Chapter 1: Lipstick and Longing
The roar from the arena was a physical thing, a wall of sound that vibrated through the floor and up into the bones of his stockinged feet. Hyukjae sat perfectly still in the stylist’s chair, a statue amidst the backstage chaos. In the mirror, he watched the reflection of the door as managers and coordinators darted past, their shouts swallowed by the noise.
Then she entered, and the chaos seemed to soften at the edges.
Gaby closed the door, muting the frenzy to a dull, persistent throb. Her heels clicked softly on the tile as she crossed the room, her kit already in her hands. She didn’t speak, just gave him a small, professional smile in the glass before setting to work.
He was already stage-ready, every hair cemented into place, his complexion flawless under the foundation. But the lip color needed a touch-up after the soundcheck. A small thing.
“Just a second, Hyukjae-ssi,” she said, her voice low and calm.
He nodded, his eyes tracking her in the mirror. She was all warm tones—honey skin, a soft peach blouse, curls the color of dark caramel pulled into a messy knot. She smelled like vanilla and something spicier, something that cut through the sterile backstage air.
She leaned into his space, one hand coming up to steady his jaw. Her thumb rested just below his earlobe. Her touch was cool, practiced.
The puff of her breath feathered against his skin as she examined her work. Her other hand brought the tiny brush up, its tip loaded with a deep crimson. Her focus was absolute, her brow slightly furrowed.
Then she shifted her weight, and the soft curve of her breast pressed, for just a second, against the sharp line of his shoulder through his silky stage shirt.
It was an accident. A professional necessity. He knew that.
But his whole body went wire-tight. The sensation was a brand. He could feel the heat of her, the impossible softness, even through the layers of fabric. His breath hitched, a tiny, choked sound lost under the distant roar of the crowd.
Her eyes flicked up from his mouth to meet his in the mirror. She’d heard. She’d felt it too.
For a held breath, they just looked at each other. Her gaze was unreadable, a quiet pool. His own reflection stared back—the sharp, carefully constructed idol face, the dark eyes that now felt too wide, too exposed.
She broke the contact first, looking back to his lip. Her hand, still cradling his jaw, trembled. Just a faint, almost invisible shake.
The brush swept across his lower lip. It was feather-light, but it felt seismic. His blood was pounding in his ears, louder than the fans. He was twenty years old and had been kissed by a thousand cameras, had felt the adoration of millions, but he had never, ever been touched like this. With such quiet, unintentional intimacy. It unmoored him.
She pulled back slightly to check the symmetry, her teeth catching her own bottom lip in concentration. That simple, unconscious gesture sent a jolt straight through him. It was real. Everything else was performance—the cheers, the outfits, the lyrics about love he hadn’t lived. This, a woman biting her lip in thought, was devastatingly actual.
He saw it then, in the slope of her shoulders, in the careful way she held herself apart. A loneliness that mirrored his own. She was just Gaby, the makeup artist. Not a fan, not a manager. Someone who saw the sweat under the glitter, the boy inside the idol shell.
“All done,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. She reached for a tissue to clean a microscopic smudge at the corner of his mouth.
Her fingers were near his skin again. Something in him snapped, a cord of restraint he’d been holding for years.
His hand came up, fast but not rough. He didn’t grab. He simply enclosed her wrist, his long fingers circling it completely, his thumb settling on the frantic pulse point there. Her skin was so soft.
She froze. The tissue fluttered to the floor.
The air left the room. The only sound was the hum of the floor lamp, the faint bassline from the arena. He could feel her heartbeat against his thumb, a wild, trapped bird. It raced in time with his own.
“Hyukjae-ssi,” she breathed, a warning, a question.
He didn’t let go. He turned in the chair, the movement forcing her to step closer, now standing between his knees. He was still sitting, looking up at her. The power dynamic he was used to—idol and staff—was gone, inverted. He was just a man, holding a woman’s wrist.
“You trembled,” he said. His voice came out rough, unused.
She didn’t deny it. She just looked down at him, her chest rising and falling too quickly. The professional mask was gone, replaced by something raw and startled. “You’re on stage in ten minutes.”
It wasn’t a no. It was a reality.
“I know.” His thumb moved, the barest stroke against her inner wrist. A caress. An experiment. “Why did you tremble?”
Her free hand came up, hovered in the air between them, then settled, not on his hand to push him away, but on his shoulder. Right where she’d touched him by accident. Her fingers curled into the shiny fabric.
“Because,” she said, finally, the word a confession torn from somewhere deep. “You looked at me. Not at the idol in the mirror. At me.”
He stood up then, slowly, still holding her wrist, forcing her to step back until the backs of her legs met the edge of the low, plush velvet sofa. The one where members napped between rehearsals. The faint, sweet scent of her perfume rose from the fabric.
