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“Next time you try to pull me into your cute little traps, maybe think twice before handing me the key.”
Jaeyi shocks herself upright, briefly unaware that the fingers around her neck are her own.
Her eyes dart to the clock by her bedside.
It’s only 3 a.m.
She reaches out and runs her hand over the cool satin sheets. Momentarily, she considers switching sides, because there’s a damp spot under her back from how much she’s sweated through her thin t-shirt. Everything is exactly the way it should be. The curtains are drawn, her duvet is in exactly the same position she went to sleep in, and her room is cascaded the same neon ocean blue that calms her down.
But the air is too still.
It’s heavy in a way that suffocates her from the inside out, and she finds herself clawing to regain control of her ragged breathing.
The dream had felt real. Too real. Seulgi pinning her in place with just a look, with just a hand on her throat, too soft to be anything genuine. She had whispered something in her dream— Jaeyi can’t remember what it was, but she remembers feeling broken completely open from it.
Jaeyi touches her own neck, fingers tracing over the spot Seulgi had touched just hours before. Her eyes, half lidded with regret, feel like a burden. She curses the way Seulgi had humiliated her in the music room, in front of no one and the entire world to see all at once.
Stop it. Pull yourself together.
. . . . .
Seulgi hadn’t even realised the room had locked behind her. She was just trying to look for a quiet place to nap during the last free period. The music room wasn’t the most ideal, but she hadn’t really been there in her spare time, and any unexplored room was just a better bet at Jaeyi not finding her as quickly.
Today it was ten minutes. That’s a new record, Seulgi notes.
The sound of the lock had her turning around to find Jaeyi already leaning against the door with a grin.
“Funny seeing you here,” she said smoothly, like she hadn’t been actively hunting her down. Her blazer was off and her sleeves were rolled up. Seulgi dreaded what that meant.
“I was here first,” she replied as casually as she could. But neither of them were idiots. They knew one of them was already wary, and already cornered.
Jaeyi stepped closer, each click of her heels echoing like bullets in Seulgi’s head. The taller girl savoured the closeness. “You never seem to understand your surroundings, Seulgi-ah. That’s why you have me in your life.”
Seulgi scoffed and tried to walk past her, but— as always— Jaeyi slid into her path with all the grace of someone who never heard the word ‘No’.
“Tell me,” she asked, now close enough that Seulgi could feel the warmth radiating off her, “did you think I wouldn’t notice you playing your little games, finding empty rooms to try to avoid me all week?”
Seulgi instinctually lied. “I wasn’t avoiding you.”
“You definitely were.” Jaeyi reached over to touch Seulgi’s jaw. It wasn’t possessive by any means, but curious. Calculating. “But that’s fine. I like the chase.”
Seulgi’s breath hitched. Not from fear, but confusion. Jaeyi had already caught her, like she had many times in the past, and like she would continue to do for the rest of her life. Without rest or reprise, till a time would come where Seulgi would just give up for good.
But then—
then Jaeyi stepped too close. Or at least it must’ve been too close, because it broke something Seulgi never knew was inside her. With both hands out in a fit of irritation, or maybe desperation to stand up for herself for once, she pushed her back.
Not hard, just enough to put some distance between them.
And that’s when it happened.
Seulgi’s hand brushing Jaeyi’s neck unintentionally.
Not a forceful jab like she might’ve wanted it to be— just a graze of her fingers across the delicate skin beneath her chin.
The reaction was immediate.
Jaeyi flinched.
And her back hit the door, rattling the hollow wood.
Seulgi noticed far too much about Jaeyi’s reaction. The recoil, the inhale, the way her pupils dilated like she’d just been struck.
Not in pain— it was vulnerability.
A crack in the marble.
Seulgi blinked. Then she did it again. This time, slower, taking advantage of Jaeyi’s shock, gliding her palm gently across the base of the girl’s throat, over the pronounced curve of her Adam's apple.
Jaeyi’s composure faltered, her lips parting involuntarily. She stumbled slightly, stunned— not just by the sensation, but by the fact that Woo Seulgi had found it.
The expression that Seulgi wore after that was nothing short of devastating. Her head was tilted, eyes narrowed with newfound amusement. “Interesting,” she murmured, voice steadier than Jaeyi felt. “I didn’t know you could react like that.”
Jaeyi’s mouth opened, but she had no retort.
It was Seulgi who stepped closer now, so much that they were practically pressed up against each other. It was the utmost act of cruelty, the way she hovered her fingers near Jaeyi’s throat again, just to tease.
“Is this why you always have your hair down and wear your collars so high, Jaeyi-ah?”
The way her name rolled off of Seulgi’s tongue like it was familiar now, like they were close, sent shivers down Jaeyi’s spine.
Jaeyi stayed silent and Seulgi’s lips quirked upwards. “Trying to hide the most fragile part of you?”
Before Jaeyi could react, Seulgi was branding a smile that mirrored her usual tone of sadism. She stepped past her, whispering one last thing in her ear before disappearing into the hallway.
“You really should’ve kept that hidden.”
. . . . .
While Jaeyi is having nightmares, Seulgi can’t get to sleep.
She lays on her bed, one arm folded behind her head, staring up at the ceiling.
None of that was meant to happen. Not the touch, not the teasing. And certainly not the way Jaeyi’s entire body had shuddered in response.
Seulgi thinks there might be some instances worth leaving to unadulterated, raw instinct.
But the problem is, she can’t stop thinking about it.
About her.
The way Jaeyi’s hand had trembled when she’d tried to push her away.
