Chapter Text
1.
The fluorescent, low-lit blue glow of the PC Bang booth was our sanctuary. It was a place of pure, mindless focus that we’d come to at least twice a week to get a hit of our "gaming addiction"—as our mothers lovingly called it.
It was the final stretch of the match, both teams down to the last tower standing. I was playing jungle while my best friend beside me played the bottom lane—"Because I’m a bottom, duh," as he’d always joke.
I clicked my mouse furiously, keeping my eyes locked on the monitor, but I could already hear the dramatic shift in the seat next to me. A glaring, neon-red YOU DIED flashed on Donghyuck’s screen.
"Are you kidding me?!"
I winced as Donghyuck threw himself back into his gaming chair with enough force to make the wheels squeak. He ripped his headset off, letting it hang around his neck, and immediately leaned into my space to stare at my monitor. When you die that late into a match, respawning takes forever; you might as well be out of the game entirely.
"Mark-hyung. Hyung. You can’t leave my lane alone. What are you doing?"
"I'm executing a strategy," I muttered, my teeth gritted as I tapped the Q and W keys, trying to block out his voice. "Just let me cook, Hyung is cooking."
"You're a terrible cook, you can’t even make scrambled eggs properly!"
He didn't just sit there and complain, which would have been standard. Instead, I heard the wheels of his chair roll back as he stood up, stepping into the narrow space between our desks. I felt the sudden shift in air pressure a second before the warmth hit me. Donghyuck leaned forward, hovering directly over my right shoulder to get a closer look at the monitor.
The scent of his fabric softener—mixed with the faint, sweet smell of the iced Americano he’d been nursing—instantly invaded my lungs. My brain short-circuited a little.
"Their bot’s MIA," he said, glancing impatiently at his screen's seventy-second timer, which had only gone down to fifty. "My support hasn’t died and there’s no way he’s holding up against their ADC, so they’re not there. They’re going to gank middle lane. Go mid," he commanded, his voice vibrating right next to my ear after he forcibly shoved my headset aside so I could hear him properly.
"I am!" I choked out. But my fingers suddenly felt like lead. Having his chest practically pressed against my shoulder blade was severely compromising my motor skills. On screen, my character clumsily walked directly into a solid rock wall.
"Oh my god, give it to me, you're painful to watch," Donghyuck exasperated.
Before I could even tell him to back off, he leaned completely over me, effectively hijacking my entire setup. His left hand slid across the keyboard, his forearm brushing firmly against my chest as he reached for the W-A-S-D keys. At the exact same time, his right hand came down directly on top of mine on the mouse.
My breath hitched. His palm was warm, dry, and wrapping completely over my knuckles, guiding the mouse with an aggressive efficiency. His hip pressed right against my thigh, and his knee wedged itself firmly between my legs as he hovered, almost entirely occupying my lap.
Click-click-click-click.
"See? You have to kite them," Donghyuck muttered. He was completely locked into the game, his jaw tense as he stared at the screen, entirely unaware of what he was doing to me. He shifted his weight slightly to get a better angle, his jeans dragging heavily against mine. "Pop the ult. Now, Hyung, pop it—"
I wasn't popping anything on screen, but my body sure was.
A sudden, sharp heat flared straight to my lower abdomen. The friction of his leg, the heavy warmth of his hand over mine, and the casual, suffocating proximity triggered a response that sent all my blood rushing entirely south.
Oh, no, I thought, my eyes widening in sheer terror as my jeans suddenly felt three sizes too small. No, no, no, not right now. Not here. Please.
I tried to subtly pull my hand back, but Donghyuck just gripped the mouse tighter, leaning even lower. His chest was now fully resting against my shoulder, pinning me back into the gaming chair.
"Wait, wait, we can get a double kill," he whispered. His focus was entirely on the pixelated battlefield, completely oblivious to the fact that his hip was resting right against the very sudden, very rigid problem I was currently experiencing.
