. “Just like you’re the only one who scores a perfect on everything she does,” he continues, the pads of his fingers attaching to your clit.

“Just like you’re the only student I’d bring back here in the first place.”

Jisung’s fingers begin slow, circular motions on your bundle of nerves, earning a gasp from you as he dips once into your entrance to gather your wetness and spread it around again.

His mouth accumulates with a needy wad of drool, cock growing even harder at the sight of your eyebrows arched for him as you grind into the pads of his fingers and push him even harder against your flesh.

“Do you think about me often?” You ask him between labored breaths, tilting his chin up to meet your gaze. His eyes are wide with lust and curiosity alike, peering back at you so innocently, with every intention to pleasure you.

“I do,” he affirms, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips.

“What do you think about?” You now ask him, scooting even closer and allowing your chests to make contact as you wrap your arms around him.

“Those short little skirts you wear just for me,” he replies, smiling as he speaks. “They drive me insane.”

“That’s on purpose, you tell him, grazing your nails along the back of his neck. “What else?”

“Your stories of piano,” he then says, surprising you with his response. “It’s so sexy how talented you are.”

“Really?” You ask him, chuckling lightly as he kisses you once again. He nods affirmatively, dipping two fingers into your entrance with ease, just past your glistening folds, but not yet moving them inside of you.

And then he grows quiet for a moment, meeting your gaze with a serious expression, before he begins to pump his fingers slowly in and out of you as he speaks again.

“I touched myself to your book annotations,” he tells you, this time a smile absent from his chiseled face.

“My book annotations,” you repeat, and he cocks his head to look at you.

“All for me,” he continues, filling the ache between your legs with the gentle thrust of his fingers. “Were you trying to get my attention?”

“Depends,” you reply, clutching his shoulders and moving down the length of his fingers a little further.

“On what?”

“On whether yours were for me,” you say to him finally, clenching down around his digits.

He moves his thumb to stimulate your clit as he fucks you, earning a breathy moan as you struggle to speak now.

“Tell me what it was like,” you say to him breathlessly. “Describe it to me.”

“It was earlier today- just before the gallery,” he explains, cocking his head as your lips part in pleasure. “I never annotate in red. I knew instantly that it was you. Your handwriting- your words,” he continues. “I wasn’t expecting it- I’d hoped maybe you penned in a phone number or something.”

You chuckle lightly as he speaks, taking note of the way his fingers pick up the pace inside of you.

“You would’ve loved that, huh?” You retort. And his fingers now move inside of you in a ‘come hither’ motion as he resumes his actions.

“I would’ve loved that,” he groans. “Too bad all I had was your handwriting, and the thought of you in that skirt you wore today. And ten minutes alone with my right hand, praying you’d actually show up tonight.”

Jisung can’t cease his perverted confessions once they begin escaping his wet lips. In complete contrast to his reluctance earlier, his fingers now thrusting in and out of your sopping pussy with such force, spilling every little detail about how much he’s thought about you these past few months.

“God, I love your body,” he breathes against you, craning his neck to take your breast in his mouth. His mouth latches around your erect nipple, tongue swirling in circular motions as he hums helplessly. And you let out a fervent moan at the sensation, not missing the way his fingers prod into your squelching entrance, your thighs trembling as you near your finish.

“Jisung,” you gasp, tangling a hand in his hair and tugging him gently off of you. A string of drool connects his wet lips to your flesh as he meets your gaze, labored breaths grazing your skin, desperate to taste you again.

“What is it?” He coos back.

“I want to finish with you,” you say helplessly. And your hand reaches down between the two of you onto his still-clothed crotch, taking his girth between your hand and giving a light squeeze. He’s wet, as though he’s already finished once for you, and he whimpers powerlessly at the contact.

“Fuck,” he whimpers, shutting his eyes in pleasure at the sensation. “Fuck, touch it again, will you?”

You chuckle lightly in response, looping a finger into the hem of his boxers and tugging down.

“I can do a lot more than just touch you,” you tell him, allowing his fingers to depart from your entrance as you position yourself over him. He watches too as you tug his boxers over his crotch, his eyebrows arching in preemptive arousal as he feels the cool air graze his exposed flesh. And when his cock is finally free, growing erotically against the concave of his abdomen, you can’t help but gasp, completely in awe at the sight.

He’s much bigger than you’d anticipated, a thick girth lined with pink protruding veins and a generous length, his cock almost red at the tip and leaking with precum.

“Fuck,” Jisung says for a third time, feeling another bead drip down his length at the prospect of you watching.

“Is it okay if-”

Jisung doesn’t let you finish your sentence before he’s nodding eagerly, practically begging you to ride him. And you waste no time indulging him in the request, positioning your entrance over him and steadying yourself with two hands on his broad shoulders. He says nothing as he waits, his nails digging into the small of your back as he shuts his eyes, reveling in the sensation of your body so close to his. And then before he can meet your gaze again, you’re sliding down the slick of his length with complete ease, almost bottoming out fully as he opens his eyes again and whimpers loudly.

He’s already pulsating rhythmically inside of you, the tip of his cock kissing your walls as you move even lower, precum mixing with your wetness and producing a light sloshing sound as you begin to move up and down.

His eyes watch your pussy swallow him for a few motions, doing his best to stave off his orgasm as you pant at the sensation. You can feel him all the way in your stomach, filling you up so fully and deeply, labored breaths leaving your lips as his whimpers fill the room. And then you capture him in a wet kiss again, just barely grazing your lips over his as his voice rises in pitch.

“Shit, I can’t,” he whines, gripping your skin a little tighter. “I’m gonna cum so fast.”

“It’s okay,” you emphasize, clenching around his girth and smiling against him. “We have all night.”

The words make him twitch once inside of you, the thought of fucking you a second time making him dizzy with anticipation. Any fleeting thought that this might be a bad idea is completely dissipated from his mind, replaced with unwavering pleasure and his longing to fill you up the way he’s imagined for the better part of the semester now.

“Can I cum inside of you?” He groans, using two hands to move you down his length a little deeper, your clit grinding softly against his abdomen as he bottoms out inside of you. “Jesus, you feel so good.”

You nod in response to him, burying your head in the crook of his neck as he continues to help you, one finger stimulating your clit again as beads of sweat trickle down his forehead.

For a while, no one says anything, the only sounds present between the two of you being the gentle slosh of your juices around his girth and the helpless panting that bridges the gap between your bodies. Your moans and his whimpers are a lot like the discoordinate piano pieces he analyzes so deeply, fading in and out of pace and searching relentlessly for resolution.

And as you crescendo toward your release, you can’t help but take note of how right it feels to be here with him, consuming each other the way you pour yourself into your music, as he does his work. He had asked you earlier where you’d been all his college life- but you know you’re supposed to be together like this now, regardless of his relationship to you. Had he been ten, twenty years your senior, you wouldn’t care- it’s your souls that keep you intertwined like this, the way he sees you for your passions and your interests, beyond just the traditional sense of a student and a teacher. He’s so much more than that- he’s so much more than just a professor.

As Jisung reaches back to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, you feel yourself clench once around his pulsing girth, and then you let go entirely around him, grasping his broad chest as you breathe out his name like a prayer in the duration of your release.

“Jisung,” you moan against him, allowing his first name rather than his professional title to linger between your two listless bodies.

“Y/n,” he groans back, shutting his eyes briefly and arching up his eyebrows. And then as you tremble in exhaustion around him, legs aching from working yourself to your finish, he reaches his finish, too, shooting generous ropes of cum up inside of you and wrapping two arms around you to pull you closer to him.

He remains like that through his finish, his head finding purchase in the valley of your breasts, resting against the chest that rises and falls with deep breaths as his release dribbles down out of you.

And neither of you make any haste movements to get cleaned up just yet, allowing yourselves to remain pressed up against each other, hands tenderly caressing flesh and limbs tangled together.

In the midst of massaging his soft ebony locks, the pads of his fingers clinging tenaciously to your body, you can feel the presence of tears graze your chest, soft sniffles emitting from his flushed face against you. He weeps for you- for his guilt, for yearning, for the confirmation that he’s not better than his filthy conscience after all. And contrastly, because he knows he has all night to do it again, and again, and again.

By the morning, your bodies are sore and bruised, sunbeams absent through the giant glass windows of Jisung’s apartment as it continues to rain outside. There’s a chill in the air as thick clouds of fog caress the windows, and not even the layered duvet of Jisung’s bed is enough to warm your still-nude body.

You blink in a state of confusion around you, not realizing where you are momentarily. It’s not until you eye the stacks of music books, loose sheet music and picture frames that you recall last night’s events.

How many times had he fucked you- four, maybe five times? You can’t remember; you do remember he was good at it, switching back and forth between having his way with you, and then submitting to you again, letting you take the reins and ride him until you physically couldn’t anymore. As you sit up in bed, you catch a glimpse of him beside you, his bruised chest visible under the white duvet that drapes lazily over him and covers only his lower half.

He’s still asleep, lips parted innocently and his hair tousled around his chiseled face. He’s also in need of a shave, flaunting a generous patch of stubble on his chin. And you’re not sure he’s ever looked so tantalizing to you before.

When he hears you stirring about, his eyes flutter open, meeting your tired gaze and rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. He begins to say something, but then he gets quiet again, sighing deeply and shutting his eyes once more. You observe as his lips pull back into a sheepish grin, his straight teeth exposed as he chuckles lightly.

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” He says with a groan. And you simply shrug in response, lying back down beside him, resting one hand on your pillow as he turns over to face you.

It’s a little more real at this proximity, the fact that you’re in bed alongside your professor. But the point still stands- it doesn’t feel awkward, nor do you regret any part of what unfolded yesterday. It’s like something that was bound to happen- if not last night, it would’ve been a week from now, maybe two weeks- definitely not three considering how long you’ve been thinking about him.

Jisung swallows from across you, his hand tucked under his pillow, too, and he watches as you reach out to trace the mole he flaunts on his cheek. It’s not one you’ve had the pleasure of noticing until now- it’s really not one that can be noticed from the vast distance between a lecture chair and a podium. But beside him in his bed, you take notice of everything- the mole in his cheek, the flutter of his long lashes, the sheer guilt he still wears on his face.

“Come on,” Jisung says from beside you, cocking his head in the direction of his bedroom door. “I’ll make you coffee.”

“The blue hair was a bold choice,” you say to Jisung, gripping a warm mug of coffee in hand as you sit cross-legged on his wooden flooring.

You’re in nothing but one of his t-shirts, your hair still messy from last night’s events and lipstick staining the edge of the white mug he’s provided you with. He’s a little more put together this morning, despite canceling today’s classes, a white woolen cardigan enveloping his figure and gray sweatpants hung loosely around his toned legs.

“I dyed my hair a lot back then,” he says from his spot on the couch, staring up at the photograph you admire.

And for some reason, the utterance of “back then” makes you laugh, the way he speaks as though he’s twenty years older than he is. He’s really just six years beyond you, a gap that most would overlook had he not been a professor. And sure, he already boasts a master’s degree and years of experience, but it’s not as though you’re not on the same path yourself.

“Why did you stop?” You ask, turning to meet his tired gaze.

He sighs momentarily, bringing the mug up to his lips for a sip, and then he shrugs at you.

“It’s not professional,” he says plainly. “I had to look the part.”

You smile at him, shaking your head before responding.

“Not the hair,” you emphasize. “Directing. Why’d you stop directing?”

It’s the first time you’ve asked the question so boldly, despite pondering it for all the time you’ve known him. And his composure turns uncomfortable again, as though the question implies much more than it lets on.

“You don’t have to answer,” you say to him after a brief silence, feeling guilty for having overstepped. But Jisung shakes his head, furrowing his eyebrows before speaking again.

“It was eating me alive,” he explains, his gaze falling to a distant stack of books as he thinks back to his days as a director. “I couldn’t do anything else. I couldn’t focus on anything. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep- I wanted to be the best. I just wasn’t a very good person.”

You nod at his words- it’s a phenomenon you know very well already, being a music major yourself. The soul-crushing weight of turning everything into a competition, of bypassing your peers and losing loved ones along the way. You’re pretty sure your lack of friends in college can be largely attributed to the same thing.

“Well I think you’re a good person,” you say finally, but his gaze still doesn’t find yours. You can tell there’s more he wants to say- but he remains there, staring into the distance, pondering a lifetime of regret he’ll continue to take with him if he doesn’t at least try to address the hurt.

“I wasn’t,” is all he can say, earning another head shake from you.

“You can’t blame yourself for wanting to be good, Jisung. I’m sure you feel the same thing working as a professor. Besides, that doesn’t mean you can’t-”

“I was a lousy husband,” Jisung finally blurts out, and your eyes snap to his gaze again, finally making contact with his trembling eyes.

“Husband?” You echo, and he swallows nervously.

“I married so young,” Jisung tells you now, folding his legs on the couch in front of him. “I thought it was the right move, fresh out of college with a girl I’d been dating for four years. I had everything- a job, a wife, a sense of stability.”

You’re taken aback by the admission, never once having taken Jisung to be a formerly-married man. He is young, and aside from the sexual tension that’s risen between the two of you, he shows no interest in pursuing another partner.

“The divorce cost me everything,” Jisung says, his eyes glazing over again as he recounts the story. “I was responsible for somebody walking away from what they believed was a lifetime of stability. And she knew it, too, that I was lousy. She told me- her parents told me. I just wanted to be the best at my work. And it cost me everything. So I quit. And I opted for something that wouldn’t drive me crazy anymore.”

Jisung’s heart races wildly in his chest as he speaks, and then he’s hit with the realization that he’s venting to a student of his- one who shouldn’t be occupying his apartment in the first place. One he slept with several times last night- one who he feels oddly safe confiding in. But a student, nonetheless.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” Jisung finally says, furrowing his brows again. “I’m sorry- maybe you should go.”

You remain quiet, still sat on the floor, not even halfway finished with the cup of coffee he’s brewed. And he feels bad again, knowing it’s not fair to be taking his frustration out on you.

“Do you want me to leave?” You ask in a meek voice. Jisung chews the inside of his lip, meeting your gaze with a sorrowful expression. At first he shrugs, like he might indeed want you out of this space he calls home. But then he shakes his head sheepishly, shrinking back into the couch cushions and sighing heavily.

You’re not entirely sure what to say to him, not wanting to overstep any boundaries, but longing to keep him company. He just seems lonely, you can’t help but think to yourself. He’s so ridden with loneliness, and guilt and yearning for more.

“Jisung,” you say to him, setting your mug aside and folding your hands in your lap.

He meets your gaze again, a sort of heavy, exhausted expression on his face.

“Do you really think Mozart’s Sonata no. 12 is missing something?” You then ask him, referring to the annotations from his textbook.

He keeps his gaze set on yours, fascinated you’ve remembered his penned-in opinions on the aforementioned works from class. And then he nods lightly, humming a little in response to you.

“There’s no resolution,” Jisung huffs. “It just fades into nothingness.”

You nod back at him, sitting back on the palms of your hands and cocking your head slightly.

“That's a resolution to some listeners,” you say to him. “Maybe you just desire something beyond those last notes.”

His gaze flickers over your knowing expression, pondering the way you speak of the familiar tune.

