Archive of Our Own

The moment  was brief, barely more than a few seconds, but it was heavier than either of them knew what to do with. San had just wrapped up his solo, Creep, and needed to get out of his black leather vest and into the tailcoat he wore for Ice on my Teeth . The quick change was easy, but getting the vest out of the belt he wore was proving difficult. Normally, that was Sarah’s job, San’s main stylist. But this time, she was busy trying to find Wooyoung’s sparkling tee shirt for Sagittarius so the only one left to do the change was Kyla. 

It wasn’t a huge deal. She was usually Hongjoong’s quick-changer, Sometimes Mingi’s in a pinch, but she was one of the heads of design on the crew. She knew each boy’s outfits, their changes, the timing. She had dressed and undressed all of them several times over. There was no intimacy in the action like one might expect. 

Kyla had started with ATEEZ nearly two years ago now. She had hand-sewn nearly half their stage outfits, working in nifty little pockets for mics and magnetized snaps that would pop open only when the members wanted. Her designs were top-notch. Fashionable, of course, but functional, too. She was especially proud of the red coats worn for In your Fantasy . She had made the design by hand and there was little difference between her initial sketch and the finished product. That magnum opus had won her a spot in the quick-change pit under the stage. She got to travel with the boys, got to see each show. Got to watch them wear her art on stage and see the edits later of how gorgeous they looked. The fans frothed at the mouth for Kyla’s designs and she loved it.

She liked the members of ATEEZ, too. She had worked with other idol groups before but had never gotten the chance to go on tour. These past five months had been a whirlwind of excitement and adventure for her. The boys had a small traveling staff. There was the design team which consisted of Kyla herself as well as the other designer, Sarah, and 2 seamstresses, a team of 9 backup dancers, a few producers, and the security staff. All-in-all, the team was less than 30 people. ATEEZ was kind to the staff, knew all their names. They had a group chat where the members would occasionally shout out staff they thought were excellent at their jobs. Kyla had gone to the gym a few times with San, Wooyoung, and Hongjoong and they had been pleasant and funny even without cameras. 

So, when she dropped to her knees in front of San on the concrete floor of the Hypogeum under the stage in Busan, she didn’t think anything of it. She had her seam ripper held in the corner of her mouth, but she prayed she didn’t have to use it. She loved San’s vest. The fabric was shiny and tight, but still stretchy enough for the intense, erotic choreography that came with Creep, so she would hate to have to tear it and make another.

At first, there was no problem. She had knelt before San, before all of the boys like this on many occasions. Hell, when she and Hongjoong had been trying to figure out how to give his hips more leverage for Bouncy , she had laid flat on her back under him while he did the iconic move just to watch the seams of his pants. This wasn’t erotic, wasn’t strange, wasn’t new. 

As soon as she saw San’s belt, she knew what the problem was. It was the damn Dolce & Gabbana black patent leather belt with the wide silver clasp. The real belt, not the elastic stage one he was supposed to be wearing. The designer brand had made San this belt for a bit of choreography that had been cut for being “too sensual” as if San’s entire brand wasn’t raw sex on a platter. Kyla had suggested to San that he leave the belt in the clothing trailer and only wear it for interviews, but the man obviously had not listened. And this wasn’t the first time. This belt was made for wear. It was made for the show of undoing the clasp and ripping it out of his belt loops in a dangerous, deeply sensual move. It was not made for quick-changes and easy detangling of fabric.

Kyla looked up, intending to fuss at him for wearing the god-forsaken thing again after she had already had to sew new belt loops on his favorite slacks, but the look in his eyes held her impossibly still. She expected him to be adjusting his microphone or his ear piece, maybe trying to undo the snaps on the vest for her if she was lucky. But he wasn’t doing any of that. He was frozen in place, one hand on the bottom snap of his vest, the other hovering in the air near her head. 

She felt like someone had stuffed her mouth with cotton.

The scathing remark she had intended to spit at him died on her tongue, and she found herself unable to look away. San’s hand, his treacherous, large, obscene hand, was drifting towards her ponytail like he wanted to wrap his fingers in it. His pupils were blown wide, nearly swallowing the rich brown of his irises. His lips parted not in surprise, but in awe.

Kyla knew how hot San was, only an idiot wouldn’t have. But he was an idol, a client. Maybe an acquaintance. He was practically a mannequin, especially when they were in the middle of a show. But right then, it felt like the world was slowing to a crawl. The only things that existed were San, his hands, the belt, and those blown-out eyes.

She broke the spell, slamming her eyes back on the belt and the way it had attached to the bottom of the vest. Her hands trembled slightly, almost imperceptibly as she yanked on the vest. The bottom snap popped, but it was still caught. She yanked hard, desperate to end the contact before she fully unraveled, and the vest ripped free. She cursed softly, but she didn’t have time to decide if it was because of the moment or the fact that she wasn’t sure she had enough fabric for a whole new vest. 

She stood quickly, knees popping, and helped San shove the ruined fabric off his broad shoulders. Deftly, easily, she slid his tailcoat on, spinning him around so that she could zip the center and latch the bottom snap- specially added for the tight shape of San’s waist. She felt his eyes like fire on her, never moving. She didn’t meet them. 

The whole moment lasted maybe 15 seconds, but it felt like an eternity. 

~

The rest of the show was smooth sailing. The boys were killer, as always, the fans were wild, and the clothes were flowing. Kyla didn’t leave time for thinking about what had happened. She certainly didn’t think about his hand and the way it had drifted. No. Not now, hopefully not ever.

When she was finally done gathering the lost fabric, all of her tools, and packing things in their neatly-labeled boxes, she finally left the venue. The boys were staying at a nearby hotel, but Kyla slept on one of the tour buses on the top bunk above Sarah. The space was tight and there were two other girls on another set of bunks, but it was fine. Kyla didn’t need much space. If she needed to get some privacy, she could always go to the stylist’s trailer. No one but herself and the seamstresses went in there. 

She was on her way back to the bus after showering when she got the first text. She expected something from her mom or sister. Maybe something in the group chat about the microphone issue the venue had halfway through. She wasn’t expecting this .

San: What was that?

She stared at the message all the way home, nearly tripping on the steps up to the bus and into her bunk. There were barely any messages in her direct message thread with San. Just questions about garments and asking if she wanted to join them at the gym. But this… what the fuck was this?

He couldn’t be talking about what Kyla thought he was talking about, so she decided to take a safer guess. 

Kyla: Yeah, sorry about your vest. I already requisitioned the fabric for another one and I’ll make it tomorrow. You’ll just have to wear the jacket for tomorrow’s show instead. Great show tonight!

The message came back as “read” immediately. The typing bubbles popped up and faded away, then rose again. She turned the phone off, fighting the urge to chuck it across the bus and bury her face in the pillows like an ostrich. 

‘Great show tonight’ ? ‘GREAT SHOW TONIGHT’? God, she sounded so stupid. What was he asking about? She had only interacted with him that one time tonight. Normally, she was Hongjoong’s quick-changer. But this time, this one time, she had messed up the change. And now he was pissed. She hadn’t realized how much he liked that vest.

To her absolute horror, the phone pinged again. She groaned, covering her face with one hand and peeking between two fingers. It was him again. The message glowed in the dark of her bunk. She reread it three times before even opening the phone.

San: That’s not what I meant.

What the fuck? What the fuck? Kyla screwed her eyes shut, rubbing them with one hand hard enough to see stars. But, when she opened them again, the message was still there. That didn’t make sense. It sounded like he was talking about that moment when she had knelt on the hard floor of the hypogeum, the moment with the belt, the eye contact, the drifting hand. But, no. Even if he had noticed, he wouldn’t talk to her about it. That would be stupid. 

She had worked for other bands in the past. Occasionally, a performer would make a pass at her. It was inevitable in this line of work where life was so frantic, where people came and went with an alarming speed. She liked to stay with a band or performer for as long as possible. It gave her the chance to know them better, to suit their style more completely. When she was the only steady thing in their world, they often tried to hook up with her. Kyla never, never hooked up with a client. There was no good ending to a fling with a superstar. They would either pretend she didn’t exist afterword, give her that pitying look like she was silly to think she meant anything, or in the worst case, she could be caught going into or out of someone’s hotel room and then the fans would tear her life apart. 

Lots of other staff fell into that trap, convincing themselves that someone like an idol or a star had actual, genuine interest in them. They didn’t. They didn’t have time to. Kyla still shuddered when she thought of Gretchen, a talented stylist for Cara Delevigne who had convinced herself they had a real relationship until pictures of her leaked onto the net and Cara claimed that she didn’t even know her name. Gretchen had quit after a fan claimed she was a wannabe rapist and the idea took hold. Last time Kyla spoke to her, she was working at a bar in Idaho. 

Kyla’s hands trembled around the phone. This should be a no-brainer. All she had to do was tell him that she didn’t know what he meant. That she was looking forward to another great show with him. Keep it professional, keep it brief. But every time she blinked, she saw the way he had looked at her. That heat, a strange mix of fascination, determination, and surprise. Had he felt her shaking hands? No, he couldn’t have. She was professional because she was a professional, dammit! And no pretty boy with gorgeous hair and rippling abs and that smell of sweat and fabric softener and leather with shining eyes and…

She shook her head to clear it. No. Absolutely not. This was not about to happen. She had known San for nearly two years now and she had never known him to take a lover, not like the other members, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t. For all she knew, he was texting every single member of the road crew right this second, trying to find someone to warm his bed. She had worked too hard to throw this away.

Kyla: I’m not sure what you mean, but I do apologize again. I will let you know when your new vest is ready. Looking forward to another show tomorrow!

There. She had done it. No argument, no coy flirting, no room for even a reply. This was right. This is how one deals with idols. He read the message immediately, despite the delay. Was he just sitting there waiting for her to answer? No. No, no, no. He probably just fell asleep with the chat open or something. Of course, the thought of him falling asleep with their chat open didn’t help matters either, but Kyla was tired and couldn’t deal with this anymore. She squirmed out of her bunk, jumping down as quietly as possible. Sarah grumbled in her sleep from the bunk below, annoyed by the bus shifting. Kyla ignored her, plugged her phone up, set it on silent, and scrambled back up into bed. She pulled the sheets all the way over her head like a child and forced herself to fall into a black, dreamless sleep.

~

“No, Sarah, the black leather one, not the sparkly one! No, the one—ugh. Hold on. Can you take Hongjoong, please?” Kyla’s bangs were falling in her eyes. She wore her stage blacks- a tight cotton tee shirt, black pants, sneakers, and a black baseball cap to cover the shock of her blue hair. But her stubborn bangs still fell sweaty and defiant from under the brim. San liked that she didn’t fix them. Sarah, his personal stylist, looked defeated as she let go of the clothing rack and rushed over to the captain, straightening his hat for Bouncy. She could take her time, since San had his solo first. 

Kyla was muttering something as she ripped the asymmetrical black leather jacket off the rack and flung it around San’s shoulders, tugging it over his arms rapidly and zipping it. Her hands were steady, as always, rock solid as she arranged the faux zipper and popped the collar. Her eyes didn’t meet his. Was he just a mannequin to her? Was that it? He covered his microphone just in case it was hot and leaned into her ear. “You didn’t answer my text last night,” he said. He wondered if he was imagining the way she seemed to stutter at his breath hot on her ear. 

Kyla paused for only a microsecond, color bleeding up her neck and tinting her ears. There was a chrome silver piercing in her right ear that he absently thought Seongwha would like. She was pretty like this. Working, not paying attention, moving him like a doll. “Sorry,” she mumbled, “I was tired. Went to bed is all.”

“Well, are you?” he asked pointedly, “going to the afterparty, I mean.”

“You’re on,” was Kyla’s only reply. She gave one last good tug on the top snap of the jacket to make sure it wouldn’t come undone before he wanted it to and sent him on his way. When she turned around, out of breath, Hongjoong was looking at her with one perfectly manicured eyebrow raised. Her heart pounded in her chest. She tried to tell herself it was just the adrenaline of the quick-changes, of seeing her handmade pieces going on stage that was causing the heat in her cheeks. Hongjoong knew her better than any of the other boys did. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her now. 

She heard the first few notes of Creep start playing, the fan’s screaming drowning out all the sound in the arena. “What’s going on with that?” came Hongjoong’s question in her ear. Kyla Jumped. She was trying to find the glasses Wooyoung liked to wear for his solo, but they kept getting lost in the racks of clothes. With the loud music washing over her, she hadn’t even noticed Hongjoong’s approach. 

Kyla did him the favor of not acting like she didn’t know what he meant, “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. I’m keeping it professional.” She flashed the captain a silly smile, “don’t worry, I won’t let him poach me. You know I’m always gonna be your stylist first and foremost.”

Hongjoong’s stupid eyebrow rose again. He was wearing a stick-on eyebrow bar tonight and it flashed in the light, “Yeah, I know you’ll keep it professional, but will he? You’re both acting weird.”

Kyla’s hand closed victoriously around the glasses case and she took a step back, holding up her prize. “You’re right!” She chirped with a levity she didn’t really feel, “I need to keep my professional distance with him. Great chat! Now go drink some water before you pass out onstage.”

Hongjoong, blessedly, didn’t push the matter. He just walked away and left her to stand amongst the racks. Kyla covered her face with both hands. This is bad, she thought, if Hongjoong is noticing, then everyone else is too. I have to nip this in the bud. So no, she wasn’t going to go to the afterparty. She was going to go back to the bus and let everyone else have their fun. Maybe she would swing by the stylists trailer to clear her head. She was sure there would be cameras and by this time tomorrow there would be hundreds of “drunkteez” edits circulating on social media but she would not be in them. 

She spent the rest of the show in the racks of clothes, handing out garments and adding to the ever-growing stacks of ripped clothing that would need to be patched or replaced. No one stopped her, no one gave her a second glance. She liked that, being surrounded by clothes. They couldn’t make her feel wobbly on her feet and make her wonder about things she didn’t want to think about. 

When the show was finally over and the boys were dressed in their sendoff outfits, Kyla let the others go on ahead. They asked if she was coming to the afterparty but she turned them down, using the damaged clothes as an excuse, saying she needed to get a head start on the next day’s work. Of course, they had the next day off, but no one really cared enough to ask about that. When everyone was gone except the janitors, she finished packing up and headed for the trailer. 

~

Kyla loved the stylist trailer. It was small and cramped, just a few bolts of extra fabric and two sewing machines, but it was her favorite place in the whole caravan, maybe the whole world. The light in there was terrible, but she had set up her lamps just so. The fabric along the walls deadened the sound to almost silence. There was hardly even any room to walk. It was just Kyla, her fabric, and the steady buzz buzz buzz of the sewing machine.  

As she worked on Mingi’s most recent torn-off shirt buttons, her mind wandered into territory she had absolutely not permitted it to enter. 

Did she have feelings for San? Well, sure, but who was attracted to men and didn’t? He was hot, plain and simple. Broad shoulders, a jawline that could cut glass, hips that seemed to know just what to do with themselves. But did that mean she had feelings for him? Surely not. She didn’t know him, not really. She knew the way he liked to be dressed for shows and the way he liked to be dressed when there were no cameras. She knew the same things every fan thought they knew about him. 

Of course, a traitorous voice in her mind whispered, she also knew other things about him. She knew that he laughed completely differently when the cameras were off. She knew that he didn’t like to shower on his days off. She knew that he genuinely loved his fans, even through the pressure. She knew that he was kind to everyone on staff regardless of their station. He hated the way his English so often failed him when he was trying to speak to the other staff members. He liked quiet days off where he could rest, but he lived for the stage, for the attention. He got laser hair removal on his face but it made him so itchy that hair and makeup had to numb him for shows. He hated the numbing cream. 

She liked him, thought of him positively, but she wouldn’t even consider him a friend. Sure, they were friendly, but he was an idol for fuck’s sake. His only friends were the other members. She wasn’t stupid enough to delude herself just because they’d talked outside of work once or twice. 

So, no , she decided, no feelings. Just professional interest.

Her phone pinged and she jumped so hard that she ended up stabbing her finger with a needle. She cursed loudly and brought the bloodied digit to her mouth, sucking. She nearly gagged when she checked the message.

San: Where are you?

