once you go in, there’s no turning back. (hwang in-ho x reader) +
Tags: angst, smut, reader and in-ho are childhood friends, non-canon birthdays (jun-ho is older than he is in the show), violence, mentions of blood, guns, reader doesn't remember in-ho's face, lovers to angst, angst to lovers, toxic relationship, major character deaths, alcoholic!reader, smoker!reader, sunshine to darkness
What if it was you who approached the salesman instead to play ddakji, unaware of the games? You weren't in debt - money was never a problem to you, actually.
Then, in the games, you see Hwang In-ho again, your childhood best friend. Only this time, he was different.
Tags: slow burn, blood and violence, in-ho as player 132, in-ho's transition as the frontman, reader is a pink guard, smut
Hwang In-ho, known only as Player 132, bleeds out during the brutal chaos of lights out. Amidst the darkness and death, you, a masked pink guard, are the unexpected savior. He survives, but his memory of you remains a haze, a fleeting image that haunts him. As the years pass, In-ho ascends to become the Front Man, and his mind becomes consumed with one question: was it really you who saved him? Now, with the power to search through the system, he’s determined to find the truth and discover who you were — and if you still exist in this hellish game.
Tags: angst, on-off relationships, age gap, violence
Given the age gap, you and In-ho had a lot of differences but one thing's for sure - you love each other so much it's destroying the both of you. As the relationship progresses, the fights progresses as well. In your last fight, you break up with In-ho. After two months of no contact, you and In-ho meet again in a local bar. But, he's with someone else this time.
Available on AO3.
my kind of distraction. (hwang in-ho x reader) +
Tags: university!au, inho x reader, enemies to lovers, young in-ho, fluff
You first meet In-ho at a convenience store, unbeknownst to you that he was also part of the police academy you were training for. On your first day of training, you meet In-ho again and think of him as someone who's arrogant during trainings, as he would criticize you whenever you were partnered with him. Over time, you found yourself looking forward to your trainings together. And when you successfully anticipated his next move, for the first time in a while, he smiled.
until i found you. (hwang jun-ho x reader) +
Tags: fluff, romantic, no mention of squid game, an alternative au where jun-ho is at peace
You meet Hwang Jun-ho at a prestigious police conference where you're invited as a guest speaker. The moment you lock eyes from across the room, there's a spark. Throughout the conference, you catch each other's gaze again and again, drawn into a silent exchange neither of you fully understands yet.
Available on AO3.
the one that got away. (hwang jun-ho x reader) +
Tags: no happy ending, reader calls in-ho “hyung”, jun-ho is your first love, mentions of death, grief
You and Hwang Jun-ho were once deeply in love, but broke up ten years ago. You both lived in the same city yet remained strangers by choice. When your father dies, grief pulls old wounds to the surface, and the man who once held your heart appears once more. Some love stories don’t end with closure, just the ache of almost.
Available on AO3.
what if…? (squid game AU) +
A collection of what-if situations in the Squid Game series.
A Familiar Stranger
Metal Gear Solid
OPERATION: SNAKE LOVER (SOLID SNAKE X READER)
in the quiet loop. +
Tags: post-tanker incident, pre-mgs2, big shell incident, post-mgs2, pre-mgs4, mentions of shadow moses, reader-insert, angst, angst and hurt/comfort, slow burn, canon divergence, unresolved tension, eventual smut
After reading a news report framing Solid Snake and Dr. Hal Emmerich as terrorists behind the tanker incident, you uncover a hidden message embedded in a classified government briefing. Otacon reached out, asking for help locating Liquid Snake’s body. Despite the risks to your career and life, you agree to aid them, using your position within the U.S. government to devise a covert plan.
Available on Wattpad and AO3.
the finality. +
Tags: pre-mgs4, mgs4, post-mgs4, angst, slow burn, sexual tension, canon divergence, unresolved tension, eventual smut
In a world where war has become routine and mercenaries now run nations, love feels like a forgotten relic. But Solid Snake is not the same man you remember. Time and war have reshaped him into Old Snake. What was once a burning connection is now clouded by distance, regrets, and unspoken pain.
Available on Wattpad and AO3.
friendly fire. (solid snake x reader | otacon x reader) +
Tags: shadow moses flashbacks & incident, post-shadow moses incident, post-mgs2, big shell incident, pre-mgs4, mgs4, post-mgs4, angst, fluff and angst, angst and hurt/comfort, angst and romance, slow burn, canon divergence, canonical character death, unresolved tension, two endings, love triangles, eventual smut
After Dr. Hal "Otacon" Emmerich rescues you from the Big Shell, you’re drawn into Philanthropy, working alongside him and Solid Snake to stop the spread of Metal Gear technology. But between missions, your heart is pulled in two directions - toward Snake, whose fierce love burns brighter as his accelerated aging steals your time together, and toward Otacon, whose steady devotion offers a future that could last.
Days with Snake feel urgent, as if every moment could be the last, while nights with Otacon promise a future that might last forever. Branded fugitives and facing missions that could be their last, you’re torn between a love you’re afraid to lose and a love that refuses to lose you.
Available on Wattpad and AO3.
less than a day. (big boss x reader) +
Tags: operation snake eater, post-mgs3, angst, canon divergence, eventual smut, blood and violence, implied sexual assault
Thrown into the prison of Groznyj Grad after accidentally uncovering the location of the Philosophers’ Legacy, you're an American GRU soldier caught in the web of conflicting loyalties. There, you meet another prisoner: Naked Snake, stripped of his mission and tortured nearly to breaking.
Together, you escape into the shadows of Groznyj Grad. Survival ties you to Snake, and it gives you only hours, not years. And in those hours, you’re left to question: is this love, or only the battlefield’s cruel illusion?
synopsis; when packing up old memories, you should never take a stroll down memory lane. It’s a shame neither you nor Leon got that memo. On the off-chance Leon had gotten it, he isn’t too keen on listening to it.
cw; MDNI. smut, angst, divorce, p-in-v, cowgirl position, outdoor sex.
"Is that everything?"
"Think so." Leon grunts, sweat beads above his brow. He wipes it away with the back of his hand and cleans himself on his shirt. Electricity was cut last week, so no AC today. The house never had good ventilation either; no mold nor mildew, the air just tended to stagnate.
It's curious how one's entire life could be packaged away so neatly at the drop of a hat. Folded and compartmentalized, years worth of memories stuffed in boxes labeled 'kitchen', 'bedroom' ‘decor’ and so on and so forth.
If it weren’t necessary, you’d apologize for making him do all this in the middle of blistering summer. You would’ve done it all yourself and sent him an invoice if you hadn’t gotten so busy yourself. Leon himself didn’t bother to do it because he never bothered to do anything without you telling him to do it first.
Complacency is the devil.
The killer of all things good, sunk its teeth right through Leon’s carotid and dragged him off some years ago, it seems. You lean against the kitchen island and silently take in how barren your home suddenly is now.
The pictures were the first things that went. Not that there were many of them to begin with, only a select few handpicked by Leon himself because he always looked like he was constipated in any you took — fishing trips with Chris, one trip to Italy Spring of 08’, a few from D.S.O. holiday parties, and some from end of year ceremonies when he was in between having too dark hair to be considered blonde and hair too light for it to be brown.
It’s surreal coming to terms that in a week this place’ll be someone else's problem. A new family will settle in and all traces of your marriage will be completely overwritten. They’ll argue over what color to paint everything over and start fresh. The sage green you’d painstakingly picked out with Leon would get replaced with something beige, or worse. Grey.
God, isn’t that a dreadful thought.
But, that’s the point of all this, you suppose. A full, fresh reset. If they want to paint over the ghosts of your marriage and turn over a new leaf, they can, they paid for the place after all. Hopefully they get around to fixing the creaks in the staircase or the leaky sink. Lord knows Leon was never going to get around to it.
You open your mouth to speak. "You talked to the realtor? Everything's squared away?"
Despite being in the email thread, you still ask. The answer is a confident 'yes', it's just hard to fill in the blanks where laughter and easy breezy conversation is supposed to be.
How do you even make conversation in this sort of scenario? Are you supposed to throw a blanket over the elephant in the room and ask him how’s it going? Pretend it isn’t there and talk about work? (Last you knew he was griping about having to take a rookie under his wing again. How long ago was that?)
Ah. It’s a little too late anyways, the boxes are piled high beside the door, tomorrow they’ll come get the last of it and it’ll be on its way to storage til’ you both get your own places and move forward. Leon hasn’t gotten his own apartment yet, neither have you. Chris’s bachelor pad has gotten a little more sadder.
“I don’t know, she didn’t call to confirm.” Leon starts, then grumbles beneath his breath. “Let me check...”
He pops his hip against the island and reaches into his pocket. You frown. Didn’t he reply first? You could’ve sworn he had. You don’t call him out on his ‘bad memory’. Instead you settle in and watch his fingertips dance across the screen, let him pretend neither of you are on edge and painfully aware of the other.
You can't help but notice the pattern is the same. It’s those little things that become engrained enough for you to realize he hasn't changed his password yet, a string of numericals spell out your anniversary.
You’d click your tongue and tease him for still having it set to something so sappy, something holds your tongue, dries it up and scatters the ashes elsewhere, the words ‘Seriously? You’re so corny,’ unwilling to form.
You like to think he’ll change it after you’re gone, replace it with some other important date or nonsense and let the wound heal over. Yeah right. You roll your eyes at that. If you know anything about Leon, it’s that even if something wasn’t to have been his fault; he’d still lose sleep over it regardless. You must’ve exacerbated it by insisting it wasn’t.
Is there even a chance he’d change that after you’re gone?
You really can’t imagine a world where Leon would ever be the type to turn a new leaf and let the wound scab over, he’s always been the sort to pick and prod and keep it fresh and raw. Pour salt and a splash of lemon juice in it every once in a while wondering about the what could’ve beens and the what ifs.
“You find it yet?” You prod, his finger gets to swiping again.
“Still looking.” Leon grunts. You have half a mind to pull your own phone out and call his bluff, you’d find it in mere seconds. Leon’s got his lip jutting out and his brow pulled tighter than usual. He’s thinking.
About what?
Is he just trying to come up with something to talk about too before parting ways? That’s sweet, in a real sad, prolonging-the-inevitable way.
And also probably just you projecting.
Whatever, you’ll play along for now, let him have this. You’ll find something else to do while he turns questions over in his head and no doubt, handpicks the best joke to lighten the mood.
Inevitably, your eyes wander. You can’t help but note Leon looks as if he’s aged another decade this past year, oddly enough. You don’t mean it in a bad way, he looks good. More than good.
It’d be silly to say he looked anything less because of his age; you aren’t young either anymore, your roots show just as much as his do. Greys pop in faster year after year, but that doesn’t make you any less attractive. No, a mature woman is a well seasoned one, there’s an appeal to that.
The same applies to a mature man.
Leon’s greys stand out like little grains of rye amidst wheat. You remember when he’d first noticed them, they looked like platinum highlights then, not so much now. He’d freaked out, ran his hands through his hair and sat on the couch for a good long while, worried himself to death that he’d be slowing down soon. He’d been thirty seven then.
What did it matter if he wasn’t that young agent anymore? An older man is still a functional one, for the most part. If you ignore the wrinkles and looked shoulders down, you’d almost forget a man like him has real bad back problems.
Leon’s always managed to look leagues better than most men his age, he still has a waist anyone would understandably envy. His biceps have real muscle coiled through them, earned through hearty meals and rigorous exercise — no steroids or supplements here.
Your eyes dip from his pinched brow, down the slope of his nose and towards the main attraction. His sleeves are rolled up to expose his forearms, veins pressing firmly against skin, no extra skin to sag and leave him soft.
Leon’s handsome, always has been. Makes you wonder what he saw in you to stay all these years.
There isn’t necessarily anything special about you, as lame as it is to accept and admit. Back then you'd felt like you’d been shoved into the deep end of the pool and left to drown when you’d stumbled onto the dating scene, a doe caught in sights.
Leon had to have had other options, anyone with eyes could come to that conclusion. It always gnawed on your nerves, that thought; he could’ve had anyone else, someone with more experience, more confidence, more everything in whatever department you lacked in.
But he stayed with you. Through all the bumps, Leon patiently held your hand, kissed your worries away, and promised he’d be there tomorrow. You guessed it was easy for him to be there when your flaws were considerably smaller in comparison to his.
Your eyes flit up to his face again, they trace the moles and beauty marks, one hidden against his adam's apple, another beside his nose, the rest are scattered across his body. Your eyes linger on his jaw. It’s hard to ignore he’s let his stubble get a bit scruffy, salt and pepper dotting above his lips and below.
Leon never let it stay for that long because it never came in evenly. It was his biggest gripe. He’d run his hand along his chin and complain underneath his breath every other morning. If you could chalk it up to a change in style, that he’d suddenly decided to let it go rogue, you would.
But you know he’s the type to stick with what works.
He cared more about maintaining it with you around, it seems. You look away before he could notice you’re staring, focus all your attention on the marble counter top.
God you hate yourself. You hate him, you hate this house, you hate everything that has to do with the ugly thoughts that led you to settle on divorce.
If you could disappear into the walls, tuck yourself behind drywall and become some ghost story, — ‘…didn’t Leon used to have a wife…?’ ‘Yeah, but they got her.’ sort of deal — you would. He’s used to loss and grief, it would’ve been a much easier pill to swallow if you’d been lost. It would’ve been better for your love story to end with an em dash.
But you’re alive, and you’re here, and the papers will be signed come Monday.
Your cheek finds its place against the palm of your hand. You’re certain Leon’s bullshitting you about looking for that confirmation email. It’s been three minutes of this tense god forsaken silence.
The grey clouds outside are suddenly more interesting than thinking about or looking at Leon, Leon, Leon.
Outside, summer rain showers bring the promise of thunderstorms, muddy roads, petrichor and puddles. There was a time where you loved the rain, before Leon. (There he is again, he waltzes around in your head and you wish he’d trip.)
You’d open your windows and let the sound lull you to sleep, then get annoyed when a puddle would form on the floor or on the window sill. A few drops splatter against the window pane, the first to trail down like tears.
After Leon, you couldn’t find too much beauty in it, not when you’d wake and find him wide eyed, staring at the ceiling. He never did like stormy nights, you always found him staring up at nothing in the middle of the night, stuck in some trancelike state you had to navigate carefully lest you step on a landmine.
