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love me like the movies [part one]

🎥 vernon x f!reader

🎥 summary: you write the movies. vernon directs them. it’s been that way since you were kids; you and vernon, against the world. but vernon’s senior film project threatens to tear that all apart.

🎥 tags: college au, film student au, childhood friends to lovers, he fell first/she fell harder, angst and pining :D

🎥 rating: like.. teen? there’s quite a lot of kissing but no smut at all

🎥 warnings: lots of discussion of death/blood/knives/etc., but it’s all in the context of writing and shooting a short film. it’s all movie magic. a fair amount of kissing and/or mentions of previous dating with other members of seventeen. miscommunication happens. there’s a couple slaps and some shin-kicking. and mr. butterfly. yes, that’s a warning.

🎥 a/n: ahhhhh it’s finally here!! my long-form debut :D i love this fic so much but i genuinely didn’t expect it to end up this long?? but here it is, and i’m so happy to be able to share it with you guys. (also, i'm SO sorry about the three parts. tumblr is dumb.)

thank you @bubbliegubs SO much for listening to my rambles, encouraging my lil brain cells, and beta reading :D you’re seriously the best and i love you SO much <33333 and then thank you to @strangergraphics for the divider! it’s exactly what i needed ^^

🎥 fic length: 45k (p1: 19k)

🎥 song list: kids are born stars - joshua. riptide - vance joy. carry you home - alex warren. home - seventeen. stargazing - myles smith.

🎥 moodboards | teaser | part one | part two | part three

🎥 taglist: @angstylittleb1tch - @notmastyle - @scoupscious - @belladonna-is-alive - @chweloove - @ashlinxloves

“So,” Vernon said, sliding into your usual booth.

“So,” you said, matching his tone. He grinned.

“I’ve got an idea for you.”

“When do you not?”

“Okay, but this one’s actually good, okay? Hear me out.”

“I’m listening.” And to prove it, you took a sip of your coffee, eyes trained on him.

“Okay. Cool. So, picture this: post-apocalyptic zombie romance.”

You almost choked on your coffee, and Vernon burst out laughing.

“Hansol Vernon Chwe –”

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding.”

“You better be. Seungkwan would kill you.”

“Ugh, I know. Okay, but seriously, I have a pitch.”

“Not post-apocalyptic?” you confirmed, and he nodded, serious now.

“Not post-apocalyptic. But a psychological horror-thriller.”

“You and your fake blood,” you sighed, but you gestured for him to continue.

“Listen, fake blood is cool! And pretty cheap. Anyway, yes, it’s a psychological horror-thriller about a girl who has these nightmares. Nightmares where she kills her boyfriend.”

Vernon was grinning. You raised an eyebrow and took a sip of your latte.

“He tells her she could never hurt him. Whatever. But the nightmares keep getting worse, and she’s getting paranoid. Maybe she’s seeing, like, blood on him when the lights are off, but then it’s not there when she turns the lights on. She’s basically going insane. She can’t trust herself not to hurt him. And then it gets to the point where he comes up to her in the kitchen, and she’s cutting veggies or whatever, and she thinks she’s going to hurt him, so she locks herself in the bathroom and stabs herself instead. So that she won’t hurt him.”

He finished with a grin that was too wide and eyes that were too bright to be talking about insanity and suicide. But, what the hell, your eyes were probably just as bright as you leaned in with a grin of your own.

“You know what? Sure.”

The first movie you made together was a horror – or, as you’d come to realize since then, an attempt at one. You were thirteen, you and Vernon, except he went by Hansol then and you had only been friends for six years instead of seventeen.

But he’d knocked on your door one day with his dad’s old camcorder and a Halloween mask in his hands, and soon enough you were in the basement, tripping over your aunt’s graduation robe and lurking in the closet while he waited outside for your grand entrance.

“Okay, go!” Hansol called, the little click of a button cuing you.

“BOO!” you shrieked, throwing the doors open. They clattered against the walls as you burst through, reaching for Hansol and the camera. He bit his lip, face scrunching up to keep from laughing, and backed away, zooming in on your face before hitting the button to stop the video.

“Okay, stop!” he said, breaking into a smile that showcased the braces lining his teeth. You yanked the bootleg Ghostface mask off your head, beaming just as wide, shoving back the long wisps of hair that the mask tried to pull with it. (The static electricity made it a fairly futile attempt.)

“Did it look good?”

“Yes! So now we need a video of the girl running away.”

“Okay!” You tossed the mask aside and swam out of the large black robes, leaving you in just your jean shorts and the tie-dye tank top you’d made together last summer. “Good?”

“Yep!” Hansol moved to stand inside the closet, and you took his place outside it. “Okay, so I’m gonna close the doors, and then when I say ‘Go,’ you’re gonna open them and scream, okay? And, like, back up, and stuff. Be really scared.”

You nodded and closed the doors on him. “Ready?”

“Ready. Okay, go!”

You opened the closet doors to see Hansol’s camera pointed at your face, and you widened your eyes and screamed, backing away. He followed you.

But then the old braided rug caught your shoe, and the floor dropped away beneath your feet. Somehow, Hansol went down too, crashing on top of you, the camera jostling somewhere above your heads.

“Oof,” you said, blinking. He lifted his head and looked into your eyes, and then together you burst out laughing.

“You okay down there?” your mom called, the door at the top of the stairs creaking open. “I heard screaming –”

“We’re fine, Mom!” you shouted back.

“Alright, well, come up for lunch soon, okay?”

“Okay!”

Hansol rolled off you finally, still giggling. “Oh, hey, the camera’s still on!” he said, swinging it up to point at you as you sat up. “Say hi!”

“Hi!” you said with a wave. “Hansol fell on me.” You stuck your tongue out.

“Hey, you’re the one who tripped!” he argued, pushing at your shoulder.

“You’re the one who crushed me! You should apologize.” And you crossed your arms and stuck your nose in the air like the snooty princess from Sofia the First.

“I am so very sorry, your royal highness, can you ever forgive me?” he said, camera wobbling as he bowed forward. His hair flopped with him, almost into your lap, all loose brown curls.

“Huh, I dunno,” you said, tapping your chin thoughtfully. “What’re you gonna do to make it up to me?”

He lifted his head, bangs falling in his eyes, and met your gaze with a shockingly intense expression. “Anything. Anything and everything, for you.”

For a moment, you stared. Then you burst into laughter and shoved at him. “Yeah, sure, I forgive you. Last one to lunch is a loser!”

And you scrambled to your feet and raced upstairs, feet pounding on the rickety wooden steps.

Hansol tracked you with the camera for a moment, sitting still on the braided rug in your basement and just watching through the viewfinder.

The door swung loosely behind you. Then you poked your head back downstairs, frowning.

“Hansol? C’mon, what happened to anything and everything?”

He hit the button and stopped recording.

“I’m coming!”

You smiled again, bright and beautiful, and disappeared upstairs.

Anything and everything.

That was the day you both realized you loved making movies.

And the day Hansol realized he was in love with you.

Vernon glanced around the green, searching for the familiar bright colors that always followed you around. He smiled when he found you, cross-legged on a picnic table, and beelined for you and your bright orange overalls. You were squinting at your computer screen, spine curved once again despite all his gentle nudges about fixing your posture, and judging from the shadowy branches that settled a few inches to your right, you’d been in the shade at one point, but had been there long enough for the sun to push the shadows away.

He quickened his pace just slightly to get to your table faster, setting down the drinks and wiping his wet palms on his jeans. The California sun hadn’t been his friend on the long walk across campus, but thankfully the ice in his coffee and the slushie-blend in yours hadn’t melted too horribly.

Despite the clear appearance of the drinks, he still had to tap the top edge of your computer to get you to notice him. You jerked back, dragged from the void of the screen, and he grinned.

“Hey. Got you your fruity caffeine.” He gestured to the drinks.

Your eyes lit up. “Dutch Bros? Oh my gosh, I love you,” you said in a rush, grabbing the blended Rebel and the straw as he offered it.

I love you. Something stirred in Vernon’s chest, and he just smiled, sliding onto the bench. As you ripped open the straw, he reached over and peeled the sticker off the mouth of the cup, folding it away and tucking it into the pocket of his jeans. You didn’t seem to notice, too busy shoving the straw into the cup and taking a long sip, but Vernon just crossed his arms, leaned on the edge of the table, and waited.

“Good?” he asked when you finally set the plastic cup down, with an inch less drink in it than before.

You nodded eagerly. “Yes. Thank you so much.” You smiled, and Vernon felt his cheeks stretch wide in response.

“So,” he said, clearing his throat and recomposing his face, “how’s it going?”

Your smile fell almost entertainingly fast. “Ugh. Getting there, but, like… it’s not there. Why’d you hafta pick such a weird story?”

“Weird?”

You nodded, and a lock of hair fell into your eyes. You tucked it behind your ear before Vernon could even think about reaching out. (Unfortunately.) “It’s a really cool concept, but trying to figure out the steps that it would take to drive someone insane is hard. I have to get into her head and pick her apart. And then I have to translate it to visuals of specific moments in time. Writing isn’t easy, you know.”

You pouted. (Maybe you thought you were frowning, but Vernon was pretty sure it was just a pout.) It was… adorable, to say the least.

“I’m sorry,” he said honestly, looking up at you, backlit by the sun and beautiful. “I can still pick something else, if that’d be easier. We’ve got some time until pitches.”

But you were shaking your head before he’d even finished. “No, I just need to think about it more. I’ve only been working on it since Tuesday.”

Vernon nodded, pursing his lips. “If you’re sure.”

“Yeah. I’m sure.” You smiled at him, and the butterfly in his chest did a flip. They were old friends, Vernon and Mr. Butterfly. Down, boy, he thought as he smiled back at you. She just smiled. Nothing crazy.

“Alright. Then take a break. Let’s go on a walk or something.” Not that he’d just walked halfway across campus to bring you your beloved Dutch Bros, of course. That was irrelevant. So was the sweat gluing his shirt to his back in the sixty-degree California winter.

Your gaze drifted from him to your computer to the drink in your hand. He watched you weigh the choices.

“We can stop by the café for pastries,” he suggested, and he watched your eyes light up.

You snapped your computer shut. “Sounds good to me. You’re buying, right?”

“Yes, I’ll buy your pain-of-chocolate,” Vernon said, pronouncing it as wrong and as American as possible, and you paused with your laptop halfway into your bag, staring at him with an adorable and slightly scandalized look on your face.

“That is not – oh, whatever. And I was joking about you paying! You already got me Dutch.”

He shrugged, standing and leaning his hip against the table as he waited for you to finish packing up. “I don’t mind.”

“Yeah, well, out of the two of us, you’re the one who doesn’t have a job,” you huffed. He just took a sip of his iced caramelizer something and smiled. “Okay, let’s go.” You swung your bag over your shoulder, pins jingling against the light canvas, and grabbed your drink before turning to him with the most adorable, expectant look – the cutest thing he’d seen all day – and he had to fight a smile as he turned and started to follow.

He let you pay for your pain au chocolat and for his chocolate croissant, but only because you looked up at him with those beautiful eyes, and he couldn’t exactly say no.

Vernon thumbed the thin stack of red-inked papers in his hands, dodging tables and chairs and studying (sleeping) students as he wove his way to the back corner of the campus library. Your favorite spot was there; the little square table by the window that overlooked the green.

Your earbuds were in when he arrived, colorful strings braided around the length of white cord, and he smiled, a little of the tension fading from his shoulders. It had been a while since he’d had the time to hang out with you – ‘a while’ being about 36 hours – but even just seeing the focused pinch of your eyebrows was more than enough to make up for it.

He slipped around behind you and, arms bracketing your head, carefully lowered the marked-up script in between you and your computer.

You jerked back in surprise, and Vernon couldn’t move fast enough – your head slammed into the side of his jaw with a dull thud. His teeth clacked together, and he dropped the papers, reaching to cradle the back of your head.

“Crap, I’m sorry,” he rushed, your hair soft under his thumb as your wide eyes stared up at him.

“Hansol?” you breathed, a hint of incredulity seeping through, but Vernon’s chest fluttered despite it. Hansol. You yanked your earbuds out by the cord. “What…?”

“Sorry,” he said again, pulling himself out of your eyes. “I didn’t think you’d, uh, jump.”

“I didn’t think you’d materialize behind me!” Your own hand reached up to cover his. His skin tingled with warmth, and he pulled his hand away as Mr. Butterfly caused chaos in his chest. “Geez, that hurts! Ow!”

“Sorry –” Vernon cut himself off as the librarian walked around the corner, pushing a cart of books. He lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. Do you need to put ice on it?”

But you shook your head, matching his pitch as you spoke again. “No, it’s fine. I’m just being a baby.”

Nothing wrong with that, Vernon wanted to say, but you were reaching for the papers he’d dropped all over your laptop, so the words stayed in his head.

“Oh, you read through it already?” you said, eyes darting to him as you organized the pages. “I sent it to you, like, less than an hour ago.”

