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He’s in the shower the first time the thought crosses his mind.
Her shower, at her house, after an unfortunate incident in delivering her medicine. Which concluded in him being covered in baby puke.
Unfortunate, to say the least.
And he’s just about arrived at the conclusion that, as perplexing and frankly frustrating as this woman can be, he likes her.
She’s pretty - so pretty - and he can’t deny being attracted to her, but he’s been surrounded by pretty for half his life now – just pretty doesn’t do it for him.
It’s something in her laugh, in the twinkle in her eyes. Something in the way her hand curls around his. Muscle memory, instinct with a touch of longing.
He’s started to seek her out in crowds even when he doesn’t expect to see her.
And Sunjae isn’t stupid. Im Sol swears every time she sees him that it’ll be their last time meeting, but he sees how her eyes always linger just a touch too long whenever they make contact with his, how they flicker to his lips when she thinks he’s not paying attention.
(He’s always paying attention.)
And now he’s in her shower, surrounded by the scent of her soap, and thinking of just how pretty she is and the possibility that she's maybe also thought of kissing him before.
His skin smells just like her. And she’s just right through the door.
And his mind…wanders.
He slips, ends up spilling her body wash in his distraction, and smacks himself over the mouth to snap out of it.
This is not the proper timing for this.
But it’s not crazy, for the thought to cross his mind.
And to stay there.
And to take root.
***
Later, when Sunjae has remembered four (five? He doesn’t know. They’ve bled into each other) timelines’ worth of loving her, and then later still, after he’s already learned the taste of sweat on her skin and has swallowed down her sighs, the notion returns to him.
“I’m going to take a shower," she says to him, in the morning. "Get out.”
“Okay,” he goes to push the door shut, turns immediately back around to her to place his hands on her shoulders. “Do you want to shower togethe-”
“I said get out! Get out!” Sol feigns offense as she swats him towards the door, but she is laughing.
“It can be scary by yourself!” Sunjae calls out before the door swings shut on him. So unceremoniously kicked out.
Fifteen years, four times over, and they’re still new to each other in this way.
And he remembers in vivid detail the night before, how shyness led her to cover her face with her hands to avoid looking down when he’d used his mouth on her.
Immediately afterwards, whilst he was still dazed and tracing the vague outlines of hearts on her bare ribcage, she’d suddenly scrambled off of him and rolled herself into the bedsheets, flushed red all the way to her chest, embarrassed until he’d reluctantly retrieved some clothes for her to dress into.
And he once promised her pure as oxygen, but now another thought once abandoned creeps its way back in. Something involving Sol, and showers, and seeing a lot more of her.
And the hope that she won’t be this timid around him for very long, because now that he’s seen the color she turns when she’s breathless beneath him, he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to not think of it again.
Sunjae pouts at the closed bathroom door, then turns and heads to the kitchen to cook her breakfast.
And he plots.
***
His plans are disrupted, because she works all day. In the meantime he, committed to never doing things only halfway, buys her a ring.
As it happens, he doesn’t end up asking her to marry him on the night he planned – the timing isn’t right, not yet – but she does end up coming back to his apartment anyways. It is partly her idea (“My house is going to be a mess tonight…relatives visiting, presents everywhere…”) and partly at his insistence.
Sol hums, cheerfully, as he types in his passcode and holds the door open for her to enter.
And she tilts her head.
“Sunjae-ya? Why are there candles everywhere?”
Sunjae’s hand slips against the doorframe and he just catches himself from falling flat on his face.
“What?”
Right.
After cancelling the cake, the drone, the fireworks, and successfully erasing every sign of his original plan of proposing tonight, he brings her back to an apartment strewn with rose petals and candles.
Not suspicious at all.
“Candles…did you just light these and leave? And there are petals on the floor. Why...?”
“To celebrate your decision!” he blurts out. “Here’s to Movie Director Im Sol!”
“What? But I only just told you an hour ago, how did - ”
“Well, I just – I had a feeling! We’re so in sync, I could tell you had big news!”
Sol laughs, uncertainly, and eyes the candles arranged into a heart on the coffee table in the middle of his living room.
Sunjae is suddenly glad he decided to save the proposal for another day – over the top is not a strong enough expression.
And…yeah. He’s never trusting Baek Inhyuk to arrange something tastefully ever again.
He kicks his shoes off, and almost goes flying across the floor in his haste to reach the candles and blow them out.
“There’s champagne, too,” Sol narrows her eyes at him. He can tell she’s barely concealing a grin. “Sunjae, are you really sure that -”
“What are you talking about? I just wanted us to have a casual drink after dinner.”
Hands clasped innocently at his back, Sunjae kicks some of the rose petals into a little pile behind him.
“A casual drink,” Sol repeats.
He nods quickly. Tilts his head. Shoots her a dazzling smile. Tries to sweep his pile of petals beneath an armchair in what he’s certain is a subtle manner.
Her nose is still scrunched up like she doesn’t believe him, but nonetheless she shrugs off her jacket, drapes it on top of a fur coat thrown over the couch.
