an ode to flesh and sin

by internum

Summary:

Wang (2025) believes that gender wasn’t supposed to be this complicated for someone like him, until the person he deemed one of the people he trusted most stepped in.

And it slips past Nicholas before he realizes, he had forgotten the last time he felt like he had autonomy over himself.

Notes:

oh Wang Nicholas how i love putting you in situations

Being an idol has trained Nicholas to brace himself for all manners of praise—some sweet, some bewildering, some so creatively assembled that he is not entirely certain what they are supposed to mean. In the three years since his debut, he has encountered stranger sentences in tweets and TikTok videos than he has ever come across in the rest of his life combined.

Words bend into shapes he has never heard before, metaphors pile on top of metaphors, languages tangle together in a desperate attempt to say I like you in a way that feels new.

And truthfully, it makes him happy. Of course it does.

There is a peculiar warmth in knowing someone admires you so intensely that they feel compelled to invent a phrase for it. Fans string together compliments that barely make grammatical sense, but the emotion behind them is unmistakable, earnest and overflowing, so clumsy with affection. Nicholas has long learned that sincerity matters more than precision.

Being called pretty, for instance, is hardly unusual.

If anything, it is one of the earliest images attached to the idea of an idol in Wang Nicholas’ mind: the pretty boy. A face softened by stage lights, makeup brushed carefully across cheekbones, lashes darkened so they catch the camera even from afar. In earlier years of the industry, men wearing makeup still carry an air of controversy, taboo, perhaps. Or simply unusual.

But Nicholas never finds it insulting. Why should he? Of all the things someone could call you, pretty ranks among the gentlest of praises. To be pleasing to look at, to carry some charm, that hardly seems like something worth fuming over.

So he accepts it easily, even indulges in it. A tilted smile here, a playful pose there. If it makes the fans happy, and he likes it, why not?

And yet, today there is something new, there is the feminine honorific. It had slipped out of the fan’s mouth so naturally and bright with excitement. No one had ever called him that before, or at least not to his face.

“Noona! You’re so pretty!”

Only now does he realize he has never really considered the possibility of that word appearing in the way fans might refer to him. The thought simply never crosses his mind. Perhaps he has been too narrow in his assumptions. Perhaps he has not been open enough to the many ways fans interpret him. He tells himself he will simply keep it in mind next time. But the more the word settles in his head, the harder it becomes to brush aside.

What had they seen? What exactly was it about him that prompted them to say that? What did luné see when they looked at him?

“Your smile was practically beaming,” Yuma says casually. “I didn’t know Nicholas-kun likes being called noona.”

The crisp sound of can opening and giggles cuts through the green room. Nicholas looks up from where he’s sitting, his gaze landing squarely on Yuma with judgment. “Yeah? And what exactly was I supposed to do?” Nicholas shoots back, his voice rising slightly. “It’s not like you guys don’t get stuff like that too.”

Across the room, Yudai lifts his head from his phone, “Taki told me someone called me unnie once.” He adds, Yuma snorts immediately.

“Yes, and you loved it,” he replies without missing a beat. “Old news.”

Well, the members have never really been opposed to it to begin with. If Nicholas has to put a word to it, perhaps he would say they are very enabling.

They joke about things like that easily, sometimes. Teasing each other about the ‘male disease,’ throwing around dramatic accusations of being whipped or soft without a second thought. Nicholas has long come to the conclusion that the members are simply very secure in their masculinity. None of them treat feminine traits as something embarrassing, or degrading, or worth hiding away. It is never used as an insult. Nothing serious. Nothing worth overthinking.

At least, that is how it seems for everyone else.

For Nicholas, however, this one feels just a little too personal, perhaps because the word had been directed at him so clearly and directly.

Because now he finds himself wondering whether the fan had simply blurted it out in excitement—because he looks pretty enough that the word slips out naturally—or if there are people out there who genuinely look at him and see something else entirely.

Someone else.

Do people see him as a man who happens to be pretty? Or does someone look at him and see a woman instead? The thought feels ridiculous the moment it forms inside of Nicholas’ head.

“It’s actually really common, you guys,” Maki’s voice cuts easily into the conversation as he opens a food container with a soft snap of plastic. “Nico, if you like being called noona or something like that, you would love Twitter.”

Nicholas lets out a soft scoff as he stands, already walking toward his bag as he begins stuffing his things inside. “Whatever that means,” he mutters following with Maki’s laughter that breaks behind him.

Accepting being called with feminine honorifics is one thing, liking it is another thing entirely. The first can be brushed off easily, filed away with the rest of the harmless oddities that come with being an idol. Fans say all sorts of things when excitement spills over. Sometimes they exaggerate. Sometimes they tease. Sometimes they simply say whatever comes to mind first.

But liking it suggests something else, something internal and one hundred percent personal. Something that does not belong solely to the fan who said it, but to him. It feels like a door he has never tried to open before. If he follows that line of thought too far, it might lead him somewhere unfamiliar. Somewhere he has never even considered going.

Well, the truth is, Nicholas has always identified himself as a man. Not in the way people proudly declare it, not with any dramatic sense of certainty or defense. It has simply always been there, like something that never required examination. The way you know the sky is above you or the ground is beneath your feet.

He has never felt any internal dissonance about it, never experienced the kind of confusion people sometimes describe when they talk about gender. No restless questioning, no sense of misalignment between himself and the word man. It has never been complicated for him.

Or maybe, just maybe, it simply hasn’t happened yet. Nicholas does not immediately reject the idea. He has never been the type to push thoughts away simply because they make him uncomfortable. The possibility exists and lingers somewhere in the back of his mind, just not close enough to demand his attention or sleepless night wondering about it, but not far enough to disappear entirely. It just sits there in their own comfort space.

What actually matters here? If he says he is a man, but someone else sees a woman when they look at him, which one becomes real?

 

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Another thing about being an idol—something Nicholas has learned over the years—is that the job somehow leads you to looking up for all kinds of things at three in the morning.

Nicholas remembers once catching Euijoo sitting cross-legged on the floor with his phone, squinting at the screen in deep concentration. Thirty whole minutes spent trying to understand the exact meaning of a single word before he planned to send it in a Weverse DM. Just for him to somehow forget to actually press send by the time he finally finished crafting the message.

Another time, Nicholas walks past the living room and finds Taki searching ‘how to fall gracefully’ with absolutely zero context, later ends up asking Yudai for advice instead. To this day, Nicholas still does not know whether that search had been for a performance rehearsal or just another one of his little experiments.

Nicholas has grown used to pausing before he moves and speaks. Every action now comes with a calculation. The reasons vary: he does not want to get into trouble, he does not want to say or do the wrong thing, and he does not want to accidentally worry or upset luné. Then he forgets all of that the moment he presses the Live button on Weverse. The setting is simply too natural and uncontrolled with zero staff around for him to stay on his guard.

But what he never truly prepared for is scrolling for one hour on the topic of gender studies. It has Nicholas staring at essays and journal articles that are very clearly written by and for college students in the humanities and social sciences.

For the record, Nicholas does learn things, new words, new perspectives. Did he receive the answer he was looking for? No.

It stresses him out even further as another question emerges the more he reads. At this rate, he might as well enroll in university again just for the sole reason of understanding his supposed gender dysphoria.

Which then raises another question—whether he has even reached the stage where he can name it that. Has he admitted it? Consciously? Subconsciously? Nicholas does not want to get it wrong, but this is not something that can be solved in a single night either. It takes time, and Nicholas is very familiar with waiting.

His tired eyes finally drift away from the glowing phone screen when he hears a door opening somewhere down the hallway. His body, which has been stiff and tense on the couch for nearly an hour, relaxes without question when he sees Fuma step out.

“You haven’t slept?” Fuma asks, his voice low with concern.

Nicholas lets out a soft whine before he can stop himself. “I can’t sleep~”

Fuma walks over and settles beside him on the couch with the composure of someone who has done this countless times before. Nicholas does not even need to look at him to know that Fuma has probably already seen straight through him. Part of him has been hoping someone would notice, preferably one of the older members, not the younger ones. But Yudai is busy, which leaves Nicholas with what he considers his last and most reliable option.

“Something on your mind.” Fuma states simply before taking a sip from his water bottle, Nicholas only pouts in response as he watches Fuma closely until the older’s attention slowly returns to him again.

He could ask Euijoo. That would be the easiest and most obvious option, technically. But knowing the guy’s inner state and well-being, the conversation might spill into something completely different. The two of them would probably end up confusing each other even more. Euijoo would likely start getting confused along with Nicholas and might even reach the point of discovering something about himself as well. It would become the never-ending cycle of the blind leading the blind.

Fuma loves to guide and help the younger members, though he rarely announces it openly. Most of the time he is difficult to read. But whenever a situation truly demands it, being one of the oldest somehow becomes the closest thing the group has to a therapist.

Nicholas still cannot decide whether Fuma simply carries all the answers in the world in his pocket or whether he understands the members so well that he instinctively knows how to ease their worries. Maybe it is both. All Nicholas knows is that being around him always feels strangely relaxing, like for once he does not need to keep his thoughts in perfect order.

“You heard about our conversation in the green room earlier?”

“Hmm?” Fuma glances at him. “Which one?”

Nicholas groans softly. “Ugh, the noona one.”

“Oh, That one.” Fuma nods lightly. “So that’s what’s bothering you.”

Nicholas cannot help smiling a little at how easily Fuma reads him. “What do you think, hyung?” He shifts on the couch, rearranging himself into a more relaxed position so he is fully facing the older man. His eyes wander briefly over the oversized T-shirt hanging loosely on Fuma’s tall frame before he looks back up. “Have luné ever called you something like that?”

Fuma exhales slowly and tilts his head for a moment. “Not that I remember,” he answers, which pulls a disappointed huff from Nicholas. “Though,” Fuma continues calmly, “I did tell luné multiple times that I like being called pretty. After that, I started hearing it more often.”

“Pretty, I got that a lot too before.” Nicholas absentmindedly reaches out, playing with the hem of Fuma’s shirt without really thinking about it. “But noona—should I talk about this with Kei-hyung instead?” Nicholas adds after a moment. “He seems so simple-minded about it.”

As if reading his mind, Fuma interrupts the thought Nicholas has just blurted out. “But the thing is,” he says gently, “what you feel inside is different, right? That’s why it settles differently for you compared to him.”

The accuracy of it makes Nicholas’ stomach drop slightly. It is like he is standing there as a dartboard and Fuma casually throws a dart straight into the center without Nicholas even needing to explain the target. He does not have to say it out loud for Fuma to understand completely. It is scary, frightening to feel this transparent. But it is also just a Fuma kind of thing; the other members and Nicholas himself have experienced this before.

Maybe the scary part in this conversation is the topic itself. It has never been a trivial or easy question from the start. It should be handled with a carefulness that Nicholas can only share with people he truly feels comfortable discussing this matter with. Someone who would not stare at him with judgment, and Fuma might be the right person.

He inhales. “I don’t know, hyung.” An awkward grin slowly forms on his face. “I feel like I don’t need to be this stressed. I’m so sure about this.”

“Well, if you’re so sure then you wouldn’t be this stressed.” Fuma’s voice stays even. “You paying attention like this means that it holds something more than just a word, no?” Nicholas something in his stomach twists at how cleanly the truth lands. “And I don’t see anything wrong with you questioning all that.”

