"If it's you, I don't care if I go crazy. All day, I'm only thinking about you."

~M.X.

༺═──────────────═༻

As soon as I close up the shop, I speed home through Austin rush-hour traffic, (fun fact: we're rated the 14th most congested U.S. city. Keep Austin weird!) eager to get home and relax. Thoughts of you threaten to run wild through my mind the second it isn't concentrated on something else, so I attempt to drown it out with a mix of Greta Van Fleet and EXO.

What? A real man can admit to liking Kpop. And Baekhyun.

"Yeontan, I'm home!" I yell once I arrive, dropping my keys into the bowl by the front door before scooping up the fuzzy Pomeranian that comes bounding up to me. As is routine, he licks every inch of my face before moving down to my neck and collarbone until he's finished with getting the strange, outside scents off of me.

Once I feed him, I let him sit on my lap while I kick back on the couch.

I guess I have it better than most people in the city. While most struggle to pay rent, let alone survive in the unmercifully fast-paced city, I live in a house on South Congress, (you heard that right, folks! A millennial guy working minimum wage living in a space bigger than a shoebox!) paid off completely by my parents.

Oh, don't think I'm some trust fund baby. It took years of being the perfect, model son, my mother's death, and my father's declining mental health to have their assets to myself. For the time being, I think of myself as a housekeeper until my father can reclaim his sanity.

I consider going out onto SoCo, but I hesitate. It's getting dark, and for some reason, flashing city lights and hipsters blowing bubblegum-flavored puffs of vape smoke in my face seem unappealing for the night.

Browsing my phone, I try to distract myself from the thought of you once again. Your exquisite smell, the hair I want to run my hands through, the fantasy that, someday, you'll smile at the mere sight of me.

I look over at the receipt, lit by the lamp on my nightstand.

Didn't I tell myself I'd wait? Love is tricky, deadly, even, enough to poison every thought and feeling until it chokes out any remnant of what you would call self.

But you are so different from the thousands of simpletons I've met before. I can see the gears turning in your head, and that's enough to set you apart.

You've enamored me from the start. There's a reason for that. There has to be.

The receipt looks very tempting right about now. I bite my lip in deliberation.

Maybe waiting is overrated. What can I say, Naomi? You've stolen my heart with a simple call me. Who knew I was such a romantic?

But I won't take you up on that offer. Not yet. First, I need to know more about you, who you are in front of your own, personal spotlight.

Finding your full name is a little hard, what with having to derive it from a smudged signature on thermal paper. But I'm not one to quit when things get difficult.

Naomi Yama... Something... I think. I can barely make out the first part of it, let alone the rest of it without help from everyone's best friend: the worldwide web. With a few tries, autofill does the rest of the work for me.

Naomi Yamamoto. What a perfectly beautiful name.

Turns out, Austin isn't as diverse as I thought it was, because there is only a handful of Naomi Yamamoto's in the whole city, and you stand out from all of them like my own little periwinkle lightbulb.

I pull up your Instagram and, ah. Would you look at that. You boast a few thousand followers and a bio that reads something like: "UT psych, go longhorns!/my hobbies include breakfast, lunch, and dinner/100% caffeine dependent, 100% that bitch." with a handful of emojis strewn around it. Intentional lowercase, intentional periods, by the way.

Frankly, it's a little basic, but I won't hold that against you.

So, University of Texas, huh? That's a nice bike ride from where I live, and according to the location of some of your posts, you live on campus, too. How convenient: your existence all wrapped up into one little place.

In fact, your location is on for almost every single post, and I notice that you frequent a book shop down the street from where I work, posting your morning read along with a cup of coffee sometimes.

How aesthetic.

Speaking of beverages, your most recent post has my passion fruit tea in it, with a caption that says, "feeling refreshed af with my morning cuppa", paired with the location of our shop, The Rose Petal. Disappointedly, I scroll through more of your pictures to find there is no mention of me.

Did I miss something, Naomi? Had we not shared the spark that I am so desperately holding onto? Then, I realize something so crucial.

This life online, it's all a charade. You're not really the hip, trendy girl who parties every Friday, does yoga in public, and has time to go out of their way to drink tea at a cutesy little cafe. But me, I know you, and I can see right through your act.

You just want someone to love you, and this is the only way for that to happen without letting go of your chic cool-girl persona you pretend to have. Why risk putting a genuine connection online when that defeats the purpose of having something to yourself, where it's invulnerable to criticism and comments from near strangers?

I feel like I'm really getting to know you better. I just wish it weren't through a screen.