“Is this yours?” she points to the soft grey fur.
Sunjae shakes his head no.
“Inhyuk leaves his things here sometimes. He'll pick it up tomorrow.”
When he’s blown out all the candles and gotten rid of the most obvious of the petals, he asks her whether she’d like anything to eat.
“Oh, sure? What do you have?” Sol’s made herself comfortable on the couch, feet tucked beneath her, leaning against the armrest to look back at him.
Sunjae crosses the floor to open his almost-empty fridge. Looks at the offending box. Winces. Classy. Calls out only somewhat sheepishly, “Chocolate-covered strawberries.”
In a heart-shaped sparkly box. Very normal.
He hears her suppress a soft snort.
Sunjae abandons the fridge and goes to sit back down beside her. Oh well. May as well open that champagne. He sets about pouring out two glasses, and when he turns to hand Sol her flute he finds her looking at him very strangely.
She shakes her head.
Scoffs, suspiciously, and wags a finger at him.
“You’re not half as slick as you think you are. I’m well aware you had other intentions for today.”
So she probably knows.
That’s fine. He can still turn this around.
He waits until she's taken the champagne flute from him, and he clinks his glass against hers.
He tries to look nonchalant as he says, “Had? I still have intentions for tonight.”
Sol’s expression – narrowed eyes, pursed lips, slight amusement – slips from her face.
Sunjae lowers his voice when he speaks again.
“Phase 1 is complete. Getting you to agree to spend the night here.”
He leans into her side of the couch until he can feel her breath against his face.
“Can you guess what the other phases are?”
Her mouth drops open slightly and her eyes dart around wildly. “I – what – Sunjae -”
Sunjae raises an eyebrow. He sees the heat rise quickly to her face.
“I – I…”
Whilst she lifts a hand to press the back of her knuckles quickly against her cheek, he smoothly slips the ring box out of his pocket and wedges it somewhat with force between the couch cushions behind him, to avoid her detection.
For another time, he tells himself. More pressing matters now.
He leans in closer.
“Or if you’re stuck for ideas, I can gladly provide a reminder.”
Her eyes widen. The sheer force and suddenness of her reaction is borderline comical to Sunjae, when he considers how they spent the night before last.
He tells her as much.
Sol makes a choking sound and downs her entire glass in one go, then chokes again on the champagne. Sputtering and coughing, she slams the delicate flute down on his coffee table.
Everything is forgotten. Sunjae jumps to her side, puts a hand on her back to check if she’s still breathing properly.
“Are you ok??” he asks, eyes wide.
She coughs one more time, still gasping as she nods the affirmative.
“I’m ok.” She pauses. Clears her throat while he brushes away the strands of hair that have fallen in front of her face, growing redder still. “I – I just…the other night. Once I think of it…it’s hard to stop. Hard to think of anything else again.”
Another pause.
“I’ve been struggling. To think of anything else.”
Sunjae’s heart catches in his throat, and he swallows it back down with force. God, he’s already intoxicated by her and all she’s done is have a coughing fit.
All he wants to do is melt into a puddle at her feet. But he can play it cool.
He can be smooth.
A nod. He inches his mouth closer to the soft lobe of her ear. “It’s been the same for me.”
“It has?”
“You know what I can’t stop thinking about?”
He watches the muscles in her throat move as she swallows.
“Tell me.”
“How pretty that shade of pink you turned was,” his lips are close enough now to brush light-as-a-feather against her ear when he speaks, “how you tasted. How your nails felt in my hair.”
His hand is still resting on her back, and for a second he feels her stop breathing. Her pupils are blown wide.
“Please,” she says, pulling at his sweater, “kiss me.”
He suddenly feels too hot for the room, pulls off his sweater to rectify the situation. Sol takes this as a very welcome invitation to climb onto his lap, and she slots her lips between his with no hesitation. His body shows no delay to her – he is rock hard within seconds, knows there is no way she can’t feel it through their clothes.
She kisses him slowly, deeply. Twice, thrice. Readjusts herself in his arms so her knees are bracketing his hips. Gone is her shyness from a minute ago, dissipated like fog. When she slings her arms around his neck, he catches her bottom lip between his teeth and sucks it into his mouth.
His hips involuntarily buck upwards into hers. It makes her kiss him with more insistence, so he does it again – her short skirt is much more convenient than last time, when she wore jeans. His fingers don't stumble as they work to bunch the fabric of it up past her hips – he can feel how hot she is, how wet, through the layers of clothing.
She pulls away to breathe. “Sunjae,” she exhales, “Sunjae.”
Her dimple twinkles at him, so beautiful he can’t stop himself from kissing it before trailing back to her lips.
A hand on her lower back pushes her more deeply still into his lap, holds her in place where he most wants her. She whines, so softly he’s not sure he really heard her, moves her head to lave languid kisses on the side of his neck, on his bare shoulder.
“So pretty,” she says, and he chuckles, breathless.
“What is?”
“Hm?” she seems to only now realize she’s spoken out loud.