Nicholas stares vaguely at the ceiling above him, and for a moment he lets his eyes follow the pale lines where the panels meet. It feels strangely nice, for his feelings and concerns to be validated like this. He hadn’t expected that. The whole thing had seemed too small to bring up, too strange to say out loud without sounding ridiculous. Still, hearing Fuma speak about it so calmly makes it feel less like a problem and more like something that simply exists.

He knows he isn’t the only person who has ever thought about things like this. People question themselves all the time. He has read about it before, seen discussions scattered across the internet, watched interviews where celebrities laugh nervously and admit that identity is sometimes more complicated than they expected.

But knowing that others experience it doesn’t make it easier to hold the thought inside his own head. And right now his life feels too crowded for a question this heavy to slip in between rehearsals, recordings, schedules, performances—yet somehow it has already wedged itself there, always whispering in the background and returning whenever his mind slows down for even a second.

“Then what should I do now?” Nicholas asks Fuma again.

“Just take your time figuring it out.”

Nicholas bites his lip at the answer, eyes still wandering around with uncertainty and uneasiness, restless. Taking time sounds simple when Fuma says it, but Nicholas knows how little time he actually has. Everything in his life moves quickly—decisions, performances, expectations—and the idea of slowly sitting with a question about himself feels borderline unfamiliar. Still, it remains there as it hums softly under the skin.

“Don’t tell anyone about this.” His voice drops lower instinctively, his face turns slightly away from Fuma.

“Not even Euijoo?” Fuma asks.

Nicholas gulps the moment he hears the name. Of course Fuma would think of him. Euijoo notices everything. Euijoo asks questions Nicholas doesn’t always know how to answer. And Euijoo knows everything about Nicholas like the back of his hand.

“Not even Euijoo.”

 

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It has always felt natural to him because he has repeated it his entire life.

That’s what Nicholas thought, again—future Professor Wang Yixiang speaking, it almost feels ironic how neatly it aligns with the concept of gender being a repeated act. A performance that, through constant repetition, settles into the body until it no longer feels like one at all. The gestures, the tone of voice, the way someone occupies space, the way they respond to being looked at.

Over time those behaviours begin to feel natural, even though they were never entirely his to begin with but something absorbed from the world around him.

That exact illusion of the stability in gender perception has been disrupted. And suddenly Nicholas finds himself questioning every single behaviour he has done, both on and off camera.

The more Nicholas observes himself, the more he feels like he is watching a character in a TV show rather than himself. The way he crosses his legs when he sits down during interviews, sometimes without even thinking about it. The slight tilt of his head whenever someone asks him a question, the soft attentive posture he slips into as he’s trying to appear approachable. The way he laughs during fansigns, sometimes covering his mouth, sometimes leaning closer to the table. The way the stylists emphasize certain parts of his features, softening the contour around his eyes, highlighting the smooth line of his nose, brushing his hair in a way that makes his face look gentler, prettier.

Before, none of those things had meant anything. Now Nicholas cannot stop noticing them.

“What are you watching?”

Nicholas nearly falls from his seat, his entire body jolting as he instinctively hides his phone behind his back. His heart jumps along with it. He lets out a breath of relief when he finally registers Fuma’s face standing in front of him. “Don’t surprise me like that!” Nicholas exclaims, his voice coming out louder than he intended like a small scream. A beat passes before he adds, he mutters quieter, “I’m sorry.”

“No, no—I’m sorry.” Fuma apologizes quickly, tiny giggles slipping from his lips as if he finds the reaction more amusing than alarming. “Are you watching your own fancam?”

A brief second of silence hangs around in the room before Nicholas nods with a faint flush creeping onto his face. It still feels embarrassing somehow even though Fuma was the one encouraging him to explore this question in the first place.

Partly because Nicholas has always been certain about himself. About who he is. About the simple, stable fact of his identity. Questioning it like this—scrutinizing himself frame by frame and bringing the confusion to someone else—feels unfamiliar.

“It’s… fancam from fansign.” Nicholas shifts slightly as he turns his phone back on, the screen lighting up between his hands. “On music shows or concerts it’s obvious—I’m performing.” He scrolls through the clips, some slightly different versions of the same moment. “But during fansigns sometimes I let my guard down, so I don’t know what the fans might see that I didn’t realize.”

Nicholas scrolls further down his own hashtag. The flood of clips and pictures seems endless, new angles constantly resurfacing, short clips of him smiling, leaning forward, waving, laughing.

Now Fuma stands right behind him, his face so close beside Nicholas that he can hear the steadiness of his breathing. His hand settles on Nicholas’ shoulder, his thumb brushing lightly against the fabric. Nicholas shivers.

“Have you ever tried wearing female clothing?” Fuma asks.

Nicholas stops scrolling immediately, his thumb hovering frozen above the screen.

“Oh—I should have worded it better.” Fuma quickly corrects himself before continuing. “I know you always said that fashion is genderless, and you buy items from the women’s section.” He pauses thoughtfully. “But specifically, have you ever tried dressing like a girl?”

He doesn’t know how to respond. Well, obviously Nicholas also wears clothes from the women’s section. He has said it a hundred times before: clothes have no gender.

To him, fashion has always been a way to experiment with shapes, silhouettes, textures. Not a rigid boundary that divides people. Which also raises another question that he has technically been aware of for a long time. The thought had always been sitting right under his nose.

If clothes are socially constructed symbols, then so are the meanings attached to them. Skirts, heels, soft fabrics, fitted tops. Those associations were never natural either. They were built, repeated, reinforced.

It really does make Nicholas wander into places he had never even considered before.

Fuma adds. “You won’t know unless you try.”

So back to the initial question—Nicholas has never tried dressing like a girl. Not really. It’s different from layering pieces or casually wearing a skirt as part of a daily or stage outfit. That had always been framed as fashion, styling. Nicholas realizes it has been a while since he wore a skirt without anything layered over or under it for styling. Just a skirt, simply as it is, the thought has never been more tempting.

All the way home after the schedule, Nicholas finds himself replaying old clips on his phone. That one performance where he wore a skirt. Another where he wore a platinum-white long wig that cascaded past his shoulders. At the time it had simply been styling, something dramatic for the stage and music video.

When he finally gets back to the dorm and enters his room, he moves automatically, opening the closet and pulling out a few skirts before carrying them to the bathroom. The one place where he can have complete privacy, where none of the members will accidentally walk in and ask questions he isn’t ready to answer.

Nicholas stands in front of the mirror. The same face looks back at him. The same sharp features, the same eyes that some people say look intimidating at first glance. The same man people sometimes describe as cold before they get to know him.

Slowly, without thinking too much about it, Nicholas raises his hand and brushes his hair reflection on the mirror. He imagines it longer, longer than it has ever been, long enough to touch his back, maybe even his waist. He imagines the strands falling straight and silky, or perhaps his naturally wavy hair. Maybe his natural hair would finally shine—thick and soft, the way he has seen on countless girls walking past him on the street.

And how he imagines the strands falling over his shoulders when untied?

Maybe underneath them would be a milkmaid top. Or just a simple tank top—the kind girls wear with impossibly thin straps that look like they might snap if pulled too hard. Or maybe a halter top. But that would probably be too much skin for Nicholas to try.

Then his gaze drifts lower. Nicholas stares at where his denim pants sit around his waist. He has seen girls wearing low-rise jeans before, the fabric hugging the curve of their hips. The thought makes him swallow. He isn’t sure whether the idea feels appealing because he genuinely wants to experiment with fashion, or because something else is beginning to stir beneath the surface.

Nicholas slowly unbuttons his pants, then the zipper, the denim slides down and falls softly onto the floor. The skirts lying beside it almost seem to stare back at him. So he picks one up, a skirt with two different materials, denim and wool. He wore it once on Weverse CON which luné probably assumed it belonged to the stylist.

He had worn pants underneath it back then, so now he gently puts it on. He steps into it and pulls it up around his waist, leaving his slightly toned legs bare and exposed to the open air before he steps back, allowing his full body to settle into the mirror’s reflection.

He’s not quite sure what he is looking at, nor how he is supposed to react. It’s just him—the same, familiar Wang Yixiang he has always known. And yet something about the image feels unfamiliar, not because it looks wrong, but perhaps because it doesn’t look as strange as he expected it to. The thought unsettles him slightly. It feels weird that even if something inside him were to change one day, there might still be no obvious physical difference at all.

It takes him a few more minutes before he finally decides to take a bath. When he finishes, he carefully returns the skirts to the closet as if nothing had happened.

And it carries on into another day. Nicholas tries putting on different makeup in the privacy of the dorm bathroom, standing in front of the mirror longer than he usually would. A blush that comes out too pink across his cheeks, mascara brushed carefully along his lashes that accentuate his eyes, soft wash of shadow pressed lightly beneath his lower eyelid that makes his gaze look gentler somehow.

Then another day arrives. Another moment where Nicholas quietly leans toward the makeup artist before a schedule and makes a small request about his look, phrasing it casually as if it were nothing more than curiosity about a new style.

Another time where his eyes linger just a little longer on the rack of outfits the stylist prepares for him, trying to understand why certain pieces feel appealing to him now for reasons that are not entirely about fashion anymore.

Still, Nicholas doesn’t know what to feel.

The sensation sits somewhere between confusion and a low, constant awareness he cannot quite silence. It’s confusing, yes—there are moments where something in his chest tightens faintly, like a thread pulled just slightly too taut, yet it never becomes uncomfortable enough for his body to fully reject it.

His neck doesn’t twitch away in instinctive protest, his hands don’t immediately wipe the makeup off his face. Instead the feeling stays in a strange middle ground.

Sometimes it is slightly uncomfortable. Sometimes it is strangely reassuring. Most of the time it is everything all at once, layered together until he can no longer separate where one emotion ends and the other begins.

Circling back to the same question again and again. What makes something feminine? Is it the softness of a gesture, the curve of a silhouette, the way someone allows themselves to be perceived? Or is it simply the repetition of certain acts until the world decides that those acts belong to a woman. Because if that is true, then what exactly has he been doing all this time?

He found himself stirring awake in the middle of the night. This time, he notices Fuma standing alone at the kitchen counter when he leaves his room.

Nicholas slowly walks towards him, the older doesn’t say anything when Nicholas enters his line of sight. Nicholas only moves past him to the fridge and opens it, looking for something to eat.

He grabs the container full of shine muscat, then leans his back against the fridge, the cool surface pressing faintly through the thin fabric of his shirt. The grapes are cold in his hand when he lifts the lid, their pale green skins catching the kitchen light. Nicholas lets his gaze glide in the direction of Fuma, who stands at the counter, occupied with filling a small bowl.

The scene is calm in a way that feels staged. The soft clink of the spoon against the bowl, the faint hum of the refrigerator, the gentle light spilling from above the kitchen counter.

Nicholas doesn’t know what prompted him to stand there like this, his fingers loosely holding the container while his eyes linger on Fuma’s back, subconsciously waiting for the man to turn around, to say something, to ask something. Hoping the guy would hear his thoughts, as if he’s been signaling through telepathy this whole time.

He also doesn’t know why he has begun seeking Fuma’s guidance more than he ever expected he would. At first it had simply been conversation—someone listening to his confusion without dismissing it. But somewhere along the way, it became natural to bring those thoughts to Fuma.

