Archive of Our Own

Every once in a while, Euijoo stumbled upon a new fragment of himself.

Usually, they were small, unplanned discoveries, moments that felt like flipping through the pages of a personal encyclopedia he had never meant to write. He called this collection his “trivia world”: a jumble of useless yet oddly charming facts that somehow pieced together a clearer picture of Byun Euijoo, even if no one had really asked for it.

These quiet, now-and-then surprises always made him tilt his head and think, Huh. So that’s how I am.

Take the sneezing incident, for example, the afternoon he discovered he couldn’t sneeze silently like some people did. It had happened during a tedious seminar on a freezing day in January. Euijoo had been zoning out, cheek resting in his palm, gaze fixed blankly somewhere far ahead, when he noticed the girl sitting a row in front of him. She leaned forward, pressed a tissue to her face, and let out a sneeze so soft it was almost a whisper.

Impressed, Euijoo had tried it later that day in his bathroom. He tensed his shoulders, clamped a hand over his mouth, and attempted to mimic what she’d done. What came out instead was a half-strangled “Achoo!” that echoed off the tiles. He stared at himself in the mirror, then burst out laughing. He tried again, same result. No matter how hard he tried to muffle it, his sneezes were loud, unapologetic, and uniquely his.

Then there had been the morning he decided to stretch, hoping to loosen the stiffness in his lower back. He bent forward to touch his toes, twisted gently from side to side, then, on a whim, lowered himself to the floor. With his palms planted behind him, he pushed his hips upward. To his surprise, his body folded backward like a hinge. His chest lifted toward the ceiling as his spine curved into a graceful arch, almost enough to bring the back of his head to his heels.

He froze, staring at his reflection in the full-length mirror across the room. Was this normal? He had never considered himself particularly bendy; he had quit ballet after two months as a kid because he hated the tight leotards, but here he was, contorted into a pose that looked like it belonged on the cover of some yoga magazine. He held it for a few seconds, then collapsed onto his back, grinning.

Nothing unusual, just Euijoo casually discovering how flexible he was on a random Tuesday morning.

The beatboxing incident, though, remained his most surreal discovery. It had happened at a small party, one of their chaotic affairs in a friend’s cramped apartment strung with neon lights and a playlist that couldn’t decide between K-pop and early 2000s hip-hop. Euijoo had lost count of the soju shots after the third round, his laughter coming easier and his movements growing looser as the night wore on.

At some point, the music had stopped, and someone dared him to “do something cool.” Before he knew it, he was standing in the middle of the room, mouth open, and out came a rapid-fire sequence of bass drops, snare clicks, and hi-hats that sounded like a one-man drumline. His friends erupted into cheers, filming him with their phones as he layered sounds, even adding a surprisingly smooth melody over the beat that didn’t feel improvised at all.

The next morning, he woke up with a splitting headache and a message from Maki: Dude. You need to see this. He clicked the video, and there he was: cheeks flushed, eyes half-closed, hands moving in sync with the beat as if he had been practicing for years. He replayed it three times, disbelief washing over him. When did I learn to do that? he had wondered. It was scary good, like he had been hiding a secret talent in the back of his throat all along.

After each of these moments, Euijoo found himself wondering how many more surprises were waiting inside him. Maybe he could sing in perfect pitch when he was sleep-deprived. Maybe too much caffeine would unlock some strange ability to solve complex math problems. Maybe a few glasses of wine would turn him fluent in French.

He was only twenty, after all. His life still felt like an unwritten book, with pages waiting to be filled.

Who knew what he would learn about himself next?

Stalking, apparently.

After an unforgettable Saturday, Euijoo discovered he wasn’t just unnervingly efficient at tracking down strangers’ social media; he was some kind of expert, connecting dots like a seasoned detective and piecing together a detailed picture of someone in just a few days, digging through profiles, links, blogs, and websites. Years of digital breadcrumbs, sifted through with a focus so intense it left his temples throbbing.

Euijoo wished it had stopped there. Instead, he took things further.

Far enough that the hairs on the back of his neck rose, and a strange mix of self-loathing and fascination coiled in his gut. Am I losing it? he wondered, caught in something close to delirium, but the thought barely registered before he found himself doing it all over again, his pulse quickening with a thrill he had never felt before.

He couldn’t stop.

Things escalated quickly after that.

Euijoo wasn’t just casually stumbling upon a new hidden skill on a random day; he was peeling back layers of himself, revealing a side that had been dormant, perhaps even purposefully buried.

Just who is this guy? he thought, staring at his reflection in the dark screen of his laptop. And where had he been hiding all along?

It intrigued him, this newfound version of himself. It made him uneasy, vaguely anxious, even questioning his own morality. There were moments when he snapped out of it, horrified by his own actions, wondering what had possessed him. But the thrill always returned. It was like some deviant bug had burrowed into his flesh, laying eggs that hatched into a hunger he couldn’t ignore. It nested there, between muscle and bone, blooming into something electrifying that made his blood sing.

Euijoo couldn’t stay still anymore. He needed to act on it, or he’d lose his mind for real.

It had all started a few days before that.

It was a cozy, lazy late afternoon after classes, one of those that stretched on without purpose. They’d been sprawled across Jo’s narrow single mattress, limbs tangled more out of necessity than intent, their combined height turning the whole thing into a cramped mess of elbows and knees. On Jo’s laptop, some trashy reality show played, one of those packed with loud, obnoxious people who smoked their lungs rotten, screamed over each other, threw drinks, and caused scenes, only to end up making out sloppily hours later and having quickies under the covers or in shower stalls like nothing had happened.

It was awful.

They loved it.

Euijoo had been half-zoned out, cheek pressed into his arm, when Jo casually dropped, “We’re getting matching tattoos.”

Euijoo blinked. “…We’re getting what?”

“Matching tattoos,” Jo repeated, like he’d said pass me the remote. “I was thinking kitten paws for you, claws for me. Cute, right? Or—or, matching alchemy water symbol. Fluidity, you know. That would look sick.”

Euijoo went completely still. “What the fuck?” He snatched the laptop and paused the show mid-fight, two guys fighting over the same girl, again, and turned to stare at Jo like he’d just lost his mind.

Jo frowned. “What?”

“What do you mean, what?” Euijoo shot back. “You just said ‘matching tattoos’ like that’s a normal sentence.”

“Maki and Harua have them.”

“Yeah,” Euijoo said flatly. “Because they’re dating and disgustingly in love and operating on whatever horny brain chemicals make people think permanent decisions are romantic.”

Jo rolled his eyes. “And we’re best friends. I think it’s just as meaningful. I want something permanent to bind us together forever.”

“You sound like a psycho boyfriend.”

“Oh, God forbid I want a tiny, cute matching tattoo with my best friend,” Jo scoffed. “Truly unhinged behavior.”

“Yes. Deeply concerning.”

They glared at each other for half a second before Euijoo exhaled sharply. “You know I hate needles.”

“It’s not the same as medical needles,” Jo said immediately. “It’s different.”

“It is literally a needle.”

“It won’t hurt that much,” Jo insisted. “You’ll barely feel it.”

Euijoo let out a humorless laugh. “Do I have to remind you how I nearly fainted getting these?” he said, flicking one of his earrings.

“But you didn’t faint.”

“I was seconds away. My vision went black. I saw my entire life flash before my eyes.”

“You’re so dramatic.”

“I almost met God over a piercing, and you want me to sit through a tattoo gun?”

Jo pushed himself up onto one elbow, looking at him like he was being difficult on purpose. “Just come with me. Keep an open mind. You’ll watch me go first, you’ll see it’s nothing, and then you’ll get yours. I’ll even hold your hand and talk you through it.”

“I don’t want you holding my hand while I die.”

“You’re not going to die.”

“I’ll be getting stabbed repeatedly.”

“It’s not stabbing, it’s—” Jo paused. “Okay, it’s a little bit stabbing, but, like, artistically.”

Euijoo glared at him.

Jo grinned. “So you’re in?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Well, tough shit,” Jo said, flopping back onto the mattress. “I already booked it. This Saturday. Found a tattoo parlor running a 50% off couples deal. Thought of us immediately.”

“Couples,” Euijoo repeated.

Jo flashed his canines. “Congratulations. You’re my boyfriend this weekend.”

Euijoo’s fingers itched to curl around Jo’s ears and rattle some sense into him. “Cancel it,” he snapped instead.

“No.”

Euijoo grabbed a pillow and smacked him straight across the face.

Jo yelped, clutching his cheek like he’d just been struck with a brick. “Ow! Aggressive much?” he whined.

“Cancel it or I swear to God—”

“You’ll what? Break up with me?” Jo shot back, laughter bubbling up as he tossed the pillow aside. “Too late. We’re committed now. Remember that time you cried during Up and made me promise to never leave you? Yeah. That’s legally binding. Tattoo clause included.”

Euijoo stared at him for a long second, then pointedly looked away. “I’m not getting a tattoo, Jo,” he said, enunciating each word like he was talking to a deeply unreasonable child. “There is nothing you can say or do that will convince me.”

Jo groaned. “God, you’re so boring,” he muttered, kicking his feet like a sulking toddler. “Fine. Fine, whatever. You don’t have to get one. Just—” he waved a hand lazily—“come with me. Sit there. Pretend to change your mind. You don’t even have to fake it, your face does that naturally when needles are involved. I’ll even buy you a boba coffee after. Your favorite. The disgustingly sweet one with extra vanilla pumps.”

“You’re unbelievable,” Euijoo scoffed. “I’ll even pay the other half for your stupid tattoo. Just leave me out of it.”

“Nope,” Jo said, already unpausing the show like the conversation was over. “It’s booked. I’m getting my 50% off, and you’re coming with me. It’s non-negotiable.”

Euijoo let himself fall back onto the mattress, all the fight draining out of him at once. “Remind me again why I put up with you?”

Jo shifted closer immediately, draping himself over Euijoo like an overgrown starfish, limbs everywhere and zero regard for personal space. “Who else is gonna watch this garbage with you?” he mumbled into Euijoo’s shirt. “Who else knows you cry during Up? Who else puts up with your weird obsession with extra vanilla pumps, hm?”

And that had been that. Euijoo was going to a tattoo parlor on Saturday.

He’d sit there, pretend he was considering getting a matching tattoo with his “boyfriend,” and leave with his skin intact. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe he’d walk out with nothing more than a funny story, a boba coffee (or two) in hand, and another entry to add to the ever-growing list of absurd, wonderful things he’d done because of Jo.

YOLO, Euijoo thought.

…Right?

WRONG. 

Silly, naive Euijoo.

He didn’t walk out of that parlor with a funny anecdote or a quirky souvenir to laugh about later. He didn’t escape unscathed, either. No sterile needle pricked his skin, no sharp blade sliced through his flesh, but he left feeling as though he’d been split clean down the middle, phantom ink oozing from the rift. A man changed forever. His world and everything he thought he knew about himself flipped upside down in a way he could never flip back up. 

Who knew Euijoo would stumble upon the wildest, most unrecognizable fragment of himself in a tattoo parlor on a random Saturday?

That Saturday had started like any other ordinary day, with no fanfare or foreshadowing to hint at the life-altering storm brewing on the horizon. The hours before Jo picked him up were as unremarkable as a blank page; there had been no gut-wrenching sense that his reality was about to shift on its axis.

Euijoo had woken up that day just as he did every weekend: early, before the rest of the world had even rubbed the sleep from its eyes. He’d always loved mornings, especially the quiet ones spent at home. That morning, in particular, had been almost postcard-perfect, sunbeams slanting through the blinds, birds chirping merrily outside his window. He stretched lazily in bed before swinging his legs over the edge and padding barefoot to the window. He threw it open wide, letting in a rush of cool morning air, and closed his eyes for a moment, savoring the warmth of the sun on his face.

Then he went about his usual routine: First, a bowl of his favorite congee, the same breakfast he’d refused to trade for anything else since childhood. Next, a handful of wild berries, what he liked to call his morning dose of dopamine (and, okay, maybe some vitamins too). Finally, his vanilla latte, of course, frothed to perfection.

With breakfast finished, Euijoo turned on the TV, queuing up a playlist of upbeat pop songs that always made him feel like he was waltzing on sunshine. He hummed along as he tidied his place. Every now and then, he’d stop sweeping and dance with the broom, twirling it like a microphone stand as he shimmied across the space. When a particularly energetic chorus hit, he’d go all in, lip-syncing and striking poses that would’ve put a Broadway star to shame.

It was around noon when his phone buzzed, interrupting his otherwise very chill, very usual morning.

The screen lit up with a text from Jo. Jo was practically nocturnal on weekends, and noon was his usual time to emerge from his cave:

Wear something cute and put on makeup (heavy on the peach blush). I want us to look like that insufferably cool and attractive couple who wake up and think, hm, matching tattoos today. Be ready at 3:30. Don’t embarrass me.

Euijoo scoffed, rolling his eyes so hard he thought they might get stuck in the back of his head. He quickly typed a response: a middle finger emoji that perfectly summed up his feelings, before tossing his phone onto the couch. But even as he tried to brush it off, his stomach tightened into a knot, and he found himself gnawing at his nails until they throbbed.

Euijoo absolutely hated needles. The mere thought of them made his skin crawl and his heart race. Now, thanks to Jo’s harebrained idea, he was going to a tattoo parlor, where he’d have to pretend he was getting inked too, all while watching a needle, called a gun, for some godforsaken reason, buzz and drive in and out of his friend’s skin.

It sounded like an absolute nightmare.

He found himself pacing the room, muttering under his breath. Why had he agreed to this? He had free will, for fuck’s sake. He could’ve said no. He could still say no. For twenty long minutes, Euijoo seriously contemplated bailing. He ran through a myriad of excuses: a sudden fever, a family emergency, a last-minute assignment deadline. He even considered just ignoring Jo altogether, letting his texts and calls go unanswered until the whole thing blew over.

But then he sighed, dragging a hand through his hair, and resigned himself to his fate.

How bad could it really be?

What’s the worst that could happen?

When the time finally rolled around for Euijoo to get ready, he found himself standing in front of his wardrobe, his mind still caught up in a silent, one-sided argument with his best friend. For a solid five minutes, he entertained the idea of yanking out the neon orange socks with pizza slices printed on them, pairing them with his oldest, most threadbare hoodie that had a coffee stain shaped like a sad cloud on the front, and topping it all off with those clunky rain boots he’d owned since high school. Just to do the exact opposite of what Jo had asked. Just to embarrass him.

The mental image of Jo’s face when he saw that outfit made Euijoo almost giddy.

Serves him right for dragging me into this, he thought—but then he had to talk himself out of it. Euijoo was nothing if not adaptable, able to adjust to any situation he was thrust into. If he was going to do this, he might as well commit.

“Obnoxiously stylish couple, here we come,” he muttered to his reflection.

For the next fifteen minutes, Euijoo stood by his bedroom window, gaze fixed blankly on the empty street below. A stray cat caught his attention at one point, a plump white thing with mismatched, slightly crossed eyes, looking profoundly unimpressed with life as it lazily chased its own tail. Same, Euijoo thought. If he had a tail, he’d probably be chasing it too out of sheer boredom—

Then he saw it, a faded, rat-colored Ford Taurus rolled into view, looking like it had been spat out of a completely different decade. Right on time. Euijoo pushed himself away from the window, grabbed his keys from the dresser, and headed outside. 

The sun hit him immediately, glaring unforgivingly, and he had to squint, raising a hand to shield his eyes as he made his way toward the car. The passenger window rolled down with a loud, grinding protest. First came Jo’s arm, slung casually over the door frame, then his face. Jo pushed his rimless rectangular sunglasses down his nose with his index finger in what was clearly meant to be a devastatingly sexy gesture. His gaze dragged slowly up and down Euijoo’s body, lips pursed in exaggerated concentration—then curved into a crooked, boyish smirk. 

“You understood the assignment,” he called out with a proud grin as Euijoo rounded the car and reached for the passenger door.

Euijoo rolled his eyes and yanked the door open with a little more force than necessary, sliding into the seat with a soft thud. As soon as the door clicked shut, his senses were assaulted with a wave of Jo’s bold perfume, so strong it made his nose twitch.

“Aren’t you trying a little too hard?” he asked as he buckled his seatbelt, eyes sweeping over Jo’s tall frame from head to toe.

Jo scoffed, one hand already on the steering wheel as he started the car. “This is called casual streetwear, thank you very much,” he said, gesturing to his outfit: a long-sleeved leopard-print shirt layered under a black-and-red graphic tee, light-wash jeans with chains dangling from the waist, and chunky Doc Martens to finish it off. “Effortless swag. With a hint of rock ’n’ roll.” 

“Your hair is in spikes,” Euijoo pointed out. 

“And it looks good,” Jo shot back, completely unbothered by the criticism. “So what’s your point?”

“My point is you’re doing a little too much for someone who’s just getting a miniscule tattoo—one on sale on top of that.”

“Being resourceful and financially responsible is not embarrassing,” Jo said, shooting him a sideways glance as he pulled into the street. “You look cute, by the way,” he added. “See how easy that was? Compliment. No nitpicking. I love that azure blue on you—it brings out the sparkle in your eyes. Although I specifically remember asking for peach blush. Hm. What happened to that?”

“I was feeling pink,” Euijoo said, reaching over to roll the window down. A warm spring breeze rushed into the car, ruffling his chocolate-brown fringe.

Jo snorted. “No, you weren’t. You just wanted to contradict me. I know how you get—‘Oh, Jo wants peach? Let me wear bubblegum pink out of spite.’”

Euijoo focused on the radio, his thumb aggressively hammering the seek button. “Or maybe I just wanted a rosy glow today. It’s called a choice, Jojo.”

He absolutely did it out of spite. And he’d do it again.

“Anyway,” he added, pivoting before Jo whipped out a wet wipe and demanded he scrub his cheeks, “did you actually settle on a tattoo, or are we just driving toward your mid-life crisis for fun?”

Jo’s frown vanished instantly, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated vanity. "I’m going with the water theme. A wave, right... here." He lifted his arm, pressing his chin to his forearm to map out the imaginary ink. "Total masterpiece, right?"

Euijoo tried to visualize it, but all he could see was a buzzing needle and the inevitable splatter. He shuddered, his stomach doing a slow roll. "If I faint, I’m billing you for the therapy. You can’t just subject a man to elective gore on a Saturday." He finally stopped thumbing the stereo when the warm, fuzzy crackle of a Creedence track settled over the speakers, the steady thrum of the bass finally drowning out the mental image of the needle.

“You won’t faint,” Jo said, waving him off with a flick of his wrist. “Anyway, did I tell you how legendary this parlor is? It’s—”

“Any shop offering a fifty-percent-off fire sale isn’t ‘legendary,’ Jo. It’s desperate,” Euijoo interjected. “I’m expecting rusty needles and a complimentary tetanus shot.”

Jo’s head whipped toward him, eyes wide with indignation. “Excuse you! Nico is the best artist in the area. People practically worship him—”

“I’m sure the cult is very inclusive,” Euijoo muttered.

“—and he has a signature style, too,” Jo pressed on, ignoring the sarcasm. “He’s a muralist. You’ve definitely seen his murals around—those abstract, haunting faces? They're always in—” Jo paused, his gaze dropping to Euijoo’s chest. “Actually, that exact shade of blue.”

Euijoo looked down at himself. His sheer azure sweater, teasing a hint of skin, suddenly felt like a target.

“See?” Jo grinned, leaning into the steering wheel. “That’s called fate. You’re practically destined for the chair.”

“I am not,” Euijoo said, the words sounding tired even to his own ears.

“Anyway,” Jo continued, undeterred, “blue is his trademark. His designs are insane. You’re probably picturing some basic wave, right? Wrong. Nico’s going to do something visceral—a wave shaped like a phoenix, or a tidal wave made of flames—”

Euijoo tuned him out, the technicalities of "visceral waves" lost to a yawn he muffled with his palm. He leaned his forehead against the rattling window, watching the blur of trees and lampposts. “Where is this house of pain, exactly?” he asked after a while, his voice thick with encroaching sleep.

“Almost there,” Jo said, dragging the Ford into a sharp, body-rolling turn. “Ten minutes max.”

Euijoo yawned again, letting his eyes drift shut just as the next track kicked in: the unmistakable, growling chords of Highway to Hell. Perfect, he thought. How subtle. Anxiety furled and unfurled in the pit of his stomach like a confused, blooming flower. He forced a deep breath, trying to manifest a reality where he was already back in his room, buried under his fluffy soft comforter, with his skin still blissfully blank and unpierced. 

Euijoo drifted off to the sound of Bon Scott screaming about the eternal flames, wondering if "death by fifty-percent-off phoenix tattoo" would at least make for a halfway decent obituary.

🔹🔹🔹

Euijoo was yanked back into the real world, his dream—nightmare, really, of being frozen on his hands and knees on some harsh, shadowy floor, unable to move, crawl, or even stand, while vague, blue-shaped faces closed in on him from all sides, dissolving the moment Jo’s voice broke through his subconscious.

"Juju—Juju, wake up, we’re here."

Euijoo jolted, choking on the breath he’d sucked in too sharply it turned into a hacking cough. He instinctively reached up to rub the sleep from his eyes, but Jo caught his wrist midair with the reflexes of a cat.

"Don’t," Jo warned. "You'll smudge the eyeliner. We’re going for effortless chic, not raccoon in crisis."

Euijoo shook him off with a low whine and straightened up, blinking at the unfamiliar street. It was quiet, dead, and sweltering. The afternoon sun beat through the windshield, turning the Ford into a mobile sauna. He groaned, unbuckling his seatbelt as heat radiated off his skin in waves.

“You might want to tame the nest, babe,” Jo said from the driver’s seat. He was puckering his lips at the vanity mirror, reapplying lip balm and batting his lashes at himself.

Euijoo slammed the sun visor down, glaring at his own face. “You couldn’t have flipped this down for me ten minutes ago? My face is all sweaty and gross now.” He looked like a glazed donut left out in the rain, his skin flushed a fried red and glistening with a layer of oil.

"It’s called a dewy finish, babe. Very trendy.”

“Stop calling me that.”

Jo turned to him with a toothy grin. "I'm practicing. We have to look convincing, Euijoo. I know you can’t act to save your life, but please, try. And whatever you do, do not dissociate in there—"

"I was literally having a nightmare about Nico's haunted murals," Euijoo shot back, desperately trying to flatten his bent fringe with his palms. "Give me five minutes to mentally prepare for my inevitable demise."

"Fine," Jo sighed, sounding like he was the one being martyred. "I’ll be right there with you. No needle is actually going to touch you. You just have to sit there, pretend we’re in love, and maybe hold my hand if I look like I’m in pain—"

Euijoo made a gagging sound in the back of his throat.

"—and look at me like I'm the sun and the moon combined," Jo finished.

"And what if he’s not an idiot?" Euijoo said, turning to face him. "What if Nico sees right through us? The second he realizes I'm not getting inked, he’s going to revoke the discount, genius. Have you factored in the part where we get kicked out for fraud?”

“Euijoo, breathe,” Jo had the audacity to say, inhaling deeply and motioning for Euijoo to follow suit like they were at a luxury yoga retreat instead of a dirty curb.

“I’m serious, Jo. This is a disaster in the making.”

“We won’t get busted,” Jo said, radiating a level of confidence that was frankly offensive. “You want to know why? Because we’re only partially lying. You are genuinely terrified of needles, so it’s perfectly believable that you’d get cold feet at the last second. I’ll just tell him I pressured you into it. Nico will see your face, realize you’re about to have a medical event, and he’ll be cool about it. He’s a legend.”

Euijoo narrowed his eyes. “How do you even know he’s a ‘legend’? How old is this dude, anyway?”

“I don’t know, mid-twenties?” Jo rolled his eyes. “Yuma told me about him when I mentioned wanting a tattoo, and I’ve been lurking on his Instagram ever since. I didn't even realize he was the guy behind those murals at the skate park until I saw his portfolio.”

"Why didn't you just get a matching tattoo with Yuma?" Euijoo asked. 

The question hit its mark. Jo choked on his own spit, spluttering into a startled, messy cough. 

Good. Euijoo felt a petty spark of satisfaction.

"Why the hell would I do that?" Jo snapped, sounding far too defensive to be convincing. His cheeks betrayed him, though; the blush he’d artfully applied turning two shades darker. 

“You planned this, didn't you?” 

“What? No,” Jo said, his voice pitching up an octave: the universal Jo-signal for absolutely lying.

“You so did!” Euijoo accused, pointing a finger at him. “You calculated this. You knew I’d rather get nuked than let a needle touch me. This was your discount strategy from the beginning.”

Jo raised his hands in surrender, a guilty smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. “I saw a fifty-percent-off opening and I took it. We’re here now, let’s just—oh, shit. We’re five minutes late. Come on, come on!” He scrambled out of the car before Euijoo could launch another counter-attack.

Euijoo let out a weary, resigned sigh that felt like it came from his soul. Here goes nothing, he thought, dragging himself out into the heat. Jo was waiting by the parlor door, his hand extended and an infuriating little grin plastered on his face.

Euijoo mouthed “I hate you” with as much venom as he could muster, but he took the hand anyway. Together, they pushed through the door and stepped inside.

The door chimed softly as they entered. Euijoo glanced up, catching the sight of a beautiful wind chime made of weathered seashells threaded together with small rose quartz and raw blue topaz. He blinked, stumbling after Jo down a short, narrow hallway where a coat rack stood tucked into the corner, two dark jackets slung over it. To his left, a long oval mirror reflected his pink, lustrous face back at him, while the muted beige walls were lined with generic, framed panoramas of scenic landscapes, the kind of art you’d find in a dentist’s waiting room.

