Archive of Our Own

⁂

“Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.”

Nayeon had exceeded every expectation once more. The music assaulted the air when Mingyu arrived; far too loud, which explained his pause outside, extending a beat past necessity.

The house pulsed from within, someone had dragged speakers onto the porch, and the bass traveled through the wooden steps into the soles of his shoes. He checked his phone out of habit rather than necessity, ignored two unread messages from Seungkwan that alternated between impatience and insult, and finally pushed the door open without knocking.

Warmth met him first. Then noise. Then bodies.

Jihyo spotted him almost instantly.

“Finally,” she announced, abandoning the conversation mid-sentence. “Did you get lost on the way from your own ego, Gyu?”

Mingyu closed the door behind him and stepped out of his jacket. “I was invited at eight. It is eight-thirty. That is within acceptable variance.”

He greeted people easily, accepting a drink from someone whose name he half remembered and placing it down untouched on a shelf he would forget about later. There was a looseness to him that did not read careless so much as assured. He did not search for permission to exist in a space; he assumed it.

Nayeon intercepted him near the kitchen. “You came alone?” she murmur-asked, handing him a fresh cup anyway.

“Don’t I always?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Mingyu smiled faintly. “I know.”

She studied him for another second, then let it go. “Kwan has banned sad music. If you request anything acoustic, I will castrate you.”

The living room had reached that early stage of a party where everyone was still aware of themselves. Conversations were loud but not yet sloppy. Laughter came easily but stopped short of confession. Seungkwan had claimed a corner of the couch and was narrating something with grand gestures while Seokmin, and Hansol listened with indulgent patience.

“Biggest fear?” Nayeon asked him at one point between the truth and truth game, leaning forward with narrowed eyes.

“Boredom,” he muttered.

“That’s not real.”

Seungkwan pointed accusingly. “You’re incapable of being bored.”

“That’s because I avoid it.”

Seungkwan’s accusation hung in the air for a moment, his finger still extended like a prosecutor’s exhibit, the room’s laughter ebbing into expectant quiet. Mingyu met his gaze without flinching, the corner of his mouth lifting just enough to suggest he found the charge amusing rather than pointed.

A new voice cut through from the edge, smooth and carrying the faint lilt of someone accustomed to projecting across stages. “He’s got a point, though. You do seem engineered against tedium.”

Mingyu turned, tracing the speaker with unhurried interest. The man detached himself from the cluster near the couch, tallish but not imposing, with sharp features framed by hair that fell artfully disheveled, dressed in a fitted shirt that spoke a little of pretentiousness rather than safe keeping. He extended a hand, posture open but eyes intent.

“Seungyoun,” he said as Mingyu took it, grip lingering a fraction past polite. “Director. Sol’s mentioned you. The guy who shows up late to his own life.”

Seungkwan huffed, slumping back into the cushions. “Don’t encourage him. Hyung, this is Seungyoun hyung, a friend of Sollie's brother. Thinks every conversation’s an audition for something tragic.”

Seungyoun’s laugh was low, self-aware. “Tragedy pays better than comedy. What about you? You’ve got that look—like you’re already dissecting the room.”

Mingyu released the handshake, settling his weight against the arm of the couch, drink still forgotten in his other hand. “Something like that. Philo major. Got late to class today, too. Professor didn’t seem fazed.”

The conversation frayed at the edges as Jihyo circled back with refills, voices overlapping in the periphery. Seungyoun lingered, though, drawn into the couch’s orbit, his comments laced with a performer’s timing, each one landing just sharp enough to pull Mingyu’s attention on him.

The corner room they found was spare, dimly lit by a yellow bulb burning low, door easing shut behind them with a soft click that muffled the bass to a distant pulse. Seungyoun moved first, closing the space in one fluid step, hands finding Mingyu’s chest, urgently, fingers curling into fabric as if testing its give.

Their mouths crashed together, Seungyoun’s kiss raw, lips parting hot and wet, tongue sweeping insistently into Mingyu’s mouth like he’d been starving for this exact taste. His right hand knotted tight in Mingyu’s hair, yanking just hard enough to sting, angling his head back to lick deeper into Mingyu’s mouth, while the other clawed at his shirt, bunching fabric up to expose skin.

Mingyu met it with an equally firm heat, his large hand splaying over Seungyoun’s lower back, pulling him flush, cocks grinding through denim. He let Seungyoun writhe against him, thumb dipping under the waistband of his jeans, teasing the dimples above his ass without venturing further.

Seungyoun broke for air with a shattered whine, only to dive back in, free hand shoving under Mingyu’s hem to rake nails down his abs, greedy fingers dipping low to palm the thick ridge of his cock through his jeans; squeezing, stroking rough over the denim with a trembling urgency that betrayed how badly he needed to be filled, fucked open right there against the wall. His hips bucked forward, grinding shamelessly, breath coming in ragged pants against Mingyu’s throat, hips rolling, and chasing friction like it might unravel him.

Then Seungyoun’s phone buzzed; once, a sharp jolt against his thigh. Twice, vibrating right where his cock strained. Thrice, relentless, the hum cutting through the wet sounds of mouths and hands.

Mingyu pulled back just enough, lips slick and swollen, voice low and even against the fever of Seungyoun’s skin. “You should probably pick it up.”

Seungyoun whined; actual fucking whine, chasing Mingyu’s mouth with parted lips, tongue flicking out miserably, his hand fisting tighter in Mingyu’s shirt like he could force him back down. “Oh, come on,” he gasped, grinding forward again, hard enough to drag a low grunt from Mingyu’s chest, fingers fumbling blindly at Mingyu’s fly. “Fuck the phone—kiss me again, please—”

Mingyu eased him off with firm hands, expression calm, adjusting the painful tent in his jeans with a faint, private smile. “Let me adjust my boner and go out first.”

He slipped toward the door, leaving Seungyoun slumped against the wall; flushed, wrecked, cock leaking visibly through denim, the phone’s fifth buzz mocking the ache.

⁂

“At the heart of all beauty lies something inhuman.”

The first thing Wonwoo did every semester was reminiscing the dead, not out of morbidity but out of principle. He had long ago developed the quiet conviction that the living spoke too quickly and with too much certainty, whereas the dead, having already been proven fallible by time, carried a kind of humility in their words that demanded patience. He never articulated this to his students; he simply arrived on the first day with books that had already survived their authors, texts worn at the spine, margins pressed thin with prior readings, and began where history had left its most complicated questions unresolved.

The seminar room assigned to Philosophy of Violence and Power was almost disarmingly intimate, an oval table occupying most of the space, twenty chairs arranged close enough that no one could retreat into anonymity. The windows were tall and undecorated, letting in the light of early autumn without warmth, the kind that exposed dust in the air and made thought feel like a visible, almost material effort. Liberal arts colleges prided themselves on this rapport, on the illusion that ideas required proximity in order to ignite, and Wonwoo had never quite decided whether he believed that or simply benefited from it.

He stood at the head of the table, sleeves rolled neatly, the gesture habitual rather than performative, and in his hands rested a slim, weathered copy of The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. Beside it lay a heavily marked edition of The Rebel by Albert Camus, its spine cracked in a way that suggested not casual admiration but sustained argument.

The space filled gradually in the first class of the semester, chairs scraping softly against the floor as students negotiated where to sit. No one chose the seat directly beside the head of the table at first. They rarely did.

Lee Jihoon arrived early, as he did to most things, slipping into a chair halfway down the oval with a notebook already open in front of him. His pen was poised as though the act of recording might anchor him against whatever the semester would demand. He had enrolled not because the course was required but because it promised something unsettled.

A few minutes later, Seungkwan entered with his usual kind of restless brightness that contrasted the room’s restraint. He scanned the syllabus posted on the screen with an audible exhale, dropping into the seat beside Jihoon.

“Hyung, did you hear?” he whispered, leaning closer. “Apparently the professor once dismantled a senior’s thesis so gently the student thanked him afterward.”

Jihoon raised an eyebrow, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “You believe anything Mingyu says, don’t you?”

Seungkwan’s grin was clandestine. “The only thing I believe in is good gossip. Reminds me, you coming tonight?”

Other students followed, filling the remaining seats in cautious increments, until the low murmur of first-day introductions hovered just beneath the surface of the room.

Wonwoo started without spectacle, looking at the assembled students with a gaze that was neither assessing nor indulgent. The room quieted on its own.

“I don’t believe in beginning with rules,” he said after a moment, voice even, almost conversational. “You’ve seen the syllabus. You know the policies. What you may not know is why this course exists.”

He did not pace as he spoke. He remained standing at the head of the table, one hand resting lightly against the wood.

“We live in a time,” he continued, “in which the word violence is used with increasing casualness. It is invoked rhetorically, and morally both. Structures, language, and even silence are called violent nowadays. Before we decide whether it can be justified, though, we must first decide what we mean when we use the word.”

He let the statement settle without demanding immediate response.

“I’m Jeon Wonwoo, your instructor for this course,” he announced rather ceremoniously. “Seulgi’s the only one who’s ever joined me academically before, so I’m a little stoked. I expect we’ll coexist civilly through the next four months. At minimum.”

At the very edge of the table sat a mid-20s goth vision with waist-length waves, blood-red lipstick, fishnets peeking from leather skirt hems, and a brooding gaze from beneath winged liner. Her hello to Wonwoo was hushed as stares locked on her. The conviction in Wonwoo’s voice screamed real stakes.

“Before we start our discussion,” Wonwoo started again, neither inviting nor discouraging interruption, “we have to understand why violence has been made to appear inevitable within certain historical conditions. Please open your copies of Fanon now.”

He read without inflection, allowing the flow of the prose to carry itself. “At the level of individuals,” he recited, “violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.”

“Fanon writes,” he continued, “from within the experience of colonial domination. He is arguing that violence is transformative, that it restores a fractured subjectivity. For him, violence does not merely alter political structures; it alters the psychological architecture of the oppressed. Is there anybody here who agrees?”

Around the table, pens moved cautiously. Some students leaned forward; others kept their posture guarded, as though proximity to the argument might demand participation.

Suddenly, the door burst wide, heads whipped toward it. Mingyu sauntered in, all innate confidence, owning the room like it was his birthright. Towering in the frame, a bag slung over his shoulder, damp strands clinging to his forehead from a hasty dash or defiant lateness. A quick room-sweep with those assessing eyes, and he was in.

It was only then that Wonwoo lifted his gaze.

“What a way to introduce yourself,” he remarked, the observation mild, almost curious rather than admonishing.

A faint ripple of laughter circled the table, uncertain and quickly subdued.

“Sorry,” Mingyu replied, though the word carried more acknowledgment than regret. “I misjudged the time.”

“Sure,” Wonwoo said evenly, gesturing toward an empty chair along the curve of the table, “Please sit.”

Mingyu did, lowering himself into the chair next to Jihoon with a looseness that contrasted sharply with the measured stillness of the room.

Wonwoo resumed without comment.

“As we proceed this semester,” he said, “we will not treat violence as a slogan. We will treat it as a problem. A philosophical one before it becomes political. The question is not whether violence has altered history. It has. The question is whether its justification can be contained once articulated.”

⁂

“Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth.”

“You’re telling me,” Jihoon said finally, voice low, “that he didn’t raise his voice once?”

He stood against the stone boundary wall bordering the humanities quad, cigarette suspended between his fingers like an afterthought he had not yet decided to commit to. Seungkwan lingered beside him, scrolling with the exaggerated concentration of someone pretending not to listen. Mingyu stood a little apart, tall enough that the lamplight caught him unevenly, cutting his face into planes of shadow and amber.

Mingyu exhaled smoke through his nose, gaze fixed somewhere beyond the courtyard. “He didn’t need to.”

Seungkwan snorted softly. “That’s worse, fuck, what will we do?”

“It wasn’t humiliation, hyung,” Mingyu continued, ignoring Seungkwan. “That’s the unsettling part. He didn’t dismantle the thesis to win. He asked questions that made the argument collapse under its own scaffolding. The student failed without even getting to the whole thing.”

Jihoon tapped ash onto the pavement. “Restorative justice, right?”

“Seventy pages,” Mingyu replied. “Structured. Annotated. Earnest. And he reduced it to three questions about moral legitimacy and the romanticization of reconciliation.”

Seungkwan finally looked up. “You sound impressed.”

“You know me. I respect a little challenge,” Mingyu remarked.

Before either of them could respond, a voice entered the space with measured clarity.

“You’ll find the campus regulations less impressed.”

They turned.

Jeonghan stood several paces away, posture composed in that particular way authority acquires when it has been exercised long enough to become habitual. His coat was immaculate despite the wind. Beside him stood Wonwoo, sleeves rolled the same way despite the cold, glasses reflecting the lamplight so that his eyes were momentarily unreadable.

Jihoon extinguished his cigarette without being told. Seungkwan straightened. Mingyu did neither.

“With respect,” Mingyu said evenly, “this is an open courtyard, isn’t it?”

“It is university property,” Jeonghan replied, not unkindly.

“Which is funded publicly,” Mingyu returned. “The distinction is not insignificant.”

There was a fractional pause, not surprise, but recalibration. Wonwoo’s gaze settled on him with recognition that was neither warm nor hostile. “You’re the same kid who was late to my class.”

Mingyu’s mouth curved slightly. “Kid? I like to think I arrived when the discussion required disruption.”

Jihoon closed his eyes briefly, as though bracing for impact.

Jeonghan’s tone remained smooth. “Names.”

“Kim Mingyu. Fourth-year, literature.”

“Boo Seungkwan. Fourth-year, performing arts.”

“Lee Jihoon. Fourth-year, literature.”

Wonwoo’s attention sharpened almost imperceptibly. “You’re all cross-enrolled in my course.”

Mingyu brought the cigarette to his lips again, provokingly slow. “If a rule cannot justify itself beyond citation, it is merely decorative.”

Jeonghan made a face of utter distaste, as he muttered, “The campus handbook prohibits smoking within fifty feet of academic buildings.” His voice was a little annoyed now.

“Is there a visible boundary?” Mingyu asked. “A marker? Or are we meant to intuit jurisdiction?”

Wonwoo stepped forward then, closing the distance enough that retreat would register as itself. “From what I see, Mingyu-shi, you are not really confused about the boundary,” he said quietly. “You are testing it.”

“Testing is not defiance, now, is it?” Mingyu retaliated.

Jihoon intervened carefully. “We’ll put it out. It’s fine.”

“It is fine,” Jeonghan agreed. “Unless someone insists on converting a courtesy into a referendum.”

The word hung there.

Mingyu dropped the cigarette then. To the pavement, extinguishing it beneath his heel.

“There,” he said. “Compliance. Are you both happy now?”

Wonwoo watched the gesture as though it were data. “You are very interested in resistance,” he said. “I wonder if you are equally interested in the consequences.”

Jeonghan exhaled, faintly amused. “Wonwoo, time to leave,” he said lightly, “before this becomes a symposium.”

Wonwoo inclined his head but did not immediately step back. “Arrive on time next week,” he said to Mingyu. “If you intend to argue, do so from the beginning.”

“Give me something worth arguing against,” Mingyu smirked, his voice laced with mischief.

⁂

“He who fights with monsters should see to it that he himself does not become one.”

Fourteen had been the age of extremity.

Not rebellion, that required spectacle, but absorption instead. The kind that narrows the world to text and thought and the terrible thrill of encountering ideas that seemed to rearrange the architecture of your own mind. Other boys at that age had discovered bodies; Wonwoo had discovered aphorisms sharp enough to wound.

He remembered the first time he read Nietzsche. The sentences were dangerous in a way that did not feel metaphorical. They suggested that morality was not a given structure but a construction, and once that thought enters a young mind with sufficient seriousness, it does not leave politely. Other writers followed soon after; less intoxicating perhaps, more exacting, though, and the tension between them lodged somewhere permanent.

Revolt without transcendence. Meaning without consolation.

He had not been precocious in the theatrical sense. No prodigy. No child lecturing adults at dinner tables. He had simply been consistent. Relentless in a way that did not announce itself.

By the time his peers were discovering internships, he had already published. By the time most academics were still revising their dissertations into something defensible, he had revised his into something arguable. There was a difference. Committees had noticed. Departments had argued over him in rooms he was not invited into. Titles had followed earlier than etiquette suggested they should.