And perhaps, if he is honest with himself, there is another reason too.

Maybe he wants to hear what Fuma will say about it. Maybe he wants the reassurance hidden inside those calm responses, the sweet words hiding behind the gentle affirmations that always seem to follow. Maybe he wants to hear the words he has secretly been hoping for.

“What is it, Nico?”

The moment Fuma speaks, Nicholas feels something in his body soften instantly. The sound of his voice settles somewhere warm and heavy in his chest. Nicholas lowers his gaze, rolling one of the shine muscats lightly between his fingers before answering. “I…” He hesitates, suddenly aware of how strange it might sound. “I did what you suggested to me.”

Fuma pauses mid-motion, he turns his head toward Nicholas, interest settling into his expression as he leans slightly against the counter. “And how does it make you feel?”

Nicholas doesn’t answer immediately, instead, he stares at the small fruit in his hand, its skin smooth beneath his fingers. He lifts it slowly before slipping it between his lips, biting down softly as the sweetness bursts across his tongue. His eyes wander somewhere on the floor as he chews, unfocused and distant. And he doesn't notice the way Fuma’s gaze follows the movement.

Following the way he pushes the fruit between his lips, the rhythm of his jaw as he chews, the slight shine left behind on his mouth from the lip serum he applied earlier. His lips look fuller like this—glossy, faintly flushed.

Fuma’s eyes don’t leave.

“I don’t know.” Nicholas finally says after a moment, drawing in a slow breath as if composing himself. “It makes me nervous.”

Nicholas fidgets with another one, rolling it between his fingertips the way a kitten might bat at something small and round. The gesture is absentminded, cute, almost childlike. Fuma finds his attention drifting toward the motion before he forces himself to cough lightly, dragging his focus back to the conversation.

“The truth could feel scary at first.”

Nicholas’ head tilt, brows knitting together in slight confusion, is it really? Has it been the truth all this time?

Then, Nicholas thinks about something else entirely, about Fuma, about how masculine Fuma is. The realization arrives out of nowhere. By Inside Nicholas’ head, Fuma has always existed as a kind of reference point, in a way Nicholas has never questioned. Still, he also considers his hyung really pretty and has somewhat feminine features and even gestures, but if someone asked him to picture the perfect embodiment of the word masculine, the image that would form instinctively in his mind might look something like Fuma.

Nicholas doesn’t quite understand why that thought appears now. He taps another shine muscat lightly against his lips while watching him, the fruit cool against his mouth. Somewhere between that motion and the sound of Fuma’s breathing, a question begins forming in his mind.

“Fuma-kun…” Nicholas starts slowly, the hesitation audible in his voice. “How… how do you see me?”

Fuma hums softly at the question, his tone thoughtful rather than surprised. “I’m just giving you suggestions,” he replies after a moment. “Does my voice matter when it comes to that?”

“In the end, it’s all up to you.”

Nicholas exhales softly, shaking his head. “No, it’s not that, I think.” He places the container down on the mini bar table Fuma is leaning on, the plastic making a soft sound as it meets the surface. Then he pushes himself away from the fridge and walks forward until he stands directly in front of Fuma, tilting his head slightly to meet Fuma’s gaze. “I just want to know how Fuma-kun sees me.”

Because the question, he realizes, isn’t entirely internal.

Yes, the confusion lives inside his own mind. But the spiral itself—the way it began and keeps growing—comes from somewhere outside of him too. Through the way people read him and look at him, the way they decide what he is without ever asking.

Fuma leans forward, resting his elbows on the counter. The movement is casual and effortless, while Nicholas finds himself momentarily distracted by it. The posture emphasizes the broadness of Fuma’s shoulders, the easy confidence in the way he occupies space. Nicholas registers the thought with a small jolt of embarrassment. He probably shouldn’t be focusing on that. His body shifts slightly closer, unconsciously mirroring the movement.

“You’re really pretty,” Fuma says after a moment. “You’ve always been pretty.”

“And handsome.”

“You can be both,” Fuma continues calmly. “And still be a man.”

“Or something in between.”

“Or both at the same time.”

His voice remains gentle throughout, to Nicholas it’s as if Fuma is laying out possibilities rather than conclusions.

“Or do you like the idea of being a woman?”

Nicholas cannot pull his eyes away from him.

The words continue to echoes inside his ears, repeating themselves over and over like a mantra. He licks his lips without realizing it, nodding slightly before immediately shaking his head again. The answer still doesn’t come.

But Nicholas finds himself strangely captivated by the way Fuma stands there, guiding him through the confusion with patience while his broad figure stood tall framed by the warm kitchen light.

 

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Hiding his not so little expedition from the other members wasn’t as difficult as Nicholas had imagined when everything first began. Back then, the thought of carrying such a strange and personal question alone had seemed overwhelming, as if it might spill out of him at any moment and reveal itself.

Perhaps that’s the good thing about having one person he can confide in, someone he can ask about everything that sits in his mind longer than it should. It almost feels like having a personal counselor.

Fuma checks in on him often, sometimes casually, sometimes with attentiveness that Nicholas doesn’t always notice until afterward. And Nicholas, in return, finds himself giving updates without much thought, as if reporting small developments in an ongoing experiment. Things he tried, things he noticed, moments that made him think.

Nicholas hadn’t expected Fuma to become this invested. Or maybe Fuma is simply kind. Maybe he just wants to take care of him.

What he does know is that the confusion itself hasn’t softened much. The questions are still there, still circling in his mind. But they feel easier to manage now. Easier to contain.

What once overwhelmed him has settled into something calmer, something that appears less like a crisis and more like unfamiliar territory he is slowly learning to navigate. Perhaps the panic had only been the shock of encountering the unknown for the first time. Now that the idea has existed in his mind for a while, it doesn’t feel quite as destabilizing. He is getting used to it. Taking it slowly.

“I just bought this.”

Nicholas tilts his phone forward so the screen lights up between them, displaying a picture of a dress. It’s soft-looking, layered with lace tracing around the hem and waist.

Fuma glances at the screen and nods with mild amusement. “It’ll look good on you.” Nicholas looks pleased, he feels a small flicker of satisfaction at the comment. He doesn’t even try to hide the pleased expression that spreads briefly across his face. He also doesn’t quite realize when his browser history has gradually filled itself with the women’s section of Musinsa.

It has become a routine between them. Nicholas showing Fuma the things he bought. The pieces he tried wearing. The little discoveries he made while experimenting with them in private. What once felt awkward to bring up has slowly turned into something easier to talk about, something natural in its repetition.

And through all of it, Fuma’s responses remain the same, it has been nothing but supportive, reassuring. ‘That suits you,’ or ‘you look comfortable in that.’ Somewhere along the way, the discomfort he once felt begins to reshape itself quietly into something else. Less sharp and less alarming. It sits beside him more comfortably than before.

“Have you ever tried wearing the full thing?”

Nicholas shifts slightly where he sits, the unfinished blouse draped loosely around his shoulders as he adjusts the fabric.

“What do you mean?”

“Undergarments too,” Fuma replies. “Sometimes clothes feel different depending on what’s underneath.”

Nicholas feels something dry and sharp stabs his own throat. The suggestion lands so suddenly that it catches him off guard. Meanwhile Fuma says it with such casual tone, as if he has simply offered another practical observation while he bends down to help gather the clothes scattered across the floor. Nicholas had never actually thought about that before.

Why does Fuma say it so naturally?

As if it isn’t something intimate at all.

Nicholas watches him for a moment, trying to read his expression. Is Fuma really comfortable having this kind of conversation with him? The thought makes Nicholas strangely aware of the situation they are in. They aren’t even a couple.

This makes Nicholas suddenly aware of the situation too, they’re having a day off. The dorm has been calm all afternoon, most of the members spread-out somewhere else. Fuma decided to stay, standing in Nicholas’ room, watching him try on clothes, offering small comments every now and then while Nicholas rearranges pieces across the bed and the floor. At some point the activity had begun to resemble something done out of consciousness.

It occurs to Nicholas then that this isn’t something Fuma would normally do. Fuma has always been attentive, yes. Supportive too, patient in a way Nicholas hadn’t expected when all of this first started. But staying like this—helping for hours in Nicholas’ room while he changes clothes and studies himself in the mirror—isn’t the kind of thing they usually do together.

Or, maybe he is just overthinking it. Fuma probably doesn’t mean any harm in that, it’s just another suggestion, no different from the ones he has made before. Maybe Nicholas is the only one assigning unnecessary meaning to it. No, it’s not weird, Nicholas convinces himself of that. He turns slightly and sits down across from Fuma, the blouse still hanging loosely from his shoulders.

“...Should I?”

He holds his breath as Fuma raises his hand to drape the blouse over him, his fingers lightly brushing across Nicholas’ collarbone. The coldness from his fingers resides on his skin, Nicholas feels it travel down his spine.

Fuma looks up at him.

“Aren’t you curious?” he asks.

Nicholas never actually bought it, even after Fuma left his room. He let it sit there for a while, letting the idea marinate in the back of his mind the way one might let food cool before deciding whether to taste it.

But it isn’t something Nicholas entirely refuses either. If anything, he finds himself going around the idea rather than pushing it away. It simply doesn’t feel necessary yet, at least not in the way Fuma had suggested it.

And perhaps that alone could have been an answer to his question if things were clearer—if this entire sequence of thoughts and experiments hadn’t been so confusing from the beginning. If the path itself didn’t feel so uncertain beneath his feet. Maybe if Nicholas were more sure of himself, he would already know why the suggestion unsettled him.

But certainty has been rare lately.

“Have you bought it?”

Nicholas practically springs from his seat. He hadn’t expected Fuma to still be awake this late, much less appear behind him so suddenly. The conversation had happened three days ago. Three days in which Nicholas had said nothing about it. He had neither brought it up nor asked another question, simply letting the idea drift in the background of his mind.

“I was about to,” Nicholas says after a moment, turning slightly in. “But I still want to think about it.”

“I see.”

Fuma’s answer is simple, too simple that it makes Nicholas think about something else. Whether there is something hidden beneath it or again, Nicholas is simply overthinking everything. It doesn’t feel like him to act like this. He doesn’t like the space in the answer that stays there and gives Nicholas nothing more to hold onto. He couldn’t read the calm properly. For a brief second he wonders if he should explain more.

Maybe say that he really did consider it. That he even opened the page twice, hovered over the purchase button longer than he wanted to admit. That the only reason he didn’t go through with it was because something about the decision felt heavier than the others he had made so far. But nothing comes out of his mouth.

Nicholas shifts slightly, fingers brushing against the fabric of his shirt as if searching for something to do with them. A small part of him almost wants Fuma to say something else.

Then, within seconds, Fuma’s hand lands on Nicholas’ hips.

Nicholas goes rigid instantly, he steps backward in surprise, breath catching sharply in his chest. Only then does he realize what actually happened. Fuma had been reaching past him for the bag sitting nearby. He lets out an awkward, airy giggle, the sound slipping out of him almost automatically as the tension breaks.

“You’re so sensitive.”

Fuma’s voice carries a faint trace of amusement, the words slipping out so lazily.

“Like a girl.”

Nicholas goes completely still.