But as they moved deeper, the deceptive, ordinary entrance faded quickly as a funky, upbeat bassline drifted toward them, anchored by the growl of a gritty guitar riff. Euijoo wiped his palm on his thigh absently. He took one last, shaky breath as Jo pushed open a small, wrought-iron gate at the end of the hall. The scent hit him first: lavender mixed with sharp, medicinal undertones and a faint, cold metallic tang hanging in the air. Euijoo’s gaze did a slow sweep of the room. The beige walls continued here, but the scenic landscapes were gone, replaced by a gallery of the surreal.

He felt the air leave his lungs. The walls were covered in art, minimal, yet impossible to look away from. Vague silhouettes and faces that seemed to watch him back; gripping shapes and twisted bodies; reaching hands, and haunted eyes, all rendered in vibrant shocks of blue, cool greys, and ivory whites. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was exactly what his nightmare had been trying to warn him about.

He was jolted out of his haze as Jo gave his hand a sharp tug. Euijoo whirled around, nearly tripping over his own feet, and found himself face-to-face with a handsome guy sitting behind a cluttered counter, flashing his pearly whites at them.

"Good afternoon," the guy said, his smile bright and professional. "Welcome to Ultramarine.”

Jo beamed, deploying his most lethal, boyish smile, the one that usually earned him free drinks or a pass on a speeding ticket. “Hey! How’s it going? We have an appointment at three. Sorry we’re a few minutes behind; my boyfriend here was practically catatonic on my passenger seat. It took a solid five minutes and some light shaking to bring him back to the land of the living.”

The guy let out a laugh, his dark eyes sparking with interest as they flitted between them, clearly assessing.

Euijoo strangled the urge to snap back with something biting, opting instead for a sheepish smile. He scratched behind his ear, trying to look timid and charming rather than clinically anxious. “It’s brutally hot out there,” he offered with a faint shrug.

“You’re good,” the guy said, leaning back. “Nico’s running behind anyway. His current client has the pain tolerance of a grape; she’s taking breaks every ten minutes. He should be wrapping up soon, though. Names?”

He reached past a bowl of gelatin candy shaped like tiny neon animals and grabbed a black tablet. An open graphic novel lay facedown on the counter, its spine cracked.

“Jo and Euijoo,” Jo said, his voice a notch too bright, vibrating with performative energy. He let go of Euijoo’s hand only to drape a heavy, possessive arm around his waist, hauling him in close. “We’re here for the dynamic duo special. The couples' thing.”

More like the scheming duo, Euijoo thought. 

The guy looked up, his gaze trailing slowly from Jo’s wide, salesman grin to Euijoo’s flushed, wide-eyed expression. He didn't say anything for a second, just hummed along to the bassline before sliding two clipboards across the scarred wood of the counter.

“I’m Kei,” he said. “I’ll need IDs and signatures on these. Nico doesn’t touch a needle until the ink is dry on the legal stuff. And just a heads-up: the discount only triggers if both sets of skin get marked. No ink, no deal.” He gave them a knowing wink that made Euijoo’s stomach do a slow somersault. “I’ll go let him know his next victims are ready.”

With that, Kei was gone, disappearing through a heavy, dark door, humming a melody that sounded suspiciously like a funeral march to Euijoo’s ears.

“I know who he is,” Jo whisper-shouted. “His name is spelled like the letter K.” He drew a sharp K in the air with a frantic finger. “He’s—”

Euijoo twisted out of his grasp sharply. “Did you hear what he said?” he hissed, his eyes wide and blown out with panic. “He knows. Oh my god, I told you, didn't I? We’re busted. He’s going to bring Nico out and they’re going to tear us apart. They’ll humiliate us and then toss us onto the sidewalk. Jojo, I’m going to throw up—”

Jo grabbed him by the shoulders. “Hey, hey—breathe. Relax,” he whispered, his voice low and urgent. “We aren’t busted. Euijoo, look at me—”

Euijoo just shook his head, his gaze darting around the room as the blue shapes on the walls seemed to lean closer. The anxiety turned into physical weight, a cold and oily sickness curdling in his gut.

The heavy door opened with a sudden creak. Both of them jolted, spinning around like they’d been caught committing a crime. Kei stood there, pausing as he took in the sight of them huddled together in a state of near-collapse. 

“Everything okay?” 

“Yeah!” Jo let out a forced, breathy laugh that sounded only slightly manic. “Everything’s peachy. Right, baby?” He turned to Euijoo, his eyes widening in a silent command to get it together. “You can do this. Trust me, okay?” He softened his voice, his thumb rubbing Jo’s shoulder in a way that looked infuriatingly tender. “I’m right here with you.”

What a phenomenal actor, Euijoo thought, impressed despite the bile in his throat. Give the man an Oscar. Give him the Golden Globe. Give him everything.

“Euijoo,” Kei said, his voice losing its professional edge. He stepped closer, a genuine, gentle smile softening his face. “It’s okay. You’re in good hands, I promise. The girl in there before you was terrified—almost canceled twice—but she made it through. You can too. And hey, if you can’t? You can walk away. No judgment. It’s all good.”

Euijoo became suddenly, painfully aware of his own hands; he had a death grip on Jo’s wrists, holding onto him like a life raft. His pulse was kicking against his ribs like a trapped beetle, and his chin was trembling so hard his teeth were chattering. Great. Just great. He forced a sharp nod and looked away, feeling a stinging heat rising to his cheeks.

Just then, the door opened again and a petite girl with a pastel-pink pixie cut drifted out. She paused, her gaze traveling over the three of them with a look of confused curiosity.

“This way, Lin,” Kei told her, moving back toward his station.

The girl walked past them, her gaze lingering a second too long on Jo, scanning him with the kind of appreciation that wasn't exactly subtle, before she followed Kei to the counter. As she chatted idly with Kei and pulled out her wallet, the immediate pressure in the room seemed to vent. Euijoo felt his stiff limbs finally loosen. He let out a long, slow breath, relaxing at last. 

“Okay,” he whispered, straightening to his full height. “Let’s just do this.”

Jo grinned, a flash of genuine relief crossing his face, and gave Euijoo’s butt a quick, teasing squeeze.

Euijoo let out a surprised giggle, pushing him away with a playful scowl. They pulled out their IDs and headed for the counter as the pink-haired girl finally pocketed her change. She threw an oblivious Jo one last, lingering look over her shoulder as she pushed through the gate. 

Subtle as a sledgehammer, Euijoo thought, a tiny spark of irritation flaring in his chest. What if Jo was actually my boyfriend? Rude.

“So, we’re good to go?” Kei asked, jerking his chin downward as he pushed the clipboards toward them.

“Yeah,” Euijoo mumbled, sliding his ID across the counter.

“Make sure to read the fine print carefully,” Kei advised, his voice dropping into a mock-serious tone. “Sign at the bottom once you’ve fully accepted your fate." He took their IDs, squinting at the photos. “Age twenty and twenty-one,” he said to no one in particular.

“Mhm," Euijoo hummed, only pretending to read. The words blurred into a legalistic soup of risks, infections, and complications, so he just skimmed to the end and signed. His grip was surprisingly steady, even if his heart was currently performing risky gymnastic routines against his ribs. Beside him, Jo signed with a flourish, looking like he was witnessing a peace treaty rather than a waiver for a tattoo.

Kei took the clipboards back and snapped them shut. He grinned at them, his eyes dancing with mischief. “Well, have fun, kids. You're the last clients for today—try not to bleed on the floor I just mopped.” 

With a cheeky wink, he grabbed his graphic novel and settled back into his chair, stretching his legs out and crossing them at the ankles in a gesture that clearly said dismissed.

Euijoo’s stomach did a slow, nauseating flip as he turned around, catching the icy blue gaze of a painted silhouette on the wall.

“Ready?” Jo beamed at him, practically vibrating out of his skin with excitement.

Euijoo let out a sharp breath of laughter through his nose and squared his shoulders, nodding with the grim seriousness of a soldier going over the trenches.

Jo snickered and caught his hand, entwining their fingers. He tugged Euijoo toward the door at the back. The confused flower in Euijoo’s stomach shivered, its petals curling tight as they stepped through. The warm, golden light of the lobby—along with the music, was swallowed instantly as the door shut behind them with a heavy, final thud.

They walked down another short hallway, the dimness and quiet feeling slightly eerie as the sounds of the lobby faded. Euijoo felt his heart give a small, uncertain quiver. He stayed close behind Jo, their fingers still tightly threaded, letting Jo lead him into the unknown.

Jo turned a corner where a faint lavender neon light bled across the floor. When Euijoo followed, he slowed, blinking in mild surprise. A heavy, bohemian beaded curtain hung in the doorway, all glass beads and tiny metallic charms strung together in bumpy strands. When Jo pushed through, it parted with a soft tinkle, the sound delicate, almost musical. Euijoo hesitated for half a second before stepping after him. For a fleeting second, Euijoo felt like he’d stepped into a magic shop that sold spells instead of tattoos.

The room was bathed in a calming, atmospheric lavender glow. Euijoo let go of Jo’s hand, his curiosity momentarily overriding his fear as he ventured further in. The walls here were covered in framed works too, but they were different, more varied, more chaotic. The illustrations fought for space with vintage band posters: men with long hair and electric guitars that Euijoo didn't identify, their faces frozen in mid-riff. There were vintage tin signs and portraits of famous icons from decades past he only vaguely recognized. It was disordered and tight, but it pulsed with a specific, raw character.

Shelves lined the corners, overflowing with supplies and strange trinkets. Euijoo was so gripped by the visual clutter that he almost managed to ignore the reality of why they were there.

But then, the medicinal scent sharpened, cutting through the lavender haze. His eyes finally landed on the two black, hydraulic chairs positioned on opposite sides of the room. They looked stark and clinical, more like surgical tables than furniture, shimmering purple against the bohemian backdrop.

Jo stopped in front of one, his silhouette dark against the neon. He turned, flashing a giddy, reckless grin over his shoulder.

"Cool, huh?”

"The stuff of nightmares," Euijoo answered flatly, his voice echoing slightly in the small space.

Jo’s excited expression scrunched into a pout. "Oh, come on!" He gestured wildly toward the corner. "You don’t think this is cool? Look at the waiting couch—it’s shaped like a vintage car seat. You love artsy stuff."

Euijoo glanced at the couch, a slick red-and-black number with chrome accents. It did look cool, in a '50s diner sort of way. "Occasionally," he answered, keeping his face perfectly blank on principle.

"You love my art," Jo pressed, stepping closer.

"Debatable."

Jo gave him a long, flat stare, the look of a man who knew exactly how many of his paintings were currently saved to Euijoo’s phone.

"I hate the scent, Jojo," Euijoo whined, letting his composure slip enough to stomp his foot. "It’s too much like a dentist’s office. The last time I was in one of those, I had to be held down like a rabid dog just so they could inject a needle into my gums. My gums, Jo. Can you imagine such cruelty?”

"Juju," Jo said, his voice softening as he stepped into Euijoo’s personal space. "You need to unclench a little—"

The sound of a door opening cut him off. Both of them froze, the air in the room suddenly feeling twice as thick. Jo’s gaze flicked over Euijoo’s shoulder, and a wide, genuine smile broke across his face.

"Hey, man!" Jo said, sidestepping a paralyzed Euijoo and heading toward the newcomer.

"Hey," a voice said. It was low, smooth, and had a slight raspy edge to it. “Nicholas, but you can call me Nico. Sorry I kept you waiting.”

Nicholas.

“I’m Jo,” Jo said, his voice vibrating with the kind of pure adrenaline usually reserved for meeting a rock star. “I’m a massive fan of your work—those murals at the skate park, the perspective you used on the…”

The rest of the sentence dissolved into white noise. Euijoo’s brain went blank, his defenses crumbling as the small, lavender-lit room seemed to contract. It felt like being shoved underwater mid-breath; a stiff, heavy weight lodged itself in his stomach, pinning him to the spot.

“...Euijoo? Euijoo!”

His name sounded warped, echoing in his skull, as if he were drowning and Jo was shouting at him from the mouth of the well. It jolted him out of the stupor, and he spun around before he could even draw in a full breath, desperate to see if the face matched that hypnotic, low-frequency voice—

It was worse.

Infinitely worse.

The man—no, the apparition, standing a few feet away had his head tilted slightly to the side. Dark, brilliant eyes studied Euijoo with a flicker of curiosity, but the rest of his expression was carefully neutral. His face was a masterpiece of sharp planes and delicate shadows, looking like it had been sketched by the same hand that rendered the haunting silhouettes on the walls.

“Hey,” Nicholas said lightly with a slight nod. “You okay? You look a little… pale.”

Euijoo straightened abruptly, his eyes snapping to Jo, who was glaring at him and gesturing frantically with his eyebrows to say something.

“Hey—sorry,” Euijoo managed, letting out a thin, pitiful wheeze of a laugh. He stepped forward, his heart kicking hard against his ribs. “Euijoo. Byun Euijoo.”

He thrust his hand forward, his fingers trembling with a mind of their own. Terrific. And why on earth had he given his full name? Was he checking into a hotel? Applying for a mortgage?

A cool hand wrapped around his. Nicholas’s fingers were callused, artist’s hands, and they gave his palm a light, lingering squeeze. Euijoo felt a wave of dizziness hit him as he noticed the size difference; his hand looked delicate, almost fragile, swallowed by Nico’s grip.

 “First time at a parlor?” Nicholas asked casually, letting go.

Euijoo’s hand hovered in the empty air for a second, tingling where Nicholas had touched him, before he tucked it to his side. He curled his fingers inward, trying to preserve the sensation.

“Can’t say I’ve been anywhere near one before,” he tried for something light and witty, but he still sounded like a man who desperately needed an oxygen mask.

Nicholas let out an amused breath, something that could’ve been a laugh, or a scoff, or something caught in between. He looked between them, his gaze slow and inscrutable as it traveled from Jo’s manic energy to Euijoo’s dazed silence. 

"You’re the first ones out of the gate for the dynamic duo special," he said after a beat. "We’ve had dozens of couples apply, but only a few made the final cut. Consider yourselves winners.” His lips curved into a small, knowing half-smile.

Euijoo instinctively sucked his stomach in, his toes curling inside his shoes.

"Do you hear that, babe?" Jo chirped, plastering on a proud, adoring smile. "We’re among the lucky ones." He knocked their shoulders together with a bit too much force. 

"Very lucky," Euijoo mumbled. He was helpless, unable to tear his gaze away from Nicholas's face, which seemed to grow more impossibly detailed the longer he stared.

"So," Nicholas said, moving past them with a fluid grace. "Who’s going under the needle first?"

"That would be me," Jo said, stepping forward. But as Nicholas moved toward the supply shelves, Jo leaned into Euijoo’s space, his face contorting. "Tone it down," he mouthed, shaking his head with a look of pure disbelief. "You're being a lighthouse.”

Euijoo paid him no mind. He was being pulled toward Nicholas like a piece of metal to a magnet, his feet moving on their own as he drifted closer to watch the beautiful artist work.

Nicholas was tall, though he lacked the sheer, towering height that both Euijoo and Jo possessed—then again, most people did. His hair was dyed in a striking, ash blonde, the tips dipped in a dark, stormy grey and cut into a messy, stylish mullet that brushed the nape of his neck. 

Euijoo’s eyes traced the length of him as Nicholas turned to the side and crouched down to ruffle through an open box on the floor, his side profile blinding in its perfection. He was dressed in a loose, cropped beige sweater paired with baggy, wide-leg cargo pants in a deeper earth tone. The casual look was anchored by black snakeskin leather heeled boots. Colorful gemstones rested at his collarbones, layered among beaded pearls and thin chains. A longer silver chain hung lower than the rest, an amethyst pendant swaying faintly with every shift of his body.

"Dude," Jo hissed at his side, his voice a sharp, desperate whisper. "Get it together, for the love of God—”

Nicholas stood, turning back toward them with a handful of supplies. He paused for a fraction of a second, his gaze bouncing between the two of them. "Whenever you're ready," he said, his voice cool and professional as he fixed his stare on Jo. "Take a seat.”

He turned back to his station and dropped his supplies onto the tray and began organizing them with surgical efficiency. Jo shot Euijoo one last if-you-ruin-this-I'll-kill-you glare before hoisting himself into the black leather chair.

Euijoo hovered in the center of the room, anchored by uncertainty. He looked between the red-and-black car-seat couch and Jo. 

"Babe?"

Euijoo turned. Jo was perched on the edge of the seat, his hand outstretched and a tight, performative smile on his lips. "Come sit beside me. I need you close.”

Euijoo looked at the couch again, tempted by its distance, but then his gaze snagged on the back of Nicholas’s head—the way the grey-tipped hair brushed the collar of his beige sweater. That desperate, magnetic pull in his chest won. He grabbed a stool and dragged it beside Jo’s chair, leaving just enough of a gap to breathe. Jo gave him a pleased little thumbs-up that Euijoo pointedly ignored.

"Okay," Nicholas said, turning back toward them. He pulled a pair of black nitrile gloves from a box and snapped them on, the latex popping against his skin in a way that was maddeningly attractive. "Decided on a design yet, or do you want the catalogue?” His eyes stayed on Jo the whole time. “We have some good sets for pairs.”

Euijoo found himself aching for those dark eyes to shift just a few inches to the left—to acknowledge his existence, to land on him and take root.

"Oh, we already settled on one," Jo said, his voice brimming with false confidence. "We were debating between the alchemy water symbol and a wave. Eventually, we went with the wave."

"A wave," Nicholas repeated, his voice low and contemplative. He kicked his rolling stool closer, the wheels rattling over the floor. "Do you have a specific reference, or are we going freestyle?”

"Just a small wave," Jo said, flashing a grin. "A cool one. You’re the expert, I trust the vision."

"Placement?" Nicholas asked, smiling back.

"Right here." Jo scrambled to hike up the sleeve of his skin-tight leopard print shirt. He turned his arm, tracing a glossy black-painted fingernail just above his wrist bone.

"Solid choice. Good skin tension there," Nicholas nodded. "Okay, hold still for a second.”

He reached for the stand and grabbed a surgical marker. "Let's see if I can give you something that doesn't look like a clip-art sticker," he murmured. With his other hand, he reached up to pull a slender LED lamp closer, the sharp white light cutting through the lavender glow to illuminate Jo’s arm. Then he moved, his gloved hand gripping Jo’s forearm and pulling it forward, bracing the limb firmly against the top of his own thigh.

Euijoo’s eyes flew wide. An unreasonable, hot surge of jealousy ignited in his gut, stinging like a physical burn. He stared, fixated, at the point of contact—Jo’s bare skin pressed firmly against the beige fabric of Nicholas’s cargo pants.

Nicholas didn't seem to notice the silent crisis occurring two feet away. He caught the cap of the surgical marker between his teeth, uncapped it with a casual, fatally sexy flick of his head, and leaned forward. He began to sketch, his gloved fingers moving with a terrifying, easy confidence. Euijoo couldn't tear his gaze away from the spellbinding sight.

"Any particular reason for the water theme?" Nicholas asked. He tilted Jo’s arm slightly toward the light, his dark eyes hyper-focused on the violet lines blooming on the skin.

"Fluidity, change, going with the flow... all that deep stuff," Jo answered, sounding a little too proud of his improvised philosophy.

Nicholas hummed, the deep vibration striking Euijoo’s sternum and echoing through his chest.

"That, and I'm a Cancer sign," Jo added sheepishly.

At that, Nicholas paused. He glanced up at Jo, his lip quirking on one side in a way that made Euijoo’s heart do a violent, ugly somersault.

"Me too," Nicholas said. "The Moon is our celestial ruler. High tides and heavy emotions." He turned back to the arm, adding a few final, sharp strokes before finally letting go and straightening his back. "And would you look at that.”

Jo leaned in, his eyes widening. "Oh my god. It’s perfect."

Euijoo leaned forward despite himself, his jealousy momentarily eclipsed by sheer awe. Nicholas hadn't just drawn a wave; he had stylized the water so it crashed upward in an elegant arc, the spray and the foam forming the unmistakable curve of a crescent moon. 

"A tidal wave in the shape of a crescent," Jo breathed, looking at his arm like he’d been branded by a god. "You're a genius.”

“It’s—” Euijoo started, but his voice betrayed him, coming out as a dry, pathetic rasp. He cleared his throat, his face heating up. “That’s really beautiful. Creative. Y-you’re really talented, Nicholas.”

Nicholas finally, finally, turned to him, the amused smile he’d given Jo softening into something quieter.

“Thanks,” he murmured. His gaze lingered for a fraction of a second too long, sweeping down the length of Euijoo’s body—so quickly Euijoo thought he might have hallucinated it, because by the time he blinked, Nicholas had already rolled his chair back to the station.

Euijoo let out a shuddering breath, his lungs finally remembering their job.

As the immediate panic receded, a strange observation took its place. When Euijoo thought of a tattooist, his mind usually conjured a human coloring book, someone covered in ink from the jawline down. But Nicholas’s skin was a pristine, unmarked canvas. There had been no ink on his knuckles before he’d snapped the gloves on. His beige sweater was loose enough to reveal the sharp lines of his collarbones and a teasing hint of his chest, but there was nothing there either.

Euijoo watched, mesmerized, as Nicholas began to prep. He squeezed tiny, concentrated drops of different blues into a small plastic cap. The ink was thick and pigment-heavy, looking like pools of wet, expensive velvet under the light.

How is it possible for a tattoo artist to have no tattoos? Euijoo wondered, his mind spinning. Maybe he has them hidden. The salacious voice in the back of his head, the one he usually tried to drown out, suddenly roared to life. Maybe they’re in secret places. Places only he can see in a mirror.

To torment him further, his imagination took the lead, conjuring a vivid, high-definition image of vibrant blue ink swirling across the pale, taut skin of Nicholas’s naked waist; intricate lines disappearing into the waistband of those cargo pants.

Euijoo choked on his next breath, the air catching in his throat as he spluttered out a violent, ragged cough. The sound cut through the quiet whir of the room, drawing both Jo’s judgmental glare and Nicholas’s calm, questioning gaze straight back to him.

"You good?" Nicholas asked.

Euijoo coughed again, his face burning, unable to meet that dark gaze. "Yeah... just air going through the wrong pipe. Haha..."

The silence that followed was deafening. Euijoo wished he could simply dissolve into the leather of his stool and vanish. Then, a movement in his periphery caught his eye.

"Here."

Euijoo looked up. Nicholas was holding out a small, chilled bottle of water, his gloved fingers wrapped around the plastic.

"Thanks," Euijoo mumbled, reaching out to accept it. As he took the bottle, their fingers brushed, just a fleeting, accidental contact of skin against nitrile, and a sharp, electric jolt shot through Euijoo’s entire body. He drew his hand back quickly, nearly fumbling the bottle, and busied himself with drinking. He pointedly ignored the heavy, exasperated stare Jo was burning into the side of his face.

Jo cleared his throat, clearly desperate to shift the spotlight away from Euijoo’s obvious spiral. "So, can I ask what prompted the couple's discount?”

"Hm?" Nicholas hummed. He sounded distracted.

Euijoo chanced a glance at him. 

Nicholas's focus already returned to the workstation. He had finished mixing the velvet-blue pigments and was now grabbing a squeeze bottle and a thick, blue paper towel. He paused, looking up at Jo.

"The dynamic duo promo," Jo clarified. "Do you usually run these kinds of discounts, or is there a special occasion? I mean, it’s April—well past Valentine’s Day.”

Euijoo’s ears perked up as he noticed the way Nicholas went still for a heartbeat. There was a sudden, heavy shift in the air as Nicholas stared at Jo unblinkingly; his dark gaze was so penetrating, so briefly intense, that Euijoo found himself holding his breath without meaning to. 

"It’s a special occasion," Nicholas said at last.

 He reached out and caught Jo’s arm again, his grip firm as he angled the limb closer to his own body. He picked up the translucent squeeze bottle and gave it a sharp press. A fine, soapy mist of clear solution hissed onto Jo's skin. The scent hit a second later, that sharp, clinical, god-awful medicinal sting. It assaulted Euijoo’s senses so violently it sent a phantom, throbbing ache through his gums.

"Can I ask what the occasion is?" Jo pressed, undettered by the intensity.

Nicholas didn’t answer immediately. He dabbed the paper towel against the marked skin, then reached for a different spray bottle, this one smelled slightly of alcohol, and gave the area another quick pass. The purple crescent wave remained, though it was a mere ghost of its former self, a faint violet blueprint etched into the pores.

Nicholas finally looked up. Euijoo could have sworn he saw a flicker of amusement cross those carefully controlled features, a shadow of a smirk that vanished before Euijoo could even begin to decipher it.

"I’m just spreading the good mood," Nicholas said, flashing a small smile at Jo. "Celebrating love because..."

Euijoo’s heart was thudding now. That confused flower in his stomach perked up, its petals standing on end.

"...I proposed to my partner recently," Nicholas finished. "And they said yes.”

The flower in Euijoo's stomach wilted at once. 

"Oh my god!" Jo exclaimed, his voice high and genuinely thrilled. "That’s so romantic! Congratulations, man. That's incredible."

Nicholaa's low, amused laugh felt like shards of glass prickling against Euijoo’s skin.

"Thanks," Nicholas said. "Now, hold still. This should take about an hour. It shouldn't hurt much.”

Jo said something back, but Euijoo couldn't hear them anymore. He was back underwater, the world turning distant and muffled.

He knew he was being irrational. He knew he was being insane. He didn’t know this man. He didn't even know his last name or his age. Of course someone this stunningly gorgeous, this talented, had someone waiting for them at home. Of course he was taken. What had he expected? A cinematic spark? A fated encounter over a surgical marker? Besides, Euijoo was sitting right here with his own "boyfriend." Even if Nicholas were single, the lie they were spinning had already built a wall between them that Euijoo couldn't climb over.