His students speculated about his age in whispers he pretended not to hear. Some assumed he was older because of the stillness. Others assumed he was younger because of the sleeves rolled to the forearms and the refusal to perform paternal warmth. He encouraged neither correction nor confirmation. Authority functioned better when slightly indeterminate.

His classes carried a reputation that was less about difficulty and more about discomfort. He did not humiliate students, nor did he indulge them. He had a way of examining an argument as though it were a fragile mechanism placed in his hands, rotating it carefully until its internal tensions exposed themselves without spectacle. Some students left sharpened. Others left unsettled. All of them left having been taken seriously.

He locked his office with habitual precision that evening, the corridor outside already dim, motion sensors reluctant to acknowledge solitary movement. His apartment was fifteen minutes away by foot. He refused the convenience of driving. Thinking required transition.

The hallway light outside his place flickered faintly when he turned the key. He stepped inside without turning on the main lights. And stopped.

Someone was stretched across his bed with the languid entitlement of a cat who had never once been denied entry.

Seungyoun.

Boots still on. Arms folded behind his head. Shirt half untucked as though dishevelment were a cultivated aesthetic rather than accident. His hair had grown longer since Wonwoo had last seen him, falling into his eyes in a way that suggested either carelessness or calculation. With Seungyoun, the distinction rarely held.

“You changed the combination again,” Seungyoun observed, not moving. “Only works if you stop giving me the spare key, Wonwoo-yah.”

Wonwoo closed the door carefully behind him. “I didn’t give you shit,” he replied evenly.

Seungyoun smiled without sitting up. “You didn’t take it back, either.”

Wonwoo set his bag down on the chair by his desk, movements unhurried. “You being here after work always means trouble, does it not?”

“Cruel,” Seungyoun sighed. “I missed you too.”

He rolled onto his side finally, propping himself up on one elbow, gaze sweeping over Wonwoo with slowness.

“Got a whiff of a party in two hours,” he said. “Come with me.”

“No. I’ve work to do.” Wonwoo rejected. “Unlike you I don’t have a family backing me up, Youn.”

Seungyoun laughed softly at that; not offended, almost pleased. “Ah,” he murmured. “So, we’re fencing tonight.”

Wonwoo removed his glasses briefly, pinching the bridge of his nose before replacing them. It was not fatigue. It was recalibration.

“Who the fuck even puts up a party on a Wednesday?”

They had met long before titles. Before committees. Before the careful architecture of reputation. Seungyoun knew the version of him that had read books under dim desk lamps and believed the world could be dismantled through argument alone. That knowledge made him dangerous.

“You’ll miss me,” Seungyoun said at last, voice measured. “But I’ll go alone if I’ve to. Not allowing you to derail my week, killjoy.”

Wonwoo lived up to the killjoy label; because barely thirty minutes in, his smothering concern had him dialing Seungyoun, checking if he was fine, sober enough, or needed picking up.

Seungyoun picked on the fifth try.

“You fucking prick,” Seungyoun slurred, but there was clarity beneath it, something sharp and reactive. “You couldn’t have chosen a better time to fucking call?”

Wonwoo didn’t flinch at the profanity; he rarely did. What tightened instead was his silence.

“Youn-ah,” he said evenly, though there was a carefulness creeping into the way he pronounced the name, “what tone is that.”

“What tone?” Seungyoun laughed, and the sound was breathless in a way that did not belong solely to alcohol. “The tone of someone whose phone has been vibrating against his thigh for the past three minutes while he was trying to have a good time?”

“Good time?” Wonwoo asked before he could stop himself.

There was music in the background, bass low and distorted, but also the sound of a door shutting and fabric shifting, and someone breathing a little too close to the receiver.

“You called so many fucking times,” Seungyoun shot back. “Were you timing my blood alcohol level from your kitchen counter?”

Wonwoo exhaled, slow and measured. “It’s a fucking Wednesday. I am allowed to ensure you don’t do something reckless.”

Seungyoun laughed, high-pitched, irritated, “I was in the middle of making out with someone.”

Stillness evaded a fall, spreading wider instead.

“With someone,” Wonwoo repeated, not because he hadn’t heard, but because repetition bought him composure.

“Yes, Wonwoo. That tends to be how making out works.”

“I’m aware of the mechanics, douchebag.”

“Are you?” Seungyoun’s laugh was softer now, almost needling. “Because you sound surprised.”

“I am not surprised,” Wonwoo replied, though the speed of the denial betrayed something adjacent to it. “You go to parties. You flirt. This is not novel information.”

“No,” Seungyoun agreed, voice dipping into something more teasing. “But I don’t usually get interrupted mid-grind by my best friend calling like I’ve been kidnapped.”

The word grind lodged somewhere unpleasant. Wonwoo adjusted his glasses though they did not need adjusting. “You’re too drunk.”

“I am,” Seungyoun said easily. “And he wasn’t.”

Wonwoo went still.

“He?”

“Tall,” Seungyoun continued, ignoring the shift in tone entirely. “Annoyingly handsome. The kind that makes you want to ruin it just to see if it breaks.”

There was something testing in the way he said it then.

“Send me the address. I’m picking you up,” Wonwoo murmured.

There was a pause long enough to feel like consideration rather than defiance.

“You don’t trust me to get home, Wonwoo-yah?”

“I trust you enough to know when it’ll escalate.”

Seungyoun went quiet at that, not wounded, but thoughtful. “I was fine,” he said after a moment. “I was having fun. And then you called. So many times. Which, by the way, is extremely unattractive behavior, baby.”

The bass swelled in the background again. Someone knocked on the door behind him. “Youn, you good?” a female voice called faintly.

Seungyoun’s tone shifted. “Yeah. Give me a second.” He only continued then. “Fine. I’ll send it.”

A text came through almost immediately.

“But don’t come in here acting like you’re rescuing me,” he added. “I wasn’t in danger. I was busy.”

“I’ll be there in fifteen,” Wonwoo said.

“Wonwoo.”

“What.”

“I told you. I was making out with him.”

“I heard you.”

“And?”

“And what.”

“Nothing?” Seungyoun pressed. “No lecture about emotional recklessness? No warning about attaching desire to strangers? No jealousy?”

“You’re projecting my syllabus onto your sex life.”

“Am I wrong, though?”

“You’re intoxicated.”

“And you’re deflecting.”

Wonwoo closed his eyes briefly. “Stay where you are,” he said finally.

Seungyoun huffed, but he didn’t argue further. “Fine. But if you walk in here looking like a disappointed guidance counselor, I will introduce you to him as my ex.”

⁂

“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”

“Can you stop fucking staring at him like you’ll eat him, hyung???” Seungkwan whispered against Mingyu’s shoulder, his disgust pretty evident, though he was careful to keep his volume just below scandal. “Jihoon, you need to tell him it’s wrong,” he continued, clearly taken aback by the spectacle that Mingyu’s staring was.

“Don’t fucking talk while I’m listening,” Jihoon grumbled without looking away from the stage, though his pen had stopped moving long enough to expose him as a liar.

“The girl is staring at him too, is she not?” Mingyu said, not lowering his gaze in the slightest.

They had chosen their seats strategically, third row from the back, left section, close enough to observe the speakers without craning their necks, far enough to avoid being mistaken for enthusiasm. The auditorium altered the ecology of everything. On one hand, the seminar room forced intimacy, this space encouraged spectacle. Conversations were now performances. Arguments required projection. Even silence felt amplified.

At the front were two podiums arranged with symmetry.

Jisoo occupied the left with the composure of someone who had long ago mastered the difference between persuasion and authority. His tie was impeccably aligned, his voice neither booming nor soft, but calibrated. He lectured like a man who believed ethics was not an emotional impulse but a system that could be diagrammed if one was patient enough.

Wonwoo stood at the right podium, sleeves rolled, glasses catching the auditorium lights in a way that occasionally obscured his eyes. He did not interrupt Jisoo’s cadence. He let pauses lengthen until they felt intentional.

“Today,” Jisoo was saying, hands resting lightly against the wood, “we are examining whether moral systems fracture under political necessity. If a state deems violence essential for stability, does ethical resistance become naïve, or does compliance become complicity?”

Seungkwan leaned in again despite previous warnings. “She has not blinked in five minutes,” he whispered. “Do you think it’s true what they say?”

Mingyu’s jaw tightened. “You exaggerate everything.”

“I do not. Look at her.”

He did not need clarification. Seulgi sat in the front center block, legs crossed, chin balanced against her knuckles. She was not giggling. She was not whispering. She was watching. The intensity of it was what bothered him. When Wonwoo adjusted his glasses before speaking, her gaze sharpened in response, as though the gesture had meaning.

“Maybe she respects him academically,” Hansol offered, dry.

“What respect entails staring at your professor’s mouth?” Seungkwan asked.

Wonwoo began to speak then, voice cutting across the room.

“If we accept that violence is embedded structurally within political systems,” he said evenly, “then inevitability becomes a dangerous word. Camus argues that once necessity is invoked to justify violence, limits begin to erode. And without limits, violence ceases to be corrective and becomes absolute.”

Mingyu did not blink.

He watched the small, shaky movements of Wonwoo’s hands. He moves his hands in all direction when he talks, was all Mingyu could think about. He watched the way he did not grip the podium, but slightly paced in the minimal area that he was acquiring. Is it nervousness or the lecture’s adrenaline? Mingyu pondered lightly. He watched the slight narrowing of his eyes when he said absolute, as though the word itself carried weight.

“Hyung,” Seungkwan murmured, “stop trying to seduce him with your eyes.”

“Be quiet.”

Jisoo stepped forward slightly, his tone warm but edged. “I’ve a different take on this,” he countered, “Refusal to engage in violence when confronted with systemic brutality is itself an ethical failure. If oppression is maintained through force, does the oppressed not have the right, perhaps even the obligation, to respond in kind?”

A hand lifted from the far-right side of the auditorium before either professor could continue.

“Yes,” Jisoo acknowledged.

Taehyung stood, unnecessarily formal about it. “Isn’t this entire framework assuming that violence is a binary tool? Either you use it or you don’t. What about structural sabotage? Economic resistance? Withdrawal? Does it have to be blood to count?”

Wonwoo responded this time. “The question is not whether alternatives exist,” he said. “It is whether they are sufficient under conditions where violence is already normalized.”

“So, it’s a matter of efficacy,” Yeji interjected from two rows ahead, not raising her hand, “not morality.”

Jisoo smiled faintly. “It is always both.”

Seokmin twisted in his seat from behind Mingyu’s row. “But doesn’t this depend on who defines success? Every revolutionary thinks they’re liberators. History later decides whether it was simply another regime.”

“That,” Mingyu murmured under his breath, “is the only intelligent thing you have said this week.”

Seokmin kicked the back of his chair in retaliation.

Onstage, Jisoo’s gaze moved slowly across the auditorium, searching for a face that looked less entertained and more provoked.

It settled on Mingyu. Inevitably.

“You,” Jisoo said, tone measured. “You seem invested.”

Seungkwan inhaled like a man witnessing an execution. Mingyu realized, with delayed horror, that he had been watching a mouth instead of listening to an argument.

“I’m sorry?” he replied, the confidence arriving half a second too late.

Jisoo did not rescue him. “We are discussing whether moral restraint in the face of structural violence is ethical integrity or moral cowardice. You appear to have chosen a side, don’t you?”

A ripple of interest passed through the room. Seulgi tilted her head slightly, whispering something to the girl beside her. They both smiled. Heat climbed up Mingyu’s neck.

Jihoon shifted his notebook an inch to the left without looking at him. Seungkwan tapped his pen once against a heavily underlined passage. Mingyu glanced down, peripheral vision only.

Sartre: violence as assertion of agency.

Camus: limits preserve humanity.

Moral debate of legitimacy vs excess.

He took a deep breath. “I think,” he began slowly, forcing his gaze forward, “that framing restraint as inherently virtuous ignores the asymmetry of power embedded within political violence. To demand moral purity from the oppressed while the oppressor exercises force without hesitation is not ethics. It is aesthetic preference.”

The room quieted properly this time. Jisoo nodded slightly. “Continue.”

“If violence already structures the world,” Mingyu said, steadier now, “then refusing to engage it does not dismantle it. It preserves hierarchy. Sartre is not romanticizing violence. He is acknowledging that under certain conditions, it becomes the only language power recognizes.”

Wonwoo’s gaze sharpened, neither hostile, nor approving, just simply attentive.

“And what,” Jisoo asked, “prevents the oppressed from becoming indistinguishable from the oppressor once that language is adopted?”

Mingyu’s eyes flicked to Wonwoo once before returning. “Excess,” he replied, as he locked his eyes with Wonwoo. “Violence divorced from purpose becomes domination. But initial force directed toward dismantling a violent structure does not automatically corrupt. It depends on whether it remains tethered to its objective.”

Minghao raised a question from the starting lines near the podium, “You think world leaders would want to tether it once it starts?”

“That is the risk,” Mingyu answered, something harder entering his tone. “But refusing to act because you fear potential corruption is also a luxury. I do not agree with Camus because he fears the loss of humanity without ever realizing the losses humanity might face if set on peace alone.”

A low hum moved through the auditorium. Seungkwan leaned back slowly. “Oh, he’s awake now.”

For a moment, neither professor spoke. Then Wonwoo did.

“And you are confident,” he said quietly, voice carrying without effort, “that you would recognize the moment your necessity became excess?”

Mingyu held his gaze, pulse heavier than it had any right to be in an ethics lecture. “I think,” he said, slower now, “that refusing to act because you fear what you might become is also a form of self-preservation disguised as virtue.”

There was something unreadable that passed across Wonwoo’s face. Something closer to calculation.

Jisoo exhaled softly, reclaiming the room. “Very well,” he said. “At least we are no longer bored.”

Laughter erupted in the space, and Mingyu smiled. It had barely settled when Seulgi’s hand rose.

Jisoo noticed immediately. “Yes?”

She stood with the composed deliberateness of someone accustomed to being observed. Her notebook was closed; she had not needed to consult it. When she spoke, her voice did not tremble.

“With respect,” she began, and the phrase sounded weird to one’s ears at best, “the argument you’re presenting assumes that Camus advocates passivity. He doesn’t. He argues for revolt. Revolt with limits. The rebel says no, but also yes. Yes to a shared humanity. Yes to a boundary that violence cannot cross without erasing the very justice it claims to restore.”

A murmur of approval rippled faintly from the front rows. She continued, glancing at Wonwoo, as if looking for his approval. “To frame restraint as aesthetic preference is reductive. Camus isn’t afraid of action. He’s afraid of absolutism. Once violence becomes justified by outcome alone, what stops it from devouring the cause that birthed it?”

Seungkwan leaned toward Mingyu again. “Oh, she rehearsed that in the mirror,” he breathed.

She did not rush. “Revolution that abandons limits does not remain revolution. It becomes regime. And history is filled with examples of liberators who justified cruelty as necessary transition.”

She tilted her head slightly, gaze finally landing on Mingyu. “So, the question isn’t whether violence is sometimes unavoidable. It’s whether you can claim moral clarity once you choose it.”

Silence expanded. Mingyu did not realize he had stood until his chair scraped backward with an audible protest.

“Camus speaks of limits as though they are universally accessible. As though the oppressed have the same luxury of calibration as the state that polices them. But limits are a privilege of those who retain agency.”

Seulgi’s expression did not falter. “That’s not—”

“If violence is already monopolized by power,” Mingyu cut back in, stepping slightly into the light without realizing it, “then demanding that the powerless respond with moral restraint is a reinforcement of hierarchy. You are asking those being harmed to remain ethically intact while the system that harms them operates without hesitation.”

Hansol muttered, “Didn’t he want Professor Jeon’s eyes on him?” under his breath.

Mingyu did not break eye contact with Seulgi.

“You say revolt must say yes to shared humanity,” he went on, quieter now, and therefore more dangerous. “But what shared humanity exists in a system that denies yours? Camus fears that violence will erase the rebel’s moral position. I argue that moral position is already erased the moment you are rendered disposable.”

Wonwoo had not moved. He was staring at Mingyu intently now, raking his eyes all over his figure.

“And as for absolutism,” Mingyu said, voice tightening not with anger but conviction, “absolutism is not born from initial force. It is born from comfort. From the moment the revolutionary begins to enjoy power rather than dismantle it. That is not an inevitability of violence. That is a failure of vigilance.”

He took a pause then. Long enough to breathe.

“You cannot demand purity from those fighting for survival,” he finished. “I will repeat myself again. Ethics that require martyrdom while condemning resistance are not ethics. They are aesthetics disguised as morality.”