Vernon shrugged. “I had time. I wasn’t doing anything else.” He’d scrambled to finish the last few pages of his media history textbook in order to sprint to the library and print the script, then had huddled in the corner on the floor below you and read it six times over before giving the best, most honest (and objective) notes he could. It

He watched your lips twitch up in a smile. Then focus settled over your face as you flipped past the title page, eyes scanning the red marks of his pen, and he drew out a chair to sit beside you.

The nice thing about this situation was that he could just… look at you. You were so enveloped in his notes that you wouldn’t be looking up, and since they were his notes on a script for his project, you wouldn’t think twice about his eyes on you. So he could just look at you, admire you, and no one would say anything about –

“There you are!”

Vernon’s head snapped up as Seungkwan’s massive bag hit the table across from him.

“Uh, hi,” he said, blinking as though that would clear away the tingle in his cheeks. “Shh, we’re in a library. Did you need us for something?”

“I need you,” Seungkwan said, his voice at least a little quieter as he sat down and pulled a binder from his backpack. Ah. The Binder. “Pitches are happening in three days and you haven’t given me anything.”

“Well, we’re still finalizing the script –”

“Oh, I know; Y/N sent it to me an hour ago. But you haven’t given me anything else. I need moodboards, Vernon! Moodboards!” Seungkwan hissed. “This is your senior project! And mine, too, unless I ditch you for Namjoon!”

Vernon wrinkled his nose. “You wouldn’t.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t,” Seungkwan sighed. “But I still need your stupid moodboards, okay?”

“The script isn’t finished –”

“You can make moodboards before the script is finished. Come on, we’re doing this now.” Seungkwan popped his laptop open and spun it to face Vernon. The home page of Pinterest stared back at him, cute puppies and creepy warehouses filling the screen. “Now, Vernon,” Seungkwan said with a harsh poke to his shoulder. Vernon swatted at his hand.

“Fine, fine. Look up, uh, blood.”

Seungkwan’s glare was almost enough to make Vernon crack. (It really wasn’t.) “You are the worst director I’ve ever worked with.”

You looked up at that, frowning. “What?”

“Vernon won’t cooperate,” Seungkwan said immediately as you glanced between him and Vernon. (Mr. Butterfly fluttered.) “He hates your script and wants to pick another one.”

“What?” Vernon blurted, sitting up straighter and flashing Seungkwan the most annoyed look he could before turning to you and your wide, injured eyes. “No I don’t! I love it –”

“Then make a moodboard for it!” Seungkwan whined. Vernon almost hit him.

“I wanna make sure that she’s happy with the story before I do anything else with it,” he said as evenly as he could, shooting Seungkwan a look. “There’s no point in making a moodboard if it’s just gonna change later.”

“I’d rather have something for Friday than nothing, even if we do have to change it later.” Seungkwan crossed his arms.

“I am happy with the story, though?” you said slowly. “I mean, I’ve gotta tweak the script to fit your notes, but I like the notes. They’re good. I’m happy to fix it and then lock the script.”

“Really?” That dang butterfly again. “You like it?”

You nodded, a lock of hair slipping into your eyes. You shoved it back and picked up one of the script pages. “Yeah. Adding the scene with the bloody mouth is a really good idea, I can really see it. And, I mean, it’d freak me out if I kissed my boyfriend and he started bleeding,” you added with a grin. “So. It’s good. I can have it written up in, like, five minutes?”

Right. The script. Vernon nodded quickly, ignoring how Mr. Butterfly writhed inside him. He didn’t have time for that, not with you and Seungkwan both looking at him expectantly. Mr. Butterfly could wait. “Yeah. Yeah, that’d be great. And I’ll start on the moodboard, and once you’re done we can probably lock the script.”

“And then we can finally get started on the rest of the pitch. Great!” Seungkwan clapped his hands (too loudly for the library, drawing a couple glances from other students scribbling homework) and tapped his computer.

“Shh,” Vernon hissed, but he pulled the laptop closer and typed ‘thriller blood aesthetic’ into the Pinterest search bar. Seungkwan’s feed was going to be ruined after this, but that was a regular occurrence anyway.

Seungkwan flipped open his binder. It thwacked Vernon on the elbow.

“Dude!”

“Sorry! Move your elbow!”

“Move your binder!” But Vernon adjusted his seat, maybe shifting a little closer to you. (You didn’t notice. You were typing away, earbuds in, the tip of your tongue pinched between your teeth and just barely visible between your parted lips. Your lips were glossy. They usually were – you liked your lip glosses, he knew; the ones with the little charms dangling off the ends – and today’s pick was something a little red, something that matched your loose reddish sweater, cropped and netted to show the fitted tank top underneath. Light blue cargo jeans somehow tied together the outfit, sandwiched between that berry-red sweater and your matching high-tops, and the way you pressed your knees together and rolled your feet up onto your toes was so endearing and –)

Something smacked into Vernon’s shin, and he jumped. Seungkwan was glaring at him.

“What?” Vernon hissed.

“Stop staring.”

“I’m not staring!”

“You were.”

“I wasn’t – shh!” Vernon shoved his focus onto the computer. There was a photo of a shower drain with water the color of your lip gloss. He saved it to a new folder. “See? I’m doing the stuff!”

Seungkwan just scoffed and kept scribbling in his binder.

Vernon did manage to focus on the moodboard after that, assembling an army of photos that matched the setting and aesthetic in his mind. He’d even started to organize them when you finally pulled your earbuds out, a triumphant smile on your glossy lips.

“Okay, done!” you said proudly, turning your laptop around. “Take a look and let me know what you think.”

Vernon leaned in, scrolling slowly through the script as Seungkwan read over his shoulder. It was good, just like he’d expected; you’d taken his notes and adjusted the script accordingly, even adding the brief make-out scene he’d thought of. He could see it as he read, the shots playing out before his eyes.

Seungkwan clicked his tongue as he reached the end. “Wow. I assume you want to get Junhui and Lei to act?”

“Oh, for sure. I wouldn’t have suggested a make-out scene if I was gonna cast two people who weren’t dating. Or who at least knew each other.” Vernon nudged your computer back to you, smiling. “I love it. I’m happy to lock it.”

The brilliant, relieved smile that broke over your face was beautiful. Mr. Butterfly thought so, too.

“Okay, I’ll go print it,” you said, taking your laptop back. “How many copies?”

“Four,” Seungkwan answered. “Send me the PDF, too, so I can shoot Jun and Lei an email.” You nodded.

“You could just text them,” Vernon pointed out, but Seungkwan’s face screwed up into something weird and scandalized. You stifled a laugh.

“A professional producer would email their actors. Never text.”

“I’m gonna go grab the scripts,” you said, pushing back your chair and standing. Vernon watched your hair swing behind you as you walked away.

Then: “Ow!”

Seungkwan had kicked his leg again. Vernon glared, hiking his knee up to massage his injured shin.

“Dude, stop. You’re gonna give me a bruise.”

“When are you gonna tell her?”

Vernon looked up, eyes snapping to Seungkwan’s for a moment before scanning the room to make sure you were gone. (You were. Mr. Butterfly, however, was going crazy.)

He glared openly at Seungkwan.

“I thought I told you to stop.”

“And I thought I told you that you look like a lovesick puppy whenever she’s around, and I’m sick of it?” Seungkwan leaned across the table, mouth curling in… disgust? Ouch. “You need to tell her or get over her, seriously.”

Mr. Butterfly writhed and tried to hide behind Vernon’s Adam’s apple. Not a great idea. He cleared his throat and tucked his knee back under the table.

“It’s fine. I’ve lived with it this long, and it’s been fine. I’m happy just being her friend and being around her. Okay?” He shrugged. “Seriously, Kwan. I love her for her. Not for, like, romance or whatever.”

“You love her?” Seungkwan echoed, his eyebrows rising dramatically. Vernon frowned.

“Yeah, I thought you knew this?”

“I knew you liked her.”

“Oh. Well, regardless, I’m fine waiting until she’s ready.”

“And what if she’s never ready?” Seungkwan pressed.

Vernon shrugged, leaning back. “Then I’ll probably move on naturally. And I’m fine with that. I’m actually patient, you know.”

Seungkwan just blinked. Then he shook his head. “You, Vernon Chwe,” he huffed, picking up his pencil again, “are incredible.”

“Thank you.”

“Not like that –”

“Shh, she’s coming back. Keep working on your producer-y stuff.”

“You mean your pitch? Keep working on your moodboard, director boy.”

“Hey –”

“Here!” you announced, dropping back into your seat with a pile of papers in hand. “Scripts for both of you. You got the PDF, right?” you added, handing three of the scripts to Seungkwan, and he nodded.

“Thank you. I’ll send out the emails once Vernon’s done with my computer.”

“Dude, just take it. I wanna work on storyboards anyway, I have some ideas.” Vernon nudged the laptop back across the table, making room for the script you set down in front of him. Stapled vertically along one edge, just the way he liked it. He flashed you a smile as Mr. Butterfly ran a cheer routine in his chest. “Thanks.”

You smiled back at him, eyes glittering and lips shining, and Mr. Butterfly did a flip.

Vernon stared in the mirror, something unsettling burrowing into his gut. He swallowed.

Carefully, very carefully, he lifted a hand and prodded at his jaw.

Pain flared from the ugly purple bruise.

Crap.

Maybe sneaking up behind you two days before his pitch meeting was a really, really bad idea. He groaned, rubbing his hands over his face, until that aggravated the bruise and he grimaced.

Yeah. Really bad idea.

At least he could still talk, as evidenced by the brief ‘good morning’ conversation he’d had with Seungkwan – before his roommate started freaking out over the “huge bruise” on his face.

Now Vernon was standing in the bathroom and questioning everything.

He had to pitch his senior project today. His senior project. And he could not go in looking like he’d lost a fight to a small-fisted powerhouse.

So he did the only thing he’d done for the last three years when things got bad: He called you.

“Why are you wearing a mask?” was the first thing Vernon heard when you opened the door to your dorm building. Followed quickly by: “And why do you need my makeup, again?”

He chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, so, that might be, uh, related. Um. Can we – can we go to your dorm?”

“Sure,” you said, heading towards the stairs. He followed, like he always did. “But you’ve gotta explain. Also, Youngji’s still home, so hopefully that’s alright.”

“Yeah, I don’t mind.”

You looked at him over your shoulder. He locked his eyes on the stairs beneath his feet.

Vernon didn’t think he’d ever get used to the explosion of color that was your room. The decorated front of your door was just the beginning. Inside, a fluffy blue rug covered the cold floor, multicolored curtains framed the window between the beds, and posters and polaroids and all sorts of everything decorated the walls.

And his old hoodie, the rainbow tie-dye one that had somehow become yours over the years, sat draped over the corner of your bedspread. A smile broke across his face, and he let it; you couldn’t see it under the mask anyway.

“Vernon, heyyy!” Youngji said, and he looked over quickly, waving. Your roommate sat cross-legged on her bed, pencil wiggling between her fingers and a messy notebook on the blanket before her. “Don’t worry, I’m out soon. I’ve got Alcoholic History in a few.”

“Alcoholic History?” Vernon echoed, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah, I thought it’d be fun.” Youngji shrugged and glanced at her phone. Her eyes blew wide. “Oh, shoot, I gotta go! Bye!”

She rolled off the bed, grabbed her backpack and shoes, and all but stumbled out the door. Vernon caught it before it could slam, closing it gently with a quiet chuckle.

“Alcoholic History is the study of the creation and history of alcohol, in case you were still confused,” you said, and Vernon’s attention snapped back to you. You were halfway through clearing your desk, a large makeup bag waiting on top of his old rainbow hoodie.

“I was. Thank you.”

“Mhm. No problem. Now, uh,” you glanced up at him, hair drifting into your eyes, and Mr. Butterfly screamed, “do you wanna tell me why you’re wearing a mask and why you need me to do your makeup? Cause I’m assuming you don’t just wanna play dress up on pitch day.”

Ah. Right. Vernon winced, reaching up to tug the loop from around his ear. “Don’t freak out, okay? I know it looks bad, but it doesn’t really hurt. Much.”

“Doesn’t hurt –”

He pulled the mask off, and your jaw dropped.

“Hansol!” you gasped, and then your hands were at his chin, tilting his head to the side, fingers ghosting over his skin. He inhaled sharply. Your touch disappeared as fast as it had come, but his head still spun. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you – Hansol, what the hell happened? Did you get in a fight?”

“No, uh, nothing like that,” he said quickly, shaking his head and shoving the mask deep into his pocket. “I, uh – remember the library on Wednesday?”

Vernon watched your eyes go round as saucers.

“Oh my gosh, you mean – when you scared me – my head did that?!”

He nodded slowly, wincing. “Um, yeah. But it’s fine! It doesn’t hurt that bad. I just, y’know, would rather not walk into our pitch meeting looking like… this. Can you, like, cover it up?”

