Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Her hair shines golden.

It’s dyed, but it suits her so well it could be natural.

Chan only meets her eyes for a brief, casual second, like any other student in the room.

The first lecture of the new semester, they are still bright-eyed and excited, or at least they pretend to be.

He goes through the motions. Curriculum, assignments, exams, office hours. Theses. He’s been doing this for years.

At the end, he tells them what to read until next week and a few of them groan, but after a small glance he sees that she’s smiling.

-

“Professor?”

Chan looks up from where he’s been looking at his laptop, going through the slides he’s about to send his students.

“Yeah?” He tries for an open expression, the hint of a smile where there really isn’t one.

Her hair reaches past her chest, spilling over her shoulders like a waterfall of sunlight.

“I was wondering if you’d give me your e-mail address?” she asks politely.

Chan blinks. “Yeah, sure,” he says, tells her his handle and doesn’t frown when she merely smiles at him instead of writing it down.

All teachers’ e-mails are on the university website for questions about class, feedback, advice. She could simply look it up.

“Thank you,” she says. “I really liked last week’s reading, you know. I’m curious about this one.”

He hums, pleased to have a student actually be interested in what they’re studying. Though he can’t help but feel cautious around her.

“I’m looking forward to the discussion for next week’s class, then,” he tells her. “You made good points today.”

Her smile widens and Chan ignores that glint in her eyes.

-

She’s on his mind a little more than others. Chan tells himself it’s harmless.

Every off-hand comment from a colleague, “come on”-questions from friends late at night, those few times they do linger after class and ask for faux advice in that sultry voice they all seem to possess—

Chan has never indulged a student.

He’s not stupid. He shouldn’t, but he knows he’s voted hottest teacher on campus most of the time, save for the one year Minho wore glasses until he got annoyed by the lovesick stares.

It doesn’t bother him, never has. He’s not a freak, he doesn’t like them that young.

But he can feel her stare at him so intensely from her seat in the first row.

More than once he falters, loses his words in an effort of not meeting her gaze.

He knows it’s inevitable and wonders what he will find. What he wants to find.

-

“Hey,” Chan smiles and closes the door behind himself.

Minho’s office is a mess, but he likes it that way.

“What’s up?”

They’ve been friends for years and colleagues for longer. Chan supported him through his divorce and his slip-up, and Minho doesn’t say anything about Chan’s situation in return. It’s no use.

“Ah, new students,” he replies.

He pushes some documents across the desk so he can lean against it. Watching Minho sort through his overflowing bookshelf is amusing.

“Right, yeah. Mine are insufferable already. How are yours?”

Chan says nothing for a moment. He chews on the inside of his lip and weighs the option of lying against the truth.

“You’ve had some of them, I think. I’ve seen them around your classroom,” he begins. Minho hums. “They’re… good.”

“Who did you get? Kim Seungmin?” Minho asks and turns with a book in his hand. He doesn’t look up, so he doesn’t see the line between Chan’s brows. “It’s annoying how smart he is.”

“Yeah, him. Some others. There’s, uhm, Felix. Lee Yongbok,” Chan says and hates how her name feels different on his tongue.

Minho puts the book down and meets his eyes. They’re sharp now, but not as dark as they were back then. “Did she say something?”

Chan isn’t guilty of anything, yet. But seeing her in his classroom for the first time, his heart sent a quick, painful jab through his chest at the reminder of what she knows.

“No. I just…” Yeah, just what? “I don't know what to make of this,” he sighs.

“Nothing, you make nothing of it because there’s nothing to make,” Minho replies. There’s a rough edge to his voice, like always when he tries not to speak his name. “Just because he was trouble doesn’t mean she is.”

Chan isn’t so sure.

-

Nothing happens.

She’s active in class and never takes any notes, but remembers everything Chan tells them. She’s a model student, who just so happens to have a slight staring problem.

Chan really fucking tries.

He forgets about her, about his talk with Minho, about the unspoken thing amidst the stress of exams. He creates new ones every time, but he’s not mean about it. It takes a lot of work.

He’s usually the first to arrive in his classroom. It’s old, like all the buildings, and the too-new smartboard takes a while to start up with the university’s ancient wifi.

Chan only stops in his tracks for a second when he sees them.

He’s perched on her desk, smiling so wide while he whispers to her.

Chan has never truly spoken to Jisung before, but he knows they’re a package deal.

Felix laughs at something he says and it rings through the empty classroom.

“Hi, professor,” she says when they notice him.

Two sets of eyes find his and Chan forces a smile. “Good morning.”

Jisung mumbles something, never looking away from Chan. Felix giggles.

Chan enters the wrong password into his laptop twice.

“Gotta go,” Jisung says.

He hops from the desk and stretches his arms over his head and Chan doesn’t look. He’s not a freak.

“Later, babe,” Felix tells him and Chan does look. She’s already looking back.

Jisung leaves and Chan wishes for his other students to arrive more than ever before.

“How was your weekend?” he asks casually.

“Boring,” she sighs.

He smiles a little. “So you’re already done with the assignment?”

Felix pouts. She tilts her head and pushes some blonde hair behind her ears. Chan can see the fresh pink acrylics. They were red last week.

“I still have some time,” she replies. It sounds like she wants to say more, but she doesn’t.

Other people arrive. Chan gives the lecture and smiles when Felix asks a question and moves on.

-

“Professor,” she says.

Her hands behind her back. The hem of her skirt just barely reaches the edge of his desk. He could see a sliver of skin if he really tried, but he won’t.

“Felix-ssi,” he says. He stacks a few papers neatly together and waits for her to continue. Blinks when she doesn’t. “Anything I can help you with?”

“Yeah,” she replies. Her voice is so deep. Haughty when she whispers. “About that assignment…”

“Hm?” 

“I’m kind of…” she starts. Smiles so sweetly. “Would you take a look at it with me?”

It’s not the first time a student has asked for his advice. It’s part of his job. There’s nothing out of the ordinary.

He gets up and grabs his things. “Visit me during my office hours, yeah?”

-

There’s a knock and Chan knows it’s her.

Half an hour before he’s set to leave. There are barely any people left on campus who don’t work there. He tries not to read too much into it.

“Hi,” she says. Her smile is like the sun. “Sorry, I got caught up at the library.”

“Come in, it’s alright,” Chan replies.

Felix closes the door behind her and glances around his office. The neat order of things on his desk, the perfectly aligned chairs in front of it.

She always wears skirts. With a pretty blouse it looks like a school uniform, even though they don’t have those here.

It’s late fall, but she’s not wearing tights. At least it seems like she isn’t, but Chan doesn’t allow himself to try and figure it out.

“Take a seat,” he says.

She does, one leg crossed over the other. Chan clears his throat and tries for his usual easy-going approach.

“What’s—”

She’s faster. “I’m almost done. Actually, it is done,” she says. “But I’m not sure if it’s what you want.”

Chan blinks. “What I want?” he echoes.

“Yeah.” She smiles. “You always want something from us. Your assignments have a purpose.”

He leans back and really looks at her. The freckles on her face. The gloss on her lips, the gems in her ears, the way her dark bra just slightly shows through her white shirt.

“What do you think the purpose of this one is?” he asks.

She’s so goddamn smart. He feels dirty giving her As on all her assignments and exams, even though he doesn’t know for sure how she’ll do yet. But she’ll get an A. She knows.

“Other than impressing you?” she taunts. Her perfectly plucked brow lifts. “I’m sure this topic will come up in the exam. Maybe not as the main focus, but the work we had to put into this will pay off somehow. You’re too kind to let that go to waste.”

It’s only been a couple of months. She always watches him during class and he wonders what she sees.

“Do you have it with you?” Chan asks. He gives her a smile and ignores the heat in his chest.

Felix hums and picks through her bag. It’s exactly eight pages long, like he told them to.

Chan meets her expectant gaze. “I’ll take a look at it.”

“Thank you,” she replies. “Can I come back in on Friday? For your feedback.”

“Yeah, that should work.” He looks at her again. “How are your other classes? Got a lot to do?”

“Not really,” she says. “I can keep up. Yours is my favorite.”

She smiles and there’s something in her eyes Chan ignores.

“Really? Why?” He leans forward in his chair, forearms on his desk.

Felix shrugs. She has a slim frame. “I like the way you teach. I like that you care. The other professors are not as… interesting to watch.”

“Watch?” He swallows slightly. He didn’t think she’d mention how much she stares.

“Yeah, watch you teach. Stand up there and talk about the same thing over and over again. Even when half of us aren’t listening,” she adds with a grin. “You’re passionate about your work. It’s… admirable.”

He knows she means something else.

“Thank you,” he tells her with a smile. “I’m glad you feel that way.”

She gets up from her chair and pulls at her skirt to adjust it. “You’ve got favorites, too, right? Everyone does.”

Chan raises his brows and feigns innocence with a kind laugh. “Teachers shouldn’t treat students differently. We’re not supposed to play favorites.”

“I know,” Felix sighs. “But some do.”

When she leaves, her perfume lingers in the air and Chan thinks about Minho.

-

He sees her in the hallway on the way to a sixth semester lecture. She leans against a wall of lockers, talking to Jisung. 

She sees him, too, but doesn’t say hi. Just smiles a little and wiggles her fingers in a wave before replying to something Jisung said.

It’s casual and yet not. No other student would wave at him, not like that. He smiles back and hurries past them.

Chan hears a fragment of their conversation.

“—so fun. I miss it. He was so… professional. I got hard so fast.”

“Yeah, because you’re a freak.”

“You’re worse.”

“I know.”

-

It’s not weird to look at a student’s file. Chan just needs to confirm something.

The way she talks, her name, her skin.

She’s Australian, like him. He doesn’t know what to do with that information. Her nickname precedes her, though his lips curl in amusement at her full birth name.

Her birthday was a while ago. She’s only twenty-three. He stares at the date for a moment.

There’s nothing to be guilty of, yet Chan closes the tab of her file and takes several deep breaths before he can think.

He doesn’t sleep well that night. He rarely does, but it’s worse now as he tries so hard not to think about her that he inevitably does.

-

“Hyung,” Minho says. “You look like shit.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he replies. 

They’re having lunch in Minho’s office. Chan glances at his desk, at a specific spot.

Minho clears his throat.

“How’s—”

“Don’t,” Chan says firmly. “No.”

“Alright.” Minho looks at him for a moment longer. “If you ever—”

“I know.”

-

“Are you doing anything fun this weekend?” she asks.

Lounging in one of his chairs like they’re just hanging out. Her legs are covered with socks that go all the way up to her thighs.

“Not really, just preparing the exam,” he replies.

“Gimme a hint?” she tries, grinning widely.

Chan just tongues his cheek instead of smiling back. “Like you need any extra help.”

Felix pouts. “Thought I’m your favorite.”

She is. Definitely was this week. She’s wonderful in class.

“I already told you, Felix-ssi, I don’t have favorites.” He doesn’t even believe himself when he hears it.

“Right,” she says. Nods. “And I don’t see how relieved you are when I raise my hand in class and no one else does.”

Chan sighs. There’s a pin in her hair to keep her bangs out of her face. “You’re a delight in class. Is that what you want to hear?”

She beams. “Yeah.”

“So, about your assignment,” he says quickly. He clears his throat and wonders why the fuck she’s here. He tells her as much. “Did you really need my help, or did you just want to impress me?”

Felix just blinks. Her eyelashes are so long.

“It’s really good. You really know how to open up,” he tells her.

He hears it as she raises her brows. His neck feels hot.

“I mean, your opening statement is amazing. The rest, too. I’ve got no notes. Maybe tweak the title a little, but otherwise it’s perfect,” he admits.

“You flatter me, professor,” she says. “I wasn’t sure… about the style. What’s your preference? How do you like it?”

Chan thinks about the promotion that’s lined up for him. Thinks about what’s wrong with him all of a sudden. Thinks about Minho.

“Just like that,” he tells her. “Keep going like you do, and you’ll be just fine.”

“I don’t wanna be just fine,” Felix says. She means it. “I wanna be everything.”

Chan doesn’t doubt her for a second. “Have you thought about your thesis yet?”

She smiles like a cat. “All the time. Can’t decide if I want to do history or literature.”

Chan teaches history. He’s not sure he wants to be her advisor.

“Let me know when you do,” he settles on.

“Sure,” she says. “I should go. It’s late. Don’t wanna keep you from getting off.”

He smiles like he doesn’t get what she means.

-

Chan needs this weekend. Needs time away from her like she’s haunting him.

He almost flinches when he glances around the parking lot and sees her standing at the bus stop.

Felix waves at him again, that small wiggle of her short fingers. He just smiles back.

The air in his car is stuffy and he feels like he’s suffocating.

-

Jisung is there again, in his classroom on Monday morning.

“Hi,” he says. Felix just smiles.

“Hey,” Chan replies.

“Don’t drill her too hard, yeah?” Jisung calls out. He’s sitting on Felix’s desk, legs swinging.

Chan drops his bag by his chair more than he puts it down. He looks up and catches Jisung’s shit-eating grin before it’s hidden behind a serious mask.

“In class,” he adds. “She’s too pretty to work so much.”

Felix sticks her head around Jisung and flutters her eyelashes.

Chan doesn’t know what to say. “Shouldn’t you be in the arts building?”

Felix giggles.

“Yes, sir,” Jisung says and hops from the desk. “No, wait, professor. You’re not the one who likes sir.”

Chan isn’t sure what he did to deserve these two at not even nine in the morning.

“Fuck off,” Felix tells him. “I still need him to do the lecture.”

Jisung winks at her and leaves.

Chan’s head is spinning.

“Sorry, he’s crazy,” Felix says.

Her legs are bare and crossed and Chan can see it from all the way over here. She has her chin propped on her hand and there’s more make-up on her face than usual.

Chan hums in reply and nothing else. 

Other students arrive and he starts telling them about the exam. Everyone groans except Felix, who just watches him with a knowing smile like they already have a secret.

-

“Minho-yah,” he starts.

He never knows how to initiate this conversation because he shouldn’t, just like Minho knows they don’t talk about Chan’s life.

“Hm?” Minho looks up from his papers, red pen still in the air. They like to grade exams and assignments together because Minho is no-nonsense about work and Chan likes his company.

“How did it happen?”

Neither of them say anything for a moment. Of course Minho knows what this is about.

“Why?” he asks. Caps his pen, leans back. His eyes are guarded. “Wanna rat me out after all?”

Chan sighs. “No, I wouldn’t. You know that.”

“Do I? You’re so good, hyung. You don’t break rules. You wouldn’t even dream of doing it. Why cover for me?” 

Minho only really gets this defensive when it’s about him. Never about his failed marriage, his teaching decisions, himself.

“I just wondered—” Chan starts, but Minho clicks his tongue.

“It’s the biggest mistake of my life, Chan. But if I had a chance to go back in time, I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done it anyway.”

“Why?” Chan presses.

He’s been thinking about it ever since. It’s been over a year and not once did Chan debate telling anyone. It’s not about that.

Minho scoffs. “Have you seen him?” he whispers. “He’s—”

Chan frowns. “Would you do it again? Now?” he interrupts.

“No,” Minho says. “There’s too much on the line. My life, hyung. It’s not like I fucked a female student. I can’t come back from this.”

Chan looks at his hands and nods. “If it had been—”

“God, yes, immediately,” Minho almost groans. “Who cares? At most I’d get fired, maybe, and go to a different university. That’s it.”

Chan can’t help but laugh. “He’s that good?”

He doesn’t feel as dirty saying this as he thought he would. Not after what he saw.

“Come on, hyung, you’re not blind.” Minho smiles slowly, wide and real and daring. “He’s a dream.”

“You didn’t say how it happened,” Chan repeats. He looks at that spot again, thinks about last summer. “You owe me that much.”

“Fuck you,” Minho grins. “You freak.”

Chan smiles, too. “Maybe.”

“I wish I could say it was love at first sight, or blooming up, or this real connection that goes deeper than what we did. But it’s not. He was here and flirting with me and he loved those stupid glasses. Maybe I was still hurting from the divorce. No, I was. But, fuck, I think I still would’ve done it while I was married. He came onto me and I let him. I’m pretty sure it was a bet, or just a goal of his. I don’t care. I’ve never felt like this with anyone. I don’t think I ever will again,” Minho tells him.

He’s calm saying all this. Chan doesn’t believe him that it was nothing more.

He looks at Minho for a long moment.

“I think Felix is flirting with me,” he says.

Minho laughs, loud and obnoxious. “You’re fucked, hyung.”

“I know,” he says, with a smile because he truly is. “I can’t help but think they really made a bet.”

“Maybe. Be careful, yeah? I know I said if it had been a girl I would do it again, but you’re not like me. And she’s not like him.”

“I won’t do anything,” Chan says and really wants to mean it. “I’m twice her age, she’s my student. And I’m—”

“Trust me, hyung, they get off on it,” Minho interrupts. “It’s sexy, this scenario. Don’t you watch porn? She needs help with this essay so bad and oh my god, professor, what can I do to get an A? She just chose you because you’re hot and she knows you’re already thinking about it.”

Chan frowns. “Why would I—”

“Because you caught us, and he told her, and you never told on us. It’s this dirty little secret we all share and you’d have it so easy convincing her of that. She’s playing you.”

“I know, Minho. But it’s not like she can do anything but flirt. If I don’t respond, she’ll stop eventually,” Chan mutters.

“Yeah, if. If you just ignore her, if you just don’t look at her, if you just stop thinking about her. Good luck, hyung. I’ve had her. She knows what she wants and she gets it, every time.”

Chan takes a deep breath. He’s not even attracted to her. She’s too young. If only she’d stop saying those awfully suggestive things.

“You think I’m hot?” he asks instead.

Minho looks at him like he’s dense.

-

It was humid in August of that summer.

Chan stayed late to prepare his upcoming lectures, too caught up in it to mind the time.

A glance out of the window, at the connecting building and into Minho’s office told him he wasn’t the only one. Chan could see him at his desk, talking to someone. A student.

It took him a good while to actually get up and leave his office.

He didn’t even think about knocking. All that was on his mind was how little he wanted to go home.

“Come on, Minho, it’s—”

He only heard the heavy breathing, the small whines and gasps once he opened the door.

Minho had him bent over his desk, hand in his hair to hold him down. Their pants were down, Minho’s shirt unbuttoned. His cock was buried so deep into him and his hand clasped so hard around that tiny waist.

Chan froze at the sight. They did, too, so out of breath and so far gone.

He didn’t know this student, not his department. 

“Shit, sorry, I—” Chan rushed out. He couldn’t look away.

There were tears on the boy’s face, but he seemed the opposite of uncomfortable. His eyes found Chan’s when he spoke.

“Keep going,” he gasped. “Please, sir.”

Minho looked at Chan for a moment and picked up his pace again.

Chan left without another word. He waited outside the office, clenching his jaw whenever he could hear a sound crawling out from underneath the closed door.

After what seemed like forever, the student came out first.

“Whoops,” he breathed and gave Chan a quick smile before hurrying out of the hallway.

Minho was a wreck that night.

Chan only learned Jisung’s name when it was already dark outside and Minho had come out to him properly.

-

He stays late grading the exams.

He doesn’t make it through all of them that night and he debates not going home at all, but the couch in his office is old and he longs for a scalding hot shower.

The last one he grabs from the stack has a small heart as a dot instead of a normal i in the name and Chan stares at it until his vision swims.

It’s not just for his own sanity that he hopes Felix will choose literature as her thesis subject. Her writing is exceptional. She writes like she knows the exact words Chan wants to hear and makes him long for it.

It’s perfect in every sense but how it makes him feel sick.

The red pen in his hand hovers in the air, unused for the past half hour in which he’s read her neat handwriting over and over again.

He puts it down, empties his glass of water, takes several deep breaths and doesn’t grade her.

-

His is almost the last car in the parking lot.

It’s drizzling.

Because she was there that one time, every night since Chan has glanced at the bus stop.

At well past eight at night no student should sit there waiting to get home, not when the library closes at seven and there are no lectures this late on campus.

Felix’s blonde hair is illuminated by the overhead light. It shines like a halo.

Chan stands in the rain and doesn’t move for a minute.

He takes half a step in her direction when a bus arrives and she gets on.

He’s not sure if she turns to look at him or if he just wanted her to.

-

The house is so empty at night.

Even with no one to share, Chan always makes dinner enough for two people.

He eats the leftovers alone the next day, but he can’t shake the habit.

It makes him wonder what Felix likes.

He stops. The tomato is half chopped up and the pan is sizzling with oil and Chan grinds his jaw when he notices her crawling into his mind so easily now.

Nothing happened. Nothing will happen.

But Minho put the thought in his head, the possibility of it the day he fucked Jisung in his office and Chan didn’t do anything.

-

“Come see me after class, yeah?” he tells her quietly.

She smiles at first, but is stunned when she receives her spotless exam.

No notes, no grade, nothing.

The other students chatter amongst themselves about their results, but Felix just watches him. There’s a fire in her eyes that Chan doesn’t want to think about.

-

She’s in a sweater today. It’s getting colder.

Still, a skirt, tights if he sees correctly and he only dares to glance down once.

The pout on her lips looks so sweet with what seems to be freshly applied lipgloss. Chan isn’t stupid.

“Take a seat, Felix-ssi,” he tells her.

“Are you dumping me?” she asks.

Chan breathes in deep through his teeth, and out through his nose. It irritates him when she talks like that. Gets under his skin.

“No,” he replies. “I read your exam three times.”

She has her arms crossed, legs as well, shut off to him when usually she’s so inviting. His words make her tilt her head. A few strands are loose from her bun and it looks—

“Oh? That good?”

She reads him like a book.

He clicks his tongue. “Yes. If I didn’t know better I’d think you cheated.”

“I would never do that, professor,” she drawls. “I know you expect the most of us. Wouldn’t dare to let you down.”

Chan hums. He glances down at the copy of her exam on his desk.

“I want you to read this to me,” he hears himself say.

When Felix smiles all her teeth show. “Sure.”

Her voice is so soothing. Hypnotizing if Chan loses focus for even a second. She never falters, pauses at the right time, smiles when she knows a particularly good sentence is coming up.

Chan says nothing for the next few minutes.