Seulgi’s jaw had set slightly. She did not look defeated, but she had not anticipated the severity of it. Wonwoo’s gaze had sharpened into something that was no longer purely academic. Jisoo exhaled slowly, as though releasing a thread that had been pulled too taut.

“Well,” he said lightly, though the air had not lightened, “this is precisely why we moved this discussion into the auditorium.”

A ripple of restrained laughter broke the surface tension. He checked his watch with theatrical regret. “Unfortunately, unless we intend to begin a minor revolution in here, we will have to conclude. Professor Jeon and I have dissertation consultations scheduled for those of you who believe footnotes can be weaponized.”

A few groans. A few scattered chuckles.

“But,” Jisoo added, eyes flicking between Mingyu and Seulgi with quiet amusement, “I encourage the rest of you to continue this debate somewhere that does not require microphones. And no to violence also means no to physical fights after a lecture, dear students.”

Chairs began to shift. Bags zipped. Conversations reignited in low, charged murmurs. Seokmin grabbed Mingyu’s sleeve the second he sat back down. “You absolute menace,” he whispered. “You eviscerated her.”

Jihoon finally looked at him. “You did not answer his question, though.”

Mingyu blinked. “What?”

“Professor Jeon’s,” Jihoon clarified. “About recognizing excess.”

For a fraction of a second, Mingyu’s gaze drifted back to the stage. Wonwoo was gathering his papers with meticulous slowness. As though he was in no hurry at all. And as though he had not stopped watching him.

⁂

“Hell is—other people!”

Wonwoo was twenty when he first rescued Seungyoun from an assault allegation at a straight club.

It had not even been malicious. That was the absurdity of it. Seungyoun, already three drinks past coherence, had leaned toward a woman during some aggressively cheerful pop anthem and asked, too loudly, too closely, if she wanted to dance. He had meant it platonically. He always meant things platonically, or so he claimed afterward.

The woman had slapped him. Her boyfriend had not asked questions either.

Wonwoo still remembered the texture of pavement against his palms as he steadied himself, the way the neon sign above the club flickered uselessly while fists flew. He remembered Seungyoun laughing at the wrong moment. He remembered stepping between them because that was what he did: intervened before thinking.

The first punch to his face had come from the boyfriend. The first slap had come from the woman, misdirected and furious.

It was, in retrospect, the first time he had physically encountered the very phenomenon he later deconstructed in classrooms with composed detachment.

Violence. Unstructured. Non-theoretical.

Seungyoun had only apologized the next morning while nursing a hangover and calling it “character development.”

That had not been the only mishap Seungyoun brought into Wonwoo’s life.

Take now.

Two in the afternoon. Soonyoung’s apartment. The four of them had intended to order sushi and hotpot and subject themselves to a horror film neither Junhui nor Seungyoun would survive without shrieking. It had been scheduled with earnest precision in the group chat.

The itinerary had collapsed within forty minutes.

Junhui and Seungyoun were on the couch, knees nearly touching, Junhui painting Seungyoun’s nails a glossy maroon.

Soonyoung, meanwhile, was pacing. “I don’t think I can ever make art this way,” he declared, gesturing wildly with a paint-stained hand, “Not under these…these urban fuckin conditions.”

Wonwoo blinked from where he sat cross-legged on the floor. “The rats are not eating your food now, are they?”

“That’s not the point,” Soonyoung seethed. “They are bold. Bold, Wonwoo. One of them looked at me yesterday like I owed it rent.”

Junhui didn’t look up. “You did leave the trash out, baby.”

Seungyoun laughed, the sound bright and intrusive. “Maybe the rat just appreciates fine art.”

Soonyoung pointed accusingly at Wonwoo. “See? He understands me.”

“He’s mocking you,” Wonwoo replied calmly.

“I am not,” Seungyoun said, widening his eyes innocently.

Wonwoo made the mistake of looking at him fully.

The shorts. They were shorter than the last time. Objectively shorter.

Wonwoo was certain of it. He remembered fabric. There had once been more of it. Now it was barely justifiable as casual wear, draped indecently over thick thighs as Seungyoun shifted on the couch to give Junhui better access to his left hand.

“Stop moving,” Junhui murmured. “You’ll smudge.”

“Maybe because your boyfriend keeps screaming about rodents?!” Seungyoun retaliated.

“I am advocating for public health!” Soonyoung protested.

Wonwoo dragged his gaze away. It would be easier, he thought, if Seungyoun were consistent.

But he wasn’t.

Because between flashing his thighs like a calculated accident, and leaning his head back against the couch in a way that exposed his throat unnecessarily, like he wanted it bitten by Wonwoo, he was also mid-rant about the anonymous tall man from the party two nights ago.

“I’m telling you,” Seungyoun insisted, wiggling his fingers impatiently as the polish dried, “he was at least six-two. Maybe six-three. And he had that quiet thing going on? Not broody. Just so fucking delicious, Jun-ah.”

Wonwoo stared at the wall. Junhui blew gently over the wet polish. “And you made out with him under no light?”

“It was lit up lightly,” Seungyoun corrected. “So fucking cinematic. A Wes Anderson moment, I kid you not.”

Soonyoung groaned. “Why are you like this?”

“It was mutual,” Seungyoun defended. “He grabbed my waist first.”

Wonwoo’s jaw tightened before he could prevent it.

“Did you get his name? A social contact, perhaps?” Junhui asked.

“No.”

“Then what was the point?”

Seungyoun grinned lazily. “Experience.”

Wonwoo adjusted his glasses. Experience. Of course.

The shorts rode higher when Seungyoun crossed his legs. Wonwoo could feel the carelessness of it like static against his skin. It was incoherent. If he was attempting seduction, it was counterproductive. If he was not, then why—

“So,” Soonyoung said suddenly, dropping onto the ground beside Wonwoo with dramatic exhaustion, “back to the rats.”

“I would prefer not to,” Wonwoo replied.

“They are evolving.”

Wonwoo ran a tired hand over his face.

From the couch, Seungyoun stretched, arms lifting overhead. The shirt rode up this time.

Wonwoo looked away so abruptly it bordered on suspicious.

“Wonwoo-yah,” Seungyoun called, playful. “You’re very quiet.”

“I am listening.”

“To rats or to my romantic endeavors?”

“To neither.”

“Liar.”

Junhui capped the polish bottle. “Done. Don’t touch anything for ten minutes.”

Seungyoun examined his nails with exaggerated admiration. “Junjun, if animation fails, you have a future in beauty.”

“It won’t fail,” Junhui said flatly. “Unlike your impulse control on sex with strangers.”

Soonyoung leaned sideways then, close enough that Wonwoo could smell turpentine and citrus detergent on him. Quietly, into Wonwoo’s ear, he murmured, “You want me to get this issue sorted for you?”

Wonwoo recoiled slightly. “Eh—what? What issue?”

Soonyoung blinked at him innocently. “Hmm?”

“What are you implying?”

“Nothing.”

“You just—you said—”

“I did not,” Soonyoung said smoothly, standing back up. “You must be imagining things.”

Junhui glanced between them. “What are you two conspiring about?”

“Public health in the face of rodent infestation,” Soonyoung replied immediately.

Junhui had abandoned pretense entirely now, half-curled into Soonyoung’s side on the couch, fingers slipping absentmindedly beneath the hem of Soonyoung’s shirt as though proximity were oxygen and he required more of it. Soonyoung, who had been lamenting the civic boldness of rats only minutes ago, had softened into something domestic and unguarded, chin resting on Junhui’s shoulder, voice lowered to a murmur that no longer required audience.

Wonwoo stood to his feet, phone still in his hand, acutely aware of the unfolding scenario that did not require him.

“I am going to lie down,” he announced, not because anyone had asked.

Junhui waved vaguely in acknowledgment. “Don’t crease the storyboard stack.”

“I will try not to commit violence against paper,” Wonwoo replied, already moving.

He did not close the bedroom door entirely behind him at first. It remained slightly ajar, enough to hear Soonyoung’s low laugh and Junhui’s softer correction. He sat on the edge of the bed and exhaled, long, controlled.

The door clicked shut. Not drifted. Clicked.

Wonwoo did not turn immediately. He already knew.

“Junhui will think you are stealing his pillows,” he said, still facing forward.

“I am not interested in his pillows,” Seungyoun replied.

Wonwoo turned then. Seungyoun was leaning back against the door, fingers resting loosely on the handle, as though ensuring it remained closed.

From the living room, Junhui’s voice carried down the hallway. “If you two are going to have sex, at least take the sheets off first!”

Soonyoung added something unintelligible, followed by laughter. Seungyoun laughed too, bright and unembarrassed.

Wonwoo stared at him. “What is he saying?”

“You heard him.”

“I did not consent to being included in whatever narrative he is constructing.”

“You rarely ever consent to other people’s narratives, Wonwoo-yah,” Seungyoun replied lightly.

He pushed himself off the door and walked toward him, not hurriedly, not hesitantly either. He stopped close enough that the air between them felt curated.

“Wonwoo,” he said, and his voice was not loud, but it was stripped off of performance. “I think we need to talk.”

“About what?” Wonwoo asked, careful in the way one is careful around unstable architecture. From where he sat on the edge of the bed, his knees touched Seungyoun’s standing ones, and he looked up to maintain the eye contact he so knew Seungyoun needed.

Seungyoun did not answer with language. He stooped down and kissed him. Hands on Wonwoo’s neck, scrawny fingers dipped into the hollow of Wonwoo’s neck, while his tongue swiped onto Wonwoo’s lips to make its way inside. Wonwoo departed a shaky exhale, and Seungyoun’s fingers tightened on his nape, as he slid a little lower, body going lax, his upper lip, sucking on Wonwoo’s, as if it wanted to attach itself to the latter.

It was rather hurried. Urgent, and immediate and amicable in a way that made familiarity feel dangerous. His hands also slid to the front of Wonwoo’s shirt, gripping, and demanding.

Wonwoo’s body reacted before his mind did, leaning in half a fraction, and then he caught himself and pulled back, breath uneven in a way he resented.

“What are you doing?” he asked, not coldly, but not gently either.

Seungyoun’s shoulders dropped slightly. His hand did not fall away; it lingered.

“How long,” he said, and there was something almost tired in it, “are you going to torture me with this?”

“Torture you,” Wonwoo repeated, incredulous. “You really would just kiss anybody because you need it, Youn-ah?”

“Ouch. That hurts.”

Wonwoo stepped back, creating space that felt immediately rescuing.

“You do not get to accuse me of torture,” he added evenly, his eyes locked on Seungyoun’s swollen lower lip, “when you are the one who keeps testing the perimeter.”

“What perimeter?” Seungyoun asked, following him into the bed. “The imaginary one you built so you could pretend you are not in love with me?”

The words did not explode; they settled heavily between them. Wonwoo’s expression only hardened.

“You are so fucking reckless, it angers me,” he whisper-shouted. “You flirt as if it is a reflex. You fuck strangers and then narrate it as though you are performing field research. And then you stand in front of me and ask why I am quiet.”

Seungyoun laughed once, sharp. “Oh, fuck you and your moral piety, Jeon. I have known since we were eighteen.”

“Moral pie-? Known what?”

“That you look at me like that. That you always have.”

“So, fucking what? Tell me. What exactly did you do with the knowledge, Youn?” Wonwoo shot back, the composure beginning to fracture at the edges, “what do you do with that knowledge? You parade it. You weaponize it. You go and kiss someone else to see if I flinch.”

Seungyoun’s eyes flashed. “I asked you to come to the party with me, Won.”

“You’d fuck every guy in the space if I’m not there? Is that what you do with the knowledge of it, you sick bastard?”

“That is not the same as admitting you were jealous.”

“Why did you kiss him?” Wonwoo asked, taking a deep breath to calm himself down.

Seungyoun’s expression shifted instantly, triumphant and wounded at once. “Why do you care,” he said slowly. “Didn’t you say it’s me who’s the problem?”

“Answer the question, Cho Seungyoun.”

“Why?” Seungyoun shot back. “Is this jealousy normal for you? Do you feel like this when Soonyoung touches Junhui? When they disappear into each other and you sit there pretending you prefer solitude?”

“That is different,” Wonwoo replied through clenched restraint.

“Why is it different?”

“Because they choose each other.”

The sentence landed quietly.

“You,” Wonwoo seethed, voice lowering instead of rising, which was always more dangerous, “you refuse to choose anything. You hover. You provoke. You step close enough to feel indispensable and then pull back just enough to remain unclaimed. And you expect me to stand there unaffected.”

Seungyoun’s jaw tightened, and the next ones that came out of his mouth were nothing more of a yell. “Have you ever thought, you pathetic shitstain, that all of this is me waiting for you?!”

Wonwoo did not allow it. He stepped up a little, catching him by the waist decisively, the motion so sudden that Seungyoun stumbled onward onto the mattress. The bed dipped beneath him, maroon-polished fingers gripping instinctively at Wonwoo’s sleeves.

Wonwoo flipped them in a position that he was the one hovering over Seungyoun’s face now, and he murmured, eyes shot with fury, “Stop,” not loudly, but with an anger that cut through the spiraling argument. “Stop turning this into a game.”

Seungyoun’s breath had gone shallow. Wonwoo leaned over him, close enough that speech became shared air. Their noses touched lightly, as the next words came out of Wonwoo’s mouth.

“I have loved you,” he muttered, and the words were not shouted; they were carved, as though he had resisted them for so long that releasing them required physical effort. “Since the moment I understood that wanting you would cost me something. Since I realized that the only way to survive you was to step back.”

Seungyoun’s bravado faltered, eyes glossing not with tears but with something dangerously close to relief.

“Youn-ah,” Wonwoo murmured, forehead nearly brushing his, breath warm against parted lips, “it’s not a fucking game.”

The room was quiet except for their breathing and the faint, distant murmur of Junhui and Soonyoung arguing about soy sauce ratios. Seungyoun’s hands slid from Wonwoo’s sleeves to his shoulders, gripping, not playfully now. His fingers were fiddling with the small hair on Wonwoo’s nape, and he pulled himself a little from the bed now, kissing the small mole on his jaw, as he muttered, “Then why,” voice smaller than it had been all afternoon, stripped of its theatrical edge, “won’t you make me yours?”

⁂

“We are our choices.”

“He failed me too????”

Seungkwan’s voice cracked somewhere between outrage and disbelief, reverberating through the corridor in a way that made two first-years glance up from their laptops in alarm.

Mingyu did not look at him. He was staring at his phone as though the grade might rearrange itself out of embarrassment.

“We need to go talk to the dean,” he muttered, already moving.

“You cannot just storm into administrative offices like a revolutionary,” Jihoon said from behind them, though he did not sound particularly opposed to the idea. “There is a protocol.”

“And what does protocol do when half the class fails?” Seokmin demanded. “Send a condolence email?”

Hansol checked his own screen again as if repetition might soften the result. “It says insufficient engagement with the ethical framework,” he read flatly. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” Seungkwan snapped, falling into step beside Mingyu, “that he has personal issues.”

Chan hurried after them. “Hyung, maybe we should email first.”

“No,” Mingyu said, jaw set in a way that suggested movement was the only thing keeping him from combusting. “We are not emailing.”

The administration block always felt colder than the rest of the department, the air-conditioned sterility of bureaucratic calm. The corridor outside the dean’s office was already crowded.

“That’s Jisoo’s class,” Seokmin whispered, noticing familiar faces clustered near the door.

A girl from the political theory cohort turned around sharply. “He marked half of us down for conceptual laziness. My QPA will decrease so much.”

Another voice chimed in from near the window. “He wrote on my paper that he didn’t even read it?!”

“That is not feedback,” Seungkwan murmured, appalled. “That is an insult.”

Mingyu did not slow down. He knocked once and pushed the door open before anyone could negotiate decorum.

Jeonghan looked up from behind his desk, pen paused mid-annotation. His expression did not change immediately, but his eyes flicked briefly to the number of students filtering in behind Mingyu.

“This is not a town hall,” he said mildly.

“With respect,” Mingyu replied, though the respect was strained thin, “it is beginning to feel like one.”

Jeonghan leaned back in his chair, folding his hands. “Grades were released this morning. Emotions are heightened. I suggest everyone breathe before speaking.”

Seungkwan made a noise of disbelief. “Professor Jeon failed us.”

“I gathered that,” Jeonghan said.

