#hyuka ff

[hyukascampfire]

HEARTWORM 𖧷、 (hk.) ──── listen to the 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡

𝓘N WHICH 𝖺 𝗋𝖾𝗅𝖺𝗍𝗂𝗈𝗇𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗉 𝗈𝗋 𝖿𝗋𝗂𝖾𝗇𝖽𝗌𝗁𝗂𝗉 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝖼𝖺𝗇'𝗍 𝗀𝖾𝗍 𝗈𝗎𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗒𝗈𝗎𝗋 𝗁𝖾𝖺𝖽, 𝗐𝗁𝗂𝖼𝗁 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗍𝗁𝗈𝗎𝗀𝗁𝗍 𝗁𝖺𝖽 𝖿𝖺𝖽𝖾𝖽 𝗅𝗈𝗇𝗀 𝖺𝗀𝗈 𝖻𝗎𝗍 𝗂𝗌 𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝗌𝗈𝗆𝖾𝗁𝗈𝗐 𝖺𝗅𝗂𝗏𝖾 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗎𝗇𝖿𝗂𝗇𝗂𝗌𝗁𝖾𝖽, 𝗅𝗂𝗄𝖾 𝖺𝗇 𝖺𝖻𝖺𝗇𝖽𝗈𝗇𝖾𝖽 𝖼𝖺𝗆𝗉𝗌𝗂𝗍𝖾 𝗐𝗁𝗈𝗌𝖾 𝗌𝗆𝗈𝗅𝖽𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖾𝗆𝖻𝖾𝗋𝗌 𝗌𝗍𝗂𝗅𝗅 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗉𝗈𝗐𝖾𝗋 𝗍𝗈 𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗍 𝖺 𝖿𝗈𝗋𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾

⸉⋆❪📼❫ ･ 17.9k

childhood bsf 휴닝카이 & fem r (ft. asshole yeonjun) ─ (OTHER). angst, family issues, fingering, first kisses, jealous, yeonjun really is an asshole, orgasm denial, thigh fucking, unprotected sex, strength kink a little bit, breeding kink, possessiveness, creampie, choking, growing pains

ash: omg!! this was such a fun palate cleanser to write. this wasn't supposed to be as big as it is, but it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and i got super into the story. this kai is SOOOO!! mm mm mm. i’m so nervous posting this because i’ve only ever posted tsfawc, but…. here you areee (^^;;

Though you fan your hand furiously over your face, the little breezes washing over your clammy skin are not enough. The air is thick and heavy with summer’s heat. So thick that you almost feel it each time you swallow. It’s better than just letting yourself melt away, though. The cushion at your back doesn’t help much. It holds your warmth and returns it to you the longer you sit there slumped. You suffer through it though—you’ve become too sluggish to move. Or care.

You let a leg dangle over the arm of a chair, watching a hopeful moth dance in the light of the buzzing porch light overhead. It flutters frantically in it, making a grand fight to reach that false moonlight, only to drop away when it realizes that it’s being burnt. You watch it rinse and repeat, relentless and sure, for who knows how long. It’s no special moth—no luna moth or the ones with the pretty pink wings—but the light falls down on it and colors it a pleasant stardust silver.  

You delight in letting your conscious brain turn off to watch it. It lets you forget the sweltering under your skin, and also that Kai had drug you out here. His dad gives him shit when he plays inside, but it’s way too hot to be out here. Isn’t it supposed to cool off after the sun goes down? It doesn’t feel like it. The deep acoustics are drowned out each time a car whirrs by. Playing outside should be the best option, but you and Kai live right on a busy road.  

When the roar of some car going ten miles over the speed limit doesn’t obscure his playing, though, you admire the intricacy of it. His fingers work up and down the neck, jumping frets that you imagine would be impossible to anybody without those long fingers of his. You had always been a loud supporter of his playing, even way back when the most he could play were simple chords, but you became especially so when a few years back he put a guitar in your hands and tried teaching you. Even with his fingers guiding yours, it was quick to learn that the effortlessness with which Kai handles the instrument is hard earned.  

He practices on the acoustic guitar, but that’s not his domain. With houses just a dash across the street from each other, Kai had grown up at your home more than he had at his own. So vividly, you remember the stars in his eyes when he’d listen to your dad’s music. Metallica, The Smashing Pumpkins, Linkin Park, any of it. He had fallen in love with it a long time ago. Your whole life you knew that it was only a matter of time before he was in his own band, chasing his dreams with a boundless mind and an indelible vision of himself on stage. How had that time come so soon, though? You don’t know if the notebooks full of inky lyrics that live wherever he deems inspiration might hit him make you proud or nervous. He’s making good on his dazzling aspirations, and you? 

You speak finally into the air, cutting through heat waves and his music and the night. “Isn’t it weird that we’re not going back to school after this summer?” 

He doesn’t have to even stop playing to answer you. Playing comes to him as a second nature. “Kinda,” he answers, brown eyes flitting up to you. “But it’s not like you won’t be back to it in September. College is the same shit.” 

The leg you’d been dangling and bouncing pauses. That’s right; you’re supposed to be going to that college you’d chosen because it was only a three-hour drive away from here. You pluck at the seat’s threadbare fabric, and the moth, still there, becomes oh-so-interesting once again. When his playing stops, you drop your head back with a cushioned thud and a groan that you wrangle in your throat. 

“Why are you acting like that?” he says, voice gone sharp like accusation. He doesn’t even know the truth, but he’s known you too long.

Can’t you just keep secrets for yourself, sometimes?

Kai, arms clad in a well-loved hoodie even in this dreadful weather, lays the guitar down. You maintain your silence. “Seriously, what?” 

Some secrets have timers, though. This one could only last you until about September, or even August when he realizes that you’re not preparing to return to school. A controlled sigh from your chest isn’t enough to soothe the nerves that sparks. “Nothing.” 

“Secrets, huh?” Kai says. When you do finally look to him, black spikes of hair frame his eyes and the accusation in them. 

It’s a simple poke, but it gets under your skin as sharp as any thorn might. It’s not like you don’t keep secrets from him, and you’re sure he keeps some from you too. But those are the little kinds, the inconsequential ones—like I ate already when asked why you’re not eating or like Yeah, I’m fine when it’s been a bad day. You don’t hide this kind of stuff from each other. Usually, you’d run over to his place to tell him whatever’s bothering you. Why not, when he’s known even the worst details of your life for almost the entirety of it? You’ve been holding this one close to your chest since somewhere around the end of senior year, though. The longer you let it fester, the worse your nervousness snowballs. “C’mon, Kai. Let’s not do this. Can you keep playing?” 

He doesn’t like that, of course. But you watch recognition dawn over his chocolate brown eyes, helpless to stop it. “You’re not going,” he says. It’s not a question nor a suspicion, it’s a bone-dry fact.  

Well. There that goes. You want to tear every hair on your head right out. Why had you even thought you’d keep him in the dark about it? When he’s not out in some garage making music, you two are together. The conversation was going to stroll by at some point; this was only inevitable. His disappointment radiates off him in waves and blisters you. He hasn’t even said anything yet, but you know exactly what he thinks of it. It’s why you kept it from him in the first place.  

Your silence is enough confirmation for him. “Why?” he says. “I thought you were excited to move out.” 

Wincing, you nod slowly. You were. Even went through the whole application process, along with most other kids your age. Ultimately, you never went through with declaring a college. You don’t exactly know why, but somewhere weaseled down in the shadowy recesses of your soul, you know. Taking those steps, the massive and terrifying ones from adolescence into adulthood, meant agreeing that this form of your life was over. It meant that at some point, you’d be moving away from here to where living your days away in Kai’s room would not be a choice. Everybody has to do it eventually, you know that. Kai’s music gig could take off any day, too. He’s going to make it happen. And then what? All this stalling and wishing on just a bit more time would mean nothing, he’d be off and chasing that dream. As excited as you are for it to finally become reality for him, there’s a nasty bitterness that’s budded in your chest, infecting your person.  

Can’t things just stay like this? 

“I was,” you say. It comes out of your mouth heavy.  

“Then why aren’t you going?” he says. Crickets, never seen but always heard, sing their song into the night’s darkness. “You didn’t get rejected. You’re too smart for that.” 

An ache sits heavily somewhere near the center of your chest, maybe over your heart. All those good grades, nights spent bent over a desk and AP paperwork—you’re wasting it. You shake your head. “No... just...” It’s an effort to dress your thoughts in a way that might appease him. A quiet moment stretches with your thinking before you continue, “I don’t know what I want to do.” 

He doesn’t like that, the yellow wash of the overhead light dancing over his taut lips and hard eyes. “Don’t know what you want to do?” he says, bringing his legs up onto the seat to crisscross them. He wears his favorite jeans. They’re heel-bitten and baggy enough over his legs that he can wear them around the house without any bother. “You’ve wanted to be an artist your whole life. You know exactly what you want to do.” 

Your chest only seems to ache harder. When the both of you were only young and hopeful, you both had big dreams. Kai was going to be the face of a metal band, and you were going to be an artist. A painter, potter, sculptor, even doing animation for those big companies like Dreamworks and Disney. You wanted any of it, just as long as you were doing art. You’d even promised him that you’d do the cover art for his albums with interlocked pinkies and flushed, hopeful cheeks. That passion and love wasn’t gone from you, it blazed strong in your veins. This blaze wasn’t the kind that kept you warm and excited to push forward into life, though. It had morphed into something that scalded you when you got too close or started imagining yourself pursuing its call. It’s a taunting silvery glow, no longer a guiding north star. Taunting words of family members stamped down on that hope hard. When you were little, it was said lighthearted and in passing. The older you got, though, the more serious their faces became. They wouldn’t say it outright perhaps, but you hear what they think well enough. Art is a dead-end career.  

Shifting in your seat, you tell him, “I don’t know.” 

“What do you mean?” Kai says. “There are good colleges for that.” 

“I just... don’t know.” 

Shaking his head, he tells you, “But you love it.” 

You do. In its every form, you love creating. But loving it doesn’t mean that it’s right for you, or that you should trust your future in its hands. “I think I can do it in my own time,” you say, finally pushing yourself upright from the cushion. “Don’t wanna kill the passion by doing it for a living, you know?” 

He thinks on that for a moment. “If you love it, you should do it,” he says. 

An awful frustration bubbles in your chest. Kai has always had a clear life path, the steps ahead of him set in stone and waiting for him to follow in them. It’s hard for him to see why you might not want to do the same. There’s nothing that makes you as happy as the fact that he has it all figured out, that he knows just where he’s going and that he’s so incredible at it that he doesn’t have to worry about meeting the requirements, but your path seems obscured and untrodden. Punctuating a deep, resonant sigh, you say, “It’s not that easy, Kai.” 

“If you’re not doing that, then what are you going to do? Are you just going to settle for a nine-to-five?” he says full of accusation, the tapping on his knees gone still.  

A dry laugh, you say, “Maybe I’ll marry a super rich guy and just do my art for a living. No nine-to-five.” 

His face flashes. He’d always been a bit reserved, especially around others, but he bared his emotions freely around you. You hold them dearly to your chest and made sure to do your best to make good on that trust. He says, “You’re more than some guy’s housewife.” 

Cheeks radiating in the heat, you snort. “I know, dork. I’m a rockstar’s best friend. It’s my personal favorite achievement.”  

His face sours when you reach out and pinch hard at his cheek, but he doesn’t pull away or brush you off. The skin there is warmed and clammy. Really, the two of you should go meet the cool AC inside before you suffer heat stroke. But this moment feels so nice—your shoulders feel tons lighter without something to hide. If you had it your way, things would stay like this forever. Just the two of you, sat here like you have so many times before, just taking for granted the time you’ve got together.  

His mouth opens to banter, probably something about how he’s not a rockstar yet or to get you back for calling him a dork. Wingbeat and sterling dashes about your face send the image into a blur, though. You’re a quick mess of limbs and a whipping head, as if it’ll chase the thing away from you. 

“Seriously?” Kai says. You’d climbed halfway over him, elbows digging into him and knee doing a number on his thigh. “It’s a moth. You’re not scared of moths.” 

Lingering for a few moments later to ensure the flying thing was nowhere on you or around you, you hold back a laugh before you climb off him and fix your hair with undignified tucks behind your ears. “He was in my face,” you say around a laugh, because you know it was a bit too much. Nobody likes wings in their ears and spindly legs in their face, though, and you’re in no control of what you do when anything with six legs tries and get too friendly. Even moths.  

“You just wanted me to protect you,” he says. A sarcastic, shit-eating smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.  

“Oh,” you scoff, batting your eyelashes and clasping your hands together all saccharine-sweet. “Yes, Romeo, won’t you kill that bug for me? My heart just can’t take it!” 

Kai’s nose crinkles, and the playful light twists into a glare. “Nasty.” 

“Well, that’s how you sounded,” you say. “Whatever.” Laughing, you kick your legs out over his lap and sprawl back out. He takes the guitar back into his hands. 

As much as you want to escape the mugginess, you’ll survive it for just a little while longer—if only with the force of an indulgent heart. The eternal moments are those you allow to linger.  

Some things, you forget when you’re older. Maybe it’s time’s hand, eroding memories down and stuffing more in the longer you live to experience them. But also maybe because they’re the sort of things you can’t say in the adult world without a laugh in the face and a look from down their noses.  

This memory is one of those forgotten things. It’s moth-bitten and dusty, something you one day folded up in a moving box and decided to never revisit. 

You’d been down at the creek. Kai and you had spent so many summer days there. It wasn’t too far from home, just past the filbert trees and into the shallow neck of the backwoods, but there you were out of sight and free to get up to nothing good. It was a wonder your mom ever let you do it. Kai’s dad didn’t care too much where he went or what he did, but your mom dug her claws in deep. You like to think that she imagined you two would have each other, if anything ever happened. 

Usually, you’d be there holding your jeans up from the stream and Kai would be letting his jeans go dark with it. The bite of water was nice as it washed over warm skin. Fun was a simple thing to find, then. You dug your fingers into the mudbanks and tossed stones way too big to be throwing at each other, just because you two remembered how much the adults hated it when you did. Then, you’d drag tired limbs home avoiding sweetgum tree spikes that had fallen to the ground and dug splinters out from your feet.  

This day, you had been in the blackberry bushes. It was maybe late July or early August, and they’d gotten heavy on their branches. You’d waited until the smell of them, summer-warmed, was sweet and cloying in the air to pick them. With buckets in your hands, you plucked only the fattest berries from their bunches. Your fingers were stained a delightful purple and perhaps a bit thorn raw, but you didn’t mind much then. You plucked for hours, and it was dusk before you could catch it. Dinner was no doubt waiting for you back home. 

“There’s a bunch over here,” Kai had said. He reached a long boyish arm, still awkward and lanky with puberty, up high for ripe bush. You finished off picking before climbing around thick branches sticking out to take a peek. A bunch, there was. 

When you went to drop a handful of them into your bucket, Kai hissed. He’d been snagged by a vicious looking branch, those ones as thick as a finger with thorns to match and you’d warn each other tongue-in-cheek to watch out for that one. He’d worn those ridiculous shorts that day, the ones that looked half pants half shorts with how long and baggy they were, and the claws of the bush had jumped at the opportunity. At first the scrapes were white, but then red blood crawled out and down his leg.  

“Kai,” you said, some parts chiding and some parts just wondering how he’d managed that. You surveyed his leg for a bit, and then determined that he should wash his leg off in the stream. He walked there strong, but of course you noticed the hobble beneath his acting. When you squatted down into the dry grass and cupped water to wash off his leg, you laughed. 

“What?” he had said, holding the shorts up. You covered your laugh with a hand, but it erupted past your palm. You remember the glare on his face very well.  

You still laughed. “You’re stupid,” you had told him. 

“I didn’t see it,” he said. “I tripped over it because it was sticking out.” 

That time when you brought your hands to catch some water, there was a twinkle in its surface. You didn’t notice it for a second. The creek moved fast and you could see a lot of things in its reflection. When it lingered, that’s when your brows furrowed. It seemed to twirl, dancing around like alive over the stones. 

The sound of Kai’s voice remains with you. “Hey,” he had said, strong to call your attention but also wavered with uncertainty. 

When you looked up, there was silver dust dancing around you. 

It was fluffy and whorling, fine silver stardust. It’d moved weightless in the air, as though it barely existed. In the center of it were a few moths. They seemed to be made of sterling powder just as the dust was, and they glowed against dusk’s backdrop. If your memory serves you right, there had been a sweet hymn of coos from them. They beckoned you. Summer’s heat felt lighter, and so did your chest. You wondered where they had wanted you to go. 

Almost afraid that if you spoke they might have fluttered away, you whispered soft and low to Kai. “What is that?” He was stood frozen there, pant leg still scrunched up in his fist. Stardust glowed soft in his brown eyes while he took it all in, you remember. It wasn’t a scared frozen. You weren’t scared, either—rather, it was as if that lightness had found its way into the core of your being and brushed over it with mending hands. 

He whispered back, “I don’t know.” How could he have known? It was absurd. 

Those whisps had beckoned you, flowing toward the deeper woods. The soft moths, their murmuring brushing up against your ears, seemed to wait for you to follow. You remember a pull, soft tendrils wrapping themselves around your heart and the yearning it planted there.  

But there was also this reluctance, a bone-deep answering that had told you: No. You’re not ready. 

“Kai, I wanna go,” you told him. 

You didn’t even need to tell him twice. Berry buckets forgotten; the journey home was a stranger one. When your dad asked why you returned from berry picking emptier handed than you had left the house, Kai and you only shared a look. You pair kept that evening at the creek hidden so well that it became more forgotten than shared secret.  

Once, you had been the type of girl that loved being around family. Some of your favorite days of your life were spent in this living room, T.V. roaring over bouncing conversation. Some of those nights ended in rosy cheeks and laughs, and some ended with words thrown angry like fireworks. You never knew which you’d be getting, but you endured the fear of not knowing because it was a simple love—the basic kind built with biology into you the moment your infant skin touched your mother’s. You endured it because eventually, sleep washed away the bad taste left in your mouth and you forgave them quick, sometimes quicker than you ought to, and things would go on as if it hadn’t even happened. You endured it because you could handle its burden, if only to feel the warmth you feel when it’s a good day.  

Kai was always there—his dad was hardly home, so he found family in yours. When you were younger, you’d been embarrassed he was there for caustic, spitted words and intimate fights. Now, you’re just grateful for his shoulder.  

So, yes. Once, you had loved being around your family. But things feel tenser now, nights spent all together less frequent and when they do happen, they’re tainted by a strange air. You think that this strangeness is new, but an awful worry also makes you think that it’d always been there, that you only feel it now because you’ve grown into your adult mind. A hollow ache stakes its claim in your chest, declaring that it won’t leave until you find that youthful ignorance and joy once more. You think that it might stay there forever. 

Bare feet bounding down the stairs, you make a rare appearance downstairs. The cupboard is only half open to make way for a snack raid before your mom’s voice cuts through the air. You know quickly just by the look on her face that you should’ve stayed upstairs. 

“Hey,” she says, gathering laundry into a basket. “You’ve been applying to jobs?” 

With an anxious belly, you tell her, “Yeah. A few. They’re not really, like, ideal, but I sent applications.” You don’t remember when it got hard to look into your mother’s eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do so now.  

“Not ideal?” she says. “It’s not like you can be picky. Mcdonalds or wherever, I don’t care, you’re going to need to get a job if you’re staying here.” 

“I know. I applied,” you reiterate around a mumble. You close the cabinets, not so interested in a snack anymore. “I just... I don’t know, ma. I don’t want to do that for a living, going between those sorts of jobs.” 

Face hard and abrasive against the truth you bare, she does that awful taunting smile that makes you feel small. Stupid. “You’re not going to college, so that’s what it’s gonna be. You can’t sit up there and draw for a living. You’ve gotta get into the real world, get some real experience.”  

There’s a burst of hurt in your chest, dazzling and gnawing. She’s getting closer to saying how she really feels about your dreams out loud every day. Your face burns and so do your eyes, knot thick in your throat. “Yeah, okay. Got it,” you say, nodding. You’re at the front door before you even know it, slipping on shoes and fighting the greatest internal battle to will back tears. She’d use those against you, no doubt about it. “I’m going to Kai’s,” you throw over your shoulder.  

Whatever she barks back at you, you’re glad you don’t hear. Bells on some old Christmas decoration hung on the door that had yet to be taken down, even into summer, jingle and wash it away for you. 

Kai’s brows shoot up when he opens the door to your face crumpling. You’d done so well at damming it up, but the wall cracks and the water crashes through once you see him. If it were anybody else, you’d feel icky and attention seeking, but you’d held Kai to your chest through gut-wrenching sobs as much as he’s done it for you. Without question, he takes you into his arms, warm hand running up and down your back. The warm soothing is so familiar. You melt right into it.  

He keeps you there for a long moment. Then, his chest rumbles as he tells you, “Come on.” The walk through the AC to his bedroom is nice. Having a house like Kai’s to come to where it can just be you is nice, too. You step around the mess of clothes and scattered belongings on his floor like you have a muscle-memory roadmap of his room. Boxsprings creak and hard mattress welcome you back home. His room is dark as always, a night-dweller you call him. The array of peeling band posters plastered over walls you two had painted blue some years ago, when it’d been his favorite color, don’t help to lighten it up. He keeps a low lamplight on.  

“She never listens to me,” you say, crying gone to occasional sniffles from your chest. You rest your cheek on your bent knee. 

“I know,” he says. “But at least she cares about you. Pays attention to you.” His voice is soft and deep and right next to you. Always right next to you, there for you even when you might not appreciate it as you should.  

His dad cares too little what he does, and yours care too much. The grass is always greener on the other side, you know it. Still, you hold a fantasy where you’re able to do teenager stuff. Where you’d allow yourself to do bad things, because you weren’t so intent on painting yourself with their will. You two hold eyes for a long moment, your twinkling ones caught in that steady brown. “I just want to get away. Be my own person.” Your words are muffled in the softness of your skin. 

“You had the chance to do it,” Kai says, hand playing with your fingers. “But you didn’t.” 

Holding your legs closer, you lick your lips. What do you say to that? Would it ever be the time to tell him that you did it because you think that your soul is pathetically intertwined with his, and that it might snuff your lifeforce out to even try pursuing life without him? Without this? How do you tell him that you’re so frozen and unwilling to pursue any sort of future because it means accepting that this chapter is over? You clutch childhood to your chest like a wild animal guarding scarce food; you refuse. You refuse to acknowledge its end.  

“Kai,” is all you say, trembled and thick. It’s not just your mother’s words that dig at you and tear to shreds the last bits of what dreaming you had left in you, but so many other reality checks too. This isn’t the first time you’ve heard those sorts of words, urging you forward. You can only dig your heel into the ground for so long before you’re swept away in time’s ruthless, endless moving.  

He understands. Lifting your face with warm fingers against your cheeks, he says, “Hey. How about we go get ice cream, or something?” 

Ice cream does sound nice. “Dairy Queen?” 

Smirk tugged over his mouth, he says, “Yes, Dairy Queen. A blizzard. C’mon, let’s go.” Sliding off the bed, he offers you an urging hand up. 

But you falter. “I don’t know if we can. She’s mad at me. I don’t think she’ll let me go.” 

“Let you go?” he says, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t have to let you go. You’re an adult now, you go if you want to.” He offers his hand to you again. 

It’s so him, freely going wherever he ordain it. The bullheadedness is very him, as well. Always the devil on your shoulder, he was the root of any rebellious thing you’ve ever done. He could never understand your apprehension, or why getting in trouble was such an awful thing to you. “I have to ask to get money.” 

Brows pinching, he says, “You think I’m not gonna pay for you? You don’t need them to give you money, I’ll pay. I’ll take care of it.” He drags you up from the bed this time. “Live a little. Do you want to go?” 

It was never the punishments or the getting in trouble that you were scared of, though. Disappointment was a scarier word than grounded. Sneaking out and those sorts of things, it’s not like you had angel wings at your back and never considered them. It’s that you are deeply, utterly terrified of changing how they look at you. You begin to tell him, “I do, but—” 

He cuts you off, adamant. “Then do it. Let’s go. If you want to go, then go,” he says. “At some point, your life needs to become your own. It’s not sneaking out when you’re graduated and eighteen years old, it’s going wherever the hell you want. You’ve... You’re gonna end up stuck here, in this town, forever. You don’t deserve that.” 

That sounds like both the best and the worst thing you’ve ever heard. You take his hand.  

Your frozen fingers nurse your ice cream. The cup itself is cold, but the Dairy Queen on your side of town is always thirty degrees below what it should be. It’d always been that way. Even way back when you two couldn’t drive, you’d get dropped off here to escape the melting weather and get a frozen treat with a handful of dollars. Each time, you’d start off sagging with the relief of summer’s weight off your shoulders and left the place shivering and sugar-mouthed.  

It’s really only you two in here. You crinkle your nose when he takes a spoonful. “Out of all the flavors...” 

Unbothered and no doubt expecting you to say it, he offers you a flat, “You get your flavor, I get mine.” He makes a point of taking an extra-long bite. His lips linger around the red plastic of the spoon and his brows rest high in silent challenge.  

The corners of your lips twitch up. “Hmm. Well. I just have a hard time believing that Oreo... or, like, brownie fudge, is right there, and you actually want M&M. I don’t get how M&M your favorite.” A familiar banter falls over your tongues. Your heart buzzes and your cheeks radiate. This is the first you’ve done this all summer, and it’ll be weaning off into fall soon. Any other summer, you would’ve been here on all the hottest days. You hate that Kai’s been so busy with his music; you hate that you can hear the resounding ticks of the clock counting down your time. You also hate that the stubborn depths of you still believe that if you freeze yourself here in stasis that the world will relent and stop along with you. 

You look over the sharp lines of Kai’s jawline as it feathers with his chewing, and the broadness of his shoulders where his jacket stretches around it, and the starkness of his collarbones against his chest and the bobbing of his adam’s apple when he swallows. No, time doesn’t stop. Some of him remains the same, though. In it, you see the boy that had love creeping up on you so long ago, with all its aching and all its hope. That freckle on the column of his neck, the bump in his nose leading down to the button tip that beckons your lips to steal a quick kiss.  

And, those lips. They’re as soft as ever around the discontented grimace he pulls. “M&M isn’t my favorite.” 

With a pursed mouth and patronizing brows arched over your eyes, you say, “Oh, huh. That’s funny, because if my memory serves me right, it’s the only flavor you’ve ordered for the past... six years.”  

Kai husks a laugh at that. “That’s because they haven’t had my favorite for years,” he tells you, scooping up the final bit and then pushing it off to the side. “It was a blizzard of the month that they discontinued. The blackberry cheesecake one. I made peace with it, though. It lives on in my heart.” He grins, arms crossed over his chest and his back settled into the booth seat to let you finish your cup.  

“Blackberry cheesecake,” you say, voice made taunting. Your nod is slow and taunting, too. “Well, forget M&Ms. Why would blackberry cheesecake be your favorite? Ever?” 

His face falters, a moment where something flows over his eyes as if reliving a memory in a few short seconds. Then, he shrugs. “It just is.” 

You roll your eyes. “Whatever,” you laugh. “Maybe my palate is unrefined.” Imagining the tarte fruit in purple swirls of ice cream, you’re taken back to a humid July day and the scent of churned mud.  

The strange memory unfolds itself quick. As if it were waiting for you to find wherever it’d hidden itself away. With a sharp gasp, you say, “Oh my god, Kai. Do you remember that one day? That weird stuff we saw down at the creek?” 

He nods. “Yeah. I was just thinking of that the other day, actually...” 

Less interested in finishing your cup now, you let the spoon rest. “What?” you say, the word peaking in the middle. That day hadn’t crossed your mind once since it’d happened. “How weird is that?” 

Scoffing a laugh, he says, “Weird, yeah. Just as strange as two kids high on fermented berries.” 

That draws a breathy laugh from you. “Is that what you think it was?” you ask him with knitted brows. The berries had been fresh, and you two had popped plenty into your mouth. But no doubt, you’d have spat them right back out if they were that ripe. “I mean, we saw the same thing.” 

“It happens to animals all the time. Squirrells, and stuff.” He lends you a gallic shrug. “We just freaked ourselves out. Like that one time you said you saw the shape of something in the dark and we freaked out. And it was clothes.”  

Well, hallucinating, in tandem, a glowing mist because you two by chance ate fermented berries is a very long shot. However nonchalant he acts about it, he seems to have thought long and hard about it. Enough to reason it away with some far cry explanation. Would you have even been able to get drunk off a handful of fermented berries? And, god, you’re really sure that you’d have noticed. That taste isn’t really one you just don’t notice.  

Whatever. Maybe you were just drunk idiots. That’s a lot easier to swallow, anyway. 

“Okay, but you saw that. Did it not look sinister?” you say. With your spoon back in your hand, you punctuate the sentence pointing it at him. “You freaked out with me, too.”  

An unsatisfied scowl on his lips, he steals a spoonful of your dessert. You don’t even swat him away—your phone buzzes in your pocket. 

Catching sight of who’s calling, you share a long look with Kai. It’s funny, how fast those three white letters scramble you up. When you hesitate to answer, Kai tells you, “Answer.” 

You hope she can’t tell you’re not at Kai’s by the refrigerators’ dull buzzing. It’s an effort to tussle that invasive worry back. You’re at Dairy Queen. Getting ice cream with the boy she’s known since childhood. She should clutch her hands and thank the sky that you’re here, not out in some nasty frat house like you could be. You thumb the green button. 

Her voice comes through the speaker crackled and asking you to run over to do a quick dish load. For a heartbeat you consider telling her that you will and then start rushing home. Instead, you fork out the truth through resistant lips. 

The hangup tone sits heavy on the air between you and Kai. Having listened to the whole thing on speaker, he says, “What was so hard about that? The world didn’t end, did it?” 

The plush of your lip takes a hard gnawing. No, it hadn’t. “I know she’s not going to get mad at me for just going here,” you say as you rest your elbows onto the table. “It’s that they’re supporting me right now. I still live under their roof. The more I go around and insist I can do whatever I want, they’ll start reminding me of it.” 

His face drawn, he lets his mouth twitch to one side. “Yeah,” he muses. “I never thought yours would be the type to kick you out.” 

Kai’s dad had started threating him with getting kicked out years ago, when he first started telling him that he wanted to do music. How many times had he let reluctant tears flow into your shoulder over it? Because music wasn’t a real job? Back then, you’d whispered in his ears that he’d become everything he’d dreamed of and more as your fingers carded through shaggy locks of hair.  

“I don’t know,” you say, humming it out noncommittally. “Is your dad still... y’know?” 

Nodding slowly, his eyes tell. “Yeah. Always.” 

“Because you’re taking the band seriously, now?” you ask.  

“Probably. I don’t give a shit what he thinks about it. If I’m just his goddamn problem, I’ll give him what he wants soon enough.” His eyes blaze with promise of it.  

It takes a bit out of you to not wince. Kai living anywhere but in the house across from yours is wrong. “I don’t think he necessarily wants that, Kai...” You take his hand in your icy ones, the urge to reach out to him thinly veiled under the guise of searching out warmth. He’d always run warmer than you—your personal heater. “It’s probably because he can see that you’re doing it for real. Not just saying it anymore.” 

“Yeah, well,” he spits, “I can’t fucking wait to see what he’ll say to me when I make it. That piece of shit, though, he wouldn’t even care. It’s not like he ever gave a shit about me enough for it to matter.” 

But, it matters to you, you want to tell him. You understand his need to throw it all in his face, though. “Is that one label going to sign you? The one you were talking about?” 

His tongue darts out to wet dry lips. “They haven’t yet. I don’t know. But I don’t need that money to get out of here, I’ve been working on it.” 

“They will,” you say. “But, where would you go? Not too far?” You try and keep it light and playful, even as your heart aches. 

“Come with me,” he says. It’s painfully blunt, as if it were that simple. “Let’s go get and apartment; you and me.” 

“Kai...” you say. “You don’t have to drag me along because you feel bad.” 

The idea doesn’t sound half bad, though.  

“What?” His face tightens, as if somewhere under the surface your words had scraped somewhere tender. “You don’t have to stay here forever. Please. I want... I want you to come with me. You wouldn’t have to even tell them; just bring all your stuff and go together. We could do it together. Like we said we would.”  

“We were like, five. Everybody tries to pretend running away at five,” you deadpan. It’s a washy attempt at lightening things back up. 

Living with him, moving out together, should feel like everything you’ve ever wanted. And, maybe it is. But, he’s not asking you to live with him the way you want him to. Not in the way that your aching heart wishes he would.  

Kai doesn’t share the laugh you give him. “Yeah, okay,” he says, leaning into the table.  

Perhaps you should consider the potent disappointment he’s terribly masking with a face of indifference, though. 

Slowly, the knots in your belly have worked themselves out. When Kai had dropped you off, they’d been so awful that you felt borderline sick. You sat the whole ride there in his old beat-up truck picking at your nails and rambling to him. He listened to you the whole time. And then when it was time to walk in, it had least felt a little easier to do so with his eyes on you, watching to make sure you made it in safely. 

You’d gotten a job. It’s not too bad, folding clothes out on display. It would be nice if they kept the lights a bit brighter, but you’ll get used it eventually, you hope. 

Most of your coworkers are around your age, but the one showing you the ropes... your heart had fluttered. 

“You’ll get it,” Yeonjun says. The smile you find on his lips once he straightens up from placing product on a display is smooth and smug. Sleek strands of black hair fall over his eyes. You fluster under his gaze.  

With arms crossed over your chest you say, “Yeah, probably.” You reach into the cardboard box for stock to practice on. 

“Where’d you work before this?” he asks, leaning back into a wall to watch you. Suddenly, you make sloppier work of your folding. “Your first retail job?” 

Some obnoxious pop song falls down from the speakers over the store. Nobody’s in here yet, thankfully; you’ve got some time to try and get a handle on everything. “No, this is my first job. I was so nervous walking in.” 

Interest catches in his eyes. It encourages that smooth smile on his lips further. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, I’ll show you the reins.” 

Your mind stalls. The suggestive, sly flicker to it—are you looking too much into it? Maybe that’s just how guys like Yeonjun act. It’s hard to pretend that you don’t see how he’s looking at you, though. It has your belly twisted up in fluttery knots. It’s not like you hadn’t had your share of his type. But, for some reason you’d rather not address, he’s got your heart thumping in your chest. 

He laughs at your fifth attempt to fold up the shirt. When he takes it from you to help, he smells of musk and vetiver. “You going to college near here?” he continues.  

“Nah, just doing this, I guess,” you answer, watching him fold it up to try and soak it up.  

“Really? Why not?” he hums, crossing his arms about his chest. “You seem like a smart girl.” 

Buffering, your blood buzzes in your veins and your cheeks burn. “Dunno. Not really sure what to do. Are you in college?” 

“Nah. I’m trying to figure things out, too.” 

The both of you pop your heads up when the bell rings to announce the arrival of a customer.  

“Yeah,” you say, eyeing him. He’s a few years older than you, no doubt, and yet his life hasn’t fallen apart because he’s not done anything grand yet.  

Time’s hand around your neck loosens. Just a little bit.  

You sit crisscrossed on top of Kai’s bedsheets. He’d thrown the windows open because the AC died, but it’s no help. The hot air wafting about the room sits heavy on your skin. You’d dressed in as little material as possible to let it breathe, bare thighs clad in a pair of loose shorts and a thin tank top, but it’s still miserable. 

Perhaps you two should be going over to yours, but you haven’t had time alone with him for a few weeks now. You hate this busier life, where you struggle to make room for this. 