I went completely stiff—in all senses of the word—pressing my back as hard as I could into the ergonomic mesh of the chair to create whatever microscopic distance I could manage. My face was burning hot. I could hear my own heartbeat thumping violently in my ears, completely drowning out the aggressive clicking of the mechanical keyboard.
"Donghyuck," I strangled out, my voice coming out a full octave higher than normal.
"Hold on, almost got him..."
"Donghyuck, please," I squeaked, my hands trembling underneath his.
With a final, triumphant click, the screen flashed DOUBLE KILL.
"Ha! Standard!" Donghyuck crowed, finally pulling his hands back and standing up straight. A smug, radiant grin was plastered across his face as he looked down at me, clearly expecting praise. "Who saved your life? I did."
I couldn't look up at him. I literally couldn't risk him seeing my face, let alone anything else. I immediately grabbed the oversized black hoodie I’d hung over the back of my chair and aggressively yanked it into my lap, bunching the thick fabric up into a defensive pile over my groin.
"Yeah. Great. Amazing," I stuttered, my eyes operating on pure panic as I looked anywhere but at his face. I squeezed my legs together tightly, feeling my cheeks flush a bright, unmissable crimson. "Your champion spawned. Go play your own lane."
"Oh, shit," he cursed, spinning around to drop back into his own chair and refocusing on his own play.
I let out a breath that was only half-relief and still half-tension. I put my hands back on the keyboard and mouse and tried to play like there wasn’t a rave happening in the confines of my underwear, but with Donghyuck’s lovely voice back in my ears through the headset, it was a losing battle.
We did win that match, but no thanks to me. The second the screen finally read VICTORY, I was already out of my seat. Walking with a bizarre, rigid, hunched-over posture, I bolted straight toward the PC Bang restroom.
2.
Oh, the passion with which I hated gym class. Like, I’m fit, but there’s something so hellish about forced athletics in front of a gaggle of giggling girls and getting a score for it.
We were in the middle of a mandatory fitness testing unit, which meant the entire gym was split into chaotic stations. I was currently stuck on the blue exercise mat, grinding out my thirtieth sit-up while Jeno sat at my feet, holding my ankles down with a bored expression on his face.
But I wasn't focusing on my core. I was completely distracted by the mat right next to us.
Donghyuck was anchoring Jaemin, sitting cross-legged at the base of his mat. And because Jaemin was a literal menace who excelled at everything physical without even trying, he was doing flawless, rapid-fire sit-ups. Every single time Jaemin curled up, his face came within mere inches of Donghyuck’s. They were practically breathing the same air, grinning and whispering some inside joke between reps.
My teeth gritted as I forced myself up for another rep. Why did Jaemin have to lean in that far? And why was Donghyuck laughing at whatever he was saying? An uncomfortable, irritating knot tightened in my chest that had absolutely nothing to do with my abdominal muscles.
"Okay, switch partners!" the coach’s whistle echoed loudly through the rafters.
Before Jeno could even let go of my ankles, I scrambled off the mat. Driven by a sudden, frantic urge to separate them before Jaemin could do another single rep in Donghyuck's face, I marched right over.
"I've got Donghyuck next," I blurted out, stepping between them a little too quickly.
Jaemin blinked up at me, a lazy, knowing smirk pulling at the corner of his lips as he wiped his brow. "Sure, Hyung. All yours. I don’t think you have the strength to hold Jeno down, anyway."
Donghyuck rolled his eyes, laying back down on the mat. "Don't listen to him. Your body’s great Hyung."
"Yeah, fine. Whatever," I muttered with a slight blush on my cheeks, silently riding the high of the unprompted compliment.
But as I dropped down onto the mat to anchor him through the first sit up, he wobbled like crazy. And the smart thing to do would have been to correct his form, but I’m stupid, because what I did instead was kneel directly over his shins, my knees wedged tightly against the outsides of his thighs. To keep him steady, I had to lean forward, placing both of my hands firmly flat on his knees, pinning them down with my body weight.