You find yourself hoping Leon’ll be alright tonight. He never did tell you why he was so clammy, always had something to do with work and you got it, you did. You just hope he doesn’t take to the bottle again.
On the other hand, you still find it difficult to sleep without having him next to you. A mountain of pillows makes for a poor substitute, can’t replicate his warmth or the sound of his breathing whenever he would manage to fall asleep before you did.
You shift and let hands your clasp together against marble, forehead pressed against them in mock prayer. What does he really think about all this? Like really think. Not the stuff he’d said to try and make this seem amicable and mutual.
Is he as nervous as you are? Does he even want to make small talk? Is he just waiting for you to bring the axe down again?
‘Hey, I gotta go, actually. Thanks for the years and whatever, bye.’ You’d love to kiss the barrel right about now if he really is just waiting for you to initiate the goodbye sequence and you’ve just been standing here waiting this whole time, deluding yourself.
You want to laugh. Small talk. That’s what you’ve both been reduced to. The last hour you had both been so focused on clearing out what was left of the place there was no real time to try and play house again. He’d give you that awkward stare if you tried to ask him what he thought about the weather lately.
God, what if he hated you?
"Mhm." Leon finally grunts and breaks you out of your reverie, pulls you out the downward spiral before it can drag you under. "Everything’s good. The attorneys are settling the split." He slips his phone back into his pocket and turns, taps his fingers idly against the marble.
You lift your head up, your smile tight and out of place. “That’s good,” You sigh and rest your chin in the palm of your hand again as you settle into a ‘relaxed’ posture. “I’m glad it sold for more. Would’ve been a scam if it didn’t.”
Leon opens his mouth to say something, all that comes out is a quiet ‘amused’ scoff before his eyes go downcast in thought. Conversation was never this hard to make with you. Its weird how suddenly you two became estranged. You shared meals, a bed, a home and last names for years, yet somehow it feels like he doesn't know you at all anymore.
It feels wrong.
Ending things was never his forte, should he just say goodbye, shake your hand and call it a day? Things would be easier that way, it'd be a cleaner, neater, less awkward cut than whatever this was quickly becoming.
And there it is again. The silence. You run your tongue across your teeth and bite back your sigh. God you hate him.
It's funny to think there was a time where you could just skip town, stop answering calls and travel around. Just drift from coastal city to coastal city, wind in your hair, sun on your skin. But you can’t really ghost your ex-husband now can you? Not when you’re this close to the finish line.
Maybe in the future you’ll consider it, punishment for some guy who won’t understand signals of disinterest, if you even decide to date after Leon.
Leon opens the door for escape, "You need a ride or..."
“No!” You scramble to pull your own phone out, “No, I got um. I got one…I’m staying with Val, she actually dropped me off so…I’ll just call…” You trail off and start typing out your; ‘Hey girl! Everything’s packed up :) Save me from this please?’ message.
“Val?” Leon drawls the name out like it’s unfamiliar, your friend group is a variable he never considered much, a bunch of girls he’d heard about a handful of times and saw very little of towards the end.
Your friends never really came around to begin with, living cities apart tends to put that sort of strain when it comes to keeping close. And if they did come around he was always off somewhere else, saving the world and wondering if you’d had dinner midway through.
“Yeah, Val. You met her.” You clarify, brows drawing together in confusion. “At our wedding, she was a bridesmaid? The red head?”
Leon contemplates this. It’s not that he didn’t remember your wedding and who all was there, it’s that all he really remembers from that day is you, you can’t fault him for that. 2007 was a long, long time ago and the world nearly ended a handful of times in between the years.
…Lanshiang, New York, Alcatraz — to name a few. Forgive him for not memorizing the bridal party.
Then, it clicks. He remembers a Valerie, though he’s not sure if it’s this Val. How could he get it wrong? How many red heads go by Val anyways?
He nods and snaps his fingers, stuttering on a hum. “She uh, she’s the girl who fell during...” He trails off and scratches the nape of his neck.
You finish the sentence for him. “Her heel snapped before the photos.” You snort. There we go, it did ring a bell.
“Right. Her.” He leans against the island too, mirrors you and glances towards the front door as if she’d walk right in and haul you away by your forearm, save you from this situation and that’ll be that.
“Is she on her way?”
You glance down at your phone and feel your heart sink. “She’s forty something out…” You mutter and offer him a small awkward smile. Leon’s brows furrow again. “She lives on the other side of town.” You tack on and wave your own set of keys at him.
“You can go, I know you have that thing with Chris, right? I can lock up.”
The thing with Chris. You say it as if it’s a super important event and not the two of them drinking themselves numb in the corner of some poorly lit dingy sports bar. He loved that about you, always managing to find some way to make things sound better than what they were.
He’ll miss that. He’ll miss a lot of things, actually.
“I can wait.” He shrugs. “Chris isn’t doing much today. He’s..”
“…still on bed rest.”
“…still healing from his last mission?
You both finish the sentence at the same time. Different variations but the same conclusion at the end of the day; Chris’s arm is fucked.
Leon snorts, a small smile makes its way onto his face. “How’d you know?”
“Claire.” You smile back.
That’s another thing. Your lives were so intertwined it’s gonna be hard to ignore you’re gone next time they all go out for drinks. It already is.
“So forty minutes?”
“I guess.”
— x-x-x-x-x-x —
Somehow, you both end up in the garden. It’s easier to sit in silence when you’ve got the rumbling of thunder and the chirping of frantic birds to fill it for you. The only place where you can comfortably sit on is the bench bolted down to the gazebo in the backyard anyways.
The movers took the couch weeks ago, the staircase grew to be bad for Leon’s back after five minutes. At any rate, you’re sure a nail would come through if you sat on it for long.
There’s a respectable distance between you two where you’re perched, not enough room for Jesus, but it’s certainly there. Soft purple passionflower, fruity and fragrant, trails down the column beside you, its vines searching blindly for something to cling to.
You steal a glance at Leon. He’s sat with his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head tipped back, adam’s apple protruding like he’s got something stuck in his throat, his eyes are closed, seemingly content to take a load off and soak in the sounds.
You settle in too, not as comfortably as he has, but enough to let out whatever tensions left over. You’ll miss this place.
The garden always was your favorite, Leon had the gazebo installed year five as an anniversary gift, one peek at the board of magazine clippings you kept was all it took for him to hire contractors and plan it out. You’d bought flower bulbs in bulk just so you had something to do while he painted it white.
Come spring it always brought in all sorts of bugs and pollinators — mourning cloaks, and sootywings on overcast days, monarchs and swallowtails if the sun was bright enough. You wonder if the next family will tear it down in favor of a pool or something. A playground for the children you and Leon never got around to having or if they’d install one of those little playgrounds like the neighbors had.
Absent-mindedly, you bring up a random memory that pops up in your head. “You remember when the neighbors built that privacy fence and put that big ass camera up?”
Leon snorts, he pries his eyes open and stares at nothing in particular. “That guy was a nut job.” Leon mutters.
You laugh and shift in your seat, conversation rumbles to life, purring contentedly. “We always had shitty neighbors.” You hum, dipping further in. It’s easy to talk about the past. “Remember back when we lived in those shady apartments?”
It takes Leon a while, but it dawns on him eventually. He only lived in two apartment complexes with you, the last one was nice and isolated, notably. The unit across was empty the two years you both stayed there — something about it being the landlord's show unit.
That leaves the other option, and those apartments make way more sense. The apartments he used to live in near the DSO, back when he actually valued being on time and you two had just started dating. Living there was fine for him; it wasn't until you moved in that he realized he had to get you both out of there. Being near a government building doesn’t necessarily guarantee the people’ll be model citizens.
“Yeah. Yeah I do.” He grunts. “The guy who always thought we were stealing his packages. Asshole tried breaking in didn’t he?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” It sounds ugly when he puts it like that. “He was just…on something.”
Leon rolls his eyes and stares at you deadpan. ‘On something.’ It doesn’t exactly give a man permission to bust down a door over what ended up being a package that got held by customs. That’s another thing, you always downplayed things. It’s a huge part of why he can’t believe you when you say it’s not his fault.
He’s known you for years and still can’t find a real deal-breaking fault, but he can pinpoint all of his. So how is he supposed to think that somehow you’re the reason this didn’t work?
“Right.” he drags it out, making it clear he doesn’t believe you. He wasn’t home for it, so all he ever had to go off of was the frantic phone call you’d made. That guy was on something, though. Had to be. “I should’ve just moved into your place.”
You quirk a brow. Your place?
Your apartment before him was less of a home and more of a shoebox, it had the basics but that was it. One bedroom that instantly transitioned into kitchen, dining room and entryway. If the neighbors smoked, you smelled it.
You huff. “My place wasn’t any better.”
At least Leon’s had a hallway. And it was near a park you’d both frequented when he wasn’t too tired after work. Dumbarton Oaks with its fields of peonies, tulips and draping wisteria.
You don’t think you can ever go back to it without thinking about Leon, he’s cursed to haunt the grounds with you forever, your hand in his, his eyes on you.
Your lips curl slightly at the edges. He loved that place in the spring too. You turn your head to face him a little better. “Do you remember—“
“Sorry I never got you that dog.” Leon says out of the blue.
Whatever you’d wanted to drudge up slinks back into sludge. It gets a little reaction out of you though, the words die in your throat. Your expression is a mix of bewilderment and amusement - brows twitching, lips pursing. Why does that matter now?
It’s a cliche, the pet every couple gets and then has to coparent. You forgot all about that, he’s dusted those memories off and buffed them out. The late night conversations that came whenever you’d bring it up come roaring to the forefront, the ones that always ended up turning into plans for the future.
At the time, you’d shown him some big, dumb looking chocolate lab with its tongue lolled out and its head cocked to the side, of course he said no. It was too big a dog.
‘We should get a dog, there’s this shelter nearby that...’
‘…No, we don’t even have room for a dog that big…‘
‘…we can only get a dog if our kid asks for one? That’s not fair, that’s so far away!’
‘Sounds fair to me, princess. A dogs a big responsibility…’
‘Yeah, I know. I had three, but what if…’
But that was then. This is now. A dog really would’ve been nice, it would’ve made the house feel a little less lonely, Leon wouldn’t have had to install so many cameras if you had gotten a big dog like you wanted but…
“Sorry, what were you gonna say?”
You wave the memories away, tuck them back into whatever box they tumbled out of. “No it’s fine,” You tuck one leg up onto the bench and wrap your arms around it.
“I know you were like, scared of them.”
Leon scoffs, “I wasn’t scared of dogs.” It sounds absurd. It sounds weak when you put it like that out loud. Leon. The D.S.O. 's legendary and longest standing agent. Leon.
Leon S. Kennedy. Afraid of dogs.
“You’re not?”
“No, it’s just,” he pauses, and you wish you’d just let it go.
There’s a story there he never told you. You wish you couldn’t read him so well either, but his eyes tighten around the corners and give him away, he never could look you straight in the eye when he was hiding something or lying.
“Does it really matter now?” He settles for that, doesn’t mean to sound so bitter, but he does.
There’s a lot of things Leon never told you about nor explained; the keychain, the nightmares, why he’d been so exhausted as of late, and why he’d pulled away and why he’d been disappearing, — another thing you had to forgive, your lawyer would’ve hounded him in court if you hadn’t. — everything is on a need to know basis, and you technically, don’t need to know.
There’s no point in badgering him in attempts to get him to spill his guts. These things really do just…not matter anymore, if you couldn’t get him to be honest while married or at least extend a sliver of an olive branch, then what’s the point in trying to do it now?
They can remain as he’d like them; mystery’s, left abandoned to collect dust alongside the memories.
You try for something light hearted, your smile is soft at the edges, understanding as much as it could be. “It’s fine to be afraid of dogs.” You tease and roll your eyes, nudge his shoulder with yours. “I would’ve been fine with a cat. Or a little dachshund, we didn’t have to get a lab.”
Leon rolls his eyes and leans away from you, slumps into his corner of the bench. It isn’t odd for him to do this, now that he’s got a grip on himself he does this when he’s found himself needled. Instead of reaching for the bottle, he shuts the doors and searches for some sort of reprieve, walks circles in that head of his and still lets the concept of ‘talking things out’ go forgotten.
Ah, you’ve walked yourself into a trap. Your smile falters, and just like that, the easy going atmosphere dissipates like a drop of water in a hot pan.
Was it something you said? (Of course it was.) Or was it something you hadn’t? Did he want an apology? Some sort of understanding? Maybe you should’ve brushed it off, said ‘No, I really really didn’t want a dog anyways, let’s talk about the park please.’ and steered the course back to safer waters.
It doesn’t matter, you repeat. It really doesn’t. You’re stuck in a loop of apathy, dancing to a tune you don’t quite recognize and can’t turn off. The pitter patter of rain softens its sharp edges, though it doesn’t completely erase the need to fill it with something light hearted.
You glance down at the tan line on your ring finger. It’ll take a while to go away, a lighter shade to remind you of what once was until you slip on another. Though you doubt you’ll remarry. Your eyes find Leon again, you wish it was easy to get lost in your thoughts and forget he’s here, let the minutes pass in relative peace; it’s harder to ignore the fact he’s still got his ring on.
You curl your fist and pray he hasn’t noticed yours is missing, it’s tucked away in velvet, left on your vanity to lose its sparkle. The guilt settles heavy in your heart, a snake creeping through the grass that makes you think twice; why does he still have it on? Was it too early to take it off?
There must be some sort of guideline to divorce etiquette you’re missing.
Was there a vital bullet point tucked in one of the blog posts you skimmed through that you actually needed to read? ‘The Do’s and Dont’s of divorce; don’t take your ring off until months after your divorce is settled, it looks bad if you do.’ or some other quirky point written by some ‘journalist’.
The answer to why he has his on is simple, why kid yourself? Leon didn’t want this, there’s no room for miscommunication there. No oh, well, maybe he knew it was dead and didn’t want to pull the plug first, no chance of saying it was mutual even if it might be amicable.
He took so long to sign the papers, dragged his feet and had his lawyer plead for separation first instead under the guise of managing assets and other legal jargon neither of you ever thought you'd have to care for.