Your new job isn’t so awful, though. Especially with Yeonjun there. A bout of nerves flows up through your stomach. That reminds you. 

Sitting up a bit straighter, you consider not doing it. In fact, you really shouldn’t. But your mouth moves before you can put a stopper on it. 

“Hey, Kai,” you say. The thickness in your throat makes you believe that your heart’s jumped up into it, caught. God, what are you doing? The unsure waver in your words has you regretting. 

His eyes flicker up to yours. He hums out a, “Huh?” 

No, this is wrong. You mess with the thin cotton strap of your tank top where it’d slipped down. “Never mind,” you tell him, trying to shrug it off.  

That piques his interest. “No, what?” His brow pinches.  

You lick your lips and shake your head. “Nothing, never mind. Really.” 

His eyes search you from where he sits up against the wall. “Tell me,” he demands. 

Really, you shouldn’t have said it in the first place. It was a ridiculous idea. But now you know he’s not going to let it go. And, ridiculously, you say it. “I was just... wondering,” you say, blood roaring. "Well, Yeonjun wants me to come over to his place this weekend, and... I’ve never...” Sucking in a quick breath, you just spit it out to get it over with, “Would you be my first kiss, Kai?” 

Insects buzz outside as he looks at you, frozen in spot. You reject the urge to dart away or throw up. You’re honestly just as shaken as him. But really, who else could you trust with something like that? You don’t want Yeonjun to be disappointed if he kisses you, or to seem inexperienced to him. 

And, perhaps, the hopelessly in love part of you hopes to at least feel his lips on yours at least once. If you’re going to be alone forever in your longing, you just wish that you can have this. 

“What?” Kai says. He looks rattled.  

Of course, he’s shocked. You shift. “Forget I said that,” you tell him, unable to meet his gaze.  

String-roughened fingers wrap around your upper arm. “I didn’t say anything,” he says, voice strained and face less shock-fallen and more darkened. “But... I mean, you want me to teach you to kiss for some other guy.” He spits out the last bit as if bitter in his mouth.  

“You don’t have to do it,” you say. “I just... thought that I might ask you to do it. I don’t know, I’m sorry I said it. I’ll just wing it or something.” His room’s grown ten degrees hotter, if that was possible. Especially where you feel his eyes on your face.  

Almost imperceptibly, his hand tightens around you. He swallows hard. “You want to learn how to kiss?” he says. “Fine. I’ll teach you.” 

In a heart-stopping moment, your eyes snap to his. Brown and familiar, they hold you with an intensity that turns your limbs into jelly. The air is stifling. “What... do I do?” you ask when the silence becomes too heavy.  

A muscle feathers in his jaw, reflected in the low light of his room. It’s quick and so easy to miss, but it tells you everything you need to know about how this is making him feel. How much disbelief he’s in. “Come here,” he says, stilted around the absolute absurdity of it. He pats on his lap. 

You make a hesitant crawl across the bed toward him. It seems as though your elbows might buckle beneath your weight, but you make it despite the odds. A fog settles over your brain when you rest your hands on his shoulders and bring your legs to straddle his lap. 

But you shove it back; you want to live and breathe every last second of this. No matter how unbelievable or blistering it is.  

Breaths fan out over your face. It’s seizing your mind like undiluted liquor. “Where do I put my hands?” you ask him. It’s breathless, the air stolen right from your lungs though your mouths haven’t even touched.  

“There is fine,” he says. His words sound breathless, too. The weight of his touch on you as he runs his own up to support your back is unsure. “And then...” he says. It falls out on your mouth slowly, and then he’s taking your lips onto his. 

The walls melt away, sound does too. All that is real is the taste of his lips and how they move against you. Your lips start tentative, but you try his mouth movements yourself. It feels like a timid dance—it feels like deep, deep down, finally everything is right. That mist, thick and blinding, falls back over you. 

Something changes. Something in it, where you two meet, changes. He becomes hungry. Softly locked lips turn biting and nipping, shaky breaths exhaled slow through your nose. His hands on your back become surer, and one even ventures off to grab your chin. The other holds you to his chest, melded together despite the intense smoke and flame rolling off your bodies. You wonder if he can feel your heart beating a mess there. 

Reluctance paints you both when you pull back. You’re panting deep drinks of air. It’s hard to think; your mind’s run off and sits just out of reach. Licking your messy lips, stained with illicitness, you can only manage to brush your fingers against it to form words. “How... was that?” you say, searching his eyes. You find his pupils blown so wide that they consume the warm brown. You’re ready to jump out of your skin with that look pointed at you.  

Kai doesn’t answer, though. He slams your mouths back together as if starved by just the brief moment you’d parted for air. Nips on your bottom lip and emboldened hands—he moves like roaring water through a dam. A dam that he’d worked hard to fortify, and yet, at a crack it’s all falling down. Fingertips digging through the fabric of your shorts down to your soft hips, his chest rumbles. You feel it reflected in your core, electricity charging there and shooting up your spine and down your thighs. 

You kiss him for all the times you wish you would’ve, but didn’t. The slight rolls of your hips down onto him come easy. You love how it has him making a sound into your mouth and taking the fat beneath his fingers harder into his hands. He helps you. 

He drops his head into your neck. Your head swims for air and he has you shuddering with just the brushing of his nose against the column of your neck. The walls of his room spin around you. “Kai,” you whine, every bit of friction his jeans provide, even clothed as you are, just enough to rile you but not to give you what you need. 

“God,” he growls, thumbs hooking under your waistband. “You always fucking run around dressed in nothing,” he says, letting his fingers linger like a suggestion of undressing you. “Did you do it on purpose? Expect to make me crazy, knowing I couldn’t touch you?” 

And, in those words, it seems that he steals every last bit of breath from you. How often had you gone braless or worn something like this around him? Laid here, in his bed, like that? 

Grown tired of your fruitless grinding, he brings a hand down to support your lower back and says, “Turn around.” 

Though you explode with the prospect of what he might be intending to do or what’s next, if you’re really going to do this, you do so in a flash of eager limbs. His chest is solid against your back, you melt against the feeling of it. He’d become such a man lately, filled out, and you watched it happen. It was hard for your eyes not to catch on muscle-corded forearms while he picked at strings or to not appreciate the timbred rumble of his voice when you’d feel it come from his chest. How could it not do things to you? Now, he’s dragging your shorts down your legs and you’re in disbelief.  

“Fuck,” he breaths out. His fingers find your panties soaked through. “So, you’re the type to get dripping wet.” 

An embarrassed blush decorates your cheeks. Kai drags his index finger in circles around your clit through the fabric as if enamored with how much of a mess you’d made of it. Your hips twitch every time he rolls right over it. It’s strange how he’s got your body acting on its own volition with his touches. Even stranger that it’s your best friend doing it. “Sorry,” you tell him, wavering.  

He continues those terribly slow circles. “Sorry?” he says, chin on your shoulder. He’s got you wrapped up in him, with nowhere to go but to melt back into him and let his fingers work. Free hand on one of your inner thighs digging divots into the plushness there to hold it still, he tells you, “It’s nothing to be sorry about. It’s hot as fuck. You’re so excited for me to touch you, huh?” 

The words wreak havoc on you, feeding the flame that has your belly twisted up tight and the ignition point between your thighs pounding. To hear them coming from him, reserved Kai, has you digging your fingers into his forearm to prove that it’s real. You’d never have imagined him being so... filthy. You imagine him behind falsely nonchalant eyes, devouring you with a perverted mind all the times you’d spent innocently sitting together in this room.  

Your cheeks squish beneath his fingers as he takes your face and turns it to him. He wants to make sure you’re look at him as he asks you, “Do you want me to finger you?” 

Like a record, your brain skips. Between the blunt, lewd question and his hand on you, it’s in overload. How could he ask something like that so simply? Stunned as you are, of course you want him to. You want him to do anything to you. You nod.  

Every last nerve and neuron in your system, just below the skin, cry out when his fingers slow down to nothing. “Hmm?” he says, ignoring the chasing of your hips and the opening of your thighs to invite him into paying your poor pussy the attention he’d ripped from it. He wants to hear you say it.  

About ten minutes ago, you lost your mind. It does not return to you now. “I want you to,” you say, chest beating in tandem with your cunt. 

“You want me to, right? Not some dumbass you met a week ago, huh?” he says. “Because you know that this is what it’s meant to be. Me, doing these things to you. Not some twenty-five-year-old piece of shit. He doesn’t deserve you, baby. Understand?” 

His fingers slider under your panties. Dumb brained and cognition gone muddled, you nod. All you can really think about is the moment his fingers slide over you. Fire licks up your lower belly and your insides as he brushes calloused finger tips finally right against your clit. 

Puffed breaths of a scoff raise goosebumps over your skin. “Teach you to kiss so that you can go over there and get his hands on you,” he says, middle two fingertips prodding at your entrance. “As if you were ever anybody’s but mine. You’d come crawling back to me, baby, because it was always meant to be us. He could never satisfy you.” 

His words might alarm you or have you asking questions if he hadn’t pushed his fingers into you and begun curling them with strong, pointed presses, pulling soft mewls and hums from you until he finds a spot that twists up your insides. Even through the palm you press over your mouth, your moans come out more like wavering grunts and croaks. Your thighs quiver and twitch, threatening to snap closed against your own will with each. Only your feet stay planted to the mattress. Like a cone of soft serve under the sun’s blistering attention, you melt down him. Just his frame keeps you upright. 

“Right there, huh?” he says. The smirk on his mouth filters his words into something taunting. “That’s where you like it.” It’s like he’s learning your body step by step, fulfilling all the questions he’d been forced to only guess at before this.  

“Uh-huh.” It comes out whiny and cracks in the middle, but you can’t find even an ounce of you to care right now. If this moment had been a long spiral, a fall from grace, down into a dark pit of forgotten inhibitions, you’ve just hit the bottom. Cheeks blazing cherry blossom pink and with your fingers curling into his pant leg, you don’t doubt that you are a picturesque mess. The kind of mess that’s beautiful because it’s dirty. Your teeth are not gentle on your plush bottom lip. It stings, tugged back and bitten and still a bit swollen with kisses. Perhaps you taste the tang of metal on it, but you pay it no mind. 

Kai redoubles his efforts. Now that he knows exactly how to play you, he’s fucking you on his fingers without mercy. The sounds coming from your cunt were wet, but now they’re different— nasty squelching. The only noises coupling with your pathetic keening. Forget anchoring yourself on his thigh, forget muffling your sounds. Instead, your hands fly to encircle his flexing forearm. Under your nails, angry red crescents dig into the muscle there. What had been a languid, building pleasure suddenly becomes everything. Your breaths run away from you, and you chase them frantically. Deep down in your core, the muscles spasm and rage against his fingers. “H—oh god,” you groan. Even the muscles in your thighs and tummy tighten up. 

“So whiny...” Kai mumbles, voice taut with the effort of eroding you down into pure, blinding-white pleasure. 

And then, in a swoop of mercy, your belly tightens. You hover here, on the precipice of something so consuming and voracious that your muscles and bones reject it, and yet your heart sings. Your eyes and cheeks and lungs and belly burn, the flame charring the edges of you in a beckon. You answer its call. Kai doesn’t mind the snapping of your legs shut around his arm, nor does your bucking or shaking deter him. He just holds you through it, arm like a metal bar around your waist. He’s everywhere, in this moment—the smell of him, leather and utterly familiar, his mouth dusting hot kisses over your skin, his fingers guiding you through orgasm. Where you’d gone silent in the initial crash of it, you devolve into mewls and grunts as you come down.  

He holds you even as you slump against him boneless. Afterglow simmers in your veins and has your brain all lethargic and lazy. Neither of you speak for a while, your pulse thumping a rhythm. His breaths rise and fall against you; it grounds you in this moment where you feel all spacey and gone. You become aware again of how disgustingly sweltering it is in his room, your skin sheened. 

That brainless bliss only lasts you for so long, though. When rational mind returns to you, no matter how you wish it wouldn’t, you’re hit in the chest with regret so hard it knocks the wind out of you. 

How will anything ever be the same after what you’d just done? Stricken still by the thought, you barely register him pulling his fingers out of you. After all your worrying about making sure no wedge comes between you two, look what you’ve gone and done. No; nothing ever will be the same again.  

A couple of weeks ago, you ruined the one friendship you were supposed to have forever. It presses down heavy one you while you sit sprawled out on Yeonjun’s couch, his arm around your shoulder. His phone casts a glow over his features with all the lights out. 

It doesn’t smell like home. He, pressed against your side, doesn’t smell like home.  

Some stupid movie that he’d picked out, yet somehow you’ve ended up the only one still watching it, weaves a hum into the quiet of his apartment. Tangy hurt wells up in your throat. Even the moments when you and Kai would sit in mutual silence on your phones never felt like this. This is different.  

You haven’t seen Kai since that night. He’s been busy getting ready to move out, and you’ve been here most days. How fast all of it had changed. You wish you’d feel whiplashed, left empty, by the drifting that you’d been so terrified of. But you don’t. It’s just been you, locked on land, watching him being taken away by the ocean’s tide with no way to change its course. You tried and screamed to call him back, but now your voice has gone hoarse.  

And instead of watching him go, you choose to look elsewhere. It’s all you can do to protect yourself from the hurt. 

“Hey,” Yeonjun says, finally addressing you rather than whoever’s he’s got in his phone. “Did you bring anything to change into?”  

“I brought stuff to sleep in,” you say, eyeing him. You know that’s not why he’s asking. If it came down to it, you could just steal something from him and pull it on. He means going out clothes. Your jaw tightens. “But nothing nice. Why?” 

He stretches his arms behind his head in a flaunt of long arms and tanned muscle. Hours spent at the gym lent him those; you appreciate the look of it with a watering mouth. Kai had earned his build by hours spent outside with your dad, because his own could care less, helping him fix up cars and vehicles of all ridiculous sorts. You remember when Kai had first gotten his truck—junk on wheels, honestly—he’d spent so much of summer out there getting it running. And, well... the sun-kissed bronze of his skin and frame that came with it, you had no qualms with. 

But those memories only sit heavy in your chest as you’re sat here beside Yeonjun. You banish them elsewhere; you need to let him drift off. If you can’t have each other, and your feelings won’t permit just being friends, then you have to. You want him to do amazing things, and you fear that it’s your presence in his life that will interrupt that. As much as your feelings are real, they are selfish. You, your unsure direction and all your dead weight, should let him go. Because you love him. 

“The guys want to come over,” he tells you, pushing off from the couch. “You should probably into change into something less showy.” 

Less showy. Your mouth drops into a scoff of disbelief, looking down. A pair of shorts and a shirt, showy? You have to laugh, or else you’ll succumb to the strange embarrassment crawling at the back of your skull. What’s he trying to say? Is that what he thinks of you? “What’s that supposed to mean?” you say, face tilted up to him in a twist of distaste. “I’m wearing something comfy.” 

He shrugs, hands shoved into the pockets of his black sweats. “Don’t want to give them the wrong idea about you, that’s all, baby. They’re guys; I just want to protect you.” 

“No,” you say, the word falling out in a barked laugh. “Why would you even be bringing over dudes that you think will look at me like that? Why are you even friends with people that you think are gonna make moves on your girlfriend?” He holds a hand out to you, but your hands stay right where they are: crossed solidly over your chest. 

Throwing that hand up in audacious exasperation, he gives you a look that makes you feel small and petulant—like you’re throwing an overblown fit. And, maybe you are. You should probably just do it; him seeing you as some overbearing or high maintenance girl has that embarrassment flaring like wildfire that’s found dry brush. “C’mon, baby,” he says, a lazy smile on his mouth that gets under your skin. “Let’s just have an easy night. Don’t make it a big deal.” 

Let’s just have an easy night. As if you’re the one ruining the night. Something snarky tries to seize your tongue, but you hold it down. “I thought it would be just us. We wanted to watch the movie together, Yeonjun. Can’t you wait to hang out with your friends? Let’s enjoy our time together; you’ve got your shift tomorrow.” 

“My fucking god,” he groans, running a hand through his hair furiously. “You’re needy, you know that? The neediest I’ve ever had to put up with. I don’t put up with needy, baby. Can’t you just chill out a little? My last didn’t mind when I’d have friends over.” 

Your eyes burn. Your cheeks burn. He’d been with plenty of other girls before you; that, you’re well aware of. It’s been a corrosive source of self-doubt for you. You don’t want that title: the neediest he’s ever had. Don’t want him to think of you as some prude that won’t let him have fun. Just... hearing him bring up the other girls he’d been with before you stings and leaves welts no different from a slap in the face. Feelings of inadequacy shackle you and have you saying, “Fine. I’m gonna borrow some of your clothes.” 

Heavy resentment blooms on your skin where he bends down and presses kisses to your cheek, and then mouth, and then down your neck. “Thank you, baby.” 

And, where those ugly, wilted flowers of it bloom, you hear echoes of something. Something that tells you that Kai wouldn’t treat you like this. But you’ve made your bed, decided to do it yourself, and now you’ve got to lay on it. 

The frat parties are the worst kind of social outing that Yeonjun insists upon. The smaller kinds, more intimate gathering with just his closer friends, you tolerate much easier. You’re not fond of the circles he chooses. Breathing in thick, smoked-out air surrounded by alcohol-coated breaths is not your type of fun night. Somehow, you end up doing that more than date nights. But that’s better than being here. The base rumbles up through your feet and makes your stomach sick, and it reeks of grinding bodies and body odor, and condensation coats your fingers from the red solo cup as full as when you’d first gotten it. 

But, still, you come along. Not every time, but when you don’t, you lay in his bed sickening yourself with images of what he might be doing here. How pathetic is it to attend parties with your boyfriend because you fear that otherwise, he might stick his tongue down the throats of other girls? 

You’re looking for him right now, awkward and left alone. He’d promised to stick around; you had begged him to. That was pathetic, too. You know that you put up with too much. If he loved you, or honestly even liked you, you two would be in the thick of the throngs dancing or off somewhere talking with others. Together. The frantic skimming and weeding of your eyes through the blur of faces is not right. That’s not how he should make you feel. It’s not how Kai would make you feel. 

Well, Kai would never have you here in the first place. 

Venturing out from your little corner, you sift between the bodies of people have a hell of a lot better time than you. Drunken, some you bounce off of like bumper carts. You press your palm over the round face of your cup to spare the floor from spillage threatening to pour over the lip. It’s not like a splash from yours would matter much, though. The linoleum has already been made a fetor mess of dirt off shoes and the sticky sugar of liquor. Your shoes peel from it as you walk. God, what would your parents think of you being here? 

You peek around corners and eye big groups. He’s not in the kitchen when you look there, either. Your stomach feels sick in a knowing way—a gut feeling that doesn’t justify anger or tears just yet, but you know. Right in the center of your chest, you know. 

It’s in some room that you find him. Sat on the floor along with a few faces you don’t know, he pulls from his bottle. And on his shoulder, he lets a girl with shining curls and pink cheeks rest her head. At your busting in on the intimate gathering, Yeonjun’s eyes slide to you. Recognition flashes over them and wars with bleary drunkenness. 

“Hey, baby,” he says. Their gazes all fall on you, but you can hardly see them through blurry eyes. 

The girl lifts her head from his shoulder. She’d caught the memo. 

“I think I’m gonna go.” You make it sound resigned, try to not let them see your shame, but your voice betrays you and crackles. Maybe it’s better to pretend it doesn’t feel like you’ve just been kicked in the stomach and left to reel against the force, but you can’t. You’re nowhere near shocked, nowhere near blindsided, but still you hurt. 

He follows you down the hall. “What’s your problem?” he says, the few, plain words mending and waving into a slurring. 

You’ve got one goal: get to the front door, away from the shitty music and him. His words, sharpened, fall off your skin despite his efforts. What good would fighting do you, anyway? It was always going to end up this way. This is just who he is, and he doesn’t give two shits enough about you to want to change that. 

“Baby, seriously? That made you this mad? I didn’t even fucking do anything. Stop being insecure,” he says. At the gritting of your teeth, he sees an opportunity and pounces on it. “You don’t need to be jealous. I don’t do jealous shit. We can dance, or something. Shit, I don’t know what you want! Just stop throwing a fit.” 

Didn’t do anything? You have to laugh. Maybe you didn’t walk in on him fucking someone else, but that’s not what this is about. Not even a little bit. You’ve checked out, and the fact that he thinks he can make you believe that it’s your fault this time only drives the killing stake in harder. 

Maybe you’re bitter. It claws at your insides—turns your face hot and screams in your face that you’ve been used. But beside it sits a sadness. Not the slow kind, but the quick sadness of hurt. Why hadn’t you been good enough for him to love you? To like you? You’d left behind Kai and rested your new life on Yeonjun’s shoulders. You’d wanted so badly for his approval, or for him to want you. You did your best to try and make this work out because you needed it to. You needed so desperately proof that you could fall in love with somebody else. But your best was not what Yeonjun was interested in.  

Pins and needles prick your skin as you step outside, like jumping into an ice bath. It shocks you out of dizziness. Words surge up and out in a flash flood like hard reality. You spin on him. “Jealous?” you say, choking out a scathing laugh. “The last thing I’d ever let myself suffer over you is jealousy. Get over yourself. I’m going, stay here if you want. I don’t care.” 

“How are you gonna do that, huh?” he says. The flickering yellow of the porchlight paints his features. The shadow of something fluttering around it cuts dark spots in the light, and then a small little moth comes down and jumps around in his face. He waves it off. “Gonna have bitch boy come pick you up? You can’t leech off him forever; he’s gonna get sick of picking up another man’s girlfriend.” It seems like you walking in on that had sobered him up, but his breath still curls out onto your face with the reek of alcohol. “It’s not a big deal. You’re making this a bigger deal than it has to be. Do you not trust me?”  

“You are such a piece of shit,” you grit out. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Ever. I don’t know how I let this go on for so long.” You don’t like him having Kai in his mouth, don’t like him trying to act like you’re conflating things, and especially don’t like that face he’s making. As if you’re acting crazy and overblown. “No, I don’t trust you. You didn’t fuck her, but come on, Yeonjun. Seriously? You think I’m stupid, and I’m sick of it. You thought this would be easy because I didn’t have the experience you have, but I’m sorry. I don’t like being walked over.” 

“If you’re gonna be so goddamn jealous, then maybe we aren’t gonna work,” he says. 

That moth, floating light in the air, is right back in his face. Yeonjun takes two hands and smashes it between a clap of his hands. He shakes its flattened, broken body off his hand. Looking down at it laying there on top of dirt-caked concrete, you get this... feeling. A tickling around your person.  

“See if I care,” you snap, throat aching against the onslaught of emotion and held back tears.  

Rivulets of raindrops dilute the tears on your cheeks. Your hair plasters to your face and your clothes to your body.  

For a week, you’d went about it all as if it hadn’t happened. And then you came here.  

It’d not been this rainy when you first got down to the creek—just a gentle trickle, really. You hadn’t been crying then, either. But, watching the water work at babbling over stone, you let yourself feel it. Here, where you’d had so many good memories. You’ve gone and tainted it, now. But for whatever reason, you’d just wanted to be here. Arms curled around yourself and fingers digging into drenched sleeves, you don’t wipe away the tears or cover the sounds of your crying. You let the stream hear it; it’ll sweep it right up and down the way. Somewhere far off, where you don’t have to feel it anymore. 

You realize that, usually, you’d be over at Kai’s right now. The fact that his room was not the first place you thought you could go to anymore is a punch to the gut. You drop your face into your hands and cry harder. Really, you’ve got to stop doing that to yourself. Thinking of sad things—putting your hurt under the microscope to see it closer. It’d be easier to just fold it up and tell yourself that it’ll pass, and that relationships end all the time. 

It’s not him that you cry over. Well, maybe some of it is. Rather, it’s that you have absolutely no idea where you’re going. Where you are. Finally, you’d built yourself a raft to get off the shore and go out to sea, because that’s what you’re supposed to do, and it’s breaking apart right beneath you. And, stranded and alone in the water, you’ve got no way to get back to shore to build yourself another raft. You’re stranded, and the scariest bit is that you’re doing it all alone. You weren’t supposed to do this alone. You two made promises back then. 

You suppose that a promise is one of those things you were supposed to leave faith in back on shore. 

The raindrops are heavy over you. The fall of it roars against the ground, a torrent downpour. It’s not coupled with whipping wind or flashes of lightning—just straight, still falling. It’s a somber feeling no different from the gnawing in your chest. 

Like chimes, there’s a distant, gentle sound. Maybe water falling over creek rock, but it’s more like suggestion. A sweet sound that you shouldn’t even be able to hear over the rest of it, it’s as if it’s right in your ear. A whisper.  

You fix your blurry eyes with a wet sleeve. Rain falls right back into its place, but you see it: a silvery, whimsy haze. And the moths. They jump and call you, this time. Their glow bounces off the rainy mist against the grey of night’s arrival. Then, all you can hear is the whispering. Where you stand frozen, your feet beg to move. To follow them. 

So you do. 

Their entourage of moondust trails them where they go, wrapping you up and weaving between raindrop and space. You don’t worry where they’ll take you, or even try to wrap your head around this happening again. You just follow, mind glossed over and entranced with how beautiful it is. When you’d seen them before, it’d made you uneasy. Mostly because it looked so unearthly and unbelievable. But this time you just follow. 

A far-off voice, one oh-so-familiar, peaks through the haze. It’s not enough to stop you, but then you hear it again, louder and closer. 

You blink a few times. Once to break away the fog, and then twice to focus your eyes on Kai stood in front of you. His hair lays in wet spikes over his eyes and beads of rain trace the planes of his face. He’s as soaked as you. 

“Kai?” you say. Looking around you, you’ve ended up somewhere in the field between your houses and the creek. But you’ve got no recollection of walking here. Whatever that mist is, sentient or not, had swept you here.  

His voice is strained, but you appreciate hearing it. “Break up with him,” he tells you. 

In his eyes, as you search them, there’s stardust glowing like reflection. Your face twists up. “What?” you say, breath a puff of smoke ahead of you. Summer had come and gotten away from you so fast, and now it’s gone all cold again. 

“Break up with him,” he echos, face solemn. He looks ruffled. 

“Why?” you ask, “And why are you out here?” 

“Because I’m moving out today, and I think I deserve to at least see you before I go.” His eyes look over you. “And... your dad said you went down to the creek.” 

He’s moving out today, and you had no idea. And really, it’s your fault. You’d driven that wedge between the two of you. “I did break up with him.” 

Downpour fills his quiet for a few moments, his face swirling with emotion like the clouds above you. He nods. “Good.” 

There are a few more long minutes between you; just you two searching each other's faces, antsy to say so much that it bunches up in your chests and stalls. It’s what a summer of longing does to you. Even with Yeonjun, even trying to slowly chip away the stitching that had connected the two of you at the hip, you were helpless to stop the gnawing of the love you bear for him. Even just seeing him now, you feel those threads mending back up. God, why does it have to be so hard? 

He just looks at you. For a few beats, he just looks at you. There are so many questions in his eyes. They flit across and turn over, but all he settles on is, “Why?” 

There’s so much you want to tell him. Words pile up to the top, some threatening to spill over. But you know that if you tell him some of it, just to make up for all the time you’d missed out on together, it’ll all come crashing out. And you don’t think you want him to know just how much you accepted, the way you let yourself get treated. So, you shake your head and say, “It doesn’t matter.” 

Kai looks like he wants to push that issue, but whatever look he finds on your face deters him. “Come with me,” he pleads. “I want you to come with me.” 

Your throat tightens. Curling your arms around yourself harder, the rain only coming down on you harder, you say, “Kai, I want to. I want to. I just... I don’t want to freeload off you, because you’re doing great things, and I’m just...” Your tongue darts out to wet your lips, but they’re already as soaked as the rest of you. “I’m just going nowhere. And I don’t want to be a burden, or ever be the reason that you can’t do what you dream of. If staying here means that you become everything that you’re destined to do, then I’m happy with that, Kai. I am.” 

He shakes his head, stumbling toward you. “No, no you don’t get it,” he says, frantically taking your shoulders into big hands. Under his touch, every taut muscle goes slack. You melt. “You don’t get it. You are the music. Every single song is about you. Every single fucking song is about you. I want you to come with me, please. I love you, I have always loved you, and I will always love you, and I thought you’d loved me too, and I don’t want to do this alone. I can’t do it alone.” 

He loves you. Kai loves you. The enormity of it rumbles the ground where you stand on legs you fear might just give in. You flex your fingers to combat the tears pricking your eyes. It doesn’t work; they brim and well up, spilling down over your cheeks. “What?” you say, voice softly breaking. “Kai, I didn’t...” 

“And just when I thought I finally had you, you left me,” he says, throwing a hand up beside him in a big gesture. “You left me! I woke up thinking you’d be there, and that maybe you loved me too, and you had left me. And then you threw me away for some piece of shit, and you stopped coming around.” His chest heaves for breaths. 

Your face contorts. That night, the one where you two had slipped up, you’d fallen asleep curled up against his chest on undiluted contentment. When you woke up, you had panicked. You thought he’d wake up and pretend it hadn’t happened, or he’d be uncomfortable, or even be disgusted and regretting. You couldn’t handle that, so you slipped out before he woke up. It’d been an attempt to protect your tender heart, but looking at the twitching of his lip now, you begin to think it’s the most selfish thing you’ve ever done. He thinks you used him and left him. Your stomach twists. Voice thick, you say, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I left you, Kai. I thought you didn’t... I thought you didn’t see me that way. I was scared. I’m sorry I hurt you.” 

Brows knitted together, he says, “Thought I didn’t love you?” His hand cups your cheek, warm against the soft frozen skin he finds there. “I’ve... I’ve dreamed of you almost every night of my life. In my sleep, I see you, and you’re happy and glowing, and that damn... mist is all around you. I couldn’t get away from you even in my sleep.” 

Darting between his eyes, soft and reflecting your face back to you, it’s hard to breathe. Kai’s dreamt of you; he’s as sickly in love with you as you are him. Thunder claps, and the ground shakes, and the heavens open up above you, the trumpets belt, and you two are in love. Somewhere deep in your center, you feel it—your soul nodding yes. 

The mist. You know exactly what he’s talking about. “I saw it. That stuff, those moths. The stuff we saw back then.” 

“I did too,” he says, wet spikes of hair bouncing with a nod. “Not that long ago. It was the first time I saw it out of a dream since that day.” 

Back then, you two had only budding, innocent love for each other. Things hadn’t become mangled and lost to confused hearts or expectations. When they’d appeared to you, you hadn’t needed it. This time, you’d followed it. And it had led you here—somehow had led you right to the very spot you needed to so that every last piece might fall into place. For this moment to happen. You know why it did. 

“I’ll go with you, Kai. I’ll go wherever you go; I love you. I’ve loved you since forever,” you say, each and every word massive and lovely on your tongue. “I’m sorry I didn’t say it earlier.” 

So unlike the last times your mouth had met, he brings his mouth to yours with a dazzling clarity. No longer is it confused kisses; he locks his lips against yours with the urgency of so many years being unable to. Kai’s hands cradle your wet cheeks, hold you so tenderly into his kiss. His touch grounds you, makes the moment real. You melt into him—your fingers curled into his shirt as if holding him there so that he won’t disappear like something of an incorporeal dream. He sighs through his nose, kissing you harder. Even if it all were fake and this was nothing more than a feverish figment of your imagination, you think you could die happy just knowing this once. 

But it is utterly real, and utterly yours. You kiss him harder, too. 

When your lungs start to burn and plead for breath, you two pull away from each other. Your eyes flutter open to capture his. Warm and brown and the same ones you’ve stared into so many times before, but not like this, you sink into them. He runs his thumb over your cheek as he sinks into yours. His tongue darts out to lick lips painted with you. In the inches between you, space no longer feels heavy or charged with grievances. Every last unsaid thing had been answered. 

“I have my stuff up in the truck,” he says, breaths soft. Brown eyes dart around your face. “I’ll help you add your stuff to it.” 

You shudder out a breath. Add your stuff to it. A nervous energy settles down over you, but it doesn’t seem so bad if you’re doing it with him. Together.  

“Okay,” you whisper, a balmy secret just like the ones you used to share in small, giggly voices so many years ago. “Okay.” 

Shivers seize you like jittering bones, all wrapped up in a blanket. The velour cushion seats beneath you have soaked up water and become damp, but Kai’s got the heater blasting. You wind around back roads, headlights illuminating the way ahead of you. Stray droplets whip in them, but nothing much. Isn’t it funny how the rain had just stopped like that? That’s just how the weather is, out here. You wonder how the weather might act wherever you’re headed. 

Your teeth chatter as if your jaw had its own will. The two of you had the windows down thinking that the wind might dry you off, but all it’s done is lap at your bitten cheeks. You reach down for the handle to crank it up. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you—either you’ll eventually dry off, or you can pull off at a rest area to change in a bathroom. The wet clothes are really not helping. 

With an arm up on the steering wheel, Kai turns his attention on you. You know that smile. “Cold?” he asks, eyes darting between your face and the road. With the hand he’s not got working the steering wheel, he runs fingers over your thigh. Soft, gentle massages, yes. The number it does on your core is absurd. Each mindless digging into your thighs and brush of his thumb, sparks sputter there. You’ve sat here, right in his passenger seat, so many times before. Day trips up to the lake, the one he’d joined your family camping at for so many summers, all the times he’d driven you to school in this truck, and even just a quick run down to a convenience store for a late-night snack. You’d deemed it your seat. But never once had you sat in it like this. Your heart does a flip. All those times you’d wish he’d reach over and do just this—a small gesture that would’ve been so big then. And it’s your reality, now.  

“Freezing,” you say. A brush of his fingers nearer the apex of your thighs sends you pressing them together and shifting in your seat. “But not everybody runs as hot as you, though, so.” 

His eyes catch the movement in just the split second he looked over to you. “Huh,” he says. He turns to look at you, his gaze flickering with something anew. Something that you’d only ever seen once before. “Is that it?” 

It’s hard to swallow. His fingers brush higher, and higher, feather-dustings of calloused fingertips that sends tingles shooting up your spine at the slightest suggestion of where he’s headed. “Yes,” you say, feigning indignance to cover the shiver that threatens to overtake you. When his fingertips dance at the waistband of your bottoms, it does so anyway. “Kai,” you say, blood hot in your veins. “You’re...driving.” 

His eyebrows pinch into a taunting furrow. “I am,” he says, nodding. “Don’t worry about it, baby. I’ve got us.” 

And he does; fingers slipping under the band of both your bottoms and your panties, he doesn’t even tear his eyes off the road. He’d driven these roads so much, you think he might be able to do it asleep. Even drawing a mewl from you with a brush over your clit, he doesn’t look away more than a quick glimpse at your pinkened cheeks. 

Two fingers dragging up your folds, right over the source of the mess. “You get excited so easily, huh?” he hums. “You like it when I play with you.” 

When he presses those fingers at your entrance, you can’t help but be taken back to that night. It echoes and reverberates through you. Long fingers, strong and punctual brushes against the sweet spot—he was criminally good with his fingers. Playing guitar did more for him than just music. He seemed to know exactly how to utilize those roughened fingers and trained flicks. Your muscles flicker as he abandons your hole for more brushes at your bud.  

Those teasing, sly touches turn to something more serious. His fingers roll over your clit, slow but enough to have you sighing and rolling your hips against the seat belt. But last time had gone just like this, him touching you and receiving nothing. He should feel good, too. “Shouldn’t you pull over?” you sigh, muscles taut. Your breaths come out shuddering and half-controlled, interrupted by the tightness that each delicious swirl provokes. The door takes the brunt of your grip, white-knuckling the interior. 