She moves her lips back closer to his skin.
“Your collarbone,” she admits. “I nearly died the first time I saw it.”
This is interesting new information.
“What? When was that?”
Sol’s lips seal back onto his skin in lieu of a response, tongue so hot it feels like she’s branding him. Her hips find a more steady rhythm rocking against his, guided by the one hand he still has on her hip.
It alarms him how fast the pressure starts to build up, how good it all is, and he has to forcibly remove her from his lap lest the evening be over too soon. She clutches and claws at his shoulders in protest, then huffs when he is entirely removed from her grip.
Sunjae laughs at her indignance, can’t help leaning down to kiss her on the forehead, then he crouches down in front of her to kiss the top of her left knee and scoops her up in his arms.
“The bedroom is the other way!”
She giggles when he walks straight past it, puts her arms around his shoulders.
“I know.” He kisses her cheek again, sloppily, and makes a beeline for the bathroom with the big tub. “But I have another idea.”
He kicks the door open, drunk on her gaze.
She brings her face closer to his, until their noses are almost touching. Her arms tighten around him.
“In here?”
He nods. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since that first time I was in your shower. Or – no – it was earlier than that. So much earlier I’m afraid to admit it.”
“Since then?” she breathes out. “What did you want to do?”
His hand digs deeper into the flesh of her thigh where he’s gripping her. His eyes flutter shut.
“I wanted to push you up against the tiles. To -”
The sound of a throat clearing itself sends his eyes flying open.
Baek Inhyuk lounges in the tub, filled to the brim with pink bubbles, as though he is enjoying himself at a relaxing day spa. His mouth is slightly open, eyes wide and frozen somewhere between disgust and horror before he schools it into something more smug and composed.
“…and then?” Inhyuk prompts, waving a hand through the air.
Sol shrieks and launches herself out of Sunjae’s arms with such force that it sends Sunjae stumbling backwards. She straightens out her skirt and darts out of the room – no doubt to hide herself away.
He half expects to see a trail of dust in her wake, like when a cartoon character runs so fast their legs windmill in the animation.
Sunjae wishes he himself were dust.
This really, truly, cannot be happening.
He doesn’t think he’s ever been this embarrassed. Or this irritated.
He wants the ground to swallow him whole.
He could kill Inhyuk with his bare hands, twenty years of friendship be damned.
He wants Sol back.
“You!” Sol’s voice reprimands loudly from somewhere in the kitchen. “You’re always causing trouble!”
Sunjae turns his gaze towards the offending intruder, and huffs, nostrils flaring. Inhyuk’s hands fly up as though to defend himself. Sunjae drags him halfway out the tub by the ear.
“Ow, ow, it hurts! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
Sunjae feels his jaw clench, gives Inhyuk a look dirty enough to wither.
To his credit, Inhyuk appears ashamed of himself. “Sunjae-ya, I’m sorry!”
“You’re sorry?” Sunjae bellows. He exhales through gritted teeth. “I could wring your neck!”
“I didn’t think you’d bring her back to your place! Not after the you-know-what didn’t go as planned!”
Sunjae presses his lips into a tight line, nostrils flaring. “You could have assumed! Made an educated guess!”
“But your tub has the nicest view!”
***
By the time they finally rejoin Sol in the living room, she’s bundled herself up in so many blankets that she seems to have merged with them. Only her eyes peeking out through a small gap give any sign that she’s hidden under there.
Baek Inhyuk grins – the nerve of him – and salutes Sol with one hand. She retreats further into her blankets, but Sunjae can see her giving Inhyuk the stink-eye.
“I never thought I’d see the day. Absolutely nothing for 35 years, and now,” he lets out a low whistle and snickers, turns to Sunjae. “Make sure you lock it down, huh?”
“You think it’s okay to joke? Do you value your life?” Sunjae has known Inhyuk for too long for any threat against him to be truly effective, so he truly tries to inject his words with as much venom as possible. “Leave right now.”
Inhyuk sighs and instead flops down on the couch, looking for the life of him as someone who’s just dropped by for a cup of tea.
He yawns.
“You have champagne? I can stay for a drink,” he says like he’s been invited, and pulls his phone out to text someone.
“Ya, did you not hear me?”
“He might as well stay,” he hears Sol mutter from beneath her mountain of blankets. “Not like anything’s ever gonna happen now.”
“Great,” Inhyuk says happily. He’s definitely had a few drinks already – he’s more shameless than usual.
Sunjae stares daggers at him.
“I've always thought you seem familiar,” Inhyuk says to Sol, instantly dropping the honorific. “Have we met before? What school did you go to?”
“I don’t think we ever would’ve met,” Sol replies. Her arm emerges from her cocoon to drape a stray blanket on top of Sunjae – right, his shirt is still thrown on the floor somewhere around here.
He pulls the cover tighter around himself.
“No, I’m sure of it,” Inhyuk continues, “Did you ever visit the beach in Danpo-ri?”
“No,” Sol says immediately. Her eyes darken.
Right.