For a moment he just stares at Fuma, eyes widening slightly as if something inside him has sparked too suddenly to process. His ears flush red, the heat spreading across his cheeks before he can stop it. His breath catches somewhere high in his chest. Nicholas lifts both of his hands and covers his face with his palms, pressing them briefly against his burning skin as if that might hide the reaction somehow.

Through the narrow gap between his fingers he still looks at Fuma, peeking out cautiously. He stands exactly where he was before, watching Nicholas with the same composed expression. There is something in his eyes that Nicholas can’t quite place. Nicholas can’t tell what it is, and that dilemma only makes his chest feel tighter.

 

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“Is that a camisole?”

Nicholas shivers the moment he captures Harua’s words. His eyes dart across the room almost frantically, scanning the floor and the slightly opened closet behind him as if the item Harua mentioned might suddenly materialize there if he stares long enough.

“What? No? There is no camisole?” He blurts out in panic, the denial leaving his mouth far quicker than he can process why he’s even saying it like that.

“The one in your hand—”

Harua pauses mid-sentence, his hand reaching toward the wall as he presses the light switch. The room floods with soft yellow light, revealing the object Nicholas has been gripping without even realizing it. “Oh,” Harua says after a brief glance. “It’s just a tank top.”

Nicholas’ eyes move mechanically as he follows Harua’s gaze, his own eyes lowering toward the thin fabric hanging loosely between his fingers.

“Wow,” Harua continues casually, barely thinking about the words he’s throwing into the air. “That’s really thin. Like the ones girls always wear.” The observation lands in the room for a few seconds before Harua simply shrugs it off. Grabs his phone from near the power outlet, halfway distracted by something on the screen and bursts out of the door while saying ‘sorry for barging in, Nico-chan!’

So he just left Nicholas there with eyes widen and mouth agape, trying to steady his heartbeat as he looks at the tanktop in his hand. Yes, it’s a women’s tank top with very thin straps that Nicholas bought out of curiosity, the fabric soft and delicate between his fingers in a way that feels noticeably different from the usual clothes he wears. He shares a room so he always makes sure to separate and place his clothes properly for them to not get mixed up. That’s what he’s doing right now.

Nicholas pressed a palm against his temple, the skin there throbbing in sync with the erratic rhythm of his pulse. He let out a long, ragged exhale that did little to clear the sudden, suffocating fog in his mind. It made no sense, he never bought undergarments, there were no camisoles, he doesn’t know why he panicked and acted like he actually bought them and got caught. He never even had them in the beginning.

In the matter of progress, he’s still taking it slowly. He preferred to think of it as a gradual process. Though, whenever the thought occurs again he always feels like he already has one obvious answer in his mind, sitting there like a word resting at the tip of his tongue.

He’s just not ready to actually name it yet. To speak it aloud felt like a violent act of crystallization. Saying it means he has given a vessel to a soul, his new soul, or not new at all, just been there long and excruciating enough for him to finally address. The moment he says it and allows the word to exist outside of his own thoughts, it would become real in a way that cannot be undone.

Hence, the thing he’s been doing, it morphed into something that he has done out of consciousness instead of treating it as something he’s been trying. The curiosity that once felt intentional now blends into his life.

It’s no longer a science experiment he was conducting on himself, it has long fused into his marrow and something he would do when he wants to, the same way he chooses certain clothes depending on his mood or fixes his hair without needing to think about it too much.

Though, there is one problem.

Not quite a problem, not really. Since his last conversation regarding this matter with Fuma, he’s been sensing a sensation that feels… uneven. He cannot find the precise word or language to capture it. The feeling refuses to form clearly enough for him to hold onto.

It just feels like it’s been riding up under his skin that he cannot decide whether it’s there for good or worse. He cannot see it, it just exists there as it prickles at him every now and then, subtle but persistent.

But, he always trusts Fuma. Even when Fuma’s words leave him reeling—shattered into a thousand conflicting interpretations, he remains undeniably attentive and caring. The way he listens when Nicholas talks, the way he remembers small things Nicholas himself barely keeps track of, the way he always seems to notice changes before anyone else does.

It’s as if, no matter how conflicted Nicholas feels, Fuma always shows up the next day to wash it away with a small gesture that restores his faith. Nicholas feels guilty for even doubting, it makes it impossible for Nicholas not to believe that Fuma genuinely cares and only wants to help him.

It’s so thoughtless of him, honestly, a jarring lack of gratitude there. To disregard all of Fuma’s efforts after putting him in labor. Navigating the wreckage of his thoughts only to be treated like an inconvenience. It’s ironic, considering Nicholas was the one who initiated this whole dynamic. He came to Fuma for help, not the other way around. Talk about biting the hand that feeds.

Still. He couldn’t just shake the sensation.

He can't decide if he feels like Fuma is helping him find his voice, or if he’s just teaching him how to echo Fuma’s own thoughts.

 

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The clock creeps past one in the morning. Given how cruelly the company extracts their energy, managing to settle into the dorms by midnight is, in itself, a rare, hard-won blessing. So everyone uses their time wisely, most of them already on their own beds or ready to fall asleep at any second.

Nicholas stands on the balcony, humming a tuneless melody. A cigarette burns between his fingers, the ember a lone, frantic spark in the gloom; his black hoodie is pulled low shrouding his face. His eyes wander aimlessly over the night view of Tokyo. He has been sitting there for almost thirty minutes, staring up at the sky that quiets his mind momentarily.

It has been a long time since Nicholas touched a cigarette. As the group’s schedule tightened and his focus sharpened on his creative output, he had sought out healthier ways to cope with his stress. But lately, it’s just been awfully exhausting and stressful that when he stumbled upon a forgotten, stale pack buried in his bag, he hadn’t thought twice.

He’s not even physically exhausted, quite the opposite, he’s been using practice and recording to distract himself and pour the stress out. Instead, if he’s being given the free time to just lay around lazily with his own thoughts, that unsettles him. So here he goes again aiming to rinse it up.

He is about to light another stick when the balcony door slides open.

Nicholas throws a quick glance, he coughs as his peripheral vision registers Fuma stepping out with a paper bag in his hand. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t ask why Nicholas is still here, nor whether he has fallen back into his old bad habit again. He simply walks over, places a bottle of water on the small table, and takes a seat beside him. Nicholas murmurs a fractured thank you.

“Did you just buy those?” Fuma asks him, Nicholas lets out a dry laugh.

“No, they’re leftovers.”

“From when?”

“...Five months ago, I think.”

“You’ve been clean for a while.”

Nicholas lets out a laugh again. The other members know he smokes—some of them even join him—but they have all come to recognize the pattern: Nicholas only reaches for a cigarette when he is fundamentally unable to process his own frustration. It was a habit he had picked up in high school, mimicking his friends, but as he grew older, it had been relegated to a desperate last resort, reserved only for those moments when the pressure became too heavy to hold. Only when the situation and his mind calls for it.

The silence returns back after that. And Nicholas couldn’t seem to stay in his seat; shifts constantly, his movements jerky, stealing desperate, squinting glances at Fuma. He is trying—and failing—to mask the raw, vibrating uneasiness beneath his ribs, a frantic attempt to keep his composure.

“You want one, hyung?”

“No, but thank you.”

Fuma stares at Nicholas for a beat, his gaze unblinking and precise, before adding, “But you should rinse your mouth properly. Don’t let Kei-hyung smell it. And it certainly wouldn't do for luné to catch a whiff of that tomorrow.”

Nicholas’ eyes widen in sheer horror; he nearly launches the still-long cigarette over the balcony railing. “Fuck. I forgot.” A soft, amused laugh escapes Fuma.

“Speaking of Kei-hyung,” Fuma continues, his voice dropping into a casual, conversational register, “I believe his laundry got mixed up with yours.”

The words trips over each other in his mouth before he could voice it, Nicholas gulps while remembering what he has in his laundry basket. The cigarette is burning low near his knuckles, but he just stays there. Trying to rearrange his thoughts before he lets it out, before he regrets his decision to speak or not at all. Weighing his worries and his guilt every time he remembers the older beside him.

“Yeah…” Nicholas manages, his voice barely audible, a thin tremor escaping him. “What is it?” Nicholas asks.

“What?”

“…Is there something?”

“I’m just telling you because Kei-hyung told me to.”

Nicholas looks away before he gets the chance to lock eyes with Fuma again. He brings his hands up to rub the back of his neck, a nervous attempt to smooth out the jagged nerves fraying under his skin.

“Is there anything?” Fuma prompts again, his voice smooth as silk.

All language abandons him, his eyes scanning the glowing grid of the city. This is what always melts him away, the way he carries his tone is always unmistakably caring, comforting. Then Nicholas will be all out of words. He wants to deflect, to talk about the choreography or the upcoming schedule, but the exhaustion has weathered his defenses.

“Just…” He weighs the words until they feel like lead in his throat. “My tank top. The one I… the one I bought.”

Fuma shifts in his seat, his frame leaning in, effectively eclipsing the world beyond the railing. “That’s all?”

“I’ll look for them before Kei-hyung realizes, if you want me to.” Fuma offers. “But,” He murmurs, focus narrowing, “is there anything else?”

Nicholas feels a surge of silence, cursing at how easily Fuma picks him apart, dismantling him like an open book. He was the one who prayed for Fuma to notice. He once prayed for this intimacy, for someone to truly see him, and now he is internally begging for Fuma to look away, to stop digging.

The guilt stirs tighter in his stomach, honed and suffocating, making him feel ungrateful for even harboring the suspicion that Fuma is maneuvering him. He wishes Fuma would just stop, but he is trapped by his own need for guidance.

“I…” Nicholas stutters, his voice fracturing. “I just don’t know what I’m looking for anymore.”

He had meant it more as a confession than a statement.

Nicholas isn't entirely wrong. He feels as though he has stopped searching for proof, as if the answer has been rooted inside him all along, waiting. It’s just that there is a rope tethering him in place, and the cord isn't even tight. He could walk away, could unloop it at any given moment, yet he remains. He stays exactly where he is.

The cigarette between his fingers burns down unnoticed, ash lengthening dangerously close to the filter. His shoulders feel heavy and he can feel the older man’s gaze resting on him, not pressing, not intrusive, just present. The kind of attention that always manages to make Nicholas feel both comforted and exposed at the same time.

“Sometimes…” Nicholas says softly, sniffing against the chill, “it feels like I already know the answer… but my body hasn’t figured it out yet.”

His mind wanders to the hidden corners of his life: the different garments folded in his closet, the makeup brushes more worn in the last month than in the years since he bought them, the mirror that reflects the same face but hides an amalgamation of everything he is beginning to feel and see.

Following Nicholas’ lead, Fuma repeats his words, “Sometimes people know who they are before their body catches up.”

He stares at his own hands. Nicholas has always believed he had absolute control over himself and his body; people constantly praise the precision of his movements when he dances. Why, then, in a moment like this, does his body refuse to follow his lead? It feels like a foreign vessel.

“Have you ever thought about… hormonal support?”

Nicholas blinks, his expression shifting into something vulnerable and confused, seemingly taken aback by proposal, it’s odd and unexpected. He can’t quite grasp the magnitude of what Fuma is suggesting, or what exactly he is trying to imply by placing such an idea so carefully in front of him.

“Like… like what?”

His voice comes out thinner than he expects, the hesitation betraying him before he can gather his thoughts.

“Like tablets.”