We were practically folded into each other. I had successfully stopped Jaemin from getting close to him, but I hadn't planned for what would happen when I was the one in the hot seat.
"Ready? Count for me," Donghyuck said, exhaling as he curled his torso up off the mat.
As he reached the peak of his second sit-up, his face rushed toward mine. Fast. The momentum carried him so close I could see the tiny freckle right on the bridge of his nose. His breath brushed warm against my lips before he dropped back down.
Two.
My heart did a weird, violent stutter.
He came back up. Three.
This time, his eyes locked directly onto mine. Up close, the lights of the gym caught the amber flecks in his brown eyes. The gym around us was deafening—squeaking sneakers, bouncing basketballs, shouting teenagers—but all I could hear was the sudden, loud rushing of blood in my own ears.
Four.
And that was it, hat was as far as I survived before a sudden, terrifyingly sharp heat flared straight to my lower abdomen.
Oh, no, I thought, my eyes widening in sheer panic as my gray school sweatpants—which were notoriously thin—suddenly felt entirely too tight. No, no, no. Not right now. Not here.
I went completely rigid. I wasn't just anchoring his knees anymore; my entire skeletal structure had frozen into solid stone.
Donghyuck curled back up for number five, but because I had gone stiff, I hadn't leaned back to give him his space. He bumped right into my chest, hovering barely two inches from my face.
"Hyung?" he asked, pausing at the top. A smug, teasing grin suddenly spread across his face as he noticed how tense I was. "Why are you shaking? Am I too heavy for you, old man? Look how red your face is."
To mock me, he playfully nudged his knee upward, right against my thigh. Oh, he shouldn’t have done that, why would he do that?
A pathetic, strangled sound left my throat. If he moved like that one more time, there was absolutely no way he wouldn't feel the very sudden, very prominent crisis currently developing in my lap. I had wanted to keep him away from Jaemin, but now I was about to face a public execution via embarrassment.
"I'm fine! You're light! Completely light!" I squeaked, my voice cracking spectacularly as it shot up a full octave.
Driven by pure, unadulterated survival instinct, I violently twisted away from his knees, scrambling backward on all fours like a startled crab. I lunged for the bright red plastic clipboard lying on the floor and clamped it flat across my groin, hugging it to my stomach like a makeshift shield.
Donghyuck sat up completely, looking at me like I had lost my mind. "What are you doing? I only did five!"
"My... my hamstrings," I gasped out, staring intensely at the gym floorboards, my face burning so hot I thought my ears might start smoking. "Severe, life-threatening cramps. If I don't sit in a deep squat right now, I might lose the leg entirely."
Right on cue, a low, thoroughly amused chuckle drifted over from the next mat.
I cut my eyes to the side. Jaemin was holding down Jeno firmly, his eyes on the brunette’s form but his mouth told a different story with a deeply satisfied, cat-like grin. He didn't even look over at us, but the sheer volume of his laughter told me he’d witnessed the entire, pathetic spectacle.
"Yeah, Hyung," Jaemin called out, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. "Gotta be careful with those sudden cramps. They really catch you out of nowhere, don't they?"
"Shut up, Na Jaemin!" I hissed, my face flashing an even darker shade of crimson as I pressed the clipboard harder against my lap.
Donghyuck looked between the two of us, completely missing the subtext but thoroughly annoyed anyway. "You two are so weird today," he said, shaking his head and standing up to stretch. "Did you skip breakfast? Do you need to go to the nurse?"
"No nurse! Just need to sit here!" I stammered, shuffling backward until my back hit the gym wall, while Jaemin’s muffled giggles continued to echo from the mat beside us.
I wanted the earth to swallow me, but even more than that, I wanted to take the grinning Cheshire down with me.
3.
There is a specific type of comfort that only exists on a rainy Sunday afternoon when you have zero obligations.
The rain was drumming a steady, heavy rhythm against my bedroom window, completely blurring the view of the street outside. My room was dark, lit only by the soft, warm glow of my desk lamp and the ambient hum of my laptop playing a movie we’d stopped paying attention to an hour ago.