“Maybe you ought to seek what a resolution is to you.”

“I think Professor Han is fucking somebody,” Mina says to you one day as she gets ready in front of the full-length mirror across from her bed.

“Why do you say that?” You retort with a small chuckle, your interest piqued at her words.

“Haven’t you noticed he cancels class a lot?” She replies, wiping a mascara smudge off from below her left eye. “He runs late all the time now, he just shows up in a t-shirt when he does lecture. And he just seems happier, overall. That’s every indication that he’s getting some action.”

You thumb the pages of your textbook- or rather, Professor Han’s textbook, red pen grasped between your fingers as you finish up an annotation.

An annotation you pen in just for him- responses to his music suggestions, comments about his analyses and flirting between the lines of music notes. The textbook is exchanged back and forth between the two of you, conversing secretly between the thin pages of music theory, producing poetry from a language only the two of you speak- by each other, and for each other.

Sometimes you imagine it the way Mozart and Constanze’s relationship unfolded- secret, but robust, full of passion and yearning for one another.

And when you tell Jisung about it later that week, he practically doubles over in laughter, eyes forming little crescents as the melodious tune of his “ha ha’s” fills the space between the two of you.

“I guess I never realized how presumptuous you students can be,” he says, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose.

He doesn’t seem worried in the slightest- at least not with this cautious system the two of you have developed to maintain the secrecy. You don’t linger in his classroom when lectures conclude, careful not to make it too obvious that you’re waiting around for him. Instead, you meet him at his apartment, just a few blocks away from campus and void of people who might piece together the reality of the situation, like Mina. It’s convenient that she doesn’t seem to suspect anything regarding why you’re always absent from your shared dorm now, considering she’s always at her boyfriend’s place, anyway. And although Jisung makes a mental promise to himself to stop canceling his evening classes so frequently, he can’t help it.

He’s just as drawn to you as you are to him, finding solace in the way he can finally confide in somebody after so long. Jisung thinks back to the way he handled the divorce so privately, quietly putting in his two weeks notice as a musical director and opting for a career path which didn’t take so much of his time and sanity.

He recalls the majority of his friends and family acknowledging what a lousy husband he’d been, and the feeling of knowing he’d made a colossal mistake agreeing to marry so young when he could hardly grasp what he even wanted further down the line. But to you, he’s just a work in progress- you’re still enchanted by the way his mistakes are rooted in sheer passion for his work. The way he lights up when he speaks of his old days as a director, the alluring poetry he produces for you between the pages of a course-assigned textbook. He’s so much more than his mistakes- he’s so much more than the evident loneliness, and guilt, and yearning he harbors.

And although the physical aspect is but a minuscule factor of the relationship, it’s still undeniably sweeping, as though it’s another language the two of you share in secrecy. Jisung had admitted once that he hadn’t even been with another woman following the divorce- a fact which you now know to be true, the way he fucks with such desperation, as though he’s going to lose you to the same careless mistakes as before. But he also understands that you’re different, and that you don’t apprehend him for any of his former mistakes.

He indulges you in tales of his days directing, one arm slung lazily around your waist as he holds you close and plays old films of the symphonic band in action. And it’s more captivating to watch him get lost in his work, the way his eyes glaze over as he watches himself on screen, the thin black baton waving around in rushed motions as the band plays. He wears elegant suits lined with brass buttons and expensive cufflinks, and the expression on his face when the on-screen symphony turns to him for direction- hundreds of eyes eagerly awaiting his next move, as though he controls them. Pairs of eyes who actually give a shit about the field of work- not just make an appearance for a grade. He grins ear to ear when you pry for more answers, and especially when you conflate the pieces to that of your own, mentally recalling your own piano sheet music. And when you deluge him in compliments, reminding him that he’s remarkable for all that he’s done, and he’s still remarkable- as a professor, and even following his divorce, he can’t help but grow hard at the affection, reveling in the robust support and the love he’s not sure he’s ever felt before you.

He’ll often make love to you right there on the sofa, symphonic pieces still playing faintly on the tv in the background, and he’ll do it again and again to convey the reminder that he’s grateful, and that no one has ever heard him the way that you do.

One month into the arrangement, Jisung texts you in a sheer panic, requesting you meet him in the east lecture hall. It’s extremely uncharacteristic of him to make efforts to meet in the one place you could get caught, but still you adhere to his request, throwing on a sweater and rushing out of your vacant dorm to the east side of campus.

The campus buildings are almost haunting at this hour, no more than two, maybe three students in sight under the dim glow of the lamps that line the concrete pathways. The building names are also completely indistinguishable at this hour amidst the sheer darkness, and the only sounds that can be heard are the distant chirp of crickets and the occasional roll of a skateboard. When you arrive at the grand hall, you quickly realize it’s no longer accessible, closed off by rows of fencer wire and shut off entirely from the rest of the school.

“It’s finally done for,” a voice says from beside you, and you know it to be Jisung’s before even turning to face him.

“Already? I thought construction was supposed to begin next semester, though.”

Jisung shakes his head, hands stuffed in his pockets as he exhales deeply.

“I got the email today,” he says in a frustrated tone. “Just some short thing about not delaying the project. They’re moving me to the tiny little hall around the corner.”

You take a moment to think over the hall he speaks of- it might as well be a mobile classroom with how small it is in size, just one narrow hallway that branches off into a line of 3 other rooms. The desks are reminiscent of those from your high school days, and you can’t remember the heating ever having worked during your time passing through, the hall constantly freezing when it rains.

“I didn’t even get a proper send-off,” he reiterates, his gaze not moving from the bright orange temporary fencing. “I would’ve taken a moment to appreciate it one last time.”

You think for a moment, taking a brief moment to glance around you at the eerily empty campus, and then you turn back to Jisung with a small shrug.

“Don’t you still have your keys?”

“Yeah,” he says, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. “But…”

Jisung doesn’t finish his sentence, instead pondering the suggestion as he keeps his gaze on the fencing. He knows it would be reckless, practically breaking into the old lecture hall like this to give it one last look, but he’s also overtaken with frustration and a longing for closure.

“I do have my old keys,” he says suddenly, glancing around the vacant buildings nearby, at the faint silhouettes of shadowy trees and dim streetlamps. You watch curiously as he runs a hand along the tip of the neon orange fence, pushing down to locate where it gives in a little. And just at the very end of it, it does, pulling down much further and lowering just enough so that it’s adequate to climb over. Jisung hoists himself over the fencing, his muscular arms steadying himself as he lifts one leg over the fence, followed by the other, and then grounds himself in the muddy grass on the other side. It's the first time you take notice that he’s in a simple pair of blue jeans, brushing mud off his toned thighs and then meeting your gaze again.

“Come on,” he says to you, nearing the fence again and holding a hand out, beckoning you to follow his lead. You don’t think twice before you’re mirroring his actions, hoisting your frame over the plastic fencing and planting two feet in the mud, Jisung helping you regain your balance with his calloused hands finding purchase on your waist and then interlocking his fingers with yours.

“I hope they haven’t changed the locks yet,” he says, leading you to the familiar grand entrance of the lecture hall. His keys are fished out of the pockets of his jeans, jingling softly as he twists his gold key into the lock, and then with an affirmative thud of the door being pushed open, he smiles to himself, beckoning for you to follow him inside.

The lecture hall is even more eerie than the campus is at this hour, not a single light illuminating the dark wooden floors that span the tower. The moonlit glow through the windows flashes with the gentle wave of trees that almost grazes against the glass panes, and you can’t quite distinguish where the gargantuan ceilings even end in this darkness. Jisung makes his way to the spiral staircase to the right of the room, craning his neck up to get a good view of the room, and then he beckons you again with the wave of his hand.

“They haven’t touched the stairs yet,” he says, beginning up the stairs with one hand cascading along the wooden banister. You follow behind him, the only sound echoing around the hall being the familiar loud creak of the stairs as you make your ascent. And for the first time, it’s a sound you realize you’re going to miss very dearly, never having realized it was something you took for granted all this time. The way these stairs obnoxiously announce your arrival when you’re late to class with a coffee in hand, or how the wooden steps boom in volume when students rush down them in hordes toward their next class. Although you’ll have graduated and moved on by then, the knowledge that everything is going to be different remains a jarring fact.

At the top of the stairs, it’s comforting to see that nothing looks different just yet, the podium still intact and rows of chairs folded neatly in their places. Jisung doesn’t make any move to turn on the lights, careful not to reveal that anyone’s broken into the old building, and he makes his way to the podium, staring out at the sea of vacant chairs that sit untouched amidst the darkness.

“I loved this room,” he says after a moment of silence, his voice laced with regret.

You span the perimeter behind the podium, grazing your hands along the old walls, recalling how many times you’d stared at them beyond Jisung’s pacing figure as he spoke of composers and musical theory.

When you make your way to the podium alongside him, mirroring the way he stares out at the empty seats, he glances at you briefly out of his peripheral vision. Jisung wonders if you can tell that the demolition of this room is so painfully metaphorical for him, like one final indication that he deserves no better than the confines of a dingy little room far away from this one. As though every time he feels he’s that much closer to redeeming himself following a nasty divorce, he’s shut out again, misplaced, suddenly right back to where he was five years ago. Misguided, lost, full of regret and a permanent yearning for resolution- one that never seems to come.

In fact, he’s pretty sure you’re the closest he’s ever gotten to one, when you’re assuring him that there is a life beyond the mistakes he made in his early 20s- that the curse of pondering his place here doesn’t have to define him entirely. And that there’s always still time- to love, to better himself, and to revisit the passion which once drove him mad.

It doesn’t mean it’s going to repeat itself, you had told him once. You could do it differently.

“I don’t think Mozart’s Sonata no. 12 needed a coda,” you say to him, breaking the deafening silence between you two in the vast empty space of the room.

Jisung finally turns to look at you, hands still stuffed in the pockets of his jeans as he replies.

“Why’s that?”

“It doesn’t need to repeat the entire first part,” you explain to him. “That part is emphasized enough. I think the listener should appreciate that it just ends where it ends.”

Jisung thinks over your words for a moment, not entirely sure why you’ve brought up the piece way back from chapter 8 of his lectures. And yet he nods in response, his breath hitching in the back of his throat a little when you turn to face him, too.

“I like that it’s a little unclear,” you finally say to him.

And this time he doesn’t respond- not with words at least, opting to pull you in for a gentle kiss, his hands working their way down the small of your back. His lips feel somber against yours, like he seeks to inhibit his sadness with the tender touch of your lips against his, pushing you back against the wooden podium and spinning you around to work kisses down your neck.

There are no words spoken between the two of you, just the vibration of small moans echoing from your lips as he sucks a hickey into your flesh, even though he knows he shouldn’t mark you. And yet he does, a physical reminder that you belong to him, and hopefully one to convey the notion that you’re the closest thing he’s ever gotten to resolution.

Jisung’s hands work your blouse open, his jeans pressing into you from behind, already rock-hard for you as his hands tug off your shirt. And he giggles against your flesh when you gasp at the cold air that grazes your skin.

“Jisung,” you say to him, your hands gripping the wood of the podium. “We probably shouldn’t do this here.”

It’s he who brushes off the lewd act, consoling you with the unzip of his jeans, his bulge pressing into your thigh as he continues to work kisses down your neck.

“We won’t get caught, baby,” he says as his fingers rub circles over your clothed core under the thin fabric of your skirt. “I promise.”

And then it’s you tugging your own panties down, allowing him full access to your wet cunt as the palm of his hand works you in rhythmic back and forth motions. He doesn’t even need to touch you- not when you’re already dripping for him. And yet he remains like that for several minutes, breathing heavily into the shell of your ear as your moans echo around the dark lecture hall, his cock only growing harder against you with every touch.

It’s undoubtedly arousing for him to look out at the classroom he’s lectured in for so many years, one he usually associates with nervous test-takers and monotonous speeches- and to watch the very same space be filled with your gasps of pleasure. His eyes scan over the very seat you occupy every week, recalling the times he’s fantasized about exactly this- touching you the way he knows you deserve to be touched and making you his in the forbidden confines of a classroom. Without so much as a word, his boxers are pulled down too, positioning you in front of him and allowing his fingers to wrap around the base of his leaky cock. He strokes himself just once, eyes shutting at the sensation of his tip brushing against your warm flesh. And then he prods into your entrance, tapping ever so gently as his other hand intertwines with yours.

You take him with complete ease, the way you always do when he’s fucking you this sweetly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze as indication to speed up his movements. But he doesn’t- he just maintains a steady pace inside of you, his hips smacking lightly against yours as he resumes wet kisses along your shoulder.

A million thoughts graze his mind as he fucks you- like the fading notes of Mozart’s Sonata no. 12, and how evidently his annotations referencing a coda have resonated with you. Or the tales of Mozart and Constanze’s secret love, of Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann and a lifetime of unrequited romance that never quite got its closure. Jisung thinks about the nights you two spend in his apartment, watching reruns of him directing symphonies, or mornings when he cancels class because all he can do is lie entangled with you and bask in the love you two share in the privacy of his home.

His mind also goes back to the divorce, a constant pain he carries with him, remembering all the ways he let other people down in efforts to focus on his career and his love of music. Nights he stayed out far too long annotating sheets of music, knowing very well that his wife was waiting up for him. Anniversaries he forgot, birthdays he failed to prioritize because music always came first. And consequently, begging his ex-wife to stay, knowing very well she had already made up her mind- that he was a lousy person, far too consumed by his career and incapable of loving the way she had.

Jisung’s movements pick up in pace as he thinks about the future of this old building- soon demolished into a pile of dust, the old walls crumbling despite the years of history pent up inside of it. Tests failed and lectures given, days he spent funneling that same passion into something entirely new, because directing was never the same once he understood what a neglectful husband he’d been. The walls to be painted blinding shades of cobalt blue and white, like a fucking dentist’s office, and not an inch of the building to suggest it had ever housed an appreciation for music, simply replaced by a basketball court and cold metal bleachers.

He also thinks about you, and how you made the semester far more tolerable, your beaming smile and your curiosity about not only music, but him, serving as a beacon of hope that perhaps this wasn’t all in vain. And your comforting words helping him understand that perhaps this isn’t what he wants after all, that this chapter of life may very well crumble along with this old building. Maybe this is the end, like resilient music notes approaching the finale of a symphonic piece- and he can either allow the fading discoordination to mark the finish- or take to the da segno, and start again.

Maybe a coda is sooner than he thinks- maybe resolution is closer than he thinks.

You’re well aware of Jisung’s now rapid movements inside of you, gasping at the sheer size of his swollen cock grazing your walls, your hand tightly gripping his and your mind wandering to where his currently lies.

But you can’t verbalize the curiosity- not when he’s interrupting you to tilt your face to his, planting a wet, open-mouthed kiss on your mouth and breathing desire back into you.

His fingers prod themselves into your mouth as he fucks you, murmuring little pleas to let him watch you taste yourself, his cock inserting in tandem with his fingers as he matches their pace. Your moans are stifled as your tongue swirls his fingers, eyes rolling to the back of your head as you let the pleasure overtake you.

And then he slides his fingers out for a moment, watching strings of saliva drip so erotically down your parted lips as you continue to take his cock obediently.