He is trying to figure out the vague outline of the suggestion, and when the meaning finally settles in his mind, Nicholas goes rigid. His shoulders stiffen without him realizing it, the cigarette between his fingers forgotten as a faint tremor runs through his hand. Once again, he doesn’t know how to feel. Should he be weirded out, or should he be reacting as if someone has finally handed him the missing piece to a puzzle he has been fumbling with for weeks.

Nicholas braces himself before slowly tilting his head, forcing himself to look up until his eyes finally meet Fuma’s.

Fuck, Nicholas understands that he cannot deny what he sees there. He couldn’t deny the fondness in the older’s eyes. It is unmistakable, constant and warm in a way that has always managed to undo him. The same tenderness that had made Nicholas trust him in the first place, the same gentleness that makes it impossible to assume anything malicious behind his lips.

“Just as a thought,” Fuma clarifies. His voice softens even further, it’s so overwhelming that Nicholas almost misses the way his grip on the situation has just tightened. “I’ve heard of it,” he continues calmly. “It’s safe. It’s controlled.”

The words should feel clinical, distant. But instead they’re stirring something uneasy and curious at the same time. It frustrates Nicholas even more that Fuma never rushes him, never forces him. It’s easier for him to digest the words if Fuma has acted more obviously, but it’s like he is standing right in the borderline.

“Some people try it,” he adds after a moment. “Just to see how their body responds.”

Nicholas’ brows knit together. “Try it?”

“Low doses,” Fuma explains, his voice barely a whisper, yet it cuts through the night air. “Nothing drastic. Just enough to understand whether it… aligns with how you already feel.”

Nicholas looks at him, searching Fuma’s face for judgment, but finding only a terrifyingly calm understanding. He feels a wave of nausea, quickly masked by the familiar comfort of dependency. And that, he realizes with a sinking, hollow dread, is exactly the problem.

 

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Nicholas watches his older sister grow in front of him until the day he eventually flies away to Seoul. And during those years of growing up, it is never unusual in the Wang household for teenage Nicholas to throw out one or two absurd questions toward either his sister or his mother. Thrown without warning, often in the middle of dinner or while someone is folding laundry in the living room.

“Why do girls sound so high-pitched?”

“Is it really a must that you wear a dress for a party?”

“What does it feel like when you’re on your period?”

“Why can I like the color pink!?”

The last one remains as teenage Nicholas’ greatest question and dilemma. Those pink possessions his mother once bought for his sister somehow begin to migrate, finding their way into his room instead. A hairbrush here. A blanket there. Small decorative things that his sister no longer cares about but Nicholas claims with surprising enthusiasm.

It reaches a point where his sister and mother simply exchange amused glances and nod at their family’s youngest boy’s persistent obsession with the color.

Nicholas grows up with two loving women shaping his world. It is perhaps part of the reason Nicholas grows into someone with so much affection to give, someone who listens carefully and understands quietly, someone who moves through the world comfortably around women, the spaces they occupy, and femininity.

His family never treats his curiosity as something abnormal. Whenever Nicholas shows interest, they simply answer his questions patiently, as if this is just another part of who he is meant to be. So, to put it simply, Nicholas is grateful he grew up in a family that accepts him exactly as he is.

In this case, if Nicholas ever thought about finally coming out to them, he can say with some confidence that the percentage of being welcomed with a hug is far higher than whatever worst outcome he could imagine. Nicholas hasn’t even properly come out about the fact that he sways both ways. For now, he doesn’t feel the need to make it official. Also, because Nicholas has always believed that normal people out there should’ve experienced some degree of attraction to the same gender.

Nicholas stares down at the picture his older sister just sent him. She has only just arrived in Seoul and she cannot stop sending him photos of everything she sees. He chuckles softly in delight, his thumb hovering over the screen as another message pops up.

“Nico, your sister really looks like you if you were a woman.”

Nicholas lifts his head and turns toward Yudai, who is standing beside him with mild curiosity painted across his face. Nicholas frowns at him. “Isn’t it weirder if we don’t look alike?”

“I guess so.” Yudai nods thoughtfully, taking another sip from his cup of Americano before wandering toward the couch across from Nicholas. He settles into the cushions before absentmindedly adding, “Don’t cut your hair and stop shaving.”

The younger blinks. “It’s been a while since I shaved though.” Nicholas explains.

And after saying it out loud does the realization truly hit.

He raises his hand to his chin, the texture beneath his skin feels different. It’s not as dry and rough as usual. None of the usual uneven bumps that follow a few days of neglect. Instead the surface feels unexpectedly smooth beneath his fingertips.

He continues rubbing his chin, fingers tracing the skin to properly register the smooth, plump texture as if he has just undergone a professional treatment. The thing is, it has been months since the group last had their scheduled facial treatment.

“You haven’t been shaving!?” Yudai suddenly exclaims far too loud, Nicholas huffs at his hyperbolic reaction. “Did you change your skincare or something?” Yudai continues, leaning forward slightly. “Your skin looks smoother even without makeup.”

Nicholas sighs, he runs his fingers through his unstyled hair, shrugging vaguely as if the answer doesn’t matter, before standing up and walking out of the living room toward the bathroom.

The members will eventually notice after a while, that is what Nicholas had told himself weeks ago. That is exactly why he stopped taking the pills, because if the changes continued beyond what he could hide. Nicholas isn’t sure he would know how to explain it. Or worse, how to pretend nothing had changed at all.

Even with the small dosage, Nicholas has been sensing subtle shifts inside his body. He cries before Euijoo during movies now, his muscles feel less tense during workout, and now people are beginning to notice that his skin has gotten smoother over the weeks.

And what Nicholas grasps, the changes do not alter the way he feels about himself. What he once believed would be a definitive shift yields nothing. The treatment was supposed to be the catalyst that would click everything into place, yet as the days bleed forward, it remains unchanged.

He still views himself through the same fractured lens, not closer to the peace he was promised, realizing with a growing sense of dread that altering the vessel has done nothing to settle the soul within. So Nicholas doesn’t see the reason to keep taking them. If the pills are meant to answer something, then they have not given him any new answers.

On the other hand, the changes feel unfamiliar in his body. It’s not painful. And it’s entirely wrong. Just different.

 

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“Take care of yourself! Don’t forget to tell your manager, dummy!”

Nicholas scowls at his sister and shouts a loud, ‘Ya!’ after her, the protest dissolves into laughter as he watches the car roll farther down the road, shrinking under the streetlights until it finally disappears.

The smile persists on his lips as he walks through the door. It’s nice, to finally spend his time with his family in between schedules, for a few hours he could pretend he wasn’t constantly moving from one filming to the next. Sitting at the dinner table together again, hearing his mother scold him for eating too quickly, listening to his sister talk endlessly about things he’s already heard three times before.

Though, something has been wrong with his body since morning. A strange, persistent fatigue has been clinging to him, a sensation of his body being on fire while simultaneously being drenched in a cold sweat.

Even his family has seen through him and pointed it out, urging him to see a doctor. What Nicholas doesn’t say is that there is a chance this might be a hormonal problem of his own making. He isn't ready to invite them into this, doesn't want to feel the obligation to tell them. Not yet.

Nicholas steps inside the dorm and instinctively glances down at the lack of shoes by the front door. Almost must still be out. Even Euijoo’s familiar sneakers are gone. It’s only a little past seven in the evening, so the others are probably still enjoying their rare slice of freedom outside.

The exhaustion clouding Nicholas's mind turns into a sharp, cold fog the moment his eyes land on Fuma sitting on the couch, his body tensing without him realizing it and proceeds to walk past the living room.

“Oh, Nico! You’re early.”

“Yeah,” he replies, shrugging. “Dinner ended way too quickly. My mother wanted to rest.”

“Well,” Fuma says, leaning back against the couch, “you’ve been out since morning.”

A small chuckle slips out of Nicholas’ mouth, he places the shopping bag his family prepared onto the table in front of Fuma. Inside are snacks and small souvenirs his mother insisted he bring back for the members.

“They told me to share these.” Fuma nods, glancing into the bag.

Then he pauses.

“You smell different.”

Nicholas squints at Fuma, his head tilting slightly as if a question mark has physically appeared beside his face. “Is it?” he asks. “I’m not wearing any perfume.”

Fuma goes quiet not for long, his gaze hangs around Nicholas as if trying to dissect him. “Yeah,” he finally says. “Maybe that’s why.”

Nicholas frowns faintly.

“It’s softer.”

“Lighter.”

The words land oddly between them.

Before he can stop himself, Nicholas lifts his arm and instinctively smells his own skin followed by his body stiffening with tension. The reaction lasts only a second. He just throws a faint grin and shrugs as if nothing happened. “Maybe it’s the weather,” he mutters. Without waiting for a reply, Nicholas turns and walks toward his room.

The moment the door closes behind him, he exhales sharply. Nicholas strips his clothes off in the blink of an eye, tossing them aside until he’s left wearing only a thin sleeveless top and his striped shorts. Then he lifts the collar of his shirt and smells himself again.

Fuma was right. His scent has changed. It’s subtle, but undeniable. His natural body odor used to be sharper, stronger—something distinctly musky that he always masked with perfume. His favorite fragrance that smells like white flowers, something light and clean that balanced out the intensity. So he never really noticed the base scent underneath lately.

Nicholas lowers his arm sluggishly. Ever since that conversation on the balcony, he has never told Fuma that he actually started taking the pills.

But Fuma has never asked again either. Not once.

He never brought it up, never checked in the way he normally would, never circled back to the topic. They simply just go on about their days and minding their own business. At first Nicholas assumed the brutal schedule had simply swallowed the topic whole. Then—

Is it weird?

When Fuma isn’t around, Nicholas often feels like he finally has autonomy over himself again.

Over his body.

Over his choices.

For a while now, Nicholas has even started feeling more certain about himself. Like he is slowly regaining consciousness instead of losing it.

In a sideways glance, Nicholas catches his reflection in the mirror. His bare skin catches the dim light of the room. Exposed.

His hair is longer, longer than it has ever been, not long enough to touch his back nor his waist. But long enough now that he can tie it if he wants. The strands falling straight and silky due from the careful blow-drying, temporarily hiding the natural waves. Still, it’s thick and soft.

Underneath the strands a simple sleeveless top, with impossibly thin straps, thinner than most of the clothes he used to wear. His collarbones are clearly visible, he raises his hand and presses it against his chest. It’s bulking, bigger, fuller. And nipples have been strangely sensitive lately too that he’s started using patches during performances just to avoid the irritation.

His gaze drifts lower. Nicholas stares at where his striped short pants sit around his waist and hugging his hips. He swallows. Stepping back until the back of his legs hit the edge of his bed. Then—something catches his attention.

Something on top of his bed. At first it’s only a faint shape in the dim light, neatly placed near the center of the blanket. He reaches over and turns on the small table lamp beside the bed, light flooding the surface.

Nicholas feels his throat tightens.

He doesn’t want to say the word out loud, but he knows exactly what he’s looking at.

It’s pink.

Covered in lace.

His hand moves cautiously. When the fabric finally settles in his palm, his suspicion hardens into certainty. It’s not his, there is absolutely no reason for something like this to belong to any of the other members. Nicholas stares at it before something happens, before he can stop himself.

He imagines it, he sees himself, the camisole hugging his torso, the pink lace resting against his skin, the thin ribbons framing his shoulders. Nicholas swallows hard, fingers tightening around the dainty straps.