Euijoo’s hazy vision suddenly sharpened with a violent jerk as a new sound cut through the air, a thin, electric, high-pitched whir. His eyes widened as his senses jolted back into gear, and the sight before him became painfully, terrifyingly clear: the needle.

The temperature in the room skyrocketed. The atmospheric lavender glow instantly clotted into a sweltering, claustrophobic violet. The rhythmic zzzzzzzt sharpened higher and higher until it felt like it was sawing straight into Euijoo’s chest, hijacking his pulse and reverberating through his jaw until he felt the vibration deep in his molars.

"You’re doing okay there, Blue?"

Nicholas’s deep voice cut cleanly through the spiral.

Euijoo blinked. The tattoo machine, a thick, pen-like weight in Nicholas’s gloved hand, remained poised, its tip still whirring, that high-frequency noise drowning out the rest of the world. Did he just call me Blue?

"Juju?"

Euijoo’s gaze snapped upward, finally tearing away from the needle. Jo’s concerned eyes caught his.

"Is he okay?" Nicholas asked when the silence stretched too long.

"I don't know," Jo said, his brow furrowing. "Babe? Everything okay?" He straightened, peering at Euijoo with an intensity that, in any other situation, Euijoo would have admired. What an outstanding actor, he thought for a second time that day. Truly superb. 

"Euijoo?"

His name, spoken in Nicholas’s low, heavy timbre, pulled Euijoo’s gaze back to the artist. Nicholas’s head was tilted, his eyebrows slightly raised beneath his messy bangs. Those brilliant, dark eyes were fixed solely on him, and for a second, Euijoo found himself drowning in their shadowy depths, everything else momentarily forgotten.

"Are you okay?" Nicholas asked softly. "You look a little..."

"Yeah," Euijoo breathed, though the word was barely a ghost of a sound. "I’m—”

His gaze betrayed him then, flickering down to where Nicholas’s hand gripped Jo’s arm. There, on the skin, the first puncture had been made. Tiny drops of crimson were blooming over the faint purple outline, mixing with the blue pigment to create a dark, bruised indigo that seemed to swirl and pulse under the light.

"Mhm-mmm.”

The petrified, wounded sound tore from Euijoo's throat before he could choke it back.

His stomach lurched so violently his vision doubled—then wavered. A wave of white-hot heat surged from his chest, roaring upward to his skull with the force of a physical blow—and the next moment everything went dark and still. 

When Euijoo came to, he was hunched over, his head hanging low between his own thighs. His temples throbbed with the steady, heavy hammer of blood rushing to his skull. He realized with a sickening drop of his stomach that he was hyperventilating; his lungs felt like they had shrunk to the size of walnuts, unable to catch a full breath. The sound of his own panicked wheezing and the roar of his pulse filled his ears, drowning out the room.

"Euijoo, Euijoo," Jo sounded genuinely terrified now, his voice cracking. "Oh god—oh god—I’m sorry. I pressured him into this, it’s my fault—"

"Stay still," Nicholas’s voice cut in, calm and commanding. "I’ve got him.”

Gloved fingers caught Euijoo’s trembling chin. The touch was so light, so impossibly gentle, that Euijoo barely felt it at first.

He gasped, but the air caught in his throat, turning into another pathetic, broken wheeze. He whimpered, the terror of his own failing lungs taking over.

"Hey—hey," Nicholas's voice dropped, shifting into a low, magnetic murmur that seemed to vibrate right against Euijoo’s forehead. "It’s okay, Euijoo. You’re alright. Just look at me."

Those fingers tightened just a fraction on his chin, tilting his head up with slow, gentle care. 

Euijoo let his head be lifted, his movements heavy and sluggish. His eyes were stinging and wet, his nose burned, and a ragged sob caught in his throat as he sniffed. The moment his chin was raised, his gaze betrayed him—it snapped immediately toward Jo’s forearm like a magnet. His eyes bounced erratically in their sockets, ricocheting like a pinball between the silver needle and the bruised indigo smear on Jo's skin.

"No—no," Nicholas murmured. "Look at me, Euijoo.”

"H-he’s b-b-bleeding," Euijoo gasped out, his teeth chattering so hard it made his jaw ache. "B-blood—"

"No, hey," Nicholas repeated. With a firm but gentle pressure, he forced Euijoo’s face forward, physically cutting off his view of the arm until their eyes met. "Focus on me. Right here.”

Euijoo’s chest heaved. Before he could stop himself, he reached up and clutched Nicholas’s wrist. His grip was desperate, his fingers digging into the edge of the black glove, needing nothing but to breathe in that moment.

"Can you stand?" Nicholas asked, his dark eyes searching Euijoo’s face.

Euijoo clamped his mouth shut, biting his lip to stop the chattering. He tried to push himself up, but his legs were useless, his knees turning to jelly the moment they had to bear his weight. Across from him, Jo shot to his feet, a blur of panicked movement.

"I’ve got him," Nicholas said again, his tone leaving no room for argument. He didn't look away from Euijoo. "Just sit there, Jo. I’ve handled panicking clients before. I know what I’m doing.”

"I’m going to take you to the bathroom, okay?" Nicholas said. "It’s just over there. Just a few steps."

He tried to release Euijoo’s chin, but Euijoo only clutched his wrist tighter, his knuckles white. 

"It’s okay," Nicholas reassured him, a small, patient huff of a laugh vibrating in his chest. "I’m just going to help you walk. I'm right here.”

Slowly, Nicholas reached over with his free hand and uncurled Euijoo’s fingers from his wrist. He held his hand for a second, before shifting to wrap an arm around Euijoo’s shoulders. He pulled Euijoo close against his side, practically hauling him upright.

Euijoo let himself be guided, stumbling over the short distance to the black door from where Nicholas emerged earlier when they first came in. 

Nicholas pushed the door open and ushered him inside, snapping the light on. Euijoo squinted against the sudden, aggressive brightness, but it was grounding. The sharp, metallic scent of the shop was gone, replaced by the soft, lingering sweetness of sakura and soap. For a split second, Euijoo caught a vague, distorted reflection of their silhouettes in the mirror.

"Sit down," Nicholas murmured.

Euijoo collapsed onto the closed lid of the toilet, his knees knocking together as his eyes continued to bounce erratically from one corner of the tile to the other.

Nicholas dropped into a crouch between Euijoo’s legs, bracing his large hands firmly on Euijoo’s thighs. The weight of his palms was heavy and real, anchoring Euijoo’s legs to the floor.

"Breathe with me," Nicholas said softly, his dark eyes locking onto Euijoo's with hypnotic focus. "In and out. Just like that.”

Euijoo struggled at first, his vision still fractured and his eyes darting too quickly for his brain to catch up. But he forced himself to focus on the steadying weight of Nicholas’s hands on his thighs—the way Nico's chest expanded in a slow, oceanic rise before falling again with a measured exhale. Little by little, Euijoo’s breathing began to sync with Nicholas’

"That's it," Nicholas whispered encouragingly. "Again.”

Euijoo inhaled, more deeply this time, feeling the broad warmth of Nicholas’s palms as they began to rub slow, soothing circles up and down his thighs. The gesture worked on him like a spell; his shoulders finally dropped, his chattering teeth stilled, and the frantic, irregular drumming of his heart began to smooth out into something manageable.

"There you go," Nicholas murmured.

Euijoo blinked—and suddenly, he was anchored. His ether body seemed to snap back into place, grounding him firmly in the present.

His eyes stopped their frantic ping-ponging, finally landing directly on Nicholas’s gaze like a spinning wheel clicking into place on the winning prize. Euijoo’s heart jolted again—not from terror this time, but from a sudden, dizzying rush of adrenaline.

Then, Nicholas smiled.

And what a sight it was.

His rosy lips curved upward, rearranging his guarded features into something dazzling. His dark eyes softened until they crinkled into warm crescents at the corners. His cheeks rounded adorably, the faint, pinkish glow of his skin seeming to glitter under the bright bathroom lights. His cute, perfect teeth peeked out, and for a heartbeat, he looked so young, so devastatingly sweet and pure, that Euijoo’s heart actually ached with the weight of it.

Euijoo forgot how to breathe all over again.

His senses were split, one half was hyper-focused on the weight of Nicholas’s hands, which felt scorching now that the cold panic was receding; the other half was hopelessly anchored to Nicholas’s pink mouth, still curved into that gorgeous, inviting smile. To his horror, Euijoo felt himself leaning in. The worst part was the lack of friction—he didn't seem to have any control over it.

His face inched closer, his wide eyes locked onto that smile like a helpless moth to a flame.

Then Nicholas spoke, and the spell shattered.

"There you are."

Euijoo’s sanity—along with his senses,  popped back into place with the sickening jar of a bone being reset. He jerked his face away, a violent flush shooting up his neck and bleeding into his cheeks so hard he felt as if his skin were melting off.

Nicholas removed his hands, and Euijoo could finally, truly breathe again.

"T-thanks," he croaked, staring at the floor. He couldn't meet Nicholas's gaze; the sheer embarrassment was more painful than the hyperventilation.

Did I seriously just have a panic attack because of a whirring needle and a drop of blood?

Oh God. 

The thought was so loud he might have actually said it. He buried his face in his hands, trying to hide the humiliation stinging his skin.

"Euijoo, it’s okay—" Nicholas started to say, his voice still low and soothing.

It made Euijoo feel worse. People reserved that kind of tone for children or wounded animals. He shook his head frantically, his fingers digging into his temples.

"This happens more often than you think," Nicholas said, his voice closer now. "There’s nothing to be embarrassed about—"

"I’m keeping you from your job," Euijoo blurted, the words tumbling out in a rush. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—I should just—"

A warm weight settled on his knee.  Nicholas’s hand was back.

"Euijoo," he said, and this time there was a soft, firm authority in it that made the air in the bathroom go still. "Look at me, please.”

Reluctantly, Euijoo let his hands drop into his lap. He lifted his eyes, peering at Nicholas through his sticky lashes. 

Nicholas gave him another gentle smile. "You really have nothing to be embarrassed about," he said. "I once had a client pass out just seeing the tiny beads of blood on his own skin. I had to catch him before he took out my entire tray of ink—"

Euijoo’s brows drew together, his gaze searching Nicholas’s face for any hint of pity or deception.

"—and the girl right before you?" Nicholas continued. "She nearly canceled twice. We had to stop every few minutes because she was convinced she was going to vibrate off the chair."

Euijoo recalled Kei saying something similar earlier. Nico wasn't just patronizing him; he was telling the truth.

"And it’s completely up to you if you want to go through with it," Nicholas said. Euijoo’s muscles locked at the mere suggestion. "—Or," Nico went on slowly, "you can walk out that door right now. I promise, no hard feelings. Okay? But if I’m being honest..."

Euijoo felt a sudden, desperate urge to come clean. To admit that this was all a messy, elaborate lie, that he and Jo weren't even a couple, just two idiots chasing a discount. He even opened his mouth, the confession sitting on the tip of his tongue—

"I think you should skip it," Nicholas said plainly.

Euijoo deflated like a punctured balloon, the relief so physical it was almost embarrassing. It must have shown on his face, because Nicholas let out a soft breath of amusement.

"Go wait in the lobby with Kei," he said. He gave Euijoo’s knee a final, friendly pat before letting go. "I’m going to give you some space to breathe. I'll go finish up with Jo—I’m sure he’s very worried right now."

Euijoo let out a scoff before he could stop himself, a scowl scrunching up his face. "He should be worried," he grumbled. "This was all his brilliant idea in the first place."

Nicholas laughed, the sound rich and genuine. He shook his head, narrowing his eyes teasingly. "Want me to 'accidentally' slip and turn his wave into a jagged mess? Total retaliation."

Euijoo nearly folded on the spot. God, he was so fucking cute.

"Oh, wow. It’s that serious, huh?" Nicholas added, his grin widening.

Euijoo couldn’t help it, the tension finally broke, and he laughed, his gaze dropping shyly to his lap.

When he looked back up, the shy smile still lingered on his face. 

Nicholas, however, had gone completely still. He seemed frozen for a moment, a look of genuine, unfiltered surprise caught on his face as he stared at Euijoo. 

Euijoo immediately felt self-conscious, the heat returning to his cheeks. He clamped his lips together and looked away, clearing his parched throat.

"You should smile more often."

Euijoo’s gaze snapped back to him. The look of surprise was gone; Nicholas’s face was perfectly neutral once more, his professional mask back in place.

Nicholas pushed to his feet, the movement fluid and effortless. "You have a nice smile," he added, flashing one last, devastatingly gorgeous half-smile before he turned on his heel and walked out, the door bathroom clicking shut behind him.

Euijoo stared at the closed door for a long stretch of time, his mind short-circuiting as the silence of the room rushed back in to meet him. Did that really just happen? He gave his cheeks two light, stinging slaps. Definitely real. His mouth twitched once, twice, and then he erupted into a fit of giddy giggles. He mashed his hand against his mouth, unable to fight the wave of euphoria that crashed over him, making his chest feel light enough to float.

You have a nice smile.

Was Nicholas flirting with him? It certainly felt like it. Euijoo bit his lower lip, a stupid, helpless grin tugging at his face—until the tiny, deeply inconvenient voice of reason in his head decided to ruin it.

He has a fiancé. A fiancé. Likely some equally beautiful and talented woman who was poised and successful and didn't fall apart at the sight of a needle. Why would a man like Nicholas flirt with a kid who just had a pathetic panic attack in his bathroom?

His bathroom.

The realization snapped Euijoo out of his dilemma. He looked around frantically, his eyes wide and hungry. He was alone in Nicholas’s bathroom—well, the shop's bathroom, technically, but it was still a sanctuary of the man's private tastes.

Euijoo shot to his feet, a desperate, prying curiosity taking over. He needed to find something, anything, that belonged to the real Nicholas.

The bathroom wasn't much to look at: dark grey walls, the hum of a bright fluorescent light, and dark wood floorboards that creaked under his weight. A few framed art pieces lined the walls, mirroring the abstract style from the lobby in varying shades of blue. Euijoo stopped in front of one: three indigo-blue flowers tangled together, their stems forming a long, horizontal curve that vaguely resembled a reclining female silhouette. Now that he was seeing the work up close, Euijoo noticed a signature in the bottom corner, a simple, elegant Nik., written in flowing cursive.

Euijoo trailed a finger over the cool glass, wishing he could reach through the barrier and touch the actual paint.

He turned around, catching his reflection in the mirror. Against the moody grey of the walls, the vibrant azure of his sweater made him pop; he looked like a deliberate stroke of color that belonged in this space. A hot, fluttering sensation unfurled low in his stomach. The idea of belonging here—of belonging to Nicholas, made him feel dizzy. It was a terrifying, delicious kind of vertigo.

He stepped toward the sink. The small ledge was cluttered: sakura-scented handwash sat beside a matching body mist, flanked by a bottle of antibacterial soap, industrial hand sanitizer, and a matte black pomade tin. There was nothing truly intimate, nothing that felt like a secret.

He let out a sigh heavy with disappointment. Looking back at the mirror, he noticed two warm golden bulbs situated just above the glass; they cast a flattering, sunset glow that made his skin look clearer and his eyes brighter than they had any right to be. He patted his fringe distractedly, rubbing his lips together to keep the color in them—until something caught his eye in the periphery.

Perched on top of the porcelain toilet tank was a dark blue tissue box, something glinting atop it like a lure.

Euijoo’s head snapped toward it. There, resting on the cardboard, lay a ring, a thick, heavy silver band.

His breath caught, snagging halfway in his throat. He reached out, his fingers trembling as they pinched the metal and lifted. He brought it inches from his face, tilting his head as his wide, rounded eyes drank in the details. The ring was substantial, far heavier than it looked, with intricate, gothic filigree swirling around the band. Tiny ruby gemstones were encrusted within the silver, sparking like drops of fresh blood under the golden light. It was gorgeous and unmistakably belonged to Nicholas.

Euijoo’s pulse thrashed. A rush of something dark and unfamiliar sweeping over him, a feverish, possessive heat that made his hands shake.

Without a second thought, he brought the ring to his nose. He inhaled deeply, catching the lingering ghost of that sweet sakura scent and the metallic tang of the silver. His tongue swiped over his dry lips before he slid the ring onto his finger. It was useless; the band was far too large for his thin frame, hanging mockingly off his knuckle.

His fist snapped shut around the metal. His heart gave a violent, unsteady thud as he shoved the ring deep into his pocket.

He took one last look in the mirror, checking the set of his jaw and the wide cast of his eyes, making sure he didn't look like someone who'd just stolen something. Then, he turned and walked out of the bathroom, his heels clicking on the wood floor as he fought to drown out the tiny, frantic voice hissing at him from the back of his mind.

The lavender glow of the room greeted Euijoo like a soft blanket as he stepped out of the bathroom, but the comfort was fleeting. The sharp, metallic tang of the shop cut through the air instantly, followed by the aggressive, electric whir of the needle. For a heartbeat, Euijoo’s lungs constricted, his fight-or-flight reflex flickering to life like a faulty bulb, but then the sound died, and Jo’s voice grounded him.

"Euijoo," Jo said, turning slightly from where he still sat on the tattoo chair. His eyes were wide, brimming with guilt. "How are you feeling?”

Euijoo’s gaze slipped past Jo to Nicholas. The artist had paused, his gloved hand still steady on Jo’s arm, the heavy machine resting idle in his grip. He inclined his head but said nothing.

"I'm... skipping," Euijoo said quietly. "I don't think I can—”

"It's okay," Jo reassured him immediately, doubling down on the devoted boyfriend act. "You don't have to. I didn't realize your fear of needles was this... intense."

No shit, Euijoo wanted to snap, but he forced a small, apologetic smile instead. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, knocking one foot against the other. "I ruined this for you.”

"You didn't ruin anything," Jo cut in firmly. "I should have taken your phobia more seriously. Anyway, Nico here said it’s all good—you can wait in the lob—"

"No."

Jo blinked, his brow furrowing. "No?”

Euijoo glanced at Nicholas again.

"I want to stay," he muttered.

"Juju..." Jo trailed off, sounding genuinely concerned now.

"I’ll sit over there," Euijoo insisted, gesturing toward the car-shaped couch in the corner. "If I don't look at the needle, I’ll be fine."

"I think it would be better if you stayed in the lobby.”

Euijoo’s gaze snapped back to Nicholas.

Nicholas's expression was cool and detached now, the trace of friendly warmth from earlier wiped clean. "The sound of the machine triggered you once already," Nicholas said, his voice level. "It’s better if you—"

"No," Euijoo cut in, standing his ground. He didn't want to be away from Nicholas for a single second. Besides, what if this was the last time he ever saw him? He was going to devour every moment he had left.

"I'll be fine," Euijoo added, taking a bold step forward. He pulled his tangled earphones from his pocket, dangling the white cords in the air like a peace offering. "I'll put music on. I want to be here... with you.”

Nicholas’s eyes widened, just a fraction, and Euijoo realized with a jolt of horror that he was still staring directly at him when he said it. The words were supposed to be directed at his "boyfriend," but his eyes betrayed him and stayed on the true target.

He snapped his gaze to Jo. "I want to stay here with you," he repeated, his heart thudding.

Jo looked about done with the whole thing, his expression that of a man who was profoundly reconsidering every life choice that had led him to this chair, specifically the one where he’d asked Euijoo to pretend to be his boyfriend.

"It’s the least I can do after canceling on our matching tattoo," Euijoo added softly.

Jo gave him a deeply unimpressed stare. He clearly saw the desperate, thirsting energy vibrating off Euijoo; he could read him like an open book, and right now, the pages were screaming.

"Okay," Jo relented with a sweet smile, one so saccharine and transparently fake that it was hilarious. "Love you."

"Mhm." Without looking at either of them, Euijoo stalked to the couch and sank into the plush cushions.

He plugged his earphones in and shoved them into his ears. He hit the first playlist on Spotify, and a bubblegum pop track blared through the buds, sounding absurdly bright against the dim, moody silence of the shop. He tried not to think about the needle and its nightmarish, bone-sawing sound, or the sharp tip sinking into Jo’s skin. He busied himself with the blue shapes on the wall and the vintage tin signs, anything to ignore the blood still smeared into his memory, or the weight of the ruby-crusted ring burning a hole in his pocket.

Inevitably, Euijoo’s gaze snagged back to Nicholas—and the air froze in his lungs.

His eyes flew wide, taking in the surreal, forbidden sight before him. Nicholas was still in his chair, back turned to the room, but as he leaned into the work, his cropped sweater had ridden up just far enough. There, bridging the gap between fabric and skin, a flash of blue ink shimmered in the lavender light.

Euijoo held his breath. His chest expanded with a sharp, aching pressure, the music swelling in his ears. He leaned forward, blinking in a daze. 

Please—please. Just a little more. Lean forward.

As if their minds had suddenly fused, or as if Euijoo’s desperation had finally found a frequency Nicholas could hear, the artist reacted. Nicholas leaned a fraction closer to the skin he was inking, his spine arching in a slow, fluid curve that answered Euijoo's unspoken plea.

Euijoo bit his lip so hard he tasted copper, desperate to stifle any sound that might betray him. His overheating mind scrambled to catalog every detail: the startling paleness of his skin, the elegant, narrow taper of his waist, and the perfect, honest-to-god lewd dip of his lower back.

And then, there was the tattoo.

Nicholas had a tattoo on his lower back.

If Euijoo could choose one thing to burn into his memory forever, it would be this: a fantastical, flaming blue creature inked into the center of an alluring, arched lower back.

The beast’s body curved in a fluid, serpentine loop, its scales shifting between iridescent pastel blues and a deep, electric ultramarine, pulsing like something alive. Silver-blue flames licked along its spine, unfurling across Nicholas’s lower back in delicate, curling tendrils. They stretched toward his hips in mirrored arcs, fanning out like wings.

A dragon. An azure dragon, sleeping on the curve of his waist.

Before Euijoo could talk himself out of it, his phone was up. His hands moved on instinct, opening the camera and pinching the screen to zoom. He waited, held his breath until the dragon settled into a perfect frame, and then—click.

He dropped the phone back to his lap instantly, his heart thrashing against his ribs. He stared down at the screen, at the magical creature captured in pixels. It looked like something ripped straight from the pages of an epic fantasy novel. Euijoo had never cared for myths or folklore, but at that moment he wanted to devour everything about that dragon: its name, its ancient origins, the weight of its lore. He needed to know what it symbolized, and more importantly, why Nicholas had chosen to etch this specific spirit into his skin forever.

Did Nicholas have more?

Was this dragon a solitary guardian, or were there other secrets buried under that cropped sweater? A sudden, dark hunger clawed at Euijoo’s throat. He wanted to strip the man down to nothing but bare skin and inspect every single inch. He wanted to map every dip and curve, searching for more hidden surprises, more mythical beasts nesting in the warm, private crooks of Nicholas’s body. He wanted to find them all.

The music, bright and bubbly just moments ago, suddenly felt too loud, too jarring in Euijoo’s ears. It pressed in on him as heat bloomed beneath his skin, making him restless in his own body. He shifted in his seat, tugging at the collar of his sweater and stretching it away from his throat, but it didn’t help. The warmth only spread, licking up the length of his neck and settling under his skin in a way that made him itch.

Then he caught movement across from him.

Euijoo looked up—just in time to see Nicholas set the tattoo machine down. He kicked his chair back, rolling a few feet away from the station, and then he turned.

Euijoo’s heart nearly vaulted out of his chest. He flipped his phone face-down against his thigh, the heat on his neck climbing to his cheeks. He kept his hand fisted tightly on the mouth of his sweater, desperate for a breath of cool air.

At first, Nicholas didn't look at him. He reached for a box on the floor, his eyes lowered in focus. Euijoo’s hawk-like gaze trailed the stormy grey tips of Nicholas’s ash-blonde bangs, tracking lower as the man bent over. The movement caused the collar of Nicholas's sweater to dip dangerously low, exposing the smooth, hard planes of his chest and the lean shadow of his stomach.

Euijoo’s pulse gave a sudden, violent jerk. There, tracing the sharp edges of Nicholas’s hipbones, the azure tips of those blue flames curled upward. The dragon didn't just sit on his back; it wrapped around him, claiming his entire midsection.

Euijoo sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth.

Nicholas’s head snapped up. Euijoo’s stomach did a dangerous, vertiginous swoop as those shadowed eyes caught his, locking him in place.

Euijoo’s grip on his sweater turned vicelike, his knuckles straining white against the fabric. Something electric surged through the air between them, and Euijoo found himself paralyzed, pinned by that hypnotic, dark gaze. He couldn't look away; he couldn't even blink. Nicholas’s eyes seemed to glimmer with something that made the heat beneath Euijoo’s skin grow thorns, prickling his flesh from the inside out.

Nicholas’s teeth sank into his lower lip, trapping the soft flesh for a lingering second, his eyes dancing with something that looked dangerously close to heat—then, just as the tension reached a breaking point, Nicholas snatched something up from the box on the floor and finally tore his gaze away, the spell snapping instantly as he turned back to Jo.

The instant Nicholas turned his back, Euijoo felt as though he’d been doused with ice-cold water.

The shock of it left him breathless. What the fuck just happened? 

To his horror, the stabbing heat in his skin surged downward, gathering at the center of his lower abdomen like a simmering vortex. He pressed his legs together, his quads quivering with the effort of keeping the sudden, pulsing ache in his core from boiling over. 

Fuck.

He finally released his death-grip on his collar and yanked his earphones out, the ambient noise of the shop rushing back in a disorienting flood.

He could hear Jo speaking, his voice sounding annoyingly bright and lively, while Nicholas replied in that low-timbered cadence. But the actual words were lost to the roar of blood in Euijoo’s head and the frantic drumming of his heart. Euijoo blinked, licking his lips, only to find the skin parched and his throat feeling as though it were stuffed with hay.

