[jungwonslover]

| 4POISON.1 ft. YJW

You return to Hogwarts expecting everything to feel the same — especially him. Yang Jungwon, your best friend of four years. Your constant. Until a love potion changes everything.

PAIRING: gryffindor!jungwon 𝓍 slytherin!femreader WORD COUNT: 20k+ — series ★⋆ CONTENT: fluff ⋆ angst ⋆ eventual smut hogwarts au, love potions, jealousy, yearninggggg, slow burn, possessive!won. avoidant!reader, miscommunication.. a lot of it, plot twists, feat. beomgyu of txt, enhypen & my beautiful wife @hueningskais ⦸ alcohol, love potion drugging, masturbating (m).

| PLAYLIST | LIBRARY | PART 2

V𓄧 I did not want this to be two parts . .forgive me juseyo. the second part is coming shortly. i'll make it up to you. thank you soo much @hueningskais and miss anna for proof-reading and doing so much for me, i appreciate it so so much MWAH. thank you miss @heedimples too, your input was soo helpful my girl⋆

The castle was a home like no other. You had never felt so welcome in a place that belonged to all — portraits that often gossiped to you, halls that invited you to explore them, passages that opened in time of need. The castle was a friend you welcomed into your heart without protest.

You were not someone who let things in easily, never had. People came with expectations, questions, and noise you did not always have the energy to answer. Hogwarts came naturally to you it all settled around you so easily it stopped feeling new almost immediately. Portraits whispering like bored aunties with nothing better to do, staircases shifting as if they had moods, doors opening for you like they were in on something you were not. You let it all in.

You received your letter at eleven years old. Being a half-blood — it was simply standard procedure. You stayed on for university like a lot of people did, but unlike most of them it didn’t feel like a choice. It felt like returning to something that had already claimed you.

And somewhere in the middle of it, you met him. It was annoying at first because your life was perfectly fine. Up until then it was quiet, controlled with minimal emotional risk — exactly how you liked it.

You had known Yang Jungwon for four years now, but it had not always been that way. You met in your sixth year after being paired up by Professor Snape for a three day run on Felix Felicis.

Snape paired you together like it was funny, like he didn’t just throw a Slytherin who avoids eye contact like it’s a sport with a Gryffindor who… looks.

The moment your names were called you had looked across the room, already mildly irritated, to the black-haired Gryffindor — only to find he was already looking at you. You vaguely recognized him. He was someone you had passed in corridors, one of those people who existed in your peripheral vision. You two had never spoken as there had never been a reason to, until then.

His expression did this small thing — eyebrows lifting, like he expected literally anyone else. The moment your eyes met, he looked away, offering a small, tight-lipped smile. He looked a little nervous.

You weren't too bothered to be paired with him, he seemed to be a good enough partner — at least he wasn’t Seamus.. low bar, but still.

The seat beside you was already taken. So you gathered your things without hesitation and moved — sliding into the empty space next to him instead. As you settled into the seat you had looked over to your old table. You were only a seat behind — with a perfect view of your previous place.

"Y/n right?" His voice pulled you out of your thoughts. You turned slightly, catching the way his eyes couldn’t decide where to land, like looking at you directly might be too much. Flickering between you and the chalkboard at the front of the room. You almost smiled.. almost.

"Yeah," you answer, a little softer than intended. He nods, almost immediately, like that confirms something for him. Even though he already knew.

Yang Jungwon was popular, though not in the loud, attention-seeking way others were. Known as the composed, hard-working Gryffindor, he carried himself with a kind of steady confidence that people trusted. Down to earth, reliable, kind but not soft. Never someone you could easily push around. He had made that clear and yet sitting beside you now, with your attention fully on him, he felt something in that composure slip.

He had never been someone easily taken by others. He had never found himself captivated by someone’s presence, never caught himself returning to the same person in his thoughts without reason, until you.

The first time Jungwon had noticed you, he had been half-listening in Herbology. His attention slipping as the professor droned on about Venomous Tentacula. His gaze had wandered, unfocused — until it landed on you.

You were seated a row ahead. Not directly in front of him but just off to the side, angled enough that he could see the curve of your profile. Your head rested against your hand, posture relaxed in a way that suggested you were not entirely paying attention either. Looking like you could not care less about Venomous Tentacula trying to eat someone two tables over.

All he knew about you was your house, Slytherin. Obviously. He had his own assumptions about you, but not in the obvious way. Most people assume all Slytherins are calculated and cold. They decide before you even utter a word — that you are aloof and detached. It's not that you don't feel things — it's that you feel them too much and learned the hard way that not everyone deserves access to that.

But you didn't seem to care for what others thought. You let them have their assumptions about you.

The plant in front of you swirled around your fingers as though it had chosen you. You did not react nor did you pull away either. You just let it weave between your fingers. Watching like it was mildly interesting at best. It was subtle.

The kind of moment no one would notice unless they were already looking.

Jungwon raised an eyebrow with something alike to curiosity flickering across his expression. Before he realized it, his own lips mirrored yours without his knowledge. Afterwards, it became a habit.

Not an intentional one — he never sought you out but his attention found you anyway. His gaze would drift in the middle of lessons, between notes, during long stretches of nothing. It would settle on you without a second thought.

Often times, he didn’t even let himself think about it long enough to question it. It was easier to let it exist as it was — something small and unspoken. You existed in his subconscious.

Which is why, when he heard your name called alongside his — it didn’t feel real. You were not supposed to exist like this, not in front of him, not real in the way everything else was. Not close enough to talk to or look at properly.

"Jungwon?" you said his name like it wasn’t a big deal, like he wasn't suddenly aware of everything. The way you tilted your head, the almost-smile you gave him as if you were being polite, not trying too hard.

"Oh! yeah, that's me." he replied rather fast. Realization settling in that he had spent more time thinking about you as an idea rather than as a person.. and now you were both.

You nodded, turning back to your notes and pulling out the correct pages as Snape rambled about ingredients.

You fell into a comfortable rhythm. Passing ingredients without speaking, writing notes like you shared a brain cell for a few hours. You had found yourselves to be great partners. Often times passing things between you wordlessly or having the answers the other didn't have.

By the second day, conversation came easier. You talked about things that had nothing to do with potions, debated topics you didn’t need to care about...and agreed on almost all of it. Almost.

"You Gryffindors and your pride" you rolled your eyes in faux annoyance as he passed you a serrated knife, a quiet scoff leaving him in return.

"I do not have pride! Besides you lot are practically evil." he shot back, leaning slightly against the desk. You dropped your jaw, exaggerated and offended like he had just personally offended your entire bloodline.

"That is a serious accusation." you deadpan. The Murtlap tentacle squelched unpleasantly under the blade — you winced at the texture, just a little, trying not to let it show. He noticed.

"Your stereotyping wounds me." you added flatly, beginning to write notes into both your books without thinking.

"Yeah, that was bad rage-bait," He grinned sheepishly while waiting for the knife, "Besides," you said flatly, glancing up at him with deliberate intent, "do I look evil?" you teased.

Jungwon scoffed automatically, ignoring the way he couldn't look away, fingers fumbling as you handed him the blade, just slightly in a way he hoped you didn’t notice.

"Yeah," he said, clearing his throat as he adjusted his grip on the knife, "Completely. The devil in disguise." he responded as he added the cut up ingredients into the cauldron, focusing a little too hard on the task.

You laughed under your breath and smacked his arm, with no real force behind it. He laughed too but quieter.

From that day forward, you were rarely apart. It wasn’t something either of you planned, it just happened. One day turned into the next and suddenly it felt natural to look for him without thinking. The unregistered expectation of him beside you like he had always been there.

In the library, you would sit across from each other with books spread out between you, the intention to study long forgotten. He would kick your foot under the table just to get a reaction. Which, annoyingly — you let him.

Other times, he would be sprawled across your bed, entirely too comfortable in your space, half-listening as you rambled about assignments, deadlines, anything that crossed your mind.

You found yourself seeking him out without realizing it. Waiting for him and measuring parts of your day by whether or not he was there to share them.

Even on the days when everything felt slightly off, when something sat heavy in your chest or doubt crept in quietly — you found yourself at his door. Not to soothe you or to push your burdens on him, but to exist beside someone who didn’t need you to explain anything for it to feel easier. Because his presence made you feel better without trying.

You didn’t rely on people like that. Didn’t need people like that. Well, apparently you did.. at least when it came to him, which is… deeply inconvenient.

When you'd show up at his door, quieter than usual, a little distant, eyes not quite focused — he would let you in, something in his chest tightening at the sight of you like that. Because your upset, somehow always became his.

He wouldn't speak to you different nor did he make you speak, he would just sit besides you as you watched the life outside his window. You always said his view was better along with some bitter comment about Gryffindor privilege. He’d laugh every time, and just like that.. something would lift, just enough.

It scared him how easily you fit into his life. He found himself looking for you without meaning to, glancing toward the places you usually were, expecting to see you there like it was a given.

When he would find you, a grin would take over before he could stop it, because somehow — no matter how big the castle got, no matter how many people filled it, Jungwon always found you.

One time, he found you in your common room. He’d walked in with Ni-ki, half-listening to whatever he was saying. His attention had already started drifting, and then it landed on you.

You’d picked the far corner sofa — the one slightly too close to the fireplace, where it was warm enough to make people leave you alone after five minutes. You were curled into it, book open, fully committed to looking unapproachable. Which, ironically, had never worked on him

"Hey, miss," Jungwon greeted as he made his way over, dropping onto the sofa beside you without hesitation, close enough that your shoulders brushed.

You didn’t look up immediately. You let the page sit there for a second longer, like you were deeply invested in whatever paragraph you hadn’t actually been reading.

You shifted just enough to turn your knees toward him, the book still half open in your lap. "Hey, Won." you'd return lazily, not thinking about it. He did.

That was the first time you had called him that. He stiffened — just for a split second, as though he hadn’t just short-circuited internally over one syllable. You hadn't noticed because he had pulled his arm free between you and rested it along the back of the sofa, fingers brushing against your shoulder like it was nothing. Tracing small, idle patterns against your sleeve as his gaze dropped to the pages.

He also didn’t comment on the fact you hadn’t turned a page in five minutes.

Over time, you became familiar with his friends and him with yours. It just happened, the way everything else between you did. Conversations overlapped with introductions blurring into inside jokes. Before long, there wasn’t really a separation between your friends and his.

Your "friends" being Kenny, she was your best friend from day one, she was the type of friend that would go to war for you — loud where you weren’t, reactive where you were measured. The kind of person who would absolutely escalate a situation on your behalf without hesitation. If you felt something, she felt it louder.

And then there were Jungwon’s friends. Jake, a Ravenclaw Astronomy nerd. Somehow capable of making constellations sound like gossip. You didn’t understand half of what he said, but you listened anyway.

Ni-ki, a Slytherin Quidditch Seeker. Sharp and quick in a way that kept everyone on their toes.

And Heeseung, a Gryffindor Transfiguration major. Annoyingly perceptive, he always carried himself with an ease that made it seem like he understood more than he let on.

The two of you fell into an easy friendship with the group, however they did question your new found friendship. "You two look good together." Heeseung said casually, like he was commenting on the weather, tossing the words into the air without warning.

Jungwon choked — coughing as he turned too quickly, nearly twisting his neck to stare at him. "We're friends," Jungwon managed, the words coming out uneven, far less composed than he usually sounded.

A chorus of groans followed immediately. "Yeah, obviously," Ni-ki muttered. "Painfully obvious," Jake added under his breath. Jungwon frowned, defensive now. "What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Heeseung said easily, though the look he exchanged with the others said otherwise. They didn’t press it because, technically Jungwon was right.

You were just friends.

Then, quieter this time, "So," Heeseung started, leaning slightly forward, voice low enough that it didn’t carry beyond them, “What’s her friend’s name?”

Jungwon blinked, "…Kenny?" Heeseung hummed and Jake smirked faintly.

"So.. you don't like him?" Kenny’s voice came from somewhere behind you as she sprawled across her bed. She’d been watching you for months now, watching the way your friendship with Jungwon had unfolded and she wasn’t quite convinced there wasn’t any foul play going on between you.

"Kenn," you sighed, not even looking up from where you lay on your own bed, "How many times do I have to say it? He’s just a friend." She groaned and turned over to stare at you upside down. Her hair falling messily over the edge.

"Sure. Yeah." she muttered, entirely unconvinced. You rolled your eyes, used to this by now. "So what’s the pink-haired guy’s name?" she added, quieter this time.

You blinked. Then laughed loud, thanking her mentally for switching the topic as she grinned, unapologetic.

As your groups grew closer, so did Kenny and Heeseung who had fallen into something of their own. It hadn’t been sudden, by the time it became official, it felt almost expected. A year after you met Jungwon, they started dating. And somehow nothing really changed. Not in the ways that mattered, at least. Other than your teasing.

She once said "You know, I thought you and Jungwon would have gotten together before me and Hee— " she paused, catching your bewildered look.

"Jungwon?" you said suddenly feeling your oxygen supply run out, "Nah it's not like that." you said simply, even then she didn't press — only pressing her lips together in response.

At first people also thought your friendship with Jungwon was something else entirely, tossed out with knowing smiles and raised brows. "You two look really good together." And every time you both reacted the same way. With immediate denial, you'd dissolve into small shakes of your heads, overlapping explanations, a little too quick to correct them. It became routine.

Sometimes people didn’t ask you at all. They went to Kenny. "Is Jungwon actually taken?" someone had asked her once, leaning in like it was some kind of secret. She had only blinked at them, unimpressed. "Ask him yourself," she replied simply. She never clarified and never denied it either.

Jungwon got it too. Only he had no idea how to respond. Guys would approach him casual, like it meant nothing and he’d pause because he didn’t know how to answer. The obvious response was easy, "No, we’re just friends. Go for it."

But Jungwon didn't want to say that, nor did he enjoy the thought. Didn’t like the idea of someone else approaching you, talking to you like that, looking at you like that. So instead, he’d shut it down."We're friends." he’d say, not waiting for a follow-up, not giving them space to ask more. Not that they ever went through with it, because where you were, so was he.

Over time, the questions faded. People stopped asking and not because they stopped noticing but because they’d already decided. After all you'd been best friends for 4 years and you were together more often than not. And neither of you corrected them anymore.

You returned to Hogwarts after two years. This time as a University student or survivors, in a way. Those two years hadn’t been spent learning in classrooms or complaining about assignments. You had stayed —worked alongside the professors, helping keep the castle standing in the shadow of Lord Voldemort.

Even if no one had seen him. Even if he had vanished again like smoke slipping through fingers — the disappearances said enough.

Those two years had changed everything. Not loudly, not in ways anyone else could fully understand — but in the quiet, constant ways that mattered. You had learned each other in survival. It brought you all closer in ways no one else could comprehend. Every worry was shared, every fear met halfway. There was no space for pretending and no room for distance. The Room of Requirement became something more than just a hidden space. It became yours, it offered escape when the rest of the castle felt too exposed.

Jungwon knew where to find you, he always did. If you weren’t checking the protective shields or burying yourself in work no one else wanted to touch, you were there, trying to keep yourself busy, trying not to think and he never let you stay like that for long.

"Enough," he’d say, quieter than it sounded and you’d argue, of course. But he didn’t listen, he’d drag you back to his dorms if he had to, ignoring your protests until the exhaustion settled in properly. Watching over you after you'd finally given in. You always did.

Over the years, you had both grown into yourselves. It wasn’t something you noticed all at once it came in passing glances, in the way people started looking at you a little longer than before.

"Do I have something on my face?" you muttered to Kenny as you walked through the halls toward your dorms. Hogwarts University students no longer had to share quarters within their houses, they could room with whoever they like. Which is how you’d ended up at the very top of the university tower with Kenny.

She turned to you immediately, eyes narrowing as she scanned over your features — eyebrows knit in concentration. "Nope," she concluded after a moment, straightening. "You’re good."

You hummed, only half-convinced as you continued up the winding staircase beside her. You waved at a passing portrait that greeted you by name.

"—You’re just hot," she added casually. You scoffed turning to her, "Be serious."

"I am serious," she insisted, nudging your shoulder. "Did you not see the way Beomgyu was staring at you earlier?"

"Heeseung's friend? the Quidditch player?" you said as you turned your head slightly. Kenny groaned at your reaction. "Yes, that Beomgyu."

"He was totally eyeing you earlier." she winked as you reached the top floor. You hummed, any retort dying on your tongue when you saw that there were only two dorms on the top floor, most the other floors had 4 or more on each of them. You had no idea what you’d done to deserve that kind of luck but you weren’t about to question it.

Two doors stood opposite each other, a large curved window decorated the space at the end of the hallway, the light spilled through, inviting and warm. Making the space feel almost intimate.

You had both arrived early, eager to settle in — to decorate, to breathe in the castle before the chaos of the Sorting Ceremony began. As you neared the doors you heard voices from one, men specifically. You and Kenny slowed at the same time, sharing a look as if to say oh god. Kenny, unfortunately, looked far more interested than she should’ve been.

You, on the other hand? Already considering turning around and pretending you got the wrong floor. As if on cue the door swung open, a blonde haired boy walked out. You barely spared him a glance at first, too focused on reaching your own door until he made a noise.

"Y/n??" he gawked, you froze for a moment, then turned. "Jungwon?" you both spoke with raised voices. He laughed still a little startled but there was no hesitation in what he did next — he stepped forward and pulled you into a hug. It was immediate, familiar and not.

Because the second his arms wrapped around you, you noticed it. His arms felt, stronger.. broader. There was more of him than you remembered. His frame filled out, solid in a way that made your breath hitch just slightly.

Since when was he built like this? And then you breathed in. Bad idea.

He had always smelled good.. annoyingly so but now it was something warmer, deeper… addicting. As though someone had personally curated a scent just to mess with your composure.

"How did you guys know we're here?" he asked as he pulled back from you, still grinning. His hands lingering on your arms like he wasn’t quite ready to let go. You smiled automatically, your body was on autopilot while your brain was still catching up.

Your eyes instinctively scanning over him. You hadn't seen him in what felt like forever, your only form of communication had been letters, since you had been on holiday with Kenny for the summer. Letters didn’t prepare you for this version of him.

His hair caught your attention next. Once dark, now an ashy blonde that fell just enough into his eyes to make him blow it away every few seconds. It softened his features in a way that made him look different but still him. He caught you staring and smiled — smaller this time, almost shy. Like he knew and didn’t at the same time.

"We didn’t," you said, letting out a quiet laugh as you nodded toward the door behind him. "That’s our dorm." His smile only widened. Beside you, Kenny raised an eyebrow, her gaze flicking between the two of you, lingering on where his hands still rested against your arms. Clocked, immediately.

Before he could respond the other boys filtered out, coming to investigate the commotion — his hands left your arms almost reluctantly. "This year is going to be so good." Jake declared the moment he saw you both, his excitement immediate and infectious.

You huffed out a quiet laugh, leaning back slightly against the wall as the hallway filled with noise — overlapping voices, half-made plans, people talking over each other like they hadn’t just had an entire summer to do exactly that.

It was easy, like slipping back into something that already fits and yet — your eyes flicked back to Jungwon without meaning to. He was already looking at you. Of course he was. You looked away first, because you were not about to unpack that in a hallway at like… 10am. Still, your lips pressed together to hide a smile.

This year was definitely going to be something.

After greeting everyone you opted to decorate your room and unpack. Deciding unpacking was safer than socialising for more than ten minutes straight.

Barely 5 minutes had passed with your absence when you heard the door open. You were midway through murmuring an enchantment, flicking lazily as your clothes lifted from your suitcase and sorted themselves into your wardrobe.

You didn’t even need to turn to know who it was but you glanced over your shoulder anyway. Jungwon stood there, grinning like he’d been waiting for this exact moment.

"Hey Won." you hummed, turning back like your heart didn’t just do something weird and unnecessary. Another flick of your wand sent books gliding into place on a shelf.

He stepped inside slowly, he noticed your posters already stuck around the walls — most of your possessions already found their home in your room. The fact that you’d basically moved in within five minutes because you hated living out of a suitcase.

"It feels like I haven't seen you in years." he said, stopping in front of you. You paused, setting your wand down before turning to face him properly. He was already looking at you. Not casually either — like he was actually looking, as though he was updating some kind of mental file on you. Or like he was taking note of everything he hadn’t been able to see through letters alone. Stop that.

Jungwon had always been like that though. Quiet about it, but present. He didn’t need a room full of people — just one. You.

He was the kind of friend who showed up without being asked, the second something felt off. The kind who would sit with you through your half-finished thoughts, letting you find your way to the point without rushing you there.

No pressure, no "Just say it already." Just there, annoyingly perfect. He knew he had a soft spot for you, you're his best friend. The one who challenged him without hesitation. The one who never raised her voice, even when hurt. The one he had missed more than he’d expected over the summer.

"I know," you said, a lazy smile pulling at your lips. "I missed you." you added. He tilted his head slightly, something softer settling into his expression.

"Come here." he murmured, it wasn’t really a request, he pulled you into him, arms wrapping around you before you could respond, and you melted into it almost instantly — a quiet, content sigh leaving you.

"I missed you too," he murmured into your hair. You hummed, your fingers drifted up to play with the soft blonde strands at the back of his head — like it was muscle memory.

He slid his hand from your back to your waist, his grip tightening around it. Just for a split second, but you felt it. He pulled back, and your arms fell away reluctantly as you stepped out of his space. He looked over you with narrowed eyes as though something wasn’t adding up.

"What are you looking at?" you teased stepping forward just to mess with him. Just enough to throw him off, he faltered before rolling his eyes in faux annoyance. You almost laughed.

"You look different." he spoke, not moving despite you being close enough you could see every detail on his sun lit face. The light spilled over half of his face, highlighting the soft curve of his lips as they parted in quiet amusement.

"Is that good or bad?" you questioned, he’d always thought you were beautiful but now there was something more. You were almost glowing — confidence and charisma, you’d grown into yourself in a way he hadn’t been there to see.

"Good," he said. "You look pretty—" he paused, then added quickly, "I mean, you’re always pretty." Right.

You turned your head, hiding the smile that tugged at your lips. You were not letting him see that.. he saw it anyway and exhaled through his nose at your reaction.

"Your hair…" you started, glancing back at him and looking over the strands falling over his forehead, the light catching in them.

"What about it?" he challenged.

"Suits you, it's pretty" you nodded. He gasped dramatically, falling back onto your bed. You laughed, shaking your head as you went back to finishing your room.

Conversation came easily after that. "Also, Kenn and I went clubbing, and I got so paranoid at one point because of this guy—" you started, pacing slightly as you spoke, wand flicking absentmindedly as objects whizzed past. Jungwon watched you.

"He was a muggle, I think… anyway, he kept trying to get between me and Kenny, and I got so pissed I could’ve hexed him—" you continued.

That was all Jungwon heard before he zoned out. Something tight had settled in his chest, something he didn’t want to name. "and then I went to get a drink and he just followed us—"

"Won?" He blinked, refocusing, still leaning back against your bed, propped up on his elbows. "Mm?" he hummed. "So he’s dead now, right?"

You rolled your eyes. "Yeah, we killed him Dexter style." He huffed out a quiet laugh as the last of your belongings floated into place.

You heard a knock and a chestnut head peeked around the corner. "Heyy guys." Jake spoke with a goofy smile as he stepped into the room, "Hi Jake." you greeted, settling onto your bed beside Jungwon. "We’re all going to The Three Broomsticks, if you want to come," he said, his eyes flicking briefly to Jungwon — who was playing with the hem of your sleeve.

Since when does he do that. Jungwon glanced at you, he was surprised to see your eyes already on him. "Yeah I'm down." you said, dragging your attention back to Jake before your brain can start over analysing like it's paid to do so.

"Won?" you added, quieter now, turning back to him — searching, though you didn’t know for what. For the little time you'd been back in his presence, you had felt a shift — it was was barely noticeable, like the world had tilted slightly off its axis. It wasn't something you listened to, even as your brain screamed that things were different. Even as it grabbed you by the arms and shook you, you ignored it.

Throughout your friendship you hadn't dated. Not seriously. Not even accidentally. It’s not that you couldn’t, you just… didn’t care to. There had been moments — people who almost asked, words that almost formed but something always stopped them.

You hadn't seen Jungwon staring holes into their eyes, his fingers curling into his palms. One boy had spewed apologies as he scrambled off, leaving you with an eyebrow raised and a "That was weird."

"Yeah, let's go," he hopped up, extending his hand out for you and without thinking, you took it.

But he didn't let go. Instead, he guided you gently behind Jake, your hand still in his, like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like it’s nothing and it should have been, but something unfamiliar threaded through the familiarity. His hand in yours felt comfortable but now you were aware of it. Which is annoying because you were perfectly fine not being aware.

You also had never over-thought anything physical with him before, not that that's what you were doing…

Kenny looked between you both, her eyes immediately dropping to your hand in his loosely. Her smirk was instant, like she just unlocked a new form of entertainment.

"You okay?" Jungwon murmured, leaning down so his voice brushed against your ear. He pulled back, just enough to look at your lips as you talked.

"Mhm," you nodded quickly and then, you slipped your hand from his — stepping forward to urge the others along. You didn’t look back at him, didn’t see the way his hand lingered in the air for just a second longer than it should have.

Didn’t know if he noticed the way your fingers had twitched before you pulled away. Definitely didn't think about the fact that for the first time in four years — being around him doesn’t feel simple, and that might be a problem.

The air was crisp, fresh in a way that made everything feel lighter, clearer. The hills stretched endlessly in the distance, and the pristine lake sat below you as you walked along the bridge.

You slowed, falling a step behind the others without realizing it. Your gaze softened as you took it all in, a small smile settling on your lips at the quiet beauty of it. You breathed out, shoulders dropping a little.

Jungwon looked around mid-conversation, half-listening to Jake ramble about something irrelevant, and when you weren’t there, something in his chest did this annoying tight thing. Like when you forget something but don’t know what.

Until he turned and there you were, a few steps behind, walking like the world had paused just for you. It was the same thing that had caught his attention the very first time. He hated how that got him, as though every time was the first time.

He slowed without thinking, letting the others move ahead as he fell back into step beside you. He didn't speak — his arm brushing lightly against yours as he followed your gaze out toward the horizon.

The Three Broomsticks had a comfortable amount of people wandering in and out, it smelt faintly of butter-beer and a woodsy scent you couldn't quite put your finger on.

Your group took to the corner booth as usual, you sat besides Jungwon at the end of the booth and ordered a butter-beer as you all settled into chatter and laughs sipping your beers. As your cup emptied, you leaned back with a quiet sigh, the warmth of it settling heavily in your chest.

You slumped sideways until your weight rested against Jungwon’s shoulder. His shoulder shifted just slightly to fit you better, like it was muscle memory. His voice kept going, talking to the others, but softer now, closer. He smiled small, fond but you didn’t see. You felt the faint vibration of his voice and his hand settle on the small of your back against the seat.

"Sleepy?" he asked, brushing against your hair. "Mm, no," you mumbled, lifting your cup slightly before setting it down with a quiet clink. "Just recovering from this, it was so filling." You pushed yourself upright, pulling away from his shoulder — acting like your heart didn’t just do a weird little thing.

But his hand didn’t move. He just hummed, fingers moving in slow circles like it was the most normal thing in the world, and the annoying part? It was normal, it’s always been normal.

The front door swung open, the bell chiming lightly as a group of Quidditch players walked in, their voices loud and easy, already caught up in talk of the upcoming season. Many of them were back with hopes of becoming successful professional players.

That included Choi Beomgyu. Heeseung and Ni-ki were up instantly to greet the Chaser, shoulders knocking together in greeting. As their chatters died down he was pulled into your table and then into the seat beside you.

"Hey Y/n." he sent you a lazy smirk as he settled into the seat "Hey." you returned with a slight tilt to your head. You’d always known him — never closely, but enough. Passing smiles, casual greetings. You'd often see him around since he was also a Slytherin — he always sent you a boyish smile if he saw you sat in the Quidditch stands.

His eyes flit from yours to your lips and then over the rest of you. You noticed that too. "How was your summer?" he asked after taking a long sip of his butter-beer. "It was great, How was yours?" As he spoke, you felt it.

Jungwon's hand had stopped its lazy motions and now rested fully against your lower back, fingers spread like he’s anchoring you there without making a show of it. Your eyes flickered to him for just a second. He was leaning closer now.

"Hey, you guys wanna get going?" Jake called, breaking the moment. Voices overlapped in agreement, chairs scraping as everyone stood. Heeseung invited Beomgyu along without hesitation. Jungwon said nothing.

He bumped against you as you walked, your friends gathered ahead of you as the path stretched back toward the castle. Beomgyu glanced back once, eyes flicking between the two of you. Taking in the space, the distance, the way it didn’t quite feel like distance at all.

Jungwon looked to you and while you took in the world, he took you in.

"I’m doing the re-run on potions tomorrow," you groaned, dragging your attention back to him. He barked out a quiet laugh. "Me too."

"Snape?" he added — amused. "Hey! Snape loves me." you laughed swatting at his arm. "Of course he does!" He teased, "his bias towards you Slytherins is too obvious."

"Whatever." you rolled your eyes, yelping as he poked your sides. "I really missed this," he spoke low.

"I missed this too." you responded easily, he smiled flashing his dimples and for a moment, you just looked at him — really looked. Eyes catching on the curves of his cheeks and the flicker of mischief in his eyes. He seemed to have to same idea, looking over the details on your face. Pupils dragging side to side, you both looked away after a moment without a word.

As you reached the dorms your friends all turned, stopping you in your tracks "Thoughts on going to the lake, we have time to kill before the sorting ceremony?" Heeseung suggested, glancing between you all.

"…Yeah, okay," you nodded with the others, like you weren’t internally negotiating with yourself. Everyone else agreed easily, except Beomgyu who waved it off with something about joining later. You all filtered into your rooms.

You pulled out a bikini you’d bought over the summer, layering it with loose joggers and a top. Low effort, high reward. Soon enough, you were all heading down together arms full of towels and drinks, laughter echoing through the halls.

"Give that here." Jungwon’s voice came from behind you as he took the bag from your shoulder, without waiting for permission. He looked almost offended that you’d been carrying it yourself.

"Thanks, Won," you said glancing back and sending him a smile. You didn’t see Jake’s smirk. Kenny, however, absolutely did. "You’re getting boyfriend privileges," she sang under her breath.

You rolled your eyes, "He’d do that for anyone." Even as you said it, something in your brain went …would he though? She only groaned, unconvinced.

The Great Lake stretched endlessly before you, framed by rolling hills that dipped into the distance. It had been a while since you'd been here, not by choice. Between N.E.W.T.s and those two years confined to the castle, moments like this had been rare — almost unfamiliar.

But now the air was light, warm — the sun was out. It hung high above you as you laid out blankets, dropping your things with a satisfied sigh before standing over one of them — kicking off your joggers, pulling your top over your head.

You stretched, rolling your shoulders, fingers combing through your hair — completely unaware of anything beyond the sun on your skin.

Jungwon had been standing near the water, looking out across the lake and zoning out like he does when he’s thinking too much. Until he turned and saw you. He just, stopped.

His gaze locked without meaning to and dragged, slowly, over you as you moved — unthinking, unguarded. He didn’t even notice Jake walking up behind him. He followed his line of sight and smirked.

"She looks good, hm?" Jake murmured clapping a hand on Jungwon's shoulder, "Shit— don’t do that," Jungwon exhaled, his body jolting slightly, a faint flush crept up his neck.

Jungwon turned back toward the lake quickly, "She always looks good," he said, too fast, too dismissive like he needed to neutralise it. "Just friends?" Jake asked incredulously. "Yeah."

"So you wouldn’t care if I tried something with her?" That did it. Jungwon turned fully, deadpan. The look he gave Jake was enough. Jake laughed, clapping his shoulder. "Thought so. What are you waiting for?"

"I’m not— that’s not—" Jungwon cut himself off, jaw tightening. "We’re friends, Jake." he finalised. He opened his mouth and then stopped when he saw you walking towards them.

You weren’t paying attention to any of that, obviously. You were looking at the water, already halfway mentally in it, and you reached out, fingers wrapping lightly around his wrist, then slid down intertwining with his fingers like it was muscle memory.

His breath caught for a second, before he tightened his grip, grounding himself in it. You stepped into the water first, testing it with your toe before wading in fully. When you deemed it safe you stepped in completely. Then you turned back to him, smiling. He followed without hesitation.

Jake watched for a moment, turning around with a shake to his head "Idiots."

"Ah— fuck," Jungwon muttered as the water climbed higher, soaking through his clothes. You laughed, pulling him further in until the water reached your waist, he wrapped his other hand in yours.

The breeze danced through your hair, sunlight catching on the ripples around you as you tilted your head back slightly, eyes closing for just a second. The water was warm and inviting, the blonde in front of you inched closer. Without thinking his hand slipped from yours only to rise to your face. Your brain went very quiet. Which was rare, concerning, even.

He brushed a stray piece of hair away but his fingers lingered at your jaw. Careful, like he didn’t quite trust himself. Your lips quirked at his touch, then he dropped his hand and a drop of rain hit your shoulder. Another followed.

"Do you wanna go back inside?" he asked. You shook your head immediately, a grin spread across your face and before you could act normal about it you stepped back and splashed him square in the chest.

He gasped dramatically standing there for moment in shock. "Oh.. you’re dead." you barely had time to laugh before he lunged forward, sending water crashing back toward you, enough to make you shriek.

"Jungwon!—" you huffed, you stumbled backwards through the lake while your hands flew up too late to defend yourself. "You started it!" he shouted back, his laugh cracked loudly across the lake, messy and breathless and so stupidly pretty it made your chest hurt a little.

The others sat near the shore watching like this was the most entertaining thing they’d seen all week. Which, to be fair, Hogwarts was basically just academic trauma and near death experiences, so your standards for fun got weird here.

Both of you were soaked within seconds. The rain picked up, steady now — but the sun hadn’t disappeared, casting everything in a strange, golden haze, like a memory while it was still happening.

By now all of you were completely drenched, you waded through the water to the shore and grabbed your wand — relief settling in as you saw your belongings still dry beneath the shield you’d cast earlier.

You flicked your wand, casting a shield overhead to block the rain like a makeshift umbrella. The others immediately crowded underneath it with grateful groans, wrapping towels around themselves, you opted to do the same but Jungwon had beat you to it.

He picked it up and wrapped it around your shoulders rubbing against your arms. Your breath caught slightly and only then did you notice how his black shirt clung to him, soaked through — defining the lines of his arms, his shoulders, the shape of him in a way you hadn’t seen before.

You looked away, back to his face. This was safer.. right. Not really, because he was staring at you with this soft concentration that somehow felt worse. He was entirely too focused on drying your arms, still rubbing. You shivered, exaggerating it just slightly with teeth chattering sounds as you leaned into him, wrapping your arms around him.

"So dramatic," he snorted, but he didn’t pull away. If anything, he held you closer — his hands moving up and down your back, warming you through the fabric.

"Wait— I’m an idiot," you laughed after a few moments, suddenly pulling back. He blinked. "That’s not new—"

You ignored him and grabbed your wand, flicking it with practised ease. A warm gust of air spilled out, surrounding you instantly. Everyone huddled around you like a pack of penguins, they all groaned in relief.

"Thank fuck for you" Jake sighed as he leaned against you without thinking. The flicker in Jungwon's expression was brief but it was there.

After a hot shower you changed into your new robes, which were a lot more flattering than the school attire. Still house colours, still mildly humiliating, but at least you only had to wear them in classes.

You made your way down to the Great Hall with your friends, the familiar hum of voices growing louder with every step. As usual, you all split at the entrance — murmured "See you laters." and fleeting touches before heading toward your respective house tables. Jungwon gave you his signature smile, his hand brushing over your shoulder in passing. Then he was gone, slipping toward Gryffindor's table.

Kenny slid in beside you as Ni-ki took the seat across, already reaching for something on the table. A moment later, another presence settled at your side, Beomgyu.

"Hey," he greeted, offering you a soft, easy smile. "Hey," you returned, turning toward him.

He asked about the lake, about the afternoon, interested in a way that didn’t feel forced. You didn’t notice the way Jungwon’s eyes had already found you across the hall or see his gaze narrowed slightly, settling on the back of Beomgyu’s head. Lingering there, unmoving, even as the Sorting Ceremony began.

The first student was sorted into Slytherin. Which had you turning to stick your tongue out to Jungwon — how you usually would. Only he was already looking, his expression softened the second your eyes met, a small smile tugging at his lips. You faltered for a moment and then he threw you an eye-roll at the announcement.

Beomgyu had watched the exchange, curious. He leaned in close to your ear, "Are you and Jungwon dating?" he whispered. The question hit differently this time, it felt louder, like a ringing in your ear. You felt as though you'd been snapped out a daydream.

No, Jungwon isn't your boyfriend, it had never been discussed between you. Never defined but then your brain, traitor that it is, starts listing things.

You didn’t let anyone act the way he did with you. No one else held you like that. Looked at you like that or knew you the way he did and yet that didn't change the fact that, the label had never wavered.

Four years. No confusion. No weirdness. No “What are we?” conversations at 2am like some tragic situationship. Just… him and you.

Which, logically, should’ve been comforting but lately it felt like wearing something that used to fit perfectly and now it sat just slightly wrong — not enough to throw it away, but enough that you couldn’t stop noticing it.

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe you were overthinking like a normal person who refuses to be embarrassing out loud. And you weren’t about to be the girl who ruined a perfectly good thing because she couldn’t keep her thoughts in check.

"No," you said finally, shaking your head. "We’re just friends."

Beomgyu’s grin widened slightly. "Okay." he replied, leaning back in his seat.

Jungwon had of course seen your exchange. Not the words but enough. His jaw was tight, teeth grinding faintly as his gaze flicked between you and Beomgyu, something restless settling beneath his skin.

The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur. By the end, you were full, tired, and mildly overwhelmed by your own thoughts, which was honestly rude. You all trudged back to your dorms with light chatters. At the doors you said your goodnights and split off again.

Sleep came easily. It always did when your brain decided to emotionally clock out instead of process anything.

The morning came quietly. Soft light filtered through the windows as you got ready, rubbing at your eyes and stifling yawns as you moved through your routine. Half on autopilot, hair, robes, minimal effort because you refuse to be perceived this early in the morning.

By the time you made your way down to the Great Hall with Kenny, the familiar buzz of voices had already settled in.

You slid into your usual place, picking at fruit and sipping your tea as conversation drifted lazily between your friends. Jungwon sat across from you at some point, without asking, he reached over taking your cup and bringing it to his lips.

He hummed satisfied, before setting it back down in front of you like it was his to begin with. You stare at him for a second. Right. We’re doing that now.. You nudge his foot under the table anyway, because apparently you love enabling it.

Beomgyu slid in besides you, all easy smiles and bumps your shoulder “Morning.”

"Morning." you replied. "We should get going." Jungwon said suddenly, his tone firmer than necessary.

"Yeah, lets go." you agreed, already standing. "See you guys later."

Kenny gave you a pointed look, knowing, you ignored it. Jake didn’t miss the shift either, his eyebrow lifted slightly as his gaze flicked toward Jungwon.

The classroom felt the same as you settled into your seat beside Jungwon, a strange sense of deja vu washed over you. You turned your head slightly, studying him. He was already looking at you, his head tilted in recognition, almost curious.

"Deja vu." you whispered, he nodded, lips catching briefly between his teeth, like he felt it too.

"Hogwarts University students," Snape’s voice cut cleanly through the room, "you are here for a two-week re-run course on unnecessary, ineffective, or unneeded potions." His chalk scratched sharply against the board as he listed them.

"Babbling beverages. Stupid potions. Confusing concoctions." A pause. "And Amortentia. An arguably unneeded and unethical love potion."

Beneath the title, bold and unmistakable, he wrote,

"NOTE THAT AMORTENTIA DOES NOT CREATE TRUE LOVE BUT A TEMPORARY OBSESSION."

Your eyes lingered on it. Temporary, right. The first class was simple, babbling beverages and unsurprisingly, you were paired with Jungwon.

You fell into your usual rhythm of cutting the ingredients and writing in turns as though no time had passed at all. You stewed the Alihosty leaves first and added the Billywig stings as Jungwon stirred counter-clockwise, then went in the bile and leech-juice.

You potted the light brown substance into a vial and handed it to Jungwon so he could cork it properly. Snape sauntered over past each station with sharp disinterest. Sniffing and prodding at the goop in each pot. He sent some glares with flares to his nose until he reached yours.

"This is.. sufficient." he spoke looking between you both, "Thanks sir." you both hummed in return.

"Think that's the nicest he's ever been to me." Jungwon murmured in your ear as Snape retreated to the front desk. That earned him a laugh.

The next classes blurred together in similar patterns. You went through the same motions except Beomgyu lingered more and talked more, finding reasons to be near your group. You didn't mind, he was easy to talk to.

But Jungwon was becoming almost restless, he lingered more. Looked at you like he wanted to say something like the words were right there but he just… didn’t.

By the time you made it to the Quidditch stands, the air had turned crisp. You sat with your friends, eyes following the players as they darted across the sky. Jungwon besides you as usual. It was Slytherin vs Ravenclaw, which meant Ni-ki and Beomgyu were playing.

Beomgyu slowed mid-air as he passed your section, hovering just long enough to wave but then he waved again. Smaller, directed at you. You smiled back automatically because… you’re not rude and also because it would be weird not to. Social norms are exhausting.

You didn’t notice Jungwon’s quiet huff, didn’t feel his gaze settle heavier on you. You sniffed a little at the cold before turning to him. "What?" you asked with amusement tinged in your voice. He didn't falter, if anything his lips curved just a little more.

"Nothing," he said. "You cold?" You nodded, about to say you’re fine but before you could do anything about it, he was already pulling you closer.

Your side pressed against his, your hand lifted and placed in his lap, his fingers threading through yours like it was instinct. Oh okay.

He rubbed slow circles into your skin, then lifted your hand slightly, bringing it closer to his lips blowing warm air against your fingers. His eyes never left yours. You bit the inside of your lip without realizing, holding something back — something you couldn’t quite name.

His gaze dropped to your lips and stayed, for a second too long. Then he tore it away, lowering your hand back to his lap — but not letting go. By now you were mentally somewhere else entirely.

Above you, the game continued. People were yelling, Jake was probably commentating like he’s being paid for it, Ni-ki was doing something illegal on a broom but neither of you were really watching anymore.

At some point Beomgyu circled back around and this time — he noticed. The way you were pressed into Jungwon’s side. The way your hand rested, laced with his, something in his expression shifted.

His jaw tightened slightly, eyes narrowing as he flew past. You didn’t notice but Jungwon did and for a brief second, his lips quirked up.

The fourth and last class was on Amortentia, the strongest and deadliest love potion. As Snape had so bluntly put it, the most unethical and you're just.. casually brewing it on a random Tuesday.

You stood at your usual station with Jungwon sleeves pushed up, already moving before you even think about it.

You started by heating the water, steam curled softly into the air as the scent of something faintly sweet lingered beneath it. Jungwon added the bruised peppermint flower heads and you added the peppermint leaves. The two of you moved in quiet sync.

"Apparently it smells different for everyone," you murmured, glancing over your shoulder briefly. Like you’re not even slightly curious what his would be.

He hummed in response, tipping the crushed moonstone into the cauldron as you stirred anti-clockwise, adding the rose thorns with careful hands. The potion shimmered faintly, suspiciously pretty and definitely illegal in at least five countries.

From then it was a waiting game, he placed the cauldron in a dimly lit closet as instructed. Snape’s voice cut through the room once more. "You’ll return later," he said. "Let it settle."

You pack up your things, already halfway out the room, when you heard her.

"Jungwon," Penelope Clearwater’s voice slid in, sweet but sharp around the edges. She talked of him helping her in potions. You didn’t need to hear the rest, you already knew.

And then you decided… yeah, no. You were not doing this today, so you didn’t wait, didn’t interrupt. You just left. It wasn't dramatic — it was just easier.

Because she has this way of talking that makes you feel like background noise and you don’t do that. Not for anyone, but Jungwon had noticed too late. He was already suppressing a sigh as Penelope spoke, his patience thinning. "Can you just ask Snape?" he said flatly. "Or your partner."

"Seamus?" she scoffed. "That bloody idiot couldn’t tell a moonstone from a bezoar." she huffed in annoyance. Jungwon barely heard her, he was already looking around for you but you weren’t there.

"I’ve got to go,” he cut in, not waiting for a response. "I hope you find the help you need."

You hadn’t meant to go anywhere in particular. Your feet carried you toward the dorms out of habit, your mind quieter than it should have been until you heard a noise, low and grinding almost — like bricks moving.

You paused and stepped back and there it was. The Room of Requirement. Waiting for you, you exhaled slowly before stepping inside.

Bookshelves lined every wall, filled to the brim. A fireplace crackled softly along one side, casting a golden glow across the room as though the room was actively telling you to relax. In the far corner was a nook, carved into the wall like it had always been there. Soft blankets, scattered pillows, a large window framing the view beyond — rolling hills, the lake stretching endlessly beneath the sky.

You walk over, running your fingers along the spines of books until one caught your attention — Extinct Creatures. Good enough. You then kicked off your shoes and climbed into the nook, the cushions sank beneath you, welcoming, familiar.

You barely made it a few pages in before your eyes began to drift. Your breathing slowed.

Jungwon had walked back into the classroom in search of you, and then he tried the dorms. As he went back to the stairs, he saw it, the outline of a door that hadn’t been there before.

He stood directly in front of it and closed his eyes thinking you. The next moment he opened them the door had changed — larger now, curved, silver handles gleaming softly under the light. He didn’t hesitate. His eyes moved quickly, scanning the bookshelves, the fireplace and then you.

Curled with your knees against the window, your head against a fluffed pillow. As he walked closer he felt relief wash over him — your chest moved up and down gently as you breathed deeply in sleep. He couldn’t help it. The way his eyes moved over you as he climbed into the nook beside you — careful, deliberate, like even the smallest movement might wake you.

Not touching you, not until you stirred and turned. A soft sound left you, something content — unaware as your head found his chest. Your hand rested against his hip like it had always belonged there. Jungwon’s breath hitched, uneven now — completely out of sync with your slow, steady breaths.

He froze completely. Unsure where to put his hands, what to do, how to exist without disturbing you. One arm was trapped beneath you, already beginning to go numb. The other hovered awkwardly at his side.

Then you moved again, your leg slid over him, settling across his lap as you buried your face into his neck, exhaling softly against his skin. He sucked in a quiet breath, sharp and careful like even breathing too loud might ruin this.

He shifted slightly, freeing the arm pinned beneath you and finally he hesitantly wrapped it around your back, holding you.

You mumbled something incoherent, your voice warm and drowsy against his neck, and he let his head fall back slightly trying, desperately to relax into it.

Trying not to think and trying not to feel everything all at once. He didn’t know how long passed, minutes maybe more until you stirred again. You groaned quiet against him as you shifted, pressing closer without meaning to.

Your eyes didn't even open yet but your brain caught up real fast. You don’t panic, you're not someone who panics, you process and pretend you meant to do this. Fuck.

"Jungwon?" you murmured, your voice thick with sleep. "Hm?" he replied softly, forcing a lazy smile into his tone. "Morning."

You shifted again, this time pushing yourself up just enough to swing your leg fully over him, settling on top of him without hesitation. Chest to chest. Your head dropped back into the crook of his neck like it was instinct.

His jaw clenched, a quiet, strangled sound left him as though you'd wounded him. You lifted your head slightly, brows knitting. "You okay?"

His cheeks were flushed now, his breathing uneven and shallow. You didn’t understand. Couldn’t. Your hand came up, cupping his cheek gently, your thumb brushing against warm skin. "You’re so hot," you murmured, frowning slightly as if trying to figure it out. Then you shifted again and he exhaled sharply.

"Don’t— move," he said quickly, his hands gripping your thighs — firm, grounding, tense. You blinked at him, slowly.

He forced himself to breathe through it, his hands sliding slightly higher before stilling again, like he didn’t trust himself to move any further. Before you can even decide how to recover your dignity, the door creaked open.

Kenny stepped in and froze. Her eyes landed on you and then on him, then back again. Her jaw dropped — slowly giving way to a smirk. "Oh?" she said, dragging the word out. You stilled as heat creeping up your neck.

"What are you guys doing?" she asked, her gaze flicking over Jungwon’s dishevelled state with barely concealed amusement. You sit up like this is completely normal behaviour.

"We’re actually about to check on our Amortentia," you replied and you slide off him like nothing happened.. because nothing happened.

Completely unaware of the situation you’d just left him in. Jungwon sat up behind you, hunched slightly, hands braced at his sides. His shoulders tense, like he’s trying to reboot his entire system.

Kenny hummed, clearly entertained. "Right," she said, already turning. "Have fun with that." Something about a date followed as she disappeared through the door, laughter lingering behind her. "Won, are you good?" you tilted your head. He nodded quickly, a tight-lipped smile pulling at his mouth.

"Yeah— I’ll meet you there," he said, voice just slightly off. You don’t question it. You should but you don’t. "Don’t take too long," you added lightly, offering a small wave as you stepped out. The second you left Jungwon had sighed, loud and harsh — almost frustrated. He checked the corridor, making sure you were gone, before heading straight for his room.

He locked the door and stripped himself of his clothes — which were uncomfortably sticking to him.

He had successfully hidden his raging boner from you b ut he couldn't find it in himself to enjoy it — he groaned as he looked down at the reddened angry tip of his length which was refusing to go down. He turned on the shower and stepped in. The water ran cold, biting against his skin as he stepped under it, bracing his hands against the glass. His head dropped forward.

"Fuck…" he muttered under his breath, voice low and strained. His lip caught in his teeth as his hand wrapped around the base of his cock, his mind wandered to your chest flush against his.

Everything about that moment replayed too vividly. He pumped his hand up and down, slowly — a groan caught in his throat. His eyes were knit shut, the image of your body on his urged him to fasten his hand. You looked so fucking pretty on top of him — his teeth bit down harder.

He turned so his head was now leaning back, pressing his weight against the glass. He released his lip as his hand sped up — small fast breaths echoing through the room.

One image in particular was stamped in his head, his hands gripping your thighs like they were his to claim. The way your skin felt on his, the warmth of your touch — your breath against his neck. His hips stuttered as the coil snapped, his jaw slacked with shaky breaths as his high took over, ropes of his cum leaking out onto his hand and stomach.

He breathed heavily trying to catch his breath, he felt guilt flood his mind. He had thoughts of you before — thoughts of how you'd sound, how you'd taste, but he had never let himself do this. That restraint he had before had snapped in one moment.

His breathed in harsh again, sharper this time, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. He stayed there longer than he needed to. By the time he walked back into the classroom, his hair was still damp, water clinging to the ends as it curled slightly at his neck.

You stood at your stand, writing in the notes you hadn't done earlier when Jungwon walked in. He kept his eyes anywhere but you at first.

"Hey," he said, stepping up beside you, running a hand through his hair in an attempt to look casual. "Hey," you replied lightly. "Good shower?" you asked with your eyes still on the pages in front of you.

He froze for half a second, too quick for you to notice. His eyes flicked to you — searching your face for something, any sign that you knew, "Er— yeah," he said, forcing a small, sheepish grin. "Woke me up."

You hummed in response, like that made sense. Still focused on your notes, Snape swept back into the room — robes trailing behind him. "Go get your cauldrons" he drawled as he wiped the chalk board.

Jungwon moved instantly like he needed something to do and grabbed the cauldron from the shelves — setting it down with a thud.

You removed the lid and sighed in relief at the pearlescent liquid staring back at you. The potion had settled perfectly. Pearlescent and smooth, it shimmered with soft spirals of steam curling into the air like something almost alive.

Jungwon leaned over the cauldron and took in the scent, his head tilted for a second, "Vanilla musk…" he murmured, almost to himself. He paused and breathed in deeper, "Star jasmine… and…" his voice softened, quieter now, "fresh parchment." he finished, it was almost enchanting, he found his eyes fluttering shut, to completely seal himself into the confinement of the aroma.

When he opened them again, they found you. Then the potion, then you again.

"That smells so, so good." he exhaled, tipping his head back slightly. He watched you for a second as you stood in front of him towards the cauldron, without thinking he stepped closer. Resting his chin lightly against your shoulder. Your hair brushed against his face, soft familiar.. and there it was again.

The same aroma from the cauldron hit his nose, subtle and alluring but unmistakable. His breath catching as he leaned just slightly further in, his nose brushing the side of your neck. You felt it more than you saw it, the slight pause in his breathing. The way he didn’t pull back straight away.

"That tickles— what are you doing?" you laughed turning toward him but before your brain could overanalyse it into oblivion, he had jerked back.

"Wha— nothing!" he said too quickly, scratching the back of his neck as he stepped away. His mind was racing, of course it smelled like you. Of course it did, and the potion didn’t lie. No matter how much he had tried to.

You shook your head in amusement as you leaned over the cauldron and let the aroma seep into your nostrils. "What can you smell?" he asked, you knit your eyebrows together.

"It smells like, autumn" you started slowly, "Fresh strawberries— and rain.." you trailed off. "Smells good," you added, almost absentmindedly. "That good?" he spoke as he potted the substance. Needing something to ground himself. You nodded with a hum.

Snape once again walked over each station and arrived at yours, he took one look at the potion and nodded once — then walked back to the board. You looked at each other at the same time and broke into quiet, stifled laughter.

And then you noticed Penelope, walking over, you sighed internally. She had a stack of papers in hand, posture perfect as though she rehearsed this in a mirror beforehand. "We’re having a party tonight," she announced, placing a flyer neatly in front of Jungwon like she’s presenting a case. "Room of Requirement, for whoever wins the game."

She doesn’t look at you and you don’t look up. Mutual understanding, or maybe sly hatred. You focus on the vial in your hands instead, like you cared deeply about whatever you were pretending to do. "You’ll come, right?" she added, her tone shifting — directed only at him. Shock.

Jungwon barely glanced at the paper before his eyes flicked to you. Your brows are pulled together slightly — not dramatically, just enough that someone paying attention (him, apparently) would catch it.

"Y/n are you coming?" he asked instead. That caught you off guard, you looked up to see Penelope smiling at you. "Everyone's invited." she added with that strained smile, "I’ll think about it," you said, returning your attention to the vial in your hands.

"We'll be there." Jungwon said easily, still scanning the paper. Penelope seemed satisfied with that so she turned and walked off and you looked at him immediately. "Who says I'll be there?" you challenged. "C’mon," he grins, completely unbothered. "I’ll drag you if I have to."

"Yeah?" you shot back, arching a brow. "Try it." He leaned in slightly, voice dropping just enough "Don’t start whining when I do." Your stomach did a small, very annoying flip. You scoffed, nudging him lightly. "I don’t whine." He hums like he knows better.

You both walked back to the dorms as you talked, conversation was light, easy as it drifted between the upcoming game and whatever else came to mind. Jungwon split off to his room to change, and you did the same — stepping into your dorm and closing the door behind you.

Your hands were slower than usual as you picked out something to wear — something casual, but fitted just right. Something that sat on you well. Your favourite jewellery settled against your skin and a quick swipe of lip-gloss, a glance in the mirror and then you were out again.

The living room was already alive when you stepped in. Voices overlapping, laughter spilling out between your friends as drinks were passed around and poorly mixed concoctions were tested. Your eyes found him instantly. Jungwon sat sprawled against the sofa, one arm thrown lazily over the back, a backwards cap resting low on his head. Grey hoodie, black pinstripe pants — effortless.

Dangerously so. He looked—

No. We're not doing that. You averted your thoughts and slipped in beside Kenny at the counter instead. Across the room, Jungwon’s voice faltered mid-sentence, Jake kept talking but Jungwon had stopped. His eyes found you the second you walked in and stayed and they moved slowly, taking you in like he was trying to memorize something he hadn’t noticed before.

Like you were different or maybe like he was. You tipped the drink back with Kenny and immediately scrunched your nose, pulling a face. "Fuck, that’s disgusting," you laughed, nudging the glass away. Kenny snorted beside you.

"Yo, Jungwon?" Jake’s voice cut in, barely holding back laughter. "Hm?" Jungwon responded, not looking away from you. "You’re staring." you turned. Their expressions shifted instantly too quickly to catch fully, but enough to notice something. You walked over anyway, slipping into the space beside Jungwon like it was second nature.

"What’s wrong with you?" you grinned, your leg brushing his as you sat. His breath hitched barely and the gloss on your lips caught the light. You leaned in without thinking nudging the glass near him. "Nothing," he said, a little too quick. "Thanks." He reached for your drink, taking a sip — his eyes still flickering back to you. You didn’t stay long and you stood again, moving back toward the kitchen to fix the drinks for the others.

"I'm doing it later." Jungwon’s voice was low, almost absentminded. Jake turned to him slowly. "…And just so we’re clear," he said carefully, "by it you mean—"

"I’ll tell her." he said quieter this time like he was certain. Jake blinked, he breathed out a laugh. "Wow," he muttered. "didn’t think I’d see the day." He then slumped back against the sofa with a breath of disbelief.

Jungwon didn’t respond, he was still watching you because lately it had become impossible not to. Every day, it got harder to ignore. Harder to pretend, harder to act like you didn’t pull him in without even trying.

Across the room, you laughed softly at something Ni-ki said — but your attention shifted when you caught Kenny’s eye. "Can you help me with something?" she asked already moving, you nodded following behind.

"I’ll be right back," you called over your shoulder. The door clicked shut behind you and Kenny turned immediately, leaning back against it — arms crossing as she stared at you. For a moment she just looked at you, perplexed. "Kenny?.." you said cautiously, a nervous smile tugging at your lips. "What the fuck is going on with Jungwon?" she asked, her voice sharper than intended. Your brows lifted, "Jungwon?"

"That man is staring at you like he’s never seen you before," she continued, watching you closely. You exhaled slow, because you knew. You’d noticed it too, you had felt it and avoided it. Hearing it out loud was too much and yet somehow relieving. "It’s nothing," you start.

"Y/n, he’s crazy about you, he—"

"What if you’re wrong, Kenn?" you cut in, quieter now. Your expression tightened but Kenny didn’t hesitate. "And if I’m right?" she asked. "Can you live with that?" The question landed heavy, like they had an ache behind them. You paced, hands restless at your sides because you saw it. The way he looked at you. The way everyone else looked at you both and the way your chest flood with something warm when he got too close and worse, it feels right. That’s the problem.

To answer her question, no. You couldn’t live with not knowing, with pretending. "Okay." Your voice was sudden and firm. Kenny blinked. "Okay?" she echoed. You nodded, the slight buzz running through your body did nothing but assure your current thought process.

"Yeah," you said, more certain now. "I’m going to test it." Kenny narrows her eyes. "How?" You shrug lightly. A small smirk pulling at your lips. "Observation," you say. "Field testing." She didn’t interrupt or move. "And by the end of tonight," you continued, "If I feel like he does — if there’s anything there…"

"I’ll confess." She stood still for a moment as though any sudden movement would change your mind then she broke. A grin spread across her face, wide and disbelieving. "Wow," she laughed. "Did not see that coming."

The conversation with Kenny had been playing on your mind as you walked towards the kitchen. No matter what, tonight would change everything.

You had a plan for the night, not a good one and it was not a foolproof one but it was something. How to figure out if your best friend of four years has feelings for you—101.

Eyes. Jungwon loves eye-contact he fiends for it. He held it longer than most people, like he was always searching for something just beneath the surface.

Body language. He was subtle with everyone else but not with you. He leaned in, closed space without asking, existed just a little closer than necessary like proximity was instinct when it came to you.

Touch. Initiating more contact, that was the biggest one. He'd nudge your shoulder, brush against your arm, pull you forward when you lagged too far behind.

Jungwon was always the one to initiate it, so tonight you’d flip it. You'd hold his gaze longer than usual. You don’t look away first. Close the distance before he can, be the one to reach for him.

It made your stomach twist just thinking about it, because this isn’t just observation anymore. It’s risk and if he pulls away, or if he hesitates. You’ll have your answer.

Your friends made it to the game a couple minutes early to get the best seats for the upcoming game, Slytherin V Gryffindor. You hang back just long enough to knock back a shot, purely medicinal.

Once you made it to the game there were a few empty seats besides your friends. He sent you a small wave, like he hasn’t been subconsciously tracking your existence since you walked in. You settled besides him — making a point to sit with your leg flush against his. He paused briefly and relaxed, this wasn't unusual. Not yet.

You then turned to him looking between his brown feline eyes. "Hi Won," you said. He looked between your own, his eyes widened for a flicker of a moment. "Hey Y/n," he returned with a mischievous smile, confusion twisting into his brows.

"What are you up to?" he said leaning in slightly. You leaned in even closer and tilted your head, just a little. Play dumb, "What do you mean?" you replied, eyes still trained on his.

"I- What?" he stammered. You only feigned ignorance, perplexing him further. Was it always this obvious?

Jungwon had been convincing himself he'd been thrown into an alternate dimension, the one he'd dreamt of once where you would flirt, shameless.

It was the kind of reality he’d never let himself linger on for long, too aware of how easily it could blur into something dangerous. Something that would make it impossible to go back to what you were.

So instead of questioning it, he leaned into it. A small grin graced his lips, your eyes dilated as they looked into his and you pulled back to sit back in your chair. He sat back with the sleeves of his hoodie rolled back — his forearms on show. He watched as you shook your head in amusement and disbelief, trying your best to focus on the game that was about to begin.

Shortly after, the balls were released into the air along with a whistle to signal the start of the game. As the players all flew around the pitch you couldn't help but notice Jungwon's gaze when he was convinced you weren't looking.

You turned to face him watching as his eyes flit over your face in response, "What are you looking at?" you asked holding his eyes with yours again. "You" he said simply, you rolled your eyes at his words, but despite that you felt it. That warmth spreading in your chest, traitorous and loud.

You look back at the blurs of red and green in the distance. Relishing in the warmth, instead of filing it away. You all talked about the game as the breeze picked up and your shoulders caved in, as if to shield yourself from the cold.

You then felt an arm snake around your shoulders, Jungwon pulled you into him and rubbed up and down your arm, you pressed further into his warmth. "Comfy?" he smiled looking down at you. You nodded looking up at him, "Me too." he said, with a sheepish grin — making a point to rub harder against your arm for a moment.

Your friends snickered at the two of you, but neither of you noticed — too caught up in the quiet little world you always seemed to fall into together. Conversation flowed easily, effortlessly, the kind you’d forget the details of later but remember the feeling of.

His chest vibrated under you as he spoke, sneaking glances at you. Every so often, his voice would dip, like he was saying something just for you — even when it wasn’t anything important at all.

It's not like you hadn't been in this position before, you had been enough times that this wasn't new. Only it was. Your heart beat faster now, harder against your chest. You were certain he could hear it.

You also knew, somewhere along the way, that this was another shift — another quiet turning point in something that had always felt steady. A new line drawn without either of you acknowledging it, one that would change the shape of everything after.

The game blurred by, you and Jungwon cheered and whined at each-others teams as each of them scored points. He would never admit it but he was secretly rooting for Slytherin to win. For… morale. Just so Ni-ki could come back flashing that boyish grin you all inevitably cooed over, that was the reason.

Not the way you leaned forward with every play, eyes lit with excitement or the way your hand tightened in his sleeve whenever the score shifted. Not the way your voice carried just a little louder when it was your house pulling ahead. Definitely not that.

The commentator was drowned out by Jake's own commentary, full body reactions, dramatic gasps, like he was personally responsible for the outcome. It’s funny, it is, but you’re only half there because Jungwon’s hand is still on you. "Oi, focus!" Jake’s voice cut through as he pointed wildly at the pitch, "Ni-ki’s about to lose his mind—" You laughed softly, but your attention didn’t fully leave Jungwon.

Not when his hand slid just a little further down your arm — not unfamiliar, just more intentional than before as though he was testing something too. The last few minutes of the game had you all perched at the edge of your seats — tension coiling tighter with every second, every pass, every near miss.

It peaked when Ni-ki suddenly dipped — sharp and brutal, a near 90-degree dive as his eyes locked onto a fleeting glint of gold. "OH—" Jake practically folding over the railing, "—HE’S GONE—WHERE IS HE—" Just as you all stood up to look over the banister. He shot back up, a grin splitting across his face, fist clenched tight around the Golden Snitch.

The stadium erupted as the Slytherin team crowded around the blonde seeker, Beomgyu pulled him onto his shoulders and they all chanted the house name. But somewhere in the chaos, Jungwon grabbed your hand, you hadn't even register when it happened.

One moment you were cheering, the next — his fingers were laced with yours, his other hand thrown into the air with the crowd. The cheers mellowed like it had been pushed underwater. Your eyes trained on the space connecting you both, like they might explain themselves. He looked over at you, noticing your silence following your gaze to your hand in his. Your eyes snapped up to his, he didn't let go, he didn't pull away. He only looked over your expression carefully.

"Hey." he spoke softly, quietly — just for you. "Hi." you returned, feeling that familiar flutter in your stomach, the one that the buzz of alcohol had barely dampened.

"Is this okay?" he asked squeezing your hand for a moment, your heart stuttered. "This is okay." you nodded. A smile stretched onto his face as his thumb circled your skin. Enough to quiet the doubt that had been clawing at you all day.

As the players all made their way back inside and the cheers had subsided you all hurried inside, to the warmth. "The party then?" Heeseung said making you groan. "You don't whine remember?" Jungwon said catching your wrist as you pulled away.

"Wasn't whining." you muttered, he rolled his eyes. "You're not actually gonna drag me?" you scoffed, your voice trailed off with a hint of doubt as you watched an evil grin mould onto his lips.

"You can make this easy and just come with me— us." he tilted his head with a hint of a pout on his lips. You stared at him for a second.. debated your life choices.

"Whatever." you rolled your eyes letting him drag you along to the Room Of Requirement because apparently your free will stopped working around him. The doors of the Room of Requirement opened to something entirely different this time vast and open, the ceilings stretching high above with dark stone beams crossing overhead. Fairy lights draped between them, casting a warm, golden glow that softened everything it touched.

Sofas were scattered across the room in uneven clusters, already claimed by groups of students, laughter spilling between them. In each corner, makeshift bars lined the corners, bottles everywhere, drinks being poured like consequences weren’t real.

"See?" he murmured, leaning slightly toward you, his voice low enough that it barely carried past your ear. "Not so bad." But he wasn’t looking at the room. He was looking at you.

The soft buzz that had been carrying you through the evening was starting to dull at the edges, thinning out into something far less convincing. You needed more than this half-hearted warmth for what you had planned. You grabbed a couple of bottles and some glasses from the bar, weaving your way back to the corner your friends had claimed earlier.

"I was about to come look for you," Kenny said the second she spotted you, her voice half-laughing, half-knowing. "Thought you’d already wandered off."

When you drank, you wandered. That was just a fact. Slipped away from conversations, from rooms, from people. Chasing distraction wherever it led, no real destination in mind. Your laugh came out as a exhale through your nose as you set everything down. "Not yet," you murmured, already reaching for a glass.

Everyone was sprawled out on a corner sofa, Jungwon sat at the edge with a twinge of amusement playing on his lips — he watched as you topped some unknown liquid off with some coke. You took a safety sip. Your sip turned into another as you deemed it drinkable. The room pulsed with low, bass-heavy music, something nostalgic bleeding through the speakers as your friends broke into loud, overlapping chatter about the game.

You looked up from your glass and caught his eye, and just like that — he tilted his head, a quiet invitation. Come here. You hate that it works. You moved without thinking, slipping into the space beside him at the edge of the couch. It was closer than usual.

His hand snaked around your back settling on your hip. "Got enough space?" he murmured, leaning in close enough that his voice brushed against your skin instead of reaching your ears. You blinked once. twice, suddenly your brain wasn’t keeping up with your body. "Yes— yeah I do" you said softer than you'd anticipated. Your voice had given you away. His eyes held yours for a second too long, lips curling up. "Good."

His gaze dipped, catching on the dark liquid in your glass. You followed it, then nudged it slightly toward him, tilting your head just a fraction. He took it, fingers brushing with yours, eyebrows furrowing for a moment as he sniffed experimentally. His eyes were on yours the whole time, he took a sip from where your lips touched the glass — expression morphing into subtle delight at the taste.

"Strong," he muttered, lips quirking slightly. You nodded like you hadn’t just noticed that and let your gaze drift across the room, swaying slightly to the music as the alcohol settled warm beneath your skin.

Jungwon didn't look away once, not when you turned, not when you laughed, not when you lost yourself in the rhythm. His eyes stayed on you like you were the only thing in the room worth watching.

It didn’t take long for the winning team to burst through the doors, loud and electric with energy. Ni-ki and Beomgyu led the way, the golden trophy gleaming under the soft glow of the fairy lights as cheers erupted around them. You smiled easily, stepping forward with the others.

"Your drop was insane, Riki," you added, nudging him lightly. He broke into that familiar boxy grin, pulling you into a quick side hug before being dragged into more congratulations. You poured another drink not long after, feeling the buzz deepen as the night went on. Enough to make the world feel lighter, hopefully enough to make you braver.

You got up at some point as someone asked the room to create a dance floor in the centre of it. The room shifted, glowing softly as it cleared, colours flickering across the floor like something alive. People flooded in almost instantly, laughter rising with the music. You were about to stay exactly where you were because, realistically, dancing in a crowd wasn’t usually your thing — but then you felt Jungwon stand beside you.

"You wanna dance don't you?" he grinned reading you. You turned to him, a small laugh slipping out. "I think I’m at that point." He reached for your hand and you let him. He guided you to the floor with a smile that was tugged between his teeth, one you couldn't see as you walked hand in hand. You also didn't notice the figure that stood somewhere along the side of the room with a glare directed at you.

Jungwon turned as he reached the dance floor and pulled you closer, you took his other hand in yours. Whatever this feeling was, you concluded you liked it and then the music switched and you gasped.

[ SLOW DANCING IN THE DARK > JOJI ]

"Fuck, I love this song." you smiled. Jungwon pulled you closer, hands now safely on your waist. "I know." he said, softer now. "Did you—" you started, but he cut you off with a playful roll of his eyes, spinning you once before pulling you right back in. A laugh slipped out of you anyway, bright and unfiltered, dying the second your body met his again. Your arms found their place around his neck without a second thought.

"Hi." he whispered. So close, close enough that you could feel his breath, see the way his eyes flickered not steady but blown out and uncertain in a way you’d never seen before. "Hi," you echoed, your fingers drifted to the hair at the nape of his neck as the lights shifted over his face in soft, changing colours.

"You've been different today" he started carefully. You tilted your head slightly, studying him. "Good or bad?" you asked. "So good" he said with no hesitation, "Yeah?" you murmured, a hint of a smile pulling at your lips.

"Yeah," he nodded, hands pressing lightly into your waist — like he needed to be sure you were still there. Jungwon’s thoughts tangled over themselves, something settling in his chest but not from the alcohol. It had him finally thinking, what if she feels what I feel?

"C'mon let's grab a drink." you said stepping back and taking his hand. He pouted just for a second, at the loss of your weight against him but it vanished the moment your fingers slipped into his. His grip tightened instinctively, like it settled something in him. You caught Kenny’s smile as you walked back, that knowing one she usually threw at you. This time, you didn’t brush it off. You smiled back.

You were halfway through your drink when you felt it, that familiar prickle of being watched. The universal experience of someone staring at you too hard, with one look around the group your eyes met Beomgyu's.

Too late to pretend you didn't notice. He tilted his head slightly, subtle, motioning toward the door. You hesitated for half a second, stomach dropping and then you nodded.

You turned to Jungwon, whose eyes were already on you, like he’d been waiting.

"I'll be right back." you said to him, squeezing his hand. A silent promise more than anything, he nodded once — squeezing back, thumb brushing lightly against your knuckles before letting go.

You got up and headed to the door, walking through and leaning against the wall as you and Beomgyu settled outside — the sound of music being drowned into silence as the door swung shut. You leaned against the wall as Beomgyu joined you, hands shoved into his pockets, a sheepish grin tugging at his lips.

"Hey," you said, tilting your head. "What’s up?" He exhaled through a small laugh. "I just—" he scratched the back of his neck, glancing at you, "I wanted to ask about you and Jungwon. Again." You huffed out a quiet breath, already knowing where this was going. "I noticed things felt… different," he added.

You looked down at your hands for a moment, fingers fidgeting slightly. "Yeah.. there has been a development" You glanced back up at him. "On my side, at least" Beomgyu didn’t even hesitate. "It’s reciprocated," he said with a small laugh, nodding like it was obvious. "Like— painfully obvious." You breathed in sharp at that.

Good to know you’ve been the only one missing that for four years. "But I just wanted to make sure," he added quickly. "I wasn’t lying before," you said, frowning slightly. "I just— didn’t realise," You started.

"No, no," he cut in, shaking his head with a small smile. "You’re good. We’re good." Relief flashed across your face "Okay, I'm glad."

"You should say something to him though." he added. "I will," you murmured, more to yourself than to him.

"Soo," he dragged out, nudging your shoulder lightly, "what are you waiting for?"

That question followed you all the way back inside. Through the noise, past the lights and the crowd that blurred around you as your eyes searched and found him.

Jungwon. Stood with Penelope, not too close. Nothing anyone else would question but close enough that it feels intentional. Close enough that you noticed. "You came," she said, soft, almost relieved like his presence meant something specific. Like he came for her. Your stomach turned and something bitter ran up your throat.

Your chest ached in this dull, persistent way like something was pressing there, not hard enough to break anything, just enough to be constantly noticeable. Which was worse, honestly. You could deal with sharp. You told yourself it was nothing. Jungwon’s expression was neutral — polite, attentive in that way he is with people he doesn’t want to be rude to. He’s listening, nodding slightly, but there’s no real weight behind it.

She says something else, quieter this time, leaning in just slightly like she doesn’t want anyone else to hear. He glances around for a second — quick, then back at her, responding with something short.

He’s not pulling away or shutting it down. He wasn’t doing anything that would let you go oh, I’m being dramatic. That’s what got you, not what he did, but what he didn’t do.

Your jaw tightened as you turned away, slipping back into your group like nothing had happened. As though you hadn’t just stood there analysing every second of that interaction like it meant something. You grabbed a drink, didn’t even register what it was — just needed something to do with your hands.

Don’t look, not at her handing him a drink. Not at him hesitating, then taking it anyway. You didn’t see him notice you were back or the way he excused himself with something vague, already moving before she could respond. "Hey," he said, quieter now, like the room had shrunk down to just the two of you. "Hi," There was a beat. A shift.

"I didn't see you come in," he started, sitting besides you. Wonder why. The thought came automatically, dry and sharp, but you didn’t let it show. Your eyes flicker to her, just for a moment. He followed your line of sight, not obviously. "Just got here a couple minutes ago." you said.

"Yeah, I—" he huffed a small breath, like he’d rather skip over whatever explanation he could give. "She just stopped me." You didn’t respond, didn’t ask. "She was asking about something for class," he added anyway, quieter this time.

Your fingers tightened slightly around your glass. "Right," you said, like it mattered. He paused watching you, "I wasn’t… staying." He said, softer. That made you glance at him properly. He looked like he wanted you to understand something he wasn’t fully saying. Your chest tumbled in that same dull, frustrating way and you looked away first.

"Okay," you said, a little too quick. He didn’t call it out, he just nodded once, like that was enough — for now. "I was looking for you, actually," he added after a second, almost like it was an afterthought.

"Yeah?" you said, trying to keep your tone even. "Yeah," he repeated, quieter. That was all it took, the quiet certainty in his voice, the way he looked at you like you were the only thing he’d meant to find — for that nagging ache in your chest to loosen, easing just enough to finally let you breathe.

"I was—" he started, then stopped, huffing a small breath. "Do you wanna—"

"The balcony?" you said at the same time. You both paused and then laughed, caving into each other a little. "Yeah," he nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. "The balcony."

He walked quieter than usual with that drink he had already taken a few sips from. Tonight, you were going to say it. Penelope doesn't matter, that didn't mean anything. You closed your eyes briefly, inhaling. Nerves crept in as you reached the balcony behind the tinted glass doors. He reached for your hand as you stood before the stone railing of the balcony. You had never felt so vulnerable, never entrusted something as fragile as your feelings to another person.

The cool air kissed your skin, a relief against the heat crawling up your neck and then you turned to him. Your fingers curled into his, his grip tightened almost instantly. "Y/n," Jungwon breathed, there was a flush across his cheeks, spilling down his neck. His hand held yours too tightly, almost desperate. "Yes?" you said, unaware you were holding your breath

"I don’t know how to say this…" he murmured, more to himself than to you, a quiet, almost shy smile tugging at his lips. "I think you know what I’m going to say," he added, letting out a small, breathy laugh. He took a sip of his drink and placed it down the stone railing. "I think I do too," you replied carefully, a smile breaking through despite yourself.

He mirrored your smile pulling you a little closer. For a second, everything aligned, like maybe all the overthinking, avoidance and quiet longing hadn’t been one-sided delusion. Then, something shifted. His eyes flickered. Not to you, but past you. Through the glass doors as though something had caught his attention. Your brows knit, your gaze followed his instinctively — but you didn’t understand what he was looking for.

You just knew you’d lost him for a second, his attention had slipped through your fingers. Your brows pulled together, your brain already scrambling to justify it. When he looked back at you, his expression had changed. Brighter, a full smile broke out, stretching across his face. Like whatever he’d been working up to wasn’t heavy anymore.

It was contagious, you couldn't help but smile at his smile, only yours came with a tilt to your brow. "Right— sorry, where was I?" he said, voice suddenly lighter, confidence replacing the earlier nerves like they’d never been there. "I think…" he started, taking a quick sip of his drink, like he needed it, like he couldn’t quite stay still, "I think I really like someone."

Your chest tightened but not in a bad way. Not yet, because obviously he meant you. You nodded, amused "Right, who is she?" you spoke, still smiling — even as something inside you began to sink.

"Ah, you know our potions class?" he said, almost fond. "Penelope." He looked over at the glass again, at her. You faltered for a moment, then you held your smile for a second longer, letting it settle into something softer, something that took effort to be there. Hope is so rude. It shows up uninvited and then ruins your life.

You didn’t shatter or explode or break in any loud, dramatic way. You just felt, disoriented — like missing a step in the dark. That sudden, disorienting lurch where your body forgets where it’s supposed to land.

"Oh." you exhaled letting your hand drop. Your heart ached in a way that felt… unauthorised, almost. As though it had no right reacting this strongly to something you were never promised in the first place.

He didn’t seem to notice. "Yeah," he continued, almost giddy now. "I noticed her a while ago… sometimes it feels like she just — lives in my head." Eyes soft and sparkly. How they would be for someone in love. That look, the one you thought meant something. The one you thought was yours.

You thought you were being smart. You had the upper hand because you weren’t saying anything but now you don’t even get to be angry. There’s no betrayal, he didn't lie or trick you. You had built something out of moments of eye contact and hope, which is actually humiliating when you put it like that.

And you smile, of course you do. You ask questions and play the part you’ve always played. The best friend, the one who listens because that’s what you are. That’s what you’ve always been.

Push it down before it has the chance to become visible, before it turns into something he might notice — because the last thing you want is for him to look at you and realize. That you’re not as unaffected as you’ve spent years pretending to be and somewhere between him talking about her eyes, her laugh, the way she made him feel — your mind drifted. Your gaze lifting past him, to the clouded night sky, stretched out above the castle.

"Y/n?" Jungwon laughed softly, the sound light and open. "Yes?" you breathed. Something in your chest had gone strangely still. "I think I love her" he said almost dazed. You felt sick, It wasn't even just jealousy. It was the realization, that whatever you were holding onto — hope maybe or just the possibility of more, it didn't exist how you wanted it to. The realization that you were never part of the equation.

"You should tell her." you said, in a voice you barely recognised as your own, stepping back towards the door. He didn't register anything you said, he just stared through that same glass and gawked. For a moment you stood still and forced your eyes to his profile, his parted curved lips, his glittering eyes.

Your heart ached at how easily he held that look for her. It was steady, unguarded. There was no hesitation, no flicker of self-consciousness, no quick glance around to see who might notice. It was simple. Just him and her. It was real, and it wasn’t you.

You turned on your heel and walked, because you were not about to let him see what that did to you. Not now, not ever. Past the dancing students and past your friends who weren't aware of anything that had happened.

Your stomach flipped in slow, nauseating waves and suddenly you were too aware of everything. Your voice. Your hands. How long you’d been avoiding eye contact with the world. You kept your expression neutral on autopilot, years of practice kicking in. Survival instinct, if you don’t react, it didn’t happen.

You wondered if you saw him clearly at all, or if you were just filling in the blanks with what you wanted to see. You found yourself in a barely lit abandoned classroom and sat down on the steps near the window. The window was cracked open, letting in cold air that didn’t help but felt deserved somehow. It probably hadn't been long, probably minutes, but it felt you had been there for hours.

At some point your hands had started shaking, small at first, then enough that you had to press them flat against your thighs to make it stop. Your jaw locked, teeth pressed together like you could grind the feeling out of your system if you tried hard enough.

You were angry, you didn’t do anger. You did quiet and distance You did the slow, controlled kind of detachment where things stopped mattering because you decided they didn’t but you were angry, because you had allowed this. You let yourself believe it meant more, more than friendship but this this was different. This was sharp, embarrassing because none of this was technically his fault.

You let the lines blur. You let yourself sit a little closer, stay a little longer, read into things you knew you shouldn’t. You let your friends talk, let Kenny look at you like she’d already written the ending, let Jake’s stupid comments sink in like they meant something, like it wasn't just in your head.

You sat with your shoulders slightly caved in, your leg bounced repeatedly. In the time you were sat dissociated you were stuck. Cutting your thoughts off as they crowded in, not letting them finish their sentence. Redirecting them to something, anything else but it kept coming back.

He didn’t hesitate. You tried focusing on anything else, the rough breaths you could barely manage. You swallowed hard, blinking rapidly when you felt pressure build behind your eyes. No, I'm not doing that. You ignored it, even when your vision blurred slightly — even when a tear slipped free anyway, trailing down before you could stop it.

You didn’t wipe it right away, you just let it happen like it didn’t belong to you. Eventually, you stood because sitting there felt worse and staying meant thinking and thinking meant feeling.

Jungwon felt as though someone had dimmed the lights in his head, except nothing felt wrong, in fact it all felt overwhelmingly right. At some point his thoughts had narrowed quietly, to her. Penelope. She became his centre without him allowing it. His body followed without his mind understanding or questioning the reality of why. Which is why he didn't notice your faux smile the way he would have, the way it held a second too long.

He would have once, you knew that. He would’ve tilted his head, narrowed his gaze just slightly, like he was trying to read something between the lines. He would’ve asked, "What’s wrong?" even when you insisted nothing was.

He sauntered into the room with the kind of confidence only deeply intoxicated people and stupidly pretty boys possessed. Music pulsed through the room walls, low enough to feel in your chest more than hear properly. Everything looked slightly blurred around the edges, Jungwon placed his half-empty cup down on the nearest table carelessly, some shimmering pearlescent liquid sloshing over the rim.

He then walked over to her with a set of nerves he had no memory of harbouring. She stood glancing over at him with a knowing smirk. The type of girl who looked like she collected secrets for entertainment. "There you are," she hummed and Jungwon smiled instantly, helplessly.

"Hey," Jungwon said, eyes wide in that soft, open way — the same ones she had wished, not long ago, had been on her instead. The one you’d spent weeks trying not to fall apart over.

"Hey handsome," Penelope replied smoothly, like she’d tested it beforehand. She set her drink down and passing him a refilled cup of the same pearlescent liquid, he took it without even looking.

It was around then that Jake and Heeseung had circled back after getting some air, expressions already exhausted from dealing with drunk idiots all night. Jake was mid-sentence when he noticed Jungwon, Heeseung followed his line of sight and both of them went quiet for a second. "Oh, for fuck’s sake," Jake muttered under his breath.

"Heyy Jungwon.." Heeseung started carefully, voice cautious in the way people spoke to someone standing too close to the edge of a cliff. His gaze flicked to the girl beside him — unfamiliar, unimpressed by the interruption.

"Hi guys." he grinned looking between them. The grin alone was enough to concern everybody involved. "This is Penelope!" he added, gesturing toward her as he shifted slightly closer, like it was obvious.

"Oh… hi?" Jake said slowly, exchanging another look with Heeseung.

"Uh—where’s Y/n?" For a fraction of a second, Jungwon went still — he inhaled, sharp as though he was discovering your existence for the first time and then it slipped away again. Gone so quickly Heeseung almost thought he imagined it.

"Oh, Y/n?" he said vaguely, already turning his attention back. The way he said your name made Jake’s eyebrows cock immediately, like he was recalling someone from a class roster.

"I don’t know, she left earlier." he mumbled unbothered before turning right back toward Penelope again, already distracted by whatever she whispered next. She giggled beside him and he looked at her like the sound made perfect sense. Jake physically recoiled, "What the fuck." Heeseung stepped in immediately, pulling Jungwon slightly aside. "Hey- what are you-"

"Did something happen?" Heeseung asked carefully, watching him with increasing concern. "Like before this. With Y/n or something?" Jungwon blinked at him, like the question was irrelevant. "Realised I'm in love with her" Jungwon said nodding, his eyes didn’t even leave Penelope. Heeseung shot him an appalled look, open mouthed and on the edge of annoyance.

"What?" he said flatly, disbelief breaking through. "In love with who?" Jake whisper-shouted, leaning in sharply. Jungwon barely reacted, his eyes held a softened mushy glint as he waved dozily at Penelope, who was giving his friends pointed looks. Jake immediately pushed Jungwon's head back down.

"Who the fuck is that?" he snapped, gesturing toward her. "Penelope," Jungwon repeated patiently like Jake was struggling academically (he was not). Jake snatched the cup out of his hand immediately.

"Alright. Enough, come with us." Heeseung said grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the exit, ignoring his whines and pleas. Penelope stepped forward quickly. "He wanted to stay—"

"Didn’t ask,” Jake snapped instantly." Jungwon continued whining the entire way out while Jake muttered increasingly aggressive threats under his breath, clutching the cup like evidence in a murder trial. Somewhere beneath all the haze clouding his mind, buried deep enough to almost disappear entirely, your name still sat quietly in Jungwon’s chest.

Jake also did the damage control, he spotted Kenny near the drinks table laughing at something Jay said, entirely unaware her night was about to get violently worse. "Kenny." Something in his tone made her smile drop immediately.

"We found Jungwon with some girl," Jake whispered quickly, glancing over his shoulder like he expected the walls themselves to start listening. "Talking about being in love and shit and Y/n is nowhere to be found." Her face shifted rapidly through about seven different emotions in under three seconds.

They both ran out the room, in opposite directions. Heeseung and Jake practically hauled Jungwon down the dungeon corridors toward the nearest empty potions classroom while he complained the entire way.

"Guys! Let me go-"

"Shut up." they snapped. The classroom door slammed shut behind them loudly enough to rattle the shelves, bottles clinking around the room. Jungwon stumbled slightly as they shoved him into a chair near one of the worktables.

Jake lifted the glass to his nose and inhaled, immediately pushing the glass away once the smell hit his nose. "It's Amortentia." he concluded, letting out a long suffering sigh before setting it back down. "Jungwon?" Heeseung crouched in front of him. "Can I see Penelope now?" Jungwon groaned dramatically, throwing his head back against the chair.

"If you tell us what happened with Y/n," he said steadily, holding his gaze, "then yes." he lied, Jake nodded supportively anyway.

He made a concentrated thinking face at the ceiling "I took her to the balcony, I think- I wanted to tell her.. about Penelope and I did and then I looked back and she was gone." he rambled.

Jake and Heeseung looked at each other with pained expressions. "Fuck." Jake breathed, because suddenly he could picture it too clearly — you standing alone on that balcony listening to Jungwon talk about loving another girl after everything, after the lingering touches, all those painfully soft moments neither of you knew what to do with, and worst of all. Jungwon probably sounded sincere when he said it.

You probably stood there hearing every word and believed him completely.

"Can I see-" "—No!" they shouted immediately.

You lent against the cold stone of one of the many balcony's around Hogwarts, the air was sharp and prickly — you could feel the goosebumps, it soothed you. "Y/n." Kenny’s voice cut through the silence gently, though there was an edge of exasperation underneath it. You don’t turn immediately, didn't trust your face yet, your eyes bored into the stillness of the night — across the Great Lake.

"Y/n." she repeated softer this time as she approached. A hand settled carefully against your shoulder, you turned around meeting her worried eyed with your tired ones. "It's just me," she spoke quieter, taking in the exhaustion behind your eyes. "Oh, sorry." you said, "No," Kenny sighed almost instantly, offering you a small smile. "Don’t apologise."

You didn't answer, the wind pushed through your hair softly as your eyes drifted back toward the lake. Kenny leaned against the railing beside you after a moment, careful not to crowd you too much.

"Where did you go?" she asked eventually. "A walk." you replied simply. Kenny hummed softly, "You always come back weirdly philosophical after walks." Her eyes moved over your face carefully, like she was trying to piece together what kind of damage had already been done.

"He told you about her, didn't he." you said as though you were talking about something casual. She paused, "Yeah. Well.. Jake did," Kenny replied gently, turning to you. You nod softly, attempting to look unbothered. "Don't do that," she murmured immediately, tilting her head. "What happened?"

"Nothing happened," you say, too quickly. "He just likes someone." Kenny blinks "Wait," she frowned. "Like actually?" You shrugged lightly like the conversation bored you. "Yeah." like it’s nothing. "He told me earlier."

"And you’re just… fine with that?" You lets out a short breath that almost sounds like a laugh. "Why wouldn’t I be?" Kenny turned toward you fully now, leaning forward slightly against the railing. "Because, you like him." The thing everyone apparently knew except the one person you wanted to know it. You shake your head, eyes dropping back down.

"It doesn’t matter."

"It does matter."

"He doesn’t feel the same," you say, firmly this time. "So it doesn’t matter." There’s something in the way you say it, like you're trying to convince yourself more than anyone else. She watches, carefully "Who is it?" You hesitate, just barely "Penelope."

"Who?" She raises a brow "She's in our potions." You say calm straight to the point. "And you’re okay?"

"Yeah." You shrug small "I told him he should tell her." The words tasted awful coming back out but that’s what a friend says, that’s what you are. Kenny's expression shifts "You told him that?"

"Of course I did," you say, like it’s obvious "That’s what you’re supposed to say."

"Not if it hurts you." You finally looks up at that, and there’s a flicker of something raw before it dulls. "I’m not hurt," you say. It’s quiet and you almost believe it. Kenny doesn’t call you out on it right away, she just studies you for a moment, then asks softly.

"What did you expect him to say?"And that was the question you weren't ready for, because your brain instantly reminds you how sure you were.

Your throat tightens, and for a second you can’t answer. Can’t even form the words without everything else slipping out with them. "Nothing," you says eventually. "I didn’t expect anything." A lie.

"Right." Kenny frowns almost sadly. A silence forms between you. Uncomfortable and loud, you clear your throat. "It's not a big deal," you add, stepping back, already closing the conversation before it can open into something dangerous. "So let’s not… do this again." You both know it’s not okay but it’s enough, for now. So instead she nods, "Let's go inside, get you warm."

The night blurred by the time you made it back to your room. You moved through it on autopilot, same routine, same steps, as if nothing had shifted or as if something hadn’t.

It took significantly more effort than either Jake or Heeseung would ever admit out loud to get Jungwon back to his dorm. Mostly because he would not stop talking.

And by the time they finally shoved him through the dormitory door, all three of them had looked seconds away from collapse. Jungwon stumbled toward his bed dramatically while Jake slammed the door shut behind them.

"I hate this school," Jake muttered immediately, "You say that every week," Heeseung replied tiredly, preparing something in the bathroom, "Because every week this castle invents a new problem." Jungwon dropped face first onto the mattress with a groan. "Penelope would understand me." he said muffled, Jake actually lunged towards him, "Don’t make me hit you."

Heeseung returned a moment later from the bathroom holding a glass filled with something dark purple and deeply suspicious looking.

"Drink," He said, pressing a glass of something dark and purple into his hand, Jungwon looked up slowly. "What is that." he frowned.

"Drink the fucking potion before I throw you into the Black Lake myself." Jake huffed, Heeseung nodded once in agreement. "Honestly at this point I’d help him." Their expressions — tired, worn down, entirely over it, left little room for argument. He sighed and drank it.

"Goodnight," Jake said flatly, the effect was instant, his body went slack as he dropped back against the pillows, breath evening out into a heavy, unnatural sleep.

Both of them exhaled, Jake dragged a hand down his face while Heeseung pushed Jungwon’s legs properly onto the bed. "That should keep him out until morning," Heeseung muttered. "It’ll wear off by then." Jake only nodded, quieter than usual.

Something about the entire situation sat heavily in the room now that the chaos had died down. The silence after disaster always felt worse somehow.

Morning came too loud, too bright. Jungwon groaned, dragging a hand over his face, pressing the heel of his palm into his eye as a sharp, splitting ache pulsed at the back of his skull. His mouth tasted awful, he blinked once, twice. Then he froze.

He sat up abruptly, breath catching as the night came rushing back in fragments — words, expressions, the certainty he’d felt. It had felt real, so real.

The party, Penelope’s face.. the overwhelming certainty sitting inside his chest every time he looked at her, intense enough to make him dizzy even now in retrospect. He remembered saying he loved her. Remembered meaning it in the moment with horrifying sincerity. His stomach turned. Did I mean it? No. No, that’s not right. Why did I say that?

And then, you. The thought hit harder than the headache and a mix of emotions followed in — anger, sharp and immediate at the realization that someone had drugged him.

Embarrassment, heavier, settling in his chest as he replayed what he’d said. How he’d said it, but beneath all of that, one stray thought, quiet and devastating in its simplicity.

She told me to tell her.. She didn’t care. Jungwon stared blankly at the floor now, jaw tightening slowly as another ache spread through his chest entirely separate from the headache splitting his skull open.

She doesn’t feel the same.

V 𓄧 lore accurate jungwon and riki ^. once again im sorry for making this 2 parts pls i wasn't going to i had no choice don't hurt meimsorry. she's alr at least 70% done. DAS RED RED DAS RED U SHOULD COME MESS WITH THE TEAMM EEE.

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𝐑𝐄𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐒 𓇬 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐈𝐀𝐓𝐄𝐃!!

[lac4ygal]

SECRETS THROUGH PASSAGEWAYS yang jungwon

You come home from three years abroad not by choice but for your grandmother’s funeral and walk straight back into YANG JUNGWON — lead businessman at Yang Industries and standing beside a life that doesn’t include you. Your grandmother’s will fractures your family, though it was already fractured, the letters she left begin exposing secrets, and the manor starts unravelling everything it’s been hiding — affairs, business ties, and truths no one wanted uncovered. Every moment alone with him drags you back toward those buried feelings since you were teens and makes you confront the one thing you never said; your grandmother planned this. But did she really bring you back just to watch your family spiral — or to force the two of you to face what she always knew was ‘meant to be’?

parings. . . yang jungwon x female reader ┃ wc. 27.7k

⟡themes. . . childhood best friends to lovers, second chance romance, right person wrong time, mutual pining, slow burn, angst with payoff, unspoken feelings, complicated relationships, love vs duty, rich family drama, inheritance drama, toxic family dynamics, sibling rivalry, jealousy, family secrets, corruption, old money, forced proximity, shared history, emotional repression, house as a character, flashbacks, happy ending

⟡content warnings. . . mature content (18+), fingering, oral sex (f), slight repression of breathing (fingers in mouth), penetrative sex, multiple orgasms, cowgirl, missionary, eye contact, light restraint (wrists pinned), praise kink, slight dom/sub undertones, loss of a loved one, grief, infidelity, family dysfunction and manipulation, emotional repression, mild angst, morally grey side characters​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

⟡now playing. . . Wicked Games by Chris Isaac // To Love by Suki Waterhouse // she heart by Cameron Cabelo

⟡laceys note // I really loved writing this and how the grandmother is so present in the story while not being present, she controls the whole narrative. The family secrets always just a matter of time before they came out. I put a lot of heart into this and I hope it shows, i didn’t indent for it to be this long but oh well! I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I loved writing! Enjoy💞 (ps I’ve rebloged with all those who asked to be tagged bc tumblr has a limit 😫)

THE FLIGHT FROM BARCELONA LANDED FORTY MINUTES LATE.

You didn’t mind. Forty minutes was forty minutes less of being home, and you needed every one of them. You sat in your seat while the other passengers stood and jostled for overhead luggage and you looked out the small oval window at the grey Korean sky and you thought about your grandmother’s hands.

The way they looked when she shuffled a deck of cards. The way she’d lay one down on the table and look at you sideways and say what does that tell you before you’d even had time to see the face of it.

She’d been teaching you something your whole life. You were still figuring out what.

Your phone had forty-three unread messages by the time you turned it off airplane mode. Thirty-one of them were from your sister Haeun. You read the first one — the lawyer says the reading is Thursday, I need to know what grandmother told you — and put your phone face-down on your thigh and breathed through your nose until the seat belt sign dinged off.

She hadn’t told you anything. That was the thing about Han Sooja. She never told you anything. She offered, suggested, implied. She left doors slightly open and trusted you to be curious enough to walk through them. Every Sunday for three years you’d called her from your apartment in Barcelona — the one with the yellow kitchen tiles you hated and then grew to love — and she’d talk about the garden, about the house, about whatever book she was reading, and at the end she’d say something that didn’t make sense until weeks later.

The last call had been eight days before she died. She’d asked if you still had the book she gave you before you left. Italo Calvino, the one about invisible cities. You’d said yes, it’s on my shelf, and she’d made a small sound of satisfaction and said good girl the way she used to when you found a hidden room in the manor, small and proud and like she’d been waiting. You hadn’t thought anything of it at the time. The book was in your carry-on bag right now. You didn’t know why you’d packed it. It had felt necessary in the way that irrational things sometimes do.

The Han family estate sat forty minutes outside of Seoul, through the kind of countryside that looked different in every season and the same in all of them. Your father had arranged a car. You sat in the back and watched the city dissolve into hills and treelines and you felt the specific vertigo of returning somewhere that exists more fully in your memory than in real life.

You hadn’t been back in almost three years. Barcelona had been good to you. Your degree, your small studio, your Sunday markets and your terrible attempts at Catalan and the way the light hit the Eixample buildings at five in the afternoon like the whole city was on fire. You had built a life there from scratch, which was something, which was actually a lot. You had been proud of the distance.

Now the distance was just kilometres you’d swallowed in nine hours and your grandmother was dead and the estate gates were opening in front of you and you were twenty-three years old and somehow eight years old at the same time. The manor was lit from inside. Warm amber in every window, the way it always looked in winter, the way it looked in every memory you had of arriving home from anywhere. Your chest did something complicated.

You were barely out of the car when the front door opened. Your mother came down the steps first. She looked beautiful and exhausted and somewhere behind her eyes was a grief that was doing battle with something sharper. She held you and you held her back and she smelled like the same perfume she’d worn your entire life and for a moment you just let yourself be held. “You look thin,” she said, pulling back to look at your face. Her hands cupped your jaw the way she’d done when you were small.

“I’m not thin.”

“You’re thin.” She said it like a conclusion and took your bag from you before you could argue. Your father appeared behind her. Tall, silver-templed, the kind of handsome that photographs well. He kissed your cheek and said welcome home, sweetheart and squeezed your shoulder and you smiled and said thank you and the whole thing lasted four seconds and felt utterly normal and you pushed down the small unnameable thing it stirred in you and went inside.

Haeun was in the sitting room with her husband Minjae, who was tall and quiet and had the energy of a man who had learned to occupy as little space as possible to survive his marriage. She stood up when you came in and crossed the room and hugged you and over her shoulder her eyes were already doing the thing — already calculating, already moving pieces around a board.

“You look wonderful,” she said, and she meant it as something other than a compliment.

“So do you,” you said, and you sat down, and you accepted the tea someone put in your hands, and you listened to your family talk around the actual subject the way families do, and you thought about your grandmother’s hands again. The way she’d lay a card down. What does that tell you?

You were so inside your own head that you didn’t hear the second car arrive. You didn’t hear the front door. You didn’t hear the voices in the hall. The first thing you registered was your mother’s posture changing — a small straightening, a social smile replacing the real one — and then the sitting room door opened and Jungwon walked in.

He was wearing black. Of course he was, it was a house in mourning, but it suited him in a way that felt almost unfair. He’d grown into himself in the years since you’d last seen him — not taller, he’d always been tall, but somehow more present, like he’d learned to take up the exact right amount of space. His father walked in behind him and then a woman you didn’t recognise, and then you did recognise her, you’d seen her tagged in photos online the way you absolutely had not been keeping track of, and her name was Seo Yerin and she was very beautiful and her hand was in the crook of Jungwon’s arm like she’d grown there.

Jungwon’s father greeted yours with the practiced warmth of two men who had been doing business together for decades. Your mother offered Yerin tea. Haeun said something charming. Minjae stood slightly behind Haeun and looked at the ceiling. And then Jungwon looked across the room and found you.

There was a moment — just a moment, small enough that you could convince yourself later it hadn’t happened — where his face did something unguarded. Something that looked like there you are and oh no at the same time. And then it resolved into a smile. Warm, professional, genuine enough to be dangerous. “You made it,” he said.

“I made it,” you said. He crossed the room and hugged you and he smelled different — something expensive, cedar and something clean — but underneath it was the same, was him, was the boy who had eaten your grandmother’s good biscuits and blamed it on you and laughed so hard he’d fallen off the kitchen counter. You pulled back before you held on too long.

“How was Barcelona?” he asked. His voice was careful. Friendly.

“Cold right now,” you said. “How’s the company?”

“Growing,” he said. And then, quieter, under the room noise: “She talked about you. Every time I visited. Said you were doing well.”

Something lodged in your throat. “She talked about you too,” you said. Yerin appeared at his shoulder like a weather system. Her smile was lovely and precise. “You must be the friend,” she said. “Jungwon’s told me so much.”

You held her gaze for exactly the right amount of time. “Good things, I hope,” you said pleasantly.

“Of course,” she said. And her hand found Jungwon’s arm again. And the moment sealed shut.

Dinner was the thing it always was in this house — too much food, too much wine, too much history in the walls. You sat across from Jungwon and next to your father and you told yourself to eat and listen and feel nothing in particular.

Your grandmother’s chair at the head of the table was empty and remained empty the entire meal. Nobody had moved it. Nobody had suggested moving it. It sat there with its carved wooden back and the slightly worn armrest where she’d rested her right hand for sixty years and it was the loudest thing in the room.

After dinner, when the adults had migrated to the sitting room and Haeun was performing warmth at Yerin with the energy of a woman collecting intelligence, you slipped out. The hallway was quiet. The manor at night had its own sound — old wood settling, the particular silence of high ceilings, the grandfather clock at the end of the east corridor that had been six minutes fast for as long as you could remember and which your grandmother had refused to correct because she said she liked having six extra minutes that nobody else knew about.

You stood in the hall outside the library and pressed your hand flat against the wall. Old wallpaper. Pale blue, faded at the seams. You knew what was behind it. Third panel from the left, your grandmother had said when you were nine, crouching down to your eye level with absolute seriousness, you push at the bottom corner, not the middle, because the middle is what they expect. And then she’d winked at you and Jungwon and said the house has more rooms than anyone thinks. That’s true of most things.

You pressed the bottom corner of the third panel. Nothing happened for a second. Then the soft mechanical exhale of something old and well-made, and the panel gave, and the smell of cool air and stone and something faintly like old paper came out of the dark.

You stood there looking into it. Behind you, very quietly, someone said: “You remembered.” You turned around. Jungwon was leaning against the opposite wall with his hands in his pockets, watching you with an expression you couldn’t quite read in the low hall light.

“You followed me,” you said.

“I saw you leave.” He pushed off the wall and came to stand beside you, looking into the dark passage the way you both used to as kids — like it was a dare, like it was an invitation. “I used to come here,” he said. “After you left. With her” You looked at him. “She’d make tea and we’d sit in the passage room with a candle and she’d make me do the crossword and not let me leave until I finished it.” He had a smile on his face.

Your throat did the thing again. “She never told me that,” you said.

“She never told me she called you every week either,” he said. “I found out from the phone records when we were going through her things.” A pause. “She listed you as the Barcelona girl in her contacts.”

A sound came out of you that was almost a laugh. It hurt a little on the way out. The passage waited. Dark, familiar, smelling of everything unchanged. “We should go in,” Jungwon said quietly.

“Now?” He looked at you sideways and for a second he was twelve years old and the whole world was just this house and summer and whatever stupid adventure came next.

“She would have wanted us to,” he said. And the thing was — he was right. You both knew it. This was exactly the kind of thing she would have engineered if she could have. And the thought that maybe she had — maybe this was the beginning of something she’d set in motion from a long way back — made the back of your neck prickle. You reached into the dark for the torch she’d always kept on the inside ledge. It was there. Fresh batteries. Recently placed. Of course it was. What does that tell you, she would have said.

You clicked it on. “Come on then,” you said. And Jungwon followed you into the wall.

The passage room was exactly as you remembered. Small, stone-floored, with a ceiling low enough that Jungwon had to duck slightly now in a way he hadn’t needed to at fifteen. There was a wooden table, two chairs that didn’t match, a candle in a brass holder with a box of matches beside it, and a shelf of books along the far wall that had nothing to do with the library on the other side of it. Your grandmother had curated this room the way she curated everything — deliberately, privately, with a logic that only revealed itself if you were paying attention. Jungwon lit the candle without being asked. Old habit.

You swept the torchlight along the bookshelf. Calvino. Borges. A Korean translation of an Agatha Christie you’d never seen before. Three books on architecture that made your chest ache with something fond.

And at the end of the shelf, propped against the stone wall like it had been recently placed and not forgotten, a tin box. Small, olive green, the kind that used to hold biscuits. You both looked at it. “That wasn’t here before,” Jungwon said.

“No,” you agreed. Neither of you moved toward it immediately. That was something she’d taught you both without ever making it a lesson — patience. The instinct to look before you touched. To let a thing be what it was for a moment before you decided what to do with it. You sat down in one of the mismatched chairs. Jungwon took the other. The candle made the room flicker and warm and very small.

“When did you last come here?” you asked.

He thought about it. “Two weeks before she died. She wanted to do the crossword and said the library was too bright.” A corner of his mouth moved. “She said fluorescent lighting was an act of violence against the human spirit.”

“She said that about my university’s studio lighting on a phone call once,” you said. “I’d sent her a photo of my desk.”

“She printed it,” Jungwon said. “It was on her dresser.” You looked at the candle flame. Three years of Sunday calls and she’d printed a photo of your desk and put it on her dresser and filed Jungwon under the boy who visits in whatever internal registry she kept and said nothing to either of you about the other and you had both thought you were each grieving her separately and privately and it turned out she had been holding you both the whole time, one in each hand, like she always had. “I should have come back sooner,” you said. You hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Jungwon was quiet for a moment. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to. She was proud of you being there.” He paused. “She showed me your graduation photos.”

“She wasn’t at my graduation.”

“I know. But you sent them to her.” He looked at the table. “She showed me on her phone. Stood there in the garden and made me look at every single one and told me what each building in the background was.” A beat. “She knew all of them.” Of course she did. Han Sooja had read every book in this room and a thousand more and had never once made a performance of knowing things.

You stood up and crossed to the shelf and picked up the olive tin. It wasn’t locked. The lid lifted with the soft resistance of something sealed against air and inside was not another letter, not yet, but a folded piece of paper and beneath it a photograph and beneath that a single playing card.

The seven of spades. You picked it up. Turned it over. On the back, in her handwriting — small, precise, the handwriting of someone who had learned to write when paper was expensive: Not everything buried is lost. Some things are just waiting for the ground to be ready. — start with the east corridor, third door.

Jungwon leaned over and read it. His shoulder was warm against yours. “The east corridor,” he said.

“Third door is the old study,” you said.

“Your father and mine use it when they’re doing paperwork. She always hated that.”

Something shifted in Jungwon’s expression. Not much. Just enough. “Why did she hate it?” you asked.

He picked up the tin lid and turned it over in his hands. “I don’t know,” he said. Which meant he knew something and wasn’t sure yet whether to say it. You let it sit. Patience. Look before you touch.

You folded the note back up, put it in your pocket, and placed the seven of spades carefully back in the tin. “Tomorrow?” you said.

He nodded. “Tomorrow.”

—

The will reading was at ten in the morning in the manor’s formal sitting room, which your grandmother had always called the room where people go to say things they’ve rehearsed.

The family lawyer, an older man named Mr. Oh who had been handling Han Sooja’s affairs for thirty years, sat at the writing desk with a folder open in front of him and his reading glasses pushed to the end of his nose. Your mother sat straight-backed in the good armchair. Your father beside her. Haeun on the small sofa with Minjae, who had the expression of a man attending something he had been asked to attend and was determined to survive neutrally. The Yang family were not present for this — this was immediate family, just yours, just the people your grandmother had chosen to name. And it surprised you that she hadn’t named Jungwon.

You sat in the chair nearest the window. Old habit. Whenever your grandmother held court in this room she’d saved that chair for you because it got the best light and she knew you liked to draw in the margins of things.

Mr. Oh read the preamble in the formal language of legal documents and your mother’s posture got incrementally straighter with each clause and Haeun’s hands in her lap were very still in the way that meant they wanted to be doing something else. The estate. The grounds. The property in full — to you and Haeun jointly, held in trust until such time as you both agreed on its future. Haeun’s shoulders dropped a fraction. Okay. Shared. That was manageable.

The financial holdings, the investments, the accounts — split equally between the two of you. Still manageable. Still even. Your mother’s face was carefully neutral.

And then: The personal correspondence, the private library, the contents of the third floor study, and sole guardianship of the estate’s architectural records and original documents — Mr. Oh paused in the way lawyers pause when they know what they’re about to say will change the temperature of a room — to my granddaughter, Y/N, who has always understood that a house is not a building but a living record, and who I trust to know what to do with what she finds.

The room was very quiet. You felt your mother look at you. You didn’t turn. Haeun said, lightly, carefully, as if the words hadn’t been sitting in her mouth for thirty years: “The architectural records.”

“All original documents pertaining to the construction and modification of the estate,” Mr. Oh confirmed. “Floor plans, correspondence, modification records. All to your sister, as specified.”

“I see,” Haeun said. Her voice was a closed door. Mr. Oh continued. There were smaller bequests — to staff, to a charity your grandmother had supported quietly for decades, to a cousin you barely knew. A piece of jewellery to your mother, significant and old and chosen with the precision of someone who knew exactly what a gift could mean and what it could also withhold. Your mother held the jewellery box in her lap and looked at it and you saw, briefly, the grief crack through the composed surface of her face.

She had loved her mother. Whatever else was happening in the register beneath that love, the love was real and it was enormous and she was going to feel both things at the same time for a very long time.

The reading ended. Mr. Oh gathered his papers. Minjae quietly offered to fetch tea as a reason to leave the room. Your father stood and shook Mr. Oh’s hand. Haeun stood up and came to you. “Congratulations,” she said. The word had nothing to do with congratulations.

“I didn’t ask for it,” you said.

“No,” she agreed. “You never have to.” She left the room. You watched her go and thought about the seven of spades in the tin box in the passage room and your grandmother’s handwriting and the specific, deliberate way she had chosen to distribute what she knew and what she owned. Not everything buried is lost.

Your father’s hand on your shoulder again. That same four-second warmth. “Your grandmother loved you very much,” he said.

“She loved all of us,” you said.

He smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course,” he said. “Of course she did.”

Six weeks before she died — Sunday, Barcelona, 4pm

The light through your kitchen tiles was doing the thing it did in late autumn, coming in flat and amber and making everything look like the inside of a memory. You had your phone wedged between your ear and your shoulder and you were attempting to re-pot a plant that had been dying slowly since August.

“The Calvino,” your grandmother said. “You still have it?”

“On my shelf,” you said. “It’s been there for three years, Halmoni.”

“Good.” That sound of satisfaction. “I want you to read it again before you come home.”

“I’m not planning to come home.”

“I know,” she said. Not sadly. Just factually, the way she said most things. “Read it anyway. There’s a passage in the chapter about Octavia — the spider-web city — that I want you to think about.”

You looked at your dying plant. “About what?”

“About the nature of what holds things together,” she said. “And what happens when you finally look down.”

You’d laughed a little, because she was always doing this, always dropping things into conversation like seeds into soil. “You could just tell me what you mean.”

“Where would be the fun in that,” she said. Not a question. The plant lost a leaf. You caught it. “Jungwon came by yesterday,” she said, at the end, in the place where she always put the things that mattered most.

You were quiet for a second too long. “How is he?” you asked, carefully.

“The way young men are when they’re doing the right thing for the wrong reasons,” she said. “He brought me tangerines. He stayed for four hours.” A pause. “He asked how you were.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That you were building something beautiful and that you missed home more than you admitted.”

“Halmoni—”

“I told him the truth,” she said serenely. “Goodnight, my girl.” The call ended. You stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen in Barcelona with a dead leaf in your hand and the flat amber light going dark around you and you thought about Jungwon asking how you were. You didn’t call him and you could almost see your grandmother's disarming look.

—

Your grandmother’s bedroom was at the end of the east wing. Nobody had gone in since she died. You could tell by the way the door resisted slightly when you turned the handle — not locked, just untouched, the air on the other side of it thick and still in the way that rooms get when they’ve been holding their breath. The staff had respected it. Your mother had respected it, or avoided it, and those two things looked identical from the outside. You went in alone.

The curtains were half-open the way she always kept them — enough light to see by, not enough to bleach the colours, she’d said once, about curtains and about most other things. Her bed was made with the precise, almost architectural tidiness of a woman who had made her own bed every morning for eighty-one years. On her nightstand: reading glasses, a glass of water someone had forgotten to remove, a library book three weeks overdue, and a small framed photograph.

You crossed the room and picked it up. It was the two of you. You and her, you couldn’t have been more than ten, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the passage room with a candle between you and a crossword spread out on the stone floor and your face screwed up in concentration. You had no memory of the photo being taken. You had no idea who had taken it. You stood there holding it for a long time. Then you put it down, carefully, exactly where it had been, and you looked at the room.

She had left it for you to find. Whatever it was. You knew that the way you knew the batteries in the torch had been fresh — she had arranged this, she had thought about you standing in this room, she had trusted you to look properly. So you looked.

Her desk first. Neat, deliberate. Correspondence in one pile, addressed and stamped and ready to post — you’d find out later she’d written them in the last week of her life, small notes to old friends, a letter to a charity, one to Mr. Oh with an addendum to her will that simply read make sure she gets the Calvino back if she doesn’t bring it herself. Her pen in its holder. A magnifying glass. A small jade figurine of a rabbit that had sat on every desk she’d ever owned since before your mother was born.

You moved to the wardrobe. Her clothes, her good coat, a shelf of shoeboxes at the top. You pulled each one down and opened it with the care of someone who understood that your grandmother did not waste containers. Shoes in most of them.

In one — the second from the right, which was the kind of specific detail only she would have noted — a bundle of letters tied with kitchen string, and beneath it a leather notebook, and beneath that a folded envelope. Your name on the front. Both names. For my granddaughter and for Jungwon-ah — to be opened together, in the house, when the time is right. You’ll know.

Your hands were very steady. That surprised you. You sat on the edge of her bed — something you’d done a thousand times as a child, sitting there while she brushed her hair or told you something she wanted you to remember — and you held the envelope and you didn’t open it. Not yet.

She’d said together. She’d written both your names. She’d trusted you to know when the time was right and you knew, the way she’d taught you to know things, that the time was not right alone in her bedroom at nine in the morning while the house was waking up around you. You put the envelope inside your jacket, against your chest, and you took the leather notebook too because it had no name on it and therefore belonged to you the way all unnamed things in this house now did, you put the shoeboxes back exactly as you’d found them, and you straightened the bed where you’d sat, and you took one more look at the photograph on the nightstand.

There’s a passage in the chapter about Octavia, she’d said. About the nature of what holds things together. You’d read it on the plane. You’d sat in seat 24A at thirty thousand feet over France and read the passage about the spider-web city suspended over an abyss and the people who lived in it who did not think about the abyss because to think about the abyss was not the point. The point was the net. The point was the thing that held. The life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than that of other cities, Calvino had written. They know the net will only last so long.

You left the bedroom. You pulled the door back to exactly where it had been.

The leather notebook turned out to be a record. You found this out that afternoon, sitting on the floor of the passage room with the candle lit and your back against the cold stone wall, and it was not what you expected and it was completely what you should have expected because this was Han Sooja and she had never done anything without documentation.

It was dated across seven years. Small entries, some only a few lines, written in the spare economical way she wrote everything. It read less like a diary and more like case notes — observations, dates, names, figures. The early entries were oblique enough that you had to read them twice. The later ones were less patient with their own obliqueness.

Your father’s name appeared on the fourth page. And then a name you didn’t recognise. A woman’s name, recurring, with dates beside it and in one entry a location — a restaurant in Gangnam, a hotel in Busan, a work trip that had not been a work trip. Your grandmother had written these things in the same tone she used to note the weather or the overdue library book. No exclamation. No fury. Just the facts, recorded with the quiet, devastating precision of a woman who had known for years and decided that the right time to use what she knew was not while she was alive to be argued with.

Your father, the last entry about him read, dated eight months ago, has made choices that your mother has chosen not to see. I have chosen not to intervene in my daughter’s choices. But I have chosen not to reward his with my silence after I’m gone. He will know, when the estate goes to you, that I knew. That is enough.

You read that three times. Then you turned the page. The next section was about the company. Your father’s company and the Yang family company and the specific way they were connected, which your grandmother laid out in the same case-note fashion — dates of agreements, figures, the shape of something that had been built quietly over decades. You didn’t understand all of it. You understood enough. You understood that it was the kind of thing that would matter enormously to Jungwon, who was now running his family’s side of it, who had taken over from his father without knowing everything his father had built. Or maybe knowing some of it. You didn’t know yet what Jungwon knew.

The last entry in the notebook was not about your father or the companies. It was short, just four lines, and it was the only entry in the whole notebook that had nothing to do with documentation. I have watched those two children for fifteen years and I have been patient because patience was what was needed. They are both very clever and very stupid in the way that people are when they are in the middle of something they can’t see the edges of yet. I am leaving them the house and each other and every door I can think to unlock. The rest is up to them. I trust them. I always have.

The candle burned. You sat on the cold floor of the secret room your grandmother had shown you at nine years old and you held a notebook full of everything she’d known and you pressed the back of your hand to your mouth and you did not cry, quite, but it was a near thing.

—

You found Jungwon at the edge of the garden. He was standing at the low stone wall that separated the formal garden from the fields beyond it, the ones where you used to chase the chickens, the ones that looked in winter like a grey-green painting of themselves. He had his coat on and his hands in his pockets and he was looking at the fields the way you’d been looking at the manor from the car yesterday — like something that was more inside him than outside. “Jungwon,” you said.

He turned. Registered your face. “What happened?” You hadn’t known it showed. You’d been careful on the way out of the house.

“I found something,” you said. “In her room.” You took the envelope out of your jacket. Held it out so he could see both your names on it. He looked at it for a long time without moving. The winter fields were quiet behind him. The house was warm and lit behind you. You were standing exactly between the two of them, which felt like something your grandmother would have arranged if she could have. Maybe she had.

Jungwon reached out and took the envelope from your hand. He turned it over. Ran his thumb across the handwriting. “She wrote both our names,” he said.

“She said to open it together. When the time was right.”

He looked up at you. “Is it?”

You thought about the notebook in your jacket. About the woman’s name recurring through seven years of entries. About the company and the figures and the connection between your families that neither of you had been told about. About the seven of spades and the east corridor and the third door. About the passage room, two chairs, a candle. About him asking how you were from three years and three thousand kilometres away through the relay of your grandmother’s voice. “Not yet,” you said. “But soon.”

He nodded slowly. He held the envelope for a moment longer and then he held it back out to you. “You keep it,” he said. “She gave you the house. She’d want it kept here.”

You took it. Put it back inside your jacket. “There’s something else,” you said. “The notebook. I need to tell you about it. Not now, not here—” you glanced back at the house, at the lit windows, at the shapes of people moving behind glass— “but soon. There are things in it about the company. Your family and mine.”

Something moved behind his eyes. Just a fraction. “How much do you know?” he asked. His voice was careful. Professional. The voice he used in the sitting room, not the voice from the passage with the candle.

“Enough to know you might know some of it already,” you said. He held your gaze. The wind moved between you.

“Tonight,” he said. “Passage room.”

“Tonight,” you agreed. He nodded and turned back to the fields. You stood beside him for a moment, not saying anything, looking at the same grey-green view, and it was almost like being ten years old again except that you were both carrying things ten-year-olds don’t carry and the weight of it was very quietly changing the shape of everything.

“She kept a photo of us,” you said. “In the passage room. Do you know who took it?”

“She did,” he said. “She had one of those cameras with the timer. She set it up on the shelf.” A pause. “She has about fifteen of them. Of us, from different years. She kept them in the tin.”

You thought about the olive green tin. The photograph beneath the note beneath the playing card. “I only found the one,” you said.

“There’s a second tin,” he said. “She showed me once. It’s in the east corridor study.” He paused. “Third door.” You looked at him. He looked back at you. Not everything buried is lost.

“Tonight,” you said again. And you both stood at the wall in the winter garden and looked at the fields where you used to chase chickens and neither of you said anything about the thing that had been living in the space between you for longer than either of you had names for it yet.

—

The Yang family came at seven. Your mother had spent the afternoon directing the staff with the focused energy of a woman who needed something to control. The good dishes. The good wine. Flowers on the table that were tasteful and seasonal and had been ordered from the florist your grandmother had used for forty years because some things you don’t change even when you are quietly furious at the dead person who used to order them. You’d spent the afternoon in your room with the notebook open on your bed and your laptop beside it, cross-referencing what your grandmother had recorded in her careful case-note hand against what you could find publicly about your father’s company and the Yang Group. You’d built a partial picture. Partial was enough to make your chest feel tight in a way that had nothing to do with the altitude change from Barcelona.

You closed everything at six-thirty and got dressed and looked at yourself in the mirror of your childhood bedroom. The room still had your things in it. Sketchbooks on the shelf. A poster from a Barcelona exhibition you’d sent home because you’d had no wall space. A corkboard above the desk with old photos and ticket stubs and a hand-drawn map of the manor’s ground floor that you’d made when you were twelve and that contained, you now noticed, three rooms that weren’t on it that you’d known about since you were nine. She’d taught you to keep secrets the way other grandmothers taught you to knit. Quietly. Practically. With the implication that the skill would matter someday.

You put your earrings in and went downstairs. Jungwon’s father, Yang Junho, had the big laugh and the easy warmth of a man who had learned early that charm was infrastructure. He embraced your mother, clapped your father on the shoulder, kissed your cheek and said look at you, all grown up and making us all feel old in the way that powerful men say things to young women — benevolent, slightly proprietary, not quite seeing you. Yerin arrived in something that was architecturally perfect for the occasion. You noticed it the way you noticed good design — involuntarily, with a kind of professional appreciation that sat alongside everything else. She was very good at this. At the surface of things.

She found your eyes across the hall and smiled. You smiled back. Jungwon was behind her, talking to your father, and you watched the two of them shake hands and exchange the warm professional pleasantries of men from families that had known each other a long time and you thought about the notebook in your room and the figures on page four and the way your father’s hand had been on your shoulder after the will reading, and you kept your face very still. Haeun arrived late, which was a statement, with Minjae in tow, which was a footnote.

Dinner was served at eight.The dining room in winter was all candlelight and dark wood and the accumulated weight of every meal that had ever been eaten in it. Your grandmother’s empty chair was still at the head of the table. Still nobody suggested moving it or filling it. It sat there and presided. You were seated between your father and Jungwon’s father, which was either an accident of place settings or your mother’s idea of diplomacy or the universe testing your ability to eat soup while sitting on top of a secret. Jungwon was diagonally across from you. Yerin beside him, her hand on the table near his, not quite touching. She had positioned herself with the precision of someone who understood rooms and sightlines and what it meant to be seen next to the right person. You understood rooms and sightlines too.

The first course arrived. Conversation did what conversation does at these dinners — it found the safe channels and moved through them. Business. The economy. A mutual acquaintance’s new venture. Your Barcelona degree, which Yang Junho asked about with genuine interest and which you answered clearly and concisely and felt Jungwon listening to without looking at you. “Architecture,” Junho said, nodding. “Your grandmother always said you’d do something with buildings.”

“She said I’d do something with spaces,” you said. “She made a distinction.” Junho looked pleased by this in the way people look pleased when they’re reminded of someone they miss. “That sounds like her.”

“She was very specific about words,” Jungwon said. He was looking at his wine glass. “She used to correct my crossword answers even when they technically fit.”

“Because fitting and being right are different things,” you said, before you could decide not to. He looked up. Found your eyes. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what she said.” Yerin reached for her wine.

Haeun chose the main course to begin her campaign. She did it beautifully. That was the thing about your sister — she was genuinely skilled at this, at the long game of dinner table conversation, at the way you could introduce a subject so casually that by the time people realized they were discussing it they’d already committed to a position. “It’s such a comfort,” she said, during a lull, with the warm sincerity of a woman who had rehearsed warmth until it became real, “that grandmother’s things will stay in the family. The records, especially. The architectural history of this place.” A smile at you. “I know how much it means to you.”

“It does,” you said.

“It’s just interesting,” Haeun said, tilting her head slightly, “that grandmother felt those should be — separated out. From the general estate. Don’t you think, Mum?” Your mother’s expression didn’t change. “Your grandmother had her reasons.”

“Of course.” Haeun smiled. “She always did. I’m just thinking about practicality. If we’re going to manage the estate jointly, having certain documents siloed with one person seems—”

“Haeun,” your father said. Quiet. Warning. “I’m just raising it,” Haeun said pleasantly. “This is family. We can talk about family things.” The table had gone the particular kind of quiet where everyone is pretending not to listen while listening completely. You set your fork down. “Grandmother specified it in the will,” you said. “Mr. Oh read it out. I’m not sure what there is to discuss.”

“I’m not disputing the will,” Haeun said. “I’m asking whether it makes sense.”

“She thought it made sense,” you said. “I trust her judgment.”

“She was eighty-one and she hadn’t left this house in two years.” The silence that followed that sentence was a different quality entirely. Your mother put her glass down very carefully. Yang Junho cleared his throat and said something about the food being excellent, which was what men like him did when a table needed rescuing and he was the one with the social capital to do it. Your father laughed too quickly at something that wasn’t funny. Minjae became deeply interested in his plate. Jungwon wasn’t looking at your sister — instead at you — with an expression that was too controlled to read and too attentive to be neutral. Yerin said, lightly, pleasantly, into the recovering silence: “It must be wonderful to have a place like this to come home to. Even under sad circumstances.” She was looking at you when she said it. Even under sad circumstances. “It is,” you said. You held her gaze. “I’ve missed it.”

“Barcelona must be quite the change,” she said. “All that sun. All that distance.”

“I like distance,” you said pleasantly. “It gives you perspective.” Her smile stayed exactly where it was. “I imagine it does,” she said.

like it owed him something. “Your sister,” he said.

“I know.”

“She’s going to contest it.”

“She’s going to try,” you said. “She won’t succeed. Grandmother was meticulous.”

“She was,” he agreed. A pause. “She was meticulous about everything.” You thought about the notebook upstairs. The passage room tonight. The envelope against your chest earlier, both your names in her handwriting. “How much do you know?” you asked. Quietly. The same question as the garden, but in here it landed differently. In here it was just you two and the too-loud clock and the chipped tile and fifteen years of history in the walls. He looked at his hands on the table. “About the company — some. Not all. My father has been—” he paused, choosing the word— “selective about what he’s handed over.”

“Jungwon.”

“I know.” He looked up. “I know there’s something. I’ve been finding the edges of it for six months.” He held your gaze. “What did she leave you?”

“A notebook,” you said. “Seven years of notes. Dates, names, figures.”

He was very still. “My father’s name is in it,” you said. “Yours is too.” He looked at the table again. The muscle in his jaw moved once. “Tonight,” he said. “Show me tonight.”

“I will.” The clock ticked. The kitchen held you both the way it always had — indiscriminately, warmly, without judgment or agenda. Through the door you could hear the distant murmur of the sitting room. Your families on the other side of a wall. All their history and all their secrets and all the careful surfaces they maintained. “She sent me a tangerine once,” you said. Not because it was relevant. Because you needed a second.

Jungwon looked up.

“From the tree in the garden,” you said. “She packaged it up and posted it to Barcelona. Just one tangerine, wrapped in tissue paper, with a note that said the tree had a good year. Thought you should taste it. Nothing else.”

He was quiet for a moment. “She sent me a crossword clue once,” he said. “Just one clue. In the post. No puzzle, no page, just the clue on a card.” He almost smiled. “Seven letters. What two people share when they stop pretending.”

You looked at him. “Did you figure it out?” you asked.

“Eventually,” he said. He looked away first. “Honesty.” The clock ticked. The sitting room murmured. Neither of you said anything for a while, and the kitchen held you both, and outside the window the winter garden was dark and the fields beyond it were darker and somewhere in the walls of this house there were secret rooms and hidden documents and a dead woman’s careful architecture and the net was holding, still holding, over an abyss neither of you had looked directly at yet.

The door opened. Yerin stood in the doorway. Her eyes moved from you to Jungwon and back to you in a fraction of a second and her face showed nothing and showed everything. “There you are,” she said. Just to him.

“Just getting water,” Jungwon said. He stood up. Straightened. The professional composure settling back over him like a coat. Yerin’s eyes found yours one more time. The smile was small and precise and had teeth somewhere inside it. “Of course,” she said. Jungwon followed her out. You stood in the kitchen alone and listened to the clock tick and looked at the stool he’d been sitting on and thought about seven letters and everything that word contained and didn’t contain and how your grandmother had sent it to him in the post like a key and trusted him to find the lock eventually. You finished your water. You went upstairs. You sat on your bed with the notebook and the envelope and the Calvino and you waited for midnight.

—

Midnight in the manor sounded like this: The grandfather clock in the east corridor striking twelve with the particular resonance of something that had been marking time in the same place for longer than anyone alive could remember. The house settling into itself, old wood finding its resting position. Wind against the north-facing windows. And underneath all of it, the specific silence of a building full of sleeping people who didn’t know what was happening in its walls. You’d waited until one in the morning to be safe. You’d sat on your bed with the Calvino open to the Octavia chapter and read it three times and then put it face-down on the duvet and stared at the ceiling and thought about the crossword clue. Seven letters. What two people share when they stop pretending. Then you’d picked up the notebook and the envelope and the torch and gone to the third panel from the left.

Jungwon was already there. He’d brought a second candle and a blanket from somewhere, which was so specifically him — practical, quietly considerate, the kind of thoughtfulness that didn’t announce itself — that it did something small and inconvenient to your chest. He’d pushed the two chairs closer to the table and there was a thermos between them that smelled like barley tea and you stood in the entrance of the passage and looked at all of this and thought about your grandmother writing I have been patient because patience was what was needed and understood, not for the first time tonight, exactly what she had meant.

“You found the second tin,” you said. On the table beside the thermos: the olive green tin, open. And beside it, spread out in a loose arrangement, photographs. You crossed the room and looked at them. Fifteen photographs. Maybe more. All of you and Jungwon, all taken in this house, spanning — you picked them up one by one — what looked like a decade. You at nine in the passage room, cross-legged over the crossword, face screwed up in concentration. At eleven, standing in the kitchen covered in flour from some disaster you vaguely remembered involving a recipe and overconfidence. At thirteen, outside in the summer fields, both of you caught mid-run, the chickens a chaotic blur in the background, your face turned back toward the camera mid-laugh. At fifteen, sitting on the stone wall at the edge of the garden, shoulders touching, looking at something outside the frame, both of you with the particular quality of stillness that means you don’t know you’re being watched.

At seventeen. The last summer before Barcelona. The two of you in the library, you on the floor with a sketchbook, him in the armchair above you reading something, and neither of you looking at each other but the angle of your bodies saying everything that the lack of eye contact was trying not to say. Your grandmother had taken all of them. Arranged them. Put them in a tin in a secret room in the house she left specifically to you. I am leaving them the house and each other and every door I can think to unlock. “She documented us,” Jungwon said. He was standing beside you, looking at the photographs spread on the table. His voice was careful in the way it got when he was feeling something he hadn’t categorised yet.

“She documented everything,” you said. You sat down. He sat down. You poured the barley tea because your hands needed something to do. Then you put the notebook on the table. You walked him through it methodically the way your grandmother had recorded it — chronologically, without editorialising, the way she’d taught you to present information. Let the facts be the facts. Let them land before you decide what they mean. He listened without interrupting. That was one of the things about Jungwon that had always been true — he knew how to be still while someone was talking, genuinely still, not the performance of patience but the real thing. His father had it too but in him it felt like strategy. In Jungwon it had always felt like respect. You got to the woman’s name. The dates. The hotel in Busan. Jungwon looked at the notebook. “Your father.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Seven years that she documented. Possibly longer.”

He was quiet. “Does your mother know?”

“She knows something,” you said. “I don’t think she knows the shape of it.”

“Haeun?”

“I don’t know. Haeun would have used it by now if she did.” He nodded slowly. You turned to the next section. The company. The figures. The structure of the agreement between your families that had been built quietly over decades in the particular way that men build things they don’t want scrutinised — in pieces, in separate rooms, in the gaps between what was documented and what wasn’t. You watched Jungwon’s face while you walked him through it. He was very still. “You knew some of this,” you said. Not an accusation. A calibration.

“I knew the shape of it,” he said. “Not the detail.” He turned a page, read something, turned it back. “My father told me when I took over that there were legacy arrangements with certain partners that were — grandfathered in. His word. He said they were historical and that I didn’t need to concern myself with the mechanics, only the outcomes.”

“Did you accept that?” A pause. The candle moved. “For about four months,” he said. “Then I started finding things that didn’t add up and I started asking questions and my father told me I was looking too hard at things that didn’t need looking at.” He looked at the notebook. “I stopped asking questions to his face. I kept looking on my own.”

“What did you find?”

“Enough to know there’s a liability,” he said. “Enough to know that whatever this arrangement is, it would not survive scrutiny. Not legal scrutiny.” He looked at you. “Enough to know that if it came out, both companies would be implicated. Both families.” The candle. The stone walls. The photographs on the table.

“She knew,” you said. “She knew all of it and she left the documentation to me and she left you the crossword clue and she trusted us to—” you stopped. “To what?” he said.

“I don’t know yet,” you said honestly. “But she didn’t do this so we’d bury it again.”

He looked at the notebook for a long time. Then he reached out and turned to the last entry. Read it. His expression did something very quiet and very complicated. I trust them. I always have. He sat back. Pressed his hand over his mouth for a moment. Dropped it. “She should have told us,” he said. Not angry. Just — something underneath anger that hadn’t found its shape yet. “She told us everything,” you said. “We just didn’t have the key yet.” He looked at the photographs again. The one from the library, you on the floor, him in the chair, both of you tilted toward each other without knowing it. “She saw everything,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” you said. The word sat between you. Everything had a weight in this room, in this house, with these photographs spread on the table between you and the barley tea going cold and your grandmother’s handwriting on the pages of a notebook she’d spent seven years filling for this exact moment. You reached into your jacket and put the envelope on the table. Both your names. Her handwriting. Jungwon looked at it. “Now?” he said. You thought about the Octavia chapter. About nets and abysses and the things that hold. About patience, and what it was for, and when it ended. “Not yet,” you said. “There’s still the east corridor. The third door.”

He looked at you. “You want to go now.”

“I want to go now.” He almost smiled. It was the almost that got you — the way it stopped just short, the way the boy who had chased chickens with you was right there behind the composed professional surface, three millimetres from the outside, held back by three years and a girlfriend and a company and everything that had accumulated in the space your absence had left. He stood up. Picked up the torch. “Third door,” he said.

The east corridor at one in the morning was a different place entirely from the east corridor in daylight. The wallpaper, pale blue, faded at the seams, turned grey in the torchlight. The portraits of your grandmother’s family watched you pass with the unsettling patience of people who had been watching things happen in this house for a very long time. You moved quietly, both of you, the old instinct from childhood — sock feet on the floorboards, weight on the outside of the step, don’t breathe past the third portrait because the floor creaks. You didn’t breathe past the third portrait. Jungwon didn’t either. The third door. It was heavier than the others — solid wood, original to the house, with an iron handle that your grandmother had refused to replace with something modern. You turned it slowly and pushed and the room opened up in the torchlight.

Your grandmother had called it the old study. Your father and Yang Junho used it when they met here — papers spread on the desk, the door closed, the polite fiction of privacy in someone else’s house. It smelled of old paper and woodsmoke and faintly, underneath that, the cedar and something clean that you’d noticed when Jungwon had hugged you in the sitting room two days ago and had been careful not to think about since. He’d been in here recently. “You came here,” you said. Not an accusation. “After she died,” he said. He moved into the room, swept the torchlight along the walls. “I wanted to understand what my father and yours were doing in here. What they kept here.”

“Did you find anything?”

“The desk was clean,” he said. “Whatever they kept here they took when she died. Or before.” He stopped the torch beam at the far wall. “But she was smarter than that.” The far wall was bookshelves. Floor to ceiling, the same as the library on the other side of the passage, filled with the kind of books that accumulate in old houses — mismatched, well-read, organised by a logic that was entirely your grandmother’s. You crossed to them and ran the torchlight along the spines and then you remembered something. Third door, her note had said. And then: start with the east corridor. Not the room. The door itself. You turned back. The door was solid wood, original to the house. Iron handle. And on the back of it — you moved the torch slowly — carved into the wood at hip height, almost invisible, a small symbol. A circle with a line through it. The same symbol your grandmother used to mark the starting square of any puzzle she set you. Start here.

You crouched down. Ran your fingers along the bottom of the door frame. A loose board. Not rotten, not accidental. Deliberately loosened, the nails removed and replaced with something that held the board in place but gave when you pressed the right spot. You pressed the right spot.nThe board lifted. Inside: a metal document box, dark with age, sealed with a combination lock. Three digits. Jungwon crouched beside you. His shoulder against yours again. “She changed the combination every year,” he said. “She told me that once. She said the only constant was the starting number.”

“Seven,” you said immediately. He looked at you. “She always started with seven,” you said. “Every combination, every puzzle. Seven was the beginning. She said it was the only number that looked like someone thinking.” He took the box. Turned the dial. Seven. Then you looked at each other. “Her birthday,” you said. “The month.”

“Four,” he said. Seven. Four. One digit left. “The crossword clue,” you said slowly. “Seven letters. She sent it to you. The answer—”

“Honesty,” he said. “Eight letters.”

“No,” you said. “Think about what she actually wrote. What two people share when they stop pretending.” You looked at the lock. “She wouldn’t use the answer. She’d use the question.” Jungwon was quiet for a second. “The number of the clue,” he said. “She sent me one clue.”

“Which number was it?” He thought. The candle from the passage room was far away now, just a distant suggestion of warmth. In the torchlight his face was all shadow and focus and the particular expression he’d had at nine years old whenever a puzzle was almost solved. “One,” he said. “It was clue one across.”

Seven. Four. One. The lock opened. Inside the metal box: A folder of documents. Financial records, correspondence, agreements bearing both your fathers’ signatures, dated across fifteen years. The architecture of the thing your grandmother had recorded in her notebook, now in primary source form — not her observations but the actual evidence, the originals, the paper trail that would make a lawyer sit up very straight. She had not just documented it. She had collected it. For fifteen years she had quietly, methodically, with the patience of someone who understood that the right time was not now but was coming, gathered every piece of paper that passed through this house and made copies and built a case and put it in a box under the floor of the room where the men who didn’t know she was watching met to do their careful, private business.

Jungwon sat on the floor of the study with the documents spread around him and read. You sat beside him and read. The candle burned down in the passage room. At some point you’d both ended up with your backs against the wall beneath the window, shoulders touching, documents in your laps, and the torch propped against the skirting board pointing at the ceiling and making the room dim and amber. Outside, the manor was completely silent. Inside, the only sound was the occasional turning of a page.

Around three in the morning Jungwon said, quietly: “He knew I’d find this eventually.”

“My father?”

“Mine.” He turned a page. “He structured it this way on purpose. Grandfathered it in so that when I took over I’d inherit the liability without inheriting the knowledge.” He paused. “He was protecting himself. He thought if I didn’t know the detail I couldn’t be held responsible for knowing and saying nothing.”

“He was wrong,” you said.

“Yes,” Jungwon said. “He was.” You looked at the document in your lap. Your father’s signature at the bottom of an agreement dated eleven years ago. Neat, confident, the signature of a man who did not expect to be looked at too closely. “What do we do with this?” you said.

“I don’t know yet,” he said. “But we don’t bury it.” She didn’t do this so we’d bury it again. Your own words from earlier, back to you. “No,” you agreed. “We don’t.” You sat on the floor of the old study in the dark with the evidence of your families’ careful deceptions around you and the envelope with both your names in your jacket and the photographs in the passage room and the clock somewhere in the east corridor counting its six extra minutes that nobody else knew about.

Jungwon’s head tipped back against the wall. He looked at the ceiling. “I used to think about what it would be like,” he said, “when you came back.” You were very still. “I’d built this whole — picture of it,” he said. “You walking in. Me being normal about it.” A short almost-laugh. “I was not normal about it.”

“You were professional,” you said. “You were very professionally warm.”

“I know,” he said. He sounded tired in a way that had nothing to do with three in the morning. “I’ve been professionally warm about a lot of things for a long time.” The torch light flickered. Steadied. “Jungwon—”

“Not yet,” he said quietly. He turned his head and looked at you and his face in the low amber light was very close and very tired and very much the face of someone carrying something he didn’t have a name for yet. “I know. I know there are — I know.” You looked at him. He looked at you. The house was completely silent. “Okay,” you said. Quietly. “Not yet.” He nodded. Looked back at the ceiling. You both sat there for another hour, reading your families’ secrets in the dark, shoulders touching, not saying the thing, the envelope in your jacket ticking like a clock. Outside, eventually, the dark began to grey at the edges. “We should go back,” you said.

“Yes,” he said. Neither of you moved for another minute. Then he gathered the documents with the careful deliberate hands of a man who had decided something, put them back in the box, locked it. Looked at the combination — seven, four, one — and then at you. “She really did plan everything,” he said.

“Down to the last detail,” you agreed. He almost smiled again. Three millimetres from the outside. “Infuriating woman,” he said. With so much love it wasn’t an insult at all. You put the box back under the board. You both stood up. In the corridor you walked in single file, sock feet, outside edge of the step, not breathing past the third portrait. At the point where the corridor split — your wing, his — you stopped. He stopped. “The envelope,” he said.

“Soon,” you said. He looked at you for a moment. The grey pre-dawn light from the window at the end of the corridor fell across half his face and left the other half in shadow and he looked like something your grandmother would have photographed — like something that belonged to this house, to this particular quality of light, to the specific hour before the world woke up and everyone put their surfaces back on. “Okay,” he said. He went left. You went right. You lay on your bed as the manor began to fill with the sounds of morning and you stared at the ceiling and you held the envelope on your chest over your heartbeat and you thought about seven letters and what they contained and you thought:

Soon.

—

You slept for three hours. It wasn’t restful sleep — it was the kind that happens to you rather than for you, pulling you under between one thought and the next and depositing you back on the surface before you’d actually recovered from anything. You dreamed about the passage room. About the photographs spread on the table. About your grandmother’s handwriting, the letters getting smaller and smaller until they were too small to read and you were pressing your face to the page trying to find the last thing she’d written and waking up with your cheek against the envelope. You lay there for a moment with the morning light coming through the curtains at the angle your grandmother had approved of and you listened to the manor breathing around you.

Somewhere below, the kitchen was already alive — the smell of rice and something warm coming up through the house the way it always had, the particular smell of this house in the morning that had lived in your memory for three years like a frequency you couldn’t quite tune out. In Barcelona your mornings smelled like coffee and exhaust and the bread from the bakery two streets over. You had loved that smell. You had also, on certain mornings, stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen and closed your eyes and tried to remember this one.

You got up. Showered. Dressed. Put the envelope in the drawer of your childhood desk beneath a sketchbook, which felt both insufficient and like exactly what your grandmother would do — hiding things in plain sight, in the most obvious containers, trusting the right people to know where to look. Then you went downstairs. The kitchen at eight in the morning held your mother, a cup of tea, and the particular quality of silence that meant she’d been sitting there long enough for the silence to have settled into something deliberate. She looked up when you came in. Her eyes moved over your face the way mothers’ eyes do — reading something, calibrating, deciding how much to say. “You were up late,” she said.

“Couldn’t sleep,” you said. Which was true. She nodded. Looked at her tea. “Your grandmother used to do that. Walk the house at night.” A pause. “She said the house was different in the dark. That you could hear it thinking.” You poured yourself tea and sat down across from her.

In the morning light your mother looked her age in a way she rarely allowed. The grief was closer to the surface now, unguarded, the performance of composed widowhood resting somewhere else for the hour before the house fully woke up. She had loved Han Sooja with the complicated ferocity of a daughter who had never quite understood her mother and had spent sixty years trying to. That love was real. You had never doubted it. “Are you alright?” you asked.

She looked at you for a moment. Something moved across her face — an assessment, a decision. “I’m managing,” she said. Which was not the same as yes and they both knew it. You wrapped your hands around your mug and thought about the notebook. About the woman’s name and the dates and Busan. About your grandmother sitting in this house for seven years watching your father’s careful second life and recording it and saying nothing to your mother because your mother had chosen not to see and Han Sooja had respected that choice while quietly preparing for the consequences of it. You thought about how to carry what you knew and not let it show. You were apparently not as good at this as your grandmother. “What is it?” your mother said.

“Nothing,” you said. “I’m just tired.” She looked at you for another moment. Let it go. “Haeun called a lawyer this morning,” she said. Conversational. Almost. “Her own lawyer. She says it’s just to understand her options.”

“Of course she did,” you said.

“She’s not—” your mother stopped. Started again. “She’s not wrong that your grandmother could have been clearer about her reasoning. For the records. The architectural documents.”

“She was very clear,” you said, carefully. “She put it in the will.”

“I know she did.” Your mother’s hands moved around her cup. “I know.” A pause that had more inside it than its length suggested. “Your grandmother kept a great deal to herself. I accepted that. I spent my whole life accepting that.” Something small and old in her voice. “I sometimes wonder what she knew that she didn’t tell me.” The kitchen clock ticked. You looked at your mother’s face. At the grief in it, and underneath the grief the older, more weathered thing that had been there longer. The thing that had learned to sit next to an absence and call it marriage. She knows something, you’d told Jungwon. I don’t think she knows the shape of it. “She loved you,” you said. “She just loved you in her own way.” Your mother smiled. Small, tired, true. “Yes,” she said. “She did.”

You found Haeun in the formal sitting room at nine with her laptop open and a woman you didn’t recognise sitting across from her — late forties, professional, the kind of person who carries a briefcase as a personality trait. The lawyer. Already here, already seated, already opening something on her tablet. Haeun looked up when you came in. Her smile was immediate and warm and about as genuine as a show home. “Good morning,” she said. “You look tired.”

“Good morning,” you said. “I see you’ve been busy.”

“Just preliminary conversations,” Haeun said lightly. “You know me, I like to understand things properly. This is Ms. Bae, she specialises in estate law.”

Ms. Bae nodded at you with the professional neutrality of someone being paid to have no opinions. “Haeun,” you said. “Grandmother has been dead for three weeks.”

“I know that.”

“Her body is barely—”

“I know that,” Haeun said. Her voice didn’t change. Didn’t sharpen. Stayed exactly where it was, which was somehow worse. “I’m not doing this to hurt anyone. I’m doing this because grandmother made decisions that affect this whole family and I think it’s reasonable to—”

“She made her decisions very deliberately,” you said. “Specifically. With full possession of everything she knew and everything she was.”

“She was eighty-one and isolated and possibly—”

“Don’t,” you said. Quiet. “Don’t say it, Haeun. Not in this house.” A silence. Ms. Bae became deeply interested in her tablet. Haeun looked at you for a long moment. And then, beneath the performance of reasonableness, you saw something real — something that wasn’t greed, not exactly, but the older wound underneath it. The child who had grown up knowing their mother had a favourite. Not unloved but not — first. Never quite first. You understood it. You even felt for it. But you had a notebook upstairs and an envelope in a drawer and a dead woman’s trust and you were not going to let that be dismantled because your sister was still trying to win an argument with someone who was no longer here to have it.

“I’m not going to fight you,” you said. “But I’m also not going to make it easy. Whatever grandmother left me she left me for a reason and I intend to honour that.” Haeun held your gaze. “Fine,” she said. The warmth had gone down to its lowest setting. “Then we’ll let the lawyers talk.” You left the room.

Yerin found you at eleven. You were in the garden — the formal part, the clipped hedges and the stone paths, where you’d gone to be outside and think and be somewhere that wasn’t a room full of someone else’s agenda. You had your sketchbook with you out of habit, but you hadn’t opened it. You were just sitting on the bench near the old sundial, which had been telling the wrong time since the seventies and which your grandmother had also refused to correct. She came down the path alone. No Jungwon. That was intentional — you registered it immediately, the way you registered everything about Yerin, with the involuntary alertness of someone in the presence of a thing that requires careful watching. She was dressed impeccably even at eleven in the morning in someone else’s country house garden. She sat down on the other end of the bench without asking and crossed her ankles and looked at the hedge in front of her and said nothing for long enough that it became its own kind of statement. You waited. “You grew up here,” she said finally.

“Yes,” you said. “The families are neighbours.”

“But you treated this house like yours.”

“My grandmother lived here,” you said. “She made it feel like ours. Mine and Jungwon’s.” The name landed. You’d done it deliberately, put it out there plainly, because you were tired and had slept for three hours and were not in the mood for the slow-motion version of this conversation. Yerin turned and looked at you directly for the first time. She had remarkable eyes — dark, steady, the eyes of someone who had decided a long time ago that she would not be the one to look away first. “He talks about this place like it raised him,” she said.

“It did, partly,” you said. “His family’s estate is half a kilometre that way.” You gestured. “We were back and forth constantly. His mother and mine were close.” A pause. “He and I were close.”

“Were,” she said. “We haven’t seen each other in almost three years,” you said. “People change.”

“Do they,” she said. Not a question. You looked at the sundial. “I’m not here to cause problems,” you said. “I came home because my grandmother died.”

“I know why you came home,” Yerin said. And then, very precisely: “It’s not why you’re staying that I’m thinking about.” You looked at her. She looked back. That steady, unblinking gaze. “I know what you two were,” she said. “Not because he told me — he’s very careful about what he tells me. Because of the way he is in this house.” She paused. “He’s different here. He laughs differently. He moves differently.” Something moved across her face that was not quite hurt and not quite anger and was instead something more complicated and more honest than either. “I’ve been with him for a year and a half and I have never seen him laugh the way he laughed in that kitchen two nights ago.” The garden was quiet. You didn’t say anything because there was nothing to say that wouldn’t be a lie or a cruelty. “I’m not stupid,” Yerin said. “I know what his father wants. I know what my family wants. I know what this relationship is built on and I know what it isn’t built on.” She turned and looked at the hedge again. “But I’m also not going to simply—” she stopped. Started again. “I have worked very hard to be what he needs. What everyone needs him to have.”

“That sounds exhausting,” you said. Quietly. Without any edge. She was quiet for a moment. “It is,” she said. Which surprised you. The honesty of it, the sudden flatness of it, stripped of the careful surface. “It really is.” You sat with that. The sundial gave its wrong time to the grey winter sky. “I don’t have a plan,” you said. Truthfully. “I don’t know what I’m doing here beyond what I’ve told you. I came home for the funeral. I’m dealing with the estate. I’ll go back to Barcelona.”

Yerin looked at you. “Will you.”

“I have a life there,” you said.

“Yes,” she said. “You do.” She stood up, smoothed her coat, looked down at you with those steady dark eyes. “And he has one here. One that was built very carefully. One that a lot of people are depending on.” A pause. “I want you to remember that.” She walked back up the path toward the house. You sat on the bench and watched her go and thought about what she’d said and what she hadn’t said and the specific way she’d said I have worked very hard to be what he needs with the exhaustion of someone describing a job they are very good at and do not love. You thought about Jungwon laughing in the kitchen. The three millimetres. You thought about a net over an abyss and what it meant to finally look down. You opened your sketchbook. You didn’t draw anything. You just sat with the blank page.

He found you there at noon. He came down the same path Yerin had come down an hour earlier and you watched him come and thought about what she’d said — he moves differently here — and looked for it and found it immediately, the thing she’d named. He walked like the house was familiar to him at the cellular level. Like his body remembered it even when the rest of him was trying to be someone who’d moved on. “Yerin talked to you,” he said. Not a question. “How did you know?”

“She told me,” he said. He sat down on the bench — the middle of it, not the far end. Closer than Yerin had sat. “She said she needed to talk to you and I asked her not to and she did it anyway.”

“She loves you,” you said. He looked at the sundial. “I know.”

“And you—”

“Don’t,” he said. Quietly. You stopped. He sat forward, elbows on his knees, looking at the ground between his feet. His jaw was tight. The professional composure was not all the way up this morning — three hours of sleep and a garden and nobody watching except you and it had slipped. “I know what you’re going to say,” he said.

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“You were going to ask if I love her.” He paused. “The answer is that I care about her and I respect her and I have not been—” he stopped— “I haven’t been fair to her. I know that. I’ve known it for—” another stop. Longer.

“Jungwon,” you said. He looked up. “You don’t have to explain yourself to me,” you said. “We’re not—” you gestured vaguely— “I’m not owed that.”

He looked at you for a long moment. “That’s the problem,” he said. His voice was very quiet. “That’s exactly the problem.” The wind moved through the formal garden. Somewhere across the grounds a door opened and closed. The manor held its breath. You looked at him. He looked at you. Three millimetres. “The envelope,” he said.

“Tonight,” you said. “Passage room.” He nodded. Looked away. Looked back. “She told me,” he said, “that you’d go back to Barcelona.”

“I have a life there,” you said. The same words.

“I know,” he said. He stood up. Straightened. The composure coming back up like a tide. “Tonight,” he said.

“Tonight,” you said. He went back up the path. You sat on the bench with your blank sketchbook page and the wrong-time sundial and the specific feeling of being someone standing at the edge of something enormous trying to decide whether enormous things were better walked toward or run from. Your grandmother had never run from anything. You closed the sketchbook.

—

The house went quiet at eleven. You heard it happen the way you always had — the gradual diminuendo of a building settling into night, the last doors closing, the last lights going off under the gap at the bottom of the corridor, the grandfather clock doing its twelve-stroke accounting of the hours. Your father had gone to bed early. Your mother had sat up reading, or pretending to read, until ten. Haeun and Minjae had retired without saying goodnight to you, which was its own kind of statement. Yang Junho had gone back to the Yang estate after dinner, taking his easy laugh and his careful warmth with him. Yerin was in the room at the end of the east guest corridor.

Jungwon was — you didn’t know exactly. His footsteps had gone past your door at ten-thirty and not come back. You sat on your bed with the envelope in your hands and the Calvino face-down beside you and you waited until the house was completely still.

Then you went to the third panel from the left.

He was already there. Both candles this time, placed at opposite ends of the small stone table, and the photographs still spread from two nights ago, and the barley tea thermos again because apparently this was something he did now — thought about whether you’d be cold, acted on it, said nothing about it. The second mismatched chair was pulled out at the angle that meant this is for you. You sat down. He sat down. You put the envelope on the table between the two candles.

Both your names. Her handwriting. The paper slightly worn at the fold from the number of times you’d handled it without opening it. You both looked at it. “I keep thinking,” Jungwon said, “that once we open it that’s it. Whatever she says becomes the thing she said. You can’t—” he paused— “you can’t unknow it.”

“We already know most of it,” you said.

“Not what she meant to do with it,” he said. “Not what she wanted from us.”

You looked at the envelope. “She wanted us to be ready,” you said. “That’s why she didn’t just leave it with the will. That’s why she put the notebook in the bedroom and the box under the floor and the photographs in the tin.” You turned the envelope over in your hands. “She was building up to this. She wanted us to find everything else first so that when we read this we’d—”

“Have the context,” he said.

“Be ready,” you said again.

He looked at you. “Are you?”

You thought about three years in Barcelona. About Sunday calls and tangerines in the post and the Calvino on your shelf and the way you’d stood in your yellow-tiled kitchen with a dead leaf in your hand and almost called him and didn’t. About the photograph on your grandmother’s dresser — your desk, your lamp, your small evidence of a life being built somewhere else. About the library. Seventeen years old. Him in the chair above you, you on the floor, neither of you looking at each other. “No,” you said honestly. “Open it anyway.”

He broke the seal. His hands were steady. Steadier than yours would have been — you knew that about yourself, that you went very shaken when things were enormous, that shakiness was your version of bracing.

He unfolded the paper with the care of someone handling something irreplaceable and laid it flat on the table between the candles. Her handwriting. Small, precise. Three pages, front and back, in the blue ink she’d used your entire life. You both leaned in and read.

To my granddaughter, and to Jungwon-ah.

I am writing this in October, which is the best month in this garden, and I am sitting at my desk with the window open and I can hear the tree. I want you to know that I am well as I write this. Clear-headed, if slower than I used to be. I have thought carefully about what I want to say and I have decided to say it directly because I am eighty-one years old and I have spent enough of my life being indirect and while I believe indirectness is an art form and frequently undervalued I think you two have earned something plainer.

First: the house. I am leaving it to you, my girl, because you understand what a building is. Not the walls or the deeds or the history that other people will try to tell you it represents. You understand that a house is a record of what happened inside it. That the walls remember. You will know what to do with what you find here and you will know what to do with the house itself when the time comes. I trust this completely.

Jungwon-ah: I am not leaving you the house because you already know where everything is. You have spent fifteen years learning its rooms and its passages and its particular way of holding secrets. You don’t need the deed. You need the person who has it.

Now. The harder things. I have kept records for seven years. You will have found them by now — the notebook, the box, all of it. I want to be clear about why I kept them. Not for revenge, though I will not pretend there is no satisfaction in the idea of your father finding out that I saw everything he thought he was doing privately. Not for leverage. I kept them because the truth was happening in my house and I refused to let it happen without a witness. Someone had to see it. I decided that person would be me. What you do with the records is your decision, not mine.

I have opinions, which I will share: the arrangement between the companies is not survivable in its current form and the longer it is maintained the larger the liability becomes. Jungwon-ah, your father built something with good intentions and poor judgment and the combination is always more dangerous than either alone. You are more careful than he is. You are also more honest, which he would consider a weakness and which I consider the only thing that will save you.

As for your father Y/N, I have watched him for twenty-two years. I have watched your mother choose not to watch him. I will not make that choice for her. When the time comes — and it will come, these things always do — she will need you both. Not to fix it. You cannot fix it. Just to stay.

And now the thing I have been working up to. I have watched you both for fifteen years. I have taken photographs and kept crosswords and sent tangerines in the post and asked questions I already knew the answers to and I have been, I think, excessively patient. I want to explain why. I was not waiting for the right moment. I was waiting for you both to become the people who could survive the right moment.

You were children and then you were young people and there is a specific kind of damage that happens when the right thing arrives before a person is ready to hold it and I was not willing to risk that with either of you. I believe you are ready now. I am saying this plainly because I am eighty-one and I have earned the right to be plain: I have never in my life seen two people more thoroughly and more stubbornly fail to see what was directly in front of them. I say this with tremendous love and only moderate exasperation.

You grew up beside each other. You ransacked my kitchen and chased my chickens and ran through my house with muddy shoes and I watched you do all of it and I watched what happened in the spaces between the noise, which is where the real things were. I watched you learn each other. I watched you become the people each other needed. I watched you not say it and not say it and not say it and I thought: they are seventeen, they have time.

And then you left, my girl. And I understood why, and I respected it, and I watched Jungwon-ah come and sit in my garden and not say anything about it for three years, and I watched you call me every Sunday from Barcelona and not ask about him directly, always sideways, always carefully, and I thought: they are going to need some help. This is the help.

I am giving you the house and I am giving you the records and I am giving you the passages and the photographs and the puzzles and the box under the floor. I am giving you October light through an open window and barley tea and two chairs in a room nobody else knows about. I am giving you every door I can think to unlock.

The rest is yours. I love you both. I have loved watching you. I am not afraid of where I’m going but I am sorry to miss what comes next. Take care of the tree.

— Halmoni.

P.S. Jungwon-ah; the seven of spades. You will remember what that means. It was always yours.

The candles burned. You read it once and then you sat back and looked at the stone ceiling and blinked several times in rapid succession. Your grandmother had said she was going to be plain and she had been plain and it had landed exactly as she’d intended it to, which was with the force of something that had been true for a very long time and had simply been waiting for someone to say it out loud.

Jungwon had not moved. He was still leaning forward, elbows on the table, reading the last page. Or re-reading it. Or sitting very still the way he did when something was enormous.

You looked at the side of his face. At the candlelight on it. At the line of his jaw and the way his eyes moved across the page and the three millimetres that had been there since you’d walked into the sitting room and found him across the room and felt your stomach drop straight through the floor. He sat back.He looked at the letter for another moment. Then he looked at you.

“The seven of spades,” he said. His voice was different. Quieter. Stripped of something.

“What does it mean?” you said. He reached into the pocket of his shirt. And he put something on the table. A playing card. The seven of spades. The one from the first tin, that you’d left there — or a second one, identical, worn at the edges with age.

“She gave it to me,” he said, “when I was sixteen. We were playing cards in this room and she dealt us both a hand and when I turned mine over there was a seven of spades on top and she said—” he paused— “she said that one’s yours. Keep it. And I didn’t know what she meant, I thought she was just being—” a brief sound that was almost a laugh— “herself. Being her. So I kept it.” He turned the card over in his fingers. “I’ve had it in my wallet for seven years. I take it out sometimes. I never knew what it meant.”

You looked at the card. “Seven of spades,” you said. “In cartomancy—”

“I looked it up eventually,” he said. “Three years ago. Right after you left.”

“What does it mean?”

He put the card down on the table. Looked at it. “Unfinished business,” he said. “Something that was set in motion and hasn’t resolved. Something that’s still—” he stopped.

“Still in motion,” you said.

“Yes.” The candles. The stone room. Fifteen photographs on the table. Your grandmother’s handwriting on three pages of blue ink telling you both the plainest truth she’d saved for last. I have never in my life seen two people more thoroughly and more stubbornly fail to see what was directly in front of them. “She was right,” you said quietly. “About the thoroughly and stubbornly part.”

“Infuriating woman,” he said again. But his voice broke slightly on the last word and it wasn’t exasperation at all, it was grief, it was the specific grief of missing someone who knew you completely and there was nothing to do with that kind of grief except let it be exactly as large as it was.

You reached across the table. Your hand over his. He looked down at it. He didn’t move for a moment. Then he turned his hand over beneath yours and held it. Just that — palm to palm, his fingers closing around yours, the simple warm weight of it. You sat like that for a while. “Jungwon,” you said eventually.

“I know,” he said.

“There’s—” you started. “There’s a lot happening. The records, the companies, Haeun, your father—”

“I know.”

“And Yerin.” His hand tightened slightly around yours. Not pulling away.

“I know,” he said. A third time. A different weight each time.

You looked at the letter. At the last line before the postscript. I am not afraid of where I’m going but I am sorry to miss what comes next. “She would have loved this,” you said. “Being right.”

“She would have been unbearable about it,” he said.

“She would have been so restrained,” you said. “She would have just looked at us and not said anything and somehow that would have been worse.” He made that almost-laugh sound again. It was closer this time. It was getting closer. “She sent me one tangerine,” you said.

“She made me finish the crossword,” he said.

“She kept fifteen photographs in a tin.”

“She put fresh batteries in the torch.” You both looked at the candles. “She planned everything,” you said.

“Everything,” he agreed. His thumb moved. Once, across your knuckles. The smallest possible thing.

The candle on the left burned down to its base and went out. The room got smaller. The remaining candle made everything amber and close and the stone walls pressed in gently and the photographs were spread on the table and his hand was in yours and outside the manor the winter was doing whatever winter does at two in the morning.

“Tell me something about Barcelona,” he said. Quietly. Like he was asking for something he’d wanted for a long time and had finally decided to ask for. You thought about it.

“There’s a building,” you said. “In the Eixample. Not famous, not on any list, nobody goes specifically to see it. But at five in the afternoon in autumn the light hits the facade in this particular way and it looks like—” you paused, finding the words— “it looks like it’s remembering something. Like the building is having a memory.” You paused. “I used to walk past it on the way home and think about this house. About how old buildings hold things.” He was quiet. “I used to think about you,” you said. Because your grandmother had spent three pages telling you to stop not saying things. “When I walked past it. About showing you.”

He looked at your joined hands. “I used to drive past the airport,” he said. Not looking up. “When flights from Barcelona came in. Not to meet anyone. Just—” he stopped.

“Just,” you said.

“Just,” he said. The last candle flickered. In the amber half-dark you looked at each other and everything your grandmother had written was true and had been true for longer than either of you had been willing to name it and the net was still holding, still holding, and below it was the abyss which you were both finally, for the first time, looking directly at.

He leaned forward. You leaned forward. The candle went out.

In the dark: his forehead against yours. His breath. Both your hands on the table between the photographs. Just that. Just the weight of it. The held thing, finally held between two people instead of inside one. “Not yet,” he said. Against your forehead. His voice was barely sound.

“I know,” you said.

“I have to—” he stopped. “There are things I have to do first. Things I have to say. To her. To my father. I can’t—” he exhaled. “I won’t do this like it’s something to hide. I won’t do that to you.”

Your eyes had adjusted to the dark. You could just see the shape of him. The outline. “Okay,” you said.

“Soon,” he said. And it was your word back to you, the one you’d been handing back and forth for days, and in his mouth it meant something different now. It meant a door about to open rather than one being held closed.

“Soon,” you said.

You stayed like that for another minute. Foreheads together in the dark. Hands on the table. The letter between the extinguished candles.

Then you both sat back. He found the torch. Clicked it on. The room came back. He looked at you in the white torchlight and you looked at him and there was something different in the air of the room now, something that had been there all along but had finally been acknowledged, and it was terrifying and it was also — underneath the terrifying — the most settled you had felt since you’d stepped off the plane.

He folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope. “Keep it with the notebook,” he said.

“I will.” He stood. You stood. He looked at the seven of spades on the table. He picked it up. Held it for a moment. Then he put it in your hand.

“She said it was mine,” he said. “I think she meant it was ours.” You closed your fingers around it. He picked up the torch. You followed the light out of the secret room and back into the walls of the manor, and the house held you both the way it always had, and somewhere in the east corridor the grandfather clock ticked through its six extra minutes that nobody else knew about, and the walls remembered everything.

—

Morning came in like it hadn’t been briefed on what happened the night before. Pale winter light through the curtains. The kitchen smell rising through the house. The grandfather clock doing its eight-stroke announcement of an hour you’d technically only slept through three of.

You lay on your back with the seven of spades on the nightstand beside the Calvino and the envelope in the drawer and you stared at the ceiling and felt the specific quality of a day that was going to be significant before it had done anything yet. Forehead against yours. His breath. Soon.

You got up.

You didn’t see Jungwon at breakfast. His seat was empty. Yerin’s too. You registered this with the carefully neutral expression of someone who had been trained by their grandmother to reveal nothing at inopportune moments and you ate your rice and drank your tea and listened to your father talk to Yang Junho about something that had nothing to do with anything your grandmother had documented and you watched your father’s face and thought about the woman’s name recurring through seven years of entries.

Yang Junho was in good form this morning. Easy, expansive, filling the room the way he always did. He’d stayed over — the guest room on the second floor, the one with the good view of the garden. He spoke warmly about your grandmother, about the estate, about the families’ long history together and what a comfort it was to be here, to be among people who understood the weight of a loss like this.

Your mother smiled at him. Your father nodded. You watched the space between the three of them and thought about what your grandmother had written. Your father built something with good intentions and poor judgment and the combination is always more dangerous than either alone. She had meant Yang Junho. But sitting here watching your own father nod along, the sentence fit like a coat made for two people.

Haeun arrived at half past eight with the bright eyes of someone who’d slept well because they’d externalised all their feelings into legal strategy. She kissed your mother’s cheek and sat down and accepted coffee and was charming to Yang Junho and you watched her work the table and thought: she has no idea. She is fighting about the wrong things entirely. None of them know what’s in this house. None of them know what’s in the walls.

You found out where Jungwon was at nine-fifteen when you were coming back from the garden and heard voices in the east corridor. Not arguing. Not quite. But the specific register of a conversation that was trying very hard not to become an argument and was losing. Yerin’s voice, low and controlled: “I just want to know if something changed.”

Jungwon’s voice, careful, deliberate, the voice he used when he was being honest and it was costing him: “Nothing happened.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

A pause. “Yerin—”

“Don’t.” A silence. “Don’t say my name like that. Like you’re managing me.” You had stopped walking. You were standing three metres from the bend in the corridor with your hand flat against the pale blue wallpaper and you were not moving.

“I’m not managing you,” he said. “I’m trying to—”

“You’ve been trying to say something since we got here,” she said. “I’ve been watching you try to say it for three days. And last night you didn’t come to bed until four in the morning and you thought I was asleep but I wasn’t.” A long silence.

When he spoke again his voice was different. Quieter. The professionalism gone all the way down. “I know,” he said.

“Is it her,” Yerin said. Not a question. The wallpaper under your hand was cool and slightly rough, the texture of something very old.

“It’s not—” he started.

“Jungwon.”

“It’s not that simple,” he said. “It was never—” a pause— “I didn’t come here intending for anything to—”

“I know you didn’t,” she said. And the thing in her voice was not what you expected. It wasn’t fury. It was the exhausted, clear-eyed honesty of someone who had known something for a long time and had chosen not to name it and had now run out of reasons not to. “I’ve known since we arrived. I think I knew before we arrived. I think I’ve known for—” she stopped herself.

“I’m sorry,” he said. And he meant it. You could hear that he meant it completely.

“Don’t apologise for having feelings,” she said. “Apologise for letting me come here. For letting me stand in that sitting room and meet her and pretend I didn’t see it immediately.” Her voice wavered once, precisely once, and then steadied. “Apologise for making me the person who had to see it clearly while you were still pretending.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again. Different weight.

“Is it real?” she said. “Or is it just — this house, the history, grief making everything feel—”

“It’s real,” he said quietly. “It’s been real for a long time. Before Barcelona. Before the company. Before any of this.” A pause. “I should have known that before I—” he stopped. “I should have been more honest with you from the beginning. About what I was carrying.” You closed your eyes.

“Your father is going to be furious,” Yerin said. Not bitterly. Just factually.

“I know.”

“Mine too.”

“I know.” Another silence. Longer. You could hear the quality of two people recalibrating.

“I don’t hate her,” Yerin said finally. “I wanted to. It would be easier.” A short sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. “She’s exactly what I expected her to be. Which is somehow the worst part. I’m going to need some time,” she said. “And I’m going to need you to not be — kind about this. I can’t do kind right now.”

“Okay,” he said.

“Go sort out whatever you need to sort out,” she said. “I’ll handle the rest.” Footsteps. You moved. Fast, silent, back around the bend in the corridor and into the doorway of the linen room, pressing yourself into the shadow of it, heart going considerably faster than was dignified.

Yerin came around the corner and walked past you without seeing you. Her face was composed and dry-eyed and very, very tired and she walked like someone who had made a decision and was now simply executing it, one step at a time, down the corridor and around the next bend and gone. You stood in the linen room doorway and breathed.

You didn’t go to him. That was the right thing and you knew it was the right thing — he needed time, she needed time, the corridor needed to stop being the corridor where that conversation had happened before it was the corridor where you appeared. So you went to the library instead and sat in the armchair — his armchair, seventeen years old, the photograph, you on the floor — and opened the Calvino and read three pages without taking in a single sentence.

The library was the warmest room in the house in winter. South-facing windows, old rugs, the smell of paper and wood and decades of accumulated reading. Your grandmother had called it the room that minds its own business, which was the highest compliment she gave to spaces. You put the Calvino face-down on your knee and looked at the ceiling.

He’d said it. It’s been real for a long time. Before Barcelona. You thought about being seventeen in this room. Him in the chair above you. Neither of you looking at each other and both of you angled toward each other like plants toward light, so obvious in retrospect, so invisible from the inside. You thought about the morning you left for Barcelona. Five-thirty, still dark, your father loading the car. Your mother with tea in a thermos for the journey. And Jungwon — he’d come over, you hadn’t expected him, you’d seen the lights of his car in the driveway and felt something lurch in your chest and he’d gotten out and stood there with his hands in his pockets and said text me when you land and you’d said I will and the distance between you had been three metres and had felt like something that would grow and that you were choosing to let grow and that you were not going to say anything about.

You’d landed. You’d texted. He’d replied immediately: good.

That was all. Three years of Sundays with your grandmother and not once had you called him directly. Thoroughly and stubbornly, she’d written. I say this with tremendous love and only moderate exasperation. You pressed the book against your face and made a sound into it that was not your most dignified moment.

The knock on the library door came at eleven. Not Jungwon. You knew by the knock — two short, businesslike, the knock of someone who had decided they were coming in regardless of the answer. “Come in,” you said.

Your father. He came in and closed the door behind him with the careful quietness of someone who wanted this conversation to stay in the room. He was dressed well, as always, silver-templed, handsome in the way that photographs well, and this morning there was something different in the way he was holding himself. A tension in the shoulders. Something behind his eyes that was working too hard to look like nothing. “I thought I’d find you here,” he said.

“It’s a good room,” you said. He looked around it. Nodded. Came and sat in the chair across from you — not Jungwon’s chair, the other one, lower, the one your grandmother had used when she wanted to read facing the garden.

“How are you doing?” he said. “Really. With all of it.”

“I’m managing,” you said.

“The business with Haeun and the will—”

“I can handle Haeun.”

“I know you can.” He smiled. The practiced warmth of it. “You’re the most capable person in this family, you know that. You always have been. Your grandmother always said so.” You looked at him. He was too eager to know what the letter said, too careful about the manor.

“She mentioned you in the letter,” you said. You hadn’t planned to say it. But you were your grandmother’s granddaughter and you had learned from the best and sometimes the direct approach was the one that told you the most. His face did not change. That was the tell — a different face would have changed, would have shown surprise or curiosity, would have asked what did she say?

His face stayed precisely where it was, which meant he’d been expecting this, which meant he’d been thinking about what she might have known and deciding how to handle it. “That’s kind,” he said. “She was a remarkable woman.”

“She was,” you said. “She was also very thorough.”

“What do you mean?” he said. Light. Careful.

“She kept records,” you said. “Of the house. Of the people in it. Of — everything, really. You know how she was.”

“Of course,” he said. The smile staying exactly where it was.

“Dad,” you said. Quietly. Not an accusation. Just his name. And something shifted. Something small but real — a crack in the surface, so quick you’d have missed it if you weren’t watching carefully, if you hadn’t been trained your whole life by the woman who’d taught you that the truth lived in the space between what people said and what their face did when they said it.

“Whatever you think you know,” he said. Still quiet. Still composed. “I want you to understand that things between your mother and I are—”

“Complicated?” you said.

“Adult,” he said. “They’re adult. They’re not—” he stopped. Reorganised. “Your grandmother had opinions about my marriage that she never fully expressed to me but which I was always aware of. Whatever she wrote—”

“I haven’t decided what to do with it yet,” you said. That landed. He looked at you. Really looked at you, for the first time in the conversation, with the eyes of a man recalibrating what he was dealing with.

“You’re very like her,” he said. Slowly. And it wasn’t a compliment exactly and it wasn’t a threat exactly and it sat in the space between those two things doing something complicated.

“Thank you,” you said. As if it had been a compliment.

He stood up. Straightened his jacket. Moved toward the door. At the door he stopped. “The architectural records,” he said. Without turning around. “The original documents. The floor plans.” A pause. “Is there anything in them that would be — relevant to current matters.”

You thought about the metal box under the floor of the third room. The fifteen years of documents. His signature at the bottom of an agreement dated eleven years ago. “I haven’t gone through everything yet,” you said. He nodded. Once. And left.

—

The thing about a house full of people keeping secrets is that the secrets create pressure. And pressure, sustained long enough, finds the weakest point. The weakest point turned out to be the sitting room at two in the afternoon when the families had reconvened in the way they kept reconvening, pulled together by the gravity of the occasion and the shared fiction that everything was normal, that this was simply a gathering of old friends in mourning, that the ground was solid.

Yang Junho was telling a story about your grandmother — a good one, genuinely funny, about a business meeting she had attended thirty years ago and dominated completely without ever raising her voice. Your mother was laughing. Your father was laughing. Even Haeun was laughing.

Jungwon was sitting across the room. He’d come in ten minutes ago and taken the chair by the window and met your eyes briefly when he sat down and then looked away. He hadn’t spoken much. Yang Junho had put his hand on his son’s shoulder when he came in and Jungwon had not visibly reacted and you had watched the specific quality of that not-reacting and understood that something had already happened between them this morning.

Yerin was not in the room. Nobody had asked where she was.

You were watching the fire when Haeun’s phone rang. She glanced at it, made a small apologetic gesture, and stepped out. Two minutes later she came back in and her face had done something you hadn’t seen it do in a very long time — it had gone genuinely, unperformatively still. The stillness of shock. She looked at your father. “I need to speak with you,” she said. “Now.”

The room shifted. Your father’s laugh ended. “Haeun—” your mother said.

“Not you,” Haeun said. Still looking at your father. Her voice had no warmth in it at all, no performance, nothing. “Just him.”

“Whatever you need to say—” your father started.

“I was just on the phone with Ms. Bae,” Haeun said. And something in her voice made everyone in the room go very still. “She’s been going through the estate filings. The things that were submitted publicly as part of the probate record.” She paused. The pause was a grenade with the pin already pulled. “She found a company filing. Seven years ago. A subsidiary registered under a holding name.” She looked at your father. “Your name is on it. And so is the name of a woman who is listed as a joint director.”

The fire crackled. Your mother turned to look at your father. And on your father’s face — just for a moment, one unguarded moment before the composed surface came back up — was the expression of a man who had known this day was coming for seven years and had convinced himself it wouldn’t. “Haeun,” he said. Warning.

“Her name is Park Jooyeon,” Haeun said. She said it clearly, without hesitation, the way you rip off a plaster because fast is kinder than slow. “She’s been listed as a director of your subsidiary for seven years. The filing also shows a residential address which is—” she glanced at her phone— “not this house.” Your mother said nothing. The room held its breath.

“I think,” Yang Junho said, standing up with the practiced authority of a man who had been managing rooms for forty years, “that this is perhaps a family conversation—”

“Sit down, Junho,” your mother said. He sat down. Everyone looked at your mother. She was looking at your father. Her face was doing something you had never seen it do and hoped never to see again — not anger, not shock, but the specific expression of a person watching something they already knew become something they could no longer choose not to know. The shape of it finally arriving. The avoidance finally over. “How long,” she said. Your father opened his mouth. “Don’t lie to me,” she said. Very quietly. “I have lived in the shape of this lie for long enough. Don’t make me hear another one.”

“Mum—” you said.

“Not now,” she said. Without looking at you. Still looking at him.

“At least twenty years,” Haeun said. She’d gone very pale. Her voice had lost its edge — she’d wanted ammunition and she’d gotten a detonation and they were different things and she was just now feeling the difference. “Ms. Bae found earlier filings. Different company name. Same address.”

Twenty years. The number went around the room. Your mother stood up. “I would like everyone to leave this room,” she said. With the composure of someone who had spent sixty years learning from Han Sooja how to be still when everything was breaking. “Except for my husband.”

People stood. Moved. Yang Junho put his hand briefly on your mother’s shoulder as he passed and she didn’t acknowledge it and he didn’t require her to. You stood in the doorway. Your mother looked at you. Her eyes were dry. They would probably stay dry — that was her way, the Han way, grief and fury going inward first and only surfacing when she was ready to let them. You recognised it because you did it too. She gave you the smallest nod.

The corridor outside the sitting room. Jungwon was there. He’d come out just ahead of you and he was standing at the window at the end of the corridor with his back to the room, looking out at the winter garden, his hands loose at his sides. You came and stood beside him.

Below: the formal garden, the stone paths, the sundial giving its wrong time. The bench where Yerin had sat beside you. The path where you’d watched him walk back to the house with his composure settling over him like a coat. “She planned this too,” you said quietly. “Not the sitting room. But — she knew this would happen. Eventually. She wrote it in the notebook. It will come, these things always do.”

“Yes,” he said.

“She wanted us here when it did.”

“Yes,” he said again. You looked at the garden.

“Your father,” you said. “This morning.” He exhaled. Not a sigh — something more deliberate than that. Something he’d been holding since before breakfast.

“He came to me at eight,” he said. “He’d already spoken to yours. Some kind of warning system they’d apparently arranged.” His jaw tightened. “He told me there might be some questions raised about the companies in the coming days and that I should be prepared to manage the narrative.”

“Manage the narrative,” you said.

“Yes.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him,” Jungwon said carefully, “that I’d been looking at the companies for six months and that I thought what he’d built with your father was a liability and that I wasn’t prepared to manage any narrative that involved me pretending I didn’t know what I knew.”

“How did he take that?”

“About as well as you’d expect.” You looked at his profile. The set of his jaw. The tiredness in him that was different from yesterday’s tiredness — this was the tiredness of someone who had said the honest thing to their father and was living in the aftermath.

“Yerin left,” he said. “An hour ago. Her driver came.”

“I know,” you said. “I heard — I was in the corridor. This morning. I didn’t mean to hear.”

He looked at you. “How much?”

“Enough,” you said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He looked back at the garden. “She was right about all of it. I wasn’t fair to her.” A pause. “She deserved better than what I gave her.”

“She’s going to be alright,” you said. Because it was true — you’d seen it in Yerin’s face, that hard clear-eyed competence. She would grieve this in private and then she would be formidable again. Women like Yerin always were.

“I know,” he said. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“No,” you said. “It doesn’t.” Below, the sundial. The wrong time. Your grandmother’s unrepentant refusal to correct anything that she’d decided was fine as it was. Inside the sitting room your mother was having the conversation that had been twenty years in the making.

In the walls of the house the passages waited, the photographs on the table in the candlelit room, the seven of spades somewhere in your jacket. “What happens now?” you said.

He turned from the window and looked at you directly and his face had none of the professional composure on it and none of the careful distance and was just — him. Tired and honest and present in the way he’d been at one in the morning on the floor of the old study and in the way he’d been at seventeen in the library and in the way he’d always been when it was just you and the house and none of the surfaces required. “Now,” he said, “everything falls apart for a while.”

“And then?”

He looked at you for a long moment. “And then we see what’s left,” he said. From behind the sitting room door, muffled and distant, your mother’s voice. Not loud. Never loud. But with an edge in it like a clean cut, precise and final, the voice of a woman who had decided that the shape of this particular truth was one she was done living inside.

The house held it all. The grief and the reckoning and the long-delayed arrivals of things that had been on their way for years. The walls remembered. They always had. Your grandmother had known that. She’d counted on it.