Before he can think too much about it, he reaches for the hem of his sleeveless top and pulls it over his head. The black fabric drops onto the bed beside him. For a moment he simply stares at the contrast between them—the slightly boxy, dark top he just removed and the soft pink camisole lying beside it.

Nicholas lifts the camisole and slips the thin straps over his shoulders.

The fabric slides down his body with unexpected ease. The material settles softly against his skin, hugging the faint curve of his chest more naturally than he anticipated. He just stands there staring at himself. Trying, desperately to organize the swarm of thoughts racing through his head. The air in the room suddenly feels too heavy, pressing against his chest, for a second Nicholas thinks he might actually throw up.

Everything feels too loud inside his head. The mirror in front of him reflects a version of himself that looks both completely familiar and entirely wrong. It may not be wrong but it’s different.

Because the worst part is that he cannot lie to himself. Nicholas cannot lie that he loves the way it fits his body, he loves the way it makes him look softer, gentler. The fabric doesn’t hang loosely like most of his clothes do. Instead it settles naturally against his body, following the subtle curves that have been slowly forming over the past few weeks.

Nicholas shifts his weight, unable to stop himself from studying the reflection more carefully. The camisole makes his shoulders look narrower, his collarbones stand out more clearly, even the line of his waist appears softer somehow.

He presses his lips together. He hates the warmth spreading through his chest as he continues staring. The moment the thought of removing it appears in his mind, something inside him resists. He doesn’t want to take it off, but his mind hovers to another thought. What would it look like to someone else? If anyone saw him like this, the image flashes across his mind before he can stop it.

Heat rushes up his neck immediately, spreading across his cheeks until his face burns. He’s scared—terrified, actually—but curiosity refuses to loosen its grip on him. A small and reckless part of him wonders what it would feel like to have someone look at him like this. Nicholas draws in a slow breath, he’ll take it off, he’ll fold it away.

That’s when a knock lands sharply against the door.

Every muscle in his body locks at once, his heart slamming violently against his ribs it steals the air from his lungs. His eyes dart toward the door as his mouth opens automatically, preparing to say something but the words get caught somewhere in his throat. Before he can move, the door handle begins to turn.

“Fuma-kun?”

It feels as if something has struck Nicholas at the back of the head without warning that for a second he forgets how to breathe, a sudden blow that leaves his thoughts scattering in every direction. His mind floods with thousands of conflicting thoughts, words and half-formed reactions that collide with one another until he can no longer tell which one he is supposed to follow.

His chest burns. Heat coils low in his stomach like molten lava, spreading outward in waves. Yet when his eyes meet the older man’s gaze, Nicholas cannot deny the truth rising inside him.

He is embarrassed.

And he is somewhat aroused.

Fuma, in contrast, looks calm and collected. He doesn’t say a single word at first, but his eyes speak more than enough. There is not a trace of surprise in his expression, not even a flicker of confusion.

His gaze begins at Nicholas’ hair, the faded pink strands falling loosely around his face, then drifts downward. Right at the thin straps resting against Nicholas’ shoulders, traces the small ribbons and lace hugging his chest, studies the way the delicate fabric stretches across the firm lines of muscle that have softened just slightly over the past weeks.

From there his eyes travel further, past the narrow waist, past the striped shorts that sit a little too high and reveal more of Nicholas’ thighs than they should. Fuma still hasn’t touched him, he hasn’t even stepped closer. Yet Nicholas feels as though every layer of clothing has already been peeled away under that gaze alone.

“It looks good on you, doesn’t it?”

Nicholas bats his lashes up at him before he realizes he has even moved. His eyes follow the quiet motion of Fuma’s hand as the older man reaches back and slowly pushes the door closed behind him, the soft click echoing louder than it should in the dim room.

The weak lighting swallows most of Fuma’s face now, leaving parts of his expression hidden in shadow, but Nicholas finds that it doesn’t matter. Even without seeing him clearly, he can feel that gaze that has wrapped itself around his entire body, never leaving him out of the sight. “...What?” Nicholas mutters, his voice sounds strangely small.

“When you’re like this,” Fuma continues, “it suits you even more.”

“Plump.”

“Soft.”

“Glowing.”

It’s dizzying, like being tossed around violently for weeks, only now being placed back on solid ground without warning and he is forced to break down the situation before he can even regain balance. Nicholas tries to piece together Fuma’s words, tries to follow the logic behind them, but every attempt leads him to the same unsettling conclusion.

Nicholas cannot even decide whether that thought should terrify him. Or, somehow, amuse him.

Nicholas wants to speak, wants to ask something, anything, if only to confirm that the strange tension filling the room is real. But he is unable to form a coherent sentence at this point, even his mother tongue fails him now.

A part of him insists he should be furious at Fuma for looking at him like this, he feels like he needs to, for Fuma speaking as if this entire situation were normal. Despite that, the emotion never grows strong enough to take hold, drowned instead by another sensation creeping beneath his skin.

Alongside the embarrassment and confusion, Nicholas feels something else that has been waiting to bloom in his chest, something darker and harder to admit. He wants something from Fuma, and the realization makes his stomach twist.

He hates it. It makes him feel filthy.

Fuma begins walking toward him with a calm approach and unhurried steps that somehow feels far more threatening than if he had rushed forward. Nicholas watches him come closer, every movement slow enough to make the tension stretch painfully thin between them, until the older man finally stops in front of him.

Up close, the difference in their height becomes impossible to ignore. Fuma stands tall, broad shoulders casting a shadow over Nicholas that swallows him whole, and Nicholas suddenly becomes aware of how small the space between them has become. He curses inwardly at the position, at the way the power imbalance settles so naturally between them, and most of all at how badly he wants to surrender.

“How does it make you feel?” Fuma asks.

Fuma always speaks like this, with that same gentle tone that somehow manages to slip beneath Nicholas’ defenses every single time. It is a voice that makes his body react before his mind has time to decide whether it wants to respond at all, a reaction that feels humiliating precisely because Nicholas secretly longs for it. It’s ironic, and deeply embarrassing.

And it seems that Fuma senses it. Perhaps he has always sensed it without fail, right from the very beginning—long before Nicholas himself even understood what his body wanted or what it was feeling.

“Fuma-kun—please—”

The words slip out before Nicholas can stop them. He knows he sounded weak and desperate. So Fuma’s lips curl upward at his response, a smile that is covered in warmth that Nicholas has been unconsciously chasing for months without realizing it. “You’re so pretty when you beg,” Fuma murmurs.

Fuma hooks his thumb into the strap, stretching it just far enough before letting it snap back against Nicholas’ skin, drawing a small, pained whimper from the younger man’s lips. Nicholas doesn’t even realize when Fuma got this close, his breath hovering near Nicholas’ ear. It feels like Fuma is about to kiss him, the proximity alone enough to leave Nicholas teetering on the edge.

For a whole minute, neither of them moves, they stare at each other. Fuma’s expression has gone completely still, the faint smile that had curved along his lips moments ago is no longer there. And he is leaving Nicholas edging and desperate, watching, waiting. A small gap forms between his lips but nothing comes out. His throat feels tight, his thoughts tangled into something incoherent, and all he can do is stare back at Fuma with wide, pleading eyes.

He feels ridiculous and helpless. Like a kitten staring up at its owner with desperation. Except, for this moment, Nicholas isn’t entirely sure he wants to be fed. He wonders what it would feel like to be devoured instead.

Then, Fuma closes the distance between them. His palm finds its place against the back of Nicholas’ neck, fingers spreading across the nape in a firm hold. Tilting Nicholas’ head forward, guiding him closer until the distance between their faces disappears, and so Nicholas submits. Crushing his lips and weight into Nicholas, making him whimper as he tries to keep up with the intensity of it. His hands instinctively curl against Fuma’s shirt as if he needs something to steady himself.

Fuma’s hand is all over him, sliding along Nicholas’ side, fingers brushing across the thin fabric of the camisole, the material rustles faintly as Fuma’s hand glides lower, skimming across Nicholas’ waist before slipping beneath the edge of his shorts.

The waistband shifts under the pressure, sliding slightly lower along his hips until the striped fabric hangs loosely, leaving Nicholas standing there in nothing but his boxer and the pink camisole. The cool air against his skin makes him tremble.

Nicholas knows something very well. Everyone knows it. That Fuma’s strength has never been a joke, in the effortless way Fuma lifts or moves things without appearing to try. And Nicholas would be lying if he said he never imagined what it might feel like to be handled by him like that. To be overpowered so easily.

But the way Fuma is handling him right now, right hand digging on his nape, left hand roams around his soft skin. It makes Nicholas feel small, light. As if Fuma could simply pick him up and carry him away without effort if he wanted to. It’s better than everything Nicholas could’ve wished.

Nicholas doesn’t know how long the kiss lasts before he finally pulls away, his breath breaks first. He leans back just enough to create space between them, chest rising and falling unevenly as he struggles to control his breathing.

His eyes glisten faintly, tears gathering there as he stares up at Fuma, trying desperately to regain some sense of control over his racing thoughts.

But the look he gives him—wide-eyed and unguarded—betrays exactly how shaken he is.

“Look at you,” Fuma mumbles. “Losing your mind already.”

Just the way Nicholas hoped, Fuma picks him up without the slightest struggle. Lifting him off the floor as he lets out a startled squeak, leaving what little dignity he has left. The mattress dips softly beneath his weight and Nicholas barely has time to push himself up on his elbows before Fuma leans over him, bracing both hands on the bed, caging Nicholas as the space between them shrinks again.

And the realization hits Nicholas a second too late, flustered beyond reason while turning his face away, avoiding Fuma’s eyes. Staring stubbornly at the sheets instead. He must look ridiculous, he must look helpless.

But what Nicholas doesn’t know, what he can’t see from the way he’s turned his face aside is the way Fuma’s expression changes. Because from where Fuma is standing, Nicholas looks breathtaking. Spread across the bed with his hair slightly messy, his camisole half-shifted from being carried, almost naked while showing his flushed and plumpy flesh out for Fuma to enjoy. Gaze tracing over Nicholas like he’s trying to memorize the sight. All for him.

Wasting no time, Fuma buries his nose and lips against Nicholas’ neck, breathing him in then seamlessly pinning him down, pressing a slow trail of kisses along the sensitive skin there. He knows exactly what he is doing, one knee nudging between Nicholas’ thighs, hand moving to grasp Nicholas’ waist, fingers curling there first, then he finds Nicholas’ chest, thumbs brushing over his nipple through the camisole.

Nicholas wails at the touch, he slaps a hand over his own mouth as the sound itself shocked him. Heat flooding his face.

Against his neck, Fuma smiles. He always smiles, and Nicholas could feel it. The curve of his mouth pressing warm on his skin.

It doesn’t take long before Fuma’s hand slides under the trim of the camisole. Pushing the fabric upward, giving him enough access to expose what he wants without taking it off. He dips his head again, gaze flicking up once—watching Nicholas’ face—and his mouth closes around his nipples.

The sensation makes Nicholas arch, pulling a restrained moan through his fingers as Fuma sucks vigorously at the sensitive nub, his hand toying with the other at the same time. The room fills with small sounds of slurping and sucking, the wet drag of Fuma’s mouth trailing the rustle of fabric as Nicholas shifts beneath him.