He cleared his throat and stood up, trying to steady his heavy breathing. He cast a panicked glance down at himself, relieved to find no obvious physical evidence of the heat still swirling low in his body. 

He shoved his phone in his pocket and forced himself to walk toward them. Without a word, he stopped at the stool where he’d sat earlier and snatched up his water bottle, desperate for anything to quell the fire in his veins. 

"Juju," Jo called. "Come take a look. I need your honest opinion.”

Euijoo took his time, gulping down the water while staring fixedly at the ceiling. When the bottle was finally empty, he lowered it and stepped closer. He tried his best to ignore Nicholas, but he could still feel him, right there, just inches away—

"Is it done?" Euijoo asked, reaching out to take Jo’s outstretched arm.

"Yep," Jo said, smiling widely. "Well? What do you think?”

Euijoo brought Jo’s arm closer, tilting it toward the white beam of the LED. The first thing he noticed was how the skin looked raw and glistening, the sight of the fresh, open wound made him shiver instinctively. But as he focused, the design took shape. It was a small, vivid tidal wave in a cool oceanic blue; silver droplets sprayed from the white foam, looking like tiny, scattered pearls. It was beautiful, and he told Jo as much.

"It’s pretty," he said quietly, nodding his approval. "It suits you."

"I told you Nico was a genius," Jo beamed, looking from his arm to the artist. "It’s exactly what I envisioned. Crazy, right?”

"Mhm." Euijoo let go of Jo’s arm and straightened his back. "Too bad I didn't get one.”

“Well,” Nicholas said, rising from his seat. "Like I told Jo, the discount still stands—even if you did change your mind at the last second.”

Euijoo looked at him, surprised. Nicholas didn't wait for an answer; he turned and grabbed a blue spray bottle from his workstation. He caught Jo’s arm again and misted the tattooed skin. "This will pull the heat out and kill the redness.”

Euijoo felt a gentler gush of warmth bloom in his stomach, spreading slowly.

He did that for me. I’m special.

He bit his lower lip to stifle a crazed smile, glancing to his left only to catch Jo’s unimpressed stare. Jo rolled his eyes hard and turned back to Nicholas just as he began explaining the aftercare.

Euijoo took a small step back, but his gaze drifted right back to Nicholas, pulled in helplessly.

"Keep it clean, don’t touch it too much, and avoid tight fabric for the first few days," Nicholas instructed as he smoothed a clear, adhesive bandage over Jo’s arm, sealing the ink.

Jo nodded with grave seriousness. "Got it. Total lockdown.”

Euijoo stared helplessly at the side of Nicholas's face, drinking him in, trying to brand the sight into his mind like a permanent mark. 

Will I ever see you again? 

When Jo finally stood up, Euijoo felt his heart give a tight, painful squeeze.

Time was up. The bubble was bursting.

"Thank you," Jo said, sounding awfully sincere for someone who lied his way into a discount. "And sorry again for the..." He gestured vaguely toward Euijoo.

Euijoo scoffed internally.

Nicholas waved it off, already peeling his gloves off with a soft snap. “No hard feelings,” he said, dropping them into a small metal bin.

Look at me, Euijoo thought desperately, his heart burning. Just once more—

The beaded curtain clinked softly, followed by the murmur of voices, pulling Nicholas’s attention toward the entrance.

Euijoo followed his gaze.

Two figures stepped in: a girl with long, wavy hair and a guy with pastel lilac hair wearing a sheer, tight black shirt.

“Taki?” Nicholas said, a hint of surprise slipping into his voice. “I thought you’d already left.”

The newcomer, Taki, glanced their way. His gaze bounced between Jo and Euijoo, doing a quick sweep of Jo’s frame before settling back on Nicholas. “Risa called last minute for a navel piercing,” he explained. “It won’t take long. You can head out; I’ll lock up.”

“It’s fine,” Nicholas replied. “I’ll clean up a bit.”

"Well," Jo said, catching Euijoo’s hand and threading their fingers together. "We’ll be heading out. Thanks again, man. I’m going to post this and tag you—give you a massive shout-out. By next weekend, half the campus will be lined up outside your door."

Euijoo stayed quiet, his gaze shifting meekly toward Nicholas. The artist offered Jo a smile, but it was purely professional, polished and polite, nothing like the soft, starry warmth he’d shared with Euijoo in the privacy of the bathroom.

"Thanks, Jo. I appreciate it," Nicholas said.

Jo gave Euijoo’s fingers a firm squeeze. 

"Um," Euijoo murmured, the word feeling heavy and reluctant. "Goodbye."

Nicholas turned those brilliant eyes on him, and Euijoo’s lungs immediately seized.

"Take care, Blue," Nicholas said lightly. He flashed a small smirk that made Euijoo want to close the small distance between them and leap into his arms—

"Let's go," Jo whispered, tugging him away before Euijoo’s reckless urges could win the fight against his common sense.

He cast one last, helpless glance over his shoulder, but Nicholas had already headed toward the back without a second look. Euijoo turned back, passing the new girl already settling into a chair while Taki gathered his piercing equipment.

"Bye," Taki called out. His gaze was fixed entirely on Jo, doing another slow, appreciative sweep of Jo’s frame as they passed.

Jo seemed astronomically unaware of his own effect, offering a casual wave as he pulled Euijoo through the beaded curtains.

If I were actually Jo’s boyfriend, Euijoo thought, I would have snapped by now. Just how many more beautiful, pastel-haired people were going to keep checking out his "boyfriend" right in front of him? 

Maybe it’s because you don't actually like boyfriends? that pestering voice supplied unhelpfully from the back of his mind. 

"That handsome piercer was totally checking you out just now," Euijoo hissed, leaning into Jo’s shoulder.

"What?" Jo turned to him, looking at him as if he’d sprouted a second head. "No, he wasn't."

"He was!" Euijoo insisted. "That girl with the pink hair from earlier, too. Seriously, what is wrong with people in this place? Ogling a taken man like that—have some shame.”

"She was not," Jo said, his brows knitting together. "Why are you making shit up? Is this some weird way to get back at me? Look, I already told you I’m sorry for dragging you here, and hey—the plan worked, didn't it?" He flashed a giddy, unrepentant grin over his shoulder.

Euijoo wanted to throttle him, but Jo was already pushing the door open and leading them back into the lobby. The moment they crossed the threshold, Euijoo snatched his hand away, glaring at the back of Jo's head. 

“All done?” Kei asked brightly from behind the counter, leaning forward as he blew a slow, obnoxiously pink bubble with his gum.

Euijoo trailed behind, letting Jo handle the bill. His eyes roamed the walls, tracing the blue shapes and silhouettes that had unsettled him only an hour ago. Now, they felt like precious, intimate fragments of a world he wasn't ready to part with yet. Where the art had once felt intimidating and oppressive, fueling his anxiety, it now felt like a map of Nicholas’s mind. Euijoo found himself hopelessly hooked, wanting to linger here for as long as he could.

"Euijoo?"

Euijoo tore his gaze away from the wall to find Jo waiting by the small gate. With one final, lingering look at the blue-shadowed artwork, Euijoo forced himself to move. As he passed the counter, he caught Kei’s gaze and offered a small, absent wave

Kei waved back with a tight-lipped smile, his eyes far too keen, far too knowing, like he could see straight through him.

Euijoo looked away first. 

He followed Jo out, the door chiming softly behind them, and somehow, against all odds, he knew this wouldn’t be the last time he stepped through those doors.

🔹🔹🔹

When Euijoo finally stepped through the door of his small studio that evening, the silence was a relief. He had spent hours in the company of his friends, performing the exhausting ritual of pretending his neurons still functioned like a normal person’s, and not like they were caught in some frenzied, obsessive loop revolving around a certain blond-haired artist and the blue beast slumbering across his lower back. he barely managed to peel his clothes off his clammy skin before collapsing onto his bed in nothing but his underwear. His laptop, his phone, and the stolen ring, which sat askew and heavy on his thumb, were his only companions.

Euijoo’s mission had started out clear, simple, almost innocuous: research the blue dragon.

He connected his phone to his laptop and sent the picture over, then pulled it up on the larger screen. The room had fallen into near darkness by then, lit only by the cold glow of the display as he sat there, staring. He zoomed in slowly, closer, closer, until the dragon’s shimmering, symmetrical scales filled the screen, intricate and endless, beginning to feel less like ink and more like a web tightening around him, threads pulling him in with no clear way out.

Then Euijoo got to work.

He reached for his glasses, slipped them on, and shifted closer to the screen. The weight of the ring on his thumb pressed into his skin, grounding in a way that felt oddly reassuring as his fingers hovered over the keyboard.

And then he started digging.

The Azure Dragon, also known as the Blue Dragon, wasn’t just some esthetical, fantastical creature pulled from myth. To the ancient world, it was a vital conduit for life itself. Euijoo traced the history of the deity back to the stars, to a time when astronomers looked east and saw seven celestial bodies forming the silhouette of a great, serpentine beast. It was the Guardian of the East, the herald of Spring, and the master of the elements. Like the moon, it held dominion over the water, commanding the rains that brought vitality to the earth and the tides that shifted the sea.

Euijoo found himself spiraling through the lore for hours, sifting through academic papers and digital archives until every detail was branded into his memory. He treated the mythology like a sacred text, a subject that had to be mastered by heart if he ever hoped to understand the man who wore it on his skin. 

By the time he stopped, hours had passed, and his eyes had begun to burn behind his glasses. He slid them off, rubbing at them absently. Why had Nicholas chosen that dragon? Was it merely a matter of aesthetics? It didn’t take a genius to realize that Nicholas lived in a spectrum of blue. Or was it the symbolism? The cosmos, the spring, water and the flow of life, change and cycles.

Then, a specific memory surfaced: the way Nicholas’s interest had piqued the moment Jo mentioned being a Cancer. The smooth, low timbre of his voice when he said he was a Cancer too, explaining how they were ruled by the moon.

“High tides and heavy emotions.”

For the next thirty minutes, the dragon was forgotten. Euijoo plunged into the world of astrology, specifically the water signs. He read with a focus he usually reserved for exams, dissecting the traits of a Cancer like a man preparing for life-saving surgery, looking for Nicholas in the descriptions of protective shells, hidden depths, and the volatile pull of the lunar cycle, as if searching for a map to the man’s soul.

Deeply emotional, intelligent, creative spirits.

Euijoo had never been one to take astrology seriously, but he could clearly see those traits reflected in Nicholas, a man he had only known for an hour (ten minutes of which he had spent having a full-blown panic attack), and yet it was that version of Nicholas, the one Euijoo had seen in the privacy of the bathroom, that stayed with him.

He could still feel the phantom weight of Nicholas’s hands on his thighs, the warmth of those soothing circles grounding him; the hypnotic, infinitely tender gaze that had held him steady; the low cadence of a voice that had spoken to him like he was something precious. And then that smile—

Something dark and ravenous took hold of Euijoo, a hunger so intense it made his vision waver. 

His fingers shook as he jerked his laptop closer, his heart thumping unsteadily. He pulled up Instagram and typed Ultramarine into the search bar. The shop’s page appeared instantly, already followed by both Yuma and Jo, and Euijoo clicked it open without hesitation. Despite the exhaustion weighing down his limbs and the burn in his eyes, he was wide awake now. He let himself go, diving headfirst back into that stunning, radiant world of blue. 

He wanted to drown in it.

The Ultramarine feed was exactly as Euijoo had expected: a sterile, professional vacuum, not a single crack wide enough to glimpse a life lived outside the shop’s lavender-lit walls. 

Just work. Just blue.

Euijoo scrolled, his eyes tracking the signature azure ink as it claimed territory on stranger after stranger. Nicholas’s needle had been everywhere. It had traced the elegant dip of hipbones, the vulnerable hollow of sternums, and the tender, paper-thin flesh behind ears. It had mapped out the jutting lines of collarbones and the slim, delicate curve of ankles. 

Every photo felt like a record of an intimacy Euijoo hadn't been invited to. Then he hit a post that made his breath catch in a jagged, painful knot. An indigo flock of birds, captured in mid-flight, rose from the very edge of a smooth, pale crotch and swept upward toward a sharp hipbone.

A dark, corrosive jealousy began to leak into Euijoo’s gut, tangling with a hunger he didn't recognize. His mouth went bone-dry, and suddenly he wasn't seeing the art anymore; he was seeing the process with cruel clarity. He pictured Nicholas bent low over the faceless woman. He imagined the artist’s face inches from that forbidden skin, his steady, gloved fingers stretching her flesh taut to ensure the ink went deep enough to stay. 

Nicholas’s breath on her skin. Nicholas’s focus entirely hers.

The thought sent a wave of confusing, molten heat laced with something sharp and mean rippling through his torso. He stared at the birds until they blurred, his thumb pressing so hard into the stolen ring that the silver bit into his flesh. He wanted to reach through the screen and tear the image apart. He wanted to reach back in time and erase every mark Nicholas had ever made on anyone else.

He wanted Nicholas to mark him.

But you’re scared of needles, the voice in his head mocked. Nicholas can’t mark you unless he puts you into a coma first.

The thought was so dangerously tempting that Euijoo found himself seriously considering it: a state of oblivion where he was soft, still, and entirely under Nicholas’s control—then he caught his own reflection in the dark glass of the screen and shook his head, a scowl deepening on his face. 

He was being unhinged. He was losing his grip.

Driven by a frantic, starving curiosity, Euijoo clicked on the follower list before he could talk himself out of it. Thousands of names blurred past. He didn’t even know what he was looking for. A last name. An age. A glimpse of a life that didn't involve paint and ink. He just needed to find the man behind the blue mask.

He scrolled until his vision began to swim, then stopped. Kei and Taki.

They were the gatekeepers. With a renewed purpose, he typed the first name. Jo had mentioned it was just a single letter—'K.' The profile appeared instantly, the icon showing the handsome man from the counter grinning back at him.

Euijoo clicked. The account was public, overflowing with posts, hundreds stacked on top of each other like an archive waiting to be picked apart.

“Oh,” he murmured under his breath, the manic grin on his mouth sharpening. “Perfect.”

It didn’t take long for Euijoo to find Nicholas—or at least fragments of him scattered across K’s profile, and Euijoo dismantled each photo with laser-like focus, cataloging every minute change: the evolution of his hair, the way his style changed, the rotation of crystal and pearl jewelry and silver chains. He traced the geotags of every location, until one post caught and held him.

It was recent. Nicholas, sporting the blonde mullet, sat in what appeared to be a dimly lit private booth at a club. He was flanked by Kei and three other gorgeous, liquid-dark figures draped in glossy red latex and heavy leather. Nicholas himself was a vision, dressed in a burgundy leather jacket and matching black pants, manspreading like he owned the night. He wore smoky makeup that deepened the intensity of his gaze, making him look ethereal, dangerous, and absolutely sinful.

The caption read: a wild night at Renegade tonight with the gang 🤘🏻

Euijoo clicked on the tagged accounts one by one, his pulse ticking up as he moved through them, two men and a strikingly beautiful, androgynous figure whose gender remained a mystery, quickly discovering that they were merely dancers at the venue. But when he finally clicked on the location tag for Renegade, the breath was knocked loose from his lungs.

It wasn’t just a club.

It was a gay club.

Euijoo blinked. He felt light-headed, the room tilting, the air suddenly too thick and saturated with his own desperation.

Was Nicholas gay? Or was it Kei? Maybe they were both queer. He couldn't think of a single reason for two men to haunt a place like Renegade unless they belonged there. But before the thought could even take root, a cold, sickening weight jerked in his chest, reminding him that Nicholas was engaged. Soon to be married. Happily, publicly in love, enough to offer a couples discount to the rest of the world.

He went back to the photo, zooming in until the screen was nothing but those black, shadowy eyes. They were so dark, so piercing, that they seemed to bore through the pixels and into the very center of Euijoo’s soul.

Euijoo's breath quickened, a surge of electric heat tearing through him.

He knew that look. He had felt it in the shop when Nicholas turned around and caught him staring. It was the same pitch-black intensity that had pinned Euijoo to the spot. He wasn’t mistaken. He wasn’t being delusional. He knew exactly what he had seen in those dark depths: Desire. Raw, unadulterated heat.

It had mirrored his own hunger so perfectly it felt like a violation, Nicholas’s teeth sinking into his own bottom lip while his heated gaze never wavered.

Euijoo’s breath stuttered out of him, the sound filling the quiet of his room in a way that made him suddenly aware of how fast his heart was beating, how hot his skin was. 

Did it matter that Nicholas had someone waiting for him at home? Did it matter that a wedding was being planned? 

No.

Because the way Nicholas had looked at him had been real. That was the only thing that mattered to Euijoo. 

Nicholas wanted him. He was sure of it. 

Euijoo clicked out of K's profile, his fingers brushing slowly down the side of his neck; his skin felt fevered hot, his pulse jumping against his fingertips.

His tongue darted out, licking across his parched lips, his throat bobbing with thick, dry swallows. He squirmed on the bed, eyes dropping to his lap, catching his lower lip between his teeth at the sight of his own arousal, the way his cock strained against the fabric of his underwear.

He let out a shaky breath, the temptation clawing at him. He wanted to reach down and squeeze himself, slip his hand inside and wrap his fingers around his swollen length, stroke it until he unraveled completely, coming undone at the thought of those dark, brilliant eyes, the weight of that gaze seared into his thoughts.

Euijoo dragged his thumb to his lips, biting down on the ring, tasting the cool metal, but in his mind, he was tasting Nicholas instead, a mouthwatering, forbidden fruit.

A low groan slipped from his throat, morphing into a needy whine as he shifted again, restless and aching. The liquid heat pooling between his thighs pulsed wildly, every nerve alight with raw, stinging want.

“Fuck,” he breathed, biting so hard on his lip he tasted copper. “You need to focus.”

He gave his hot cheeks a couple of light slaps and closed his legs, shaking his head roughly as if to shake those filthy, debauched thoughts loose.

That could wait. He needed to find out more.

Next, he typed Taki's name in the search bar, and his profile appeared instantly, the same lilac-haired piercer from the shop, though his hair was dark in his profile picture. Taki's profile showed bits of his work life too, tagging Ultramarine in those professional posts, and Euijoo scrolled past those quickly, impatient, his eyes scanning for a glimpse of blonde hair or a familiar silhouette. He scrolled and scrolled until he reached older posts from two years ago, his pace slowing only when something made him stop short, his heart skipping hard against his ribs.

It was a group shot on a tropical island. Nicholas was there, looking younger, his hair a deep, bruised cherry and cut shorter, with a fringe that swept low over his forehead. But it wasn't the hair that made the blood in Euijoo’s veins turn to icicles. It was the woman. 

She had her arm wrapped around Nicholas’s waist, and he was holding her back, tucking her protectively into his side. She was undeniably gorgeous with a heart-shaped face, large, soft eyes that gave her a doll-like beauty, and a body that looked carved for a runway. She was the picture of effortless elegance, her long dark hair pinned in an updo, her makeup flawless even in the tropical heat.

The cursor hovered over her figure. The tag popped up like a death sentence: Xiaoting_

Last day in Bali, the caption read.

Was this her? The fiancée? If so, then Nicholas was just as lucky as she was, because she was perfect. They looked untouchable.

The lingering haze of lust thinned instantly, replaced by something cold and sickly that seeped through the cracks. Euijoo felt a wave of nausea roll over him, but the obsessive engine in his brain wouldn't let him stop. He forced himself to click her handle, his eyes squeezing shut for a terrifying second as he braced for the impact, for the "Save the Date" posts, the ring photos, the declarations of forever.

He opened his eyes and began to scroll.

Her posts were mostly candid pictures of herself in different places around the world, her feed reading more like a travel journal than anything else, filled with professional-looking shots of sweeping landscapes, carefully plated traditional dishes, and glimpses of beautiful, serene moments. She was alone in most of them, or at least appeared to be, moving from one country to another with an ease that felt solitary and self-contained.

Euijoo blinked, the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding slipping out of him in a small, quiet exhale. There was no trace of Nicholas, no obvious connection—until a post from last July caught his attention.

It looked entirely out of place, a grainy, obscure blemish amidst her polished photography: a simple Polaroid of two children. A girl of about eight sat with a small kid in her lap, her toothy grin radiating straight through the decades at the camera.

Euijoo clicked the caption open.

The Wang siblings, circa twenty-one years ago! 📸

Happy Birthday to my favorite human and permanent baby brother. I can’t believe how much you’ve grown, bub, you definitely don’t fit in my lap anymore, even if you’re still a brat who thinks he’s too cool for a personal Instagram. [rolls eyes fondly] I know you’re lurking on here somewhere, so I hope you see this: I love you to the moon and back, Nico. Always. 💙 #WangSiblings #BabyBrother #HappyBirthdayNicholas

A manic laugh ripped out of Euijoo, sounding absurdly loud and jagged in the stuffy silence of his room. He clutched his laptop as the relief flooded his system, turning his blood back into liquid fire.

His sister. She was just his older sister.

He knew it was him. Even as a kid, Nicholas had that same look in his eyes.

Nicholas Wang.

Euijoo whispered the syllables into the dark, tasting the name like it belonged to him now that he'd found it. 

What a pretty name, perfectly fitting for such a pretty man. 

He enlarged the Polaroid, unable to stop a small, soft sound from escaping his throat at the sight of those soft cheeks and tiny hands. Twenty-one years ago. Nicholas looked around four in the photo. That put him at twenty-five now.

Euijoo’s grin widened. He had it all now: the full name, the birth date, the sister. 

The sister, Xiaoting, seemed very close to Nicholas, yet for some reason she hadn’t posted anything about her baby brother’s supposed engagement and neither had his friends. Why hadn’t Kei or Taki posted a single toast to the groom-to-be? Nicholas had no personal account apart from Ultramarine, so maybe he really was that private. The kind of person who kept his real life sealed off, carefully separated from everything else, and the people around him respected that boundary enough not to cross it.

That had to be it. It made sense, didn’t it? It had to.

Euijoo exhaled slowly, the tension in his chest easing just enough to plunge back into the hunt.

He kept going.

Hours bled into one another as he bypassed the shop’s professional barrier and began sifting through the digital debris of everyone Nicholas had ever stood next to. He found fragments of the man everywhere, older versions of him with hair the color of ink, silver, and bruised plums. He dug until his temples throbbed, eventually stumbling onto a niche archive for local graffiti and street murals.

There, he found them: Nicholas’s ghosts. Massive, haunted murals sprawling across the neighborhood skate parks and the windowless walls of apartment blocks, all rendered in that recurring, obsessive blue. Euijoo stared at the digital captures of the peeling paint, reading every line of commentary like he was deciphering a coded message meant only for him. They were breathtaking. They were lonely. They were his.

It wasn’t until his laptop flashed a warning, the screen dimming slightly as the low battery notification cut through his focus, that Euijoo finally stopped. He blinked, his eyes stinging as he leaned back, the world outside the screen rushing back in all at once. 

His gaze drifted to the time. 03:54 AM.

"Holy fuck," he croaked, his voice cracking from hours of disuse.

He’d been gone for nearly six hours. He hadn't just researched a tattoo; he had dismantled a man's life and rebuilt it inside his own head. And the scariest part was that he wasn't even close to being finished.

Euijoo contemplated plugging his laptop into the charger and keeping going; it was the weekend, and he had nowhere to be the next day. He clicked back into the one profile that felt like it might hold all his answers: Murata Fuma. The man had vacationed with Nicholas and his sister, and from what Euijoo had pieced together, he was close to Xiaoting, which meant he had to be close to Nicholas too. 

There was only one obstacle: the profile was private.

Euijoo bit at his thumbnail, his mind racing. He’d tracked down an abandoned Facebook page for Fuma, but it was a dead end, no Nicholas, no leads. He found himself contemplating something darker, something he would have found repulsive only yesterday. He could create a fake account. He could pretend to be one of Fuma’s old Facebook contacts, sneak inside the private feed just long enough to scavenge for photos, and then vanish.

His own reflection stared back at him from the dark glass of the laptop, pale and wide-eyed. He looked like a stranger. He was being downright creepy now, crossing boundaries that weren't just social, but moral.

What has gotten into me? He hadn't stopped for a sip of water, hadn't snacked, hadn't even washed the day’s grime off his skin. He was under a spell, paralyzed by a single, frantic purpose: Nicholas.

His finger hovered over the power button. He could stop. He could walk away and pretend this night never happened. But the hunger was louder than his conscience. He’d come this far; why stop at the finish line?

His fingers moved with a sudden, frantic speed. He set up the burner email, typed in the fake name, and uploaded a profile picture he’d pulled from the old Facebook archives, a man who, according to Euijoo’s research, didn't have an Instagram account of his own. It was identity theft, plain and simple, but the adrenaline had numbed his shame.

Once the profile was live, he went through Taki’s followers, clicking a few names to give the account a hollow sense of legitimacy. Then, he navigated back to Fuma’s page. He hesitated for only a heartbeat before he whispered, "Fuck it," and hit the Request button.

His heart was racing as he snapped the laptop shut.

Euijoo tried to sleep after that. He slipped under the covers and closed his eyes, but despite the bone-deep exhaustion weighing down his body, his mind refused to quiet. It kept replaying the day on an endless loop, starting from the moment he stepped into Ultramarine and heard the soft chime of crystals and seashells at the door, all the way to the moment he stepped out, lingering on certain beats as if they demanded to be studied again and again.

He re-lived the moment he’d heard Nicholas's voice from behind, the strange, instinctive shiver of his body knowing, even before he turned, that the sound belonged to someone who would change everything. 

His mind zoomed in with a terrifying, frame-by-frame precision: the first sight of Nicholas’s perfect face; the delicate look of his own hand swallowed by Nicholas’s large one; the strange tingling sensation in his chest every time those dark, feline eyes caught his. 