You know he was hoping you’d change your mind, that therapy would’ve made you have a come to Jesus moment and rescind your demand. Unfortunately for him, it hadn’t. And at the altar when he’d said forever and always; he’d meant it, every single word.
Then, his hair had been shades brighter and a little shorter, his eyes less crinkled at the edges, his suit and tie impossibly starched and a cold sweat had settled at the nape of his neck, he’d stopped wiping it away lest other people notice.
It was funny to look back on, Mr. Suave rendered down to a fidgeting groom the second the organ began. Every nerve had lit itself on fire the moment you’d walked down the aisle to meet him at the finish line.
At what moment in time had the spark fizzled? What had he missed? (Besides birthdays, trips you’d started to organize alone - no longer clinging to hoping he’d get the days off, and date nights.)
Suddenly the world’s been turned over on its head and he’s meant to forget all about you and all the things you like. Life is supposed to go on and he’s supposed to let the feeling of your hand in his become a distant memory; you’ll be preserved in an imperfect film, the exact moment you fell out of love burned away in the negatives.
One thing resurfaces, however, was this why?
“You think we waited too long to have kids?” Leon asks with the subtlety of breaking glass. Was it then? Had he waited too long? You never gave him a clear answer the night you’d asked for divorce, he can’t help but want to peel it all back and get some clarity.
Would you have stayed if he had gotten you pregnant? The question buzzes around in Leon’s head violently, he’s poked a hornets nest, the poison sinks into his system because the answers yes, isn’t it?
You stiffen visibly, the spotlight is rather harsh. Your heart stutters and comes to a stop in your chest. You hate this line of questioning, everything in your body’s gotten the jitters. So it seems he remembers those conversations too. The topic always came up, in conversation with friends, after grocery trips, in the comfortable silence that followed after dinner.
The house always felt like something was missing. A dog, a cat, a damned parrot. Something that made noise. Something that breathed life into this house. Anything so long as it wasn’t just you and the late night news.
Those two little babies always manifest and never go away when you think about them too hard. The pitter patter of little feet running up the stairs. A boy with that cute little dimple in his chin. A girl with moles scattered around like ink droplets.
What traits or physical attributes would they have gotten from you? Would they have been all Leon in the face or would hints of you be there too? You would’ve torn the gazebo out for them too if they wanted a pool. But, you have to let them go.
You know now the solution would’ve never been children, they would’ve simply been just that; another thing that would’ve filled the silence that came after he was gone.
The only semi-truthful answer you can find comes out naturally. “I…I don’t know.” You glance at him from the corner of your eye. Leon’s jaw is shut tight, molars working against themselves to death.
You’ve come to terms with that, it’s too late to have any of your own either way. No choice but to march on with time. You don’t resent him for wasting your youth, Leon couldn’t ever change the fact he was a man who would’ve never really been home, you knew that when you married him.
You just thought that something would’ve changed down the time. Maybe things would've been different.
That’s on you isn’t it?
“Did you really want kids?” You don’t shy away from asking. Dreaming out loud with Leon was your favorite pastime.
Leon rubs his hand against the scruff on his chin, manages to grit out, “Always wanted a girl.” He risks it, meets your gaze head on. “Would’ve looked like you.”
Your eyes widened slightly, thrown off guard. “Still?”
You figured he would’ve changed his mind and wanted a boy like every other guy seemed to want, could’ve raised him up to be like himself. Named him Leon Jr or something dorky. Just not Scott. You wouldn’t have let him name your son something that dorky. Leon can let that die with him.
“Yeah.” Leon smiles, it brightens the storm clouds around him, it's infectious, you feel your own lips itching to match his mood. He’d have been a good girl dad, he’s got some experience, after all.
“Yeah?” You reach out and shove him lightly, a real smile tugging on your lips. “You would’ve annoyed the hell out of her.” For the first time since you’ve started this whole process, Leon chuckles. The sound is low and rich though carrying a weight he lets out in the sigh that follows.
“You annoyed the hell out of me.” You murmur in jest, it’s lighthearted, he knows. “But she would’ve loved you for it, I loved you for it.” You rest your cheek against the top of your knee and trace the lines on his face, he’s still as handsome as the day you met him, you don’t even notice what you’re starting to say.
“Still do.”
Leon stares back, his eyes have widened a bit but that all doesn’t matter much now. He’s still your tired Leon with his sad blue eyes, worry lines etched in his forehead. With his greys poking out through the blonde — if it could even be considered that anymore, it’s as brown as ale now, aged just like that. — that frames his face. He barely even has smile lines but he musters another big one up for you, accentuates them.
“Yeah?” He rumbles lowly.
You don’t retract it. “Yeah.”
Time itself seems to come at a standstill, everything else blurs. And suddenly, it’s the first summer you both spent out in the countryside after he came back from Spain, and it’s beginning to feel like you never uttered ‘I think this just isn’t working anymore.’ to him.
It rained then too. You could almost pretend that’s where you’re at again, out in the middle of nowhere skinny dipping like brain dead teens in horror flicks, he’d questioned how smart the idea was yet still followed you into the lake muttering warnings to ward off ‘big ass fishes’.
Leon shifts in his seat, turns his body towards you subtly. This is a bad idea. You swallow the thought, Don’t, don’t.. your heart races in your ears and drowns out any reason.
You shouldn’t play with his feelings. Your gaze is pulled downward to settle on his lips, dusky pink and still plush. Don’t. You remember when he’d stopped shaving, somewhere in between 2014 and 2015, you used to hate the beard burn then, you wouldn’t mind feeling it again now.
“I’m sorry, I…” You mutter, “I..I shouldn’t have…”
Leon’s eyes flick down just a fraction too. He always did like the slow burn, you’d play coy and dance around what you wanted, and it’s killing him to know all he’ll have after this is memories that’ll slip through his hands like sand.
The fractures start to show, eyes lingering a second too long for people who are supposed to be moving on after this. The distance between you two became negligible somewhere along the lines enough for them to have long dissolved.
You both move at the same time, all coordination goes forgotten when you come to connect, his nose knocks against yours before your lips finally meet again after having spent half a year apart. Your other hand latches onto the front of his shirt, his finds the curve of your cheek, the jigsaws always fall into place.
Your tongue rolls over and against his, the scant space when lips part is filled with shared breaths and desperate pants, the rains pouring down eagerly now, splashing off the gazebos railing and splattering against the stone, but none of that matters now, not when he’s hauling you onto his lap by your hips like old times.
Your hand reaches out to tangle in his hair as you shift and crowd him against the benches corner, Leon’s hand grips your waist, adjusting your thighs to bracket his.
“Right here?” He cracks one eye open. Yours are screwed shut.
“Mhm.” You pant, your breath is hot against his lips, his teeth clack against yours. “Please.”
That sweet little ‘please’ does all the work for you, his blood rushes southbound all in one millisecond, they left one blood cell in charge upstairs and that one too is screaming ‘go! go! go!’.
Leon keeps you firmly on his lap, one hand rests against the small of your back while the other scrambles down south, working his fly open just enough for future ease. Your lips meet his time and time again, it’s nice to kiss him when he doesn’t taste like whiskey, even better after being deprived of him for so long, you’ll ignore that it’s self inflicted.
His tongue licks into your mouth softly, swipes against yours with a sigh of relief. How long has he been thinking of doing this again? Too long. It’s hard to kill his attraction for you, it isn’t some switch he can just turn off.
You’re it for him, you always were and always will be. It doesn’t matter if he’s gotta sit parallel to you and sign his name on a line come Monday, if it makes you happy. He’ll do it. But right now he can be a little selfish, can’t he?
“This is a bad idea.” You hiss, a reminder to you both, his hand still works its way up your ass, hiking your pencil skirt up enough to expose a whisper of lace.
“I know.” Leon murmurs against your lips, swallows down whimpers and gasps alike. “Just once. ‘s all it has to be.”
Liar, liar, liar, liar—
You cling onto that just once and guide his hands. He’s right. It’s all it has to be. Just one teensy mistake.
You nod dumbly, helping him shove your panties aside, his fingers prod along your slit clumsily, that sharp intake when he dips them between flesh makes you feel slightly self conscious, you’re wet, unmistakably so. He parts your folds with a quiet click and all your worries melt away the second he finds your clit, rubs it softly with his index and makes you stutter out a sweet little moan.
“You needed this, huh?” Leon huffs, it’s easy to fall into line, he hasn’t forgotten this dance just yet, his fingers circle and your clit, “Didn’t mean to let it get this bad.”
Your eyes flutter shut before opening again to watch his face. Leon presses his forehead against yours and closes his own. Two slip in down to the knuckle and out to the tip, rhythmically pumping into your entrance playfully, enough to stimulate, not enough to please.
He did let it get this bad, what with him being gone all the time and leaving you with nothing but a bunch of plastic to fill in the gaps, how gracious of him to finally make it up to you. But you won’t leave him hanging, even if you should.
“Let me help,” You sighed, “please?”
There it is again, that magic word. He never could say no to you, didn’t help he never wanted to in the first place. Leon shifts slightly, tips his hips up and lets you do all the work, it’s hard to focus on anything else but the warmth radiating from between your legs.
Your hand slipped in between you both to find his length, through the fabric of his briefs he’s warm but noticeably, soft. Half-hard, if you were generous, nearly flaccid if you weren’t, it would’ve been a bit of a blow to your ego if the problem was you there. But it wasn’t. Your hand still slips into that weird little gap in his briefs, it was for easy access you assumed.
It was him, age does these things after all, nothing to be ashamed about, though you know he is, in fact, ashamed. You can count on your hands how many times you’ve seen him get pouty when you’d recommend that little blue pill.
“Still having problems?” You murmur against his lips, languidly stroking him to life, thumb rubbing the vein along the side, slipping up to tug the skin encasing his frenulum down, worrying the edge of his cock head til it starts to weep pearly beads of pre-cum.
“Don’t put it like that.” Leon groaned, pushing his cock further into the cradle of your hand, rubbing his fingers through your folds a little harder before lightly smacking them against your pussy for punishment, you jolt and squeeze a little too hard. “Still working, isn't it?”
Now it is. You rut against his fingertips for more, press a kiss to the tip of his nose and smoosh your forehead against his. “Yeah.” You glance down in between you both, watching your hands work in tandem, his stuffed between your thighs, yours working over his lap.
Leon’s cock stiffens up to attention, all his blood going right where it needs to be, thickened up and engorged as much as it could possibly go, your thumb drags a few more beads down to slicken him up, palm twisting to work him not over, but nearly.
Your eyes squeeze shut, your strokes lose their rhythm, blurring faster than you intended, you could never lie that when it comes to this, Leon knows you as well as you know him, maybe even more so, he’d turned you into his own pull apart - put back together attraction over the span of a decade or two and somehow never managed to get bored.
Always found something new to fixate over, a new place to bite, another to nip and suckle at. If you were in your bedroom, he’d have you belly down, ass up for the next hour or with his arm coiled around your neck, but, alas. From here on out, you could only dream.
A choked whine leaves your lips, the slick that’s collected on his fingers makes for easy traction, his fingers work in earnest, two spread your entrance open, scissoring before twisting in deeper. Leon feels the exact moment the pads of his digits start to bully your sweet spot, your cunt clings to him and your whimpers scream: Right there, there, there, there—
But, he stops and pulls out abruptly. Your pussy clenches strongly around nothing, a protest of its own that leaves you chasing the feeling you’re being suddenly denied of, humping the air and wondering where his fingers went. It isn’t long until you figure it out.
You let go of his cock when you feel him take over for you, gripping at the base and effectively relieving you of duty.
“You ready?” His other hand cups the bottom of your ass cheek and tugs it aside, spreading you open and lining himself up clumsily. The tip of his cock nudges against your opening and notches itself to land. You bite the tip of your tongue and fight the urge to impale yourself with him.
“C’mon, yes or no.” Your eyes flick up to Leon’s face. He’s so smug. Staring up at you with that little gleam in his eyes and an easy grin. He sinks you down just an inch more, watches you gasp before tugging you back up. Bastard.
“Yes, please.” You nod dumbly and wrap your arms around him like he’s come home from a particularly long mission, let your body cover his and spread your legs as much as you can without making it hard on him.
The ruddy tip of his cock kisses your folds again, he misses once before he finally notches himself in, parts them with relative ease, sinking in deeper inch by inch and ignoring how his cock kicks and throbs with each warm sigh you let out against him. Your pussy is mind-meltingly warm, slick and viselike, if he weren’t careful he would’ve shoved himself into you instantaneously.
Leon was big, there’s no room for arguing there, he’s always had a cock that makes you think twice before going in with little to no preamble like this, if it hadn’t been for his hands holding you steady you would’ve squirmed away, begged him to kiss it better and really work you open with his fingers, not whatever he was doing before.
It felt like he was splitting you open in the best and worst ways possible, each whimper and whine soothed away bit by bit by him shushing you and rubbing little circles into the divots of your hips to distract you.
One thought makes its way through the haze. You aren’t going to last, your thighs squeeze shut as best as they can, granting your poor clit the friction it’s still begging for, though in a small amount. It’s hard for Leon to focus on lasting in the first place too when your pussy hugs him so tightly, it misses him, that much is clear.
Maybe that’s the part of you that misses him more than your heart does.
His fingers dimple the fat of your hips, squeezing and kneading, savoring the way flesh gives beneath the pads of his fingertips, if he holds on hard enough he won’t let himself get carried away by the wave.
“You okay?” Leon pants. He presses kisses where your cleavage is pressed against his face. Suffocate him, why don’t you?
You peer down and catch his gaze. Leon’s pupils are blown, black swallows up blue until it’s a thin line just around, eyes half-lidded like he’s on downers and ready to nod off. You like Leon most when he’s just as lost as you are, makes you wonder why you stopped having sex in the first place.
“Uh-huh,” You cradle the back of his head and press him closer against you. “C’mon, kiss ‘em for me.” Your other hand tugs the cups of your breast down just a bit, enough to pop a tit out and offer it up for his pleasure.
You don’t have to tell Leon twice, he takes one into his mouth and teases your nipple between his teeth, biting down hard enough to make you shudder out a moan and shut your eyes. The pleasure-pain has your pussy clenching around him tighter than it has before.