“Not one or two,” Hansol added quietly. “Most of us.”

Jeonghan’s gaze moved across the room, cataloguing faces. “And you believe this is an error?”

“I believe,” Mingyu said carefully, “that there is a discrepancy between evaluation and instruction.”

“That is a diplomatic way of saying what, exactly?”

“That the marking criteria shifted.”

“It did not,” Jeonghan replied calmly. “Both professors submitted rubrics at the start of the term.”

“Rubrics that reward agreement?” Seungkwan interjected.

“Rubrics that reward rigor,” Jeonghan corrected.

A murmur of dissent swelled. Seokmin raised his voice slightly. “Then why did Jihoon pass?”

All eyes turned reflexively toward Jihoon, who looked faintly irritated at being dragged into spectacle. “I answered the question? Why am I being dragged for passing the course?” he said simply.

“Not even his favorite student passed, hyung. Of course, it’s weird,” Seungkwan shot back.

Jeonghan lifted a hand. “Enough. If this concerns Professors Hong and Jeon’s assessment standards, they can clarify their reasoning themselves.”

The room quieted. Jeonghan reached for his phone.

The wait stretched uncomfortably long.

Mingyu stood near the desk, posture rigid, as though bracing for something more personal than academic disagreement.

The door opened first for Jisoo. His eyes flicked briefly to Jeonghan before settling neutrally on the students.

“This is unusually crowded,” he observed.

Wonwoo came in a moment later. He did not look surprised. His gaze landed on Mingyu almost immediately, and something unreadable passed across his expression, something closer to recognition.

Jeonghan gestured lightly. “Your students feel misrepresented.”

Jisoo inclined his head. “In what sense?”

“In the sense,” Seungkwan began, unable to contain himself, “that we were evaluated on criteria that were never emphasized.”

“You did not take my class, first off. But I would like to interject and say that you were evaluated,” Jisoo took a breath to observe the number of heads staring at him, “on your ability to construct an argument within the assigned framework.”

Mingyu spoke before Seungkwan could escalate further. “Which framework,” he said, tone measured but edged, “because the prompt invited comparative critique. Yet dissenting positions were penalized.”

Wonwoo’s gaze sharpened, and the words that came out of his mouth were low in volume. “No position was penalized,” he said quietly. “Inability to answer for the impending question was.”

A ripple of reaction moved through the room.

“Inability,” Mingyu repeated, eyes trained like a hyena on Wonwoo, “Is that what you call an ideological difference in thought?”

“If an argument invokes violence as necessity,” Wonwoo continued, “without sufficiently delineating its limits, its risks, and its ethical cost, then yes. It lacks coherence.”

“So, this is about ideology,” Seungkwan muttered.

“It is about the way you answer to the presented question,” Jisoo corrected.

Mingyu took a step forward.

“My essay articulated the structural asymmetry of power,” he said, eyes fixed on Wonwoo now, the room fading to peripheral noise. “I addressed the inevitability of force under systemic brutality. I cited Sartre, Fanon, Arendt.”

“You cited them,” Wonwoo agreed. “You did not interrogate them.”

A low murmur.

“I did,” Mingyu insisted.

“You asserted,” Wonwoo replied, voice still calm, which made it worse. “You did not examine the ethical rupture that follows once violence is normalized beyond its initial objective.”

“And Camus does not romanticize restraint?” Mingyu shot back. “He situates morality in abstraction while real bodies bear consequence.”

“This is not a continuation of the auditorium,” Jisoo interjected lightly.

“It became one when grades became verdicts,” Seungkwan snapped.

Jeonghan’s fingers tapped once against the desk. “We are not litigating philosophical history here. This is my office.”

“Then what are we doing,” Mingyu asked, not looking away from Wonwoo, “if not acknowledging bias.”

The word hung heavier than intended. Wonwoo’s posture shifted almost imperceptibly.

“You believe,” he said slowly, “that I failed you because you disagreed with me?”

“I believe,” Mingyu replied, matching his cadence, “that you hold coherence hostage to your own moral limits.”

The air felt thin. Seokmin shifted uncomfortably. Chan looked between them as though watching a tennis match escalate into something combustible.

Jeonghan cleared his throat softly. “Wonwoo.”

Jisoo stepped in with practiced neutrality. “If you wish to request a formal review, you may submit one in writing. Emotional appeals will not alter grading standards.”

“This is not emotional. He only passed Jihoon because he agrees with him,” Mingyu said rather hastily.

Jihoon, from near the door, did not look pleased to be used as metric. Wonwoo held his gaze. “Lodge a complaint if you may.”

For a heartbeat, Mingyu teetered on the edge of something reckless. Instead, he drew a slow, ragged breath.

Jeonghan’s voice sliced through, gentle yet unyielding. “My assistant will send you the scrutiny sheets for your final results. Your papers will be reviewed and cross-checked by the department. Lay this to rest. You’re all dismissed.”

⁂

"The revolution you dream of is not ours"

Wonwoo had not walked more than five paces from Jeonghan’s office, Jisoo’s voice still echoing in that maddeningly reasonable tone, when he collided into something solid enough to jar him back into the body he had temporarily vacated.

His glasses struck bone first. His nose followed.

“Wonwoo, I told you to watch your step, what—” Jisoo’s exasperation arrived before clarity did, sharp and public.

Wonwoo adjusted his frames with controlled fingers.

When the blur settled, Mingyu stood before him—close. Too close. He had stepped back now, but not far enough. There was something in his face that did not belong to a failed student. It was not outrage. It was not wounded pride. It was attention. Focused, unsettling attention.

“I’m sorry,” Mingyu said quietly. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

His gaze dropped, just for a second, to Wonwoo’s mouth where his lip had reddened from the impact.

“What do you want from me?” Wonwoo asked, voice flat.

He glanced around. The corridor had emptied. Only Jisoo lingered by the wall, arms crossed, watching with a knowing kind of boredom.

“Can I have a word with you in private, professor?” Mingyu asked.

The honorific sounded less respectful and more intentional.

Jisoo’s eyes flicked between them. He hummed. “I’ll leave you two to it,” he said, pushing off the wall. “Try not to make Wonwoo file a chase report in your name.”

When he disappeared around the corner, the intensity between them changed. Wonwoo’s expression got colder several degrees.

“What do you want, Mingyu?”

A small curve ghosted Mingyu’s mouth. “You remember my name after failing me, professor?”

Wonwoo exhaled sharply through his nose. He turned and began walking. Mingyu followed.

Their footsteps echoed against the sterile corridor of the admin block, fluorescent lights buzzing faintly overhead. Faculty portraits lined the walls like uninterested witnesses.

“Have I done something,” Mingyu said after a few seconds, voice steady but edged, “to acquire your distaste?”

Wonwoo did not look at him.

He only continued, taking Wonwoo’s silence as the cue to speak, “You seem to have ignored me the entire semester. You never once called on me. You never once responded to my arguments. You graded my drafts harsher than anyone else’s.”

“Do you overthink for a profession?” Wonwoo replied.

“Do you?”

That made Wonwoo glance at him. Mingyu held the look.

“Drink? Do—Do you drink?” Mingyu asked suddenly.

Wonwoo slowed. “Excuse me?”

“Coffee, professor. Or tea for the matter,” Mingyu said, softer now but no less direct. “Let me get you what you like. We’ll sit. We’ll talk. Like a teacher and a student. I’m not here to disrespect you.”

Wonwoo let out a disbelieving breath. “Are you bribing me with tea?”

Mingyu stopped walking.

“No.”

It came out sharper than intended.

“I have never failed a course in my life,” he continued, and this time there was heat beneath the words, only plain anxiety. “Not one. I studied for that exam. I rewrote that paper three times. I sat in the front row every lecture. I engaged. I argued. I read the material. I did not coast.”

Wonwoo’s steps slowed.

“I know I didn’t write what you wanted to hear,” Mingyu said. “But is disagreement incompetence in your eyes?”

Wonwoo stopped in his tracks. Mingyu almost walked into him again, but this time Wonwoo did not move away. They were close enough now that Mingyu could see the faint pulse at his throat.

“That’s because you hate Camus,” Wonwoo said quietly.

Mingyu blinked. “What?”

“You hate Camus,” Wonwoo repeated, turning fully to face him. “You called The Stranger emotionally bankrupt. You said Meursault’s detachment was moral cowardice disguised as philosophy.”

“And?” Mingyu shot back. “I stand by that.”

The space between them tightened.

“You dismissed the absurd as indulgent nihilism,” Wonwoo continued, voice lowering. “You treated existential neutrality like a character flaw. You didn’t analyze. You judged.”

“I critiqued,” Mingyu corrected. “That is what you teach us to do.”

Wonwoo’s jaw flexed.

“Is that why you failed me?” Mingyu asked, stepping closer. “Because I didn’t worship your favorite author?”

A flicker crossed Wonwoo’s face. “You wanted me to admit I’m biased, did you not? That I cannot tolerate dissent. That your grade was personal.” He asked.

Mingyu held his gaze. “I wanted honesty. Objective advice on where I went wrong, if I did.”

Wonwoo’s eyes darkened.

“Fine,” he said.

He stepped into Mingyu’s space now, reversing the pressure. Mingyu did not retreat.

“I hate you because you hate Camus,” Wonwoo said, each word precise. “There. Does that satisfy you, Mingyu-shi?”

Mingyu’s breath hitched; just barely.

“Keep that as your closure,” Wonwoo continued, voice dropping lower. “I saw your contempt in every line. You wrote as if philosophy were a sport and you were trying to win.”

“So, you wrote my failure as if it were punishment,” Mingyu replied, just as quiet. “You didn’t even leave margin comments on half my arguments.”

Students passed at the far end of the corridor, whispering. Neither of them moved.

“You do have a personal affliction with me,” Mingyu murmured again, and there it was, something dangerously close to a smile.

Wonwoo’s composure cracked just slightly. “Do not flatter yourself.”

“Then why ignore me all semester?” Mingyu pressed. “Why look everywhere but at me when I spoke?”

Wonwoo’s breath sharpened. “Because you speak like you expect to be heard.”

“And that bothers you?”

“Yes.”

The honesty landed between them, raw and unedited. Mingyu searched his face. “For someone who teaches absurdism,” he murmured, “you’re remarkably afraid of unpredictability.”

Wonwoo’s hand tightened around the file he was holding. “Go back,” he said, anger threading through restraint. “Revisit the scrutiny you so confidently applied for. Learn the difference between critique and arrogance.”

He leaned in just slightly. “And respect me—and my personal space—enough to not crash into me in public settings again.”

The words were sharp. But his voice had gone lower.

Mingyu did not step back. “Professor,” he said quietly, “if you hated my paper, fail my paper. But don’t pretend you hate me.”

⁂

“I am alone in the midst of these happy, reasonable voices. All these creatures spend their time explaining, realizing happily that they agree with each other. In Heaven’s name, why is it so important to think the same things all together. “

“I hate him,” Wonwoo murmured, three shots down and visibly unmoored, leaning further into the narrow slope of Jeonghan’s shoulder as though gravity had quietly reoriented itself in that direction.

The club was loud in a way that demanded surrender. Light fractured across the ceiling in restless colors, and the bass travelled upward from the floor into bone and blood, blurring the edges of thought.

Jeonghan tilted his head slightly to accommodate the weight. “Here comes our nonchalant gatekeeper,” he murmured with fond provocation, sliding another shot glass into Wonwoo’s hand before Jisoo could intercept the transaction.

Jisoo watched the exchange with narrowed eyes. “Alright, let me make sure I’ve got this straight,” he said carefully, as if interrogating a volatile witness. “You hate your student because your ex-boyfriend slept with him? Here I was thinking you hated him because…well, because you wanted to.”

“Kiss,” Wonwoo corrected immediately, his words slower now but stubbornly precise as he swallowed the alcohol. “They kissed.”

Jeonghan made a noise that was somewhere between amusement and pity.

“Calm down, soldier,” Jisoo muttered, smoothly taking the empty glass from Wonwoo and placing it safely out of reach. His eyes flicked to Jeonghan, a silent stop enabling him warning before this turned into a full-blown spectacle. “They kissed, and you’re treating it like a thesis to fail? Really, Wonwoo… isn’t the one actually at fault the person who shoved it in your face? Bohhoooo, I fucked your student, Wonwoo-yah! And here you are, punishing the dude as if morality itself bent to your whims.”

Wonwoo closed his eyes and exhaled, as though patience were an endangered resource.

“Explain it from the top, because right now, none of this adds up,” Jeonghan said , resting his temple against Wonwoo’s hair. His hand drifted absentmindedly through it in a grounding gesture. “Start from the beginning. Do not skip the inconvenient parts.”

Wonwoo inhaled slowly, steadying himself against the music and the memory.

And so he did.

“Imagine,” Wonwoo murmured, at the ending of the story now, voice fraying at the edges, “if that had not happened. If Mingyu had not kissed him. If Youn had not asked me to be his boyfriend two days later.”

Jeonghan tightened his hold slightly, as Wonwoo went on, “It was him. He came to me. He said he had been thinking. That maybe what he felt was not friendship. That maybe it had never been.”

Jisoo leaned back slowly, understanding blooming.

“And I said yes,” Wonwoo said, his voice breaking despite his effort to maintain composure. Jeonghan’s fingers paused briefly in his hair. “I said yes like it was inevitable. Like it was the logical conclusion of every late-night conversation we had ever shared.”

“Why did it last for such short time, then?” Jisoo asked quietly.

“He was a creature of adventure, hyung,” Wonwoo slurred lightly. “Three months was enough for him to dismantle my lifetime.”

His eyes shone openly now. “When it ended, it did not just end the relationship,” he continued. “It ended the version of us that existed before we complicated it. The safety. The ease. The ability to stand next to each other without calculating loss.”

Jeonghan pressed his cheek briefly against Wonwoo’s head.

“So yes,” Wonwoo exhaled shakily. “It is all Mingyu’s fault.”

Jisoo shook his head. “That is not how causality works.”

“It does. I’ve gone through it,” Wonwoo insisted.

A tear escaped before he could stop it. “Fuck life, I guess,” he murmured, without deflection this time, without philosophy to hide behind.

Jeonghan lifted his head and looked at him properly. “You have all the time in the world to grieve, Wonwoo-yah,” he said softly. “But we’re at a gay club. We are not allowing existential mourning while pop divas are performing emotional labor overhead. You will either cry and then dance, or you will cry while dancing.”

Jisoo reached over and wiped at Wonwoo’s cheek with surprising gentleness. “Also, for the record, who ends a lifelong friendship like that? Dating your best friend and then disappearing is reckless behavior.”

“We will draft a character assassination later,” Jeonghan added solemnly.

Wonwoo laughed weakly.

“Come,” Jeonghan said, standing and pulling him upright. “Movement before rumination consumes you.”

They made it halfway from the bar before Wonwoo’s mind began spiraling again, not from alcohol alone but from memory folding over itself in cruel loops.

And then he heard it.

“Won?”

The voice cut cleanly through bass and crowd noise, unmistakable in its texture. Wonwoo froze before he turned. He stood a few feet away, eyes wide, something unguarded flickering there. Beside him were faces he barely recognized, but had seen before. And Mingyu. Of course, Mingyu.

Seungyoun stepped forward slightly. “Wonwoo-yah,” he repeated, softer now, uncertainty creeping in.

Jeonghan moved before Seungyoun could close the remaining distance, hand coming up instinctively, palm hovering in front of Wonwoo’s chest as though bracing him against collision.

“Is that really him?” Jeonghan murmured under his breath, low enough that it barely survived the music.

Seungyoun did not look at Jeonghan. His gaze was fixed entirely on Wonwoo, sharp, startled, almost disbelieving.

“Fuck,” Seungyoun breathed, running a hand through his hair. “What are you doing at a fucking club?”

The audacity of the question seemed to fracture the air. Jisoo, who had caught up a second later, blinked between them. “Wonwoo,” he asked cautiously, “do you know him?”

Seungyoun’s eyes dragged over Wonwoo’s face, taking in the redness around his eyes, the unsteady sway he was attempting to conceal. “Fuck, are you drunk?” he demanded, stepping forward despite Jeonghan’s barrier.

Wonwoo did not answer either of them. He simply turned. He turned and began walking, not hurriedly, not dramatically, but with the stiff, contained urgency of someone who knew if he stopped, he would combust in place.