“Anything else, professor?” 

He shakes his head and reaches out his hand to her. The sleeve of his shirt is pushed halfway up his forearm. Their fingers brush for a second when she gives the pages back to him and Chan is sure he won’t sleep tonight.

The scratching of his red pen is the only thing that makes any sound in his office.

Felix bites her bottom lip at her A before she looks at him again.

“You spoil me,” she whispers.

He smiles, finally, lets it happen as another reward that she deserves.

“What’s your next class?” he asks instead of playing her game.

“Does it matter? I’m still yours for—” She glances at the clock on his wall. “—the next ten minutes. Advise me, professor. Isn’t that why I’m here?”

He thinks about the porn Minho mentioned, the porn he’s never dared to watch.

“Why are you doing this?” Chan leans back and likes how she hesitates for a second.

“What do you mean?” The first real question she’s ever asked him.

He smiles. “History. We both know your talent lies somewhere else. What do you want to do, Felix?”

Chan drops the honorific to see her reaction and because he really wants to know. Not as her teacher.

She opens her mouth and closes it again. There’s pink dusted over her cheekbones so faint he shouldn’t notice.

“I love writing,” she admits. She doesn’t look him in the eye. “I— I’ve always known I wanted to do this. But it’s not enough, not if you’re not one of the best.”

Chan has no doubt she’ll get there somehow, to the top. He has no credentials to back this up, but if she can’t reach the summit no one can.

“Why history, then?” he presses.

Felix sighs and meets his gaze. “I’m good at doing research. Maybe some journalism? There’s… options. I like getting into the dirt and digging so deep I find the bones, you know?”

He’s afraid he does.

“Professor Lee is right about you,” is what he says.

He regrets it when instead of surprise she shows her cat’s smile.

“You talked about me?” she asks. “How nice of him to pay attention to me. I know he had his hands full last year.”

Chan doesn’t even have the delusion to wonder how he got himself here, to the one topic he tried to avoid. It’s entirely his own fault.

“I think our time is up, Felix-ssi,” he tells her.

She makes a sympathetic sound and gets up from the chair. The hem of her sweater almost covers her skirt.

“See you on Monday, professor,” she says.

-

Chan says nothing when Minho doesn’t listen to him talk.

Not when Jisung is walking along the path to the arts building and Minho doesn’t blink once.

-

[22:48]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Assigned Reading

Hi professor,

I’m currently reading the article for class and I was wondering if there will be a discussion on the labor division between men and women from that time? I know it’s not the focus point, but it’s very interesting and I’ve got a lot of things to say about it. :)

Felix

[23:18]

From: Bang Chan

To: Lee Felix

Subject: Re: Assigned Reading

Hi Felix!

I wasn’t planning on leading the discussion in that direction, but if we’ve got the time I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.

Greetings,

Professor Bang

Chan closes his phone and sighs. Thinks about her at her desk, or in bed, flipping through the pages of the handout he gave them. Making notes with her pink highlighter, or none at all because she’s got everything stored in her brain for later use.

When he’s in his cotton pajama pants and nothing else, he goes to bed.

His phone lights up in the pitch black of the bedroom.

[00:08]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Re: Re: Assigned Reading

Well, then:

Chan swallows at the sight. Has to scroll down the wall of text twice till he reaches the end. Her choice of words, sentence structure, the way she makes the reader feel stupid for not having thought of this first. She writes so goddamn fucking sexy.

[00:32]

From: Bang Chan

To: Lee Felix

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Assigned Reading

Go to sleep, Felix-ssi

[00:33]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Assigned Reading

whatever you want, professor :) 

-

He doesn’t think about it. Just for a second it flashes in his mind, like a scene from one of those romcom-movies Minho’s ex-wife liked so much, and that’s enough.

The hallway is crowded, it’s busy right before lunch time, and the lockers along the walls make for a lot of noise and commotion.

Gives him a cover and witnesses at once. He thinks Felix would like it.

Chan sees them chat, Jisung leaning against a locker and Felix in front of him. She’s wearing a skirt that’s just shy of inappropriate the way it barely covers her ass and her hair falls in a golden waterfall down her back.

He doesn’t think.

Students and staff hurry through the hallway and Chan makes his way through, too, and just so happens to pass by Felix. It’s not even that crowded anymore, not enough to warrant this.

“Excuse me,” Chan says with his teacher-smile, so fucking polite. 

His hands find Felix’s waist for just a moment, holds her steady to slip past her, closer than needed, and he feels her tense at his firm touch, feels her breath get stuck in her lungs, can smell her perfume so up close, sees for just the fraction of a second the way Jisung’s eyes widen, and lets go of her just as quickly.

Chan feels his heartbeat pulse in his dick when he’s alone in his office and he knows he’s fucked.

-

The stairs in front of his classroom lead up to the second floor of the building and it’s not unusual for him to find his students sitting on the steps before a lecture.

It’s rare that he finds one waiting for him afterwards.

Felix has one leg drawn up while she looks at her phone and Chan clears his throat instead of looking at her exposed thigh.

“Is there something you need, Felix-ssi?” he asks.

Others go up and down the stairs past them and he’s painfully aware of every word he says, every move he makes. Of what he did the other day in front of more people.

“Ah, professor, there you are,” she breathes. Smiles, lets her eyes drag along his body when no one else is looking. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

He takes a step closer and she stays put, only tilts her head back to blink up at him through her long lashes. Her freckles are dusted with pink blush.

“I have official office hours, Felix-ssi, you know that,” he says and really tries to sound normal.

She pouts and there’s this fucking gloss on her lips again. Chan bets it tastes like strawberries.

“I know, I won’t keep you for long, I promise,” she replies.

Felix gets up on her feet, a little taller than him now that she’s standing on the stairs. “I was wondering if you still did those end of term dinner parties at your place.”

She says it so innocently, so sweetly. Hands behind her back and all.

“Yes, I do.” He hasn’t thought about it until now and the prospect of what she’s insinuating doesn’t get lost on him. “At the end of the summer semester, for my graduating students. So you have to be patient till next year, Felix-ssi.”

“Oh,” she sounds disappointed. “Well, you wouldn’t not invite your favorite student, no? Sorry, students.”

Chan sighs and glances at a colleague walking past them, before he replies, “we’ll see about that, Felix.”

She grins and says “okay” and wiggles her fingers in goodbye again. Her acrylics have glitter on this time.

Of course, when she hops up the stairs, Chan watches. Still does when she slips her hand under her skirt to adjust her underwear over her ass for him to see the red lace.

Felix peeks over her shoulder at the top of the stairs and he doesn’t have it in him to smile back.

-

“Was it just that once?”

Chan sees the recognition in Minho’s face and how he buries it. “What?”

“Jisung,” he clarifies.

Minho’s jaw works under his skin. Chan can see the hint of a stubble forming. Minho looks as tired as Chan feels these days.

“Yes, just that one time,” he replies.

Chan hums. “What did he say? The next time you saw him.”

But Minho groans instead of answering his question. “Fuck, hyung, do you like torturing me?” he grits out. “I thought we had a deal. You don’t ask about him and I don’t ask about her.”

It takes him back for a moment, but the tips of Minho’s ears are pink and that only happens when he’s embarrassed. “What did you say to him?” Chan asks.

He doesn’t like seeing his friend so uncomfortable, but he can’t be alone in this.

Minho doesn’t say anything for a while. He looks at Chan when he does.

“I asked when I could see him again.” His voice is almost too quiet to hear.

“And what did he say?” Chan almost doesn’t want to know.

“He just laughed in my face.”

-

He admits to himself that he’s intrigued by her.

She’s fascinating. Too smart for her own good, popular, beautiful, fortunate enough to come from a good family to have a bright future in store for her no matter what. 

It drives him crazy that despite all this she takes the risk to get under his skin, for no reason apparent to him other than that she simply wants to.

“What’s your Australian name?” she asks him in English, like they’re close.

Chan raises his brows and looks up from the extra assignment she handed in without being asked to.

“Come on,” she says with that deep voice of hers. “You know mine, it’s only fair.”

Her accent is so pronounced, it takes him back thirty years.

“Christopher,” he says slowly.

Felix makes a surprised face, a perfect little O with her pink lips. “Wow,” she breathes, “Bang Christopher Chan.”

He sucks in his breath through his teeth. His name spills from her tongue like honey.

“You know you don’t need extra credit,” he diverts. In Korean because English feels too risky with her. Too flirty way too quickly. “Do you work this hard in your other classes?”

“No,” she says sweetly, “only for you. I exhaust myself for you, your class, all this research and the heavy books and the time I put into it. It’s so much fun.”

He knows she’s got a spotless GPA. He wants to see the world through her eyes just one time.

“Well,” he sighs, “it’s paying off. This is really good. You make the structures of the Goryeo era buildings way more interesting than they are.”

With a glance at the clock Felix uncrosses her legs and gets up.

“Thank you, Chris,” she says.

Chan tongues his cheek and gets up too, much to her surprise. He walks past her to the door of his office and opens it for her, not so subtly asking her to leave.

“That’s still Professor Bang to you, Felix-ssi,” he tells her when she’s close.

Her eyes widen just a little and there’s a blush on her cheeks now. “Sorry, professor,” she whispers, but he knows she enjoys it.

“Good.” He swallows the next word before it can vocalize and he wonders when he gave in to her.

-

Nothing is going to happen.

It’s what he tells himself over and over again until he’s sick of it.

At night he stares at the empty side of the bed for so long he gets a headache. From that or the scotch he poured himself earlier, just so he could forget about her.

She’s too young, it’s not appropriate, besides, he’s—

Chan takes an ice cold shower and goes to bed early, even if he doesn’t fall asleep for hours.

-

Chan is at the library more often than most other professors.

Minho’s here fairly frequently, too, but Chan likes to sift through all the new history books and get a feel for them. Whether or not he needs to adjust his curriculum or his own knowledge, or if he catches anything interesting at all.

He’s way past telling himself that. Spending longer at work means less time in an empty house.

He saw her when he entered the library, but she hasn’t noticed him yet.

Chan wanders through the aisles until he finds the section he’s been looking for and spends a good while flipping through the pages. If it just so happens to be a book on the topic he gave a paper on then so be it. He’ll deny it if she accuses him of doing this on purpose.

“Oh,” Felix says. “Didn’t see you there, professor.”

He smiles a little, but not too much. “Working on the assignment?”

“Yeah, I was looking for something, actually,” she replies.

Her eyes scan the shelves, but she’s attentive and quick, so she realizes Chan is standing right where she needs to be very fast.

He clears his throat and puts the book back on the top shelf when she approaches.

“Anything specific?”

Part of him wants to leave, but it loses to the fragment that walked him here in the first place. He’s still her teacher. He can guide her.

“Just some extra reading,” she says. Glances up at him for a second too long, but Chan lets it slide. “Do you mind if my paper is longer than you wanted? It won’t fit,” she tells him slowly, “into twelve pages.”

Either she’s not good at doing what she’s told, or she likes to get on Chan’s every nerve even more. He gives it some thought.

“Please follow the instructions, Felix-ssi, I’m sure you’ll manage,” he says.

She clicks her tongue and focuses on the books.

Chan retreats to a few shelves down the aisle, but he couldn’t name a single title if he had to. He tries not to be obvious as he watches her browse through the books and pile them in her arms.

Her dress goes down to her mid-thighs and covers up her chest entirely, which is almost too modest for her.

He’s about to leave when he hears her groan quietly. It licks like a shiver down his spine.

Felix isn’t that short, but she still can’t reach the top shelf of books. She’s on her tiptoes, strain written into her face as she tries to get ahold of a book that’s a good few centimeters too high up.

Chan tells himself that he’s just doing his duty as a teacher.

He doesn’t say anything when he steps right behind her. He knows he’s too close, he knows. He can almost feel the fabric of her dress against his crotch. Her perfume smells like one he could never afford at her age.

He grabs the book he put up there just minutes ago and doesn’t step back when she turns around.

Felix looks surprised and something else, and she tries to back away, but the shelves are right there. The tips of their shoes would be touching if Chan hadn’t put his feet on either side of hers.

“This one?” he asks.

“Yeah,” she breathes and Chan can see how she swallows.

His frame engulfs hers so easily. He’s so close he could count the freckles on her face. Her pupils are blown so wide.

“Thank you,” she adds when he doesn’t say anything else.

Chan, for a moment, wants to undress her and see her writhe against the shelves.

“Good luck,” he tells her and leaves without a look back.

-

She’s beautiful.

Dressed in nothing but one of Chan’s white shirts, unbuttoned to only barely cover her nipples.

It’s obscene, the way his shirt reaches to her thighs, but he can see her pussy so clearly.

Her bush is neat and trimmed, and when she spreads her legs where she’s writhing on the bed, Chan’s mouth waters at the sight of her slick folds, her stiff clit.

“Please,” Felix whispers.

She arches her back, sighs in discontentment because he’s not touching her yet.

“What’s that?” he asks.

“Touch me,” she pleads.

Her bare feet find his clothed thighs where he’s kneeling in front of her and she applies pressure as she inches towards his crotch.

“Ah-ah,” he tuts, encircling her ankle with his fingers to lift her foot away, up, higher until she’s all spread out.

She whines. It’s heavenly. She’s breathing so fast already and Chan hasn’t even started yet. Her hair is fanned out around her head, framing her in beautiful gold. Her cheeks are pink.

“Show me,” he tells her.

She’s a little embarrassed at this, it’s so obvious when she blinks instead of looking at him. Chan can already see her most intimate parts, except—

Felix’s hands tremble a little, if from nervosity or arousal he can’t tell, as she reaches for the shirt.

Chan watches as his student reveals her tits to him, her nipples already perked up from nothing but anticipation.

Freckles dust her skin even there, everywhere, and he wants to kiss them all.

Her chest rises and falls as she waits for him to finally touch her.

“Please, professor,” Felix whines.

She’s dripping.

Chan leans over her, one hand next to her face and the other on her thigh to keep her open. Her eyes are so big, so trusting. He smiles and he can already feel the heat coming from her core so close to himself.

“Good girl,” he whispers.

She presses her eyes closed at this, squirming underneath him.

He’s never had one this young.

Hardens his grip on her thigh to hear her gasp, leans down to brush his lips against her collarbone in the ghost of a kiss. Goosebumps erupt on her skin and he watches like a starving wolf how her nipples tighten, how she arches her back in the chase for his touch.

Chan gives in, less to please her and more to appease his own hunger. He trails featherlight kisses down her sternum until he reaches the swell of her breast. He drinks in the scent of her, the sounds she makes, the way she tastes when he sucks lightly on her skin, before using the tip of his tongue to trace a fine path to her nipple. Her heart beats so quickly inside of her.

She trembles like she’s never been touched before.

“You’re not a virgin, are you?” he asks, amusement in his voice because he knows she’s not, she can’t be.

His lips close around her nipple and he doesn’t have it in him to be kind when he bites down.

But Felix moans in surprise, a small, whiny thing, and lets him, lets him and doesn’t say anything.

Chan looks up at her when he licks a from the swell of her tit up to her nipple before he leans up.

She’s so beautiful.

“Are you?” he asks again. 

Felix merely swallows, blinks her big, brown eyes up at him and doesn’t reply.

He’s never been this hard before.

Chan realizes that, awake and alone in his bed, with a blaring alarm and the worst boner of his life.

He doesn’t allow himself the release and punishes himself with a freezing shower instead.

-

For once, he’s the first in the classroom and he desperately needs that time.

With a sobering clarity that he lacked in the past months he knows two things.

His dream was just a dream because he doesn’t think Felix behaves like that in bed and doesn’t want her to, and the real issue is not the nature of his dream at all. That she was there in the first place is enough. 

Chan needs to put an end to it. This can’t go on.

Felix arrives alongside some classmates and just casts him a smile in greeting.

He thinks about the way he imagined her tits and cunt and hates himself.

“Felix-ssi, do you have a moment to stay after class?” he asks her before the lecture begins, quietly as he stands next to her desk.

“Of course, professor,” she purrs. “Should I come in your office?”

They both know that’s not how the sentence goes. He ignores it.

“No need. Just hang back when class is done, yeah?”

She’s a little more quiet than usual, but he won’t alter her grade for that. He’s not mean.

Felix stays put in her seat in the first row until the other students are gone. Chan gets up and goes to lean against the edge of his desk to talk to her. His hands are in his pockets. They’re mere two meters apart.

He sighs. “Listen, Felix-ssi, you know I appreciate the effort you put into my class and I think your fellow students could learn a lot from you, but,” he pauses to look at her and watch the apprehension etch into her expression, “your talents are wasted here. You should focus more on your thesis. I heard you chose a topic for it, hm? If you really sink your teeth into that I’m sure you’ll do exceptionally.”

She bites the inside of her cheek while he essentially dumps her. He feels compassion in his heart, next to that other thing he wishes would vanish.

“Okay,” is all she says. She gets up, grabs her bag, pushes the chair under the desk. “Thank you, professor.”

He watches her go.

He doesn’t feel as relieved as he thought he would.

-

Something changed and Chan doesn’t realize what it is until she hangs back one afternoon.

Another student comes up to his desk, handing him the assignment on the last day of the deadline. He leaves and Chan braces himself for Felix’s attention now that they’re alone.

“What can I do for you, Felix-ssi?” he asks.

She pushes some loose, blonde strands behind her ear and Chan’s eyes catch on the gems on her fresh acrylics.

“I’m sure you’ve noticed, but uhm…” she starts, glancing at his face before she looks down at her hand leaning on his desk. “About the assignment.”

He has not noticed. Only now does he realize that Felix hasn’t handed hers in yet.

“I need an extension,” she says. “Please.”

Chan blinks in surprise. “Oh. How come?”

When she meets his gaze it lacks the fire that used to burn him.

“Well,” she sighs, “I’m focusing on my thesis right now. Like you suggested. Professor Choi gave me a lot of material to work with and it’s taken up most of my time lately. That plus some personal, uhm, things made me kind of… forget about this assignment.”

Chan raises his brows at this blatant lie. He’s not a narcissist, but he highly doubts Felix hasn’t thought about him at least once since the last lecture he gave.

“Of course,” he says. “A week should suffice, yeah?”

She smiles, a thin stretch of her lips instead of showing her perfect teeth. “Thank you, professor.”

-

She, to Chan’s irritation, does not hand in her assignment a week later. Or at all.

Felix leaves the classroom with a group of others, chatting away like she has no care in the world.

He has to wonder if she’s doing it to piss him off.

“You good?” Minho asks him on their way to the teacher’s lounge.

“Yes. Just some late submissions,” he says.

Minho hums and lets it go. Chan is about to follow him into the connecting hallway when he sees her by the lockers.

“Just a sec,” he says and walks over to her.

Her face is hidden by the locker door and he shouldn’t be able to recognize her just by her lower half, but he does.

“Felix-ssi,” he greets her. 

He isn’t sure if he imagines how she flinches at his voice.

“Professor,” she replies and lets the door fall shut.

Her hair is in a tight plaid and there’s pink eyeshadow on her eyelids. No gloss.

“I was wondering if you managed to finish that assignment.” Chan tries for a small, polite smile, a light tone to his voice. Teacheresque when so many of their conversations bordered on something else.

“Oh, no, sorry,” she says. She doesn’t sound sorry at all.

It takes him aback for a second. “Do you need another extension?”

He isn’t strict, he isn’t stingy with extensions, he isn’t unreasonable with his students. If one of them is struggling, he understands. But Felix is not struggling.

“Yeah,” she says, lips spread over her teeth, but not to smile.

She tilts her head before she switches to English, “it’s just so hard, you know?” Back to Korean, with a smile now. “I stay up all night for this thesis research that my shoulder’s all,” she sighs, bites her lip, says one word in English, “fucked,” before her hand creeps up her exposed collarbone, neck, shoulder, squeezing the bare skin with a sharp inhale, “you know?” 

“Yeah,” he breathes, but his head is swimming and he feels hot in his shirt. “Just…” he stops and blinks. “Just let me know, okay? If there’s anything I can help you with.”

“Not really,” she tells him frankly. “Unless you’re good at massages I’ll be fine.”

Felix casts a glance at Minho somewhere behind Chan and leaves without that small wave she used to do. He feels like he just got whiplash.

“Hyung,” Minho says when they’re alone at the teacher’s lounge. “She’s playing you.”

Chan drinks his coffee too early and burns himself. He curses under his breath before he dares to look at Minho. “I know.”

“You’re going right into her trap,” he continues.

“I know,” Chan bites out. “She’s driving me crazy. She’s all over me for months and then I tell her to focus on her studies and suddenly she’s hellbent on failing the class.”

Minho laughs. “Just let her work it out, Chan. It’s probably some rich brat daddy issues that she’s projecting onto you. They’re all like that. Stop engaging with it. Unless you like it.”

Chan sighs. He pinches the bridge of his nose and downs the rest of his coffee. His tongue is burning.

-

It’s set to rain the entire week.

On Monday Felix doesn’t attend his class for the first time since he started teaching her.

Chan should be worried, but he’s not. He’s irritated.

He sees her on Wednesday, walking with Jisung and wearing a shirt so tight Chan almost wants to tell her off just for that.

“Oh, hi, professor,” Jisung greets him and smiles like he’s innocent. Like he didn’t look Chan right in the eyes when Minho fucked him.

Felix holds her books tighter to her chest and blinks up at Chan. She makes him feel taller than he is.

“Good morning. Feeling better?” Chan asks her. Hand in his pocket, casual.

“Better?” she echoes, tilting her head in question like a dog, or like she’s mocking him. Her hair falls in soft waves over her shoulders and Chan resists the urge to imagine how it would feel to touch it.

“You were sick on Monday, no?” He raises his brows and glances at Jisung when the boy snorts.

“No,” she says sweetly and nothing else.

Jisung bites back a grin. Chan feels their age difference so clearly it drains him.

“Right. I’d like you to hand in your assignment today, Felix-ssi,” he tells her. “I’m afraid I can’t give you more time. Please see me in my office at three, okay?”