—

The house didn’t sleep that night. Not really. It had the shape of sleeping — quiet corridors, dark rooms, the grandfather clock marking hours into silence — but underneath it was awake the way houses get when something significant has happened inside them. Like the walls were still processing. Like the rooms needed time to absorb what they’d held that afternoon.

Your mother had come out of the sitting room at four o’clock. She’d walked past you in the corridor with her back straight and her face composed and her eyes doing the thing they did — grief going inward, fury going inward, everything going inward to be dealt with in private on her own terms in her own time. She’d touched your face with one hand as she passed. Just that. Her palm against your cheek for three seconds, warm and dry, and then she’d gone upstairs.

Your father had left the sitting room twenty minutes later. He’d taken his coat from the rack by the front door and gone outside and you’d watched from the corridor window as he walked down the front drive and stood at the gate and made a phone call and you had not needed to wonder who he was calling.

Haeun had found you at five and said I didn’t mean for it to come out like that and you’d said I know because you did know — she’d wanted leverage and had accidentally dismantled the family instead and the gap between those two things had clearly shaken her more than she’d expected. You’d made her tea. You’d sat with her in the kitchen while she held the mug and stared at the table. That was the most honest you’d been with each other in years, sitting in silence while your family reconfigured itself in the rooms above you.

Yang Junho had left at six. Businesslike, minimal. He’d shaken your father’s hand when your father came back in and something had passed between them in that handshake — something that looked like a renegotiation — and then he was gone.

Jungwon had stayed. You’d seen him at dinner, which was quiet and reduced and nothing like the dinners this house was built for. Your mother had come down and eaten and said almost nothing and your father had sat at the opposite end of the table from her and the distance between them had the specific quality of a distance that had always existed but had only just been measured.

Haeun and Minjae had left after dinner. Minjae had squeezed your shoulder on the way out, which was the most he’d ever communicated to you directly and which you’d appreciated. And then the house had gone quiet. And you had lain on your bed and stared at the ceiling and waited for sleep and sleep had declined the invitation.

The clock in the east corridor struck two when you were already in the kitchen. You hadn’t turned the overhead light on. Just the small light above the stove, the one that had always been there, the one that turned the kitchen amber and warm and made it look the way it looked in every memory you had of it.

You were standing at the counter with both hands wrapped around a mug of tea you hadn’t drunk yet and you were looking at the window above the sink and the darkness outside it and you were thinking about your mother’s palm against your cheek. Just to stay, your grandmother had written. Not to fix it. You cannot fix it. Just to stay.

You heard him before you saw him. The particular sound of his footsteps — the outside edge of the step, old habit, the way you moved in this house at night without deciding to. The door opened. You didn’t turn around. He came in. Stopped. Registered the amber light and you at the counter and said nothing for a moment. Then he crossed the room and stood beside you at the counter and looked at the dark window and also said nothing. You handed him your tea. He took it. Drank. Handed it back. “How is she?” he said. Quietly.

“She went to bed at nine,” you said. “I don’t think she’s sleeping either.”

“No,” he said.

“He’s in the guest room,” you said. “The east one. He didn’t try to go to their room.”

“Small mercies,” Jungwon said. The clock in the east corridor was very faint from here. Just a suggestion of ticking. The kitchen had its own sound — the refrigerator’s low hum, the settling of the old pipes, the back door with the broken latch occasionally sighing in the wind.

“Your father,” you said.

“We talked again after dinner,” he said. “When you were with your mother.” He paused. “I told him I’ve been building a case for six months. That I know what the arrangement is. That I’m going to have to restructure the company’s position and that it’s going to require disclosure and that he needs to be prepared for that.”

“How did he take it?”

“He told me I didn’t understand business.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him I understood it well enough to know that what he’d built was going to collapse eventually and that the only question was whether we were the ones who dismantled it carefully or whether it fell on us.” A pause. “He said I sounded like your grandmother.”

“Good,” you said. Something moved in Jungwon’s face. Almost a smile. You put the mug down. Turned around and leaned against the counter with your arms crossed not as a defence but as something to do with your hands. He turned too, mirroring you, and you stood there facing each other in the amber kitchen light and the house was completely quiet and you were both in old clothes — him in a dark t-shirt and soft trousers, you in whatever you’d put on when sleep became definitively not happening — and there were no surfaces up at two in the morning in this kitchen. There never had been. That was the thing about this room. It didn’t allow for them.

“She’s going to be alright,” you said. About your mother. About the specific quality of her composure.

“I know,” he said. “She’s a Han woman.”

“Don’t let her hear you say it like that or she’ll take it as an insult.”

“She’d be right,” he said. “It was completely a compliment.”

You looked at him. He looked at you. The refrigerator hummed. “Jungwon,” you said.

“Yes,” he said. Not a question.

“What you said this morning. To your father. About the company.” You held his gaze. “That was the hard version. The harder version than anything I’ve asked you to do.”

“It needed to be done,” he said.

“I know. I’m saying — I know what it cost.” He looked at you for a moment. Something in him settling, like a weight redistributed. “She would have approved,” he said.

“She would have handed you the crossword and not said anything and that would have been the approval,” you said. He made that sound again, the almost-laugh, and this time it came all the way out — quiet, real, and the boy who had chased chickens was fully present in it and the three millimetres collapsed entirely and you felt it in your sternum like a struck bell.

He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind your ear. His hand stayed. Cupped the side of your face. You went very still. His thumb moved along your cheekbone. The same gesture your mother had used in the corridor except that this one was slow and deliberate and asking something.

“I talked to Yerin,” he said. Quietly. “She called tonight. We — it’s done. It’s properly done. I wanted you to know that.”

“Okay,” you said. Your voice was not entirely steady.

“I told you I wouldn’t do this like something to hide,” he said. “I meant it.”

“I know you did.” His eyes moved over your face. Unhurried. The way he moved in this house — like he knew every room and had time.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about what to say. Since the passage room. I had things arranged. Sentences.” The corner of his mouth. “They’re all gone.”

“Say it without sentences,” you said.

He looked at you. “I drove past the airport,” he said. “Every time a flight came in from Barcelona. I did that for three years. I told myself it was nothing. I told myself I was just—” he stopped. “I didn’t tell myself anything, actually. I just drove there.”

Your hand came up and covered his where it held your face. His breath shifted slightly. “I have my grandmother’s crossword clue for you in my head,” you said. “Seven letters. I keep thinking about it.”

“Honesty,” he said.

“Honesty,” you said. And then neither of you said anything else.

He closed the distance — not rushed, not after all this time, not after three years and this house and fifteen photographs and both your names on an envelope — he closed it like he’d been planning the exact geometry of it for longer than either of you were going to admit, one hand still cradling your face and the other coming to rest at your waist and his mouth meeting yours with the specific quality of something that had been waiting long enough that when it arrived it felt less like a beginning than like a return.

You kissed him back with every Sunday call you hadn’t made and every time you’d almost said something and every seven of spades and every tangerine in the post and the whole accumulated weight of it came through in the way your hands went to the front of his shirt like they already knew where they were going.

He made a quiet sound against your mouth. His hand moved from your waist to the small of your back and pulled you closer and you went, easily, completely, like a thing that had been resisting gravity for three years finally letting go. He tasted like tea and the faint ghost of something warmer and he kissed the way he did everything in this house — like he knew the rooms, like he had time, thorough and unhurried and devastatingly present.

His hand slid from your face into your hair and tipped your head back and you made a sound you didn’t intend to make and felt him inhale sharply at it. “Hi,” he said against your mouth. His voice low and a little wrecked already.

“Hi,” you said.

He pulled back just enough to look at you. His hand still in your hair, yours still twisted in his shirt, both of you breathing like you’d been doing something more athletic than standing in a kitchen.

In the amber light his eyes were dark and his mouth was slightly swollen and he was looking at you with an expression that had nothing professional or composed or carefully maintained about it whatsoever. He was looking at you the way he looked at the passages when they opened — like something that had been there all along and was finally, finally being seen. “Three years,” he said quietly.

“More than three years,” you said. He kissed you again and this one was less careful — his hands moving down your back, yours sliding up to his shoulders, the counter behind you taking your weight as he pressed closer.

He kissed down the line of your jaw and you tilted your head back and looked at the amber ceiling and thought distantly that your grandmother had planned everything except possibly this specific configuration in her kitchen at two in the morning and that she would have been insufferably pleased about it.

“Upstairs,” you said. He lifted his head. Looked at you. Checking.

“Yes,” you said, to the question he hadn’t asked.

Your childhood bedroom with the sketchbooks on the shelf and the Barcelona exhibition poster and the corkboard above the desk looked different at two in the morning with Jungwon closing the door behind him and turning to look at you across the room. He looked at the room first. The way he always looked at rooms — registering, cataloguing, the thing your grandmother had done too, the thing you did.

Then he looked at you. “I used to stand outside this door,” he said. “When we were kids. Waiting for you to come out.”

“I know,” you said. “I could always hear you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I liked knowing you were there,” you said. Something in his face. Something very warm and very undone. He crossed the room. There was a quality to being undressed by someone who had known you for fifteen years that had nothing to do with unfamiliarity and everything to do with its opposite — the specific intimacy of someone who already knew the shape of you in other ways and was learning this one slowly, like a new room in a house they’d lived in for years.

His hands were unhurried. His attention was total. He treated each thing like it mattered and it made your chest ache in a way that had nothing to do with sadness. You pulled his shirt over his head and put your hands flat against his chest and felt his breathing. “Still thinking in sentences?” you asked.

“Not even close,” he said. He took your chin between his fingers and tilted your face up and kissed you properly — deep and unhurried and completely in charge of it — and you felt the dynamic settle into place like something clicking. Jungwon had always had this quality. This absolute certainty. In every other context you’d spent years watching it from the outside.

You pushed him back onto the bed. He pulled you with him, one hand at your waist, and you landed against his chest and he rolled you gently and hovered over you and looked at your face again with that same thoroughness, like he was memorizing you. Then he moved down your body and the careful part began.

He took his shirt off first — unhurried, watching your face while he did it — and then he came over you and looked down and something in his expression was focused and warm and entirely certain. “I’m going to take my time,” he said. Like a statement of intent. Like he was informing you.

“Okay,” you managed.

“You’re going to let me.” Not a question.

“Yes,” you said.

He kissed your cheek again — that specific tenderness, completely at odds with the authority in his voice — and then his mouth moved to your throat and the careful, methodical dismantling began. He learned you like a map he intended to memorize. His mouth at your collarbone, the inside of your wrist — pausing there when your breath hitched, pressing his lips back to the same spot twice — your stomach, the soft curve of your hip. His hands moved with his mouth, cataloguing, noting, and every time you made a sound his eyes came to your face briefly. Checking. Watching. “Good?” he murmured against your ribs.

“Yes,” you breathed. “Yes.”

“Good girl,” he said quietly, and continued. His fingers found the edge of your underwear and he looked up at you from where he was and raised an eyebrow. Asking without asking. You lifted your hips. He drew them down slowly, dropped them, and settled between your thighs and looked at your pussy with an expression of complete, focused attention that made you want to press your thighs together out of sheer overwhelm.

He didn’t let you. His hands pressed your thighs apart, firm and certain. Held them there. “Don’t,” he said simply. Then his mouth found your clit and your back left the mattress.

He ate you out like he had nowhere else to be and no interest in being anywhere else — long slow strokes of his tongue through your folds, his lips sealing over your clit and applying exactly the right pressure, his eyes coming up to your face every few moments to read your expression and adjust accordingly. He was thorough in the way that only someone genuinely paying attention could be, cataloguing every hitch of your breath, every clench of your thighs against his hands.

The sound that left you was embarrassingly loud. His eyes came up. “Shh,” he said against your folds — not unkind, just certain. Then he pressed two fingers against your lips. Firm. “Here.”

You opened your mouth and took them in. “Good.” His voice low and approving. He pressed them deeper against your tongue and returned his mouth to your cunt with noticeably more intent — like your compliance had unlocked something — his tongue working faster, two fingers from his other hand pushing slowly into your hole and curling upward. You moaned around his fingers and clenched around the ones inside you and he made a low sound against your pussy that you felt everywhere.

He worked you with complete focus — his tongue on your clit, his fingers curling inside your hole, your wetness absolutely everywhere and him making quiet reverent sounds about it that were muffled against your folds. Your hand went to his hair and gripped and he let you, kept going, his fingers in your mouth pressing down on your tongue every time you got too loud.

“Look at me,” he said against you. You looked down at him. Dark eyes looking up at you from between your thighs. That eye contact while his mouth was on your cunt was almost more than you could process. “Stay with me,” he said. “Right here.”

When you came it crashed through you in deep rolling waves, your cunt clenching hard around his fingers, your moan muffled completely by his hand, your thighs pressing around his face and his hands not letting them close. He worked you through every single pulse — not stopping, not slowing — until you were pulling at his hair and trembling. He pressed a slow, deliberate kiss to your inner thigh. Then another.

Then he was kissing up your stomach, your ribs, your collarbone, the corner of your mouth. “There she is,” he murmured against your cheek. “How are you doing?”

“I’m—” You laughed weakly. “I’m good. Really good.” He kissed your cheek.

“Yeah you are.” He reached for the bedside drawer himself, sorted himself out, and came back to you and looked at your face and brushed your hair back from your forehead with both hands like you were something worth being careful with.

Then he took both your wrists and pressed them above your head, his hand wrapping around them, pinning them to the pillow. “Keep them here,” he said quietly.

“And if I don’t?” you said. The look he gave you was patient and very slightly dangerous.

“Keep them here,” he said again. He pushed inside you slowly — that long, aching stretch — and the sound you both made was simultaneous and involuntary, his a low broken groan, yours a gasp that turned into his name.

He held there for a moment, fully seated, his forehead dropping to yours, his hand still pinning your wrists above your head. “Okay,” he breathed. Like a reset. Like he needed a second.

“Jungwon—”

“I know.” He kissed the corner of your mouth. “I know. You feel—” He stopped. Pressed his lips to your cheek. “Perfect. You feel perfect.”

He started to move. Long and deep and measured, his hips rolling in that deliberate rhythm, his cock filling you completely with every stroke and withdrawing slowly — the kind of pace that was specifically designed to make you lose your mind.

Your hands stayed above your head because he’d told them to and because his hand around your wrists was warm and present and you weren’t going anywhere. “Good girl,” he murmured. Watching your face. “Look at you.”

“Jungwon — harder—”

“Not yet.” Steady. Infuriatingly steady. “When I say.”

He kept the pace exactly where he wanted it — deep and thorough, hitting somewhere inside you that made your toes curl — and his free hand found your clit and worked it in slow circles and you arched up into him. “There,” he said. Dark and satisfied. “Feel that?”

“Yes—”

“Yeah.” The circles on your clit tightened. His hips snapped forward once, harder, and you gasped. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

He built you up carefully and completely, his cock and his fingers working in tandem, his eyes on your face the entire time — that absolute quality of attention that dismantled you, that had always dismantled you, fifteen years of it turned toward this single purpose.

“Close,” you managed. “Jungwon, I’m—”

“I know.” He didn’t slow down. “Give it to me.” The second one rolled through you deep and long and he watched your face through every second of it — your mouth falling open, your back arching, your hands straining against his grip above your head — and he kept going through all of it, his fingers not stopping until you were clenching and crying his name and he said “there she is, good girl, there she is” against your cheek like a quiet litany.

Then he released your wrists and pulled you up.

“Your turn,” he said. He lay back and you understood immediately. You swung your leg over him and his hands went to your waist — not guiding, not yet, just there — and you sank down onto him and the sound that left him was the most gratifying thing you’d ever heard. Low and wrecked and completely involuntary.

You rolled your hips. “Fuck,” he breathed. His hands tightened. “Do that again.” You did. Set your own pace, slow and grinding, finding the angle that made your vision blur and staying there.

His head pressed back into the pillow, his jaw tight, his eyes on your face with that dark focused expression cracking at the edges into something rawer. “Look at you,” he said, rough and quiet. “You’re perfect. Do you know that?” His jaw went tight as you clenched around him. “God.”

“Don’t stop talking,” you said breathlessly. “Please—”

“You feel incredible.” His hands moved you faster without asking permission. “Your pussy is—you have no idea. No idea what you—”

He sat up suddenly, arms wrapping around you, and kissed you deep and you rolled your hips and he held you through it and you came for the third time with your face in his neck and your nails raking down his back and he groaned at the sting of it — not pulling away, pressing closer, like he wanted that, like he’d been waiting for your nails.

He rolled you back down. Both of you past careful now — his cock driving into you deep and purposeful, your legs over his shoulders, his hand pinning your wrists above your head again. His other hand pressed flat to your lower stomach and he felt himself moving inside you and his expression went somewhere completely undone.

“Eyes on me,” he said. You looked at him. He looked at you. Dark and certain and something underneath it — something fifteen years old — looking out. “You’re mine,” he said quietly. Not possessive. Just true. Like he was finally saying something he’d always known.

“Yes,” you said. “Yes, Jungwon—”

“Good girl.” Driving deeper. “My good girl.” Your nails went to his back again — raking down — and he hissed through his teeth and his rhythm stuttered and then he was coming, buried as deep as possible, your name in his mouth, his whole body shuddering through it in slow waves while you held him and felt every pulse of it.

Afterward you lay in the narrow single bed of your childhood bedroom with his arm around you and your head on his chest and his heartbeat slowing gradually back to something normal under your ear. The house was very quiet.

Outside the window the winter garden. The sundial. The stone wall at the edge of the fields where you’d stood together three days ago and looked at the grey-green view and said nothing about the thing that had been living in the space between you.

“The tree,” you said. Against his chest. Almost asleep.

“What?”

“Her letter. At the end. Take care of the tree.” He was quiet for a moment.

“The tangerine tree?” he said.

“I don’t know how to look after a tangerine tree.”

“I do,” he said. “She taught me.” Of course she had. You made a sound into his chest that was grief and fondness and exhaustion and something newly made and warm all at once. His arm tightened around you. “Sleep,” he said. Quietly. Into your hair.

“There’s still so much to sort out,” you said. “The companies. Your father. Mine. The records. Haeun—”

“Tomorrow,” he said. “All of it tomorrow.”

You were quiet. “She would have liked this,” he said. “She would have smiled like she’d won something.”

“She did win something,” you said. He made the sound — the real laugh, quiet and warm, in the dark.

“She won everything,” he said. The house breathed around you. The walls remembered. The tree stood in the winter garden under the wrong-time sundial and the six extra minutes ticked by in the east corridor and outside the window the fields were dark and still and the net held, the net held, it had always been holding.

—

Morning came differently. Not the grey reluctant morning of the days before — this one had actual light in it, thin and winter-pale but present, coming through the curtains at the angle your grandmother approved of and landing across the bed in a way that felt almost deliberate. Like the house had decided something had shifted and was adjusting its lighting accordingly.

You were awake before him. This was not surprising. You had always been the one who woke first — in Barcelona, in studio all-nighters, in every version of your life you’d constructed away from this place. Your brain came online quickly and completely and then immediately started cataloguing everything that needed to be dealt with, which was both a useful quality and an exhausting one.

You lay still and let it catalogue. Your mother down the hall. Your father in the east guest room. The notebook in your desk drawer and the metal box under the floor of the third room and fifteen years of documentation that was going to require very careful decisions made by people who were currently in various states of devastation. Haeun, who had driven home last night after dismantling the family dinner table and was presumably now sitting in her very expensive apartment feeling something she didn’t have a script for. Yang Junho, who had been told by his son that the careful architecture of his business legacy was going to be pulled apart and rebuilt into something honest. The tangerine tree in the garden.

You turned your head. Jungwon was asleep. This was — notable. He slept with the specific quality of someone whose body had been running on insufficient rest for days and had finally been given permission to stop. On his back, one arm still loosely around you, his face completely unguarded in a way it almost never was when he was awake. The professional composure was entirely absent. He looked like the boy in the photographs on the passage room table.

You looked at him for longer than was strictly necessary. Then you carefully moved his arm, and got up, and got dressed, and went to find your mother.

She was in the garden. Not the formal garden — the kitchen garden at the back, the working one, where your grandmother had grown things with the same methodical attention she gave everything. It was winter-bare now, the beds turned over, the herbs cut back, but your mother was standing at the edge of it with a cup of tea in both hands and her coat over her pyjamas and her hair not yet done and looking at the dormant beds like they owed her a conversation. You came and stood beside her. She looked at you. Her eyes moved over your face the way they had yesterday in the corridor — reading, calibrating. This morning they stilled on something and she looked at you for a beat longer than usual and you thought: she knows. Of course she knows. She is a Han woman and she has been reading rooms since before you were born.

She said nothing about it. “The mint comes back every year,” she said instead. Nodding at one of the beds. “No matter what. Your grandmother never planted it twice.”

“Persistent,” you said.

“Invasive, she called it,” your mother said. “But she never pulled it out.”

You stood beside her. The kitchen garden in the early morning, both of you in coats, tea and no tea. “How are you?” you said.

“I’ve been better,” she said. Dry. Almost wry. A Han woman’s version of honesty.

“Mum—”

“I’m not broken,” she said. “I want you to know that before you start.” She looked at the mint bed. “I’ve known the shape of this for a long time. Not the detail. Not the name, not the company, not the—” she stopped briefly— “not all of it. But the shape.” She turned her mug in her hands. “Your grandmother knew I knew the shape. We never discussed it because discussing it would have made it real in a way I wasn’t ready for.”

“I know,” you said.

“She left you the records,” your mother said. “Because she knew you’d know what to do with them.”

“I’m still figuring that out,” you said honestly. Your mother nodded slowly.

“Whatever you decide — about the companies, about the documentation — I want you to know that I don’t expect you to protect him on my account.” She looked at you directly. “I’ve done enough of that for both of us. You don’t inherit that.”

You looked at her. “She wrote about you,” you said carefully. “In the letter. She said you’d need us to stay. Not to fix it. Just to stay.”

Your mother’s face did something very small and very real. “That sounds like her,” she said.

“She loved you,” you said. “The jewellery she left you — she chose it specifically. I know she did.”

“She chose everything specifically,” your mother said. And then, quietly: “She was infuriating.” Her mouth curved, just slightly, just for a second, the specific curve of someone who misses a person and is furious at them and loves them all at once. “She was the most infuriating woman I have ever known and I have been her daughter for sixty years and I would give almost anything for one more conversation with her.”

Your throat. You put your arm around your mother’s shoulders. She leaned into it. Just slightly. Just enough. “The mint will come back,” you said. “It always does,” she said.

—

Your father found you at nine. You were in the library — the room that minded its own business — with the notebook open on the table and your laptop beside it and three years of your grandmother’s documentation laid out in the order you’d decided to present it. You’d made decisions in the kitchen garden with your mother’s shoulder under your arm and the winter light coming up over the dormant beds, and the decisions were clear and final and felt like the most your grandmother’s-granddaughter thing you had ever done. Your father came in and looked at the table and went still. “Sit down,” you said.

He sat. He looked at the notebook. He looked at the laptop. He looked at your face. “I’ve been through all of it,” you said. “The notebook, the financial records from the box, the subsidiary filings that Haeun’s lawyer found. I have a complete picture.” You held his gaze. “I want to tell you what I’m going to do with it before I do it, because she would have done that. She would have told you directly.” He was very still.

“Jungwon and I are going to work with our respective company counsel to restructure both companies’ positions and make the necessary disclosures. The arrangement your father and his built — the liability your grandmother documented — will be unwound properly. Not buried, not managed. Dealt with.” You turned a page in the notebook. “There will be consequences. Probably financial, possibly regulatory. We’re going to take them straight rather than sideways.”

He opened his mouth. “I’m not finished,” you said quietly. He closed it.

“The personal documentation — your relationship with Park Jooyeon — is not something I intend to make public or use. That’s not mine to use. That’s between you and Mum and whatever comes next for the two of you.” You looked at him steadily.

“But I want you to know that I have it. That grandmother had it. That she saw everything and chose the moment and the recipient very carefully.” You paused. “She trusted me with it because she knew I’d tell you directly rather than use it as leverage. So I’m telling you directly.”

Your father was quiet for a long time. He looked older than yesterday. Something had come down overnight — a structure he’d maintained for twenty years, load-bearing, invisible until it wasn’t. “She always knew,” he said. Not a question.

“Yes,” you said.

“Your mother—”

“Is dealing with it on her own terms,” you said. “In her own time. That’s between you and her and I’m not going to be in the middle of it.” You closed the notebook. “But I am going to be here. For her. For as long as she needs.”

He looked at the closed notebook. “You’re very like her,” he said again. The same words as the library yesterday, same tone — not compliment, not threat, something that had moved past both into something more complicated and more honest.

“Good,” you said again.

He stood up. He looked at you for a moment with the eyes of a man who was reassessing something fundamental and finding the reassessment uncomfortable and necessary in equal measure. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For — all of it. The parts that touched you.”

“I know,” you said. He left. You sat in the library for a minute after he’d gone, in the room that minded its own business, and you breathed and looked at the ceiling and thought about your grandmother writing case notes in her precise blue hand for seven years and choosing you and trusting you and leaving you every door she could think to unlock.

I trust them. I always have.

“I know,” you said to the empty room. “I know you did.”

—

Jungwon was in the kitchen when you came down at ten. He’d made breakfast — actual breakfast, not just tea, the kind of breakfast that required navigating someone else’s kitchen and finding things and making decisions about eggs. You stood in the doorway and looked at this and something in your chest did a quiet complicated thing.

He looked up. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” you said.

“I found the eggs,” he said. “I hope that’s alright.”

“It’s very alright,” you said. You came in and sat at the kitchen table — the big scrubbed one, the one you’d sat at a thousand times — and watched him move around the kitchen with the ease of someone who had been in it almost as often as you had, who knew which drawer had the spatulas and which cupboard had the good salt, who knew to use the second burner because the first ran hot.

“I talked to my father’s lawyer this morning,” he said. Back to you, watching the pan. “Started the process. It’s going to take months. There’ll be restructuring costs, probably some regulatory disclosure, definitely some uncomfortable conversations with the board.” He turned around. “But it’s started.”

“I talked to my dad,” you said. “The personal side — I left that between him and my mother. But the business — he knows what’s coming.” Jungwon nodded.

He brought two plates to the table and sat across from you and for a moment you both just looked at the food. “She would have had opinions about the eggs,” you said.

“She would have said I used too much butter.”

“You absolutely used too much butter.”

“The correct amount of butter,” he said, “for a kitchen that has been through what this kitchen has been through in the last four days.” You looked at him. He looked at you. The kitchen held you both in its amber morning warmth and the back door sighed in the wind and the clock ticked its slightly-too-loud tick.

“Barcelona,” he said. Your fork stopped. “I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. “About what you said. The building at five in the afternoon. The light.” He looked at his plate. “I want to see it.” You looked at him. “I want to see where you’ve been. What you’ve built. The studio, the yellow tiles, all of it.” He looked up. “I’m not asking you to come home. I’m not — I know you have a life there and I’m not going to be the person who asks you to fold that up.”

“Jungwon—”

“I’m saying I want to come to you. If that’s—” he stopped. “If you want that.”

You thought about your Barcelona apartment. The yellow tiles you’d hated and grown to love. The building in the Eixample at five in the afternoon. The Sunday light coming flat and amber through the kitchen window and you standing there with a dead leaf and almost calling him. “When?” you said.

Something shifted in his face. The last of the composure, the very last of it, releasing. “As soon as I can arrange it,” he said.

“The companies—”

“Will take months to sort out. I can do that from anywhere with a phone and a laptop.” He looked at you steadily. “I’ve been doing everything from this house and this office and this city for three years and I think—” he paused— “I think I’ve been using that as a reason to not go anywhere I actually wanted to go.”

You held his gaze. “There’s a market on Sundays,” you said. “Near the apartment. They have good tomatoes even in winter, I don’t know how.”

“I’ll need to know where to get good coffee,” he said.

“I know three places,” you said. “Ranked.”

“Of course you do,” he said.

“The first one is wrong,” you said. “Everyone thinks it’s the best and they’re wrong. The second one is correct.” He smiled. The real one, the full one, no millimetres of distance at all. You smiled back.

Outside the kitchen window the winter garden was pale and still. The tangerine tree stood at the edge of the formal garden where it always had, bare-branched, patient, waiting for the season that would bring it back. The sundial offered its wrong time to the thin morning light. The fields beyond the stone wall were grey-green and quiet.

Inside: two plates of eggs with the correct amount of butter, and the kitchen clock ticking, and the back door with the broken latch, and the house breathing around you in the way old houses breathe when something they’ve been waiting for has finally arrived.

“Take care of the tree,” you said.

“I will,” he said.

“She’ll want a report,” you said. “I’ll take notes,” he said.

“In a small book,” you said.

“Obviously,” he said.

You ate breakfast in the warm kitchen of your grandmother’s house while the morning came properly through the windows, and the walls remembered everything, and somewhere in the passage behind the library fireplace the candles had burned down to nothing and the photographs were still on the table and the letter was in your desk drawer with both your names on it in blue ink, and Han Sooja had been right about all of it, every last word, and the tree would come back in spring and so would you.

SPRING

The tangerine tree bloomed in April. Jungwon sent you the photograph at seven in the morning Barcelona time, which meant he’d been in the garden at eight Korean time, which meant he’d gone specifically to check and then specifically to tell you. No caption. Just the photograph — pale blossoms on the bare-becoming-green branches, the stone wall behind it, the edge of the formal garden catching the early spring light.

You were in bed with your phone and the yellow morning light coming through the kitchen tiles and you looked at the photograph for a long time.

Then you typed: she knew it would.

He replied immediately: she knew everything.

Then: flight lands Friday. Is the second coffee place still correct?

Still correct, you typed. I checked yesterday.

Of course.

You put the phone down and looked at the ceiling of your Barcelona apartment and listened to the street coming alive below and thought about the building in the Eixample at five in the afternoon and the light that made it look like it was remembering something, and you thought about what it meant to show someone the life you’d built from scratch in a city that had been yours alone, and you thought about your grandmother in her garden in October with the window open writing three pages of blue ink to two people she trusted to be ready.

You were ready.

You went to the kitchen and put the coffee on and stood at the window with the yellow tiles warm in the morning light and outside the bakery two streets over was already sending its bread smell into the world and somewhere behind you on the shelf the Calvino stood between its neighbours and in the back of it, tucked where it had always been, the recipe card with the hand-drawn map of a house full of secret rooms.

Not everything buried is lost. Some things are just waiting for the ground to be ready.

The coffee finished. You poured two cups out of habit and then looked at the second one and smiled and didn’t move it.

Friday.

perm taglist. . . @kristynaaah @yuudaiinhs @urlocalengene @woninlove @n4n4files @jimineepaboya @grdientlips @hooniluhv @afanok @engenewilstaykon @yumi-yearns @seungiesdoll @rinforu @isa942572 @ride-a-nishimura @florarua @baedreamverse @softblaqn @rikisloverrr @kittyvalr @ellushic @dimples264493 @kimmm02 @kiwicup @jakebitez @mystgene @baek-some-cake @betagalactose @kookiesnkim @honeyvelvetinez @violetteaismyfavourite @meowza1 @abbyssful l @yandere-stories @imminentcodexcore @mlink64 @k4y-sh @rubadubdubinthetub @jungwno @k3nza @simjakeyjake @heeseungdada @bbrianawhatt

fic taglist. . . @yangw0ni3 @skz-enha @lawjakesim @nctubatu @babyonette @cybergoongirl @wivksz

[nishiimuraka]

beautiful beautiful beautiful

[zreamy]

YOU ON MY MIND, YOU ALL THE TIME

only two years post-debut, NAPE are the band to beat, and you might be the only woman in london whose heart races in a bad way at the sight of their guitarist—your ex-boyfriend, jay. 

pairing ✩ jay park x fem!reader

genres: band au, exes to lovers, smut, fluff, angst | warnings: minors dni, reformed evil guy jay, set in london (#SCOTLANDFOREVER), so many english people (#SCOTLANDFOREVER), yn is #GoingThroughIt #Confused, hoseok is the bus driver, BLATANT PLAGIARISM OF SONGS BY EXISTING ARTISTS SORRYYYYYYYY | word count: 37,699

playlist: lover, you should've come over by jeff buckley ✩ puddles by not for radio ✩ eventually by tame impala ✩ where do broken hearts go by one direction ✩ 505 by arctic monkeys ✩ no control by one direction ✩ stateside by pinkpantheress ✩ you da one by rihanna ✩ change your ticket by one direction

from zo: HAPPY BIRTHDAY ASAHICORE !!! wow u are 23.25 now! amazing. youngest person ever. happy reading to everyone else and go wish asahicore a happy birthday rn. AS ALWAYS SHARE FEEDBACK OK LMK WHAT U THINK !!!

BACKSTAGE WITH NAPE ON THE ‘NO WAY BACK’ TOUR.

By: Daydream Mag. Photographs by: Heeseung Lee, Jay Park, Jake Sim & Sunghoon Park.

4:02 P.M. SUNDAY, MARCH 9, 2025. PARIS: If you’re one of NAPE’s four members, how do you spend the hours before the final show of your sold out tour? By sleeping, calling your mum, watching YouTube mukbangs, or taking film photos of your bandmates doing any of the above.

In broken Frenglish, guitarist, Jay, plays tour guide for the green room they’ve made home over the course of their three day concert at the iconic Le Trianon. “Did you know that Rihanna played here?” he asks, eyes wide as he swats away Sunghoon’s camera. “And Kesha, and Fifth Harmony? So many legends and now we’re here—crazy downgrade.”

This same eager, mildly insecure, energy permeates the green room as the band discuss highlights from the last two months on the road — riding a beer bike in Manchester, seeing the Eiffel Tower at midnight — and express how much they wish the tour could last forever. “Performing is the absolute best part,” Jake says between slurps of cup ramen he brought with him from London. “We’re always trying to find local pubs to play in because we can’t get enough.”

“That’s where it all started anyway,” explains their half-asleep frontman, Heeseung. “Playing in pubs, busking in Zone 5 shopping—

“Well, well, well,” Aeri says, appearing over your shoulder and catching you in the act. “If it isn’t Little Miss NAPE-hater drooling over a two-page spread.”

A chill runs down your spine and you couldn’t have dropped the magazine quicker if you tried. At your feet, it clatters with a flinch-inducing thud that rings throughout the deserted entrance of your local twenty-four hour Tesco. Neither you nor Aeri make any move to lift Daydream Mag’s summer 2025 issue from the speckled tile, so from its glossy cover, the face you’ve come to loathe gazes up at you through lidded eyes.

You scoff, affronted by the very suggestion. “I’m not you, Aeri. I wasn’t drooling.” And even if you were drooling, it certainly would not have been over Jay Park and his band of idiots. “It’s a four-page spread, by the way.”

“Same difference.”

Over Aeri’s shoulders, the sun’s first rays are threatening to shine through the glass on what is already an obscenely hot day for September. Dye slips from her damp hair down her face like blood, staining her white collar red, and you watch as she takes a picture of the magazine on the floor between your feet and hers before picking it up. She posts the picture to her story with one of NAPE’s songs playing and tags them so they can eventually see it and repost. They’re always doing that—reposting things fans tag them in. Satisfied, Aeri puts the magazine back in its place on the shelf, between Interview and the last copy of Dazed that has a photo of NAPE’s bassist and drummer laying together on the cover like something from a CEO yaoi. You have no idea how or when they got so popular.

Finally, leaving the band behind, you and Aeri loop your sweat slick arms and move through the aisles. You sniff and review scented candles; browse the books on the shelves, sharing thoughts on the ones you’ve read; and pick up snacks with Clubcard discounts, all on the way to find the one thing you came for at this time of night: salted caramel cheesecake cookies. Along with the rest of the internet, Aeri’s boyfriend has been raving about them since he tried them two weeks ago, and the three of you have been on high alert ever since. You even reached out to Somi’s little cousin, Riki, whose ex-girlfriend has a friend that works here to see when they’d be back in stock.

She told him to kill himself.

This is why, when you finally see them — fully stocked and still warm in their bags — you gasp. Understandably, when Aeri tries calling her boyfriend, he doesn’t answer, but you take as many as you can carry and run for the self-checkout.

Under the purple sky, you and Aeri walk all the way home, carrier bags in hand. It takes a lot not to eat all thirty cookies as soon as you cross the threshold, but, in an exercise of immense self-control, you leave them in the bread bin, and bid your flatmate goodnight.

Love her as much as you’ve come to, you often find yourself wishing it was some incredible story that brought the two of you together. A great tale of intertwined fates and instant connection. Instead, you found Aeri on spareroom.co.uk and when you deemed each other harmless enough, you signed the lease and moved in. It took a few months for you to shake off your anxiety and say more to her than, how did you sleep? but you got there in the end, and almost one whole year down the line, this flat and Aeri feel more like home every day.

As the working world’s alarms go off, you get into bed, showered and fresh-breathed, where sleep is reluctant to find you. One hundred counted sheep later, you give up and open Twitter. Now, you are mature enough to know better than to engage with content you know you’re not going to like—you’re not a critic. But… you are a hater. While NAPE haven’t yet brought forth the next strain of fandom-induced illness — à la Bieber Fever or One Direction Infection — they’re inescapable if you use the internet in any capacity. Profiles in magazines, Spotify playlist covers, constant viral concert clips: sweat-sheened skin and lidded eyes, long, thick ring-clad fingers strumming guitars or stroking mic stands. The tattooed back of their frontman populates hit tweets and Instagram Reels alike.

It’s not like you’re immune to attraction or allure. You have eyes. Eyes that widen at the sight of Sunghoon flexing his arms or Jake biting his lip. At Jay and his perfectly mussed hair that sits right at the junction of neat and messy. His two silver hoops in each ear. His dimpled cheek. How he sings with his eyes closed. The scar on his nose that you can only really see up close or when the light hits it just right. Keeping up with things like this is important because if you’re going to be a hater, you’d like to at least be an informed one. This is why, when you search for them on Twitter and the first tweet that comes up is the link to NAPE Catch Each Others Lies | Teen Vogue, you click with no hesitation.

It’s weird seeing them in motion like this, comfortable and joking around. Not singing. They’re decked head to toe in smart casual. Loose blazers and tailored trousers, fake glasses and neatly parted hair, smart shoes and polo shirts. Even though it’s different to their concert outfits and doesn’t really match what seems to be their vibe — evil-demon-fuckboy-rockstar — it suits them, highlighting their oddly perfect proportions.

From this video, you learn that Jay doesn't know any of their birthdays, Jake uses Sunghoon’s deodorant, and Sunghoon has never fallen asleep during rehearsal. Heeseung is also there. When the video ends, you fall asleep without a hitch, fresh linen and sweet dreams pulling you under.

Until you force open your heavy eyes to the sound of your phone ringing at eight o’clock—you slept for exactly two hours. It’s Aeri’s boyfriend. You can’t even speak when you answer, letting out a grumble instead. “Welcome to the land of the living, sweetheart!” he chirps, sounding much too awake for your liking. “Care to open the door?”

“Come back later.”

“But your breakfast will be cold later.” There’s a poutiness to his voice that would irk you if your hungry ears didn’t perk up at the sound of breakfast.

Turning over under the covers, you lean up on your elbows. “What’s for breakfast?” you ask slowly.

“Toad’s.”

To you — and the rest of London’s Gen Z population — Toad’s is the breakfast spot. At seven a.m. every day, there’s a queue that wraps around the corner. They recently issued a statement to request that customers stop selling their spots in line. Tired as you are, the thought of eating Toad’s without having lined up thrills you so much that you run straight to the door and fling it open. There stands Heeseung, a cup-holder in one hand and several paper bags in the other. A pair of sunglasses keep his bleach-fried hair from his forehead.

“You look nice,” he says, smiling as you step aside to let him in.

Smoothing out your hair with self-conscious palms, you inspect your face in the mirror beside him, seeing the crust lining the corners of your puffy eyes. “We are not close enough for you to speak to me like that,” you tell him, leaning into your reflection to clean yourself up a little.

Though you’re joking, mostly, Heeseung and Aeri have only been together for two months, and as her close friend, he should be on his best behaviour around you for at least the rest of his life. He frowns, apologising sincerely as he holds out one of the red and white paper bags. “Can I interest you in a forgive me choux vanille?”

The words make your heart race in your chest as you give a reverent nod, taking the bag from him.

“There’s, like, four of them in there—all yours.”

You have seen fanpages for these choux vanilles, you have been close to starting one yourself, and here, now, on a random Tuesday morning, standing in your hallway with NAPE’s frontman, you hold in your trembling hands a bag of, like, four of them. Later in life, when the time comes, you will name your firstborn after this man, probably.

“Heeseung,” you say softly. “Speak to me however you like.”

He laughs at that, as if he hasn’t just made your whole week. The soft sound breaks you out of your stupor and you help him carry all one million things he brought. “How’d you even get all this?” you ask over your shoulder, everything is still warm, perfect. “What time did you get there? What time did you even wake up?”

Heeseung follows you into the kitchen, his footsteps light against the hardwood. “Will you think I’m a prick if I say I’ve been up all night?” His question surprises you as you take in the sight of him once more—he is the picture of wakefulness with his bright eyes and glowy skin.

“Ah.” You set the goods on the counter, nodding as you take a picture of his haul. “Rockstar life, huh?”

A smile spreads over his lips as he rolls up his sleeves, tattoos appearing from under the white cotton, oddly sheepish. For an artist of his — their — size, with his — their — visibility, there’s a certain meekness to Heeseung that you thought was an act at first, but now you’re not so sure.

“Not even,” he mumbles, looking down at the dark worktop and describing the epitome of rockstar life. “We had this party thing in Soho, but it was dead so we went round this guy’s flat instead, and he stays proper close, as in the line goes by his front door—one of Jongseong’s friends…”

Whether Heeseung knows you’ve stopped listening at the mention of that name is anyone’s guess, but suddenly, your long-awaited Toad’s matcha tastes like nothing and your blood pumps thickly through your body. Loud in your ears. It’s one thing to anticipate seeing or hearing about him — watching that video before bed or bracing yourself for posters plastered in stations and around the city — but like this, so casually, from the mouth of your one person in common, it still shakes you up.

“Whoa.” He waves his large palm in front of your face. “You alright?” Concern creases his eyebrows.

An attempt at a light-hearted laugh stumbles from you. “Just sleepy.” A long, ungraceful moment dawdles by as he studies you, performing some form of assessment that you’re sure you’ve failed.

“Same, honestly,” he finally agrees, though he doesn’t seem convinced. “I’ll catch you in a bit, yeah?”

You nod, watching as he makes his way to Aeri’s room and snapping your neck in the other direction when he looks over at you. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Perfect!” you call out over your shoulder, all but sprinting to your bedroom.

In the privacy of your four walls, you sink into the chair at your desk and eat your steak, brie, and mushroom toastie. Half of it anyway, the thought of Jay is too distracting to enjoy it fully. You open Instagram before you even realise, hitting the search button and typing pzzong without a second thought. Eighteen hours ago, he made a post. A photo dump: his guitar in his lap, a blurry sunrise, a gym selfie with Sunghoon’s naked back in the mirror, a video of a lively crowd, and a piercing through his left eyebrow. Life is good, he wrote. The comments display varying degrees of thirst for Sunghoon. Blue ticks light up the screen as you scroll through them. Heart eyes from Bae Sumin. Best show ever babyyyyyyy from Yeh Shuhua.

Good for him.

Seriously.

You have committed a cardinal sin, for which you will never forgive yourself—you forgot your headphones at home. And so, like the rest of Central London, you’ve been subject to hearing the rustle of plastic on plastic in your bag as you walk down the street. As it turns out, no matter how delicious, eating thirty ginormous, sickly sweet cookies is quite difficult, so you’re taking them out to the pub where you’re meeting up with some friends.

The bell above the door at Ruby’s rings loud and clear over the radio when you step inside. For a Wednesday afternoon, it’s busier than you expect, patrons crowding the bar and tables alike, though you suppose, as one of them, that this is the way of the unemployed. Speaking of, Riki towers over everyone at the bar, oblivious or uncaring towards the pretty bartender’s fluttering eyelashes. At the sight of you though, he raises his bleached eyebrows, waving you over.

“Three p.m. tequila shots, don’t mind if I do,” you say, beaming into the rough collar of his denim jacket.

His hug is tight and brief. “Aw, yeah. I’ve got class in the morning,” he offers unhelpfully, holding up a clear shaker. “Salt?” Riki pours salt all over the back of your hand, more granules falling to your feet than sticking to the spot you licked, and hands you his wedge of lime. Holding up his shot with surprising steadiness, he says, “C’est la vie!”

Doing a shot of straight fire would burn less, but Riki isn’t fazed, grabbing you by the wrist and tugging you towards the back of the pub where the rest of your friends are. Yizhuo sees you first, peering over the booth and her face splits into a grin. You feel yours doing the same. She and Somi leap to their feet, pulling you into a hug and wrapping you up in a cloud of florals and spice and beer. “You’re alive!” Yizhuo cries out, pulling back to get a good look at you, her hand on your jaw to turn your face this way and that. “And still so beautiful!”

“Against all the odds,” you mumble, accepting the wet kiss Somi plants on your cheek with a smile. Right when you settle into the booth beside Yizhuo, texts from Aeri light up your phone screen, notification bubbles covering up the chestnut horse on your lockscreen.

aeri: heeseung said the guys can make it after all ! he promises they’ll behave

aeri: they’re not as bad as you think !!!

You groan around a long sweet sip of the cloudy IPA Somi ordered for you. “I’m meeting Aeri’s boyfriend’s friends tonight,” you mumble, sending a thumbs-up emoji in response.

“Wait.” Yizhuo pauses, looking over her shoulders before leaning over the table. “NAPE are going to be at your flat tonight?” she whispers, eyes wide and buggy.

What comes from your mouth is a disgusting sigh-groan hybrid that makes Riki flinch as you say, “The one and only.”

Somi’s entire face crumples and she hunches over, hitting her forehead repeatedly on the tabletop, making it wobble. “Why do good things keep happening to you instead of me?”

“This is public knowledge, I texted the chat like a week ago.” You lift your golden pint and Yizhuo’s dark Guinness from the table so they don’t slip off the edge. “Plenty of time, no?”

“A week ago…” Riki repeats, voice trailing off into nothing as he rubs his stomach and leans back in his seat. “That’s like an hour’s notice in employed people's time.” He sighs. “No offense, YN.”

“Okay, Big Rik.” You scoff. “You’ve had a job for ten minutes.”

He glances at his watch before squinting at you, venom written all over his cute little face. “And that’s ten minutes longer than you, is it not?”

“Did I do something to you?”

“You know what? I’m glad you br—” Somi cuts off her little cousin by shutting his mouth with her hand. “Can we please focus on the real issue, you’re partying with NAPE tonight and I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

“My mum’s up and we’re having dinner,” she says bitterly.

“Just come after.”

“Or don’t come at all!” Yizhuo butts in. “I have plans for Jake Sim tonight and I don’t need him getting distracted.”

Riki kisses his teeth, shaking his head. “I’m willing to bet a good amount of money that your plans involve staring at him from across the room, then blowing up the chat to talk about how you two caught a vibe.”

This is, to Yizhuo, the greatest offence — despite its truth — and you have to actually hold her back from leaping over the table to strangle Riki, but there’s nothing you can do about the string of insults that leave her mouth.

Somi’s ring-clad knuckles rap against your side of the table, right beside your glass. “Really sorry about Daydream, by the way. Seriously,” she says, frowning. “If it makes you feel any better, I heard a bunch of their permanent staff got laid off as well.”

Only now, with Somi’s sincerity, do you realise how long it’s been since you last saw your friends. Nearly three weeks have passed since you lost your job, and this is the first time the four of you have managed to get together. As much as you hate to admit it, Riki was right about needing loads of notice to schedule something as simple as day drinking at the pub. Your world used to revolve around your planner, with separate sections in your worn Filofax for work, personal, and social—which was, largely in part, due to your obsession with stationary. Sitting down on a Sunday night to plan out the week ahead was one of your main hobbies, pencilling in coffee dates and errand-run-hangout hybrids wherever you found an hour or two in common with one of your friends. If you didn’t live with Aeri, you’d probably never see her.

“You know what, Somi? Not really, but thank you.”

Undeterred, she beams at you. “One door closed is a million doors opened, I swear.”

“Cheers to that!” Riki grins, raising his shot glass to his cousin’s nonsensical proverb.

Pushing your doubts away, you raise your pint and toast to the possibility of a million doors opening up before you. Beautiful doors with even more beautiful things behind them, of course. You need all the luck you can get.

Somi has time to nurse another half pint before she has to leave, begging you to text her everything about tonight as it happens. You make no promises. It’s another four pints and a sunset before the rest of you get up to leave, zigging and zagging through the crowded bar out into the crisp fresh air. And because the speakers in the beer garden are playing music, different music to what was on inside, Riki makes you and Yizhuo sit shivering with him at a picnic bench so he can listen to Folded by Kehlani.

“Fuck, Riki,” Yizhuo mutters, rubbing her face with her hands when the second verse starts. “Don’t you have music at home?”

He rolls his eyes, pausing his singing to say, “I’m sure even you could appreciate that hearing a song you like in the wild is way better than listening to it at home.”

“I would love to agree with you, but I have central heating at home.” Your teeth chatter when you finish talking, and all you can think about is your bed and the multiple other ways you could be experiencing warmth at home right now. Hot water bottle. Electric blanket. Taking a bath. Cuddling with Aeri.

“You also have NAPE at home.” Yizhuo points out.

“We’re all going there, what’s your point?”

She pulls a face that you know means she’s not coming.

“We?” Riki repeats, eyes bulging out of his head. “I’m going home. There’s music at home, as Yizhuo so kindly reminded me.”

“Neither of you are coming? Are you serious?”

“As a heart attack, brother.” He nods solemnly, standing up from his seat as the song comes to an end. “None of my mutuals are going.” He pats his pockets, in search of the big three — phone, wallet, keys — before zipping up his jacket.

“Your mutuals…” Yizhuo trails off, eying him. “Riki, this is real life.”

“Also it’s literally my flat, where I live… I thought we were mutuals.”

“Ladies, please.” He holds up his hands defensively. “I can ragebait Jay Park any time, okay, I don’t need to go to your house to do that. I also think I reserve the right to sleep in my own bed tonight. Alone.”

“Who else would be in your bed?” Yizhuo scrunches her nose, pulling the fallen strap of her bag back up her shoulder.

Gesturing towards all six feet of himself, Riki licks his lips, stumbling just a little. “Have you seen me?” he asks, a smug smile curling over his mouth.

“Unfortunately, we have, princess,” you say, patting his back. “Let’s get you home.”

Ruby’s isn’t your favourite pub, but it’s the best option if you’re drinking with Riki, because he stays so close and the only way any of you will have peace of mind after a night out is if you actually see him getting into his flat and hear the lock clicking behind him. The three of you walk arm in arm with Princess Riki towering over you in the middle. It takes all of fifteen minutes to get to his place and then the station across the road. Side by side on the platform, Yizhuo bumps your hip with hers. “How are you feeling?”

Given the pile of her texts you haven’t yet returned, you have a good idea of what she’s referring to. Even so, you ask, “About?”

Yizhuo gives you a look, pursing her lips before mumbling your name. She got lucky, jumping off the slowly sinking Daydream ship in time to snag a senior editorial position at Interview. She’d encouraged you to do the same, move up in your career, but no, you just had to prove your unwavering loyalty to a company for which you were no more than a name on a list. A recipient for an email with the subject line: Notice of Organisational Changes. Hindsight, as always, is 20/20 and the signs were there before you even got to London. The Edinburgh office, where you’d worked since graduating, closed last summer for financial reasons. Transferring seemed like a no-brainer, a blessing, but if you knew you had a year left, you would’ve stayed put.

“The downtime’s nice.” Over the last three weeks you’ve fixed your sleeping schedule, started and finished eight books, gone home to see Minjeong, applied and been rejected from nine editorial positions, and played through all of Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Twice. “I do, however, enjoy receiving a salary, so it would be nice to work again. Quite soon.”

Yizhuo nods, squeezing your shoulder. “I’ll keep an eye out for openings, but it might help to get your work out there, keep you sharp and all that. Are you on Substack?”

You laugh in her face. It’s 2025, everyone is on Substack—including the two-hundred subscribers you panicked and abandoned when your page started gaining traction. “Yes, Yizhuo. I’m on Substack.”

“Perfect!” she exclaims and because this is the Central Line and Londoners do not care about anyone else, no one spares her a glance. Your cheeks burn anyway. A happy sigh falls from her lips, and she tilts her head. “Write and post, write and post. Anyone will read anything these days, just get your name and your gorgeous words online, and I promise, you’ll be rolling in opportunities.”

“Yizhuo…”

“I’m serious. Write about your crazy NAPE party tonight, God knows how many people would kill to be in your position.” She lets go of the handrail and makes a show of pointing at herself with both hands. “Just do something, okay? You’re too young to sit in your room watching TV all day. You need to leave your house and live your life and see your friends.”

“I know, Yizhuo. I know that,” you mumble, fiddling with the hem of your jacket. “It’s not on purpose or anything, I just… sometimes I need a day to do nothing, and then it’s two days and then it’s a week.” Your stomach curls in on itself at the thought. The longer you spend at home, the harder it is to leave. You had to psych yourself up this afternoon, staring at your reflection and repeating: my friends do not secretly hate me. My friends enjoy my company. I am good company.

She frowns. “I get that, really. But you don’t have to deal with everything on your own, you have friends. A lot of friends who love you and want to spend time with you.” It all sounds a bit like an affirmation tape, a YouTube subliminal, and maybe if those weren’t the exact words you needed to hear right now, you might have laughed. “Next time you’re home doing nothing, text me and we can rot together, okay?”

You nod.

“And please, please, please get some NAPE dick tonight and review it ASAP,” Yizhuo says, whispering the name of the band as if that was the worst part of her sentence.

“I’ll pass.”

“Not a request.”

“Okay, daddy. I’ll do it,” you say, which, of course, makes London’s so-called nonchalant population turn their heads in your direction.

Yizhuo’s head falls back with laughter and you look up at the map above the door. Seven more stops for you, though hers is next. She pulls you into a hug, and you hide your face in her puffer jacket, willing your cheeks to stop burning. It doesn’t work. When the doors slip open, she kisses your cheeks and says, “See you later, Kitten.”

Flustered doesn’t even begin to describe how you feel as you call out, “Text me when you’re home, okay?”

She nods and blows you a kiss before climbing the stairs, disappearing into the sea of commuters leaving the station while the doors close. The Tube chugs on, homeward bound. With Yizhuo’s words on a loop, you finish the rest of the journey home, relieved to feel the autumn wind on your cheeks when you get back outside.

Dread stirs a pit in your stomach as you hear the party before you even see your front door. And dread almost kills you as you take careful steps around the people sitting in the corridor to get inside. The music is loud but there aren’t as many people as you thought. It’s mainly just a bunch of influencers you recognise by IG handle instead of name—jenaissante and _chaechae_1 are stretched over your couch, yawnzzn laughs with you.th in the kitchen doorway.

Heeseung spots you before you have a chance to retreat to your room. He is elated and red all over, pulling you into a hug, and wrapping his warm tobacco scent around you. “Hello!” he yells into your ear, before gesturing behind himself. “Jake and Sunghoon.” NAPE’s bassist and drummer, the ones from the yaoi magazine cover you went back for a copy of, are somehow much better looking in person.

The camera doesn’t quite do justice to Jake’s large… everything. His eyes, nose, lips, and rose-tinted knuckles are so big and so beautiful. He tucks some of his hair behind his ear and smiles with all of his teeth. “Nice finally meeting you,” he says, seeming to mean it. Having a favourite member in a band where you know half of the members personally feels wrong, but Jake is that for you, and so, the tipsy fangirl-adjacent part of you gives him a hug that he graciously returns.

At his side, Sunghoon stands in a white button-up that clings to his huge biceps. Great. His hair is perfectly parted over his forehead, his tie tight and straight. His lips are plump and pink, pulling into a sheepish smile as he raises his huge hand to wave at you. The sight of it, the dimple in his cheek, sets off a flutter in your stomach and you can’t help giggling like he’s done something special. “We’ve heard so much,” he says. “I mean, J—” He groans, keeling over and clutching his ribs where Jake elbowed him.

“It’s true, Gigi’s always talking about you,” Jake finishes off like nothing happened. “Something to drink?”

Dazed, you blink at the band boy, but take him up on his kind offer of a drink in your home. Jake leads you through the sparse crowd, weaving artfully towards your kitchen and making small talk along the way. “I actually used to play in church,” he tells you, opening your cupboards and taking out what he needs. Absolut Vanilla, simple syrup. A sticky bottle of Schweppes swiped from the kitchen island behind you. “I wanted girls to like me.”

“Did it work?”

Jake looks up from the counter at you, a smile playing at the corner of his lips as he halts his mixology. “Of course it worked,” he says, disbelief written all over his face. “But I was too shy to do anything about it.”

“I see,” you say, struggling to conceal your laughter as he hands you a cup.

“Wasn’t for nothing though.” He shrugs, leaning against the counter. “I guess you could say I’m pretty confident these days.”

You’ve seen enough about NAPE online, fanwars and uproar about the personal lives of the members, to know firsthand he’s not exactly lying. This is the face of some of Pinterest’s favourite couple inspo, one half of the now-mourned JakeZuha. You’d met her once, Kazuha, at a work thing. One of Daydream’s holiday parties. She was nice, more than, even if she didn’t have much to say about anything that wasn’t her boyfriend. Their breakup in the winter had fanpages proclaiming that love was dead and that they were children of divorce.

The thought makes you laugh in his face and you’re just glad he laughs too as you clink the rims of your plastic cups together.

Armed with the sweetest vodka lemonade you’ve ever had, you head to your room, desperate to change out of your jeans. After triple checking the lock on your door, you leave your jeans in a heap at your feet, stepping out of them and towards your dresser, where you settle on your favourite grey sweatpants and resolve to only be photographed from the waist up. One large gulp of drink, a deep breath, and you pull open the door, returning to the party—if fifteen people in your flat can really be described as such.

Before you can go over and join Aeri, a knock at the front door catches your attention, though you seem to be the only one to hear it. The knock comes again and you roll your eyes, unwilling to apologise for noise at nine p.m. on a Friday night. You know your rights. At the sound of a third knock, you stomp over to the door and fling it open.

“Mrs. Kim, we—Jay?”

The last year of your life living in London has been long. A massive adjustment. Hiked up prices and supermarkets closing early on Sundays, learning Tube routes and constantly being an hour away from any given plan you’ve made. So much has changed. You have changed. You are not the same petrified grown up who left everything she knew to move here, nor are you the same lovestruck girl Jay abandoned all those years ago. Yet the sight of him, live and in person and standing at your door dislodges something in your chest. In your memories, those odd dreams you have from time to time, he always looks so grown up. Jay at twenty. Twenty-one. It had never occurred to you back then how young you both were, especially given that he was a year older. Reconciling that version of him with the 25-year-old man before you now is impossible. The last of his baby fat, those stubborn chubby cheeks you loved with everything you had are gone now.

Is there any part of him, of this stranger, that you still know?

His hair is slicked back, a few strands left down, streaking over his forehead in that handsome way. You’d always liked it back like this, though he rarely did it. Reserved it for special occasions. Grad Ball Jay. Anniversary Jay. 25-year-old Jay. Even though the sun is down, a huge pair of sunglasses rests on the straight bridge of his nose. The silver ball above his eyebrow shines in the light. Making sense of the odds in your mind is impossible. How, at once, you are pleased to see him and thoroughly disgusted by it. How after everything, he can look at you, smile, and say your name.

“Jay…” you say again, trailing off, uncertain and half-expecting him to vanish into thin air, like some hyperrealistic figment of your imagination, complete with the cologne he used to wear. Scent — his scent — that most powerful of senses that hurtles you into the past as soon as you catch it. Hurtles you long back into his soft hoodies. Into your bed where that same honey musk lingered on the sheets long after he left.

“It’s so good to see you,” he says, sincere as ever.

“I know,” you agree, stomach turning. Nervous. Nauseous. “I, uh, I do think I’m going to be sick, though.”

Before you have the chance to rush away from him, to do anything, you wretch and spew alcohol onto the doormat between his feet and yours.

Pinching yourself does nothing—this is not a nightmare to be woken from.

“Fuck,” Jay says, crouching into view. Concern drenches his features, the last thing you see before screwing your eyes shut. “Are you okay?”

Mortification creeps through every last inch of your body, settling between your bones. This is not happening. This can not be happening. Seeing Jay again was supposed to be an event of Princess Diana revenge dress proportions. You own a revenge dress! You had grand plans to make Jay Park regret the day he was born, never mind the day he dumped you. Yet here you are, in a crop top and joggers covered in your own vomit.

“Great, Jay,” you mutter. “I’m great.”

Against your better judgment, you let him take you to the bathroom where you lean over the toilet bowl. Nothing comes out, but he rubs your back and holds your hair away from your skin anyway. His gentle touch burns through your clothes. “Are you alright?”

Kneeling on the checkerboard linoleum with Jay at your side has been a real test of strength, though, even with your screaming joints, you’re certain it’s better than the alternative—actually having to look at him. Weepy-eyed and vomit-breathed. “I’m fine,” you say for the hundredth time, sighing. “You can stop asking now.”

He scoffs, an amused sound that heats your skin to hear. Behind your closed eyelids, you can picture the look on his face. Clearly see the lopsided curve of his lips, the hint of a dimple. “Alright, my bad for worrying after you threw up all over me.”

Your hair slips from his hold when you whip your head to face him, strands sticking to your neck as soon as they’re free. Frantically, your eyes search his dark jeans. “It got on you?”

Jay smiles and he is so painfully gorgeous in the warm light of your shared bathroom, sitting on the edge of the tub. Seeing him here, seeing him at all makes your heart stutter. “No, YN.” He shakes his head, quickly, voice a low rumble. “You’re all good.”

You hum, raking a hand through your hair. “I’m all good,” you agree.

Now that your level of goodness has been sufficiently clarified, Jay clears his throat. “Alright, champ,” he says, as if you are an eight-year-old little boy while helping you to your feet in much the same manner. “Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?”

On your waist the weight of his palm, the heat of it, is dizzying, and your alcohol consumption and post-vomit fogginess do nothing to stop the room from tilting. “Don’t touch me,” you croak, wriggling out of his grip. The words are rough on your throat.

Ever respectful, he lets go at once, stepping back and apologising as he flushes the toilet. A thrum of irritation flares in your head, hammering at your skull, at how easily that word came out of him, sorry, slipping from his little pink mouth and over the smallest thing. At once, the desire to wring his neck and to press your lips against his spar in your head. Neither wins. “So that you can apologise for,” you say under your breath instead.

Somehow, the look he gives you — tilted head, wide eyes, lips ajar — is the worst thing that’s happened since he arrived. Jay pities you, his scorned lover. The tightness in your chest is immediate, a thick knot that won’t give. Before he can speak, you turn away to clutch the sink and it is a grand effort. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“It’s fine, Jay. I’m fine,” you say, though it is the furthest thing from fine you can think of. “It was a big deal to me and not to you. We’re over it, we’re fine.”

In the mirror, he looks at you like you’ve grown a second head, like you are Patrick Zweig asking for Tashi Duncan’s coaching. “Not a big deal to me?” he repeats, incredulous. “Are you kidding? Who said it wasn’t a big deal to me?”

You cover your face with your hands, sighing into your palms. “We’re not having this conversation.”

“I think we need to.”

“Yeah, Jay. We did,” you agree, catching his eye in the glass. It’s a mistake. “About three years ago before you up and left out of nowhere.”

“Out of nowhere?” he says, as if he absolutely must repeat everything that comes out of your mouth. “I was always moving back here, YN. That was always my plan, you knew that.”

Your eyes sting at the corners. Tears eager to spill. He’s right. You did know that. Jay made it explicitly clear. But there had been a time back then, when you were a part of those plans too. When his tongue slipped around I and we like they were the same thing. They were. To you. When we go to London… He brought you here that last winter. You drank Bailey’s hot chocolate at Winter Wonderland and met his parents. Met Heeseung. Jay had a life here, a vibrant one, and with each day you spent together, it became harder to imagine him anywhere else. By the fireplace in his family home, he asked you if you liked it, liked London. Of course you did. The flame raged warm in his brown eyes when he asked if you could see yourself here, with him. Your heart was beating in your throat. You loved London, and you loved Jay even more. You would have moved to Aberdeen if that’s where he wanted to go.

“Jay?”

His gaze softens, gone is the harsh crease of his brow, his squinting eyes. It’s like staring the past dead in the face. Everything you wanted so badly and never got to have. “Yeah?” he says gently.

“Get to fuck.”

Jay clenches his jaw, nodding slowly. “If that’s what you want.” He closes the door softly behind him when he leaves.

It’s only now, alone, that you register the hammering of your heart, the thudding of your pulse in your ears. You cry into the sink until your head hurts. You brush your teeth. Wash your face.

Opposite the bathroom door, Jay leans on the wall. Sunglasses on. Bottle of water in his white knuckle grip. He holds it out for you to take and you sigh, far beyond the mood to hear whatever he has to say. Minted by Colgate and Listerine, the water is ice in your mouth. Refreshing. “Thanks.”

Jay flicks off the bathroom light by your shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he says.

Together, you turn down the hall and into the living room. All of the guys — NAPE, at least — lapse into silence to watch you, though Heeseung is polite enough to pretend he’s not staring. Your stomach turns. Leaning up to Jay’s ear is grossly reflexive when you ask, “Do they—” You pause, pursing your lips and knowing the answer already. “Obviously Heeseung knows, but…”

“I told them.”

No matter how evil he was / is, he has every right to talk about what happened. About what he did. It’s Jay’s story as much as it’s yours, and he can do with it what he wants, regardless of how mortifying it is to think of other people knowing. What you did with it, and intend to continue doing with it, was keep the whole ordeal to yourself, like any other mentally sound adult woman would, which is obviously very healthy and working out really well for you. Jay had to move back home and we agreed it’d be best to end things. This is the version of events everyone else in your life has heard, and it’s what Minjeong and Jaehyun would have heard if it wasn’t for your living with them.

“Sorry,” he adds in a low voice.

That word again, easier than breathing it seems. “It’s fine.”

At the sight of you, Aeri’s face lights up and she stumbles out of Heeseung’s lap and over to you, taking you into her tattooed arms like it’s been an age since you last saw each other. In a way, you can’t believe it hasn’t been. “Here you are!” With her hands cradling your elbows, she takes a good look at you, eyes latching onto every part of your face. “You feeling okay?”

“Perfect!” Your voice is unusually high, strained.

“Heeseung cleaned up.” Aeri’s gaze flickers over your shoulder and she grins. “And I see you two have met.”

“Actually—” Jay starts, but you talk over him. “Yeah!” You face him, grinning too widely and extending a hand for him to shake. “Sorry about that. I’m YN.”

Only after a moment does his confusion clear and he takes your hand in his, shaking it. His fingertips are rougher than you remember, thick callouses boiling hot on your skin. “Nice meeting you,” he says, holding onto you for just too long. Too long for a conventional first meeting, anyway. No amount of time holding Jay Park’s hand could ever be long enough.

True peace and relaxation only find you when everyone has left, trickling out into London’s night time, cluster by cluster. Heeseung and his band boys stayed behind to tidy up and get their hands on one last pint before leaving your place even neater than they’d found it.

While you wash the breakfast dishes you abandoned in your room this morning, Aeri tiptoes into the kitchen behind you, humming happily to herself and pulling you into her arms. “They’re not so bad, are they?” Unfortunately, she and the rest of the world are correct. NAPE aren’t so bad after all. In fact, they are perfectly charming, and funny, and kind. Even their evil guitarist. You hum in response and focus on keeping a firm grip on your bowl as you move it to the drying rack.

“And…” She trails off, apparently waiting for you to finish her sentence. Much to her dismay, you do not. Aeri lets go of you and leans on the counter at your side, tipping her head to see your face. “What do we think of Jay?” she asks in a sing-song voice, and if she were referring to literally any other guy on the planet, you’d have smiled along with her.

But she isn’t and the sound of his name dries your mouth. “He’s… okay,” you say after too long. “Seems nice.”

Aeri’s jaw drops. “He’s okay?” Her disbelief is palpable, expressed through every part of her. “He held your hair while you threw up in the toilet and you think he’s just okay?”

“I actually didn’t throw up at all in the toilet,” you correct her, like that makes it any better, defensive in an off-putting way that makes you cringe. “But I guess the rockstar thing doesn’t really do it for me.”

“The rockstar thing,” she repeats under her breath, shaking her head. “What about the freakishly understanding thing? Or, I don’t know, the extremely fuckable guy thing?”

A pit takes over your stomach. “You’ve fucked him?” You don’t mean to ask, or to sound so dejected when you do, but the words come out before you can help it.

“Jesus, no.” Aeri sighs. “I’m not that lucky.”

You hate how relieved you are to hear it.

“He’s, like, impressively celibate. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had on, like, a chastity belt or some shit.” She shakes her head solemnly. “A damn shame if you ask me,” she starts, though quickly changes her tune. “But, you know, I’m obviously very lucky with Heeseung… yadda yadda yadda.”

A scoff comes out of you, but you can’t help the smile on your face. “Right.”

Aeri yawns and stretches her arms out over her head. “Believe me when I say I cannot wait to see the kind of person who does it for you.” It’s the last thing she says before she kisses your temple and heads for bed.

you: I threw up on Park Jongseong tn.

minjeong: YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

In bed, you open your phone and search for the thread you haven’t looked at in years. His contact still has a kissy face in it.

jongseong 😽: i got my shift swapped soooooo sleepover?

you: 😭😭😭 YES YES YES YES YES YES

jongseong 😽: hahaha leaving in 10 ❤️‍🔥

jongseong 😽: baby baby baby baby baby baby

Because this knife to the gut isn’t quite sharp enough, you search for the word dakgaejang, and those first messages come up.

jongseong 😽: hey yn! it’s jongseong from earlier, i hope you don’t mind me asking around for your number, i’m only now realising how creepy this is… i just wanted to make sure you were able to get home okay, and i’m really sorry i couldn’t walk you all the way back, i swear i meant to! and don’t worry about the hoodie, just hold onto it and stay cozy!!! if you have someone at home who can cook, my mom has this insane recipe for dakgaejang, that shit could cure anything, and if you don’t have someone at home who can cook, i’d be happy to whip some up for you when i get home and drop it off!!!

jongseong 😽: whatever works for you, okay? just lmk!

When you finally fall asleep, you dream of Jay. Of Jay and your university bedroom back in that freezing Edinburgh flat. At the foot of your bed, he hurriedly picked his clothes from the floor while your space heater roared into the cold. You leaned up on your elbows, but said nothing. You couldn’t speak. Finally, he saw you and froze in place. This was not the Jay of years past. Not Jongseong. It was Jay as he’d been last night. With his hair slicked back and his worn leather jacket over his broad shoulders. Still, he gave you that same look. Those same soft and sleepy eyes.

“Sorry, beautiful,” he mumbled, his voice low and thick. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

You shook your head. “It’s okay.”

All it took was one blink, and he was right there, kneeling at the side of the bed. “I’m glad we got to see each other again, YN. I’ve really missed you.” His palm rested on your cheek, calluses on the tips of his fingers. “Get some sleep, okay? I’ll be back soon,” he said. A dimple dented his cheek when you nodded, and his soft lips grazed yours—you wake up with a start, sweat-drenched and heavy breathing. Heart pounding in your chest. Tears welling in your eyes.

When you finally manage to get out of bed, you go straight to the shower. You don’t bother drying your hair after, which you will regret. On the kitchen counter, the kettle boils noisily, but you can’t bring yourself to worry about waking your flatmate. Can’t bring yourself to worry about anything other than the fact you haven’t been able to steady your breathing in the thirty minutes since you tore yourself from your damp cheeks.

A door clicks shut down the hallway, making you flinch. Heeseung appears in the doorway wearing nothing but a pair of black sweatpants. “How’d you sleep?” he asks through a yawn.

Your dream, Jay, comes to mind quickly and with no warning. The ghost of his palm on your cheek, his lips on yours, all so vivid like he’s here with you now. Like he really spent the night. “Same as always,” you say, clearing your throat. “You?”

“Slept alright.” He shrugs and takes a glass from the cabinet by your head, filling it up with water from the filter. “Are you going to tell Gigi or should I?”

The drop of your stomach is immediate. “Tell Gigi what?”

After a sip of water, he presses his lips into a flat line and takes a moment, like he’s carefully choosing his next words. “I know it’s none of my business but—”

“Stay out of it then,” you interrupt, pulling the kettle from the element and filling your mug. Instant espresso splashes onto the counter.

“But he’s really sorry, you know?” Heeseung says as if it makes a difference.

He’s sorry? Great! The urge to punch Heeseung in the face for his crime of simply having a functional relationship with your life’s great evil is overbearing. Your clenched fist trembles at your side and a maniacal laugh rips out of you. He takes a step back. Your coffee burns your tongue. “Wow, Heeseung! Why didn’t he just say so? Holy shit, this changes everything!”

“YN—”

Desperate for this conversation to be over, to bury yourself under your duvet and start again tomorrow, you cut him off yet again. “It’s not your mistake to fix.”

“You’re right.” Heeseung sighs. “I’m sorry.”

“Look, obviously you’re going to stick up for your friend, I get that and it’s fine. It’s just that I’m not exactly—” You pause, running a hand over your face. “I have a lot I need to figure out.” The awareness of how long you’ve had to do just that, and how long you’ve spent avoiding it, weighs heavy on your shoulders.

He nods, twisting the back of the stud in his ear. “Of course, YN. It’s just… you know…” He trails off, gesturing vaguely into the space between you with both hands. “I’m your friend too, I hope. And, it’s not like I think he can justify what he did, but it might be helpful to hear why he did it. From him?” he suggests, voice tipping upwards as your eyes get progressively more squinted.

The absolute last thing you need right now, is to hear Jay wax poetic about being a true artist and unlocking one’s inner self. How he absolutely had to leave and that was it, you weren’t allowed to be upset about it, because trapping an artist in a box would be like clipping a bird’s wings. Or something.

“Just think about it, yeah?”

For lack of anything better to do, you blow on your coffee, rippling the surface before taking a cautious sip. Over the rim of your cup, Heeseung is watching you, gnawing at his bottom lip with his teeth. If not for the twinkle of hope in his ginormous eyes, you wouldn’t give in and say, “Fine, I’ll think about it.”

His face lights up like you gave him a firm yes and he claps his hands together. “Are you free on Friday night?”

You splutter, coughing into your elbow as you put down your cup. “You’re giving me thirty-six hours to make up my mind?”

“No, not at all. No rush, I swear,” he says, waving his hands frantically. “We’re playing a show at The Helmet, and I thought it would be cool if you came along.”

Disbelief tugs at your brow. “You thought that?”

Heeseung opens and closes his mouth repeatedly, saying nothing. And if you weren’t so curious, you’d drop the subject and decline, but… “I think—” He starts, cutting himself off to look at the ceiling. Then, with his hand on his heart, “All of us would be honoured to have you there. Collectively.”

You’ve seen enough clips online to know that seeing NAPE perform, seeing Jay, would do horrible things for not only your healing journey, but for feminism at large.

As if sensing your reluctance, he adds, “You can come backstage and everything!”

“That would be lovely, Heeseung. No thank you.” Right as the words leave your mouth, Yizhuo crosses your mind and you ask, “Is Jake single?”

With saucers for eyes, he tilts his head. “Pardon?”

“Is he?”

“Are you asking for yourself?”

“Would that change your answer?”

A quiet second passes, Heeseung’s actually thinking about it. “That depends.”

“I’m not going, but I have some friends, two, who would genuinely die to go backstage,” you explain unhelpfully. “I’ll speak to Aeri about it and they can all go together.”

“No can do, YN.” Heeseung purses his lips. “If you’re not backstage, then your friends aren’t either.”

“Then I guess they won’t be backstage.” You frown, lifting your coffee from the counter. The steam has cleared. “Break a leg, rockstar.” On your way out, you pat Heeseung on the back.

Poor Somi and Yizhuo.

The Helmet is a pub of relative dinginess. Each step you take is a mild effort for how sticky the floor is with God knows how many hours of uncleaned booze. And quite small compared to the venues NAPE have been selling out recently, but according to Aeri, “This place has sentimental value! They played their first ever gig here, it’s special.”

She loops her arm through yours and drags you into the throng, not caring who she elbows. And the elbowed don’t seem to mind either when they realise it’s Heeseung’s girlfriend. And you. And Somi. And Yizhuo and Riki and Jaehyun. There is no barricade between the stage and the crowd. Just a foot high elevation and a whole lot of trust from the lack of security the pub seems to boast. Despite how packed it is, it’s not difficult to get to the bar, as evidenced by Jaehyun and Riki’s trips back and forth to supply you guys with drinks.

The DJ plays a jarring mix of alt-rock and 60’s pop music and everything in between. Muse’s Supermassive Black Hole becomes Like I Love You by Justin Timberlake becomes Surfin’ U.S.A. Who the target audience is, you’re not sure, but the more you drink — and the more Riki moves his broad shoulders to the beat — it becomes easier and easier to bear.

“I went to international school with that guy!” Riki yells in your ear. “Name’s Asahi and he’s fucking crazy.”

“The DJ?”

“No, you idiot. That’s Jungwon.” Riki flicks your forehead. “I mean the bartender.”

Around you, the crowd cheers raucously when the stage lights dim. Nothing happens. The DJ continues to terrorise all of you with more insane transitions — Sugar Water Cyanide into No One Noticed — and you continue to drink.

The lights go dim and the crowd around you roars. At your side, Aeri shakes like she’s the one about to perform, grabbing your hand and giving it a tight squeeze. She doesn’t let go. Another swell of screams fills the air as a song starts playing, one of NAPE’s. No Way Back was the first and last NAPE song you ever listened to. It was everywhere—the lead single of their debut album, the title of the tour they just finished, the common song choice for TikTok OOTDs and DIMLs. They were everywhere—BBC Live Lounge, The Tonight Show, Saturday Night Live.

And, much to your dismay, they were damn good.

In the blink of an eye, the lights come up slowly and you hold your breath as NAPE appear on stage. With Aeri, you look straight up at Heeseung who smiles, leaning towards the mic and singing, “When the last sun sets…”

They are a golden spotlighted blur to your tipsy eyes, but Jay has maybe never looked so good. There’s nothing special about wearing a flannel over a plain white T-shirt, you know that, but on him, now, it’s mesmerising. He is mesmerising. Glowing under the lights and so, so close. His guitar sits right by his waistband, veins criss-crossing over the backs of his hands as he plays. Goosebumps rise along your skin, and a funny feeling ravages your stomach. Butterflies on crack, just like the first time you saw him.

It seemed unjust that someone like him could exist not only on your campus, but within walking distance of your flat without you knowing. That someone so handsome had been existing and so close to you for three years. That was all you could think back then. If only we’d met earlier. If only we had more time. It was a real cosmic injustice. You had no real plans to stay in Edinburgh, but not for lack of wanting to—there you had a roof over your head, you had friends, and you had Jay. You had nights spent curled around him, you had mindblowing sex, and you had something special and real that you will never get back.

Knowing what he has now, it would have been ludicrous for Jay to stay behind. He has a crowd screaming his name, and a flat right in the centre of London and most of all, he has accepted that things are over and his life is better for it.

When you lift your stinging eyes from his guitar, he’s already looking at you. His eyes are wide, his lips set apart. He looks like he’s seen a ghost, like he too is using this most inconvenient of moments to mourn the past. To mourn you. He freezes, fingers stilling over the strings for long enough that Heeseung casts a look in his direction.

You chew on your bottom lip until it hurts and snatch Jaehyun’s cup out of his hand to finish it. When the song ends, the crowd erupts into cheers, again.

Jay Park is a god among men.

“What you saying, London?” Heeseung says, grinning, and the crowd goes crazy over it. Over him. You can’t blame them. There’s a charm to him, like this, standing in front of you on the stage. Heeseung the idol, you the… well, reluctant fan of sorts. “We’re NAPE and we’ve got a special show prepared for you tonight.”

The crowd cheers. To his credit, Heeseung is electric on stage, and you are standing so close you can see the sweat beading along his hairline and can already predict the tweets you’re going to see later about all of this. For fear of doing something rash, like jumping on the stage and tackling Jay for a kiss, you keep your eyes trained on the reflective red of Heeseung’s microphone as he continues to speak to the crowd.

“If tonight’s your first time with us, then allow me to introduce the band,” he says, his voice low in a way you’ve never heard before as he gestures behind him. Sunghoon on the drums, Jake on the bass, and his good friend, Jay on the guitar.

“Thank you for that, good friend Heeseung.” The words leave Jay’s mouth in a slow mumble, his cheeks a little flushed as he touches his palm to his heart. The screams for him seem the loudest by far, but that might be because you’re screaming with everyone else. “It’s good to see you guys, I’m Jay. Let’s have fun tonight, London.”

They launch into the next song immediately, a funky track about how they’re always going to be there for their ex who they left in unfavourable circumstances and still love. Sunshine, another unfortunately good song that is a perfect fit for Jay’s voice. Minjeong was the one who sent this single to you when it first came out, along with a message telling you to check the credits. Jay was listed as the sole writer.

Artists take creative liberties, you know that, and it’s easy to see why an attractive guy writing about still loving his ex, no matter what, would do better than an attractive man singing about being Satan’s son. But still, it’s weird to think of the millions of listeners who think they know what happened because Jay wrote about it. Who think he is the perfect, sweet, dream man who’d do anything to be wherever you are. Unless, of course, that place is Scotland—though you can see how that might have been difficult to rhyme.

And even still, despite your growing irritation, you can’t help but look at him in awe.

They play one song after another — not saying much — and you don’t know any of them, but they only get better. The crowd gets more excited, louder somehow, and Jay only gets harder to look away from. Seeing him like this, on stage, is overwhelming. His skin honeyed under the strong lights, slick with sweat making him glow. His thick fingers move quickly over the frets, his straight teeth bite his bottom lip. When he leans towards the mic, his lips brush the top of it, eyes meeting yours. You can see how people idolise him, idolise them, because holding his gaze, staring into the eyes of the man you once knew is impossible, and it’s an effort to stay upright on your weak knees.

A song called Helium closes to raucous screams and applause and all of the members look to Jay. You do the same. As the crowd calms down, he chuckles, tilting his head. Around his hairline, damp strands stick to his face, his temples, and he leans down, mouth a breath away from the mic. “This last song is actually, uh… It’s pretty personal, you know? It’s the first song I wrote when I moved back here,” he says, scrunching his nose. Jay is clearly nervous, his cheeks and neck turning rosy.

The girl behind you says, “He’s so cute when he’s shy!” And you hate that she has learned him enough to see what you do. Hate that she has learned him enough to have formed opinions on Jay and his tendencies, while being lucky enough not to know him personally.

Lucky enough to look at him and see hardly anything more than a blank slate upon which to project her every whim and fancy. This version of Jay, her Jay, that she has gotten to know through YouTube videos and overanalysing social media captions. Who she must imagine is very clear and upfront about his feelings, if that’s what she’s into. What does anyone in this crowd know about Jay? How lucky they all are to have only a part of the picture that makes up the whole, to have straightforward positive feelings for and towards this side of him that anyone with internet access can see. Lucky not to know what it’s like to fall asleep by his side, or to be scared half to death in the middle of the night to find him sleeping with his eyes half open. Lucky not know what it’s like to miss those things. To miss him.

“We don’t really do this one live, but Heeseung wasn’t lying when he said tonight was special.” His eyes flick over to you for the longest second and Jaehyun nudges your ribs.

While the crowd erupts once again, he shows you something on his phone. It’s his Notes app, with the words, get a fucking load of this male manipulator, written in all caps and bold. And because, yeah, I’m trying to, isn’t the right response, you can only offer your friend a forced chuckle before you gulp.

“So for what I think is the first time ever, here’s Carolina,” Jay says, launching into the opening chords. There is a clear difference between this song and the rest. It’s upbeat, and catchy, sounding almost like what you imagine would happen if The Beatles had made a song you enjoyed.

It is also, quite clearly, about you—though it was your father who told you to swim before you drown.

If you had your wits about you, you would probably turn on your heels and storm out. How unfair of Jay to do this. To sing about you and your life and the heartbreak he inflicted on you without so much as a simple text to let you know. Give you a heads up. Hey, I wrote a really fucking good song about our relationship for my first EP and reduced two years to a one night stand lmao. Unfortunately, you do not have your wits about you, and so, as you stand there bobbing your head to the beat and swaying, you cannot help but bite on your lip and stare indulgently up at Jay as he sings about what a good girl you are.

“How would I tell her that she’s all I think about?” Jay sings, looking at you. “Well, I guess she just found out.”

When Jay first told you about his dream, a pang of horror punched you in the gut. Fearing that your fate would be like that of girls everywhere, that he would be your tropey boyfriend, your canon event: the privileged, untalented SoundCloud rapper, or indie artist. All you could do was nod your head and smile stiffly as he told you how much he loved his guitar and writing music. It was to your great relief that Jay wasn’t just good, he was great. You’re certain that’s why, now, as you watch him sing about your relationship for hundreds of adoring fans, there is a flicker of admiration, of awe, right alongside your annoyance.

“She feels so good,” he sings over and over, with his eyes shut. A vein presses against his forehead. His neck.

With that, and a rapturous combination of applause and screaming, NAPE give a bow and leave the stage. They do not do an encore, though a good number of stragglers wait behind for one, while Aeri drags you and all of your friends through a door marked with restricted access. The corridor lights come on one by one as you walk further and further towards another door that she doesn’t hesitate to push open. All of the members are startled by your sudden entrance, but relax quickly at the sight of her.

“Baby!” Heeseung calls out, embracing Aeri, while you and everyone else stands around by the door.

Besides her, you’re the only other person who has met all of these people, and so, you’re tasked with introductions. Jaehyun greets everyone but Jay who stands there looking at him with a straight face. Thankfully, everyone is too caught up with Somi’s huge reactions and extra enthusiasm towards Sunghoon to pay anyone else any mind. He eats it right up, nodding at all the right moments and tucking blonde curls behind her ear while she speaks. Yizhuo, whose big plans for Jake Sim involved taking him to pound town, stands in the corner and stares at him from a distance while he drinks his water.

After filing out of the back exit, you quickly learn that trying to coordinate ten drunk people to use the Tube on a Friday night is more than a bit hellish. But somehow, you manage, with your arm looped through Jaehyun’s the whole way. Jay doesn’t take his eyes off of you, even as he and Sunghoon are tasked with keeping all six feet of Riki vertical.

What Aeri refers to as The NAPE House whenever she’s visiting Heeseung, is a four bedroom penthouse apartment that could surely hold more people than the pub they just performed at. There are people everywhere, influencers and other niche celebrities, drinking and laughing and grinding on each other. Not a phone in sight—only vlogging cameras. And on the black leather living room couch, you have a front row seat. A comfortable one you share with Heeseung and a sleeping Aeri.

“Can you do me a favour?” He lolls his head in your direction, yelling. “Will you get my hoodie from my bed?”

You make a show of rolling your eyes. “You owe me. Where’s your room?”

“Always.” Heeseung smiles. “It’s the last door in the hall, straight down.”

You weave through the crowd, throwing apologies over your shoulders and trying to remember exactly which hallway he was referring to. When you get there, his door is slightly ajar, a dim glow coming from the room right at the end of the hall like he said. The sight of the bed alone, dark sheets pulled tight and waiting, is enough to make you sleepy, a nagging exhaustion you only feel now. Noticeably missing though, is his hoodie, but it’s hardly an urgent matter. Surely not. Blinking heavily, the duvet calls for you, the corn on the cob plushie begging you to hold it—a weird choice for Heeseung, but maybe Jay got it for him.

Since you’re doing him a favour — and he uses your couch more than you — you figure there’s nothing wrong with resting your eyes on the end of his bed. It would be foolish not to seize this moment now that you have it. Carpe… moment. Closing the door behind you, you find a key in the lock, and if that isn’t a sign, you don’t know what is. With the door locked, you pass the guitar rack on the way to the bed, and make yourself comfortable, facing the ceiling. Sooner than you expect, your eyes flutter shut, honey musk tickling your nose.

A soft voice wakes you up. “Hey.”

You don’t need to see Jay Park to know it’s him. If not for the American shape of the word leaving his mouth, the fresh scent of his shower gel gives him away. How annoying, knowing someone. When you open your eyes, he’s leaning over you with a smile on his face, very close. Close enough to see that his hair is damp. To see the light from outside reflecting on the droplets that cover the solid muscle over his shoulders. The scar on the bridge of his nose.

A drop of water falls from his hair, hitting your chest—you swear you hear it sizzle. “What are you doing in here?” The words come out before you have a chance to think of something less accusatory to say. Hey, might have been a good place to start. You shoo him away with your hand, sitting up and facing him, ignoring the heat in your stomach. The butterflies. It’s a mistake to look at him properly, to see all of him. His white vest is vacuum sealed over his defined torso, cinching where his waist does. With his hair flat over his forehead, he looks so young again. Looks like himself. Looks like he’s yours. Like any second, he’s going to pull you into him and press his mouth into the crook of your neck, to say, I’ve missed you, gorgeous. You can feel it already, the shape of his phantom words against your skin, the hum of them from his chest. Jesus Christ. Why couldn’t you be one of those very strong women who’d fallen for an ugly man? How was it fair that Jay could break your heart and only get better looking?

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“I’m allowed to lie on Heeseung’s bed. He’s my friend.” With that, it’s all you do to hope Jay doesn’t pass this on, you calling Heeseung your friend.

Jay eyes you, wetting his lips. His attention, having all of it, warms your skin. “I’m sure you are, YN. But this is my bed, so if I let you lay on it… what does that make me?” His eyes narrow, just a little. Just enough. There’s something behind them, a challenge to match his low voice.

Everything in your life feels so different now. You have new friends, a new address, different interests and opinions, but still, a very agitating part of you is moved by Jongseong. Charmed. “I think that would still make you my evil ex-boyfriend,” you say, more as a reminder to yourself than anything else. A mental marking of the words, do not open, on the overflowing can of worms with Jay’s name on it—a solution about as effective as sellotape around a broken bone.

He pulls air through his teeth, nodding. “Fair assessment.”

It’s been long enough that the vague dim shapes of his bedroom have sharpened into some form of clarity. The names and faces on the posters visible now: Oasis, Bon Jovi, Destiny’s Child. His desk is completely free of clutter, only housing a huge monitor, a notebook, a mouse and a keyboard. It seems in your absence, he’s gotten a grip on keeping tidy. Mounted on the wall above the guitar rack is the plastic guitar that came with the old copy of Guitar Hero you bought for him. Your heart twists in your chest.

“So this is your room,” you announce. And just like that, the pieces of Heeseung’s drunken puzzle slot into place before your very eyes—he was already wearing his hoodie.

Jay hums, a smile tugging his mouth up at the corners. “You like it?”

“Yeah, I do. I mean, I’ve spent so long wondering what your life is like here. Where you hang out with your friends, if you still smoke. I’ve been really keen to find out your life is terrible.” You have no idea why you’re saying these things, but it’s difficult to stop now that you’ve started. “Seeing it though, seeing you on stage, seeing you at all. I’m really glad it isn’t, Jay.”

The crowd screaming his name. Singing along to lyrics he wrote. Of course he had to come here. There is no universe where Jay staying in Edinburgh, staying with you, was the right decision. All of those versions of reality play out in your head, split like a kaleidoscope—you are happy, Jay is not, there is more for him than you or Edinburgh can offer, and he resents you for that. Even if his method wasn’t ideal, he did the right thing by leaving, and the realisation forces a lump in your throat.

He mumbles your name, running his hand through his hair. The water makes it stay put like gel, pushed off his forehead, and his eyebrow piercing shimmers. “I didn’t even know you stayed here.”

“It was none of your business.”

“No, I… Yeah, you’re right, it wasn’t.” Jay looks like he has a billion things on his mind, you can practically hear the gears grinding against one another. “I’ve been wanting to see you is all. Catch up.”

A laugh bursts out of you, dry and bitter, as you stand up from the bed. “To catch up,” you repeat. “What, so you could tell me all about your perfect life in perfect London? So you could thank me for inspiring your discography?”

Jay’s jaw ticks when he clicks his tongue. “Do you think so low of me?”

“Hard not to.”

This seems to genuinely hurt him and some part of you takes delight in that fact. His face drops right away, a sad glimmer in his big eyes as he steps towards you. “I just wanted to make sure you were doing okay—more than.”

“I’m great, Jay.” You don’t bother wiping the first tear from your eye, but as soon as it falls, the floodgates open and there’s nothing you can do to close them. You can hardly see anything anymore, a fuzzy blob replaces Jay where he stands in front of you. “I just let go from a job I really loved and now I’m crying in my ex-boyfriend’s bedroom. Clearly, I’m…” Getting the words out is an effort so you stop, letting the sentence die around the block in your throat.

When you take your hands away from your leaking eyes, the heels of your palms are black with mascara and eyeliner, and Jay says nothing. He’s sitting on the end of the bed, hiding his face with his hands. In your head, a tiny drunk voice wills fervently for him to take you in his massive arms and pat your back. To rest his chin on the top of your head and tell you that it’s all going to be okay. That it’s all going to be good. You hate yourself for wanting that. For wanting him.

Instead, Jay looks up at you with wet eyes. “I really am sorry. It wasn’t meant to happen like that, I swear. I had everything planned out and I just… I don’t know.”

“After all this time, you’re telling me you don’t know why you did that to me?”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“Elaborate then.”

“Before I met you, all I did was keep to myself, study, and think about coming back to London. That was it, okay. Being in a relationship was the absolute last thing I wanted back then an—”

You scoff, cutting him off. “Good to know.”

“That’s not what I… I was sure about you, YN. From the start, I was sure about you.” The rest of what comes out of his mouth is secondary, background noise to this.

You feel those words, in your bones, with every single fibre of your being. Recognise them. Because it’s exactly how you felt. There wasn’t a single part of you that would have believed or accepted anything other than the fact that he was the one. Your one—right from the day you met, you knew you wanted him.

Jay sighs, the sag of his broad shoulders catching your attention. “But I couldn’t ask you to do long distance, it wouldn’t have been fair.”

“Fair?” you repeat, hardly believing your ears. “You think disappearing was fair?”

“I thought I was doing the right thing, that it would be easier for both of us that way.”

The thought of hearing him say anything else to defend himself turns your stomach. Worse is the fact that you actually want to hear him out, pick his brain on it. Ask all the questions you never had the chance to. Try to make sense of the mess and sort it all out. Sort yourself out, finally. You just need a minute. Need a minute to get your head on straight, and that’ll be impossible with Jay watching you the way he is, his glossy eyes boring into yours. You fling open the door to his ensuite and shut it behind you before he has the chance to keep speaking.

Heat from the shower hits you immediately, condensation lingering in the corners of the mirror. It’s a beautiful bathroom, glossy white and matte black fixings, a deep sink basin with lots of counter space and a roomy shower. His hand wash and lotion are perfectly lined up by the tap, his watch and some rings placed neatly in front of them as if he wanted to take up as little space as possible. Despite how much makeup stains your palms, your eyes don’t look as horrific as you thought they would, it’s the swelling and redness that makes you look awful. His Le Labo soap smells warm and green, lathering nicely over your fingers when you finally spot something amiss. A blister pack sits between the tap and the wall, all of the tiny white pills gone bar one. Sertraline, reads the foil over the front when you pick it up, and for the second time since you and Jay have come across each other again, you throw up in his vicinity, vomiting into the sink.

The lone tablet clatters to the floor at your feet.

“Are you okay?” Jay asks. The door does nothing to muffle his concern.

How could you possibly answer that? I’m grand! Only gone and found your antidepressants HAHAHA. His antidepressants. Just thinking the word in relation to Jay is enough to make you wretch again. Nothing comes out.

“May I come in?” To your silence, he continues, escalating from polite question to concerned statement. “I’m coming in, okay?”

While you fight for breath over the sink, Jay counts loudly from one to five before the door clicks open behind you. In the mirror, you see his eyes drift to the floor and widen. He picks up the blister pack and puts it in his pocket, aiming for subtle but being more overt than you’ve ever seen. “I saw it, Jay,” you say. “I know.”

He nods slowly like he’s coming to terms with what’s happened. As if he’s the one finding out about his diagnosis. “It’s uh… I’m okay,” he offers weakly, though his reassurance only makes you feel worse.

Your palms itch against the counter, desperate to grab him by the shoulders and shake him. To yell in his face that he doesn’t have to act like he’s alright with everything all the time. Finally, you’ve found something about Jay that hasn’t changed. What a shame it had to be this. “You’re okay,” you repeat, speaking the words more like an affirmation than anything else.

“I’m seeing someone about it and I have good people around me. I’m okay.”

A chill runs over your spine, pulls the hairs on your arms straight up, at the way he says it. This, for Jay, is simply a part of life now, as ordinary and boring as brushing his teeth before bed or tying his shoelaces before he leaves the house. You brace against the sink, screwing your eyes shut again. Nothing changes when you open them, you’re still in Jay’s bathroom and he is still depressed.

“How long?” you ask, as if his answer will make a difference.

He looks away when your gaze meets his in the mirror and shrugs, his shoulders rising and falling in a stiff motion. You don’t press him on it. Whether it’s been one year or one day, the point is that he’s unwell. And the gaping chasm between his life and yours is big enough that you had no idea. God, you’ve been so selfish.

Neither of you says anything else, but it’s not until there’s a thump at his bedroom door and a muffled apology called out through it that you realise. Both of you let out the exact same laugh, a huffed breath from your noses, which only makes the pair of you laugh properly when your eyes meet. The crinkle of his eyes is still a delight, still heats you up from the inside out.

More than anything, you are desperate for this silence to end, desperate to be saying something, making conversation. “So,” you start, clearing your throat. “About this family of mine in Carolina.”

Jay’s cheeks pinken, a sweet, rosy tinge blooming against his skin. “That was just something I thought sounded good.” He was right, unfortunately, it did sound good.

This fact, however, does nothing to stop the harsh pull of embarrassment in your stomach. “I was being presumptuous, sorry.”

“No, it was… that song is definitely about you,” Jay admits, for better or for worse. “They all are, when I write anyway.”

Jesus. You still had an entire discography to listen to, all based around the worst event of your life so far. Such is the plight of dating an artist, you suppose. In the midst of your irritation with him over that, and sick pleasure at knowing your relationship — you — had impacted him as much as it — he — had you, was a flare of curiosity. All of his unknowable thoughts, the things you wished he said, existed only a mere couple of clicks away. You could listen to them all right now, read the lyrics. Given the dedication of NAPE’s fanbase, you were certain multiple Twitter threads had been posted with line-by-line analysis.

“Great!” you say, cheeks aching with the stretch of your lips as you give him a thumbs-up. “Thanks, champ.”

His laugh is warm, filling the space between you. “I wrote it thinking about your…” Jay scratches at the back of his neck, cheeks growing pinker by the second. The colour spreads down his neck and over his chest. “You used to talk about riding camp, when you were younger. That pretty chestnut horse you rode as a kid.”

“Carolina,” you supply uselessly, the name hardly audible over the thud of your pulse in your ears.

“The one and only.”

You gulp. “And here I thought I was well behaved.”

“There was that too, of course there was.” He’s smiling, but you can’t bring yourself to do the same.

You’re not even sure if Aeri knows you went to riding camp. “I can’t believe you remembered that.” Some twisted part of you wonders what else he remembers, what other Easter eggs he’d left behind for you. For everyone.

He seems bewildered by this, his brows furrowing, head tilting. “Who could forget anything about you?” Each word is as sincere as the last, breeding a fascinating and surely singular type of hurt deep in the pit of your stomach.

“You know, I don’t usually throw up so often,” you blurt out, turning to the mess you left in the basin and flicking the tap on.

His reflection smiles in the mirror, leaning against the door frame. “Am I that bad?”

“You’re so much worse.”

“Four words every depressed person wants to hear.” He’s still smiling, his posture relaxed, slanted, but it’s the look in his eyes that gives him away, breaks your heart. How glossy they’ve become in the light.

“You’re really okay?”

Jay nods. “I’m okay.”

Every part of you aches to believe him, willing with every fibre of your being that he’s telling the truth. Okay isn’t good, but it’s a start, and soon he’ll be more than that. He has to be. Without a second thought you wrap your arms around him, feeling his warmth as he hugs you back. “I know I can’t take back or change what I did, but I really am sorry,” he mumbles into your shoulder.

And all of a sudden, it’s too much. His soft lips on your skin, the vibration into the crook of your neck. The familiar squeeze of his strong arms around you, his faint honeyed scent. The fact that despite everything, despite the frenzied red flags waving in your brain, you want to believe him. You do believe him.

You pull away, quickly, and take a huge step back, hitting your hip against the sink. “Do you have a spare toothbrush?”

Jay watches you for a moment, his eyes catching on each of your features like he’s seeing you for the first time. He clears his throat, scrunching his nose with a sniffle before speaking. “I might have a spare head for my electric somewhere.”

“Great,” you say, while he opens the cabinet with pursed lips. “Thanks.”

Those lips. You feel them while you brush your teeth alone in his bathroom, and while Jaehyun walks you home. While you shower, and while you collapse into bed. I really am sorry. God. How much easier this all would be if his belated apology fixed all of this.

jongseong 😽: Thank you for coming to the show, it really meant a lot to me having you there

you: No prob 👍

Under your face, your pillow muffles a would-be bloodcurling scream. “No prob, thumbs-up emoji…?” you repeat into the fabric, affronted by your word choice.

you: Just texted “no prob” unironically

minjeong: To who 😭

you: Rhymes with Jark Pongseong

minjeong: You should have said YES prob or ALL prob in fact you shouldn’t even have responded to whatever that freak loser (VERY DEROGATORY) said to my sweet angel girl

you: It was kind of sweet tbf, he thanked me for going to the gig and then said it meant a lot to him

Minjeong calls you immediately. You answer but can’t say anything for the genuine wave of fear that crashes over you. Through the phone you hear the click of her heels against the pavement, rumble of traffic, roaring engines and beeping horns, the soundtrack to the functioning woman’s afternoon. “You are the lostest cause of them all,” she says. “I thought you were over this insane person.”

“I am over him. I am also allowed to think he is very good looking and incredible onstage.”

“Shut up!” Minjeong sighs. “Also, did you take my coat when you stayed? The wool one?”

“I wish.”

“I’m hanging up now.” Three beeps follow her words, and her black wool coat stares at you from the open wardrobe.

The room spins around you when you sit up from bed. You can feel your brain swooshing around in your skull. Waking up hungover in last night’s makeup and outfit is never a treat, especially not when last night’s makeup is coming off of your face in crumbs every time you blink, and the outfit is a tank top and Aeri’s sequin microshorts. Somehow you make it to the kitchen where you sway by the counter and make a cup of black coffee, flinching at the sound of Aeri’s key twisting in the lock.

“Ugh, the show was perfect, YJ! It really sucks you couldn’t make it, but I know they’ve got some other gigs coming around the city so I’ll text you deets, alright?” she says. “I dropped my film off after yoga this morning, but I was so drunk last night… not hopeful.” Her voice gets louder in the hallway, an ear-splitting squeal sounding through the flat as she approaches and blows a kiss down the phone before appearing in the doorway. “Hey, you!” The grin on her face is wide and shows all of her teeth.

“Hey,” you say, it’s the only thing you can muster as you watch her lean in the doorframe, decked out in a matching brown workout set that ALO sent her in PR.

Her eyebrows give a suggestive wag as she says in a singsong voice, “Guess who I had breakfast with?”

The full scope of Aeri’s circle is still unclear to you, so the answer could be anyone. Playing it safe, you simply ask, “Who?”

“Your boyfriend! Almost boyfriend.”

“And that would be…”

“Don’t be coy, YN. Jay told me all about last night.”

“Jay?” It’s a wonder that your eyes don’t fall from their sockets—it would’ve shocked you less if she’d suggested that Byeon Wooseok was your boyfriend.

“I wanted to put in a good word for you, but he already wants you bad. Never seen anything like that, he asked a million questions about you. If I didn’t have to get home to shoot I’d still be there telling him about your commute.”

“He doesn’t. At all.” You clench your fists behind your back, denting half-moons into your palms with your fingernails. “We dated for a few years at uni, but he…” The sting isn’t enough to distract you from the swoop in your stomach, so you settle instead for clawing at the back of your hand. “He had to move back home and we agreed it would be better to end things.” No matter how many times you say it, it doesn’t get any easier.

Aeri’s face flickers through the full spectrum of human emotion, never quite settling on one.

“I know I should have said something earlier, it’s just…” Embarrassing. It’s embarrassing that not only can Jay live without you, he can thrive. Meanwhile, you can’t even secure a job interview. “I don’t know.”

Finally, she pulls you into a hug, all citrus and sweat, and you sink into her arms. “I have two pieces of good news and one piece of bad news. What do you want first?” she asks, pulling away just enough to look at you.

Clearing your throat, you ask, “Can you do good news, bad news, good news? Like a sandwich?”

Aeri leans against the island opposite you, smiling. “Okay, good news: you don’t owe me, or anyone else, every last detail about your life, and given the whole me dating your ex-boyfriend’s best friend thing, I get why you kept that from me, alright? You don’t need to apologise for that. The bad news is that said ex-boyfriend is definitely still in love with you, but — and this is the next good part — you guys broke up because he didn’t think he could have London and you, right?”

Put simply, “Yes.”

“You’re in London now, you’re both single…” Aeri lets her eyes and hands spell out the rest of her sentence.

“Jay doesn’t… It’s not like that.”

“Okay,” she says, though you can tell she doesn’t buy it. “What about you? Do you still want him?”

What you really want, more than anything, is to feel secure. To feel like the people in your life won’t just up and leave at any given moment. You want to be with someone you can rely on, someone dependable. A person you can call and know they’ll answer—or at least call you back. You’re not sure if that person is Jay.

“I don’t know,” you admit.

“You don’t need to know that right now. What you need is to sit down,” Aeri says, guiding you by the shoulders to one of the stools under the island. “Watching you sway like that is giving me a hangover by association. I’ll make you something to eat.”

She makes you a cup of herbal tea and some fruit topped French toast with bacon. You inhale it before she shoos you out of the kitchen. “You need to sleep this shit off, okay? We need to leave at eight tomorrow morning.”

Fuck. She’d agreed to let you tag along on her work day tomorrow so you’d finally have something interesting to post on Substack. You didn’t realise that would involve facing the public so early in the day. “Of course!”

yizhuo: dear sweetcheeks bubblegum fairy woman consider this our final correspondence as i’m literally about to die idk who the fuck was sick near me but they got me brother stay safe also tell that fuckface riki he can stop praying on my downfall ok it worked.

you: i’ll pass that message along for you… get well soon angel pie dream lady :( do u need me to bring anything by for you?

yizhuo: jimin’s playing sexy nurse this weekend dw i’m right wehre i wanna be 🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤 in other more relevant news, interview is opening another office…….good day for the unemployed, look how many openings there are !!!

Her next message has fifteen links, and those are just the jobs you’re qualified for. These must be the millions of doors Somi was talking about. In a full-bellied haze, you write a new cover letter and apply to every last one of them. After that, with renewed pep in your hungover step, you climb back into bed and watch as many episodes of Pretty Little Liars as you can handle without breaking the screen in half at the sight of Mr. Fitz and his minor-student-girlfriend Aria. It’s two. You manage two episodes and sleep for the rest of the day.

At eight in the morning, when Aeri is ready to leave, you have, unfortunately, reached the end of your life. And as it turns out, Jennifer’s Body had it all wrong, hell is not a teenage girl. If only. Hell, you’re learning, is whatever strain of the common cold is currently nerfing your immune system.

Shivering under your duvet, you scroll through the pictures you took after the gig, smiling, laughing, completely oblivious to the fact that those would be some of your last moments on this mortal plane. Probably you’ll never, ever drink again. Never do anything again. Your throat is swollen. Raw and painful when you swallow. A dull ache reaches all of your joints, weighing them down. Swallowing ibuprofen is a tear-inducing, Herculean task, but you manage, and finally, sleep comes over you.

For the next few hours, you fade in and out of slumber until you quit trying. Your throat still hurts, but the swelling is down. When you blow your nose into your last tissue, your ears pop and the thumping in your head is actually at the front door. The Grim Reaper here to… well, reap, you suppose. He even knows your name and yells it incessantly like some sort of evil, murderous baby who’s just learned a new word. Gun! Knife! YN! It’s only after your fourth, weak, attempt at calling out for Aeri that you remember she’s not home, and quickly resign to your fate, dragging yourself out of bed and then all the way to the door. Against the wall you catch your breath before pulling it open.

“I’m not here to bother—” Jay stops short.

“Jay?” He is hazy and beautiful in front of you. His sunglasses hold his hair away from his face, and none of the three buttons on his black polo shirt are done up, exposing just enough of his collarbone and chest to make your cheeks heat up. He is the cruel mirage of an oasis in the desert. “Jay,” you say again, reaching out your aching arm to touch him.

Against your fingertip, he is completely solid and real, which is more than a little mortifying. He looks down to where your hand touches his chest, where your hand is still, for some reason, touching his chest. He grabs your wrist, his touch soft but scorching through your long sleeve, and puts your arm back down at your side carefully. “You’re sick.”

“A little.”

“Okay,” he says slowly, wearing his thinking face. Head tilted, tongue poking out between his soft pink lips, the same way he would when he was trying to calculate how long it might take your food delivery to reach your place, and if there was enough time for the two of you to share the shower first. “I just need to get Heeseung’s computer and then I’ll be out of your hair. You need to put on something warm.”

You step aside to let Jay into the flat and he goes straight to Aeri’s room, coming back with a laptop tucked under his arm. He inspects you from head to toe and frowns. “Drink some tea, okay? Lemon and ginger with lots of honey.” It’s the last thing he says before he disappears.

Heeding Doctor Jay’s advice, you use the last sliver of your energy to hobble into the kitchen so you can make yourself a cup of lemon and ginger tea with lots of honey. Equipped with a steaming mug, you go back to your room where you pull a jumper on and stuff yourself into your dressing gown, before crawling back into bed. As soon as your head hits the pillow, you fall asleep, lemon and ginger tea with lots of honey cooling down on your nightstand, untouched.

It’s Jay’s gentle voice that rouses you out of your thick sleep, saying your name over and over until your eyes open. “Hey,” he says, his palm massive on your arm. His glasses slip down the straight bridge of his nose but he doesn’t push them up. “Aeri gave me her keys and I—”

“Aeri’s at work,” you say, correcting him.

He smiles. “Yeah, I just saw her.”

“She’s on the other end of the city.”

“So here’s the cool thing about London — and you might not know this — but we have this thing called the Tube and it got me there and back.”

“But it’s so… it’s like an hour one way.”

Jay waves a dismissive hand, his smile unwavering. “Forty-five minutes.”

The words he’s saying are all words you’ve come across. Words for which you know the dictionary definition and spelling, but it’s taking a lot for your brain to make sense of them and their implications in these particular sequences, coming from him. Fuzzy-headed, you lie back down, sinking into the pillow and screwing your eyes shut.

“You okay?” When you open your eyes, he’s watching you with an arched brow, inspecting you like you are fungi on a petri dish and not his dying ex-girlfriend.

“The common cold doesn’t normally kill people, right?”

Instead of laughing or being charmed by these, your final words, he tilts his head. “Well, it can lead to more severe forms of sickness like pneumonia or sepsis, which could, quite easily, kill you, yes,” he says, delivering the information to you in a tone that suggests he was reading about this on the way over.

This had been one of your favourite things about Jay, his insatiable curiosity and willingness to share what he’d learned with whoever was around. He could talk about any subject for hours and you were always keen to listen. It got to the point that you would direct your queries to him instead of the Google search bar, just for a reason to text him. Hey Jay, is thirty minutes too long to cook a steak? Way too long??? I’m coming over. Hey Jay, what’s the name of that Bon Jovi song you played for me? Hi beautiful, it’s called Always :). Hi baby, would you still love me if I was a worm? I’m always going to love you, YN. No matter what.

“Great, Jay. Thanks.” You lean up on your elbows, coughing with your mouth open like a child. “Still a fount of knowledge, I see.”

Bright red blooms over his cheeks and neck. “As always,” he says, though he doesn’t seem happy about this fact, scrunching his nose. “I… uh… I made you some soup.”

“Your mum’s dakgaejang?” you whisper. To his sheepish smile, you mumble, “That shit could cure anything.”

“It always did,” Jay agrees, lifting the steaming bowl from your desk. He gasps at something, putting the bowl back down and holding up a magazine for you to look at. The magazine, with him and the rest of NAPE on the cover. “Wow, I had no idea you liked us this much,” he says, flipping through the pages to find the article.

It hurts to roll your eyes, but you do it anyway. “Don’t flatter yourself, Park. I bought it because it was my first printed write-up.” And last, you do not add.

The lump in your throat is immediate and all-consuming. Seeing the magazine was a real shock, knowing that — though uncredited — you had left a mark on the world, no matter how small. And that thousands of NAPE fans around the country, and in all nations that print Daydream Mag, had you to thank for transcribing the interview. It wasn’t much, but it was yours. Jay’s eyes turn glassy and his gaze falls to the pages once more, running his finger over the words, your words. The thud of your heart in your ears pads the silence. You wonder if he’s thinking what you were, that you’ve both made it. Both of your dreams unspooling before your very eyes, and somehow, after all these years, your paths found a way to cross again. In print, no less.

At least, that’s how it felt before you lost your job.

“Wow,” Jay whispers. “This is really special, YN. You’re amazing.”

The article wasn’t much to write home about. And sure, when you found out, some of your work friends treated you to drinks that evening, and got a celebratory cake made. And yes, you called your mum in happy tears from the office toilet. But seeing Jay make a fuss over it on your behalf is nothing short of humiliating. Your cheeks burn at the sight—a chart-topping artist praising the ex-girlfriend he ghosted over some paragraphs no one else knew she wrote.

God, what a joke.

“You’re the one who said all the words, and the guys.” You fiddle with the loose thread at the top of your duvet cover. “All I did was read some notes, watch a recording and type it all up.”

He shakes his head and in a blink, he’s crouching by the side of your bed, looking up at you with huge eyes. “That was our first big feature, my mum cut out the parts about me and stuck them to the fridge. Heeseung’s parents got it blown up and framed for the living room.”

“Anybody could’ve written it.”

“I know, but ‘anybody’ didn’t write it.” Jay’s eyes search yours, like he’s begging you to see where he’s coming from, that he means it. “You did.”

It’s only when you cough, a harsh rattle in your throat, that he seems to remember himself, remember the situation and the dakgaejang on your desk. Without a word, he helps you sit up in bed, propping your pillow up before bringing the soup over on a tray. Steam curls up from the bowl, heating your face, and the first spoonful is rich and spicy and perfect. Tender shredded chicken and soft vegetables. A long, contended hum rumbles out of you. “Holy shit,” you murmur, already feeling your blocked nostrils starting to open up. It tastes more like a memory than anything else. Like Jay’s broad shoulders in the kitchen, standing over your stove. His hoodie over your shoulders and the soft hum of the washing machine as you watched him cook. Like cuddling on the couch with a stranger and asking him to stay. Whether it was period-induced sensitivity or that food really was the quickest way to someone’s heart, you fell for him that night.

Jay gives a firm nod. “Alright, I know I’m not exactly who you’d want to spend your time with, so is there someone I could call to look after you? At least until Aeri gets off work?”

Hearing it from him, the reminder that he has a life and things to worry about that no longer include you stings the backs of your eyes. Another cold symptom, probably. You take another glorious spoonful of rice and soup, chewing slowly.

“I’ll call Riki when my phone’s back on.”

As if on cue, your phone starts to life, a black and white film strip of you and Aeri staring up at you from the lockscreen. Jay chews his lip, watching you with his hands on his hips, clearly eager to leave, and, to his luck, Riki answers on the first ring. “Yo, YN. What you saying?” he asks, delighted as the music in the background comes to a stop.

“Are you busy?”

“Not really — ow — okay, yeah, I’m kind of busy. What’s good, though? You alright?”

Your cuticles sting where your thumb bothers them, picking at the raw skin unthinkingly. Terrified of admitting to Riki that you need him, you say, “Yeah, no, I’m fine. Talk later, yeah?”

“Safe,” he says and cuts the phone.

Jay raises a brow. “It’s okay to ask for help when you need it. You know that, right?”

“I know,” you say, trying to convince yourself. “I’ll call Somi then Jaehyun.”

“No!” he blurts out, covering his mouth with his palm as if he can push the words back in. “I mean, you don’t need to bother him when I’m here, I could stay. If you want me to stay, I can stay.”

There’s no time to overthink his reaction, nor is there time to overthink the flutter in your chest at the sight of it, because as soon as he’s done speaking, you’re already saying, “You can stay.”

He only nods and stays there, standing over you. He is very still. It doesn’t even look like he’s breathing. Or blinking. Unless he’s blinking at the exact same time you are.

“You can also sit on the bed if you want,” you offer.

He gestures vaguely towards his body. “These are my outside clothes.”

You could have laughed at that, the idea that maybe his smart trousers and the Ralph Lauren polo shirt tucked into them were his casual inside clothes. Unfortunately, because he is Jay, and you are you, you’re too busy being struck by his remembering such a mundane detail to joke around. A silly thing you’ve since grown out of worrying about. You point him towards the drying rack in the living room where Heeseung had left some laundry. You’re not sick enough to tell Jay he can change in front of you, but you are sick enough to picture it as he closes your door behind him.

Sick enough to picture the smooth expanse of his back, muscles flexing while he pulls his T-shirt over his head. The cinch of his waist, the unfairly round curve of his ass, his Calvin Klein boxer briefs clinging to him like a second skin. His toned arms and thighs. It only takes a second for him to come back, fully dressed, in Heeseung’s grey sweatpants and white Henley that hugs his biceps. You open your mouth to say something casual like, I wasn’t picturing you naked, or you look nice in clothes, but he uses the bottom of his shirt to clean off his glasses and the sight winds you. Dark ink sticks out of his waistband, round edges touching his waist.

“You…” The sentence dies on its way out, your finger shaking as you point at him. “When did you get that?”

“Get wha—Oh.” He looks down at his side, the tips of his ears burning pink. “Two years ago? Last year? I don’t really remember.” Putting his glasses back on, he lifts the left side of his shirt properly, tugging at his waistband too. Only a little, only enough to make your heart race and show the word, nape, written in huge swirling cursive. “Hurt so bad, but it’s pretty, right?”

Pretty sexy, more like. “Yeah. Pretty,” you agree, willing for him to stop showing off his skin before you do something unwise.

“I actually have a couple now.”

The rest of Jay’s tattoos, all one of them, are very tiny and very him—a treble clef behind his right ear. He blushes when you tell him you like it, giving a sheepish smile as he gets under the covers beside you, careful not to knock your bowl over.

“You’re not scared of getting sick?”

“Nah.” Jay shakes his head. “I’m sure you’ll take good care of me if I do.”

“Whatever,” you mumble, focusing on your dakgaejang instead of your blushing cheeks.

When you finish eating you take a nap, eventually waking to the long set sun and Jay bringing over a cup of tea and some paracetamol. He crouches by your side and feels your forehead with the back of his hand. “How’re you feeling, sleepyhead?”

“Is Aeri home?”

“She texted saying she was going to crash at ours. With Heeseung.”

“Do you think you could stay over?” you ask slowly.

Jay tilts his head, eyebrows meeting in the middle. He’s as taken aback by your request as you are. For a long while, he simply stares up at you, like he’s waiting for you to take it back. You don’t. And so, finally, he nods and says, “I can stay over. Absolutely, I can stay over.”

After a surprisingly restful night of sleep, your second day with the cold begins with your head on Jay’s chest and your leg around him. Neither of you says anything about that.

For breakfast, he makes toast soldiers and beans, and you can’t contain your excitement, even though it hurts your throat to speak. “This was, like, the only breakfast I ate when I was little,” you gush, taking a picture to show your mum. “Especially when I was sick. This is perfect, Jay. Thank you.”

From the other side of the table, he watches you dunk a strip of buttered toast into your dippy egg with a smile on his face. “I know, YN. I’m just glad you still like it.”

You sniff, ignoring the heat rushing to your cheeks and neck—Yizhuo was right, this cold is no joke. Rubbing your hands together, you let crumbs fall to your plate and pull your dressing gown tighter around yourself, redoing the belt.

Back in bed, you warm your hands against a cup of tea while Jay opens your laptop. He insists there is a YouTube video you must see, but when he opens the site, the very first video is NAPE Swap Favourite Snacks | Snacked, uploaded fifteen minutes ago. Great. As it turns out, you had it all wrong, hell is not the common cold. Hell, you’re learning, is whatever the fuck is happening to you right now. This cannot be real life. All you did was watch that stupid video of them spotting each other’s lies. And then the one where they played most likely to with Variety. And showed Glamour what was on their phones.

Every inch of your body burns. “I didn’t put that there,” you blurt out. “Should we watch it ironically?”

A shudder racks through Jay and he scowls. “I kind of do not like to… look at myself. At all. So, no. Thanks though.”

Nothing about his tone or demeanour suggest that he’s joking. The thought that someone so beautiful, that Jay, could feel that way seems senseless. “If I had that face…”

“You’d what?” His straight teeth dent his bottom lip, curious eyes roving your face. Whatever insecurities plagued him a second ago are long forgotten now apparently. To your silence, he says, “I’m glad you don’t have my face, I really like yours.”

When this is all said and done, you’ll have to see a doctor about whatever part of the cold is making your heart race like this. “Just show me the video,” you mumble.

“Yes, ma’am.”

What if forks were made of salt? is eight minutes and twenty-four seconds of some white guy asking and answering what you now feel is an essential question. What if forks were made of salt? Would every bite of steak be perfect? Glossing over the mild existentialism at the end, the video is uplifting, awe-inspiring.

So much so that you and Jay discuss it for an hour before he says, “I bought one.”

Your jaw drops. “No way.”

“Yeah way! I’ll let you try it ou—” Jay’s ringing phone cuts him off and steals the smile from his lips. “Fuck,” he mutters, wiping his face with his palm. “Sorry. I’ve been ducking our manager’s calls, kind of, so I have to take this.”

Nosiness gets the better of you. “Put it on speaker.”

Jay obliges, screwing his eyes shut like he’s bracing himself. Through the phone, his manager’s voice is soft, kind, when he launches straight into his spiel. “I’m trying to bear with you here. I get it, I swear, but if you don’t have lyrics, can you just tell me that? We’ll figure it out, but you need to let me help you.”

Immediately, you regret asking Jay to put the phone on speaker, feeling your stomach drop.

He lets a quiet second pass before sighing. “I don’t have lyrics, Sunoo.” At this, the groan that comes through the phone is never-ending. “Yet,” he adds, rubbing his temples.

“I really did not want you to say that.” Sunoo sighs. “But it’s okay. See, you told me the truth and nothing bad happened. We’ll work something out, okay. Just take it easy, talk to your bandmates, and answer your fucking phone when I call you.”

“Got it.”

Sunoo cuts the phone abruptly and Jay hides his face in his hands, ears burning red.

“Ar—” He utters your name, interrupting you. “Yeah?”

“I don’t really want to talk about this right now.”

You reach out for him, palm resting on his knee and giving it a squeeze. He rests his calloused palm over your hand, locking his fingers with yours. There goes your heart, racing again. And what’s left of the day passes in half-awake snippets. The opening scene of The Matrix here, some spoonfuls of hot soup there, until you finally settle down for the night next to Jay. He falls asleep first, his strong arm around your shoulders holding you close. The thump of his heart is soothing as a lullaby. His chest rises and falls steadily with his slow breathing, in stark contrast to the shallow breaths you’re fighting for, until finally, you fall asleep too.

Hours later, a coughing fit wakes you up, skin damp with a cold sweat as you lean over your side of the bed. It’s relentless, each wheezy hack aching a spot in the back of your skull—your throat has never hurt so much in your life. Jay rushes out of the bed and comes back with a cup of water, rubbing circles on the wet fabric of your t-shirt with his palm while you try to catch your breath. When you manage to, you drink the water in gulps, finishing it quickly while he squints at the boxes on your nightstand before opening one of them—antiseptic throat spray. He pushes your hair away from your face, tucking it behind your ears and watching you with worry in his massive eyes. “Can you open up for me, baby?” he asks softly. When you do, he positions the nozzle between your lips and clears his throat. “It’s going to be a little uncomfortable, yeah?”

You nod, blinking with heavy eyelids. He sprays it three times and it takes a lot of work not to gag. A little uncomfortable might be the understatement of the century, but already the menthol is soothing your throat.

“There you go,” he murmurs, taking the spray out of your mouth. “Atta girl.” His large palm rests on your cheek, his thumb wiping your tears.

At this, at all of it — him being here, doing this for you with no complaints — your stomach is in knots. You wrap your fingers around his wrist, keeping his hand in place. “Why are you being so nice to me?” you croak.

In the lamplight, his eyes flicker over every part of your face before he sniffs. “Let’s try and get some sleep.”

“Jongseong…” His full name slips out of you, like you’re back in uni. Like you’re back together—still together.

He says nothing, only closing the lid on the spray and helping you lie back down before joining you in bed. He doesn’t say anything when you curl into his side or when he wraps his arms around you.

Then, right when you blink for the last time, you feel the rumble of his chest against your ear. He says, “You make it so easy.”

It’s another three days before you feel better and Jay spends all of them at your side. At the end of it all, though there’s no reason for Jay to stay any longer, hugging him goodbye is bittersweet. But in all of your time apart, your phone doesn’t get much rest from seeing his name on it. And you don’t get sick of texting him back. Texting him first.

you: We’re having a movie night on Friday!!! Heeseung is coming so I was wondering if you wanted to come along too? Also it would be nice to see you again if you’re not sick of seeing me

you: Or just sick in general… how are you feeling actually?

jongseong 😽: That sounds really nice!!! I’d love to join you guys thank you for thinking of me ❤️

jongseong 😽: Who could ever be sick of seeing you? If anything I’m surprised you’re not sick of me

jongseong 😽: This is a serious emergency ik it’s 8am but please text back

jongseong 😽: HIIIII can u reply rn

jongseong 😽: Heeseung said you liked the choux vanilles from Toad’s so I picked some up for you even though you did NOT reply in my time of need. Are you home? I’ll leave these at your doorstep and get out your hair

you: THANK YOU THANKY OUU THANK YOU THANK YOU

you: You can come in! I’m getting ready to meet Yizhuo for breakfast but maybe we can head out together?

jongseong 😽: Sounds goood!!!

jongseong 😽: It was really nice seeing you yesterday morning, even if it was only for a little bit. I didn’t mean to make it weird and ik that doesn’t make it any better but I’m really sorry

you: Noooo!!! I swear you didn’t make anything weird, I had a lot of fun with you and I wish we could have spent more time together!

When Heeseung arrives for movie night an hour early, he arrives alone—not counting the two bottles of wine and three pints of ice cream he brought with him. “Hey!” he says, smiling from ear to ear. “You look well, I’ve heard awful things.”

You roll your eyes, taking his offerings and letting him in. “Trust me, it was much worse than whatever you heard.”

“Five days with Jay though, how was that?” he asks in a sing-song voice, following you into the kitchen. At this, your smile is immediate and very wide, so much so that he raises his brows, beaming too. “Wow, that good, huh?”

You turn away, putting the wine in the fridge and the ice cream in the freezer, trying your best to look any less elated. “Did you ask him?” you ask, genuinely curious.

Heeseung shakes his head, sinking into one of your dining chairs at the table. He is quiet for long enough to make you wonder if you’d imagined that second night, what he’d said. You make it so easy. Five simple words that your mind has allowed to colour the rest of the week, and all of your conversations since, rosy. To think harder about how Jay cooked an endless supply of dakgaejang for you and Aeri, restocking your groceries afterwards. How you sat with your back to the bathtub while he washed your hair over the edge of it.

Five simple words that may have been nothing more than that.

Finally, Heeseung says, “I didn’t have to ask, he was texting me nightly updates and gave me a full debrief when he got back.”

“Wow,” you repeat. “That good, huh?”

Shrugging off his jacket, he nods. “Better—” He stops short at the sight of Aeri in the doorway. She’s in her pyjamas, scrunching her wet hair in an old T-shirt and holding her phone to her ear. A great big grin tugs his lips up at the corners, scrunches his eyes. “Hey, baby,” he says, pulling her into his arms, splashes of pink hitting his white T-shirt when he leans down to peck her lips.

She seems just as delighted, holding the speaker against her chest as she looks at you to ask, “Is it you that hasn’t tried that mussels from Lilly’s?” When you nod she puts the phone back to her ear. “Could you add another portion of mussels and black bean sauce to the order, please? Okay, perfect, see you at eight!”

Just the mention of food makes your stomach grumble, hunger taking over as if you didn’t have a bowl of rice and stew an hour ago. From the mini charcuterie board you’d been preparing before Heeseung arrived, you eat a slice of smoky chorizo. And another. Aeri joins you, lifting the wedge of cheddar you bought earlier and taking a bite straight out of it. She hums, pleased, while you watch in horror.

“So that’s actually for sharing,” you point out belatedly.

“It’s only you two.” Shrugging, she puts the cheese down, cutting off her teeth mark. “And Jay,” she adds, looking around as if he might pop out from behind something. “Where is he anyway?”

“On his way. Probably?” Heeseung suggests.

“Probably? You live together, what do you mean probably?” Aeri asks.

“I’ve been out all day. Shall I ring him and see?”

You shake your head. “We’re not watching anything until eight o’clock, he’s got half an hour.”

Armed with snacks, you all set up the living room together. Charcuterie plate in the middle of the table for easy access while you wait for dinner, chilled wine and carton of apple juice, the coveted final packet of salt & vinegar crisps which you plan to steal so Jay can have them. Aeri’s in control of the remote, so the three of you watch YouTube videos of eighteen-year-olds playing Dress to Impress on Roblox while you wait for food and Jay to arrive. Eight p.m. comes quickly and with no sign of either, though it seems like you’re the only one to take notice as Aeri and Heeseung are fully locked in on rating the looks coming down the runway.

“One star.” He groans, gesturing at the TV with both of his palms, furious. “The theme was sea monster, why are you wearing a beret and holding an ice cream cone?”

It’s half-eight when your takeaway arrives, and your phone lights up in your lap.

jongseong 😽: Can’t make it tonight

jongseong 😽: Sorry

Not many things can wipe the Lilly’s-induced smile from your face, but this does the job. In a split second. Worsened by the fact that he doesn’t say anything else. Beside you, Heeseung and Aeri open every container, humming with increased volume and enthusiasm at the sight and smell of each new part of your meal.

jongseong 😽: Tied up with recording but I would’ve loved to see you!

You split a pair of wooden chopsticks, stealing a salt & chilli covered chip from the box in Aeri’s lap. She doesn’t stop you. Nor does she complain when you take more. Heeseung hands you an oil-spotted brown paper bag, chicken balls, but still, the stir in your stomach persists, disappointment rather than hunger.

jongseong 😽: Are you free in the morning? Coffee date?

jongseong 😽: *coffee run

you: No worries!!!!! A coffee date sounds really nice :)

you: *coffee run

jongseong 😽: :)

Locking your phone, you tuck it under your thigh and reach over to open a bottle of the wine Heeseung brought. “Jay can’t make it,” you say, hating how small and upset you sound. Heeseung frowns and Aeri squeezes your knee. You’re the one who presses play on the remote, and Superbad’s opening credits start up, while the empty spot to your left gets colder and colder.

jongseong 😽: Hiiiii sorry again about last night, are we still on for this morning?

jongseong 😽: Ik it’s so early hahaha

You almost drop your toothbrush in the sink at the sight of his name in your phone, rushing to text back.

you: Wowwwww Park, are you trying to bail on me already…? Again? Sick.

jongseong 😽: No way! I’ve already left the flat!!!

Right away, a picture of Jay on the Tube appears in the thread, his smiling cheeks and eyes poking out over the top of a thick black scarf. You heart-react to the picture then remove it, replacing it with a friendly thumbs-up instead—there is, however, no fix for the butterflies in your stomach. The heat in your cheeks. You gargle mouthwash and pack your bag before running off to go meet him at once. So excited, so jittery, you can’t even read the thriller you packed for the commute.

Through the café window, you see Jay before he sees you. He’s drumming his fingers against the table, lips pressed together, his eyes on the door. His hair is short and styled so it sits up off his forehead, spiky sort of. You’ve never seen it as short as this. It’s good, you think, that you’ve seen him first, because now you can turn on your heel and go home to address the thump in your chest. As if feeling your eyes on him, he turns around, gaze meeting yours right away, and a grin breaks out over his face. Crinkles his eyes. Dimples his cheek. Takes your breath away. You can’t help but smile too as you hurry inside. He’s standing when you reach the table.

“Hey,” Jay says, pulling you into a hug that smells like honey and smoke and doesn’t last nearly long enough. “I really am sorry about last night.”

“Don’t worry about it, you’re here now.”

He nods, grinning. “I like your jacket, it’s cute.”

“Right? It’s Minjeong’s.” You look up at him, overwhelmed by the closeness of his face to yours, by the handsomeness of said close face. “You cut your hair,” you say, because it’s the only thought you’re having that has nothing to do with how good he looks and smells.

Jay’s lips curl into a sheepish smile. “Thanks for noticing.”

“Of course.” You nod. “You look like a baby.”

And there it is again, that grin. A laugh. “Great, because that’s exactly what I was going for. Thank you, YN.” He gestures to the table, at the steaming mug across from his seat. “I got you a latte.”

He really did! And the art on top of it is really normal!! It’s a love heart!!! And your actual heart is beating at a rate others might hear and think: wow, she’s being really normal right now! Hey, everybody!! Come take a look at how normal she’s being!!!

“Are you ageist?” you ask, taking your seat. To his furrowed brows, you continue. “There’s nothing wrong with looking like a baby. I was a baby once, you know.”

Jay sits down slowly, studying you over the rim of his cup and taking a long sip before he says, “I was too.”

Something about it all, seeing him like this, in a café and not studying, is strange. Jay was big on brewing his own coffee, steeping his own tea—exam season was the only justifiable time to splurge on delicious multi-hyphenate beverages. You take a sip of your own drink and try to come up with something normal to say, settling on, “I can’t believe we’re getting a coffee and it was your idea.”

“I don’t really drink anymore, my medication doesn’t… like that very much.”

“Jay, it’s nine o’clock,” you point out. “Oh… my God.” You cover your hand with your mouth, horrified, and leap to make things better. “I’m not judging you.”

“I didn’t mean I’d drink at this time. Jesus, YN. I’m not Scottish.”

“Okay, so you’re judging me.”

“I can’t help it, that’s just my God given right as a… sort of English person. Asking me not to judge you would be like asking me to kill myself.”

“Really desirable?” You sigh as soon as the words come out. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, guilt washing over you.

Jay’s eyes widen and his jaw drops, a surprised, contagious, laugh rushing out of him. He covers his face with his hands while you watch in horror. “Anyway, I was going to ask, how long do you have to stay somewhere before you can claim it?”

He’s still smiling. Your heart is still racing.

“I think it’s more of a feeling,” you say finally.

“Yeah, I think you’re right.” Jay lifts his notebook from the table, stuffing it into his jacket pocket. “You look a lot better since I last saw you, I was starting to think there was something about being near me that was making you sick, you know? Three times is a pattern and all that.”

“We saw each other two days ago.”

“For ten minutes,” he points out.

Ten minutes that you spent the rest of the day poring over, recounting every single detail, every little thing that led to him kissing your cheek when he said goodbye.

“Well, I only just got here, so I’m not sure we can rule it out yet.” Racing heart, turning stomach, breathlessness—symptoms of post-acute infection, apparently. You offer a weak chuckle. “Thanks again for looking after me, you really didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. And besides, it was nice spending time with you.” Jay smiles. “How’ve you been?”

“Just the usual.”

“I don’t really know what your usual is these days,” he admits too casually for the weight of it all.

“Right… uh, I’ve been—” You try to think about it, wondering what usual means to you. It used to be so simple. Your usual used to be studying with Jay before and after classes. Sharing every meal you could when time permitted. Ending the night together at his place or yours, even if you’d spent the day apart. He used to be your usual.

“I had an interview yesterday morning. At ‘Interview,’ and I think it went well,” you say, voice high pitched and trailing off towards the end. Worried about jinxing yourself, you hadn’t told anyone about it, not even Yizhuo who sent you the job posting. But now that you’ve said the words out loud, to Jay, you can’t bring yourself to stop. “But my friend told me they’re interviewing until the end of the month, so it might be a bit before I hear anything. I’m feeling good about it though, my portfolio is strong, and it’s versatile — at least that’s what the recruiter said — so I should have a shot for a few of the jobs there if I don’t get this particular one.”

Jay’s face lights up with every word you say, as if you’ve let him in on something secret, something precious.

“I didn’t mean to talk your ear off,” you say, hiding behind a warm sip of coffee.

His smile takes over his face, ear to ear and so delighted. Pink kisses the tips of his ears, the apples of his cheeks. “Luckily I have two ears, and they really love your voice so…” He trails off, ducking his head like he’s embarrassed by his own sincerity. “I’m really happy to hear that, YN. I want all of your good news. And the bad stuff too—everything.”

Suddenly sheepish, you direct the question back towards him, asking what’s been keeping him busy lately. His smile is immediate and wide. “I’ve been writing like crazy since I last saw you.” Jay tilts his head, chewing on his bottom lip, but his smile doesn’t budge. “It’s stupid but it sort of feels like I can… see or something now, again. If that makes sense.”

“Not at all.” You can’t help but smile too. “Tell me everything.”

Pressing his lips together, Jay lets his gaze flick towards the window, looking out at the quiet street. Across the road is a deserted play park with swings that sway in the wind. A fish-shaped spring rocker does the same, bobbing gently. A man pushes a pram. Jay opens his mouth and says, “It’s like I’ve been walking around blindfolded for the last few years and someone finally took it off of me, and now I can see and there’s—” He stops short, biting his lip as his eyes fall on the swirls in his coffee. And then flick up to meet yours. “Well now there’s so much light again.”

You clear your throat, your mind a storm, thoughts unclear over the rush of your blood, the pounding of your heart in your ears. The latte he got you, while delicious, does nothing to calm the raging waters. It feels so pointed, too pointed to ignore. You were startlingly aware of how your five-day fever dream had blurred a line or two in your head. Spending all that time together, letting him look after you — Neo opening the door, following the white rabbit — flipped the switch in your head and turned your ifs into whens. If / when we’re alone, if / when we kiss. Turned you back into an eighteen-year-old, waiting by the phone for Jay to text you back.

It’s only when his smile falters, just a touch, that you realise you haven’t said anything. “That’s kind of extremely beautiful,” you say finally, massively understating it.

“Yeah.” He nods. “I thought so too.”

After finishing your drinks, you sit for a while longer, rehashing uni gossip you bled dry years ago, until the staff start giving you increasingly dirty looks, all but begging you to leave.

Jay holds the door open for you. “So what are you up to today?”

“This is—” Cold wind scrapes your neck, cutting you off as you button your coat to the top. “This is what I’m up to today.”

An amused breath slips out of him, a white cloud by his nostrils, and he takes his scarf off, wrapping it around your neck instead. “I mean after,” he says, unmoved by his gesture. Meanwhile, you’ve got an inhale full of his scent and the exposed column of his neck, his heart-shaped birthmark, on your mind like a thirsty vampire. To your silence he waves his large hand in your face. “Earth to YN.”

“Right here, Park.” You swat his hand away, clearing your throat. “What are you up to after this?”

“I have a session in about an hour, come with?” he offers. “I should warn you though, it’ll be really boring.”

“Boring? I could tell you hated your job and all of your fans.”

“No, I mean for you.” Jay nudges your shoulder. Despite the layers, your heart stumbles at the contact. “Because you kind of just have to sit there and be quiet, which I know will be difficult for you.”

Heat floods your cheeks, pools at the base of your spine. “Shut up,” you mumble, turning away from him.

“What?” Genuine confusion pulls his voice up a few octaves. “Oh,” he says after a beat, figuring it out for himself. “I didn’t mean it like that, but when did I ever complain? I like it.”

“Please stop talking.”

Jay stands to attention, saluting you. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Fuck, if you’re going to beg me then, fine, Jay. I’ll come to the studio with you.” You sigh, struggling to fight a smile. “I can’t catch a break with you.”

His head tips back with sweet laughter and he loops his arm through yours, tugging you and the butterflies in your stomach down the road towards the station. “No, YN. You really can’t.”

On the empty platform, you stand side by side, looking at the massive NAPE poster plastered on the wall. Jay, who usually has no shortage of things to say at any given moment, stares at it in silence. The poster is taller than you are, with No Way Back Tour written at the top in blocky red sans serif. In the centre is a four cut photo strip with a picture of each member, that’s thresholded to oblivion, and the bottom lists a bunch of different venues around London.

“What do you think?” you ask. “I think it’s cool, the portraits look good with the red on them like that.”

Jay snaps back into motion, turning to face you, his teary eyes finding yours. He smiles. “I think I had something else in mind when Riki told me there was a huge poster of my face in the station.”

“What? Just your face?”

He shrugs. “Yeah, just my face.”

“Park Jongseong,” you utter, shaking your head. “Where is your team spirit?”

Jay rolls his eyes but can’t hide his smile. “Dead and gone. Take a picture? Please.” He holds his phone out for you to take and stands by the poster, poking the cheek of his large, printed face.

“Celebrities…” You sigh, though you can’t ignore the swell of pride in your chest. You’ve taken a thousand pictures of Jay standing by posters for movies and artists he enjoys, so this feels almost full-circle in a way you’re struggling to wrap your head around. “Can I take some on my phone?”

He nods, and you slip his phone into your bag, reaching for yours—“This is not happening right now!” A uniformed teenage girl is standing right behind you when you turn around. The strap of her backpack has a can badge with NAPE written on it. Her face and neck and ears bright red as she points a trembling finger at him. “You’re—you’re… Jay fucking Park!”

“Hello,” Jay says, he’s smiling too. He is also turning red. “Good morning.”

“Hello?” she repeats, incredulous. “Hello, yourself, Jay Park. Holy shit!” Everything she says sits at the junction of whispering and screaming as your eyes flick back and forth between the two of them.

“I really slept in this morning and I was like ugh, I don’t want to go to school, so I almost didn’t leave the house, but then I finally did and I was like, I don’t want to walk, so then I came down here, which I literally never do and then I saw you and I was like, she’s so pretty, and then you were taking pictures of literal Jay Park. This is like literally a sign,” she continues, all in one breath. When she shows you her lock screen, she’s listening to Carolina. “My top song for the last two years.”

You’ve never met a celebrity before, as a fan anyway, so you can’t say for sure how you’d react, but her coherence is impressive—you’re not sure you could stand in front of Michael B. Jordan without crying or screaming or proposing, never mind recounting the events that led you there in the first place.

Jay’s entire face is smiling, looking down at this sweet girl like she hung the moon and the stars—he looks like the fan here, hanging onto her every word. “It must be a sign. A great one. I’m really happy to meet you.” A beautiful mix of intrigue, delight, and timidness colours his tone and his wide eyes, straightens his spine.

You feel equally mesmerised by each of them.

“Same,” she says simply, extending a hand for both you and Jay to shake, the picture of composure all of a sudden. She’s amazing. “I’m Wonhee. No one at school’s going to believe this at all, holy shit.”

“Wonhee,” he repeats, to her utmost elation. “Do you want a picture, Wonhee? So everyone at school believes you?”

Wonhee’s jaw drops. “Are you kidding?”

When she says it’s okay, Jay puts his arm around her shoulders, a boyish grin scrunching his sweet face. He looks even more like the fan in all one million live photos you take on Wonhee’s phone. “Wow,” she utters, swiping through the pictures. “Wow!” A glorious, giddy laugh comes out of her and she bolts away up the stairs, leaving the station—so much for school.

“She was so cute,” you coo, unable to keep the smile off your face.

“Yeah.” Jay’s gaze stays on the stairs like she might come back. “Yeah, she was.”

“Look at you, my little celebrity!”

This makes him look away, his eyes falling to his feet, ears and neck just as red as Wonhee’s were. “No, not really,” he mumbles. “Or, not universally, which is a relief. I don’t really get noticed like that, and I think it was only because I was standing next to a giant picture of my face.”

And what a lovely face it is. “You’re her lockscreen, Jay. I’m sure she’d recognise you if she only saw the back of your head.”

“I’m her lockscreen?”

You nod, liking the giddy smile he wears. Liking the flutter in your stomach at the sight of it. The warmth in your chest. “Isn’t it so crazy that you’ve made her day, maybe even her week, and all you did was take a picture?”

“Not really, she’s made my day too.” Jay shrugs, blush still lingering on his skin. “I was already having an amazing day with you, of course. So meeting Wonhee’s just the cherry on top of a great day that already had a cherry on it.” His words come out rushed, one big run on word with no breaks to breathe or think. Like everything he says is coming out of him as soon as it crosses his mind.

“Great,” you say through a breathy laugh. “I’m having a good time too.”

“Washington State is actually the top producer of sweet cherries in the States, did you know that? I was starting to miss them, being away so long—and now I have two cherries on my wonderful day.” Jay is grinning from ear to ear like some sort of adorably Cheshire Cat / Joker hybrid, rocking back and forth on his feet. He might be the most excited person in the whole world at this very moment. Second to Wonhee at least.

You can’t think of the last time you saw him so excited about something. It’s interesting to see a celebrity so thrilled by parts of the job that seem so normal from the outside looking in. Something you’d think he’d be used to by now, two years and millions of streams in. Regardless, you’re just happy he’s happy.

And because you can’t resist teasing him, you say, “I get it, Jay. You’re having the best day of your life because you got attention from a pretty girl. Congratulations.” You give him a slow round of applause.

Undeterred, he tucks some of your hair behind your ear, his warm touch lingering on your skin. “I’m not trying to brag or anything, but I’ve gotten attention from two pretty girls today.”

Your cheeks burn. “Even better.”

Behind you, the Tube whooshes to a stop and the doors slide open right in front of where Jay’s standing. A distraction, finally. “And look at that,” he says, pointing to the doors. “Three cherries.”

NAPE’s room at Laughing Kitty Studios is a large wood-panelled rectangle and you two are the first to arrive. Jay takes his shoes off by the door, so you do the same, stepping in after him. Plaques and posters line the walls, streaming milestones and Nirvana. A worn leather couch sits in the middle of the room with a long table and two chairs at its back. Jay gestures around him and says, “This is where the magic happens.” He gives you a tour when you ask, showing you the huge monitor and lots of expensive mixing equipment that all looks the same to you. In the vocal booth, he shows you the controls and the locked cabinet where they keep snacks.

Helping you out of your coat, Jay hangs it up on the rack beside his and watches as you sink into the couch. “Do you prefer working here or at home?” you ask.

He takes a beat, thinking it over with his hands on his waist. “I guess it depends where we’re at. If we have a deadline or just want to get shit done, we work better here. And it’s nice having, like, a base, I guess, where other writers or producers can come to work with us.”

“That makes sense, it’s like a safe space, kind of.”

“Mmm, safe space,” he repeats. “I like that.” Jay sits too, leaving a small gap between you. “Most days though, especially when the weather’s shit, I prefer working at home.”

“Ah, see, I hated working at home; too many distractions.”

“Sunoo takes all our phones if he’s with us, so no distractions for NAPE at the studio.” Jay licks his lips, eyes meeting yours. “Not normally.”

Your awareness of Jay peaks. Of the spread of his thighs, of his hand grazing your leg when he lifts it from the couch cushion. Every cell in your body zings with this awareness, humming, and even though you’re smiling, even though your heart is a second away from beating out of your chest, you roll your eyes at him, cheeks on fire.

“Will you show me what you’ve been working on?” you ask. “Since I’ve come all this way?”

A boyish grin takes over his face as he nods. “But only because you’ve travelled all of fifteen minutes to get here, my strong, strong girl,” he says, taking out his phone and plugging it into the speaker behind the couch.

His strong, strong girl. Your sanity slips, just a little. Though you suppose it’s this alleged strength that keeps you sitting where you are, rather than jumping into his lap and kissing his stupid, handsome face.

Jay’s thumb hovers over the play button and he hesitates, seeming to second-guess himself before giving a hurried preface. “It’s just a demo, you know? Me and my guitar. I threw it together last night so the final thing probably won’t sound anything like this, alright?”

“You don’t have to play it for me if you don’t want to,” you say, squeezing his knee. “I’m sure it’s amazing though, because you wrote it.”

His ears go bright pink and he scratches the back of his neck. “It’s important to me that you hear it,” he tells you, sounding very certain for someone so clearly nervous. There’s something about it, his certainty, that makes your heart pick up, just a touch as you nod. He presses play and immediately the sound of his guitar fills the room, humming against the couch. Just like he did at the show, how he used to on the end of your bed, he picks a pretty melody. The image comes quick and clear—Jay at twenty. Twenty-one. Sitting in his underwear with his acoustic in his lap, picking the same notes over and over until they either sounded right, or you managed to convince him to get into bed instead. A knife to the gut would hurt less. And then he starts to sing. At first, in some of the most beautiful gibberish and lalalas you’ve ever heard. You open your mouth to compliment him anyway, but the lyrics come in, actual real words with actual real meanings, and everything you wanted to say falls to the wayside.

“You make my heart beat for you. I always cry too often, but I put too much in your hands. So much regret in the end,” Jay sings.

Through the speaker his voice is full and sincere and gorgeous as ever, all while he sits next to you with his bottom lip caught between his teeth. In your chest, your heart does an ungraceful tumble. If he can hear it, your thumping heart, he is polite enough not to comment, instead watching you closely, trying to gauge your reaction, maybe. Trying to read your mind.

“It’s a shame for you, it’s a shame for me. Is the blame on you? No, YN, it’s all on me.”

Oh.

A demo and a confession.

His thoughts laid bare at last, the vulnerability you used to beg for handed over on an acoustic platter. Curling around the room and filling the shortening gap between your bodies until your knee presses against his thigh, or the other way around—you can’t tell who moved. You don’t remember. You don’t care. Not when his lips are parted like that, not when he’s close enough for you to feel the heat radiating from his body. Close enough to kiss. The voice in your head says his name over and over. Jongseong. Jongseong. Jongseong. Your favourite nine letters stuck on the tip of your tongue. There are too many things to say, and too many ways to say them, so you don’t say anything at all.

Luckily, Jay says it all for you—sings it. “Wish I knew how to make it right. Just wanna look into your eyes, tell you the truth that I can’t hide, I love you so much.”

Answering seems so simple, but when you try, your mind blanks. Fills, rather, buzzing with all the wrong things. Thoughts and memories. Everything that’s happened over the last three weeks, the time you’ve been together again. Back in each other’s orbit. How he dropped everything to look after you, chose you.

How he finally chose you.

There’s a lightness in your chest, like some persistent weight has been lifted at long last. And now, looking at him, Jay. Your Jay—Jongseong. The freckles on his cheek, how the skin is tinted rosy. Pinched pink. His eyes, dark and wide and staring straight into yours. The only thing on your mind is: I love you, I love you, I love you. You tip your chin, and the space between your lips and his becomes little more than a technicality. His breath is warm against your skin, close enough to feel when it hitches. Close enough to see each of his eyelashes, to count them. To see how they flutter when he blinks, gaze falling to your mouth. Yours does the same, latching on the smooth pink skin, desperate now. Resisting seems futile, so you give in, pressing your lips to his and hoping it’ll be enough to tell him everything.

Jay’s relief is immediate. Clear in the shuddered breath that slips out of him, caught between kisses as he melts against you. His hand finds your jaw, fingers slipping into your hair behind your ear just like they used to. Tongue brushing up to tickle the roof of your mouth and make you smile like always. It feels like it’s been two minutes since your last kiss, not three years. Feels impossible that you went that long without this.

Without Jay.

His grip on your waist is gentle, but his fingertips sear your skin. He pulls you closer, and closer, each point of connection setting off a blaze in its wake. Mouth to mouth. Chest to chest. Knees to the sides of his thighs as you sink into his lap. Like this, under you, the sight of Jay is too much—flushed cheeks, plump lips, ragged breath. The feel of him, all solid muscle and huge palms slipping under your skirt. Nails digging into the curve of your ass. You lean in, lips catching his jaw, finding the side of his neck. His skittering pulse. His birthmark. Sucking on the warm skin there makes him groan, makes his hips buck. His dick strains against his jeans, hitting the exact spot that makes you putty in his hands, moans slipping from both of you as you work up a rhythm.

Your name trails off into a sigh when he tries to say it. “What does this mean?” he asks, breathless.

“I don’t know,” you admit, and for a long while afterwards, the only sound in the studio is the two of you trying to catch your breath. “Do you want to stop?” you ask, terrified for the answer.

Jay says nothing.

Your fingers slip easily through his hair, playing with the tickly short strands on the sides of his head. His question feels heavier the longer he goes without speaking, the longer you stew on it. What does this mean, if anything? There’s an uncomfortable swoop in your stomach, how could this possibly mean nothing? Nothing more than a spur of the moment makeout, never to be spoken of. A unanimous mistake.

On an inhale, Jay’s chest puffs out, touching yours for a heartbeat and he shakes his head. “Not for anything,” he whispers, leaning up to kiss you again.

And this time, when he rocks his hips, his grip on you tightens and he pulls you down to meet them. It’s too much all at once, heat lashing at you from every angle. Increasing with each brush of your tongues, with each press of his covered dick between your legs. Need burns a flame at the base of your stomach, tugs a whine out of you.

Against yours, Jay’s lips quirk into a smile, a smirk. “Needed this just as bad as me, huh, baby?” he asks, voice a low rasp.

“More,” you breathe.

To this, he pulls away, looking up at you with furrowed brows. He shakes his head and says, “No way.” Jay’s heavy palm cups your cheek, his eyes round and wide. A burst of tenderness in the midst of all the heat as his hips freeze under you. A flutter in your stomach. Warmth in your chest, on your cheeks.

“Absolutely, no way,” he says and once again, his lips come up to meet yours. Slow this time, gentle and sweet.

Until laughter erupts from the door, and forces the two of you apart. As if being caught in this position isn’t bad enough, a string of spit attaches you to him when you pull away. There are two guys standing in the doorway, one of them still laughing, the other one pressing his lips in a flat line, as though seeing the two of you like this is disappointing but not surprising.

Frustration and embarrassment wash over you in equal measure, a wave with the force of an eighteen-wheeler casting its great shadow above you. Only death could fix this, of that, you are certain—you can’t laugh at a dead person. At least not right away, surely there’s a buffer period of some description.

The amused one speaks first. “I thought you said you moved the couch off the wall so they wouldn’t fuck on it.”

“Yes, Jungwon. That was the general idea.” Stepping into the studio, shoes off, the disappointed one points at the sign above the light switch—a short list of forbidden things that has, no sex in the studio, written in bold, red letters at the top of it.

Great.

Maybe under different circumstances, if Jay had shown it to you, you might have laughed at the sign, thinking of what had to go wrong to lead to such a notice existing in the first place. For sex to rank over smoking and playing ball games on the list of things not to do in there. Now, like this, sitting in Jay’s lap with only a few layers of clothing between his erection and your dripping cunt, it makes you want to die.

Already, you had a whole host of things to stew over in bed tonight — spending all morning with Jay, the song, the kiss — and now you get to add being walked in on to the roster.

The rush of blood in your ears is disorienting, warbling Jay’s voice when he says, “It’s a great sign, Sunoo.” Completely unconcerned, he wears a great big smile and keeps his hands under your skirt. “But it says nothing about kissing.”

Your breath catches. Sunoo. His manager. Even better.

Without another thought, you stand, straightening your skirt. Jay doesn’t move, he just sits there with his hands on his thighs, eyes trailing over every inch of your body as if you’re still alone. As if now that he knows he can, he wants to use the opportunity to the fullest.

“Yes,” Sunoo agrees, sinking into one of the spinny chairs by the monitor and rubbing his temples. “And I’m coming to regret that.”

Silence hangs over the room as Jungwon steps inside, closing the door after himself. He runs his finger over the sign, following the words one at a time like he’s sounding it out or studying it. How nice it must be, not to have a stake in this moment. You clear your throat, deciding that if the universe isn’t going to answer your pleas for sudden death, you might as well perform good and normal social niceties. “I’m YN,” you announce, so loud that Jungwon flinches by the door. “It’s… nice to meet you both.”

“Likewise.” A genuine smile covers Sunoo’s face, scrunches his eyes—it’s like looking at an angel. “I can see why Jay talks about you so much.”

“Sorry for…” You trail off, unsure how best to put across whatever the hell you and Jay were doing—sorry for having a reconciliatory dry hump on your couch, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. “That,” you say finally.

He laughs and the sound is delightful, a dismissive wave of his hand accompanying it like he wasn’t just losing his mind. “Please, that wasn’t even the worst thing I’ve walked in on this week.” Sunoo shudders, seeming truly disturbed. “First time offence for Jay though,” he adds thoughtfully, which is oddly reassuring.

Jungwon claps his hands, one loud smack as he sits on the other end of the couch, a bright smile on his face like he’s solved some pressing matter. “So what if the sign says, no partners in the studio, instead?” he asks, nudging Jay.

His emphasis on the word partner sets off your stomach, steadily fluttering butterflies flying around a swirl of heat. Is that where this might have led? Where you and Jay could end up? Partners. Again? Casual-workplace-dry-humpationship isn’t a relationship status you’ve had before, or heard of, but now, the thought of it being as far as things go here, with Jay, is a horrible weight on your shoulders, a pressure in your chest.

Sunoo sighs. “I love this band, I really do, but the horny fuckers would just kiss each other.”

At this, you all laugh. All but Sunoo, anyway.

It’s straight to work when the rest of the guys arrive, and Sunoo settles on the other end of the couch, typing away at his laptop and pausing to give his opinion when they ask. Sunghoon sits with his knees to his chest, picking at his lip as he stares at the screen, clicking this and that, playing it back over and over, no matter what imperceptible change they’ve suggested.

Standing over his shoulder, Heeseung tilts his head. “Actually, yeah. Your way’s better, cut that.”

“I think quiet for half a bar instead of fading out—everything off just vocals, and then back on full force for the last chorus. Louder,” Jake suggests, so Sunghoon does just that and plays the whole thing over again. You can’t hear the difference, but all of the guys hum in approval.

Heeseung riffs. Jay does the same on his guitar, and he was sort of right. Maybe if you were less fascinated by him, you would be bored. But he’s kind of extremely good at this. All of them. They manage to lock in for hours at a time, bouncing ideas around and executing them perfectly in a matter of two or three takes. Late in the afternoon, Jungwon orders pizza and they stop working to eat before getting right back to it. It’s the only break they take all day.

“Look, I know you want to, but you don’t need to take a new song out with you—not yet anyway.” Sunoo stands up from the couch, putting his laptop into his bag. “You still have time to decide on the encore show, but maybe after all the travelling you’ll have a few finished songs. New setting, new inspiration.”

Jake furrows his brows. “Meaning?”

“Meaning, I think we’re cutting it a bit thin. I mean this is your last full week off — bar rehearsal — before tour starts, and I don’t want you so stressed about something with an easy fix.”

At the mention of the word tour, Jay stiffens. You do the same.

Jungwon takes his headphones off and turns to face the room, laptop in hand to show the screen. “Do we like these T-shirts for the U.S. shows?”

“Yeah, but…” Sunghoon squints, getting closer. “They look just like the Australia and New Zealand shirts.”

“Which look just like the Europe ones,” Heeseung points out.

Every sentence makes things worse and worse. They’re going on tour in a week. Jay is leaving in a week. Going to the U.S., to fucking Oceania, and this is how you’re finding out. The tightness in your chest, the ache in your stomach, is immediate. Instead of looking at you, Jay bites at his nails. Scrunches his nose.

“If we could kindly get back on track,” Sunoo interrupts, pulling his jacket on. “You have Live Lounge when you’re back in March, VEVO Studios in April—much better opportunities to showcase new music. I know you want something special for fans, but maybe we can shoot a performance video of… Royalty? And release it on Valentine’s Day?”

Jay hides his face in his hands. “Okay.”

“Just think about it, okay. It’s up to you, and I promise I’ll support whatever you decide. For now, though, I have carbonara and an episode of Lovely Runner waiting for me at home, so I’m away, yeah?”

With that, Sunoo leaves and Jungwon is quick to follow. The guys sit in silence for a bit before getting back to work. By your side, Jay hunches over his guitar, resting his chin on the body, picking at the strings aimlessly. Across the room, Heeseung, Jake, and Sunghoon crowd around the monitor, nitpicking.

While their demo plays through the speakers again, louder than before, Jay finally speaks. “You and your friends can come if you’re up to it, to the London show. Whoever you want. On me,” he mumbles, looking at the fretboard instead of you.

“Okay.” You nod, though the thought of having to tell Minjeong that Jay has upset you again, that you’ve let him close enough to be upset by him again, is too grim to bear, so you text the chat, inviting them along instead.

you: Nape concert next Friday night on me (on the band) who’s there?

somi: me me me me me

yizhuo: Will Jake be there?

riki: will jake be at his concert.

riki: what happened w you and jimin 🤔

yizhuo: No further questions your honour (she only wants to hookup HAHAHHAHA).

riki: my apologies twin (Go Get Your #Man).

you: Oh okay bc I thought you all had very important jobs right . Right. MY FUCKING BAD.

And just like that, all three of them stop texting.

It’s ten p.m. by the time you and Jay reach your flat, and neither of you have said anything since you said bye to the other guys back at the studio, ten Tube stops ago. You search in your bag for your keys, desperate to end this silence by disappearing inside. Jay has other plans though, apparently, because when you twist your key in the lock and step over the threshold he sighs, saying your name. You don’t look at him.

“I swear to God, I was going to tell you about the tour, okay? I wouldn’t just leave like that. Not again.” Though his credibility where telling you things is concerned is shaky at best, you nod and he continues. “I’ve known for ages, obviously, but I wasn’t sure when to tell you or if you’d care.”

“You weren’t sure I’d care that you’re leaving for two months?” you ask, hoping he can hear how absurd that sounds.

“Three months,” he corrects, mumbling an apology when you squint at him. “I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about what I thought this was or could be, by talking about my short-term plans like you’re my girlfriend or something.”

Your scoff echoes through the hall, an accurate reflection of the irritation that heats you from the inside out. “Sure, Jay. Give me the right idea then.”

He takes a beat, his eyes catching over all of your features. “You’re cross with me,” he states simply.

Cross, he said. As if that even begins to cover it. Maybe if you were any less cross with him, the Briticism might have made you smile. “Very.”

“I’m sorry, YN. I should’ve told you sooner.”

“Sunoo told me. You didn’t say anything.”

“Look, I didn’t mean to—” Jay pauses, pressing his eyes shut with his fingers until his nails turn pale. With a shaky breath, he tries again. “We didn’t have hard conversations at home. My parents would just make up their minds and do shit, you know. I found out we were moving to Seoul when my dad came into my room with a bunch of boxes, and told me to fill them up.”

The words rush out of him, each of them a blade to the heart, deeper than the last. Twisting. You’ve seen all of his childhood photos, the calendar his parents had made when he was eight. His permed curly hair and bright smile, those big round eyes that never failed to melt your heart no matter how many times you saw the pictures. Hearing that his parents could raise him that way, their only child, to change his life at the drop of a hat, like he was just another thing to put in a box and cart away, stings the backs of your eyes. From what you remember, he’d gone from the U.S. to Korea, then London, all so quickly—and now you know, with no warning.

“London was the same, back to Tacoma, same thing, and back again. I never really…” He trails off, chewing on his lip before he starts again. “I thought Edinburgh would be like that too, it was supposed to be. But then I met you, and for the first time, the thought of leaving was terrifying. I thought it was about the band, what my parents might say, but it was you, YN. I never had a home to leave until I met you, and I didn’t realise that until it was already too late.”

The realisation sets in with deep unease. His room in Edinburgh was completely bare when you met him, just the essentials, the stuff you can only assume was easy to move with. It was only after the two of you had been together for a while that his room started filling up. Posters and knick-knacks. Snowglobes and postcards from whatever holiday Minjeong had planned for you, her and Jaehyun. At the end of it all, by the time it had been two weeks since Jay left your place and never looked back, his flatmate Wonbin handed you a box with these things in it. To your confusion, to your upset, he only raised a brow and said, I thought you agreed it’d be better to end things? With him moving back home and that…

“And even after I left, I had a million and one chances to reach out to you, to explain, apologise, all of it, but I—I really let you down, and I’m sorry. I’m not that person anymore.” He looks down, shaking his head. “I don’t want to be that person anymore.”

Your body reacts before your words can, hand reaching out to his cheek, cupping the smooth, flushed skin. His eyes flick up to meet yours, and the only thing you can say is, “You’re not. It’s okay, I promise.”

“It’s not, YN.” He presses his lips together, biting the skin until the pressure turns the pink pale. “I just want you to be happy.”

Again, the words are right there, twisting painfully in your throat and stuck to the tip of your tongue. I love you. I still love you. It’s you, Jay. It’s always, only you. But you can’t get them out, can’t bring yourself to say them. “I am happy, Jay,” you say instead.

Jay’s lips quirk up at the corners, not quite a smile but close. “You’re happy,” he repeats, nodding his head as he seems to consider this. The silence is awful, turning your stomach and when he finally opens his mouth to speak, you’re so certain he’s going to wish you a goodnight that you rush to speak first.

“When are you leaving?”

“Saturday.” One day after the London show. Ten days from today. “Manchester’s Tuesday, then Glasgow, Dublin…” He trails off, but you know the rest—Paris, Hamburg, Stockholm… Auckland, Brisbane… You studied the order from the poster Jungwon showed you.

“When can I see you again?” you ask quietly.

“I’m not sure.” Jay tilts his head. “Want me to send you my Google Calendar?”

He’s kidding, you know that much, but still, you say, “Please.”

At this, he pulls up the app on his phone, multi-coloured blocks filling the screen. “Looks like I’m free at 3 a.m. tomorrow,” he says, clicking the share button and pasting the link in your text thread, where your contact is saved as MY ❤️. Still. Jay hits send on the message and again his calendar fills the screen. “And right now.”

“Me too…” You trail off.

To your surprise, it doesn't take much more to get Jay into the flat, into your room. To have your back against the bedroom door and his lips on yours, not even separating to push your coat down your shoulders. His hands span wherever he can touch, slipping under your shirt to press your body closer to his.

Jay tugs at the waistband of your tights. "Want these off."

"Later." You chase his kiss, desperate not to lose momentum, not to give either of you an opportunity to think about this and what it means.

Relenting, his hand slips under them instead, grabbing your ass. Bucking forwards, you feel his thick cock against you, a swirl of heat ravishing the base of your stomach. He sighs into the kiss, parting your legs with his thigh and guiding you over the solid muscle.

It's not enough. "My tights," you say, changing your tune. "Rip them, Jay.”

He moans on a shaky exhale, pulling away to look down at you. "Are you joking? I can't tell if you're joking." His eyes are blown and frantic, searching your face. As soon as you shake your head, he tugs at the thin fabric until it tears, making a hole. Cool air rushes against you, forcing you to draw a breath. "Now what?”

You push your damp underwear to the side, fingers parting your slick folds before you rock your hips once more. Painfully slow. The feeling of his thigh, the rough denim of his jeans grazing your clit, makes you whimper into the space between you. Jay's lips quirk up at the corner, his bruising grip guiding your hips back and forth.

"So needy, aren't you?" He pushes his thigh harder against you. "What am I gonna do with you, beautiful?"

Holding his gaze is an effort, but you'd die if you missed the way he looks right now, half-lidded eyes looking down at you, his bottom lip pulled between his teeth. Even blinking feels like a waste. "Anything, Jay. Do anything."

"Bed?" As soon as you nod he carries you over, setting you down.

You lean up on your elbows to watch him undress—his jacket comes off first, falling to the floor. Then his T-shirt, pulled over his head, triceps huge when he bends his arms. A lick of need burns your core at the sight of his tattoo peeking out over his waistband, the thick dark hair under his belly button. You have to chew on your lip to hold a moan, but he notices.

"Like what you see?" He smiles, freeing his belt from the loops of his jeans.

"Mhm."

Jay's eyes trail over your body, skin ablaze wherever his gaze lands. "Not as much as I like you." He leans over and kisses you. "Your pretty little mouth," he murmurs, lips trailing your throat. "Your neck, your shoulders." At your chest, he takes his time. Sucking and licking your nipples through your tank top, urging whimpers out of you with each bite and tug. It's only when he continues down the rest of you that you remember the point he's making, a kiss pressed by your belly button. "Your stomach, thighs. Everything, baby. Love all of you.”

Love all of you. You can't breathe. Love all of you. His hands slip under your skirt, pulling off your panties and torn tights in one go. Love all of you. You might die here, now, like this.

He gets up to take off his pants, leaving only his tight grey underwear and the dark patch in the centre, where the fabric clings to his leaking tip. "Want you on me, YN." He licks his lips before a breathtaking smile spreads over them, slow and feline. A smirk, more like. "Sound good? You wanna sit on d—my face?" Even the thought of riding his face, of the word he stopped himself from saying, hitches your breath.

Saying, please, is a measured effort, though he wastes no time getting between your legs. Just the feel of him under you, his built shoulders and solid chest, thick arms wrapped around your soft thighs; seeing him like this, eyes half-lidded and stuck on your cunt, is dizzying and he hasn't even touched you yet.

"So pretty everywhere." The words are a low whisper, warm and sudden, before he licks you from back to front.

A burst of pleasure arches your back, coursing through you immediately as you grind down on him, rutting against the tip of his nose. Dipping into you, his tongue moves slowly to match the roll of your stuttering hips—he's kissing you, making out. And loving every second of it if his groans are anything to go off of. It is, at once, too much and not enough. His pouty mouth finds your clit, licking it in circles, driving you crazy.

"Fuck," you whine. "Like that."

When he hums in response, it rumbles through you, forcing a moan from you as you tug at his hair. At the feeling of it, he groans, burying his face deeper and deeper. Tipping his chin towards you. In his enjoyment of it all, in his actions, he makes no effort to be quiet—squelches amplified and filthy, with his exaggerated movements of his mouth against your soaking cunt.

Your orgasm creeps up on you, slow to start but quickly overbearing. "Jay." From your lips, his name is a wobbly cry. "Jay," you repeat. Falling forwards, your hands grip fruitlessly at the sheets, whole body trembling in his hold. Pure bliss washes over you in harsh waves, whiting the dark behind your closed eyelids. How could you ever go without this again? How did you manage in the first place? You can't even voice it, warn him, that you're close, that you're there, unthinkable heat hitting you from every angle as you gush all over him. He doesn't let up, only humming and licking more feverishly, quicker, harder, and pressing the entire bottom half of his face to you, drinking up your release.

Catching your breath is an impossibility, your legs and stomach twitching as he cleans you up with his tongue, murmuring praises against you. Thank you, baby, as his nose hits your clit. Missed this pretty pussy, after he licks your clenching hole. So good for me, when he sucks at your inner thigh. Jay looks a mess when you finally sit up, glancing down at him. Ruffled hair. Slow blinking eyes. Everything from his straight nose down is slick and shiny, cum slipping over his jaw, and a smile curving his swollen lips. A handsome mess.

You clench around nothing.

Later, you share the shower and lots of kisses, teeth bumping under the spray as Jay whimpers, coming in your hand before getting into bed. He strokes your hair, twirling the ends around his fingers, and opening his mouth to speak but says nothing. Minutes pass like this until you finally ask, “What is it?”

He shakes his head, smiling too. “It’s nothing.”

“Tell me, baby.”

“I just… I kind of feel like I’m dreaming or something,” he admits softly, though you feel the words in every part of you.

Stuck for what to say, scared to say anything, you lean up and kiss him instead. Kiss him until your stomach starts to flutter. Until you’re gasping for breath, legs tangling together under the duvet, because if this really is a dream, you don’t want to have any regrets when you wake up.

@.gigiseung: DUDEEEEEE JAY GOT A GIRLFRIEND 😭😭😭 I USED TO PRAY FOR TIMES LIKE THIS THE MUSIC IS GONNA BE HAPPY !!!!!!! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!

112 replies | 675 retweets | 5.6k likes | 752 bookmarks

@.nojayback: no one moved 🙄

@.gigiseung: girl im really sorry but your boyfriend has a girlfriend and it’s not jake or you… i retweeted…

@.sunghoon67: I SAW JAY AT MOONSTRUCK ON A DATE WITH A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN THIS IS NOT A DRILL WATCH THE FUCKING VIDEO 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

400 replies | 4.2k retweets | 25k likes | 2.3k bookmarks

@.nojayback: WHY DID HE PUT HIS SCARF ON HER LIKE THAT WHO TAUGHT HIM THAT ??? WHO EVEN IS SHEEEEE 😭😭😭

@.sunghoon67: IDK WHO SHE IS I JUST KNOW SHE’S HOT AND HAS AN ACCENT

@.nojayback: AND LOOK AT HIS OUTFIT HE MET WONHEE IN THIS OUTFIT DID THIS GIRL TAKETHAT FUCKING PICTURE??? @.jaykeyaoi wake tF UP RNNNN DID YOU MEET HER TOO???

@.NAPEisFOUR: So friendship between a man and a woman isn’t a thing anymore? This fandom never fails to disgust me.

@.gigiseung: @.NAPEisFOUR GOODBYEEEE a sex tape would be less incriminating.

minjeong: Oh girl I can’t defend you anymore send my fucking jacket back TODAY

you: What jacket ???

Her next message has ten pictures. And then another set of ten pictures. And then another.

minjeong: Lie again. Asking “what jacket” DUDE I SEE YOU WEARING IT AND WITH YOUR FUCKING SATANIC EX TOO… Killing you would not be enough.

All of the pictures are Twitter screenshots, threads of NAPE fans trying to solve a mystery by the looks of things. Several photos of you and Jay, a video, even. All from yesterday morning.

@.hojumilkpuppy: ALL THESE FUCKING PICTURES AND NOT ONE SHOT OF HER FACE ??? ARE WE KIDDING RN WHO IS THIS AND WHERE DID SHE GET THAT JACKET

@.gigiseung: OP said she has an accent and jay said he studied in edinburgh right?

@.hojumilkpuppy: Are You Trying To Tell Me This Is Miss Carolina.

@.jaysnape: am i the only one who thinks filming them like this is weird af idk it’s nice seeing him all smiley and in love but idkkkkk it feels weird seeing this when they clearly have no idea they’re on camera

@.ClubNAPE: If you’re feeling distressed by the video, it’s ok. But please take care of yourself. Step away from social media for a couple of days. Don’t attack or criticise Jay, too much money and time went into publicly harassing him and it finally paid off for those people.

@.jm4pjs: Thanks for trying to encourage us, but I’m so sad and furious at the same time…For now I’m empty… I hope he uses condoms…

@.ClubNAPE: Trust me when I say he doesn’t go that far with her. Just, please trust me.

@.hojumilkpuppy: You are an adult.

Each thread follows a similar pattern, hundreds, maybe thousands, of NAPE fans freaking out over the video. Posting detailed body language analysis to prove and disprove the true nature of your and Jay’s relationship. The split seems even enough—half of them happy for Jay, for you; half of them affronted by the mere suggestion that Jay might have feelings for any woman in a way beyond friendship. The worst part of it all, by your standards at least, is that you’re just as confused as them and it’s your relationship.

The original video, sunghoon67’s pinned tweet, has over a million views. In all of her replies, she goes to bat for you, insisting that the whole time she saw you and Jay, the two of you seemed comfortable and happy, and that she was not stalking him, but happened to be at the café studying for over an hour when you arrived.

somi: YOU AND JAY???

yizhuo: Do Not even get me started.

riki: you told them about uni? i thought that was a secret yn u made me feel special…you okay though? this is kind of extremely crazy 🤔

yizhuo: What the fuck do you mean UNI

somi: ???

riki: ning yizhuo you have a degree i know ykwtf uni is.

You mute the groupchat, putting your phone on Do Not Disturb.

What Twitter user #hoonjay real’s deep analysis of it all says about them, you’re unsure. An odd mix of delight at the thought of other people perceiving you and Jay as happy together, and discomfort at the thought of someone studying you so closely, filming you without your knowing, clash in your head. The more tweets you read, thanking OP for sharing, and bashing OP for the same thing, the more confused you feel. You spend an hour like this, laying in the bed Jay left this morning, scrolling through Twitter and Reddit, refreshing the timeline to read new responses as they come in. More and more people claim to have seen you together, inventing stories about you yelling at Jay in Notting Hill, or kissing him in Piccadilly. All the while, Minjeong continues to text.

minjeong: And you did it in the street WEARIGN MY FUCKING JACKET THIS IS HOW I FIND OUT YOU STOLE MY JACKET??? This is SO embarrassing for me imagine all the people that think I’m Park Jongseong’s fucking girlfriend because they saw you in my jacket

you: Imagine all the people that think I’M his girlfriend ???

minjeong: You’re not?

you: Define girlfriend.

minjeong: A frequent or regular female companion in a romantic or sexual relationship

you: Define frequent.

minjeong: I really don’t have time for this YN.

minjeong: Are you okay though? Fr

you: I’m good! People think I have nice hair and good taste in jackets, over the moon rn 🥰

Three dots appear on her side of the chat and your phone vibrates in your palm. Jay’s name and an old photo of him with his hair bleached take over your screen. Jay at twenty-one—fast asleep in your childhood bed, cuddling your worn Snoopy plushie. “Hey, are you home?”

“Mhm.”

A sigh comes through the phone, he sounds relieved. “Please open the door.” He’s standing on the mat when you do, chewing furiously at his lip. He hugs you and apologises into the crook of your neck. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, Jay,” you mumble into his chest. “Are you okay? Are you coming in?”

Jay sighs again, letting his shoulders fall. He assesses your face, still holding you close. “Wish I could, baby. I’m on a potty break,” he says, completely earnest.

“Potty break?”

“Like, restroom? It’s a long story, but the suits made a slidesh—” His phone goes off loudly in his pocket, buzzing between your bodies and making him sigh. “I’ll tell you later, alright? I have to get back.”

“Later today?”

Jay shakes his head, pecking your lips. It’s not enough—there’s no such thing with him, so you pull his bottom lip between yours. “Don’t want you… staying up just for me,” he mumbles, the words warm against your mouth as his hand comes up to hold your cheek.

“You’re worth it, Jay,” you admit.

He draws a breath, pulling away just enough to look at you. His face softens, a smile on his lips, his eyes on yours. “You’re cute,” he says softly, thumb brushing over your skin. “I’ll think about it.” When his phone goes off this time, it rings. A call. He mutters a curse, pressing his forehead to yours like he might ignore it, like he might stay, then he kisses you once more. “I really have to go.”

“How about you text me when you’re done and we’ll see if I’m still up?” you suggest.

“Alright, princess. We’ll see.”

And by fire, by force, you are still up at two in the morning when he texts you to say he’s all done at the studio. You open the door to usher a tired Jay to the kitchen, sitting him down at the table where you’ve heated up leftovers for him. A slow smile lights up his face and he eats quietly, only breaking to chug water.

Aeri comes into the kitchen, greeting you both with a tired hum before filling her bottle with water from the filter. On the way out, she smacks Jay over the head with a flat palm. “My loyalty is to YN before it’s to you or Heeseung, okay?”

He winces, clutching the back of his head and nodding. “Got it.”

After food, you wash his dishes while he showers, and he climbs into bed with damp hair, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he mumbles against your skin. “Thank you so much, baby.”

“Thank you for coming over…” You trail off. For making time for me, you think but don’t say.

“I really am sorry about this whole thing. The photos, people talking… Jesus.” Jay sighs, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t want you worrying about any of this, it’ll die down, alright? I promise, shit like this, it always dies down.”

“I’m not worried about any of it, Jay. Promise. It’s kind of cool how much your fans care, a lot of people really love you,” you say. “I’m just happy you’re okay and that you’re here.”

His lips spread into a smile against your temple. “I’m happy I’m here too,” he murmurs, pulling you into his chest. Though naturally, because you are you, and he is Jay, your lips find each other anyway. Kissing for an hour like a bunch of teenagers before you fall asleep.

It’s perfect.

Mostly.

The days leading up to the concert go by similarly, with you and Jay meeting up after his studio sessions or rehearsals. Some nights you hook up, most nights you cuddle and watch the newer seasons of Formula 1: Drive to Survive, which he pauses every two seconds to add his own — very necessary — commentary. Neither of you mention the concert or what’s going to change when he leaves the day after. Its first mention is on the day of, when he sends you a text.

jongseong 😽: We have about an hour or two downtime before the show if you want to head over during that? So around like 5, yeah? Sunoo can come and meet you and bring you up

you: Sounds good see you sooooonn!

jongseong 😽: See you babyyyyy got soundcheck so talk in a few :D

At a pub you’ve never been to, you meet up with Yizhuo to nurse a pint and eat truffle mac‘n’cheese. So much has changed since you last saw her and it’s only been a week and a half. Life has a way of doing that—flipping things on their head when you least expect it.

“Have you heard back from anywhere?” she asks, clearing her plate. “From Interview?”

You deflate, sipping sweet golden nectar from your glass. “Not yet.”

“Try not to look so worried, it’ll be good news. I can tell.”

“What if it isn’t?” The words are impossible to say, a pathetic mumble over the speakers. It feels a bit like admitting defeat. You’d been relatively optimistic at first, but hardly anyone gets the first job they apply for. Or the first thirty. Creative jobs are hard enough to come by as it is, and after all the difficulty of securing one, the only thing anyone leaves for is the grave. “I can’t wait forever, Yizhuo. I’ve got maybe two more months before I need to go and stay with my parents again.” And that’s if you stop using your redundancy pay for frivolous things like groceries and rent.

“It won’t get to that. You’re capable, you’re smart, you’re qualified.” Yizhuo says firmly, squeezing your hand over the sticky tabletop. “Just because things are bad now doesn’t mean they’ll be bad forever. Soon, we’ll look back at this moment and laugh about it at work drinks. I promise.”

You hope she’s right. You need her to be right.

When you meet up with Sunoo, he leads you through the venue’s back entrance and to the green room, where Jay and Riki are the only people inside, bickering on the couch. At the sound of the opening door, they quit it, and Jay greets you with a bright grin. His tight-fitting black long sleeve is tucked into his dress pants, and a pair of wire-frame glasses sit on the bridge of his nose. It’s like seeing God. He hugs Yizhuo first, though in light of #JaysGF-gate and your sharing of the full story, she’s not his biggest fan at the moment. You however, as evidenced by the last week you’ve spent joined at the hip, are more than eager to have Jay’s arms around you.

“Hey, beautiful. How’s your day been?” he asks, pecking your lips.

“Good, Jay. How are you feeling?”

He was a nervous wreck this morning, pacing the length of your bedroom until the absolute last second he had to leave. Now though, he seems relaxed, like he’s left with only excitement for tonight. “Better now that you’re here,” he admits. It doesn’t sound like a line when he says it, but Sunoo mutters, Jesus fucking Christ, before he leaves.

