Chapter 5: The Jersey
The elevator to the penthouse smelled of lemongrass and money. Donghae rode it in a silence so complete he could hear the hum of the machinery, the rush of his own blood in his ears. The mirrored walls showed a version of himself he barely recognized—jaw tight, eyes shadowed, the collar of his jacket still crooked from where her fingers had grabbed him in the alley. He didn’t ring the bell. He’d gotten the code from a teammate who’d dated one of Hyukjae’s friends last semester. A lifetime ago.
The private rooftop access door was unlocked.
He pushed it open, and the city night unfolded before him, a vast carpet of glittering light and deepest shadow. The air up here was cooler, cleaner, carrying the distant scent of rain on concrete. And there she was.
Hyukjae was curled on a wide, plush chaise lounge, silhouetted against the skyline. The only light came from strings of tiny, twinkling fairy lights woven through a pergola and the ambient glow of the metropolis below. She wasn't wearing the black dress. She was wearing his jersey—the dark blue number 10 from last season’s championship game. It swamped her frame, the sleeves falling past her wrists, the hem hitting her mid-thigh. In her hand, a crystal flute of champagne caught the fairy lights and fractured them.
She didn’t startle. She simply turned her head, her expression unreadable in the dim light.
“I knew you’d come,” she said. Her voice was quiet, stripped of its usual performing lilt. She took a slow sip, her eyes never leaving him.
He walked toward her, his steps silent on the smooth, sealed concrete. The space was minimalist, severe—just the lounge, a low table holding the bottle of champagne and a scattered stack of what looked like envelopes, and the endless, breathtaking drop at the railing’s edge.
“You left a trail,” he said, stopping a few feet away. His own voice sounded rough.“The discarded pill. The driver who took off slow enough for me to get the plate. The unlocked door. You’re not subtle.”
A faint smile touched her lips. She set the flute down with a delicate clink. “Subtlety hasn’t been working.” Her hand moved, slipping beneath the loose fabric of the jersey, sliding along the smooth skin of her own thigh. It was a casual, unthinking gesture of comfort, but in the charged silence, it felt like a provocation. “You’re here. That’s what matters.”
“Why am I here, Hyukjae?” He crossed his arms, a defensive posture. “To finish the presentation? To see the rest of the folder? Or is this the part where you lay out your terms?”
Her hand stilled. The smile faded. She unfolded herself from the lounge, standing barefoot before him. The jersey’s neckline slipped, revealing the pale curve of her shoulder. She looked younger like this, smaller, despite the defiance in her posture.
“Terms?” she echoed. “You think this is a negotiation?”
“You’re the one with all the information. The power. Your father’s money, his influence over my dad’s career. Miyoung’s betrayal. My…” He gestured between them, unable to name the alley, the kiss, the knot in his chest.“This. You orchestrated all of it. So yeah. I’m waiting for the terms.”
For a long moment, she just stared at him. The city wind whispered around them, tugging at her hair. Then, to his shock, her eyes filled with bright, unspilled tears.
“You idiot,” she whispered, the words cracking. “You absolute fucking idiot.”
She turned away, walking to the railing. She gripped the cold black iron, her knuckles bleaching white. “You think I wanted this? To have to prove to you that the girl you adored was fucking someone else? To have to film it, to document it, to become this… this scheming bitch in your head just so you’d see me?” She looked over her shoulder, a single tear tracing a path down her cheek. “You think I enjoy knowing that the only way to get your attention was to burn your perfect life down?”
The raw pain in her voice was a physical blow. It stripped away all his careful theorizing. This wasn’t calculation. It was desperation.
“Then why?” he asked, the anger leaching out of him, leaving hollow confusion. “Why go through all that? Why not just… tell me?”
She let out a wet, broken laugh. “And you would have believed me? Lee Donghae, star running back, whose quiet, perfect girlfriend would never? You would have patted my head and filed me under ‘dramatic’ and walked away. I had to show you. I had to make it undeniable.” She swiped at her cheek angrily. “And yes, I threw the pill away. Because I wanted you to know I wasn’t on it. Because I wanted you to know that every single thing anyone has ever said about me, every rumor, every assumption you’ve ever made… it’s all bullshit.”
The confession hung between them, fragile and enormous. The virginity.The performance. The lonely, brutal strategy born of a crush that had curdled into something painful and real.
He was across the space before he realized he’d moved. He didn’t touch her, just stood beside her at the railing, looking out at the sea of lights. “The folder,” he said quietly. “You said there was more context. About you.”
