A quarter of a year passed almost unnoticed. Looking back, Cassian struggled to remember when exactly Emily, Kyeongtae and Dayoon had stopped feeling like people he visited and started feeling like home. Perhaps there had never been a single moment.
Perhaps it had happened through hundreds of ordinary evenings instead. Shared dinners. Long conversations. Movie nights that ended far too late. Coffee in the kitchen before work. Wide smiles exchanged across the dining table. The four of them had slowly built something that none of them ever needed to force. It simply fit.
Cassian had become more than Emily's partner. For over two months now, he and Dayoon had also shared a relationship that had grown just as naturally as every other connection inside their small polycule. Emily had been right. Love had never asked to exist in only one place.
One evening, Cassian invited Emily to his house. She accepted right away, as always. The familiar rooms felt different now. Not emptier, just temporary.
After dinner, they stayed in the living area where so many of Cassian's thoughts had once begun. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. They simply looked through the large windows into the dimly lit garden.
Then Cassian reached into his pocket. Immediately, Emily looked at him. He took a slow breath.
"I've never been very good at planning speeches," he admitted with a faint smile.
Emily raised an eyebrow.
"I noticed."
Cassian laughed softly.
"I only know one thing."
He stepped closer.
"I don't want to imagine a future that doesn't include you."
For the first time that evening, Emily's expression changed. Barely, but enough. Cassian carefully opened the small box in his hands.
"Emily Martin..."
His voice remained steady.
"...will you marry me?"
Silence. The city seemed impossibly far away. Emily looked at the ring, then back at him. For several long seconds, she simply stared. When she finally answered, her voice sounded almost unfamiliar.
"...Yes."
Before Cassian could react, tears gathered in her eyes. She blinked them away almost immediately. Old habits. Not quickly enough though, because he had noticed them. Without saying anything, he stepped forward and embraced her. Emily allowed herself to lean into him. Just for a moment. Then she smiled.
"You know," she said quietly, "there's one condition."
Cassian laughed.
"Of course there is."
"Now that we're engaged..."
She looked toward the distant skyline.
"...you'll move in with us."
She didn't need to explain why. Four careers. One household. One future. It simply made sense.
Cassian smiled.
"I already assumed that."
Emily nodded once.
"I know."
The following evening, another celebration unfolded. This time, it was Kyeongtae who stood nervously before Dayoon. Unlike Emily, Dayoon never attempted to hide what she felt. So when she realized what was happening, her eyes widened immediately. Before Kyeongtae had even fully finished asking, she laughed through gathering tears.
"Yes!"
She threw her arms around him without a second thought. Kyeongtae, usually so composed, laughed into the embrace. Across the room, Cassian exchanged a knowing glance with Emily.
Several weeks later, all four of them sat together around the dining table in the house that now belonged to all of them equally. Dinner had almost finished when the conversation drifted somewhere unexpected: Children.
Emily rested her hands on the table.
"In my family," she began carefully, "children have always been... important."
Cassian listened.
"So important," Kyeongtae continued, "that every generation carries a responsibility toward the next."
Neither of them explained further. They didn't need to, because Cassian understood enough. Emily looked around the table.
"If we're going to build a future together..."
"...we should build it fairly," Dayoon finished with a gentle smile.
The conversation lasted well into the evening. There were questions. Ideas. Occasional laughter. Moments of thoughtful silence. Eventually, the four of them arrived at a plan that somehow reflected everything they had slowly become.
Two children would be carried by surrogate mothers: Cassian x Dayoon, Emily x Kyeongtae. Meanwhile, Emily herself would carry a child with Cassian and Dayoon would carry one with Kyeongtae. No connection would stand above another. No love would weigh more heavily than the rest. Each relationship would become part of the family they were creating together.
When the discussion finally ended, nobody questioned the decision. It simply felt right. Emily leaned back, looking around the table. For the first time in many years, she allowed herself to imagine the future. Not the one expected of her, but the one they had chosen together.