She pouts, in thought, like it’s a choice he gave her. “I can’t, sorry,” she sighs. Presses the books in her arms tighter, holds them higher until the edges push her tits up for Chan to see. “I’ve got a meeting with Professor Choi about my thesis. Let’s do Friday, yeah? At five?” She smiles again. “You’ll love what I’ve got for you.”

Chan takes a deep breath. He tongues his cheek and looks at these impossibly inappropriate students, before he realizes that he’s not the one with the upper hand.

“Fine,” he agrees. “But this is your last chance. Otherwise I’ll have to give you a failing grade for this assignment.”

“Oh, we wouldn’t want that,” Jisung mutters.

“I’ll be good, I promise,” Felix says, a little breathier than necessary.

Chan curses the day he chose to become a professor. Curses every choice he made that led him here.

-

It’s been raining all day.

Chan looks at the e-mails he wanted to reply to and sees nothing. Behind his inner eyes something entirely else happens.

It’s a quarter to five when his phone starts ringing and Chan stares at the caller ID until it’s rude before he picks up.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi, still at work?”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m expecting a student to discuss their assignment.”

“Oh, alright. I made dinner for you.”

“For me?” Chan gets up from his chair and walks over to the window. It’s still pouring outside. He can see into the yard. “Aren’t you home?”

“Yeah, yeah, I am, but I'm leaving soon.”

A while ago, his heart would twist at this. It hasn’t in a long time now. “Right,” he says.

“Don’t stay up, okay? I’ll be late. Maybe I’ll stay the night, I’m not sure.”

Chan knows that’s a lie and plays along anyway. “Okay. Have fun.”

“Thanks, yeah, I will.” She pauses for a moment. “Uhm.”

“Hm?”

“I am. Staying. I’ll go to Leeyoung’s place. Just— Dinner’s in the fridge.”

Chan hums. “Okay,” he says again.

He doesn’t say “I love you” to his wife and hangs up. He watches as someone comes out into the yard, without a coat or an umbrella.

Felix stands in the rain for a good while until she runs towards the building again, out of Chan’s view.

-

She knocks at exactly five pm.

“Come in, Felix-ssi,” he calls out. 

Her chest is heaving. That’s what Chan notices first. Not how she’s dripping wet, hair plastered to her face, her neck, sweater soaked through, because he expected that.

He blinks in surprise anyway. “Do you not have a coat?”

She closes the door behind herself and comes closer.

“No,” she breathes, “I— I gave it to Jisung.”

Chan gets up and leaves his hesitation and doubt with his lying wife.

“You’ll get sick,” he tells her and watches her standing in front of his desk.

“Mhm,” she hums, still breathing heavily, like she ran up the stairs all three stories to his office. She drops her untainted bag on the floor. “Should I— Sorry, I don’t wanna ruin your chairs.”

The cushions are made of velvet. Her make-up isn’t ruined by the rain, though her face is all wet, too.

“You can’t stay like this,” he says, she nods, watches him come closer, “come on.”

She’s not catching her breath, it seems. Chan stops in front of her and pushes the items on his desk out of the way. She swallows and glances at him before taking the hint.

Felix is slighter taller now that she’s sitting on his office desk.

He clicks his tongue. “You’re soaked.”

“Yeah,” she whispers. Her hair is still dripping a little, the ends stuck to her chest.

He’s right in front of her, but their legs don’t touch. He can see the tremors running through her body now.

“Come on,” he says again. “You’re freezing already.”

Her eyes are so big. She grips the hem of her sweater and hesitates for just a moment. He just watches her.

Felix is slow in undressing herself. The sweater reveals a white spaghetti-strap top and nothing else. She’s not wearing a bra. Her nipples show so clearly through the fabric, hard from the cold and they’re a little smaller than he’d imagined.

Chan takes the sweater from her and leaves her to place it on the radiator. He cranks up the heat a little, too.

He does not think about Minho, or his wife, or what he’s doing.

Felix looks at him when he returns and he can see the fire behind her quiet apprehension. She’s still playing with him.

“Should probably get your shoes to dry, hm?”

Chan grabs one of her ankles without waiting for a reply and feels her twitch at his touch. He pulls her shoe off, her sock and she spreads her toes against the wet stretch of her tights.

“Yeah,” she says again, a little surer now. “Thank you, professor.”

He can’t help the smile. She gets off on addressing him like that, he thinks.

He repeats the same on her other foot and places her shoes underneath the radiator. 

Chan walks back to her and doesn’t stop out of reach. As if on instinct, she spreads her legs to make space for him and her words die in her throat when he places his hands on her knees.

“Are you wet,” he wonders, inching his palms up her thighs, her cold skin coated by nylon, “anywhere else?”

Her tits pulse with her quickened heartbeat. She leans back on her hands and her legs move to frame his. She bites her bottom lip for a second, failing to contain her erratic breathing.

“Yeah,” she mumbles.

Chan hums and slides his fingers underneath her skirt, with his thumbs in the bend of her hip until he feels the waistband of her tights. She’s shivering now. He watches her squirm a little, how her chest moves, how her nipples look through the fabric of her half-dry shirt. He glances at her face when he pushes his fingertips between her tights and her soft skin, and she holds his gaze with enough defiance that he can’t look away.

He peels the nylon off her legs and takes a step back.

She whispers something and he digs his fingers into the bundle of fabric a little tighter.

“What’s that?”

Felix breathes a smile and it’s real. He knows it and smiles, too.

“Thank you, professor,” she says in English and it’s almost like she’s purring.

He merely hums in reply and goes around his desk to take a seat. He puts the tights in one of his drawers and closes it. Felix watches him over her shoulder.

She hops from the desk and bends down for her bag.

Chan breathes for a moment. He spreads all his fingers, bites the inside of his cheek. His heart is beating steadily.

“My assignment,” Felix says and hands him some papers. Like she owns it, she climbs on the desk again, sitting there sideways, legs crossed, leaning on one hand and pushing some wet hair behind her ear with the other. She looks at him expectantly, like a student at a teacher. “Not my best work, to be honest.”

Chan clears his throat and pulls his chair closer. He takes a pen and looks at her assignment, while she’s leaning over him.

“Well, you’ve had enough time for it, Felix-ssi,” he tells her.

“I know,” she whispers with a smile.

He pretends to take longer to read the whole thing than he actually does. He can feel her shivering now.

“Cold?” he asks offhandedly and glances up at her.

The wet ends of her hair have soaked the white fabric see-through on her chest and his gaze gets stuck on the color of her stiff nipples. He leans back in his chair and just looks at her for a second.

“Kinda,” she replies.

He reaches out, to touch her bare shoulder with the back of his finger and watch the goosebumps form. They reach her chest, too. She sucks in her breath a little more harshly. But she lets him.

“And?” she pries. “That bad?”

There’s a knowing smile on her lips and Chan just sighs. He puts his pen down, unused.

“When did you finish this?” he asks. “And don’t lie to me again.”

Felix sits up in faux-thought, hands in her lap, and lands on, “a week before the deadline.”

Chan nods. “You’re something else,” he says and takes a deep breath. “I could make you write about anything and it would be nothing less than perfect, no?”

“Probably,” she agrees. “I’ll write anything you like, professor.”

He clicks his tongue and raises his brows. “How’s that thesis coming along?”

She wraps her arms around herself and shivers sporadically, but doesn’t complain. She keeps her posture in a way that he can see her tits, her trembling thighs that are pressed together so tightly.

“Just fine. Professor Choi likes to work me hard, you know. I barely have time for my favorite class,” she laments, but her smile doesn’t waver. “Did you miss me?”

“I was worried,” he replies instead of saying yes. “You’re usually so eager to prove yourself to me, Felix.”

She leans down on her hand again, closer to him than before. Her fingertips cover the title of her assignment, mother-of-pearl nail polish on her almond acrylics. “Have I not?” 

“Hm?” He meets her eyes and lifts his hand to brush some golden strands out of her face. He doesn’t touch her skin, but she trembles anyway.

“Proven myself, professor,” she whispers.

Her lips are pink and shiny even without gloss. Her cupid’s bow is a perfect curve.

Chan wants to kiss her, he realizes. He thinks about the fact that the only person he’s kissed these past years is his wife, but that the same can’t be said about her.

“Patience, Felix,” he tells her in a low voice. “You need to learn to be patient.”

She pouts and her gaze falls heavily on his mouth. “I’m not good at not getting what I want.”

He laughs quietly. “I’ve noticed. But you can be good for me, yeah? Do what I say, hand in your assignments on time—”

She hums, “okay. Okay, professor.” She smiles and pushes her hand closer until the papers of her assignment slide off the desk and into his lap. “What’s my grade?”

Chan clicks his tongue and thinks of the cat he had as a grad-student. “Would you let me give you anything less than an A?” Amusement pulls at his lips when she shakes her head slowly, still looking at his mouth. “Thought so.”

He takes the papers and writes a red A in the upper corner. “I’m not doing this because you’re my favorite,” he sighs.

She snorts. “Sure.”

He looks at her briefly before he gets up, out of harm’s way and leaves her perched on his desk. He checks on her clothes, which have since warmed up on the radiator, but are still too wet to wear.

Chan takes in her curled-up figure, how she tries to hide the trembling, how all the tiny hairs on her body stand on end. He steps closer and his legs are so close to her bare feet he can feel their coldness. He’s barely touching her. Felix sits very still.

He thinks about fucking her. On his desk, maybe bent over like Jisung was. He knows it’s what she’s been wanting for months, and the look on her face tells him she understands what he’s thinking. She’d be so warm inside.

“It’s getting late,” he says instead of coming onto her. “I have a spare sweater, if you want.”

Felix blinks. Her body replies before she can, another wave of shivers running through her. Chan can’t help but smile.

“Yeah,” she mumbles.

He keeps a fresh set of clothes in his small closet, in case he spills his coffee or stays the night on his office couch.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any pants that would fit you, but this should be fine,” he continues.

The sweater is just a basic gray crewneck, but she grabs for it before he’s even within reach. She drowns in it. She pulls out her almost-dry hair to rest on her shoulders and Chan hands her a pair of socks, too.

“Gimme a hand?” she asks sweetly, raising one bare foot to rest on his leg. Her toes dig into his thigh and he remembers painfully the dream he had.

“You’re old enough to dress yourself, Felix-ah,” he tells her and ignores the way her brows shoot up at the suffix.

She scoffs and pulls her foot up, leg bent at the knee to put Chan’s sock on. It’s comically large on her small foot.

“Do you know?” she asks. “How old I am.”

He hums as he waits for her to put the other sock on. “Of course.”

She grins, quick and real, before she hops from the desk. “And you, professor?”

It hasn’t occurred to him that she knows barely anything about him. He sighs and looks at the way his sweater reaches down far enough to cover her skirt entirely.

“I could be your father,” he tells her.

Her eyes widen at this and she lets out an unbelieving laugh. “Pervert,” she says in English.

“Mhm,” Chan agrees.

She collects her things and slips into her barely dried shoes. He glances outside. It’s gotten dark.

Felix takes a look at the clock on his wall. “I should get going, my bus is coming soon.”

Chan merely shakes his head and she makes a questioning noise, but he just takes his coat and umbrella from the rack in the corner. “I’ll drive you. You’ll freeze to death before you’re even home if you go out like that.”

She walks past him to the door and mutters something under her breath that makes his skin crawl.

“Don’t call me that,” he says seriously.

“Sorry,” she purrs, leaning against the wall next to the door of his office. “You started it.”

He pulls his car keys out of his pocket and feels them dig into his palm when he looks at her. “What did I tell you?”

Felix smiles so bright he momentarily forgets the sun isn’t shining anymore. “Sorry, professor.”

Chan opens the door and glances into the hallway, but at almost six on a Friday, no one is here but them and some cleaning personnel.

He motions for her to go ahead and tells her, “good girl,” when she passes him, just to watch her falter in her steps.

They take the stairs in the furthermost corner of the building.

Felix is quiet now, but Chan doesn’t think she’s uncomfortable. He hopes she’d tell him if she was.

“How’s Professor Lee?” she asks after a while.

They’re almost on the ground floor.

Chan tries not to smile. “Are you asking because you want to know, or someone else?”

She just shrugs.

“He’s fine,” is all he says.

They reach the back entrance and it’s still pouring when they step outside underneath the mezzanine.

“Wait here, yeah? I’ll get my car.”

“Can’t we share your umbrella?” she tries, but Chan scoffs.

“Wait,” he tells her again and watches her until she nods dutifully.

The short walk across the parking lot, with the rain beating down on his umbrella, sobers Chan up.

He finds no regret on the other side.

Felix is hugging herself again when he pulls up by the entrance, close enough that she only has to run a few steps.

“Shit,” she hisses as she jumps into his car.

“Language,” he says.

“Fuck off,” she retorts. “Professor.”

Chan rolls his eyes and watches her put the seatbelt on. She glances around the car and pulls the hem of his sweater as far down her thighs as possible.

“Where do you live?” he asks her calmly.

He already knows where she lives from the student file, but he doesn't want her to know that. Her neighborhood isn't far and he doesn’t show his reaction, even though he could never afford living there at her age.

Chan turns on the seat heating and can sense her relax once it runs.

“Thank you,” she says eventually and it sounds like she doesn’t mean the heat.

He glances at her before speeding up after a red light. It’s an automatic car, so his right hand has nothing to do. He resists reaching out for her thigh.

“Of course, Felix-ssi,” he replies.

“You can drop that, you know,” she chuckles.

“No, I can’t,” he says, even though he’s already slipped a few times.

“Okay, professor,” she whispers, still amused.

They’re quiet for the rest of the ride and Chan wonders when the guilt will set in.

He drives up to her apartment complex and stops in front of the entrance, instead of finding a parking spot. Looks at her for a moment before getting outside with his umbrella.

He walks around the back of his car and steps up to the passenger side to open the door for her.

Felix pulls her hands to herself so quickly she looks like she got caught doing something inappropriate. He has no capacity to question it.

“Come on,” he says and uses the umbrella to cover them both when she gets out.

She presses close to his side, to hide from the rain and look for warmth. Her legs are still bare.

When they reach the small entrance canopy, Felix steps away from him, rummaging in her bag for her keys. She looks at him now, one hand gripping the hem of his sweater to keep it down.

“See you on Monday, Felix-ssi,” Chan says.

The rain is rolling down his umbrella and drips from the edge between them.

“Maybe,” she replies with a sweet smile.

He raises his brows. “That wasn’t a question.”

Felix laughs and it clears the rain clouds out of the sky, or at least it should. “Goodbye, professor.”

-

Chan comes home to an empty house, like most nights.

He finds the dinner his wife made and eats it alone at the kitchen counter.

He thinks about her in her art studio, holed up to finish her project and how she goes to sleep with another man instead of her husband. He thinks about the lies she tells him about staying at a girlfriend’s place, the lies they’re both aware of, how it long since has stopped hurting. He thinks about Felix’s tights in the drawer of his office desk.

-

The guilt doesn’t come.

-

Felix is not in class on Monday, but Jisung is.

It’s three minutes till the start of the lecture and Chan feels something like disappointment eat at him.

It vanishes when Jisung walks up to him with a big smile.

“Good morning, professor,” he says and leans against the teacher’s desk with his hip.

Chan raises his brows. “I didn’t know you switched majors, Jisung-ssi.”

“No, I don’t switch,” Jisung replies earnestly. “I come bearing news.”

With a sigh, Chan looks up at him. He expects another obscenity, or some veiled flirtation about Minho.

“She’s sick,” Jisung tells him, quiet enough that only he can hear it. “Like, actually. You shouldn’t send a girl home half naked like that, professor.”

Chan blinks in surprise. “Oh. She—” He stops himself. “Tell her I’m sorry. I hope she recovers quickly.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you do,” Jisung says. “Also…” He glances at the waiting students, some of which are watching them delay the lecture. There’s a grin on his lips and Chan wonders how much Minho is hurting. “Felix wanted to let you know that you can keep them.”

Chan frowns at him. He’s getting tired of conversations that mean something else than what’s being said.

“Keep what?”

Jisung hums cutely and puts his purest face on. “The tights you pulled off her in your office.”

His neck feels hot and he works his jaw as Jisung leaves with a too-sweet smile.

Chan starts the lecture five minutes late.

-

He avoids Minho, but he thinks Minho’s doing the same.

-

It’s Tuesday when he sees her again.

But she doesn’t wave, doesn’t smile at him while they pass each other, instead she’s walking right towards him.

In the middle of the hallway she pulls his sweater out of her bag.

“Hi,” there’s a slightly nasal sound to her voice still.

Chan quickly glances at the students and staff around them, but no one pays any real attention.

“How are you feeling?” he asks quietly.

Her nose is still pink, but aside from that she looks fine. Pretty.

Felix shrugs. “I’m okay. It was just too cold and I was so wet, you know? But it’s not your fault, I know you tried getting me hot.”

He works his jaw and he’s sure he’s grown a few more gray hairs since he started teaching her.

“That’s good,” he says. It’s a quiet corridor, but he’s not happy about the setting anyway. “You missed two lectures now.”

“I know,” she sighs and leans against the wall behind her. She hugs the folded sweater to her chest. A smile tugs at her lips as she blinks up at him. “Forgive me?”

Chan was raised Catholic and even though he left his faith behind years ago, those words still ring in his head like a divine sign.

“I’ll make an exception for you, Felix-ah,” he hears himself say.

“Because I’m your favorite?” she asks.

Instead of lying to her, he nods at the sweater. “You could’ve kept it.”

“Oh? Already giving me gifts?” she giggles. “I didn’t have time to wash it, I hope you don’t mind.”

If it smells like her, he doesn’t.

He has to leave for his next class and she looks at him like she expects him to kiss her now.

“At five?” he asks.

“We’ll see,” she replies.

Chan takes his sweater back and walks away with his head swimming.

-

It’s going too far already and nothing has happened.

Truthfully, it’s not nothing anymore. Chan can admit as much. But it can’t become more.

He’s starting to forget why.

His last couple of office hours before Christmas break are usually busy. He appreciates it, if only as a distraction. He’s dreading the forced niceties and playing pretend over the holidays, how quiet his house gets in the absence of family traditions.

Chan expects her, maybe a little early, interrupting his consultation with another student, so she could give her one of those dirty smiles she does so well. So she could mess with his head.

Instead of a knock there’s an e-mail.

He hears the sound from his laptop and ignores it while he’s trying not to rush this student to leave.

“It’s just— so frustrating. I’m really trying, but I can’t sleep and—” Yeonsoo stops her rambling when there’s another quiet ping from his laptop.

Another.

“If it’s important I can wait,” Yeonsoo says quickly.

Chan knows she’s desperate to pass this class, though he’s not confident she can.

“Just a moment,” he sighs.

His laptop is facing him, but the first thing he thinks of is if Yeonsoo can somehow see the screen after all. If she can see those e-mails.

[16:51]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Our Date

Hi professor,

I can’t make it today, sorry. Emergency. Ask your dear friend.

How about Friday instead?

xx, Felix

Chan tenses when he sees the other subject lines.

[16:52]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: My Tights

btw Jisung told you you can keep them, right? Don’t forget about them, yeah? They were my favorites.

Love, Felix

[16:52]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: <3

(photo)

Her photo fills half his screen. The mirror she posed in front of has specks of dust on the glass. That’s how high the resolution is. He could count the freckles on her naked shoulder.

Felix is wearing those tights, paired with a skirt he hasn’t seen her in yet and nothing else. She’s kneeling on a carpet and the curve of her ass is prominent enough to make the skirt useless, though it doesn’t distract from how her arm is covering her bare tits. He can see just the hint of a nipple. The flare of the flash on her phone covers her face, but Chan knows it’s her. 

“I’m sorry, Yeonsoo-ssi, continue,” he says, but hears nothing of what his student tells him.

When he’s alone again, he pulls the e-mail up on his phone, saves the picture and hides it in a private folder. Then he deletes all three e-mails Felix sent and takes a deep, shaky breath.

Chan is half hard in his slacks and he locks the door of his office before unbuckling his belt.

-

“What the fuck are you doing?”

His phone is warm against his cheek. He’d been desperately clutching it in his left hand just five minutes ago.

“Hi, hyung. What do you mean?” Minho’s voice is even, but he’s awfully good at forcing it so.

“Jisung,” Chan says.

Minho is quiet for a moment. “It’s none of your business,” he replies.

“Is it not? Because Felix just cancelled our consultation appointment and told me to ask you why,” he says.

“Yeah, sure, consultation.” Minho laughs a little. “Have you fucked her yet? On your desk like I did? Does she call you Daddy? Does she thank you when you cum inside of her?”

Chan twists his mouth and frowns. The edge, the heat in his veins dissipated when he came into a tissue and he closed his phone. But her image has burnt into his mind already.

“Minho-yah,” he sighs. “Come on.”

“What do you want me to say, Chan?” he asks. “That I’m—”

Neither of them speak for a moment, until Chan takes the first step. “I’m going to ask for a divorce.”

“What?”

He should’ve done that months ago, a year ago, longer.

“It was always going to come to that, but… I think it’s time now,” Chan says quietly.

Minho hums. “Because of Felix?”

“No. Yes. Not really. It’s— I’m not… in love with her anymore and I haven’t been for a while. God knows when she stopped,” Chan murmurs.

The decision wasn’t made until now, but it feels right. He hasn’t felt this good about an aspect of his marriage in ages, and it’s ironic that the acceptance of its failure is what brings him contentment.

“That’s good, hyung. It took me way too long to realize that. When are you going to tell her? On Christmas?” 

“No, it’s not fair. She loves the holidays. In the new year, I think. I’m not sure how to… do this yet. How did you—”

He can hear Minho smile very clearly. “Wasn’t me. She found the gay porn I watched.”

Chan can’t help but laugh. “Minho-yah. What’s going on with you, hm? Did you and Jisung—”

“Yeah.” Minho is so quiet, it’s barely a whisper. “I probably have you to thank for that, no? You and Felix. Inspired him, maybe. He’s— I—”

Through the windows of his office Chan can see that Minho isn’t here. He’s either home or somewhere else entirely.

“What happened today?” Chan asks.

“What do you think, hyung,” Minho sighs. “He left an hour ago.”

And yet. “You don’t sound happy,” Chan says carefully. “Isn’t this good? Or did you fight?”