No. Nope. Nuh-uh. She cleared the notification, flipped the phone face-down, and got back to work. She let out a growl of frustration when she realized she had bled on Mingi’s white shirt. She was going to have to get him another one. 

~

San should not be allowed to drink. He was the king of the lightweights. Wooyoung had forcibly poured a lemon drop shot down his throat, just one, and he was swimming. The beer he drank hadn’t help either. He looked around the table at the members, grinning at his friends, at his lucky life. He turned around, doing a full 360 and looking for a familiar head of blue hair. She wasn’t there. Maybe she was late? Mingi had told him that he’d ripped his shirt when he yanked it off onstage and Hongjoong seemed to wear through pants as if they were made of paper. She was probably busy.

Busy and uninterested , said a cruel voice in his head. He knew he was hot and sexually desirable of course. He had worked hard for this body and the company had paid good money for it. But he barely knew the stylist. Hongjoong said she didn’t have a partner, but he could be wrong. She could have lots of partners. And San knew that he would not be easy to date. The scrutiny would be unbearable. Any woman he dated would be hated simply for existing in his orbit. He knew enough about normal people to know that he wasn’t normal. His life was glitz, glamor, and choreography. It would be a rare woman indeed who could deal with him. He had more or less decided he was going to have to wait to date until the end of his time onstage. But Kyla? She sparked something in him he had rarely felt.

She was pretty. Not stunning or made up like the other idols San so often met, but pretty. Real. She had dyed her hair blue at the beginning of the tour and it had faded into a streaky silver. She kept her hair tied up tight while she worked, but loose frizz fell and got sweaty, sticking itself to her forehead. He liked her sweaty. She’d come to the gym with them more than once, too. It cracked him up that she was deeply unfashionable when she worked out. He had asked her about it and she called it her “rebellion” against her life of gorgeous, properly matched clothes. She was strong, lean, well-muscled. He wanted to get to know her, to know why her eyes sparkled like that. To be the cause of some of those snorting laughing fits she fell into. 

But Kyla had been clear that she didn’t have any non-professional interest in him. She had turned him down before without seeming to realize he was making a move, but last night… god, last night. The tremor in her fingers, the way her gaze seemed to rise without her consent, the way that goddam lock of blue hair lay twisted on her forehead, tamped down by sweat. Had she felt the way his hand had moved? Surely not. Even if she had, she would have chalked it up to him reaching for his mic pack or something. 

God, he had wanted so badly to touch her. He liked to touch, to feel. He wanted to slick her hair back and twist the ends between his fingers. He wanted to cup her neck and bring her closer.

But she was a stylist. A designer. A quick-change expert. She wasn’t some adoring fangirl that would let herself go just for the asking. 

Still, he hated that she wasn’t here. The shot was working its devilish way through his veins and filling his head with her eyes. With the way those deep, brown eyes had met his, heavy through her eyelashes. He couldn’t blink without seeing it. He had hardly slept last night for the thought of it. He had to share a bed with Wooyoung and had slept curled away from his friend around a pillow, hoping he wouldn’t grab for him in his sleep.
San pretended he was just making the rounds, talking to everyone at the afterparty. But he still lingered too long at the table where Kyla’s bunkmate, Sarah, was several beers in. He knew Mingi had hooked up with her once. She liked the attention more than anything. There was no bad blood between the two of them. If Mingi was to be believed, she was a wild one. San wondered idly if Kyla was “wild” but shut that line of thinking down quickly. 

“Hey, San,” Sarah drawled, her cheeks flushed with drink, “Great show. I like the jacket!”

“Thanks,” he said easily, “Yeah, Kyla makes good choices for me, for sure. Where’s she at, anyway?”

“Who, Kyla?” She asked. At San’s nod, she shrugged, “Dunno. She said you guys had ripped up, like, a bunch of clothes and she needed to get them fixed.”

San frowned, “but we’re not performing tomorrow. And we’re traveling the day after that. She still could’ve come tonight.”

Sarah leaned in with a sharp, foxlike grin. Her breath smelled like beer and bubblegum. “Mhm. She could have. But I think something’s going on. She stayed up super late last night and left her phone on the other side of the bus. She never does that. And she has her message previews turned off. That’s new, too. I think she might’ve met someone the other night. But you didn’t hear it from me!”

San’s mouth felt dry. Last night? She had been acting weird last night? Was it because of him? Or was he just a nuisance? Had he been a background thought while she texted someone else that she actually knew? Someone who wasn’t simply too much to handle? 

He swallowed around a lump in his throat and raised his eyebrows at Sarah, “you read her messages? Does she know that?”

Sarah laughed, high and clear, and reached out like she might put a hand on his chest. “I just like to know what’s going on, Sannie!” She giggled. San thanked her politely and walked away, talking to a few more people before he finally came back and met up with the other members. 

Wooyoung tried to force another drink into his hand, but San turned it down. He didn’t like the idea of more liquor in his system right now. Wooyoung’s eyes saw too much though, always. “’s going on?” He asked, voice slurring slightly. 

“Nothing,” San said with a little bit too much snap, “I just need some air. I’ll… I’ll come back in a bit.”

Woo tried to stop him, but San pretended not to notice. He stepped out into the hot, summer air behind the bar and pulled out his phone. She hadn’t texted him. Of course she hadn’t, why would she? Their relationship was strictly platonic. Professional. Business. And that’s how it needed to stay. 

So why were his fingers typing a message?

San: Where are you?

She didn’t answer. The message wasn’t even read. He stuffed his phone in his pocket with enough force to feel the seam inside rip. His phone fell straight through the hole and slammed onto the asphalt below. 

“Ack!” He barked, leaning down to inspect the device. It was fine, thankfully. He hated getting new phones. 

But the pocket of his slacks was ruined. He cursed again, annoyed at his own annoyance. He hated slacks. He hated these pants. He hated this party. He was done with tonight. He sent a quick message to Wooyoung that he had a headache, and he was going upstairs to their shared room for the night. Wooyoung immediately sent back a thumbs up, and San very carefully placed his phone in his one remaining pocket. He would have to stop by the stylist’s trailer to drop the pants off before heading back up to the room. It wasn’t far and these were his favorite off-hours slacks, so he decided to go ahead and go tonight. 

~

San had first truly noticed Kyla at the Accelerate magazine shoot. The fashion publication had decided to do a special issue all about the band and their thoughts on fashion and had asked to interview Kyla and Sarah as well. Normally, San wouldn’t notice the staff on the transport with them, but Kyla was so nervous that it came off her in waves. She wore a shining blue cocktail dress that he wondered idly if she had made herself. It was the same color as her freshly-dyed hair, accented with golden beading to make her look like she wore the summer sky on her skin. 

She was talented, that much was certain. He found himself looking down at his own outfit- a simple black tee, slacks, and patent leather loafers and felt… underdressed. Kyla’s knee bounced with anxiety, causing the fabric of the dress to rise higher on her thigh, teasing the edge of a blackwork tattoo against golden skin. He wondered too long about it before Sarah put a hand on her friend’s knee and leaned in, saying something that seemed to placate Kyla at least a bit. 

The shoot had been so normal that day. Sarah had to place an extra pin in the base of the tee shirt at San’s waist, and Kyla laughed when she asked for it, making a joke about how San needed to start working out his waist somehow or they would have to make him a whole new wardrobe.

Hongjoong gasped with delight “oh, Kyla! You should come to the gym with us!”

She had laughed as she rearranged the chains on his pants, tugging one between two belt loops and checking the way the lights made it flash, “oh hell no, you guys couldn’t keep up with me!” 

“You just don’t want them seeing your gym clothes!” Sarah replied, pinning San’s shirt just so and stepping back to admire her handiwork. She grinned at San and stage-whispered “she wears the ugliest gym clothes. Does it on purpose!” 

San opened his mouth to ask a question, but the stylists got called away at that moment. He had tried not to stare as Kyla was interviewed, but failed. She followed the script well, talking about how lucky she felt to work with the boys. He loved that she had mentioned him in the interview, saying that his Ice on my Teeth tailcoat was among her favorite piece she’d ever made. But when they asked her if she had an ATEEZ bias, she had said Hongjoong.

“Not for anything nefarious!” she said, “Just because he’s my muse, you know? I’ve been styling him for a year now!”

The comment had caused a spike of jealousy in San’s chest that he didn’t understand. He hardly knew this girl. They had spoken more today than in the entirety of the year he’d known her. But seeing her now, looking so unlike the black-clad, functional stylist he knew made him feel… drawn to her. Like a moth to flame.

After that day, he noticed her everywhere. The way her bright hair stood out, the way she threw her head back when she really, truly laughed. The aggressive way she tied her hair back when she was settling down to work. She seemed to be incapable of stillness, constantly changing position and fidgeting. Her gym clothes really were hideous, and he found that he liked that too. He seemed to simply… like her.

He was juggling all those thoughts at once when he finally reached the stylists trailer. 

There was sound coming from inside. A repetitive buzzing that could be heard through the closed door. San wondered what it was, if maybe someone had left a fan on or something. He had planned to just leave the pants in the hamper next to the door for a seamstress to work on in the morning, but he was afraid that something inside might catch fire. The buzzing sounded mechanical. 

San tested the doorknob and found that it was unlocked. That was odd, too. The staff were good about locking the trailers overnight. Especially since that incident where a fan had stolen several pairs of underwear from the laundry trailer. 

He pulled the door open with a soft squeak and stuck his head inside. “hello- ack!”

A hand connected with his chest, knocking him off balance and sending him sprawling backwards down the steps of the trailer. He caught himself with his hand and hissed as he felt the blacktop bite into his palm. For a moment, he just lay there. The wind was knocked out of him, his eyes stood open, staring at the starlit sky.

“Oh my god!” Someone yelled. He heard footsteps creak on the trailer stairs and suddenly a face loomed over him. It was Kyla—blue hair loose, still wearing her all-black backstage attire. She had on something that looked like a miner’s headlamp. It was shining in his eyes. “Oh my god,” she repeated, “I’m so sorry, are you okay? Your hand is bleeding, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t expecting anyone to come in, I forgot to lock the door and—God, I’m just so sorry, San.”

He covered his eyes with his bloody hand and sat up. Kyla whipped the light off her head and hid it behind her back. It didn’t work for many reasons but mostly because she had left it on and it shone like a spotlight. 

“It’s okay,” San said, “I’m fine. Are you okay? I didn’t mean to scare you.” He started to get up and was surprised to find her hand held out to help him. He took it, more to make her feel better than because he actually needed it for support. If he pulled, she would have tumbled over. 

“I’m fine. Sorry,” her jaw flexed and she cleared her throat, as if swallowing something she didn’t want to say out loud, “Here, I have a first aid kit inside. And tweezers. I’ll clean that for you. I’ve already got it out.”

“The tweezers?” He asked, feeling stupid, “why?”

“Oh, no, the first aid kit. When you… when you texted me earlier it made me jump and I stabbed my finger. Bled on Mingi’s shirt so now I’ll have to get him a new one.” So, Kyla had gotten his text. She’d just ignored it. Great. That made San feel just wonderful. She cleared her throat again and flushed, apparently realizing what she said. “Anyway, what’s up? I’m sorry I didn’t come to the party tonight, I just had a lot I needed to get done.” She was rambling. It was cute. She didn’t usually talk like this. She led San into the cramped trailer and pulled out a red cloth first aid kit, rummaging around for something. She gestured to San to sit in the chair she had obviously occupied in front of the still-running sewing machine. 

“I accidentally ripped up my pants pocket so I figured I would just drop them off in the hamper before going to bed. But I heard the sewing machine and I was afraid something was left running.”

“What was the plan,” Kyla asked without looking up, “were you just gonna toss your pants in the hamper and walk back through the hotel lobby in your underwear?”

San paused for a moment with his mouth hanging open, “I- well, uh. Look, I may have had a shot. And a beer.”

Kyla glanced up from the first aid kit, looking at him through her lashes, “that’s dangerous, especially for you. I had a beer, too, but I hold it better than you do.”

San didn’t argue, just frowned at the empty beer bottle next to the sewing machine. It was a cheap brand, not the good stuff he had. “Why didn’t you come to the party?” he asked.

“I told you, I had stuff to get done.” The reply fell flat in the air between them.

“I was looking for you,” San admitted quietly. He wasn’t sure he liked how the fabric in here dampened the sound. He felt like he was in a recording booth without a monitor.

The first aid kit fell off Kyla’s lap and she cursed, picking it back up quickly and pulling out the pair of lost tweezers. She added them to the bandages, gauze, and antibacterial cream already on the table. It seemed excessive, like she was searching for excuses not to look at him in this cramped space where they sat close enough that their legs almost touched. She finally looked at him now- really looked. The trailer was badly-lit except around her work station, but the shadows played across the long line of her pretty nose. This close, he could see that there was green at the center of her brown eyes. He liked it. Like the layers of the earth. “because of the pants?” she asked. Her voice was soft, her eyes not looking away from him.

“Because I wanted you to be there, Kyla.” He said.

Her mouth dropped open for a second before she slammed it shut, clenching the same way she did when she was fighting with a particularly difficult button. “Why?” she asked. It was a loaded question: Why did you want me at the party? Why did you notice I wasn’t there? Why are you concerned with me at all? What are you doing?

“I want to get to know you. Isn’t that a good enough reason?” San asked.

She swallowed hard. Hard enough that San saw her throat tighten and wiggled in his seat to hide the jolt it gave him. She held out her hand, palm up, and he obligingly laid his much larger one inside. She started in with the tweezers and ignored him when he hissed in pain. “Idols don’t leave parties to find stylists, San.”

“They do if the stylist is avoiding them” he replied.

She was quiet for a moment, focusing on a particularly stubborn piece of gravel stuck in his hand, “I’m not avoiding you. I dressed you tonight, didn’t I?” 

San almost laughed at the absurdity of the comment. Dressing someone was such an intimate act, but for the two of them it meant absolutely nothing. “You know what I mean. Why are you dancing around it?”

Kyla sighed in exasperation, putting down the tweezers for a moment to smooth her hair back away from her face. When she looked at him again, it was with annoyance. “And what is it I’m dancing around, huh San? Cause you’re a dancer. I’m not.”

The question felt like a challenge. He liked challenges. “Your hand on my belt last night. You were on your knees. I could feel you shaking.”

She sucked in a breath as if he’d hit her, silent and for several moments. Then, smoothly, calmly, with far too much composure, she wet a piece of cloth with some water from her bottle and rubbed it over the cuts on his hand. Then she dried it, spread cool ointment over the area, and wrapped it in a bandage. Her slender fingers were hot against his skin, sweating slightly. They both pretended not to notice. Finally, finally , she looked up at him. Not looking through her lashes, not doing something else while talking to him, she just looked into his eyes, another challenge resting there. For the first time in the two years San had known her, she was still. She let go of his hand, and it hovered in the air between them. “I’ve been on my knees in front of you a thousand times. I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t worn that stupid belt. And I could see your hand moving towards my hair. But you don’t see me probing you about it.”

Ah. So, she had noticed that. “Kyla, I—”

A sudden flash of anger lit those beautiful eyes, “Look, San, I know what you’re used to when a girl is on her knees for you, but I’m just your stylist. I’m fine. It’s fine. We don’t have to talk about it. It happened, it’s over, you don’t have to apologize. We don’t have to talk about it ever again .”

The jab hit home, stinging San. “Kyla, that’s not what I meant. I’m not going to apologize. You’re not going to apologize. Why are we apologizing?”

“I thought you wanted to talk about it!”

“I do!”

“Then talk!”

Finally, San had had enough. He moved his hand that had been floating in the air and he brought it to rest on Kyla’s knee. The pressure stung, but he squeezed her knee just enough to keep her attention. The heat was electric and immediate. She sucked in a breath. “You keep cutting me off with what you think I’m going to say. So just let me talk. I don’t want to forget about what happened. I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen. Because it did. You were pulling on my belt, you ripped my vest and then when you looked at me it just felt… intense. More than just being worried about having to sew a new vest. For a second there, you wanted me. And yeah, my hand kind of moved of its own accord. But I felt it. Didn’t you feel it? Whatever this… spark is between us?”