Donghyuck and I were buried under a mountain of blankets on my mattress. Normally, we’d be fighting over the pillows or wrestling for the bigger share of the duvet, but the weather had drained all the chaos right out of him. He was completely exhausted from midterms, dropping off to sleep right in the middle of a sentence.
I was lying on my side, propped up on one elbow, trying to focus on my phone. But it was getting progressively harder to move.
Donghyuck had shifted in his sleep, rolling over until he was practically glued to my side. He’d looped one heavy arm over my waist, his fingers loosely clutching the fabric of my oversized sweatshirt. His forehead was pressed right against the crook of my neck, and every time he exhaled, his warm, even breath fanned across my collarbone.
He was warm—like a literal radiator. He smelled like my house's vanilla body wash and the laundry detergent my mom uses, a combination that felt so familiar it made something ache in my chest.
He’s just sleepy, I told myself, staring down at the soft curve of his cheek, his eyelashes casting tiny shadows on his skin. We’ve shared a bed a million times since we were kids. This is normal. Best friends do this.
Then, Donghyuck mumbled something incoherent into my shoulder, shifting closer. He hitched his right leg up, casually draping his knee over my thigh to anchor himself, pulling my body flush against his.
My breath caught in my throat. I froze, my phone hovering mid-scroll.
A sudden, familiar, agonizing flare of heat shot straight down to my lower abdomen.
No. No, no, no. Absolutely not, I panicked, my heart hammering violently against my ribs. You are lying in your own bed. Your best friend is asleep. There’s no source of adrenaline. Why is this happening?!
A close call LOL match, a work out session. Cool, that made some sort of sense, but not this. This was pure, unadulterated, domestic quiet—and my body was treating it like a green light. In the soft, loose fabric of my pajama pants, the reaction was immediate, undeniable, and so perversely out of place it terrified me.
I went completely still, staring at the glow in the dark stars stuck to my ceiling, terrified to draw a single deep breath. If I moved even a millimeter, the friction would make it worse. If I tried to push him off, he might wake up, feel exactly what was pressing against his thigh, and my life would be legally over.
Donghyuck shifted again, rubbing his face sleepily against my shoulder blade, his knee dragging heavily right over the exact, agonizingly blood-filled problem currently occupying the center of the bed.
A pathetic, silent wheeze left my throat. My face was burning so hot I was convinced the heat radiating off my cheeks could melt the blankets. I squeezed my eyes shut, silently reciting the multiplication tables in my head. Seven times eight is fifty-six. Nine times nine is eighty-one. Please go away. Please.
But with Donghyuck’s heart beating steady against my ribs, his arm holding me tight, and his scent completely filling my head, math didn't stand a chance. It felt entirely different this time. It wasn't just a physical annoyance; it felt heavy, terrifyingly weighted with a weird, suffocating tightness in my chest that I couldn't explain.
Am I sick? I thought in genuine, escalating horror, staring blindly into the dark room. Do I have a hormonal imbalance? Do I need to see a specialist? I’m seventeen, already past that stage. My hormones should not be doing this shit.
I spent the next two hours completely paralyzed, acting as a human mattress, holding my breath every time Donghyuck sighed in his sleep.
When he finally blinked his eyes open, groggy and squinting at the clock, he let out a massive yawn and stretched his arms over his head, completely oblivious to the fact that I had just survived a two-hour psychological warfare campaign against my own traitorous anatomy.
"Whoa, Hyung," Donghyuck mumbled, his voice thick with sleep as he looked at my face. "Why do you look so pale? And why are you sweating? Is the heat on too high?"
Even though my body was completely behaving itself now, the phantom memory of what had just happened made my cheeks flush all over again. I felt exposed, like he could somehow read the residual panic written all over my face.
"I'm fine! Just... highly hydrated!" I choked out, my voice squeaking as I violently threw the blankets off myself.