He laughs, a husky sound that is tinder to fire. He knows what you mean. “Maybe,” he says. “But I think I’m enjoying this plenty. I think I want to see you cum on my fingers again.” 

Fingers pinching and flicking faster, you grow breathy and whiny, hips rolling against the seatbelt and back into the seat. Your muscles, all the way down your thighs and deep in your belly, jump and twitch each time his fingers run over your clit in just the right spot—that tender spot that’s so good that it teeters on overwhelming. The kind that makes you hiss and then want more. “Shit, Kai,” you whine. “Right—there, keep going."  

He doesn’t answer with any teasing words. No, he just doubles down right at that angle and pressure, leaned back into his seat and driving as if he wasn’t fingers-deep in your panties right now. His sculpted profile at total ease—it does something for you. A delicious tightness curls its fingers over your center, promising a sugary ecstasy that you can’t help but chase. Bucking into his hands as best you can, you go quiet. Right there—right there, you feel it. The cusp. Your fingers brush over it, clenching around nothing and squeezing your thighs tight around him. Every last drop of blood in your body reaches for it, singing and dancing through your veins and making you dizzy. 

And then he stops. Your mouth drops open, whiplashed and helpless to its slipping away from you. You whittle your gaze into something sharp and turn to him. “What—why?” you complain. The tide slips further and further and further back, but you still taste sea salt on your tongue. Frustration sets in its place as you feel it go. Seriously, you’d been right there. “You’re so mean.” 

He slows and then with the clicking of the turn signal, he’s off the road and pulling the truck into park on a little secluded side road. Where the headlights pierce the pitch black, nothing but gravel and field surrounds you. He doesn’t kill the engine, instead pulling his hand free from you. 

Your heart, still stuttering with your lost orgasm, kicks back to life as he smears your slick over your mouth, dragging it over your lips and then taking his thumb to run it right over the plush of your mouth. “Am I?” he says, fingers taking your chin to meet your eyes with his. Endless hunger, pupils so blown that his eyes look black, pins you. “I don’t think you’ve seen mean yet, baby.” 

Darting your tongue out to clean your lips, you look at him through your eyelashes. “Show it to me, then.” 

Something dark passes over his face. It has your skeleton jumping out of your body. Then, he says, “Is that what you want? You want mean?” 

Brain gone to mush that can only really think about him touching you, a slow nod is all you can manage. 

The engine’s hum prevails for some long, thick seconds. And then, he tilts his head in a gesture. “Get in the back.” 

Holy shit. You want to sit there frozen in an overwhelming sort of excitement, but his seatbelt clicks undone and you’re set into motion. In a flurry of giggles and clumsy limbs, you climb up over the center console and into the backseat. He slips out of the front seat, not bothering to even kill the engine. 

The door beside you opens in a swirl of cold wind. In nothing more than a blink, a strong hand has both your wrists pinned to the cushions and your back flush against it. Nose-to-nose, his breath hot over your face. “I’ve got plenty of ideas as to how I can warm you up.” 

You appreciate each other’s faces for a beat more, you looking up at him big-eyed and waiting. Kai breaks the moment to attack your neck in a procession of bites and kisses. Your mouth falls into a silent sound. 

“You know,” he says, free hand working your pants off. His eyes are trained on you, though. “I thought about doing this to you all summer. Touching you again.” He moves on to your top, pushing the fabric up until your chest is freed, clad in soft cotton. He eats the sight up. You want to reach down and cup the back of his head or feel his hair between your fingers as he presses his mouth against the soft beginning of your cleavage, but he’s got your wrists firmly planted. So much so, that you wonder exactly how he’s got you so secure with just one hand. Kai is strong, but maybe you hadn’t seen just how strong. Your skin aches under the purple bites he decorates you in. The sight of him—face in your chest and marking you up so lazily—has your teeth abusing your bottom lip. Whatever sounds you might make otherwise would be embarrassing. Kai lifts his eyes to you. “And I think you thought of me, too. Didn’t you?” 

“Oh, god, yes,” you say, writhing beneath him. He’s going so slow. You want him all over you. “So much.” 

He likes that. He takes your pebbled nipple into his mouth through the fabric. Soft grazes of teeth and sucks, you’re burning all over. When he pulls back, he’s left you dark wet patches when the bra had only just dried against your body heat. “Good,” he rasps, taking his big hands demanding and hungry over your torso. They swallow your frame up, soothing skin but lighting it aflame all the same. “Good girl.” 

You never thought just words could unravel you, but those did the job. Not a gasp, nor a sucking in of breath—no, you go silent and brainless, fumbling for rational thought. 

The dropping of your jaw has Kai delighted. “You’re so pretty,” he says. In a swift and powerful hoist, he’s tugging you down the cushions toward him with greedy fingers. He’s got your thighs pressed up to your chest. You’re bent right in half. 

Out of breath, you huff out, “You too.” 

A quick laugh falls from his mouth, lips pulled into a smug tilt. He nips at your calf up by his face. “So sweet, it almost makes me feel bad for what I’m about to do to you.” Reaching down for your panties, he pulls back on the suffocating press for only enough time to drag them up your legs. Those get discarded somewhere on the floor. Who cares about that right now, though? All you can register is the metallic clinking of his belt being undone. It’s got your nervous system twisting up. 

And, those words. Electricity shoots bolts of pure, sizzling revery into your core. What I’m about to do to you. You imagine a great deal of things that he might mean, but still, you think that none could hold a candle against the promise his voice held in saying it. 

Kai presses his body to your thighs and hooks your calves over his shoulders, and it all becomes real. The press of his heavy cock to your folds, the digging of his fingers into your outer thighs, his pretty eyes sparkling with something feral. As real as it gets—more real than anything you’ve ever felt in the entirety of your life. Your hands find perch flattened to his broad chest. 

The position leaving you two no option but to look right into each other, he holds your gaze and begins slow drags of his hot length up and down your slit. Tantalizing, awful, awful drags. When his tip nudges your eager clit, you jolt. And then he does it again. And again. 

“Kai,” you mewl. A press against your hole has you hopeful, and he lingers there for a moment, but doesn’t give it to you. Can’t he just fuck you? You’ve never been more pitifully in need of something in your life. 

“Shh.” His ruts get more daring, smearing your slick up onto your belly. “Take it.” 

You wiggle your toes in the air and make passes at arching yourself into him in search of better friction. He’s got you pressed so suffocatingly into the seat that it does absolutely nothing for you. In fact, he holds your harder and changes tack so that your thighs press together. At the very apex of them, his weeping cock slips through the seam. 

Pressing his cheek into your calf, he watches you. Every gasp and shaky inhale, he watches. It spurs his rutting on, sticky sounds and pants eating up the air. Your nails claw at his hands as, finally, a knot tightens in your core. 

“Yes, please,” you breathe. He fucks your thighs harder. Faster. Every nudge at your clit and hole becomes euphoric. “Kai, baby—I’m gonna—” 

Just as furiously easy as last time, he rips it all away from you. The rushing away of the buzzing and promise of shaking thighs—he takes it from you again. It brings prickling tears to your eyes. “Kai?” you hiss. “Again?” 

His eyes aren’t playful. He pulls your calves back over his shoulders, handling your hips into a better position to press his cock right at your entrance as if you weigh nothing. Face utterly straight, he says, “I don’t think you deserve it, do you? Not after what you did with Yeonjun.” 

A swallow goes down your throat hard. He presses himself just a bit harder into you. Not in yet, but right there. 

When he does begin sliding in, the stretch of it... You cling to him and squirm between him and the warm cushions behind you. Each inch is a heady feeling, all the way up to the hilt of him. He shudders a controlled breath. “You’re so fucking tight, though,” he grits out. “Did he not fuck you right?” 

Slaps of skin bounce off the car interior and between your bodies. He starts off at a brutal pace; you know it’s meant to make your brain go foggy. Squeezing your eyes closed, you manage, “I... didn’t fuck him.” It comes out strangled, voice bouncing as he fucks you into the car seat. 

Thumb tugging your bottom lip down and then dipping into your mouth, he watches the show of your ecstasy down to every last detail. “Yeah?” he says, voice shaking and almost desperate. “Always thinking of me, huh? Such a good little princess. You know exactly where your heart belongs.”  

You want to answer him, even just with a whine or moan. You try to. But with his thumb pressing down on your tongue, enough to pin it to the floor of your mouth, it’s not gonna happen. He tastes salty in your mouth. 

His truck consists of his grunts and whines, and your taut groans for some moments that seem to stretch forever. The planes of his groin grind against your clit when he delivers occasional pointed rolls, but mostly it’s just an animalistic, feverish dancing of your two sweaty bodies, holds growing more frantic the closer you get.  

Thumb wet with saliva; he frees your mouth. The hand trails slowly down your face and your chin, brushing feather touches, until he finds your neck. 

Your eyes fly open, wide. He pressed his fingers into your neck—no real pressure yet, he looks at you through damp strands of dangling hair and says, “Want my fingers around your neck?” His thumb brushes over the buzzing pulse point there. 

“Yes,” you grit out, body bouncing and back raw with friction against the coarse cushion’s surface. Your breath stutters, your mind stutters. Even your blinks stutter, eyelids too lazy to keep up. “Please.” 

The pressure of his fingers there—it frightens you and has you tightening around him at the same time. But you would trust nobody more with your life than Kai. 

He presses his cheek to your calf to indulge in the sight of you like this: underneath him, folded in two, nowhere to go but to take his pistoning hips, cheeks blazing, and his fingers pressed into your windpipe. If the way he becomes sloppier and more desperate in his tempo has anything to say for it, it does something for him. 

“Gonna be my pretty little girlfriend, huh?” he says. His voice is tight—so is your belly. You’re both so close. Hopefully, this time he’ll let you cum. “Take you to every show; show you off to everybody. Fuck.” 

Brain like static and swimming with a pinched flow of oxygen, you slur your words. “You’re—hah—gonna have other girls all over you.” 

The taunting, split-second raise of his brows flips your belly. You tighten around him again. If he keeps hitting that spot, tip ramming into the soft spot deep inside you that he’d taken such delicate care of finding last time, you’re going to burst into sparkling flame and firework. He growls, “Well, I’ll just have to knock you up so that they know I’m yours, huh?” 

Holy shit. You like the sound of that. Your nails dig into his wrist around your neck, but you cry out a pitchy, “Yes!” 

“Oh, you like that?” Kai releases your throat to take both your hips. You gulp for air, finding nothing but the thick air of sex and humid breaths, at the opportunity. He’s ramming into you like he’s found a purpose. “Isn’t this the perfect position to do it? Get you pregnant?” 

With every last bit of brain power you’ve got, teetering on the edge excruciatingly close to salvation, you groan a long, hoarse sound. “Fuck, yes! Please, Kai, inside—” A hot trail of tears roll down your temples. 

It’s all he’s got to hear to still inside you. His growl rumbles deep in his chest, holding you in place and filling you with his hot cum deep in your cunt. That feeling, coupled with his short grinds against your clit as he fucks his seed deeper, takes your soul by sinful claws and crumbles it down into nothing. You burst into a shaking, whimpering peak, sucking your lips into your mouth to bare through the sheer twisting of your insides and the flame that consumes up your thighs and cunt. 

He falls on you heavy, face in your neck. Warm kisses against your clammy skin meld with your slow floating down, the two of you a beautiful, nasty picture of fucked out. He stays right inside you—the absolute stillness of him, you think he has no plans of pulling out any time soon. His long fingers card through your sweaty locks of hair. 

Finally, he presses himself off you. You get a glimpse of the window behind him—fogged up and filthy with your affairs. Anybody to see the truck from the outside would know exactly what went on inside, but right now, you don’t care. Not one bit. Your panted breaths drag in nothing but musk and thick, hot air. The drumbeat in your chest tells you that, despite how you feel ripped straight from your body, you are very much still alive. More alive than ever. 

“Warm?” he says, pushing sticky hair off his forehead. He’s a mess, too. His hair is ruffled with your touch, his clothes rumpled the same, beads of sweat rolling down the planes of his cheeks and neck, and his eyes a lazy smolder. As much as he looks like sex personified, a soft smile twitches at his lips. 

You snort. You can’t help but feel giddy, here with him. You’re with him. Nothing has ever felt more right. Unplugged when he pulls out of you, your mess trickles down onto the seat below you. “Yeah,” you say. “Very.” 

Warm is not enough to begin to describe how you feel. In your ears, you hear whisperings. Soft and gentle. Perhaps it was divine intervention, or the fates lending you their word, or maybe just rational thought. It says: 

Home. You are home. 

⠀ ⠀ㅤㅤ❝ 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒’𝑠 𝑎 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑡ℎ, 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑏𝑦 𝑚𝑖𝑑-𝑀𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡, 𝑗𝑢𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔. ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ㅤㅤㅤ𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑦𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔, 𝑖𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑠 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒. 𝐹𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦, 𝐼 𝑛𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑑 𝑒𝑛𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ. 𝐴𝑙𝑙 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑠 𝑓𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑. ㅤ ㅤ ⠀ ⠀𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔 𝑑𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒, 𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑤𝑠? 𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛’𝑡 𝑚𝑢𝑐ℎ, 𝐼 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑑𝑎𝑦 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑑, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑑. ⠀ 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑢𝑛𝑙𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑠𝑜 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑙𝑦. ❞ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ⸺ 𝑻𝑯𝑬 𝑴𝑶𝑻𝑯𝑺, 𝑀𝑎𝑟𝑦 𝑂𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟

ash: how do we feel about these twooo? i really didn't mean for this to get so long, but i ended up RLLY liking their chemistry. i had to do their story justice. also, i finished this with kai as a guitarist and then his drummer performance came out... hmm.

﹥ (恵み). @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes , @bewitchless , @prince-jjae , @blankliving , @yaoizee , @stormy1408 , @missychief1404 , if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings!

[gyu-tori]

Red Poppies | H.K

VALENTINE'S DAY SPECIAL | FLEUR DE DESTIN

⟢ Pairing: florist!hueningkai x fem!reader ⟢ Genre: Soulmate AU, Fluff, Angst

Summary: When soulmates are found in dreams, your nights remain empty—until someone with a broken bond helps you search. As dreams clear, unexpected feelings emerge. Are soulmates really just predestined, or can fate change mid-course?

1/5 of the fleur de destin event!! See the full event here.

⟢ Word count: 14.2k

In a world where the concept of soulmates isn't a theory but an inevitable reality, the moment you turn 18, your dreams begin. That's when your soulmate appears, silently, waiting in the midst of your subconscious, pulling you into the world of shared dreams. It’s supposed to be magical—like a fate you can't escape, an inevitability that everyone else experiences.

Everyone else, except for you.

Every night, you wait, but the dreams never come. No warm, comforting figure stands before you in the half-light of slumber. No shared glances in the mist. The dreams everyone else describes, full of warmth and recognition, never materialize. You lie awake, staring at the ceiling, wondering what’s wrong with you. Your friends laugh about their experiences with their soulmates, speaking of a mysterious presence—someone they’ve never met, but already feel an unshakable connection to.

But for you? Nothing.

It’s as if you’re destined to walk through life alone. Everyone else gets a preview of their future, a glimpse of someone meant just for them, and yet you’re left with nothing but empty nights and a growing sense of isolation.

Questions begin to haunt you: Are soulmates real, or is it just a cruel trick of fate? Why do others get to experience something you can only dream of? The idea that there could be someone out there for you seems increasingly like a fantasy, an ideal too far-fetched to be believed.

Despite your doubts, there’s still a sliver of hope—something small, fragile, that perhaps one day your dream will come. But for now, it feels like it will never come true. You try to convince yourself that you’re fine without it, that the idea of a soulmate is overrated, but every empty dream reminds you otherwise.

The city is buzzing around you—crowds moving in all directions, the hum of traffic mixing with the distant murmur of conversation. You weave through the chaos, phone pressed to your ear, trying your best to pay attention to Jungwon’s frantic pleas.

“Please, please, I need you to help me with this!” Jungwon’s voice is filled with urgency, almost reaching a panicked pitch. “I’m seriously stuck. It’s for my girlfriend, you know? She loves flowers, but I can’t figure out which ones to get her. I was thinking, like, lilies or tulips? Wait, no—daisies! Or roses… or maybe something more unusual? I don’t know, man. Please, can you just check this one shop near you? It’s called Fleur de Destin. I swear they have the best flowers ever. I’ll pay you back after, I promise!! Just please, I really-”

You roll your eyes, but it’s all in good fun. Jungwon has always been like this—a bit too eager, a little too scatterbrained, but always with good intentions. You try to keep up with his rambling while your eyes scan the sidewalk for the shop.

“Wonnie, calm down!” you sigh, almost chuckling at his frantic energy. “I’m already on my way. I’ll figure it out, okay? Just give me a second.”

As you round the corner, you finally spot the sign you’re looking for: Fleur de Destin. The name alone makes you roll your eyes, almost scoffing at how ridiculous it is. Of course, it had to be soulmate-related—some flower shop with a fancy name designed to tug at the heartstrings of those obsessed with the idea of destiny.

“Right, right, thank you, thank you! You’re a lifesaver!” Jungwon’s voice rings with excitement, unaware of your thoughts. You roll your eyes, shaking your head as you push open the shop door.

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m the best,” you mutter sarcastically, stepping inside the shop, your eyes scanning the colorful array of blooms on display. “So, what flowers did you want again?”

“Okay, so she likes lilies, but not the tiger kind. And tulips—oh, wait, maybe daisies would be better?” Jungwon continues, listing off flower after flower, each suggestion more irrelevant than the last.

You groan, struggling to keep track of his endless requests. “Jungwon, you’re literally saying every flower in existence,” you complain, glancing around the shop as you try to focus. “Just pick one, or I’m walking out with a cactus.”

Distracted and exasperated, you turn the corner, still holding the phone to your ear. And then, in a flash, it happens.

You bump directly into someone. A sharp jolt of surprise, followed by the sound of something crashing to the floor. You freeze, eyes widening in shock as a plethora of bright red petals tumbles from the stranger’s grasp and scatters across the floor.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!” you blurt out, immediately hanging up on Jungwon without thinking. You kneel down, trying to salvage what’s left of the bouquet as your heart races. “Were these for your soulmate? I totally ruined them, didn’t I?”

The boy you bumped into crouches down with surprising grace, gathering the scattered flowers with care. His expression is more amused than anything else, as he looks up at you with a hint of a smile.

“No, these weren’t for my soulmate. Don’t worry about it,” he replies, his voice warm and reassuring.

Still flustered, you hastily help him pick up the fallen blooms. “But I completely ruined them. They were so pretty. I’ll pay for them!” you insist, already digging for your wallet.

He shakes his head with a small grin. “It’s fine. I wasn’t selling these to anyone specific. I was just arranging them.”

You bite your lip, not entirely convinced. “Still,” you protest, glancing at the half-destroyed bouquet. “I feel bad. They were part of a bigger arrangement, right? I messed it up.”

He pauses, and then grins wider, his eyes twinkling with a mischievous spark. “Well… you’re not wrong. I’d have to redo the whole arrangement now to make it work. But that’s just more work for me, so…” He holds the flowers out to you, a playful gleam in his gaze. “How about you take these instead? It’d save me the trouble.”

You blink, unsure. “Wait, really? I can pay for them, you know?” You hold up your wallet, still feeling guilty.

He shrugs, unfazed. “Yeah. Think of it as a freebie. From the shop to you. Something like… I don’t know, a new customer gift. Besides, it’s not like I can put these back on display now.”

A reluctant laugh escapes you, and you accept the bouquet with a small smile, feeling a little better about the situation. “Thank you. I feel bad about taking them, but… thank you,” you say, the awkwardness slowly fading.

As you straighten up to leave, ready to escape the situation before you embarrass yourself further, he adds, almost casually, “By the way, I’m Hueningkai. I work here part-time.”

His name lingers in your mind as you step out of the shop, the bouquet of poppies tucked carefully in your arms. For a brief moment, you feel a soft warmth blooming in your chest, a flutter that you can’t quite explain. You shake your head, dismissing it. It’s probably nothing, right? Just some random guy at a flower shop.

But the way his eyes spark with that playful, easy smile… something about it lingers in your thoughts longer than you expect.

The cool air hits you as you step outside, the city noises slowly fading into the background. The bouquet of red poppies feels delicate in your hands, their bright petals a stark contrast against the grey streets around you.

You pull your phone from your pocket, the familiar vibration in your hand a reminder of the chaos you’ve temporarily escaped. It’s a text from Jungwon—naturally. You glance at the screen, and immediately, you feel a little twinge of guilt.

“Did you find the flowers? Please tell me you didn’t get a cactus.”

You stare at the message for a beat, the poppies in your hand almost mocking you with their vibrant color. You can’t help but think of the brief encounter with the boy at the flower shop, his grin still lingering in your thoughts.

You hesitate, fingers hovering over the keyboard. Should you tell him the truth? That the flowers were a gift, that you accidentally ran into the boy while trying to help him? But it feels… too complicated. After all, you can’t exactly tell Jungwon you’ve already messed up his entire shopping trip by getting sidetracked with some random guy, even if the poppies are beautiful.

So, instead, you settle on something simpler. A little white lie.

“They didn’t have any of the ones you wanted. Sorry!”

You press send before you can second-guess yourself, a tiny knot of discomfort twisting in your stomach. You know Jungwon will bombard you with questions if he suspects something’s off, but at the moment, it seems like the easiest way out.

Sure enough, his response is swift and dramatic. A string of emojis floods the screen. A skull, a broken heart, and a sad cat.

You roll your eyes, chuckling softly to yourself. Typical Jungwon. Of course, he’d react like this. It’s all part of the charm—his over-the-top reactions to every little inconvenience.

But as you walk home, the weight of the bouquet starts to feel a little heavier, the small lie weighing on you despite how harmless it seems. You glance down at the poppies again. Their vibrant red hue stands out against the dull, overcast sky, reminding you of the shop, of Hueningkai, and of the warmth in his smile that you can’t seem to shake.

The soft morning light filters through your window, bathing the room in pale gold, but it only serves to amplify the emptiness you feel. The warmth of the sunlight brushes against your skin, but it does little to chase away the chill that’s settled in your chest. You blink awake, eyes still heavy with sleep, the familiar ache of disappointment lingering like a dull, unshakable weight. Another night, another empty dream. It’s become a cruel routine—the restless hours that stretch into a blur, the fragile hopes that flicker like candlelight, only to be snuffed out when morning comes and the truth sinks in: no soulmate. Just silence. Just loneliness.

You lie motionless, staring at the ceiling, the stillness of the room a mirror to the heaviness in your heart. Each breath feels shallow, as though the air itself carries the burden of your unfulfilled longing. Your gaze traces the cracks in the plaster above, mind drifting back to last night and the quiet sorrow of yet another dreamless sleep. The hours had passed in a haze of restless tossing and turning, the emptiness pressing against your chest like an unwelcome visitor that refused to leave.

But then, like a spark igniting in the darkness, a memory surfaces—soft and vivid, cutting through the fog of your melancholy. The bouquet of poppies on your counter. 

The bright red petals stand in stark contrast to the usual dull monotony of your mornings. You sit up and glance at the flowers again, a soft warmth blooming in your chest. Kai. You can’t shake the image of him—his warm smile, the way he hadn’t hesitated to give you the poppies, even when he probably should have asked for something in return. It’s funny how someone you barely know can make you feel so... seen, in a way. There was no judgment, no expectation, just a simple act of kindness that left you with more than just the flowers.

For a brief moment, the loneliness eases, replaced by a sense of comfort. A warmth you can’t quite place, something simple yet significant.

You decide, right then and there, that you should do something for him. It’s not much, just a small gesture to show your appreciation, but it feels like the right thing to do. Maybe it won’t change the emptiness that lingers in your heart, but at least for today, it feels like you’re taking a step toward something positive.

You make your way to a nearby café, the chilly air nipping at your cheeks as you walk, your hands cradling each other for warmth. The streets are quiet this early, the faint hum of the waking city blending with the soft rustle of leaves carried by the wind. Your breath fogs in front of you, each exhale a fleeting cloud that vanishes into the crisp morning air. The weight of your thoughts clings to you like the cold, but the gentle buzz of activity from the café’s glowing windows feels like a small reprieve from the solitude.

The bell above the door jingles softly as you step inside, warmth wrapping around you like a comforting embrace. The scent of freshly brewed coffee mingles with the faint sweetness of pastries, and for a moment, it’s easy to forget the unease stirring in your chest. You step up to the counter, scanning the chalkboard menu even though you already know what you’ll order. Two cups of coffee—one for yourself, and one for him.

When it’s your turn, the barista greets you with a cheerful smile, her pen poised to jot down your order. You give it to her, your voice soft but steady, and she begins ringing you up. But then comes the inevitable question, casual and routine: “What name should I put on this one?” She gestures to one of the cups, waiting for your answer.

You open your mouth to reply, but the words falter, sticking in your throat. What was his name again?

The thought comes with an unexpected rush of panic. You know his name—of course, you do. You’ve said it to yourself countless times in the quiet moments in your mind. But now, with the barista watching you expectantly, the letters twist and blur in your mind. Hueningkai. That’s right, isn’t it? But how do you spell it? Is it “H-u-e” or “H-e-u”? The uncertainty churns in your stomach, and your nerves suddenly feel much too raw for something so small.

Your cheeks burn, the silence stretching uncomfortably. You need to say something. Anything. Before you can overthink it further, you quickly blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “Just… Kai. K-A-I.”

The barista nods with an easy smile, scribbling the name onto the cup. Her pen glides over the paper like it’s the simplest thing in the world, and you let out a quiet, shaky breath of relief. But the faint blush warming your face refuses to fade, a mix of embarrassment and something else you can’t quite name.

You step to the side to wait for your coffee, arms crossed as you try to shake off the lingering awkwardness. It’s just a name. It doesn’t have to be this complicated. People shorten names all the time, don’t they? It’s not a big deal. But no matter how much you tell yourself this, you can’t escape the strange weight that settles in your chest.

Because it does feel like a big deal. The simple act of ordering coffee for him feels far more significant than it should. It’s not just about the name or the cup; it’s about the connection, the bridge between what’s real and what still feels so dreamlike. It matters to you—more than you’d expected—and the thought of getting it wrong, of somehow lessening the meaning of this small gesture, gnaws at the edges of your mind.

Your fingers drum lightly against the counter as you wait, the soft hum of the café filling the quiet spaces in your thoughts. Why does this feel so important? You can’t quite explain it, even to yourself, but you know the answer lies somewhere in the way his name lingers on your tongue. It’s not just a name; it’s a piece of him. And that makes it impossible for you to treat it as anything less.

Back at the flower shop, the door chimes softly as you push it open. The familiar scent of flowers greets you, but this time, it feels different. There’s a lightness to the air, a nervous anticipation you can’t shake. You glance around the shop and spot Kai behind the counter, his back turned as he carefully arranges a bouquet. As you approach, he turns, his eyes widening in recognition.

“Oh, hey. Back again? What, did you come to knock over more flowers?” he teases, his voice light and amused as he sets the bouquet down.

You laugh nervously, the memory of the previous day’s accidental collision still fresh in your mind. “No, I just… I felt bad about yesterday. You were so nice, and since you wouldn’t let me pay for the poppies, I thought coffee might make up for it.”

Kai raises an eyebrow, looking at the cup in your hand, and then his gaze flickers to the name written on it. His smile grows wider as he sees “Kai” scrawled in neat handwriting. “Kai, huh?”

Your heart skips a beat at the way he says it. Did I mess it up? You panic for a split second before quickly speaking up. “What? Did I spell it wrong?”

“No, it’s fine,” he chuckles, his tone warm and light. “My friends call me that too. I did tell you it’s Hueningkai though, remember?”

You groan, scratching the back of your neck, feeling heat rise to your face. “I didn’t forget, don’t worry. It’s just that the barista asked for the spelling, and I panicked. I wasn’t sure if it was like… H-u-e or H-e-u or…” You trail off, embarrassed at how overblown this whole situation feels now.

His laughter is genuine and easy, making the awkwardness feel lighter. “Don’t worry. You can just call me Kai. Honestly, it suits me better.”

The tension between you two fades, and the conversation turns easy, natural even, as you both sip your coffee in companionable silence. There’s a peacefulness in this small moment, a quiet connection that feels as if it’s grown out of the simplest of actions. It’s strange—how a cup of coffee, an exchange of words, could carry so much weight. You can’t explain it, but somehow, it does. There’s a comfort in being here with him, in the shared space, even if it’s only for a moment.

As you finish your coffee, you start to stand up, preparing to leave. The warmth of the coffee lingers in your hands, and you feel a small pang of reluctance at the thought of walking away. But just as you turn, Kai’s voice calls out, pulling you back like a thread being gently tugged.

“Hey! I just realized—I didn’t get your name. I should’ve asked it beforehand, huh?”

You freeze mid-step, caught off guard by the simple statement. It’s funny how something as ordinary as your name can feel so vulnerable at this moment, as if giving it away might anchor you to this fleeting encounter. Slowly, you turn back toward him, a hint of embarrassment creeping into your expression.

“Oh, uh, right,” you say, brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. “How could I forget? I’m Y/N.” The words come out soft, almost hesitant, but you offer him a small, shy smile to soften the awkwardness.

Kai’s lips curve into a genuine smile, one that makes his features light up in a way that feels unfairly disarming. “It’s nice to meet you, Y/N,” he says, his tone carrying a warmth that feels like the first hint of spring after a long winter.

You nod, ready to excuse yourself, but he continues, his voice dipping into a playful lilt. “I feel like I should make sure you don’t knock over any more flowers. How about we exchange numbers? That way, you can give me a heads-up if you’re planning to visit again.”

A surprised laugh escapes your lips, and you shake your head. “Are you going to hold that over me forever?” you ask, though the lightness in your tone betrays the quiet excitement bubbling beneath your skin.

“Absolutely,” he replies without missing a beat, the mischievous glint in his eyes sending a small flutter through your chest. “But I promise to be gentle about it.”

The faint heat rising to your cheeks betrays the calm facade you’re trying to maintain. “Alright,” you say, pulling your phone from your pocket, your fingers trembling just enough for you to notice. You carefully type in your number, hesitating for a moment before handing it to him.

As he takes the phone, his fingers brush lightly against yours. The contact is brief—barely a second—but it leaves behind a spark that lingers, warming your skin like the echo of a quiet flame. He glances at the screen, his lips curling into a satisfied smile as he saves your number.

“There,” he says, holding up his phone like it’s a trophy. “Now I can officially make sure you’re not a menace to flowers everywhere.”

You laugh again, the sound feeling freer this time. “I’ll do my best to avoid causing more disasters. Scout’s honor.”

Kai grins, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that makes your heart skip. “I’ll hold you to that, Y/N.”

With a final exchange of smiles, you both say your goodbyes. As you step out of the coffee shop and into the cool air, the world feels a little brighter, the colors a little sharper. Your mind keeps circling back to the warmth of his voice, the easy rhythm of your conversation, and the way his smile lingered just for you.

Clutching your phone in your pocket, you can’t help but wonder if this brief, serendipitous moment might grow into something far more unexpected. For the first time in a long time, the idea doesn’t feel so impossible. Instead, it feels like a quiet kind of hope.

The first text from Kai comes the next morning, a simple message: “Hope your day’s going well.”

You stare at the screen for a moment, unsure of what to say, but it feels like a door opening—a small crack that you could slip through. So, you respond: “Good so far, just the usual. How about you?”

It’s an innocent exchange, but something about it makes your heart flutter. It’s just a text. Just a casual check-in. And yet, it feels like it means more.

Over the next few days, the texts come more regularly. The casual messages soon become a natural part of your routine. Sometimes it’s a photo of the flowers you’ve come across while walking home, sometimes it’s a little observation about something funny or odd you saw in the city. Kai, always prompt in his replies, sends photos of his own—his latest photography projects, snapshots of the flowers at the shop, or just the candid moments of his day. It’s never anything particularly groundbreaking, but the simplicity of it makes you feel like you’re getting to know him more than you expected.

One afternoon, you send him a picture of a small bouquet you picked up on your way back from class. Bright yellow daffodils, with their cheerful petals standing out against the greenery. “What do you think of these?” you ask, feeling a little silly, but the thought of his opinion matters to you in a way you can’t quite explain.

A few minutes later, your phone buzzes. “They’re gorgeous. Definitely a good pick. I think you’re going to love how they look in your space.” There’s a small follow-up text: “Daffodils are one of my favorites. They remind me of early spring—the way the weather feels like it’s on the edge of change, but still holding onto a bit of the winter chill.”

You smile at his words, the thoughtfulness behind them. It’s strange how quickly you’ve come to appreciate these small moments of connection. The way his comments feel personal, and the way he seems to truly think about things before responding. It makes you feel seen, even if it’s just in this small way.

After a few weeks, the texts have evolved. Sometimes it’s quick updates on your day, but other times, you find yourselves talking late into the night, the messages flowing more easily than you ever expected. He tells you about his life, about how he balances his part-time job at the flower shop with his classes. How he has big dreams of traveling the world, capturing moments with his camera, but also feels a pressure to figure out what he wants to do with his life. There’s a sense of uncertainty in his words that you can relate to, but there’s also a spark of passion when he talks about photography, as if it’s the one thing he knows he’s meant to do.

It’s strange—how quickly you’ve started looking forward to his messages. At first, you thought it was just casual. A way to pass the time. But now? Now, it feels like a connection is slowly growing between you two, one small message at a time. Sometimes, you catch yourself waiting for the sound of your phone buzzing, hoping that there’ll be another text from him waiting for you. And when it does come, there’s a warmth that spreads through you, like the glow of the sun breaking through the clouds.

The ease with which you both have fallen into this comfortable, shared space catches you off guard. Every text feels like a small piece of a larger puzzle, one that you’re slowly starting to put together without even realizing it. And somehow, it feels like something more than just casual messages between friends. There’s something there, something that you can’t quite name yet.

Every now and then, you think about the idea of soulmates. You wonder, as you read his messages or look at the photos he sends, if this could be it. Could he be the one you’ve been waiting for, even though the dream system never worked for you? Could this—this—be how soulmates are found, not through dreams or destiny, but through something as simple and beautiful as a shared moment, a small act of kindness, and a deepening connection?

For now, though, all you know is that you enjoy these small moments with him. The way the conversations flow so naturally. The way he shares pieces of his life with you. And somehow, it feels like you’re building something more real than any dream could ever promise.

It’s another late evening at your favorite café, the soft hum of chatter and clink of coffee cups filling the air as you and Kai sit together, enjoying the warmth of your drinks. There's an unusual ease between you, a connection that feels more natural with each passing day.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, Kai looks up at you, a contemplative expression crossing his face. "So, have you met your soulmate yet?"

The question catches you off guard, and your stomach sinks slightly. You've been avoiding this topic for weeks now. You laugh it off at first, trying to keep the conversation light. "What? No, I haven’t. You know that. I mean, I don't even have dreams like everyone else. It’s like... nothing is happening for me."

Kai gives you a soft, understanding look, though there’s a hint of sadness in his eyes. You pause, feeling the familiar sting of rejection, the disappointment that comes with never having felt the pull of a soulmate.

He hesitates, then quietly admits, "I haven’t had a soulmate dream either. Not for a long time."

You glance at him in surprise, unsure of how to respond. "What do you mean, 'not for a long time'?"

He looks away, as if lost in thought. "I had one. A long time ago. But..." His voice falters, and he takes a deep breath before continuing, "... my soulmate rejected me. They cut the bond before it could even really start."

The words hang in the air, and you feel the weight of them. You can't imagine what that kind of rejection must feel like—being told that your connection, your future, isn't real. But the look in Kai’s eyes tells you that it’s been the hardest thing he’s ever experienced.