Her eyes were locked on his, her breath shallow. She thought to deny it, but she decided to keep deflecting instead. “You were high on the show then, and you’re drunk now. The only thing you’re feeling is dopamine. It’s fine, San. Just go get some rest.”

“Is that what you want?” he asked. His voice was so soft, so low. It was smoother than the velvet on the walls. He sounded almost hurt, “you want this to just be a dopamine-fueled tryst?”

She laughed with exhaustion, throwing her head back and covering her face with her hands. She didn’t move her knee where his hand still rested, San noticed, “There is no ‘tryst’, San! No one is tryst-ing. You are drunk, you are tired, and you are not interested in this. And I am not interested in a drunken one-night stand with an international megastar that will turn into a media debacle. So, yeah. There’s your answer.”

“That isn’t an answer, Kyla,” he pushed, squeezing her knee gently “did you not feel the spark?”

She wanted to lie. She wanted to tell him that she felt nothing but professionalism. But he was looking right at her with those dark eyes. His hair was immaculately laid back, his tee shirt clinging to those wide shoulders like it was painted on. His hand was so warm on her leg. She thanked God she hadn’t worn shorts tonight or she might have lost it. “I… don’t know what I felt, San.” 

A smile quirked his lips, as if that answer was everything he had ever needed to hear. “Do you want to find out?” 

“Don’t ask me that,” she whispered, as if the question would be her undoing. Her voice was barely audible in the silent trailer. “don’t talk to me like this, San.” But Kyla’s traitorous heart pounded in her chest like a caged animal, and her hand hovered over his on her knee. Close, close enough to feel the heat of her skin. No trysts, no broken rules. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t let this happen. So why, why was she leaning towards him? No, no, no! She screamed at herself, but it was too late.

“Do you want me to stop?” San asked, his face mere inches from hers.

Yes, she wanted to say, stop this before I come undone . She wanted him to pull away, to admit that this was just a joke. That he was just using her for a night of pleasure. But instead, her eyes betrayed her, too, drifting closed as those last, charged millimeters between them disappeared. 

~

San had kissed people before. He had had sloppy, inexperienced make out sessions as a trainee. He had hooked up with girls on the road very occasionally. He knew what kissing felt like. But this? Kissing Kyla felt different. There was a literal and figurative stillness here. She didn’t move. Her hand did not come to rest atop his. They just sat there, lips touching only slightly in the most delicate of pecks. Kyla, usually so mobile, so full of energy, was stone before him. He had been kissed more intensely by Wooyoung on stage. But still, a heady warmth flooded him from where they met. He wanted her to move, to be the aggressor. He didn’t want to push her farther than she wanted to go, but she didn’t seem to want to go anywhere . He moved his hand from her knee, hoping to cup her neck and pull her deeper, but the movement broke the spell. She hopped up from her chair, toppling several spools of thread nearby, and took a sideways step around him, towards the door. She had to touch him as she passed, and the contact was lightning against his skin. He was still sitting there, one hand on his own knee, the other hovering in midair where her face had been a moment before.

“Right,” she said, her eyes sparkling and her chest heaving, “no spark. Of course. Because this is a professional relationship. There is an extra pair of pants over there for you to change into. Leave your slacks on my sewing machine and I’ll get to them tomorrow while we’re off.”

“Kyla—” he started, but she was already out the door. He had half a mind to chase after her, to hold her and really kiss her the way she deserved, but he didn’t. If she didn’t want this, didn’t want him , then who could blame her? This life was not for the faint of heart. But his lips burned where they had touched her. His palm, still floating, felt tingly with electricity. The smell of her- the mint of her shampoo, the leather and polish she used in the shop, the beer on her breath, it was all too much. The memory was already searing its way through him, leaving a trail of raw, open flame in its wake.

San sighed, running both hands through his hair. He stood, deciding he really didn’t like the small trailer, and changed into the sweatpants Kyla had pointed out. He folded the slacks neatly, laying them gingerly over her sewing machine. He packed up the first aid kit and turned off the lights for her, too. He was hiding the evidence that either of them had been there, he knew, but he hoped she would notice when she came back tomorrow. Hoped she would see it and think of him. 

No spark. She had said it so casually, like it was so obvious. Of course there wasn’t a spark. God, why had he kissed her? She probably thought he was one of those staff-hopper idols who hooked up with everyone while on tour. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

When San finally left the trailer, he was gritting his teeth. The hot night air wrapped around him, immediately drawing out sweat. It was so very dark out here. He pulled his phone out, intending to use it as a flashlight so he didn’t trip heading back to the hotel. But there was already a light. Something was shining a bright, ruthless blue glow into the Busan skyline. He followed the light to its origin, tucked just under the skirt of the design trailer. 

It was what he had thought was a miner’s light. On closer inspection, he could tell it was something else entirely. When the cameras were off and he and Seonghwa were working on their LEGO projects together, Seonghwa wore something similar. They were almost like opera glasses, lit binoculars for fine detail work. He wrapped the cloth strap around his hand, around the bandage she had carefully placed, and headed back towards the hotel.

~

No spark? No spark? God, Kyla was such a fucking liar. Her whole body was made of sparks from the exact point San’s lips had touched hers. She felt like her feet weren’t touching the ground. She felt like her body was just floating through the air. 

And then she had kissed him badly on purpose? Why? Why?! God, it had seemed like the best thing to do at the time, like if he thought she was a bad kisser, not experienced like the groupies that the other boys hooked up with, he would stay away. He would realize she wasn’t worth his time. But now she just felt embarrassed. She wanted to turn around, to show him that she very much did know how to properly kiss someone. That was the beer talking. The lukewarm, cheap, nasty beer that she was sure made her breath reek. 

She felt so, so stupid. She had panicked and ran like some sort of fairytale princess. How silly she was, how idiotic. Well, she had well and truly done it. No way San would keep pursuing her after that debacle. Well, fine. Whatever. It was a bad idea anyway. She slammed the door of the bus as she came in, knowing the others were still at the party. She was cursing, spitting as she changed into a pajama shirt. She stared angrily at her dark phone. What did she expect? A text? Begging? Childish. Silly. Obscene. She turned the phone all the way off and climbed into bed, ignoring the humiliated tears that stung in the corners of her eyes. 

When Kyla woke the next day, the others were still asleep. She climbed down, pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt, and powered her phone back on. She had several missed notifications, all from him. She was afraid to read them. 

There was a picture attached of San wearing a familiar magnifying glass headband. Her headband. The one she had tossed to hide it from him last night. In the photo, he was leaned over the camera, but the light blurred the whole thing. Only his broad shoulders in a black muscle shirt made it clear who the photo depicted. It was the caption that made her want to scream.

San: POV: A pretty girl punches you in the chest.

When she didn’t respond, he sent another message.

San: But then she comes to help you and you look up and see this.

He seemed to get a little frantic after that, texting several times in a row.

San: and then you think she’s an angel

San: but then she throws off her halo

San: and then you find it under the trailer

San: oh, Sarah said she reads your messages so you should hide your phone probs.

The final message came nearly a full hour later, long after Kyla had fallen asleep.

San: okay, I’m sorry for pushing you. Good night, Kyla. 

She walked out of the bus and groaned loudly in the early morning light. Fuck. 8 texts? Who sends 8 texts in a row? Christ, what was wrong with him? She couldn’t be clearer, but he was so goddam charismatic. And those were her favorite detail glasses, too. There was no good way for her to get them back without everyone finding out that they were closer than they should be. She was already way over budget for tools, so there was no way they would buy her another set. God damn it. 

Still, she found herself grinning at the goofy picture. Had she really looked like that, with her eyes all lit up like some sort of mole-man? God, he was such a goober. She wondered absently why he had taken glasses. He could have just as easily hung them on the door. Maybe he wanted something to remember you by, an evil voice whispered in her ear. She bit her tongue hard and started walking towards the design trailer, pulling her hair up as she went. 

~

Kyla was becoming a workaholic. Of course, the boys were keeping her busy these days. As they started the American leg of the tour, they seemed to be shedding clothes like loose hair. Every single show someone was popping a button or tearing a seam. Just last night, nearly two full weeks after the kiss debacle, she had openly and stupidly yelled at Wooyoung for ripping his shirt off during his solo and ruining the hours of beadwork she’d put into it. She apologized to him later, of course, but it didn’t really matter. She knew what she was really angry at. 

She had read and reread the messages from San again and again and again since that night. She had inspected every inch of the photo he sent. A secret photo that no one else had of him. Just her, just Kyla. It made her stomach flip when she thought of it. Of him posing just for her. But those were bad thoughts, evil thoughts. Thoughts that only led to danger, ruin, and embarrassment. She never answered him. She was afraid of what might spill out of her if she let him in even that little bit. He had given her space in person and online. He didn’t ask for her help during changes, didn’t ask if she wanted to go work out, didn’t text her. He was a gentleman, even if his stage persona wasn’t. 

What finally broke the long, heavy silence was those damn glasses. 

Hongjoong was showing her the damaged beadwork on his cowboy jacket for Bouncy with his brow furrowed while San fixed his hair in the mirror, waiting for Mingi to finish his solo. 

“Again?” Kyla asked, running her finger over the broken thread where there should have been a row of glittering gold beads.

“I’m sorry,” Hongjoong said with a frown, “I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. This is like the third time in five shows. Do I need a whole new one?” 

Kyla screwed her eyes shut, her annoyance at herself rising. “No, Joong. I’m sorry, it’s not your fault. I uh—” Her voice cut off as she prayed San wasn’t listening to their conversation, “I lost my magnifying glasses back in Busan and haven’t been able to buy a new set yet. I probably missed a stitch when I redid the beading the other night. I’ll get it fixed for you.”

“Oh like the headband thing with the light?” Asked Hongjoong, his eyes lighting up, “San has one of those for LEGO! Don’t you, Sannie?”

San’s shoulders stiffened almost imperceptibly as he turned to look at them, “magnifying glasses? Uh, yeah. I have a set. I can loan them to you.” 

“Perfect!” Chirped Hongjoong, problem solved. He fully handed the heavy jacket to Kyla and turned away, heading to the water cooler for a drink. 

San was looking at her in the mirror reflection, his back facing her. His eyes were intense and searching. 

“You kept my glasses?” Kyla asked. She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but the words had slipped free unbidden. 

She told herself that the flush on his neck was because of the show, not because of her, “Well, they are great for LEGO. I meant to bring them back to the trailer, but I keep forgetting. And I like them.”

“Oh,” she said weakly, “that’s fine. You don’t have to give them back. I’ll go to the store on Monday when we have a break. Don’t worry about it.”

San shook his head, still watching her fidget in the mirror. “We’re in Texas tomorrow, you know Joong will want the cowboy jacket.” His eyes were so intense. This conversation wasn’t serious, just discussing logistics of a pair of glasses, but he was looking at her like her soul was laid bare before him. It was too much. When she couldn’t come up with a decent response, he plowed on. “After the show tonight, I’ll grab them and bring them by. Which bus is yours?”

The mere thought of San coming to the bus where nosy Sarah could see them talking to each other made her want to vomit. “No!” She barked, too loud, “I mean, I’m on medical inventory tonight. Can you just hang them on the trailer door or something?”

The heat in his eyes made her feel so small. He finally turned around, standing before her too tall, his abs highlighted with oil, sweat, and makeup. “It’s been a minute since I stopped by medical. I’ll bring them by.”

~

The rest of the show passed without incident. Luckily, they managed not to rip any more of Kyla’s garments. San had to stop Mingi from taking his shirt off again , but the fans ate it up. They thought he was being protective of Mingi, the star so many of them thought was a secret lover, not the blue-haired girl in the hypogeum whose earthen eyes were keeping him up at night. God, he wanted her. He knew this was infatuation, not love or anything so saccharine, but desire like electricity in his veins. 

She carried a seam ripper stuffed into the base of her ponytail when they performed, point facing out. He found himself watching it with every still moment backstage. He worried she would stab herself when she fidgeted with her hair, but her fingers moved deftly. It was as if she was born for fashion. She looked more herself with a pin cushion on her wrist and a straight pin in her mouth than in the sparkling blue cocktail dress she had worn to the Accelerate fashion magazine event. He wondered if she even remembered he had been there. 

She had called Hongjoong her “muse”. At the time, it had only stung a little to hear her say that, but now it rang in his head on those sleepless nights when he thought about what he’d done wrong. San remembered that interview day. He had been interviewed next about his life with ATEEZ and his life before in his hometown. Even then, long before the debacle with his belt and the trailer and the kiss, he had watched her interview with rapt attention. He should have known then that she would be a problem. 

But then, just like now, he had kept pushing forward as if his life was set on an inevitable track to destruction. I’ll bring them there, he had said. She was very clear that she didn’t want him, but still he had said it. Said it and meant it. She probably thought it was a threat. She probably thought he really was a creep, just like the song said. He hated himself for it. For the want of her. He hated the nights that he had stayed up after the others were long since asleep, his hands fisting wantonly into the sheets as if they could take the edge off the sting.

When he was done with sendoff and his wrist hurt from signatures, he headed back to the hotel. He knew exactly where the glasses were in his duffel bag, and he grabbed them easily. “Do you want me to take them to her?” Asked Hongjoong, San’s roommate for the night. He gestured to the glasses. “I should apologize again for messing up her jacket, I know it’s a lot for her to hand-stitch each bead.”

“No,” San replied too quickly. He heard Kyla’s voice in his head from that damn interview again, saying Hongjoong was her bias, her muse. “it’s fine, I’ve got it. Thanks, though. I won’t be long.”

He hurried out of the hotel and down to the lobby. No one saw him as he slipped into the dark Louisiana night. 

~

Kyla felt the urge to change out of her stage blacks before going to the trailer. It was stupid, the urge to look good for a thirty-second glasses handoff, but the desire made her fingers twitch. She scolded herself and headed towards the medical trailer. He might not even come. He could just send a page to bring them or hang them on the door like she had suggested.

But then… hadn’t he said he was going to? That he wanted to? Annoyed, Kyla reached up to her ponytail and tapped the pointy end of her seam ripper. The pain was grounding. It helped her clear her spiraling mind. She slammed the door to the trailer open a little too hard as she huffed inside, pulling out the inventory sheet and counting each item carefully. 

The stock of large bandages was surprisingly low since the last time it was her turn to do inventory a week ago, probably from where Mingi kept scraping his knees on the stage while performing. She didn’t know what was going on with these boys, but something about the American air had them absolutely feral. She chuckled as she twisted a pen around her finger, she was so lost in the numbers that she almost didn’t hear the door open. 

Her blood felt like ice. She told herself it was a page, someone with a papercut, one of the medics, not San himself. She told herself she didn’t want it to be San, though that was a lie. “It’s open!” she shouted. The door creaked and she didn’t look back. Refused to see whoever it was. But then he spoke, and it was unmistakably him.

“Hey” he said, his voice rough around the edge. He sounded almost shy, but surely that had to be in her head. 

Kyla squeezed her eyes shut, hoping he couldn’t hear her heart pounding. She turned to face him, trying to seem nonchalant. “Hey yourself,” she said. 

His cheeks were burning red all the way to the tips of his ears. He held out the magnifying glasses awkwardly, as if he didn’t know how to form words. “Sorry again for keeping them for so long. I just figured you didn’t want me handing them back to you when other people were around. Asking questions and all.”

“Good thought,” she agreed, taking the glasses from him and pulling them on so they hung around her neck. San watched the movement with something like hunger, his Adams apple bobbing decadently.

  Fuck, Kyla thought, He’s so gorgeous. She shut that line of thinking down as abruptly as she could, ignoring the thoughts of him that had plagued her for weeks, thoughts of the kiss that she had so egregiously ruined. He was still standing there, still looking at her. She squirmed slightly under his scrutiny. “I can send you the link to where I got these if you like them” she said, grasping at straws. She wanted him to be here with her, but she wanted him safely at arms length. The dichotomy made her angry with herself. 

The smile he gave her was self-deprecating and a little silly, “they’re kinda small for me,” he admitted, “I already ordered a bigger pair.”

“If they didn’t work for you, why did you use them?” Kyla asked.

“They’re yours,” he said it as though it should be obvious, “it reminded me of the other night.”

She knew her mouth was hanging open, “Why would you want to remember that? ” her voice was horrified. Was he messing with her? Teasing her because she was such a simple idiot? Did he think he was going to break her like this? Because he might just be right.