“It’s nice to see Sunjae like this, though,” He grins yet more widely. “There was no one in his life before you, you know? No one. It was like the Sahara desert. He never had a real relationship, even though he was always surrounded by the most gorgeous girls. I was always so sad for him - no one should live like that!”
Despite the situation, Sol smirks at Sunjae upon hearing this. “Oh? Is that so?”
“Like you didn’t already know that,” Sunjae huffs.
“I was starting to suspect he’d dreamed you up, at first. But I’m glad now. You two seem…" he snickers, "really into each other.”
“Do you ever plan on leaving?” Sunjae snaps, feeling himself grow more irritated by the second. He’s starting to forget all the reasons that make Inhyuk such a dearly beloved friend to him.
“I’m leaving, I’m leaving. I’ve had a few drinks, but I texted someone to pick me up. He shouldn’t be too far away now.”
As if on cue, the doorbell rings. Dong-suk, no doubt. He strips the blanket off himself to free his arms, and goes to answer the door.
And of course it's not Dong-Suk.
Kim Taesung recoils upon seeing him on the other side of the door. “Wow. Not the kind of greeting I was expecting here.”
“Taesung-ah!” Inhyuk calls out from the couch and – yep – he’s definitely getting drunker somehow.
“Take him away,” Sunjae grits out with disgust.
Taesung looks at the human pile of blankets on the couch with great interest, raises a hand in greeting.
“Hi, Noona.”
The blankets don't greet him back.
Taesung glances back at Sunjae’s state for a moment, and narrows his eyes before turning back with the most smug smile Sunjae has seen in his life.
He moves to take his shoes off and come in.
“Baek Inhyuk! What are we doing? Preventing sinful behavior between an unmarried couple? Excellent! Is that champagne?”
***
Sunjae is in a mood.
He hasn’t seen Sol since their Shakespearian tragedy of a night several days ago, and he feels himself withering away in her absence.
He is inconsolable.
She’s been busy at work, smoothing out the last few details of her script before moving on to her own short film. Understandable. She wants to be a director, but still needs to ensure her proper vision will be carried out for the movie that means so much to them both.
Not understandable? The horrid interruption of those few nights prior.
He misses Sol.
His makeup artists are starting to notice his mood, too.
“He’s even grumpier than yesterday,” he overhears one of them say, behind a corner where they think they’re out of his earshot.
He shifts, trying not to make it obvious he’s listening. Whatever. He’s not even eavesdropping, not if they’re talking in a common space.
“I wonder if anything happened with that girl he was dating,” the second one replies. She gasps. “Do you think they broke up?”
“We didn’t break up!” Sunjae bellows.
“Hyung!” Dong-suk hushes him, “what are you doing? Quiet down! Do you want more articles written about your dating life?”
Sunjae folds his arms like a resentful child. “I’m fine with news getting out. I want to marry her, anyway.”
“Weren’t you keeping that a secret?”
Sunjae thinks of the way Sol’s eyes had narrowed when she questioned whether he’d planned something for that night. He slouches down in his chair. “It’s more of an open secret.”
“Cheer up a little,” his manager urges, “You’re scaring the staff. And do you want wrinkles in this shoot?”
“Don’t tell me when to cheer up,” Sunjae says. He can be as petulant as he wants to be.
His phone beeps with a text alert from his Sol-ie, and Sunjae instantly cheers up.
Taking a quick lunch break
Great news. Sunjae is already halfway to the door before Dong-suk can call out to him to come back and sit in the chair.
Right. The photoshoot. A winterwear collection. He can’t even pretend to muster any enthusiasm, not when he’s abandoning Sol to eat lunch all by herself.
Just got off the phone with my mom
Water pipe burst again so no heat until they fix that
This happens too often
He can so clearly imagine her face scrunching up with annoyance. His fingers fly across the keyboard to send a reply, but his phone beeps with new notifications before he can hit send.
Would you mind if I just stayed over at yours tonight?
There’s no hot water at my house
Sunjae sits up straight in his chair.
Yes. Yes you can.
The day seems a lot brighter, all of a sudden.
Full of promise.
The photoshoot goes ahead as scheduled. He does an excellent job like always.
His mind is not even slightly present in the moment.
He’s already imagining himself with Sol in his arms. He’s not going to let another shower seduction go awry, not this time. He’s going to go and maybe buy her freshly cut flowers, and he’ll cook her a nice dinner.
No, on second thought, he should order, he doesn’t want his apartment smelling like he’s been cooking, not for the kind of night he has planned. He’ll get all her favorites, though.
He’s in the middle of contemplating whether or not he should get a new cologne for his purposes when he realizes they’ve stopped shooting
“Well, the pictures look very good,” the director is saying, “except he has a very vacant look in his eye.”
They let him take a break once they’re satisfied with the pictures they have, even Dong-suk accepting that he’s not going to be of use for much else for the moment being.
Sunjae sits back in his chair, in front of the mirror, and waits for Sol to text him back.
He hopes she’ll finish work early today.