Fuma’s tongue flicks, presses, circles, alternates between sucking and teasing with maddening pace. Leaving Nicholas breathless as he tries so hard to suppress the sound from his lips. He bites down on his palm to muffle whatever threatens to escape. And Fuma notices. Fuma notices everything. The way Nicholas holds himself back doesn’t slip past his attention.

Without breaking the rhythm, he pulls back from one nipple, the skin flushed and damp as it got left. Nicholas barely has time to register the sudden change of movement before Fuma’s hand moves upward. His fingers wrap around Nicholas’ wrist.

He pulls Nicholas’ hand away from his mouth and pins it beside his head. Nicholas lips’ part straightaway, pulling in a shaky breath now that nothing covers him. Their eyes locked.

Briefly, neither of them moves. Then Fuma raises his other hand. His fingers draws the outline of Nicholas’ lower lip, and Nicholas freezes under the touch. Fuma presses a little harder, dragging his thumb across the softness there until Nicholas’ lips part wider.

The pad of Fuma’s thumb slips inside.

Nicholas inhales sharply through his nose as the finger presses onto his tongue, pushing his mouth open further. Fuma hooks the thumb slightly at the corner of his mouth, pulling just enough to expose Nicholas’ teeth.

And Nicholas doesn’t resist. He just lays there, chest rising and falling, eyes keep flicking between Fuma’s face and the hand holding his jaw open. His breathing grows shallow as he tries to manage it through his nose. Fuma grins.

“You really don’t bite.”

A moan almost slips out of Nicholas. He gulps while his mouth is still wide open, breath catching in the back of his throat. He cannot deny the way Fuma is overpowering him, touching him, crowding every inch of space Nicholas thought he had.

It leaves him merciless, emptied out, like something essential has been knocked loose inside him. Like he’s been struck clean of all his power and energy, peeled back to something far more helpless than he would ever allow anyone else to see.

Fuma always does that. Always pushing Nicholas into that place where resistance feels useless, where standing his ground becomes nothing more than a formality. Always making Nicholas stand there without an option, until Nicholas finds himself shaping his choices around him anyway—bending, adjusting, orbiting. Being completely under his control before Nicholas even realizes he has surrendered it.

Nicholas doesn’t know whether it comes naturally to him, the way he does it so easily. And he doesn’t care to ask. He just hopes that he is the only one Fuma treats like this. The only one who is handled with such impossible gentleness while being stripped of every last shred of his decorum.

Fuma treats Nicholas like a garden he claimed long before it ever learned how to grow on its own. He presses himself into Nicholas’ life the way a root splits through soil. For a long time Nicholas feels only the pressure of it, the unseen thing beneath him feeding on his ground, threading deeper and deeper until the shape of his growth begins to follow it.

And when Nicholas finally blooms—when something soft, bright, and open dares to rise out of him—Fuma looks at it like a miracle he cultivated. Like a flower coaxed into existence by his own hands. He praises it, speaking as if Nicholas were something sacred unfolding before him. And the more Fuma kneels before him in admiration, the more it reveals the truth beneath it: that Nicholas has allowed himself to be planted, shaped, and tended until even his blooming belongs to someone else.

Fuma dips his knees even further, forcing Nicholas’ legs to part, spreading. The contact of the sheet between the cloth of his boxer makes it slide higher. It’s useless at this point, so Fuma pulls the garment off altogether, leaving Nicholas' lower body open to the room.

“Should’ve brought the panties too,” the older man murmurs, his voice low. “You’ll look so pretty in them, wouldn’t you?”

Nicholas loses every word he might have said, vanishing in his throat the moment Fuma starts to insert his finger, working him open. His body has already given him away. The warmth, the ease with which Fuma’s hand moves through the humiliating slickness he can’t deny. He has been aroused far longer than he wants to admit. Has been waiting for Fuma to do something that’ll feed his hunger.

His thighs tremble despite his efforts to steady them, a helpless moan stretches out again, this time Nicholas cannot hold it back. Not when Fuma still has his hand clamped over his mouth, not when both of his holes are being stuffed full so relentlessly that he is about to forget how to breathe.

But even then, it is never enough. It will never be enough when it feels this good to be bent around Fuma’s strong fingers, to be opened and held exactly where Fuma wants him.

The urge to surrender is forcing into him too easily; it feels like something that comes naturally that lives within his core. Nicholas lustfully wonders what it would feel like to break. To truly break. His eyes prickle, the warmth of stray tears spilling over as he stares up at the older man looming above him.

Nicholas heaves for lost air the moment Fuma finally inches back, his hands dumping their control over the younger. He simply watches, observing. Nicholas looks lewd, like someone straight out of porn videos and at the same time he looks heavenly. Like he is a sacred object to be worshipped for a lifetime, and that same object has surrendered willingly under Fuma’s touch. There is a dark thrill in being the one granted the authority to distort a presence that is so blessed.

When Nicholas is too fucked to think about anything, Fuma undress himself. Piece by piece until nothing remains on his body. Then he shifts Nicholas’ legs apart, positioning and preparing him before his eyes finally meet Nicholas’ again.

“What do you want, pretty?”

“I wouldn’t know if you won’t speak.”

The words send a swarm of nerves rising through Nicholas’ chest, tightening around his throat. He squirms beneath Fuma, struggling to pull himself together long enough to form words. “Please—”

Nicholas whines, a thin, broken sound that leaves him before he has the chance to stifle it. Hoping the older catches through the desperation in his voice. “Use me.”

Fuma smiles. He takes Nicholas’ hand and pulls him forward. Guiding—no, forcing—his body into a sitting position right on top of his lap. Fuma leans back until his shoulders graze the headboard. Cruel in the way Nicholas is still trying to wrap his head around all the sensation crashing into him all at once, each one of them arriving before he can even name the last.

Fuma aligns the head of his cock with Nicholas’ gaping hole just as the realization hits. Nicholas stares down at the thing beneath him, the very thing that is about to rearrange everything inside his body and force him open in ways he has never imagined. Nicholas shakes his head, “It won’t fit.”

But God, it’s ironic of him to say that. To say that to Fuma while his mind keeps wandering around how it will actually feel once it’s inside him. He keeps thinking about the possibility of Fuma giving him no chance to hesitate or pull away, or run, to just taking him, using him however he wants. As if Fuma isn’t already sitting right beneath him, ready to give him exactly that.

“It will. You were prepped nice and well.”

“Now, just be a good girl.”

A high whimper escapes Nicholas’ lips at the nickname and in that same moment Fuma’s tips starts nudging his inside, pushing deeper inside. Fuma always calls him pretty, he has always called him that. And Nicholas… he thought he liked it. Maybe. That’s what he thought. Then the camisole. The pills.

Everything that has been happening resurfaces in Nicholas’ mind until it all starts aligning, until it begins to make sense. His thoughts blurs together, Nicholas stares up at the ceiling, eyes glassy and empty. He barely blinks when he feels Fuma sink the rest of the way in, bottoms out inside him.

Hereby, Fuma’s cock buried deep inside Nicholas, fully seated as if Nicholas’ body had already memorized the shape of him as it had been there for hundreds of counts. Fuma reaches forward, brushing his thumb across Nicholas’ cheek.

He gently sweeps away a damp strand of hair, tucking it aside. The faded color of it almost matches the soft baby pink of the camisole clinging to Nicholas’ skin. “My pretty little thing.”

“I’ve dreamed of you in ways that God was never meant to know.”

Nicholas arches his back, lifting as his body presses back against Fuma. The movement drags Fuma deeper, grinding him in Fuma’s cock as he thrust upwards. Fuma sends him straight into oblivion, watching with dark focus right where his cock disappeares each time he drives forward. He feels the way Nicholas’ muscles flutter and twitch around him involuntarily.

And Nicholas keeps making these small noises, little broken noises that snap from his throat as he fails to swallow them back. If it isn't Nicholas' tight, warm body that gives Fuma pleasure, then it's this. Knowing he's pushing Nicholas further and further past himself. Knowing the person beneath him is twitching, shuddering, unraveling in euphoria.

Knowing Nicholas can't stop it. So Fuma drinks in every second of it.

His attention snaps back when Nicholas suddenly shifts. Nicholas’ glances at Fuma. He wants to curse how calm Fuma looks, like he did not just play with his body and mind, like he is not waiting for this all this time, like he is not deep inside Nicholas and making him see stars. Nicholas’ inside twitch at the thought.

“You feel that? Your cunt is made for this.”

Lips wrapping around one of Nicholas’ nipples through the lace before Fuma angles his hips. Then he moves-finally pressing and ramming against that sweet, devastating spot. Nicholas' eyes roll back, his mouth hanging open as he stops even trying to gasp for air. His body moves on its own now, working automatically, like instinct takes over and leaves no room for thought.

He is no longer in control. He loses all his senses and brain cells, submitting completely. The world narrows to sensation. Every thrust knocks the air out of him, every drag sends sparks through his spine. His senses blur together until he cannot tell where one feeling sits. His mind goes blank, emptying piece by piece. He loses every coherent thought, every remaining brain cell.

He cannot think. And he doesn’t want to think either. Nicholas is tired of it, tired of trying to keep up with thoughts that scatter the moment he reaches for them. If being on Fuma's will is all it takes for Nicholas to sit prettily and not have to think and decide. He would love to volunteer.

He whimpers even more, the sound slipping out of his throat before he can stop it and even feel embarrassed about it. He doesn't care about the fact that any of the members might walk through the door and see the sight in front of them. That thought should make him quiet down, but it doesn't. It never does.

Right now, the only thing Nicholas cares about is pleasuring Fuma, the way his body moves, the way he can feel himself being filled again and again until the rhythm starts imprinting itself into his mind. Until his ‘cunt’ remembers the shape of it, the stretch of it, the way it drags through him every single time.

His body bounces with every thrust, tits moving lewdly with the motion, the movement so uncontrolled it makes another broken sound spill from his lips. Fuma keeps saying things, calling him things, murmuring words against his ear that sink deep into Nicholas' mind. Words that make him feel like the center of Fuma's attention, like the entire purpose behind what Fuma is doing. And Nicholas wants it. God, he wants it so badly it almost hurts.

He wants to belong to that attention.

He wants to be Fuma’s girl.

“Oppa—I love it.”

Nicholas is sobbing by the time the words leave his mouth, his head thrown back in pure carnal pleasure. The honorific slips out without hesitation, soft and needy, and the moment it does, it goes straight to Fuma's head. Nicholas can feel the change immediately in the way the grip on him tightens.

His thoughts scatter like shattered glass, and suddenly he's blabbering incoherent sentences, half-formed words tumbling over each other. His hands fly around uselessly, trying to grab at something, trying to keep himself from tipping over the edge of the bed before he finally finds Fuma's muscled arms. Nicholas presses closer instinctively, rutting harder against Fuma's base, desperate now after spending so long doing nothing but sitting there and submitting.

“You love it? You love being stuffed full with Oppa’s cock?”

“Yes—yes!” Nicholas rocks back and forth desperately, nodding over and over at Fuma's words even though he can barely process what they actually mean. The sentences reach his ears, but they dissolve before he can fully comprehend them. It doesn't matter. He doesn't need to understand. He just knows that he’ll gladly follow and admit Fuma’s words.