“Fuck,” Leon hisses in between kisses, his hips jolt forward to chase his own pleasure now that your body’s reminded him exactly where his dicks at. Leon starts to steadily rut up into you like it’s your last day on earth.
And in a way he isn’t wrong, it surely feels like it is.
Any moment now a big rock will come flying down and wipe out humanity and you’ll die in his arms like you’re meant to. Vows always speak of for better or for worse, until death do us part. So what is he to do after this?
His palm slides down to grip onto the soft flesh of your ass, uses it as leverage and holds you just where he wants you. He’d take you hostage if he didn’t have morals.
You tip your head back and let out a low throaty moan, arch closer and plaster your tits further against his mouth. “Shit—” You whine, your hands plant themselves firmly against his shoulders, “Leon,”
Your mouth hangs open, half choked moans and words tumbling out in between gasps. Leon’s constantly adjusting his hold on you, starting to become uncertain with where to put his hands. Too pussy drunk to really care, each thrust sends a wave of heat through your core.
Your nails dug in as much as they could, praying they’ll rip through fabric and make contact with skin, score him to make certain he’s real and this isn’t some dream you’ll wake up from to find yourself sweat slicked and embarrassed to see you’ve rutted yourself against a pillow.
How long has it been since he’s last fucked you? A year? Two? Your cunt answers for you, too soaked for it to have been any less. No, it couldn’t have been that long. The last time you’re certain he had you like this was after he’d come back from the middle of nowhere, it doesn’t narrow it down but you know you’d been crying then too.
You always do.
Wait.
You’re crying?
You open your eyes and stare up at the roof, a snotty intake of air and a real sob is all Leon needs to hear to come to this realization too. Your chest expands and stutters half way. You’re crying?? The lump in your throat is confirmation.
“Why’re you crying?” Leon rasps out, your heart is being squeezed in a vice, he slows his thrust. His cock slides in and out in languid, syrupy strokes meant to let you get a grip, give him an answer that isn’t ’I don’t know.’ or a moan.
You force yourself to tilt your head down, sobbing softly against him. It’s not that you don’t know what you’re about to say, it’s that fucking Leon without saying it feels wrong. You love him. You do love him. Enough to let him go. Enough to not let your relationship deteriorate further. You still love him enough to be able to say it and mean it.
“I love you,” You whisper hoarsely, “God, I love you.” your own hips start to work themselves in tandem with his, taking him in deep and whimpering when the tip of his cock starts to shift from hammering against that little spot to grinding against it, wringing stars out from the sky’s above.
Leon groans like you’ve punched him in the gut, in a way you did, his head tips back and rests against the bench’s back rest. His eyes screw shut. You don’t mean that. You couldn’t mean that. Not while you’re drunk off pleasure and high off the tension, it isn’t real this way.
“I love you,” You repeat raggedly, dipping your head down to hide against the crook of his neck, your spines being lit ablaze, flames traveling up the base to melt your brain. You whine his name and curl further into him. He shifts just enough to press his forehead against yours again. His jaw clenches.
Your noses bump against each other unapologetically.
“I know,” He grunts, “I got you, fuck, baby I got you. Always do.”
The truth is, he doesn’t. He hardly ever had time for you those last few months. And you can’t stand feeling so alone anymore, missed birthdays, holidays, anniversaries...it all piled up. You’d rather die than end up one of those bitter bored housewives who stayed for the money.
You love Leon enough to know he deserves better. You know he feels guilty for not being home so often, it’s best to just rip the bandaid off now.
At least for now you can believe it, pretend everything’s alright. It feels like it is. It feels like you’re twenty six again, giggling under his bedsheets and finding out what makes him tick all over again. Pressing kisses against his face and teasing him for going redder than he already was.
You open your eyes to find he’s already staring at you. So close you can see the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and that his lashes have got greys too.
He's close. You can recognize that expression anywhere. His lips are pulled up in a pained snarl. His grunts turning to groans, slipping past his lips and reminding you how pretty he sounds when he’s about to cum.
“I love you too,” He parrots, catches your bottom lip between his teeth and presses his against yours again, swallows your words before either can dig the grave deeper. His arm bands around the small of your back, his fingers dig into the fat of your waist, hips smacking up against yours, that nasty squelch of slick flesh meeting again and again emanating louder between you two.
Your throat closes up, the knot that’s formed behind your navel starts to pull loose little by little, your half-bit keen comes in time with the pulsing of your inner muscle around him, if he’s delusional enough, he could believe you’re apologizing for breaking his heart in morse code.
Your hips twitched and jerked as you squirm and pull off, crying out that it’s too much, what hasn’t been emptied inside you spurted out and trickled down the length of his cock, both of your chests heaved in similar cadences, body’s going tense to jelly like in a matter of seconds, boneless and gone to the word.
Only when you met his gaze again and the afterglow started to fade, did you realize what exactly happened.
— x-x-x-x-x-x —
You stuff your compact mirror back into your purse.
For the last five minutes you’ve been scrubbing away the evidence off your face. Mascara trails down beneath your eyes, bits flake off and coat your cheeks like soot. Tirelessly, you’ve tried wiping away the flushed color from your cheeks, ignoring the way they burn.
While it’s easy to blame the rain for your dishevelment, it’s harder to ignore the jelly-like condition that’s suddenly rendered your legs useless.
Leon stands awkwardly behind you, he’s been adjusting his jacket for the past couple of minutes, tucking his collar up, slipping the extra in his waist band before pulling it back out, and sneaking glances he thinks you don’t notice.
God. The silence is worse this time around.
Your gut churns violently like waves crashing again and eroding a cliffslide. You’re stupid. You’re an idiot. An ingénue who let herself get carried away with the storm and scrabbled for land, solid and familiar. It’s still raining, it’s worse than before actually. You wonder if that’s the world trying to tell you something, maybe it’s berating you; for fucking him after divorcing him, for divorcing him in the first place, for telling him you loved him during, for not taking it back after.
Where would you two be if Leon had just tried? Would you have managed to find happiness again? Would he have found the time to come back to you as he was?
You didn’t mind having him jaded, drunk, mean, anything so long as he was there. You patched over those gaps, tucked them away out of sight, out of mind because at least he was there. Ugly and down in it, drowning in the currents right there with you.
And you know to some extent that these shadows and breaks were necessary, that he had to keep you in the dark and away from him as much as possible, it isn’t his fault. Leon couldn’t have known you’d grow this tired, he suspected it was a possibility, but he never let himself really acknowledge it. You’d vowed to each other, hadn’t that meant something?
Maybe it’s for the best things ended this way. There’s no real way to patch a fracture this wide, no way to bridge it when one party can’t compromise. Things are easier this way, they’ll have to be. What other choice do you have?
You already were indifferent to some degree towards the end, if you’d have ended up really hating him, wishing he’d just die in some corner of the world so you could collect…You scrub your hands against your face again. You’d rather this than that.
Your face is wet, breaths come out in puffs against your shaking hands and you wonder if it’s left over droplets from the rain or fresh tears. Does Leon regret this as much as you do? God, you could just take it all back, throw yourself at him and beg; ‘Please don’t let me divorce you, call the lawyers, it was a mistake, I'm so sorry hun’, i’m so stupid, I love you.’
You could try, you could get on your knees and grovel and Leon would hold you like he always did, he’d kiss the top of your head and cradle you like you’re something soft and small and in his arms you’d believe you were, he’d say you’re not stupid and he’d promise you things like he always has—
“That can’t happen again.” You blurt out. The rustle of fabric behind you stops. Your tongues gone numb between your teeth, bad habit.
You don’t want to turn around, your bloods both frozen in your veins and boiling hot bubbling beneath skin, the silence behind you is deafening, until you hear Leon exhale through his teeth.
When he finally opens his mouth, he tries for a joke like always, “Was it that bad?”
It doesn’t take a genius to hear it’s lacking his usual bravado. ‘No hard feelings’, you could hear it clear as day in his tone.
“No, it’s just…” You keep your hands pressed against your face then they slap against your sides rather loudly. Don’t make me say it, you want to say. Won’t you please tell me? you could hear him say in return if he knew.
You force yourself to turn and take one look at him, a risk, and it tells you all you need to know. He came to the conclusion the moment you’d scrambled back inside, it’s in your eyes, in your pinched brows and pouted lips, in the tears you hide under the guise of rain droplets.
“No, I know. I shouldn’t have let it go that far.” Leon apologizes first and your heart splits in two to hear that dejected tone he’s trying to hide so hard beneath gruff timbre. Your Leon, always the one to take the blame.
Your vision blurs again, tears stinging like nettles. ‘I’m sorry, Leon.’ is all you should say, all you could say. You’d repeat it over and over again until you both believed it. But it’s exactly what you won’t say. Leon’s zipped his jacket up and settled against the doorframe, you need to pull the plug, he needs to pull it.
It’d be better if you took one for the team, let him be the one who leaves first for once.
“My rides almost here." You swipe at your eye and mumble. You’ve no idea where your friend is, forty minutes have long since passed. “I’ll um…I’ll see you Monday.”
Leon stays silent, stares at the floor, then at you. You think he’ll say something, fight you about it, force you to shake off this weird mood so it can be like before again. Instead he just hesitates and nods, always too good at taking orders.
“Yeah.” He mutters, patting his pockets for his phone and his keys before he reaches for the door handle. “See you.”
The door closes with a click shut behind him, and maybe you preferred the silence from before. You don’t know what’s worse. That look on his face, the flat sound of his voice, or being left behind to wait alone in this big empty house.
Watching Leon go still makes a lump form in your throat. Reminds you of the nights he’d wake you before he went off on some mission, leaving you behind with a soft kiss and a ‘Love you, be home soon.’
After a few minutes of mind numbing silence, you move towards the window on your own accord and lean against the window, just out of sight. Leon’s already sitting in his Porsche, head pressed against the steering wheel.
The rain trickles down the pane and obscures your vision. You think after today, you’ll come to hate it too.
— so this is a new fanfic venture for me… like everyone else, i think leon kennedy is sexy and needed to write something. please reblog/comment!
——
Your phone pinged and illuminated in the dark bedroom. Instantly, your heart pounded with a mixture of fear and delight. No one in their right mind would message you at midnight except for the man you had been patiently waiting for. But with that came the chance of good or bad news.
Leon had been braving the ruins of Raccoon City for almost two weeks now. Ten days without him felt like a lifetime. His exact whereabouts were unknown, and with the activated virus burrowing deeper in his bloodstream, not knowing if he was alive with a beating heart and light behind his ice-blue eyes was agonizing. Anxiety clawed at your chest with each hour that had passed after his departure. Desperately, you had pleaded to go with him. To at least be nearby if things went wrong. He was growing wearier, and despite your ineptitude with a weapon, you wanted to help him investigate the violent threat that was slowly spreading in his and others' systems. To find something—anything —about the mysterious disease's origins. Beyond that, there had to be a cure. You needed there to be one so that Leon didn't have to suffer an excruciating end. And while your husband seemed to accept his fate, you weren't so keen on living in a cruel world without his protection.
Leon did everything in his power to keep you far removed from his work, but you saw the reality play out on the news broadcasts. The unfolding destruction, the helplessness, the mass confusion. Knowing he had chosen to revisit the horrors he experienced decades ago was a true act of heroism. So, with admiration for his valor, you had reluctantly let him go with a tearful goodbye on the front porch of your secluded home.
You closed your eyes, picturing his face that night. In the dim shadows, you remembered the stubble on his jaw, the few silver hairs peppered there catching the light. The purple hue under his eyes, significant of the years he devoted his life to danger. The dimple on his chin you loved to press your thumb into. Each beautiful age line indenting his skin while he stared at you like time was running out. An unspoken conversation had brewed behind his stormy gaze, and you had felt it pierce the most vulnerable parts of your flesh. If this is the last time I see you...
"I love you," Leon had said, his voice rough yet sincere. "I'll be back. And you'll stay right here."
There had been no room for argument. It had been a hopeful vow to return to each other—not unscathed, but merely alive. And in his declining state, it was all you could have asked for.
Truthfully, the black marks snaking across his neck and arms petrified you. They seemed to shoot farther across his veins each day, swelling like ink in water. The pain was affecting him too. He tried so hard to hide it, but you had noticed every wince and groan when you hugged him goodbye. The stubborn man he was, he had pushed through it and lifted you in his arms, holding you for five straight minutes before driving off in his Porsche with one last glance at your melancholy expression.
Leon hadn't kissed you then for fear that he would transmit the disease to you. It had been a month since you felt his full lips against yours. How intensely you craved them, but you knew better than to risk it, what with the uncertainty and rapid progression of the virus. The torturous stages and how quickly it could attack one's system were a deadly combination. It was best to be overly cautious.
With a deep breath and a prayer to whoever was listening, you opened your text messages.
Leon: Homeward bound. Expect a car to pull in around 2 a.m. You don't have to wait up for me. Get some sleep, please. I'll be quiet.
You let out a small sound of relief and covered your face, wanting to break down with joy. Miraculously, you felt the anxiety drain out of your body. Leon wasn't able to communicate with you often during his investigations, mainly for your and his safety. Didn't want anyone suspicious knocking at the door or trying to track calls. The last time Leon contacted you was eight days ago when he reached an extraction point. He had provided you with a simple "I'm safe." And then it was radio silence, which only made you more fraught with dread. Who knew the situations he had found himself in?
A minute later, your phone pinged again.
Leon: The doors and windows better be locked.
A tear slipped down your cheek as you smiled widely. He took home security very seriously for obvious reasons, and with leaving you alone, there were strict instructions he expected you to follow. You would follow that one, but as for being told to get some sleep, you were too wired to lie still for long.
You walked over to Leon's closet, adrenaline humming underneath your skin. Sliding the metal hangers to the side, you grabbed one of the few T-shirts Leon had left behind. It was plain; the faded navy cotton was well-worn, and you were guilty of wearing it to bed on more than one occasion. The whole closet smelled like him, a familiar musky scent that you had dearly missed engulfing you.
You picked out a pair of grey sweatpants and laid Leon's version of pajamas on the edge of the bed for him to change into once he arrived. You imagined he would want to take a hot shower and crawl under the blankets wearing something other than tactical garments and gear. He experienced insomnia for the past couple of years. From the virus to his trauma to never feeling like he was truly free from harm, the least you could do was offer the things that comforted him.