His eyes catch on his reflection. He should ensure she’s on the same page as him, he thinks. They’ve done his makeup expertly for the shoot – so he knows he looks good today.
Girls like receiving sexy photos. He thinks.
He runs his fingers quickly over his jawline, checks his forehead – no wrinkles – and stops himself from messing with his hair. It’s styled for the shoot, he probably shouldn’t touch it.
Phone unlocked – no new notifications – Sunjae snaps a picture of himself in the mirror, looks over it critically. Not good enough.
Maybe with a couple buttons undone…there. He tries winking in one photo – no, that looks weird – then props his shoulder to make sure his collarbone is exposed in the next few.
Yes, ok, this should be good.
He sends it to her, accompanied by a winking emoji.
Her response is immediate. He smirks, eyes scanning over her words quickly.
And his face falls.
Are you going to wear that outside??
It’s -2°C out
Make sure to put on a sweater
Or at least button up
***
The rest of the day doesn’t go according to plan. It’s late – past 11 – by the time he picks her up from work, and she yawns as she recounts her day in the elevator, the hallway, the entryway of his apartment.
There’d been some disagreements over her script, and she stayed late to sort everything out. She’s a bit disgruntled at the changes she did have to agree to, but satisfied with the overall product.
“I’m sorry, I’m rambling. It was a long day.”
Never apologize for anything, ever.
“Have you eaten yet?” she asks. “That’s a stupid question, it’s so late…oh, do you still have makeup on from your shoot?”
She reaches out and runs a hand, almost absent-mindedly, over his hair, his face. He leans into her touch as if on instinct.
She stifles another yawn with her other hand. “You still have product in your hair, too…I thought you got off work earlier, didn’t you have time to shower?”
“I did,” he places his palm over her hand to keep it in its place on his cheek. Makes the kind of eye contact he knows usually renders her speechless. “But I was waiting for you.”
Sol blinks. “Why would you wait for me?”
She takes her hand away from him to start taking off her coat, leans down to remove her shoes.
“It’s almost midnight, you shouldn’t leave things off on account of my schedule. Did you not have time because you came to pick me up? You don’t have to…”
She's interrupted by her own yawn.
Leave it to her to worry about him even when there’s nothing to worry about. He loves her so much.
“No, Sol, I only -”
“…and I’ll only be getting busier, for the next while…I’m thinking of at least writing the ad for a casting call…”
He can’t even try to keep the smile off his face. “No, I had time, it’s just I was thinking we could…”
She’s being suspiciously quiet.
He looks towards Sol to see her slumped over, having fallen asleep in the middle of taking her shoes off.
Sunjae laughs at her position, then at himself and his discarded plans.
Well.
He’s happy enough – he got to see her today.
He kneels down and gets her other shoe off himself. Puts them away neatly. Carries her to the bedroom, careful not to wake her, and tucks her in beneath the blankets so she can rest.
Next time.
***
Next time takes much too long to arrive.
Sol hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said her schedule would only get busier. It’s almost a week before he sees her again, and even then it’s only with the occasion of helping her out with more work.
Im Geum and Hyunjoo have just finished moving out of Sol’s mother’s apartment – Sol appears to know more about their newfound wealth than she’ll admit and looks too satisfied with herself to not have been involved, but he doesn’t press her for details.
Though the housewarming has already been hosted a few days ago, he knows from Sol’s texts that there’s still much left to tidy up at her apartment.
“I’ll come help you,” he promises, despite her insisting she only needs to sweep and put away some boxes.
It’s nice, just being with her like this. Her long hair is clipped up and she’s wearing her glasses, and soft house clothes. A light yellow sweatshirt with pants to match, and there’s a streak of something - ink? – on her face he hasn’t decided to tell her about yet.
He’s somewhat more dressed up than her, having come straight from a promotion event.
She huffs a bit when she sees him, corner of her mouth twitching, though the annoyance doesn’t reach anywhere near her eyes. “Why do you always look so perfect? I look shabby next to you.”
This makes him snicker. He grabs both her hands, swinging their arms between their bodies. “What are you talking about? There’s no one more perfect than my Sol,” he says, in the cutest voice he can muster up.
She clicks her tongue, but looks pleased. “Aish. You’re just saying that.”
“Do you think I’m making things up?” he demands. “Why do you think I’m hiding you away from the tabloids? The second they see that my girlfriend is this pretty," he widens his eyes for emphasis, “someone’s going to want to steal you away!”
“Pfft.”
“I’m serious! But, if you’re really looking for some constructive criticism,” he plucks at her sweatshirt, “I can think of one way for you to look even more perfect.”
Sol reddens, and swats his hands away. “Get away from here! I have work to do.”
She flees from the room, but he can still hear her muttering away, something about how she was promised a boy as pure as oxygen only to end up with this.
He laughs again and shakes his head. Well. At least he tried.
To his credit, he does help. He finishes sweeping for her, dusts the newly-empty rooms, and lifts all the heavy boxes with Geum’s old college textbooks to store in an empty closet in the kids’ old room. There were a lot of boxes – he’s worked up quite a sweat by the time he’s finishing up rearranging the closet by the door. It’s almost a full spring cleaning, at this point.
