In all the ways that matter

Let’s be honest: you don’t deserve Huh Yunjin.

She’s an ambitious mishmash of love languages. But from the way she’s always including you in wishlists back to her parents in New York, how she’s always testing new big-stretch-and-yawn-at-the-movies level ways to get her hands on you, or how she’s going on her eighth permutation of pet names and emojis for you on her phone (it’s been POOKIE🧸🦷🤭💙 for the past 2 weeks — your longest running), anyone would guess that she was fluent across the board.

And that’s only while you’re pretending that looks don’t matter.

Because whenever it feels like you have to chalk up a point for Yunjin’s personality, one of her physical features always stops you at the blackboard.

Yunjin looks like she was grandma-knit: finished patiently and smoothed tender. Where skin would normally crease, Yunjin softens. And between the way her eyes sweeten into crescent moons when she laughs, how her lips always find a way to ease back into their permanent pout, or how perfectly her chin nestles in between your fingers, there was nothing about her that didn’t compete to be your favorite.

But all of them have to settle for second best.

Because your favorite thing about Yunjin is her eyebrows.

They waltz between well-learned battle lines on her forehead, stretching emphatically behind boundaries they know other features did not dare cross, because compared to the rest of her face, they’re bold. They explode from sienna to whiskey and hook insultingly fast, threading down to points so sharp that it only feels right to dot them at the end like exclamation marks, putting a megaphone to the stories that her eyes tell. Only on Yunjin’s face does softness ring loudly. Eye contact morphs into reverie, amusement magnitudes up into hilarity, and tenderness becomes love.

You think it’s unfair.

It’s unfair that the reasons you could fall in love with her are endless. It’s unfair that she can simultaneously make the world the two of you share both so tiny, special, and unreplicable and then larger than life, ever-expansive, and infinite. And it’s unfair that she makes doing all of this at the same time look so effortless.

It’s a high bar to clear.

But you try anyway.

If not to at least get close to the standard she sets, for the sex.

-

The two of you are practically asking for it the time you get caught.

Standing at the far end of a HYBE practice room, it’s all so fitting: under the only lit floodlight, her on her knees, your cock at attention inches from her lips, tension teetering above climax — Huh Yunjin was going to give you a performance.

She’s kissing at the bottom of your shaft, lingering half a second longer each time as she slowly makes her way up your length. She mewls, ad libbing your grunts with soft, venom-laced yeah?s.

“You sound so pent up,” she starts, thumbing your cockhead counterclockwise.

You give her bits and pieces of an affirmative response: you let out a forced breath somewhere between a grunt and an exhale, grip your cock tighter, and pinch one of her nipples with your free hand. She translates.

“Mmm?” Yunjin purrs. She runs the flat of her tongue long across your entirety, flicking up as she reaches the tip.

You’re gripping at anything you can to stay alive. Trying to keep the facade up that you can compete. You splay your free hand and grab at her chest, playing dirty, grasping for a reaction. She plays your game and picks up the rhythm on your cock.

“You don’t want to just paint my face right now?”

Your breath is hot on your lips, tight in your chest. You’re parrying, blocking, countering. You look deep into the pools of honey bourbon in her eyes. You’re falling into the abyss.

Who fights fair with a poisoned blade? Yunjin? Not with the tears dotting the corners of her eyes, not with the drool running down her chin. Her cheeks are hollow as she swallows further and further down your cock. Her lips brush the base of your shaft. It feels good. She knows it feels good, the way she’s looking back up at you, the way you’re groaning.

She raises her eyebrows.

You cum.

And despite all of the preposition, conviction building, and white-knuckle–steeling, you think, you don’t really ever lose. Because the moment you ride out your orgasm, it’s great.

You can’t compete. You kick off the cliffhanger and throw yourself into freefall. You see white flashes where there used to be color, and the tightness under your stomach evaporates into a vacuum: hot, and all at once. You can fully exhale and for what has to be a full minute, you die.

And as usual, after she makes peace with killing you, Yunjin brings you back to life.

She kisses the top of your cockhead before sitting back on her heels. Under the spotlight, sweat literally shimmering, she’s glowing, and all ethereal. Her tongue darts at the sides of her mouth before retreating, replaced by her bottom lip, equal parts pink and proud, satisfied and smug. She grabs at a small towel sitting next to her before beginning to clean up, dabbing at where you’d made a fucking mess out of her face.

But not before the door to the practice room opens. Your stomach shatters, and everywhere you just felt warm goes cold. A woman takes the empty space in the doorway, starts in your direction, and continues way too fast.

Your brain is instantly numb, and you scramble for something further than a stone’s toss away from the plot of a cheap porno. She slipped on her towel and grabbed my zipper on the way down! What do you mean Yunjin’s in this room with us? My COCK? God no, this is a thermometer that just looks a lot like- You don’t get far.

And before you try at reasoning that would effectively end you on the spot, the woman gets close enough. She yelps, quickly producing a folder from behind her to try and shield you from any further consequences.

“Can you put-” she shakes her hands — folder and all — in your general direction, “everything away?”

Jolted awake, you scramble at your pants at your ankles, pulling anything your fingers brushed against in the direction you thought was closed. In hindsight, the zippers for your pants pockets probably didn’t matter much, but you zip those too, hoping the thought counted. Yunjin reappears next to you, the straps of her newly stretched tank top sitting awkwardly on top of her shoulders, now resembling probably anything else closer than they would elastic.

The woman gingerly peeks an eye over at the two of you and lets out a deep, full exhale. “Good, phew!”

“You would think we’d have that practiced by now,” she tuts, using what was once her plastic barrier to fan herself. She shoots a dirtier glare at Yunjin before turning towards you, and her expression visibly softens. “Oh! Same guy!”

And instantly, anything that would give off that she was disappointed just a moment ago dissipates, and is replaced by genuine admiration.

“I respect that you guys are trying to make the dating thing work!”

There were some things that practice wouldn’t get you used to.

See, when you and Yunjin first started dating, you expected a little bit of onboarding. A little bit of catching up to speed: When were her parents’ birthdays? Was she allergic to anything? What were her favorite movies? For extra credit, you’re even brushing up on the idol industry: How long was a comeback promotion? What was an aegyo? — the usual.

But you’re still taking notes to this day.

(It’s a Saturday a couple of months ago, and you and Yunjin are snaking through the aisles of a thrift store.

“And Chaewon’s seeing them?“

Okay: Yunjin’s snaking through the aisles of a thrift store. You’re trailing behind her, making sure you connected all the right dots together.

“Nope,” she says, eyes scanning a tattered band tee. Then, equally nonchalantly: “Idols get horny, too. Dating just makes things messier than they need to be.”

There’s an expectant pause, then Yunjin turns to look at you.

“Not that that’s a rule or anything,” she adds, placing a hand on yours as if to close the lid on any implication that tried to escape. “It’s just not most people’s style.”)

‘Given’ was probably the word for it, you think. The idol industry collected teenagers at their most formative periods, and where others their age condensed pre-calculus and high school breakups, they learned choreography and how to introduce themselves across the language spectrum. When other kids’ hormones flared up and made them deal with acne, they were digitally edited, scrubbed clean, and hidden behind locked doors. An industry formed on cherry-picking highlights had to have a gnarly underbelly — what would be taboo had to be a given — and it probably only helped that everyone had to look like sex.

So you try to catch up and blend in. Try to not get hung up on how casually sex, drugs, and secrets are laced in sentences. Try to take what Yunjin says at face value.