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Sunoo lay on the thin mattress, eyes fixed on the ceiling, refusing to blink. The room was silent in the way that it felt intentional or oppressive—like the apartment itself was holding its breath, waiting for something that would never come. The emptiness pressed against his ribs, heavy and inescapable, until even breathing felt like a task.
Beside him, the pillow still carried Heeseung. Not just the scent of sweat or the faint trace of shampoo, but something deeper, something you can't give a name to—warmth, familiarity, proof that Heeseung had been real here only hours ago. Sunoo turned his face slightly, inhaling despite himself, and felt his chest tighten with a dull, aching pull. Wanting, always wanting.
Heeseung had come late tonight. He always did. Slipping into Sunoo’s life like a secret, leaving just as quietly, without promises, without explanations. No I’ll see you tomorrow, no text me when you wake up. Just the door closing softly behind him, as if he’d never been there at all.
Sunoo hated the waiting. Hated the way his thoughts looped endlessly, replaying moments he couldn’t let go of—the brush of Heeseung’s fingers against his arm as if by accident, the way his lips had lingered just a second too long on Sunoo’s neck, the hesitation in his eyes that Sunoo pretended not to notice. That hesitation haunted him most. It's like Heeseung had been standing on the edge of something and chose not to step forward.
Unpredictable. That was Heeseung. And it was both the thrill and the wound.
Sunoo had fallen without meaning to, without preparation. Too fast, too deep. He hadn’t noticed the obsession taking root until it had already wrapped itself around him, tight and unforgiving.
Now every glance felt loaded, every touch felt final, every word felt like it could either save him or destroy him. Heeseung had become both—the thing that kept him breathing and the thing that stole the air from his lungs.
His phone buzzed.
Sunoo grabbed it instantly, pulse slamming against his ribs.
You awake?
Two words. That was all it took to make him go crazy. His mind fractured into questions he hated himself for asking. Was this casual? Was it a habit? Or was it because Heeseung was somewhere else, with someone else—him—and thinking of Sunoo only in the quiet spaces between?
Sunoo’s fingers hovered over the screen, trembling. He wanted to call. Wanted to hear Heeseung’s voice, warm and familiar, to anchor himself to something real. To prove that the closeness they shared is not just an imagination, hadn’t been one-sided. But he couldn’t. Not yet. Not when the uncertainty was part of the pull. Not when chasing Heeseung felt like the only thing he knew how to do anymore.
So he typed carefully, measured, pretending he wasn’t going crazy.
Yeah. You?
The minutes that followed stretched painfully long. Sunoo stared at the door, at the shadows crawling across the walls, until finally—
Heeseung was there.
Leaning against the doorway like he belonged, hair tousled, eyes dark and unreadable. He looked effortless, dangerous in the way he always did. Sunoo’s chest tightened instantly, relief flooding him just as dread followed close behind. Fire and ice. Hope and fear. Heeseung never arrived without bringing both.
“You’re stubborn,” Heeseung said with a faint smirk, though something softer—something guarded—flickered behind his eyes. “I could stay here forever and you’d still think I wouldn’t.”
Sunoo let out a small laugh that sounded more like a crack than a sound. “Maybe I just want to know if you would.”
Heeseung stepped closer, erasing the space between them until Sunoo could feel the warmth of him, the gravity pulling him in. He pressed his forehead to Sunoo’s, breath shallow, intimate.
“Maybe I already am,” he murmured. “But fuck… you’re mine, Sunoo. You’ve been mine all along.”
The words hit harder than any touch. Sunoo’s chest constricted, breath catching painfully. Already. Too late to pull back. Too deep to escape. Already his.
He tried to remind himself that words were easy, that Heeseung’s nights were fleeting, that tomorrow this closeness could disappear like it always did. But standing there, wrapped in Heeseung’s warmth, Sunoo couldn’t bring himself to care. Not tonight. Not when every part of him was already leaning in, already breaking, already surrendering.
Maybe the morning would hurt.