He recoiled from her tone as if she’d slapped him. There was a sadness, a hurt in her eyes that she hadn’t meant to cause. “I’m sorry, you’re right. That’s silly of me. I shouldn’t keep pushing you. I’m going. Sorry.” He looked like a kicked puppy. 

Suddenly, she understood. He thought she didn’t want to remember the kiss because of him. He thought she disliked him so much that she didn’t want to think about that electric moment out of disgust. The realization forced a laugh out of her jackhammering chest. 

His eyebrows knitted, the open painfulness of his gaze an accusation. He turned and started down the two steps that would take him away from her. “Got it. I’m gone.”

She sobered quickly. “Wait!” She called, far too loudly for this little space, “no, I didn’t mean it like that, San. Come back.” He stood stock still. He didn’t turn to her. “Please, can you come in and we can talk? I don’t want there to be bad blood between us.”

San turned as ordered, his eyes locked on the ground. He entered the small trailer and Kyla reached around him to shut the door. “It’s not a big deal. No bad blood. I know you’re not interested and I don’t mean to push so hard. Just… I’ll go. No worries.”

“That isn’t it, please, can we talk?” She hated the way her voice sounded like she was begging.

Suddenly, his dark eyes locked onto hers and there was something else there. Something like anger, or maybe just hurt. “ Now you want to talk?” he spat, “I tried talking to you and you ran, Kyla. Just ran out of the trailer like I tried to kill you. Then, when I tried to lighten the mood, you didn’t reply. I get the memo. I understand that you don’t have feelings for me, that there’s no spark for you. I get it. I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me for months. All I want is to talk to you. I remember every interview, every event, every quick change, every garment, every single fucking touch but I don’t really want to sit here and be told all over again that you don’t want me. I don’t want you to laugh at me . I kept the glasses because they were yours and because I was hoping you would ask for them back, but you didn’t. The only reason you got them back is because Joong asked. Your bias. ”

She was staring at him with her mouth open again. He hated the way he liked it. Hated the way he wanted to kiss that expression off her face. “My- wait what?” she asked, apparently hung up on that last line, “when did I ever say Hongjoong was my bias? Why are we even talking about biases?” after a moment, she seemed to catch up to the rest of his declaration, too. “what do you mean months?”

“Accelerate magazine. The issue where they interviewed you and Sarah about life on the road. You wore the sparkly blue cocktail dress and they made you wear a brown wig because they didn’t like your hair. You twitched and fidgeted all the way to the studio in the bus. Remember now? ” He didn’t mean for it to come out so sharply, but the words were propelled by hurt and embarrassment.

“What the fuck? That was like a year ago, how do you even remember that?” she asked, incredulously.

He ran his hands through his hair, “you know what? Whatever, it’s nothing. I’m sorry.” And he turned to leave again.

“San—”

“It’s nothing!”

“It’s obviously not nothing!” Kyla shouted, “It was the capstone of your whole big speech there. Look, we obviously need to have a conversation because something more is going on here. I’m not trying to talk to you about my ‘bias’ or whatever. I’m not trying to brush you off. I just… I don’t know how to deal with all of this. With whatever is happening here. The other night in the trailer you were drunk. Before that, in the hypogeum, you were so full of adrenaline that it was practically pouring off you. I’m a stylist, San. I’m not an idol, or a star, or an adoring fan paying thousands of dollars for a scrap of your attention, I’m staff. So, you have to understand why this feels like a trap or a joke. You know what happens to staff who hook up with the idols.” Her voice softened then as he finally looked at her again, “and I know how badly I handled… what happened the other night. I’m sorry. I was scared. This is scary for me.”

“Because there’s no spark,” he said matter-of-factly.

She was trying so hard to keep the walls up that it made her throat ache. She had to swallow the words, had to swallow her feelings. If Kyla let them out now, lines would be crossed in ways that couldn’t be undone. Her mouth opened and closed several times before finally, San sighed.

“I’m glad you’re not laughing at me or mad at me or anything, but I’m still gonna go. I’m sorry for making you feel scared.” There was a finality in his voice that made her ache. He turned toward the door, reaching for the handle.

She didn’t want him to go, didn’t want him to leave her space. She wanted him to keep talking, to keep being honest with her. This wasn’t the man the world saw. This was someone new, someone honest and raw and genuine in a way she hadn’t known she wanted. But those were traitorous thoughts. Almost everyone who hooked up with an idol thought they were special until they were tossed aside like the flavor of the week.

Maybe he’s different, a defiant, hopeful voice whispered. Kyla bit the inside of her cheek, trying to stifle the ache, the hurt, the want . “Please,” she whispered into the stifling space, “please don’t go.”

He stilled, his shoulders hunching as if he wanted to shrink away. He didn’t turn. “I don’t know what you want from me, Kyla.” His voice was like glass, breaking in tiny, beautiful fragments. “You told me you don’t want me. You told me I scare you. But now you don’t want me to leave? That isn’t fair. You aren’t being fair.”

Maybe it was the stifling heat of the trailer, or maybe Kyla was just feeling bold, but she answered honestly. “You don’t know what I want from you because I don’t know what I want.” This gave San pause, though he still didn’t turn around to face her. His knuckles gleamed white where he gripped the door handle. “I can’t risk losing this job for anything, not even for you. It’s my dream. It has been since I was a kid. Do you have any idea how hard I’ve worked to get here? What I’ve done?” She had asked it rhetorically, but San didn't take it that way. 

“Four years at the London Fashion Institute, another two at Seoul National in Korea, and then an internship with Bighit where you learned how to work with idols specifically?” He said it all in one breath, as though it should be common knowledge. 

She gaped at his back for a long moment before laughing. “ What?!”

He chuckled, too, the tension dissolving as he looked over his shoulder with that boyish grin that made women all over scream his name, “ Accelerate Magazine,” he said by way of explanation.

“San, that didn’t even make it into the article. How did you know that?” Her bafflement deepened with his rising flush. 

“You said it in the interview. I was paying attention.” He finally turned then, leaning his back against the door and looking at her with something between admiration and challenge. “I haven’t stopped paying attention.”

Kyla rose shakily from her chair, trying to even the height differential so she didn’t feel so dwarfed by him. But even when they were eye-to-eye, his wide shoulders and strong frame still made him feel massive. “Why, San?” She asked it with a steadiness she wasn’t sure she felt, “Why pay attention to me when there’s a million other people around- idols, interviewers, fans, hell, even other staff. Why me?” She forced herself to meet his gaze, balling her hands into fists so she didn’t fidget.

Maybe her honesty was contagious, because his answer was raw. “Because you are so plainly, unabashedly yourself. You asked me if I knew what you had done to get here, but do you know the things I’ve done? I gave everything for this job. I was picking garlic before I debuted. I changed everything about myself- my body, my clothes, my everything - just to get where I am. But you? You didn’t do that. You knew what you wanted and you got it. As yourself. And instead of turning inward and making yourself into some sort of runway model or idol personality, you dedicated yourself to making other things beautiful. And still, you’re enchanting . I could watch you work for hours. You’re dressed in all black, pouring over me and the other members, trying to make us perfect, and I can’t stop looking at you.”

Kyla’s heart pounded so hard against her ribcage that she thought it might burst free, unbidden. Never in her life had a single statement made her feel so desirable, so seen. Her hand rose to her ponytail, pinky finger grinding down on the seam ripper as though the pain could wake her up from this strange dream where she felt like she would float clean out of her body and into the atmosphere. “I- I don’t—” her voice trailed off as she stared at him in awe.

“Stop,” he said. When she just gave him a questioning look, he reached up and grabbed her wrist, stilling her hand and pulling it away from the seam ripper, looking annoyed at the red blood blossoming from her fingertip. “I know you don’t feel the same way, and that’s fine, but please don’t do that. Is that why you carry the thing that way? So you can stab yourself?”

Kyla couldn’t answer for the way his hand- huge, warm, impossibly strong- was wrapped around her wrist. His was so much larger that his fingers overlapped where he held. “I’m not trying to hurt myself,” she argued meekly, “it just helps me feel grounded is all.”

“Well, stop,” said San harshly, not releasing her wrist, “you’re bleeding. Don’t bleed for me.” 

Kyla couldn’t even stop the joke that came tumbling out of her if she tried, “well, there’s plenty of first aid kits in here.”

San’s look was incredulous. His hand was still there, still trapping her wrist, still watching the single drop of blood as it started to travel down the side of her finger, leaving a ruby trail in its wake. He suddenly let go, and she let her hand flop to her side. Whatever had just happened made his skin flush with heat. “That’s true. Maybe I should get injured more often so you can patch me up again.”

He said it like a joke, but it hit Kyla like a blow to the chest. 

His grin was wolfish, sharp around the edges. He cleared his throat, as if afraid of going too far, “Right, well, I’ll let you get back to work. Can I- can I text you, maybe?”

It was such a cheesy, almost romcom line that for a second Kyla couldn’t tell if he was serious. But that vulnerability was back in his eyes. “I’d like that.” She admitted.

~

The members of ATEEZ were, historically, very bad at keeping secrets from each other. As the days wore on, it was clear that this… whatever it was with Kyla would be no different. It took three days. Three days of leaving his phone face-down, smiling when he didn’t think they could see, and a shift in energy before the captain sat them all down. It was late at night in Mingi and Yunho’s room. They were just talking, winding down after another action-packed show and sendoff. American fans were rabid, and the boys were eating it up. Every show felt like a shot of adrenaline. Without asking, they had all decided to stay up before turning in. 

Hongjoong was in the middle of separating San and Wooyoung who looked like they might break into an all-out pillow fight. San was laughing, pretending to punch his friend in the face when his phone chimed. San stopped mid-swing and grabbed it off the bedside table, scooching into the corner of the bed where no one could see his screen. 

Hongjoong shared a look with Seonghwa. This had been happening for days, and they didn’t like it.

“Sannie…” Hongjoong began, trying to ease into the question.

“Who do you keep texting?” Wooyoung asked, throwing himself forward and trying to look at San’s screen. San shoved him away with his foot without much heat, hiding the phone in his shirt. 

“Your mom,” San shot back.

Wooyoung pounced again like he meant to tackle San, but Jongho slid his arm out to trap the smaller man. 

“Enough!” Seonghwa snapped, a hint of annoyance creeping in, “we’re gonna get another noise complaint if you guys keep this up.”

“But he’s being so cagey!” Wooyoung whined, flopping backwards into Jongho’s chest like a child denied a plaything.

“He is being a little suspicious,” the maknae agreed, wiggling out from under Woo’s weight. 

All the members turned to look at San, waiting for his reply, but he wasn’t even paying attention. He held the phone up, smiling a soft smile that the other members had rarely seen from him in the nine years they’d known him. They all looked at each other in bewilderment as San typed something out on his screen before shutting it off carefully and laying it back in its place on the nightstand almost reverently. 

“Okay, what the fuck was that?” Asked Mingi.

San looked surprised to see all their eyes on him. “What was what?” he asked. The blush creeping up his cheeks was obvious even through his lingering makeup.

“You! With the phone! And the ignoring us! What is going on with you?” Yeosang asked. Usually quiet and reserved, his voice sounded sharp with annoyance.

“Nothing!” San argued, too defensive, “just texting my dad.”

“No one looks at a text from their dad the way you just looked at that text, Sannie.” Yunho said gently. 

“Oooh, who is it?” Wooyoung asked, already latching on to a new, better reason to tease San.

“No one,” San snapped, “it’s no one.”

That’s when the prodding began. The members didn’t keep secrets from each other, especially ones like this. They won’t let up on San, asking him questions, telling him they’ll clone his phone, threatening to ask every person in their phone if they were who was making their San smile like that. He just sighed, curling into fetal position and covering his face with a pillow, imploring them to go away. He could go back to his own room, he knew, but they meant well and it wasn’t fair for him to ruin their good mood just because he couldn’t tell them this one thing. 

That was his first mistake. His second was not keeping his phone on him. It wasn’t long before Wooyoung got the bright idea to just grab the phone and open it himself to see what was going on. San tried to stop him, but Mingi grabbed his arms and held him back, laughing uproariously in his ear. He had San completely locked- his arms entrapped and his back pressed to Mingi’s chest. To San’s immense relief, there were no new notifications on the screen for them to see. But Woo was relentless. He tried to open the phone and gasped with horror when the passcode didn’t work. This led to a 15-minute interrogation from both Wooyoung and Yeosang and enough attempts to unlock it that it was permanently stuck for an hour. 

Then, the text came in. San had been smart enough to turn off message previews and change Kyla’s contact name in his phone to a single blue dress emoji in case of spying paparazzi, but he hadn’t exactly prepared for someone to be holding his phone and dissecting his life when it came in. 

Wooyoung whooped in triumph, holding the phone aloft and turning it to show Mingi, who still held San fast. “Who is this?” he asked, his voice sing-song and teasing.

“A dress emoji?” Mingi asked gleefully, “So it’s a girl then!” 

“Stop,” San begged. His voice was still light, but there was a seriousness there now that hadn’t been when they were just messing with his phone, “it’s nothing. Just leave it alone.”

“Oh, is it that Lindsey girl from the fashion video we did for promotions?” Asked Seonghwa. San glared at him, a look of betrayal on his face. Normally, Seonghwa was the voice of reason. San didn’t want him weighing in on this now, too. 

“No, no!” Yunho grinned, “I bet it’s the girl from the afterparty that was all over him, remember her? The security guy’s daughter?”
“Why would she be a dress emoji?” Wooyoung cut in, talking over the others, “It’s obviously Sarah. A dress? She’s his stylist, you know.”

“No way,” Mingi said with certainty, “she and I still talk. Plus we all know she can’t keep a secret. How long did it take you guys to find out after we hooked up? An hour?”

The others joined in, too, making guesses and talking in overlapping conversations that never seemed to meet up. San sat in the middle of it, feeling naked and fairly overwhelmed. 

Hongjoong’s voice was soft, but the calm, certain way he said it made the whole room fall still. “It’s not Sarah. It’s Kyla.”

San was holding his breath without meaning to, and he forced it out in a choked laugh. “Who?”

Hongjoong didn’t crack. “Kyla. You know who I mean.”

“Wait,” said Wooyoung, his eyes dancing like a kid on Christmas, “ Your stylist? San-ah, you’re trying to poach Hongjoong’s stylist?”

Hongjoong leaned back in the desk chair, bracing one arm across the back of it. “Is she working on a garment for you? You could have just told me. It’s not like I’m mad. I don’t own her fashion sense.”

“It’s not like that!” San groaned, his head falling forward and his hair covering his eyes.

“Then what is it like?” Seonghwa asked. The room was hushed, everyone waiting for San to spill. They knew he would. It was just a matter of when.

“Okay, yes, it’s Kyla, but it’s got nothing to do with fashion.”

Mingi erupted with laughter, whooping in San’s ear, “more like getting fashion on the floor, am I right?”

The others laughed, too, making kissing noises at San and prodding him in the ribs. Their excitement was ridiculous. Any onlooker would have thought they were some sort of frat bros talking about a beer stand. “it’s not like that either!” He snapped, desperate to clear his name. This seemed to quell the others. 

“What do you mean, San?” asked the captain.

“We’re not- there’s no- we aren’t hooking up. We’re just… friends.”

The room froze in stunned silence as reality seemed to settle over the other members. Hooking up was one thing. All of them had had hookups from time to time. Some even had long-term booty calls that they found whenever their cities aligned. But friendships were dangerous. Friends meant attachment. Friends meant more than casual sex. It meant relationships, hang-ups, scandal.

All of them had had “friends” in the past, people they had cared for a little too much, but their lives weren’t made for such attachment. They were idols. They travelled, they performed, they acted like lovers to the world at large. They didn’t get to be exclusive.

It was Wooyoung who spoke up then, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “We can’t date, San.”

San didn’t look up, just kept his eyes trained on his own lap, “I know that. I know. I- we- we’re not dating. She’s not interested in that.”

“But you asked her,” Mingi said, finally releasing San’s arms and letting them fall into his lap, “to date, I mean.”

“Not in so many words,” said San, “but I told her I like her.”

“And she said no?” Seonghwa asked. His voice was low with understanding. 