You tease him too, rolling your eyes despite the smile on your face. Despite the fact you feel the same way.

Unfazed, he only smiles wider, holding your jaw and kissing you. He tastes like spearmint, like Jay. “Want me to show you around, baby?”

“Yes!” Riki says before you have the chance. “I’ve never been backstage before.”

Yizhuo has to grab him by the sleeve, stopping him in his tracks. “Not you, weirdo.”

“You don’t know that.” He yanks his arm from her hold, straightening his denim jacket over his shoulders and running a hand through his hair.

Jay takes you by the hand to give you a tour. Just you. Dressing room, catering, the wings. One small lounge for each of the members. There isn’t much inside: a vanity, a couch, a coffee table. His guitar and his bag. All the while, a nervous flicker turns your stomach, anxious like you’re the one about to perform in front of thousands of people.

In the privacy of his locked room, he holds you in his arms, looking down at you. His eyes trail your body, a sweet smile curving his lips. “Look amazing, baby. Always so pretty,” he says, tucking your hair behind your ears.

A different kind of nervousness sets in, classic giddy fluttering, mind racing and trying hard to think of the perfect thing to say at the perfect time. It’s reassuring, feeling like this again, warm and happy—bitten by the lovebug you’d long stopped believing in. No matter what happens tomorrow, when he leaves, at least you know that feeling can still exist for you. The thought is scary now, but most of those big truths always are in the abstract. Until they happen.

You smile up at him, desperate to live in this moment forever, pushing his hair back from his forehead. “Thank you, Jay. So do you,” you say. “My handsome baby.”

Pink tints his cheeks, eyes wide for a split second. “You mean it?”

“Mhm. Love these glasses too, they make you look all serious, like a sexy professor or something," you joke, startled to find you mean it. “Tell me more about changing the subject of a formula, Mr. Park.”

“No way,” Jay mutters, his hips bucking towards yours. “Can’t do this with you right now, baby.”

“Can’t do what, Mr. Park?”

He sighs and shakes his head. “Be good, YN. Please.”

“Yes, sir.”

And like you’ve scalded him, Jay steps away, biting his lip. With his eyes screwed shut, he grabs at the crotch of his pants, adjusting himself before sitting on the couch and patting the cushion next to him. Stepping out of your boots, you curl into his side, playing with his fingers. “You never told me what happened with the song you guys were working on,” you say, hoping not to pressure him after what you heard at the studio.

Luckily, your question seems to do the opposite, and his face lights up. “We finalised it this afternoon! You’ll hear it tonight, baby. I really hope you like it.” A knock on the door punctuates his answer, and he has to disappear for hair and makeup while you wait in the green room.

The boys aren't gone for long, but you don't get any time alone with Jay before he has to go on stage. No time to properly process how good he looks with his hair all spiked up. His freckles aren't covered at all, and his black long sleeve fits like a second skin, clinging to every curve and contour on his torso and arms. You can't help but touch him, feeling his sculpted chest and racing heart against your palms.

"You look..." There's no single word you could use to describe him right now, as he looks at you through matte black sunglasses. "I think you're going to have to surgically remove my mouth from you later," you say pressing a kiss to his soft lips, already picturing your evening plans. As if overhearing, excited as well, the crowd roars before starting to sing along to whatever Jungwon is playing through the speakers.

“Good, baby. That’s good to hear, I’m looking forward to it.” Jay’s grip on your waist is firm, holding you as close as possible, tickling the roof of your mouth with his tongue. A breath comes out of him, flustered, eager, happy, and he rests his forehead on yours. “Wish me luck?”

Giddy butterflies turn in your stomach, your smile impossible to contain. “Good luck, Mr. Park.”

“Mm,” he hums, kissing you again. “I have no plans to go easy on you later, darling.”

It’s Sunghoon who finally has to pry Jay’s grip away from your waist, a firm tug that does little to quell the burning heat on your cheeks and neck. His transformation takes a split second, going from Park Jongseong, the guy you’ve known and wanted all this time, to Jay Park from NAPE, golden under the amber spotlight and singing his heart out. If he wasn’t so good, you’d have more time to process how strange it all is, how clear it is that he comes alive on the stage. All of them do. Like they’re finally doing the exact thing they were put on earth to do.

Song after song, it becomes clear what they mean when they talk about themselves and the fans and the energy. How they meet in the middle, feeding off of each other. Watching it like this, backstage with your friends, it feels like you’ve been let in on something unthinkably special. That feeling sticks around for the length of the entire two hour set, amplifying.

The crowd boos when Jay announces that they’ve reached the end of the show. “But we have one last song for you tonight, something very new and very dear to me—” he says, grinning into his mic when they cheer again. “—I’ve been going through a bit of a funk, I guess,” he admits.

In the front row, you see very pretty women frowning, touched to hear about Jay’s hardships — no matter how vague — like they’re taking them on themselves. Somi squeezes your hand, pointing them out to you and mumbling that they’re so cute. You agree.

“But a couple weeks ago, something really special happened for me, and when I finally figured it all out, what it meant to me, I sat up all night working on this song. And the guys and I have been grinding to get it done, so it’s been a long time coming, and we hope you love it. This is Out Sick.”

All of the lights go dim, save for a stark spotlight that shines straight on Jay. The venue holds its breath, and he looks over his shoulder, craning his neck just a bit to find you. When his eyes meet yours, he gives you a smile, soft and warm, your Jongseong in that moment. Your smile is immediate, a second of calm in your pounding heart as he strums the first chord and turns back to the crowd.

You know this song already, its shape. As familiar as the back of your own hand. As Jay’s lips on yours or his hands under your skirt on the couch at Laughing Kitty. Your stomach plummets to the floor, eyes stinging with tears. Sunghoon comes in slowly on the drums, Heeseung and Jake’s guitars following to make it warm and round and full.

And then, Jay sings, “I don’t have to try to love you, it comes easy to me…”

His demo. Complete. And performed so beautifully. His voice is raw, vulnerable, as he bares his soul for everyone, for you, to hear. Heeseung’s harmonies are simple, sweet, a perfect anchor for the song. They’re amazing. They are actually amazing. All of them.

As the final note rings out, the lights go dim once again, and applause erupts backstage, your friends squealing and hugging each other while you wait. NAPE don’t take long to appear behind the curtain, all four of them a blur of black clothes and adrenaline. Jay doesn’t stop to speak with the crew or with the other guys, he comes straight for you. Short strands of his hair slick with sweat, his glasses fogging up as he pulls you into his arms.

“It was perfect, Jongseong. You were perfect.”

He doesn’t say anything, but you feel him smiling into the crook of your neck as his heart thuds against your chest.

Tearing Jay away from the tour kick-off party is easier than you expected. Largely in part due to the fact that he’s the one dragging you through the crowded flat to his bedroom. Music muffles through his door and as soon as the lock clicks shut, you sink to your knees at his feet and Jay gulps when you look up at him, a gentle look on his face, in his eyes, that makes your heart trip in your chest—that he could look so tenderly at you in this moment seems unreal. Slowly, you unbuckle his belt, unsure who you're teasing more. You undo his zipper. The button.

He cups your cheek with his palm, clearing his throat. "Only if you want to, baby." His voice is soft, delicate as he traces your lips with the pad of his thumb.

You nod. You need to.

Jay's trousers give easily when you pull at them, falling to his ankles. His white underwear stretches over his erection, a dark patch where he leaks onto it. You can't even pretend to resist, tongue finding the spot immediately, and taking his tip between your lips, sucking on it through the wet fabric. Precum seeps into your mouth, the taste of it heady and familiar, leaving you hungry for more.

His hips buck forward, stuffing more of his clothed dick into your mouth, groaning. "My beautiful girl," he mutters, tucking your hair behind your ears. "Still so dirty and all for me, yeah?"

White-hot desperation buzzes along every inch of you. You can't wait any longer. Jay shivers when his leaking tip smacks his stomach, leaving a streak on his toned skin. Oh, my God. When you take him by the base, your hand only just wraps around him, thumb and index finger brushing. "Let me help you, YN." One of his hands covers yours easily, the other holding your head still. "Want my help, don't you, baby?"

All you can do is nod, watching Jay stroke himself—help you to stroke him.

"Say it. Use your words."

"Want you to help me—" Your mind blanks, that five letter word burning on the tip of your tongue. "Jay," you say instead.

His dick twitches in your fist as he brings his slit to your mouth, spreading hot, sticky precum like gloss over your lips. "Good girl," he whispers, thumb tracing your cheekbone. "Always so good for me."

Molten need pools between your thighs. "Only for you," you admit, words muffled against his tip.

Jay's breath hitches, fingers curling in your hair, then, finally, he stuffs your mouth—starts to. At an agonising pace. Inch by torturous inch, he pulls you towards him. Watching with furrowed brows and holding his breath as the stretch starts to ache your jaw. Only when his tip brushes the back of your throat, making you gag, does he let out a breath, a ragged, whiny thing, torn from him. Hearing him like this, being the cause of it, never gets old. Never fails to flip your stomach.

Chest heaving, eyes fluttering shut, he throbs in your mouth when you stroke the part of him that won't fit. "Fuck," he whispers. "Fuck, baby. Too good, need a — fuck — need a minute." He pulls out, looking down at you like he's confused, like he can't make sense of the thick string of spit and precum that attaches your lips to his tip.

Can't make sense of the way you kiss it anyway, lapping up the mess from his slit with your tongue. Every word that follows is a whined curse, his legs shaking as his grip on your hair lets up. Your name comes out of him, a stern mutter that makes you press your thighs together. Even so, you keep going, licking a strip from his tip to his base, thick hair tickling your face when you suck on his balls.

"Shit, YN," he mumbles, watching you with squinting eyes, shivering while you stroke him. "So good, baby."

Kissing your way back up to his tip, you take him in, letting your hollowed cheeks pull him further. He's twitching already, erratic on your tongue, low grunts and shallow breaths coming from him. This time when he says your name, it's gentle, sweet, as he rocks his hips to fuck into your mouth in shuddered strokes. Over and over, he moans for you, the sound of it lighting you up, spurring you on to take him deeper, quicker.

His stomach tenses, thighs shaking until he bucks hard against you, coming straight down your throat, hot and thick, without warning, making you cough. It leaks from the corners of your mouth, rolling down your chin, warm on your chest. Jay moans at the sight, licking his lips while you swallow what you can, still working your fist over him. Bracing against the door behind you, he lets out a cry of your name that drives you mad, loud and unbidden, as he trembles.

When he pulls out, his dick hits his legs with a loud squelch. Spit and cum drip off of him, wetting your thighs and making a mess.

You can hardly catch your breath or wipe your mouth before Jay's kneeling in front of you, pressing his lips to yours. Pressing your body to his. "My sweet, sweet baby," he mumbles, licking into your mouth. Teeth bump teeth. Tongues on tongues. "Way too good to me." He pulls you into his lap, cock wet under you. Something about the feeling of it like this, soft and pressed against your thong, twists your stomach.

Taking him in your fist, you thumb at his slit, and he whimpers. "Need it. You, Jay," you tell him, stroking desperately.

At this point, the wet smack of his mouth on yours can hardly be described as a kiss, but he keeps at it. "I'll give you what you want, I promise," Jay says, pushing your hand away and running his finger over your slit. "But I can't right now." He sounds truly apologetic, distraught and whiny as he presses on your clit.

Relief comes immediately, but it's not enough, when he slips his finger into you and fills you to the knuckle. Still, you chase pleasure, fucking yourself on his thick digit, humming at the stretch of another finger pressing in. "Yes, right now."

Against your mouth, Jay smiles. "Want you ready, yeah? Don't wanna hurt you," he coos, a third finger joining the rest.

"You won't," you whisper. "Please, Jongseong."

On this, he concedes. On not using a condom, however…not so much. Laying you down on the bed, he undresses you before pulling his own shirt off. Now that he's had a beat to collect himself — free from your eager hands — he's hard again, standing up taller than before. His tip not just flushed but angry red and leaking. At the very least, he lets you roll the condom onto him before joining you under the covers and hiking your leg up over his hip.

"You're gonna kill me," he mutters into your neck, pressing himself against you, right between your wet folds. So close yet so far. "Gonna die if you keep this up."

"If you're going to die anyway, you might as well take the condom off," you point out, rocking towards him. "For old time's sake, you know? Last night, two nights ago—the good old days." It was a lack of condoms that led you there, to Jay whispering sweet filth in your ear while he spilled into you.

"Very funny, YN." His breath fans your skin when he chuckles. There's no humour in it, but he throbs between your legs, rolls his hips back to match your rhythm. "Can't keep chancing it." You can hear his resolve fading, his lack of conviction.

"Don't you think I'd look pretty? All nice and full?"

His teeth sink into the crook of your neck, making you cry out. "Don't," he mumbles, soothing the bite mark with his tongue.

"Used to — fuck, Jay — talk about it all the time." You're panting more than you're talking, eyes fluttering shut as your sweat slicked skin slips over his. "Lost your shit when I'd call you da—" He cuts you off with his dick. Finally.

You moan in unison, eyes screwing shut as he thrusts into you, filling you up with one shaky stroke. There's no getting used to the size of Jay. Whether he's fucking you with it or sending a video, it shocks you every time. It's like he's trying to split you in half to make room for himself, thick heat spreading, unbearable, from between your legs out. He doesn't move yet.

"All good, baby? Feels good?" he pants, burying his face into your throat.

You nod into his pillow, gasping for breath, only managing to say, "Uh huh."

A low groan heats your neck when you claw at Jay's back and he pulls almost all the way out before thrusting right back in. "So good for me, YN. Fit so good, baby. Always fit so good." He fucks you with the same strokes each time, even when his breath turns ragged, pulling you closer and closer to the edge. Tip on the burning knot in your stomach, nudging it undone, one deep thrust after the other.

You bury your face in the pillow, biting down on it, as he brings you to your orgasm like this. Finger pressed to your clit, teeth nipping your neck, hips rutting frantically. He fucks you through it, wet and overwhelming, scorching heat tearing through you. The memory foam muffles your mewls and whiny babbles, and he groans when you tug his hair, muttering, oh, my God, over and over, until he finishes with a loud cry of your name, shuddering in and out of you.

Calming down is difficult, but Jay's hand stroking your hair is a comfort. Lips pressing sweet kisses to your jaw and muttering praise into your skin. Again, you find those three words on the tip of your tongue, eight letters eager to make their way out. They don't have a chance, thankfully, because he pulls out slowly, moving just enough to kiss your lips. His tongue brushes yours, wiping your I love you away, taking it for himself, and smiling against you like you actually said it. Like he's saying it back.

Sleepiness overwhelms you, eyelids heavy, lips lazy on Jay's. After you pee, he wipes you clean with a warm towel, kissing your knee while he does. Falling asleep is easy in his arms, with the steady rise and fall of his chest under your head, butterflies swirling in your stomach, and the knowledge that the terrifying and uncertain tomorrow is still hours away.

When you wake up, no music seeps into Jay’s room, no heavy footsteps in the hall. No doors slamming shut, no yelled conversations. The flat is completely still. Even the street outside is quiet through the open window, London’s morning running on silent. Soft cotton kisses your skin, detergent and sweat float around you. Sunlight streaks the wall, slipping through the gaps in the blinds. Jay’s fingers twirl the ends of your hair. His voice, low and gravelly from sleep, asks, “You sleep alright?”

Alright isn’t enough of a word for how well you slept. You’re not even sure if perfect would suffice, but you nod anyway. “Did you?”

“Mm.” He squeezes your shoulder, holding you closer. “Perfect, darling.”

I wish we could just stay here forever, you think. Saying it is another story. “Do you really have to go?” you ask instead, knowing he’ll have to leave soon to make his flight.

You hear the spread of Jay’s lips and see the curve, his perfect teeth, his smile lines and dimple, so perfectly clear behind your closed eyes. His hand is heavy on your arm, his fingertips warm and calloused, dragging senseless patterns into your skin. “I’ll be back before you know it,” he mumbles. “Promise.”

Resting your arms on his chest, you finally get a proper look at him. His hair sticks up in tiny spikes all over his head, pointing this way and that. A smile creeps over his lips, slight and sleepy, but warm all the same. How desperately you want this all to be something, to mean something. Now and when he gets back. The soft look in his eyes, the relaxed lull of his breath, chest rising and falling slowly under you, his hand on your back. How desperately you want this to be something more than simply blowing off steam before he goes on the road.

“What is it, baby? What are you thinking?” Jay asks, using his thumb to smooth out the crease over your brow. His touch is unthinkably gentle, but it ties your stomach in knots.

The words are right there, slipping from your mind and taking their juvenile shape on the tip of your tongue. What are we? It seems absurd to think that he could leave, even if only for a few months, without asking that question—but picturing yourself asking him is worse.

“It’s nothing.”

Jay’s lips curl downwards and the sight tugs at your heart. He kisses the palm of his hand and presses it to your forehead like a stamp, making you giggle, before his fingers find your hair, scratching your scalp. You could fall asleep again, your eyelids weighing more and more with each graze of his nails against your skin. He smiles, finally, he smiles when you lean into his touch.

“You could always come with me,” Jay suggests. “If you want.”

If you were even a little more secure about your place in his life, those three words — if you want — wouldn’t be so jarring. Wouldn’t turn your stomach or make you want to roll your eyes and ask, what the fuck kind of an answer is that?

“What do you want?” you ask instead.

“I want you to do what you want.”

You sigh, a deep breath torn out of you and into the silence.

“What do you want me to say? What am I getting wrong?”

Feeling bad, you shake your head. “Nothing, Jay. It’s nothing, I swear,” you try to assure him, but you can see his thoughts passing through his head. You can’t stand it. Can’t stand to think about whatever comes after this, after he leaves.

You lean up and kiss him to stall the inevitable, warmed by the low sound he makes, by the way he pulls you into his lap. Warmed by the feeling of him under you, hard already. His lips are slow against yours, tongue licking lazily into your mouth and sighing when you roll your hips over his.

“Tell me, baby,” he says, lips barely leaving yours. “Can’t fix it if you don’t tell me.”

When you pull away, his eyes search yours, a million questions written all over his face. His cheek is soft beneath your palm, thumb stroking his skin, and it’s all you can do to hope this won’t be the last time. “Fix what, Jay?” Your voice comes out small, frightened. “What is this?”

Say it, you beg silently. Say you want me. Say that this is everything.

He bites his lips instead. Says nothing.

“Do you still want me?” you ask around the lump in your throat. “Properly?”

Jay’s brows knit together. “I feel like I should be asking you that. I don’t know how else to show you.”

“I can’t go with you, Jay.” Saying it feels final, like you’ve drawn a line under whatever the hell you two have been doing, and he will leave for his tour and come back and this will still be over.

“I didn’t ask you to.”

Before you can help it, your face falls, lips curling downwards, and Jay wraps his fingers around your wrist to keep your hand on his cheek. He jumps to take it back, to fix it, but you’re not sure if he can.

“That’s not what…” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I shouldn’t have said it like that. Can we just… Can we take a second?” His cheeks are flushed, skin rosy and warm under your hand, his eyes wide, pink lips pressed together. “I just need a minute,” he adds softly. “I’ll be right back, yeah, baby?”

You nod and Jay kisses you quick, gentle, before slipping into the bathroom and locking the door behind him. It doesn’t take long for you to make up your mind. To put your clothes on and stuff your bra into your bag, turning your phone off on your way out of the flat.

At home, you get straight into bed, pulling the duvet up to cover you completely.

Twenty-year-old you would be mortified if she could see you now: twenty-three, unemployed, and still worrying about the same problems you had three years ago, about the same guy. Surely by now, having known him all this time, known yourself, you should have seen this coming a mile away.

Sleep comes easily like this, moping under your covers like a kid.

By the time you wake up, it’s well into the afternoon and you turn on your phone to one new notification. A text from Aeri asking you to check if her parcel has come yet. Nothing from anyone else, from Jay. He and the rest of the guys are probably in the security queue, fumbling laptops out of bags and shoes off of feet. Chatty and excited and too busy to spare you a second thought, to send a text—which, maybe, given how you walked out, that’s what you deserve. You’re even now though, you and Jay. And it doesn’t feel good at all.

As if you’d willed it, wished it so much it came to be, your phone vibrates next to you on the mattress. Not a text, an email. It’s from Interview, with the subject line: Offer of Employment.

The smile that breaks over your face is instantaneous and aching, tears welling in your eyes as you read and reread the first line of the email. As you read and reread the whole thing, closing the app and opening it again, waiting for something to change, for a second email to come in saying there’s been a mistake. But no. The word congratulations stays right where it is. A job. An actual job that you get to start in a month when the office renovation is complete. It’s a weight off your chest, a blinding ray of light in the face of countless rejection emails.

When you open the phone app, Jongseong 😽, is right at the top, and it takes your thumb hovering over it to even realise what you’re doing. This week-long instinct, relearned and deep as marrow. I need to call Jay, I need to tell Jay, now your default thought. Again, your default thought.

The silence of the flat feels greater, bed bigger without him in it. As quickly as it came, your delight sours, curdling in the pit of your stomach. Everything you’ve been working towards, the fruit of your efforts finally reaped, and the one person you want to tell all about it, is the one person who’d care the least.

Locking your phone, you press the cool top of it to your forehead and take a deep breath. This is okay. You’re okay. You’re great! You have a job, finally, an actual named and recognised role. And it’s all yours.

Feeling lighter, if only a little, you get up to check the mail room, stuffing your feet back into your boots and pulling the front door open. Jay is there. Here. He looks like he’s run a marathon just to stand on your welcome mat, cap on backwards and his suitcase at his side. Sweat shines on his upper lip, his neck. His eyes are wide, brows raised like he’s surprised to find you here, at your flat, where you live. Nothing comes out when you open your mouth to speak, but your name comes from his in a whisper.

“I can’t go.” His voice cracks when he says it, making him smile. “I couldn’t, we got to the gate and I—I can’t leave if we’re like this. I love you, YN. I do. So much. I’m a coward, okay? I’m a coward and I’m awful at all of this, but I love you.” The words leave him in a rush, and he sighs after like he’s relieved, like the words have been weighing on him all this time. “I know how much I’ve hurt you, and I know I can’t make it up to you, but I’d like to try.”

Your heart races in your chest like it’s trying to burst out, thoughts scattered, too fast to latch onto, to process. You need to say something, you know that much. “I wanted to call you,” you utter, pointing at him as though maybe he doesn’t know to whom you’re referring. “I got the job at Interview.”

To this, he lets out a sound you’ve never heard him make. A half-laugh, half-sob as he takes your pointing hand in his, pulling you in. “Of course you did,” he says, the words a warm mumble against the top of your head. “Fuck, YN, that’s—that’s amazing. You’re amazing.” He holds you so tight you can feel the frantic pounding of his heart against your chest. The frantic pounding of your own heart. For a long moment, you bury your face in his chest, taking it all in. His scent, honey and detergent and sweat. The grounding feel of him, his arms around you, his palm stroking your back, mouth kissing your hair.

Reality, everything he’s just said sinks in, slow and heavy. Jay, here, with you, again. At last. And saying all the right things, saying almost everything you’ve been waiting years to hear. Meaning them. Too good be true surely, the job and now this, and all in a matter of minutes. You pull back, only enough to look at him with your palms flat on his shoulders, and wait. For the other shoe to drop. For Jay to glance at his watch and realise he can still make his flight if he leaves right this second. It doesn’t come. He doesn’t even look over his shoulder, his eyes are stuck on you. Only you.

“What are you—what do you want?”

“I want to be with you, and I want you to want that too. Still, again, whatever, just… you’re it for me,” Jay says decisively. “You’re always going to be it for me.”

Whether he knows it or not, he changes your life with those words. He changes everything. Quiets the years of chaos in your mind and finally, finally calms the storm.

“Yes, Jay. Whatever you’re saying or asking, my answer is yes, okay? I love you, Jay. I love you too, I love you still, all of it.” You tip your chin to kiss his smiling lips, and after all this time, your heart falls back into its natural rhythm.

Jongseong, Jongseong, Jongseong.

© zreamy (2026), all rights reserved. do not repost, translate, or plagiarise my work. do let me know your thoughts !

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[nishiimuraka]

a great read turned fantastic at the mention of the iconic salt fork youtube video

[lac4ygal]

SUNFLOWER — s.jy

-ˋˏ⚘ pairing: jake sim x female reader

-ˋˏ⚘ genre: neighbors to lovers · single dad au · fluff · angst · smut · found family · slow burn

-ˋˏ⚘ summary: You have lived in apartment 3B for two years. You know your neighbors the way you know background characters — familiar, unremarkable, just part of the scenery. Which is why it’s strange that you’ve never properly noticed the man in 3A. Until 6:58 on a Tuesday morning when someone knocks on your door and you open it to find not him, but her. Small. Round-cheeked. Duck pajamas. Absolutely certain of herself. You fall for his daughter first. Jake is just the complication that comes after. But god, what a complication.

-ˋˏ⚘ word count: 21.1k

-ˋˏ⚘ content warnings: explicit sexual content, penetrative sex, oral sex, fingering, multiple orgasms, praise kink, soft dom/sub undertones, strong language, single parent theme, child abandonment (mother leaving), brief parental guilt, an absent parent reappearing, emotional manipulation attempt, jealousy, mention of custody, legal procedure, alcohol, crying, found family theme, a toddler who will ruin your life in the best way

-ˋˏ⚘ song: You Are The Best Thing by Ray LaMontage

-ˋˏ⚘ authors note: i started this fic because i wanted to write a soft single dad jake but the mia took over everything, she was supposed to be a supporting character but how can i make someone that cute not a main. she picked reader first and she always knew and i think that’s the whole story. jake deserved softness. reader deserved to be chosen. mia deserved a mama who showed up. everyone got what they deserved. if you’re reading this — thank you. comments, reblogs, feedback and likes keep me writing and i am so serious about that. enjoy💛

-ˋˏ⚘ my masterlist

You have lived in Apartment 3B of Wattle Grove Building for two years. You know Mrs. Kim in 1A leaves her recycling out on the wrong day every single week without fail. You know the guy in 2C plays guitar badly but enthusiastically every Sunday morning. You know the building super Danny will fix anything you need as long as you leave a coffee outside your door first.

You know your neighbors the way you know background characters in a movie you’ve seen too many times. Familiar. Unremarkable. Just part of the scenery.

Which is why it’s strange that you’ve never properly noticed the man in 3A. You’ve seen him, obviously. In passing. At the mailboxes. Once in the car park when you were both leaving at the same time and did that awkward thing where you both reached for the door simultaneously and then laughed and said sorry at the same time. He’s tall. Dark hair. Has a nice face in the vague way that you register nice faces without really looking at them.

He moved in about eight months ago. Keeps to himself. Quiet. You’ve never heard a peep through the wall you share, which you appreciate deeply after two years of listening to the previous tenant’s aggressive taste in late night television. You know his name is Jake because it’s on the mailbox.

That’s it. That’s the extent of your knowledge of the man in 3A. Until 6:58 on a Tuesday morning when someone knocks on your door.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

You are not a morning person. You are, in fact, the opposite of a morning person. You are someone who sets four alarms and ignores three of them and considers getting out of bed before eight a personal attack. Your first class doesn’t start until ten. You were planning to sleep until at least eight thirty, mainline coffee until nine, and leave with approximately four minutes to spare.

So when someone knocks on your door at 6:58 AM you lie there for a full thirty seconds convincing yourself you imagined it. Then it happens again. Small. Rhythmic. Insistent. knock knock knock

You groan into your pillow. Drag yourself upright. Pull on the hoodie hanging off your desk chair and shuffle to the door, hair catastrophic, eyes barely open, prepared to be deeply unpleasant to whoever is on the other side.

You open the door. There is no one there. You blink. Look left. Look right. The hallway is empty and quiet and— “Hi.”

You look down. There is a child sitting on the floor outside your door. She is approximately three years old, round-cheeked and bright-eyed, wearing a yellow pajama set covered in tiny ducks. Her dark hair is escaping from two lopsided pigtails. She has a serious expression on her face like she has somewhere important to be and is merely pausing here briefly.

She is, without any competition, the most adorable thing you have ever seen in your entire life. You stare at her. She stares back. “Hi,” she says again, very patient, like she’s giving you time to catch up.

“Hi,” you manage. “Um. Who are you?”

She considers this question with great seriousness. “Mia.”

“Okay. Hi Mia.” You look up and down the empty hallway again. “Where did you come from?” She points at the door directly across from yours. 3A. “Are you—” You crouch down to her level. “Did you come out of your apartment by yourself?”

“Mr. Bunny is lost,” she explains, as if this answers everything. And apparently, in her world, it does. She stands up, remarkably steady on her feet for someone so small, and peers past you into your apartment with undisguised curiosity. “Is he in there?”

“Is who— Mr. Bunny? I don’t think so, sweetheart. I haven’t seen any—”

“Can I look?”

“I— well—” She’s already walking past you into your apartment.

You stand in your doorway, blinking slowly, watching a three year old you have never met toddle into your living room and start investigating with the focused energy of a tiny detective. She checks under the coffee table. Behind the couch cushions. She picks up one of your throw pillows, examines it, puts it back. “He’s not here,” she announces, sounding genuinely disappointed.

“I’m sorry.” You’re fully awake now, adrenaline doing what four alarms couldn’t. “Mia, does your dad know where you are?”

She looks at you. Blinks. And then, for the first time, something flickers across her face that isn’t complete confidence. Something small and uncertain. “Daddy’s sleeping,” she says quietly.

Oh no. Oh no.

“Okay,” you say, very carefully, going into full calm adult mode even though internally you are having a minor crisis. “Okay, that’s okay. Let’s go wake daddy up, yeah?”

You take her hand — she gives it to you immediately, tiny fingers wrapping around yours with complete trust, and something in your chest does something weird and unexpected — and you walk her across the hall to 3A.

You knock. Nothing. You knock louder. A crash. Muffled swearing. Footsteps. The door flies open.

Jake Sim, your neighbor from 3A, looks absolutely terrible. He’s in gray sweatpants and no shirt, hair destroyed, eyes wild with the specific panic of a parent who has woken up to find their child missing. There’s a pillow crease down his left cheek. He looks like a man who has just experienced the worst thirty seconds of his life.

He looks down at Mia standing beside you, her hand still in yours, looking up at him with the expression of someone who has done absolutely nothing wrong. The relief that crosses his face is so profound it’s almost painful to witness. “Mia.” His voice comes out wrecked. He drops to his knees right there in the doorway, gathering her up, holding her against his chest. She pats his back tolerantly. “Mia, I— you can’t— how did you—”

“I was looking for Mr. Bunny,” she explains into his shoulder, very reasonable.

“You can’t leave the apartment by yourself, baby, I’ve told you—”

“But Mr. Bunny—”

“I don’t care about Mr. Bunny right now—”

“Daddy.” She pulls back to look at him, deeply offended. “Mr. Bunny cares.”

You press your lips together very hard to keep from smiling. Jake looks up at you over Mia’s head, and he looks so mortified you almost feel sorry for him. Almost. It would be easier to feel sorry for him if he didn’t look — even rumpled and panicked and creased from sleep — really quite unfairly attractive. You file that observation away to examine later, when a child is not present.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I’m so, so sorry, she’s never done this before, I don’t know how she got the door open—”

“She knocked,” you tell him. “Very politely.”

He closes his eyes briefly. “Oh god.”

“I used my reaching stool,” Mia informs him helpfully. “For the handle.”

“We’re getting rid of the reaching stool,” Jake tells her.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Daddy, no—”

“Mia.” He pulls back to look at her properly, and his voice goes soft but serious. “You scared me. Really scared me, okay? You cannot leave without waking me up first. Ever. Do you understand?”

She looks at him. Her lip wobbles, just slightly. “I just wanted Mr. Bunny.”

“I know, baby.” He pulls her back in, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I know. But you have to wake me up. Promise me.”

“Promise,” she mumbles into his neck.

He holds her for another moment, and you feel like you’re witnessing something private. Something that belongs to them. You take a small step back. “I’ll let you—”

“Wait.” Jake stands, Mia on his hip, and looks at you with an expression that’s somehow equal parts exhausted and sincere. “I really am sorry. And thank you. Genuinely, thank you for— I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if she’d gone downstairs instead of just across the hall.”

“She was perfectly safe,” you say. “She was very focused on her investigation.”

“Mr. Bunny is lost,” Mia reminds both of you gravely.

“We’ll find him,” Jake tells her. Then to you: “I’m Jake, by the way. Since apparently we’ve been neighbors for eight months and I’ve never actually introduced myself, which is—”

“Terrible,” you supply.

“Yeah.” He winces. “Yeah, it really is. I’m sorry about that too.”

“Y/N,” you tell him. “3B.”

“I know. I’ve seen your name on the mailbox.” He shifts Mia on his hip. She has turned to look at you with renewed interest, the Mr. Bunny crisis temporarily suspended. “I kept meaning to knock and introduce myself properly but then time just—”

“It does that,” you agree.

He smiles. It’s a tired smile, still coming down from the panic, but it’s genuine. It does something to his face that you also file away for later. Mia is still staring at you. “You have pretty hair,” she announces.

“Mia—” Jake starts.

“Thank you,” you tell her seriously. “Yours is very pretty too.”

She reaches up and touches one of her lopsided pigtails, considering. “Daddy did it,” she says, with the tone of someone being very diplomatic about a disappointing situation.

You look at Jake. He looks back at you. The pigtails are genuinely quite bad. “I’m working on it,” he says.

“We could—” You stop yourself. You don’t even know this man. You’ve spoken to him for approximately four minutes. “Never mind.”

“No, what?”

“I was just going to say I could show you. If you wanted. It’s not— it’s easy once you know the trick.” You gesture vaguely. “But you probably have things to—”

“I would love that,” Jake says immediately. “Genuinely. Every morning is a disaster. She came home from daycare last week and her teacher had written a note that said ‘we love Mia’s creative hairstyles’ and I’m pretty sure that was a polite way of saying—”

“Daddy can’t do hair,” Mia explains to you, very straightforward.

“I cannot do hair,” Jake confirms.

You laugh. Actually laugh, fully awake now, standing in the hallway at seven in the morning in your old hoodie with your own hair catastrophic, and it surprises you a little. How easy it is. How natural. “Come over tomorrow morning,” you find yourself saying. “Before daycare. I’ll show you a couple of things.”

Jake looks at you like you’ve offered him something much more significant than a hair tutorial. “You don’t have to—”

“I know.” You crouch down to Mia’s level. “I hope you find Mr. Bunny.”

She studies you with those serious dark eyes. Then she reaches out and puts her small hand on your cheek, very gentle, the way toddlers sometimes do when they’re deciding something important about you. “You’re nice,” she declares.

“So are you,” you tell her. She nods, satisfied, like this has confirmed something she already suspected.

Then she tucks her face back into Jake’s neck, done with the interaction, and Jake gives you a helpless sort of smile over her head. “Thank you,” he says again. “Really.”

“Anytime.” You stand up and take a step back toward your own door. “And Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe put a chain lock on. Up high. Before tonight.”

He looks at the door. Looks at Mia. Looks back at you with the expression of a man who has just realized how many things there are to think about when you’re doing this alone. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah, good call.”

You don’t go back to sleep. You make coffee and sit on your couch and think about the way Mia put her hand on your cheek like she was taking your measure. The way she gave you her hand without hesitating, tiny fingers trusting yours completely.

The way Jake held her when he found her safe. Like she was the most important thing in the world, which she obviously was, which was obvious in every single line of his body.

You think about his apartment, which you caught a glimpse of through the open door. The small pair of shoes by the entrance. The sticker on the light switch at toddler height. The general chaos of someone who is managing, but only just. You think about the note from the daycare teacher and the terrible pigtails and the way he said I’m working on it without a single drop of self pity.

You finish your coffee. Make another one. You have a feeling that next door is going to become a lot more complicated than background noise and a name on a mailbox.

You’re not sure yet if that’s a good thing. But when you close your eyes you can still feel the ghost of small fingers wrapped around yours and you think— yeah. Yeah, you’re probably already in trouble.

Mr. Bunny turns up two days later. He is in the freezer. Neither Jake nor Mia can explain how he got there.

You laugh about it for five minutes straight when Jake texts you, and then you look at your phone and realize you’ve been texting your neighbor for two days like it’s completely normal and you’ve known him for years. You put your phone down. Pick it up again. Type back: at least he’s preserved.

Jake sends back a string of crying laughing emojis and then: Mia wants me to tell you that Mr. Bunny says thank you for looking for him

You smile so hard your face hurts. You are, you realize, completely and utterly done for. And you haven’t even properly met him yet.

The hair tutorial happens on Wednesday morning. You hear them before you see them — Mia’s voice carrying clearly through the wall at seven fifteen, a stream of cheerful commentary about something, Jake’s lower voice responding, the particular domestic chaos of someone trying to get a toddler ready for daycare on a schedule. Then a knock at your door.

You open it to find Jake holding Mia like a football under one arm, a hairbrush in his free hand, and the expression of a man who has already lost this morning’s battle comprehensively.

Mia is upside down and completely unbothered. “Hi,” she says, from her inverted position.

“Hi,” you say. You step back and open the door wider. “Come in.”

They troop inside, Jake setting Mia down on her feet in your living room where she immediately begins a thorough reinvestigation of the space, picking up where she left off two days ago. She examines your bookshelf. Touches the small succulent on your windowsill very gently with one finger. “Plant,” she observes.

“His name is Gerald,” you tell her.

She looks at you. Looks at Gerald. Looks back at you with the gravity of someone receiving important information. “Hi Gerald,” she says politely. Jake makes a sound that might be him trying not to laugh.

“Okay.” You take the hairbrush from him. “Sit her up on the couch and I’ll show you.”

What follows is twenty minutes that you will think about for the rest of the week for reasons you can’t entirely explain.

Mia sits between your knees on the couch, remarkably patient once she’s settled, holding Gerald the succulent in her lap because she asked and you said yes and Jake gave you a look that suggested he has learned to pick his battles. You work through her hair slowly, showing Jake each step — how to section it, how to hold the hair so it doesn’t pull, how to make the pigtails sit even.

He watches with the focused attention of someone who is genuinely trying to learn this. Not just nodding along but asking questions, asking you to slow down, watching your hands. At one point he leans in close to see what you’re doing and you’re very aware of how near he is and the fact that he smells like clean laundry and something warm underneath.

You focus on Mia’s hair. “The trick,” you tell him, “is that you do both sides before you tie either one off. Otherwise the first one pulls when you do the second.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing wrong,” he says. He sounds genuinely relieved, like you’ve solved something that’s been bothering him for months. Which, apparently, you have. “I couldn’t work out why they always went lopsided.”

“They were very lopsided,” Mia agrees pleasantly.

“Thanks, Mia.”

“You’re welcome, Daddy.”

You finish, tying off the second pigtail with the elastic, and smooth a hand over her hair. Perfect and even and neat. She reaches up and touches them carefully. “Pretty?” she asks.

“Very pretty,” you confirm.

She twists to look up at you, satisfied. Then she holds Gerald out. “You can have him back.”

“Thank you for taking care of him.”

“He was scared,” she explains seriously. “He doesn’t know me yet.” She places him very carefully back on the windowsill, patting the pot once. “It’s okay Gerald. I’m nice.”

Jake is watching his daughter with this expression — quiet and soft and a little undone at the edges — and when he catches you looking at him he clears his throat and looks away. Picks up the hairbrush from the cushion beside him. “Right,” he says. “We should get going. Daycare at eight.”

“Nooooo,” Mia says, without any real conviction. She’s already moving toward the door with the pragmatic acceptance of someone who knows the schedule.

“Thank you,” Jake says to you. He means it. You can tell he means it in that way where the words are bigger than they sound. “Seriously. This was—”

“It’s just pigtails.”

“It’s not just—” He stops. Starts again. “She talks about you. Since Tuesday. You’re the pretty lady from across the hall.”

Your face warms. “That’s very generous of her.”

“She’s got good taste.” He says it simply, matter of fact, and then looks slightly like he didn’t mean to say it quite like that. “I mean— she’s a good judge of character. Generally.”

“Y/N,” Mia calls from the doorway where she is putting her shoes on the wrong feet with great confidence.

“Yeah?”

She looks up at you. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

Something squeezes in your chest. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”

She nods, satisfied, like this is settled. Like you have made a commitment and she is holding you to it. Then she holds her foot up at Jake. “Daddy. Shoes.”

Jake crouches down to fix them, and you lean against your doorframe and watch, and you think about what Liv said to you once about knowing when something is going to change your life. How you can feel it sometimes. The specific weight of a moment that’s about to matter.

You feel it now, watching Jake tie his daughter’s shoes in your doorway at seven forty in the morning while she holds your door handle for balance and hums something tuneless to herself. You feel it, and you file it away with everything else, and you tell yourself it’s too early for any of this and you need coffee.

You leave cookies outside 3A that afternoon. You don’t examine why. You made a batch because you were stress baking about an assignment and you made too many and they were just sitting there and Jake mentioned once — in the mailbox, months ago, one of those nothing conversations you’d forgotten until now — that Mia liked anything with chocolate.

You leave them outside the door in a container with a post it note that says for Mia (and you, if you want) and then you go back inside and finish your assignment and don’t think about it.

At nine fifteen that night your phone buzzes: jake 3a: she ate four before I could stop her and is now absolutely feral and won’t sleep. I’m blaming you

You grin at your phone. you: that’s fair

jake 3a: they were really good though like genuinely really good. Did you make them from scratch?

you: yes

jake 3a: of course you did

jake 3a: I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means, that came out weird. I just mean they were better than anything I could make. I’m a terrible baker.

you: how terrible?

jake 3a: I made Mia a birthday cake in August and it came out flat and she cried

you: oh no

jake 3a: not because of the cake. She thought it was funny. She cried laughing. It was actually one of the best moments of my life which probably tells you everything about my standards right now

You’re smiling at your phone like an idiot. you: I’ll make the cake next time. You send it before you’ve fully decided to, and then stare at it. It’s October. You’ve just committed to being in this man’s life until at least next August.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. jake 3a: you really don’t have to

you: I want to. she told Gerald not to be scared because she was nice. I feel like she deserves a good birthday cake.

jake 3a: yeah she really does

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

The drawing appears under your door on Thursday morning. You almost step on it when you come out of your bedroom, a folded piece of paper on your doormat. You pick it up and unfold it and find a crayon drawing — several figures of varying heights and proportions, all labeled in Jake’s handwriting because Mia clearly directed and he transcribed.

Mia. Daddy. Gerald. Mr Bunny. And then, on the end, slightly larger than the others, with yellow crayon hair: Y/N. She’s drawn you into her family portrait.

You stand in your kitchen holding a crayon drawing with yellow-haired you standing next to a rectangle that is apparently Gerald and you feel something crack open in your chest so softly and so completely that you have to sit down.

You take a photo of it. You put the original on your fridge. You text Jake a photo of it on the fridge and he doesn’t respond for ten minutes and when he does it just says: jake 3a: she worked on it for an hour last night

jake 3a: kept starting over because she wanted to get your hair right

You stare at that message for a long time. you: tell her I love it

jake 3a: she’s going to lose her mind. also she asked if you want to come to the park with us Saturday

Three dots. Then: jake 3a: I want that too, for what it’s worth. If you’re free.

You look at the drawing on your fridge. Yellow-haired you, standing in a row with Mia and Daddy and Gerald and Mr. Bunny like you’ve always been there. you: I’m free Saturday

Saturday at the park is easy in a way that surprises you. You’d half expected it to be awkward — the three of you, still essentially strangers, trying to fill silence in an open space. But Mia eliminates the possibility of silence entirely. She has opinions about the swings (good), the slide (excellent, requires multiple repetitions), and the ducks by the small pond at the park’s edge (deeply suspicious, do not approach).

“They’re just ducks,” Jake tells her.

“They’re watching,” she says.

“They’re not watching.”

“Daddy.” She gives him a very patient look. “They are watching.”

Jake looks at you. You shrug. “They do look pretty focused,” you offer.

He points at you. “Don’t encourage her.”

Mia takes your hand and pulls you toward the swings, away from the ducks and away from Jake’s protests, and you go because she’s three and determined and her hand is in yours and you’ve decided that’s reason enough for basically anything at this point.

You push her on the swings while Jake sits on the bench nearby, and you watch him watching the two of you. He has his elbows on his knees and his face is open in a way you’re starting to learn is rare for him — in a crowd or with strangers he goes carefully neutral, pleasant but contained. But here, watching Mia go higher and higher and shriek with delight, he looks unguarded. Younger, somehow. Like something in him relaxes when it’s just the three of you. “Higher!” Mia demands.

“You’re already very high,” you tell her.

“Higher.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Please.”

“Nice try.”

She cackles. Pure delighted toddler sound, head thrown back. And you find yourself laughing too, pushing her at this very reasonable height, and when you look over at Jake he’s smiling at you with an expression you don’t quite have a name for yet. You look away first.

After the swings, Mia finds a stick, which becomes the most important object in the world for the next twenty minutes. She examines rocks. She makes Jake carry her on his shoulders. She falls asleep on the walk home with her cheek on his head and one fist clutching his jacket, completely unconscious, utterly trusting.

Jake walks carefully, holding her legs, talking to you in a low voice so he doesn’t wake her. “She doesn’t do this with many people,” he says.

“Fall asleep?”

“Trust people.” He adjusts his grip on her. “She’s friendly, obviously, she’ll talk to anyone. But she doesn’t— she doesn’t hold hands with people she doesn’t know. She doesn’t draw people.” He pauses. “She drew you in four days.”

You don’t know what to say to that. So you say, “she’s special.”

“Yeah.” His voice is quiet. “She really is.”

You walk in silence for a moment, the easy kind. “How long has it been?” you ask. “Just the two of you.”

He doesn’t tense the way you half expect him to. Just exhales, slow and steady. “Since she was four months old. Her mom left.” He says it flat, without bitterness, which somehow makes it worse. Like he’s had a long time to practice saying it that way. “Just— left. Packed a bag while I was at work. By the time I got home it was just us.”

“Jake—”

“It’s fine now.” He glances at you sideways. “It wasn’t, for a long time. But it’s fine now. It’s good, actually. It’s really good.” He looks up at Mia’s sleeping face. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I didn’t know it was possible to love someone this much.”

You look at him. At the way he holds her. At the careful tenderness of it. “She knows,” you say softly. He looks at you. “That she’s loved like that. You can tell.” You hold his gaze. “She knows.”

Something moves through his expression. Quick and unguarded and gone before you can name it. “Thanks,” he says quietly.

You walk the rest of the way home in comfortable silence, Mia asleep above you, the afternoon sun going golden through the trees lining the street. It is, you think, a very good Saturday.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

It becomes a routine without either of you deciding it should. Wednesday mornings, Jake knocks with the hairbrush. You do Mia’s hair while she holds Gerald and narrates her thoughts about the day ahead. Jake makes coffee in your kitchen like he knows where everything is, which after three weeks he does.

Saturdays are the park, or the farmers market two streets over, or just the three of you on one of your balconies eating whatever Jake has cooked because it turns out that while he cannot bake to save his life he is an genuinely excellent cook and he seems to enjoy having someone to cook for.

Evenings sometimes, when Mia’s in bed and Jake knocks quietly and you sit on his couch and watch something and talk about nothing in particular until one of you falls asleep.

It is domestic and soft and easy. It is also, you are increasingly aware, becoming something that would hurt to lose.

Mia calls you her Y/N now. Not just Y/N. Her Y/N, possessive and certain, the way she says her daddy and her Mr. Bunny and her Gerald. You are hers in her taxonomy of the world and the certainty of it does something to your chest every single time.

She tells the woman at the bakery you buy her the jam scroll she likes every Saturday. She tells a child at the park. She tells Mrs. Kim from 1A who coos and looks between you and Jake with an expression that makes Jake find something fascinating to look at on the middle distance.

You’re folding laundry in your apartment on a Thursday evening, three weeks in, when Jake knocks. You open the door. He’s holding two containers of leftover pasta, still warm. He holds one out. “Made too much,” he says.

You take it. Step back to let him in. This is how it goes now. “Mia asleep?” you ask.

“Out cold. She had daycare and then apparently spent an hour reorganizing her stuffed animals by color.” He sits on your couch. “It took everything she had.”

You sit beside him, open the pasta. It’s good — it’s always good. “Did the reorganization meet her standards?”

“She made me come and approve it before bed.” He pauses. “Mr. Bunny is in the orange section even though he’s gray.”

“He has warm undertones,” you say seriously.

Jake looks at you. Starts laughing. Not the polite laugh of someone being friendly but the real one, the one that takes over his whole face, and you’ve been cataloguing that laugh for weeks now, the way it comes out surprised sometimes like he forgot he was allowed to do it.

You’re laughing too, both of you over toddler stuffed animal color theory at eight PM with pasta containers in your laps, and when the laughter settles it leaves something warm and quiet in its place.

Jake is looking at you. Not the quick sideways glances you’ve been trading for weeks. Really looking, steady and open, and you feel it the way you feel a change in weather. The pressure of it. The way the air shifts. “Y/N,” he says.

“Yeah?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks down at his pasta container, turning it in his hands. “Nothing. Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

He looks at you again and this time he doesn’t look away. “I really like spending time with you.”

You hold his gaze. “I really like spending time with you too.”

“I haven’t—” He exhales. “I haven’t wanted to spend time with someone like this in a long time. Maybe ever. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

The honesty of it lands softly. No performance, no deflection. Just him, telling you the truth. “I don’t either,” you say. “But I don’t think I want to stop.”

He looks at you for a long moment. Then he leans in, slow and deliberate, giving you every opportunity to pull back. You don’t pull back.

His mouth finds yours, gentle at first, questioning, and then you lean into it and it stops being a question. It’s warm and unhurried and it tastes like the pasta and something underneath that is just him, and when you finally break apart you’re both quiet, foreheads almost touching.

“Okay,” he says softly.

“Okay,” you agree.

He pulls back just slightly. His expression is open and a little nervous and more serious than the moment requires, or maybe exactly as serious as it requires. “I need to say something,” he says.

“Okay.”

“If we—” He pauses, choosing his words. “Whatever this is. Whatever it becomes. Mia comes first. Always. That’s non negotiable for me. I need you to know that going in.”

You look at him. At the set of his jaw, the quiet certainty in his eyes. A man who has built his whole life around a three year old with lopsided pigtails and a stuffed rabbit and absolute confidence in the people she decides are hers. “Jake,” you say.

“Yeah.”

“I know.” You hold his gaze. “I love her. She’s— she put her hand on my face the first morning and I was gone. I was completely gone.” You shake your head a little. “I think I fell for her before I even fell for you.”

Something moves across his face. Deep and quiet and undone.“Yeah?” he says, and his voice is rough at the edges.

“Yeah.” He kisses you again. Softer this time. Like something has been settled, like the last lock has clicked open. His hand comes up to cup your jaw and you lean into it and outside the window the city is doing whatever cities do at eight o’clock on a Thursday and in here it is warm and quiet and it feels, very specifically, like the beginning of something.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

The first time Mia is at the babysitter’s overnight, it’s an accident.

Not the overnight part — that’s planned. Sandy, Mia’s regular babysitter three streets over, has been asking for weeks if she can have Mia for a sleepover because her own grandchildren are visiting and Mia and the youngest, a boy named Theo, have formed the specific intense friendship that only exists between toddlers who have decided they are best friends after forty five minutes together at a playground.

Jake agrees because Mia asks with her whole body, bouncing on her toes, and because Sandy has been his lifeline for two and a half years and he trusts her completely. What’s accidental is what happens after.

He drops Mia off at four on a Friday afternoon. You’re not there — you have a late class — but when you get home at six thirty and knock on 3A because it’s become reflex, Jake opens the door and the apartment is quiet in a way it never is.

You’ve been in this apartment dozens of times now. You know its sounds. The particular creak of the second floorboard in the hall. The way the kitchen tap needs an extra turn to stop dripping. The constant ambient noise of Mia — her commentary, her singing, her negotiations with various stuffed animals about bedtime.

The silence is enormous. “Weird, right?” Jake says, reading your face.

“Really weird.” You step inside. “How long has she been gone?”

“Two hours.” He closes the door. “I’ve cleaned the whole apartment and reorganized the pantry and I don’t know what to do with myself.”

You look at the pantry, which is indeed immaculate. You look at Jake, who is in dark jeans and a simple white t-shirt and looks simultaneously very attractive and genuinely a little lost. “Have you eaten?” you ask.

“No.”

“Cook me something.”

Something in him settles. He moves into the kitchen, and you sit on the counter the way you’ve started doing, and he makes pasta — different from the other night, something with lemon and herbs — and you open the wine you brought from your apartment and it is easy, it is so easy, the way everything with him has become easy without you noticing it happening.

You eat at his kitchen table. You talk about your classes and his current project — branding for a new café opening in the city — and the book you’ve both apparently been meaning to read for months and never have. You talk about Mia, because you always talk about Mia, about the things she’s said recently that have floored you both. “She told me yesterday,” Jake says, “that she wants to be a paleontologist.”

“She’s three.”

“I know. I asked her what a paleontologist was and she said ‘a person who finds old bones’ and I have no idea where she learned that word.”

“That’s— that’s genuinely impressive.”

“She then said she also wants to be a cat.” He takes a sip of wine. “So. Range.” You’re laughing, and he’s laughing, and the kitchen is warm and the wine is good and at some point the laughter fades and you’re just looking at each other in the quiet.

It’s been two weeks since the kiss on your couch. Two weeks of nothing changing and everything changing — the same routine, the same easy rhythm, but with this new current running underneath it. His hand finding yours sometimes. The way he says goodbye now, at the door, that takes longer than it used to. The awareness of him that hums in your chest constantly, warm and insistent.

You haven’t had a night without Mia before. You’re both aware of it. “Y/N,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Can I—” He stops. Starts again. His jaw works slightly, that tell you’ve learned. “I’ve been thinking about this. About us. And I want to— I want to do this properly. Take you on an actual date, not just—” He gestures at the table, the apartment, the comfortable domesticity of it. “Not just this. You deserve—”

“Jake.” You set down your glass. “I like this.”

“I know, but—”

“I mean I really like this.” You hold his gaze. “I don’t need a restaurant. I don’t need— I just want you. This. Whatever this is.” He looks at you for a long moment.

Then he pushes back from the table and crosses to you and kisses you like he’s been thinking about it all evening, one hand cupping your jaw, the other finding your waist. You slide off the counter and into him and he makes a low sound against your mouth that does something devastating to your concentration. “Stay tonight,” he says against your lips.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Okay.”

You end up on his bed.

It happens slowly, the way things happen when there’s no rush, when the whole night stretches ahead and neither of you is going anywhere. He takes his time, unhurried and thorough, like he wants to learn you. Like you’re something worth learning.

He lays you back against his pillows and looks at you for a moment, just looks, and something about being seen like that — careful and wanting and completely focused — makes heat pool low in your stomach before he’s even touched you. “Hi,” he says softly.

“Hi,” you say back.

He leans down and kisses you again, and it’s different from the doorway kisses and the couch kisses. Deeper. More deliberate. His hand slides up your side, pushing your shirt up, warm palm against your skin, and you shiver.“Cold?” he murmurs.

“Opposite.” He smiles against your mouth. Keeps moving, finding the hem of your shirt, and you lift your arms and let him pull it off. He sits back to look at you, and his expression is so openly appreciative, so uncomplicated in its wanting, that you feel heat rise to your face.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

“Don’t what?”

“Look away.” His thumb traces your collarbone. “I want to look at you.” You keep his gaze. He keeps his.

He gets rid of his own shirt and you run your hands up his chest, his stomach, the way you’ve been wanting to since— longer than you’ll admit. He’s warm and solid and he watches your face as you touch him like your expression is telling him something important.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing.” He catches your hands, pins them gently above your head, leans down to press his mouth to your jaw. Your neck. The soft skin below your ear. “Just thinking about how long I’ve been wanting this.”

“How long?”

He mouths at your pulse point and you gasp, arching up. “Longer than I should admit,” he murmurs. “Probably since the morning with Mia. You opened the door half asleep with terrible hair and you crouched down and talked to her like she was a real person and I thought—” He lifts his head to look at you. “I thought I was in serious trouble.”

“Your daughter was upside down under your arm,” you manage.

“I know. Terrible timing.” He releases your wrists, hands moving to the button of your jeans. “Is this okay?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

He undresses you slowly, pressing his mouth to each new piece of skin like punctuation. The inside of your wrist. Your hip. The soft skin of your inner thigh that makes you grip the sheets and breathe out his name. He looks up at you from there, chin resting on your thigh, expression somewhere between fond and wrecked. “Jake—”

“I’ve got you,” he says quietly. “Okay? I’ve got you.” And then his mouth is on you and your head falls back and you stop being able to think in complete sentences.

He takes his time the way he does everything — with complete attention, reading every sound you make, every shift of your hips, adjusting until he finds exactly what makes you come apart. He slides one finger inside you and then two, curling them just right while his tongue works your clit in slow, devastating circles, and you fist your hand in his hair and try to remember how to breathe.

“Jake— fuck— I’m—”

He doesn’t speed up. Doesn’t change what he’s doing. Just keeps that perfect steady rhythm like he has all the time in the world, like getting you there is the only thing on his agenda, and you come with your thighs clamped around his head and his name on your lips and it crashes through you in waves that don’t seem to stop.

He works you through every second of it, only easing off when you tug at his hair, oversensitive and shaking.

He moves up your body, pressing a kiss to your stomach, your sternum, your mouth. You can taste yourself on him and somehow that makes heat flare through you all over again. “Hi,” he says again, soft and amused.

“You,” you manage, “are very good at that.”

“Yeah?” He looks pleased.

“Don’t get smug about it.”

“I’m not smug.” He is a little smug. You find you don’t mind. “You okay?”

“More than okay.” You reach up, pull him down to kiss him properly, deep and unhurried. “Your turn.”

You get his jeans off, and his boxers, and you wrap your hand around him and he hisses through his teeth, hips jerking slightly.“Sorry—”

“Don’t apologize,” you tell him. You stroke him slowly, learning the weight of him, and he drops his forehead to yours and just breathes. “Tell me what you like.”

“That,” he says roughly. “Exactly that. Just—” He covers your hand with his, adjusts the pressure slightly. “Yeah. Like that.”

You watch his face — the way his jaw goes tight, the way his eyes flutter. He’s trying to stay composed and not quite managing it and you find that incredibly satisfying. “Y/N.” His voice has gone rough. “I want— can I—”

“Yes,” you say. “Please.”

He reaches into his nightstand drawer. You take the condom from him and roll it on yourself, slowly, which makes him close his eyes and exhale hard through his nose.“You’re going to kill me,” he says.

“You’ll be fine.”

He settles between your thighs and you feel him there, pressing in, and you both go still for a moment. He pushes forward, slow and careful, watching your face, and the stretch of him makes you exhale hard, fingers pressing into his shoulders. He stops halfway, checking. “Good?” he asks.

“So good.” You shift your hips, urging him on. “Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t stop. He seats himself fully and you both breathe through it, foreheads together, and then he starts to move and everything else falls away.

He fucks you slowly at first, deep and thorough, finding the angle that makes you gasp and then staying with it. His hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, and you make a sound that you’d be embarrassed about in any other context.“There?” he asks.

“There,” you confirm breathlessly.

He keeps going. Steady and focused and impossibly good, hitting that spot inside you on every stroke while his thumb works you in tight circles, and you can already feel it building again, embarrassingly fast. “Jake— fuck— already—”

“Let go,” he says against your temple. “I want to feel you.”

You come clenching around him, and he groans deep in his chest, the rhythm stuttering, and you feel him follow you over with your name on his lips, buried deep, shaking.

Afterward you lie tangled together in the quiet. He traces absent patterns on your arm. You listen to his heartbeat slow. “Hey,” he says eventually.

“Hey.”

“That was—”

“Yeah.” You tilt your head up. “It really was.” He presses a kiss to your hair. You feel him smile against it.

Outside, the city is doing its Friday night thing, indifferent and ongoing. In here the lamp is warm and the sheets are soft and Jake’s heartbeat is steady under your cheek and you think about the drawing on your fridge and the hand on your cheek and Mr. Bunny in the freezer and all the ordinary extraordinary things that have built this without you quite realizing. “Stay,” he says.

“I’m already here.”

“I mean—” He tightens his arm around you. “Stay. Not just tonight.”

You’re quiet for a moment. “You’re going to have to define that.”

“I know.” His thumb moves slow on your arm. “I’m working up to it.”

“Okay.” You settle back against him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Mia comes home at eleven the next morning. You’re still there.

You’re in Jake’s kitchen making coffee, wearing his hoodie and your underwear, when the front door opens and Sandy’s voice floats through — “here we are, my love, home sweet home” — and small feet thunder down the hall.

Mia appears in the kitchen doorway. She takes in the scene. You, in her daddy’s hoodie. The two coffee cups. The general evidence of your presence. Her face does something complicated and then completely simple. “My Y/N,” she says, delighted, and launches herself at your legs.

You crouch down and catch her, and she wraps around you like a koala, warm and sleep-soft and smelling like Sandy’s house, and you hold her and look up at Jake in the doorway and he’s looking at the two of you with that expression again. The one that’s bigger than his face can hold.

“Hi baby,” you say into Mia’s hair. “How was Theo’s?”

“We found a worm,” she says. “His name is Dave.”

“Did you bring Dave home?”

“Sandy said no.” A pause. “I think that was wrong.”

“Dave is probably very happy in Sandy’s garden.”

She considers this. “Okay.” Then, muffled against your shoulder: “Are you staying for breakfast?”

You look at Jake. He holds your gaze, steady and warm. “Yeah,” you say. “I’m staying for breakfast.”

Mia pulls back, satisfied. “Daddy makes good eggs.”

“I know he does.”

“You can sit next to me.”

“I would love that.”

She takes your hand and tows you toward the table with the authority of someone who has decided how this morning is going to go, and Jake moves to the stove, and outside the kitchen window the Saturday morning is doing its soft unhurried thing, and this— this is everything.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

The weeks that follow are the best of your life. You don’t say that out loud. It feels too large, too exposed. But it’s true in the quiet way that the truest things are — not dramatic, not announced, just sitting solidly in your chest every time you’re aware of it.

The three of you fall into a rhythm so natural it’s almost hard to remember the before. Jake knocks on your door with the hairbrush and leaves with coffee. You come to theirs for dinner more nights than not. Mia insists on showing you everything — every drawing, every discovery, every development in the ongoing organization of her stuffed animal collection.

The farmers market becomes yours. Every Saturday, the three of you. Mia on Jake’s shoulders, small hands wrapped in his hair, pointing imperiously at things she wants to examine. You buy her a sunflower from the flower stall in week two and she carries it home with both hands like it’s precious, and after that it becomes the thing — every week, a sunflower for Mia, who has decided they are her favorite and cannot be argued with on this point.

Jake watches you with her constantly. You catch him doing it — that soft unguarded look — and he doesn’t stop when you catch him, just holds your gaze until you look away first, which you always do because the directness of it does something to your chest that you haven’t found words for yet.

Mia tells her daycare teacher about you. You know this because Jake texts you a screenshot of a drawing she brought home — the same configuration as before, Mia Daddy Gerald Mr Bunny Y/N, but this time you and Jake are holding hands.

jake 3a: her teacher asked who the people were, she said ‘that’s my daddy and my Y/N they’re in love’

You stare at the message. you: she’s three

jake 3a: three and apparently very perceptive

you: what did you tell the teacher

jake 3a: I said she wasn’t wrong

You put your phone face down on the desk and press both hands over your face and sit there for a full minute. Then you pick it up. you: jake

jake 3a: yeah?

you: are you in love with me

A pause. Longer than usual. Your heart does something complicated in the silence. jake 3a: I’ve been trying to find the right moment to say it properly not over text but yes, very much yes. I have been for a while

jake 3a: is that okay?

You read it three times. you: yes, it’s very okay. also I love you too

jake 3a: yeah?

you: yeah

jake 3a: okay, good. I’m going to say it properly tonight with Mia asleep so she doesn’t narrate it

you: she would absolutely narrate it

jake 3a: she would make it about herself somehow

you: she would bring Mr Bunny as a witness

jake 3a: he’d be very moved

You’re smiling so hard your face hurts, alone in your apartment at two in the afternoon, and you think about the morning you opened your door and found a small person sitting on your doormat in duck pajamas looking for her rabbit.

You think about tiny fingers in yours on the way back across the hall. You think about you’re nice delivered with complete certainty by someone who had known you for four minutes.

That night, after Mia is asleep, Jake says it properly. Standing in the kitchen, cup of tea going cold on the counter, both of you knowing it’s coming and neither of you in any rush because there’s no need to rush anymore.

“I love you,” he says. Simple and direct. “I love you and I love that she loves you and I don’t want to do any of this without you.”

“I love you too,” you say. “Both of you. The whole— all of it. Everything.”

He kisses you there in the kitchen and it tastes like coming home, which is a thing you didn’t know kitchens could taste like until now.

Later, in his bed, you press your face into his shoulder and listen to the particular quiet of the apartment at night — the creak of the building, the distant city, the soft sound of Mia breathing through the baby monitor on the nightstand. “Hey,” Jake says quietly. “You know what Mia asked me today?”

“What?”

“She asked if you were going to live with us.”

Your heart turns over. “What did you tell her?”

“I said I hoped so.” He tilts his head to look down at you. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” you say softly. “That’s okay.” He pulls you closer. You close your eyes. Outside, a siren somewhere. The building settling. Mia’s breathing through the monitor, slow and even and completely safe.

In here, you think. Everything is in here. You never see it coming. That’s the thing about a knock at the door when you’re happy. You don’t brace for it. You don’t clock the risk. You’re just— there. In the warm. Thinking about nothing that isn’t good.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

It’s a Sunday. Mia is at Sandy’s. Not overnight this time — just the afternoon, a regular arrangement while Jake works on a deadline.

Except Jake finished his deadline by noon and texted you and you came over and the afternoon became the best kind of afternoon, the kind that starts with coffee and talking and turns into something else entirely when Mia isn’t home, when there’s nowhere to be and no particular reason to leave the bedroom.

You’re in his bed. Late afternoon light coming gold through the curtains. His hand on your back tracing lazy patterns on your spine. You’re boneless and warm and half thinking about nothing and half thinking about whether Mia will want to show you the worm situation at Sandy’s when Jake picks her up.

“Sandy said she asked to bring Dave home three more times,” Jake says, like he’s reading your mind.

“Persistent.”

“She gets it from somewhere.” His hand moves up to the back of your neck, squeezing gently. “You hungry?” “Not yet.”

“Okay.” He presses a kiss to your shoulder. “We’ve got a couple of hours before I pick her up.” You hum. He pulls you closer. The afternoon light shifts.

Then someone knocks at the door. Jake’s hand stills on your back. “Expecting anyone?” you ask.

“No.” He frowns slightly. “Sandy would call.” He sits up, reaching for his t-shirt. “Probably Danny about the tap.”

You stretch out across the warm space he’s left, drowsy and content, listening to his footsteps down the hall. The sound of the door opening. Silence.

Not the brief silence of oh hi Danny it’s fine. A longer silence. A loaded one.

Then a voice you don’t recognize — a woman’s voice, careful and slightly uncertain — saying his name. “Jake.”

You go very still.

Jake says nothing for a long moment. When he speaks his voice is completely flat in a way you’ve never heard from him before. Like all the warmth has been removed surgically. “What are you doing here?”

“I just— I wanted to—” The woman’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“No. How did you find me?”

“Your mum. She didn’t— she thought I knew the address, I think. I don’t think she realized—”

“Why are you here.” Not a question. A demand.

A pause. “I want to see her,” the woman says. “I want to see Mia.”

The name lands in the apartment like something dropped. You sit up slowly, pulling the sheet around yourself, and the drowsy warmth of the afternoon has gone completely. In its place something cold and alert.

“You need to leave,” Jake says.

“I know I don’t have the right to—”

“You left,” Jake says, and his voice is still flat, but underneath the flatness there is something enormous being held very carefully in check. “She was four months old and you left. You’ve been gone for three years. You don’t get to knock on my door and say you want to see her like it’s a reasonable thing to say.”

“I know.” The woman’s voice cracks slightly. “I know that. I just— Jake, please, I just want—”

“To see her? Or to see me?” Silence. “Yeah,” Jake says quietly. “That’s what I thought.”

You get up. Quietly. You find your clothes in the soft afternoon mess of the room, pull them on, and you stand in the hallway outside his bedroom door and you look at the front door.

She’s standing in the doorway. Tall, dark-haired, pretty in a way that might have been beautiful before whatever she’s been carrying got into her face. She’s looking at Jake with an expression that mixes guilt and want in proportions you don’t have to be a genius to read.

She sees you. Her eyes move over you — your rumpled clothes, Jake’s apartment behind you, the obvious geography of the afternoon — and something hardens in her expression that you recognize. The specific hardening of someone who wanted to find a door open and has found it closed.

Jake turns. He sees you in the hallway. Something moves through his face — protective, apologetic, something else underneath that you don’t have time to read. “Y/N,” he says. “Hi.” You keep your voice steady. “I’ll— I can go.”

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s okay.” You look at him clearly, trying to say with your eyes what you can’t say in front of her: I’m fine. I’m not going far. Handle this. “I’ll be across the hall.”

He holds your gaze. His jaw is set, his eyes tight at the corners, but he gives you the smallest nod.

You pick up your keys from the bowl by the door — yours, in the bowl by Jake’s door, which happened so gradually you can’t remember it beginning — and you step past the woman in the doorway without looking at her.

You go into 3B. You close the door. You sit on your couch and you listen to the muffled sound of voices through the wall, and you hold yourself very carefully together, and you wait.

You sit on your couch for forty minutes. You know because you watch the clock. Not obsessively — you’re not counting seconds — but every time your eyes drift to it another chunk of time has passed and the voices through the wall have not stopped.

You make tea you don’t drink. You open your laptop and close it again. You pick up your phone three times and put it down without texting anyone because what would you even say.

My boyfriend’s ex showed up. The one who left when their daughter was four months old. She’s been there forty minutes and I’m sitting in my apartment trying not to think about the way she looked at him.

You put your phone face down on the cushion beside you.

The thing is — and you know this, you do — you trust Jake. That’s not the part that’s making your chest tight. You’ve watched him for months now. You know who he is. You know the way he holds his daughter and the way he laughs and the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not watching. You know he means what he says.

The part that’s making your chest tight is her face when she saw you. Not guilt. Not embarrassment at the intrusion. Something proprietary. Something that said what are you doing in my space even though she is the one who left. Even though she forfeited any claim to this apartment and this life and this man the day she packed a bag while her four month old daughter slept.

You’re familiar with that expression. You’ve worn it yourself, briefly, watching other women talk to Jake at the market or at the park. You know what it means. She wants him back. Mia is the reason she knocked. But she wants Jake back.

You’re still sitting with that when your phone buzzes. jake 3a: she’s gone, can you come back?

You’re across the hall before you’ve fully decided to move. He opens the door before you knock. He looks terrible. Not falling apart — Jake doesn’t fall apart, you’ve figured that out, he goes very still and very controlled when things get bad, which is almost worse — but there are lines around his eyes that weren’t there this morning and his jaw is set in that way that means he’s been holding something in for a while.

He steps back to let you in. Closes the door. You turn to face him and he looks at you for a moment like he’s checking that you’re real, that you’re still here, that the afternoon hasn’t completely dismantled itself. “You okay?” you ask.

“I should be asking you that.”

“I’m fine. I was across the hall.” You hold his gaze. “Are you okay?”

He exhales. Long and slow. Runs a hand through his hair. “She wants to see Mia. She says she’s been in therapy. That she’s been— working through things. That she made a mistake and she knows that and she just wants—” He stops. His jaw works. “She was here for forty minutes and Mia’s name came up maybe three times.”

Your stomach tightens. “What did the rest of it cover?” He looks at you with an expression that answers the question without words. “Jake—”

“I told her no,” he says. “To all of it. I told her— Mia doesn’t know her. She’s three years old, she has no memory of her, and showing up out of nowhere and announcing herself as her mother would be— I’m not doing that to her. I’m not letting someone walk in and blow up her world because they’ve decided they’re ready now.”

“That’s right,” you say quietly.

“Is it?” He looks genuinely uncertain, and that more than anything tells you how rattled he is. Jake is not an uncertain man. He’s careful, he’s considered, but when he’s decided something he holds it steady. Watching him doubt himself is unfamiliar and uncomfortable. “Because part of me thinks— she’s her mother. Biologically. Does Mia have a right to know her? At some point? And am I—”

“Jake.” You cross to him. Put your hand on his chest, flat over his heart, and look up at him. “You are the most present, devoted, thoughtful parent I have ever seen. You have been both of them for three years. Whatever you decide about this, it comes from that. Not from fear, not from jealousy. From knowing your daughter.” He looks down at you. His hand comes up to cover yours. “She’s not here because of Mia,” you say gently. “You know that.”

“Yeah.” His voice is rough. “Yeah, I know that.”

“So you handle the Mia question in your own time, with proper advice, on your terms. Not because she showed up at your door on a Sunday afternoon.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “When did you get so—”

“Wise?”

“I was going to say steady.”

“Same thing.” You press your palm flatter against his chest. “You’re okay. Mia’s okay. This is just— a thing that happened on a Sunday. It doesn’t have to be more than that right now.”

He looks at you for a long moment. Something in his face shifts — the held-in thing loosening slightly, the lines around his eyes easing. “I really love you,” he says quietly.

“I know.” You reach up, press your hand briefly to his jaw. “I love you too. Go get your daughter.”

He comes back with Mia at five thirty. You’re in his kitchen making dinner — you’d found pasta and vegetables and half a block of good parmesan and it seemed like the right thing to do, to be here, to have something warm happening when they got home.

Mia comes through the door at full speed, as always, and finds you at the stove and absolutely loses her mind with delight. “My Y/N is here!”

“Hi, my Mia.” She barrels into your legs and you crouch down and catch her, and over her head you watch Jake close the front door and lean against it for just a second, eyes closed. Like he’s taking a breath. Like he’s counting the things still here and finding them all present.

Then he opens his eyes and sees you watching him and something in his face goes soft. “Dave update,” Mia says urgently against your neck.

“Tell me everything.”

“Sandy said he moved.” Her voice is full of significance. “She doesn’t know where he went.”

“Dave is living his life.”

“That’s what Sandy said.” She pulls back to look at you. “I think he went to find his family.”

“That’s a very hopeful interpretation.”

“Worms have families,” she tells you solemnly. “Probably.”

“Definitely,” you agree.

Jake has moved into the kitchen. He comes up behind you — Mia still in your arms — and presses a kiss to the side of your head. Quick and quiet. Gratitude and love in a single gesture. “Smells good,” he says.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Can I help?”

“You can set the table.”

“I want to help,” Mia announces.

“You can put the napkins out,” you tell her, and she accepts this responsibility with great seriousness, and Jake sets her down and gets the napkins and she carries them to the table one at a time with both hands like they’re fragile, and Jake catches your eye across the kitchen and mouths thank you and you shake your head slightly because there’s nothing to thank you for.

You’re exactly where you want to be.

Later, after dinner, after Mia’s bath, after two bedtime stories and one negotiation about the structural integrity of a fort she wants to construct in the living room (tomorrow, baby, it’s bedtime), after small arms around your neck and a kiss pressed very seriously to your cheek and night my Y/N into the dark—

You and Jake sit on his couch in the quiet. He has his legs stretched out on the coffee table. You’re tucked into his side, his arm around you. The lamp is the only light. The apartment has the particular peace of a small child asleep in the next room. “She’s going to come back,” Jake says quietly.

“Probably.”

“I’m going to talk to a lawyer. Get clear on where things stand legally before she does.” His thumb moves on your arm. “She signed over custody voluntarily. I don’t think she has grounds for anything. But I want to know for certain.”

“That’s smart.”

“I don’t want Mia to know about this until I do. I don’t want her picking up on anything.”

“She won’t hear it from me.”

He turns his head to press a kiss to your hair. “I know.” You sit in the quiet for a moment. “She looked at you,” he says. “The way she looked at you when she saw you there.” His arm tightens slightly. “I need you to know that whatever she came here wanting, it was never going to— she left, Y/N. She made her choice. There’s nothing there.”

“I know that too.”

“I just—” He exhales. “I don’t want you to have any doubt. About this. About us.”

You lift your head to look at him. His face in the lamplight, tired and earnest and completely, simply honest. “I don’t,” you tell him. “Not even a little.”

He holds your gaze. “Good,” he says quietly. He kisses you softly, and you let yourself melt into it, and outside the window the night is doing its ordinary thing, indifferent and ongoing.

When you break apart you settle back against his shoulder. “Stay,” he says.

“Obviously,” you say. He pulls you closer.

In the next room, Mia sleeps, completely safe, completely loved, completely unaware that someone knocked on the door today and was turned away.

She’ll know, eventually. Jake will tell her, carefully, at the right time, in the right way. That’s the kind of father he is. But tonight she just sleeps. And you and Jake stay on the couch until you both drift off, warm and quiet and whole.

The lawyer’s name is Ms. Park and she is very thorough.

Jake comes back from the meeting on a Wednesday looking lighter than he has all week. He finds you in his kitchen — where you are most afternoons now, it’s become accepted fact — and he leans in the doorway and says:

“She has no legal standing. She relinquished custody voluntarily and completely. If she wants any kind of access she would have to apply through the courts and demonstrate sustained rehabilitation and it would be a long process with no guarantee.”

You set down the mug you’re washing. “Okay.”

“She came here once and I turned her away and she hasn’t come back.” He exhales. “I don’t think she’s going to pursue it. I think she came here for me and when that didn’t work—”

“She has no reason to stay.” You cross the kitchen to him. Put your hands on his chest. “How do you feel?”

He thinks about it genuinely, the way he does. “Relieved,” he says. “And— sad, a little. That it’s this way. That Mia doesn’t have—” He stops.

“She has you,” you say. “She has Sandy and Mrs. Kim and the daycare teachers who love her and Theo the worm friend and—” You meet his eyes. “She has me. For as long as you’ll both have me.”

Something moves through his face. “Forever, then,” he says simply.

Your heart turns over. “Yeah,” you say softly. “Forever works.”

He kisses you there in the kitchen and it tastes like relief and sunlight and something settled and permanent. From the doorway comes a small voice. “Are you kissing again?”

You break apart to find Mia standing in the hallway in her socks, Mr. Bunny under her arm, regarding you both with the patient exhaustion of someone who has seen this many times and has opinions. “Sorry,” Jake says, not sounding sorry at all.

“It’s fine,” Mia says, generous. “You can kiss. But after can we do the fort?”

“We can do the fort,” you confirm. She nods, satisfied. Turns and toddles back down the hall.

Jake looks at you. You look at Jake.“The fort,” he says. You nod in agreement and follow him and your daughter down the hall.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Three months later, Mia stops calling you my Y/N. She starts calling you mama.

It happens on a Tuesday. Not a special Tuesday. Not a significant one. Just an ordinary Tuesday in February where the sky is doing that flat grey thing it does in late summer when the heat hasn’t broken yet and everything feels slightly sticky and slow.

You’re doing her hair. The Wednesday morning routine has migrated — it’s every morning now, most mornings, because somewhere between October and February the question of which apartment are you sleeping in stopped being a real question. You’re here. You live here, functionally, in every way that matters except the technical one. Your toothbrush is here. A drawer is yours. Gerald the succulent has been relocated to the kitchen windowsill where he gets better light and Mia waters him every second day with great ceremony.

Jake is in the kitchen. Coffee is happening. Mia is between your knees on the couch, holding Mr. Bunny, and you’re doing two neat braids because she has decided braids are her preference this week and you’ve been practicing. “Tighter,” she instructs.

“If I go tighter it’ll pull.”

“I want tight braids.”

“You want braids that feel comfortable and also look good.”

She considers this negotiation. “Okay,” she concedes.

You keep going. She hums something to herself, swinging her feet, and you work through the second braid, and it’s quiet in the good way, the way that only exists when everyone in a space is completely comfortable. “Mama,” Mia says.

“Hmm?” You tie off the braid.

“Can I wear the yellow dress today?”

You’re reaching for the second hair tie when it lands.

Mama.

She said it like it was nothing. Like it was the most natural word in the world. Like she’s been saying it her whole life, which — you realize, with your heart doing something enormous and unsteady in your chest — maybe in her head she has been.

“Yeah,” you manage, and your voice comes out almost normal. “Yeah, baby, we can find the yellow dress.”

She scrambles off the couch and heads to her room, completely unbothered, Mr. Bunny trailing from one hand. You sit there. In the kitchen, the coffee maker finishes its cycle.

Jake appears in the doorway with two mugs, takes one look at your face, and stops. “What happened? Are you okay? What—”

“She called me mama,” you say.

The mugs go onto the coffee table. Jake sits beside you and looks at you with an expression that is doing the same enormous unsteady thing yours probably is. “Just now?”

“Just now.” Your voice is not quite steady. “She asked if she could wear the yellow dress and she called me mama and then she just— walked off. Like it was nothing.”

“Y/N—”

“I’m not upset.” You turn to him, urgent, needing him to understand. “I’m not— I’m not upset, Jake, I just—” You press a hand to your chest. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

He looks at you for a long moment. Then he takes your face in both hands, careful and deliberate, and presses his forehead to yours. “I do,” he says quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He pulls back just enough to look at you. “You say yes. That’s what you do. You just— say yes.”

From down the hall: “Found it!” A pause. “Mama, can you do the buttons?”

You close your eyes. “Okay,” you breathe. Yeah.” You open your eyes. Look at him. “Yeah. Okay.”

He kisses you, quick and soft, and then you get up and go down the hall to do the buttons on a yellow dress, and Jake stands in the living room doorway watching and the expression on his face is the most complete thing you’ve ever seen on a human being.

That night, after Mia is asleep, Jake asks you to move in. Not impulsively. Not as a reaction to the morning. You can tell he’s been thinking about it for a while — there’s a particular quality to his stillness when he’s been working up to something, and you’ve learned it the way you’ve learned all of him, gradually and permanently.

You’re on the couch. Late. The lamp on, the city quiet outside. His hand in yours. “Move in,” he says. You look at him. “Properly,” he says. “Not the drawer and the toothbrush. All of it. Gerald and everything.”

“Gerald’s already here.”

“I know.” The corner of his mouth moves. “Consider it a trial run.”

You look at your joined hands. At the apartment that has been yours in every meaningful sense for months. At the hallway where Mia is sleeping with Mr. Bunny and her color-organized stuffed animals and absolute certainty that you will be here in the morning. “Yeah,” you say.

“Yeah?”

“Obviously yeah, Jake.” You lean over and kiss him. “Obviously.”

He pulls you in and holds you there, and you feel him exhale slowly against your hair. “She’s going to lose her mind,” he says.

“She’s going to tell Gerald first.”

“She’s going to tell Gerald, then Mrs. Kim, then Sandy, then everyone at daycare.”

“In that order.”

“In that exact order.”

You’re both laughing, quiet so you don’t wake her, and it settles into something warm and certain. “Hey,” Jake says. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You press your face into his shoulder. “Both of you. The whole thing.”

“The whole thing loves you back,” he says simply.

You tell Mia in the morning. Jake does it, at breakfast, with the careful measured approach of a man who has learned that toddlers receive important news better when they’re eating something. “Hey Mia. You know how Y/N stays here a lot?”

Mia looks up from her toast. Looks at you. Looks back at Jake. “Yes.”

“How would you feel if she stayed here all the time? Like, lived here. With us.”

Mia blinks. Puts down her toast. Looks at you with enormous serious eyes. “Like forever?” she asks.

“Like forever,” Jake confirms.

She stares at you for a long moment with the focused intensity of someone making a very important assessment.

Then she gets down from her chair, crosses to you, climbs into your lap uninvited and completely certain of her welcome, and wraps both arms around your neck. “Okay,” she says into your shoulder. “You can live here.”

“Thank you,” you manage, arms tight around her.

“Gerald will be happy,” she adds.

“He really will.”

She pulls back. Looks at your face. Puts her small hand on your cheek exactly the way she did on the very first morning, in the hallway, four months ago when she was looking for her rabbit. “Don’t cry,” she says kindly. “It’s good news.”

“I know.” You laugh, wet at the edges. “Happy tears.”

“Oh.” She considers this. “Okay.” Then, satisfied, she climbs back down, retrieves her toast, and resumes breakfast.

Jake is looking at you over her head with an expression that could power something. “Told you,” he mouths. You shake your head, still smiling, still blinking hard.

The whole thing loves you back. Yeah. Yeah it really does.

The move takes a weekend. It’s not a big move — your apartment was small and you’ve been migrating things gradually for months without meaning to — but there’s something significant about doing it officially. Carrying boxes across the hall. Hanging your clothes properly in the wardrobe. Arranging your books on the shelves beside Jake’s.

Mia supervises. She is a very involved supervisor, offering opinions on where everything should go and occasionally redirecting items she feels would be better placed in her room. You negotiate firmly on the throw blanket. You surrender the small lamp without a fight because she’s put it next to Mr. Bunny and it does look good there, objectively.

By Sunday evening the apartment is a comfortable chaos of rearrangement and you’re all sitting on the living room floor eating pizza from the box because no one has the energy to locate the table under the moving debris.

Mia is in your lap. Jake is beside you, shoulder to shoulder, pizza slice in hand, looking around the apartment that has shifted and expanded and settled into something new. “Looks different,” he says.

“Good different?”

He looks at you. “Yeah. Really good different.”

Mia tilts her head back to look up at you from your lap. “Can we build the fort now?”

“We live in a fort,” you tell her, gesturing at the surrounding box landscape.

Her eyes go wide. She looks around. Looks back at you. “We live in a fort,” she breathes.

“We live in a fort,” Jake confirms solemnly. She is overcome.

You and Jake look at each other over her head, laughing, and it is — this moment exactly, pizza and boxes and a delighted three year old and the lamp in the wrong place and Gerald on the windowsill — it is everything. Absolutely everything.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

A year later

The morning of the wedding, Mia wakes up at five forty-three AM. You know this because she comes and stands beside the bed and breathes on your face until you open your eyes. “It’s today,” she whispers.

“It is,” you confirm.

“I’m the flower girl.”

“You are.”

She absorbs this with great seriousness. Then: “I need to practice.”

“Mia, it’s not even six—”

“I need to practice.”

Jake makes a sound beside you that is him absolutely not laughing. You elbow him. “Okay,” you say. “But quietly. So we don’t wake the neighbors.”

She nods, solemn and focused, and turns and walks very slowly back down the hallway, scattering invisible petals with great ceremony, narrating under her breath — and then I walk here, and then here, and then I find mama—

You lie there in the early morning grey and stare at the ceiling and think about the word mama the way you have thought about it every day for the past year and a half. The way it still does something enormous to your chest. The way you don’t think it will ever stop.

Jake rolls toward you. Presses his face into your neck. “Morning,” he murmurs.

“Your daughter is practicing flower girl technique in the hallway.”

“She’s been planning this since we told her.” His arm comes around you. “She asked Sandy if she could practice at her house. She practiced at daycare. She made Theo be the groom so she could practice walking toward someone.”

“She’s extremely prepared.”

“She’s extremely her.” He presses a kiss to your jaw. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” You turn to face him. His face in the early light, sleep-soft and certain and completely, permanently yours. “Really good. You?”

“Best day of my life,” he says simply. “After the day she was born. And the day you moved in. And the day you said yes when I asked.” He pauses. “Top five, at minimum.”

“That’s very good company.”

“You’re very good company.” He kisses you properly, slow and warm, and from the hallway comes the sound of small feet completing another practice lap.

“…and then I find mama, and she’s the prettiest—” You pull back from Jake, blinking hard. He looks at you. Reaches up and brushes his thumb under your eye, gentle.

“She’s not wrong,” he says.

“It’s five forty-five in the morning, I look terrible—”

“You look like the person I’m marrying today.” He holds your gaze. “Which means you look perfect.” You press your face into his shoulder and hold on for a moment.

From the hallway: “Okay I’m ready. Can we have breakfast now?”

Sandy comes at nine to take Mia for hair and getting dressed — a situation Mia has been anticipating with the focused excitement of someone who has been told she gets curls and a flower in her hair and has not stopped thinking about it since.

She submits to the process with remarkable patience, sitting very still while Sandy works, only turning her head twice to update you on developments. “It’s getting curlier,” she reports.

“I can see that.”

“Do I look like a princess?”

“You look exactly like a princess.” She nods, satisfied, and returns to stillness.

When it’s done she stands in front of the mirror in her small white dress — simple, with a yellow sash, because she requested yellow and you would move mountains before you’d say no to that — and looks at herself for a long, serious moment.“I look nice,” she concludes.

“You look incredible,” Sandy says.

“Yeah.” She turns to look at you. Her eyes go wide. “Mama. You look so pretty.”

You’re in your dress — simple, exactly what you wanted, nothing complicated — and your hair is done and you’re holding your bouquet and you’re trying very hard not to cry and failing slightly.“So do you,” you tell her.

She crosses to you. Reaches up and takes your hand, the way she did in a hallway a long time ago, completely certain of her welcome.“Don’t be nervous,” she tells you.

“I’m not nervous.”

“Good.” She squeezes your fingers. “Daddy loves you the most.”

“He loves you the most.”

She considers this with genuine fairness. “He loves us the same,” she decides. “Equal. Like a tie.”

“That’s exactly right.”

She nods. Pats your hand once, settling the matter. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s go get married.”

The venue is small and warm and full of people who love you.

Mrs. Kim is in the third row in her best jacket, already dabbing her eyes. Sandy is beside her. Jake’s parents flew in from Brisbane — his mother cried when she met you and his father shook your hand for a very long time and said thank you for making them happy and you’d had to excuse yourself to the bathroom for five minutes after that.

Your own family. Your friends. The people who have been the walls of your life. And at the end of the aisle, Jake.

In a dark suit, hands clasped in front of him, hair the way you like it. He’s talking quietly to the celebrant and then someone touches his arm and he looks up and sees Mia in the doorway.

His face does what it always does when he sees her. That open, completely unguarded thing. She waves at him. He waves back.

Then he sees you behind her and his face does something else entirely.

The music starts. Mia goes first. She has been told, approximately as many times as you can tell a four and a half year old anything, that flower girls walk slowly. Measured. Elegant. She lasts four steps.

Then she spots Jake at the end of the aisle and she goes — there is no other word for it — feral with excitement, sunflowers clutched in both fists, petals going in every direction except down, grinning so hard her whole face is the grin, half walking half skipping half something entirely her own.

“DADDY I FOUND HER” she announces at full volume to the entire assembled gathering. “I FOUND HER SHE’S HERE”

The room erupts. Not polite wedding laughter. Real laughter, the kind that comes from somewhere genuine, rippling through every row. Mrs. Kim is crying laughing. Sandy has her hand over her mouth. Jake’s mother is gripping his father’s arm.

Jake is crouching down to catch Mia as she reaches him, scooping her up, pressing a kiss to her chaotic curls, the flower in her hair somehow surviving the sprint. “Good job,” you hear him tell her.

“I practiced,” she says, very serious.

“I know you did, baby.” He sets her down. She takes her position with great dignity, as though the sprint did not happen, as though she has been standing here elegantly the entire time.

And then Jake looks up at you. You walk toward him. The room goes soft around the edges — not blurred, just quiet, the way things go when you’re paying attention to the only thing that matters. The faces on either side are warm and familiar and you see them without seeing them because you’re looking at Jake.

Jake, who opened his door on a panicked Tuesday morning and showed you his worst fear and his whole heart in the same thirty seconds.

Jake, who makes coffee before you ask and remembers every small thing and says what he means with a simplicity that still sometimes catches you off guard.

Jake, who watched you fall in love with his daughter before you fell in love with him and let it happen without trying to manage or protect or preempt it, because he trusted you, because he looked at you and knew.

You reach him. He takes your hand and holds it like he’s been holding it his whole life. “Hi,” he says quietly.

“Hi,” you say back.

Beside him, Mia has taken your other hand. She holds it with both of hers, feet planted, present and accounted for, witnessing this with the gravity it deserves.

The celebrant begins. The vows are Jake’s own words. You knew this. You wrote yours too, separately, privately, the way you’d agreed. But hearing them — in his voice, in this room, looking at his face — is different from knowing.

He talks about the morning Mia escaped into the hallway and how he stood in your doorway afterward watching you crouch down to his daughter’s level and felt something shift that he couldn’t name yet and didn’t try to.

He talks about Wednesday mornings with the hairbrush. About leftover pasta and late night texting and the drawing on the fridge.

He talks about the way you love Mia — not as a condition of loving him, not as an extension of it, but first, entirely and separately first, because that’s who you are.

She picked you, he says, before I had a chance to. And she has never once been wrong about anything important. Beside you, Mia straightens slightly at this. You feel her grip on your hand tighten.

I’m not a man who believed in easy, Jake says. I thought love was supposed to be something you work and worry at. And then you moved in across the hall and you were just — easy. Everything with you has just been easy. Not without difficulty. Not without fear. But easy the way breathing is easy. The way I can’t imagine not doing it. His voice has gone rough at the edges.

I love you. I loved you in October and I loved you in February and I love you today and I’m going to love you when Mia is grown and gone and it’s just us and I’m going to love you in every ordinary Tuesday that comes after this one because that’s where you live. In the ordinary Tuesdays. And I want every single one of them.

The room is very quiet. You are absolutely crying. You decided before today that you weren’t going to cry until after the vows at the earliest and you have failed completely. “Don’t cry,” Mia whispers, helpful. “It’s good news.”

Laughter moves through the room like a wave. Jake laughs too, wiping his eyes, and you laugh through yours, and it breaks the solemnity just enough, the way the best moments always do — serious and true and then suddenly full of light.

Your vows. You talk about duck pajamas and a stuffed rabbit and a small hand in yours in a hallway. You talk about a crayon drawing on a fridge and a child who put you in her family portrait before you knew you belonged there.

You talk about a man who carried his daughter on his shoulders through a farmers market and came home to make dinner and knocked on your door with leftover pasta and showed you what it looked like when someone decided that loving people well was the most important thing they could do.

You taught me that, you say. Both of you. You showed me what it looks like when love is a decision someone makes every single day without drama and without conditions. Mia does it for everyone she meets. You do it quietly and completely and I want to spend the rest of my life doing it back. You look at Jake.

I love you. I love our ordinary Tuesdays. I love Wednesday mornings and Saturday markets and bedtime stories and all the Gerald updates and every single version of this life we’ve built in an apartment across the hall from where I used to live alone. I love your daughter.

You look down at Mia. She is watching you with her whole face. Completely still, completely focused, taking this in with the seriousness it deserves.

She is the best thing, you say. She is the absolute best thing, and I promise her, today, in front of everyone who loves us, that I am here. I am not going anywhere. She is mine and I am hers and that is permanent and unconditional and nothing will ever change it.

Mia’s lip wobbles. Just slightly. You watch her decide, with great effort, not to cry, because she is a flower girl and flower girls are professionals and she has a reputation to maintain. She squeezes your hand instead. Very hard. You squeeze back.

I now pronounce you married.

Jake kisses you, and the room rises, and somewhere in the noise you hear Mia announce to no one in particular and everyone simultaneously:

“THAT’S MY MAMA NOW. THAT’S OFFICIALLY MY MAMA.”

And then, apparently satisfied that this has been adequately communicated, she inserts herself between the two of you and takes both your hands and holds on.

Jake looks at you over her head. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

The reception is everything. Mrs. Kim dances with Mia for forty-five minutes straight and neither of them stops. Sandy cries every time someone gives a speech. Jake’s father gives a toast that makes the whole room laugh and then immediately cry. Your own people hold you and tell you they knew, they always knew, from the moment you started talking about the little girl next door like she’d hung the moon.

Jake dances with Mia first — tradition, he’d decided, she gets the first dance — and you stand at the edge of the floor and watch her stand on his feet, both of them swaying to something slow, her head against his chest, his hand spanning her whole back.

You take a photo. You will look at that photo for the rest of your life.

Then he passes her off to his mother and comes to find you, hand extended, and you take it and let him pull you out onto the floor. “Hi wife,” he says, like he’s trying the word out.

“Hi husband.”

He smiles. Pulls you closer. “How’s it feel?”

“Same,” you say honestly. “Exactly the same. Just— more settled.”

“Yeah.” His hand moves on your back. “Like it’s been true for a while and now the paperwork caught up.”

“Exactly like that.”

You dance. The room moves around you, warm and full of people you love, and Mia is somewhere in it, probably telling someone about Dave the worm or Gerald or the structural integrity of forts, and it is — all of it, every piece — everything. All of it everything.

She falls asleep at nine fifteen. Mid-sentence, apparently — Jake’s mother told you later she was explaining the color organization system for the stuffed animals and then she simply stopped explaining and was asleep, curled in the chair with her flower crown half off and her shoes long since abandoned and the last of her sunflowers still in her hand.

Jake carries her out to the car at the end of the night, limp and certain and completely trusting the way only sleeping children are, and you tuck the seatbelt around her and push the flower crown gently back from her face. She doesn’t wake up.

She won’t remember being carried, won’t remember the drive home, won’t remember being tucked in. But in the morning she’ll wake up and come and stand at the side of your bed and breathe on your face until you open your eyes, and you’ll ask her how she slept and she’ll say good and you’ll ask if she had fun at the wedding and she’ll say yes I was the flower girl with the proprietary satisfaction of someone who performed their role excellently and knows it. And she’ll be right. She was, without any competition, the best part.

Later. Much later. His penthouse — your penthouse, it still catches you sometimes — quiet and dark except for the city light through the windows. Mia asleep down the hall. The flower crown on the kitchen counter. Your bouquet in a glass of water because you couldn’t throw it, it was too pretty.

Jake’s jacket over the chair. Your heels by the door. You and Jake on the couch the way you’ve been a hundred times before, his arm around you, your head on his shoulder, the easy comfortable weight of each other. “Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hey.”

“Mia told Theo’s mum today that she picked you.”

You lift your head. “What?”

“At the reception. Apparently she walked up to Theo’s mum completely unprompted and said—” He’s smiling. “She said I picked her first. Before Daddy even knew.”

You stare at him. “She’s four and a half,” you say.

“I know. She’s extremely perceptive,” Jake says. “Always has been.”

You think about a Tuesday morning and duck pajamas and the end of a hallway. The hand on your cheek. You’re nice. The absolute certainty of it. The way she gave you her fingers without hesitating like she already knew. “She did pick me first,” you say softly.

“Yeah.” Jake presses a kiss to your hair. “She really did.”

The city does its quiet nighttime thing outside the windows. Down the hall, Mia sleeps. You and Jake stay where you are, warm and settled, in the ordinary extraordinary life you built one Tuesday at a time.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Three weeks later, on an ordinary Wednesday morning, Mia sits between your knees on the couch.

You’re doing her braids. Jake is in the kitchen. Coffee is happening. Gerald is on the windowsill. Mr. Bunny is in the orange section of the stuffed animal shelf. Everything exactly where it should be. “Mama,” Mia says.

“Hmm?”

“When I’m big can I be a flower girl again?”

“When you’re big you can be whatever you want.”

She considers this carefully. “I want to be a flower girl and a paleontologist and a cat.”

“All three?”

“On different days.”

“That seems manageable.” She nods, satisfied. Swings her feet.

From the kitchen, Jake: “Braids today?”

“Braids,” Mia confirms, with the authority of someone whose hair decisions are final. You finish the first one. Start the second. The morning does its ordinary thing around you.

Mia tilts her head back to look up at you, upside down, grinning. “I love you, mama.”

You smooth a hand over her hair. “I love you too, baby,” you say. “So much.” She rights herself. Goes back to swinging her feet.

Outside the window the morning is doing what mornings do, indifferent and ongoing and full of ordinary things.

In here it is warm. In here everyone is exactly where they are supposed to be. This is just the beginning. And it is everything.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

[star-sim]

crawling back to you ☆ jungwon yang

☆ spiderman! jungwon x fem! reader ☆ summary: spider-man was the city's strongest hero: a crime-fighter, a man of the people, and... a loverboy? it's been months since jungwon, the identity behind the powerful spider-man persona, broke up with you. somehow, even with the entire city's fate resting on his shoulders, his biggest concern still remains whether or not he will ever get to see you again. ☆ genre: spider-man! au, exes to lovers, JUNGWON YEARNINGGG, slooooow burn, college! au, jealousy, angst, pining, SEXUAL TENSION & YEARNING ☆ word count: 24.4k words ☆ my long awaited... im sorry guys i was genuinely going through hell and back when i was writing this but its okay papa vanya pulled through, for my dearest @ashtxrie

Jungwon's chest heaved up and down, bated breaths tearing from his lips.

Not again, he thought to himself, running a hand through his sweaty hair. He could feel his loose t-shirt sticking to his skin, the heat from under his blanket too sweltering to endure that he had to throw it off of him. His cat-like eyes flickered to the window beside his bed. The moon gleamed so charmingly, streaming bright slivers of light through his window. And yet, all Jungwon could do is shiver into his hot skin.

It’s been almost 6 months since Jungwon broke up with you. 6 months since he’s been genuinely happy.

And for the past 6 months, Jungwon has been having the same nightmare every night. The nightmare that ended the same way no matter what Jungwon’s brain wired itself to conjure up: with you dying in his arms.

Jungwon shuddered. It was the middle of summer. Even when it was late in the depths of night, beads of cold sweat managed to find their way back onto Jungwon’s neck. Sitting up on his bed, his knees pressed against his chest, Jungwon’s heart pounded in his ribcage, so loud that he could hear it in his ears, yet his fear was so quiet in his heart.

His eyes flickered around his dark bedroom. He needed to call you, he thought. Images of your dying face, choked sobs, and teary voice flooded his memory. It made Jungwon’s eyes line with hot tears, as they always did whenever this nightmare returned to him. He needed to call you, to make sure that you were okay, that his greatest fears hadn’t come true.

Jungwon's hand, still trembling, reached out for his bedside table. If he ignored the empty coffee cups cluttered on it, or the way he had hundreds of ignored messages and call notifications, he would have slowed down. And just as he searched up your name in his contacts, his shaking fingers about to call you, he stopped.

Oh right. He’s not with you anymore.

6 months is a long time.  Apparently not long enough for Jungwon to forget his feelings for you.

If his chest wasn’t already aching, it was now. It was him that broke up with you.  It was him that chose to break your heart. It was him that chose to leave you crumbling to your knees, tears spilling from your eyes as you silently begged him to stay.

And maybe that was his biggest regret.

Jungwon stared at his hands. He gazed each callous on his palm, every single scar and scratch still evident on his skin. His eyes glazed over the black spider-like veins on his wrists.

No, there was no time to mull over you. Not when there was an imminent threat in this city. Slapping his cheeks awake, Jungwon huffed before climbing out of bed. There was no way he would be able to fall asleep anyway. He might as well distract himself with something productive. Start early.

His eyes fluttered back to his moonlit window. Ah, fuck it.

Jungwon had a secret.

A secret that he kept guarded day in and day out, like his life depended on it. And the truth was, his life did depend on it.

Ignoring the way the red and blue spandex felt particularly uncomfortable as it stuck to his still-sweaty skin, Jungwon shot a sticky white web at a building. He gazed at the web that had ejected from his wrist, before peering over the ledge. In this busy city, it seemed like no road was ever going to be completely empty, not even in the depths of night. There were still people roaming the streets, noisy cars honking at one another with their tires screeching.

You hated heights, was the resounding thought that clouded his head as he looked down to the city below him. Once again, Jungwon's heart tightened in his chest, and he shook his head.

He needed to stop thinking about you. You probably already stopped caring about him anyway. You're a pretty girl, even before you and him broke up there was already a line of guys waiting for you to be single. Jungwon wouldn't be surprised if a girl like you already found someone else.

Someone better. Someone that wasn't a damn coward like Jungwon was.

Jungwon let his eyes fall shut, relishing in the way that the cool summer night air brushed against him. It's hard. To let you go, to accept that what once was his could be someone else's.

He looked back down to his gloved hands, the same hands that have been fighting crime for the past 6 months, the same hands that were responsible for the safety of this city, the same hands that touched your pretty face, the same hands that have brought criminals to justice.

It was all blurring together. Jungwon dug his teeth into his bottom lip. He needed to let you go, before his mind devoured him. He needed to let you go, before his identity as Spider-Man, the number one crime-fighter in this city, gets inevitably revealed, and he has to witness you die for the hundredth time. But for real this time.

"Damn, you look like shit."

Jungwon rolled his eyes at his friend's comment, sighing loudly as he flipped through the pages of his textbook. "Didn't get much sleep last night."

Look, Jungwon is a college student. Although his Spider-Man gig was pretty good at paying him, he wanted to contribute to his community in another way. Like through tutoring the local kids.

"Why are you even studying basic elementary algebra?— you're a film major!" Jungwon's good friend Sunghoon Park was a great guy. A little rambunctious, but still a good friend. But not right now.

Jungwon had agreed to have a quote un-quote "study date" with Sunghoon at the coffee shop below Jungwon's apartment complex. Jungwon was a little proud that his friend suddenly wanted to study with him (such intellectual vitality!), but seeing as all Sunghoon has been doing for the past 30 minutes is scrolling on his phone and looking around conspicuously tells Jungwon otherwise. Sunghoon didn't even order a coffee or soak in the scent of warm coffee beans in the coffee shop. He just sat there.

Jungwon shot a look at Sunghoon. "This kid that I'm tutoring, apparently he's not very good at math."

Sunghoon nodded slowly, his eyes narrowing as his thick brows quivered.

"Okay..." he said slowly, his vowels drawing out. "But why do you need to study for it? Don't you like—" the man made a face— "Already know how to do basic math?"

Jungwon opened his mouth to explain that he's not necessarily trying to review elementary math, but moreso trying to figure how to teach it, but he was cut off by Sunghoon's continued rambling.

"—Like shouldn't you know how to add apples? Like if Sally has 2 apples and she gets 3 more, how many does she..." Sunghoon trailed off when he saw Jungwon's completely vacant, unamused expression. Jungwon clicked his tongue, going back to his very informative reading. However, he could practically feel Sunghoon staring at him, to the point that it felt like he was burning holes into Jungwon's person.

Jungwon let out another annoyed sigh. When he looked up to Sunghoon very obviously staring at him, his friend comically looked away. As if Sunghoon was fooling anyone.

"Do I have three heads?" Jungwon asked bluntly.

"What?"

Jungwon huffed, leaning back in his seat. "You keep looking at me. What is it?"

Sunghoon blinked. Jungwon watched as his older friend's Adam's apple bobbed. The once relaxed, though awkward, expression on Sunghoon's face wiped almost immediately, being replaced with a deeply uncomfortable and uneasy one. He squirmed in his seat, his dark eyes darting around the coffee shop in silence.

"Are you okay?"

But instead of answering, Sunghoon just shoved his face into his hands, muttering something under his breath that Jungwon couldn't make out.

Finally, Sunghoon finished his mini-mental breakdown and looked at Jungwon. Somehow, in the span of a few minutes Sunghoon went from looking perfectly fine to looking like he just went through hell.

"Jungwon." Sunghoon finally said, his voice solemn. Which was weird, because when is Sunghoon ever serious? To add to Jungwon's bewilderment, Sunghoon reached across the table, taking hold of Jungwon's hands. His expression was so comically somber that Jungwon thought he was joking. "I have something to tell you."

Jungwon rolled his eyes, the corners of his lips lifting. "Yeah, yeah, get on with your little bit—"

"I"m serious." Sunghoon looked around again, as if he was making sure that no one was listening. He leaned in closer to Jungwon, his voice dropping to as low as a whisper. "It's serious."

Jungwon's brows knitted together, his expression pinching in pure confusion. "What are you talking abou—"

Sunghoon squeezed Jungwon's hand from across the table. His friend took a deep breath, before earnestly facing Jungwon. "What I'm about to tell you, you didn't hear it from me."

"Just—" Jungwon's scowl deepened. "Just tell me already, dude!"

Usually Sunghoon would react, but he just shook his head solemnly. Sunghoon took another deep breath, before he opened his mouth and let words tumble out: "She has a blind date. This weekend."

Jungwon blinked slowly. "Um. Who?"

Sunghoon looked like he was going to shit himself. "You know...."

Jungwon didn't know. Jungwon literally does not talk to anyone except a select few of his friends. And none of them are girls. "I don't, though...?"

Sunghoon sucked in another sharp breath, his tongue darting out to swipe over his bottom lip. "Your... Your girl."

Oh. Jungwon's heart sank to his stomach. That's not... what he expected. Not in the slightest. And the way that Sunghoon physically flinched as he revealed such information didn't make Jungwon feel any better.

"Who... told you that?"

Sunghoon pressed his lips together, forming a line as thin as paper. "You know my coworker? Wonyoung? She's [Name]'s good friend and she's been boasting how she hooked her up to this guy."

But Jungwon tuned Sunghoon out after that. Maybe if Jungwon had a better grip he would have calmly explained that you were not his anymore. It’s not like your breakup was a secret, and if there was anyone who had to bear witness to Jungwon's abject gloominess, it would be Sunghoon. Jungwon couldn't understand why his friends still referred to you as his, even when they were well-aware of the fact that you two were separated.

"C'mon, man, we all know you still want her," was a sentiment echoed by all of his friends.

And they were right. As if they could see through Jungwon's quiet exterior, his robotic composure so keen on hiding his true feelings.

Sunghoon's words fell upon deaf ears. If he did listen, he would hear Sunghoon pleading Jungwon to let go of this act, to stop putting up walls, to finally admit that he was wrecking himself from the inside out by continuing to act like he no longer cared for you.

Jungwon stared blankly at the coffee shop table. The pain in his chest no longer felt new. It felt more like a constant.

In his pencil case he still had the expensive mechanical pencil that you gifted him. Its silver ridges were practically molded to the curves of his fingers. The capsule of lead that came with the pencil only had a few pieces left. When he studied he still listened to the same songs that you introduced to him, the same songs that you and him kissed to as the two of you laid in his bed, and—

Jungwon thought he was okay. And for the first few weeks, he really was just fine. After all, he'd convinced himself that it was all for the better. But Jungwon knew that he'd break sooner or later. And it would be now.

It seemed like in every waking moment, you still managed to consume his thoughts.

All roads led back to you.

As Jungwon swung from building to building, he tried his best to clear his mind. As he always did.

After his little coffee chat (disaster?) with Sunghoon, Jungwon had excused himself to go to some "work." When really, he was just reporting for duty as Spider-Man. Feeling the wind against him as he swung around the city, the thrill of nearly flying through the air, was always useful whenever Jungwon had a lot on his mind. Like always, Jungwon checked his usual stops: banks, daycares, financial and business centers, just to make sure that no one was rumpling with civilians' safety.

Lately, it hasn't really been working. But what did he expect?

The bright summer sun, blaring its orange-yellow light, was now dipping into the horizon. The air smelled like gasoline and peaches, and yet, Jungwon couldn't even relish in the tranquility. Jungwon didn't know why he kept thinking about you. The thought of you going on a date at all with someone else made him feel sick to his stomach. His gut twisted as images of you laughing and smiling flashed through his mind. It hurt so bad, so damn bad.

A few more times of helping kids cross the road, or giving an elderly person some directions, and Jungwon felt like his legs were going to give out. Which was strange.

As Spider-Man, Jungwon was cursed with enhanced senses and incredible regeneration abilities. Ever since he got bitten by that spider, Jungwon never had to experience feeling physically worn out.

Not until right now. Jungwon slumped against the wall in the back alley, the cool stone pressing against his cheek. He looked down at his hands— was he sick? Losing his abilities? Seriously, what was wrong with him? His body was feeling uncharacteristically warm, like he was burning up from the inside. His eyelids felt heavy, while his legs felt like jelly.

And maybe Jungwon would have passed out in that alleyway if it weren't for the god-awful sound of his cellphone ringing.

Kriiiing! Kriiiing! Mindlessly, he picked up the call. "Hello?" Jungwon breathed, pushing nearly all of his body weight against the cold wall for support. He laid his head back, exhausted in ways that he couldn't explain.

A familiar voice greeted his ears. "Hey, it's Sunghoon."

Jungwon gritted his teeth. Not again. "I'm not interested—"

"Listen." Sunghoon said, his voice earnest. "I'm sorry about what I said today, but—"

Jungwon's lips pressed together. How shameful. It must be so shameful, the fact that everyone knew that Jungwon was suffering so much, that it was so obvious.

"—Me and the guys are going out this weekend," Sunghoon's gravelly voice said over the phone. "And we thought that you should really come with us."

Without even realizing it, Jungwon's breath got caught in his throat. He swallowed the lump, his voice coming out so much weaker than he wanted it to, "Like I said, I'm not interested—"

"Jungwon," Sunghoon pleaded. "You... You haven't been yourself lately. We know that you're struggling right now—we're worried about you. Please, just let us be there for you."

Jungwon felt so humiliated. Ashamed even, at the way Sunghoon's voice was filled with so much sympathy. So much pity.

Jungwon wanted to scream. He wanted to shout at Sunghoon and all of his friends for not minding their damn business, for treating him like he was some charity case.

But as Jungwon's eyes traced his shadow on the road, his phone to his ear, Jungwon wanted to shout at himself, for being so weak, for being a coward, for pushing people away, for having an ego so fragile that he felt threatened by his own friend caring about him.

How pathetic. And Jungwon has the gall to call himself a hero?

Jungwon clicked his tongue. "Okay, I'll be. there."

Jungwon wasn't stupid.

He knew exactly why his friends called him out tonight. It was to distract him from the fact that on this same night, you'd be going on your date.

The plan was to all meet up at Jake's apartment, and then go to the club from there. The moment that he arrived at Jake's apartment, he scurried to the bathroom.

Jungwon stared into Jake's bathroom mirror. The entire cramped bathroom smelled like strong fumes of manly cologne and hair spray. From inside, he could hear the muffled bantering of his friends, probably arguing about who would be driving.

His eyes glazed over the tight black compression shirt that clung to his chest, the dark-washed ripped jeans hanging from his hips. It's been a while since Jungwon utilized his pierced ears, and he figured that he'd put in some simple flat black studs before the piercings inevitably closed up. On his wrist, Jungwon had mindlessly slipped on the braided tassel bracelet that you made him; it was still hanging around his room, and he had forgotten that it was from you. Despite that, he didn't have the heart to take it off and shove into his pocket.

Jungwon couldn't recognize himself. It wasn't just the breakup that ruined him.

Sure, losing you was probably one of the greatest losses in his entire life, he was sure of that. But since then, Jungwon has also purposely distanced himself from his friends. He stopped responding to their messages and going to big group outings.

He could hear Jay's howling laughter and Jake's shouting, all sounds that should be completely familiar to him. And yet, there he was, feeling awkward.

He felt like staying in this bathroom until someone noticed that he was absent.

Click! But that wasn't what Spider-Man's do.

Jungwon cracked the bathroom door open, and the moment that he stepped into the hallway, revealing his blank expression, all of his friends whipped their heads. Jungwon could feel their eyes on him, staring at him like he was some anomaly, and for a second, he regretted even agreeing to hang out with them.

He hadn't seen these guys all together in so long. In fact, Jungwon hadn't been in a personal group setting for months now. He wasn't going to lie and say that showing his face to the friends that he strayed away from made him feel uneasy.

But almost immediately, his friends' faces cracked with large grins, whooping his name.

"Jungwon!" Jake delighted as Heeseung threw an arm around Jungwon's shoulder, pulling him snugly to the side of him.

Jay's sharp features morphed into a big, boyish smile, his lips forming a curve. Jay brought up a hand to dap Jungwon up, and Jungwon received it. "Hey, man."

Sunghoon followed behind him, his sharp canine teeth revealing as he chuckled. "Glad you could make it, Jungwon."

Jungwon felt unnatural. Out of place, like a fish out of water. When was the last time he was around people that enjoyed his presence? Other than the group of middle schoolers that cheered him on when he dashed through the air, or the middle aged women at the local library club that doted on him, Jungwon couldn't remember clearly.

For all the months that Jungwon tore himself away from his friends, he didn't know what was more surprising, that his friends still wanted something to do with him, or that nothing had changed while he was gone.

Sunoo's eyes still pressed into thin crescents as he threw his head back, laughing at something stupid Riki said. Heeseung still pulled Jungwon into a headlock, aggressively scruffling his head and ruining his hair despite Jungwon's complaints. Jake, Jay, and Sunghoon still liked to argue loudly, their voices reaching volumes so high that Jungwon was sure they'd get a noise complaint before even leaving.

And as Jay and Sunghoon wrestled, falling onto Jake's couch, the room erupted with the same familiar howling laughter and quips that Jungwon had forgotten how much he loved.

As Riki jumped in to join in the pseudo-wrestling match, Sunoo chanting "fight, fight, fight!," and Heeseung and Jake acting as refs, Jungwon gaped at the scene.

The boys that he's grown up with, the boys that had seen him grow from a wimpy little middle schooler into a strong adult, the boys that never failed to make him laugh— have stayed the exact same.

And for the first time in a while, Jungwon felt his lips lift up, soft giggles erupting from his chest as his eyes squeezed shut. It was such a foreign feeling, and an even more foreign sound.

His friends seemed to think the same. In an instant, the room fell silent. Once again, Jungwon felt all eyes on him.

But before Jungwon's mind could play tricks on him, Riki dashed over to him, throwing the older boy over his shoulder and throwing him on the couch.

"You son of bitch, Jungwon!" Riki laughed affectionately, beginning a tickling assault on him.

Once again, Jake's apartment was engulfed in chaos and laughter.

Well, after being tickled so hard that he almost started crying, as well as a well-deserved noise complaint from Jake's neighbors, Jungwon and his friends finally decided to go to the club. Which was their plan all along, but it wasn't any of their faults that messing around in Jake's home was more fun. And plus, Jungwon accidentally used too much of his spider abilities and body slammed Riki so hard that they all needed a momentary time-out to get Riki an ice pack for his head ("How the hell did you get so strong?!" was what Riki was more concerned about than the giant red mark on his forehead).

Bright strobing lights, the smell of sweaty bodies and alcohol, and the sound of techno music filled all of Jungwon's senses.

And with the encouragement of his rowdy, unruly friends, Jungwon sucked in sharp breath.

Fuck it.

Whatever worries he had now, or whoever was breaking his heart, he was going to forget it. He was going to pretend that it never existed, that it never hurt him, that he was okay.

Just for tonight, just for his friends.

"C'mon!" Jake pulled Jungwon by his arm to the bar. The older boy ordered the two of them a few shots. As they waited for the bartender to prepare their drinks, Jake and Jungwon sat on the barstools. In the corner of Jungwon's eyes, he could see his other friends fucking around like they always did.

"Would it hurt them to have some class?" Jungwon muttered playfully, unable to hide his amusement when Heeseung slipped and fell on the dance floor.

"Nah, class is a foreign concept to them." Jake let a bashful smile spread on his face, his gelled hair falling over his eyes. The older man tapped his fingers on the bar counter to the electric music loudly blasting.

Jungwon grinned, and the two sat in a comfortable silence, before Jake opened his mouth again.

"We missed having you around, you know."

Jungwon whipped his head over to his friend. He quirked a brow. "Really?"

Jake put a hand on the back of his neck, a soft chuckle falling from his lips. "Yup." Jungwon followed his eyes, back to their friends that were now teasing Jay for his wild dance moves. "I think you're the smartest out of all of us."

"That's not true."

Jake shook his head. "Nah, you should have seen us. Me and Sunoo were trying to figure out how to do taxes. Never again."

As the bartender served up their drinks, Jungwon turned back to Jake, who continued, "I know you're having a hard time, but just know that we're here for you."

Jake raised the shot glass filled with a golden brown liquid— "Cheers."

Jungwon smiled.

Clink! Their shot glasses collided.

"Cheers." And with that, Jungwon threw the shot back, the bitter taste on his tastebuds burning so hard that it reached his nose. Almost immediately, Jungwon's expression turned sour, his nose scrunching at the taste. "Blegh— How do you drink this?!"

Jake shrugged. "You'll get used to it if you drink enough."

Jungwon hunched over the bar counter, his elbows on the counter as he held his hands in his head. He shook his head. "Never again. That's nasty."

A few moments of silence pass. Jungwon slid his empty shot glass over. "Give me another shot."

Despite being an adult, Jungwon had forgotten what it felt like to party.

The thrumming of the techno music that filled the club felt like it was stringing directly through Jungwon, droning through his head. After a few shots and buzzed laughs with Jake, Jungwon was tipsy enough that his body felt weightless. Weightless enough to find himself on the dance floor.

As his strong body moved to the music, Jungwon felt the rhythm of the music. His mind was hazy, nebulous as the alcohol in his system began to take over. Jungwon's head felt warm, and his vision despite his spider senses was more blurry than usual. But that didn't matter.

Blood was rushing all over Jungwon's body. His cheeks felt warm, and he couldn't tell if it was his enhanced spidey-senses or if the music was just that loud that he could physically feel the hum in his chest.

Then, the music switched from an upbeat electronic sound, to a slower, more melodic one. Jungwon swore he recognized the song, but he couldn't name it. Jungwon felt the multiple bodies of the room brush against him, before he felt one directly press up against him.

It was clearly a woman. Jungwon let his eyes shut as he let his body take reign.

Swaying to the gradual beat, Jungwon found his hands on this new woman's body. As his chest pulsed to the song, he took in her scent, he could smell sweet, floral nodes. He could barely feel his feet below him, and for a few moments, he felt like he was going to float off of the ground. And just as Jungwon thought he was going to ascend, he felt two manicured hands on his chest. His hands slid down to her hips, squeezing them, which earned him a sultry giggle.

If Jungwon weren't drunk, he may have jumped away the moment he realized that a woman was practically grinding on him. But the alcohol was too deep in his system, and he was too far gone. Even with his eyes closed, Jungwon could feel everything so intensely. He felt fingers reach for his belt loops, pulling him along.

As the music slowed to a stop, momentarily invading the usually bumping club in a hushed silence, Jungwon felt the woman lean into his ear.

"So handsome," she rasped, her warm breath brushing against his skin.

And as the chills trickled down his spine, the music finally came back on. And strangely enough, even though they were, in fact, inside a partying club, the music that blasted from the speakers was the complete opposite.

A slow piano, rich and deep vocals, and a romantic cadence.

Even in his drunken state, Jungwon immediately recognized this song at the first lyrics. Can't Help Falling in Love by Elvis Preseley. Without a doubt, it was this song.

How did Jungwon know? Because this was the song that you and him loved to slow dance to on your kitchen floor. And just like that, Jungwon's mind drifted into the deepest pits of his mind, the parts that he'd locked away.

In his mind, he saw you and him swaying to this song. You and him both wearing matching aprons, giggling as you attempted to slow dance. He saw the way you'd look at him, with those beautiful eyes that he could never refuse. He saw the way you said his name with a smile that he could never forget, not even in a million lifetimes.

Then, he saw flickering images of you and him: you and him holding each other in the winter to keep each other warm, you and him crying into each other's arms, you and him arguing over something so silly that you just ended up bursting out laughing.

And for a moment, it felt like you were there. Another body up against his, dancing so rhythmically that for a split second, Jungwon could pretend that it was you.

And in the depths of his heart, he prayed that it was you.

He hoped that when he opened his eyes, this nightmare would end, and he would get to see you. He hoped that when he opened his eyes, he would see you, staring up at him with those same beautiful, glossy eyes. He hoped that when he opened his eyes, this song would end, and he could scoop you up and bring you home, to show you all the love that he desperately wanted to give you.

But as Elvis Preseley's resonant voice sang earnestly, Jungwon's eyes slowly peeled open to not see you, but another woman.

A woman that was not you.

"N-Not her," Jungwon's lips quivered, his body instantly pulling away. His feet stumbled, in an attempt to tear away from her grasp. Jungwon ignored the way the woman attempted to pull him back, calling out to him.

In his intoxicated state, Jungwon felt hot tears line his eyes as he staggered away.

Not you. She wasn't you. It didn't matter, in fact. No one was you.

It didn't matter what Jungwon tried to do, his heart kept going back to you.

His head was spinning. Jungwon could barely control his body as he bursted out of the doors of the club, and even less, he couldn't control the tears that were now staining his cheeks. The expensive bottle of water that the club had at the entrance was completely chugged down in a single swish, minus Jungwon's struggles to manage his soft sobbing.

Even with water in his system, Jungwon's head was still spinning. His vision was swirling. Finally, after faltering for a few moments, Jungwon found himself sitting on the stairs at the entrance of the club.

As his vision cleared up, the alcohol in his system slowly washing away, Jungwon brought his hand to his mouth, to muffle the sounds of his crying.

Maybe he was just drunk, but the tears were just not stopping. Jungwon's chest heaved up and down, labored and stammering breaths rising from his chest. His hot tears were beginning to burn his eyes.

Even from outside, he could still hear Elvis Preseley's vocalization.

Damn it, did he have to ruin tonight? Jungwon pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face into his knees. His jeans were getting wet with his tears, and the late-night breeze was getting chilly.

In fact, everything was hurting.

Why couldn't he just forget you? Why couldn't he just let you go? Why did he still yearn for you?

Jungwon lifted his head. He could see his hunched figure in his shadow on the ground. How pathetic of him. He hasn't cried in a long time. It felt weird. It didn't feel like him.

Jungwon looked at the spider-like black veins on his wrist. Why was he cursed? Why did it have to be him? He wasn't worthy, he would never be worthy of being Spider-Man. Jungwon didn't ask to be bitten. He didn't ask for that stupidly rich and ignorant scientist to come to him and urge him to use his powers for good. He didn't ask for this responsibility. He didn't ask for anything, except you.

"With great power comes great responsibility," was what he was told the moment the scientists found him. And Jungwon really believed in it. He used his strength to help the weak, he gave others the power that they couldn't have, he protected the love that others cherished.

But couldn't keep any for himself.

After Jungwon's initial honeymoon phase with his newfound spider abilities, he realized something that changed his entire life forever. That he was no longer safe, and even more, everyone that he loved was no longer safe. And Jungwon thought he was strong enough; he thought that he could let you and all of his friends go slowly to protect you all. But he simply wasn't.

And Jungwon felt so damn selfish. He felt like a greedy bastard, someone who couldn't sacrifice himself for the good of others. Why was he even crying? There were people in danger right now, and here he was crying because he missed the girl of his dreams? How pathetic.

But he wanted you so bad.

Jungwon never wanted anything in life. All his life, he was obedient like a dog. He did everything that others asked of him. He always tried his best, always valued his righteousness, always did what was right.

But now, all he wanted was you.

He's never wanted anything, but the moment that he wants you, he couldn't have you.

Here he was, crying like some idiot all alone while you were probably still on that date. God, he wished Sunghoon never told him. He tried his best for the past few days to just not think about it, but now Jungwon had to truly face the fact that you've already moved on. His chest felt like it was going to burst.

Jungwon sunk his teeth into his fist to muffle his sobs even more. Maybe he should just go home. It's cold, it's uncomfortable, it's unsanitary, and most of all, Jungwon felt like shit.

As Jungwon stumbled to his feet, he sucked in one more breath. It still smelled like alcohol, with a scent of cigarettes. Then, he looked at the bustling road across the street. Somewhere out there, you were laughing with another man. Probably kissing him, calling him the same names that you'd call Jungwon.

God, it made him physically ill. Jungwon brought the back of his hand to wipe his nose one more time. He was going to go home. He'll leave a call for Heeseung or something later.

But before he could even take another step—

Boom!

Jungwon looked up at the sky. Even when it was dark, he could see a large cloud of black smoke. And now, he heard police sirens in the distance and the screaming of civilians.

Shit.

You fiddled with your fingers, bouncing your knee in anticipation to the beat of the 2010's pop song that your taxi driver chose.

Damn it, Wonyoung, you thought. You glanced down at the dress that your best friend chose for you. In the reflection of the backseat car window you caught your made up face. The blush on your cheeks, your curled lashes, the lip gloss. You thought you looked pretty.

Your eyes fluttered to your phone resting in your lap. The latest notification was from Wonyoung, telling you good luck and that you looked pretty. You couldn't help but smile.

It's been 6 months since your boyfriend Jungwon broke up with you. And frankly, it's probably been the worst 6 months of your life.

Words could not describe the types of pain and downright suffering that you went through. You cried for weeks straight, and up until recently, you hadn't had the motivation to really do anything.

The breakup was so unexpected, too. One day you and Jungwon were laughing, the next he left you. You couldn't understand why, and it wasn't like Jungwon gave you a succinct reason either. All he had said was that he was sorry, and that he had no other choice.

And the worst part was, you still weren't over your ex.

All that pain for nothing, you thought as your eyes followed the cars that passed your taxi. Your best friend, Wonyoung, on the other hand, had had enough.

"I don't like seeing you like this," Wonyoung had told you one night, as you cried into her shoulder. Despite what she showed others with her bubbly personality, her voice was stern. "It's not fair to you."

And you knew she was right. Which was why you let her set you up on a date with one of her colleagues. You figured that it was time that you stopped mulling over a man that couldn't stay anyway.

It's been so long in general since you even considered looking at someone else that wasn't Jungwon. And for a reason that you couldn't explain, it didn't feel right. And yet, you pushed it to the back of your head as you stepped out of the taxi.

The restaurant that your date, a guy named Haruto Watanabe, chose was a semi-formal one, called Bisco's Palace. You thought that name was a little bit corny, but you brushed it off. Thick stone walls, yellow-orange moody lighting, and an elegant grassy hedge at the entrance. It looked like a fairytale, and because of the beautiful dress that Wonyoung made you wear, you felt like you were in a fairytale.

When you arrived, you were met with a tall man with sharp features.

"Haruto?" you asked. He turned to look at you. You watched as his eyes widened, before he gave you a once-over.

"[N-Name]?" he spluttered. You recognized the look on his face. It was the look on a man's face whenever he found a woman attractive, and unfortunately, you were no stranger to it. "You look— You look beautiful."

If you were someone else, maybe you'd feel flattered. It's not every day that a good-looking man calls you beautiful. But all you felt was a sense of unease. Not that it was his fault; there was nothing intrinsically wrong with him. You just didn't know why you felt so uncomfortable.

You fought back the urge to make a face, and you instead forced a tight-lipped smile.

"Thank you." Now it was your turn to look him over. He was wearing a crisp button-up with slacks. He looked well put-together. "You look great too."

Haruto visibly turned pink, and he muttered something under his breath as he averted his gaze. Finally, he cleared his throat, extending his hand out to you. "Shall we go in?"

You narrowed your eyes at him, before you took his hand curtly. "Of course."

The two of you were quickly seated, and after being greeted by a cheery waitress that was clearly still in high school, your food was ordered and served in a timely manner. If you were to be honest, you weren't exactly too invested in tonight's date. Even if you agreed to it to get over Jungwon, you knew that your heart wasn't there yet.

Not to say that Haruto wasn't a sweetheart. He was polite, had very good manners, and was very respectful toward you. He tried his best to keep a flowing conversation with you, and in recognizing his efforts, you simply just went along with him. He was handsome and a well-natured guy. And, the food was great. Everything was to your taste, from the appetizers to the drinks to the dessert. The wait staff were also on top of it. As a whole, the restaurant was just perfect. The lights, the music, even how cushioned the chairs were.

Like a fairy tale. Everything was perfect. Perfect man, perfect food, perfect night. But it just wasn't good enough.

You felt nothing for Haruto, not even an ounce of interest. And as much as you didn't want to admit it, you knew why you were like this: Because he wasn't Jungwon.

There was nothing "Jungwon" about this date. Haruto certainly wasn't Jungwon, but everything about this date was nothing like how you liked to be treated. You liked to laugh and to get into dynamic discussions about silly topics, ones that didn't even matter. Haruto was so sweet, but he couldn't match your level of wit. While the food was tasty, you didn't want something so stringent and formal. You'd rather do something together with your date, to get to know each other better rather than sitting at a candle-lit restaurant.

Who would have known all of this? Who would have allowed you to do all of these things regardless of the environment? Who did your heart still stubbornly belong to?

Jungwon.

You let out a forced laugh at one of Haruto's jokes before excusing yourself to the washroom.

Shhhhh! As the sink water ran, you stared at your reflection. Even your makeup was done in a way that you knew Jungwon liked. The lipgloss in your purse was the same one that he bought you all those months ago. You didn't even know if you had the heart to use it up.

You thought that you were doing better. But it seemed like time and space only made your heart grow fonder.

It was getting later into the night now. And against your better judgment, you wondered what Jungwon was doing. Maybe he's playing video games. Or reading all of the superhero comics that he loved to collect.

Then, your mind wandered. What if he was with another girl? Your chest overwhelmed itself with unimaginable hurt. He never gave you a real explanation as to why he wanted to end things, and seemingly, his closest friends couldn't either. You'd be lying if you said that your mind didn't betray you, wandering to all of the darkest places.

Your eyes traced your own face in the mirror. Would Jungwon do that to you? Was he really the type to be unfaithful?

You knew the answer: no. Never. Jungwon was many things, and a cold-hearted unscrupulous cheater was not one of them. But then again, you thought you knew him to be the type to never spring a breakup on you. But he did. Maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought he did.

You took a deep breath. Not right now, you thought. You were on a date with another guy. It would be disrespectful to think about your ex, wouldn't it? Even if Haruto was most definitely not the one for you, you should have some courtesy.

You quickly rinsed your hands, dried them, and reapplied your lipgloss. And as you were ready to step back out, prepared to brave your tight-lipped smile and kind words, a large crashing sound pierced your ears.

Boom!

In the blink of an eye, the tiled bathroom floor below you rumbled, low growls rolling from under your feet. You froze. Your hand jerked out to grab the counter, the wall, the bathroom door handle— anything— to keep you stable.

"W-What the—"

Another deafening roar thundered through the air, enough to make your ears ring. At that instance, the floor below you ripped open.

What the hell was going on? Was it an earthquake? That would explain why the ground tore open. And yet, in the distance, you could hear booming thumping sounds.

Almost like the footsteps of a humongous being. Almost like the footsteps of a supervillain. Shit.

You're well aware of the state of your city. In the past few years, there has been a strange phenomenon of evildoers and mutants alike, appearing throughout your city to wreak havoc and torment civilians. And with that came the rise of even more bold crimes. Bank robberies, arson, kidnappings, pretty much everything.

Luckily, in the past 6 months, a new hero has appeared. The red and blue masked hero; the friendly neighborhood superhero himself; Spider-Man.

Your apartment, located near the center of the city, was awfully close to all of the commotion, nearly all the time. Which was why you couldn't help but admit that Spider-Man was quite the gem, for taking out all of these ne'er-do-wells and eccentric supervillains. And yet, here you were, probably in the middle of a supervillain attack.

All of the past villains have been eccentric but petty. But as the tiles below your feet literally cracked with each booming thrum, you were sure that this new villain, whoever it was, was worse.

Much worse. Probably worse than you could ever imagine.

And before you could react to the way that you tumbled to the ground, the cold floor hitting your knees so achingly, you heard a shriek from outside the bathroom.

"It's Baron von Fizzlebang!"

.... Who?

Baron von Fizzlebang?

What kind of shitty villain name is that—

Boom!

The smell of smoke filled your nostrils. You didn't know where it came from, but from the way that civilians screeched and screamed outside, you figured that it couldn't be far from you.

Boom!

Okay, this is urgent, you needed to get out!

Your heart rate picking up, you breathed slowly to keep yourself calm. You pushed yourself to your feet, ignoring the way your soon-to-be bruised knees ached. As you reached for the bathroom door handle, the lights flickered, followed by the sound of explosions. Even though you were definitively inside the bathroom, with all sides of the room still intact, the dust seeped through the cracks, filling your lungs. With a strained gasp for air, you clamped a hand over your nose, squinting.

You pressed your ear against the bathroom door. Now the entire restaurant blared with fire alarms and smoke detectors. Police sirens also sounded. The large footstep-like thudding in the distance came closer and closer. You had no choice but get out of this damn bathroom and book it.

Your heart was now pounding so quickly that it felt like it would fall out. Your legs felt so weak, your head feeling too heavy. Who the hell is Baron von Fizzlebang? And more importantly, why did it have to be tonight? Without even realizing it, your palms had become sweaty, and with all the blood rushing to your head, you were mere seconds away from sweating.

You shook your head. Focus! You squeezed your eyes shut, your hand wrapped tightly on that bathroom door handle. On a count of three, you were going to open that door and run for your life.

One. Why did some good-for-nothing supervillain have to ruin your already-mediocre night?

Two. You needed to relax. There's no time to sit around and think and languish. Just do it!

Three. You pushed the heavy bathroom door open, and you bursted through the doorway.

And much to your relief, the dark hallway that led to the restaurant's bathroom was hidden away in a little nook; at the end of the hallway was the entrance to the main room of the restaurant.

Slowly creeping down the hallway, you could see the destruction that was wreaked on Bisco's poor, fancy restaurant. Chairs and tables were knocked over, with broken glass and porcelain scattering the red-carpeted floor. From the looks of it, it seemed like all of the restaurant's patrons were either huddled up in another section of the restaurant, or they had escaped.

Great. Now, all you had to do was get out. Thankfully, at the other end of this hallway, there was a backdoor exit. So all you had to do was turn around and—

There standing at the end of the hallway, in front of your exit, was a tall and slender man.

He wore a fitted tailored suit, yet it was bright purple, with a giant bow tie. He had a monocle over his eye.

Like some type of costumed noble. Like a baron.

"That's right," he said, a devious grin spreading across his face, in a way that almost made him look like a carnival clown. Your pulse froze, mid-beat. Theatrically, he gave you a bow, before he reached a hand out to you. " 'Tis I, Baron von Fizzlebang."

Your gut twisted. And when you stared at him with shaky eyes, your entire body frozen in time, the supervillain let out a cackle.

"Oh dear," Baron von Fizzlebang put his hand to his chest, feigning offense. He slyly eyed you, and at once, you could see a lightbulb seemingly pop from his head. "You don't mind being a hostage, right?"

Before you could even open your mouth, Baron von Fizzlebang shot you with finger-guns. And before you knew it, you fell to your knees, your vision became hazy. The last thing that you heard as you lost consciousness was the supervillain's laughter, police sirens, and shouting for a particular red and blue masked superhero.

Jungwon swore that he had a special sense for you.

Jungwon arrived at the scene barely even 5 minutes after he heard the initial explosion. The big fancy restaurant at the end of Mainstreet was the scene.

Really? Jungwon thought. Bisco's Palace? That pretentious place?

The thing was, Jungwon wasn't really nervous. One time, he had to fight an entire group of 20 thugs with guns barely 5 minutes after he was rudely awoken. Jungwon could probably fight people in his sleep. His body and physicality, although he resented it half the time, was perfectly attuned to everything that he needed.

Even now, as he was barely sober and emotionally wrecked, he could see clearly. When he arrived at the scene, half of Bisco's Palace was completely destroyed. Mini fires spotted the scene, with pods of smoke bursting in the night air. Terrified civilians cried that they heard earsplitting thumping in the distance, like footsteps. Others claimed that an eccentric villain called "Baron von something-something" was the cause of this all.

Jungwon huffed. Another crazy supervillain? Seemingly there was another crazy supervillain appearing everyday! What, was there some kind of factory pumping them out? From the looks of it, it seemed like most of the civilians had escaped relatively unscathed.

Good. Jungwon readied himself to launch into that burning restaurant. He had a simple action plan: Rescue the remaining civilians, beat that Baron von something-something's ass, and go home.

The moment that Jungwon's striking red and blue figure launched across the sky, Jungwon could hear the gasps of civilians, police officers, and on-site journalists alike. Jungwon landed easily into what was left of that restaurant building.

And when he entered, it was quiet. Eerily quiet.

Jungwon had to be careful.

Jungwon creeped slowly, closer to the main dining room. He kept his breathing as quiet as a whisper. And when he peeked his head through the grand, arched door-frame that led into the dining room, there, he saw a group of civilians, huddled among the flickering fires Men, women, children— there they were, shaking in fear, and coughing as the. Fire smoke filled their lungs. With his enhanced senses, he could hear mothers hushing their wailing babies and children asking their fathers if they were going to die tonight.

Not on my watch, Jungwon mentally answered their questions.

Jungwon shot a web at the ceiling, and in one fell swoop, he gathered enough momentum to swing across the restaurant, landing where the civilians were.

"Spider-Man!" they cried.

Jungwon crouched down toward them, putting his hands on his knees.

"Listen," he began, his voice stern. "I am going to help you guys escape." Jungwon grimaced at their amazed gazes. "But I need you guys to listen to me carefully."

Jungwon's eyes glazed over the group of civilians. There were up to 15 of them. He didn't have time to carry each and every one of them out. The entrance was burning, and there weren't any other ways to get out. Jungwon wanted to conserve his time as much as possible. To prevent that bastard of a villain Baron von something-something from doing any more damage.

And now that he took a better look at these civilians, they looked tired and worn out. Their cheeks were covered in soot, sweaty faces from the fire that was surrounding them.

Jungwon's eyes darted around the restaurant. There had to be another exit. Then, his eyes fell upon the tall window that stretched from the ceiling down to the floor.

Bingo.

"Mama, it's too hot," Jungwon could hear a toddler babble. Other people seemed to join in on agreement, and yet, they could barely speak coherently. With sweat-stained shirts and cheeks, Jungwon cursed under his breath.

Damn it, the fire was physically weakening these people. Jungwon's plan was nothing short of easy: he was going to break the hell out that window and get these people to escape that way. Yet, the problem was, the windows were bound to shatter and create dangerous shards. Jungwon was going to instruct them to be careful, but judging from the way that these civilians flinched at even the slightest flutter of fire while barely even having the strength to stand up, there was no way that they could have the alertness and mental precision to actually avoid the shards.

Think, think! Jungwon squeezed his eyes shut. What should he do? In the palace that was his mind, Jungwon ran through every possibility. These fires were big. They looked much smaller outside, but now that he was in the restaurant itself, these tongues of fires were massive. Not only were these fires scalding, but the smoke was painful for these civilians.

Come to think of it, shouldn't every building in this city have a robust mechanism for when fire breaks out? And yet, the walls, floor, and remaining civilians in this restaurant were dry. Which means that the sprinklers haven't gone off yet.

This was why public establishments needed health inspections... Jungwon shook his head. He didn't have time to criticize the efficacy of his government.

At once, Jungwon shot webs at whatever hard object he could find— fallen plates, bundles of metal utensils, even pieces of debris— before slinging them into the ceiling, directly toward all of the sprinkler bulbs that dotted the tall ceiling.

I'm sorry about your ceiling, but you'll thank me later, Jungwon thought, before slinging thick wads of webs toward every vent.

As each sprinkler bulb shattered, flared streams of water bursted from the ceiling. And as each vent of this flaming restaurant were webbed over, Jungwon prayed to whichever god he could think of that his physics professor was right about buoyancy. Hopefully, if he was right, by webbing over the vents, new smoke would not be able to enter the room, and thus reduce the amount of smoke that the civilians were breathing in.

As cold water droplets pittered and pattered over Jungwon's suit, he watched as the remaining civilians cheered and cooled off under the sprinkler. And with his physics-accurate ventilation blockage, they'd now be much more compliant.

Jungwon latched onto a larger piece of debris and slung it at the closest and safest window.

"Okay," he began instructing, creating a temporary web to shield the civilians from the fractured pieces of the window. "

You—" he pointed at a man—"Take that kid. And you two—" he pointed at two teenagers—"Stick together."

Jungwon organized the people. "Be careful, and step around the shards!"

The civilians were already on it. Jungwon watched as they carried their young and old, fleeing as fast as they came, all of them murmuring a "thank you, Spider-Man," as they pushed out through the window.

And with that, Jungwon was left all alone. The fire had died down just a little bit, by virtue of the sprinklers. For safe measure, Jungwon configured a few webs to create a few fire barriers to slow those damned flames down.

Now where was that Baron von something-something?

Jungwon scanned the restaurant. He looked everywhere. In the foyer, at the entrance, in the kitchen, even under the tables.

But he couldn't find anyone.

Except, there was one place that he didn't check: the dark hallway in the corner of the restaurant.

Jungwon inched toward it, slowly. He took small, spider-like steps.

"Oh, would you just hurry it up already?!" a loud voice boomed through the air.

Emerging from the hallway was a tall man.

Baron von something-something.

"Look at you, Spider-Man!" he cried, mockingly batting his eyelashes and clasping his hands together. "So brave! So strong! You helped those poor, poor civilians escape!"

Jungwon narrowed his eyes. Who the hell was this maniac? Jungwon's fingers twitched.

"But it looks like you forgot one." A sinister smile spread across his face. "Oh come out, dear!"

There was nothing that could have possibly prepared Jungwon for what he saw next. His heart plummeted to his stomach, because from the dark hallway emerged you.

Your face was dazed, your eyes cloudy, and your movements so sluggish. As if you were unconscious, and your mind was being controlled.

"Dontcha think she's pretty?" the villain continued, eccentrically throwing his arms around you. He laughed. "They don't call me Baron von Fizzlebang for no reason! With a single gunshot from my fingers, I can take anyone under my control!"

Jungwon tuned everything out.

He felt a flood of emotions.

Fear.

You, the person that's been haunting him. You, who has been consuming his thoughts and life. There you were, in front of him, after all of this time. Even when you weren't really there, Jungwon couldn't bear to look you in the eyes.

And yet, it meant nothing. His fear meant absolutely nothing. Not when there was another emotion taking hold: anger.

So much anger, that his blood felt hot. Jungwon dug his fingernails into his gloved palms, enough that his knuckles were beginning to ache. How dare this villain take advantage of you? Your safety was in jeopardy. It made Jungwon's stomach boil with a rage that he couldn't comprehend, the way that you were quite literally not in control of your body. That in the time that Jungwon wasn't there, unspeakable things could have been done to you. To think that your own autonomy was torn from your hands, to think that your own dignity was desecrated in the name of some supervillain's sick power game— that conjured a feeling that Jungwon couldn't even describe. Disgust, horror, wrath; he felt it all.

Jungwon now looked upon the villain with eyes full of wrath.

Baron von Fizzlebang continued to rave on and on about how great he was, and how this was just all part of his master plan to subjugate this city. But it didn't mean anything.

To the entire world, Spider-Man was a hero. And in most ways, he was one. Jungwon saved people daily, he prevented the city around him from crumbling to the ground like it was easy. He was a man of the people, the beacon of hope for all city residents.

The symbol of law and order, the righteous hero of the city, Spider-Man.

And yet, as Jungwon's eyes couldn't bear to tear away from your dazed face, he felt his resolve slip away.

The obligation to protect others, defend freedom, and uphold justice, like a vessel from a dock, sailed away into the horizon, into the unknown. Right now, Jungwon was not Spider-Man protecting a civilian. He was not the Spider-Man that had no other duty than to ensure the safety of his fellow citizens. He was not the Spider-Man whose every action reflected his moral purity.

No, Jungwon was a man that was so ashamed of his own fears, that he never even dared to speak of them. He was the man that pushed everyone away, frightened by what would happen if he continued to associate with them. And worst of all, Jungwon was the man that still continued to yearn you, longing for your touch one last time before he would consign his love to oblivion.

Which was why all Jungwon saw was red.

Maybe if he was actually listening to Baron von Fizzlebang's monologue he would have heard how his abilities worked, but Jungwon didn't care. He'll probably figure it out later when this lunatic gets thrown into jail.

Jungwon couldn't control his body, or his mind at that matter. All Jungwon could remember doing was shooting a web at the ceiling to gain a higher vantage point, before (with all of the maximum, inhuman speed that his body was capable of) swinging down to land a kick flat onto Baron von Fizzlebang's cheek, effectively knocking the man down to the floor.

Before the villain could even react, Jungwon couldn't stop himself; he pinned the villain down to the floor using all of his body weight, before he let nothing but his sheer anger reign. All of his pent up emotions— anger, fear, shame, guilt— spilled out. No longer was Jungwon the pure hero.

With his bare hands, he landed punches to Baron von Fizzlebang's abdomen. Over and over and over.

Spider-Man used spider webs and crafty tricks to defeat his enemies. But Jungwon? He used his bare hands. With gritted teeth, and blood boiling hotter than lava, Jungwon punched, and punched, and punched. Even when he could feel his knuckles beginning to bruise, he punched. He ignored every cry and groan of pain coming from the villain, for there was only one thing on his mind: your dignity.

Jungwon wouldn't have stopped, not even if his arm gave out (because he would just switch to his other arm), not even if this maniacal supervillain was out for good.

The only thing that pulled Jungwon into his blind rage was the sound of you collapsing to the ground, with a thump!

Instantly, Jungwon snapped out of his fury, his head whipping over to you. Seemingly, with Baron von Fizzlebang knocked out, you were released from his control.

Immediately, Jungwon rushed over to you, leaving Baron von Fizzlebang's unconscious body.

"[Name]!" he cried, scooping your limp body up into his arms. You no longer looked dazed, so at least Baron von Fizzlebang's control of you wore off for good. And yet, your expression looked exhausted. Your eyes were half-lidded, labored breaths and soft whimpering pushing from your lips. "[Name], can you hear me? Are you okay?—"

Overhead, Jungwon could hear helicopters and the shouting of police officers and firemen from outside. They must have figured that Jungwon defeated Baron von Fizzlebang, and now they were sending re-enforcements. But all of Jungwon's focus was still on you.

"Spider-Man...?" you mumbled weakly, your voice hoarse and quivering. Now that he got a better look, your eyes were bloodshot, and your cheeks were tear-stained. Jungwon's heart clenched in his chest. He couldn't understand why he felt such an overwhelming urge to pull you into his embrace, to hold you close as if you would disappear. "Spider-Man, I—"

"Don't speak," Jungwon's voice came out as a whisper. And maybe it was now that Jungwon realized that his eyes were welled up with tears. It's been so long since he's been able to see you, and yet ironically, the only reason that he could was because your life was in danger. Jungwon let out a choked sob. "Don't say anything, [Name]."

"But I—I wanted to thank you—"

"Shhhh."

You looked so tired. He couldn't imagine how you felt, being under the control of a supervillain that has malicious intentions. But here you were, still taking it upon yourself to thank him. He couldn't even fathom what type of pain (emotional? physical? mental? you definitely weren't going to be okay after this, he knew you that well) you were going through.

Hug her, was the resounding thought that filled Jungwon's head. He almost cursed himself for thinking such a thing. After all, he wasn't yours anymore. But as he watched your worn face, he thought again. When you were still his, you always felt soothed when you were under intense stress if he hugged you tightly, the way that you always liked it.

Holding his breath, Jungwon gently lifted your head and chest, before pulling you into his arms. Almost instantly, you relaxed into his body, pushing your face into the crook of his neck. Like how you used to. You murmured something under your breath, but Jungwon was too distracted by the tears that were now definitely streaming down his face. He hadn't felt your touch in so long. He's been dreaming of getting to hold you one last time for months now.

Your eyelids began to fall, your head yielding to his shoulder, which was a tell-tale sign that you've fallen unconscious.

In the restaurant of ruin and rubble, Jungwon sat there on the debris-ridden floor, with you in his arms. Before he finally decided to get back up and take the two of you out of this place, he gave you one more tight squeeze.

"I love you," he whispered into your ear. And maybe it was wishful thinking, but he hoped that somewhere in dreamland, you heard him.

Jungwon stared out of his apartment window. It's been a few days since the Baron von Fizzlebang-Bisco's Palace incident. Baron von Fizzlebang was taken into police custody and his trial awaited him. Meanwhile, the city was still cleaning up the aftermath, with an entire block of the city being taped off.

But the city wasn't the only thing that had to be repaired.

Namely, Jungwon hadn't recovered yet. His fists still had red-purple marks on them. Even with his superhuman regenerative abilities, he had pushed himself to the extreme when he was beating up Baron von Fizzlebang the other day. But that wasn't the issue.

Ever since that day, Jungwon hadn't stopped thinking about you. Well, to be sure, he never stopped thinking about you, but he was thinking about you extra now.

He wondered how you were doing. You were a strong girl. You could withstand pretty much everything, because it was in your nature. But after an incident like this one, he was sure that you were going through a lot.

Jungwon felt selfish. He wanted to check up on you. He wanted to ask one of his friends to ask your friends how you were doing, or maybe go to your apartment as Spider-Man to check up on you himself.

But that's a purely selfish desire.

Jungwon couldn't do that to you. He broke up with you for a reason: to protect you. He'd never want to do anything to put you in danger, and by even opening an avenue of communication between him (in both his hero and civilian form) and you was dangerous in and of itself.

It scared him so deeply, the thought of losing you. But still, Jungwon wanted to be selfish. He wanted to love you greedily, to have you all to himself.

He looked out his window again, then he looked down at his wrists: the black spider-like veins looked darker today. Maybe in another lifetime, because in this lifetime, he had a duty as Spider-Man.

Speaking of which, there were few actual benefits of being Spider-Man. One of them was that Jungwon got to directly impact other people's lives. Which was why every week, the municipal government would send him all of the fan-mail that civilians had for him.

Jungwon shook the thought of you away, pushing it to the back of his mind as he. grabbed his keys, slipped on some slippers, and ventured down to his apartment complex's mailroom.

As always, his mailbox was filled to the brim with mail. From letters to postcards to care packages, Jungwon looked like a madman as he struggled to carry all of his fan=mail back up to his apartment. It sucked that he couldn't use his spider abilities to help him in broad daylight.

In fact, there was so much mail that as Jungwon traversed the hallway back to his apartment, stumbling over himself, one stray letter fell from the stack of letters that he had atop all of the packages.

He cursed under his breath, rolling his eyes. He watched as that one stray letter seemingly flew off of the stack, gracefully floating in the air for a few seconds before landing before his feet.

Jungwon huffed again. He quickly made his way back to his apartment, set down all of his fan-mail, before running back out into the hallway to pick up that pesky envelope that decided to fly away.

But as Jungwon marched down that hallway, crouching down to pick up the letter that had fallen out of his grasp, his eyes fell upon that name on that envelope.

It was your name. Jungwon snatched it up.

You wrote him fan-mail. Jungwon couldn't help but smile.

It has been about two weeks since the incident, and frankly, you're only halfway over it. You could tell that you were getting better compared to how you were in the immediate aftermath. But you still couldn't sleep at night, and you needed lots of mental preparation to go anywhere outside.

But today, you decided that you were going to put on a brave face, and stand up against your fears.

Pushing what fears you had to the back of your mind, you stared at the ceiling of your bedroom. It was late into the morning, and yet, you were wearing makeup.

Wonyoung (that smart girl, always with tricks up her sleeve), feeling apologetic about what had happened at that disaster of a date last week, begged to take you out on a girl's date today. After being cooped up in your room everyday for the past few days, you couldn't say no to her offer.

You felt a little nervous, though. The last time you went out, you got taken control of by that supervillain. But Wonyoung had been there for you the entire way, talking you through it every night. You trusted her, and you appreciated how she didn't treat you like a victim; Wonyoung wasn't babying your every step, but instead just treating you like a normal person.

And plus, it was summer. You wanted to have fun and to live your young adult life. Your eyes fluttered over to your window. Streams of yellow sunlight peeked through. Today was too beautiful. You could remember Wonyoung's excited voice over the phone a few nights ago.

"We should go take pictures!" she has squealed over the phone. "You just look toooooo pretty and we need to post something on your Instagram— to show all the guys what they're missing out on!"

You giggled. You still couldn't get used to being treated like you were single. There were indeed a few cool freedoms that came with being single. But in your mind, you still belonged to someone.

You looked at your phone. Wonyoung talked about posting pictures to make guys feel like bums for not getting on their knees and worshipping you (her words, not yours!). But when you thought about posting pictures, all you thought about was whether or not Jungwon would see them.

You squeezed your eyes shut. You needed to stop thinking about him. It wasn't healthy. But you still wondered if he thought about you, the same way you thought about him. You sat up from your bed, before you glanced into the mirror near the foot of your bed.

You hoped that he thought about you, too.

Ding dong! Oh! A ring from the front door! It must be Wonyoung! You happily promenaded to your apartment door, excited to greet your best friend with a big hug, and—

"J-Jungwon?!"

Instead of seeing your pink-wearing scheming best friend, you're greeted with your ex-boyfriend. However, for some reason, he looked more surprised than you!

"[N-Name]?!" he spluttered, his cat-like eyes as wide as saucers with his jaw falling open.

The two of you stare at each other like that for what felt like an eternity.

Your eyes fell over his features. His hair had grown a little bit longer since the last time you saw him (granted, that was half a year ago). His face looked slimmer, like he had lost weight. As you glazed over his figure, he had a backpack on his shoulders as always, but you eyed the way his biceps looked. He looked like he had put on more muscle, and before you could start ogling at him, you stopped yourself.

This was the guy that broke your heart. This was the guy that left you with no words. And now he was at your door?

"What the fuck do you want?" you spat at him, crossing your arms over your chest. Your brows crashed together, your expression turning sour. When he didn't respond, because you could tell by his expression that he was too busy checking you out, you began to close the door in his face.

"W-Wait!" he put his hands in front of him, flailing them panicked. You shot him a questioning look. "I think— I think I'm at the wrong apartment..."

You scoffed. "Oh, bullshit. What do you actually want?"

"I-I promise that I'm serious," Jungwon breathed out, and for a second you felt the walls you built for yourself threatening to crash down. He looked like a sad cat. Frantically, he shoved his hands into his pockets, searching for his phone that was squashed somewhere in them. When he finally found his phone, he fumbled with it, before showing you his screen. "I'm tutoring... a kid on your floor, I think."

You took a good look at his phone screen, and he was telling the truth.

You sighed, pinching your nose-bridge.

"Do you..." he began, his eyes refusing to look at yours. "Do you know how to get to room 1214?"

You let out another sigh, this time louder. Jungwon stumbled, stammering to explain himself again, but you put a hand up, effectively silencing him.

"Keep going down the hallway, make a left turn, and you'll find room 1214 on your right," you said simply.

"Thank you," Jungwon said, as he nodded slowly, and you hummed.

Another long moment of silence engulfed the two of you. The tension in the air was so thick that you swore you could cut it with a butter knife. You watched the way Jungwon's fingers fidgeted, a habit that he's never lost. He did this whenever he felt nervous or shy. It was a habit that you had grown to be fond of. You thought it was sweet that he was so fidgety. You tore your eyes away from him.

Was this the guy that wordlessly broke your heart?

"I'm gonna—" Jungwon started, breaking the silence. "I'm gonna go now."

He locked eyes with you, but just as he tried to break eye contact, you sent him a warning look. He didn't look away.

"Okay," you said simply. "Me too."

"Yeah."

And yet, the two of you still stood there, staring at each other. You've spent so many nights crying over him. You've never felt so much pain in your life before. There was so much anger and resentment that you had built up for him. There were a million words that you wanted to say to him, to tell him how much he hurt you.

But right now, you couldn't think of anything.

"Take care," you said.

"You too."

And with that, you slowly closed your door on him, while he slowly walked away from your door. But you swore that he kept looking back at you.

The moment that your front door clicked shut, you pressed your back up against it, before sliding down and holding your knees to your chest. You couldn't get over him when he clearly still wasn't over you. Why was he playing with you like this? Why did it have to be you, and more importantly, why did it have to be him?

Surely in time, Wonyoung showed up, and the two of you went on your little girl's day.

You huffed as you stumbled through your apartment doorway, struggling to take off your shoes amidst all of the shopping bags hanging on your arm. That Wonyoung, so eager to treat you to a nice day out. She bought you everything that you remotely showed interest in.

The moment that you arrived home, you shed all of your outdoor clothes, retreating to the comfort that was your bedroom. By now, it was dark out, and despite having a long and fun day with Wonyoung, you didn't feel tired. Unlike most days like this one that would follow a logical sequence, you still felt restless, as if your day had not been complete.

You were plagued with a weird gnawing feeling inside you. This happened a lot lately, probably just your anxiety from the past few weeks' incident.

And when you finally realized that laying in bed for hours scrolling on your phone was barely productive for an adult like you, you sighed, before sitting up from your bed.

Maybe you should write to him.

Ever since the incident at Bisco's Palace, you've found yourself especially restless. It's hard to tell if you're just paranoid, but on nights like this, you found yourself doing the same thing: writing to Spider-Man.

You used to be indifferent to the buzz around the masked hero, but now you understood it. You didn't know the reason why, but you found yourself finding comfort in simply writing to Spider-Man. It's simple things like thanking him for his service, and telling him about your day.

You glanced at the disorderly pile on your desk, of folded letters and envelopes. You never sent your letters. You've only ever sent him one letter.

The rest of your letters, which were structured more like long streams of consciousness vomited on a piece of paper, were left unsent.

You sighed. It wasn't like Spider-Man was really going to read your letters. You were just writing your thoughts out. You sat at your desk, scrolling through your Spotify Playlists to first choose the perfect moody music to get you writing. Your finger scrolled around your screen, glazing over the icons for each of your playlists.

You stopped when you saw a familiar, yet long-forgotten one.

It was a playlist that was created an entire year ago, with a simple title: love. Its icon was none other than a picture of you and Jungwon, with your cheeks smooshed up against each other. Smiling. In love.

Your finger hovered over its icon for a few moments. You haven't listened to this playlist in months. It's practically been collecting cobwebs in your Spotify account. If you listened to it now, you'd probably lose your mind. And yet you felt drawn to it.

You closed your eyes, rubbing your temples. In times in stress, we as humans seek familiarity. It's not crazy for you, who just experienced something traumatizing, to seek the solace of an old playlist reminiscent of a happier time. Right?

Play, you clicked.

Immediately, songs that you haven't heard in a long time filled your ears, the familiar tunes and melodies that you've grown to love hanging in the air.

You grabbed a pen, and began jotting down your thoughts.

'Dear Spider-Man,' you started off your letter. Below your desk, your knees bounced to the rhythm of each song— each song chosen by Jungwon, reminding you of all of his laughs and soft kisses as you and him shared earbuds on the city's underground subway.

As the black ink of your pen smudged against the side of your palm, you hummed along to the music that emitted from your phone. For a second, you could pretend that it was last summer, when you still had a boy to call yours.

You bit your lip, staring at the words scribbled on the paper.

It wasn't like Spider-Man would ever read these letters. He was a hypothetical addressee in your letters, so to speak. You took a deep breath.

'I miss him,' you wrote next, wincing as you gazed at your handwriting. How embarrassing, that you're confiding in the hypothetical version of a superhero in your head about your boy troubles. Whatever. You continued, 'I don't think I'll be able to move on from him, not any time soon.'

You stared at your words again. Oh, isn't this just pathetic?

You groaned, exasperated. You seriously just needed to get a life, or something. Just as you were about to throw yourself into your bed and scream into your pillows, leaving an unfinished letter open on your desk—

Crash!

You whipped your head toward the source of the sound: your bedroom balcony.

For a moment, your shoulders tensed. The last time a loud sound filled your ears, you got your mind controlled. And plus, it wasn't safe being a woman that lived alone, especially in a city notorious for its crime.

With trembling eyes, you stared out your glass balcony doors. It was completely dark out, save for the streams of light staining your balcony from your room. There's loud sounds all the time, but this time, you were 100% certain that the sound was on your balcony.

Should you go check it out? Or should you just turn off all your lights and jump into bed?

But before you could scare yourself even more, a strong figure slowly rose from the darkness. Hunched over, as if he was in pain, emerged a familiar red and blue hero.

"S-Spider-Man?!" you gaped to yourself. Speak of the devil, and he shall appear.

And despite the darkness, you and him seem to lock eyes. Spider-Man, although it was him that was intruding on your property, seemed even more surprised by your presence, physically jolting away as if he was really that taken aback by you. And unfortunately for him, just as he was about to scurry away, you bursted through your balcony doors.

"Spider-Man!" you called out, as the cool night air kissed your face. You could feel goosebumps rise on your skin, as your thin pajamas did you no justice against the night coolness.

Although he was masked, you swore that Spider-Man was looking at you like you were some kind of freak of nature. But you ignored his gaze, noticing the way his clothed thigh had a massive dark-red splotch on it.

"I-Is that blood?" you peeped, pointing to his thigh. That would explain why Spider-Man had such an unceremonious crash landing into your apartment balcony; he was injured. You looked back up at the hero's masked face. "Spider-Man, are you okay—"

"I-I'm fine!" Spider-Man blurted, his voice shaky and almost uncertain. The hero staggered, stumbling to his feet. You could tell that he was in pain, but was trying to hide it. "I'm okay."

You watched as Spider-Man limped, quietly wincing in pain to the railing of your balcony, gripping it tightly to support himself.

He looked over his shoulder. Even when his face wasn't visible, it was like he was sheepish. Timid, even.

"I'm...." Spider-Man began. You could see his toned back tense. "I'm sorry."

You blinked. "For what?"

The hero hesitated. Why was Spider-Man being so... shy? And unassuming? Wasn't he this grand and powerful hero?

"For...." he drew out his syllables, as if he was grasping for thoughts in his head. "For abruptly— um— crashing. Into... your apartment."

A curve formed on your lips. "No, no. no!" you waved your hands in front of yourself. "Don't worry at all!"

You glanced at the wound on his thigh. Blood ran down his thigh, seeping through his costume. "Are you sure you're—"

Spider-Man interrupted you with a loud groan of pain, as he attempted to take a step forward. He crumbled to his knees, choked cries of pain falling from his lips.

The hero cursed under his breath, muttering about some "bastard" stabbing him.

You rushed to his side, your arms wrapping around his torso to pull him back to his feet. Despite being in pain from his injury, he seemed even more baffled by your touch, flinching away.

"S-Sorry," he apologized again.

"It's okay," you shot him a small smile. "Why don't you come inside?"

Jungwon wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole.

After his tutoring session with one of your neighbors, Jungwon went home and decided to take a long nap. After all, running into you, his ex, was definitely not something that he intended to do. He needed a nap to clear his mind.

Except, that was not what Jungwon got. Instead, he got another dream of you dying. Combined with seeing you getting controlled by that supervillain, Jungwon was not in the right headspace when he awoke.

Once again, with goosebumps littering his arms, cold sweat rolling down his temples, Jungwon's first instinct, as always, was to jump out of that damn window and take a lap around the city. By the time he finished a lap, it was already dark, and yet neither his mind nor body had the sharp precision that he needed to fight criminals.

Which was why when fighting a group of bandits, Jungwon dishonorably got stabbed in the thigh (though, of course, he kicked their asses to the moon).

And after he tried to swing away via his webs, his painful wound in the thigh made him miscalculate and web, and he tumbled down from the sky.

And that's how Jungwon found himself sitting on your bed.

This time, instead of breaking up with you, he was clad in his spandex suit, waiting for you as you rummaged through your bathroom cabinet.

Jungwon looked around your room. Everything was the same.

You had the same plushies on your bed, with the scent of your perfume still strong in the air. Your desk is still cluttered with the same papers and pens.

Everything, and really everything, was the same. Like one of those unfortunate true-crime cases, where someone dies under mysterious circumstances, and yet their home is completely untouched, with no signs of disturbance. As if nothing had changed at all, save for the absence of life.

It was a strange stillness, and yet, Jungwon shook his head. He was in no position to judge. Though, Jungwon's eyes did catch something interesting.On your desk lay a messy stack of envelopes and papers, some crumpled up and others pristinely folded. Like letters.

And maybe Jungwon was paranoid, or heartbroken, but his mind wandered to the worst places. Were you seeing another guy? Maybe the guy that you went on that date with. Was that why you were probably writing love notes?

Have you moved on that quickly? Was it that easy to forget him? Jungwon's heart ached, and against his better judgement, he rose to his feet, ignoring the throbbing pain in his thigh. He creeped up to your desk, limping with each step. With each inch closer, he could feel the world shattering around him.

And when he realized that there was an unfinished letter already in the works, freely laying on your desk, his heart dropped.

Jungwon gazed at the stack of letters, then back at the half-written letter played on your desk. But his eyes caught the heading of the letter: 'Dear Spider-Man.'

And it was now that Jungwon realized another crucial detail: your phone, also laying on your desk, was playing music. Playing music from the playlist that you and him made together.

"Spider-Man?"

Jungwon whipped his head around as your voice pulled him out of thought. And before he could even question why you would be writing to him of all people, you were already throwing all of your bandages onto your bed, rushing profusely to him as you cried, "Don't look at those!"

You tugged on Jungwon's arm, pulling him and gently pushing him onto your bed. Your bottom lip jutted out into a small pout, your face painted with an embarrassed expression.

"You were not supposed to see that," you murmured with your brows knitted together, standing in front of the now sitting hero. When Jungwon didn't respond, you continued, your voice breathy. "Just— Just forget you saw anything."

Jungwon nodded slowly. Under the mask, he glanced back to your desk. Were all of those letters addressed to him? As in, Spider-Man? And why were you still listening to that playlist?

"It's okay," he said reassuringly, even though he was extremely uncertain himself. "I didn't see anything."

You visibly relaxed, letting out a sigh. "I-It's just embarrassing."

Your eyes fluttered up to Jungwon's masked face. You opened your mouth to speak, but Jungwon could tell by the way your lips trembled ever-so-slightly and your brows crashed together that you felt uncomfortable.

You made that face when you felt like you needed to talk. Jungwon swiped his tongue over his bottom lip, his arms opening up and his palms opening. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"But—"

Jungwon hoped that you could see his earnest smile from behind his mask. "I mean it. Don't worry about it."

Your eyes narrowed, as if you were studying his face. You sighed again. "Okay, sorry."

A silence engulfed the two of you, as you reached for the bandages and first-aid supplies that you had so abruptly thrown onto your bed earlier, completely unaware of the way Jungwon watched you so intently. He hadn't been so close to you in so long. With every flicker of your eyes and twitch of your face, Jungwon admired you closely.

What he would do to reach out and cup your cheek again, to feel your living and breathing self against his hands. To verify that you hadn't died. To confirm that you were safe and sound, alive and well.

"Can I—" you started, breaking the silence— "Can I help with your wound?"

Jungwon blinked. He had high levels of regeneration, so in a few hours, the wound on his thigh would be completely gone. It would be better to not waste both of your time.

But how you looked at him with wide, innocuous eyes, filled with worry and your characteristic kindness, Jungwon's greed clouded his mind.

"I would love that," Jungwon replied, his voice a near whisper.

How shameful of him, to sit here and selfishly bask in your presence as if he hadn't broken your heart.

You smiled, taking your rubbing alcohol and coming to Jungwon's side. Quickly, you started at your ministrations. Jungwon hissed at the burning sensation of the rubbing alcohol on his open wound (he had forgotten what it felt like), whispering apologies with each squeak of pain that fell from his lips. You hummed to yourself, your delicate face so focused.

"You know, Spider-Man," you began as you continued treating his wound, your voice soft, "I always wonder if you remember me."

Jungwon scoffed, his lips moving faster than his brain. Breathy, but eager, words came out, in a tone that Jungwon had always reserved for you. "How could I ever forget you, [Name]?"

You let out a peep, your face slowly morphing into a flustered expression. "W-What are you talking about?"

Shit. "I-I mean—"

Jungwon's ears burned, the apples of his cheeks prickling with warmth. This is not what he meant to do! Jungwon cleared his throat, sucking in a sharp breath to recompose himself.

"W-What I meant was that I—" Jungwon narrowed his eyes, thinking of an explanation— "I could never forget what happened at Bisco's."

You blinked at him a few times, your face breaking out into a frown. "Oh."

Jungwon sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. Did that make you upset?

"I always remember the people that I save," he continued, observing your facial expressions carefully. "I could never forget the impact I made on others, and that includes you, [Name]."

You shook your head understanding, but Jungwon could still see the frown on your face. "You're right," you said. Your eyes met with his. "You really have made an impact on me, Spider-Man."

You reached for the bandages, beginning to slowly wrap them around his wounded thigh.

"You know..." you started slowly. A bashful curve formed on your lips, nearly forming one of those cute grins that you always did whenever you felt particularly happy or appreciative. "I think about you quite a bit."

Jungwon cocked a brow.

"The truth is," you continued, the bashful expression on your face growing, "I write letters to you whenever I feel like shit."

"Why?" Jungwon blurted. He knew he probably shouldn't ask. It would make him spiral even harder, but his curiosity got the better of him.

You let out a chuckle, closing your eyes and shaking your head in embarrassment. "Because you saved me. And because you're a pretty universal symbol of strength and reliability."

You looked up at him again, flexing your arms with a goofy grin. "You're this city's number one defender. I write to you because I feel like even if I can't send you anything, I could rely on you, y'know?"

"Yeah," Jungwon breathed. He hadn't seen you smile like that in a while, and your reasoning was un-surprisingly sweet. Because you were that type of person. He couldn't help the way his lips pulled up into a small smile. "That makes sense."

"How about you, Spider-Man?" you asked.

"What about me?"

"What do you do when you feel like shit?" you cocked your head, blinking owlishly. "You must go through a lot as a hero. What makes you feel like you should keep going?"

You, he thought. You were what made him want to keep being a good person. All his deep fears of failure and imperfection were intrinsically rooted in his desires to make himself worthy for you. It was all you.

"You," Jungwon said. But he couldn't have you. "... And other people that I've saved. Knowing that I have helped others is enough to keep me going."

You nodded your head, understanding, your lips forming an 'oh' shape. You continued wrapping his thigh with bandages. "Do you ever check up on the people that you save?"

"I wish I could," Jungwon responded. "I would love to check up on everyone."

"So why don't you?"

You were always so curious. Jungwon pursed his lips. "Because there's too many people that I've saved. I don't know all of them by name. I don't know how to find them."

You hummed. You finished wrapping Jungwon's leg with bandages, using scissors to cut the cloth bandages and securing them. You patted your hands off, sending the hero another smile. "Aaaand you're all done."

"Thank you," Jungwon held a fixed gaze on you again. It took all of his self-control to not throw his arms around you and embrace you. "I don't know how I can repay you—"

You waved your hands in front of you profusely. "No, no! I'm repaying you for saving me—"

Jungwon shook his head. "If it wasn't for your balcony, I would have probably died."

You chewed on your bottom lip, contemplating, before a lightbulb seemingly popped above your head. You swiftly took Jungwon's hands, squeezing them tightly.

"Come visit me."

Jungwon spluttered. "W-What?"

"You said that you didn't know how to repay me, and that you didn't check up on people you saved because you didn't know how to find them," you gushed eagerly. "You found me. You can repay me by visiting me ever so often."

"But— But why?"

You shrugged. "It gets lonely sometimes," was all you said, but your wide and glassy eyes staring up at him so pleadingly made it hard to say no. "Please?"

"I'll try."

You didn't catch it at first. "What?"

"I'll try," Jungwon murmured. "To come back. If I can."

You chuckled. "Good enough for me."

Jungwon wasn't sure if he made a promise that he could keep.

"Good morning! Welcome to Maeum's Coffee Shop, what can I get you— Damn it, [Name], did you have a rough night again?"

You winced at Wonyoung's words. Wonyoung worked at a local coffee shop, and as a good friend, you always came in to support her.

It's been a few days since you found Spider-Man on your balcony, and you would be lying if you said that you weren't excited. You stayed up a few nights waiting for Spider-Man to crash-land on you again. It wasn't anything romantic for sure, you were just interested in talking to him. The truth was, you stayed up most nights anyway. You stayed up most nights thinking about everything, unable to truly rest. If you were going to be restless, you might as well think about your new friend Spider-Man.

"The usual," you murmured to your friend, who hummed understandingly, despite you completely ignoring her question. You rubbed your eyes. "I'm so tired, Wonyoung."

Wonyoung's bright eyes ran over your figure: you were wearing sweats with a hoodie draped over your shoulders, as if you just woke up. She chuckled at you, before ringing you up. "We could go to the beach after my shift, if you want."

You groaned as you swiped your card. You didn't feel like doing anything, but when it was Wonyoung, it was hard to say no. "Fine."

You grinned lazily as she cheered, before you took a seat in the coffee shop, slumping over yourself as you waited for your coffee. You could hear some light jazz playing, but especially the laughter of Wonyoung as she charmed customers, and most importantly, the flagrant whispers of her coworkers.

There was always one downside of visiting Wonyoung while she worked: her coworkers, Sunghoon, Sunoo, and Jake, who just so happened to be your ex-boyfriend's best friends. And now as you tried to fight your tiredness, all you could hear now was their whispers. Their frantic whispers.

If you weren't literally about to fall asleep, pulling your hood over your head, you would have shot them a glare, maybe even text Wonyoung to tell them to shut up.

"....that's definitely his..." you could hear Jake whisper-yell.

"...ngwon's gonna blow his shit..... Hurry, call him!"

"—Shit, he's on his way already!"

Ding! The doorbell of the coffee shop rang, making everyone in the shop (including yourself) turn their heads. And lo and behold, standing at the doorway was none other than your ex-boyfriend.

You couldn't even bring yourself to care. You could hear his friends practically shouting in the back while your phone pinged a billion messages from Wonyoung, but you just continued to push your face into your arms, taking comfort in the hoodie that you had thrown on this morning.

You hoped that Jungwon didn't notice that you were here. Maybe that would be better for your mental stability.

"[N-Name]?" Sunoo's shaky voice called out from the counter, where Sunoo, Sunghoon, and Jake liked to hang around. Your drink was ready. Finally.

Lifting yourself off of the cafe table, you trudged over to the counter, only a few feet away from the cash register. Where Jungwon was standing, getting ready to order. Which meant that he 100% saw you, and now he 100% knows that you're here.

Damn it. You really couldn't take seeing his face today. You fiddled with your hood, pulling it closer to you to hide your face.

"Here's your.... drink," Sunoo said, slowly and awkwardly, as if you were some alien. You rolled your eyes, fighting the horrible feeling of Jungwon's eyes boring into the back of your head, as you took your coffee from the counter.

As you read over the labeling and Sharpie'd name on your cup, you verified that this drink was indeed yours. And just as you were about to turn on your heel and get the fuck out of there (away from Jungwon, who was now 100000% staring at you), Jake just had to open his mouth.

"I-Isn't that Jungwon's hoodie?" Jake blurted, throwing an accusatory finger at the hoodie draped over your shoulders.

You didn't know what came first: Wonyoung's gasp from the cash register, you choking on your spit, or Jungwon spluttering from where he was. Sunoo and Sunghoon whacked Jake in the head, but the damage was already done.

Once again, for no apparent reason, you and Jungwon found each other. You couldn't fight the urge to turn over your shoulder and spot Jungwon, who was staring at you with big, shivering eyes, his ears red and his lips agape. Your heart skipped a beat in your chest. Your emotions were so erratic. Sometimes when you saw pictures of Jungwon you felt nothing, but now that he was in front of you, face to face, you wanted to scream and cry.

You looked down at the hoodie that enveloped you. Now that Jake mentioned it, yes, this hoodie was Jungwon's. In fact, you could remember how you acquired such a thing. One time, it was raining so Jungwon let you wear his hoodie, and you never gave it back. What once belonged to Jungwon was now yours, and you've made it such a normal part of your life that you forgot that it had ever been his.

This hoodie, having lived in your closet for months and months, smelled like your own laundry detergent. And as you brusquely walked past Jungwon, blinking back the tears that you hadn't even noticed were collecting in your eyes, you wished for something abnormal: you wished that this hoodie still smelled like Jungwon, even after all this time.

So that you could have something to remember him by.

Jungwon sucked in a sharp breath. Temptation was a work of sin, and unfortunately, it was not his fault that the devil was stronger than a man.

There were many reasons that Jungwon was so committed to keeping a distance from you. He wanted to respect your space, and he was dedicated to protecting you. But even more, there was an intimacy that was never speaking to you again. In his last act of love for you, Jungwon would grant you the peace that his presence could never give you. He hoped that his absence spoke of the words that he could never have said. And yet, as Jungwon sat on the ledge of some building, he watched the cars pass wistfully a few hundred meters below his feet.

In the daytime, he felt like he could deal with the guilt and loneliness. But at night, it was nearly impossible. It's been another week since Jungwon had uneventfully landed on your balcony, and you had requested that he, as Spider-Man, visit you.

And frankly, Jungwon wasn't going to visit you. Even if he promised you, he was so sure that he couldn't keep it. After all, he had a commitment. But when the summer air is so warm yet so unforgiving, sending hot beads of sweat running down Jungwon's face, the frustration and guilt festered, devouring Jungwon from the inside out. That was how Jungwon found himself only a few buildings away from your apartment. He teetered on the ledge. Half of him wanted so desperately to just swing onto your balcony again, to just see you again. But the other half of him couldn't stand putting you in harm's way any longer.

So imagine Jungwon's shame as he picked up his feet and swung by your apartment. All he wanted to do was check on you. He had good eyes, so hopefully he'd be able to catch a glimpse of you through your windows as he briefly came by. And yet, instead of finding you safe and sound through your bedroom window, what Jungwon saw from a distance was you, on your balcony, looking sad. Wistful, even. You had your arms over the railings, and even when he was afar, Jungwon could recognize any of your expressions, and this one, he could tell that you were crying.

His body moved faster than his mind, with zero hesitation, zooming right onto your balcony. Jungwon's mind was still racing, questions blurring through his mind, hesitating about what he should do. Why were you crying? Was it someone that made you feel this way? But his body knew his intentions better. His body knew the sorts of yearning that he had no chance of resisting. And just as swift as he came, Jungwon found himself breathing heavily as he landed back on the railing of your balcony.

"S-Spider-man?!" you sniffled. Under the dark sky, he could see the way your eyes lined with tears, your tearful eyes puffy and bloodshot. You quickly hid your face in your sleeve, turning your face away from him. "Wh—What are you doing here?"

"I..." Jungwon's mouth ran dry. He didn't have an answer for you. Seeing you like this made him feel on-edge, nervous even. He didn't know why he was here with you. He didn't know why his body forced him to keep crawling back to you. He didn't want to be here, it went against all instinct. He stared at the back of your head. "I'm— Um—"

You let out a loud, high-pitched sob, before you threw your arms around Jungwon's shoulders, burying yourself into his chest. Jungwon stiffened under your touch. It felt weird. He hadn't been close to really anyone at all, at least not physically. If it wasn't you that he was physically intimate with, he'd rather not have it at all. But even when it was you, intimacy felt so foreign, so lost. But as your choked sobs rung through the air, your arms holding onto him like he'd save you, Jungwon relaxed. Mixed in with the smell of the night air, you smelled like your usual peachy perfume. Your touch, just like he had remembered it, was soft. Kind.

Jungwon brought a hesitant hand up to the small of your back, in an attempt to quell your distress. Yet, he felt such a weird warmth as you clung onto him.

"I h—hate him, Spider-Man!" you cried, your hand gripping his forearm. "I hate him— so much."

And maybe if Jungwon was stronger than he was now, he would have just listened to you silently without any questions, patting your back and lending you a shoulder to cry on. But he wasn't.

"Who?" he breathed into your ear, his brows knitted together. That horrible gnawing feeling filled his stomach once again. He didn't want to know what your answer was, but that sickening curiosity was burning from the inside out. "Who do you hate?—Did you— Did you get hurt?"

You shook your head, looking up at the hero. The moonlight reflected off your eyes. You looked so pretty, even when you were crying. Jungwon's heart ached at the sight of your pained face. My baby, he thought. After all this time, you could commit all the grievances in the world, and if you just looked at him with your big, teary eyes, he would acquit you of all your crimes.