Before he could even sit up, I scrambled out of the bed, grabbing a massive, plush throw pillow from my desk chair on the way out and holding it defensively in front of me anyway—just in case my brain decided to betray me a second time. I backed out of my own bedroom door with the rigid, awkward stride of a penguin trying to walk on ice.
"I'm making... toast. Need toast right now," I stammered, bolting down the hallway toward the safety of the bathroom.
Behind me, I could hear Donghyuck’s confused voice fading. "Toast? At four in the afternoon?"
My body might have cooled down, but my brain was still stuck on the way it felt to have him holding onto me in his sleep – so profoundly trusting and cutely mumbling and warm and his smell and his…urgh! The excuse of these moments being a "fluke" was starting to look dangerously thin.
4.
If there was an Olympic sport for being an absolute menace, Donghyuck would be standing on the podium with a gold medal, wearing a smug smile and making finger hearts at the crowd. And Jaemin would be grinning like a maniac while holding up his own silver medal. It would have been a tight one, and maybe I’m biased, too.
It was a Friday afternoon, and a bunch of us were crammed into the plastic booths of the convenience store down the street from the school. Jeno and Jaemin were sharing a container of instant tteokbokki across from us, while I was peacefully trying to drink my banana milk.
Keyword: trying.
"I’m telling you, I’m not making this up," Donghyuck insisted, leaning his elbows on the sticky plastic table. He had been rambling for twenty minutes straight about who was more popular with the underclassmen. "When you and Jeno swing by our class, bitches get wet."
"Don’t call them that," I defended, nearly choking on my straw.
Jaemin snorted, taking a bite of a rice cake. "Nah, Hyung. They really are thirsty. I’ve refused to give out your numbers more times than I can count."
"See?!" Donghyuck crowed, throwing his hands up in victory. "Even Jaemin agrees. You have a handsome face that deserves bitches, but your personality does not help. You’re just a soft, easily flustered old man."
"I am not easily flustered," I muttered, my ears already starting to burn because, unfortunately, the past two weeks had proven that I was extremely easily flustered—just by one specific person.
"Oh, really?" Donghyuck’s eyes flashed with that familiar, dangerous spark of pure mischief. Whenever he got that look, it meant he was about to make my life actively worse for his own amusement. "Let's test that theory."
Before I could even process the warning, Donghyuck slid out of his side of the booth. Instead of walking away, he stepped over to my side. The plastic bench was small, barely meant for one person, let alone two teenage guys.
"Donghyuck, what are you—"
"Shh. Don't ruin the experiment," he whispered.
He didn't just squeeze into the bench next to me. To completely assert his dominance and prove his point, Donghyuck casually swung his leg over and sat directly onto my lap.
My entire brain went up in flames.
He didn't hesitate at all—because when does he fucking ever? He settled his full weight onto my thighs, turning his torso so he was facing me directly. Because the booth was so cramped, his face was barely three inches from mine. I could see the light reflecting in his eyes, the faint scent of the spicy tteokbokki on his breath, and the absolute satisfaction written across his features.
"Wow, you really are a statue," Donghyuck teased, reaching out to tap my cheek with his index finger. He wrapped an arm casually around the back of my neck to steady himself, pulling his chest flush against mine. "Look at him, Jeno. He’s completely frozen."
Across the table, Jeno just shook his head, burying his face in his hands, while Jaemin stopped chewing entirely, his eyes widening with a look of pure, chaotic glee.
But I couldn't look at them. I couldn't look anywhere. Because the exact second Donghyuck’s weight settled onto my thighs, the absolute worst-case scenario occurred.
A heavy, furious wave of heat rushed straight to my groin. And I feel like I’ve said this before, using very similar words, but a teenager possesses only so many ways to refer to a hard-on without just straight-up saying "I got hard."
So, yeah… I got hard.
No. No, no, no. Please, god, have mercy on me, I prayed internally, my eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated horror. Not in a convenience store. Not in front of our friends. Not while he is literally sitting on top of it.