Behind him, he heard Jeonghan’s voice call his name. He heard Jisoo mutter something that sounded like a warning. He heard footsteps following him anyway. He did not slow.

The sliding doors to the veranda came into view, glass reflecting the fractured neon interior. The bouncer near the entrance glanced at him, then at the figures trailing him, assessing without interfering.

“Dude, leave him alone,” Jisoo’s voice cut sharply from somewhere behind.

The cold air hit Wonwoo the moment he stepped outside. It sobered him only partially. The door slid shut behind him with a soft hiss. And then Seungyoun’s voice followed. “Wonwoo, can we please talk?”

There was something different in it now. Less bravado. Less spectacle. Even lesser defiance. Wonwoo did not turn immediately.

Insistent hands caught his arm, and he was turned around before he had decided to be.

Seungyoun stood directly in front of him, close enough that the club lights from inside edged his silhouette in shifting color. His face was drawn tight with something that could have been anger, could have been fear.

And just over Seungyoun’s shoulder, through the glass, framed in the doorway like an unwanted witness—Mingyu.

Watching.

Mingyu did not look drunk. He did not look amused. He looked still. Too still.

Seungyoun was saying something, words spilling, but for a second Wonwoo could only hear the rush of blood in his ears.

“—you just walked off,” Seungyoun was saying. “You didn’t even—”

“I am not,” Wonwoo cut in, voice raw and unsteady in a way that betrayed the alcohol and the ache alike, “in the mind to have a conversation right now. Please leave me alone.”

His eyes were red, not delicately so. His hands were already beginning to move as they always did when he was overwhelmed, fingers slicing small, precise gestures into the air as though he could diagram his anger into something comprehensible.

“Can we please take this somewhere private?” Seungyoun insisted, glancing briefly toward the glass doors. “Not here.”

“Private?” Wonwoo laughed, and the sound was brittle. “You are worried about privacy now?”

“Won—”

“No,” Wonwoo snapped, stepping back and then forward again in the same breath, agitation sharpening his movements. “No, do not reduce this to a tone issue. Do not stand here and act like I am the unreasonable variable.”

Seungyoun’s jaw tightened. “You are drunk.”

“And you,” Wonwoo shot back, gesturing past him toward the glass, toward Mingyu who had not looked away, “are consistent.”

Seungyoun followed the direction of his hand and stilled. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Wonwoo said, voice rising now despite the contained space of the veranda, “you cannot exist without an audience. There is always someone. Always a replacement orbiting. You kiss him at a party. You stand here now with him five steps away. What am I meant to interpret?”

“I am not fucking anybody, if that’s what you think,” Seungyoun snapped.

“Not yet?” Wonwoo shot back immediately. “Is that the timeline? Am I early?”

“Stop it.”

“You used me,” Wonwoo convulsed, and now his voice was no longer loud. It was low. Dangerous. “You used me to stabilize yourself after you confused attraction with novelty. You slandered our friendship by turning it into an experiment.”

“That’s not fucking fair, Wonwoo-yah. I tried so hard. You know I did.”

“Fair? Tried?” Wonwoo let out a disbelieving breath. “Three months, Cho Seungyoun! Three fucking months to torch our lifelong friendship?!”

Seungyoun’s composure cracked. “It would never have worked out.”

“No, goddamn it!” Wonwoo bellowed. “You just quit—because it never fucking mattered to you!”

Inside, through the glass, Mingyu shifted slightly, but his eyes remained fixed on them. Wonwoo’s hand lifted again, gesturing sharply toward the club interior. “You fucking him now, huh?” he demanded, voice cracking at the edges. “Is that what this is? Is that the sequel?”

“Wonwoo, stop,” Jisoo’s voice cut in from behind, firm now.

Seungyoun’s expression twisted. “You are humiliating yourself.”

“I am humiliated,” Wonwoo replied immediately. “There is a difference.”

The air between them felt volatile.

“If I see you again, Youn,” Wonwoo said, breath shaking but gaze unflinching, “I will kill you with my own hands.”

It was not a literal threat. It was a confession disguised as violence.

Seungyoun flinched anyway.

Wonwoo’s eyes shifted then, just briefly, toward Jisoo. And in that look there was no anger. Only something pleading. Exhausted. Wordless.

Jisoo understood immediately.

“That’s enough,” Jisoo said, stepping decisively between them. He placed a hand flat against Seungyoun’s chest and pushed him back a step, not aggressively but with unmistakable finality. “You’ve said enough for tonight.”

Seungyoun tried to step forward again. “I just need—”

“You need to leave him alone,” Jisoo cut in, tone hard now. “You can perform tomorrow.”

Jeonghan appeared at the doorway then, having abandoned the bar the moment he saw the trajectory of things shift. His eyes took in the scene in a single sweep.

“Let’s go,” he said softly to Wonwoo.

⁂

“Everything has been figured out, except how to live.”

“Fucking shoot from the left, dude—what the fuck is he doing?!” Nayeon shouted, hands cupped around her mouth as though the additional acoustics might compensate for the player’s obvious lack of spatial awareness.

They were at the futsal court, nets trembling, sneakers scraping, bodies colliding in bursts of overconfidence. It was leisure season now. Final papers submitted. Results out. Convocation robes measured and hung somewhere in administrative limbo. A month until they would scatter.

Mingyu, standing shoulder to shoulder with Nayeon at the sideline, squinted at the play unfolding. “He cannot aim to save his life,” he muttered. “Sub him out. I’m serious.”

“He has the emotional range of a teaspoon and the accuracy of one too,” Nayeon shot back, voice still raised.

Jihoon, positioned lazily against the opposite fence, lifted his chin in their direction. “You want to come down here and demonstrate, Nayeonnie?” he called, unimpressed.

“Don’t tempt me,” Nayeon shouted again, though she was grinning.

On the court, Seungkwan was mid-argument with Seokmin over a missed pass, Hansol jogging backward with the resigned expression of someone who knew this was about to cost them another goal.

“Why would you pass to him?” Seungkwan yelled, pointing accusatorily. “He was marked!”

“I thought he’d move!” Seokmin protested.

“I did move!” Hansol called, which only made it worse.

The whistle cut through them. Jihoon’s team had scored again.

Mingyu threw his head back in theatrical despair. “You are all frauds,” he announced loudly. “Collectively.”

“Shut up!” Seungkwan shouted from the court, though he was laughing despite himself.

When the match ended; inevitably, predictably, with Jihoon’s team victorious, the losing side collapsed in exaggerated defeat across the artificial turf.

“Rematch,” Seokmin declared, breathless.

“No,” Jihoon replied flatly, already walking toward the exit gate. “Learn humility first.”

“Hyung, you barely ran,” Hansol accused.

“Yeah cause I’m fucking smart,” Jihoon corrected.

They migrated toward the burger stand parked just outside the court, the scent of oil and salt settling into the air as the sun dipped lower. Mingyu leaned against the metal counter, sweat drying at his collar, listening as Seungkwan dramatically reconstructed every missed opportunity as though narrating a war documentary.

“And then he had the audacity,” Seungkwan insisted, pointing at Seokmin, “to say I should’ve anticipated his movement.”

“You should’ve,” Seokmin argued weakly.

Nayeon laughed. Jihoon shook his head. Hansol said nothing, already halfway through his drink.

Mingyu’s attention drifted. He did not mean for it to. But across the narrow stretch of pavement, near the shaded edge of the parking lot, stood Seungyoun. With a woman. She was leaning slightly into him, fingers brushing his arm in a way that implied comfort rather than coincidence.

Mingyu straightened unconsciously. “Back in a bit,” he said casually, already stepping away.

No one questioned it. He crossed the pavement with an ease that was almost leisurely.

Seungyoun noticed him first. “Oh,” he said, blinking once before arranging his face into something neutral. “Mingyu. Hi.”

Mingyu smiled. Easy. Unbothered. “Hyung.”

The woman beside him glanced between them.

“Everything okay?” Seungyoun asked, an edge beneath the casual tone.

Mingyu tilted his head slightly. “Can I have Professor Jeon’s contact?”

To say Seungyoun was baffled, would be an understatement. “What?”

“His number,” Mingyu clarified. “Or anything. I need to reach him.”

The woman shifted, confused. Seungyoun’s eyes narrowed faintly. “Why would I have that?”

Mingyu held his gaze. “Look, whatever happened between the two of you—back—I mean—at the club—I don’t mind. That’s not my business. I just know you’re my only way of contacting him personally.”

“You know Wonwoo?” Seungyoun asked slowly.

Mingyu blinked once. “He taught me philosophy, Seungyoun. Stop pretending.”

For a moment, Seungyoun genuinely had no expression at all. A concealed fact had broken free, and his mind recoiled, unable to accommodate the shift.

Mingyu’s eyes flickered away briefly, and that was when he noticed Seulgi approaching. He stiffened almost imperceptibly.

Seulgi came up all smiling, obviously not having noticed Mingyu, greeting Seungyoun first, then the woman beside him with an easy hug.

“Yeri-ah,” she smiled warmly.

The woman laughed. “What took you so long?”

Mingyu offered a simple, “Hey.”

Seulgi hummed in acknowledgment without looking at him.

He watched the exchange, then glanced back at Seungyoun. “Oh,” Seungyoun said, as if remembering to perform introductions. “Yeah. Mingyu, this is Yeri. Yeri, this is—”

“Oh, thanks,” Mingyu cut in politely. “But I actually need Wonwoo’s number.”

Seulgi’s head snapped toward him. “Why?” she demanded immediately. “Why do you need professor’s number?”

Mingyu looked down at her, expression cooling just slightly. “It is quite literally none of your business?”

“It very well is,” Seulgi replied, stepping closer, chin tilted upward in quiet defiance. There was something else there too; something not fully articulated. A tension that did not belong solely to indignation.

Mingyu’s mouth twitched faintly. “How?”

She hesitated half a second too long. “Because I know him,” she said finally. “And he doesn’t need—random people—disturbing him.”

“Random? Dude, he hasn’t been showing up to classes, and I need to reach him about work. You really think your sarcasm’s gonna stop me? Are you stupid?” Mingyu replied with a little leer on his face.

Seungyoun exhaled sharply. “Okay, enough,” he said, irritation flashing. Whether it was directed at Mingyu or Seulgi was unclear. “This is unnecessary. Stop calling him professor for fuck’s sake.”

Seulgi’s jaw tightened, but she stepped back a fraction. Seungyoun looked at Mingyu again, gaze sharpening. “Why now?”

Mingyu shrugged. “Three weeks is a reasonable recovery window.”

“Recovery from what?” Seulgi shot.

“From drama,” Mingyu replied evenly.

Seungyoun studied him for a long moment. There was jealousy there; unwilling, illogical. He knew Wonwoo was not interested in Mingyu. He knew that. And yet.

“You can try,” Seungyoun said finally, pulling out his phone. “But he has his heart somewhere else.”

The implication hung in the air, heavy with self-reference. Mingyu smiled slowly.

“I’ve always loved a challenge, Seungyoun.”

Seungyoun hesitated, then turned the screen toward him. “Instagram,” he said. “That’s all you’re getting.”

Mingyu glanced at the handle, committing it to memory. “Works for me,” he replied.

“One more thing, Mingyu,” Seungyoun added quietly, as Mingyu headed off after bidding goodbye. “Let him know it was me who gave it to you.”

“Right, because he’s totally clueless, huh?”

⁂

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Mingyu did not realize when Wonwoo stood from behind his revolving chair. One moment he was seated, spine straight, fingers steepled in restrained irritation; the next, he was crossing the room.

The click of the door locking was soft.

In retrospect, Mingyu would admit that Wonwoo’s office was larger than the other lecturers’. The shelves were fuller, the desk heavier, the lighting warmer. It mirrored the dean’s room in quiet ways that suggested either merit or favoritism, and Mingyu had never been certain which irritated him more.

“Can you stop asking around for ways to contact me, Mingyu-shi?”

The words were sharp enough to cut through his observation.

Mingyu tilted his head slightly. “Who told you I was asking around?”

Wonwoo did not answer that. He remained by the door, as though guarding the only exit. “I have been meaning to ask you this now,” he continued instead. “What exactly do you need from me?”

“I have been meaning to contact you since a long time too, professor,” Mingyu replied evenly.

His gaze betrayed him. It drifted. Took inventory. The collar slightly undone. The vein at Wonwoo’s temple that pulsed when he was irritated. The way his hands flexed when he was holding himself back.

“Your convocation is in a week,” Wonwoo babbled, voice tightening. “Your grades are viable. Your reputation is intact. You have successfully passed the Camus course you were so intent on dismantling. What the fuck do you need from me?”

There was real heat now.

Mingyu smiled, and this time it was not polite. “All I have ever wanted,” he said softly, “is for you to notice me. And you know that too, professor.”

Something flickered across Wonwoo’s face. Annoyance. Recognition. Fear.

“Who told you?” Mingyu asked suddenly. “About me asking for your contact?”

Wonwoo pushed off the door and began pacing. The room seemed smaller when he moved like that. Coiled. “Does it matter?”

“Was it Seulgi?” Mingyu pressed. “Or was it Seungyoun?”

The name landed in a certain way, and Mingyu was sure of it. Wonwoo stopped walking. The shift was immediate. Visible. His jaw locked. The air in the room altered temperature.

“Why,” Wonwoo asked slowly, “would he tell me anything?”

Mingyu studied him. “What is he to you?”

The question did not leave space for deflection. Wonwoo’s eyes sharpened to something dangerous. “Let me ask you something first,” he said, voice lowering. “What is he to you?”

“I met him at a party, professor,” Mingyu replied, shrugging faintly. “I did not know you two were friends.”

Abysmal silence stretched between them. Long enough for Mingyu to feel it crawling up his spine.

“Wait,” he said slowly, watching the way Wonwoo’s breathing had changed. “Is he your partner or something?”

Wonwoo did not answer.

“Wait are you even gay?” Mingyu asked bluntly, not maliciously but with genuine frustration. “Because I do not understand why it keeps feeling like there is some connection between the three of us that is hindering you from being decent to me.”

Wonwoo saw red. Mingyu had drifted closer to the desk without realizing. Wonwoo closed the distance in three steps. The back of Mingyu’s thighs collided with the edge of the desk.

He did not retreat.

Wonwoo came close enough that their breaths mixed.

“What party?” Wonwoo asked.

“Na—Nayeon’s,” Mingyu scoffed lightly, still not grasping the gravity. “The day the semester started. You know about it?”

Wonwoo’s hands came down on the desk on either side of Mingyu, caging him in. The sound reverberated through the wood.

Mingyu glanced down briefly, then back up. “You’re very near to me, professor.”

Wonwoo ignored that.

“Six foot two,” he murmured instead, voice low and trembling with contained fury. “Tall. Handsome. Philosophy major. So, you’re the one he made out with.”

Understanding dawned slowly across Mingyu’s face. “Don’t tell me you’re the one who was calling him incessantly that night,” he said, a half-laugh escaping. “That was you?”

Wonwoo slammed his palms hard against the desk. “Don’t fucking joke with me.”

The volume startled even Mingyu.

“Hey,” Mingyu replied instinctively, hands lifting but not touching him. “You might want to keep it down.”

For a moment, it seemed as though Wonwoo might actually lose control. His breath was uneven. His eyes darker than Mingyu had ever seen them. Then he stepped back abruptly, dragging a hand through his hair.

“Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck.”

He turned away, pacing once more, but now the movement was frantic rather than measured. “You need to leave, Mingyu.”

There was a pause.

“Can I call you by your name too?” Mingyu continued, voice lowering. “Wonwoo hyung?”

“Do not,” Wonwoo snapped, turning sharply, “take my fucking name.”

Mingyu’s eyes glinted. He should have stopped. He did not.

“Why?” he asked softly. “Because your ex-boyfriend was moaning mine?”

The silence that followed was catastrophic.

Wonwoo crossed the room again, slower this time. His hands came down on either side of Mingyu once more, closer than before.

“Don’t,” he said, voice dangerously controlled, “fucking test me, Kim Mingyu.”

Mingyu swallowed, but he did not look away. “Then tell me the truth,” he replied just as quietly. “Did you fail me because I don’t see eye to eye with Camus. Or because he kissed me first?”

Wonwoo did not answer him. He did not move either, which was somehow worse. His hands were still braced against the desk behind Mingyu, shoulders squared, breathing controlled in a way that looked practiced. Yet frantic. His eyes stayed on Mingyu’s face, unblinking, unreadable.