"I tried to move on," Kai adds, his voice soft. "But it's hard, you know? When you’ve been told that you only get one soulmate... and then it all falls apart."

The sadness in his tone is unmistakable, and you feel a pang of sympathy for him, even though you're struggling with your own emptiness. The idea that everyone only gets one soulmate feels like a cruel joke, especially when it’s all tied to something as fragile as a dream. You’ve never had a soulmate dream, and now you’re hearing that Kai had one—and it was ripped away from him before it could even begin.

You want to comfort him, but the weight of the situation leaves you at a loss for words. Kai continues to gaze into his cup, almost as if the pain is too much to look at directly.

After a long silence, he looks up, meeting your eyes with a quiet resolve. "But I’m not going to let that stop me from helping you."

You blink, taken aback. "What do you mean?"

Kai leans back in his chair, his voice steady. "I know what it’s like to feel like you’re never going to meet the one. But that doesn’t mean I won’t help you find yours. Even if I’ve lost mine, I’ll help you. I won’t let you feel alone in this."

His words are both comforting and heartbreaking. You hadn’t expected him to offer—especially given everything he’s been through. The weight of his rejection, the hollow feeling he must carry every day, and still, he’s offering his help without hesitation. There’s something selfless in his offer, and you find it hard to process.

You swallow hard, a mix of gratitude and sadness pooling in your chest. "Kai, I—"

He gives you a soft smile, though it’s tinged with sorrow. "You don’t have to say anything. I know it’s not the same, but maybe we can help each other figure it out. I’ll be here, even if it’s just for the company. And I’ll help you search for your soulmate—just… don’t give up on them yet."

His words make your heart ache, and for a moment, you feel a tiny crack form in the wall around your own feelings. You had been carrying this burden of emptiness on your own, not sharing it with anyone, and now, Kai is here, offering to help in the only way he knows how. And yet, there’s a part of you that feels pained at the realization that he’s had to carry this pain of rejection alone for so long. You hadn’t expected to feel this way, but it hurts knowing that even though he’s willing to help you, he’s still carrying the pieces of his broken soulmate bond with him.

"I… I don't want you to feel like you have to help me," you say softly, your voice barely above a whisper. "I don’t want you to go through this alone just because I need someone."

Kai shakes his head, his eyes soft but firm. "No. I want to help you. It’s not about pity or anything. It’s just... if I can help you find something real, then maybe it’ll make this whole thing worth it for someone else, even if it’s not me."

A lump forms in your throat, and for a moment, all you can do is nod. The emotions swirling in your chest are too complex to untangle, but you appreciate his honesty, his vulnerability. Yet despite the sadness that’s colored this conversation, something inside you shifts—Kai is no longer just the boy who gave you bumped into that one day; he’s someone who truly understands the weight of lost dreams, and somehow, you’re both going to find a way through it together.

But as he speaks, you can’t shake the quiet disappointment that lingers in your heart. You finally had hopes of your soulmate, you thought it was him, but turns out he already had a soulmate, well used to. But still, you can’t help but feel grateful for the person sitting across from you, even if the path ahead is uncertain, you had a friend like him.

As the days pass, your connection with Kai deepens, although you don’t let it get further than just a friend helping you out. The conversations you once had over coffee now spill over into late-night text exchanges and phone calls. The weight of your shared quest to understand soulmates—those late ones, the lost ones, the ones like you—becomes a bond neither of you had anticipated.

It starts off small. You exchange articles, links to forums, obscure old myths about soulmates passed down through generations. But each discovery, no matter how trivial it seems, feels like a small victory. And every time Kai texts you something new he’s found, it brings a new kind of excitement, something you haven’t felt in a long time. The loneliness doesn’t sting quite as much when you're searching together, looking for answers that might finally bring you peace.

The first night you sit together in his room, your laptops open, books scattered around you, it feels like a shared mission. You're not just searching for your soulmate anymore. You’re searching for a truth that feels just out of reach.

Kai, always the meticulous one, has already printed out several research papers he found about soulmate bonds, especially ones about the late bloomers—people who don’t dream of their soulmate until later in life, or whose connections are severed before they can even begin to bloom. His handwriting fills a small notebook, filled with observations, notes, and even speculative ideas about how soulmates could be tied to something more than just a dream.

"This one," Kai says one night, his finger tracing an old myth from a dusty book he’d borrowed from the local library, "talks about how some soulmates might be waiting for the other to be ready. Like, maybe the dream doesn't happen until both people are emotionally prepared to face each other. That could be why you haven’t had a soulmate dream yet—maybe you’re just not ready, or the dream hasn’t arrived because you haven’t faced whatever you need to face yet."

You take a long look at the page, absorbing the idea. It makes sense, in a way. Could there be some truth to it? Have you been avoiding something in your life that could make your dream of a soulmate real? "What do you think?" you ask, curious about his thoughts.

Kai leans back, his eyes a little distant. “I don’t know. But it’s possible. It’s just like when people say you can't truly love someone else until you love yourself, right? Maybe it’s the same with soulmates. The universe is waiting for you to be whole first.”

You nod, the words resonating in a way you didn’t expect. There’s a truth to what he’s saying. It’s not just about meeting someone; maybe it’s about becoming someone capable of accepting that connection. The weight of that realization lingers, but it also offers a flicker of hope. Could your soulmate be out there, waiting for you to understand something about yourself before you meet?

Another night, as you scroll through a thread on a forum discussing soulmate connections, you stumble upon an older comment—one that catches your attention. It talks about how some soulmate connections aren’t about finding your other half, but about finding someone who compliments your journey, someone who helps you grow. You read the words to Kai out loud, and he nods thoughtfully.

“That’s an interesting perspective,” he muses, tapping his pen on the desk. “What if soulmates aren’t a perfect match but rather the catalyst to make you a better version of yourself? It’s kind of like... what I was talking about with ‘readiness.’ Maybe soulmates are there to teach us something.”

Your heart flutters at the thought of it. Could your soulmate be someone you wouldn’t expect? Someone who helps you grow, someone who’s meant to challenge you? The idea makes your stomach turn in an odd mix of excitement and nervousness. What if your soulmate was someone completely different from what you imagined?

Kai’s voice pulls you out of your thoughts. “Maybe you haven’t had your dream because there’s something you still need to learn before you can be ready for it. But I’ll help you figure it out.”

His words settle over you like a gentle, steady reassurance. It’s not just the research or the theories that make you feel comforted, but the quiet sincerity behind them. Kai has been hurt by his own soulmate’s rejection, but instead of shutting down, he’s chosen to help you find yours. His belief in your chance at a soulmate, despite everything he’s been through, is something you can’t quite comprehend yet, but you feel the weight of it—how deeply he cares.

You don’t know what you’ve done to deserve such a loyal friend, but you’re grateful for it. The more time you spend together, the more you realize how much Kai’s presence has become a comfort in your life. He’s not just a source of information anymore; he’s a friend, someone who understands your struggles, someone who’s willing to go through this journey with you, no matter how long it takes.

But there’s something else, too—something that’s starting to grow between you, a feeling that’s hard to name. As you share theories, exchange ideas, and laugh over shared frustrations, the bond between you and Kai shifts. It’s no longer just about finding your soulmate. It’s about finding your way through this confusing, lonely world, together.

Sometimes, when your eyes meet across the table, you catch something unspoken in his gaze. It’s not the same as before. It’s softer, warmer, and when he smiles at you, it feels like something more than just a friend’s smile. But every time you notice it, you push it aside, telling yourself that you’re just imagining things.

After all, Kai is helping you find your soulmate—not being one for you.

And yet, with every passing night spent researching and learning together, the lines between friendship and something deeper begin to blur. The more you lean on each other, the harder it becomes to separate what you need from what you want. And neither of you knows yet where this journey will take you.

But you’re no longer alone in it.

After weeks of late-night research and deep conversations about soulmates, today is a quiet, uneventful afternoon at the flower shop. Kai has just finished his shift, and you’ve come from your classes, the calm of the day settling in between the two of you. The shop is warm, sunlight pouring through the windows, casting soft patterns on the floor. You’re both sitting with iced drinks in hand, scrolling through your phones. But there’s an underlying tension in the air that you can’t ignore.

Kai is distant today. He’s usually more present—playful, engaging, or cracking jokes to fill the silences. But not today. Today, he’s just sitting there, staring down at the floor, a furrow in his brow. It’s subtle, but you notice.

“Hey,” you say gently, trying to break the silence. “You okay?”

Kai blinks and looks up, his gaze sharp as if he’s just snapped out of a trance. He offers a small, distracted smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah, just... thinking about something. It’s nothing.”

You don’t buy it. Not for a second. Over the past few weeks, you’ve become familiar with the way his moods shift, and this isn’t the usual easygoing Kai you know. Something’s bothering him.

“You sure?” You try again. “You seem... off.”

He chuckles softly, a little awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just... I ran into someone yesterday.”

You raise an eyebrow, curiosity piqued. “Someone? Who?”

Kai’s gaze flickers to the flowers scattered around the shop, avoiding your eyes. “My ex... the one who rejected me.”

His words hit you harder than you expected. You’ve heard pieces of his past, but hearing it like this, raw and unfiltered, makes something twist in your chest. You can see it now—the tension in his shoulders, the subtle tightness in his jaw. There’s a lingering sadness in the way he says it, like a ghost he’s still carrying around.

“Wait, you saw her?” you ask, your voice quiet.

Kai nods, looking almost reluctant to share. “Yeah. It was a surprise. We bumped into each other on the street. Honestly, I thought I’d feel... something. But, weirdly, I felt nothing.”

“Nothing?” you echo, surprised. “Like... no anger? No pain?”

He shakes his head slowly, his expression distant. “Just... indifference. I thought I’d feel something after everything that happened. But when I saw her, I realized I don’t care anymore. I didn’t feel anger or resentment. I didn’t feel relief, either. I just felt... nothing. I guess I was hoping for some sort of closure, but instead, I just... walked away.”

You pause, the weight of his words hanging in the air between you. The silence stretches, both of you caught in your thoughts, as you try to process what he’s just shared.

“It’s good that you felt indifferent,” you finally say, your voice gentle. “Maybe that means you’re starting to move on. Like... truly move on.”

Kai looks over at you, his eyes softening as he meets your gaze. He gives you a small smile, but it’s bittersweet. “Yeah... maybe. But it’s weird, you know? After everything we went through, I thought I’d have some kind of reaction. Some feeling that would tell me I was over it. But in the end... I didn’t feel anything at all.”

You think for a moment, then offer him a reassuring smile. “Maybe that’s a good thing. It means you’re free.”

Kai lets out a quiet, almost resigned laugh, but there’s still a shadow in his eyes. “Maybe. But sometimes I wonder... if I’m just... afraid of feeling anything again, you know? Maybe that’s why I can’t let myself care.”

His words hang in the air, and you don’t know what to say. You’re not sure how to fix the uncertainty in his voice, or the way he’s still so hesitant to let himself feel something, even though he’s ready to let go of the past.

You don’t have an immediate answer for him. Instead, you just sit there with him in the quiet of the shop, the weight of his vulnerability hanging between you. The afternoon light spills through the windows, casting long shadows as the two of you are left alone with your thoughts.

After a long moment, you finally speak. “If you ever want to talk about it more, you know I’m here, right?”

Kai looks at you, his gaze soft, and his smile deepens slightly. “I know. Thanks.”

It’s not the kind of conversation that has any clear resolution, but in this moment, the simple act of being there for each other feels like the most important thing. You’re not sure if Kai is ready to face his fears about opening his heart again, but you’re certain that, for now, you’re there with him, sharing this space and understanding him in a way that words can’t fully capture.

The afternoon slips into evening, and the two of you fall into an easy, comfortable silence. There’s no pressure, no need for more explanations. You’re just there, two people who have seen each other’s scars and are slowly learning how to heal them together.

It’s a fragile, quiet comfort. But it’s enough. For now.

For years, your dreams remained empty, cold, and silent. But then, one night, things began to shift. It started with a faint shadow, a shape in the distance that was too unclear to recognize—just a faint outline, barely visible. The figure was blurry, indistinct, but even so, your heart skipped a beat. You couldn't help but wonder: was this finally your soulmate? Could the long wait for a connection in your dreams be coming to an end?

Night after night, the figure grows clearer, the edges sharpening with each passing dream. Though you still can’t make out their face, their form is more defined now, their presence more tangible. You feel a pull in your chest, an unexplainable warmth when the figure appears. Hope swells inside you—the soulmate you’ve longed for, the one you were meant to meet, is finally reaching out. The excitement is overwhelming. You just need to see their face. But even with the lingering blur, you’re convinced: this is them, the one you’ve been waiting for all these years.

Yet, as your connection with this blurry figure deepens with each dream, you can’t help but think of Kai. Of the long conversations, of the shared moments, of the way you’ve both supported each other in your confusion and pain. For so long, he’s been a constant, a friend who has listened to your hopes and fears. And now, as you inch closer to meeting the person who will complete you, you wonder—what does this mean for you and Kai? Will your friendship end when your goal is reached?

For Kai, though, things are different. His dreams are also filled with a figure—a blurry, indistinct shape that grows clearer the more he sleeps. But unlike you, Kai isn’t filled with excitement. Instead, he feels dread. Every night, he’s haunted by this figure, and with every new dream, he’s more convinced that it’s not someone new—it's his ex-soulmate. The one who rejected him all those years ago.

The figure hasn’t solidified yet, still too blurry for him to fully recognize, but Kai knows. He knows that it’s her—the person who severed their bond before it could ever even begin. He hasn’t seen her in years, but every time the figure appears in his dreams, his stomach sinks. The more he tries to push it away, the more certain he becomes. This isn’t a new person; this is someone from his past, someone who broke his heart and left him questioning everything about soulmates.

The dread claws at him each night as he sees that blurry figure taking form, inching closer to clarity. He doesn’t want it to be her. He doesn’t want to face the possibility that she might want to reconnect, might want to try again. The rejection he endured still stings, and he can’t imagine having to go through that pain again. Even if the figure is still vague, the fear that it’s her makes him hesitate to believe it could be anything else. Yet, why does a part of him long for it to be someone else, even when it would be impossible.

You can’t contain your excitement when you sit down with Kai at the café, eager to share the latest developments in your dreams. The figure is growing clearer, and every night, you feel a stronger pull toward them. You tell Kai about how you can sense the figure reaching out to you, and how the bond feels so much more real with each passing night. The hope of finally meeting your soulmate feels so close, you can almost touch it.

Kai listens quietly, but the smile on his face is faint, his eyes shadowed with a flicker of something deeper. His heart sinks as you speak, a quiet ache growing in his chest. The weight of your words settles heavily on him. You’re so sure that the blurry figure in your dreams is your soulmate, but Kai can’t help but think about the blurry figure in his own dreams. 

As you talk about your dreams, about the connection growing stronger, Kai’s mind drifts. He’s been trying so hard to ignore the feelings that have been growing inside him. The feelings he’s been hiding for so long, the feelings that have only deepened as the two of you have spent more time together.

He’s falling for you. He knows it, feels it with every passing day, but the truth is too complicated, too painful. He watches as you get excited about your soulmate, your connection, and it feels like a cruel reminder of everything he can never have. The dream of soulmates that was once his, now shattered and replaced by an unspoken truth he can’t share.

Kai doesn’t want to feel this way. He doesn’t want to feel this weight on his chest, this tightness in his throat every time you talk about your soulmate, because he knows it’s too late. You’re on your way to meeting yours, and even if he wanted to tell you the truth—that he’s falling in love with you—he’s terrified. Terrified that you won’t feel the same way, terrified that it’s too late for him.

He’s watching you become closer to someone else, and the thought of losing you—of never having a chance with you—is unbearable. So, he suppresses it. He smiles, laughs, listens, all the while pretending that everything is fine, all the while fighting the intense emotions brewing inside him.

Despite the turmoil in his heart, Kai continues to help you. He listens patiently as you share the details of your dreams, offering his insights and advice on how to interpret the signs and clues. He tells you to pay attention to the smallest details, to look for anything that might confirm the identity of the figure, even as he feels the ache of not being able to reveal his own feelings.

Each time you tell him about how much clearer the figure has become, how the bond feels more tangible, the tension in Kai’s chest grows. He smiles and offers encouraging words, but the smile never quite reaches his eyes. The strain is evident in his voice, in the way he holds himself back from saying too much.

He’s doing everything he can to be there for you, to help you find your soulmate. But inside, he’s battling a storm of emotions. Every word of encouragement, every smile, feels like a slow burn, like he’s suffocating under the weight of his own unspoken love for you. The more you grow excited about your soulmate, the more the distance between you and Kai feels like an insurmountable divide.

The tension between you both grows, even if you don’t see it. Each moment spent with him feels like a precious gift to Kai, but also like a constant reminder of everything he can’t have. His love for you remains unspoken, locked away in the silence between your words, and he wonders how much longer he can keep it buried inside before it all comes spilling out.

The space between you and Kai continues to grow, though neither of you acknowledges it outright. There’s something undeniably charged between you two, something that lingers in every shared glance and every small moment. His presence in your life is a constant, and you’ve grown used to the comfort and warmth that comes with his quiet support. Yet, no matter how much you feel the connection between you, you still find yourself pushing it away.

You remind yourself that the soulmate you’ve been waiting for is out there, still a blurry figure in your dreams, and that’s the one you’re meant to be with. Despite the warmth you feel when Kai is around, the tenderness in his eyes, the way he listens to you like no one else does, you refuse to acknowledge it. You tell yourself that it’s too soon, that this bond with Kai doesn’t mean anything.

Each time you laugh and share another bit of good news about your dreams, you can feel his gaze lingering on you longer than it should, a quiet sadness that you don’t see, but that he can’t hide. You’re becoming more and more absorbed in the hope of meeting your soulmate, the one who’s supposed to be out there waiting for you, the one who will complete the dream you’ve been chasing for so long.

Kai, on the other hand, watches as the gap between you grows. It’s not that you’ve changed, not really. But he can see the way you’ve become more distant. The more excited you get about the dreams, the more you pull away from him, almost as if you’re trying to convince yourself that your soulmate isn’t someone you already know. It eats away at him, but he doesn’t know how to stop it. He’s terrified that if he tells you how he feels, he’ll only push you further away. But watching you hold on to the idea of someone else, someone who’s not him, is slowly breaking him.

One evening, after a long day, you and Kai take a quiet walk together. The air is cool, the sound of your footsteps is all that can be heard as the silence between you both grows more palpable. You’re talking about your dreams, your soulmate, and how convinced you are that they’re finally starting to reach you. The figure is becoming clearer, your connection growing stronger.

“I can’t wait to finally meet them,” you say, your smile hopeful, your eyes filled with anticipation.

Kai forces a smile, nodding along as if he’s truly happy for you, but his heart feels like it’s sinking. He swallows the lump in his throat, the ache that has been building inside him for weeks. “Yeah,” he replies softly, his voice carrying a faint edge of pain that he quickly tries to mask. “They’re out there.”

But even as he says it, there’s a part of him that wants to scream that he’s right here. That he’s the one who’s been by your side, supporting you through all of this. But he doesn’t. He can’t. He watches as you remain wrapped in the belief that your soulmate is someone who will appear in your dreams, and he wonders if you’ll ever look at him in that way.

The walk ends in silence, a thick, invisible wall between you that neither of you is willing to acknowledge. You part ways, still believing in the dream of your soulmate, unaware of how much Kai has already given you—how much he’s already given up in silence.

For Kai, each step away from you feels like a piece of him breaking off, but he swallows it down. He’s learned to live in the space of almost, to pretend that everything is fine, even when his heart aches with every passing second. But the truth is, he knows deep down that no matter how hard he tries to be just your friend, the feelings he has for you have grown too strong to ignore. He just doesn’t know if you’ll ever see him the way he sees you, nor should you, not when you’re destined to be with someone else already.

The night wraps around Kai like a heavy blanket as he sits on the edge of his bed, phone in hand, staring at your message. His thumb brushes idly against the screen, scrolling up to reread your words, as if the emotions woven into them might shift into something easier to bear if he looks just one more time.

You had sent it with so much enthusiasm, your excitement spilling over like the first rays of dawn breaking through the darkest night. You’d written about the dream—how vivid it was, how the figure was no longer a blur but beginning to take shape. You’d described every detail with a breathless kind of joy: the way the figure moved, how they reached out to you, how close you felt to finally understanding who they were. It was like reading a story painted in colors so bright they almost hurt his eyes, each word shining with hope and possibility.

Kai could see your happiness so clearly in every word, and it twisted something deep inside him. The tightness in his chest grew unbearable as he pictured you sitting there, eyes lit up, fingers typing quickly, pouring out your heart to him. It was the kind of joy he wanted to see on your face every day, the kind of excitement he longed to be the cause of—but instead, it was for someone else. Someone faceless. Someone who wasn’t him.

His hand tightened around his phone as he reread your description of the dream, the way you’d said the figure was finally coming into focus, how it felt like you were standing on the edge of a life-changing revelation. Kai could practically hear your voice in his mind, brimming with anticipation, and it only made the ache in his chest worse.

His fingers hover over the keyboard, trembling slightly, and before he knows it, he’s typing. I wish it were me. I wish I was the one you saw in your dreams. The words spill out in a rush, raw and unfiltered, as though his heart had taken over, desperate to finally be heard.

For a moment, he stares at the screen, his heart pounding. The confession feels so fragile, so vulnerable, and yet it burns with the truth he’s been carrying for far too long. The glowing words seem to taunt him, daring him to hit send, to step into the unknown and finally bare his soul.

But then reality crashes down on him like a wave, cold and unforgiving. His breathing slows as doubt creeps in, wrapping around him like chains. His thumb hovers over the “send” button, frozen. What if this changes everything? What if you don’t feel the same? What if he loses you entirely?

The risk feels too great, the fear too overwhelming. With a shaking breath, he presses backspace, watching the words disappear one by one, like erasing a part of himself. The blank text box stares back at him, mocking him with its emptiness.

Kai types something safer, something distant, something that won’t betray the storm raging inside him. "That sounds amazing. I’m really happy for you," he writes. The words feel hollow, lifeless, like a shadow of what he truly wants to say. But that's all he can manage.

He hits send before he can overthink it, the message vanishing into the ether like a whisper swallowed by the wind. As soon as it’s gone, a crushing weight settles on his chest. The ache doesn’t lessen; it deepens, sinking into him like a stone dropped into the depths of a still lake.

He imagines you reading his response, your excitement still glowing, your mind racing with thoughts of your soulmate and the dream that brought them closer to you. He imagines your smile, your heart fluttering with hope, and it feels like a knife twisting in his chest.

Kai closes his eyes, letting his head fall into his hands. The silence of his room is deafening, broken only by the sound of his own uneven breathing. He tells himself he’s happy for you—he repeats it over and over in his mind, like a mantra, as if saying it enough times might make it true. But deep down, he knows he’s lying.

He doesn’t just want to be part of your dreams; he wants to be the dream. The person you wake up thinking about. The one you’re so excited to meet. The one who makes your heart race and your words spill out in breathless joy. But instead, he’s the one sitting in the shadows, watching you chase a future that doesn’t include him.

A few days later, you meet Kai for coffee at your favorite spot, a cozy little café tucked away from the bustling streets. The familiar hum of conversation blends with the soft clinking of cups and the faint aroma of roasted beans in the air. It’s one of those rare, fleeting moments when life feels suspended in a delicate balance, and the two of you can simply exist—no burdens, no expectations, just two people sharing a moment of peace.

The conversation starts light, with playful jabs about the unseasonably warm weather and anecdotes from your day that make him chuckle. There’s an ease between you that feels natural, like slipping into a favorite sweater. But as the minutes tick by and your drinks grow lukewarm, the conversation takes a turn, shifting into deeper waters as it often does when you’re with him.

"So," Kai begins, a teasing lilt in his voice as he stirs his coffee. "How’s it going? The soulmate dreams?" His tone is light, almost casual, but the slight hesitation in his question hints at something more—something unspoken.

You sit up a little straighter, your eyes bright with excitement as you lean forward. "It’s getting clearer every night," you say, your words spilling out in a rush. "I can almost see them, Kai. It’s like I’m standing right there, just one step away. I know I’m going to meet them soon."

Kai listens intently, his hand stilling on his cup as he watches you. There’s a quiet intensity in his gaze, but it’s layered with something you can’t quite catch—an emotion buried deep beneath the surface. He offers you a small smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. "You really think they’re out there, huh?" he asks, his voice lilting with mock curiosity, but the weight behind his words betrays him.

You nod eagerly, completely missing the subtle crack in his façade. "I know they are," you say with conviction, your hands curling around your cup. "I’ve been waiting for this my whole life, Kai. I can feel it. They’re out there, and they’re waiting for me too."

His smile falters, just for a moment, before he schools his expression into something softer, something easier to wear. "I guess we all have to believe in something," he murmurs, his voice so quiet it nearly gets lost in the background noise. But his words hold a heaviness that lingers, an ache he tries to suppress.

You’re too caught up in your own thoughts to notice the way his shoulders slump ever so slightly, or the way his fingers tighten around his cup like he’s holding himself together. You keep talking, sharing every detail of your dreams—the colors, the sounds, the way your soulmate’s presence feels so real, so close. And all the while, Kai sits there, nodding along, his chest tightening with every word.

For you, this is hope—an unwavering belief that everything you’ve dreamed of is just around the corner. But for Kai, it’s something else entirely. It’s a quiet kind of agony, the kind that sits heavy in your chest and makes it hard to breathe. He’s been your confidant, your anchor, the one you turn to when the world feels too big. But as he listens to you speak of your soulmate with such reverence, a cruel truth seeps into his heart: you’ve never looked at him the way you look at the person in your dreams.

He forces another smile, his lips trembling for just a fraction of a second. "I’m happy for you," he says softly, his voice steady despite the storm raging inside him. He means it—he really does—but the words feel like glass on his tongue.

You don’t notice the way his gaze lingers on you, or the way his hands tremble slightly as he sets his cup down. You don’t see the way his heart breaks, piece by piece, with every word you speak. All you see is the future you’ve dreamed of, the life you’re so certain is waiting for you.

And Kai—sweet, selfless Kai—sits there in silence, letting you pour your heart out even as his own shatters. A part of him wants to tell you the truth, to lay everything bare and risk it all. But another part—the part that loves you too much to take that chance—keeps him rooted in place. So he listens, he smiles, he nods, and he pretends. Because that’s all he can do now—be your friend, your confidant, the one who cheers you on even as he quietly mourns the future he knows he’ll never have with you.

A week later, the air feels heavy between you and Kai as you walk through the park, side by side, your shoes crunching softly on the path beneath. It’s a serene evening—the kind that makes everything feel just a little more alive, just a little more beautiful. The sky is a warm gradient of orange and pink, the sun dipping below the horizon. The kind of moment you would want to savor, if only everything didn’t feel so complicated.

Kai is listening as you talk about your usual topic the past few days, your soulmate—about the blurry figure in your dreams, how each night it becomes clearer. You’re excited, almost desperate to share this feeling with him. The possibility of finally meeting the person you’ve been waiting for, the one who might complete you.

But as you speak, you notice something. Kai is looking at you differently. His usual smile is soft, but there’s something deeper in his eyes, a mix of emotions you can’t quite understand but it’s something that makes your heart skip a beat. There’s a heaviness in the way he watches you, a silent understanding between you that only heightens the tension in the air.

The conversation slows, the words between you becoming fewer as the quiet settles in. You’re aware of the space between you—close, but not quite touching. It feels like everything is building to something, but neither of you knows exactly what. Your heartbeat quickens, and for the first time, you realize just how close you’ve become to him, how much his presence affects you.

Suddenly, you stop walking, turning to face him. The moment hangs between you, and you feel the pull—something between you that’s been there all along, something that’s become undeniable. Kai stands still, his gaze searching yours, as if asking for something you’re not sure you can give.

Then, before you can think, you see it: the way he leans in just slightly, the way the world feels like it’s slowing down around you. The distance between you shrinks, and you feel an electric current spark in the air. His breath is warm against your skin, his presence so overwhelming that your heart seems to stop beating for a moment.

Everything inside you screams to kiss him—to bridge the gap between you and the unspoken words you both keep holding back. But your thoughts of your soulmate—of the person who’s supposed to be in your dreams—rush in, and before you can even make a choice, you pull back.

“Wait,” you murmur, your voice shaky, caught in the whirlwind of your own emotions. “This is wrong, Kai. I... I can’t do this.”

Kai freezes. For a second, the world feels like it’s fallen silent, but instead of letting the awkwardness linger, he smiles quickly, a little too brightly, as though trying to mask what just happened.

"Sorry, I thought you had an eyelash on your cheek," he says, his voice light, almost too casual. "I was just trying to get it."

He raises his hand and brushes your cheek gently with his fingers, an act so tender it almost feels like a confession. His touch lingers for a moment before he pulls away, his smirk now a little forced.

“I don’t know if I got it. I couldn’t really see it properly,” he adds with a chuckle, as if nothing significant just happened. “Oh, sorry, guess I just got a little too close.”

You laugh nervously, your heart still racing, trying to mask the confusion inside. "Right," you say, your voice weak. "That was... close."

Kai steps back, his eyes still lingering on you for a fraction of a second, but the moment is already slipping away, the unspoken words hanging in the air, unresolved. The quiet that follows feels different now, heavier, like you’re both pretending it didn’t happen.

The rest of the walk feels like a slow unraveling. You continue to talk, but the easy silence is gone, replaced by an uncomfortable tension. The words are there, but they don’t feel like they’re reaching each other the same way. It’s as though the space between you has grown even wider.

Later, when you lie in bed, you replay the moment over and over in your mind. You keep thinking about how close you were, the way his fingers had brushed your cheek. You wonder if it had been a mistake to stop. Was it too soon? Was it wrong to pull away?

You convince yourself that you did the right thing. It’s not fair to Kai. It’s not fair to the soulmate you’re waiting for. But deep down, there’s a nagging doubt, a voice that wonders if you’ve been fooling yourself all along. Was it really the wrong time? Or did you just push him away because you were afraid of what it meant?

On the other side of the situation, Kai is tangled in his own thoughts. His fists are clenched at his sides as he stares at the ceiling, his mind racing. He replays the moment in his head too—the way his heart had pounded when you stopped him, how close you had been, how he thought, for just a second, that you might feel it too.

But you pulled away. And in that moment, he felt the weight of it all—the distance between you, the reality that no matter how close you got, you’d always be waiting for someone else.

“I should’ve known it was too good to be true,” he thinks bitterly. “You have someone else. Someone waiting for you. And I’m just here… stuck in this endless loop, a broken bond yet hoping that maybe you could mend it back with yours.”

He sighs, closing his eyes, willing the ache in his chest to fade. “I can’t make her feel something she doesn’t. She deserves someone who’s meant for her. Someone who was fated to her.”

And with that thought, Kai drifts into a restless sleep, knowing the truth but still clinging to the hope that maybe, just maybe, things could be different.

The dream begins, as it always does: blurry, disorienting, filled with an overwhelming sense of longing that you can never quite explain. It’s the same every night—shapes and shadows, a silhouette that never seems to come into focus, no matter how hard you try to make it clear. It teases you, whispers to you of something important, something that feels like destiny—but you can never quite grasp it.

Tonight, though, something is different.

The figure in front of you seems to ripple, the darkness around it seeming to waver, like the world itself is holding its breath. Your pulse quickens as the shadow begins to shift, stretching into something more defined, as if the universe is finally granting you the clarity you've been waiting for.

You reach out instinctively, as though you could pull the figure into sharper focus, draw the mystery out of the murky fog surrounding it. Your heart pounds in your chest, the anticipation rising to a fever pitch. The details begin to sharpen, the edges of the form gradually becoming clearer with each passing moment. A figure, tall and broad-shouldered, standing just out of reach. You can almost make out the curve of their jaw, the shape of their lips.

But still, it’s not enough.

And then—just when you think you might burst from the pressure of waiting—the veil is lifted. The figure finally comes into full view, and you gasp.

It’s not a stranger. Not the faceless being you’ve been waiting for all this time.

It’s him.

Kai.

His features are unmistakable now. The curve of his smile, the sharpness of his eyes, the way he stands with that quiet confidence you’ve come to know so well. Your breath hitches, and for a moment, it feels like the ground beneath you has vanished. All the tension, all the confusion you've carried with you all this time, falls away as realization crashes into you like a tidal wave.

This isn’t just a dream. This is the truth, the answer to every question you've had for so long. The person you’ve been yearning for, the soulmate you've been waiting to meet—is Kai. He always has been.

And just as this revelation settles deep within you, a strange, familiar pull tugs at your chest. The world around you begins to dissolve, and you feel yourself being torn away from this clarity, back into the murkiness of sleep.

Across the expanse of sleep, Kai stirs in his own dream. For weeks, he’s been seeing a shadowy figure, indistinct, almost impossible to grasp, lingering just out of reach. In the beginning, he assumed it was his ex-soulmate, the one who had rejected him so painfully. That figure—still shrouded in mystery—haunted him every night, dredging up emotions he’d long buried.

But tonight… tonight, everything changes.

The figure in his dream shifts, becoming clearer in a way he’s never seen before. The edges grow sharper, the outline of the person coming into focus with each passing second. His breath hitches in his sleep as he tries to make sense of it. He reaches for the figure, just as he’s done so many times before, desperate for clarity.

And then, the figure’s face is unmistakable.

It’s you.

He sits up suddenly, heart hammering in his chest. The dream isn’t just a flash of the past anymore—it’s you. It always has been. The face he’s been searching for, the one that’s been haunting him in the shadows, was you. Not his ex. Not a distant memory.

The realization is so sudden, so sharp, it almost feels like a physical blow. The dream slips away, leaving him awake and breathless in his bed. His heart races, thumping painfully as he processes what he’s just learned. The figure he’s been seeing—he’d thought it was someone else, but it was you all along. The connection, the bond, the love he thought had been lost to him—it’s been with you from the beginning. He doesn’t know how but he isn’t complaining. For once it felt like the universe was listening to him.

You wake, your pulse still erratic, your mind tangled in the remnants of your dream. You stare at the ceiling, still reeling from the shock of seeing Kai in the dream so clearly. How did you not know? How did you miss it before?

And then, like a jolt of electricity, the buzzing of your phone breaks through the haze of your thoughts. You glance at the screen, seeing Kai’s name flash across it, and for a moment, you hesitate. Could he have…?

You pick up the phone, your voice trembling. “Hello?”

There’s a pause, heavy with the unspoken. You can feel the rawness in his voice before he even speaks. “I—” He swallows, the words difficult to form, you could hear him panting as if he just ran miles. “I need to see you. Can you open your door?”

Your heart skips. You already know. You both woke up with the same realization, and the gravity of it weighs down on you, pulling at your chest.

“I’ll be right there,” you manage to say, barely able to steady your breath.

You rush to the door, your pulse quickening as you open it before he even knocks. There he is, standing in the hallway, his form framed by the dim light from the corridor. His eyes meet yours, filled with a blend of vulnerability and uncertainty, and you feel the weight of everything unspoken between you. Without a word, he steps inside, the door softly closing behind him.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The silence between you is thick, a heavy fog of unspoken words and emotions. You can’t seem to catch your breath. Your mind is still spinning with everything you've just realized, and you feel his presence in a way you never have before.

Finally, Kai breaks the silence, his voice quiet but urgent. “I don’t know what this means for us,” he admits. “But I know that… I don’t want to lose this. I don’t want to lose you.”

His words shake you, and you feel a lump form in your throat. You’ve been holding your emotions in check for so long, and now, standing here in the reality of what you’ve just learned, it feels like it’s all crashing down on you.