It wasn't a slow build-up either. It was an instant, rigid, undeniable emergency. In the stiff fabric of my school uniform trousers, there was absolutely nowhere for the problem to hide. And because Donghyuck was currently occupying my lap, he was resting directly against the rapidly developing crisis.
I stopped breathing entirely. My hands clenched into tight fists at my sides, terrified to touch him, terrified to move, terrified to exist.
"Hyung?" Donghyuck’s teasing smile faltered slightly. He blinked, tilting his head as he stared at me. He shifted his weight, trying to get a better reaction out of me, his hips sliding just a fraction of an inch against mine.
A strangled, high-pitched squeak left my throat. If he shifted again, he was going to feel it. He was going to realize that his best friend was indeed very easily flustered… if flustered were another way to say pervert.
"Why are you so sweaty?" Donghyuck asked, his brow furrowing in genuine confusion. He reached up to touch my forehead, completely oblivious to the fact that his fat ass was currently pressed against a literal rock. "Wait, your heart is beating like crazy. Are you actually mad?"
"Donghyuck," I gasped out, my voice sounding like it had been scraped through a cheese grater. "Get. Off."
"Hyung, are you broken?" he asked, genuinely baffled by my complete lack of a witty comeback.
Across the table, Jaemin suddenly let out a loud, sputtering laugh, coughing into his hand as he looked at my bright red face, clearly putting the pieces together.
"Donghyuck-ah," Jaemin choked out, his voice dripping with pure amusement. "I think you should probably get off him before you actually break the poor guy."
"I'm fine!" I yelled, my voice cracking pathetically as pure adrenaline took over.
With a burst of frantic, panicked strength, I grabbed Donghyuck by the waist and physically hoisted him off my lap, shoving him back onto the floor. I didn't even wait for him to land. I grabbed my school backpack from the floor and slammed it flat across my lap, holding the straps with a white-knuckled grip to hide the undeniable evidence.
"I have to go. Project. Homework. Left the stove on," I stammered, my eyes darting wildly.
I scrambled out of the plastic booth, walking with that exact same rigid, hunched-over, penguin-like waddle that was fast becoming my signature style.
"What the—you don’t cook!" Donghyuck called out after me, his voice echoing through the convenience store.
But I was already bursting through the automatic glass doors into the cool afternoon air, clutching my backpack to my groin like a shield. This shit cannot keep happening. It might be time to reach out to one of those junior girls asking for my number and do something about this pent-up frustration.
Because that’s all it is, right?
5.
My house was supposed to be a safe zone. It was a Friday night and the four of us were gathered in my living room for horror a movie marathon.
The main issue was the geography of my living room. My family’s couch was comfortable, but it strictly only fit three people. Jaemin had already claimed the far left corner, burying himself in a pile of throw pillows, and Jeno was sitting right in the middle.
"I'll go grab a floor cushion from the hall closet," I said, trying to be a gracious host. "I don't mind taking the floor."
"Thanks, Hyung," Donghyuck called out, scrolling through the movie options on the TV screen.
It took me less than thirty seconds to find the cushion. But thirty seconds is an eternity when you leave Na Jaemin and Lee Donghyuck unsupervised in a room. When I walked back into the living room, dragging a massive grey plush cushion behind me, I froze dead in my tracks.
Donghyuck wasn't on the couch. Well, he was, but he was currently sitting sideways directly on Jeno’s lap, his arm slung casually over Jeno’s broad shoulders.
"Donghyuck?" I choked out, the cushion slipping slightly from my grip.
Donghyuck didn't even look up from the TV screen. "You can take the couch, Hyung."
"You can’t—you can’t be on his lap," I stammered, a sudden, sharp spike of irritation hitting my chest like a physical blow. "It’s, uhm, it’s a long movie. He’ll get tired."
"Our big strong Jeno? Tired? Nonsense," Donghyuck scoffed, playfully tapping Jeno’s chin. "Right, Jeno?"
