⚠️ sensitive content warning: contains themes of intimacy, smoking and mature undertones.

—

it’s always like this.

the room still smells like heat and sweat, sheets tangled around your legs, his steady breathing brushing against your temple. you’re both stripped down to skin, limp from the intensity of what just happened, limbs heavy but hearts light. heeseung lies next to you, chest rising slowly, calm as ever, that serenity that only comes after sharing something this personal.

it became tradition without either of you noticing — cigarettes after sex. literally so. you once joked about it because of the band, and he just hummed, didn’t reply, only reached into the nightstand and pulled out a single cigarette. since then, it's never been skipped.

you can still feel his mouth mapped over your skin, soft ghost of kisses lingering like fingerprints. he turns his head towards you, eyelids half-open, eyes mellow with afterglow. he presses a lazy kiss to your shoulder. slow. reverent.

“come here,” he mumbles, voice gravelly. he doesn’t move much but you do, because with heeseung it’s always been that way—he’s stillness and you’re motion. he reaches for the cigarette box one-handed. his fingers shake slightly with exhaustion. he lights it, inhales, then lets the smoke swirl out gently.

he always takes the first drag. you always get the second.

he brings it to your lips without saying anything. his fingertips brush your mouth before the filter does, and he steals another kiss there, tasting smoke and something sweeter. you inhale, lungs burning softly. exhale into the quiet.

the silence isn’t awkward. it's the kind that feels like understanding.

heeseung shifts, lazy and slow, arm curling under your neck to bring you closer until your cheek rests over his heartbeat. another kiss lands on your forehead. then your cheek. then your jaw. he’s too tired to do more than that, but each press feels like a promise.

the cigarette passes back and forth between you, slow, like the world isn't moving. your bodies still stick from sweat but neither of you mind. heeseung traces circles lazily on your bare back, grounding you. “good?” he asks softly.

you just nod, too wrapped up in the warmth to speak. he smiles against your skin, lips dragging along your collarbone. he likes kissing you here, in the aftermath, like sealing what just happened.

there’s something addictive about the calm that follows. not the rush, but the quiet euphoria. heeseung presses a kiss to your knuckles before offering the cigarette again. smoke curls above you both like a halo.

the bed creaks as he shifts just enough to be able to look at you properly. “you’re pretty like this,” he mutters, voice soft but honest, eyes heavy and affectionate. he kisses you again, slower this time, lips moving lazily as if he wants the moment to linger. and it does.

the cigarette burns down, and so does the urgency. in its place, just warmth. his arms tighten around you, bodies still touching everywhere they can. you breathe out smoke. he breathes you in.

then the last drag is taken, and he puts it out in the bedside tray. nothing said, but everything felt.

he presses one last kiss to your shoulder, then your lips. “tradition,” he whispers.

you nod, eyes closing, melting back into the sheets and into him.

it’s always like this.

and neither of you would change it.