“It’s getting late,” he calls out into the empty house, “when are your mother and grandmother coming home?”
“Oh,” Sol responds. She’s wearing an apron on top of her tracksuit, and has gotten herself significantly more dusty than him, somehow. “Mom texted a couple hours ago, they’ve already had dinner so they’re going to sleep at Geum’s tonight. Just so they can finish up unpacking quicker in the morning.”
Oh?
An opportunity.
She walks up to him and plucks something out of his hair. Lint? He doesn’t care.
“You should be heading home soon too. I don’t want you to be tired in the morning.”
“I’m okay with being tired in the morning.”
He’ll never get enough of the way her eyes widen whenever he makes eye contact with just a little too much intensity. He knows at once what she’s thinking of – this doorway has…connotations, for them.
He hooks a finger into the front pocket of her apron to pull her closer in. Watches the movement of her throat as she gulps.
His body reacts to her like clockwork. It’s been entirely too long.
“What – what?” she stammers out.
He rubs a thumb along the dark blue ink stain on her cheekbone. “We’re just both so sweaty,” he observes, conveniently. Raises an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t we shower?”
“Well – I suppose you can shower here – but yours is nicer, wouldn’t you prefer -”
He abandons all subtlety. Leans in to kiss the exposed, long line of her neck. Mumbles against her skin.
“That’s right, you don’t always have a lot of hot water, do you?”
“That’s right,” she affirms.
She gulps again, throat jumping underneath his lips.
“What should we do? Should we just shower together? To save on hot water.” He kisses the soft skin again. “It’s just the only reasonable solution.”
She doesn’t protest when he snakes am arm around her back, and he can’t help kissing her on the lips, too.
She’s much too beautiful.
“You’re right. It’s the only reasonable solution.” She scrunches her face up at him, then. “But I’m not letting you use all my body wash this time!”
He grins. “Then I’ll just let you -”
The front door swings open. Sunjae stumbles on his own feet.
“Sol-ah, did you finish up here?” Sol’s mother yawns. “Geum dropped us back after all, Halmeoni wouldn’t sleep out of her own bed. Sunjae! What are you doing here?”
Sunjae supports himself up with a hand against the wall. Sol has flown to about ten paces away from him.
“Good evening, mother! I was just helping Sol out!”
“Gosh, my dear boy, you’re so red in the face. Did Sol make you do all the work? And in your nice clothes, too, that brat.”
“He helped me with the heavy boxes!” Sol exclaims. “Geum’s old stuff. He should’ve taken some of it with him, there was so much.”
She won’t meet anyone’s eye. He thinks she might end up gnawing clean through her own lip.
“We’re done now, though,” Sunjae continues for her. “I was just about to go home, actually. Where – where did I leave my coat?” He runs a hand over his face.
Why does this keep happening?
“Why would you leave? Stay, stay,” Bok-soon insists. “I’ll get you some water to drink. Have a seat somewhere!”
***
Two days later, Sol comes by to have dinner at his apartment. She only has until the end of the week before she finishes up her job at the production company. They end up half-watching some TV drama he has a short cameo in while she tells him about her plans for the coming week for her own film, and about her soon-to-be-ex-coworkers’ antics. They’re doing a terrible job keeping a goodbye card and gift for Sol secret from her, apparently.
“They really think I have no idea,” she’s saying, “but they keep leaving that card on the desk in front of mine. It is sweet, though, that they’re doing it. But they’re so bad at keeping quiet.”
He can tell she’s touched, at the effort they’re going to. That she’s valued, going to be missed.
He’s not really paying attention to the TV anymore, more focused on the words coming out of her mouth. And her mouth. She’s wearing a very pretty lip gloss, which he watched her reapply after dinner. There are little sparkles in it.
It’s supposed to taste like strawberries, the label said. His vision narrows down onto her lips.
Her voice sounds pretty, too.
Why is she sitting so far away from him?
“Uh-huh,” he says, because somehow he’s not sure he knows what she’s been saying.
She’s onto him.
“Sunjae, are you okay?”
“No.” He grabs her by the heel of her foot, drags her halfway onto his lap. “There. I’m much better now.”
“Tsk. Typical,” she chides him, but there’s adoration twinkling in her eyes. He smiles down at her and she doesn’t miss a beat in beaming back oh-so-sweetly, and she puts her arms around him to nuzzle into his chest. “I’ve missed you.”
“I miss you even right now.”
She sighs into his chest. “I don’t want to get up.”
“Why would you get up? We can stay here all night. Tomorrow, too.”
“I wish.” She’s quiet for a second. “I think I should take a shower.”
He’s stopped trying, with that.
“Do you need some company?” he asks.
Well. Almost stopped trying.
“Yes,” she lowers her voice, whispers, “it’s scary by myself.”
His response is a loud, drawn-out sigh.
Rejected. Again.