You blinked at him for a minute, then sighed. “Yeah, I can. Sit down, dumbass.”

Vernon’s lips quirked into a smile as he dropped into your desk chair. “Thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Go to Minghao, probably. This is much more his line of expertise than mine.” You plopped your makeup bag onto your desk and rifled through it.

“Nah, Minghao wouldn’t let me hear the end of it.”

“And I will?” You rolled your eyes, shoving a lock of hair behind your ear. His eyes traced the motion. He couldn’t help it. “You’re such an idiot. Hang on.” Then your fingers were under his chin, guiding his head to the left again as you held a glass tube against his cheek.

“Yeah, that’ll work,” you decided, and then the burning pressure of your fingers and the cool weight of the glass were gone, and he could breathe again.

Until you turned toward him, another little tube in hand. Was that… green? “Hold still, alright? And let me know if it hurts.”

You gently pinched his chin, tilting his head and leaning closer, and he was done with words for a while. Mostly because he couldn’t talk without moving his jaw. But also because you were so close, and so beautiful – hair framing your face, breath feathering along his cheek as you dabbed green pigment across his jaw. It hurt, a little bit, but not enough that it was worth mentioning. He could suffer if it meant you were this close to him.

After a bit, you pulled away, one hand still resting under his chin as you reached for something else. Vernon swallowed thickly.

“Can you talk to me?” he whispered.

A little smile lifted the corner of your lips. Pink gloss today, to match the little bows that dotted your jeans and the little heart that dangled from your neck.

“Yep,” you said. Your eyes were on your makeup bag, on the brush in your hands, but Mr. Butterfly still seemed intent on wreaking havoc in his chest. “Need something to get your mind off the pitch, huh?”

“Yeah,” Vernon lied. Sure. The pitch. If he needed to be distracted from the pitch, he would’ve pulled out his phone and started scrolling.

“Anything in particular today?”

“No. Just… you. Whatever, I mean.”

“Alright.” You swept at his jaw with a big soft brush, and his eyes drifted shut. “Well, I had waffles for breakfast this morning. With butter and syrup and everything. Youngji and I ate together in the cafeteria. I saw Seungkwan there, but he looked like he was on his third coffee already, so I didn’t bother him.” You chuckled, and it rang in Vernon’s ears like music.

You told him about your morning, about the scene you were trying to crack in your feature, about this absolute dumpster fire of a script that one of your classmates was writing and insisted was good, and he listened to all of it. Your voice filled his head, settling into his bones, grounding him the way it always did.

But also your fingertips burned against his skin. Your shampoo, the honey-rose one you’d used since senior year of high school, filled his nose. He couldn’t get enough of it. Once, you pulled away to swap out your brush, and he had to keep himself from drifting after you. (You returned with concealer smeared across your fingers, and when you began to pat it gently along his jaw, he inhaled so quickly that you apologized for hurting him. He just mumbled something noncommittal and closed his eyes.)

“Okay, I think we’re almost done,” you announced at last, nudging his head from side to side. (The tip of your finger grazed his throat, and Mr. Butterfly lost his mind a little bit.) “Yeah, that’s good. You’re lucky I had to learn how to cover up hickies.”

Vernon’s brain screeched to a stop.

Your hand dropped from his chin, and you pulled away, twisting the cap back onto your concealer.

“Hickies?” he echoed blankly. You snorted.

“Yeah. I would be surprised you never noticed, but that just means I did a good job covering them up.”

“When –”

But you nearly dropped your phone, eyes widening. “Shoot, it’s almost noon! We have to meet Seungkwan!”

“What?!”

Vernon dragged himself to his feet, mind whirling now for too many reasons. You shoved the rest of your makeup back into the case, containers clattering together, and slung your messenger bag over your shoulder.

“Okay, how do I look?” you asked, big eyes staring up at Vernon.

His breath caught, mind short-circuiting somewhere between a thought about the pitch in two hours and who the hell had given you hickies. He blinked.

Glossy pink lips. Perfect eyeliner. Little bows dangling from your earlobes, bows on your pants, white converse with ribbon laces. An oversized pink hoodie.

“Great,” he said, because his dumb brain was horrible with words. Amazing. Beautiful. Gorgeous. Pretty. Adorable. ‘Great.’ Yeah, he was fine. So fine.

But you smiled and grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the dorm.

Vernon had just enough presence of mind during your scramble across campus to, one, shove the thought of you’re lucky I had to learn how to cover up hickies far away into the recesses of his brain, and, two, realize that he’d completely forgotten his backpack and needed to call Seungkwan and ask him to bring it.

Yeah, this was a great start to pitch day.

Vernon stared at the door. The makeup felt cakey on his jaw, but you and Seungkwan hadn’t said anything about it, so it must be fine. It had to be.

Seungkwan had everything in his binder. The slides were on Vernon’s hard drive, stored in the main folder so he wouldn’t have to dig for them, and his hard drive was in his sweaty hand. Ugh. Sweaty. He grimaced and wiped his palms on his jeans, leaving the precious hard drive in his lap for a moment.

It’d be fine. They’d be fine. Wonwoo and Seungcheol were committed to the project, and Professor Kim loved them – for good reason; they were arguably the best DP-gaffer duo in the school – and Seungkwan had yet to produce a project that failed. Vernon was pretty sure that he was one of the better directors, but he didn’t want to bet too hard on that. Besides, it was the script that was really under fire here, more than his directing skills.

The script. Right. Your script.

Vernon swallowed tightly. He’d suggested the idea. He’d made you write the script. He’d had opinions and suggestions and edits for you. Had he infringed too much? Had he gotten in the way? That was the last thing he wanted to do, ever, but what if he’d done it accidentally anyway? What if he suggested something bad, and the script got shot down because of it, and not only did he have to scramble to be on a different senior project but you did, too?

His stomach churned. He was going to ruin your senior year and it was all his fault and you’d just be miserable and upset, and it was all going to be his fault, and you’d hate him, and –

Something settled on his knee. His eyes flicked up to find you watching him, perfect brows knitted together, glossy pink lips pushed out in a little pout.

“Hey,” you said, quiet. “Tell me the logline for the film again.”

“When Nora starts having visions where she kills her boyfriend, Tien, she must choose between protecting his life by leaving or protecting his heart by staying,” Vernon recited easily. It was almost automatic at this point.

You smiled, fingertips and thumb gently pressing into the sides of his knee. Mr. Butterfly gasped for air. “Yeah. Perfect. You’re gonna do great, Hansol. Don’t stress so much. You’ve got this.”

Vernon didn’t know what made him do it. He just did it. He reached out and slipped his hand under yours, against his knee, curling his fingers around the back of your hand.

“We’ve got this,” he corrected with a gentle squeeze. You smiled back at him, and if you’d asked him to fly right then, he would’ve soared.

Seungkwan cleared his throat. “Yeah. All three of us have got this.”

The door clicked open.

“Next?”

Vernon stood up so fast he almost dropped his hard drive. He had to drop your hand to catch it.

But your smile stayed as the three of you walked into the terrifying jaws of the pitch room. And the feeling of your palm against his, your hand on his knee, lingered far longer.

“I’m gonna throw up,” Vernon repeated, staring into his trash can. Seungkwan sighed and swirled the ice in his melting americano. Clinkclinkclinkclinkclink.

“You’re going to be fine.” Seungkwan threw a crumpled index card at him. Vernon didn’t move as it bounced off his shoulder. He just stared at the pile of index cards already in the trash. “The whole board liked it, I promise. Don’t worry. Besides, have I ever pitched a project that didn’t get accepted?”

Vernon swallowed. “The tangerine documentary freshman year.”

“Okay, that was a joke!” Seungkwan complained immediately, another index card flying. This time it hit Vernon’s cheek, and he wrinkled his nose, but didn’t move. He couldn’t. “Listen, it’s a solid project. We’ve got a solid pitch and a solid team. Y/N’s script is amazing. Your moodboard holds together and looks good. Junhui and Lei are on board. We’ll be fine. Nothing to worry about.”

“I’m still gonna throw up.”

“Oh, you’re impossible.” Seungkwan pulled out his phone and gasped. “Three o’clock! Here it comes!”

“Oh, no –” Vernon buried his face in his hands. “I’m not looking.”

“Here,” Seungkwan said, setting down his iced coffee with a clink. “I’ll read it to you, since you’re such a chicken.”

“I am not –”

“‘Hello, students!’”

“Kwan –”

“‘Congratulations on a great round of pitches!’” Seungkwan continued, voice growing even louder. Vernon debated clamping his hands over his ears, but then Seungkwan would just start screaming. That might actually make him cry. “‘We’ve selected the top seven projects for production this year. See below for the full list of approved projects.’”

“Seungkwan, please –”

“‘Number one: Bleeding Hearts, directed by Vernon Chwe!’”

Vernon’s bones locked. All of them.

“What?” he managed, his jaw creaking.

Seungkwan whooped. It almost shattered Vernon’s eardrums. “Number one on the list, baby! What did I tell you? Nothing to worry about! You’ve got yourself a movie!”

Vernon’s heartbeat raced in his ears. He blinked. “We got green-lit.”

“Hell yeah, we did!”

He shook his head and scrambled to find his backpack, digging his phone out of whatever deep recess he’d hidden it in. He needed to see for himself.

But sure enough, after he’d tried and failed to open the email three separate times from how much his hands shook, there it was: Bleeding Hearts, directed by Vernon Chwe.

“No way,” he whispered.

“Yes way! Woo-hoo!” Seungkwan clapped. “We did it!”

“Yeah,” Vernon agreed, his thoughts drifting back to your hand on his knee and your beautiful eyes on his. “We did.” Oh. You. He should text you and freak out about the good news. Unless you hadn’t seen it yet? Would you rather find out from him or from an official email? Should he wait until you texted him, to make sure that he didn’t spoil the surprise? He didn’t want to spoil it for you if you wanted to find out by yourself. Or maybe he should go get you a pain au chocolat thing from that café and tell you in person? Or would that be too much?

A rapid knock on the door rattled him out of his thoughts. Seungkwan was up and yanking the door open before Vernon had fully processed anything.

Then –

“We did it!” you cheered as you flew inside, flinging your arms around Seungkwan’s neck and hugging him tightly. He hugged you back, but you were already pulling away – with your eyes locked on Vernon, half twisted in his uncomfortable wooden desk chair, the garbage can still between his socked feet.

Your eyes glowed. Glittered, even. Your cheeks were red, from makeup or excitement or running he couldn’t tell, but you looked beautiful anyway. Most of your hair was tied back with a bright yellow bow, except for a few strands that had fallen. You looked almost windswept. Maybe you had run there.

And your hoodie. Oh, oh, you were wearing his hoodie. The tie-dye one. The one that had somehow made its way into your closet so many years ago, and he was so fine with it, he was more than fine with it, because you were in his hoodie and you were beaming at him and breathing hard and breathtaking.

“Hi,” he said dumbly. Mr. Butterfly was well into an acrobatic routine, beating out the rhythm of his heartbeat at a highly unnecessary speed.

“You did it,” you said, breathless, and then you were on him. One knee hiked up on his lap, the other foot on the ground; arms around his shoulders and face in his neck.

Vernon froze. Was this what his computer felt like when he tried to import too many files at once? Overloaded, wired to the point of immobility, tingling all over like he’d been electrocuted –

You laughed, warm breath puffing across his throat, and he swore he nearly died. Oh.

Hug her back, dumbass! Mr. Butterfly screamed through the roar in his ears. Oh. Right. Vernon slowly extracted his leaden arms and wrapped them carefully around you, one at your waist and one across your back. His hands hovered at first, but then you squeezed him and he squeezed back automatically, and oh. The familiar fabric of his old hoodie atop the gentle warmth of your skin, soft and plush beneath his fingers – oh, oh, oh.

He shifted his right hand up, almost to the top of your spine, and soft waves of hair welcomed him, cascading over the hood. His eyes fluttered shut. His fingers moved by themselves, trailing back and forth, weaving through your hair and ghosting across your back with just enough pressure that his fingertips buzzed. He wondered if you felt it, too, and then your hand curled into the hair at the base of his neck and he forgot his own name. Forgot everything but the pressure of your arms and the scent of your honey-rose shampoo.

You squeezed him tighter for one beautiful, blissful moment.

Then you pulled away, and it was like winter slapped him in the face. In the whole body. Gone was your weight, your warmth, your shampoo; everything lingered, but nothing stayed.

His head spun. He watched from behind the camera as you said something, laughed, hugged Seungkwan again. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t even really think. He just watched, hoping in vain that he didn’t look as wrecked as he felt, like you’d single-handedly unraveled him with a single hug.

Oh. He could still feel the weight of your knee on his thigh, pressing in just the wrong place, sending a horrid twinge up his leg that he would give anything to feel again. The softness of your skin, the gentle scrape of your nails against the nape of his neck… oh.

You looked at him again. He met your eyes – big, beautiful eyes, shrinking in the shadow of your smile. Your laugh. Seungkwan said something and you had laughed.