“I don’t know. We didn’t really talk that much, it’s just… I don’t know, okay? I don’t want to think about it. I’m sorry that I ruined your date with Felix.”

“It’s not a date. There’s nothing going on,” Chan lies. Neither of them are convinced. “I’m just worried about you.”

Minho swallows. “Worry about your wife fucking your best friend, hyung. I’ll be fine.”

“Fuck you,” Chan sighs, but doesn’t really mean it.

-

[19:33]

From: Bang Chan

To: 24 Recipients

Subject: Office hours before break

Hi everyone,

most of you are probably already in holiday spirits, but in case anyone wanted to come see me about class before the break, my last available office hours will be:

Thursday, 3 pm - 5 pm

Friday, 2 pm - 3:30 pm

I’ll be back as usual on the first day of class. :)

Happy Holidays!

Greetings,

Professor Bang

[19:34]

From: Bang Chan

To: Lee Felix

Subject: Fwd: Office hours before break

Friday at four?

At 19:33 Bang Chan wrote:

Hi everyone,

most of you are probably already in holiday [...]

[22:01]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Re: Fwd: Office hours before break

Hi professor,

yeah, that works! Thanks for accommodating my change in schedule so quickly. Appreciate it.

See you,

Felix x

[22:02]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Re: Fwd: Office hours before break

What's your favorite color, Chris?

[22:05]

From: Bang Chan

To: Lee Felix

Subject: Re: Re: Fwd: Office hours before break

Black, why?

[22:06]

From: Lee Felix

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Fwd: Office hours before break

Boring. How about pink? :) 

[22:06]

From: Kim Seungmin

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Re: Office hours before break

Good evening, professor, I was wondering if I could come in on Thursday at 2:45 pm already? I’ve got an appointment afterwards.

If not, I’ll try to push it.

- Kim Seungmin

Sent from my iPhone

[22:07]

From: Bang Chan

To: Kim Seungmin

Subject: Re: Re: Office hours before break

Depends. Surprise me?

[22:15]

From: Kim Seungmin

To: Bang Chan

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Office hours before break

Hi professor,

I’m not sure what you mean, but I’ll just take this as a yes. See you on Thursday at 2:45 pm.

- Kim Seungmin

Sent from my iPhone

Chan stares at this e-mail until he’s overheating from embarrassment.

-

He doesn’t wonder if she only owns skirts and dresses, because he’s seen her wear pants last year, but it doesn’t go unnoticed to him that her legs are always bare, or seem to be, since she started his class.

“Sorry about Tuesday,” she greets him with a breathy smile.

The door to his office falls shut behind her and Chan notices the sliver of skin showing on her thighs. The socks look warm, at least, unlike the flimsy mini skirt. It’s plaid and cute, but he doesn’t want her to get sick again.

“You should really wear more weather appropriate clothes, Felix-ssi,” he says.

She pouts and takes a seat in front of his desk. “Don’t you like it? I wore it for you.” Her eyes are shining.

Chan doesn’t know what this is, right now. Where they are.

“How’s your thesis?” he asks instead.

Felix smiles, slowly. Her hair is in loose waves, some strands running down her chest to curl into the dip of her cleavage. She’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt with a too low v-cut neckline. Chan does like it.

“I’m getting somewhere. It’s good. You’d like it, I think. Maybe I’ll let you read it when it’s done, oppa,” she purrs.

The word licks down his spine and he’s not sure what to make of it. “Professor,” he says, but it doesn’t sound convincing.

“Really? Still?” she presses. “Not Chris, not Daddy, not oppa… You’re so strict, professor.”

He tongues his cheek and thinks about the tights in his drawer. How he looked at the picture she sent wearing exactly that pair, while he put the nylon around his cock to get himself off with it. How he didn’t dare to cum into the fabric.

“Come here,” he tells her.

Felix breathes a smile and gets up slowly. She stops right next to him, hip leaned against the desk and she cocks an eyebrow. Her hands are behind her back.

“Did you like my photo?” she asks sweetly. 

Chan has to look up at her from his chair, turned towards her. Their legs almost touch. She smells so good and he’s not even that close to her yet.

“Yeah,” he replies. Pauses for a second. “Don’t ever do that again.”

She grins widely. “Why?” She glances down at his crotch. “Did—”

They’re interrupted by a knock.

Chan’s heart stops and Felix reacts before he can.

She drops to her knees and pushes herself past his legs to hide underneath the desk. A wooden panel conceals her from the other side.

Chan can’t hear himself think for a moment.

“Not a single fucking word,” he whispers, before he positions himself at his desk properly again.

“Language,” she snickers quietly.

Like this, she’s trapped between his thighs. His feet frame her folded legs and if he pays too much attention he can feel her breath on his—

“Yes?” he asks loudly.

The door opens and Chan would’ve done anything for it to be Minho right now.

Professor Yang is new and inexperienced. Chan has given him advice in the past, too, and he regrets ever offering to do that.

“Hi, sorry, is it a bad time?” his colleague asks.

Chan thinks about kicking him out, but his thoughts don’t go much further when Felix curls a hand around his shin.

“No,” he rasps out. “Did you need anything?”

“I was just… There’s this student of mine and I’ve run into a bit of a dilemma, I think. I was wondering if I could get your opinion on it?”

Jeongin takes a seat where Felix was just a few minutes ago and starts complaining about a lazy student for about half an hour. Chan barely listens.

She moves a little, adjusts her position and her face brushes against his leg. Maybe it’s on purpose. Chan tries not to flinch. But other than that, and her clever fingers holding onto him, she stays put.

After a while, he pretends to reach down to scratch his thigh, maybe his knee, and he finds Felix’s head instead. His fingers glide through her soft hair, like praise or reassurance, and something wet touches his fingertip when he draws back again.

It’s a fever dream and a nightmare at once.

“I think I should talk to him after the break, no? He needs to get his shit together or I have to let him fail,” Jeongin sighs. “What do you think?”

Chan thinks that he’s about to pop a boner.

“Yeah, you should. It’s really good that you care, but you need to—” He feels something foreign dig into his shin. Felix squirms a little. “—learn to be harder to students.”

He leans back in his chair and doesn’t glance down for another minute or so, not until Jeongin sighs deeply and looks at the shelves on his wall.

Felix is still kneeling between his legs, quiet as a mouse while she scrolls through her phone.

Chan clenches his jaw. 

“I know. Sorry for ranting. You probably wanna get home, right? To—”

“Yeah,” he says quickly. “It’s alright, though, don’t worry.” He smiles, even. 

Jeongin finally gets up. “Thanks, hyung. Happy Holidays.”

Chan stays in his seat and watches his colleague leave. Only when the door is closed again, does he dare to breathe.

He looks down and without another word, snatches Felix’s phone out of her hands to put it on his desk out of reach.

“Hey!” she complains. “I was being good.”

Chan merely hums. “Up,” he tells her, but only pushes his chair back enough for her to squeeze through the small gap. Her body slides against his thighs.

Once she’s standing again, Chan gets up from his seat too and meets her gaze. She’s grinning.

“That was fun,” she says.

“Mhm,” he muses. His hands find her hips and he can’t deny how his pants feel a little tighter. “You behaved.”

She scoffs and leans back until her ass is half-seated on the desk. “What, did you think I was going to try to get expelled?”

Chan studies her face. Her freckles and how the skin between has warmed just the slightest. The glint in her eyes that never leaves unless he’s being cold towards her. He tightens his grip and pushes her up properly. The small gasp that leaves her is like music to his ears. Her legs slide open for him.

“Honestly? Yeah. You’re usually not so… subtle.”

“Come on, professor, I can play nice. And I like Professor Yang. He’s cute and eager. Didn’t wanna spook him,” she says.

Head tilted, leaning back on her hands. Chan likes her like this.

“By the way,” she starts. Her eyes roam over his features, too. His nose, his lips. “Why did you ask me here, anyway? Are you finally giving in?”

He raises his brows. “Giving in to what? Is that what you think this is? Me enduring your… advances?”

She laughs. Bright and clear and Chan worries someone outside might hear it. “Advances? You really are old.”

His fingers find her waist. Her body is firm underneath his touch, even if he can’t feel her skin.

“Watch it, Felix-ah,” he warns her. He clicks his tongue. “You like it, yeah? This. My age.”

Her legs tighten around him. Her knees dig into his thighs. She squeezes him for a moment, with a lazy smile, before relaxing again. “As do you.”

Chan isn’t sure if he disagrees. “It’s not because of your age,” he tries.

She bites her lip for a moment. “Sure.”

“What do you want?” he asks her. “Out of this.”

Felix narrows her eyes a little. “This isn’t even anything yet, professor. Can’t I just have my fun with you?”

He seriously considers if Felix and Jisung really made a bet. Or a bucket list.

“Close your eyes,” he says after a moment.

She hesitates, but complies. Her eyelashes are so long and the hint of eyeshadow on her lids shimmers a little.

Chan takes a deep breath and pushes her back with a hand on her shoulder. She flinches, but her eyes stay closed when her head is on the hard surface and her hair fans out around her.

“What— oh,” Felix starts, but gasps a little when Chan digs his fingers into the bare skin of her thighs to pull them further apart. “Professor—”

She sounds surprised and Chan can guess what she thinks will happen.

He looks at her chest, the way it rises and falls on her shallow breaths. He wonders if she’s wearing a bra today. If she would let him do this.

Instead of undressing her, instead of giving in like she so clearly wants him to, Chan takes the hem of her skirt and pushes it up to expose her underwear. It’s pink, like she promised. There’s a small bow at the front.

“Surprise,” she whispers.

Chan glances up and has to bite back a smile at the sight of her reddened cheeks. Her fingers are curled into loose fists.

“Thank you,” he tells her. He reaches out to take a pen off his desk and uncaps it. “But you really can’t send me e-mails like that anymore, Felix-ssi.”

He’s careful when he pushes his fingertips into her underwear. Felix squirms a little and he can see how she tries to stay still. He doesn’t go further. He merely takes the edge of her panties and pulls it down to reveal more skin. He stops at the sight of coarse hairs.

“It’s not appropriate,” Chan continues. Clicks his tongue for good measure. ”You’re my student.”

At the first contact of the tip of the pen Felix twitches. “Uhm— Chan—”

He smiles when he hears his name. “Don’t move,” he chides and continues.

She’s a little paler down here and the ink stands out wonderfully against her skin. He digs in deep enough to see it blush in irritation.

His other hand is still on her thigh to keep her open for him. His blood is like liquid arousal inside of his veins, but he feels a heady sense of calm. It feels right.

“Anyone could see those e-mails, Felix, it’s not safe. You should know better. You’re so fucking smart,” he murmurs.

The zero won’t turn out right so he moves the pen over the spot again, a little harder this time. She swallows a sound.

“What are you—”

“It’s a surprise,” he says with a smile.

He’s almost done. It looks obscene. She’s so hot between her legs, he can feel it where his hand rests on her skin to write.

“There we go,” he whispers.

And because her underwear is pink, and her breath is going quicker, Chan uses the pen to push it against her pussy, between her folds until the fabric turns a little darker.

“Good girl.”

Felix sits up so abruptly he raises his brows. Her skirt falls down in the motion, covering his writing. His hand is still between her legs. She’s blushing and it suits her so very well.

“You’re a freak,” she lets out.

Her fingers reach out to lift her skirt and look at what he’s branded her with, but Chan grabs her wrist before she’s able to.

“Not yet,” he tells her. He drops the pen on the desk and pulls her underwear up again. “What did I say about being patient?”

She stares at him like he’s crazy. But Chan sees the fire in her eyes and the hint of a smile tug at her lips.

“Was I not being fucking patient under your desk?” she asks. “Professor.”

He hums and the hand still on her thigh slides higher. She’s so warm. Slowly, he inches two of his fingers underneath the side of her panties. It’s just the soft skin of her hip, but it feels more inappropriate than what they’ve done so far. Intimate.

The gloss on her lips isn’t fresh anymore, but he’s sure it will stick to him anyway.

He feels, and hears her smile more than he sees it. They’re so close.

“My turn,” she whispers and Chan isn’t surprised when her hand rests on his chest. 

Even with acrylics she’s quick in unbuttoning the top of his shirt.

He can’t fucking resist touching her hair again. His free hand finds some loose strands and he doesn’t understand how they feel this silky smooth even though she’s bleached it so buttery light.

“Felix-ah,” he says quietly.

He’d like to kiss her, but he knows that there’s no going back after this. Even after writing his number on her privates, or getting off to her soft-nude.

She smiles and her teeth are so perfect. Her canines are just that little bit sharper than the rest and there’s no doubt she’s a biter.

“What was that about giving in?” she purrs.

Her hand has found its way into his shirt and her nails scratch lightly across his sternum. They catch on the necklace he’s always wearing, the pendant still hidden. His hold on her hip tightens just so.

“Tell me you want me to,” he asks her.

When she says it, her breath fans over his lips already. “Kiss me, Chan.”

His heart is beating so loud in his ears. 

Which is why, when Felix closes her eyes and curls her hand into his collar to pull him closer, Chan doesn’t hear the knock on his door.

“Hyung, it’s late, shouldn’t you—”

Minho stops. He blinks.

Chan’s eyes widen and he removes his hands, takes a step back and finds his blood running cold.

There’s a small scoff, more a laugh than condescending. “Shit,” Felix breathes.

She hops from the desk to cast a glance at Minho, who merely sighs. “I’d ask for a threesome, but I know you like it a little different, sir.”

Both men ignore her. 

“Honestly, I didn’t think you’d lie to me about her,” Minho says flatly.

Chan takes a deep breath and counts to three in his head.

“Minho-yah, fuck off. Please. This is not what you think.” Minho starts to disagree, but Chan adds, “leave.”

“Happy Holidays,” Minho tells them after a moment and closes the door.

Chan is starting to get a headache. And blue balls.

Felix is biting her lip when she turns around to him. It doesn’t hide her smile. “You should really lock your office door.”

He sighs. “Yeah.” He looks at her, how she seems more amused than rattled. “It’s getting late.”

She pouts and Chan tries not to imagine what her lips would feel like against his own. Would’ve felt, just moments ago.

“Fine,” she says, reaching for the waistline of her skirt to adjust it. Her eyes catch on his exposed collarbone.

“I’ll see you in class after break?” he asks. “Don’t skip again.”

Felix smiles and it’s real. She’s been doing it more often these days. “Yeah. Don’t forget about me over the holidays.”

He’s certain he won’t.

-

Unknown Number
[02:21] (photo)
[02:21] It won’t come off

Chan isn’t asleep, but the sudden light from his phone rattles him anyway. He lowers the brightness and waits to hear if it woke his wife. But she doesn’t stir.

The numbers he wrote look smudged now, faded. But they’re still there. She pulled her underwear down to show him a little lower than he did in his office. Buried between white bed sheets, her stomach naked from what he can see. 

Chan
[02:24] Good

He changes her contact name and is grateful for his wife’s disinterest in his colleagues.

Felix (work)
[02:25] Can’t sleep, oppa?
[02:26] professor, whatever

Chan
[02:26] No
[02:26] You?

Felix (work)
[02:29] I’m at the airport
[02:29] Fleeing the country because my sexy history professor won’t kiss me </3

Chan smiles a little.

Chan
[02:30] Are you going home?

Felix (work)
[02:31] yeah
[02:31] (photo)

She’s in a big hoodie and sporting a neck pillow with a bunny on it. It’s adorable.

Chan
[02:32] Have a safe flight :) 

Felix (work)
[02:33] Thanks, Chris
[02:33] can’t scold me gtg

Chan scoffs quietly and closes his phone. He’s almost asleep when his wife moves, inching closer under the blanket to put her arms around him. He finds her hand to squeeze it.

-

Felix (work)
[14:55] (photo)
[14:56] (photo)
[14:56] nice view :)

Chan almost chokes on his coffee.

“You okay?” his wife asks. She frowns over her art magazine.

“Yeah,” he croaks.

Felix looks grainy in the poor lighting under the desk, most of it obscured by Chan himself. The selfie is cute anyway, a wide grin that shows her teeth.

Maybe Chan should buy a different kind of slacks to wear to work. The photo of his crotch, thighs splayed apart to make room for her, is obscene. He was halfway to a boner just from her being down there.

Chan
[14:59] That’s inappropriate

Felix (work)
[15:01] <3

-

Some years ago, Chan would’ve gotten his wife a Christmas present worth fawning over. A trip to Europe, a beautiful necklace, tickets to a limited art exhibition. She loves Christmas more than her own birthday.

He got her new brushes and acrylic paints this year. She’s picky about her art supplies and he’s steered clear of interfering with it because he knows how she can get. He doesn’t care much anymore.

“Oh,” she breathes as she opens the gift wrapped by the art store employee. “Thank you.”

She sounds sincere, but Chan sees that her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Of course,” he replies.

They don’t decorate the house anymore, nor do they get a tree. The only traditions that stayed are the gifts and the home-cooked dinner they share on Christmas Eve. They leave to visit her parents the next day, so there’s no use for Holiday Spirits.

Chan undoes the neat bow on the box she hands him and doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“This is…” He’s stunned at the sight of a watch this expensive. “Honey, are you sure?”

She merely shrugs. “I sold some paintings last month, remember? And I got an advance from the gallery. Don’t you like it?”

Chan doesn’t wear jewellery or accessories safe for the necklace with his wedding ring on it.

It’s a beautiful, sleek watch and he knows exactly who picked it out.

“Thank you, yeobo,” he tells her.

Chan has always done the big cooking and tonight is no different. While his wife retreats to her studio room, he chops up vegetables and prepares the meat.

When his phone lights up, he almost cuts his finger.

Felix (work)
[17:39] Merry Christmas
[17:39] (photo)

He smiles as he wonders if she texts him as an excuse to send him lewd pictures, or if she takes the pictures to have a reason to talk to him.

He misses Australia. He misses the beaches, the heat, the people. Seeing Felix lounge in a bikini, sunglasses hiding most of her face as she seemingly tries to turn her skin into a shade of bronze the Greeks spoke of in their Gods, sends a jab through his heart.

She’s beautiful. It’s not even the oiled up swell of her tits that makes him think that, or the enticing curve of her neck where he knows her expensive perfume coats her skin. Her hair is in a bun and her necklace askew, and the edge of a worn-out paperback peeks into the picture. She looks happy.

Chan
[17:41] Merry Christmas Felix :)
[17:42] What are you reading?

Felix (work)
[17:44] Wow, Mr. Professor over here focusing on the book
[17:45] Crime and Punishment

Chan
[17:45] For a class or for fun?

Felix (work)
[17:49] What do you think, oppa

Chan thinks she’s too smart for him.

“The onion isn’t going to dice itself, Chan.”

He flinches at her words and closes his phone before he looks at her. “Sorry, got distracted.”

She hums and comes up to him, pulling him close with hands behind his neck.

Kissing his wife still feels good. He hasn’t stopped liking her, after all. But for a while now he can’t deny that when they touch, or kiss, or fuck, he’s thinking about someone else.

-

They have sex in the early morning of Christmas Day.

Chan wakes up hard and wrapped around his wife’s warm body, and she’s always been quick to notice that.

“We gotta leave soon,” he mumbles between slow kisses, but she merely smiles.

“Then make it quick.”

Her hand is inside his cotton sweatpants before he can reply. He doesn’t refuse her.

She likes doing the work, which sometimes means she loses interest as soon as she’s finished. Chan doesn’t mind too much, not when she rides him this good.

He wonders what Felix’s favorite position is. If she likes to bend over, or spread her legs.

“Fuck,” she moans, long fingers digging into his stomach.

Chan’s hands find her waist and he just holds on to her when she sets a pace to her liking. He watches her a little, how her tits bounce and her neck flushes, how her hips move. His wife is really fucking hot, he knows that. He’s a lucky man.

He groans when she clenches around him, and it’s a good enough excuse to let his eyes roll back. He doesn’t feel bad anymore when he doesn’t look at her during sex. She’s not thinking about her husband, either.

“Faster,” he tells her, sure in his delusion that Felix would eagerly fuck herself on his cock to prove how good she is.

She makes a breathy sound and complies. Maybe because it’s Christmas.

Felix is smaller than her. Could she take him? When he started dating his wife sixteen years ago she was unsure, too.

He sucks his breath in through his teeth and fucks his dick up into her, deep enough that she chokes in surprise. One of her hands finds his and she guides his fingers down between them, to do what he’s so good at.

“Come on,” she gasps and Chan opens his eyes to see her face scrunched up in concentration.

She does look cute so focused on chasing her orgasm. He coats his thumb in the slick from where they’re connected and rubs it over her clit. He has over a decade of experience in getting her off.

She throws her head back when he applies pressure, her pussy fluttering around him in response. He’s close, but she’s closer.

“Yeah, just— Oh,” she moans, high in her throat and despite everything, her affair and his approach of one, Chan loves when his wife cums on his cock.

Maybe because it’s Christmas, or because he’s still thinking about Felix, he flips them over and fucks her through her climax. A deep groan escapes him at how tight she is now, all squeezed up around him, and she takes it with beautiful, breathy moans.

Chan cums deep inside of her when he imagines fucking his cum into Felix instead. How it would trickle out of her pink cunt, down her golden thighs while she’s still bent over a desk in the classroom.

A handful of years ago they would’ve cuddled now. Kissed lazily, spent the next hours in bed, repeated what they loved doing with each other.

But they need to leave, and Chan pulls out to go take a shower, and his wife doesn’t join him.

-

Chan
[13:02] How’s that paper coming along?

Felix (work)
[13:05] It’s literally Christmas

Chan
[13:06] That’s not what I asked, is it?

Felix (work)
[13:07] So strict
[13:07] You’ll get me wet at xmas brunch, professor

Chan bites back a smile. He glances up, at his in-laws chattering with his wife about their new patio. The heat is cranked up and the tree is lit with Christmas decorations, and Chan is sexting his student on their couch.

Chan
[13:09] You’d like that, wouldn’t you

Felix (work)
[13:11] I think it’s your turn to send a pic
[13:12] I know you love mine
[13:12] and I am done with the assignment bc my family is boring as fuck and impressing you is so much fun

Chan
[13:14] Are you really, Felix?