Back in the closet, behind his clothes, was a shelf that housed Leon's leftover belongings—printed pictures of private moments in your marriage, half of them gone and tucked away in Leon's backpack; a pistol for self-defense that he had taught you how to shoot using beer cans as targets; and a sealed envelope carrying a letter you were informed to open lest Leon never returned. With a forceful blink, you hid it on the top shelf so you wouldn't have to think about it. He was alive—hopefully healthy and home for good.
But most importantly, in a velvet jewelry pouch was Leon's gold wedding band. He had left it here for safekeeping, not wanting to lose it in the chaos and action of his endeavor. It symbolized his loyalty to one day permanently shed his agent duties and be a husband. He separated the two roles as much as possible, and as much as you loved the stoic, sarcastic side of Leon that crept through after missions, you much preferred the warm, affectionate man you married in the backyard with only the sycamore trees as witnesses.
You took the pouch and set it atop his folded clothes on the bed. Perfect. All ready for him.
There wasn't much else you could busy yourself with while waiting, so you headed to the kitchen and decided to cook Leon a hot meal and passionflower tea. You didn't even want to ask what he had been eating. Or how little.
With a contented sigh, you placed a pot of water and a kettle over the stove burners and then tried to make the house more welcoming. You lit a jasmine-scented candle, turned on the lamp near the doorway, and straightened the kitchen chairs. It was raining steadily outside; the pattering was a nice ambience for the otherwise quiet space.
It became awfully lonesome whenever Leon was away, but you couldn't complain when he was out there battling monsters far beyond your comprehension and risking his life for the greater good of humanity. So, the least you could do was make this a place for your husband to call home.
——
At 2:12 a.m., a flash of headlights reflected off the windows in the bedroom. From the second floor, you peeked past the open blinds and looked down to find Leon's sleek black Porsche slowly pulling in the driveway. Your pulse quickened as you stood frozen in place, willing your brain to compute that he was really here.
Sweet solace.
From your view, Leon stepped out, the epitome of casual and confident. He wore a black leather jacket, the fur color making him look more like a fashion model than a federal agent. His gloved hands hauled a duffel bag from the passenger seat, his fringed, rain-soaked hair shielding half his face. His movements were fluid, which was a promising sign.
God, you had missed him.
Like a slow-motion scene, Leon craned his neck, his gaze finally finding yours through the window beaded with raindrops. He gently shut the car door behind him without breaking eye contact, a slight smile transforming his face, like he was humored by your choice to stay up waiting for him. He looked content and rejuvenated. Was he healed?
You grabbed the jewelry pouch and stuffed it in your pocket before racing downstairs, nearly tumbling on the hardwood floors in your socks. You made quick work of unlocking the double-cylinder deadbolts and then swung open the door.
Leon stood there, duffel bag at his feet. Every part of you wanted to jump into his arms, but first, you assessed him. No limbs missing. No visible blood, bruises, or bites. Just his handsome face staring at you expectantly with a lightness to his posture you hadn't seen in a long time.
"Leon," you whispered disbelievingly, your hand slowly reaching out to touch his cheek.
He leaned into your palm. "Told you I'd come back for you, didn't I?"
You laughed, taking in every inch of him. "I knew you would. I knew—"
Before you could finish, Leon embraced you with the strength of a man reborn, and your senses absorbed every little thing. Hearing the creak of his jacket as his biceps tightened around your shoulders, a shelter of warmth and protection. Feeling the gentle rise and fall of his broad chest. Smelling leather and rain, along with his signature scent. Seeing your breath condense in the crisp October air, your lungs expanding with euphoria.
When Leon eventually pulled away, he had a gleam in his eyes. "Check this out." He tugged his jacket's collar down, revealing the skin of his neck. Normal, clear skin. No trace of black marks. Then, he yanked off his gloves, revealing unmarred flesh and prominent veins.
You gasped and said, "It's gone." Your brow furrowed with equal parts confusion and relief. "Like magic."
Leon huffed a laugh. "Met an FBI analyst who saved my life. We found an antiviral deep beneath Raccoon City. I thought it was a bioweapon at first." One side of his mouth quirked. "It's a long-ass story."
Your mind spun with his concise, albeit vague, rundown of events. "What the hell happened?" you asked, searching for answers but not knowing where to start.
"I'll tell you everything later. Not exactly a pleasant bedtime story."
"But—"
"Hey," Leon said softly, bending to meet your worried gaze. "We're safe. I'm not infected anymore. That's all that matters, yeah?"
You gripped the belt loops of his black cargo pants. "Who had the cure? Why would someone keep it a secret? How did you—"
"Will you kiss me already?" he interrupted. "I haven't seen my wife in ten days. I know I probably smell and look like shit, but I can only be a gentleman for so long."
Speechless, you scoffed at his sass but obediently found his lips. Sinking into him, you draped your arms around his neck and let the heat of his kiss alleviate every ache your heart battled during his absence. Leon cradled your face, nipping your lips just the way you liked. He was restraining himself, you knew, because he was exhausted and didn't want to promise anything further tonight. So you let him take gentle yet hungry sips, pulling soft moans from your throat.
Leon drew back just an inch, resting his forehead against yours. "Hi, sweetheart," he whispered.
"Hi." You stole another kiss. "There's a bowl of minestrone and some tea waiting for you in the kitchen."
"I thought I told you to sleep. You didn't reply to my message, so I assumed you listened."
"I was pacing around the house like a madwoman."
He groaned good-naturedly and kissed you hard, nearly knocking you off your feet. "Let's go inside. Don't want you catching a cold."
Leon leisurely led you through the threshold, one hand clutching yours, and you relished the masculine sway of his hips and his combat boots clunking on the floor. In his outfit, he looked too big, too menacing for such a cozy home, but you knew once he slipped into his pajamas, he would fit here perfectly like the last piece of a puzzle.
He shed his coat and sat at the kitchen table, pulling you onto his sturdy thighs with an arm braced around your waist. Claiming you, needing you glued to him as he began eating his meal with the same fervor as a ravenous wolf. You just watched how his eyes closed as the warm liquid met his tongue and how the tension in his muscles loosened bit by bit.
"Thank you," Leon said gruffly after scarfing down half the soup and wiping his mouth with his sleeve. "For taking care of me."
"Always." You kissed his temple, and with one look at his bare ring finger resting on the walnut table, you pulled out his wedding band from your pocket. "I also took care of this."
Leon hummed, squeezing your hip. "Good girl. Would you do the honors?"
You grinned and took his palm in your own, your diamond wedding ring glinting under the ceiling light. His skin was calloused but clean, and he watched intently as you glided the metal band across his finger until it was snug and back in its rightful place.
"There," you said quietly. "That's better."
Leon flexed his hand, healthy veins and tendons straining prettily. "I thought about getting a tattooed ring for when I'm away."
"Plan on leaving so soon?" The thought made you apprehensive. You still had so many questions, so many reasons to not feel entirely settled.
"God, no. No. I actually..." Leon shifted in his seat, clearing his throat. "I think I want to retire."
You stroked your thumb over his chin, an intimate act of comfort. Vulnerable moments didn't come easy to him. "Really?"
"Yeah," he replied. "I've done all I can do. And I want to be here with you, in our home, away from the mayhem."
The house you had bought together was on the East Coast, far from any big cities. Leon valued privacy, and it was respected here. With his past, he never had permanence, and your shared home was one of the few possessions he could truly hold onto. When the world around him fell into catastrophe, you were there waiting, a steady fixture in his life.
"Okay," you said calmly. "Whatever you feel is right."
"It's right. I need to take some time to, you know, process everything."
"Of course. We should go on vacation and have an actual honeymoon."
Leon had the nerve to look offended. "What, you didn't enjoy that cabin in the woods with no indoor plumbing?"
You lightly slapped his shoulder. "Stop." To be fair, he had picked the location with the intention of thinking it would be romantic. Sweet in theory, but never again.
Leon smirked, then became pensive. "No, I'd like that. A real honeymoon, I mean." He swallowed nervously. "Maybe... maybe start that family we've been talking about."
Your heart leaped, bursting with love for his transparency. "There's no rush, Leon."
"I know," he said. "I just think I crave more purpose in my life. Purpose outside of serving the government. I want to be needed in a different way."
Needed as a father.
Nodding, you closed the conversation for the night with a kiss to his cheek, wanting him to be present and take life one day at a time. There was a lot for him to heal from. "Can you at least tell me one thing about what happened out there?" you asked.
"Sure, baby."
"Is it over?"
He took a sip of tea, then exhaled heavily. "It's over."
“And you'll tell me everything in the morning?"
"That's two things." Leon peered out the dark window. "And it's technically already morning."
"Only you could be a smart aleck this early," you teased, ruffling his hair.
He looked back at you. "Only 'cause I missed you. I'd show you just how much, but I'm running on approximately zero hours of sleep."
You adjusted your legs over his lap. "Take me to bed, Agent Kennedy."
He lifted you with ease and headed toward the upstairs bedroom. "That's former Agent Kennedy to you."
You laughed, burying your face in his neck, and the sound of his accompanying laugh nestled deep in your bones, a lovely sound you had dreamt about.
In the quiet of the bedroom, Leon was out like a light as soon as his head hit the pillow. He slept for nine hours, never waking once.
You also slept peacefully by his side, knowing the nightmares and memories of whatever atrocities had happened in Raccoon City couldn’t rupture the resilient life you had built together.
Price buys you the classic gifts - a box of chocolates, a bunch of flowers and some sort of jewellery. He’s old fashioned, a romantic at heart. He makes a reservation at your favourite restaurant and takes you there for dinner. He wines and dines you, his hand on your thigh under the table. The whole evening is intimate - candles on the table, quiet chuckles as you discuss memories of your relationship. It’s the kind of date that makes you swoon. When he gets you back home, you won’t be leaving the bed all night.
Gaz makes you breakfast in bed to start the day! I know that man can cook and it’s just another way for him to spoil you. He’d buy you something that he knows you’ve been wanting - an expensive bag or a special edition of a book, whatever you’re into. Like John, he’d also take you out to dinner. Somewhere fancy where he can order champagne. Afterwards, he surprises you with a night at a nice hotel in the city. One with a top floor suite, views over the city and a huge queen sized bed covered in rose petals…
Ghost didn’t do valentines day before you, so forgive him if he’s a little… awkward. Gives you a long kiss in the morning, whispering that he loves you and he’s grateful for you against your lips. A beautiful bouquet of flowers are delivered and he can’t help but feel a little smug when he sees how you light up at the sight of them. And mentally makes a note to thank Price for the idea. He takes you out to a lingerie shop and lets you pick out whatever you want, then he takes you back home and ‘tests’ it out.
Soap gets you one of those giant teddy bears, and you love it. He draws your card himself - a scene of the place you first met, somewhere important to you or even just a sketch of you. There’s some cheesy words inside that make you laugh right before you tear up. You don’t go out. Instead, you order your favourite takeaway and watch a movie on the couch. You feed each other chocolate covered strawberries until he decides he wants you, throwing you over his shoulder and carrying you to the bedroom while you giggle.
and as it’s valentine’s day, there’s a bonus Konig and Graves under the cut ;)
Konig feels clueless. He spends hours trying to pick out the perfect card and the prettiest bunch of flowers, but eventually settles on the ones he thinks you’ll like most. And he’s right - you love the gifts, but you love that he made the effort of buying them even more. The two of you spend the evening cooking a meal together and eating it with a bottle of fancy wine. Maybe he’ll propose to you instead of dessert…
Graves takes you on the most expensive date you’ve ever been on. A limousine picks you up and it’s almost obnoxious. Almost. He books the best restaurant in America, letting you order whatever on the menu costs the most. His gift if some sort of jewellery or watch, something you can wear and show off. Afterwards, he private jets you away for a surprise vacation somewhere hot and sunny where you can spend all day on the beach. In minimal clothing.
That “try to resist arrest with my cop husband” trend except your husband is no cop. Your husband is the Captain John Price of Task Force 141.
“This is ridiculous, love.” He’d try to argue, bulging biceps crossed over his chest as if he didn’t find the idea of you trying to resist arrest endearing, maybe even arousing. He gives you that look. That look that says he doesn’t really want to do this, but how could he say no to you?
“It’s gonna be fun,” you argue, not paying any mind to his complaints. “You’ve got thirty seconds.” You state as you start the timer on your watch.
He’s on you within an instant.
Flipping you around like you weigh nothing, he thrusts you chest first into the yoga mat laid out in your shared living room. One arm over the back of your head to keep your face down, one knee pressed over both your legs to stop you from moving. He wedges one arm out from beneath you, locking it in the cuff with ease, followed by the other before. He reaches over you, ending the timer on your watch.
Cuddled up in bed with Price trying to get his attention but he's 'just resting his eyes' and only giving half assed little grunts of acknowledgement whenever you say his name so you roll your eyes, resigned, and go, "Daddy?"
And suddenly he's startling awake like what is it baby?
" Take me by the hand while we do what lovers do."
Summary: You are an artist who began building your own career as a child. Even though you didn't want to be an actress at first, you eventually grew to enjoy it. After several years, you were paired with Byung Hun for one project. Since you are both single, the fans can see that you work well together. However, in some cases, the priority is more important than your feelings.
Author's Note: This is just an AU. Whatever happens in this story is unrelated to real-life scenarios. I used a real person for this craft, and everything is fictitious.
The lights on the press-conference stage are too bright, the kind that make you squint even when you’re smiling.
Another city, another hotel ballroom, another round of these “loveteam world tours” Netflix cooked up because your series broke every record they had.
The moderator is grinning like she just won the lottery.
“ So, the question everyone is dying to ask…are you two finally dating?”
The room erupts in screams. Phones tilt toward the stage like sunflowers. You laugh the practiced laugh you’ve perfected over nine years. The light, a little embarrassed, and is perfectly harmless.
Beside you, Lee Byung-hun adjusts the microphone with that calm, unreadable face the internet calls “national treasure resting expression.”
“ We’re very good friends.” He says, voice low and steady.
“ I’m focused on work right now.”
Same answer, every country, every language. The crack in your chest widens by one millimeter.
You nod, bright and professional. “ Same here. I’m enjoying everything too much to complicate it.”
The fans coo, half-satisfied, half-devastated. They’ll make a hundred edits tonight anyway.
