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Wedge the Knife Under My Skin

Han Jumin x MC

Kind of grotty. This is my vigilante shit.

I'd told myself to write fluff after the angst in Cold Wrath, but here I am with an even darker story. I couldn't get this idea out of my head after listening to High Infidelity by Taylor Swift. The result is a self-indulgent tale of infidelity on an unnamed deadbeat boyfriend with Jumin. Don't read it if you're uncomfortable with characters with questionable morals.

TW: NSFW, graphic depictions of toxic relationship including dubcon, blood, emotional abuse, physical abuse (not with Jumin); cheating (with Jumin)

Words: 3.8k

Masterlist Read on AO3

He finished inside her. She felt nothing, only her boyfriend's body going lax on top of her, his full weight crushing her ribcage. This sensation was nothing extraordinary; she felt it with him all the time.

He turned her jaw to look at him, empty eyes meeting his. "Do you always have to be this quiet?" he grunted.

"What do you want me to say?"

"You always throw things back at me." He tossed her head aside and lifted himself off her. Pulled up his jeans and buckled on his cheap synthetic belt, the belt he would slash across her arse when he was fuelled with liquor rage.

Did she like it? She never thought much of it. Her enjoyment did not matter in the face of his.

He tucked in his shirt and put on his grimy shoes. Checked himself in the spotty mirror and ruffled his hair, not once glancing at the reflection of her naked body behind him. In the dark, she didn't bother to cover herself with the blanket; it wasn't like he cared about her bare breasts now that he was done with her. She didn't bother asking where he was going either. No knowledge, no reason to be livid. It would be an achievement if he could get a rise out of her.

The door slammed close, and only then did she fold into herself. It gave her a rush of power that he could see her, touch her, take anything he wanted from her, but he could never see through her. Her vulnerability, she guarded close. She would never give up that privilege for him. Everything she let him access was an outer shell she had no use of.

The air was stuffed. Her skin was moist from the earlier fucking, sweat seeping into the rumpled bedsheet. She lay there until the humidity was unbearable, overflowing cotton in her ears and nose. In lethargy, she stepped into the shower, although she knew no amount of scrubbing would cleanse her from him. She stuck two fingers deep into her core and pulled out a string of white cum, letting the trickling showerhead wash it away.

Cleaning wasn't as much of a repulsion as it was a routine. Some things you could only do if you harboured a love long dead. She scrubbed hard, flakes of dead skin rolling away from her reddening arms and legs. The more of him gone, the better. Then she threw on a freshly laundered loose tee and pants and left his apartment. He was not the only one who could leave things behind.

One train ride later, she found herself in front of Jumin's penthouse. The security recognised her and let her pass without questions. She knocked on his door and waited, droplets from her wet hair sliding down her back, printing vertical streaks on her shirt. It was uncomfortable, but she liked that feeling, the feeling of feeling something real.

Jumin opened the door, bleary eyes and tousled hair, taking in her appearance in a long appraising glance. "Is it raining outside?"

"I took a shower."

"Under the rain?"

He was joking. She could detect it despite the utter seriousness in his tone. It was a skill she was secretly proud of and felt possessive about; she'd be jealous if anyone else could read him as well as she could.

She smiled at him, the first one in a while. "The rain must have a huge grudge against me if it only went for my head."

He smiled back with a slight frown etched on his forehead. "Please come in. You'll get sick if you leave your hair in that state. I'll fetch a towel for you."

She trudged behind him without questions. She excelled at following people, which she sometimes thought was the purpose of her existence. If someone had spent their whole life being told what to do, they would have two choices. They could either resist and make their own choice, or resign because they didn't know what they wanted. She knew she was the latter, a fact that she'd long accepted. It was an easier way to live. Why form your own will when it could be taken away from you at any moment?

They entered a spacious guest bathroom and Jumin procured a towel from the cabinet. He held it out to her. Her arms remained limp at her sides.

"Aren't you going to take it?"

"Dry my hair for me. Could you do that?"

She was studying her reflection in the polished mirror, but from the corner of her sight, she noticed Jumin's body tense up, a small tick in his jaw appeared and left in a blink. Eventually, he came up to her, careful to position himself at a distance behind her, eyes meeting through the mirror. It was gilt-framed and enormous, bigger than them combined. A powerful executive director, a girl full of nothingness inside. What a tantalising picture.

Jumin took a handful of her hair with care, gently wringing it one at a time and massaged her scalp, fingers occasionally brushing against her neck. She didn't bristle. She had even stopped looking at him. Something deflated inside him when he saw that he had no effect on her, and pushed this disappointment into the darkest nook in his mind. He had no right to feel hurt because of her.