Then, the bathroom. The way Nicholas had breathed with him, the low, grounding vibration of his voice, and the infinite patience in his touch. He could almost feel the phantom pressure of those hands on his thighs again, urging him back from the edge of the ledge.

“You should smile more often.”

The words played on a loop, followed immediately by the visual of the Azure Dragon. He saw the shimmering, silver-blue scales and the way Nicholas had arched his back, a calculated movement of a man who knew exactly how his body looked and precisely what it was doing to Euijoo. He traced the blue flames in his mind, watching them curl over the hipbones and disappear into the waist of his pants.

And then, the gaze. That penetrating, unmistakable heat. The way those teeth had dragged over a bottom lip.

Euijoo cursed under his breath, thrashing in the sheets. He turned over, burying his face in the pillow to muffle the sound of his own frustrated groan. He willed the obsessive loop to stop, to let him have even an hour of peace, but it was no use.

Nicholas haunted his thoughts the way those blue shapes had haunted his subconscious earlier.

After another half hour of tossing and turning, Euijoo finally gave up. With a frustrated huff, he kicked the sheets away from his sweltering body, grimacing at how tacky his skin felt, and patted the mattress blindly until his fingers closed around his phone. He squinted against the sudden, violent glare of the screen, swiping the notifications away without reading them, going straight to his camera roll—straight to the last picture he took.

One look at the Azure Dragon, and the room around him fell away.

Suddenly, he was back in the lavender glow of Ultramarine. The aggressive whirr of the machine vibrated through the air, through his bones, syncing with the frantic rhythm of his heartbeat. The sharp, medicinal sting of antiseptic and the metallic tang of blood blooming from raw skin filled his lungs. Vibrant blue ink, stained with scarlet—a beautiful, violent mess. Then came the scent of sakura, cutting through the chemicals like a delicate savior. The melodic, enchanting tinkle of the beaded curtains. The weight of a stolen ring on his thumb.

Euijoo’s breath came in ragged, shallow hitches, like he couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. He dragged his thumb to his mouth, his tongue and teeth fighting for purchase on the cool metal of the ring. He bit down hard, his eyes rolling back as the physical sensation anchored the delirium.

He was tasting Nicholas. He was tasting sweat, ink, and the salt of his skin.

He was tasting blue.

Euijoo groaned as a violent surge of heat ripped downward, his cock hardening with terrifying speed. His hand flew down, squeezing himself hard through his boxers. His breath caught sharply when he felt the cotton already soaked through, his desperation leaking out in a thick, sticky mess.

“Fuck,” he breathed, his voice shaky and wrecked. He lifted his torso off the bed just enough to yank his ruined boxers down his legs, then kicked them into the dark corner of his room. He braced one elbow on the mattress, dropping back onto his stomach. A low, raspy moan slipped from his throat as he thrust into the sheets, grinding himself in frantic circles. He dragged his thumb back to his mouth, kissing the heavy ring sloppily, sucking desperately, his tongue swirling around it while he humped the bed like a dog in heat.

His cheeks burned hot with humiliation. He could feel how wet he was, leaking so much precum into the sheets. Lewd, smacking sounds filled his ears, wet lips against metal, his tongue lapping at the encrusted ruby gemstones.

But his own desperation only stoked the fire raging in his veins. What would Nicholas do if he saw him like this? How would he react to Euijoo so worked up and desperate for him, needing his body like he needed air? Would he flash that same lazy, half-smile? Or smirk and mock him? Would he drag his teeth over his lip, his dark, hungry gaze raking over Euijoo’s sweat-slicked body?

“You’re making such a mess, blue.”

Euijoo let out a long, dragged-out whine, the words echoing clearly in his head, spoken in Nicholas’s deep, low timbre.

“Nico,” he cried in a low, pathetic voice, his cock pulsing wildly. “Please.”

Would Nicholas touch him? Those large hands gripping his waist, guiding his thrusts.

“Slow down,” Nicholas would murmur into his hair. “Like this. Deeper.”

Euijoo whined again. He stopped, chest heaving, then snatched a soft, fluffy pillow and dragged it between his thighs. Sweat dripped from his hair, soaking his temples and the back of his neck. His heart thudded wildly as he straddled the pillow, knees digging into the mattress. He lowered his hips, his leaking cock pressing flat against the plush fabric, the friction sending sparks up his spine.

Then he began riding.

He rocked forward, grinding his rigid shaft along the seam, precum oozing out to smear a glistening trail across the fabric. A raw, guttural moan ripped from his throat as he picked up the pace, thighs clenching tight, ass flexing with every frantic movement. The pillow bunched beneath his weight, soaking through with his arousal, the musky scent filling his nostrils.

“Nicholas,” he gasped, eyes squeezing shut as he pictured those thick fingers clamping down on his hips, yanking him back onto a real, throbbing cock taking him raw. “Nico—Nico, please.”

He rutted harder, dragging his swollen length back and forth in a desperate rhythm, his thumb plunging back into his mouth. He sucked on the ring greedily, tongue swirling around it, eyes rolling back as he imagined Nicholas’s ringed fingers shoved deep into his mouth instead, rubbing roughly against his tongue, prodding the back of his throat until he gagged, saliva spilling down his chin.

“Such a good boy for me,” Nicholas’s voice whispered in his ear, the praise wrapping around him inside the hallucination, lips brushing the side of his neck, teeth grazing skin as his cock thrust upward, filling him to the brim until Euijoo swore he could feel it punching into his guts, stretching him taut.

Euijoo cried out, his hips snapping erratically now, practically bouncing on the pillow. One hand clamped down on his flat stomach, pressing hard as if to trap the phantom intrusion, feeling the imagined bulge shift inside him with every brutal plunge. Sweat broke across his skin, his heart thudding wildly, every nerve alight with scorching need, the fantasy so vivid he could almost taste Nicholas’s skin, hear the wet slap of flesh on flesh.

“Gonna come all over your pillow, baby?”

Euijoo choked on his thumb, jammed so deep it hit the back of his throat, eyes watering as tears spilled over. His hips jerked in a wild, irregular frenzy, cock throbbing violently against the soaked pillow. The pressure coiled unbearably tight in his core, molten heat surging through his veins like liquid fire—then it snapped.

He bit down hard on his lip to stifle the scream, but Nicholas’s name tore out anyway in a broken wail as he came undone.

Hot, thick ropes of cum spilled from his pulsing cock, splattering across the pillow, pooling in sticky streaks that smeared along his length with each continued movement. His body convulsed as pleasure ripped through him, ass clenching rhythmically, thighs quaking, toes curling into the sheets. He collapsed forward onto the mattress, face buried in the damp fabric, whining pitifully and blabbering incoherently while his hips kept twitching, grinding even after he’d milked himself raw, unable to stop, lost somewhere between hazy bliss and aching longing.

Euijoo didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. 

A dizzying new discovery about himself hit him through the fog of lust: he could have multiple orgasms, one crashing right after the other. 

Before that night, Euijoo’s releases had been simple, predictable. He’d stroke himself when tension coiled too tight in his gut or when restless energy buzzed through his limbs, using it as a quick fix to settle his nerves. One climax, done and dusted. On hornier days, when his mind spun wild with filthy thoughts, he’d take it slow, drag it out, torturing himself with the buildup, but even then, once he spilled, the game was over. Done. 

But now? Now, Euijoo felt utterly unmoored, like his body wasn’t his own anymore. Some primal force had snatched the reins, relegating him to the passenger seat, strapped in and powerless. He could only watch, wide-eyed and panting, as this unseen driver manipulated his flesh like a finely tuned instrument, wringing out every shudder, every desperate gasp. 

“Fuck…” he whined into the pillow, teeth sinking into the fabric as a second wave slammed through him, mere minutes after the first. His half-hard cock twitched and pulsed, dribbling more cum onto the already soaked surface beneath him. His trembling legs stayed clamped around the pillow he’d ruined, hips jerking involuntarily with each aftershock. The oversensitivity was brutal; every brush of fabric against his tip felt like a live wire sparking against raw nerves, making his entire body quake and jolt.

“Shit,” Euijoo muttered to himself, his arms trembling so badly he could barely hold himself up as he pushed off the bed, kicking the wrecked pillow aside. It hit the floor with a soft, pathetic thump.

His heart was still pounding far too hard, like it was trying to punch through his ribcage and make a break for it. He slumped onto his back, panting for breath, the sheets beneath him clinging to his sweat-soaked skin. He dragged a shaky hand down to his cock, his thumb brushing over the sensitive tip. His lip throbbed where he’d bitten it raw; he flicked his tongue over the spot to ease the sting, only to hiss when it burned even worse.

Fumbling beside him, he patted around for his phone, fingers clumsy until he snatched it up. He swiped at the screen—and there it was. Fuck, there it was again. That picture. That perfect, arched lower back, milky skin glowing under the soft lavender light, and that damn sleeping dragon tattoo sprawled across it, teasing him, daring him to lose it all over again.

The fire reignited in Euijoo’s loins before he could even catch his breath, his spent cock twitching weakly in his grip.

He groaned, letting go of himself like it burned. He drew his knees up, feet flat against the mattress, and slid his hand down past his length, dragging the mess of cum with him until his slick fingers slipped between his ass cheeks, circling his tight hole with slow, teasing pressure. His eyes stayed glued to Nicholas’s lower back in the picture, tracing the intricate lines of the blue dragon, the delicate blue flames curling around it.

His breath hitched, quickening again as his mind spiraled. He could see it: his hands gripping Nicholas’s narrow waist, hips rocking as he rubbed himself against the smooth small of his back, lips pressing hot, hungry kisses to the nape of his neck. He’d bite down, mark him, bruise that pale flesh with his teeth, claim that blue ink with his release.

“Fuck, Nicholas,” he gasped, his voice cracking in the dark. The third orgasm crashed over him again, his fingers rubbing tight, frantic circles against his rim, his other hand squeezing the tip of his cock until it hurt so good.

He chanted Nicholas's name into the darkness, his body shuddering through the brutal, blinding wave, blue detonating behind his clenched eyelids, spilling through him until there was nothing left but it.

🔹🔹🔹

Euijoo had always been a man of routines; he liked his days planned and predictable, easy to navigate. The only disruptions usually came from his friends dragging him into last-minute plans, but even then, he had his adaptability to rely on.

Now, his routine had evolved.

Nothing had been the same since the moment he stepped into Ultramarine, and even less so since he walked out of it. The days that followed were an exploration of a side of himself he’d never known existed. Any lingering flickers of shame, any echoes of a conscience trying to talk sense into him, were ruthlessly shoved into the dark, buried deep under the weight of his new discoveries. He was learning exactly what kind of monster he became when he was deeply, irrevocably infatuated. He was discovering a terrifying talent for the hunt and a body that seemed to have no limit for the pleasure it could draw from its own obsession.

He’d had crushes before, of course. There was the summer fling when he was fifteen, a boy with freckled, golden skin and eyes the color of sun-drenched leaves. They’d done nothing but hold hands in secret, using the ocean as a shroud for lingering touches and stolen hugs. There had been others, too, like the young, handsome sociology professor at his university; an easy target for late-night fantasies, built more on the appeal of the forbidden than anything genuine.

But those were flickers. This was a forest fire.

What he felt for Nicholas went beyond the standard attraction to someone devastatingly handsome or the cheap thrill of the unattainable. It wasn’t about the age gap or the supposed engagement. It was the man himself and the haunting spell Nicholas had cast the moment he spoke. Euijoo had been doomed from that very first “Hey.” He’d been lost from the first look and destroyed by the first touch.

He was possessed. His thoughts, his time, his body, everything now revolved around the blond artist and his endless, consuming world of blue.

By day, Euijoo’s life was an exercise in perfect mimicry. He attended his classes, studied in the library, and flanked the usual campus cafés and lounges with his friends. He still played the dutiful third wheel for Maki and Harua, and spent lazy, mindless afternoons tangled in blankets with Jo, watching TV shows and movies until the sun went down. To anyone looking, he was the same Euijoo: predictable, adaptable, ordinary.

But the moment he was alone in the dark of his room, the mask shattered.

Night was when his real life began. Stripped down to his underwear, he would crawl onto his bed, the cold glow of his laptop and phone the only light in the suffocating darkness. This was his hunt. This was his mission: the total deconstruction of Wang Nicholas.

Fuma had accepted the request the very next day, and as expected, the private profile was a treasure trove waiting to be picked apart. Euijoo had already scrubbed the fake account from existence, deleting it the moment he’d scavenged what he needed. Any flicker of guilt for the deception had vanished the second he found the post from six years ago.

It was a photo from Nicholas’s graduation day. He looked younger there, slighter in build, his hair short and dark, wearing a boyish, proud grin that felt almost heartachingly innocent. He was beautiful, even then.

Fuma’s caption was a testament to a long, protective history:

Watching you walk across that stage was the highlight of my year. You’ve worked harder than anyone I know to protect your vision, and seeing it finally pay off is everything. Cheers to the best little brother a guy could ask for. Go make those dreams happen, Yixiang. I’ll always be in your corner. 🥂🎓 @yixiang_w

The handle was a ghost, leading to a deleted account, but the name was immortal.

Wang Yixiang.

Euijoo felt a frantic, electric pulse in his fingertips as he bypassed the social media filters and typed the name into his art school’s internal database. Seconds later, the official PDF for the 2020 Diploma Showcase loaded onto his screen.

There it was, listed under 'Traditional Illustration': Wang Yixiang. Born 2000. Taipei.

A heady thrill took over Euijoo’s entire body, leaving him light-headed and buzzing. He had the birth year. He had the roots. He had the very foundation of the man, and he was going to build a shrine out of it.

Operating on pure, dizzying adrenaline, Euijoo didn't stop. He kept digging deeper and deeper, peeling back layers of digital history, one discovery feeding the next, until a week later he could close his eyes and see it: a version of Wang Yixiang, assembled entirely inside his head. He had accumulated so much data that it felt like he’d compiled a sequel to his own “trivia world.”Only this wasn't a jumble of charming facts about himself; this was the Byun Euijoo Encyclopedia of Wang Yixiang.

The entries were exhaustive. Nicholas loved art, lived it, breathed it; he had transitioned from a student to a muralist, leaving his blue, haunting ghosts on the city’s ribs. He ran Ultramarine with his two best friends. He was close to his older sister. He frequented Renegade with Kei and was friends with a few dancers there. He changed his hair color like the seasons but kept the same signature cut in varying lengths. He loved crystal and pearl jewelry, and especially that ruby-encrusted ring. Every time Euijoo saw it in a photo, he felt a stab of guilt in his gut. The ring was still there, buried in his underwear drawer.

I’ll give it back, he promised the dark room. I’ll find a way.

The list went on: Nicholas preferred the warmth of spring and summer. He had a taste for sushi and fruit beer. He was drawn to the roar of motorsports, often seen at the track with Taki and Kei, and he liked horses; there was a picture of him riding alongside his sister and Fuma, looking almost unreal against the open landscape.

But one entry remained blank, one crucial piece that refused to surface no matter how deep Euijoo dug: the fiancée. There wasn’t a single trace of her, no tag and no shadow. She was a ghost in a world where everything else was rendered in high-definition blue.

The clarity of the encyclopedia would eventually shatter, leaving Euijoo to spiral into the void where the fiancée should have been. He would spend long stretches of time obsessing over Nicholas's faceless significant other, his mind conjuring a rival out of thin air. What was her name? How old was she? What did she look like? Was she an artist, too? Perhaps a singer with a soft, melodious voice, or a dancer with a lithe, graceful build?

He’d torture himself with the image of the golden couple, playing a cruel cinema in his head: Nicholas dropping to one knee, his large hand trembling as he offered a ring. He imagined a delicate white-gold band set with her birthstone, something custom and soulful. It seemed like exactly the kind of romantic gesture Nicholas would perform for a soulmate.

What was her star sign? Were they compatible? Was their story written in the stars, their love a cosmic inevitability?

But then Euijoo would remember his own chart. He’d remember that his star sign and Nicholas’s were more than compatible; they were a perfect, symmetrical match. Even their birth dates felt like a coded message, the numbers reversed, as if they were two halves of a single whole. According to the stars, the universe hadn’t designed Nicholas Wang for a faceless woman; it had designed him for Byun Euijoo.

In an instant, the fiancée would dissolve back into the shadows. He would forget she ever existed and slip back into his state of obsession.

And every single night, it would end the same way: Euijoo would be stripped bare on his bed, the laptop screen casting a harsh glow over his flushed skin. Nicholas’s picture would stare back at him, enlarged, those sharp, dark eyes cutting through the pixels like he was really there. Euijoo would spread his legs wide, facing the screen like an offering.

He would start slow, one hand wrapped around his cock, the other dipping lower, fingers slick with lube. He’d tease himself, drawing out each stroke, letting his thumb drag over the slit. His other hand would press inside, one finger, then two, working his walls open, stretching them until he felt full. Then his slim fingers would fuck in and out, his soft moans filling the quiet room.

He’d edge himself over and over, stroking faster until the pressure built into a hot, desperate ache in his balls, then slowing down, pulling back at the last second, his breath quick and ragged, his legs trembling. Each time he came close, the image of Nicholas on the screen seemed to sharpen, those dark eyes pinning him even deeper.

His cock would throb, red and overstimulated, pooling precum on his skin. He’d keep his eyes locked on Nicholas’s gaze, that piercing darkness, and let the longing build until it was a knot in his throat, a pressure behind his ribs. Only then, when the loneliness stretched too thin, when the Nicholas on the screen blurred into flesh and blood in his mind, would he let go.

In his head, Nicholas would be there, looming over him, his presence heavy. “You’re so desperate,” imaginary Nicholas would purr, his voice low and rough, sending sparks racing down Euijoo’s spine. His large hand would take over Euijoo’s smaller one, guiding his strokes, pumping hard and fast. “Come for me, baby,” the vision would demand, and Euijoo’s mind would shatter.

His release would hit like a tidal wave, splashing across his stomach and chest, some of it hitting the laptop screen. Euijoo’s mind would blank from the intensity, his voice breaking as he moaned Nicholas’s name into the dark. And the Nicholas in his mind would silence his cries with his lips, kissing him hard and deep, swallowing his own name as Euijoo’s body shuddered through the aftershocks.

And Euijoo never stopped. 

He would keep going, pushing through the searing sensitivity, his body trembling with overstimulation. The visions in his mind would shift, and suddenly he’d be back at Ultramarine, straddling Nicholas’s lap on that car-shaped couch. His arms would wrap tight around Nicholas’s neck, pulling him in, kissing him with a desperate hunger. He would feast on Nicholas’s tongue, tasting him, devouring him, while Nicholas’s strong arms would lock around his waist, yanking him closer until their bodies were pressed flush, fused together in heat. 

“Feel me,” Nicholas would whisper against his lips, breath hot and heavy against his skin. His thick cock would bury itself deep inside Euijoo, stretching him wide, grinding right against that sweet spot. Euijoo would whimper and whine into Nicholas’s mouth, helpless little sounds spilling out as his hips rocked, chasing more. “You’re so needy,” Nicholas would murmur, his hands digging into Euijoo’s hips, guiding him up and down. 

Euijoo would come again, right there in his fantasy and in reality, his own fingers curling inside himself, pressing hard against that swollen, aching spot, his fingernails scraping it raw as he rode the second wave.  

And still, he wouldn’t stop. Not even close.

Ever since Euijoo had discovered he could have multiple orgasms, something inside him had shifted—or maybe it had finally clicked into place. He knew exactly what he liked now, exactly what he wanted, and exactly where his limits lay. And they were vast. He could keep going and going, his appetite a bottomless pit where each wave of pleasure only served to make him crave the next.

Meeting Nicholas had rewired something in his brain, flipping a switch he was no longer capable of turning off. Now, Euijoo’s body lived in a state of permanent, agonizing hunger. He ached for the man, for his touch, his voice, his cock, and that dark, feline gaze that could pin Euijoo in place from across any room, any screen, any dream. And every night, that ache only grew, 

He needed him. He needed him with a desperate urgency that made his previous life feel like a pale, bloodless imitation of living.

He was going insane. 

By the second week, the high of the hunt and the rush of endless discovery had begun to dim, replaced by a ravenous need to see Nicholas in the flesh. Euijoo considered every possible way to make it happen, to turn the digital hunt into a physical one and chase Nicholas wherever he might be.

He had a few valid leads. There was Renegade. From what Euijoo had gathered, Nicholas was a regular there, but the club presented two insurmountable problems. First, Euijoo wasn’t a nightclub person; he’d never even stepped foot in one. He never partied alone, and on the rare occasions his friends dragged him out, it was always to a cramped apartment, never a club. The mere thought of walking into a place like that, packed with hot, confident, queer men, made him want to throw up from sheer anxiety.

No. He couldn’t do it, no matter how much he ached to see Nicholas. Besides, he wanted to meet the man somewhere more… secluded.

He could try to visit every location he’d seen in those photos with Nicholas's friends, but what were the chances of a "coincidence" actually happening? And then there was the thought he tried to outrun: wouldn't that be literal stalking? The creepiest, most undeniable kind?

So instead of stalking the man himself, Euijoo stalked his murals instead.

Euijoo visited the skate park first. In person, the abstract blue faces were even more haunting, stirring a set of emotions he couldn’t quite name. There was something deeply melancholic about them, like the fading features of ghosts from a forgotten past, their eyes still trying to tell their stories to anyone who would listen. Euijoo traced the dried paint with his fingertips, picturing Nicholas standing right where he was, brush in hand. He traced the signature Nik., and felt the hole in his chest widen. He wanted to know the story behind every stroke.

He spent the rest of the day in a taxi, chasing the remaining murals across the city. He watched the ones stretched across the high walls of apartment blocks from afar, each one more arresting than the last. He moved from neighborhood to neighborhood, wondering which had been the first and when and where the next one would appear. 

When he finally got home and stripped naked on his bed, he didn't reach for his phone. He simply lay there in the dark, eyes fixed on the ceiling. The blue shapes from the day filled his mind, blurring into one another until he couldn't tell the murals apart from his own thoughts.

He didn't open his laptop that night. He didn't even fantasize about Nicholas or touch himself. The longing had moved past the urgent, physical ache, becoming something quieter and more consuming.

He just needed to see him. Just once.

The blue faces and shapes began to haunt Euijoo’s dreams again.

He remembered that first day, when he’d fallen asleep in the car outside Ultramarine; back then, the shapes had been oppressive and intimidating, closing in on him while he struggled to move. Now, the dreams were different. Less vivid, less suffocating, but far more intense. He would wake up gasping for air, his skin feeling as though it had been doused in something flammable. One wrong move, one stray thought, and his whole being would go up in flames. Every time he tried to hold onto the dream, to grasp at its meaning, the images slipped away, dissolving into nothing but a haze of fading blue.

By the third week, Euijoo’s social mask was finally beginning to crumble. His friends noticed the shift: the way his attention drifted mid-conversation, the delays in his responses, the way he looked through them instead of at them, the flimsy excuses he used to skip hanging out, and the growing pile of unread texts and missed calls.

It was the beginning of May, and the heat was starting to feel smothering. The days stretched longer, and final exams loomed like a threat he couldn’t bring himself to take seriously. He was unable to study or focus; his waking mind was a revolving door of thoughts about Nicholas, while his nights were stained by that same recurring blue. The world outside his obsession felt faint, like a movie playing on mute.

By the second week of May, the pressure finally reached its breaking point. Euijoo couldn’t take it anymore.

He was going back to Ultramarine.

The night before Euijoo found himself standing outside the shop, and the day that followed, had been his absolute breaking point. He hadn't made a conscious decision to go—hell, he wasn't even prepared. One moment, he was sitting in his final class of the day, zoning out as the minutes dragged by, his mind blissfully blank; and the next, he was hailing a cab on the street, ignoring Jo’s desperate pleas to join him and Yuma on their skating date.

Euijoo had fallen asleep the night before staring at that slumbering blue dragon, tracing its scales with his fingertip, imagining it was his mouth instead mapping the ink. In his dreams, the usual fuzzy tangle of blue took the shape of a vivid, serpentine beast. It coiled around Euijoo’s sleeping body, its scales slick and abrasive, slithering along his naked skin and tightening until he couldn’t breathe. He woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, his heart a wild drumbeat and his underwear soaked through with a thick, sticky release.

He stayed up the rest of the night, unable to catch even a blink of sleep, that aching, terrible, savage desire tearing through his body like a storm.

The next morning, Euijoo contemplated skipping classes altogether. He was dangerously sleep-deprived, the dream still clinging to him, the phantom sensation of those slimy scales sticking to his skin no matter how hard he scrubbed himself in the shower. At the last minute, he threw on his clothes, grabbed his things, and walked out—only to stop, turn back, and grab Nicholas’s ring, shoving it deep into his pocket before racing to uni.

By afternoon, the world had dissolved into a gray blur. Having skipped both breakfast and his usual morning dopamine hit of the wild berries and the vanilla latte, Euijoo felt as though his brain had been emptied out and stuffed with cotton. Everything around him felt distant and muffled, the hours dragging with agonizing slowness.

When lunchtime arrived, he sat with his friends in their usual spot, but his appetite was gone. Despite the hollow ache in his stomach, he could only force down a banana and half a carton of soy milk before his insides began to cramp with looming dread. The ring in his pocket felt like a brand, scorching a hole against his thigh as an uneasy restlessness hatched and crawled beneath his skin.

"You're coming to the skate park with me later," Jo informed him as they headed to their final lectures, his tone leaving little room for argument.

"I have somewhere to be," Euijoo replied. That was the moment the decision had been made. 

Jo, of course, didn’t believe him. Euijoo's phone buzzed relentlessly throughout the lecture.