And before long... they began turning those dreams into reality.
The weeks following Cassian's confession to Emily passed faster than he had expected.
After everything that had happened between them, he had imagined dramatic conversations, difficult decisions or perhaps long nights spent discussing feelings and boundaries. Instead, Emily did what she had promised from the beginning.
She showed him her world. Piece by piece. Without rushing or explaining more than necessary. And somehow, that felt very much like Emily.
One afternoon, she invited him to a small café tucked away between several office buildings in Dowon's business district. Cassian arrived first. Emily arrived exactly on time, not a second earlier or later.
As they sat down together, another man joined them shortly afterward.
"Cassian," Emily said simply. "This is Kyeongtae."
The man offered a polite smile and a small nod.
Kyeongtae Lee looked almost ordinary at first glance. His clothes were neat but unremarkable. His posture was relaxed. His voice was calm. Yet within minutes, Cassian noticed something unusual about him.
Kyeongtae rarely interrupted people. He preferred listening. When he did speak, however, everyone seemed to pay attention. The conversation drifted naturally between work, everyday life and various small events happening throughout Dowon. Only later did Cassian learn more about him.
Kyeongtae worked as a junior lawyer at a respected law firm. According to Emily, he had an exceptional talent for negotiation and occasionally assisted with legal matters connected to her father. The information settled somewhere in the back of Cassian's mind. Interesting, but not alarming. At least not yet.
More than anything else, Kyeongtae simply seemed kind. The sort of person who made others feel comfortable without ever demanding attention for himself. By the end of the afternoon, Cassian found himself genuinely liking him, which surprised him. A lot of things about Emily's life still surprised him.
Several days later, Emily introduced him to someone else. This time, it happened during a dinner at her house. A woman greeted him before he had even managed to remove his coat.
"Cassian!"
Her smile appeared instantly. Warm and bright, completely unlike Emily's carefully controlled expressions. The contrast was almost amusing.
"Dayoon," Emily said from somewhere behind him.
"Nice to finally meet you properly," Dayoon replied before Cassian could even answer.
The evening passed far more loudly than his previous meetings with Emily's social circle. Dayoon enjoyed talking, not in an overwhelming way, simply openly and naturally. She seemed capable of finding something interesting in almost any topic and possessed the rare ability to make conversations feel effortless. By the time dinner ended, Cassian felt as though he had known her far longer than a single evening.
---
A few days later, his phone vibrated unexpectedly. The sender's name surprised him: Dayoon.
Her message was short.
Hey. Emily is busy again and Kyeongtae is buried in work. Do you want to go somewhere together this weekend?
Cassian couldn't help but smile.
Emily's schedule had indeed become increasingly chaotic recently. Whenever she wasn't working, she seemed occupied with a dozen other responsibilities she never fully explained. And unlike most people, she genuinely preferred spending her free time indoors.
Dayoon, on the other hand, appeared incapable of staying inside for too long.
Sure, Cassian replied.
I'd like that.
The response arrived almost immediately.
Perfect 😊
As the days passed, Cassian slowly began understanding something he had overlooked before. Emily had never been trying to introduce him to a relationship. She had been introducing him to people. To connections. To an entire network of lives intertwined in ways he had never experienced himself.
Growing up, relationships had always appeared simple.
Two people. One bond. One future.
Now he found himself surrounded by friendships, partnerships and emotional connections that seemed to overlap without replacing one another. Strangely enough, it no longer felt confusing. It simply felt new.
One evening, while sitting alone on the upper balcony of his house, Cassian watched the lights of Dowon flicker against the darkening sky. The winter air had begun fading into spring. The city felt alive. For the first time in a long while, so did he. And somewhere between Emily's quiet certainty, Kyeongtae's steady presence and Dayoon's effortless warmth, Cassian realized something.
Emily had kept her promise. She was showing him her world. To his own surprise, he wanted to see more.
🔵 To read the full Cassian story from the beginning, click here.