The slow-motion clips of him fixing the strap of your heel in Paris, you stealing tteokbokki from his plate in New York, his hand on the small of your back guiding you through crowds in São Paulo.
The comments will scream REAL. You’ll pretend you don’t read them.
Backstage, after the lights dim, he hands you a bottle of water without looking, like always. His fingers brush yours.
You pretend that doesn’t happen either.
“ You okay?” He asks quietly.
“ Tired.” You lie.
He nods like he believes you.
You’ve known him four years now. Four years of borrowed jackets when planes are cold, of him remembering you hate raw onions, and of late-night convenience-store runs after sixteen-hour shoots because he claims ramyeon tastes better at 3 a.m. with you.
Four years of watching him treat every costar with the same gentle care and telling yourself that’s all it is him being decent.
Last month in Seoul he showed up at your apartment unannounced at midnight holding two helmets.
“ Come on.” He said.
“ I found a hill where you can see the whole city without paparazzi.”
You went. You sat behind him on the bike, arms around his waist because physics demanded it, chin on his shoulder because the helmet was too big.
The wind was freezing. His back was warm. At the top he bought you hot chocolate from a pojangmacha and didn’t say much, just looked at the lights with you until your fingers stopped shaking from the cold.
You almost asked him then. The words sat on your tongue like a cough drop in sharp, impossible to swallow back once released.
Do you do this with all your friends? Or am I special in the way I’m terrified to hope?
You said nothing. He drove you home, walked you to your door, ruffled your hair like you were still the twenty-three-year-old rookie who spilled coffee on his script the first day on set.
“ Sleep well.” He said, and left.
Now you’re in a van at 2 a.m., heading to the airport for the next flight. The rest of the team is asleep. You and Byung-hun sit in the back row because that’s where the chargers are.
The only light is the blue glow of his phone. You watch his reflection in the window with a sharp nose, tired eyes, and mouth set like he’s chewing on something he can’t spit out.
He notices you looking. “ What?”
“ Nothing.”
He exhales through his nose, almost a laugh. “ You’ve been weird since our last interview.”
“ I’m not weird.”
“ You barely looked at me on stage tonight.”
You want to say, Because if I look too long I’ll do something stupid like tell you the truth.
Instead you shrug. “ Jet lag.”
He goes quiet. The silence stretches, thick and dangerous. Finally he speaks, so softly you almost miss it over the engine.
“ I read the comments, you know. The ones that say we’re cowards.”
Your heart punches your ribs. “ They’re just fans.”
“ Are they wrong?”
You turn to him then. Really look. There’s no camera, no script supervisor, no brand manager waiting to approve the moment.
Just the two of you and two years of your life spent learning how to pretend you’re fine.
“ I don’t know what you want me to say, oppa.”
His jaw tightens at the honorific. You only use it when you’re scared.
“ I don’t know what I’m allowed to say.”
The van hits a pothole. Your shoulder bumps his. Neither of you move away. You think of your mother dragging you to that first audition when you were ten, promising it would be fun.
You think of every contract clause that says “no dating scandals,” every cautious manager, every headline that could burn both your careers to the ground.
You think of the way his eyes soften only when they land on you.
“ Maybe…” You whisper.
“ We’re both cowards.”
He looks at you for a long time. Then he reaches over and laces his fingers through yours, slow enough that you could pull away if you wanted. You don’t. His hand is warm, calloused from stunt training, steady in a way nothing else in your life has ever been.
The van turns onto the highway. City lights blur past. You sit there holding the hand of the man the whole world thinks you should be with, knowing tomorrow you’ll smile for cameras and say you’re just friends again.
His thumb strokes once across your knuckles, a question and an apology at the same time. You squeeze back, the smallest yes you can manage without shattering something inside your chest.
For now, it’s enough. For now, it has to be.
The plane will take off in three hours. Another stage, another round of the same careful answers. You’ll laugh when he teases you, he’ll carry your suitcase without asking, and the world will keep screaming about chemistry.
Only the two of you will know the truth is heavier, sweeter, more terrifying than any script they could write.
You close your eyes and let your head rest, barely, against his shoulder. He doesn’t move away.
Seoul glitters like it’s keeping your secret for you. But inside the van, two cowards hold hands in the dark, pretending tomorrow they’ll let go.
…
The room is spinning just enough to feel honest. You’re cross-legged on the hardwood floor of your bedroom, back against the bed, and a third bottle of grapefruit soju sweating in your hand.
The air-conditioner hums like it’s trying to shush you. The only light comes from the city bleeding through the half-open curtains and the blue glow of your phone lying face-up beside you like evidence.
You keep replaying the night two weeks ago, the one nobody can ever know about.
Private villa in Jeju. Netflix rented the whole place so the cast could “relax” after the press tour. Everyone else passed out by midnight.
You and Byung-hun ended up on the outdoor swing, some old jazz standard leaking from somebody’s forgotten speaker.
Ella Fitzgerald telling you both that every time we say goodbye, we die a little.
He pulled you up to dance because you were cold. Or because he was drunk. Or because he wanted to. You’ll never know which.
You just remember his palm warm against your spine, your cheek against his collarbone, the two of you swaying like teenagers who’d never been on camera a day in their lives.
You almost kissed. God, you were this close. His breath mixing with yours, soju and mint, eyes half-lidded, the kind of soft that makes your stomach drop.
Then the security light flicked on because some staff member went to pee, and the spell snapped like cheap plastic. You both laughed it off, too loud, too fast, and stumbling back inside pretending your hearts weren’t rioting.
Later, when everyone was really asleep, he found you on the balcony staring at the ocean like it owed you answers.
He didn’t say anything for a long time.
Then he took a thin silver chain out of his pocket. A small pendant, his initials B.H in tiny letters. He fastened it around your neck without asking permission. His fingers lingered at your nape.
“ For our friendship.” He said, voice rough.
“ So you remember this night when everything gets loud again.”
You laughed, watery and drunk. “ You give all your friends jewelry with your initials, oppa?”
“ Only the ones I—” He stopped himself. Swallowed.
“ Only the important ones.”
Then he lifted your hand, pressed his lips to your knuckles like you were living in some 1940s melodrama, and whispered.
“ After this storm of schedules is over…we’ll figure it out. Whatever this is. I promise.”
You believed him. You still do, which is the stupidest part.
Now you’re staring at the necklace in the mirror across the room, initials catching the city light like they’re mocking you.
You tip the soju bottle back, feel the burn crawl down your throat and settle behind your ribs where that crack has turned into a canyon.
Your phone lights up again.
매니저 언니 (manager-unnie): Don’t forget, James Corden wants you tomorrow at 10 a.m. Seoul time. Virtual. Please be alive.
You ignore it. Open Instagram instead because pain apparently likes company.
First your own post from six months ago. The carousel of you and Hun at the Baeksang after-party. You’re both in black, arms slung around each other, heads tilted together, and laughing at something off-camera.
Your caption is embarrassingly long.
ln_yn2
Sixteen years in this industry and I finally get to share a stage with someone who makes every scene feel like home. Thank you for teaching me that acting isn’t pretending when the person opposite you is real.
Congratulations on all the awards you deserve and the ones still coming, oppa. I’m lucky the universe sat us next to each other that day.
♥️2.7M 💬1.4M 🔁500.8k
April 23
You remember typing it at 4 a.m., deleting it, re-typing it, deleting the heart emojis twelve times before letting it live.
He liked it within thirty seconds. Commented a single red heart.
The internet exploded for three days.
Then you make the mistake of going to his account. His last post is from your birthday last month. Just one photo of your hands holding matching coffees, your nail polish the same shade as the sunset behind you.
byunhun0712
Another trip around the sun for the person who makes the world quieter and louder at the same time. Thank you for every laugh I didn’t know I needed. Here’s to more mornings like this.
♥️1.9M 💬1.5M 🔁705.4k
You’ve read it so many times you could recite it backwards. Every fan in the comments is screaming “MARRY HER.”
You want to scream too, but for entirely different reasons.
You close the app, hurl the phone across the room. It thunks softly against the laundry basket (you’re not even dramatic enough to break anything tonight).
The soju is almost gone. Your cheeks are wet. You’re not sure when that started. You talk to the empty room because it’s safer than talking to him.
“ You said after the storm, Hun. The storm’s been here for four damn years. When does the sky clear? When do you stop being scared I’ll ruin you and just ruin me already?”
Your voice cracks on the last word. You hate how small it sounds. You pull your knees to your chest, necklace cold against your skin.
Tomorrow you’ll put on a bright smile, joke with James Corden about who’s the better cook, and say “We’re just good friends” for the ten-thousandth time while the world sighs in unison.
Tonight you let yourself drown a little. Just enough to survive tomorrow.
The bottle rolls away when you lean back against the bed. You close your eyes and the jazz starts playing in your head again and Ella sings about dying a little, about how sweet it is.
You whisper into the dark. “ I’m still waiting, oppa. But I’m running out of ways to pretend I’m okay with it.”
The city keeps blinking outside, indifferent and beautiful.
The necklace stays on.
You don’t take it off. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.
Because even if it’s just “friendship,” it’s the only piece of him you’re allowed to keep when the cameras turn off. And right now, drunk and heartbroken on your bedroom floor, that has to be enough.
…
São Paulo, 9:47 p.m. The arena lights are purple and screaming. Twenty thousand Brazilian fans are chanting your drama’s title like it’s a football anthem, and every time the MC says “loveteam” the decibel level tries to murder the sound system.
You’re on stage in a backless emerald dress that your stylist swore was “safe but sexy.”
Safe, sure. Your heart is currently attempting to file a complaint with HR.
Byung-hun stands two steps to your left in black everything black, sleeves rolled just enough to make Twitter collapse.
He’s laughing at something the host said in Portuguese, head tilted, that soft crinkle at the corner of his eyes.
The one that makes you stupid.
The host grins like a devil. “ Okay, okay, we have a game! Couple challenge! You two—”
He points at you and Hun with both hands like he’s blessing a wedding. “...Are partners!”
The roar is actually painful. You bow dramatically, playing the delighted idol they pay you to be. Inside you’re reciting tax codes to keep from combusting.
The game is stupidly simple: one partner wears noise-canceling headphones, the other has to mouth a phrase using only facial expressions and gestures.
First pair to ten points wins signed posters. Obviously the organizers paired you with Hun because chaos sells.
You lose rock-paper-scissors (he totally cheated, you saw that thumb twitch) so you’re the one with the headphones first.
The beat drops in some remix of your OST and suddenly you can’t hear anything except your own pulse.
Hun steps in close. Too close. Stage close. The kind of close that looks perfect from row Z and feels like arson up close.
He mouths the first phrase slowly, eyebrows doing things that should be illegal. You squint, trying to read his lips while simultaneously trying not to stare at his lips.
He repeats it, leaning in until his forehead almost touches yours, and hands hovering at your waist like he’s asking permission to steady you.
You guess wrong on purpose. “I want pizza?” because if you guess right away the fans won’t get their moment
The crowd howls. He laughs that silent laugh, shoulders shaking, then cups your cheek with one hand to turn your face back to him.
Thumb brushing just under your eye.
The arena basically implodes.
You finally “guess” the real phrase “You’re my best friend forever” and the scoreboard ticks to 1-0. He high-fives you like a middle-schooler, but his palm lingers half a second too long.
Switch. Now he’s wearing headphones. You get “Marry me?” as the phrase (of course you do, the producers are sadists).
You mouth it dramatically, hands over your heart, fake tears. He tilts his head, pretending to be confused. You drop to one knee.
The screaming reaches frequencies only dogs should hear. He bites his lip then shakes his head like he’s heartbroken.
You stand up, grab his lapels in your fists, and mouth it again, slower, closer. M-A-R-R-Y M-E?
His eyes flick to your mouth and stay there. For one terrifying second the teasing drops and it’s just the two of you on this stupid stage with twenty thousand witnesses and zero privacy.
You watch his throat move as he swallows.
He pulls the headphones off before time’s up and says into the mic, loud enough for everyone. “ Sorry, I was distracted.”
The place detonates. You laugh it off with the skill of a decade in this circus, but your knees aren’t laughing.
Later, during the hi-touch portion, you’re crouched down taking selfies with fans. A little boy, maybe eight, shoves his lightstick at you and yells in adorable English.
“ You and oppa are perfect together! Are you married yet?”
You pinch his cheek gently. “ Aigoo, not yet, baby. We’re only married inside the TV.”
He pouts so hard his lower lip trembles. “ But you look at him like my mom looks at my dad!”
Half the line awws. His actual mother hisses, “Mateus, shh!” and tries to drag him away, mortified.
You ruffle the kid’s hair. “ Maybe in another life, yeah? Maybe then your wish comes true.”
The boy beams like you’ve promised him the moon. You stand up smiling for the cameras, waving, perfect idol, and a perfect liar.
Behind you, you feel Hun watching. When you glance back he’s signing a poster but his eyes are on you, unreadable. The corner of his mouth lifts, just a tiny bit, like he heard every word and it hurt him too.
The second you’re offstage and the corridor door closes, the roar muffles to a hum. You lean against the wall, kick off your heels that cost more than most people’s rent.
He stops in front of you, hands in pockets. “ You okay?”
“ Peachy.” You say, voice too bright.
“ Great fan service tonight. Ratings will be through the roof.”
He flinches, almost imperceptible. “ I’m sorry about the game. If it made you uncomfortable—”
“ It’s fine.” You cut him off with the same smile you gave the kid.
“ We’re good at this, remember? Only on TV. Only for them.”
His jaw does that tight thing it does when he’s swallowing words he can’t say.
“ Right.” He says finally.
“ Only for them.”
You push off the wall, walk past him toward the dressing rooms. Your shoulder brushes his arm; neither of you move away fast enough.
“ Another life, huh?” He murmurs, so quietly you almost miss it.
You don’t answer. You can’t.
Because the truth is clawing up your throat and if you open your mouth right now it will spill everywhere and ruin both of you.
So you keep walking, barefoot on cold concrete, the echo of twenty thousand fans still ringing in your ears and one eight-year-old’s wish burning a hole straight through your chest.
Maybe in another life.
In this one, you’re still just really, really good at pretending.