Mingyu waited. He almost smiled. “That’s what I thought,” he murmured, softer now but no less pointed. “You can tear apart my thesis, you can dismantle my arguments in front of an entire class, but this? This you won’t even admit.”

Wonwoo’s gaze flickered, barely, at the word admit.

“You failed me because he kissed me,” Mingyu continued, studying him closely, “and you didn’t like that he enjoyed it.”

Wonwoo’s jaw tightened.

“I didn’t even know you existed in his life,” Mingyu went on, and this time there was less mockery in it. “I didn’t go looking for him. I didn’t know he had history. I didn’t know he had you.”

Wonwoo inhaled slowly, as though bracing against something internal rather than external. “What the fuck are you even saying?” he said quietly.

Mingyu let out a short, incredulous breath. “No? You disagree, professor? You keep looking at me like I stole something from you. Like I walked into a story I didn’t belong in and wrecked it on purpose.”

Wonwoo didn’t look away. That was the worst part.

Mingyu searched his face for anger, for contempt, for something solid to fight against, but what he found instead was something far more unstable. Hurt. Old and unhealed.

“I didn’t know my professor had such a small ego,” Mingyu added, softer this time, not taunting so much as testing. “Failing a student because his ex-boyfriend had a little fun with him.”

Wonwoo’s eyes darkened, but he still did not interrupt. The silence stretched, thick and heavy, until Mingyu felt his own bravado thinning under the weight of it.

He stepped closer.

“If I hadn’t kissed him,” he said, and now his voice was quieter, almost thoughtful, “would I have ever gotten the chance to kiss you first, hyung?”

That did it. Wonwoo blinked as though the word had struck him physically.

Kiss you first.

Mingyu saw the shift, the way control faltered just slightly, and before he could overthink it he reached forward, fingers brushing Wonwoo’s wrist, then firming. He did not shove him. He did not slam him. He simply guided him back the few inches necessary until the edge of the desk met the back of Wonwoo’s thighs.

It was slow enough that Wonwoo could have stopped it. He didn’t. Mingyu stepped in, close enough that their knees nearly touched, close enough that he could feel the heat radiating off him. He towered over him just the way Wonwoo had done so, a minute or two ago.

“Why are you punishing me for something I didn’t even know I was part of?” Mingyu asked, and this time the question was stripped bare. “I just wanted to be friends with you, you know.”

Wonwoo’s breathing had changed.

“I didn’t take him from you,” Mingyu said, voice lower now, unguarded in a way that scared even him. “And if he left you, that wasn’t because of me. So why do I have to carry the weight of that?”

There was no mockery left in him. Just want.

“If I had known,” he whispered, eyes flicking briefly to Wonwoo’s mouth before returning to his eyes, “maybe I would’ve done things differently. Maybe I wouldn’t have kissed him at all. But I didn’t know. And you don’t get to hate me for that.”

Wonwoo’s hand came up suddenly, fingers closing around Mingyu’s jaw. Not violent. Not gentle either. Hard and rough in a way that felt involuntary.

“Stop talking,” he said, and his voice had lost its academic composure entirely.

Mingyu did not.

“Tell me I’m wrong then,” he breathed. “Tell me you didn’t look at me that day and think about him. Tell me you didn’t fail me because you couldn’t stand that he touched me first. Tell me…”

Wonwoo pulled him in, hard enough that Mingyu’s breath hitched against his mouth before the kiss even landed. It was not careful. It was not exploratory. It was months of restraint collapsing in a single, reckless decision.

Mingyu froze for half a second; not from shock, but from realization, and then he was kissing him back, just as fiercely, fingers curling into the fabric at Wonwoo’s waist as though grounding them both.

Wonwoo might have pulled away. Except Mingyu’s tongue traced his lower lip then. Slow. As if asking for permission to stay there for a long time. Wonwoo parted his mouth on a ragged breath. Mingyu was there. Pressing in. Hands framing Wonwoo’s face.

Mingyu kissed like he meant it. Deep. A little rough, and demanding. Months of tension uncoiling in languid sweeps. Wonwoo’s fingers twitched at his waist. Gripping fabric. Not pushing. Not pulling. Just holding.

“You’re shaking,” Mingyu murmured against his lips, voice low. His thumbs stroked Wonwoo’s jawline. Gentle. “Hyung.”

Wonwoo’s breath hitched. The word landed wrong. Too intimate. Here. In his office. Door locked but not soundproof. He drew back slightly. Lips tingling. Eyes searching Mingyu’s face. “Don’t fucking—”

Mingyu didn’t let him finish. Leaned in again. Nipped his upper lip. Soothed it. “We already are.” His hands slid down. To Wonwoo’s hips. His fingers flexed against Wonwoo’s skin, pulling him closer to align their bodies. “I’ve wanted this. You. Since the first class. Please.”

Wonwoo’s hands came up. Pressed flat against Mingyu’s chest, to push him away. “Mingyu. Fucking stop.” His voice was rough, but his body betrayed him. Leaning in. Just an inch.

Mingyu shook his head. Slowly. Eyes dark. Fixed on Wonwoo’s mouth. “Can’t.” He kissed the corner of Wonwoo’s lips. Then the other. Soft. Teasing. “You kissed me first. Remember?”

Wonwoo’s pulse thrummed. He remembered. The recklessness. The collapse. His fingers curled into Mingyu’s shirt. “We’re in my office.”

Mingyu smiled. It was small, and dangerous. “That’s why it’s perfect.” He dropped to his knees then. Sudden. Graceful despite his height. Hands on Wonwoo’s thighs. Looking up. Pupils blown. “Let me, hyung. Please.”

Wonwoo froze, his gaze dropping to where Mingyu knelt on the floor; inside his space, his student, usually towering and self-assured, now reduced to something perilously close to supplication, and the sight twisted something deep and forbidden within him as he forced out, tight and restrained, “Get up.”

Mingyu didn’t. He traced his fingers on Wonwoo’s belt. It was light. Questioning.

“No.”

His voice was softer now, as he said it. Almost too pleading.

“Hyung. I need it. Need you.”

His forehead pressed briefly to Wonwoo’s hip. Breath hot through fabric. “Let me make it good. I’ll make you forget about him in a matter of seconds.”

Wonwoo’s hand shot to Mingyu’s hair. Not pulling away. Gripping. “Mingyu—fuck. Don’t say—” His hesitation was warred.

The door.

The desk.

His career.

Seungyoun.

But Mingyu’s eyes were unrelenting on him. Hungry, and honest, and so, so, so, fucking bare.

Mingyu nuzzled closer, nose dragging along the front of Wonwoo’s slacks. Wonwoo was almost helpless to the feeling, as he started chubbing up in his jeans. “Please, hyung. I need it.” Mingyu worked his fingers on the belt quickly, and the buckle clicked open. Zipper rasping down. Wonwoo didn’t stop him.

His briefs were tented now, and Mingyu mouthed over the fabric. His saliva coated the entirety of it, and he moaned softly, almost whineful, and Wonwoo’s hips jerked involuntarily. A low groan escaped. “Mingyu. Fuck.”

Mingyu looked up. Through lashes. “Yeah?” He tugged the waistband down. Inch by inch. Wonwoo’s cock sprang free. Heavy. Flushed. It was leaking at the tip, and it only made Mingyu exhale loudly. “So pretty.”

Wonwoo’s cheeks burned. Hand tightened in Mingyu’s hair. “Don’t—”

“Shh.” Mingyu kissed the base of Wonwoo’s cock, soft and open-mouthed, his tongue flicking out to taste the salt there, and Wonwoo’s breath stuttered in his chest, his knees weakening against the unyielding edge of the desk. Mingyu licked a slow stripe up from base to tip, his tongue flat and lingering, as he murmured, “I’ve wanted to do this every lecture, watching your mouth move.”

Wonwoo swallowed hard, his head tipping back until the shelves blurred into indistinct shadows, the books he’d read all his life, now mocking witnesses, and he rasped, “Fuck. We shouldn’t.”

Mingyu hummed around him, the vibration shooting straight through Wonwoo’s core like a live wire, and he took the head into his mouth, sucking gently, swirling his tongue as Wonwoo’s free hand gripped the desk edge, knuckles bleaching white. “Fuck—slow,” Wonwoo managed, voice fraying.

Mingyu obeyed, indulgent and unhurriedly, his lips stretching around Wonwoo inch by inch with no rush at all, saliva pooling and dripping as he pulled back to press his tongue firmly along the underside vein, his eyes locked upward on Wonwoo’s face, watching him fracture in real time.

“You’re hesitating,” Mingyu said, popping off with a wet sound, his voice husky as his hand took over, stroking lazy from base to tip. “Don’t. Please, hyung. Let me have you.” He nosed into the crease of Wonwoo’s thigh and groin, inhaling deep, and added, “I need to taste you. All of you.”

Wonwoo’s resolve cracked then, his fingers loosening in Mingyu’s hair only to tighten again, guiding now as he bit out, voice wrecked, “Take it slow.”

Mingyu smiled around him before sinking deeper, his throat relaxing until Wonwoo’s cock hit the soft palate; Mingyu gagged faintly once, pulled back to breathe through his nose, then sank again, deeper still, and Wonwoo’s hips twitched forward, unbidden.

“Like that,” Wonwoo muttered, the praise slipping out unintentional and raw, and Mingyu moaned in response, the sound humming perfect against him as he bobbed slowly, his hand twisting at the base while wet sounds filled the office, obscene.

Mingyu’s free hand cupped Wonwoo’s balls next, rolling them gently, tugging light, and Wonwoo’s thighs trembled, his weight leaning heavier on the desk as he breathed, “Mingyu—”

Mingyu pulled off, strings of spit connecting them, which he licked clean before looking up and saying, “Tell me what you want,” his thumb circling the slit, smearing precome. “Use me, hyung. My mouth. Please.”

Wonwoo groaned low, pulling Mingyu’s head forward rougher now, his hesitation fading as he ordered, “Deeper.” He muttered, and Mingyu obeyed instantly, relaxing to take him to the root, nose buried in dark hair, throat bulging, and Wonwoo’s hand stilled him there, just a moment, feeling the stretch, the heat.

Mingyu’s eyes watered, but he didn’t pull back, tapping Wonwoo’s thigh once as a signal, and when Wonwoo released him, Mingyu gasped around the fullness before resuming, slower now, sloppier, drool spilling down his chin and over Wonwoo’s balls, his hand following to massage it all slick.

“You’re—fuck,” Wonwoo panted, watching mesmerized; his student on his knees, servicing him in his office, first time, raw and unraveling. “So good at this.”

Mingyu whined high and desperate, his hips rutting against empty air, his own cock straining untouched as he focused, hollowing his cheeks and sucking harder on the upstroke, tongue flicking relentless until Wonwoo’s control frayed, his hips rolling shallow, fucking Mingyu’s mouth careful, testing.

“Like that?” Mingyu gasped, pulling off briefly, his fist stroking fast now, slick and urgent. “Hyung—please. Come for me. Need it.”

Wonwoo’s hand fisted tighter in his hair. “I can’t believe you.” But he thrust deeper anyway, and Mingyu took it, gagging with tears tracking his cheeks now; Wonwoo thumbed them away, a gentle contrast, murmuring, “Pretty.”

Mingyu’s free hand cupped Wonwoo’s balls next, rolling them gently, tugging light, then creeping lower to palm the curve of his ass, massaging the firm muscle there with calloused fingers that dug in just enough to spark electricity. Wonwoo’s thighs trembled, his weight leaning heavier on the desk as a high, broken moan tore from him, “Mingyu, no,” but Mingyu, mouth full of cock, just hummed around him, eyes flicking up pleading, asking without words: Can I? Do you go that way?

Wonwoo whimpered at those calloused hands kneading his ass, spreading him slightly, the touch overwhelming and new, and he buckled, moaning ragged, “Yeah, fuck—please.”

Mingyu whined loudly, his hips rutting against empty air, his own cock straining untouched as he focused, hollowing his cheeks and sucking harder on the upstroke, tongue flicking relentless, one spit-slick finger circling Wonwoo’s rim now, while the other massaged deep into his ass cheek. Wonwoo’s control frayed, his hips rolling shallow, fucking Mingyu’s mouth careful, testing.

“Yes—” Mingyu choked out before sinking down again, swallowing around him tight and hot, his finger breaching Wonwoo’s rim at last, sinking in to the first knuckle as Wonwoo’s vision whited at the edges.

“Gonna come,” Wonwoo bit out, and Mingyu moaned around his cock, moaned harder when Wonwoo’s hand pressed against Mingyu’s throat to feel the bulge of his cock pulsing there. “Mingyu, gonna—”

—Mingyu sank his spit-slicked finger fully into his hole.

Wonwoo cried out, voice breaking sharp around Mingyu’s name, and came so fucking deep down his throat that Mingyu couldn’t even taste it; he sounded unbelievable, making little ah, ah, ah noises with each spurt of his cock, jerking forward into Mingyu’s mouth and back onto his hand. Mingyu swallowed around him, massaging inside the clenching heat till Wonwoo curled forward to brace himself on Mingyu’s shoulders.

Mingyu didn’t let him catch his breath.

He pulled off Wonwoo’s cock but kept his finger inside, pressing and dragging till Wonwoo’s knees started shaking, till his little noises turned desperate, overstimulated.

Mingyu rose slowly to his feet, grip firm on the backs of Wonwoo’s thighs until he steadied him against the desk, and he paused there, gaze lifting to take in Wonwoo; down bad, utterly orgasm-stricken, chest heaving with flushed skin and dazed eyes, lips parted on shallow breaths, looking wrecked in the warm office light like something Mingyu had imagined a thousand times but never dared touch.

He leaned in to kiss him, craving that messy aftertaste, but Wonwoo surged forward first, his hand snapping to Mingyu’s nape, fingers digging into his sweat-damp hair, and he yanked him down until Mingyu straddled his thigh, their bodies slotting together with Wonwoo’s knee pressing firm between Mingyu’s spread legs, right against Mingyu’s straining bulge.

“Hyung—” Mingyu gasped, hands bracing on Wonwoo’s shoulders for balance, his cock grinding against the solid muscle of Wonwoo’s thigh, friction sparking hot through the thin barrier of his briefs.

“Quiet,” Wonwoo murmured, voice still rough from his release, his free hand sliding down to grip Mingyu’s ass, guiding the roll, slow at first, pressing up to meet each desperate buck as Mingyu’s breath hitched, precome soaking through his slacks. Wonwoo’s eyes sharpened, drinking in the sight; his student, not just any student but the one he ardently hated with all his might, riding his thigh, flushed and pleading, utterly undone, and he tightened his hold on Mingyu’s nape, pulling him into a bruising kiss, tongue claiming deep while his thigh flexed upward, grinding harder.

Mingyu moaned into his mouth, hips stuttering faster now, the denim rough against sensitive skin, Wonwoo’s grip was unrelenting as he rocked Mingyu along the length of his thigh; forward and back, building pressure, thumb digging into the dimple above Mingyu’s hipbone to angle him just right.

“You’re soaked,” Wonwoo breathed against his lips, nipping sharp before soothing with a lick, his hand slipping forward to palm Mingyu through the wet fabric. He stroked once, twice, then yanked Mingyu’s jeans, and briefs down to wrap his fingers directly around his flushed length, pumping slowly and twisting at the head. “Come for me. Now.”

Mingyu shattered with a choked cry—hyung—his release spilling hot over Wonwoo’s fist and thigh, body shuddering as Wonwoo milked him through it, strokes turning gentle but insistent until Mingyu slumped forward, forehead to Wonwoo’s shoulder, panting wrecked and spent.

⁂

“Always go too far, because that’s where you’ll find the truth”

“Just, just can you stop fucking bugging me, hyung—YAH, stand straight, Kim Mingyu!”

Seungkwan’s voice cut clean through the layered noise of the auditorium, drawing at least three disapproving glances from parents seated in the adjacent row. Mingyu, who had been half-leaning into Jihoon to whisper something entirely unnecessary about the stiffness of the graduation gown, straightened at once.

“I am standing straight,” he protested under his breath, attempting dignity while simultaneously fixing the crooked fall of his cap.

“You look like you’re about to attend a medieval execution, not your own convocation,” Jihoon muttered, adjusting the tassel for him with far more patience than Mingyu deserved. “And stop grinning at random people. It’s unsettling.”