Jeno just shook his head with a fond smile, completely amused by the chaos, entirely used to Donghyuck’s space-invading tendencies.
"I don’t mind the floor," I insisted, my voice dropping an octave as I glared at the sheer proximity of my two best friends. The sight of it was making my blood boil in a way that made absolutely no sense.
"You can take the floor if you like," Donghyuck said, finally turning his head to look at me, a lazy, teasing grin on his face. "I still prefer to sit right here. I’m gay, haven’t you heard? Why would I waste the excuse to sit on a hot guy’s lap?"
My brain completely short-circuited. The irritation morphed into pure, unadulterated desperation. I didn't think about the past four times. Or, no, that’s a lie, and I knew I was about to walk myself into a fifth but I didn’t care. I just needed him off Jeno right now.
"You can sit on mine."
The living room went dead silent.
Jaemin’s head snapped up so fast I thought he was going to give himself whiplash, his eyes gleaming with a terrifyingly sharp, knowing amusement. Jeno’s eyebrows shot up.
Donghyuck blinked, his grin faltering into pure confusion. "Huh?"
"I—I’m the host," I stuttered, trying to make sense out of something that simply never would. "Let's not inconvenience Jeno. Come sit on mine."
A slow, devilish smirk crept back onto Donghyuck’s face – Jamin’s too, but that’s like his default. He leaned forward slightly, resting his chin on his hand. "Did you just offer yourself up as my replacement hot guy?"
"Donghyuck, please," I squeaked, my voice cracking pathetically as I stood there holding a floor cushion like a shield. "Please get off him."
"Fine, fine, if you're going to make a whole federal case out of it," Donghyuck sighed dramatically.
He slid off Jeno’s lap. For a single, beautiful second, I thought I was safe. I thought he was going to sit on the empty spot on the couch. Instead, he marched right over to me, grabbed my arm, and dragged me down onto the plush floor cushion before dropping himself right back onto my lap.
Error 505. System crash.
He didn't sit sideways this time. Because we were on the floor, he sat right between my thighs, leaning his entire back against my chest. His shoulder blades dug into my ribs, and his hair—soft, smelling faintly of citrus—brushed right against my chin.
And because the universe hates me, it happened instantly.
A heavy, furious wave of heat rushed straight to my– you know the deal. It was instantaneous. It was undeniable. In the loose, thin fabric of my sweatpants, there was absolutely nowhere for it to go.
I literally asked for this. I did this to myself, I thought, my eyes widening in sheer, unadulterated terror as I went completely still.
Donghyuck shifted, trying to get comfortable against my chest, his lower body pressing firmly and heavily against the exact, rapidly escalating crisis currently developing underneath him. He froze for a microsecond, his shoulders tensing up. “Hyung?”
I stopped breathing entirely. My hands clenched into tight fists, hovering awkwardly in the air because I was terrified to touch his waist, or any part of him for that matter.
“No comment.”
From the couch, Jaemin let out a low, muffled snort, burying his face in a pillow to hide his explosive laughter. Jeno just cleared his throat loudly, suddenly becoming intensely interested in the opening credits of the movie.
"Hyung," Donghyuck murmured, his voice suddenly dropping its teasing edge. He didn't move, but I could feel the heat radiating off his neck. "Are you... holding your breath?"
"Fine! Perfectly fine!" I strangled out, my voice hitting a soprano note.
I heard Jaemin cleared his throat, his eyes darting between my bright red face and Donghyuck's tense shoulders. A slow, devious grin spread across his face as he planned to make my life miserable.
“I think we need popcorn,” Jaemin suggested smoothly.
“There’s a bag in the kitchen,” I rushed out, desperate for any excuse to break the proximity.
“Won’t be enough,” Jaemin countered, stretching his legs out. “Jeno, would you walk with me to the farthest possible convenience store to buy more?”
Jeno blinked, completely losing the plot. “But the one down the street is only a two-minute—”
Jaemin dug his elbow sharply into Jeno’s ribs.