She nodded, not looking at him. “My mother died when I was twelve. Pancreatic cancer. It was fast. My father… he buried himself in work. I buried myself in being loud.Being seen. If I was loud enough, maybe the silence in that big, empty apartment wouldn’t eat me alive.” She took a shaky breath. “The letters on the table. They’re from him.Apologies. Excuses. Postmarked from Tokyo, New York, Shanghai. He loves me. He just doesn’t know how to be there. So he gives me things. Like this apartment. Like leverage.”
She finally turned to face him. Her eyes were glassy but fierce. “I don’t want to use my father’s leverage, Donghae. I just wanted you to see me. The real me. And the only way to do that was to dismantle the fantasy you were living in.”
He understood then. The full, devastating scope of it. Her wealth was just another kind of isolation. Her boldness, a cry against the silence. She hadn’t been trying to trap him. She’d been trying to reach him, using the only tools she’d ever known: disruption and undeniable truth.
He reached out, his fingers gently brushing the tear-track from her cheek. She flinched, then leaned into his touch, her eyes closing.
“I see you,” he murmured.
It was all he needed to say. Her eyes opened, searching his face. Then her hands were on his jacket, pulling him in, and their mouths met again.
This kiss was nothing like the alley. That had been fire and confrontation. This was surrender.This was an answer. Her lips were soft, yielding, tasting of champagne and salt. He cradled her face, his thumbs stroking her jaw, sinking into the kiss with a groan that came from somewhere deep and wounded. She melted against him, her body aligning with his, the bulky fabric of the jersey between them feeling both like a barrier and the most intimate thing he’d ever touched.
He walked her backward, away from the edge, until her calves hit the chaise lounge. They sank onto it together, a tangle of limbs and urgent hands. He shrugged out of his jacket, never breaking the kiss. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons of his shirt, her movements clumsy with need.
“Hyukjae,” he breathed against her mouth, his own hands sliding under the jersey, finding the warm, bare skin of her waist. She arched into his touch, a small, sharp sound escaping her throat.
“Please,” was all she said, her voice a ragged whisper. It wasn’t a performance. It was a plea.
He peeled the jersey up and over her head. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath. The fairy lights bathed her in a soft, celestial glow, illuminating the generous curves of her breasts, the dip of her waist, the shadowed plane of her stomach. She was breathtaking. Not just beautiful, but real in a way that made his chest ache. She watched him look at her, her breath coming in short, anxious pants, her earlier bravado completely gone. In its place was a vulnerable, shaking anticipation.
“You’re sure?” he asked, his own desire a pounding, urgent rhythm in his veins. He had to ask. After everything, he had to be sure.
In answer, she reached for the waistband of his jeans, her fingers deftly undoing the button and fly. “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”
They undressed the rest of the way in a frenzy of shared movement, clothes falling to the cool concrete. The night air kissed their skin. He lay over her, his weight braced on his elbows, feeling the incredible softness of her body beneath his. He kissed her again, deeply, then trailed his mouth down her neck, to the sensitive hollow of her collarbone, lower. He took one pebbled nipple into his mouth, and she cried out, her back arching off the cushion, her fingers spearing into his hair.
“Donghae…” His name was a prayer on her lips.
He lavished attention on her breasts, his tongue and teeth drawing gasps and whimpers from her. His hand slid down the quivering plane of her stomach, through the neat thatch of dark hair, and found her core. She was soaking wet, hot, and incredibly tight. He circled her clit with a slow, deliberate finger, and her whole body jerked.
“Fuck,” she moaned, her hips lifting off the chaise, seeking more pressure, more friction. “Oh, god, don’t stop.”
He didn’t. He explored her with his fingers, learning what made her gasp, what made her thighs tremble. He slid one finger inside her, then two, her inner muscles clenching around him with a shocking, fierce tightness. The virginity wasn’t just a fact now; it was a physical, palpable truth in the resistance, the sharp intake of her breath. He worked her gently, carefully, his mouth returning to hers to swallow her cries as he prepared her, stretching her slowly, feeling her body gradually open and soften for him.
When he was certain she was ready, he positioned himself at her entrance. He looked into her eyes, which were wide and dark with fear and want.
“It might hurt,” he whispered.
“I don’t care,” she breathed, wrapping her legs around his hips, pulling him closer. “I want all of it. I want you.”