Maybe the waiting would return.
But for now—
Sunoo was Heeseung's. And that was enough to ruin him.
⸻
The worst part wasn’t Heeseung’s absence. It was the waiting—the aching, hollow space between each of his appearances, each word, each glance. Sunoo spent hours overanalyzing every message, every tiny flicker in Heeseung’s gaze, every pause in his voice, searching desperately for some clue, some unspoken truth. Do you want me? Are you thinking of him? Would you stay if I asked? The questions twisted in his chest like knives, each one sharper than the last.
It was exhausting. Soul-crushing even. And yet, he couldn’t stop. Every hesitation, every shadowed expression, every silence became its own kind of seduction, pulling him closer even as if it will left him raw and trembling. Heeseung had a way of standing at the edge of affection, daring Sunoo to step closer, only to retreat just enough to keep him off-balance. The push and pull was maddening. Heeseung was chaos, and Sunoo had become addicted.
Sometimes, Heeseung only came to him after Sunoo had asked. After a subtle, indirect text, sent in the quiet desperation of midnight, hoping—praying—that he was still enough. Sunoo hated that he had to chase someone who claimed to care, hated that he had to beg silently for what should have been freely given. And yet, when Heeseung finally appeared, slipping into his space like he owned it, everything else—the exhaustion, the fear, the frustration—vanished, burned away by the heat of being close to him.
Their kisses were a dangerous kind of ritual. Heeseung’s lips were soft, insistent, urgent, but just hesitant enough to leave Sunoo yearning, craving, desperate. Every touch carried both promise and ambiguity. Every whispered name felt like a confession wrapped in doubt. And always, there was that flicker—a hesitation, a shadow in Heeseung’s eyes—that made Sunoo’s stomach twist with longing and fear. Was he thinking of someone else? Was it him he wanted instead?
Sunoo hated the questions that had no answers. Hated the uncertainty that clawed at his mind, that set his heart racing with both desire and despair. And yet… there was a thrill in it, a pull he couldn’t resist. The danger, the unpredictability, the ache of needing someone so impossibly complicated—it was intoxicating, like fire licking his skin.
Heeseung was chaos. Heeseung was pain. Heeseung was everything Sunoo wanted, and everything he could never fully have.
And that thought… that thought was unbearable.
⸻
Half-past midnight had become theirs, though neither had claimed it officially. The city outside was quiet, asleep under the dim glow of streetlights, but inside, Sunoo’s mind raced relentlessly. He lay curled on the mattress, fingers clutching his phone like a lifeline, heart hammering against his ribs. Every minute stretched into hours, every second a slow torture.
Then it buzzed.
“Hey.”
Simple. Casual. Effortless. But it struck him like a hammer to the chest. The single word made him crazy completely, exposing the raw, desperate craving he had tried so hard to ignore. Sunoo’s throat tightened. He wanted to scream. He wanted to demand Heeseung come immediately, to force him to explain why every touch, every whispered word, every lingering kiss felt like both a promise and a betrayal. But he couldn’t. Not fully. Not when he was already addicted, already tethered to Heeseung’s chaos, already suspended in the dangerous balance between yearning and despair.
Minutes dragged. Then, finally, Heeseung appeared at the doorway, his silhouette framed by the dim light of the hallway. Sunoo’s chest constricted with anticipation, dread, and something far more primal. Heeseung leaned lazily against the frame at first, hair messy, eyes impossibly dark, like a storm that could either wash Sunoo away or drown him entirely.
The moment he stepped fully into the room, the tension coiled tighter in Sunoo’s stomach. Heeseung pressed close, just enough that the space between them dissolved, until Sunoo could feel the warmth radiating from his body, the subtle scent that was entirely Heeseung, the steady rhythm of his breath. In that instant, the world outside—the silent apartment, the quiet city—fell away. There was only the curve of his lips, the brush of his fingers, the dangerous intimacy that always left Sunoo reeling.