You tugged on his arm, your glossy eyes staring at him like he was some god, pulling him back into your room. And against all resolutions that Jungwon tried to make to himself, he followed you in anyway.

As your balcony door clicked shut, Jungwon watched as you pulled him onto your bed with you, pulling him as close as you could as you continued to cry, murmuring about how much you hated "him."

This time, Jungwon just let his eyes fall shut. He hadn't laid down in your bed in a while, and frankly, he thought your bed was more comfortable than his. With you so close to him, and his arms wrapped around you, for a split second, it felt like he was back together with you. It felt like another one of those nights where you'd cry into his arms about how stressed you were, and all he could offer up was his presence to console you.

"I know, I know," he gently whispered into your ears. You always loved it when he reassured you like that. He rubbed slow circles on your back, continuing to whisper soft reassurances into your ear, even if he knew that you couldn't hear him. "I know, love."

"I c-cant get over him," you lamented. At this point, Jungwon's chest was wet. "I don't know why I c-can't. I h-hate him so much."

Jungwon gulped as his gut twisted.

"Tell me," he rasped. He knew what your words meant. He knew better than anyone that you were talking about him, that it was him that you hated. But he needed to hear it from your lips first, to get real confirmation. Despite the weak feeling in his knees and the pang in his chest, he wanted to listen to you.

After all, he'd do anything to make you feel better, even if you didn't know it was him. And he knew how to do that exactly.

You lifted your head to look at him in the eyes, shaking your head profusely. "But i-it's pa—pathetic," you stammered, but when you could feel Jungwon's unwavering gaze on you, you gave in. Resting your cheek on the hero's shoulder, you spoke in a low, shaky voice. You told him everything— every thought and emotion that's been swirling your mind. You told him of how you still constantly thought about Jungwon, how you felt like in every crevice of your life he was there, how you've done everything you could to get over him with fruitless results. You cried and cried and cried. You detailed to him what types of restless nights you had, what kinds of thoughts swirled through your head whenever you thought about your ex.

"I miss him," you ended your tear-filled rant with. "I mi-miss him s-so much and I feel so—so d-dumb."

And if you weren't so caught up in your feelings, you would have noticed how the hero's body tensed with each word that fell from your lips.

A silence fell over you and Spider-Man, as you rested your cheek on his shoulder, letting your bated breaths calm down with each hiccup. You let your heart rate slow down, as your eyes— sore from crying— rested. Against you, the hero was so... still. He was definitely breathing, but it was slow and tranquil. If you listened hard enough, you could hear his heart beat; weirdly enough, it was erratic and loud.

That's what Jungwon's heartbeat sounds like when he's excited, you thought, before shaking your head and pushing that thought into the back of your mind. The mere thought of Jungwon made your stomach churn. You didn't want to even entertain that thought.

"Spider-Man...." you began in a soft voice, your finger coming up to poke his masked face. No response. "Spider-Man, are you asleep—"

Suddenly, Jungwon jolted up from the bed, his voice ripping through the air: "Boo!"

You let out a loud shriek, jumping away from him, surprised. You stared at him for a few moments, before Jungwon bursted out into giggles. On your bed, you watched as the red-and-blue masked hero who had just tried to startle you attempted to conceal his giggles, clamping a hand over his mouth.

"S-Sorry—" his voice was shaky, trying so goddamn hard not to laugh. Airy laughs escaped his lips, filling the air with something that felt all too familiar.

Despite having just cried for what seemed like forever, you slapped his chest, your lips pulling up into a wobbly smile. Spider-Man's laughter was contagious, and even as you continued to lightly punch him, you couldn't help but let giggles fall from your own mouth.

"Sh-Shut up!" you said between laughs. Having enough, you reached for a stray pillow and threw it at him. "You're so annoying!"

You couldn't remember the last time you laughed like this with someone. In fact, perhaps if you weren't so busy beating Spider-Man up like your life depended on it, you would have noticed the way your beloved hero was watching you closely. Jungwon knew exactly how to get you to loosen up; and in this case, it was to do something so stupid and dorky that you had no choice but to laugh.

"Ow! Ow!" Jungwon squirmed like a spider that had just gotten hit by bug spray. He let you win, as now he was pinned down on the bed, with you smothering him with your pillows. "White flag—Ack!"

Your laughter rang through the room. You weren't even that strong, but Jungwon did not dare to use his own strength on you. That wouldn't be fair.

That's right, he thought. Forget about me. Forget about the pain, forget about everything that I've done to you. Your eyes crinkled and your nose scrunched and your lips parted when you threw your head back and laughed. If he could preserve that laughter for the rest of his life, he would. Forget about me, baby.

"Jesus Christ, Spider-Man!" you snickered, as you held him down with a hand on his hard chest. "I thought you were stronger than this."

Jungwon's strong hand slid to wrap around your wrist. "You really wanna see strength?"

A weak yet sly grin spread across your face. You leaned down to him, so close that your noses touched. Almost purring,"Try me— Eek!"

That was all the confirmation he needed. In an instant, Jungwon flipped the two of you over, crashing into the soft plushness of your bed. This time, he was the one pinning you down. And while airy laughter fell from your lips, the surprise of Jungwon's outburst reducing you to giggles, Jungwon was distracted. You're just so pretty, so strikingly beautiful that he had no choice but to admire you.

And if Jungwon wasn't so distracted, he would have noticed the way that you stared at him owlishly, with a type of hunger and curiosity that was all too familiar. As if a lightbulb had switched on, your arms slithered up from under him to wrap around his neck. With glassy eyes and a girlish giggle, you gently pulled him toward your face.

Jungwon's body froze up as you plant a soft, tender kiss on his masked cheek, a spluttering sound coming from his mouth.

"Relax, silly," you rasped into his ear with a chuckle. Even with the mask, your fingers found their way to the crook between Jungwon's ear and jaw, delicately running your fingers over that spot and mindlessly caressing it— something that always made shivers roll down Jungwon's back. "You can save lives but you can't handle a girl kissing you?"

Jungwon's face felt hot. "Shut— Shut up!" That night, you eventually laughed yourself to sleep, and after tucking you in, Jungwon left with a bittersweet feeling in his chest. He hoped that he'd given you any type of emotional refuge, so that you would eventually forget the hurt and pain that he had caused you. 

To be a girl, after a long week of stress, unloading your worries and the like in a nice steamy bath— Oh, that is the best thing any person could experience.

You relished in the warm solitude of your bathtub. You hummed along to the quiet music you liked to play when you bathed, the peachy bubbles and scent of your soap filling your senses. You relaxed with an "ahh" into the water. Tonight was going to be perfect. After this bath, you were going to do your skincare routine and lather yourself with your new yummy lotion. Then you'd go make yourself a late night snack. Then maybe you'd spend the night reading some manga, or watching some shows, or anything you wanted frankly.

You had worries: finding an internship, employment, boy troubles. But this was no time to care about them. You let your eyelids gently fall shut... and maybe if you weren't careful, you might... just... drift... off...

"Eep!" You're startled back into reality by the sound of a distant crash! You glance around your bathroom, clutching yourself. It didn't sound nearby, so you had nothing to worry about. You sunk into the water again, letting your tense muscles relax into the warmth. Your tired eyes fell closed again. And maybe this time.... you'd be permitted the peace... to just... drift... off...

Crash! You jolted up, your eyes shooting open. This time, this crashing sound was much louder, and appeared to be much closer. Following that outburst was the sound of rustling and scrambling, which (in your already paranoid state) confirmed your fears that whatever the cause was, it was too close to you.

Emboldened, you stepped out of your bathtub, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around your body tightly, before slipping your shower slippers on.

And maybe you're dumb. Really dumb. But you peaked your head out your bathroom door, eyes glazing over the hallway between your bathroom and kitchen. Everything seemed fine. You crept out of the bathroom. Your entire apartment was quiet, maybe a little too quiet. Slowly, you made your way into your bedroom. It looked normal, not a single hair out of place. Nothing was wrong then.

Since you were already out of the bathroom, you should probably start dressing anyway. You loosened your grip around the towel, and just as the fabric fell from your chest—

"[N-Name]?!"

There had to be something psychological about the way bright red and blue were incredible at camouflaging, because you had not noticed the red and blue superhero perched at your window. And it seemed like he didn't notice you either, until now.

"Spider-Man?!" you cried. But it was too late. There you were, naked in all your glory and exposed entirely to the spider hero himself. You didn't know what was worse. The feeling of the cool air hitting your skin, sending goosebumps on your arms, or the feeling of Spider-Man practically ogling at you. It didn't seem to matter because the two of you stood like that: in silence, in complete and utter horror.

"I-I'm..." You've never seen Spider-Man more flustered, but if you weren't too busy trying to cover yourself up, scrambling for your fallen towel, you would have noticed the way the hero's hand shot up to clutch his face in embarrassment. A habit that you loved to see in your ex-boyfriend. "S... Sorr—"

"Get out!" you cried, clutching your towel so tightly as you began reaching for all of the pillows and plushes on your bed, hurling at the hero at full-force. Your face burned with embarrassment as you heaved. "Out! N-Now!"

Spider-Man simply stood there, stunned, which was weird considering that he should have a fast enough reaction time to stop you. Frustrated, you threw yourself on your bed, throwing the blanket over your naked body and pushing your face into the mattress, humiliated and flustered beyond belief.

"Get out!" you cried again, your eyes almost welling up with tears with how embarrassed you were. You felt so hot all over that you could probably melt. You hadn't felt this way— this flustered and embarrassed— in so long. You murmured, "What are you even doing here?!"

Finally breaking from his stupor, Spider-Man spluttered, "I-I just wanted to check up... on you."

You groaned from under the blanket, muffled, and that seemed to egg the hero on with a squeak. Words tumbling from his mouth like water, he squeals, "It seems like you're doing well! Youlookgoodasever—I mean— In all the years I've known you, you always look amazing— Like— Uhm— I— You're always—" he sucked in a deep breath, and you could hear how red his face was under the mask— "Beautiful."

There's a long silence, before Spider-Man nearly shouts, "Okay bye!"

And with that, he climbed out your balcony, and swung away. You stay where you are under the blanket all huddled up for a few moments, before you let out a giddy little chuckle. You flipped over to lay on your back, staring at the ceiling, before it hit you.

"Years?" you said aloud. Spider-Man said that you've been beautiful in all the "years" that he's known you.

You sat up. But you swore you only knew him for a few months.

Hm. Interesting.

Jungwon cursed under his breath. Fuck. He was in a pickle. After a few weeks in hiding, archvillain Baron von Fizzlebang was back for more, this time with more to show. It seemed like every time, he was getting progressively worse and worse. New gadgets, new costumes, new methods of entrancing people. First, Baron von Fizzlebang entranced a mob to rob a bank. Then, he controlled some elementary schoolers and tried to get them to walk into oncoming traffic (really evil of him). Most recently, the supervillain tried to possess the entire fire department and make them commit arson in an ironic turn of events. If it weren't for Jungwon's restless fighting, the entire city might have gone up in flames already.

Simultaneously, against his own better judgement, yet in alignment with his heart, Jungwon found himself intentionally coming to see you more. It's shameful that despite cutting you out of his life he still tried to keep you at an arm's reach. But oh, Jungwon was so greedy. Each time your face lit up when he appeared on your balcony left him eager for more. Every smile and little touch had him hungry. Hungry for more of you, hungry to keep you for himself, hungry to hide you from the world and selfishly have you all to himself. And the worst part was, your grief and sadness over civilian-Jungwon was slowly dissipating with time: you were reverting back to the you that he knew, not the sad, crestfallen version of you.

But, he had no time to think of that. Right now, Jungwon was beaten up pretty badly, resting atop the roof of a building and leaning against some structure there.

It's not easy to fight one Baron von Fizzlebang, when he's able to manipulate up to a hundred people to do his own bidding. Jungwon doesn't want to hurt the civilians under Baron von Fizzlebang's control, but how is he supposed to win at all if these civilians are being used to attack him?

One eye was incapacitated, with blood dripping down Jungwon's forehead and his lip bleeding. Even in the darkening night sky, Jungwon could tell that there were a few tears here and there on his hero costume, but the worst part was that Jungwon's right shoulder was most definitely out of commission.

Luckily, Jungwon got the victimized civilians to safety. Unluckily, Baron von Fizzlebang was still on the loose, pretty much unscathed. Jungwon could work under severe pressure, with great injuries too. But for some reason, he absolutely couldn't think straight as he stumbled to his feet, clutching his injured shoulder. He blinked his one working eye slowly, trying to see clearly, but there was too much blood coming from his head after getting slammed against a brick wall for him to get a clear view.

At the very least, Jungwon needed to locate where the villain went—

"Yoo-hoo!" a sing-songy voice boomed, and Jungwon whipped his pounding head around. "Spidey-Spidey!~"

Lo and behold, Baron von Fizzlebang was (for some reason) suspended in the air, completely uninjured, a stark difference from Jungwon's hunched-over, painful form. With his extravagant costume, he waved mockingly at Jungwon, a cackle spilling from him. "I'm back for more, Spidey. Are you?"

Jungwon's eyes narrowed, a pained grunt escaping his lips before he limped toward the villain. He sucked in a sharp breath. The blood from his bleeding lip tasted metallic on his tongue, but his physical pain mattered not— not when the livelihood and safety of the city was on the line because of this maniac.

"Yeah," Jungwon responded breathily, stumbling. "Come get me."

Much to Jungwon's chagrin, from Baron von Fizzlebang came some strange metal contraption. With big and long metal tentacle arms with grabby hands at the ends, Baron von Fizzlebang laughed maniacally as his new gargantuan device conjured a physical reaction out of Jungwon. Faster than Jungwon could move, the villain's metal arms snatched him up.

"Let me go—Ack!" Jungwon squirmed in the contraption's grasp.

"No," Baron von Fizzlebang said simply. "All you do is ruin my plans to take over this city!"

Jungwon cried in pain as the metal hands squeezed him tighter. The villain laughed again. "Have you ever had to experience someone try to ruin something you care about, Spider-Man?" Jungwon opened his mouth to choke a retort, but the Baron continued. "Or in your case, someone that you care about?"

Jungwon continued to squirm in the metal hands' grasp, the villain taking it as a sign to continue his villainous monologue.

"You don't think that I don't know you have a secret little girlfriend, right? She's the same one I claimed that one night at Bisco's." At the sound of that, Jungwon tensed up even more. No.... Don't tell me.."Maybe I should let this little spider go. To make you really feel my pain, why don't I go pay your little girlfriend a visit again."

"No!—" tore from Jungwon's throat, but it was too late. With panic filling his body, Baron von Fizzlebang's metal tentacles hurled him through the sky before the villain took off. Presumably to find you. And even though Jungwon was falling through the sky with an incapacitated eye and shoulder, all he could think about was you.

Every single fear and made-up scenario of you getting hurt or even worse, dying, as a result of Jungwon ran through his head in the milliseconds that he was in the air.

Just as Jungwon was about to slam against a sky-scraper, he shot a web to catch himself. His hands shook as he stabilized himself against another wall.

Dammit, dammit, dammit— I'm so fucking stupid— She's in danger now— Everything that he had feared was coming true, and it was all a result of Jungwon's selfishness and negligence and— Jungwon took a deep breath, not noticing that he had neglected to breathe as he spiraled. He shoved his face in his hands. Think, think, think. He had to do something.

He looked at his hands. He had to go find you, and warn you. Move you to safety, make sure you're somewhere safe where that maniac couldn't find you.

Even with all his injuries, nothing stopped Jungwon as he shot webs across the sky. With all the remaining strength in his body, and with all the power he could muster up, Jungwon flew across the sky to where he knew you'd be: in your apartment.

And just as he expected, you were in your room, peacefully listening to music and painting your nails. Usually, he'd be courteous and wait for you to welcome him in. But Jungwon had no time to waste: he crashed onto your balcony, practically busting into your room through the doors.

"Spider-Man?!" you cried, startled by his sudden entrance.

"You have to leave," Jungwon breathed with labored huffs. He clamored toward you, grabbing you by your shoulders. "I-I don't have time to explain—"

"What— What are you talking about?—"

Jungwon gripped your shoulders, the vehemence in his voice resounding as he desperately repeated, "You have to leave. It-It's not safe for you— I need you to leave and go somewhere sa—"

"Spider-Man," you said firmly. Jungwon breathed shakily, swallowing down hard. He shook his head. It felt like the world had fallen into his shoulders.

"Please, [Name]," he pleaded. Even with a mask, you can hear his sheer desperation. "Please listen to me this time."

You stared at him, with a curious yet concerned look, like you were studying him. “Please,” Jungwon said again, his voice high-pitched and cracking. His grip on you loosened, but his head hung low.“Please.”

You kept your eyes stuck on him, but Jungwon couldn’t focus. All he could think about was how you could die. Everything hurt, and yet nothing did at the same time. The mere thought of something even worse happening to you made Jungwon’s gut twist, the oncoming fear so great that it effectively numbed everything in him.

“I can’t— I can’t lose you—“

There was something unsettling about you that Jungwon never figured out. You’re sensitive and soft, but strong-willed and stern. But you’re also a level of smart that Jungwon couldn’t understand.

Which was why he couldn’t possibly understand why you grabbed him by his shoulders, pulled him into you, and slammed your lips against his. You let your lips stay on his for a little bit, but before you could pull away, all the hunger and fear consumed Jungwon whole. His large hands grabbed you by the waist, pulling you flush against him. Greedily, like a starved man, Jungwon hungrily kissed you back, holding you tightly as his breathing picked up.

Maybe it was all the adrenaline, or the pain and delirium, or just Jungwon’s fear, but he didn’t even think about what he was doing. Your lips against his, your body pressed against him, and your scent overtaking his mind— it all made it impossible for him to stop.

He muttered your name against your lips, grasping you like you’d disappear any minute. Your soft body on him felt heavenly, as he drank you in. Everything felt hot and everything ached, but even with his mask on, it felt so delicious. He heaved as your lips moved against his. A choked breath and whimper escaped his lips as you slid tongue into his mouth, your hands slithering up his chest and wrapping around his neck, the way that he always liked it. Almost like you knew how to make him feel good.

The kiss halted to a slow stop, with the two of you gently pulling away. And Jungwon, too dazed, didn’t know what to expect next— and he definitely didn’t expect the next words that came out of your mouth.

"Jungwon," you hummed against his lips, looking at him with an expression that he couldn't read. Jungwon's heart plummeted to his stomach, shaky eyes widening.

"Wh-What—" he began, but you brought a finger up to his lip, hushing him. No way. There's no way that you knew it was him all along—

"You need to calm down, Jungwon," you said as you pulled away from him, eyes glued to his masked face. You took his hand, rubbing circles on the back of his hand slowly, the way that always helped calm him down. "I know you. You're spiraling. We can't do anything if you're panicking. Deep breaths."

"I don't— I don't understand," Jungwon whispered, his strong body still. Had you known it was him all along? And if you did, why didn't you say or do anything? Did you find him pathetic? "How did you know?"

You blinked at him slowly, before a bashful grin pulled onto your face. You reached your hand out to him, your palm finding itself on his cheek. In a moment of instinct, Jungwon leaned into your touch.

"That's how I knew," you breathed. Your lithe fingertips then prodded at the crook between his jaw and his ear, the sensitive spot, and just as you expected, Jungwon shuddered. Your fingers traced down his jaw to his neck, pressing on the tender spot in the middle of his neck. Much to Jungwon's personal mortification, he let out a gasp, and when you leaned closer to his neck— so close that he could feel your breath on him— Jungwon let out a soft sound and shivered. Your lip grazed against the covered skin of his neck, watching him intently as you earn a sensitive whimper from him.

"What— What are you doing—" Jungwon was cut off again by your lip pressing against his jugular, at the spot that never failed to make him cry out in pleasure. Jungwon's ears burned, but the blood rushing through his body made him feel hot all over. He leaned his head back, eyes falling shut.

"I know you, Jungwon." Your voice was low, almost like a purr. Your hands continued to run over his jaw and neck, hooking onto the edge of his mask and uncovering the honey tan skin of his neck. You pressed your lips against his exposed skin, another gasp falling from his lips. "You're not good at hiding anything. And you're not a convincing liar."

You pulled his mask up, exposing his lower jaw and lips. When he muttered your name startled, you pulled the entire mask off.

Lo and behold, just as you had expected, it was Jungwon Yang. You had your suspicions, and when you made them known to him you were certain that you were right. And yet, you're still taken aback when it's really Jungwon behind the mask. His overgrown blonde hair falling over his eyes, his cat-like eyes staring at you with a mix of fear, shame, and desire, his jaw that had gotten stronger— you drank in every last bit of it.

"Son of a bitch," you murmured under your breath.

Jungwon hadn't noticed the way his chest pounded and how his breathing became erratic, nor did he notice that he was now blinking back tears, his chest heaving. "I—I'm sorry—" he struggled to get out, his voice getting caught in his throat. "Oh— I'm so— I"m sorry—"

He couldn't tell if you were angry, or disgusted, or both... because despite the unreadable look on your face, you still grabbed his face, slamming your lips against his once more.

Your fingers brusquely grab at his hair, tangling themselves in his grown-out blonde locks. This time, you're the hungry one. Your hands slid down his chest again, grasping onto his strong, toned arms, and running your hands all over him. Your lips moved surly against his, as if you hadn't been fed in days.

"You're a jackass," you rasped against him, and yet you kept kissing him like he'd disappear. "Fucking jackass." Jungwon tried to murmur apologies, but you kept kissing him, shutting him up. You pushed him against your bed slowly as your lips moved, so that he had no choice but to fall back onto it.

With Jungwon's back now pressed up against your bed, you were on top of him. Your hands roamed his body, and Jungwon couldn't help but let his eyes fall shut.

"I-I'm sorry," he rumbled, but with you on top of him, lips all over him, he couldn't do much but gasp and squirm under your touch. "I-I didn't mean to—"

Boom! In the distance, a massive explosion sound careened through the air. You and Jungwon, both alarmed, froze in your position. Even with you filling his senses, Jungwon's immediate thought is simple: he is Spider-Man.

Jungwon felt your body tense against his, with fear painted on your face. His body felt hot all over, the excitement still pulsing through his veins and desperate need for you still clouding his mind. But a trembling, paralyzed you was enough to pull him away from himself, and force him to focus.

In one fell swoop, Jungwon pulls the two of you to your feet, his arms wrapping around your waist firmly, yet gently. Ignoring your questions, he felt around for his discarded mask, before shooting a web from his fingers and pulling it to him.

"You have to go," he said to you, his hands tightening around your waist. Jungwon watched as your brows crashed together, your expression morphing from bewilderment to hurt, and then anger.

"What are you— Jungwon—" Jungwon ignored you, quickly searching around your room. He took a jacket from your closet (which was definitely his), before draping it around your shoulders.

"I'm serious," he said, his voice cracking with earnestness. "I mean it, [Name]. You have to go."

It was your turn to splutter, scoffing in disbelief. "Where would I even go? I don't know why you're saying this—"

Jungwon chewed on his bottom lip for a few moments, before he huffed. "Go to Jake's."

You're about to scoff again, but Jungwon— the most tender person you've ever met— sent you a stern look that shuts you up.

"Tell him that I sent you," Jungwon instructed. "Tell him to keep you safe. And text me when you're there...." the boy trails off, awkwardly scratching his head, "If I'm not blocked, y'know.... Or just have Jake text me."

You stared at him in silence, blinking slowly, in an attempt to assess his face. Finally, you sigh, your face looking sad. "Okay."

Jungwon helped you collect your things, the two of you engulfed in a silence, with nothing filling your apartment but the ambient sound of your footsteps and breaths. That is, until it was time for you to go.

"I-I think I should go now," you said shakily, your back turned to Jungwon as you reached for your front door. Jungwon solemnly nodded, wistfully staring at you as he fiddled with his mask; his face was still uncovered, making it difficult to hide his concern, yet he didn't have the courage to put his mask back on. Not when you were here. And Jungwon would have let you go like that, alone into the night, if it weren't for the sound of your sniffles.

"Hey, hey," he called out to you, reaching out to you and taking hold of your shoulder. His brows furrowed. "[Name], what is it?"

You sniffled, your breath getting caught in your throat, and it was clear now that you were crying. However, you just shook your head, your back still turned to him.

"Baby," Jungwon said again. "Baby, please tell me. What is it? Why are you crying?"

The sound of Jungwon's voice made you tense up again. You let out a choked sob, before you sucked in a sharp breath. "Th-That."

Jungwon reached for your face, tilting your chin so that you would face him, but you wouldn't budge. "Talk to me. Please."

"That!" you cried. You sucked in another sharp breath as you threw your face into your palms. "You— You l-left me the first time... and— and now you're leaving a-again."

Jungwon's chest ached, and in a moment of remorse and desire, he slid his hands around your waist, pulling you into an embrace with you pressed against his chest. The way you always liked it. He pressed his cheek against your head, his own tears welling up in his eyes as you sniffled and cried.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his eyes squeezing shut. He knew he hurt you, it was nothing new to him. But just knowing that never made the regret feel any better. He kissed your head. "I'm so sorry."

There's another explosion in the distance, and Jungwon's hold on you tightened. "Please. I'll make it up to you. Please just go this time."

You shook your head. "I—I don't get it. J-Jungwon, I don't g-get it—"

In your state, there was no way you'd make it to safety in time. And Jungwon was a fool for thinking that you could, not after opening up the wounds you were trying to heal from. Jungwon pressed one more kiss on your head. He hauled you into his arms, ignoring your protests, only saying, "Wrap your arms around me."

Jungwon wished he had more time. He wished he could sit you down and explain everything. But there was no time, and he had to make sure you were safe first: he'd like to do it himself. All the injuries from earlier had been healed for the most part, just enough that he had strength.

"Hold on tight, baby," he said in your ear before putting his mask on, and shooting a web out your window. Jungwon figured it was your first time soaring with Spider-Man, because you let out a squeal, hiding your face in his neck.

"Jungwon!" you cried, your eyes still lined with tears. "P-Please, I'm scared—"

Jungwon chuckled, but complied with your request, taking less risky swings. And when he arrived at Jake's apartment, he simply forced his friend's window open. Much to his luck, Jake was already there.

"S-Spider-Man?!" Jake gawked. It wasn't every day that the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man showed up at your window. Then, his eyes fell on you. "[N-Name]?!"

Gently, Jungwon set you down. "Jungwon's request: Keep her safe."

Jake, utterly baffled, opened his mouth to speak. But like a little boy (quite literally) seeing his favorite super-hero for the first time, Jake nodded dutifully, his eyes comically filling with stars. "Yes sir!"

Jungwon nodded satisfied. He knew he could count on Jake. As Jungwon readied himself to jump out the window, he's stopped by your soft voice.

"G-Good luck..." you murmured, fiddling with your fingers. "Don't die... please."

Jungwon couldn't help but grin. "Of course."

And with that, he swung away, ready to kick ass.

You're already asleep when Jungwon finds you back at Jake's house. He felt a little bad about placing the burden of you on Jake, but Jungwon couldn't care more about that when your life was on the line. Jungwon, in his hero form of course, left a note for Jake on the kitchen counter, as he slowly wrapped his arms around your sleeping figure.

You're left sleeping on Jake's couch, with a throw blanket awkwardly draped over you. He appreciated Jake's efforts, grinning softly as the way you stirred in your sleep. It's near dawn, and Jungwon couldn't ignore the ache in his body. But even so, the way your eyes were puffy, your cheeks stained lightly with tears made his chest ache more than his body did.

As quietly as he could, Jungwon took you in his arms, and took you back to his apartment (he didn't have the keys to your apartment, and he didn't want to make you angrier by breaking in). Helicopters were still flying overhead, the sound of police sirens below filling the air. Jungwon's eyes twitched with tiredness, his straining muscles nearly giving out. The city was asleep, and yet it was still functionally cleaning up the mess from earlier.

Speaking of, that son of a bitch Baron von Fizzle-dick or whatever was now in police custody. Jungwon was too exhausted to remember the details, but it was a long and tiring fight. One that was painful.

As he swung through the sky, Jungwon couldn't forget the fight. He was hit pretty badly, almost nearly stabbed in the chest. His entire body was in pain, and if it weren't for the precious you in his arms, Jungwon thought he would collapse mid-air. The feeling of the insurmountable physical agony that that villain inflicted on him was definitely one for the books. Jungwon could still feel the blood dripping down his back. But what was even worse were the things Baron von Fizzlebang had said. The threats he made, the words he said: the villain, and apparently, all the villains in the city, via their underground network, seemed to know you by name. They knew you because you were a soft spot for Spider-Man. It terrified him that now you had a target on your back. He cursed himself for letting himself get comfortable, for endangering you in the process. Even if he won the fight now, Jungwon couldn't forget the fear.

As he landed on his window, Jungwon slowly cracked it open, supporting both you and himself as he brought the two of you into his apartment. He placed you down on his bed, pulling his comforter over you. He watched as you snuggled into his bed, a satisfied murmur falling from your lips. You looked so peaceful, and for a moment, Jungwon could forget all the pain he felt.

Jungwon looked down at his hands. Ripped gloves, blood-stained palms... will it ever go away?

He pulled away from you, about to make his way to his bathroom. He ought to wash the blood off his hands. The night was at its peak, the dreariest that it had ever been. He didn't know what time it was— he lost track of that a long time ago— but all he knew was that it was dark outside. He better get some sleep too. But as he pulled away from you, he felt a few fingers weakly grip his arm. He froze.

"Jung... won..." you murmured. Your eyes were shut, and your voice sounded dreamy.

"I'm here," Jungwon breathed. He hadn't realized it, but his voice broke. Really, all he felt like doing was crying.

"Don't leave," you mumbled. Your fingers tightened around his arm. "I'll do.... do anything..." you drew on. "Just... don't go."

"Oh, baby—" And with that Jungwon broke, the hot tears he hadn't even realized he were holding in spilling. He pulled on his mask. He dropped to his knees, resting his head on the bed beside you. "I... I never meant to. I never wanted to leave you—"

You hummed, murmuring something incoherent. "Stay."

Jungwon let out a shaky breath. "I will— I really want to— Please, let me—"

"Jungwon," you said, rather firmly. You still had your eyes shut.

"I'm here, baby." Jungwon sniffled, swiping the back of his ragged hand to wipe his nose. "I'm not gonna go— I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so—"

"In the... morning," you whispered. Before Jungwon could ask, you continued. "Talk in the morning."

Jungwon's voice broke again. "W-What?"

Your hand reached out for him again, this time falling onto his disheveled head. Jungwon nearly flinched at the feeling of your hand running through his hair, but instinctively he leaned into your touch. For a few moments, your fingers ran through his blonde locks, such a foreign feeling and yet a welcome one. Jungwon let his eyes shut, and they burned as his lids fell shut.

Your voice is quiet, and Jungwon is almost certain you're awake now. "Jake told me some things. I put two and two together."

"Really?" Jungwon, too tired to be mad. "Was it bad?"

You only hummed, giving him a classic nonresponse. Your fingers continued through his hair. "Go to sleep now."

"But—"

You hushed him, petting his head slowly and affectionately. "I love you."

Jungwon was stunned, but it felt so natural as, "I love you, too," tumbled from his lips.

There's a warmth that spreads across his chest, reassuring and comforting. But yet, so deeply harrowing, and so deeply frightening. He's a man of a thousand words and complex ideas, and you knew it, so you hushed Jungwon before he could continue, petting his head slowly and affectionately. "We'll talk in the morning."

Jungwon opened his mouth to protest. But as your fingers ran through his hair, he couldn't help the satisfying chills that ran down his spine. And everything hurt, and it hurt so bad that it was unbearable and Jungwon felt like he couldn't take it.

But your touch was so soft and familiar, Jungwon felt like.... for a second... he could maybe... fall into your touch... and just... take... it... easy...

"Pro...tect you..." Jungwon murmured. "I'll protect... you."

You chuckled softly. "You're not alone. I'll carry your burden with you."

It's his turn to hum, nearly satisfied. As he drifted off into a deep slumber, his troubles melting away into the palms of your hands, there's only one last thought in Jungwon's head.

Maybe there will be a new day tomorrow, and hopefully, he won't be alone when the day breaks.

[nishiimuraka]

perfect perfect perfect i love and will always support spiderman! superhero! enha aus always have and always will

[enjakey-deactivated20260307]

Beneath the Blue

Pairing: marine engineer!Jake x marine biologist!Fem!Reader

Hey guys, I realise this fic is like really long (24k). I’m so sorry but it’s just something I’ve been holding out on. Life’s been stressful and writing was the only thing that kept me afloat and I kinda belted this out during my sleepless nights. This is definitly not proof read.

So I guess I wanted to give you guys like a guide on how to read the fic. Each section or chapter is marked by bolded words in the beginning of a paragraph (you’ll understand when you read it). If you’re only here for the cutesy stuff, you can go ahead and skip to the fourth chapter but you’ll loose all context of the story and how everyone is related to each other. The first two chapters is just a lot of world and character building. The third chapter is where things actually start.

If you’re interested in marine biology and sea creatures, this is a perfect read. I talk a lot about sharks and whales and sea creatures. There’s a lot of insight on what marine biologists do in general. There’s suggestive stuff in the end of the seventh chapter and smut in the tenth chapter if you want to skip to that. Jay, Heeseung and Jay are a huge part of the fic (but not the plot?). There is mentions of PTSD and a storm.

I want to mention that this story is not just about Jake and Y/N’s romance but about a group of people’s love for the ocean. The other characters are important for me too and the world I’ve built is dear to me. Hope you guys enjoy! I Put a lot of time effort into this! Please like and reblog and comment.

Summary: taken under the wing of the great marine biologist Henry Sim, Y/N finds herself getting close to him and his family. She’s friends with his first son, Jason, but is apprehensive of his second son, Jake. Jake, who is notorious for his bad behaviour and disappointing decisions, finds himself being drawn to Y/N and her undeniable love towards the ocean. When the two are put together in a group of researchers for an expedition for three months on the ocean, she doesn’t expect herself to fall for him- let alone, fight storms for him.

Y/N was one of those unfortunate kids who had to be in a hospital during her birthday. She was eleven at the time, the age where she was learning to read and write on her own and didn't fuss with her mother to help her bathe or dress up. She considered it her golden age where she was just starting to learn about her interests by surfing the internet through her father's phone and transitioning from cartoon shows to movies. At school, she would talk about action films, starring Tom Cruise or Angelica Jolie, rather than the deemed childish Disney movies where the Jonas Brothers were thrown into a music camp or in which a girl hides her identity by switching wigs.

An unwanted growth, widely mistaken as a malignant tumour by many doctors, was manifesting on the bone just above her eyebrow and she had reached the age where surgeons could successfully remove it without life-threatening complications. Y/N was initially scared, refusing to get out of bed in the morning and crying while she was taken to the Operating Room. In that moment of panic and fear, she didn't feel like the brave and mature girl she thought herself to be but somewhat similar to the girls on the playground who still talked about Barbie dolls and played around with make-up sets as though they could ravishingly decorate their faces with cheap lip gloss and colourless eyeshadow.

When she woke up from an anaesthetic daze, she took a moment of silence to compare herself with the other children in her class. If any kid was in her situation, being taken into surgery by a group of a dozen strangers who were only trusted because of a piece of paper- their certificate- that was meant to credit their skill, they would flail the way she had. The girls she avoided, the mean and blonde-haired ones who snickered at anyone who didn't wear skirts and pink bows in their hair and bragged about their powerful daddy's luxurious car, would probably react the way she did, perhaps even a little more dramatically. The boys she arbitrated, the cocky and lanky ones that talk about Fortnight and whatever online games they played, would probably wail like babies. But Y/N was different, whatever that meant for a girl her age, withholding herself from succumbing to middle school's criteria for popularity and burrowing herself into a circle of comfort. She was the girl that wore glasses and carried around a thick book about animals to read during lunch and she was the girl that only had one friend because they were both weird and quiet. She was the girl that cried before the surgery because she didn't trust the surgeons and not because she was convinced her parents were selling her to an organ-harvesting cult.

While she assumed most children her age would be amused by artistic renditions of unicorns and rainbows painted on the wall, she found them rather tacky. Their eyes were too shiny and their smiles were too wide and the only thing she found realistic were the tiny chips of paint in the bright colours. There was a painting of Jake the Dog from Adventure Times sitting right above her hospital bed, staring down at her with lifeless and beady eyes while she tried sleeping during the night because the hospital wanted to keep her for observation for a day or two after the surgery, increasing the service bill at the same time. Then, there was the poorly mimicked roar of a lion stained to the wall on the right side of her bed, making her wonder if these paintings were done by previously admitted children. To the wall on the right side of her bed, right below the window, was the painting of a grinning shark and a randomly doodled jellyfish.

"That looks like the Black Sea Nettle," she pointed at the jellyfish with her nimble finger.

It was early in the morning and her mother had willed her awake from her slumber so one of the doctors could check on her vitals and change her bandaid. Y/N chewed on a green apple slice her mother handed her because she refused to eat the red apples, and patiently waited until the doctor, or Doctor Karev, as he called himself, could finish writing on a piece of paper they called a chart and changing the cotton wedged between her eyebrow and white gauze. She glanced at the painting from the corner of her eye, finding it eerily similar to a picture she saw in the book her father gifted her on her ninth birthday- The Encyclopedia of Animals.

"And that looks like a Bull Shark," she said and shifted her finger slightly so it was pointed at the cartoonish shark with a bulging stomach.

"Oh, yeah?" Doctor Karev scoffed and grinned similarly to the painted shark. His gaze didn't lift from the writing pad he held towards his face, a pen scribbling information that probably wasn't important. Her mother stood beside her, a proud smile on her face as she brushed Y/N's hair with her palm. "What can you tell me about it?"

"I know that their bite is much stronger than the Great White," she offered, shrugging and looking at her lap.

"Really?" Doctor Karev almost sounded sceptical. "Where'd you learn that?"

"A book," Y/N mumbled and pursed her lips.

Doctor Karev bent his knees enough to reach her level, tilting his head affectionately to grasp her attention. His pen was now hanging in his pocket, his writing pad pressed between his hand and thigh. "You're a smart girl, aren't you?" He praised her, impressed by her skill of comprehension. "You wanna become a marine biologist?"

"Marine biologist?"

The pair of words put together were foreign to Y/N but somehow, they sounded like they were meant to be beside each other, creating the word for the profession she had been dreaming of since she saw the picture of starfish lounging on a sea bed. Her eyes were filled with somewhat of a fascination, a sparkle reflected by what she considered a discovery and fate of luck and her smile grew ten folds, stretching her cheeks until the corners of her lips reached her ears. She looked like she was watching the stars while she looked at him, blinking and burning from a close distance as she marvelled at the masses.

"Yeah," Doctor Karev enthused. "You know, study the ocean and sea creatures and all that jazz."

"I'm gonna become a marine biologist!" She nodded, giggling like a baby that had been handed a lollipop bigger than its face. Except Y/N's lollipop was a profession, a dream to chase until it was fulfilled. Her mother laughed with her, shaking her head at her antics. "Mom, I wanna be a marine biologist!"

Doctor Karev chuckled and stood straight, making his way to the door of her hospital room and looking over his shoulder to steal one last glance at the girl he might have just paved a future for. "By the way," he said. "Happy birthday kid."

It was a crystal blue sight Jake could never get used to, and it was the fact that his family owned it that he could never wrap his head around. The aquariums ranged from floor-to-ceiling tanks holding hundreds of litres of water and aquatic species to small fish bowls holding the tiniest, most common breeds of fish. Any type of fish he could think of- sharks, whales, stingrays, eels, jellyfish and cephalopods- it was probably all there, confined between glass walls, concrete and artificially plated corals. And it could all be placed in the palm of his hand, the happiness of customers and livelihood of every creature in the building he stood in, under his control.

In all of Jake's life, he had only ever seen his father angry four times- three of those incidents pertaining to tragedies faced in The Marine Foundation of Korea, his most prized possession.

The first was when he was forced to step into court for the first time in his life. During the first week that it opened, a kid tripped and fell into an eel tank and was almost choked by a Black Spotted Eel. The kid was lucky they weren't electric but Henry Sim was still faced with a million-dollar lawsuit which they won after giving security camera footage that showed the boy clearly wandering off into prohibited territory and climbing ladders into the opening of the tanks. It wouldn't be the first lawsuit they faced as a similar one followed two years later when a little girl started crying because her necklace fell into the dolphin pool and one of them devoured it.

Two years later, one of three Whale Sharks had passed away in front of a live audience causing the building to rumble as the carcass made contact with the forged ocean bed and children to wail in confusion as one of their favourite shark buddies was sinking to the floor. Hundreds of people took videos and the news went viral online, causing critics to criticise the maintenance and care for the captive creatures. As this information circled to tourists, they didn't have customers and a proper flow of income for the following six months until they announced the new exhibit for the endangered Vaquita Dolphin. Jake remembered the terrible nights of those six months when his father would come home drunk or would shatter glasses onto the walls. He wondered how his mother coped with him. He wondered how he and his brother didn't perceive him as a monster yet.

A year later, The Marine Foundation of Korea would face another tragedy. One of the shark tanks exploded in the middle of the night, causing Hammerheads and Tiger Sharks to swim through the halls of the first floor in shallow waters. Guards were panicking and emergency services took hours to reach the aquarium before they could assess and plan a rescue. The aquarium was shut down for two months and they spent time reinstating the shattered shark tank and brewing up safety measures for when similar situations would occur again. That night, they lost two Hammerhead Sharks and one Tiger Shark and had to pay thousands of dollars as compensation. Though his father didn't violently drink, he had become dangerously silent in those two months, scaring the living daylights out of his wife and children.

Henry Sim, the founder of The Marine Foundation of Korea and the most remarkable marine biologist known to all generations, had faced lawsuits that almost made him go bankrupt and was hated by the internet for months until he publicly apologised yet he would say his biggest disappointment wouldn't lie in the way his aquarium was run. Rather, he would say his biggest disappointment lay in his son, Jake Sim, who refused to take in his footsteps and fulfil his dreams of creating an empire of nepotism to take over the world of marine biology someday.

"You never listen to me," Henry seethed with a balled fist resting on his ebony table. His voice was entirely stark for the disappointment he felt towards his son.

If Jake concentrated enough, he could hear the movement of each aquatic species in the tanks he was surrounded by. The bubbly and almost ear-blocking white noise engulfed him sometimes and he would be transported to an unnamed beach where the sand was white and the waters were so clear, he could see the corals growing underneath. He liked to imagine himself floating in the waters in shorts and an oversized white t-shirt, eyes closed as the sun beat down on his porcelain skin. That was all the ocean was to him; someplace to enjoy and someplace to destress. But to his father, it was a career he made billions in and it was a career he wanted both his sons to endeavour in.

"I've been telling you since I was a kid, appa," Jake sighed, standing on the other side of the ebony table. "I want to study engineering. Marine biology, researching new species, the ocean… All of that has always been a hobby for me. Besides, you have Jason to take over your legacy anyway. I don't get why you're so hung up on me studying it, too."

In the corner of his father's office stood a small, well-kept fish tank with a lone seahorse in it. It was the Knysna Seahorse, to be exact, the rarest seahorse in the world which Jason, his brother, gifted their father as a gift. He had paid quite an amount of money to get a hold of it and the reason for the gift? It was because he had finally graduated with a marine biology degree a few months ago and Jake was to finally attend the same university.

But he didn't want to and his entire family was very well aware of the fact.

"Don't you understand what I want for you two, though?" Henry slammed his fist against the table but Jake offered no reaction. "Don't you see the future I see for you two? Brothers taking over marine biology's legacy? It’s not too late for you to change your major."

"No," Jake stomped a foot to the ground, eyes squinting to slits. "That's your dream. Not mine. I get that you and your brother never got along and that you want your sons to get along and run a business. But I don't want that. Jason and I are fine as it is and you coming in between my dreams is just gonna drive me away from you further."

"Jake-"

"If eomma were here, she would understand," Jake took long strides towards the door, a hand digging into the pocket of his slacks as the other twisted the doorknob. "I just wish you'd understand," and his voice muffled under the slam of the door, leaving Henry dumbfounded in his seat, mouth agape and glasses sliding off his nose.

With his son leaving so disrespectfully, using his wife's death as emotional manipulation, he wanted to shun Jake right then and there. He wanted no relation to him whatsoever but he knew it was his anger speaking. And he knew that if he hastily cut him off his earnings and stopped paying for his education, he would regret it and Jason would condemn him as a worse father than he already was.

So, Henry let him walk away and he went back to work, fixing his glasses and clearing his throat as if nothing happened. Jake was still young, he'd tell himself. If he wanted to follow his dreams, he should let him. Henry was selfish, he accepted it and his ego clashed with his conscience but he brushed it off and walked out of his office with more errands to complete. The moment he entered the hall with tanks of jellyfish surrounding him, the sounds of their bodies pushing through water syncing with his racing, angry heart, his assistant joined his side with a clipboard and pen, her heels overpowering the serenity of his silence.

“What’s next on today’s itinerary?” Henry asked with his hands clasped behind his back, strides becoming slower with every step.

“You need to meet with the university students today, sir,” Hae, his assistant, stated as though she expected him to remember the important occasion.

“Don’t speak to me in that tone,” he grumbled. “Of course I remember.”

“I’m assuming the talk with your son went badly?”

“I don’t know what to do with him, Hae.”

With this sigh echoing the moment, the pair made their way through the shark exhibit that costed him millions of dollars to fix all those years ago and sauntered past the stingray tanks, wondering how he was going to be an inspiration to a group of marine biology students while he felt like a failure of a father. He wondered what else he had to contribute to the field of marine biology when he had prioritised it for his entire life. It was the reason why his son hated him and it was the reason why he lost his wife- it was his lack of presence and immense ignorance that put him in a place where he truly had nothing else to lose. He had the money, the cars, the friends to brag with and an eldest son who was succeeding in life without his help- but then there was his youngest, defying him in all manners and reminding him of the mistakes that haunted his life.

However, a beacon of hope, a ray of sanguine had entered his life that day and he wouldn’t realise it until he was laying on his deathbed. In the group of future marine biologists he met that day was Y/N, standing amongst the crowd meekly with a notebook and a pen to jot down everything that she thought would help her education and career. She was the one answering questions in a whisper when no one else knew the answer, her hand barely raised in the air. When Henry saw her, her hair tied in a ponytail and clothes put together in a hurry that made her look pathetic, he could only smile. Because as he looked at her, he saw himself- the version of him that was left in the gates of his college, the version of him that had to be left back in order to become the tycoon that he was now.

So before the group of university students left, he found himself asking Y/N for a conversation and pulled her towards the gift shop while the rest of her classmates waited at the gate, murmuring and whispering about what they could be talking about. Henry placed a heavy hand on her shoulder and smiled at her the way a mentor would smile at his mentee. He had a proud smile on his face as he said, “I think you’d make an amazing marine biologist one day.”

“What?” Y/N, the poor girl, having been put down by her classmates her whole life, was gaping at his statement. Her eyes reflect a sense of hope and surprise under the golden lights of the gift shop.

“Yes,” Henry nodded enthusiastically. “I would like it if you worked with me, I could easily offer you a job,” he said. He shuffled his hand around in the pocket of his blazer and pulled out his business card and handed it to her, certain that it would come in handy for her future. “When you’re ready for a job or an internship- anything, just call me and I’ll help you out.”

Henry walked away from her, leaving his future student dumbfounded. Her eyes fixated on the business card in her hands, her thumbs and forefingers outlining the corners of the rectangle. It was a navy blue colour, his name, number and The Marine Foundation of Korea carved in golden ink. It looked like her ticket to a new life, the life she had chased since she was a little kid carrying around an encyclopaedia of animals. It was the golden ticket in her Charlie and The Chocolate Factory.

It was a good analogy in her head. Henry Sim, the man with greying hair and diminishing eyesight, was Willy Wonka and she was Charlie, the lost boy that simply wanted a taste of something better, something great. So when it was time for her to get an internship, Henry had taken her under his wing.

“You must be Y/N.”

When Y/N started off as an intern, she started questioning whether she had made the right choice. Some of her friends were off travelling the seven seas to research unknown species of the depths and others were working in labs established on beach sides. They were living in tropical islands like the Caribbean or Hawaii and their instagrams were filled with them in diving gear and sea creatures in their natural habitats. Y/N had always dreamt of a life as such, to swim with sharks and study their behaviours or to explore the depths of the ocean floor within the safety of a yellow submarine. She imagined she would travel the world by the time she graduated college and she imagined spending most of her days on a boat, whale watching or spotting dolphins.

There was that one semester in college where she got an experience as close to what she imagined. She, along with a few other promising students, were selected to spend a semester on sea where they spent learning how to dive and sail ships. It was a memorable four months, really, to spend it with a group of people she later called friends and bonding with people on sea over half cooked fish. In that time, though the most astonishing creature they spotted was a Red Octopus, she assumed she was being trained for the future she had always dreamed of, only to end up within the confines of an aquarium- Asia’s largest aquarium, granted. Her job description as an intern included watching other employees take care of the confined species or listening to Henry, the founder, teach her more about the marine species while she took notes. There were the occasional times she was asked to write a research paper, which she did with Jason but she would much rather prefer doing the same in a lab on the beach or on a boat sailing across the Pacific Ocean.

During this time, she pondered if she should have just followed her father’s footsteps in becoming an astronomer. She would look back at her childhood when her father would teach her about constellations and planets while she looked through the giant telescope that was perched on their roof and she would wonder if such a job would make her happier. She recalled the stories her mother would tell her as a Greek historian and wondered if she should have majored in History instead. She even wondered if she should have followed her friends into their jobs instead of taking the internship in the first place. Her uncertainties came to a halt a year ago, though, when Henry promoted her as manager.

In the five years that Y/N started working in The Marine Foundation of Korea, she learnt the names and voices of everyone working there. As the manager, it wasn’t only her job but also her duty to do so, to know who she was working with and grow a personal relationship with the people around her. She knew that one of the janitor’s kid had a heart condition and she would visit him in the hospital once in a while. She knew that one of the divers working for the aquarium was in a long term relationship and was planning on proposing to his girlfriend soon- she could recognise his voice even while he struggled to speak underwater. She also knew that her boss and legal guardian, Henry Sim, had ambitions he could never fulfil because of his youngest son.

One could call her the all-knowing within the walls of the aquarium. Not only was she intelligent, she was the keeper of all the employees’ worries and burdens.

In those five years that she spent reaching her level of success, to be able to buy her own apartment in an expensive neighbourhood and to be able to afford to buy a new phone without double-checking her bank account, she had learned a lot of tricks to perfect the skills of managing the establishment that she ran when the owner wasn’t present. A once shy and timid girl became the hard-headed, thick skinned superior that demanded precision in completed work and pristine publications of whatever research papers they release. But when she wasn’t acting that way, she was calm and walked down the crystalline hallways of Korea’s beloved and prestigious aquarium with a welcoming smile.

Of all the people she knew that worked amongst the aquarium, of the few people she found herself acquainted with, the voice that was breathing into her ear from behind her did not belong to anyone she was familiar with. She could feel his chest ghosting against her back, his smirk louder than his voice could ever be. His hair brushed against her cheek and Y/N found herself spinning around with a scowl on her face.

“Jake,” she stated with discern, her obvious distaste towards him sitting heavily on her brows. His smirk only grew wider, his hand clasping behind his back as he leaned closer to her than before.

In the years that she’d known Henry and Jason Sim, she had grown rather close to them. They accepted her into their family by some sort and she was invited to every dinner they hosted in one of those fancy Chinese or Sushi restaurants- whether she attended or not was up to her. If she did attend though, she would be introduced to guests like she was Henry’s own daughter and Jason had always treated her like a sister by the way he kept her company throughout her years as an intern. Her parents, too, had grown quite fond of the father and son.

Jason and Y/N’s friendship, Henry always used to say, was unexpected. He expected them to work together and get along with each other for the sake of their jobs and business, but he was never expecting the siblingly bond they had created. Oftentimes, the pair would find themselves going out for lunch together during breaks or driving to the beach just for the sake of having some entertainment. They would regularly find themselves at each other's houses in the middle of the night with beers and soju in hopes of having movie marathons. Somewhere in that friendship, Y/N learnt a lot about the missing Sim brother.

He was studying Engineering somewhere in Australia, she learned, and he had only visited his family only a couple of times in all his years of education. There was the one time he flew back to Seoul to spend the New Year with Henry and Jason where she heard he got embarrassingly drunk and broke a glass table. Then there was the other time he visited for Christmas but disappeared within an hour without a word. Speaking of Jake meant hearing stories as such, where he was disrespectful, unexpectable and had no sense of respect. She heard that he once cussed at a shareholder because he was being too nosey.

Y/N had only ever met Jake once. Well, they didn’t exactly meet, she had just seen him passing by in a crowd. It was at another one of Henry’s lavish dinner parties where round tables were cloaked with gold cloth and napkins folded into cranes. Golden chandeliers lit above groups of conversations and amongst one of those stood Jake with overly styled hair and a suit too expensive to be bought with his own money. He was talking to some investors- or business men, she didn’t know- with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a wine glass he languidly sipped on. She was told by Jason that it was one of those rare times Jake didn’t make a scene during a party but she also heard he took a random girl to a hotel room for a one-night-stand, never to call her again.

“You say my name with such loathing,” Jake pointed out, his eyes narrowing as his teeth peeked behind his smirk. “I’d get if my dad and brother talked to me that way, but what did I ever do to you?”

Y/N took a step back, crossing her arms across her chest and tapping her heel lightly against the carpeted floor. She looked at him vexed, her mouth pursing into disinterest. Jake stood back straight, moving his hands into the pockets of his jeans and tilting his head in curiosity. If Y/N didn’t know any better, she would call him a pervert and get him thrown out of the premises by one of the guards just because she wanted to.

“I’ve heard enough stories to make a judgement,” she stated firmly.

“Is that any way to talk to your boss’ son?” He taunted.

“I frankly don’t think he’d care.”

Jake chuckled, lowering his gaze to his feet and shaking his head. His smile was bright, the crystalline waters that surrounded them reflecting on his face. A HammerHead shark from the tank behind him swam across him, followed by a Sting Ray and those animals held more of her attention than he did. “Sorry we got off on the wrong foot, Y/N,” he said and sauntered away from her, assuming he was making his way towards his father’s office. Her eyes followed him but she looked away when he glanced at her from over his shoulder. Clearing her throat, she found herself walking towards another floor of the aquarium.

Jason was right, she thought, his accent really is annoying.

Instead of the tunnel she was observing before, she was now in a fairly confined room with rectangular fish tanks one over the other, covering the span of all four walls, apart from the door. In the tanks were miniscule jellyfish that were soon to be moved to one of the larger tanks for the public to gush at. Of all the places in the aquarium, this room was probably the one she visited the most. Not because it was her favourite or anything but rather because these creatures needed most inspection. If the temperature was changed even a little bit or if the water was getting too dirty, there was a chance that a whole batch of these jellyfish would simply disintegrate.

It had happened once before, not under her watch but some other intern, who failed to notice the decrease in temperature in the room. It was a waste of a lot of Henry's money and it was also one of his favourite species that had met their demise. Because of the intern’s mistake, he yelled at him in front of the majority of the other staff and fired him. Since then, Y/N had always been cautious around her work. Perhaps it was why he was always so fond of her- she never knew why.

“Y/N?”

She flinched when she heard Jason’s voice, his head peeking into the room from the small crack of the door.

“What is it with you and your brother scaring me today?” She breathed, her hand placed over her chest.

“You met him?”

“Yeah he was walking down the tunnel, made nice.”

“He annoyed you, didn’t he?”

“Yup.”

“His first impressions are always bad.”

Jason was leading her out of the room, bringing her to the ground floor where she saw tourists and customers flocking towards the ticket booth. If there was one thing about Henry she never understood, it was the fact that he refused to digitalise the ticketing system. In fact, he refused to digitalise many things in the aquarium. He had the physical copy of every research paper published by the The Marine Foundation of Korea and his logs were still done by hand. Technology hates me and I hate technology, he would always say and this mostly stemmed from the incident where he accidentally deleted all his pictures from Google Photos.

“Isn’t an excuse to breathe down my neck,” she argued as he led her to his office.

“Damn.”

“Yeah,” she pressed. “He talked to me like he’d heard of me.”

“Obviously he’s heard of you.”

“No, I mean,” she paused, looking to her side to make eye contact with him. She wasn’t sure how to explain it, so she stuttered and used animated hand gestures to make her point. “Like he knows me.”

“Yeah, well, dad and I talk about you to him all the time.”

“What the hell?”

“In like, a business way,” Jason defended. “He asks how work goes and you sometimes come up in the conversation.”

“And what do you tell him?”

“That you’re good at your job?” He raised his brow, a confused smile meeting her look of disbelief. “Don’t take it the wrong way, he’s honestly probably just jealous.”

“Jealous?”

“Dad trusts you more than him, you know?”

Before Y/N had the chance to respond with a confused remark, perhaps even a puzzled expression, Jason was pushing open the door to Henry’s office and they were met with the sight of Henry sitting on his desk and Jake standing beside him with a grin, leaning towards whatever he was being shown on the monitor screen. Jason and Y/N settled in the chairs on the other side of the desk, the former confidently crossing one ankle over the other knee and the former confused as to why she was there in the first place. Jason had to tug her sleeve to keep her from squirming and looking around confused. There was a moment of silence that passed, Y/N’s gaze zipping between Henry and the tanks his office was surrounded by. Henry murmured to Jake while pointing at his monitor, analysing something Y/N and Jason weren’t aware of. Jake nodded along, pinching at his bottom lip in thought.

“Y/N?” Henry called. She answered with a curious hum, her brows raising. “You’re free next week? Thursday?”

“Yes, why?”

“Well, you know,” Henry brought his attention away from the monitor and towards her, pushing his glasses farther up his nose with his pinky. “I told you about it. An old friend of mine is opening a restaurant with a huge tank. He wants us there on opening night.”

“Oh, right. I remember,” she nodded.

“What, Mr. Bahng didn’t invite me?” Jake stood back straight with his arms crossed, his grin refusing to leave his expression. He looked between his father and brother, only glancing at Y/N once before continuing to tease them.

They, of course, did not find him amusing. “All of us, Jake,” Jason replied with a roll of his eyes.

“Yes, and it’s going to be a rather quiet gathering,” Henry continued. “So I expect you to be on your best behaviour.”

“When have I ever let you down, father?” Jake chuckled; Henry rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Y/N,” Henry looks at her with tired eyes. “He’s got all sorts of fish in his tank, he’s even got a Whale Shark in there-”

“Woah, what?”

“Yeah, I know, it cost a fortune but anyways,” Henry waved off. “He wants to know fun facts- his words, not mine- about all the species he’d got in there so could you be a dear and…?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Y/N grinned and patted Henry's hand that rested on his desk. “Anything but having to socialise with strangers.”

“Can I join her?” Jason chimed, pointing his thumb towards her.

In that moment, Henry glanced between his son and favourite-slash-best employee and they resembled children asking whether they could take a break from studying to watch cartoons. His eyes twitched, thinking that he didn’t want to deal with annoyance other than his younger son. “No,” Henry said. “You’re socialising with strangers. So are you, Jake.”

Jake, who was about to open his mouth to protest with a finger raised in the air, gulped and dropped his hands down to his sides and nodded with pursed lips.

The opening night to Mr. Bahng’s restaurant was a spectacle. What was planned as an intimate gathering turned into a media spectacle. Paparazzi flocked the entrance of the restaurant and bodyguards had to hold back the public as the handsome sons of Henry Sim, the founder of The Marine Foundation of Korea, walked the red carpet. Minor celebrities, a few actors and foreign entertainers attended the evening- some spotted the Jenner Sisters and others hollered at Jason Momoa and Leo DiCaprio. DiCaprio was an old friend of Henry’s- they met through ocean conservation funds and over the years, he had earned a permanent place on Henry’s invite list and vice-versa. Y/N had the pleasure of meeting him once, barely for a few minutes, for a hand shake and to be introduced as the aquarium’s manager and top researcher.

Y/N walked the red carpet with her arm looped with Jason’s, her free hand holding the hem of her sparkly dress in order not to trip in the ruckus. Her hand would occasionally come up to shield her eyes from the camera flashes and Jason had to repeatedly catch her frame because she was tripping on her heels. They were both dreading to see how the paparazzi pictures would turn out the next morning. Jake, on the other hand, walked confidently with a hand in his pocket and the other waving and blowing kisses at everyone. Photographers and netizens were gawking at the Australian engineer graduate, asking for pictures and photographs but ultimately being turned down. He was famously known on the internet for his looks, Prince Charming-like looks and mannerisms. His personality? It was a mystery to all those on the internet, further feeding into delusions of young fan-girls. It was only Jason and Henry that filmed for interviews for the world of marine-biology, often showing up on the news to promote The Marine Foundation of Korea or to talk about their next big break-through in marine sciences.

Henry and Mr. Bahng were the last to walk the carpet- they were the highlight of the event, after all. When they finally entered the restaurant, the glass doors were shut and bolted behind them, bodyguards taking their place in front of the premises like they were protecting The Sphinx. What was inside the restaurant might as well be as valuable as The Sphinx- there were barely any lights to illuminate the subtle interiors of the restaurant. Circular tables spanned the floor, glass windows towering the walls for the public to see inside if it weren’t for the black curtains. Everything else was painted black, too- the walls, the tables, the black marbled floors. The tank however… The tank glowed blue, just like the tanks in the aquarium. It spanned the entirety of one of the four walls in the restaurant. Schools of fish swam by, accompanied by Stingrays, Hammerhead and Leopard sharks. A lone Mola Mola swam by, its eye holding a vacant stare as it scanned the spans of the restaurant on the other side of the glass.

The showstopper, however, would only make its presence when Y/N finally made her way towards the exhibit. Her heels clicked against the black marble, one hand holding the hem of her dress and the other clutching her purse. The loose strands that fell from her hair up-do fanned her shoulders and just as her bangs bristled her eyes, the Whale Shark swam past the tank. It glided effortlessly across the water, its massive and speckled body moving with a hypnotic grace, throwing Y/N into a trance. She stood in awe, eyes scanning for when she could see it again, acting like she didn’t see Whale Sharks everyday in the aquarium. It was the ambiance of the restaurant that made the tank more mesmerising, if she had to be honest. She’d never seen anything like it.

Jake didn’t get a chance to admire the premises yet, sucked into meeting the guests and investors with his father and brother. When he found a chance to slip away, he made his way to the bar and ordered himself a double shot of whiskey. He promised himself that it would be his first and last drink, remembering his promise of behaving for the night. The last time his father brought him to a public gathering, which was almost two years ago, he almost set the venue on fire and broke a glass table. Scowling at the memories he dug up, he took a seat on a black stool at the bar, wandering his eyes around the guests and seeing men and women of power mingle in unexpected cliques. Finally, his gaze landed on the tank, the main attraction of the night, its hue misting the ambience and painting his skin in a sparkling blue. He admired it, watching the Whale Shark languidly make its way back and forth across the tank, sucker fish clinging onto its skin and a lone Leatherback Turtle following it.

Eventually, his eyes dragged towards the far corner of the restaurant where he found the back of Y/N’s silhouette. She, too, was admiring the tank. Gripping his glass of whiskey, he made his way towards her, a sly smile gracing his lips and the whites of his eyes twinkling brighter with the blue hue. As he walked closer, he could make out the familiar color of her dress that he spent the whole limo-ride staring at. It was a sparkly blue and silver dress, thin straps that barely held the dress up her bust. Her hair was put up in a messy bun, two hair pins with silver sea turtles holding it in place. Her earrings matched her hair pins and her heels matched the silver of her dress. The blue hue colored her skin and he swore he was looking at a still-life painting.

“Where’d you get the dress from?”

Y/N looked over her shoulder to catch Jake’s smirk that she learned to despise through Jason’s anecdotes. The smirk that led to his many one-night-stands, his smirk that led to all the decisions that made his father angry at him, the smirk that led to disasters was the same smirk that was walking towards her. Her serenity pulled into annoyance and Jake could see it in her eyes, her brows wrinkling and her lips sneered.

“Hey, I’m just playing nice,” he offered, trying his best to shrug and surrender his motivations. He took another sip of his whiskey, keeping his gaze fixed on her expression.

Y/N turned her body to face him and now, his eyes were wandering down her frame, staring at all the curves of her body that her dress showed off, just as he did in the limo. “It’s an old dress, I wear it a lot,” she admitted. Then, she knocked a nod towards the glass in his hand. “Let me guess, fifth drink of the night?”

“Come on, the night just started,” he rolled his eyes, the gnarly smirk refusing to leave his expression. “It’s my only drink of the night. Promised dad I’d behave, remember?”

“Right,” she swallowed. The hand that was holding the hem of her dress moved to clutch her purse, both her hands pressing into stomach. A water came around with a tray of appetizers, ironic that it was all seafood. Jake finished his drink and handed the empty glass to the waiter, taking two pieces of appetizers- one for him and one for Y/N.

Silence engulfed them as they stood side by side, both now facing the tank and staring at the creatures and coral spanning across her, the only sound being the loud swishes of the water and their chewing. Y/N was not staring to admire anymore; she was staring to distract herself from the awkward presence, to pass time in any way that she could.

“Aren’t you supposed to be socialising?” Y/N asked, hoping he’d realise and leave.

“I’d rather stare at this than socialise,” Jake said, both his hands digging into his trousers.

He wasn’t sure what stories his father and Jason fed Y/N about him for her to hold onto her negative impression of her. She probably thought he hated his family’s line of work, to read about water and the ocean beds and fish all day. In reality, he loved marine biology, he truly did. But he wasn’t going to apologize for not seeing it as his career. Jake still went to the aquarium of every city he would visit, spent time reading the articles and journals his father published and watched marine documentaries in his free time. He even had a small fish tank in his apartment back in Australia- he had two Firefish Goby and two Cardinalfish. He loved marine biology so much, he specialised in marine engineering. He wasn’t sure if Y/N knew that.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jake turned to her. She raised her brows in curiosity, coaxing him to continue. “Why this?”

“What?”

“I mean, why this?” He pointed at the fish tank just as the Whale Shark swam past them again. “Fish tanks, standing in one place, staring, the aquarium. Why, when you could have gone to bigger research centers like in Hawaii, or something?”

Jake almost regretted asking the question when he saw the expression on Y/N’s face turn solemn. She brought her bottom lip between her teeth, chewing as though she was chewing her brain to find him the answer to his question. Not so she could give it to him but because she wanted to give it to herself. Why? She asked herself that, too.

“I don’t know, Jake,” she sighed. “It seemed right at the time and… I guess, I just didn’t know? Who would pass up an opportunity to work with Henry Sim, you know? He chose me. And I’m not saying I regret it, I’ve found family in him and Jason but I ask myself why, too. I miss being out on the waters.”

Ignoring all that she said about his father and brother, knowing it would trigger him, he smirked at her again. He knew how she felt, it was the same thing Jason used to tell him a few years ago. As mesmerising as aquariums were, being out in the sea and seeing marine creatures in the wilderness is like cutting to a surgery intern. Jake had only gone on an ocean expedition once his whole life. His father took him during high school while he was applying for universities in hopes of changing his mind about his major. Jake remembered loving it, being enamored and lost in what the ocean had to offer, to witness its mystery with his own eyes. But unfortunately for his father, it still wasn’t enough to replace his love for engineering.

“I get it,” he assured her. “Don’t worry though. It won’t be this way for long.”

Before Y/N could ask what he meant, to make him elaborate, they heard Henry hollering their names from across the restaurant. He was waving their hand at them, Jason standing beside him sulking in boredom. Jake and Y/N speed-walked towards him, joining him at the table along with a scholar of jellyfish biology.

“Bahng is going to give his speech soon. Sit,” Henry told the pair.

Mr.Bahng’s speech went on for longer than most would like. He stood in the middle of the room with a drink raised in the air, thanking his family, friends and colleagues for making his dreams come true. His daughter stood beside him, trying to calm his influenced-state but it had all only turned into a comical predicament. Y/N caught Jake eyeing the daughter, knowing she must have been one of his old conquests. Most women she knew of her age who ran in the same circles were all probably one of Jake’s old conquests. She wasn’t going to shame these women, she understood the appeal- the wide smile, the sparkling eyes, the smooth hair and dashing facial features. However, she wouldn’t miss a chance to shame Jake, especially around Jason.

Sick and bored of it all, Jason signaled to Jake to grab a drink with him at the bar. As the pair stood up, leaving Y/N alone with Henry and the jellyfish scholar, Henry questioned the pair.

“No more drinks for Jake,” he warned.

“One more can’t hurt. I’m fine,” Jake defended himself, only to be met by an eye roll and a wave of his hand, telling them to go away and come back soon.

The brothers ordered whiskey for themselves. They’ve been told all the men in their family were whiskey enthusiasts. So is their father- apart from the phase he had when he was an angry drunkard, hammered with cheap beer and vodka most of the nights. Now that it had subsided, he was back to whiskey and that too, only rarely.

“Have you not told Y/N yet?” Jake asked his brother as they settled down onto the tall stools. By then, Mr. Bahng’s speech had ended and the room erupted in small talk again. Y/N’s ears were probably being ripped off by the jellyfish scholar but knowing her, she was definitely enjoying the conversation.

“Told her what?” Jason looked at him with utter confusion.

“The research team? Summer expedition?” Jake tried jogging his memory.

“Oh, right!” Jason nodded, sipping on his drink and hissing when an ice cube touched his teeth- it was a pet peeve he’s had since he was young, but he loved the taste of cold beverages. “We wanted to surprise her. Dad knows how much she’s been waiting for this so we’re gonna tell her on a better day.”

“Oh, God. I was on the verge of telling her,” Jake frowned.

“But she doesn’t suspect anything, right?”

“Nope, not a thing.”

“Crisis averted, then!” Jason assured him. “Dad and I are still figuring out how to tell her. Got any ideas?”

“She hates me, I’m sure she doesn’t want to hear any good news from me,” Jake chuckled.

“Y/N doesn’t hate you,” Jason Looked at him baffled and confused, mouth pulled upwards in surprise.

Jake scoffed. “Yes,” he said. “She does. And it’s because of the crap you and dad feed her.”

“Jake, she doesn’t hate you. I know when Y/N hates someone and she doesn’t hate you,” Jason chuckled. “She’s just a bit apprehensive of you and I don’t blame her. You’re a character-”

“Thanks, man-”

“And she takes time with certain people. To be fair, people like you aren’t her scene.”

“I’m not her scene? The fuck does that mean?” Jake laughed, finishing the last of his drink.

“Jake, you’re the drink and let’s party kinda person. She’s not. She likes peace and quiet and books and fancy sofas to sit on. She’s just quiet, dude. Give her time.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” Jake rolled his eyes.

Just then, Y/N found her way to Jason’s side, the click of her heels stopping at the stool beside him. She had an annoyed expression on her face, her eyes tired and almost lifeless. “Your dad’s calling. We’re going home,” she deadpanned and turned to walk away, the hem of her dress in one hand as her hips swayed with more vigour. She was sleepy and tired and if the limo didn’t drop her off at home, she was going to crash in Jason’s bed.

Sunlight danced across the crests, water stretching endlessly into a mosaic of light and motion. Gentle swells rolled beneath the research vessel while occasional whitecaps broke against the hull of the boat. Y/N lay stretched on the warmed deck, salty breeze tickling her stomach and bringing frizzy curls to her hair. Clad in a striped bikini, she left little to the imagination. It was an early morning for her, seagulls mulling over the Indian Ocean and skies still painted with a pink hue. Everyone on the team was still asleep and she took the opportunity to seize the morning.

The first person to wake up was Sunghoon, one of Jake’s friends, who happened to be an oceanographer and drone operator. He studied ocean currents and temperature changes and learned how to pilot drones in order to collect data on plankton blooms. Without him, the entire whale research expedition would be impossible. Sunghoon greeted Y/N with a drowsy smile, clad in only a pair of shorts himself, taking in the morning sunlight.

Following him was Jay, one of Jason’s friends, who was a cetologist and acoustic analyst. He was rubbing a towel against his wet hair, waving at Y/N who started to put on her shirt out of a slight insecurity that crept onto her cheeks. Behind him, Jason and Heeseung joined with plates of toasted bread and a carton of orange juice. Jason threw a piece of bread towards Y/N and she swiftly caught it, thanking him for breakfast.

Heeseung was known as a young prodigy in the field, perfecting his skills in steering and working as the boat captain and field technician. Jake, too, came aboard as a field technician- a marine engineer himself. In fact, If it weren’t for Jake, Henry Sim would probably have never agreed to this whale research expedition in the first place. Jake wanted to test out new equipment that was hitting the market and who better to test the equipment than The Marine Foundation of Korea? It took a lot of convincing and buttering up his father to convince, yet here he was, heading an entire project by himself with some of his closest friends. If Y/N had squinted hard enough at the predicament, this was basically a vacation for a bunch of fish nerds.

She sat on the deck with her legs brought to her chest, chewing on the soggy piece of bread and watching as Jake finally made his way towards the group of boys with a bowl of scrambled eggs in his hand. Vaguely, she could hear Sunghoon say, “your father must finally be proud of you,” and Jason circling back with a sarcastic comment. It made the group rumble with laughter and Y/N felt herself cracking a smile too.

It was probably around three months ago when Jason and Henry broke the news to her. She was coming back from having a measly lunch at a convenience store nearby and had entered Henry’s office to collect a few files. When she opened the door, Jason and Henry had been waiting for her with a cake in their hands and beaming smiles on their faces. “If you’d walked in any later, I would have started eating this thing without you,” Jason chuckled at her, pulling out a plastic knife from his pocket.

Y/N looked at the pair with confusion, eyes darting between the greeting brows of Henry and the grinning mouth of Jason. Then, her eyes fell towards the chocolate cheesecake they were holding, the word “Congratulations!” pipped on with melted chocolate. She recognised this cake. It was the same one they’d buy for every one of her birthdays she spent with them over the past five years. However, the absence of “Happy Birthday!” threw her off- also, the fact that it wasn’t her birthday.

“What is this for?” She asked, feeling as though this was almost a mistake. This cake was expensive and she almost felt guilty. “Guys, nothing’s happened,” she widened her eyes, shook her head and waved her hands in front of her to demonstrate no.

“What do you mean, Kkomaya?” Henry chuckled. “You’re gonna be part of a research team. That’s a huge thing to celebrate.”

“What?”

“Yeah.”

Jason handed her a piece of folded paper that was tucked away in his blazer. It read the details of a whale research expedition that would take place during the summer and span into autumn season. Y/N could barely skim through the details when her eyes landed on the plethora of signatures that filled the end of the paper. She recognised Henry, Jake and Jason’s signatures and some of a few government officials that signed off on the research expedition and agreed to fund for it. Right beside Jake’s signature was an empty dotted line, waiting for Y/N’s signature.

“You’re joking,” she gasped.

“Sign it so we can cut this cake and celebrate, Y/N. My hand’s getting sore,” Jason chuckled again.

“Oh, right. Sorry!”

What followed next was a string of excited screams, giggles and jumping around until Y/N finally signed the paper and threw herself into Henry and Jason to hug. Then, they cut the cake and each enjoyed a piece, the rest to be distributed amongst the employees of the aquarium in light of good news. A few moments later, Jake entered the room, coyly making his way towards Y/N to give her a handshake. Since the night of Mr. Bahng’s restaurant opening, the pair had developed a healthy rapport. He would visit the aquarium sometimes, bumping into Y/N in the process and making polite conversation. He made efforts to be a little more respectful towards her, packing away his cocky personality only in front of her. She once asked him why he was spending so much time in Korea, leaving his job in Australia and he responded aloofly. She got her answer now.

Now, it was the end of May and Y/N was on a research vessel with an unfamiliar group. Though she spent a week getting to know them before leaving for the expedition, seeing them interact on the deck, throwing around jokes like they’d known each other their whole lives… she wasn’t sure how to act that way. She felt like the odd one out, the loose end. Jake and Sunghoon were childhood friends; Jason and Jay were college friends and Heeseung was Mr. Bahng’s oldest son so Jake and Jason had known of him since they were kids. She’s met him a handful of times before, including the night of Mr. Bahng’s restaurant opening. But she didn’t know him like everyone else did.

“Y/N!” Jason waved for her to come over and she did, lifting herself off the lounging chair and walking towards them. It was their third day together on this vessel and she still wasn’t sure how to approach anyone when they were grouped together. She hated saying it, but she relied on Jason to include her when it came to the socialising side of her work. The practicality, however? She was splendid.

“Today’s the day we need to actually start working,” Heeseung said to her as she approached them. Jason made space between himself and Heeseung so she could stand in the circle with them. “It’s mostly Jay and Sunghoon that’s gotta do the work today, figuring out the equipment and all. Jake and I will help. You and Jason stay in stand by, for now. You can go on dives, get your practice on. Just be careful, make sure one of us is scouting…”

And Heeseung rambled on, eventually moving on to telling Jay and Sunghoon what their itinerary consisted of. Y/N’s eyes wandered off to the ocean, water spanning for miles on end, no land near site. They were in the middle of nowhere- well, not literally. They knew their coordinates. But if their equipment were to damage or if one fell overboard, they were as good as dead. It’s moments and opportunities like these marine biologists spend their lives working towards- what Y/N spent her days waiting for.

“So, that’s final?” Sunghoon started. “Jay and I will get the hydrophones, then?”

“Yep,” Heeseung clasped his hands together and everyone started dispersing, mumbling words of encouragement and affirmations, pumping their fists in the air or clapping to get their spirits up.

Before everyone had the chance to disappear and get their gear prepared, Jason stopped everyone and said, “should we make, like, a group chant sort of thing?”

“Yeah, that’s not happening, mate,” Jake pursed his lips and patted his brother on his chest. Y/N chuckled and the rest of them laughed while walking away to continue their work.

It took Jay and Sunghoon a total of four hours to deploy the five units of hydrophones, both floating and anchored. While diving, they would constantly resurface for air and call for Jake, yelling, “What kind of new technology is this, you twat, I prefer the old ones!” Their anger bubbled, frustrated at the fact that a two hour process was taking them double the time only because of the unfamiliarity. After their fourth complaint, Jake ended up diving with them to help.

Heeseung stayed with Jason and Y/N to help test and calibrate the hydrophones. While they sent test signals, Y/N cursed under her breath, too, telling Jason, “we could have just used the old equipment. This new shit Jake brought us is not user friendly.”

“People thought that about the iPhone but they love it now, don’t they?” Jason offered, hoping to reduce Y/N’s distaste. She could only respond by rolling her eyes.

By the time they were done, the sun had started setting and the divers barely ate food. The trio that stayed on the vessel cooked a heavy dinner with whatever ingredients they had, feeding the divers the second they freshened up. The group assembled on the deck, the same place they were huddling in the morning, with blankets wrapped around their shoulders to shield from the chilly breeze.

“Where’s Jason?” Jake looked around.

“He’s finishing with the final sample recordings. He’ll be up in a bit,” Y/N assured.

Jason came back with six chairs, one for everyone to sit on as they debriefed for the night. Warm water was passed around as conversation fluidly changed from work to personal history. The stars were shining unfamiliarly, a sight Y/N couldn’t get in the city anymore. She was reminded of her father who used to point to the constellations and tell her their names. As a kid, she knew most of them by heart. Now, she was unable to recognise most of the constellations, only being able to pick out a few.

“Add in a bonfire and the night would be perfect,” Jay sighed, shivering as he hugged his blanket tighter.

“Oh, we used to go camping a lot in college,” Jason mused. “Those were the times, man. Young and alive.”

“I’d say you’re living it up right now as well, bro,” Heeseung laughed, referring to their boat that was in the middle of the ocean, whale watching and diving as a part of their job description and getting paid above average.

“True,” Jason scratched the nape of his neck in embarrassment. Jake further made fun of Jason and Sunghoon joined in, throwing pieces of crumpled paper from their notebooks at him.

“Look at the stars, guys,” Heeseung directed everyone’s gaze towards the sky. “You don't have nights like these in the city anymore.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Y/N nodded. “Gotta take it all in before we leave.”

“We’ve got three months for that, don’t worry,” Sunghoon assured.

“Hey, Y/N, wasn’t your dad an astronomer?” Jason clocked his head. “He used to teach you when you were a kid, where each constellation was?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?”

“You told me, like, a really long time ago.”

“Your dad did physics in college? That’s so cool,” Jake pipped, sitting at the edge of his chair and directing his excited smile at her. He’s always had a habit of becoming excited at the mention of physics and math- the entire reason he went into engineering.

“Do you still remember some of the constellations?” When Heeseung asked, Y/N nodded. “Do tell us,” he encouraged.

Bringing her bottom lip between her teeth, she looked up and squinted her eyes to see if anything looked familiar. “Do you guys see the diamond shape?” She heard everyone confirm with a hum. “That’s The Corvus or The Crow. Dad used to say that the crow was a messenger from the sea.”

”Wah,” she heard Jason and Jay exclaiming as she continued searching.

“Do you see a teapot, perchance? Right there,” Y/N attempted to show them its correct location by pointing and once again, she was met with a group of hums. “That’s The Sagittarius. It contains the center of the Milky Way.”

”Wait, I’ve heard about this,” Jake snapped his fingers, trying to jog his memory. “Didn’t sailors use it to locate the galactic core or something?”

”You’re right, I’m surprised you knew that,” Y/N smirked and tried finding another constellation.

In the background, Sunghoon pondered aloud on what it would be like if he could name a constellation after himself and it brought the group into a laughing fit. Jake, though he laughed with them, kept his gaze on Y/N, admiring the way her nose tilted upwards and gaze reflected the starry sky. Jake, who once picked up a book on astronomy out of sheer curiosity and gave up on reading it due to its lack of logic and mechanics, found himself leering as she explained the stars to everyone.

“Do you guys see the red star? That’s Antares, the heart of The Scorpion,” she explained.

”Wow,” Sunghoon started and snapped towards Jake as though he had a revelation. “Wait, isn’t that your constellation? You’re a Scorpio, right?”

”Yeah, how’d you know?”

”I’ve known you your whole life, asshole. Don’t tell me you don’t know my zodiac.”

”I do, I do!”

”What is it?”

”Sagittarius! I thought about it when Y/N pointed it out, I swear!”

Then started the narration of Jake and Sunghoon becoming friends. Jake’s mother, Vivian, moved into the street that Sunghoon’s parents, Daniel and Emily Park, lived in. Both couples were newly weds, just getting back from their honeymoon. Vivian had already been pregnant with Jason at the time and because her and Emily grew close, she was there the day Jason was born. When their husbands were off to work, Emily would often spend her time with Vivian, taking care of her and Jason. Around a year later, Vivian fell pregnant again and Emily announced her pregnancy exactly a month later.

The two mothers spent all their time together thereafter, going to the hospital for check ups together and supporting each other through pregnancy yoga exercises. With each other's support, they didn’t worry about their husbands working overtime. They even hired a nanny together, shifting between houses to help with household work and with Jason, who was still too young to understand his surroundings at the time.

Jake and Sunghoon were born a month apart, Jake being the older one. Emily was in the hospital while Vivian gave birth and vice versa. Henry and Daniel were in wonder of their friendship- it was like it was out of the movies, utopian for the society they lived in today. It was a good thing the two families found each other in this dog-eat-dog world.

Jake and Sunghoon went to the same schools, same clubs and festered the same hobbies so they could do everything together. Their mothers used to joke that they’d end up falling for the same girl one day. “And what would you do if that ever happened?” Emily used to ask Sunghoon and he would respond with, “boy code- I’ll stay away from her if he likes her and I know he’d do the same for me.” In fact, he did and when a similar situation arose in middle school, neither of them got the girl because they valued their friendship more.

Around the time Jake and Sunghoon were old enough to perceive and build on their imaginations, they started pulling pranks on Jason. It was the nasty ones- like, putting saran wrap on the toilet seat or sticking gnarly notes on his bag before he left for school. Once, they rolled a skateboard into him while he was walking into his bedroom and he fell face first into the floor, breaking his nose and costing his parents an emergency trip to the hospital. Jason and Jake didn’t speak for a full month after that incident.

When Jake and Sunghoon turned sixteen, the Park family started talking about relocating to China. Daniel had better job prospects and he was convinced that his children, Sunghoon and Yeji who were four years apart, would receive better education. “And international exposure is always good for a child,” he’d tell Emily. Sunghoon would argue that he wouldn’t leave the country until college and Yeji would cry about not wanting to leave her friends.

It was around this time that Henry opened The Marine Foundation of Korea and started earning more. Their family moved to a more expensive neighbourhood but that didn’t stop Jake and Sunghoon from spending most of their time together. In fact, when Henry had gone on his drinking spree due to the lawsuits and backlash, Jake would run off to Sunghoon’s house, leaving his poor mother and brother to deal with his scary father. When it came time to decide upon college and careers, Sunghoon sat through arguments with Henry to allow Jake to pursue his passions in engineering.

When Jake and Sunghoon started senior year in high school, Vivian was diagnosed with uterine cancer- stage four. That year was filled with tragedy and character change from Henry. Though they spent a fortune on hospital bills, Vivian’s health rapidly declined. The two families started accepting the fate that was to come and Vivian came to an honorable death. What made the children’s period of grief insufferable was that the tabloids had picked up the event and started bombarding the Sim family with unrelated questions. It made Jake want to run away.

Around that time, Sunghoon’s family did end up relocating to Taiwan where Sunghoon pursued marine biology (being truly inspired by Henry’s work) and Yeji continued her high school education. Jake flew off to Australia to pursue engineering, despite his father’s wishes, and estranged himself from his family. For over a year, Henry and Jason only got updates about Jake from Sunghoon. Eventually, though, the three made peace.

It had been almost a decade since Vivian passed away and over three years since Jake and Sunghoon completed post graduation from living across the world from each other, yet their friendship still ran strong. They called and texted each other religiously, making sure their friendship lived on through whatever they were doing in life. Being on this research expedition was like a dream for the pair- everything had somehow worked out perfectly.

“Do you miss your mom?” Heeseung found himself asking the Sim brothers.

“Yeah, of course,” Jake shrugged and slumped further into his chair. Sunghoon reached over to comfortingly pat his knee and he cracked him a smile.

“I miss her all the time,” Jason said. “I’d like to think she’s in a better place.”

A long time ago, when Jason first told Y/N about how his mother passed away, she noticed that there was never an air of solemness or pity when he spoke about her. It was tragic and unfortunate, but Jason never let that reflect in himself. He always spoke about his mother with confidence or a smile on his face, celebrating her existence as a smart woman and amazing mother. He never let anyone show him pity about the fact that he lost his mother too young. He simply chose to idolise her, keep her alive through his happiness and through his achievements. She realised, after narrating basically his whole childhood, that Jake was the same. When he spoke about his mother, he didn’t let his voice cloud with pity and he described her with love and adoration.

“Isn’t it lucky that you ended up doing marine engineering?” Sunghoon said to Jake.

“I love engineering but I do love the ocean, too. Shit’s in my blood- dad shat on me for no reason,” Jake rolled his eyes and Jason threw back a piece of crumpled paper at him. Annoyed, Jake bounced his leg up and down. “You know what we forgot to mention?”

“What?” Sunghoon asked.

“Do you remember when Yeji had the biggest crush on Jason?”

With that, Sunghoon let out the biggest groan and threw his head back, hiding his face under his hands. Jason leaped at the memory while Heeseung, Jay and Y/N begged Sunghoon to show them a picture of his sister. Jake started scrolling through his phone to see if he could find any.

“What do you say, Jason?” Jake wiggled his eyebrows at his brother.

“Dude, grow up,” Jason rolled his eyes. “She was a kid.”

“Not anymore! Isn’t she, like, working right now, Sunghoon?” Jake teased.

“I’ll actually kill you,” Sunghoon deadpanned.

“I think they’d make a great couple, though!”

“Dear lord, not this again,” Jason groaned. “The four of us talk all the time, we literally have a group chat. Stop making it weird.”

From what Y/N could gather, this seemed like a conversation the three had frequently. Jake would mention the pairing of Jason and Yeji and Jason and Sunghoon would get riled up and throw a fit. Jake would then continue to list down the reasons as to why should start dating for the millionth time and the other two would turn him down for the millionth time. After seeing a picture of Yeji, she understood why Jake said they would make a great pair.

The first time Y/N saw Jason and Jake side by side, she told them that they looked nothing alike. And they truly didn’t- everyone would always be surprised when they told them they were siblings, only one year apart. Jake had stronger features, a sharper nose, defined jawline, almond eyes, thick lips and curtain-like hair. Jason, however, had lighter features with a button nose, round eyes, fluffy hair and puppy-like lips. They were both handsome, there was nothing to deny, just in polar different ways.

“I think this is a sign for us to sleep guys, It’s gonna be early morning for all of us from here on,” Jason announced and was the first to get up.

Everyone followed him to the sleeping pods, six beds fitted to the walls like bunk beds. If they stared hard enough, the room almost looked like a jail-cell but none of them really took it to heart. They wouldn’t be spending much time there anyway. Y/N slept in the bed above Jason’s and Jake slept opposite to her. That night, she found herself drifting off to sleep while desperately trying to focus on his features, the softness of his expression as he slept.

“This is our first drone test,” Heeseung announced and Sunghoon planted himself beside him with the drone and controller in hand. It had almost been a week since they deployed the hydrophones and it took them a week to perfect how to use them. Improvements were going slower than expected but a majority of the reason for this expedition was to test the new equipment so they learned to not complain as much. Finally, they decided to move on to the next piece of equipment, the drone, that Sunghoon was going to manoeuvre.

“Are we ready?” Sunghoon called. Everyone answered with a hum, dressed in scuba gear in case they needed to dive at the spotting of any whale, they told themselves. In the few days that they were at sea, they found it concerning that they spotted everything but a whale. “Alright, let’s go, then!”

Everyone watched with curiosity, intent and awe as the drone lifted higher into the sky, becoming a speckle of dust to their eyes as Sunghoon controlled it with grace. Jason monitored its camera through his laptop, paying close attention to anything that it could capture. They all stood around watching the screen for around ten minutes, Sunghoon still standing at the edge of the doc as he controlled the drone.

When the fifteenth minute came around, everyone started to lose hope, dispersing to do their respective work with grumbles and sighs. The twentieth minute came around and Jake asked Sunghoon if the new version of the drone was better than the hydrophones. He confirmed with a nod, his lips slightly parted as he concentrated his fingers on the controller and his eyes towards the sky where he could still see the drone. Bored, Jason and Y/N started playing thumb wars and Heeseung and Jay started discussing what the next day’s itinerary would be- Sunghoon let out a gasp.

“Guys, look!”

Everyone ran towards the laptop screen and vaguely, they could see the outline of a large fish, slowly gliding through the ocean currents, around twenty feet away from them. It wasn’t blue- a deep brown and grey, rather. It could have easily been a Bryde’s Whale. At this realisation, everyone elated and Jason ran to check if the hydrophones were picking up any sounds or echoes.

“I’ve got nothing,” Jason shook his head.

”What do you mean? Let me check,” Jay took over and after a few seconds of listening, he too concluded the same thing. “Are you sure the hydrophones aren’t glitching again?” He asked Jake.

“No, I’m sure,” Jake assured.

”Guys, it’s not too far from us. You can go check it out,” Sunghoon hollered to everyone, noticing that the silhouette was moving closer and closer towards the vessel.

Within the next ten minutes, Jay, Jason, Jake and Y/N were diving headfirst into the water. The rush of the ocean engulfed Y/N, the cold making her realise that this was her first time diving in the ocean since her semester on sea during college. The past few years, she’d kept in touch by diving in swimming pools and facilities but this… the real thing was always better.

Bubbles streamed past their bodies as they tried cutting through the water, their goggles making everything hazy as they got used to the pressure. At a distance, they could see the silhouette of what they hoped to be a Bryde’s Whale. Sunghoon and Heeseung kept an eye on them through the video the drone was transmissioning.

For a breathless moment, a moment where they all hoped that it was a whale they were finally seeing, they truly believed that they were in luck. However, as they swam closer to the giant body, theyr recognised its gaping mouth, unhurried movements and pointy fins as something else. For a moment, another breathless moment, they were disappointed, weight filling their chest in a way the ocean’s pressure couldn’t crush them. But seconds later, they decided to enjoy their discovery- Y/N, especially. It was fleeting, barely a few seconds, but it felt like something unspoken passed between them in that shared moment.

“Guys, it’s a Basking Shark,” Y/N said. “Heeseung? Sunghoon? Can you hear me?”

“It’s a Basking Shark, alright,” Jay said, his voice crackling through the earphones before Y/N could receive his words.

“You know the rules, guys. No touching, only looking,” Jason reminded them.

The group of four stopped swimming, floating in the blue abyss and watching the Basking Shark’s movements. It opened its mouth to inhale water- its way of catching food. It stayed open that way, allowing them to get a full view of its insides. White and dark stripes disappearing into its stomach. Slowly, slowly, second by second, the shark swam their direction, as calm as the wind and ocean before a storm. The divers moved to stand out of its way as it swam past them.

“How many feet do you think it is?” Jake asked.

“This is a big one,” Jay said. “I think 30, maybe 33 feet.”

Y/N knew the answer to this question. Normally, she would be the first person leap at answering. But she was too enamoured by the creature as it swam between them, momentarily making her lose sight of Jay and Jason who were on the other side. She could still see the bubbles floating upwards from their breathing. In a moment of poor judgement, she let her fingers raise to inch closer to the fit on the shark, eyes sparkling with eagerness and anticipation. What would it feel like? What would she feel?

As her fingers reached out, inches away from the shark’s rough skin, she felt a hand wrap around her wrist. Startled, she swung her head around to find Jake’s eyes staring daggers at her. Through his mask, she saw him shaking his head. They hovered that way, his hand on her wrist, eyes moving away from each other and towards the shark, watching it drift away from them and the vessel.

The group made their way back to surface, hearts beating with exhilaration. Sunghoon and Heeseung stretched out their arms to help everyone up, fighting the heaviness of the water. “That was amazing,” Jay enthralled as he ripped his mask off.

The other three settled on the deck, backs slumping onto the railings of the vessel as they heaved to catch their breaths. Their masks were thrown beside them and their wetsuits slipped down their torsos. Jake ran his hands through his hair, trying to restyle its shape; Jason forced himself to stand up so he could make his way to the shower; Y/N sat there, unmoving, staring at her bare hands like she’d just woken up from an unbelievable dream. Then, she lifted her head to look at her surroundings, meeting her gaze with Jake as her head turned. He cracked a smile at her and she turned away, embarrassed.

Nine days. It had been nine days since the Basking Shark incident and they were nowhere close to seeing a whale- Blue Whale, Humpback Whale, Sperm Whale… nothing. There was a moment where Jay was convinced he’d picked up the sounds of whales singing but the noise ended up being interference from debris. However, it wasn’t to say that nothing good came out of the past empty days.

The equipment they were testing had come around wonderfully. Everyone, with due time and patience from Jake, started learning how to use the technology and were on their way to perfecting the techniques. One day, a curious Green Sea Turtle surfaced next to the vessel and stared at them for a full minute before diving away. While hauling one of their retrieval baskets, they realised they'd caught an Isopod and it made Heeseung recoil in horror due to its eerie similarity to cockroaches- that day, they found out Heeseung had a huge phobia of insects. Y/N caught a glimpse of a pod of flying fish through her binoculars. Jake caught a glimpse of a Thresher Shark while everyone else was in the lab and he had headed up for some fresh air.

Sunghoon seemed to be some sort of octopus whisperer. A few days ago, he’d spotted a tiny translucent octopus stuck to the side of the vessel and he stretched himself to reach it. It was small enough to fit on his pinky and wrap its tentacles to cover his fingerprint. It was almost transparent, apart from specks of pigment that floated in its body like dust. Its body pulsed softly in his hand, delicate tentacles fanning out onto his palm to test the surface. Then, he slowly lowered it back to the water. On one of their dives, Sunghoon spotted a Blanket Octopus, a rare sighting that would get the media riled up when the footage was released, and he swam after it until he was too far from the vessel.

That morning, Jay woke up to the sight of a pod of dolphins swimming past the vessel, jumping into the air to create dark outlines onto the orange and pink sky. The rhythmic splash of their bodies against the water seemed to stir the rest of the crew from their sluggish morning routines. One by one, they emerged onto the deck—first Jason, then Heeseung and Sunghoon, followed by Y/N and Jake. The usual grumbles of early wake-ups were quickly replaced by soft gasps and murmured excitement as they took in the sight before them.

“That’s what I call a wake-up call,” Y/N gasped.

“Maybe that’s a sign of luck, guys,” Jay offered. “We should do something tonight.”

“Like what?” Sunghoon asks.

Jay perked up. “Like a night dive?”

Sunghoon, who had been taking a sip of water, nearly choked. “Diving?” He coughed. “At night?”

“Why not? We’ve been out here for weeks, and we haven’t done one yet,” Jay reasoned. “The bioluminescence, the different marine life—it’d be an entirely new experience.”

Jason nodded in agreement. “Plus, it’ll be a good change of pace. We’ve been so focused on the whales that we haven’t really taken in everything else around us.”

Heeseung, ever the cautious one, sighed. “You do realize diving at night is way riskier, right? Low visibility, stronger currents—”

“We’ll take precautions,” Jay cut in. “We’ve got the lights, safety lines, and we won’t go too far from the vessel. It’s a controlled dive, not some reckless plunge.”

A moment of silence passed as Heeseung weighed the risks, scanning the eager faces around him. Finally, he exhaled through his nose and shook his head. “Fine. But if anything even remotely goes wrong, we call it and get out. No heroics.”

A round of nods and murmured agreements followed.

“Then it’s settled,” Jay grinned. “Tonight, we dive.”

Excitement buzzed like static as the sun dipped below the horizon. The group prepared for their night dive with thick dive suits and dive computers strapped to their wrists. Jason, ever meticulous, went through each regulator one by one, testing for air flow. "If your regulator sputters, switch to your alternate immediately and signal me," he reminded the group.

Sunghoon handed out waterproof dive torches while Jay and Heeseung secured backup glow sticks to their vests, just in case their primary lights failed. “If it gets too dark, stick close and don’t panic,” Jay advised. “This is a controlled dive, no one goes deeper than 30 meters. Stay within sight of your buddy at all times. If anyone gets separated, stop where you are, shine your light upwards, and wait for us to find you. Do not ascend alone unless it’s an emergency.”

Jay paired with Jason, Sunghoon paired with Heeseung and, like fate had it, Y/N paired with Jake.

Slowly, they approached the edge of the deck, staring down at the ink-black water, the reflection of the stars rippled into infinite nothingness and for a moment, just for a moment, they felt themselves regretting their decision, letting fear conquer their senses. Sunghoon looked at Heeseung, panic and fear glistening against his eyes. Jake, catching his expression from the other end, assured him with a thumb raised in the air and adjusted his mask.

“We got this, guys,” Jake announced, trying to lift everyone’s spirits. “It’s gonna be an experience of a lifetime.”

As the words left his lips, Y/N’s gaze lifted to meet his through the hazy plastic of her mask, her lashes fluttering as hesitation creased her brow. Even through the dim glow of their dive lights, she could see the warmth in his eyes, the way his expression softened—like he was seeing only her in the vastness of the ocean. Then, as if drawn by an unspoken pull, his fingers brushed against her wrist before slipping lower, finding her hand with effortless ease. Slowly, deliberately, he wove his fingers through hers, his grip gentle yet certain. Her breath hitched as she glanced down at their hands—at the way they fit, tethered in the silent depths—before letting her gaze drift back up to him. He wasn’t looking away. He held her there, in the weightless moment suspended between them.

“Just stick with me, yeah?” He whispered to her. “I promise it’ll be the best time of your life.”

“Alright, everyone,” Jay hollered. “Everyone dive in three… two… one.”

What followed were a sequence of splashes and bubbles rising to the surface of the water due to the impact. The first thing they saw was blackness, their eyes still adjusting to the minimal light of their flashlights. As they splashed around, disturbing the calmness of the water, they saw specks of blue- little emeralds glistening at their friction.

“It’s plankton,” Y/N squealed. “It’s bioluminescence!”

“Can’t get better than this, huh?” Jake squeezed her hand, tuning out the excitement everyone else was emulating.

“This is unreal,” Heeseung moved his hand to trigger another spark of bioluminescence, mesmerized by the living light show.

As they descended further, with patience and caution, they saw the silver body of a Barracuda flash by. Startled, Y/N moved closer to Jake, wrapping her wrist around his bicep. Jason, Jay, Heeseung and Sunghoon had moved deeper and the pair followed, eyes spotting clusters of coral reefs with their blooming polyps. From the reef emerged a biofluorescent Hawksbill Sea Turtle, snapping its mouth open and closed in hopes of finding prey. It moved languidly through the water, ignorant of the divers coming closer to it.

“Didn’t think we’d see this today,” Jason said. “Biofluorescence is common in corals and sharks but it’s only been seen in turtles around 2015. Take it in, everyone.”

As everyone tried keeping their eyes on the turtle, already on the verge of leaving their sight, Jay signals everyone to look towards a rocky outcrop. A flash of pale white flickering into deep brown and they hover in place, watching as a cuttlefish pulsated with shifting hues, blending seamlessly into the seafloor before striking at an unsuspecting shrimp. Just a few feet away, a small octopus stretched its arms along the coral, its skin rippling from sand-colored to a deep maroon as it crept toward its prey.

Y/N, captivated, gestured excitedly at the display, her bubbles rising in bursts. Jake caught her expression and grinned behind his mask, watching as she pressed closer to the scene, eyes wide with childlike wonder. Sunghoon, playing the photographer, raised the underwater camera to capture the display of nature’s most skilled shapeshifters. When the creatures finally retreated into the shadows, the group exchanged excited looks before continuing their dive.

As they moved deeper, the ocean’s silence felt heavier, interrupted only by the sound of their own breathing. It felt like they were in a sharksploitation film, the Jaws background music being the only thing missing. As though Y/N’s thoughts were being read, Jason, who had been slightly ahead, froze and pointed his light downward in a startled haze.

Whatever it was that caught Jason’s attention, it was huge and left a trail of bioluminescence in its wake. They could feel it looming just beyond the reach of their lights. A ripple of tension passed between the group as an immense shadow suspended in the water. No one moved- they were sure not one of them was breathing.

Jay’s fingers curled around his dive knife out of instinct, his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Heeseung, usually calm, hovered frozen in place, his eyes darting between the dark shape and Sunghoon, who was holding onto his camera for dear life. Jake exhaled slowly, bubbles escaping in a steady stream as he tried to make sense of what they were seeing, Y/N clinging to his arm to comfort herself. Steadily, Jason tightened his grip on his flashlight and angled the beam forward. The light cut through the darkness, catching the edge of something vast and smooth. The shape shifted, its outline rippling like a ghost emerging from the abyss.

It was a Manta Ray.

At the realisation, their muscles loosened and Jay kept his dive knife away. They watched it swarm past them, its wings stretching impossibly wide. Just like a ghost, it glided through the water like it owned the place, its pale underbelly flashing in the light. It moved like a specter, unbothered by their presence, its cephalic fins unfurling like delicate ribbons as it turned. With the added effects of the blue bioluminescence, it felt like they were watching a dream. Y/N say them all the time in the aquarium but to see them alive, gliding in their natural habitat, was a different kind of sight.

“How big do you think that is?” Jay murmured.

“Five meters?” Y/N answered. “Easily six… she’s huge.”

Jake felt Y/N’s grip on his arm loosen and like instinct, he turned towards her in. He was met with the sight of her in awe, watching the Manta Ray disappear into the void. As they hovered in awe, Heeseung was the first to react. He gestured frantically, his flashlight beam cutting through the water and landing on something just below them. His wide eyes and rapid pointing sent a jolt of confusion through the group. Jay followed the direction of Heeseung’s light, angling his own beam downward.

A Vampire Squid.

It wasn’t supposed to be here. These creatures lived far deeper, in oxygen-minimum zones, not a mere 20 meters below the surface. Yet there it was, its deep crimson body illuminated in their lights, its webbed arms curling inward as it drifted.

Jason exhaled a string of bubbles, exchanging a stunned glance with Jay. Y/N's mind raced—was it sick? Disoriented? Had something forced it to the surface?

Before they could react, the squid suddenly pulsed its body, releasing a shimmering cloud of bioluminescent mucus—a defense mechanism against predators. Tiny blue specks scattered around it like an underwater firework before the creature vanished into the blackness.

The team remained frozen, the eerie afterglow of the squid's defense lingering in the water.

“What the hell was that doing up here?” Jason finally asked through their comms. No one had an answer.

“I’m not getting a good feeling from this,” Heeseung announced. “We’ve seen plenty. I think it’s time to go.”

With steady nods and eager movements, they swam back toward the vessel, an unspoken unease settled between them. A buzz of confusion filled their dialogue when they broke the water and fatigue settled into their bodies. Some looked back at the Manta Ray and awed, others still concerned about why they saw a Vampire Squid so far up the surface, questioning if they should be worried. Jason theorised that it was probably nearing its life-cycle; from what he could see in the passing moments, it looked quite old.

In practiced silence, they stripped off their gear. Masks clattered onto the deck. Wetsuits peeled away with sluggish motions. Someone yawned. One by one, they disappeared below deck—some for a quick shower, others just to sit and breathe.

Y/N, clad in her bikini and a flimsy shirt, found herself sitting on the edge of the deck, her bare feet skimming the water. Each ripple sent a flicker of blue light swirling around her toes—the bioluminescence responding to her every movement. She could hear the guys deep in a conversation on the other side of the deck, discussing the next morning’s regime. She didn't listen in. She just watched the reflection of the stars, absentmindedly swirling her foot through the water, watching the glow chase her movements.

Then, footsteps. She didn’t have to look to know who it was. The air around them shifted as Jake settled beside her, resting his forearms on his knees. For a moment, neither of them spoke, just watching the light dance beneath them. She could see him pouting from the corner of her eyes, a habit she noticed in him before they even started the research expedition.

“Dinner?” She asked, not breaking her gaze away from whatever was in front of her.

He turned to look at her, damp hair falling in front of his forehead. “Yeah, yeah,” he nodded.

“Hey, I have a question,” Y/N found herself chuckling before she could ask him. Slowly, she turned to look at her, shifting her position so that she could lean back on the palms of her hands. “Heeseung doesn’t know you hooked up with his little sister, does he?”

At the question, Jake found himself cackling, too. “What?” He laughed. “No way,” he shook his head. “I think he’d murder me.”

“Yeah, he definitely would,” Y/N agreed. Then, she let a moment of silence pass between them, mustering up the courage to ask him her next question. “What is it about hookups with you, anyway? Just… why so many?”

“Is that who you think of me as?” Jake’s chuckle never left, his eyes widening as he continued. “We just came back from that… interesting dive and you wanna talk about this?”

“It was a bit scary,” she admitted. “I loved it, but I don’t wanna think about it until tomorrow.”

“Fair, fair. Alright, I’ll indulge you,” Jake bit his lip- another one of his many habits- and allowed his gaze to meet hers.

In that moment, in a fleeting split second, the wall that Jake built to keep caution around her had crumbled. All these months, Jake spent trying to be respectful around her, walking on eggshells to try and gain her respect. And somewhere along the way, she started looking at him like he was his own person- not the annoying little brother Jason complained about and not the disappointing son Henry seethed about. She could see the effort he put in, not only for his work or his family, but also for her. She wasn’t sure why. She almost missed his cocky demeanour.

“I don’t know why you’re so against it-”

“I’m not against it,” Y/N defended. “I’m just not that kind of person.”

“Right,” he breathed. “But I guess… well, I suppose I should begin from where it all started,” at that, Y/N chuckled and nodded to coax him to continue. “So, it was the second semester at college and as usual, I was at some house party. By this time, I’d lost my virginity in high school and everything, right? But I hadn’t really slept with anyone in college. So that night, I met this girl- really pretty, really flirty-”

“And you slept together.”

“And we slept together,” he said. “And me, being the fool I was,” Y/N continued laughing, finding his narrative style quite comical. “Thought that maybe she wanted me to call her the next morning. But apparently she didn’t want that. And nineteen year old Jake was heart broken-”

“And he started going to the gym, came out a cocky ass and started sleeping with everyone because some random girl broke his heart-”

“Hey, hey, hey, don’t make fun of me,” Jake nudged her side, leading her to continue laughing. Her eyes struggled to stay open and her smile refused to die. Jake bathed in her joy. “And to be fair, I started going to the gym in high school,” he pointed a finger at her.

“Yeah, okay, whatever,” she grinned and rolled her eyes.

“But, yeah, anyways,” he continued. “I was hurt by it, obviously. And then I told my friends about it and they were all assholes, by the way. Not the kind you want to have long term relationships with. But, yeah, I told them and they kinda brainwashed me into thinking that I got lucky that this was a no strings attached thing. And to be honest, a few days later, I kinda liked the whole idea, too, I guess? And the party I went to after that- hooked up with another girl. And I guess, the cycle just continued.”

Y/N blinked at him for a second, bringing her bottom lip between her teeth. “No one gets hurt?”

“No one gets hurt,” he assured with a shake of his head.

“How would you know, though?” She asked. “The girl in the context- what if-”

“You just kind of know,” he breathed. “You always kinda know. It’s like a sixth sense… only hook up with people you’re sure who want the same things as you. But don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t ever want to settle down. I mean- I’m pushing thirty. It’s just that… I don’t think I’ve found anyone yet.”

Y/N hummed. “The sex is that good?”

Jake’s grin returned, this time a little mischievous, dangerous. His eyes had a sparkle in them, his pointy teeth peeking behind his smile. “Y/N, the sex…” he rumbled, voice low and breath fanning against her ear. He leaned closer to her. “You wouldn’t believe it.”

Y/N gulped.

Assuming his previous position, his grin still plastered on him, he looked her up and down, taking in the tips of her toes that were still touching the water and running his gaze back to her eyes. Perhaps he was being delusional, clouded by the conversation they were having, but he was sure he saw the spark in her- the spark that manifested through her hooded eyes and flushed cheeks. He could see her squeeze her legs together, nails digging into her palms as she chewed her bottom lip. Her gaze stayed on his hands- his hands that were pulsating with his veins, fingers long enough to wrap her around him.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never-”

“No, I have- Jake, I’m pushing thirty, too,” she rolled her eyes, shaking herself out of her daze. A cool wind breezed past them and she could feel her nippled perking through her shirt- she was sure Jake had noticed. “Dated this guy a couple years ago. I met him as a customer in the aquarium, actually. We dated for, like, a year. The sex was good. Jason hated him, though. Said he acted like a frat boy and looking back, I guess he kinda did.”

Watching her shrug and look away, he licked his lips. His breath was near her neck now, his presence ghosting against hers. “Y/N, you deserve better than good sex- whatever that was.”

“And you’re some expert on sex?” She teased.

They didn’t know when the air between them had changed.

Maybe it had started in that moment- when the world was nothing but rolling waves and flickering bioluminescence. Maybe it had started long before that, slipping in between stolen glances across the vessel, lingering eye contact that lasted just a second too long, and quiet moments between chaos that neither of them dared to name.

They’d be lying if they said there was absolutely no tension building between them over the past few weeks. It had been there, simmering just beneath the surface, waiting.

It was in the way he always seemed to be nearby—not in an obvious way, but in a way that made it impossible for Y/N to ignore. If she was adjusting equipment, Jake was there, his arm brushing against hers as he reached for something. If she was rinsing off after a dive, he’d pass by, running a towel through his hair, his skin damp and glistening with seawater. It was the way she felt his presence before she even saw him.

It was the way their bodies gravitated toward each other—shoulders bumping when they worked side by side, fingers grazing when they passed tools back and forth. The way she’d instinctively reached for him during dives, her hand wrapping around his forearm in the darkness, trusting his steadiness as they maneuvered through the water. It was the way he never pulled away.

Maybe it was the way his eyes lingered on her lips when she spoke, or the way she caught herself staring at his hands—the way they moved, the way they curled into fists when he was frustrated, the way they rested so naturally on his neck when he was deep in thought.

It was everything.

Slowly, silently, inevitably, it had been building up to this moment.

Jake found himself hoisting himself back on his feet, rubbing his hands against his thighs to brush off any dust. “I’m gonna try sleeping,” he said, ignoring the laughter that the rest of the boys started filling in the air. Yet, he didn’t move, eyes fixated on her and the way she seemed to curl further into herself. He waited for her to say something- anything that gave him a hint on what was to come next.

“Okay,” she said, finding herself getting back on her feet as well. “I’m gonna sleep, too.”

“Okay.”

The pair stared at each other for a brief second, his eyes darting between her features and hers fixated on his eyes. The air between them was charged with something neither of them dared to put into words. It was a quiet understanding, an unspoken decision made in the space of a breath. Then, with a nod, Jake led her back to the sleeping pods. They moved quickly, their strides quick and deliberate, as if slowing down would give them time to second-guess. Jake barely spared a glance at the others—Heeseung and Sunghoon talking near the railings, Jason and Jay checking something on the equipment—he breezed past them like they didn’t exist.

By the time they reached the sleeping pods, her heart was hammering against her ribs. She watched as Jake stripped off his shirt, catching her widened eyes of shock and explaining to her that he always slept this way. And she watched as he climbed onto his bed, running his hands through his hair and clenching his jaw from what she assumed was frustration. Then finally, finally, after pretending like they weren’t there for a purpose, he looked at her. He looked at her with conviction, slender eyes coaxing her and lips begging for her.

“Y/N…” his exhale spelt out her name.

His rand reached out for her to hold and she looked at his palm- his empty hand that was waiting to be filled with hers, his empty fingers waiting to wrap around her. So, she complied and took his hand, climbing into his bed and adjusting her straddle on his lap. There was silence, mostly just their heavy breaths filling the air, wondering if this was the moment they’d been waiting for- if this is what Jake was hoping for.

She felt his hands creep up her thighs, slowly and surely attaching themselves to her hips, dipping under her shirt to find her waist. His fingers danced on her skin, almost like he was playing a piano, waiting for her to do something other than to hold onto the hem of her shirt.

“Jake?”

“Yeah?”

He could feel her pulsating through her bikini and his dick twitched in his shorts. He gulped as he watched her hands move towards his chest, the cold of her fingertips sending a jolt down his spine. He let her stay that way, her hands exploring the crevices of his chest. Lifting his head that was resting on the wall, he found his neck moving towards her, and she did the same. Their heads tilted, lips parted and eyes hooded- they knew what was to come. They couldn’t wait for it to come.

“I promise you won’t get hurt,” he whispered, just as his lips brushed against hers, their noses touching. His hands moved higher up her torso, touching her ribs just as she let out a ragged breath-

And just as fast as their moment came, it left when they jolted away from each other. They heard footsteps and grumbled murmurs of the rest of the group mumbling it was a good day and goodnight to each other. Panicked, they scrambled off of each other and Y/N was rushing out of his pod and back into her own- anything to make the predicament seem normal, unusual. Before Jay had burst the door open and everyone piled in, Y/N’s head was already on her pillow, pretending to be asleep.

She could hear Jake greeting everyone and wishing everyone a goodnight- she paid no mind. That night, she couldn't sleep.

The group of six had spent almost two months out on the ocean, in the middle of nowhere, on a metal vessel that they’d been calling home, and they’d still hadn’t spotted a whale. However, they felt no sense of discouragement, focusing on testing the new equipment and going on more dives and collecting more samples for research. They collected samples of plankton blooms, recorded the eerie songs of distant marine life, and encountered creatures they never expected—an elusive blanket octopus, a deep-sea jelly drifting near the surface, even a rare oarfish shimmering like a silver ribbon in the depths. The once-crisp excitement of the expedition had softened into something quieter—a steady rhythm of work, patience, and anticipation.

That day was like no other. The air felt no different and the ocean, as usual, stretched infinitely around them. The sky was a perfect, cloudless blue. Jason was at the research station, analyzing the latest data from their dives, his brows furrowed in concentration as he scrolled through results. Sunghoon and Heeseung were near the stern, arguing about whether or not a gull that had landed on their railing was the same one they’d seen three days ago. Annie sat cross-legged on the deck, flipping through her notebook, jotting down observations while absentmindedly twirling a loose thread on her sleeve. Jake was beside her, leaning back on his elbows, quietly watching the sun reflect off the water.

The late afternoon had been slow, peaceful, the kind of moment where time stretched lazily—until Jay stiffened, his head snapping toward the hydrophone. His heart kicked against his ribs as the sound hummed through his headphones, low and distant but unmistakable. Impatient, he holler for Jason who came running to him, questioning what was so important.

“Do you hear that?” He sucked in a breath as he handed the headphones to Jason.

Jason, eyes widened with hope and shock, nodded. “No way,” he breathed. “No way!” He yelled which caught the attention of the rest of the group.

“What is it?” Y/N craned her head to examine the ruckus, watching as everyone had gathered around the deck. Jay came over with binoculars, waving it around in the air. Somehow, without needing any explanation, everyone understood what the excitement was about. It was happening. It was finally happening.

Keeping her notebook aside, she made her way towards the rest of the group, leaning against the railing in anticipation.

“I think they’re a few kilometers away, we should be able to see them soon,” Jay concentrated on his sight through the binoculars, face squirming with concentration.

Everyone simply watched the horizon, waiting for a disturbance to break the surface of the ocean. For a few moments, they saw nothing and Y/N went back and forth from listening to the sound on the headphones, a melody so ancient and otherworldly that it sent shivers down her spine, and looking back at the horizon. She was on the brink of losing hope, watching as Jake and Sunghoon broke apart from the group with their heads hung low, looking at everyone like they were fools for thinking they were lucky until-

It finally happened.

Gasps of awe filled the air as the others scrambled to grab their binoculars and cameras. Sunghoon nearly tripped over a crate in his rush, and even Jake—usually calm and composed—had an unrestrained grin on his face as he followed Y/N to the railing.

A towering column of mist rose into the air, catching the evening light like a shimmering ghost. The sound of the exhale followed a second later, a forceful blast from beneath the waves. The water churned violently as the massive shape surged upward. For a split second, the ocean seemed to hold its breath—then, a whale erupted from the surface. A colossal Humpback Whale launched skyward, water cascading off its slick skin in torrents. The sheer size of it was staggering. Its massive pectoral fins spread wide, and for a breathtaking moment, it seemed suspended in midair—a creature far too large to belong anywhere but the sea, defying gravity itself.

Everyone froze. No one breathed.

Then, in a heartbeat, everyone burst into a rumble of excitement as the whale slammed back into the water, sending an explosion of white foam and waves rippling toward the vessel. The force of it sent their stomachs lurching, but no one cared. Y/N’s hands flew to her mouth, her eyes blown wide.

“Oh, my God,”she said, unable to get her feet to move as Jay had scrambled back to the computer to see what the hydrophones had managed to record. “It’s singing!” Heeseung had screamed repeatedly as Jay fought to not let excitement shake his posture.

Sunghoon bolted for the camera rig, yanking the telephoto lens into place. “Holy shit, that was a full breach! I need a better angle—someone hold this steady!” Heeseung grabbed the tripod as Sunghoon adjusted the settings.

Jason scrambled toward the data log, frantically typing timestamps and environmental conditions into the system. “We need to record the water temp, salinity, GPS coordinates—someone grab the readings!”

As the crew erupted into action around them—rushing for cameras, hydrophones, and data logs—Jake didn’t move. He barely even breathed.

He was watching her.

Y/N stood frozen at the rail, her hands gripping the metal so tightly that her knuckles had gone white. Her eyes, wide and shining under the soft glow of the afternoon sun, stayed locked on the spot where the whale had breached. She looked completely lost in the moment—like the world had narrowed to just her and the ocean. The excitement, the rush, the frantic calls of the others—it all faded into white noise for Jake. He saw her throat move as she swallowed hard, lips slightly parted like she wanted to say something but couldn’t find the words. She didn’t even reach for the binoculars or her notebook. She just stood there and let everything happen.

Jake had seen her fall in love with the ocean over and over again these past few weeks. On the night dive, when she saw bioluminescent creatures flicker to life for the first time. In the quiet hours before dawn, when she let her fingers trail through glowing waters. Each moment had stripped away something guarded in her—had pulled her deeper into the thing she loved most.

And now, as she stood there, wholly consumed by the sight before her, Jake felt something in his chest tighten. She was beautiful like this—untethered, weightless, alive. In a moment of fleeting adoration, Jake wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned into his chest without hesitation, mouth still agape, eyes still locked on the sea. Jake felt her exhale, felt the way her body melted into his. Slowly, confidently, he pressed a kiss to her forehead. His lips lingered, his eyes closing like he wanted to keep this moment exactly as it was. The weight of unacknowledged moments, flickering electricity had shifted into something else over the past few weeks- something, softer, lighter, deeper.

Y/N had stopped second-guessing the way she naturally gravitated toward him, the way her body angled toward him whenever they stood together, the way she reached for him without thinking. And Jake? Jake had stopped holding back.

He still teased her, still challenged her, still made her roll her eyes—but now, his affection was deliberate. When she handed him something, his fingers would brush hers and linger. When she got caught up in her work, he’d bring her water without a word. When she sat alone at night, tracing patterns in the bioluminescence, he’d sit beside her in silence, just to exist in the same space.

Finally, Y/N tilted her head up to look at him, her expression open in a way it hadn’t been before. No teasing smirk, no quick remark—just something warmer, something unspoken but completely understood.

Jake’s lips quirked into a quiet smile. “A lot of firsts for you these days.”

Y/N exhaled a small laugh, nodding.

“Think we should get to work now,” he offered and she meekly nodded.

Jake let her go and moved with quick precision, checked the equipment on deck, making sure the hydrophone was secured and that no water had splashed onto their more sensitive instruments. “Sunghoon, tell me you got that on camera,” he muttered.

“Barely!” Sunghoon yelled.

Y/N stayed close to the railings, keeping her eye out on the huge mass of shadow moving past the surface of the waters, just in case a whale surfaced again.

After spending days with whale songs filling the air, making their mornings, Sunghoon sent out his drone again and detected an entangled whale. After debating whether they were allowed to intervene, something about rules and regulations, they agreed to help the creature. Fear that it would die without sooner intervention and the excitement of being inches away from a whale, possibly being able to touch it, the group devised a plan of action.

Heeseung and Sunghoon stayed on the vessel as look-out through binoculars as the rest manoeuvred a small boat towards the hurting whale. It was only a few feet meters away from them but reaching it through the rough waters seemed like a task, all of a sudden. The waters were usually never this rough- first time in all the weeks they’d been on the ocean.

The water was colder than expected as Jake, Jay and Y/N descended, the massive form of the whale looming beneath them. Up close, the entanglement was worse than they’d thought—thick netting dug deep into the whale’s pectoral fin, restricting its movement. Y/N and Jay worked swiftly, slicing through the strands while Jake positioned himself to keep them steady. The whale remained eerily still, its eye just barely visible through the shifting blue.

Then, without warning, it thrashed, perhaps because of the sudden attention it was getting from foreign presence or perhaps from the pain of entanglement. The sudden burst of movement sent a powerful current surging around them. Y/N was thrown backward, Jay barely managing to steady himself. Jake instinctively reached for her, pulling her close before she could drift further. For a tense moment, they remained suspended in the water, waiting to see if the whale would calm. Slowly, its movements settled, and they resumed cutting. One final slice, and the last of the netting unraveled, drifting away into the depths. The whale hovered for a moment before, with a flick of its tail, it surged forward- free at last- and the three watched as it swam away from them.

“I can’t believe that just happened,” Y/N said. “I can’t believe I just did that- we just did that.”

Upon arriving back on the vessel, the team moved on autopilot—securing equipment, hauling themselves aboard, and stripping off their dive gear. A string of celebratory huzzas were passed around as Y/N slumped against a chair. The air was thick with exhilaration and exhaustion, breaths still uneven from the dive. Sunghoon handed Y/N a towel as she squeezed the seawater from her hair, her mind still in the depths, replaying the whale’s final surge to freedom.

Jason was already hunched over the laptop, fingers flying across the keyboard as he analyzed the recordings. "The change in vocalizations—it's real," he muttered, half to himself, half to Jay, who leaned over his shoulder. Jay's grin was unstoppable. "We’re really hearing this in real-time. That’s insane."

The others busied themselves cleaning up, but the adrenaline was still too fresh to settle. Heeseung cracked open a bottle of water, while Sunghoon replayed drone footage on his tablet, scrutinizing every frame. "We actually did it," he murmured, half in disbelief.

Y/N, however, found herself drifting away from the commotion. She was exhausted and desperately needed rest for her eyes. Her arms went slump and legs felt heavy and when Jake spotted her heaving breath, he made his way towards her, offering himself as a pillow. The pair slumped on each other, Jake running a hand up and down her arm as she drowned out the commotion around her.

“Just a few minutes,” she mumbled and nuzzled deeper into his chest, hugging his torso. Jake chuckled.

Their peace didn’t last long, though. Jake felt it before he saw it, the subtle shift in the air, the way the horizon darkened like spilled ink bleeding into the sky. A low rumble rolled across the sky, so distant at first that no one paid it much mind. But then came the wind—sharp, biting, and sudden. The gentle lull of the ocean turned erratic, the once-glassy surface growing restless beneath them.

A storm was coming. Fast.

“Storm’s rolling in,” Heeseung called from the helm, voice edged with urgency. “We need to secure everything—now.”

Y/N’s eyes shot open as her mind registered what was going on and everyone started moving in sync, doing what their training had taught them to do. Like it came out of nowhere, sheets of rain lashed against the deck, making it nearly impossible to see more than a few feet ahead. The ocean had turned violent, monstrous waves slamming into the vessel with enough force to send them stumbling. Sunghoon and Jay held onto the railings, Jake and Y/N barely finding a way to make it to safety as Heeseung and Jason controlled the steering. They could see them, their faces contorting with strain as they helped each other manoeuvred the wheel.

A rogue wave—towering, relentless—rose like a wall before crashing down onto the deck. The impact sent equipment flying, knocking everyone off balance. A sickening crack sounded through the storm, followed by a sharp, agonized cry.

“Jay!”

As Sunghoon hollered, he ran towards Jay on the unsteady vessel, fully equipped with the knowledge that they could be thrown overboard by the waves and the wind any second. Jay was crumbling against the rain, body twisted in pain as he held onto his forearm. “I think I broke it,” he repeated over and over again as Sunghoon carried him towards Jake and Y/N.

Jake and Sunghoon exchanged a look that Y/N couldn't decipher, a sort of language the two friends had accumulated through their years of friendship. When the vessel rocked again, Sunghoon grabbed Y/N’s arm and tried his best to get them inside- to safety, hopefully. Jake dashed the opposite direction, towards the wheelhouse.

“Where is he going?” Y/N yelled over the winds and the thunder that started to crack, crouching out of instinct though she knew it wouldn’t be much protection. Another wave crashed against the vessel, water flooding the deck. The rain fell harder above them, leaving them no mercy. They were being tossed around like a

“Distress signal,” Sunghoon shouted back, holding Jay in place amongst the imbalance.

The storm swallowed the horizon whole, a monstrous force of wind and water that turned the sky into an endless void of grey. The waves surged like biblical monsters, heaving and crashing against the vessel with relentless fury, each impact rattling through steel and bone alike. The world had shrunk to chaos—water seeping into every crevice, bodies thrown against railings, desperate hands gripping whatever they could to keep from being flung into the abyss.

“Sunghoon, we’re not gonna make it,” Y/N could feel her tears, tears of fear and defeat, mixing with the rain, eyes squinting as she searched for him amongst the fog.

“No, Y/N,” Sunghoon yelled. “We’re gonna make it.”

Somewhere, through the deafening roar of the storm, a voice crackled through the radio—a lifeline lost in static—before the darkness was split apart by a piercing beam of light.

The helicopter had arrived.

The harsh fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, a stark contrast to the wild, untamed darkness of the storm they had just survived. The six of them sat scattered around the hospital room, their bodies aching, their minds still reeling from the chaos that had led them here. The sterile scent of antiseptic filled the air, but beneath it lingered the salt of the ocean, a reminder that no matter how far they were from that vessel, the sea was still etched into their skin.

Jay sat in the center of it all, his arm immobilized in a sling, bruises painting his skin in deep purples and sickly yellows. He looked exhausted, but there was a ghost of his usual grin on his face as he tried to downplay the pain. “I guess this means I get out of heavy lifting for a while,” he joked, but no one laughed.

Because they all remembered.

They remembered the way the waves had swallowed the vessel, tossing them like rag dolls. The helplessness of gripping onto whatever they could, praying they wouldn’t be swept away. The panic when Jay had been thrown across the deck, a sickening crack cutting through the chaos. The way he had screamed. The frantic, trembling hands trying to keep pressure on his injury, the desperate voices yelling into the radio for help, the sheer terror that, for a moment, they might not all make it out.

Sunghoon sat at the edge of his hospital bed, staring at the floor with his elbows on his knees, fingers interlocked so tightly his knuckles were white. Jason and Heeseung murmured in hushed tones with a doctor at the doorway, nodding stiffly at whatever instructions were being given.

And then there was Y/N.

She sat beside Jake, her head resting against his shoulder, eyes open but unfocused. Her hands were clasped together in her lap, like she was grounding herself, trying to convince herself that they were safe now. That it was over.

Jake hadn’t let go of her since they had been pulled out of the storm. His grip on her hand was firm, like if he let go, she might disappear. The adrenaline had long worn off, leaving behind only exhaustion and the silent, heavy weight of everything they had endured.

For the first time in months, there was no vessel beneath them, no swaying of the ocean, no distant songs of whales humming through the water. Just the quiet hum of the hospital and the echo of a storm that still raged inside them. For the first time, Y/N wondered, had they all gone crazy without knowing it? She’d seen documentaries about this- how people stranded in a single environment could descend into a state of psychosis. Did that happen to them, sickness right under their noses?

When the doctor made her way towards the group, everyone lifted their heads and sat straight, reacting as though a professor had just walked into the classroom. Dr Ryu looked at them sternly, an absence of sympathy and solemness in her demeanour. Perhaps that is exactly what they needed. “You guys got lucky,” she said. “It could have been worse.”

Everyone responded with a sequence of nods, Jay wincing as he moved the wrong muscle. Jason shifted to his side, resting his hand on his back as support and comfort.

“Physically, you all should be fine. A quick recovery- Jay included,” Dr Ryu continued. “However, I highly recommend visiting a therapist. By the looks of it, this wasn’t something easy that you all had to go through and you now show increased vulnerability to PTSD or any related disorders. Please do take my advice seriously.”

Again, she was met with a sequence of nods and mumbles, assuring her that they would do their best in taking care of themselves and each other.

“We will keep Jay in for the night for observation,” Dr Ryu said. “Any of you can stay with him. The rest of you- go home. Go home to your families and just be in a more familiar space. Try to sleep- staying awake all night and mulling over it will not help. Your bodies are exhausted. Give it a rest and come back tomorrow.”

As she walked away from the group, a moment of silence fell over them as they went over what the doctor had said. PTSD? Who knew this was the turn their lives would take? To be fair, she only advised a therapist- there was no guarantee for anything at the moment.

“I’ll stay,” Jason said. The decision was made without much debate. Friends since a trip went wrong during university, it made sense that he stayed back. While working on a coastal biodiversity project, their boat engine failed during a data collection run, leaving them stranded at sea for hours. They were rescued by helicopters that day, too and looking back, their situation now looked eerily similar- just without the injury and the trauma.

Jason had already straightened in his seat, his expression leaving no room for argument. Jay rolled his eyes but didn’t protest. “You guys should go get some actual sleep. My apartment’s closer to the hospital anyway- you should spend the night there, give each other company.”

No one had the energy to argue.

Sunghoon sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. “I’m gonna pass out the second I hit a bed.”

“Same,” Heeseung muttered, already gathering what little belongings they had brought with them.

Y/N glanced at Jake, who had been uncharacteristically quiet. He still hadn’t let go of her hand, his thumb absentmindedly running over her knuckles. His eyes flickered toward Jason, something unreadable crossing his expression.

Jason caught it. “Don’t even think about staying, Jake,” he said, voice softer now but still firm. “You look worse than Jay.”

Jake huffed a quiet laugh, but Y/N felt the tension in his grip. He didn’t want to leave. None of them really did, but Jason was right- they needed rest, and Jay was in good hands.

Y/N squeezed his hand, a silent reassurance, before standing up. “We’ll be back first thing in the morning.”

Jason gave a small nod. “I’ll text you if anything happens.”

With that, they filed out of the room, exhaustion making their movements sluggish. The police drove them to Jason’s apartment and the second they opened the doors, Heeseung and Sunghoon occupied the guest bedroom and Jake dragged himself into Jason’s bedroom. Y/N found herself frozen in the bathroom, staring at herself in the mirror. She felt like a fool for feeling the way she did, for being naive enough to think that she could get past this like it was a bad birthday party.

Upon entering the room Jake was in, she found him sitting cross legged on the bed, back hunched over as he toyed with something on his phone. When he felt her presence, he kept his phone away and shifted his gaze to her. He patted the empty space beside him, coaxing her to sit with him and she did. She let her head hit the pillow and Jake leaned against the headboard, eyes falling on the ceiling. It was weird not catching sight of a night sky filled with stars- almost unfamiliar.

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” he whispered, almost as if saying it quieter would make their predicament lighter.

“I know,” she responded. “It doesn’t feel real,” she rested her hand against his shoulder, softly rubbing his back in hopes of comforting him. He leaned his cheek against her hand, raising his own to hold hers and closing his eyes to find solace in the moment.

“Everything’s gonna be alright,” he mumbled.

“Everything is alright,” she tried. “We’re all here, alive and safe. Jay is fine.”

“Jay is fine,” he repeated.

“And we are fine.”

“You almost died.”

Y/N leaned up and rested against the headboard with him, deliberately keeping her face close to his, breaths syncing. Jake’s eyes stayed close, his cheek still on her hand. “But I didn’t,” she said, with conviction.

“You were slipping away.”

Y/N didn’t know how to respond. The weight of it sat between them, heavy and unspoken. She knew that feeling. The terror of helplessness. The way it lingered in your bones, no matter how many times you tell yourself you survived.

She shifted, sliding closer, until their knees brushed. “But I’m here,” she murmured.

Jake lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her palm, and something inside her stirred. “I need to feel it,” he said, almost to himself. “That you’re here. That this is real.”

His hands found her waist, tentative and fragile at first like that night in the sleeping pods, testing the waters, walking on eggshells. When she moved closer to him, finding herself straddling his waist again, Jake found no motive to stop. He leaned upwards to find her lips, mouths colliding without hesitation- there was no adultery, no ploy of teasing or hurting, no uncertainty. They were two people, finding an anchor within each other, desperately holding on.

When he finally kissed her, Y/N wondered why it took so long for them to be in this position in the first place. And he kissed her with caution, slow movements memorising her crevices and making sure she remembered him. As their mouths opened and closed in sync, his hands roamed underneath her shirt, tracing her skin and counting her ribs before lifting her shirt over her head. In that moment, while he held her, she didn’t feel lusted over or sexualised- she felt as though she was being protected, cherished… loved.

“Y/N… I don’t just want you,” he breathed against her, lips moving down her throat and hands roaming her legs. “I need you.”

Slowly, wrapping his arms around her back, he flipped her over so she lay on the bed and he hovered over her. For a brief moment, he stopped to look at her face- her eyes that were filled with curiosity and anticipation, lips parted in waiting for him, hair strewn across the pillow. Then he kissed her again, one hand roaming towards her nippled and the other swiftly unzipping her jeans. In this moment, though he usually wouldn’t prefer to, Jake wasted no time- he didn’t want to tease her or waste his time with foreplay. He just wanted to feel her, know that she was living in his arms, breathing and letting her heart beat against him.

His hand shifted to move her jeans off her legs and Y/N shimmied out of them, chuckling in the process. “This isn’t that attractive,” she murmured.

“Shut up,” he said with a grin and kissed her again.

He let his fingers hook under her underwear and touch her clit. Y/N moaned into his and he moaned back, feeling the wetness of her folds and letting her back arch into him. Her hips grinded against his hand and he complied by exploring her folds, slowly and desperately getting her to whine and moan more under him.

“Heeseung and Sunghoon are sleeping,” Jake mumbled against her skin, lips exploring the nape of her neck and moving to the curve of your breasts. “You’ve gotta try to be quiet, yeah?”

“Okay,” she heaved and Jake could feel her nod, her chin touching his hair.

He slipped a finger into her hole and she squirmed, biting her lip to adjust to the length. Her hands flew towards his hair, tugging and pulling at the silky tufts. He moved his finger in and out, languidly and deliberately, eyeing your reactions and expressions as he did so. His thumb flew to her clip, rubbing steady circles only for more wetness to ooze out of her.

“Higher, Jake,” he heard her moan and he increased his pace. The sound of squelching filled the room, mixed with their moans. He kissed her again, his other hand continuing to toy with her nipples while he fingered her- now, fast and dirty, aiming towards a goal. He could feel her clenching on his fingers, clamping down everytime he pulled out too much, whimpering every time he curled at the right spot.

Jake moved so he could kneel between her legs, his fingers now moving slower as he brought his face closer to her heat. She could feel his breath on her, only making her ache for him more. She whined for him to hurry up and was only shut up when she felt his mouth on her. He sucked on her clit as his finger picked up pacing, adding a second one as her breath got heavier. He could see her chest heaving, her hands flying upwards to grip the headboard.

When her knees started closing instinctively, his shoulders kept them apart, one hand gripping her hip so tight she was sure she’d have bruises the next morning. And he kept going, sucking and flicking at her clit with his tongue, fingers moving in and out of her so fast that she’d forgotten how she ended up here in the first place.

“I’m so close,” she moaned. “So close.”

And just as she felt her high crashing down on her, he’d withdrawn himself completely and she let out a gasp. Her brows furrowed, she tilted her head to find Jake stripping his own clothes and she stared at the way his chest glistened under the moonlight, his dick springing out of his boxers as he moved to hover over her again. His hair fell onto his forehead and her hands moved to tuck it under his ear. She placed an innocent peck on nose, cheeks, forehead and chin before moving to his lips again, waiting for him to do something before getting annoyed at her lack of orgasm.

“Brace yourself, alright?” He whispered into her mouth and she felt his tip aligning to her entrance. He looked at her before going any further, waiting for a confirmation. When she nodded, he pushed himself into her and the pair moaned in unison.

“Is this the great sex you were referring to?”

“You can’t deny it.”

As he thrusted into her, sharp and with purpose, she regretted wanting to tease him or get a laugh out of him. She let out a gasp, followed by an incoherent string of moans as he thrusted in and out of her, his hand caressing the back of her head and her nails scratching his back. She wrapped her legs around his waist, a desperate way to feel him deeper inside her. He buried himself in the nape of her neck, peppering kisses behind her ear while she did the same to his shoulder.

“Faster,” she moaned and he complied, forgetting the slow and romantic pace he wanted to go with and pounding into her faster, harder- anything and everything to get her to cum with him. He let a hand slip in between their bodies, fingers finding her clit and rubbing briskly and whispering sweet lulls into her ears.

“You gotta cum with me, yeah?” He said and she could only nod, throat too preoccupied with the moans she couldn’t hold back.

She felt the knot in her stomach building again, back arching further and pussy clenching harder onto is dick- he could feel it too, that she was close. She threw her head back, waiting for the moment to fall upon her, waiting for him to say something. He only went faster, letting the hinges of the bed creek.

“Y/N?” She responded with a frustrated hum. “Cum with me- cum for me.”

And she did, letting her orgasm spill over her body and she could feel him inside her, filling her up to the brim. Jake moaned, feeling her body shudder at the way he fucked her, her eyes meeting his with desperation and ache.

“Jake…” she whined as he placed her body comfortably on the mattress again, falling on the empty space beside her and wrapping his arms around her torso. “So good,” she breathed, unable to unclutter her thoughts.

“I know that was supposed to be depression sex, but wow,” he said into her neck.

Y/N raised a lazy hand to hit him on the head. “Stop being funny,” she groaned and he laughed.

Jake, Y/N, Jason, Heeseung, Jay and Sunghoon stood in a line in front of Henry Sim. Over the past few weeks, they’d met with him a plethora of times- just to talk, not even about technical things, just talk. It was his way of looking out for them, taking care of them in whatever way he could. He offered to buy them meals, pay their therapy and hospital bills and even offered them a stipend if they needed it- all out of guilt and desperation to help them heal better, not knowing what else to do.

He was never critical, even praising their work to a large extent. And in all honesty, he was proud- it was great work. “This information that you all have gathered is valuable, I hope you know that,” he said to them, holding their report in hand.

“Yes, sir,” they answered in unison.

“It still feels unreal. Like we’re supposed to wake up tomorrow and check the equipment again,” Sunghoon said.

Jay chuckled, adjusting the sling on his arm. "Speak for yourself. I’d rather not get thrown around another boat for a while."

Heeseung smirked. "You’re just mad the whale was stronger than you."

Sunghoon, who had been absentmindedly fidgeting with the strap of his camera bag, let out a small laugh, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. The energy in the room had shifted, nostalgia seeping in through the cracks.

Henry exhaled through his nose. "The ocean doesn’t let anyone walk away the same. You six will carry this experience with you—whether you realize it now or not."

Jake, who had been quiet until then, glanced at Y/N. She met his gaze, and for a moment, the past months condensed into something unspoken but understood. The storm. The breach. The long nights and quiet moments. The feeling of something beginning even as something else ended.

Noticing their interaction, Henry cleared his throat. “The least I was expecting was the pairing of these two,” he pointed between Jake and Y/N. The rest of the group cackled.

“They thought they were being so slick,” Heeseung laughed. “We noticed everything.”

Rolling their eyes, Jake and Y/N continued to grin at everyone's smiling faces. The aquarium lights flickered slightly as a school of fish glided past the large tank beside them. It was a strange, almost poetic parallel—them, sitting still in this room, while life outside moved on without waiting.

Jason grimaced at the idea of his brother and best friend dating. Attempting to change the conversation, he cleared his throat. “So what now?”

The question hung heavy in the air as the group of six looked at each other. They knew what was to come- a set of interviews, press releases of what they experienced and perhaps even a short YouTube documentary. But what was to happen to their lives? What were they to expect?

No one wanted to answer that question. All they knew was that outside, the ocean awaited their return.

[heethera]

˖*°࿐ •*⁀➷ 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧!

➜ summary: you just moved into a new building, right across from three loud guys. two said sorry and the third couldn’t care less.

pairing: pshx f!reader,wc: 14k words , genre: enemies to lovers ish, neighbor!au, fluff, romcom w: rude jokes, cussing, kissing

The elevator doors swung open, and soon you stepped out into the third floor hallway. You looked like you were moving in, which in your defense…you were. The oversized hoodie slipping off one shoulder, arms hugging a stack of takeout containers and a cactus you had that had pricked you far too many times, but that didn’t matter. You were finally on your own.

Unit 3B. That was you now. 

Your keys jingled in your palm as you found the door, nudged it open with one knee, and stepped into the apartment you’d stared at for months on rental listings. It wasn’t huge, but it had a little kitchen with enough space for your mum’s rice cooker, and a balcony that caught the sun in the morning. You spun around in the centre of the room, grinning, almost knocking the cactus you had just placed on the counter in the process.

And by nightfall, the place felt like yours. Your fairy lights were strung up across your living room. Your fridge held exactly a bottle of soda, some tuna you had eaten an hour ago and a bag of unwashed grapes. You lit a vanilla candle, the one your best friend, Jungwon, made you promise to use so you'd remember him… even while being so far apart.  But Jungwon hated travelling, so in his mind, you'd basically moved to another continent. 

Jungwon dramatically declared, “You’re practically moving to another country.”

“Jungwon, I’m literally a two-hour train ride away.”

“That’s basically Europe.”

You rolled your eyes at the memory, smiling to yourself.

Still, you were glad you’d made the decision to move. Three years ahead of you… of being on your own, of learning to be independent, part-time jobs, and what you hoped…a future incoming relationship. It should be easy. It should be peaceful. It should be—

“DUDE!!!”

A scream ripped through your wall.

It came from the wall to your right, a thin wall nudged between you and your neighbours. You could hear celebrations. A voice shouted, “THAT WAS INSANE!” followed by a loud thump like someone had jumped off the sofa.

You tried ignoring it at first, burying yourself under the blanket like it could block out noise. But 20 minutes in, another screamed “HE’S OFFSIDE, YOU DUMB—” loud enough to rattle the walls, you snapped.

You threw on your hoodie, jammed your feet into slippers, and marched out the front door like you were storming a battlefield. The hallway was dim and quiet, except for the muffled party behind door 3C. You knocked, hard, but polite.

The door creaked open mid-laughter, revealing three guys mid-snack, mid-game.

“Hi,” you said, tight smile. “Sorry to bother you, but… would you mind keeping it down a little? I’ve got a test tomorrow and it’s kinda hard to focus with all the screaming.”

The one with fluffy hair, cute little eyes, nodded immediately. “Shit. Sorry, sorry. Totally our bad.”

Another one, long lashes and a goofy smile, actually winced. “Didn’t realise it was that loud. We’ll keep it down, promise.”

“Are you new here?” the first one asked.

You nodded. “I just moved in today, actually.”

“Oh shit. Mrs Kim moved out?”

“Damn, we’re not getting her kimchi anymore, that’s for sure.”

“We gotta eat those store-bought ones that taste like ass.”

The second boy looked at you again, more focused this time. “Oh right! I’m Jake! It’s great to meet you! I’m sorry it happened under… unfortunate circumstances. But we’ll be quieter!”

“I’m Jay, by the way,” the first one added with a small grin, pushing his hair back.

You nodded, smiling slightly. At least they were nice about it. Well, two out of three, anyway.

You glanced past both of them, eyes landing on the third boy slouched on the couch, still holding the controller, gaze fixed on the paused screen like you weren’t even there. His jaw clenched once. No name. No hello. Just a subtle, annoyed glance in your direction before he looked away again.

Cool. So he hates you. That’s cool with you.

The third guy didn’t say anything. Just glanced at you once, then turned back toward the TV.

“Uh, thanks,” you said, lips tight, already backing away.

You returned to your apartment and for a blessed thirty minutes, it was quiet.

Then someone scored a goal and the wall shook again.

You blinked slowly at your ceiling, arms folded under your head like the weight of your patience was finally starting to crush your ribs. Okay. So that’s how it was going to be. You frowned.

And that was literally… how war started.

The next morning, fuelled by petty vengeance and two hours of sleep, you grabbed your pastel pink sticky notes and wrote:

“Dear 3C, I’ve played FIFA before. It is not that damn fun for you to be out here screaming. Please tone it down. Regards, the zombie in 3B.”

You slapped it on their door. Nothing changed.

And the next day:

“Dear 3C, I can’t sleep. Kindly shut up <3 With love, the girl one more sleepless night away from writing to the landlord. 3B.”

You half expected them to ignore it. Instead, you found your note missing by mid-afternoon. Gone. 

For a moment, you felt powerful. Maybe they’d actually listened.

Then 8:43 p.m. hit and someone in 3C scored a goal so loud you swore the bass from their TV made your candle flicker.

Alright. So it was personal now.

You stormed over to their door again, hands on your hips.. It wasn’t that late. You weren’t unreasonable. You believed in joy. In freedom. But right now? Rage was the only thing pumping through your system.

You shuffled down the hall with your bunny slippers slapping against the floor, hair in a claw clip that was giving up. You looked deranged. And for the first time, you were fine with that. You banged on their door.

The door cracked open a second later, revealing Jake blinking like a deer in headlights. His hair was messy. He looked mildly afraid.

“Were… we being loud again?”

You stared at him, deadpan. “Ya think?”

Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, okay. I’m so sorry. It’s Sunghoon. He keeps saying it’s not that loud and we were mid-tournament and—”

“Tell Sunghoon that his ego’s not the only thing echoing through these walls,” you snapped, arms crossed. “Some of us are trying to study.”

Behind Jake, you heard a familiar scoff followed by a smug voice yelling, “God, she’s so annoying. We were literally whispering.”

You leaned to the side, locking eyes with the third boy slouched on the couch, controller in hand, feet on the coffee table like the world owed him something. He didn’t even pause the game this time.

You didn’t know what it was about his stupidly symmetrical face but your blood boiled.

“Tell this Sunghoon guy…his whispering sounds like a screeching cat,” you said flatly, before spinning on your heel and marching back toward your door when you heard his aggravating voice.

“Tell her she’s overreacting over a couple of friends simply trying to have fun,” Sunghoon fired back from the couch, not even raising his voice. 

You turned your head just enough to glare over your shoulder. “Well, tell him, his shirt doesn’t match his fucking pants.”

Jake looked helpless, standing between you both like a middle child caught in a divorce.

And then, with that same bored tone, Sunghoon called out again, “Well, tell her… those slippers are the best thing she’s worn all week.”

You stopped.

Jake sucked in a breath.

You slowly turned, eyes narrowing. “Tell him he wouldn’t know good fashion if it came with a user manual and punched him in his freaking face.”

Sunghoon finally glanced away from the TV, meeting your eyes for the first time that night. His lips curved into the most irritating half-smile you’d ever seen.

“Tell her–”

Jake stepped in between again, hands raised. “Okay! Okay. We’re gonna turn the volume down. Like, way down. Like you can’t even hear us tiptoe. Right, Sunghoon?”

Sunghoon leaned back against the couch and shrugged. “Whatever. I’m not the one annoying my neighbors at 9pm on a Friday night. Get some friends.” 

You slammed your door shut.

War was back on.

-

The next morning, your plan was simple. A little petty, sure, but necessary.

You stood outside their door in your pyjamas, holding a fresh pack of neon yellow Post-its since your previous ones were used up by the ongoing Post-It war.The hallway was empty. Your bunny slippers made no sound as you padded up to 3C and stuck the first one of the week dead-centre on the door.

“Dear 3C, just a gentle reminder that FIFA will not feed you, clothe you, or give you money. Kindly shut up. PLEASE. Warmest regards, 3B.”

You smiled to yourself and floated back to your apartment.

That night? For the first time…? Silence. Beautiful, blissful silence. You actually managed to revise two chapters and fall asleep before midnight. You woke up in the morning feeling like a changed woman.

But then you opened your front door.

There, taped neatly to your door, was a blue sticky note with surprisingly neat handwriting.

“Dear 3B, you sound like you narrate your life out loud. – 3C.”

Your jaw dropped.

“Narrate your life out loud?” you muttered. “That’s literally called thinking.”

You marched back into your apartment, flung open your stationery drawer.

“Dear 3C, apologies if my internal monologue disrupted your daily FIFA championship. I only talk to myself because your volume settings make it impossible to hear my own thoughts. With all due respect (and ear damage), 3B."

That afternoon, Jay knocked on your door. You hesitated, then opened it a crack. He was holding a bag of convenience store pancakes in one hand.

“Peace offering,” he said. “Also, I think your notes are hilarious. Jake’s been collecting them. I think he’s making a scrapbook.”

You blinked. “Is this a joke or something?”

Jay shrugged, leaning casually against the doorframe. “No! Honestly, it’s kinda refreshing.”

Jake popped his head in from behind, grinning. “Also, your handwriting’s really neat.”

You opened the door a little wider, cautious then shrugged. “You want some… uh… spaghetti? I made it this morning.”

“Spaghetti?” Jay tilted his head.

You nodded. “Yeah. I usually experiment with food. I’m…uh…in culinary school.”

Jake’s eyes widened. “Wait, so you’re like… a chef?”

“Trying to be.,” you said with a shrug, suddenly a little self-conscious.

They exchanged a quick look before barging in like you'd personally handed them invites at the door.

“That’s so cool,” Jake said, practically bouncing as he flopped onto your beanbag. “I burnt instant noodles last week. Twice.”

Jay wandered deeper into your living room, his gaze landing on the dusty old guitar leaning against your bookshelf. “Dude, check it out! She plays the guitar.”

You rubbed the back of your neck, awkward. “It’s just for fun. I’m not that good.”

“I’m sure you’re great,” Jake said, already chewing through a mouthful of spaghetti he’d somehow found, and served himself in a bowl you didn’t remember offering.

You blinked at him. “Did you just—?”

“Plate was right there,” he said through a mouthful. “I took it as a sign.”

Jay nodded solemnly. “She feeds us and plays guitar. She’s better than Mrs. Kim already.”

You sighed and closed the door behind them. “I’m starting to think Mrs. Kim left because of the three of you.”

In between bites, Jake nodded without hesitation. “I think so too.”

“We can be loud,” Jay added, helping himself to another serving.

“Have you thought of… not being loud?”

“We do,” Jay said. “But then we get loud again.”

You rolled your eyes. “Guys, some of us have school and—”

“We have school too,” Jake chimed in, mouth full.

“Okay… some of us care about sleep.”

Jay perked up. “That’s why we got you this.”

He dug into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a tiny box, dropping it into your hands.

You squinted at it. “What’s this?”

“They’re sleep buds,” he said proudly. “They go in your ears and play white noise and, like… ocean sounds or something. Blocks everything out. Even us.”

You stared at the box, then at them.

“Instead of compromising, you got me gear?”

Jake grinned. “Yeah. We like you. We want you to be able to sleep… through us.”

Jay gave you a thumbs-up. “It’s called adaptation.”

You looked down at the sleep buds in your hands and then back up at the two of them absolutely inhaling your spaghetti like they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

You didn’t know whether to kick them out or thank them.

So you just sighed, defeated. “You guys are the weirdest neighbours I’ve ever had.”

Jake beamed. “Aww. You’re the weirdest too.”

And somehow… the next day… they were back.

You opened the door mid-knock, confused, only to find Jay grinning at you.

“What’s for lunch today, boss?” he asked, already halfway through the doorway.

You blinked. “How’d you know I made something?”

“We could smell it,” Jake said, stepping in right behind him, holding up a comically large spoon. “Smells so good. Brought my big spoon today. Came prepared.”

“Uh… I made chowder?”

Jake’s eyes lit up. “Oh my god, I love chowder.”

Jay had already plopped onto the floor cushion, flipping through your Spotify like he owned your iPad. “What kind? Clam? Corn? Pumpkin? Wait… do people put pumpkin in chowder?”

You stared at them, ladle in hand.

“Corn,” you muttered, shuffling back into the kitchen.

Then the day after that… they came again. At this point, it felt less like a surprise and more like a recurring appointment.

“No fucking way. Kimchi stew? This shit is so good!. Jay, you need to try the beef. It’s so soft. How— how’d you get it so soft? Is this like one of those expensive beef? Wakoo?”

“It’s Wagyu, Jake.” You corrected.

“Wagyu~” He sang.

Jay, already mid-bite, nodded with a full mouth. “Can I havefth thefth reshepee?”

You wiped your hands on a dish towel, leaning against the counter with one brow raised. “Do you guys ever eat in your own apartment?”

Jake didn’t miss a beat. “Not when you cook like this.”

Jay pointed his chopsticks at you like he was making a closing argument in court. “This is technically your fault. You fed us once. That’s basically a binding contract. We’re best friends now. Aren’t we, Jake?”

Jake nodded, mouth full. “Mhmff. Whatever he said.”

You sighed, setting your elbow on the table and dropping your chin into your hand. “If you’re gonna keep doing this, at least wash the dishes after.”

Jake saluted you with his spoon like you were the captain of a very tiny, soup-based army. “Yes, chef.”

You looked at the two of them, one already on his third helping, the other stealing more beef straight from the pot, and shook your head.

This wasn’t how your independent, put-together, college life was supposed to go. You were meant to be focused. The mysterious girl on the third floor who only ever came out for groceries and exams.

But maybe… with the two of them barging in uninvited, eating like they hadn’t seen food in years, and treating your living room like it was theirs…

Maybe you wouldn’t feel so lonely after all.

-

It was 9 p.m. Strangely quiet.

Usually, by now, there’d be at least one goal celebration shaking the walls or someone shouting about a missed penalty. But tonight? Nothing. You didn’t let it bother you. You took it as a win.

The balcony door slid open with a soft scrape. You stepped out into the cool night, cradling your little scissors and spray bottle like sacred tools. Your succulents were arranged in a neat line. A few leaves had started to curl. You knelt down, snipping the dead ends carefully.

You should’ve felt peaceful.

But tonight, something tugged at your chest. 

You missed Jungwon. You missed your mom’s mismatched cutlery and the way your dad always forgot he’d already asked about your grades. Maybe even your pet fish, the one that never did much except float around looking confused.

Jay and Jake were friendly, sure. But they weren’t yours. They weren’t part of your before. They didn’t know the town you came from or the versions of you that existed before now.

And even though you thought you’d settled in... even though you were coping...you were lonely.

Without meaning to, you started speaking out loud — just like you always did.

“It’s fine. You’ll do better tomorrow. Tomorrow you won’t feel as lonely,” you said softly as you misted the leaves. “You’ll be stronger. You’re gonna get used to this. You can do it.”

But the lie caught in your throat.

Because you were crying already.

You wiped your cheek with the sleeve of your hoodie, frustrated, betrayed by your own body. You reached for your phone without thinking and hit the contact you swore you wouldn’t keep calling every time you got overwhelmed.

Jungwon answered on the first ring.

“What’s up?” he asked, casual as ever.

“Won…” you breathed out.

There was a pause. Then: “Are you crying?”

“No?”

“I can hear you sniffling, you shit.”

“It’s just—” your voice cracked. “It’s hard. I’m alone all the time. I’ve got no friends. I’ve got no one to talk to. I’m alone, Won.”

“I know,” he said gently. “I know…”

There was a pause. You could hear him shifting in bed, his voice soft and serious now. “But think about it this way, okay? You’re barely in your first month. You’re gonna get used to it. You’re gonna find people. You’re gonna build something here. It just takes time.”

You bit your lip. “You’ll visit if you can, right?”

“I’ll visit,” he promised. “Even if it takes two bloody hours.”

“But you hate traveling.”

“For you, I’d suffer.”

You sniffled. “You’re just saying that so I’ll hang up.”

“You’re right because I’m exhausted from basketball. But also… I love you.”

“Fine,” you mumbled. “I love you too.”

“Chin up. You’re talented and you deserve to be there. You can do this. We’re all counting on you.”

“I know.” You exhaled slowly. “Goodnight, Wonnie.”

“Night.”

You ended the call and sat in silence for a moment, letting the cool night air settle on your skin. The tears had stopped. Your hands still smelled like mint and basil and the faint sweetness of the spray bottle. You stared at your succulents, wondering if they ever got lonely too.

Unbeknownst to you, just a few feet away, out on the connected balcony, hidden by the divider, someone had heard everything.

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. He’d stepped out earlier, just needing air, needing quiet, needing to be somewhere still for once. And then he’d heard your voice. The words that were not meant for anyone else.

And for the first time, Sunghoon didn’t roll his eyes or make a sarcastic comment.

He just stood there in the dark, one hand gripping the railing, heart a little heavier than before.

He understood more than you thought.

And somewhere between your tears and Jungwon’s voice, he changed his mind about you.

-

The next few days, there was absolute silence. Maybe the food had finally worked some psychological warfare on Jay and Jake. Maybe it was their way of returning the favour. Either way, you weren’t about to question it.

You were grateful, to say the least.

Because for the past week, you’d been moping around your apartment. Living alone and striking out as an “independent bachelorette” sounded empowering in theory, but in practice? Maybe you weren’t one of those girlies after all…y’know the ones on Instagram who made solitude look like a season of self-discovery instead of a series of breakdowns.

It was Saturday. You’d spent the entire morning in bed watching a Netflix documentary about some guy swindling people on Tinder, surrounded by crumpled tissue and scented candle smoke that had long turned suffocating. You were still in yesterday’s hoodie, blanket tangled around your legs.

Three knocks echoed at the door.

You lifted your head from the pillow with a groan, barely alive. The sound came again.

Dragging yourself across the living room, you cracked the door open just a sliver, just wide enough to peek through but not enough to reveal the disaster that was your face, your hair, or your pride.

“Uh.” The voice was hesitant. Familiar.

You squinted.

Sunghoon.

You blinked. “What are you doing here?” you asked, your voice hoarse from crying and a full night of narrating your own spiral.

“There was a mix-up with the mail,” he said, holding up a small stack of envelopes.

“Oh.” You extended your arm awkwardly through the tiny gap in the door and grabbed the letters. “Thanks.”

There was a pause, “I can see your puffy eyes through the gap.”

You scoffed, immediately pulling the door closer. “You just have to be a smartass about everything, don’t you?”

He shrugged, completely unbothered, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. Still standing there. 

“…Are Jake and Jay home?” you asked, trying to sound casual.

His expression twitched, almost amused. “Why? Trying to steal my best friends again or—”

“No,” you deadpanned. “I was just wondering. It’s been… quiet this whole week.”

“They went home to visit their families.”

Oh. Right. Come to think of it, maybe that explained why everything felt extra heavy lately. It was the time of year people usually went home. People surrounded themselves with comfort and familiarity. And here you were, stuck in the city because the train ticket home was just slightly out of budget.

“You didn’t go?” you asked softly.

“Can’t,” he shrugged.

“Oh.”

There was a beat of silence. Then he tilted his head.

“Well,” Sunghoon said slowly, “if you ever need someone to emotionally rejuvenate you by pointing out your hair looks like a rat’s nest, you know where to find me.”

The words came with the usual venom but the message behind them landed differently.

You stared at him through the gap in the door. You couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny, or… sincere, in his own weird, backhanded way. It was strange. You’d only had  three full conversations with the guy. And every single one ended in a WWE tournament.

You narrowed your eyes slightly. “Are you… being nice to me?”

He clicked his tongue. “Don’t ruin it.”

And with that, he turned and walked back.

-

You finally got up.

There was no movie-worthy breakthrough moment. Just the dull ache in your head from crying too much and the feeling that if you shed one more tear, your eyeballs might actually eject themselves from their sockets. So you moved. You stripped your bed, tossed the mountain of tissues into a trash bag, sprayed half a bottle of disinfectant in the air, and opened every window.

Your apartment looked like it had survived an apocalypse, which, to be fair, was accurate. But you scrubbed it back to life.

By the time you were in the kitchen, your eyes were still a little swollen, but you’d pressed them with cool spoons and a sad little compress until you could see straight again. Kind of.

You pulled out ingredients from your fridge one by one, lining them up like you were preparing for war. Slicing, boiling, julienning, stir-frying. The sound of the pan crackling beneath the glass noodles filled the silence of your apartment. It smelled exactly like it did when your mom used to make it.

You plated it in a wide, shallow bowl. It was delicious. Of course it was. You took pride in it. You always had. Jungwon used to tease you, calling your hands “blessed by Gordon Ramsay” like everything you touched turned into comfort food. You’d swat his arm, trying not to smile as he reached for second helpings before you’d even sat down.

You missed him. You missed your family. You missed not having to eat alone on a day like this.

Your eyes drifted to the door.

Would it be stupid? To bring food to Sunghoon? You’d never really done anything kind for him. Most of your interactions were lined with sarcasm and insults. And yet… that one line of his kept replaying in your head, “If you ever need someone to emotionally rejuvenate you by pointing out your hair looks like a rat’s nest, you know where to find me.”

So maybe…maybe he meant it. Or maybe you were just desperate for company and your noodles were starting to get cold.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you packed the noodles into a clean container, wrapped a rubber band around it, and found yourself standing in front of 3C. Your feet had walked you here without permission. Your hand hovered in the air, ready to knock, but now… you hesitated. You weren’t here to complain. You weren’t here to yell. And that made it harder.

And just before your knuckles could land on the door, it swung open.

Sunghoon stood in front of you, coat already on, scarf looped lazily around his neck. There was a little shine to his hair like he’d styled it, and he looked surprised, mildly confused to find you on his doorstep without any anger evident in your eyes.

“What?” he said, voice dry.

You blinked, staring at him. You’d never really looked at him properly before. Not when he was this put-together. The gel in his hair, the sharp line of his jaw, the way his scarf sat slightly off-center like he’d thrown it on in a rush. You knew he was attractive. You weren’t blind. But seeing him now?

Sunghoon was actually… pretty handsome.

“I—uh—” you stammered.

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Spit it out.”

“I—uh—I made some… stir-fried glass noodles,” you said, stumbling over every syllable. “And I know how much it sucks being alone on a day like this, so I thought… maybe it’d bring you some kind of familiarity. From home, or something.”

You didn’t let yourself overthink it. You shoved the container into his hands, heart pounding.

“Bye,” you mumbled, before immediately turning around and marching back to your apartment like you’d just robbed a bank. The door clicked shut behind you.

You pressed your back to it, eyes wide.

Shit.

Was Sunghoon actually hot?

-

Sunghoon stood in the hallway, unmoving. The container in his hands was warm and he stared down at it for a couple of seconds longer than he probably should’ve.

Jake and Jay had been raving about your cooking for weeks. At first, he thought they were exaggerating. How good could someone’s food be that it made two of the loudest people he knew voluntarily whisper through a FIFA match?

But he’d seen it with his own eyes, Jake silently fist-pumping the air, mouthing “LET’S FUCKING GO” after a goal, and Jay barely reacting as he scored. They even created a rule: first one to speak puts a dollar in the Silence Jar. A literal jar. With money.

Sunghoon didn’t get it.

And he didn’t particularly care to. Not then.

But now, standing in the hallway in his coat and scarf, staring at the gift you shoved into his hands with flushed cheeks, something felt different.

He had been on his way out, actually. There was a bar nearby, nothing special, just a dim-lit spot with quiet music and decent food where no one bothered him. He usually went there whenever Jay and Jake went back home, like they did this time every year. It wasn’t that he didn’t have family—he did. It just wasn’t… warm. They were always busy. Always somewhere else, even when they were in the same room.

He peeled off his scarf, feet dragging a little as he headed back into the apartment, the door clicking shut behind him. He set the container on the kitchen counter, grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the drawer, and opened the lid.

Steam wafted up instantly, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, something subtly sweet he couldn’t name. The noodles glistened. They looked homemade. No, they felt homemade.

He picked up a strand and gave it a tentative taste.

His eyes widened before he could even help it.

It was good. Like stupid good. Like how the hell is this girl not running her own restaurant kind of good. Better than anything he would’ve paid for at that bar tonight.

He stood there in silence, chopsticks hovering mid-air, thinking back.

He wasn’t proud of how he’d treated you. Three encounters, three arguments. He remembered each one too clearly. The snark in his voice. The way your expression hardened. The notes on the door. 

But it wasn’t really about you.

He hated being called out. Hated being the problem. Maybe it was ego, or maybe it was the way he’d always felt like he had to be put-together or to say the least…controlled. Your presence threw him off. You were loud in a way that was sincere. You didn’t filter your emotions. You wore your annoyance on your sleeve and your feelings on your face.

It irritated him. It also… made him feel something.

And then there was that night on the balcony.

He hadn’t meant to listen. But when he heard your voice cracking through the divider, talking to someone…maybe it was your boyfriend? Your best friend? Whoever it was about how lonely you were, it hit him harder than it should’ve.

Because he got it.

He felt it too.

Being alone in a crowd. Having people around but never really with you. That weight in your chest that didn’t come from sadness exactly…just the absence of warmth.

Sunghoon felt it more often than he cared to admit. He loved Jake and Jay, loved them to pieces. They were the kind of people who filled a room with noise and an energy he couldn’t really place and who made him laugh even when he didn’t want to.

He wanted something more. Something real.

Someone who just… saw him.

He sat at his kitchen counter, staring at the container of glass noodles still warm with steam curling from the lid. He wasn’t usually impulsive. He didn’t do gestures. But maybe tonight called for something a little uncharacteristic.

He stood and reached up, opening the top cupboard where Jake and Jay kept what they called their “emergency date plates.”. The kind of plates you used to impress someone. They only ever brought them out when trying to convince girls they were not, in fact, living in a borderline condemned apartment flat.

He grabbed two.

And then, before he could second guess it, he walked out into the hallway and knocked. 

Your door creaked open a few seconds later.

You blinked at him, confused. “What?”

It almost felt like deja vu. Except now, he was you…awkward at the door.

And then it hit him.

He looked at you…like, really looked at you, and for the first time, he realised he’d never actually seen you before. 

You were wearing a soft pink sleeveless dress, the fabric loose and falling just above your knees, cinched slightly at the waist. Your hair was tied into a side braid, fringe swept slightly to the side, with a few delicate strands left loose to frame your face. You looked like you belonged in a pastel painting.

Shit.

Were you actually—pretty?

Nope. Nope. Stop that. Sunghoon blinked hard, trying to erase the thought.

Damn it.

You probably had a boyfriend. Someone smart and warm and emotionally available who FaceTimed you every night and wrote you good morning texts. Someone who missed you from back home.

And besides…someone who could cook like you? You could probably bag Jake and Jay at the same time in under a minute if you wanted. Not that you would. But still.

He cleared his throat.

“I, uh…” He held up the plates slightly. “I thought maybe… you could join me?”

He wasn’t good at this. But his voice was steady.

“Only if you want to,” he added, quickly. “I just figured. Y’know. Glass noodles taste better on… plates that aren’t plastic.”

His eyes met yours.

He was trying.

And this time, it was your turn to blink in disbelief.

-

Sunghoon had returned with the container of glass noodles, now a little colder, a little stickier, but still giving off the faint aroma of sesame oil and soy sauce. You’d reheated it and plated it up, slightly embarrassed that the presentation wasn’t what it had been fresh off the stove, but he didn’t seem to care. Or maybe he did, but you couldn’t tell, because for the first five minutes, you didn’t look at each other.

The clink of chopsticks, the occasional scrape of ceramic, and your ceiling fan. It was awkward. You wondered why he even came. Why he asked in the first place, if he was just going to eat in silence.

“So,” you said.

“So,” he said.

You paused.

“You first.”

“No, you—”

“Okay, I’ll go first,” he said, cutting himself off. He cleared his throat and set his chopsticks down. “I—uh—I just wanted to say thanks. For the meal.”

You blinked. “Okay.” You nodded slowly. “You’re… shockingly formal when you’re not pissed.”

“I—” Sunghoon let out a breath and leaned back a little in the chair. “I was never pissed.”

“Mhm,” you hummed, nodding, eyes narrowed. “Sure.”

“I was annoyed, sure. Who likes being called out?”

“I wasn’t trying to call you out,” you said, tilting your head. “But put yourself in my shoes. I have to wake up at stupid o’clock to learn how to make a soufflé or whatever, and meanwhile, I’m treated to surround sound yelling and the occasional ceiling vibration.”

He gave a small shrug. “Well, we haven’t done it in a while.”

“And I’m grateful,” you replied, lips twitching. “Truly.”

“We got a silence jar and everything,” he muttered, almost like he didn’t want to admit it.

Your eyebrows shot up. “A silence jar?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Jay implemented it. He said if we keep it up, we’ll have enough for extra toppings on our next pizza night.”

You burst into laughter, the sound surprising even yourself. It came out light and real, and you covered your mouth halfway through. “That’s… honestly? A decent plan.”

“It can be,” he said with a grin starting to pull at the corner of his mouth. “Until everyone starts trying to play FIFA like it’s an ASMR video.”

“You guys actually whisper?” you asked, incredulous.

“Well, yeah. You told us to.”

“I didn’t think you would listen,” you said, pointing your chopsticks at him.

Sunghoon shrugged again, his eyes dropping to the plate in front of him. “Well… they changed my mind, so.”

He didn’t say what he was really thinking.

That it wasn’t Jake or Jay who changed his mind. It was that night. The way your voice had carried through the gap in the balcony, fragile and cracking. The way you’d said I’m alone, Won like it was something that had been sitting inside you for too long, waiting to spill. He’d realised then maybe he wasn’t just an annoying neighbour to you. Maybe he was part of the problem. Maybe he’d been making things harder for someone who was already trying to hold it all together.

“So…” he said quietly, eyes on his plate, “why are you alone during the holidays anyway?”

“Couldn’t afford a train ticket,” you said eventually. “I mean—I could have, technically. But that’d mean I wouldn’t have enough money left to buy ingredients for my assignments the next few weeks.”

Sunghoon winced. “Oof. That’s rough. Must suck.”

You gave a little shrug. “Yeah. It’s fine though.”

He knew it wasn’t.

There was a pause. He glanced sideways at you.

“If you ever… feel like you need someone to talk to,” he started, voice casual, “you could just knock. I have FIFA.”

You snorted. “Oh, like I’d willingly join that mess.”

“It’s actually really fun.”

“How fun can flinging a ball across a screen with your thumbs be?”

“It is!” he defended, turning fully toward you.

You raised a brow. “I tried once with my friend and it was so boring.”

“That’s ‘cause you weren’t playing it right,” he insisted, already standing up. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

“I’m not playing FIFA with you.”

“Come onnn,” he whined, grabbing your wrist and tugging you lightly toward his door.

“God, this is gonna be so stupid,” you muttered, dragging your feet even as you followed him out.

Inside his apartment, the lights were warm, the couch sunken in like it had been through a war. You sat reluctantly, tucking your knees up as he handed you the controller.

“Alright,” he said, sliding in beside you. “This is you—Team Two. All you have to do is use the left joystick to move, the right one to look around. This button to pass, this one to shoot.”

You blinked. “So many buttons.”

“It’s easy! Just follow what I say.”

“Okay… so now I just—?” You pressed a button and immediately kicked the ball out of bounds.

“No, no—move left. Left.”

“I am moving left!”

He glanced over. Your tongue was sticking out slightly in concentration, eyes squinted, brows furrowed. He chuckled before he could stop himself, quickly looking away.

Then you screamed, “I DID IT! DID I DO IT?!”

He turned back just in time to see you score.

Sunghoon yelled, jumping up. “Yeah! That was it!”

You stared at the screen, jaw dropping. “Holy shit. I’m amazing.”

He looked at you again, this time longer. Your eyes were glowing, still locked on the TV. Your fingers tapped at the buttons like you already got it down. You bit your lip when you were focused, tongue sticking out just slightly when you were thinking.

And you were cute. So fucking cute.

The match picked up pace. Suddenly it was 2–2, and both of you were leaning in like your lives depended on it. You were yelling at the controller. He was shouting advice. At one point, your knees knocked, but neither of you noticed. The room was loud, just your voices and the music from the game and the way your laughter filled every corner of his flat.

Then it happened.

You scored. 

You screamed, controller tossed onto the couch, and before Sunghoon could register what was happening, your arms were around his neck, squeezing him tight as you jumped slightly in place.

“I WON! DID YOU SEE THAT?!”

He froze. Your cheek brushed his jaw, your warmth right up against him. His hands hovered midair like he didn’t know whether to hold you back or not.

And then you let go, plopped back onto the couch, and grabbed the controller again like nothing had happened.

Sunghoon didn’t move.

For the first time in what felt like forever, his heartbeat stuttered. Sped up like it had been woken from a long, indifferent sleep.

He sat there, silent, staring at you as you shouted at your pixelated team.

And all he could think was well that…he hadn’t planned on crushing on the new girl based on one single positive interaction.

God, he was so screwed.

-

The next few days passed in a blur of almost-conversations.

You and Sunghoon didn’t talk much. Not like that night. Just a few polite waves across the hallway, a quiet “hey” if you caught the elevator at the same time. Respectful nods. The occasional awkward glance if your eyes met for too long.

And then Jake and Jay came back.

And of course, Jake being Jake, invited himself into your apartment before you could even say no.

“I missed your cooking while I was gone,” he sighed dramatically, sinking into the dining chair like he’d returned from war.

“Well, today’s your lucky day,” you said, flipping through your assignment folder and squinting at the week’s task. “Because for today’s assignment, I’m supposed to…” you paused. “Make a really mean chicken pot pie.”

Jake’s eyes lit up. He clapped his hands, nearly tipping his chair over. “CHICKEN POT PIE?!”

Before you could even blink, he leapt up, yanked your door open, and sprinted into the hallway.

“JAY! IT’S CHICKEN POT PIE!” he yelled like it was a fire drill.

From across the hall, Jay’s voice rang out. “WHAT?! NO WAY!”

And then—another voice joined them.

A quieter one.

“Chicken pot pie?”

You didn’t even have time to react before you were suddenly hosting three grown men in your kitchen, all leaning over your counter.

“Guys,” you said, elbow-deep in flour. “I can’t focus if you’re all staring at me like that.”

“We’re just excited,” Jake grinned, chin in his hands.

“Well don’t be. I’ve never made this before. It might taste like ass.”

“Your hands are basically blessed by Gordon Ramsay,” Jay declared, grabbing a slice of carrot from the cutting board. “It’s impossible for it to taste like ass.”

You laughed, the sound soft and unexpected even to yourself. “Jungwon used to tell me that all the time.”

“Oh he did?” Jay echoed, voice teasing.

Sunghoon stood a few steps back from the others, arms crossed loosely, leaning against your fridge. He hadn’t said much since stepping into your place, but now he watched the three of you.

The way you smiled when Jay made a joke. The way Jake knew where you kept your mixing bowls. The way your eyes sparkled, just slightly, when you laughed about something from home. The way they got it. The way they knew you.

And the way he didn’t.

Sunghoon couldn’t explain it but it made his stomach twist. Tight and strange and uncomfortable.

And then he heard it again.

Jungwon.

Who the hell was Jungwon?

His name sounded too casual. Too affectionate. The kind of name you didn’t just drop without meaning.

Sunghoon didn’t say anything. He just looked down at your countertop, at the flour dusting your hands and the delicate way your fingers shaped the crust, and all he could think was—

Why the fuck did he care so much?

You moved around your kitchen with the kind of ease that made it impossible not to watch. Sunghoon’s eyes were locked on you, the way your hair swayed behind your back as you leaned forward to stir something in the pot, the way your sleeves were pushed up. 

His heart pounded harder than it should’ve. He tried to brush it off. Maybe he was just hungry. Maybe it was just the smell of garlic and butter making him lightheaded. That had to be it, right?

Except no.

He hadn’t planned on feeling like this today. Not when he woke up. Not when he brushed his teeth and went on his phone and told himself he’d stay in his apartment. He hadn’t even planned on coming over. And that night the two of you shared noodles? He’d chalked it up to vulnerability. Nighttime feelings. Nothing serious.

But now it was noon. He was awake. Sober. And you were still somehow making his chest tighten just by existing within ten feet of him.

God. He hated having a crush.

He didn’t even realise how lost he looked until Jake spoke up from the side, breaking the spell.

“So, is Jungwon finally coming?”

This guy again.

Sunghoon’s head whipped toward Jake so fast it might’ve snapped his neck.

You perked up at the mention, a smile blooming across your face without even trying. “Yeah! He’s coming in two weeks! I actually told him about you guys. He’s kinda excited to meet you.”

That smile. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t forced. You looked like someone who meant it. Someone who missed this guy. Someone who talked to him often.

Sunghoon clenched his jaw and looked away, grabbing a water bottle off your counter just to do something with his hands. He twisted the cap a little too hard.

He didn’t know who the hell Jungwon was.

But he already didn’t like him.

“He’s coming over?” Jay asked, his mouth still half-full of pie filling.

“Yeah,” you said casually, brushing a stray hair behind your ear as you peeked into the oven. “He’s staying at my place for the week he’s here.”

Staying at your place?

Sunghoon blinked.

He looked around your apartment, eyes scanning every corner like they were going to magically reveal a hidden guest room. But there wasn’t one. You lived in a studio. Everything was in one space. Your bed, your desk, your kitchen, your couch. Except… there wasn’t even a real couch. Just a throw-covered loveseat that barely seated two.

No air mattress in sight. No hidden folding cot. No suspicious lumpy bags that might hold a spare futon.

Just one bed.

His chest tightened.

Where the hell was Jungwon gonna sleep? With you?

He picked at the label on his water bottle, teeth grinding quietly as he stared down at the floor, like it held answers. It didn’t.

He wasn’t even involved with you. This shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t bother him.

But it did. In the most uncomfortable, teeth-clenching, mind-racing kind of way.

-

You stood in front of the three boys, arms crossed, heart racing slightly under your apron. The chicken pot pie sat on the table…golden brown crust, just the right amount of bubbling over on the sides, the smell of thyme and butter and garlic filling your apartment.

Jake, Jay, and Sunghoon each took a spoonful at the same time like they’d rehearsed it. You watched them, nervous, scanning their faces.

One by one, their expressions lit up. Jake’s eyes widened, Jay let out a satisfied groan. Well… except Sunghoon. Of course.

He stayed still. Always unreadable. But you caught it. The tiny pause, the way his brows lifted just a fraction. He liked it. He just didn’t show it like the others.

“So—” Jake started.

“Good,” Jay finished, already reaching for more.

Your eyes flicked to Sunghoon. Somehow, his opinion was the one you were waiting on. The one you needed.

“So?” you asked, staring at him.

He blinked. “What?”

“How is it?”

“It’s good,” he said, nodding once, tone flat as ever.

Your smile dropped. You frowned. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“What? I just said it’s good.”

“No, you said ‘good’ and then frowned and put your spoon down. Usually it’s ‘It’s good,’ then a second bite. Right, boys?”

Jake nodded enthusiastically, chicken still in his mouth. “She’s right.”

“Totally right,” Jay added, already helping himself to more.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes, leaning back slightly. “You’re all being dramatic.”

You scoffed, insulted. “I guess you don’t want seconds then. Tch.”

You clicked your tongue and turned on your heel, storming off toward the kitchen, grumbling under your breath. Your apron fluttered behind you as you moved, and you didn’t look back.

Sunghoon watched your little pout, the way your shoulders stiffened, how you exaggerated every step. He didn’t know why, but he liked your reaction. No, he loved it. He found it ridiculously cute. Too cute, actually. That slight wrinkle in your forehead. The way your voice got higher when you were mad. The tiny stomp in your step.

The moment your back turned, his lips twitched upward. 

When lunch ended and the three of them stood by your front door, Jake and Jay turned to hug you dramatically.

“Never move out,” Jake said into your shoulder.

You rolled your eyes. “You’re just saying that because you get free food.”

“And precisely why we don’t want you to move out,” Jay replied, squeezing you once more before the two of them shuffled out, bickering as they made their way into their apartment across the hall.

Sunghoon lingered. Just behind you.

You turned, raising a brow. “Aren’t you leaving?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He stepped back slowly, hands in his pockets, gaze flicking to the floor before settling back on you. Then he paused. Like he wasn’t sure if he should say what he was about to say.

“The chicken pot pie was good. I think…” he exhaled, voice quieter, “I think it was one of the best things I’ve ever had.”

You blinked, caught off guard.

“It reminded me of home,” he added, eyes still on you now, a little softer than usual. “Not in the way where it’s about the taste or anything… it’s just… you cook like home. If that makes any sense.”

You hadn’t expected that.

Your cheeks flushed immediately. You turned away before he could see it, pretending to fiddle with a dish on the counter, fingers uselessly adjusting an already-clean plate.

“Thank you,” you murmured, voice low, almost shy.

He lingered for a second longer like he wanted to say more. Then he gave a quiet nod and walked out the door.

-

It was raining.

It was only 4 p.m., but the sky had turned an eerie charcoal grey, clouds rolling thick above the city. Thunder cracked so loud you felt it in your chest, and the wind howled between the buildings, slamming against your windows.

You hated this.