To her, it was not an easy matter to restrain her arm. She wanted to enclose her fingers around his wrist. She wanted to lean back to feel his warmth on her, every dip and rise of his body an uncharted map she wanted to explore. She couldn't. She couldn't even hold his intense gaze, not when it could drive him away. She wouldn't be able to stand the disgust on his face if he knew about the foul thoughts running in her head.

Jumin was aware something had happened with her boyfriend, but he held back from questioning her. Their friendship was simple. She would come looking for him from time to time, and he would let her in every time. Loneliness could swallow his penthouse whole, but it would shrink back into his chest the moment she arrived. He suspected she knew of the power she held over him, and took great satisfaction in extorting reactions out of him.

Jumin could never compose himself around her, but what did he care?

He let her hair down and crossed the bathroom, approaching the hanger with a towel slung on his forearm. "Do you need to dry your hair? I have a hair dryer if you wish to use it."

"Why do you have one? You don't use it."

"You come here sometimes."

She trailed after him. "But I don't shower here."

"Occasions like this might happen," Jumin replied without looking at her, hanging the towel on the metal bar and straightening it out. "It's good to be prepared."

"No need for that. It'll dry on its own."

They were standing much closer now. Silence crept between them. Jumin wondered if she was doing it on purpose to get a rise out of him, if she could feel the burning heat beneath his cheeks and was fuelling the fire.

If that was what she wanted, then he'd help her see to her goal. He'd prolong her stay here.

"Would you like to eat? It's too late for dinner, but my chef left some fruits in the fridge," Jumin offered.

"I already ate cock earlier." She shrugged. "You know how flaccid and bland it was? So bland that I wanted to bite it off just to get a taste out of it. A literal Bloody Mary cocktail."

Under normal circumstances, Jumin would be taken aback by the crude remarks, but this was her. It startled him to know the things he could tolerate about her. Rather than finding it repulsive, it piqued his interest. Not that he hoped to be savagely mutilated, but her words made him want to crawl into her brain and dissect it, to study the wiring that made her the person she was.

Goodness, her ideas of mutilation had already got to him.

"So why didn't you bite?" Jumin asked. "He's hurt you more than that."

"I don't hate him enough to do it."

"Sometimes I don't think you can feel strongly for anyone."

She reached out to him then, scrunching the collar of his shirt. "That's not true," she said, steel in her voice.

"Then tell me." Jumin bent down, close enough to see himself mirrored in her eyes, but not too close that his vision would blur. "Is there anyone who occupies your every waking second and proves to be too great a distraction? Is there"—he moved closer and she almost leaned in—"anyone you're willing to do anything for?"

Her breath hitched in her throat, but she didn’t back down. Her hands slid down to his shoulders. "If I tell you the answer, would you hate me for it?"

His eyes flitted to her lips before returning to her gaze. "Would it be wrong if I say I wouldn't?"

"Does it matter? He's probably getting his sorry dick up some girl in a club anyway."

Jumin brushed his thumb over her bare lips. They were crusted with brown scabs, most likely courtesy of her boyfriend. She had told Jumin in an off-handed manner once that her boyfriend enjoyed hurting her and flaunting it like a prize to his friends, like, see, only he could leave marks on her. He got off on that, she claimed. The sole proprietorship of her body. Her frail frame a canvas bearing war wounds, a war that she never fought in. No matter how much he abused her, she just let him.

She never felt strongly for herself.

Jumin hated how she talked about her pain like it was a casual tea-time conversation. Sometimes she'd laugh even. Of course it hurts, but the sting never lasts long, she'd said. Doesn't that matter more?

It doesn't, Jumin had replied. Not when the scars remain. But he was powerless to get her out of the situation she was tangled in. All he could do was wait. She just needed time to come to her senses, he told himself. Time was money and he could afford it.

And yet, would she like it if he barged in and bought her way out? Would she even budge? He wanted her to be safe even if she hated him later. He wondered if this desperate, helpless need to help was merely because she was her friend. He didn't want to venture his thoughts further than that.

But now, her eyes were longing, desiring something from him. Jumin suspected his told the same secret. With his thumb, he dragged her bottom lip down and instinctively, she parted her lips, allowing him to slide into her mouth. In a slow, drawn-out motion, she pressed her lips around his finger, gently sucking on it while licking it, just once, to see his reaction.

He did not react. He couldn't even if he wanted to.

From his vantage point, Jumin could see her heaving chest that she tried to disguise, her collarbone exposed by her drooping t-shirt. She was irresistible and thrumming with need. He had been blind. How could he presume she didn't want him when she was hanging onto him like this, anticipating like this?