“I’m not grinning at random people,” Mingyu said defensively, before immediately grinning at Seokmin’s mother two rows down when she waved enthusiastically at them.

Seungkwan let out a long-suffering sigh.

The procession began before Mingyu could retort. Chairs scraped, fabric rustled, caps were adjusted for the hundredth time. The auditorium lights glowed warm and ceremonial, casting everything in that softened gold that makes even academic exhaustion feel historic.

As names were called, applause rose and fell in waves. Parents stood. Friends screamed. Faculty members shook hands with rehearsed pride.

When Mingyu’s name echoed through the hall, Seungkwan’s shriek nearly eclipsed it.

“THAT’S HIM. THAT’S MY—”

“Sit down,” Jihoon hissed, dragging him back into his seat.

Mingyu walked the stage with a composure he had been incapable of ten minutes earlier. His shoulders were square now, his smile smaller, controlled. When he reached the center, he bowed slightly before accepting the certificate, and for a fraction of a second his eyes flicked to the faculty section.

Wonwoo was seated three chairs from the aisle. Their gazes met. It was brief, almost polite. Wonwoo inclined his head once, subtle enough that no one else would have noticed. Mingyu held that look half a heartbeat longer than necessary before turning to exit the stage.

Caps flew at the end of the ceremony in a flurry of black fabric and relieved laughter. The air filled with whoops and camera flashes and the kind of joy that only comes after surviving something long and grueling.

In the after-party arranged by the department, the atmosphere shifted from ceremonial to chaotic within minutes. Faculty stood in small conversational clusters while students drifted between them with paper cups and unfiltered honesty.

Mingyu lingered near the refreshments table longer than necessary.

“You’re looking for him,” Jihoon observed flatly, sipping from his drink.

“I am not.”

“You’ve scanned this room twelve times.”

Mingyu exhaled. “He hasn’t left, right?”

Jihoon followed his line of sight and found him almost instantly. “Near the back. With Dean and his boyfriend.”

Wonwoo stood slightly apart from them, hands folded loosely in front of him as Jeonghan animatedly narrated something to Jisoo. He looked composed in a way that felt almost domestic, glasses resting lower on his nose than usual, expression softened by the ambient noise.

Mingyu swallowed once, then started walking. Jihoon followed without comment.

Jeonghan noticed them first. “Ah, the revolutionaries,” he drawled, smile widening. “Have you come to file one last complaint before officially leaving our jurisdiction?”

“Not today,” Jihoon replied calmly. “We’re feeling unusually benevolent.”

Jisoo laughed. “That’s disappointing. I was prepared to defend myself.”

Mingyu’s gaze flicked briefly to Wonwoo before he spoke. “We actually came to say thank you,” he said, tone measured in a way that would have surprised Seungkwan. “Both of you.”

Wonwoo’s eyes lifted to meet his.

“For what?” Jisoo asked, genuinely curious.

“For not making it easy,” Jihoon answered mid-laugh. “It would’ve been boring if you had.”

Jeonghan chuckled. “You’re welcome, I suppose.”

Mingyu nodded once. “You were fair,” he added, looking directly at Wonwoo now. “Even when I thought you weren’t.”

There was something unspoken layered beneath that sentence, something that did not belong in public spaces. Wonwoo held his gaze, then gave a small nod in return. The faintest smile followed, restrained but unmistakable.

“I’m glad you guys learned something new, if you did,” he said quietly.

Jihoon glanced between them and decided he had witnessed enough subtext for one evening. “We’ll let you return to faculty gossip,” he said lightly, tugging at Mingyu’s sleeve.

Mingyu hesitated only a second before allowing himself to be pulled away.

Jeonghan watched them go with open amusement. “You’ve warmed up to the little pest, have you not?”

Wonwoo’s posture stiffened almost imperceptibly. “He graduated. Not my worry now,” he replied, as though that explained anything.

Jeonghan leaned closer. “That was not what I asked.”

Wonwoo adjusted his glasses. His neck, unfortunately, betrayed him first, color creeping upward in a slow, undeniable flush.

Jisoo’s eyes widened with theatrical realization. “Oh,” he breathed, grin spreading. “Oh, I see. That makes sense.”

“Stop,” Wonwoo muttered under his breath.

“A blowjob does wonders, does it not, Hannie,” Jisoo added casually, entirely too loud for a departmental gathering.

“STOP,” Wonwoo whisper-shouted, mortified, glancing around to ensure no one within a five-meter radius had heard. “Not here. What is wrong with you, hyung?”

Jeonghan burst into laughter, nearly spilling his drink. “Relax. Half these professors have done worse.”

“That is not reassuring,” Wonwoo shot back, pushing his hair off his forehead in exasperation.

Jisoo only looked pleased with himself. “You’re blushing.”

“I am not.”

“You absolutely are.”

Not much time had passed after Jisoo’s relentless teasing and Wonwoo’s mortified attempts at silencing him before the after-party began thinning out in slow increments. Professors started glancing at their watches. Students drifted toward photo booths and parents. Laughter rose and fell in overlapping waves, futures being toasted in paper cups.

Mingyu told himself he was done looking. He lasted perhaps thirty seconds.

“Stop it,” Hansol muttered beside him without even turning his head.

“Stop what?”

“You’re staring.”

“I am not staring.”

Hansol finally looked at him then, unimpressed. “You’re not subtle enough to lie about this, hyung.”

Across the hall, Wonwoo stood between Jeonghan and Jisoo, listening to something with that small, contained smile that never quite revealed what he was thinking. He had loosened his tie. His glasses sat slightly lower than usual. He looked…almost unguarded.

Mingyu’s fingers tightened around his cup.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jihoon added calmly.

“I’m not planning to.”

“That’s what you say before you do.”

Seungkwan called for a group picture, and Mingyu used the chaos of rearranging bodies as an excuse to step away.

“Bathroom,” he said vaguely.

“You don’t need to announce it,” Jihoon replied dryly, though his eyes followed him anyway.

Mingyu walked toward the faculty corridor without looking back. He did not check whether Wonwoo noticed him leave. He did not need to. He had barely reached the turn near the offices when he heard the door open behind him. Footsteps. Measured. Familiar.

He slowed, not enough to be obvious.

“Are you going somewhere?” Wonwoo’s voice came from behind him, low, controlled.

Mingyu turned. “Just walking.”

“In the opposite direction of the exit?”

“Maybe I’m not ready to leave.”

Wonwoo studied him for a moment too long. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m still technically allowed to exist on campus,” Mingyu replied, attempting lightness, though it faltered under the weight of the stare he was receiving.

Wonwoo stepped closer. “You’re testing me, aren’t you?”

“You follow me into corridors,” Mingyu said softly. “I don’t think I’m the only one testing anything.”

That was when Wonwoo reached for him. Not abruptly. Not violently. Rather with too much acuity.

His hand closed around Mingyu’s wrist and guided him into the nearest office, his office, before Mingyu could decide whether to resist. The door shut behind them, the sound echoing more loudly than it should have.

“Hyung—”

The word barely formed before Wonwoo kissed him.

There was no buildup, no argument to justify it this time. It was as though something that had been simmering under layers of discipline and pride had finally demanded to be acknowledged.

Mingyu’s back met the wall. Wonwoo stepped into him, one hand at his waist, the other braced against the wall beside his head. The kiss was not careless; it was intense in the way restraint breaking always is. Mingyu felt the tension in the way Wonwoo held him, fingers pressing as if confirming he was real.

“Hyung,” Mingyu murmured when they broke for breath, forehead resting briefly against Wonwoo’s. “You can’t just—”

“I know,” Wonwoo replied, voice uneven despite his attempt at composure.

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Because you keep looking at me like that.”

Mingyu let out a soft breath that almost sounded like a laugh. Wonwoo kissed him again, slower this time, mouth lingering as though memorizing rather than claiming. Mingyu’s hands slid up his back, gripping fabric, feeling the solid warmth of him.

When Wonwoo caught his lower lip gently between his teeth, Mingyu exhaled a shaky sound before he could stop himself. “Wonwoo hyung,” he said against his mouth, eyes half-lidded but still clear, “c-can we take this somewhere else, please?”

He held Mingyu there for another long second, as though considering something dangerous, before stepping back.

“Parking lot,” he said quietly.

They exited separately.

Wonwoo unlocked his car without looking at Mingyu, but he waited until Mingyu had settled into the passenger seat before starting the engine.

They drove in silence. It was not awkward. It was not easy either. Every accidental brush of their hands near the gearshift felt too intentional. Every breath felt amplified.

“Where are we going?” Mingyu finally asked.

“I don’t know.”

They ended up in the parking lot of a McDonald’s a few blocks away, the classic, obnoxious, yellow light spilling over the windshield. Families moved in and out of the entrance. A child tugged at a balloon. The world felt aggressively normal.

Inside the car, it was anything but. Mingyu reached for him first this time, fingers brushing Wonwoo’s sleeve.

Wonwoo caught his wrist gently but firmly. “Wait.”

Mingyu froze, searching his face. “What?”

“I need to say something before this goes any further.”

His tone was steady, but there was something fragile beneath it. Mingyu nodded slowly.

“I haven’t done this,” Wonwoo began, choosing each word with care, “not the way you think. Not casually. Not…without meaning. There has only been one person. That’s it.”

Mingyu’s expression shifted from playful to attentive in an instant.

“You need to understand what that implies,” Wonwoo continued. “I don’t go to parties looking for distraction. I don’t treat intimacy like a pastime.”

“I never thought you did,” Mingyu replied quietly.

“When I was your age, Mingyu,” Wonwoo said, eyes drifting briefly to the dashboard lights, “I believed permanence was something you built once and protected forever. I loved someone for years. I shaped my life around that love.”

He did not say the name. Mingyu didn’t have to ask.

“It didn’t end because I stopped loving him,” Wonwoo added, voice tightening despite his effort to remain composed. “It ended because he decided something else mattered more.”

“And you think I would do the same,” Mingyu said softly.

“I think you move through the world easily,” Wonwoo replied. “I think people are drawn to you without you trying. I think you don’t always calculate what that does to others.”

“Is that your polite way of calling me careless?”

“You kissed someone you’d just met.”

“For one, he kissed me first. Second, you stayed loyal to a ghost who didn’t deserve it,” Mingyu replied gently, voice low. “We’ve both bet on the wrong hands.”

Wonwoo’s gaze sharpened. “This is not a debate.”

“It kind of is,” Mingyu said, leaning slightly closer. “You talk about things like detachment is survival. But this? This isn’t absurd. This is fear.”

“Don’t psychoanalyze me.”

“Then tell me I’m wrong.”

“You don’t know enough.”

“Then make me know you,” Mingyu insisted, voice lowering but steady. “Stop deciding who I am before I get the chance to show you, Wonwoo hyung.”

Wonwoo exhaled slowly, fingers tightening around the steering wheel.

“You like provoking me every chance you get,” he said after a moment.

“I do,” Mingyu admitted softly. “You’re unreachable when you’re composed. Anger shatters it, shows the truth. It’s just...not simple, getting beneath that skin of yours. I’ve been trying hard, haven’t I?”

Wonwoo turned to look at him fully then, really look at him, and something in his expression shifted from guarded to unsettled.

“And what do you want right now?” he asked quietly.

Mingyu did not smile. “Why not try? I’ve been dying to know you,” He breathed. “From the instant my eyes caught yours, hyung—there’s this itch to dig in. All about you. All in you.”

The words landed too provocative for the moment itself. Wonwoo reached out slowly this time, hand coming up to cup Mingyu’s face. His thumb brushed along his cheek with careful restraint, as though confirming texture, warmth, presence.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking me to risk,” he murmured.

“Then risk it,” Mingyu whispered back, eyes steady. “I won’t disappoint you.”

⁂

An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. “Can they be brought together?” This is a practical question. We must get down to it. “I despise intelligence” really means: “I cannot bear my doubts.”

“Existence is never a predicate,” Wonwoo recited, his voice even, measured in the way it always was when he trusted the text more than the room. His fingers rested along the margin of his old, underlined copy of Fanon, the paper thinned by years of annotation, the spine softened by repetition and restraint.

A murmur moved through the lecture hall, the familiar rustle of shifting notebooks and half-formed objections.

“Thus, makes no difference, I guess,” a student remarked from somewhere in the middle row, tentative but eager to be heard.

Wonwoo did not look up. He allowed the silence to gather weight instead of rushing to rescue them from it. He had always believed that discomfort, properly endured, was a more honest pedagogue than he could ever be.

“And yet,” another voice cut in, calm and deceptively thoughtful, “would you not argue, professor, that the very existence of an oppressor demands the act of resistance?”

The cadence was controlled, and academic. Almost polite. Wonwoo’s hand stilled on the page. He did not need to look to know.

He would recognize that voice anywhere; stripped of laughter, smoothed into formality, disguised beneath intellectual curiosity. It carried an insolence, sharpened not to wound but to press, to test the tensile strength of his composure.

He sat three rows from the back, dressed in neutrality, performing studenthood with alarming conviction.

Wonwoo inhaled slowly through his nose before lifting his gaze. “Raise your hand before questioning,” he replied, the faintest curve at the edge of his mouth betraying him. “I prefer to know where my interruptions originate.”

A beat passed. Then the voice came again, softer, threaded with challenge.

“Make me.”

A few students laughed uncertainly, unsure whether they were witnessing bravery or impropriety. Someone near the window muttered something about boldness. Wonwoo closed the book with a minor thud and let the sound echo just enough to quiet the room.

His eyes found Mingyu’s without difficulty. There it was. That look. Bright, unrepentant, waiting to see how far he would go.

“Class dismissed,” Wonwoo said calmly.

He might have allowed the last students to trickle out fully except Mingyu lingered near the back row, packing his notebook with exaggerated slowness, that bright, unrepentant gaze flicking up now and then to test the air between them, and the lecture hall emptied into echoing quiet save for the faint creak of chairs and distant footsteps fading down the hall.

“Class dismissed meant you too, Mingyu-shi,” Wonwoo said evenly, stacking his annotated Fanon, though his pulse betrayed him, thrumming under the skin at his wrist where his fingers pressed.

Mingyu slung his bag over one shoulder and sauntered down the aisle toward the podium, his steps unhurried, delight sparking in his eyes like he’d won something illicit already, indecent in the way he thrived on the risk, the professor’s unraveling composure. “Make me leave, then,” he said, voice low and teasing, stopping just at the podium’s edge, close enough that Wonwoo caught the faint scent of his cologne; leathery sharp, warm, distracting.

Wonwoo’s hand paused on the book stack, and before Mingyu could lean in further, he surged forward, grabbing Mingyu by the waistband of his jeans with one hand and the back of his neck with the other, spinning him around and bending him firmly over the podium; the polished wood cool against Mingyu’s chest, his bag thudding forgotten to the floor as Wonwoo pressed in close behind him, hips pinning Mingyu’s ass, breath hot against the nape of his neck.

“Fuck, hyung,” Mingyu laughed breathlessly, delight flooding his voice, arching back into the hold because he was indecent like that, craving the dominance, the public edge of it all with the door still cracked open to the hallway. “Knew you’d snap.”

“You test me in my own room,” Wonwoo grunted low against his ear, one hand shoving Mingyu’s shirt up his back to expose smooth skin, the other yanking his jeans and briefs down just enough to bare his ass, tanned and perfect under the fluorescent lecture lights. “No one interrupts me here. No one sees you like this but me.”

Mingyu shivered under the drag of Wonwoo’s palm down his spine, Wonwoo’s fingers tracing the dip of his lower back before dipping lower, parting his cheeks to circle his rim teasingly light; too light to satisfy, just enough to make Mingyu squirm and push back. “You do it then,” Mingyu breathed, head turning to glance over his shoulder, eyes hooded and thrilled. “Mess me up right here, professor.”

Wonwoo pressed a thumb against the tight ring, rubbing slow circles that had Mingyu’s thighs tensing, breath hitching, and he leaned down to drag his tongue along the exposed skin of Mingyu’s lower back, sucking a dark hickey there; then another, blooming red under the podium’s shadow. “You’d like that,” Wonwoo murmured against the fresh mark, lips warm, breath hot. “Bent over my podium, full of me. No one else gets this.”

Mingyu moaned softly, the sound echoing faintly off the tiered seats, and he spread his legs wider within the constraint of his jeans, giving Wonwoo more room as that thumb dipped just inside, shallow, testing. “God, yes—hyung, more,” he gasped, fingers curling against the podium edge. “You don’t see how they watch you. Every lecture. Eyes on you like you’re the only one worth seeing.”