The distance between their bodies was gone. He was lanky and lean, all angles under his clothes. She was softer, warmer, the top of her head just level with his chin. He could see the delicate gold chain at her throat, the faint flush spreading down her chest.
“I’m tired of being looked at,” he murmured, his dark eyes piercing hers. “I want to look. I want to see.”
He brought her captured wrist up, turning it, and pressed his lips to the very spot where her pulse hammered. He kept his eyes open, watching her. Her lips parted on a sharp, silent intake of breath. Her fingers on his shoulder tightened, nails digging in through the thin material.
When he lowered her hand, he didn’t release it. He used it to pull her the last inch forward, until their bodies aligned. The contact was a shock—the full, yielding softness of her against the tense planes of him. A perfect, dizzying fit.
Outside, a stage manager called his name, the voice muffled by the door. The world was waiting.
Inside the quiet, lamp-lit room, Gaby’s free hand came up to his cheek. Her touch was no longer professional. It was searching, tender. She traced the high arch of his cheekbone, the edge of his jaw, as if memorizing a real person, not a concept.
“After,” she whispered, her eyes holding his, dark with a promise and a fear that thrilled him. “If you still want to see… come find me after.”
The door handle rattled. “Hyukjae! Line-up!”
He let go of her wrist, the absence of her touch like a cold shock. He took one step back, then two, his eyes never leaving hers. The idol mask settled back over his features, but it felt different now. A costume he would shed.
He turned and walked to the door, his movements all the grace and control of a dancer. As he pulled it open, the cacophony of the world rushed back in. He glanced over his shoulder one last time.
She was still standing by the sofa, one hand clasping the wrist he had kissed, her other hand pressed to her stomach as if to quiet a storm. Watching him go.
He stepped into the roaring hallway, the echo of her pulse still warm on his lips.
He stepped into the roaring hallway, the echo of her pulse still warm on his lips.
The concert was a blur. A beautiful, deafening, automatic blur. His body performed every choreographed step, hit every note with practiced precision. But his mind was back in the quiet room. The feel of her wrist. The press of her body. The look in her eyes when the mask slipped. He danced for twenty thousand screaming people and saw only one face.
During the final VCR, drenched in sweat and sucking in air backstage, he scanned the crowded wings. Coordinators, managers, other stylists. No Gaby.
A hand clapped his shoulder. “Hey, you okay? You seemed… intense out there,” his bandmate said, grinning. “Like, extra fierce.”
Hyukjae just nodded, wiping his brow with a towel. “Just in the zone.”
The moment the encore ended and the house lights came up, the frantic energy shifted to packing, to moving. They were ushered through the cheering backstage crew, a gauntlet of high-fives and exhausted smiles. Hyukjae’s eyes cut through the crowd, searching.
He found her by the loaded equipment cases, overseeing the careful packing of her kits. She was back in her professional shell, posture straight, giving quiet instructions. But her eyes flicked to his, just for a second, and the shell cracked. A flush climbed her neck.
He didn’t think. He just moved. “Gaby-noona,” he said, the honorific falling easily from his lips, a plea and a claim wrapped together. “I need your help. My… eyelash glue. It’s irritating my eye.” The lie was flimsy, pathetic.
She understood. A beat of silence hung between them, charged with the unspoken words from earlier. Her professional demeanor warred with the woman who had trembled under his touch. The woman won. She nodded curtly. “I have drops in the spare dressing room. This way.”
The spare room was a closet compared to the main one, lined with unused costume racks. The second the door clicked shut, the world narrowed to the two of them, the dim light, the faint smell of dust and fabric.
He didn’t wait for pretence. He backed her against the door, his hands cradling her face. “You said after,” he whispered, his voice ragged.
“I know,” she breathed, and then her hands were in his hair, pulling him down, and their mouths crashed together.
It was not a gentle first kiss. It was a release. A spark hitting a pool of spilled gasoline. All the pent-up tension, the years of being touched only for show, the aching curiosity, exploded into a single, consuming fire.
Her lips were soft and insistent. She tasted of mint and the coffee she must have drunk hours ago. He swallowed her small, gasping moans, his tongue sliding against hers, learning the shape of her mouth with a desperate hunger. His hands slid from her face, down the column of her neck, over the softness of her shoulders, gripping her waist to pull her tighter against him.
The contact was electric. His whole body was a live wire. He was painfully, achingly hard, the rigid proof of his inexperience and his want pressing insistently against the confines of his stage trousers. He ground against her, a helpless, instinctive motion, and she arched into it, a soft cry breaking from her lips.
“Hyukjae,” she gasped against his mouth, her hands sliding under his damp stage top, skating over the hot, sweat-slick skin of his back. Her touch was like a brand.