He pulled his thumb out, and she grazed it with her teeth, not letting go without resistance. His fingers that rested on the nook of her chin tightened their grip. "Should I take your bite as a sign that you hate me?"

She locked her gaze on him. "Don't taunt me."

But when did Jumin ever listen to commands?

Instead, he gave her what she couldn't ask for, what she couldn't speak into existence. Jumin dragged his lips across her shoulder, moving with purposeful nonchalance and leaving featherlight kisses on her collarbone. It was a brush, a ghost of mouth against skin. There was an invisible force that held him back from latching onto her, like if he did, it would cement the unspoken rule that they were toeing around, and she would wake from the trance and push him away.

He focused on her shivers instead, on her quickening breaths and the movement of her hands gliding down his arms, seizing his lean muscles beneath the sleeves. With his mouth, he charted his way up from her neck to the back of her ear. "Then what do you propose I do?" he muttered, his voice guttural.

It was her sweet provocation.

Half-relieved that Jumin wanted the same thing, half-contemptuous that he could see through her desire and use it against her, she raked his hair roughly. "Suck on my neck. Hard."

He toyed with the outline of her shirt, bunching it between his fingers. If she dared to buck her pelvis forward, he could graze her hipbone.

"Why?" Jumin's question was a challenge.

She turned her head to look at him. He was so close that their noses almost touched. "It would look good on me."

"Why would you want anyone to look at it?"

"It would be a mark from you. Why wouldn't I?"

Weighted silence hung in the air. Jumin was deliberating, assessing every little truth on her face. Give it all up, she seemed to say. It wouldn't be a real kiss. Our lips wouldn't touch. It wouldn't be real if we didn't let it.

"If that's what you wish." He swooped her in with one strong pull, an arm around her waist while the other hand buried in her damp hair, their bodies pressed against each other. He could feel the contour of her breasts, nipples perking through her thin shirt, and she could feel his hardened member against her stomach.

Jumin sucked hard on her neck and she moaned, a pleasant sting shot right down to her core. She hadn't felt like this for so long. It was as if the oxygen was cut from her lungs and fresh air rushed back in just as fast. It didn't make sense, but she could finally breathe again. He brought her alive.

Jumin trailed up, sucking on another spot. She gasped, her grip tightened around his arms and her hips ground against his bulge, wishing he would put it into her. His right hand was holding her head still, tilting it sideways to give him better access to her skin, but his left hand had slipped underneath her shirt and was roaming up, up, up, tracing the outline of her breast with his knuckle, never quite touching where she needed to be touched.

It was unbearable. She wanted him everywhere but lacked the courage to take one step further in this dangerous stunt. If she pushed Jumin to tarnish his integrity, he might loathe himself after he came down from his high. He might regret it and close the door in her face the next time she dropped by. Then she would lose her only friend.

She was selfish, and this was a dangerous territory.

"Jumin," she breathed out.

He stopped and pulled back slightly, his hand cupping the underside of her breast. The eyes searching her face were feral. For a moment, there were only rapid breathing and tension so magnetic that no force could have ripped them apart. It took everything in her not to chase after him, to give him a taste of her, to pleasure him back.

Jumin pressed his forehead against hers. "I wish I could lay claim on every inch of your body and soul and preserve them for myself."

His lips were so close, so close, but she couldn't lean in deeper than this. "You have me, you know that," she whispered.

Jumin closed his eyes. "Not really."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I will take whatever you give me. If this is all I could receive from you, then I will accept it."

But would it be enough? The question floated unspoken between them, but it was something they already had the answer to.

Jumin took his hand out of her shirt and she felt the loss of it like her lifeline being cleaved in half. She touched the marks he left and smiled. "This is good. I won't forget it."

"I doubt you will."

She walked back to the mirror and stretched her neck, inspecting the blooming violet bruises. He'd picked spots that would be noticeable, impossible to hide. It was intentional and they both knew it. Jumin was standing behind her again, this time resting his hand on her shoulder without hesitance.

"I finally got something from you that I can keep," she said.

You already have my heart, he wanted to say, but this wasn't the right time. One misstep and she could run. Would there ever be a right time with her? He wasn't sure, but he couldn't afford to gamble for it. Instead, he bargained with her. "You can ask for more, but there will be a price to pay. I don't hand out favours for free."

She clasped her hand on top of his, her heart wrenched. "I'm already paying for it."

Jumin blinked slowly as if to say, I know, I'm sharing the load with you, and squeezed her shoulder. "You should go home before it gets too late. I'll have Driver Kim take you back."

"I better head down then." She meant to say, I wish I could stay the night, but she knew he would let her, so she left without another word.