You hated how much you still feared storms even at your age. How useless independence felt when you were stuffing tissues in your ears and jamming earmuffs over your head like you were five again. You turned on every single light in your apartment, lamps, fairy lights, even your microwave light and cocooned yourself under your thickest blanket, barely breathing, eyes wide.

Then the whole building shuddered.

The lights flickered.

And then everything went dark.

You screamed.

Your apartment disappeared into a blanket of pitch black, shadows curling up the walls like ink. Your heart pounded. You scrambled up from the couch, tearing off your earmuffs and patting the walls with shaky hands, trying to find a light switch like that would fix anything.

“Shit,” you whispered, voice trembling. “Shit shit shit.”

You fumbled for your phone. A message popped up from your landlord.

“The building is experiencing a temporary blackout due to the storm. Electricity should resume in an hour. Thank you for your patience.”

An hour? Alone? In this? In the dark? Absolutely fucking not.

You jumped at another violent crack of thunder and instantly rushed out into the hallway. Your blanket trailed behind you like a cape. You beelined for the only door you knew.

You knocked. The door swung open almost immediately.

“No time to explain but I’m shitting bricks here,” you said all at once.

It wasn’t Jake or Jay.

It was Sunghoon.

His brows raised. “The thunderstorm?”

You nodded frantically. “Are Jake or Jay here?”

“They’re asleep.” He glanced behind him, then back at you. “But I could… stay with you. If you want. Until it passes.”

You hesitated.

Then thunder cracked again, louder this time, right above your building.

You flinched. “Okay,” you breathed, defeated.

The two of you sat cross-legged on your couch, sharing a single candle as your only source of light. It flickered between you, casting long, warm shadows on the walls.

“Seems like you’re scared of the thunder,” he said gently.

“Well,” you sighed, voice tight. “I’ve been scared of it since I was younger. It just… gets to me.”

He nodded. “It’s okay.”

You noticed it then…the subtle tremble in his shoulders. He was shivering. From the cold, probably. Your heater wasn’t working without electricity, and the apartment was steadily turning into a fridge. You were wrapped up like a burrito, but he’d come in without anything but a hoodie.

Feeling guilty, you shifted toward him and lifted one side of your blanket.

“Uh…” he looked at you like he wasn’t sure if he was being pranked.

“Relax. I can see you shivering like a dog,” you muttered.

“Oh.” He blinked, then grabbed the other end of the blanket and scooted in beside you.

Now under the same blanket, his body heat pressed faintly against yours. You sat side by side, knees pulled to your chests.

And then, in a whisper, he said, “You know…”

You looked over at him, startled by the sudden softness in his voice.

“I know I’m not as close to you as Jay and Jake are,” he said, eyes trained on the candle, “but… you don’t always have to find them for help.”

You blinked. “Huh?”

“I’m saying…” he sighed, eyes flicking up toward you, and then away again. “Never mind.”

“No, what? Just spit it out.”

He exhaled through his nose like it physically hurt to get the words out. “I’m just saying… you could ask me for help too.”

You stared at him, your eyes adjusting to the candlelight flickering between you.

“Oh,” you said softly.

There was a beat of silence. You weren’t really sure what to do with that. But you didn’t want to leave it hanging either.

“I’ll be sure to think of you the next time,” you mumbled, barely louder than the rain still pelting the windows outside.

You felt him nod beside you.

You turned your head slowly, resting your cheek against your knees, eyes drifting toward him. His face was tilted down, lashes long and dark as they blinked now and then, just slow enough for you to notice. His jaw had softened a little. He looked calm, in a way you weren’t used to seeing him.

“Would you rather have a million dollars,” you said suddenly, “or have no problems in the world?”

He blinked, confused for a second, then turned his head toward you. His chin was on his knees now too, and with the two of you curled up in the same blanket, inches apart, it felt almost like whispering under covers at a sleepover.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A good one,” you replied, lips twitching. “So answer it.”

He scoffed a little under his breath. “Uh… maybe no problems in the world?”

“Smart answer. Why?”

He paused, “I think people ruin themselves trying to solve problems that shouldn’t be theirs. If I had no problems, maybe I wouldn’t waste time worrying about all the stuff that doesn’t matter.”

You blinked at him. That was… not the answer you were expecting. It was a good one. Way too good, actually.

“Right,” you said softly, giving him a small nod.

He looked at you for a second longer before his eyes flicked down. “Your turn. Would you rather go back in time or go into the future?”

You puffed your cheeks out, thinking. “Hmm… that’s a toughie.”

Then your eyes widened, the way they always did when you had a lightbulb moment. “Go back in time!”

“Why’s that?”

“So maybe I’d really weigh the pros and cons of moving to a city where I know no one,” you said with a grin, but it faded slightly at the end.

Sunghoon stayed quiet. 

“You must really feel alone,” he said.

You blinked, startled. “What?”

“I hear you talking about it sometimes. On your balcony. When you think no one’s listening. You talk about how moving here feels like a mistake.”

You looked away, embarrassed. “It’s not a mistake. I just… miss everything back home.”

“I get it,” he said after a second. “I was like you. Back when I was home, I wanted to leave so badly. Thought being somewhere else would fix everything. But now that I’m here… yeah, I have Jay and Jake, and they’re great, but sometimes I come back to the apartment and everything’s fine and normal and still—I just feel… empty. And I don’t even know why.”

You didn’t say anything for a long time.

You just watched him. His face had turned thoughtful, distant. His eyes unfocused, drifting somewhere past the flickering candle, past your walls, like he was staring right through the quiet that lived in his chest.

You mumbled, “Well, yeah. But… I also don’t regret it. Not one bit.”

“Really?”

You nodded. “Yeah. I mean—I’m here doing what I love. Not many people get to do that. And I made friends with three incredibly annoying people in this building.”

He turned toward you again, eyes narrowing playfully. “So we’re friends now?”

Your cheeks heated up instantly. You glanced away, pretending to roll your eyes. “Are we not?”

He let out a low chuckle, the kind that rumbled softly at the back of his throat. “I’m glad you think we are.”

“So,” you said, tilting your head, “does this mean you’ll finally be nice to me now? Or is that too much character development for one night?”

Sunghoon smirked, eyes flicking to you with a teasing glint. “You want nice? From me?”

“Yeah. Like a full sentence without sarcasm. I feel like that’s a reward I’ve earned by now.”

“You earned a participation medal at best.”

You laughed, nudging him with your knee. “Unbelievable.”

He was already looking at you again—closer this time.

“Hold on,” he said softly, “you have an eyelash on your cheek.”

You blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

Before you could move, he leaned in.

His face hovered inches from yours as his thumb brushed gently against your cheek, his touch soft but sure. The pads of his fingers were warm. His eyes, now impossibly close, scanned your face with a kind of quiet focus you hadn’t felt from him before. You swallowed.

Neither of you moved.

Your gaze locked, and the space between you slowly disappeared…inch by inch, breath by breath. It wasn’t planned. It just… happened.

Then suddenly, his lips were on yours.

Then it deepened. His other hand pushed the blanket off his head, dropping behind your neck to pull you in, and your hands found their way to his thighs, then to the curve of his jaw. His lips parted just enough, and your pulse jumped as he moved against you.

His hands slid to your waist. He lifted you slightly and shifted you into his lap in one smooth motion. You were now straddling him, knees on either side of his thighs, and he didn’t stop kissing you, not even for a second.

The kiss grew stronger. He tilted his head, hand moving to your chin to pull you even closer, his mouth parting yours with a low inhale as his tongue brushed against yours.

Your hands moved back down, gripping at the soft cotton of his hoodie, when—

Click.

The lights flickered on.

You both froze.

Your faces were still inches apart. 

You slowly pulled back, still on his lap. He blinked, eyes searching yours like he wasn’t sure what just happened. Like part of him wanted to keep going, and the other part… couldn’t believe you just kissed him like that.

You stared at each other, the silence heavy now.

His hands were still resting lightly on your waist. Yours were still fisted in the fabric of his hoodie. Both of you breathless. 

“I need to go back home,” Sunghoon said suddenly, voice low but rushed. His eyes darted everywhere except at you.

You blinked. “Right. Of course!” you said quickly, nodding way too fast. “Yeah. No—totally.”

He shifted awkwardly underneath you, face flushing as he cleared his throat and muttered, “Probably… need a pillow or something.”

It took you a second.

Then you saw the way he was subtly covering his lap with the edge of the blanket.

“Oh.” Your voice came out small. You quickly scrambled off his lap, cheeks burning so hot they could’ve powered your apartment during the blackout.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, already halfway to your door.

And then, Sunghoon stormed out of your apartment.

-

It had been a couple of days since you last properly spoke to Sunghoon. Not for lack of trying. You had…more than once. But each time, he’d give you a quick nod, maybe a polite smile if you were lucky, before promptly power-walking away.

Maybe he just wasn’t feeling what you were feeling. Maybe that kiss was a fluke, something in the heat of the moment. Maybe your little new crush was painfully one-sided.

But you pushed it aside. You had bigger things to focus on.

Jungwon was coming today.

You’d spent the entire morning rearranging your apartment, cleaning it from top to bottom, fluffing cushions and spraying perfume not just on yourself but into the air like it could somehow mask how nervous you were. You even did your hair the way he liked it, soft curls and a side part.

And then, there he was.

The door swung open and your best friend stood in the hallway, suitcase in hand and a grin already on his face.

“WON!” you squealed, running up to him and leaping into his arms.

“Hello, idiot,” he said, his voice fond as he hugged you back, lifting you off the ground with ease.

The shout must’ve startled the boys in 3C, because right on cue, the door across the hall creaked open and out came Jake and Jay, both peeking out.

They spotted you clinging to Jungwon like a koala.

You beamed. “Guys! It’s him!”

“The famous Jungwon,” Jay said, nodding in approval as he stepped out.

“And you must be Jake and Jay,” Jungwon said smoothly, setting you down.

Then came the third.

Sunghoon.

He didn’t move from the doorway. Just stood there, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

Jungwon turned to him, a friendly smile still on his lips, chuckling. “You must be Sunghoon, then.”

Sunghoon’s gaze narrowed slightly. “What’s so funny?”

Jungwon blinked, caught off guard. “Nothing,” he said, clearing his throat. “She just… told me you were like this.”

“Like what?” Sunghoon asked sharply, the scoff nearly audible in his tone.

Jungwon scratched the back of his neck. “Nothing. She just said you were cool,” he said with a shrug, throwing you a teasing look.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes.

You stood there, suddenly awkward, unsure what the hell had crawled up Sunghoon’s ass. The hostility was as thick as the tension in the air and you hadn’t done anything. Not really.

At least you didn’t think you had.

Just stood there, arms crossed, a stiff expression on his face while Jake and Jay welcomed Jungwon like he was already part of the group. Jungwon, ever the social butterfly, fit in easily, throwing a few jokes around, complimenting the apartment despite its questionable decor, and even teasing Jake about the ugly dinosaur pyjamas he was wearing in broad daylight.

But Sunghoon?

He was frowning the entire time.

You couldn’t figure it out. His jaw was tight, his responses were clipped, and every time Jungwon so much as glanced your way, you saw Sunghoon’s eye twitch.

You walked back to your apartment with Jungwon beside you, chatting excitedly about dinner plans and all the places he wanted to visit during his stay. But when you turned back, just for a second, you caught Sunghoon still watching. Still standing in the hallway.

His arms were still crossed.

And he didn’t look away.

-

Sunghoon stood there, arms folded across his chest like they were the only things keeping him together. He stared ahead blankly, jaw tight, doing everything in his power not to glare a hole through the wall. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling.

Sure, he knew he had a crush on you. He’d known since the chicken pot pie, probably. Or maybe since you wrapped that blanket around his shoulders. Or maybe long before that. But what he didn’t know was who the fuck Jungwon was, and why he was walking into your apartment.

“Dude,” Jake muttered, throwing him a sideways look. “You could’ve at least smiled.”

“I did,” Sunghoon growled, not bothering to hide his scowl.

Jay snorted. “That was barely a smile. You looked like you were in the middle of passing a kidney stone.”

“Why do I even have to be nice?” Sunghoon snapped. “I don’t know him.”

“Because your crush’s boyfriend just came into town,” Jake replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sunghoon's head snapped to him so fast you’d think he got whiplash. “Boyfriend?”

Jay raised a brow. “Not denying the crush though.”

Sunghoon ignored him. “Let me ask you again. Boyfriend?”

Jake shrugged. “I mean… yeah, I guess?”

“What the fuck do you mean you guess?” Sunghoon hissed, dragging a hand down his face. “He can’t be her boyfriend.”

“But he is,” Jay said with a shrug and an infuriatingly smug smile.

“No, he’s not. He can’t be. Because she and I…” he paused, realising too late what was about to fall out of his mouth. “…kissed. Three nights ago.”

Jake’s mouth dropped open. Jay blinked.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jake finally blurted.

“Nothing,” Sunghoon muttered quickly, suddenly desperate to eat his words.

“You can’t say nothing when you just said everything!” Jake shouted, grabbing Sunghoon’s shoulders and shaking him.

“Tell us right now!” Jay begged dramatically, gripping his own hair.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes, flustered. “I—we—kissed. That’s it.”

Jay blinked. “You know we were kidding about the boyfriend thing, right?”

Jake grinned. “Jungwon’s just her best friend.”

“We just wanted to see if you’d admit you liked her,” Jay added, eyes sparkling with way too much joy. “Which you did.”

“No, I didn’t,” Sunghoon argued weakly. “I just said we kissed.”

“Okay, Mr Visceral Reaction every time we mention Jungwon,” Jake teased.

Jay smirked. “Say it. Say you like her.”

Sunghoon groaned, eyes shut tight as if the ceiling could swallow him whole. Then, finally—quietly, begrudgingly—

“Okay. So what if I like her?”

Jay and Jake immediately turned to each other with identical gasps, smacking each other’s arms excitedly.

“Oh my god, he admitted it,” Jay whispered dramatically.

Jake clutched his chest. “It’s happening.”

“You guys are disgusting,” Sunghoon groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And if you keep acting like this, I’m never telling you anything again.”

“Okay, okay.” Jake raised both hands, trying to suppress a grin. “We’ll behave.”

“BUT I’M SO EXCITED,” Jay squealed.

Jake smacked him on the shoulder. “Starting now.”

Jay nodded solemnly, rubbing his arm. “Sorry. That one slipped.”

Sunghoon sighed and leaned against the counter, arms crossed again. “I started liking her last month… when you guys went back home for the week. She cooked me stir-fried noodles, and we ate together. Played FIFA. I don’t know. I just… developed a crush on her.”

“That’s so cute,” Jay and Jake said in unison, stars in their eyes.

“Seriously, can the two of you act normal for like three minutes?”

Jake shrugged, still smiling. “I just didn’t expect you to have a girlfriend before me.”

Jay patted his shoulder. “You’ll get there, buddy.”

Jake tilted his head. “You think?”

“Yeah, you have nice eyes. Great personality.”

Jake beamed. “That’s so kind.”

“Can we please get back to my problem for like a minute?” Sunghoon cut in, glaring at both of them.

“Oh. Right.”

Jay cleared his throat and finally looked serious. “Look. We like her. She’s hilarious, and she makes good fucking food. And let’s be real, you’ve never liked anyone. We’ve been trying to get you to double date with us for years and you just stare at your phone all the time. But with her? You’re like... a guy with actual feelings.”

“But now I’m losing to Jung… whatever his name is.” Sunghoon sighed.

“Jungwon,” Jake said. “And no, you’re not.”

“How do you know she doesn’t like him?” Sunghoon muttered, staring down at the floor.

“Because,” Jay said, “if she did, she wouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Unless she’s indecisive or confused or something. I don’t know.” Sunghoon exhaled hard, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe I was just… a moment. And he’s her person.”

Jake shook his head. “I’m telling you—just talk to her.”

“Yeah,” Jay added. “Before you spiral even harder and start writing love songs about her. But if you do, I haved like a couple of guitars you could borrow.”

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. But somewhere, deep down… a part of him hoped they were right.

-

You were pacing back and forth on your cheap IKEA rug, while Jungwon was laid out dramatically on your bed, arms folded behind his head, thoroughly enjoying the show.

“I’m telling you, he’s avoiding me,” you snapped, pointing an accusatory finger at no one in particular. “We kissed—KISSED, Jungwon—and now he won’t even look at me! I wave, he nods. I say hi, he nods. I breathe in his direction, he—guess what—nods!”

Jungwon hummed, annoyingly calm. “Maybe he’s nervous. Or maybe he wants you to go to him.”

“I do go to him! And then he speed-walks away like I’m the plague!” You groaned, pressing your fingers to your temples. “I’m gonna lose it.”

“Maybe…” he tapped his chin thoughtfully, “you’re just a shit kisser.”

You whipped around and chucked a throw pillow directly at his smug face.

“Asshole.”

He caught it with a grin, clutching it to his chest dramatically. “I’m just saying. Maybe you scared him off.”

“You’re lucky I haven’t strangled you with this blanket,” you muttered, grabbing another pillow just in case.

Jungwon sat up, brushing imaginary dust off his shirt. “You know, sometimes I forget we grew up together because you’re so unpredictable now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He snorted. “You used to be fearless. Remember that Heeseung guy you had a crush on in middle school?”

You blinked. “What about him?”

“You were six, and you walked up to him at recess, said ‘I like your lunchbox,’ then kissed his cheek and ran off.”

“Ah,” you said flatly, “the good old days. That girl’s dead now.”

“She’s not dead,” Jungwon argued, grabbing your wrists and tugging you to sit beside him on the bed. “She’s just… overthinking everything. Look, if Sunghoon doesn’t like you—whatever. But if he does? You’re missing out just because you’re too chicken to tell him.”

You glared. “I hate it when you make sense.”

“I know.” He grinned. “It’s my worst trait.”

“I just—” you exhaled, flopping back beside him. “What if it ruins everything? We literally just got closer. What if I say something and it all goes to shit?”

“Okay, counter-offer.” He sat up straighter. “You tell him, or I will. I will walk down the hallway, knock on his door, and go ‘Hi, my best friend has feelings for you, she also has performance anxiety but can cook a great bowl of chicken noodle soup.’”

“You wouldn’t,” you hissed, swatting at his arm.

“Then do it yourself!” he laughed, dodging your attacks. “Before I start printing flyers and pasting them in the apartment lobby.”

God. Why did he always have to be right?

“Fine.”

Your hand was already on the doorknob, breath caught in your throat, just about to leave when the door across from yours had swung open at the exact same time.

And there he was.

Sunghoon.

You both froze, hands still gripping the doorknobs, blinking.

You cleared your throat first. “Sunghoon.”

He blinked like he hadn’t already been staring. “What?”

You squinted. “Is that the only word you know how to say when I call your name?”

He paused. “Sorry.”

You opened your mouth to say something else but were rudely interrupted by muffled snorts from behind Sunghoon. Jay and Jake’s heads popped out from their doorway like nosy meerkats.

“Hoon,” Jay said in a loud, exaggerated voice, “we need more eggs.”

“Desperately,” Jake added, nodding like this was a national emergency. “Go to the store.”

Then Jungwon peeked out from behind you with an equally suspicious grin. “Oh, and while you’re there, can you grab some ice cream too?”

You and Sunghoon looked at each other.

“What is happening right now,” you said flatly.

Before either of you could respond, four hands shoved the both of you toward the elevator. You stumbled in, the doors sliding shut just as Jay yelled out, “Don’t come back without snacks!”

The elevator stopped at your floor.

Your shoulders brushed as you stood side by side, awkwardly watching the floor numbers light up.

Then, finally, you broke it. “About that day—”

Sunghoon shook his head quickly. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t tell Jungwon.”

You blinked. “What do you mean you won’t tell Jungwon?”

He looked away. “Well, aren’t you like… crushing on him? I wouldn’t want what we did to, you know… ruin your chances or something.”

Your entire face scrunched up. “Won and I? What? Ew. God, no. We’re friends. We grew up together. Thinking about him that way would be like incest or something.”

And just like that, Sunghoon felt like he’d been hit by a shooting star and given a second chance at life. His heart did a full backflip. You were single. You were available. 

He couldn’t help it. He smiled.

“Why do you suddenly look so happy?” you asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“I’m not.”

“You’re literally smiling.”

“I’m not.”

“We’ve hung out a couple of times and if I’m being honest, I’ve never seen you smile this—”

“Cut it out.” He tried to brush it off, biting back the grin. “I’m just glad.”

“Glad about?”

“Glad that I didn’t ruin your chances,” he said nonchalantly, looking up like he hadn’t just panicked thirty seconds ago.

“Mhm.” You narrowed your eyes at him, the golden-orange glow of the sunset casting warmth across his cheekbones. He was handsome. Frustratingly so. “Well… because I actually like this other guy.”

Sunghoon’s smile faltered.

“I haven’t known him that long,” you continued casually, “but he seems cool. I don’t really know much about him yet.”

“That’s… nice.” Sunghoon turned away quickly, jaw tight. He was definitely grimacing. Please don’t let her see that I’m grimacing, he begged internally.

“Yeah, he’s really tall. Really handsome, too.”

“That’s just…” he exhaled. “Great.”

“He doesn’t seem super friendly but he has a big heart. Even if he tries really hard not to show it.”

“Seems like a swell fuckin’ guy,” he muttered bitterly.

“It’s a pity though,” you sighed dramatically, still watching him. “I wish I could get to know him better.”

“Well… anyone’s lucky to get to know you.” He tried to smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I know I am.”

You tilted your head. “Not to mention… he lives really close to me.”

Sunghoon’s eyes darted to you. “He does?”

“Mhm.” You nodded, heartbeat accelerating.

“Like how close?”

You took a slow step toward him. “Like… just across the hall close.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “That close.”

Silence settled in the small elevator. You both just stood there, not looking at each other, tension hanging in the air like humidity.

Then, out of nowhere—

“I’m just saying,” Sunghoon said, dead serious, “but Jake sleeps with the lights on and Jay doesn’t wash his hair as often as you think he does.”

You blinked. “Huh?”

“I sleep normal,” he added quickly. “I wash my hair. I do proper haircare—shampoo, conditioner, mask, mist. I could do your routine too. For you. If you want.”

You stared.

“I can’t cook, but I’ll try. I can figure skate. I can spin twice in the air. Jay and Jake? Not even one spin. Jay can play guitar, Jake can sing but I can spin, okay? Without getting dizzy too.”

“Sunghoon.”

“And those idiots never clean up after eating your food. Jay doesn’t use coasters. Jake never makes his bed.”

“SUNGHOON!”

He looked at you, breathless. “What?”

You stepped forward. Slowly. Then, you mumbled, “It’s you.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I like you.”

And for once, Park Sunghoon had absolutely nothing to say.

“Okay,” he said. “Cool. Okay. I—wow. Okay.”

You raised a brow. “That’s it?”

He nodded dumbly. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I just—holy shit. You like me.”

You smirked, the smile slowly stretching across your face. “Yes. I like you.”

The elevator dinged. Neither of you moved.

He looked at you again, still dazed. “Hold on, I kinda need a minute.”

You both stepped out into the empty lobby. The sun outside had just dipped below the skyline, casting a pinkish-orange glow through the glass doors. The streetlights flickered on. But you waited.

“It’s been a minute,” you said.

“I know,” he exhaled, hand raking through his hair. “But you like me back, so I kinda need, like… a long minute.”

“Back?” You grinned, the corners of your mouth lifting all the way to your eyes. “So you like me too?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I thought it was obvious from the, uh… word vomit.”

“Well yeah,” you shrugged. “But I didn’t want to assume. Didn’t wanna be narcissistic.”

“I think even if you were,” he muttered, “I’d still think you were pretty cute.”

You blinked. “Did you just—”

“Gross, I know,” he said quickly, face flushing. “I just said that out loud, didn’t I?”

You laughed. “Yeah. But you kinda can’t take it back now.”

“Fine,” he said, pretending to groan. “You’re cute. Ugh. I said it again.”

-

A MONTH LATER

Jay and Jake found it fundamentally unfair. They were the ones who got close to you first. They were the ones who complimented you, made you laugh, showed up when you needed help. They loved you first or at least, that’s what they told themselves. But here you were, doors locked for the first time in three months, cooking a full-course meal for Sunghoon to celebrate your one-month anniversary.

“You’re not allowed to come,” Sunghoon told them flatly before slamming the door shut.

“But—!” they shouted in unison, already mourning the steak they wouldn’t get to taste.

Word on the hallway was that you were cooking the perfect medium-rare T-bone steak, paired with your signature brown sauce and a vegetable medley so crunchy and flavourful. Meanwhile, Jay and Jake sat hunched on the couch, scrolling through a food delivery app.

“Isn’t it funny,” Jake said, arms folded, “how we were the ones who befriended her first, and now we’re stuck with Burger King?”

“Life’s unfair, bud.”

Back in your apartment, things were a little more romantic. You’d decorated with fairy lights and candles, the room dimly lit. You were still being frugal, splitting every cost you could. But you’d managed to steal two T-bone steaks from the diner you part-timed at.

Sunghoon showed up in a black and white tuxedo, looking like he’d taken the prom theme you had placed as a joke a little too seriously.

“You look absolutely gorgeous,” he said, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek.

“And you look absolutely handsome,” you grinned.

He walked over to the table and took in the spread. “Okay, what do we have?”

“I made the steaks, obviously, and then there’s the vegetable medley… and your favourite—mashed potatoes,” you giggled.

Sunghoon exhaled, shaking his head with a disbelieving smile. “How did I get so lucky?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know either.”

He laughed. “The guys are pissed, by the way. You made me all this, and they’re over there with cold fries.”

“What?” you said, surprised. “I made them something too! Don’t worry.”

“You did?” he raised a brow.

“I had a feeling they’d be hungry if you were over here.”

“Babe, you didn’t have to do that. They’re grown men.”

“Yeah, but technically my assignment this week was pasta and I have too many leftovers.”

“They’re spoiled by you.”

“And so are you.”

“True, but I’m your boyfriend. They’re just two annoying shitheads constantly trying to butt in.”

“I’ll be quick. I’ll just drop the dish off and come back.”

“No,” he said, standing. “I’ll do it. You stay here.”

He kissed your forehead, grabbing the lasagna you’d tucked into the fridge. “You’re too sweet, you know that?”

“He walked across the hall and opened the door to Unit 3C.

Inside, Jay was mid-rant. “I just don’t get it. Sunghoon isn’t even that hot.”

“I mean, he is,” Jake added, “but she deserves better, you know?”

Sunghoon cleared his throat. “I can hear you two idiots.”

They both froze, turning around sheepishly. “We were just joking. We love you, man.”

He held up the dish. “And to think I came here bearing gifts from my girlfriend.”

Jake’s eyes widened. “Wait—is that lasagna?”

“She felt bad we were eating good without you, so she made you dinner.”

“Oh my god,” Jay gasped. “Sunghoon, I don’t mean to be pushy, but please marry her.”

“I can’t,” Sunghoon muttered. “Not when you two are constantly inserting yourselves into my relationship.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll back off. Just—can we have the lasagna?”

“And can you tell her we love her?”

“I am not telling my girlfriend you love her,” Sunghoon snapped. “I’ve barely worked up the nerve to tell her that myself.”

“Wait,” Jake said suddenly, “you haven’t told her you love her yet?”

“It’s only been a month.”

“So… you don’t love her?”

“I do,” Sunghoon replied, almost too quickly. “I just don’t want to come on too strong if she’s not ready.”

Jay and Jake shared a glance before shrugging.

“What?” Sunghoon asked, frowning. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Jake cleared his throat. “It’s just… she already said it.”

Sunghoon looked up. “What?”

“Yeah,” Jake replied casually. “You texted her about picking up those heat packs for her cramps, and she went all soft and whispered, ‘God, I love him so much.’ Her words. Not mine.”

Sunghoon stood frozen in the doorway, the dish in his hands suddenly weightless.

You loved him.

“So… you’re saying I should tell her?” he asked, voice quiet, almost unsure.

Jay and Jake both nodded enthusiastically. “Definitely. Especially if it makes her our sister-in-law,” Jay added, grinning.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “God, the two of you can be so annoying.”

“But you still love us,” Jay shrugged. “So what’s the point of complaining?”

He hated that Jay was right.

Back in your apartment, Sunghoon sat across from you, completely transfixed. You were dressed in a soft pink satin dress that shimmered every time you moved. It hugged your shoulders delicately, the neckline simple, elegant. Your hair was curled softly, pinned loosely on one side with a vintage clip, and your lips were glossed just enough to make him stare longer than he should’ve.

And God, you looked so beautiful.

He tried to pay attention. He really did. But his heart was too loud, his thoughts too full. How was he supposed to say it?

Sunghoon had never told anyone he loved them before. Not seriously. Maybe to his mom years ago, right before he left for the city. But this? This felt entirely new.

Because sitting in front of him was someone who made every quiet part of his life feel loud again. You filled in the spaces he didn’t even know were missing. You made his apartment feel less cold, his world a little less grey. And the way he loved you—God, it wasn’t something small. It wasn’t a flicker or a passing crush. It was all-consuming and terrifying and the best damn thing he’d ever felt.

He loved you like it was muscle memory. Like even if he forgot everything else, his hands would still reach for yours and only yours.

“Hoonie,” you interrupted gently, frowning. “You’re not listening.”

He blinked back into focus. “Sorry,” he murmured, smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I was just thinking about something.”

“What?” you looked up at him, ur big eyes shining. 

Sunghoon unknowingly smiled, his eyes dripping with honey, god he loved you. He wanted to say that. So badly.

“I…I just–uh–feel…that,” His voice trailed off. “You look really beautiful tonight. I mean, you always do. But especially tonight.” He hesitated, the words stuck behind his teeth.

You smiled. “Thank you. You look very handsome too.”

-

Later that night, the two of you were in Sunghoon’s apartment along with Jay and Jake for the usual game night. 

You were sitting cross-legged on the floor, your prom-night dress bunched awkwardly around your knees, mascara slightly smudged from earlier laughter, hair pinned half-up. Sunghoon sat slouched in the beanbag beside you, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, brow furrowed in concentration. Jake was lying on his stomach, legs swinging in the air, and Jay had somehow made himself horizontal on the couch.

You and Jake were a team. Sunghoon and Jay were not handling that well.

“Revive me!” Sunghoon yelled.

Jay shouted back, “I’m busy trying not to die, dumbass!”

Button mashing intensified. Trash talk flew across the room.

“VICTORY!” Jake screamed, leaping up like a madman.

You followed suit, springing to your feet and clambering up onto the coffee table in your dress. “GET WRECKED, LOSERS!” you yelled, pointing dramatically at Sunghoon. “THAT’S RIGHT, LOSERS!”

Jake joined you on the table, doing a badly timed robot dance. The two of you jumped in sync, yelling in triumph, while Jay groaned into a throw pillow and Sunghoon watched with a hand covering his mouth, half to hide his smile, half to suppress a laugh.

“You’re all bark, no bite!” you called, face flushed, hair falling loose. “Your character died fourteen times, Hoonie.”

“I let you win!” he shot back, grinning as he sat up straighter. “I was being a gentleman.”

“Sure,” you scoffed, sticking your tongue out at him. “Real chivalrous of you, sir died-14-fucking-times.”

He chuckled under his breath, eyes lingering on you for a second longer than usual. Then, without a word, he stood and walked out of the room.

You blinked. That was...odd. 

You gave Jake a gentle shove off the table and followed Sunghoon into the hallway. He was pacing outside, one hand in his hair, the other fiddling with the watch on his wrist.

“Hoon?” you asked, stepping out and gently closing the door behind you.

He jumped slightly, turning toward you. “You scared me.”

“You okay? You just left so sudden…”

“I—uh—yeah. I was just trying to figure out how to say something.”

You tilted your head, arms crossing over your chest. “Say what?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled with a shrug.

Your expression softened. “Are you mad at me?” You sighed. Maybe your little victory dance had been a bit much. “Hoonie?”

“No, baby, I could never be mad at you,” he said quickly, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just…”

You stepped closer, teasing lightly, “Do you want me to redo my victory dance? I could. You just have to beatbox, and I’ll take it from there.”

That made him laugh.

“Come on,” you grinned, starting to move your body in the most ridiculous way. “I’m pretty sure I should’ve been a dancer instead of a chef.”

He laughed again, this time louder and then, before he could stop himself, the words slipped out.

“Oh my god, I love you.”

You blinked. Your smile faded. Your brain, for one impossible second, completely short-circuited.

“Did you just say you love me?” you asked, heart hammering.

His eyes widened in sheer panic. “No?”

“I heard it.”

“You misheard.”

“Oh my god,” you gasped, practically vibrating. “You love me. You love me!”

“Fine!” he burst out, throwing his hands up like he was under arrest. “I do! I love you, okay?”

You smiled, “You do?”

“Of course! I love the way you talk too fast when you’re excited. I love how you make my idiot friends feel like they matter. I love that you make me feel whole. That when I’m with you, I don’t feel hollow anymore. You… you make me feel like I’m not empty.”

You grinned so wide it hurt. “That’s because you’re not.”

“I used to be,” he said helplessly, gesturing vaguely like he was mourning his past self. “I was mysterious. Brooding. Sexy, even. And now? Now I smile at cat videos you send me on TikTok. Look what you’ve done to me. This is all your fault.”

You scoffed, “My fault?”

“Yes! Who else could it be?” he said, breathless, like the truth had been waiting at the edge of his tongue for too long. “You walk into my life with that stupidly perfect smile, that laugh that makes everything feel lighter, those eyes that somehow hold the whole damn sky and now I’ve got feelings. Big ones.”

He took a shaky breath, pausing for a minute.

“I used to think I was fine on my own. But now? I get out of bed just because I know I might see you. I hear your knock and my whole day lights up. For the first time, I feel like I know what living really means. It’s you. Loving you. That’s it.”

You leaned in and kissed him right in the middle of his rant.

He blinked, dazed.

“You sure talk a lot for someone who usually says nothing,” you murmured, forehead resting against his.

“I do it when I’m nervous,” Sunghoon whispered, and then kissed you again.

“I find it cute,” you mumbled between kisses.

Sunghoon grinned into the next kiss, backing you up step by step toward your apartment door, his hands finding your waist. “God,” kiss “I love you,” another kiss “so much.”

You let out a breathless laugh. “You’re very handsy for someone who claimed to be brooding and mysteriou.”

“I told you,” he whispered, lips brushing your jaw as he reached behind you, fumbling for the door handle, “you ruined me.”

Your back hit the door with a thud. He fumbled with the knob like he was drunk on you, eventually pushing it open and guiding you inside.

He kicked the door shut with the back of his foot.

You were still laughing into his kiss. He walked you backward until your knees hit the bed and you dropped onto it with a squeak.

He climbed over you, hands on either side of your waist, face flushed, heart in his throat.

“I fucking love you,” he said again, like it wasn’t real until he repeated it.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, eyes sparkling. “I love you too.”

[heejamas]

HOW I MET SUNGHOON

→ pairing: downbad!sunghoon x fem!reader // ִromcom· friends to lovers · slow burn · smut ࣪· crack → synopsis: sunghoon was always the kind of guy who fell too hard, too fast, the type who thought a shared playlist meant commitment and that liking the same sandwich was fate. spoiler: it never worked out. well, that’s until you showed up. he didn’t mean to fall for you. you were just his friend. the funny, smart, annoyingly pretty friend. it wasn’t supposed to turn into heart flutters and late-night guitar practice. but somewhere between friendly teasing, shared drinks, and the world’s longest friendzone, sunghoon realized he might actually be in love. oops! → word count: 28k // warnings: mdni!! contains explicit content, praising kink, oral sex (f. receiving), unprotected sex, slight overstimulation, switch dynamics, dirty talk / explicit language, face riding

sunghoon was always that type of hopeless romantic guy. not in a write a poem under the rain kind of way, but he used to believe in signs: like if a girl knew all the words to a blink-182 song, she was definitely his soulmate. one time in college, he thought a cashier was in love with him because she gave him an extra ketchup packet. another time, he made a mixtape for a girl he barely knew just because she said she liked the strokes. he even labeled it “volume 1,” fully expecting a relationship to follow. it didn’t.

he was that guy who said “i miss you” before it made sense and thought hand-holding in public was sacred. the guy who overanalyzed text punctuation. the guy who once bought matching mugs after a fourth date because she laughed at his seinfeld reference. spoiler alert: she ghosted him the next day, and he kept the mugs anyway. because love, right? yeah, that’s it. that was sunghoon.

well, until he met you.

but, before he met you, sunghoon was stuck in that loop of almosts and maybes and "it’s not you, it’s me" texts sent at 2 a.m. he had a tendency to turn background characters into main characters in his head. if someone asked for directions on the subway, he’d spend the next hour wondering if he should’ve asked for her number. maybe she liked coffee shops. maybe they could’ve gone to the one on 8th street. maybe they would’ve fallen in love over cappuccinos and sarcasm. maybe he ruined it.

he was, in short, delusional in the most innocent way. and weirdly proud of it, like it was his thing. like being a hopeless romantic was just part of the package, along with his obsession with vintage sneakers, his habit of alphabetizing his dvds, pokémon go and his belief that fate always showed up fashionably late.

he had no idea that the reason would be you.

sunghoon and jay had been living together for a little over a year now. the apartment wasn’t big, and it definitely wasn’t quiet (mostly because it sat right above a bar that played the same six songs on loop every night) but it had decent water pressure, a couch that technically belonged to jungwon, and a fridge that made an odd noise every time someone closed the bathroom door. but they made it work. jay was the cleaner one, sunghoon was the one who always left his hoodie on the kitchen chair, and somehow they found a balance.

they didn’t talk about feelings much, not directly. but every now and then, usually when one of them was eating something straight from the bag or halfway through a bad tv rerun, the topic would come up. on this particular night, sunghoon was lying on the couch with his legs stretched out and one hand buried in an open bag of cereal. he hadn’t even bothered with milk. the tv was on, volume too low to follow, but he wasn’t really paying attention anyway.

“i think i’m gonna die alone,” he said, like he was talking about the weather.

jay, sitting on the floor next to the coffee table with his laptop open, didn’t look up. “what happened now?”

“nothing happened. that’s the problem. i haven’t been on a date in, like, four months. maybe five.”

jay looked at him, unimpressed. “you say that like it’s a medical emergency.”

“it kind of is,” sunghoon said, sitting up just enough to gesture with the cereal bag. 

jay snorted. “what happened to that girl from the climbing gym? the one who asked for your number after you slipped off the wall?”

sunghoon stared at the ceiling. “we went out once. she spent the entire time telling me about her ex who lives in canada and how he doesn’t believe in monogamy but they’re spiritually married anyway.”

jay blinked. “okay. next. what about the girl from the bookstore?” jay added, trying again.

“oh, right,” sunghoon said, already regretting the memory. “we had a good first date. coffee, conversation, the whole thing. second date, she brought her roommate. didn’t warn me or anything.”

“why?”

“she said she wanted a second opinion on me.”

jay closed his laptop. “man.”

“i know.” there was a short pause. sunghoon leaned his head back against the couch and let out a slow breath through his nose. he wasn’t trying to be dramatic, he was just tired of the effort it took to get halfway close to something that never turned out to be anything at all. “maybe i peaked romantically at seventeen,” he muttered.

“no one peaks at seventeen,” jay said.

“you did.”

“that’s different,” jay shrugged. “i’m hot.”

jay had been in a relationship for years, since he was 17. like proper long-term, holiday-travel-planning, toothbrush-in-the-bathroom relationship. it was steady, and sunghoon respected that, even if sometimes it made his own track record feel like a string of blurry first dates and weird storytimes.

sunghoon shifted on the couch, grabbing another handful of cereal from the open bag on his lap. “you know what’s sad? the only consistent interaction i’ve had with a woman lately is with some random pokémon go user who keeps stealing the gym at the end of our street.”

jay glanced over, already amused. “what?”

“i’ve been holding it down for team valor since, like, last year. and every night—every single night—this person comes and knocks me out. same user. snoopygirl_98. blue team, obviously. i think she hates me.”

jay raised an eyebrow. “maybe she’s flirting.”

“by humiliating me in front of a 7-eleven?”

“some people flirt differently.”

sunghoon let out a tired sigh, leaning back against the couch. “i just want to feel something again.”

jay reached for the remote. “you wanna go downstairs later? to the bar? maybe someone down there has a thing for emotionally exhausted guys.”

“you think it’s my moment?”

“statistically, you’re due.”

sunghoon didn’t answer right away. he didn’t believe in statistics, he believed in luck. and that night, for the first time in a while, he was about to have some. because you were downstairs. 

sunghoon went to the bar with jay mostly out of stubbornness. he said he didn’t feel like going, said it was a weeknight, said the chances of anything interesting happening were basically zero, but still changed out of his old hoodie and put on one that didn’t smell like takeout. the bar was familiar, and warm in the way places start to feel when you’ve been going for long enough that the guy behind the counter knows your usual.

they found jake by the pool table, already halfway through his drink. he turned before they even said anything and grinned like he’d been expecting them. sunghoon gave jay a look and followed them toward one of the tables near the back, where a few other familiar faces from college were already sitting, people they didn’t see that often anymore but still shared enough history with to make small talk easy.

and that’s when he saw you.

you were sitting to the left of jake, stirring your drink with a straw and laughing at something someone had just said. it wasn’t loud or dramatic or exaggerated, but it caught his attention anyway. there was something about how comfortable you looked at the table, how you weren’t trying too hard to be part of the conversation and still somehow felt like the center of it.

he stopped walking for half a second before jay gave him a light push on the shoulder to keep moving. jake started introducing people in his usual scattered way, pointing quickly and not really giving anyone time to react. “this is y/n—she’s a friend from my econ class back in the day—and this is sunghoon, he used to live with me first year. you two haven’t met, right?”

sunghoon nodded once and said a quick “hey,” followed by a smile that he hoped looked normal. you replied with a polite “hey” back, and that was it. a few seconds, not much, but enough for him to realize he was already too aware of how close you were sitting to jake, how often you looked at him when you laughed, how your hand moved when you adjusted your glass.

he sat across the table next to jay, didn’t say much for a while. mostly listened, nodded, laughed when it made sense. but every few minutes his eyes would flick back to you, casually, like he wasn’t really paying attention, even though he absolutely was. there was something about you that made him feel quieter than usual. not nervous, but just unsure of what to do with himself.

about fifteen minutes later, heeseung showed up. he walked in already smiling, already halfway into the group and he greeted you with a hug (longer than a casual one) and slid into the seat next to you without asking. you two started talking right away, and it didn’t look like small talk. sunghoon watched for a few seconds longer than he meant to, then looked away and focused on his drink. he didn’t know your story, maybe you and heeseung were just close, maybe it was something else. he wasn’t going to ask, of course. but he was already wondering if he’d missed his window.

the next few days after that night were... something else. jay didn’t let it go. at least twice a day, he’d throw a casual question over from the other room or while making coffee, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “so, you liked her, didn’t you?” 

and sunghoon would roll his eyes and try to sound way too cool for someone who’d clearly been thinking about you more than he wanted to admit. “what, no. she seemed nice. and i mean, she’s cute. i have eyes, i am aware.” 

but jay wasn’t buying it. he pushed harder, always the annoying friend who actually cares. “okay, but did you ask jake for her number yet?” sunghoon tried to laugh it off, but the answer was always no. 

“i didn’t. she’s way too pretty for me to just go asking like it’s no big deal. and besides, from what i saw, she’s definitely not single. heeseung was all over her, talking like they had some history or something.” 

sunghoon tried to convince jay (and himself) that he wasn’t jealous, just realistic. he reminded himself he wasn’t some guy who just jumped into things blindly, especially not when the other guy was heeseung, who’d been friends with them both for years. so instead of asking for her number, he did what he does best: replayed the whole night in his head. every laugh you gave, every way you leaned in when heeseung was talking, the little things he couldn’t quite figure out. 

he thought about how quiet he’d been, how stupid he probably looked trying to play it cool when all he wanted was to ask you questions about everything. but most of all, he wondered if there’d ever be a moment where he could just be the guy sitting next to you, not some awkward stranger watching from across the table.

sunghoon was in one of those moods where it felt like nothing ever went his way. you know, the kind of streak where every little thing seemed to slip through his fingers. dates that fizzled out before they even got started, conversations that ended awkwardly, moments that should’ve felt right but somehow didn’t. by the time he met you, he was almost done with all the usual nonsense. he wasn’t expecting fireworks or some perfect romcom scene. he was just trying not to mess things up this time. so when you showed up, he kept his guard up, quiet, careful not to get too invested too fast. he told himself he was being smart, protecting himself from another round of whatever it was that had been happening before.

so on the next week, sunghoon found himself at jake’s place again for another gathering, the kind that felt like a regular thing now even though he was still figuring out what he actually wanted from all this. when he walked in, the first thing that caught his eye was you, sitting in the corner with a group of friends. he tried to act casual as he made his way over, but inside, every step felt like a careful calculation. 

his mind raced through possible ways to start the conversation without sounding awkward or, worse, desperate. “don’t mess this up,” he told himself quietly, repeating it like a mantra as he got closer. when he finally reached you, he caught a glimpse of your t-shirt, a band he knew well, mcfly. it was kind of a guilty pleasure for him. back in high school, he’d picked up their songs mostly because a lot of girls liked them, and it had been his secret move to catch their attention. but somewhere along the way, he realized he actually liked the music, even if he’d never admit it out loud. it was one of those small things, but for sunghoon, it was like a secret handshake, a sign that maybe you two weren’t completely from different planets.

he cleared his throat and said, “hey, nice shirt. didn’t expect to see someone else wearing mcfly around here.”

you glanced up, a bit surprised, then smiled. “yeah, i guess it’s not super common these days.”

sunghoon nodded, trying to sound casual but feeling a bit weird admitting it. “i mean, i used to listen to them all the time back in high school. don’t tell anyone, but tom’s songwriting always stuck with me.”

you raised your eyebrows, clearly surprised. “wait, really? you actually like mcfly?”

he laughed quietly, running a hand through his hair. “yeah, i picked up their songs ‘cause a lot of girls were into them, but then i kind of got hooked. it’s like... guilty pleasure, but also genuine.”

you smirked, “guilty pleasure is the best kind, honestly.”

sunghoon felt a little relieved she wasn’t making fun of him. “exactly.”

you both laughed softly, and for a moment, sunghoon forgot to overthink everything. it was just two people, talking about a band, and somehow that felt a lot easier than he expected. sunghoon found himself just wanting to listen to you talk. the way you casually shared stories about concerts and favorite songs felt different from the usual small talk he was used to. it wasn’t like he was trying to impress you or be someone he wasn’t, it was just two people connecting over something simple.

he tried to keep the conversation going, so he asked, “so, do you come to these hangouts often, or is this just a one-time thing?”

you smiled again, “pretty often. it’s nice to see familiar faces and meet new ones.”

sunghoon nodded, feeling a warmth in his chest that wasn’t just from the beer he’d had earlier. inside, he was thinking, yeah, it’s nice to meet you too. but he kept that to himself. for now, he was happy just being there, talking, and maybe, just maybe, hoping there would be more moments like this.

the conversation flowed better than he expected. you talked about concerts you’d been to, favorite songs, weird stories about how you got into the band. sunghoon was surprised at how easy it was to laugh and just be yourself around you. but then, as the night went on, he realized the familiar sinking feeling, the one that hit every time before: the friendzone. you were funny, smart, and clearly someone he wanted to be more than friends with, but the way you joked and leaned into the group, it was clear you saw him like the guy who always had a good playlist, not the one who was secretly hoping for more.

and after that night, things started to slip into something that sunghoon didn’t quite expect. you two began to follow each other on social media. just the usual likes and comments that somehow made his day a little better whenever his phone buzzed. at first, he told himself it was just casual. friends catching up, sharing bits of their lives.

but slowly, he realized it wasn’t so casual anymore. he found himself scrolling through your photos longer than he meant to, replaying your messages in his head, wondering what your smile looked like when you weren’t looking. jay noticed too, because sunghoon was not subtle about it at all. every few days, he’d throw the question at sunghoon like it was some kind of game. “so, are you into her?”

and every time, sunghoon would laugh it off. “nah, man, just friends. nothing like that.”

but inside, he was tangled up in a mess of what ifs and maybe-nots. he told himself he was fine just being friends, that getting too close wasn’t worth the risk. he was tired of things going sideways, of hoping for something that never quite stuck. but the more he tried to convince himself, the harder it became to ignore the way his chest tightened when you popped up on his screen or the way his mind wandered to what it’d be like if things actually went right.

he wasn’t ready to say it out loud, not yet. but the truth was, he was falling, probably faster than he wanted to admit. and every time jay asked, he’d just smile and shake his head, pretending he didn’t feel a thing. pretending was easier, at least for now.

it was a saturday afternoon, and sunghoon had been outside for a solid twenty minutes trying (once again) to reclaim the gym down the street. it had become a bit of an obsession at that point. snoopygirl_98 had taken it over again, and this time, she’d stacked it with an annoyingly strong blissey that just wouldn’t budge. he was pacing in front of the bakery on the corner, furiously tapping his screen, muttering under his breath like it was personal. because, honestly, it kinda was. whoever snoopygirl_98 was, she had been tormenting his team valor pride for weeks, and he was convinced she was doing it on purpose now.

right as he was about to give up and switch to a different gym, a notification popped up on his screen, not from the game, but a message. from you.

[y/n:] hey hoon!! are you busy?

his thumb hovered over the screen for a second, stomach doing that little flip it always did when your name showed up. he stared at it, then at the game, then back at the message. screw the gym.

[sunghoon:] Not really, what’s up?

the reply came fast, like you’d already had it typed and ready to send.

[y/n:] i’m at the mart near your place and i got way too many bags… like an embarrassing amount… and i couldn’t think of anyone else to ask. would you be a hero and help me carry these to my building? 🥺

sunghoon blinked at the screen. and then again. and then stood there, in the middle of the sidewalk, processing what just happened. you couldn’t think of anyone else to ask. now, logically, he knew that meant nothing. you were friends, this was a friend thing. helping someone carry groceries was classic friend behavior. textbook friendzone. but still, his chest did a weird fluttery thing, and he could already hear jay’s voice in his head saying something smug like, “not into her, huh?”

he texted back: 

[sunghoon:] On my way! Don’t move. Be there in five

he slipped his phone into his jacket pocket and took off in the direction of the store, telling himself it wasn’t a big deal. it’s just a nice thing to do. good karma. neighbors helping neighbors, nothing more. but deep down, as he walked a little too fast and adjusted his hair in the reflection of a parked car, sunghoon knew exactly what he was doing. and he knew exactly why he was doing it.

because, yeah, maybe he was in the friendzone. but he was in the friendzone with you. and that still felt a lot better than being anywhere else.

when he got to the store, there you were, standing on the curb with three overstuffed tote bags and two plastic ones hanging from your wrists, trying to balance them without toppling over. you looked up, caught sight of him, and smiled like it was the most natural thing in the world to call sunghoon out of the blue and make him carry your groceries like some kind of personal delivery boy. and the worst part is that he didn’t even mind.

“you weren’t kidding,” he said, eyeing the bags as he took most of them from you without hesitation.

“i was being modest,” you replied, a little out of breath. “there were two more bags but the guy at the checkout told me to stop.”

“glad someone had the courage to say it,” he joked, and you nudged him with your elbow as the two of you started walking.

at first, it was all easy conversation, nothing new there. you talked about how the store rearranged the snack aisle again, how you couldn’t find your favorite granola, and how the cashier gave you a coupon for cat food even though you didn’t have a cat. he listened, laughed in all the right places, and added his own running commentary. it was the kind of rhythm you two had settled into without ever really trying.

but somewhere between the store and your apartment building, as he adjusted the bags in his arms and looked at you rambling about frozen waffles, something quietly clicked in his chest. he didn’t know when it had started, maybe back at the bar, maybe during some other moment he didn’t register properly, but it was there now, and it was loud.

he liked you.

like, actually liked you. not the fake-crush-you-get-on-a-friend thing. not the maybe i’m just lonely thing. a real, actual crush that made his hands sweat and his thoughts spiral and his pulse skip a little every time you looked at him too long. and he had been telling himself it wasn’t that, because it was easier and because it was safer. but yeah, it was that.

you held the door to your building open with your hip and motioned for him to follow you. “don’t judge the mess,” you said casually.

sunghoon didn’t say anything, just smiled, still mildly stunned by the realization swirling in his head. when you opened the door to your apartment and he stepped inside, it was like stepping into a personality, your personality. there were string lights that didn’t match but somehow made sense together. mugs with little quotes on them. a record player in the corner next to a stack of vinyls that included both taylor swift and metallica. polaroids on the fridge. a half-finished puzzle on the coffee table. a plant that was definitely dying but still hanging in there. it was so you, in every way.

and sunghoon stood there holding your bags, pretending he wasn’t staring.

“you can drop them by the kitchen,” you said, already pulling off your coat and tossing it on the couch.

he did, and then paused, glancing around again. “your place is…” he trailed off, not sure how to say weirdly perfect without sounding creepy.

you looked over your shoulder. “chaotic?”

“adorable,” he said, before he could stop himself.

you raised an eyebrow, amused. “really?”

“uh. i mean, yeah. in a—like—it’s very you.”

he wanted to slap himself. but you just smiled again and started unpacking your bags like it wasn’t a big deal.

and over the next few weeks, things kind of continued. sunghoon found himself falling into this strange rhythm with you. not in a we’re clearly falling for each other kind of way, but in a i’m clearly in love and you keep sending me memes at 2am like that means nothing kind of way. and he didn’t even know how it happened. it was like one minute he was helping you carry groceries and the next he was learning your coffee order, your go-to karaoke song, and the name of the stuffed penguin you’d had since you were six. so the friendzone? yeah, it was thriving. stable. deeply rooted in reality.

“she called me dude today,” sunghoon said one night, flopping onto the couch with a dramatic sigh.

jay didn’t look up from his phone. “right. and?”

“no, but, like. she said it in the friendly way. like a bro way. like a ‘dude, you have to see this video of a cat falling off a table’ kind of way.”

jay glanced over. “so… you’re mad she’s comfortable with you?” sunghoon tossed a pillow at him but couldn’t deny the accuracy.

he was at that stage where he’d memorized your laugh patterns, saved photos from your story by accident, and started recognizing songs from your spotify playlists. he’d accidentally started saying some of your catchphrases. he was, in short, doomed.

you, meanwhile, were obliviously warm and kind and effortlessly funny, the kind of funny that didn’t try too hard, which made it worse. you’d text him stuff like “is this a normal dinner?” with a photo of cereal and pickles, and sunghoon would still stare at his phone for ten minutes smiling like a loser. he hated it. no, he loved it. no, actually, he hated that he loved it.

once, you called him at midnight just to ask if frogs had teeth (they do, sort of), and he answered like that was a perfectly normal thing for a person to do. it was around then that jay gave up even pretending to be surprised.

“just tell her you like her,” he said, halfway through a bowl of cereal.

sunghoon groaned. “i’d rather eat glass.”

“then stop looking at your phone like it’s a shrine.”

“i’m not.”

“you’re literally on her instagram zooming in on her bookshelf.”

“she has good taste in books, jay.”

“sure. tell the bookshelf how you feel.”

sunghoon ignored him, of course. he was committed to the bit now. committed to being your very helpful, very available, very emotionally tortured friend. it was pathetic, but it was also the best he’d felt in months.

jungwon’s birthday was on a saturday, and somehow the group decided that the best way to celebrate turning twenty-something was to put on rented shoes and throw heavy balls down a lane under disco lights. sunghoon hadn’t been to a bowling alley in years, but he wasn’t about to admit that. especially not when you showed up in jeans, a ponytail, and a hyper-specific competitiveness in your eyes that made him slightly nervous.

“you any good?” you asked, grabbing a bowling ball way too confidently.

sunghoon shrugged like it was nothing. “decent.”

“hm. cocky.”

“you scared?”

you raised an eyebrow. “you wish.”

and that was it: challenge accepted. sunghoon spent the next hour entirely too focused on beating you, despite the fact that it was literally jungwon’s birthday and he had no reason to be acting like it was the bowling olympics. but there was something about the way you teased him every time he got a spare, or the smug way you celebrated your strikes like you’d just ended world hunger, that gave him this ridiculous flutter in his chest he didn’t know what to do with.

you stuck your tongue out at him after your third strike in a row. “might wanna switch to the kiddie lane.”

“i’m just letting you win,” he said, deadpan.

“oh? how generous.”

he rolled his eyes, grinning despite himself. he hated how easy it was to like you. he hated how every little joke made him want to high-five his past self for deciding to help carry your groceries that one time. he also hated how that warm, stupid feeling in his chest immediately froze when he saw heeseung walk in.

you spotted heeseung almost instantly and lit up in that way people only do when they see someone they’re extremely fond of. you waved, borderline giddy, and rushed over to hug him like you hadn’t seen him in years, even though sunghoon was pretty sure you’d just posted a story with him the weekend before.

sunghoon watched from the far side of the seating area, trying to act normal. casual. unbothered. he adjusted his grip on his bowling ball even though he wasn’t playing that round and stared at the score screen like it had personally offended him. right. heeseung. the heeseung. the possible thing that he kept forgetting might exist. because you didn’t really talk about it. maybe there was nothing, since you have never mentioned it. and that only made it worse, because it left sunghoon’s brain wide open for theories and assumptions and a quiet, unspoken jealousy that he refused to acknowledge out loud.

jay leaned over. “you good?”

“yup.”

“you look like you’re about to throw that ball at someone’s head.”

sunghoon glanced down at the ball in his hands. “just focused.”

“focused on…?”

“winning.”

“you’re literally not up next.”

sunghoon ignored him. instead, he sat back down, pretended he wasn’t looking over at you and heeseung talking like you were in your own little world, and reminded himself that he was your friend. your helpful, emotionally-stable, always-up-for-carrying-heavy-things friend. he could handle that. probably.

and the bowling alley closed at midnight, but the group was still buzzing with leftover adrenaline and just enough alcohol to make walking in a straight line optional. naturally, that meant the next stop was the bar downstairs from sunghoon and jay’s apartment, their usual post-everything spot. jay had jungwon slung over his back in a chaotic piggyback ride situation, spinning him in slow, clumsy circles as jungwon yelled, “this is the best birthday ever!” with his arms out like a drunk airplane.

sunghoon stood at the bar, balancing on the balls of his feet, waiting for the bartender to finish pouring their next round. his hoodie sleeves were rolled up, and he was doing mental math trying to figure out if they’d ordered six or seven beers when someone stepped up beside him.

“hey,” heeseung said, casual, nodding toward the cluster of friends behind them. “you having fun?”

sunghoon smiled politely. “yeah, i am. it’s alright.”

“i’m glad you and y/n got close,” heeseung said, tone sincere. “she’s mentioned it a few times. says you’re easy to talk to.” sunghoon blinked and heeseung chuckled, taking a sip of his drink. “i mean it. she doesn’t say stuff like that about just anyone. i think she really appreciates your friendship.”

sunghoon nodded slowly, a small smile forming on his lips. part of him warmed at the idea that you talked about him at all, that maybe he wasn’t just another background character in your life. maybe you actually noticed him, his jokes, his presence, his friendship. but then again, that was the word. friendship. and hearing that from heeseung — heeseung, who might very well be the guy you curled up with at the end of the night inside sunghoon’s head — made it land like a compliment wrapped in a punch. 

so sunghoon gave a small nod, grabbed the tray, and turned back toward the table with a practiced smile, careful not to drop anything or show too much on his face.

the night had mellowed into that sleepy, blurry stage where everyone was too tired to keep the party going, but not quite ready to say goodbye. the staircase outside sunghoon and jay’s condo was full of muffled laughter and shuffling feet. jay was half-carrying, half-dragging jungwon toward the entrance, mumbling something about him always passing out like a toddler on holidays. 

sunghoon trailed a few steps behind them, eyes on the floor, brain already shifting into autopilot. he was thinking about how he’d need to find an extra blanket for jungwon, and how the couch springs were going to wreck his back by morning, and how weird it was that every night with you ended the same: him pretending he didn’t want to stay longer.

“sunghoon?”

your voice cut through the entrance. he turned around to find you a few steps down on the staircase, looking up at him. your makeup was a little smudged from the night, and your hair was a bit messy from the wind, but you looked so relaxed. like you’d had a good time, like you didn’t want it to end just yet.

“hey,” he said, walking back toward you.

you smiled, warm and sleepy. “i had so much fun tonight. like, actual fun. not just polite fun.”

he chuckled. “me too.”

“we still haven’t settled the bowling score though,” you added, a teasing glint in your eyes. “we’re technically tied, and i don’t like leaving things unresolved.”

sunghoon blinked. “so you’re challenging me to a rematch?”

“obviously,” you grinned. “i want a proper win next time.”

he nodded, a little slower than he meant to. “yeah. okay. i’m in.”

and you just smiled at him like that answer had been a given. like you knew he’d say yes, like this was easy. normal, friendly. but as he turned back toward the apartment, your words kept echoing in his head. “i had so much fun tonight.”, “i want a proper win next time.”

it wasn’t just what you said, it was how you said it, the way you looked at him, like the night wasn’t fully over until you said goodnight to him specifically. it sent his thoughts spiraling in that annoyingly hopeful way he tried so hard to avoid. maybe he wasn’t imagining things. maybe it wasn’t just him, falling into another crush he couldn’t manage. maybe there was something… there.

and yet, as he followed jay inside, stepped over jungwon’s half-unconscious body sprawled on the rug, and shut the door behind him, he still couldn’t tell if he was being seen the way he wanted to be seen. he was getting whiplash from hoping too much and pretending not to. and somewhere between getting a glass of water and setting up a pillow for jungwon, he realized he was completely, hopelessly, predictably into you. as if that wasn’t obvious already.

over the next few weeks, sunghoon slowly started to realize just how tangled up he was in his feelings for you. he found himself checking his phone a little more often, hoping for a message, and when you did invite him out, he tried to play it cool even though his stomach was doing flips.

most of the times you hung out, it was at gatherings with friends, the kind of casual, loud hangouts where it was hard to have a serious conversation. you would appear in the middle of a group, laughing and teasing someone, and sunghoon would catch himself watching you more than the game or the conversation. he kept guessing, quietly, that maybe there was something going on between you and heeseung, especially since you seemed close, comfortable around each other in a way that made sunghoon’s stomach tighten a little. but he never brought it up. not to you, not to jake, not even to himself out loud. it was easier to assume something was there than to face the uncertainty.

then, one evening, jake mentioned an ex of yours during a conversation, like a name dropped in passing. heeseung’s reaction caught sunghoon off guard. “that guy was such a jerk,” heeseung said, his voice low and almost protective. “you deserve so much better. you deserve someone who actually is, at least, not a jerk.”

that moment clicked something in sunghoon’s head. if heeseung was talking like that, maybe there wasn’t anything going on between you two after all. and that thought was both a relief and a reason to panic. because it meant the way was clear, but it also meant time was running out. you were amazing, and he was pretty sure there were plenty of other guys out there, sliding into your dms, trying to get your attention.

he started to feel a weird mix of excitement and anxiety, like a kid realizing he was finally allowed to play the game but also realizing how fast the clock was ticking. he wasn’t sure what to do with all those feelings, so most of the time, he just tried to keep calm on the outside while his mind raced ahead, imagining how to not mess it up.

one evening, sitting on the couch with jay scrolling through his phone, sunghoon finally decided to open up. he talked about how seeing you made him feel like he was stuck in this weird in-between, wanting more but not knowing how to get there without messing everything up. jay looked up, gave him that familiar sideways grin, and said something simple but solid: “bro, you just gotta be patient. wait for the right moment. don’t go jumping in all dramatic like you usually do.”

sunghoon rolled his eyes but knew jay was right. “yeah, i get it. no mugs with her face on it, no mixtapes, no playlist called ‘songs that remind me of you.’”

“exactly,” jay said, deadpan. “try being normal for once.”

sunghoon leaned back and closed his eyes, but his brain immediately went into overdrive. his mind was something like: okay, no mugs, got it. but what about a poem? no, that’s way too much. maybe a funny meme? too lame. what about baking cookies? wait, does she even like sweets? maybe she’s gluten-free. no clue. okay, no mixtapes, but what if i make a playlist? subtle though, not like ‘this is for you.’ maybe call it ‘songs i listen to when i’m feeling chill’? no, too vague. or maybe a mug but just plain, with a small quote? nah, still weird. what if i write her a note? no, i’m not a middle schooler. or just ask her out straight up? no, no, no. gotta wait for the moment. but when?

he sighed and looked over at jay, who was now smirking. “guess being normal is harder than it sounds.”

and a few weeks later, there was this party, and it was loud, crowded, and exactly the kind of chaos sunghoon didn’t really like. but there you were, halfway through your third drink, giggling at something nobody else had said, and instantly becoming the center of attention. you were funny, charming, and a little bit tipsy, the perfect combination for making everyone laugh without even trying. sunghoon, of course, was watching you with that panicked, how do i handle this look that only his closest friends knew too well.

somehow, the whole group decided that keeping an eye on you was his responsibility. no one said it out loud, but it was like an unspoken rule. maybe it was because he looked like the most responsible one, or maybe because you kept drifting toward him like a magnet, waving your arms dramatically while telling stories with way too much enthusiasm.

“sunghoon, you’re not going to believe what happened to me today,” you slurred slightly, swaying on your feet but managing to stay upright. “this guy at the coffee shop said i looked like a celebrity.” you wiggled your eyebrows and smiled at him, waiting for his reaction.

sunghoon blinked, trying to hide the part of his brain that was screaming she’s drunk and adorable and how do i even respond to this? “uh, that’s… great,” he said carefully, hoping it sounded casual. “you told him you’re famous now?”

you laughed, a little too loudly. “no, i said i’m just famous in my own head. get it?”

“yeah,” he smiled softly, already feeling like he’d lost the ability to say anything clever. “definitely famous.”

you reached out and grabbed his arm, leaning closer. “you’re no fun tonight, sunghoon. loosen up.” your eyes were sparkling mischievously, and sunghoon’s heart did a stupid little flip that he did not want anyone else to notice.

inside, he was running through every possible reaction: play it cool, be chill, don’t stare like a lovesick puppy. smile, laugh when she laughs, don’t mention the fact that her breath smells like cheap vodka. okay, offer her water? no, she’ll think i’m momming her. maybe just get another drink for myself to stay steady? nah, that’s just an excuse to drink too.

while he was debating this internal chaos, you suddenly burst out laughing at your own joke about the coffee shop guy, and sunghoon couldn’t help but smile, feeling himself falling deeper into whatever this was between you two. “you know,” you said, suddenly serious for a second, “i’m glad you’re here. it’s kinda nice having someone look out for me.”

sunghoon’s breath caught. “yeah, well, someone’s gotta do it.” he tried to sound casual, but there was no hiding the softness in his voice.

later, when you were wobbling a little too much to stand by yourself, sunghoon was immediately there to steady you. “i got you,” he said, wrapping an arm around your waist as you leaned on him. everyone else just watched and smiled, like this was all part of the plan.

on the way out, you stumbled a bit and he tightened his grip. “thanks for being my human crutch tonight,” you joked.

“anytime,” he replied, feeling like he should say something deeper but all he could think was please don’t fall, please don’t fall.

walking you home was quiet but comforting. you kept mumbling random things about the party and some wild idea for a band you wanted to start. sunghoon just listened, his mind half on your words and half on how lucky he felt to be the one walking by your side. and when you finally reached your apartment, you turned and gave him a sleepy smile. “thanks for tonight, hoon. you’re a good friend.”

he nodded, smiling back, but inside, the familiar mix of hope and panic swirled again. good friend was a start, but maybe he wanted to be more than that. for now, though, he was happy to just get you home safe, and try not to mess up the next time you got this adorably drunk.

you paused at the door of your apartment, a little wobbly and smiling, looking at sunghoon with eyes that were definitely feeling the weight of the night. “hey, you don’t have to walk all the way home alone, you know,” you said, leaning against the wall for balance. “why don’t you just come in for a bit? it’s late, and honestly, i’d be worried about you.”

sunghoon gave a nervous smile, trying to look confident. “nah, i’m good. i’m a big boy, i can handle it.”

he felt your gaze, half intense, half sweet, half amused, as if silently asking, really? so you laughed softly, a little tipsy but sincere. “i’m gonna stay up all night worried if you don’t come in. and my couch is super comfortable, like, really. i could sleep there, and you’ll take the bed.”

sunghoon stopped for a second, his brain trying to decode the innocent but kinda tempting offer. wait, she wants me to sleep on her bed? he thought, feeling his heart speed up just a little. okay, maybe more than a little.

“never,” he said with a playful grin, “i’m never gonna let you sleep on the couch. you sleep on the bed, and i’ll take the couch.”

you widened your eyes like “aha, so you’re saying you’ll stay?” with a mischievous smile, clearly enjoying seeing him flustered.

sunghoon tried to play it cool, but inside his head it was total chaos. okay, breathe. don’t do anything dumb. but damn, this is really nice. “yeah,” he said, “guess that’s the deal.”

you laughed, flopping back on the couch like it was your personal bed already. “good. now i won’t have to worry. and you’ll be close if i need you to save me from any weird noises or monsters.”

sunghoon chuckled. “don’t worry. i’m way scarier than any monster.”

you were already sprawled out on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, that sleepy, slightly goofy smile playing on your lips. sunghoon stood there for a moment, just watching you, feeling that weird mix of wanting to be helpful but not quite sure how. finally, he cleared his throat, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

“no no no, you should go change and sleep in your bed. don’t stay on the couch,” he said, his voice softer than he intended. inside, his brain was racing — okay, act normal. don’t make this weird. but also, don’t mess it up.

you scrunched your nose, crossing your arms like a kid who just got told to eat their vegetables. “ah, but i don’t wanna get up. it’s warm here,” you complained in that playful, stubborn tone that made sunghoon smile without even realizing it.

he laughed quietly but didn’t back down. instead, he just went over to you, and before you could argue more, he scooped you up effortlessly, just enough to carry you off the couch and start the slow walk to your room. in that moment, his heart was beating way faster than it should, and he caught himself thinking, wow, this is actually kinda nice. 

when he laid you gently on your bed, he took a second to adjust the pillow behind your head, smoothing the blanket over you carefully, as if you were something fragile he wanted to protect. he stood there a moment longer, just watching your face, so peaceful now, and it hit him how much he actually cared about you, more than just friends, that was pretty obvious already, but not quite sure how to say that out loud yet.

then, leaning down slowly, he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead, a quiet little promise that he was there and that you mattered. he pulled back a little and said, “i’m gonna close the door, okay? you change, then go to sleep. if you need anything, just call me.”

as he reached for a blanket on the chair, ready to head back to the couch, his mind was a mess of silly thoughts— is this what people mean by 'caring'? man, why does this feel so complicated? i just want her to be comfortable, but now i’m thinking about how nice it is to be close like this… okay, calm down, sunghoon.

he smiled to himself, shook his head lightly, and settled in for the night on the couch, feeling oddly happy and a little bit hopeless all at once.

the next morning sunghoon woke up with a start, his heart still racing from a half-remembered dream. your place was quiet, but there was something different. something warm and inviting that pulled him out of the couch. as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes, a comforting smell drifted toward him: the rich aroma of coffee mixed with the sweet scent of pancakes. curious, he stood up, following the smell to the kitchen.

there you were, standing by the stove in a soft, oversized pajama shirt that looked impossibly cozy. the sight of you moving around the kitchen, focused yet relaxed, hit him with a sudden wave of tenderness he wasn’t ready for. his chest tightened, a gentle ache from the simple, quiet moment unfolding in front of him. you turned and caught him watching, a shy smile spreading across your face. “good morning,” you said softly, the casual warmth in your voice making everything feel right. “i thought i’d make us some breakfast. thanks for taking care of me last night.”

sunghoon’s eyes softened as he stepped closer, his heart swelling with something like pride and affection all tangled together. without thinking, you reached out and wrapped your arms around him in a hug. the scent of your shampoo, fresh and slightly sweet, filled his senses, and for a moment he just held onto you, feeling a calm happiness settle deep inside.

“you’re welcome,” he said quietly, voice low and a little breathless. “i’m just glad you’re okay.”

you pulled back just enough to look up at him, your smile gentle but full of something more, something unspoken. the world outside the kitchen seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of you in that soft morning light.

so after that morning, sunghoon’s brain basically went on permanent loop mode. and not the cool, chill kind of loop, but the one where your brain is stuck on a hamster wheel powered by a caffeine-addicted squirrel, because he couldn’t stop thinking about you. every little thing reminded him of you: the smell of coffee, the way you smiled, that ridiculous oversized pajama shirt that somehow made you look like both a cozy bear and a secret heartbreaker at the same time.

he started doing these totally unplanned mental movie scenes of you both, like some rom-com that he had zero control over. in his head, there were slow-motion moments, awkward laughs, and a lot of him trying not to trip over his own words — spoiler alert: he always did. and the tragic part was that he knew he was acting like a total dork, but he couldn’t care less. he was deep in the hopeless crush zone, and the sad, funny part was he didn’t even mind being there.

sunghoon even caught himself practicing casual greetings in the mirror, whispering, “hey, what’s up?” but sounding more like, “heyyyy, whassssuuup,” which definitely was not the vibe he wanted to give off.

and sunghoon never really knew how to play the guitar. like, he could barely hold the thing properly without feeling like he was about to break it or accidentally snap a string. but then there was this song, “falling in love” by mcfly, that somehow stuck in his head. it wasn’t even a cool song to brag about knowing, but it had this weird charm, and more importantly, he thought, maybe, just maybe, he could play it for you one day.

so, he went to jay and asked to borrow his guitar. jay raised an eyebrow, clearly expecting sunghoon to give up in like five minutes. but sunghoon was serious, he wanted this. the first few days were pure disaster. his fingers hurt, and every chord change sounded like a dying cat. he fumbled, he muttered swear words under his breath, and jay occasionally peeked in, half-amused, half-worried.

after what felt like forever, with his fingers all raw and sore, he finally managed to play the whole song without collapsing into a coughing fit or breaking a string. victorious but exhausted, he sent you a message: Hey, i learned falling in love on the guitar!

you replied instantly: i want to see you play it someday :)))

sunghoon stared at his phone, heart racing like he’d run a marathon. then, of course, his brain went into overdrive. what if i mess up? what if my fingers slip? what if i sound terrible even after all this practice? but at the same time, there was this tiny spark of excitement that maybe this was a step closer to something more than just friends.

one day, sunghoon was finally doing something with jay that didn’t involve him thinking about you nonstop, which was a true miracle, really. they were just messing around, playing some dumb game on jay’s phone, cracking jokes, and for a moment, sunghoon’s brain was somewhere other than you. then his phone buzzed with that annoying notification again: someone was attacking the pokemon gym right across the street, the one he had claimed like two days ago after a fierce battle.

he glanced at the screen, and sure enough, it was snoopygirl_98, the same mysterious pokémon go player who had been stealing that gym from him every other day. the rivalry was basically legendary in his mind: the fierce battle of sunghoon vs snoopygirl_98. he never actually knew who she was, but he was determined to keep his turf.

without a second thought, sunghoon slipped his phone into his pocket, grabbed his slipper (the one goofy soft slipper he always wore around the house) and said, “jay, hold on. i gotta settle this.” jay just raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue, knowing sunghoon’s competitive streak was about to kick into overdrive. so there he was, tiptoeing out of the apartment, half slipping on the soft slipper but trying to look cool anyway. as he crossed the street, he was already imagining the showdown. “okay, snoopygirl_98,” he whispered, “time to see who’s the real champion.”

as he turned the corner onto the street where the gym always stood, sunghoon was already preparing his battle stance, phone in one hand, thumb poised like a dramatic swordsman, ready to reclaim his gym with the same urgency people usually reserved for, like, national emergencies. he was muttering strategies under his breath, rehearsing which pokémon to use first (always charizard, never blissey — blissey was a coward’s choice) when he noticed a familiar shape a few steps ahead, someone standing by the 7-eleven sign, head tilted down, clearly battling on their phone with the kind of concentration that only came from either playing pokémon go or trying to transfer money while your banking app crashes.

he squinted, slowed down, adjusted his slipper, because something about the silhouette made his brain do that annoying thing where it starts connecting dots he didn’t ask it to connect. the hoodie was oversized. the socks were mismatched. the hair was pulled up the way he always secretly thought looked really good on you even though he never said anything because what kind of guy compliments hair logistics? and then you looked up. and it was you. and sunghoon’s brain just stopped.

you didn’t see him right away, too focused on whatever attack you were tapping out on your screen and for a second, he just stood there, frozen, phone hanging limply in his hand like he'd forgotten what apps were, trying to process the fact that snoopygirl_98 — the elusive enemy who had single-handedly ruined his gym stats for months, the digital nemesis he had cursed under his breath more times than he could count — was you. you. as in, the person who still didn’t know he practiced saying “hi” in the mirror before group hangouts, just in case you were there. the person he may or may not have secretly written a list about titled “things she’s said that made me feel weird in a good way.”

and now here you were, standing across from him, completely unaware, committing virtual violence against his snorlax like it was just another tuesday. because it was, in fact, just another tuesday.

he blinked once, then again, then checked his phone, like maybe the app had glitched, like maybe this was some alternate universe where you just happened to have the exact same username as his sworn digital rival. but there it was: snoopygirl_98. blue team. level 37. the destroyer of dreams and the reason he once rage-deleted the app at 2am and reinstalled it ten minutes later because he couldn’t sleep without knowing if the gym was still his.

and somehow, somehow, it was you.

he didn’t know what to do. he couldn’t just walk up and say “hey, remember that gym you’ve been taking over every night for six months? surprise! it’s me, your accidental pokémon nemesis and also the guy who may or may not be in love with you depending on how much eye contact we’ve made in the last week.” no. absolutely not. he had dignity. barely. but he had it. kind of.

instead, he took a cautious step back like a spy retreating from an unexpected recon mission, trying not to make noise as he slid his slipper against the pavement, which unfortunately made a cartoonish squeak that echoed louder than it should have in the open air. you turned, looked up, and your face lit up the exact way it always did when you saw him, like it was just a nice surprise to run into your friend, like nothing weird was happening, like you weren’t holding his gym hostage right now with a smug-looking vaporeon.

“sunghoon?” you said, smiling, completely normal, as if this wasn’t some betrayal of trust that would go down in pokémon go history forums if he ever decided to tell the story.

he opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. “hey,” he finally said, voice much higher than usual, like someone had turned the pitch knob on his entire social confidence.

you tilted your head, confused for a second, then pointed at your screen. “you play too?”

and that was it. the unraveling. the full comedic collapse of sunghoon’s internal monologue. because play too? girl. play too? you’ve been personally destroying his soul one blissey at a time and now you were standing there acting like you were new to the whole thing, like you weren’t the blue team villain of his red team nightmares. he wanted to laugh. or cry. or possibly propose. he wasn’t sure anymore.

he forced a smile. “yeah… i dabble.”

you laughed, completely unaware of the hurricane inside his skull. “i’ve been stealing this gym for weeks. i don’t know who keeps taking it back, but it’s kind of my nightly routine now.”

he nodded slowly, like someone who’s just realized they’ve been in a romcom subplot this entire time and everyone forgot to tell them. “yeah. weird. wonder who that could be.”

you grinned. “whoever it is, they’re relentless.”

he blinked. smiled. swallowed the dramatic gasp he wanted to let out. “yeah,” he said again, staring at your phone like it had personally insulted his family. “totally relentless.”

and in that moment, as you turned your attention back to your screen and started strategizing your next move with a seriousness that honestly impressed him, sunghoon realized something that both horrified and thrilled him in equal measure: he didn’t want to win the gym anymore. not tonight. maybe not ever. because losing to you? weirdly… kind of felt like winning.

so the weeks that followed the great snoopygirl_98 2025 revelation were, to sunghoon’s brain, a chaotic montage of unprocessed emotions, late-night gym takeovers, and entirely too many internal monologues that began with “okay but what does it mean” and ended with him staring at the ceiling like always. because now that he knew you were, well, you, he couldn’t un-know it. everything felt different, except literally nothing had changed. you still sent him memes at weird hours. you still texted him “tell me something random” out of nowhere and then rated his answers out of ten. you still walked into rooms like you were casually auditioning for the lead in the sitcom of his life.

and sunghoon, for his part, was trying to be normal. keyword: trying. which mostly meant overthinking every single interaction while nodding like an emotionally competent adult. a simple “hey, what are you doing tonight?” from you became an existential riddle he could only solve through three hours of pacing and a playlist of acoustic sad songs.

he had started categorizing your texts into very serious folders in his brain, like:

folder a: possibly flirty but could be friendly if you squint.

folder b: definitely friendly but still makes his stomach feel weird.

folder c: completely neutral but somehow he read it five times anyway.

folder d: emergency. called him “dude.” instant damage. snorlax lost 400 HP.

and then, as if fate hadn’t already made things complicated enough, you started talking about how i met your mother. at first it was casual. you mentioned you’d been rewatching some episodes and sunghoon, of course, latched on immediately like a drowning man clinging to a life raft labeled shared interests. he texted back something way too enthusiastic, like “WAIT I LOVE THAT SHOW,” and then instantly regretted the all caps but it was too late.

from there, it spiraled in the best possible way. suddenly you were sending each other voice notes about barney’s worst outfits (trick question: barney is always wearing a suit), arguing over whether ted was just misunderstood or annoying (sunghoon was team both), and quoting lines back and forth. and it became a routine, you’d agree on which episodes to watch, then text throughout like you were sitting on opposite ends of the same couch, reacting in real time. and sure, sometimes the timing was off and someone got spoiled by an accidental “OMG LILY JUST SAID THAT” two minutes before the scene actually happened, but it didn’t matter. it was fun. it felt like something, like a shared little world.

and then when you were talking about season two, something about how marshall and lily’s relationship made you feel weirdly emotional in a way you hadn’t expected, and sunghoon had just typed out a Very Deep Message about love and growing up when you interrupted with:

[y/n:] why don’t you just come over and we watch together?

[y/n:] we could watch and order something like real, greasy, perfect food

sunghoon stared at the message like it was a prophecy. he reread it, twice. then a third time, just in case it turned into “actually nvm lol” when he blinked. it didn’t. it stayed there, glowing softly on his screen. and his brain, poor sunghoon’s brain, absolutely exploded.

one part of him went: she invited you over. this is it. this is the crossover episode. but what if it’s just, like, a chill friend hangout? what if she makes you watch the pineapple episode and asks if you relate to ted. and then the final part, the dramatic romantic core of his soul, just whispered: go. wear your good hoodie. the one that doesn’t smell like doritos.

he took a deep breath, typed back something that he hoped sounded effortlessly cool — probably something tragically boring like “Yeah, sounds fun :)” — and then threw his phone across the room like it had personally attacked him with joy.

because yeah, it was happening. he was going to your apartment, again, not for drinking reasons and sleeping at your couch this time, no. you were going to watch how i met your mother together. with food, and possibly blankets. and if the universe was in any way fair, maybe you’d laugh at something he said and nudge his arm and he would not panic.

sunghoon arrived five minutes early, which, for him, was an act of immense restraint considering he’d spent the last twenty debating which snacks made him look more chill. he had one hand clutching a crinkly plastic bag full of sodium and intention, and the other mentally prepared to knock even though you’d already told him, twice, to just come in when he got there. still, he hovered in front of your door for a second, wondering if the zero-calorie soda made him look like someone trying too hard not to care.

you opened the door in a big hoodie and patterned socks, looking like you hadn’t overthought a single thing today, which made him immediately regret every decision he’d made in the past hour, starting with ironing his t-shirt. you glanced at the bag in his hand, raised an eyebrow, and grinned. “you brought the entire snack aisle.”

“i wanted to make sure we don’t need to get up for at least three episodes,” he said, holding it out like a peace offering.

you peeked inside, spotted a rainbow of crunchy nonsense and two sodas, and smiled again, this one softer, and then said, with no sarcasm and no dramatic pause, “that’s actually really cute.”

sunghoon felt the sentence hit somewhere between his ribcage and his ability to behave like a normal human. “cute” wasn’t usually something he processed well. especially not when it came from you, in that tone. he gave a little laugh that wasn’t really a laugh and followed you into the apartment. the living room looked lived-in in the best way. blanket on the couch, half-melted candle on the coffee table, tv already queued up. you tossed a couple of pillows to the floor, sat cross-legged on the couch, and patted the spot next to you with zero hesitation, like this was the most natural thing in the world. he sat, careful not to take up too much space, careful not to do something weird with his hands.

you started the episode, some early season of how i met your mother, and the familiar opening theme filled the room. sunghoon tried to focus on the screen but your knee had already brushed his twice, and you were sitting close enough that he could smell your shampoo, which he refused to think about too long.

you had just grabbed a blanket and casually tossed half of it across his lap like that was completely fine. you shifted your weight, leaning slightly into him, and he told himself it was normal. you were comfortable. this was comfort. comfort wasn’t dangerous. except it kind of was, because now you were sharing a blanket, and the warmth wasn’t just from the polyester.

somewhere around the middle of the episode, you rested your hand on his arm for a second while laughing, just a quick touch, and then didn’t really move it, letting it stay there as you turned to say something about how ted reminded you of a guy you dated in college “but like, if that guy was worse at metaphors.” sunghoon nodded, mostly to cover up the fact that his brain had gone suspiciously quiet, like it was holding its breath.

you shifted again, pulled your legs up, and now your knee was leaning against his in a way that didn’t feel accidental. you didn’t apologize, or move, you just stayed like that, narrating bits of the episode, making comments, stealing a few chips from the bag he’d opened on his lap like you always did, but now it felt different, closer. intentional in a way that made sunghoon’s hands go kind of weird and tingly.

he tried to focus on the episode. really, he did. he watched barney fail another pick-up attempt, watched ted give one of his long-winded love speeches, and watched lily roll her eyes in that way she always did when she knew something before the rest of the group did. and through all of that, you kept your hand on his arm. and sometimes, your thumb moved slightly, like it was drawing little circles. he couldn’t tell if that was on purpose, and he wasn’t about to ask.

“ted tries too hard,” you said eventually, still watching the screen. “like… if he just stopped declaring things every five minutes, he’d probably be fine.”

“yeah,” sunghoon said, trying not to think too hard about how many things he’d rehearsed in the mirror just in case you ever brought up relationships. “relatable.”

you laughed lightly, looked at him sideways. “you’re not like ted, though.”

“is that a good thing?”

“it’s a good thing,” you said. and then, just like that, you leaned your head against his shoulder. not in rom-com way. just a quiet shift, like it made sense.

sunghoon blinked at the tv, which he now couldn’t see properly because your head was in the way, and decided that was perfectly fine. he didn’t need to see the episode. he’d seen it before anyway. probably twice, maybe three times. and you didn’t say anything after that, and he didn’t either. you stayed there, quiet but not awkward, and the blanket warmed up between you. he was very aware of how still he was sitting, as if moving even slightly would ruin the balance of the moment. your hand slipped down from his arm and onto his knee, not like a grand romantic gesture, more like you forgot where your hand was supposed to go and decided it was his knee now. he didn’t know what to do with that. so he let it be.

when the episode ended, you didn’t move right away. the next one auto-started, the theme song rolling in again, and you let out a soft hum, like maybe you were thinking, or maybe you were just full of snacks.

then you said, not looking at him, “we should make this our thing.”

sunghoon turned his head slightly. “what thing?”

“this,” you said. “watching how i met your mother together.”

he nodded slowly, trying not to seem too eager. “yeah. i’m good with that.”

you finally looked at him, that same easy smile on your face, and then you bumped his knee with yours, not hard, just enough to make sure he was still paying attention. he smiled back, heart doing things he would later try to explain to jay using weird metaphors involving elevators and jelly beans. and just like that, he knew he wasn’t imagining things anymore. or maybe he still was. but either way, it felt kind of real. real enough to sit quietly and let the next episode start, your head on his shoulder, your hand on his knee, and the thought in his head that maybe, finally, this wasn’t just another almost.

after that first night, watching how i met your mother together became a thing, not officially, not scheduled, not even discussed really, but it kept happening. every couple of days, one of you would text and the other would know exactly what it meant. snacks were expected, drinks too, sometimes takeout, sometimes just popcorn and half a leftover soda, but always the same couch, always the same routine.

it didn’t start out that physical, but over time, the way you sat next to each other got… closer. more relaxed. you got comfortable first, you always did. you’d throw your legs across his lap like it meant nothing, lean your head on his shoulder when you were too lazy to sit straight, or curl into his side like it was the most natural place to be. and sunghoon would freeze every time, nod like he was fine, then immediately go into full internal system reboot. he’d sit there pretending to be unaffected, nodding at the tv with the intensity of someone watching a government briefing, while you poked his knee or played with the drawstring of his hoodie like it was just a fidget toy. and he never stopped you. not once. not even when you fell asleep on his arm and drooled slightly on his hoodie sleeve. (he washed it the next day but also kind of wanted to keep it that way. he didn't tell anyone that.)

you were always the one to touch first. he was always the one to overthink it. but then one night, it was raining a little outside, and the apartment was warm, and you'd made tea for both of you for some reason, even though neither of you usually drank tea during sitcom reruns. the lights were low, the episode was one of those emotional ones where ted was being dramatic about someone leaving, and you were curled up right next to him, knee pressed to his thigh, blanket half over your lap and half over his. you looked like you might fall asleep again, but you weren’t. you were just quiet and calm, and sunghoon, in a moment of bravery that he didn’t plan and definitely didn’t rehearse, lifted his arm and rested it around your shoulders, not awkwardly, not halfway, but all the way around. solid, like he meant it.

you didn’t react for a second, then shifted under his arm and leaned your head onto his chest without saying anything. you didn’t joke, you didn’t make it weird. you just rested there like you’d been waiting for him to do that for a while. because, well, you were.

he stared at the tv, heart going approximately 800 beats per minute, trying very hard not to mess anything up by existing too loudly.

“this is comfortable,” you mumbled after a moment, voice low.

“yeah,” he said, somehow managing to sound calm even though his brain was short-circuiting. “you have a surprisingly heavy head, by the way.”

you snorted. “excuse me?”

“it’s not an insult,” he said, trying not to laugh. “it’s just. structurally. very dense.”

“maybe it’s full of all the times you’ve secretly checked me out and thought i didn’t notice.”

he blinked. actually blinked. then coughed, because his throat forgot how to function. “what— i— that’s—”

you laughed. you were clearly not taking it that seriously. you were just being you, casually flirty in a way that felt like breathing. and he could have just let it go, he could’ve rolled his eyes and changed the subject and moved on like he always did. but for some reason, this time, he didn’t.

“if i was checking you out,” he said, still looking at the screen, “i wouldn’t do it secretly.”

you looked up at him a little, one eyebrow raised, that half-smile forming on your face, the one you used when you caught him saying something he clearly hadn’t meant to say out loud. “oh?” you said. simple and amused. a bit dangerous.

sunghoon realized what he’d just said about five seconds too late, and he wanted to disappear into the couch, but it was too late now. the sentence was out there, floating in the air. you didn’t say anything for a moment. just shifted again, a little closer this time, your arm settling across his stomach casually, like this was fine, like this was good, and maybe it was. he didn’t say anything else. neither did you. the episode kept playing.

but the energy had shifted just slightly, like something had tilted in the right direction. and for once, sunghoon didn’t try to fix it or overthink it or joke it away. he just sat there, with your head on his chest, your arm across him, and the feeling that maybe, somehow, he’d just started something without even meaning to. and the best part was that you didn’t seem to mind at all.

and it was after that night on the couch that sunghoon started getting a little braver. not confident movie character braver, just small steps. like brushing your hair out of your face without immediately apologizing for it. or letting his hand stay on your knee when you sat close. or making comments that maybe sounded flirty but were delivered in such a deadpan voice that it took you a second to realize he was being serious.

he started leaning in more when you talked. he started answering your texts faster without pretending to wait five minutes like he used to. he made playlists and shared them without labeling them something obvious like songs that make me think of your face (he wanted to, but he didn’t). he was still himself, still sunghoon, still deeply confused most of the time, but there was something about that night that made him feel like maybe you wouldn’t run if he actually tried.

a few weeks later, there was a night out. the bar under the apartment again. the usual crew, some people from college, a couple new friends no one really remembered inviting. sunghoon had no idea what they were celebrating. he asked twice. jay said something about a work promotion, jake said it was just friday, and someone else said it was heeseung’s cousin’s birthday. none of it felt convincing.

but it didn’t matter. everyone was drinking, someone had ordered two baskets of fries “for the table,” and you were sitting next to sunghoon, laughing at something he’d said that wasn’t even a joke, and your hand was on his thigh like it belonged there. and sunghoon, for once, didn’t freeze. he leaned toward you, nudged your shoulder with his, and made some dumb comment about the song playing, but you laughed anyway, then leaned your head briefly on his shoulder and left it there just long enough to make his brain forget how to function for a bit.

everyone else was shouting over each other. jay was trying to convince jake to join him in some tequila shot competition that wasn’t a real thing. jungwon was filming something on his phone that would definitely not make sense in the morning. and sunghoon was sitting there thinking about how your fingers kept tracing circles on his knee, very casually, very slowly, like you weren’t even thinking about it.

and then (of course, because the universe has a sense of humor), some guy appeared, tall. friendly-looking, clearly a few drinks in. not part of your group. he walked up and said something to you. sunghoon didn’t catch the first part, just the tone: the slightly too smooth, trying-too-hard kind of tone. you laughed politely, the way people do when they’re trying not to encourage. the guy leaned in closer, asked your name. said something else that sunghoon couldn’t fully hear but saw you shift a little in response. and something in his stomach tightened. 

he wasn’t mad. he wasn’t even surprised. people liked you, obviously. you were warm and funny and way too pretty for him to be sitting next to you in the first place. it wasn’t the guy’s fault, he didn’t know anything. sunghoon should’ve done this months ago, if he had the courage to do it. still, he went quiet. he looked down at his drink, then at you, then back at the guy. he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to do something. you weren’t his, there were no rules.

the guy kept talking. not aggressive, just persistent. you were still smiling, but it looked tighter now. less amused, more tired. and then, suddenly, you turned slightly, reached over, and rested your hand on sunghoon’s arm.

“hey,” you said, looking right at the guy. “sorry, my boyfriend gets kinda jealous.”

and you said it so calmly, so casually. like it was the truth. like this was normal. like sunghoon was your boyfriend and not just the guy who once forgot how to speak when you tied your hair up in front of him. the guy blinked, looked at sunghoon, who was now frozen mid-sip of his drink, cup halfway to his mouth.

sunghoon nodded once. not too fast, just enough to sell it. “yeah,” he said, voice steady. “super jealous. very possessive. not proud of it.”

you gave him the smallest side glance, clearly trying not to laugh, and squeezed his arm like you’re doing great, keep going, oscar-worthy stuff. the guy held up his hands like no worries, totally cool, and backed off without drama. he disappeared into the crowd.

the second he was gone, you looked at sunghoon and grinned. “thanks for playing along.”

he blinked. “yeah. of course.”

“you did the jealous boyfriend voice really well.”

“it’s just my regular voice,” he muttered, eyes still on his drink.

you leaned your chin on his shoulder for a second. “maybe you should use it more often.”

he didn’t say anything. mostly because his entire internal system was shutting down again. but this time, he wasn’t panicking, not really. his heart was definitely doing some weird rhythmic gymnastics and his brain had already started drafting a completely unnecessary analysis titled "what does it mean when she fake-calls you her boyfriend but then also holds your arm and looks at you like that," but he wasn’t spiraling. not in the usual sense.

so he just sat there, letting the noise of the bar blur around him, while you sipped the rest of your drink like nothing happened. and maybe for you, nothing had. maybe it was just a line, a joke. a way to get rid of an annoying guy without a scene. or maybe it was something else. something between the lines. something you weren’t saying out loud yet either.

“i want a terrible burger,” you said suddenly, finishing the last of your soda and setting the cup down with dramatic finality. “like, a bad one. like, i want to regret it in the morning.”

sunghoon blinked, pulled back into reality. “what, like… fast food bad?”

“exactly,” you said, eyes lighting up. “like wendy’s. i want to see a sad lettuce leaf in my sandwich.”

he snorted. “that’s oddly specific.”

you stood up and grabbed your jacket. “come on, boyfriend. let’s go to wendy’s.”

he didn’t correct you. he just followed you out, tossing a quick goodbye to the group still half-yelling about tequila, and stepped into the night air that felt colder than it should’ve after all that body heat and bar lighting. you walked a few blocks, mostly in silence, still a little buzzed but in that sleepy, satisfied way that made everything feel slower. then, right as you were crossing an empty street, you reached out and grabbed his hand. not in a performative way, you just took it, like it was there and you felt like holding it. like you remembered the fake-boyfriend story and decided to keep the bit going. or maybe not, maybe you just wanted to.

“you’re doing great, by the way,” you said, fingers laced through his like it meant nothing. “very convincing. the protective arm thing? ten out of ten.”

he glanced down at your hands still together. he nodded slowly. “i studied for the role.”

you grinned. “you’re a natural.”

he tried not to think too hard about it, but of course he did anyway. because holding hands wasn’t a big deal. except it was, except it was a big deal when it was you. but he kept walking next to you, hand in hand, and his brain just quietly melted. you were still holding his hand. you pointed at the wendy’s sign ahead like it was a beacon of hope. “we feast,” you declared.

he laughed under his breath, mostly because he didn’t know what else to do with all the emotions bouncing around in his chest. he didn’t know where this was going, he didn’t know what this meant. but he knew he wanted more of this — your hand, your jokes, your version of terrible food decisions. and maybe that was enough for now.

the wendy’s was almost empty, just a sleepy guy mopping the floor in the corner and a cashier humming quietly behind the counter. you walked straight to the self-ordering kiosk with the confidence of someone who had done this many times before, tapping the screen. sunghoon stood behind you, close enough that he could read the menu too, but mostly because the screen was small and the space was narrow. it wasn’t like he planned it, he just stepped forward once and then didn’t step back.

you didn’t seem to mind. you were scrolling through the combo options, talking to yourself. “okay, nuggets are too risky. fries, obviously. double cheeseburger, or do you want the one with the weird barbecue sauce again?” you didn’t turn around, just asked, still facing the screen, “what do you want?”

and he wasn’t thinking. not in a conscious way. he was just staring at the back of your head, at the way your shirt was falling off one shoulder slightly, at how close you were, at how warm his chest felt from where you were just standing in front of it like it was nothing.

so he said it. like it wasn’t anything at all.

“you.”

you laughed immediately. the kind of laugh that came out of your nose and mouth at the same time, short and surprised and familiar. you kept tapping the screen like you hadn’t heard him properly, or like he was joking. but sunghoon didn’t laugh, he didn’t say anything else. and you paused.

you turned around slowly, still half-grinning, clearly ready to tease him, but then you looked up and saw that he wasn’t grinning back. he was just looking down at you, like this wasn’t a joke. like he didn’t care that it was happening next to a laminated poster of a frosty.

and something in your expression shifted too. the smile faded, but not in a bad way, just softened, slowed down. like whatever you’d been holding back was now impossible to keep behind the usual banter. so you stared at him for a second, head tilted slightly, like you were trying to decide if you were allowed to do what you were about to do.

and then you did it anyway. you reached up, grabbed the front of his hoodie, and pulled him down toward you. not roughly, not urgently, just with purpose, and he didn’t hesitate, didn’t question it, didn’t even breathe before his mouth was on yours.

he didn’t stop to think about it, didn’t hesitate, didn’t calculate angles or worry about logistics, which was rare for him. he just moved. his heart was doing something that felt like a cross between a drum solo and a panic attack. he could feel the heat rising up the back of his neck, which was annoying because that always happened when he was nervous, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now because your face was right there and your lips were already on his and he was kissing you.

he was kissing you. okay. okay. this was happening.

his first thought was that your lips were soft, which was so cliché and unoriginal he immediately scolded himself internally, but then he had no time to think of anything better because your hands were still on his hoodie, still holding him close, and his own hands had instinctively gone to your waist and stayed there like they knew what to do even though his brain absolutely did not. 

it was warm. not just physically, but in that weird way where everything around him felt quiet all of a sudden, even though there was still the distant hum of the soda machine and the soft squeak of the mop across the tile floor. the kiss wasn’t perfect, his nose got in the way a little. he turned his head too far at first and had to readjust, which made him silently panic for a second like wait did i ruin it did she notice oh my god i bumped her tooth, but you didn’t pull back, you just leaned in more.

your mouth tasted like sprite and some other food vaguely artificial and it should’ve been gross but somehow it wasn’t. somehow it just felt real and simple. like this was something you did, apparently. kissed each other now. this was now part of the routine.

his hands gripped your sides gently like he was making sure you didn’t vanish. he didn’t know how long the kiss lasted. three seconds? ten? a full minute? he couldn’t tell. time had stopped cooperating with him. all he knew was that you were kissing him like you meant it, like this wasn’t an accident or a joke or a weird side quest in a long friendship. like this was on purpose.

his brain tried to catch up the entire time. there were at least four full thoughts bouncing around at once, all useless:

1. what if this is a dream and i wake up and i’m still on the couch with chips on my chest.

2. i don’t know what to do with my thumbs. why do thumbs exist?

3. i can’t believe she just kissed me next to a wendy’s totem.

4. i don’t want this to stop.

and then, eventually, it did stop.

you pulled back just slightly, enough to breathe, enough to look up at him. but you didn’t move away. you stayed close, like you weren’t done, like you just needed a second. so he stood there, hands still on your waist, completely unsure of what his face was doing. his mouth might’ve been slightly open, he didn’t know. his thoughts were still lagging a full minute behind his body.

you looked at him and said, “so that’s how we’re doing this now.”

his brain was still stuck on the kiss, but he blinked, nodded once, and somehow said, “apparently.” you tilted your head just a little, searching his face for something, and he realized he probably looked like a deer that had wandered into traffic and liked it. he cleared his throat, but his voice still came out low and uneven when he said, “i’m not complaining.”

you exhaled slowly, and then you smiled again, this time real and unguarded and a little too big. “first kiss next to a wendy’s kiosk. this is what dreams are made of.”

“honestly,” he said, “it’s probably the most romantic thing that’s ever happened to me in a fast food place.”

you laughed, resting your forehead briefly against his chest. “mine too. tragically.”

he rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly shy again, but it wasn’t the bad kind of shy. it was the kind that made him want to say things he’d been sitting on for weeks. “so,” he started, “there’s something else i should probably admit.”

you looked up. “okay?”

he hesitated. “you know that gym across my street? the one you’ve been defending for months?”

you narrowed your eyes. “yeah…”

he cleared his throat. “so. uh. i was the one taking it back every time. team valor. red guy with the dragonite.”

your mouth dropped open slightly. “you’re shadyhoon420?”

he winced. “in my defense, i made that username in like 2018. it was funny then.”

“it’s still funny now,” you said, shaking your head. “i thought shadyhoon420 was some twelve-year-old with too much free time.”

“nope,” he said. “twenty-something with unresolved competitive issues.”

you laughed again, full-body this time, like you couldn’t believe it. “you were trolling me for months.”

“i was trying to win,” he said. “you were annoyingly good.”

“you were annoying in general.”

“and yet here we are,” he said, glancing down at you, still tucked into his chest. “making out in a wendy’s.”

you rolled your eyes, but not in the real way. more like you were trying not to grin again. your hands were still holding onto the front of his hoodie, like letting go didn’t feel necessary yet. and he didn’t want you to. his hands hadn’t moved either, they were still resting on your waist, warm and steady, like his body knew what his brain was still trying to accept, that this wasn’t hypothetical anymore, it was real. it had happened. you kissed him, and he kissed you back.

he didn’t say anything else right away. not because he didn’t have anything to say, but because he was still sorting through the fact that for weeks, maybe longer, he’d been inching closer to you in little ways — a leg under the blanket, a hand brushing yours, a text that was maybe too honest — and now suddenly there was no more guessing. you’d pulled him in. you kissed him. you’d looked him in the face like you were just as tired of waiting.

and somehow it wasn’t weird, it wasn’t awkward. it didn’t feel like something they’d both laugh off tomorrow and pretend didn’t happen. it felt like something that had been quietly building in the background, so slowly neither of them had wanted to be the one to name it out loud, until you just did.

and now he was standing there, still in your arms, still close enough to feel the warmth of your breath on his neck, realizing that something had already started. not five minutes ago. not in the middle of the kiss, but way earlier. maybe on that first night on the couch. maybe the first time you texted him about something dumb at 2 a.m. or maybe the first time you knocked his leg with yours and didn’t move it away. and whatever it was, it wasn’t a maybe anymore.

and honestly, standing there in front of a glowing touchscreen that still said “order now” in giant, red font, that felt exactly right. because of course it would be like this, not planned, not perfect. just stupidly casual and somehow kind of perfect anyway.

you pulled away first, but only a little, and said, “okay, romantic moment over. i’m starving.”

“yeah,” sunghoon said, blinking back into functionality. “same.”

you turned back to the kiosk, finally placing the order, laughing again when he insisted on extra fries “because i feel emotionally vulnerable and carbs help.” you didn’t make fun of him. you just nodded like, yeah, that tracks. and when the food came out, you grabbed the tray and headed to the corner booth, the one you two always sat in when the place was empty, which it still was. it felt like your booth now, like it had seen things, like it knew too much.

you sat down first, immediately curling one leg under yourself and holding the burger with two hands like it was sacred. sunghoon sat next to you, not across, not leaving space, but right beside you like always, except this time, his arm went around your shoulders the second he sat down, no hesitation, no awkward pause. and you didn’t just lean into him like before. you really leaned.

your head dropped to his shoulder for a second before you took your first bite, and he felt your whole body relax against his like this was exactly where you wanted to be, and it wasn’t like before. it wasn’t just a friendly lean or a casual touch, it was closer. it felt like something that had been waiting to happen and now finally had.

you both ate in silence for a minute, the kind of silence that wasn’t empty. it was full of whatever this new thing was between you. you passed fries back and forth like it was muscle memory. he picked the pickles off your sandwich without being asked. you stole his soda without warning. and he didn’t flinch when your hand found his leg under the table and stayed there. you’d done this before. sat like this, shared food, leaned into each other, stayed late until the lights started flickering. but tonight it felt different, for very kissy obvious reasons.

sunghoon looked over at you once, mid-bite, and you caught him staring. you smiled with your mouth full and said, “don’t get all sappy on me.”

he shrugged. “too late.”

you shook your head and leaned into him again, chewing quietly, like it was no big deal. but he knew it was, and he knew this was only the beginning. and he also knew — later, when you were walking home and holding hands again like it was completely natural — that he was fully, entirely, probably hopelessly into you. and he wasn’t trying to hide it anymore.

the weeks after that night at wendy’s were weird in the least dramatic way possible. nothing major changed. you were still texting dumb questions to each other and you were still stealing his fries like they were community property. but now you kissed him, now he could hold your hand without pretending he was reaching for something else. now he could rest his chin on top of your head when you were sitting on the couch and no one would say anything sarcastic about it. it was new, but it also felt like it had already been there the whole time, just waiting for someone to label it.

sunghoon had fully expected to be awkward about it. and to be fair, sometimes he was. he still got weirdly quiet when you called him “babe” for the first time, and he once accidentally called you “dude” right after kissing you and spent the next two hours apologizing. but mostly, things were good, comfortable and fun.

you started doing more couple-y stuff without needing to make it A Thing. you grocery shopped together, you did laundry at the same time, folded each other’s hoodies like an old married couple, and argued over the right way to hang dry t-shirts. you went to a mini golf place that was weirdly intense about rules, and sunghoon realized you were more competitive than him, which was saying something.

he started to show you more of the things he usually kept to himself. like his half-written playlist ideas. like the folder of blurry phone videos he took of you without meaning to. like the fact that he still had a high score on fruit ninja and was proud of it. and one night, after you’d been watching some random youtube rabbit hole of early 2000s pop rock videos and you said, “ugh i forgot how much i loved mcfly,” sunghoon sat there in silence for a second before quietly saying, “i need to play falling in love for you.”

he played it slowly, a little shakily. he forgot a chord halfway through and mumbled something that wasn’t a word, but you didn’t laugh. you didn’t make fun of him. you just sat there listening like it was your favorite thing he’d ever done. and when he finished, you kissed his cheek and said, “you’re disgusting. i love it.”

after that, he stopped holding back so much. he let himself be more flirty, more open, more ridiculous. and to his surprise, you were just as bad, maybe worse. you texted him things like “miss ur dumb face” even if you’d seen him three hours ago. you’d randomly send voice notes where you just said “hi” in different tones and asked him to rate them.

and that’s when sunghoon realized something big: you were just as emotionally reckless as him.

you made plans too early. you got soft too fast. you saved pictures of things that reminded you of him and showed them later like it was nothing. and he was so used to being the one who caught feelings first that it completely broke his brain a little. so he started noticing it in small things. like how you’d always scoot closer to him even if there was already zero space left on the couch. or how you remembered random things he said in passing and brought them up a week later like they were important. or how your entire face changed when he walked into a room, even if you were pretending to be cool about it.

and then one night, when you were sitting cross-legged on the floor of his apartment, he blurted something out without meaning to. “did you and heeseung ever date?”

you looked up, blinked. “what?”

“i mean,” he said quickly, “not that it matters now. i just. i always kinda thought there was something there. like before.” you chewed slowly, still staring at him. “like,” he continued, clearly panicking now, “not in a jealous way. i just thought maybe you two had a thing. the way you talked. i don’t know. i used to overthink it. a lot. i almost stopped talking to you once because of it. which is dumb. very dumb.”

you swallowed, still looking at him like he’d just admitted he once ate a shoe. then you said, “sunghoon. heeseung and i bonded over the fact that we both had a crush on the same person.”

he blinked. “wait. what?”

“it was you.” he stared at you, spoon halfway to his mouth, not moving. “i’m kidding,” you said, snorting. “he had a crush on someone else. i just liked you. he used to give me pep talks about it.”

sunghoon’s brain did not know what to do with that information. “so… you liked me back then?”

“yeah,” you said, chewing again. “obviously.”

he was quiet for a long second. then: “cool.”

you smiled at him, mouth full, and kicked his foot under the table. he kicked you back. and that was that.

the first time you and sunghoon went out with everyone again, it was a thursday night. which already made it feel less official, like no one could accuse anyone of being too romantic if it was a weeknight. you and sunghoon had been in your thing for a few weeks now, whatever it was. there still wasn’t a label. no one had said “we’re dating” or “we’re together.”

but he kissed you when he saw you. he held your hand while you scrolled through takeout menus. he stayed up late with you watching videos of frogs in tiny hats. you were his. i mean, probably. almost definitely. he just hadn’t said it out loud yet and neither had you. and now, somehow, you were going to a bar together like that wasn’t the most emotionally dangerous setting in the world.

sunghoon wasn’t nervous, exactly. but he also had no idea how he was supposed to act. was he supposed to sit next to you or leave a one-person buffer zone? was he allowed to have a hand on your back when you walked in, or was that too much? could he kiss your cheek in public? would that be weird? was not doing it weirder?

you, of course, didn’t seem to be thinking about any of this. you wore that skirt he liked. you stole one of his rings before you left the apartment and didn’t even say anything about it. you walked next to him like nothing was different. and for you, maybe it wasn’t. maybe this was all normal. maybe you were normal. sunghoon, meanwhile, was just trying not to look suspicious.

they got there a little late. jay and jungwon were already posted up at the booth like they'd been born there. jake was at the bar talking to someone who may or may not have been his date, or just someone he was bothering. heeseung was somewhere, probably emotionally observing the room from the shadows like he always did. and as soon as sunghoon and you walked in together, everyone looked up. they all did the same thing: that casual glance, followed by the silent smirk, followed by the overly casual “oh hey, you made it” that clearly meant oh hey, we know what’s going on here.

sunghoon didn’t react, just nodded once, tried to be cool. completely missed the chair when he went to sit down and had to pretend he meant to lean sideways.

jay knew. of course jay knew. jay had known before sunghoon even knew. jungwon knew because jay knew. jake knew because heeseung knew, and heeseung knew because heeseung knew everything. and now all of them knew. all of them were being polite about it, but they knew. the only people who didn’t know that everyone knew were you and sunghoon.

you sat next to him, thigh against his, arm slung casually over the back of the booth, like it was no big deal. like you did this all the time. and maybe you did, now. maybe this was your thing. but sunghoon still didn’t know where to put his hand. he settled for resting it on his leg, then moved it, then put it back. he wanted to put his arm around you. he just didn’t want to make it A Thing.

jay raised an eyebrow across the table, very subtle. sunghoon glared at him. you leaned over and whispered something about the drinks being overpriced and then rested your head against his shoulder for half a second like it was nothing. sunghoon felt every cell in his body shift three degrees to the left. he didn’t even hear what jay was saying. he was too busy pretending to be normal. jungwon looked like he wanted to say something. jake looked like he was writing fanfiction in his head.

someone made a toast. someone spilled something. someone brought fries to the table and you immediately took three and fed one to sunghoon without thinking about it, and that’s when he saw the look on jake’s face. pure glee. jake mouthed awww like a traitor. sunghoon blinked and looked at you. looked at the group and realized: they all knew. they were all just pretending not to know.

he looked down at his fry, chewed slowly. whispered, “we’re not being subtle, are we.”

you looked at him, smiled, and said, “do you want to be?”

he blinked again. “not really.”

you leaned in and kissed his cheek. sunghoon thought he might combust, but in a good way. and across the table, jay, jungwon, and jake all gave each other the most painfully smug looks sunghoon had ever seen. it didn’t matter, he didn’t care. you were still close, your hand was in his lap now. you were talking to heeseung like nothing was happening. sunghoon was still alive (probably). and whatever this thing was between you two, it wasn’t labeled yet. but it was something, and maybe that was enough for now.

you left the bar a little past midnight, not totally sober but not out of it either, that sweet spot where everything was a little funnier and a little louder and no one was ready to admit they were already tired. it wasn’t freezing out, but you still tugged on sunghoon’s sleeve like your arms didn’t work and said, “i’m cold. fix it.” so he handed you his jacket without hesitation, which you immediately put on and did not zip up, because apparently the rules of temperature didn’t apply to you. the sleeves covered your hands and the shoulders were too big and you looked stupidly good in it, which made sunghoon feel something deep in his chest he chose not to name.

you walked in silence for a few steps, close but not touching, until you bumped your hand into his once, twice, and then just took it like it was yours. which, at this point, it basically was. “so,” you said, casual, like you hadn’t already been curled up next to him in a booth for the last three hours, “you wanna come over?”

sunghoon blinked. “like… now?”

you raised an eyebrow. “no, next tuesday.”

he blinked again, because his brain had chosen violence and was now playing a full powerpoint presentation of possible meanings behind that sentence. he was trying very hard to be normal, to just smile and nod and say something charming, but instead he said, “uh-huh. okay. sure. i mean, unless you were just being polite and i—”

“sunghoon.”

“yep.”

“do you wanna come over?”

he nodded, fast. “yeah. yes. definitely.”

you grinned like you knew exactly what he was doing: spiraling, overanalyzing, trying to decide if “come over” meant snacks and a rerun or if it meant come over come over.

your place was a ten-minute walk, but it felt like thirty-five because sunghoon’s brain would not shut up. he wasn’t panicking, not really, but he also couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that this wasn’t just another hangout. something about the way you asked felt different. something about the way your hand kept tightening around his, like you were already thinking about where it would be once you got upstairs.

by the time you were at your door, you were still holding his hand and sunghoon’s heart was going fast enough that he had to pretend he wasn’t out of breath just from standing there. you unlocked the door and looked at him over your shoulder. “you coming in or are you just gonna stand there looking like you’re being peer pressured by a ghost.”

he stepped inside. “i’ve never been peer pressured by a ghost, for the record.”

you tossed your keys on the counter and kicked off your shoes. “there’s a first time for everything.”

he toed off his sneakers slower, trying to figure out where to stand, what to say, how to breathe like a functioning adult. you pulled off his jacket, handed it back to him, and then did that thing where you walked past him, brushing your hand across his lower back like it didn’t mean anything, even though it absolutely did.

he stared at the floor. then at the fridge. then at you, who was now grabbing two glasses and saying something about trying a new wine that tasted like “grape juice with peach” and he had no idea what it meant or what to do with his hands, or his mouth, or his entire existence. because the truth was: he liked you. he really really really liked you. and he’d been pretending not to want more, not to think about what it’d be like to stay over, to fall asleep next to you and wake up next to you and maybe never go home again. he’d been pretending it was casual. because pretending was safer, pretending didn’t risk messing anything up.

and now here you were, in your apartment, handing him a glass of bad wine and looking at him like you were waiting to see if he’d finally catch up. “you okay?” you asked, leaning against the counter, glass in hand, looking a little too pretty for someone under yellow kitchen lighting.

he cleared his throat. “me? yeah. totally fine. great. really calm.”

you tilted your head. “you sure?”

“yep.”

you walked over slowly, standing in front of him now, wine still in one hand, the other reaching up to brush the hair off his forehead. “you’re freaking out.”

“i’m not,” he said, eyes wide.

“you are.”

“i’m— okay, i’m slightly freaking out.”

you smiled and leaned in, close enough that your breath hit his neck. “wanna know a secret?”

“always,” he said, voice lower than he meant it to be, because everything about this moment was doing something strange to his brain.

you leaned in just a little more, like you were going to whisper something, and he instinctively tilted his head toward you, breath caught, waiting. “i’ve been thinking about kissing you all night,” you said, soft but direct, like you were telling him something about the weather. “like, not just kissing. you know.”

sunghoon froze for a second. not cartoon-style. just momentarily lost control of every muscle in his body. his first instinct was to deflect, make a joke, say something stupid. throw himself out the window, maybe. but he didn’t, not this time. because his second instinct — the real one, the one under all the fake calm — was to kiss you right now. fully and properly, like he hadn’t been holding back for weeks.

you raised an eyebrow, watching him short-circuit, and said, “too much?”

he shook his head. “no. i just. wow. okay.”

“you okay?” you asked again, but this time there was a small smile on your lips, and it was very clear you knew the answer.

he nodded. “yeah. i just wasn’t ready to hear that sentence. and now it’s all i’m hearing.”

you laughed a little and stepped even closer, your body brushing up against his. “do you want me to say it again?”

he swallowed hard. “maybe later.”

you bit your lip, not in a calculated way, just like it was a reflex, and something about that made something snap a little inside him. he set his glass down on the counter, gently, like he needed both hands for whatever was about to happen. then he looked at you and said, “i don’t really want to keep pretending i’m not into you in a completely embarrassing way.”

“good,” you said, fingers grazing the hem of his shirt now, slow, testing. “because i was getting kinda tired of pretending not to notice.”

he leaned in finally, mouth close to yours but not quite there yet, and asked, “so we’re not pretending anymore?”

“nah,” you whispered. “let’s be very real.”

and that’s when he kissed you. not like before, not soft or quick or questioning. this one was different. his hands were on your waist, pulling you in like he was done pretending you weren’t all he’d been thinking about. your hands slid up his chest and curled behind his neck, like you were grounding yourself. like you’d been waiting for this, too.

at some point, you mumbled something against his mouth — maybe his name, maybe just a sound — and he breathed out a quiet “god, you make me crazy” before he could even think about it.

you pulled back just slightly, eyes a little dazed, and said, “you’re gonna say stuff like that and then expect me to behave?”

“no,” he said, already leaning in again. “definitely not.”

you were backing him toward the hallway now, hand still tangled in his hair, mouth still on his, and every nerve in his body was firing off in every direction at once, but none of it felt panicked anymore. it just felt like finally. like this was where all of it had been leading: the late nights, the inside jokes, the pretending-not-to-care casual touches that had never really been casual at all.

sunghoon's back bumped softly into the wall and he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. your body was pressed to his now, fully, and your mouth moved down to his jaw, then to the side of his neck, slow and unhurried, like you were trying to memorize the way he felt. his hands were on your waist, thumbs sliding under the hem of your shirt without meaning to, like they’d decided on their own that they wanted more. and the thing was, so did he. he wanted more. not just physically, though that was part of it. but everything, all of it. the way you looked at him like he was worth undivided attention, the way you touched him like you weren’t scared of what it meant, the way you weren’t hesitating now.

he had no idea what he was doing, not really. but it didn’t matter, not with the way your fingers had found their way under his shirt now too, trailing up his ribs like you were checking if he was real. he was starting to think he wasn’t. you leaned back just enough to look at him, your face close, breathing uneven. “you good?” you asked, voice low, teasing, but still somehow gentle.

he nodded, barely. “yeah. i just…” you waited, eyes flicking to his lips again, like you already knew what he was about to say. “i really want you,” he said, quiet but steady, “and i’m trying not to freak out about it.”

you smiled, something softer now, less teasing, and leaned in again, your mouth brushing his as you said, “then don’t.”

and he didn’t. he kissed you again, deeper this time, one hand sliding up your back, the other staying low on your waist, anchoring you to him. you pulled him away from the wall slowly, guiding him back toward your room with nothing but your body pressed into his and the way you kissed him like you’d been waiting just as long. his hands were shaking a little, but not in a bad way. in the way that came from finally letting go of all the restraint he didn’t even realize he’d been carrying.

you turned around once, just before stepping through the door, and looked at him, not playful this time, not challenging, just full of whatever this was between you. then you pulled him in by the front of his shirt, and he followed, heart pounding, completely undone by how easy it felt to say yes to you.

he followed you into the room, one of his hands went straight to your waist, pulling you in again, and the other slid into your hair like he was finally done pretending he didn’t want to touch you like this. you looked up at him, mouth parted, breathing a little uneven now, like maybe you weren’t expecting him to get like this, not this sure of himself. “you okay?” he asked, echoing your earlier words, voice low now and just barely smug. “you’re looking a little... distracted.”

you blinked at him, caught off guard for half a second. “you think you’re funny now?”

“no,” he said, fingers slipping under the back of your shirt as he leaned in, “i think i’m winning.”

you didn’t say anything. just kissed him again, rougher this time, like you were challenging him to keep up, and he did. he moved with you, pressed into you, kissed you back like he finally knew he could. he walked you backward without breaking the kiss, hands firm on your waist, pushing you gently until your legs hit the edge of the bed. you sat first, pulling him down with you, and he smiled against your mouth as you tugged at his shirt like you were losing patience.

“you’ve been thinking about this too, huh?” he murmured against your throat, voice dark and teasing, lips brushing that spot right under your jaw that made your knees weak. you didn’t answer, just mouthed at his neck in retaliation. he chuckled. “yeah,” he whispered. “me too. been losing my mind over you.”

“shut up,” you said, though your hands were already sliding under the hem of his shirt.

“make me,” he said, and you actually laughed, this breathless, surprised sound that turned into a half-moan when his mouth found that spot below your jaw you didn’t even know was there. he pulled back for a second, just long enough to look at you. your hair was a little messy, your lips were red, your hands were still on him, and he couldn’t believe he’d spent so many nights trying to act casual about you.

and sunghoon — who had once nearly passed out just from you holding his hand at wendy’s — now had you under him, fingers teasing at your waistband, mouth trailing along your collarbone, fully lost in the way you were looking at him like you wanted everything at once.

you shifted under him, hips tilting up slightly. his hands were more confident now, not just hovering or tracing but gripping, like he didn’t want to miss any part of you. one hand slid up under your shirt, palm warm against your stomach, and he felt you tense just a little, then relax into it completely.

you tugged him closer, thighs parting so he could fit between them, and he fit there like he belonged, grinding down slowly, testing. your breath hitched, nails digging into his shoulders, and that did something to him. he groaned quietly, not on purpose, and you caught it. your fingers were in his hair again, tugging a little now, and he swore under his breath when your teeth grazed his bottom lip. your shirt was pushed up now, not off yet, but enough for his hands to explore, and his mouth followed the trail — slow kisses down your neck, then across your chest, lingering just long enough to make you arch into him. your breath hitched again, and he looked up at you, completely gone.

“tell me if you want me to stop,” he said, serious for a second, low and right against your skin.

you shook your head. “don’t.”

​​your hands were under his shirt now, greedy and warm, and he let out a shaky breath as you slid them up his back. “fuck,” he muttered. “you feel so good—better than i ever imagined.” he kissed you again, hungrier this time, like he wanted to memorize your mouth. “you’re so fucking pretty, y/n. can’t believe i get to touch you.”

your shirt was off now, just tugged over your head and dropped somewhere behind you, and sunghoon stared for maybe a second longer than he meant to. not out of shock, but because he couldn’t believe you were real. that this was real. that this was actually happening. and then you reached for the hem of his shirt, fingers cool against his stomach, and that was it, he was done pretending he had a single functioning thought left in his head.

he let you pull it over his head, arms moving clumsily, breath already shallow. your hands were on his skin before the fabric even hit the floor, sliding up over his chest, across his shoulders, and he had to physically stop himself from just collapsing into you. you bit your lip when his hips rolled into yours again, slower this time, like he was testing the friction. your breath caught, and you arched into him without thinking. “hoon…”

his whole body shuddered when you said his name like that. “god, you sound so good,” he breathed. “you don’t even know what you do to me.” his hands were back on your waist now, warm and grounding, and he kissed you again, slower, sweeter, like he wanted to savor the taste of you. “you’re not gonna get rid of me after this, you know,” he whispered into your mouth. “not after i’ve had you like this.”

you smiled a little, breathless. “who said i wanted to get rid of you?”

that made him pause for a second, just to look at you again, like he couldn’t believe this was really happening. “jesus,” he muttered. “you’re gonna ruin me.”

you pulled him down for another kiss, hands slipping lower, dragging your fingers across the waistband of his pants. he groaned when your palm brushed over him through the fabric, hips twitching like he couldn’t help it. “fuck, baby,” he hissed, “you’re making it really hard to be gentle.”

“then don’t be.”

he let out this low, disbelieving laugh like you’d just told him the best secret in the world. tugging your skirt and panties down, he kissed his way along your hips and lower, dragging his mouth over your skin like he was savoring you already. “every part of you… perfect,” he whispered, eyes flicking up just once to see your chest rising, lips parted. “i wanna touch you everywhere.”

and he meant it. ​​his hands were warm and steady, spreading over your thighs, your waist, your stomach, exploring you like you were something rare. he took his time, like he’d waited too long to rush now, brushing his fingers gently along your inner thigh, coaxing goosebumps to rise under his touch. you were already shivering with anticipation when he kissed the inside of your knee, then higher, then higher again.

you whimpered, hips lifting involuntarily, and he kissed down your stomach slowly, lips dragging over your skin like a promise. his hands settled on your thighs, thumbs stroking gently over the soft skin there. then he paused, and his eyes flicked up to yours, darker now, but still so soft. 

“can i taste you?” he asked, voice quiet but low with need. “please, baby. i need it.” your breath caught. your fingers threaded through his hair almost instinctively as you nodded, thighs parting just a little in silent answer. “yeah?” he breathed, kissing the inside of your thigh. “you’ll let me take care of you?”

“yes,” you whispered, already trembling. “sunghoon, please.”

he groaned, like that was all he needed to hear. “thank you,” he murmured, kissing higher. “gonna make you feel so good, pretty girl.”

and then his mouth was on you, tongue sliding between your folds with that slow, deliberate stroke, and your whole body jolted under him.

“fuck—so sweet,” he groaned, his voice muffled against you. his fingers came up to part you gently, spreading you open so he could really taste you. “you’re unreal, baby. can you feel how wet you are for me?”

you gasped, back arching, one hand gripping the sheets while the other tangled in his hair like it was the only thing keeping you grounded. he groaned again when you tugged, clearly enjoying every reaction he pulled from you. he licked into you like he was starved for it, slow at first, methodical, dragging his tongue in long strokes and humming low when your thighs tensed around his shoulders. then, when he sucked your clit into his mouth, you cried out, hips bucking off the bed, and he held you down firmly, not letting up for a second.

“that’s it,” he said against you, his breath hot and his tone ragged. “so fucking good for me.”

you couldn’t even speak, just moaned and gasped, feeling your whole body coil tighter and tighter as he kept working you over with that perfect mouth. your thighs were trembling now, breath shaky, every nerve strung taut. he reached up, lacing your fingers with his, grounding you just as the pressure tipped over into something explosive. “come for me,” he murmured, voice low and coaxing. “let me have it.”

and you did. you shattered beneath him, shaking, your body clenching and curling in on itself as the orgasm crashed over you, white-hot and overwhelming. you called his name, half gasp, half cry, pulling at his hair with one hand and squeezing his hand tight with the other. your body stuttered, hips twitching, thighs clamped around his head, but he didn’t stop until your whimpers turned desperate, overstimulated and wrecked.

“okay,” you panted, tugging weakly at his shoulder. “okay—hoon—please…”

he finally pulled back, lips shiny, cheeks flushed, and eyes completely wild with awe. he looked like he’d just seen god, and maybe he had. you. unraveling for him, only for him. “you’re…” he started, voice rough as he crawled back up your body, kissing your stomach, your chest, your throat, your jaw. “you’re fucking perfect. i’ve never—never wanted someone like this.”

you cupped his face as he hovered over you, and he leaned into your touch instantly, forehead pressed to yours, his breathing still ragged, like he couldn’t believe any of this was real. “you don’t even know what you do to me,” he whispered, voice hoarse and low. “i’ve wanted this, wanted you, for so long.”

you kissed him again, slower this time, your fingers brushing through his hair, and he deepened it with a quiet groan, like he needed to taste you to keep himself grounded. when he pulled back, just enough to look at you, his eyes were wild and soft all at once, like he was overwhelmed by you. “feel that?” he murmured, pressing his hips down against yours. “you make me this fucking desperate, baby.”

you gasped when he rolled his hips again, perfectly slow, perfectly cruel. “can still taste you on my lips,” he said, kissing you once more. “i want you to taste it too.” the kiss this time was messier and you could feel yourself melting into it. he kissed you like he wanted you ruined, like he needed you wrecked and shaking and breathless. and you were close already, so close again from just that, from the way he said your name like a secret prayer.

“turn over for me,” he whispered suddenly, voice dipped in reverence. you did, your body trembling a little with anticipation as you shifted onto your stomach, heart racing. he traced your spine with his fingers, slow and deliberate, until both hands settled at your waist. “you’re unreal,” he whispered, and he meant it. “do you know that? the way you sound, the way you feel… i could lose my mind just looking at you.”

he leaned down then, mouth brushing the back of your shoulder, trailing kisses down your spine as his hands slid down, thumbs spreading gently over your hips like he was committing every inch of you to memory. “you drive me crazy,” he murmured. “every time you look at me, every time you laugh… fuck, i’m so gone for you.”

and when he kissed the back of your thigh, slow and lingering, you felt it everywhere, like heat blooming under your skin. “let me take my time with you,” he said, kissing his way back up. “wanna make you feel good. wanna make you remember this.”

you could only nod, breath caught in your throat, hands fisting the sheets beneath you. because sunghoon didn’t just want to touch you, he wanted to worship you. ​​his hands smoothed over your hips, firm but reverent, as he bent down, pressing a kiss to the base of your spine. “you’re shaking,” he murmured, voice laced with awe. “still so sensitive, aren’t you?” you nodded, cheek pressed to the sheets, body already reacting to the weight of his touch. “but you’re taking it so well,” he whispered, one hand sliding between your thighs, coaxing them apart again. “you’re such a good girl for me.”

you gasped when his fingers found you, already soaked, still fluttering from the last time. “look at this,” he groaned, dragging his fingers through the slick mess he left behind. “this pretty little pussy just begging for more.”

you whined, pressing back against his hand without even meaning to, and he chuckled low behind you. “you want it again?” he asked, voice almost gentle. “need me to make you feel good, baby?”

“yes,” you breathed. “please.”

that was all he needed. he leaned down again, kissing the swell of your ass before spreading you open with both hands. and then he dipped his head, tongue sliding between your folds. you cried out, hips jolting, the sudden pleasure overwhelming. he groaned, licking you from behind like he was starving for it. you buried your face into the mattress, fingers clawing at the sheets, the stretch of your body making every sensation sharper.

his hands gripped your thighs as his mouth worked you open all over again, licking and sucking with the kind of desperation that made your knees weak. and then his hand slid under you, fingers rubbing tight circles on your clit as his mouth stayed on you, wet and relentless. 

“that fucking pussy tastes so good,” he praised, voice breathless. “give it to me again. wanna feel you come on my tongue, baby.”

you were already spiraling, the pressure building fast and hot, your whole body wound so tight you could barely breathe. “fuck, sunghoon—i’m—”

and you did, again. shaking, crying out, your body going completely still before collapsing into tremors, overwhelmed by the heat of his mouth and the soft, dirty praise spilling from his lips. he didn’t stop until you were whimpering, twitching under him, begging him to stop, begging him to keep going, you couldn’t even tell anymore.

when he finally pulled back, panting, mouth glistening, he kissed your lower back and whispered: “you’re fucking perfect. i’m not done with you yet.”

he watches you as you turn over slowly, still catching your breath, your skin flushed and glowing, hair sticking to your forehead in messy strands. you’re a vision, wrecked and beautiful, lips swollen, eyes glassy, your chest rising and falling like you’ve just survived something holy. his gaze drags over you, slow, reverent, like he doesn’t know where to look first. like he wants to worship everything.

“fuck,” he breathes. “look at you…” you blink up at him, dazed and buzzing, legs still trembling from the last time he pulled you apart. his hands settle on your waist, grounding you. his thumb rubs soft circles into your skin like he’s easing you back into your body, not rushing, just feeling you.

“can i?” he asks, voice low and hoarse. there’s something almost shy in the way he says it, like he’s trying not to ruin the moment, like despite everything, he still needs to be sure you want this too.

you nod once, still breathless. “yeah,” you whisper. “please.”

his pupils darken, breath stuttering in his chest. the way you say please, oh, he could fall to his knees again just from that. he kisses you, slow at first, deep, aching, his tongue brushing yours like he’s trying to memorize your taste. and then it turns hungry, hands gripping your face like he can’t believe he gets to touch you, like he doesn’t want to come up for air. “you’re everything,” he murmurs against your lips, voice shaky. “i mean it—everything. i wanna make you feel so fucking good again.”

you let out the softest whimper, and that’s all he needs. he kisses down your jaw, your neck, between your breasts, leaves open-mouthed kisses down your stomach, taking his time. he’s not in a rush, he wants to savor you. his hand trails down, fingers brushing your inner thigh, and you part your legs for him instinctively. you’re still so sensitive, every little touch making you twitch, your hips lifting up to meet him. “this pretty pussy’s still so wet,” he groans, almost in disbelief. “you’re unreal, baby.”

his fingers slip between your folds again, dragging through the mess he made earlier, and you let out a gasp, hand flying to his wrist. “shh,” he soothes, leaning in to kiss your cheek. “i got you. just wanna make you feel good. let me take care of you, yeah?”

you nod, lips parted, already melting under his touch. he kisses you again, messy and hot, and then without warning he slides two fingers in deep, curling them just right. your mouth falls open in a silent cry, hips jerking. “that’s it,” he praises. “fuck, i love how you take me. your pussy is clinching around my fingers, baby.”

his fingers keep working you open, his mouth back on your neck, sucking dark marks into your skin like he wants to leave proof that he was here. and just when you think you’re going to fall apart again, he pulls back just enough to look you in the eyes. “you’re mine, right?” he asks, voice like gravel. “please say it, baby”

“i’m yours,” you breathe, and it comes out shaky, desperate.

he groans like he’s losing his mind. “good girl.”

his body hovered over yours, warm and steady, and when your eyes met, something shifted, like the air grew heavier, thick with everything you both had been holding back. he kissed you like a thank you, like a silent prayer, like he couldn’t believe you were real and his all at once. then he leaned back on his knees, eyes locked on yours as he brought his hands down to the waistband of his jeans. he popped the button open with a quiet click, dragging the zipper down slow, teasing, but there was a kind of quiet urgency in his movements too, like he couldn’t wait another second to feel you again.

when he pushed his jeans and boxers down, your breath caught. he was big. thick and flushed and perfect, tip already leaking, heavy against his stomach. your mouth went dry, heat curling low in your belly as you stared, he was so pretty it almost hurt, like every inch of him was made to ruin you.

his eyes watched your face carefully, catching the shift in your expression. “yeah?” he rasped, cock twitching under your gaze. “you like what you see, baby?”

you nodded before you could think, heart hammering, thighs already pressing together. “you’re perfect,” you whispered, almost breathless.

his lips parted at that, something dark and tender flickering behind his eyes. he leaned in, hand wrapping around himself as he hovered over you again, dragging his tip through your slick folds, slow and deliberate, teasing your entrance. “fuck,” he murmured, voice ragged. “say you want me, please.”

“i want you,” you breathed, hips lifting. “hoon—i need you.”

he groaned like the sound of your voice broke something in him. and when he finally sank into you, slow, deliberate, like he wanted to feel every inch of you claiming him back, it stole the air from your lungs. he bottomed out with a shudder, forehead pressed against yours, hand cupping your jaw like he needed the grounding just as much as you did.

his tip presses in first, thick and hot, and even though your body is already soaked and aching for him, the stretch is still overwhelming. your walls flutter around him, trying to pull him deeper, but he takes his time. his hands grip your hips, grounding you as he inches in further, every slow push making your body arch and your breath catch. “fuck—baby,” he chokes, eyes fluttering shut as he feels the way you clench around him. “you feel so good… so tight. taking me so perfectly.”

you can barely hold still. your fingers grip his lower back, your mouth falls open, and a moan tears from your throat, raw, needy, helpless. he leans down, chest brushing yours, and presses soft kisses along your collarbone, whispering into your skin between every word like a prayer. “you’re unreal. unreal, baby. fuck—”

your legs wrap around his waist instinctively, pulling him in further, and he groans deep and guttural, like he’s losing control. the last inch pushes in slow, your bodies finally fully connected, the heat between you almost unbearable. you both go still for a second, breath mingling, your hearts racing in sync. your walls flutter around him again, adjusting, and his forehead drops to yours. “you okay?” he breathes, voice wrecked, like it’s taking everything in him not to move.

you nod, eyes glazed. “so full,” you whisper. “feels so good.”

he groans softly, brushing a strand of hair from your face. “yeah? i’m gonna take care of you, pretty girl. i promise.”

and when he finally starts to move slowly, with deep thrusts that drag against your most sensitive spots, you swear you see stars. his hips roll into yours with precision, his body fitting against you like he was built for this, for you. every stroke hits just right, every whispered praise against your cheek making you melt further into the mattress.

“you’re doing so good,” he pants. “taking me so well. your fucking pussy feels so fucking good around my cock, baby.”

you reached for him with shaking hands, fingers sliding into his hair, pulling him up to meet your mouth in a hungry kiss. he groaned when your tongue slid against his, his body still trembling from the last time you came undone under him. but this time, you weren’t just going to take. you wanted to give back, to feel him fall apart for you too.

“lay back, hoon,” you whispered against his lips, voice still wrecked and sweet. “let me ride you.”

his eyes widened slightly, dark and heavy with heat, but he nodded, eager, desperate, completely at your mercy. he sank into the pillows, breath stuttering when you straddled his hips and reached between your bodies to guide him in. you both gasped at the stretch, the slick slide of him filling you again. but now it was your rhythm, your pace. slow at first, grounding yourself on his chest as you rocked your hips forward, letting him feel all of you. his hands gripped your thighs, mouth open in a silent moan as he looked up at you like he was watching something holy.

“fuck, baby,” he breathed. “you feel—jesus, you feel perfect.”

you rolled your hips again, a little faster, loving the way his voice cracked, the way his fingers dug deeper into your skin. his head fell back against the pillow, eyes fluttering shut, and you leaned down to kiss along his throat, his collarbone, your name falling from his lips like a prayer. “look at me, hoon,” you whispered, kissing the corner of his mouth. “wanna see your face when you fall apart.”

he did, eyes locking with yours, glassy and wild and reverent all at once. “keep going,” he begged, barely coherent. “just like that. you’re so good. keep riding me, baby. i’m not gonna last.”

you smiled, breathless, sweat-slicked skin sticking to his as you kept moving, kept grinding, kept giving him everything. and when his hips bucked up and he cried out your name like it was the only word he remembered, you knew you had him, ruined and wrecked and completely yours. “please, baby, i need,” he begged, barely coherent. “let me cum inside you, fuck— i need to fill you up, princess.”

you smiled and nodded, breathless, sweat-slicked skin sticking to his as you kept moving, grinding down on him with a rhythm that had both of you teetering on the edge. his hands roamed your body like he couldn’t get enough, gripping your hips, sliding up your sides, thumbs brushing over your ribs. like he needed to memorize you. “fuck, look at you,” he groaned, eyes locked on where your bodies met. “riding me so good. taking me so deep. this pussy was made for me, wasn’t it?”

you nodded, dazed, moaning as you bounced harder, chasing the high that was coiling tight in your belly again. and he didn’t stop talking, not for a second. “you feel that, baby? how tight you are around me? fuck, i’m losing it,” he breathed, voice rough and reverent. “you’re gonna make me cum inside you, such a good girl, fuck!”

you leaned down, kissed him hard, swallowing the broken sounds spilling from his mouth. he kissed you back like he needed it to breathe, tongue desperate, hands sliding up to cup your face. you were already there, his name falling from your lips like a prayer, body shaking from how deep he was hitting, how full he made you feel. and when you clenched around him again, when your orgasm hit with dizzying force, he lost it with you, hips stuttering, hands gripping your ass as he came with a strangled moan, burying his face in your neck while he filled you up.

you held each other, trembling, hearts racing. you were still catching your breath, chest heaving, skin slick with sweat, when he slid out of you, slow and careful, like he didn’t want to let you go just yet. you barely had time to whimper at the sudden emptiness before he was shifting, lying back against the pillows with a look in his eyes that made your stomach flip.

“come here,” he murmured, voice hoarse, one hand trailing down your spine. you blinked at him, legs weak, but then he grinned, lazy and wicked, and pulled you up gently by the hips. “wanna taste you like this,” he said, guiding you forward until your thighs were straddling his face. “wanna feel the mess you made all over me.”

your breath caught. “sunghoon—”

“shh,” he whispered, eyes dark and blown wide. “you’ve been so good for me. let me be good for you now.”

he didn’t wait for permission this time. his hands gripped your thighs and pulled you down onto his mouth like he’d been starving for it. his tongue was filthy, flat and firm and everywhere, licking you clean, then messy again, kissing and sucking and moaning against your skin like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

you cried out, hips rolling without thought, thighs trembling around his head. and he took it, wanted it, his fingers digging into your flesh as he held you steady. “fuck—sunghoon,” you gasped, one hand in his hair, the other braced on the headboard.

he groaned into you, the sound vibrating through your core. “that’s it, baby. ride my face. come on—fuckin’ use me.” 

your thighs shook harder with every swipe of his tongue, every slick, obscene noise echoing in the room, and when he closed his mouth around your clit and sucked just right, your whole body went rigid. and when he pressed his nose around your clit and held your hips and made you grind around his face, oh god, you lost it. “that’s it,” he murmured, breathless and soaked, licking you through it. “come all over my face, baby. let me feel you fall apart again.”

and you did again. and again. until your body gave out, and you collapsed into him, trembling, boneless, his arms around your waist, kissing your thighs like they were sacred.

“you’re unreal,” he whispered, voice thick with awe. “how the fuck did i get so lucky?”

his grip softened as he felt you tremble above him, and when you finally started to come down, your thighs still quivering around his face, he slowed. but his mouth didn’t stop. he kept kissing you with soft, kitten licks, gentle, rhythmic, like he was savoring every last drop of you. little hums vibrated against your skin as he pressed sweet, worshipful kisses between your folds, almost lazy now, like he was calming you down with his tongue.

you gasped softly, too sensitive, your hips twitching with every warm, delicate lick. “can’t get enough of you,” he whispered against your heat, nuzzling between your thighs. “you taste like heaven, baby.”

he let go of your waist just enough to guide you off him, helping you lie down on the mattress with shaky limbs. and then, slow, almost reverent, he climbed over you. he kissed your inner thighs first, lips soft and warm and open. then the swell of your hips, your stomach, your ribs. each kiss was slow and full of something deeper, like he was memorizing you now, not just your body but you, soaking in every inch.

“my pretty girl,” he murmured against your skin. “my favorite thing in the world.”

his mouth reached your chest, kissing over your heart, then up the column of your throat, slow and smiling. by the time he reached your lips again, your eyes were already fluttering shut, your body humming with warmth. he kissed you sweetly, lovingly. no rush. just the kind of kiss that said you’re mine, i’ve got you, i’m still here. and when you sighed into his mouth, your fingers tangling in his hair again, he whispered, “i want to make you so happy.”

you were both lying there, still breathing a little unevenly, not quite ready to move. the room was warm in that quiet, post-everything way. your leg was draped over his without thinking, one of his hands resting on your stomach, steady now, grounding. the other hovered in the space between your ribs and your hip, like he wanted to touch more of you but didn’t want to push anything too far than he already did. 

and sunghoon wasn’t staring on purpose, he just couldn’t stop looking at you. your hair was messy. your skin was warm. you had that look on your face like you were pretending to be calm but weren’t. and he couldn’t stop replaying the last hour in his head, not even the specifics, just the fact that it happened. it happened, you happened, with him.

you wanted him. he couldn’t believe it. because this wasn’t some almost. this wasn’t a flirty text or a maybe-lingered hug or a “did that mean something?” moment. this was real, it happened. you were here in his arms. naked. smiling. breathing slow. and the truth was — it was the best thing that had happened to him in a long, long time.

not just the sex. that was insane, amazing. unfair, honestly. but it was more than that. it was how close you let him be. it was the way you looked at him like he wasn’t just some guy. like you’d been waiting for him just as much as he’d been waiting for you. and he was trying to memorize it all. the heat of your skin under his hand. the curve of your smile when you caught him staring. the weight of your leg over his, like you weren’t planning to go anywhere.

you turned your head toward him, cheek pressed into the pillow, eyes still lazy and soft. “you’re staring.”

he blinked. “no i’m not.”

“you literally are.”

he swallowed, trying not to smile. “okay. yeah. but respectfully.”

you raised an eyebrow. “what does that even mean?”

“means i’m just... taking it all in,” he said, quieter now. “i don’t know. trying to make sure this wasn’t a dream or something.”

you didn’t laugh at that. you didn’t roll your eyes or change the subject. you just looked at him, and he looked at you, and for once, he didn’t say anything else. because for the first time in a long time, everything he wanted was already here. and he wasn’t gonna miss a single second of it.

so he shrugged, face somehow more relaxed than you’d ever seen it. “just means i’m admiring you without being weird about it.”

“you just called me your favorite thing in the world like five minutes ago.”

“and i meant it,” he said, no hesitation. “top tier. no notes.”

you smiled, then looked up at the ceiling. “this is weird.”

sunghoon blinked. “like... weird in a good way or weird like we should never do this again and i should move to another country?”

“no, dumbass.” you laughed. “like weird that this actually happened,” you said. “we’ve been circling each other forever and now we’ve crossed into, like, very naked territory.”

he turned onto his side to look at you properly, propping himself up on one elbow. “you say that like i wasn’t already fully in love with you the second you stole my last fry that one night.”

you laughed, soft and tired, and scooted closer. “you’re such a dumbass.”

“i contain multitudes,” he said, smiling.

you leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth, just because it was there. just because you could now. after a few quiet seconds, he added, “i also might’ve... rehearsed stuff. in my head. like this. this whole night. not, like, in a creepy way. just. i thought about it a lot.”

“how much is ‘a lot’?”

“you don’t wanna know.”

you looked at him, eyes narrowing. “sunghoon.”

“like... entire imaginary scenarios,” he said, face slightly red now, voice muffled as he dropped back onto the pillow. “dialogue included. you said very flattering things in my head, by the way.” you started laughing, trying to muffle it into his shoulder, and he groaned. “this is the worst post-sex confession in history.”

“no, this is peak you,” you said. “romantic and slightly unhinged.”

“you make me unhinged,” he muttered, then covered his face with one hand. “i’m never speaking again.”

you reached over, peeled his hand away, and kissed his cheek. “don’t worry. you already said everything right.” he went quiet after that, just looking at you again, softer now. less flirty. more like he couldn’t believe you were real. you held the look for a second, then nudged him again. “also, i still can’t believe your pokémon username is shadyhoon420.”

“why would you bring that up now,” he whispered, betrayed.

“because you just made me see god and now i’m ready enough to bully you again.”

he groaned again, dragging the blanket up over his face. you laughed and curled into his side anyway, and even though he was pretending to be dramatic, his arm pulled you in without hesitation. and that was how you stayed. warm, tangled, slightly wrecked, and fully, unapologetically into each other.

the week after was weird. not in a bad way, just different. like, sunghoon hadn’t really planned what came after sleeping with you. his brain had mostly stopped at oh my god it’s happening, and never got around to figuring out what do i do now that it did. turns out: what he did was text you every morning like he hadn’t just seen you eight hours ago. send you playlists like he hadn’t already made three for you. randomly show up with coffee and snacks like he wasn’t trying to see you again that night anyway.

he was down bad. and he wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore.

he came over two days later with your favorite ice cream. not because you asked, not even because you hinted. just because he passed a convenience store and thought, she likes that one with the caramel stuff, i should get that. you answered the door in pajama shorts and one sock, took the ice cream, kissed his cheek, and said “you’re so obsessed with me” like it was a joke, but he just said “yeah” and followed you inside like it was true. because it was.

he slept over again that night. and the night after that. and the one after that. and by monday, all his stuff was still technically at his place, but his phone charger, his cologne, and three pairs of socks had somehow migrated to your apartment. you made fun of him for the socks, and he said it was “for emergency purposes,” which didn’t even make sense, but you let it slide.

you, on the other hand, got more chaotic just in a very you way. you started kissing him in the middle of sentences. reaching under his hoodie in the middle of a movie. you’d say stuff like “should we go to bed?” with your hand already halfway down his back, and when he asked “to sleep?” you’d just grin and walk off like you’ll see.

you also started calling him ridiculous things in front of other people. “my man,” “baby,” “loverboy.” jay almost choked on his drink when you casually said “sunghoonie, pass me that” in the middle of a group hang. sunghoon blinked three times in a row and handed you the drink without speaking.

you were reckless with it. you sat in his lap at his apartment like it was a chair. held his hand in public. bit his earlobe once while he was trying to explain something about pokémon raids and ruined his entire train of thought. he was spiraling, but, like, happily.

he said “i like you” at least twice a day, sometimes for no reason. he told you your hair looked nice even when it didn’t. he got quieter whenever you wore his clothes but didn’t take them back. once, when you said “you’re kinda clingy now, huh,” he just said “yeah. sorry. can’t stop.”

you didn’t mind. you teased him constantly but kissed him just as much. called him ridiculous but curled into him every night. and when he said “i think i like this version of us,” you said “me too,” and kissed the corner of his mouth like you planned to stay that close for a while. maybe longer.

sunghoon had been thinking about asking you to be his proper girlfriend for, like, a week and a half. well, technically longer. emotionally since day one. but officially? yeah, one and a half weeks of pure, uninterrupted chaos in his brain. the problem wasn’t that he didn’t want to ask you. the problem was that he wanted it too much. he wanted to do it right. he wanted it to be special, but not cringe. romantic, but not too much. surprising, but not out of nowhere. he didn’t want to scare you. but he also didn’t want you to think he was casual about this. he wasn’t. he was emotionally unwell about it, actually.

so, naturally, he did the worst possible thing: he asked jay for advice.

they were at their place, sitting on the floor, jay had just beaten him at mario kart for the third time and was in his usual post-victory smug mode when sunghoon blurted out, “do you think now’s too soon to ask her to be my girlfriend?”

jay blinked. “you literally sleep over at her place more than your own.”

“i know, but, like... we haven’t said anything. there’s been no official label. it’s like... unofficially official.”

jay stared. “sunghoon. you watched her floss her teeth while you sat on the counter eating cereal and telling her she looked cute. it’s not unofficial.”

“yeah, but what if she thinks it’s too soon?”

“too soon for what? be so fucking for real, bro.”

sunghoon groaned and flopped backwards onto the floor. “i can’t just casually be like ‘hey do you wanna be my girlfriend’ while we’re ordering chicken nuggets or something.”

“why not?”

“because this is the most important relationship of my life and i want it to sound like i’m not twelve.”

jay, full of support and zero delicacy, said, “then don’t say it while you’re ordering chicken nuggets.”

sunghoon glared at the ceiling. “useless.”

still, he spent the next few days trying to figure it out. he made a mental list of possible locations. cafes were too noisy. your apartment was too... your apartment. the bar had too many witnesses. he considered writing it down. he considered saying it in a whisper and pretending it slipped out. he considered doing nothing and just dying instead.

then it happened on a wednesday. you were walking out of a little local bookstore you dragged him into, laughing at something he said, your hand linked with his like it belonged there. the woman behind the counter, older, smiley, had said, “you two are cute. your boyfriend’s so patient.”

you laughed, still flipping through the book you bought. “i know, right?”

you didn’t correct her. you did not correct her. sunghoon short-circuited for a solid five seconds. he tried to keep walking like a normal person, but his grip on your hand got a little tighter, and his brain was already in full meltdown mode.

boyfriend. she said boyfriend. and you didn’t say oh no, we’re not dating, or oh, we’re just hanging out, or he just follows me around like a sad dog. you agreed, you claimed him. it counts. it totally counts.

he waited a whole five minutes before blurting out, “so. about that boyfriend comment.”

you glanced up. “what about it?”

“you didn’t, like... correct her.”

you tilted your head. “should i have?”

he blinked. “i mean... no. no, not if you didn’t want to.”

“i didn’t,” you said simply.

sunghoon’s brain made a sound like dial-up internet for a second. he swallowed. “cool. yeah. just checking.”

you stopped walking and looked at him. “wait. is that— were you trying to ask me something just now?”

“what? no.” he paused. “yes. maybe.”

you smiled. “sunghoon.”

“okay, yes. yes,” he said, running a hand through his hair and suddenly regretting everything he’d ever said to jay. “i’ve been trying to ask you if you wanted to be my girlfriend for, like, ten business days. but i kept spiraling. and then you didn’t correct that lady and i had a full-body reaction.”

you laughed, leaning into him slightly. “you could’ve just asked me.”

“i know, but i like you so much that my brain stopped working and i didn’t want to mess it up.”

“you think calling me your ‘favorite thing in the world’ before asking me to date you wasn’t already kind of intense?”

“i blacked out that night. i don’t remember saying that.”

“you did.”

“okay. good. just making sure i’m consistent.”

you leaned in and kissed his cheek, still smiling. “sunghoon, obviously i want to be your girlfriend.”

he blinked. “really?”

“yes.”

he hesitated, eyes narrowing like he’d just remembered something haunting. “even after finding out that i was your sworn enemy on pokémon go for, like, four months?”

you started laughing immediately. “you mean when you admitted you were shadyhoon420, the gremlin who stole my gym every tuesday at 3 a.m.?”

“i was fighting for my honor,” he said, dead serious.

you grinned. “and now we’re dating. weird plot twist.”

he smiled, a little crooked. “great plot twist.”

you squeezed his hand again, leaned your head on his shoulder as you walked, and said, “don’t worry, boyfriend. i forgive your crimes.”

sunghoon was never recovering from being called “boyfriend” out loud. he almost tripped on the sidewalk. he grinned, slightly dazed, like someone who just won the lottery but doesn’t know where to cash it in. you grabbed his hand again and kept walking, like it was already decided. and honestly, it kind of was.

you ended up at his place that night. neither of you really said it out loud, but that was kind of the routine now. he still pretended he needed to “grab something” from his apartment just to have an excuse to follow you around his kitchen while you made popcorn. you still pretended to ask if you were staying over when you both knew your toothbrush had lived there for two weeks. he let you steal his hoodie again. you let him kiss you every time he walked past you, which was often, because he kept “forgetting things” in the living room. at some point you both crashed on the couch with your legs over his and his head resting against yours, some episode of how i met your mother playing in the background.

he was barely listening. you weren’t either. it was just there, familiar and comfortable. then, somewhere between the episode where ted steals the blue french horn and barney pretending to have a fake job at a bank, you turned to him and said, “you know what the best part of this is?”

“the popcorn?”

“okay, second best.”

“me?”

“third best.”

he laughed, nudged your knee with his. “okay, what’s the best part?”

you turned to face him fully, your chin resting on your hand now, your expression weirdly serious but also like you were holding back a laugh. “one day,” you said, “i’m gonna tell our kids this whole story. the gyms. the snacks. the pokémon betrayal. all of it.”

he blinked. “kids?”

“future,” you added quickly. “far future. relax. no one’s getting pregnant during a rerun of season three.”

“okay. just making sure.”

you grinned. “and when i tell them, i’m gonna look them in the eyes and say: and that, kids, is how i met sunghoon.”

he stared at you, then he burst out laughing, then he kissed you. and when he pulled back, smiling like he couldn’t help it, hoodie half falling off your shoulder, popcorn completely forgotten on the floor, he said, “you’re so annoying.”

you leaned into his side. “you’re obsessed with me.”

he kissed your forehead. “yeah,” he said. “i really, really am.”

and that was that. no big speech. no sweeping declarations. no fireworks or dramatic music or anything you’d write into a script. just two slightly ridiculous people, curled up on a too-small couch, limbs tangled in the kind of way that only happens when you’ve stopped pretending to need personal space, one of them wearing a hoodie that never belonged to them in the first place, both of them halfway through a rewatch of a sitcom about love and fate and timing, while very quietly, and maybe without fully realizing it, living proof of all those things was sitting right there beside them.

and that, kids… is how you met sunghoon.

author’s note: okayyyyy i wrote this as a little gift for my best friend aka my sister, and it’s actually the first time i’ve written for sunghoon since nicest guy (which feels kinda wild) andddd i’ve always loved how i met your mother!!! my fav show everrrr nd i wanted to write something that felt like that yk just full of funny warm happy momentssssss nothing too heavy, just soft and slow-burn feelings hehe i hope you enjoyed it as much as i loved writing it ♡

my masterlist // perma taglist: @rairaiblog @nqdirr @iyoonjh @saeris-world @jayparked @solonenova @izzyy-stuff

© all rights reserved @/heejamas — do not repost, copy, translate, or modify my works without explicit permission. these are works of fiction and are not meant to represent real-life actions, thoughts, or personalities of any public figures

[coriihanniee]

🎞️ 【 FILM 01 : THE FIFTH SET 】

SYNOPSIS : She lost everything to an injury that ended her tennis career before it began. He has everything she ever wanted—every trophy, every win, every dream she'll never live. For years, she hated him for it. But somewhere between resentment and admiration, between coaching from the shadows and watching him shine, the lines blurred. Now he's one match away from going pro, and she has to decide : can she watch him win and leave? Or will she finally admit that losing him hurts more than losing tennis ever did?

GENRES : Drama, Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Mutual Pining WARNINGS : chronic pain, career-ending injury, heavy angst, emotional breakdowns, grief/loss of identity, self-deprecating thoughts WORD COUNT : 17.3k words

DIRECTOR'S NOTE : First film to Lights, Camera, Action! LET'S GOOOOO!!! I'm so excited (and nervous...) for you all to read this🥹 Fun fact : I was partly inspired by 2521 for this story! Also, Sungho is SOOOO fine in these concept pics, he's my wife bro😝

MORE WORKS : navigation | bnd!masterlist

“You would've beaten me, wouldn't you?”

Two years too late for this question. It hangs in the air above the practice court while the sun bleeds into the chain-link fence, turning everything the colour of a wound that refuses to heal. You don't look at Sungho when you answer. You can't bear to see whatever expression he wears now, whether it's pity or curiosity or that careful gentleness he's adopted since you finally tore open the infected parts of yourself and showed him the rot underneath.

"Every single time."

Your voice doesn't waver. This, at least, remains certain in a world where certainty died the day your shoulder did. The girl you were at thirteen, before the injury, before the surgery that promised recovery but delivered chronic pain instead, before you learned that some doors close and lock and the hinges rust and no amount of wanting will ever pry them open again. She would have destroyed him. She would have loved every second of it too, the way you love things when you're young and unbroken and don't yet know that your body can betray you.

"I'm glad," he says.

You turn to stare at him, at this boy who has become your grief and your salvation in equal measure.

"You're glad?"

"That you still could." His knuckles have gone white against the racket handle, bloodless and stark. "Even if it's just in theory. Even if it only exists in the space between what was and what might have been."

FOUR YEARS EARLIER

The trophy case spans the entire wall of Lincoln Park High School's main corridor, and you notice it immediately because grief has taught you to seek out your own torture with the dedication of a penitent searching for splinters of the cross. Gold plaques catch the fluorescent lighting, each one engraved with achievements that should have been yours in another life, in the reality where your shoulder didn't explode at thirteen and leave you hollow. You stand there on the first day of high school, uniform still smelling like plastic packaging and new beginnings that feel like lies, and see his name repeated like a mantra, like a curse.

Park Sungho - Men's Singles Champion

Park Sungho - Regional Tournament Gold Medal

Park Sungho - Undefeated Season Record

On and on and on, an endless litany of everything you'll never be. Every trophy from the previous year belongs to him, this boy you've never met but already hate with an intensity that frightens you when you examine it in the dark hours before dawn. Your reflection in the glass shows a girl with hollow eyes and a chip on her shoulder the size of a tennis court, the size of all your dead dreams crystallized and mounted behind glass where you can't touch them, can't reclaim them, can only stare and remember and bleed internally.

"Impressive, right?"

The voice materializes beside you. A girl with a bright smile and a field hockey stick slung over her shoulder, oblivious to the violence of your silence. She follows your gaze to the trophy case with the easy admiration of someone who has never lost anything that mattered. "Park Sungho's a legend here. Apparently, scouts were already watching him in middle school. Can you imagine? He's probably going pro straight out of high school. My sister says he's the best player the school's ever produced."

Your throat closes. You manage a noncommittal hum and walk away before she can see your expression crumble into its component parts—rage, grief and envy so sharp it could draw blood. The old injury in your shoulder throbs. It always does when you're stressed, when you remember, when you see people achieving what you can't, a constant reminder of everything you lost at thirteen. You roll your shoulder absently, trying to ease the ache that no amount of physical therapy has ever truly fixed, that several different doctors have told you will never truly fix, that you'll carry until you die.

By lunchtime, you've heard his name fifteen times. By the end of the day, you've seen his face on four different posters congratulating him on last year's victories, his smile bright and uncomplicated in a manner yours hasn't been since before the injury. When you finally see him in person, surrounded by teammates in the cafeteria, laughing at someone's joke with an easy confidence that makes your chest constrict until you can't breathe, you understand this is going to be your life for the next four years.

Watching Park Sungho be everything you were supposed to be. Watching him breathe air that should have been yours.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

You avoid him religiously, with the fervor of someone avoiding the scene of their own death. It's not difficult at first, he's a year ahead, your schedules don't overlap except in the spaces between classes where you've learned to make yourself invisible, a ghost haunting the periphery of a life you should have lived. But Lincoln Park's campus is only so large, and he's everywhere. Walking to class, you pass posters advertising the tennis team's next match, his name at the top in bold letters. In the library, people whisper about his latest victory, their voices carrying across the silence, each word a small cut. Even your PE teacher mentions him once, talking about his dedication and athletic excellence while you sit on the sidelines, injury excuse note clutched in your fist until the paper goes damp with sweat and the ink starts to blur.

The worst part, the part that makes you want to claw at your own skin until you bleed : he's nice. He's genuinely and infuriatingly nice. He holds doors open for strangers who will never know his name. He helps underclassmen with their locker combinations, patient when they forget the numbers, never condescending. He volunteers to clean up after school events, stays late picking up trash when everyone else has gone home. You watch him from across rooms and hallways, this portrait of perfection rendered in flesh and bone, and the hatred festers like an infected wound, spreading poison through your veins until you can taste it.

It's not his fault. Logic tells you this during the long nights when sleep won't come and you lie in bed counting all the futures you'll never have. He didn't cause your injury, didn't steal your future directly from your hands. But logic has no place in grief this profound, in loss this totalizing, and every time you see him—laughing with his friends, effortlessly perfect, unbroken and whole—you're reminded of the girl you used to be. Confident, talented, destined for greatness. That girl died on a practice court at thirteen when she landed wrong after a serve, felt her shoulder pop, heard her coach scream her name, and spent the next year learning that some damage carves itself into bone and stays there, a permanent tenant in the house of your body.

Two months into your first year, he approaches you directly, and you feel your entire body go rigid with panic.

You're at your locker, shoving textbooks into your bag with more force than necessary, each movement sharp with barely contained rage at nothing and everything. His voice arrives from behind, friendly and uncertain. "Hey, you're in my calculus class, right?"

You freeze and turn slowly around, dread pooling in your stomach like cold water. Up close, Park Sungho stands taller than he looks from a distance, with kind eyes that haven't yet learned cruelty and an uncertain smile that makes you want to scream. He holds a textbook against his chest, and there's a small bandaid on his thumb—probably from tennis practice, from the sport that should have been yours, from blisters earned doing what you can't.

"No," you lie, and your voice emerges flat, affectless.

"Oh." He blinks innocently, confused that it makes your chest ache with misplaced guilt. "I could've sworn... you sit by the window, third row? You always take notes in blue ink."

He's noticed you. He's been paying attention, cataloging details about you while you've been nursing your hatred from across the room. The realization makes your skin crawl.

"You're mistaken."

"I'm pretty sure—"

"You're wrong." Your voice emerges harsh, sharp enough that he actually flinches, and you watch his expression shift from friendly to hurt. "I don't know you. Leave me alone."

You slam your locker shut, the metallic clang echoes down the hallway, and walk away, heart pounding violently against your ribs, each beat painful. Behind you, you hear his friend laugh nervously and say, "Well, that was brutal, man. What did you even do?" You don't hear Sungho's response, but you imagine it's confused, hurt, bewildered by your hostility. 

Good. 

Let him feel a fraction of the pain you carry every single day, the weight of it crushing your spine, making it hard to stand upright.

That night, you lie in bed staring at your ceiling where you used to have posters of your tennis idols, now bare and blank, and hate yourself for being cruel to someone who was only trying to be friendly. The guilt sits heavy on your chest, making it hard to breathe. However, you remember the trophy case, remember his name engraved on every award you once dreamed of winning, remember that he gets to play and you don't, and the guilt evaporates like water on summer concrete, leaving only the bitter residue of your resentment. He gets everything—the sport, the glory, the unbroken body, the future bright and certain. He doesn't get your kindness too. He doesn't get to collect you like another trophy.

SOPHOMORE YEAR - THE FIRST SET

The tennis courts are empty at 11pm on a Friday, which is exactly why you're here, why you've been coming here in the dead hours when no one else is around to witness your grief.

You've avoided this place for over a year, taking long detours between classes to keep from even glimpsing the green courts through the fence, the sight of them enough to make your chest constrict with phantom loss. But tonight, after a particularly brutal day, after watching Sungho accept another trophy at a school assembly, everyone applauding until your ears rang, the principal shaking his hand with paternal pride, your PE teacher beaming as if he'd created him himself, you found yourself walking here without conscious decision. Muscle memory leading you back to the scene of your death, the way trauma survivors return to the sites of their destruction, seeking closure that never comes.

Now you stand at the fence, fingers hooked through the chain-link until the metal bites into your skin, staring at the painted lines of the court that used to be your second home. Your old tennis ball sits heavy in your jacket pocket, worn smooth from years of anxious fidgeting, the felt matted and discoloured, a talisman of your dead dreams that you carry everywhere because letting it go would mean accepting that it's over, and you're not ready for that. You'll never be ready.

The court looks the same as it did that last day, before everything shattered. Same net bisecting the space, same service boxes with their clean white lines, same baseline where you used to practice your serves for hours until your shoulder ached in a good and productive way. The ache meaning that you were improving, getting stronger, becoming the player you were meant to be. Not like now, when your shoulder aches from simply existing, from the crime of waking up and having a body that betrayed you at such a young age and has been betraying you every day since.

"I thought you hated tennis."

You spin around, heart leaping into your throat, pulse suddenly frantic. Sungho stands a few feet away, tennis bag slung over his shoulder and racket in hand, still in practice clothes, slightly sweaty, regarding you with an expression you can't quite read, curious, concerned, cautious.

"I do," you say automatically, the lie smooth and practiced.

"Then why are you here?" He takes a step closer, and you resist the urge to back away, to run, to maintain the distance you've worked so hard to build. "It's eleven at night. The courts are locked. You're just... standing here."

"None of your business."

He takes another step closer, and you can see his face more clearly now in the dim glow of the parking lot lights bleeding through the fence. His eyes search your face like you're a complicated equation, one where all the variables keep changing and the solution remains frustratingly out of reach. "You've been avoiding me for over a year. You take different hallways when you see me coming. You sit in different sections of the library. You left a study group once when I showed up." He pauses, and there's hurt in his voice now, raw and unguarded. "Did I do something to you? Because if I did, I'm sorry, but I don't know what it was. I don't understand what I did wrong."

"You didn't do anything." The words taste bitter, like medicine you're forced to swallow, acrid on your tongue.

"Then why—"

"Because I hate that I can't play tennis!" The confession rips out of you before you can stop it, loud and raw in the quiet night, echoing across the empty courts. Your voice cracks, splinters. "I hate that you can and I can't. I hate that you're good at it. I hate watching you win. I hate your name on every trophy, in every conversation. I hate that everyone talks about you like you're some kind of god, like you invented the sport. I hate—"

Your voice breaks completely. Tears stream down your face now, hot and unstoppable, years of grief and rage spilling out like a wound finally opened after being left to fester. All the pain you've been carrying, compressing into a dense ball of misery in your chest, erupts with volcanic force, and Sungho stares at you with wide, shocked eyes that reflect the distant lights.

"I had a career-ending injury when I was thirteen," you continue, and now that you've started, the words won't stop coming, a hemorrhage of truth. "Middle school regional championships. I was the favourite to win. Everyone said so. My coach, the other players, even my opponents' parents. My serve was perfect that day, my footwork was flawless, and I was up in the first set. And then I landed wrong after a baseline return, and my shoulder just—it tore. Complete rotator cuff tear, plus nerve damage, plus complications they didn't find until months later. They did surgery, told my parents I'd recover, that I'd be back on the court within a year. But I never did. There's permanent damage. Chronic pain. Nerve impingement that flares up randomly. I can't play anymore. I can't serve, can't do overhead hits, I can barely lift my arm above my head on bad days. Some mornings I wake up and my shoulder is screaming and I haven't even moved yet."

You're gasping now, barely breathing between sobs that tear through your chest. "I was supposed to be you. Everyone said I'd go pro, that I had a real shot at being one of the best, that colleges were already watching me at thirteen. My coach called me a prodigy. My parents had started planning my future. Training schedules, tournament circuits, sponsorship deals. And then in one second, one wrong movement, it was all gone. Everything I worked for since I was six years old, everything I was, everything I thought I'd become—gone. Just... erased."

Sungho hasn't moved. His face has gone pale in the moonlight, his grip on his tennis bag slack. He looks stricken, gutted.

"So no, you didn't do anything wrong," you say, voice dropping to a whisper that carries more weight than a scream. "But you have everything I wanted. Everything I was supposed to have. You're living the life that was meant to be mine. And I know it's not your fault. I know that logically, rationally, but I can't look at you without feeling like I'm dying inside. It's like I'm watching someone wear my skin, live in my body, breathe my air. It's like I'm a ghost watching someone live my life."

Silence falls between you, broken only by your uneven breathing and the distant sound of traffic. The tennis ball in your pocket feels like a lead weight, an anchor dragging you down. You pull it out with shaking hands and stare at it. This artifact from another lifetime, physical evidence that you once existed as someone else.

"I'm sorry," Sungho finally says, and his voice sounds thick with emotion, wet. "I didn't know. I—God, I'm so sorry. That's—I can't even imagine—"

"Don't be." You wipe your face roughly with the back of your hand, but the tears keep coming. "Like I said, it's not your fault. You didn't injure me. You didn't steal my future. You're just... living yours. And I hate you for it even though I know I shouldn't. Even though it's irrational and unfair and you don't deserve my hatred. But it's there anyway, this poison I can't purge."

He sets his tennis bag down carefully, and moves closer until he stands right beside you at the fence, close enough that you can feel the warmth radiating from his body in the cool night air. "That's—I genuinely can't imagine losing tennis. If I couldn't play anymore, if someone told me tomorrow that I'd never hold a racket again, I don't know what I'd do. I don't know who I'd be."

"You'd survive," you say flatly, the truth stark and unadorned. "Because you'd have to. There's no other option. You either survive or you don't, and somehow your body keeps going even when you wish it wouldn't."

He looks at you, and you see understanding dawning in his eyes—not pity, thank god not pity, but genuine comprehension of the magnitude of your loss. Recognition that you've survived a death of sorts, that you're walking around with a corpse inside you. "Is that why you were so angry all those times I tried to talk to you, all those times you looked at me like you wanted me to disappear?"

"I wasn't angry." The distinction matters, needs to be understood. "I was grieving. I am grieving. Grief that looks like anger because anger is easier to hold than sorrow. Anger has teeth. Sorrow just hollows you out."

"I thought you just hated me. That I'd done something to offend you without realizing it."

"I did hate you. I do hate you." You pause, examining the truth, finding it more complicated than it was a year ago. "I don't know. It's all tangled up—the hate and the grief and the envy. I can't separate them anymore."

He's quiet for a long moment, both of you staring at the empty court bathed in moonlight, at the space where dreams go to die. "What position did you play?" 

You turn to stare at him, surprised by the question, by the genuine curiosity in his voice. "Why does it matter?"

"Because I want to know," he says simply, meeting your eyes. "Tell me about your tennis. Not the injury, the end, the surgery or the pain. Tell me about when you loved it. Tell me about who you were before."

You're hesitant at first, but out of instinct, you tell him about your first racket—bright pink, too big for your six year old hands, a birthday present you'd begged for after watching a Grand Slam on television. You tell him about learning to hit forehands in your backyard while your father fed you balls until sunset turned the sky orange, your mother calling you inside for dinner while you begged for just five more minutes, just one more shot. You tell him about your middle school coach who saw potential in you when you were just a clumsy eleven year old with decent hand-eye coordination and an obsessive need to improve. You tell him about the feeling of a perfect serve, that crystalline moment when the ball leaves your racket at exactly the right angle with exactly the right spin, when you know before it even crosses the net that it's going to be an ace, untouchable, yours.

You tell him about the competition nerves that made you throw up before matches, about the championship games where your hands shook so badly you could barely hold your racket, about the specific joy of winning a point off a shot you've practiced a thousand times, muscle memory transforming into art. You tell him about rivalries with girls whose names you've forgotten but whose playing styles you remember in vivid detail, about learning to read your opponents' body language, about the chess match that tennis becomes at higher levels.

He listens to every word, asks questions that show he understands the nuances, nods in recognition of feelings he's experienced himself. And for the first time in two years, talking about tennis doesn't feel like pressing on a bruise, doesn't feel like self-harm disguised as nostalgia. It feels like remembering someone you loved who died, honoring their memory instead of trying to forget they existed, speaking their name aloud instead of choking on the silence.

By the time you finish, it's past midnight. Sungho sits on the ground now, back against the fence, and you've somehow ended up beside him, close enough that your shoulders almost touch. Your face is probably a mess from crying, eyes swollen, nose red, cheeks splotchy, but he doesn't mention it, he doesn't look at you with pity or discomfort, just sits with you in your grief, bearing witness to it.

"You would've been incredible," he says quietly into the darkness.

"I was incredible." It's not arrogance, just a fact, a truth that deserves to be spoken. "For a thirteen years old, I was one of the best in the region. People knew my name. Coaches from prestigious academies had started calling my parents. I had a future."

"I wish I could've seen you play. I wish I could've competed against you."

"Yeah." You pull your knees to your chest, wrapping your arms around them, making yourself small. "Me too. I think about it sometimes. What would've happened if we'd met on opposite sides of a net instead of in a high school hallway. If you'd known me as a player instead of as... whatever I am now."

He doesn't try to offer comfort or false hope. He doesn't say it'll get better or that you'll find other passions or that everything happens for a reason, all the empty platitudes people have been feeding you for years that do nothing except make you want to scream. He just sits with you in your grief, letting it exist without trying to fix it, and somehow that's exactly what you need. To have your loss acknowledged without being minimized. To have someone say "that's terrible" instead of "but you're young, you have time to find something else."

When you finally stand to leave, joints stiff from sitting on cold concrete, he stands too. "Can I walk you home?"

You should say no. You should rebuild the walls you've just torn down, go back to hating him from a distance where it's safe, where he can't hurt you more than he already has by existing. But you're exhausted from crying, wrung out from confession, emptied of the rage that's been keeping you upright, and the thought of walking alone through dark streets while your shoulder throbs sounds unbearable.

"Okay."

The walk unfolds in comfortable quiet, the kind of silence that doesn't demand to be filled. When you reach your street, he stops at the corner, maintaining the boundary you haven't explicitly set but he seems to understand instinctively.

"Thanks for telling me," he says, hands shoved in his pockets, looking younger than usual. 

"Don't thank me. I basically unloaded two years of trauma on you without warning. I ambushed you with my grief."

"Still. I'm glad I know now. I'm glad I understand." He shifts his weight, nervous energy radiating off him. "I really am sorry that you lost it. That you have to watch other people play. That every match must be a reminder of what you can't have. That must be—I can't even imagine how you get through each day."

You nod, throat tight again with unshed tears that seem endless tonight, an inexhaustible supply. "Goodnight, Sungho."

"Goodnight."

You're halfway to your door when he calls out, voice carrying through the quiet suburban street. "Hey!"

You turn, finding him still standing under the streetlight, backlit and haloed.

"Your footwork." He's grinning slightly, nervous energy transmuting into tentative excitement. "You said your footwork was flawless. Mine isn't. Coach keeps telling me I'm sloppy when I move backwards, that I'm giving up too many easy points because my positioning is off. If you ever—I mean, you don't have to, obviously, but if you wanted to tell me how to fix it, I'd listen."

Your heart does a complicated flip in your chest, arrhythmic and painful, hope and terror tangled together until you can't distinguish one from the other. "You want tennis advice from me?"

"I want tennis advice from someone who was apparently one of the best at thirteen. Someone who understands the sport that it transcends just playing it." His smile is hopeful, genuine, unguarded that it makes your chest ache with feelings you don't want to examine. "So yeah. From you. If you're willing."

Again, you should say no. You should keep your distance, protect yourself from further pain, maintain the walls that have kept you safe. But there's a small, persistent part of you that misses talking about tennis more than it hates watching others play. A part that's been dormant for two years, smothered and suppressed, that's now stirring back to life with tentative, terrified hope. A part that remembers loving this sport before it broke you.

"Your footwork is sloppy when you're moving backwards because you're not pivoting on your outside foot," you say, and your voice is steadier than you expected. "You're trying to backpedal, which throws you off-balance and makes your return weaker. You need to turn your body, pivot, then move. Watch Federer's baseline defense if you don't believe me. Study how he never moves straight back. He's always turning, always maintaining his stance."

His grin widens into pure joy, unfiltered and bright enough to hurt. "So you have been watching my matches. I knew it."

"Shut up."

"You have! You know about my footwork, which means you've been paying attention to the specific mechanics of how I play, which means—"

"I said shut up, Park Sungho."

But you're smiling, just a little, the muscles in your face unfamiliar with the expression. And when you go inside, the grief feels less suffocating than it has in years. Not gone, it will never be gone, you understand that now, but bearable. For the first time in two years, the weight of it feels bearable, like perhaps you can carry it without being crushed. Like perhaps you can learn to live with this loss instead of just surviving it.

LATE SOPHOMORE YEAR - THE SECOND SET

It starts small, a comment after practice about his grip, offered when you happen to walk past the courts, not deliberately of course, you tell yourself, though you both know it's a lie. A suggestion about his serve toss, mentioned in passing in the hallway between classes, delivered quickly before you can second-guess yourself. He seeks you out in the library one afternoon, sliding into the seat across from you with his physics homework as a pretense, and asks about strategy for an upcoming match. You end up talking for forty minutes about court positioning and shot selection, about reading an opponent's patterns, about the mental game that separates good players from great ones, and when the librarian finally kicks you both out at closing, you realize you forgot to be miserable for almost an hour.

You don't mean for it to become a pattern, don't plan for these interactions to accumulate into regularity, but they do. Once a week becomes twice, then suddenly you're showing up to practices, standing at the fence, watching him play with a critical eye you haven't used since your own playing days, your analytical mind awakening from hibernation. At first, it hurts with the white-hot intensity of touching an open flame. Every swing he takes is a reminder of swings you can no longer make, every perfect serve is a ghost of serves you used to hit, every victorious point is a death you relive. But gradually, with the patience of ice melting in spring, the hurt transforms into engagement. Your brain, dormant for so long, awakens to the puzzle of tennis strategy again, finds satisfaction in problem-solving that doesn't require your broken body to cooperate.

You start to notice things others miss : his tendency to favor his forehand even when his backhand would be more effective, wasting energy with extra footwork instead of taking the simpler shot. His rushed serves when nervous, the toss getting faster and less consistent when the pressure mounts. How his concentration slips in the third set when fatigue sets in, when his body is tired and his mind starts wandering, leaving openings his opponent can exploit. You point these out with the clinical detachment of a doctor diagnosing symptoms, and he listens, he implements your suggestions with a dedication that surprises you, that makes you feel seen in a way you haven't since before the injury. His game improves noticeably, and you feel an unfamiliar pride that has nowhere to go, no outlet except the small smile you hide when he executes a shot exactly as you suggested.

"Your coach must love me," you tell him one afternoon, watching him practice serves that finally have consistent toss height.

"Probably." He bounces the ball, prepares his stance with the ritualistic precision of a player who's done this ten thousand times. "Or he's confused about why I'm suddenly better at things he's been trying to teach me for months. I think he suspects I have a secret weapon."

"You weren't listening to him. You listen to me."

"I listen to you," he agrees, and there's weight to the words that has nothing to do with tennis.

You ignore the flutter in your chest at those words, the dangerous warmth that spreads through your ribcage like water seeping through cracks. You can't afford to acknowledge what's building between you, can't afford to name it. "Again. Your toss is still too far forward. You're leaning into it instead of letting the toss work for you."

He adjusts, serves, and this time the ball hits exactly where he intended with satisfying precision, the sound of a clean ace distinct and clear. He turns to you with a triumphant smile that makes him look younger, less burdened, and you roll your eyes to hide your own satisfaction, fighting your own smile.

This is dangerous territory, and you know it. You're getting close to him, starting to see beyond the trophy winner you resented for so long, beyond the symbol he represented. He's funny, you discover—quick-witted that it catches you off guard, makes you laugh when you least expect it and thought you'd forgotten how. He does impressions of their physics teacher that are devastatingly accurate, makes puns that are terrible but still make you snort with laughter, finds absurdity in mundane situations. He's dedicated, spending hours on the court perfecting shots even after official practice ends, after everyone else has gone home, chasing perfection with an intensity you recognize in yourself, in who you used to be. He's thoughtful, remembering details about your life that you mention in passing.

And he's becoming your friend, which terrifies you more than anything else you've survived.

"Why are you helping me?" he asks one evening when you're walking home, another pattern that's developed without either of you acknowledging it, without agreeing it's something you do now. The question emerges out of nowhere, cutting through your comfortable conversation about his upcoming match against a notoriously defensive player.

