Donghwa glances at it, then back at me. A slow grin splits his face, lazy and unrepentant. He shrugs one shoulder, wiping the blood casual on his thigh like it's just another Tuesday. "Comes with the territory. I don't mind a little teeth." His gaze drops to the mark again, thumb tracing the indents absently. "Though that's an odd spot for a bond mark."
My stomach flips—half from the casual way he says it, half from the truth punching through the post-fuck haze. Bond marks are supposed to be on scent glands, necks or shoulders, permanent claims that screammineto anyone with a nose. Not some random bite on the hand from a heat-of-the-moment tantrum. But fuck if it doesn't feel like one anyway, throbbing in sync with the one on my shoulder.
I shove his hand away, smirking to cover the weird twist in my chest. "Noted, I'll make it count next time."
Donghwa leans in. His grin is pure sin, a flash of white teeth in the dim light. He hooks a hand behind my neck, pulling me forward until our lips are a breath apart.
"I'm counting on it," he murmurs, and then his mouth is on mine, slow and searing, a stark contrast to the brutal fucking we just finished. It’s a kiss that saysI won, but it’s also a kiss that saysyou’re mine, and my traitorous body melts into it, hands coming up to grip his shoulders. My pants are still undone, his are probably halfway down his ass, and the table is digging into my skin, but who gives a shit. His tongue sweeps my bottom lip, coaxing me open, and I meet him halfway, a low groan rumbling in my chest. This. This is what I’ve been craving all week.
CLICK.
The sound is sharp, metallic. It’s followed by a blinding wash of white light that makes me flinch back, spots dancing in my vision. The clubhouse is plunged into the harsh, unforgiving glare of the overhead fluorescents, their electric hum suddenly deafening.
We spring apart like we’ve been tasered.
I’m scrambling off the table, fumbling with my zipper so fast I nearly catch myself in it. My heart has launched itself into my throat, pounding a frantic, panicked rhythm against my tonsils. My face is on fire. Across from me, Donghwa straightens up with an infuriating lack of haste, pulling his own jeans into place, his expression shifting from surprise to a cool, unreadable mask.
My eyes dart to the doorway, and the blood drains from my face.
It’s not a random freshman. It’s not Seungchan. It’s not even a professor.
It’s Go Joohyuk. The Student Council President.
He’s standing there, frozen, one hand still on the light switch. His glasses are perched on his nose, his shirt is pressed with a crispness that feels like a personal attack, and his eyes—his perpetually tired, seen-it-all eyes—are wide with a kind of profound, cosmic bewilderment.
His gaze sweeps the room, a slow, methodical scan that takes in every damning detail. The papers scattered across the floor. The distinct, musky scent of sex and alpha pheromones hanging thick in the air. Me, standing there with my shirt half-untucked and my hair looking like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backward. Donghwa, looking cool as a fucking cucumber but with his own pants clearly just re-fastened.
Joohyuk’s eyes land on the table where I was just sitting. On the unmistakable, sticky streaks glistening under the fluorescent lights.
His face doesn’t register shock. Or disgust. It’s something far worse. It’s the face of a man who has witnessed the heat death of the universe and is simply too exhausted to care.
My brain is a dial tone. There is no excuse. No lie slick enough to get us out of this.We were fighting. It was a misunderstanding. We were practicing… performance art?Every scenario is more pathetic than the last.
Donghwa, the bastard, just stands there, hands shoved in his pockets, looking like he’s waiting for a bus.
Joohyuk slowly, deliberately, pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He lets out a sigh. It’s not a normal sigh. It’s a sound that carries the weight of a thousand student-body complaints, a thousand budget meetings, and a thousand instances of Alpha-on-Alpha bullshit.
He finally looks at us, his gaze flitting between me and Donghwa.
"You know," he says, his voice flat, dead, and utterly devoid of emotion. "I came in here looking for a stapler."
My brain goes into full system failure. It’s not just a blue screen of death; it’s the whole hard drive catching fire, melting into a puddle of useless plastic.
For one solid, horrifying second, I’m a statue. A very sweaty, half-dressed statue caught in the unforgiving headlights of GoJoohyuk’s bureaucratic gaze. The world narrows to the sight of him standing there, the embodiment of every rule I’ve ever broken, looking like he’s just witnessed a dog solve a Rubik's cube.
Then the panic hits. It’s not a wave; it’s a fucking tsunami.
My body moves before my brain can issue a single coherent command. I lunge, not at Joohyuk, but past him, slamming the clubhouse door shut with a resoundingthumpthat echoes the frantic hammering in my chest. The lock snicks into place, trapping the three of us in a little bubble of my own personal hell.
Containment. Step one.
I whirl around, hands held up like I’m trying to stop a train. "Hyung," I gasp, the honorific tasting like ash in my mouth. "Wait. Hold on. This—this isn't—I can explain."
The words are a jumbled, pathetic mess, tumbling out of me like loose change. I can feel my face burning, a hot, shameful flush that probably makes me look even more guilty.
Joohyuk’s gaze doesn’t waver. It slides from my disheveled state to Donghwa, who has the fucking audacity to look bored, then back to me. His eyes drop to the table, to the Jackson Pollock painting of my release glistening under the fluorescent lights, and then back to my face. His expression remains utterly, terrifyingly blank.
Then he does the one thing that tells me we’re irrevocably screwed.