“I don’t want to lose you either,” you reply, your voice shaking. But then the doubt creeps in, and you can’t stop yourself from asking, “But… Kai, what if this isn’t just some dream? What if we’re just convincing ourselves it’s real?”

Kai steps closer, his gaze steady, unwavering. “We don’t need to convince ourselves, do we?” His voice is low, sincere. “What we have is real. It might not be the perfect soulmate connection we always imagined, but it’s ours. We’ve built something here. Haven’t we?”

The truth hits you like a wave. He’s right. Everything you’ve shared, everything you’ve felt—it’s not just fantasy. It’s real. And it has been all along. The bond between you is undeniable, even if it doesn’t fit the mold of what you thought soulmates should be.

“I guess… we don’t have to figure this out right now, do we?” you say, taking a step closer to him. “We can just… let it be.”

Kai’s smile is small, bittersweet, and filled with so much unsaid emotion. “Yeah. We can just let it be.”

And in that moment, you both understand. The connection between you, the pull you’ve both felt—it doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be real.

Kai reaches out, his hand tentative but sure. You don’t pull away. Instead, you let him take your hand, fingers weaving together in a silent promise. His thumb brushes over your knuckles, sending warmth racing through you, and you look up at him, the question hanging in the air between you.

Do you want this?

The answer is clear as you lean in, your lips meeting his in a kiss that is gentle, soft, as if you’re both tasting the truth for the first time. The kiss deepens, fueled by everything you’ve been holding back, the emotions you’ve been too afraid to voice. His arms pull you closer, and you lose yourself in the moment, in the warmth, in the certainty that, finally, everything has fallen into place.

When the kiss finally breaks, neither of you pulls away. You’re both breathless, your foreheads pressed together, feeling the weight of everything that has just shifted between you.

Kai’s voice is a whisper, barely audible, but you hear it clearly. “I’ve been waiting for this—for you—for so long.”

You smile softly, your hand over his heart, feeling the rhythm of it beneath your palm. “Me too,” you whisper back.

And in that moment, it all clicks. This isn’t just a kiss. This is the culmination of everything you’ve built. Everything you’ve both waited for. It’s not a fantasy anymore. It’s real. You’ve found each other.

The kiss lingers between you like the soft echo of a song you never wanted to end. It’s not just a kiss—it’s a silent admission, a wordless promise, a release of everything that has been building between you, unspoken and hidden. Kai pulls back just slightly, but the weight of his gaze on yours feels as if he’s reaching into the deepest corners of your soul. There’s something in his eyes, something that tells you everything, yet nothing at all.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to say,” Kai begins, his voice a whisper, as fragile as the air between you. The tension in his voice—so raw, so vulnerable—sends a shiver through you. “Even before all of this… even before we realized what we meant to each other, I—” He stumbles over his words, his breath coming in shallow bursts, like someone standing on the edge of a precipice, afraid to fall.

You take a step closer, reaching for him, your hand finding his, grounding him, grounding yourself. You can feel his pulse, racing in sync with yours, the rhythm of your hearts mirroring the storm inside both of you. You offer him your silence, a soft encouragement that says everything without a word. “You can tell me anything, Kai,” you murmur, your voice steady, even as your heart flutters wildly within your chest.

He closes his eyes, as though gathering every shred of courage to speak the words that have been locked inside him for so long. Then, when his eyes meet yours again, they are filled with the weight of a thousand unspoken thoughts, and his next words come out like a confession he’s been carrying since the first moment he laid eyes on you.

“I’m falling for you,” he says, the words tumbling from his lips, as soft as the first rain of spring but as heavy as the storms they promise. “I think I have been for a while. And I… I don’t want to hide from it anymore.”

Your heart stops for a beat, and then it races, thudding loudly in your ears, so strong and steady that it feels like the sound of an ancient drum calling you home. Every part of you trembles at his admission, the truth of it sinking into your bones, as though he’s just pulled the rug out from under your feet and you’re left floating, weightless and free.

You can feel it too. You always have. It’s like a quiet fire, smoldering in your chest, a warmth that grows and flickers every time he’s near. And now, with his words, it explodes. The fire consumes you. You are lost in it, but somehow, it’s the only place you want to be.

“Kai,” you whisper, your voice shaky with the weight of your own confession. Your hands tremble as they reach up to touch his face, your fingers brushing against his skin like the softest touch of wind on a still day. “I’m falling for you too. I didn’t want to admit it at first, but…” The words catch in your throat, but you push them out, letting them flow like a river breaking free from its banks. “I’ve never felt more sure of anything in my life.”

The world seems to still in that moment. The doubts, the fears, the questions—they all vanish like smoke in the wind. There’s only the quiet certainty that settles in your chest, heavier than any burden you’ve carried before. You know this is right. You know it in the deepest part of your soul.

Kai’s smile is soft, almost hesitant, but it’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen. His thumb brushes over your cheek, so gentle, so tender, like a promise, like a vow. The warmth of his touch is the kind of warmth you’ve been searching for your whole life, the kind that fills every crack in your heart and makes it whole again. “We’re not alone anymore, are we?” he murmurs, his voice a low, soothing hum in the quiet of the room.

“No,” you breathe, your voice steady now, stronger than you ever imagined it could be. “We’re not.”

In that simple exchange, something inside you both shifts. You no longer need to search for the answers to what’s been confusing you. You no longer need to chase what was never truly lost. The future is no longer an uncertain road ahead. It’s the path you’re walking together, one step at a time, hand in hand.

There’s a new understanding between you now, one that doesn’t require words. You’ve built something, not out of fate, but out of choice. You’ve created this bond from the ground up, in the moments where you bled and healed and trusted each other, even when it seemed like the world was telling you it wasn’t meant to be.

And just like that, you understand. Soulmates aren’t found in dreams. They’re not a perfect match sewn together by some divine plan. Soulmates are born from the jagged pieces of your life—broken, messy, imperfect—and when the time is right, those pieces fit together in a way that makes everything else fade away.

Soulmates are made in the waking world, when two people choose to find each other in the chaos, when they choose to heal the wounds of the past with the love they build from the ground up. They are made from the moments of doubt and pain, the moments of laughter and joy, and the quiet moments when you realize that this, this connection, is something you’ve created.

The kiss that follows is everything you’ve ever needed. It’s not just another kiss; it’s the culmination of years of searching, of longing, of waiting for the right person. It’s the promise of all the tomorrows you will share, and the soft surrender of all the yesterdays you’ve held onto.

When your lips finally part, you rest your forehead against Kai’s, breathing each other in, as if the world outside of this room has ceased to exist. His voice, a mere whisper, breaks the silence, but this time, there is no hesitation. “I’ve been waiting for this—for you—for so long.”

A tear slips down your cheek, but it’s not one of sadness. It’s a tear of release, of acceptance, of peace. You smile softly, the weight of your own heart finally finding rest. “Me too,” you whisper back, your voice full of everything you couldn’t say before.

Soulmates don’t have to be something you find—they are something you choose to become. Something you create, piece by piece, through every laugh, every tear, and every step you take together. And as you lean into Kai, your heart steady in its rhythm, you know this is just the beginning of a love that bends all odds, one that goes beyond fate’s grasp.

© all rights reserved ─ @gyu-tori 2025

Rei's Notes ✎: It's here!! To be honest, I don't feel as proud with the finished product as I thought I was but I really hope you would still like it. I'm so proud to have put this idea to life and I couldn't have done it without the amazing people who also partook in this event. They are so talented and I had so much fun with them. Make sure to check out everyone else's stories and give them your thoughts too~ Happy Valentine's Day you lovelies <3

⟢ Taglist: @yunverie @dawngyu @hueningstar @hhoneyhan @immelissaaa @lovingbeomgyudayone @xylatox @i-like-to-read-at-4am @imlonelydontsendhelp @ode2soob @pagelets @hoefororeo @sbnslver @missychief1404 @brrytears @saejinniestar @imlonelydontsendhelp @urlocal-moa @melmochii @somiaw @filmnings @sndvlmuriel4

[bibibinnie]

not at all — hueningkai x chubby!fem!reader. NSFW/MDNI!

cw. first date, chubby!reader, mention of eating and drinking, reader's a bit tipsy, pet names (cutie, pretty i think), tummy love obvi, nipple play obvi, marking, biting, tiddy fuck <3, oral (m. receiving), jiggle, unprotected sex, creampie, body worship? notes. i am in my kai brain rot era!!! im in love w him, i would die for him, i would kill for him, he is everything. idk how i feel about this one tbh, but it is self indulgent AF!!! smut under cut.

“Kai!” You smile when you open the door, greeted by the cutest Kai you’ve ever seen, all dressed up, holding a bouquet of pink peonies, smelling of cologne. It’s only the second time you’ve seen him, but you didn’t think he could get any cuter after meeting him at the bookstore the other day—cute nose in a book, wavy hair falling over his eyes, biting his lip in concentration. 

You’d caught him off guard approaching him, recommending another book based on what he was reading and ended up chatting for a while. 

“Just let me know if you need any other book recommendations once you finish that one.”

“Okay, will do.” He smiled softly, nodding awkwardly.

“I’m gonna go now…so just let me know, yeah?” Pressing his lips together, he nodded again. “Are you here a lot?”

“No, I’m not here too often,” he said, scratching the back of his head. 

“I’m trying to get you to ask me for my number.” 

“Oh! Right, right…phone numbers—ha.” 

You simply look stunning. Your gorgeous dress hugs you in all the right places, accentuating your chest perfectly. It’s a totally different look from the sweater and jeans you were wearing the other day. So seeing your chest like this gives him heart eyes. He’s just absolutely, positively giddy looking at you. It’s difficult for him to even say, “For you,” while he hands you the flowers. 

“Oh, wow, thank you. How’d you know these were my favorite?” You giggle, letting him in your apartment, but he doesn’t go past the front entryway. He simply watches in awe while you find a vase, rambling a bit to him, not even noticing him shyly standing across the room. “Come over here, silly. Make yourself at home,” you say. 

Nodding, he slowly makes his way closer to you, but he does make a point to look over your apartment—noticing little details about you. The quirky gallery wall above your couch, the fancy olive oils near your stovetop, that book you bought from that bookstore where you met resting on your coffee table. “You’re so cute,” you say, his ears turning red hot. “Just come over and have a seat.” You motion to the bar stool behind the kitchen counter. 

Remembering this is a date and he can flirt with you a bit, he says, “You look really pretty.” It might not have been the cheekiest of flirting, but it’s still flirting. 

“Thank you,” you smile. “You look really pretty tonight too.” And he really does—he’s so, so pretty, almost ethereal, like there’s a glow around him. “So, whatcha got planned for us this evening?” You ask, leaning over the counter, sparkly eyes blinking up at him, tits peeking out over the neckline of your dress. He tries—really, he does—maintaining eye contact, but you’re so, so pretty too, he can’t look at your eyes either. 

So he opts for checking his watch before saying, “I’ve got reservations for us in about a half hour. We should probably get going actually.”

“Oh, okay! Sure,” you smile, grabbing your bag and heading out the front door. 

It’s such a cute, cozy place. All the walls and decor are so warm, it’d make anyone want to cuddle, but for touchy-feely people like the two of you, you’re already all cuddled into each other. 

The two of you clicked as soon as you sat down. You haven’t stopped giggling, touching his arm, you’ve caught him glancing down at your lips more than a few times. And he just can’t get enough of you. You are the prettiest thing he’s ever seen. He truly believes that. 

After dinner and a few glasses of wine later, you ask him—with your best please eyes—to walk you back home. And it’s a good thing too, because he was planning to anyway.

Both of your arms wrapped around one of his, he drags you back to your apartment, having the best time walking down a quiet sidewalk together. You look up at him, his strong nose undeniably noticeable, his pink, plush lips curling into a smile while he laughs with you. 

Oh, how you wanted him. He was simply adorable in the way he joked with you, held the door open for you, and reached for the bill. The whole evening, he was dipped in sugar. And he seemed like this big, tall teddy bear waiting to be devoured by you. 

“You wanna come up for another drink?” You asked, silently begging him with your pretty eyes, long eyelashes batting up at him. You weren’t sure where he was with everything, to be honest. You’d never know what he was thinking about you. 

But oh, how he wanted you. It was torture sitting next you, but he’d never let you know that. The way your tits were pushed up by your dress, spilling over the top as you leaned closer and closer to him, how he could see the indent of your belly button under the silky fabric, your thighs spread across the booth. You looked…delicious. He couldn’t wait to get you out of that dress, writhing underneath him while he kissed and bit your tummy for a minimum of ten minutes before flicking his tongue over your clit and oh, you legs wrapped around his head, he had to stop himself before it was too noticeable. 

Following you inside, you start pouring some more wine for the two of you, soon joining him on the couch. And it’s more of the same—laughing, giggling, joking, just having fun in each other’s company. It feels so good and natural being together. Soon enough, you’re not sure if it’s the wine or what, but something comes over you. 

He’s way too polite to initiate anything on a first date, but you? You need him, but you don’t want to come on too strong. The wine isn’t helping though. 

Your hand grazes his thigh and he swears his heartbeat is in his throat. “You look so pretty right now,” you whisper. He swallows, lips parting. “Just…” you trail off, taking a sip of the tarte, red wine, lips stained by now. “The way this candle flickers across your skin…you just look…wow.” 

“Thank you,” he chokes out. Is he even getting the hint? 

“You’re honestly probably the prettiest guy I’ve seen,” you say, setting your glass on the coffee table. “This nose is gorgeous.” You lightly drag the tip of your pinky down his bridge, punctuating it with a cute boop to the tip of his nose. “And your eyes…ah, so pretty.” You drag the pad of your thumb across his eyelashes as his eyes flutter shut. “And don’t even get me started on those lips.” You rest back against the couch, smirking at him. 

“No, no, go ahead,” he says, the slightest hint of a giggle in his voice. “What about my lips?”

Ah, he’s got the hint now. “Just how kissable they look. And…” you start, leaning closer to him, hand inching higher and higher on his thigh, faces close enough to feel each other’s breath on your lips. “I want them all over me.” 

Catching your lips with his, he carefully sets the wine glass down before squeezing your thigh, earning a nice groan from you. Pushing off his jacket, he slips his arms out of the sleeves, reaching for your waist, guiding you to straddle his lap. He’s surprisingly good at this based on his shy, cute demeanor throughout the rest of the evening. Legs falling over his, he cranes his neck to reach your lips before trailing down your neck, hands all over your hips. 

“Fuck…” you sigh, hands tangling into his hair. Already burying his face in your cleavage to kiss even more of your skin, both of your breathing starting to get heavy. “My, uh…my bedroom’s down that hallway,” you say and he got the hint immediately.

Hoisting you up with a grunt, thick legs wrapped around his waist, your lips part only briefly as he finds the door knob. Dropping you to your bed, you desperately unbutton his shirt before sliding it off him. He pushes your dress up past your waist, letting out a groan of relief at the sight of your tummy and how gorgeous it is. One hand on your waist, the other on your tit, he simply attacks it with kisses, sucks, and bites. 

You’re not really sure what he’s doing—no one’s ever done this with you before. He doesn’t stop showing your tummy love while his hips grind into the mattress. He must really love tummies. The idea of him pining after your belly all night fills you with butterflies. 

Turning away from him, he whines and pouts at the loss of your beauty, but you say, “I just want this dress off me.” Nodding, he finds the zipper, quickly pulling it over your head and tossing it to the floor to get back to your tummy as soon as possible. It doesn’t last long, though, because once he squeezes your bare tit for the first time, his eyes widen before he makes his way back up to your chest, squishing them together to bury his face into. 

Finally flicking his tongue over your nipple, you moan so sexily, grinding your hips against him. Pushing him off you, you find a moment to flip him on his back, reaching for his pants button, slipping them off quickly. 

It’s your turn to shower his body with kisses and love, starting with a sweet, gentle kiss to his nose, making your way down his chest, licking over his nipples briefly, spending a good amount of time on his tummy, then his glorious thighs. And the beauty that is his cock—pinker than the rest of him and leaking wonderfully. 

Holding him gently, your mouth drops open, but you look up at him through your eyelashes for permission and he nods, eyebrows stitched together. Sinking your lips around his cock, you drag your lips down so slowly, making him whine, cheeks turning pink from embarrassment. One thing about him is…it doesn’t take much for him. Doesn’t take much before he starts begging…begging to fuck you. 

“Be patient, cutie.” And suddenly, you remember, this guy loves tummies and tits—you wrap your tits around his cock, bouncing them up and down and his brain short circuits. The sight of you like this—

“Holy fuck—” he gasps, head falling back against the pillow, rolling his hips between your cleavage. His dominant side seems to have completely vanished under everything you’re doing to him, which you love. Fingers fumbling as they try to wrap around your hair, breath rattling as your name leaves his mouth, toes curling. 

Releasing, you straddle his waist, his big hands squeezing your hips as you reach underneath yourself for his cock, rubbing it up and down your folds. 

He’s so tantalizing, it doesn’t take long to give into him, sinking down on him completely, his eyes slamming shut at the feeling of you. His hands are all over you. Squeezing your bouncing tits, pinching your waist, squishing your soft ass, holding your hips for stability. 

And goddamn does he feel good, reaching the deepest parts of you, giving you butterflies with the way he looks up at you, squeezing you in all the right places. 

“Oh my god,” you breathe. “You’re so…your cock feels…you—”

“I hope the ends of these sentences are good,” he chuckles. You simply don’t know what to do with yourself as you try grounding yourself by grabbing a tit, then running your hands through your hair, anything, but you can only nod before you find the strength to respond. 

“Yes, yes,” you pant. “You feel so, so, so good. Holy fucking shit.”

Fucking up into you, he’s desperately chasing his orgasm, cock sliding in and out of your pussy so deliciously. His breath is erratic as his head drops against his pillow, knots in his stomach tightening with each bounce, fiercely gripping your waist, orgasm quickly approaching. Your whines, the way you’re bouncing over him, the sight of your tits jiggling furiously sends him over the edge. 

And “Fuck, you’re perfect.” Everything about you. His legs involuntarily lift off the bed, muscles trembling as he cums inside you, the feeling washing over you as you’re chasing your own orgasm. 

But it doesn’t take long—one of his thumbs circling over your clit and the other over your nipple is more than enough to send you over the edge. You’re a whimpering mess, fucking yourself on his overstimulated cock, mouth dropping open, obscene sounds spilling out. Falling forward, your tits rub up against his chest as you ride it out. 

You don’t really do much—just lay on top of him while you two catch your breath, his fingertips dragging across your back until his cock slips out of you on its own. 

He finally breaks the silence, “Wow, that was…”

“Yeah, that was great,” you hold your head up to look down at him with a smirk, pecking his nose. “I like you.”

“Ah, stop…” he giggles. “I like you too.” You sit up, running your fingers through your hair and his hands find themselves in the pinch of your waist, thumbs rubbing circles on your hips, but he chuckles and says, “Oh my gosh, look.” You look down and three beautiful hickeys had already bloomed on your belly. He looks a bit embarrassed and admits, “Yeah, I kinda have a thing for tummies.”

“Oh yeah? I couldn’t tell,” you sarcastically, rolling your eyes playfully.

“Is that weird?”

You press gentle kisses to his jaw as you shake your head and say “Not at all, cutie.”

[gyu-tori]

Letters of Yesterday | H.K

⟢ Pairing: cursed writer!hueningkai x fem artist!reader ⟢ Genre: Angst, Slow-Burn, Bittersweet Ending

Summary: When love is as fragile as memory, Kai is cursed to forget everything—and everyone—he loves. No matter how deeply he feels, the magic erases him, leaving only blank pages where once there were memories. But Y/N refuses to give up, even when every day brings a new heartbreak. As she clings to the fleeting moments of their time together, she fights to keep their love alive, knowing that each day could be the last he remembers her.

In a cycle of forgotten smiles and vanished kisses, can love survive when memories are fleeting? Or will the price of holding on to Kai’s love be more than she can bear?

⟢ Word count: 9.1k

The curse had always been a part of Kai’s life, a shadow that loomed over him from the moment he understood the world. It was a dark family secret passed down from generation to generation—an affliction that claimed the memories of anyone he loved, but left the pain of their loss behind. His parents, distant and silent about it, had taught him to avoid forming attachments, to guard his heart. But the curse, no matter how much he tried to outrun it, was an inevitable fate. And in his heart, a part of him knew that one day, it would claim everything.

He was just a child when they told him. He remembered it vividly, his father’s voice trembling as he sat on the edge of Kai’s bed, explaining in hushed tones.

“Son, you have to understand… no one can escape this. It’s in our blood.”

Kai hadn’t understood at first, his childish mind unable to grasp the magnitude of what was being said. But as he grew older, the truth settled in like a weight on his chest.

The curse meant that Kai would forget everyone he loved. Every connection, every person who mattered would fade from his mind, erased as if they had never been there at all. And it wasn’t just the people who would disappear. Every feeling tied to them—the warmth of their smile, the sound of their laugh, the little things that made them irreplaceable—those would vanish too. The pain of losing them would remain, but the memories would slip through his fingers like sand, each loss more unbearable than the last.

It was a curse meant to keep him alone. And the more he thought about it, the more he understood how cruel it was. It stole memories, leaving only an ache. It was a life half-lived, a love half-loved.

But Kai couldn’t accept it.

From the moment he understood what the curse meant for him, Kai made a vow to himself. If he couldn’t hold on to the people he loved, then he would at least hold on to the memory of them. He would keep their faces alive in his mind, even if the details would fade. He would write them down, store them away like precious treasures.

He found an old wooden box one day, buried deep in the attic, and from then on, it became his ritual. Every time someone new entered his life, every time he felt his heart begin to open, Kai would write them a letter. Not just any letter, but one filled with the things he loved most about them—the way their voice sounded, the warmth of their touch, the way they made him feel safe and understood. He wrote down the moments that mattered most, as if they were the last ones he would ever have.

The box became his sanctuary, the one place where his memories could live on, even when his mind betrayed him. No one could open it but him. It was a fragile system, but it was all he had. The curse would take everything else. But the letters—those letters were his resistance.

And yet, as he sat there, writing another letter one evening, the weight of the curse pressed down on him harder than ever. The curse wasn’t just something that hovered on the horizon. It was here, now, in every moment. Every smile, every touch, every laugh, every tear. Kai knew that one day, all of it would fade away. He would forget. And the thought of it hurt more than he could bear.

It was a rainy afternoon when Kai first saw you. The kind of day that blurred the edges of the world, making everything feel like a memory that was already slipping away. You were sitting at the corner of a small café, your sketchbook open in front of you, completely absorbed in your art. The soft glow from the lamps above illuminated your figure, its warm and golden light a stark contrast to the dull and gray world around you.

Kai had never been a fan of crowded places, but on this particular day, he had no choice but to seek refuge inside. His footsteps echoed in the quiet café as he entered, shaking off the rain that clung to his coat. His gaze, as if pulled by a magnetic force, drifted to you.

You didn’t notice him at first, too focused on your drawing. Kai wasn’t sure what exactly it was that drew him in—the way your brow furrowed in concentration, the way your lips parted slightly as you hummed a soft tune to yourself, or the faintest trace of something wistful in your eyes when you paused to stare out the window.

But there was something. Something that made him pause, make a slow approach to the counter, his heart inexplicably racing.

The barista handed him his coffee with a polite smile, and Kai turned back to look at you. This time, you caught him staring.

“Can I help you with something?” you asked, tilting your head slightly, your eyes locking with his.

For a moment, Kai forgot how to breathe. He wasn’t used to this—being caught, being seen in such an open way. His eyes flickered downward, and he mumbled something about the weather before retreating to the farthest corner of the café, leaving you with a small smile on your face.

You didn’t press him, but something about his presence lingered in the air, as if he carried an invisible weight that tugged at your curiosity. Throughout the next few hours, as the rain continued to pour and the café filled with the soft hum of conversations and clinking mugs, you noticed him again and again—sitting, always with his notebook in front of him but never really writing, always distracted by something. You had no idea why, but there was an undeniable sadness about him, something hidden in the way his gaze would occasionally drift to your direction, only to quickly retreat when you looked back.

When you stood to leave, gathering your things and preparing to step out into the rain once more, Kai stood up too. It was impulsive, but something inside him urged him to speak.

“You... you’re an artist, aren’t you?” The words felt clumsy as they left his mouth. He winced inwardly, wondering why he was even talking to you. It wasn’t as if he could afford to form attachments, not with the curse always hanging over his head.

You smiled, a small, knowing smile that hinted at a playful kind of mystery. “Yes. And you?”

Kai hesitated, feeling the weight of his own silence, the years of solitude pressing down on him. But there was something about you—something about the way you didn’t look at him with pity or indifference. You simply saw him, in a way that few people ever had.

“I... write,” he replied. It was the simplest way to put it, though it felt like an understatement. His notebooks, filled with letters to himself, weren’t just a hobby—they were a lifeline.

You nodded, clearly intrigued. “What do you write about?”

The question caught him off guard. No one had ever asked him about his writing before, not in such an open, genuine way. He shifted uncomfortably. He couldn’t tell you the truth. The letters weren’t meant to be shared. They were his secret, his private attempt to defy the curse that was slowly erasing him.

But still, something about you made him want to open up, to share.

“I... write about memories,” he said after a moment, his voice quieter now. “About the things I want to remember. Even if I can’t.”

Your expression softened. “That sounds beautiful. I think everyone should write about the things they want to hold on to.”

Kai blinked, unsure of what to say. The words you spoke felt like a rare gift, a balm to a wound he hadn’t known how to address. He gave a small nod, more to himself than to you, before pushing open the door and stepping into the rain.

He never expected that brief encounter to change anything, but as he walked away, something shifted. The world felt just a little brighter, despite the persistent drizzle, and Kai found himself thinking about you in a way that felt... strange. The feeling was unfamiliar, like a forgotten dream drifting back to the surface.

And he knew, deep down, that he would see you again. That somehow, this brief moment had already begun to matter.

As the days passed, Kai found himself returning to that café more often than he ever had before. Each time, his steps led him to the same corner where you sat, sketchbook open, lost in your art. And each time, he couldn’t help but watch, his heart inexplicably drawn to the way you moved—so effortlessly, so naturally, as if you existed in a world of your own making.

It became a routine: the café, your art, and the growing, unspoken connection between the two of you. You never asked more of him than he was willing to give, and that was both a relief and a burden. He found solace in your presence, even if his mind never stopped warning him that it would all be fleeting, that he would forget you, just as he had forgotten so many others before.

One afternoon, after weeks of these quiet meetings, you sat down beside him with a cup of tea, your sketchbook resting on your lap.

“You’re always writing,” you remarked, your voice light but curious. “What is it you write about? You never share.”

Kai looked up, surprised by your bluntness, yet comforted by the familiarity of it. The way you spoke to him didn’t feel like an interrogation. It felt like an invitation, like you truly wanted to understand him.

“I write about people,” he said, his eyes flickering to the notebook in front of him. “People who matter. People I don’t want to forget.”

You raised an eyebrow, a playful smile tugging at the corners of your lips. “Why wouldn’t you want to forget them? Seems like a burden, doesn’t it?”

Kai’s heart ached at the simplicity of your question, the innocence with which you asked. You couldn’t possibly understand the weight of what he was saying, the curse that hung over him like a specter.

“It’s... complicated,” he replied, his voice dropping to a whisper. “For me, it’s a way of holding on. Of not losing everything I love.”

You watched him for a long moment, then leaned forward slightly, your eyes filled with a quiet understanding. “You’re scared of forgetting, aren’t you?”

Kai’s breath caught in his throat. How did you—how could you—know?

“I’m not scared of forgetting,” he said, his voice shaking despite his best efforts to remain calm. “I’m scared of forgetting you.”

There. He had said it. The truth that had been sitting on the edge of his lips for so long. He knew the moment the words left his mouth that they were dangerous, but they felt so right—so necessary—that he couldn’t take them back.

You didn’t say anything at first, and Kai immediately regretted it, feeling exposed, vulnerable in a way he hadn’t expected. But then you smiled softly, the warmth of it a balm to his frayed nerves.

“I’ll make sure you don’t forget me,” you said, a hint of mischief dancing in your eyes. “How about that?”

Kai’s heart thudded painfully in his chest. How could you promise something like that? How could anyone promise something so impossible?

But instead of answering, he simply nodded. In that moment, there was no room for anything else but the aching hope that maybe—just maybe—you could break through the wall he’d built around his heart.

Weeks passed, and every time Kai saw you, he found himself writing more. Letters, poems, short descriptions—anything to capture the fleeting moments he shared with you. You were becoming his muse, the light in his otherwise bleak existence. Each word he wrote felt like an anchor, something to hold on to when the curse eventually came for him.

But then, one day, it happened. The first sign that the curse was beginning to take hold.

Kai had been sitting across from you at the café, a letter halfway finished, when he looked up and caught sight of the bracelet you were wearing. It was delicate, silver, with a small charm hanging from it that caught the light. A gift, he realized, but not from him.

“Where did you get that?” Kai asked, his voice sounding distant even to his own ears.

You looked down at your wrist, then back up at him with a gentle smile. “You gave it to me. Remember? For my birthday. We picked it out together.”

His heart stuttered, a sharp pain shooting through his chest. His hands trembled as he reached up, as if he could touch the memory itself, but it wasn’t there. The details were gone, wiped clean from his mind like they’d never existed.

“I... I don’t remember,” he whispered, his voice cracking.

You paused, and for a moment, everything seemed to freeze. The air was thick with unspoken words, and the reality of what was happening hit Kai with full force.

“I’m sorry,” he added, his voice barely audible, a lump forming in his throat. “I don’t remember giving it to you.”

You said nothing at first, just looked at him with a sadness and confusion that made Kai’s chest tighten painfully. But then, you reached over and took his hand gently in yours, the touch warm and grounding.

“It’s okay,” you said softly, squeezing his hand. “Everyone forgets things sometimes, it’s normal. Hell, I even forgot what I ate for breakfast yesterday.”

Kai wanted to believe you. He desperately wanted to believe you. But the fear gnawed at him from the inside out, the creeping sense that everything was slipping away, piece by piece. The curse was real, and no matter how hard he tried, it would take everything from him in the end.

You stood up, then, the movement fluid, graceful, almost as if you were trying to pull him out of the dark thoughts that threatened to consume him. “Let’s go buy a new bracelet,” you said, a soft, encouraging smile on your lips. “We’ll pick something even more special, I’ll get you a matching one too, then I bet you won’t forget about it.”

And despite the crushing weight in his chest, despite the growing sense of dread, Kai followed you. For the first time in a long while, he let himself hope. Even if it was fleeting. Even if the curse would one day steal this moment too, he would hold on to it for as long as he could.

The days following the incident with the bracelet were a whirlwind of confusion and emotions. Kai’s fears—those deep, gnawing fears about the curse—had started to consume him. The more he tried to push them down, the more they clawed at his insides, demanding attention, reminding him that no matter how much he wanted to keep you in his life, it would never last. Not for long.

And so, he began to pull away.

It started small—his messages became less frequent, the invitations to hang out became few and far between. Kai was careful, though. He didn’t want you to feel abandoned, didn’t want you to think he didn’t care. But deep down, he believed that pulling away was the only way to protect you. The curse would take him eventually, it always did, and if he let you get too close, you would be hurt. That was a certainty he couldn’t avoid.

You, however, weren’t so easily deterred.

After a week of silence, when you hadn’t seen him at the café or heard from him at all, you decided to confront him. You knew something was wrong, and no amount of pretending on his part could hide it from you.

When you showed up at his apartment that evening, he was sitting by the window, staring out at the city below, lost in thought. His face was shadowed, unreadable. The air between you was thick with the weight of unsaid words.

“Why have you been avoiding me?” you asked, your voice steady but full of concern. “I’ve been trying to reach you. You’ve been shutting me out.”

Kai didn’t look at you right away. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his fingers gripping the edge of the windowsill. He knew the moment you entered that room that you would ask him this question. He just didn’t know how to answer it.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he finally said, his voice quiet, barely audible. “I care about you too much to keep dragging you into this... into my mess.”

The words hit you like a physical blow, but you didn’t flinch. Instead, you walked over and sat beside him, refusing to back down. “I don’t care about your mess, Kai. I care about you.”

He let out a breath, frustration leaking through his voice. “You don’t understand. You can’t. The curse… it’s not something you can just fix.”

You tilted your head, refusing to let him push you away. “Then explain it to me,” you said softly. “What curse? What is it you’re so afraid of?”

For a long moment, Kai said nothing. His heart raced in his chest, torn between the overwhelming urge to push you away and the undeniable need to finally tell you everything. Slowly, his eyes met yours, filled with pain and regret.

“I… I forget people,” he whispered, the words seeming too heavy to speak. “The people I love… I forget them. Over and over again. Every time I get too close to someone, the curse takes them away from me. And it’s not just them I forget. It’s everything. Everything that ever mattered.”

You blinked in confusion, not fully understanding the weight of his words. “You forget them?”

“Not just memories,” he continued, his voice strained. “I forget who they are. I forget their faces. I forget their names. And when I do remember, it’s always too late. By then, they’re already gone.”

Your breath caught in your throat as you tried to process what he was saying. “That’s… that’s horrible,” you whispered. “But why didn’t you tell me sooner? You’ve been pushing me away, Kai. I deserve to know.”

“I didn’t want you to stay out of pity,” he said bitterly, his hands gripping the edge of the windowsill until his knuckles turned white. “I didn’t want you to feel like you had to fix me. I don’t want to be fixed. But I know that in the end, I’ll forget you. Just like everyone else.”

You reached out, taking his trembling hand into yours. “I’m not going anywhere,” you said firmly. “You don’t have to go through this alone. If there’s a way to break this curse, we’ll find it together.”

Kai looked up at you, tears welling in his eyes despite his attempts to hold them back. His heart ached, his mind screamed at him to push you away, but your words—your warmth—pulled him closer. For the first time in a long while, he felt something other than fear. It was a glimmer of hope.

You stayed with him that night, and the nights that followed. The two of you spent hours researching, diving into old books, talking to anyone who might have any knowledge of curses or memory loss. You scoured libraries, read through ancient texts, and even sought out experts, but time and again, you found nothing. The curse was a mystery, an enigma with no solution.

As the days passed, Kai’s fear only deepened. Every time he looked at you, every time he spoke to you, he was struck by the reality of what he might lose. But there you were, right beside him, holding his hand and refusing to let go. You wouldn’t leave him, not now.

It broke his heart to know that no matter how much he wanted to hold on to you, the curse would eventually take you from him. It was a truth he couldn’t escape.

Kai sat in the dim light of his apartment, the silence around him suffocating. The evening air was thick, carrying the scent of rain that had begun to fall outside. He hadn’t even realized how much time had passed, lost in his thoughts, paralyzed by the very thing he had been avoiding for months. His heart ached, not from the curse itself, but from the realization that the love he had for you was only going to be temporary.

It was as if his very existence had been rewritten to fade, just like his memories. The curse forced him to forget everyone he loved. Over and over again, he lost people, but the pain was always there, gnawing at him. Every time it happened, every time someone slipped through his fingers, the weight of that loss only grew heavier. He had been fine with it before. At least he thought he had been. After all, what choice did he have? But now… now that you were here, now that you were so important to him, the thought of losing you completely shattered him in ways he could never have imagined.

Kai stared down at the crumpled paper before him, the ink of his pen smeared slightly as his hands trembled. His thoughts were a mess, disjointed and desperate, the reality of his situation becoming clear in the most painful way possible. He could never confess his feelings to you. He couldn’t do that to you. The curse would take away his love, his memory of you, everything. And if he told you—if he allowed himself to truly love you—then when the curse took its toll, it would tear both of them apart. You’d be left with nothing but the broken pieces of a love that wasn’t meant to last.