…
The suite on the 42nd floor of the Hôtel de Crillon smells like money and the lemon-verbena candle your manager lit to “calm your nerves.” Paris glitters outside the window like it’s personally trying to seduce you into forgetting everything.
You’re sprawled face-down on the chaise longue in the silk robe the hotel provides, hair still damp from the shower, mascara probably halfway down your cheeks.
Your manager, Ji-eun unnie (thirty-six, terrifyingly competent, has seen you throw up from nerves since you were twelve), sits on the ottoman scrolling through tomorrow’s schedule on her iPad.
You muffle a scream into the cushion, then roll over.
“ Unnie, you have to do something. Call someone. Leak that I’m secretly dating a lighting director or whatever. Just kill the loveteam, please. It’s choking me.”
She doesn’t even look up. “ The loveteam is why your Netflix cheque had eight zeroes this quarter. Be serious.”
“ I am serious!” You sit up too fast; the room tilts.
“ I’m tired, unnie. I’m so tired of pretending I’m in love with him for the cameras and then pretending I’m not in love with him when the cameras stop.”
That gets her attention. The iPad lowers. “ Yah. Language.”
You laugh, but it comes out wet. “ What, I’m not allowed to say the word love? I’ve been saying it in four languages on stage for six weeks. I’m fluent now.”
She sighs the sigh of a woman who has watched three idols, one actor, and a survival-show group on her roster.
“ It’s fan service. It’s marketing. It’s—”
“ It’s killing me.” Your voice cracks on the last word.
You hate it. You hate everything right now.
“ Do you know how insane it is to smile while the man you—” You stop, swallow, try again.
“ The man I have actual, stupid, non-scripted feelings for puts his arm around me and the whole world cheers like it’s real, and then five seconds later he’s calling me ‘little sister’ in interviews?”
Ji-eun sets the iPad aside completely. Dangerous signs.
“ Listen to me, Y/n.” She says, soft but firm.
“ This industry chews up on-screen couples and spits out divorces. Remember Yuna and Soo-jin? Got married because the fans begged, lasted eleven months."
" Or Tae-woo and that girl group member thought proximity was destiny. Now they can’t even be in the same building.”
“ I’m not asking to marry him.” You whisper.
“ I just want to stop bleeding in silence.”
She looks at you for a long second, something almost gentle in her eyes. Then the manager mask slides back on.
“ You’ll meet someone else. Someone who doesn’t come with a built-in audience of fifty million people ready to burn you both at the stake.”
“ Someone who can hold your hand in public without stock prices dropping. Hun-ssi is…he’s a phase. A very handsome, very talented, very inconvenient phase.”
You laugh again, bitter. “ A phase. Right.”
“ Every time I try to ask him what we are…” You say, staring at the ceiling.
“ He smiles that stupid half-smile and changes the subject. ‘Did you eat?’ ‘Look at this dog video.’ ‘We’re landing in ten minutes.’ I’m going crazy, unnie. I just need him to say it. Say he feels nothing, or say he feels something, or say he’s scared…anything. I can survive anything except this limbo.”
Ji-eun reaches over and pats your knee twice, the maximum affection she allows herself on the clock.
“ Closure is a luxury we rarely get in this job.” She says.
“ You already know the rules. Date him and the agencies will bury you both. Stay friends and the fans keep you alive. Pick one pain.”
You pull the robe tighter around yourself like it could hold the pieces together.
“ I didn’t pick this pain.” You mutter.
“ It picked me. He’s…he’s everything I asked the universe for when I was seventeen and stupid and writing wishes on scrap paper. Kind, funny, steady, looks at me like I’m—” Your throat closes.
“ Like I matter when no one’s watching. And then the second someone is watching, I stop mattering.”
Silence stretches. Even the lemon candle seems to dim in sympathy.
Finally Ji-eun stands. “ Sleep. Tomorrow you have Vogue France at nine, then the red carpet at six. Smile like you mean it. That’s the job.”
She’s almost at the door when you call out, small and broken.
“ If he ever does ask me…if he ever risks it…I won’t lie. I won’t dodge. I’ll tell him yes so fast it’ll make his head spin. And then we’ll both probably crash and burn, but at least it’ll be honest.”
She pauses, hand on the handle.
“ Then pray he never asks.” She says quietly.
“ Because you’re not the only one who’d burn.”
The door clicks shut behind her.
You stay on the chaise until the candle gutters out, robe slipping off one shoulder, city lights painting your skin gold and cold.
Somewhere twenty floors below, in another suite with the exact same view, and he’s probably staring at the same skyline telling himself the exact same lies.
You touch the necklace hidden under the robe. The B.H pendant is still warm from your skin and whispers to the empty room.
“ Ask me, coward. Just once. Ask me when no one’s watching.”
Paris keeps sparkling, gorgeous and merciless.
You don’t sleep.
…
Paris, 1:14 a.m. The suite is too quiet now that the door has clicked shut behind him. You’re still standing in the middle of the living room, barefoot on the cold marble, arms hanging useless at your sides.
The jjajangmyeon he brought which is your favorite place in Gangnam, the one that only does delivery for him that sits untouched on the dining table, turning gluey under the chandelier light.
You can still smell his cologne in the air. Cedar and something warm that makes your traitor brain have catalogued as “home.”
Rewind thirty minutes.
He came in grinning, plastic bags swinging, hair messy from the cap he wore to dodge paparazzi.
“ Delivery for the princess who forgets to eat after interviews.” He teased, kicking the door shut with his heel.
Your heart did its usual stupid backflip.
You let him plate the food the way he always does: extra onions for him, none for you, two fried eggs on top because he claims it’s “criminal” otherwise.
He even remembered the pickled radish you like. Of course he did.
Then he sat across from you, elbows on the table, chin in his hands, and said, “ This feels serious. You’re not even stealing my noodles yet. Should I be scared?”
You didn’t laugh. You couldn’t.
“ Oppa…” You said, voice surprisingly steady.
“ What are we doing?”
He blinked. “ Eating jjajangmyeon at an unholy hour?”
“ No. Us. What are we?”
The smile slid off his face like someone wiped it clean. He straightened. “ We’re…friends. Close friends. Co-workers who—”
“ Stop.” You held up a hand.
“ Don’t insult me. Not tonight.”
Silence. The kind that sucks all the oxygen out of a room. You took the deepest breath of your life.
“ I’m falling for you, Byung-hun. I have been for a long time. And I need to know, once and for all, if I’m falling alone.”
He froze. Actually froze, like someone pressed pause on the most important scene of your life. You watched his throat work, watched the muscle in his jaw jump.
Then he looked down at his bowl. “ I…can’t reciprocate that.”
The words hit like a slap you saw coming but still weren’t braced for.
“ I’m sorry if I gave you mixed signals.” He continued, voice low, careful.
“ That was never my intention. I thought we were just…enjoying the moment. For the fans, for the chemistry—”
You laughed. It came out ugly. “ For the fans. Right.”
You shoved your chair back and stood.
“ So the 3 a.m. convenience-store runs, the necklace, the motorcycle rides, dancing in Jeju when no one was watching, that was all for the fans? Damn, you’re committed.”
He stood too, towering, but not in the comforting way anymore. “ I care about you. I do. More than—”
“ More than what?” You cut in.
“ More than a co-star should? More than a friend? Because friends don’t look at friends the way you look at me when you think I’m not watching.”
His eyes flickered with something raw, but he shuttered it fast. “ I’m not ready for a relationship. Not now. My career—”
“ Ah...” You nodded, sarcastic and brittle.
“ Of course. The career. The one thing more important than the idiot girl stupid enough to believe you.”
“ That’s not fair.”
“ Isn’t it?” Your voice cracked.
“ You act like my boyfriend when the cameras are off and then call me your 'little sister' when they’re on. You can’t have it both ways.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, frustrated.
“ I like you, Y/n.” He admitted, and the words were knives dipped in honey.
“ I really do. But I’m forty-three. I’ve watched opportunities disappear because of one bad headline. If we do this and it ends—”
“ So don’t let it end.” You whispered.
“ Choose me. Just once, choose me over the fear.”
He looked at you like you were a language he desperately wanted to speak but had forgotten how.
“ I can’t risk you.” He said finally.
“ The cancel culture, the agencies, the stock prices…if we crash, you’re the one who burns hotter. You’re younger, your career’s still climbing—”
“ I don’t care!” The shout surprised both of you.
“ I don’t care about the press or the brands or the fifty million followers. I care about you. About us eating jjajangmyeon at 1 a.m. and laughing until we cry. About waking up without wondering if today’s the day you finally pull away for good.”
Tears were streaming now and you didn’t bother hiding them. He stepped closer, hands hovering like he wanted to wipe them away but didn’t have the right anymore.
“ Mianhe.” He said, and it sounded like goodbye.
“ I thought if I kept it vague, I would keep the moments private…you’d be safe. We’d both be safe.”
“ Safe?” You repeated, tasting the word like poison.
“ You know what’s not safe? Falling this hard and realizing the person you fell for was never planning to catch you.”
His face crumpled for one heartbreaking second before the mask slid back on.
“ I’ll set boundaries.” He said quietly.
“ Real ones. No more mixed signals. No more…this. You deserve someone who can give you everything without looking over his shoulder.”
You laughed again, wet and wrecked. “ Don’t worry. Next time you bring me noodles at midnight, I’ll know exactly what it doesn’t mean.”
He flinched like you’d hit him.
“ I should go.” He said.
“ We have an early call tomorrow.”
You didn’t stop him. Couldn’t. Your legs were already shaking too hard to move.
He paused at the door, hand on the handle.
“ For what it’s worth…you’re not just a phase, Y/n. You never were.”
Then he was gone.
The second the lock clicked, your knees buckled. You sank to the floor right there in the middle of the suite, back against the dining table leg, and cried the way you haven’t since you were fifteen and your first love sold your breakup story to Dispatch.
Big, ugly, snotty sobs that scare even you with how loud they are. You cry for every almost-kiss, every 3 a.m. text, every time he looked at you like you were the only person in the room and then pretended he hadn’t.
You cry until your throat is raw and the jjajangmyeon is stone cold and the city outside the window starts turning pale with dawn.
Eventually you crawl to the bedroom, still clutching the necklace you never took off. You curl into a ball on the untouched bed and whisper into the dark:
“ Boundaries accepted, oppa.”
“ Congratulations.”
“ You’re safe now.”
The tears keep coming long after there’s nothing left to cry for. Tomorrow you’ll smile for the cameras. You’ll call him “close friend” in four languages and laugh when he teases you about stealing his food.
Tonight, you let the last piece of hope you were hoarding shatter on a hotel floor in Paris, sharp and glittering and impossible to put back together.
You fall asleep with his initials pressed against your heart and the taste of black-bean noodles you never ate still in your mouth.
It tastes like goodbye.
…
Ten years. Ten whole years since you last sat across from him in that Paris hotel suite and watched him choose fear over you.
You’re thirty-five now. Global star, three Daesangs on your shelf, a production company with your name on the door, a face that still sells out stadiums when you decide to do a fan-meet.
People call you “the nation’s first love” even though you haven’t done a rom-com in eight years.
You never dated publicly after him. Not once. The tabloids tried (photos with this actor, rumors with that idol), but nothing ever stuck. Your manager stopped asking.
The fans made theories.
You let them.
And Lee Byung-hun became a ghost you only saw on red carpets and year-end award shows. He would bow, polite and distant. You would bow back, polite and distant.
The cameras loved the “mature friendship,” the “respect between seniors.”
Nobody ever noticed that you both stopped breathing for three full seconds whenever your eyes accidentally met.
Then, last week, the invitation arrived.
Thick cream card stock, gold foil, his new wife’s name written in elegant hangul beside his. A public wedding.
He finally learned how to be brave, but it's not for you.
You almost threw it away. Instead you left it on the kitchen island like a loaded gun.
Today the photos are everywhere. Dispatch, Vogue Korea, even CNN International because of the “wedding of the decade.”
You don’t open a single article.
You don’t need to.
Your group chats are already flooded with heart emojis from colleagues who don’t know they’re stabbing you.
Your assistant knocks once, then pokes her head in. “ Unnie, the invitation…do you want me to RSVP no for you?”
“ I’ll handle it.” You say, voice calm.
You’ve had ten years of practice.
She leaves. You finally open the envelope.
Inside is the formal invitation…and two sheets of heavy stationery, folded once, handwriting you would recognize in the dark.
You sit on the floor right there on the kitchen floor, back against the cabinets, and read.
Dear Y/n,
I’ve written this letter a hundred times in my head and never once found the courage to send it until today.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for every mixed signal, every almost, every time I held you too close and then pushed you away in the same breath.
I’m sorry for the necklace, for Jeju, for Paris, for every midnight I let myself pretend I could have you without consequences.
You were never a phase.
You were the clearest, brightest, most terrifying truth I ever met, and I ran from it because I was too much of a coward to fight for it.
I told myself I was protecting you. That if I kept you at arm’s length the industry wouldn’t devour you the way it devours everything. That letting you go was noble.
It wasn’t noble. It was cruel.
I watched you bloom anyway, bigger than any of us imagined, and every award you won felt like punishment for not being brave enough to stand next to you when you accepted it.
The woman I’m marrying…she’s kind. She’s safe. She waited ten years for me to be ready, and I finally am.
I hate that it took losing you completely to grow a spine.
I love her.
But I loved you first, and deeper, and in a way that still wakes me up at 3 a.m. wondering what life would have looked like if I had just taken your hand that night in Paris and said yes, damn the consequences.
I’m marrying her tomorrow. I wish I could say I invited you because I’m selfless. The truth is I’m selfish. I wanted one last chance to see you in the crowd and know you forgave me.
If you come, sit anywhere. If you don’t, I understand. Either way, know this:
You were the greatest person I ever had the privilege of almost loving properly.
Live brightly. Love loudly. Choose someone who isn’t afraid to burn the world down to keep you warm.
I will love you, in the quiet, cowardly way I do everything until the day I die.
Forgive me. Or don’t. Just don’t ever think you weren’t enough.
You were everything.
B.H
The paper is soaked by the time you finish. You don’t realize you’re crying until a tear lands on his signature and the ink bleeds a little.
You fold the letter carefully, slide it back into the envelope, and set it on the highest shelf in your closet, behind winter coats you never wear in L.A.
Then you open your laptop to send the RSVP.
