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“You know what, Subon? Even if you were a girl—I still wouldn’t fucking love you.”
Namgyu stares coldly, but not colder than usual. He’s trying to suppress either a grin or a snort, but it comes out so pathetically it makes the other guy’s irritation feel physically palpable. No doubt, the guy came here with one goal—to be a complete pain in the ass. But after enough daily repeats, it doesn’t hit the same. Reaction: an epic eye-roll and a faint trace of judgment somewhere between his Jupiter-sized pupils and the spray of blue-black lashes. He twirls a metal pencil between agile fingers, props his chin on a fist, and leans away from Subon so dramatically it feels like the floor just collapsed between them.
“Shame. You know, my boy, even if I weren’t your little girlfriend—I’d still fuck the shit out of you.”
Choi Subon’s neck is flushed red from an allergic reaction to a new dye, and the creases of his elbows look like open wells that haven’t healed in weeks. His vibe is halfway to cracked-out, and under the purple nylon light, he looks like a bad acid trip made flesh. Not a junkie in the traditional sense, but still he inhales another hit off the road while mouthing off. His speech—those English phrases hit like dirty talk. If Namgyu were just a little more susceptible to bullshit, his legs would cramp in his too-tight school pants.
And truth be told, they used to.
“What about me?”
He’s dying to snort something. Wants to shred his burning septum and inhale until his eyeballs pop. Wants to be wrecked in a bathroom stall, spinning like a fucked-up helicopter, itching so bad he could skin himself alive just to feel something else.
“Not there yet, baby. I know you. Gonna tell Mommy about this too?”
Tanos stretches out across his lap, crushing the brand-new anatomy textbook he bought last week.
“Lucky for me you’re such a pussy. Kills me how you always go whining to her, saying I ‘force you’ to shoot up. Oh, and when you tell her I’m back on heroin—don’t forget to mention how I shot a quarter dose and still fucked you. Little cunt.”
Namgyu isn’t ashamed. Terrified? Yes. But not ashamed. Life took a turn, and at the center of that detour stood one strung-out junkie. Realistically, they never should’ve crossed paths, but here he was—alive by some miracle, not overdosed in a school stall. A thirty-year-old loser: exactly the type he should’ve avoided like plague. But Namgyu, golden boy of a near-aristocratic family of Seoul elites, had linked his life with a junkie. A heroin-fueled one. Wouldn’t be tragic if it hadn’t happened so goddamn early.
Popping happy pills in the school bathroom is fun, sure. But it’s got nothing on the rush of finally getting that precious syringe you sucked dick for all last week. When it hits—artery or vein, doesn’t matter—it fucks your arms, paints bruises like galactic ink. It doesn’t just feel good. It feels fucking transcendent. Like being flung between Jupiter and Mars, like bleeding starlight. The world melting into a haze of greens and pinks.
You forget about exams. About your sobbing mother begging you to stop or to never come home again. About how she pleads not to disgrace the family, to spare her fragile psyche, to stop slowly murdering yourself.
That bitch never took him seriously, and he never listened to a single goddamn word she said.
He’s just turning sixteen. The last thing he wants to do is listen to Mom.
“My mom wants to file a police report on you.”
Tanos smiles like the room just melted into some sea-green hallucination, like the whole world curled into a fucking spiral just for him. He’s obviously thrilled to be noticed. The idea of becoming some Seoul high society nightmare clearly gets him off. His laugh? A cocktail of downers and dope, spilling out with spit and sway.
Drugs don’t hit like this.
Only Tanos does.
“Wtf? And what did I do?”
Namgyu’s got finals coming up: math and advanced Korean. The same ones he’s been clutching like a drowning man holds his GPA, pretending like he actually understands any of it. But really, all he thinks about is Subon. His fucked-up tattoos. His blown pupils. The walking mess he is, and how it all somehow looks... poetic.
Everything about him is fucked but hypnotic. Even the hair-trigger anger and random slang that’s more habit than style. It’s disgusting. And it’s perfect.
Namgyu’s got average looks and, to be honest, a trash personality. A natural born bottom-feeder. A side character in his own life. But even that gets him off. He’s not built for leading roles or big ambitions—though, technically, he could’ve had both. Staying in the shadows, though? That gets heavier every day.
“Uhhh. You fucked a minor?”
“Oh. Well, maybe.”
Namgyu is a story of wasted brilliance. A one-way ticket to internships in Europe, a trust fund thicker than blood. Tanos is a fever dream of amphetamines, cold sweats, and a psych eval from three years ago that never got renewed. He lives in a shithole outside Seoul. Records demo tracks on a broken mic. Breaks out in hives from cheap hair dye.
His constant insanity? Maybe charming. But not sexy.
“I don’t know what the fuck to do.”
Namgyu is white shirts tucked into perfectly pressed uniform slacks. Tanos wears shit from the bed linen section of a secondhand store, yet makes it look like fucking runway. People stare at him in public. And that makes Namgyu want to die from jealousy.
“Well, I mean—there’s not much to do. So fuck it. If they lock me up, bring me some apples.”
It would be easier if Subon was just some textbook loser. And sure, he plays the part. But there’s something about him—magnetic. Charisma wrapped in bruises. Tenderness laced with cruelty. He’ll choke you during sex and then bring you breakfast in bed. Pack your schoolbooks by color. Give you molly in the morning to “help you study” and molly at night so you “sleep better.”