And yet, he couldn’t stop the flood of emotions that overwhelmed him. Every time he saw you, every time you smiled, every time you laughed, it felt like his heart had a reason to beat again. But this was a fleeting joy. He couldn’t hold onto it. He couldn’t let you become the next casualty of his curse.

Kai took a deep breath, wiping his eyes before picking up the pen again. He wrote, not with the intention of ever showing it to you, but for himself. Maybe if he could put his feelings into words, they would somehow become more manageable. Maybe he could come to terms with this loss before it even happened.

"To my future self,

If you're reading this, then you’ve already lost her.

I don't know how, but I know it will happen. This curse... this cruel curse will erase everything, just like it always has. You won't remember her face. You won’t remember the sound of her voice, the way she laughs, or the way she makes you feel like you’ve finally found home. You won’t remember how her presence makes you feel alive, how she has this way of looking at you, this unspoken understanding, like you’re the only two people in the world.

But I need you to remember this—remember what it felt like to love her, even if you can’t remember her name. Remember the warmth of her touch, the kindness in her eyes. Hold onto that, no matter how much the memories fade.

You may not be able to hold onto her physically, but don’t let her slip completely. Don't forget how much you loved her, even if she doesn't exist in your mind anymore. You will lose everything. You will lose her. But don’t forget this: she was everything.

Please, don’t let her go, even if the curse makes you forget how much you care. She deserves better. She deserves all the love we had to give, and more. You’ll be broken when it happens. But I need you to remember… I need you to keep that love, even when you can’t feel it anymore.

I’m begging you, don’t let her leave. She’s worth every broken piece of us."

The ink dried on the paper as Kai folded the letter carefully, almost reverently, before placing it in the box with all the others. His chest was tight, the lump in his throat threatening to choke him. There was no way to stop what was coming. He couldn’t protect you from the curse, no matter how much he wanted to. The pain of forgetting you—of forgetting the very essence of you—would be unbearable.

And yet, in the quiet of his room, surrounded by the evidence of his love for you, Kai felt as if he had already lost you. The letter he had written wasn’t just a plea—it was a desperate hope. A hope that, even if he couldn’t remember you, his future self would somehow carry the weight of this love with him, and that love would be enough, even in its broken state.

But deep down, he knew it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

As he laid down that night, the letter still fresh in his mind, he thought of you. He thought of your smile, of the way your hand fit perfectly in his, of the way you had slowly, gently, found your way into his heart. He didn’t want to forget you. He didn’t want to lose you.

But he knew it was inevitable.

And that was the hardest part.

The weeks had passed in a blur for Kai. The curse, as inevitable as it was painful, seemed to be growing stronger by the day. What had once been fleeting moments of forgotten details—small things like where he left his jacket or the name of a book he had been reading—had now become unsettling, disorienting waves. It was like a fog had settled into his mind, blotting out the things that mattered most.

Kai felt it creeping in, like a cold hand around his heart. The things he cherished, the people he loved—they were beginning to fade. The memories were no longer his own to keep. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how desperately he clung to them, they slipped away. And with each passing day, the pain of losing you became more unbearable.

One evening, as he sat at his kitchen table, the candlelight flickering on the surface, he felt a chill run through him. It wasn’t just the curse this time. No, it was something deeper, more overwhelming. It was you—your absence.

He stared down at the photo of the two of you together on the table, trying to place the memories, but they were slipping further from his grasp. He had forgotten the little things first: your favorite color, the way you liked your coffee, the sound of your laughter when you told a joke. Then, he began to forget the bigger moments: the way you first met, the promises you made to each other, even the quiet, tender moments when he had held you close.

But it wasn’t just the memories. It was you. He couldn’t remember your name. Turning the photo around, he sees your name, written in black ink next to his. Kai + Y/N = Besties Forever

“Y/N…” He whispered the name, as though testing it, hoping it would spark something inside him, but it didn’t. It felt distant, like a word he had once known but had now lost to time.

His breath hitched in his chest. "Who are you?" he thought, panic rising in his throat. "What am I forgetting?"

The panic swelled, drowning him in a deep, dark abyss. He grabbed the first thing he could find—one of the letters he had written to himself, one of the hundreds that were stored away in the box. He tore it open and began to read, his eyes scanning the words, the familiar handwriting that had once been his lifeline.

"Don’t let her leave. She’s worth every broken piece of us."

Kai’s chest tightened painfully as he read those words. His fingers trembled, the letter shaking in his hands. The words meant so much more now, piercing through the fog in his mind. They were a plea, a desperate cry from a future self who had already forgotten everything, everything that mattered to him.

“I love her.” The realization hit him like a wave, as if the memory of loving you had been hidden beneath layers of fog, waiting for this moment to break free. His heart ached with the weight of the truth. He loved you, but he couldn’t hold onto it. Not like this.

His tears blurred the ink on the page as he sank back into his chair, gasping for air. He clutched the letter tightly to his chest, like it could somehow save him from the pain. I love you, he thought again, the words so simple, so impossible. He couldn’t remember your face, your smile, the sound of your voice—but somehow, he still loved you.

The curse had taken everything from him, but it hadn’t taken his heart. At least, not yet.

The morning air was still, a fragile quiet hanging in the apartment as you waited for Kai to return from his errand. You had been visiting him more often lately, bringing him meals or simply sitting in the same room, offering a quiet comfort. The curse had taken its toll on both of you, and yet, in small moments, there was still some semblance of peace when you were together. Even in the face of the ever-growing loss, there was something deeply intimate about those moments—something you clung to.

You had arrived early that morning, hoping to surprise him with his favorite breakfast. As you set the table, you noticed something odd—a box hidden under the desk, tucked just out of sight. It wasn’t like Kai to leave things around like that, especially something so carefully concealed. Curiosity gnawed at you, and though you knew better, you couldn’t help but reach for it.

The box was heavier than you expected, the paper crinkling in your hands as you carefully lifted the lid. Inside, there were stacks of letters—neatly folded, each one dated, with Kai’s familiar handwriting on the front. Your fingers trembled as you pulled one out and read the first few lines.

At first, you thought they were just musings, idle thoughts that Kai often jotted down when he was alone. But as you continued reading, the words began to take shape, and with each sentence, the gravity of the situation became clearer. These were more than just thoughts. These were confessions.

Each letter was written to his future self—something you hadn’t known he had done. You had always known that Kai was a private person, but this—this was something else. He had been writing to himself, preserving pieces of his soul, just in case he lost them. The first few letters spoke of his growing fears, how the curse had begun to erode his memory in small, almost imperceptible ways. But with each passing letter, the tone changed. The fear turned into desperation. And there it was, one of the lines that took your breath away:

"She’s worth every broken piece of us."

The words swirled around in your mind, resonating with a pain that you hadn’t expected. You had known for a while that Kai was struggling with something—his slow drift into forgetfulness, the moments when he would lose himself completely in confusion. But you hadn’t realized just how much it had consumed him.

He had been fighting the curse, not only for himself, but for you. The love you shared had been slipping through his fingers, and yet he had been holding onto it, with every letter, with every desperate plea to himself.

Tears began to gather at the corners of your eyes. You wiped them away quickly, afraid to let them fall, but they came anyway. You couldn’t stop them. The depth of his feelings—the pain in his words—it all crashed over you. Kai loved you. And he had known, for all this time, that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto that love forever. But he had fought for it anyway, and in doing so, he had written to you, to himself, to anyone who might find the truth of his heart.

You picked up another letter, your heart aching with every word, and you read on. Each letter, each plea, each confession painted a picture of a man who loved deeply and was terrified of what was happening to him. He wrote about you, about the moments you shared, about how the curse had stolen everything but the love he felt for you. And in that love, he was still holding on.

As you read, the air around you seemed to thicken, the weight of the letters pressing down on your chest. The realization hit you like a wave—the man you loved, the man who had slowly become a stranger to you, had always known what was happening. He had always known that one day, he would forget you. But even with that knowledge, he had continued to love you with everything he had.

You sank to the floor, clutching the letters to your chest. You had always been the one to be strong for him, to offer him comfort when he needed it most, but now—now you were the one who felt lost. How could you ever show him how much these letters meant to you? How could you ever explain that even in his forgetfulness, even as the curse took more of him away, you would never stop loving him?

A sharp, painful sob escaped you, breaking the stillness of the room. You couldn’t hold it back any longer. The heartbreak of seeing his love, his anguish, all laid out in front of you—it was too much. Kai was fading, and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

“He’s fighting so hard,” you thought, your chest tight with sorrow. “But I don’t know if I’m strong enough to fight this with him.”

But even through the pain, something in you refused to give up. You couldn’t let the love that Kai had so desperately held onto slip through your fingers. You couldn’t turn your back on him now—not when he needed you the most.

The sound of the front door opening made you jump, and you quickly wiped away your tears. Kai stood in the doorway, his eyes searching the room, his gaze landing on you.

“Y/N?” he asked, his voice quiet, unsure. "What’s going on?"

You stood up slowly, still holding the letters in your hands. You didn’t know what to say. The words felt like they were lodged in your throat, too heavy to escape. But in that moment, you realized that the letters weren’t just about Kai's love—they were about hope. They were about a future he wished for but feared he wouldn’t be able to reach. And you would fight with him to make sure that love, that hope, didn’t fade along with the memories.

You looked up at him, a shaky breath leaving your lips. “I found something,” you said, your voice faltering, but firm. “I found your letters.”

Kai froze, his face a mixture of surprise and guilt. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“I know,” you whispered, your heart breaking all over again. "I know you’ve been writing to yourself. I know everything, Kai."

His gaze softened, and a vulnerability you hadn’t seen in weeks flickered across his face. The weight of your words hung between you like a thread, fragile and delicate.

“You’re not alone in this,” you said, taking a step toward him. “I’ll be here, even when you forget. I’ll help you remember. I promise.”

And in that moment, you both understood: no matter how much Kai’s memories faded, no matter how many pieces of him were lost, you would fight for him. You would fight for the love that still lingered between you—because that love, despite everything, was worth it.

The day you had been dreading arrived. You woke up with a sense of heaviness in your chest, knowing that the curse had slowly been taking more from Kai. His memory was fading, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. The letters you had found the day before had only confirmed what you already feared. But you still hoped—hoped that maybe today, Kai would remember you.

When you arrived at his apartment that afternoon, you were met with a strange silence. Normally, Kai would greet you with that small smile, maybe a joke about how you always showed up with something for him to eat. But today, there was nothing. The door was slightly ajar, and as you entered, you found him sitting on the couch, staring blankly at the wall.

“Hey,” you said softly, stepping closer.

Kai looked up at you, but there was no recognition in his eyes. His gaze was distant, clouded with confusion.

“Who are you?” he asked, his voice flat, almost disinterested. “Why are you here?”

A chill ran through you, and for a moment, you couldn’t breathe. It was like a punch to the gut, the way he looked at you like a stranger.

“Kai, it’s me… Y/N,” you said, your voice trembling. “You know me. Please… you have to remember.”

His brow furrowed as he stood up, taking a few steps back from you. “I don’t know you,” he said, his voice growing more firm. “Whoever you are, I don’t want any trouble. If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.”

The words stung more than anything you had ever heard from him. The man you loved, the one who had once been your closest friend, was now a stranger to you.

Panic gripped your heart, but you forced yourself to stay calm. You couldn’t lose him—not like this. Not when you still had a chance to remind him of who he was, who you were together.

“No, no, please don’t do that,” you said, holding your hands out in a placating gesture. “Kai, please listen to me. You’re not well. You don’t remember, but we—we’ve been through so much together.” You took a hesitant step toward him, searching his face for any sign of recognition. “Please, let me show you.” You grabbed his wrist and brought it next to yours. Showing him the matching bracelet you had bought together for both of you. “We got this together. remember? We picked them out together. I convinced you to get matching ones with me, remember? Don’t you dare forget about this, I told you I made sure you wouldn’t forget”

You dropped his wrist, watching his eyes flicker as he looked at it. There was a slight shift in his expression, like he was trying to grasp something just out of reach, but the confusion still clouded his face.

“Kai, we got this to remind us both that no matter what, we were always together,” you said, your voice soft but desperate. “Every time you wore it, it was a promise. A promise that we would never forget each other.”

He held your wrist, his fingers brushing back and forth against the bracelet. There was a brief moment where you both stood there, the weight of the silence settling in. But then, he just stared at it, his face blank.

“I don’t… I don’t remember,” he whispered, his voice cracking. The words broke something inside of you, the final piece of hope crumbling.

You swallowed, pushing past the lump in your throat. “Please, Kai. Please try to remember.”

There was no answer, just the quiet hum of the room, as you realized you weren’t getting through to him. The frustration, the heartbreak, was unbearable. But you refused to give up. “I have something—something important.”

You quickly ran around the apartment, scrambling to find the box of letters you had discovered earlier. It felt like an eternity as you searched through the drawers, the cabinets, before finally finding them tucked away in the corner of his desk. You grabbed the box, clutching it tightly as you returned to him.

“Please,” you whispered, your hands shaking as you held the box in front of him. “You need to read these. They’ll help you remember. I’m not lying to you, Kai. I swear. These letters—they’re from you. They’re from your heart. You wrote them to yourself. You’ve always known what’s happening to you.”

He stared at the box for a moment, his expression unreadable. Slowly, he took it from your hands, but his confusion didn’t seem to lessen. He opened one of the letters, scanning the words with a furrowed brow.

“‘Don’t let them leave,’” he read aloud, his voice shaky. “‘They’re worth every broken piece of us.’” His voice faltered as he looked up at you, his face clouded with sorrow. “What does this mean?”

You swallowed, your heart aching with each passing second. “It means that you loved me,” you said, your voice breaking. “You still love me. Even if you don’t remember it, Kai—please, don’t forget.”

As he read more of the letters, the room grew silent except for the soft rustling of paper. And then, Kai’s composure finally broke. The letters slipped from his hands, and he sank to the floor, his face twisted in pain. Tears filled his eyes, and for the first time in what felt like forever, he was truly himself again—vulnerable, raw.

“I don’t want to forget,” he whispered, his voice shaking with emotion. “I don’t want to lose you… but it’s happening, isn’t it? Every day, I forget something. And the worst part is, I don’t even know if I’ll ever remember.”

You knelt down beside him, your hands gently reaching for his. “You will. We’ll find a way. I promise.”

But even as you spoke the words, you knew the truth—you didn’t know how much longer you could keep him from slipping away completely.

“Please don’t leave me,” he whispered, his voice so small, so fragile. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you said firmly, your heart breaking for him. “I love you, Kai. And I’ll stay by your side, even if you forget me every single day. I’ll love you every time.”

The air between you was thick with the weight of your unspoken fears, but at that moment, there was nothing but love. Even in the face of everything, you couldn’t let him go. And neither could he.

The days that followed were a mixture of pain and small, precious moments of connection. Each time Kai forgot you, it was like losing him all over again. But each time, you reminded him of who you were, of the love you shared. Every morning, you greeted him with a soft smile, a quiet reassurance that you were still there, no matter how much he struggled to remember.

At first, it felt like an endless cycle. You would sit with him, gently telling stories of your past, hoping to jog his memory. You spoke of the first time you met, how you’d both been awkward, shy—how you had tried so hard to avoid that sudden, inexplicable pull toward each other. But something about him had always felt right, even in your early days of friendship. You reminded him of the long nights spent talking, the way you’d laughed until your stomachs hurt, how he had always been the one to help you when you needed it most.

And sometimes, when the silence between you grew heavy, you would find small ways to remind him—little touches, soft glances. You would let him trace the bracelet on your wrist, the one that matched his. The touch of his fingers against the metal, the way his hand would linger, gave you hope that maybe, just maybe, the memory of you would come back.

Kai had always been so different when he remembered. The walls he built up when he was lost in his confusion would crumble as soon as he recalled the way you had been there for him. You’d make him laugh, tell him ridiculous stories of your shared moments—those little inside jokes that only the two of you understood. You’d hold his hand as he laughed, feeling the warmth of him beside you, even if just for a fleeting moment.

There was a time, not long ago, when you sat down together on the couch after a long day. You started to tell him about the first time you painted together—how it had been messy, chaotic, but beautiful in its own way. He listened, still struggling to fully connect the pieces, but something in his eyes softened as he sat there, listening. You showed him the canvas you had both worked on, the colors that had splashed onto the surface, forming something that was imperfect but real.

“I don’t remember the first time we did this,” he admitted, his voice thick with regret. “But it sounds like something I would do.”

“You did,” you smiled, brushing your fingers over the painting. “We painted together and had a competition to see who could make the most ridiculous art. You won, but only because you made that ridiculous purple whale.”

A laugh escaped him, though it was laced with uncertainty. “A purple whale?”

“Yeah. Don’t you remember? You were so proud of it. It was huge, and it had these big, exaggerated eyes.”

His lips tugged into the slightest of smiles, the first you had seen in days. “I don’t remember that,” he murmured, but then he paused, his eyes locking with yours. “But I want to.”

“You will,” you promised softly. “We’ll keep painting. We’ll make new memories, even if it takes a thousand tries.”

And so you did. You spent hours together, making more art, more chaos, more laughter. The process was slow, but with each stroke of the brush, each color added to the canvas, Kai seemed to relax, his heart opening in ways that felt familiar, even if it wasn’t entirely whole yet.

One evening, you brought out a guitar and began to strum softly. It was something you used to do together, a way of passing the time, of reconnecting when words felt too heavy. You started with a simple melody, something that didn’t need to be said—just music to fill the space between you. Kai watched, unsure at first, but slowly he joined in, tapping his fingers against his leg in rhythm, his voice uncertain but getting stronger as you continued.

“This is how we always did it, wasn’t it?” you asked as you played. “You and me—making up songs, telling stories through music.”

Kai nodded slowly, his voice soft. “Yeah. I think… I think I remember.”

You smiled at him, the warmth between you both growing stronger with each moment you spent rebuilding what had been broken. Even if he couldn’t remember everything, even if the curse kept trying to tear you apart, you refused to let go. And Kai—though he was still lost in the fog of his memories—was holding onto you as tightly as he could.

In the evenings, after the music stopped and the painting was done, you would sit together in the quiet, just holding each other. No words were needed. You knew that as long as you kept telling him stories, as long as you kept showing him the love that had always been there, there was hope. Even if it was fleeting, even if it was only for a moment, Kai was still there. And you would never give up on him.

With each passing day, the memories might fade again. But you were determined to keep creating new ones. And when those old memories returned, you would be waiting, just as you always had been.

Even if it meant starting over each time, you were never going to let him forget that you loved him, and you always would.

Months had passed since the curse had first started, and in that time, you and Kai had settled into a fragile rhythm. There were good days—days where the fog in his mind seemed to lift just enough for him to remember fleeting moments, bits of laughter shared between you, the warmth of his hand in yours. But there were also bad days, where he looked at you with blank eyes, a stranger to him once again. Despite it all, you stayed.

Now, you lived together, sharing a space that once felt like a sanctuary but now held an undertone of pain. It was a daily battle, a fight to keep the love alive when it was constantly slipping away. But you couldn’t give up—not when he was fighting too, even if he didn’t fully understand why.

This morning, like every other, you woke before sunrise. The house was still, save for the soft sound of Kai’s breathing as he slept beside you. It was a routine at this point, you moved quietly, careful not to wake him, and grabbed your notebook from the nightstand. This had become a routine for you—to document the days, the moments you shared, the love you held onto so fiercely.

As you wrote, the words felt both familiar and painful. Yesterday had been one of those rare, beautiful days where Kai had laughed freely. You had baked cookies together, the kitchen a mess of flour and sugar, but neither of you had cared. You remembered the way his eyes had crinkled at the corners when he caught the flour on your nose, how he’d leaned over and kissed it off with a soft laugh. For a moment, you had forgotten the curse, forgotten the weight of everything that was slipping away.

But as always, reality crept back in.

You wrote, “Yesterday, you looked at me and smiled, like I wasn’t a stranger. Like we hadn’t been through this over and over again. I wish I could tell you that today would be different—that the curse will lift, and you will remember me completely.”

You paused, the words heavy in your chest. There was so much you wanted to say, but the pain of it all made it difficult. You ended the note with a final line, one you’ve written countless of time yet still feels like it had been ripped from your very soul: "Even when you forget me again, I will still love you with everything I have, Kai. I just wish you could remember that."

You placed the notebook carefully on the bedside table, leaving it open to the page you’d just written. With a quiet sigh, you climbed back under the covers and curled up beside Kai, feeling the warmth of his body against yours. You closed your eyes, trying to quiet the whirlwind in your mind, but the ache in your heart remained. It was always there, even in the moments when you were together.

Kai woke slowly, the soft light of the morning creeping into the room. He turned his head toward you, his brow furrowing as he saw your sleeping form next to him. For a moment, he simply stared at you, his mind a blur of confusion. He had no memory of the night before, no recollection of who you were in that moment. The curse had taken another piece of him, and for the thousandth time, he didn’t know you.

The room felt empty despite your presence, as if a vital part of him was missing. His eyes fell on the open notebook beside him. He reached for it, his fingers trembling slightly as he read the words. His heart pounded in his chest as he read through your description of the day, your laugh, your love. His breath caught when he read the last line, the raw emotion that poured from it. He felt something shift inside him, an overwhelming sorrow and recognition that he couldn’t fully grasp.

He looked back at you, lying peacefully next to him, and something in his chest broke. He didn’t remember all of it, but he knew, in that moment, that you were everything to him. His confusion swirled with a deep, aching emptiness. He couldn’t recall how he had fallen in love with you, but he felt it now—so painfully, so deeply.

Without thinking, Kai slid closer to you, the vulnerability in his eyes clearer than ever. He gently pulled you into his arms, burying his face in your hair, holding onto you as if you were the one thing in the world that mattered. You stirred in his arms, and without even realizing it, you clung to him, your own tears threatening to fall.

You had always known the pain of his memory loss, the ache that came with seeing him forget you again and again. But this—this was something different. The rawness in his touch, the desperate need to hold you close, even though he had no idea who you were—it was more than you could bear. You whispered his name, your voice thick with emotion.

“Kai…”

He pulled back slightly, his eyes searching yours with confusion and pain. “I don’t know who you are,” he whispered, his voice raw. “But I... I know that I need you.”

Your heart clenched. You held him tighter, your tears silently falling as you pressed your cheek to his chest. “You’re not lost, Kai. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.”

Despite the unfamiliarity, despite the confusion that still clouded his mind, Kai held you with everything he had. He didn’t understand what was happening or why his memories were slipping through his fingers like sand, but he knew one thing: you were his anchor. You were the one person who made sense in the chaos of his mind.

And for a moment, you allowed yourself to hope—hope that this time, no matter how many times he forgot you, you would never let go of him. Even if it meant living through the pain of his memory loss again and again, you would hold on. Because he was worth it. Every single time.

© all rights reserved ─ @gyu-tori 2025

Rei's Notes ✎: Tadaaa, another fic again this month, I hope this gave you the feels the same way it did for me while I was writing it. I had “Would you fall in love with me again” from epic the musical on repeat while writing this.

Thanks a lot to @beomiracles for beta reading part of this story!! Lots of love to her~ Not much else to say honestly, so I hope you enjoy and I'd love to hear your thoughts!!!

⟢ Taglist: @yunverie @dawngyu @hueningstar @hhoneyhan @immelissaaa @lovingbeomgyudayone @xylatox @soobabby @i-like-to-read-at-4am

[hyukascampfire]

TO: SOMEONE FROM A WARM CLIMATE 𓈒𓈒𓈒 ❨ O4 ❩ ──── 𝘧𝘰𝘰𝘭 𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦

𝓘N WHICH 𝗁𝗎𝗋𝗍 𝖿𝗂𝗓𝗓𝗅𝖾𝗌 𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖾𝗒𝖾𝗌 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗅𝗂𝗇𝖾𝗌 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖿𝖺𝖼𝖾. "𝗂𝗍 𝗌𝖾𝖾𝗆𝗌 𝗒𝗈𝗎'𝗏𝖾 𝖺𝗅𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝗒 𝖽𝖾𝖼𝗂𝖽𝖾𝖽 𝗐𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗂 𝖺𝗆 𝖿𝗈𝗋 𝗆𝖾, 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾𝗇'𝗍 𝗒𝗈𝗎?" 𝗁𝖾 𝗌𝗍𝗎𝗆𝖻𝗅𝖾𝗌 𝗎𝗉 𝖿𝗋𝗈𝗆 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗌𝖾𝖺𝗍, 𝗍𝗈𝗐𝖾𝗋𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗋 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝖺 𝖼𝗎𝗋𝗅𝖾𝖽 𝗅𝗂𝗉. "𝗌𝖺𝗒 𝗂𝗍," 𝗁𝖾 𝖼𝗁𝖺𝗅𝗅𝖾𝗇𝗀𝖾𝗌. "𝗌𝖺𝗒 𝗐𝗁𝖺𝗍 𝗂 𝖺𝗆."

﹙🏹﹚ 23.3𝑘 𝔊 ﹕ 𝖿𝖺𝗇𝗍𝖺𝗌𝗒 𝖿𝖺𝖾𝗋𝗂𝖾 taehyun 𝑥 𝔣 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 & 𝖿𝖺𝖾𝗋𝗂𝖾 yeonjun 𝑥 𝔣 𝗋𝖾𝖺𝖽𝖾𝗋 ࣪˖ angst, unprotected sex, voyeurism a bit, orgasm denial, cumming without touch, male yearning and groveling, dubious intentions of just everybody, poor mc has no idea who or what to believe, jealousy, letters, steamy sex um ─── (𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡)

🪶⦂ this part, i put my heart and soul into! i rewrote so many parts and agonized over following the path that i most wanted the story to go down—i hope it shows! xoxoxoxo, love ya! again, this is a long one, so pls let me know about spelling mistakes :,)

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You had hoped that learning of Yeonjun’s relationship with the same crowd who have made attempts on your life would be enough to rattle your brittle heart into sense. You really had. As you watch Taehyun, bent over the war strategy table, though, you wish you had more time to sort it out in your head. You hate the thought of settling on half-baked answers and information all for the fact that time is not on your side. When had time ever really been kind to you, though? It had not made exceptions when you were small and innocent in your cradle, had not slowed down to allow you to at least cherish your final moments a normal child with her human parents. You can only fantasize who you would be if you had been given just enough time to know that gentle love. Even now, time makes your choices for you.  

Taehyun looks over those metal figurines as if searching for something in them. There are more of them stood and strewn out on the map. It reminds you how you are now faced with a plethora of newer, more powerful players.  

You miss when this had been a simple spying mission—when your path forward had been unobscured and clear. You envy that version of yourself: able to believe that bad things presented themselves as such. The world had been clean-cut. Evil had jagged teeth and foul breath, and good had soft edges and sweet smiles. You’re not sure where that distinction lies anymore.  

“How’s your shoulder?” you say, making your presence known. You’re sure he had been keen to your presence from the moment you’d entered the estate, though; not only thanks to his better hearing, but also because Taehyun is constantly assessing his surroundings. The smallest insect could hardly sneak up on him. You push off the doorframe and enter the room. 

He nods his head once in greeting, but he doesn’t tear his gaze away from the table’s ensemble. “It’s doing fine.” 

Sighing, you decide not to push it. The sight of that puncture had been ghastly, and it wreaks havoc in your belly every time you replay it, but the tick in his jaw when you mention it tells you enough of how he feels about disclosing whether or not anything might hurt him. How many times in the past few weeks had you forced him to do just that? It’s no wonder that the two of you butt heads so terribly. Allowing you to stitch him up must’ve been the extent of how far he’d let you see him in need of help. 

You gesture toward the table. “Have you decided when we leave?” 

Taehyun answers you with a strained sigh out through his nose: a testament to how he’d been mulling it over. He levies those figures a few more moments of his gaze as if they might speak an answer for him. They don’t. He concedes to their lack of direction and turns to you. “Every moment we spend here, we risk our identities further,” he starts, crossing his arms over his chest.  

You wince. He still believes that you’d at least contained some of your identity by taking out those three faeries. You know better. Even the bard in that tavern had known what had happened; it’s why Yeonjun ended up finding out in the first place. Even if not all of them had been a part of that rebellion, it’s reckless to assume that there were no more than that. 

Continuing, he says, “And judging by what we’ve picked up, we need to get it all back before the solstice.” He doesn’t pace as he thinks. Only the faraway look in his eyes betray the noise in his head. 

You hate the way it sounds like he’s going to demand that you leave immediately, and you hate how it sieges your tongue and makes it dance into a pitiful ploy to stay. To give yourself some credit, it’s better that Taehyun knows every bit of information you have. This moment is desperate for informed decisions. 

“I saw Yeonjun this morning,” you blurt. The words bubbled and bubbled behind your lips until they’d found the tipping point and spilled out. You’d agonized over what to make of it all for hours: that Yeonjun had been as deceitful with you as you’d been with him, that you are a sorry human girl that had wedged her way into the cross-firings of a war much beyond yourself, that you still have the gall to consider your own feelings despite its grandness... None of that worrying had led you to a conclusion that both your heart and mind would agree on.  

Taehyun’s gaze snaps to you, contained and remote aside from the twitching at the corners of his lips. The intensity of it makes you waver, but you have no time for wavering.  

“He’s... been made aware of our purpose here. He knows that we’re spies,” you say. As you watch him try to piece that together, you add, “He’s part of their rebellion.” 

Now he laughs, barbed and full of mock and disbelief. “The prince is rebelling against his father? He thinks he’ll find the throne like that? What’s his plan for when this falls through? For when his father hears of his mutiny? The prince will lose his head.” 

The thought makes you nauseous, despite how Yeonjun’s image has grown to be something murky. You don’t know what Yeonjun’s intentions are in aligning with the rebellion here. You hardly know anything about his relationship with his father and the High Court aside from the fact that he feels suffocated by his life back there. You’d assume that there’s a lot more to his reasoning, but you’ve learned your lesson about assuming that you know who people are. The inability to lie comes with the need for secrets. The thought that perhaps Yeonjun is only making a shady attempt for power crosses your mind, but either your own reasoning or your own stubbornness shoves it down. Nobody in faerie would hand their fealty to a prince who’d taken the throne of a long-standing king by those sorts of means. He’d be a king with no denizens to preside over. 

You interject Taehyun’s parade of scoffs. “He told me that war is coming, that it’s been coming.” 

His face drops, and he straightens up. “Of course it is. It’ll begin the moment we return with what we’ve found.” 

Your lips go a bit numb, and then your fingers follow. You know that this is your duty—it’d been this all along. It should come as no shock to you that he intends to relay this all to The King. But that was before you allowed your heart to make its home here. How simply he demands that you return to those lands with information that would kill Yeonjun... it has acid crawling a path up your throat. 

You make your best effort to ensure that your voice doesn’t falter as you speak. “He offered us protection as long as we stay here,” you say. “We don’t have to leave now.” You try to catch his gaze as you add, “We don’t have to leave at all.”  

You know that Yeonjun plays a part in the rebellion, but you don’t know how deep his devotion goes, and you also don’t know to what ends you can trust his intentions. How far do his loyalties to the rebellion go? And, where do his loyalties to you stand? The thought that he may have never loved you at all... it’s been a plague to your heart and mind from the very moment he’d revealed the truth to you this morning. Your guilt has chipped away at you without mercy—you’ve spent so many awful nights wishing you could unload your deceptions in front of him. How had it ended up so trivial in the grand scheme of things? How are you the one left feeling betrayed? 

You really, really cannot imagine having Yeonjun’s blood on your hands. He is one of them—a creature deception, and yet you still cannot shake those stolen nights from your bones. He had been your first. He’d made this place a home for you, where you had never had a home. It’s pitiful to search so deeply in someone else for your own strengths; even you can see that. Nevertheless, you do it. You suppose that a pair of warm arms and sweet words will do that to someone, no matter if you know that they could rot you like sweets do the tooth. It’s not unlike drunkards who find their day’s comfort in their drinks, even as it rots their body and mind away. Anything for a stretch of belonging and bliss. You're desperate for it. 

Taehyun’s sinewy words rattle your wandering mind back to reality. “He tells you that he is a member of the same group of people that have tried multiple times to kill you, and you believe him when he says he’s going to protect you? Still?” he spits, shaking his head. “What makes you so sure that he’s not just keeping us from running? That he isn’t handing us on a platter to his rebel friends? You’re going to get us fucking killed.” 

Blood roars like frothy-white rapids in your ears, warring with the echoes of his honey-glazed exclamations of love. To some capacity, he had to have meant those words. Faeries can’t lie, and he had said it so plainly. He loves you. 

“We can’t leave yet,” you say, stepping toward him on legs that you fear might collapse beneath you. “You said it yourself; we can’t return without the whole story. If we return now, we could be missing something.” You study the frosty set to his face and suck in a stabilizing breath. “Please, Taehyun. Please trust me on this.”  

You sound desperate and pleading, but you don’t reel it in at all. You are desperate and pleading. You have no intent of returning as some successful spy and continuing a life of deception and violence. It’s not who you are; it’ll never be who you are. Maybe this world tries to ask it of you, but you refuse to concede to it. 

“Part of our job is staying alive,” he says, his body rigid. He doesn’t like where you’re going with this, you can tell that much. 

“Is that what you want? To be a pawn of war? Isn’t that what we are if we bring this information back?” you challenge. “Don’t you think that if the prince of all people has turned against him, then serving at his hand is the wrong choice? I don’t know The King—I’ve never even seen him! Why should I be excited to serve him?” 

“The prince has more reason than anybody to want his father off his throne.” 

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you say, stepping further toward him. Though, it does make you revisit those thoughts. If vying for the crown is really Yeonjun’s intention, you suppose he’d have no problems pleading with you to stay in order to tie off loose ends. You wish you could see it all from somebody else’s untainted eyes. “What I’m saying is, do you want to be a spy? What has The King ever done for you to earn your loyalty?” 

Taehyun looks at you with disbelief, the corners of his mouth tilting down. “I don’t care about the damn king,” he snaps, and then gestures down at the table with all those figures. “The Queen operates on necessary evils. Where she can find a string to pull, she will pull it. My father was her general for a reason. Do you think she would keep him unless she approved of his violence? There is no good side to this war—just sides. If you’re suggesting that we stay here and try to forget that we came as spies, then you can forget it.” 

You glance over at the war table and wonder how you’ve become a moving piece in ancient faerie politics when all you’d set out for was a purpose. You’d been so warped by your bitterness with your upbringing that you’d failed to see how anything could be worse than that. You’d been so excited that you jumped willingly into dark water without knowing how deep it was, and now your feet can’t touch the ground. Is this the purpose you want? 

“Leave, then,” you say, stepping back. “You can leave. Just let me stay here. Please.” 

Something in Taehyun’s expression flips, so subtle that you can’t name it. It unsettles you, your hair standing on edge. There is something in his eyes that you do not like.  

“So, that’s it?” he says, his voice odd too. “That’s all it took for you to hand your future over on a leash to him?” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” you stammer. The only ones with a collar around your neck are the spies. They’re the ones who insisted on that geas—the ones who needed to compel you with their faerie magic to ensure your obedience.  

“It means that you got all the way here, uncovered a whole rebellion, and made a life for yourself, not handed to you by a prince, and you’re going to trade it in. It means that you’ve let him convince you that you are weak and need to be coddled.” 

Your fists curl tight and dig your nails into your palms. “I never wanted to be a spy,” you grit out. Yeonjun is not the reason you want to stay here. He may be part of it, but you’ve come to be utterly unwilling to return to that spy den like it’s your home, or something. It’s not. You’d slept there for one night. Beyond just your word and that geas, what reason do you have to return? 