“She said she didn’t feel a spark” San told the room. It felt good to say it, to let someone else in on this private ache in his chest. 

“Didn’t feel a spark when ?” Asked Yeosang, alarmed.

And so, San told them. He told them about the belt, the pants, the trailer, the kiss, the weeks of silence, the moment when he had held her wrist and looked at her bleeding finger and wanted nothing more than to lean in and kiss her. The others listened in rapt silence as San opened like a flower, admitting it all. He told them about her blue dress and the seam ripper she wore in her hair and how worried he was that she was stabbing her own finger whenever she got anxious and how he was trying to think up reasons to go to the trailer just so that he could see her in her element for one precious moment. Their mouths were hanging open as he spoke, all except Seonghwa, whose eyes were somewhere far, far away. 

“So, she and I are texting now, and it’s nice. It’s good to have friends. But she doesn’t want it to be anything more than that, and that’s okay. But, yeah. That’s why I didn’t tell anyone. Because I don’t know what it is and I don’t think I can find out.” San finished. He felt bare, exposed like a live wire. The boys were always honest with each other, that’s why their bond worked so well, but this felt almost like a step too far. San wished he could take back some of the admissions he just gave, but they burned in his throat like sharp-edged acid. Now they knew. Now they knew that he was lost for a woman who didn’t want him. 

When he finally looked up at his friends, his brothers, there was no anger there as he expected. Instead, he found understanding and care, even a little jealousy. Mingi huffed, pulling out his phone with a flourish. 

“What are you doing?” San asked, suspicious and weary.

Every phone in the room pinged in unison. They all pulled them out to see the message Mingi had sent to the touring crew.

Mingi: We’re going to the gym tomorrow at 10. Anybody wanna come?

San stared at him in confusion. “Everything I just said, and you’re thinking about the gym?” he asked, eyebrow raised.

Mingi shrugged. “Less about the gym itself, more about the people. Group date. With a whole bunch of people around, no one has to know you two are together. It’s like an incognito date.”

“No, no, no,” Hongjoong said, raising his hands in warning, “We can’t encourage this!”

“You act like we haven’t all wanted to date before,” Wooyoung said, agreeing with Mingi, “At least we can help San out a little. God knows he needs it.”

“No, Hongjoong is right,” said Seonghwa, “do you know what would happen if our fans found out San was seeing someone, especially someone from the tour crew? They’d tear her life apart. Everything she’s ever done or said would be plastered all over social media so fast your head will spin. It’s not fair to her or to us, but it is what it is.” His voice held the ring of an old truth they didn’t want to acknowledge.

“I’m tired,” Jongho whispered, like speaking the words too loudly might break something, “I’m tired of pretending to be a bachelor with no intention to date. That’s not what I want. That’s not what any of us want, I don’t think. Don’t we all deserve a chance?”

“Guys,” San said, touched, “I didn’t mean for this to be a big group discussion. There’s nothing happening. Nothing is going to happen, because Kyla isn’t interested, so all this talking is… it’s pointless. You wanted to know who I keep texting, and now you know. Let’s just… drop it.”

The others exchanged looks but seemed to understand that San didn’t want to talk about it anymore. He waited until the others were out of the room before leaving as well, bidding Mingi and Yunho goodnight and ignoring the way his heart felt hollow in his chest. But the moment he stepped into the soft light of the hallway, a hand closed around his elbow. He looked back to see Seonghwa there, his bright eyes locked seriously onto San’s.

“Do you remember Seok?” He asked. The name landed heavy between them, like a weight dropped on still water. They didn’t talk about Seok. They didn’t talk about what happened, even if they all knew. San knew where this was headed but didn’t want to talk about it. Seok was the boy from Seonghwa’s hometown, the one he had loved so fiercely. San nodded, waiting for Seonghwa to go on. “I never told you what happened with him. I never told any of the others either. He and I… Well, when we first debuted, it was fine. No one knew about the band, no one really cared. But after we took off… It wasn’t long before someone saw me with Seok at a café and posted it online. Then he started getting hate mail, death threats. He made all his social media private, but it was too late. ‘

“People started posting his pictures on Tiktok. They made fun of his looks, his laugh, everything. He couldn’t stop looking. I told him it didn’t matter, that I loved him anyway, that I didn’t care what anyone said about him or me. But it was too much for him, he couldn’t look away. And, eventually, it broke him. Broke us. It finally ended after Halazia when he told me he couldn’t stand living in my shadow and left. I haven’t seen him in two years, and I still feel that ache every day. It was awful. And the worst part is, we both still love each other. We just can’t be together. And I’ve made my peace with that, I picked this path and I wouldn’t trade you guys, trade ATEEZ for the world, but Seok lost his job after people review-bombed it. He had to warn new employers. I don’t even know where he works these days.”

Seonghwa stopped talking, just staring at San. He waited for him to start the story back up, but that seemed to be the end. “why are you telling me this?” San asked.

“Because I know how it feels to be the one who ruins someone’s life without meaning to, and I have to live with it,” Seonghwa said, his dark eyes full of honesty and raw, true regret, “but you have to decide whether or not you can.” And then he let go of San’s elbow, turned, and walked away down the hall. 

~

The tour was busy. There was hardly time for anything but work as they made their way around America. If it wasn’t a show, it was an interview. If it wasn’t an interview, it was a livestream. Day after day of media exposure, content creation, makeup, hair, over and over again. But still, San didn’t miss a single day of texting Kyla. 

At first, she figured he was just excited that she had agreed to text him and assumed he’d calm down after the newness of her wore off, but as weeks turned into a month he still texted her every single day. 

San: Rehearsal is insane rn. I’m pretty sure Mingi tore the crotch of his pants.

Kyla: FML, which ones?

San: uh… sweatpants? Tight at the ankle, no pockets?

Kyla: 🙌🏻 Thank god, those are his, not mine, not my problem.

San: Oh lit. You should make Seonghwa wear the chain shirt tonight for Skin.

Kyla: Maybe I’ll make you wear it instead for Creep

San: Not on these shoulders you won’t.

Kyla grinned at the phone like an idiot, laughing at the mental image of trying to lace the intricate metal garment around San’s wide frame. She should have been focusing on the wardrobe racks for the night while she still had time, but she couldn’t help herself from checking his messages as they came in. Her fingers flew across the screen, tapping out a reply- something snarky about taking chain from the waist to add to the shoulders, when Sarah snatched it out of her hand. Kyla yelped, reaching for the phone and only barely snatching it back before the other stylist could see who she was texting. 

“Jeez, girl,” Sarah laughed, grinning wickedly, “I’m not gonna take away your little flirt-box, I just wanted you to pay attention to me! I’m trying to tell you something important and you’re over here texting whoever it is that has you all giggly!”

Kyla’s teeth ground together dangerously. She liked Sarah, truly she did, but the girl had absolutely no sense of decorum. She acted like some sort of party girl, not like the trained stylist she was. Still, Kyla was at work and Sarah was right, she didn’t need to be texting. “Okay, fine, sorry. What’s up?”

“Like I was saying ,” Sarah said, tossing the words out without much heat, “so, I probably won’t be back until super late tonight. And I still haven’t found my extra key. Can you leave yours in the light fixture?”

Kyla Sighed heavily. “Yeah, sure. As long as you promise not to lose my key. Where are you going, anyway?”

Sarah flashed that vulpine grin, twisting a lock of blonde hair around her finger. “Wow, you really were not paying attention at all, huh? Whoever’s on that phone must be hot .” She dragged the word out until it was almost a moan. Kyla ground her teeth again, biting back her response that yes, he was indeed super hot, but it wasn’t like that. “but, yeah. I’m hooking up with Mingi again tonight after the show and you know how long that can take, so I’ll be late coming home.”

Wooyoung’s Sagittarius jacket tumbled out of Kyla’s hands and she cursed, smacking her head on the rack as she stooped to grab it. “I’m sorry- you’re what?”

Sarah’s laughter was high-pitched and clear, like a bell. It grated against Kyla’s nerves. “Yeah, girl! He hit me up a few weeks ago when we were back in Texas and asked if I wanted to have another, you know, little fling. And who’s gonna turn down a piece of that action, am I right? He can ‘fix on’ me any day.”

“Oh my god ,” Kyla wasn’t sure if she was laughing because the joke was funny or because the idea was horrifying. She hushed her friend, looking around as if anyone else was near enough to hear them. “Are you insane? You can’t just randomly announce you’re going to be sleeping with Mingi like it’s normal! I thought you said you were done with him?”

“That was then and this is now, baby! Plus, I mean, it’s not hurting anything. It’s not like we have some intimate love affair. I don’t even think my name is saved in his phone. It’s just a booty call. Sex, that’s it.”

“Yeah, you’re insane. Do you have any idea what would happen if the fans found out? The agency?” Kyla felt like she was talking directly to that little voice in her head, and she didn’t like where the conversation was going. 

“I mean, I don’t really care. It’s sex. We’re young, we’re dumb, and we can do what we want. I’m sure Atiny would freak for a minute, but they already think of Mingi as the playboy. It’d probably just feed his image. As far as the agency goes, I don’t think they care as much as they like to pretend. I mean, they know these are young men singing, like, super sexual songs all day every day. You’ve seen the medical trailer. There’s, like, an entire moving box full of condoms in there.” Sarah was serious. She honestly meant to go have sex with Mingi tonight and then come back to the bus like nothing happened. 

Kyla’s bafflement must have been plain on her face. “What if someone gets a picture of you coming out of his hotel room or something?”

Sarah raised one perfectly-shaped eyebrow, handing Kyla a garment to hang on the rack for Yunho. “Well I’m not an idiot, for one thing. We’re not going to his hotel room. That would be stupid. Do you seriously not know how this works? You’ve never banged a client?” At Kyla’s furious glare, Sarah laughed, “you don’t go to the hotel. You go somewhere it makes sense to be. A trailer, a bus, maybe a dressing room since we’re the stylists. Come on, this is basic stuff. When’s the last time you got laid, Kyla? We’ve been on the road for, like, months. That’s a hell of a dry spell.”

It wasn’t meant with any sort of mockery, but the question made Kyla feel… odd. She didn’t mind the lack of sex, not really. But she did miss the intimacy of those moments where another person shared her bed. When they knew her intimately and were still there, basking in the afterglow. The thought made her stomach flutter and heat pool. She forced herself to ignore the mental image of San there next to her. It was too much heat to bear in this small place. And then she had a thought that made the blood in her veins turn cold. “Sarah, you say that like you’ve hooked up with other members. Have you?”

Sarah groaned low in her throat, the sound ending in an almost wistful sigh. “Ugh, I wish. I’ve been trying to get after Wooyoung forever and I’d love to pick Yeosang’s brain, plus the shoulders on San would be just… incredible to put your thighs on, but no. I don’t know if they like each other sleeping with the same girl. It’s whatever, Mingi is plenty as far as that goes. Now, Straykids? Mmm, it’d be easier to ask me who I didn’t fuck out of that crew. There was this one time—”

“Nope, no, absolutely not. No, you need to have this conversation with a therapist,” Kyla said, laughing. She hated the way it felt like relief that Sarah hadn’t slept with San. She wondered about the comment about San’s shoulders, but they had two hours to call time, and she didn’t need to lose focus. She couldn’t. But, god. The idea of him spreading her open, throwing her legs over those wide, impossible shoulders, taking what he wanted… No. No, no, no. Every day it was getting harder and harder to fight the images, the wants, the desire she felt for San. He was funny, funnier than she had given him credit for. And he actually knew a fair bit about fashion. He liked giving every person in his phone an emoji after their name and said you couldn’t really be his friend without one. She knew her name was just a blue dress emoji, no name at all, so the paparazzi couldn’t find out who he was texting. 

She loved that stupid fucking emoji.

Kyla couldn’t believe that San even remembered that she had been there at that interview, much less what she had said. She felt like it had been the most boring, dry interview ever, especially in comparison to the steamy photoshoot the guys had done to accompany it. The article had been less than half a page long. Still, he remembered. Wanted to know more. He’d asked about school, her life, her family. Kyla had seen some of the messages Sarah and Mingi had exchanged. They were nothing but flirting and sexting. No real conversations, not like she and San had. But whenever she thought that, she thought of all those who had come before her only to find out that the idol didn’t actually care about them at all, and she bit down the spike of joy it brought her to think of herself as someone to Choi San. 

In those dark moments when Kyla lay in her bunk, forcing her eyes open so she didn’t miss San’s last text, she let herself imagine a life where they could just… exist together. Not publicly, she had never wanted that. She didn’t need to be shown off. Just… privately. A world where she could trust that he meant what he said to her and they could keep this easy, open relationship they were building. But she knew they couldn’t. She would never be able to trust him, and there could be no relationship without trust. She would always wonder when he would find someone more interesting, more popular, more pretty, more… like him. And it could never work. No matter how badly she wanted it to. 

The tour was wrapping up soon. They had done their Asian circuit, they would be done with America tomorrow night after the last day in LA, and then they had a few shows in London. Only a few weeks left. After that, Hongjoong had asked her to stay on as his stylist and she had happily accepted but… She knew it would be different. 

Here on the road, there were precious few people for San to talk to that understood. Once they were back home in Korea, surrounded by people who spoke their language and had history, she knew this fantastic little bubble would burst. She tried not to think about it, about how bad it would hurt when he stopped texting her, stopped giving her those looks from across the room, stopped laughing at her jokes. It wouldn’t be long now.

She wanted to soak up these moments with him. It felt like a fling at summer camp, basking in the attention of someone you knew you could never have. So, she had surrendered herself to it. She let herself grin at his stupid texts, let her soul glow each night when, without fail, he sent her a text saying “Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow 👗”

But still, something had changed between them after that night in the medical trailer. As much as she wanted to pretend it was just innocent flirting, there was a sharp-edged tension there, like magnets repelling. She hadn’t done a quick change for him since that night in Busan. She hadn’t even done any of his measurements. She always found a way to make Sarah or one of the junior seamstresses do it. He never complained, but his eyes burned into her in secret, hot moments. She felt it. She knew. And she cursed the way it made her feel alive.

~

San couldn’t help himself- he did it again. Even as he did it, he knew that if Kyla didn’t kill him, Sarah would. This was a stupid idea. He was playing with fire. But they only had three shows left before the end of the tour and he was desperate. Even the fans had noticed. They attributed his longing looks, the intensity of his dancing to a secret relationship with another member, usually Wooyoung, but the others knew. 

Hongjoong continued to disapprove, trying to convince San that this was a terrible idea. Seonghwa kept a careful distance, not encouraging or discouraging, just watching. Like the events had already happened, and he was just watching a replay. Wooyoung wanted them together more than he wanted air, apparently, and kept trying to find reasons for them to be alone together. San, luckily, was able to shoot them down before Kyla even noticed. Mingi seemed to take San’s… whatever this was with Kyla as an excuse to go buck wild. He and Sarah had hooked up nearly half a dozen times in the past few weeks, though he insisted it was just because she was so much fun, that it meant nothing to either of them. 

But San? He tried to be carefully neutral. He didn’t want to scare Kyla off, to push too hard, but sometimes it felt like they were dancing around the edge of something more. And he couldn’t take it anymore. This was his last effort. If it worked, great. If not, one of the two stylists was going to leave him dead in a ditch. 

At first, San thought it hadn’t worked. The quick changes were easy, clothes slipping on and off his shoulders with little effort. Sarah hardly even looked at him as she worked, adjusting his clothes and tightening buttons. San had all but given up… and then it happened. 

They usually wore basketball jersey style tops for the encore, and San felt it when his caught. This was it. The very last song, the very last chance. He stepped off the stage flushed, hot, tired, and still buzzing with enough adrenaline to power a rocket. 

Sarah still wasn’t looking. She started with his jewelry, slipping off his chrome bangles in favor of elastic beaded bracelets, ones that wouldn’t be valuable if a fan accidentally snagged one at sendoff. Then his sunglasses. She took them off and placed them in a case on the jewelry cart, shaking his sweaty hair out so he looked rugged. And then she tried to pull off his shirt with one hand, already reaching for his black tee. It caught. It caught in his belt. 

Sarah froze, turning to look at him. She looked down and San watched as she cycled through confusion, annoyance, and finally anger. “Choi San,” she scolded, “are you fucking serious right now?” 