Subon is fifteen years older, twenty times dirtier, thirty times more alive. He kills Namgyu nightly and resurrects him every morning. He drags him to parties, clubs, forces him to binge-eat till his face cracks.
“You can’t go to jail. You’ll either die from withdrawal or get gang-raped.”
“But hey—when they find your corpse all pissed and puked on in some prison cell, I probably won’t even miss you.”
Tanos presses his bleeding nose to Namgyu’s sharp knees. He loves this. Loves the smell of overpriced soap and schoolboy skin. Loves to grip his legs and nuzzle into them, knowing Namgyu isn’t going anywhere.
Loves the idea of owning someone.
Loves how the boy is obsessed—with him and with heroin.
Loves thinking about how illegal it is to fuck him.
Loves the imaginary aneurysm his mother gets every time he sends another video: her son choking on his cock in a KFC bathroom, or getting slapped—if he’s lucky not with the dick.
“And in the end—you’ll just cry like a little bitch and live a life of celibate misery.”
And honestly? That’s probably not far off. Namgyu’s a good kid at heart. Straight A’s. Top of his class. Doesn’t matter that he’s high as fuck and falling apart mentally—he performs. Family dinners? Still pulls out the report card like a goddamn trophy. Nobody cares that his brain’s cotton and cocaine.
Want to suck cock? Sure, just don’t tell anyone. Wanna shoot up? Fine. Just keep it quiet. Wanna drop out, fail your exams, and run away with some insane man? Well, as long as you fake your death and text home every Sunday—go nuts.
Namgyu has a contagious laugh and a sly glance beneath overgrown bangs. Flirts like a little slut. Shifts on his feet and coyly asks if his age bothers you.
Usually—it does.
Subon doesn’t give a fuck.
When there’s only a school uniform between horniness and sex—there’s nothing between them. Especially when the uniform drops off without him lifting a finger. Especially when he ends up the one left sore and wrecked. Especially when the kid, in uniform, turns into a goddamn demon.
“You’re full of yourself. I’ve had better.”
Prettier. Richer.
Not junkies with chipped nails. Real gentlemen. But Namgyu wasn’t built for them. And they? Fucking boring.
None of them would’ve railed him in the backseat after school.
None would’ve bashed a beer bottle over someone’s head in a club fight.
None of them would’ve dragged him down a highway in the middle of the night, running from the cops between Donghae and Busan.
And none of them would make his death look like a tragic acid trip soaked in puke and piss.
“Sure. Talk your shit.”
“Still doesn’t answer the question. What the fuck are we doing?”
And it’s a valid one.
Only he seems to give a shit about it.
“You stress too much, my boy. Gotta take life easy.
I’ll help you with your English now, and then you go home to mommy and tell her I’m a cool man and she’s just being dramatic.”
Well, fuck me. Who could’ve seen that coming?
“Hey, mom. You totally misunderstood. Subon’s a cool dude, I swear. The drugs? I’ve been doing that since seventh grade. The clubs? That was the sluts in my class. The cops? Just a setup, mom. Those videos? Deepfakes. The purple hair? Trick of the light. Thirty-five? Come on. He’s only thirty-two.”
“You don’t take me seriously?”
The dagger that always gets lodged in his throat.
As long as they see him as some punk schoolboy, breathing feels impossible. All the moaning and filthy sex becomes less fun. In the mirror? Not himself, just a sad little twink with crooked teeth.
And how the fuck has no one made him cut that hair?
“You are my boyfriend. How could I not take you seriously?”
Whenever he says shit like that—trust slips through the cracks. Usually, Namgyu doesn’t care about trust. But when the stress bubbles up and everything turns red—every word starts to matter.
Still, the feeling passes fast.
“Whatever. If that old cunt doesn’t change her mind, we can always off her.”
He says it like it’s nothing. Like it’s just a joke. But when you’re fucked enough, any idea can take root.
Tanos has a tiny riot brewing on his lap—Subon tries to get up, starts pacing the room like some half-charged pinball. The boy’s always buzzing after a dry spell. When the dope seeps out of his system, he starts twitching, limbs sparking like frayed wires. His whole body turns into a chemical tantrum.
“Tsk-tsk-tsk, chill the fuck out, Namsu.”
He’s flailing and spasming now, and apparently not high enough to match the manic schoolboy energy.
That name—spat so casually from Tanos’ rotted mouth—hits like a punch.
He corrects him immediately, like it’s sacred.
“Namgyu.”
Non-negotiable.
“Oh, are you serious right now? Who gives a fuck... Namgyu. I’m not even gonna try. You’ll always be my boy.”
“You don’t try at anything. Not even your shitty rap. All your lyrics are about shooting up and fucking schoolgirls.”
And that’s the truth.
In his songs, Tanos doesn’t lie. Doesn’t even exaggerate. He writes about everything he does to Namgyu—with all the filthy, sleazy detail he can fit into a rhyme. He makes people flinch with secondhand shame, or blush so hard it borders on medical.
“Alright, alright, cool it, Namgyu. I got it now.”
“Took you long enough.”
It’s a principle now. And principles are sticky.
Tomorrow, Tanos has his first solo set at some shit-club. Namgyu has midterms: English, Korean, science.
And all of it smells wrong.
Like something doomed.
Also like cum, latex, and failing grades.