The soft, involuntary gasp that left her throat like a secret never meant to be shared.
The way that one gasp sounded like an entire surrender.
That’s what it takes. The crack in her armour.
And god, was it just so fragile.
It almost feels like knowing this information is putting herself in danger. To know that Yoo Jaeyi, who walks around like the world owes her devotion, who wields silence like a blade, can be undone with a touch. A simple touch.
Perhaps it wasn’t just how weak Jaeyi had seemed in that moment.
It was about how much Seulgi enjoyed seeing it.
A reign of a lifetime, brought to its knees with nothing more than a second of skin to skin contact.
Jaeyi doesn’t just want control, Seulgi concludes. She needs it.
And without it, she spirals.
The thought makes something pulse low in her stomach. It’s not excitement… not quite.
Power.
The pure, bitter taste of power.
She suddenly doesn’t feel so vulnerable anymore, knowing that she can bring Jaeyi herself to the ground with little more than a whisper to her throat.
And if Jaeyi is so adamant on playing with fire—
Well.
Seulgi kind of thinks she likes the burn.
. . . . .
The next morning can’t come soon enough.
Jaeyi is waiting in the stairwell near the fire exit. If Seulgi wants to violate her like she did that day, then Jaeyi will play along. She’ll make it her dying mission to find every single hiding spot Seulgi frequents and make it so she’s constantly forced to associate her safe space with Jaeyi.
The sunlight casts rays through the long windows and Jaeyi takes a steadying breath. She skipped lunch for this, fixed her collar twice, and checked her reflection four. Nobody will see the way her hands tremble when she picks at a stray piece of lint on her school jumper.
Jaeyi doesn’t have to wait long. The sound of approaching footsteps that ring out can only belong to one person.
As soon as the door to the stairwell opens, Jaeyi steps out.
“Seulgi.”
Seulgi pauses, raising an eyebrow. “You were waiting for me?”
Vicious, Jaeyi thinks.
Tilting her chin up, Jaeyi fixes her with a look of indifference. Cool. Controlled. “We need to talk.”
“Sure.” Seulgi lazily leans against the cool metal railing, hands finding her pockets like she has nothing better to do with them. “Is this about our project? Or are you stuck in the music room?”
“You made a mistake that day.”
Seulgi narrows her eyes. “Funny, I was thinking the same about you.”
The casual mention briefly drains Jaeyi’s face of colour. But she snaps herself out of it and takes a step closer. “If you’re trying to be cute with me, you should be careful.”
“Is that a warning?” Seulgi sounds a bit too eager. “Are you threatening me?”
“It’s a reminder,” Jaeyi replies, stepping closer still. “Don’t mistake a reaction for weakness. You’re still standing where I want you to stand. Remember that, Seulgi-ah.” She begins to circle Seulgi like a shark in still water, brushing against her arm— too gently. “You don’t know what obsession really is, do you? You think this is mutual? It’s not. You’re mine. I decide that, and I don’t need your permission.”
Finally, Seulgi meets her gaze, though there’s no trace of fear of any sort behind it. “Are you trying to scare me?”
“I’m explaining that you’ll never win,” Jaeyi coos sweetly. And then— curse her sorry, sorry sense of self-control— Jaeyi leans in, pressing her lips against Seulgi’s ear and whispering. “Because the rules you think you’ve made up? They don’t apply here. This isn’t your game to play.”
It's the tremor in her breath that betrays her.
Seulgi smiles.
Quick as lightning, she strikes— one hand rising, fingers grazing Jaeyi’s clavicle like she’s about to draw a knife.
Jaeyi can’t help but flinch.
And Seulgi doesn’t stop there. She cranes her head up slightly— at the perfect height— and presses a soft kiss right over the hollow of Jaeyi’s throat. Directly over that terrible, horrible, delicious, sensitive spot.
The world drops out from under her. Jaeyi gasps.
Seulgi lingers on her neck. “There it is, hm?” She mumbles against heated skin, letting Jaeyi feel every vibration, every resulting shiver. “Talk all you want, Jaeyi-ah. Your body remembers what it means when I kiss you here.”
A fierce blush roars across her cheeks. “I’m not—” Jaeyi’s voice cracks pitifully, her lie dissolving before it’s even formed.
Seulgi doesn’t mock her for it. That would be too easy.
Instead, she moves closer, closer, until Jaeyi is the one with her back to the wall and with nowhere to go. “I wonder what would happen,” Seulgi ponders out loud, at Jaeyi’s expense, “if our classmates knew. If they knew that their Ice Queen, who walks around like she owns the world, can’t handle a little pressure…” She taps Jaeyi’s throat lightly. “Right here.”
Jaeyi is frozen. Her throat feels like she hasn’t swallowed in forever.
Seulgi, on the other hand, who has never seen her this way before, finds it exquisite.
She kisses her there again, with what could easily be confused with affection, just to feel the delicate jump of her pulse under her lips.
Jaeyi’s mouth falls open— torn between biting back and straight up moaning. She desperately wants to reclaim the high ground, but nothing comes of it. Seulgi is anchored, and she isn’t letting the pressure off anytime soon.
“I could ruin you right now, pretty girl.” Seulgi’s smile is far too sharp for her features, more cruel than teasing. “But I’m not going to,” she brushes off imaginary lint from Jaeyi’s sleeve, “because I’m kind.”
And then she pulls back— only just— to watch Jaeyi struggle to compose herself, blinking hard, eyelids heavy and breaths erratic.
“See you in class.”
Jaeyi is alone before she even realises it.
. . . . .