“What’s wrong?” Kyla called, looking away from Wooyoung as she smoothed his blazer over his Def Leppard shirt. The others were already dressed for sendoff. 

“Kyla, I’m sorry, can you handle him, please? ” Sarah threw her hands up in defeat, eyes smoldering with real anger, “before I fucking throttle him?”

“Oooh,” Wooyoung purred, sounding like a kid sensing trouble, “What did you do, Sannie?”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me, San. Are you serious? Again?” Kyla’s hands hovered an inch from his skin, close enough to feel the heat. 

“Thirty seconds to sendoff, people, let’s go!” Called the manager.

“Here,” said Sarah, “what do you need? I’ll help you.”

“No,” Kyla spat furiously, “get Mingi’s rings off him and get Hongjoong those skinny Raybans. I’ll send this one out when I’m done with him.”

“Oh, send him shirtless!” Mingi called from somewhere, “that’d spice things up!”

The others roared with laughter as they left, tossing accessories into the bin Kyla would have to sort later. 

A startling silence fell over the hypogeum, the kind that made every step feel too loud, each breath pointed. Kyla had been standing still for too long, just staring at the mesh basketball top where it was hopelessly, uselessly entwined in his fuckass Dolce & Gabbana belt. 

She didn’t have time for scolding. She didn’t have time for the flicker of light in her stomach or the way she felt caught between throwing up and screaming. 

She swallowed hard and dropped to one knee, forcing herself to look at the belt. The cloth was… it was really tangled. No way out of this one. “I hope I fucking stab you with this,” she hissed, and pulled the seam ripper out of her ponytail. She wasn’t delicate or gentle. She just grabbed a fistful of the very fine, very expensive shirt and cut a wide U shape around the entwined buckle. After she was done, a solid inch of grey fabric still remained, highly visible like a streak of lightning. It wasn’t pretty. This was a quick and dirty get him out to the fans sort of job. “off,” she ordered, shoving at the remaining hem of the shirt. San pulled it off obediently, grabbing his tee and shoving it on. As he did that, she looked around for something, anything she could use to hide the fabric she couldn’t get off of him. One of Jongho’s comfy soundcheck sweaters. Perfect. She grabbed it and spun around, still on one knee, and reached up to fold the little bit of grey fabric into the waistband of San’s pants. 

She forgot who she was touching until he hissed. Their skin was flush, the tips of her nails dragging on his lower abdomen as she folded the fabric down. His chest was heaving with breath, harder even than when he’d been on stage. She knew she was trembling, knew he could feel it. She could feel the heat of his skin, the softness there, the pressure. The elastic hem of his underwear was so tantalizingly close. It was too much. She pulled her hands back as if she’d been electrocuted and hastily, expertly tied the sweater around him. 

Somehow, it looked stylish. Intentional. Chic. She was impressed with herself. She stood, taking a step back and away from him so he could leave, but his eyes were locked on her.

“Kyla, I—” he began, but she shook her head.

“Don’t,” She spat, annoyed by both her own desire and his idiotic actions, “just go.” She reached up and pulled the seam ripper from her mouth, grinding her thumb down on the point, trying to quell the hurricane that seemed to be brewing under her skin. He stared at her with those blown-wide pupils that had started this whole mess, his eyes flickering from the welling blood on her finger back up to her face. He started to reach for her, but she took a step away from him. “ Go, San,” the words came out hot, angry, with none of the lightness they had built over the past few months. 

He didn’t say anything. Not sorry , not I can explain, not even I wanted this to happen, He just looked at the floor like a scolded child and left without a word. 

~

What the fuck was he thinking? Kyla thought, shoving clothes into their respective buckets with enough force that she feared she was going to break the bins. Did he think she was going to stop what she was doing right there, whip him out and go to town on the floor of the hypogeum? Was he trying to humiliate her? Had one of the other members put him up to this? She was sure they knew, even though she hadn’t asked San for confirmation. She knew the way those boys worked. 

“Easy, tiger,” Sarah said as she returned to Kyla’s side, picking up the box for San and laying garments inside, “you good?”

“Fine,” Kyla’s voice was bitten off. 

“Hey,” Sarah prodded, placing a hand on her shoulder. When Kyla met her eyes, there was a tenderness and sincerity there that she didn’t usually wear. “Ky, are you alright?”

Kyla sighed, placing her hand on top of Sarah’s and squeezing gently. “Yeah, I’m okay. I didn’t mean to snap, I’m sorry. I just- it’s just—”

“San?” Sarah finished for her. Kyla choked on her next breath and Sarah laughed, patting her back like a mother burping a child, “Yeah, him and that stupid belt are gonna blow the budget out of the water.”

Right, of course that was what Sarah meant… not anything else. “Yeah,” Kyla laughed, coughing a little, “I’m getting sick of cutting clothes off him. It’s expensive.”

Sarah’s eyebrow raised and she made a sort of humming noise of disbelief, “I don’t think I’d get tired of it, if I was in your position?”

Her blood felt like ice. “My… my position?”

“On my knees in front of San?” Sarah had a feline smile on her face, “or in his head, like you.” Kyla was sure everyone could hear her racing heart. The fans, the band, Sarah, people back in Korea could probably hear it at this point. She didn’t know what to say. Her mouth opened and closed around a silent scream. She didn’t answer, couldn’t answer, so she just picked up the bin for Hongjoong’s clothes and ran off to put them away.

~

San could hardly focus on the fans. It was obvious to everyone around him. His manager had to practically shake him to hand him a photocard to sign. Wooyoung stepped on his shoes twice before San’s eyes connected with him. Even the fans called out, asking if he was tired. He tried to plaster a smile on his face, but it felt forced, even to him. 

That had to be the stupidest idea he had ever had. All he had wanted to do was get Kyla’s attention. He wanted those pretty brown eyes on him and wanted her to scold him, maybe laugh. But she was angry with him. Truly mad. The way she had told him to go felt final, like a shutdown. It echoed in his ears like a condemnation.

When sendoff was over, they returned to the hypogeum. Wooyoung was chattering idly with Yunho and Yeosang while Hongjoong and Seonghwa spoke in hushed tones at the front of the group. Jongho had his phone out, probably already checking tiktok for new edits. Mingi hung by San’s side as they walked over to the clothing racks to grab their outerwear. Sarah was still there, throwing clothing and accessories into bins. Mingi took the bin with his name on it from her, his hands lingering a touch too long on hers. San gave them a small, jealous nod and started to walk past to his own bin, but Sarah tapped on his elbow for attention.

He looked down at her, surprised. “That was really fucking stupid, Sannie.” Sarah told him flatly. Mingi, who was pretending not to be eavesdropping, snorted. 

San glared at the back of his head. “Hi to you too, Sarah. Great show tonight,” San said, his sarcasm sharper than he meant it to be.

She waved him off. “Yeah, yeah. Great show, you’re hot, I’m pretty sure the girl at the barricade would lick sweat off of you like a dog if you let her, but that’s not what we’re talking about and you know it. Why did you wear that stupid fucking belt again?”

“I like it,” said San defensively, “it looks good with my outfit.”

“ You don’t get to pick your outfits, San. I do. That’s the point. And you can’t wear that thing on stage. We’ve talked about this. And what the fuck are you doing with Kyla? Don’t do that! Don’t be that guy!”

San felt like he’d been punched in the chest again. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but Mingi hopped up suddenly and closed his arms around both San and Sarah like it was a friendly group hug. He pulled their heads in close, his face deadly serious. “Babe, do not talk to San about that here. We don’t know who’s still around. And it’s not our business, remember?”

Remember? San thought. Have they talked about this?

“You saw her down on her knees, Mingi. San shouldn’t make her do stuff like that, it’s not cool. As much as I want San and Kyla to get together and be happy, Kyla was my friend first. I don’t like him teasing her like that.” Mingi rubbed his thumb over Sarah’s shoulder placatingly as she glared at San across their little huddle.

“Not trying to gang up on you here, dude, but didn’t you say Kyla wasn’t interested in you that way? That’s kinda uncool.” Mingi’s tone was gentle, but his words were sharp. 

San squeezed his eyes shut like he could hide the shame on his cheeks. “I know, I know. I don’t know why I thought it was a good idea. I just… I really, really like her. And the tour is over in four days. I wanted to… I don’t know, make a move? Tell her I’m still interested in her?”

Sarah was surprised by his honesty. She hadn’t expected him to admit to his feelings, even if Mingi had already told her a month ago. She liked to play the ditz and the gossipmonger but she would have taken this secret to the grave if that’s what her friends needed. Her tone was softer when she spoke again. “San, I understand wanting to make a grand gesture, but forcing a stylist to cut you out of a $200 custom jersey really is not the way to do it. Did you even consider asking her about her feelings or did you just jump straight to the belt?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for months. I was tired of thinking about it.” San whispered.

“You need to go apologize,” Mingi hissed seriously, like a priest giving benediction, “I would suggest groveling. Maybe bring flowers.” 

“I wouldn’t know where to find her.” San said, defeated.

“The trailer, obviously,” Sarah said, as though San was the stupidest creature to ever walk this earth. Right then, he felt like she was right. 

Mingi flew back, laughing uproariously and patting Sarah and San both hard on their backs. Sarah stumbled forward and punched him for the trouble. “Okay, man!” Mingi laughed, “Sounds great! I’ll see you back at the hotel. Don’t forget to stop by the craft trailer, I heard they made coffee cake!”

~

The relentless pounding of the sewing machine arm wasn’t working as the soothing balm it usually did for Kyla as she sewed extra loops around Wooyoung’s buttons. Her mind was too far gone, too angry to be calmed. She was so furious with San, with herself that she didn’t know what to do. She hated how much she had liked the feeling of being there, prostrate before him. She hated how badly she wanted to let her fingers slip lower past his elastic and hear his breath catch. Most of all, she hated how humiliated she felt. She hadn’t expected her to humiliate her like that. To mock her for what had been a catalyst to whatever it was she had thought they had now. 

Never trust an idol. She should have known he was no different. She was smarter than this. She never wanted to see his stupid, beautiful face again. She glanced up from her work to look at herself in the mirrored wall of the trailer. She looked tired. Her eyes were puffy from the tears she was holding back. Her ponytail was coming half apart, seam ripper caught on some frizz. Sweaty curls tangled around her face. She cringed, looking back down at her work and biting her tongue as the tears welled in her eyes. 

She didn’t hear the first knock at the door over the rush of blood in her ears. Even when she did hear it, she just ignored it. She wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone right now. If it was super urgent, they could text her or Sarah. Kyla just couldn’t be bothered. 

Then she heard him speaking through the door. “It’s me.” San said. His voice was quiet, almost inaudible. She sucked in a breath, clapping a hand over her mouth to silence herself. He waited a moment before speaking again. “Kyla, please? I know you’re in there. I can hear the sewing machine. Can you let me in?”

“I’m a little busy. If you have clothes, you can leave them in the hamper.” She was glad her voice didn’t sound as shattered as she felt.

“Kyla,” he said her name like an apology, like a salve to fix what was wrong between them. She hated how much she loved it when he talked to her like this, like she was the only person in the world. “Please, can you let me in? I’m standing outside and it’s awkward as hell. If anyone walks past they’re gonna think I’m insane. It’s hot out here. Please?” He sounded like a little kid begging to go to the park. 

“I’m not really in the mood to chat, San.” Kyla admitted. 

“I know, I know,” he said, “I just want to apologize.” When she didn’t respond, he sighed. She heard his head thunk against the door as he rested it there in defeat, “I was trying to surprise you but I’m holding flowers and coffee cake from craft services and if anyone catches me out here it’s gonna look really suspicious.”

She unlocked the door and pushed it open, nearly knocking him down the steps again. He was, in fact, standing on her doorstep with a bouquet of wildflowers and a slice of cinnamon coffee cake in his hands. She grabbed him by the shoulders to steady him and dragged him inside, slamming the door behind him. She threw the lock into place. 

He was giving her that private smile that used to make her feel like jelly in his palms. The one that was only for her. It looked like the flowers were hand-picked, maybe from the field nearby. Every single one was a different shade of blue. The coffee cake smelled delicious. Craft services made the best coffee cake, with just the perfect ratio of streusel-to-cake. She and San had talked once about it being both of their favorites. 

Still, her face was a mask of rage. “ What do you want?” She hissed, her voice sharp. “Was humiliating me at the show not enough? You wanted to make sure there was a media circus too?”

He looked genuinely surprised. “Wait, what? No! I just wanted to apologize!”

“Well, you did,” she told him, “You can go.”

“Kyla,” he pleaded, “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, I swear. I know it was stupid. I just… I didn’t mean to. It was stupid, I just wanted to get your attention. I didn’t think about how you would feel. It was selfish and juvenile and dumb and I’m sorry.”

She glared at him, trying to hold back the tears welling in her eyes, “I knew that someday soon you were gonna lose interest in me. It’s not even that I don’t understand, because I do. I’m just a fun road snack for you, and that’s okay. I made my peace with that and was just enjoying what we had. But I didn’t expect… this. Why did you do that, San? If you wanted my ‘attention’ or whatever, you could have just spoken to me. Instead you made me cut your shirt off and… and touch you. Right there in the hypogeum. You know afterwards Sarah told me she knew? And I know you told the other members. I was fine with that, too. I liked being your friend. I liked whatever we had going. I never asked you to be anything you didn’t want. I never told you not to have other partners, I never even asked about any of it. But you couldn’t help yourself, could you? It was just too tempting to make the little stylist kneel before the king, huh? Is that it? God, I’m so stupid. I should have known better.”

She shoved her hand against her eyes roughly, wiping hot, stinging tears away from her face. San was crying too now. The flowers and coffee cake sat forgotten on the workbench behind him. “No, Kyla, no. Please, no. that’s not what I meant at all. I’m sorry for wearing the belt. I’m sorry for making you touch me. I’m sorry for telling the others and then not telling you I had told the others. I’m sorry for flirting with you and for pushing when you didn’t want to be pushed. I’m sorry for the kiss and for making you feel like a road snack, because that’s not what you are.” She scoffed and he leaned forward, placing his hands heavily on her shoulders as if he wanted to inject the words into her veins. “You aren’t a plaything for me, Kyla. You aren’t a one-night stand on the road. You aren’t disposable. You’re my friend before anything else. And yes, I’m not going to pretend that I don’t have feelings for you because I do, I really, really do. And what I did tonight was idiotic. I don’t want to make any excuses. It was dumb. We’re at the end of the tour and I’m so afraid that when we get back to the dorm in Korea that you’re gonna fade away, out of my life. You’ll be Joong’s personal stylist and I’m sure he’ll keep you busy and I just… I was so afraid of leaving this tour without you knowing how I felt that I acted like a jackass. I’m sorry.”

She looked up at him through her wet lashes, catching a sob at the back of her throat. “I liked what we had, San. I didn’t want to fade out of your life. I just knew you were going to fade out of mine. Why didn’t you just talk to me?”

He shook his head, meeting her beautiful eyes with every ounce of sincerity he possessed. He wanted her to see him, to see that he wasn’t wearing a mask. This, right here in this sound-dampened trailer with them both crying and the smell of cinnamon mingling with leather, was the most open he could ever be. “I don’t know, Kyla. You said there wasn’t a spark. I’ve been hearing that one phrase on repeat in my head since Busan. You said ‘see? No spark’ right before you ran out. It’s been driving me crazy. I felt this… this heat with you. I felt it the first time, with the belt. I felt it every second we were in this trailer, I still feel it every time I see you on my phone. And I wanted… I guess I wanted to see if I could get you to feel the same spark I did.”

She laughed then, soft and broken, but real. “You’re a fucking idiot,” she whispered.

He laughed too, though he wasn’t sure why, “I know, but what do you mean right this second?”

“I was lying.”

Those three words settled between them like a weight. Like gravity itself pulling them down and down and down into somewhere they shouldn’t dare go. “What?” he breathed.

“I lied about not having feelings for you. I lied about not feeling anything. I lied about not wanting you to text me. I faked being a bad kisser, too. I was just scared that whatever this was, was going to swallow me up and leave me heartbroken.”

“I didn’t think the kiss was that bad,” San said. 