Then Seungkwan led you to the door, a gentle hand on your back, and Vernon watched in slow motion as you waved him goodbye and disappeared.

The harsh click of the door hit him like a bucket of water. Then something did hit him – Seungkwan’s hand, sharp and stinging against his shoulder. He flinched.

“Ow.”

“Are you okay?” Seungkwan hissed, eyes wide. Vernon stared up at him.

“Uh, are you concerned or angry?” he said slowly, trying to piece his brain back together.

Seungkwan’s already-raised eyebrows raised again. “I don’t know. What should I be? You looked like you were in a coma. And knowing you and your absolute idiocy, you were losing your mind over her hugging you. Right?”

Suddenly Vernon’s cheeks were burning. Seungkwan rolled his eyes.

“Oh, my gosh,” he groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You have so many issues.”

“Wait, why did she leave?” Vernon asked, frowning. “We should’ve gotten In-N-Out or something. To celebrate. Wait, no, she likes Chick-fil-A.”

Seungkwan turned and stared at him with a look that could only be described as incredulous. “She left because I told her you were sick. Because you were as still as a literal tree. She asked why you weren’t excited and I had to tell her that you were sick. Lucky I didn’t say what you were sick with, you absolute lovesick simp!”

He smacked his shoulder again. Vernon winced.

“So yes, I lied to her to make her leave, because you had the functionality of a log!” Seungkwan groaned. “Oh, why did I decide to room with you again? For three years? You are the worst.”

“Hey, I’m not that bad –”

“She hugged you and you froze. I saw the look on your face for a solid three seconds. Like you forgot how to be a normal human.”

Vernon looked down. Mr. Butterfly hadn’t stopped running laps in his chest. Flying laps, whatever. It was still too fast. Too fast. He forced himself to take a long, slow breath.

“And now you’re doing breathing exercises, great,” Seungkwan moaned, faceplanting into his bed. “I don’t have the mental fortitude to deal with this. Unless,” he said, his head popping up from the covers with concerningly bright eyes, “you want me to help you two get together.”

Vernon’s eyes might have popped out of his head. “No! I told you, no!”

“You said you’re fine waiting,” Seungkwan said, narrowing his eyes. “That didn’t seem like ‘I’m fine waiting.’ That seemed like ‘I’m going to die if I don’t kiss her.’”

Vernon choked. Like, actually inhaled wrong and choked on air and had to cough his way back into regular breathing.

When he finally recovered, he faced Seungkwan with the most serious frown he could muster.

“Okay. Seriously. Sure, fine, I want to kiss her,” Vernon said, ignoring the heat rising to his ears at the mere thought, “but I also really want to wait. I don’t want to hurt her. And I especially don’t want to lose her. So, please, Seungkwan, just… don’t do anything about it. Let it happen naturally, or not at all. I’m fine with either option. Please.”

He swallowed and waited and didn’t quite dare to breathe again. Seungkwan narrowed his eyes at him, crossing his arms.

“So you’d rather I let her stay in here and talk until she realized how close to nirvana you were?” he said at last, and the heat in Vernon’s ears spread down his neck.

“No, I mean, that was fine – thank you for that, I guess – but like, that’s not gonna happen constantly, and I just mean –”

But Seungkwan waved his hands in the air, shaking his head. “I know, I know. I’m kidding. But, fine. I’ve got your back. But I won’t do anything about it.” He paused. Vernon raised an eyebrow and waited. “…Except tease you,” Seungkwan finished, and Vernon sighed, dropping his chin to his chest.

“Yep, there it is,” he mumbled. Seungkwan was grinning again.

“Can you really expect anything less from your best friend?”

“Hey, you’re not –”

“Oh, no, Y/N is your crush, not your best friend,” Seungkwan said, shaking his head. “I’m your best friend now.”

“She’s not –”

“Don’t finish that sentence if it’s gonna be a lie.”

Vernon shut his mouth. Seungkwan grinned.

“I hate you,” Vernon muttered. Seungkwan fluttered over and tapped him on the nose before Vernon could swat him away.

“Sure you do. Don’t forget that I’m producing your senior project, lovebird.”

“Seungkwan –”

“SPEAKING of which!” Seungkwan sang, grabbing his binder and dropping it into Vernon’s lap. (Much less comfy to hold than you had been.) “We’ve got details to go over, you hopeless romantic!”

Vernon groaned.

Vernon had finally managed to escape the never-ending clutches of Seungkwan’s binder and was headed for the cafeteria when his phone buzzed with a text from you.

Multiple texts, actually, back to back to back.

Y/N 👻: hey r u doing ok? kwan said ur sick??

Y/N 👻: oh but also congratulations again!!

Y/N 👻: on the project being green lit, I mean

Y/N 👻: told ya you’d kill it :D

Y/N 👻: oh and lmk if I can grab you anything!! Soup or medicine or smth

Y/N 👻: I hope ur not feeling too bad :(

The buzzes finally stopped. Mr. Butterfly did a weird happy dance.

“Stop, I shouldn’t be smiling,” he muttered under his breath, hiking his nearly-empty backpack higher on his shoulder. “She thinks I’m sick.”

>> Seungkwan exaggerated, I just was really nervous n got nauseous

>> I’m fine now tho

>> sorry he worried u

The typing bubble popped up instantly.

Y/N 👻: oh good!! Glad to hear ur not dead lol

Y/N 👻: still lmk if u need anything tho, I can smuggle smth out of the caf

>> oh I’m omw there actually

Y/N 👻: WAIT NO WAY

Y/N 👻: I SEE U!!

Vernon’s head snapped up to see you waving at him from the cafeteria door, his rainbow hoodie tied around your shoulders, the biggest smile on your face, and he had to inhale very slowly to keep his heart rate from skyrocketing. Mr. Butterfly had no such restraint and, apparently, had the zoomies. Vernon plastered a ‘normal’ smile on his face and jogged over to meet you.

“Hey,” he said, blinking at you as he climbed the last two steps. Oh. You looked even prettier in the fading sunlight of golden hour, the glow hitting your hair just right, and your eyes…

“Hi,” you said with the sweetest little giggle. Mr. Butterfly did a flip. “I think it’s chicken finger day.”

“Oh, my gosh, I hope so.”

You turned and headed inside, pushing through the crowd, and Vernon followed. It didn’t take long for him to almost lose you, but then he felt a tug on his sleeve, and there you were, grabbing his hoodie just above the wrist. You flashed him a smile and he floated through the crowd as you dragged him towards the chicken fingers.

Your nails skittered across the keyboard, painting the rainbow as you typed. You’d spent the last half hour before the meeting sitting on the floor of Vernon’s dorm room and gluing the fake nails on, telling him all about how you and Youngji had spent twenty minutes in Target picking out the right ones, and he nodded along and tried to listen but just kept looking at your hands. Your soft, delicate hands. Hands now tipped with fake nails, almond tips, you’d said (his brain had still been functioning at that point). Almond tips, each finger a different color, dotted with little matching flowers. Somehow, just that little touch – the bright pastels tipping your fingers – elongated your hands, made them seem even more elegant and delicate than normal.

Vernon flinched as something sharp pinched his side.

Seungkwan, staring at him with an expression somewhere between exhausted and annoyed. Exasperated, probably.

“Vernon,” he said, his tone slow, like Vernon was seven years old, “can you walk us through the storyboard?”

Vernon had an unpleasant feeling that this wasn’t the first time he’d been asked. Maybe not the second, either. “Um, yeah. Sorry, I zoned out.”

“I know,” Seungkwan breathed, but he shook his head and tapped Vernon’s notebook. “Storyboard, please.”

“Yeah. Right.”

Vernon cleared his throat and flipped through a few pages, glancing at everyone else crammed into his little dorm room. Maybe he should’ve taken you up on your offer to leave before the production meeting started. He didn’t want you to leave, of course, but he also needed to actually focus.

So he tried to ignore you, tucked in the corner of his bed, and smiled at his friends. His crew. Then he looked down at the notebook on his knees to remember what the heck he was supposed to be talking about.

Storyboard. Right.

“So,” he said with a glance at Wonwoo, “the opening shot is going to be the flashback of the knife. The one we cut back to a few times. I’m thinking a slight upward angle, like this.” He bent forward, passing the notebook down to where Wonwoo sat on the floor. Seungcheol leaned over the cinematographer’s shoulder as they both examined the sketch. (It was a bad sketch, but they’d gotten used to his chicken scratch sketches by this point.)

“Which room are we shooting this in again?” Wonwoo asked, glancing up.

Seungkwan beat Vernon to it: “The bathroom. But at an angle where you can’t really tell.” Vernon just nodded. They’d talked out the breakdown sheets already.

“What kind of kitchen knife is it?” Minghao asked, folding his arms across the back of Seungkwan’s desk chair. He liked to sit backwards on chairs. Vernon still thought it was a little weird, but whatever. “Is this a steak knife, utility knife, chef’s knife? Santoku? Please don’t tell me you want a cleaver.”

“Oh. Um.” Vernon frowned. “I’m gonna be honest, I don’t know what half of those look like.”

You snorted from the corner of his bed. Mr. Butterfly spun around to look at you. Vernon didn’t, keeping his eyes on Minghao despite… you.

Minghao, who was pulling out his phone and turning it around to show him something. Vernon squinted across the tiny dorm room.

A picture of a full set of kitchen knives. Of course.

“These are all the fake knives I have. The steak knife is the smaller serrated one,” Minghao began, pointing with one half-painted nail. (You’d joked about giving him your extra press-ons when he’d first showed up. Vernon thought they looked better on you.) “The utility knife is this one; it looks like a larger version of a paring knife –”

Seungkwan’s phone rang, just about as loud and obnoxious as him. He whipped it out and answered the call, pressing it to his ear with a cheery, “Hey, Jun!”

Then Vernon watched his face fall. Minghao lowered his phone.

“What’s wrong?” Seungcheol asked softly, but Seungkwan just shook his head, slipping off Vernon’s bed and darting into the hallway.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Vernon stared for a moment. Then he cleared his throat and turned back to Minghao. “Uh, he’ll be back, I guess? Um. I like the top knife in the photo. That one.”

Minghao nodded with another glance at the photo, turning off and pocketing his phone. “The chef’s knife. A classic.”

Vernon hesitated, glancing at the door. Then over at you. You looked up and met his eyes with a small smile, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear with those pretty new nails.

Then the door creaked back open, and Seungkwan stepped inside – quiet.

Uh oh. That was never good.

“So,” Seungkwan started, shoving his phone in his pocket. “Junhui and Lei broke up.”

“What?” Vernon blinked.

“Oh, they finally did it,” Minghao murmured.

Seungkwan turned to stare at him. “You knew?”

Minghao shook his head. “I knew they were talking about it. My headphones aren’t as noise-cancelling as Junhui thinks. I didn’t want to bring it up if they decided otherwise.”

“Wait, they broke up?” Vernon repeated. His brain was at war with itself, half genuine concern for his friend and half panic for his project. (He felt more than a little guilty about the project panic part.) “I – are they okay?”

“Jun said it was mutual, but I think he was about to cry,” Seungkwan sighed.

“Great,” Vernon said slowly. “Okay. So, um –” How in the world was he supposed to say this? “Uh, not to be insensitive, but, like – are they still gonna act? …Together?”

Seungkwan sighed again, dropping onto the bed beside Vernon. “Apparently, yes. He said they both agreed that it wouldn’t mess with their professional lives at all.”

“Oh. Um. Okay.” That’s good, at least, Vernon wanted to say, but he had enough sense to at least keep that to himself.

It’ll be fine, he thought to himself. Yeah. It’ll be fine.

It was not fine. The tension in the room was tangible, sitting mostly on Vernon’s shoulders as he looked between Junhui, Lei, and the scripts sitting on the table in front of them.

It wasn’t an angry tension, interestingly enough. That was what he would’ve expected after a breakup. No, it was just… sad. Depressing. Off. Like a song that ended a beat too soon.

He exhaled and adjusted his chair, leaning forward over the script. “Okay. So. Wanna run through the last scene now?”

They’d been inching through, scene by scene, with far too many awkward pauses in between.

It was weird. Really weird. Seeing two people who knew each other inside and out, who used to love each other, now afraid to meet the other’s eyes. Vernon had seen them together all the time, laughing with their arms around each other, sneaking gentle kisses and nose pecks when they thought no one was watching, cuddling close during cold nights on set. And now… now they smiled like normal at each other’s jokes, except the smiles fell as soon as they rose. Now they couldn’t even look up from their scripts. Now they sat so stiffly, hands glued to their laps, that Vernon was worried they might get muscle cramps.

“Ready,” Junhui said quietly, his eyes on his lines. Lei nodded, silent.

“Alright. Action.”

Junhui took a breath, smiled, and said, “Need a hand, darling?”

Vernon swore he saw Lei flinch. “No!”