“You didn’t? And yet, it’s what we are, isn’t it?” he says. “Do you think that I dreamed of being a spy? That I do it because I love it? Actions have their consequences.” 

“Then, what do you do it for, Taehyun?” you say. “When do you begin living your life for you? Doing what you do because it’s what you want?” 

Taehyun seems to consider your words for a few long heartbeats before settling into something in his head. You allow yourself to let go of some of the tension in your shoulders as you watch his expression morph into something much less poisonous. 

You hadn’t expected him to react like that. 

“Do you have any weapons on you?” he says. 

Faltering, you sputter out, “What?” You look over the room. The last time you’d been in here, you’d sparred. Does he intend to properly fight you in here now? Had you pushed him too far? Shaking your head and feeling at all the places you usually tuck your blades away, you say, “No... I don’t.” 

“Get some. Where we’re about to go...” he trails off, as if reconsidering, but then he continues, “I’ll get you a hag stone.” 

You furrow your brows, not taking off to do so. “A hag stone?” you echo, thankful that he isn’t trying to duel you, but wary at the need for such a faerie ward. Hag stones are of the more serious class of wards used to protect humans from faerie enchantment or glamour. Most often, humans would string theirs up with a bit of thread through the hole of it and wear it around their necks as a pendant. Unlike turning one’s clothes inside out or taking red berries on your person, hag stones protect against the more devastating faerie magic. You shudder simply wondering what you might need a hag stone to protect yourself from. 

He nods a bit solemnly. “Kelpie do not let a meal or trick pass them by when they wait so long to have them.” 

You look at him with wild eyes, hoping to see him laugh or play his words off as a joke. He does not, but of course he doesn’t. Taehyun doesn’t waste his words on jokes. 

“Why... Why would we be going to a kelpie?” you ask him, laughing around the ball of fright in your chest. 

He lends you a wretched look. “I have old debts to call on.” 

❆

The forest in which Taehyun leads you is untamed. At some point, the sound of nature’s buzzing tapers off, and you know that you’ve entered a deeper forest than you ought to be sticking your nose in. When the forest goes silent, it’s only for one reason.  

You’d grown up here. Maybe you’d been born elsewhere, but that does not negate the fact that you had grown up scared every day of the powerful creatures that inhabit this world. Your fear has ruled you for your whole life, and you let it. You’d be a fool not to. It’s how you survive in this world. Your limbs tremble; they plead with you to listen to everything you’ve ever known—do not mess with what is bigger than you.  

You step around frost-capped puddles and dance between briars, careful not to snag yourself on their claws. It unsettles you further that this part of the forest is so untrodden and overgrown. With no folk coming through, you fear how the kelpie might behave when you make an audience before it. Will it climb straight from its frosty swamp and drag you back down with it? Is the hag stone you clutch at your chest enough to keep you safe? 

“I don’t understand why we’re doing this, Taehyun,” you say, delicately avoiding any tumbles as you speed up to gauge his feelings by his face. You’re not fond of the remote blankness in his eyes, nor the staunch determined set to his jaw. “That thing might kill us, and your shoulder is hurt. You shouldn’t be out here; you should be letting it heal.” 

“I know my limits,” he says. 

Grimacing, you return his curt tone. “Taehyun.” You grab at the material of his sleeve with urgency. When he stops to look at you, you continue. “I want you to actually listen to me. You’re being unreasonable. Yeonjun said he’d use his pull to protect us. Both of us. We have no reason to be out here, you’re just putting us in danger.” 

He lets your words stew in the air for a moment before saying, “I’m the one putting us in danger? Me?” He scoffs. “We are about as safe dealing with a kelpie as we are living off his promises. I’m doing what’s best for us. Trust me.” 

You’re winded by his choice of words. You’ve become wary of dealing out your trust so frivolously. Those two words ring alarm bells. 

“But where is this coming from? You didn’t want to stay.” Your breath furls out in a plume of white smoke in front of your face as you speak.  

He looks as if he doesn’t want to answer that. It only makes you more apprehensive. Your limbs fill with lead, planting you where you stand. “Taehyun, I’m scared,” you say. “Isn’t finding help from a solitary faerie a bit too far? How is trusting Yeonjun any more dangerous than that?” 

Taehyun steps toward you. “He is going to kill us. It’s not if, it’s when. That bastard is going to hurt you. This... This is for us. We are self-sufficient; we don’t need his protection shit.” A bitter tang colors his words. “I know that you’re scared. I won’t let it hurt you; I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise that you’ll be okay. You want to stay, don’t you?” 

You nod. You would even make deals with a kelpie for it.  

“Okay, then, let’s go,” he says, taking off with those words, effectively punctuating the conversation.  

You follow him. 

You grow more anxious the deeper you trudge into the forest without any consolation as the daylight begins creeping away. Following behind Taehyun, the wind whips at the perfect angle so that his form takes most of its terror, allowing you a respite from at least some of the brutal cold. You don’t feel any remorse using him as a shield against the elements—frost runs through his veins. He doesn’t shiver or wince at it. 

Taehyun stops a few feet before a wintry mire framed by crystallized cattails and reeds. Your heart stutters as he looks around to ensure that this is the right spot. The water is dark and deep. You stay a healthy distance away from it. You do not want to find out just how deep it is. 

“Where is it?” you say, keeping your voice low as if the beast might lunge from the water and snatch you up if you don’t. 

Taehyun surveys the forest surrounding you and then the body of water as he always does, and when he looks to you, you already know he’s calculated and planned. He doesn’t face a situation without thought—that notion soothes you, even if it’s to the slightest degree.  

“It won’t come until I call it,” he says, gesturing at those murky and horrible watery depths. Swallowing hard, you consider how close you stand to it. You take a shuffled step back. “When you see it, you need to stay calm. Don’t let it see your fear. It’ll find it amusing and latch onto you. Do you understand?” 

A rush of heavy dread spreads from your core and seizes your lungs at his words. You’ve made it this far. You want to stay. You want to stay, bad. If this thing outsmarts you, you will not go down without swinging this time. You have your daggers, and you know how to wield them. Bravery is most of the battle, isn’t it? 

You muster a nod, trying to give yourself a brave heart, but Taehyun shakes his head. Your eyes must betray how stricken you are. “Do you understand?” he repeats, his voice sharp and grave. 

“I do.” 

He accepts your words, pressing on. “It will try to trip you over your words and spin you into a trap with tricky words. Do not entertain it, even as it tries, okay?” 

You’ve been terrorized by faerie tricks your whole life. You can handle their schemes just fine. “Okay.” 

Taehyun frees a blade from its hiding place and brings it to his palm. He slides it there, slicing it open. Crimson creeps from the slit, running in between his fingers and trickling onto the snow. He’d cut pretty deep. 

“Why are you—Taehyun?” you say, stepping toward him as he curls his wounded hand into a fist over the water, shaking it so as to let the droplets down into the black water. You regret those steps you’d made toward him as something comes crashing through the surface. 

No, rather than emerging from under the surface, the beast is born from the water, manifesting from it as something gangly and wretched. From its pointed ears to its hooves, it pushes up from nothingness until it is standing there, real and terrible before you. Its skin glistens with a thickness like oil and its hair and tail hang in heavy, seaweed-like tendrils, plastered against its body. The scum floating on top of the water clung to its hair and pelt as it rose, twigs and the like poking from its withered body. A bridle cages its head, leather reins dangling down. Of all its awful things, you believe that its eyes are the worst—bone-white and piercing, they send a terror down your spine that solidifies in your bones. You know you will not soon forget the ancient soullessness that lives there. The folk do sometimes resemble the places in which they hail from; you suppose that the kelpie bares striking resemblance to the swirling water that sits at its feet. 

You try not to choke or gasp or react in any way at all, but it isn’t easy. You focus your adrenaline on keeping your breathing as even as you can manage. 

“It has been a long time since I’ve found a human at my doorstep,” the creature says, steam blowing from its nostrils as it snorts. How long might a long time mean to a faerie, especially one you know is so ancient? You hope that your presence does not intrigue the beast at all. 

Taehyun swoops in before you can speak, and you are boundlessly thankful for it. “I’ve come to call on the debt you owe me,” he says. He doesn’t leave any room for any familiarity or playfulness. 

“Is it that time?” the kelpie says, placing one hoof down onto the snow. It had looked so incorporeal and liquid that you half expect it to burst and turn to water as it does, but it climbs out just fine. Very real.  

Taehyun eyes the kelpie as it makes land, dribbling with water and its kelp hair swinging. You swallow hard as it disregards his presence to observe you. You’re used to the folk disregarding you, not this. How many years had you yearned for their attention? Right now, you scare under it.  

“For what do you need my help, boy?” it says, voice gurgled, “And why do you bring this human along? Is it for her? Or, rather, have you brought her as your peace offering?” 

Your legs tremble beneath you.  

“I don’t owe you any peace offering, kelpie,” Taehyun says, his head held righteously high. “You’ll offer me what I ask, or you’ll suffer for it.” 

Shifting under the tense atmosphere, you still don’t speak. In Faerie, debt is law. The folk live by a law that is, like many other things about them, foreign to you. Whatever natural laws by which they govern themselves are vastly lost on you—but of keeping promises and respecting debts, you are very aware. They hate to be indebted—you’re sure it’s why this kelpie is so peevish. You hope that the folk’s need to balance their debts is enough to keep it hospitable.  

The kelpie makes a rumbling and throaty sound that mimics that of a laugh. It rumbles the ground below your feet. “Just as rigid as the last time we met like this,” it says. “I wonder if it's because you’ve inherited your father’s stone heart, or because you fear me?” 

The kelpie remains playful with its intonation, but tension lies thick and dangerous beneath both of their words. You know well enough that the beast is not being light-hearted.  

Taehyun holds his face firm. He refuses to give an inch. “Do not try that with me. You have your word to upkeep for my help.” 

Shimmering under the moon’s light now, the beast treats us with a long moment of hostile silence. You can feel its malintent despite how hollow those eyes remain.  

“What do you ask of me?” it finally says, whipping its drooping tail behind it. 

“There is a rebellion here,” starts Taehyun, shoulders relaxing to the slightest degree as the kelpie defers, “The north is uneasy. I’m optimistic that you’ll lend us your protection and hand, whenever I call on it. Regardless of it being in my interest, I’m sure that you aim to keep your lands peaceful, no?” 

“Rebellion? For what would anything of the courts be in my interest? Of their rebellion or even just their ridiculousness, I do not care. I’ve left your gentry to you, leave me to mine.” 

Taehyun’s nostrils flare. “I’m not asking you to care about the courts, I’m asking you to lend me your help when I ask of it,” he grits out, “Or, rather, I’m not asking. I am informing you that I am expecting you to uphold your debt to me, and you’d better be ready to do so. This is just courtesy.” 

You feel the kelpie’s offense in the hollow quiet that follows Taehyun’s demands. Among many things, the fae are prideful creatures. Your stomach is in terrible knots. Taehyun is just trying to regain the power in the situation. You know that. It doesn’t make you any less scared for your life. With an ancient creature like a kelpie, it is paramount to earn its respect, or else it will push you around. 

Worse than that. It will drag you down into its waters and make your soul into a meal. 

“It’s a pity you think that hag stone will save you from me, human.” The kelpie turns its attention back on you. You bade your knees not to crumple. “It takes much more than that to protect you in places like these. Perhaps you’ll be safe from petty enchantment, though.”  

Taehyun shoves his words in before you can give the kelpie any sort of reaction. Not even a tremble. “Understood?” 

“You’ve made deals with our kind before. The magic reeks on you. It’s lousy enchantment, I could dissolve that geas for you. All you’d have to do is climb up on my back, and I’d grant you your freedom.”  

You can’t help but perk up. The prospect of ridding yourself of the geas placed over you is a painfully delicious one. 

Bristling, Taehyun steps between you and the kelpie. Whether he does it to fight off the beast should it lunge at you or to prevent you from approaching it, you’re unsure. “Do not,” he says. 

“Wasn’t going to.” You say it, and of course it’s true. The kelpie is poking around to see what will most entice you. Regardless, you can’t deny how awfully you wish that geas were gone. It’s the one thing that you fear will tether you to The King’s bidding. No matter how you armor yourselves from the rebellion here in the north, what’s to stop the spies from tugging on the enchanted leash? One command from Cricket, and your body would betray you and walk the whole way there itself. 

Though you don’t verbalize your interest, the kelpie no doubt sees the interest alight in your eyes. It pounces accordingly. “Unless you’d prefer that I give you a whole other enchantment. Protection against any of our kind’s glamours? Permanant true sight? A touch to my pelt would be all it would take for you to make yourself free.” 

Taehyun clicks just the hilt of his sword free from the sheathe. “Stop with the tricks. You can find your fun elsewhere.” 

Like the swampish water behind it, the kelpie stands there totally still, studying Taehyun. You really wish this altercation could wrap up at any pace faster than it currently is. You’re itching to escape those white eyes. They’re much more intimidating as night settles in. What sort of thing had Taehyun even done to indebt a creature like this to him? Once again, you’re left confronting how little you know of him and his past. By the time you’ve come to terms with the last thing, the next arrives to remind you that the folk lead much longer lives than you do. 

It finally speaks again. “Why have you brought this human with you, Lord?” Its furls out the term like a weapon. This bitter intonation that you’ve seen be used multiple times to speak of Taehyun’s title sticks with you. The title is a taunt. In this case, the you know it comes from the kelpie’s place of utter indifference and lack of obeisances toward whatever sovereignty the Courts may claim. The kelpie only answers to the land.  

“Because I needed you to know that your protection will extend to her. Know her face, learn it so that when I call on you, you’ll play your part correctly.” 

“I fail to see why you dote over her safety. Who is the human to you?” The kelpie takes a step forward, its powerful muscles rippling with the moon’s white light on its ink pelt. You mirror it with a step back. Taehyun stays put. “I owe her no help. That’s not how this works. I concede that I am bound to your help, but I do not repay double. You overestimate my generosity.” 

You watch as Taehyun takes on a posture that you’ve come to recognize as his offensive posture, potent adrenaline twisting up your stomach and sending your heart into a fit so fierce that you feel it in all your pulse points. You’re sure that swords are a laughable matter to the kelpie. Iron, though, you’re sure would still burn. Turning your hands to fists, you make a conscious effort not to find your iron weapons. If the kelpie were to see that, it may escalate things. You do not want to escalate.  

It’s only smart for you to consider your disadvantages: Taehyun is wounded. He had literally been struck by an arrow last night. You’re so far into the woods that running would consist of stumbling over roots and avoiding thorny bushes. Taehyun might know them, but you’re fully unfamiliar with a kelpie’s weaknesses, or if they even have any at all. You’re better off appeasing the beast.  

“Taehyun,” you warn. 

He pays it no mind. “I said,” he snarls, “stop with the tricks. You owe your very ability to draw breath to me, and beyond that. It was my neck on the line to grant you that. What I did for you was worth many debts. If you want to settle it all to even, you’ll do it. Don’t play this like a fool.” He doesn’t address the kelpie’s first question. 

Taehyun creeps toward the kelpie. You’re not sure where he sources all that fearlessness from inside himself. He’s way too close for your comfort. “What are you doing?” you hiss, quiet and meant for just him. There is no way he intends to fight this thing right now. You’d prefer taking the risk of trusting Yeonjun’s word over this any day. 

“Even the general”—the kelpie spits that word with a similar distaste as he had Taehyun’s title—“knew when he was in over his head. Ask a more respectable payment of me.” 

You suck in a breath. “Let’s just go,” you tell Taehyun. “We don’t need to do this; we didn’t need to in the first place.”  

As Taehyun takes one last step toward the kelpie, he reaches a sword’s distance from it.  

Really? Is this happening right now? 

“I’m giving you grace right now, kelpie,” he says, his voice pure warning, “My father is the one who landed you like that. It’s humorous that you’d even speak of him while we’re sorting out the debts that you incurred because of him. I suggest that you give up the sly act.” 

Once again, a charged and meaningful pause rings throughout the forest. The silence speaks volumes of how the kelpie takes his words.  

It’s a flash of movement, the two dark figures like blurs as Taehyun’s hand flies out to grab a hold of the reins that hang from its head and the kelpie rears back with a bone-piercing, harrowing whinny. He braces himself on its side and uses its flank to push off of. The creature bucks fast, but Taehyun is faster.  

The rage that it bellows with guts you. The forest ground trembles with its frantic clambering, hooves battering the snow.  

The kelpie’s frenzy ends as Taehyun takes the reins in both hands. It doesn’t make any more attempts to send him off, nor does it stumble about wildly. It settles. The kelpie bows its head. Your hands cover your mouth. They’re ready to muffle your scream. You wait for Taehyun to become one with the beast’s figure and for it to drag him down to the depths of its water that don’t see the sun’s light. Nothing happens. Instead, he slips off the back of the kelpie without any trouble, landing with a thud back on the ground.  

“Fix your appearance,” Taehyun commands.  

You allow a sound of surprise to slip as the beast melts down, shedding water to the ground and crumpling over. You watch it shrink all the way down until, where once the gangly beast had stood, the form of a faerie man stands. He unfurls from the forest floor to his full height, taller than Taehyun and reedy in his limbs. His hair cascades down from his head in shaggy, damp brown locks with twigs and leaves tangled in. Sharp faerie ears protrude from it. It confirms to you that this is just another form of the kelpie, not someone else entirely. 

“You’re a fool,” the man says, turning on Taehyun with wild eyes.  

You join his confrontation on Taehyun. “What the hell is going on?” you say. You’re still jittery with the urge to run. 

Taehyun entertains only you, saying, “I hoped that he’d just make things easy in the first place.” 

The man, dripping with water from his tattered, sopping rags for clothes, sneers. “I would not serve you if you fucking killed me. Of course you had to take my bridle.” 

You give Taehyun an expectant look. You’re in dire need of being filled in. 

“His bridle,” he says, grabbing the reins that still hang from the man’s face even in his human form and tugging him into a walk into the forest, “I grabbed it. He serves me, now. He can hate it all he wants, but he’ll do what I ask.” 

The thought makes you deeply uncomfortable, but you can’t pin exactly why. It lives somewhere around the place inside you that loathed the way the folk made your kind into their glamoured servants.  

“We’re just going to bring him back with us?” You trail them tentatively back through the woods that you had arrived from. “Like a prisoner, or something?” 

“Exactly like a prisoner,” the man says, excited to get a hit in on Taehyun. Of course, he’s unhappy.  

He stumbles as Taehyun tugs him forward by his bridle. “Shut your mouth,” Taehyun says. It’s more commanding than angry. “What’s your name?” he asks him.  

The man looks as though he wants to deny him that knowledge. Names are a powerful thing to a faerie. They spend their lives hiding them away—to give away their real name would make them totally vulnerable to the whims of whoever knows and uses it. However, you assume that whatever hold Taehyun has over him now works in a similar way, and his lips move despite his revolt.  

“Beomgyu,” he answers, eyes full of bite. 

You climb between a pair of close-resting, gnarled trees. “Does he have to keep that thing on, Taehyun?” you say, struggling with the sight of him being dragged along. It’s unsettling. “Like, does it work without that?” 

Stopping, Taehyun reaches up to pull the bridle off and around from Beomgyu’s head. He lets it fall to the snow. “You can use his name if you need to command him and I’m not around. He’ll have to do what you say.” Pushing Beomgyu into a walk, he says, “You’re going to protect us if in any case we need it. That includes her. You’re going to stay within my estate, unless one of us brings you somewhere. You won’t try your hand at any escape, and you won’t make any attempts to harm us either directly or by omitting something you are aware will do so.” 

You rub your hands together to generate heat as he lists his commands. Why would he even need those precautions, if Beomgyu is supposed to be his compulsory servant now? Would that not mean that he’d be unable to harm him? Either Taehyun is being extra precautious, or the command he has over him is weaker than you had thought at first. Beomgyu scowls the whole way through. Perhaps if Taehyun had not spoken those exact words, he would have lunged at him. 

As the kelpie stalls, Taehyun urges him forward once again with a shove. “Walk,” he snaps. “You did this to yourself. If you’d been a respectable man, I’d have only asked for your help when we needed. Now, you’re following us everywhere.” He allows him to stew on that for a little before saying, “You do your job well and I’ll let you return to your waters. I’ll forget I even made you my servant, and you’ll live knowing you’re no longer in my debt. You’ll not have to worry that someone might tame you again, because I already had, and I won’t even utilize it. We’ll never even make each other’s acquaintance again. You’ll be free to toil in your forest, and I will stay far away. All I need is for you to keep us alive and unharmed.” 

At least he doesn’t intend to keep him forever as an eternal servant. Most faeries that fall into debts work their long lives as living servants. Your years as Nut-hatch's worker taught you how that life whittles your soul down. Hundreds of years of just that is unfathomable. Maybe that is the cost of betraying honor here, though.

“So be it,” Beomgyu says, teeth gritted.  

You continue to trudge through the forest behind them. 

❆

Once you’re within the walls of the estate and Beomgyu is given a place to stay, you turn to Taehyun. “What part of that was safer than trusting Yeonjun?” you say.  

His eyes drop closed and he sighs. “It was worlds safer,” he grits out. “I knew what I was doing. You had that hag stone, and I’d have cut him down if he tried anything.” 

He stretches out his shoulders, shifting them uncomfortably under the fabric of his tunic. You know that his sewn-up wound bothers him. Could it be getting infected? You hope not—an infection this early on would most definitely mean it would be a nasty one. If only he weren’t insistent on pretending that it’s nothing. “I don’t think you could”—you gesture at your own shoulder—“you’re going to infect your shoulder. I don’t know how to treat an infected wound that big.” 

“I wouldn’t have even gone there if I thought I couldn’t handle it. I had a plan. I can protect us just fine.” 

Us. You’ve been wondering what your purpose here might become once you abandon returning to your duties. Would you be staying with Yeonjun? If he betrays you, and Taehyun were to push you out now that you’re no longer partners in duty, where would you go? Crawl to the doorstep of some random faerie to place yourself in their services, just to find yourself a warm place to stay? Taehyun now makes it clear that he still sees the two of you as a pair, but why? You still can’t understand why he’d suddenly switched up the moment you said you’d stay here even if he left. Realistically, he should’ve killed you for being a traitor to the king that he serves. You know that his intentions are more complex than that, but you fail to grasp where they lie. His actions and his words clash.  

“And when Yeonjun doesn’t betray us? What will all of this be for?” 

“This doesn’t stop at the prince,” he says, “there are more players than just him and The Queen. Any one of them could determine that we’re liabilities. Don’t you think that we should prepare for that? We came here as spies infiltrating their court from the very king that they rebel against; of course they’ll have plans for us. It’s still best that you stay your distance from the prince from this point on, regardless, unless you bring the kelpie.” 

Your mouth drops open, brows pinching. You don’t like the thought of being chaperoned at all. If Yeonjun is to betray you, then it’ll be your own fault. You can take the consequences of your actions just fine. “I think I can make that decision for myself,” you say, voice low. “And I can protect myself, too. Are you saying my skills aren’t up to your standards? Well, I didn’t spend that time working on them for nothing, and I don’t plan on stopping. I know I’m not perfect, but I think I can at least use a dagger adequately.” 

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Taehyun says, eyes flat with frustration. “You can protect yourself well. I know that. What I mean is that you shouldn’t rest your life on his integrity. I have no doubts that you’d be able to protect yourself from him alone. He’s delicate. The King doesn’t pamper his children, but I have no doubt that the prince hasn’t wielded a sword anywhere other than in sparring. But you don’t know if you’ll ever truly be alone, and you don’t know whether or not he’s setting you up. I think you can at least agree that it’s best that you can acknowledge that and behave accordingly, no?” 

“I rested my life on your integrity today. Am I supposed to trust you blindly, too? What if you’re just stringing me along until you kill me for my treason to The King? You were his spy, no? How many years did you serve him? Why have you given it up so easily? Why are you staying here? None of it makes sense to me, but I still trusted you. Was I wrong for that? Are you a liar, Taehyun? Does your tongue tell lies?” 

His eyes crystallize, a few degrees colder than you’d seen them all day. “I can lie,” he says. “But would I have done what I did today if I intended to kill you? It’s time that you see that actions tell you so much more than words ever will.” 

Again, he treads around your questions about his intentions. “Why are you staying here?” you repeat, studying him with your suspicion.  

He’s quiet. 

“Answer me,” you demand. 

“Is this not my home?” he says. 

Unsatisfied, you press more. “I thought you hated this place. Why would you want to stay here? Don’t you have an awful reputation here?” 

His eyebrows shoot up, but his face stays hauntingly blank. You’re used to his blank mask, but this feels different. “If you think that I left here because of my reputation, then you’ve fooled yourself.” He begins making for his quarters. “I have obligations to fulfilling my father’s role as Lord of this estate,” he says before turning and ending the conversation on his terms. 

That leaves you just as confused. If he cared about his responsibilities here, he would’ve never left them in the first place to become a spy under The King. It makes no sense. Whether or not it’s true, you’re positive that you aren’t getting the whole story. You sigh and drag your feet bed-bound. You hope to never have another day as unending as today again. 

❆

You dodge Beomgyu for the entirety of the day, not sure what to make of a new presence around the estate, even if it’s an indebted servant beast of a presence. You’d half expected Taehyun to rope him up in the horse stalls outside, making that his permanent residence, but he’d given Beomgyu a place somewhere in the servant’s quarters. You’re glad of it—you may be wary of him, but you don’t wish anything like that for him. Now that he has a more human form, you find yourself able to empathize with him more than you were when he was a hulking, killer water horse. He doesn’t necessarily run around much—without a doubt because he’s not the happiest about being forced into Taehyun’s servitude. You don’t blame him. 

Despite your efforts, he enters the kitchens while you’re alternating between chomping on a slice of bread and a platter of dates. He eyes you. Though in this form his eyes are not as piercing, they’re still heavy.  

You offer him a slice of the bread and push the platter toward him. “Hungry?” 

He shakes his head. “I don’t eat the way you do.” 

Then why’d he come to the kitchens? Either he’s exploring, or he came looking for you. “Not even like this?” you ask, gesturing down to his form. 

“I eat when someone is foolish enough to come to my waters,” he says. “I thought I’d be eating yesterday, but the Lord subverted those plans, didn’t he?” 

You laugh a bit, though it’s absurd to laugh about being eaten with the same creature that had intended to do so.  

“I sometimes go for more years than the entire span of your human life without eating,” he says, tilting his head to one side. Shaggy locks of hair follow his head with it. It’s unkempt and in dire need of a washing to rid it of dirt. 

You gesture at his dirt-smudged cheek. “Do you want to clean up? I’m sure Taehyun has some clothes to spare for you. There are some pretty nice bathing quarters, here, too. The kind that makes you reluctant to get out.” 

A wry smile cracks across his face, a bit feral like the rest of him. “I’m not afraid of some dirt. These are my clothes. I’d go naked before dressing myself in his.” 

“Okay, then,” you snort, shrugging. “No baths.” You rip a bite out of the wrinkled fruit in your hand. “How did you even end up... in debt to Taehyun?” you ask, eager to fill yourself in. If Taehyun insists on not telling you anything, you’ll find it in other places. You’d picked up that it had something to do with his father, but you need to know more. The more you’re able to piece together, the better you’ll be able to make sense of Taehyun’s behaviors. You hope so, at least. He holds is truths very close to himself, and almost everybody else seems to harbor a poignant distaste for him. 

Beomgyu’s face sours up again. “I had a dispute with his father. The General was going to raze my forest and kill each one of us. I’d called on him and asked for his help. I’m not sure what he did, but The General never came. If I knew it’d land me like this, though...” He grimaces. “I’d have just let him make me history.” 

Reigning in the laugh that bubbles in your chest at his resentment, because you’re positive that you finding humor in his misfortunes would ruffle him, you nod and pocket that information. “Then, why didn’t you just agree to help when he tried to collect your debt in the first place?” 

“I was going to,” he snaps. “He’s just a prideful creature. No patience. If he’d waited a few moments, I’d have agreed.” 

Humming, you don’t tell him that he’s definitely the one who wound himself up like this. Taehyun had made it clear multiple times that Beomgyu needed to stop playing around.  

Taehyun’s voice comes from the doorway, cutting into the conversation with its matter-of-factness. “Speaking bad on my name while I’m away, kelpie? Should I amend your list of commands to include watch your mouth?” His tone is bare and humorless. 

Beomgyu bristles beside you, about to rebut him before you spy the weapon at Taehyun’s hip and interrupt before they can come to verbal blows. “Where are you going?” 

Taehyun rips his icy gaze from Beomgyu to you. “To Court,” he answers, plain and as if it were obvious. 

Furrowing your brows, you say, “Court? Why didn’t you tell me we’re going? I don’t want to get ready in a rush.” Your mind turns. You weren’t even sure what you’d be doing now that you’re no longer here as spies. There’s no need to infiltrate Court, now. Would you just be attending as revelers? Not to mention that Yeonjun no doubt has no clue that you’re even staying. You hadn’t seen him since you’d ran to him yesterday morning and had your world thrown for a loop as he revealed his truth. How had so much happened in one day?  

His mouth hardens. “You’re not attending with me,” he says, knuckles turning white over the pommel of his sword. “You’ll stay here with him today.” 

Your heart thrums in your chest; not with fear like it had been doing so much over the span of the last few days, but with anger. “What?” you say, shock straining your voice. “No. I’m getting ready; wait for me, or don’t. I don’t care.” You spin on your heels to do just that, gritting your teeth. He thinks he can tell you what to do? Is that it? You don’t care what he’s done for you, or what power he thinks he has over you because of it. You’d left your life of taking commands behind for a reason. This was supposed to be new beginnings, not just your past life under a new skin. 

He catches your upper arm frantically. Whipping your head to him, you rip yourself away from him and back off. “I said, no,” you grit out, lips twitching into a heavily emotional scowl. It’s not just that he’s telling you to stay back today: you know that what he’s doing is much bigger than that. It sends memories of a life in a seamstress’ cottage flooding back. You struggle to keep your head afloat, to keep yourself from drowning in it, but they’re old and deep wounds. 

“Oh, look at that,” Beomgyu croons. “You are just like him. Except, your father was a general, so at least he had some reason to believe that folk would obey him. You? Not so much.” 

Taehyun’s head snaps to him. He barks a command. “Leave.” 

His eyes flash and he reels against it, but Beomgyu’s body moves against his own will. There’s a spark of ravenous hate smeared across his lips and in the glare he gives Taehyun as he leaves. 

“So, you’re just going to hand out commands and expect them to be followed now, huh? Because you’re suddenly just... taking up this role as Lord? Well, you’re not my Lord. You’re not his, either.” 

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Stop that.” 

Laughing a bitter laugh, you spit, “Stop what? Oh, I’m sorry. I should just obey you like a good human does, huh? ‘Cause that’s what we’re for, right? My bad, I’ll get a head start on working around the estate—what would you like for dinner, my lord? Or, do you need me to press your clothes? Go ahead and place your glamour over me, so at least then I won’t have to serve you consciously.” Your words are angry, but you choke toward the end around the lump of emotion in the back of your throat. 

He takes both your arms into his hands, his brow furrowed hard. “Stop it,” he snarls. “Stop it, damn it. Don’t do that. You’re not a servant here. Don’t you try to cry to me, I expect better than this from you. That’s not it at all.” 

You shove back on his chest, putting some distance between you. “I’m not crying,” you say. “And, so what if I was? There’s nothing wrong with it. Really, I think it’d do you a little good to cry some time.” 

“It’s weak,” he says. “Pitying yourself just ends up making you into a fool. If you just sit around and wallow, you’ll stay where you are. The only thing you can do is act.”  

That sounds about right coming from his lips. “Is that what your father taught you?” you ask. “Well, he was wrong. You can cry and try and take care of things at the same time. Crying is not the weaker emotion.” 

“I’m just asking you to stay back today,” he says. 

“Why?” you say, throwing your hands up in exasperation. “Tell me why? It’s not like we’re spying around or have some sort of mission to keep secret. Why can’t I just go enjoy it like that for once?” 

“Can you just do this for me?” Taehyun says, jaw tight. “I just need you to stay.” 

You’ve become sick of him not telling you things. Being in the dark never feels good, but it especially feels like shaky ground now. If he thinks you’ll be attacked, so what? You’re the one who wanted to stay here. Let you come. You’re better off being attacked as a group of three than he would be by himself, no? 

You decide to lean into his own concerns to appeal. “What if they’re waiting for you? Wouldn’t it be better that Beomgyu and I are there? Isn’t that why you did that whole thing yesterday?” 

He shakes his head. “If they are, then it’ll be easier for me to slip out if it’s just me.” 

Crossing your arms over your chest, you determine by the solemn lines to his face that he’s not going to give. “Fine,” you say. “I’ll stay here today. If it’s so necessary, I’ll stay here. Do you want me to stay inside the estate, too? Could I go see Yeonjun?” 

“I’d prefer that you stay here,” he says, slow and measured and veiling tension. 

You shake your head, pairing it with a tired laugh. “Yeah, right, I forgot. He’s a threat too. Well, you have fun then.” Turning and departing from the kitchens, you leave behind your bread and dates. So much for lunch. 

❆

Reaffirming Taehyun’s ability to lie, it was not just that one day. The next day, Taehyun slipped out for Court, sword on hip and pleading with you to stay in the estate on the terms that he believes they still might have an attack planned for you. It turned into a week that you were cooped up in the estate, and then two. The same walls you’d once looked at in wonder for their beauty became the ones you stared at mindlessly during the most boring of hours. 

You spend most of your time listening to Beomgyu drone on and on about the ways he’d tricked faeries and humans. He’s quite odd, but it’s not like you can blame him for it—most of the folk are odd to you, and he’s an ancient beast among them. You feel like that warrants a spunky personality like his. He’s nice company, anyway. Such a long life lends you an impressive wealth of stories. 

You can’t help but think about Yeonjun. He’s got to have seen Taehyun at Court by now. If there haven’t been any incidents at this point, doesn’t that mean that he doesn’t intend to betray you? The images of him thinking that you’re avoiding him makes you want to slip out to see him. You not sure why you don’t. Maybe the lies that sat between you affect you more than you thought they did. You’re quite the hypocrite, though. You’d kept secrets just as much as he had. 

You miss those stolen nights you two had shared. A knot, queasy and pessimistic, sits in your belly each time you lay in your bed and remember them and tells you that you’ll never see anything like that again. You’d allowed a girlish part of you to blossom beside him—a part of you that could throw caution to the wind and melt into the fun things in life.  

As you rot your days away in that estate that has become more like a dungeon than an estate, you allow yourself to miss him only a little. Once it begins transforming into a certain impending doom about how you’d thought that staying here would be everything you’d ever wanted, you find something else to do. If you aren’t toiling around by yourself or listening to Beomgyu drone, you’re practicing your combat skills. The times that Taehyun stops in to help you, it ends with you insisting that you’re fine to make appearances in Court by now, or at least see Yeonjun with Beomgyu in attendance. He never agrees. Each time, it’s the same awful excuse: Tensions are worse. He doesn’t know if they’re planning something. When you ask why he demands that he can attend, but you and Beomgyu can’t join: He’s a lord. It’s his duty to attend Court. 

The solstice is nearing, too. You’d looked forward to it, honestly. Hopefully Taehyun will let you attend by then. 

You sit crisscrossed on the hardwood flooring, running your fingers through your hair. Beomgyu is stood a couple feet away, and makes big gestures as he explains the one time he’d been called to attend Court as a solitary faerie. Moments like this have kept you grounded over the weeks. 