“I love you,” he says like it’s an epiphany. But it’s not- he reckons he’s known it for a long time now, almost scared at the intensity of his emotions for you. He’s not quite sure he loved his wife like this, and he’s not sure he knew he was even capable of loving again. In fact, Jisung only knows that he truly loved one thing in his lifetime- music. Music, and now you.

“How could I ever ask for a better woman?” He breathes against your skin, goosebumps rising as his words echo Mozart’s letter to Constanze’s father and echo in the vast, empty room.

Your reciprocation is muffled with the re-insertion of his fingers in your mouth as he reaches his finish inside of you, painting your walls with his release, holding you close and stimulating your clit again as he coaxes an orgasm out of you, too. And the finish is nowhere near fading, nor discoordinate, as the echoes of your moans reverberate off the walls and fill the emptiness with your passionate yearning for one another.

Da segno

Returning to the dorms to find Mina in her bed for once is a shock to you- especially considering she’s been speaking of a camping trip with her boyfriend for several weeks now.

At first you check your phone, briefly, thinking maybe you’ve gotten the date wrong. But you haven’t- it’s a Friday evening, the same evening you know she should be on route to her planned trip with Lucas.

She’s propped up in bed, carefully examining something when you make your way past her, eyebrows furrowed and deep in thought.

“Hey Mina,” you say to her cautiously, pulling your sweater up a little higher up on your neck.

She doesn’t reply, eyebrows still furrowed as she keeps her head down. And then she chuckles lightly, still not looking up at you.

“I feel like you’re out more than I am these days,” she says to you, and you can’t quite make out whether she’s being condescending or cordial with you.

“Yeah,” you reply nervously, sitting on the edge of your bed across from her and crossing your arms. “Just been trying to take more walks.”

Mina purses her lips, nodding, and then she exhales sharply before she speaks again.

“Lucas broke up with me,” she explains. But she doesn’t sound sad, or even angry- she simply relays the news with a straight face, not even glancing up to catch your shocked expression.

“He did?” You blurt out, feeling an overwhelming sense of sympathy for her- of course you don’t really care for Mina, but you also know how frequently she’s out with him, how highly she speaks of him and how in love she’s been with him for all the years they’ve been together.

“Yeah,” she reaffirms, sighing as she speaks. “He’d been cheating for several months. I’m over it now- I just thought I might get a head-start on this week's notes.”

You nod at her again, still aware she seems to be repressing something, far too casual for your liking and almost ready to lash out at any given second.

“That’s good,” you tell her, crossing your legs on the bed. “I’m really sorry. Let me know if you need anything-”

“I did find this week’s chapter to be particularly interesting,” she interrupts, slouching further back against the wall by her bed.

It’s your turn to furrow your brows, a little confused by her behavior, especially considering she hardly ever reads assigned textbook chapters.

“Listen to this,” Mina says, and then her lips pull into a wicked grin as she begins down the page, her voice laced with rancor.

“I must make you better acquainted with the character of my dear y/n,” she begins, and your heart all but stops in your chest.

It’s then that you notice the textbook in her grasp, the familiar old font and the yellowing of the pages- Professor Han’s textbook, the same one riddled with erotic poetry between the lines of music theory.

“Mina, please-” you begin, voice cracking, a futile task as she raises her voice and continues speaking.

“Her whole beauty consists of two sparkling eyes and a delicate figure,” she reads. “She likes to watch me direct symphonies, and she knows music theory like the back of her hand.”

Your heart races in your chest, mind swirling with fearful thoughts as she voices the familiar love letter back to you. Professor Han’s most recent addition to the textbook, derived from Mozart’s letter to Constanze’s father, and a written account of Jisung’s affection for you. A letter you’ve read over and over since he produced it, and the same one you so carelessly left lying open on your dorm bed in a rush to go see him at the lecture hall.

“She likes to hear the stories of famous composers and their romances, and she lets me make love to her as though she belongs to me,” Mina reads, her voice growing even louder as you now approach her. Your hands reach desperately for the book, which she holds away from your reach as she now stands up on her bed, her feet digging into the mattress as she steadies herself with one hand on the wall.

“Please, stop,” you beg, to no avail, as she then concludes the letter.

“Most things that a student neglects, she excels in. I love her and she loves me with all her being- tell me whether I could ask for a better woman.”

The room falls painfully quiet as she finishes, thumbing through the pages with a soft rustling sound.

“That’s just one,” she says, maintaining the same wicked expression on her face. “The book is full of them.”

And then she shuts the book, examining the cover, meeting your gaze as she assumes her position back down on the mattress and crosses her legs.

“This is the professor’s textbook, right? That’s why it looks a little different. I had wondered, when I first snatched it from your stuff.”

You stay quiet, your gaze falling to the floor as tears brim your eyes. You want to fight back, but in reality, the book serves as admission itself- there’s no denying it’s a letter from him, to you. It’s incriminating by his loopy cursive handwriting, the book she’s seen him wield so many times in the classroom during lectures and the way he speaks of making love to you.

“You’re fucking Professor Han?” She finally says aloud, and the words sting, although you’ve been expecting them.

“It’s not like that-”

“That’s why you’re doing so well in his class? While the rest of us bust our asses studying for his stupid quizzes? What do you even do, suck him off when nobody’s looking? How big is he?”

“Stop!” You exclaim, the tears now cascading down your flushed cheeks and gathering on your trembling chin.

Mina says nothing as she wears the same stupid smirk on her face, and then she tosses the book to you, which you grasp in your shaky hands. You hold it close to you, wishing so badly you could undo whatever it is she’s seen in the book, but you know that it’s far too late- the book is no longer a sacred little thing between you and Jisung.

“What do you want?” You say to her quietly, sniffling as you tuck the book under your duvet.

“What do I want?” She echoes.

“Yes,” you huff frustratedly. “Anything. Just please don’t tell the dean about this- or anyone, for that matter. I promise to do whatever it is that you ask, especially since-”

Your rambling comes to a sudden halt when Mina begins laughing, her hands clutching her stomach as she does, almost doubling over on the bed and kicking her feet with enthusiasm.

“Do you think I’m gonna blackmail you, or something?” She questions between laughter, meeting your gaze with tears in her eyes as she continues giggling between words.

“I always knew you were weird,” she remarks. “Not like, ‘fuck a professor’ weird. But it is weird that you think I’m gonna blackmail you.”

You don’t say anything to Mina, sitting on your bed again and sprawling one hand out to rest atop the book, which remains hidden under the duvet.

“You mean… you… won’t tell?”

“I’m impressed,” Mina replies, now lying on her side and propping her head up in her hand. “He is the hottest professor on campus. But no, I’m not going to tell anyone. Contrary to your belief, I really don’t care to ruin either of your lives. I have more important things to worry about.”

You sigh a heavy breath, relieved that Mina’s taken the high road and chosen to ignore the situation altogether. But you can’t cease the heavy weight it bears within you, one that fears not for your future, but for Professor Han’s. You know the majority wouldn’t believe it, the tale that this was a mutual thing between the two of you, that he’s just a pained divorcee, and you’re a lonely college student. To the masses, it would look like complete manipulation, Professor Han requiring a sexual relationship from you for an A in his course, and keeping the discrete flirting alive within the pages of his textbook. It’s more irresponsible on his end than it is yours- and although you both know it’s wrong, it still feels different. It still feels as though it’s rooted in yearning.

“I still need a textbook,” Mina says, breaking the silence between you two. “Like, for this week’s chapters.”

“Oh, right,” you say to her quietly, reaching inside your school bag for the correct book. You toss it to her without another word, observing the way she flips to the page she was on, and resumes reading as though nothing happened.

But her voice still replays in your head, reading aloud the sacred letter Professor Han produced for you within his textbook, one that never should have graced anybody else’s eyesight except your own.

And the tears resume as you watch her, a heavy guilt present as the words play in your mind again, and again, and again.

Jisung’s apartment doesn’t feel the way it normally does later that week- not when you’re first sauntering in with meek steps, being flooded by a barrage of questions about why you’ve skipped class for two weeks. And especially not when you finally recount the incident to Jisung, tears flooding your eyes and cascading down the deep gray bags that hammock under your lashes. The nights have been sleepless for all fourteen days, tossing and turning on your mattress about whether Mina is actually going to keep her promise about not telling. And she appears to, failing to acknowledge it whenever she’s in your presence, visibly still coping with the aftermath of her breakup. She simply comes and goes in casual strides, sometimes still borrowing your textbook from you and returning it far later than you care for, but it really doesn’t matter by this point. You’ve stopped reading the textbook entirely, coming to terms with the fact that you’ll have to rely on your own knowledge to pass any of the assignments distributed. And Jisung knows something is wrong when he finally does see you after two weeks, dressed loosely in a pair of sweatpants, your face flushed with tears and averting his gaze.

“You’re going to be so mad at me,” you emphasize to him, shielding the tears that fall from your trembling eyes with one hand, as he crouches on the floor in front of you and gives your hand a little squeeze.

And he’s adamant that nothing could make him hate you- that whatever it is you’re facing can be worked through, and that he’s going to stand by you regardless. Yet when you recount the incident to him, explaining the way Mina had read through his written confessions of sleeping with you and expressing his love for you, Jisung falls completely silent- a reaction which is somehow more scary to you than vexed words.

“Are you sure she knows it’s mine?” He asks, pulling away to stand in front of you. He feels much taller when he’s towering over you like this, pacing frantically along the wooden floorboards and chewing on the inside of his lip nervously.

“I’m sure,” you reply quietly. “She must’ve been reading it the entire time I was out. It has your name in it and everything.”

Jisung is quiet again, thinking over your words, and then he places his hands on his hips as he speaks again.

“Did she say anything else?” He inquires.

“She said that she wouldn’t tell anybody. As far as I know, she hasn’t. I just feel-”

“I’m never going to get it now,” he then says, running his hands through his hair nervously and glancing around the room.

“Get what?”

“Jesus,” he says, almost chuckling in disbelief. “I spent all this time interviewing, and if this gets out it could ruin everything.”

“Interviewing?” You echo meekly.

“Just when I thought I had it all again. I was so close to being back. Getting out of this shitty job and making a name for myself again.”

Jisung assumes a spot in one of the chairs across from you, burying his head in his hands and remaining silent. You want to ask him to clarify what he means by interviewing, but you’re also scared of him when he’s like this, knowing he’s reverting back to the version of himself who puts music above everything.

“You couldn’t just make something up?” Jisung then asks, scoffing lightly as he finally meets your gaze.

“What?”

“You couldn’t just fucking lie? Why on earth would you admit to it?”

“Lie?” You repeat to him with a shaky voice. “What did you want me to say?”

“Say I wasn’t interested in you,” Jisung retorts. “Say you were writing the letters to yourself. You’re putting my entire career at risk because you couldn’t be bothered to put my book away?”

You’re taken aback momentarily by Jisung’s words, hardly making sense of them at first. There’s no way he could be blaming you for this- not when he’s just as guilty as you are. In fact, Professor Han may be more guilty, acting upon his urges when he knows the power imbalance he wields over you- you’re just a student of his, nowhere near the status he upholds at this school. But as he continues prodding you for questions about why you hadn’t just lied, or made a bullshit excuse, or something, the message is conveyed loud and clear. He’s blaming you entirely for being found out.

“This is about directing,” you say when the realization hits you, almost laughing at the sheer absurdity of it.

“Of course it’s about directing,” he retorts, throwing his hands in the air and scoffing loudly. “I worked my ass off interviewing for one of the most prestigious roles a few hours out of here, I got an offer just yesterday, and now this is going to ruin everything. When they hear about the little fling I had, and they assume I coerced you into it, when you know damn well you led me on. And it’s going to be my divorce all over again.”

A silence falls over the room as you take in his words. You suddenly feel microscopic in his presence as the betrayal sets in, and for the first time since the arrangement, the discomfort of this being a student-teacher relationship washes over you.

“It’s not going to get out,” you say to him softly. “Mina hasn’t told anybody, and I’ll make sure it stays that way.”

Jisung gives a small nod at your words, and then he slides his hands into the pocket of his jeans.

“I hate that you don’t realize when you’re doing the same thing all over again,” you then say to him, averting his stern gaze.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why are we even doing this?” You continue, scoffing lightly. “Is this some sick way of reenacting the same mistakes you did before, and hoping for a different outcome? Now your directing days are just within reach again, and you’re doing the same thing, making your shortcoming’s everybody else’s fault except your own. I think you’re more afraid of not being able to relive your glory days than of losing anybody you love.”

“That’s not what this is, and you know that,” Jisung retorts. “You know how I feel about you.”

“Just admit that I’m a distraction because you miss your old life,” you continue, a little calmer now. “It’s the first time your career felt like it once did when you were directing, and in love, and I’m just some good fuck who takes genuine interest in your stories.”

“That’s not what I’m-”

“Do you ever imagine I’m her?” You ask him, meeting his concerned gaze. “When you’re fucking me in your bedroom? Do you ever imagine I’m your ex-wife waiting up for you the way she used to? Pretend you’re still a director and that you finally have everything you want?”

“That’s enough,” Jisung voices, and you shake your head at him.

“You might have been infatuated over some fleeting moment, seeing the face of your ex-wife whenever you looked at me. But I really, truly loved you. And she was right- you are a lousy person. You just can’t seem to understand when your interests take precedence over your emotions.”

Jisung is silent as his lip quivers in response, experiencing all over again what he did on the night his ex-wife left him. He’d always feared it would come back to haunt him- but not like this. Not through repeating the same mistakes all over again- just as he thought he finally found closure.

Like a musical piece with triumphant notes approaching an end, suddenly directing him right back to the symbol forcing repetition. It’s dizzying, and it’s painful, and he’s sure that a conclusion is far from his reach now.

Without another word, you pivot on your heel, gathering your bag and making your way toward his front door again.

“Y/n, please wait,” Jisung calls out, but he can’t find the words to clear his name of your accusations. Instead he remains quiet when you turn to face him, his shoulders sagging in a defeated manner as you shrug in his direction.

“I really think you ought to find what resolution means to you,” you say to him finally. “Repetition isn’t always it.”

The dingy old hallway within the radius of the old east lecture hall is indeed just as undesirable as you remembered it- it’s freezing cold when it rains outside, the students struggle to traverse the narrow hall as they brush against each other in passing and the classroom is nowhere near as enchanting as the grand room of the old hall. Made much worse are the stripes of cobalt blue and a blinding shade of white, which line every wall in the building, almost distracting as lectures are conveyed from the front of the room. The students maintain their same positioning as the lecture is given, typing on their laptops, the clicking sounds of keyboards much louder now at this close proximity of all the chairs to each other. And you don’t write down a single thing, staring at the stripes of blue and white on the walls, following their trail from one side of the room until they reach the hinges of the door, and then repeating the process over and over again.

Professor Han’s departure comes as a surprise to many, the students murmuring amongst themselves as they theorize what could cause such a sudden leave. He fought with the dean and quit. He has a terminal illness. He’s sleeping with a student.

Of course some of them come close to the truth, but they’ll never know for sure- not unless they’re one of the two people on campus who do know.