“You know, I look like this now, but one day,” he says, gesturing at his own body, “I’ll be old and wrinkly, and then you’ll regret never taking the chance to shower with young and gorgeous Superstar Ryu Sunjae when he was in his prime. But it's ok. It’s your loss. Nothing I can do there.”
“Sunjae,” she snorts softly, and pokes him in the side of his ribs, “Sunjae. I said, it’s scary by myself.”
He opens his mouth to complain with even more theatrics.
Then.
Wait. What?
Wait.
Sunjae stands so abruptly he almost gets dizzy from the whiplash. His sweater is off in record time, and he gets started on unbuttoning his shirt underneath with no delay. He trips over his own feet more than once in his rush to get to the bathroom. Distantly, over the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears, he can hear Sol follow behind him, laughing.
He’s already half naked, belt buckle undone, by the time she reaches him in the bathroom.
Instead of undressing, Sol is doubled over, holding herself up against the doorframe, laughing so hard she’s struggling to breathe. There are tears in the corners of her eyes, and he follows her gaze to the top of the open bathroom door.
He’s thrown his button-up off with such vigor that it’s landed squarely on top of the door.
He would laugh, too, normally. He’s just not sure there’s enough blood flowing to his brain for that right now.
His biggest issue is how she’s still fully dressed.
It’s time to change tactics. He cages her in to the wall, arms on either side of her head. Bends his head down and brushes his lips in a barely-there kiss against the curve of her jaw. Pulls back.
Her laugh dies, slowly. She clears her throat and looks up at him, unblinking.
He leans closer in. She flushes, the same way she did the last time they slept together. Too long ago.
“Well, why did you stop laughing? I thought it was funny.”
“I -”
He tilts his head. “Are you going to be shy with me again?”
“I – I get nervous around you. Sometimes. Sometimes I’m the calmest I’ve ever been and you’re just…home. Other times…”
“Other times?” He prompts.
She grins. A shy grin. Whispers, conspiratorially.
“It’s like it’s the first time I’m seeing you, every time. And every time, I fall in love with you again. At first sight.”
That does it.
“You shouldn’t have said that.”
“What -”
“I was going to go easy on you.”
Her fingers reach up to curl around the back of his neck, knot into his hair, and she pulls him down to kiss her. Slowly. Bruisingly.
Sunjae hisses when her fingers dip past the open fly of his trousers and into his boxers, and gently squeeze the tender, sensitive flesh there. His head drops to her shoulder as she strokes him, once, twice. A broken moan escapes his mouth, muffled by her clothed shoulder.
He sucks air back into his lungs when she pulls her hand away. He feels the loss of her like an ache, deep in his bones.
She’s smiling at him. She’s always smiling at him, his sweet girl.
His hands begin working to undo the tiny buttons running all the way down her dress. She’s wearing black tights with it. Sheer black tights that nearly short-circuited his brain when he first saw her earlier tonight. While he kisses each patch of newly-exposed skin, down her throat, her chest, she reaches down to tug her tights down her thighs. Uses her feet to pull them the rest of the way off and step out of them. He feels his mouth start to water.
She jumps into his arms when they’re off, and he’s quick to undo the rest of her buttons and slide her dress off her shoulders, leaving her in her matching blue undergarments, and oh, so he wasn’t the only one plotting.
She presses her whole body up against him before she tilts her head up to be kissed, shifts her hips to better meet the growing tent in his pants – she has him faltering. He has to put a hand against the wall behind her to keep them from toppling to the tiled bathroom floor.
His other hand plucks at her bra and unclasps it smoothly – he lets go of the wall and adjusts his grip on her to hoist her higher up in his arms, kissing down the exposed column of her throat, down her sternum, until his face is level with the world’s most perfect breasts.
How he’s missed them.
He uses his tongue to caress and flick over her nipples until they are erect, bites down gently on the side of her breast and sucks. He could die here. His arms tighten like a vice around her middle, and Sunjae feels himself growing lightheaded, black spots swimming in his vision.
Sol strokes his head, pushes more of her chest into his face. “You really like doing that, don’t you?” she says, with a breathless whisper.
In lieu of response, his lips close around a nipple to suck. He feels, more than hears, the thudding of her heart against her ribcage. If he focuses just so, he thinks he can see her ribcage beat with it.
One of his hands makes its way between them and dips past the fabric of her underwear, leaves a barely-there graze against her just to hear her whimper in his ear. He traces a tiny circle – her hips buck up and her nails dig just slightly into his back.
Her legs are shaking around his waist. He removes his fingers and sets her on her feet inside the shower, strips off his remaining clothes, helps her step out of her panties before dropping down to his knees in front of her.
Sol inhales sharply and tries to pull him back up, insisting - he doesn’t need to do that every time.
He hitches one of her legs up to lave open-mouthed kisses on the inside of her thigh, and he laughs and replies, “Do you really think I do this because I have to?”