He pushed forward, slowly, a devastating inch. She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders. He held still, letting her adjust, kissing her eyelids, her cheeks, her swollen lips.
“More,” she pleaded, her voice tight.
He sank deeper, a thick, steady invasion. The barrier gave way, a slight hitch, a muffled cry against his shoulder that she bit into his skin to stifle. He was fully sheathed inside her, buried in a heat and tightness so profound it stole his breath. He stayed there, motionless, his forehead against hers, both of them panting, connected in the most fundamental way.
“Okay?” he managed to rasp.
She nodded, her eyes squeezed shut, then open. “Okay.Move. Please, move.”
He began to move, shallow strokes at first, each one making her gasp. The pain on her face ebbed, replaced by a dawning, stunned wonder. He picked up the pace, his thrusts growing longer, deeper. The chaise creaked softly beneath them. Her inner walls began to flutter around him, adjusting, then welcoming, then actively clutching at him.
“Yes… just like that… oh, right there,” she babbled, her head thrashing side to side. She was loud, gloriously, authentically loud, her cries swallowed by the vast, open sky. He drove into her, his own control fraying. The sight of her beneath him, completely surrendered, completely real, the feel of her body taking his so completely—it unmoored him.
He hooked an arm under her knee, opening her wider, changing the angle. On the next thrust, she screamed, a short, sharp sound of pure, shattered pleasure. Her orgasm tore through her, making her body clamp around him in rhythmic, milking pulses. It was too much. The visual, the tactile, the emotional wreckage of the last week—it all coalesced into a white-hot point at the base of his spine.
With a guttural groan, he plunged into her one last, deep time and came, his release pouring into her in hot, pulsing waves. He collapsed on top of her, careful to keep his weight on his arms, his face buried in the fragrant space between her neck and shoulder. They lay like that for long minutes, hearts hammering in unison, skin slick with sweat.
Slowly, the world filtered back in. The whisper of the wind, the distant wail of a siren, the faint, metallic taste of her skin on his lips.
He shifted, pulling out of her, and immediately she made a small, bereft sound. He gathered her against him, turning them so she lay on his chest. He grabbed his discarded shirt and gently cleaned between her thighs, seeing the faint, telltale smudge of blood on the fabric. The final, physical proof of her truth. She watched him do it, her expression soft, exhausted, sated.
He tossed the shirt aside and wrapped his arms around her, pulling a soft throw blanket from the end of the chaise over them both. She nestled into him, her ear over his heart.
They didn’t speak. There was too much, and not enough, to say. The fairy lights twinkled above them like captured stars. Down in the city, life went on, anonymousdonghae and relentless. But up here, on this hidden rooftop, there was only the aftermath, the slow, steady beat of two hearts finding a new, precarious rhythm.
Just before dawn, he felt her stir. Her voice was a sleep-roughened murmur against his skin.
“The terms,” she said.
He stiffened slightly, the peace of the moment fracturing.
She lifted her head, her eyes serious in the grey pre-dawn light. “My only term is that you don’t look away again.”
He looked at her—really looked—at the messy hair, the bruised lips, the honest, hopeful fear in her eyes. He saw the lonely girl, the loud girl, the schemer, the virgin, the woman who had burned his world down just to stand beside him in the ashes.
“I’m looking,” he said.
And for the first time, it felt like the beginning of something, not the end.
The grey light of dawn found them still tangled on the chaise, the city below stirring to life with a low, mechanical hum. Hyukjae’s breathing was deep and even against his chest, her fingers curled loosely in the hair at his nape. Donghae stared at the fading fairy lights, their glow now sickly against the brightening sky. Her question hung in the air, more binding than any contract. Don’t look away again.
His body ached in a pleasant, unfamiliar way, a bone-deep satisfaction. But his mind churned, sifting through the wreckage. Miyoung’s laughter on the video. The cold feel of the alley brick. The shocking heat of Hyukjae around him, so tight he’d seen stars. The tiny, defeated sound she’d made when he’d pulled out. He tightened his arm around her, and she murmured, nuzzling closer.
“You’re thinking too loud,” she mumbled into his skin, her voice husky with sleep.
“There’s a lot to think about.” He traced a pattern on her bare shoulder, following a faint tan line. “The folder.Miyoung. What happens Monday when we all walk onto campus.”
She went very still. Then she pushed up on one elbow, looking down at him. The morning light showed the smudges under her eyes, the lush swell of her breasts pressed against his side. She looked thoroughly, devastatingly real. “Do you want to go back to her?”