"What do you mean?"

"You hated me for a year. You hated tennis, hated watching people play, hated everything about the sport. Now you're here almost every day, coaching me, spending hours analyzing my game." He glances at you sideways, vulnerability flickering across his features in the orange glow of streetlights. "Not that I'm complaining. I'm not. But... why? What changed?"

You're quiet for a long moment, trying to articulate feelings you don't fully understand yourself, emotions too complex to fit into easy explanations. "I missed it," you finally say, each word chosen carefully. “I missed talking about tennis and about the strategy. I missed being close to the sport, even if I can't play. I missed using my brain for what it was trained to do."

"Does it hurt watching me play?"

"Yes." You don't lie to him, have never lied to him about this. "Every single time."

He flinches like you've struck him, his steps faltering. "Then why—"

"But it also feels like I'm breathing again," you interrupt, needing him to understand this, to hear the whole truth. "I spent two years trying to cut tennis out of my life completely. I thought if I could just avoid it, stop caring about it, stop letting it define me, the grief would fade. I thought that I could starve it out through absence, but it didn't. The grief stayed just as sharp and constant, but I felt empty on top of it." You flex your shoulder absently, feeling the perpetual ache that never quite fades, your constant companion. "At least this way, I'm part of it again. Even if it's not how I planned. Even if it's through you instead of through me. At least I'm not completely cut off from something I love."

He's quiet, processing this, his footsteps slowing until you're both barely moving forward. "I mean this sincerely, but you're the best coach I've ever had, and I've had some good ones—people who played professionally, who trained other pros. But none of them see the game like you do."

"I'm not your coach."

"Whatever you want to call it, then. You're the best at it. You understand tennis in a way that goes beyond mechanics or strategy. You see the art in it."

You bump his shoulder with yours gently, always mindful of your injury, always conscious of your body's limitations. "Your actual coach might disagree. He's been doing this for twenty years."

"He can fight me. I'll defend your honor."

You laugh, surprised by how natural it feels, how easy, how the sound emerges without the weight of grief crushing it. When did this happen? When did Park Sungho become someone who makes you laugh instead of someone who makes you want to scream, to claw at your own skin, to rage at the universe for its unfairness?

The shift is gradual but undeniable, tectonic plates moving beneath the surface until the landscape is unrecognizable. You start sitting with his friends at lunch, people who've accepted your presence without question, who make space for you at their table, who include you in their jokes and their plans. You wear his team jacket once when it's cold and he offers it without thinking, and you don't miss how his eyes linger on you, how his gaze traces the lines of his jacket on your frame, or how his teammate elbows him with a knowing grin that makes his ears turn red. You attend matches officially now, not hiding in the back where you can slip away unnoticed, but sitting where he can see you, and you coach him through games with subtle hand signals you've developed together. A touch to your heart, a point to your temple, a specific gesture that means adjust your positioning. A language only the two of you speak, private and intimate in its specificity.

He plays better when you're there. Everyone notices. His coach mentions it, pulling you aside once to thank you for whatever you're doing because Sungho's game has improved dramatically. His teammates joke about it, calling you his lucky charm, his secret weapon, saying they should start a petition to make you official team staff. Sungho doesn't deny it, doesn't brush it off or laugh it away. He just looks at you with an expression that makes your stomach flip, that makes you understand you're in dangerous territory, that you're both walking towards a cliff edge neither of you can see clearly.

"You're my good luck charm," he tells you after a particularly close victory, still breathing hard from the match, sweat dampening his hair and making it stick to his forehead.

"That's superstitious nonsense."

"Maybe. But I play better when you're watching."

"That's psychological, not magical. Your brain associates my presence with positive reinforcement, so you perform better. Basic behavioural psychology."

"Does it matter? Either way, you're the reason." He grins, boyish and unguarded, and your heart does that complicated flip again where it forgets how to beat properly.

These moments pile up, building into tension neither of you acknowledges directly, a structure constructed from unspoken words and avoided eye contact. His hand brushing yours when he demonstrates a grip, his fingers lingering against your palm longer than necessary, warmth seeping between your skin. How he finds you in every crowd, eyes seeking yours before anyone else's, before his coach or his parents or his teammates. You're the first person he looks for, always. How he texts you late at night, conversations that start about tennis and drift into movies that made you cry, music that reminds you of childhood summers, dreams you've abandoned, fears you've never spoken aloud because giving them voice makes them more real. 

You learn that he's terrified of disappointing his parents, who've sacrificed so much for his tennis career, his mother's part-time job to pay for coaching, his father's weekend drives to tournaments hours away. That he wonders if tennis is what he wants or just what he's good at, whether he's chosen this path or if it's chosen him. That he thinks about quitting more often than anyone knows, that some mornings he wakes up and the thought of another practice makes him want to stay in bed, to pull the covers over his head and disappear. That the pressure of being "the best" feels like drowning slowly, water rising incrementally until he can barely breathe.

"You can't quit," you tell him firmly one evening, sitting on the bleachers after everyone else has left, the court lights casting long shadows. "You're too talented. You have too much potential."

"So were you."

"I didn't quit. I was forced to stop. There's a difference." The distinction matters, needs to be understood. "Quitting is a choice. Having your body fail you isn't."

"Is there though?" He's lying on the court now, staring up at the sky turning purple and gold with sunset, his racket beside him. "Either way, you're not playing anymore. The end result is the same—you're gone from the sport."

"But I would if I could." You sit beside him, close enough to feel the residual heat from his body, hugging your knees to your chest. "In a heartbeat without hesitation. If someone could fix my shoulder, make the pain stop, give me back what I lost—I'd be on a court tomorrow. You can play. You have this incredible gift, this opportunity that most people never get, that I'd give anything to have again. Don't waste it because you're tired or scared or unsure. Don't throw away what I'd kill to have back."

"Even if I'm miserable?"

"Are you miserable?"

He turns his head to look at you, and his expression is complicated, layered with emotions you can't quite parse, exhaustion, frustration and affection all tangled together. "Not when you're here. When you're watching, when we talk about tennis, when I execute a shot you suggested, I remember why I loved this. Before the pressure, before the expectations, before everyone started watching. You make it feel like mine again."

Your breath catches in your throat, stutters and stops. This is dangerous. This is crossing a line you've been carefully avoiding, staying on the safe side of feelings that could destroy you both. "Sungho—"

"I know." He sits up quickly, too quickly, motion sharp with panic. "Sorry. Forget I said that. I shouldn't have—"

"No, I—" You don't know how to finish the sentence. You don't know how to articulate the complicated tangle of feelings in your chest, gratitude, terror and affection that's growing into something larger, something you can't control. So you just sit there in the fading light, both of you carefully not looking at each other, carefully not acknowledging what's building between you, both pretending you don't notice how everything is shifting into territory neither of you knows how to navigate.

But you can't unknow what you've just learned. You can't unhear his confession, and you're both pretending you don't notice how everything between you is changing, crystallizing into something that demands to be named, but neither of you has the courage to speak it aloud.

JUNIOR YEAR - THE THIRD SET 

The unspoken thing between you grows teeth, grows claws, becomes something living and dangerous that prowls between you both.

It's in every touch that lasts a heartbeat too long. His hand on your lower back as he guides you through a crowd after a match, warm, possessive and careful. Your fingers adjusting his grip on the racket handle and lingering there, tracing the calluses on his palm that mirror the ones you used to have, the ones that have softened in the years since you stopped playing. The brush of his shoulder against yours when you sit too close in the library, studying at the same table, your physics homework forgotten as you both pretend to focus on anything except the electricity crackling in the air between you.

He watches you when he thinks you're not looking, you catch him sometimes in your peripheral vision, his gaze intense and unguarded, studying your profile like he's trying to memorize it, to commit every detail to memory. And you watch him right back, cataloging the details of his face when his attention is elsewhere : the concentration between his eyebrows when he's thinking through a problem, the curve of his mouth when he's trying not to smile, the way his hair falls into his eyes when he's been running his hands through it in frustration.

The late-night texts that make your heart race, messages that have nothing to do with tennis and everything to do with knowing someone, knowing them down to the vulnerable parts they don't show anyone else, the soft underbelly they keep hidden from the world.

“I can't sleep.” He texts at 2am on a random Tuesday, and your phone lights up your dark room like a beacon.

“I keep thinking about regionals next month. What if I choke? What if I've peaked and this is as good as I get?”

“You'll do fine.” you respond, already awake because sleep has been elusive lately, your mind too full of thoughts you can't quiet. “You're more than ready.”

“Will you be there?”

“Where else would I be?”

There's a long pause. You watch the typing indicator appear and disappear three times, each appearance making your pulse spike, before his message finally arrives : “Sometimes I worry you'll realize you don't need to do this anymore. That watching me play just hurts and doesn't help. That you're better off cutting tennis out of your life completely, including me.”

You type “It helps”, then delete it. Type “It hurts”, then delete that too. Finally, you type : “I'll be there. I promise. You're not getting rid of me that easily.”

His response is immediate : “Okay, good. I need you there. I need you.”

You stare at those words—I need you—and your chest feels too small for your heart, like your ribcage might crack open from the pressure, like your sternum might split down the middle and expose all the vulnerable parts you've been protecting. You don't know how to respond, don't know what to say that won't reveal too much, so you just send back a simple “I know”, and hope he understands everything you can't say.

At school, people have stopped asking what you are to each other. They've created their own narratives without needing your input : you're dating, you're "complicated," you're childhood friends (false, but whatever version of your story they've invented seems to satisfy their curiosity). His teammates have accepted you as a fixture, automatic and unquestioned, saving you a seat at team dinners, including you in group chats about weekend plans, texting you directly when Sungho is being stubborn about something and they need backup to convince him. Your friends are less subtle about their observations.

“So, you and Sungho,” your best friend says, giving you a look over her sandwich. Across the cafeteria, he’s laughing with his teammates, his eyes crinkling that it makes your chest tighten.

“We’re friends,” you say quickly.

“Friends,” she echoes, raising a brow. “Friends who look at each other like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re both trying to breathe underwater and the other person’s the only air you’ve got,” she says, leaning back. “Honestly, the rest of us could vanish and you wouldn’t even notice.”

You have no response to that, because she's right. She's devastatingly, terrifyingly right. You are drowning, in feelings you never meant to develop, in the impossibility of your situation, in the knowledge that caring about Sungho means caring about his tennis, which means watching him succeed at the sport you'll never play again, which means watching him achieve everything you wanted while you stand on the sidelines forever. A ghost haunting her own unlived life, bearing witness to someone else's dreams manifesting while yours rot underground.

The physical proximity increases with the recklessness of people who know they're playing with fire but can't seem to stop. You demonstrate footwork despite your injury, showing him how to pivot properly during a particularly stubborn coaching session, and he watches your feet with intense concentration. Your shoulder aches from the movement but worse now, pain radiating down your arm in hot waves, and you try to hide your wince, biting the inside of your cheek until you taste iron, until the pain in your mouth distracts from the pain in your shoulder. Unfortunately, he notices. Of course he notices. He's been learning to read you for months, cataloging your tells.

"Stop," he says immediately, hand coming to your bad shoulder with infinite gentleness, his palm warm through your shirt. "Don't hurt yourself for me. It's not worth it."

"I'm fine."

"You're not. You're in pain. I can see it in your face and how you're holding yourself."

"I'm always in pain." The admission slips out before you can stop it, raw and honest, a truth you've always tried to keep carefully hidden. "This is just how it is now. Constant ache, worse when I'm stressed or when the weather changes or when I do too much, which is pathetic, considering 'too much' is apparently demonstrating basic footwork for thirty seconds."

His hand is still on your shoulder, thumb rubbing small circles that somehow ease the tension coiled beneath your skin, that make the pain recede slightly. "I hate that. I hate that you hurt all the time and there's nothing I can do to fix it."

"Join the club. I've hated it for four years."

"No, I mean—" He stops, frustrated with his inability to articulate what he means, words failing him. "You shouldn't have to hurt just to help me. You shouldn't have to sacrifice your body's comfort for my improvement. It's not fair to you."

"This is the only way I get to play anymore," you say quietly, echoing words from months ago that feel even more true now, that have settled into your bones as truth. "Through you. Through coaching you, watching you, helping you improve. So yeah, it hurts, but it's worth it. It's the only way I get to stay connected to tennis, to the sport I loved before it broke me. You're my access point."

His eyes search yours, and there's a charged moment where neither of you breathes, where the air between you feels electric with possibility, heavy with all the things you're not saying. His hand slides from your shoulder to your neck, fingers curling against your skin with possession that should frighten you but doesn't, and you lean into the touch without thinking, without permission from your rational brain, your body betraying you by seeking comfort you shouldn't want, shouldn't need. His gaze drops to your mouth. You could close the distance so easily, just tilt forward slightly, eliminate the inches between you and finally, finally—

"Sungho! Coach wants you!" A teammate's shout shatters the moment like glass hitting concrete, sharp and irreversible.

You step back quickly, breaking contact, cold air rushing in where his warmth was. Sungho drops his hand, looking dazed, pupils blown wide, breathing uneven. "I should—"

"Yeah. Go."

He doesn't move immediately, just stands there staring at you like he's trying to memorize your face, like he's afraid you'll disappear if he looks away. "Later?"

"Later," you confirm, voice steadier than you feel, and he finally jogs away, glancing back twice, three times, four times, until you turn away first because you can't bear to keep looking, can't bear the weight of wanting him.

These almost-moments become your new pattern, your new normal, accumulating like snow building towards an avalanche. After a victory, he lifts you in a hug that lasts too long, face buried in your neck, breathing you in like you're oxygen and he's been suffocating. Walking home, your hands brush and he catches your pinky with his, the smallest form of holding hands, so subtle no one else would notice but it burns through you like wildfire, heat spreading up your arm and into your chest. Studying together in the library, he falls asleep on your shoulder and you let him stay there for an hour, barely breathing, savoring the weight of him and the trust implicit in the gesture, the vulnerability of sleep.

But neither of you crosses the final line. Neither says the words building in your throats, pressing against your teeth every time you're together, demanding to be spoken. Because saying them would make this real, would force you both to confront the impossibility of your situation, to acknowledge what you're both desperately trying to ignore.

He's going places. Scouts from universities are already contacting him, leaving voicemails for his parents, sending glossy brochures in the mail. Professional coaches expressing interest in taking him on after high school, people who've trained Grand Slam champions, who see in him the potential for greatness. His future is bright, certain and filled with tennis courts around the world, filled with championships, trophies and everything you once wanted for yourself. And you're—

You're the girl who lost tennis. You, who can barely lift her arm above her head without pain shooting down to your fingertips like lightning. Whose future is uncertain and small in comparison, bounded by the limitations of your injury, by the reality that you'll never be more than you are right now, that your body has imposed a ceiling on your potential that you'll never break through.

What could you possibly offer him except holding him back? Except being dead weight he has to carry?

So you continue to stay silent, and so does he. The unspoken thing between you grows and grows until it takes up all the air in every room you share, until you're both suffocating on words you can't say, drowning in feelings you can't acknowledge, dying slowly from the pressure of not speaking.

SENIOR YEAR - THE FOURTH SET 

The beginning of senior year brings college scouts to every match, and the tension around Sungho ratchets up to unbearable levels, pressure so intense you can see it crushing him.

He's on every recruiter's list, courted by multiple Division I schools competing for his commitment, coaches calling his house during dinner, his email inbox flooded with recruitment messages. Professional coaches attend his matches with clipboards and serious expressions, evaluating his potential for the tour, discussing him like he's a commodity, an investment, a product to be developed and marketed. The pressure is immense, a weight you can see crushing him physically, in the tightness around his eyes that never quite fades even when he smiles, in how he obsesses over every small mistake until you want to shake him, in how he practices until his hands bleed and you have to literally force him to stop before he injures himself, before he ruins his future through overtraining.

You're there for all of it. Every match, every practice, every moment of doubt that crashes over him like a wave trying to drag him under. The signals between you have evolved into a complete language now, sophisticated and subtle enough that even his coach doesn't catch them all : a touch to your heart means breathe, center yourself, you've got this. Hand on your temple means think, don't just react, use your brain not just your body. A pointed look at the court means focus, stop looking at me and play, this is your moment.

After he wins a crucial match that has four scouts in attendance, all taking notes, all watching him with calculating eyes, he finds you in the crowd and mouths something. It looks like I love you. Or maybe I need you. Or maybe I can't do this without you. Or maybe you're just seeing what you want to see, projecting your own feelings onto his lips, constructing meaning where there is none.

You can't be certain. You don't let yourself be certain. Because if he said it, even silently, even in the heat of victory when adrenaline makes people say things they don't mean, then you have to acknowledge what's been building between you for two years. And acknowledging it means confronting the inevitable end, means looking directly at the cliff you're both walking towards.

"We need to talk about next year," his teammate corners you one afternoon while Sungho is doing an interview with a sports reporter from the local paper, answering questions about his future with practiced diplomatic non-answers.

"What about it?"

"He's going to Stanford. Full ride, basically guaranteed. Their tennis program is one of the best in the country." He says this like you don't already know, like you haven't been tracking Sungho's opportunities with the same intensity you once tracked your own tournament rankings, monitoring his future with the attention of someone watching a train approach.

"I know."

"Stanford's in California. It's on the other side of the country."

"I'm aware of basic geography, thanks." Your voice comes out sharper than intended, defensive.

"I'm just saying—" The teammate looks at you meaningfully, with an expression that's half concern and half warning, his eyes too knowing. "Long distance is hard. Especially when one person is at a top athletic program with constant travel and the other is... wherever you'll be. Whatever you'll be doing, and he's going to have opportunities—other people, other options, a whole new life."

"We're not dating," you say automatically, the lie familiar on your tongue now, smooth and practiced from repetition.

"Right… and I'm the Pope." He shakes his head, clearly not buying it, his skepticism obvious. "Look, I like you. We all do. You're good for him, you make him better. But Sungho's got a real shot at going pro. He needs to focus, stay committed, keep his head in the game. A complicated relationship situation isn't going to help. Divided attention could ruin him."

"Then it's good we're not in a relationship."

"You're in something," he insists, and there's frustration in his voice now, urgency. "And when he has to choose between tennis and you, it's going to destroy him. So maybe... figure out what you're doing before it gets to that point. Before he has to make a choice that breaks him either way."

He walks away, leaving you with a gnawing anxiety that doesn't fade for days, that settles in your stomach like stones, weighing you down. You hate that he's right. You and Sungho exist in this undefined space that can't last forever, this liminal zone between friendship and more. Eventually, you'll have to name it or end it, and neither option feels survivable. Naming it means admitting you're in love with him, which means admitting you'll lose him. Ending it means cutting him out of your life, which means losing tennis again, losing the only connection you have to the sport you loved.

Either way, you lose. You've been losing since you were thirteen, and apparently, you haven't hit bottom yet.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

The week before Nationals is brutal that it transcends physical exhaustion, that moves into psychological territory where the mind starts cannibalizing itself.

Sungho is practicing constantly, barely sleeping. You know because he texts you at 3am or 4am, messages that are just streams of consciousness about his fears and doubts. He's running himself into the ground trying to be perfect, chasing an impossible standard that retreats further with every step he takes towards it. You're there as much as possible, but the tension between you is excruciating, a taut wire ready to snap at any moment, humming with dangerous frequency. Every moment feels borrowed, stolen from the inevitable future where he's gone and you're here, separated by distance, dreams and all the things you want but can't have.

Two days before the match, he misses five serves in a row and throws his racket across the court in frustration, the clatter of metal against concrete sharp and violent. You've never seen him do that before. He's always so controlled, so composed, keeping his emotions carefully contained even in defeat.

"What's wrong with you today?" you call from the fence, trying to keep your voice steady, trying to sound like a coach instead of someone who's terrified for him.

"Nothing. I just—" He stops, looks at you with exhausted eyes, dark circles prominent beneath them like bruises, like someone's beaten him. "I can't focus. My brain won't stop spinning."

"Then take a break. Your body needs rest."

"I can't. Nationals are in two days and I'm playing like garbage. It’s like I've never held a racket before."

You climb over the fence, not gracefully, your shoulder protests the movement with a sharp spike of pain that makes you gasp, and walk onto the court, each step deliberate. "You're playing like garbage because you're exhausted, stressed and you've been practicing for eight hours a day. Your body needs rest before it breaks down completely."

"I need to practice. I need to be perfect."

"You need to stop." You take the racket from his hands despite his weak protest, setting it down on the bench with finality. "Sungho, you're more than prepared. You're beyond prepared. You've been training for this your entire life. Two more days of obsessive practice won't make you better. It'll just burn you out before the match even starts. It'll destroy you before you step on the court."

He slumps onto the bench, head in his hands, shoulders hunched in defeat, his entire body curving inwards. "I keep thinking about everything that could go wrong. Every possible way I could fail."

You sit beside him, sharing warmth in the cooling evening air, the sun setting somewhere behind the trees. "What are you afraid of? Tell me."

"I’m afraid of choking in front of the scouts, losing and disappointing everyone who's believed in me, of proving I'm not as good as everyone thinks. I’m—" His voice trembles, almost lost to the air, so quiet you have to lean in to hear. "I’m afraid of winning and having to leave. I’m afraid of achieving everything I've worked for and losing you in the process. The victory would just taste like ash because you're not there to share it."

Your throat tightens, constricts until breathing becomes difficult, until each breath is a conscious effort. "You're not going to choke. You're too good for that, too prepared."

"How do you know? How can you possibly know that?"

"Because I've watched you play for three years. I've seen you under pressure that would break other players, seen you come back from impossible deficits when everyone else had written you off, seen you win matches you should have lost through sheer determination." You bump his shoulder gently with yours. "And I saw a lot of talented players before my injury, back when I was competing in regional circuits, back when I was studying the competition. You're one of the most talented players I've ever seen. You have something most players never develop, the ability to think strategically under pressure, to adapt in real-time, to see the game several shots ahead."

He turns to look at you, and the vulnerability in his expression makes your chest ache with the need to hold him, to promise him everything will be okay even though you know it won't, even though you both know nothing about this is okay. "I don't want to leave you. The thought of being in California while you're here makes me feel sick."

"I know."

"Every time I think about Stanford, about going pro, about any of it… all I can think is that you won't be there. That I'll be achieving my dreams alone. What's the point? What's the point of any of it if I can't share it with you?"

"The point is tennis," you say firmly, grabbing his hand and squeezing hard enough that it must hurt but he doesn't pull away. "The point is becoming the best player you can be. The point is living the dream that most people never get close to achieving, that I'll never achieve. The point is honoring the gift you've been given."

"But you—"

"I'll be fine." The lie tastes bitter, acrid on your tongue, corrosive, but you say it anyway because he needs to hear it, because he needs permission to leave. "We'll figure it out. We could do video calls, whatever we need to do. We'll make it work somehow."

"You really think we can make it work?" There's desperate hope in his voice, childlike in its naked need for reassurance.

You want to say yes. You want to promise him that distance won't matter, that your feelings are strong enough to survive the separation, time zones and the inevitable growing apart that happens when two people live completely different lives in completely different worlds. But you've never lied to him about tennis, never sugarcoated the truth when it comes to the sport, and you won't start lying about this either. You won't give him false hope that will make leaving harder.

"I think we have to try," you say instead, each word carefully chosen, honest in its uncertainty. "Because the alternative—you giving up tennis, you resenting me for the rest of your life—isn't an option. That path leads to you hating me, and I couldn't survive that."

He leans his head on your shoulder, and you rest your cheek against his hair, breathing in the familiar scent of his shampoo mixed with sweat. You sit like that for a long time, watching the sun set over the empty court, the sky turning shades of orange, purple and deep blue, painting the world in temporary beauty. Both of you trying to memorize this moment before everything changes forever, before the future arrives and splits you apart.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

You're at his house, ostensibly helping him do final preparations. Except he's not preparing, he's staring at you while you organize his tournament bag, watching you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle with awareness, checking that he has enough grips, water bottles and the specific brand of energy bars he likes, the ones that don't upset his stomach during long matches.

"You're not even paying attention," you say without looking up, feeling his gaze on you.

"I'm paying attention."

"To me, not to what I'm saying about your pre-match routine or the checklist we made."

"Same thing. You are my pre-match routine."

You finally look at him, exasperated, fond and terrified all at once. "Sungho—"

"Come with me tomorrow." The words tumble out in a rush, desperate and unplanned, breaking the careful script you've both been following. "Not just to watch. Come with me to Stanford. You could apply there. We could figure it out together. Or apply anywhere in California. Just... come with me. Please."

"Stop." You set down the tennis bag, heart breaking into sharp pieces that cut you from the inside, that pierce your lungs and make breathing agony. "You know I can't do that."

"Why not? Give me one good reason."

"Because I need to figure out my own life. My own future. My own identity separate from tennis." The words come out steadier than you feel. "I can't just follow you around the country, living vicariously through your tennis career. I'd lose myself completely. I'd become nothing but an appendage to you, defined entirely by your success."

"That's not what I meant—"

"Really?" You're not angry, just tired, so incredibly tired of this circular conversation you've been having in your head for months. "Sungho, I love—" You stop, the words catching in your throat like broken glass, like shards that will cut you if you speak them. You were about to say I love you, but you can't. Saying it would make leaving impossible, would make the future unbearable. "I care about you, so much it terrifies me. But I have to build a life that isn't defined by tennis or by what I lost. And if I follow you, if I spend every day watching you play, watching you achieve everything I wanted, I'll never heal. I'll just be that girl who lost her dream, desperately clinging to someone else's, living through you like a parasite."

His face crumples, and you watch the realization crash over him like a wave, cold and clarifying. "I didn't think about it like that. I was being selfish."

"I know you didn't. You're not trying to hurt me. You're trying to keep me and hold on to what we have." You move closer, take his hands in yours, feeling them tremble slightly. "But keeping me means letting me go. You need to let me build something that's mine."

"That doesn't make sense."

"It doesn't have to make sense." You squeeze his hands, trying to transfer strength you don't feel. "If you hold too tight, you'll crush what you're trying to protect. You have to open your hands and trust I'll stay."

He pulls you into a hug, crushing you against his chest hard enough that your ribs ache, hard enough that you can feel every rapid beat of his heart. "I don't know how to do this without you. I don't know how to be on a court without looking for you in the stands."

"Yes, you do. You were winning matches before me."

"But I wasn't happy. Tennis was just pressure, expectations and trying to meet everyone else's standards. It wasn't mine."

The confession breaks you, shatters whatever defenses you've been maintaining. You pull back to look at him, and his eyes are red-rimmed, shining with unshed tears that threaten to spill over. "Sungho—"

"These past few years, coaching with you, watching you fall back in love with tennis, spending every day with you, I've never been happier. Tennis doesn't mean anything without you there. The victories are hollow. The improvement is pointless. Without you watching, without you caring, what's the point?"

"That's not true—"

"It is for me." He cups your face with both hands, holding you like you might shatter if he lets go. "You made me fall in love with tennis again. Before you, it was just a checklist of achievements, just a path I was following because everyone expected it. But you reminded me why it's beautiful. Why it's worth the work. You gave me back the joy of it."

You're crying now, tears streaming down your face in hot tracks that you can't stop. "Then take that with you tomorrow. Take that love and play the best match of your life. And when you win—because you will win, I know you will—remember that you did it, not me. You. Your talent, your hard work, your dedication."

"We did it," he insists, stubborn even now, even when you're trying to give him permission to leave. "Everything I've become, you helped build too."

He leans forward, and for one heart-stopping moment, you think he's going to kiss you. His lips hover over yours that you can feel his breath on your skin, warm and unsteady, and you could close the gap so easily, just tilt forward a fraction of an inch. But you don't, and neither does he. Because kissing would be a promise you can't keep, a beginning that's actually an ending disguised, a moment of happiness that would make the separation unbearable.

Instead, he presses his forehead to yours, and you stand there breathing each other in, as close as you've ever been while remaining impossibly far apart, separated by futures that don't align, by dreams that pull in opposite directions, by the fundamental incompatibility of what you both need.

"I should go," you finally say, voice barely audible, scraped raw. "You need to rest before tomorrow. You need sleep."

"Stay." The word is soft, pleading.

"Sungho—"

"Just a little longer. Please. Just give me a little more time."

You let out a quiet sigh but stay where you are. You lie on his bed, fully clothed, while he curls around you like he's trying to memorize the shape of you, to imprint the feeling of your body against his into permanent memory. His hand finds yours, fingers intertwining, and you hold on like he's the only solid thing in a world that's crumbling beneath your feet, like he's an anchor in a storm that's about to sweep you away.

"I'm scared," he admits quietly into the darkness, his breath warm against your neck.

"Of the match?"

"Of losing you. Of winning and having to choose. Of everything changing tomorrow and never being able to go back." His voice cracks, breaks. "Of waking up in California in a few months and realizing this was all a dream, that you were never really mine."

"Change is terrifying," you agree, squeezing his hand tighter, until your fingers ache. "But you're going to be incredible. You're going to do things I only dreamed of. Things that will take you so far beyond this moment, beyond this town, beyond me. And I'm going to—" Your voice cracks. "I'm going to be so proud of you. So, so proud I won't have words for it."

"Will you be there tomorrow?"

Here it is. The question you've been dreading, the one that's been sitting heavy in your chest for weeks, pressing on your lungs until breathing hurts. Because you don't know if you can do it—sit in those stands and watch him win the match that will take him away from you. You don't know if you can survive watching him achieve everything you wanted while knowing you'll lose him in the process, watch the future arrive and destroy what you have.

"I don't know," you whisper into the darkness, honesty the only gift you can give him. "I want to be. I want to be strong enough. But I don't know if I can watch you leave."

He doesn't argue or try to convince you. He just holds you tighter, and you fall asleep in his arms, stealing a few more hours before everything falls apart, before the future crashes down and buries you both.

When you wake up at dawn, gray light filtering through the curtains like watercolour, you slip out quietly. He's still sleeping, face finally peaceful after weeks, the worry lines smoothed from his forehead, looking young and untroubled. You write a note—Good luck. You've got this. You're ready.—and leave it on his nightstand where he'll see it first thing, where it will be the first words he reads.

By the time you reach home, the weight settles in. You don’t know how to do this—how to watch him win, how to let him go, how to keep breathing through it all.

NATIONALS DAY - THE FIFTH SET

You don't go to the match. You can't. Instead, you're at the old tennis court where he found you two years ago, sitting on the ground with your back against the fence, phone clutched in your hand like a lifeline, like it's the only thing keeping you tethered to reality.

The match is being livestreamed. You told yourself you wouldn't watch, swore you'd stay away from your phone entirely, that you'd spend the day anywhere but here thinking about anything but tennis. But you can't help checking the score every few minutes, refreshing the page compulsively, watching the numbers change.

Sungho is losing badly. He's down two sets to none, his play is sloppy and unfocused, and according to the commentary you can't stop yourself from reading, he looks completely lost out there. Your phone buzzes with texts from his teammates :

Where are you?

He's falling apart.

He keeps looking for you in the stands.

Please come. He needs you.

Each message is a knife to your heart, sharp and precise, cutting deeper with each notification. You did this. Your absence is costing him the most important match of his life. Your cowardice is destroying his future. You're the reason he's losing, the reason his dream is slipping away.

But going would cost you everything. Watching him win means watching him leave, it means sitting there while he achieves his dream and simultaneously destroys yours by leaving you behind. You've spent four years trying to survive losing tennis. You don't know if you can survive losing him too. You don't know if there's enough of you left to lose.

Your phone rings, shattering the quiet. It's his best friend from the team.

"Where the hell are you?" he demands without preamble, voice sharp with panic and anger.

"I can't—"

"He's dying out there. I've never seen him play this badly. He's giving up. He keeps searching the crowd, and when he doesn't find you, he just—he's giving up. We're watching his future die."

"I can't watch him leave," you say, and your voice is wrecked, barely recognizable, scraped raw. "Don't you understand? If he wins, he's gone. He's going to Stanford, going pro, going everywhere I can't follow. And I'll be here, still broken, still unable to play, watching him live my dream from thousands of miles away while I rot in this town."

"So you're going to let him lose?" His voice is sharp, cutting through your defenses like a scalpel. "Let him throw away his future because you're too scared to show up? Let him fail because you can't handle watching him succeed?"

"That's not fair—"

"You told him once what it felt like to lose tennis,” he says, voice cutting through your silence. “It gutted you and left you empty, you didn’t know who you were without it.” His voice is relentless, refusing to let you hide. "And now you're going to let it destroy him too? Because that's what will happen if he loses this match. He'll blame himself, hate himself, and he'll never get this opportunity again. This is it. This is his one shot. And you're letting him blow it because you're too afraid of being hurt."

You're sobbing now, gripping the phone so hard your knuckles have gone white, bloodless. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to survive this."

"Yes, you do." His voice softens slightly, just enough to let kindness in. "You love him. I know you do, even if you won't say it. And if you love him, you let him have this. You let him win. You let him achieve his dream even if it costs you yours all over again. Whatever happens after, you’ll figure it out later. But right now, right this second, he needs you. So get to this stadium, or live with the fact that you're the reason he lost everything."

He hangs up. You sit there, phone pressed to your chest, crying so hard you can barely breathe, your whole body shaking with the force of it. The old tennis ball is in your pocket, and you pull it out, stare at it through blurred vision.

This ball represents everything you lost. Your dream, your future, your identity as a tennis player, the life you were supposed to live. For four years, you've carried it as a reminder of what was taken from you, a talisman of grief you couldn't let go of, physical proof that you once had something worth losing.

But Sungho gave you something back. Not your dream of course, that's gone forever, buried in the past where it belongs, dead and unmournable. But he gave you a connection to tennis again, a way back to the sport that doesn't require your body to cooperate. He made you remember why you loved it in the first place, before the injury, before the pain, before the loss carved a hole in your chest. Let you be part of it again, even if the role isn't what you planned, even if you're watching from the sidelines instead of playing.

Now you have to do the same for him. You have to let him have his dream, even if it means losing yours all over again. You have to let him achieve everything you wanted while you watch from the sidelines. You have to be strong enough to survive it.

You stand up, legs shaking, shoulder screaming from sitting on the cold ground for too long. The stadium is forty minutes away, but you run despite the pain that shoots through your shoulder with every jarring step, despite your body protesting this abuse, despite everything. You catch a bus, then another, pushing through crowds and ignoring the stares at your tear-stained face, pushing through the pain and the fear and the grief that threatens to swallow you whole.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

By the time you reach the stadium, it's the fourth set, and Sungho is about to lose the match. You push through crowds, heart hammering, ignoring protests and angry shouts, and finally find a spot in the stands, breathless and sweating despite the cold, your shoulder a constant scream of agony.

The court is far below, and he looks small from this distance, diminished that it breaks your heart. He's at changeover, sitting on the bench with his head in his hands, shoulders slumped in defeat, the picture of someone who's already given up. You've never seen him look so broken, so utterly defeated, and it's your fault. Your absence did this. Your cowardice destroyed him.

He looks up, scanning the crowd one more time with the desperate hope of someone who knows they're looking for a ghost, and his eyes find yours.

The change is instantaneous, electric. His entire body straightens, eyes widening in shock, relief and salvation. Even from this distance, you can see the transformation wash over him—defeat transmuting into determination, despair into hope. He stands up, never breaking eye contact, and you see him mouth your name.

You touch your chest, the signal that means I'm here, breathe, you've got this. He nods, jaw setting with new determination, his entire posture changing. The referee calls him back to the court, and he picks up his racket with renewed purpose, with the conviction of someone who's been drowning and finally found air.

The fourth set is brutal. He claws his way back from the edge of defeat, fighting for every point with desperate intensity. Your shoulder is aching from tension, your hands are gripping the railing so hard you're leaving marks in the metal, and you're coaching him with every signal you know, your entire body involved in the match, every muscle tense.

Point to your temple : Think, don't just react, use your strategic mind.

Flat palm pressed down : Stay calm, control the pace, dictate the rhythm.

Fist over your heart : You can do this, I believe in you, I've always believed in you.

He wins the fourth set, and the crowd erupts, but you barely hear them. All you can see is Sungho, the way he looks at you like you're the only person in the stadium, like you're the only thing that matters.

The fifth set is the most intense tennis you've ever witnessed. Every point is a battle, every game is agony that stretches your nerves to breaking. You're living and dying with each shot, your heart stopping with every close call, your breath catching with every rally. This is your coaching, your strategy, your understanding of tennis made manifest in his movements. Every perfect shot, every brilliant get, every impossible return, you can see your influence in all of it, can see the countless hours you've spent teaching him crystallized in each moment.

You should feel proud. You should feel vindicated, satisfied, fulfilled by this evidence of your impact.

Instead, you feel like you're dying. Because every brilliant shot, every impossible get, every point he wins brings him closer to victory. And victory means leaving. Victory means he’s leaving to Stanford, the professional tour and a future that doesn't include you except as a voice on the phone, a text message, a memory that fades with distance.

Match point. The entire stadium holds its breath, thousands of people silent and tense, suspended in this moment. Sungho bounces the ball at the baseline, preparing to serve, and he looks at you one last time.

You press your hand to your heart just once, and point at him. It’s a silent promise, a goodbye, a confession all at once. 

I love you, Now go. Win. Be everything you were meant to be. Be extraordinary.

He tosses the ball high, the world narrowing to the sound of his heartbeat and the weight of the moment. His arm arcs, the racket slicing through the air—a clean, sharp sound that cuts through the stadium’s silence.

The serve is fast, precise, devastatingly perfect. The ball rockets across the court, kisses the line, and skids out of reach before his opponent can even react.

A beat of silence, then the umpire’s call rings out, firm and final. “Game, set, match.”

The crowd explodes into chaos, a wave of sound that crashes over everything. His teammates rush the court, his coach is shouting in triumph, and media are already swarming with cameras and microphones, capturing this moment for posterity. But Sungho is searching for you, pushing through the chaos with single-minded determination, eyes wild and searching.

You're already moving, trying to slip away before he reaches you, feet carrying you towards the exit on autopilot. 

You can't do this. 

You can't congratulate him while feeling like your heart is being ripped out, can't smile and pretend you're okay when everything is falling apart, can't watch him celebrate achieving your dream while you die inside.

However, he's faster. He catches you at the edge of the stands, still holding his racket, breathing hard from the match and the sprint to reach you, sweat dampening his hair and his shirt clinging to his body.

"You came," he gasps, and there's wonder in his voice, disbelief and joy tangled together.

"You won." Your smile feels like it's cracking your face, like your skin might split from the effort, like you might shatter into pieces if you stop holding yourself together. "You were incredible. You're going to be extraordinary. You're going to achieve things I can only dream of."

"I need to tell you—"

"Sungho, you should go. Everyone's waiting, the press wants interviews, the scouts want to talk to you about your future—"

"I've been in love with you since sophomore year." The words explode out of him, raw and desperate.

The world stops. You stare at him—Sungho, your Sungho, your person—and he’s crying, tears cutting through the sweat on his cheeks. He’s still clutching his racket like a lifeline, like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands now that he’s finally said it out loud.

You’d known, of course. You’d both known, but neither of you ever said it until now.

"That night at the tennis court, when you told me why you hated me?" His voice shakes, thick with everything he’s tried not to say. "I fell in love with you right there. With your pain, your passion, the way you loved tennis so much you couldn't stand to be near it. I fell in love with your anger, your grief, your refusal to give up even though you lost everything. I fell in love with how broken you were and how you kept surviving anyway."

"Don't—" You're crying too now, tears blurring your vision.

"Every match I won, I only wanted you to see it. Every trophy meant nothing if you weren't there to understand what it cost, to see the work behind it. I've been yours for two years, and you never let me tell you. You kept pushing me away, keeping me at arm's length, protecting yourself." He takes a shaking breath, tears streaming down his face unchecked. "So I need to tell you now. I love you. I'm in love with you. I have been for so long I don't remember what it felt like before. You're the reason I play. You're the reason any of this matters."

You're crying too now, and people are definitely staring, cameras are probably recording this, but you don't care anymore. "Why are you telling me this now? You're leaving—you're going to Stanford, going pro, going everywhere—"

"So come with me."

"What?"

"Whatever happens next—college, pro circuit, wherever tennis takes me—come with me, as mine. Come with me as the person I love, as my partner, as the person I want to share all of this with." His hands frame your face, thumbs brushing away tears. "I don't want any of this without you. The victories are meaningless if you're not there. Come with me."

You want to say yes so badly you can taste it, bitter and sweet on your tongue. You want to promise him forever, want to follow him anywhere, want to throw caution away and leap into this terrifying unknown. But reality crashes back in, cold and unforgiving and final.

“I can't follow you around the world watching you play tennis," you say, and each word is glass in your throat, cutting you as you speak, drawing blood with every syllable. "It'll kill me. I'll be happy for you, but I'll be dying inside. Watching you live my dream while I'm just... there. I'll just be watching and existing as an appendage to your success, hollowing out piece by piece until there's nothing left of me."

"Then I won't go."

"WHAT?" You almost shout it, drawing more stares, more attention. "No. Absolutely not. Sungho, you are not giving this up—"

"If it means losing you—"

"You can't choose me over tennis!" You grab his shirt with both hands, desperate for him to understand this one crucial thing, this truth that's more important than love or desire or any of the feelings tearing you apart. "Have I not said it enough? I know what it's like to lose tennis. It destroys you from the inside out, carves you hollow until you're not a person anymore, just a shell walking around pretending to be alive. You become a ghost, haunting your own life. And I won't—I will not be responsible for that. I won't be the reason you give up your dream. I won't be the thing you resent in five years when you're working some miserable job and wondering what could have been if you'd just chosen differently."

"You're my dream too—"

"Your dream is tennis. It always has been." You're sobbing now, words barely intelligible through the tears, your whole body shaking. "And that's okay. That's good. That's how it should be. Someone should get to live it. Someone should get to have the future I lost, the life I was meant to have. And I want it to be you. I want you to have everything."

"Not without you." His hands come up to frame your face, holding you like you might disappear. "I don't want any of it if you're not there. None of it means anything without you."

"You have to want it," you insist, holding his wrists to keep his hands on your face, needing this contact even as you push him away. "You have to want tennis for yourself, not for me. Because I can't be your reason. I can't be the thing you resent later when the pressure gets too much and you wish you'd made different choices. I can't be your excuse for why you didn't achieve everything you could have."

"I could never resent you."

"You don't know that." You take a shaking breath, trying to gather courage for what you need to say. "Go to Stanford. Go play tennis at the highest level. Chase every opportunity, win every match you can, become everything you're capable of becoming. And I'll... I'll be here. I'll be building something that's mine."

"That's not—"

"I'll watch your matches when I can," you continue quickly, before you lose your nerve entirely, before you change your mind. "I'll text you advice when you want it. I'll be so proud of you from wherever I am, so proud I could burst with it. We can try long distance, if you want. If you think we can survive it."

He's searching your face desperately, looking for something you're not sure you can give him. "Can we? Really? Can we survive you here and me there?"

"I've watched you grow into the player you are today," you say softly, every word chosen with care, honest in its uncertainty. "I've seen you at your worst and your best. I've been in love with you—" The admission finally breaks free, and it feels like bleeding out, like opening a vein. "I've been in love with you for longer than I want to admit. Probably since that night at the courts when you listened to me talk about my tennis, when you didn't try to fix me or offer platitudes. If long distance is how we stay together, then we'll try. We'll try as hard as we can."

"You love me?" His voice cracks on the words, breaks completely, and fresh tears spill down his face.

"Of course I love you, you idiot. How could I not? You're brilliant, dedicated and kind, you made me remember how to love tennis again when I thought that part of me was dead forever. You gave me back something I thought I'd lost permanently. You made me whole that I didn't think was ever possible again."

He just looks at you for a long moment, eyes searching, glistening. The noise of the crowd feels far away now, muffled, like the world has shrunk down to the space between you.

He steps closer, hesitating, like he’s giving you the chance to pull away. His hand lifts slowly, cupping your face with the lightest touch, thumbs brushing along your cheekbones. You’re trembling from adrenaline, from exhaustion, from the weight of everything between you, and you can’t pull back.

“Don’t do this to me, love,” he whispers, voice breaking, gaze locked on yours.

All that comes out is a quiet, broken sound, half a sob, half a laugh.

The space between you disappears. His hand finds the back of your neck, your breath catches, and before you can think, his mouth is on yours finally, desperate, messy and perfect, two years of wanting collapsing into one breathless, aching moment. His lips taste like salt from his tears, from the relief, from everything you’ve both held back. The kiss is fierce, tender and shattering all at once.

When you pull apart, you're both crying and smiling, and his teammates are definitely whooping in the background, cameras probably capturing all of it for posterity, but neither of you cares.

"I'll call you every day," he promises, breathless, foreheads pressed together. "I'll come home every break. I'll—"

"You'll focus on tennis," you interrupt gently, needing him to hear this, to understand. "You'll work hard and make the most of every opportunity. And yes, you'll call me. But Sungho—" You cup his face, making sure he hears this, that he truly understands. "Tennis comes first. It has to. Because if you sacrifice your future for me, you'll hate me eventually. Maybe not now or next year, but someday. And I can't live with that. I can't survive you hating me."

"I could never hate you."

"Just promise me you'll choose tennis when you have to. Promise me you won't let me hold you back."

He hesitates, and you see the war in his eyes, love versus ambition, staying versus going, you versus everything else. "I promise, but you have to promise me too."

"Promise what?"

"Promise me that you'll build your own life, your own dreams. Don't just wait around for me and exist in the spaces between my matches." His thumb traces your cheekbone with infinite tenderness. "You're not just my coach or my girlfriend or any role that's defined by me. You're you. You deserve a future that's yours, that you choose, that makes you happy."

The words hit you like a revelation, a truth you've been avoiding for two years. For two years, you've built your identity around coaching him, around being close to tennis through him, around existing in his orbit. But that's not sustainable. That's not healing. That's just replacing one form of grief with another, one form of loss with a different kind.

"I promise," you whisper, and mean it. "I'll figure out what I want, who I am without tennis, who I am separate from you."

"Good." He kisses you again, softer this time, sweet and lingering. "Because I'm in love with you, not tennis-coach-you or angry-at-the-world-you. Just you. Whoever you decide to be."

"Sungho!" His coach's voice cuts through the moment like a blade, sharp and insistent. "We need you for interviews! The media's waiting!"

He groans but doesn't let go of you immediately, holding on for a few more precious seconds. "I have to—"

"Go. This is your moment. You earned it."

"Our moment," he corrects, stubborn even now.

"Okay," you concede, smiling through tears that won't stop falling, that seem endless. "Our moment."

He kisses your forehead, your nose, your lips one more time, each kiss a promise and a prayer, then he's being pulled away by teammates and coaches, swept up in the chaos of victory, but he keeps looking back at you, grinning like he's won more than just a tennis match, like he's won something far more valuable.

You watch him go, and it hurts—God, it hurts with the intensity of a physical wound, but it's different now. It's not the aching grief of watching a stranger live your dream, but the bittersweet pain of loving someone enough to let them fly, even when it means losing them. Even when it means watching them soar while you stay grounded.

TWO YEARS LATER

The stadium is massive, cavernous that it makes you feel small, filled with thousands of people all chanting for their favourite players, the noise a physical force. You're in the stands, wearing Sungho's number on a shirt he sent you, a press credential hanging around your neck that grants you access most people would kill for.

You're not just his girlfriend anymore. You're a junior correspondent for a major sports network, covering tennis tournaments around the world, turning your knowledge into a career you built yourself. It turns out you have a gift for analyzing play, for explaining strategy to audiences who don't understand the intricacies of the sport, for breaking down matches that it makes tennis accessible without dumbing it down. Your injury gives you perspective that former players don't have. You understand loss that it makes your commentary richer, more empathetic. Your coaching experience gives you insight into the mental game, the psychological warfare that happens between points. And your love for tennis, which you've finally, finally reclaimed as your own instead of something stolen from you, gives you passion that translates through the screen, that makes viewers feel what you feel.

It's not the future you planned at thirteen. But it's built from the ashes of your broken dream into something entirely your own. You're not living vicariously through anyone. You're building your own legacy, making your own mark on the sport that broke you.

Sungho is on the court below, playing in a major professional tournament, his movements fluid and confident. He went pro after two years at Stanford, couldn't resist the pull of the tour any longer, and now he's ranked in the top fifty in the world and climbing. You've watched him rise, watched him struggle through injuries, losses and moments of doubt, watched him grow into the player you always knew he could be. You watched him become extraordinary.

The long distance has been brutal in ways neither of you anticipated. Months apart, different time zones that make phone calls a complicated negotiation, the constant pressure of his career weighing on both of you. You've had fights over crackling phone connections and tearful video calls and moments where you both wondered if loving each other from opposite sides of the world was sustainable, if you were just prolonging the inevitable breakup, if it would be kinder to just end it.

But somehow, you've made it work. Because he keeps his promises. He calls every day even when he's exhausted, visits when he can even when the travel destroys him, chooses tennis when he has to but always comes back to you. And you've kept yours. You built a career you love that exists independently of him, created an identity separate from his success, learned to watch tennis without it destroying you piece by piece. You learned to love the sport again on your own terms.

The match is close, intense that it has your heart pounding. The fifth set, tied at five games each. You're not coaching him anymore, he has a professional coach for that, someone with credentials and experience you don't have, but you're still watching with a critical eye, still mentally noting his footwork and shot selection, old habits impossible to break even after all this time.

He wins a brilliant point, a drop shot that catches his opponent completely off guard, perfectly executed with the kind of touch that can't be taught. When he looks up at the stands, his eyes find yours immediately, unerringly. Even in a crowd of thousands, he finds you, like you're the only fixed point in his universe, like you're magnetic north and he's a compass.

You touch your chest—the old signal, the one that means I love you, breathe, you've got this, and he grins, bright, beautiful and still capable of making your heart stutter after all this time.

He wins the match. Of course he does. When he's done with the mandatory interviews and handshakes and all the performative aspects of professional tennis, when he's finally free, he runs straight to you, ignoring protocol, ignoring his team's exasperated shouts.

You meet him at the edge of the court, and he lifts you in a crushing hug, spinning you around while you laugh into his neck, breathing him in, still the same shampoo after all this time.

"You were incredible," you say when he sets you down, slightly dizzy from the spinning and from him, from the intoxication of his presence after weeks apart.

"You always say that."

"Hey! It's true! That backhand down the line in the fourth set was perfection."

He kisses you, right there in front of cameras, fans and everyone, claiming you publicly like how he's claimed you privately for years, unashamed and unafraid. When he pulls back, his eyes are soft with love and exhaustion, dark circles under them from the travel and training.

"Come on," you say, taking his hand and lacing your fingers through his, the gesture automatic after years of practice. "You have more press to do. The post-match conference is in twenty minutes."

"Skip it. Come back to the hotel with me. I haven't seen you in three weeks."

"Sungho, you can't skip mandatory press. Your agent will murder you, and then murder me for enabling you."

"I'll risk it for five minutes alone with you. Just five minutes."

"Your definition of five minutes is highly suspect." You laugh, tugging him towards the press tent despite his protests, despite the way he drags his feet. "Besides, I'll be there tonight. We have the whole night."

"Promise?"

"Promise. Now go charm the reporters before they decide you're difficult."

He groans but goes, and you watch him transform into his public persona—charismatic, humble, gracious in victory. You've watched this transformation dozens of times, the way he puts on this mask for the media, and you're one of the few people who gets to see him without it, who knows the person beneath the performance.

Later that night, in a hotel room in a city you'll leave tomorrow, he pulls you close and whispers, "You would've beaten me, wouldn't you?"

It's become a ritual, this question. He asks it after every important match, and you always give the same answer, this truth that you've both made peace with.

"Every single time."

"I'm glad." He kisses your temple, gentle and reverent, full of affection that hasn't dimmed despite the distance and time. "That you still could. Even if it's just in theory."

For the first time in years, the words don't hurt. They're just a truth you can live with, one that acknowledges your past without letting it define your present or dictate your future. The ghost of the girl you were at thirteen finally rests in peace, her dream honored but no longer a source of grief. You've built a new dream, one that's entirely yours, one that exists independently of him even though you choose to share it with him.

"I love you," you tell him, and mean it with everything you are, with every broken and healed part of yourself, with all the pieces you've put back together in a different configuration.

"I love you too." He pulls you closer, and you fall asleep in his arms, not dreaming of tennis courts anymore but of futures you never planned but wouldn't trade for anything. Futures you chose. Futures that are yours.

Your shoulder still aches. It always will. Some losses are permanent, some doors stay closed forever, some dreams die and stay dead. You've made peace with that. But standing here, existing in this life you've built from ruins, you realize you've found something better than your original dream.

You've found a way to love tennis again on your own terms. You've built a career that's yours, that you earned through your own merit. And more importantly, you've found someone who loves you, not despite your brokenness, but with it, as part of the whole complicated person you are. Someone who sees your scars and stays. Someone who's willing to fight for you across any distance, who chooses you even when choosing you is hard.

The fifth set is over. You both won.

━━━━━━━━

END NOTE :

Thank you for watching! 🎬

NEXT FILM : Fuseboy (Lee Riwoo - 17th Oct)

━━━━━━━━

@coriihanniee ᯓᡣ𐭩

˖➴ reblogs are appreciated! ty for reading! <3

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[nishiimuraka]

dare say I cried while reading LMAOAOA ts too good

[thatfeelinwhenyou]

THE WAY I LOVED YOU — park sunghoon

Years after a quiet, painful breakup, you are assigned to write a profile on South Korea’s most elusive figure skater, Park Sunghoon, who just so happens to be your ex-boyfriend. What was supposed to be a byline quickly spirals into a collision of unresolved feelings, buried emotions that are edging too close to the surface, and the slow thaw between two people who once meant the world to each other. With every step you take back into his orbit, the line between story and truth begins to blur—and the version of him you thought you knew starts to unravel.

word count: 44k (LMFAOOOOOOO)

pairing: figureskater!ex!sunghoon x sportsjournalist!afab!reader

featuring: yunah, minju, and moka from illit

genre: figure skating au, exes to lovers, the one that got away, sunshine x midnight rain, second chance romance, right person wrong time but also becomes right time(?), opposites attract, slow burn, ANGST

warnings: this story contains miscommunication at its PEAK, emotional distress, mentions of injury, past breakup, abandonment, and themes of regret, long-distance, sunghoon ice prince stereotype, mutual pining, girl putting more effort than guy, hopeless romantic core, emphasis on love language, usage of profanities, slight indication of intimacy (literally like one paragraph if you squint), angst, angst, angst, and oh! angst, also maybe slight inaccuracies to real life sports delegations(?)

disclaimer: this is a work of pure fiction. If any context is similar to any other stories, it's either inspired (in which credit will be given) or just a coincidence. the characters' personalities, words, actions and thoughts do not represent them in real life. any resemblance to any real life events or person, present or past, are purely coincidental. i apologise in advance for any spelling or grammar mistakes. characters are aged up for plot purpose.

notes from nat: ngl. i almost didn't want to put this out. but I know people have been waiting and I can be overly critical with myself sometimes... and 44k words is ALOT to just leave it in the drafts, so here you guys go! highly recommended to read with the playlist i curated in order! without further ado, enjoy!

tags: #tfwy thewayilovedyou #tfwy au

perm taglist. @m1kkso @hajimelvr @s00buwu @urmomssneakylink @grayscorner @catlicense @bubblytaetae @mrchweeee @artstaeh @sleeping-demons @yuviqik @junsflow @blurryriki @bobabunhee @hueningcry @fakeuwus @enhaslxt @neocockthotology @Starryhani @aishisgrey @katarinamae @mitmit01 @youcancometome @cupiddolle @classicroyalty @dearsjaeyun @ikeucakeu @sammie217 @m1kkso @tinycatharsis @parkjjongswifey @dcllsinna @no1likeneo @ChVcon3 @karasusrealwife @addictedtohobi @jyunsim @enhastolemyheart @kawaiichu32 @layzfy @renjunsbirthmark13 @enhaprettystars @Stercul1a @stars4jo @luvashli @alyselenai @ididntseeurbag @hii-hawaiiu @kwhluv @wonjiya @gabrielinhaa @milkycloudtyg @kristynaaah @cripplinghooman

The office is louder than usual for a Monday morning. Keyboards clatter like a percussion ensemble, and the faint hum of printers competes with the buzz of hurried conversations. The aroma of coffee lingers, sharp and bitter. You sit at your desk, staring at your laptop screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard but typing nothing.

Your new assignment email glares at you with a subject line you never thought you’d see: "Profile Piece on Park Sunghoon."

Park Sunghoon. Even his name feels heavy in your chest.

Memories surge to the surface—his laughter ringing through late-night phone calls, the sparkle in his eyes when he spoke about skating, and the tension in his voice during those last arguments before everything unravelled. It’s been years, but the ghost of him lingers like a song stuck in your head.

“Y/N, you’ve got the Sunghoon piece, right?” your editor, Yunah, calls out, snapping you out of your trance. She’s a whirlwind of energy, dressed in a sharp blazer with a coffee mug permanently glued to her hand.

“Yeah,” you reply, trying to sound casual, though your voice wavers slightly. “I’ve got it.”

“Good,” she says, striding over to your desk. “The story’s got legs. Everyone’s buzzing about his reappearance and return to Korea. Olympic dreams, media darling, potential scandal… you’ve got to dig deep on this one. Make it personal.”

“Personal?” The word makes your stomach churn. “Isn’t that more tabloidy than what we’re used to?”

“Sports tabloids pay the bills, sweetheart,” Yunah says with a shrug. “And you’re the perfect person for this. You’ve got the knack for human stories, and Sunghoon’s story is nothing if not human. Besides, you went to the same university, right?”

The question hangs in the air, deceptively light. You hesitate for a moment too long, and Yunah’s brows lift, a knowing smirk tugging at her lips. “Ah, I see,” she says teasingly. “Well, use it to your advantage.”

Of course. You forgot you're surrounded by people who read body language for a living. There’s no hiding anything from her.

She walks away before you can respond, leaving you with the sinking realisation that she’s not entirely wrong. Who better to cover Park Sunghoon’s meteoric rise—and whatever personal demons he’s carrying—than the girl who once loved him?

By lunchtime, you’ve done enough digging to know exactly what you’re up against.

Sunghoon’s name is everywhere.

His face—still frustratingly photogenic—plastered across articles, feature spreads, and fan-edited clips with dramatic music overlays. They all show a polished, confident man, far removed from the awkward boy you used to know. His dark hair is perfectly styled, his tailored suits scream sophistication, and his trademark smirk has only grown more enigmatic.

You scroll through write-ups that gush about his triumphant return to the ice. They speculate whether he’ll qualify for the next international season, drop cryptic mentions of a “new fire in his eyes,” and cite sources that can’t seem to agree whether his hiatus was due to injury or personal issues. Or both.

There are whispers about a reality show stint during his time in Spain—something lowkey, never officially aired, but leaked through blurry screenshots and strategically placed fan theories. A training arc in disguise, if you had to guess. Classic Sunghoon: disappearing, reinventing, and re-emerging like nothing happened.

And now? He’s starting to make headlines again.

Which makes sense, you suppose. He hasn’t been in the public eye for months. Not since that withdrawal from the Grand Prix final. Not since the buzz about that infamous tussle—the one that sports reporters avoided naming outright but loved to allude to. The speculation only made him more mysterious. More magnetic. The kind of story that writes itself: the fallen star, re-forging his crown.

Yunah’s right—the story’s got legs. You just wish you weren’t the one chasing it.

You stare blankly at the screen, lips pressed together as your cursor hovers over yet another article about him.

You were supposed to be over this.

And yet, you can’t deny the tightness coiling in your chest—not jealousy, exactly. Not regret, either. Just something far messier. The kind of feeling that comes from watching someone you once loved be glorified by the same world that never saw the nights you spent waiting for him to call. The world that didn’t witness the quiet crumbling of a girl who poured so much of herself into someone who didn’t know how to hold it.

You slam your laptop shut.

If he’s back on the ice, fine. Good for him.

But you’re not the same girl who used to cry over his missed calls and make excuses for his silence. You have a job to do. A byline to earn. And if this rink ends up being his comeback stage, then so be it.

You’ll be there—not as the girl who once loved him, but as the reporter who can write his rise without flinching.

The first step is setting up an interview, which means reaching out to his management. This whole thing could very well end here. You’ll send the email, Sunghoon will reject the request—just like he does with every other news agency or tabloid that thinks they can score an exclusive interview with him. Yunah will realise you’re not some journalistic prodigy, and she’ll move on to the next big headline.

That should comfort you. When Sunghoon says no, it’s over—no awkward reunions, no dredging up memories you’ve spent years trying to bury. And yet, you hesitate, fingers trembling as they hover over the keyboard.

The email stares back at you, every word perfectly composed, detached, professional. It doesn’t betray the tangle of thoughts fighting for dominance in your mind.

From: You Subject: Interview Request for Park Sunghoon Profile Piece Dear Ms. Yoon, I hope this email finds you well. My name is Kang Y/N, and I’m a journalist with Manifesto Daily. Our team is planning a profile piece on athlete Park Sunghoon, focusing on his inspiring journey as a professional athlete and his return to Korea. I would like to request an interview with Mr. Park to discuss his career, his aspirations for the future, and any personal insights he’d be willing to share with our readers. The piece aims to highlight his achievements and provide a deeper understanding of the person behind the athlete. Please let me know a time and date that would work best for Mr. Park’s schedule. I am happy to accommodate and can meet at his convenience. Should you require any further details about the story or our publication, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Thank you for considering this request. I look forward to your response. Best regards, Kang Y/N Senior Journalist (Sports Division) Manifesto Daily +82 XX XXXX YYYY

Highlight his achievements and provide a deeper understanding of the person behind the athlete. You scoff. As if you don’t already have enough material to craft an in-depth exposé on Park Sunghoon—complete with anecdotes, vivid details, and a treasure trove of receipts that you’ve kept buried at the back of your mind, and perhaps in a folder on your computer.

You know the kind of person Park Sunghoon is. You’ve seen him at his most passionate, the fire in his eyes when he spoke about mastering a new routine, and at his most vulnerable, when doubts about his own abilities kept him up at night. 

You’ve also witnessed him at his ugliest—those moments when he seemed completely disinterested during your calls, only for you to catch glimpses of him laughing unabashedly in his training mate’s Instagram stories. When he sent curt, dry texts that cut to your insecurities, leaving you questioning if you were the problem. And yet, now here you are, facing the daunting question: Who is he today? A polished media darling, exuding poise and confidence, or a jerk who simply broke your heart?

You’re not just writing a profile; it’s about untangling the complexities of the boy you once loved and the man he has become, all while confronting the version of him that’s lived rent-free in your head for years.

When you finally hit send, you lean back in your chair, exhaling deeply. It’s done. Now all you can do is wait.

The reply comes faster than expected.

For a moment, you stare at the screen, rereading the email as if the words might change. 

He said yes. The one answer you hadn’t prepared yourself for. A mix of relief and dread washes over you in waves, leaving you momentarily frozen.

From: [email protected] Subject: Re: Interview Request for Park Sunghoon Profile Piece Dear Ms. Kang, Thank you for reaching out. Sunghoon has reviewed your request and is happy to make time to participate in the interview for your profile piece. We appreciate your interest in highlighting his journey and achievements. The interview can be scheduled for this Thursday at 3:00 PM at the Olympic Training Rink in Seoul. Please confirm if this timing works for you. Additionally, let us know if there are any specific topics or questions you’d like Sunghoon to prepare for in advance. Should you require further assistance, feel free to contact me directly. Best regards, Yoon Ji-eun Executive Assistant, Park Sunghoon +82 XX XXXX YYYY

“Happy to make time,” you mutter under your breath, staring at the email on your screen. A bitter laugh escapes before you can stop it. Does he even remember you? Or are you just another journalist to him now, a faceless name lost among the countless people chasing for a headline?

He must remember you. Right? After all, you were together for over four years—four long, formative years that shaped so much of who you are. And out of those four, at least three were good years. Happy years. The kind of memories that even if you wanted to forget, you couldn’t. 

He isn’t just part of your past; he is your past. From the moment you met him in freshman year college during orientation, to your graduation, and all the way up to the day he left for Spain to chase his dreams, Sunghoon was a constant—a gravitational force you couldn’t escape.

Late-night study sessions that turned into early-morning phone calls. The excitement of travelling to watch his competitions, where his focus on the ice was matched only by the way his eyes would light up when he found you waiting in the stands. The quiet moments, too—the ones where he’d rest his head on your lap after a long day of training, eyes closed, his walls momentarily lowered. 

You remember all of it, vividly. How could you not? It’s etched into the foundation of who you are, whether you like it or not. He alone made up your youth. 

And he alone crushed it.

The day of the interview arrives quicker than you’re ready for. The sky is overcast, mirroring the grey swirl of nerves in your stomach as you make your way to the Olympic Training Rink. The moment you step inside, a wave of cold air hits you—crisp and unforgiving, seeping through your coat like a reminder of why you're really here.

The rink is quieter than expected. No coaches shouting instructions, no background music blaring. Just the sharp, rhythmic slice of blades on ice echoing through the vast, open space. The sound is hypnotic. 

You spot him immediately. His movements are unmistakable—precise, elegant, detached—just like the version of him the world sees now. It’s surreal. For a moment, you're frozen. He’s always been like this on the ice, as if he belongs to a world the rest of us can only watch from the sidelines.

When he finally notices you, he skates over, his expression unreadable. Up close, he’s both familiar and foreign. The boy you loved is still there, but he’s hidden beneath layers of polished professionalism and years of distance.

“Y/N,” he says, his voice even. “It’s been a while.”

You force a smile, clutching your research papers like it’s the only thing tethering you to professionalism. “It has. Thanks for agreeing to this.”

He nods, gaze unwavering. “Anything for the press, right?”

The faintest curl of his lip accompanies the words, not quite a smirk, but it lands somewhere between sarcasm and civility. There’s a hint of irony in his tone, and you can’t tell if he’s mocking you, the situation, or himself. Either way, it stings in a place you wish was long numb.

You follow him as he skates toward the side lounge near the rink, where a table and chair have been set up for you. You set your things down, press the recorder button, and glance at your questions. But already, you can feel it—the reckoning of something unspoken humming beneath every word, every breath.

The breakup was as cold and sharp as the ice he mastered so effortlessly. Sunghoon’s inability to express himself had always been a quiet undercurrent in your relationship, but distance magnified the cracks until they became impossible to ignore. 

At first, you told yourself it was temporary. A phase. Just the price of loving someone whose dreams demanded everything of him. While he trained under the Spanish sun—chasing medals, perfection, legacy—you remained behind, stuck in the grey stillness of routine. Every morning was a quiet scroll through his tagged posts: flashes of sunlight on ice, arms slung around new faces, effortless smiles captured in perfect golden-hour light. He looked happy. Free. And you… you were still waiting, clinging to half-hearted apologies and empty reassurances.

The timezone difference was a fact of life, yes—but it wasn’t the hours that made him feel far away. It was the way he spoke with one foot already out the door. Every call became more strained, the conversation shallow, like he was rationing his energy and you were the last on his list. His words were careful, rehearsed, as if emotional honesty was a risk he couldn’t afford on top of training and public scrutiny.

Sometimes he wouldn’t even call, and when they did come, they hurt more than the silence. His eyes flickered elsewhere on the screen, distracted by movement off-camera or the notifications lighting up his phone. His voice was flat, barely warm, like he was speaking to a colleague—not someone who used to fall asleep to the sound of his heartbeat. The nickname "Ice Prince" had once made you laugh, made you tease him during post-practice ramen dates. But it wasn’t funny anymore. It became a prophecy fulfilled—he had built walls you could no longer scale, frozen over the places you used to call home.

When the arguments came, they were frigid and brittle, snapping under the weight of unspoken frustrations. You started to memorise the pauses in his speech, the way he hesitated before saying your name—as though he wasn’t sure how to feel about it anymore.

It wasn’t just the miles between you that drove you apart—it was the glacier of his guarded heart, one you couldn’t thaw no matter how hard you tried.

And then one night, wrapped in a hoodie that still smelled faintly of him, you sat curled up on the steep edge of your windowsill, your knees pulled tight to your chest, eyes scanning the city like it might offer you answers. The lights blinked on like constellations you couldn’t name anymore, and you realised—with a crushing, reluctant clarity—you were holding him back. 

But more importantly, he was holding you back. 

Your lives had become separate timelines that only intersected on screens and stilted calls, and even then, it felt like you were orbiting each other with no gravity left to pull you close again. The connection you once cherished had thinned until it became a thread you had to squint to see, and even then, it felt like a lie.

So you did the one thing that felt more honest than any of your recent conversations: you typed out the words you’d been avoiding for weeks, hands shaking, eyes blurry.

“Maybe we’re both better off letting go.”

And hit send.

Just like that, another four years passed without him. 

Time, as always, moved in quiet, unremarkable ways—through the steady ticking of clocks and the dull rhythm of workdays blending into each other. You had slowly, stubbornly, climbed the ranks of your publishing company, carving a name for yourself as a senior reporter. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was yours. 

Unexpectedly, you had found yourself swept into the whirlwind of sports journalism—ironic, in retrospect, considering how closely that world is being tied to him. But you told yourself it was coincidence. That it was your choice now. That your world, your career, your interests, were no longer shadowed by Sunghoon's orbit or shaped by the way he used to talk about the thrill of competing and nailing six-minute routines like they were sacred.

You insisted you were free. And maybe that was true. But in the quiet spaces between deadlines and press boxes, in the few spare seconds before interviews began or crowds broke into applause, you couldn’t stop that lingering, almost shameful thought from blooming: that maybe, just maybe, some part of you had always hoped to run into him again.

Not to rekindle anything. Not to reach for what had already slipped through your fingers.

But to show him. Show him that you had thrived. That you were still standing after everything. That the girl he left behind was long gone, replaced by someone sharper, stronger, more whole.

But now—now that you find yourself in this predicament, frozen in place on the edge of a rink you never expected to be at, watching the familiar curve of his form cut across the ice with the same breathtaking grace—you feel like a fool for ever thinking you were ready.

You want nothing more than for the ground beneath you to crack open and swallow you whole. Because seeing him again doesn’t fill you with triumph. It doesn’t validate anything. It just hurts.

Worse than it should.

And it terrifies you how easy it is to fall back into that ache.

“Hello? Earth to Y/N.”

You blink, startled out of your reverie by the sight of Sunghoon waving a hand in front of your face. You hadn’t even realised you'd spaced out.

“Sorry,” you murmur, clearing your throat. Your fingers fumble with the papers you had so meticulously prepped—highlighted, annotated, sorted in order—yet now you pretend to look for something among them, just to avoid his gaze. You know it’s a weak cover. And karma hits fast.

A gust of air from the heater overhead flutters your stack of papers, and before you can react, a dozen sheets slip from your grip and scatter. Some land across the floor. Others fly dramatically over the rink’s low barricade, drifting like paper snowflakes onto the pristine ice.

“Oh, shit—” you hiss, already scrambling to gather them, crawling after loose pages that slip under chairs and along the skirting of the rink. You’re mumbling curses to yourself under your breath as you pick up the pieces of paper off the floor when your eyes zone in on a particular page that landed upright. Your breath catches.

Reference 4: Compilation of Netizens’ Impressions on Athlete Park

+62 -12 wow as expected park sunghoon! young, rich and handsome. must be a dream to date someone like him Dream or nightmare? Not really sure but okay.

+120 -24 kyaaaa he’s so handsome!! I’m a fan! What’s the point of being handsome? He’s a jerk!

+82 -4 wow how can someone look so perfect… he looks like a disney character Correct. More specifically, that giant ice golem from Frozen -.-

+32 -6 i wonder if he has a girlfriend. There must be so much pressure dating someone as perfect as Park Sunghoon. It’s okay, i’ll volunteer!! No pressure. He doesn’t open up enough for you to feel pressure. Still, may the odds be ever in your favour.

Your stomach drops. You’d forgotten those were even there—your sardonic, late-night annotations scribbled in red pen. Bitter, sharp, personal. And littered all over your research stack.

You snap your head up, and horror freezes your limbs.

Sunghoon is on the ice leaning casually against the rink barricade, one of the annotated pages in hand. His expression is a cocktail of amusement and disbelief, and worst of all—a hint of knowing. He reads aloud in a slow, deliberate tone, his voice dripping with mockery.

“‘Park Sunghoon is a block of ice personified. If you want to know what it's like dating a block of ice, 10/10 recommend.’”

He scoffs, dropping the page slightly to meet your eyes.

“Interesting research.”

Your blood rushes to your ears. You feel exposed, raw, like someone’s just peeled the skin back from every nerve ending and left them pulsing in the open air. You can’t even remember writing that annotation—but of course it’s in red, underlined, and impossible to ignore. One of many off-handed comments scrawled across your notes, never meant to be seen. Certainly not by him.

“I—I didn’t mean for that to—” You falter. What can you even say? You were angry when you wrote those, bitter and alone at 2 a.m., trying to turn pain into sarcasm.

Sunghoon studies you, his expression unreadable again. But there’s something in the way he watches you—like he’s trying to figure out if you’re the same girl he once knew, or someone entirely new. Someone just as guarded now as he once was.

“Didn’t mean for what?” he drawls, raising an eyebrow. “You mean you didn’t mean to write all these berating comments in bold red ink all over your research paper?” He plucks up another sheet from the scattered pile, the corners of his mouth twitching. “Let’s see what else we’ve got.”

You instantly recognise that one. Your heart sinks. It’s that page—the one where you’d printed promotional shots of him modelling for an active sportswear brand. Not only had you annotated it with snide remarks about his ‘unnecessarily photogenic jawline,’ but you’d also drawn little devil horns and moustaches across his face like a deranged kindergartener with a vendetta.

“Oh my god, give me that!” you blurt out, reaching instinctively over the rink barricade in an attempt to snatch it back. But of course, Sunghoon is Sunghoon—a whole seven inches taller and built like someone who only lives and breaths protein. He easily keeps the paper just out of reach, lifting it higher with an infuriating flick of his wrist.

And then there’s the bloody barricade. Cold, unyielding metal pressing against your ribs as you lean further than you probably should. You’re close enough now to see the faint smirk tugging at the corner of his lips, the smug glint in his eyes that says he’s enjoying this far too much.

“Wow,” he muses, inspecting the doodles with mock appreciation. “You even gave me fangs. That’s new.”

“Sunghoon, I swear to God—”

“Relax.” He folds the paper with exaggerated care and waves it around in the air, taunting you. “I’m flattered you still think about me. Even if it’s in your own… special way.”

You feel a slow, rising heat on your cheeks, accompanied by the realisation that you’re no longer sure who’s in control of this interview anymore—you or the boy you once loved who is now laughing at your annotated emotional breakdowns. 

You’re burning with embarrassment. Mortification. But more than that, you’re furious—at him, at yourself, at the stupid page still clutched in his hand like a golden ticket. Without thinking, you shove open the rink’s side gate and step onto the ice.

“Y/N—” he calls, warning laced in his voice. But you don’t listen.

Your flats hit the ice and your body immediately regrets the decision. You’re not dressed for this. The soles of your shoes slip against the surface, and gravity betrays you in a matter of seconds.

“Shit—!”

You yelp as your foot skids out from under you. The papers in your hand fly upward in a dramatic arc, and your arms flail as you lose balance completely. A part of you braces for the impact, the cold bite of ice against your back and the guaranteed humiliation that’ll follow.

Four years since you’ve seen your ex-boyfriend, and you’re about to face-plant onto the very place that drove him away from you.

Damn this ice rink. Damn you, Park Sunghoon.

But the fall never comes.

Instead, there’s a sudden blur of motion—fast, practiced, effortless. Arms wrap around you just in time, steadying your momentum as your body lurches forward. You slam into something solid—someone solid—and for a moment, all you hear is the rapid pounding of your heart and the low whoosh of his skates cutting against the ice.

You look up.

Sunghoon stares down at you, jaw tight, one arm around your waist and the other gripping your wrist where he caught you. The smirk is gone now, replaced with something quieter—unreadable.

You’re close. Too close. You can feel the steady rise and fall of his breath, the lingering warmth of his touch against your coat sleeve. He steadies you like muscle memory, like no time has passed at all.

“You never change,” he mutters under his breath, but there’s something indecipherable in his tone—annoyed, maybe. Or amused. Or maybe he just doesn’t know what to feel either.

You pull away quickly, too quickly, slipping again slightly before you regain your footing with a shaky huff. Your palms are planted against his chest, and you can feel the familiar beat of his heart under all that armour of fabric and calm. It rattles you more than the near-fall did.

You open your mouth to snap something biting—maybe about how you didn’t need his help, or how you’d rather eat the ice than owe him—but then you see it.

A flicker of pain across his face. A wince.

It’s subtle. So quick that anyone else might’ve missed it. But not you. You’d studied that face for years. You know what his mask looks like when it slips.

He straightens a little too stiffly, his jaw tightening as he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. It’s slight, but telling. Your brows draw together as a thought rises, uninvited and stubborn.

The rumours about his injury.

It wasn’t reported officially—just whispers that circulated through the sports journalism grapevine. A rumoured altercation in Spain with another figure skater. A "tussle," they called it. No names, no details, just speculation buried in a few poorly sourced articles and message board threads that vanished almost as quickly as they appeared. Some even said it was the real reason he disappeared from competition for two entire seasons.

At the time, it had seemed like nothing more than gossip. Now, watching the way he stands with deliberate caution, the rumour doesn’t seem so far-fetched.

“You okay?” you ask before you can stop yourself.

He pauses, then gives a short nod, not meeting your eyes. “Fine. You’re the one slipping all over the place.”

You bristle. “Well, maybe if you didn’t dangle incriminating evidence over the ice like a Bond villain—”

He actually laughs at that. It’s quiet, caught off guard, and so startlingly familiar that it sends a jolt through your chest. For a second, just a second, you forget everything else—the sarcasm, the history, the sharp words—and remember how that laugh used to feel like home.

But it fades quickly. And in its place is that wall again—the carefully constructed version of him the world sees.

You dust yourself off, avoiding his gaze as you mutter, “Thanks. For not letting me faceplant.”

“Don’t mention it,” he says, voice neutral again. “Would’ve been a liability issue.”

You roll your eyes and crouch to pick up another page, trying to focus on your scattered notes rather than the ache settling low in your chest. He doesn’t say anything, but you can feel his eyes on you, can feel the weight of everything unsaid pressing down between you.

Your mind also lingers on the way he winced—on the possibility that something deeper still lurks beneath the polished exterior.

“I’m on a tight schedule today. Let’s get the interview started, shall we?” Sunghoon says coolly, handing you the last of your scattered notes.

You take it from him, eyes briefly flickering to the page. Another cringe ripples through you—more scribbled sarcasm in the margins, barely legible under your rushed handwriting. Fantastic. But you school your expression, swallowing the urge to snatch it back and set it on fire.

“Thanks,” you say evenly, forcing composure into your voice as you tuck the page into your folder. “Let’s begin.”

You sit back down, smoothing the creases from your notes as you click the recorder on again. Your pen hovers above the page for a second too long.

“Alright,” you begin, adopting your neutral reporter tone, “let’s start with something simple. You’ve been back in Korea for a little over three months now. How has the transition been, returning after so long abroad?”

Sunghoon leans forward slightly, arms crossed in that easy, guarded posture you remember all too well.

“Busy,” he says. “Familiar, in some ways. But the pace here is different. Everyone’s watching. Everyone expects something.”

You jot that down, even though it doesn’t say much. It’s a good warm-up answer. Controlled. Polished.

“Does that pressure ever affect your performance?” you press gently, eyes flicking up to catch his expression.

He shrugs, gaze fixed somewhere over your shoulder. “Pressure’s part of the job. If it affects you, you don’t belong here.”

You resist the urge to raise a brow. There it is again—that edge in his voice, so calm it almost passes for indifference. Almost.

You move to your next question. “You’ve recently partnered with Belift for their new activewear line. What drew you to them over the other offers on the table?”

A pause. A flicker of amusement tugs at the corner of his mouth. You realise too late that this is the same line of questioning printed on the devil-horned page still sticking out of your folder.

“I liked their vision,” he says, but the glance he gives you is pointed. “Something about... sharp lines and ice tones. Felt on-brand.”

You cough lightly, ignoring the jab. “And the photoshoot?” you ask, pen poised again. “You received quite a response online. Some say it marked a shift in your public image—less ‘Ice Prince,’ more...”

“‘Devilishly handsome and emotionally unavailable’?” he offers, arching a brow.

You shoot him a look. “That’s not exactly what I was going to say.”

“Sure it wasn’t.”

A beat of silence passes before you recover. “Let’s pivot. In Spain, you were training under Coach Morales. How did his style compare to what you were used to in Korea?”

Sunghoon exhales, shoulders dropping slightly. For the first time, his answer comes without a filter.

“He was tougher. Stricter, but less traditional. He didn’t care how I was perceived—only what I delivered. And if I didn’t deliver, he made sure I knew it.”

Something flickers in his eyes—something heavy and lived-in. You don’t push. Not yet.

You scribble a note before asking, softer this time, “Was that hard for you?”

He pauses. “No,” he says after a moment. “What was hard was unlearning everything I thought I already knew.”

The sentence lands with a thud in your chest.

You nod slowly, tapping your pen against your notebook. “Unlearning can be the hardest part,” you say, and you’re not sure whether you’re talking about figure skating... or each other.

You glance at your next question, fingers tightening slightly around your pen. The rhythm of the interview is shifting—balancing between surface-level poise and the weight of everything that hasn’t been said.

“Your return to Korea has been a hot topic amongst our readers,” you begin, tone level. “It’s been a solid three years since the last time you were in the country for the Winter Olympics. Naturally, people are curious—what brought you back? Especially considering the new season is starting soon.”

Sunghoon leans back in his seat, arms loosely crossed. “I can't give away too many details,” he says, gaze cool but not unkind. “Long story short, I’m in the country for some personal reasons that I'd prefer not to disclose.”

You nod, jotting something down even though it’s barely usable. Your next question hovers on your tongue, heavier than the others. “I see. Well, there have been some rumours… surrounding an altercation with another figure skater—someone else under Coach Morales’ regime. Do you have any comment on that?”

His eyes flick to yours—sharper this time. He doesn’t respond right away. You hear the faint rustle of paper, the soft crunch of his skates shifting on the ice. “Is that part of the interview? Or just personal curiosity?”

You look up at him, your expression unreadable. “Does it matter?”

“Well, I assure you there was no altercation,” he says smoothly. “Just minor disagreements.”

You tilt your head slightly. “Care to elaborate?”

“Not really.”

The tension in the air thickens, more palpable than the chill radiating off the ice behind him.

You clear your throat. “Alright. Then what about your injury? How’s recovery? Two seasons is a long time to disappear. Many fans were concerned when you missed the CS Lombardia Trophy in Italy last year. That was a pretty high-profile absence.”

You don’t even know where that came from. The question is not on your list—not even in the margins. But the words slip out anyway, fuelled by instinct more than intention. A part of you just wants to know. Wants to see if he’ll flinch again, if he’ll tell the truth, if he’s still capable of letting someone in—even if it’s just for a moment.

At first, he’s stoic. But then you see it—the shift in his posture, the twitch of tension in his jaw. He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t even flinch.

Instead, he says, “That’s not the story you’re here for.”

“Maybe not,” you murmur. “But it’s the one people would care about.”

A long silence stretches between you, taut as a drawn wire. He’s no longer smirking. No longer deflecting. Just staring, as if weighing something inside himself.

“I don’t believe I ever mentioned being injured,” he replies, with a short, hollow laugh. “These rumours get way too out of hand and invasive sometimes, don’t you think, Reporter Kang?”

That tone again—playful on the surface, barbed just beneath.

You lower your pen slowly, your professionalism fraying at the edges. “Look,” you say, voice quieter, firmer. “If you're not going to give me anything to work with, why'd you even say yes to this interview in the first place?”

The recorder is still running. The room is still silent. But something in the air has shifted—subtle, but irreversible. The space between you no longer feels professional. It feels personal.

Not reporter and subject. 

Just you and him. Two people orbiting the same history, waiting for someone to say the next honest thing.

He moves first. Exhales through his nose—almost a laugh, but not quite. “You’re still the same.”

“No,” you say softly. “I’m really not.”

He studies you at that, eyes narrowing slightly like he’s trying to read a story written in a language he once knew by heart. “You’re bolder now,” he admits. “Sharper around the edges.”

“And you’ve learnt how to talk like a press release.”

He huffs a short breath, amusement flickering in his eyes. “Comes with the territory.”

“Right. Just a clean-cut, polished professional athlete now.” You tuck a paper into your folder, but your eyes linger on him a moment longer.

Still so familiar. Still so far.

You slide the last paper into your folder, but your hands don’t move to close it. You just sit there, the silence pressing down between you again. Your gaze drops to the recorder, still blinking softly.

“Do you want me to turn it off?” you ask quietly.

Sunghoon doesn’t answer right away. His jaw tenses, like he’s debating something with himself. Then, slowly, he nods.

You reach forward and press the button. The soft click echoes louder than it should.

For a while, neither of you speaks. It’s not awkward, but it’s weighty. Careful. Like standing on a frozen lake, knowing one wrong move could crack the surface.

“I didn’t come back for a sponsorship,” he says eventually, his voice lower than it’s been all day. “Or to prep for the season. Not really.”

You glance up, meeting his eyes.

“I came back because I didn’t know where else to go,” he admits. “I needed to feel... something familiar. Just for a while.”

His fingers tap a slow rhythm against his thigh, a nervous habit you remember well. The same one from when he used to sit beside you during exams, whispering under his breath that he was going to flunk—only to ace the paper every time.

You just nod, not sure how to respond to this sudden vulnerability. Truthfully, throughout your four years of dating, he had never truly let himself be vulnerable in front of you. Not fully.

Sure, you’d seen him tired. You’d seen him frustrated. You’d seen the cracks on the surface when pressure pushed too hard—but he always wore his pride like armour, always bounced back with a smirk or a shrug, always insisted he was fine, even when you knew he wasn’t.

But this—this quiet confession, this barely-audible tremor in his voice—it feels different.

Feels like he's reaching out to you.

And it guts you more than you’d like to admit.

You shift slightly in your seat, unsure if you’re meant to comfort him or just bear witness. “Is that why you said yes to this?” you ask. “To the interview?”

His eyes flick toward you, then away again.

“I wasn’t sure,” he says after a beat. “Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

Your breath catches. The words aren’t said with romantic flourish, not laced with sweetness or longing—but they still land squarely in your chest, knocking something loose.

You don’t know what to say. For once, your head isn’t filled with questions or comebacks. Just the ghost of a hundred conversations you never had, and the echo of all the things that could have been different if either of you had said the honest thing first.

But it’s too late for that now.

You glance down at your folder, lips pressed into a thin line. “Thanks for your time,” you say, and it’s so formal, so distant, it might as well have come from someone else entirely.

"I'm assuming I'll hear from your legal representative if I use any of these in my piece."

Your voice is calm, steady—too steady. The sentence lands like a wall slamming back into place between you, brick by brick. You don’t say it to be cruel. You say it because you need to anchor yourself in something safe, something distant. Because the moment felt too raw, too real, and you don’t know what to do with the part of you that wanted to reach across the table instead of retreat.

Sunghoon stiffens. Just slightly.

“No,” he says after a moment. “You won’t. Off the record’s fine. Not like it matters now, anyway.”

You nod once, curt. “Got it.”

And just like that, the spell breaks. The weight in the room doesn't lift, but it shifts—muted now, buried again beneath layers of detachment and professionalism. The kind you’ve both grown too good at.

You don’t look at him when you stand. Don’t give yourself the chance to. Your hands move on autopilot—closing the recorder, tucking your pen away, zipping your coat with fingers that tremble ever so slightly. And then you’re moving, steps brisk and deliberate, the sound of your boots against the concrete floor too loud in the quiet.

Behind you, you hear nothing.

No apology. No explanation. No plea.

Just silence.

Sunghoon opens his mouth—his hand halfway raised, like he’s about to call your name. But the words never make it past his lips. He watches you go, jaw clenched, the moment slipping through his fingers before he even realises he still wanted to hold onto it.

For him, seeing you again was something he knew he would never truly be prepared for, no matter how many times he rehearsed this conversation in his head. Because you were never a script he could memorise.

You were always unpredictable. Slipping through moments like sand through his fingers—too quick, too sharp, too full of feeling. He remembers how your emotions came in layers—some loud and impulsive, others quiet and impossible to decipher. And maybe that’s what scared him the most.

Because he never quite knew how to meet you where you were.

You made decisions faster than he could process. You said the things he only thought about. And you demanded a kind of presence, a kind of emotional honesty, that he had spent most of his life trying to avoid. A part of him had admired that about you. Another part? It drove him insane.

Now, as your figure disappears through the doors without so much as a backward glance, he feels that same ache blooming in his chest again—familiar and bitter.

He told himself that this would be closure.

But it doesn’t feel like the end. It feels like a page he never finished reading.

And you’re already gone.

You spend the next few hours drafting the profile piece that was supposedly meant to “provide a deeper understanding of the person behind the athlete.” Though with the material you’ve managed to gather, it’s unlikely you’ll even graze the surface. 

Whatever. Just give them the Sunghoon they want: the enigmatic comeback king, the prodigy turned recluse turned headline again. You’ll quote his stats, mention his precision, maybe even throw in a poetic metaphor about how the ice has always been his canvas. You’ll do your job. Professionally. Neutrally.

You’ve done harder things. Covered messier stories. Interviewed athletes who could barely string a sentence together. Sat through twelve-hour matches just to get three lines of gold. Writing about Sunghoon, someone you know—knew—should be easier. Right?

Wrong.

So incredibly, painfully wrong.

Because the moment you sit down to outline your first paragraph, every sentence you draft sounds clinical. Distant. Like you’re trying too hard to keep your voice out of it. But your voice is in it. It’s everywhere. Between the lines, in the phrasing, in the careful omission of details only you would know.

You stare at the blinking cursor on your screen like it’s mocking you. Because no matter how objective you try to be, there’s no deleting the fact that the man skating his way back into the spotlight is the same one who once skated straight out of your life.

And now you have to write about him like he’s just another assignment. Like he wasn’t the one story you never really finished.

Still, you’re a professional—and Park Sunghoon is nothing if not a compelling subject. Enigmatic, polished, untouchable. Every photo released of him looks like it’s been run through three rounds of edits and an entire PR team’s approval. His public image is a masterclass in controlled narrative, curated to the last detail, but his backstory remains a blank canvas to most.

Well, not to you.

You have a folder of photos from when he was still just Sunghoon—before the endorsements, before Spain. 

Sunghoon also never said you couldn’t dive into his university life. And it’s not like he gave you much to work with anyway.

That’s fair game.

No media-trained responses, no glossy interview clips—just a black hole of the years he spent quietly grinding through lectures and training sessions, tucked far from the spotlight. 

To the public, it’s a blank space. But to you? It’s fertile ground. You were there. You knew the version of him who lived off convenience store food and energy drinks, who stayed up late tweaking final projects and icing swollen ankles at the same time. You knew the boy who forgot to reply to emails but remembered to text you good luck before your presentations. 

You know the difference between the way he smiles for cameras and the one that used to slip out mid-yawn, when his guard was down. You know the scar above his ankle—not because it’s ever been mentioned in press, but because you were there when he got it, wrapping it in gauze while he hissed through gritted teeth. You know how he taps his fingers when he’s nervous. How he tightens his jaw before speaking truths he doesn't want to admit. How his laugh used to crack in the middle when something really got to him, how his voice used to trip over words when he was excited or flustered—not like the carefully paced cadence he gives the media now.

He may have grown into a mystery, but once upon a time, he was the most knowable person in your life.

So yeah, you dig. Not out of spite. Not exactly. You’re just doing your job. Sourcing old event flyers, class photos, public records, and a few strategically placed emails to former professors and classmates. You tell yourself it’s just research—nothing personal. Just building a fuller picture for the piece. The audience deserves depth. Authenticity. A glimpse of the man behind the athlete.

Besides, it’s not like you’re digging for scandal. You’re just… revisiting old ground.

Still, there's something undeniably sharp about the way your fingers move as you pull up archived yearbooks and student publication blurbs. How your lips twitch at the memory of him stumbling through a group presentation in first-year psych, cheeks red, voice shaking as he tried to explain semiotics with a skating metaphor. The same boy who once dropped his cue cards and muttered, “I’m better on ice, I swear,” to a room that actually laughed with him. 

And maybe—just maybe—it wouldn't hurt to slip the story into the draft. Tactfully. Casually. A humanising touch. A reminder to the world that he wasn’t always so untouchable.

You add a line about his time at university, his balancing act between training and lectures, the quiet discipline that preceded his fame. And though it’s not in your style to get sentimental, you let yourself write one soft line, just one:

You keep it sharp. Clean. Balanced. The words come easily, like muscle memory. You stitch together the facts, layer in the charm, and add a sprinkle of speculation where it’s appropriate—just enough to give readers something to chew on. You reference his decorated track record, his quiet re-entry into the spotlight, the way his name is starting to echo through rinks again like a whispered rumour of greatness returning.

You even write about the growing murmur among commentators: that Park Sunghoon might just be gearing up for a full-blown comeback.

Even though he told you—specifically, clearly—that he wasn’t prepping for the season.

But facts don’t sell as well as fantasy. And he’s always been better as a myth than a man.

So you keep your voice light. Objective. Not too close, not too distant. Just enough ambiguity to make it seem like you’re on the outside looking in. Just enough plausible deniability to protect you from the truth threaded beneath every line. You write him like a legend resurrected. Like someone who left the world breathless, disappeared, and is now daring to return.

Before you know it, you're signing it off.

And as you read over the final draft—flawless, well-paced, and entirely detached—you can’t help but feel the faintest pulse of something beneath your skin.

Because this isn’t just a story about Park Sunghoon.

It’s a story about how well you still know him.

And how expertly you’ve learned to pretend you don’t.

You don’t even attempt to read it over another time. You just hit send.

The email whirs off to your editor, and with it, the story. Not the whole one. Not the one you carry in your chest like an old wound. Just the one the world gets to see.

And if he reads it—

Well.

Let him wonder how much of the truth you chose to leave out.

[MANIFESTO EXCLUSIVE] The Ice Doesn’t Melt: A Closer Look at Park Sunghoon’s Return to Korea

By Kang Y/N, Manifesto Daily

Three years since his last appearance on home soil, South Korea’s beloved figure skater Park Sunghoon has returned—not with the fanfare some expected, but with a quiet presence that speaks volumes. After a two-season absence from competitive performance, Park, now 27, has chosen to settle in Seoul again, sparking both curiosity and speculation among fans and professionals alike.

“I needed something familiar,” he said during our brief but telling interview, when asked about his decision to return. He didn’t specify more than that, and true to form, left the rest hanging in the air unsaid.

Park Sunghoon has always been a study in restraint—on and off the ice. From the moment he first captured public attention as a prodigious teen gliding across the rink with terrifying precision, he has maintained an image both pristine and impenetrable. Nicknamed “The Ice Prince” by fans and media alike, Park built a reputation not just on technical skill, but on his ability to keep the world at arm’s length.

His return to Korea comes on the heels of years spent overseas—Spain, to be exact—where he reportedly trained under a discreet but rigorous programme with world renowned Coach Alex Morales.

Park was last seen in competitive skating during the 2023 Grand Prix, where he shocked the world by abruptly withdrawing from the final. At the time, he was considered a strong contender for the gold, making his sudden exit all the more startling. The incident was never formally addressed by his management, and Park himself has avoided discussing it altogether. The silence that followed only fuelled speculation—injury, burnout, conflict—but no answers ever came. Just absence.

Still, those who’ve recently spotted him during early morning solo sessions at the Seoul Ice Arena report that his technique is sharper, cleaner—almost startling in its control. But what truly draws attention is the absence of spectacle. No press conference, no sponsor-driven welcome, no grand statement announcing his intentions. Just quiet re-entry.

“He doesn’t skate like someone preparing for a comeback,” one former coach, who requested anonymity, shared. “He skates like someone trying to remember why he loved it in the first place.”

Yet, it’s not just his time abroad that shaped the man returning now. Long before the endorsements and Olympic buzz, Park had quietly juggled his dual identity as both athlete and student. Few fans are aware that between competition seasons, he completed a degree in media and communication at a local university. Classmates from that time recall him as a quiet presence—always punctual, often reserved, but not unfriendly. He kept to himself for the most part, but those who got close remember his dry humour, his encyclopaedic knowledge of classic film, and a surprising tendency to ramble nervously during group presentations.

“He once tried to explain a semiotic theory using a skating routine as an analogy,” one classmate laughed. “It didn’t make much sense, but he was so earnest about it, we just let him finish. After that, he was known as the ‘semiotic boy’ among our coursemates.”

Those stories paint a softer, more human picture of the man the public still views as near-mythic. But those who knew Park Sunghoon before the spotlight remember someone more boy than myth—equal parts unsure and brilliant, like he hadn’t quite figured out how to carry the weight of his own potential. Just a young man balancing essays and exhibitions. Late-night editing sessions and early morning ice drills.

This return has reignited questions about what Park wants now—what comes after the medals, the global tours, and the silence that followed. His name still commands weight, still trends with the slightest public appearance, yet there’s a noticeable shift in how he carries it. Less prince. More person.

There’s been no official word on whether Park will rejoin the competitive circuit, though murmurs within the skating community suggest he’s been quietly invited to participate in the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics team tryouts. Whether he intends to accept remains unclear—Park has neither confirmed nor denied the rumours, keeping his future as intentionally unreadable as ever.

And perhaps that’s the story. Not a triumphant return. Not a redemption arc. But presence. The act of being. The quiet audacity of choosing stillness in a world that only ever celebrated his movement.

In many ways, Park Sunghoon remains an enigma. But for those who’ve followed his journey, that isn’t new. What’s new is the version of him that doesn’t seek to melt the ice—but instead, has learned to live with it.

Only time will tell what that means for the future of figure skating’s most elusive son.

“Our dear Y/N, you’ve done it again.”

Applause breaks out the second your foot crosses the threshold of the office. It’s 9 a.m.—too early, too loud, and at least three hours behind the amount of sleep you need to properly function. You blink, trying to place what exactly you’re being celebrated for.

“Bravo. That was an excellent article,” Minju, the team’s ever-enthusiastic publicist, grins as he pats you on the shoulder in passing.

Oh.

That was going out today?

You didn’t even have your morning coffee yet.

By the time you’ve dropped your bag onto your desk and opened your laptop, your inbox is already a mess. The subject lines blur together:

[RE] Manifesto Exclusive – Park Sunghoon IS HE BACK FOR REAL?? The Ice Prince has feelings?? Thank you for this. I cried.

You open a few out of morbid curiosity. Fans are flooding your public inbox with praise, speculation, and—because the internet is the internet—several unsolicited theories about a secret marriage and a love child. Your copy editor, Moka, forwards you one with the subject line: “if he doesn’t want to melt, i’ll melt FOR him.”

On social media, it’s even worse. Or better. You’re not sure yet.

His name is trending. #ParkSunghoon.

Followed closely by #IcePrinceReturns, and the truly cringy #TheColdDoesntBotherHoonAnyway.

Tweets fly across your feed:

@/ice_princess: this article just made me want to lie face down in the snow and whisper Park Sunghoon’s name to the frost

@/manifesto_daily_stan: Kang y/n i’m free on thursday if you want to do god’s work again

@/plscomebackhoon: she said he doesn’t need to melt. he just needs to exist. do you HEAR that??? DO YOU.

You rub your temples, overwhelmed, equal parts proud and terrified. It was just a profile piece. A quiet one. No exposés, no scandals—just a man and the silence he didn’t bother filling.

And somehow, that’s exactly what everyone needed.

Editors are thrilled. Readers are emotional. Former skaters are sharing it. Someone on Twitter even called it “the most human thing written about an athlete in years,” and you don’t know whether to be flattered or panicked.

Because it wasn’t meant to be that personal. 

Not really.

And yet—how could it not be?

You told the truth, sure. The visible one. But between the lines, there were pieces of you too. Tiny, hidden echoes of everything you remembered and everything you refused to say. And now it’s out there—immortalised in print and pixels—being consumed by people who will never know what you left out.

You’re halfway through scrolling a tweet thread titled “25 Times Park Sunghoon Looked Like a Heartbroken Studio Ghibli Protagonist” when a new email notification pops up.

From: [email protected] Subject: That Article

You squint.

How... tacky.

You open it, already bracing yourself for either legal threats or sarcasm.

Hey. Took your email off the internet, hope you don't mind. Nice article. Although, I don't think I approved any of those pictures you used in it. Especially the one where I’m mid-blink and look like I just saw God. Bold choice. P.S. You really quoted my classmate calling me “semiotic boy”? That’s... deeply unnecessary.

You stare at the screen, lips twitching despite yourself.

It’s so him—passive-aggressive, smug, and annoyingly charming. The kind of email only Park Sunghoon would send instead of just texting like a normal person.

At the bottom, there’s no sign-off. No best regards, no sincerely, not even a name.

Just one final line, added like an afterthought:

You still overuse em-dashes, by the way.

You exhale a laugh. God, of course he noticed that.

You stare at the screen, blinking. Once. Twice.

Of all the emails you expected today—from eager fans, nosy editors, one conspiracy theorist convinced Sunghoon is a time traveller—this was not on the list.

You lean back in your chair, arms crossed, rereading the message like it might change if you blink hard enough. But no. Still the same. Still signed off with zero punctuation, zero emotion, and 100% Sunghoon.

You scoff.

[email protected]. You can’t get over it. You don’t know what’s worse—the fact that he still uses the nickname he’s allegedly “not fond of,” or the fact that he sent this at 9:46 in the morning, as if he’s just casually emailing his accountant and not the ex-girlfriend who roasted his public persona to poetic effect.

Bold choice, he says.

This, from the man who once wore leather gloves indoors during summer and called it “a vibe.”

And semiotic boy? That quote was gold. If anything, he should be thanking you for making him sound like an emotionally tortured academic with cheekbones.

Still… your fingers hover over the keyboard.

The sensible part of you says to delete it. Or at the very least, archive it and go refill your coffee. You already got your exclusive. You did your job. The story’s out there, and it’s done.

But the curious part of you—the one that still knows how he takes his coffee, still remembers the shape of his laugh—can’t help but wonder what this email really means.

You don’t respond. Not yet.

But you don’t delete it either.

You just stare at the screen, lips pressed together, and whisper to yourself—

"I need a coffee break."

With that, you grab your cardigan, slip on your trainers, and leave the email open on your desktop as if stepping away from it might somehow make it disappear. The air outside bites at your cheeks—crisp, early, and a little too cold for spring. Your mind buzzes more from the lack of sleep than caffeine, and your only plan is to make it to the café on autopilot.

The café is still quiet at this hour, the kind of place where the clinking of ceramic cups and the occasional low murmur of conversation hums like white noise. The bell above the door chimes softly as you enter, and immediately you're greeted by the warm, grounding scent of roasted coffee beans and sugar syrup.

You exhale, shoulders easing slightly when you notice the queue is short. You move toward the counter, already calculating how much espresso you can legally ingest in one sitting, when a voice calls out from the seating area.

“Didn’t get my email?” The tone is casual—annoyingly casual. “Or did you read it and purposely decide not to respond?”

You freeze mid-step.

No way…

You turn, slowly—like you're afraid if you move too fast, the moment will solidify into something real you’re not ready for.

And there he is.

Park Sunghoon.

He’s standing just a few feet away, leaning with practiced ease against the edge of a table like he belongs there, like he hasn’t just completely upended your morning, looking frustratingly well-rested for someone who supposedly prefers early ice sessions. He’s dressed casually—black coat draped over a fitted charcoal jumper, those black-rimmed glasses he used to wear in university when he was trying to be invisible. But he was never very good at that.

His gaze locks with yours—calm, steady, unreadable—and it takes everything in you not to let your expression betray the punch of memory hitting you square in the chest.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you mutter, half under your breath.

“Sorry?” he says, feigning innocence.

“Nothing,” you say quickly, crossing your arms, trying to compose yourself. “Just… surprised...”

“Surprised to see me,” he says, finishing the thought as if he’s been rehearsing it in his head. 

“Yeah, at my coffee spot,” you sneer, narrowing your eyes. “What, are you stalking me?”

He gestures lazily toward the table behind him, where a half-drunk latte sits beside a copy of some obscure paperback you’re certain he’s only pretending to read. “I was here first. Technically.”

You smile, tight-lipped, the professional mask slipping neatly into place. “Well, I apologise if you felt like I had something against you. I get thousands of emails every day—your mail must’ve just gotten lost in the flood of junk mail. If it was really that urgent, you could’ve just texted.”

It’s a big, fat lie. You won’t even pretend otherwise. You read it. Multiple times. But you’re not about to give him the satisfaction of knowing that. 

His response is immediate. “You changed your number a few years ago. Didn’t leave much choice.”

The way he says it is deliberate, a little too sharp around the edges, like he’s been holding onto that fact longer than he’d care to admit. And what is he implying? That he’s tried contacting you over the years? What for?

You raise an eyebrow. “Right. And instead of, I don’t know, asking your assistant for it—you know, the same assistant I literally emailed last week—you thought it would be less invasive to go digging through old contact forms and hope I still checked my public inbox?”

He shrugs again, shameless. “It was surprisingly easy. And I figured it’d be less awkward than asking someone for it directly.”

You narrow your eyes. “Because nothing says respecting boundaries like showing up at my local café after sending a mildly passive-aggressive email.”

“Oh?” he says, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. “So you did read it?”

“No.”

“Then how’d you know it was passive-aggressive?”

You tilt your head, eyes narrowing just a touch. “Because I know you.”

The silence that follows is dense and immediate, settling between you with the weight of everything left unsaid. It hums beneath the chatter of the café, a fragile thread stretched so tight that you swear it might snap if either of you so much as blinked wrong.

Then, mercifully, the barista calls out for the next person in line—that’s you.

You move instinctively toward the counter, but before you can even begin to open your mouth, he’s already there, casually stepping beside you.

“Long black,” Sunghoon says, voice smooth as ever. “Make it a double shot.”

You turn your head slowly, eyes wide. “You remember my order.”

He doesn’t flinch. “Some things are hard to forget. Especially if it's the most atrocious coffee order known to mankind.”

And just like that, you’re thrown. Not by the gesture, but by the way he says it—like it means something. Like maybe he's not just here to pester you about emails and profile photos. Like maybe there’s something else behind those carefully guarded eyes.

But you're not ready to unpack that. Not here. Not now.

So instead, you nod stiffly, and say nothing.

Not because you have nothing to say—

But because you know, with Park Sunghoon, even the smallest word might start something you’re not sure you’re ready to finish.

You’re still reeling from the fact that he remembers minuscule details—like the exact way you take your coffee—when he casually steps in front of you and pays for it before you can even open your mouth to protest.

“You didn’t have to,” you say, surprised but keeping your voice neutral.

He waves it off, already pocketing the receipt like it’s no big deal. “Still have no idea how you even drink that shit,” he mutters, eyeing the dark brew with a look of theatrical disgust. “But consider it a compliment. For the article. It was… good.”

You glance up at him over the rim of your cup as you take your first sip, letting the heat hit your hands before the taste even registers. “Just good?”

He shrugs, nonchalant, but there’s a flicker of amusement in his eyes. “You didn’t use my best angles.”

You pause, lips curving slightly. “Oh, don’t worry,” you reply smoothly. “I’m saving those for the next feature: Park Sunghoon’s Top 10 Most Smug Expressions.”

That earns a laugh from him—genuine and unguarded—and it catches you off guard. Not the manufactured chuckle he gives in interviews. Not the polite, PR-approved smile. This is real. Honest. The kind of laugh you haven’t heard in years, the kind that used to sneak up on you in moments that felt weightless.

It hits you like hearing a song you forgot you loved—familiar and warm, laced with a nostalgia you weren’t ready for. A reminder of the version of him that existed before all the distance, before the silences, before the press statements and polished answers.

You don’t say anything in response. Just shoot him a look over the rim of your cup. A quiet don’t push it.

He meets your gaze, and for a beat, neither of you speaks. Then he nods, like he understands exactly what you’re not saying.

And somehow, that nod feels like the most honest thing exchanged between you all morning.

You’re back at your desk, the café detour doing little to clear your head. The email is still open, still flashing on your screen like it’s waiting—mocking you, almost. You stare at it for a long moment, fingers hovering over the keyboard.

You shouldn’t. You don’t need to. But something in you itches to respond anyway.

So you do.

From: You Subject: Re: That Article Hey. Glad you thought the article was good. I’ll be sure to file that glowing endorsement under “career highlights.” Also, I stand by the photos. Especially the one where you blinked mid-sentence—you looked relatable for once. Anyway. Thanks for the coffee. – Y/N P.S. Don’t ambush me at my local café again. Only if it’s urgent: +82 XX XXXX YYYY

Sunghoon is lying on his couch, one arm draped over his eyes to block out the soft afternoon light filtering through the curtains, the other still loosely holding his phone against his chest. The café encounter from earlier keeps playing in his mind on a slow, involuntary loop—your face, your voice, the way your brows lifted when you saw him, and especially that look you gave him when he ordered your coffee like he had any right to still know that.

He knows he probably shouldn’t have emailed. The moment he hit send, there was a part of him that regretted it. But then again, he’s never been particularly good at letting things go quietly—not when it comes to you. Not when the silence between you has always felt more like a wound than a clean break.

It’s been years since the breakup. Long enough, he thinks, that you should both be able to function like civil adults. Maybe not friends, but at least... acquaintances. Whatever that word means when it’s wrapped in history and the kind of silence that’s never quite neutral.

His phone buzzes once against his chest, and he lifts it almost automatically—more out of habit than hope, not expecting much. Maybe a curt response, a one-liner soaked in professionalism, something non-committal that closes the loop without opening any new ones.

But what he finds isn’t quite that.

His eyes skim the message quickly the first time, catching on your usual clipped humour, your dry phrasing. Then he sees the P.S.—and it stops him cold.

Don’t ambush me at my local café again. Only if it’s urgent: +82 XX XXXX YYYY

He stares at the line, the digits at the end anchoring his attention. His thumb hovers over the screen, then lowers.

He reads it again. Then again.

It takes him a moment to process that you didn’t just reply—you invited a reply. Not in so many words, but you didn’t have to.

He blinks, the message still glowing softly in the palm of his hand, and feels something shift—subtle, but undeniable.

You had tried to play it off with that line—“only if it’s urgent”—like it was a formality, a throwaway detail tossed in for the sake of convenience. But Sunghoon knows you better than that.

You don’t do anything without intention.

Even back then, when things were good, your words were measured—never careless. Whether it was drafting an essay or choosing what to say during a fight, you always calculated the weight of your words before you let them go. He used to admire that about you, even when it frustrated him. Especially when it frustrated him.

So no, he doesn’t believe the number was a casual addition. Not from you. Not after all this time. You wanted him to see it. You wanted him to know.

He sits up slowly, the email still open in his hand, thumb brushing absentmindedly over the edge of the screen. For a second, he considers calling. Just to hear your voice again—to see if it sounds any different now that everything between you has changed.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he just quietly saves the number into his contacts—Y/N, no emojis, no titles. Just your name, plain and familiar, like it’s never really left his phone at all.

His thumb hovers for a moment as the screen confirms the entry, and then he leans back, eyes flicking toward the ceiling, letting his mind wander—almost involuntarily—through an absurd list of scenarios.

He snorts softly.

What counts as urgent, exactly?

Would “it was raining and thought of you” qualify? Or maybe, “accidentally bought your favourite chips at the convenience store and they’re expiring tomorrow”?

His mouth twitches at the thought, the corner of a smile he doesn’t let fully form.

He’s not going to reach out—not tonight. Whatever this fragile, undefined space is between you now, he doesn’t want to risk crowding it too soon. He knows better than to force something still learning how to exist.

But the number is there now, quietly saved, tucked away like a folded letter waiting for the right moment to be opened. And that—simple as it is—is more than he had before.

So he stays where he is, stretched across the quiet of his apartment, letting the silence linger—not as a weight, but as something strangely tender. Something almost sacred. Because it no longer feels like the end of something.

It feels like the pause before a beginning.

And he waits.

Just like you did for him all those years ago.

The airport is chaos, as airports always are—the dull roar of overlapping conversations, the mechanical drawl of flight announcements overhead, the clatter of suitcase wheels rolling over the slick, polished floors. But somehow, in the middle of it all, it feels like there’s a bubble around the two of you, a quiet space carved out by the sheer force of everything you’re not saying.

Sunghoon stands a few feet away from the security gate, backpack slung over one shoulder, his boarding pass crumpled slightly in his hand from how tightly he’s holding it. Mr and Mrs Park are with him, tearfully fussing over their son—Mrs Park tugging at the hem of the jacket that's too big for him, hanging awkwardly off his frame in a way that makes him look both older and younger at the same time—like he’s already halfway into another life and trying to pretend he isn’t scared.

You stand nearby too, arms crossed—not out of defiance, but because it’s the only way you can keep yourself from falling apart. You don’t trust your hands otherwise.

When Sunghoon finally turns to you, you force yourself to smile.

“You’ll do great,” you say, forcing your voice to stay steady even though the lump in your throat makes it hard to breathe.

He smiles at that—a soft, tired thing that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“I don’t know about that,” he says, laughing under his breath, glancing down at his shoes like the words he really wants to say are hiding somewhere in the scuffed leather.

Your heart twists painfully at the sight.

And then he steps closer, close enough that you have to tilt your head back to look at him properly, close enough that you can see every crease of worry etched into his usually smooth expression.

“Can you…” he starts, then falters, running a hand through his hair the way he always does when he’s nervous. “Will you wait for me?”

The words hang between you, raw and clumsy and completely un-Sunghoon-like. No flourish. No ice. Just a boy asking for something he doesn’t know how to promise in return.

You look at him then—not the rising athlete, not the polished skater everyone else sees—but the boy who once spent three hours helping you build a wobbly IKEA desk, who remembered exactly how you take your coffee, who mumbled useless astronomy facts at two in the morning when neither of you could sleep.

And you nod.

Because how could you say no?

“Of course,” you say.

He exhales, and for a moment, it looks like he wants to say something more—something that could make this easier, something that could anchor you to the idea that this distance will be temporary, survivable. But whatever it is, he swallows it down.

Instead, he squeezes your hand once, quick and clumsy, like he’s afraid that if he holds on any longer, he won’t be able to let go at all.

Then he steps back. One step. Two. The space between you widens in a way that feels irreversible.

You stand there, rooted to the spot, as he turns toward the security line, his figure blending into the tide of travellers wheeling suitcases and juggling passports. He doesn't look back, and you tell yourself that’s a good thing—that it’s easier this way.

You don’t realise you’re holding your breath until his silhouette finally disappears around a corner, swallowed up by the sterile white lights and directional signs pointing toward Departures.

Only then do you let yourself breathe out, shaky and slow.

The airport continues moving around you—announcements, crying babies, the low thrum of engines preparing to carry people across oceans—but somehow, it feels like everything inside you has stilled. Like the moment he walked away, something small and quiet inside you went with him.

You watch another plane lift off in the distance, disappearing into the clouds. And even after his parents insists you go home, you stay a little longer, long enough for the ache to settle, long enough to be sure you won’t cry until you’re safely back in the taxi home. Pretending that saying “of course” didn’t cost you more than you could admit at the time.

Because if there’s one thing you promised him, and yourself, it’s that you would be strong enough to wait.

Except you didn’t know what waiting would mean at that time.

You were confident this long-distance thing could work.

After all, at that point, you and Sunghoon had been dating for over three years. You knew each other’s routines, each other’s moods, each other’s silences. You had weathered exams, competitions, internships, stupid fights about stupid things—surely, you thought, an ocean between you couldn’t undo what you had built.

You believed that love, real love, was supposed to be enough.

But love, you will learn, isn’t always louder than distance.

And sometimes, people leave—not because they stop loving you, but because their dreams need a bigger sky than you can give them.

You told yourself the time difference was just an inconvenience. That the occasional missed calls, the shorter texts, the longer silences were normal. That he was just busy. Tired. Adjusting.

And for a while, you made it work.

You sent each other photos—your morning coffee, his late-night practices. You had clumsy video calls where the signal dropped and you’d laugh and call each other back like it was no big deal. You celebrated tiny victories over Wi-Fi connections, reassured yourselves that the months would pass quickly, that this was temporary.

You even started saving for plane tickets, bookmarking dates and circling holidays on your calendar, telling anyone who asked that yes, it was hard, but yes, it was worth it.

You meant it.

You meant every word.

But what they don’t tell you about long distance—the thing you only learn the hard way—is that sometimes love isn’t enough when the other person starts building a life you’re no longer part of in the daily, ordinary ways. When your names are still tied together but your days stop overlapping. When missing someone becomes part of your routine instead of your exception.

And Sunghoon—sweet, steady, ambitious Sunghoon—was chasing a dream that required all of him.

There wasn’t much left over.

Not for you. Not for the late-night phone calls he stopped picking up. Not for the promises that started to stretch thinner and thinner until they broke without either of you realising it at first.

You waited.

You waited longer than you should have. 

And even now, some stubborn, aching part of you still remembers how sure you were at that airport when you said, of course.

Because you weren’t just waiting for him to come back. You were waiting for the version of him that left—to stay the same.

But some things, you’ve learned, aren’t meant to be held in place.

And some people, no matter how tightly you hold onto them, will always belong to a future you don’t get to walk into with them.

Now, sitting at your desk, staring at the faint glow of the monitor, you can’t help but drag a hand over your face in frustration. God. What was I thinking?

You lean back in your chair, the cheap leather groaning under the movement, and close your eyes for a moment, wishing you could rewind the last ten minutes and snatch the email back before it left your outbox. Before it could make you look like the fool you swore you wouldn’t be again.

Because re-reading it now, all you can see is desperation threaded between the lines. You might as well have stamped please still care about me in bold at the bottom.

You told yourself it was nothing. A witty reply. A polite thanks for the coffee. A number offered up casually—as if you wouldn’t notice whether he used it or not.

But you know better.

And so would he.

The truth is, no matter how many years have passed, no matter how much you've convinced yourself you've moved on, a part of you still folds too easily around him. Still softens at the memory of a boy who once asked you to wait for him, and the girl you were—the one foolish enough to believe that waiting would be enough.

You hate that about yourself sometimes. Hate that a few casual words from him, a coffee, an email, still have the power to make you feel like you’re standing in that airport all over again, arms crossed against your chest, watching him walk away.

You open your eyes, exhaling slowly. The office hums around you—phones ringing, fingers tapping on keyboards, Yunah shouting about deadlines across the bullpen—and you’re struck by how absurd it is that your life has continued without him, and yet he still feels like an unfinished chapter you never really closed.

You tell yourself it’s fine. That he’ll probably ignore the number. That he’ll chalk it up to courtesy and leave it at that.

But deep down, you know it’s too late for pretending.

Because no matter how you dress it up—witty, polite, indifferent—you handed him a door. And now, whether he steps through it or not, you’ll have to live with the fact that you opened it first.

The days pass, slow and uneven, the way they always do when you’re waiting for something you’re trying to pretend you’re not waiting for.

You throw yourself into work—churning out profiles, editing pieces that aren’t yours, picking up assignments nobody else wants just to fill the spaces in your mind. You sit through endless editorial meetings, nodding at all the right moments, scribbling half-hearted notes in the margins of your planner like it matters. You grab late-night convenience store dinners with Minju and Yunah, laughing at their jokes even when your chest feels hollow.

You live.

You function.

You check your email more often than necessary, always under the excuse of work, even though you know exactly what you’re hoping to find. You flick through your phone sometimes too—half-scrolling through newsfeeds, half-wondering if maybe, just maybe, there’ll be a notification that isn’t there.

But Sunghoon doesn’t reply. No email. No text. No missed call.

Nothing.

And slowly, inevitably, you start to fold the hope away. The way you fold an old jumper you know you’ll never wear again but can’t quite bring yourself to throw out.

You told him he could reach out only if it was urgent. And clearly, you’re not urgent.

Maybe you never were.

And you take it as a sign—maybe the only sign you’re going to get—that you should finally do yourself a favour and move on.

Because apparently, you haven’t. Not really. Not after all this time. You didn’t expect his return to unravel you like this—to pull at threads you thought you had stitched up long ago. But it has. And you can’t pretend anymore.

So you’ll move on for real this time. Not the half-hearted version where you paste on smiles and throw yourself into late nights at the office, where you tell your friends you’re fine while secretly checking your phone at red lights, while pretending you don’t still wonder if he thinks about you too. Not the kind where you fold the memory of him into smaller, quieter compartments of your mind, pretending it's just nostalgia, not hope.

No, this time, you tell yourself, it will be the real kind—the clean break, the neat ending.

And for a while, you almost believe it.

Until your phone buzzes, cutting through the quiet.

Just a single, unremarkable vibration against the desk, one you almost ignore—because it’s late, because you’re tired, because you’re used to the world asking for pieces of you at all hours now. You glance at the screen without thinking, already preparing to swipe it away like a dozen other notifications.

But then you see it.

Unknown Number.

For a moment, your brain stalls, fumbling for a rational explanation—maybe it’s a delivery update, maybe it’s a scam, maybe it’s one of those automated text from some subscription you forgot to cancel.

Still, your hand moves on instinct, betraying every rational excuse you try to conjure.

You unlock your phone.

And you read:

Hey. It’s me. Not sure if this counts as urgent. But... I saw something today that made me think of you. Do you have time?

Your breath catches in your throat, sharp and sudden, and the world around you blurs for a second—the hum of fluorescent lights overhead, the muffled buzz of printers, the distant tap-tap-tap of someone typing across the office—all of it fading under the weight of those few simple lines.

You read it again. And again. As if the words might rearrange themselves into something else if you look long enough.

But they don’t.

It’s him. Sunghoon. 

Reaching out not because he had to. Not because it was "urgent."

But because he thought of you.

And even though your mind races ahead with every reason you should be cautious, with every reminder of how long it took to rebuild the parts of yourself he once splintered, you already know—deep in your chest, in the place you don't let logic touch—that you’re going to answer.

You don’t let yourself overthink it this time.

No typing, erasing, retyping. No staring at the blinking cursor until it mocks you into silence. You just move your thumbs over the screen, letting instinct take the lead before the part of you that’s scared has a chance to intervene.

You type:

You: You should probably introduce yourself next time. "It’s me" doesn’t really help if I don’t already know how you text. And depends. Is it something worth hearing about?

You barely have time to set your phone down before it buzzes again.

Sunghoon: Definitely something worth hearing about.

Another message follows almost instantly:

Sunghoon: I’m free tonight if you are. Just coffee. Nothing crazy. If you want. There's also a favour I'd like to ask.

You sit there, blinking at the last line, reading it twice as your mind scrambles to catch up. 

A favour?

It throws you off more than the coffee invitation itself. Coffee is easy—coffee is surface-level, casual, the kind of thing you can chalk up to old acquaintances being civil. But a favour? A favour means intention. A favour means he’s thought about this. About you.

Your fingers hover over the keyboard, your pulse quickening in that annoyingly familiar way you wish you had outgrown by now. You’re not naive enough to think this is anything more than it is. He probably just needs help connecting with someone, getting a contact, maybe even needs something for the press if he’s easing back into the public eye.

Still, a part of you hesitates.

Not because you don’t want to go. But because you’re not sure if you trust yourself not to want more.

You take a breath, steadying your thumb over the screen.

You type:

You: Where and what time?

The message sends before you can talk yourself out of it, and you drop your phone onto the desk, face down again, like it’s too hot to hold onto for even a second longer. You exhale a long, slow breath, staring up at the ceiling, trying to calm the restless beat of your heart.

Because tonight, you realise, you’re going to see him again.

Not as professionals. Not as a lingering what-if. Not as a name floating in your inbox or coincidental meetings.

But real. Present.

And no matter how much you tell yourself that you’re ready—that you’re different now—you know a part of you is still bracing for impact.

Sunghoon arrives at the café first.

It’s your spot—he knows that now. He also knows you probably don’t come here because the coffee is any good—you always made that clear with a scrunched nose and a dry comment about “caffeine being caffeine”—but because it’s close, convenient, easy to fold into your day without having to think too hard.

He settles into a table near the window, where the soft spill of the sunset stretches across the tabletop in muted golds and pinks. He sits with his backpack slung over the back of the chair, a cup of hot tea resting untouched in front of him, and for a brief moment, he looks less like the man you’ve been writing about—and more like the boy you used to know.

He wasn't a hundred percent sure you'd say yes to meeting him. When he sent that message, part of him assumed it would disappear into the void, swallowed up by everything unsaid between you. 

But you answered. And you did in the way you always did—dry, sharp, a little guarded—but underneath it all, you answered.

And now, sitting here in this too-bright, too-loud café with a lukewarm tea and a racing heart he can’t fully rationalise, Sunghoon feels the weight of it settle in his chest.

He glances at the door again, even though he knows it’s still early. His knee bounces under the table, betraying the nervous energy he can’t shake, no matter how carefully he tries to hide it under indifference.

Maybe tonight won’t fix anything. Hell, it’s not meant to.

But you’re showing up.

And somehow, that already feels like more than he deserves.

The bell above the door chimes, sharp and familiar, cutting through the low hum of conversation and clinking cups.

Sunghoon looks up almost instinctively—and there you are, stepping into the café with a kind of restless energy tucked into the set of your shoulders, like you’re already bracing yourself for something you can’t name yet.

You don’t see him at first.

Of course you don’t.

Because out of pure, unconscious instinct, you’re scanning the corners of the café—the tucked-away tables, the quieter spots shielded from the main crowd—just like you always used to.

Sunghoon feels a tight tug in his chest, something that pulls and aches all at once, because he remembers.

He remembers how you used to tease him for always choosing the seats against the wall, how you said he acted like a cat looking for the best vantage point, somewhere he could see everything without being seen himself.

He remembers you pretending to sulk when he dragged you to the corner booths instead of the bright window seats you preferred—and how, secretly, you never really minded.

And now, without even thinking, you’re still looking for him in the places where you remember him being.

And without even realising, he had chosen a place where he remembered you liking.

He doesn’t call out to you.

He just watches.

Watches the slight purse of your lips when you don’t spot him right away. Watches the way your fingers tap lightly against the strap of your bag—an old nervous habit he’d forgotten he remembered—like your body is leaking out the anxiety you refuse to show on your face.

And God, you look—

You look pretty.

Not in the polished, deliberate way people try to look when they know they’re being watched.

You look real.

Soft in the fading light, like the world around you hasn’t quite caught up to you yet. Your hair a little mussed from the breeze outside, your cheeks flushed with the leftover heat of the setting sun. There’s a quietness to you, a rawness—like you’re still made of the same stubborn hope and sharp edges he used to love, except time has worn them softer, gentler, more dangerous in ways he doesn’t even have the words for.

You look like a memory he’s been trying not to miss.

You look like the version of you he’s been carrying around all these years—

Real. Tired, maybe. A little guarded. But still luminous in a way he can’t describe without sounding ridiculous, without pulling old, unfinished feelings up from the place he thought he’d buried them for good.

Something shifts in his chest, painful and sweet all at once.

Because in the handful of minutes he’s spent sitting here convincing himself to stay calm, convincing himself that this was just coffee and nothing more—you’ve walked through the door and reminded him, without trying, exactly why forgetting you had never really been an option.

He straightens slightly in his chair, the leg of the table bumping softly against his knee.

And for a moment—just a moment—Sunghoon forgets why he’s here at all.

You shift your weight from one foot to the other, adjusting the strap of your bag on your shoulder, scanning the café with a quiet frown starting to settle between your brows.

Sunghoon watches the hesitation flicker across your face—the way you linger a fraction too long at every corner booth, the way your fingers brush nervously against the hem of your jacket, like you’re grounding yourself without even realising it.

And then—finally—your gaze catches his.

The moment stretches, taut and delicate, like a held breath.

You blink, as if to double-check it’s really him. Your lips part slightly in surprise, a faint hitch of breath visible even from where he’s sitting, and for a second, neither of you moves, both suspended in that thin, brittle space where time slows down just enough to make you feel the weight of it.

You glance at the window beside him, your eyes catching the reflection of the streetlights bleeding into the glass, and for a moment, confusion flickers briefly across your face.

That’s why you didn’t spot him immediately when you walked in.

You weren’t looking by the windows—you never had to.

Sunghoon never sat there. He hated it. Hated having his back exposed, hated being on display. You’d spent years weaving through crowded cafés and restaurants, instinctively scanning the corners, the quiet spaces tucked away from the flow of people, because that’s where he would always be—where he could watch without being watched, where the world couldn’t reach him unless he let it.

But tonight, he’s here.

By the window.

Plain as day.

And without him saying a word about it, you realise it—another small, unconscious version of Park Sunghoon you were still holding onto without even realising it. 

A version you thought was set in stone, carved into your memories. 

A version you never prepared yourself to outgrow.

Sunghoon doesn’t smile. He doesn’t look away.

He just meets your gaze head-on, steady and quiet, letting the moment settle between you without rushing to fill it with anything easy or safe.

You square your shoulders after a heartbeat too long, forcing your body into motion, and start making your way towards him. Your steps are measured, careful, almost cautious, but there’s no mistaking the way your fingers clench slightly against the strap of your bag, no hiding the guarded look in your eyes that says you’re still ready to turn around and walk away if this goes wrong.

He stays seated as you approach, watching you close the distance between you, something tight and aching lodged in his chest, something he’s too afraid to name yet.

When you reach the table, you don’t sit down right away.

You just stand there, staring at him for a moment longer, as if trying to gauge how much of the boy you used to love is still sitting there, underneath the polished surface he’s learned to wear like a second skin.

Sunghoon clears his throat lightly, a small, awkward sound that feels jarringly loud in the otherwise soft hum of the café.

“You found me,” he says, voice low and almost shy, like he's not sure if he's allowed to sound relieved.

You shrug, shifting your weight onto your other foot. “Didn’t think you’d make it so easy,” you reply, your tone light, almost teasing, but there’s no real bite behind the words—just a tired kind of fondness that feels too familiar, too stubborn to shake.

And just like that, some of the tension splinters—

Not all of it.

Not enough to call this easy.

But enough to remind both of you why you’re here.

Wordlessly, you pull out the chair across from him and sit down, setting your bag carefully by your feet.

Sunghoon’s hand twitches slightly against his cup, the tea inside long cold by now, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

You fold your hands in your lap, lift your chin just a little, and say, “Alright. You’ve got my time. Let’s hear it.”

“You’re not even curious what reminded me of you?” Sunghoon asks, one brow lifted, his voice dipping into that familiar, teasing cadence you used to know so well.

Of course you’re curious. Of course your mind has been spinning endless possibilities from the second you read his first text. But you’re not about to hand that over to him so easily—not when you’re still trying to convince yourself you’re not sitting here half-holding your breath.

You lean back slightly in your chair, crossing one leg over the other in an easy, breezy posture you absolutely don’t feel, and shrug. “What reminded the oh-so-charismatic Ice Prince of me?”

The corner of his mouth lifts into a smirk—the same infuriating, boyish smirk that once had the power to completely undo you, the one you thought time and bitterness would have dulled. It hasn’t. Not even a little.

He doesn’t say anything right away.

Instead, he reaches into the inside pocket of his coat, moving slowly, drawing out the suspense just because he knows it’ll get under your skin. 

When he pulls out a small box and sets it gently on the table between you, you blink down at it in surprise.

It’s a Popmart blind box.

The exact kind you used to collect like trophies after long study sessions or bad days, back when you needed small, ridiculous joys to get you through.

You stare at the familiar design, the cutesy pastel art printed on the cardboard, the gleaming plastic seal still unbroken—and for a second, it’s like the years peel away and you’re back in a different time, a different version of yourself. One who used to drag Sunghoon to random mall kiosks and lecture him on the probability rates of getting the secret rare figure, completely oblivious to how patient he was being with you.

He watches your reaction carefully, elbows propped lazily on the table, but his eyes are sharp—searching.

“You’re kidding,” you murmur, finally breaking the silence, your voice somewhere between disbelief and something softer, something a little too close to fondness.

He shrugs, that infuriating smirk deepening. “Saw it at a convenience store on my way to practice this morning.”

You shake your head, the smallest, almost unwilling laugh slipping out of you. “You used to roast me for buying these.”

“And yet,” he says, tapping the box lightly with one finger, “I bought one almost every time I passed that Popmart near my place. For research purposes, obviously.”

You roll your eyes, but you can’t fight the smile pulling at your lips, nor the way your chest tightens at the thought of it—him, in another city, another life, still thinking of you in the small, quiet ways that mattered when words weren’t enough.

For a moment, neither of you says anything. The box sits between you, unopened, full of some stupid, mass-produced trinket that somehow feels heavier than anything else in the room.

You glance up at him, and he’s already looking at you—not with expectation, not with the smugness you were half-braced for—but with something quieter. Something careful.

“Thank you,” you say, the words slipping out before you can overthink them, barely more than a whisper, but somehow steady. It’s the only thing you can conjure in the moment, the only thing that feels honest and real enough to offer. You’re a little surprised you manage to say it out loud at all, your throat tight with all the other things you’re not ready to admit.

Sunghoon leans back in his chair, his eyes bright with something that looks dangerously close to amusement as he tilts his head at you.

“It’s the least you could say,” he teases, tapping the box again with his fingertip, “after I spent almost twenty dollars on that.”

The exaggerated grumble in his voice cracks the tension like a hairline fracture, and before you can stop yourself, a laugh escapes your lips—short, surprised, but real.

The sound of it seems to hit him harder than you expect.

For a second, he just stares at you, like he’s been momentarily stunned, like some long-frozen part of him is trying to remember how to breathe properly.

And if you weren’t so caught up in trying to pull your own defences back into place, you might have noticed the way his posture softens, just slightly, as if the laugh is something fragile he’s afraid of shattering.

You smirk, shaking your head as you reach out and nudge the box with two fingers, sliding it just slightly toward you.

“You bought this to bribe me into helping you with that favour, didn’t you?” you say, lifting your gaze to meet his fully now, your voice laced with teasing accusation but your heart still hammering too hard against your ribs.

He has the audacity to look mock-offended, clutching his chest like you’ve wounded him. “Bribe?” he echoes. “Wow. No faith in me at all.”

“You literally showed up with a Popmart like some kind of peace offering-slash-negotiation tactic,” you point out, arching an eyebrow.

“And yet…” he trails off, a slow grin tugging at his mouth, “you’re still sitting here. You’re still talking to me.”

You roll your eyes, but you can’t help the way the corner of your mouth betrays you, tilting upward just enough for him to catch it.

He sees it.

Of course he does.

And somewhere, buried deep under the layers of sarcasm and half-healed scars, you know he feels it too—the tiny, reckless flicker of something that neither of you is quite brave enough to name yet.

“So?” you prompt, your fingers idly tracing the rim of the coffee cup in front of you, the casualness in your voice a little too forced even to your own ears.

Sunghoon shifts in his seat, the easy smirk fading just slightly as he straightens, as if the weight of what he’s about to say demands a little more gravity.

“I wanted to ask if you could help me write another article,” he says, the words slow and deliberate, like he’s weighing each one carefully before letting it leave his mouth.

You blink, surprised but trying not to show it. “What about?”

He leans back, exhales once through his nose, and says it:

“I’m going to be participating in the Olympic tryouts.”

The announcement hits harder than you expect, knocking the air from your lungs for half a second. You sit up a little straighter, your mind racing to process it, because the last time you talked he was adamant he wasn’t preparing for the season. He said it so easily, so convincingly, that you hadn’t thought to press harder.

Sunghoon must catch the flicker of confusion across your face, because he adds quickly, almost defensively, “It’s not a comeback. Not really.”

You narrow your eyes slightly. “What do you mean?”

He pauses.

You can see it—the hesitation. The way his shoulders tense just the slightest bit, the way he looks down at his hands like the answer is written somewhere in the faint lines of his palms.

“I—” he starts, then stops, chewing the inside of his cheek in frustration. His fingers curl lightly against the table, the same nervous tic he’s had since he was a teenager trying to explain why he bombed a practice session.

“I just need you to write the article for me,” he says instead, voice softer now, almost tentative. “Please?”

Here’s the thing about Sunghoon.

He’s always been good at giving you just enough—just enough smiles, just enough softness, just enough quiet promises without ever saying the words aloud—to make you feel like maybe, just maybe, there was something sturdy here.

Something real.

Something worth holding onto.

And then, just when you reached for it, just when you let yourself believe you were on solid ground, he would pull back.

Carefully.

Effortlessly.

Leaving you standing there, empty-handed, wondering if you were the one who had leaned in too far, if you had asked for too much, if you had misread all of it from the start.

It wasn’t cruelty.

It was worse than cruelty.

It was kindness, just enough to hurt. Just enough to make you doubt whether it was ever real.

You lean back slightly, arms crossing over your chest, not because you want to be defensive but because you need the distance, need something to ground you against the sudden rush of old feelings. “Why me?” you ask, genuinely. “The last time I wrote something for you, you were too busy complaining about the photos I used to actually say thank you.”

It’s a weak jab, but you both know the real question you’re asking has nothing to do with photos.

It’s why now?

It’s why me, when you could have gone to anyone else?

Sunghoon meets your gaze without flinching, his expression surprisingly earnest.

“Because,” he says simply, “I trust you.”

You open your mouth to say something—something sarcastic, something to deflect—but he cuts you off before you can.

“I trust that you won’t spin this into something else. I trust that you’ll tell it the way it is. Not the way people want to hear it. Not the way the sponsors or the federations want it dressed up.” His voice stays calm, but there’s something raw underneath it, something that edges dangerously close to vulnerability. “Just… the truth. That’s all I want.”

You stare at him across the table, your fingers curling slightly around the rim of your cup, and for a moment, you don't say anything. You just sit there, letting the request hang in the air between you, heavy and trembling like a thread pulled too tight.

Part of you—the part that's bruised and still sore from all the years of learning the hard way—wants to say no. Wants to lean back in your chair, laugh it off, tell him to hire a better PR team like every other professional athlete with something to prove. Wants to remind him, and maybe yourself, that you’re not the same girl who would have dropped everything the moment he asked.

Because you know better now. You know how this story goes. You say yes, you step closer, you open the door just a crack—and he slips through, quietly, effortlessly, until you're standing in the wreckage again, wondering how you didn’t see it coming.

But another part of you—the stubborn part, the hopeful part you haven't managed to kill off no matter how hard you've tried—can’t quite look away from him. From the way he’s sitting there, tension riding his shoulders, fingers tapping a restless rhythm against his cup. From the way he asked—no bravado, no posturing, just a simple, almost clumsy honesty that feels so rare you almost don't know what to do with it.

You glance toward the window, watching the way the last blush of sunset catches against the glass, and for a moment you imagine what it would feel like to say yes.

Not because you owe him. Not because you’re chasing the past.

But because, somewhere deep down, you still believe in telling stories the way they deserve to be told.

You still believe some promises are worth making again, even if it terrifies you.

Your stomach twists, your chest aching with the sharpness of it, but you find yourself already knowing the answer before your mouth even moves.

You inhale slowly, letting the silence stretch for just a beat longer than necessary, then exhale through your nose, pushing aside the complicated tangle of feelings you don't have the energy to unravel tonight.

"Fine," you say at last, voice even, businesslike, like you're trying to convince both of you that this is just another assignment and not something heavier slipping under your skin. "Get your assistant to email me the details. I’ll personally send over the draft before pushing it to the editorial team."

You reach for your cup as you say it, needing something to do with your hands, something to anchor yourself to this new line you’re drawing in the sand.

But before you can even take a sip, Sunghoon leans forward slightly, resting his forearms on the table, his expression soft but firm in a way that pins you in place more effectively than anything else could.

“Don't bother,” he says simply. “You can just publish it directly.”

You pause, the cup poised halfway to your mouth, his words hanging there between you like an invisible thread you’re not sure you want to pull. You lower the cup slowly, setting it back down against the saucer with a faint clink, buying yourself a second to think. To breathe. To understand.

You search his face for the catch, for the usual hesitation he so often laced into moments like this—those little cracks where you could see him calculating the safest move, the one that let him stay just close enough without ever being vulnerable.

But this time, there’s none of that. Just him, sitting there, arms folded over the table, looking at you like he’s already decided.

"Are you sure?" you ask, the words slipping out lighter than you feel them. "No proofread? No management red flags?"

Sunghoon’s lips twitch into a smile—small, wry, but not mocking. If anything, he looks... relieved that you asked. Like he was expecting the pushback, maybe even hoping for it, because it means you’re still cautious enough to take this seriously.

"I’m sure," he says simply. 

A muscle ticks once in your jaw, the urge to press further bubbling up, but you force yourself to stop. And in it’s place, a lump forms in your throat, sharp and unexpected, because if there’s one thing you didn’t expect to find tonight—certainly not here, not like this—it was trust.

Not just trust in your professionalism. Not just trust in your writing.

Trust in you. 

Because whatever else has changed, you can feel it: This matters to him.

Not the article. Not the media coverage.

This.

Reaching out to you.

Trusting you with the fragile, unfinished thing he's trying to build for himself again, knowing full well you could burn him with it.

And somehow, hearing him say it—so plainly, so quietly—makes it harder to breathe for a moment. Because even after everything, even after the distance and the silences and the growing pains you both carried separately, some part of him still sees you as the person who would protect his story. The way you once protected his heart.

And you don’t know what terrifies you more—the fact that he still trusts you, or the fact that, deep down, you still want to be the person worthy of that trust.

It rattles something loose inside you—the version of yourself you thought you had to kill off to survive him once.

You shift slightly in your seat, trying to hold onto your composure, trying not to let him see the way those simple words—those few inches of offered faith—shake the foundation you’ve been standing on for years.

"Alright," you say at last, keeping your voice light, controlled, even though your hands tremble ever so slightly beneath the table.

"But don't blame me if you don't like how candid I get."

Sunghoon smiles at that, the edges of his mouth curling in that way that makes your chest hurt for reasons you’re too tired to name.

"I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t mean it," he says simply.

You let out a soft breath you hadn’t even realised you were holding and glance down at your watch, the second hand ticking steadily forward. It’s getting late. And even though neither of you says it, you both know this fragile truce you’ve built tonight can only stretch so far before it snaps under the weight of everything you’re still not ready to talk about.

You stand, gathering your bag with slow, deliberate movements, and Sunghoon rises too, out of habit more than necessity. Always the gentleman, even when he had no right to be.

You sling your bag over your shoulder, tucking a stray strand of hair behind your ear, and look at him one last time.

There’s so much you could say. So much you shouldn’t.

So instead, you just offer a nod. Small. Measured. Almost formal.

"I’ll be in touch," you say.

And before he can say anything that might make this harder, you turn and walk toward the door, the cool night air rushing in as you step outside.

You don’t look back.

But you feel it—the weight of his eyes following you, lingering in the space you leave behind.

You’re back in that tiny, overheated apartment off campus—the one where the windows always fogged up too easily and nothing ever really dried properly unless you left it near the fan. The scent of burnt popcorn still clings faintly to the air from earlier that evening, and the dull hum of traffic bleeds in through the thin walls, but even that doesn’t distract from the tension steadily rising in the room like pressure before a storm. Sunghoon is slouched on the couch with one hand tangled in his hair, exhaling yet another sigh—his fifth in the past ten minutes. You’ve been watching him carefully from across the room, patiently waiting for him to reach out first. But after three years together, you know better. Park Sunghoon doesn’t do well with vulnerability. He never has. "Something’s on your mind, isn’t it?" you ask, finally breaking the silence as you settle down beside him on the couch. He flinches at your sudden proximity, as if this isn’t your apartment, as if he’s only just realised you’re still here. He doesn’t look at you when he answers. "No, I’m just tired from training, that’s all." You let out a breath—not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. “You know, three years is a long time. Long enough for me to know when you’re lying to me. Just because I don’t call you out on it doesn’t mean I don’t see it happening.” That makes him freeze. His hand stills in his hair, and his jaw goes tight. “Park Sunghoon,” you say slowly, letting each syllable settle like a weight between you. The name sounds foreign in your mouth—formal, distant, pointed. He flinches. Not visibly, not dramatically—but you see it. A slight stiffening in his posture. The barest flicker of guilt behind his eyes. Because he knows what it means when you use his full name. You only ever say it like that when you’re done waiting. “You’re keeping something from me.” The words come out flat and exhausted, with none of the softness you’ve been clinging to for weeks—because whatever this thing is, whatever he’s hiding, it’s starting to rot the air between you. And you’re too tired—too frayed around the edges from all the late-night phone calls that ended too early, the dinners where he barely looked up from his plate, the countless conversations that brushed against the truth but never quite touched it. He blinks at you like you’ve just blindsided him. "Babe, what are you talking about?" "Don’t do that," you snap, your voice rising before you can stop it. "Don’t act like I’m imagining things. You’ve been distant for weeks. You barely look me in the eye when we talk, and every time I try to ask what’s going on, you throw me the same half-hearted excuses—‘I’m tired,’ ‘Training’s been intense.’ You expect me to just accept that forever?” His jaw flexes, and this time you see it—clear as day—that flicker of guilt he can’t hide fast enough. Your stomach sinks. You soften your tone, even if it cracks on the way out. "Sunghoon, we’re supposed to be in this together. I want to be there for you. Please." He hesitates, swallowing hard like the words are caught in his throat. "I—I received a training offer." For a second, you just blink at him, caught off guard. "That’s great, Hoon. Why would you hide that from me?" He doesn’t answer right away, and for a second you think—maybe it’s nothing. Maybe he really is just tired from training and you’re overreacting. But then, almost reluctantly, he says it.

“It’s in Spain.”

The words land heavy between you.

Spain.

Not just a different city. Not even just another country. Another continent. Another time zone. Another life.

The air leaves your lungs before you can stop it. Not in a dramatic gasp, not in a theatrical way—but in a slow, silent collapse, like something inside you just quietly folded in on itself.

If the offer’s in Spain… then it’s not just about training. It’s about moving.

Leaving.

Staying gone.

“When were you planning on telling me?” you ask, your voice cracking at the edges despite your best effort to keep it steady. “Were you going to let me find out through someone else? Or just… let me sit here, waiting for you to come clean?”

He winces, just slightly. “I didn’t know how.”

And that’s when it really hits you. The worst part isn’t the distance. You could handle distance. You’ve done long hours. Late-night calls. Time apart.

No—the worst part is that he didn’t tell you. That he’s been sitting with this, carrying it silently, while showing up in your apartment like nothing’s changed.

Because this isn’t just about fear or nerves or awkward timing.

This is about trust. About the fact that somewhere, deep down, he didn’t believe you’d understand. Didn’t believe you’d stay.

You feel the sharp sting of that realisation clawing at your chest. You’ve always known Sunghoon wasn’t great at talking about hard things, but you thought… you thought you were past that stage. You thought you were partners.

“I didn’t want to make you worry before I even knew if it was real,” he adds, and the moment stretches thin between you—just long enough for the ache to settle in properly.

Your voice comes out quieter this time, more hollow. “How long ago?”

He hesitates. Again. And you already know the answer’s going to hurt.

“A month.”

You blink. Once. Twice. Trying to understand what kind of person holds onto something that big for thirty days—sharing meals, messages, kisses—without so much as a hint.

"A month,” you repeat, because you need to say it out loud to believe it. “You’ve known about this for a month, and you didn’t think to tell me?”

He doesn’t answer.

And in that silence, your mind fills the blanks for him: You weren’t part of the decision. You weren’t part of the plan. You were just… something temporary. Something not worth factoring in.

You want to yell. You want to cry. You want to disappear.

But instead, all you can do is ask, barely above a whisper—

“How long would you be gone?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “The contract’s renewable. Season by season.”

So not just gone.

Possibly gone for good.

Your vision blurs for a moment—not from tears, but from the force of everything hitting you at once: the betrayal, the loneliness, the terrible, gnawing possibility that he’s been slowly easing himself out of this relationship long before Spain ever came into the picture.

"I'm sorry for not telling you earlier... I was scared.” His voice is low, almost breathless, like he’s only just admitting it to himself. His hand reaches out, tentative at first, before settling over yours where it rests on the couch. And you hate it—how that simple gesture, plain and quiet and embarrassingly overdue, still makes something inside you soften. The bare fucking minimum, and it still sways you.

"Hell, I’m scared too, Sunghoon," you whisper, not bothering to hide the shake in your voice. "But you should’ve told me. I deserved to hear it from you—not from the silence that’s been stretching between us for weeks."

His other hand comes up to run through his hair, eyes squeezing shut for a second. "I don’t even know if I want to take it up. I mean, I could stay. I could keep training here in Korea."

You shoot him a look—sharp, disbelieving, almost angry.

"Are you crazy?" Your voice wavers on the edge of breaking, not because you don’t mean it, but because meaning it hurts more than you want to admit. "It’s a good opportunity, Sunghoon. One you’ve worked your whole life for. You should go for it."

He doesn’t answer immediately. Just stares at you, searching your face like it holds the answers to every impossible question he hasn’t dared to ask. And you know the moment he finds it—the flicker of fear. The tightness in your smile. The regret you tried so hard to keep buried shows in every inch and crease of your face and he sees it as clear as day.

"I love you, Sunghoon." You say it firmly. Desperately. "And loving you means being there for you. Supporting your dreams. That’s what this is. It's not like we’re breaking up, right?"

He reacts instantly. "No! God, no.”

His grip tightens over your hands, voice urgent, pleading.

"I love you too, and I never want to lose you."

You hold his gaze. Let yourself believe him—for now. Because in this moment, with his hand wrapped around yours and his eyes wide and scared and filled with something real, you need to.

"That’s all I needed to know," you say softly.

And it is.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself. You eventually came to terms with it—because you’re good at rationalising things that hurt. You tell yourself that dreams come with sacrifice. That love, real love, isn’t always about staying close—it’s about staying with someone, even when they’re far away. That maybe love isn’t about convenience, but compromise. But still… you guess, even then, even in that moment where you let him go with your blessing—a part of you already had that small flicker of doubt gnawing quietly at the back of your mind. Did he see you in the life he was chasing? Or were you just the thing he had to let go of to chase it faster? The cursor blinks at you, tauntingly. A small, persistent beat on a completely blank page. Like it’s waiting for you to figure out how to write about someone you’ve spent years trying not to think about. It’s not like this is your first article about him. In fact, the last one made the rounds faster than you expected. People called it raw, honest, even moving. They praised your ability to write “authentically,” like you’d peeled back layers no other reporter had dared to touch. Like you knew him. And you do. Or at least you did. Can’t be that hard to churn out another article about him. Your gaze drifts to your desk, where a small, unopened box sits tucked to the side—innocent, pastel-coloured, with a soft shimmer under the lamp light. The Popmart. You blink at it, then let out a quiet laugh. Not bitter. Just tired. Surprised. Of course he didn’t know. You’d already completed this series over a year ago. Bought the final missing figure off some reseller at a ridiculous markup. You’d even double-sleeved it in plastic wrap and stuck it on the corner of your shelf, not because you still cared about the collection, but because it had started to feel like proof of something. Proof that you could finish something on your own. That you could love something—and walk away when you needed to. That you didn’t need anyone else to give you closure. And yet… here it is. Sitting unopened on your desk, brought to you by the very person you spent years training yourself not to miss. A memory in a box. A joke you both once shared, delivered too late and too gently. You pick it up slowly, turning it over in your hand, and smile to yourself—small, worn, a little sad. He still thinks he knows you. Still buys you things like he’s allowed to remember you this closely. And maybe that’s the problem. Because part of you still wants him to.

You're back at the ice rink, your breath catching slightly as the cold air settles into your lungs the moment you step inside. The familiar scent of ice and rubber greets you, sharp and sterile. It’s quieter today—no full team practices or busy skaters gliding across the surface—just the soft, distant hum of the facility and the occasional sharp cut of blades against ice. You texted Sunghoon earlier this week, asking for a favour. A simple photo op, you said—nothing serious. You needed fresh shots for the article. Every news outlet had been recycling the same tired gallery of him from years ago—arms raised in victory at the 2022 Winter Olympics, a candid smile from a post-win press conference, that one dramatic shot with his head bowed in slow-motion grace during a routine. Beautiful images, sure, but outdated. You needed something that showed the version of him now. And if you were being honest with yourself, a small, treacherous part of you just wanted to see him in motion again. To see the Sunghoon that only existed when he was skating. The one who couldn’t hide behind polished interviews and measured words. He agreed with barely a pause.

Sunghoon: Sure. Come by Thursday. I’ll block the ice for an hour.

So you’re here. The camera you borrowed from your illustrator slung over your shoulder, scarf tucked under your chin, fingers already tingling from the cold. You set your things down near the boards, scanning the empty rink until you spot him. And there he is. Sunghoon is already on the ice, warming up with long, fluid strides, his blades carving out familiar patterns beneath him. He hasn’t seen you yet. Or maybe he has, and he's just letting you watch first. Either way, for a moment, you forget you’re here to work. Because seeing him like this—alone on the ice, body moving like muscle memory itself—it tugs something loose in you. Something old and buried but not entirely gone. And you remember: this is what he was born to do. Even if it broke both of you along the way. Without wasting another second, you’re already moving to unzip your camera bag and pull your gear out. You work methodically, slipping off the lens cap, adjusting the settings, checking the battery with a practiced flick of your thumb. It’s almost muscle memory—this part of you that lives in quiet attention. The last time you held a professional camera like this was for a university project, one that had taken weeks to prepare and execute. Back then, Sunghoon had been your muse too—sharp lines, steady movement, that inexplicable sense of stillness in motion that made him impossible to look away from. And now here you are again. The lens finds him at centre ice, where he’s stretching out a tight muscle in his leg, movements slow and careful, like he knows you’re watching now. Maybe he does. Sunghoon always had a sixth sense for that—for when eyes were on him, especially yours. You angle your lens slightly, tracking the curve of his body, the set of his jaw. Click. The shutter snaps. He glances over at the sound, a half-smile tugging at his mouth—mischievous, unbothered, almost like he’s posing without trying. But that’s just how he’s always been. You used to call it his camera face. He used to call you dramatic.

Click.

Sunghoon starts skating again. He doesn’t ask for direction, and you don’t offer any. You don’t need to. You track him through the lens as he glides through a spin, body coiled and precise, before he launches into a clean double axel that lands with barely a sound. The shutter clicks with each motion, capturing his lines, the angles, the fleeting expressions that flash across his face like sunlight through a curtain. You capture the way the light reflects off the ice, how the blade flares white against the surface—it’s all a picture you’ve seen before, but never quite like this. Never with this strange ache nestled beneath your ribs. There’s a moment—between the leap and the landing—when he looks directly at you. And it almost knocks the breath out of you. Because in that split second, it feels like the ice disappears, the years disappear, and it’s just you and him again, the version of him that used to look for your eyes in every crowd. The version that used to skate not just for medals, but for you. You lower your camera slowly, heart thudding a little louder in your chest than it should. “Don’t tell me that was your good side,” you say, aiming for lightness, adjusting your grip on the camera as you lower it from your eye. The teasing is automatic, familiar—the kind of banter you used to toss back and forth like a tennis ball, soft enough not to bruise, sharp enough to mean something. Sunghoon coasts to a stop near the boards, blades carving a soft arc in the ice, his breath visible in the cold air. His chest rises and falls steadily, not from exertion—he’s not pushing himself yet—but from the kind of focused calm he only ever shows on the ice. “It was all my good side,” he replies, deadpan. You roll your eyes and let out a soft, incredulous laugh, more fond than you mean it to be. Of course it was. He’s always been like this—smug and quietly self-aware in the way only someone who knows they’re good can be. You roll your eyes, but your lips are already curling upward. You glance down at the display screen, reviewing the shots, already knowing you’ve got what you came for—and maybe a little more than you meant to take. “Tell me I don’t look good,” Sunghoon says, a quiet challenge in his voice as he raises an eyebrow, still watching you. You scoff, lifting the camera again mostly to hide the expression threatening to spread across your face. “Just try not to look like you’re holding a grudge against the ice,” you reply, letting the words land somewhere between playful and pointed. “I don’t,” he says, and this time, there’s something else there. Something softer. A hesitation in the space between his words. And for a second, it sounds like he means it. You lower the camera slightly, eyes on him through the frame but not taking the shot. Your voice drops without you meaning it to, just a notch lower, quiet like a memory surfacing. “You always looked best when you weren’t trying,” you murmur, mostly to yourself. A truth you’ve always known but never said aloud. But he hears it. And he doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t tease. He just turns back toward the centre of the rink, pushes off without a word, and starts skating again. You track him as he speeds into another combination—a triple toe loop followed by a clean step sequence, blades carving elegant arcs into the ice. You’re almost lost in it, the way the movements catch light, the shutter syncing to the beat of his pace like muscle memory. Then it happens. It’s subtle. Barely a misstep. But you catch it—the way his landing falters, how his right skate wobbles just slightly before he corrects. It would’ve been imperceptible to most. But not to you. Your fingers freeze on the camera, instinctively holding your breath as you watch him pull out of the sequence early, gliding to the boards instead of continuing.

He’s hiding it. But not well. His right leg drags just a fraction longer than it should with each glide—barely noticeable to the untrained eye, but you’ve spent too many hours watching him skate not to catch it. It’s the kind of minute detail only someone who’s memorised his movement would notice. And it makes your stomach lurch. You lower the camera, resting it carefully at the edge of your bag, the weight of it slipping from your fingers like the moment itself is slipping from your grasp. Your eyes track his every motion as he skates to the edge of the rink, bends low—too low, too carefully—and begins adjusting his laces. A decoy. A deflection. His back is to you, but the lie is written all over the tension in his shoulders. You step closer to the rink’s edge. “Sunghoon.” He doesn’t turn. Doesn’t acknowledge you with anything more than a vague, distracted, “One sec.” It’s the way he used to respond when you caught him avoiding a question. The same rehearsed calm, the same nonchalance that always made you feel like you were overreacting—until the truth came out in pieces. “Don’t do that.” A pause. Then, reluctantly, he straightens and looks over his shoulder. His face is composed, but you see it—the twitch at the corner of his mouth, the way his hands clench a little too tightly around his laces like he needs them to steady himself. It’s in his eyes too. That flicker of guilt. That stubborn need to pretend. And for just a second, you see it flash across his face—that same look he wore four years ago in your apartment. When you said his name with a tremble in your voice. When you caught the lie before he could even shape it with his mouth. It hits you all at once: the déjà vu, the sick familiarity of it. He’s doing it again. Tucking pain behind a polite smile. Folding the truth into excuses he hasn’t said out loud yet. And this time, it’s not your relationship that’s fraying—it’s his body. “It’s nothing,” he says. You wait for him to add on, say something—anything—to reassure you. A quiet I promise or the don’t worry about it. But he doesn’t. Doesn’t matter if he did anyway. You know he’s lying. And just like that, the rumours—the whispers that had floated through the sports forums, half-buried in speculation and dismissed by press statements—crash into your chest with brutal clarity. The injury. The reason he pulled out of finals. The reason he disappeared. You cross your arms. “That ‘nothing’ looked a hell of a lot like something.” “I just landed weird.” “Bullshit,” you snap before you can stop yourself. “You’re injured.”

He freezes. The sound of your words—sharp, laced with something dangerously close to panic—hangs between you. The silence between you stretches like taut wire, thin and sharp and ready to snap. You watch the way his jaw locks, the way his arms hang stiffly by his sides, like he’s bracing for a blow you haven’t decided if you want to deliver. And maybe that’s what hurts more than anything else—not the lie itself, but the fact that he’s willing to let it hang in the air. Unchallenged. Unexplained. Like your concern isn’t worth the truth. Your hands clench into fists before you even realise it, nails digging into your palms as you watch him turn fully now, the faintest strain in his movement betraying what his mouth won’t say. He doesn’t even meet your eyes. And that—that makes something hot and sharp rise in your throat. Anger. That’s the first thing that hits. Because he knew. Knew this wasn’t something he could hide forever—and still, he didn’t tell you. Not when you asked. Not when you agreed to write the article. Not when you sat across from him in that café, trusting him with something you weren’t sure you even had left to give. And he did this again. Like back then. When Spain was just a pin on a map and you were left in the dark, forced to make sense of a future he already knew he wasn’t going to share with you. But right on the heels of that fury comes something else—something slower, heavier. Worry. Because you know him. You know how much the ice means to him. You know what it took for him to get here. And you can see it now, etched into every tight movement and every silent wince he tries to bury beneath composure. He’s skating on borrowed time. The sadness creeps in after, quiet and cruel. Because maybe you were hoping—foolishly—that this time would be different. That this new version of you and him, cautious but healing, would be built on honesty. And yet here you are again. Watching him lie to you, not with words, but with silence. Because you’ve been here before, haven’t you? Waiting on him to meet you halfway while he stands still. And still, a part of you—stupid, stubborn, impossibly soft—wants to close the gap.

You take a step forward. It’s instinct more than decision, your feet moving before your pride can catch up. The edge of the rink is cold against your palms as you lean over the barricade slightly, just enough to close the space between you. He looks like he might flinch again—like he’s caught somewhere between preparing to argue or retreat. But you don’t raise your voice. You just say, quietly, firmly, “Don’t do this.” His eyes flicker—just barely. But you see it. “Don’t shut me out like I’m just another reporter,” you continue. “Don’t feed me lines like ‘it’s nothing’ when you know I see through that better than anyone.” Still, he says nothing. So you press harder, voice trembling now—not with anger, but with the weight of everything you’re holding back. “I watched you limp, Sunghoon. I saw it. And you think I’m just going to nod and take your word for it?” He exhales slowly, but you can tell he’s holding his breath in all the places that matter. You shift again, trying to find steadiness in your words, even as your chest tightens. “If the rumours were true—if you’ve been skating on an injury this entire time—why wouldn’t you just tell me?” A pause. A breath. A crack. “Do you really think I wouldn’t have cared?” That lands. Because his eyes drop—not in shame, but something closer to fear. Not of you. But of what his silence might’ve already cost him. He doesn’t answer, not yet. He just stands there, your words still echoing in the space between you. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out—just a soft, frustrated exhale. His jaw works like he’s chewing on the words, trying to force them out, but they keep getting caught somewhere between his chest and his throat. It’s like he’s standing at the edge of something—something terrifying and uncharted—and he can’t bring himself to take the final step. You can almost see the war going on inside him: the urge to speak versus the instinct to protect himself, to guard the parts of him that still feel too raw to share. For a moment, you think he’s going to brush it off the way he always does—wrap it up neatly with a nonchalant shrug and a quick change of subject. Like he’s too proud or too scared to let you see that raw, unguarded part of him. It wouldn’t be the first time. After all, that’s what he’s always done—deflect, dodge, build walls where there should be bridges. He couldn’t be honest with you when you were dating. What makes you think he’d be any different now, when there’s even more distance between you? You almost let him off the hook. Almost open your mouth to tell him it’s fine, that you don’t need him to explain himself. You’re already bracing yourself to swallow the ache, to bury it with everything else that’s gone unspoken between you. You’ve become good at that—pretending it doesn’t hurt. Pretending the disappointment hasn’t lingered all this time, festering quietly just beneath the surface of your every breath. And Sunghoon sees it. Sees the way your eyes begin to glaze over, the way your posture shifts—not quite closed off, but tilting in that direction. A half-given-up look that reads like surrender. Like you’re moments away from letting go completely. And something in him panics. A wave of it crashes through his chest, sharp and suffocating. Because if he fucks this up—if he lets you walk away now, after everything—it’s really over. No more second chances. No more waiting. He feels the weight of it settle on him all at once. That this—you—is the moment he can’t afford to lose. So, unexpectedly for you, he speaks.

“A year after we broke up,” he says, his voice quiet but steady, like he’s forcing himself to stay composed. “I was sent onto a new reality programme in Spain. Kind of like a training feature-slash-documentary series. Mostly for sponsorships.” He swallows hard, his jaw clenching as he gathers his thoughts. He doesn’t look at you when he speaks—his eyes fixed on some far point beyond the rink, beyond this moment, as if the memory itself is something he can’t look at head-on. “During our break… there was this skater, Hugo.” The name clicks instantly—Hugo Franchez. You’ve heard of him. He’s one of Coach Morales’ other students, known for his flamboyant public persona and his tendency to stir up drama both on and off the ice. Brash, talented, and unapologetically loud. The kind of guy who thrives on attention, whether it’s positive or negative. Before you can fully process what that connection means, Sunghoon cuts through your thoughts, almost as if he knows exactly what’s running through your mind. “Doesn’t matter who he is,” he mutters, voice sharper now, almost defensive. “One day during practice, that prick made a comment. Said my standards had dropped since you left me.” “I didn’t care at first,” he says. “It was petty. Stupid. I’ve heard worse. And honestly, he wasn’t wrong. I was a mess back then. I didn’t care what anyone said.” There’s something tight in his expression, like he’s forcing himself to stay detached—to treat it like a story he’s telling rather than a wound he’s reopening. You stay silent, but you feel your stomach twist into a knot, cold and heavy. The words settle like stones in your chest, bitter and suffocating. You don’t know what to say—don’t know if anything you could say would make a difference. “But then he said something else,” Sunghoon continues, and his voice tightens like it’s physically difficult to push the words out. “He started talking about you. Joking—if you can even call it that. Said maybe he’d try you out next. That someone like you didn’t need love, just a good—” He cuts himself off, hand flexing slightly at his side. You don’t need him to finish. Your breath catches in your chest, a mix of disgust and disbelief building behind your ribs. Your hands tighten on the rink’s barrier, knuckles turning white. You can’t seem to move, your mind struggling to make sense of the sheer audacity—the venom laced into words that shouldn’t even exist. Sunghoon’s fingers drum restlessly against his thigh, a telltale sign that he’s more upset than he’s letting on. His mouth presses into a thin, unforgiving line, and for a moment, he just breathes—deep and controlled, like he’s trying not to let his frustration seep through, but there’s a tremor in his voice that betrays the anger still simmering under the surface. “Hoon…” you whisper, your voice barely audible, raw with sympathy and anger that doesn’t know where to land. Sunghoon’s heart leaps at the familiar nickname, but the feeling doesn’t last long as he’s reminded of the story he’s telling. “That’s when it happened,” he continues, finally lifting his gaze to meet yours. There’s something broken there, vulnerability seeping through the cracks in his usual calm. “I snapped. Took a swing at him. Next thing I know, we’re being pulled apart. Cameras everywhere. People yelling. Coach Morales losing his mind. The programme  was discontinued after that.” You take a small, steadying breath, unsure of whether to feel relieved that he defended you or angry that it came to this.

“And your injury?” you ask, the words careful, soft, like you’re afraid of breaking whatever fragile, rare occurrence is happening between you. He hesitates, the tension in his posture growing taut again. “When we went down, I didn’t even notice it at first. Adrenaline, I guess. I thought it wasn’t a big deal. It hurt, yeah, but I could still skate. I figured it’d pass. I didn’t want to make it anything more than what it was.” You watch the shift in his expression—the shame, the defensiveness, the echo of pain he’s tried so hard to bury. “That’s why you pulled out of the finals,” you say, the pieces clicking together all at once. He nods. “Turns out I tore a ligament when I landed wrong. I didn’t realise how bad it was until I couldn’t even put weight on it. Rehab took months. Had to retrain my whole posture. Thought I’d never land a clean jump again.” The silence that follows isn’t empty—it’s heavy with everything unspoken. You can feel the ache settle in your chest, not just for him but for the both of you—the version of him who tried to hold it all together, and the version of you who never knew. You want to scream at him for being reckless. For not telling you. For carrying all of this alone when he didn’t have to. But instead, you just stare at him. And he stares back. Both of you standing there, in the middle of a truth that neither of you asked for—but one that’s been waiting, quietly, to be told. “But you’re better now, right?” Your voice comes out more hopeful than you intended, a tight, almost desperate note clinging to the words. “I mean… you’re skating fine. You’re prepping for the tryouts, right?” Sunghoon hesitates, his eyes dropping to his hands where his fingers are still restlessly drumming against his thighs. He swallows hard, and the tension in his jaw doesn’t ease. “Barely,” he admits, the word thick and reluctant. “The injury relapses whenever I overexert. Some days it’s fine, and other days… it’s like I’m right back to square one. There’s no pattern. No warning. Just pain.” You feel a hollow ache forming in your chest, and you can’t help the frustration that bubbles up alongside the worry. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He looks up at you then, a flicker of something pained and conflicted crossing his face. “Because it wasn’t your problem to deal with. You didn’t need to know. I couldn’t—” He breaks off, running a hand through his hair in a way that’s almost angry. “I couldn’t stand the thought of you worrying about me. Not after I’d already messed things up between us.” You open your mouth to argue, to tell him that’s not how this works—that you wouldn’t have seen him as a burden. But you can’t find the words, because deep down, you know Sunghoon has always carried things alone. It’s just who he is. Protecting people from his own mess, even when it tears him apart. He’s still watching you, shoulders tense, waiting for the backlash—like he’s already bracing himself for the worst. And you can’t help it—you laugh. Not a happy laugh. Not even a bitter one. Just a short, exhausted sound that slips out before you can stop it. “That’s it?” you murmur, shaking your head. “That’s the reason you didn’t tell me? Because you didn’t know how to believe that I’d want to help you?” Sunghoon’s jaw clenches, and his eyes flicker with something like hurt. “You don’t understand—” “No, I don’t,” you cut in, and your voice wobbles despite your best efforts to sound composed. “I don’t understand how the guy who always told me to be honest, to be open with him, just decides on his own that I wouldn’t care? You didn’t even give me the chance, Sunghoon.” He doesn’t respond. Just lowers his gaze, looking at his own skates like they might hold an answer. You take a slow breath, forcing yourself to ease back the frustration threatening to spill over. “You think I wouldn’t have cared? That I would’ve just—what—written you off as some failure because you got hurt? After everything?” His silence feels like an admission. And it hurts more than it should. “Was I really that easy to leave behind?” you ask, softer now. Your hands curl tighter around the edge of the boards, knuckles turning white. “Did I make it that easy for you?” He finally looks up, and his expression is raw, stripped down to something you haven’t seen in years. “No,” he says, almost too fast. “It wasn’t easy. Nothing about leaving was easy. I just—I didn’t know how to handle it.” You swallow the lump in your throat, letting his words sink in. You’re speechless, your mind a whirlwind of the why and the how and the what ifs that he’s not giving you. Then you zone into what he said: Not after I’d already messed things up between us. He’s aware that the reason for your falling out was because of him. “Never mind after we broke up. In the last few months of our relationship, why were you so distant then? Why wouldn’t you tell me anything? Why did we break up, Sunghoon?” His head jerks up, eyes widening. For a second, he looks like he didn’t expect you to ask, like he thought you’d just let it stay buried. But you can’t. Not anymore. “I didn’t mean to lose you,” he whispers, like it’s something he’s only just now realising. “But by the time I figured out how to come back… it felt like I didn’t deserve to. Not after everything.” You open your mouth, then close it again, the words heavy on your tongue. There’s a long pause—weighted, expectant. You shift slightly, pressing your palms against the edge of the rink as if to steady yourself. And then, quietly—because you need to understand, because you deserve to—you ask:

“What happened in Spain? Please, I need to know.” Sunghoon meets your gaze and for a second, it really felt like he was finally meeting you halfway. He lets out a shaky breath before he speaks again, voice low and unsteady. “When I left Korea, it was like everything just… fell apart. I thought skating would fix it. That if I just pushed through, everything would fall into place. It was going to be worth it, I’d feel like myself again.” His voice is quieter when he continues, almost like he’s talking more to himself than to you. “After we broke up, I kept telling myself it was for the best. That I needed to focus on skating. But… after a while, it didn’t matter anymore. I wasn’t happy. I wasn’t even skating because I loved it. I was just… doing it. Because I didn’t know what else to do. Because I didn’t know who I was if I wasn’t moving forward. And without you… I just felt stuck.” The weight of his confession presses down on both of you, heavy and unforgiving. You let your hands fall from where they’ve been gripping the rink barrier, flexing your fingers like you’re trying to shake off the cold—or maybe just the ache creeping into your chest. Sunghoon skates closer, not enough to close the gap entirely but enough that you can see the way his eyes are glossed over, the pain he’s too proud to let fully show. “I lost you. I lost skating. And I didn’t know how to come back from that.” You don’t know how to respond. You don’t even know if there’s anything left to say. So you just stare at him, taking in the vulnerability on his face—the way he’s finally, finally letting himself be seen. And despite the anger, despite the sadness, a small part of you—the part that never really stopped missing him—starts to unravel. Because this isn’t the Sunghoon you remember leaving. This is someone who’s been trying—fumbling, falling, but trying—to find his way back. You don’t move, but you don’t push him away either. You just stand there, caught between wanting to reach for him and wanting to protect yourself from being hurt again. And Sunghoon sees it—that hesitation. He takes a shaky breath, his hands falling to his sides, fingers flexing like he doesn’t know what to do with them. He’s still looking at you—eyes wide, raw, like he’s afraid of what your silence means. Finally, he forces the words out, voice rough and unsteady. “I know it doesn’t mean much now, but I’m really fucking sorry, Y/N.”

His eyes drop again, like he can’t bear to see your reaction. “I was an emotional wreck when I realised I was falling out of love with skating. It felt like I was losing the only thing I’d ever been good at, and I didn’t know how to handle that. And in the middle of that mess… I didn’t know how to give you the love you needed.” The admission hangs between you, heavy and unguarded, and it’s like you’re seeing the cracks in him for the first time—not the public figure, not the professional skater, but the boy who had once loved the ice so much that he didn’t know who he was without it. You bite the inside of your cheek, fighting the tremble threatening your voice. “You should have just… told me. You didn’t have to go through it alone. I was right there, Sunghoon. I would have—” “I know,” he cuts in, voice almost desperate. “I know you would have. But I didn’t know how to let you. I kept thinking if I just pushed harder, trained longer, it would click again. That the love for it would come back. But it didn’t. And the more I kept failing, the less I could bring myself to tell you.” You swallow down the hurt lodged in your throat, forcing yourself to stay steady. “So instead, you just shut me out? Kept me in the dark?” “I couldn’t handle it,” he says, a bitter edge cutting through his tone. “All of it. You being so damn supportive. Telling me I could do it when I knew I couldn’t. I was falling apart, and you kept telling me I was going to make it. It just—” He shakes his head, lips pressing into a tight line. “It made me feel like a fraud. Like I was dragging you down with me.” You stare at him, disbelief and frustration mixing with the ache in your chest. “You’re kidding. And suddenly it's my fault? That I cared too much?”

“No! I didn’t mean it like that,” he says quickly, voice hoarse, trembling around the edges of regret. “God, that’s not what I meant at all. Fuck.”

He grips the back of his neck like he’s trying to ground himself, eyes flickering everywhere—walls, floor, ceiling—anywhere that isn’t the firestorm in your gaze.

“I meant…” he finally forces out, lowering his hands. His shoulders sag. “I meant I didn’t know how to handle it. You gave so much and I—I didn’t know how to match it. I was scared I’d ruin it. So I pulled back. I shut you out instead of admitting I couldn’t keep up with the way you loved me.” Your heart clenches, torn between anger and sympathy. You take a deep breath, forcing the words out even though they taste like heartbreak. “You didn’t have to make that choice for me. I would’ve stayed, Sunghoon. Even if it hurt. Even if you were falling apart—” “That’s why I didn’t tell you!” The words burst out of him, louder than he meant them to. The sound echoes slightly in the quiet of the rink, raw and cracked at the edges. You flinch—not because you’re afraid, but because it’s the first time he’s raised his voice with you in a fight. Sunghoon’s expression falters the moment it leaves his mouth. His chest rises and falls unevenly as the weight of what he’s said settles between you. He blinks fast, and for the first time, you see the glassiness in his eyes—the way his lashes tremble under the strain of holding everything in. “I didn’t want you to feel guilty,” he says again, softer this time, like he’s trying to undo the sharpness from before. “Or worse… like you had to fix it. I couldn’t bear the thought of becoming something you felt responsible for instead of someone you just… loved.” He swallows hard, gaze falling to the floor as if he’s ashamed of the outburst, the truth, or maybe both. Your chest tightens at his words, but not out of anger. Not even sadness. Just this overwhelming ache for the boy in front of you—the boy who thought love was something that had to be earned only when he was okay. You exhale slowly, trying to steady the crack in your voice. “You think I loved you because you were strong all the time? Because you had it all together?” He doesn’t answer, but the tension in his shoulders says enough. “Sunghoon, I didn’t want to fix you. I just wanted to be there with you.

For a moment, he just stares at you, like he’s trying to understand why you’re still here, still fighting to know the truth. And in that silence, you realise that he’s never really stopped carrying the weight of that decision—never really forgiven himself for it. The guilt. The loneliness. The fear. It’s all still there, buried under years of trying to pretend it didn’t matter. And it hits you then—how much of himself he gave up just to make sure you didn’t drown with him. You’re not sure whether to scream at him for being so stupidly self-sacrificing or cry because he thought pushing you away was protecting you. His next words come out in a whisper, like he’s afraid of breaking the fragile truce between you. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you. I swear. I just… didn’t know how to love you and love skating at the same time. And when skating stopped feeling like love, I didn’t know how to love myself either.” Something inside you softens, and you feel the fight drain out of your body. You lean back, exhaling shakily, trying to process it all. Maybe you thought the anger would feel good. Like if you just yelled loud enough, it would drown out the ache that’s been festering since he left. But now, standing here with him—raw, exposed, finally admitting the truth—you just feel tired. And maybe, just maybe, a little relieved. Because at least now you know. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. It was that he didn’t know how. Without thinking, you reach out over the barricade, your fingers brushing against his. When he doesn’t pull away, you take his hand in yours. His shoulders slump, the fight draining out of him, and for the first time in what feels like forever, he lets himself lean into you—no walls, no distance, just the raw truth of it all between you.

He lets out a rough, almost bitter laugh. “Funny, right? I spent so long trying to protect you from my problems that I ended up creating a whole new one.” You squeeze his hand gently, feeling his warmth seep into your skin. “You didn’t have to go through it alone,” you whisper. “You didn’t have to push me away just because you thought you were sparing me.” His eyes dart down to your joined hands, but he doesn’t pull away. “I know that now,” he says quietly. “But back then, I thought keeping you out of it would make things easier. For both of us.” You swallow the knot in your throat, wondering how many more pieces you’d have to unearth before you finally made sense of everything that went wrong between you. “But it didn’t, did it?” you murmur, half a statement, half a question. Sunghoon’s shoulders sag, like the weight he’s been carrying finally buckles under your words. He breathes out slowly, shaking his head, a rueful, almost self-deprecating smile tugging at his lips. “No. It didn’t.” Sunghoon takes a deep, trembling breath. The kind that rattles from somewhere deep in his chest, like he’s holding back more than just words. Slowly, carefully, his fingers slip from yours. The absence of his touch is immediate—sharp, cold, like the air around you shifted. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, like maybe that’s the only way to keep them from shaking, from betraying just how unsteady he really feels. His gaze drops to the ice at your feet, avoiding your eyes with an almost boyish kind of shame, as though looking at you would only make the truth harder to say. “And I didn’t reach out to you after my injury because…” He pauses, swallows. His voice when it comes out is brittle, like he’s forcing it through a throat full of glass. “Because I didn’t want you to feel like you were a second option. Like I was only coming back to you because skating was no longer viable.” Your breath catches. The words hit in a place you didn’t expect, a sharp, unexpected pang that lodges deep beneath your ribs. You blink, startled, searching his face like maybe you misheard him. “What?” you whisper, barely audible. The word is soft, too soft. It slips from your lips like a secret, afraid to make the moment any heavier than it already is. He lets out a laugh—but it’s dry, hollow, laced with bitterness and self-loathing. “It’s stupid, I know. But I didn’t want you to think that… that I only wanted you because skating didn’t work out. I thought if I showed up after everything fell apart, you’d look at me and think I was just using you to fill the gap.” You shake your head slowly, the motion dazed, your thoughts struggling to keep pace with the revelation. “Sunghoon… I never—” “I know,” he cuts in, quickly, almost harshly. His voice cracks, raw and unfiltered. “I know you didn’t. But I was so fucking lost, Y/N. I didn’t know who I was without skating. And the idea of crawling back to you, looking for comfort when I had nothing left… it felt selfish. Like I was just dragging you into my mess because I couldn’t handle it on my own. You deserved better than that.” There’s a silence that follows—not the empty kind, but the kind that weighs down the air like fog. Heavy. Still. Unavoidable. Your arms fold in tightly against your chest as if bracing for something colder than the rink air. There’s a tightness there, something fragile pressing hard against your ribs, and it takes you a moment to recognise it for what it is. It’s the part of you that never really stopped caring. “You’re an idiot,” you say, voice thick, the words catching on the knot in your throat. You almost choke on it, the mix of pain and tenderness. “A complete idiot.” He finally looks up.

And it’s the way he looks at you that undoes you. Eyes rimmed red, glassy with unshed tears, but wide open—unguarded in a way he’s never let himself be. The vulnerability in them is devastating. It makes your own eyes sting, and you press your lips together hard, willing yourself not to break down in front of him. You can’t afford to. Not after everything. But the way he’s looking at you, the way he’s baring his heart after years of hiding—it hurts. The ice rink is eerily quiet now. The distant hum of the arena lights above buzzes like white noise around you, but everything else is still. Time feels like it’s slowed down, like the two of you exist in a bubble suspended in grief, in truth, in the aftermath of everything that wasn’t said when it mattered. You don’t know what to say—don’t know how to put into words the mess of emotions clawing at your chest. It’s tangled and bruised and beating far too loudly. There’s relief, yes. A bit of anger too. But mostly, there’s just this deep, aching sadness for the boy who thought he had to fight his battles alone. But eventually, you find your voice. Quieter. Softer. “I never needed you to be perfect, Sunghoon.” Your voice wavers despite how hard you try to steady it. “I just needed you to be honest.” He closes his eyes for a moment, like the words hit him physically. The mess inside his chest doesn’t have clean edges. It’s tangled and bruised and beating far too loudly. His brows pull together, and his shoulders—always so tight, so high, like he’s been bracing for impact for years—finally sink. The tension in him melts, slow and subtle, like he’s deflating under the weight of finally letting the truth out. Then he nods. Once. Barely. But it’s enough. Enough to know that he heard you. And that alone makes your heart ache. You know you shouldn’t give in. Not this easily. But you’ve never been one for restraint. It’s always been your fatal flaw—feeling too much, too fast, letting your heart speak before your head can catch up. And maybe that’s why this moment feels so inevitable. Because despite everything—despite the heartbreak, the silence, the years—you still want to close the distance. It’s a mystery how you and Sunghoon even started dating in the first place, how two people so fundamentally different found their way to each other. You, all fire and instinct, and him—quiet, composed, like he was always walking a tightrope with his heart tucked out of reach. You were sunshine, and he was midnight rain. You wanted comfort, but he was chasing medals and glory. Well… he used to. Back then, he didn’t know you’d come into his life. Didn’t expect that your laughter, your stubborn heart, your ability to see straight through him would start to matter more than medals ever did. Didn’t realise that somewhere along the way, it wasn’t skating he was chasing anymore.