“Darling –”

“No, I’m going to hurt you!” Lei’s voice trembled, but her eyes stayed on the page.

“You’re not –”

“You’re right, I’m not. Because I’m going to leave.”

“Nora,” Junhui pleaded, “I love you, and I have loved you, and I will love you, no matter what you do or did or haven’t done. Even if you did hurt me, I wouldn’t care.”

Vernon frowned at Lei. Was she still acting? If she was, he’d never seen her this good.

“If I tell you I don’t love you,” she said quietly, her voice barely above a whisper, “will you leave?”

Junhui swallowed. Vernon wasn’t sure he was still acting anymore, either. “If you really mean it.”

Lei inhaled softly. Then didn’t say anything.

Okay, this was a bad idea. Vernon opened his mouth to call cut, but before he could make a sound, Lei’s chair scraped back.

“I can’t do this!” she burst, standing, sudden tears pouring down her cheeks. Vernon’s brain screeched to a halt. “I’m sorry, I – I can’t, Vernon. I’m so sorry.”

She turned to Junhui.

Then she turned and ran out of the study room.

Oh, crap.

Vernon called you. It was the only thing he could think of, the only thing that might get his mind off of everything that was imploding.

He’d steered Junhui into Minghao’s arms, halfway to tears, and beelined for Seungkwan. But two hours of freaking out and calling every actress at the school had turned up nothing. No one was available. Not now, when every other senior project was filming, and the freshmen were speedrunning their weekly film short assignments, and everyone was busy and no one had time to fill in.

Lei texted at some point to apologize for running off, and to officially back out of the project. Great. At least they had an answer. But not having an actress was arguably worse, and Vernon’s throat was thick with so much anger and frustration that he could barely speak.

So he left Seungkwan to his spreadsheets and headed for your dorm, phone ringing against his ear.

You picked up after half a ring.

“Hey there!”

Your voice – even staticky as it was, echoing through the phone – took half the weight from his shoulders. He blew out a heavy breath.

“Can I come over?” he asked, the words forced, his voice far more quiet than he meant it to be.

Your tone changed immediately. No longer bright and chipper, but careful. Concerned. But just as warm. “Yeah, of course. Youngji’s out with Soonyoung or something, so the room’s ours. Should I pull up your lo-fi mix? Or Star Wars?”

Vernon hesitated. Did he want to talk about it? Or just forget? “I don’t know,” he admitted after a moment. “Star Wars, I guess. Maybe… maybe the lo-fi later.”

You make a little noise, something understanding. His feet move beneath him, carrying him closer to your dorm, to you, to the only thing that will let him make sense of all… this.

“Any movie in particular?”

“Anything but Revenge of the Sith. And, uh, maybe not Attack of the Clones, either.”

“Okay.” There’s a hint of worry in your voice, but it’s still overwhelmingly gentle. It wraps around him like a blanket and makes his heart ache. “I’ll have something ready. How far away are you?”

Vernon dragged his eyes up for the first time in a while. He had the walk to your dorm memorized by now. “Three minutes.”

“Alright. You wanna stay on the phone?”

His throat burned.

“…No.”

“Mkay. I’ll meet you at the door.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Of course. See you in a few.”

You didn’t hang up. He didn’t either. Something rustled on your end. He kept walking. Half a note of the Star Wars theme music played, then stopped. He dropped one foot in front of the other. Something else rustled, then thudded, followed by quick, steady movements. Each one matched his own footsteps.

Then he stood at the front of your dorm, staring at the heavy wooden doors. He hung up, tucked his phone in his pocket, and waited.

You opened the door a moment later. It was a heavy one, and you were used to it, but he reached out and pulled it open the rest of the way regardless. It was a habit. He’d been opening doors for you since he was fourteen and his mother told him that gentlemen open doors for ladies. He’d been walking on the street edge of the sidewalk since he was sixteen and his father told him that men walk there to protect the women – from mud, from bikes, from cars. All of it. So he walked on the risky side to protect you, because you should never need to worry.

And now you were standing before him, eyes wide and lips parted, taking him in, and you were worried, and he was asking you to help him. And it was all wrong. And he hated it.

But you took his hand, your skin burning against his, and you pulled him inside. Your fingers curled around the edge of his hand and dragged him a little closer to earth. Maybe, he thought as you guided him up the stairs, maybe it was alright. Maybe just for today, he could be… this.

A mess.

Your hand disappeared from his. He was sitting on your bed, his shoes by the door, your favorite blanket over his lap, your computer balanced in front of him with a familiar starry sky waiting to play.

“Here.”

You pressed something into his hand. He looked down at it. A Twix bar. One of the big ones. He looked up at you and blinked, and you smiled, but it was small.

“Youngji and I were at 7-11 last night. I know you like them. I have more, if you want.”

7-11. You were at 7-11 and you thought of him.

His throat tightened even more. He couldn’t even open his mouth to thank you.

But you seemed to know anyway. You sat down next to him, flicked the edge of the blanket over your lap, and pressed play.

Yellow text rolled up the screen. Dramatic, familiar fanfare echoed from your junky computer speakers. They were busted, almost amusingly so, but you refused to get a new computer because you weren’t sure how to transfer all your old scripts over. Vernon had told you that it wasn’t too hard. You had shrugged and said you’d get to it. You hadn’t.

He didn’t really mind. This computer had the little cat sticker next to the mousepad, the one you’d put there while you wrote your college application essays together senior year. He’d been sick of writing – you’d always been the good writer, the one who enjoyed it – and he’d found some of Sofia’s old stickers and started sticking them everywhere. Mostly on you. Your arm. Your face, once he got bold enough. You laughed and told him to stop. He hadn’t. You’d kept laughing.

The stickers started to fall, eventually. They had to. But you’d rescued one, a little stretching black cat with a shimmery layer of foil, and stuck it to your computer. There, you’d said. Now if I don’t get in, I’ll always remember that it’s because you distracted me.

You’d both gotten in. The shiny foil on the sticker had long since peeled off. The cat looked more grey than black now.

But it was still there. A piece of history now. A piece of both of you.

Your speakers were crappy. But he would rather listen to Star Wars through crappy speakers than lose that cat.

He’d rather suffer in silence than lose you.

You shifted under the blanket, knee brushing his. He tried to swallow the burning stone in his throat. It just burned hotter.

Vernon barely saw the movie, just flashes of space and sand. He heard it, vaguely, snatches of dialogue – You’re my only hope. But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters! These aren't the droids you’re looking for.

But his throat burned, and his eyes watered, and he blinked back so many tears that he felt like a plumber cranking at a leaky faucet. A broken one, maybe.

None of the acting students were able to make it. He didn’t have the budget left to hire a real actor. His project was going to fail, and Seungkwan would fail with it, and you. Your script, the one you’d written for him, at his request, was going to fizzle away into nothing. (He thought it was one of the best that you’d written, even disregarding his investment.) But now it would just disappear into the ether of unfinished projects, and you’d have to scramble to write something else just to graduate on time.

What if that was it? What if that was the thing that split you – what if, despite all his efforts to love you quietly, to wait for you, what if this project turned you away from him, anyway? There was a reason people didn’t recommend dating your coworkers. Tension on set could bleed into your personal lives. Your personal lives could bleed into set work.

I mean, just look at Jun and Lei.

Junhui’s fists, clenched in his lap. Lei’s eyes, anchored to the table. Your eyes, in some future world, turned away from him, refusing to see him, your glossy lips trembling with anger and tears.

Vernon dragged himself out of the idea, blinking hard before the welling tears could fall. He tried to focus on the movie, on Obi-Wan and Chewbacca talking at the cantina, but then you inched closer and he lost track of the screen again, tinny audio turning to static in his ears.

Then it stopped. The movement, the sound, it all stopped. He blinked. Something warm – your hand – was on his leg over the blanket, just above his knee. Your face was close, too close – soft eyeliner and pale pink gloss. Wide, worried eyes.

You were speaking. He blinked.

“Hansol?” you whispered, voice like a dream. The movie was paused. The computer had been pushed away to give you space. His hands were fisted in the blanket, knuckles white. He pried his hands open and let them fall, still as stones, into his lap.

You reached out, fingers light against his palm. You’d finally taken off the fake nails, and now it was just your skin against his, burning him to the core.

“Hansol,” you whispered again, squeezing his hand – his thumb. “You okay?”

Vernon stared into your eyes. Protect me, he begged silently, throat aching. Help me. Catch me. Don’t let me go.

Your frown deepened. You squeezed his hand again. “Hansol, I know talking is probably hard right now, but you’re starting to scare me. Can you say something? Anything?”

He said the only thing he could say.

He said your name. Said it like a prayer, like the only thing that might fix him. Maybe it was.

It wasn’t relief that swept across your face, but it was something close. You nodded slowly, your other hand warm at the base of his spine.

“Okay. Good. Thank you. Breathe with me, okay? In… and out… in… and out…”

You stroked his back with every breath, up on the inhale and down as you blew out, and he breathed along with you as best he could. His breath hitched. Stuttered. He almost broke a few times, but closed his eyes and forced the tears back. He didn’t want to cry. If nothing else, he just didn’t want to cry.

Your touch brought him back from the edge of tears. Slowly. Steadily. His breaths evened out. His fingers curled selfishly around yours, but you squeezed back.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” you whispered eventually. Your hand had settled between his shoulderblades, gentle but grounding, fingers moving in small, feather-light circles. He swallowed, but nodded.

“Yeah. I just – I need to rant. That’s all.”

“That’s alright. Music?”

“No. Just – don’t leave. Stay. Here.” Vernon squeezed your hand again, in case you didn’t know what he meant.

You stayed, warm against his side.

He closed his eyes.

“I had a rehearsal with Jun and Lei today,” he started, and he felt your hand hesitate for a moment on his back, but you didn’t say anything. “It was…” Awful. Hellish. Depressing. Frustrating. “…Weird. Tense. Just – they were both so sad.”

His voice ground out of him, tight and scratchy in his throat.

“I’m sorry,” you said quietly. Your voice flowed over him, drowning everything out, coaxing his pinched mouth to relax. “Did it go well enough, at least?”

A groan slipped from his lips before he could stop it. Your breath caught, soft and cracking, and then your arm curled around him, your chin settled on his shoulder, and you were so close that Mr. Butterfly stopped crying for a moment and fluttered his wings.

“What happened?” you whispered, thumb smoothing over the shoulder seam of his hoodie, and he dragged in a breath to try and focus again. Honey-rose lingered around you, your hair curling soft against his neck. He exhaled slowly.

“Lei… quit.”

Your thumb stopped. His skin tingled. “What?”

“She quit,” Vernon repeated. The ache in his throat had subsided by now, enough that words began to tumble out. The floodgates had opened, you were undoing him with every breath that feathered along his jaw, and he just… ranted. “I had them read the last scene, and she was supposed to say ‘I don’t love you,’ and she just – didn’t. She started crying. I didn’t know what to do. Junhui looked like stone or something. She looked at him and ran out.”

“Oh my gosh,” you whispered, almost in his ear. His breath hitched. He pretended it was from trying not to cry.

“I got Jun home and found Kwan, and Lei texted that she quit. I mean, she said she was sorry, at least, but she still quit. And no one else can fill in. We were calling, texting, emailing, for two hours – two freaking hours – and every single acting student is busy. We’re shooting in nine days. Nine days!” Vernon’s hands might be shaking. His vision was too blurred to tell. “And I don’t have an actress, and this whole stupid project is going to fall apart, and then what am I supposed to tell everyone?! ‘Hey, my project tanked, go find something else to get you credit for your senior project’? Because I can’t find a girl to act in it?” He heaved a breath, lungs shuddering. Pressure – your hand – squeezed his shoulder.

“Hey,” you murmured, suddenly warmer and closer, tugging your hand from his to place it on his chest. Mr. Butterfly slammed into his heart and dragged his brain to a stop. “Breathe, okay?”

Vernon tried. He tried, but the hitch in his throat was back, and his shoulders wouldn’t stop shaking.

“It’s gonna crash and burn,” he mumbled, screwing his eyes shut. “It’s gonna suck. It’s not even gonna get off the ground. And everyone’s gonna be disappointed, everyone’s gonna think I’m terrible at this, I’ll never get anything into a festival, I might not even graduate on time, and I – I can’t be mad at Lei, or Jun, cause I know it’s dumb, but – but – I don’t have a stupid actress, and I couldn’t freak out on Kwan, cause he’s already stressed enough, and I don’t wanna make it worse, but I’m just – I’m so mad at this stupid project! It was going so well, and now it’s, it’s, it’s all crumbling in front of me, and I can’t do anything about it because I don’t have an actress, so nothing matters anymore and I’m just going to fail and –”

“Hey,” you cut in, and he stopped immediately, words dying in his throat as he turned to you. You were so close that he could kiss you if he leaned in. He shouldn’t. But everything’s ruined anyway, Mr. Butterfly reminded him. No. No, he had to save at least this. At least you. Your mouth opened again, lip gloss a little faded, and – “I can play Nora.”