“How’s work going?” his father in law asks and Chan clears his throat.

“Good, yeah. Very promising students this semester,” he says truthfully.

His wife sits across from him on a big armchair, turned towards him while he speaks, but that distant look in her eyes tells him she’s not entirely present right now, either.

“Does it get harder with time? The students get younger and younger, I can’t imagine what it’s like dealing with them every day,” his mother in law sighs.

She’s a very sweet woman and Chan is already sorry for wanting to divorce her daughter.

He laughs a little. “They can be… a lot to handle, yeah. But it’s fun.”

The conversation flows into his wife’s work, her art and, still after all these years, if she really makes enough money from it.

“Yes, eomma, I’m doing fine.” Her voice is tight and Chan stays quiet. It’s not his fight.

He glances at his phone and excuses himself to the bathroom.

Felix (work)
[13:16] Confession.pdf
[13:16] here you go daddy <3

Chan
[13:28] Stop that

Locked into the guest bathroom, Chan leans against the door and opens the document.

It’s not a confession, but a ten page analysis of the religion during the Joseon Dynasty. He skims it, but stops halfway through because the paragraph fragments he registers are too good to read so dismissively.

Chan
[13:30] What kind of picture do you want?

Felix (work)
[13:32] God you’re easy
[13:33] what if I said I wanna see your dick?

He scoffs quietly and tongues his cheek. He’d do it, probably.

Chan
[13:34] Do you?

Felix (work)
[13:35] nah, it’s a holy day, or whatever
[13:35] Take your shirt off, Chris

He smiles brighter than he has all day.

Chan hasn’t taken nudes, or anything close to that, in years. He pulls the ethically sourced wool-knit sweater his mother in law got him over his head and stares at himself in the mirror.

He feels his age very clearly in that moment. Not because of his looks, he’s doing quite well, but because of how ridiculous this feels.

The lighting in the bathroom is alright, but he can’t figure out a pose, or angle. He tries to take a normal selfie first, phone held further away to capture his chest as well, but he looks too awkward. Should he smile? Bite his lip?

He needs another couple of minutes for the embarrassed blush to leave his face.

In the end, he decides on taking a little inspiration from the picture that got him hard way too fast and takes a mirror photo with the flash on. It hides most of his face, which is good because he’s frowning in concentration. He’s leaning against the door to give his body a nicer curve, so he can puff his chest better.

“What the fuck am I doing,” he mumbles to himself.

He’s standing in the middle of the bathroom, staring at the shirtless photo of himself he took for one of his students and swallows. He deems it good enough and sends it to Felix without a message.

He doesn’t look at his phone for a while.

-

“You’re not wearing your watch,” she says.

They’re alone in her parents’ kitchen.

“Oh,” he replies. “I forgot, I’m sorry. It’s still in the packaging and I didn’t think about it when we left.”

She hums. “But you like it?”

“Yes,” he lies, smiles a little. “I do.”

She kisses him on the cheek and leaves the room.

-

Chan
[13:46] (photo)

Felix (work)
[13:46] shit
[13:46] fuck youre hot
[13:47] Did it take you this long to get a pic right or did you want to tease me?
[13:56] Aw you’re embarrassed?
[14:08] (photo)
[14:08] to make you feel better <3

-

They stay the night in the guest bedroom, and Chan waits for his wife to turn around in her sleep before he dares to look at his messages.

Felix is in the bathroom, too, leaning against the door like he did. But it’s a selfie. She’s smiling a little, as much as she can, anyway, with the edge of her shirt between her teeth. She’s not wearing anything underneath.

That day in his office Chan quite accurately guessed the color of her nipples, but seeing them so clearly now is something else. They’re stiff, maybe teased and pulled at to get them hard for the picture. Her skin is deliciously milky and the tan lines around her tits are so prominent he’s sure she spent a few days at the beach already. She doesn’t have the biggest chest, certainly smaller than his wife’s, but they’re perfect. Perky and round and she’s so excited showing him.

His cock is filling out. He thinks about cupping one of her breasts in his hand, the weight of it in his palm, how warm it would be. Her heartbeat would pulse through her for him to feel, her nipple pushed against him.

He stares for so long.

The dim lamp on his bedside table is still on and he’s slow in peeling the blanket off his lap. The light is enough.

He snaps a picture of his hard cock, resting on his hip. It shows scandalously clearly through his thin cotton sweats.

Chan
[22:39] (photo)
[22:39] thank you

As quietly as he can he sneaks out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. He feels like a teenager again as he bites into his fist and jerks off into the toilet.

Felix (work)
[23:04] merry fucking christmas

-

Chan has dreaded New Year’s Eve for the past couple of years. They always spend it with friends.

It’s the same every time. Everyone comes over to their house because it’s big and empty of kids. They’re almost the only ones who aren’t parents.

His wife prepares the living room and Chan cooks dinner.

At midnight, he kisses her, a peck on the lips just long enough to seem genuine.

At one am, he can’t find her anymore and doesn’t need to check her studio to know she’s kissing someone else in there.

Chan
[01:05] Happy New Year’s

Felix (work)
[01:46] happy new year oppa
[01:47] wheres my kiss??

He thinks she’s drunk and he wishes he was, too.

Chan
[01:50] You’re greedy

Felix (work)
[01:53] yeah
[01:54] i wish youd fucked me last time
[01:54] or the time before

He sighs deeply.

Chan
[01:57] Go to sleep, Felix-ah

Felix (work)
[01:59] :(
[02:00] did you get off on my tits

Chan
[02:02] Yes
[02:03] and the time before

Felix (work)
[02:06] good
[02:08] kiss me next time chan

He looks up to find his wife back in the living room, talking to a friend of hers. His best friend walks in too, absentmindedly swiping a thumb across his lip. Maybe there’s excess lipstick on it, or just the sensation of her mouth.

Chan
[02:10] Be a good girl and I will

Felix (work)
[02:14] are you sure you dont want me to call you daddy

He smiles into his phone.

Chan
[02:15] Yes. It’s still professor
[02:15] Or Chan

Felix (work)
[02:17] whatever chris

-

In the new year, to distract himself and because he’s curious, Chan orders a book online after some research. It arrives the next day and he reads it in one sitting.

-

“Who’s Felix?”

Chan, at nine in the morning, shaving his face with an electric razor, almost has a heart attack.

“What?” he breathes, but it comes out wrong.

He meets his unsuspecting wife’s eyes through the bathroom mirror. His free hand grips the sink so hard his knuckles turn white.

“Felix, from work. He keeps texting you and it seems urgent,” she continues.

His phone is in her hand and Chan turns around to find a handful of messages waiting for him. To his undeserved luck, their content is hidden behind his password.

“Oh,” he says. “It’s just— a coworker. Felix is, uhm, new, and I’m giving some advice about class and… stuff.”

She hums like it makes perfect sense and leaves his phone on the counter next to the sink.

“You missed a spot,” she tells him, gaze stuck to his jaw.

-

Felix (work)
[08:54] Went shopping yesterday <3
[08:55] Which one is your favorite, oppa?
[08:55] (photo)
[08:55] (photo)
[08:55] (photo)

Alone in the bathroom, with a nick in his skin that stings enough to irritate him, Chan opens his messages.

He doesn’t understand entirely how women’s underwear work. Especially not how Felix’s tits can look like that when he knows they should be smaller.

She’s on her bed and someone else took these photos. His brain switches between staring at her body and wondering who she let see her like that, other than him.

The first set is a deep blue, with lace trims, and it makes her chest bulge out at the top. The panties are cut so low that her pubic hair is showing. Chan swallows at the sight.

She’s writhing between her sheets in this one. The camera looks down on her, and the purple bralette is almost see-through. She’s smiling, like someone told her a joke, or like she’s laughing at Chan. He wouldn’t mind.

His sweatpants feel a little tighter.

The last photo is just of her ass, and while Chan, if he had to, would say he’s more of a boobs-guy, it makes his dick twitch anyway.

White looks heavenly on her honey skin. On her stomach, legs bent at the knees so her feet are angled prettily, Felix arches her back and sticks her cute little ass up for the picture. The fabric hugs her hips perfectly and Chan imagines for a second how it would feel running his palm across her cheek, maybe give it a testing slap to hear her gasp, or watch goosebumps form. Through the white lace he can see how it’s darker between her legs.

Chan
[09:13] Who took those?

Felix (work)
[09:17] Jealous?

He clenches his jaw and catches sight of himself in the mirror. His cheeks are slightly flushed and the look in his eyes used to be able to get his wife into bed on its own.

Chan
[09:18] What was that about being good for me?

Felix (work)
[09:20] Relax, Chris, it was Jisung
[09:21] He’s gay if you didn’t notice
[09:21] He says hi

Chan feels like a fool.

Chan
[09:30] White

-

Two days before his break ends, Chan almost divorces his wife.

He doesn’t go through with it and gets off in the shower thinking about Felix’s ass instead.

-

Of course, when he enters his classroom, she’s expecting him.

He doesn’t dare to do more than give her a polite smile. Other students are in their seats already.

She’s distracting during the lecture, more than usual.

Now that he knows what her nipples look like, where her tan lines are, how wet she can get just from anticipation and his hand branding her—it's intoxicating.

Her freckles have multiplied a thousandfold. She’s so beautiful, Chan loses track of his sentence when she gives him a blinding smile.

In the end, he doesn’t collect their assignments. Instead he lets them off a little early in the spirit of a new semester.

“I’m disappointed, professor,” she tells him.

Chan could probably wake up from a coma just by her voice. He smiles.

“Enjoy your free time, Felix-ssi. Or work on your thesis, hm? There’s more exciting things than history lectures.”

She glances at some other students taking their time leaving. Her hair is lighter than it was before, less buttery and more like vanilla. Chan wants to figure out if it smells like that, too.

“Nothing’s more exciting than learning about our past, oppa,” she says quietly. “Or watch you teach it.”

He hums like what she said was normal. “How was Australia?”

Felix sighs and her hand reaches out to grab a pencil from his desk. She leans her hip against it.

“It was fine. Hot. I like the beach, just reading, watching the waves… You know? But it was honestly a little boring. There’s this guy I’m talking to,” she continues and lifts her hand to push the end of the pencil against her lips, making them plumper, smearing the gloss over her skin, “he texts like an old guy. It’s a little frustrating.”

Chan doesn’t know if the others left. He doesn’t know where Felix is looking. He’s so focused on her lips, on the tip of her tongue wetting the pencil, that he feels like she’s putting him under a spell.

“Yeah?” he rasps. “Why are you talking to him then?”

She smiles and her sharp little canine digs into the pencil until there’s a dent in the wood. “He’s sexy. And hung. I wish he’d let me stay under his desk for a whole lecture.”

Chan swallows and bans the image from his mind. She wraps her pink lips around the pencil and sucks, before dropping it on his desk again.

“See you later? I wanna know what you think of my paper,” she purrs.

He clears his throat and meets her gaze. His own feels heavier. “Sure,” and because he likes to see her blush adds, “what colour are you wearing?”

Felix glances at the door of the lecture hall, which isn’t closed all the way but slightly ajar, and smiles sweetly as she lifts the front of her skirt.

Her tights cover them, but Chan can still see the white underwear that sits a little too well. If he had the time, he’d look at the way the fabric follows her every dip and curve, but Felix drops her hand and covers herself again.

“Will you give me an A now, professor?” she asks, purposefully innocent, all big eyes and breathy voice.

Chan inhales deeply through his nose and wonders how she managed to get him this far.

“At four in my office, Felix-ssi,” he says.

She smiles like she’s genuinely happy.

-

Chan is all talk. He’s the impatient one. He can barely focus in class, or at lunch with his colleague.

“Hyung,” Minho says, like he’s repeating himself.

“Hm?”

“You remember, right? The conference later? It’s in the arts building.”

Chan did not. “Fuck,” he mutters.

Minho simply raises his brows at him. “I’m not too excited, either.” He pauses. “Did you talk to her?”

Chan sighs. “Yeah, we were gonna meet up later—”

“Not Felix, you sick fuck. Your wife.”

“Oh,” he replies. He hides his embarrassment behind a cup of coffee. “Not really. I’m not sure how.”

Minho stares at him. He’s good at that. “Just be honest with her, hyung. God knows she wasn’t. Maybe not too honest, actually.”

Chan smiles a little. “Thanks. Honest like you were? How’s Jisung?”

He didn’t say anything earlier, when he saw Minho again for the first time after break, with those glasses on his nose and his hair meticulously styled to show off the few silver streaks he has.

“Fuck you,” Minho grits out. He got out of his divorce with a scar on his chest and broken porcelain tableware.

It occurs to him that even though they’re good friends, Minho might not have been the best person to go to for advice about this whole Felix thing. Not with his tendency for younger men.

“I’ll talk to her soon,” Chan says. He looks at his coffee, which is almost empty, and his eyes catch on his brand-new watch. His wife put it on for him this morning. “She gave me this for Christmas. I don’t even like watches.”

Minho snorts. “Poor hyung.”

“Do you want it? It wasn’t her who picked it out,” Chan continues.

Minho seems to understand with a twist of his mouth. “Why don’t you give it back to him?”

Chan clicks his tongue. “He already took my wife. He’s not gonna have my watch, too.”

“What happens afterwards, hm? When she leaves you? You gonna let Felix move in and marry her once she graduates?” Minho says it like a cruel joke, because even no longer married he doesn’t have that option.

Besides the secret sexting and the plan of divorce, Chan spent a good while of the Christmas break thinking about his future.

“No,” he sighs. “We’re going to sell the house.”

-

It’s not ideal, but neither is his life.

He knows her schedule by now and finds her in the library, between shelves of books about the Imjin War. There’s no one back there but her, and the teacher in Chan wishes more of his students were as diligent as her.

But not right now.

“Hi,” he says.

Felix looks up from a book she was flipping through, surprise clear in her big eyes. “Hey.”

He comes closer and only has a moment to appreciate the way her hair frames her face so beautifully.

“What are you—” she starts, but he doesn’t stop to talk to her.

The book digs into his chest and it’s not ideal, but Chan kisses her anyway.

One hand is on her waist to pull her close and the other cups her cheek. Felix tastes like strawberry gloss.

She makes a small sound against him and the next thing he hears is the book hitting the ground as she moves her lips against his, a little hungrier than he started, if only so he wouldn’t scare her off.

Her body feels firm pressed to his. She steps closer, clever fingers pulling at his shirt to get the hem free of his pants and her hand is on his stomach. Chan smiles and pushes her back until she’s trapped between him and a shelf. He feels her acrylics in his hair now, too, curling into it to hold on.

“Fuck,” she whispers and Chan pulls back a little to look at her, but she’s having none of that. “Stop and I’ll report you.”

With a small scoff he leans in again and lets himself indulge.

Kissing Felix is a full-body experience. He holds her still with his hand on her cheek, sliding down to rest on her jaw. His thumb is on her chin and he can hear the noise of bratty complaint die in her throat when he forces her mouth open to lick inside.

Her tongue is small, but so wet and eager when she meets his. She’s pressing her chest against him, wriggling in his hold on her waist, maybe affected by the kiss or just impatient.

Chan kisses her deeper, slower and harder. His hand finds her ass, underneath her skirt to grab it tightly and give her no chance to move except arch against the shelf. The sounds she tries to hide are music to his ears.

He pulls off to tilt his head and kiss her again, and she’s breathing heavier now in that split-second of reprieve. She’s faster in connecting their lips again and Chan should’ve known for her lack of patience.

She’s an angel.

He can’t fucking help it, not when she’s already giving him so much. Chan finds he’s not as impatient as her, since his self-control is what dragged this out for so long, but it’s his greed that overtakes him now.

His leg forces hers apart until his thigh is pushed against her cunt and Felix almost chokes on a moan. Chan drinks it off her tongue.

“Chan—” she gasps and her fingers curl into where they’ve held onto his biceps.

“Don’t get too excited,” he whispers. He licks over her bottom lip before kissing her again. “I have to go soon.”

Either she doesn’t care or is just too far gone already, but Felix just makes a small sound before opening her mouth for him. 

Even in the back of the library they try to be quiet. Chan isn’t used to holding back during sex, but the thrill of his aroused student writhing against him is enough to satisfy him for now.

“I’d have you right here if I could,” he mumbles against her lips and smiles when her thighs suddenly tighten around his.

“I can be quiet,” she breathes and Chan looks down to watch her chest rise and fall. “Oppa.”

Their eyes meet and he sees determination and something fiery burn in her gaze. He pushes his thigh up, higher until she’s almost on her tiptoes. He can feel the muscles in her legs quiver as she bites her lip to hide a noise.

“Can you?” he mocks her.

Her thigh twitches and there’s no use hiding how affected he is when they’re this close. He’s so hard.

Felix leans in again, to suck on his lip before kissing him. Chan lets her, while his fingers inch further down from her ass to press against the seam of her tights right over where she’s so burning hot.

She sighs against him and her lips are so sweet. The strawberry gloss is gone by now. A hand travels down his body and he has to cut off a groan when she grabs his hard-on through his slacks.

“Shit,” she gasps, grinning into the kiss before applying more pressure.

Chan sucks in his next breath through his teeth. He clenches his jaw for a moment, before sliding his hands to her waist and holding her close. She massages him slowly, making small sounds to show him how much she likes it. He thinks about pushing her down on her knees, but they don’t have the time.

“Not here,” he mumbles and takes her wrist to pull her off. His fingers can circle her entirely.

Felix whines at him, nails coming to dig into his forearm instead. Her other hand curls around his neck. He leans back a little to see her slightly irritated frown.

“Do you touch yourself thinking about me?” he asks quietly, thumb brushing over her cheek affectionately before he kisses her again.

She’s smiling now and her sharp teeth pull at his lip. “You’re a pervert, oppa. You can’t ask me that.”

Chan hums and kisses down her jaw. He leaves a wet trail, but it’s mostly her spit anyway. She sighs and relaxes in his confined hold.

“Tell me,” he says and sucks on her neck hard enough to sting.

Felix gasps, twitching against him where she’s trapped and her nails hurt in his skin. “Fuck, of course I do.”

He pulls off and looks at her again. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are glazed over, but she’s not gone. He needs to see her fall apart for him.

“What other choice do I have when you won’t even—”

Chan drops his hand from her perfect face and watches her as he slides it tightly over her stomach and underneath her waistband. Her skin is still as soft down there as he remembers, but there’s no smudged ink anymore. He reaches past her coarse hairs.

She shuts up very quickly. 

She’s so wet already. Chan has to swallow his groan as he finds his way between her folds and almost burns himself. He wants to ignore the conference and the place they’re at and just fuck his cock between her slick cunt and the dampened fabric. He doesn’t even need to be inside her. 

Felix just stares at him, breathing heavily and something changes in her eyes when he taps a finger against her clit. He smiles.

“Good girl,” he tells her and it blooms into a grin when he feels her reaction right away.

She makes a quiet sound. Chan pushes deeper and revels in the slick he can feel on his two fingers.

“We have a conference soon,” he starts, says it seriously enough to mistake for a real conversation. “I’ll be busy, okay?”

She nods and her mouth falls open when he teases her entrance. He dips inside, into her soaking heat, just to pull back again and glide right over it. Chan glances down. He’s sure there will be a small wet spot on his slacks once he steps back.

“Kiss me,” she demands, but it’s quieter and a little less confident. Almost like she’s pleading.

Chan would never refuse his favorite student. She’s less eager now that he’s touching her. His dick is so hard it starts to feel uncomfortable. He needs to leave.

“Felix-ah,” he mumbles.

Her lips feel so good on his own. He kisses her again, and again, and can’t stop himself when he pushes his fingers inside her all the way. She flinches, nails leaving dents in his skin he’s sure, and she clenches tightly around the intrusion. His watch is pressing against her clit.

“Fuck,” he grits out.

He pushes up and curls his fingers and Felix lets out a high moan, sweet and beautiful and way too loud for the library.

Chan pulls out and steps back until there’s a good distance between them. Her thighs are shaking a little now that she’s left to stand on her own so suddenly. His head is spinning.

“Fuck you,” she gasps. Her hands grab the shelf behind her for purchase. “I hate you.”

He only looks away from her to see the slick on his fingers. When he brings them up to his mouth, Felix makes a weird sound. Chan sucks her taste off his own skin and moans quietly. She’s so sweet.

“I promise I’ll take care of you properly next time, yeah?” he says.

His voice sounds rough, like he hasn’t spoken in a while.

Felix blinks her big eyes like she’s trying to clear the fog. She inhales deeply and leans back against the shelf. “Fine,” she replies. She clicks her tongue and casts a glance over her shoulder. “Why the fuck is no one else here? You’re lucky no one caught you coming onto a student like that.”

Chan smiles and reaches out to brush some hair out of her face. She meets his eyes and lets him tuck it behind her ear. “The library is empty, Felix-ah,” he tells her. “The staff left for the conference already and I told them I’d get the last students out. But I didn’t actually look for anyone but you.”

“Wow,” she mumbles. A smile tugs on her pink-kissed lips. “So romantic, Daddy.”

He clenches his jaw and breathes in slowly. “You really need to stop calling me that, Felix. I don’t like it.”

She tilts her head back and exposes the red mark Chan gave her. “You’re so sexy when you’re irritated, professor,” she purrs. Her voice is so deep. “Fuck me about it, yeah?”

With his fingers still by her hair, Chan can see the time on his new watch. He doesn’t have long left and his pants are still too tight. The taste of her slick on his tongue isn’t helping.

“Behave and I will,” he promises. “I have to go now.”

Felix just shrugs and bends down to pick up her bag and the forgotten book. Chan thinks she’ll kiss him again, but she just walks past him with a polite smile. “See you around, professor.”

-

Chan almost cums as soon as he pulls his dick out in the bathroom stall. It’s embarrassing, but the vivid image of Felix, the way he can still feel her on his fingers, is enough to send him over the edge.

Only afterwards, when the clarity sets in and he can think straight again, does Chan realize that he hasn’t thought about his wife even once while kissing someone else for the first time in over a decade.

-

Later that night Chan knocks on the door of his wife’s studio.

“Hey,” he says with a small smile.