“Noona,” he choked out, the word a broken thing. He kissed her jaw, her throat, licking the salt from her skin. He was drowning in sensation—the scent of her perfume now mingled with her own warm scent, the feel of her curves yielding against his lean hardness, the sound of her ragged breath in his ear. He was so strung out, so desperate, every nerve ending screaming. His hips moved again, a shallow, frantic rhythm against her thigh. “God, please.”
Her hand slid down, over the desperate strain in his pants, and he jerked, a shattered groan tearing from his chest. The sheer relief of that touch, even through layers of fabric, was almost too much.
A sharp rap on the door made them freeze, lungs heaving.
“Hyukjae-ah! Bus is leaving in ten! Don’t make us wait!” a manager’s voice called, followed by receding footsteps.
The spell shattered into a million sharp pieces. Reality rushed back in—the public bus, the shared dorm, the impossible lack of privacy.
They broke apart, breathing as if they’d run a marathon. Her lipstick was smeared, his mouth was undoubtedly stained. Her blouse was crooked. He was visibly, undeniably hard, and there was no hiding it. The aching throb was a constant, painful pulse.
She looked at him, her eyes dark and wide, then quickly looked away, smoothing her clothes. Her fingers shook. “You have to go.”
He could only nod, agony lancing through him. He adjusted himself, a futile gesture. The pressure was a sweet, unbearable torture. “Gaby—”
“Go,” she said softly, but her voice was thick. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’ll… I’ll see you at the hotel.”
The ride back was pure hell. Every bump of the bus was a reminder. The rough friction of his jeans. The memory of her mouth, her hands, the sound she made. He sat curled slightly, pretending to sleep, fists clenched in his hoodie pockets, jaw tight. He was burning up from the inside. He’d never been like this, so consumed it felt like a fever.
The hotel lobby was a blur of familiar chaos. Their group was ushered towards the private elevators for the top-floor suites. He saw her across the lobby, heading with the rest of the styling team towards the standard rooms elevator. Their eyes met. A current passed between them, clear as a shout in the silent, marble-lined space.
His suite was vast, quiet, and utterly empty. The city lights glittered far below, meaningless. The grand tour his manager gave him evaporated from his mind. All he could feel was the relentless, aching need. The taste of her was still in his mouth. The ghost of her body was pressed against his.
He paced. He took a cold shower. It did nothing. He was wound tighter than ever, every thought a looping replay of her back in that closet, the feel of her, the heat.
He grabbed his phone. His texts were a mess of typos, erased, sent.
are u in your room
Her reply was slow, agonizing seconds later.
Yes.
He called. She picked up on the second ring. Neither spoke at first. He could hear her quiet breathing.
“Noona,” he said, and the word was a raw scrape of sound, all pretense, all idol composure gone. “I can’t… I can’t think. I can’t sleep. I’m going out of my mind.” He pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window. “Please.”
“Hyukjae…” Her voice was a whisper, strained.
“You said you’d help me.” It was a plea, naked and desperate. “You promised after. I need… I don’t know what I need. I just need you. Noona, please. Help me.”
The silence on the line was heavy. Then, the softest sound. A sigh. Resignation. Surrender.
“What’s your room number?”
“3507,” he breathed into the phone, the numbers sounding like a sacred code.
The line went dead.
The next fifteen minutes were an eternity measured in heartbeats. He paced from the window to the door and back, his body still vibrating with that untenable energy. He was terrified she wouldn’t come. More terrified that she would. He’d never done this. Not like this. Not with feeling so tangled up in the need that it felt like he might vomit.
A soft, definitive knock.
He wrenched the door open.
She stood there, having traded her work blouse for a simple black t-shirt and jeans, her hair down now, a fall of dark waves around her shoulders. She held a small hotel ice bucket, a pathetic prop. Her eyes were huge, her expression unreadable.
He pulled her inside, the door shutting with a heavy, final thud.
The ice bucket clattered to the floor.
“Hi,” she said, the word absurd.
He didn’t answer with words. He backed her against the closed door, his body caging hers, and kissed her. It was less frantic than before, deeper, a slow, claiming slide of his tongue that made her whimper into his mouth. Her hands came up to his chest, not pushing, but gripping, her fingers curling into the soft cotton of his hoodie.
“You came,” he murmured against her lips, as if he couldn’t believe it.
“You called,” she answered, her voice shaky. Her hands slid under his hoodie, up the hot, bare skin of his back. “You’re burning up.”
“I know.” He kissed her throat, licked a path to her ear. “It’s you. It’s all you.”
He fumbled with the hem of her shirt, his elegant dancer’s hands clumsy. She helped him, raising her arms, letting him pull it off. The plain black bra underneath was simple, but the sight of her, the full, beautiful curves of her, made his breath stop. He stared, his mouth slightly open, a devotee before an altar.