She stumbles at the first drag of his tongue over her, steps backwards to support herself against the wall. He’s sloppy – starved of her. He hopes she can hear the sounds he’s making – he’s relishing in hers. He devours her, strokes with his tongue then sucks and loves every little cry he gets out of her, doesn’t relent until she’s come twice, and her one standing leg is trembling violently, and she can barely hold herself up any longer
He’s about to stop and give her a moment to breathe when she gasps out a broken – “Sunjae – please -” and then he goes at it with newfound vigor, curling his tongue just so inside her until he gets one more out of her.
Desperately, she pulls him back up to kiss him, then he moves to taste the salt of the trail of tears running down her face.
She laughs a laugh that’s more like a sob. “You haven’t even turned on the water yet.”
She rectifies the situation herself, turns the knob for hot water and tries to tilt her hips against him to take him in, but he holds her down against the wall, takes her up in his arms again. His own muscles are starting to get sore, knees tender from the hard floor of the shower, but there’s not a cell in his body that can find a reason to care.
He pushes two fingers into her, finding after all of his mouth's efforts it’s no longer a struggle to fit them in, and works her open with a third – he’s not a small man and she’d been sore, after last time. He doesn’t want that to happen again.
He tries to ignore the way he’s throbbing against the soft skin of her belly.
She protests by starting to wriggle against him. “Enough, I want you, I just want you inside me,” and she grabs him herself, positions him at her entrance.
He slides just the head in, first, but with the insistence of his fingers still working at her little bundle of nerves he gets her to open her legs a little wider and he bottoms out. The water isn’t helping him hold his slippery grip on her – he pushes her further into the wall to avoid dropping her - effectively pinning her hips down and rendering them unable to move, except for the fluttering and pulsing of her insides around him.
He hasn’t let her recover from the aftershocks of her last high.
His hair is soaked, plastered against his forehead, getting into his eyes, and her face is flushed and wet and sweaty, but her fingers are so gentle as they brush the strands out of his eyes. God. He’s about to lose all control over himself.
He has to hold her up by her thighs to be able to thrust into her. Shallow, rapid thrusts that drive the breath from his lungs.
She kisses the junction of his neck and shoulder and bites to stifle a cry, not painful but so unexpected that he nearly drops her again, has to readjust and oh – at this angle he can drive even deeper inside her.
He’s almost regretful of the water for drowning out the sounds of him moving inside her, then thankful for it again because he’s having trouble keeping it together as it is. Any composure he may have had earlier has vanished – he’s become a babbling mess against her, inside her, telling her how good she is, how perfect for him, all the details of how she feels around him.
Her nails dig into his back again, with more force this time. She’s panting and she tightens around him and he can tell at once it’s taking her a great deal of self-control not to drag her hands down and scratch him.
He drags her thigh more firmly to wrap around his waist, moves his newly-freed hand behind her to encourage more of an arch in her back, and – there – she brings her chest closer to his mouth once again like he wants. He bends his head down to drag his tongue over her swollen nipples once again, feels her tighten – impossibly – even more around him. She starts talking too, a string of words with no breath between, tells him she loves him, loves him so much he doesn’t know what to do about it most days, then cries his name out, once, twice, sweeter than honey – then - “please, please…”
He stumbles, accidentally slides out and nearly cries at the loss of her, guides himself back in and reenters in one single, almost brutal, thrust.
She’s shivering despite the warmth of the water pouring around them.
“I’m not going to last much longer,” he groans into her neck.
She whines. “Not yet, no, just a little more, stay like this just a little more, want you like this all the time, don’t stop, don’t stop -”
He wraps his arms more securely around her thighs, breathes in deep to hold off a little more, tells her, lips close to her ear, “Okay, okay, anything you want, anything.”
Sunjae captures her lips in another searing kiss, and she can definitely tell he’s fighting to hold off because she whispers for him that it’s okay, to come inside her, to make a mess of her, it’s okay.
He doesn’t last much longer before he does just as she asked, and collapses against her body, against the wall.
He’s hot and much, much too sensitive still inside her, but when her legs tighten around him and she begs for him to stay there for just another moment longer, what else can he do but oblige?
He’d stay like this for hours if she asked.
He’s apparently voiced this thought out loud because she laughs, and he can’t tell if it’s water from the shower or her own tears on her face but she looks happy, happy and exhausted with it.
“Sunjae, I’m going to fall,” she says, still laughing, and indeed she's starting to slip from his grip.
He does pull away from her then, lets Sol down to stand on her own again and makes it all of two seconds before he feels his own legs give out. He collapses to his knees on the floor of the shower, water still running.
He reaches out for her, hugs her around the middle and rests his head against her stomach while he works on catching his breath, and she keeps her fingers stroking through his hair until he musters up the willpower to stand again – not before he presses a kiss into her hipbone, warm and soothing against the red marks left there by his own fingers.
He dries her hair, after they’re washed up, and when she tries to go and retrieve clothes he grabs her by the hand and pulls her into bed with him, hugs her tight and pleads, “No, no, just stay here with me like this.”
She laughs, breath tickling his neck, beyond words happy.
“Okay, she concedes, “I’ll stay here with you.”