The question was blunt, stripped of all guile. He met her gaze. The performance was completely absent. He saw only the exhaustion, the hope, the fear of being discarded now that she’d served her purpose.
“No,” he said, and it was the easiest truth he’d uttered in weeks. “That’s over.”
A visible tremor went through her. She nodded, swallowing hard, and laid her head back down. “Okay.”
“But this…” He gestured at the space between their bodies. “This isn’t simple.”
“I never said it was.” Her hand slid down his stomach, her touch trailing fire. She found him already hardening again, his body responding to her proximity despite the complications spiraling in his head. She wrapped her fingers around him, a slow, confident stroke that made his breath hitch. “This part can be simple, if you let it.”
He groaned, his hips shifting off the cushion. The throw blanket slipped away. “Hyukjae…”
“You said you were looking.” She leaned over him, her hair a dark curtain blocking out the dawn. Her breath was warm against his mouth. “So look.”
She kissed him, a deep, claiming kiss that tasted of sleep and champagne and her. His hands slid down her back, over the incredible curve of her ass, pulling her on top of him. She settled over his hips, the heat of her core hovering just above his erection. She guided him to her entrance, her eyes locked on his.
“Last night…” he started, remembering the resistance, the brief flash of pain on her face.
“Last night is done.” She sank down onto him in one slow, breathtaking slide, her head falling back with a sharp gasp. “Fuck.”
She was just as tight, just as impossibly hot. The snug, wet grip of her made his vision blur. She was so full, so voluptuous, every soft curve of her body a lavish feast for his hands and mouth. He could not get enough. He cupped her heavy breasts, thumbs brushing over her nipples, watching them peak. He gripped her hips, his fingers digging into the generous flesh, helping her set a rhythm.
“Like this,” she panted, rising and falling, taking him so deep each time her thighs pressed against his. “Just like this, Donghae. Don’t stop.”
Her inexperience was gone, burned away by the raw need of this second joining. She rode him with a frantic, clumsy grace, chasing her own pleasure, her inner walls clenching around him like a slick, relentless fist. He thrust up to meet her, driving into that incredible tightness, obsessed with the feel of her, the sight of her above him, the filthy, beautiful sounds she made.
“You feel so good,” he gritted out, his control splintering. “So fucking good. I can’t… I need more.”
He rolled them over in one swift motion, pressing her into the cushions. He hooked her legs over his shoulders, opening her wider, changing the angle. When he pushed back inside, her scream echoed off the rooftop walls. He drove into her, each thrust a claiming, a question, an answer. This wasn’t the careful, hesitant coupling of a few hours ago. This was raw, sweat-slicked hunger. He fucked her with a single-minded intensity, chasing the coil of tension building in his gut, urging her toward the edge with him.
“Come with me,” he demanded, his voice ragged. “I want to feel you come on my cock.”
His words pushed her over. Her body seized, a sharp, silent cry on her lips before the wave broke. Her cunt pulsed around him, a series of frantic, fluttering squeezes that milked him relentlessly. It tore his own orgasm from him, a brutal, mind-shattering release that left him shuddering and collapsed on top of her, spent.
They lay there, slick and panting, the sun now a glaring orange line on the horizon. The city’s sounds were fully awake: sirens, distant traffic, the clatter of a delivery truck.
“So,” she said eventually, her voice hoarse. “What now?”
He knew what she was asking. It wasn’t about this moment, tangled together on a soiled chaise lounge.It was about Monday. About the world waiting below.
He shifted his weight, rolling to lie beside her but keeping an arm hooked around her waist, his hand splayed possessively on her stomach. “Now,” he said, staring at the brightening sky, “I go see Miyoung.” He felt Hyukjae tense. “I end it. Cleanly. No games, no folder.” He turned his head to look at her. The uncertainty in her eyes was a physical ache. “Then,” he continued, his thumb stroking her hip, “I take you on a date. A real one. Somewhere you don’t have to be loud.”
A slow, tentative smile touched her lips. It was shy, completely unlike any expression he’d ever seen on her face. It was, he realized, the real one.
“Okay,” she whispered.
The simplicity of it was terrifying. He knew it wouldn’t be simple. There would be fallout, scandal, his father’s disappointed fury. But as he lay there with her, the first true ray of sunlight warming her skin, the path forward felt stark and clear. He had to walk through the wreckage he’d helped create. Only then could he step into whatever this was, whatever they were, with his eyes wide open.
He would not look away.