“You’re so…” He couldn’t find the word. Beautiful was too small. He bent his head, pressing his open mouth to the swell of her breast above the lace, breathing her in. Her fingers speared through his hair, holding him there.
“Come here,” she whispered, leading him away from the door, toward the enormous bed. The city lights painted silver stripes across the duvet.
She sat on the edge, pulling him to stand between her knees. She looked up at him, her gaze steady now, taking control. Her hands went to the waistband of his sweats. He flinched, a violent tremor running through him.
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice a low, soothing hum. “Let me see you.”
She pushed the sweats and his boxers down in one motion.
He was right there, fully, achingly hard. He felt exposed in a way no performance, no stage costume, had ever made him feel. Vulnerable. His hips gave a small, involuntary jerk.
Gaby didn’t flinch. She didn’t gasp. Her eyes darkened, a warmth spreading in their depths. “So pretty,” she murmured, almost to herself. Her hand wrapped around him, not tight, just a firm, knowing hold.
Hyukjae cried out, a strangled, broken sound. His knees nearly buckled. The feel of her hand, skin on skin, was an electric shock that tore through every nerve. It was too much. It was everything.
“Noona,” he gasped, his hands falling to her shoulders for balance.
“Shhh,” she said, and she leaned forward, pressing a soft, open-mouthed kiss to the tip of him.
He saw stars. White, explosive light behind his eyelids. His fingers dug into her skin. She didn’t take him in her mouth, just that one, devastating kiss, before guiding him back onto the bed, climbing over him. She shimmied out of her jeans, stripped off her bra. Then she was there, straddling his hips, her warm weight settling over him, all honey-toned skin and soft curves silhouetted against the window.
He reached for her, hands roaming her hips, her waist, her breasts, reverent and desperate. “I don’t… I’ve never…”
“I know,” she said, leaning down to kiss him, her hair curtaining their faces. “I’ll help you. Just feel.”
She reached between them, positioning him. The first press against her heat was a revelation so profound it bordered on pain. He was surrounded by wet, silken warmth, a tightness that made his vision blur. He gasped, arching beneath her.
“Okay?” she breathed, her own face a mask of intense concentration.
He could only nod, words gone, stolen by the sensation of her slowly, slowly sinking down, taking him inch by impossible inch inside her. It was a slow, unfolding possession. His head thrashed on the pillow. A choked sob ripped from his chest.
She seated herself fully, and they were joined, utterly. She went still, letting him adjust, letting herself feel the full, stretching presence of him. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted.
“Gaby,” he whimpered, the name a prayer. He’d never felt so connected, so completely part of another person. It was terrifying. It was holy.
“Move,” she whispered. “Hyukjae, move.”
He grasped her hips, his touch tentative at first, then firmer. He thrust upward, a shallow, experimental rock. The friction was insane. A sharp, sweet coil of pleasure tightened low in his belly.
She began to move with him, finding a rhythm, rising and falling, her body gliding on his. The sounds were obscene and beautiful—the slick, wet slide of their joining, their ragged breaths, the soft impact of flesh.
He lost all sense of time, of place, of identity. He was just sensation. The clutch of her around him. The soft bounce of her breasts. The way her head fell back as she rode him, her neck a beautiful, arched line. He was unravelling, fast, too fast. The coiled spring inside him was winding to a breaking point.
“Noona,” he choked out, his hips stuttering, losing rhythm. “Noona… I’m gonna… fuck…”
“Look at me,” she commanded, her voice thick.
His eyes, glazed and desperate, found hers.
“Come for me,” she said, and she clenched around him, a deep, internal pulse that shredded the last of his control.
He broke.
A raw, guttural shout tore from his throat as he spilled into her, his body bowing off the bed, every muscle locking in a seismic release. “NOONA… NOONA… FUCK!” The words were ripped from him, a litany of shock and utter bliss. Pleasure, white-hot and total, obliterated him. It wasn’t just physical. It was a dam breaking, years of performance and pressure flooding out, leaving him hollowed and shaking.
He collapsed back onto the bed, spent, gasping. She slumped forward onto his chest, her own body trembling with the aftershocks. They lay there, slick with sweat, tangled together, the only sound their ragged attempts to breathe.
Slowly, the world seeped back in. The cool air on his skin. The weight of her on him. The frantic drum of her heart against his.
He turned his head, his nose buried in her hair. He felt raw. New. He’d been unmade and was only just beginning to understand the shape of what was left.
“Gaby,” he whispered.
“Hmm?”
He had no words for what he felt. So he just held her tighter, his hands smoothing over the sweat-damped skin of her back, as if making sure she was real. As if making sure he was.