Mina makes an attempt to ask you about it at first, fiddling awkwardly with the pages of your textbook as she inquires about the status of your relationship. She proceeds to ask if you’d known he was leaving, but not before tears are streaming down your face, your words coming out between hiccupped sobs. And all that she’s able to coax out of you is the verbal confirmation that yes, you knew he was leaving, and no, nobody else found out about the arrangement.

Professor Han’s replacement is a shameful excuse for a lecturer, an older man who only knows as much as the textbook explains, and nothing beyond the printed text. He goes so far as to actively discourage questions, expressing his distaste for “wasting time”, yet the students are well aware it’s because he simply doesn’t have the answers they seek. Your classmates don’t care of course, their grades cushioned by the generous 20 points, instead of 10, which Professor Han opted to distribute for the dead composer’s gallery walkthrough as one final parting gift. And aside from one last email thanking the class for their participation in the duration of the few months he taught it, Professor Han promptly makes his departure from your life, too. Not so much as a thank you, an apology or even a love letter the way you know he once would have written, had he not been so consumed by a yearning for his old life. Just like his ex-wife, you’re shut out by him, made to feel as though reciprocated affection is somehow a selfish request. And maybe it is when it comes to Professor Han- maybe he’s truly just incapable of loving without the limitations of his work. Like the famous composers you learn of, he’s a genius in so many ways- just not in romance. And certainly not in learning from his mistakes.

On occasion, you write to him again, tearing out pages from old chapters in your textbook and scribbling along the vacant margins.

“The old lecture hall’s finally been torn down- all that remains are gray dust and pieces of the old stair banister. They’ve already built up part of the new gymnasium. If I look out the new classroom window, I can see them sampling paint swatches- all shades of blue and white, of course. The students miss you- the boys still dress like you, and the girls don’t even look up from their laptops when your replacement speaks. There’s nothing to look at, of course- not when you’re absent.

We finally reached Constanze’s short chapter in the textbook- chapter 14. Did you know she remarried after Mozart? There was no animosity between the two until his death- she spoke so highly of him until the end. We credit Constanze for many of his posthumous works. Ones that never would have seen the light of day without the respect she paid to him.

I think highly of you, too- I know you don’t know it, but I think back to your old videos, when you’d wave around that black baton of yours and lead symphonies. I understand the fear you harbored in letting all of that go.

You’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever met. I wish you hadn’t told me that you were falling in love, and I hope you’re doing terrible-”

Your red pen is set down promptly as you allow yourself to catch your breath, ceasing this unproductive flow of consciousness you spill onto the pages of your textbook. Many nights end this way, your thoughts poured out and then repressed once more, no method of delivering them to him, regardless. And although you want to reconnect with him, you have no way of actually doing so, even his apartment now vacant as he assumes his new role as a director a few hours out of town. It’s a jarring fact, coming to terms with the notion that you’re likely never going to see him again. But you know it’s his way of resolution- repeating the same process as before, hoping for a different outcome.

“You’re starting the tempo change too slow,” Jisung says with a heavy sigh, setting his baton down on the music stand and waving his hand. “Pick up from measure three, on your own this time. I’ll be back in five.”

The room fills with the discoordinate overlap of instruments practicing, woodwinds rotating their reeds and brass players emptying spit valves. Jisung makes his way past the double doors, shielding his eyes from the almost blinding rays of sunlight that glare down over the music hall at this hour. And then he leans against the same brick wall he always does when he’s this mentally exhausted, shutting his eyes momentarily and exhaling.

He’s directing again, conducting symphonic pieces he’s only ever dreamed of. His hair is two shades lighter than it was when he was teaching, his closet is filled to the brim with elegant blazers and he’s compiled a generous collection of gold and silver cufflinks the way he once used to. But something feels different- and it’s felt that way for months now.

Sometimes Jisung can’t recall if symphonies were always this arduous to lead. He’s almost certain he’s verbally noted the painfully slow tempo change to them about a trillion times, and yet every time the metronome is turned on, guiding them with the obnoxious repetitive click at 80 beats per minute, they’re too slow.

Slow enough for his mind to wander elsewhere- like whether they’ll ever have the chance to rehearse the final few bars of this piece. Or questioning if they actually respect him here, as a director, and not just as a replacement for a metronome when he’s not yelling at them.

And occasionally, as much as he hates to admit it, the thoughts involve you. His pride’s too far gone to admit he ruined things, and his ego would never let him find you and convey some form of an apology- especially not after begging someone to stay once long ago, to no avail. But his mind wanders to the image of you in the audience, observing him keenly with the same beaming smile on your face and a genuine interest in whatever it is he’s doing- whether it be conducting grand symphonies, lecturing facts he’s memorized like the back of his hand or even just recounting old tales alongside you.

In the pocket of his blazer lies the same pathetic scrap of paper he just can’t seem to let go of- and as he glances at the inching second hand on his wristwatch, he pulls it out again, carefully undoing it from its folded state and scanning the contents. Page 256 from his textbook, detailing Mozart’s Sonata no. 12, complete with his scribbled annotations, and yours, so perfectly complementing all of his remarks.

“Coda?” He had written along the margins- a little addition that stuck with you all that time. Every time you were tangled in his embrace, listening to stories of his days as a director, Jisung pressing little kisses to your forehead, you’d inquire about his need for a musical epilogue. One that you didn’t believe was necessary within the piece, feeling as though the repetition equated redundancy in this case. “I think the listener should just appreciate that it ends where it ends,” you’d told him once, a statement he disagreed with at the time, but one he finds himself thinking over a lot these days.

Perhaps you were so certain about the finale of Mozart’s Sonata no. 12 because you could appreciate every other measure of the piece. The triumphant swell of the crescendos that mark the introduction, the changes within tempo and the distinctly separate movements that complement each other with such force. Measures that Jisung seemed to neglect, always searching for something beyond the eight notes that make up the piece in its entirety. But maybe you were right all along, that sometimes a listener should simply appreciate where a piece ends- that there doesn’t need to be any form of repetition, or even the need for a coda. Maybe those fading, discoordinate notes are enough- maybe that’s a coda in itself.

The double doors swing open as Jisung takes careful note of the symbol you also tagged at the bottom of the page, an oval with a cross through the center, a coda- an offer for resolution.

“Jisung?” Somebody asks, and he glances up to catch the gaze of who he remembers to be a third chair woodwind player.

“We practiced measure three again,” he says cautiously. “Could you… have a listen one more time?”

Jisung sighs, tucking the folded piece of paper back into his blazer and glancing beyond the student through the double doors. The music hall is dark inside, despite it being the middle of the day, the navy blue carpeting and the tinted windows completely obscuring the beauty of the world beyond the four walls. And then he looks the other direction, at the clear blue skies and the bustling roads, where the people don’t look back the way he’s done for so long.

“Sir?” The student asks again, twiddling his fingers together in front of his collared shirt.

“Not now. I’m leaving early today,” Jisung says, buttoning his blazer closed and giving the student a small nod. “Practice measure three until it’s perfected for next time.”

And then he begins toward his car, taking purposeful strides with a plan he hasn’t even conjured up yet, only knowing he has to keep looking forward if he wants any sort of resolution to all of this.

“And for god’s sake,” Jisung then calls out suddenly, stopping in his tracks to convey the message clearly.

“Get the tempo right, next time, will you? I’m tired of hearing the same thing over and over again.”

Coda

The evening of some important date in December is marked by the particularly frosty air, your dorm window fogged up with a sheet of ice and the halls much too cold to traverse without generous layers of clothing.

The remaining students here walk up and down the length of the hallways with cardboard boxes balanced in their arms, talking excitedly amongst themselves about plans for graduation parties and post-college life. And you can’t seem to part with the comfortable atmosphere of your dorm bed, neglecting your own stack of boxes as Mina makes her way in and out of the shared dorm room you’ve gotten so accustomed to.

“Are you using that box?” She asks, loudly sealing one with packing tape and setting it on top of another.

“No,” you say plainly. “It’s all yours.”

She takes careful notice of the way you remain draped over the bed, eyes glued to the ceiling as you think back to the last of your college days. A formal graduation in a week, which you’ve already opted out of. A series of parties even Mina tried to drag you to, every invitation promptly declined. And a prestigious internship in the city waiting for you come springtime, where you’ll be right back to appreciating the intricacies of music theory and piano.

Everything should feel as though it’s falling into place- and yet it doesn’t. It feels different- and it’s felt different for months now.

In a perfect world, you reckon you’d be elated to make your departure from these dorms, and anticipate the new life that awaits you after these four years of dedication. But you can’t help but feel as though something is missing from all of this- something well beyond your reach.

You think back to Brahms and Clara Schumann a lot these days, and the passionate, yet unrequited love that he took to the grave with him. He never got close to what he wanted- he had music, and a career so successful he was deemed one of the best composers who ever lived. And yet much of his life’s work was still rooted in unadulterated yearning, because he never had Clara Schumann. You want so badly to place your own musical accomplishments over your yearning, and yet you can’t. Not when the yearning had quickly transitioned to unrequited love the same way it did for Brahms, and it’s been that way since Jisung left.

You also think of Mozart and Constanze, and how he fought for everything to be with her, despite the hardships they faced. And you want to scream at Jisung when you recall Mozart’s letter to her father, one that’s now been tainted by his poetic words to you along the margins of his course textbook.

“Y/n, you’re never going to finish packing today at this rate,” Mina remarks, occupying a spot next to you on the bed. “Do you need help or something?”

“I’m good,” you say to her, meeting her gaze as she looms over you.

She remains quiet for a moment, examining your expression, and then she folds her hands in her lap politely.

“You know,” she begins. “You’re the smartest musician I’ve ever met. It’s a little weird how much you know sometimes.”

“Thanks,” you retort with a small chuckle.

“And I don’t think messing around with anybody got you where you are today. You did that yourself.”

You meet her gaze finally, not speaking as she shrugs softly. You’re a little surprised at the kind tone she assumes, wondering briefly if there’s some sort of catch to her words.

“Just… give yourself what you deserve,” she finishes. “Whether that means going back, or looking forward. But don’t settle for less than you really want. I did, for so long. And I’ll be the first to tell you it’s not worth it.”

You swallow as you nod at her words, knowing who she refers to without the utterance of a name. And then you furrow your brows as you press her for one more thing.

“Mina,” you say to her. “Why didn’t you tell anybody? What did you get out of keeping my dirty secret?”

She chuckles softly, throwing her head back and shrugging before speaking again.

“Those annotations,” she begins. “They’re not just some dirty little secret. That’s… a sort of thing I’ve never seen at that proximity. They way you speak to each other, it’s like some language the rest of us would never understand. At first, I thought I was skimming too far ahead in the textbook or something. Of course, maybe it also had something to do with the 10 extra points he gave us before leaving.”

You laugh lightly at the same time she does, and then her expression grows serious again as she picks at a loose thread on the duvet.

“It just kinda sounded like you two were in love,” she finishes. “I wouldn’t get in the way of that.”

You hold her gaze for a moment as she stands up again, brushing off her jeans and hoisting another box into her arms.

“Anyways,” she continues. “I’m out of here. Good luck in the city, and-”

“Mina,” you interrupt her, sitting up to look at her properly.

She blinks a few times, surprised you’re sitting up in bed for the first time today, and holds your gaze over the sealed top of her cardboard box.

“Thank you. I’m sorry I didn’t say it enough.”

Mina smiles, her pink glossed lips pulling into a kind grin, and there’s no remaining tension between the two of you for possibly the first time since you’ve lived together.

“You’re welcome,” she replies, accompanied by a gentle nod. “Oh- and you might want to check out the new part of the gymnasium they finished constructing today. I think they followed your advice and finally put a piano in there.”

And then she’s off again, shooting you a small wink before she saunters out of your dorm, this time for good.

The chill of the December air is unforgiving at the early hours of the morning like this, the campus nearly empty as students depart from the place they’ve called home for four years, their college years packed up into cardboard boxes and sealed away at last.

You still have a lot of packing to finish yourself, a new chapter in the city awaiting you while you traverse the concrete village one last time. And although these halls have housed some of your most stressful memories, staying up late studying for exams and rushing to make it to class on time, you’re going to miss every part of it. Like the coffee shop on the second story of the student union, where the barista always adds a little too much caramel to your lattes. Or the windowed seat at the very back of the 8th story in the library, where when it rains, you can watch lines of people rush to their classes with hands over their heads and desperately clutching their umbrellas.

And of course, the grant east lecture hall- one you’ve already missed for the better part of the semester following its demolition. As you round the corner, you can make out the new gymnasium that’s already partially erected in its place. It’s another blinding shade of white, like the rest of the buildings are, closed off to the public and still lined with the same bright orange temporary plastic fencing as before. At where is supposed to become the entrance at some point in time, a rectangular cutout in the concrete slab of a wall, nothing but a thin plastic tarp prohibiting entry. And though you know that you really shouldn’t, you can’t help yourself, hoisting your legs over the orange fencing to the other side, your feet planting into the grass lining with a gentle thud.

There’s nobody around at this hour to watch you sneak into the new gymnasium- and realistically, what form of punishment can they even issue, anyway? Expel you?

The tarp sways with the gentle caress of a December breeze, like an invitation to come wander the new space which once housed years of history, now structured for basketball games and college rallies alike. And with one last look around, only to ensure nobody’s watching you partake in the prohibited act, you sneak your way past the orange fencing, kicking the tarp aside to gain entry, and then taping it back into place behind you.

It looks like a gymnasium- and it smells like a gymnasium. Gone are the overpowering scent of mothballs that once graced the music hall’s staircase, replaced instead by the woody notes of sawdust and fresh paint. The walls are white, true to the rest of the school’s buildings, and along the walls which are finished, the signature cobalt blue stripe. At this proximity, it’s almost humorous to bask in the putrid colors you’re grateful you’ll never have to stare at again.

As you take in your surroundings, you remember Mina’s words from earlier, recalling a new piano they placed here, and you scan the room from left to right- only there’s nothing. No piano- not even a dingy keyboard like the one in the old practice room. Why would a piano be here, anyway? In a gymnasium meant for sports and jock gatherings? Could it be Mina’s way of sending you off with one final bout of animosity?

You’re doubtful- that isn’t Mina. You know her way of comforting you earlier was rooted in the good intentions she’s always had. Which still begs the question- why did she send you here?

As you begin toward the other side of the gymnasium, a gentle rustle from the tarp startles you, the blue masking tape being lifted piece by piece and moved aside for another person to gain entry.

Construction workers, you think to yourself. It’s going to be awkward getting out of this one. And as you approach the cutout in the concrete wall again, ready to conjure up some form of an explanation, another person does make entry, crouching so as not to bump his head, as he stumbles inside and regains his balance.

His hair is two shades lighter than the last time you saw him. He still wears the same dorky wireframe glasses as before. And he looks elegant, in a white button down and black blazer, the same canvas sneakers he used to love double-knotted at the laces and complementing his black slim-fitting slacks.

“What are you doing here?” Is all you can say to him as he approaches, his hands shoved in his pockets and a leather bag slung over his shoulder.

“Mina practically chased me when I was leaving,” he says, gesturing to the empty space around you both. “Said I had to come see some new piano they put in here.”

He glances around the room, eyebrows furrowed in a confused manner, and then he turns to face you.

“Where is it?”