“You’re bad for me,” Sunoo whispered, voice trembling, barely audible over the sound of his own heartbeat.
Heeseung’s lips brushed Sunoo’s temple, soft and teasing, but heavy with unspoken meaning. “I know,” he murmured, voice low, intimate, like a confession wrapped in shadow. “But so are you.”
Sunoo closed his eyes, letting the words sink into him, letting the closeness consume every rational thought. Already—he was lost. Already—he was burning. Already—he was His.
Every brush of skin, every whispered name, every shiver that ran through him was proof that Heeseung had claimed him in a way no one else could. The ache, the longing, the dangerous thrill of being with someone so unpredictable—it was all-encompassing, and yet he would not, could not, let it go.
For now, in the dark, tangled sheets, with Heeseung’s warmth pressing him into the world he both feared and craved, Sunoo allowed himself to be undone. And even knowing tomorrow might take it all away, even knowing Heeseung could vanish into the night as easily as he had appeared, Sunoo did not care.
He was already His.
⸻
Days blurred into nights, and nights blurred into longing. Time had lost all meaning for Sunoo; the hours stretched and collapsed around the obsessive rhythm of thinking about Heeseung. Every text, every short visit, every stolen kiss had dug deeper into his mind, carving hollows into his heart, leaving marks on his soul that no one else could reach. Heeseung was his addiction, his poison, and his paradise all at once—a storm Sunoo couldn’t escape, even if he wanted to.
Even when doubt came at him, when the shadow of another man loomed in his thoughts, when every hesitation in Heeseung’s voice or glance made his stomach knot, he returned. Always. Because the nights—the chaotic, short, perfect nights with Heeseung—were enough to make him forget the pain, the waiting, the torment. They were intoxicating, blinding, impossible to resist.
Tonight was no different. Sunoo lay on his bed in the dark, tracing the contours of the mattress with trembling fingers, lingering on the faint indentation where Heeseung had rested hours ago. The lingering warmth, the ghost of his scent, the echo of his voice whispering Sunoo’s name—all of it twisted in his chest, sweet and agonizing. And yet, despite the ache, despite the craving, something in him began to stir. Something that had been buried beneath desire and obsession, beneath the relentless pull of Heeseung’s presence: a flicker of clarity, a whisper of self-preservation.
Heeseung had kissed him goodbye hours ago, vanished into the night without a promise of return, and the pattern was familiar. Too familiar. Too painful. Sunoo’s chest ached in the familiar way it always did, but this time, instead of reaching for his phone, instead of drafting a reply he knew would only tether him further, he let the silence sit. He let it stretch. He let himself breathe.
Heeseung had claimed him. Already. Completely. But that realization—this truth—no longer held the same intoxicating power it once had. Sunoo had been living in the spaces between Heeseung’s presence and absence for too long, letting himself be pulled and discarded like a leaf in a storm. And now, for the first time in months, he felt the fragile spark of resistance.
The ache, the longing, the chaos—it was still there. But Sunoo understood, finally, that it didn’t have to control him. That desire didn’t have to dictate his nights, his thoughts, his worth.
With a trembling exhale, Sunoo picked up his phone. He stared at Heeseung’s last text, at the familiar words that would have once sent his pulse racing:
“You awake?”
He stared. And then, slowly, deliberately, he set the phone down. He didn’t reply. He wouldn’t. Not this time. Not anymore.
For the first time in a long time, the room felt still, but not empty. There was space—not for longing, not for obsession, not for chaos—but for him. For Sunoo.
He curled beneath the blankets, eyes still open, heart still aching, but this time, with a sense of quiet defiance. He could survive the waiting. He could endure the uncertainty. He could be whole without Heeseung’s approval, without Heeseung’s presence, without the cruel intoxication of his love.
Heeseung had been his storm. But Sunoo… Sunoo would be his own calm.
And in that quiet, aching night, he let himself finally rest, finally free.
He was… still hurting. Still longing.
But he was also… finally learning to let go.