It was you. And by the time he figured it out—by the time he realised you were the thing he’d always been reaching for—you were already slipping through his fingers. Not because you didn’t love him. But because he didn’t know how to stop running. Not for the crowd. Not for the gold. But from someone who would’ve stayed if only he’d asked. Maybe that’s why it worked for a while. Maybe that’s why he never stopped yearning. His eyes are still fixed on the ice, refusing to look at you, like if he stares hard enough, he can will himself invisible. His posture is closed in, like he’s trying to shrink himself, like if he folds in far enough, he can disappear into his regret. You take a step forward. Then another. Your shoes click softly against the rubber mats until the last one slips onto the smooth, glinting surface. You cross the threshold onto the ice without thinking, heart first, fearless—like always. The cold greets your ankles instantly, the faint burn of it rushing up your calves. Your feet come into his view, and he startles slightly, blinking as he realises how close you are now. “What are you—?” His brow furrows, alarm flickering in his expression. “Careful, you’re gonna fall again if—” You hug him. There’s no warning. No speech. No careful calculation. You just move, because your heart gets there before anything else can stop it. Your arms wrap around him—firm, grounding—and his breath stutters as if the contact knocks the wind out of him. He stays frozen for a second, like his body doesn’t believe it’s real, like he thinks if he moves, you’ll vanish. "It's okay," you murmur against his shoulder, your voice soft but steady. "I know you'll catch me even if I fall." And somehow, that’s what does it. That quiet faith in him—even now, after everything—cracks something open. He exhales, the breath hitching on its way out, and you feel the tension leave his body piece by piece. Slowly, hesitantly, he melts into you. His chin dips to rest against the curve of your shoulder, and his arms—those shaking, unsure arms—wrap around your back and hold on. Not tight. Not desperate. But like someone who’s been cold for far too long, and finally, finally found warmth. Like your presence alone is something he's relearning how to deserve. You close your eyes, steadying yourself with the quiet rise and fall of his chest against yours. Then you speak—gently, but with purpose. "Don’t take this the wrong way," you say, your fingers curling slightly into the fabric of his jacket. "This isn’t forgiveness. I’m not there yet. This is just… me showing you that I still care. As a friend." He stiffens slightly, but you don’t let go. You press on. "I’m sorry this happened to you," you whisper. "I know skating meant the world to you." Sunghoon doesn’t answer. Not out loud. But his arms tighten—just a little—and his breath shudders, and the thought echoes in his mind with a force that nearly brings him to his knees: You mean the world to me, still. He doesn't say it. He doesn’t need to. It’s there—in the way he holds you now, in the way he leans into your warmth like it’s the first real thing he’s touched in years. And for a moment, you let him. You both do. Not as the people you once were. But as the broken, rebuilding versions of yourselves—still trying, still reaching, still here. This quiet moment.

You remember this feeling. The stillness. The unspoken. The way the world seems to hush when you’re in his arms—not because everything is perfect, but because somehow, even in the mess, it feels safe. You used to crave more. Words. Reassurance. The kind of affection you could point to and name. But as time passed, you learned to understand him in these smaller, quieter ways. The way he’d wait for you after late classes just to walk you home, even when he never said why. The way he’d leave extra pairs of gloves in your bag before competitions. The way he never quite let go first. It’s the way Sunghoon has always shown love to you. Not through grand gestures or flowery words, but through presence. Through the way he leans in, silent and steady. Through the way he holds you like you're something he’s afraid to break. Through the quiet weight of his hand resting at the small of your back, like a promise he’s never quite been brave enough to say out loud. This right here—this silence filled with meaning—has always been his way of saying I’m here. I care. I love you. And that’s why, when his presence stopped feeling like love—when the silence turned from comfort to distance—you felt discarded. Unwanted. Like love had quietly exited the room and no one bothered to tell you. His inability to say what he felt, to put to words what you meant to him, only made it worse. Because you were still there, waiting for something—anything—to hold onto, while he kept retreating behind walls you couldn’t climb. But now, standing here, with his arms around you once again, you feel it. All of it. Even if he still hasn’t found the words. You realise then—he never stopped caring for you, too. The silence. The omission of truth. The way he held everything in, thinking he was protecting you by keeping you out. You used to mistake it for distance, for disinterest. But maybe that was just the way he loved you. Complicated. Flawed. Quiet in all the places you needed noise. It wasn’t the way you loved—not loud and vulnerable, not open and all-consuming—but it was still love. Just… his version of it. And you—all heart before reason. You loved like it was oxygen, like holding back would be the same as holding your breath. You said too much, felt too deeply, asked for honesty even when he didn’t know how to give it. You needed presence, yes—but you also needed words. Needed something solid to hold onto when his silence left too much room for doubt. And still—that was the way you loved him. Messy. Unfiltered. Brave in all the ways he wasn’t ready for. You offered him your whole heart without a safety net, while all he wanted was to protect you from his fall. And it hits you then, in a way that’s both soft and sharp—this was always the story. The gaps, the miscommunication, the mismatched ways of showing up. It was never about not feeling enough. It was about feeling too much, in entirely different languages. You, speaking in open wounds and raw confessions. Him, answering in silence and distance. Two people standing on opposite ends of a love that was real—just not always right.

And maybe that’s the tragedy of it.

Not that you didn’t love each other. But that you did.

Just in ways the other didn’t know how to hold.

You and Sunghoon spend the next few hours sitting on the cold bleachers, catching up on the last four years—what was said, what wasn’t, and everything that existed in between. It’s not an invitation to get back together. That much is clear—spoken and understood without the need for awkward disclaimers. This is something else entirely. A truce, maybe. An unspoken agreement to lay the past to rest without erasing it. An invitation to let go of the bitterness. To make sure the four years you spent loving each other—messy and imperfect as they were—don’t go down the drain as nothing but regret. And anyway, nobody ever said ex-lovers couldn’t stay friends… You learn that Hugo Sánchez—the skater Sunghoon had that infamous tussle with—was caught up in a drug scandal just a few months later. It never made headlines, swept under the rug with hush money and quiet handshakes behind closed doors. But word still got around. Coach Morales blacklisted him, and by extension, so did every major name in the circuit. “Guess karma’s real after all,” you mutter, brows raised as Sunghoon nods. “He got what he deserved,” he replies quietly, but there’s no real satisfaction in his tone. Just a kind of weariness. The kind that says it still wasn’t worth what it cost me. You offer a small, understanding smile, then shift the conversation—gently. You tell him about your career. How you fell into sports journalism by accident, how you hated it at first. How you stuck with it anyway. About the sleepless nights, the thankless deadlines, the rush of chasing a story and the heartbreak of killing one. You tell him how strange it is, writing about athletes when you once dated one—how sometimes you catch yourself comparing their routines, their postures, their voices to his. You don’t mean to say that last part. But it slips out, unfiltered. Sunghoon glances at you then, a soft crease forming between his brows, and for a moment, you think he might say something. But he doesn’t. He just listens, the same way he always used to—quietly, intently, like your voice alone is enough to anchor him. You’re halfway through telling him the story about your first major reporting slip-up—something about mistaking a gold medalist for a retired curling coach—when Sunghoon breaks into laughter.

Real laughter.

Not the polite kind. Not the breathy exhale he’s used to giving when he’s holding too much in. But the kind that lights up his whole face. His head tips back slightly, shoulders shaking, eyes squinting in disbelief as he nearly doubles over from how hard he’s laughing.

“You what?” he wheezes, clutching his stomach. “Please tell me you didn’t salute him and ask about his war medals too. He probably thought you were calling him a grandpa, not an Olympian!” You’re laughing too, unable to help it. “Listen, the man had a beard and a windbreaker and that very ‘I peaked in Vancouver 2010’ vibe.” “And that screams retired Olympian to you?” he chokes, still catching his breath. “You probably set athlete-media relations back a decade.” “I was nervous, okay?” you defend, wiping at your eyes, the kind of laughter that makes your ribs hurt already fading into little aftershocks. You lean back against the bleachers with a sigh, finally calming down—only to notice he’s gone quiet. You turn to find him just… looking at you. Not with amusement anymore, but something softer. His expression has shifted—gentle, open, a little vulnerable in a way that makes your breath catch. He’s watching you like he forgot what it was like to see you laugh like that. Like he’s trying to memorise the shape of your smile and hold onto the sound of it. You raise a brow, playful. “What? Do I have something on my face?” He blinks, startled, like you caught him in a secret. “No,” he says, quickly averting his gaze. Then, quieter, “Just... forgot what that sounded like.” “What did?” you ask, even though you already know. “You. Laughing like that.” He shrugs, keeping his eyes on the rink. You pause, suddenly aware of how close you’re sitting. How his knee brushes yours every so often when he shifts. How the warmth between you lingers even in the chill of the arena. “Well,” you finally say, nudging his shoulder with yours, “don’t get used to it. I’m a very serious journalist now. No more giggling.” He glances at you with a crooked smile, eyes full of mischief. “Sure. I’ll believe that when you don’t snort the next time you laugh.” You gasp, scandalised. “I do not snort.” Sunghoon leans in slightly, teasing. “You literally just did.” You stare at him, lips parted, fully ready to argue—until you realise he’s right. And then you’re laughing again, shaking your head as you gently shove his arm. “Asshole,” you mumble through your grin. And just like that, the weight between you both lightens again—still present, but tucked neatly beside something warmer. Familiar. Almost like the beginning of something new. Or maybe just the gentler end of something old. Either way, it’s something.

That night, when you finally reach home, your cheeks are still warm. You’re still smiling a little too easily at nothing in particular. The chill of the ice rink has long worn off, but Sunghoon’s laugh—low, genuine—lingers in your ears like a recent vocal stimulation. It’s been years since that sound last came from him, at least directed at you, and it sits somewhere in your chest now, unexpectedly soft and stubborn. You kick off your shoes, shrug off your coat, and collapse onto your couch with a sigh that’s half-exhaustion, half-daydream. Your mind is foggy, a little giddy. Like you’ve just had caffeine on an empty stomach or you’ve stepped into some alternate version of your life—one where the world’s been tilted just a few degrees off-centre and nothing’s quite the same anymore. Then your eyes fall on your laptop. Still open. Still glowing. And suddenly, reality tugs you back down. You’d forgotten about the article. The one you had barely started drafting. The one with Sunghoon’s name in the headline. The one meant to announce his participation in the Olympics tryout. You sit up straighter, the comfort in your muscles draining fast as a chill crawls up your spine. Because all you can think about now—over and over, like a stuck record—is the way he said it: “The injury relapses whenever I overexert.” He’d said it so casually, like it wasn’t a big deal. Like it was just a fact of life now. A quiet asterisk next to his name. He said he wasn’t planning a full comeback. He said he wasn’t sure. But he’s still showing up to tryouts. Still skating. Still pushing. And suddenly, what once felt like a career milestone—this exclusive, this rare chance to write the first profile on Park Sunghoon’s inevitable return to the ice—feels... invasive. Too sharp. Too personal. Your fingers hover over your phone, the urge to text him immediate.

You type something—delete it. Type again.

Hey. Are you really okay to skate?| | Are you sure you’re not pushing too hard?| | Let me know if there’s anyway I can help.| | But none of them feel right. Because you barely just started talking again. Because one evening of laughter on a set of cold bleachers doesn’t erase four years of silence. Because you’re not sure if checking in now would cross a line you don’t have permission to step over anymore. So instead, you lock your phone screen and place it face down on the table. And you sit there in the quiet, trying not to worry. Trying not to think of the pressure on his leg, the sting in his joints, the way he’d smiled when he told you—not proud, not hopeful, just... resigned. But worry, of course, doesn’t ask permission. It settles in the pit of your stomach like lead. Because you know him. And you know he’ll keep skating—even if it breaks him again. And worst of all, he’ll do it without ever asking for help.

[MANIFESTO EXCLUSIVE] Park Sunghoon Announces Participation In 2026 Winter Olympics Tryout

By Kang Y/N, Manifesto Daily It’s been nearly two years since figure skating prodigy Park Sunghoon last performed on Korean ice.

Once heralded as one of South Korea’s most technically refined athletes, Park disappeared from the public eye following an abrupt withdrawal from the 2023 Grand Prix Final. No formal statement was ever released. No interviews, no explanations—just a silence that, for a time, swallowed even his most devoted fans’ questions.

Until now.

This week, Park’s name quietly reappeared on the athlete roster for the upcoming 2026 Winter Olympics tryouts. And in an exclusive conversation with Manifesto Daily, Park has officially confirmed his participation.

Park’s return marks a significant moment in the national figure skating circuit. Known for his precision, control, and signature composure on the ice, his performances have long drawn praise from both domestic and international judges. His participation is expected to bring renewed attention to the men's singles category in the upcoming season.

Tryouts are scheduled to take place early next month, where top-ranked skaters will compete for coveted spots on South Korea’s Olympic delegation. While Park has kept a low public profile in recent years, anticipation surrounding his return remains high. His past record includes a gold medal finish at the Four Continents Championships, a bronze medal at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, and consistent placements in the Grand Prix circuit, making him a strong contender as the nation gears up for Olympic selection.

Fans and officials alike will be watching closely as Park takes the ice again—not only for his technical capabilities, but for what his presence brings to a new generation of skaters: legacy, poise, and a renewed standard of excellence.

Further details regarding the tryout schedule and national team lineup are expected to be released by the Korean Skating Union in the coming weeks.

For now, one thing is clear: Park Sunghoon is officially back in contention.

The day of the Olympic tryouts arrives cloaked in a biting chill, the kind that slips past your collar and lingers in your bones. You arrive earlier than necessary, nerves already humming beneath your skin. Not as a reporter this time. Not officially, anyway. Sunghoon had pulled strings—quietly, discreetly. A whispered favour here, a signature there. He got you in as “internal support staff,” listed under his team’s management, though you’re carrying nothing but your notepad, your name badge, and a heart that won’t sit still. Reporters aren’t allowed inside the venue during these closed sessions. That’s the rule. But Sunghoon has always had a way of bending the edges when he really wants something. And today, he wanted you there. You flash the ID badge at the security checkpoint, and it works. You’re ushered in with the rest of his team—coaches, assistants, the tech specialist checking his skates for calibration. You keep your head down, hands wrapped tightly around the warm paper cup of coffee you didn’t finish. You don’t think you could stomach anything right now anyway. You find yourself blinking a little harder than necessary as you take your seat in the shadows of the side bleachers, tucked away from the officials and judges gathering near the front. Your hands grip the edge of the bench automatically. Your eyes find the centre of the rink without thinking. And there he is. Sunghoon. Hair slicked back, posture impossibly straight, wearing a crisp black jacket with his country’s emblem stitched just above his heart. He hasn’t noticed you yet—he’s locked in, eyes narrowed, lips set in that focused line you know too well. It’s not his competition face yet, but it’s close. You feel a rush of déjà vu so strong it makes your chest ache. Because you’ve been here before. Not here exactly, but in a hundred different rinks just like this one. Sitting in the same quiet corners. Watching him from a distance. Sometimes holding your breath without realising it. Sometimes the only person in the arena clapping when he stuck a landing during rehearsal. Back then, you knew his routines by heart. Knew the way his fingers twitched before a jump. Knew when he was proud and when he was pretending to be. And now, somehow, you're here again. Only this time, there are four years of silence sitting between you and the memory of who you used to be in his orbit. Still, when he glides to the edge of the rink and spots you in the stands, his expression softens just a fraction. He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t wave. But he holds your gaze long enough for you to know: He sees you. The same way he did four years ago.

When you used to wait by the edge of the rink with a scarf and a warm drink. When he’d skate over to you before practice just to tap your forehead with his finger and say don’t blink this time. When he was still learning how to balance pressure and affection—and you were still learning how to love someone who rarely said what he felt. The way he’s looking at you now—it’s not loud. Not grand. But it’s enough to pull at the thread of every memory you thought you’d neatly tucked away. Sunghoon exhales slowly, eyes trained on the centre of the rink as the announcer’s voice fades into the cold, echoing silence. The blades of his skates feel heavy beneath him—not because they’re any different, but because he is. His heartbeat thrums steadily beneath the layers of his costume, fast but controlled. A familiar rhythm he used to draw comfort from. Now, it only reminds him of everything riding on this final run. He flexes his fingers once, then again. The nerves are there—no point pretending they aren’t. They’ve settled deep into his bones, coiled tight like springs. But there’s no fear. Not of falling. Not of losing. Because he already did that. He already lost the version of skating that once consumed him. Already stepped away from the spotlight, already let go of the expectations. What remains now is something simpler. Smaller. This isn’t about medals anymore. This is the end of something. Or maybe the beginning of what comes after. He guesses that’s the one thing he was keeping from you. Not because he didn’t trust you, but because saying it out loud would’ve made it real—that the dream he built his life around had slowly started to unravel. That somewhere along the way, skating stopped being love and started feeling like obligation.

You think he’s here to chase after redemption. To reclaim what was lost. To silence the whispers, the speculation, the question marks that trailed behind his name for years. You think he’s here to prove that he still has it—that the boy wonder of South Korea’s figure skating circuit never truly fell from grace. But you’re wrong. Because redemption implies he owes something to someone. And Sunghoon’s done with owing. This tryout isn’t about reclaiming his reputation. He’s not here for the judges. Not for the headlines. Not even for the crowd that once screamed his name. He’s here for something far quieter. Something far more difficult to earn. Closure. Not the kind that comes with medals or press conferences, but the kind you feel in your chest when you finally stop running. When you stop skating to meet expectations, and start skating to meet yourself again. This is not a comeback. It’s about reclaiming why he ever skated in the first place. It’s about the quiet mornings on empty rinks. The way cold air fills his lungs and clears his thoughts. The ache in his legs after hours of training that no one ever saw. It’s about the pieces of himself he left scattered in every routine he never got to finish. He shifts his weight slightly, grounding himself. This routine isn’t built for spectacle. It doesn’t chase applause. It’s clean. Honest. Unforgiving in its simplicity. And if this is the last time he performs under Olympic lights—if this is the closing chapter of a decade-long pursuit—then he wants to be the one who chooses how it ends. Not the injury. Not the press. Not the silence. He takes one last glance toward the bleachers. And there you are. Watching. Just like you used to---back then, when his world was still laced with possibility, and your quiet presence was the only constant that ever kept him sane.

And with this last performance—with this one final act—it’s not about the world. It’s not about redemption.

It’s about himself. About stepping onto the ice one final time not to impress, but to release. To mourn. To honour everything this love once was

And maybe—just maybe—it’s for you too. The girl who believed in him before the world knew his name. The one who stayed long after the spotlight dimmed.

He wishes he could say that. Wishes he could turn and tell you: This is for you.

But Sunghoon has never been fluent in the language of declarations.

So instead, he skates, The music begins—something classical, restrained, just a touch mournful—and Sunghoon moves. No flourish. No dramatic opening gesture. Just a quiet push forward, blades slicing into the ice with the same precision you remember from years ago. But this time, there’s something different. There’s stillness in him.  Control so complete it doesn’t scream—it whispers. He doesn’t rush. Doesn’t force it. He lets the music carry him, lets the silence in the arena wrap around him like a second skin. One edge. Then the next. Arms extended, posture flawless, his body slicing through space like he belongs to it. His first jump—a quad toe loop. Clean. Effortless. His landing doesn’t so much hit the ice as it touches it. The blade barely sings as it connects. The motion is seamless, and for a second, no one breathes. Not the judges. Not the staff. Not even the other skaters who’ve trained beside him years ago and know just how good Sunghoon really is. They fall quiet—everyone does—because what they’re seeing isn’t just a routine.

It’s artistry.

His movements are elegant, measured. Each spin folds perfectly into the next, centre tight, shoulders relaxed, neck lengthened. His step sequence flows like water—no excess, no hesitation. And then the triple axel—the jump that sidelined him years ago—comes out of nowhere.

He lands it perfectly.

Not a wobble. Not a check. Not even a breath out of place.

Someone in the stands exhales sharply, as if they forgot they were holding their breath. One of the younger skaters watching from behind the boards drops their phone in shock. Even the coaches—stoic, experienced, always hard to impress—exchange glances. Subtle, but wide-eyed. No one expected this. Not from someone who hasn’t competed in years. Not from someone they assumed was skating on borrowed time. But there he is. Moving like the ice never betrayed him. Like the injury never happened. Like he’s not returning from anything, but arriving exactly where he belongs. The closing spin begins—slow, low, deliberate. He lowers into a final sit spin so clean it looks animated, the motion a perfect blur. Then he rises, centres himself, and ends in silence. No dramatic bow. No fist in the air. Just Sunghoon. Standing still, chest rising, eyes closed. Like he just let go of something he’s been carrying for years. And for a moment—just one—no one claps. Not because it wasn’t brilliant. But because brilliance demands reverence. The applause comes late. Staggered. And then all at once. But even then, it feels too small for what they just witnessed. Because what Sunghoon gave them wasn’t just a performance. It was a goodbye disguised as grace.

The moment the tryouts conclude, the applause still echoing faintly in your ears, you don’t hesitate. You’re already halfway down the stands before your brain catches up with your legs. You weave through rows of folding seats, shoulder past lingering staff and curious onlookers, scanning the crowd of skaters, coaches, and judges now spilling onto the ice and rinkside floor. Your heart is racing. Not from excitement. From urgency. Like if you don’t find him now, this moment—his moment—might slip away before you get to say anything. And then you spot him. Near the far side of the rink, his posture relaxed now, his jacket back on and unzipped. He’s speaking to someone. You recognise the man instantly: Coach Im, his university coach. Stern but warm. Always had a thermos in hand and a stopwatch around his neck, even when he wasn’t timing anyone. You saw him often—back when you used to sit through Sunghoon’s practice sessions, bundled in jackets, pretending to read while keeping your eyes on the ice. Sunghoon laughs at something the coach says, his shoulders shaking with a lightness you haven’t seen in years. You feel something stir in your chest as you step closer. Coach Im spots you first. His eyes light up in recognition as you approach, his voice lifting cheerfully over the din. “Oh hey—isn’t this Y/N?” he says, clapping a hand on Sunghoon’s shoulder. “So lovely to see that the two of you are still going strong!” The words hit you like an unexpected gust of wind, warm and jarring all at once. Sunghoon startles slightly, glancing quickly in your direction with wide eyes—like even he didn’t see that coming. You blink, then laugh—just a breath, soft and awkward. “Oh, um… it’s not like that. We’re not—” But Sunghoon doesn’t say anything right away. He just looks at you. Not surprised. Not embarrassed. Just… thoughtful. A crease forming between his brows like he’s considering what to say next—if he should say anything at all. Coach Im looks between the two of you, clearly confused, then lets out a warm chuckle. “Either way, it’s good to see you again. I remember you always being there in the bleachers during Sunghoon’s training sessions. It was nice knowing he had someone by his side. Kept him grounded, you know?” You smile politely, heart doing a strange little dance in your chest. And as the coach excuses himself to greet someone else, you and Sunghoon are left in a bubble of silence.

Just like old times. Only now, everything feels different.

And yet—somehow—exactly the same.

You clear your throat, stepping a little closer, nerves fluttering at the base of your spine. "Hey, I just wanted to—"

"I'm sorry, Y/N," Sunghoon cuts in, his tone gentle but clipped. He avoids your gaze, already half-turning away. "I promised to meet some old friends from uni to catch up."

You pause. Blinking. The words take a second to land.

"Oh. Right. Yeah," you say, forcing a small smile as you nod, even though your chest tightens. "I'll... see you around?"

"I'll text you, yeah?" he offers, already moving backwards, already fading into the crowd.

You nod again, slower this time. "Huh? Oh. Yeah. Okay." And just like that, he’s gone. Swallowed up by the familiar buzz of coaches, skaters, and congratulations. You stand there a beat longer than you should, the cold of the rink creeping back into your fingertips. The moment you thought you were chasing slips quietly through your hands—unfinished. And all you can do is exhale. Pretend it doesn’t sting. Pretend it isn’t you who’s waiting for him again—who’s standing here with something halfway between closure and hope tangled in your chest. You tell yourself it’s fine. That he skated beautifully. That this day wasn’t about you. But beneath all that composure, you feel it—the ache of almost. Because maybe you expected too much. Or maybe, for a second, you forgot you were just someone he let in again—not someone he kept.

But the truth is, Sunghoon didn’t know how to face you without tearing up. Didn’t know how to walk toward you without pulling you into his arms and asking you to stay, to say something—anything—that might ground him after what just happened on the ice. But the moment Coach Im said your name, smiled like it was still you and him, like time hadn't split everything in half, Sunghoon panicked. Because he’s not sure what this is. Not yet. And he’s not sure you’re open to confronting it, either—whatever it is, this delicate thing hanging between you like a conversation neither of you has found the courage to start. Maybe he read too much into your eyes during warm-up. Maybe the way you looked at him wasn’t about wanting him back. Maybe it was just nostalgia—soft, forgiving, but not something you wanted to carry forward. Maybe you were just proud of him. Maybe you were just letting go. He doesn’t blame you. Because deep down, Sunghoon knows he never really forgave himself for the way things ended—for the silence, the confusion, the months where he let you carry the weight of a love he couldn't name, let alone hold properly. He knows he hurt you in the worst way: by making you feel like you had to ask to be chosen. And though time has passed, and the ache has dulled, another part of him still isn’t sure—still isn't confident—that he’s capable of giving you the kind of love you deserve. But then again—this. This miscommunication. This habit of circling around instead of stepping in. This assumption of what he thinks you want—what you don’t want—it’s what drove the two of you apart in the first place. All the things he never said. All the things you tried to. All the maybes that built a house out of hesitation and called it home. He thought silence would spare you. You thought silence meant indifference. And somewhere along the way—between protecting and pretending, between misreading and mistiming—you both forgot how to meet in the middle.

And now here you are again.

You, still waiting.

Him, still too afraid to walk closer.

Each of you assuming the other doesn’t want more. Each of you convincing yourselves that almost is close enough.

Even when it never was. Even when it never could be.

And as usual, the text he promised never really came. At first, you gave him the benefit of the doubt—told yourself he was probably just busy, caught up in post-tryout formalities, in media briefings, in reconnecting with old friends or navigating the aftermath of a performance that stunned everyone in the arena. But deep down, you knew the silence wasn’t unfamiliar. It never had been. After all, the foundation of your relationship in those final months was built on this same cycle Sunghoon giving just enough. Just enough warmth, just enough apology, just enough softness to keep you waiting—to keep you hoping that maybe if you held on a little longer, he’d choose you fully, finally, without hesitation. And you—God, you—with your foolish heart that had only ever known how to love in full measure, never halfway, never with one foot out the door—you waited. You waited like you always did. And maybe that’s why, when the Korean Skating Union releases the official roster of Olympic athletes and his name is printed boldly at the very top—like it never left, like it was always meant to be there—something in you shifts. You feel it, a spark lighting in your chest, sharp and sudden and wild, and before you’ve even thought it through, you’re already reaching for your coat, already grabbing your keys, already walking out the door with your heart hammering too loudly in your chest. You could’ve texted him. Could’ve called. Could’ve sent a simple message like “congratulations,” could’ve played it safe the way people do when they’re pretending not to care as much as they do. But you don’t. Because something in you needs to see him—needs to see his face, his eyes, the way he stands now that the weight is off his shoulders, now that he’s done it, now that he’s reclaimed skating the way he always wanted to. Because if any part of what you shared still matters—if any part of him still looks at you the way he used to—you want to be there to see it. Not through a screen. Not in a message thread that never starts.

But in person.

So you go. Because maybe this time, you're done waiting.

You stand just inside the entrance of the skating arena, the cold air hitting your skin like a memory. The official delegation is supposed to make a public appearance today—an Olympic tradition of sorts. Which means Sunghoon should be here. Somewhere. Your eyes scan the crowd. Clusters of athletes in sleek national jackets, coaches and press weaving through them like old threads. But it doesn’t take long before you spot him. Tucked away in a corner, half-shadowed by the edge of the bleachers. He’s deep in conversation with one of the national Olympic coaches—Coach Baek, if you remember correctly. The older man’s expression is tight, gestures sharp with frustration. You can’t hear what’s being said, but the energy between them is tense. Sunghoon stands there, arms crossed, nodding slowly, his jaw tight but unreadable. He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t flinch. Just listens. When the coach finally exhales, the tension softens—barely. A few more words are exchanged, and then a hand lands on Sunghoon’s shoulder, firm and final. A goodbye, or maybe a warning softened into encouragement. Then the coach walks away. And as Sunghoon turns slightly to see him off—shoulders still drawn tight from the conversation—his eyes land on you. You freeze for half a second, caught mid-step, unsure whether to wave, speak, or turn back the way you came. But before the indecision fully settles, he starts toward you, closing the distance with a familiarity that shouldn’t feel as natural as it does.

“Hey,” he says, breath a little visible in the rink’s chill. “I was just about to call you.” You arch a brow, tilting your head. “You were?” His mouth lifts, half a smile, half something else you can’t quite name. “Yeah,” he says quietly, like he’s testing the weight of his own words. You cough, trying to mask the genuine surprise, and maybe joy in your tone. “What was that about? He looked like he was about to throw you back into juniors. Training hasn’t even started and you’re already pissing the coach off?” Sunghoon laughs, and for a second, it lightens his whole face. “Yeah… about that…” You narrow your eyes. “What now?” He takes a small breath, then meets your eyes. “What do you think about writing another exclusive?” You blink. Once. Twice. “What, that you made the Olympic team? That’s hardly exclusive.” His smile fades into something more serious. “No, that’s not it.” You watch him carefully now. “I’m retiring.” Your breath catches. “What? When?” “Effective immediately,” he smiles as he says. “I’ve officially pulled out of the Olympic delegation.”

You just stare at him, stunned. “But—Sunghoon. You worked so hard for this. Recovery took years. You’ve been training nonstop—” “I know,” he says, not unkindly, but firm. “And that’s exactly why.” You’re still trying to catch up, your brain scrambling to make sense of it. “I don’t understand. Then why did you go through the tryouts? Why fight so hard just to walk away?” He exhales, like he’s been carrying the answer for a while. “Because I needed to know it was still there. The feeling.” His eyes meet yours, steady. “I wanted to remember what it felt like to skate—not for medals, not for judges, not for anyone else—but just for me. To feel that I could still love it, even if it no longer loved me back the same way.” Then, softer—almost apologetically—he adds, “I’ll never be able to skate like I used to, Y/N. I’ve already accepted that.” It hits you then—that his silence, the tension with the coach, the performance that felt too clean, too perfect—it was all part of a farewell. You’re quiet for a moment. “So this was… what? A planned goodbye?” He nods once, steady. “Maybe not from the beginning. But somewhere along the way, yeah. I think I knew I needed to end it on my terms. Not when the pain told me to. Not when the judges did. When I decided it was enough.” “But—skating. It meant the world to you—” Your voice comes out softer than you expect, the disbelief tangled with something else. Not anger. Not disappointment. Just the ache of watching someone walk away from something that once lit them up from the inside out. Ironic, since you were once someone that lit him up—maybe still is. Sunghoon doesn’t flinch. He just looks at you, eyes steady, voice calm in a way that tells you he’s already made peace with it. “It did,” he pauses, breath curling in the cold, as if he's choosing his next words carefully. And in that moment, you realise that his performance wasn’t a comeback. It was a love letter.

And a goodbye. “Which is why,” he continues, quieter now, “this is the last thing I can do for myself. To leave it the way I want to. I didn’t want my last memory of skating to be hospitals, setbacks, or walking away because I had no choice. I want to remember it the way I’ve always loved it. For what it gave me. For who I was when I first stepped on the ice.” And you’re hit with a painful ache in your chest as he says it—sharp, sudden, the kind that lodges itself between your ribs and blooms quietly like grief. Because if this is the ending he chose for skating—on his own terms, with love and clarity and closure—then what about you? Where is your ending?

Where is your closure? The question surges up before you can catch it, before you can bury it under composure or timing or pride—and it spills out of you, raw and quiet and too honest. “In that case, what do you remember me by?” Sunghoon freezes. His shoulders tense, breath catching so subtly that only someone who’s known him—really known him—would notice. “Y/N…” he says, and you can hear it in his voice—how he didn’t expect that. How he doesn't know what to do with it. You didn’t even realise you’d said it out loud. The weight of it lingers in the air between you, heavy, uninvited. You straighten your posture, instinct snapping back into place. Professional. Controlled. Detached, even if your pulse is anything but. “I should go,” you say briskly, already taking a step back. “I’ll email your management the article draft. Or… do I not need to?” He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out fast enough. “Anyway,” you continue, your voice clipped but polite, a shield you know too well, “feel free to have your assistant text me. Thanks.” You don’t wait for his reply. You turn. And this time, you’re the one walking away from something that once lit you up from the inside out. Even if it hurts to do it. Even if every step feels like it’s tearing something open again. Because you can’t keep standing in spaces where you’re only half-held, half-answered, half-remembered. That evening, you write the article. You sit at your desk long after the sun has dipped below the skyline, long after the city has quieted into its nighttime hush, and you start typing with steady fingers—trying, desperately, to be as professional as you can be. Because this is big news. A world-class athlete pulling out of the Olympic delegation at the peak of national anticipation. A retirement no one saw coming. It’s the kind of journalism that gets you recognised. That fills portfolios and lands bylines in places that matter. But none of that crosses your mind. Because all you can think about—despite the ache still blooming in your chest, despite the lingering bitterness of unanswered questions and things left unsaid—is how to honour him. You still feel the weight of him on the page. Still feel the obligation to present him in the best light. To tell the truth, yes, but also the quiet parts—the parts no one else saw. The discipline. The years of pain. The choice to walk away, not out of defeat, but dignity. You write him with care. With empathy. With the kind of understanding that only someone who once stood in the inner orbit of his world could ever give. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t stop your heart from leaking into the words. Because telling his story means telling yours, too. Not the public version. Not the headlines. But the quiet history of two people who once thought love alone would be enough. The version of you that sat in cold arenas, waiting for him to look up. The version of him that carried the weight of a dream too heavy for his body to bear. The version of both of you that was too young, too scared, too stubborn to survive it back then. It’s almost midnight when you finish the piece. And when you read it back, you realise it’s not just about skating.

It never was.

It’s about letting go of something beautiful—not because it wasn’t enough, but because it ran its course. And for the first time, you understand what he meant.

To end it your way.

To remember the love, not the loss.

So you click send.

And in doing so, you decide—quietly—to let it go.

To let him go.

Ms Yoon (PA): Reporter Kang sent over the article draft. PR said it was good, but thought you might want to read it for yourself. [Attachment: 1 File]

Sunghoon is mid-workout when the message comes in. His hands are chalked, his hoodie damp with sweat, breath still recovering from his last set of strength drills. The notification buzzes faintly against the speaker where his phone sits docked, half-muted beneath the beat of the music pulsing through the rink’s private training gym. He almost ignores it—figures it’s a reminder or scheduling update—until he catches the preview of the sender’s name: Ms. Yoon. He wipes his palms on a towel, walks over, and unlocks his phone, chest still rising and falling in slow recovery. The file is there, bold and unopened. His fingers hover over the screen a moment longer than they should, suspended in a strange quiet. He’s not sure what he’s expecting to feel. Pride? Closure? Guilt, maybe. But whatever it is, he taps the file. And begins to read.

FINAL DRAFT [MANIFESTO EXCLUSIVE] The Final Bow: Park Sunghoon Withdraws from Olympic Delegation and Announces Retirement By Kang Y/N, Manifesto Daily . . . . . In related news, Park’s withdrawal comes just days after the delegation announcement, and in his place, 19-year-old rising star Han Jihoon has been selected to represent Korea in the men’s singles category. Han, who placed fourth at the national tryouts, is widely regarded as one of the most technically gifted athletes of his generation, with a growing fanbase and a reputation for innovation on the ice.

As for Park Sunghoon, he leaves behind a legacy not of statistics, but of stillness. Of dignity. Of skating that always seemed to say what words could not.

His career was never loud. But it was unforgettable.

Goodbye, Park Sunghoon, And thank you for everything you didn’t have to say.

Before he knows it, he’s halfway out the door—keys clenched in one hand, the other rapidly typing a message to his assistant.

Sunghoon: Do you happen to know Y/N’s address? Forward it to me asap. Thanks.

The article is still echoing in his head, playing back in quiet waves he can’t shut out. Lines that hit too close. Lines that cracked open things he thought he’d buried for good. Words that sounded like truths he never gave you the space—or the safety—to say out loud. Because was it just him—or did your article sound like a defeat? Not the kind written in bitterness, but in surrender. An epiphany dressed in grace. Like you had finally laid everything down—your hope, your waiting, your quiet what-ifs—and decided that telling his story was the only closure you were ever going to get. His heart pounds harder now than it did during his entire workout. Not from strain. From urgency. From the sudden, all-consuming fear that he might be too late—too late to explain, to show up, to fix the way silence unraveled everything. Too late to ask for something he didn’t know he was still allowed to want. Something that had always lingered just beyond his reach—not because it wasn’t there, but because he never dared to reach out and take it. That you were still willing to give after all these years, If only he had asked. If only he had trusted that maybe, just maybe, love wasn’t about timing or pride or silence—but about the courage to choose it anyway. And now, with your words still ringing in his head and the ache of what-ifs pressing into his ribs, he runs. Because for the first time in a long time, he isn’t afraid of falling. He’s afraid of missing the chance to fall with you. A notification lights up his screen, and it’s from his assistant—your full address, no questions asked.

Sunghoon doesn’t waste a second. He tosses his phone onto the passenger seat, starts the engine, and drives like his heart’s pacing him—fast, frantic, barely keeping rhythm. The city blurs past in streaks of gold and grey, and his knuckles grip the steering wheel like it’s the only thing holding him together. By the time he reaches your apartment, he doesn’t bother fixing his hair, or the way his hoodie clings to him, soaked from sweat and adrenaline. Or the fact that its well-past midnight and he’s here at your apartment building. He takes the stairs two at a time, too restless for the lift, too afraid the silence will make him second-guess what he’s come here to say. You open the door mid-knock, eyes wide, mouth parting in surprise. “Sunghoon?” your voice is a mix of concern and disbelief. “How did you know I lived here?” You stare at him, bewildered, heart stammering against your ribs. He looks at you like you’re not real. Like he’s been chasing something impossible and suddenly, impossibly, it’s standing right in front of him. There’s yearning in his eyes—raw and unguarded—and when he takes a step closer, you notice it. The limp. Subtle, but there. “Did you run here? God—your injury—” But you don’t get to finish. Because he closes the distance and pulls you into him—arms wrapping around you in one fluid, desperate motion, like his body moved before his mind could catch up. There are no words. No explanations. Just the solid, trembling weight of him anchoring himself to you, like he’s been carrying the absence of this moment for too long, and can no longer bear it. You stand frozen, caught off guard by the heat of him, the quiet urgency in his embrace, the way he fits against you like he’s spent the past four years trying to unlearn the shape of this—and failing. “Sunghoon,” you say, your voice fragile, unsteady, trembling at the edge of disbelief. “What are you—?” But he doesn’t let go. “Don’t leave me,” he chokes out, the words low and fractured, muffled into the fabric of your t-shirt. You feel his breath at the side of your neck before you hear his next words. “Please…” You feel it then—how hard he’s shaking. How tightly his fingers clutch at the back of your shirt like a lifeline. The weight of his body pressed against yours isn’t just exhaustion—it’s grief, longing, guilt—all of it simmering under the surface and spilling out in a single, vulnerable plea. Your hands hover awkwardly at your sides, unsure where they’re allowed to go. Unsure if they’re still his to reach for. And somehow, that hesitation—your silence, that flicker of doubt—it splits something open inside him. “I’ll wait,” he blurts suddenly, pulling back just enough so he can look you in the eye. His own are red-rimmed, glassy, but there’s a sharp kind of clarity there too. “I’ll wait for you, Y/N.” “Sunghoon…” you whisper, your voice unsteady, caught somewhere between confusion and something that feels dangerously close to hope. “Where is this coming from?” His chest is rising and falling against yours, uneven. He swallows hard, and you see it—the way his jaw flexes like he’s trying to keep himself steady. His eyes flicker, not away from you, but like he’s searching for the words he’s never learned how to say out loud. His breath catches once, then again, before he finally forces himself to speak. “I read the article,” he says, quiet but clear. And immediately, you understand. Because you know exactly what part he’s referring to—not the skating analysis, not the announcement of his retirement. He means the parts laced with goodbye. The parts where your words stopped being objective and became soft, tired farewells tucked between the lines that only he would recognise. It was a goodbye to skating. But more pressingly—for Sunghoon—it read like a goodbye to him.

“Let go—” you start, trying to get some space, to breathe, to make sense of the tangle you’ve both fallen into. But his grip only tightens. “That article—” You pause, biting down the rush of emotion rising in your throat. “That article wasn’t meant to change anything.” “I know,” he says, his arms still around you. “But it did. It made me realise just how much I’ve tried to pretend I could move on from you.” You freeze. Not because you don’t understand him, but because you do. Too well. And that terrifies you.

“Let go,” you say quietly, voice strained, like you need to put space between you before you drown in everything he’s saying. “Just… let go so we can talk.” He hesitates, then releases you with reluctance, his hands falling to his sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them now that they aren’t holding you. You catch the way his shoulders rise, tense and uneasy. How his hands shake slightly at his sides. And when he blinks, that’s when you see it—his eyes glossing over, the shimmer of something threatening to spill. “I never stopped loving you,” he says, his voice cracking at the edges. “Even when I left. Even when I convinced myself it was better that way. I still loved you. I just… didn’t know how to be with you and still be okay with myself.” “Now suddenly you’ve figured it all out?” you ask, and the bitterness in your tone surprises even you. But it’s real. You’re not trying to punish him—you’re just scared. Scared of falling back into something that once left you hollow. “No,” he says immediately, and there’s no defensiveness in his voice—just quiet truth. “Not suddenly. But I’ve had time. And space. And it turns out neither of those things taught me how to forget you, Y/N.” You look at him—really look—and it hits you just how much effort it’s taking him to say these things. How his shoulders are drawn tight, how he can’t keep still, how his fingers twitch like they want to ball into fists but won’t. He’s not used to this—exposing himself, risking the quiet between you. And you hate how much you want to believe him. How even now, your heart betrays you by leaping at his words, melting at the sound of your name in his mouth like it still belongs there. You press your lips together, trying to swallow the ache building in your throat. You want to scream, to cry, to ask why he’s doing this now—why he always waits until it’s too late. Why he only finds the words once your heart’s already been rearranged around his absence. But all that comes out is, “You’re saying everything I wanted to hear back then, Sunghoon. But that’s the thing—it’s back then. I’m not the same girl you remember. I’m not the girl who was always waiting for you to show up.” And yet, even as the words leave your mouth, you know that was a blatant lie. Because the truth is, you were that girl. For far longer than you’d ever admit.

“You asked me then,” he starts, voice barely above a whisper, “What do I remember you by.” You freeze. It’s not the sentence itself that gets you—it’s the way he says it. Careful. Almost reverent. Like the question has been haunting him all this time, long after you threw it into the air thinking it would vanish unanswered. “I remember you as the girl who poured her entire heart into everything she touched—your academics, your friendships… me, even after I left for Spain. You were relentless in the way you showed up for people, even when they didn’t always know how to show up for you.” He doesn’t look at you immediately. His gaze drifts somewhere over your shoulder, like the weight of the memory is too tender to hold eye contact just yet. Your heart clenches. You hate how easily those memories come flooding back—the all-nighters, the deadlines, the way you clung to structure and control because it was the only thing you could manage while everything with him felt like trying to build a home on sand. “I remember our first day. Freshman orientation. You couldn’t even look at me properly when we got paired up. I thought you hated me,” his lips twitch, faintly, like he’s caught between a smile and something sadder. “But then you offered to carry half the pamphlets because I looked tired from training, and I realised—you were just shy. You were this quiet, nervous girl who still somehow managed to be kind when she was uncomfortable.” Now his eyes return to yours, and there’s something in them that makes your chest ache. He’s remembering you, in detail, like he carried those moments with him even when he left you behind. And that shouldn’t make you feel warm. But it does. And you hate that. “I remember the blush on your cheek when you asked me out for the first time,” he says, smiling faintly. “You were so nervous I thought you were going to change your mind halfway through. But you didn’t. You stood there, eyes wide, hands shaking, and still said it anyway.” You hate how clearly you remember that moment too. The way your heart had raced. The way he smiled at you like you’d surprised him in the best possible way. “I remember you sitting in the bleachers,” he continues. “Head down, focused on your notes, your laptop. But you were watching me, too. Even when you didn’t say anything, you were always there. And God, that meant more than I ever told you.” Your grip tightens over your sleeves, arms crossed to stop your hands from shaking. “I remember how your eyes would light up when you opened those Popmart boxes, like it was magic every single time. You’d show me the little figurine like it was gold. And you’d smile at me like you wanted me to be excited with you. I didn’t always get it. But I remember thinking, I hope she knows how loved she deserves to feel for the rest of her life.” Your eyes sting. He shifts, like the next words are heavier, harder to pull from his chest. “I remember your words,” he says now, gaze locked on yours. ”The ones you gave so freely when I was too buried in pressure to ask for them. I remember your voice when you encouraged me, when you believed in me, when I didn’t believe in myself.” “I remember the warmth of your hugs. I remember the shape of your lips when you kissed me. And everything in between.” His eyes lower for a beat. His tone changes—not dimmer, but honest in a way that hurts.

“And I remember the fights too. The arguments. The silences. The doors that closed too hard, and the words that came out sharper than we meant them to. I remember how frustrated you got. I remember how I pulled away. And I remember that, too—because even those moments mattered. Even those were you loving me in the only way you knew how: by fighting for us.” He looks back at you now, fully, like he’s trying to hand you all of it—every memory, every piece. Your chest tightens, breath caught between inhale and collapse. “You loved me enough to care. Even when it got messy. Even when I made it hard. You cared when I didn’t know how to. You stayed when I didn’t make it easy to be around me.” The tears come then. They track down his cheeks slowly at first, then faster, like something’s come loose inside him that he can’t hold back anymore. He doesn’t wipe them away. He just stands there, crying in front of you like he’s spent years trying not to.

“And I think about that version of us all the time,” he says. “Not just the good. Not just the beautiful. But all of it. The whole you. The real you.” “That’s how I remember you, Y/N. I remember you as the girl who loved me when I didn’t know how to love myself. And even now, I’m still trying to figure out how to be someone who was worthy of all that love."

Your breath catches, but you don’t let it out. Not yet.

Because something in you knows that if you exhale, if you react, you might fall apart entirely.

His words are still hanging in the air, soft but sharp, like silk laced with barbed wire. They’re gentle—but they hurt. Because they’re real. Because they’re him. The him you waited for. The version you wanted to hear from long before all the damage was done. And now he’s here, finally saying all the things you once begged for in silence. And you don’t know what to do with it. You feel a tear slip down your cheek before you even realise it’s there. Your heart is making too much noise in your chest. Every beat sounds like a memory—of those bleacher nights, of ramen cups shared between lectures, of the small, quiet joy of feeling seen, even when he never said it out loud. You remember all those things too.

And that’s the problem.

Because part of you wants to believe it. Wants to step forward. Wants to reach for him and say, I remember you, too. Not the public figure. Not the Ice Prince. But the boy who once laid his head in your lap after a long day and asked you to stay, even if he couldn’t say the words. But another part of you—older now, wearier—pulls back. Because love wasn’t enough the first time. Because his silence hurt. Because you were the one who waited. Who stayed. Who forgave and forgave and slowly lost parts of yourself trying to hold everything together while he figured out who he was without ever asking who you were becoming. And now, here he is. Saying the right things. Crying real tears. Standing still when he used to run. But what does that mean now, when you’ve taught yourself to survive without him? You feel your throat tighten, your arms crossed like a shield, like maybe if you just hold yourself hard enough, the years between you will stop trembling through your spine. You want to speak—but nothing comes out. Because how do you respond to something so tender when all you’ve learned since him is to protect yourself from softness? You blink up at him, your eyes burning, and part of you whispers, He means it this time. And another voice, quieter but steady, asks, But is that enough? So you say nothing for a moment. Just stand there. Your whole body a battlefield between memory and survival. And then, softly, you speak.

“I don’t know what to do with this,” you admit, eyes flicking away from him. “I don’t know how to trust what you’re offering. You hurt me, Sunghoon. You left. And I carried that.” You see the hope falter just a little in his eyes. But he nods. “I’m not asking you to do anything,” he says. “I just…  I couldn’t let your words be the last thing between us. I needed you to know that I remember you. That I never stopped loving you.” You don’t respond right away. You don’t know how to. Your heart is loud in your ears, screaming all the things you’re too scared to say. Because this feels like standing on a cliff again, and this time, you’re not sure if there’s anything on the other side to catch you. “I’ll wait,” he says suddenly, voice rough, but steady with something fierce. “If you need time, I’ll give it. If you need space, I’ll step back. But just—please” Your throat tightens. “And what if I don’t have anything left to give you?” “Then I’ll understand,” he says, voice rough. “I’ll carry that. But I had to say it. I had to try. And I know it doesn’t make up for anything, but it’s all I’ve got. I’m standing here, telling you I love you, and I will wait—for however long it takes—because I don’t want to live the rest of my life wondering if you ever would’ve said yes.” And just like that, you feel the air leave your lungs in one long, shaking exhale. Not from panic. Not from pain. But from a bittersweet relief. The sincerity in his voice is unmistakable—stripped bare of pride, of performance, of everything he used to hide behind. This isn’t the Sunghoon who pulled away, who stayed silent when it mattered. This is the boy who finally understands what it means to show up.

After four years of silence, a leg injury that will never truly heal, and a heart broken into a million pieces—yours, his, both—shattered by time, by distance, by everything neither of you had the words to fix back then. And Sunghoon—your Sunghoon, the one who knows you better than you’d like to admit—watches you carefully, like he’s afraid you’ll misinterpret everything he’s just said—afraid you’ll think this is another case of bad timing or misplaced nostalgia. Then, after a long, tentative pause, his voice softens—but there’s no doubt in it. “And I know we already talked about this the other day,” he says, his voice careful. “But just so we’re clear… I need you to hear it again.” You look up, heart thudding as he meets your gaze head-on. “This… us… me being here,” he says slowly, deliberately, “it’s not because skating didn’t work out. It’s not some knee-jerk reaction because the ice stopped being kind to me.” His throat bobs as he swallows, blinking back the weight behind his words. “I fell out of love with skating a long time ago,” he continues, “but I never fell out of love with you, Y/N.” The silence that follows is immediate. Heavy. Because no matter how hard you’ve tried to bury the thought—or pretend it never crossed your mind—it still lingers in the quiet, persistent and sharp: If he hadn’t lost skating… would he have come back at all? But now, with that truth laid bare between you, your breath catches.—and for the first time in a long time, you don’t feel like someone he remembered too late. You don’t feel like the consolation prize. Or the safe fallback.

You feel chosen.

He’s here. He finally ran to you—not out of impulse, not out of guilt, and most certainly not because he had nowhere else to go. But because he wants to stay. In the mess he created. In the aftermath. In whatever comes next.

He made sure to communicate that clearly to you. And for the first time—he’s the one offering to wait. He’s not asking for guarantees. He’s not walking ahead, expecting you to catch up. He’s right here. Meeting you halfway. The same halfway that, truthfully, you’ve never walked away from. Not really. Not fully. Because even in the silence, even in the years you spent convincing yourself you’d moved on, there was always a part of you standing in place—waiting—in every version of yourself you tried to become without him, wondering if he’d ever meet you there. Now he has. And the truth is, you still want him just as much as he wants you. You don’t know the exact moment the clarity came. Maybe it was the way his voice cracked when he said your name, like it physically hurt to speak it aloud. Maybe it was the way he remembered every tiny, unremarkable piece of you—the girl who sat in the bleachers, who lit up at Popmart figurines, who loved so loudly it scared him. Maybe it was the way he cried—openly, without shame—or how he waited for your silence like he was willing to carry whatever your answer might be. But when it hit, it was quiet. Gentle. Unmistakable. You still love him. You never stopped. You tried. God, you really tried. You built a life without him, crafted a version of yourself that didn’t flinch at his name, convinced yourself you were fine—that you could breathe without the weight of his absence crushing your ribs. But even on your best days, there was always that ache. That dull, ever-present ache that no one else ever quite touched. “I’m sorry for making this complicated for you,” Sunghoon says suddenly, voice so soft it nearly gets swallowed by the quiet. “I’ll give you time to think.” He starts to turn away, the line of his shoulders already retreating, his eyes cast to the ground like he’s ready to disappear again. You should say something. But you don’t. You just move—more instinct than anything. One step, then two, and wrap your arms around him from behind like you’re anchoring yourself to the only thing that’s ever felt simultaneously this terrifying and this right. Sunghoon freezes. Completely still. You feel it first in the way his shoulders tense, tension rippling through his body like your touch startles something buried too deep to name—then the slow, excruciating way he exhales, as if he’s been holding his breath the whole time.

You press your forehead lightly into his back. He’s warm. Solid. Real.

Sunghoon shifts, beginning to turn toward you but your grip tightens ever so slightly. “No. Don’t turn around yet,” you say, your voice trembling. “Not yet. Just… listen.” His breath catches again, but he nods, hands limp at his sides, letting you press your heart against the shape of his back like it might finally say all the things your mouth never could. You close your eyes and let the words come—raw and unpolished, everything you’ve buried for far too long. “I hated how you shut down when things got hard between us. I hated how I always had to be the one to reach out, to fix things, to guess what you were feeling when all I wanted was for you to just say it.” His shoulders flinch slightly. You can feel the guilt settle into the line of his spine. His heartbeat picks up, echoing between you like thunder. Still, he doesn’t move. “I hated how you always made decisions on your own—like I wasn’t part of the picture. Like love was something you had to protect me from instead of something we could’ve fought for together.” Your voice cracks on the last word, but you push through. “I hated how you walked away without telling me the truth. How you let me believe I wasn’t worth holding onto.” Your grip loosens as your voice softens. And as you do, Sunghoon’s fingers twitch near yours like he wants to reach for your hand but doesn’t know if he’s allowed.

“And worst of all I hate that even after all of that—after the silence, the heartbreak, the wondering—I still can’t forget you.” His fingers curl slightly, not quite fists, but as if holding himself in place. As if your words are the only thing keeping him from falling apart. “I love the way you lace your skates, the way you scrunch your nose when you laugh, the way you never let go of your childhood dreams even when they broke you. I love how you tried to protect me—even if it hurt. I love how you remember everything about me, even the things I thought didn’t matter. Even the things I was sure you forgot.”

You speak.

“I love how you cuddled me in my sleep—I hate how you let the quiet speak for you. I love how you loved me, even when you didn’t know how to show it. Even when I hate the fact you didn’t know how to show it.”

He listens.

And with every word you spill, every confession you finally give voice to, something in him unknots. His spine softens against you, leaning back into your embrace—just enough for you to feel the weight of him, the way he surrenders to the moment. His heartbeat thrums steadily beneath the fabric of his hoodie, loud and alive where your cheek presses lightly into the space between his shoulder blades. “And I hate how I still love all those parts. The beautiful ones, the difficult ones, the ones that tore me apart.” Sunghoon doesn’t speak right away. Doesn’t even move until he’s sure you’re done. “I never stopped loving you, Sunghoon. That’s the problem.” When you whisper those words, you swear he stops breathing altogether. You feel it rush out of him, like the weight of that truth floors him where he stands. “I don’t need time,” you add, barely audible. “I just needed to be sure this was real. That you were.” You take a shuddering breath, close your eyes, and press your cheek more firmly against him—hoping, in some impossible way, that you can feel him even closer than he already is. “I’m scared,” you admit. “I don’t know how to do this again. I don’t know how to trust what we were, or what we could be. But I know I still care. I know I still want you.” “And I’m tired of pretending I don’t.” God, you want to laugh. Or slap yourself in the face because of how terrifyingly easy it was to believe him again. How a few trembling words and tear-soaked confessions cracked through years of hurt like they were never there to begin with. How your heart, traitorous and stubborn, still knows the shape of him like a story it never stopped rereading. And your stupid, foolish heart—bruised from all the almosts and maybes—is choosing to continue writing that story.

You don’t say anything more.

And that’s when he moves.

Slowly, cautiously, Sunghoon turns in your arms, and the look in his eyes nearly shatters you. Hope. Guilt. Wonder. All of it, all at once. His eyes are glossy, lips parted in disbelief. His hands rise, trembling as he cups your face—so gently, like he’s afraid you’ll slip through his fingers if he blinks. You feel the pulse in his fingertips where his thumb brushes your jaw—still racing, still loud. Like your presence alone is enough to send it surging. Like he’s never been more alive than in this quiet, fragile moment with you. He gently rests his forehead against yours, the space between you shrinking until it barely exists. His hands are trembling, but his touch is impossibly tender—thumb brushing against your cheek, catching a tear, and then another. You hadn’t even realised you were full-blown crying until his fingers found the evidence. And then—just when you think your heart can’t take any more—his next words knock the air from your lungs like a punch and a prayer all at once. “Can I kiss you?” he whispers, voice hoarse and breaking with every syllable. “Please… tell me I still can.” The plea hangs between you, fragile and breathless. His chest is rising and falling in shallow, uneven rhythm, his pulse frantic beneath your fingertips as you reach up—slowly, instinctively—and wrap your fingers around his wrist. You can feel it there: the raw, aching thrum of his heartbeat, louder than words. Like your touch alone is enough to undo him. He’s never looked more vulnerable. Never more real. There’s no mask, no distance, no practiced calm—just him. Just Sunghoon, standing in front of you with nothing left to offer but his whole heart, held out in both hands. You let out a shaky breath, the corners of your lips lifting despite the tears still wet on your skin. And then—soft, quiet, but certain—you say, “Yes.”

As soon as the word leaves your lips—soft, breathless, and trembling with everything you’ve held back for years—Sunghoon moves. There’s no hesitation. No time wasted. The moment he hears your yes, he closes the distance like a man starved for something he thought he’d never taste again. His hands frame your face with a yearning so delicate it makes your heart ache. And then—he’s kissing you. It isn’t hurried or rough. It’s deep and devastating, like an apology and a promise all wrapped into one. Like he’s trying to pour four years of silence, of longing, of every missed chance into a single touch. He kisses you like it’s the first time and the last time all at once. And you—god, you melt into it. Into him. Into the feeling of home rediscovered, of time folding in on itself. Your fingers find their way into the hem of his hoodie, clinging onto him like you’re afraid he might vanish if you let go. But he doesn’t.

He stays.

And so do you. When you finally find it in you to pull away, you do so slowly—reluctantly—as if your body hasn’t quite caught up with your mind yet. As if some part of you still isn’t ready to let go. Your foreheads stay pressed together, breath mingling in the narrow space between you, warm and uneven. You’re both breathless. Messy. His hair is damp at the edges, your cheeks are flushed, and your eyes sting with the remnants of unshed tears. His thumb lingers at your jaw, gently tracing the skin as if to memorise the feel of you all over again. You feel the tremble in his breath when he exhales, feel the soft thud of his heart still racing beneath your fingertips. He doesn’t speak right away. Neither do you. Because in that moment, there’s nothing to say that could possibly match the weight of what just passed between you. You’d been broken once. Both of you. But right now—in this quiet, tangled stillness—it feels like the pieces are finally trying to come back together. You lean in again, lips parted, drawn to him like gravity—like your heart still hasn’t had enough. But just as your breath brushes against his skin, he gently places a hand on your shoulder and eases you back. The moment stalls. You blink, startled. A flicker of panic rises in your chest—was this a mistake? Did he change his mind? But then he smiles. Soft. Steady. The kind of smile that anchors you. He pulls you into his arms, wrapping you tight against his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head like he’s afraid you’ll shatter if he holds you any less carefully. “Believe me,” he murmurs into your hair, voice thick with restraint, “I want you so bad.” He pulls back just enough to look at you, thumb tracing your cheek, his gaze unbearably tender. “But not like this. Not when your heart’s still racing and your thoughts are a blur. I don’t want this to be another moment we look back on and wonder if it was real.” His forehead rests gently against yours again, breath fanning over your lips. You’re stunned by his honesty—by the weight of his restraint, the care in his voice. And you can’t help but compare him to the Sunghoon from four years ago. The boy who never quite knew how to sit still in the presence of raw emotion, who’d grown so used to skating past vulnerability that he forgot how to let someone in.

Back then, he would’ve kissed you anyway. Not out of selfishness, but out of fear—fear of the silence that might follow, fear of what waiting might reveal. He didn’t know how to confront intimacy without flinching. But this—this Sunghoon in front of you now—isn’t running from the stillness. He’s standing in it. Letting the quiet settle between you like a promise. He’s not rushing. He’s not deflecting. He’s choosing you with intention. “I want to do this right. Slow, if that’s what it takes. With all of you—not just the part that’s still reeling from the fall. ” You nod. “You can stay the night if you like… on the couch, of course.” He grins, eyes flickering with something fond, something teasing—but there's warmth behind it, restraint. “Starting from ground zero, I see.” He lets out a breath, gentle and steady. “I’m grateful. Really. But I won’t overstay tonight. I think…” he pauses, gaze dropping to the floor for a brief second before finding you again, more grounded now, “I think we both have some thinking to do too. And frankly speaking, if you look at me like that any longer, I might actually lose my shit.” You laugh, soft and disbelieving, the sound muffled by the sleeve you raise to your mouth. And as much as your heart aches to keep him close, to fall back into the comfort of familiarity, you both know tonight can’t be about slipping into old rhythms too soon. Not when everything between you is still new and fragile in its honesty. He reaches out and brushes a hand over your arm. “Let me put you to sleep,” he says, voice lower now, softer. “And then I’ll go.” And you don’t fight him on it. Because for the first time, he isn’t leaving to run. He’s leaving to give you room to choose. The moment your head hits the pillow, and you feel his lips press a gentle kiss to your forehead, your body sinks into the mattress like it's exhaling. You're not sure if it's the exhaustion from everything that’s unravelled between you earlier, or the undeniable familiarity of having him close again—his scent, his warmth, the quiet hum of his breath near yours—but sleep finds you almost instantly. It's as if your body remembers him. Trusts him.

Sunghoon lingers. He sits by the edge of your bed, watching the rise and fall of your chest, the soft creases of worry smoothing out from your brow now that you're resting. A small, breathy chuckle escapes him as he leans down, brushing a few strands of hair from your face. “So peaceful,” he whispers, almost to himself, “and still somehow managing to look like you carry the weight of the world.” He stays a second longer than he should. Maybe two. And then, quietly, he stands to leave—only to catch the soft glow of your laptop screen still open on your desk. He walks over, intending to shut it, give you the rest you deserve. But as his eyes flicker toward the screen, he recognises the subject line immediately. It's the email to your editor. The article draft. The cursor blinks steadily at the end of the draft—the same paragraph that started it all. Goodbye, Park Sunghoon, And thank you for everything you didn’t have to say.| The words land like a quiet echo in his chest. He glances back at your sleeping form on the bed, a faint, solemn smile tugging at his lips. Then he turns, quietly taking a seat at your desk. His fingers hover above the keyboard for a moment. And then—backspace. Letter by letter, he deletes the final paragraph. In its place, he types slowly. Carefully. Like each word is a stitch trying to mend what’s been frayed for too long. When he’s done, he hovers for a moment, rereading every word—then clicks “Send.” The email spins off toward your editor. He stands, casts one last look in your direction, and quietly lets himself out.

The next morning, you wake groggy but oddly clear-headed, like your body is still catching up to the storm of feelings it weathered the night before. The room is quiet. Sunlight spills in softly through the blinds, casting golden slats across your blanket. For a moment, you wonder if any of it was real—if he really came, really stood in your doorway, cried in your arms, asked to kiss you like it meant everything. But the slight indent on the couch cushion. The mug he used. The scent that still lingers faintly in the air—all of it confirms: he was here. It was real. Your heart thumps at the memory, but it’s interrupted by a harsh vibration rattling on your nightstand. You blink at your phone, screen flooded with notifications—dozens of missed calls, texts, and pings from your editorial team.

Chase headlines, not men. Catch exclusives, not feelings. ✍️

Yunah: @/you I know you're off today, but I just wanted to say CONGRATS on your story!! See, I knew you could pull this off. [Attached: 1 Link]

Moka: The internet is LOSING it over the article!!!

Minju: Still can’t believe you landed exclusive on top of exclusive with Park Sunghoon. Legend behaviour.

Yunah: I’m equally shocked he’s been hiding that injury all this time 😭

Minju: I don’t want to stress you out but… our public inbox is full of people sending selfies of themselves crying. Literal tears.

Moka: I mean did you READ that last paragraph??? I sobbed too.

You blink at your phone, stunned. Messages keep pouring in—some from colleagues you barely know, others from strangers outside your publication, all echoing the same thing: the article hit them hard. Which is… strange. Because you don’t remember sending the draft. Brows furrowed, you scroll up through your texts until you find the link Yunah sent. You tap it. The article is live. You hold your breath as you read through the byline—your name, front and centre. The formatting. The intro you agonised over. The quotes, the story, the soul of it. And then you scroll to the end. A smile tugs at your lips, and you pull up your chat with Sunghoon.

You: [Attached: 1 Screenshot] Was this your doing?

His reply is almost instant.

Sunghoon: Good morning :) Maybe? PR said they wanted to switch it up.

You: And by PR you mean... you?

Sunghoon: 😂 I meant every word. It’s what I wanted to say to you and to the world. Why… was it too corny? I’m sorry if I overstepped.

You bite your lip, heart stupidly fluttering as you reread his words.

You: No no. Just kinda mad I didn’t think of that myself 🙄

Sunghoon: Well, you can’t beat years of media training 🤷‍♂️

You: Sunghoon, I WORK for the media…

He replies almost immediately, like he’s been waiting for your comeback.

Sunghoon: Let me make it up to you for one-upping you. Dinner tonight? My treat.

Your fingers hover over the keyboard for a beat before you reply.

You: I would not accept otherwise.

You set the phone down, unable to contain the quiet laugh that escapes you. Because despite everything—the heartbreak, the years apart, the mess of it all—you’ve never felt more like you were exactly where you were meant to be.

The two of you walk slowly along the riverbank, hands gently entwined, his thumb occasionally sweeping across your knuckles like he's still making sure you're real. The evening is still, like even the world has paused to listen. A breeze brushes past, gentle and cool, carrying the scent of spring and something sweet that lingers—something that smells like beginnings.

You glance down at your interlocked fingers, how naturally they fall into place—like no time has passed at all. The rhythm of your footsteps syncs without effort, the silence between you not heavy, but full. Comfortable. Honest. Familiar in all the ways that matter.

“This feels like our first date,” you say, smiling without meaning to, the corners of your lips tugged by something warm and indescribable.

He laughs under his breath, a soft, breathy sound that makes your heart swell. “Maybe it is,” he replies. “The first one where I finally know what I’m doing.”

You don’t reply. Not because you have nothing to say, but because every part of this moment already says it for you.

The sky above is endless, dark velvet speckled with stars. The world moves quietly around you—boats drifting in the distance, couples passing by, the faint sound of laughter from a nearby cafe. But for the first time in a long time, it doesn’t feel like you’re watching it all from behind a glass wall. You’re here. Present. With him.

And he’s here too—really here, not as a shadow of a memory, not as someone you're chasing or mourning. But as a man who's finally choosing to stay beside you.

And you think—if the world ended right now, if the river froze and time stopped still—you would not ask for more than this. Not more than his hand in yours, his voice low beside you, his presence finally steady after years of disappearing acts and empty spaces.

You look at him—not the athlete, not the headline, not the boy who once walked away—but the man who returned with no armour, no excuses, only truths. Who stood in front of you trembling, terrified, and still chose to stay. And when you speak, your voice is quiet but certain.

“You could’ve come back with promises, with charm, with all the right words at the wrong time. But you didn’t.”

There’s a small beat of silence where he stops walking and you do too, feet planted at the edge of the path where the river glistens. He faces you fully now, his hand still holding yours.

“You came back to me with everything I ever needed,” you continue.

He opens his mouth, but no words come—just the subtle tremble of his chin, the storm of emotions flickering behind his eyes. You take a step closer, pressing your forehead against his, feeling his breath shudder out as though even now, this is too much to believe.

“This,” he says, almost to himself, “is what I should’ve fought for back then.”

"All that matters is you are now," you whisper. "You left, and then you learned. You grew. And then you came back.”

And that’s the difference. That’s everything.

This isn’t about returning to the past. This is about two people, standing in the aftermath of everything they weren’t ready for then, finally finding each other in a version of the world where they are. Choosing to begin again—not from scratch, but from everything they’ve carried and learned and lived through.

His hand stays in yours, steady and warm, like a vow made without words.

You kiss him.

And this time, the kiss isn’t a promise or an apology. It’s not an act of desperation or regret. It’s a homecoming.

It tastes like relief. Like forgiveness. Like all the years that tried to pull you apart finally surrendering to the truth that you were always meant to find your way back.

When you pull away, he doesn’t say anything right away. He just holds you closer, like letting go would unravel the universe itself.

You rest your head on his shoulder, and in that embrace—quiet and undramatic, warm and steady—you finally understand what it means to be loved not just in the way you wanted, but in the way you deserved.

Because he loves you now in the way that matters most.

Not as the boy who left. Not as the echo of a love lost to time. But as the man who finally came back to put every broken piece back together with his own hands.

This isn’t the love you spent years waiting for.

It’s the love he had to fight to grow into. The kind born from mistakes, shaped by time, and strengthened through absence. It’s messy. Flawed. Earned. Real.

It's the kind of love that's loud in his words as much as it is in his presence.

It’s the kind of love that sees all of you. Not just the polished, loveable parts, but the fractured ones too—and stays anyway.

And for Sunghoon, this is the love he has worked to deserve. The kind of love that took almost losing everything to understand.

Skating. Himself. You.

Skating was his first love—the kind that demanded everything and gave just as much, until it didn’t. And like most first loves, it burned bright, glorious, then quietly slipped beyond reach.

And when he said he fell out of love with it a long time ago, something inside you aches.

Because you remember. God, you remember how much he loved it. How much it meant to him. You were there for the early mornings, the ice-burned skin, the sacrifices. You watched him speak with his body when words failed, carve art into frozen ground like it was the only way he knew how to breathe. Skating wasn’t just something he did. It’s his compass. His language. His sanctuary.

You mourn the love he lost—because it was beautiful. Because it made him who he was. Because you can only imagine what he must’ve gone through to lose that love. To say it out loud. To bury it. And because it hurts to know that even something so beloved can slip away.

And yet… here he is. Standing in front of you, offering up the ashes of what once fuelled him, just to prove that loving you never burned out. That you outlasted the thing that defined him for most of his life. That somehow, someway, you came out on the other side—not as a consolation, but as a constant.

Even now, you don’t know what to do with that kind of love. A love that gave up the world just to come home to you.

Because you know what it cost him. What it cost you.

And even though some part of you swells at the thought that he never stopped choosing you, there’s another part that grieves for everything he lost along the way.

But one thing is certain:

While skating may have been his first love, Sunghoon intends for you to be his last.

So you’ll love him with both hands open. With reverence for the boy he used to be, with gratitude for the man he’s become, and with tenderness for all the versions of him in between.

You will carry the echoes of the boy who once chased gold on the ice and hold space for the man who let it go.

And that’s the way you’ll love him—

The way he loves you.

[MANIFESTO EXCLUSIVE] The Final Bow: Park Sunghoon Withdraws from Olympic Delegation and Announces Retirement

By Kang Y/N, Manifesto Daily

In a move that has taken the sports world by quiet surprise, South Korean figure skater Park Sunghoon has officially withdrawn from the 2026 Olympic delegation and announced his retirement from competitive skating.

Park, who recently stunned audiences with a breathtaking performance at the national Olympic tryouts, was widely anticipated to lead the men’s singles category for Team Korea. His name sat at the top of the final athlete roster released by the Korean Skating Union, cementing his spot after years spent away from the competitive spotlight.

However, behind the seamless technique and poise he displayed during the tryouts, Park had been skating through pain. After sustaining a severe tendon injury to his right leg during training abroad in 2023, he underwent a long and difficult recovery—one that, according to the athlete, never fully restored his capacity to train at the level he once held. Despite managing the condition in silence, Park made the decision to step away before risking further damage to his body.

Having spent the last few years recovering and training quietly overseas, Park re-entered the national circuit not to chase medals, but to rediscover what skating meant to him beyond the pressure of podiums and public expectation. His performance at the tryouts was not only a technical feat but also a statement. A reclamation. A reminder that skating, at its core, was always more than a career. It was a language of feeling.

In his official statement, Park expressed gratitude for the opportunity to return to the ice one last time: “I want to remember it the way I’ve always loved it. For what it gave me. For who I was when I first stepped on the ice.”

Park’s career has never been defined by loud declarations. He was known for his quiet discipline, his ability to translate stillness into power, grace into precision. From his early victories on the junior circuit to his more introspective, mature performances in recent years, he has remained one of the few athletes whose artistry often spoke louder than any press release.

Though his departure from the delegation was unexpected, it wasn’t without intent. Park’s decision to step back at the height of anticipation is a reminder that not all victories are won under stadium lights. Some are claimed in the quiet resolve to walk away on your own terms.

In related news, Park’s withdrawal comes just days after the delegation announcement, and in his place, 19-year-old rising star Han Jihoon has been selected to represent Korea in the men’s singles category. Han, who placed fourth at the national tryouts, is widely regarded as one of the most technically gifted athletes of his generation, with a growing fanbase and a reputation for innovation on the ice.

As for Park Sunghoon, he leaves behind a legacy not of statistics, but of stillness. Of dignity. Of skating that always seemed to speak in the spaces where words fell short.

And maybe that was the point all along. Maybe it was never about the podium. Maybe the real victory was simply finding your way back to loving something you once thought you had to leave behind.

Copyright© 2025 thatfeelinwhenyou All Rights Reserved

[heethera]

˖*°࿐ •*⁀➷ 𝐤𝐞𝐞𝐩 𝐢𝐭 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧!

➜ summary: you just moved into a new building, right across from three loud guys. two said sorry and the third couldn’t care less.

pairing: pshx f!reader,wc: 14k words , genre: enemies to lovers ish, neighbor!au, fluff, romcom w: rude jokes, cussing, kissing

The elevator doors swung open, and soon you stepped out into the third floor hallway. You looked like you were moving in, which in your defense…you were. The oversized hoodie slipping off one shoulder, arms hugging a stack of takeout containers and a cactus you had that had pricked you far too many times, but that didn’t matter. You were finally on your own.

Unit 3B. That was you now. 

Your keys jingled in your palm as you found the door, nudged it open with one knee, and stepped into the apartment you’d stared at for months on rental listings. It wasn’t huge, but it had a little kitchen with enough space for your mum’s rice cooker, and a balcony that caught the sun in the morning. You spun around in the centre of the room, grinning, almost knocking the cactus you had just placed on the counter in the process.

And by nightfall, the place felt like yours. Your fairy lights were strung up across your living room. Your fridge held exactly a bottle of soda, some tuna you had eaten an hour ago and a bag of unwashed grapes. You lit a vanilla candle, the one your best friend, Jungwon, made you promise to use so you'd remember him… even while being so far apart.  But Jungwon hated travelling, so in his mind, you'd basically moved to another continent. 

Jungwon dramatically declared, “You’re practically moving to another country.”

“Jungwon, I’m literally a two-hour train ride away.”

“That’s basically Europe.”

You rolled your eyes at the memory, smiling to yourself.

Still, you were glad you’d made the decision to move. Three years ahead of you… of being on your own, of learning to be independent, part-time jobs, and what you hoped…a future incoming relationship. It should be easy. It should be peaceful. It should be—

“DUDE!!!”

A scream ripped through your wall.

It came from the wall to your right, a thin wall nudged between you and your neighbours. You could hear celebrations. A voice shouted, “THAT WAS INSANE!” followed by a loud thump like someone had jumped off the sofa.

You tried ignoring it at first, burying yourself under the blanket like it could block out noise. But 20 minutes in, another screamed “HE’S OFFSIDE, YOU DUMB—” loud enough to rattle the walls, you snapped.

You threw on your hoodie, jammed your feet into slippers, and marched out the front door like you were storming a battlefield. The hallway was dim and quiet, except for the muffled party behind door 3C. You knocked, hard, but polite.

The door creaked open mid-laughter, revealing three guys mid-snack, mid-game.

“Hi,” you said, tight smile. “Sorry to bother you, but… would you mind keeping it down a little? I’ve got a test tomorrow and it’s kinda hard to focus with all the screaming.”

The one with fluffy hair, cute little eyes, nodded immediately. “Shit. Sorry, sorry. Totally our bad.”

Another one, long lashes and a goofy smile, actually winced. “Didn’t realise it was that loud. We’ll keep it down, promise.”

“Are you new here?” the first one asked.

You nodded. “I just moved in today, actually.”

“Oh shit. Mrs Kim moved out?”

“Damn, we’re not getting her kimchi anymore, that’s for sure.”

“We gotta eat those store-bought ones that taste like ass.”

The second boy looked at you again, more focused this time. “Oh right! I’m Jake! It’s great to meet you! I’m sorry it happened under… unfortunate circumstances. But we’ll be quieter!”

“I’m Jay, by the way,” the first one added with a small grin, pushing his hair back.

You nodded, smiling slightly. At least they were nice about it. Well, two out of three, anyway.

You glanced past both of them, eyes landing on the third boy slouched on the couch, still holding the controller, gaze fixed on the paused screen like you weren’t even there. His jaw clenched once. No name. No hello. Just a subtle, annoyed glance in your direction before he looked away again.

Cool. So he hates you. That’s cool with you.

The third guy didn’t say anything. Just glanced at you once, then turned back toward the TV.

“Uh, thanks,” you said, lips tight, already backing away.

You returned to your apartment and for a blessed thirty minutes, it was quiet.

Then someone scored a goal and the wall shook again.

You blinked slowly at your ceiling, arms folded under your head like the weight of your patience was finally starting to crush your ribs. Okay. So that’s how it was going to be. You frowned.

And that was literally… how war started.

The next morning, fuelled by petty vengeance and two hours of sleep, you grabbed your pastel pink sticky notes and wrote:

“Dear 3C, I’ve played FIFA before. It is not that damn fun for you to be out here screaming. Please tone it down. Regards, the zombie in 3B.”

You slapped it on their door. Nothing changed.

And the next day:

“Dear 3C, I can’t sleep. Kindly shut up <3 With love, the girl one more sleepless night away from writing to the landlord. 3B.”

You half expected them to ignore it. Instead, you found your note missing by mid-afternoon. Gone. 

For a moment, you felt powerful. Maybe they’d actually listened.

Then 8:43 p.m. hit and someone in 3C scored a goal so loud you swore the bass from their TV made your candle flicker.

Alright. So it was personal now.

You stormed over to their door again, hands on your hips.. It wasn’t that late. You weren’t unreasonable. You believed in joy. In freedom. But right now? Rage was the only thing pumping through your system.

You shuffled down the hall with your bunny slippers slapping against the floor, hair in a claw clip that was giving up. You looked deranged. And for the first time, you were fine with that. You banged on their door.

The door cracked open a second later, revealing Jake blinking like a deer in headlights. His hair was messy. He looked mildly afraid.

“Were… we being loud again?”

You stared at him, deadpan. “Ya think?”

Jake rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay, okay. I’m so sorry. It’s Sunghoon. He keeps saying it’s not that loud and we were mid-tournament and—”

“Tell Sunghoon that his ego’s not the only thing echoing through these walls,” you snapped, arms crossed. “Some of us are trying to study.”

Behind Jake, you heard a familiar scoff followed by a smug voice yelling, “God, she’s so annoying. We were literally whispering.”

You leaned to the side, locking eyes with the third boy slouched on the couch, controller in hand, feet on the coffee table like the world owed him something. He didn’t even pause the game this time.

You didn’t know what it was about his stupidly symmetrical face but your blood boiled.

“Tell this Sunghoon guy…his whispering sounds like a screeching cat,” you said flatly, before spinning on your heel and marching back toward your door when you heard his aggravating voice.

“Tell her she’s overreacting over a couple of friends simply trying to have fun,” Sunghoon fired back from the couch, not even raising his voice. 

You turned your head just enough to glare over your shoulder. “Well, tell him, his shirt doesn’t match his fucking pants.”

Jake looked helpless, standing between you both like a middle child caught in a divorce.

And then, with that same bored tone, Sunghoon called out again, “Well, tell her… those slippers are the best thing she’s worn all week.”

You stopped.

Jake sucked in a breath.

You slowly turned, eyes narrowing. “Tell him he wouldn’t know good fashion if it came with a user manual and punched him in his freaking face.”

Sunghoon finally glanced away from the TV, meeting your eyes for the first time that night. His lips curved into the most irritating half-smile you’d ever seen.

“Tell her–”

Jake stepped in between again, hands raised. “Okay! Okay. We’re gonna turn the volume down. Like, way down. Like you can’t even hear us tiptoe. Right, Sunghoon?”

Sunghoon leaned back against the couch and shrugged. “Whatever. I’m not the one annoying my neighbors at 9pm on a Friday night. Get some friends.” 

You slammed your door shut.

War was back on.

-

The next morning, your plan was simple. A little petty, sure, but necessary.

You stood outside their door in your pyjamas, holding a fresh pack of neon yellow Post-its since your previous ones were used up by the ongoing Post-It war.The hallway was empty. Your bunny slippers made no sound as you padded up to 3C and stuck the first one of the week dead-centre on the door.

“Dear 3C, just a gentle reminder that FIFA will not feed you, clothe you, or give you money. Kindly shut up. PLEASE. Warmest regards, 3B.”

You smiled to yourself and floated back to your apartment.

That night? For the first time…? Silence. Beautiful, blissful silence. You actually managed to revise two chapters and fall asleep before midnight. You woke up in the morning feeling like a changed woman.

But then you opened your front door.

There, taped neatly to your door, was a blue sticky note with surprisingly neat handwriting.

“Dear 3B, you sound like you narrate your life out loud. – 3C.”

Your jaw dropped.

“Narrate your life out loud?” you muttered. “That’s literally called thinking.”

You marched back into your apartment, flung open your stationery drawer.

“Dear 3C, apologies if my internal monologue disrupted your daily FIFA championship. I only talk to myself because your volume settings make it impossible to hear my own thoughts. With all due respect (and ear damage), 3B."

That afternoon, Jay knocked on your door. You hesitated, then opened it a crack. He was holding a bag of convenience store pancakes in one hand.

“Peace offering,” he said. “Also, I think your notes are hilarious. Jake’s been collecting them. I think he’s making a scrapbook.”

You blinked. “Is this a joke or something?”

Jay shrugged, leaning casually against the doorframe. “No! Honestly, it’s kinda refreshing.”

Jake popped his head in from behind, grinning. “Also, your handwriting’s really neat.”

You opened the door a little wider, cautious then shrugged. “You want some… uh… spaghetti? I made it this morning.”

“Spaghetti?” Jay tilted his head.

You nodded. “Yeah. I usually experiment with food. I’m…uh…in culinary school.”

Jake’s eyes widened. “Wait, so you’re like… a chef?”

“Trying to be.,” you said with a shrug, suddenly a little self-conscious.

They exchanged a quick look before barging in like you'd personally handed them invites at the door.

“That’s so cool,” Jake said, practically bouncing as he flopped onto your beanbag. “I burnt instant noodles last week. Twice.”

Jay wandered deeper into your living room, his gaze landing on the dusty old guitar leaning against your bookshelf. “Dude, check it out! She plays the guitar.”

You rubbed the back of your neck, awkward. “It’s just for fun. I’m not that good.”

“I’m sure you’re great,” Jake said, already chewing through a mouthful of spaghetti he’d somehow found, and served himself in a bowl you didn’t remember offering.

You blinked at him. “Did you just—?”

“Plate was right there,” he said through a mouthful. “I took it as a sign.”

Jay nodded solemnly. “She feeds us and plays guitar. She’s better than Mrs. Kim already.”

You sighed and closed the door behind them. “I’m starting to think Mrs. Kim left because of the three of you.”

In between bites, Jake nodded without hesitation. “I think so too.”

“We can be loud,” Jay added, helping himself to another serving.

“Have you thought of… not being loud?”

“We do,” Jay said. “But then we get loud again.”

You rolled your eyes. “Guys, some of us have school and—”

“We have school too,” Jake chimed in, mouth full.

“Okay… some of us care about sleep.”

Jay perked up. “That’s why we got you this.”

He dug into his hoodie pocket and pulled out a tiny box, dropping it into your hands.

You squinted at it. “What’s this?”

“They’re sleep buds,” he said proudly. “They go in your ears and play white noise and, like… ocean sounds or something. Blocks everything out. Even us.”

You stared at the box, then at them.

“Instead of compromising, you got me gear?”

Jake grinned. “Yeah. We like you. We want you to be able to sleep… through us.”

Jay gave you a thumbs-up. “It’s called adaptation.”

You looked down at the sleep buds in your hands and then back up at the two of them absolutely inhaling your spaghetti like they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

You didn’t know whether to kick them out or thank them.

So you just sighed, defeated. “You guys are the weirdest neighbours I’ve ever had.”

Jake beamed. “Aww. You’re the weirdest too.”

And somehow… the next day… they were back.

You opened the door mid-knock, confused, only to find Jay grinning at you.

“What’s for lunch today, boss?” he asked, already halfway through the doorway.

You blinked. “How’d you know I made something?”

“We could smell it,” Jake said, stepping in right behind him, holding up a comically large spoon. “Smells so good. Brought my big spoon today. Came prepared.”

“Uh… I made chowder?”

Jake’s eyes lit up. “Oh my god, I love chowder.”

Jay had already plopped onto the floor cushion, flipping through your Spotify like he owned your iPad. “What kind? Clam? Corn? Pumpkin? Wait… do people put pumpkin in chowder?”

You stared at them, ladle in hand.

“Corn,” you muttered, shuffling back into the kitchen.

Then the day after that… they came again. At this point, it felt less like a surprise and more like a recurring appointment.

“No fucking way. Kimchi stew? This shit is so good!. Jay, you need to try the beef. It’s so soft. How— how’d you get it so soft? Is this like one of those expensive beef? Wakoo?”

“It’s Wagyu, Jake.” You corrected.

“Wagyu~” He sang.

Jay, already mid-bite, nodded with a full mouth. “Can I havefth thefth reshepee?”

You wiped your hands on a dish towel, leaning against the counter with one brow raised. “Do you guys ever eat in your own apartment?”

Jake didn’t miss a beat. “Not when you cook like this.”

Jay pointed his chopsticks at you like he was making a closing argument in court. “This is technically your fault. You fed us once. That’s basically a binding contract. We’re best friends now. Aren’t we, Jake?”

Jake nodded, mouth full. “Mhmff. Whatever he said.”

You sighed, setting your elbow on the table and dropping your chin into your hand. “If you’re gonna keep doing this, at least wash the dishes after.”

Jake saluted you with his spoon like you were the captain of a very tiny, soup-based army. “Yes, chef.”

You looked at the two of them, one already on his third helping, the other stealing more beef straight from the pot, and shook your head.

This wasn’t how your independent, put-together, college life was supposed to go. You were meant to be focused. The mysterious girl on the third floor who only ever came out for groceries and exams.

But maybe… with the two of them barging in uninvited, eating like they hadn’t seen food in years, and treating your living room like it was theirs…

Maybe you wouldn’t feel so lonely after all.

-

It was 9 p.m. Strangely quiet.

Usually, by now, there’d be at least one goal celebration shaking the walls or someone shouting about a missed penalty. But tonight? Nothing. You didn’t let it bother you. You took it as a win.

The balcony door slid open with a soft scrape. You stepped out into the cool night, cradling your little scissors and spray bottle like sacred tools. Your succulents were arranged in a neat line. A few leaves had started to curl. You knelt down, snipping the dead ends carefully.

You should’ve felt peaceful.

But tonight, something tugged at your chest. 

You missed Jungwon. You missed your mom’s mismatched cutlery and the way your dad always forgot he’d already asked about your grades. Maybe even your pet fish, the one that never did much except float around looking confused.

Jay and Jake were friendly, sure. But they weren’t yours. They weren’t part of your before. They didn’t know the town you came from or the versions of you that existed before now.

And even though you thought you’d settled in... even though you were coping...you were lonely.

Without meaning to, you started speaking out loud — just like you always did.

“It’s fine. You’ll do better tomorrow. Tomorrow you won’t feel as lonely,” you said softly as you misted the leaves. “You’ll be stronger. You’re gonna get used to this. You can do it.”

But the lie caught in your throat.

Because you were crying already.

You wiped your cheek with the sleeve of your hoodie, frustrated, betrayed by your own body. You reached for your phone without thinking and hit the contact you swore you wouldn’t keep calling every time you got overwhelmed.

Jungwon answered on the first ring.

“What’s up?” he asked, casual as ever.

“Won…” you breathed out.

There was a pause. Then: “Are you crying?”

“No?”

“I can hear you sniffling, you shit.”

“It’s just—” your voice cracked. “It’s hard. I’m alone all the time. I’ve got no friends. I’ve got no one to talk to. I’m alone, Won.”

“I know,” he said gently. “I know…”

There was a pause. You could hear him shifting in bed, his voice soft and serious now. “But think about it this way, okay? You’re barely in your first month. You’re gonna get used to it. You’re gonna find people. You’re gonna build something here. It just takes time.”

You bit your lip. “You’ll visit if you can, right?”

“I’ll visit,” he promised. “Even if it takes two bloody hours.”

“But you hate traveling.”

“For you, I’d suffer.”

You sniffled. “You’re just saying that so I’ll hang up.”

“You’re right because I’m exhausted from basketball. But also… I love you.”

“Fine,” you mumbled. “I love you too.”

“Chin up. You’re talented and you deserve to be there. You can do this. We’re all counting on you.”

“I know.” You exhaled slowly. “Goodnight, Wonnie.”

“Night.”

You ended the call and sat in silence for a moment, letting the cool night air settle on your skin. The tears had stopped. Your hands still smelled like mint and basil and the faint sweetness of the spray bottle. You stared at your succulents, wondering if they ever got lonely too.

Unbeknownst to you, just a few feet away, out on the connected balcony, hidden by the divider, someone had heard everything.

He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop. He’d stepped out earlier, just needing air, needing quiet, needing to be somewhere still for once. And then he’d heard your voice. The words that were not meant for anyone else.

And for the first time, Sunghoon didn’t roll his eyes or make a sarcastic comment.

He just stood there in the dark, one hand gripping the railing, heart a little heavier than before.

He understood more than you thought.

And somewhere between your tears and Jungwon’s voice, he changed his mind about you.

-

The next few days, there was absolute silence. Maybe the food had finally worked some psychological warfare on Jay and Jake. Maybe it was their way of returning the favour. Either way, you weren’t about to question it.

You were grateful, to say the least.

Because for the past week, you’d been moping around your apartment. Living alone and striking out as an “independent bachelorette” sounded empowering in theory, but in practice? Maybe you weren’t one of those girlies after all…y’know the ones on Instagram who made solitude look like a season of self-discovery instead of a series of breakdowns.

It was Saturday. You’d spent the entire morning in bed watching a Netflix documentary about some guy swindling people on Tinder, surrounded by crumpled tissue and scented candle smoke that had long turned suffocating. You were still in yesterday’s hoodie, blanket tangled around your legs.

Three knocks echoed at the door.

You lifted your head from the pillow with a groan, barely alive. The sound came again.

Dragging yourself across the living room, you cracked the door open just a sliver, just wide enough to peek through but not enough to reveal the disaster that was your face, your hair, or your pride.

“Uh.” The voice was hesitant. Familiar.

You squinted.

Sunghoon.

You blinked. “What are you doing here?” you asked, your voice hoarse from crying and a full night of narrating your own spiral.

“There was a mix-up with the mail,” he said, holding up a small stack of envelopes.

“Oh.” You extended your arm awkwardly through the tiny gap in the door and grabbed the letters. “Thanks.”

There was a pause, “I can see your puffy eyes through the gap.”

You scoffed, immediately pulling the door closer. “You just have to be a smartass about everything, don’t you?”

He shrugged, completely unbothered, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. Still standing there. 

“…Are Jake and Jay home?” you asked, trying to sound casual.

His expression twitched, almost amused. “Why? Trying to steal my best friends again or—”

“No,” you deadpanned. “I was just wondering. It’s been… quiet this whole week.”

“They went home to visit their families.”

Oh. Right. Come to think of it, maybe that explained why everything felt extra heavy lately. It was the time of year people usually went home. People surrounded themselves with comfort and familiarity. And here you were, stuck in the city because the train ticket home was just slightly out of budget.

“You didn’t go?” you asked softly.

“Can’t,” he shrugged.

“Oh.”

There was a beat of silence. Then he tilted his head.

“Well,” Sunghoon said slowly, “if you ever need someone to emotionally rejuvenate you by pointing out your hair looks like a rat’s nest, you know where to find me.”

The words came with the usual venom but the message behind them landed differently.

You stared at him through the gap in the door. You couldn’t tell if he was trying to be funny, or… sincere, in his own weird, backhanded way. It was strange. You’d only had  three full conversations with the guy. And every single one ended in a WWE tournament.

You narrowed your eyes slightly. “Are you… being nice to me?”

He clicked his tongue. “Don’t ruin it.”

And with that, he turned and walked back.

-

You finally got up.

There was no movie-worthy breakthrough moment. Just the dull ache in your head from crying too much and the feeling that if you shed one more tear, your eyeballs might actually eject themselves from their sockets. So you moved. You stripped your bed, tossed the mountain of tissues into a trash bag, sprayed half a bottle of disinfectant in the air, and opened every window.

Your apartment looked like it had survived an apocalypse, which, to be fair, was accurate. But you scrubbed it back to life.

By the time you were in the kitchen, your eyes were still a little swollen, but you’d pressed them with cool spoons and a sad little compress until you could see straight again. Kind of.

You pulled out ingredients from your fridge one by one, lining them up like you were preparing for war. Slicing, boiling, julienning, stir-frying. The sound of the pan crackling beneath the glass noodles filled the silence of your apartment. It smelled exactly like it did when your mom used to make it.

You plated it in a wide, shallow bowl. It was delicious. Of course it was. You took pride in it. You always had. Jungwon used to tease you, calling your hands “blessed by Gordon Ramsay” like everything you touched turned into comfort food. You’d swat his arm, trying not to smile as he reached for second helpings before you’d even sat down.

You missed him. You missed your family. You missed not having to eat alone on a day like this.

Your eyes drifted to the door.

Would it be stupid? To bring food to Sunghoon? You’d never really done anything kind for him. Most of your interactions were lined with sarcasm and insults. And yet… that one line of his kept replaying in your head, “If you ever need someone to emotionally rejuvenate you by pointing out your hair looks like a rat’s nest, you know where to find me.”

So maybe…maybe he meant it. Or maybe you were just desperate for company and your noodles were starting to get cold.

Before you could talk yourself out of it, you packed the noodles into a clean container, wrapped a rubber band around it, and found yourself standing in front of 3C. Your feet had walked you here without permission. Your hand hovered in the air, ready to knock, but now… you hesitated. You weren’t here to complain. You weren’t here to yell. And that made it harder.

And just before your knuckles could land on the door, it swung open.

Sunghoon stood in front of you, coat already on, scarf looped lazily around his neck. There was a little shine to his hair like he’d styled it, and he looked surprised, mildly confused to find you on his doorstep without any anger evident in your eyes.

“What?” he said, voice dry.

You blinked, staring at him. You’d never really looked at him properly before. Not when he was this put-together. The gel in his hair, the sharp line of his jaw, the way his scarf sat slightly off-center like he’d thrown it on in a rush. You knew he was attractive. You weren’t blind. But seeing him now?

Sunghoon was actually… pretty handsome.

“I—uh—” you stammered.

His eyes narrowed slightly. “Spit it out.”

“I—uh—I made some… stir-fried glass noodles,” you said, stumbling over every syllable. “And I know how much it sucks being alone on a day like this, so I thought… maybe it’d bring you some kind of familiarity. From home, or something.”

You didn’t let yourself overthink it. You shoved the container into his hands, heart pounding.

“Bye,” you mumbled, before immediately turning around and marching back to your apartment like you’d just robbed a bank. The door clicked shut behind you.

You pressed your back to it, eyes wide.

Shit.

Was Sunghoon actually hot?

-

Sunghoon stood in the hallway, unmoving. The container in his hands was warm and he stared down at it for a couple of seconds longer than he probably should’ve.

Jake and Jay had been raving about your cooking for weeks. At first, he thought they were exaggerating. How good could someone’s food be that it made two of the loudest people he knew voluntarily whisper through a FIFA match?

But he’d seen it with his own eyes, Jake silently fist-pumping the air, mouthing “LET’S FUCKING GO” after a goal, and Jay barely reacting as he scored. They even created a rule: first one to speak puts a dollar in the Silence Jar. A literal jar. With money.

Sunghoon didn’t get it.

And he didn’t particularly care to. Not then.

But now, standing in the hallway in his coat and scarf, staring at the gift you shoved into his hands with flushed cheeks, something felt different.

He had been on his way out, actually. There was a bar nearby, nothing special, just a dim-lit spot with quiet music and decent food where no one bothered him. He usually went there whenever Jay and Jake went back home, like they did this time every year. It wasn’t that he didn’t have family—he did. It just wasn’t… warm. They were always busy. Always somewhere else, even when they were in the same room.

He peeled off his scarf, feet dragging a little as he headed back into the apartment, the door clicking shut behind him. He set the container on the kitchen counter, grabbed a pair of chopsticks from the drawer, and opened the lid.

Steam wafted up instantly, sesame oil, soy sauce, garlic, something subtly sweet he couldn’t name. The noodles glistened. They looked homemade. No, they felt homemade.

He picked up a strand and gave it a tentative taste.

His eyes widened before he could even help it.

It was good. Like stupid good. Like how the hell is this girl not running her own restaurant kind of good. Better than anything he would’ve paid for at that bar tonight.

He stood there in silence, chopsticks hovering mid-air, thinking back.

He wasn’t proud of how he’d treated you. Three encounters, three arguments. He remembered each one too clearly. The snark in his voice. The way your expression hardened. The notes on the door. 

But it wasn’t really about you.

He hated being called out. Hated being the problem. Maybe it was ego, or maybe it was the way he’d always felt like he had to be put-together or to say the least…controlled. Your presence threw him off. You were loud in a way that was sincere. You didn’t filter your emotions. You wore your annoyance on your sleeve and your feelings on your face.

It irritated him. It also… made him feel something.

And then there was that night on the balcony.

He hadn’t meant to listen. But when he heard your voice cracking through the divider, talking to someone…maybe it was your boyfriend? Your best friend? Whoever it was about how lonely you were, it hit him harder than it should’ve.

Because he got it.

He felt it too.

Being alone in a crowd. Having people around but never really with you. That weight in your chest that didn’t come from sadness exactly…just the absence of warmth.

Sunghoon felt it more often than he cared to admit. He loved Jake and Jay, loved them to pieces. They were the kind of people who filled a room with noise and an energy he couldn’t really place and who made him laugh even when he didn’t want to.

He wanted something more. Something real.

Someone who just… saw him.

He sat at his kitchen counter, staring at the container of glass noodles still warm with steam curling from the lid. He wasn’t usually impulsive. He didn’t do gestures. But maybe tonight called for something a little uncharacteristic.

He stood and reached up, opening the top cupboard where Jake and Jay kept what they called their “emergency date plates.”. The kind of plates you used to impress someone. They only ever brought them out when trying to convince girls they were not, in fact, living in a borderline condemned apartment flat.

He grabbed two.

And then, before he could second guess it, he walked out into the hallway and knocked. 

Your door creaked open a few seconds later.

You blinked at him, confused. “What?”

It almost felt like deja vu. Except now, he was you…awkward at the door.

And then it hit him.

He looked at you…like, really looked at you, and for the first time, he realised he’d never actually seen you before. 

You were wearing a soft pink sleeveless dress, the fabric loose and falling just above your knees, cinched slightly at the waist. Your hair was tied into a side braid, fringe swept slightly to the side, with a few delicate strands left loose to frame your face. You looked like you belonged in a pastel painting.

Shit.

Were you actually—pretty?

Nope. Nope. Stop that. Sunghoon blinked hard, trying to erase the thought.

Damn it.

You probably had a boyfriend. Someone smart and warm and emotionally available who FaceTimed you every night and wrote you good morning texts. Someone who missed you from back home.

And besides…someone who could cook like you? You could probably bag Jake and Jay at the same time in under a minute if you wanted. Not that you would. But still.

He cleared his throat.

“I, uh…” He held up the plates slightly. “I thought maybe… you could join me?”

He wasn’t good at this. But his voice was steady.

“Only if you want to,” he added, quickly. “I just figured. Y’know. Glass noodles taste better on… plates that aren’t plastic.”

His eyes met yours.

He was trying.

And this time, it was your turn to blink in disbelief.

-

Sunghoon had returned with the container of glass noodles, now a little colder, a little stickier, but still giving off the faint aroma of sesame oil and soy sauce. You’d reheated it and plated it up, slightly embarrassed that the presentation wasn’t what it had been fresh off the stove, but he didn’t seem to care. Or maybe he did, but you couldn’t tell, because for the first five minutes, you didn’t look at each other.

The clink of chopsticks, the occasional scrape of ceramic, and your ceiling fan. It was awkward. You wondered why he even came. Why he asked in the first place, if he was just going to eat in silence.

“So,” you said.

“So,” he said.

You paused.

“You first.”

“No, you—”

“Okay, I’ll go first,” he said, cutting himself off. He cleared his throat and set his chopsticks down. “I—uh—I just wanted to say thanks. For the meal.”

You blinked. “Okay.” You nodded slowly. “You’re… shockingly formal when you’re not pissed.”

“I—” Sunghoon let out a breath and leaned back a little in the chair. “I was never pissed.”

“Mhm,” you hummed, nodding, eyes narrowed. “Sure.”

“I was annoyed, sure. Who likes being called out?”

“I wasn’t trying to call you out,” you said, tilting your head. “But put yourself in my shoes. I have to wake up at stupid o’clock to learn how to make a soufflé or whatever, and meanwhile, I’m treated to surround sound yelling and the occasional ceiling vibration.”

He gave a small shrug. “Well, we haven’t done it in a while.”

“And I’m grateful,” you replied, lips twitching. “Truly.”

“We got a silence jar and everything,” he muttered, almost like he didn’t want to admit it.

Your eyebrows shot up. “A silence jar?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Jay implemented it. He said if we keep it up, we’ll have enough for extra toppings on our next pizza night.”

You burst into laughter, the sound surprising even yourself. It came out light and real, and you covered your mouth halfway through. “That’s… honestly? A decent plan.”

“It can be,” he said with a grin starting to pull at the corner of his mouth. “Until everyone starts trying to play FIFA like it’s an ASMR video.”

“You guys actually whisper?” you asked, incredulous.

“Well, yeah. You told us to.”

“I didn’t think you would listen,” you said, pointing your chopsticks at him.

Sunghoon shrugged again, his eyes dropping to the plate in front of him. “Well… they changed my mind, so.”

He didn’t say what he was really thinking.

That it wasn’t Jake or Jay who changed his mind. It was that night. The way your voice had carried through the gap in the balcony, fragile and cracking. The way you’d said I’m alone, Won like it was something that had been sitting inside you for too long, waiting to spill. He’d realised then maybe he wasn’t just an annoying neighbour to you. Maybe he was part of the problem. Maybe he’d been making things harder for someone who was already trying to hold it all together.

“So…” he said quietly, eyes on his plate, “why are you alone during the holidays anyway?”

“Couldn’t afford a train ticket,” you said eventually. “I mean—I could have, technically. But that’d mean I wouldn’t have enough money left to buy ingredients for my assignments the next few weeks.”

Sunghoon winced. “Oof. That’s rough. Must suck.”

You gave a little shrug. “Yeah. It’s fine though.”

He knew it wasn’t.

There was a pause. He glanced sideways at you.

“If you ever… feel like you need someone to talk to,” he started, voice casual, “you could just knock. I have FIFA.”

You snorted. “Oh, like I’d willingly join that mess.”

“It’s actually really fun.”

“How fun can flinging a ball across a screen with your thumbs be?”

“It is!” he defended, turning fully toward you.

You raised a brow. “I tried once with my friend and it was so boring.”

“That’s ‘cause you weren’t playing it right,” he insisted, already standing up. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

“I’m not playing FIFA with you.”

“Come onnn,” he whined, grabbing your wrist and tugging you lightly toward his door.

“God, this is gonna be so stupid,” you muttered, dragging your feet even as you followed him out.

Inside his apartment, the lights were warm, the couch sunken in like it had been through a war. You sat reluctantly, tucking your knees up as he handed you the controller.

“Alright,” he said, sliding in beside you. “This is you—Team Two. All you have to do is use the left joystick to move, the right one to look around. This button to pass, this one to shoot.”

You blinked. “So many buttons.”

“It’s easy! Just follow what I say.”

“Okay… so now I just—?” You pressed a button and immediately kicked the ball out of bounds.

“No, no—move left. Left.”

“I am moving left!”

He glanced over. Your tongue was sticking out slightly in concentration, eyes squinted, brows furrowed. He chuckled before he could stop himself, quickly looking away.

Then you screamed, “I DID IT! DID I DO IT?!”

He turned back just in time to see you score.

Sunghoon yelled, jumping up. “Yeah! That was it!”

You stared at the screen, jaw dropping. “Holy shit. I’m amazing.”

He looked at you again, this time longer. Your eyes were glowing, still locked on the TV. Your fingers tapped at the buttons like you already got it down. You bit your lip when you were focused, tongue sticking out just slightly when you were thinking.

And you were cute. So fucking cute.

The match picked up pace. Suddenly it was 2–2, and both of you were leaning in like your lives depended on it. You were yelling at the controller. He was shouting advice. At one point, your knees knocked, but neither of you noticed. The room was loud, just your voices and the music from the game and the way your laughter filled every corner of his flat.

Then it happened.

You scored. 

You screamed, controller tossed onto the couch, and before Sunghoon could register what was happening, your arms were around his neck, squeezing him tight as you jumped slightly in place.

“I WON! DID YOU SEE THAT?!”

He froze. Your cheek brushed his jaw, your warmth right up against him. His hands hovered midair like he didn’t know whether to hold you back or not.

And then you let go, plopped back onto the couch, and grabbed the controller again like nothing had happened.

Sunghoon didn’t move.

For the first time in what felt like forever, his heartbeat stuttered. Sped up like it had been woken from a long, indifferent sleep.

He sat there, silent, staring at you as you shouted at your pixelated team.

And all he could think was well that…he hadn’t planned on crushing on the new girl based on one single positive interaction.

God, he was so screwed.

-

The next few days passed in a blur of almost-conversations.

You and Sunghoon didn’t talk much. Not like that night. Just a few polite waves across the hallway, a quiet “hey” if you caught the elevator at the same time. Respectful nods. The occasional awkward glance if your eyes met for too long.

And then Jake and Jay came back.

And of course, Jake being Jake, invited himself into your apartment before you could even say no.

“I missed your cooking while I was gone,” he sighed dramatically, sinking into the dining chair like he’d returned from war.

“Well, today’s your lucky day,” you said, flipping through your assignment folder and squinting at the week’s task. “Because for today’s assignment, I’m supposed to…” you paused. “Make a really mean chicken pot pie.”

Jake’s eyes lit up. He clapped his hands, nearly tipping his chair over. “CHICKEN POT PIE?!”

Before you could even blink, he leapt up, yanked your door open, and sprinted into the hallway.

“JAY! IT’S CHICKEN POT PIE!” he yelled like it was a fire drill.

From across the hall, Jay’s voice rang out. “WHAT?! NO WAY!”

And then—another voice joined them.

A quieter one.

“Chicken pot pie?”

You didn’t even have time to react before you were suddenly hosting three grown men in your kitchen, all leaning over your counter.

“Guys,” you said, elbow-deep in flour. “I can’t focus if you’re all staring at me like that.”

“We’re just excited,” Jake grinned, chin in his hands.

“Well don’t be. I’ve never made this before. It might taste like ass.”

“Your hands are basically blessed by Gordon Ramsay,” Jay declared, grabbing a slice of carrot from the cutting board. “It’s impossible for it to taste like ass.”

You laughed, the sound soft and unexpected even to yourself. “Jungwon used to tell me that all the time.”

“Oh he did?” Jay echoed, voice teasing.

Sunghoon stood a few steps back from the others, arms crossed loosely, leaning against your fridge. He hadn’t said much since stepping into your place, but now he watched the three of you.

The way you smiled when Jay made a joke. The way Jake knew where you kept your mixing bowls. The way your eyes sparkled, just slightly, when you laughed about something from home. The way they got it. The way they knew you.

And the way he didn’t.

Sunghoon couldn’t explain it but it made his stomach twist. Tight and strange and uncomfortable.

And then he heard it again.

Jungwon.

Who the hell was Jungwon?

His name sounded too casual. Too affectionate. The kind of name you didn’t just drop without meaning.

Sunghoon didn’t say anything. He just looked down at your countertop, at the flour dusting your hands and the delicate way your fingers shaped the crust, and all he could think was—

Why the fuck did he care so much?

You moved around your kitchen with the kind of ease that made it impossible not to watch. Sunghoon’s eyes were locked on you, the way your hair swayed behind your back as you leaned forward to stir something in the pot, the way your sleeves were pushed up. 

His heart pounded harder than it should’ve. He tried to brush it off. Maybe he was just hungry. Maybe it was just the smell of garlic and butter making him lightheaded. That had to be it, right?

Except no.

He hadn’t planned on feeling like this today. Not when he woke up. Not when he brushed his teeth and went on his phone and told himself he’d stay in his apartment. He hadn’t even planned on coming over. And that night the two of you shared noodles? He’d chalked it up to vulnerability. Nighttime feelings. Nothing serious.

But now it was noon. He was awake. Sober. And you were still somehow making his chest tighten just by existing within ten feet of him.

God. He hated having a crush.

He didn’t even realise how lost he looked until Jake spoke up from the side, breaking the spell.

“So, is Jungwon finally coming?”

This guy again.

Sunghoon’s head whipped toward Jake so fast it might’ve snapped his neck.

You perked up at the mention, a smile blooming across your face without even trying. “Yeah! He’s coming in two weeks! I actually told him about you guys. He’s kinda excited to meet you.”

That smile. It wasn’t fake. It wasn’t forced. You looked like someone who meant it. Someone who missed this guy. Someone who talked to him often.

Sunghoon clenched his jaw and looked away, grabbing a water bottle off your counter just to do something with his hands. He twisted the cap a little too hard.

He didn’t know who the hell Jungwon was.

But he already didn’t like him.

“He’s coming over?” Jay asked, his mouth still half-full of pie filling.

“Yeah,” you said casually, brushing a stray hair behind your ear as you peeked into the oven. “He’s staying at my place for the week he’s here.”

Staying at your place?

Sunghoon blinked.

He looked around your apartment, eyes scanning every corner like they were going to magically reveal a hidden guest room. But there wasn’t one. You lived in a studio. Everything was in one space. Your bed, your desk, your kitchen, your couch. Except… there wasn’t even a real couch. Just a throw-covered loveseat that barely seated two.

No air mattress in sight. No hidden folding cot. No suspicious lumpy bags that might hold a spare futon.

Just one bed.

His chest tightened.

Where the hell was Jungwon gonna sleep? With you?

He picked at the label on his water bottle, teeth grinding quietly as he stared down at the floor, like it held answers. It didn’t.

He wasn’t even involved with you. This shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t bother him.

But it did. In the most uncomfortable, teeth-clenching, mind-racing kind of way.

-

You stood in front of the three boys, arms crossed, heart racing slightly under your apron. The chicken pot pie sat on the table…golden brown crust, just the right amount of bubbling over on the sides, the smell of thyme and butter and garlic filling your apartment.

Jake, Jay, and Sunghoon each took a spoonful at the same time like they’d rehearsed it. You watched them, nervous, scanning their faces.

One by one, their expressions lit up. Jake’s eyes widened, Jay let out a satisfied groan. Well… except Sunghoon. Of course.

He stayed still. Always unreadable. But you caught it. The tiny pause, the way his brows lifted just a fraction. He liked it. He just didn’t show it like the others.

“So—” Jake started.

“Good,” Jay finished, already reaching for more.

Your eyes flicked to Sunghoon. Somehow, his opinion was the one you were waiting on. The one you needed.

“So?” you asked, staring at him.

He blinked. “What?”

“How is it?”

“It’s good,” he said, nodding once, tone flat as ever.

Your smile dropped. You frowned. “Doesn’t seem like it.”

“What? I just said it’s good.”

“No, you said ‘good’ and then frowned and put your spoon down. Usually it’s ‘It’s good,’ then a second bite. Right, boys?”

Jake nodded enthusiastically, chicken still in his mouth. “She’s right.”

“Totally right,” Jay added, already helping himself to more.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes, leaning back slightly. “You’re all being dramatic.”

You scoffed, insulted. “I guess you don’t want seconds then. Tch.”

You clicked your tongue and turned on your heel, storming off toward the kitchen, grumbling under your breath. Your apron fluttered behind you as you moved, and you didn’t look back.

Sunghoon watched your little pout, the way your shoulders stiffened, how you exaggerated every step. He didn’t know why, but he liked your reaction. No, he loved it. He found it ridiculously cute. Too cute, actually. That slight wrinkle in your forehead. The way your voice got higher when you were mad. The tiny stomp in your step.

The moment your back turned, his lips twitched upward. 

When lunch ended and the three of them stood by your front door, Jake and Jay turned to hug you dramatically.

“Never move out,” Jake said into your shoulder.

You rolled your eyes. “You’re just saying that because you get free food.”

“And precisely why we don’t want you to move out,” Jay replied, squeezing you once more before the two of them shuffled out, bickering as they made their way into their apartment across the hall.

Sunghoon lingered. Just behind you.

You turned, raising a brow. “Aren’t you leaving?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” He stepped back slowly, hands in his pockets, gaze flicking to the floor before settling back on you. Then he paused. Like he wasn’t sure if he should say what he was about to say.

“The chicken pot pie was good. I think…” he exhaled, voice quieter, “I think it was one of the best things I’ve ever had.”

You blinked, caught off guard.

“It reminded me of home,” he added, eyes still on you now, a little softer than usual. “Not in the way where it’s about the taste or anything… it’s just… you cook like home. If that makes any sense.”

You hadn’t expected that.

Your cheeks flushed immediately. You turned away before he could see it, pretending to fiddle with a dish on the counter, fingers uselessly adjusting an already-clean plate.

“Thank you,” you murmured, voice low, almost shy.

He lingered for a second longer like he wanted to say more. Then he gave a quiet nod and walked out the door.

-

It was raining.

It was only 4 p.m., but the sky had turned an eerie charcoal grey, clouds rolling thick above the city. Thunder cracked so loud you felt it in your chest, and the wind howled between the buildings, slamming against your windows.

You hated this.

You hated how much you still feared storms even at your age. How useless independence felt when you were stuffing tissues in your ears and jamming earmuffs over your head like you were five again. You turned on every single light in your apartment, lamps, fairy lights, even your microwave light and cocooned yourself under your thickest blanket, barely breathing, eyes wide.

Then the whole building shuddered.

The lights flickered.

And then everything went dark.

You screamed.

Your apartment disappeared into a blanket of pitch black, shadows curling up the walls like ink. Your heart pounded. You scrambled up from the couch, tearing off your earmuffs and patting the walls with shaky hands, trying to find a light switch like that would fix anything.

“Shit,” you whispered, voice trembling. “Shit shit shit.”

You fumbled for your phone. A message popped up from your landlord.

“The building is experiencing a temporary blackout due to the storm. Electricity should resume in an hour. Thank you for your patience.”

An hour? Alone? In this? In the dark? Absolutely fucking not.

You jumped at another violent crack of thunder and instantly rushed out into the hallway. Your blanket trailed behind you like a cape. You beelined for the only door you knew.

You knocked. The door swung open almost immediately.

“No time to explain but I’m shitting bricks here,” you said all at once.

It wasn’t Jake or Jay.

It was Sunghoon.

His brows raised. “The thunderstorm?”

You nodded frantically. “Are Jake or Jay here?”

“They’re asleep.” He glanced behind him, then back at you. “But I could… stay with you. If you want. Until it passes.”

You hesitated.

Then thunder cracked again, louder this time, right above your building.

You flinched. “Okay,” you breathed, defeated.

The two of you sat cross-legged on your couch, sharing a single candle as your only source of light. It flickered between you, casting long, warm shadows on the walls.

“Seems like you’re scared of the thunder,” he said gently.

“Well,” you sighed, voice tight. “I’ve been scared of it since I was younger. It just… gets to me.”

He nodded. “It’s okay.”

You noticed it then…the subtle tremble in his shoulders. He was shivering. From the cold, probably. Your heater wasn’t working without electricity, and the apartment was steadily turning into a fridge. You were wrapped up like a burrito, but he’d come in without anything but a hoodie.

Feeling guilty, you shifted toward him and lifted one side of your blanket.

“Uh…” he looked at you like he wasn’t sure if he was being pranked.

“Relax. I can see you shivering like a dog,” you muttered.

“Oh.” He blinked, then grabbed the other end of the blanket and scooted in beside you.

Now under the same blanket, his body heat pressed faintly against yours. You sat side by side, knees pulled to your chests.

And then, in a whisper, he said, “You know…”

You looked over at him, startled by the sudden softness in his voice.

“I know I’m not as close to you as Jay and Jake are,” he said, eyes trained on the candle, “but… you don’t always have to find them for help.”

You blinked. “Huh?”

“I’m saying…” he sighed, eyes flicking up toward you, and then away again. “Never mind.”

“No, what? Just spit it out.”

He exhaled through his nose like it physically hurt to get the words out. “I’m just saying… you could ask me for help too.”

You stared at him, your eyes adjusting to the candlelight flickering between you.

“Oh,” you said softly.

There was a beat of silence. You weren’t really sure what to do with that. But you didn’t want to leave it hanging either.

“I’ll be sure to think of you the next time,” you mumbled, barely louder than the rain still pelting the windows outside.

You felt him nod beside you.

You turned your head slowly, resting your cheek against your knees, eyes drifting toward him. His face was tilted down, lashes long and dark as they blinked now and then, just slow enough for you to notice. His jaw had softened a little. He looked calm, in a way you weren’t used to seeing him.

“Would you rather have a million dollars,” you said suddenly, “or have no problems in the world?”

He blinked, confused for a second, then turned his head toward you. His chin was on his knees now too, and with the two of you curled up in the same blanket, inches apart, it felt almost like whispering under covers at a sleepover.

“What kind of question is that?”

“A good one,” you replied, lips twitching. “So answer it.”

He scoffed a little under his breath. “Uh… maybe no problems in the world?”

“Smart answer. Why?”

He paused, “I think people ruin themselves trying to solve problems that shouldn’t be theirs. If I had no problems, maybe I wouldn’t waste time worrying about all the stuff that doesn’t matter.”

You blinked at him. That was… not the answer you were expecting. It was a good one. Way too good, actually.

“Right,” you said softly, giving him a small nod.

He looked at you for a second longer before his eyes flicked down. “Your turn. Would you rather go back in time or go into the future?”

You puffed your cheeks out, thinking. “Hmm… that’s a toughie.”

Then your eyes widened, the way they always did when you had a lightbulb moment. “Go back in time!”

“Why’s that?”

“So maybe I’d really weigh the pros and cons of moving to a city where I know no one,” you said with a grin, but it faded slightly at the end.

Sunghoon stayed quiet. 

“You must really feel alone,” he said.

You blinked, startled. “What?”

“I hear you talking about it sometimes. On your balcony. When you think no one’s listening. You talk about how moving here feels like a mistake.”

You looked away, embarrassed. “It’s not a mistake. I just… miss everything back home.”

“I get it,” he said after a second. “I was like you. Back when I was home, I wanted to leave so badly. Thought being somewhere else would fix everything. But now that I’m here… yeah, I have Jay and Jake, and they’re great, but sometimes I come back to the apartment and everything’s fine and normal and still—I just feel… empty. And I don’t even know why.”

You didn’t say anything for a long time.

You just watched him. His face had turned thoughtful, distant. His eyes unfocused, drifting somewhere past the flickering candle, past your walls, like he was staring right through the quiet that lived in his chest.

You mumbled, “Well, yeah. But… I also don’t regret it. Not one bit.”

“Really?”

You nodded. “Yeah. I mean—I’m here doing what I love. Not many people get to do that. And I made friends with three incredibly annoying people in this building.”

He turned toward you again, eyes narrowing playfully. “So we’re friends now?”

Your cheeks heated up instantly. You glanced away, pretending to roll your eyes. “Are we not?”

He let out a low chuckle, the kind that rumbled softly at the back of his throat. “I’m glad you think we are.”

“So,” you said, tilting your head, “does this mean you’ll finally be nice to me now? Or is that too much character development for one night?”

Sunghoon smirked, eyes flicking to you with a teasing glint. “You want nice? From me?”

“Yeah. Like a full sentence without sarcasm. I feel like that’s a reward I’ve earned by now.”

“You earned a participation medal at best.”

You laughed, nudging him with your knee. “Unbelievable.”

He was already looking at you again—closer this time.

“Hold on,” he said softly, “you have an eyelash on your cheek.”

You blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

Before you could move, he leaned in.

His face hovered inches from yours as his thumb brushed gently against your cheek, his touch soft but sure. The pads of his fingers were warm. His eyes, now impossibly close, scanned your face with a kind of quiet focus you hadn’t felt from him before. You swallowed.

Neither of you moved.

Your gaze locked, and the space between you slowly disappeared…inch by inch, breath by breath. It wasn’t planned. It just… happened.

Then suddenly, his lips were on yours.

Then it deepened. His other hand pushed the blanket off his head, dropping behind your neck to pull you in, and your hands found their way to his thighs, then to the curve of his jaw. His lips parted just enough, and your pulse jumped as he moved against you.

His hands slid to your waist. He lifted you slightly and shifted you into his lap in one smooth motion. You were now straddling him, knees on either side of his thighs, and he didn’t stop kissing you, not even for a second.

The kiss grew stronger. He tilted his head, hand moving to your chin to pull you even closer, his mouth parting yours with a low inhale as his tongue brushed against yours.

Your hands moved back down, gripping at the soft cotton of his hoodie, when—

Click.

The lights flickered on.

You both froze.

Your faces were still inches apart. 

You slowly pulled back, still on his lap. He blinked, eyes searching yours like he wasn’t sure what just happened. Like part of him wanted to keep going, and the other part… couldn’t believe you just kissed him like that.

You stared at each other, the silence heavy now.

His hands were still resting lightly on your waist. Yours were still fisted in the fabric of his hoodie. Both of you breathless. 

“I need to go back home,” Sunghoon said suddenly, voice low but rushed. His eyes darted everywhere except at you.

You blinked. “Right. Of course!” you said quickly, nodding way too fast. “Yeah. No—totally.”

He shifted awkwardly underneath you, face flushing as he cleared his throat and muttered, “Probably… need a pillow or something.”

It took you a second.

Then you saw the way he was subtly covering his lap with the edge of the blanket.

“Oh.” Your voice came out small. You quickly scrambled off his lap, cheeks burning so hot they could’ve powered your apartment during the blackout.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, already halfway to your door.

And then, Sunghoon stormed out of your apartment.

-

It had been a couple of days since you last properly spoke to Sunghoon. Not for lack of trying. You had…more than once. But each time, he’d give you a quick nod, maybe a polite smile if you were lucky, before promptly power-walking away.

Maybe he just wasn’t feeling what you were feeling. Maybe that kiss was a fluke, something in the heat of the moment. Maybe your little new crush was painfully one-sided.

But you pushed it aside. You had bigger things to focus on.

Jungwon was coming today.

You’d spent the entire morning rearranging your apartment, cleaning it from top to bottom, fluffing cushions and spraying perfume not just on yourself but into the air like it could somehow mask how nervous you were. You even did your hair the way he liked it, soft curls and a side part.

And then, there he was.

The door swung open and your best friend stood in the hallway, suitcase in hand and a grin already on his face.

“WON!” you squealed, running up to him and leaping into his arms.

“Hello, idiot,” he said, his voice fond as he hugged you back, lifting you off the ground with ease.

The shout must’ve startled the boys in 3C, because right on cue, the door across the hall creaked open and out came Jake and Jay, both peeking out.

They spotted you clinging to Jungwon like a koala.

You beamed. “Guys! It’s him!”

“The famous Jungwon,” Jay said, nodding in approval as he stepped out.

“And you must be Jake and Jay,” Jungwon said smoothly, setting you down.

Then came the third.

Sunghoon.

He didn’t move from the doorway. Just stood there, arms crossed, expression unreadable.

Jungwon turned to him, a friendly smile still on his lips, chuckling. “You must be Sunghoon, then.”

Sunghoon’s gaze narrowed slightly. “What’s so funny?”

Jungwon blinked, caught off guard. “Nothing,” he said, clearing his throat. “She just… told me you were like this.”

“Like what?” Sunghoon asked sharply, the scoff nearly audible in his tone.

Jungwon scratched the back of his neck. “Nothing. She just said you were cool,” he said with a shrug, throwing you a teasing look.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes.

You stood there, suddenly awkward, unsure what the hell had crawled up Sunghoon’s ass. The hostility was as thick as the tension in the air and you hadn’t done anything. Not really.

At least you didn’t think you had.

Just stood there, arms crossed, a stiff expression on his face while Jake and Jay welcomed Jungwon like he was already part of the group. Jungwon, ever the social butterfly, fit in easily, throwing a few jokes around, complimenting the apartment despite its questionable decor, and even teasing Jake about the ugly dinosaur pyjamas he was wearing in broad daylight.

But Sunghoon?

He was frowning the entire time.

You couldn’t figure it out. His jaw was tight, his responses were clipped, and every time Jungwon so much as glanced your way, you saw Sunghoon’s eye twitch.

You walked back to your apartment with Jungwon beside you, chatting excitedly about dinner plans and all the places he wanted to visit during his stay. But when you turned back, just for a second, you caught Sunghoon still watching. Still standing in the hallway.

His arms were still crossed.

And he didn’t look away.

-

Sunghoon stood there, arms folded across his chest like they were the only things keeping him together. He stared ahead blankly, jaw tight, doing everything in his power not to glare a hole through the wall. He wasn’t sure what he was feeling.

Sure, he knew he had a crush on you. He’d known since the chicken pot pie, probably. Or maybe since you wrapped that blanket around his shoulders. Or maybe long before that. But what he didn’t know was who the fuck Jungwon was, and why he was walking into your apartment.

“Dude,” Jake muttered, throwing him a sideways look. “You could’ve at least smiled.”

“I did,” Sunghoon growled, not bothering to hide his scowl.

Jay snorted. “That was barely a smile. You looked like you were in the middle of passing a kidney stone.”

“Why do I even have to be nice?” Sunghoon snapped. “I don’t know him.”

“Because your crush’s boyfriend just came into town,” Jake replied, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Sunghoon's head snapped to him so fast you’d think he got whiplash. “Boyfriend?”

Jay raised a brow. “Not denying the crush though.”

Sunghoon ignored him. “Let me ask you again. Boyfriend?”

Jake shrugged. “I mean… yeah, I guess?”

“What the fuck do you mean you guess?” Sunghoon hissed, dragging a hand down his face. “He can’t be her boyfriend.”

“But he is,” Jay said with a shrug and an infuriatingly smug smile.

“No, he’s not. He can’t be. Because she and I…” he paused, realising too late what was about to fall out of his mouth. “…kissed. Three nights ago.”

Jake’s mouth dropped open. Jay blinked.

“I’m sorry, what?” Jake finally blurted.

“Nothing,” Sunghoon muttered quickly, suddenly desperate to eat his words.

“You can’t say nothing when you just said everything!” Jake shouted, grabbing Sunghoon’s shoulders and shaking him.

“Tell us right now!” Jay begged dramatically, gripping his own hair.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes, flustered. “I—we—kissed. That’s it.”

Jay blinked. “You know we were kidding about the boyfriend thing, right?”

Jake grinned. “Jungwon’s just her best friend.”

“We just wanted to see if you’d admit you liked her,” Jay added, eyes sparkling with way too much joy. “Which you did.”

“No, I didn’t,” Sunghoon argued weakly. “I just said we kissed.”

“Okay, Mr Visceral Reaction every time we mention Jungwon,” Jake teased.

Jay smirked. “Say it. Say you like her.”

Sunghoon groaned, eyes shut tight as if the ceiling could swallow him whole. Then, finally—quietly, begrudgingly—

“Okay. So what if I like her?”

Jay and Jake immediately turned to each other with identical gasps, smacking each other’s arms excitedly.

“Oh my god, he admitted it,” Jay whispered dramatically.

Jake clutched his chest. “It’s happening.”

“You guys are disgusting,” Sunghoon groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “And if you keep acting like this, I’m never telling you anything again.”

“Okay, okay.” Jake raised both hands, trying to suppress a grin. “We’ll behave.”

“BUT I’M SO EXCITED,” Jay squealed.

Jake smacked him on the shoulder. “Starting now.”

Jay nodded solemnly, rubbing his arm. “Sorry. That one slipped.”

Sunghoon sighed and leaned against the counter, arms crossed again. “I started liking her last month… when you guys went back home for the week. She cooked me stir-fried noodles, and we ate together. Played FIFA. I don’t know. I just… developed a crush on her.”

“That’s so cute,” Jay and Jake said in unison, stars in their eyes.

“Seriously, can the two of you act normal for like three minutes?”

Jake shrugged, still smiling. “I just didn’t expect you to have a girlfriend before me.”

Jay patted his shoulder. “You’ll get there, buddy.”

Jake tilted his head. “You think?”

“Yeah, you have nice eyes. Great personality.”

Jake beamed. “That’s so kind.”

“Can we please get back to my problem for like a minute?” Sunghoon cut in, glaring at both of them.

“Oh. Right.”

Jay cleared his throat and finally looked serious. “Look. We like her. She’s hilarious, and she makes good fucking food. And let’s be real, you’ve never liked anyone. We’ve been trying to get you to double date with us for years and you just stare at your phone all the time. But with her? You’re like... a guy with actual feelings.”

“But now I’m losing to Jung… whatever his name is.” Sunghoon sighed.

“Jungwon,” Jake said. “And no, you’re not.”

“How do you know she doesn’t like him?” Sunghoon muttered, staring down at the floor.

“Because,” Jay said, “if she did, she wouldn’t have kissed you.”

“Unless she’s indecisive or confused or something. I don’t know.” Sunghoon exhaled hard, running a hand through his hair. “Maybe I was just… a moment. And he’s her person.”

Jake shook his head. “I’m telling you—just talk to her.”

“Yeah,” Jay added. “Before you spiral even harder and start writing love songs about her. But if you do, I haved like a couple of guitars you could borrow.”

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. But somewhere, deep down… a part of him hoped they were right.

-

You were pacing back and forth on your cheap IKEA rug, while Jungwon was laid out dramatically on your bed, arms folded behind his head, thoroughly enjoying the show.

“I’m telling you, he’s avoiding me,” you snapped, pointing an accusatory finger at no one in particular. “We kissed—KISSED, Jungwon—and now he won’t even look at me! I wave, he nods. I say hi, he nods. I breathe in his direction, he—guess what—nods!”

Jungwon hummed, annoyingly calm. “Maybe he’s nervous. Or maybe he wants you to go to him.”

“I do go to him! And then he speed-walks away like I’m the plague!” You groaned, pressing your fingers to your temples. “I’m gonna lose it.”

“Maybe…” he tapped his chin thoughtfully, “you’re just a shit kisser.”

You whipped around and chucked a throw pillow directly at his smug face.

“Asshole.”

He caught it with a grin, clutching it to his chest dramatically. “I’m just saying. Maybe you scared him off.”

“You’re lucky I haven’t strangled you with this blanket,” you muttered, grabbing another pillow just in case.

Jungwon sat up, brushing imaginary dust off his shirt. “You know, sometimes I forget we grew up together because you’re so unpredictable now.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He snorted. “You used to be fearless. Remember that Heeseung guy you had a crush on in middle school?”

You blinked. “What about him?”

“You were six, and you walked up to him at recess, said ‘I like your lunchbox,’ then kissed his cheek and ran off.”

“Ah,” you said flatly, “the good old days. That girl’s dead now.”

“She’s not dead,” Jungwon argued, grabbing your wrists and tugging you to sit beside him on the bed. “She’s just… overthinking everything. Look, if Sunghoon doesn’t like you—whatever. But if he does? You’re missing out just because you’re too chicken to tell him.”

You glared. “I hate it when you make sense.”

“I know.” He grinned. “It’s my worst trait.”

“I just—” you exhaled, flopping back beside him. “What if it ruins everything? We literally just got closer. What if I say something and it all goes to shit?”

“Okay, counter-offer.” He sat up straighter. “You tell him, or I will. I will walk down the hallway, knock on his door, and go ‘Hi, my best friend has feelings for you, she also has performance anxiety but can cook a great bowl of chicken noodle soup.’”

“You wouldn’t,” you hissed, swatting at his arm.

“Then do it yourself!” he laughed, dodging your attacks. “Before I start printing flyers and pasting them in the apartment lobby.”

God. Why did he always have to be right?

“Fine.”

Your hand was already on the doorknob, breath caught in your throat, just about to leave when the door across from yours had swung open at the exact same time.

And there he was.

Sunghoon.

You both froze, hands still gripping the doorknobs, blinking.

You cleared your throat first. “Sunghoon.”

He blinked like he hadn’t already been staring. “What?”

You squinted. “Is that the only word you know how to say when I call your name?”

He paused. “Sorry.”

You opened your mouth to say something else but were rudely interrupted by muffled snorts from behind Sunghoon. Jay and Jake’s heads popped out from their doorway like nosy meerkats.

“Hoon,” Jay said in a loud, exaggerated voice, “we need more eggs.”

“Desperately,” Jake added, nodding like this was a national emergency. “Go to the store.”

Then Jungwon peeked out from behind you with an equally suspicious grin. “Oh, and while you’re there, can you grab some ice cream too?”

You and Sunghoon looked at each other.

“What is happening right now,” you said flatly.

Before either of you could respond, four hands shoved the both of you toward the elevator. You stumbled in, the doors sliding shut just as Jay yelled out, “Don’t come back without snacks!”

The elevator stopped at your floor.

Your shoulders brushed as you stood side by side, awkwardly watching the floor numbers light up.

Then, finally, you broke it. “About that day—”

Sunghoon shook his head quickly. “Don’t worry about it. I won’t tell Jungwon.”

You blinked. “What do you mean you won’t tell Jungwon?”

He looked away. “Well, aren’t you like… crushing on him? I wouldn’t want what we did to, you know… ruin your chances or something.”

Your entire face scrunched up. “Won and I? What? Ew. God, no. We’re friends. We grew up together. Thinking about him that way would be like incest or something.”

And just like that, Sunghoon felt like he’d been hit by a shooting star and given a second chance at life. His heart did a full backflip. You were single. You were available. 

He couldn’t help it. He smiled.

“Why do you suddenly look so happy?” you asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

“I’m not.”

“You’re literally smiling.”

“I’m not.”

“We’ve hung out a couple of times and if I’m being honest, I’ve never seen you smile this—”

“Cut it out.” He tried to brush it off, biting back the grin. “I’m just glad.”

“Glad about?”

“Glad that I didn’t ruin your chances,” he said nonchalantly, looking up like he hadn’t just panicked thirty seconds ago.

“Mhm.” You narrowed your eyes at him, the golden-orange glow of the sunset casting warmth across his cheekbones. He was handsome. Frustratingly so. “Well… because I actually like this other guy.”

Sunghoon’s smile faltered.

“I haven’t known him that long,” you continued casually, “but he seems cool. I don’t really know much about him yet.”

“That’s… nice.” Sunghoon turned away quickly, jaw tight. He was definitely grimacing. Please don’t let her see that I’m grimacing, he begged internally.

“Yeah, he’s really tall. Really handsome, too.”

“That’s just…” he exhaled. “Great.”

“He doesn’t seem super friendly but he has a big heart. Even if he tries really hard not to show it.”

“Seems like a swell fuckin’ guy,” he muttered bitterly.

“It’s a pity though,” you sighed dramatically, still watching him. “I wish I could get to know him better.”

“Well… anyone’s lucky to get to know you.” He tried to smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I know I am.”

You tilted your head. “Not to mention… he lives really close to me.”

Sunghoon’s eyes darted to you. “He does?”

“Mhm.” You nodded, heartbeat accelerating.

“Like how close?”

You took a slow step toward him. “Like… just across the hall close.”

“Oh.” He blinked. “That close.”

Silence settled in the small elevator. You both just stood there, not looking at each other, tension hanging in the air like humidity.

Then, out of nowhere—

“I’m just saying,” Sunghoon said, dead serious, “but Jake sleeps with the lights on and Jay doesn’t wash his hair as often as you think he does.”

You blinked. “Huh?”

“I sleep normal,” he added quickly. “I wash my hair. I do proper haircare—shampoo, conditioner, mask, mist. I could do your routine too. For you. If you want.”

You stared.

“I can’t cook, but I’ll try. I can figure skate. I can spin twice in the air. Jay and Jake? Not even one spin. Jay can play guitar, Jake can sing but I can spin, okay? Without getting dizzy too.”

“Sunghoon.”

“And those idiots never clean up after eating your food. Jay doesn’t use coasters. Jake never makes his bed.”

“SUNGHOON!”

He looked at you, breathless. “What?”

You stepped forward. Slowly. Then, you mumbled, “It’s you.”

He blinked. “What?”

“I like you.”

And for once, Park Sunghoon had absolutely nothing to say.

“Okay,” he said. “Cool. Okay. I—wow. Okay.”

You raised a brow. “That’s it?”

He nodded dumbly. “No. Yes. I don’t know. I just—holy shit. You like me.”

You smirked, the smile slowly stretching across your face. “Yes. I like you.”

The elevator dinged. Neither of you moved.

He looked at you again, still dazed. “Hold on, I kinda need a minute.”

You both stepped out into the empty lobby. The sun outside had just dipped below the skyline, casting a pinkish-orange glow through the glass doors. The streetlights flickered on. But you waited.

“It’s been a minute,” you said.

“I know,” he exhaled, hand raking through his hair. “But you like me back, so I kinda need, like… a long minute.”

“Back?” You grinned, the corners of your mouth lifting all the way to your eyes. “So you like me too?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. I thought it was obvious from the, uh… word vomit.”

“Well yeah,” you shrugged. “But I didn’t want to assume. Didn’t wanna be narcissistic.”

“I think even if you were,” he muttered, “I’d still think you were pretty cute.”

You blinked. “Did you just—”

“Gross, I know,” he said quickly, face flushing. “I just said that out loud, didn’t I?”

You laughed. “Yeah. But you kinda can’t take it back now.”

“Fine,” he said, pretending to groan. “You’re cute. Ugh. I said it again.”

-

A MONTH LATER

Jay and Jake found it fundamentally unfair. They were the ones who got close to you first. They were the ones who complimented you, made you laugh, showed up when you needed help. They loved you first or at least, that’s what they told themselves. But here you were, doors locked for the first time in three months, cooking a full-course meal for Sunghoon to celebrate your one-month anniversary.

“You’re not allowed to come,” Sunghoon told them flatly before slamming the door shut.

“But—!” they shouted in unison, already mourning the steak they wouldn’t get to taste.

Word on the hallway was that you were cooking the perfect medium-rare T-bone steak, paired with your signature brown sauce and a vegetable medley so crunchy and flavourful. Meanwhile, Jay and Jake sat hunched on the couch, scrolling through a food delivery app.

“Isn’t it funny,” Jake said, arms folded, “how we were the ones who befriended her first, and now we’re stuck with Burger King?”

“Life’s unfair, bud.”

Back in your apartment, things were a little more romantic. You’d decorated with fairy lights and candles, the room dimly lit. You were still being frugal, splitting every cost you could. But you’d managed to steal two T-bone steaks from the diner you part-timed at.

Sunghoon showed up in a black and white tuxedo, looking like he’d taken the prom theme you had placed as a joke a little too seriously.

“You look absolutely gorgeous,” he said, leaning down to press a kiss to your cheek.

“And you look absolutely handsome,” you grinned.

He walked over to the table and took in the spread. “Okay, what do we have?”

“I made the steaks, obviously, and then there’s the vegetable medley… and your favourite—mashed potatoes,” you giggled.

Sunghoon exhaled, shaking his head with a disbelieving smile. “How did I get so lucky?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know either.”

He laughed. “The guys are pissed, by the way. You made me all this, and they’re over there with cold fries.”

“What?” you said, surprised. “I made them something too! Don’t worry.”

“You did?” he raised a brow.

“I had a feeling they’d be hungry if you were over here.”

“Babe, you didn’t have to do that. They’re grown men.”

“Yeah, but technically my assignment this week was pasta and I have too many leftovers.”

“They’re spoiled by you.”

“And so are you.”

“True, but I’m your boyfriend. They’re just two annoying shitheads constantly trying to butt in.”

“I’ll be quick. I’ll just drop the dish off and come back.”

“No,” he said, standing. “I’ll do it. You stay here.”

He kissed your forehead, grabbing the lasagna you’d tucked into the fridge. “You’re too sweet, you know that?”

“He walked across the hall and opened the door to Unit 3C.

Inside, Jay was mid-rant. “I just don’t get it. Sunghoon isn’t even that hot.”

“I mean, he is,” Jake added, “but she deserves better, you know?”

Sunghoon cleared his throat. “I can hear you two idiots.”

They both froze, turning around sheepishly. “We were just joking. We love you, man.”

He held up the dish. “And to think I came here bearing gifts from my girlfriend.”

Jake’s eyes widened. “Wait—is that lasagna?”

“She felt bad we were eating good without you, so she made you dinner.”

“Oh my god,” Jay gasped. “Sunghoon, I don’t mean to be pushy, but please marry her.”

“I can’t,” Sunghoon muttered. “Not when you two are constantly inserting yourselves into my relationship.”

“Okay, okay, we’ll back off. Just—can we have the lasagna?”

“And can you tell her we love her?”

“I am not telling my girlfriend you love her,” Sunghoon snapped. “I’ve barely worked up the nerve to tell her that myself.”

“Wait,” Jake said suddenly, “you haven’t told her you love her yet?”

“It’s only been a month.”

“So… you don’t love her?”

“I do,” Sunghoon replied, almost too quickly. “I just don’t want to come on too strong if she’s not ready.”

Jay and Jake shared a glance before shrugging.

“What?” Sunghoon asked, frowning. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

Jake cleared his throat. “It’s just… she already said it.”

Sunghoon looked up. “What?”

“Yeah,” Jake replied casually. “You texted her about picking up those heat packs for her cramps, and she went all soft and whispered, ‘God, I love him so much.’ Her words. Not mine.”

Sunghoon stood frozen in the doorway, the dish in his hands suddenly weightless.

You loved him.

“So… you’re saying I should tell her?” he asked, voice quiet, almost unsure.

Jay and Jake both nodded enthusiastically. “Definitely. Especially if it makes her our sister-in-law,” Jay added, grinning.

Sunghoon rolled his eyes. “God, the two of you can be so annoying.”

“But you still love us,” Jay shrugged. “So what’s the point of complaining?”

He hated that Jay was right.

Back in your apartment, Sunghoon sat across from you, completely transfixed. You were dressed in a soft pink satin dress that shimmered every time you moved. It hugged your shoulders delicately, the neckline simple, elegant. Your hair was curled softly, pinned loosely on one side with a vintage clip, and your lips were glossed just enough to make him stare longer than he should’ve.

And God, you looked so beautiful.

He tried to pay attention. He really did. But his heart was too loud, his thoughts too full. How was he supposed to say it?

Sunghoon had never told anyone he loved them before. Not seriously. Maybe to his mom years ago, right before he left for the city. But this? This felt entirely new.

Because sitting in front of him was someone who made every quiet part of his life feel loud again. You filled in the spaces he didn’t even know were missing. You made his apartment feel less cold, his world a little less grey. And the way he loved you—God, it wasn’t something small. It wasn’t a flicker or a passing crush. It was all-consuming and terrifying and the best damn thing he’d ever felt.

He loved you like it was muscle memory. Like even if he forgot everything else, his hands would still reach for yours and only yours.

“Hoonie,” you interrupted gently, frowning. “You’re not listening.”

He blinked back into focus. “Sorry,” he murmured, smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I was just thinking about something.”

“What?” you looked up at him, ur big eyes shining. 

Sunghoon unknowingly smiled, his eyes dripping with honey, god he loved you. He wanted to say that. So badly.

“I…I just–uh–feel…that,” His voice trailed off. “You look really beautiful tonight. I mean, you always do. But especially tonight.” He hesitated, the words stuck behind his teeth.

You smiled. “Thank you. You look very handsome too.”

-

Later that night, the two of you were in Sunghoon’s apartment along with Jay and Jake for the usual game night. 

You were sitting cross-legged on the floor, your prom-night dress bunched awkwardly around your knees, mascara slightly smudged from earlier laughter, hair pinned half-up. Sunghoon sat slouched in the beanbag beside you, tie loosened, sleeves rolled up, brow furrowed in concentration. Jake was lying on his stomach, legs swinging in the air, and Jay had somehow made himself horizontal on the couch.

You and Jake were a team. Sunghoon and Jay were not handling that well.

“Revive me!” Sunghoon yelled.

Jay shouted back, “I’m busy trying not to die, dumbass!”

Button mashing intensified. Trash talk flew across the room.

“VICTORY!” Jake screamed, leaping up like a madman.

You followed suit, springing to your feet and clambering up onto the coffee table in your dress. “GET WRECKED, LOSERS!” you yelled, pointing dramatically at Sunghoon. “THAT’S RIGHT, LOSERS!”

Jake joined you on the table, doing a badly timed robot dance. The two of you jumped in sync, yelling in triumph, while Jay groaned into a throw pillow and Sunghoon watched with a hand covering his mouth, half to hide his smile, half to suppress a laugh.

“You’re all bark, no bite!” you called, face flushed, hair falling loose. “Your character died fourteen times, Hoonie.”

“I let you win!” he shot back, grinning as he sat up straighter. “I was being a gentleman.”

“Sure,” you scoffed, sticking your tongue out at him. “Real chivalrous of you, sir died-14-fucking-times.”

He chuckled under his breath, eyes lingering on you for a second longer than usual. Then, without a word, he stood and walked out of the room.

You blinked. That was...odd. 

You gave Jake a gentle shove off the table and followed Sunghoon into the hallway. He was pacing outside, one hand in his hair, the other fiddling with the watch on his wrist.

“Hoon?” you asked, stepping out and gently closing the door behind you.

He jumped slightly, turning toward you. “You scared me.”

“You okay? You just left so sudden…”

“I—uh—yeah. I was just trying to figure out how to say something.”

You tilted your head, arms crossing over your chest. “Say what?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled with a shrug.

Your expression softened. “Are you mad at me?” You sighed. Maybe your little victory dance had been a bit much. “Hoonie?”

“No, baby, I could never be mad at you,” he said quickly, leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead.

“Then what’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just…”

You stepped closer, teasing lightly, “Do you want me to redo my victory dance? I could. You just have to beatbox, and I’ll take it from there.”

That made him laugh.

“Come on,” you grinned, starting to move your body in the most ridiculous way. “I’m pretty sure I should’ve been a dancer instead of a chef.”

He laughed again, this time louder and then, before he could stop himself, the words slipped out.

“Oh my god, I love you.”

You blinked. Your smile faded. Your brain, for one impossible second, completely short-circuited.

“Did you just say you love me?” you asked, heart hammering.

His eyes widened in sheer panic. “No?”

“I heard it.”

“You misheard.”

“Oh my god,” you gasped, practically vibrating. “You love me. You love me!”

“Fine!” he burst out, throwing his hands up like he was under arrest. “I do! I love you, okay?”

You smiled, “You do?”

“Of course! I love the way you talk too fast when you’re excited. I love how you make my idiot friends feel like they matter. I love that you make me feel whole. That when I’m with you, I don’t feel hollow anymore. You… you make me feel like I’m not empty.”

You grinned so wide it hurt. “That’s because you’re not.”

“I used to be,” he said helplessly, gesturing vaguely like he was mourning his past self. “I was mysterious. Brooding. Sexy, even. And now? Now I smile at cat videos you send me on TikTok. Look what you’ve done to me. This is all your fault.”

You scoffed, “My fault?”

“Yes! Who else could it be?” he said, breathless, like the truth had been waiting at the edge of his tongue for too long. “You walk into my life with that stupidly perfect smile, that laugh that makes everything feel lighter, those eyes that somehow hold the whole damn sky and now I’ve got feelings. Big ones.”

He took a shaky breath, pausing for a minute.

“I used to think I was fine on my own. But now? I get out of bed just because I know I might see you. I hear your knock and my whole day lights up. For the first time, I feel like I know what living really means. It’s you. Loving you. That’s it.”

You leaned in and kissed him right in the middle of his rant.

He blinked, dazed.

“You sure talk a lot for someone who usually says nothing,” you murmured, forehead resting against his.

“I do it when I’m nervous,” Sunghoon whispered, and then kissed you again.

“I find it cute,” you mumbled between kisses.

Sunghoon grinned into the next kiss, backing you up step by step toward your apartment door, his hands finding your waist. “God,” kiss “I love you,” another kiss “so much.”

You let out a breathless laugh. “You’re very handsy for someone who claimed to be brooding and mysteriou.”

“I told you,” he whispered, lips brushing your jaw as he reached behind you, fumbling for the door handle, “you ruined me.”

Your back hit the door with a thud. He fumbled with the knob like he was drunk on you, eventually pushing it open and guiding you inside.

He kicked the door shut with the back of his foot.

You were still laughing into his kiss. He walked you backward until your knees hit the bed and you dropped onto it with a squeak.

He climbed over you, hands on either side of your waist, face flushed, heart in his throat.

“I fucking love you,” he said again, like it wasn’t real until he repeated it.

You wrapped your arms around his neck, eyes sparkling. “I love you too.”

[just-nc-tea]

nine and three quarters pt. 3 ⋆✴︎˚｡⋆

⭑.ᐟ Roommate to Lovers - Park Sunghoon Somehow, in the middle of your semester break, you ended up with a new roommate. Your landlord rented out the second room in your flat without telling you, and now you’re living with Sunghoon. At first, your paths barely cross – you’re buried in work, and he’s always at the rink. But slowly, he slips into your routine in ways you never expected. Then one night, everything shifts. A blurred memory, a moment of fear—and Sunghoon catching you before you can fall. Suddenly, it’s not awkward anymore. You start looking forward to him coming home. Maybe—just maybe—home isn’t a place. Maybe it’s a person.

ᝰ genre. Figure skater!Sunghoon, college sports, angst, hurt/comfort, SO MUCH FLUFF!!! FINALLY!!! ᐟ₊ ⊹ ᝰ warnings. Swearing, partying, consumption of alcohol, hospital visits, mentions of rape, mentions of date-rape-drugs, mentions of the police, panic attacks, eating disorder, psychologists .ᐟ₊ ⊹ ᝰ features. Mark, Johnny, Taeyong & Jungwoo from NCT, Woonyoung and Rei from IVE ᝰ word count. 25.k .ᐟ₊ ⊹ --⟢ PART 1 --⟢ PART 2

series masterlist ⭑.ᐟ

Flowers.  There were flowers. You bought flowers. That was the first thing Sunghoon noticed when he came home after class a few days after the break ended. He dropped his bag onto one of the chairs in the kitchen and took two big steps towards the window. A small bouquet of purple flowers was standing in the vase he bought you at the market. The scent of the flowers was sweet and hardy, filling the kitchen.

The next thing he noticed was how full the kitchen was. The basket you used for fruit, which was standing on the kitchen table, was usually empty since fresh produce is quite expensive, but today it was filled to the brim with apples, bananas, mangos, and tangerines. The fridge was full of vegetables and two cartons of eggs.  He blinked into the fridge. This was a lot of food. You were barely able to eat a plate of eggs and cucumber, so why did you buy so much? How did you carry all of this upstairs? The elevator was still broken, and he had noticed that just walking up the 4 flights of stairs without a bag was already hard for you, so how did you…

“Sunghoon!” A warm palm clapped gently against his back, and Sunghoon turned with a quiet jolt. Mark was standing in front of him with a big grin adorning his face. “Hey,” Sunghoon greeted, a little breathless. “I didn’t know you were visiting today.” Mark shrugged with a smile, sitting down on a kitchen chair. “Y/N asked me to go to the market with her and I didn’t want her to carry all of the stuff alone, so I just came along.” Sunghoon raised an eyebrow, glancing again at the overflowing fruit basket and the fridge. “This is a lot of food.” Mark laughed under his breath. “Yeah, I kinda went overboard. She let me pick up too much stuff. She said you two eat together sometimes, so I figured—why not get enough for both of you? Johnny and Taeyong gave her money for groceries anyway. I just made her spend it.”

Sunghoon gave a soft huff of laughter, eyes still on the fridge. “It’s just… a lot. She usually doesn’t—” “I know,” Mark cut in, voice softer now.  Sunghoon turned to look at him, but Mark’s gaze was fixed on the fruit basket. “She’s trying,” Mark said quietly. “But it helps when someone’s eating with her. Even if it’s just rice and cucumber. Even if she can’t finish everything. Just... not doing it alone makes it easier. So I thought maybe if we bought enough for the two of you, you could start cooking and eating together? I know you aren't really that close with Y/N, or well, I don't really know, Y/n and I haven't exactly been talking a lot, she was kinda avoiding us all. But I was hoping you could maybe just…help a bit.” Sunghoon swallowed thickly. He didn’t know you were avoiding your brother. He was wondering why Mark was never over. When he first met Mark, it seemed like you two spent a lot of time together. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to help.” “You are.” Mark looked up and met his eyes, serious for a moment. “She told you what’s happening. That’s big.” Sunghoon nodded. “I’ll cook with her.”

Mark smiled again, this time smaller. “That always worked when we were teens. Even if I was eating three servings of curry, and she was barely finishing her salad. It was still better.” Footsteps echoed down the hallway and both of them looked up just as you stepped into the kitchen, towel still around your neck and damp hair brushing your collarbone. You were wearing one of Sunghoon’s shirts. He said nothing and tried to not react outwardly, but something fluttered low in his chest. Sometimes, when you had all the shirts you used as pyjamas in the wash, you took one of Sunghoon’s. He had so many shirts from training camps or competitions that were in his pyjama drawer that he didn’t really care if you stole one once in a while.  “Hey,” you said, blinking at the two of them. “You didn’t put the mangoes in the fridge?” “You didn’t say where you wanted them,” Mark shot back easily. “Cold mangoes are elite, and you know it.” You moved toward the fruit basket, pushing your towel back from your shoulders. Sunghoon moved a step to the side to let you open the fridge door.  As you opened the door, Mark’s eyes landed on the meal calendar you’d stuck on the fridge. His expression twisted into a grin.

“Are those the monkey stickers from Taeyong?” You froze. “Mark—” “Oh my god, you’re actually using them.” “They’re cute!” you defended, cheeks a little pink as you grabbed the sheet and stuck it to the fridge underneath Sunghoon’s new magnet from the aquarium in Busan. He was quite touched that you thought of him while you were at home. He imagined being home, visiting doctors, even if they were people you knew, wasn’t the most pleasant thing to do, and when you did something nice, you thought of him. He felt all giddy thinking about it. Mark laughed and threw his hands up. “You know what? You’re right. They are better than the strange dinosaurs Hyuck bought you. I am still haunted by the T Rex that had the head of another dinosaur in its mouth. You really didn’t have to use them.” “But Donghyuck Oppa bought them for me. And I didn’t want to be ungrateful.”, you huffed and leaned onto the counter next to Sunghoon. Your arms were touching, and it sent a warm sensation up his arm.  Then Sunghoon’s stomach grumbled. Loudly.

The sound broke through the room like a slapstick sound effect, and you both froze. Then slowly, so slowly,you turned to look at him. His ears turned pink immediately. “…I guess I’m hungry,” he admitted, voice sheepish. You blinked at him, something gentle dancing behind your eyes. Then, very softly you asked: “Do you want to eat?” There was a pause. Not a long one. Just long enough for him to meet your eyes and realize you weren’t just asking him if he was hungry. You were asking if he wanted to eat with you. Sunghoon swallowed. Cleared his throat. “Spaghetti?” Mark, silently watching from the other side of the kitchen, perked up. “You two want me to chop something?”

You nodded without looking away from Sunghoon. “Only if you’re okay staying a little longer.” Mark grinned. “I’m not moving unless you kick me out.” Sunghoon smiled too, just a little. “We could use the veggies for the sauce. One of my friend’s girlfriends makes a protein bolognese for Jake all the time. Like, shredded carrots and lentils with beef.” “I’ll get the cutting board.” You moved to the cabinet and started pulling out the dry pasta. Sunghoon turned on the stove, filled a pot with water, and placed it on the burner. “Hey, could I turn on some music?” Mark asked after he washed a bell pepper. “Sure.”, you hummed beside Sunghoon, who was busy cutting the beef he still had in the fridge. You looked up at Sunghoon. “Can we use your speaker?” you asked softly. “Yeah,” Sunghoon said, a little distracted as he trimmed the fat from the beef. “It’s on my desk.”

He blinked a second later, realizing what he’d just said. Wait. His room. “Shit,” he mumbled to himself. Mark, hearing him, raised a brow but didn’t comment. Sunghoon had just started mentally cataloging the chaos in his room when you returned, speaker in hand, looking completely unbothered. You handed it to Mark. He blinked. “Did you… find it okay?” “Yeah. It was right where you said.” You nodded and just turned back to the stove and stirred the sauce.

Mark hooked up his phone, and music started playing—something upbeat and chill, some indie R&B track.

Sunghoon stared at you for a second longer. The soft sway of your hair, the way your head bobbed gently to the beat while you stirred. You looked calm and so soft. A strand of your hair was falling forward, and he had the impulse to tuck it behind your ear. Somehow, he really had a thing for your hair. Whenever you were watching TV together, he somehow had a strand of hair between his fingers.  He blinked and quickly looked away before either of you could catch him smiling.

────────────────────── Mark left after dinner and took the music with him.  You stood by the sink, sleeves rolled up, drying a plate while Sunghoon rinsed the next one. He passed it to you without a word, hands brushing for the briefest second.  “Thanks for cooking,” you said softly, folding the towel around the plate. “That was really good.” He gave a small, sheepish smile. “Thanks for helping. You ate a full portion.” Your eyes flicked up to his, surprised for a moment. “Yeah,” you said after a beat. “I did.” And then, with a little breath of something like pride, you turned and padded to the fridge.

Sunghoon watched as you peeled another monkey sticker from the sheet tucked into the side of the calendar and pressed it beside today’s date. It joined two others already in a row, little grinning faces in cartoon yellow. He couldn’t stop the smile tugging at his mouth. His chest went warm, gentle, and a little achy. You glanced over your shoulder. “It’s kind of dumb, I know.” “It’s not,” he said quickly. You turned fully, arms crossed lightly over your front. The corners of your mouth twitched. “It’s a little dumb.” “It’s cute,” he corrected, flicking a bit of water off his fingers in your direction.  You huffed a quiet laugh, your gaze dropping for a second. 

Sunghoon picked up the last pan and scrubbed at it slowly, the tension in the room softening. The silence between you felt different now. Not awkward. He couldn’t really name the feeling, but he started to really like feeling like this. Comfortable.  You leaned next to him a few minutes later, hip brushing his. A little closer than you would’ve stood a few weeks ago. He liked that. “You want tea?” you asked. He turned to you. “Only if we drink it on the sofa and watch people get dramatic over nothing again.” You grinned. “It’s not nothing. Their friend literally faked a pregnancy and then ghosted the guy.” “Yeah, but like. He kind of deserved it.” You snorted and went to fill the kettle. Sunghoon turned back to the sink and finished the dishes. He didn’t say it yet. Not out loud. But he was proud of you. So proud he felt like his chest couldn’t quite contain it.

────────────────────── The sound of blades scraping against the ice echoed sharply and hollowly through the near-empty rink. Sunghoon skated to the barrier and braced his hands on it, chest heaving. His reflection in the plexiglass was sweaty, flushed and scowling. He squeezed his eyes shut. He hadn’t landed a clean jump all morning. Two weeks ago, he’d flown. His legs had been light, movements clean, choreography crisp.  Today he couldn’t even get through the first half of the routine. He slipped on a stupid step sequence and landed hard enough that his shoulder still ached. He pushed away from the barrier, gliding back to the center of the rink. His Coach wasn’t watching right now. He was yelling at one of the juniors on the other side. Sunghoon exhaled. Focus. The music started again, low and distant through the speakers. He took off, arms slicing through the air, each push of his skate a little too forceful. Too much. He turned into the first jump. And hit the ice again, hard. Flat on his side. “Shit,” he hissed through his teeth, clutching his elbow as the cold bled through his clothes. He stayed down for a second too long, his breath fogging up in front of his face. “What the hell is wrong with me,” he muttered, sitting up slowly. He could see a smear on the ice where he landed. His heart felt like it was rattling in his ribs. Anger, embarrassment, frustration. He pulled off his gloves, hands shaking slightly, and ran them over his face. The cold stung his skin. His eyes burned too. He climbed to his feet, teeth clenched. He didn’t know why he thought today would be better. ────────────────────── The figure skaters had cleared out half an hour ago. He could hear the ice hockey players in the rink's changing room. They would be out here in a few minutes. But Sunghoon didn’t move. He was sprawled on the ice, limbs spread in all directions, his chest rising and falling quickly. His program music played on repeat, louder now that the other skaters were gone. He barely twitched when a sharp hiss of skates sounded beside him, followed by a spray of snow that landed all over his glove. “Dude,” Heeseung’s voice rang out over him. “What happened to you?” Sunghoon blinked up at the ceiling. “I won’t pass the tryouts.” Heeseung stared down at him. “That’s funny,” he said flatly. “Because you said the exact same thing before Nationals and you second.” Sunghoon’s laugh was more of a groan. “Yeah, and I still don’t know how I pulled that off.” Heeseung crouched beside him on the ice, propped on the butt of his stick, brows raised. “Are you falling again or just giving up entirely?”

Sunghoon didn’t move. Just sighed and stared at the rafters overhead. “I’m not giving up. I just can’t land anything today. It’s like my body forgot what edges are.” Heeseung let out a low whistle. “I didn't know you're that dramatic.” “I’m serious,” Sunghoon muttered. “Tryouts are in two weeks, and I can’t even make it through one clean run. I barely made it through the warm-up jumps today. What if I already peaked?” “You said the same thing before Nationals.” “Yeah, and maybe I did peak there. Maybe that was it. My fluke moment.” Heeseung rolled his eyes. “You always say that. Then you pull a quad out of nowhere and land it like it’s nothing. Maybe you're just stressed. I mean the Olympic team is crazy. I would be stressed.” Sunghoon finally sat up, resting his arms on his knees. His gloves were wet from the ice, fingertips numb. “I am stressed, but I was stressed before the nationals too,” he said, quieter. “But it was different. I was worried about Y/N. And now she’s doing better. She’s eating. There’s a monkey sticker on that stupid meal calendar every single day. Sometimes even two. So I shouldn’t feel like this anymore.” Heeseung studied him for a second. “But you still do?” Sunghoon looked away. “I guess. It’s not her. She’s fine. I’m just… off.” Heeseung didn’t say anything for a beat. Then, softly, “You sure it’s not still her?” Sunghoon’s head snapped up. “I’m not—no. I can’t—she’s my roommate, Heeseung.” Heeseung shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you don’t care. You’re just not used to caring this much about someone off the ice.” “I care about you,” Sunghoon shot back defensively “Yeah,” Heeseung deadpanned, “but you don’t glue monkey stickers to a fridge for me.” Sunghoon’s ears went pink. “I’m just saying,” Heeseung went on, “You’re still you, Hoon. Just… someone else has your whole focus now. Someone who glues Monkey stickers to calendars.” Sunghoon didn’t answer. Not because he disagreed. But because he didn’t know how to say that the idea scared him just as much as it warmed him. He picked at the edge of his skate and stood. “Tryouts are in two weeks.” “And if you play your cards right, monkey stickers are forever,” Heeseung grinned, skating backward. “Shut up.”

──────────────────────

The apartment was dark when Sunghoon finally stepped inside.

He dropped his bag quietly by the door, the soft clink of his keys the only sound in the quiet. He slipped off his shoes and let the door close behind him with a soft thud. It was close to midnight. You were asleep. Probably. Sunghoon padded into the kitchen on socked feet. He felt a little sore from the extra reps and the weight session in the gym. He'd showered at the rink, taken a half-hour nap on the office couch while Heeseung’s girlfriend typed away at her computer. Sunghoon really liked her. Heeseung and her have been dating for almost a year now. When he first met her, she was sitting in a wheelchair. Heeseung told him that she had gone through several surgeries after a car crash when she was younger.  The crash cut her career short.  He often had to think about that. How sometimes he wished he had a reason to just stop skating and get a normal job, have normal hobbies, but he also saw the way Heeseung’s girlfriend looked at the ice, with so much longing, it made his heart heavy.  The kitchen was cool, the scent of whatever you ate for dinner was still faint in the air. The sink held one plate and a fork, rinsed off neatly. His eyes went to the fridge without thinking. To today’s date.  A shiny monkey sticker was pressed next to it. Not one, but two. He smiled slightly. You must’ve had a good day. Sunghoon walked over and pressed the tip of his finger to the little monkey face. The sticker crinkled slightly under his touch. There was a note, too. Scrawled quickly, in your handwriting, on a Post-it note just under the sticker. "Spaghetti with mushrooms and carrots, and that protein powder. Bon appétit!" He huffed a quiet laugh, even as something tugged tight in his chest. He reached out, brushing his thumb gently over the corner of the sticky note. Sunghoon heated the rest of the pasta you'd portioned out for him, plating it carefully despite the hour. He sat down at the kitchen table with it, elbows on the wood, bare feet tucked up under the chair. A part of him wanted to go peek into your room just to see you. But he didn’t. He sat in the kitchen eating his dinner, letting his heart slow, his breath even out, his shoulders finally drop.

────────────────────── You were in a good mood when you left the house. The sun had been out when you stepped onto the pavement. You’d remembered to bring your water bottle and the playlist you’d put on during the bus ride was perfect for the mood outside. Even your coffee hadn’t tasted like dirt. You slipped into your lecture seat and pulled out your sketchbook. You’d started your last assignment over, more organized this time, cleaner. It felt nice to look at your own work and not instantly hate it. And for once, you weren’t behind. Not truly. 

Your phone buzzed in your pocket.

Sunghoon: Y/N do you want new stickers?  Daiso has cute ones rn Im gonna bu them even if yo say no buy* you* sorry i was rushing a bit. 

You smiled. Today made it twelve days in a row. You’ve used almost all of the monkeys. And honestly? You were kind of proud of that. The stickers made it feel like you did something, even on the days you were just eating plain rice and steamed broccoli. You were up to almost 1000 kcal a day now, pushing toward 1100 kcal. Taeyong had sent you new stickers in the mail, cats, and you’d shown them to Sunghoon like they were the best thing he had ever seen. He looked so happy. His face had lit up in this quiet, surprised way. You weren’t even sure if he knew how tired he looked lately. He’d been home late almost every night this week, his shoulders tense and a frown was living permanently between his brows. But when you pulled out the little cat sheet and told him you wanted to try eating just a bit more each day, he smiled so wide.  That thought carried you halfway through class. Until the professor flipped the slide and reminded everyone, “Final sketches are due on Tuesday. Don’t forget we moved the deadline up.” Tuesday? That was four days from now.  You stared at the slide for a second longer than necessary. Then you flipped back through your notes. You started the sketches. You had a clear idea, the concept was solid, and if you pulled a long night today and a longer one Saturday, you could do it. You didn’t have to work this weekend, and you’d already done your weekly session with Ten, which meant the next few days were yours. You could absolutely do this. Lately, things have been different.  You were different.  Bit by bit, like someone had found the dimmer switch on your brain and slowly started turning it back up. You hadn’t even realized how much the party had stuck with you. It wasn’t just the throwing up. It was the way your chest clenched when someone offered you food or drinks. The way you hated opening your inbox. The way you could cry over a spilled coffee, or absolutely nothing at all.

Ten had helped you with that.

You weren’t fixed after the first few sessions.  You were still tired. Still got this dull ache behind your eyes or your ribs some mornings. Still, sometimes whispered a quiet sorry to the mirror when your shirt hung too loose. But you were getting there. You were okay. And if you weren’t okay yet, you would be. You caught Renjun’s question a few beats late. “How’s your draft going?” You gave him a half-smile. “Good. I’m almost done.” Which wasn’t a lie. You would finish it. You knew you could. Because you’d done harder things already. You had done this in the first semester so often, this should be easy.

────────────────────── You were adjusting your grip on three oversized rolls of paper, trying not to let them knock into your knees, when you saw Sunghoon. Headphones on, walking with his shoulders slightly hunched. You brightened instinctively, smiling at him, but your smile dipped, just slightly, when he got close enough for you to see the set of his jaw. He looked… tired. And tense. Maybe even upset. You shifted your weight, hugging the paper tubes a little closer, and offered a quiet, “Hi.” His gaze flicked up. And like magic, it all softened. The furrow between his brows, the stiff set of his shoulders. He gave a small exhale, like just seeing you let out some of the tension. “Hey,” he said, low and tired, but warm. “What’s with all the… paper?” You let out a laugh. “I stayed in the studio after class. I’m doing a huge concept draft this weekend. Guess who’s pulling an all-nighter?” He eyed your supplies, then you. “Please don’t say you.” You bit your lip. “It’s due Tuesday, and I was kinda distracted during the break. But I think I can make it work. I have a plan.” He reached out and gently tugged one of the rolls from under your arm without a word. You didn’t stop him. Your fingers brushed his in the exchange, and your pulse jumped. The bus rolled up, brakes squealing slightly, and the two of you climbed on. You found a mostly empty seat toward the back and sank into it with a small sigh. The paper was bulky, and created a barrier between your legs and his. Still, your shoulders brushed. He didn’t move away. The ride started in silence. You were about to reach for your phone when Sunghoon spoke, voice quieter than usual. “I’m not skating well,” he said. You looked up, surprised at the sudden honesty. “What do you mean?” “I don’t know what happened. Two weeks ago, everything worked perfectly. I almost got a perfect score. And now it’s like my body forgot how to do everything. Every run-through ends with me on the ice. It’s… embarrassing.” You frowned, brows drawing together. “You think it was just luck that day?”

He gave a soft laugh, more bitter than amused. “Maybe. I don't know. I was really stressed in the weeks leading up to it. You know, with the party and everything. I was kinda busy worrying about you and didn't really worry about the nationals that much."

You didn’t answer right away. The bus rumbled around you. A neon sign from a passing corner shop spilled red light across the floor.

Your hands were resting in your lap. You stared at your fingers for a second.

You hadn’t hidden it. Not really. The skipped dinners, your barely touched plates. You knew you weren’t subtle.

You just didn’t know it had sat with him like that. 

“I’m not saying that to guilt you.” He leaned his head back against the bus window, sighing. “You’re doing amazing. You've put those monkey stickers on the calendar every day for almost two weeks. Sometimes even two.”

You ducked your head, shy under the praise. “They’re cute. And I like making people proud.”

“You are,” he said softly. “I am.”

You didn’t know what to say to that. So you just nodded.

“Two weeks ago,” you said quietly. “At the nationals. You were incredible. You had so much fun.”

Sunghoon turned to look at you then. His eyes were soft. Tired.

And maybe a little surprised.

“I don’t know how I did that,” he admitted. “And now I’m not sure I can do it again.”

You hesitated. Then, a little nervously:

“Do you… still worry? About me?”

There was no pause in his answer.

“Yeah.”

You bit the inside of your cheek, unsure how to carry the strange warmth that bloomed under your skin. 

You wanted to reach out and touch his hand. Or maybe say thank you. Or maybe… both.

A few moments passed in silence before you felt his head tilt, his chin gently resting on the top of your head.

You froze for a heartbeat.

Then slowly, shyly, you let yourself lean into his side.

Just a little.

The bus bumped along, and the rolls of paper rolled slightly against your knees.

“I’ll be okay,” he murmured. “Eventually.”

“You will,” you whispered back. “But you don’t have to be right away.”

His hand brushed against yours for a second.

And neither of you moved away.

────────────────────── Your keys clinked softly as you unlocked the apartment door. The hallway light flickered to life, casting a warm, golden hue across the wooden floor. You slipped off your shoes, turning to look at Sunghoon, who was still moving slower than usual, dropping his bag by the door with a sigh.

You hesitated.

“…Are you hungry?” you asked gently.

He looked up at you with that unreadable expression of his. Not annoyed. Just...thinking.

Then he tilted his head. “Did you eat enough for a monkey?”

You blinked, caught off guard and then let out a soft laugh, shaking your head. “No.”

He didn’t scold you, “Then… unspicy dakgalbi? From the place I always drag the guys to?”

Your eyes lit up immediately. “Oh? The one we ordered from a few weeks ago?”

He nodded. “They do extra cheese now.”

Your stomach actually rumbled a little at that.

Fifteen minutes later, you were both perched on either side of the low sofa table. You sat cross-legged at the low table, sketchbook to your right.

Sunghoon was on the other side of the table, sleeves pushed up, his hair still damp from his shower. He passed you the tongs wordlessly, letting you serve yourself first. The cheese pulled in stretchy, stringy lines between the chicken pieces.

You quietly divided things up. One bowl for you. One for him.

When you finished cleaning the living room, you placed a sticker onto the calendar and held it up toward him with a tiny smile. You’d already picked out the sticker for tonight, a little orange cat holding a rice ball. 

“Tada!”

He squinted at the calendar and took a step closer, “The cat is cute. I am proud of you, Y/N. Look, even your little kitty is proud of you for eating so well.”

You laughed, cheeks a little warm.

The two of you returned to the living room. You had your legs tucked underneath you on the floor, one of the giant papers resting across the coffee table. The living room was dim except for the glow of the TV. The new drama you both half-followed played in the background. You had your pencil in one hand, your sleeve bunched in the other as you leaned over the page.

You didn’t even realize how quiet it had gotten until you looked up and found Sunghoon stretched out on the couch. One arm tucked under his head, hoodie soft and rumpled. His other hand rested over his stomach, rising and falling with each breath.

He wasn’t watching the drama. He was watching you.

You immediately felt the heat rise in your face.

“What?” you asked, trying not to smile.

He looked away quickly. “Nothing.”

“Liar.”

He didn’t argue.

You shook your head and looked back at your sketch. But your heart was still doing something weird. Something soft and fast at the same time.

You didn’t say anything else. Neither did he.

You weren’t sure when Sunghoon stopped watching the drama and started watching you again but you noticed when his eyes started slipping shut, his head slowly lolling to the side against the arm of the couch.

He insisted on keeping you company while you worked. 

Which, apparently, meant curling up on the couch behind you, one arm flung over a pillow like a makeshift hug, and promptly dozing off halfway through episode two.

Your pencil slipped from your hand somewhere around 3:30 a.m..Your first sketch was about 3/4 done, but your eyes were getting too heavy to shade anything right now. You stretched your legs out slowly, bones creaking, spine stiff from being hunched over the coffee table for hours and looked over your shoulder.

Sunghoon was still out cold. His hoodie had ridden up just slightly, revealing a sliver of his lower back. His mouth was parted in the tiniest way. 

You tried not to laugh as you reached over and touched his shoulder gently.

“Sunghoon,” you whispered.

He groaned.

“Sunghoon,” you said again, a little softer.

His eyes cracked open, all bleary and confused. “Huh.”

“You fell asleep.”

He made a tiny noise of protest and flopped further into the couch. “You’re loud.”

You laughed. “C’mon. Go to bed.”

He mumbled something unintelligible, then blinked blearily at you. “You wanna sleep in my room tonight?”

You blinked. “What?”

“You said… before.” He rubbed at his eye with the back of his hand. “That you sleep better when someone’s there.”

You stared at him for a second. Something in your chest tugged, a quiet, strange warmth.

“I did say that,” you murmured. “Do you?”

He stilled. For a breath. Then said quietly, “Yeah.”

You nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do that.”

The apartment was cold outside the blanket nest you’d built on the couch and on the floor, but his room was warm, dim with only the soft glow of his lamp in the corner. You slipped into his bed first, still in your hoodie and sweats, pulling the covers up as he turned off the hallway light and climbed in beside you.

You didn’t even think about where to lie. You just curled toward the same place you always seemed to find: his side, just beneath his collarbone, right over his heartbeat.

His arm came around you automatically.

For a long moment, neither of you said anything.

Then he whispered into your hair, voice rough with sleep, “I’m glad you’re taking care of yourself.”

You let out a breath. “Me too.”

Another beat.

“…Also. I’m never letting you work until 3:30 again.”

You smiled into his hoodie. “I don’t really think that’s possible.”

Sunghoon didn’t answer, already asleep again. 

His breath, steady and warm, brushed over the crown of your head every few seconds in a lazy rise and fall.

After a few minutes you noticed a sound. 

Soft. Rhythmic. Not loud, but steady enough to be unmistakable.

Sunghoon was snoring.

Just lightly.

You didn’t move. Didn’t dare to.

And then – there it was again.

The faintest little snore. You stifled a smile into his hoodie.

You shifted a tiny bit, just enough to glance up at him.

His mouth was parted slightly, lashes casting soft shadows on his cheeks. He looked so different asleep. Softer. Younger, somehow.

You reached up slowly, brushed his hair off his forehead. He didn’t stir.

And then, quietly, you whispered, “Thank you.”

For the food. For the stickers. For staying up with you. For holding you like this.

The snore came again. You almost laughed.

────────────────────── At around 15 o’clock, they called his name for warm-ups, and he felt like walking toward a storm he couldn’t stop. He spent almost 5 hours in the rink at this point, watching other people skate and perform on a level that was Olympic.

Sunghoon knew.

The moment his skates hit the ice, he knew.

This wasn’t going to work.

His legs were already too tight. His lungs didn’t feel like they had room.

He ran through the motions anyway.

Went through the warm-up. 

But with every movement, he felt it tightening. His chest, his hands, the panic he’d been choking down for days.

When they called him out for his actual performance, he wasn’t even nervous anymore. Just…numb.

The music started. He pushed off.

And he fell.

Not dramatically. Just a slip, a wrong edge on a spin he could do blindfolded most days. His shoulder kissed the ice, and the sting of it went all the way to his ribs.

He got up.

He always got up.

But the rest of the routine blurred. He didn’t even know what he was doing by the end, only that he’d finished.

Bowed.

Skated off.

Not once did he look toward the seats.

Not once did he meet the eyes of his coach or the team watching from the tunnel.

He ripped off his gloves the moment the door to the rink closed behind him. Tugged at the zipper of his costume like it was suffocating him. Stormed past the lockers, past the benches, up into the viewer area.

You were sitting on a seat near the middle of the bleachers, your laptop balanced on your thighs, fingers curled gently around the stylus as you focused on the screen. Your hair was braided now.

Something about it made his throat go tight.

And then you looked up.

You didn’t ask if he was okay. You didn’t say anything right away. You just stood up and stepped in his direction.

Sunghoon didn’t even stop to think. His arms wrapped around you before any thought even formed. Tight and desperate.

He felt the first sting of tears when your hand touched the back of his neck. Your hands slid up his back and into his hair.

“I messed up,” he choked out. His throat felt like it was closing. “I knew I would. The second I stepped out. I just—”

“You looked beautiful,” you whispered, voice soft by his ear. “I’m proud of you for trying.”

His chest lurched.

“For going out there. Even if you knew.”

That broke a little sob out of him, and he buried his face in your hair.

You didn’t say ‘You never know what the judges think’ or ‘You weren’t that bad’.

You just held him.

“Thanks,” he whispered, lips brushing your hairline.

He stood there with you for a while, forehead resting against your shoulder, your hand moving slowly over the back of his costume–up, then down, and up again. 

Eventually, he stepped back. Not far. Just enough to breathe.

“Do you wanna leave?” you asked gently.

He nodded, jaw clenched. His mouth was too dry to speak.

You packed up without another word, slipping your laptop into your tote and looping your jacket over your arm. You didn’t ask if he wanted to drive. You just walked beside him back to the car, shoulders almost brushing, quiet like you understood there wasn’t anything to say.

The drive started in silence.

He didn’t turn on the radio.

You didn’t try to fill the space.

But a little ways down the highway, you cracked the window open and let the breeze in. And then you kicked off your shoes and curled your feet up on the seat, twisting to face him slightly.

“Do you want a candy? I still have to eat some to earn a kitty. I have watermelon, apple, that weird Chinese one with the rabbit from Renjun or strawberry?” you asked.

He glanced at you, brows tugged together.

You were holding out a box filled with different-sized and colored candies.

He blinked. “Weird Chinese rabbit ones? That’s… weirdly specific.”

You gave him a small shrug. “It’s sweet. I figured you might need something nice.”

He took a piece.

It helped a little. Especially when he saw that you ate three pieces. 

After a while, you shifted again.

Your voice was quieter now. “I wish I could do something. I know I can’t fix it, but…”

“You being there helped,” he said, staring at the road ahead. “A lot.”

You were quiet for a beat.

“You know, if you don’t want to be alone tonight… you could crash in my room.”

He turned his head slightly, trying to read your expression. You looked a little shy, like you weren’t sure if you were overstepping.

“It’s just… it feels better with someone there,” you added. “You said that too, right?”

His chest tightened, but not in a bad way this time.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I did.”

You nodded. Then leaned your head against the window and closed your eyes.

He didn’t know if you were actually sleeping, but he let you rest anyway. He kept his eyes on the road and didn’t say anything else.

────────────────────── Sunghoon heard the faint clatter of a pan as he stepped out of the shower, towel still clutched around his hair. He padded down the hallway barefoot, his limbs heavy from the day, and found you in the kitchen, barefoot too, stirring something in a pan.

You glanced over your shoulder when you heard him. “I’m making egg rice,” you said, voice still soft. “There were leftovers. And I put in a ridiculous amount of oil, I am sorry.”

He nodded, throat tight again. “Smells good.” You plated up the food and passed him a bowl. He didn’t realize how hungry he was until the first bite. The table was quiet, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Your foot bumped his once, then again, and instead of pulling back, you let it rest lightly against his.  Afterward, he watched you shuffle to the fridge, humming faintly as you peeled the backing off another little sticker. This one was a cat with a sleepy face. You smoothed it onto the day’s square on your meal calendar and painted a pair of ice skates next to it. Sometimes, if something special happened, you drew a small doodle next to the date. He didn’t feel like today deserved a doodle.  Sunghoon swallowed.  You smiled faintly to yourself, then turned toward him. “I’ll brush my teeth first.”

By the time he joined you in your room, the lights were low and the sheets were already pulled back. You scooted over without a word, like it was the most normal thing in the world. 

He laid down beside you, on his side, one arm tucked under the pillow.

For a while, you didn’t talk.

Then he spoke, barely more than a whisper. “I don’t know what to do now.”

You shifted slightly, not away but towards him.