Vernon blinked. The world tilted for a moment. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” Your eyes echoed it – firm, gentle, but confident. “I might not be as good as Lei, but if it’ll get your project made, then I’ll do it. If you want me to, of course,” you added quickly, but of course he wanted you to.

He could kiss you now. He wanted to. He wanted to so bad, wanted to kiss the gloss from your lips, pull you against him, hear you giggle into his mouth –

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t lose you like Junhui lost Lei. Especially not now. Not when everything else was falling apart and you just said you could save it.

“Please,” he whispered, meaning more than he said.

You smiled, gentle and sympathetic and promising. “Alright. I’ll be Nora.”

“Thank you.”

“Of course,” you said, pulling back just enough to shrug. “I’ll do anything if it’ll help. What are friends for, right?”

You smiled, and Mr. Butterfly screamed.

“Right,” Vernon mumbled as you leaned back in and hugged him, cheek against his ear, honey-rose hair brushing his cheek. His lips. “What are friends for?”

Vernon was pretty proud of himself. He’d gotten his act together relatively quickly, that night in your dorm room; he’d sat through the rest of A New Hope and laughed along with you like usual at all the cheesy bits. He’d talked to Seungkwan like a normal person (and watched thirty pounds of stress drop off his poor friend’s shoulders when he said that you’d agreed to act).

And now you were lying on the floor of his dorm room, staring at the script held above your head while you both waited for Junhui to show up.

“I literally wrote this,” you huffed, frowning at the page. “It should not be this hard to memorize the lines. I remember it being so easy in high school.”

“In high school, you weren’t rewriting your scripts fifteen times,” Vernon reminded you, glancing up from the endless photos of clothes that Mingyu had sent him. Somehow Mingyu was wardrobe now, not just crafty; he wasn’t sure how that had happened, but he was pretty sure it was Minghao’s fault. Not that he minded. Mingyu was good with clothes.

“Oh. That’s true. That’d explain why I have an old version of half these lines stuck in my head,” you sighed. You shoved the paper up at Vernon. “Quiz me?”

He set his computer aside immediately, grabbing the script and flipping to the first page. Pink highlighter, just like in high school. This one was pastel, though. Softer. Like you. “From the top?”

“Yep. I’m not screaming, though.”

Vernon grinned. “Probably a good idea. Don’t want to scare anyone. They might think there’s a banshee in here.”

“Vernon!” You swatted at him, but got nowhere near from your spot on the floor. “Just read.”

“Once we get on set you should run through the script with the screams a couple times.”

“Mhm. Now read before Junhui gets here.”

“Alright, alright.”

Vernon dropped his eyes to the page and swallowed. “Darling?” he read, hoping his cheeks weren’t visibly red. “Are you alright?” He waited, eyes skipping down the page to Tien’s next line: “Nora? Are you okay?”

“Just a nightmare,” you replied, voice flat. Right. We’re just running lines. Not acting.

“It’s okay,” he continued, letting his tone flatten, too. “You’re okay. I’m here. You’re safe.”

“No, you’re the one –”

“Nope,” Vernon interrupted, tapping the script. You frowned, glancing at him.

“What is it?”

“‘No, I wasn’t – it was – It was nothing,’” he read, and you groaned, head dropping back to the floor with a thud that made Vernon wince. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just keep messing up that line and it’s so dumb. I wrote the thing!”

A rapid trio of knocks hit the door, and you sat up.

“Shoot, that’s Junhui. And I’m not memorized.”

“You started working on this yesterday,” Vernon said, sliding off his bed and handing the script back to you on his way to the door. “You’re doing great already. We’ve still got a week.”

He opened the door, and Junhui beamed at him.

“Hi, Vernon!”

Vernon smiled back, stepping aside to let him in. “Hey, c’mon in. Good to see you again.”

“You too!”

Junhui dropped his bag on the floor as he toed off his shoes. Vernon returned to his place on the bed, hesitated, then joined you and Junhui on the carpet Seungkwan had bought two years ago.

“Okay, first, I gotta apologize,” Junhui said with a little wince, turning half to you. “I had this super spicy ramen for lunch, but I brushed my teeth, like, ten times, so hopefully it’s fine?”

“What?” Vernon said, oh-so-eloquently, and both you and Junhui glanced over in surprise.

“We’re doing the intimacy stuff today, right?” you said, and Vernon’s already-struggling brain screeched to a halt.

“Right,” he echoed hollowly. The intimacy stuff. Right. Why had Seungkwan not reminded him of that earlier? How did you know and not him? And why, why, had he suggested a make-out scene? “Right. Yeah, I, uh, wanted to talk to you guys about that.” Just be a man, Vernon. Let her kiss your friend. It’s not like you haven’t seen her go on dates before. This is fine.

“Oh?” you said, mouth pursing in that sweet little frown, lips shining a little red today, and Mr. Butterfly slapped him upside the head.

“I think it’s too much for this film,” Vernon blurted, pretending your eyes weren’t widening in surprise as he scrambled for words.

“But you –”

“Yeah, but I was thinking about it more, and I don’t like it.” He swallowed. At least Junhui didn’t seem phased. “I think it’d hit harder if you’re just cuddling and kiss once. So it goes from cute to bloody, y’know? Instead of, um, heated to bloody? More of a switch.”

You hesitated, drawing the inside edge of your lip between your teeth, and Vernon wanted so desperately to reach over and pull it free for you. Mr. Butterfly egged him on. He locked his hands around his knees.

“I mean, I guess I see it,” you said slowly, and he nodded fast.

“Yeah, it’ll be better. Trust me, I can see it.” He absolutely did not see it. He still saw Tien and Nora as Junhui and Lei, not Junhui and… you. He could see Junhui and Lei making out, they’d all seen it, in Wonwoo’s weekly last semester, and Vernon’s cinematography final the semester before, and probably a few other projects.

But imagining Junhui and you making out – even just kissing – even just holding hands – made something in his stomach churn.

“Sure,” Junhui said with a shrug. “I don’t mind either way.”

Vernon tamped down the urge to scream at his friend.

“Okay,” you said finally. “You’re the director.”

“Great. Cool.” Vernon blew out a breath. The easy part was done, at least.

Now he just had to… choreograph the scene. The cuddles. The kissing. Because, yeah, if Nora needed to see her kiss make Tien bleed, then you would need to actually kiss Junhui. On the mouth.

Vernon wasn’t a violent person, but he could have punched his past self in the face for ever suggesting this stupid scene.

“Okay. So – first, uh, we’ll just start with eye contact,” he said, suddenly scrambling to remember what he’d learned that one day that they’d talked about intimacy coordination on sets. This is extremely important, Professor Atkins had said, and proceeded to spend forty-five minutes and a single handout on the topic. Then Junhui and Lei had started dating, and Vernon hadn’t needed to look elsewhere for screen kisses ever since.

Those days were over, though, and now he desperately needed to do this right because, like Atkins had warned, a bungled scene can scar someone for years.

Even if he didn’t want you kissing Junhui in the first place, Vernon was going to make sure you didn’t get hurt.

“Face each other,” he instructed, grabbing his phone from the bed and texting Seungkwan a desperate WHAT R THE INIMACY STEPS???? By the time he looked up, you and Junhui were cross-legged across from each other, stifling grins and looking way too calm for this. His own head was spinning, his stomach twisting uncomfortably. “Alright, now just make eye contact and hold it for… a while.”

You nodded, wiping your smile and meeting Junhui’s eyes. He looked back passively. After a moment, Junhui started to crack a smile again. You giggled. Vernon could feel the seconds ticking by. At least he could stare at you like this without being too weird – he could memorize the line of your profile, every twist in your braids, the soft pink that filled your cheeks… from looking at Junhui.

His phone lit up. A photo from Seungkwan, a neat list of the steps for intimacy coordination and a text that Vernon didn’t read. He scanned the list and shoved his phone under his thigh.

“Okay,” he said, probably more clipped than he should be under the circumstances. “Do you feel, uh, connected? A bit more?”

You nodded, lips twisting in a small smile. Junhui nodded, too. Your gazes still lingered on each other. Vernon cleared his throat.

“Great. Next step is boundaries. Where you’re okay being touched and where you aren’t.” I can’t believe I’m doing this. “For cuddles,” he reiterated. “Anything, um, sexual is a given no.”

“I can go first,” Junhui volunteered, and you nodded, eyes on him. “I’m fine with most stuff. Kissing is fine, any type. I don’t really mind if you touch my butt or something. I am ticklish, though, kind of all over my stomach?” He giggled a little, and you grinned. “It’s not like you can’t touch my ribs, just, like, know that I might laugh. Oh, and…” A little pinch formed in his forehead. “Don’t kiss my nose. Please.”

He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to. Vernon could spend an hour listing every time he’d seen Lei drop a peck on his nose.

“Oh,” you said softly. “Yeah. I won’t.”

A moment passed. Vernon cleared his throat. It was his job to make sure his actors were comfortable, after all. “Great. Thank you. And…?” He turned to you, but your name stuck in his throat. You nodded quickly anyway.

“Right. Um… I’m fine with kissing, too. Less fine with, um, anything… anything under my skirt?”

“You’ll be in jeans for the shoot,” Vernon interrupted before he could catch himself.

“No, I know, Hao showed me. I just meant the area in general.” Your eyes cut back to Junhui. He nodded. “Waist is fine, hips if you’re careful, but that’s it. And no chest.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Great,” Vernon said, trying to ignore the smile you flashed Junhui’s way. “Let’s move on.”

He hated every minute of the next hour. Yes, sure, you’d dated before, and he’d seen it, but it had been a while. Now he had a front-row seat to the literal show you and Junhui were putting on, and Mr. Butterfly was somewhere between suicidal and homicidal. Vernon wasn’t sure which one he preferred at this point.

He walked you both through the exercises on the list, building first emotional trust, and then the dreaded physical touch. Your hand in Junhui’s. His arm around your shoulders. Your head, tucked into the crook of his neck, while his fingers toyed with the end of your braid. It looked so natural, and it twisted Vernon’s stomach and dragged at his heart and hurt.

So of course he smiled and said it was great. Exactly what he was envisioning.

The end was the worst part. Of course it was. Because you and Junhui had to kiss, and Vernon could not figure out a logical or believable way around it.

“You’re both okay with it? You’re sure?” he checked, but both of you nodded, and he didn’t really have a choice anymore. “Alright. Then I think what we’ll do is, um, Tien, you’ve already got your arm around her. Nora, you’re on his shoulder. So… Nora,” he said, as if using the character’s name would make this hurt less, “you look up at him. Tien, you notice and turn to her. And then… I guess… whatever feels natural,” he finished weakly. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Ready,” Junhui said after a moment.

“Ready,” you echoed.

“Alright. Action.”

You settled into Junhui’s side, leaning back against the foot of Seungkwan’s bed. His hand curled around your upper arm, fingers tracing up and down over the bare skin. Your head fit perfectly into his shoulder, so perfectly that Mr. Butterfly wanted to fly into a wall. Vernon swallowed and nodded and tried to pretend he was just a camera without a brain.

Then you tilted your chin up, eyes shining even in the crappy overhead lighting, soft and beautiful and not on him.

Junhui lifted his hand to your cheek. Swept his thumb under your eye. Your lashes fluttered shut for a moment. Vernon’s breath nearly hitched, but you didn’t notice.

You just leaned in, guided by Junhui’s palm, and kissed him.

Mr. Butterfly fainted. Vernon clenched his jaw so hard that he felt it in the back of his skull. Your lips moved against Junhui’s, head tilted just enough, and something primal and painful speared him for a moment. He shoved it away and watched through someone else’s eyes as you finally pulled away, stared at Junhui, and inhaled enough to scream.

You didn’t scream, because there were rows and rows of other dorm rooms everywhere. But the near-scream made Vernon feel a little better. (Seeing your lip gloss on Junhui’s mouth, though, made his ears burn.)

Junhui turned to him expectantly. Then you did, too, although your eyes lingered on Junhui for a beat. Your shoulders rose and fell with every short, faint breath.

Vernon wished desperately that he was the reason you couldn’t breathe. Your lips looked so soft, still glossy, and maybe pinker than before? Was that even possible?

And what was that faint smile?

“How was that?” Junhui asked, and Vernon swallowed and forced himself to nod.

“That was great. You both felt comfortable?”

You and Junhui nodded, glancing at each other for a moment.

“Great,” Vernon said. It wasn’t. “I’m happy to leave it there, then. Unless you need practice or… whatever.”

“I mean…” you drawled, sliding your eyes over to Junhui with a grin, and he giggled. You joined him. Vernon forced a smile as Mr. Butterfly beat his wings against his ribs in misery.

“Ha, ha. Seriously, though, do you…?” He gestured vaguely.

“I’m good if you are,” you said then with a shrug. Junhui nodded.

“Yeah, I’m not too worried about it.”