She’s standing in front of an easel, with a canvas bigger than herself on it. So far there’s only abstract shapes in various colors.

“What’s up?” she asks.

She goes through her paint tubes, looking for something. Chan walks in and leans against the edge of her overflowing desk. He notices his Christmas present sitting on some boxes, untouched.

“We should talk,” he says.

He’s always thought he’d be nervous. Sad, angry, something. But he’s just calm.

She looks up at him. Maybe more genuinely than she has in a long time.

“About what?”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment. 

She puts her paint brush down, cleans her hands with a cloth.

“Chan—”

“This doesn’t work anymore,” he says. Her eyes widen, but he continues. “For either of us. You know that. I… Why haven’t you left me yet?”

He knows, of course, that it’s not that easy. That Changbin is married, too, and has three kids.

She walks up to him, takes his hand into hers. There’s dried paint on her skin, and Chan used to adore that. Now he finds he doesn’t care too much anymore.

“When did you…” She trails off, but doesn’t elaborate.

He sighs. “You’re not that subtle, yeobo.” She’s still his wife and he’s called her that forever. “Neither is he. I know he’s buying all your paintings.”

She swallows and fits her fingers between his. She never takes her wedding ring off when she paints, but he suspects she does it at other times.

“Why are you not yelling at me?” she asks.

He squeezes her hand, and lets go. “I’ve known for years. And I still loved you then. It doesn’t hurt anymore, which says enough, no?”

She hums quietly and meets his eyes again. “It’s not your fault, Chan. You were… are the best husband I could’ve asked for. You know that. I loved you so fucking much. But he’s—”

“I know. I think he could make you really happy.”

Her eyebrows twitch and she scoffs. “If it weren’t for Chaeryeong. And their children.” She takes a deep breath and leans against the desk too, so close that their shoulders are touching. “Maybe we should stay together. It’s easier.”

He laughs, but it’s not meant to be condescending. He feels his eyes crinkle when he looks at her. “Easier, maybe, but not better. Aren’t you tired of trying to go behind my back? Did you think I wouldn’t notice? He loves that brand of watches.”

She winces. “Sorry, I didn’t know what else to get you.”

“It’s okay,” he tells her and means more than the watch.

Her head falls onto his shoulder. They stay like this for a while.

“What about you?” she asks then. “Did you meet someone? Or was it really the watch?”

“This is not about me,” he says, but he’s not sure it’s true anymore. Not when the fingers that are touching hers on the desk have been inside someone else just a few hours ago. “You deserve to be with the man you love and—”

“Don’t lie to me now, Chan,” she interrupts. “I know you. You would’ve kept this whole thing up until I left you. Tell me. Is it someone I know?”

He shakes his head. They’ve grown distant over the years, in the important ways. He can’t trust her with this. 

“You should talk to Changbin, hm? Maybe this is what will get him to leave his family,” he replies instead.

His soon-to-be ex-wife takes a step forward to be right in front of him. “This is not like your coworker, right? Are you gay?” Her voice is carefully soft.

His lips split into a smile and he puts his hands on her waist. “No, I’m not. Really. I promise.”

She narrows her eyes, but doesn’t push.

“We don’t need to rush things,” she sighs. “It’s not like I can just move in with him instead. But we should probably call our lawyer?”

He’s not in a hurry, either. He doesn’t even know if Felix isn’t still just playing with him.

“Can I tell you now that I fucking hate your mum?” she whispers.

Chan laughs. “I know. She doesn’t like you, either. She’s still on me about grandkids.”

She makes a disgruntled noise. Divorces aren’t so bad, he finds.

-

[22:46]

From: Bang Chan

To: 12 Recipients

Bcc: Lee Felix

Subject: Dinner Party

Hi everyone,

there’s been some change of plans regarding the summer dinner party I had previously told you about.

I will be moving the date up to next week, Friday the 28th! I hope you guys can still make it. :)

You can bring some fingerfood or anything you’d like, but I will be taking care of the actual dinner, so no worries! My address is down below and you can come from 7 pm on, open end.

Greetings,

Professor Bang

He’s waiting for it, almost. He should go to bed soon, but he’s sure Felix will reply with something vulgar.

There’s a text message instead of an e-mail.

Felix (work)
[22:48] I thought your party is only for graduating students

Chan
[22:49] Surprise :) 

Felix (work)
[22:49] gotta check if I’m free next Friday

Chan
[22:50] Sure

He knows she will come.

Felix (work)
[22:52] What will the others say?
[22:52] When I’m the only one not in sixth semester

Chan
[22:52] I’ll just tell them the truth

Felix (work)
[22:53] Which is?

Chan
[22:55] That you’re my favorite and you deserve to be invited

Felix (work)
[22:56] Stop flirting with me, professor, it’s inappropriate
[22:58] Why did you move the date up? Couldn’t wait for summer?

That, and Chan isn’t certain if he’ll still live in the house in a few weeks. Instead of replying, he calls her. 

“Oh? Have we moved on to phone calls now?” she says as she picks up.

He can hear the smile in her voice.

“Yeah. Listen, I— I want you to come.”

“Right now? Jesus, take me out to dinner first,” she scoffs. “Gimme a second.”

“No—” He rushes out and his ears feel warm. “No, I mean. Next week. To my place.”

“I know, Chris,” she snickers. “I looked up your address. Fancy neighborhood.”

He laughs a little. “You live in Gangnam, Felix.”

“I know,” she sighs again.

He’s in the living room. His eyes land on the book he read recently.

“Do you drink wine?” he asks, just to keep her on the phone.

“Yeah, I do. Why?” Sheets rustle in the background.

“What’s your favorite?” He gets up to go to the kitchen.

A breathy sound tingles in his ear. “A 1985 Henri Jayer Cros Parantoux.”

Chan stops walking. Her French drawl is so sexy he feels his guts twist up. “Oh.”

“Mhm,” she hums, pleased with his reaction. “But any red off-dry will do, oppa.”

“Okay,” he replies. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Are you planning on getting me drunk, professor?”

“I don’t need to, do I? I already know how much you want me.” He says it with a little bit of amusement in his voice.

She scoffs quietly. “And yet you didn’t go through with it.”

He smiles. He finds the few bottles of wine they have in their pantry and determines that none of them are good enough. 

“I think about it all the time,” he tells her.

“Perv,” she replies, but it doesn’t sound accusing.

He’s tired. The conference ran long and he kickstarted his divorce, but her voice is the only thing he wants right now. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Leaving you like that,” he says. “I should’ve— gone through with it.”

“Chan,” she says and that tone suggests one of her half-smiles, not quite there, but not entirely gone either. “I fucked myself three times when I got home. I’m fine.”

He’s laughing, more genuinely than warranted right now. “You’re something else.”

She’s yawning now and Chan glances at the clock on their oven. But neither of them hang up until an hour later.

-

He reads it again.

-

“Yeobo,” he says.

“Hm?” She’s doing something on her laptop.

These past days she’s been more home than usual. He doesn’t know if that means she hasn’t told Changbin about the divorce, or if she has. He hasn’t talked to his best friend in a while.

“I was thinking about doing that student dinner thing next week instead,” he tells her. Casually.

“Oh,” she looks up. “Why? Isn’t it nicer in the summer?”

Their patio is big and he loves his grill.

He meets her eyes and tries for a small smile. “I don’t know if we’ll still have the house in a few months.”

She blinks, but seems to understand with a hum. She closes her laptop. “I didn’t think about that, but… we should probably sell it, no? It’s too big for… us.”

They never wanted kids and not even really pets, either. All she needed was some space to paint and Chan bought this huge house, anyway. He gave her something she didn’t want, and didn’t say anything when she started renting a small studio in the city some years ago.

“Yeah. I’ll call someone about it soon. Just to get an assessment for now.”

She nods. “Do you want me there? Next week? I like your students, they’re fun.”

Chan imagines Felix meeting his wife and shakes his head as casually as he can. “No, you don’t have to. I know you have that book club.”

She sits up straight and a red hue crawls up her neck, before she clears her throat to say, “Chan, I— There’s no book club.”

He looks at her. “I know.”

-

Minho only smiles. “What aisle?”

“What?” Chan frowns.

“What aisle did you fuck in so I can avoid it?” he asks.

“We didn’t—” Chan sighs. “You let me sit at your desk, Minho-yah.”

He shrugs. “I let you sit in those chairs, too.”

Chan almost strangles him.

-

It takes him a good twenty minutes to find a wine he’s confident she’ll like. It’s more expensive than any wine he’s bought before, but she’s worth it.

For a moment, he actually thinks about what he’s doing. Inviting her over to his place, promising her dinner and drinks, alone once the other students leave—she’s going to stay over.

Before heading to the check-out to pay for all the groceries he needs for the dinner party, he takes a detour to pick up a pack of condoms. He hasn’t used them in years. He fucks his cum right into her pussy in every fantasy he has about her, but he’s not stupid.

-

She smiles at him when they pass in the hallway. Jisung does, too, politely. 

Chan can hear their giggling behind his back. He doesn’t mind anymore.

-

He hasn’t seen her in a few days, not properly, anyway.

He wonders what she’ll wear as he prepares vegetables and meat, washes the salad, thinks about her hair, how it felt when he tucked it behind her ear after those fingers were inside of her.

“I put the other wine glasses in the cabinet in the living room, if you’re looking for them,” his wife says.

He hums and smiles before checking the heat on the stove.

“They should be here soon,” he tells her and tries not to sound like he wants her to leave, which he does.

“Don’t worry, Chan,” she replies. She’s leaning against the kitchen aisle, looking at her phone. “Leeyoung’s picking me up in a bit.”

He nods. Some months ago he’d wonder if she’s lying and spending time with Changbin instead, but he simply can’t be bothered anymore.

It’s still early. Barely seven, so he doesn’t expect Felix yet.

The doorbell rings and Chan greets a couple of his students. They chatter amicably in the living room that’s connected to the open kitchen as he finishes up the food. He glances up from time to time as his wife does small talk with the group of soon-to-be graduates. He pretends like he doesn’t notice how the guys stare at her.

Chan carries the various dishes to the dining room, arranging the plates on the long table by the wall like a buffet.

“She’s here,” his wife says. Chan’s heart stops, but he realizes she means her friend a moment later. “I’ll come back tomorrow, I think.”

He nods, “have fun,” he tells her and joins his students in the living room.

He hears the doorbell ring again, but Yeonhan asks him something and it’d be rude to leave.

Chan, standing in front of the couch, looks into the hallway as he pretends to listen to the conversation.

He notices her dress first. It’s beautiful. It covers her shoulders and the long sleeves billow out around her wrists. It’s not so short to be indecent, but she’s probably freezing. Her hair is open and spills in soft waves down her back and chest.

Her eyes widen in surprise at the woman opening the door.

“Hi,” his wife says and smiles kindly. “Come on in.”

Felix blinks and follows suit, clutching a bottle of wine in her hands. “Hello,” she replies. “I don’t— I don’t think we’ve met?”

Chan feels his pulse in his ears. He says a flimsy excuse and leaves the living room, though his legs feel numb.

“Ah, no, no,” his wife laughs. “I’m Hyunjin. Chan’s wife. And you are?”

His jaw aches with how hard he clenches it. Felix’s eyes dart to his for just a fraction of a second before she stares at Hyunjin again.

“Oh. I’m Felix,” she says, but her voice sounds wrong. His wife wouldn’t know.

They don’t say anything for a moment and Chan makes it over to them just in time to see the look on his wife’s face change.

“Sorry, Felix?” Hyunijn repeats.

“Hi,” Chan says, casually. Calm. “You shouldn’t let your friend wait, yeobo.”

Felix’s brows twitch into a frown and she schools her expression before she clears her throat. “Where’s the, uhm— the bathroom?”

Chan can see Hyunjin put the pieces together. She hasn’t looked at him with emotions this intense in years.

“Down the hall on the left,” he says.

Felix vanishes, and when she rushes past him he can smell her expensive perfume.

“You—” his wife starts, but Chan cuts her off.

“Not now,” he says quietly.

She stares at him, unbelieving. She scoffs and takes a step back, toward the cold where she hasn’t closed the front door yet.

“Who are you?” she asks. “I can’t— How old is she?”

Chan sighs and places a hand on her waist to guide her outside. He pulls the door after himself until it’s only slightly ajar.

“Old enough,” is all he says.

Hyunjin opens her mouth to say something, to curse him out, to yell, but no sound leaves her at first.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she hisses instead. “You’re fucking your student? Are you kidding me?”

Chan tongues his cheek and ignores how the cold starts biting at his skin. “It’s none of your business, Hyunjin. Go fuck Changbin to make yourself feel better. Or maybe you’d like to tell his daughters where their daddy sneaks off to at night, hm?”

She flinches back like he hit her. “You’re not the man I married,” she whispers.

He shrugs. “I’m not the man you want to be married to,” he replies. Turns out he’s still angry after all this time. “Go. Maybe I’ll be kind enough not to fuck her in our marriage bed.”

There are no tears in her eyes, but no love either. “I hope she’s better at pretending sex with you feels good than I am.”

Chan has to smile at that. “Don’t lie to me now, yeobo.”

“I want her gone when I’m back tomorrow,” she says, her voice hard. “This is still my house, too.”

“Sure,” he hums. “And I want Changbin’s aftershave off your skin. You know I could always smell it on you.”

Hyunjin leaves without another word.

Chan takes a deep breath, until the cold air stings in his lungs, and he feels lighter already.

-

The dinner goes well, all things considered.

His students are gathered around the big dining table, or scattered in the living room, eating his food, drinking his wine, generally content.

Felix doesn’t speak to him.

Her bottle of wine appears on the kitchen counter and Chan puts it away lest the others find and waste it, but every time he tries to catch her gaze she refuses him.

Even still, she’s his star.

“And you’re here again, because…” Minseo asks her.

Of course they know she doesn’t technically belong, but she simply smiles like the perfect girl she is and shrugs. Her skin is still that sun-kissed shade of honey, dusted with freckles that Chan wants to lick.

“Professor Bang loves my writing, I guess,” she replies. 

He smiles a little and has nothing to say in his defense. “She’s better than most of you guys,” he adds with a grin. “Certainly not as lazy.”

Minseo gasps in offense, but she doesn’t take it personally. She knows her future doesn’t lie in history.

Felix glances at him and sips on her wine, but before he can figure out what’s going on inside of her she continues her conversation.

Someone spills something and Chan gets distracted. He knows he shouldn’t give her all his attention tonight, anyway, so he spends the next hour or so in the dining room.

Around ten, the first people leave. When there’s only a handful of his students left, Chan starts to carry the empty dishes into the kitchen and cleans up a little.

When Felix gets up to go to the bathroom, he’s subtle about running into her in the hallway. She blinks in surprise when she sees him, but just gives him a tight-lipped smile and tries to step around him.

“Felix-ah,” he says quietly and reaches out to stop her with his hand on her stomach.

She flinches at his touch. “What is it, professor?”

“Look at me,” he asks.

Her eyes are hard when she does. But she’s still here. He smiles.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he tells her.

Felix holds his gaze for a moment longer before she leaves for the bathroom.

Chan is confident she’ll stay.

-

It’s only twenty minutes later that the rest of his students leave. They’re tipsy and fed enough not to question Felix when she pretends like she forgot something.

“Go on, I’ll take the next bus,” she says and Chan watches it with an amused smile from the kitchen.

The door closes behind Yeonhan and it’s eerily quiet all of a sudden.

He expects her to come to him, maybe refuse to speak while she pretends to sulk, but giving him those fiery stares. Instead, she ignores him completely and curls up on the couch, elbow leaned on the backrest as she looks at the high bookshelf next to her.

Chan continues to clean up the kitchen as he watches her. The hem of the dress covers her ass, sure, but she forewent a pair of tights tonight in favor of showing off her beautiful legs, so he’s content just seeing her thighs. He remembers how they twitched around his.

After a while, he takes the wine he hid as well as the one he bought for her and walks over to the coffee table to set down the bottles. She looks at him while he does and he smiles, but doesn’t say anything.

He opens the cabinet to find two of their fancier wine glasses and joins her on the couch.

“Did you have a good time tonight, Felix-ssi?” he asks her as he pours his chosen wine first.

She hums and accepts the glass, but doesn’t drink from it. After a moment and a sigh, she turns to face him on the couch. Her hair falls loosely over her shoulders like she placed it so, to look unbothered yet perfect.

“They liked you,” he says. “And I didn’t lie when I said you’re better.”

Felix doesn’t react. She just looks at him like he owes her something. Chan has his arm stretched out over the backrest and he reaches up to take one of her curls between his fingers. She lets him, but breaks the eye contact to take a sip from her glass.

“Did you buy this or your wife?” she asks then, swirling the wine around a little. “It’s good.”

“I did,” he replies. He waits a moment, contemplating how to move on from this conversation, but he realizes they shouldn’t. “I thought you knew.”

Finally, a grin. Disbelieving, like he said something outrageous, but still one.

“Yeah, sure,” she says. “I don’t even know how old you are, Chan.”

He smiles. “Forty-six.”

“You’re right,” she sighs.

He hums in question.

“You could be my father. He’s younger than you.”

If she says this to hurt him or rile him up, he doesn’t know. He tugs a little on her hair, just enough to make her look at him.

“I’m sorry,” he says genuinely. “I—”

She scoffs. “You never mentioned her. You don’t wear a ring. What made you think I knew you’re married, Chris?”

He doesn’t have a reply.

“She’s pretty,” Felix says after a while. 

Chan hums. “Yeah, she is.”

She sighs and places the glass on the coffee table. She pulls her legs up until they’re folded on the couch, bare knees almost touching his thigh. 

“What does she do?”

Chan looks at Felix, the guarded expression. She’s hurt, and jealous, and she should feel anything but. After all it’s her he thinks about at night. Who he ended his marriage for.

“She’s an artist. She has a gallery in the city,” he says. He glances at the painting behind the couch. “All the art in here is hers.”

Felix looks up, a little surprised. She assesses the painting for a minute or so, leaning back to see it properly. Chan looks at her while she does.

“Shit,” she mumbles. “She’s good.”

Chan realizes that for all their differences, his wife and his affair have something in common after all.

“I like artists,” he tells her. “I’ve never been the creative type.”

Felix leans her head on her hand and looks at him like she’s bored. “What am I doing here, professor?”

He frowns. He thought it’s obvious. But before he can say as much, she cuts in.

“Is this your mid-life crisis? Fuck a young, tight thing because your wife isn’t doing it for you anymore? You—”

“We’re getting divorced, Felix,” he says. 

She raises her perfectly plucked brows. Her make-up is subtle tonight, but still her lips are shiny with gloss and a plumpy pink with an after-taste of the red wine.

“Sure,” she says. “You say that now. But once you’ve fucked me you’ll go back to her.”

Even if it weren’t for Changbin, Chan doesn’t think Hyunjin would take him back after tonight.

“Felix-ah,” he sighs. He reaches out to take her hand, but she pulls it away. He smiles a little and settles on her knee instead. He can feel the goosebumps under his fingers. “She’s cheating on me.”

She narrows her eyes, but doesn’t say anything.

“For three years now,” he continues. “With my best friend. So no, I will not go back to her after you. Besides,” he looks down at her legs, at his own fingers sliding underneath her dress and along her thigh to fully place his hand there, “does it matter? Tell me, did you make a bet with Jisung, or why are you so determined in getting me to sleep with you?”

Her cheeks are a little more pink when he looks at her face again. She shrugs and adjusts her position, but allows his hand to stay where it is.

“What if I did? Seems like you don’t mind,” she says.

“I don’t,” he replies, but a small part of him recoils at the lie.

“Good,” she sounds a little stubborn.

Chan sighs and removes his hand to take a long sip from his glass. 

“When did you last have sex with her?” Felix asks. She tries to sound casual, but Chan knows she’s not.

He inhales slowly. “Christmas.”

Only when he sees it does he realize he missed her teasing smile. “Was that before or after we texted?”

“I thought about you,” he says instead, just to see her eyes widen.

“Was it good?” she probes. She reaches for her wine again, too.

“In my head or with her?” He smiles when she does. “But what about you, hm? Are you saving yourself for me?”

She laughs, bright and surprised. “If I did I’d have exploded with frustration by now, professor. There was this guy at the New Year’s party. He did just fine.”

Chan looks at her and imagines her in bed with someone else. He’s not allowed to be jealous, he knows. He follows her with his eyes when she gets up from the couch. Wine glass in her hand, she stops in front of the book shelf and looks at it for a while.

“Are those yours?” she asks.

“Some,” he says. “The art books and crime novels are Hyunjin’s.”

Felix hums and drinks a sip as she tilts some books back to look at their covers. Chan gets up, too, and stops just behind her. He can smell her hair.

“What’s your favorite book?” he asks her quietly.

She casts him a glance over her shoulder before she focuses on the shelf again. “Faust.”

He breathes out a laugh in disbelief. “Because it’s relatable?”

She turns around with a pout and inclines her head. “Have you read it?”

“I know of it,” he replies.

Felix clicks her tongue and pushes past him. Her chest brushes his arm, on purpose. “What’s your favorite?”

Chan smiles slowly. “I found out about it recently,” he starts. “It’s a short story collection, but one really stands out to me.”

She hums as she listens and refills her glass of wine. He walks over to a small table by the other side of the couch, where he left the book after reading said story yet again. The spine is broken and the corners are bent, and he finds the page with her name easily because he dog-eared it.

When he starts to read it out loud, Felix reacts so beautifully, he almost loses focus. 

“The first time she walked into the bar—”

“Stop,” she squeaks. Her eyes are wide and her cheeks flush strawberry-red.

Chan smiles and continues. “—he didn’t notice her. She left and entered again. Finally, he—”

“Chan,” she pleads, abandoning her glass on the table and rushing over to him.

She grabs for the book, but he simply lifts it out of her way. His arm sneaks around her waist, hand firm on the small of her back to hold her still. Felix huffs in frustration and tries again, but Chan is way stronger than her. He can barely speak with how wide he’s smiling.

“—looked at her. She would—”

Felix reaches out for his face and places her hand on his cheek to pull him down. Her lips taste like wine and fruit.