Decline.
One guest.
Reason: Prior commitment.
You close the lid before you can see the wedding photos everyone is posting. You already know what the comments will say, how fans will swear the bride looks like you if you squint.
They did the same thing when he dated that news anchor in 2013, and the model in 2014.
You never looked.
You never will.
Your phone buzzes. A text from an old hoobae you haven’t spoken to in years.
후배: Unnie…are you okay? Everyone’s talking about the wedding. We all thought…well. You know.
You stare at the screen for a long time.
Then you type back.
You: I’m happy for him.
You: He deserves every good thing.
You hit send before the lie can choke you.
That night you sit on your balcony with a bottle of wine you don’t taste and look out over Seoul. The Han River glitters the same way it did the night he took you to that hill on his motorcycle all those years ago.
You touch the spot at your throat where his necklace used to live. You finally took it off five years ago, after your first (and only) public relationship crashed and burned in four months. The tan line faded eventually.
Everything fades eventually.
You raise your glass to the empty chair beside you.
“ Be happy, oppa.” You whisper to the city lights.
“ Be so happy it makes up for both of us.”
The wind carries the words away.
Somewhere across the river, in a ballroom full of people celebrating his new life, he’s probably dancing with his wife, and smiling the smile that once belonged to you in private moments.
You hope she knows how lucky she is.
You hope he never tells her why he sometimes stares too long at old dramas on cinemas, why he keeps one framed photo from a 2010 press conference turned away on his desk, and why he can’t hear certain jazz songs without leaving the room.
You hope he’s brave now, every day, in all the ways he couldn’t be for you.
And you, you finally let the last piece go.
Not because it stopped hurting.
Because you’re thirty-five and tired of carrying a love that was never allowed to land.
You finish the wine, go inside, and start packing for New York. You’re producing a film there next month, something about second chances you would have laughed at ten years ago.
You fall asleep dreaming of a universe where he chose yes in that Paris hotel room. You wake up in this one, single, successful, and strangely peaceful.
Maybe in another life, the kid in São Paulo got his wish.
In this one, you learned how to live without him.
It only took a decade.
You smile at the ceiling, small and sad and proud all at once.
“ Congratulations, Byung-hun-ah.” You say to the quiet apartment.
“ You finally grew up."
Then you get out of bed, make coffee, and start learning how to want something new.
The letter stays on the highest shelf.
Some ghosts are allowed to rest.
…
Seoul, early spring 2025. The cherry blossoms are late this year, so the studio windows only show the grey skeleton of the city.
Inside, the set is all white seamless paper and soft-box lights, the kind of clean luxury that costs more per hour than most people make in a week.
You walk in late (on purpose) wearing sunglasses indoors like the diva the internet still half-jokes you are. Your manager hisses that the brand director almost had a stroke.
But you needed those extra seven minutes in the car to breathe and remind yourself you are thirty-seven, not twenty-five, and you have survived worse than seeing Lee Byung-hun in tailored cashmere.
He’s already there.
Standing by the clothing rack in a cream knit that makes him look illegally warm, hair longer than the last time you accidentally saw him on a billboard, silver threading at the temples now.
The years have been unforgivably kind to him. Marriage, fatherhood, two Best Actor Daesangs in a row; life apparently rewards cowards sometimes.
His eyes flick up when you enter. For one heartbeat the old electricity crackles, your stupid heart doing the same pathetic somersault it perfected twelve years ago.
Then his face settles into polite stranger mode, small bow, small smile, nothing more.
You bow back to the exact same degree.
Professional. Perfect.
The photographer is young, ambitious, and clearly raised on your old ship edits.
“ The concept is ‘quiet luxury, intimate distance.’” He announces, clapping once.
“ I want faces close, eyes on eyes, but no touching. Tension, not romance. Think former lovers who still know exactly where the other is in a room.”
Your manager chokes on her iced Americano.
You almost laugh.
The universe has a sick sense of humour.
They put you together for the hero shot, of course they do.
You’re the two biggest names on the call sheet; the brand would be insane not to.
You stand half a metre apart. The photographer keeps pushing.
“ Closer…closer…foreheads almost touching, yes, like that.”
You can smell his cologne (same cedar note, new undertone of baby powder maybe) and it punches you straight in the sternum.
His gaze is steady, intense, like he’s trying to memorise the new faint lines around your eyes. You stare back because you’re an actress, damn it, and you have never lost a staring contest in your life.
“ Sunbaenim.” You murmur in Korean so only he hears.
“ Don’t look at me like that. The kids will start editing again.”
His mouth twitches, the tiniest acknowledgement.
“ Sorry.” He whispers back.
“ Old habit.”
Click. Click. Click. A hundred shutters immortalising the space between your lips that neither of you ever closed.
You survive the shoot by cataloguing neutral things: the temperature of the lights, the scuff on your Louboutin, the way the new rookie idol keeps sneaking glances at both of you like he’s watching history.
When the photographer finally yells “Wrap!” you’re out of there in record time, heels clicking down the hallway like gunshots.
You’re two steps from the safety of your dressing room when you hear it.
Your name. Spoken the way he used to when it was just the two of you and the city was asleep.
You stop. Don’t turn around yet. Count to five. Then you can trust your face.
When you do turn, he’s standing in the middle of the corridor, hands in his pockets, looking…smaller somehow. Older. Human.
“ I’m not here to mess up your day.” He says quickly, like he rehearsed it.
“ I just…I owed you a proper apology. Face to face. Not in a letter you could pretend you never read.”
You cross your arms. Armour. “ The book closed twelve years ago, oppa. You chose the ending.”
“ I know.” He exhales.
“ I was a coward. I thought distance was mercy. Turns out it was just cowardice wearing a hero cape.” He takes one cautious step.
“ I don’t expect forgiveness. I just want…can we at least be in the same room without bleeding on the carpet?”
Something in your chest unclenches, just a fraction.
“ I never stopped considering you a friend.” You say carefully.
“ I just built a very high wall around that friendship so I could keep breathing.”
He smiles, small and sad and real. “ I noticed the wall. It has good craftsmanship.”
You huff something close to a laugh despite yourself. He glances down the hallway to make sure it’s empty, then back at you.
“ My wife and I…we have a son now. Jun-ho. He’s ten. And another on the way.” His whole face softens when he says it, the way men do when they discover love bigger than themselves.
“ You’re listed as godmother for both. I know I lost the right to ask, but the offer’s still there. If you want it.”
Your throat closes. You picture a little boy with his father’s eyes and maybe your smile in another life.
“ I’d be honoured.” You manage.
He looks relieved, like he was genuinely scared you’d say no. “ Thank you.”
Silence stretches, but not the jagged kind anymore. Softer. Like scar tissue.
He shifts his weight. “ This is probably goodbye for real this time, huh? No more surprise brand deals throwing us together.”
“ Probably.” You agree.
He bows, not deep, just enough. The same bow he gave the night he walked out of your Paris hotel room and took half your heart with him.
You bow back.
When he straightens, his eyes are wet, but he’s smiling.
“ Take care of yourself. And…thank you for still being kind when you had every right to hate me.”
You swallow hard.
“ I never hated you, sunbaenim.” You say quietly.
“ I just loved you too much for the circumstances we were given.”
His breath catches. For a moment the hallway shrinks to just the two of you again, twelve years younger, and hearts bleeding in a different city.
Then he nods once, turns, and walks away.
You watch until he disappears around the corner. Only when he’s gone do you let yourself lean against the wall and exhale a decade’s worth of held breath.
Your manager finds you five minutes later.
“ Everything okay?”
You push off the wall, smooth your skirt, and smile the smile that has carried you through worse storms.
“ Everything’s perfect.” You say.
“ Let’s go home.”
That night you sit on your apartment floor with a glass of wine and open the baby gift you impulse-bought months ago and never sent: tiny sneakers with cherries on them because you remembered he once said his kid would have your taste in fruit.
You wrap them properly this time, write a card in your neatest handwriting.
To Jun-ho & baby #2,
May you grow up brave enough to choose love when it terrifies you.
With love,
Your very cool godmother who has excellent shoe taste.
You seal the box, address it, and hand it to your assistant the next morning.
Two weeks later a photo arrives in your inbox, no message, just a picture: a toddler in cherry sneakers asleep on Lee Byung-hun’s chest, his wedding ring glinting in the sun.
You save it to a hidden folder labelled “Closure.”
Then you finally delete the folder the year after that.
Some walls come down brick by brick.
Some chapters end with quiet kindness instead of slammed doors.
And sometimes the greatest love story you ever live is the one where you learn to let the right person go, twice, so they can become who they were always meant to be.
You hang the photo on your fridge anyway.
Just in case the kids ever visit.
…
The studio is small, warm, almost womb-like. Just three microphones, two hosts you’ve known casually for years, and a soft green lamp that makes everyone look kinder than they are.
They warned you the episode would be “raw.” You said yes anyway. Twenty-seven years in the industry, and you finally feel old enough to stop carrying secrets like designer handbags.
The first hour flies: your child-actor days, the commercial that changed everything, the series that put you on the global map, the night you won your first Baesang while throwing up from nerves in the bathroom.
They laugh in all the right places.
You laugh too.
It’s easy.
Then one of them, Janna, leans forward, eyes sparkling with the gentle cruelty only podcasters are allowed.
“ Everyone still talks about that chemistry. Twelve, thirteen years later and people make 4K slow-motion edits of you two seconds of footage. So we have to ask…did you ever actually love Lee Byung-hun sunbaenim?”
The room stills. You feel the old reflex rise in smile, deflect, and protect, but it’s tired.
You’re tired.
You exhale, long and slow.
“ Yes.”
You say, voice steady, almost amused at how simple the truth feels when it’s finally allowed out.
“ I loved him. Not the idea of him, not the ship, not the fantasy the internet built. I loved the real man who showed up at my door at 2 a.m. with hangover soup when I had food poisoning, who remembered I hate raw onions, who danced with me in Jeju to a song no one else could hear. I loved him so much it scared me.”
Both hosts gasp theatrically, but it’s soft, respectful.
They don’t interrupt. You keep going, words falling like stones you’ve carried for over a decade.
“ It started small. A look held too long. A jacket over my shoulders on a cold set. Then it snowballed into midnight motorcycle rides and necklaces with his initials and promises whispered in hotel corridors that he never quite kept. I hid it for years because that’s what we do. We smile for the cameras, bleed in private.”
You tell them about Paris. Not the city, the night. The jjajangmyeon, the confession, the way he said he couldn’t reciprocate because his career was everything.
You even laugh a little, remembering how you stood up and told him he couldn’t act like my boyfriend off-camera and then called you his little sister on-camera.
You quote yourself verbatim, and the hosts lose it, half-laughing, half-heartbroken for you.
“ I was twenty-five.” You say, shrugging.
“ I thought love could outrun fear if it was loud enough. He was forty-three and thought fear was wiser. We were both right, and we were both wrong.”
They ask how you survived the rejection.
“ Bad at first.” You admit.
“ Three bottles of soju on hotel floors, crying in rental cars, pretending I was fine at every award show while he sat three tables away. Then better. Therapy. Friends who let me ugly-cry. Producing my own projects so I could cast actors who didn’t make my chest cave in."
" I learned the difference between loving someone and needing them to love you back. Turns out you can survive the second one.”
Janna’s voice is gentle. “ Do you regret telling him?”
“ Never. Regret is for things you didn’t say. I said everything. He heard everything. He still chose a different path, and that’s okay."
" I respect the life he built. His wife is lovely, his children are beautiful, and I genuinely rejoice for them. Love doesn’t have to turn bitter just because it wasn’t returned the way you hoped.”
The other host, Jae, asks the question everyone wants. “ If he had said yes that night in Paris…?”
You smile, soft and a little sad. “ We’d probably have imploded spectacularly within two years. The industry would have eaten us alive. Or maybe we’d have made it and be that annoying couple who finish each other’s sentences. I’ll never know. And I’m finally okay with never knowing.”
Then come the advice questions, because that’s what listeners pay for these days. So you talk straight to the microphone like it’s one person with headphones on, crying in the dark.
“ First: feelings are not a crime. Falling for your co-star isn’t shameful; pretending you didn’t when you did is what hurts.”
“ Second: if you confess, do it for you, not for the answer. The relief of saying it out loud is worth more than any yes he couldn’t give me.”
“ Third: some loves are seasons, not lifetimes. Let them be seasons. Don’t try to force spring in the middle of winter.”
“ And last…” You pause, feeling the old ache flutter, then settle.
“ Protect your own heart, but don’t build a fortress. Build a house with a very strong door. Let people in when they’re ready to stay. Lock it when they’re not. You’re allowed to do both.”
The hosts are quiet for a long time. Then Janna whispers. “ Damn, unnie. That was a church.”
You laugh, real and light, for the first time in the entire episode.
When the mics cut and the red light dies, you feel it: the heaviness you’ve carried since you were twenty-five lifts off your chest like someone opened a window in a room you didn’t know was stuffy.
You walk out into the hallway and the spring air smells like possibility instead of regret.
Your phone buzzes immediately. Hundreds of notifications, clips already circulating, the internet doing what it does best: turning your pain into content, your healing into trends.
But one message sits at the top, from a number you deleted years ago but still know by heart.
Unknown: Thank you for telling the truth so kindly.
Unknown: I’m proud of the woman you became.
Unknown: Always will be. -B.H
You stare at it for a long time.
Then you type back, fingers steady.
You: Thank you for teaching me what I deserved, even if it hurt.
You: Be happy. I am.
You: Take care of them. I’m taking care of myself.
You hit send, block the number again (this time gently, like closing a book you loved instead of slamming it), and walk into the Seoul night.
Twenty-seven years in the industry, and for the first time you feel like the story is truly, finally yours.
The girl who once cried over black-bean noodles in Paris is gone.
The woman who just spoke her quiet, blazing truth into a microphone smiles at the sky and keeps walking.
No more secrets.
No more almosts.
Just the rest of a beautiful life, wide open.
Author's Note:
Another one-shot story, but this time it's LBH's turn, and it's about angst. I was inspired to write this after seeing a TikTok video about Aldub (the popular loveteam here in the Philippines).
They made our whole childhood memorable. However, we all assumed that they were meant to be in real life, but some things did not match our expectations, and we respect that.