“There is no piano,” you say to him, crossing your arms frustratedly. “She told me the same thing.”

Jisung begins to say something, and then he stops, giving a small nod as he averts your cold stare.

His thumb toys with a loose thread inside the pocket of his slacks, and then he meets your gaze again, strands of brown hair falling into the shy expression he wears on his face.

“Graduated, huh? How’s it feel?”

“Fine,” you reply in a reluctant tone. “I leave today.”

“Where are you headed?” Jisung asks, swallowing nervously.

“Landed an internship in the city,” you tell him. “It’s close by. Just some piano thing.”

Jisung’s lips pull into a grin, chuckling lightly as he nods in response. “I always knew you’d land something good.”

You remain quiet, looking around the gymnasium once again, and then you turn to him with some hesitation.

“What are you doing here?”

Jisung sighs deeply, looking around the gymnasium, too, before speaking.

“I had an interview. Quit my directing gig.”

His words take you aback momentarily, a million questions racing through your mind about why he’s no longer directing and why he’d be interviewing here of all places.

“You interviewed here?”

“Wasn’t so much of an interview as it was a conversation,” he retorts. “They even had my old badge. I really need to get that updated considering my hair’s not technically black anymore-”

“Why would you interview here?” You emphasize to him again. “You hated it here. I thought you wanted some fancy directing thing.”

Jisung is quiet again, digging the heel of his canvas sneaker into the thick layer of sawdust that lines the floor. He knows that his ego is far too big, and he’s still consumed with an overwhelming amount of selfish pride. But he also knows that he’s not going to find any form of resolution without breaking this vicious cycle of repeating his mistakes, especially when a resolution is finally within reach.

“Look, I fucked up, okay?” Jisung finally says, taking you by complete surprise.

“The minute I started there again, I knew that wasn’t my calling anymore. Maybe it was back when I was still young, and all starry-eyed for the stupid baton and the fancy suits.”

He turns to face you at this point, taking a step toward you and almost physically demanding you reciprocate the eye contact.

“But you were right- that chapter of my life is finished now. And yeah, maybe the students don’t pay attention when I stand up there and lecture. And sure, I’m just going to be some lousy assistant college band director out here. But finding you- and the way you’d listen to me, and the way you never judged me for my shortcomings, even though I was a shitty husband once, and a shitty professor and an even shittier boyfriend to you- you made me realize it was finally time to let go.”

Jisung can’t seem to cease his emotional speech once he begins, frantically gesturing as he continues speaking. He feels like a different person entirely in this vulnerable form- like the Jisung you knew when he was first breaking his walls down around you. And the Jisung you know when he isn’t putting his dreams of a past life before the people he loves.

“… and then I couldn’t stop thinking about Brahms and Clara, and how he died without ever having told her how he felt. Or Tchaikovsky who had to hide who he loved- and then Mozart! God, that stupid letter- she remarried, you know that? Did you ever get to that chapter? Of course you did, before I could tell you, at least.”

Jisung paces the floor in rushed motions as he speaks, his wet sneakers squeaking obnoxiously along the gym floor as the words escape his lips. You don’t try to speak for a little while, carefully soaking in what you assume to be an apology. And then he stops in his tracks, eyebrows arching into a pleading expression as he towers over you.

“Music isn’t the same without you,” he finishes. “None of this is.”

You lock your gaze with Jisung’s, his big brown eyes almost trembling as he awaits a reply. And simultaneously, you do your best not to let your guard down too quickly.

“Is this how it unfolded back then, too?” You ask calmly. “When you begged somebody to stay after the first time you made this mistake?”

Jisung’s lips part to say something, but then he’s quiet again, waiting for you to continue, praying for something better than this.

“I think you’re a genius,” you continue. “I think you’re remarkable, and talented, and loving you comes so easily. But you make it hard when you do the same thing to everybody you’ve ever loved.”

“You’re the first woman I’ve ever loved,” Jisung blurts promptly, and a deafening silence falls over the room. He hesitates to continue at this point, fearing as though he’s going to scare you off, but he’s also never verbalized it to you despite thinking about it every waking second of the day, and he’s determined not to form new mistakes he could risk repeating.

“I let it happen back then because music was the only thing I loved,” he explains. “It was a shitty thing, and for so long I struggled to move on because I was still lost in the only thing I ever loved. And then you came along; I don’t need to direct when I have you. I’ll be a teacher- hell, I’ll be a fucking janitor if that’s what you want. You were my sign to move on from repeating the same fucking thing all over again- you are my end.”

Jisung breathes heavily as he finishes, gauging the shocked expression in your trembling eyes. He waits for you to say something, and then without averting your gaze, he reaches into the pocket of his jacket, pulling out a folded piece of paper and handing it to you.

You unfold it slowly, already knowing it by the familiar yellowing color and small printed font- page 256 of his course-assigned textbook, detailing Mozart’s Sonata no. 12, complete with all your annotations alongside his. Only his are no longer visible- they’re crossed out, completely scribbled over in black pen, concealing his call for any form of repetition within the piece. All that remains at the bottom of the page, in the same red pen you first marked in, is a single oval with a cross through it- a coda.

Your gaze meets his after examining the page briefly, surprised he’s kept it after all this time. And then he sags his shoulders a little, gesturing to the page still in your grasp.

“I passed my sign once,” he says sheepishly. “Just please come back to me.”

Jisung doesn’t wait for you to respond this time, instead cupping your cheeks gently with his hands and pulling you in for a passionate kiss, which you don’t hesitate to reciprocate, letting your hands wrap around the back of his neck to pull him even closer to you. His lips work against yours eagerly, but still tenderly, breathing all of his desire back into you and confirming the notion that this is all he’s ever really yearned for.

He smiles into the kiss against you, grazing his thumbs up to wipe stray tears that cascade along your cheeks, and then with one more chaste kiss to your lips, he pulls away once more, chuckling lightly.

“Can we just start over?” He asks you innocently. “No repetition, no secrecy. Just start anew.”

You chuckle lightly at his proposal, nodding in his embrace, and then he pulls away entirely to hold a hand out to you.

“Han Jisung,” he says. “I’m an assistant director for the college band.”

“Y/n,” you respond with a smile, shaking his hand firmly.

“So lovely to meet you- can I interest you in a tour of the gymnasium I work in?”

He throws an arm over your shoulder, beginning down the length of the vast space and gesturing to the walls beside you.

“This is where I yell at students to fix their tempos,” Jisung explains, giving your shoulder a little squeeze as you chuckle in response to him.

“And this is where I tell stories about famous composers and their love lives. Tell me, y/n- do you know the tale of Mozart and Constanze?” He then asks with a smile.

“I can’t say I do,” you play along, earning an exaggerated gasp from him.

“Well then I’d love to tell you all about it. How do you feel about art galleries? There’s one not far from here…”

And Jisung’s hand drops to yours, intertwining your fingers together as he lets himself start anew, alongside who he now knows to have been a sign for him this entire time- a coda, an epilogue, an offer for resolution.

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hyunsvngs · 2 months

Text

𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 𝐬𝐚𝐯𝐞-𝐚-𝐡𝐨𝐞! - spiderman!han jisung x fem!reader

wc: 11.1k

cw: han jisung is spiderman, a brief attack of an alien in school, both characters are 18+ (legal) but are intended to be in high school, friends to lovers, jisung calling mc baby at any given moment

synopsis: you’re obsessed with spiderman, but after a certain event takes place, you become convinced your best friend and spiderman are the same person.

a/n: after a long wait… HEHE smut warnings under the cut and as usual 18+ MDNI!!!!!!!

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

sw: brief mention of masturbation (both), oral (fem!rec), slightly switchy both parties, unprotected sex, creampie, dirty talk, loss of virginity (both), cumswapping, relatively tame given that its me

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

You’re intrigued.

Interested seemed like too little of a word to use for how you feel whenever you see the latest news report. In a world full of superhuman serums and bulletproof skin, he is still intriguing. Maths homework could be ignored, as far as you’re concerned - and that’s bold for you, because you love maths. You wonder if he likes maths, too.

Every night at 6pm sharp, you settle in front of the television and wait for the news. Spiderman, the hero in question, is always up to something. He loves shooting his webs across the tallest skyscrapers in the city, dangling from them precariously without a care before he lets out a loud, earth-shattering giggle and beats the newest bad-guy that your world has attracted. You always wince at the reports, wondering just how he healed from the injuries he must sustain. It had to be down to the spider venom, you supposed.

“He’s dangerous,” Your dad huffs. He’s lounging on his normal armchair, peeling leather be damned, munching on a bag of crisps. You grimace at his crisp covered digits motioning towards the television. You love your dad, really, and your mum - you just always differed in opinions when it came to Spiderman. He was so fucking cool, and you seriously feel like a child saying that all of the time, despite your best friend Jisung telling you that we all have our interests. “I mean, he’s putting normal civilians in danger. Friendly neighbourhood Spiderman my ass.”

“Honey,” Your mother admonishes, digging through her own bag of crisps. You briefly consider why you haven’t been offered one. They look tasty, when your father isn’t rubbing luminous orange dust onto his previously crisp white shirt. “You know she doesn’t like it when you say bad things about him. He- what was the word again, baby?”

“He intrigues me,” You mumble, pretending to erase equations from your homework. Your cheeks blaze crimson when your mother hums in agreement, nodding triumphantly to your father. You wish you could be as sassy as her sometimes. You’re more timid, hiding behind oversized hoodies and Jisung. He is a lot more confident than you, more loud and exuberant - you suppose that’s why he had adopted you as his all those years ago.

Your mother had been best friends with Jisung’s aunt, Sohee. She’s just like Jisung, zipping around the place at an insane pace to offer you snacks and drinks at every second. When you and Jisung had first met in preschool, you’d been drawing patterns in the mud with your grubby little fingers, hiding from the bullies. He’d criticised your drawing. He helped you fix it, though, chubby cheeks puffing out with a grin when it was good enough for his taste. Looking back now, that behaviour was so Jisung, but your mother had been delighted to find out that you’d already met her best friend’s son.

It had been easy becoming friends with him after that. Every day, he’d drag you by your wrist and take you to the yard, insisting on doing your co-operative drawings together. The teachers had a fit everyday on the state of you two by the end of your break, but your mothers had loved it, taking a million and one pictures a second. He stuck up for you both to the teachers, and then he stuck up for you to the bullies and it was like you’d known each other since birth. Inseparable at the hip, you’d been glued together throughout preschool, primary school and now high school - it doesn’t look like you’re getting rid of him anytime soon, either. You’d applied for the same colleges.

You don’t particularly want to be rid of him anyway. He’s alright, really, and you had a bit of a girly, high school crush on him. You would rather jump off of a building like Spiderman sans the webs if anyone found out.

Another thing Jisung is good for is listening to your rants. He waits for your call every night after the news had been on, and you clamber on your bed obediently after the report finishes to press on his contact.

“Jisung!” You squeal. There’s a lot of feedback on his end, and you hear a low ‘shit, fuck, oops, oh God’, until there’s a loud thud and he giggles, chiming through your tinny phone speakers. “... Ji? Are you okay?”

“Yep, sorry, baby,” He sounds out of breath, but you smile when he speaks anyway. Whenever he calls you baby, his designated nickname for you, it makes your heart flutter and you have to grimace to ignore it. His face pops into the little square designated to him, his cheeks blushing pink and round eyes wide. His hair is slightly damp, from what you’re not sure - but he looks cute. “I just got home. I was- I was running some errands for my aunt.”

“God, she’s got you running like crazy lately,” You mumble, still jotting down numbers on your homework. It’s taken you hours, but you always get distracted on nights like this. “Did you see it?”

Jisung hums, and then you hear him groan. He’s stretching, slightly toned honey-skinned arms appearing above his head in the plain oversized t-shirt he’s wearing. You try not to stare. “Did I see what?”

“The- the news, Sungie,” You feel shy mentioning it so outright. It is a weird interest, a weird thing to be obsessed with - Jisung often reassures you that it really isn’t, and his anime obsession was a lot worse. It was. You sigh, clearing your throat. “Spiderman. He was- he was super cool tonight.”

“Ooh, was he?” Jisung teases, chuckling when you groan in protest. “I’m only playing with you, baby. I saw it. He was super cool, wasn’t he?”

“Ha-ha, super cool, ‘cause he’s a superhero. You’re funny.”

“That’s why you keep me around,” Jisung chirps. “Hey, have you done the maths homework? I haven’t had time, because of the errands, y’know.”

“Hmm, yeah, I’m almost finished,” You aren’t. You’re far from it, really, but he doesn’t have to know that. “I can let you copy it tomorrow morning, before class.”

“No, that’s alright, baby. We can just cross-check our answers tomorrow,” His voice sounds tired, but you don’t comment. It’s better not to question Jisung when he’s like this.

His aunt has him doing a lot these days. You haven’t wanted to ask about it because you know it must be tough for her to look after Jisung since his parents passed, especially when Jisung is always going at full speed and is probably seconds away from giving his aunt a heart attack. He was always clumsy as a child, too, snapping his glasses in half and having a few broken bones to tell long stories about. He always means well, but sometimes you wish that he had something else to get his energy out of his system rather than stressing his aunt out.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

“Jisung, surely you know who Spiderman is, like, underneath the mask,” Seungmin quips through a mouthful of dry, government regulated school food. “You spent all that time with Bang Chan in the internship.”

Seungmin is a lanky boy that just came along one day and decided to be yours and Jisung’s friend. With him, he brought a younger, smiley guy named Jeongin, and Jeongin brought Felix. Felix is just Felix - nothing else can describe him. Before long, you’d found yourself in a de facto group of misfits that you weren’t even sure you could call friends. Apart from Jisung, of course.

Jisung simply raises an eyebrow in response to Seungmin. “I mean, sure. I met Mr Bang a few times, but I never met Spiderman. Not out of his suit, anyway.”

You gasp. Jeongin startles from the nap he was taking on the cafeteria table, raising his head to look at you angrily. Felix pushes his head back down from the hood on his jumper and Jeongin immediately falls back to sleep. “You met him in his suit?”

“Well, yeah,” Jisung shrugs. When he turns to look at you, your mouth is agape, feeling slightly betrayed. Jisung shoves another spoonful of cheese - was it really cheese? - pasta into his mouth, and then he’s sighing. “It’s not a big deal, baby. If I really met him, the real him, you’d be the first to know. I promise.”

“You still got that fat crush on Spiderman?” Felix chirps. You meet his amused gaze with your own steely glare, pouting over your packed lunch.

“It’s not a crush-”

“It’s an interest,” Jisung clarifies for you, and you smile. He’s always jumping to your defence like that. You bite into an apple, savouring the crisp, fruity taste on your tongue, and then the bell rings. Sighing, you watch as the boys around you get up - including Jeongin, fox like eyes bleary from sleep - and swing their bags on their shoulders.

“I’ll see you later,” You murmur to Jisung, who throws his arm around your waist in a quick hug. “Enjoy English.”

Right. You and Jisung didn’t have the same classes. He has English now, and you have chemistry, which is probably your least favourite of all classes. You just weren’t a fan of the whole blowing shit up scenario, unlike Jeongin was, and the boy trundles behind you towards your chemistry class.