“Of course, let’s go,” Jeno corrected himself instantly, a look of sudden, enlightened realization washing over his face.
My two friends stood up and walked out. As they reached the front door, Jaemin turned back around. He caught my eye and, with a look of pure, shameless mischief, gave me a thoroughly encouraging thumbs-up. He wasn't even trying to be subtle.
The front door clicked shut, leaving the living room completely, terrifyingly silent.
I figured that would be my cue to scramble up and make a run for it. But before I could even twitch a muscle, Donghyuck shifted. And then he shifted again.
He kept wiggling, settling his weight heavily against my lap, over and over. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. There was absolutely no way he hadn’t felt it. In fact, with the deliberate, slow way he was moving, it almost seemed like he was playing with it.
Driven by pure survival instinct and against my own better judgment, I let out a shaky breath and grabbed him firmly by the waist. My fingers dug into the fabric of his shirt, physically pinning him down to stop him from moving an inch further.
"Donghyuck," I pleaded, my voice dropping into a strained, breathless register. "Please stop."
He went still for a second. The movie playing quietly the only sound in the dark room because no one cared enough to pause whatever was playing.
"Can I try something?" Donghyuck whispered. His voice was entirely devoid of its usual bratty sarcasm, replaced by something soft, heavy, and completely serious.
My throat went entirely dry. I didn't know how to answer. I couldn't.
Taking my silence as a green light, Donghyuck slowly turned around in my lap. He shifted until he was sitting straddled across my thighs, completely facing me. He slid his arms up my chest, wrapping them securely around the back of my neck, anchoring me in place.
And then, looking directly into my eyes, he began to move again. But this time, it wasn't an accident, and it wasn't a joke. He moved with total, shameless purpose.
Grinding down against me.
"Hyuck..." I strangled out, my eyes widening as a violent, blinding wave of heat completely consumed me. My hands on his waist tightened, entirely paralyzed between the urge to push him away out of sheer panic, or pull him impossibly closer.
He leaned in closer, his forehead resting against mine as he kept up the slow, agonizing rhythm, making my brain completely empty of every logical thought I'd ever had.
"Hyung," Donghyuck murmured against my lips, his breath hitching slightly as he felt exactly how responsive my body was. "Can I kiss—"
Suddenly, the harsh, buzzing vibration of my phone on the coffee table shattered the silence. The screen illuminated the dark room, a contact name flashing in bold text.
The interruption acted like a bucket of ice water. Donghyuck paused, pulling away a little, though he didn't remove himself from my lap. He glanced down at the screen, his brow furrowing as he read the name.
"Minji? From my class?" Donghyuck asked, looking back up at me with a deep frown. "How does she have your number?"
"I, uh, gave it to her," I stammered, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath.
"What for?"
"I thought about what you said the other day," I muttered, my eyes darting anywhere but his face. "About the girls in your year being interested. I decided to give it a chance."
Donghyuck blinked, his expression hardening. "Huh?"
"We have a date tomorrow, actually."
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the room. Donghyuck stared at me, his arms slowly sliding out from around my neck. The soft, vulnerable atmosphere vanished, replaced by an icy tension.
"So," Donghyuck began, his voice dropping into a dangerously quiet, flat register. "I told you how annoyed I was that those bitches be thirsting over you, told you how handsome I think you are, plopped down on your lap, and that all made you want to give Minji a chance?"
"Ehm..."
"Wow. Cool." Donghyuck let out a dry, humorless laugh as he finally stood up, completely removing his warmth from my lap. He didn't even look back at me as he grabbed his jacket from the back of the couch. "I hope you have fun with Minji."
Before I could even find my voice to explain—not that I even knew how to explain the absolute mess inside my head—the front door slammed shut.
I was left entirely alone in the quiet house, staring at my buzzing phone. My body was completely numb, but the absolute panic in my chest told me I had just made the biggest mistake of my life.