Kyla was struck by how stupid it was for him to harp on that one specific point instead of everything else she just confessed. For some reason, it was that endearing, defensive little quip that broke her. “Do you want to see what I can really do?”

San didn’t answer her with words. Instead, he grabbed her waist with both hands, thumbs digging into her hips with such an intensity she worried that he might break her in half. His lips met hers in a feverous, needy clash. There was no hesitation this time, no waiting for Kyla to press forward. San felt like a rubber band pulled too tight for too long. He was thirsty, and she was the only oasis. 

Kyla jumped at the sudden closeness, her hands coming up to brace against his chest. She could feel his rapid, thundering heartbeat there under her palm like a bass drum leading a band. She gasped, and San took that as an invitation to deepen the kiss, his exploratory tongue parting her lips hungrily. He was leading this, one hand coming up to twist in her hair as he leaned forward over her.

He yelped when his hand hit the seam ripper, pulling back in surprise. A needy sound slipped free from Kyla’s kiss-bruised lips at the loss of him. He was glaring at the tool with its stupid little glittery handle and its sharp edges as if it were an enemy on the battlefield. 

“Hate this fuckin’ thing” he growled. He pulled it roughly from her hair. She let out a small sound, somewhere between a yelp and a moan at the tug on the strands. San found that he quite liked that noise, that he wanted to hear it again. He stabbed the tool roughly into a nearby spool of thread and Kyla let out an annoyed hey! At the sound of fabric tearing. San swallowed the sound, crashing his lips into hers like the brief separation stole the air from his lungs.

Kyla’s hands scrabbled at his shirt, not so much trying to undress him as to hang on . Her fingers found the hem, pulling it free from his waistband. He gasped when her cool fingers met bare flesh. One hand curled around Kyla’s as he pulled back- just a breath, just a hair, but too far for Kyla’s taste. “Hold on a second,” he mumbled, his forehead still resting against hers as if any farther would kill him.

“What?” Kyla whined, voice petulant to her own ears. San squeezed her hand as if to assure her that he wasn’t going far.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His breath brushed across her lips in a heady breeze. She wanted him to kiss her again, to keep kissing her until she couldn’t take it anymore. “I just… I need to know what we’re doing.” At her questioning look, he stumbled to clarify, “I don’t want to push you, Kyla, but if we’re not going to…” he squirmed, suddenly looking awkward. “go all the way, you know? Then we need to stop now. Much more and I’m going to combust.”

She pulled back just a bit, just so she could look into his eyes. He was so beautiful in front of her, his eyes deep and honest and open in a way the rest of the world never got to see. But she could see the hunger there, too. He was doing everything he could to restrain himself, but he was starting to fray around the edges. “Can you promise me that you will still be here tomorrow?” She breathed, the words hanging dangerous in the air, “can you promise me you won’t throw me out once you’ve had your fill of me?”

His hand curved around the back of her neck as he stared into her, eyes searching. He seemed to be trying to spread the honesty through his skin, like it could absorb into her soul and make her believe it. “Kyla, I don’t think I will ever have my fill of you.”

And then they were kissing again, somehow more intense than before. San let go of her hand in favor of grabbing her hips. Her shirt was starting to ride up, letting him touch a sinful inch of bare skin. She gasped when he lifted her, her legs wrapping almost instinctively around his waist. He walked one step, two, and placed her gently, almost reverently on the worktable, leaning forward to brace one hand on the cool glass of the mirrored wall. He touched her as if she were a precious flower, delicate and beautiful. It made her heart skip. 

He was so strong on stage, so energetic and solid, but this was a different man entirely. His eyes roved over her to make sure he hadn’t hurt her in their two step walk, pupils blown with wonder. 

Kyla took advantage of the brief separation to tug San’s shirt free over his head. The movement was familiar, fluid, and yet somehow so new that her breath caught. She loved the shape of him. It was as if he were built to hold her and her alone. Her thighs fit perfectly around his slim waist, her hands finding new places to explore on his bare chest. His golden skin seemed to shine in the dim light of the trailer, his collarbones still lightly highlighted with makeup. She pulled him back to her, her lips kissing a line of fire down his jaw and onto his neck. 

A broken, needy sound escaped him when her teeth found flesh, biting into his pulse and raising a small welt. He dug his hand into her hair and he growled in what sounded like annoyance as he attempted to undo the elastic keeping it up. Finally, with a grunt of effort and a tug, he simply broke the band. It was Kyla’s last one and she knew she should be mad, but his fingers were tangling into her hair and she couldn’t hear herself think over the rush of moisture and heat in her abdomen. She was lost in him. Lost in the way he moaned, the little whispers that didn’t seem to form words as he tilted his head back, giving her more flesh to bite, to tug, to lick.

“Christ,” he whispered as she ran her tongue over his collarbone, “you’re gonna give the makeup team a fit with all these marks.” Strands of her hair twisted around his fingers as if he were trying to memorize each one. She liked the sensation of it, the desperation of his normally sturdy hands. 

“Mm,” she laughed, blowing cool air over the spot, “I don’t fucking care right now, San.”

He chuckled, and she felt the way his abs rippled against her clothed chest as he did. It suddenly occurred to her that she was wearing far, far too many clothes. She shoved him back, not unkindly, and he fell against the wall, off balance and knocking some leather loose. His mouth hung open as she pulled the shirt off. It wasn’t elegant, tempting, or seductive. In a moment of clarity, San thought of the motion as similar to the clothes Kyla made. Beautiful, functional, enticing. 

The air itself seemed to still as he looked at her. His torso, while enticing, was not new for either of them. He’d been shirtless before her, before the world, more times than he could count. But this? This bare stretch of open, olive skin. The sleek lines of her waist. The tightness of her abdomen that hinted at the muscles she had worked so hard to build. It was new. It was foreign. It was electric in the stifling heat of the trailer. 

Kyla’s bra was nothing special. Not some lacy, ornate thing that begged to be worshiped before it was removed. Just a standard tee shirt bra, black, obviously well-worn. She reached up to undo the clasp, but San stopped her, stepping in and taking her wrist in his hand. “Let me,” the words ghosted against her ear. 

He dropped her wrist and she let it rove over him, tracing the hard arch of his back muscles. “Oh?” she said, her voice teasing a challenge he was all too happy to meet, “think you’re fast, do you?”

He didn’t break eye contact with her as he reached back, grabbed the clasp, and popped it open one-handed. 

Kyla had never in her life been so aroused by a single action. 

San’s fingers were soft, almost reverent as he slipped them under the straps at her shoulders. His eyes were still trained on her, still looking, still seeing. “Can I?” He asked. She nodded, frozen, unable to speak. He was either going to like this, or really, really not. 

San was absolutely certain he had never, not in his entire life, made a sound as needy as the one that slipped out of him when he saw the silver barbells threaded through Kyla’s nipples. It was practically a whimper, yanked out of him in a heady, overwhelming keen. 

He could feel the zipper on his slacks digging into him even through his underwear. The teeth were sharp and it hurt . He needed to get out of them. He needed to put his hands, his mouth on Kyla’s perfect, gorgeous, pierced nipples. He needed more hands to do it all. 

Kyla seemed to read his mind, latching her fingers into his belt loops to bring him within reach as she began to work on his belt. San, lost in his own world, reached out to cup one breast with that same worshipful touch. As if she were precious, an art piece in a museum he didn’t want to damage but couldn’t resist feeling. 

Her breasts were small, not tiny, but small. One fit perfectly in the palm of his hand as he held it, the pad of his thumb coming up to gently, gingerly caress the piercing. 

A high, sweet sound of pleasure whooshed out of her at the contact. San wondered idly if he could sample that sound into a song, play it over and over on repeat until he could map each soundwave with his eyes shut. His cock twitched, and he knew she felt it, too. Her grin turned wolfish as she looked at him, chuckling. She pushed him back again, gently this time, and he let out a noise of protest as his hands slipped off her body. 

She hushed him gently, “relax, big guy,” she ordered, hopping up from the work table elegantly, breasts bouncing ever so gently, and dropped to her knees before him, her hands never letting go of his belt.

“Fuck,” he growled, his voice rough with desire. She was staring up at him with those earthy eyes blown wide with lust, the gleam of her nipple piercings still visible even from her lower vantage point. Her hands trembled, but the catlike gleam in her eye didn’t dissipate. On the contrary, she seemed to arch her back just so, making her ass look fantastic even if it was still covered by those stupid black jeans that he wanted off of her right now . “Fuck, Kyla, just- fuck .”

She grinned a little, teeth flashing. She was preening under his attention, and he was eating it up like a man possessed. He didn’t curse much, but he seemed to be unraveling before her in all his glory. “This is what you wanted, wasn’t it?” she asked. Her voice was low, sultry, for his ears and his alone. He felt like he was going to burst. “Back in Busan, tonight, this is what you wanted. Me, down here on my knees just for you. Undoing this stupid belt, taking what’s inside, making you—”

“God, fuck, yes,” he spluttered, his hips jerking involuntarily. 

She shushed him again, flattening one hand on the lower part of his abdomen to keep him still. She loved the way he was staring at her. Like he might come undone just from looking. His eyes were glassy with need, his cheeks flushed. There were smears of spit and little welted bites all the way down his neck and shoulders. He looked good like this- undone for her before they were even started. 

“I hate this goddam thing,” she fussed at the belt. The fabric of his ruined jersey was still twisted around the buckle. She growled, tugged once, and the fabric finally pulled free. She tossed it aside, laser-focused on the real prize. Her fingers were deft, fast, skilled. She popped the belt open and pulled it free while simultaneously undoing the button of his trousers. It was a quick-change skill. A work skill. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it being used here, like this. 

She seemed to follow his line of thinking and she slowed her movements, taking her time and arching her back as she laid the belt on the floor beside her. She looked up at him, her fingers wrapping smooth and small around the pull of his zipper. Her knuckles were brushing bare skin. San was panting. There wasn’t enough air in this trailer. The world was zeroed in to only himself, Kyla, and this moment. 

Each tooth of the zipper was loud as it came undone. In the still silence, it felt like a whip cracking. San groaned, throwing his head back. “Please,” he begged, “please, I need you.”

The words felt like balm on her burning skin. How could this be real? How could Choi San be begging her to undress him- not for work, not for fashion, but because he wanted her to see him in all his glory. The world felt unreal, tilted on its axis. 

Kyla stopped the slow torture, pulling the zipper the rest of the way down with practiced ease. She hooked her fingers into his belt loops to pull them down, but San’s hands were already there, already pushing. He had hooked his thumbs under the waistband of his boxers and he was trying to pull those off, too, but Kyla stopped him. He kicked the pants off behind him with a little grunt, as if the remaining layer of fabric was made of lead.  His eyes were still begging, looking almost betrayed that she hadn’t let him take off the boxers.

“There’s no rush,” she whispered as she leaned in, her voice ghosting air across his hot, swollen need. “I’ve got you for as long as I want.”

He was gasping, hands fisting at his sides as if he didn’t know what to do with them, what he could do with them. 

Her kisses started low, just above his knee. His thighs, so taut with muscle and rigid with the effort of holding back, trembled beneath her lips. She kissed the inside of each thigh, right below the hem of his boxers. “Fuck,” he ground out between his teeth. Kyla had never heard him curse like this before. He was a gentleman. It was part of what made the fans love him so much. But this San, the one whose hips were thrusting forward out of his control under her hands, had the mouth of a sailor. “Please, Kyla,” he was begging again, wide eyes locked on her face, “please. If you don’t… if you don’t touch me, I think I might actually explode.”

She laughed, moving her head up those last few inches and finally, finally closed the gap. 

She ran her tongue reverently, gently over his clothed heat. She was breathing him in, taking in the twitch of him against her tongue, the loud, arching groan he let out at the contact. With the cloth between them, the friction was somehow too much and not enough all at the same time. Kyla had been enjoying the teasing, the back and forth, holding him here and making him beg, but now she was starting to feel the ache. 

She wanted him so badly that she was dripping. Her own pants were soaked, her clit throbbing with its own pulse. So she did the only thing she could think to do- the only thing she wanted to do. 

She pulled down his boxers with a single tug and relished in the way his cock- finally naked to the thick air of the trailer- popped free and laid across her face. 

San groaned, his hips canting forward of their own volition, searching for heat, for more contact, for more of her. He wanted to see, wanted to look at her, but his vision was going white-edged with pleasure. He forced his eyes to focus, staring in reverent, filthy awe at his cock- throbbing, feverish, and already leaking with need- sat across Kyla’s pretty face, across the line of her nose, across her right eye, her lips flush with the base. She was gorgeous like this, coming undone and somehow holding him together at the same time. He never wanted to look away, wanted to etch this image into his memory, into every song they wrote and show he played. 

The last thread of Kyla’s restraint snapped when he looked at her like that. She stuck her tongue out, swirling it inexpertly at the base of him, working her way up in slow, deliberate motions meant to give him a show as much as make him feel good. Of course, some of the wiggling of her hips was involuntary. She wanted contact, wanted an end to the omnipresent wetness slipping down her thighs.

When her mouth finally closed over the thick, rigid head of him, he cursed so loudly that the room itself seemed to shake. She hollowed her lips out, moving slowly as she adjusted to the size of him. The weight on her tongue was incredible- hot, thick, tasting of show sweat and clean soap- and she couldn’t get enough. She didn’t know if she would be able to take him to the hilt, this had never been a particular skill of hers, but she was going to give it everything she had. 

She worked him for a minute, just learning what he liked. She felt a deep, sick satisfaction when he groaned, when his hips seemed to leave his control to rock forward, giving her more of him. She closed her eyes, humming with satisfaction as she lowered herself as far as she could, the very edges of her lips touching his balls.

“Oh my god,” San cursed in that low, gravely voice that was quickly becoming Kyla’s favorite sound, “look at you. Your mouth is incredible. You’re incredible. Christ…” he trailed off and she pulled back just slightly, just enough to see the glazed, ravenous look in his eyes. 

Something seemed to shift in the air between them. His eyes went sharp, focused, powerful. His hand closed around the back of her head, fingers threading into her hair. He was in charge now, no more letting Kyla tease and play coy. He gripped her with a little more strength than was necessary (though she was not complaining) and set a brutal pace, pulling her head almost all the way off of him before lowering her back down. 

She liked being at his mercy. She liked that when she swirled her tongue over just that one vein there, he gasped like he’d been shot. She let him lead, let him show her what he liked. His hips were thrusting forward now, his cockhead kissing the back of her throat with each movement. 

It hurt, but only a little. Not badly. Involuntary tears were mingling with the spit that was dripping down her chin, slicking her chest and the waistband of her pants. 

“Look at me,” he ordered, and she did, turning her eyes to meet his. He was unhinged, his hair shoved out of his face, his eyes wild with light as he fucked himself again and again with her throat. 

She moaned around him, and his eyes rolled back into his head, showing their whites. “Fuck, Kyla, I’m gonna—”

He tried to pull her back as his hips jerked, to give her an excuse not to take what was offered, but she wrapped her hands tightly around his thighs, nails digging into toned flesh, and swallowed him down, swirling her tongue over the spot he liked as she rode out his orgasm.

He pulled and pushed on the blue curls of her hair, his hips twitching. She could taste him everywhere, her ears popped, but she didn’t let up. She wouldn’t stop until he couldn’t take any more.  

When his hips finally stilled and the zaps of overstimulation started to make him shake, only then did she pull away. She gave him a show, letting little bubbles of come roll off her bottom lip, down her chin, and fall onto her breasts where she held them together. He whimpered with lust as she licked her lips, reclaiming her spilled prize. 

“You didn’t have to- you could’ve—” He argued, as if standing up for her honor.

“I wanted to taste you, I earned it,” she told him honestly. 

“You did ,” he agreed. His voice was breathy, almost a laugh. He had hardly softened at all. The lust in his chest was still white-hot.

What came next was obvious to him, but Kyla seemed shocked. San pulled her to her feet, gave her a quick and dirty kiss, and lifted her back onto the work table. She crossed her legs at the ankle, trying to force her knees together with an anxious laugh. San didn’t allow it. He forced her legs open with light pressure. He saw then why she had been squirming so. 