The class is boring. The teacher drones on and on about some experiment you couldn’t care less about, and you pretend to care. You’re taking notes, sure, ever the diligent student - but you can’t get anything other than Spiderman out of your mind. Jisung met him, and didn’t tell you, and who even is this guy? You’d love to know. You’d love to just see him, even once, just to be able to tell the story.

A massive crash stops the teacher’s speech. He turns to the door, confused, and the students do the same. You do too, furrowed eyebrows staring at the door. Another crash causes people to begin to rise, and the teacher starts ushering everyone out of the class to the closest exit route. You’re frozen in confusion and fear, pencil halted in your fingers, even as another noise makes the teacher run out behind the class.

It’s quiet for a moment, and you’re still sitting in your seat, eyes wide and heart racing. Then, you spring up to follow the rest of your cohort, sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor as you run to the door. Swinging it open, you stick your head out the door and look around, trying to see if the coast is clear. With a planet full of interdimensional attacks, you can’t be sure, and looking left leads you to see a scaly, large animal type of thing. You squeak, startled, and immediately retreat into the class before it notices you. What the fuck do you do? What are you meant to do?

The whole room begins to shake, and you have a feeling the creature’s getting closer. Beakers are thrown to the floor from the vibration ringing throughout the room, glass shattering loudly, and you feel like you’re about to scream, or cry, or run, and you can’t run.

Doing the only thing you can think of, you cower to the floor, hiding underneath a table donned in smashed beakers. You’re curled up in a ball, watching students standing outside murmuring and discussing their own safety, and then the shaking stops.

The door swings open. Everything outside the classroom is too intimidating, items being thrown everywhere, and you can’t even bring your legs to move with how badly they’re shaking. Who’s just walked in? You pray for Jisung. You pray for someone who’s going to help you hide, someone who’s going to keep you safe, and then-

A masked face pops underneath the table. He’s lithe, slender, but the tight red and dark blue suit highlights the hint of abs and sculpted biceps on his body. Holy fucking shit. Your eyes widen. Spiderman is in your school.

“Are you okay?” His voice is deep, but it sounds almost like someone putting on a deeper voice to hide their identity. You nod hesitantly, and then he’s extending a gloved hand towards you, pulling you out from underneath the table. You’re unable to speak. Once you’re standing in front of him, you notice he’s around a head or so taller than you, but definitely not as tall as you thought he’d be. He sighs, chest heaving with panic. You suppose it must be pretty tough work fighting aliens from outer space. “I’ve webbed him up for now, but it won’t hold much longer. Go- please, go and run. Please, anywhere, just- go and hide, or run.”

“I-I-”

“Promise me, b- um, you. I can’t let you get hurt.”

You furrow your eyebrows in confusion. “I- Yes, I promise, I’m going to- I’ll go, thank you, thank you-”

“Wait, no!” He shouts, rubbing his temples - or at least, you’d imagine he was but he’s just rubbing the mask in frustration. You watch as he bounds over to the window, kicking it open, and the students outside turn to the classroom in awe. You’re rooted in place, as if vines are circling your ankles and securing you to the floor, mouth agape. You wait for him to give you further directions, and you gasp when he runs back over to you, picking you up and carrying you over to the window. You feel light as a feather, and all you can think is how he’s even carrying this amount of strength in that small body. “Too risky. Outside.”

“O-Outside?” You stammer, cheeks bright red, and he nods. He leans to place you out of the window, delicately placing you on your feet, and then he speeds off, shouting a quick “see you later!”.

You blink. You can hear the noises of walls breaking and windows shattering as Spiderman fights, and Felix runs up to you from the crowd outside and slings an arm over your shoulder. You’re still staring inside the classroom as if you can see through walls and watch the fight. What did see you later mean?

What’s the likelihood, honestly? You knew he was the friendly neighbourhood guy, and all that, but why not Bang Chan, in his sleek nanotech suit? This was a big fight. You find yourself getting worried, biting your nails in concern for the man you don’t even know. You have to remind yourself of that. He saved you because you’re any other citizen, not for any other specialty - you don’t know this guy.

“C’mon, over here,” Felix ushers you over, tone soft. When you’re with him, Seungmin and Jeongin, he sighs, rubbing your back. “Crazy, right? At least you can say you met Spiderman now.”

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Jisung is safe, thank god. You kind of feel guilty for not worrying about him at the moment, but he’d text you shortly after, saying he’d left just before it all kicked off because he felt a little under the weather. He wanted to make sure you were okay, though, so he texted you as soon as he could. You’d never admit the blush that rose to your cheeks when you read it.

It’s quiet in your room. Your parents had sprinted to you as soon as you’d come through the door, having seen the situation on the news, and you’d reassured them that Spiderman had saved you. It definitely changed your dad’s perspective of him, and now you lie on your bed feeling more than relieved.

Your fingers tap on your tummy in thought, though. He was making his voice deeper, that much you could tell, but why? How was he there so quickly? There’s no fucking way he was a student. Still, that body in the tight suit… you’d definitely been looking. You’re a woman, of course you were going to look. He had a figure enviable to every man. Broad shoulders, abs just slightly visible, strong legs that carried you over to the window…

In your dreamlike fantasy, you’re considering something you previously never would’ve thought of. What if Jisung was underneath that suit? Now, that would be perfect. Both of your crushes being one being, Jisung pulling that suit up his lithe thighs and letting it settle over his broad pecs.

Before you know it, your hand is dipping under the hem of your pyjama pants, unable to feel guilty for thinking about your best friend in this way. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time, with many of your nights spent whimpering into your pillow and coming apart on your own fingers wishing they were his. He had such nice hands… What if it was him who had grabbed you from underneath that table? Your hand trails down to find your folds, slick and ready for whatever you had in store, but you focus on your clit, swollen and aching between your bottom lips. Would he finger you in the gloves if you asked, let you ride his abs in the suit until completion? Would he kiss you upside down, hanging from the-

A tap on your window makes you jump. The room is dark, save for your bedside lamp, and you turn rapidly to see a faceless figure just about popping in from the corner. You yank your hand out of your bottoms, squeaking, and then you squint to try and see the figure closer.

Holy shit. Spiderman is at your bedroom window.

Your cotton tank top is revealing, so you turn immediately to reach for your dressing gown and tie it around your figure. You pad over to the window in your socks, still wide-eyed and completely baffled, and then you turn the handle to allow him access. What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” You blurt, toes curling against your floor. Spiderman swings inside instead of responding, walking around your room like he’s been there a million times before. “No, seriously, what the fuck?”

He turns to you, shrugging. “I said I’d see you later, didn’t I?”

You blanch. He did say that, yes, but that still doesn’t explain the million questions you have right now. “Well, yeah, but- how do you know where I live?”

“I- uh, found it in the school office,” He hops up onto your bed, sitting cross legged. His mask hides his face, but he hums in pleasure at the feeling of the bedsheets on him. “After the fight, I went in there. Glad you’re okay, by the way.”

He’s still making his voice deeper, and you blink, nodding in response. “I’m great. Can I- can I ask why you’re here?”

He shrugs again, fiddling with a loose thread on your duvet. “No reason. Got bored. I was swinging around and remembered I saw your address on the computer.”

“Right,” You shake your head, still baffled. Instead of questioning him further, you jump onto the bed in front of him and copy his position, cross legged. “Don’t you have, like, recovering to do? I heard you got beat pretty bad.”

“Nah, no way,” He scoffs, rolling his neck. You suppress a smile. Cocky. “Spider venom, y’know? It repairs everything super quick.”

You were right. You can’t suppress a smile at his response, clicking your fingers at his masked face. “I fucking knew it! I guessed it was the venom.”

He stops fiddling with the duvet, turning to you and tilting his head in question. “You’re smart, aren’t you? Hey, are you the one that’s friends with that kid?”

You narrow your eyes. Jisung’s a liar. If Spiderman knows who he is, that means they’ve met more than once, and Jisung lied. You reach for your phone, ready to bitch him out via text, but Spiderman knocks your phone out of your hand. You turn to him, confused.

“Talk to me,” He whines. “I told you I was bored!”

You roll your eyes. “Okay, damn. Yes, I’m friends with Jisung. Why?”

“No reason,” He wiggles forward on your bed, grabbing your hand. You’re confused, but then he launches you into an intense thumb war, one that you were never going to win. Everytime you go to move your thumb in response to his, he’s got you pinned, and before he speaks again you’re five rounds down. “He’s pretty cool, right?”

“Who?” You ask, still focusing on the thumb war.

“Jisung,” He clarifies, clearing his throat. Making his voice that deep must be taking its toll on his vocal chords. “He’s kinda cool. Super smart, I thought.”

“He definitely is,” You laugh when he pins your thumb down again, swatting at his wrist to get him off of you. “He’s smarter than me.”

“And, uh,” He clears his throat again, leaning back on your bed. Leaning back like that, you have a full view of his body in his suit, and you have to stare at the posters on your wall to avoid looking at him. He puts his hands behind his head, the full picture of relaxation, and you wished he’d stop throwing you this random curveball behaviour. “Is that all you think of him? Just smart?”

You blush, finally reverting your eyes to him. “What do you mean?”

“I just mean… Do you have a crush on him, or?”

“Who wants to know?” You bristle, playing with your hands in your lap. You look down at your chipped nail polish, awkwardly shifting on the bed in your pyjamas. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“No one knows who I am,” He responds easily. “I want to know. Tell me. Do you have a crush on him?”

“I’m not telling you that-”

“I’m bored!” He whines again, sitting up. You let him grab your hand again, pulling your pinky finger into a promise. You swear you see the mask smile. “Tell me!”

“Okay, damn,” You sigh, exasperated. Was he on molly or something? Are you dreaming? “I guess so. I guess I always have, yeah, I don’t know. I don’t think he’d ever like me like that.”

He coos at that, taking your hand in his. It’s strangely comforting. “Why not?”

“He’s- well, I don’t think I’m good enough for someone like him,” You admit, scratching the back of your neck. “It’s awkward. He’s my best friend. It would ruin things, and I guess I’ve never let myself think about it like that.”

“You should,” He hums. You blink, staring at him. What the hell is he on about? “I just mean you should. Maybe he likes you too, y’know? I like my best friend. I’d love to know if she likes me back.”

“You do?” You wiggle closer, eager to know more. “You like your best friend? What’s she like?”

“Well,” He strokes your hand again before pulling away, leaning his chin on his hand. “She’s super pretty. Smart, too. I’ve known her since like, forev- for a few years, I think, in total.”

“It’s kind of the same with me and Jisung,” You sigh again, pouting. “I’ve known him for my whole life, basically. I’m just scared it’ll ruin things, but I think about him a lot when I’m on my own.”

He snickers. “Really? Like when you’re doing what you were doing when I got here?”

You swat at his shoulder, blushing bright red. “Shut up, oh my god! I thought you- shut up. Just don’t.”

“Maybe he thinks about you then too, I don’t know,” He shrugs nonchalantly, and then he’s getting up and pacing around. You watch him fiddle with a few photo frames on your desk, humming at ones of you and Jisung when you were younger and even fiddling with a few of your academic medals and prizes. “I won’t tell him, by the way.”

“You see him often?” You ask, voice soft. “He said-”

“Nah, I’ve only seen him once or twice,” He stretches his arms above his head, still staring at your desk full of trinkets. “He doesn’t know who I am.”

“Can I know?”

He turns to you. “Know what?”

“I want to know who you are,” Your voice is confident, but you feel anything but, teeth chewing your bottom lip nervously. “You saved me, and now you’re in my bedroom. I feel that I deserve to know.”

He sighs loudly this time, walking towards the window. “When we get to know eachother better, maybe.”

“Wait, hang on,” You watch him sling a foot out of the window, exasperated. He can’t leave! “Where are you going? I thought you said you were bored-”

“Things to do, baby,” He replies quickly. You blink. That ‘baby’ sounds awfully familiar, and you stand up quickly to walk towards the window, but he’s already webbing away. “Bye!”

You stand there, shocked and confused. He’s swinging from building to building away from you, and you’re just standing there like an idiot. You were interrupted before you could even start touching yourself, forced into a thumb war and coerced into admitting your deepest, darkest secret, and then he just… leaves? Just like that?

Your life is proving to be a little more interesting than you thought, but your dreams were filled with familiar round cheeks beneath a red and blue mask.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

“Baby, is there a reason why your eyes are burning holes into the side of my head?”

You’re convinced your best friend is Spiderman. There, sitting beside you with his glasses sliding down his nose and comfortable in a grey hoodie and pink Hello Kitty pyjama bottoms on, it’s hard to believe. But you’re not stupid.

First of all, since he started that internship with Mr Bang, he’s been weird about letting you inside his room. This is the same person that you had many sleepovers with growing up, and as recently as a few months ago you’d been cuddling in bed together watching Howl’s Moving Castle. He has something to hide, but you’d been let down when you’d arrived at his house earlier and shouldered past him to find literally nothing of suspicion inside his room, other than an anime girl mouse pad with the boobs to rest your wrist on. You knew that existed though, ever since his birthday last year when Felix had gifted it to him, so what gives?

Secondly, Sohee is more stressed out than ever. You’d caught sight of her flitting around the kitchen when you arrived for your homework friend-date, scrubs on and ready to head to the hospital but still panicking about something. Jisung said multiple times that he’d been helping her out more and that’s why he’s been so busy lately. She shouldn’t still be panicking.

Thirdly, Spiderman wouldn’t make his voice deeper to you unless you knew him. He wouldn’t need to, or you wouldn’t recognise his voice - unless it’s a habit he’s picked up, perhaps. That doesn’t change that the way he called you baby last night sounded a little bit too familiar, too comfortable. It came out of his mouth like second nature.

Still, it makes no sense. Surely Jisung would have told you? You’re his best friend, he said so, so he’d tell you. Or would he? Maybe Felix knows. You’re also hoping deep down that it isn’t true, because if it is, you told your crush last night that you liked him.

You can’t even be mad at Jisung for it. He’s still staring at you, and you’re staring blankly back while shoving snacks into your mouth. There’s crumbs all over your homework.

“Jisung,” You begin, and he hums in response. “Would you tell me your deepest, most serious secret if I worked it out?”

He chokes on his energy drink, spluttering neon blue liquid all over his bed. You want to giggle, to make fun of him, but you’re sure you’ve gotten somewhere here. He wipes his mouth, clears his throat, and turns back to you. His hands are shaky where they clutch his textbook, and his eyes are almost blurry through the glasses. “I tell you everything anyway.”

“I don’t think you do,” You respond, quick as a beat. He blinks, lips parting. “Not by that reaction, Jisung. I think you’re hiding something from me.”

He scratches his nose with the end of his pen, looking down at the textbook again. You raise an eyebrow. “I’m not hiding anything.”

“Okay,” You hum. He sighs, scribbling something on the paper. It’s so quiet in the room that you can hear his pen scribbling, but you’re speaking again before you can even think. “Did I tell you Spiderman came to my room last night?”

He gulps audibly. “Nope.”

“Yeah, it was kinda weird,” You take a sip from your energy drink, still staring at him vacantly. Jisung’s eyes flit up to you, and then back down to the textbook. Oh, he knows. He knows that you know. He knows that you know that he knows. “He saved me in school, when that alien thing was there, and then he came to my room and asked me about you.”