Juju pls don’t do this to me

I literally cannot be alone with him yet

I'm not prepared!! im gonna freak out

Do this for me and I swear I'll never ask for anything ever again. at least not this month. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

You and me both, Euijoo thought, staring blankly at the screen before locking it and shoving it back into his pocket.

His mind finally blanked out, the way it sometimes did when the world became too loud, too overstimulating. He didn’t fully register what he was doing after that. Not the way he bolted from the university with Jo snapping at his heels, nor the way he stood at the curb, eyes wide and unfocused, scanning for a taxi while Jo’s voice rose behind him, frantic and confused.

“Euijoo, wait—where are you even going? Hey—”

Jo’s voice was cut off mid-sentence, his expression frozen in a mix of bewilderment and disbelief as the car pulled away.

Euijoo barely noticed. He didn’t register the route, or the driver’s glance in the rearview mirror, or even the address he gave. All he could feel was the weight of the ring in his pocket, searing against his skin, and the tightening knot in his stomach as the city blurred past outside the window.

Now, Euijoo stood outside the shop, wondering what the hell he was doing there. The reasonable part of his mind screamed at him to turn around and go home, but the less rational, borderline insane part urged him to just walk through the door. Nicholas was inside, only a few meters separating them.

Euijoo chewed at his already bruised lip and glanced down at himself. He was wearing a striped T-shirt, jeans, and his beaten-up sneakers. Not exactly a flattering outfit, and certainly not what he would have chosen had he known he’d end up here. His backpack hung loosely off one shoulder. He hadn’t even brushed his hair that morning, too sleep- and caffeine-deprived to care. At least he’d showered, scrubbing his skin raw that he still smelled like his cookie-dough shower cream hours later.

He exhaled slowly, his stomach still in knots.

The ring, he reminded himself, patting absently at his jeans pocket. I have to give him back his ring. I'll apologize for taking it and…

And then what? He didn’t know. Maybe Nicholas would throw him out. He had stolen his ring, after all—one that cost a small fortune, if Euijoo’s digging was anything to go by; Nicholas would likely take him for a greedy thief.

But you’ll get to see him, at least, the voice hissed from the back of his head. Even if he throws you out and tells you never to come near his shop again. You'll get to see him.

With one last anxious breath that settled nowhere in his lungs, Euijoo pushed the door open.

Crystals and seashells chimed above him, the delicate sound soothing the chaos in his head as the door clicked shut. Music drifted through the shop, something experimental, layered with unfamiliar instruments that seemed to vibrate in the air. Euijoo wiped his clammy palms against his thighs and kept moving, catching a glimpse of his own face in the mirror by the small gate. He looked better than he felt, though his skin was a ghost-pale wash and his lips were bitten raw.

He hesitated at the gate, but one look at his reflection, at desperation bleeding in his eyes, convinced him there was no turning back. He shoved his fear down and pushed through.

"Good evening, welcome to Ultra—"

Kei’s chirpy greeting cut off mid-sentence. The professional smile on his face shifted instantly into a look of amused recognition.

"Oh, I remember you," he said, pointing a finger at him, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth as he swept a look over Euijoo’s frame. "Jo’s boyfriend, right? Or something like that. Welcome back.”

“Euijoo,” Euijoo corrected, a small spark of irritation flaring in his chest.

“Right,” Kei said, drawing the word out, the amusement never quite leaving his face. “Euijoo. Did you come straight from school?”

Heat rushed up Euijoo’s neck. He hitched his backpack higher on his shoulder, his gaze skittering away, landing on the blue paintings lining the walls.

Kei watched him for a moment longer.

“So,” he said at last. “What can I do for you, Euijoo?”

Euijoo turned back too quickly. “Uh—” he trailed off, his mind blanking out completely.

"Do you have an appointment?" Kei pressed. He tilted his head, eyeing him with a skeptical brow. "Because the books are closed for the day. No more walk-ins."

Just say it. Tell him you’re here for Nicholas. Say something!

Euijoo opened his mouth. Closed it again. His teeth caught on the raw skin of his lip.

Kei poked his tongue into his cheek, looking more entertained by the second. "Well?" He prodded, a playful lilt in his voice. "Are you just here to say hi? Or are you looking for someone in particular?”

Euijoo’s cheeks flamed, the knowing glint in Kei’s eyes sending a fresh spike of anxiety through his stomach. He took an abrupt step back, glancing over his shoulder at the gate. The urge to bolt, to just run until the air in his lungs burned, rose so suddenly it made his chest feel tight. 

Before he could act on it, the door at the back opened.

Euijoo’s heart vaulted into his throat. He whipped his head around, clutching his backpack strap—only to deflate at the sight of the newcomer.

Taki stepped out, slowing as he registered the high-voltage tension in the room. His gaze moved between Kei and Euijoo, a faint, uncertain smile tugging at his lips.

“Hey,” he said to Euijoo as he passed him, giving him a curious glance. He turned to the counter, confused. "I thought Nik wasn't taking any more clients today?"

"He isn't," Kei answered. His voice was smooth, but his eyes never left Euijoo’s.

Silence stretched, the awkwardness thickening until it felt almost tangible. Two pairs of eyes fixed on Euijoo, waiting, while he stood there like he’d been nailed to the floor.

Finally, Taki cleared his throat. "Well," he said, shifting his bag over his shoulder. "I'm off for the day, so I'll—”

"I'm here for a piercing," Euijoo blurted out.

Taki’s head swiveled toward him, his brows furrowing beneath his pastel lilac bangs. He glanced at Kei. "Did he have an appointment?"

Euijoo shook his head quickly, his wide eyes flitting nervously between them.

"Euijoo," Kei said slowly, his tone bordering on patronizing. "Like I told you, we aren't taking walk-ins—”

"It’s fine, Kei," Taki cut in, holding up a hand. He looked at Euijoo and offered a small, sympathetic smile. "I can stay for one more. What were you thinking of getting?”

Euijoo shook his head again, fingers tightening around his backpack strap.

Taki’s smile faltered, replaced by a look of pure bewilderment. "No?”

Euijoo wet his dry lips, then squared his shoulders. "I want Nicholas.”

The room went quiet again. Taki looked genuinely stunned, while Kei didn't even try to hide his amusement; he buried a grin behind his fist, his shoulders shaking.

"Nico is busy," Kei said, his voice dancing with irony. "He’s finishing up a full sleeve. Besides," he jerked his head toward Taki, "Taki is our piercer. You’re in good hands, kid. Don't worry, he won't bite.”

Taki offered him another gentle, encouraging smile and took a step forward.

Taki offered him another gentle, encouraging smile and took a step forward.

Euijoo instantly recoiled, stumbling backward, his gaze darting toward the back door like he might bolt for it, like he might run straight through and find Nicholas himself—

Kei let out a long, weary sigh. “Hey, kid—”

Euijoo’s head snapped toward him, his eyes flashing. “It’s Euijoo,” he snapped.

Kei raised his hands in mock surrender, his brows climbing toward his hairline. “Euijoo,” he corrected. “Listen—Nicholas doesn’t do piercings. That’s Taki’s lane.”

“Could you just ask him?” Euijoo rushed out, his voice tight with desperation. “Please?”

Kei paused. He shared a long, silent look with Taki, something unspoken passing between them. When he looked back at Euijoo, his voice had dropped into a calmer, more placating register.

“Alright,” Kei said, slow and careful, as though he were dealing with a frightened animal. “Just... calm down, alright? Taki will go ask the boss if he can squeeze you in. Right, Taki?”

Taki hesitated, clearly caught between concern and reluctance.

“Please,” Euijoo begged again. He didn’t have much left to fight with, so he leaned into his own vulnerability, summoning his best wide, doe-eyed look, the one that usually got him anything he wanted.

Taki let out a sigh of pure resignation. “Okay,” he murmured, turning toward the back door. “I’ll see what he says.”

“Tell him it’s Blue,” Euijoo called out just as Taki reached for the handle.

Taki paused. He looked back over his shoulder, shooting Kei a worried stare that clearly suggested he thought Euijoo was either losing his mind or riding a very strange high. Without a word, he stepped into the back room and let the door swing shut behind him.

Euijoo stared at the closed door, his fingers twisting the strap of his backpack. He was mercilessly worrying the raw skin of his lip, his eyes never leaving the spot where Taki had vanished.

"Euijoo," Kei called out, his voice a little too bright for the room. "Why don't you have a seat? You look like you're about to vibrate through the floor. Relax."

Euijoo turned slowly, looking at Kei with a ginger, guarded expression. Kei flashed a toothy, shark-like grin and nodded toward the seating area.

Reluctantly, Euijoo retreated to the brown bench. A rectangular glass coffee table sat before him, cluttered with tattoo magazines, art books, and a vase of artificial yellow and purple flowers that looked too cheerful for his current mood. He sat stiffly, his back a rigid line, while his right leg began to bounce uncontrollably. He kept sneaking glances at the back door, waiting for it to swing open.

"Want a snack?”

Euijoo looked back at the counter. Kei was resting his face in his hands, watching him with blatant curiosity. Beside him sat a bowl full of soft, chewy pink candies.

"They’re strawberry flavored," Kei grinned. "Good for the nerves."

"No, thanks," Euijoo mumbled, fixating on a spot on the floor.

"So, where’s the boyfriend?" Kei went on, completely undeterred by the dismissal.

Euijoo’s entire body tensed.

"I always thought couples who got matching ink came as a package deal," Kei continued. "Shouldn't he be here? You know, for emotional support. It’s a big step, getting a needle through your skin.”

Euijoo shot him an irritated look, but it only made Kei’s grin widen.

He knows, Euijoo thought, his stomach cramping with fresh dread. He has to know. Had he already told Nicholas? Was the whole shop in on the secret?

The back door clicked open before Euijoo could spiral into a full panic. He whipped around so fast his neck hurt and stared at Taki.

“I guess I’m not needed after all,” Taki said, his mouth twisting into a playful smirk.

Euijoo’s pulse gave a violent jump. "What... what does that mean?"

"Nik will take you," Taki said casually, walking past him toward the exit.

Euijoo’s heart leapt so hard it almost hurt. He bit his lip hard, trying to anchor himself, and forced his legs to stay still to stifle the sudden, childish urge to bounce. 

"But you’re going to have to wait for a while," Taki added, pausing by the gate to adjust his bag.

"That’s okay!" Euijoo rushed out. He couldn't help it, he bounced once in place, his backpack shifting with the movement. "I can wait. I don't mind.”

Taki glanced at the clock on the wall, his expression skeptical. "It might be hours, man. He’s right in the middle of some heavy detail work."

"It’s fine," Euijoo assured him, his voice rising with a giddiness he couldn't suppress. "Really. I'll wait as long as it takes.”

Taki exchanged an amused look with Kei before shrugging lightly. “Alright then.”

Kei clapped his hands together once. “Well, guess I’ve got company for the rest of the evening.” He tilted his head toward the mounted TV in the corner. “Wanna watch something? Or should I put on one of those deep-sea documentaries to match the vibe in here?”

Taki snorted softly under his breath and took that as his cue to leave, slipping out through the front without another word.

Euijoo looked down at his lap, his shoulders shaking with a tiny, silent laugh. He had to press his lips together to keep from grinning like a madman. 

Nicholas said yes. Nicholas said yes.

"Well?" Kei prompted, leaning over the counter.

Euijoo glanced up, his mood brightening so rapidly he actually flashed Kei a genuine, giddy smile. "I’m just going to check these out," he said, grabbing the nearest tattoo magazine with renewed interest.

Kei watched him for a second, visibly entertained by the transformation.

“Cute,” he muttered under his breath before shrugging and reaching for his laptop. “Suit yourself.”

Euijoo flipped through the magazines, but the ink-heavy pages were just a blur of skin and color. His focus was entirely elsewhere. He was going to see Nicholas. He could hardly believe it, yet deep down, a secret, arrogant part of him had known Nicholas would say yes.

What should I say? The question became a loop, his imagination working overtime to script the perfect encounter. The stolen ring and the flimsy piercing excuse were completely forgotten, replaced by a series of increasingly daring fantasies. He held the magazine higher, using it as a shield to hide his flaming cheeks and the stupid grin pulling at his lips.

What if I just kissed him? The thought made his stomach flip with a dizzying rush of adrenaline. How would Nicholas react? Would he freeze in surprise? Laugh awkwardly? Push him away gently?

Yeah. He’d probably turn him down gently.

Euijoo remembered the way Nicholas had handled him with such gentle patience during his panic attack. He remembered the warmth of those hands soothing him, the soft voice and genuine smile, and the way the strict professional mask had slipped to reveal something human and sweet underneath. 

The fear of being thrown out suddenly evaporated.

Blue. He called me Blue. Like I’m a missing piece of his world that finally made it home.

He flipped another page. His leg was no longer bouncing with anxiety; now, it moved in time with the low, experimental pulse of the shop’s music. Minutes dragged into an hour, but Euijoo didn't mind the wait. He would stay until the sun came up if it meant being the last person in the room with Nicholas.

At one point, Kei started chatting again. Instead of shrinking away, Euijoo indulged him. He nodded and offered soft replies, listening as Kei’s cheerful voice drifted from one subject to the next, while he sat there glowing with anticipation.

"...so I’m pounding on my neighbor’s door," Kei was saying, his hands flying animatedly as he got into the story. "I was losing my mind, right? It had been hours, the sun was down, and she was nowhere. I’m thinking she’s been snatched, or she’s joined some kitty gang—I’m on the verge of a total breakdown. My neighbor tells me to chill, says he'll help me search once he grabs a hoodie. Then he walks out of his bedroom clutching his stomach, laughing his head off. I’m like, What the hell is wrong with you? He just gestures for me to follow him, points to his open closet, and there she is. Dead to the world on a pile of his sweaters. Imagine! I was ready to call the police, and she’s just napping in Sungho’s laundry like she pays rent.”

Euijoo snickered, sucking strawberry sugar from his teeth. “Okay, but how did she even get in there?” he asked. “And how did your neighbor not notice a whole cat sleeping in his closet?”

Kei pointed at him like that proved something. “Exactly! That’s what I said.” He leaned forward across the counter, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “I think she’s cheating on me with him.”

Euijoo let out another giggle. “She probably likes his closet more than your apartment.”

Kei gasped theatrically, like he'd just been slapped. “Wow. Okay. You come into my workplace and insult my parenting?”

Euijoo opened his mouth, ready with another smart remark, but the heavy door suddenly swung open, and he nearly leapt out of his skin.

A man in his thirties stepped out from the back room looking absolutely wrecked. He wore a loose gray tank top, his entire left arm wrapped in fresh protective film from shoulder to wrist. Beneath the transparent layer, the tattoo gleamed raw and violently vivid, the colors almost wet-looking under the lights. Even from where he sat, Euijoo could see the angry redness around the ink.

Despite the spark of excitement flaring in his chest, the sight still made Euijoo’s skin crawl.

“Ooh,” Kei whistled appreciatively. “That looks disgusting. I love it. Nico really beat your ass today.”

The man let out a tired laugh. “Seven hours,” he muttered. He didn’t spare Euijoo a glance as he dug his wallet from his sweats pocket. “I think my soul left my body around hour four.”

Euijoo licked his lips, his heart beginning to hammer against his ribs. He stared at the heavy door as it slowly drifted shut.

It was time.

He stood slowly, grabbing his backpack and swinging it over his shoulder. When he glanced back, Kei was already grinning at him. 

“Good luck.”

Euijoo’s heart skipped a beat, his eyes widening in a flash of panic. For a split second, he was certain Kei had peeled back his skull and read every obsessive thought inside.

"For the piercing," Kei added, his grin turning playful. "Try not to pass out in there."

Right. The piercing.

Euijoo forced a tight smile and gave a stiff thumbs-up before turning toward the back door, his pulse accelerating with every step until it became the only thing he could hear.

The moment the heavy door swung shut behind him, the rest of the world seemed to fall away.

He moved down the short hallway with the slow, floating gait of someone caught inside a vivid dream. The scent reached him first: that same heavy cocktail of metallic tang and sharp medicinal undertones, instantly dragging him back to the first day he stepped into Ultramarine. It hit him like a drug, something intoxicating that pulled him deeper in. He sucked in a shallow breath and pushed through the beaded curtains. They tinkled softly as the room swallowed him whole, like he’d stepped through a dimensional gate.

Suddenly, Euijoo was standing in a lavender-lit dreamscape, and Nicholas was there.

Nicholas stood with his back to him at his station, head lowered in concentration as he worked. Euijoo’s gaze latched onto him instantly, drinking him in with ravenous intensity.

Nicholas wore a loose, faded gray flannel over dark blue denim jeans, chunky black sneakers adding extra height to his already imposing frame. His ash-blond hair curled softly against the collar of his shirt, the pale strands glowing silver beneath the lavender lights.

Nicholas paused mid-motion, then he turned around slowly, and Euijoo almost forgot how breathing worked.

The flannel hung loose on Nicholas’s frame, barely buttoned at all. Pale, milky skin glowed beneath the dark fabric, smooth and almost luminous beneath the soft lighting. Euijoo’s gaze dropped shamelessly to Nicholas’s hips, where his jeans sat dangerously low. The gray waistband of his boxers was on full display, the small detail making the room feel suddenly ten times hotter. 

“Blue,” Nicholas said in lieu of greeting.

Euijoo’s eyes snapped up, his heart performing a frantic somersault as his gaze collided with those piercing, dark depths.

"Though you’re not exactly blue today," Nicholas added, the corner of his mouth tilting in the ghost of a smirk.

Euijoo blinked dazedly, looking down at his plain striped tee and jeans, belatedly realizing Nicholas was teasing him about abandoning the theme. He let out a breathy laugh and took a tentative step forward.

“Hi," he said softly, his confidence wavering as he glanced around the station. "I’m sorry for... popping up unannounced.”

“Hm.” Nicholas hummed low in his throat. His gaze swept over Euijoo’s frame, lingering on his backpack as he took a slow step closer. 

“Straight from school?” he asked. “Must've been urgent.”

He took another step, the heady scent of ink and sakura drifting through the air. 

"Did you fall asleep at your desk," his voice dropped into a quiet murmur, "and have a prophecy about a piercing? Is that why you're here?” 

Euijoo’s heart stuttered, a wild swarm of butterflies erupting in his stomach, but he forced himself to hold Nicholas’s gaze.

"Something like that," he mumbled.

Nicholas’s lips twitched as he took one last step, finally closing the distance. Suddenly, he was too close. His aura was heavy and imposing, a magnetic force that seemed to pull the very oxygen out of the room. Euijoo forced his sneakers to stay glued to the floor, refusing to cower or step back even as he felt the heat bloom bright and burning across his cheeks.

"And what did this prophecy reveal to you?" Nicholas asked.

"Huh?" Euijoo asked stupidly, his brain short-circuiting as he tried to remember how to breathe.

Nicholas let out a quiet breath of laughter. "The piercing," he clarified. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

"Oh." Euijoo swallowed thickly. "Um…”

His gaze darted around the room, desperately searching for an answer. His eyes trailed over the blue paintings and the vintage tin signs on the walls, buying himself precious seconds of silence. Finally, his gaze landed on the chair on the other side of the room—the same one where the girl from his first visit had waited for Taki.

"Navel," Euijoo blurted out.

Nicholas’s brows rose beneath his messy bangs. "Bold choice," he said. His gaze dropped, tracking a slow path down to Euijoo’s stomach, lingering there a beat too long. "Are you sure about that, Euijoo?"

Euijoo was so distracted by the weight of those eyes on his midsection, and the way his name sounded coming from those soft, pink lips, that it took a moment for the question to even register.

"Totally," he said, forcing a confidence he didn't possess. His voice came out a bit too high, a bit too fast.

Nicholas didn't move. He studied Euijoo with a silent, heavy intensity for a long moment, his eyes searching Euijoo’s face for the truth.

Euijoo shifted in place, his backpack suddenly feeling twice as heavy as sweat began to prickle across the back of his neck. "What?" he muttered, unable to bear the silence.

Nicholas gave him a pointed look. "I don't want a repeat of what happened last time," he said quietly. "Are you sure you’re ready for a needle to go through your flesh? An actual needle this time, Euijoo.”

Euijoo felt his lungs constrict. He tried to steady his breathing, forcing a stiff, resolute nod. "I’m sure."

Nicholas continued watching him, his thoughts unreadable behind those dark eyes. Finally, he took a slow step back, breaking the strange charged tension between them, and gestured toward the tattoo chair in the corner.

“Take a seat,” he commanded softly.

Euijoo walked to the couch first, buying himself a few precious seconds of distance as he dropped his backpack. He lingered there, drawing a quiet, deep breath into his belly and letting it out with agonizing slowness. Behind him, he could hear Nicholas moving around the station, the metallic clink of tools being laid out on a tray, the rustle of gloves.

“Euijoo?” Nicholas called.

Euijoo turned around, his eyes flitting between the chair and Nicholas, who stood beside it like a surgeon.

Cut it out, that tiny, dying voice of reason hissed in his head. Just tell him why you’re really here.

"Having second thoughts?" Nicholas asked, cocking his head slightly as he observed Euijoo’s hesitation.

"No," Euijoo mumbled, stubborn even as his knees felt weak. "I want it.”

"Then come here," Nicholas said quietly.

Euijoo’s throat bobbed nervously as he crossed the floor. He sat on the edge of the chair, the cold vinyl squeaking under his weight. Everything felt too clinical, too sterile; the scent of isopropyl alcohol was a biting sting in his nostrils now, cutting through the comforting sakura lingering on Nicholas’s flannel.

Nicholas stepped closer, looking down at him. "Lie back for me," he instructed, his hand resting on the headrest just inches from Euijoo’s hair.

Euijoo obeyed, his spine stiffening as he let his weight settle against the chair. His heart stuttered when Nicholas leaned over him. Nicholas's arm brushed against his side as he gripped the adjustment lever. The backrest began to lower slowly. Euijoo felt a momentary sense of weightlessness, his stomach flip-dropping as the bed reclined until he was nearly flat on his back, staring up at the soft lavender glow of the ceiling.

Nicholas remained leaned over him, his shadow draped across Euijoo’s body like a second layer of weight. 

"Comfortable?" Nicholas murmured, his dark eyes boring down into Euijoo’s.

Euijoo nodded quickly, not trusting his voice enough to speak.

The corner of Nicholas’s mouth lifted faintly, before he stepped back and turned toward his workstation. Euijoo seized the split second of privacy to panic in silence. He pressed his lips together until they ached and gave his legs a quick, frantic shake, trying to physically rattle the cortisol out of his system.

When Nicholas turned back, he was holding a cotton swab soaked in antiseptic. The alcohol scent was so thick that Euijoo could almost taste the bitterness on the back of his tongue.

"Lift your shirt up," Nicholas said calmly.

Euijoo’s fingers dropped to the hem automatically. They fidgeted uselessly with the fabric for a second before he finally started pulling it up, stopping when the cotton bunched awkwardly beneath his ribs. He kept his gaze lowered, a sudden, crushing wave of self-consciousness hitting him. He felt too small, too thin, painfully undeveloped compared to the powerful man standing over him. 

He sucked in a sharp breath as the cold cotton finally made contact. His stomach muscles spasmed on instinct, pulling inward as Nicholas swiped the swab in a slow, precise circle around his navel.

Nicholas’s gaze flicked up to Euijoo’s face, his hand lingering, his thumb grazing the very edge of Euijoo’s hip bone to steady the movement.

"C-cold," Euijoo stammered, the heat in his cheeks reaching a fever pitch.

Nicholas didn't pull his hand away immediately. He let the silence stretch for a heartbeat, his eyes tracking the way Euijoo’s skin shivered under his touch. He offered a small, private smile before stepping back. 

Euijoo’s wide eyes tracked Nicholas’s every movement with a frantic focus. Nicholas reached for a surgical marker and kicked his rolling stool closer, dropping onto it with a casual, predatory grace. He caught the marker between his lips, his gaze locked onto Euijoo’s as he uncapped it with his teeth.

"What's... what's that for?" Euijoo whispered, his heartbeat accelerating.

"Just marking the map, Blue," Nicholas said, his voice muffled slightly until the cap was gone.

He leaned over the chair, one gloved hand landing on Euijoo’s lower stomach, his palm heavy as it grazed the denim waistband of his jeans. The other hand, holding the marker, hovered just inches above Euijoo’s navel.

Euijoo’s pulse was a riot now, his stomach fluttering with every shallow breath.

"Euijoo, I need you to stay still for me," Nicholas said, his dark eyes searing. "Take a deep breath and hold it. Can you do that?”

Euijoo jerked his head in a desperate nod, but his lungs felt like they were filled with water. Nicholas’s thumb began to move, slowly caressing the delicate skin in the small dip just above the waistband. The friction of the latex was electric, sending a jolt through Euijoo’s spine that made his toes curl.

Focused entirely on that touch, Euijoo finally managed to draw in a shaky breath. He held it, his stomach bulging ever so slightly beneath Nicholas’s hand.

"You have a really perfect belly button, you know," Nicholas murmured. His head was so low now that his warm breath fanned across Euijoo’s skin, making the fine hairs there stand on end.

The tip of the marker touched the rim of Euijoo's navel, leaving behind a tiny purple dot.

"Perfectly vertical," Nicholas added, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. The marker touched the skin again, just above the first mark, leaving a second purple dot. "It’s going to look beautiful on you.”

Euijoo’s entire body went molten. If this was Nicholas’s way of distracting him, it was a spectacular failure; the low-murmured praise so close to his skin only made the desperate longing in his chest burn hotter.

He was snapped out of his daze when Nicholas let out a quiet laugh, his hand slipping away from Euijoo’s stomach as he straightened.