Chan accepts this distraction and kisses her properly, her story all but forgotten. He makes an amused noise when she finally plucks the book out of his hand and tosses it out of sight. She bites lightly into his lip and Chan uses his freed hand to grab her waist and push her back until she topples onto the couch with a gasp.

He follows, half-kneeling on the cushion. He smiles down at her. 

“What, you don’t like it?” he asks.

“Where the fuck did you get that?” she hisses and leans up on her forearms to bring their faces closer again.

Chan settles down next to her and lets her crawl halfway into his lap. She’s still pink on her cheeks. Her legs rest on his thighs and he sneaks his hand under her dress again.

“I’m a history professor, remember? I’m good at research,” he teases her. “And I was curious if you had ever published anything. Since you won’t let me read your creative writing.”

Felix looks away and Chan loves her when she’s embarrassed. He leans in to kiss her again, which she allows, though she’s less eager now.

“Come on, it’s really good,” he whispers. “I’m not kidding when I say I like it, Yongbok-ah.”

She flinches like he hurt her, a weird noise dying in her throat. She pulls back to curse at him, maybe, but Chan won’t let her. He licks over her mouth and inside when she gasps, pushing his tongue against hers. Her fingers claw into his arm to hold on, tense as she tries to be mad at him.

Chan kisses her until she gives up and relaxes. His hand slides up to rest on her hip.

She still glares at him when he leans back, but her eyes are less focused. Too much wine and kissing.

“Don’t call me that,” she mumbles.

He smiles. “What about Felicity? It’s a beautiful name.”

She pulls her mouth into a disgusted frown. “Please don’t.”

He was delighted to find out that sixteen-year-old Lee Felicity Yongbok had published a short story in a collection after winning a writing competition, and he’s never ordered a book so quickly.

Chan brushes her hair out of her face and smiles when her lashes flutter. He tugs it behind her ear and kisses her again, softer this time. She reaches up to curl her fingers around his neck.

“Okay, baby,” he whispers against her lips.

This time, Felix stops altogether. She pushes him back with a hand on his chest and he follows suit. It’s only fun to kiss her when she’s bratty, not when she doesn’t want to.

“We’re not gonna fuck in the house you share with your wife, Chan,” she tells him. The look in her eyes is serious. “I’m not some rebound, or revenge.”

He inhales deeply. “But I’m a bet?”

She clenches her jaw and looks at her hand that’s still on his chest. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this at all.”

Chan studies her face for a long moment. He knows she’s right. He shouldn’t be listening to Minho’s advice. He shouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

“Okay,” he says. She looks up like she’s surprised that he’s agreeing. “I still want you to stay.”

Felix considers it and Chan uses that opportunity to look into her eyes. She’s so beautiful it hurts, but he won’t have her if she says no.

“Okay,” she echoes.

-

She stops halfway up the stairs to look at their wedding pictures.

“Wow, you were hot back then,” she comments.

Chan comes up behind her and tries to see the photos through her eyes. They looked happy.

“Is that him?” she asks.

There’s one with his best man and her bridesmaid.

“Yeah,” he says.

“Ouch.”

Felix continues up to the first floor and waits for him to tell her where to go.

“Bathroom’s the second door from the left, the other is my office,” he explains as he places a hand on her lower back to lead her into the bedroom.

She glances around, but there’s not much to it. A king-sized bed, a wall of closets and small bed-side tables.

“I don’t have anything to sleep in,” she says.

“Were you planning on being naked?” he teases her with a smile and walks over to his closet. “I can give you a shirt, but my sweats won’t fit you.”

Felix hums and he hears fabric moving. With a plain white shirt in hand he looks at her again and wonders how they got here. Her dress is on the floor in a small pile. The purple bralette is as pretty as it was in the picture, with loose lace that barely conceals anything. The matching panties have a stitched pattern to at least give the illusion of hiding her cunt. Her arms are behind her back and Chan just blinks at her. 

“I could borrow your wife’s,” she says casually.

“She’d kill me,” Chan replies absentmindedly.

He walks over to her and almost reaches out to touch her. She takes the shirt and looks at him expectedly.

“I’m not gonna sleep with a bra on, if you don’t mind,” she tells him.

He shakes his head. How could he ever?

“Need help?” he asks and waits for her to nod.

He’s not inexperienced in opening bras, but he takes his time, anyway. He unhooks it at the back and slowly brushes the straps down her shoulders. He can see how hard her heart is beating inside her chest. She swallows when the bralette slides down her arms and she lets it fall to the floor.

Chan isn’t allowed to touch, so he won’t.

But he can’t look away.

He’s seen her, in the picture on Christmas, through her half-wet top on his desk, but this is still different. In reality, her tits are slightly smaller than she makes them out to be, and Chan adores it. Her nipples harden in the cool air of the bedroom and she watches him look at her. He’d give anything to feel her skin under his fingers.

Felix proceeds to pull his shirt over her head, but Chan isn’t done looking, so he lifts his hand to catch the hem before it can cover her chest. She scoffs, but lets him.

“Okay,” he says and steps back. The shirt falls to her thighs. It’s another visual entirely.

To distract himself, he goes about his evening routine. He usually sleeps in nothing but thin cotton pants, but if he takes his underwear off in front of her he’s not sure she’ll let him wear clothes again. So he stays in his black briefs and puts his slacks and shirt away to wash.

“I’ll be right back,” he says and turns to find her sitting on the bed, leaning back on her arms as she watches him.

“Can you leave slowly?” she asks, eyes trained nowhere near his face.

He laughs a little.

Alone in the bathroom, he brushes his teeth and washes his face. He longs for a shower, but it’s too big a risk. He’s nervous to be naked around her. In the mirror, his gaze catches on his necklace.

“I put a spare toothbrush on the sink for you. There’s towels if you wanna wash up,” he says when he returns.

She looks up from her phone and places it on the bed-side table before leaving for the bathroom. It should be an awkward situation, both of them dancing around what they’re denying each other, but it feels right.

Her phone lights up in the dim room and he glances at it out of curiosity. He’s not surprised to see Jisung’s name, even if he can’t read the message. It’s almost midnight.

Chan takes her dress and bralette to put them on a clothes hanger, so they won’t crinkle. He’s meticulous about things like that.

“Thanks, oppa,” she says behind him and Chan is almost surprised that she called him that.

He hums and watches her climb into bed on his wife’s side. He turns the lights off and joins her.

They move around a little, sheets rustling until she stills. Chan thinks she curled herself up, but he’s not sure under the duvet. They aren’t touching.

“Is this okay?” he asks her and tries to see her face in the darkness.

“Yeah,” she replies quietly.

-

He can’t sleep. He doesn’t know how much time has passed, but he can’t hear her breathing and his heart won’t calm, either.

He turns again, for the nth time, and his shin brushes one of her feet. It flinches back and he knows she’s still awake, too.

He doesn’t say anything.

Not when she carefully puts her foot back where it was, ice-cold against his skin.

Not when she inches closer until he can feel her body right next to his.

Still doesn't when she pulls herself up a little to lean in and kiss him.

He exhales in a sigh, like he’s been holding his breath, and his hand finds its way out underneath the sheets to cup her head.

It’s slow and lighter than their previous kisses, and he’s almost glad when she pulls back. He’s not sure where this is leading.

Only when her lips find his neck does he speak.

“Felix,” he mumbles, less a warning than a reminder.

Her body is pressed close to his and he can feel where her tits push into his chest. She hums quietly and sucks on his skin until she can nibble on it. Chan makes a deep noise.

“She already thinks we’re fucking, no?” Felix whispers. “I saw her face when I told her my name.”

Chan gently pries her off his neck, if only to kiss her again. There’s no tongue involved, just their lips moving together.

“Did you tell her?”

Chan shakes his head. “Not the truth.” Not a lie either, certainly not a kind one.

She hums, barely audible, and he tries not to flinch when her fingers curl around his necklace. They pull at the ring, turning it this way and that.

“I don't like rings on my fingers,” he explains quietly.

“How long have you been married?” she asks, trying to push her ring finger past the necklace.

It fits her, if a little too big.

Chan finds her waist underneath the shirt and strokes her warm skin with his thumb. “Twelve years. We've been together for sixteen.”

He can sense her feeling along the edge, over the inside and the inscription on the wedding band.

“What does it say?”

He doesn't want to tell her.

“Felix,” he whispers instead.

He pulls her closer and wishes he’d taken that stupid ring off three years ago, when he caught his wife kissing his best friend in her art studio.

But like last summer, he didn't say anything.

“It's our wedding date,” he confesses.

He hopes she doesn't, but Felix is too curious for her own good and she asks, “when?”

“September 15th, 2012.”

She flinches, her whole body twitching with it and Chan swallows.

“That's my—”

“I know.”

They don't say anything else.

She fits perfectly into his arms, with her head under his chin and the scent of her hair in his nose.

Chan falls asleep as soon as he closes his eyes.

-

Mercifully, he doesn’t wake up hard.

She’s still sleeping, breathing softly. Her hair fans out around her, spills over Chan’s chest and his neck. He doesn’t dare to move.

His shirt has ridden up during the night, revealing her soft stomach and waist. He can see the edge of her breasts, but if he thinks about that too much he’ll have a problem quite soon. Her legs are wrapped around his, her chest moving slowly.

He really wants to kiss her.

She took her make-up off last night and it’s not the first time he sees her bare-faced, but it still feels too intimate like this.

Felix makes a quiet sound and rolls on her back, stretching her arms up. He thinks she’ll wake, but she just stays like that and dozes off again.

Chan gets up and takes an ice-cold shower. He ignores the small spot on his neck.

He cleans up the remains of last night, puts her untouched bottle of wine with their others. He pauses when he picks up the book that was discarded on the floor and flips through the pages to read a passage of her.

He’s preparing breakfast when she descends the stairs. Still in just his shirt and her panties, her hair slightly less perfect but always beautiful.

“Good morning,” he says and cracks the eggs in the pan.

“Hi,” she replies and Chan can’t help but smile at her deep voice.

“Sleep well?”

“Mhm,” she hums and comes up next to him to look at what he’s cooking. “I like them runny.”

He nods and is momentarily distracted by how close she gets. To move behind her and grab the seasoning, he puts his hands on her waist. His fingers slip underneath the shirt and she sucks in her breath a little more harshly.

“Do you want anything else?” he asks.

She just shakes her head and steps back a little when he lets go of her.

“I dreamed of you,” Felix tells him.

“Oh?” He smiles at the eggs and sprinkles salt over them. “What did I do?”

But when he turns to look at her she just meets his eyes and tilts her head. He feels his neck warm, even though she doesn’t say anything.

They eat in the dining room, making idle conversation and he ignores when her toes dig into his leg, the sole of her foot slides up his shin to his knee and thigh. He put on a loose pair of slacks after showering, but still her touch burns his skin.

Depending on how she sits, he can see her chest through the shirt. She just raises his brows at him when she catches him staring.

When the time comes, Chan wishes he could just go back to bed, or skip ahead so he doesn’t have to deal with this.

“Hyunjin’s coming home soon,” he says eventually.

Felix is back in her dress, legs still bare and stretched out on the couch as she scrolls through her phone. She looks up at him and sighs.

“My bus isn’t coming for another twenty minutes,” she says. Even without make-up her eyes are still so big.

He lets his gaze travel down her body and remembers how cold it was for the handful of minutes he spent fighting with his wife outside last night.

“I’ll drive you,” he tells her.

She smiles and mouths some words Chan can guess. He tongues his cheek and grabs a jacket. “Come on.”

Like last time, he turns the heat on for her and watches her until she puts the seatbelt on.

“Don’t want you to get sick again,” he says and turns out of their driveway.

She scoffs quietly and looks out of the window.

It’s Saturday and the roads are packed, so it takes him longer to get to Gangnam than last time. They have to wait at a red light for what feels like forever and he, almost absentmindedly, places his right hand on her thigh just to have something to do.

“How indecent of you, professor,” she murmurs, but lets him slide his fingers higher until his pinky reaches her inner thigh.

Chan moves his thumb in gentle motions over her smooth skin and otherwise doesn’t go further.

“I—” she starts and he glances at her, but the light turns green and he focuses back on the road. “I wanted to publish more.”

He blinks and lightly squeezes her thigh. 

“But I can’t finish anything,” she continues. “I have this— this novel I’ve been writing for two years and no matter what I come up with it’s not good enough. And I hate the ending of that short story. It’s so bad.”

He smiles, wide and warm and speeds up a little when traffic allows. “I really do like it, Felix-ah.”

She breathes out a laugh and she settles her hands in her lap, almost covering his. “You like anything I write, Chris.”

He hums and takes a left turn. “The way you choose your words is almost perverse, Felix. It’s like you know the language only in its most depraved form and I’m not a literature critic, but if it takes you this long to finish that novel then it’s going to be insane once you’re done. I know that.”

She doesn’t say anything in return and when Chan looks at her, she’s openly staring.

“And you say teachers don’t have favorites,” she whispers and a smile blooms on her face that he catches just in time before he has to look away again.

“Will you let me read it?” he asks casually.

“Maybe,” she replies quietly.

Chan doesn’t find a parking spot this time either, but rolls up by the entrance of her building again. Though he turns off the engine now and inhales deeply. He takes his hand off her.

“I’ll see you in class, I guess,” she says after a moment. “Thanks for driving me.”

He nods and unbuckles his seatbelt just when she does. Her hand is on the door handle already, but Chan reaches out to cup her cheek and turn her back towards him. He sees her eyes widen in surprise right before he kisses her.

She melts into his touch, leaning closer to tilt her head a little. Even now she tastes sweet and he comes to terms with the fact that it’s just how she is.

A scream shocks both of them so much they flinch apart.

“What—” Felix starts, but makes a weird noise as she stares out of the windshield.

Chan’s heart stops for a second when he sees who’s standing right in front of his car.

“Oh my god,” she gasps.

Jisung’s face is still a cartoonish mask of delighted surprise, while Minho just stares blankly.

“Fuck,” he mutters.

Felix, ever the troublemaker, gets out of the car with a grin. “Double date,” she announces proudly.

Chan follows after several deep breaths and he just raises his brows when Jisung gives him a long once-over.

“How’s the wife?” he asks and barely conceals his amusement.

“Fine,” Chan sighs. His eyes fall on Minho, whose ears are slightly red. Could be the cold. “Are you coming or leaving?”

“Oh, he’s gonna—” Jisung starts, but Felix cuts him off and pulls him to the side to whisper something.

It only occurs to Chan now that they live together.

Minho sighs heavily. “I’m picking him up. I take it last night went well?”

Felix snorts and all men look at her, equal parts expectant and like they’re in on the secret already. She’s a naughty girl who lets her teacher bend her over, hah. Everyone knows.

“I’m not that easy, Professor Lee,” she says and her voice is hard enough to sound irritated, though she’s still smiling. “Certainly not just a distraction from a boring marriage.”

Chan works his jaw, but doesn’t say anything.

Minho casts him a look, hands buried in the pockets of his coat. He looks the part, with those glasses and sophisticated clothes. Chan mirrors him, if he thinks about it. They’ve got more in common than just their risky workplace choices.

“You should get inside, Felix-ah, it’s cold,” Chan says and smiles a little when she pouts exaggeratively.

“See you tonight,” Jisung says and steps back from her. He blinks when Minho clears his throat. “Sorry, tomorrow.”

“Freak,” Felix sighs.

Minho mutters his goodbye and Chan thinks he’s deeply embarrassed right now. Felix watches them leave and grins when Jisung waves.

“Are you going to fight about me when you get back?” she asks when they’re alone.

“Probably,” he replies. He can see the goosebumps on her legs. “It’s about time.”

She hums. For a moment, she glances at something behind him, maybe Minho’s car leaving, before she comes closer. Chan doesn’t move when she kisses him.

“Goodbye, professor,” Felix whispers and smiles like he’s not in on the joke.

-

Felix (work)
[10:54] Are you still driving home?

Chan arrived a good ten minutes ago, but he hasn’t left his car yet.

He saw the lights on in his house when he got here and he’s not ready to face what’s waiting inside.

When he sees her message, he thinks he might as well change her contact name. There’s no one to hide this from anymore anyway.

Chan
[11:02] I’m still in my car, why?

He’s not sure where this is going, but he prefers anything over the conversation he’s bound to have.

Felix
[11:03] Check your glove compartment

He frowns deeply, at her antics and his life and his own failure of judgement.

With a sigh he complies and reaches over the center console for the glove compartment. He usually keeps a pair of sunglasses, some documents and hand sanitizer in there, but none of that matters when he opens it.

His fingers curl around the fabric and he leans back into his seat as his heart leaps into his throat.

It’s not lace, like he’s come to expect of her. The cotton is soft, baby blue and undoubtedly hers.

With his wife in his house and his student refusing to sleep with him, Chan brings Felix’s worn underwear up to his face to inhale her scent. He closes his eyes and keeps breathing her in. He’s furious with himself for managing to deny himself this very thing last night, but just the hint of it is enough right now.

Chan
[11:12] When did you do that?

She was in his car only one other time and she—

Chan crumbles the panties in his fist until he can focus again.

Felix
[11:13] Enjoy :) 

He stuffs them into his pants, past his own briefs right on his dick and finally leaves the car.

-

Hyunjin is waiting in the living room, sitting exactly where Felix changed her mind last night.

“Hi,” he says and feels drained already.

She doesn’t look angry anymore, just exhausted. They’re both tired.

“Did you drive her home?” she asks.

He nods and sits down next to her. He buries his face in his hands for a moment and he pretends he can still smell Felix’s scent.

“Were you going to tell me that you like young girls?” Her voice is just plain disgusted.

Chan scoffs. “Come on, don’t be like that. She’s an adult.”

“Barely,” his wife says. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I suspected that you met someone, even if it’s one of your students. Is this revenge or do you really think you love her?”

He sits back up and looks at her. Her eyes fall to his neck, to the mark that wasn’t there yesterday.

“This has nothing to do with you. If I had wanted revenge I would’ve told Chaeryoung.”

Hyunjin rolls her eyes and even now she looks as beautiful as ever. Chan isn’t blind.

“Does he know?” Chan asks. “Is he leaving her?”

His wife bites her tongue and he narrows his eyes when it dawns on him. “He’s staying with her.”

She sucks on her teeth before she replies, “yeah. He says it’s for the kids, but he’s just a coward.”

Chan hums and they remain silent for a while.

“At least one of us got lucky,” she mutters.

He can’t help a small smile. “Felix didn’t know about you.” He meets her eyes when Hyunjin looks up. “She— wasn’t happy.”

She only blinks at first and then he watches her laugh. “Your little student didn’t put out for you? I’m so sorry, Chan.”

He merely sighs. “So, how are we doing this? Do you want me to move out?”

“No, I will. I hate this place. I’ll stay at my studio, or with Leeyoung. I… called our lawyer last night. You might wanna get your own,” she tells him.

Chan closes his eyes for a moment. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll deal with the house. What are you telling your parents?”

Hyunjin seems to think for a moment. “That you had an affair and I caught you.”

He smiles. “I’ll tell mine the same.”

“Your mum will be happy,” his wife says.

-

Felix isn’t in class on Monday, or the next.

He only sees her once in the hallway, but she turns away as soon as their eyes meet.

“Lovesick?” Minho asks him at lunch.

“No,” he sighs. “Just tired.”

His colleague seems just as exhausted, but for different reasons. He’s usually not one for turtlenecks, but he’s been wearing them for a few days now.

“Does Jisung bite?” Chan asks casually.

Minho grins slowly instead of replying.

-

Grading assignments is not the same without hers to look forward to.

It’s been dark outside for a few hours now and he’s still in his office. Even now that his wife has moved out, Chan doesn’t like going home.

When he hears the knock, he expects Minho, maybe to scold him for staying so late.

“Yeah?”

Of course it’s her.

“Hi, professor,” she says with a polite smile and closes the door behind herself.

She has a piece of paper in her hand. He doesn’t know what to say for a moment.

“What can I do for you, Felix-ssi?”

Instead of taking a seat across from him, she walks up to the side of his desk and places the document on top of the mediocre assignment he was reading.

He raises his brows at her, but she only gives him a tight-lipped smile and leans her hip against the desk.

Even after two weeks, it still feels familiar to have her here again.

Chan sighs and starts reading what he suspects to be another analysis of something that wasn’t even assigned, or a dirty collection of words reserved for him.

He does not expect the note of withdrawal from his class.

His heart twists up painfully in his chest and he realizes how much he actually cares about her.

“What is this?” he asks and his voice sounds strained.

“What it says it is. I have enough credits for this semester and I decided not to pursue history going forward,” she tells him, like it’s just an off-hand comment about her studies. “We both know this isn’t my future.”

He doesn’t say anything for a moment and just looks at her. She’s wearing that skirt he knows only from the photo she sent him, and a blouse tight enough to make him wonder if she’s wearing a bra.

“Okay,” is what he settles on. “Fine.”

She watches him sign the document and if she recognizes the pen as the one he used to brand her with, then she doesn’t show.

“How’s your wife?” she asks casually.

“Ex-wife,” he corrects her and catches the knowing grin on her lips.

She blinks and schools her expression into something like sympathy, though her voice is a purr when she says, “it would be a lie if I said I’m sorry to hear that.”

Chan inhales deeply. “I wish you all the best, Felix-ssi.”

She clicks her tongue and looks past him to the windows for a second. The note, their very own divorce paper, bends slightly under the clawing grip of her nails.

“It doesn’t matter now, does it, professor?” Her words are a little more quiet, but there’s something about her tone that makes Chan frown.

“Felix—”

He swallows his next words when she hops on his desk, her ass right on a student’s assignment, inferior to her own writing in every way. Chan looks up at her, at how she cocks her head and watches him like she knows what he’ll do next, even if he doesn’t.

She’s still just playing with him and Chan accepts to be a fool that he ever thought otherwise.

“What makes you think I still want this?” he asks her.

Felix breathes out a laugh, her gloss shining in the dim light of his office.

“I could give you a number of reasons, Chan. You’re single now. I’m not your student anymore. But, really,” she sighs as she drags her gaze down his body and lands on his crotch, “it’s because you’re hard, professor.”

