Jisung was being needy, and he knew it. The whiny, clingy tone had been in his voice all week, a frequency reserved only for her, and now it hummed in the silence of his own bedroom after the call had ended. He’d finally gotten her to agree to come. The victory felt hollow, soaked through with the phantom sound of her moans still bouncing around his skull. He’d guided her to that release from thousands of miles away, his voice the only touch he was allowed, and it had wrecked him. He was painfully, obviously hard, the ache a constant companion since her first whispered confession of fear. He hadn’t taken care of it. He’d let the need build, a twisted mirror of the tension he’d just spent an hour coiling inside her.
The city’s quiet hum through the window was a poor substitute for her breathing. He stared at the ceiling, the lamp casting long shadows from his furniture that looked like bars. Of course she had reasons to be nervous. He had a list of his own, a frantic scroll in his mind. Her parents. The press. Schedules. The world. But they all blurred into one overwhelming truth: he was most likely going to kiss her in front of her parents. He was not going to be able to stop looking at her with what she called his boba eyes. He was going to try to hold her hand whenever he could, in the car, under the table, walking down a street in Seoul, and he would fail at being subtle. The thought of her here, in this room, on these sheets that smelled only of him and clean laundry, made his cock twitch against the confines of his sweatpants.
He was a live wire with nowhere to ground. Pushing himself up on his elbows, he reached for his phone where it lay discarded on the nightstand. The screen was dark. He unlocked it, his thumb hovering over her contact photo—a silly, sun-drenched picture from Arizona, her hair whipping around her face in the convertible. He didn’t call. He just looked. The compass tattoo on his shoulder seemed to burn, the needle permanently spun and locked on her coordinates. Blessed. The word inked over his heart felt like a taunt. He was blessed with this, with her, and cursed with the distance.
His own need was a physical pressure, a tightness in his gut and a relentless throb between his legs. He’d denied himself, focusing only on her pleasure during the call, and now the neglect felt like a form of madness. A punishment. He let his head fall back against the headboard with a soft thud. He was going to see her. Soon. Ish. The reality of it was a seismic shift in the atmosphere of his life. The planning, the secrecy, the logistics—they were just noise. The signal was her body in his space. Her laugh in his ear, not through a speaker. Her scent overwriting the clean, impersonal smell of his bedroom.
He was not a patient man. He was a man of impulses, of channeling feeling directly into motion, into music, into performance. This waiting was a form of torture his stage persona had never trained for. Han could command a crowd of thousands. Jisung just wanted to command the attention of one woman in a room, and he couldn’t even do that from here. The possessive hand he was known for, the one that always found the small of a back to ground himself, flexed against the sheet. Empty.
With a frustrated groan, he swung his legs over the side of the bed. The cool wood floor was a shock. He paced the short length of the room, three steps one way, three steps back. His reflection in the dark window was a ghost—a lean, tense shape silhouetted by the lamp. He stopped, pressing his forehead to the cool glass. “You’re being ridiculous,” he muttered to his own ghost. But the ghost didn’t argue. It just looked back at him with hungry, knowing eyes.
The memory of her voice, breathy and broken at the end, unspooled in his mind. The exact pitch of her gasp. The way she’d whispered his name, not ‘Han’, but ‘Jisung’, like it was a secret she was finally admitting. It was that, more than the imagined visuals, that had his hand drifting down. He palmed himself through the soft fabric, a hiss escaping his teeth. The contact was a lightning strike of sensation after so much denial. He was so hard it was almost painful, the outline unmistakable. He’d gotten her to agree. He’d pushed, and whined, and laid himself bare, and she’d said yes. The victory was real now, hot in his hand.
He didn’t move back to the bed. He stayed at the window, forehead against the glass, watching the distant lights of Seoul while his other hand worked. This wasn’t for release. Not yet. This was for feeling. For mapping the ache she’d created. His touch was slow, almost clinical at first, tracing the length, remembering the weight of her through the phone. The way she’d described the feel of her own hands, following his instructions. He’d been the architect of her pleasure, and now he was the prisoner of his own.