Your friends pop up frequently. They're cute, but they seem to blend into the background when you stand next to them. It's not fair, is it, to be so unique in a rather plain, mundane world? They serve as nothing but accessories in your carefully planned feed.

One in particular, though, stands out. He's slim, muscular, and he's flashing his stupidly white teeth in every photo. His raven black hair is tousled like he's just effortlessly immaculate. You have your arm around him, looking up at him with pure adoration, while he looks into the camera with an easy smile that could make every man or woman do a double-take in his direction.

I narrow my eyes. He looks like a rabbit when he smiles.

Patience, I tell myself. All in due time. Competition can be eliminated in one way or another.

After a few more hours of browsing your multiple social media profiles, (why do you need 5 different accounts for virtually the same thing?) I begin to map out your schedule in my mind until I feel confident enough to guess where you are at almost any given time.

I smile, petting a sleeping Yeontan.

Would you like it if I paid you a visit?

━─━─━━─━「☯」━━─━─━─━

"I think you're ready for the next step, Ms. Yamamoto," says Professor Kim with an easy grin, to which Naomi's eyebrows shoot up. They currently reside in his office, where the noises of college life doesn't penetrate the thick walls surrounding them. She sits in a much too big chair, making her feel much smaller than she already feels compared to the powerhouse right across from her.

And oh, how small he can make her feel at times.

"The next step, sir?" she asks. She tries to seem as naive as possible, though she can surmise what he means. Five years of guided work under his wing, consistently rising to the top of his class year after year, volunteering for unpaid internships whenever possible.

Everything paid off.

"I have an exclusive list of clients who would love to get in touch with you for some surveys, and some are willing to use their prestige to grant you your pick of paid internships for the summer, if you're willing," he says.

Her hands fly up to her mouth in disbelief. "This is amazing! Professor Kim, how could I ever repay you?" The professor chuckles, but a hard glint replaces the carefree one in his eyes, and it is enough to make her falter.

"I told you, call me Namjoon." There is something in his tone that makes her obey. Already, she begins to regret responding to his email telling her to meet him.

"Ah, right... Namjoon."

Satisfied, he carries on, saying, "You know, there are a lot of people who wants this  position. I would hate for you to miss this opportunity, considering you're one of my brightest pupils."

Still keeping steady eye contact, his hand snakes onto her lower thigh, letting it rest where the hem of her mini skirt ends. It's warm from the coffee he was holding a second ago. Too warm.

His intentions are clear, just like the last times she's been in his office, with its closed-tight blinds and soundproof walls. Why did she believe this time would be different? Because he promised it wouldn't happen again? Because she made the mistake of trusting his self-proclaimed honor?

This isn't the payoff for her determination or hard work. It's the payoff for how fast she can make him cum.

"I told you I can't do it anymore," she whispers, but no strength backs up the conviction. "You promised."

He slides his hand off of her leg, nursing his wounded ego, (the deepest pain a man can feel in the 21st century) and she can't help but feel cold in the now icy room.

"Then perhaps I'll give the position to someone who really wants it," he says. Then, with a wave of his hand, "You're dismissed." He puts on his glasses and turns to his files without giving her another glance. She dares not breathe and break the silence.

Is this a bluff? How can he switch his cheery demeanor off so quickly, like a lightswitch?

She puts her hands on her lap, digging her nails into her palm.

"Wait! Just- hold on. I..."

"Yes?" Namjoon drums his fingers against the oak desk impatiently.

Six months ago, right where his hand is now, he bent her over minutes before his wife came in to greet him with his 8-year-old son. She remembered putting on that smile over her flushed cheeks, trying to keep up with how good Professor Kim was at acting like nothing had transpired between them. Not a centimeter of his face betrayed the fact that he had just fucked his student. Hard.

Dirty whore. You're no better than a prostitute.

This will be the last time.

"My place, 8PM," she mutters, more disgusted with herself than at the professor.

He flashes her a smile, sickly-sweet enough to rot the petals off a flower.

"I'm glad you came around, love."

༺═──────────────═༻

안녕 여러분! I can't believe
this book already has more than
300 reads! I'm so thankful to
everyone who's made this possible.

I wanna say sorry to all the Namjoon
stans who were reading this... eek.

What do you guys think so far? I'm
really excited to be writing this, and
I want to know you guys' thoughts!
Sound off in the comments lmao

Would you guys like it if I did the QOTD
for this book too? I do it for Side Effects
and a bit for Euphoria... tell me if you like it!

Until then, happy reading!

Love,
Haneul