“Cool. Um, not to kick you out, but Seungkwan’s coming soon and said he needed to talk to me about something,” Vernon lied, grabbing his phone and shoving himself to his feet and ignoring the instinct to reach out and help you up, lest you saw the way his hands trembled. He needed to be alone, or at least not staring at you and your lip gloss on Junhui’s mouth.

Ugh. Yeah, no. You and Junhui couldn’t gather your things fast enough.

“Alright, well, I’ll see you later,” you said, flashing Vernon a smile. “Good luck with Kwan!”

“Mhm. Thanks.” He smiled and pulled open the door. You slipped out with a wave.

“See you around,” Junhui said. Then his voice dropped. “And… I’m sorry. About Lei. And everything.”

Vernon just shook his head, smiled, and ground out a barely-convincing “It’s fine!”

Then Junhui turned to leave, and Vernon nearly slammed the door.

Seungkwan had to spend half an hour talking Vernon down from cancelling the rest of the rehearsal meetings, the kiss scene, and then the entire set.

Vernon didn’t really want to shut down the project. He just wasn’t sure how long he’d last watching you cuddle up with Junhui, watching him hug you, watching you kiss him. Seungkwan pointed out that they wouldn’t need to spend too long on the kiss scene, not with the new shotlist and schedule he’d have to draft, and Vernon wrinkled his nose but relented.

They compromised on one more rehearsal, to run through the rest of the scenes. Not the kiss one.

“Just say you don’t have a lot of time and you want to get through everything,” Seungkwan instructed, pacing back and forth. Vernon watched from behind the pillow clutched to his chest, hiding his grimace in it. “They’ll understand. Say a lot of stuff came up. It’s not a crazy thing to say with a shoot happening this weekend.”

Vernon just nodded into his pillow. Seungkwan paused and looked at him, then huffed out a quiet, shockingly honest sigh.

“Look, Vernon, I know it sucks,” he said uncharacteristically softly, perching on the bed beside him. “But you need to just tough it out for a bit. I don’t think we have a backup option if this goes wrong – unless you want Youngji playing Nora.”

Vernon’s grimace deepened. Seungkwan chuckled quietly.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. But we already struck out everywhere else. Y/N volunteering in the first place was enough of a miracle. Don’t expect another.”

Vernon buried his face in his pillow. But he forced his mind back to work, keeping Seungkwan’s voice in the back of his head all week.

He managed to avoid you, for the most part, under claims of last-minute prep work and meetings. (It wasn’t a complete lie. He was swamped, but not more than in earlier semesters. In earlier semesters, he just put more effort into making time for you. Now, his gut clenched and Mr. Butterfly lay desolate atop his stomach, but at least he could think.)

The single last rehearsal came on Thursday afternoon. Wonwoo and Seungcheol were there, for multiple reasons, a sketch of the Airbnb’s floorplan propped up on Vernon’s desk so they could all see where they’d actually be shooting.

It was easier with Wonwoo and Seungcheol there, and Seungkwan popping in and out. It turned into choreography instead of chemistry, at least in the moment, and Vernon was able to focus on his DP and gaffer and the logistics and the planning and the vision, instead of you and the way you leaned into Junhui.

It still bothered him. But he could ignore it a bit better, when the looming threat of you kissing someone else wasn’t quite present.

His shoulders still dropped with relief when you finally left his room. He still flopped onto his bed with a groan. He still tried to ignore stupid Mr. Butterfly, whining in anguish in his chest, tortured by the thought of you with anyone else.

Thursday night he went to bed too early and didn’t fall asleep until too late.

Friday morning, 5am, and Vernon was staring at the back of Seungcheol’s car, Celsius in hand and sleep still clinging to his eyes. Way too much equipment was crammed into Seungcheol’s minivan – not too much equipment for the set, but too much equipment for the poor car. Soonyoung was even packed in behind the driver’s seat, trapped between 400s and c-stands with a pile of sandbags under his shoes.

“Is everyone ready?” Seungkwan hollered, poking his head out from behind Mingyu’s truck and the rest of the light and camera equipment. “Everything packed up?”

“Almost!” Seokmin called back. “I’m still helping Minghao pack up… this.” He gestured to the clutter of household decor around his ankles.

“I’ll finish faster if I have another pair of hands.” Minghao deftly folded up the flaps on a full box and moved on to an empty one, taking whatever Seokmin handed him and fitting it inside. “And I would be done if I’d gotten the boxes earlier.”

“I SAID I WAS SORRY!” Soonyoung yelled from his seat. “THE POST OFFICE WASN’T –”

Seungcheol rolled the door shut, muffling his voice. Vernon cracked a smile through his half-awake daze.

“Chan, help Minghao!” Seungkwan ordered. Chan’s head snapped up, and he hopped off the absurdly large bumper of Mingyu’s truck and jogged over.

“We’re packed up,” Seungcheol said when Seungkwan glanced his way. “Just waiting for the go-ahead.”

“Great. Good job. Joshua?”

“Ready,” Joshua called, arms folded on the roof of his car. Jeonghan was already inside, the passenger seat tilted back, probably asleep.

“Amazing. Mingyu’s done, Minghao’s almost there, and Junhui and Y/N will be driving here later,” Seungkwan muttered, eyes skimming over his phone screen. “Great. And everyone is actually here, right? We have Jihoon?”

“He ran back to his room to get another Coke,” Wonwoo said as he walked up. “He’s been gone for a few, so he should be back soon.”

“Even if he’s late, Mingyu can get him when he runs back for crafty. We’re fine.” Seungkwan nodded crisply and slipped his phone into his back pocket. “We need to move out in the next five minutes, though. Minghao –”

“Almost there!” Seokmin shouted.

“Quiet down, it’s five in the morning!” Chan chided almost as loudly.

“Both of you, shut up,” Minghao ordered, turning and shoving a lamp into Chan’s hands. “Don’t let that break. Seungkwan, I need five more minutes.”

“You have three,” Seungkwan announced. “Everyone – if you’re ready, get in your car. I’ll come check that you have everyone, and then you can leave.”

Seungcheol pushed off the door of his car, walking towards the front. Vernon followed, silently slipping into the passenger’s seat.

“You guys abandoned me,” Soonyoung huffed as they reached for their seatbelts. “You trapped me and abandoned me!”

“You did the same thing to Seungkwan on the western.” Seungcheol pressed a button, and the engine roared to life. “There’s a reason you’re not in his car this time.”

“But that was a joke!” Soonyoung whined. Seungcheol just grinned at Vernon, then leaned out the window and whistled at Seungkwan.

He hurried over, peering inside the car. “Got everything and everyone?”

“All present and accounted for,” Seungcheol reported.

“You have the address?”

Seungcheol nodded, flashing the map on his phone screen.

“Great. Wait, let me give you the key so you can get inside.” Seungkwan dug the flimsy ring out of his pocket and handed it over. Seungcheol dropped it into the cupholder between the seats, and Seungkwan nodded. “Okay, you’re good to go. Vernon, don’t leave your brain behind. Try and be functioning by the time you get there?”

“No promises,” Vernon muttered, voice low and grating in his throat. Seungkwan just waved and hurried over to Joshua’s car.

Seungcheol backed slowly out of the parking spot, eyes sweeping the lot and catching on Vernon for just a moment. “Is that the first thing you’ve said all morning?” he asked, hand spinning around the wheel as he turned the car.

Vernon almost said no, then hesitated. “Yeah,” he admitted, wrinkling his nose. “Ugh. I didn’t sleep well.”

“I noticed.” Vernon glanced up in surprise, and Seungcheol elaborated. “We’re not even on the way and you’ve already downed half the can.”

Vernon paused, Celsius halfway to his lips, and lowered it again.

They rolled past Jihoon, hair hanging into his eyes as he slouched towards the parking lot with… at least one Coke Zero in hand. Maybe two. Possibly three. Vernon wouldn’t put it past him. He didn’t look up despite Seungcheol waving at him out the window, and Seungcheol just grinned and rolled the window back up.

“Are you just nervous, you think?” He turned his blinker on. The GPS told him to turn left.

“I guess,” Vernon mumbled, his voice still gravelly, knowing full well that he wasn’t just nervous. Well. He wasn’t just nervous about the set.

“You’ll be fine,” Seungcheol said easily. “You’ve done this a million times.”

“Factually incorrect.”

“I know, but my point stands. You know what you’re doing. You’ve run a dozen full sets and at least a dozen weeklies. You know this story like the back of your hand. You’ll be fine.” Seungcheol flashed him a grin. Vernon tried to smile back.

“I guess. It’s just…” You. You you you. “…a bigger project than normal.”

Seungcheol nodded and slowed to a stop at an intersection. “Understandable. But there’s always going to be a bigger project. You’ve just gotta rise to the challenge and believe you’re capable – because you are.”

“Right.” Vernon swallowed. “Thanks for the pep talk. I’m gonna, uh, chug this and pass out for the rest of the drive,” he said, lifting his can in the air.

Seungcheol laughed. “Take a page out of Soonyoung’s book. Good plan.”

“Soonyoung –” Vernon glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, Soonyoung was unconscious, slumped over the massive light case balanced on his knees.

“Yep. He drained an entire Monster on the way from my apartment to my car.”

“That explains so much.”

“Mhm. Now chug your caffeine and nap.” Seungcheol clapped Vernon on the shoulder, and he knocked back the rest of the drink, wincing as the peachy carbonation burned his throat. “Get rid of that funk, yeah? Today’s day one, you don’t wanna have anything throwing you off.”

“Yeah, yeah. Wake me when we get there,” he mumbled. He didn’t wait for Seungcheol’s answer before dragging his baseball cap over his eyes and trying to sleep.

He didn’t. He couldn’t. But he did promise himself that he’d keep his brain in check, at least for the next three days. What he thought once the set was over was a different story, but for now – while the project was on the line – he’d think of you as an actress. As a friend. Not as the girl he’d been in love with for nearly a decade.

Right. Just a friend.

“WE ARE RUNNING LATE!” Seungkwan bellowed through the Airbnb. Vernon winced, but Wonwoo – the victim of Seungkwan’s wrath at the moment – fully flinched away.

“Seungkwan, has anyone ever told you that you’re loud?” Soonyoung called from his spot across the room, one foot propped up on the base of a c-stand. Chan stifled a laugh as he fiddled with a leg of the tripod. Seokmin didn’t even bother stifling it, laughing brightly from across the room.

“Jun and Y/N just got in costume, relax,” Mingyu said, popping his head into the crowded bedroom. He perked up when his eyes landed on Vernon. “Hey, you wanna come check them? Make sure they’re good?”

No. “Yeah, sure. Kwan, you’ve got –?”

“Yeah, yeah, just go. You’re not the one who’s taking forever.”

“Hey, do you know how hard it is to set up a shot when I don’t have the actors?” Wonwoo complained.

Vernon just nodded and ducked out into the hallway after Mingyu, stepping over a handful of cords that hadn’t been taped down yet.

“That’s not what’s setting us back and you know it!” Seungkwan screeched, but Vernon was halfway down the hallway and very glad to be out of earshot. Almost out of earshot.

“Every time I say yes to him, I forget how mean he gets on set,” Mingyu sighed as they stepped out into the kitchen. Vernon grinned.

“Isn’t he mean to you all the time?”

“Well, yeah, but he’s joking then. Usually.”

Vernon snorted as they turned the corner, and then you were there. In your pajamas. Mr. Butterfly jumped so high he felt it in his throat.

He’d seen you already this morning, perched on the couch while Seungkwan ran the safety meeting, drowned in a soft pink sweater and white sweatpants, face bare and eyes sleepy. (He hadn’t looked as much as he’d wanted to. He’d looked far more than he should.) But seeing you already this morning didn’t change the fact that you took his breath away now.

You smiled lopsidedly at him. Minghao’s brush ghosted over your cheek. “Hey. G’morning. What do you think?”

For once, Vernon was supposed to look, and look he did, letting his eyes trail over you. It wasn’t anything insane – just plaid pajama pants that dragged on the ground, and a loose grey shirt actively trying to slip off your shoulder. Your hair hung in a loose, slightly mussed ponytail. Minghao was only applying light makeup, the minimum to look good on camera, but you didn’t need it to be beautiful. You always were.

Especially in the pajamas. If he tried, he could imagine they were his.

“They’re oversized because they’re Tien’s,” Mingyu added helpfully, and Vernon’s idyllic thoughts crashed. Right. Oversized because they were Junhui’s, Mingyu meant. Vernon exhaled.

“Yeah. Great, I love it.”

You smiled. Mr. Butterfly beat his wings. Vernon turned to look at Junhui instead. He had very, very similar pajama pants and a white shirt, both already rumpled as he jumped up from the couch to stand at attention.

“Hi!”

“I assumed you wanted him to have a shirt on,” Mingyu said, helpfully, and Vernon nodded quickly.

“Yeah, I do,” was all he said, shutting that thought down and turning back to Minghao. “How much longer on makeup?”