His breath fogged the glass. He was going to kiss her in front of her parents. The thought was absurd, thrilling, terrifying. He imagined her mother’s raised eyebrow, her father’s assessing look. He didn’t care. Let them see. Let the whole world see the way he looked at her. The ‘boba eyes’—big, round, unguarded—were her invention, but she was right. He had no shield for her. He never had. From the moment he’d seen her in that blue convertible, music blaring a song he loved, he’d been disarmed.
His strokes grew firmer, his hips pushing minutely into his own hand. The friction was a poor imitation. He needed the real thing. The heat of her. The specific softness. The way she’d clutch at his shoulders, her fingers digging into the ink of ‘resplendent life’ that swept down his side. He was going to show her that tattoo properly, with her in his bed, with the Seoul morning light cutting across it. He was going to trace the letters on her skin, too. Claim her with the same permanence.
A low sound built in his throat, trapped behind his clenched jaw. Needy. Clingy. Whiny. The labels she’d never given him, but he’d given himself. They were true. For her, he was all those things. He was also possessive, and desperate, and so in love it felt like a chronic condition. His thumb brushed over the head of his cock, a bolt of pleasure so sharp his knees nearly buckled. He braced his other hand flat against the window.
The phone call played on a loop. Her nervous hesitation. His own voice, dropping from playful to raw. “I’m terrified, too, Kelsey. But I’d rather be a mess with you than perfect with anyone else.” He’d meant it. He meant it now, his body strung tight with the mess of wanting her. He’d told her to touch herself, and she had. He’d listened to every hitch in her breath, every soft cry, and he’d stored them away like treasures. Now he was spending them, using the memory as fuel.
His pace increased, no longer mapping, seeking. The city lights below blurred into streaks of gold. He wasn’t thinking about choreography or lyrics or schedules. The only rhythm was his own, fast and urgent. The only words were hers, echoing. He was going to hold her hand. He was going to kiss her. He was going to look at her until she told him to stop, and even then he wouldn’t. The fantasy was so vivid, so immediate, it was no longer a future event. It was a promise his body was demanding he cash now.
He came with a choked-off gasp, his forehead grinding against the cool glass, his body bowing with the force of it. Pleasure ripped through him, sharp and almost punishing in its intensity, wringing him out. It was a release, but not a relief. The emptiness that followed was profound. He stayed there, slumped against the window, breathing hard, watching the evidence of his need drip onto the floor between his feet. The physical tension was gone, but the deeper one, the one in his chest, remained. It had just been reconfirmed.
After a long minute, he pushed himself upright. He avoided looking at his reflection as he cleaned up, movements brusque. The post-release clarity was a cold shower. He’d gotten her to agree. That was the objective. Now came the reality. The logistics were a minefield his manager would have to navigate. He’d have to call in favors, twist schedules, lie through his teeth. He’d do it all. Without hesitation.
He fell back onto the bed, the rumpled sheets cool against his skin. He grabbed his phone again. This time, he didn’t just look. He typed. His thumbs moved quickly, the needy whine gone, replaced by a solemn certainty.
“I’ll handle everything. You just get on the plane.”
He sent it. No emoji. No softening. It was a vow.
He stared at the screen, waiting for the read receipt to appear. It did. Then the typing bubbles. They appeared, disappeared, reappeared. His heart, which had just slowed, kicked back against his ribs.
Her reply came through.
“I’m already packing.”
Something in his chest, the tight, anxious knot he’d carried since she’d first said she was nervous, loosened. Just a fraction. He brought the phone to his lips, pressing them to the screen where her words were. A stupid, sentimental gesture. He didn’t care.
He was going to see her. He was going to kiss her. He was going to hold her hand.
And for the first time all week, the neediness inside him settled into something else. Something quiet, and fierce, and ready. It was no longer a question of ‘if’. It was a countdown.
He turned off the lamp, plunging the room into the deep blue glow of the city night. In the dark, he could almost feel the weight of her head on his pillow, the warmth of her along his side. He closed his eyes. The wait was still a form of torture. But now, it had an end date. He could endure anything with an end date.