Why was she embarrassed of the mess she had made of her pants? He felt gratified, almost giddy that just sucking him off had made her this wet. He reached for her pants buttons, undoing the top one as he lowered himself to kiss her neck, her shoulder, the top swell of her breast. 

Finally, with shaking hands and more desire than he knew what to do with, he lowered his mouth to her nipple. His other hand worked her zipper- why were her pants so goddam secure ? – and reached inside, feeling the hot, pliant skin of her core as she squirmed. 

His tongue swirled lazily around her nipple, flicking at the barbell in a way that made her gasp. She had one hand on his shoulder as if she might try to push him off again, but the other hand was playing with her free nipple, twisting it and flicking the metal there far harder than San thought he was allowed to do. 

He bit experimentally at the pert flesh and grinned when Kyla moaned beneath him. He slipped one finger inside her and she squealed, wiggling under his solid hold. 

“Look at you,” he whispered, curling his finger against that little bundle of nerves he’d found, “so pretty like this, so open for me. Is this what you want? Me holding you down like this? You act all serious, all teasing, but you really just want to be held down and fucked, is that it?”

The sound that curled out of her chest was unreal, obscene. “Yes,” she wailed, practically levitating off the table when San slipped the second finger in, “yes, please, San, I’m yours.”

“How about an apology?” He asked, carefully swirling the tip of his thumb around her clit.

This seemed to surprise Kyla, “for what?” she gasped.

He pulled his hand out of her completely, wiping slickness on her taut abdomen as he raised his hand to his mouth, licking his fingers clean without so much as breaking eye contact. “For teasing me. For all those little kisses.”

She was writhing now, trying to find friction and meeting only the unrelenting denim of her pants. He hadn’t even undressed her properly and he wanted her to apologize? “You liked it,” she said.

“Mm,” he said, the noise sounding almost disappointed in her, “if you want more, maybe you should say you’re sorry. Maybe I’ll be nice and let you have some.”

Her composure was gone, shot through with lust and giddy, damning pleasure at the attention. She locked eyes with him, giving him the begging he so badly wanted, but also showing him that it was a performance. That she was doing this because she wanted to, not because she had to. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for teasing you with my lips and making you come down my throat. Now please, please undress me before I self-immolate.”

His grin was wolfish as he pulled off the last of her clothes. She lifted her hips to help him, but he didn’t need it. He took her pants with her panties all in one fluid, smooth motion. He was skilled. More skilled than she wanted him to be, really. Suddenly, in the middle of all her bravado and begging and wanting, she felt very small. She was inexperienced and it had been several years now since she had fucked anyone.

San hadn’t seemed to mind when she was sucking him off, but it was clear he had more experience in bed, probably with more seasoned partners. What if she was too weird, too much, too… her? She felt the need to slam her legs together, to keep him from seeing her in her entirety. 

“Don’t hide,” San whispered. His voice was reverent, like a worshipper at an altar service. “Let me see you. Let me have you.” She let him ease her knees apart and watched the grin spread over his face. The way he was looking at her was hungry, needy, feral . “Good girl.”

San dropped to his knees before her, gently lifting her legs so that they sat on his wide shoulders. Sarah had been right, Kyla thought absently, about San’s shoulders. Having her legs on them was, indeed, incredible. The thought made her giddy. She was doing something Sarah had been lusting after. Something every woman lusted after. She grinned savagely to herself, lost in her own self-righteous feeling of victory. 

San brought her back to the present with one long, strong finger. She gasped, her walls clenching hungrily around him. Her head fell back as he added a second finger, curling them in just the right way to make her vision go white around the edges. 

She could feel his breath on her thigh when he laughed at her. It was hot, smooth, and so, so close to where she wanted him that she started to beg. “San, please, please–”

“Please what?” he asked, fingers stilling. 

Kyla whined high and needy. Try as she might, she couldn’t seem to form real words. All she could manage was a thready, airy “ more .”

“Greedy,” he teased, and closed his mouth over her aching clit. 

Kyla had been eaten out before. Not often, as it wasn’t something she usually pushed for and her partners didn't either, but never, never like this. San’s fingers still moved inside her, his tongue applying just the right amount of pressure over top. His free hand pushed down just so on her lower abdomen. She knew she was moaning, begging, her hands digging into his hair with enough force to pull strands loose. 

It was too much sensation and not enough. She wanted more, wanted him to never stop, chased the wave of her pleasure as he moved- relentless in his desire for her.

She could barely breathe as he wrecked her, her hips rocking onto his fingers as a needy wail fell unbidden from her lips. He moaned, seemingly enjoying himself immensely. The vibration of the noise was enough to make her scream, loudly enough that she knew she’d have a sore throat tomorrow for more than one reason. 

Kyla couldn’t take it anymore. The orgasm washed over her like lava, making all the hair on her body stand on end and rolling her eyes upwards into her head. San was still, letting her ride his face with messy, unrelenting need. 

When her hips finally stilled, he gently pulled his fingers back. Her walls fluttered around the absence and she whined high in her throat. He grinned at her as he rose, his mouth and chin slick with her pleasure. 

In a clear imitation of her own earlier movements, he licked his lips. The gesture was erotic, filthy, overwhelming. Kyla wanted to stitch the image into every piece of fabric she ever made from now into eternity. 

He gently removed her legs from his shoulders, placing her feet reverently on the floor. She hoped he didn’t expect her to stand. She was certain the trembling things would give out and leave her flat on the floor if he did. Instead, though, he rose to his full height, grabbed her hips, and spun her around in one fluid movement.

Kyla gasped when her chest hit the work table. She tried to look over her shoulder at him, to see him, but he made a noise of displeasure.

San’s hand grabbed her chin roughly and turned her face to the front, forcing her to look at herself in the mirror. They were a sight to behold. Her hair was a mess, her lips swollen with kisses. His hair, too, stuck up at odd, sweaty angles. Her bites glowed against his golden skin, shimmering with sweat and heat. 

The way he looked at her in the mirror, his hand still holding her chin, was unreal. He looked possessive, powerful, demanding. He looked like he owned her, and she wasn’t sure he was wrong right then. 

His hand shifted on her jaw, the two fingers that had just undone her sliding up and circling her lips. She opened her mouth obligingly, letting him slip them onto her tongue. She tasted herself on him, licked the fingers clean, basked in the heat of his expression as he watched her in the mirror.

He was using his free hand to line himself up with her entrance. She could feel his knuckles as he rubbed his own precome and her wetness over his shaft, could feel the head as it finally rested where she so badly wanted it. She fought the urge to throw her hips back, to take it all at once. 

San had to fight to keep his eyes from rolling up as he finally, finally pushed into Kyla’s welcoming heat. He forced himself to watch her face, the way her nose scrunched in pleasure and pain, the way her tongue still swirled between his fingers as she tasted herself. It was almost too much right then and there, the heat in his gut, but he swallowed hard. He needed this to last, needed her to feel every second of it. 

He moved slowly, letting her adjust to him as he sank himself deeper, inch by inch. They both moaned as he bottomed out, his thighs bumping into the backs of hers. He leaned forward, peppering light kisses across the ridges of her shoulder blades. She was panting, her eyes unfocused and glassy.

“Look at you,” he growled, perfectly still, “So pretty on my cock.”

She mumbled something unintelligible around his fingers, and he pulled them out of her mouth with a satisfying pop!  

She gasped his name like a prayer. “San… please, move. Please, please, fuck me. I need you.”

He couldn’t have stopped himself if he wanted to. He started slow, rolling his strong hips in a sinful grind against her ass. The sounds she made were impossibly erotic. It wasn’t moaning, not quite, but not words either. Just pure, uninhibited sound. He’d never heard anyone like her. Her eyes started to roll, lashes fluttering shut, but he squeezed her jaw and shook it. 

Kyla’s eyes flew open, meeting his in their reflection. “That’s it,” he cooed, rewarding her with a stronger, longer thrust that elicited that delicious noise again. “Don’t you dare look away. Look at me, right here. Watch me fuck you. Look at how good you take me.” He’s rewarded when Kyla’s walls tighten almost painfully around him.

The feeling of being inside of Kyla was transcendent. San couldn’t even form words for how good, how correct it felt to have her wrapped around him. Belatedly, he realized that his thrusts had become harder, heavier, faster. Kyla didn’t seem to mind, in fact she was meeting his every thrust with a snap of her own hips. The two of them fit together perfectly, like they were made for each other.

He buried himself in her again, his free hand coming up to toy with her nipple as he worked. His skin was slick with sweat, beads of it rolling down his chest. He watched Kyla’s eyes follow it hungrily. 

She looked at him like she was devouring him. She kept her eyes open, as ordered, and their focus was impressive. She watched his every movement, the way his chest muscles tightened when he was about to pull back, the way the veins on his arms and neck stood out. It was overwhelming, intense, obscene. 

Kyla’s orgasm seemed to come out of nowhere. One moment she was grinding backwards onto San’s waiting cock, the next she was seeing stars. She wailed, throwing her head back and closing her eyes, calling San’s name and begging him for release. 

The hand that had been clamped around her jaw moved suddenly, grabbing a fistful of her blue hair and forcing her to stare again into the mirror. “You want to come?” He asked, his voice low and dangerous, “you can’t even follow directions. I’ll tell you when you can come, but not yet.”

“ Please ,” She sobbed, only vaguely aware of how little dignity she was showing. The grind was too good, too correct for her to keep herself together. She thought of all those sensual, hip-thrusting moves he did on stage and silently thanked every choreographer he had ever had. “please let me come on your cock, San, please!”

The rhythm of his hips was beginning to falter. The filthy sounds of their sweat-slicked skin crashing together was loud in the heat of the trailer. He couldn’t think of anything else except how good it felt to be buried to the hilt inside of this woman. And she was begging, begging him to let her come on his cock. How was this his real life? “Fine,” he managed to purr, pretending not to be coming apart, “but only because you beg so sweetly.”

San dug his fingers more firmly into her hair, feeling the first flutters of her orgasm around him. She screamed- honest to god screamed his name, the sound pitching up at the end into what sounded like a sob as she rutted against him, grinding him into the spot that drove her wild. It was incredibly, impossibly hot, watching her use his cock like a toy. Like he was just there to give her pleasure.

He wasn’t going to last much longer. Suddenly, he thought of the obvious question, and the situation felt dire. “Fuck, Kyla, I’m going to- where do you want–”

She stood up, bracing her back against his chest and wrapping her arm around the back of his neck, pulling him in closer. She was still twitching with pleasure, but she was rocking onto him, driving him impossibly deeper into her heat. “Right where you are,” she whispered.

San didn’t have any more time to wonder if it was the right call or not, because the way her voice entered his ears was like fire. He shouted, his hips snapping one final time before he buried himself hilt-deep. He spilled inside her, reveling in the feeling of her twitching around him, holding him to her back as if she needed it to live. 

Somewhat belatedly, he realized he was all but holding her up in the air. Only the very tips of her toes were on the floor. How had that happened? And when had half the fabric fallen off its neatly-labelled shelves?

Kyla met his eyes in the mirror and had the gall to look almost embarrassed. San was still buried deep, but rapidly softening. She was beginning to feel the sting of the stretch, and he was twitching with overstimulation. They needed to separate, but neither of them made a move. Finally, Kyla untwisted her hand from his hair. He gingerly sat her feet fully on the floor and he pulled backwards. He hissed as he pulled out of her completely. 

For a moment, neither of them moved. No one spoke. The only sound in the trailer was that of the still- running sewing machine. Then, San laughed. Not cruelly, not unkindly, but in disbelief and joy. 

Kyla turned around to give him a half-hearted glare, but the movement made more of his hot come roll down her leg and she gasped at the sensation. “What’s so funny ?” She asked without heat, her mouth twitching up.

“Nothing!” He said, grinning, “you just… we just… wow.”

“Wow is right,” she replied sheepishly, “now, can you hand me that bolt of French tarry?” The look of confusion he gave her was adorable. “The blue sweatpants material right there. Yes, perfect, thank you.”

He watched her clean herself up with his mouth hanging open. She was incredible. She had just absolutely rocked his world and she was acting like everything was normal. She had his come on her thighs, his sweat on her back, and she was just… fine. He wasn’t sure his brain was ever going to come back down to earth. “You’re incredible.” he said. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud and it caught Kyla off guard. 

She blushed, reality finally catching up with her. She had just fucked Choi San. The Choi San. She had made him come twice. Some of her finest work, that. She found herself grinning at him, rising shakily to her tip toes to kiss him. The piercings in her nipples dragged along his chest and she shivered with the sensation. 

“Here,” he said, taking the bolt of fabric from her. He grabbed her water bottle, wetting the fabric and cleaning up the bits of him that she hadn’t noticed. It was sweet, kind. Very gentleman-like. A jarring contrast to the animal he’d been a moment before. He busied himself with finding her underwear and pants, handing them to her with a blush on his cheeks. 

She thanked him, unsure of what else to do, and pulled the garments on. He held her bra out to her, too, but she shook her head. “Wanna stay and eat coffee cake with me?” She asked.

“With… without your shirt?” He asked, his eyebrow cocked.

“Mhm,” she hummed, “thought you might enjoy the view.” 

He grinned at her, pulling on his own pants and grabbing the plate of cake off the other work table. He placed it at her work station, pulling the rolling chair out dramatically, dusting off the seat, and gesturing for her to sit. She obliged, laughing as he flopped into the other chair. He was staring at her like she was some otherworldly goddess, not a stylist with sweat-slicked hair, half clothed and reeking of sex.

He grabbed a fork and held the first bite out to her. She took it gratefully and he grinned. “So,” he asked, “how was the show?”

~

They sat together for nearly another hour, trading bites of coffee cake and just… talking. Despite everything they had just done to each other, their banter felt natural. Gone was that undercurrent of desire, the feeling of unrelenting heat. They just talked- about the tour, about the bandmates, about Mingi and Sarah’s love affair. 

San loved listening to Kyla talk. She could have read him the phone book right then and he would have been happy as a clam. He hadn’t felt this relaxed, this calm in months. Especially not with someone outside of ATEEZ. 

Neither of them wanted the night to end or this blissful bubble to burst, but it was late. They had another show the next night. And they were out of cake. “Here,” San said, standing up, “let me help you clean up the trailer, okay?” 

She gave him a skeptical look. “Can you put fabric back where it goes or will I have to hold your hand the whole time?”

“You can hold my hand if you want!” He chirped.

She laughed, knocking her shoulder into his. Her legs were still wobbly, but she rose. True to his word, San was helpful. He put fabric back where it went, spooled the thread just the way she liked, he even offered her back her seam ripper, which she took gratefully. Their bare skin brushed, finally without the awkwardness and restraint that had plagued them before. 

It was all over too soon. The trailer looked better than it had in weeks and it was late. It had been late when they started. The managers were going to be furious with San. She couldn’t bring herself to care, though. The real world outside could wait. 

He looked at her with a sort of sadness. “We should get to bed,” he said regretfully. She nodded. “I- uh, I should probably leave first, I guess? And then you follow a few minutes later?” Another nod. His brows scrunched together. “I’m sorry… I wish I could just walk out of here holding your hand and kiss you goodnight, but–”

She placed a calming hand on his chest, giving one pectoral a little kiss. “Hey, don’t start with that. I don’t need you to show me off, San. I don’t need everyone in the world to know. I don’t mind being a secret, so long as I’m yours and you’re mine.”

I’m yours and you’re mine. The words settled over San like honey. “I’m yours,” he agreed honestly.

“Good,” she said, giving him another light kiss. She ruffled his hair a little, trying to get it to lay back in its usual shape. It cooperated… mostly. She handed him his shirt and he pulled it on, wincing a little when it slid over the bites on his chest. The sight gave her a jolt of pleasure.

With one final, lingering kiss, he left the trailer. Kyla flopped back into her chair, sighing. She hadn’t expected this when she took on the tour job. She hadn’t expected to be noticed or acknowledged at all really. Certainly not by a member of the group. But she was giddy, her heart fluttering. Her feelings echoed San’s as he walked back to the hotel, his body feeling light enough to float away. 

When Kyla finally snuck into her bus that night, easing the creaky door shut and locking it behind her, she was so exhausted that she thought she might actually pass out. Her phone pinged. She grinned.

San: Can’t wait to see you tomorrow 👗