"You can let that breath go now," he said, a faint, indulgent smile playing on his lips.

Euijoo exhaled in a shaky rush. His fingers immediately caught on the bunched hem of his shirt, twisting the fabric nervously. His eyes followed Nicholas as he turned toward the tray and set the marker aside. 

Then Nicholas reached for another instrument, and Euijoo felt his stomach drop straight to his ass. 

The tool looked horrifying, metallic and clinical, something halfway between scissors and a torture device, with a triangular open-ended tip that made cold panic flood straight through him.

Suddenly the room felt airless. Euijoo sucked in a panicked breath, his entire body seizing in the chair.

"W-what’s... what is that?" he squeaked, too frightened to care how pathetic he sounded.

Nicholas rolled closer immediately, the wheels of the stool gliding softly against the floor. His hand settled back against Euijoo’s lower stomach, warm and grounding through the latex glove. "Relax," he murmured. "Don't look at it. Look at me.”

But Euijoo was paralyzed, his gaze glued to the nightmare of cold steel hovering near his skin.

"Up here, Blue," Nicholas commanded softly.

The name worked like a physical tether. Euijoo tore his gaze away and locked onto Nicholas’s dark eyes, his own wide and aching with icy terror.

"That's it," Nicholas whispered, his gaze intense but grounding. "Just stay with me. This is going to feel like a firm pinch, okay? Nothing you can't handle. Just keep looking at me and keep breathing."

Euijoo nodded jerkily, his lips trembling so violently he had to bite down on his lower lip to stifle the tremors. He tasted the faint, copper tang of his own fear.

"Ready?" Nicholas asked, his gaze dropping to the purple dots. "On three. One... two…”

The moment the heavy, cold weight touched his skin, Euijoo’s eyes squeezed shut. Then, the metal clamped down. A sharp burst of pressure shot through his stomach, strange and deeply wrong, painful enough to rip. petrified, broken whimper out of his throat.

Suddenly, he wasn’t in Ultramarine anymore. The lavender glow vanished, replaced by a harsh clinical white that bled through his tightly closed lids, searing his retinas. The air turned frigid against his skin, heavy with the scent of ozone and frozen flesh.

He was naked from the waist up, his skin prickling unpleasantly as gloved hands held him down. Though his eyes were clamped shut, he could feel it: the silver gleam of a long, impossibly sharp needle hovering over his midsection, ready to drive through his navel and pin him to the bed like an insect in a display case.

Euijoo tried to scream, but no sound came out. He began to thrash, his head whipping violently from side to side as he fought against the phantom restraints.

Please, please, he begged in the hollow silence of his mind. Don’t. Please don't.

"Euijoo. Euijoo, look at me."

The cold void shattered. Warm hands cupped his cheeks, broad and solid, grounding against his boiling skin.

"Euijoo," Nicholas’s voice cut cleanly through the high-pitched ringing in his ears, pulling him upward through the dark.

Euijoo gasped out a jagged breath like he’d just surfaced from deep underwater. His eyes flew open, his vision blurry and swimming with dark spots. Nicholas was right there, his face mere inches away. The usual impassive, cool mask had crumbled, his features shadowed with heavy worry that looked out of place. 

"Hey," Nicholas murmured soothingly, his thumbs tracing slow circles over his cheekbones. "It's okay. There’s no needle, baby. You’re okay. Just breathe.”

Euijoo realized his mouth was moving, his jaw clicking with the force of his tremors. His voice was a ghostly wreck as he repeated a single word like a mantra. 

“Needle,” he whispered under his breath. “Needle… needle…”

"Look at me," Nicholas urged. He gently guided Euijoo’s face back to center, his palms acting as a warm vise to keep Euijoo from drifting back into the white void. "There is no needle, Euijoo. Look. It’s just you and me in here. You’re safe.”

Euijoo’s chest heaved, his breath wheezing through his throat like a broken whistle. He forced his neck to stay still, desperate to anchor himself to the solid weight of Nicholas’s bare fingers and the magnetic pull of those dark, unwavering eyes.

"That's it," Nicholas whispered, his gaze intense and focused. "Follow my lead. Take a slow, deep breath. Fill your lungs.”

Euijoo sucked in the air, his entire frame shuddering with the effort, his ribs aching as they expanded.

"Hold it," Nicholas commanded, his thumbs sweeping once across Euijoo’s cheekbones. "Keep it there. Just for a second.”

Euijoo obeyed, his eyes locked onto Nicholas’s as the world began to come into focus. Awareness flooded back into his body with the force of a physical blow: the burn in his lungs, the frantic trembling of his fingers as they gripped the armrests, the way his legs were locked into rigid, aching pillars. His toes were cramped inside his sneakers, his body still primed for a fight that wasn't coming.

His hands let go of the vinyl chair, his fingers searching blindly until they found Nicholas’s wrists. He gripped them with a drowning man’s strength, feeling the steady pulse beneath Nicholas’s skin.

"Now, let it go through your nose. Slowly," Nicholas murmured. "One breath at a time.”

Euijoo exhaled shakily. His fingers tightened helplessly around Nicholas’s wrists as the breath left him in a thin stream. Another followed. Then another. With each slow exhale, the panic loosened its claws a little more. The crushing pressure in his chest eased first. Then the violent trembling beneath his skin softened into smaller aftershocks. His heartbeat, which had been battering wildly against his ribs moments ago, gradually slowed into something less frantic. His entire body began to sag back into the chair at last, muscles unwinding one by one under Nicholas’s unwavering gaze.

"There you are," Nicholas whispered.

Euijoo blinked slowly, the fog in his head clearing at once. The first thing he registered was the proximity; Nicholas was so close that their air was shared. The black gloves were gone, discarded somewhere in the chaos, and Nicholas’s large, bare palms were still cradling his face, thumbing the heat into his skin.

Euijoo’s gaze traveled helplessly over Nicholas’s features. God, he was beautiful. Up close, the perfection of his face was almost painful. His eyes drifted lower, snagging on Nicholas’s lips. So soft-looking. So pink. They were slightly parted, revealing just a hint of his teeth.

I could just lean in, Euijoo thought, the unhinged impulse sparking in his brain like a live wire. I could kiss him and blame the shock.

But then, as if Nicholas could read every desperate, cunning thought flickering through Euijoo's mind, those lips stretched into a slow, knowing smile; the soft display of white teeth told Euijoo he was caught.

Euijoo’s face ignited. He jerked his gaze downward in hot shame, focusing on his own bare stomach. One hand slipped from Nicholas’s wrist, his fingers gliding down his belly. He pressed his thumb against the rim of his navel, feeling the smooth, unmarred skin.

"You... you didn't do it?" he asked, looking up at Nicholas through the dark fringe of his lashes.

Nicholas held his gaze, that faint, amused smile still lingering. He shook his head slowly. No.

Euijoo licked his lips. "But I felt it. There was a needle," he mumbled, his brows knitting.

"There was no needle, Euijoo," Nicholas said quietly. 

One of his hands slid from Euijoo’s cheek, trailing down his chest until it landed on his stomach. He gently pushed Euijoo’s hand away, replacing the contact with his own bare palm. Euijoo sucked his stomach in on instinct, a stuttered, embarrassingly loud breath escaping him.

"I never brought a needle over here," Nicholas said. His thumb began to trace the rim of Euijoo’s navel in a featherlight, agonizingly slow circle that made Euijoo’s entire frame tremble. He arched into the touch before he could stop himself.

"I was never going to do it," Nicholas added. "But tell me something, Euijoo.” 

Euijoo’s heart was back to racing, a cocktail of fear and starving anticipation tangling in his gut. Nicholas leaned in just a fraction more, his gaze pinning Euijoo to the chair like the very needle he had feared.

"Why are you really here?”

Euijoo swallowed hard, his throat so dry it ached. "I just wanted to see you," he whispered, his pulse a wild drumbeat in his ears. 

His hand inched closer until his fingers grazed the back of Nicholas’s hand where it still rested on his stomach. When Nicholas didn’t pull away, Euijoo slowly covered his hand with his own, pressing it down against him. 

Nicholas’s eyes dropped to their joined hands. Euijoo’s gaze followed, his mouth parting around a heavy exhale at the sight: Nicholas’s large hand splayed across his stomach, nearly covering the entire span of his torso, and Euijoo’s smaller hand clutching it tight. It made his waist look impossibly narrow, his body appearing fragile and tiny. 

Nicholas’s other hand finally let go of his cheek, but it didn't retreat. He brushed Euijoo’s soft bangs aside, his fingers lingering against his forehead in a gesture that was far too intimate for a professional setting.

Euijoo leaned into the touch, his eyelids growing heavy as the last of the cold panic melted into a blooming, feverish heat. He was sinking into the vinyl of the chair, his bones turning to liquid.

"This is wrong, Euijoo," Nicholas said. His voice remained low, sounding far more patient than it should.

Euijoo dropped his gaze immediately, shame crawling hot beneath his skin. His eyes fixed instead on the open collar of Nicholas’s flannel, on the pale strip of skin visible beneath it.

“You know that, right?” Nicholas continued softly. “Showing up here just to see me. Insisting I’m the one who pierces you when it’s not even my job.” His thumb pressed more firmly into the center of Euijoo’s navel, the pressure sending a wave of molten heat crashing through Euijoo’s lower stomach. “It’s highly inappropriate.”

Euijoo trailed his eyes upward until they collided with Nicholas’s again. He bit his lip, his voice a mere thread of sound. "Does it happen a lot?”

Nicholas tilted his head slightly, his other thumb still brushing slow strokes near Euijoo’s temple. “Sometimes,” he admitted.

"And," Euijoo breathed, his lashes fluttering as Nicholas’s hand flexed against the hollow of his stomach, his thumb digging a fraction deeper into his navel. “How do you usually deal with it?”

Nicholas gave him a pointed look. “I tell them it’s inappropriate.”

Not that you're taken, Euijoo thought, his mind racing. Just inappropriate because this is your workplace? He swiped his tongue over his dry lips, his gaze fixated on Nicholas's mouth. "And what if they... insist?" he asked, his eyes widening with a mix of terror and daring. "What do you do then?”

Nicholas studied him with a quiet intensity, the silence stretching until Euijoo felt sweat gathering at the back of his neck. His heart thumped so hard against his ribs it was almost painful, but he refused to be the first to look away.

"They don't," Nicholas answered at last, his voice dropping an octave. “Most people know when to back off.”

His gaze darkened the longer Euijoo held it, turning almost pitch-black beneath the shadows of his lashes, and Euijoo could’ve sworn there was something simmering underneath it now. Something dangerous, almost challenging.

Euijoo’s mouth went bone-dry. His breathing turned shallow, loud enough that he was suddenly hyperaware of every inhale between them.

Then Nicholas smiled. The intimidating intensity melted away in an instant, replaced by a slow-burning heat. His lashes lowered as his gaze traveled a searing path down Euijoo’s face, over his throat, and down to the flat expanse of his stomach where their hands still rested together.

"Though I have to admit," Nicholas said, his voice dropping to a sinful, low murmur. "I’ve never had anyone do this before. Coming here straight after school, looking so desperate and urgent... demanding to see me.” His teeth caught his plush lower lip for a fleeting second before his eyes dragged back up to meet Euijoo’s. "Baring such a cute, little tummy just to get my attention.”

A low whine built in Euijoo’s throat at the teasing, his cheeks stinging with humiliation. He let go of Nicholas’s wrist and reached for the hem of his shirt, desperate to cover himself. But before he could pull the fabric down, Nicholas’s hand shot downward, clamping over Euijoo’s fingers and pinning them against his ribs.

"Don't," Nicholas ordered. His eyes flashed with a sudden warning that made Euijoo’s blood turn to hot liquid.

Euijoo’s breath snagged hard in his chest. This time the whine escaped him fully, soft and helpless, his face folding into a sulky pout.

 Nicholas’s gaze dropped immediately to his mouth, and he bit his own lip, his expression darkening. Slowly, he pried Euijoo’s hand away and let it fall limply to his side before taking hold of the hem himself. He lifted it higher, dragging the fabric over Euijoo’s ribs, over the frantic thud of his heart, until the shirt was bunched high against his collarbones.

Euijoo held perfectly still, his chest rising and falling in shallow, rapid bursts.

Nicholas’s gaze was burning now, the calm restraint he’d been wearing like a suit of armor finally beginning to melt. His eyes were ravenous, tracing the golden, delicate lines of Euijoo’s frame, the slight protrusion of his ribs, the way his stomach flinched and fluttered with every breath.

“You’re so perfect,” Nicholas murmured at last, his voice roughened into something deeper.

Euijoo let out another breathy, needy sound, his head lolling back against the headrest.

Nicholas extended a single finger, the tip tracing a slow line from the upper purple dot on Euijoo’s navel all the way up the center of his chest. "I would have tattooed the prettiest, bluest flowers here," he whispered, his gaze following the path of his own finger with an artist’s obsessive focus. "I would have marked every inch of you... if you weren't so afraid of the needle.”

I would let you do anything, Euijoo thought. I’d let you cut me open just to see what’s inside if you wanted to.

"What kind of flowers?" he asked instead, his voice reduced to a fragile whisper.

Nicholas’s fingernail pressed in just enough to make Euijoo shiver before it dragged slowly beneath his ribs again, sketching invisible petals there. "Bluebells," he rasped, his focus entirely on the canvas of Euijoo’s skin.

"Why bluebells?" Euijoo whispered shakily. His stomach quivered and jumped beneath Nicholas’s touch.

"Because," Nicholas mumbled, his breath ghosting over the very skin he was marking. "They're as pretty as you are." He flicked his eyes up, flashing a lazy smile that made Euijoo’s heart skip hard in his chest. 

Euijoo bit the inside of his cheek, his lashes fluttering.

“And because it’s their time of bloom,” Nicholas added. “They peak in late April and last through early May.”

Like when we met, Euijoo’s delusional mind supplied instantly.

"Why do you like blue so much?" he asked, his eyes searching Nicholas’s face for an answer to more than just the color.

Nicholas regarded him with a strange, unreadable stillness before answering. "Because when I was five, a blue bird spoke to me," he said, his face unnervingly straight.

Euijoo let out a quiet, startled laugh, waiting for the punchline. But Nicholas didn’t join him; he didn't even crack a smile. He just watched Euijoo with those dark, steady eyes.

Euijoo’s smile wavered, his brows pulling together in genuine confusion. "Wait... actually?”

"Yes," Nicholas said, completely serious.

Euijoo offered a small, tentative smile, searching for the joke. 

"No one believed me, of course," Nicholas sighed. "The adults told me it must have been a dream—that I had an overactive imagination and had confused a vivid hallucination with reality."

Euijoo’s expression softened, the skepticism melting into a strange kind of wonder. It made sense; Nicholas lived in a world of art and ink, why wouldn't he have a history of seeing things others couldn't? "And what did the bird say?" he whispered, leaning into the story.

Nicholas flashed him a small, private smile. "That's a secret," he whispered back.

Euijoo giggled shyly, and instinctively bit down on his lower lip to hide his mounting giddiness.

The smile vanished from his face instantly when Nicholas reached out, his thumb pressing firmly against Euijoo’s mouth to pry his lower lip from between his teeth.

"You broke the skin," Nicholas murmured. 

Euijoo’s heart stopped as he felt the rough pad of Nicholas’s thumb rub gently against the bruised, tender skin of his lip. Nicholas’s gaze followed the movement, his eyes darkening as if he were memorizing the exact shade of red blooming on Euijoo’s mouth.

Euijoo parted his mouth wider before he leaned forward and bit gently at the intruding thumb.

Nicholas hissed a sharp breath through his teeth, his dark, heavy gaze snapping up to lock onto Euijoo’s.

"You're a little young for me, baby," Nicholas breathed.

Baby. 

So he hadn't hallucinated it earlier. It was real.

"I'll be twenty-one in four months," Euijoo mumbled, his eyes wide and pleading.

Nicholas let out a raspy laugh. His thumb dragged lower, hooking under Euijoo’s chin to pinch it, forcing him to keep his head tilted back. "Still young," he murmured, though his eyes said something entirely different.

Euijoo pouted, his dignity a distant, forgotten memory. "Please," he begged, the word breaking in the middle. "Please, Nico."

Nicholas smiled at him indulgently. "Please what?" he urged in a slow, coaxing tone. 

Euijoo’s face went into flames, the heat radiating all the way down to his chest. "Please... t-touch me," he whispered. "I won't tell anyone. I promise."

"Yeah?" Nicholas murmured, his gaze dropping to Euijoo’s trembling collarbones.

"Yes," Euijoo nodded jerkily, his pulse frantic. "I swear I won't."

"And can you stay quiet for me, Euijoo?" Nicholas asked. His hand landed back on Euijoo’s stomach, his palm flat and heavy, pinning him to the chair. 

Euijoo nodded again, his bangs flying with the force of his desperation.

Nicholas let out a final, soft breath of amusement. "Okay," he whispered hotly.

Euijoo didn't even have time to brace himself. Nicholas’s hands shot down, his fingers digging into the narrow curve of his waist, and then he leaned in. His mouth found the skin at the center of Euijoo’s chest, his lips pressing firmly against the bone where his heartbeat thudded against his sternum.

Euijoo let out a startled sound that melted into a breathy, helpless moan. His hands clenched into tight fists at his sides, his fingers digging into the dark vinyl of the chair. He held himself rigid, scared that the slightest twitch might shatter the moment, might make Nicholas pull away and leave him aching.

Nicholas hummed against his skin. His lashes fluttered as he pressed another slow kiss to the trembling plane of Euijoo’s flesh. “You taste as sweet as you look,” he murmured, his breath hot and damp against Euijoo’s skin. 

Euijoo’s head tipped back further, his spine arching as he sought more contact. But Nicholas’s strong hands forced them back down, pinning his hips to the chair. 

“Don’t move,” Nicholas commanded softly. He lifted his head just enough to lock eyes with Euijoo. “Stay still and let me make you feel good.” His lips curved into a faint, possessive smile as he added, in a whisper that sent a shiver racing down Euijoo’s spine, “understood?”

Euijoo managed a shaky nod, his throat bobbing with a hard swallow.

Nicholas’s smile deepened, a flicker of satisfaction flashing in his eyes. Then, without breaking that piercing stare for a moment longer, he lowered his head again. His mouth opened, lips parting as they dragged lower, tracing a slow, burning path down Euijoo’s chest.

Euijoo trembled violently, every nerve in his body screaming as he fought the urge to squirm beneath Nicholas’s touch.

“Shh,” Nicholas breathed against his skin soothingly, his teeth nipping lightly at Euijoo’s ribs. One of his hands slid lower, trailing from Euijoo’s waist down to his quivering lower abdomen. His fingers brushed past the waistband of Euijoo’s jeans, dragging slowly until his palm settled heavily over Euijoo’s crotch.

Euijoo squeezed his eyes shut, mortification flooding through him as Nicholas pressed his palm flat against the unmistakable bulge straining against his jeans. 

Nicholas let out a shaky breath against Euijoo’s skin. His mouth opened wider, lips pressing a hungry, open-mouthed kiss to the sensitive flesh just below Euijoo’s navel. “You’ve been hard this whole time?”

Euijoo dared to open his eyes, his gaze dropping down to meet Nicholas’s. 

Nicholas pressed another tender kiss to his stomach, his expression softening. “You’re rock hard, sweetheart,” he murmured as he palmed him slowly.

A soft, desperate whine slipped from Euijoo’s lips, his entire body shuddering under the touch. “You… you make me so hard,” he stammered, his face flushing an even deeper shade of crimson as the words tumbled out clumsily.

Nicholas cooed at him, the sound low and comforting, sending warmth pooling in Euijoo’s chest despite the overwhelming heat elsewhere. Nicholas groaned softly, pressing another kiss to Euijoo’s stomach, then another, as though he couldn’t stop himself, as though he were already addicted to the taste of him. “You’re so fucking cute,” he whispered roughly. His hand moved with a gentle pressure now, coaxing another helpless sound from Euijoo. “Do you have any idea how fucking cute you are?”

“I’ve been told,” Euijoo muttered, puffing out his cheeks in a deep pout. 

All his life, people had called him cute, adorable, always treating him like he was a baby. But he didn't want that from Nicholas. Not right now. 

Nicholas groaned again, the sound rough and deep, as if he were in actual pain. “I’m going to fucking eat you,” he growled, his voice thick with hunger. His mouth descended with renewed ferocity, latching onto the sensitive skin just beneath Euijoo’s navel. He sucked hard, teeth grazing the flesh before biting down.

Euijoo gasped, his restraint shattering in an instant. His hands flew up, fingers sinking into the lush, curled strands of Nicholas’s hair, holding tight.

Nicholas moaned against his skin, the vibration sinking deep into Euijoo’s core. His lips worked furiously, sucking a deep, bruising hickey along Euijoo’s navel line, the wet heat of his mouth leaving the skin tingling and raw.

“Nico,” Euijoo whimpered, his voice breaking as he pushed Nicholas’s face harder against his trembling abdomen. “Mark me.” 

Nicholas groaned in response. His teeth sank deeper, delivering a sharp, stinging bite that made Euijoo’s breath catch painfully in his throat.

Euijoo moaned sharply, the sound high and slicing through the charged silence. Then, remembering Nicholas’s earlier command to stay quiet, he clamped down on his lower lip, biting hard to stifle the desperate sounds clawing at his throat.

Nicholas eased back slightly, his teeth retreating as his tongue flicked out to soothe the angry, purple dents etched into Euijoo’s skin. He hummed low in his throat, the sound almost like a kitten's contented purring.

Euijoo’s fingers stroked Nicholas’s hair as he arched up into him, unable to resist the pull of sensation. Nicholas dragged his tongue lower, his mouth dipping into the sensitive hollow just beneath the waistband of Euijoo’s jeans, the wet heat of his tongue teasing the edge of fabric and flesh. He inhaled deeply, before pressing a lingering kiss to the tender spot.

Finally, Nicholas lifted his head, and Euijoo forgot how to breathe all over again. Nicholas’s face was flushed, a pretty rosy tint blooming high across his cheekbones. His dark eyes shimmered with hunger, his skin glowing with a fine sheen of sweat and desire. He was so beautiful it made Euijoo ache.

Nicholas smiled at him as his fingers dropped to fumble with Euijoo’s zipper. “Yes?” he asked, his voice a teasing whisper.

Euijoo swallowed hard, his throat tight with nerves. His gaze darted to the beaded curtains. “What if Kei comes in?” he asked, his voice small as he looked back at Nicholas with wide, anxious eyes.

“He won’t,” Nicholas replied simply, his fingers dragging the zipper down slowly.

“But what if he does?” Euijoo insisted.

Nicholas tutted softly, a gentle reprimand as he arched a brow, his curly ash-blond bangs falling just over his piercing gaze. “Do you not trust me?” 

“I do,” Euijoo said immediately.

“Then relax for me,” Nicholas murmured, his tone softening as his fingers hooked into the waistband of Euijoo’s jeans. “I’m going to make you feel so good, Euijoo. Just let me take care of you.”

Euijoo let out a shaky breath. He nodded, forcing himself to ease back into the chair, his body going limp with surrender.

“That’s it,” Nicholas praised. His eyes flicked over Euijoo with a mix of hunger and tenderness. “Lift your hips up for me.”

“Then relax for me,” Nicholas murmured, his tone softening as his fingers hooked into the waistband of Euijoo’s jeans. “I’m going to make you feel so good, Euijoo. Just let me take care of you.”

Euijoo let out a shaky breath, his chest rising and falling unevenly. He nodded, forcing himself to ease back into the chair, his body going limp with surrender.

“That’s it,” Nicholas praised. His eyes flicked over Euijoo with a mix of hunger and tenderness. “Lift your hips up for me.”

Euijoo obeyed, raising his hips slightly, the movement awkward but eager. Nicholas tugged at the jeans, dragging the rough denim down until they bunched at Euijoo’s knees. A fresh wave of self-consciousness crashed over Euijoo as he caught sight of his bare skin, at how soft and pale his thighs looked. 

Euijoo instinctively squeezed his legs together. But Nicholas’s large palms clamped down on his thighs, parting them again, his fingers pressing into the tender flesh as he hitched Euijoo’s knees up higher, spreading his thighs even wider. “You’re so perfect here,” Nicholas breathed, his ravenous gaze fixated on the delicate skin of Euijoo’s inner thighs. “So damn soft.”

Euijoo let out a high, desperate whine, his lashes fluttering as heat surged through him.

Nicholas dragged his palms up and down the length of Euijoo’s thighs, his thumbs digging into the plush flesh with a possessive edge before his fingers trailed upward. Hooking into the elastic of Euijoo’s underwear, he yanked them down in one swift motion, letting the fabric pool with his jeans.

Euijoo’s straining erection sprang free, bobbing heavily in the cool air. The tip was leaking so profusely that it caught briefly on the fabric of his boxers before they snagged down completely. Fresh heat flooded Euijoo’s face at how visibly desperate and wet he was.

“Oh, baby,” Nicholas whispered, his gaze raking hungrily over the long, veiny length before him. His eyes darkened, lips parting slightly as if in awe. “So swollen. You’re this worked up just from some kissing on your tummy?”

“Stop teasing me,” Euijoo muttered, a spark of irritation flaring in his chest as he shot Nicholas a weak scowl.

Nicholas let out a low, amused chuckle, the sound vibrating with dark mischief. “Or what?” he taunted, his tongue poking between his teeth. One hand wrapped around the base of Euijoo’s cock, fingers curling with a confident grip.

Euijoo hissed sharply at the contact, twitching hard in Nicholas's hand. 

“Hm?” Nicholas pressed. He slid his hand up and down slowly, testing the girth, feeling every pulse and twitch beneath his fingers. “What will you do? Leave?”