Chan’s gut twists up and he leans back in his chair to look at her. He realizes that she’s right. His jaw aches with how much he clenches it. She merely smiles and spreads her legs a little. His eyes follow like a dog to its treat and he can hear how amusing she finds it.

He considers the risks, like he has so many times already, and stands up to place his hands on her knees. His heart is beating steadily as he settles between her thighs.

“Do you ever not get what you want?” he asks, voice low.

Felix’s smile has widened and she leans back on her hands, which brings their faces to the same height. “Would you ever say no to me?”

He breathes harder through his nose and his fingers tighten where they’ve slid up her legs.

“I told you to behave, Felix-ssi,” he says and catches the joyous glint in her eyes, “but you just won’t listen. We shouldn’t be doing this. I could lose my job.”

She pouts a little, but it’s more condescending than anything. “I really don’t care.”

He sees through her lie and the attempt at riling him up, but he sighs deeply anyway. His grip hardens and he lets his head fall forward so he can think without her staring at him. The view of her parted thighs on his desk isn’t exactly sobering.

She leans forward and he can feel her hand on his jaw before she whispers, “you already made the decision, oppa. You already went too far.”

He inhales deeply before he looks at her, for just a second, and moves in to kiss her. It’s more forceful than the last time and he tries to taste anything else besides the strawberries. Just something that would make her feel more real.

But as always, she’s an angel, just so perfect for him and she opens her mouth to let his tongue slip inside. A satisfied noise escapes her and Chan truly doesn’t care anymore. He’ll be hers to toy with if it means he gets to have her like this, just once.

He pulls back, just enough to let her breathe. He doesn’t know when his hands have slid under her skirt and to her hips. He thinks about saying something to get her off her high horse, tease her about how desperate she is, remind her that it’s just a bet and she’s just the affair, but he simply forgets all of it when she kisses him again—a light, sweet peck on his lips. Once, twice, and she smiles when he falters, unable to form words.

“Did you like my gift?” she asks.

He swallows and longs to taste her again after this second apart.

“Hyunjin could’ve found it,” he whispers.

Felix hums with a smile and curls her fingers around his neck. Her acrylics scratch lightly over his nape, into his hair.

“Did you get off on it?”

He barely hears her over his blood rushing south. He’s not sure if she means her panties or the fact that they could’ve been caught, but he simply nods and leans forward again. They kiss slower, deeper, and Felix tightens her legs around him. One of his hands slides to her ass and he pulls her closer until her thighs are spread wide to make him fit between. She sighs into him and it goes straight to his dick when she arches her back a little, her chest pushing against him.

She’s not wearing tights. Her skin is warm, and perfect, and he can feel the beginnings of lace at his fingertips.

“What color is it?” he asks her.

He kisses along her jaw, inhales deeply once his nose brushes against her vanilla hair and his heart stutters for a moment. His mouth finds her earlobe, the golden earring that matches her complexion and he feels the quickened thrum of her pulse under his lips when she lets her head fall back.

“Your favorite, professor,” she murmurs and lets him suck on her skin.

He doesn’t tell her that she can call him Chan. They’re both past pretending that it’s just a formality. He reaches the crook of her neck, where the blouse gets in the way and he straightens up again. She’s so beautiful.

Chan tongues his cheek as he looks at her and reaches for his backpocket to get his wallet.

“Are you trying to bribe me, Chris?” she says with a grin, but her eyebrows shoot up when he pulls a condom out.

“Just being safe,” he replies and places it on the desk, right next to her.

She follows it with her eyes. “What if I told you I’m on the pill?”

“Then I wouldn’t believe you,” he tells her.

Her grin says enough and she pulls him in for a kiss again. This time it’s her tongue in his mouth and she’s quite messy with it. A little over-eager, but his pants are so tight he’s going to pass out soon.

Felix’s fingers scratch lightly over his nape as she sucks on his tongue and her nails catch on his necklace. She stops for a moment, before she opens her mouth just enough to gently but firmly bite into his bottom lip.

“I thought it’s over?” she mumbles and twists a finger into the thin chain so she can pull on it.

He hums against her, occupied with tracing the edge of her panties underneath her skirt. “Habit,” he whispers and tilts his head back to look at her.

She nods like she chooses to believe him and leans back on her hands.

Chan has noticed how she’s less impatient tonight, but that worry dissipates when his fingers find their way between her thighs and he feels how wet the fabric is already.

Felix’s breath hitches and her hips twitch in the chase of his touch. She won’t break eye contact, even when he applies more pressure and hears the squelch of her folds parting around the lace.

“Excited, Felix-ssi?” he asks her, amused and so incredibly turned on.

His other hand takes the edge of her skirt to lift it up. He smiles like he did whenever she inevitably put up her hand in class to finally give the correct answer.

Her panties are black and entirely made of lace. Some hairs are poking through and it feels tacky already, sticky with her slick as he slides two of his fingers up and down her seam.

She’s breathing heavier now and her cheeks have warmed to a pretty pink.

“Do you know how many times I was like this during your lectures?” she murmurs, her mouth falling open around a silent moan when he dips just the hint of his fingers inside her, unable to go deeper because of the fabric.

He smiles. “Naughty,” he whispers and lets his hand rest on the bend of her thigh.

She makes a small noise of complaint and her brows pull into a frown, but Chan is quick to push his thumb underneath the side of her panties, right on her clit. Felix gasps in surprise and her eyes go impossibly bigger. He gets lost in them. In a slow, steady rhythm he strokes her clit, which is already perfectly wet.

Felix moans, deep and earnest, and he feels her twitch a little. 

Chan can’t help but kiss her again. She keeps up as best as she can, but his finger seems to distract her. Her hands grab his face and she lets out breathy sounds into his mouth. It’s like heaven.

“Come on,” she mumbles against his lips, “wanna touch you.”

He grins, endeared by her, and rubs her clit a little harder. Felix bites back a moan and arches her chest into him. She fumbles with the top buttons of his shirt and it takes her a moment longer to open them than she normally would.

She’s soaking through her underwear, he can feel it. His thumb is so wet with her slick he’s sure his skin has wrinkled already. He kisses her more, addicted to overwhelming her and he can’t wait to fuck her until she’s pliant and needy.

Her legs twitch as if to close and it’s truly exhilarating. She’s always been his favorite.

Felix opens his shirt just far enough to grab the ring dangling off the necklace, pulling a little until the chain digs into his neck. Chan pushes his thumb just a millimeter lower and moves it in small circles until she’s trembling.

“Chan—” she gasps, “take—”

She stops with a moan, high in her throat as her hips try to twitch back, away from his ever-present touch.

“Hm?” he hums, like he would ever give a break now that she’s so sweet and wet for him.

“Off,” she gasps, as she curls her fist around the ring and her eyes glaze over, “fuck, I’m—”

Chan blinks as if he doesn’t understand what she’s trying to tell him and keeps teasing her clit. He’ll just have to pretend he lost the assignment she’s currently gushing all over.

He kisses her instead of letting her breathe. She whines quietly, a little annoyed maybe, but she has no choice but to take it. Her heel digs into the back of his thigh, hard enough to leave a bruise by the end of this.

“Take it off,” she manages to bite out and he can feel how tense she is as she tries to endure his continued adoration of her pleasure.

He hums and presses his thumb up against her clit, a little harshly maybe as she flinches and her teeth dig into his lip. He moans at the pain.

He finally lets go of her, thumb sliding out of her panties and he’s fascinated at how slick it is. He knows she was close.

Felix is breathing harder and he meets her eyes when he lifts his hand to suck her generous gift off his skin. She’s perfect.

“Of course,” he says, like he’d deny her enough but her orgasm.

The clasp of the necklace takes a little prying to get open and he doesn’t remember the last time he took it off. He feels naked when it slides off his neck and into Felix’s hand.

She opens her fist to really look at the wedding ring, her skin flushed like a golden sunset dusted in pink. Chan watches her for a moment, how she seems to read her birthday off the inscription, before he finds her underwear and pulls it down her thighs.

Felix only makes a quiet noise when the fabric detaches from her sticky cunt, but lets him slide it past her knees until it falls off one foot and dangles by her other ankle.

When he looks up again, she places the necklace on the desk and spreads her legs for him again.

“Like this, professor?” she asks and he can tell she’s making her eyes bigger on purpose.

He pulls her closer by her thighs, until he can feel the heat coming from her core, right on his crotch.

“Yeah,” he says, thumbs tracing lazily over her skin, “I know you like to watch me.”

Felix smiles and shakes her hair back a little, before she leans in to kiss him again. He’s distracted by it, by her taste and tongue and those quiet noises she makes for him, but he sucks in his breath more harshly when she grabs his hard-on anyway.

“Can’t believe you let me wait this long, oppa,” she mumbles while unbuckling his belt. “When I’ve been so fucking good for you.”

He nips at her lip, endeared by how feisty she can get about not having her way. “I’m all yours now, Felix,” he whispers and his grip tightens when she reaches into his pants. “But don’t complain when it hurts.”

A questioning noise dies in her throat when she pulls his cock out and Chan has the delight of watching her swallow. Her fingers fit around it just so and it makes him a little dizzy to look at that.

“Shit,” she breathes, spreading her legs further as if on instinct, as she gives it an experimental tug.

Chan lets her jerk him off slowly, more for her own pleasure than his, as he reaches for the condom. He moans quietly at her touch, twitching in her hand when she flicks her wrist. It pains him that he has to pull her fingers off his dick, but he needs to be inside her in the next second or he’ll go blind with arousal.

As he rolls the condom on himself, he doesn’t notice Felix taking his necklace again until something foreign touches his cock.

“What—” he starts, but is too stunned at what her clever fingers are doing.

She smiles as she wraps the chain around the base of his cock, twice until the ring hangs loosely by his balls. The sensation is not unpleasant, but Chan can’t think for a moment.

“Fuck me like this, yeah?” she whispers sweetly.

Chan stares at her and his heart twists up so painfully he can’t breathe. But he nods, and leans in to kiss her. He’s past the niceties and foreplay, so he licks into her mouth until their lips are coated in spit.

“Say ah,” he tells her quietly and holds his palm up under her chin.

Felix blinks at him, with flushed cheeks and blown-out pupils, before sticking her tongue out. The visual is something Chan would abuse if he had the time or self-control to abandon where they’re headed right now, but he merely waits until fat globs of spit roll down her pink tongue and into his hand.

He groans when he coats his dick with it, gripping a little harder than she did to relieve some pressure. He sucks his breath through his teeth when he brings his hips forward, until his thighs dig into the edge of the desk and his cock is pushed against the wet heat of her pussy.

“I’ve thought about you like this so many times,” he tells her. He glides the head of his dick between her folds, relishing in the sensation of her. Felix moans at his words, her clit twitching just enough for him to feel it. “During every lecture.”

When he reaches out with his free hand, to slip under her skirt again and slide two fingers past his dick to her fluttering hole, Felix’s eyes glaze over.

“Come on,” she mumbles and lifts her right knee a little, for better access.

Chan has to squeeze his dick when he fucks his fingers inside her and she lets out a deep sound. He’d spend hours fingering her, petting her soaked walls until she cries, but this isn’t for either of their pleasure. He spreads his fingers wide, until Felix gasps quietly and her thigh twitches, scissoring them deeper until she starts to loosen up a little.

It has to be enough.

He smears her wetness over the head of his cock and pushes forward, until he can feel her entrance pulse around him. Like this, he stays put and even though he’s never been this aroused before, he searches her face for any sign of hesitation.

Felix is the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen. He knew that the first time he passed her in the hallway, the moment their eyes locked during that lecture last fall.

“Fuck me,” she mouths, her voice just a hint he has to chase over his hard breathing, “professor.”

For all her confidence, she doesn’t whine when he pushes inside, but he can see the twitch of her brows and how her eyes widen. He doesn’t have the capacity to focus on more.

Chan groans deeply at the tightness around his cock. It’s so fucking warm inside her.

“God,” he rasps and lets go of his dick once he’s far enough inside, to grab her hips and pull her closer. “Relax, baby.”

Felix makes a quiet noise, high in her throat and blinks quickly. He can see her arms trembling. She’s clenching so hard around him it makes him lightheaded. When he’s almost buried to the base she sucks in her breath through her teeth.

Chan is kind enough to wait. She’s breathing heavily, her whole body tense as she tries to get used to her professor’s cock inside of her.

He lets her have this, but it’s not entirely selfless when he gives her time to accommodate. He’s going to cum too fast. To busy himself, and because it’s all he can think about with his entire cock engulfed in her soaking heat, Chan reaches up to unbutton her blouse.

Her hard breathing makes it more difficult, her chest rising so quickly, but he’s experienced enough to manage. She watches him while he undresses her and he smiles whenever she squeezes around him.

“Did you plan this?” he mumbles, glancing at her face when he sees a flimsy bralette that really doesn’t cover anything. He rolls his hips forward, pressing deeper until she flinches. “Hm?”

She nods, and lets him push the blouse past her shoulders until it slides off.

Chan tongues his cheek and slides his hands up her waist until his thumbs dig into her tits. He follows their curves and teases her nipples through the fabric. It makes her flutter around him.

“‘s for you,” she whispers and smiles when he reaches back to undo the clasp.

Felix sits up, to let her shirt and bra fall off her hands and curl her fingers into his hair when he leans down. He can feel it when she moves, hear her small gasp, how she clenches down. She’s only in her skirt now, while he’s still fully dressed.

Chan moans when his mouth touches her skin, so warm and soft, the swell of her breast. He licks over it, so grateful when she arches her back to give him better access and let him slide his cock in deeper.

“Chan,” she breathes, gasping as he sucks on her nipple, first just a light motion before he presses his tongue against her bud and relishes in the sensation.

He pulls his hips back a little, just a mere centimeter, and rocks back inside, shallow thrusts as he slings one arm around the small of her back and grabs her tit with the other. She gasps, twice when she realizes he’s really moving now, and the grip of her nails stings in his hair. He can feel her heartbeat under his lips.

It takes him incredible effort to let go and right himself up. His hands find her waist and he holds her tightly as he starts moving a little faster. It almost hurts with how good it feels.

“You’re perfect, Felix,” he confesses, glancing down between them to see his cock vanish under her plaid skirt, “such a good girl for me.”

“Fuck,” she moans, squeezing tightly around him.

She slings her arms around his neck and presses closer to kiss him. He groans against her, lets her lick into his mouth as he fucks her deeper. Her legs are trembling and her tits are pushed against his own chest. He can feel his wedding ring dig into his balls whenever he’s all the way inside her.

“You’re so big,” she gasps, voice a little higher than usual and he knows she’s still playing with him, but they both ache for it.

He kisses her earnestly, hips slowing down for better precision and Felix whines when he finds it. His hands tighten around her waist and he pulls her close on every thrust forward.

“Lie back,” he tells her and smiles when she hesitates before doing what he said.

Slowly, Felix leans on her forearms and then on her back, spine still bent in a beautiful arch that makes her tits look delicious. Her hair fans out around her face, a golden halo and she spreads her legs wider.

“There we go,” he mumbles and pulls her closer until her ass is flush against his thighs.

With his grip around her waist, he holds her up a little, just enough to angle her hips in the way he wants and fuck into her tight cunt with a loud squelch.

“Oh,” she moans, eyes fluttering closed and her mouth falling open. “Harder, oppa.”

Chan can’t help but smile, a little fucked out and disbelieving, but he will give her anything she wants. He’s close already, has been since they started, but he isn’t ready to have this end yet.

She takes a few thrusts, her moans bordering on pretty whines when he fucks her hard enough for his thighs to ache, before she tries to move her hips and meet him.

He clicks his tongue and holds her still, uncaring if his fingers will leave bruises in her skin. “Stop moving, baby. Just take it, yeah?”

Felix chokes a little, eyes rolling back behind her fluttering eyelids when he lifts her up higher until the only parts of her touching his desk are her shoulders and head. Her legs tighten around his body and her skirt rides up. He can see her cunt stretched out around him, her stiff clit shining with her slick and his necklace almost vanishing inside of her with how deep he’s buried. His wedding ring is dangling between them.

He watches her tits bounce with every thrust, how she writhes on his desk and makes such sweet noises for him whenever he hits that spot inside her. She’s not as loud as he thought she’d be, but it’s perfect like this. Anything she gives him is all he ever wanted.

“Good— So good, professor,” she moans, blinking up at him with half a smile that falters when he fucks into her a bit harder, “touch me. Please—”

His cock rubs against the underside of her clit if he angles it right, and he knows he could make her cum like this, but she gets so very needy when he touches her properly.

Chan places her ass back down and leans over her, kissing her chest and biting gently into the swell of her tit as he sneaks a hand in between them.

Felix tightens in appreciation.

At the first teasing rub on her clit, she flinches and digs her nails into his shoulders. Chan buries his face into her neck and makes her whole body tremble with his fingers and cock.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he groans, hips twitching forward, “wish I could cum inside of you.”

She whines a little, gasping for air and Chan knows she’s close. Can feel it in the way she clenches so desperately, like she’s trying to keep him inside of her.

He leans up, grabs her around her waist and fucks her harder. Felix twitches under his hold, lost in her pleasure as her face twists into an adorable expression of overwhelmed ecstasy.

“Gonna—” she gasps, choking on a moan, “Chan, I’m—”

“Shh, I know,” he breathes, and slides his hand down to squeeze her clit between two fingertips.

She whimpers, clenching her cunt around his cock and it only takes a light brush of his thumb for her to tense up entirely. It’s beautiful. Suddenly, she won’t stop moaning, small hiccups of pleasure leaving her pink mouth, as she arches her back and screws her eyes shut.

Chan fucks her through it. He groans deeply at the sensation of her tight hole pulsing around his cock and it almost makes him dizzy. Her legs twitch as if trying to close, but he keeps going, keeps fucking into her until all she does is whine and tremble as she takes it.

“Chan,” she begs, face all red and her brows scrunched up.

His heart stumbles when she reaches up to him, blinking her shining eyes at him until he gets the hint and pulls her up. She moans, like it’s too much, as he keeps thrusting into her, even now that her arms are curled around his shoulders and her face is hidden in his neck.

“Good girl,” he tells her quietly and holds her still so he can chase his orgasm.

Felix whimpers into him, clenching up tightly while her thighs tremble like she’s shivering. She won’t let up and Chan almost sees stars while he drives his cock inside as deep as he can. He cums with a curse on his lips, pressing into her to feel his entire length being squeezed by her soaking cunt. Something digs into his shoulder and it takes him several moments to realize she’s biting him. Her body clings to his and he almost doesn’t hear her whiny sounds over the rushing in his ears.

He rides it out into her, rocking slowly forward until the sensation bleeds into pain. Only then does he stop.

The ache in his shoulder fades and he hears her ragged breathing. It tickles his neck.

Chan cups her head, fingers sliding into her soft hair and he pulls her back gently until he can see her big eyes. She’s blinking, like there’s a fog in her vision, and he brushes some stray locks out of her face. She squeezes up around him and they both make small sounds in reply.

He pulls out, slowly enough so the condom won’t move and for her to get used to being so empty again. A hiss escapes him when his cock is freed, though it’s still warm and slick from her cunt. Felix merely lets out a quiet gasp.

It’s sobering to pull the condom off and tie it up before tossing it into his trash can. When he peels the necklace off, the metal of the chain feels warm in his palm. He looks up at Felix, at how she’s still sitting there, catching her breath and slightly covering her bare chest.

Chan clears his throat and shoves the necklace into his pocket before putting his pants on properly again.

Felix reaches back slowly and he watches her as she pulls her shirt on, buttoning up a little quicker than he’d like.

“Do you need anything?” he asks, and his tongue feels wrong in his mouth.

She shakes her head and meets his eyes for just a moment. Still, he leans down to pull her panties over her other foot and tugs it up her legs.

“Thank you,” she whispers and slides off the desk to adjust her underwear. She seems unsure on her feet.

It’s so quiet that all Chan can hear is the ticking of the clock on his wall.

“I should—” Felix starts, but he interrupts her.

“I’ll drive you,” he says and resists touching her again, kissing her.

She nods, and grabs her forgotten bra and the signed withdrawal note. Chan ignores the sticky mess they made of the assignments on his desk.

His chest feels tight, like his lungs aren’t working, or his heart is twisted up.

He takes his coat from the rack and drapes it over her shoulders without a word. It’s still cold outside and she’s barely wearing anything. Besides, he’d like to smell her scent on his clothes.

With a hand on the small of her back he guides her through the empty hallways and to the parking lot. She’s walking a little strangely now, but he doesn’t tease her about it. He opens the passenger door for her and takes several deep breaths in the time it takes him to get to the driver’s side.

Again, he cranks up the heat and waits until she puts her seatbelt on before starting the engine.

Chan doesn’t know where it went wrong, and he works his jaw when he lands on the fact that this simply was just a bet to her.

They’re quiet during the ride, and his right hand stays on the middle console, loosely placed on the stick. He flinches in surprise when her fingers touch him, but the almost empty road allows him to look at her, at how pretty she is in the passing lights, and how she’s not meeting his gaze. And yet, she relaxes when he takes her hand and traces his thumb over her knuckles.

Felix turns to look out of the window, but she’s squeezing his fingers back.

It takes too little time to reach her place and Chan dreads rolling to a stop because he knows this will be it.

Instead of pulling up to the entrance of her building, he looks for a parking spot and buys himself another minute. But it’s over in a flash and then they’re sitting in the half-dark, quiet car, illuminated by a street lamp.

Chan swallows and lets go of her hand.

“Here,” he says and reaches into his pocket to find his wedding ring. He gives it one last glance, one last touch before placing it into her palm. “You can have it. Keep it, or— or toss it out, I don’t mind.”

Felix blinks at him. She feels along the chain, how it’s probably still a little sticky, and curls it into her fist.

“There’s no bet, Chan,” she tells him quietly. “I never— I just really wanted to be with you, just once.”

He looks at her for a long time, and stops pushing down the feelings that have been blossoming for a while now.

“Felix—”

“Do you want to come upstairs?” she asks quickly.

Chan smiles, wide and real, and reaches for her hand, the one curled around his past. He kisses her fingers and says, “I do.”