Dawn had broken when she arrived at her boyfriend's small, suffocating studio. She had not slept, but she was lit up from within. Her frayed nerve endings had been patched back together and were now firing with electricity. In this state, she could believe that the strength she needed to break through her empty shell was not so unattainable.

Her boyfriend was already asleep in his bed, smelling of sweat and cigarettes and vodka and floral perfume. It wasn't her scent. She hated flowers since he would occasionally bribe her with a bouquet of them when his outbursts got too brutal.

Fucking petals and thorns.

She crawled in beside him, watched him sleep, and carved her fingernails into his naked chest. She scratched down, hard, until small bubbles of blood formed. Unlike her, he hated being tainted. She watched the droplets burst into tiny scarlet pools, the cuts not deep enough for the blood to drip down the covers. She picked on the flayed skin around them before wiping the blood away with his abandoned shirt. Anything of his felt filthy if she touched it directly.

There was momentary joy in slashing him apart, but it was always replaced by more intense malice because she could never completely break him. She simply did not hold enough power over him.

Her boyfriend stirred awake. When he saw her, he grabbed her hair and forced her to look at him, making her slip and fall on top of his fresh cuts. She made a disgusted noise. "Where the fuck were you? I waited for you the whole night."

She kept her tone impassive. "While you were fucking another girl?"

"Not my fault I can't get it up with you." He sat up, pulling her with him and struck her cheek three times. He was still holding back, so it didn't hurt as much. "Fuck, you're a shithead. There's something wrong with you, seriously. Stop making that face."

"What face?"

He squeezed her neck and she gasped. It was tighter than she was used to. She couldn't breathe. "I bet you were whoring yourself out while I was gone. No man in his right mind would want your body, get that?" He twisted her nipple hard and she yelped in pain. "Answer me when I'm talking to you."

"Please." She clawed at his hand.

"Useless bitch. You should be grateful I still love you." He threw her aside, head hitting the headboard.

She was still coughing when he hovered over her, slathering detestable kisses and detestable hands all over her body before pulling her pants down and inserting his sloppy cock into her. It felt like grating on cardboard. It was the second fuck tonight, she thought. Or maybe the first seeing that it was already past midnight.

Tonight was a new day. She got a new day and a new soul so really, whatever her boyfriend did to her couldn't bother her. This could be the last time if she was brave enough. Maybe she could give him another head and just fucking off with it.

"What's this?" He stopped moving, his sharp annoyance breaking her out of her reverie.

"What?"

"You got two fucking hickeys on your neck."

She sighed. "You gave me them, remember?"

"I did?"

"Yeah, when we were doing missionary and you said I look beautiful."

He let out a derisive laugh. "I'd never call you that."

"True, but you did choke me and kiss me there after."

"Right, that I did."

"Yeah."

A fucking fool.

She turned her head away from him while he continued to pound into her. Another mindless, boring routine that she wouldn't miss. His grunts were the noise she wanted to erase from her memory. With his head beside hers, she wished he could smell Jumin on her, a proof that he did not have special admission to her body. If she were a better person, she would tell Jumin to find a better woman. And if she told her boyfriend about this thought, he would dismiss it as her childish fantasy. As if there was anything childish to being used like a sex doll.

You're a kid, you know that? You don't know what you're doing, he would say. If you did, you could've made me happy.

Outside, she would assent, but inside, she would cackle. This pathetic moron thought he had her wrapped around his fingers when it was the other way around. He could only hurt her because she let him, and on some primal level, she probably liked it. It gave her a kind of sadomasochistic pleasure to be wrecked without having to be responsible for it. She could make the person she loathed bear all the blame.

Her boyfriend was so easy to manipulate, a simpleton, really. How could he believe that he was the one who marked her skin? Nothing he did could ever be as lovely. He couldn't come close to anything Jumin was.

She did not deserve Jumin, but the bruise was beautiful, oh, so beautiful.

Footnotes because I'm obnoxious and a certified Hermione Granger:

MC referring to herself as a girl instead of a woman is a direct effect of her boyfriend belittling her. No matter how much she passively hates him, his words have skewed the way she sees herself.

Unreliable narrator. Despite MC claiming that she can't feel angry with her boyfriend in the beginning, it's shown through her actions in the last scene that she's repressing a lot of resentment.

Double usage of dirty/polished mirrors is intentional.

Just in case anyone gets funny ideas, what her boyfriend does to her is NOT BDSM or degradation kink etc. She never consents and he lashes out of anger so it's abuse.

Buy me a glass of something that's definitely not coffee because I can't stand it but it is the website's name if my story touches you in some way? No worries if you don't. I'm still grateful you've read all the way through here.

#mandatory april 29 reblogging!#after 2 years this fic still pops up in my mind from time to time #jumin han #mystic messenger

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