Euijoo’s scowl deepened, even as his lashes fluttered as Nicholas began to jerk him off. 

He was utterly at Nicholas’s mercy, and they both knew it. He couldn’t leave, couldn’t risk messing this up. This moment, this fleeting, stolen intimacy, might be the only time he ever got to have Nicholas like this. The thought pierced through him, a hot, molten ache blooming in his chest. Nicholas didn’t belong to him. He was taken, claimed by someone else, and Euijoo was just a temporary indulgence.

“Nicholas, please,” Euijoo begged, his voice cracking with raw emotion. His hand reached out, trembling as it cupped Nicholas’s cheek, his thumb brushing over the soft, flushed skin in a tender caress, desperate for more than just the physical.

The teasing mask slipped from Nicholas’s face in an instant, replaced by a look of pure, unguarded desire. His features twisted with need, his teeth sinking into his lower lip as the last of his restraint snapped. Without another word, he sank down, taking Euijoo’s cock deep into the wet heat of his mouth. 

Euijoo gasped, his head tipping back against the chair as Nicholas’s lips enveloped him, sucking with a fierce hunger that stole the breath from his lungs. 

“Nico,” he moaned, his voice breaking as his fingers sank back into Nicholas’s soft hair, tugging with desperate need. Nicholas hummed deeply around him and tightened his mouth, bobbing his head up and down with a rhythm that had Euijoo’s hips jerking uncontrollably against the chair.

Nicholas’s hands clamped down on Euijoo’s waist, fingers digging into the soft flesh with bruising force, pinning him in place as he took him deeper. A faint gag escaped Nicholas’s throat as Euijoo’s length thrust into the tight heat, but he didn’t falter. Instead, he lifted his head just enough to lock eyes with Euijoo, his gaze dark and feral. Then he drooled onto Euijoo’s cock, his spit dribbling down the shaft as he dragged his mouth along the side, lips and tongue teasing the sensitive skin. The wet, obscene sounds filled the air, making Euijoo’s face burn even hotter.

Euijoo moaned, his fingers tightening in Nicholas’s hair, unable to tear his gaze away from the erotic sight before him. 

Nicholas sank back down, taking him even deeper this time, his throat constricting around Euijoo’s length as he choked slightly. His eyes rolled back, a low, guttural moan vibrating around Euijoo as he pushed himself further, driven by a desperate craving. 

“Nicholas,” Euijoo cried out, his neck arching back as his body tensed, the pleasure building to a blinding peak. “Oh my god, Nico—”

Nicholas sucked him off with a savage intensity, like he was starving for every inch of Euijoo’s cock. His mouth was a tight, unrelenting vise, the suction so powerful it curled Euijoo’s toes. He set a brutal rhythm, his thumbs pressing hard into Euijoo’s waist before his hands slid upward. They traveled over the trembling plane of Euijoo’s stomach, until his large palms cupped both of Euijoo’s pecs, squeezing with a possessive grip.

Euijoo’s body jerked wildly, a needy, high-pitched moan tearing from his throat as Nicholas began kneading his tits, his thumbs brushing over Euijoo’s nipples. The dual sensation sent Euijoo spiraling, his mind blanking out under the onslaught.

Euijoo’s fingers tightened in Nicholas’s hair in a warning, tugging so hard at the strands that Nicholas’s head jerked up slightly. But Nicholas only groaned, sealing his lips even tighter around Euijoo’s throbbing length.

“I’m gonna—” Euijoo gasped. His neck strained as he lifted his head, eyes wide and glassy, unable to look away from the sight of Nicholas devouring him. “Nichol—”

The name was cut off in a strangled cry as Nicholas delivered a sharp pinch to both of Euijoo’s nipples, twisting them hard with a wicked precision. The sudden, stinging jolt of pain fused with the building pleasure, shattering the last of Euijoo’s control..

Euijoo’s hands squeezed Nicholas’s head, fingers digging into his scalp with bruising force as his cock throbbed painfully. A searing wave of pleasure tore through his body, every nerve flaring to life as he came hard, a hoarse, broken moan ripping from his throat. He held Nicholas’s face in place, hips jerking uncontrollably as he emptied himself deep into the tight heat of Nicholas’s throat, pulse after pulse of release overwhelming him.

Nicholas moaned deeply, the sound vibrating around Euijoo as he choked slightly on the thick spurts assaulting his throat. But he didn’t pull back, didn’t falter. Instead, he tightened his mouth around Euijoo’s shaft, lips and tongue working to coax out every last drop. His large hands kneaded Euijoo’s chest possessively, fingers still teasing at the swollen nipples as he swallowed greedily, taking everything Euijoo had to give.

Euijoo couldn’t muffle the moans spilling from his lips, each one growing louder and more ragged as Nicholas’s throat spasmed around his pulsing length, making his toes curl with an intensity that bordered on pain. He didn’t want Nicholas to stop. He needed him to keep sucking, to drive him over the edge again. But as Euijoo’s legs began to shake uncontrollably, Nicholas started to pull away, his lips loosening their grip.

“No,” Euijoo groaned,. His hands shoved Nicholas back down, forcing his mouth to take him fully until the sensitive tip of his cock hit the back of Nicholas’s throat.

Nicholas choked around him. His eyes flew open, wide and glistening, tears clinging to his dark lashes as he stared up at him, vulnerability dancing with unbridled desire in his gaze.

“Keep going,” Euijoo moaned, biting his lip so hard he tasted copper. “Please, don’t stop. I need this.”

Nicholas’s eyes rolled back, a deep groan vibrating around Euijoo’s half-hard cock as he gave in completely. His mouth sealed tight again, resuming its relentless pace with renewed hunger. One hand drifted down from Euijoo’s pec, sliding over his trembling stomach until it reached his balls. Two fingers pressed firmly just beneath the sensitive sack, applying a steady pressure while his lips latched onto the swollen head, suckling fervently.

Euijoo saw stars burst across his vision, a sharp cry of surprise tearing from his throat at the dual sensations His fingers tugged hard on Nicholas’s hair, yanking at the pale strands as his hips stuttered and shook. A second wave of blinding euphoria crashed over him, his body jerking wildly as he came again.

Euijoo collapsed back against the chair, panting hard, the air burning in his lungs. His hands slowly eased their death grip on Nicholas’s hair, his thighs falling wide open, splayed with a bone-deep exhaustion. A part of him ached to keep going, to beg Nicholas to unravel him once more, to push past the limits of his body’s endurance. But Nicholas seemed to take the complete surrender as his cue, easing back and releasing Euijoo’s twitching cock with a soft, wet pop.

He didn’t go far, though. Nicholas nuzzled into Euijoo’s lower stomach, his warm, ragged breath fanning over the quivering skin as he pampered it with soft, hot kisses. “You did so good,” he murmured against him, rubbing his nose gently along his pelvis. “So sweet, so delicious.”

Euijoo preened under the praise, a faint moan escaping his throat. With great effort, he lifted his head, staring blearily down at Nicholas through half-lidded eyes. “You did so good too,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and wrecked, barely more than a croak. His hand patted Nicholas’s head weakly, fingers brushing through the tangled strands in a clumsy, affectionate gesture.

Nicholas let out a soft puff of laughter against him, the warm air tickling Euijoo’s skin, before pressing one last lingering kiss to his stomach. Then he pushed himself up, sitting straight in his chair. 

Euijoo followed the motion on instinct, forcing his heavy, leaden limbs to move until he was sitting upright instead of sprawled out. He bit his lip as he stared at Nicholas through the veil of his lashes.

Nicholas offered a small, reassuring smile, his hands moving with gentle care as he tugged Euijoo’s boxers back up, tucking him in with a tenderness that made Euijoo’s chest feel heavy. Euijoo lifted his hips automatically to help, the denim of his jeans scraping against his oversensitive skin as Nicholas pulled them up and zipped them closed. The sound of the zipper closing rang in Euijoo’s ears like a note of finality that twisted his stomach into knots of dread.

This was it, wasn’t it? The end of this stolen moment, this fleeting rush of intimacy. Nicholas hadn’t even kissed him on the mouth, hadn’t sought his own release or asked Euijoo to touch him in return. 

Euijoo waited, heart thumping unsteadily as Nicholas adjusted his shirt for him, smoothing the fabric down over his torso with lingering, careful touches.

“What...” Euijoo blurted, the word slipping out before he could stop it. He swallowed hard, his throat dry, and forced himself to meet Nicholas’s eyes. “What about you?”

Nicholas glanced at him, his brow arching beneath the tousled ash-blond bangs that shadowed piercing gaze. “What about me?” he asked.

Euijoo’s face flushed a deep crimson, heat prickling under his skin. “You’re not... You’re—” he stammered, his eyes darting briefly to Nicholas’s crotch before snapping back up. “I want to take care of you too,” he rushed out, the words tumbling awkwardly from his lips.

Nicholas didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he kicked his chair back with a casual nudge of his foot, the wheels rolling a few inches away with a soft scrape against the floor. He reached for his phone on the nearby stand, checking the screen in silence. 

The lack of an answer hung awkwardly in the air, the pointed dismissal making Euijoo’s face burn even hotter with embarrassment. He dropped his gaze to his lap, fingers fidgeting with the hem of his shirt, trying to hide the sharp sting of humiliation that pierced his chest.

“It’s getting late,” Nicholas finally broke the oppressive quiet.

Euijoo glanced up, his eyes wide and searching.

Nicholas offered a small smile. “Where do you live?” he asked.

“Huh?” Euijoo blurted stupidly.

“Where do you live?” Nicholas repeated calmly, cocking his head slightly as he studied Euijoo’s flustered expression. “Do you live far from here?”

“Oh, um—” Euijoo’s mind blanked for a moment. “I live near campus,” he mumbled after a beat, his hands twisting together nervously in his lap.

“Do you live alone?” Nicholas asked, his gaze intense, probing.

“Yeah,” Euijoo breathed. 

Nicholas rose to his feet, towering over Euijoo for a moment as he adjusted his straining erection with a shameless, casual grip through his jeans. “I’ll drive you,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

He walked past Euijoo, ruffling his hair with his fingers as he did. “Wait for me in the lobby.”

And with that, he disappeared toward the bathroom, the door clicking shut behind him.

Euijoo sat in the heavy silence, his heart thumping painfully against his ribs. He stood up slowly, patting his jeans pocket, fingers brushing over the shape of the ring through the denim. For a moment, he just stood there, gaze darting between his backpack slumped on the couch and the beaded curtains.

He didn’t even kiss me. The thought looped relentlessly in his head, stoking the irritation and desperation coiling tighter in his gut with every repetition.

“Fuck this,” he muttered under his breath, his pulse jumping wildly as a surge of reckless need overtook him. He whirled around, determination hardening his features, and marched straight to the bathroom with purposeful strides.

He swung the door open without hesitation, the hinges creaking as his wide, frantic eyes landed on Nicholas.

Nicholas stood by the sink, fingers combing through his tousled hair, the casual motion interrupted by the abrupt intrusion. Their gazes locked in the mirror, Nicholas’s expression flickering with surprise before settling into something dark and intense.

Euijoo closed the distance in two quick strides, his arms wrapping around Nicholas’s waist from behind with a possessive urgency. His hands slipped down the front of Nicholas’s flannel, fingers clawing at his hips, digging into the blue flames itched there. 

“I don’t want to leave,” he whispered into Nicholas’s hair, his voice trembling with raw emotion, his lips brushing against the pale, sakura-scented strands. “I want more. Please.”

Nicholas leaned back into him, his head tilting slightly as his hands gripped the edge of the sink, knuckles whitening with the force. “Euijoo—” he started, his voice low and laced with a warning edge.

But Euijoo didn’t want to hear it. He lowered his head to Nicholas’s neck, mouth latching onto the warm, smooth skin with desperate hunger. His lips moved frantically, kissing and nipping as he pressed himself closer, rubbing his hardening cock against Nicholas’s ass through their clothes.

“Please,” he begged, his breath hot and ragged. “I can’t stop thinking about you. Can’t stop thinking about this.”

His hands fumbled with urgency, lifting the hem of Nicholas’s flannel to expose the small of his back. His fingers clawed at the inked skin where the blue dragon slumbered, tracing the intricate lines with a rough, needy touch.

Nicholas let out a breathy moan, arching back into Euijoo’s touch. “Yeah,” he breathed roughly. “You like my dragon?”

“God, yes,” Euijoo groaned, sucking harder at the tender skin of Nicholas’s neck, his nails digging into the blue ink. “It’s so hot. I touch myself every night thinking about it—I had a dream about it the other night and came untouched—” he blabbered in a frantic rush, his words muffled against the crook of Nicholas’s neck as he rubbed his growing erection against Nicholas’s ass in desperate, urgent thrusts.

“Aww, baby,” Nicholas cooed in a rough whisper.

Then, in one swift motion, Nicholas twisted around, the movement so fluid and sudden that Euijoo stumbled back a step, caught completely off guard. But Nicholas didn’t let him go far. His hands shot up, gripping Euijoo’s face with firm, calloused fingers, pulling him back against him in an instant. Their lips crashed together in a brutal, searing kiss, the force of it stealing the air from Euijoo’s lungs.

Euijoo kissed back without hesitation, a needy whimper escaping him as his arms flew around Nicholas’s neck, pulling him impossibly closer. His mouth opened eagerly to Nicholas’s hunger, welcoming the slick, hot slide of Nicholas’s tongue pushing inside, claiming him fiercely. Nicholas licked into him hungrily, exploring every corner of his mouth, his fingers weaving into the hair at the back of Euijoo’s head.

Euijoo tried to match Nicholas’s skill, pushing his tongue forward and moving his lips in a frantic attempt to keep pace, but his movements were clumsy and unrefined, the wet, smacking sounds too loud, too raw in the tiled silence.

Nicholas didn't seem to care about the lack of experience; if anything, it seemed to fuel him. He groaned low and deep, tilting his head as he slowed the kiss down, keeping Euijoo's face pinned in place. His tongue pushed between Euijoo's lips, sliding from side to side, twisting skillfully in a way that made Euijoo feel lightheaded. Euijoo's fingers curled into the fabric of Nicholas's flannel, clinging as spots danced behind his eyes.

Then Nicholas pulled away, panting hard against his mouth, his fingers digging into the plush, feverish flesh of Euijoo's cheeks.

Euijoo opened his eyes, his gaze blurry and unfocused. He pushed his hips forward, rubbing himself against Nicholas needily, aching for more.

"You're insatiable, baby," Nicholas whispered against his lips, his voice a mix of dark awe and hunger. He nipped lightly at the bruised, swollen skin of Euijoo’s lower lip. "Are you always like this?" he asked, his eyes searching Euijoo’s face. "You’ve already come twice.”

Euijoo's cheeks stung with heat. He shook his head, their noses bumping. "I just like you," he breathed. "So much. Nico—"

Nicholas kissed him again, swallowing the sound of his own name, his hands moving desperately from Euijoo's face, down to his waist, dropping to his ass and squeezing once before sliding back up. When he pulled away again, he spun Euijoo's body around like he weighed nothing.

Euijoo's hands slammed flat against the sink edge, fingers gripping the cold porcelain as he arched his back, offering himself, ass pressed out, cock heavy and leaking again in his underwear. Nicholas closed in from behind, heat radiating off his chest, his breath hot against Euijoo's nape.

Nicholas grabbed Euijoo's chin between his fingers and tilted his head, forcing Euijoo to meet his own reflection in the mirror.

Euijoo blinked blearily at the image staring back. His face was beet red, brown hair a mess of tangles, mouth raw and red, parted around ragged gasps. But it was the sight of Nicholas behind him that made his breath hitch. Nicholas's dark eyes were locked on him, half-lidded, pupils blown wide with hunger.

Nicholas turned Euijoo's face to the side and dragged his mouth along his cheek, teeth grazing the flushed skin. "Such a pretty, pretty baby," he whispered, nipping lightly. "You're trouble, Blue. Pure trouble.”

Euijoo moaned and pushed his ass back, grinding it hard against Nicholas’s cock through the thick denim. The friction dragged a shudder through both of them.

Nicholas ground forward, rolling his hips in a slow, teasing circle, the pressure building against Euijoo’s hole even through layers.

A raw moan tore out of Euijoo’s chest, his head lolling forward as his hands slipped on the wet sink edge. Nicholas grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked his head back up, forcing Euijoo to stare at himself in the mirror—face wrecked, mouth drooling, eyes glazed.

"Fuck me," Euijoo mouthed the words quietly, his lips barely shaping the sound. His breath fogged the glass. "Please, please—"

"Fuck," Nicholas hissed. His hips stuttered once, grinding deeper, harder. "You're killing me."

He yanked Euijoo's head further back by his hair, twisting his face around, and crushed his mouth against Euijoo’s. Their tongues tangled messily as Nicholas snapped his hips forward, driving his cock into the swell of Euijoo’s ass, denim on denim, not enough but everything.

Euijoo whined into his mouth, thrusting his ass back desperately.

Nicholas pulled back a fraction, lips brushing Euijoo’s, breath ragged. "I’m trying to be good, baby, but you’re making it impossible," he whispered hotly against his mouth, teeth grazing Euijoo’s lower lip. "I can’t fuck you—"

Before he could finish, Euijoo twisted around in his arms and threw himself at Nicholas, locking his arms around his neck, pressing their chests together. He kissed him once, twice, hungry, wet, open-mouthed.

"Please, please," Euijoo breathed between kisses, his voice cracking. "Just this once. Please. I won’t tell anyone, I promise you. Please—"

His hips rocked forward, grinding his aching cock against Nicholas’s stomach. His fingers fisted in Nicholas’s hair, pulling him closer, lips never leaving his. "Please—please," he pleaded against his lips, his voice a broken wreck of need.

Nicholas pulled away, and Euijoo followed his mouth like a man possessed—but Nicholas cupped his face firmly in his palms and held him still. His thumbs pressed into Euijoo’s cheekbones, tilting his head just enough to force eye contact.

"Hey, calm down," Nicholas said, his brows furrowing as he tried to catch his breath. "Euijoo, I'm not—"

"Is it because you're engaged?" Euijoo burst out. He fisted Nicholas’s collar, the fabric bunching under his knuckles. "Is that why you’re holding back? Why you won't let me touch you?” His eyes flashed. Everything he’d been trying to bury, the ring, the fiancée, the reality of Nicholas’s life, flooded to the surface in a toxic wave.

Nicholas’s eyes widened, his mouth opening, but Euijoo didn’t let him speak. 

"Because guess what," he snapped, his voice trembling with a mix of fury and heartbreak. "You still touched me. Your mouth was on me—you swallowed my cum, twice. It still counts as cheating, Nico. Even if you won’t let me touch you back. Even if you act like you’re being noble—you’re not."

"Woah—woah," Nicholas said, looking genuinely thrown. "Euijoo, stop. Just breathe and calm down—”

"Stop telling me to calm down!" Euijoo’s voice cracked. 

“Fine. You want to do this?” Nicholas fired back calmly, his voice still infuriatingly low and controlled. “Then what about you, huh? What about your boyfriend?”

Euijoo’s mouth snapped shut. His eyes widened, the fire in them flickering.

“Where’s Jo, Euijoo?” Nicholas’s voice dropped further. “Does he know you’re here? Hm? Does he know you need me this much?” He tilted his head, studying Euijoo’s paling face. “He seemed like a decent guy, so why are you doing this to him?”

Euijoo deflated instantly. The fire that had been propping him up vanished, replaced by a crushing, icy wave of shame. His fingers slackened on Nicholas’s collar, then fell away entirely, dropping limp at his sides as he lowered his gaze to the floor. 

The silence that followed was deafening, broken only by the sound of his own unsteady breathing.

"Jo is… he’s not my boyfriend," he mumbled in a small and pathetic voice. "We lied. For the discount. It was his idea, but I went along with it. I'm so sorry, Nicholas.”

His pulse thudded in his ears. Nicholas said nothing.

Euijoo swallowed thickly, his stomach twisting so violently he felt physically ill. Desperate to purge the last of the rot, he shoved his hand into his pocket and pulled the silver ring out. He held it in his open palm.

"I also took this," he whispered, his voice thick with a choking shame. "I'm not a thief, Nicholas, I swear. I just… I wanted you so badly. I wasn't thinking. I just wanted something to remind me of—”

His words were cut off with a sudden force. Nicholas’s hands clamped over his face, his fingers threading into Euijoo’s hair as he pulled him into a hard kiss. Euijoo froze, his eyes wide and unblinking as Nicholas ground his mouth against his with punishing, bruising pressure.

When Nicholas finally pulled away, he wasn't angry. He was smiling, a wide, genuine grin that made his eyes go warm and soft, an expression so unexpected it left Euijoo reeling in utter confusion.

"Euijoo, baby," Nicholas murmured, brushing stray hair from Euijoo's lashes. "You're so pretty. You’re cute, and you’re charming as hell… but acting is definitely not one of your strengths."

Euijoo blinked, his heart stuttering in his chest.

"Jo's acting skills, on the other hand? Admirable," Nicholas added, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "He gets some points for effort. But you? You were transparent from the second you walked through my door.”

Euijoo blinked at him, his thoughts scrambling over themselves.

“You’re… not mad?” he asked carefully.

"Do I look like I'm mad?" Nicholas cocked a brow, his expression more relaxed than Euijoo had seen it all evening.

"But—" Euijoo licked his lips, lifting his palm again to show the silver evidence. "What about this? You’re not mad I stole your jewelry? I’m literally a criminal."

Nicholas glanced at the ring, then back at Euijoo, and let out a quiet laugh. "You can keep it. Honestly, Euijoo, you’re too fucking adorable for your own good.”

Euijoo didn't think lying for a fifty-percent discount and committing petty theft was "adorable," but apparently Nicholas disagreed.

"Thanks," he mumbled, his face burning as he shoved the ring back into the safety of his pocket. He took a shaky breath, the last of his worries bubbling to the surface. "But what about your fiancée?" he whispered, his eyes searching Nicholas’s. “I mean… I technically didn’t cheat on anyone, but you did, and she doesn’t deserve—”

Nicholas burst out laughing, the sound bright and genuine, bouncing off the tiles. 

Euijoo clamped his mouth shut, his frown deepening into a pout. "Why are you laughing? This is serious."

"She?" Nicholas said, still chuckling under his breath. "When did I ever mention a 'she'?"

Euijoo’s face went from pink to a frantic, neon red. "Oh, I—" he stammered, his hands fluttering nervously. "I’m sorry! You said you’d proposed, and I just… I assumed. Because marriage here is usually between… you know… between…”

He trailed off, his wide eyes darting around the room as he lost his battle with the sentence.

Nicholas shook his head slowly, looking painfully entertained.

"So… is it a he?" Euijoo asked slowly.

Nicholas shook his head again.

"They?" Euijoo tried, leaning in.

Nicholas burst out laughing again, the sound richer this time. He stepped forward and caught Euijoo’s face in his hands, planting another loud kiss right on his lips.

“I’m not engaged, Euijoo,” he said at last, flicking the tip of Euijoo’s nose gently. "To a she, a he, or anyone else.”

Euijoo froze, his lungs suddenly feeling far too small for the rush of relief flooding through him.

"You're not?" he breathed, his eyes searching Nicholas’s for even a hint of a joke.

"I'm not.”

Euijoo’s lashes fluttered in quick succession as his brain tried to re-map his entire reality. "Then... Huh?"

"I'm not a cheater, Blue." Nicholas said simply.

“Then why would you lie about that?” Euijoo demanded, his pout deepening even as hope burst wildly in his chest.

"I was just going with the flow," Nicholas shrugged, giving him a very pointed, meaningful look. "Someone walked into my shop with a very elaborate story, and I decided to see where it went."

"So you're single?" Euijoo rushed out, needing confirmation before he let himself fully believe it.

Nicholas nodded once. “Very.”

Euijoo let out a giddy, breathless giggle, but then his brow furrowed one last time. "But what about the discount? That was a pretty generous offer for a fake engagement."

"I told you," Nicholas said. "I was celebrating love."

"In April?" Euijoo asked skeptically.

"When else?" Nicholas countered softly. "Spring has always been the season of love to me. Every year I do something stupidly romantic to celebrate it.”

Euijoo’s heart officially melted. Just when he thought Nicholas couldn't possibly get any more attractive, the man turned out to be a secret romantic. He threw his arms around Nicholas’s neck, bouncing slightly on his toes as he giggled.

Nicholas caught him by the waist, laughing under his breath at the sudden burst of affection.

"But why didn't you let me touch you back then?" Euijoo grumbled. 

"Because," Nicholas said, nuzzling against Euijoo’s heated cheek. "You didn't even let me finish. I was going to say I wasn't going to fuck you here. Or yet.”

"Oh," Euijoo breathed, feeling himself go lightheaded all over again.

"I was going to drive you home," Nicholas went on, his voice a low, soothing hum. "Then I was going to ask for your number. Then, if I were lucky, I was going to take you out on a proper date and actually get to know you.”

"Okay," Euijoo said in a giddy rush. "Yes. Absolutely yes."

Nicholas smiled, his gaze dropping to Euijoo’s lips. "Yeah? You’ll go on a date with me?”

"Will you tell me what the blue bird said if I do?" Euijoo asked, his cheeks aching from the force of his grinning.

Nicholas laughed softly and pecked his lips. "I'll do better," he whispered against Euijoo’s mouth. "I'll show you the blue bird.”

Euijoo giggled again, tightening his arms until there wasn't a single inch of space left between them. He had a sudden, hilarious urge to call Jo and scream the news, to run to him and kiss him on both cheeks for his genius ruse. If it weren't for that ridiculous lie, he’d have never known a man like Nicholas existed.

But for now, Jo could wait. The world could wait.

Euijoo closed his eyes and pulled Nicholas into another slow, deep kiss.