“He, uh- really? Did he?”

“Mhm,” Your gaze is steely. “Jisung, I know you’re Spiderman.”

Jisung bursts out laughing. It would be believable, but you’ve known him since you were four years old and it’s a fake laugh. He’s cackling, loud as brass, and he lets out a little “ooh” afterwards as if he can’t believe you. “Baby, that’s the craziest theory you’ve ever come up with.”

“Is it?” You question, head tilting to the side. Then, in the smartest moment you’ve ever had, you pick up Jisung’s energy drink from the floor. He’s still looking at you, a fake smile on his lips, and you take a sip from it casually. Sharing drinks isn’t new for you. You glug back the artificial blue raspberry flavour, and then keeping eye contact with him, you let go.

Before the can is able to fall and spill the rest of its contents over your own textbook, and inevitably Jisung’s One Piece bed sheets, he reaches out and grabs it, hand wrapping around the can, quick as a flash. It all happens in about a second, and you gasp. Jisung gasps. His hand tightens around the can and it crinkles, an impossible show of strength, and then he’s blinking at you. You raise an eyebrow.

“I knew it.”

He puts the can safely on the bedside table, and then he’s slamming his textbook shut. You watch in confusion as he paces back and forth on his bedroom floor, running his hands through his hair over and over.

“Okay!” He points at you, victorious. “That was a reflex. I knew you were going to do that, I’m smart, duh! I knew you were going to drop the can to prove something, and-”

“Jisung,” You say, voice soft. He stops pacing, sock clad feet rooted on the carpet to stare at you. You’re going to get him. You’re going to get him good. “Do you not want me to know? Is that what this is?”

He immediately falls to the floor, head resting on your knee as he looks up at you. You can’t even feel sorry for him, because your plan is working perfectly. His eyes are round and vulnerable, and then he clenches them shut in distress. You think he’s probably a second away from crying. “Baby, it’s not that. I wanted to protect you. It would be dangerous if the bad guys knew who you were, knew that you knew, and I know I shouldn’t have come to your room, that was wrong of me, and-”

You giggle. Jisung furrows his eyebrows, eyes opening. “I knew I was right.” He gasps, pointing at you again.

“Judas! You’re a judas!” He’s shocked, leaning back on his haunches and staring at you. “I can’t- I can’t believe you, that was so-”

“Sneaky? Good? Smart?” You list, leaning back on his twin bed. He stands up, hands on his hips. You’re ready for him to bitch you out, but you don’t care - you knew that you had to know, had to have it confirmed. He taps his foot, and then you see a smile break out on his lips.

“Okay, yeah, that was pretty good,” He hums, returning to the bed. You let him shut your own textbook and sprawl across you, head in your lap. “I’m sorry, baby. I should’ve told you.”

You sigh, reaching down to run your fingers through his hair. “That’s okay, Ji. It’s fine. I’m just a little embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed? Why?” Jisung asks, his eyes fluttering shut from the feeling of your nails on his scalp. You want to scoff. Embarrassed for two major reasons - one, because you’ve been gushing about how cool Spiderman is for weeks, maybe even months, and two because you told Spiderman last night that you liked Jisung. Spiderman and Jisung are the same person. Sure, it makes things easier. You no longer have a crush on two people, only one, but it doesn’t change the fact that Jisung knows and is yet to say anything.

“I’ve been talking to you about Spiderman for weeks,” You blush, pushing his hair off of his forehead. He whines, thrashing his feet and shaking his head like a dog to hide his forehead again. He’s so dramatic. You like him so bad. “And- and you- it was you, then. You came to my room last night.”

“Yeah, that was risky,” He responds, exasperated. “I just had to, baby. I don’t know, you always seemed so interested in Spiderman and not me. I needed to know if you saw me like you saw him.”

You pause your movements on his head, blinking at the wall in front of you. When you turn back to him, he’s blushing, teeth gnawing his bottom lip. His eyes are conveniently staring at the window, away from you.

“Jisung,” You start, hesitant. “What do you mean?”

He sits up sharply. “Wanna go on the roof?”

“T-The roof? Jisung, how are we gonna- oh. Oh.”

Jisung jumps up from the bed, toeing his sliders onto his feet and pushing the window open. It gives you deja vu - that same figure was pushing the window open just like this to place you safely outside in school yesterday, and then he was coming through your window to see you late at night. It’s hard to believe that they’re the same person, the man you admired so much and your best friend who’s standing by the window expectantly waiting for you to join him.

You hesitantly stand up, brushing off imaginary crumbs from your joggers and looking at Jisung. He smiles, a soft, reassuring smile, and then he’s scooping you up from the floor and wrapping your legs around his waist. It’s slender, the plush flesh of your thighs almost obscuring it, and you squeak in surprise at being in the air.

“I- Jisung?!”

“You have to hold on tight,” He says. His face is inches away from yours, plush lips looking more than appealing and his glasses making him look so endearing. “I need my hands for this, so hold onto my shoulders.”

You nod, face blushing crimson at the realisation of just how close you are. Would he have you like this if he fucked you? Legs around his waist, hands on his shoulders, his face so close to yours as he pants and whines and moans-

You squeak again when he slides out of the window, and then you see him in action. His hands stick to the outside of the apartment building, feet kicking up against the concrete wall. Your heart is racing so badly it feels as though it could burst out of your chest, but you’re not sure if it’s because of the height or because you’re tightly pressed against Jisung.

When he swings you both over the side ledge on the roof, you notice the sun’s set already. Time always goes by quickly with Jisung, but the stars are already out, and the air is crisp and biting against your limbs despite the layers. Once he’s safely stood on the roof, he places his hands underneath your thighs and detaches you from his firm body, placing you on your feet.

You’re disorientated, shocked at the sheer height of the building and at the way Jisung seems to be swinging you around like it’s nothing, but he’s simply staring at you. A wide smile stretches from ear to ear, and he blinks when you don’t say anything. “It’s cool, right?”

“Y-Yeah, super cool,” You admit, chest heaving. “Really high up, but cool. Jisung, why are we on the roof?”

He’s wrangling you, hands on your arms and pushing you to the floor. It feels firm, but with what you now know about him, you know he’s holding back. He plops down next to you, eyes wide and expectant.

“I wanted to do it properly,” He begins. He pauses for a moment, licks his lips, pushes his glasses up his nose, and then he’s speaking again. “I like you, so that’s why I asked. Is it romantic up here? It feels romantic, but I’m not too sure-“

He stands up and begins pacing around the roof before you realise he’s even moved. You raise an eyebrow. “Jisung?”

“I wanted to do this right, y’know?” He pauses, hands on his hips. He looks comical, trying to assert dominance over you like that in those Hello Kitty pyjama trousers. “I- I wanted to swing by and like, grab you, or something? But then you worked it out, and now I’m just standing here with you on a roof…”

He continues mumbling like a mad scientist, eyes focused on a spot next to your head. You stand up, making your way towards him, and he still refuses to look at you. He likes you back. He likes you back, and he’s still your best friend - he’s still Jisung, but he’s also Spiderman, and you’re okay with that. You don’t have to like two people. You only like one, and it’s your goofy best friend.

“Is this even romantic? You know, we could just forget about it and-“

You press your lips to his. He doesn’t make any form of surprised noise, only cupping your cheeks with his hands and pulling you close to him. His glasses bump against your face, his lips pouty against yours and plush and maybe a bit too wet for a first kiss, but you’d always figured he’d take it too far. That’s what you like about him. Jisung never does anything by halves.

It’s brief, too brief for your liking, but then he’s pulling away with a satisfied grin on his face. You blink. Wait.

“Wait, your stupid- your stupid spidey things. Did you know I was going to kiss you?” You pout, and he giggles. “No, seriously! Could you like- I don’t know, feel it coming?”

“Not until you were like, a few inches from my face,” Jisung admits, and his teeth gleam in the brilliance of the evening. “I had a feeling you might.”

You sigh. “So why didn’t you stop talking?”

“Dunno,” He shrugs. “I couldn’t stop once I started.”

The statement is so true to Jisung, so in character for your best friend that you can do nothing but accept it.

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

It’s easy to fall into a different routine with Jisung.

He never asked you to be his girlfriend. You’re pretty sure you’re fine with that, though - things have had a natural manner of progressing, and now your best friend slash boyfriend slash superhero turns up at your window every night after he’s been on his neighbourhood patrol. Sometimes he’s a little bruised, and sometimes he’s just looking for consolation kisses.

It’s a normal night for you when it happens. Jisung’s halfway out of your bedroom window on his way to perform perfect justice, pulling his mask down over his annoyingly beautiful face. You’re standing a few feet away grinning like an idiot.

“I’ll see you later, my baby,” You can see his grin through the mask. The eyes on his mask form beautiful crescent moons with his happiness. He falters, legs swinging on your windowsill. “Wait. I am coming back here, yeah?”

“Of course,” You giggle. He sends you two fingers in a mock salute, and you watch him begin his journey up the wall to your roof. A beat passes and you’re still standing there, smiling, hands on your hips, and then the masked head of your best friend pops back down into your window, upside down, tilting to the side in confusion. You blink, confused. “What is it, Sungie?”

“Well, where’s my goodbye kiss? Damn,” He huffs, and you roll your eyes playfully. You make your way to the window, sock-clad feet padding on your carpet, and you pull his mask down to his eyes with two fingers. It miraculously stays on his head, and his lips form a teasing grin.

Despite him being upside down, you place a chaste kiss to his lips, and you watch in amusement as he swings away afterwards. You can still hear him giggling with glee from a few buildings away.

It’s a few hours later when he comes back. You’re flicking through a book for English, scrawling notes and highlighting words on sticky notes. It’s started to rain, and the city lights only look brighter in the dusk with the pattering of water on your window. You left it open, of course, for your superhero, but the cold air bites at your arms even through the fluffy blanket you’ve got wrapped around yourself.

Just as you’re beginning to contemplate closing it, a louder, more prominent tap hits the glass. When you turn to the window, Jisung is slouched against your windowsill, chest heaving beneath red lycra and forehead pressed against the glass. He’s got his mask between his teeth, and his hair is dishevelled, floppy brown locks obscuring his eyes. You can still catch sight of the bruising on his cheekbones and you gasp, rushing towards the window.

You drop your blanket in shock, but you swing the window open, pulling Jisung inside with one hand. He stumbles through, disoriented and confused, and you lead him to sit on the edge of your bed.

“Got hurt,” He explains, huffing out a breath. The mask drops from his teeth unceremoniously, with a wet plop to your carpeted floor, but you don’t care. You rush to sit next to him, fingers gripping his chin to pull him to face you. His eyes are round, sincere, and he gives you a soft smile. “It’ll heal before long, baby, don’t panic.”

“I am panicking,” You say, resolute, because you really are. Bruising is scattered across his cheekbones, fading into green on the plush of his cheeks and his lip looks like it had been burst, but is already healing. “Will it- will it take long? Do you need me to get the first aid kit, or-“

“Baby,” He shakes his head, grabbing your hands. You watch with parted lips as he leans forward, both of you cross legged on the end of your bed. It reminds you of when Spiderman first visited you, when you weren’t quite sure of his identity. Jisung presses his forehead against yours, and you let him look into your eyes. It’s like he’s demanding everything that’s ever gone through your head to be vocalised. You’d tell him if he asked. “I’m really okay. I’m a little shaken up, but I’m fine. Most of it is on my ribs from falling, to be honest.”

“Your ribs?!” You shriek. “Show me. Let me see, I need to help you-“

You’re already trying to wrangle Jisung out of his suit, and he giggles, clearly thinking this is all just some game. He holds his arms up pliantly, though, and you don’t have the thought processing ability within you to realise that Jisung’s suit is an all-in-one and you’re currently stripping him down to his boxers.

The suit is wet too when you drop it to the floor, and before long you’re blinking at your best friend in his plain black boxers and he’s grinning at you as if this is any other day. There’s no bruising on his ribs. You’re staring at his abs, regardless, so you’re not sure you would’ve even noticed.

“You look fine.”

“I told you it heals quickly, baby,” He grins. You blink when he wriggles on your bed, laying on his back and stretching his arms above his head again, this time to get comfortable. His legs stretch out too, and you avoid looking anywhere below his waist.

His body is a spectacle. You can’t stop looking. Broad shoulders taper off into an extremely defined chest and a tight, thin waist adorned with prominent abdominal muscles, before reaching a v-line that leads into his boxers. You’re wide eyed, wanting nothing more than to reach out and run your fingers down his honey toned skin.

“Why-“ You cough, clearing your throat. Jisung raises an eyebrow. He’s grinning from ear to ear, teeth gleaming. “Why did you let me strip you if you’re literally fine?”

The bruising on his cheek is already fading. He shrugs nonchalantly, crossing his arms over his chest. His biceps bulge with the movement and you think you might choke on your own spit. “You seemed pretty determined, so I just allowed it. You wanted to see me naked, I assumed, so-“

“Jisung!” You wail, slapping his shoulder. He groans in pain, catching your hand, and he grits his teeth with a hiss.

“My shoulder! Fuck, that hurt, ouch, baby! What was that for?!”

You gasp. He clutches his shoulder, letting out little pants of hurt sounding noises. You let your head fall to his chest, engulfing him with a hug. “Jisung, I’m so sorry-“

“Hehe,” He giggles. When you look at him, he’s sticking his tongue out, completely fine. You groan, annoyed you fell for it, and then he’s grabbing your forearms and pulling you upwards on top of him.

Your breasts press against his chest like this, due to your lack of bra in your sleep shirt, and his eyes widen when he feels it. Instead of letting you go, his hands move to your back, encompassing you in his strong hold.

You gasp, wiggling in his grip, and he licks his lips. His eyes go to your lips, and then back up to your eyes, as if he’s hesitant.

“I-“ He begins, faltering. “Are you my girlfriend?”

You scoff out a laugh. “I don’t know, am I?”

“I hope so,” Jisung admits, his facial expression vulnerable. His eyes dart to something behind you, as if he’s not sure, almost shy. You’re not sure you’ve ever seen him shy. “I don’t know. I didn’t ask, but I want you to be, if you want to be.”

“I want to be,” You nod. He nods in response, and you watch his eyes flicker to your lips again. It’s silent for a moment, and then he leans in, pressing his lips against yours.

The kiss is more charged than usual. Before now, you’re used to chaste, fleeting kisses from your superhero, but now he lets his tongue tease against the seam of your lips. Your eyes flutter shut, and his eyelashes brush against your skin where he does the same. You let your lips part, and Jisung’s quick to grip your back harder, tongue darting inside your mouth with impatience.

You’ve made out with someone before. You’d never had sex with someone before, but you had made out with someone. It was only once at a party when you were a little bit younger but it had felt like a good idea at the time. You’re sure Jisung’s lost his virginity though, but when he whimpers against your lips and his hips squirm a little you’re not too sure.

You pull away from the kiss, lips a little wet, and Jisung’s mouth goes to your neck. You allow him to suck a mark into the expanse of skin just underneath your jaw, his fingers grabbing impatiently at your back. “Sungie, are you a virgin?”