He stared at the ceiling. “The Olympics... that was always the goal. Since I was a kid. Everything’s been about that. Every second I didn’t spend skating, I spent thinking about skating. And now…” His voice faltered. “Now I’m just—I don’t know who I am if I’m not trying to get there.”

He felt you look at him before you said anything.

“You know,” you said, soft and slow, “you’re still young. There are so many other things to achieve. This isn’t the end.”

He let the words settle between you, watching shadows play across the ceiling.

“There’ll be another Olympics,” you continued, “another try. And even if not… there’s always something else, right? Something new. I think–I think that’s the part no one tells you when you’re a kid. How your dreams can change.”

Sunghoon exhaled through his nose, not quite a laugh. “Yeah. They always made it sound like it’s one dream, one shot. Do or die.”

“But it’s not,” you whispered. “It doesn’t have to be.”

He turned his head to look at you, even though the room was too dark to see your face clearly. “What did you want to be? When you were a kid?”

You were quiet for a second, like the question caught you off guard. Then you chuckled softly. “Van Gogh. I used to think I’d become the next Van Gogh and travel the world to paint.”

He smiled. “That’s adorable. But I think Picasso would be more fitting for you, Y/Ncasso.”

“Shut up.” You nudged his foot under the blanket. “What about you? Always skating?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Since I was like five. I saw Yuzuru Hanyu win gold and thought he was magic. I wanted to be that.”

You shifted closer slightly, and he felt your breath against his neck.

“I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be magic,” you said. “Just… enough.”

Something about the way you said it tugged at him. He turned his body toward you now, propping his head up just a bit on his arm.

“You are,” he said.

You went quiet again. 

“Do you ever think about the future?” he asked, voice soft, unsure if you wanted to keep on talking.

You were quiet for another beat, then you hummed. “Sometimes. Not often. It feels kind of… scary.”

He nodded slowly, even though you couldn’t see it.

“I always imagined mine very clearly,” he said. “Even when I was a kid. I’d make it big in skating, maybe get to coach later. Have a place near a the olympia park. A dog, or two. A supportive wife, who loves me. Whom i love back. And maybe… a daughter. I don’t know why, but I always pictured a daughter.”

He let out a small laugh, a little embarrassed by how much he was sharing. “Someone tiny who’d sit on my shoulders and call me her favorite person.”

Your silence stretched for a little too long. He turned his head.

When you did speak, your voice was quiet. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever have that.”

Sunghoon’s chest tightened.

“Why?” he asked gently.

“I just… don’t think that’s in the cards for me. A family. Love like that.”

He wanted to say something immediately, but he waited. Let you say what you needed.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend,” you continued, not quite looking at him. “Not because I don’t want love,” you added quickly. “I do. I just… I think I’ll disappoint him."

His fingers curled slightly in the sheets.

“Sometimes I wonder,” you whispered, “if I’m just not enough.”

The words knocked the air out of him.

He sat up a little, his voice low but fierce. “Don’t say that.”

You blinked, surprised at the sudden shift in his tone.

“You are,” he said. “You’re more than enough.”

You looked away, eyes shining faintly in the darkness.

“I don’t want to be someone’s burden. When I relapse. When I can’t eat again or when I start hating myself again. I don’t want anyone to have to deal with that.”

Sunghoon felt the breath catch in his throat. His fingers flexed slightly against the sheets.

“Don’t say that,” he said, gently but firmly. “You’re not a burden.”

You let out a shaky breath. “But I could be.”

“No,” he said again. “You could have bad days. Weeks. That’s not the same thing.”

You didn’t answer.

Sunghoon pushed up a little more, his face now just inches from yours, even in the dark.

“If someone really loves you… he’ll stay. He’ll help you when things get hard. Especially when things get hard.”

He reached for your hand without thinking. 

“I don’t want to ruin someone’s life,” you whispered.

“You won’t.” His voice cracked slightly. “You’ll be part of it. And the right person will be lucky to have you in it.”

You let out a shaky breath, squeezing his fingers just once.

“You say that so easily.”

“I say it because it’s true.”

You didn’t speak after that. You just shifted closer, close enough that your foreheads nearly touched, close enough that he could feel the way your fingers curled slightly toward his.

He stayed awake for a while after that, listening to your breathing. Thinking about love. About disappointment. About the way you looked at him today like he hadn’t failed.

────────────────────── You saw the light pour through the tall windows of the studio, casting soft, slanted shadows across your desk. Someone’s model fell with a quiet clatter in the background. 

You saw your hands working, but your thoughts were still with Sunghoon.

It has been a few days since the tryouts. Sunghoon and you had been sleeping either in your or in his bed. Just to comfort each other. 

The step up in calories was hard. The bigger portions made your stomach upset, no matter what you ate and he was feeling a bit down. He didn’t go to the rink, instead coming home or to the studio, when you stayed longer. He and Renjun were getting along really well. 

You had to think about the softness in his voice when he talked about the future – about his daughter, his dogs, his house. The way he had said  he wanted a wife who he could love and who loved him like it was a given he would find someone like that. Like someone could love him so honestly, and he’d love them back just as deeply. You really believed that he would find such a girl. He deserved to be loved. Deeply. 

You remembered the way his fingers had curled around yours under the blanket.

You’re more than enough.

You saw the way he looked at you when he said it. Like he meant it.

You thought about how he stayed, even when it got bad.

You thought about how he asked if you’d eaten.

How he quietly cooked two portions when you hadn’t. How he let you talk when you needed to, and sat beside you when you couldn’t find the words.

Wasn’t that… what love was supposed to look like?

You didn’t know. You weren’t sure you ever would.

But if you ever let someone love you–really love you–you hoped Sunghoon was right. That they’d stay. That they’d hold on through the bad days. That you wouldn’t just become some slow-motion heartbreak in someone else's story.

Because right now… it almost felt like he was already doing it. Loving you in all the ways you didn’t know how to ask for, that you didn’t know how to give back.

And that thought made it hard to breathe in the best, scariest kind of way.

Your professor’s voice cut through the air.

“I hate to do this,” he said, and you already knew it was going to be bad, “but due to scheduling conflicts, the deadline for your final submissions has been moved up.”

You blinked.

“To next week.”

A collective groan spread across the room.. Someone cursed.

You looked around. Every table was covered in half-finished foam models, scattered tools, and messy sketches, yours included. No one was ready. Not really.

Your heart dropped, just a little.

You saw your own model–barely halfway there. The pieces didn’t fit right yet. Some parts still needed refining, carving, painting.

It wasn’t impossible. Not quite. You could stay all weekend. Pull a few all-nighters. If you mapped it out just right, you might be able to pull it off. You would have to bring your stuff back to your apartment, take over the kitchen for a few days. 

Your stomach sank anyway.

Because now you’d be tired. Because now dinner would be rushed. Because now the quiet bubble of comfort you’d made with Sunghoon would pop, even if just for a while.

You exhaled through your nose and refocused your attention. Grabbed your pencil. Sketched out the next adjustment.

You could still do this.

Sunghoon was making curry tonight.

You’d get your stupid kitty sticker and then draw a sad smiley next to it. 

────────────────────── Sunghoon saw you before he even heard the door shut.

You came in looking like a zombie. Bags digging into your shoulders, a roll of foam sticking out under one arm, your jacket halfway falling off, and your model clutched precariously in your hand. 

The look on your face said enough. 

He column’t remember seeing you like this, ever. He has seen many different facial expressions on you but he has never seen this one. Your mouth was tight and there was a crease in between your eyes. 

He stepped away from the stove. “Hey- wait, I’ll help- ”

“It’s okay,” you said, breathless, dropping your things by the shoe rack and then pressing a hand to your forehead. “My deadline’s been moved up. Again. A week earlier.”

He blinked. “Oh, shit.”

“Yup.” You weren’t even angry about it. Just exhausted. You gave him a fleeting smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes. “I’ll be out in a sec, just need to… change into not jeans. Or something.”

Then you disappeared into your room.

Sunghoon finished setting the table. Curry, rice, the salad you liked lately. Two bowls. Two glasses of water. The usual. He waited a few minutes. Then a few more.

You didn’t come out.

He stood up and made his way to your door, the polaroid of you with your name under it mirroring the one of him on his door. He knocked, gently. “Y/N? Food’s ready.”

You opened the door a minute later with the same drawn expression, hair tied up in a messy knot. You slid into your chair across from him and mumbled a quiet “thanks.”

But you didn’t eat.

Sunghoon watched you poke at the rice. Push the curry around. You were quiet so he started talking and told you about how Jay and Heeseung were invited to a gala for the new recruits of their teams and how they were panicking today. You barely reacted and only chuckled.

When he stood to clear the dishes, you looked up.

“Oh,” you murmured. “I’m so sorry- would you mind cleaning? I swear I’ll do it next week, I just-” You gestured vaguely toward your room, then vanished again before he could even nod.

Sunghoon blinked. “Okay…?”

He collected the bowls. Yours was still full.

His eyes flicked to the calendar. 

No sticker. 

You didn’t get out the sheet with the kitten and glued one onto it.

That was the first night in over two weeks there wasn’t one.

You didn’t eat. Not really. 

You also didn’t stop to get a snack from the fridge either. Usually you would eat a yogurt with berries after dinner. Not immediately after but you did prepare it immediately after. 

He washed up slowly, trying not to overthink it. But failed to do so. A part of him told himself you were tired. That it was just one night. But another part reminded him of the way your voice sounded when you were trying not to worry him.

Just tired.

That’s what you always said when you didn’t feel like eating before.

Hours passed. He showered. Got the laundry and folded his clothes. Worked on one of his essays. Brushed his teeth. 

At 11:42 p.m., he knocked on your door again holding a bowl with yogurt and mangos, voice muffled slightly through the wood.

“Y/N? Do you want a joghurt?”

No answer for a second. Then, softly, “Not really. Thank you though.”

He opened the door anyway.

You were sitting cross-legged in front of your bed on the floor, the model in front. In your right hand was a cutter and the other hand was holding a ruler, but they weren’t moving. They were just floating a few centimeters over the styrofoam. 

He walked over without a word and sat next to you. Your shoulder brushed his and you relaxed a bit. Letting your hands rest in your lap and looking at the small bowl Sunghoon was holding.

Then your head rested on his shoulder.

“I’m fine,” you said eventually. But your voice cracked a little at the end. “Just tired.”

Sunghoon nodded. 

Then he leaned closer and spoke gently. “Let’s eat something, mhm?”

You didn’t answer.

So he pulled you up.

Your hand slid into his. He held it without needing to say anything else.

He sat you down at the table, went to the fridge, and reheated a bowl of curry and rice in the microwave. It was a smaller portion that you were supposed to eat, but he figured you probably couldn’t really eat much. So he made sure there was at least something in your stomach. When he set the bowl and spoon in front of you, you glanced at it with tired eyes, then picked up the spoon.

You didn’t say anything. Just started eating slowly.

When you were halfway through the bowl, he asked, just as softly as before:

“Do you think you earned a kitty today?”

You paused mid-bite. The spoon hovered for a moment before you set it down gently. You didn’t look at him. You just shook your head once, small and quiet.

His chest tightened. It hurt to see you like this. 

You weren’t crying but you looked so upset.

But you were eating. Slowly. And he could work with that.

He just nodded his head a little and sat with you while you finished your bowl. 

Afterward, you helped rinse the plate. Even dried it. And then you returned to your room after muttering a “Thank you Sunghoon.”

He just smiled and watched you retreat into your room. Only to follow you a few seconds later. By the time he reached your door you were already sitting on the floor again. Sunghoon walked over quietly and crouched down beside you. His eyes scanned the mess of paper, foam board, tape, notes scribbled in pencil. Then he looked at you. 

“I’ll help you,” he said.

He grabbed the extra cutting board from the shelf under your table and started slicing the leftover foam you hadn’t touched yet into 1,3 cm thick stripes, like you told him. Sometimes you asked him to hold down corners for you when they curled up. 

By the time the clock on his phone read 3:47 AM, your hands had slowed down significantly.

The model looked more like a fancy opera now. 

He glanced at you.

You were blinking slowly, mouth slightly parted in a yawn.

“You should sleep,” he said softly.

You didn’t argue this time. “I should.”

He stood, offering his hand. You took it. Wobbled a little on your feet.

“Let’s sleep in my bed,” he hummed.

You mumbled something like “okay” and shuffled into the bathroom.

Sunghoon turned off the lights, checked the stove, and brushed the foam dust from his sweatpants. 

When he reached his room he stood in the doorway for a moment, taking in the sight of you curled into his bed, on what has become your side. 

It looked like you’d been here for hours, even though it had only been minutes. The quietness in the room, the soft rhythm of your breath under the covers, made his chest feel tight again. Not from worry this time, but from something much warmer. 

He closed the door quietly behind him and tiptoed over to the bed. He didn’t want to wake you in case you fell asleep in the three minutes you were lying in his bed.

Sunghoon slowly climbed into the bed, sliding under the covers and shifting closer to you. 

Then, before he could stop himself, he reached out, gently brushing a lock of hair from your face. You barely stirred, but a tiny little sigh slipped from your lips, and he smiled to himself.

“You good?” he whispered, careful not to startle you.

You mumbled something incoherent but soft, and adjusted your head to put it onto his chest.

Sunghoon chuckled quietly, not knowing what to say next. So, he just snuggled into his pillow.

────────────────────── You blinked awake slowly, the dull gray light of morning filtering through the blinds in Sunghoons room. Usually sleeping in the same bed as Sunghoon meant that you were sweating in the morning, but today you were feeling a bit cold. Your hand reached across the bed where Sunghoon should have been instinctively.

His side of the bed was no longer warm. You hand brushed over the soft duvet cover. 

It was strange, wasn’t it?

Feeling that someone was missing after waking up alone was not a thing you usually did. 

You know people complain about it, when their lovers slip out of the bed too early, leaving them alone in their shared bed. 

But Sunghoon wasn’t your lover. 

So why did it feel like that?

You sat up slowly, brushing hair from your face, the blanket slipped down your shoulders. It wasn’t like he disappeared. He was probably brushing his teeth or something. You dragged yourself out of bed, bare feet padding lightly against the floor.

The moment you cracked open your door, you were engulfed in a sweet smell. And a slightly burned smell.

You frowned, blinking toward the hallway, and then made your way into the kitchen.

Sunghoon was standing in front of the stove. His hair was standing up in different directions, the bleach damaged it enough to not fall softly unless he used the right hair care products. 

He was holding up a spatula and his phone at the same time, frowning at something on his phone. 

You leaned against the doorframe to the connected kitchen and living room, eyes flickering over the kitchen.

Your model was laying on the kitchen table. All of the tools and scraps and papers that were spread around on the floor in your room had been organized neatly on the table. Your laptop was charging on the kitchen island. Your pens lined up in a little row.

“Good morning Sunghoon”, you greeted him, your voice still rough from disuse.

You couldn’t stop the small smile that tugged at your lips when he turned around and you noticed the apron he had hanging around his front. He looked cute.

He turned around, startled, and blinked. “ Y/N. Morning.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Are you making pancakes?”

“They were supposed to be,” he said, flipping one that was definitely more black than brown. “You didn’t eat enough yesterday. So I’m bribing you.”

You walked forward, your feet freezing when you reached the tiled kitchen floor. “Bribing me with... questionable pancakes?”

“They’re not questionable,” he said. “They’re just... well-loved by the stove.”

You laughed softly and slipped into a chair at the table. The sight of your model, a little lopsided now that you weren’t looking at it in sleep-deprived haze, made your chest ache a bit again.

“Thank you Sunghoon.”, you said after a beat of silence. “For everything. I don’t know how I could ever repay you for everything you are doing.” 

He turned around, a soft smile adorning his lips. Your chest flustered a bit at the sight. “Always, Y/N. If you ever need help I’ll always be there to help. No matter if its slightly burned pancakes or your weird opera thing we are building together.”

Your eyes stung a bit and you had to break eye contact with him to not start crying.

He turned back around and cleared his voice slightly. “The others are coming over later. They want to help.” 

Your head lifted, a frown already forming between your brows. “Help? With the opera?”

He glanced over from the stove, eyebrows raised like he knew this reaction was coming. “Yeah.”

You blinked at him. “But… why? I didn’t–.”

Sunghoon flipped a pancake gently. “You don’t have to. They just want to do something. Jay, Jake, Heeseung… they all felt a little responsible. About the party. And everything after.”

You were quiet for a long moment. 

Somehow you felt touched. Really touched, in a way that made your throat tighten. And also a little ashamed.

How did you manage to be a burden to someone you barely knew. Why would they worry about you? Yes they invited you, but it wasn’t their fault it escalated like that. So why were they feeling bad about it. 

“I didn’t mean to make anyone worry,” you said softly.

Sunghoon turned again, his hands still holding the spatula. “I know you didn’t. But it’s okay if people care about you anyway.”

You looked away quickly, chest tight. “That doesn’t mean they should have to fix anything. Or help. I was just… not okay for a while. It’s not their problem.”

“They’re not trying to fix anything,” he said gently. “They just want to help now. In any way they can. If that means spending the afternoon cutting foam and toothpicks, that’s what they’ll do. Also—” he turned back to the stove with a quiet laugh, “—they think you’re cute.”

Your breath caught. “What?”

He hummed. “I quote: Sunghoon your roommate is so cute, I swear i want to put her in my pocket. Quote end.”

You couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at your lips, even if your face was burning. “Oh my god, who said that?”

Sunghoon just grinned and plated the last pancake. “Jake. He said you were so cute when we went to the nationals. You felt so bad for everyone that just looked minimalistically sad after getting off the ice. He wanted to pet your head.”

“Oh my god.”, you buried your face in your hands.

He placed the plate between you both on the kitchen counter, grabbing the Nutella with one hand and a butter knife with the other. “Sorry they’re not perfect,” he murmured. “Kind of questionable in terms of color.”

You stood up and walked over to the counter, a soft smile playing on your lips. “They’re not questionable. They’re just… well-loved by the stove.”

That earned you a quiet laugh, low and warm. He drizzled more Nutella on top, spreading it with way more care than necessary. “Alright. Chocolate makes everything better. Maybe we won’t taste the love too much with the Nutella on top.”

You picked up your fork, the two of you standing shoulder to shoulder. The pancakes were a little uneven, a bit too crisp at the edges.

Sunghoon didn’t say anything when you slowed down halfway through. He just offered you another bite every now and then, and when you accepted, he smiled without a word.

“I really mean it,” you whispered after a while, when the plate was nearly empty. “Thank you, Sunghoon.”

He looked at you for a long moment, his expression soft and unreadable. Then he said, quietly, “You don’t have to thank me. Just… let me stay. Let me help.”

Your eyes stung again. You glanced toward your model on the table and back to your plate. 

You didn’t know why he did all of this for you. You didn’t think you deserved it.

But it made your chest ache in the kindest way.

────────────────────── You and Sunghoon sat shoulder to shoulder at the table half an hour later. He passed you a glue stick without needing to be asked, and you handed him the little foam piece he’d marked earlier.

You were listening to a podcast, the only sound in the kitchen being the hosts voices and sounds of paper being cut. There were flecks of foam on his sleeve and your hair. Your knees bumped under the table more than once. 

You were just finishing the reinforcements on the roof when Sunghoon finished assembling the first tiny tree for your landscaping section. He looked more proud of it than he had of his last competition medal at the nationals.

“That’s actually so cute,” you murmured, leaning over to inspect it.

“Thank you,” he said, and you could hear the smile in his voice. “I'm naming it Gerald.”

You snorted. “Gerald looks very sturdy.”

Just as you repositioned the front wall, the doorbell rang.

You straightened, wiping your fingers on your pajama pants and giving Sunghoon a quick glance.

“That’s them,” he said, already heading to the door.

A moment later, you heard the greet Sunghoon and Jake walked into the kitchen holding up a tray of drinks from the cafe on the campus and a bag of baked goods. “Y/N! Good morning! We bought coffee and tea and those weird cookie croissants! ”

You stood a little awkwardly in the kitchen, unsure what to say. 

“Hi,” you said quietly, wringing your hands together. “Um… thank you for coming and the food. You really didn’t have to. I… I’m really sorry if—”

Jay cut you off with a wave of his hand, already moving toward the table where your model was set up. “Don’t apologize. We are here because we want to be..”

“Yeah,” Heeseung added, grinning as he peeked at the foam trees Sunghoon had started earlier. “This is fun. It’s like arts and crafts.”

Jay slung his hoodie over a chair and raised an eyebrow at you. “So. Where do we start?”

You stared at them for a second, something soft and confused blooming in your chest.

Sunghoon brushed past you, placing a gentle hand on your back as he nudged you back to your chair in front of the model. “We’ll show you. I can make banger trees but I need like 20 more and someone has to help me do that.”

“Hell yeah. Let’s go.”, Jake said and dropped into the chair next to you.

You swallowed down the lump in your throat and nodded, pulling out the extra materials you’d prepared earlier. “Okay. Um—Jay, can you help with the glueing? It’s a bit tricky, you have to hold the pieces for a few seconds until they set. You spray this stuff on, to like kinda immediately harden the glue. Someone has to cut the foil? I don’t know if i want to use it yet tho, we will have to try around a bit and-”

They listened to your explanations with surprising focus. Sunghoon switched the background noise from your true crime podcast you'd both barely been listening to, to a soft, upbeat playlist.

They started talking about something trivial but after a few minutes someone started complaining about the last match they played and they have been explaining the rules of ice hockey to you for the last fifteen minutes. 

“So basically you can crash into someone just because you feel like it and it’s okay?”, you asked, handing Sunghoon another strip of foam to hold up. 

Jake grinned. “Yeah. Sometimes. You should have seen Soobin. He was our captain until he graduated last semester and one of the best defense players we ever had.”

“Oh. That’s crazy.”, you said, nodding at the way the edge you and Sunghoon had just glued together. 

“Yeah. Crazy if you want to have a fifty-fifty chance to get a concussion each time you go onto the ice.”, Sunghoon huffed. 

“Sunghoon, I’m just saying,” Jake was saying as he carefully pressed together two model walls, “if you ever joined a hockey game, you’d cry the second someone shoved you.”

“I’ve literally skated through a concussion before,” Sunghoon replied, unfazed. “Try doing triple jumps with whiplash.”

“Triple jumps,” Jay snorted. “That’s just jumping in the same spot but fancier.”

You looked up from the hot glue gun. “I do think figure skating is harder? I mean if all you do is try not to die because someone slams you into a wall?”

Sunghoon smirked quietly. 

Jake gasped like you’d betrayed them. “Y/N! We do more than a figure skater. I might not be able to touch my toes but I must let you know that we have to strategize and you know work as a team and react as a team. Quickly.” 

“I still think ice skating is more impressive. It looks very elegant.”, you hummed.

Jay chuckled. “I think we look very graceful in our uniforms. At least we don’t have to wear glitter while skating, right Elsa.”

“Fuck off Jay,” Sunghoon muttered.

“I’m ruggedly graceful and elegant,” Jake said.

You giggled, caught between amusement and slight awe. “So… do you guys always argue about which is better?”

“Absolutely,” Heeseung said, handing you a fresh strip of cut foam. 

“It’s not a competition,” Sunghoon said under his breath. “Not one they’d win anyway.”

“Oh my god,” Jay sighed.

Heeseung looked at you. “You could come to a match if you wanted to.”

You raised a brow. “And then what? Watch you get pushed around and then decide if I enjoy ice hockey or ice skating more?”

They all looked at each other like that was exactly the idea.

“If Sunghoon goes to the next one, I'll come along,” you said, quieter now.

You felt Sunghoon glance over at you, his fingers stilling for a second on the model.

“I really don't want to go alone,” you added, more softly this time.

He didn’t say anything for a moment. But when you turned to look at him, he was already watching you, eyes gentle, mouth tipped upward just enough to make your heart flutter.

“Okay,” he said, that same warmth in his voice he always got when talking just to you. “I’ll take you.”

────────────────────── An hour later Jay was standing in the kitchen chopping onions. He decided to cook steak and potatoes for the four of you, apparently craving it enough to spend half a fortune on meat. After a while the kitchen started to smell intensely like food. 

It didn’t smell bad,  but somehow your stomach was tightening up a bit at the smell. 

You glanced at the stove. 

“Jay?” you called gently.

He looked over immediately, knife still in hand.

“I think my stomach’s gonna hate me if I eat that much red meat,” you admitted, a little unsure. “I haven’t really had a lot of it lately.”

He blinked once, then shrugged. “Alright. Yours’ll be dry, no blood, as unred as possible. Would you like more potatoes instead?”

You stared at him for a second. “...Yeah. That’d be great. Thank you.”

“Gotchu,” he said simply, already turning back to the pan.

You sat back, feeling weirdly relieved. Just… okay, more potatoes it is.

Heeseung had taken over tree production by now and was giving each one increasingly ridiculous names, while Jake and Sunghoon were helping you with the decorative beams along the walls of the building. 

──────────────────────

When the other three left your apartment late in the afternoon your model was almost done. It was almost perfect and you had just a few things on your to do list to finish up. Which meant you could dedicate Sunday and Monday to drawing and working out the details. And get a healthy amount of sleep.  

The door clicked shut behind Heeseung, and the sudden quiet that followed felt strange. 

Sunghoon stretched and groaned when his back made a rather satisfying cracking 

You heard him plop down onto the sofa and turned around to a rather funny view. 

He had let himself drop over the backrest, one of his long legs was hooked over the backrest, along with one of his arms. The other arm was resting over his eyes and he groaned again: “Y/N I don’t get how you do this. My fingers hurt and my back feels like I sat for 80 years instead of 8 hours.” 

You laughed slightly. “I try to not work 8 hours in a row unusually but desperate situations demand drastic measures.” 

You hesitated for a second but stepped in front of the sofa. “I think I'm going to make a snack or something. You can nap and I’ll wake you when it’s done if you’d like?” Sunghoon just hummed and nodded.

So you padded slowly and quietly into the kitchen, rolling your shoulders out with a satisfying crack of your own before pulling open the fridge. There were still a few cherry tomatoes left, a cucumber, some bell pepper slices in a container from the day before, and the rest of the cream cheese dip Sunghoon liked. That would do.

You arranged it all with more care than you meant to, piling the sliced vegetables and a bit of fruit on a small plate and spooning a generous portion of the dip into a small bowl. When you were done, you stood in front of the calendar hanging on the fridge and carefully peeled one of the glossy cat stickers from the sheet. It was a grey tabby this time, curled up asleep. You pressed it down next to the date with a quiet smile.

You’d eaten today.

You’d eaten well today.

The steak had gone down with barely a protest from your stomach and stayed down. You weren’t quite sure how that had happened, but it had.

So you deserved your little cat sticker.

Sunghoon was still in the same ridiculous position when you came back. His mouth slightly open and he was snoring slightly. Completely wiped out from cutting and glueing some cardboard.

You didn’t want to wake him. So you set the plate carefully on the table in front of the sofa and sat cross-legged on the floor, your back resting against the bottom cushion. Your phone buzzed with a message from Johnny asking you how you were doing. You send him a selfie of you holding up a piece of bell pepper and sunghoons sleeping from behind you, telling him you had steak today. He replied with a selfie of Dukoo laying on his chest and Taeyong sleeping on his shoulder, his mouth wide open. You snickered quietly.

After a while you were bored by your phone, so you got up to get the book you were currently reading and your headphones from your room.

You were halfway through a chapter when fingers brushed through your hair. So light, so gentle, you almost thought you imagined it.

But then it happened again.

You turned your head slightly and looked up.

Sunghoon’s eyes had blinked open, still a little hazy with sleep. His hand was still resting lightly on the back of your head, tangled just barely in your hair, and when your eyes met, he didn’t pull it away.

He just gave you a tiny, sleepy smile and petted your hair again. 

A strand had come loose from your braid and he twirled it between his fingers.

You swallowed slowly, heart thudding louder than you liked. “You’re awake,” you said, barely a whisper.

He hummed, low in his chest, and his hand slipped a little lower, brushing behind your ear. “I felt you leave,” he murmured.

You didn’t move, fearing that he would stop playing with your hair if you did. 

“Did you eat?” he asked softly, finally glancing at the plate in front of you.

You nodded. “Yeah. Just-just vegetables and fruit.”

His eyes flicked back to you. “Enough so you could put a kitty on the calendar?”

You nodded again, slower this time. “Yeah.”

He sat up a bit more, leaning forward slightly so his knees nudged your back. His voice was even softer now. “I’m so proud of you.”

You turned toward him at that, just enough to see him clearly. He looked so warm, hoodie slightly bunched at the collar, hair tousled from sleep. 

You swallowed and whispered a quiet “Thank you, Sunghoon.”

He leaned back and closed his eyes again so you went back to reading.

You didn’t hear him sit up behind you.

But you felt it when the warmth of his body shifted closer. The sofa cushion gave in under his weight as he slid down to sit beside you on the floor.

Your breath caught, just for a second, when your shoulder touched his.

He reached for the remote and a second later, the TV lit up the room in a soft blue glow. He switched channels to find KBS.

You glanced up. Sunghoon was lazily chewing a piece of carrot, reaching for another from the small plate you’d left on the table. Without looking at you, he nudged it a little closer to your side, silently offering.

You shook your head, a small smile playing at your lips.

Sunghoon leaned back, propping one arm up behind him on the couch. And after a moment of hesitation you let yourself lean too. Your head found his shoulder, slow and soft, the way it always did now. His hoodie was warm, soft beneath your cheek, and smelled faintly like his perfume.

He didn’t move.

The low sound of the show played on. A laugh track. A bit of dialogue. But neither of you laughed. Neither of you spoke.

You felt him breathe.

You listened to the rhythm of it, right beneath your cheek.

The two of you stayed like that for a while.

He shifted slightly, just barley. His head moved a bit and his temple brushed against your hair, his breath ghosting across your skin. You tilted your head instinctively, and suddenly you were looking at him.

He was already looking at you.

Your breath stuttered.

You froze.

You looked at his mouth before you could stop yourself.

Then back to his eyes.

And again.

Your chest pulled tight.

His lips were parted slightly.

He didn’t look away when your gaze wandered back to his eyes.

You couldn’t stop the flicker of panic that swelled in your chest.

You turned your head slightly, just slightly, without really thinking about it. Your nose grazed his cheek.

And then he turned his head too. Slowly. Gently. His temple brushing yours as he moved.

Your foreheads touched.

You didn’t even realize you were holding your breath.

You closed your eyes.

Just for a moment.

Trying to slow the pounding of your heart.

His fingers grazed your knee, just barely. You wanted to say something, to move, to...kiss him.

But your whole body locked up with nerves and want and a fear you couldn’t name.

So you didn’t.

You sat there.

Still.

Almost.

And then, after one long heartbeat, he leaned back the tiniest bit. Just enough for the space between you to widen again.

You opened your eyes.

He didn’t speak.

Neither did you.

──────────────────────

After the episode ended Sunghoon stood up, slow and silent, his fingers brushing the blanket beside you. You stayed still, heart still racing in your chest. 

“Should we...” he didn’t finish the sentence, but you knew what he meant. You nodded, your body slow to follow.

The quiet buzz of the TV filled the space between you as you both moved, soft-footed and wordless. He picked up the now-empty plate from the table. You turned off the lamp.

In the bathroom, you stood shoulder to shoulder while brushing your teeth. His elbow bumped yours lightly once, and you bumped him back, the corner of your lips curling around the toothbrush. You caught his eye in the mirror. He was winking at you.

His white hair almost reflected the harsh bathroom light, as it  softly fell over his eyes. The whole scene felt so domestic your heart was aching. 

You finished first. You washed your face and used the ridiculous amount of skin care products Sunoo insisted made your skin better. He gave you a lot of the stuff that didn't work for him and you were just accepting the free skincare.  

You lingered in the hallway for a second too long after brushing your teeth. The light behind you still hummed softly from the bathroom, casting your shadow long and thin across the floor. You expected Sunghoon to disappear into his room with a soft goodnight.

But he didn’t.

He paused in his doorway, hand resting lightly on the frame. Then he looked at you,not directly. His tired eyes flicked toward you. And then, with barely a movement, he tilted his head. A silent question without words.

You didn’t answer with words either.

You just followed.

Your steps were quiet as you crossed the space, the air between you charged in that gentle, quiet way. You slipped into his room, your hoodie sleeves tugged down over your hands. He let the door close behind you.

The room smelled distinctly like him.

He crawled into his bed, pulling the blanket back slowly as if giving you a moment to change your mind. But you didn’t. You slid in beside him, your shoulder brushing his briefly before you turned onto your side, facing the wall. 

You couldn’t handle sleeping on his chest today. Somehow the thought alone made your heart race. 

It shouldn’t. 

This was so wrong. 

Sunghoon was your roommate. 

During the episode of running man you had enough time to conclude that the racing of your heart and the desire to make him, especially him, proud was based on a crush. A very inappropriate crush on your very nice and hot and caring and sweet and attractive roommate.

A few seconds later, you felt the mattress shift behind you. He carefully adjusted behind you. Not touching you, but being close enough you felt the heat of his body though your hoodie.  

A quiet part of you ached just a little when he didn’t wrap himself around you, like he sometimes did on the sofa.

──────────────────────

You lay there for what felt like hours, eyes open in the quiet dark, watching the way the dim hallway light pooled faintly across the ceiling.

Sleep wouldn't come.

Your thoughts were running wild and you didn’t know what to do.

So you rolled over.

Carefully. Slowly.

You didn’t even fully realize what you were doing until you were halfway into the movement, your hand lightly brushing the comforter between you.

He didn’t move.

So you went further, tucking your head gently onto his shoulder, hoping he wouldn’t wake up.

Still nothing.

Just the quiet sound of his breathing. And then, after a beat–his arm moved.

Not abruptly. But his hand came up in a slow, sleepy motion and started tracing a soft pattern against your back.

Your chest felt too tight for this much softness.

"Were you asleep?" you whispered.

He made a small noise, somewhere between a hum and a sigh. "I was," he murmured. "But this is better."

You stayed quiet, listening to the rhythm of his breath and the way his fingers still traced your back, up and down, in lazy, tender lines.

After a long moment, he spoke again.

“I’m so glad I moved.”

Your throat tightened. You blinked at the ceiling.

“I’m glad you're here too,” you whispered. “But…”

You paused, already regretting saying anything. But you couldn’t stop. 

“But it must be kind of awful, right? Having to take care of me like this? We didn’t even know each other. I probably made everything way harder.”

His fingers stilled just for a second.

Then he exhaled, hand moving again. Slowly this time, his palm almost resting between your shoulder blades.

“Y/N,” he said, like he was saying your name to soothe you. “It’s not like that.”

You didn’t reply. 

You weren’t sure you could.

“I know it feels like you’re a burden sometimes,” he went on gently, “but I promise you-you're not. Not to me.”

You stared at the vague outline of his neck, blinking quickly. “I just… I don’t want to be someone people have to carry. I want to be someone people want around.”

He was quiet for a beat. You thought maybe he didn’t know how to respond.

But then his hand stopped moving entirely and slid around your back, anchoring you closer, just a little. Not too much. Just enough that your forehead nearly brushed his collarbone.

“I don’t feel like I’m carrying you,” he said. 

Your heart thudded so loudly you were sure he could feel it.

“I like being here,” he said. “I like helping with the model, and grocery shopping, and seeing you put stickers on the calendar. I like listening when you rant about your professor or whisper that you're tired. I like it when you fall asleep on the sofa next to me.”

His voice was steadier now, but still low. 

“I like it,” he said, “because it’s you.”

You blinked hard.

Your throat burned.

“But I haven’t even done anything for you,” you murmured. “Not really.”

He made a soft sound at that. “You really think that?”

You nodded a little. His shirt brushed your cheek. “I feel like I’m just… needing all the time. And you just give.”

“That’s not true,” he said firmly. “You’ve done more for me than you know.”

Your brows pulled together before you could stop them. “Like what?”

There was a pause. Not silence, not really, but a moment held so carefully you didn’t dare breathe.

“You made this place feel like home,” he said finally. “You make me laugh when I’ve had a bad day. You believe in me when I don’t believe in myself.”

The lump in your throat nearly doubled in size.

You couldn’t speak.

So you just… leaned in.

Laid your forehead against his chest, eyes burning, heart twisting.

He didn’t say anything after that. Neither did you.

But his arms pulled you in slowly. Gently.

You weren’t sure how long you laid there, folded into the warmth of him, listening to his heartbeat and the way his breathing slowed. You could feel his hand resting lightly against your back, not moving anymore. Just there. Steady.

You should’ve tried to sleep. You should’ve just closed your eyes.

But instead, you felt your mouth part. 

“Sunghoon?” you whispered, barely audible.

His chest shifted with a breath. “Yeah?”

Your hand curled against the fabric of his shirt. “Can…can I kiss you?”

You weren’t looking at him. You couldn’t.

He was silent. Even his breathing had stopped. 

You instantly regretted asking.

You’d never kissed anyone. You didn't know how to do so. Asking was the most logical thing to your head. 

You could feel your whole body tense. “I’m sorry, I just—forget it, I don’t—”

He let out the softest sound. A breath that sounded like laughter, barely there, like he couldn’t believe what you’d just asked–but not in a mocking way. In a stunned, almost reverent kind of way.

Then he shifted.

You felt his hand move. He brushed your hair back, careful and slow. His fingers tucked the strands behind your ear, and his palm settled gently against your cheek.

When you finally looked up, he was already watching you.

Eyes soft. 

Warm. 

The corners crinkled in that way they always did when he smiled without really smiling.

His thumb brushed the curve of your cheekbone. “Yes,” he whispered. “Please.”

Your breath caught.

For a second, you forgot how to move.

And then, slowly and carefully, you leaned in.

You weren’t sure where to put your hands. Or how close you should get. Your heart felt like it might combust from the pressure alone. You tilted your head, eyes flicking to his lips and back to his eyes, over and over, waiting for some final confirmation.

And then, your lips touched.

It was soft.

Softer than you ever imagined it could be.

There were no fireworks in your chest. You didn’t feel any butterflies. Just warmth. Gentle warmth. The steady beat of your heart slowing for the first time all week. 

His lips moved slowly against yours, careful. Guiding, but not pushing. Letting you take the lead, letting you pull away whenever.

When you finally did, it was only by a few centimeters, and you stayed there. Your foreheads almost touching, your hand still pressed to his chest, his softly caressing your face.

Your cheeks were glowing. Your lips tingled. You couldn’t look at him.

“I didn’t… know it would feel like that,” you murmured, more to yourself than to him.

His voice was barely above a whisper. “Like what?”

You blinked, breathing softly. “Good? Right?”

And when he smiled this time, you could hear it in his voice.

“Yeah,” he said, thumb tracing the edge of your jaw. “Right.”

His forehead rested against yours, noses brushing.

You weren’t sure how long you stayed like that. Breathing the same small pocket of air. His thumb brushed once over your cheekbone, then again, as if he couldn’t believe that you were here. That you had kissed him.

That you had wanted to.

And you had. Still did.

Your fingers flexed slightly in the fabric of his shirt. He shifted, just barely.

He pulled back only enough to look at you again.

Your face flushed under the weight of his gaze, but you didn’t turn away this time. You let him look. Let yourself be seen. Your chest ached in that strange, unfamiliar way—half-sweet, half-scary. The way it always does when something is too good and you’re not sure if you’re allowed to keep it.

But he just smiled.

So softly it made your breath catch.

And then, he leaned in again.

Slower this time.

His lips brushed yours so lightly.

You kissed him back.

His lips were soft and tasted like the mint toothpaste he used earlier.

When he pulled away this time, he stayed close.

His nose brushed yours. Your breath mingled. He whispered, barely audible, “I really like you.”

You didn’t say anything.

You didn’t know what to say.

Your hand slid up, fingers resting over his heart. You felt it beating, fast and steady beneath your palm. 

You must’ve dozed off like that.

Curled into his chest, legs tangled gently under the covers, the heat of his skin lulling you deeper into calm with every slow breath.

When you stirred again, it was because he shifted a little, barely more than a sigh against your hair.

“Still awake?” His voice was quiet, hoarse with sleep.

You nodded against him. “Mmhm.”

He pulled you in a little closer, resting his chin carefully against the top of your head. “You’re warm,” he mumbled.

Your smile was tiny. “You’re comfy.”

A pause. Then, “You drool.”

You shoved at his chest with a muffled groan, and he let out a quiet laugh that vibrated through you.

“I do not,” you whispered indignantly.

“You do,” he whispered back, grinning. “But it’s okay. I’ve decided I’ll allow it.”

You went quiet again, pressing your nose into his hoodie and breathing him in. You wanted to say something–to tell him how unreal this felt, how scared you still were, how good it felt too. But the words got stuck somewhere behind your ribs.

Instead, your fingers curled against his side, and you whispered, “Thank you.”

He didn’t ask what for.

He just held you tighter.

Somewhere between his warmth and the comfort of the quiet, you felt your chest ease. 

He kissed your forehead a moment later and you just…melted a little. 

You would let yourself have this. Just this one perfect thing. 

This time, you were the one to whisper first. Just barely audible:

“I like you too.”

His hand stilled where it had been gently tracing over your spine. And then, he whispered, just above your ear:

“I know.”

You smiled again. 

This time, when your eyes closed, you didn’t fight it.

──────────────────────

Sunghoon woke up first, the quiet morning light spilling softly through the curtains. His eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, he just lay there, completely still, taking in the sight of you. Your face was relaxed in peaceful sleep, your hair spread out over the pillow like a halo. He could feel your breath against his chest, slow and steady, and the weight of your body pressed against his side, warm and comforting.

He didn’t move. He didn’t want to.

Sunghoon could hardly believe what had happened the night before. Everything felt like a dream. 

He had somehow been waiting for this moment without even knowing it. 

His head replayed the moment. How you had been so close. How you asked him to kiss you and, how carefully, how gently, you had let him kiss you. And then you kissed him back.

Your breath hitched lightly in your sleep, and for a split second, he thought you might wake up, but you only shifted, pressing your cheek further into his chest.

He smiled to himself, unable to stop the soft warmth blooming in his chest. 

He wanted nothing more than to hold you like this forever, to keep you safe, to keep you with him.

His fingers lightly brushed the back of your neck, tracing the soft line of your skin. 

He glanced down at you, watching the rise and fall of your chest, listening to the peaceful rhythm of your breath. 

Sunghoon wanted to savor this, savor you, in the quiet morning light. He didn’t know what exactly this was yet, where it was going, but he also kinda didn’t care. 

He was just so glad that you were here. With him.

He brushed a strand of hair from your face, his thumb grazing your cheek softly. You were so beautiful, even in the quiet stillness of the morning, so perfect that it almost didn’t feel real. He just wished you could see that too. 

He remembered the night you had laid across his chest on the sofa the first time, your body was so close. He remembered feeling the soft dip of your ribs through your shirt. It wasn’t so bad anymore. The meal plan was working better than he had thought it would.

Your ribs weren’t as sharp now. You were still tired and freezing but it was getting so much better. Even your migraines seemed to lessen.

He was so proud of you, of how far you had come, even though he knew that there was still a long way to go. He just hoped you would let him be part of that, you would let him help until you didn’t need help anymore. 

Sunghoon had to fight the urge to wake you up, to kiss you again. To pull you even closer. But he decided to let you rest for a few more minutes, knowing that your alarm would ring at 10 am, like it always did on the weekend.

For a moment, he let himself imagine what it would be like to wake up like this every day. Next to you, your head on his chest, your body curled into his. Of being able to kiss you stupid if he wanted to. 

You shifted. Your face was still soft with sleep but your eyes fluttered open. 

“Good morning,” he murmured gently, brushing his fingers over your hair, pushing a strand away from your forehead. He really loved your hair. “Do you want breakfast?” he asked softly.

You barely cracked one eye open and a sleepy hum escaped your lips as you nodded slightly in response, your voice barely more than a whisper. “Mm, yes.”

His heart melted at the sight. He had seen you wake up only a handful of times. Usually if the two of you slept in one bed together you were the first one to wake up. 

You sounded so out of it. 

“Alright,” he said, trying not to smile too much. He leaned down, pressing a soft kiss to the top of your head, feeling the softness of your hair beneath his lips. “I’ll get breakfast started then.”

But just as he started to move, you whimpered, the soft, almost pained sound stopping him in his tracks. He froze, unsure of what to do for a second, his heart skipping a beat.

“Stay...” you murmured, your voice low and drowsy, your body still nestled against the warmth of his chest.

He smiled, shaking his head lightly. “You need to eat, Y/N. I’ll be right back, I promise.” 

He didn’t want to be away from you, but he knew you needed to get up. You had to eat and probably start drawing whatever you still needed to draw for your assignment. 

You groaned in response, squinting your eyes closed again. But then, you slowly allowed him to shift away, the tiniest sigh escaping your lips. You looked at him for a moment, your gaze still clouded with sleep, before you gave him a lazy smile, still blinking away the sleep in your eyes.

“Okay…” you mumbled.

“Alright, I’ll be back soon,” he said softly, sliding out of bed. As he moved towards the kitchen, he couldn’t help but glance back over his shoulder at you, still lying there, all tangled in the blankets.

He couldn’t help but smile.

──────────────────────

Sunghoon felt your presence behind him before he saw you. He heard the soft shuffle of footsteps behind him and paused for a moment, glancing over his shoulder with a raised brow, not expecting you to follow so quickly. 

Before he could react, you pressed your body gently into his back, your face nestling against his shoulder blade. He froze for a moment, feeling your warmth against him, and a quiet laugh bubbled up from deep within his chest. 

He knew you were kinda clingy, when you liked someone. He had seen how you liked to be close to Mark, how you sometimes followed Sunoo or Renjun like a lost duckling in the hallways of the university and has had the pleasure of you somehow clinging to him as well. Coming to the kitchen to work in silence while he was cooking, sitting down on the sofa to watch whatever he was watching, even if he knew you weren't interested, cuddling on the sofa or one of your beds when one of you felt down. 

But it wasn’t like you to be so forward.

When he turned around to face you, he was met with your eyes, they were wide and a little uncertain, and that small, shy smile you always wore when you were feeling bashful. It made his heart soften even more.

His hand instinctively reached up, brushing a loose strand of hair from your face, his fingers grazing the softness of your skin.

"You okay?" His voice was low, a soft question, as he studied you, the tender expression on his face betraying his own racing thoughts.

“I... didn’t think it would feel like this,” you finally muttered, almost shyly, your gaze flickering to the floor before meeting his eyes again. “I mean... it’s... different than I thought it would be.”

Sunghoon smiled, his thumb brushing over your cheek again. "It’s okay," he said softly. “It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

He saw the hesitation in your eyes before you carefully placed your hands on his chest, looking up at him, slightly clumsy in your movements but so endearing. "I just... want to know how," you murmured, voice barely above a whisper. "I don’t really know what I’m doing."

His heart skipped a beat, a quiet warmth spreading through him. Sunghoon couldn’t help but laugh softly, the sound of it light and full of affection. “You’re doing just fine,” he reassured you, his hand gently cupping your cheek as he leaned in close, his lips brushing against yours in a soft kiss.

This time, when your lips met his, it was softer, slower. There was no rush. His hands gently found their way to your back, pulling you closer but not forcing anything. He just wanted to be close.

You kissed him back, your lips tentative at first but gradually growing more confident as you moved with him. 

It wasn’t perfect.

There were moments of awkwardness, a little shifting as you both figured out the rhythm, but it felt right. It felt... new.

When you finally pulled away, your breathing was a little heavier, and there was that nervous little smile on your face, making Sunghoon’s chest ache with affection.

“That wasn’t so bad, huh?” he teased gently, his thumb brushing over your lips before he smiled down at you, his gaze soft.

You looked up at him, your cheeks flushed . “I- no- no it's nice. I like kissing you.”

Sunghoon couldn’t stop the smile spreading across his face. It was a little silly, maybe, how happy he felt about something so simple. 

"I’m glad," he whispered.

──────────────────────

The days after your first kiss were somehow weird. Nice. But weird.  Your and Sunghoons dynamic didn’t really change after you kissed.  What changed were the small things. Like how Sunghoon had developed a tendency to press a kiss to your forehead or the crown of your head whenever he walked past you. At first, it startled you. Then it became something you looked forward to. Sunoo teasingly claimed it was because Sunghoon didn’t want to overwhelm you by kissing you all the time. Since you really didn’t have much experience there and maybe Sunghoon was afraid you would be uncomfortable. You wouldn’t have been. You wouldn’t have minded at all if Sunghoon kissed you more. In fact, you wanted him to.

You liked the way it felt, his fingers slipping into your hair, the warm pressure of his mouth against yours, the way your breath always caught for a second b. You liked being close to him. That simple.  It was a Thursday evening, the day you handed in your final model in Sustainability,  when you surprised both of you. You were standing in the kitchen, sleeves rolled up, hands still damp from rinsing a cutting board, when you heard the familiar clink of keys and the quiet creak of the front door. 

Sunghoon padded over behind you, still smelling faintly like his perfume, even after training. He must have brought it to the rink and sprayed it on again. You felt him lean in to press a kiss to the crown of your head.

But this time, you moved first.

You tilted your head up on instinct. The angle was a little off, his nose bumped yours, but it didn’t matter. Your lips caught his, quick and soft, before you could overthink it.

You surprised yourself.

And him.

His eyes were wide for half a second, startled, and then they softened.

You whispered a quiet, breathless, “Hi,” against his lips. 

Sunghoon smiled softly, his hand reaching up to caress your face. He really liked doing that as well. 

“Hi,” he whispered back, eyes still on yours.

Then, with the other hand against your jaw, fingers brushing just under your ear, he tilted your head up a bit and kissed you again. Slower this time. Deeper. And everything in you went quiet and full, like a held breath exhaled at last.

Sunghoon's thumb brushed along your jaw as he pulled back slightly, breath still warm against your skin. His eyes, gentle and a little tired from training, crinkled at the corners as he smiled. "Sorry," he murmured, voice low. “I didn’t shower in the rink, I’m a bit gross. I just came to check if you ate.” 

You blinked up at him. Right. Eating.

You wordlessly lifted a finger and pointed toward the calendar hanging by the fridge.

He turned, followed your line of sight and laughed softly. A new sticker sat under the day's date, small and shiny. This one was a tiny white puppy with a floppy ear and a pink tongue sticking out.

"New pack?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

You nodded, and he reached up to brush his thumb once under your eye, so softly it barely counted as touch. 

“You’re too cute,” he said. His voice was so warm, so fond. You were so happy you got to see Sunghoon like this. 

He leaned in again, just one more press of lips to yours. 

“I’m gonna shower, okay?” he said as he pulled away, slowly, reluctantly.

You nodded again, feeling lightheaded in the nicest possible way.

As he disappeared down the hallway, you stopped for a moment, the soft overhead light casting a golden glow on the counter and the fruit you had forgotten about entirely.

You were giddy.

Your knees felt a little weak and your lips tingled. 

You popped a grape into your mouth and padded to the couch with the plate in hand, settling into the cushions like you had a secret folded under your skin.

You didn’t even pick a show right away - just sat there for a while, nibbling fruit, listening to the sound of water running through the walls, your fingers pressed against your lips.

──────────────────────

When Sunghoon padded out of the bathroom, hair damp and sticking to his forehead, hoodie sleeves pushed up over his forearms, the first thing he noticed was how quiet the apartment had gotten. The radio that was playing in the kitchen when he came home was quiet and he didn’t hear the TV making any sounds. 

Then he saw you. You were curled up on the sofa, blanket sliding off your shoulder, the plate of fruit halfway eaten empty on the table.

He chuckled under his breath, ruffling his hair with a towel before tossing it over his shoulder. “Didn’t you say you wanted to watch the episode?” he asked gently, kneeling next to the couch.

You whined softly, not bothering to open your eyes. “I did…” your voice was muffled by the cushion. “But I'm too tired. I don’t want to get up.”

Sunghoon smiled, shaking his head fondly. “Come on, sleepy. Let’s get you to bed.”

When you didn't move, he sighed and simply slipped one arm under your knees, the other around your back. You let out a tiny squeak as he lifted you with surprising ease.

“Sunghoon!” you protested faintly, eyes fluttering open now.

But he just grinned down at you, walking toward his room with careful steps. “You didn’t move to get up, so now you don’t have to.”

You buried your face in his shoulder, hiding your flushed cheeks. “I didn’t mean you had to carry me.”

He set you down gently at the edge of his bed, grabbing his laptop to queue up the episode again. “Go get ready, yeah? You’re not sleeping in jeans again.”

You pouted, fingers curling around the hem of his hoodie 

It took a moment before you finally shuffled off to the bathroom. When you returned your hair was pulled back in a neat braid and your eyes were half-lidded with sleep. He was already under the covers, the screen glowing with the paused episode.

You climbed in beside him without a word, immediately curling into his side, arm around his waist, cheek to his chest.

“Better?” he murmured, adjusting the blanket around you.

You nodded sleepily, lips barely brushing against the fabric of his shirt. “Mmhm.”

He kissed the top of your head, soft and slow and started the episode.

You were asleep before the second scene.

──────────────────────

You pushed the broccoli on your plate to the side.

It wasn’t even that much food. Not really. It should be more.

But it even the small dinner portion felt like a mountain today

Your stomach felt full from breakfast and lunch and the little snacks you ate in between.

Your mind had started counting again the second you sat down. Like a reel stuck on loop.

210 for the rice. 130 for the chicken. The oil? 40? 50? That made…

You stopped.

Didn’t want to know.

Wanted to know so badly it ached.

The numbers didn’t add up right. Or they added up too much. Or not enough.

This week was supposed to be better.

You were supposed to try harder.

You upped your calorie intake goal last monday.

Just like you had done a week before and a week before that one. You meal prepped your breakfst and lunch, your snacks, cooked with Sunghoon, when both of you were home and not stuck in the academy to prerp for exams.

Your did best to eat it all.

You couldn't.

Not once.

But somehow your stomach rebelled every time. Either you felt too full, too fast, or just sick at the thought of finishing a full plate.

You hadn’t filled in your calendar once. Not a single dog. Not even the tiny one Sunghoon said counted “just for trying.”

You felt like you were breaking your own promises.

Like you were letting everyone down.

However that wasn't the worst thing.

You were lying.

You got home before Sunghoon today. He had group work again, most of the people in his classes being athletes meant that most meetings started late and dragged past 10. He texted you “Dinner together?” and you’d typed “Already ate! But I’ll sit with you :)" before you could overthink it.

Then you tossed the leftover broccoli and chicken into the trash can, tied the bag up and brought it downstairs. You rinsed your plate and the one you usually used for your fruits and set them in the sink.

And you hated yourself a little for it. Not only for wasting food. But for even knowing what to do to make it believable you ate. And did so, for the third time in a row now

You knew Sunghoon would be supportive even if you couldn't eat today.

But maybe he would be mad you lied.

Sunghoon never got mad.

But because he’d be kind.

He’d be soft.

You were disappointing him.

You blinked hard and wiped your palms on your thighs.

It’s just food.

It’s just dinner.

It’s just one stupid sticker.

But it felt like proof. 

Proof that you failed. 

That you weren't getting better, no many how many people helped you.

──────────────────────

You heard the soft click of the front door unlocking before his familiar footsteps padded down the hallway. You sat up straighter on the couch, quickly grabbing your phone to pretend you hadn’t just been staring blankly at the floor.

He stepped into the living room, hair a little damp from the evening drizzle, eyes tired but bright when they landed on you.

“Hey,” he said softly, and leaned down to press a kiss to your forehead.

You were grateful–so, so grateful–he kissed you there and not on your lips. You weren’t sure what your breath might smell like after hours of nothing but water and mint gum. But you weren’t hungry. That was the worst part. You were feeling so full even if you didn't eat enough for your dog. Even if the thought of doing so made your stomach lurch. Sunghoon dropped onto the couch next to you with a tired exhale, stretching out long beside you. “Group work is the worst,” he muttered, tipping his head to the side to look at you. “I swear half the time is just arguing over who’s doing what. And I got roped into designing the slides again.” You smiled faintly, nodding. You wanted to ask him more, about the project, about the annoying guy in his group he always complained about, but the words didn’t make it to your mouth. Everything was muffled behind a thick, dull fog. His voice softened. “You okay?” You blinked and forced your lips into a gentler curve. “Yeah,” you said. “Just… think I’ve got a migraine coming on.” His brows pulled together in quiet concern. “Do you want me to get your stuff?” You shook your head quickly. “No, no, it’s fine. I took something already. I just—” you leaned a little into the couch cushions, “—need to rest, I think.”

He nodded slowly, eyes scanning your face like he didn’t quite believe you but wasn’t going to push. 

“I’ll be right back,” he said after a second. “Gonna wash off real quick.”

You nodded again and watched him disappear down the hallway.

And then you were alone again.

You curled your fingers into the hem of your sweater and exhaled.

You weren’t even sure what you needed to do to feel better.

To eat?

To cry?

To stop feeling like this?

But the only thing you were sure of was this:

You didn’t want him to know.

A few minutes later Sunghoon rounded the couch and dropped down beside you. The cushions dipped under his weight, his familiar warmth filling the small space between you both.

You kept your smile in place, the same soft, practiced curve of your lips. But you felt too aware of your body–of the weight in your stomach, the lingering guilt simmering under your skin.

He stretched his legs out, leaning his head back against the couch, exhaling like he was finally able to breathe again. "I swear I am so glad when my exams are over," he groaned.

You nodded, letting out a faint hum in agreement.

But his gaze flickered to you almost immediately.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked quietly.

Your breath caught, and you stared at the screen of your phone, forcing yourself to keep your tone light. “Yeah, just… tired.”

He didn’t say anything right away.

You could feel his eyes on you, lingering like he was searching for something you weren’t ready to give.

The weight of his gaze made your chest tighten.

A beat passed.

“Did you eat something good for dinner? I'm going to make myself something, do you want to eat a bit with me?” he asked, softer this time.

Your heart stuttered painfully against your ribs. You swallowed the lump rising in your throat, nodding with a small smile you hoped looked convincing. “Mhm. I’m fine, I already ate dinner.”

Another pause.

He shifted closer, his arm resting along the back of the couch behind you. "Did you get your little dog sticker?" His voice was light–teasing–but you could hear the quiet worry threaded beneath it.

Your stomach dropped.

You didn’t look at him, just stared at your hands in your lap as your smile faltered for a split second.

And that was all it took.

His hand gently brushed over your arm. "Y/N," he said softly, "you know you don’t have to lie to me, right? It's okay if you're not feeling okay."

Your throat tightened painfully.

“I’m not—” You stopped yourself. The words tangled. Lying felt worse when he said it like that.

He shifted again, moving to face you fully this time, his knee brushing yours. “It’s okay if you didn’t reach your goal today.” His voice was quiet, careful. “I’m still proud of you for trying.”

Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes before you could stop them.

You shook your head, blinking hard, unable to look at him. “I just… I thought you’d be disappointed.”

“Hey,…” His hand found yours, fingers curling gently around your wrist. “Why would I be disappointed?”

“Because I couldn’t…” You swallowed, the guilt finally pushing its way to the surface. “I couldn’t do it right. Not today. Not this week. I wanted to-but it’s just-” Your breath hitched. “It’s not enough.”

He was quiet for a moment before his hand squeezed yours, grounding and warm.

“It’s always enough,” he said softly. “You’re always enough.”

You finally looked up, and the warmth in his eyes nearly broke you.

“And you don’t have to prove anything to me to make me proud,” he added, voice softer now. “Just… let me be here with you, okay? Even on the days that feel hard.”

Something in your chest cracked open at that.

You nodded, swallowing back the tears that threatened to spill. “Okay.”

He pulled you into his side without another word, pressing a lingering kiss to the top of your head. 

──────────────────────

You waited until his breathing evened out.

Soft and steady. His arm was draped loosely around your middle, like it always was. 

Your chest felt tight. Like the air in your lungs wasn’t settling right. Like you couldn’t breathe. 

You slid out from under the covers carefully, inch by inch. His body shifted a little, but he didn’t wake up.

You hoped he didn’t.

The kitchen was mostly dark when you padded in barefoot. The city outside glowed faintly through the sheer curtains, casting pale golden lines across the calendar hanging on the fridge. The little dog stickers stared back at you, soft and silly and so stupidly kind-looking it made something inside your chest twist.

None for the last week.

You’d tried.

You really, really tried.

But every time you sat down in front of a plate, something clenched in your gut. The idea of eating more made your throat tight. You felt full already. And not in a satisfied way. In a sick way.

But still you told Sunghoon you had eaten.

You even rinsed off the plate and put it in the sink so it looked like you had.

You had lied to him.

Your eyes burned, staring at that empty row on the calendar. You hugged your knees to your chest, curling up on one of the kitchen chairs like you used to do when you were younger. 

Everything felt too big and too loud and too much.

You didn’t hear him at first.

But then there was the softest creak of the floorboard behind you, and you turned, startled, to see Sunghoon standing at the edge of the hallway. His bleached hair was messy from sleep, a faint crease on one cheek. He was just in sweatpants and a t-shirt, the sleeves pushed up. His eyes locked on yours almost immediately.

“Y/N…” he said softly, his voice thick with sleep and something else. 

Concern.

You looked away.

He walked toward you, bare feet making almost no sound and crouched down beside your chair, resting one hand on the armrest, the other lightly brushing your calf.

“You okay?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

You shook your head, then nodded. You weren’t sure which one was truer.

He followed your gaze to the calendar, to the bare stretch of empty squares. You felt your lip wobble and hated it.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered.

“Don’t,” he said immediately, quietly. His hand slid up to your knee, warm and grounding. “Don’t be sorry.”

“I just… I wanted to do better this week.”

“I know.”

“I thought if I just told you I ate enough you wouldn’t be–” You broke off.

He didn’t flinch. “I’m not disappointed in you. I’ll never be.”

You finally looked at him.

He held your gaze for a long moment. And then he stood up slowly, his hand reaching out toward you.

“Come back to bed,” he said, so gently it made your chest ache.

You hesitated.

But then you let him pull you up. Let him wrap your hand in his and guide you through the soft dark of the apartment. Back to the bedroom, back to the bed still warm from where you’d left him.

He pulled the covers up around you, then slid in behind you, arm curling around your waist again.

You exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.

And he didn’t say anything else.

Just pressed his lips to the back of your neck, and held you close.

──────────────────────

You woke up to the warmth of his chest against your back, and the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing. His arm was still around you, hand resting lightly beneath your ribs.

You blinked at the soft light filtering through the curtains. 

It was still morning. 

Late, maybe.

Sunghoon was awake.

You knew it before he spoke. You felt it in the way his thumb was tracing slow, absent-minded shapes against your side. His lips brushed your shoulder.

“Good morning.” he said softly.

You swallowed. “Morning, Hoon.”

“You slept in today.”

You turned slowly onto your back, the sheets rustling as his arm shifted with you. He was looking at you. His hair was a mess, and you could see the stubble of his bear along his chin.

“I’m sorry,” you said again, voice small.

“Y/N.”

You bit your lip. “You skipped training.”

“I texted my coach,” he said. “It’s fine.”

“But it’s not fine. I didn’t mean to make you-”

“You didn’t make me do anything,” he cut in gently. “I wanted to stay.”

You looked away, blinking fast.

“I wasn’t trying to hide things from you,” you whispered. “I just… I thought if I could at least pretend I was okay, you wouldn’t have to worry.”

His hand came up, warm and solid against your cheek, guiding your gaze back to his.

“I’m never disappointed in you,” he said quietly. “And I’d rather worry than be lied to.”

Your throat felt thick.

“I wanted to get that stupid sticker,” you mumbled.

“I know,” he said, brushing his thumb across your cheek. “But not eating enough to earn it doesn’t make you a failure. It just means we’re still figuring things out.”

You nodded, not trusting your voice.

After a long pause, he sighed through his nose. “Hey… remember I told you my friends were thinking of grabbing dinner tonight?”

You glanced at him, brows knitting together.

“You said I could come if I wanted to.”

“That’s still true. I know crowds aren’t always your favorite thing, but maybe having a few people around could… I don’t know. Make eating feel less like a thing for a night.”

You thought about it.

After a few seconds you nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. Let’s try that.”

A small smile tugged at his lips, warm and proud and relieved all at once.

He leaned forward to press a kiss to your temple. “We’ll take it slow.”

And you believed him.

──────────────────────

Sunghoon saw you tuck a strand of hair behind your ear as you smiled at something Heeseung’s girlfriend said, your fingers fidgeting slightly beneath the table. The grill in the center hissed with grease and heat, smoke curling in slow spirals above the sizzling slices of pork belly. He sat beside you, tongs in one hand, quietly turning the meat, brushing it with marinade. Mark told him you used to love samgyopsal.  Now, he watched you hesitate before picking up a piece with your chopsticks. You chewed slowly, nodding as Jay’s girlfriend offered you some of her favorite dipping sauce. You thanked her softly. Your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes. Sunghoon knew. He knew that you were feeling off a bit today.  Yesterday.  Probably the whole last week, since you told him you’d try to eat another 100 kcal more every day now. Since you failed to reach that goal every day for a week now. He hoped that being around people that you enjoyed hanging out with would make it easier. You’ve told him before that you really liked his friends and you ate almost an entire steak the last time when Jay, Jake and Heeseung were over.  But you were quiet tonight. Not withdrawn, just…watchful. You laughed here and there, made conversation, but you weren’t fully with them. He glanced across the table at his friends, who were animated and loud, clinking soju glasses and stacking lettuce wraps with an alarming amount of garlic. And then he looked to the left - at the two girls from his training crew who’d shown up last minute.

You hadn’t said much to them. You’d made the effort, Sunghoon had noticed that too, but he could see you pulling back. It was like the two of them were making everything worse. He just couldn’t understand why.  Sunghoon saw Wonie shift in her seat beside you, tucking her napkin onto her lap before leaning a little closer. "You’re in architecture, right?" she asked, her voice bright. "I think that’s so cool. You must be, like, crazy good at drawing." You smiled, he saw that, but it was that careful, polite kind you used when you were feeling awkward. The one you gave him when he just moved in. When you didn’t know how to answer. “Sometimes,” you said softly, and your fingers toyed with the rim of your glass.

Wonie laughed, unbothered. “Oh! The paintings in your apartment are clearly showing that you don’t just sometimes draw crazy good. They are so beautiful.” You nodded, still smiling, but Sunghoon could see how your shoulders had crept higher, your posture a little too stiff. You were trying so hard.  He wished so badly it would be easier for you.  Sunghoon made sure to keep your plate from going empty, not pushing too much meat, because he knew that was hard. But sweetened pickled radish. A few rice cakes. Rolled omelet. Tiny bites of manageable food, colorful and easy to chew. After a while you excused yourself to go to the restroom. When you got up, Wonyoung waited until you were out of earshot before turning to him and Heeseung, a crease forming between her brows. “Is she okay?” she asked, low enough that the others couldn’t hear. “I was trying to talk to her, but she seemed kinda… out of it.” Heeseung leaned back in his seat, mouth already full of pork belly, and shrugged slightly. “She’s probably just having a rough day. She’s not always super talkative, but she usually warms up. It’s not personal.”

He and Heesueng often talked about you. Sunghoon has told him how you were doing, kept him updated because Heeseung himself asked quite frequently how you were doing. He assumed it was because Heesung knew what it meant to love someone who was struggling. Sunghoon was aware that Heeseungs his friends' girlfriends has had a hard life as well and even if she didn’t let it shine through too often, Heeseung had told him that she was often struggling as well.  So he guessed Heeseung kinda knew what was going on with you tonight.  He knew Heeseung, even if he was getting giggly and drunk, would never tell a stranger about it though.   Wonie nodded, but glanced back toward the hallway. “She seems really sweet. Just... quiet.” Sunghoon didn’t say much. He just hummed, his eyes fixed on the bathroom door. Because yeah. You were sweet. You were quiet. And that was okay.  When you came back to the table, Sunghoon’s eyes went to your face first, like they always did, and then, almost unconsciously, drifted down to your hands. Your knuckles looked normal. No redness. No telltale signs. But he still looked. Every time. He told himself he wasn’t being paranoid. Not really. Just… cautious. Just watching. Because he knew you. Knew how hard you tried, how strict you could be with yourself. He’d seen your calendar, the quiet pride on your face when you stuck a little dog sticker onto the square. But he also knew the days you didn’t. He knew that when you missed a sticker, sometimes it was just a few calories but sometimes it wasn’t. Sometimes it was an entire skipped meal. Sometimes it was trying too hard. Always trying too hard. You’d raised your goal last week. He knew that too. And you were so strict about it, like one missed calorie was failure. Like one sticker not earned meant you'd let everyone down. Like he would be disappointed. As if that could ever be true. Sunghoon leaned forward and turned the grill down a little, just to give his hands something to do. He watched you nudge a piece of sweet pancake around your plate, like you were trying to convince yourself you wanted it. When you caught his eye, you gave him the smallest smile. A tired one. But real. He gave you one back and reached for your hand beneath the table, just brushing his fingers over your knuckles once. Soft. Gentle.

──────────────────────

When you got home, it was late and cold outside. The scent of grilled meat clinged to your hair, your clothing. You toed off your shoes in the hallway and padded into the kitchen without a word. Sunghoon followed a few minutes later after locking the door and flicking off the hallway light. The only glow now came from the small lamp you kept on the kitchen counter, casting a soft golden pool across the room. You stood in front of the calendar. He saw the way your shoulders dropped before you even spoke. “I can’t put a sticker up, Honnie,” you whispered. “Again." His chest tightened. He didn’t answer right away, just walked up slowly behind you until he could place a gentle hand on your back. You didn’t flinch, but your head dipped forward like the shame was heavy. “I tried. I really did. But it just… I couldn’t.”

He didn’t ask how much you missed it by. He already knew it didn’t matter to you, it would still feel like failure to you, no matter the number. So he spoke softly. “Do you want to lower the goal again? Just a bit?” You turned to face him slowly, your eyes glossy but dry. “I thought I could handle more,” you said. “I thought it’d make me better. I just wanted to be- I wanted you to be proud.” His heart cracked a little more at that. He stepped in, arms slipping around your waist, one hand coming up to cradle the back of your head. “I’m already proud of you,” he murmured into your hair. “Every single day.” You didn’t reply, just stood there in his arms, arms wound tight around his middle. And maybe he felt the tiniest tremble in your fingers when you finally clutched the fabric of his shirt. “Let’s change the goal tomorrow,” he whispered. “Not because you failed. But because we’re learning. Okay?” You nodded against him.

“Okay.”

──────────────────────

You stared at your phone in disbelief.  You had done it. You had eaten enough today. You could finally glue a sticker to your calendar again. 

You reached for the sticker sheet with slightly trembling fingers. Sunghoon bought another pack of dog stickers a few days ago. These ones were pale yellow puppies with pink cheeks. You peeled one off carefully and placed it onto the day’s square, softly pressing it down. A breath broke out of your chest, and you felt lighter. Then a laugh. Then, without thinking, you were calling Sunghoon. He picked up halfway through the fourth ring, a bit breathless, the shouting of his coach over someone's music locker muffled in the background. “Hey, Y/Nie—what’s up?” You sat down at the kitchen table, grinning so hard your cheeks hurt. “I did it,” you whispered. “I get a dog today.” There was a pause, half a beat, before he made a soft, stunned sound, full of joy. “You did?”

“I did.” “Wait – hold on,” he said, voice muffled as he must’ve turned to cover the receiver. Then clearer, “I’m so proud of you. Wait– wait, I have something, too.” Your smile grew impossibly wider. “What?” “I qualified,” he said. “For the invitational next spring. My coach just told me.” Your hand flew to your mouth. “No way.” “Yeah. I don’t know how that happened but it seems like my lucky streak is back!” You felt like bursting. You felt full. In the best way. You whispered, “We did so good today.” He chuckled, soft and low. “Yeah, we did.” As you hung up, a warm, calm feeling settled over you. You had decided to lower the calorie goal and that was okay. You had listened to Ten, to Johnny, to Mark and to Sunghoon.  They all told you it was okay to stagnate for a little while. Recovery wasn’t meant to be linear.

It was okay to take a step back. You weren’t giving up, you were just being kinder to yourself. You still had work to do, but you weren’t trying to run a marathon when you weren’t even sure how to walk yet.  Without thinking, you picked up your pen and reached for the calendar again. You drew two tiny stars next to the dog sticker. Then three more. Then a few sparkles in gold. One for him. One for you. One for both of you. You smiled at the sight, your heart swelling just a little bit. You stared at the stars, the gold dots gleaming in the soft kitchen light.  You had earned this.  It felt good to say that. When Sunghoon came home, he paused at the door, eyes falling on the calendar before he even took off his shoes. A gentle smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “You really did it?” he asked, his voice warm with a mixture of pride and affection. You nodded, suddenly feeling more confident than you had in a long time. “I did. And… I’m okay with it. I think I made the right choice by lowering the calorie goal.” His eyes softened as he walked closer, lifting his hand to brush his fingers through your hair and cradle your face. “I’m proud of you. I’m really proud of you.” Your heart swelled. You had no idea what you would’ve done without him, without this space where you could grow. And even though you didn’t have all the answers, you were beginning to understand that it was okay. Sunghoon smiled at the calendar again. “I think I might need to get you more dog stickers,” he teased, pulling you into a closer. You laughed softly. “You’re gonna spoil me,” you said, a playful glint in your eye. “I’m gonna spoil you because you deserve it,” he said, the sincerity in his voice making your chest warm, before he pressed a kiss to your lips.

──────────────────────

The wind was a little too chilly and you buried your face in Sunghoon's scarf.  It smelled so distinctly of him.  Of home.  You’ve just handed in your last model for this semester and were walking back home instead of taking the bus. It was a forty minute walk, but you enjoyed seeing something else than your apartment, the studio or the rink.  You found yourself walking aimlessly, when something caught your eye. An elegant, minimalist hair salon with a large glass window showcasing sleek, shiny haircuts and smooth blowouts. You paused. You had been thinking about cutting your hair for a while now. It was brittle and thin and you had it in a braid more times than not, since it was long enough to annoy you.  Maybe it was time for a change.

You walked up to the door, hesitated for a moment, then pushed it open. The salon was warm, and the air smelled faintly of floral-scented hair products. A stylist greeted you with a smile. "Hi, welcome! How can I help you today?" You smiled, trying to sound casual, even though your heart felt like it was beating out of your chest. "Uh, I was wondering if you had any slots available today?" She checked her schedule, her fingers tapping lightly on the screen. "We do have one opening in an hour. Would that work for you?" You nodded eagerly. “Yes, perfect. I’ll be back then.” She handed you a quick form to fill out and you wandered out of the salon, mind buzzing. What were you even doing? You didn’t even have a clear idea of what kind of cut you wanted. You only knew that you needed to change something.  You strolled around the nearby shops, your thoughts running wild. You ended up spending most of the time in a arts and crafts store, trying out different new pens and materials and buying new stickers. Snowmen, since winter and christmas was right around the corner. You glanced at the time on your phone and hurried back to the salon. When you returned, the stylist was ready for you, and she smiled at you warmly as she led you to the chair.

“So, what are we doing today?” she asked, setting the cape around your shoulders. You took a deep breath and smiled shyly. “I’m not really sure what I want, but I think... I want to go shorter. Maybe above my shoulders? Something that will make my hair look fuller and give it some life?” She nodded thoughtfully. “Got it. I think going shorter will help with volume. Do you want layers, or just a clean chop?” You hesitated for a moment, then decided, “Layers sound good. Something soft, but not too much. I want it to feel light, not too heavy.” The stylist smiled and gave you a reassuring nod. “Sounds perfect. Let’s do it.” As she began cutting, you sank into the chair, your thoughts running quietly in the background. It felt good to take control of something for once, to make a change without worrying about the consequences By the time the cut was done, you looked at yourself in the mirror and smiled softly. It was shorter than you expected, but in a good way. It framed your face, the layers adding a bit of volume and movement. You ran your fingers through it.  When the stylist finished, she spun the chair around so you could get a full look. “How does that feel?” “Good,” you said, feeling a rush of confidence you hadn’t had in a while. “I think I love it.”

She smiled. “Great choice. It’s always refreshing to try something new.” You paid for the cut and thanked her profusely before heading back out into the city streets.  As you stepped out of the salon and walked back toward your apartment, your mind started to race. Would Sunghoon think it looks good? He had always liked your hair. Loved it, really.  He loves to run his fingers through it whenever he had the chance to. He always told you he loved how long and pretty it was.  It wasn’t long anymore. More of a bob, just above your shoulders, with soft layers framing your face. It was fresh, bouncy, and definitely gave off a different vibe. Would he think you were still... pretty? You chewed your bottom lip, glancing at your reflection in the windows as you passed by the shops. The bob looked great, but you were still unsure if it was exactly what he would expect or if he would even like it. But it’s not about what he expects, you reminded yourself. 

It’s about what you want.

──────────────────────

Sunghoon’s arms were overflowing as he fumbled his way through the door, balancing a grocery bag precariously in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other. His key clattered noisily onto the side table as he shoved the door open with his hip, barely managing to keep the apples that were laying on the top from rolling out of the bag. "Hi Y/N! I am ho-" he stopped mid sentence. You were standing in the kitchen preparing dinner. And your hair— He blinked, stunned, trying to process what he was seeing. It was shorter. Soft waves curled just beneath your chin, brushing against your neck in a way that made his stomach flip violently. God, you looked so beautiful. Sunghoon didn’t even remember letting go of the bags, only registering the soft thump of them hitting the floor a second later.  All he could see was you.

All he could think about was you. Before he knew it, he was crossing the room in three big strides, almost tripping over himself in his rush to get to you. You turned around at the sound, eyes widening slightly at the sudden movement, and gave him the shyest, tiniest smile. Without thinking, Sunghoon cupped your face in his hands, his fingers immediately finding their way into the soft strands of your new haircut. It felt so different. Lighter. Softer. “Do you like it?” you asked, voice so small he almost missed it. “Like it?” he repeated, his voice hoarse. He huffed out a laugh, disbelieving, awestruck. “Baby, you look–” He didn’t even finish. Instead, he dipped his head down and kissed you, hard.

You let out a startled little squeak against his mouth, hands flailing for half a second before settling against his chest. His mouth slanted over yours desperately and a little clumsy, like he couldn’t get close enough fast enough. His fingers slid into your soft, feather-light hair, brushing through the strands at the nape of your neck, cradling you to him. For a second he feared that overwhelmed you and that you wanted to stop kissing, that you wanted to pull away. You didn’t. In fact, you tilted your head up, chasing after him just as eagerly, your giggle bubbling against his mouth. He pulled back a fraction to breathe, but didn’t even make it a full second before diving back in, kissing you again. His hand slipped from your hair down to your waist, tugging you flush against him. He savored the way you melted against him, the way your fingers slipped up to tangle in the fabric of his hoodie. He could feel the way your heart raced against his chest, matching the frantic beat of his own. He should have stopped there.

He should have. But Sunghoon was completely, hopelessly addicted to you. He kissed you again, and again, and again. Each kiss grew deeper, a little more desperate. He couldn’t help it. Couldn’t help the way his hands slid down to your waist, couldn’t help the way his thumb traced the line of your jaw, memorizing every inch of you. You broke apart, gasping, and he caught a glimpse of your flushed cheeks and the wide, dazed smile you gave him.

“Sunghoon–” you started, laughing breathlessly. He cut you off with another kiss, just because he could. This time slower, more deliberate, his lips teasing at the corners of your mouth before fully capturing them again. His hands roamed, stroking your sides, feeling the way you trembled just slightly under his touch. You weren’t exactly passive either. Your hands slid up his chest, fists bunching in the front of his shirt to pull him closer. When he flicked his tongue lightly against your lower lip, testing, you gasped, the sound shooting straight through him like a live wire. He pulled back again, barely, resting his forehead against yours, panting a little. “God,” he muttered, his thumb brushing along your jawline with a kind of reverence. “You’re driving me crazy, you know that?” You smiled, all shy and giddy, still half in his arms. “I just got a haircut…” you whispered, almost like you couldn’t believe the reaction you were getting.

Sunghoon shook his head, pulling you impossibly closer. “It’s not just the haircut. It’s you. It’s always been you.” He laughed breathlessly, pressing another quick kiss to your nose, your forehead, your cheeks, until you were giggling uncontrollably and hiding your face in his chest. God. He loved you so much it hurt. He nuzzled into your hair, breathing you in, and mumbled, “I think dinner’s gonna have to wait a little longer.” You only laughed harder, and Sunghoon smiled so wide it made his cheeks ache. He held you there for a moment, your heart beating against his, his hands stroking gently through your freshly cut hair before you pulled back, looped your arms around his neck and pulled him down to kiss him again. His mouth moved against yours with slow, heady urgency, coaxing little gasps from you that made him grin against your lips. You shifted, standing on your toes to kiss him back harder, and he groaned quietly in approval, his fingers flexing where they held you. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Sunghoon knew he should slow down, but it was so hard when you were right here in your shared kitchen, wrapped around him. He kissed you until both of you were dizzy, until your giggles had melted into soft whimpers against his lips. And even then, he only pulled away reluctantly, trailing kisses along your jaw, your temple, savoring every second, every inch of you. When he finally leaned back enough to look at you, your cheeks were flushed, your lips kiss-swollen, and your eyes shining up at him like he hung the stars. You both just stood there, breathing each other in, hearts racing, faces so close he could feel your every exhale. “I guess… you like the haircut?” you teased softly, breathless. Sunghoon laughed, low and breathy, his thumb brushing the edge of your smile. “Like doesn’t even cover it, baby.” He kissed you again, gentler now. “You’re perfect,” he whispered into your skin. “You’re so perfect it’s actually unfair.” And when you hid your face in his chest, giggling and overwhelmed, Sunghoon just held you tighter, knowing in his bones that he never wanted to let you go. Not now. Not ever.

──────────────────────

The jewelry store was quiet except for the soft hum of the lights above and the occasional muted conversation between staff and customers. Sunghoon stood at the counter, hands stuffed deep into his jacket pockets, his heart hammering against his ribs. In front of him, under the glass, sat dozens of glittering rings, each one more beautiful than the last. And somehow, none of them felt good enough. “She’s gonna love whatever you pick, you know that, right?” Heeseung’s voice cut through his swirling thoughts. Sunghoon looked over at him, managing a weak laugh. “Yeah. I know. I’m just-” He shook his head, exhaling sharply. “I want it to be perfect.” Heeseung leaned casually against the counter, arms crossed, watching him with a little half-smile. “You’re overthinking it,” he said, nudging Sunghoon lightly with his elbow. “You’ve been together forever. She’s already picked you, dumbass. She would probably marry you in a paper ring.” Sunghoon huffed out a laugh, rubbing the back of his neck.

He was right. You probably would. Heeseung tilted his head, that familiar glint in his eye. “Remember what I told you? Way back when? If you played your cards right, those monkey stickers would stay forever?” He grinned. “Guess what, bro? You played ‘em right. Your little monkey’s still around.” Sunghoon’s chest tightened at the nickname. You didn’t need the sticker charts anymore, not for years now. But somehow Heeseung still teasingly called you ‘monkey,’. Sunghoon still has that calender with the many different stickers in a little box in his closet. He took it out from time to time. Years had passed, but in Sunghoon’s mind, it felt like time had both flown by and stood still all at once. He was no longer just the aspiring skater, chasing a dream. He had made it. His name was known in the skating world now. He had won the olympics, not once but twice. And through it all, you had been there. Sunghoon smiled down at the glass, a lump growing in his throat. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “She’s still here.” A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. His mind drifted back to those small moments he spend with you. Those quiet nights on the sofa, wathcing silly dramas, talking, sleeping together, first in your small shared student apartment, then one in Busan, and now the one in your apartment near the olympia park. He had seen you blossom–recovering, becoming the strong, beautiful woman you were today. He cleared his throat and glanced over at Heeseung. “I don’t think I ever really thanked you for everything back then.”

Heeseung shrugged, but there was warmth in his eyes. “You don’t have to. Just watching the two of you… that’s enough, man.” He nodded at the rings. “You’ve both earned this. All of it. It’s about time you made her your forever. Now hurry up and pick one so you can make it official already. Before I start crying or something, and then we’ll both be embarrassed.” Sunghoon laughed, and leaned closer to the glass, his fingers tapping nervously against the edge. One particular ring caught his eye. Simple. Elegant. Not flashy, but quietly beautiful. Just like you. He pointed at it. “That one.” His voice was firm, certain. “That’s the one.”

Heeseung whistled low under his breath. “Oh it's pretty. Monkey’s gonna lose her mind.” Sunghoon grinned. He could already imagine it, your hands trembling as he slipped the ring onto your finger, your watery smile, the way you’d throw your arms around him and bury your face in his chest. He could picture every second of it. “She’s my everything,” Sunghoon said quietly, almost to himself. Heeseung clapped a hand on his shoulder. “And you’re hers. Always have been.” This was it. The start of your forever. A forever he had fought for, that you both had earned with every smile, every late-night talk, every sticker on that old calendar.

Thank you so much for reading! Lots of Love, Patty all feedback and reblogs is welcome ⭑.ᐟ ⤷ if you liked this you might also like the rest of this series ⭑.ᐟ

ᝰ taglist. @firstclassjaylee @enhaprettystars @vantxx95 @stormy1408 @fancypeacepersona @jaylvrsworld @xylatox @bluxjun @sumzysworld @outroherrr @50-husbands @ikeumina @softchannie @sirens-dreams @schmocolateschmchip @vviolynn @nishiimuraka @enhalxvr @ijustreallylike2read @enhastolemyheart @wintereals @planetmarlowe @baeeeeah @wonzzziezzzz @mochamvgz @lovtaesunu @makeme1cream @stars4jo @vviolynn @lylaloopsie @meimeiyh @motherscrustytoenailclippings @haerni @sooberriesx @nishiimuraka (did this actually work? Somehow I can’t use any of the links from the tags?)

ᝰ an. Its done. 87.583 words later. I am so happy with how this turned out. I also did infact not sleep or do my uni stuff for the last week, because I so desperately wanted to finish this and see what my brain would be coimng up with. The quality probably suffered a bit under my sleep deprived brain working on this... I actually forgot to write a few scenes I planned to include, but I'll probably release them as one shots at one point. Thank you so much for reading and supporting this story and waiting for the final parts. It has been a long ride. ₊ ⊹  

[nishiimuraka]

this. so good.

[enhaflixer]

pjs - Signed, Sealed & Undone. - Part 1

A TIME TRAVEL CONTRACT MARRIAGE FIC -PART 2 OUT NOW

Synopsis: Fake marriage proposals are a tired billionaire trope.

But when Jay Park—former golden boy of Park Industries, now chaebol exile—comes back from disgrace (and back in time), he’s got one goal: rewrite the past before it destroys him.

When you, an unassuming journalist with nothing to lose, get an offer of a lifetime, you’re sure it’s a mistake.

A contract, a relocation to Seoul, and one fake wedding later, you’re still trying to convince yourself none of this is real. The only problem? Neither of you seem to remember where the performance ends and something devastatingly real begins.

Release Date: 8th March, Part 2 - Monday 10th March

WC: 13K CW (18+ MDNI) : fake marriage, slow-burn romance, power dynamics, corporate intrigue, arranged marriage trope, emotional angst, unresolved sexual tension, longing glances across boardrooms, contract loopholes, financial manipulation, morally gray billionaire!Jay, forced proximity, family expectations, betrayal, public displays of affection (for the cameras, obviously), enemies-to-allies-to-lovers, suppressed feelings, business politics, one bed trope (but make it corporate), dramatic confessions, late-night whiskey-fueled arguments, high society drama, backhanded compliments as flirting, dramatic departures followed by even more dramatic returns, lingering touches that mean too much, feelings clause not included in the contract, deep intimacy, power dynamics in a romantic context, possessive tendencies (but soft), light dominance/submission themes, clothing being undone at a painfully slow pace, tension so thick it could shatter glass, breathless dialogue, interrupted kisses that lead to frustration, and the inevitable realization that this was never fake at all.

-

The Original Timeline

Five Years Ago

The first and only time you met Jay Park was at the gallery opening of your college roommate's photography exhibit in New York. You wouldn't have been there at all if Priya hadn't practically begged you to help her make up the numbers.

"Just mingle for an hour," she'd pleaded over coffee that morning, eyes wide with artistic desperation. "Drink free champagne, eat expensive hors d'oeuvres, and pretend to understand modern art. I need this exhibit to succeed. My parents are still convinced I should have become a doctor."

So you'd ventured out into the crisp October evening to a renovated warehouse in Chelsea that now housed the Klein Gallery.

The moment you walked in, you regretted your decision.

The gallery was crowded with Manhattan's elite—people whose casual conversations name-dropped summer homes in the Hamptons and winter getaways in Aspen. You recognized a few faces from glossy magazines—a popular actress, a tech entrepreneur, a fashion designer.

You spotted Priya across the room, surrounded by attentive listeners, looking nothing like the frazzled artist who had practically lived in sweatpants throughout college. Tonight she was transformed—elegant in a silk jumpsuit, her long black hair swept into an artful updo.

Not wanting to interrupt her moment, you moved toward the bar, securing a glass of champagne that definitely wasn't the top-shelf variety promised. Glass in hand, you began the obligatory circuit of the room.

Priya's work had always struck you as technically skilled but emotionally distant. Tonight's collection—titled "Urban Dissolution"—featured black and white images of city landscapes in various states of decay. To your untrained eye, several looked like artistic shots of garbage.

You were examining one such photograph when someone spoke beside you.

"It's quite terrible, isn't it?"

The voice was pleasant—a warm baritone with just the slightest hint of an accent.

You turned to find a man in an impeccably tailored charcoal suit studying the same photograph with thinly veiled amusement. He was handsome in that polished, untouchable way of the extremely wealthy—perfect hair, perfect posture, everything about him screaming old money.

Under normal circumstances, you might have nodded politely and moved on. Men who looked like him rarely engaged in genuine conversation at events like these.

But something in his expression—a hint of genuine mischief beneath the polished exterior—made you respond honestly.

"I wouldn't say that," you replied diplomatically. "Art is subjective."

"So is food poisoning, but we can still recognize it when we experience it." He gestured toward the photograph with his champagne flute. "This is visual food poisoning."

A startled laugh escaped you, drawing disapproving glances from a nearby couple examining the same piece with exaggerated intensity.

"That's my friend's work you're insulting," you said, lowering your voice.

"Ah." He didn't look remotely embarrassed. If anything, his smile widened, creating a small dimple in his left cheek. "Then I assume you're here out of obligation rather than appreciation."

You studied him more carefully. There was no malice in his expression, only genuine amusement and refreshing honesty.

"Isn't everyone at these things?" You glanced around the gallery. "Half the people here couldn't distinguish between a masterpiece and a child's finger painting, but they'll all have very strong opinions."

"Touché." His smile reached his eyes, transforming his face from merely handsome to genuinely compelling. "I'm Jay."

"Just Jay?" You raised an eyebrow. "No family name? No title or position that should impress me?"

"Tonight, just Jay." He seemed to appreciate that you didn't immediately offer your name in return. "And you are?"

"Just someone who defends her friends' artistic endeavors, no matter how questionable."

"Loyalty," he nodded, as if noting something important. "An underrated quality in rooms like this, where allegiances change with the season's trends."

There was something wistful in his observation, a flash of genuineness beneath the practiced charm. Before you could respond, a commotion near the entrance drew your attention.

A group had arrived, their entrance causing a ripple effect through the crowd—backs straightening, conversations pausing, attention shifting.

"Duty calls," Jay murmured, his expression cooling. The playful stranger who had joked with you was vanishing, replaced by someone more controlled. "It was refreshing to meet you, Just Someone."

And then he was gone, moving toward the new arrivals. You watched as he transformed with each step—shoulders squaring, chin lifting, smile shifting from genuine to practiced.

He bowed respectfully to an older couple at the center of the group, clearly his family. The woman—elegant, with silver-streaked black hair—examined the gallery with the cool assessment of someone accustomed to making judgments that mattered.

It was only when Priya rushed over that you realized who you'd been talking to.

"Do you know who that was?" she hissed, gripping your arm. "The Jay Park. Park Industries! The Korean conglomerate that's expanding into American markets. Did you get his number?"

"We just talked about your photographs," you said, suddenly feeling out of place in your carefully selected but obviously off-the-rack dress. "He called them visual food poisoning."

Priya's expression didn't even flicker. "Jay Park insulted my work? That's practically a career highlight!" She snapped a discreet photo. "Wait until I tell my parents—they'll finally believe this wasn't a waste of my education."

You watched as Jay circulated through the room with practiced ease, his charisma deployed with strategic precision. The man who had stood beside you making irreverent comments might as well have been a different person entirely.

As you left the gallery hours later, you glanced back once to find Jay watching you from across the room. For just a moment, his public mask slipped, and he gave you a small, conspiratorial smile.

You never saw him again. Not in person, anyway.

Three Years Ago

"PARK HEIR ENGAGEMENT ANNOUNCED: JAY PARK TO WED ITALIAN HEIRESS"

The headline splashed across your phone screen during your morning subway commute. Normally, you'd have skipped past such celebrity gossip, but the name caught your attention—that brief memory of champagne and honesty in a New York gallery.

Curious, you tapped the article.

"Jay Park, 29, heir to the Park Industries empire, announced his engagement yesterday to Seraphina Visconti, 26, daughter of Italian shipping magnate Giorgio Visconti. The match unites two of the most influential business families across continents after a whirlwind romance of six months.

"'Seraphina represents everything the Parks value—business acumen, family loyalty, and global vision,' said Chairwoman Soo-min Park in a statement.

"The couple met during Park Industries' expansion into European markets. Sources suggest the marriage will cement a strategic partnership potentially worth billions."

Below the text was a photograph of Jay with his arm around a stunning woman with olive skin and a camera-ready smile. He looked exactly as you remembered—handsome, composed, untouchable. But something about his eyes seemed different. Harder, perhaps. The smile that had crinkled their corners in the gallery was nowhere to be seen.

You stared at the image longer than was reasonable for someone who had spoken to the man exactly once. There was something almost theatrical about the pose, the smiles, the carefully framed opulence.

"Good for him," you muttered, closing the article as the subway reached your stop. "Hope they're very happy together."

You found yourself wondering if he'd made that woman laugh genuinely, or if their relationship was built on the kind of performance you'd witnessed when his family arrived at the gallery.

You didn't think about Jay Park again for a long time.

Last Year

"PARK INDUSTRIES HEIR DISGRACED: JAY PARK REMOVED FROM FAMILY COMPANY AMID SCANDAL"

This headline caught your eye during lunch break. The photograph showed Jay leaving a building, face partially obscured, expression hidden behind dark sunglasses. Even in disgrace, he wore an impeccably tailored suit, though his tie was loosened and his normally perfect hair disheveled.

Something tightened in your chest at the image. You tapped on the article, pushing your salad aside.

"Jay Park has been removed from his position following allegations of corporate espionage and fraud. The Seoul Economic Prosecutor's Office confirmed yesterday that Park is under investigation for his role in the controversial merger between Park Industries and Hanjin Global.

"'Evidence suggests Mr. Park orchestrated the theft of proprietary information to facilitate the merger on terms exceptionally favorable to Park Industries,' stated Chief Prosecutor Kim. 'This represents a serious breach of corporate ethics and possibly criminal misconduct.'

"Sources revealed that Chairwoman Soo-min Park, Jay's mother, personally signed the termination papers. 'It was like watching an execution,' said one executive. 'The family cut him off completely. No defense, no second chances.'

"Adding personal tragedy to professional disgrace, Park's engagement to Italian heiress Seraphina Visconti was terminated shortly before the scandal broke."

You frowned at your screen. Something about the story felt wrong—the swiftness of his family's abandonment, the convenient timing of the broken engagement, the way everyone seemed to distance themselves simultaneously, as if following a coordinated script.

But what did you know? You'd met the man once, years ago. That brief interaction hardly qualified you to judge the situation or the complex dynamics of global corporate politics.

Still, you couldn't shake the memory of his genuine smile, so different from the corporate mask he'd worn for his family. The way he'd spoken about loyalty as an underrated quality.

"Rough fall from grace," your coworker commented, noticing the article on your screen. "Guess even the mighty Parks can't escape karma."

"I guess not," you agreed absently. But privately you wondered what karma had to do with it. From what little you knew of chaebol families, they created their own destinies—and occasionally, their own destruction.

Over the following months, you occasionally saw follow-up articles. The investigation seemed to drag on without clear resolution. Some outlets questioned aspects of the evidence. Others suggested political motivations behind the prosecution.

But as the story faded from headlines, you found yourself wondering sometimes what had happened to the man who had once made you laugh in an art gallery—the man who, for a brief moment, had seemed genuinely human beneath the wealth and privilege.

Four Months Ago - Jay's Perspective

Jay Park stood at the window of his empty apartment, watching Seoul's lights glitter below. The city looked exactly the same as it had before his life imploded—indifferent to his disgrace. Photographers still camped outside his building, hoping to catch a glimpse of the fallen heir.

The penthouse that had once been featured in architectural magazines now echoed with emptiness. Most of the art and furnishings were gone—some seized in the investigation, others reclaimed by his family when they'd cut him off.

His phone—a new one, with a number known to fewer than five people—vibrated on the counter. He ignored it. The nearly empty bottle of scotch beside it held more appeal. He poured another measure into a glass that didn't match the crystal tumblers he'd once collected.

Jay took a long sip, noting with detached interest that his hand no longer shook. Progress, of a sort. The first few months after his downfall, he could barely hold a glass steady.

The evidence against him had been impeccable. Each document, each testimony, each transaction record forming a perfect constellation of guilt. So perfect that, had he not known with absolute certainty he was innocent, he might have believed it himself.

That was the elegant brutality of it—the case was built not on crude forgeries, but on actual actions he had taken, actual meetings he had attended, all recontextualized to tell a story of corruption rather than innovation.

By the time he understood what was happening, the narrative had solidified. His former fiancée had disappeared back to Italy. His family had closed ranks against him. His so-called friends had vanished overnight.

"You always were too trusting, Jongseong."

His mother's words, delivered as she personally collected his company credentials. Not in private—she had ensured there were witnesses. The perfect chairwoman, putting corporate ethics above family loyalty.

He'd spent his entire life trying to prove himself worthy of the Park name, only to be discarded the moment it became expedient.

His phone vibrated again. A text from his attorney: "Prosecutor offering deal. Meet tomorrow."

Jay didn't bother responding. There would be no deal. Not because he was noble, but because accepting a deal meant accepting guilt. And while the world might believe him guilty, he refused to validate the lie.

He returned to the window, scotch in hand. Somewhere in that landscape were the people who had orchestrated his downfall. Were they celebrating still? Or had they already moved on to their next target, his destruction just another successful transaction?

One photograph lay face-down on the counter—Seraphina smiling beside him at their engagement party, her eyes fixed on the camera with practiced warmth. The perfect couple. The perfect alliance. The perfect lie.

"I never saw it coming," he murmured. "Not from you."

That was the truly unforgivable part—not the betrayal itself, but his blind failure to anticipate it. All the signs had been there: her sudden interest when the Hanjin merger was first discussed, her questions about his meetings, her friendship with his cousin.

But he'd been too enthralled with the idea of her—the perfect partner who fit the plan he'd constructed for his life.

Jay drained his glass. He should sleep. Tomorrow would bring more meetings, more denials, more evidence of his spectacular fall.

He was turning from the window when it happened—a sharp, stabbing pain behind his eyes, so intense he dropped his glass. It shattered as he clutched his head, the pain expanding outward like a supernova.

The room tilted sideways. His hand passed through the wall as though it were mist. The familiar contours of his apartment seemed to dissolve, replaced by swirling darkness.

His last conscious thought was strangely clear, cutting through the pain:

I would do it all differently.

Jay opened his eyes to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar curtains.

No—not unfamiliar. His old curtains, from his suite in the family compound. The heavy navy drapes his mother had replaced three years ago.

He sat up with a jolt, banging his head against the headboard with an undignified thud.

"What the—" he muttered, rubbing his forehead while blinking at his surroundings.

This room had been redecorated after he moved out. The traditional furniture, the blue walls, the precise arrangement of his diplomas—all of it had been erased when his mother decided the space needed to "reflect the modern sensibilities of Park Industries' future."

Jay scrambled out of bed, tangling himself in sheets he hadn't slept in for years—1,000 thread count Egyptian cotton in navy blue, not the minimalist white linens of his apartment.

He stumbled to the bathroom. The face that stared back from the mirror made him grip the countertop until his knuckles went white.

"Impossible," he whispered.

The face was his, but not the one he'd seen yesterday. No dark circles. No stress lines. No gray hairs at his temples. This was him from... before.

"I've lost my mind," he announced to the empty bathroom. "This is what a psychotic break feels like."

He splashed cold water on his face, half expecting the hallucination to dissolve.

Back in the bedroom, his phone chimed. Not the anonymous device he'd been using since his disgrace, but his old phone—the one with the Park Industries logo, the one seized by prosecutors.

He approached it like it might explode, picking it up between two fingers.

The calendar notification made him drop the phone directly onto his foot.

"Son of a—" he yelped, hopping awkwardly.

He snatched up the phone again and stared at the date.

Five years in the past.

Another notification: "Meeting with Chairman Kang's team at 11. Merger exploration talks. Confidential."

Kang. The first domino in what would become his downfall. The meeting that would eventually lead him to Seraphina Visconti.

"This can't be happening," he said, running his hands through his hair until it stood in a manner his perfectly-coiffed future self would find horrifying.

The bedroom door suddenly swung open. Jay yelped and grabbed a decorative pillow to cover his chest.

His mother's executive assistant, Mrs. Joseph, stood in the doorway, her expression somehow even more judgmental as she took in his disheveled state.

"Mr. Park," she said with glacial formality, "your mother wishes to remind you that the board meeting begins in forty-five minutes."

"Mrs. Joseph," Jay managed, clutching the tasseled pillow, "what day is it today?"

One perfectly plucked eyebrow rose a millimeter.

"It is Tuesday, Mr. Park. The 17th of October, 2018."

Five years in the past. Confirmed by the human calendar that was Mrs. Joseph, who had never been wrong about a date in twenty years.

"Thank you. Please tell my mother I'll be there."

Mrs. Joseph nodded and closed the door.

Jay stood frozen before bursting into motion, pacing and gesturing wildly.

"Time travel isn't real," he informed his empty room. "This is a complete psychological break."

He stopped in front of the mirror, pointing an accusatory finger at his reflection.

"You are having a nervous breakdown."

His phone chimed again. A text from his cousin Danny: "You look like hell on the security feed. Board meeting in 44 minutes. Pull yourself together."

Jay glanced at the discreet camera in the corner, then back at his phone.

Other people could see him. Other people were interacting with him. This wasn't just in his head.

"I've gone back in time," he whispered, testing the words. "I've gone back in time!"

A hysterical laugh bubbled up from his chest. He had a second chance. A chance to avoid Seraphina. A chance to prevent the merger catastrophe. A chance to protect himself from betrayal before it began.

Then he froze, composing himself. If this was real, he needed to be strategic.

"Park Jongseong," he told his reflection sternly, "pull yourself together. You have a board meeting in forty-three minutes. And then you have a life to completely rebuild."

As he headed for the bathroom, he caught himself whistling. Park Jongseong didn't whistle. Park Jongseong was dignified, serious, and focused at all times.

But then again, Park Jongseong also didn't time travel. So perhaps some new rules were in order.

Forty-two minutes later, Jay found himself seated in the most uncomfortable chair in Seoul—not because of its design, but because of who surrounded it.

The Park Industries boardroom was exactly as he remembered it from before its renovation. Twenty-four seats around a massive mahogany table, each position equipped with a recessed screen and an elegant portfolio. The room smelled of sandalwood and concentrated power.

And around him sat the very people who would one day abandon him without hesitation.

His mother, Chairwoman Soomin Park, presided at the head, her silver-streaked hair in a severe chignon. His father sat opposite, expression fixed in the distant contemplation that had always characterized their relationship. Next to him was Uncle Jiho, whose vote would be first to condemn Jay when the time came. Beside his mother sat Aunt Mina, who would publicly declare his actions "disappointing but not surprising."

They were all watching him. Or perhaps he was just paranoid. Hard to tell which was more reasonable when you'd time-traveled into your younger body.

"The Q3 projections for the semiconductor division," droned CFO Yun. "As you can see, we're exceeding targets by 4.3% despite supply chain challenges..."

Jay nodded mechanically, trying to appear engaged while his mind raced. He kept catching himself staring at people who shouldn't be noteworthy—like Director Kang, who would later introduce him to Seraphina Visconti.

"Jongseong."

He jerked upright, realizing his mother had addressed him directly.

"I—" he began, having no idea what had been asked. "Could you repeat the question?"

A flicker of annoyance crossed his mother's face. "I said, do you have the projections for the European market expansion? The ones you insisted were ready for board review?"

Right. The European expansion. The document that would eventually lead to the Visconti partnership. The first step in his downfall.

"I've been reconsidering those projections," he said, his voice sounding strange in his ears. "I believe we should focus on domestic consolidation before extending into Europe."

A heavy silence fell over the room. In the original timeline, he'd aggressively championed European expansion for months.

"You've been... reconsidering," his mother repeated, each syllable precisely weighted. "Since last night's strategy meeting, where you presented a seventy-page report detailing exactly why European expansion cannot wait?"

Jay cleared his throat, tugging at his suddenly tight collar. "I've had some... insights."

"Insights," she echoed flatly.

"Yes. About... market volatility." Jay caught sight of his reflection in the darkened screen—he looked like someone trying to defuse a bomb while wearing oven mitts. "And geopolitical considerations. Brexit currency fluctuations. You know. Business... things."

Director Kang frowned. "But your analysis specifically addressed Brexit concerns, concluding they presented opportunity rather than obstacle."

"Well, people can change their minds," Jay said, a bit too forcefully.

His mother set down her pen—never a good sign. "Are you feeling well, Jongseong?"

"Perfectly well. Never better."

"You look flushed. And you're sweating."

Jay reached up, mortified to find his forehead damp. Park Jongseong did not sweat in board meetings.

"It's rather warm in here."

"It's sixty-eight degrees, as always," his mother replied. "Your grandfather had similar symptoms before his stroke. The disorientation. The contradictory statements."

"I'm not having a stroke," Jay said, horrified that this conversation was happening in front of the entire board.

"He said the same thing," contributed his aunt helpfully. "Right before he tried to sign a merger agreement with a potted plant."

"I know what day it is," Jay offered as proof of his mental faculties. "It's Tuesday, October 17, 2018."

This did not have the intended effect. If anything, his mother's concern deepened.

"Yes," she said slowly. "Most people with calendars know the date. More relevant is your explanation for this sudden policy reversal."

Jay scrambled for a plausible explanation that wouldn't sound like 'I've seen the future and it ends with all of you betraying me.'

"I received some... intelligence," he said finally. "About certain European partners. It requires verification before we proceed."

This, at least, was the language of business his mother understood. Her expression shifted from concern to calculation.

"What intelligence, and from whom?"

"I'd prefer to discuss that privately," he said, finding his footing. "After I've confirmed some details."

His mother studied him, then gave a slight nod. "Very well. We'll revisit the European strategy next week."

As the presentation resumed, Jay exhaled slowly, only to catch his father watching him with an evaluative expression he couldn't quite interpret.

His phone vibrated. Grateful for the distraction, he discreetly checked the message.

From Jake: Dude, what was THAT? Your mom thinks you're having a stroke, and Danny says you were talking to yourself this morning. Also, Priya's exhibition is Friday, don't forget you promised to come. Her parents are visiting from Mumbai and she's freaking out.

Jay blinked, momentarily confused. Priya? Jake's girlfriend. The photographer. The exhibition.

A distant memory stirred—something about an art gallery in New York, some terrible photographs, and...

He frowned, trying to recall. There had been someone there, hadn't there? Someone he'd spoken to briefly. He couldn't remember a face or name, just a vague impression of a genuine laugh and an honest conversation.

He typed back: Not having a stroke. Just reconsidering some strategies. What time Friday?

Jake's reply came instantly: 8PM, Klein Gallery in Chelsea. Wear something that makes you look less corporate robot, more human person.

Jay tucked his phone away, the half-formed memory already fading as more pressing concerns demanded his attention.

"Jongseong, do you have anything to add to Director Park's assessment?"

Jay looked up to find the entire board staring at him again. He hadn't heard a word of what Director Park had said.

"I think Director Park's assessment is... comprehensive," he managed, having no idea what he was endorsing.

"He asked for your input on canceling the Daewon acquisition."

"Right." Jay straightened. The Daewon acquisition—a company they had purchased and later sold at a significant profit in his original timeline. "I believe we should proceed with the acquisition. Their patent portfolio alone justifies the investment."

Director Park nodded approvingly. "Exactly my point."

Jay relaxed marginally, only to tense again when his mother spoke.

"That's interesting, considering Director Park just recommended we cancel the acquisition due to their overvalued patents."

The room fell silent. Jay felt heat creeping up his neck.

"I was... testing to see if anyone was paying attention?"

His mother's sigh could have withered steel. "We'll take a ten minute recess. Jongseong, my office. Now."

As the board members filed out, his father paused briefly beside him.

"Whatever's going on with you, fix it before your mother decides you need medical intervention. Or worse, reassignment."

With that less-than-comforting advice, Jay followed his mother to what would undoubtedly be the most awkward conversation of his newly-regained past life.

"Close the door," his mother instructed as they entered her office, a minimalist sanctuary of glass and steel.

Jay obeyed, steeling himself for the dissection that was about to occur.

"Sit," she commanded, taking her place behind a desk large enough to land a small aircraft.

He complied, automatically adjusting his posture to the rigid formality expected. Twenty-nine years of conditioning didn't disappear even with temporal displacement.

"What is happening with you?"

"Nothing serious, I assure you. Just a temporary—"

"That was not a board performance worthy of a Park," she interrupted. "You contradicted yourself, failed to pay attention, and gave the impression of someone who is either incompetent or unwell. Neither is acceptable."

"I apologize, Mom. It won't happen again."

The moment the word left his mouth, Jay was surprised at his own casualness. Mom. Not "Mother" or "Chairwoman" as he'd taken to calling her in professional settings.

His mother's expression softened almost imperceptibly—visible only to someone who had spent a lifetime learning to read her minute facial cues.

"It's been a while since you've called me that in this office," she noted, neither disapproving nor sentimental. The Parks might be ruthless in business, but family was family. "Though it doesn't exempt you from explaining your behavior this morning."

"I'm simply... reconsidering certain aspects of my approach."

"Your approach," she echoed skeptically.

"Yes. I've been thinking that perhaps I've been too rigid. Too focused on following a preset path without questioning whether it's the optimal route."

Her expression shifted subtly. "And this revelation came to you when, exactly?"

"Recently," he hedged.

"I see." She tapped one nail against her desk. "And does this 'reconsideration' include your personal life as well?"

Jay tensed. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you've spent five years claiming to be too focused on your career for serious relationships, despite my repeated reminders that a suitable marriage is an essential component of your position. If you're reconsidering 'preset paths,' perhaps this is an area you might prioritize."

And there it was. In the original timeline, this conversation had led to his first introduction to the Visconti family.

"I don't believe my focus should be on marriage at this time," he said carefully.

"And yet you're now suggesting we delay European expansion, which leaves you with considerably more bandwidth." She opened a drawer and removed a slim folder. "I've taken the liberty of updating your candidate dossiers."

Of course she had. In his mother's world, suitable marriage partners were assessed with the same due diligence as potential acquisitions.

"I appreciate your thoroughness, but I'll handle this aspect of my life myself."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees. "You've been 'handling it yourself' since graduation, with no results. The Kang family has been quite direct about their interest in an alliance through their daughter."

Jay suppressed a grimace. Se-yeon Kang. The woman who had introduced him to Seraphina at her father's request.

"The Kangs are not a suitable match," he said sharply.

"On what basis?"

On the basis that they were integral to his destruction, he thought bitterly.

"I have concerns about their long-term business ethics," he said instead.

"Interesting." She made a note on her tablet. "I wasn't aware you had investigated the Kang operations."

"I make it my business to be thorough."

"Perhaps you're not as distracted as you appeared in the boardroom, then."

Jay recognized the familiar pattern—his mother testing him, probing for weaknesses. In his first life, he'd been so desperate for her approval that he'd missed the manipulation.

"I should prepare for the Kang meeting," he said, rising. "I'll need to review the materials given my reconsideration of our European strategy."

She nodded, dismissing him with a wave. "Don't embarrass yourself again. The board already thinks you're following in your grandfather's neurological footsteps."

At the door, he paused. In his previous life, he'd walked out of this office and directly into the trap being laid for him.

"One more thing," he said. "Who originally suggested the Visconti Group as a potential European partner?"

If the question surprised her, she didn't show it. "I believe Chairman Kang mentioned them at the economic forum in Davos. Why?"

"Just mapping connections. It helps me visualize the relationship web."

Her eyes narrowed slightly—the look she gave when recalculating her assessment. "Your grandfather used to say something similar. Before the stroke, of course."

With that parting barb, she dismissed him.

As Jay left, his phone vibrated again. Another text from Jake:

Almost forgot—Priya says to bring that friend of yours from the investment firm if he's still in town. She needs all the connections she can get.

Jay frowned. What friend from what investment firm? He didn't recall...

And then it clicked. The half-remembered interaction from the gallery. There had been someone else there that night—not just the person he'd spoken to, but someone he'd been introduced to later.

If he attended this exhibition, he might run into that person again—the one whose laugh he vaguely remembered. Not that it mattered particularly. Just a curious coincidence in his reshuffled timeline.

He pocketed his phone, mind already turning to more immediate concerns. The Kang meeting. The European strategy. The trap he needed to dismantle piece by piece.

A random stranger he'd once met at a gallery was hardly worth dwelling on when he had an entire future to reconstruct.

Autumn in New York welcomed Jay with crisp air and streets still gleaming from an afternoon shower. He stood outside the Klein Gallery in Chelsea, straightening cuffs that needed no adjustment.

The city felt different now—full of possibility rather than the shame and failure it would represent in his original timeline. Here, five years before his downfall, no photographers lurked hoping to catch the disgraced Park heir. He was just another wealthy visitor, anonymous in a city that specialized in ignoring the important.

The past three days had been a calculated offensive against his future ruin. Altered procurement strategies. Reassigned personnel. Extensive documentation that couldn't be manipulated later. He'd even faced down Kang himself, politely declining the European expansion that would eventually lead to his destruction.

All while maintaining the perfect Park Jongseong façade.

This trip to New York offered both strategic cover and unexpected relief. For a few precious hours, he could breathe without the weight of his name.

He checked his watch. He was early, deliberately so. Jake and Priya would arrive in twenty minutes, giving him time to assess the gallery and determine if his half-remembered encounter would repeat itself.

But the vagueness didn't matter. What mattered was the opportunity to alter one small variable in the equation of his life.

Since his mother had mentioned marriage in her office, a strategy had been forming in his mind. In the original timeline, the months following this trip had seen increasing pressure about his relationship status. His mother had begun introducing him to eligible candidates—all with their own agendas, all connected to the world that would eventually close ranks against him.

And then came Seraphina. Perfect, beautiful, accomplished Seraphina. The woman who would eventually help orchestrate his destruction.

But what if he removed that variable entirely? What if he preempted the whole process? Elementary business strategy: block your opponent's best move before they make it.

Inside, the gallery was minimalist—white walls, polished concrete floors, strategic lighting. Jay moved through the space with practiced ease, accepting champagne from a passing server.

Priya's work was exactly as he remembered—technically proficient but emotionally distant. Black and white urban landscapes hinting at decay and renewal. He paused before one he remembered discussing in the original timeline—the one he'd compared to food poisoning.

"Considering an acquisition?" a voice asked. Not yours. The gallery owner—Klein himself.

"Just appreciating the composition," Jay replied smoothly.

He scanned the room peripherally. The space was filling with the expected crowd—moneyed New Yorkers performing interest in emerging artists, critics with studied expressions of judgment.

But no sign of you.

A flicker of concern crossed his mind. Had his earlier manipulations altered the timeline so significantly that you wouldn't attend?

"Mr. Park!" Priya approached with nervous energy

"The exhibition looks excellent," Jay said, offering Priya a polite air-kiss. "Your work has evolved considerably."

A kind lie. Her work was exactly as he remembered it.

"That means so much coming from you," Priya gushed. "Jake said you've been impossibly busy with the European expansion plans."

Jay shot Jake a warning look, but his friend merely shrugged.

"Sorry, forgot it was all very hush-hush and corporate espionage-y." Jake clapped Jay's shoulder. "You look terrible, by the way. In an expensive, tailored way, but still terrible. Are you sleeping these days?"

In his first life, Jay would have bristled at such criticism. Now, after everything, he felt unexpected gratitude for Jake's honesty. He'd forgotten this about their friendship—how Jake treated him as a person, not the Park heir.

"Sleep is for those without quarterly projections," Jay replied dryly.

"You're not fine, you're just good at faking fine. The Park family specialty." Jake surveyed the crowd. "Speaking of fake, look at all these people pretending to understand Priya's art when half couldn't tell profound commentary from pictures of garbage."

Priya elbowed him. "My parents will be here any minute. Please pretend to be cultured."

"Fine. I'll practice my 'this speaks to me spiritually' face." Jake grinned and headed for the bar.

"He's impossible," Priya sighed affectionately. "But he's been amazing with my parents. Even learned Hindi phrases for my father."

Jay nodded, remembering with a pang how Jake and Priya's engagement had been "postponed" after his disgrace. No one wanted ties to a pariah, not even his oldest friend.

"Jay?" Priya studied him. "Are you okay? You seem... different somehow."

Before he could answer, the gallery's atmosphere shifted—the crowd parting for Priya's parents. She excused herself, leaving Jay alone.

His mind returned to his strategy. He needed someone who could occupy the space Seraphina would fill, disrupting the timeline ending in his ruin. Someone far removed from his world.

You—if you showed up—would be perfect. Not for any particular quality, but for what you weren't. You weren't connected to his family's web of alliances. You had no ties to competing conglomerates. You carried no hidden agenda.

Your ignorance of his world wasn't a liability—it was your greatest asset. You couldn't be manipulated by the forces that orchestrated his destruction because you existed outside their sphere.

It wasn't personal. He didn't need a soulmate; he needed a shield. The fact that he remembered your laugh was merely incidental. A convenient connection point for his strategy.

The gallery door opened, admitting a gust of cool air and a latecomer—you.

Recognition hit immediately. How had he forgotten so many details? Your self-conscious movements. Your genuine curiosity instead of affected boredom.

Jay moved toward you before consciously deciding to, drawn by the chance to rewrite this small piece of his past. He intercepted you at the photograph he knew you'd examine—the one you'd defended despite its quality.

He reminded himself: this was strategy, not sentiment. Business, not emotion. This was about survival.

"It's quite terrible, isn't it?" Jay said, repeating his original words.

You turned, and he was struck by your direct gaze—no calculation, just human curiosity.

"I wouldn't say that," you replied, amusement tugging at your mouth. "Art is subjective."

"So is food poisoning, but we recognize it when we experience it." He gestured with his champagne. "This is visual food poisoning."

A startled laugh escaped you—genuine, unguarded. The sound hit Jay with unexpected force. For a moment, his calculated facade cracked, replaced by a genuine impulse to connect.

He pushed the feeling aside. Focus on the objective.

"That's my friend's work you're insulting," you said quietly.

"Ah. Then you're here from obligation rather than appreciation?"

"Isn't everyone?" You glanced around. "Half these people couldn't distinguish masterpieces from finger paintings, but they'll have strong opinions borrowed from the last opening."

The conversation unfolded exactly as before—eerie yet comforting.

"I'm Jay," he said, memorizing your face.

"Just Jay? No impressive title?"

"Park. Jay Park. But I'd prefer to be just Jay tonight."

You assessed him with refreshing directness. "And what does Just Jay do when not critiquing photography?"

Another deviation from the original timeline. A small ripple that could grow into a wave.

"Corporate strategy," he replied vaguely. "Nothing as interesting as defending questionable art. And you are...?"

The gallery door opened, and Jay felt a cold jolt as his family entered, causing the usual ripple through the crowd. His mother, father, relatives—all unaware they would eventually abandon him when convenient.

This was the moment. Originally, he'd left without your name, swept back into the path leading to Seraphina and his destruction.

Not this time.

"I should warn you," he said conspiratorially, "I'm about to transform into someone less honest and more boring. Corporate obligation." He nodded toward his family. "But before I do—your name? In case our paths cross again."

Behind this casual request lay his entire strategy. Your name would be the first stone in his new foundation.

As he waited, his gaze intensified slightly. To you, it might seem like normal interest. To him, it was the focus of someone placing extraordinary significance on an ordinary exchange.

This wasn't just about a name—it was about architecture. The careful redesign of his future. And you, unknowingly, were about to become a cornerstone.

"Y/N"

-

The syllables hung in the air between them for a moment. Jay's smile shifted—genuine now, not the practiced expression he deployed at corporate functions.

"It's been a pleasure meeting you, Y/N." He reached for your hand, a brief, professional clasp. "Unfortunately, duty calls."

He slipped you his card—not the formal Park Industries one, but a sleeker personal version with just his name and private number. A deliberate choice. The first move in his new game.

"Perhaps we'll cross paths again," he said. His tone casual, but his gaze wasn't. It held yours a moment longer than social convention dictated.

Then he was gone, transforming with each step toward his family. Shoulders squaring. Expression cooling. The brief glimpse of honest humanity tucked away beneath the polished exterior of Park Jongseong, corporate heir.

You watched him bow to his mother, exchange handshakes with other family members, fluidly inserting himself into their formal orbit. The man who had made irreverent comments about art seemed to evaporate entirely.

"The exhibition demonstrates impressive technical skill," Jay's mother observed an hour later, champagne flute held at a precise angle. "Though the subject matter is rather... conventional."

This assessment came after a methodical circuit of the gallery, during which the Park family had drawn considerable attention without seeming to notice it.

"Priya has potential," Jay replied diplomatically. "Her composition exhibits strong understanding of negative space."

Art criticism wasn't the point of this conversation, and they both knew it. His mother was watching him carefully, calculating something behind her perfect smile.

"I spotted you speaking with someone earlier," she mentioned with practiced casualness. "Before we arrived."

And there it was. Nothing escaped her notice.

"A friend of the artist," Jay said, matching her casual tone. "We were discussing the merits of contemporary photography."

"I see." His mother's gaze swept the room, locating you within seconds where you stood chatting with Priya near the bar. "Not the usual social circle you frequent."

"Perhaps that's refreshing." Jay sipped his champagne, strategic in his mild defiance. "One tires of the same conversations."

His mother's eyebrow arched slightly—the equivalent of open surprise from anyone else.

"Interesting," she said, recalculating variables in her mental dossier. "Does this relate to your sudden disinterest in the European expansion?"

"Not directly," Jay replied. "Though both reflect a broader reassessment of paths worth pursuing."

She studied him with the penetrating gaze that had intimidated business rivals for decades. "You've changed, Jongseong. Since when, I'm not certain. But something is different."

"Growth isn't change, Mother. It's evolution." He'd never spoken to her this way in his first timeline—confident but not confrontational. "The core remains the same."

His father approached, ending their private exchange. "The Visconti Group's representative just arrived," he informed his wife. "The one you wanted to meet."

Jay's pulse quickened. In the original timeline, this casual introduction had been the first seed planted. The beginning of his eventual destruction.

"Another time, perhaps," Jay interjected smoothly before his mother could respond. "I promised Jake I'd speak with some potential collectors. His girlfriend would be devastated if the night wasn't successful."

His father's expression registered mild surprise at this unusual prioritization of friendship over business.

"Of course," his mother said, analyzing this new data point. "Family supports family's associates. That's the Park way."

The subtle reminder of obligation came with her practiced smile. Not a reprimand, but a note being filed away for future reference.

Jay inclined his head respectfully and moved away, circulating through the crowd with practiced ease. He exchanged pleasantries with critics, complimented the gallery owner, and strategically positioned himself near a group of potential collectors, laying groundwork for a purchase that would help Priya's career.

All while remaining acutely aware of your location in the room.

-

Two hours later, Jay found himself in a strategic position near the coat check as you prepared to leave. The gallery had begun to empty, the initial excitement of the opening fading into the routine pattern of a Thursday night in Chelsea.

"Leaving so soon?" he asked, timing his approach to appear coincidental.

You looked up, surprise flickering across your face. "Just Jay. I thought you'd be trapped in corporate obligation all night."

"A temporary reprieve." He smiled. "The family business discussions have moved to dinner at Le Bernardin."

"Very fancy," you commented. "I'm headed for much humbler fare—the subway and takeout."

Jay glanced at his watch. "Actually, I find myself with an unexpected hour before I need to join them. Perhaps you'd allow me to buy you a proper dinner? There's an excellent place just around the corner." He kept his tone casual, the invitation seemingly spontaneous.

You hesitated, studying him with that direct gaze he found so refreshing. "Why would you want to have dinner with a complete stranger when you clearly have more important places to be?"

The directness of the question caught him slightly off-guard. In his world, people rarely questioned Park Jongseong's motivations to his face.

"Because you're the only interesting conversation I've had all evening," he replied, allowing a hint of genuine feeling to color his words. "Everyone else is either trying to sell me something, impress me, or secure an introduction to my mother."

You considered this, head tilted slightly. "And what makes you think I'm not doing the same?"

Jay laughed—a real laugh, not his polished social chuckle. "The fact that you just asked that question, for starters."

Something in your expression softened. "One hour. And it had better be good food."

"I never compromise on quality," Jay assured you, suppressing the satisfaction of a well-executed strategic move. "The restaurant is just three blocks from here."

As you walked together into the crisp autumn evening, Jay maintained the perfect balance of professional distance and personal interest. He asked about your work (freelance journalism), your history with Priya (college roommates), your thoughts on New York's cultural scene (overpriced but occasionally transcendent).

Each piece of information carefully filed away. Each response analyzed for potential complications or advantages to his developing strategy.

The restaurant—an upscale Italian place with discreet lighting and well-spaced tables—provided the ideal setting for his purposes. Impressive without being intimidating. Exclusive enough to require his name for a last-minute table, but not so ostentatious that it would make you uncomfortable.

"So," you said once you were seated and had ordered, "are you going to tell me what Park Industries actually does? Or am I supposed to pretend I don't know you're practically royalty in South Korea?"

Again, that directness. Jay found himself genuinely smiling.

"Technically, we do everything from semiconductors to shipping," he replied. "But that's hardly dinner conversation. I'd rather hear more about your work. Journalism must give you a unique perspective."

"Nice deflection," you noted, but allowed the conversation to shift.

For fifty-three minutes, Jay executed a perfect performance of genuine connection. He asked thoughtful questions. Shared carefully selected personal anecdotes. Displayed just enough vulnerability to seem authentic without revealing anything truly significant.

He studied your reactions, adjusting his approach subtly based on what resonated. When you responded to his dry humor, he offered more. When certain topics sparked genuine interest in your eyes, he explored them further.

A strategic seduction—but not a romantic one. He was securing an ally. Establishing a connection outside the corrupted network that had eventually destroyed him.

When his phone vibrated with a text from his mother, he allowed himself a calculated show of reluctance.

"Duty calls," he said, echoing his words from earlier in the gallery. "I've enjoyed this conversation more than you know."

"It was surprisingly pleasant," you agreed with a hint of amusement. "Despite the suspicious circumstances."

He signaled for the check. "Suspicious?"

"Wealthy heir suddenly interested in random gallery-goer? That's either the beginning of a romance novel or a cautionary tale." You smiled to soften the words. "I'm still deciding which."

Jay laughed again, caught between strategic calculation and genuine appreciation of your perception.

"Perhaps neither," he suggested. "Perhaps just two people enjoying conversation without agenda."

"Everyone has an agenda," you replied, gathering your things. "Even if they don't recognize it themselves."

How right you were. If only you knew the elaborate mental chess game he was playing, with you as a central piece.

Outside the restaurant, he made his final move of the evening—perfectly calibrated for maximum effect without seeming too eager.

"I'll be in New York for another two days," he said casually. "If you're free tomorrow evening, perhaps you could show me a part of the city tourists don't usually see. Something authentic."

The invitation was designed to appeal to your evident independence and local knowledge. To position you as the expert rather than the pursued. A subtle flattery that didn't register as manipulation.

"I might be available," you said, considering. "Depends on my deadline."

"Of course." He nodded respectfully. "You have my number. No pressure either way."

As he hailed a taxi for you, he allowed his hand to brush yours briefly—a manufactured moment of connection carefully designed to seem accidental.

"Goodnight, Y/N," he said as you stepped into the cab. "I hope to hear from you tomorrow."

You smiled through the window, giving a small wave as the taxi pulled away.

Jay watched until the taillights disappeared into Manhattan traffic, then straightened his tie and hailed his own car. His expression shifted seamlessly from warm interest to cool calculation.

Phase one: complete. You had been introduced into the equation. A new variable with the potential to disrupt the entire sequence leading to his downfall.

As his driver navigated toward Le Bernardin, Jay mentally mapped the next steps. He would need to provide his mother with enough information to satisfy her curiosity without triggering her strategic instincts. Plant seeds with his father about potential advantages of connections outside their usual network. Begin building documentation that would position you as a completely independent connection, not part of any competing corporate interest.

His phone buzzed with a message from his cousin Danny: Mom says you're acting strange. She wants intel on whoever you were talking to at the gallery.

Jay smiled tightly. The family machine was already turning its attention to this unexpected development. Exactly as he'd anticipated.

He typed back: Just making connections. Nothing significant.

Let them underestimate this move. Let them dismiss you as a casual interest, a temporary distraction.

By the time they recognized the strategic importance of what he was building, it would be too late. The timeline would be irreversibly altered.

And Jay Park would never again find himself standing alone in an empty apartment, betrayed by everyone he had trusted.

Another message appeared on his screen—this one from an unknown number.

Tomorrow, 7pm. Wear comfortable shoes and nothing that screams "I'm worth kidnapping for ransom." – Y/N

Jay allowed himself a moment of genuine satisfaction. The pieces were moving exactly as he'd calculated.

Tomorrow, the real work would begin.

-

The next evening proved Jay's instincts correct. You were indeed the perfect variable to introduce into his equation.

You arrived at the designated meeting spot in Washington Square Park wearing jeans, a well-worn leather jacket, and boots that suggested you actually walked places rather than being chauffeured. Jay had followed your instructions, trading his usual bespoke suit for dark jeans, a cashmere sweater, and shoes that would survive more than a board meeting.

"You clean up nicely," you said, appraising his attempt at casual attire. "Almost pass for a normal person."

"My greatest performance yet," he replied with a self-deprecating smile. "Where to first?"

"That depends. What's your tolerance for authenticity? Real New York isn't exactly five-star accommodations."

Jay's smile widened. "Test me."

And you did. For the next three hours, you led him through a New York he'd never seen despite countless business trips. Hidden speakeasies accessed through fake phone booths. A Ukrainian diner where the servers scowled and the food defied description but somehow tasted like memory. A rooftop garden secretly maintained by an elderly couple who'd been cultivating it since the 1970s.

Throughout the evening, Jay maintained his careful balance—genuinely enjoying himself while strategically gathering information. Your job prospects (promising but unstable). Your family situation (supportive but financially modest). Your relationship status (refreshingly unattached).

Each piece of data confirmed what he'd hoped: you were the perfect candidate. Independent enough to make your own decisions, stable enough to be reliable, ambitious enough to appreciate opportunity, and disconnected enough from his world to be safe from manipulation.

"Admit it," you said as you sat on rusty chairs atop the secret garden, city lights spread before you. "This is better than whatever fancy restaurant your family's at tonight."

"Infinitely," Jay agreed, and meant it. The evening had been unexpectedly liberating. Here, he wasn't Park Jongseong, heir and corporate prince. He was just Jay, a guy experiencing New York's hidden corners with an interesting woman. "Though my mother would need smelling salts if she saw these chairs."

You laughed, the sound still as honest as he remembered. "Why do I get the feeling you're not often allowed to just... exist? Without expectations or performance metrics?"

The observation was so accurate it momentarily disrupted his careful strategy. For a second, he considered telling you everything—the time travel, his disgrace, his desperate plan to rewrite his future.

But of course, that was impossible. Who would believe such madness?

"The privileges of my position come with corresponding obligations," he said instead, allowing a rare glimpse of genuine feeling. "My path was charted before I was born."

You studied him in the dim rooftop lighting. "And you've never considered drawing your own map?"

Jay looked out over the city, contemplating how to answer. The strategic response would be something vague but intriguing. But something about this night—about you—made him unexpectedly honest.

"I'm attempting to redraw certain sections now," he said quietly. "It's... complicated."

"Family complications or business complications? Or are they the same thing for you?"

"Inextricably intertwined," Jay confirmed. "The Parks don't separate business from family or family from business. It's all one ecosystem."

"Sounds suffocating."

"It can be," he admitted, surprising himself again with his candor. "But it's also... secure. Structured. There's comfort in knowing your role."

"Until the role becomes a cage," you observed.

The conversation was veering dangerously close to truth. Jay redirected gently.

"What about you? No family business directing your path?"

You shook your head. "Just student loans and rent directing my career choices. Not exactly the same scale of problems."

"Different cages," Jay said. "Different gilding."

A comfortable silence fell between you. Below, the city pulsed with energy—millions of lives intersecting, diverging, each on their own trajectory.

"I should probably get you back to civilization," you said eventually. "Before your security detail reports you missing."

Jay checked his watch, surprised to find it was nearly midnight. The evening had passed with unexpected swiftness.

"I've dismissed security for the night," he said, rising from the rusty chair. "But you're right, it's late. Let me walk you home."

You shook your head. "That defeats the purpose of me showing you hidden New York. I'll walk myself home like a proper New Yorker."

"At least let me get you a car."

"The subway is faster this time of night."

Jay smiled at your stubbornness. Another quality that made you ideal for his purposes. "Then I'll accompany you to the subway."

As you descended from the rooftop, Jay made his decision. The evening had confirmed everything he needed to know. You were perfect—self-sufficient, perceptive, and most importantly, unconnected to the web that would eventually try to destroy him.

It was time to set his actual plan in motion. Earlier than he'd originally calculated, but the opportunity was too perfect to ignore.

Outside the subway entrance, you turned to say goodbye. "This was surprisingly enjoyable, Just Jay. You're not at all what I expected."

"Is that a compliment?"

"An observation." Your smile took any sting from the words. "Maybe I'll see you next time you're in New York."

It was the opening he needed. Jay took a calculated breath.

"What if it were sooner than that?" he asked, carefully casual. "What if I had a proposition for you?"

Your eyebrows rose slightly. "A proposition sounds suspiciously like business."

"Perhaps a merger of interests," Jay said, watching your reaction closely.

"I'm not qualified to consult for Park Industries, if that's where this is going."

"Nothing to do with the company. This is personal." Jay paused, choosing his next words carefully. "Would you have dinner with me tomorrow? There's something I'd like to discuss that could be mutually beneficial."

Wariness crept into your expression. "That sounds ominous."

"It's not illegal or immoral," he assured you. "Just... unusual. But I think you might be the perfect person for it."

"Now I'm definitely concerned."

Jay smiled, allowing genuine warmth to show. "Trust me enough for one more dinner? If you hate the proposal, we part as friends with an interesting story about the time a Korean businessman made you a strange offer."

You studied him for a long moment. "Fine. But a public place, and I reserve the right to walk out if things get weird."

"Perfectly reasonable terms," Jay agreed. "I'll text you the details."

After you disappeared down the subway steps, Jay hailed a car back to his hotel. His mind was already composing the proposal, weighing phrases and possibilities. The timing was delicate. Too direct, and you'd be justifiably alarmed. Too vague, and you'd dismiss it as absurd.

But if presented correctly, with the right incentives and assurances...

It could work. It had to work.

-

The restaurant Jay selected for their final evening was elegant without being ostentatious. Private enough for serious conversation but public enough to meet your safety requirements. He arrived early, ensuring the perfect table—secluded but visible, with clear sightlines to exits.

You arrived precisely on time, wearing a dress that suggested you'd taken this meeting more seriously than yesterday's casual exploration. Good. It indicated you were intrigued enough to make an effort.

"I half-expected to be stood up," Jay said as you sat down.

"I considered it," you admitted. "But curiosity won out. I spent all day trying to imagine what this mysterious proposition could be."

"And your theories?"

"Either you're recruiting me for corporate espionage, or this is an elaborate setup for asking me on a real date."

Jay smiled. "Neither, though the second option is less absurd than the first."

The waiter brought menus and wine recommendations. Jay ordered for both of you—not to control, but to expedite. The sooner pleasantries were addressed, the sooner he could present his case.

Once the preliminary course was served and privacy assured, Jay leaned forward slightly.

"Before I explain, I want to establish context," he began. "My family situation is... complicated. As the heir to Park Industries, certain expectations exist regarding my personal life."

You nodded, waiting for him to continue.

"Among these is the expectation that I'll marry strategically. Someone who enhances the company's position, preferably from a compatible business family."

"Arranged marriage in the 21st century?" You raised an eyebrow. "That seems archaic."

"It's framed as 'guided choice,'" Jay explained. "But the outcome is essentially predetermined. The candidates all fit a specific profile, vetted extensively by my mother."

"And you don't want that," you guessed.

"I've seen where that path leads," Jay said carefully. "It's not favorable."

"So what does this have to do with me?"

Here was the critical moment. Jay took a measured breath.

"I'm proposing an alternative arrangement. A marriage of convenience, with clearly defined parameters and mutual benefits."

Your expression froze. "Excuse me?"

"I know how this sounds," Jay said quickly. "But please hear me out before deciding."

You sat back, arms crossed. "I'm listening, but this better be good."

"What I need is someone outside my world. Someone my mother can't manipulate or compromise. Someone with no hidden corporate agenda or family ambitions." Jay held your gaze steadily. "Someone like you."

"And what exactly would I get from this arrangement, besides the obvious headache?"

"Financial security," Jay said simply. "Complete financial independence. A generous settlement that would eliminate your student loans, housing concerns, and career pressures. You'd be free to pursue your writing without worrying about making rent."

He could see the calculation happening behind your eyes. The journalist weighing an unbelievable story.

"This would be a temporary arrangement," he continued. "Two years maximum. After which we would part amicably, with your financial future secured and my family obligations satisfied."

"You're serious," you said, realization dawning.

"Completely."

"But why me? You could find countless women willing to make this deal."

"Because you don't want anything from me except what we explicitly agree to," Jay explained. "You don't care about the Park name or legacy. You have no connection to our business rivals. You're honest, independent, and most importantly, you see me as a person, not a position."

You were silent for a long moment, processing.

"What would this arrangement involve... practically speaking?"

"A legal marriage. A public relationship that appears genuine. Attendance at certain family and business functions. Cohabitation in Seoul, though with separate living spaces." Jay outlined each point precisely. "No romantic or physical obligations whatsoever."

"And after two years?"

"A quiet divorce with a generous settlement. You return to your life with complete financial freedom. I gain time to secure my position without my mother's interference."

You studied him intently. "What aren't you telling me? This seems too... calculated."

Jay hesitated. How much could he safely reveal without sounding deranged?

"My mother is pushing me toward a specific alliance that would be disastrous," he said finally. "I need to block that move decisively. Your presence provides that blockade."

"Corporate chess using marriage pieces," you murmured.

"An apt metaphor."

The waiter arrived with the main course, forcing a pause in the conversation. Jay waited patiently as you considered his proposal.

"I'd have to move to Korea," you said finally. "Learn a new language, navigate a completely foreign business world, pretend to be in love with someone I barely know."

"All significant challenges," Jay acknowledged. "Hence the substantial compensation."

"How substantial?"

He named a figure that made your eyes widen slightly.

"Plus all living expenses, travel, and a housing allowance upon our separation," he added. "Financial security for the foreseeable future."

You took a sip of wine, buying time to think. Jay remained silent, giving you space to process.

"Why should I trust you?" you asked finally. "No offense, but this sounds like the beginning of a thriller where the protagonist never returns from Seoul."

"A valid concern." Jay reached into his jacket and removed a USB drive. "This contains a draft contract outlining everything we've discussed, plus insurance clauses to protect you. Have your own lawyer review it. Make any reasonable amendments."

He placed the drive on the table between you.

"I don't expect an answer tonight," he continued. "Take time to consider. Research me, the company, the arrangement. I'll be in New York three more days."

You didn't touch the drive. "Are you always this prepared?"

"I don't propose convenient marriages on a whim," Jay said with a hint of humor. "This is a strategic decision for both of us."

"And if I say no?"

"Then we enjoy this excellent meal, I thank you for considering it, and we part as friends with an unusual story."

You finally reached for the drive, turning it in your fingers thoughtfully.

"Two years of my life," you mused. "Pretending to be someone I'm not."

"Or two years experiencing a world few ever see from the inside," Jay countered. "With material for the book you mentioned wanting to write. And afterwards, complete freedom to pursue whatever you wish."

He could see the writer in you considering the possibilities. The practical side weighing the financial security. The cautious part still suspicious of his motives.

"I'll think about it," you said finally, slipping the drive into your purse. "That's all I can promise right now."

"That's all I ask." Jay raised his glass slightly. "To unusual propositions and careful consideration."

You hesitantly clinked your glass against his. "To whatever the hell this is."

The rest of dinner passed in lighter conversation, Jay deliberately steering away from the proposal to give you mental space. As they finished dessert, he sensed you had more questions brewing.

"Just ask," he said gently. "Whatever you're thinking."

"Why marriage?" you asked bluntly. "Why not just date someone your mother doesn't approve of until this mysterious alliance threat passes?"

A perceptive question. Jay had prepared for it.

"Because dating is easily dismissed as temporary infatuation. Marriage is definitive. It removes me completely from the candidate pool and blocks the specific alliance my mother is orchestrating."

You nodded slowly. "And there's really no romantic component to this? No hidden agenda where you're hoping for more?"

"None whatsoever," Jay assured you. "This is a business arrangement with clearly defined boundaries. Any personal friendship that develops would be separate from our agreement."

Outside the restaurant, you paused before parting ways.

"This is insane," you said, shaking your head slightly. "Completely insane."

"From a conventional perspective, yes," Jay agreed. "But sometimes unconventional solutions are necessary for unusual problems."

"I'll call you," you said. "After I've thought about it. And possibly had my head examined."

Jay smiled. "I look forward to hearing from you, whatever your decision."

As you walked away, Jay allowed himself a moment of cautious optimism. You hadn't immediately rejected the idea. You'd taken the contract. You were considering it.

Phase two: initiated.

The path to avoiding his destruction was unconventional, certainly. But with each step, each calculated move, he was redrawing the map of his future.

And for the first time since waking up five years in his past, Jay felt something akin to hope.

-

"He asked you to what?"

Priya's voice carried across the café, drawing glances from nearby tables. You winced, motioning for her to lower her volume. Two days had passed since Jay's proposal, and you'd finally broken down and called Priya. Some things were too bizarre to process alone.

"Keep it down," you hissed. "I haven't decided anything."

"Sorry," Priya whispered dramatically, leaning across the table. "But you can't drop 'Korean billionaire wants me as his contract wife' and expect normal volume control."

You stirred your coffee absently. The USB drive sat heavy in your bag, untouched since the dinner. Every time you considered plugging it in, reality reasserted itself. People didn't just get propositioned for fake marriages by corporate heirs. Not in real life.

"Maybe I imagined it," you said. "Stress-induced hallucination."

"Honey, you don't hallucinate trust fund provisions and prenuptial terms." Priya tapped the table emphatically. "And Park Industries is the real deal. My cousin works in finance and says they're basically royalty in Korea."

You sighed, glancing at your phone. Three missed calls from your editor about a deadline. Two emails from your landlord about the rent increase. A notification about your student loan payment.

Normal life, insistently demanding attention while some alternate universe beckoned from a USB drive.

"What would you do?" you asked.

Priya considered this, stirring her chai thoughtfully. "I'd wonder why me. Of all the women in New York—hell, in the world—why pick someone he met at my mediocre exhibition?"

"He said I don't want anything from him. That I see him as a person, not a position." You shrugged. "And apparently I'm not connected to any rival companies."

"That's... oddly specific." Priya frowned. "Like he's running from something."

A memory flashed—Jay on the rooftop garden, talking about redrawing sections of his path. The wistfulness in his voice when he mentioned roles becoming cages.

"Maybe he is," you murmured.

"Look, Y/N, this is either the strangest fantasy or the most interesting opportunity of your life." Priya grabbed your hand. "But either way, you should at least read the contract. Writer curiosity, if nothing else."

You nodded slowly. She was right. Whatever this was—elaborate joke, midlife crisis, legitimate offer—you couldn't make a decision without information.

"What about Seoul?" you asked, voicing one of the hundred practical concerns cycling through your mind. "My life is here."

"Your life is a studio apartment with questionable plumbing and editor who underpays you," Priya said bluntly. "Seoul has universal healthcare and a subway system that actually works."

"And a language I don't speak."

"And a completely fresh start, financial security, and material for that book you've been talking about writing since college." Priya squeezed your hand. "I'm not saying do it. I'm saying don't dismiss it without considering the insane possibility that this fever dream might actually be real."

Your phone pinged—a text from Jay:

No pressure on your decision. But if you'd like to discuss further, I'll be at the same restaurant tonight at 8. Whether you come or not, I enjoyed our time together.

Priya peered at the message. "Polite. Not pushy. Gives you space." She raised an eyebrow. "For a corporate shark offering a fake marriage, he's surprisingly... decent?"

"That's what makes this so confusing," you admitted. "He seems genuine, even when discussing something completely manufactured."

"Maybe that's why he thinks you'd be good at this. You're both honest about the dishonesty." Priya sat back. "So, are you going tonight?"

You stared at your phone, the mundane world of deadlines and bills momentarily suspended as you considered stepping further into whatever alternate reality Jay Park occupied.

"I guess I'll start by reading the contract," you said finally.

Priya grinned. "That's my practical journalist. Verify, then trust."

"I didn't say I trust him," you protested.

"Honey, you wouldn't have called me if you weren't already halfway to saying yes."

You opened your mouth to argue, then closed it again. She wasn't entirely wrong.

Whatever this was—fever dream or opportunity—you couldn't shake the feeling that Jay Park had seen something in you that even you hadn't recognized. Something valuable enough to upend both your worlds.

And despite every rational objection, part of you wanted to find out what it was.

-

After accepting Jay's proposal, everything moved quickly, but not without moments that made you question the purely contractual nature of your arrangement.

The first time you caught yourself actually looking at Jay—not as your contractual fiancé but as a man—was during a video call about logistics. He'd just finished a workout, answering your call in a fitted t-shirt damp with sweat, hair disheveled in a way you'd never seen before.

"Sorry for my appearance," he'd said, seemingly unaware of how the thin fabric clung to his chest and shoulders, revealing a physique usually hidden beneath perfect tailoring.

"It's fine," you'd replied, fighting to keep your eyes on his face rather than the defined muscles visible through his shirt. "We were just discussing flight details, right?"

You'd blamed your distraction on the strangeness of the situation. Just a natural reaction to an objectively attractive man. Nothing more.

-

Your Korean lessons began three weeks after you'd accepted his proposal. The language was challenging, but Jay insisted on joining occasionally, his pronunciation impeccable as he demonstrated sounds your English-trained mouth struggled to form.

"Fuck," you muttered one evening, dropping your head to the table after another failed attempt at a particularly difficult honorific. "I'm never going to get this right."

Jay looked up from his laptop, eyebrows raised. "I've never heard you swear before."

"I'm usually more professional," you admitted. "But this language is kicking my ass."

He closed his computer and moved to the chair beside you. "Try again. It's all in the tongue placement."

You made another attempt, mangling the syllables spectacularly.

"No, like this." Jay demonstrated slowly, exaggerating the mouth movement. You found yourself staring at his lips, noticing their perfect shape, the way the bottom one was slightly fuller than the top.

After your third failure, he sighed. "May I?" he asked, gesturing toward your face.

You nodded, not entirely sure what he was asking permission for.

He reached out, placing his thumb gently against your lower lip. "You need to press your tongue here, behind your teeth, not against your palate."

Heat surged through you at the unexpected contact. His thumb lingered, moving slightly against your lip as he demonstrated the position. Your eyes locked, and something shifted in his expression.

"Try again," he said softly, his voice lower than before.

You attempted the word, hyperaware of his fingers still resting lightly against your jaw.

"Better," he murmured, his eyes dropping to your mouth. "Almost there."

The air between you thickened. His hand should have moved away by now. It hadn't.

"Jay," you said, barely audible. Not a question, just an acknowledgment of whatever was happening.

For a moment, you thought he might lean in. Instead, he blinked and withdrew his hand, clearing his throat.

"That's enough for today," he said briskly, returning to his original seat. "You're making progress."

But that night, alone in your room, you caught yourself touching your own lip where his thumb had been, replaying the moment when his professional demeanor had briefly cracked.

-

Three weeks in, during dinner at a restaurant in Tribeca, Jay brought up the public aspects of your arrangement.

"We need to discuss how we'll appear as a couple," he said, his tone practical but not cold. "Physical boundaries. Forms of address."

"Like pet names?" you asked, taking a sip of wine.

"Exactly." He seemed relieved you understood. "In Korea, especially in my position, excessive public displays would seem inappropriate. But certain... intimacies are expected between engaged couples."

"So hand-holding, yes. Making out in boardrooms, no." Your joke earned a genuine smile from him.

"Precisely." He hesitated, then added with uncharacteristic uncertainty, "And regarding names..."

"What do people usually call you? Besides Jay or Mr. Park?"

His expression shifted subtly. "My mother calls me Jongseong. Business associates use Mr. Park. No one has ever used anything... affectionate."

The admission felt strangely vulnerable coming from him.

"What would you be comfortable with?" you asked.

His eyes met yours directly. "I've always thought 'babe' or 'baby' seemed... nice. Natural." The words seemed difficult for him to say, as if admitting to a secret preference. "But only if it feels comfortable for you."

The request surprised you – this controlled, strategic man wanting something so ordinary, so human.

"I can try that," you said, watching as relief softened his features. "Might take practice to say it without feeling weird, though."

"We have time to practice," he replied, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.

-

Shopping for your new wardrobe didn't happen in a fairy tale montage. Instead, it involved practical discussions of events you'd attend, climate considerations, and cultural norms.

"These social signifiers matter to my family," Jay explained as you examined a designer dress that cost more than your rent. "But your comfort matters to me."

"To our arrangement," you corrected gently.

He paused, meeting your eyes. "Yes. And to me personally."

The statement hung between you, neither acknowledged nor dismissed as you continued through the high-end boutique. The personal shopper brought Jay a selection of suits to try as well, and despite your best intentions, you found yourself watching as he emerged from the fitting room in each new outfit.

The last one—a charcoal gray suit cut to perfection—made you momentarily forget the contract entirely. The tailor knelt, making adjustments to the trousers while Jay stood in front of a three-way mirror. The jacket emphasized the breadth of his shoulders, the tailored pants fitting perfectly across his ass.

You didn't realize you were staring until Jay's eyes met yours in the mirror, one eyebrow raising slightly. You quickly looked away, heat rising to your cheeks at being caught.

When you glanced back, the corner of his mouth had lifted in a small, satisfied smile.

-

Your parents were understandably shocked by the engagement announcement. The video call with them and Jay could have been disastrous, but he navigated it with surprising warmth.

"I understand this seems sudden," he told them, his formal demeanor softened. "I value your daughter's independence and perspective. Those qualities are rare in my world."

Later, alone, your mother had texted: "He's careful with his words around you. Watches how you react. Not sure if that's good or concerning."

"Still deciding," you'd replied honestly.

Six weeks after your agreement, you found yourself helping Jay pack for Seoul in his hotel suite, the reality of what you'd committed to finally sinking in.

"Second thoughts?" he asked, noticing your silence.

"Seventh or eighth, at least," you admitted.

You expected a strategic reassurance. Instead, he sat beside you on the edge of the bed, not touching but close.

"I have them too," he said quietly. "This arrangement... it's unusual for both of us."

"You seem so certain about everything."

"I'm certain about what I'm avoiding," he clarified. "Less certain about what we're building."

The honesty was refreshing. Not romance, but genuine transparency.

"Let's try something," you suggested. "Just to see how it feels."

He raised an eyebrow, waiting.

You cleared your throat, feeling slightly ridiculous. "Could you pass me that folder... babe?"

The pet name hung awkwardly between you. Jay blinked, then a small, genuine smile formed.

"Here you go," he replied, handing you the folder, then hesitating before adding a tentative, "...babe."

You both laughed at the strangeness of it, the tension breaking.

"That was terrible," you admitted.

"Catastrophic," he agreed, his eyes crinkling with genuine amusement. "But it will get easier."

It was the first time you'd seen him truly laugh. Something shifted subtly between you – not love or even attraction necessarily, but the foundation of something human and real beneath the contractual arrangement.

Eight weeks after the proposal, you boarded his family's private jet bound for Seoul.

As the plane leveled off, Jay handed you a thin folder. "Key family members and dynamics. Not a test, just preparation."

You nodded, grateful for his understanding that you wanted to succeed at this, whatever "this" was becoming.

"Thank you," you said. Then, after a moment's hesitation, added, "...baby."

It still felt strange, but less forced. Jay's expression softened in response.

"You're welcome," he replied, his voice warm in a way it hadn't been during those first calculated conversations weeks ago.

Neither of you were in love. That wasn't part of the contract. But as the plane carried you toward Seoul, there was a growing sense that whatever performance awaited might be built on something more substantial than just legal terms.

Not romance, not yet. But a partnership forming its own unique shape – part strategy, part genuine connection, and all uncharted territory.

-

Arriving in Seoul felt like stepping into another dimension. A fleet of black SUVs with tinted windows. Security personnel with earpieces. Photographers kept at a careful distance by a team of efficient PR staff.

"Ready?" Jay asked quietly, his hand finding yours as the plane door opened.

You nodded, though "ready" seemed an absurd concept for what awaited.

The moment you stepped onto Korean soil, Jay transformed—his posture impeccable, his smile exactly the right blend of pride and discretion. His arm slid around your waist, protective but not possessive.

"Perfect," he murmured, his lips close to your ear. "Just like that."

The performance had begun.

to be continued.

-

Taglist: : @ziiao @beariegyu @seonhoon @somuchdard @ijustwannareadstuff20 @annybah @zzhengyu @naurwayyyyy @ddolleri @elairah @dreamy-carat @geniejunn @kristynaaah @zoemeltigloos @mellowgalaxystrawberry @inlovewithningning @vveebee @lovelycassy @highway143 @koizekomi @dearestdreamies @heeheeyeoiizz01 @heewhoresimp @floweryjessy @jaeyunsbimbo @cutehoons02 @deluluscenarios @bubbletaeq @lamin143

[nishiimuraka]

yes yes and yes

[jnnul]

falling in love at first sight (x3)

a/n: so i woke up in cold sweat and i had to write this. there's like 30k i could've written about this but tbh, i needed to get this out lol. also taesan has been living in my head rent free so this is his eviction notice. quick note: feedback, comments, etc. GREATLY encourage writers! if you felt any sort of way (in a good or bad way!) about this fic, pls leave feedback!

word count: 6.3k

tags: college au!, basketballplayer!taesan x nurse!y/n, honestly it's just a fluff piece, idiots in love, dongmin is DOWN BAD and falls in love with the same girl 3 times, uhh y/n is a feisty nurse warnings: taesan is called dongmin, uhh alcohol + memory loss involved with getting shitfaced lol

HAN DONGMIN DIDN'T REALLY BELIEVE IN SUPERSTITIONS. to him, things like 'knocking on wood' or 'not opening an umbrella inside' were just old wives' tales that didn't have much substance to them.

but after dongmin had shattered his bedroom mirror this morning (he'd accidentally launched his alarm clock across the room after sleeping too late last night), nearly every single thing in his life had gone wrong.

he'd put expired milk in his cereal because kim donghyun (his roommate) hadn't switched out the milk like he'd promised to the day before. then he went to take a shower, only to be burned by scalding hot water since the landlord refused to change the heating system, even though they'd been suffering through the sticky heat of august for fifteen days already. as if all of that wasn't enough, he'd accidentally torn his favorite hoodie trying to clean up the fragments that'd fallen on the floor. and when he was trying to salvage his hoodie, he scraped his forearm against the fragments, meaning he had a nasty gash along the long side of it.

which meant he'd have to go to the hospital to take care of this stupid bloody mess instead of going to class.

that was how han dongmin found himself sitting in the waiting room of the urgent care center of the hospital, a shoddy rag wrapped around his forearm, his essentials hoodie covered in blood, expired milk, and mirror dust.

needless to say, dongmin had gotten more than a few strange looks from the other people in the waiting room in the last four minutes he'd been there.

"han dongmin!" the receptionist calls out, and dongmin launches himself out of his chair, impatient to get this over with as soon as possible.

something about hospitals just gave dongmin the heebie jeebies. the fluorescent lighting, the smell of rubbing alcohol, the tangible feeling of sickness that wafted through the air.

ugh. dongmin hated hospitals. in fact, he was so sure that he would never even step foot in a hospital after this. if he needed to wrap himself in bubble wrap to do so, then so be it because he hated hospitals and he would never come ba -

dongmin stops dead in his tracks, right next to the recovery bed that the receptionist had led him to. standing in front of him was the most gorgeous person he'd ever seen in his life.

you were smiling at something the patient in front of you was saying, leaning over to bandage the patient's scrape with a little bandaid that had cartoon ryans all over it.

fuck that.

dongmin was ready to break his leg if it meant that he got to stay in the hospital and stare at your beautiful face all day. before he could find something big and heavy to knock his leg into, however, you make your way over to dongmin, clipboard and first aid kit in hand.

"hello," you say with a soft smile. "my name is y/n l/n and i'll be taking care of you today. is there anything i can help you with?"

"will you go out with me?" the words escape dongmin's mouth before he can even process what he's saying and you immediately lean backwards, a disproving wrinkle between your eyebrows.

"excuse me?" you say, and it's clear that dongmin's not gonna be in your good graces if he hits on you. he really hoped you were like this with everyone and not that you just found him super unattractive or anything (donghyun swore up and down that dongmin was not ugly - especially now that he'd dyed his hair! but donghyun also never had to chase after a girl in his life so...). or worse, if you already had a boyfriend.

but before he can ruminate about your affronted stance too deeply, dongmin rushes to fix his mistake. "i mean, hospitals really freak me out. the ethanol smell and the lighting and everything kinda gets in my head, you know what i mean? do you think you could just slap some gauze on outside?"

the tension in your shoulders immediately relaxes and you take a step forward once more, setting the first aid kit down next to dongmin.

"oh yeah, that makes sense," you say, sounding relieved. "unfortunately, i can only provide care while inside the hospital to make sure that the instruments and gauze are sterile to prevent any contamination. i promise i'll be as quick as possible so i can get you out of here!" you explain, a slight pout tugging your lips down in the most adorable way as you seem genuinely sorry for dongmin.

it was official: han dongmin was in love.

"no, don't worry. take your time. i mean, the cut is pretty bad and i don't wanna leave any mirror guts in it," dongmin says. as quick as possible, my ass, he thinks to himself. i gotta find a way to make this last for as long as i can.

"of course!" you assure, before looking down at the clipboard. "so i assume you cut yourself on a broken mirror? does it hurt when you apply pressure?"

what was the answer that would keep you here longer?

"yes?"

"are you asking me or telling me?"

"telling?"

"very convincing. i'm gonna need to apply pressure and confirm for myself then, if that's alright with you?" you look at him in a way that seems to be somewhat apprehensive and dongmin has never wanted to reverse time more than in this very instant.

until he doesn't because your hands are on his forearm, examining the wound gently and applying pressure around the open gash.

"does it hurt when i do this?" you ask, eyes trained on the way that his forearm muscles ripple and move as you apply pressure in different places.

dongmin's not the most buff guy on the planet, and you checking out his muscles was definitely not for your own pleasure, but at least all of his time on the court and in the gym has paid off in some way.

"uh...no. not unless you're super close to the cut," dongmin says and you nod with a gentle smile. it's in that moment that dongmin decides that he would kill anyone and anything just to see you smile like that again,

"that's good to hear. well, i guess that all we need to do is 'slap some gauze on' after disinfecting the wound and making sure we don't have any 'mirror guts' in it," you say, a hint of cheekiness in your tone. dongmin doesn't know what it is about it but it makes him blush, regardless.

"yeah. that sounds good," he says dreamily, trying hard to compose himself once more when you flash him a questioning look.

you work carefully on his arm, making sure to give a tiny little stress ball to dongmin to use when you descend upon his wound with some antibacterial medicine and rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball.

"so, uh, you look pretty young for a doctor...?" dongmin says, trying very hard to focus his attention on you instead of the stinging pain that came with every touch of the cotton ball on his wound. the more he looked at you, the more he began to wonder if he'd seen you somewhere before.

dongmin wasn't the superstitious type, and didn't exactly believe in 'love at first sight', but no matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't place you anywhere in his memory.

"that might be because 'm not a doctor," you say somewhat distractedly. "i'm a nursing student."

"oh. oh! you're a nursing student?" he asks. student. that means that you were either his age or just a few years older than him. and it also probably meant that you were a student at a university near by - maybe his?

"yep. a second year. although, don't worry, i've completed all of my first aid clinicals last year itself," you explain, leaning back in satisfaction when you finish cleaning up the wound.

"my school has a pretty famous nursing program, you know. maybe you've heard of yonsei's nursing program?" dongmin asks, eyes shining with hope.

it's only then that you look up at dongmin with an excited look in your eyes, turning to throw away the used cotton balls.

"i go to yonsei as well! i'm just starting my second year. it's a little strange because the nursing program runs through the summer, which is why i'm working clinicals right now. i'm almost done though, so i'll be switching into a field i'm more interested in," you say and dongmin swears he hears wedding bells in his mind. beautiful, kind, intelligent, and the same age as him? it was like god was basically handing his soulmate to him on a platter. maybe love at first sight was real after all.

"me too! well, i'm not a nursing major, but i'm a second year electrical engineering major," dongmin says, watching you turn back towards him with a clipboard.

"mhm, well, i've gotta tell you to be careful for the next week or so. no heavy lifting, sports, and definitely no cutting things. we don't want to make the wound worse, now do we?" you say chidingly, scribbling instructions on the clipboard of how to clean the wound with rubbing alcohol and how many pills of ibuprofen to take per day.

"of course," dongmin says half-heartedly. as much as dongmin hated the feeling of pain, the was the only way that he could think of to get to see you again was to somehow hurt himself again.

"how about you come back in a week to just make sure that it closed up well? make sure it didn't get infected or anything?" you ask, handing him the sheet of paper.

god was real.

dongmin swore he was going to go to church and donate at least 10,000 won for the blessing after blessing he was receiving today.

"oh sure," he says, a mischievous thought popping into his head. "but is it ok if i find you on campus? i have a lot of labs over the next week and i can't miss them if i can't even participate in them, so i can at least get the information. i won't really have time to stop by the hospital," dongmin says carefully, watching your expression to ensure that it wasn't changing with every word that escaped your lips.

technically, it wasn't a lie. dongmin did have a lot of labs next week but that's definitely not why he wouldn't have time to stop by the hospital.

"i don't see why not. i don't need any sterile instruments to just check quickly, so that shouldn't be an issue," you say slowly, nodding to yourself as you look around the little station to make sure you wouldn't need any of the equipment.

"perfect," dongmin says, shuffling out of the bed that he was sitting in to leave before turning around nonchalantly. "do you think i could get your number? so i know where to find you?"

you look up at him, and dongmin tries his best to seem sincere and genuine rather than as calculating as he felt, trying every tactic possible to see you again.

"yeah. yeah, here let me type it into your phone."

he hands his phone over to you, and it takes every single fiber of his being to keep himself from looking excited about any part of this transaction. you were already suspicious enough of him; you definitely didn't need more reasons to add to the list.

you're frowning slightly when you hand the phone back to him so dongmin pockets it without a second thought, to prove that he wasn't trying to be weird.

"thank you so much again." dongmin waves as he leaves, flashing the award-winning smile that he usually reserves for aunties and restaurant owners for free sides. oh, and for his fans.

you don't blush and trip over yourself when he does like his fans do - although you offer him a soft smile in return.

although, dongmin muses, i guess it would be weird if a nurse who met me for the first time would be anything like a college basketball star's fan though. maybe.

he shakes his head, opening the door to the hospital, looking down at his arm wrapped in gauze. yeah. there was no way that dongmin was taking a break from basketball. season started in less than three weeks and as yonsei's point guard, he had no choice but to just power through the injury.

it might work out in his favor after all. at least it would give him more chances to see you.

+++

turns out, the universe gives him a chance less than two days after he sees you for the first time. and in any other case, dongmin would be incredibly excited to see you again. he'd probably be ready, waiting with freshly showered hair and clean clothes and nice smelling cologne.

instead, when he sees you again, he's wearing raggedy shorts, a stained shirt, and holding a basketball that he definitely should not be holding.

dongmin knew he was fucked the moment you walked in through the double doors that opened up to the indoor basketball court of yonsei, light spilling in from the outdoors, along with the chatter and excitement of students returning to university.

you walk in wearing white, along with six other people dressed similarly, the basketball team's physician (dr. moon taeil) at the head of them all. dongmin hopes that you don't recognize him - or at least don't see him actively playing but of course, you manage to turn your head to see dongmin throw the ball out of his hands in a random direction in panic.

the ball, then of course, managed to fall neatly through the hoop, as though dongmin had intentionally thrown it there, causing him to want to die on the spot.

so he couldn't do that during a game with korea university, but now that he was doing everything in his power to keep you from seeing him play basketball, now he manages to throw it in the one place it shouldn't go.

your eyes narrow when dongmin turns to face you, your gaze falling to his (poorly) wrapped forearm. he offers you a trembling grin, which slowly turns into a frown when you look away, shaking your head as you start talking to the girl next to you.

at least you wouldn't say anything to coach about how he wasn't supposed to be playing right now, dongmin thinks to himself. even if i've effectively ruined my chances of her ever believing me about anything ever again. uh. not that i've had more than one conversation with her. or might have more in the future.

dongmin shivers, jogging over to where the basketball had fallen to pick it up and return to his place at the three-point line and continue shooting practice.

he returns to where he's supposed to be practicing, so that his back is facing the group of people who'd entered - namely, you.

"i forgot coach mentioned that we've got new on-site medical staff," dongmin mutters to himself, dribbling the ball before lining up his shot. "i didn't know that she'd be a part of that though - she can't be the sporty type if she didn't recognize me from the hospital."

dongmin is so lost in his thoughts that he doesn't even feel the dark presence looming over him until the ball is released from his hand.

"HAN DONGMIN!" someone yells, right next to his ear, and dongmin scrambles to attention, wincing when the basketball bounces off the rim and into the cart of basketballs he was practicing with with a resounding clang!

he turns slowly, eyes closed, as if that would make you go away.

"i cannot believe that i bandaged you up so carefully just for you to start playing again! how could you be so careless? do you not want to be able to play during the season? you're yonsei's ace and you're being this irresponsible!" you're heaving by the end of your rant and dongmin blinks, trying to come up with a response.

you definitely didn't know him well enough to yell at him like this - much less in front of all of his teammates - but for some reason, that's not what stuck out to dongmin.

(much to his chagrin, you being angry was hot. like really hot. especially since he'd thought you'd be the soft and cozy type, not the impulsive and quick to anger type. he really liked this side of you.)

"you know who i am?" he asks slowly.

"OF COURSE I KNOW WHO YOU ARE! OH, YOU ARE GETTING ON MY NERVES. YOU ASS, I DIDN'T BANDAGE YOU UP THAT NEATLY FOR YOU TO BE WALKING AROUND SHOOTING THREES!"

you're yelling at him, and for some reason, dongmin has never wanted to kiss someone more in his life. he'd never though he'd be this attracted to someone that he's just met yelling at him, much less in front of his entire team and her own entire team. but for some reason, as dongmin looks at you waving your hands all crazy and annoyed, all he can think about it how much he likes you.

it wasn't just physical. of course, he thought you were beautiful - possibly the most beautiful person he'd ever seen in his life and he would die on that hill - but it was more than that. it was as though he'd genuinely fallen in love at first sight.

you could tell him that you were a serial killer and at this point, dongmin would just admire your bloodlust.

"uh. dongmin?" coach jung says behind him, hands crossed over his chest. "do you guys need a moment to step out and come back?"

even coach jung seems a little bit intimidated by your livid state of being and dongmin has to cough to cover up his life.

"no coach. we're done here," you say, turning dramatically on your heel to turn back to your friends. but dongmin moves quicker than even his own mind can process what happens.

before he can think, his hand is wrapped around your wrist, spinning you closer to him, almost as if the two of you were ballroom dancing.

you look up at him, shocked, but dongmin is slow to let go of your wrist, not wanting to lose contact with you.

"no, we need just a moment," dongmin says, his eyes never leaving your own. it's clear that you neither expected this nor were used to this kind of behavior from anyone and before the fight that's building inside of you bubbles out, dongmin tilts his head toward the door that leads to a hallway extending to the equipment room, practically begging you with his eyes.

you aqcuiesce - or at least, dongmin thinks you do - from the way that your shoulder melt just the slightest and you let him pull you into the hallway.

"what?" you snap the second the door shuts behind the two of you. "okay, maybe i didn't let on that i knew you from our encounter, but that's irrelevant. i didn't need to tell you that i knew you. and besides, as your healthcare provider, it would have been extremely irresponsible on my end for me to let slip that i'm a fan - or that i know you personally at all."

dongmin can't help but let a small smile slip. "personally? we know each other personally?"

you fluster in that moment, looking anywhere but at dongmin, bringing a large smile to his face. he'd never thought that the feisty, quick to temper and quick to lose it, loud type was his type but he was starting to enjoy it very much.

"alright, well i know you personally enough, alright?" you huff, crossing your arms over your chest. "we've met before."

now it's dongmin's turn to look flustered, as he wracks his brain, trying to come up when or where the two of you have met before. he wasn't the one-night-stand type, so that couldn't be it. he also didn't have an insane amount of friends outside of the basketball team and donghyun's friends, so that wasn't it either.

"i'm really sorry - and i'm definitely trying to hit on you, just not right now - but i don't remember. i'd definitely remember someone like you," dongmin says, and he's well aware of the fact that his tone does not sound any level of displeased, and rather dreamy.

you roll your eyes, looking down at the ground. "we kissed once. twice actually. but um. that's not my point."

you clear your throat, as if you hadn't just dropped the biggest bomb of the century on dongmin, shaking your head. "why the hell are you playing basketball on an injured arm anyway? i specifically said no sports!"

dongmin raises an eyebrow. "you say you're my fan and yet you're still asking me why i'm playing when we have our first game in a week. and hold on. i'm not letting go of that first part; we've kissed? twice?"

you shrug, but it's clear that you don't think of it as nonchalantly as you're trying to make it sound when you speak. "yeah. in freshman year. once in spring semester and then once in fall. it's not a big deal. to you at least. clearly you kiss a lot of girls, if you don't even remember us kissing at all."

"now that's not fair," dongmin pouts, but he's well aware that he's not conveying this well at all. suddenly, a flash of a girl wearing a red dress, looking up at him with big eyes and a pouty lips crosses his mind.

good god. were - were you dongmin's mystery girl?

+++

"what do you mean dongmin finally found his mystery girl? the one he's been crushing on for a full year?" myung jaehyun says incredulously, instantly pulling out his phone to look you up on instagram.

dongmin sits in the middle of his friends, all sitting at the same table as they were supposed to be eating lunch, his head resting in his hands.

"you mean the one that he swore was the love of his life? god, he wouldn't shut up about that for at least six months," lee sanghyuk says, shoveling noodles in his mouth.

"try a year," donghyun groans, rubbing his forehead in pain. "do you remember the state of this kid when he woke up the next day?"

"good god, it was horrible. all he could say for a full week was that he wanted to jump out of the window because he'd lost her number and that he was never going to find true love because he couldn't remember her name, number, or even what she looked like," sanghyuck adds.

park sungho, the newest addition to their friend group, blinks, looking at dongmin, who's head is still in his hands.

"you were down bad, man," he muses and jaehyun on the side of him snorts.

"down bad doesn't even begin to describe it. it got to the point where we had 'girl in the red dress' and 'true love' jars because he would talk about her." jaehyun sighed, looking at dongmin pointedly. "he'd put enough money that we'd bought alc for the rest of freshman year. just in spring semester."

"that's what you get for trying to prove that you could drink a 4lokos without getting shitfaced," donghyun says, nose crinkling as he recalled the hours he had to spend making sure that dongmin wasn't going to die by choking on his own spit. "and he went and did it twice. it took us months to get to the point where we could invite this guy anywhere so as long as he swore not to bring her up again."

dongmin looks up, almost excitedly. "do you think that if i drink another 4lokos, we'll kiss at another party?"

sungho leans over, smacking him upside the head. "you're so fucking dumb. and i can tell just by these stories. you're not allowed to drink until season's over, idiot. and she's on your medical team. why don't you start by making a good impression while you're not so drunk you're going to start insisting that spongebob is hydrophobic."

("you were there when that happened?")

("you idiot, you thought i was spongebob. you kept throwing my drinks away because you thought i was going to disappear into them if i drank them. which makes no sense because that's not what hydrophobic means.")

("oh. sorry man.")

"yeah. just go to the med clinic tomorrow, apologize to her, and bring her flowers or something. women eat that shit up!" sanghyuk says with a mouthful of noodles and jaehyun nods, pointing his chopsticks at him excitedly.

"they do! my girlfriend always feels better with food and flowers," he says, cheeks stuffed to the brim with carbonara.

dongmin's mind races with all of the implications of doing so, but every single one of his thoughts fade away in light of the fact that he could redeem himself in your eyes. he slams his hands down on the table, swinging his legs over the bench to run to the nearest flower shop.

"i'll be back before practice!" dongmin calls out over his shoulder, waving a quick goodbye as he sprints towards the florists.

he makes it to the edge of the courtyard before he hears the yelling of his friends behind him, turning to see them waving at him (and waving some very rude fingers at him).

"YOU FORGOT YOUR WALLET, YOU IDIOT!"

+++

dongmin's friends were useless. absolutely useless.

he'd went and bought the prettiest bouquet of flowers he could find, a nice meal from his favorite bento place, and had even bought three different types of ice cream bars because he didn't know which one you'd like.

he'd walked right into the medical clinic office, his apology gifts all in hand, ready to apologize to you, redeem his honor, and become your own true love.

the last part probably wasn't going to work anyway, but the first two should've been foolproof.

instead, he manages to prove that he was a fool.

as it turns out, he wasn't the only person who thought that the flowers were beautiful; dongmin had managed to bring the queen bee as a secret surprise in the bouquet, which meant that the rest of her hive was NOT very happy that he'd committed royal kidnap, as far as the bees were concerned.

"HAN DONGMIN WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON YOU!" you yell from underneath your desk, where you were hiding from the sudden swarm of bees that had followed dongmin in.

he doesn't respond, too busy opening the window to drop the flowers out of, hesitating when he sees the number of people that were lounging around the courtyard that the medical office looked out of.

dongmin lines up the bouquet, sending a prayer to god (any one that would listen) as he shoots the best three he's ever shot in his life, so that the bouquet (and all of the bees that accompanied it) landed far away enough from people to prevent them from getting hurt.

of course, a few brave souls had stayed behind to exact revenge for their queen on dongmin, resulting in upwards of five bee stings, before dongmin finally evaded the great medical bee disaster once and for all.

he turns sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.

"i don't suppose i could find medical care in this clinic, could i?" he says, and he's well aware of the fact that he's flushed bright red, as he always seems to when he's made a fool of himself.

thankfully, there are only four or five people, including you, in the office to witness this disaster - although, dongmin can see the girl you were talking to yesterday surpressing a smile.

"yeah, of course you could. but we're all headed on break so unfortunately, y/n is the only person who's gonna be able to give you medical care. you know, since you've already brought lunch for her," your friend says with a knowing grin. she ushers the rest of the medical staff out of the office, closing the door behind her with a telltale click.

"you can come out from under the desk now," dongmin says, and despite the situation, he finds it adorable that in the case of a bee swarm, your first instinct had been to hide underneath a desk.

"i was going to," you grumble, slinking out from your hiding spot and dusting off invisible dust from your pants. "what were you thinking, bringing flowers with bees in them?"

dongmin blushes, tilting his head as he tries to look anywhere but where you were. "i wanted to apologize to you. in my defense, i kinda always thought bees were made up. i mean, they're so fat! there's no way they should be able to fly. that directly violates like every law of aviation in the world."

your eyebrow quirks upward as you look at the ice cream and lunch he had set down on your desk in his bee-induced panic. "i can't believe you're quoting the bee movie at me right now."

"i can't believe you know i'm quoting the bee movie. i should've known the love of my life was an internet connoiseur," dongmin says with a sigh, examining the bee stings on his arm. how did these bees even manage to crawl underneath the sleeves of his shirt?

"excuse me?" you bark, hands on your hips. "did you just call me the love of your life? when you couldn't even remember who i was like yesterday?"

"okay, wait. you don't understand. first, i need you to help me out by getting some ointment on these stings because they're starting to burn and i don't know if that's so normal. and then, i'll explain everything, trust me."

you reluctantly reach back into a cabinet that reads 'insect stings' and grab the kit for bee stings, pulling a cream out of it, beckoning dongmin to come closer so that you could treat it.

"do you remember what happened that night? or those two nights, i guess?" you ask softly, eyes trained on dongmin's arm so that you don't have to look him in the eyes and he nods.

"i remember. well, as much as i can, anyway. i was blackout drunk both times. and from what i remember, you weren't exactly sober either, so i don't know how you remember me but trust me, whatever you think about me is not true. i was - i was so down bad that my friends had to make a 'no y/n' jar!" dongmin yelps the last part when your hand on his arm presses a little too hard.

"i'm sorry! sorry!" you gasp, immediately leaning over to blow cool air on the place you'd accidentally put too much pressure. "what do you mean by a no 'no y/n' jar though? i thought you didn't remember my name."

"i didn't! and it killed me! i don't remember exactly what happened those nights but i remember how much i liked you. i remember thinking that i'd never meet a girl like you in my life. it still frustrates me that i lost your number - although, i do remember the part where you smacked me over the head the second time that we met. i think i suffered permanent brain damage from that.

"but i remember glimpses of that night. like that red dress you were wearing and how much you were rambling about stars. you were giving me an in-depth explanation about how black holes work and something about how rockets look like they're stuck in time in black holes. not the point. but the point is that i genuinely fell in love with you that first night we met.

"i've got this horrid habit though, when i get drunk - i become either super scared of water, or super infatuated with it. it's honestly a coin-toss. so imagine my feeling the next morning when i wake up with a dissolved piece of paper in my pocket that's supposed to have your number on it, semi-wet clothes, and a raging migraine.

"i thought i met the love of my life and i couldn't even remember her name, number, or even her face. it drove me and my friends absolutely nuts. me because i didn't know how to find you when i couldn't remember anything. my friends went insane because i would talk about you so much that they bought me those swear jars for every time i mentioned you.

"of course, i didn't know your name so you were just 'the love of my life' or 'girl in the red dress' but i think i dumped at least 300,000 won in those jars by the end of the semester. and then as if the universe was out to make my life living hell, we met again and i was shitfaced again. i swore to never touch a 4lokos after that, if that's any level of redemption.

"anyway. i brought you flowers and all this stuff because i wanted to tell you that - that i've liked you for a lot longer than even i've known! i remember most of the conversations that we had, even if i couldn't remember exactly who you were. when i saw you at the hospital, i genuinely thought i was falling in love at first sight. but i guess, that's kinda not true. cause that would be my third time falling in love at first sight."

"why, though? three times? i mean, i don't think i'm ugly or anything but three times? yeah, i mean i guess i kinda also had a thing for you after those two nights. god. i wish i remembered what we talked about for us to get this attached," you say, mumbling the last part. dongmin turns to you somewhat confused, watching you as you open up the bento box he'd bought you.

"you don't remember what we talked about? besides the black holes and stuff?"

"nope. but i've also got a horrible reputation amongst my friends for how much i talked about you. the worst part is that i remembered you but not what we talked about. it was so stupid because no one believed me that han dongmin, yonsei's point guard was the guy i'd had my heart for the past year." you instinctively smile the moment you take a bite of the food and even though it's so small, dongmin's heart swells with pride.

"why didn't you ever come up to me? i mean, this whole year of pining could've been avoided if you'd talked to me," dongmin says, accepting the ice cream bar you handed him. how the hell did you know that was his favorite ice cream?

"i gave you my number once, and i kissed you twice. i figured you were just ghosting me at some point if you weren't going to reach out to me. and besides, nursing really picked up right after basketball season so...i kinda just ended up torturing my friends for the past year," you say, somewhat sheepishly, but dongmin is barely even listening anymore.

after all, how many people can say that they fell in love at first sight with the same person three times?

"well. we're here now. will you go out with me? i promise i won't even touch a 4lokos!"

"deal. as long as you promise to tell me everything we talked about that night. i still can't tell why i fell so hard for you that i chased you down a basketball court in front of your whole team."

"my stellar looks? my killer smile? my stupidly handsome personality? my superb basketball skills?"

"try your stupid attraction to water molecules."

"i have a feeling i shouldn't have told you about that."

+++

freshman year, spring semester.

"really? you've never fallen in love before?" you ask incredulously. you and dongmin are sitting on the balcony of some random friend who decided to throw a party, feet dangling over the edges in between the bars.

"nah. i don't think so," dongmin says, leaning backwards on his palms. "i don't think i've ever met someone who's ever made me feel like my entire heart is their's to do whatever they want to do with."

"then let's play this game," you say, clumsily pulling out your phone. "that one thing on new york times, where you fall in love with someone within 36 questions."

"why? you want me to fall in love with you?" dongmin says, leaning over with a cheeky smile. you push him playfully, focused on trying to pull up the questions list.

"you'd do that whether i told you to or not," you fire back. "and besides, i think i'm a fantastic kisser. so you're probably already in love."

"you're right," dongmin says with a sigh. "i think i am."

freshman year, fall semester.

"question 36. i can't believe we never finished all the questions last time," you say. this time the two of you are sitting so close, dongmin can still taste the watermelon chapstick you're wearing. at this point though, dongmin might as well be the one wearing it.

"to be fair, last time i think we were otherwise preoccupied."

"get your mind out of the gutter!"

"i was talking about how many times you kept getting distracted by the dog."

"anyway. we're on question 36; are you in love with me yet?"

"i should be asking you that. i've been in love."

"han dongmin! i thought you weren't the superstitious type?"

"i'll be whatever you want me to be."

[inloveforevr-deactivated2025041]

“Maybe the journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. Maybe it’s about un-becoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”

- Paulo Coelho

[vmkhoneyy]

I think if I could be the kind stranger in someone’s memory, that’d be enough.

[aditiv3rse]

we were meant to live slowly!!!! we were meant to savor moments and feel unabashedly lazy and frolic and smell the flowers and laugh with our entire hearts and love with our entire souls!!!!! don’t ever feel guilty for resting!!!!!! don’t ever feel guilty for slowing down!!!!!! enjoying life shouldn’t be something you’re ashamed of