The bed creaks with each movement. No one has ever been this deep inside of him, not even able to pull out all these moans out of him, it’s good when Fuma leaves him like this, pinned beneath his touch, unable to form a single coherent sentence. Fuma grinds down into him, forcing every inch of himself deeper, like he intends to carve his presence into Nicholas’ body.

Nicholas is out of it until his brain cells crashes back in. He is on all fours now, face pressed into the sheets, breath stuttering as Fuma stuffs himself back inside without warning. And Fuma fucks hard. There is no hesitation, no gentleness, just relentless force and the feeling of his sculpted stomach flattening and kissing Nicholas’ ass.

His pelvis drives into Nicholas again and again, each thrust heavier than the last, and in this position he reaches places Nicholas doesn’t even know exist. Places that make his vision blur and his fingers curl helplessly into the fabric beneath him.

Pressure builds as Fuma’s fingers slide over Nicholas' tip, his untouched cock finally gets attention. A thumb swirls over the head, spreading sensation that makes Nicholas gasp into the sheets. A relieved moan escapes him, shaky and desperate. Fuma doesn’t stop. He keeps stroking him in rhythm with his thrusts, fast and unyielding, like he knows exactly how to push Nicholas to the edge without letting him fall.

For the second time, Nicholas feels like a virgin again. Every nerve feels newly awakened, like it’s all raw and oversensitive, his entire body burning under the overwhelming pleasure. It’s too much—too intense—like he could come at any second without warning, without control.

Or maybe Fuma is just that good.

Maybe he knows Nicholas’ body too well—knows exactly how it responds, how it breaks apart under the right touch. He plays him like something familiar, something already memorized, like a game he has mastered long before Nicholas even realizes he is being played.

And that thought, that thought is terrifying. Because Nicholas never expects that the person who understands him like this and treats his body like it belongs in his hands, has always been just a few steps away from his room.

Fuma keeps working him higher, pushing him closer, refusing to let him settle anywhere but the edge.

“Ah—good—so good,” Nicholas breathes, words slurring together. “Oppa, you make me feel so good.”

Fuma grins at that, one amused and pleased smile that Nicholas couldn’t see, he slams into him even harder, chasing those sounds like they belong to him. “Yeah?” he murmurs, voice low, almost teasing. “Am I better than your friend who always fucks you?”

The words don’t just fly past Nicholas’ head, the implication and the mockery sinks in somewhere deep. Fuma knows. He probably hears things. Through the dorm walls because the thin space between rooms is nothing and it’s never truly private. Maybe he doesn’t mean to listen, or he does, maybe it just happens, sounds slipping through late at night after schedules and practices when Nicholas thought everything else is quiet.

Nicholas can’t help but think about it now—the way the man has been looking at him, the weight of his gaze, the way it felt to be seen like that.

The thought that Fuma might have caught fragments of it, might have imagined it, might have compared it, it makes his stomach tighten, it sharpens and softens every part of his body all at once like Nicholas is something to be figured out and taken apart at the same time.

His thoughts blur together, messy and unfiltered, one bleeding into the next without pause and he hates how much it affects him—how the comparison, the implication, the claim hidden beneath Fuma’s words only makes everything feel sharper, more real.

“Better—” he chokes out, breath catching as another thrust knocks the air out of him. “S’ much better.”

He doesn’t know if he’s trying to convince Fuma or himself, but Nicholas longs for it, he wants more, he craves more. Fuma’s hands, his size, the overwhelming way he takes control—his stamina, the way his pace never falters, not even for a second. It’s suffocating in the best way, consuming, leaving Nicholas with nothing but the need for more. “You belong here, right?” Fuma rams his hips harder, the impact sending a tremor through Nicholas’ entire body.

Nicholas nods immediately, desperate, cheek pressed into the white fabric as he braces himself against the force behind him. “Yes—yes! All yours.”

Fuma presses his lips against Nicholas’ neck, and it makes him squirm instantly, his body arching as his back, still dolled and tightly laced, finally meets Fuma’s clenched abdomen. Every movement sends his cock bouncing uselessly between them, painfully hard, aching for attention that is no longer there.

Fuma’s hand has already left him, and the absence feels cruel. It’s like his body has been rewired entirely—like that part of him no longer matters, like it has been replaced, reshaped into something that only exists to take and take and take.

Nicholas sobs, the sound breaking out of him as his body trembles in Fuma’s hold. His walls clench impossibly tight, reacting on instinct and pulling Fuma in deeper as he feels himself getting closer with every drag of Fuma’s cock. It builds too fast, each movement driving him closer to the brink. “Oppa—please—inside—”

The words pull a low chuckle from Fuma like he has been waiting for this. His hand moves up, fingers curling around Nicholas’ jaw, forcing his head up as his back arches even further under the pressure. “You want it inside?” Fuma murmurs, voice thick and dark with teasing. “Want to get knocked up?”

Nicholas nods frantically, desperation written all over him and that is all it takes for Fuma to snap. His pace quickens, thrusts turning sharper and heavier, driving into Nicholas like he wants to push him past the point of thinking entirely.

And just when Fuma assumes Nicholas is too far gone and fucked out to process anything, a hand suddenly grabs his wrist. Stopping him immediately. Fuma stills, breath catching slightly as his eyes lock onto the one beneath him. Nicholas looks back, teary-eyed, dazed but there—present in a way that pulls something tight in Fuma’s chest.

“Don’t—yet—“

His voice is breathless.

“I want to see you.”

For a moment, Fuma just watches him, eyes lidded and heavy as he takes in the request before he finally gives in. He shifts him carefully, maneuvering Nicholas onto his back until they are face to face.

The view from behind had been intoxicating, addictive in its own way, but nothing compares to this. Nothing compares to Nicholas like this, flushed, wrecked, eyes half-lidded and glassy, lips parted as he struggles to breathe. Nicholas blinks slowly in a cat-like manner, and as if getting pulled into temptation, Fuma leans in and presses their lips together, cutting off the sounds spilling from his mouth. The kiss is firm, consuming, swallowing every moan and broken breath.

“Good girl,” Fuma murmurs against his lips. “‘S good for me.”

The husky rasp of his voice sends a whine straight into the kiss, Nicholas melting into him completely. It’s much and not enough all at once from the start until the end. It never feels like enough.

Their bodies press closer, heat building between them as Fuma pushes him down further, folding him into himself, driving him deeper into the mattress. Every movement edges Nicholas closer, tightening the rope inside him until it feels unbearable.

And within seconds, Fuma feels the flutter, tightening around him as Nicholas finally breaks. Keeping himself buried deep, holding there through the intensity of his own release, hips stuttering as he rides it out. Nicholas follows right after, legs clamping tightly around Fuma’s waist like he is afraid to let him go, like he might lose something if he does.

They stay like that for a moment, caught in the aftermath with their bodies still trembling.

Nicholas nudges forward weakly, pressing into Fuma’s neck, a soft, satisfied sound slipping out of him, it almost sounds like a purr as Fuma tries to steady his breathing. Beneath him, Nicholas looks completely undone, mindless in the way his expression softens, tears still slipping quietly down his temples. Neither of them says anything, and Fuma doesn’t move away.

He just lets Nicholas press closer, lets him snuggle into him like there is nowhere else he would rather be.

 

.

 

.

 

.

 

Back at the hotel, Fuma finds Nicholas sitting on the edge of the bed, staring intently at clips on his phone. His clothes and belongings are scattered everywhere—half on the mattress, half slipping toward the floor. And yet his entire focus is fixed on the flashing screen, replaying the same few seconds over and over.

Fuma walks out of the bathroom quietly, the door clicking shut behind him. He dries his hands absentmindedly on the towel before stepping closer, his gaze and fingers settling on Nicholas’ waist, where the thin black tank top clings perfectly to the younger man’s body.

“Did I sound off?” Nicholas asks without looking up. Fuma doesn’t answer, he leans down and presses a soft kiss to Nicholas’ cheek instead that makes him pause the video mid-frame. He turns his head slightly and returns the affection, brushing his lips briefly against Fuma’s jaw.

“You were perfect.” His arms slide loosely around Nicholas’ waist from behind, still, Nicholas doesn’t respond right away. The phone is still in his hand, the screen frozen on a moment from his solo stage earlier that evening. Nicholas huffs a tired sigh without letting the frustration get over his head too much.

“Man, it’s just…” Nicholas mutters, rubbing the back of his neck. “My family is here.”

“Would your sister make fun of you for that?”

“Absolutely.”

Nicholas lets out a laugh at the thought, the tension in his shoulders finally loosening. He drops back onto the bed with a soft thud, the sheets wrinkling under his weight as Fuma settles beside him. Nicholas simply sits there, staring down at Fuma’s bathrobe that was tied loosely around his waist. The faint scent of the hotel soap clings to the fabric, different from the ones he usually use.

Fuma reaches over and gently tucks a loose strand of hair behind Nicholas’ ear. His hair is dark now, shorter too, the ends brushing just enough to frame his face differently than before. Though, Nicholas had cut it impulsively a while ago, claiming he needed something new and different, lately he keeps mentioning that he might grow it out again. He says it casually, like it doesn’t matter much. And maybe he likes that it doesn’t have to mean anything more than wanting it. Maybe that’s the point.

Nicholas just does what he wants these days. Small things, trivial things—changing his hair, choosing clothes, deciding what feels right that morning without turning it into a question he has to wrestle with. The size of the decision never really mattered, he realized. If he feels it, if he wants it, then that alone is enough. He reminds himself of that often. He repeats that to himself more often than he admits, like a rule he follows, something that keeps him grounded in his own skin.

“You were cool tonight,” Fuma says after a moment, his voice calm and certain. “Very cool.”

He glints over at Fuma and smiles. “Thanks.”

“You’re always cool for being you.”

The words settle easily somewhere inside him without resistance. Nicholas doesn’t argue. He smells sweet, even more with his perfume. The remnant of the hotel soap is still there. His skin has been in its best condition ever since and it makes him feel good. His makeup artist has been pleased too, more than usual. There is nothing, everything is sitting right in their places.

His back meets the sheet, hand idly toys with the edge of Fuma’s bathrobe before he feels the drowsiness covers him whole. Tired of performing, maintaining, and meeting expectations before his eyelids grow heavier.

Drifting away from consciousness, he doesn’t notice the older man’s attention lingering exactly where he lies. Fuma’s gaze doesn’t move—if anything, his gaze only deepens. His hand follows after, lifting just enough to graze the smooth surface of Nicholas’ neck. His fingers press lightly at first, testing, mapping the softness there, the warmth that hovers under his touch, careful like he’s touching something meant to be handled with intention.

Fuma presses in a little more, the touch growing firmer, just enough to draw a reaction. A soft gasp slips from Nicholas’ lips, unconscious. His body shifts slightly in his sleep, a faint movement but his eyes stay closed, undisturbed.

The room falls quiet again. Nothing moves and nothing loosen its hold. Fuma doesn’t look away. He keeps staring, like he’s trying to imprint the image into memory, like it’s not enough to just see it once. Like he needs to keep it, to have it, to know it won’t slip away when he isn’t looking.

“Pretty.”

Notes:

so yeah that’s enough porn for the next six months… i’ve been wanting to write longer fics and explore more, hopefully i’ll find the time!!

also yeah i did check and reread my old paper while writing this, thank you Judith Butler.

thank you for reading!! i hope you liked it <3

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