Jisung pulls away, licking his lips. You feel something hard pressing against your thigh where you lay on top of him. You’re thanking every entity ever that your parents are out for a work dinner. “Yeah, I am. I would have told you if I wasn’t,” He confirms, a little breathless. His hips wiggle again. “Is that- is that okay, baby?”

“Yeah, of course,” You smile, comforting. You peck his lips again and he grins back at you. “I am too.”

“I know,” He responds, quick as a flash. You blush. That’s embarrassing. “No, I just mean- you also would’ve told me, y’know?”

“That’s true,” You shrug. You’re feeling a little overconfident, and you move in his hold, having felt it gone a little lax with your kissing. You let your thighs spread over his hips, his hard shaft pressing against your core through your pyjama bottoms and his boxers. You still feel it, though, and it makes your pussy gush a little. “Is- is this okay?”

He’s blushing. His lips part, and he nods, perhaps too eagerly because he clutches his neck afterwards like he’s got whiplash. “Baby, you’re- I have a pretty girl in my lap. This is so okay. Like, so okay, I might have a heart attack and die, probably.”

You shift, and he winces. “Sorry,” You say. It’s a fake apology. You want to swallow his cock down your throat until he cries, and you don’t even know how to. You’d try your best though. “If I lost my virginity, I’d want it to be with you.”

“Damn,” Jisung whistles, eyebrows raised. “Let me hit?”

You giggle, tilting your head to the side. “I’ll let you hit right now, Jisung.”

Jisung shoots upwards into a seated position. His eyes are wide. “Right now?”

“Right now,” You confirm. You go from straddling his lap to laying on your back on your bed in a flash, and Jisung looms over you, all tight, toned muscles and broad shoulders.

“I’ll make it so good, baby, I promise,” He says, and then he’s kissing you again. It’s even messier this time, lips pressing against yours over and over and his tongue adding a collection of spit to the mix. You let your thighs fall apart, his hips quick to fill the space and press his cock against you. His hands go to your waist as he kisses you, sucking and biting on your lips until you’re whining with it, but he doesn’t let up. He’s desperate, messy, and it’s only making your pussy drool even more.

The rain hits the window still, cooling off a little but still providing a calming effect to your room when combined with the orange-pink of your lamp. He inches his palms up your shirt, the softness of his hands surprising you, and then he’s pulling away from your mouth to yank the fabric over your head.

You’re left in just your pyjama bottoms, lips kiss bitten and nipples pebbled against the cool air of your bedroom. You never had shut your window, after all.

“Oh,” Jisung says, exasperated. You finally open your eyes to see him staring at your tits, and you think he might be drooling. “Oh, yeah, my baby. They are so fucking good.”

You almost laugh, but you’re cut off by your own strangled moan when his pouty lips engulf your right nipple. He sucks on it, hard, and when your back arches he lets it slip out of his mouth with a wet popping noise. It’s only a brief moment of reprieve before he’s letting his teeth skim along the bud, and you keen, fingers moving upwards from his shoulders to grip onto the pillow behind your head.

“Oh, that’s so- Sungie, baby, that feels good,” You whine, and he hums against your breast. When he moves to the other one, he tweaks your wet nipple between two fingers. It’s experimental, but the whole thing is, and you buck your hips up impatiently.

His hands move to your ass, scooping underneath you and making you grind slightly against him. The movement makes him moan, your nipple leaving his mouth. A string of drool attaches to his lips and his tongue lolls out lazily, and before you can process it, he’s grinding his cock into your clothed centre.

“Oh- oh, fuck,” He whines, eyes clenching shut. You whimper in response, arms wrapping around his shoulders. “Baby- baby, baby. Baby, I’ve thought about this so much, I- fuck, you’re gonna feel so good around my cock.”

His words are so crude that they make you keen, nodding enthusiastically. “I thought about it too. I- I touched myself thinking about it, Sungie, did you?”

He gasps sharply, and there’s a fumbling between your legs. He rocks backwards on his haunches, and you see him gripping his cock impatiently underneath his boxers, fingers wrapped tight around the base.

“I will literally cum if I imagine that,” He huffs, breathless. “But yes. I did, many times, and- and- baby, can I see your pussy?”

It’s so bold that you can’t say no. You never would have dreamed of saying no anyway, and you nod, wiggling your bottoms down your legs. You never wear a bra or panties underneath your pyjamas, and your pussy is revealed to him in all its drooly glory, folds sticking together with your arousal.

Jisung’s jaw goes slack. You watch him jerk his cock, eyes fixated on your wet hole, and you shift impatiently.

“I showed you mine, Sungie,” You huff. “Show me yours.”

He nods, eyes still glued to your pussy. Your clit is swollen with arousal, some wetness stuck onto it, and you reach down to trace your fingertips over it absentmindedly while he pushes his boxers down. His cock slaps up against the bottom of his tummy, cockhead leaking beneath his foreskin, precum slicking the smattering of hair at his base. His balls look heavy, shaft swollen and fat between lithe thighs, and you can’t help but go a little googly eyed at the thought of him stretching you out.

He grabs it, pumps his cock a few times while you rub your fingers over your clit. “Is- is it okay, baby?” He gasps, cock leaking steadily in his fist.

“You’re so sexy, Sungie, ‘s so big. I- oh,” You whine, spreading your arousal over your folds. You prop your feet up, letting your legs fall wide, and the movement must expose your soppy hole to Jisung because his eyes widen even further. “I want you inside of me so bad. I’ve wanted it for so long, I just- shit, Jisung, what are you-“

You’re cut off by him diving between your legs. His cock is forgotten, his hands looping around your ass again to spread you wide, and his tongue presses against your core. He moans at the taste, and you whimper out loud, head rolling against your pillow. It’s messy and you can tell he’s inexperienced, but when he sucks your clit between his lips you can’t find it in you to care.

“Oh, oh- baby, baby! You’re good at that, so good at that, baby,” You babble, trying your best not to grind up into his mouth. His mouth is just as wet as your pussy, his lips drooling all over you. You’re cut short when he flattens his tongue against your core, moaning out loud, and his hands move your ass just a bit. “I- you- Sungie-?”

“Grind on my face, baby, c’mon,” He murmurs, muffled by your folds, and you oblige. Your hand goes to his hair, yanking on the dark brown strands, and you hold him in place while you grind your pussy senseless on his tongue. Your boy is good with his mouth, you realise - he’s pliant, letting you make yourself cum on his tongue and lips, and after only a few grinds you’re sure you’re going to fall apart for him.

“Ah! Ah, oh, baby, your mouth is- Sungie, Sungie,” You whine, feet kicking on the bed. Your legs go flat, but as the pleasure builds up in your core, your thighs tighten around his ears. He likes this, moaning loud to the point the vibrations make you jolt. It’s all so wet, your pussy dripping with arousal and his saliva, dripping down to your asshole. It has you wondering if Jisung would eat your ass further down the line, and your eyes flicker to his - would he let you eat his? He probably would, with how submissive he’s being.

His hips buck downwards on the bed and he keens into your pussy, and you realise he’s humping your mattress. He’s so desperate for you that he just can’t help himself, and you moan, loud and unabashed. The sight has you hurtling towards your orgasm.

“I’m gonna fucking cum, baby,” You warn, and he finally lets up, pulling back to suck on your clit. His hand moves over to the top of your pussy, pulling your mound backwards, and the exposure of your clit directly to his lips is your downfall. You wail, bucking your hips into his mouth, and you can hear yourself talking and moaning but you’re not sure what you’re saying, only able to feel your hole gushing into Jisung’s mouth over and over.

Jisung licks over your clit a few times comfortingly, and then he’s on top of you again, face looming over yours. His right hand holds him up steadily and the other stays downwards, hooked on your thigh to keep you open.

“You taste delicious, baby,” He grins, mouth wet. When he presses his lips to yours he’s desperate, tongue darting into your mouth to let you taste your own cum. You let your hands fall to his chest, fingernails digging into the muscles. The filthiness of it all has you wriggling around impatiently again, and Jisung’s cockhead slips against your clit, making you whine into his mouth. He pulls away, gasping for air with the sensation, and you kiss the beauty spot on his cheek for good measure. “Baby. M-my baby, shit, can- can I fuck you now? Have you got a condom, I- shit, I need to fuck you?”

He’s breathless, giggling at his own desperation, and you nod eagerly. You’re on the pill, and realistically you’d want nothing more than him to creampie you, but you have a shred of logic still left in your brain. “No condom. I- I don’t have any, can you pull out? I know it’s not-“

“Don’t care,” He huffs, legs moving to prop himself up more securely. His knees dig into your bed, and he pulls your thigh further apart, letting his eyes fall down to your pussy. His face is more than pornographic when he sees the visual of his cockhead sliding through your folds, eyebrows furrowed and lips parted. He lets his eyes flutter shut, a small profanity leaving his mouth. “You’re sure I can fuck you raw? I- please, p-please, baby. I need to be inside.”

“Jisung,” You whine. He lets his tip bump against your clit again, and you grow too desperate, reaching down yourself to grab his cock. The feeling makes him whimper, his fingers ripping into the pillow beside your head with his superhuman strength, but you’re too out of it to care. You position his cock by your hole, soppy and wet with your own cum, and he can’t hold himself back - he pushes in, all of it at once, a long, anguished noise leaving his mouth. “Oh. Oh- Oh, Jisung, that’s-“

“Is it okay? Are you okay?” Jisung asks, breathless. “Does it hurt? I- baby, baby-“

He’s still completely stationary, but he can’t stop talking, chest heaving and flushed pink. You shake your head. It doesn’t hurt. You’re wet enough that he glided in so easy, stretching your pussy in the most pleasurable, delicious way. You didn’t think it would ever feel this good, but you’re sure it’s because it’s Jisung.

“God, is it- does it feel good?” He questions you, and you nod eagerly, hands moving to rest on his biceps. He repositions you both so that your legs are wrapped around his waist, his arms holding himself up over you, and the movement has him sliding deeper, making you whimper. “Can I-“

“Fucking hell, Jisung, can you just move?” You huff, annoyed, and he giggles. He shakes his head fondly, and then he’s thrusting into you, slow but steady.

“Oh, that’s good,” He slurs, eyes rolling back into his head. “That pussy’s good. Jesus, you’re- you’re tight on my cock, baby, like a fuckin’ vice.”

“Your cock is so good,” You whine, trying to fuck yourself back on him. Your pussy is so wet that every thrust makes an audible noise, ringing throughout your room. If anyone walked past now they’d hear the debauchery, and you’re not sure you’d even care. “Fuck, Jisung- Jisung, you’re big. Please, please, more, I need more!”

“Okay, okay,” He moans, and then his hips speed up. His balls slap against your asshole with every thrust, his cock pistoning into you at a pace that has you wailing. The headboard slams against the wall. “Oh, fuckin’- baby, this puusssy.”

“It feels so good. Your cock is stretching me out so good, baby-“

“Fuck, wait,” He whines, pulling out sharply. When you look down between his legs his cock is painfully hard, and his pubic hair is drenched with you. The sight makes you even more eager to get him back inside of you, but Jisung grabs the base of his cock tightly, his chest heaving. “I- I’ll cum if you talk like that. Fuck, this is so embarrassing!”

“I want you to cum,” You insist, leaning up on your elbows. Your pussy is still leaking steadily onto your bedsheets, and you make grabby hands at your boy to try and get him back inside of you. “You made me cum so good in your mouth, Sungie, c’mon. Make yourself cum with my pussy.”

“Oh my God,” He moans, eyes half lidded, shaking his head in disbelief. “You’re dirty. My fucking dream, holy shit.”

He leans over you once more, pushing his cock inside of you. It slides back in easily with another wet noise, and you moan, smiling with delight. “Mm, fuck this pussy, baby, c’mon.”

“I- fuck, okay,” He keens, nodding. His teeth bite into his lower lip almost painfully, and you kiss his neck while he starts to fuck into you again. With a quick reposition you let your thighs fall apart and further back, and his cock starts to hit your g-spot incessantly. He pulls away from you, head lolling into your neck. His breaths fan over your skin, hot and heavy. “You’re so wet, why are you- how are you so wet, baby? This pussy, fucking- I’m gonna cum. I’m so close, I’m so close, please-“

The shred of logic has left your brain. His cock feels so good, thick and pressing inside of you. You have to let him do it. “Baby. Baby, do y’wanna- I’m on the pill, baby,” You say, breathless. His pace stops, hips halting, and he makes a confused noise. “Cum inside. Creampie this hole, Sungie, I know you want to.”

“Oh my fucking- baby? My baby, can I?” He wails, head pulling up to look at you. You catch sight of tears brewing in his eyes, glassy and unshed. “Baby, please, I’m gonna cum, please, where-? Baby?”

“Inside of me, Sungie,” You wrap your legs around him, pulling him inside of you, deep. You know he could get out of it if he wanted to, but he doesn’t, hips starting to pick up inside of you again. It’s fast, desperate and he keens, nodding. “You gonna fill me up, yeah?”

“Yeah. Y-yeah, yes, oh- I’m gonna fill you up,” Jisung’s words are slurred, quiet, and you let him fuck into you over and over. With a sharp noise, his hips slow once more, and you feel a rush of additional wetness inside of you. It’s warm, and you run your fingers through his hair while he fucks his cum inside of you. “Fuck. Baby, you’re so good to me, so good. Lettin’ me breed your cunt, and- and- oh. I’m still-“

He’s still cumming. It floods out of his cock and into your pussy steadily, and you giggle, feeling sated. Your delighted state of mind only lasts a second, because he pulls out sharply and wiggles down on the bed, attaching his mouth to your cunt. He’s eating his own cum out of you.

“Oh! Oh, Jisung, you’re- you’re dirty, Sungie, ah-“ You whine, fingers moving to his hair again. He licks you over and over until you’re wailing with it, your own tears brimming in your eyes from the overstimulation. Your hole feels stretched, a feeling you’re sure you could get used to, and you shake through a second orgasm.

Jisung’s quick to lean over you again, and then his thumb moves to your chin. He opens your mouth firmly, spitting your combined release into your mouth, and you moan, letting him press his tongue between your lips afterwards.

It’s messy and you let him kiss you for a bit, slow, languid, passionate kisses that have your core almost throbbing for more, if you weren’t so satisfied. Jisung’s soft cock presses against your tummy, wet with your combined arousal, and then he flops down next to you with a huff.

“God, I could go again,” He admits, hand running through his sweat mussed hair. When you turn to him, he’s grinning from ear to ear, and you giggle. He looks at you with a satisfied expression. “You’re the best. That was literally like, the best thing I’ve ever felt in my life. Even more than when I win some fight against an alien, or something.”

“Alien?” You ask, and then you remember. “Oh, yeah. Kinda forgot about that.”

“You forgot about me saving your life?!” He shrieks, thrashing around on the bed in a tantrum. “Seriously, if I wasn’t in love with you I would- ah. Oh.”

You blanch, blinking at him. It’s easy to ignore that you’re both naked when he’s just dropped a bombshell on you like that, and you let out a giggle. “That was sweet. I’m in love with you too, for the record.”

You’re attacked in a flurry of kisses, and you wouldn’t have it any other way. You’re sure Han Jisung intrigues you just as much as his superhero alterego does, so it’s easy to accept.

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