Wonwoo paused, tongue flicking over the hickey he’d just sucked into Mingyu’s skin, the possessive claim darkening before his eyes. “Why would I notice?” he asked, voice roughening as he straightened slightly, spitting into his palm and slicking two fingers before pressing one back to Mingyu’s hole, sinking in slow to the first knuckle. “Too busy watching you provoke me.”

Mingyu’s laugh broke into a whine at the stretch, his body yielding beautifully, clenching hot around the intrusion. “Shit—that’s it,” he panted, pushing back to take more, and Wonwoo curled his finger just right, dragging along the inner walls until Mingyu shuddered. “Only watch me, then. Fuck—hyung, deeper.”

“You realize how many times I’ve imagined this?” Wonwoo said, voice dropping dangerous-soft as he worked a second finger in beside the first, scissoring slow, the wet sounds obscene in the empty hall. “You, mouthy in my class, now taking my fingers like you were made for it. Ruining you for anyone else.”

Mingyu arched, delight twisting into raw need, his cock leaking against the podium’s underside. “You’ve—ngh—already have,” he broke off as Wonwoo’s fingers thrust deeper, crooking to hit that spot that made stars burst behind his eyes, and he rocked back shamelessly. “What do you mean anyone else? I’m yours already—fuck me like it.”

Wonwoo chuckled dark, head fuzzy from Mingyu’s words, the tight heat clenching around his fingers, and it only sharpened as Mingyu ground back harder. “Already?” he rasped, free hand reaching around to trace Mingyu’s cock, cruel tease, before tugging at his balls. “Haven’t even fucked you yet.”

The podium creaked faintly under their weight, Mingyu trying to spread wider but trapped by his jeans, such a good boy for the effort that Wonwoo rewarded him by thrusting his fingers faster, dirty and precise. Mingyu cried out sharp, mouth slack, one hand flying back to grip Wonwoo’s wrist, the other white-knuckling the podium as he chased the rhythm, breath ragged toward the edge.

“Let me hear you, Mingyu,” Wonwoo demanded, twisting his fingers on the next thrust the way he’d learned Mingyu craved in stolen moments before, and Mingyu moaned loud, it bounced off the vaulted ceiling, and fucked himself back onto Wonwoo’s hand, hurtling close.

So Wonwoo slowed, curling his fingers still inside but denying the pace, savoring the suspended whine from Mingyu’s throat, the lap of sweat-slick skin.

“Wonwoo—fuck,” Mingyu huffed, shuddering against the podium, twisting to sink his own hand down, chasing what Wonwoo withheld, but Wonwoo snagged his arm and pinned it behind his back.

“What are you doing, all desperate like that?” Wonwoo teased, other hand massaging firmer circles around Mingyu’s stretched rim, dipping the tip of a third finger just inside. “Touching yourself without me?”

“Need you—hyung, touch me more,” Mingyu demanded, nosing blindly toward Wonwoo’s arm, nipping sharp at his sleeve. “Please.”

Spit wasn’t perfect lube, but Mingyu’s hole gave so sweetly, and Wonwoo sank his fingers deeper in one smooth push, not stopping until they were buried in that incredible heat, using his pinned grip on Mingyu’s arm to hold him steady as he squirmed against the fullness.

“More,” Mingyu gasped, breath hot and wet against Wonwoo’s skin, hips canting desperate.

“Greedy brat,” Wonwoo murmured, angling to give Mingyu’s teeth better access where he nibbled at his forearm, the pull sparking a groan from deep in his chest; he wondered vaguely, amid the sting and the vise-tight clench, what it’d take to make Mingyu beg outright. He teased a third finger, pressing insistently.

Mingyu took it beautifully, pulling his mouth off Wonwoo’s arm to pant through the slow burn, his voice buttery-thick around a whine as flush bled across his cheeks and down his neck. Wonwoo dragged his fingers along the hot walls while Mingyu shuddered, mouth slack, lashes fluttering, he loved watching him come apart like this.

But the podium felt too exposed suddenly, too risky with footsteps echoing faintly from the hall. He wanted to bite those reddened lips, nip the soft insides of Mingyu’s thighs, bury himself fully. So, he scissored wide one last time, dropped a kiss to the hickey on Mingyu’s lower back, and pulled his fingers free.

“You’re not done,” Mingyu protested, bratty even wrecked, and Wonwoo nipped his shoulder in retaliation.

“We’re going home,” Wonwoo said, jostling him upright just enough to tug his jeans higher, concealing, before shoving him toward the hall door. “I want to fuck you properly.”

Mingyu straightened under Wonwoo’s jolting hands, a wicked grin splitting his flushed face as he glanced back over his shoulder, eyes gleaming with that same unrepentant delight. “Promise you’ll let me fuck you too, hyung?” he purred, voice husky and provocative, laced with bratty challenge. “Or are you scared I’d ruin you worse?”

⁂

This is the basis for the joy of love when there is joy; we feel that our existence is justified.

“When was the first time you realized you were like this, hyung?” Mingyu muttered, his hands running through Wonwoo’s hair, slow fingers combing through the strands as if he were mapping something patient. Wonwoo’s head rested on his lap with the absent entitlement of someone who had discovered, perhaps reluctantly, that comfort did not always require permission.

They had abandoned the overhead lights some time ago. Only the lamp beside Wonwoo’s desk remained on, its orange spill falling across the pages of the paperback in Mingyu’s hand. The book lay open to the middle of The Hour of the Star, though Mingyu had not turned a page in several minutes. His attention had drifted from the text to the quiet weight of Wonwoo stretched along the couch, long legs folded slightly, glasses discarded somewhere near the armrest.

“What do you mean like this?” Wonwoo murmured without opening his eyes, voice deepened by the kind of half-sleep that arrives after exhaustion rather than boredom.

Mingyu’s thumb traced a slow circle at the base of Wonwoo’s scalp. “This kind man who keeps his heart always guarded, you know.”

Wonwoo exhaled softly through his nose, something between amusement and dismissal. His head shifted a fraction closer to Mingyu’s stomach, as though the motion were instinctive rather than chosen.

“I don’t know,” he said after a moment. “I have been this way since I remember being in the right mind, Mingyu.”

The sentence carried no defensiveness. It sounded more like a statement of geography.

Mingyu tilted his head slightly, watching the relaxed line of Wonwoo’s mouth, the faint crease that remained between his brows even in sleep.

“That sounds suspiciously like a non-answer for someone whose entire career depends on answering questions.”

Wonwoo’s lips twitched faintly. “You asked when I realized it,” he replied. “That assumes it was realization.”

“And it wasn’t?”

“No,” Wonwoo said quietly. “Radicalization is not something that happens in a moment, the way people like to dramatize it. It is rarely a thunderclap. It is more like discovering you were born already inclined toward certain conclusions.”

Mingyu leaned back against the couch, adjusting slightly so Wonwoo’s head remained balanced on his thigh.

“That’s a very academic way to say you were a difficult child.”

Wonwoo opened one eye at that.

“I was not difficult.”

“You’re telling me fourteen-year-old Jeon Wonwoo was not insufferable?”

Wonwoo closed his eye again, though a faint smile lingered.

“What I mean,” he continued after a moment, voice lower now, “is that empathy is not learned the way ideology is. Some people require frameworks before they recognize injustice. Others recognize the injustice first and spend the rest of their lives searching for frameworks that explain why it exists.”

Wonwoo’s hand lifted lazily from where it rested against his own stomach, searching briefly before finding Mingyu’s wrist. He curled his fingers loosely around it, not restraining the movement so much as acknowledging it.

“Can I ask you something now?” he murmured.

“Hm?”

“What makes you so kind?”

Mingyu blinked down at him. “What?”

Wonwoo’s eyes remained closed, though his voice had sharpened just slightly, the way it did when he was genuinely curious.

"Professors used to call you insolent," he continued, his voice low and edged. "Provocative. Combative. That smoking stunt you pulled on the first day of the semester? I've heard every variation of the accusation since then."

“That’s because I am all those things.”

“No,” Wonwoo said calmly. “You are not.”

Mingyu frowned. “Hyung, you have watched me argue with your favorite student in a lecture.”

"Quit pouting like a jealous puppy."

"Antagonizing campus admin is my entire personality—what do you even mean?!"

“Yes.”

“I once tried to turn your class discussion into a referendum on revolutionary violence.”

“Yes,” Wonwoo repeated patiently.

“And your conclusion is that I’m kind?”

Wonwoo opened his eyes now, gaze drifting upward until it settled somewhere near Mingyu’s collarbone.

“No matter how many times I tried being a bitch to you,” he said evenly, “you were always better than me.”

Mingyu let out a quiet laugh. “That is not true.”

“It is,” Wonwoo replied.

He lifted his head slightly, just enough that his chin rested against Mingyu’s stomach while he studied his face.

“You never humiliated Seulgi after that debate,” he continued. “You could have. The room would have applauded it. You didn’t.”

“That’s because humiliating someone in public is lazy.”

“You apologized to Jeonghan for the cigarette incident.”

“I did not apologize,” Mingyu protested. “I clarified jurisdiction.”

“You brought coffee to Jihoon when he stayed up finishing his thesis draft.”

“He looked like he was dying.”

“You listen,” Wonwoo said simply.

Mingyu shifted slightly under the scrutiny.

“That’s a strange standard for kindness.”

“It is the only one I trust.”

They fell quiet again. The book slipped a little lower in Mingyu’s lap, its spine bending softly between his fingers.

After a while he spoke again, voice softer. “You still didn’t answer the real question.”

Wonwoo raised an eyebrow.

“You asked what made me kind,” Mingyu said. “But you avoided explaining why you’re so guarded.”

Wonwoo looked at him for a long moment before replying. “I am not guarded.”

“Hyung.”

“Okay. Okay. I am selective.”

“Oh,” Mingyu said slowly after a beat, his thumb still moving lazily against Wonwoo’s hair, “so I’m special then?”

Wonwoo’s mouth curved almost imperceptibly. The shift happened so suddenly Mingyu did not quite track it. One moment Wonwoo’s head was still resting against his lap, warm and heavy with sleep, and the next he was pushing himself upright with a quiet movement, the paperback sliding from Mingyu’s thigh onto the couch cushion beside them with a soft thud.

Mingyu blinked at him, but Wonwoo only turned toward him fully now, knees angling against the couch as he leaned in. His hand lifted, fingers settling lightly against Mingyu’s jaw, slightly rough in the way someone touches something they have already decided belongs within reach.

His thumb pressed briefly beneath Mingyu’s chin, tilting his face upward a fraction.

Mingyu opened his mouth to say something; probably something insufferable, but the words dissolved the second Wonwoo kissed him.

It was not the kind of kiss that arrived with urgency. It was slower than that, softer too, the kind that felt less like hunger and more like acclaim. Wonwoo’s lips lingered just long enough that Mingyu forgot what the question had been.

When he pulled back, the distance between them remained small enough that Mingyu could still feel the warmth of his breath.

“Very,” Wonwoo murmured quietly.

Mingyu stared at him.

The response arrived several seconds late. “That—” he started, then stopped, because his voice had betrayed him by cracking slightly.

Wonwoo’s hand had not moved from his jaw. His thumb brushed once, absently, along the line there as if the motion itself were thoughtful.

“That was not a proper answer,” Mingyu tried again, though it came out significantly less confident than he intended.

Wonwoo only smiled. It was small. Not the restrained politeness he wore in lecture halls, nor the dry amusement he reserved for arguments. This one was softer at the edges, almost private.

“You asked if you were special,” he said.

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And that is not the same as explaining it.”

Wonwoo tilted his head slightly, studying Mingyu’s face. “Min,” he said after a moment, voice low, “I let you read Clarice Lispector to me.”

“That is not—”

“I fell asleep on your lap.”

“You do that because you’re tired.”

“I argued with you for three hours,” Wonwoo continued calmly, “and then invited you back to my apartment afterward.”

“That’s because I won.”

Wonwoo’s eyebrow lifted.

“You did not win.”

Mingyu flushed slightly but refused to retreat. “That is not the point.”

“The point,” Wonwoo said evenly, “is that I do not do these things with people I consider ordinary.”

Mingyu’s mouth opened again, though this time the words seemed to abandon him entirely. For someone who had spent half the semester dismantling arguments in crowded lecture halls, he suddenly looked almost comically unprepared.

“So,” Wonwoo finished quietly, “yes. You are special.”

Mingyu’s ears were visibly red now. “That is a very unfair tactic,” he muttered after a moment.

Wonwoo’s smile widened just slightly. “What tactic?”

“You act nonchalant all the time, and then just randomly go all commando on me, hyung.”

Wonwoo threw his head back in a full, genuine laugh. "Baby, I haven't even begun to flirt with you properly."

“Yes! That’s the problem.”

Wonwoo leaned back against the couch then, though his knee remained lightly pressed against Mingyu’s thigh. “You’re melting already?” he joked.

“I am not!?”

“You are blushing, though.”

“I am not—” Mingyu stopped, because he absolutely was.

Wonwoo said nothing further. He simply watched him with quiet amusement, the corner of his mouth still curved faintly upward, while Mingyu attempted; and failed, to recover whatever composure he had previously been so proud of. There was something deeply unfair about the way Wonwoo could sit there after saying things like that, as though he had not just casually dismantled Mingyu’s entire rhetorical defense system with one quiet admission.

Mingyu narrowed his eyes slightly, studying him with growing suspicion. “Okay, hyung,” he said, voice thoughtful now. “So, if that’s how you want to play, I’ll show you.”

Wonwoo barely had time to process the shift before Mingyu’s hands suddenly lunged forward and dug straight into his sides. The reaction was immediate and violent. Wonwoo jerked under the contact as though struck by electricity, a startled sound escaping him before he could suppress it.

“Mingyu—” he tried, but the protest dissolved instantly into laughter as Mingyu’s fingers pressed mercilessly into the sensitive space just above his ribs.

“You act all superior,” Mingyu continued with immense satisfaction, leaning over him as he continued the assault, “Professor Jeon, philosophical authority, terrifying intellectual menace—”

Wonwoo twisted helplessly beneath him, laughing now in a way Mingyu had never quite heard before, the sound looser and brighter than the quiet amusement he usually allowed himself. “Stop—stop—Mingyu—”

“—but look at you,” Mingyu continued, utterly unmoved by the suffering he was causing, “completely defenseless.”

“You absolute—” Wonwoo tried to grab his wrists, breath hitching as the laughter kept breaking through. “You fucking—”

It happened gradually at first. Mingyu leaned a little too far forward, Wonwoo twisted sideways trying to escape his grip, and the cushion dipped beneath their combined weight with the slow inevitability of physics asserting itself.

Mingyu realized the problem exactly one second too late.

The couch tipped them forward.

They went down together in a tangle of limbs, landing on the rug with a dull thud that knocked the air out of both of them. For a moment neither moved, Mingyu half sprawled over Wonwoo while Wonwoo lay flat on his back staring up at the ceiling as if reconsidering several life decisions simultaneously.

Then Mingyu started laughing.

Wonwoo turned his head slowly toward him, hair now thoroughly disheveled, the composed professor from earlier reduced to someone who had just been tackled onto his own living room floor.

“This,” Wonwoo said with great dignity despite being pinned beneath a six-foot-something idiot, “is entirely your fault.”

“You started psychologically manipulating me,” Mingyu countered without hesitation.

“I was sitting peacefully.”

“You kissed me.”

Wonwoo opened his mouth to respond, but Mingyu moved first.

In one quick motion he caught both of Wonwoo’s wrists and guided them above his head against the rug. The sudden shift in posture changed the air between them immediately, laughter dissolving into something quieter as Mingyu leaned over him.

“Mingyu,” Wonwoo said, though the name came out softer now.

Mingyu ignored the warning entirely. He dipped his head and pressed a slow kiss just beneath Wonwoo’s ear.

Wonwoo’s breath staggered, and he took a big inhale. The reaction was subtle but unmistakable, a small involuntary sound escaping him before he could stop it.

Mingyu smiled faintly against his skin and continued, dragging his lips along the curve of Wonwoo’s jaw slowly, the kind that suggested he was enjoying the discovery far too much.

“See,” he murmured quietly, still holding Wonwoo’s wrists above his head, “now you’re the one melting.”

⁂