“Two minutes. Open your mouth?” he said, holding up a neutral lipstick, and you parted your lips.

Vernon turned around and headed back to the bedroom.

“Two minutes on makeup,” he reported to Seungkwan as he tiptoed his way past equipment to stand beside him. “Wardrobe is good, though.”

“Great. We should be ready for actors in less than five, now that Wonwoo’s finally fixed his settings.”

“I told you I was sorry,” Wonwoo muttered.

“Tell that to the schedule you’re messing up.”

“I thought we were on schedule,” Jeonghan said from the corner, behind Joshua’s legs. If Seungcheol’s lighting setup had been any more intense than a few scrims slotted against the windows, they would’ve been completely blocked in; as it was, they probably couldn’t move too much. Jeonghan seemed fine with it.

“We won’t be if you two don’t lav up the actors soon!” Seungkwan reminded, and Joshua’s eyes widened.

“Ah. Right.”

“You can do that.” Jeonghan patted Joshua’s knee. “I can’t possibly get out right now.”

“I’m literally right next to you,” Joshua said, but he just handed Jeonghan the boom pole and began inching his way around the wall of c-stands and Soonyoung. Vernon bit back a grin.

“Alright, I’m set,” Wonwoo announced then. “Ready for actors.”

“Seokmin, can you –”

“On it!” Seokmin chirped, flashing a smile at Seungkwan and dashing down the hall.

Seungkwan turned to Vernon then, and his voice shifted. A little softer. A little more careful. (Just a little.) “How’re you doing? You ready to get rolling on your senior project?”

Oh, geez. Vernon blew out a breath. Yeah, that’s what he should be worried about. “Um. Yeah. I’m ready. Mostly.”

Seungkwan patted his back, nodding. “You’ll do fine. Just do your job and trust your crew.” Yeah. And don’t think about her, Vernon added. Seungkwan was probably thinking it anyway.

“Right. Thanks.”

“Okay, I’m here and lav’d up!” Junhui’s bright voice preceded him into the room, and Vernon turned to him, trying to match his smile.

“Epic. Okay, so go ahead and get in bed – you’ll be on the left, further from the camera but facing it. We’re starting with the close insert on Nora, but we want you there for continuity’s sake,” he added. “You’ll still be asleep for it, though.”

“Okay!” Junhui ducked around Vernon and almost jumped on the bed, crawling to the headboard and tucking himself in.

“I’m here,” you called then, and Vernon tried to wait at least a couple seconds before he turned around. You smiled more timidly than Junhui, but unless Vernon imagined it, something in your eyes softened as he looked at you.

But he was probably imagining it, so he just nodded. Joshua slipped by and wedged himself back into the corner.

“Great. We’re gonna start with the close insert on you waking up, so go ahead and get in bed so we can frame it, yeah? We’ll run through action once you’re set.” He smiled, like a normal person. You smiled back, a real smile, and whatever Mr. Butterfly did in response was not very much like a normal person but Vernon just nodded and watched you climb into bed next to Junhui. (Junhui held the covers open for you, and you laughed and smiled at him.)

“How much movement are we capturing here?” Wonwoo asked, and Vernon’s head snapped to the side.

“Um, I think I just want her eyes opening. Tight on her face, though, not her eyes.”

Wonwoo nodded and tugged the camera back a bit. “Get her where you want her, and then I’ll be able to set the frame.”

Vernon nodded and turned to you, and his throat went dry for a moment. You looked so soft, cuddled up under the blankets, curled into a little ball just like when you fell asleep during movie nights back in middle school. He’d never wanted to wake you up, the look on your face far too peaceful to shatter.

“Okay,” he said, his voice barely steadier than he’d hoped, inching closer to the bed. “Right. So… okay, let’s run full action. Wonwoo –”

“Yep, I’m watching.”

“Alright. Whenever you’re ready, guys.”

Vernon watched as Junhui inched closer to you, as you stretched your legs out and glanced back at him.

“You ready?” Junhui murmured, nestling into the pillow, and you nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” You set your head down and closed your eyes.

“Action on rehearsal,” Vernon said, too quietly.

A beat passed. Then you twitched, spasmed, and his heart lodged in his throat as your eyes flashed open, wild and desperate. His fingers twitched at his side, but Junhui was the one to blink awake and reach for your shoulder.

You jerked away. Junhui tugged at your shoulder, took your hand and brought it to his cheek, and you turned, inches away from him.

“Darling? Are you alright?” he whispered.

But you screamed, yanking your hand free, and Vernon’s heart stuttered. Junhui flinched before reaching across you and turning on the light.

Seungcheol grimaced, muttering something, but Vernon couldn’t rip his eyes away from you and the way Junhui cupped your cheeks. He’d wanted to do that so many times, cradle your face in his palms and hold you close when yet another boyfriend dumped you and you showed up at his door in tears, but he never did. Not the way he wanted to.

Your shaky exhale ripped something out of him.

“Nora?” Junhui whispered, voice painfully tender. “Are you okay?”

“Just… a nightmare,” you murmured. Mr. Butterfly crashed into Vernon’s ribcage in his efforts to get to you.

Junhui pulled you closer with a hand at the small of your back, fingers dimpling the loose fabric of your shirt. “It’s okay,” he whispered into your hair as you pressed against his chest. “You’re okay. I’m here. You’re safe.”

“No,” you said, shaking your head in the cutest way. “I wasn’t – it was –” Your breath hitched, and you deflated visibly. “It was nothing.”

You buried your face between his shoulder and the mattress, and with painful amounts of love in his eyes, Junhui drew the covers back over you and settled against the pillow.

Vernon had to pry his jaw open, but he nodded. “Great. Cut. I love it, I’m happy with that. Can we reset?”

You shifted away from Junhui, shaking your head with a grimace. “Yeah. Wow. Sorry.”

“Are you alright?” Junhui asked before Vernon could, sitting up to peer at you. “Do you need a moment?”

“No, no, I’m fine,” you said quickly, eyes darting between Junhui and Vernon, and he wondered how visible his thoughts were on his face. Hopefully not too much. “It’s just a lot, and I haven’t acted in a while.”

“Well, you’re doing a good job,” Junhui said earnestly. He opened his mouth to continue, but Vernon cut in as politely as he could.

“Yeah, I’m really happy with your performance there. You looked great.” Not quite what he wanted to say, but oh well. Your eyes softened as they met his, and Mr. Butterfly lifted off the ground for a moment. “Let me know if you need time or space or anything, though. If you need to take a break. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” you agreed with a small smile. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” He smiled back for a beat too long and only ripped his eyes away when Seungkwan’s finger dug into the back of his hip. He shot Seungkwan a glare, but Seungkwan just tapped his clipboard with a very dangerous expression.

Right.

They were on a film set.

His film set.

“Okay, reset for framing,” he ordered, and both you and Junhui settled back into position. Wonwoo adjusted the tilt on the camera. Vernon glanced at the row of people and equipment crowded between the bed and the wall and wrinkled his nose. “Sorry, Soonyoung, can I swap with you? So I can see?”

“Oh! Sure.” Soonyoung adjusted the sandbag on the c-stand behind him, then slipped out, and Vernon slotted into his place to peer over Wonwoo’s shoulder.

“What do you think?” Wonwoo asked as he locked the tripod into place. The frame showed your face, eyes closed peacefully, the faintest light from the window falling across your skin. A sliver of Junhui’s hair peeked out behind yours. It looked perfectly natural, despite the shockingly great effort that it had taken to diffuse the already-beaming sun into something softer.

It looked, not to Vernon’s surprise, like the awful little storyboard he’d sketched out.

Except with your face, instead of Lei’s, like he’d envisioned.

Your face, soft and gentle and asleep.

Mr. Butterfly swooned like a Victorian woman.

“Perfect,” Vernon said. He nodded. “I’m happy to roll on that.”

“Great! Slate in frame!” Seungkwan ordered, pen rapping against his clipboard.

“Wait, we need to mark focus,” Wonwoo said, and Chan swapped the whiteboard marker for the follow focus, squinting at the frame. “Y/N, is that your starting mark?”

“Yep,” you said, eyes closed. Even with Chan’s shoulder in the way, Vernon could see the way your eyelashes settled against your cheek.

“Could you open your eyes?” Chan asked, and suddenly you were staring directly at Vernon – no, no; at the camera. Right into the lens. Your nose scrunched, you started to giggle, and then Junhui stifled a laugh, and Vernon watched you smile through the camera with the ghost of a grin of his own. “Got it,” Chan said. “What’s your ending mark?”

“Um… I think here?” You inched forward, smile fading as your brows pinched together.

“Yeah,” Vernon jumped in quickly, realizing that this was his job. “It’s gonna be a short shot. Really just you jerking forward. We’ll get the part with Tien grabbing your arm in a different shot.”

“So I don’t wake up in this shot?” Junhui asked, and Vernon shook his head.

“Nope.”

“Cool, I’ll just be sleeping,” Junhui declared, and Seokmin laughed from the hallway.

“Okay, got it,” Chan declared, setting the focus down and picking up the slate again. “Soft sticks?”

“For sure. Wait.” Wonwoo paused, squinting into the camera and clicking through settings. “Sorry, the last project I did was slo-mo. I need to change the frame rate.”

“Are you kidding me?” Seungkwan groaned, but Wonwoo ignored him, clicking away.

“Vernon?” you whispered, and his head snapped up. You look like a dumb puppy when you do that, Seungkwan had told him once, but he would be a dumb puppy for you any day if it just meant you’d call his name.

“Mm?” he said, very eloquently. Your eyes dipped from his, something strangely shy in them for someone usually so confident, and he frowned. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m…” The hint of a smile twitched at your lips, but it wasn’t a real one. Something was wrong. Vernon leaned forward, around Wonwoo and Chan and the camera, bracing himself with a hand on the bed.

“What’s up?” he whispered, ducking his head to search for your eyes. You met him after a moment, tongue darting across your lips in a way he had to try very hard to ignore. (Mr. Butterfly didn’t make it easy.) “Do you need a minute?”

“No, I’m just…” You took a breath, a sort of amused worry in your eyes. “I’m nervous, I guess. I haven’t been on camera in a while, and… I just don’t wanna mess it up. This is your senior project, and I… I don’t wanna be the reason it goes wrong.”

Vernon was already shaking his head before you’d finished speaking, leaning closer to you. “No, you won’t mess it up. Don’t worry about it. Everything I’ve seen you do so far has been perfect, okay? Exactly what I wanted. I wouldn’t have let you act for me if I didn’t trust you. And you’ve never let me down. So don’t worry about it, okay? You’re only gonna mess yourself up more by stressing, I know you. Just relax. It’s okay. I trust you, and you’re gonna do great.” And I love you.

You let out a quiet breath, eyes crinkling just a little with a tiny smile. “Well,” you said, amused, and Vernon blinked.

“Huh?”

“Well. I’m going to do well. Not great.”

“Oh,” Vernon groaned, rolling his eyes. “Right. Sorry. You’re gonna do really well. Better?”

Your smile split into a grin. “Much better.” And then something softened. “But… thank you. Seriously. I feel a lot better now.”

Vernon smiled, and was promptly smacked in the face with the realization that he was nearly on top of you, hands framing your waist against the bed, his face less than a foot from yours. Mr. Butterfly choked and sputtered, and Vernon wasn’t much better, heat crawling up the back of his neck before he dragged himself back from the bed and flashed you the best smile he could muster.

“Great. Well, you got this, okay?” He flashed you a thumbs up. A freaking thumbs up. But you laughed, adjusting the blanket under your arm, and he exhaled.

“Okay,” Seungkwan said with something that sounded like thinly veiled malice. “Are we ready to roll?”

“Yeah, sorry.” Vernon cleared his throat. “Jun, Y/N, you ready?”

You nodded. Junhui, eyes closed, didn’t move.

“I’m going to assume he’s asleep,” Seungkwan said drily. “Slate in frame!”

Chan leaned in front of the camera, slate in hand, and your face disappeared behind Vernon’s name and Bleeding Hearts.

“Sound!”

Joshua hefted the boom over your head. “Speeding,” Jeonghan said with the flick of a switch.

“Camera!”

Wonwoo pressed record. “Rolling.”

“Mark it!”

“Scene two, take one, soft sticks!” Chan tapped the slate, quieter than normal to protect your ears, then pulled back and swapped the slate for the follow focus and settled into place.

“Hold for focus,” Wonwoo called.

A heavy silence settled over the bedroom. Even outside the closed door, the quiet seemed to hang.

The first shot of the first day. Already fifteen minutes late, but as always Seungkwan was smart and baked extra room into the schedule. They’d be fine.

This – this film – was the most important one he’d ever shot. He could feel it, feel the weight clinging to his bones, spiraling through him and making breathing hard.

Or maybe it was you, your eyes closed in faux sleep, your voice echoing in his ear – Vernon? Thank you. Seriously.

“Ready!” Wonwoo announced, and Vernon took a deep breath.

“Action!”

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