“And the stupid crone tried to say that I was wrong for catching him,” he exclaims, crossing his arms over his chest and shaking his head as if the ancient memory were still as fresh as day one.  

You laugh. “What did you even do to end up there, anyway?” you ask. You can hardly picture Beomgyu in the setting of Court, even more so meeting with The Queen and her council. Moreover, you’re intrigued to know what he’d said to talk himself out of trouble. You’re amazed that he managed to make a sufficient enough case to save his life. 

“They said that I’d been taking too many of their folk—hah! I must eat too, you know? Oh, the pretention! Do they expect me to starve? If a fool lands themselves on my pelt and then in my waters, it’s only natural that they’re eaten. I’m simply freeing them from one more mud-brained fool. The Courts are full of those, too. It’d take me a millennium to eat them all. What are they so worried for, I wonder? They do the very same to their own people.” 

“Aren’t they ridiculous?” you say. Like you, he’d been an outsider in Court. Though you’re sure that it’s just as, if not more, intricate to those well-versed in it, to the ones like you two... It’s odd to see. You had grown used to it in the time you spent there, but you still know what the first day had felt like. Anyway, you hadn’t spent as many days there as you feel you had. All that had happened had bloated that time in your memories. “To be quite honest with you, your kind are all so odd to me. I grew up among you, but still... my instincts are always kinda at odds with my surroundings, you know?” 

Beomgyu considers that for a moment, as if trying to view the fae from a human’s eyes. “Even when we look so similar?” he asks you, grabbing at a lock of his hair and making a round gesture over himself. 

You nod. “Even in this form, you just... I don’t feel like I’m looking into the face of another human. Maybe that’s because I watched you turn to this from a horse, though.” 

“A kelpie,” he corrects. “What gives it away?” 

“Sorry, a kelpie,” you snicker. You look over his face. It’s so close to right, but somewhere in your mind you can decipher that something is not right. Like all of the fae, though, there’s an unspeakable beauty there, beyond explanation. It demands your human attention. Even the most terrifying are beautiful. “Well, for starters, your ears. They’re pointy. All of you have that, and none of us do. And then... I guess”—you narrow your eyes—“your eyes? They’re just different. And your limbs are pretty lanky, too.” 

He frowns as if he’s unable to see it. “You don’t sound so sure,” he says, joining you on the floor. “I’ve had quite some time to look at myself in my life. I don’t think I ever saw any of that when I was in this form...” 

“I’m sure you did,” you say, lips turning up in a playful mock. A water creature no doubt has an eternity to stare into the water at themselves in its rippled reflection. “Did you do a lot of that?” 

Scowling, he huffs. “No. But I’m sure you would, if you looked like this, huh?” 

You roll your eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” His face morphs from dismay to careful concentration. Frowning, you look around and ask, “What?” 

“I hear somebody,” he answers, pushing off the floor. 

Your spine tingles, but you search for the logical explanation. “Like... Taehyun?” 

“No... the walk is definitely different.” He strains to listen. “He’s usually pretty quiet. This one... they don’t conceal their footsteps.” 

Neither of you can get to a window to scope anything out before there’s three heavy knocks from the door, the metal knocker ringing. You shoot him a wary look and tilt your head toward the door. You mouth the word, answer? 

He considers for a moment and then nods. Well, he’s the one able to hear their approach. You trust they’re at least not imminent danger. You pull the door open. A breeze of frost comes rushing in as you do, blowing your hair and as jarring as a hit to the face might be. You’ve been cooped up in here for so long you’ve forgotten how bitter the cold here is.  

Behind the door your eyes lock with a pair of inky ones, settled into a pinched and snooty face. “Letters from the palace I have for you, my lady,” she says, her voice mousy. She holds out a stack full of letters to you, all held together by some twine. 

An errand runner. You furrow your brows down at her and accept them. The little hob wrings out her long fingers. “From who?” you ask her.  

She bows her head to you hurriedly. “Oh, from the prince, my lady! He sends these for you!” 

You look down at the stack in your hands, and your heart begins to run amok in your chest. He’d sent to you? You thank her. She scurries off in the snow and you close the door, sharing a look with Beomgyu. 

“The prince?” he says, brows shot up. “Meaning, The King’s son? He’s sent letters for you?” 

Nodding, you hold the stack close to you. Your feet ache to find your quarters and to begin tearing into each one; you’re ravenous for any sort of word from him. Does he hate you? Does he miss you? At least he still thinks of you. You’d worried that he might’ve found another lady of the court to dote on in your absence... 

“Yeah,” you say over your shoulder, more interested in tearing the letters open than explaining to him why the prince would be sending you letters. Curiosity sits in his furrowed brow. You hadn’t exactly prattled on about Yeonjun to him. Had you even mentioned him at all? 

He tags along as you head to your room and plop onto your bed. You don’t tell him to leave you; opening these letters alone... You appreciate his presence in some odd way.  

Unstringing the pile, you pull the first one out and run a thumb over the wax seal that identifies it as definitely from the High Prince—a fine silver dusted over white wax and branded with the image of Yeonjun’s insignia, the fox. It’s uneven and dribbled, clearly sealed by Yeonjun himself with the insignia ring he often wears on his finger. You pry it open and then unfurl the parchment inside. 

𝒟𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝓊 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝒹 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝐶𝑜𝓊𝑟𝑡? 𝑃𝑒𝑟ℎ𝑎𝑝𝓈 𝑤𝑒 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑚𝒾𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟. 𝑇ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝒾𝓈 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒. 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝓃𝒹𝑒𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒. 𝐼𝑓 𝑚𝑦 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒𝓈 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑒 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘. 𝑀𝑦 𝑑𝑜𝑜𝑟𝓈 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝓊.  

𝒯ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝓈 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑒𝑛.

𝑌𝑒𝑜𝑛𝒿𝑢𝑛

Beomgyu’s gaze burns holes through you as you read this first one. You sigh, pressing your lips into a thin line as you reach for the next one. This one twists a hot knife of guilt into your belly and up into your heart. 

𝐻𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝓈𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑤𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑔?   

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑒𝑛𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙'𝑠 𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑢𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝓃𝑑 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑡, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝓈𝑖𝑑𝑒 ℎ𝑖𝑠, 𝓎𝑜𝑢'𝑟𝑒 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝓇 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒. 𝐼'𝑚 𝑢𝓃𝒹𝑒𝓇 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝓈 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒. 𝐴𝑙𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ, 𝑝𝑒𝑟ℎ𝑎𝑝𝓈 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝓎𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑎𝑏𝓈𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑤𝑖𝓈𝑒.

𝐼𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝓈𝑒 𝐼 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝒾𝑑𝑒𝓃𝑡𝒾𝑡𝓎? 𝐼𝑠 𝒾𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝓊 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝑢? 

𝐴𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑡 𝓊𝑡𝑚𝑜𝓈𝑡 𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟: 𝐼 𝒹𝑜 𝑛𝑜𝑡. 𝐼 𝒹𝑜𝑢𝑏𝑡 𝐼 𝑐𝑜𝓊𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑓 𝐼 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑑. 𝑌𝑜𝑢'𝓇𝑒 𝓆𝑢𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝒶𝑟𝑡 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑒𝓇.   

𝐼 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝐼 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑡 𝑟𝒾𝒹𝑖𝑐𝓊𝑙𝑜𝑢𝓈, 𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝓎𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢, 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑤𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑘𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑜𝓇 𝓈𝑜 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑔. 𝐼 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝓇𝓈𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡. 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝒶𝑡 𝑠𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑏𝓇𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝓇𝑡, 𝑟𝒾𝑔ℎ𝑡? 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑡. 𝑁𝑜𝑡 𝑢𝓈.  

𝑆𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑚𝒾𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑠𝑎𝓎 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝑠𝑜 𝑒𝒶𝑠𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝒾𝑐𝑘𝑙𝑒. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠𝑛'𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑖𝓈𝑡. 𝐼 𝑠𝑎𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑖𝑡 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝓈, 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝐼 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑡 𝑖𝑡.

𝒟𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝓇 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝒾𝑡 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝓉 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑒𝑦𝑒𝓈 𝑚𝑒𝑡, 𝑡𝑜𝑜? 𝐻𝑜𝑤 𝑜𝒹𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝒾𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑙 𝓈𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑜 𝒹𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝒾𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝓎𝑜𝑢, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑠𝑜 𝓈𝑜 𝑓𝑎𝓇 𝑏𝑒𝑦𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝓎𝑜𝑢 𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑜𝓉 𝒶𝑙𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝓊𝑟𝓈𝑒?

𝑃𝑙𝑒𝒶𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑒 𝑚𝑒, 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑡𝓉𝑦. 𝐼𝑓 𝐼 𝑐𝑎𝑛'𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒, 𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑚𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝓊𝓇𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝓉 𝑦𝑜𝑢'𝓇𝑒 𝑜𝑘𝒶𝑦. 

𝑌𝑒𝑜𝑛𝒿𝑢𝑛

“What do they say?” Beomgyu asks, timbred voice whipping you from the words that had settled a quaking ache in your chest.  

You’re not entirely sure how to tell him that they’re desperate letters of the High Prince’s love for you, a worthless human girl that had avoided him on purpose. He probably wouldn't believe you, anyway. Leaving behind your old life, you had pleaded with the sky to make your life something worth note. It seems that it had answered. Fate works in odd ways like that, granting your wishes in the last way you might expect.  

“A lot,” you say, brushing him off. Your voice cracks with it, though,  

Hearing the veiled emotion, he frowns, inching forward to take a peek. “Why are you upset?” he pries, and then gasps as a thought formulates in his head. “Have they called you to be tried by the council?” He considers his own suggestion for a long moment and then shakes his head. “You hardly have gone anywhere enough to cause that degree of trouble, though.”  

You let your face drop into your hands. Is the tremor in your chest from laughter, or from crying? You couldn’t say. Maybe it’s both. 

The kelpie makes an unsure sound, clearing his throat. “I... uh, I jest...” 

Collecting yourself, you say, “No. I’m not being called in for trial.”  

Dried up rose petals come fluttering out with the next letter. The flower of love. 

𝐻𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝓉 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝓇𝑡ℎ? 𝐶𝑜𝓊𝑙𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑛𝑜𝑡 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝓈𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑜𝑘 𝑎𝑡 𝓎𝑜𝑢𝓇 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝓈𝑜? 𝐼 𝑑𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑝𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝓎 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒𝓈𝑜𝑚𝑒. 𝐼 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑤𝑒'𝑑 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒. 𝐻𝑎𝑑𝑛'𝑡 𝓎𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝓈𝑡𝑎𝑦 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑚𝑒?

𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝓈𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝓇𝑒𝑠𝑖𝒹𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛 ℎ𝒾𝑠 𝑒𝓈𝓉𝒶𝑡𝑒, 𝐼 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝓇𝓈 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐼'𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑠𝓊𝑟𝑒 𝒾𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦'𝑙𝑙 𝓇𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝓎𝑜𝑢, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑑𝑜, 𝐼 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐷𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐼'𝑑 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑛𝓎𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔?

𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝓈𝑒𝑒 𝑚𝑒. 𝐼 𝑏𝑒𝑔. 𝐿𝑒𝑡'𝑠 𝓉𝑎𝑙𝑘. 𝐼 𝑗𝑢𝓈𝑡 𝑤𝒶𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑘𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡'𝑠 𝑤𝓇𝑜𝑛𝑔. 

𝑌𝑒𝑜𝑛𝒿𝑢𝑛

Why hadn’t you at least gone and told him that you’ve stayed? How had you allowed yourself to feel fear when you think of him? You don’t deserve his love. You don’t even know if you deserve love at all. All it would’ve taken was one night of slipping out. He deserved to know that you’re okay. You don’t remember being this selfish. When had it happened? Maybe selfish is what becomes of you when you’ve wasted a lifetime expected to serve others before yourself and then are granted the freedom to consider yourself first. You don’t want to be selfish, though.  

The one you pull open now is more raw. Hurt. The paper, scrawled in writing that becomes less elegant and more frenzied as you read down it, crumples in your hand. 

𝐼𝑓 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘 𝐼'𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝓈𝑜𝓇𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝒶𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑖𝑙𝓎 𝑓𝑜𝓇𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑤𝑒'𝑣𝑒 𝓈ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑑, 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 𝑛𝑜𝑡. 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝓎𝑜𝓊. 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝓊. 𝑃𝑙𝑒𝑎𝓈𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑦 𝒶𝑟𝑚𝓈. 𝒯ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝓇 𝑦𝑜𝑢. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝓇 𝓎𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝑤𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑤𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝓈𝑜𝑜𝑛 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑖𝑡.   

𝐷𝑜 𝐼 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝓈𝑎𝑦 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑚𝑜𝓇𝑒?   

𝐼 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝓊, 𝑑𝒶𝓇𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑔. 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑚𝒶𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑚𝑒 𝓈𝑖𝑐𝑘  

𝑌𝑒𝑜𝑛𝒿𝑢𝑛

You stuff the letters back in their envelopes and shove them into a box in your wardrobe. If you don’t, you’ll read them over until you’re ill. Once over was enough for you. 

❆

“The Lord would have my pelt if I let you leave,” Beomgyu, crossing his arms firmly over his chest, says. “Let alone by yourself.” Realizing that his words insinuate that Taehyun holds any true power over him, he backtracks. “If it weren’t for the harness, I’d be unconcerned with his anger, but... Of course, you know, I’m obligated by my imposition to his word, so...” 

Tugging your boots on, you say, “So, tell him I commanded you to stay. You’ll be fine.”  

You had waited for Taehyun to leave for Court, anyway. You have hours of the night to sly-foot your way around him. 

You’d moped around for a few more days, your gut heavy with stones each time you remember Yeonjun’s letters. Stuffing them into a box, no matter how deep into the corner of your wardrobe, still could not wipe those words from your mind. You’d turned them over and over until you couldn’t handle imagining him writing those letters with a hopeful heart any longer.  

The solstice is only a few days away now, too. You’d been bound to the estate for weeks. Although you’re unsure what Taehyun’s real intentions are in boarding you in, you can no longer even care if leaving will end up getting you attacked. You’ve become a bird with clipped wings.  

Even if your wings are out of order, you’ll walk your way to your freedom. Hell, you’d crawl there. It just so happens that Yeonjun’s doorway feels like freedom in this moment.  

Like he’d always said, the doors remain unbarred. You don’t even have to use the metal knocker; you just push through the doors of swirling white engravements. Just as if nothing had changed. He’d been waiting for you. 

Instead of Yeonjun in his quarters, you find a brownie diligently working on doing up Yeonjun’s bedding. When she turns to you, her hands continue their efforts. 

“The prince is not here right now, dear,” she says, snout twitching. Round eyes recognize you before you can introduce yourself. “He’s only just made for Court, though. You should catch him quite quickly, if you mean to.” 

It seems he hasn’t given up searching for you in Court, either. You offer her your gratitude and slip out from his room. Picking up the hems of your dress, you race to catch Yeonjun before he’s arrived at Court. Once he does, things get more sticky—if Taehyun spots you... Pushing down the anxiety that bubbles up at the thought, you cross your fingers. Let luck be on your side.  

Your Court dress, though heavy, feels nice on your skin. Although you often look down on court goers for their pompousness, you can’t deny how good it feels to fit in. That’s perhaps the reason you cling to Court the way you do; you’re beyond desperate for belonging. 

On the plush, snow-dusted bits of the forest’s floor, you spot a set of footsteps. They’re quickly being filled with the flurries. You clasp your hands in an overwhelming bout of gratitude—luck had listened, this time. Those tracks are as fresh as can be. You double your pace. 

Around a bend, you’re overjoyed to see his figure walking there. Finally hearing you coming over the roar of snowfall, he spins. His face pinches and then drops as he recognizes you. 

“You... You came?” he says. Disbelief flips his lips into a frown. “You got my letters?” 

“I did,” you answer, catching your breath. “I’m so sorry.” 

A few feet float between you, the space not yet closed but so magnetic. His cheeks are tinged pink with the cold. Yours must be too.  

“I’d thought you left. I thought I’d never see you again.” 

Your chest caves in a little at the hurt in his voice and the way it clashes with the longing in his eyes. He wants to be angry; he wants to yell at you. He can’t do either when he’s just thankful to see your face. You had missed his just as much. 

“I’m sorry,” you repeat. “It shouldn’t have happened.” 

Yeonjun approaches you and takes your face into his hands. His fingers are ice on your skin. He swallows in your face, soft black eyes darting from your eyes to your lips and around the rest of it; just like he’d begged you to let him do in his letters. 

“Why?” Yeonjun asks you, brushing your hair back with his fingers like he’s just testing the feel of it. 

You don’t know how to answer him. You could tell him a lot of things: Taehyun told me to stay away. He had told me that you’d hurt me. I’d started to believe him. I became scared of you. We had lied to each other. None of them feel adequate in this moment, so you shake your head. 

His eyes harden to a degree as you don’t answer. “Why wouldn’t you come talk to me, pretty?” he urges. “If something was wrong, why couldn’t you come to me? We can’t leave things broken. I sent you weeks of letters. Weeks.” 

Weeks? You’d only seen four.  

“Finally, I got smart enough to send them when he’s at Court. And then you show up here. Tell me, how am I to think that you’re okay? When he won’t even let you speak with me?” 

You blink once. Twice. Taehyun had been intercepting letters. A pit of anger flares in your belly. Whatever this protecting thing he’s doing really is, you’re sick of it. Since when had he become your keeper? He’d demanded that Yeonjun was trying to do just that, but here he is, and you have no clue why he’s doing it. 

“I didn’t know you’d sent letters until yesterday,” you tell him. “I should’ve come and seen you.” 

Running his thumb over your cheek, he murmurs, “You’re not going back there. Please, tell me you’ll stay with me. If you’re to stay here in the north forever, let it be with me. We can’t slip around like this forever.” 

Shaking your head in his hands, you pull back. You can’t decipher the dread that washes over you at his suggestion once again. Your heart is wary with the need to do just that—to not return to the estate where you’d become some sort of prisoner. Something washes over you and tells you that it won’t go the way you’d wanted, just as most things in your life hadn’t. 

Seeing the way you retract, Yeonjun becomes more desperate. “Please,” he says, hands finding your shoulders to hold you as if you’ll leave him there.  

“We’ll figure it out,” you say. “Just give me a few days to think about it, okay?” 

His face stays drawn as if he wants to argue it, but he relents. Taking your frozen hands into his own and wrapping them up in attempts to warm them, he says, “Okay. Okay, let’s get away from this blizzard, then. I’ll wait for you, love.” 

Your chest sizzles. The cold isn’t so bad, today. In a way, you’d missed it. You nod.  

Yeonjun brings you to his chambers and urges you to settle into a plush seat. You run your hands over the embroidered whorls of thread on the cushions as you watch him rummage through a chest. “What are you looking for?” you ask him, drinking in his figure. He’d switched his Court shirts for some more comfortable wear, but even in those he looks princely. He’s so pretty. Your heart flutters as he fishes out what he’d been searching for and turns to you with a smile. He settles beside you carrying a leatherbound book and a miniature wood sculpture of a girl. 

“These,” he says, setting them down on the cushion between you.  

You pick up the wood thing, looking over its painted pink cheeks and feeling the carvings that make its face. It’s fitted with a dress; one unlike any you’d ever seen. Your brow furrows. “What’s this thing?” you ask. 

“It’s called a doll,” he says explains. You feel his eyes on you, watching your reaction, not on the thing in your hands. “Human girls carry them around to play with. They change the dresses and stuff. They even make things for them to hold, but... I couldn’t get ahold of any of those.”  

Heart stuttering, you look at the wood-carved thing. “Human girls?” you ask, imagining a life where you too could have worried only about what dress your toy would wear. You revere the resilience your younger self had to have. At least you didn’t know any better; you didn’t know how you could’ve had it. That ignorance saved you. The painted eyes of the doll stare back at you. 

“Kinda cute, huh?” he says, smiling and scooting closer to fiddle with the thing’s hair. “They even do their hair up all pretty.” Looking back up to you, he says, “It’s a shame that no human who has ever grown up here knows of things like these. Simple joys.” 

You nod, a little choked up. “Yeah. I wish I had. It would have been nice to have something like this as a girl.”  

He tucks some hair behind your ear to get a better look at your face from the side. “How did you ever end up being a spy?” 

Tearing your gaze from the doll to meet his, you find a sadness there despite you not even having told him yet. It’s as if he knows it’ll hurt him already. You fiddle with the little doll’s dress as you recount. “I was a servant to a seamstress,” you start. “A royal seamstress, too. She was favored well by the gentry. She brought in hordes of clients and made dresses and Court clothes for them—but, really, her work mostly ended at being there to hear what they’d want and inlaying the dresses with her magic when they’d ask for it. The rest was my work. Taking their measurements, making their dresses... I worked her shop as soon as I became able to.” Memories of cruel and wicked faces that snickered at your expense or those who found it entertainment to scare you come back, as fresh as ever. Those memories never leave you; the ones so early on that they’d calcified into permanent parts of your personality. That terrified little girl will always be somewhere in your mind. She surfaces quite a lot, these days.  

“There was this one time...” you say, trailing off to trudge up a more awful memory. “A Lady had come in to have a dress made. She brought a guard along with her. He was this massive troll with grey skin like a toad.” You’d recall his details without any trouble for the rest of your life, you think. “I’d ran off to grab some fabric for the Lady, and he followed,” you say, voice wavering just how your little heart had wavered as you had turned around from the bolts of fabric to see the goblin stood there. “He yanked me around by my hair until I sobbed, and then he had me get on the floor and beg him to let me live.” You know now that of course he wasn’t going to kill you—he wouldn’t want problems with Nut-hatch—but you hadn’t known it then. You thought you were dead. “When he had enough of his fun, he let me go. When the other two saw how hysterical I was, all I got was being asked why I’d left them waiting so long.”  

Yeonjun asks, voice soft and tender, “The seamstress allowed that?” His eyes are heavy with a mixture of emotions. You see sadness and anger there, but also something a bit more. 

“Nut-hatch?” you say. “Of course.” They’d known what he was doing in there, of course. Even a human could have heard it. As long as you served your purpose, the folk could not care less. 

He looks taken aback at that, recognition turning his brows up. “Nut-hatch? You worked for Nut-hatch?” he asks. 

Nodding, you hum. You had no doubt he’d know her name. Her work was well-renowned in his father’s court and beyond. “I did.” 

His eyes rake over you for a long few beats before he turns your face up. “Their names?” he asks. 

“Huh?” 

“The goblin and the Lady. What are their names?” 

You try to tug at the threads of that old memory. “I don’t remember,” you say. Much of it is fresh, but you hadn’t committed their names to memory. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of it. “It’s okay. It’s passed now.” 

He doesn’t look very convinced, mind wheeling behind his eyes. You don’t want to stay on this memory for too long. Pushing it back into the dusty corner where it stays, you continue explaining. “I accepted that as my life for a long time, but... At some point, I just wanted more. I imagined all the ways I could find a new life as a human here. There are so many other things I’d preferred, but the only one I could manage was that. Even that, I was wrong about. I’m not really made for that, you know?” You lighten your tone in hopes that it’ll make your chest feel lighter as well.  

He listens intently and then leans forward to press a kiss to your forehead. Pulling you into his chest and keeping you notched under his chin, he says, his voice smooth to your ears, “I’m so happy you’re here now, pretty.” 

Letting out the weight in your lungs in a long, meaningful sigh, you melt into his touch. It’s difficult not to when his body is so warm against yours. You revel in it for some time, just letting him smooth over your hair and rub your back. You try your best not to let any old, sad emotions pour out through your eyes; this is a happy moment. You’ve made it. Perhaps things had been harder than you imagined they’d be, but you knew it’d be a long journey when you escaped that sewing cottage anyway. 

Peppering a few last kisses to the top of your head, he releases you to pick up the book he had also grabbed from that chest. On the front it reads: Pride & Prejudice.  

“A book?” you say, looking over the brown leather and gold printing. It’s an unfamiliar name to you, but you never read much anyway.  

He nods and pries it open. The spine crackles with age. “It’s also from the human world.” Thumbing through the pages, he adds, “It’s a story. I read it often, it’s quite a nice one. I want to give it to you so that you can read it too; it’s a beautiful love story.” 

You lean in to take a look at the words, too perfect to be handwritten. “Where do you get all this stuff?” you say. It reminds you of he’d brought you to that market for human goods. He seems to be interested in things that are human. Perhaps that includes you. Either that or he continues to show you these kinds of things for your sake. 

“I lived in their world for some years,” he says, flipping through the pages. “It’s quite different. Though... I found myself not wanting to leave. When the time came, I brought these back with me to remind me of that time.” 

Lived? Not just visited, but Yeonjun had lived in the human realm? Your heart flurries with a lifetime of wondering what your true home was like. How ironic is it that he knew more of humans than you? That you’re the one asking him questions about your kind? “How long?” you ask first. “And why were you living there?” 

“Just for something my father wanted me to do,” he answers, “Somewhere around a decade, I believe.” 

He’d spent ten years there. Multiple things click into place—no wonder he’s so able to understand your human emotions. No wonder it feels as though you’ve been seen to a different degree by him than you’d ever known before. He’d spent years with your kind. “What is it like?” you say, not sure where to begin with your questions. 

He smiles fondly. “You wouldn’t even be able to believe me, pretty. You’ll just have to see it.” 

See it. “You’d take me there?” you say.  

“Of course,” Yeonjun says, frowning. He takes one of your hands into his, pressing a kiss to it. “You deserve to see it.” He presses another kiss to your skin, now at your wrist. The hair on your skin raises at the contact. His eyes find yours as he begins a slow ascent of kisses up your arm. Each is warm and sends your spine blazing. Once he reaches your shoulder, he slows down, leaving a long moment between kisses. He continues this pace—one that both makes you wish he’d slow down and that he’d hurry and quell your want—right up the juncture of your neck and up the column, too. His controlled breaths puff out like fire on your skin where his mouth lingers. You let your head back to help his path up. He places one final kiss at your jawline before his lips land on yours, drunken and in no rush at all.  

You can’t help the visceral urge to run your hands over his soft skin, to check if the warmth there was real or if you’d manifested it in your longing. Yeonjun breaks this lethargic kiss just to laugh, but he’s quick to recapture your lips. He meets your hand and brings it under his silken shirt, guiding you up the soft planes of his abdomen. 

Pushing you back, he whispers into your mouth, “I missed you so much, pretty.” 

You rememorize the gentle muscles of his stomach beneath your palm. “It was only so many days,” you tease, “you’re just horny.” 

He lets go of your hand to begin slipping down your dress from the shoulders. “Yeah?” he hums, gobbling up each inch of skin that he reveals. “I suppose I am. It’s a gift to be able to love you in this way.” Once the fabric is clear of your hips and he’s tugging it down your legs, his face turns sly. He studies your wettened core. “I think you missed me too, though, love.” 

You drag your bottom lip into your teeth. You had. Your chest thumps rhythmically in your chest, syncing like symphony with the throb between your thighs. 

Blood sings in your veins when he places his palm right on the boundary between your lower belly and your cunt. Your stomach soars, too, so excited by his touch so near where your body craves it. He runs it up, feeling the curves of your body, up to your breast. You expect him to stop and pay attention to your chest, but he presses his hand down right over your heart and feels its beating against his palm. His eyes flutter to a shut, and he leaves his hand there for a few moments, relishing in it.  

“What other purer form of love can I show you?” he says, tapping on your hip. “On your hands and knees, baby.” 

You flip, your limbs a bit clumsy in anticipation. Once you’ve found your way there, he dances his fingertips on the small of your spine. 

“Did you think of my touches while we were apart?” 

“Mhm,” you hum. Especially on the nights when the estate seemed the emptiest. Some nights, your fingers were just not enough to save you, and you’d contemplate making a big escape to find him.  

“Well, I shouldn’t make you wait too much longer then, huh?” he coos, running that hand down to ghost touches over your slit. Though minimal, you jolt. You’d been so ravenous for this. He’d worked his shirt off so that when he leans forward to meld his chest to your back, it’s his skin that touches yours, not fabric. His hand stays ghosting touches that leave you softly gasping. 

He teasingly pinches your clit, laughing in your hair at the sharp hiss it draws from you. “So reactive,” Yeonjun muses. His fingers find their way to your hole. He dips the middle two in. “Just like the first time we made love like this. Your lovely face is burned into my mind, pretty. You have such hungry eyes.” As he pushes his fingers in, he uses his free hand to tilt your face against the cushion so that he can better see your eyes. 

You sigh, shuddering and breathy, as he begins to curl his fingers. It only takes him a few curls to rediscover that spot that has sparks flying behind your eyes. 

“There?” he asks, chin on your shoulder. “That feel good, darling?” 

Your muscles tremble at their own accord, rendering your huffs trembled as well. “Yes,” you answer. Each meaningful curl hits its mark, knees unsteady pillars that dig into the cushions. “So—so good. Please don’t stop.”  

He maintains a sickening pace—your muscles twitch around his giving fingers, just enough so that your entire body buzzes and your stomach twists, but not enough to send you shaking yet. You collapse down from your elbows, chest in the cushions. He brushes back the hair that obscures your face with the movement, adamant to see your face.  

He eggs you on by curling deeper; faster. Your answering groan is shaky and tense—you can’t get enough of the knot he curates in your belly, but at the same time, it’s daunting. He sits back, but his fingers don’t falter. His free hand explores, feeling your body up for all the time he couldn’t.  

Stomach taut and brimming on your peak, you suck in a breath. Your orgasm sits so close, running a line of electricity from between your legs up to your spine, raising goosebumps on your skin.  

Your eyes fly open, mouth ready to scold, as Yeonjun pulls his fingers from you. Your chest bubbles up with frustration, your orgasm drifting off to somewhere else. “Why?” you ask, cheeks burning. It slips and slips away from you, hole twitching around nothing as if seeking out just enough stimulus to bring it crashing back. “I was so close.” 

His hand soothes the loss ever so slightly by circling your cunt, but he does not make the mistake of offering you any touch where you most need it. It only prolongs the float down, keeping you suspended. You abhor it.  

“Please,” you whine. 

He doesn’t entertain your whines. He only continues to deliver just enough to torment you until he’s sure that you’re not so wound up that you’ll cum the moment he touches you, and then he slides his fingers back in and begins building up a more tense knot with pointed curls. Your insides delight in the return of attention, falling almost instantly back into a brutal climb. Yeonjun doesn’t bother with languid, teasing strokes now. He aims for your ruining. 

You writhe against the cushions. Your heart is a fluttering bird in your chest, trilling at the prospect of your release. It’s so close—so close that you might be able to just touch it. It tastes like honey on your tongue, painting your words sweet. “Love you,” you tell him. “Love you so much.” 

Yeonjun rewards your sweetness with his free hand on your throbbing clit, sending your hands gripping at the cushions. You wiggle your hips helplessly in search of just the right amount of friction that it’ll finally give you want you’ve been wanting. “Yes,” you mewl. “Yes, so close—” 

“Wait, baby,” he commands from behind you. “It’ll feel so much better. I promise. Hold it back.” 

He reins in his touches once again, not stopping like last time. It’s not enough to put a stop to the orgasm rippling right under your skin, right at the edge of ripping through you. You can’t hold it back; it’s right there. 

“No,” he says, once again ripping his touch from you. It doesn’t stop anything—you go rigid just before it crashes over you, and then you’re shaking without his hands even on you. You cum with a vengeance—body reclaiming twofold what he had denied you.  

“Holy shit.” Yeonjun groans watching you come unraveled without his help. “So riled up that you’re cumming by yourself, pretty,” he says, running a hand around to feel your belly muscles twitching and the way they roll along with the twitches of your hips. He eggs on your orgasm with gentle touches at your clit, sending you jolting, until you’re a panting mess and he can tell that you’ve had enough. 

You attempt to push yourself off your chest, but he gently guides you back down with a palm against your back. “Stay there, pretty. You can handle a little more, right? You did so well, I know you can. Let me make love to you, darling.” 

The cushions are awfully warm against your skin and you’re still dealing with the waves of pleasure that drift up from your cunt, but you nod your head for him. “’Kay,” you say. 

The rustling behind you tells of how he’s slipping out of the rest of his attire. You lay boneless as he does, focusing on the waves running down your thighs. It’s ecstasy in its purest form. It floats through your veins, addling any consciousness and breaking you down into what you are at your core. 

The familiar prod at your entrance jolts you back to life. As he presses in, he presses a hand to your flushed cheek. It’s a welcome temperature difference—you feel set ablaze in some sort of languid flame, one that takes its time to consume you. He laughs softly. “You’re burning up,” he says as he bottoms out, as if the feeling of him filling you up isn’t rendering you jittery in anticipation. “Ready for me, pretty?” he teases, taking your hips into his hands. “I need you to make those pretty sounds for me. I want to know that they’re just as sweet as I remember them.” He punctuates his sentence with deep rolls of his hips, aiming where he knows will have you singing. 

You’re helpless to the chorus of ‘Oh's and ‘Yes’s that he draws from you, the smacking of his hips and your sweet moans much too loud for you. You dread the thought of his servants hearing you and push your face into the cushions, muffling the array of sounds that bubble over. It’s all you can do—you could hardly contain your sounds. 

Your scalp strains as he tugs your head back, tugging your face from the cushion. “None of that, love. I waited too long for that. Don’t hide your pretty voice.”  

You shake your head. “Too loud,” you pant. “They’re gonna hear.” 

“I don’t care who hears you. Let me hear how good I’m making you feel, or I’m going to stop. Do you want me to stop?” His fingers cling to your soft hips, betraying how much this is affecting him. You know that he hardly wants to stop. 

You’re turned to mush, though. In this moment, being heard feels nowhere near as awful as Yeonjun ceasing those dizzying thrusts. You shake your head, scalp aching against the movement. “No,” you say, breathless.  

“That’s what I thought,” Yeonjun taunts, letting your cheek drop back into the fabric. “Let them hear our love. Let them hear how real it is, darling. Louder.”  

You tentatively let your sounds out into the thick air, but he decides that it’s not enough for him. Taking his hand off your hip to brace himself on the seat’s plush armrest, he doubles down his thrusts, feverish and desperate to guide you both to a beautifully explosive end. Your mouth drops open, unfiltered words and sounds spilling out from your chest as you grab at the cushions for help. With the hand that he doesn’t use to deliver those wild thrusts, he encases your hand in his own, threading his fingers between yours.  

For a few more incandescent moments, Yeonjun’s room only consists of your unabashed cries, his alternating grunts and whines, the rhythmic and hollow smacks of his hips to your skin, and the musk of your passion. Frantic bodies dance against each other, skin against skin in the purest way. Your thighs tremble pathetically, his cock brushing against your sweet spot until you squeeze your eyes shut and ride out the quivering of your cunt around him. You squeeze his hand as you shake. 

“Yes,” his pretty voice whines, “Just like that.”  

Picking up his pace, he chases to join you in your orgasm. He pants behind you, desperately fucking into you until his hips stutter and he stills, falling into your shoulder to deliver needy rolls and shooting warm spurts of his release into you.  

You two stay like this for some unhurried moments. You focus on his heartbeat; feeling it thudding against your back reminds you that he is real, and he is love. You hold his hand in yours a little tighter. 

❆

“I doubt that this will go exactly as you believe it will,” Beomgyu says, watching you do your hair up. Your eyes meet his in the vanity’s mirror.  

Arms burning as your hold them over your head, your words come out clipped with the ache. “It worked yesterday, didn’t it?” you say. You push a filigree comb into your hair to secure it up. “I got back hours before he did.” 

“I’m not saying that Taehyun is right,” he says, “but I think that it would do us both a favor if you practice a bit more precaution.” 

“What, are you afraid of Taehyun?” you ask, raising your brows at him in the reflection.  

Your taunt hits its mark, Beomgyu shifting in your bed and scowling. “Of Taehyun, never,” he parries, “of the fact that he could ask me to do anything and I’d do it, yes.” He shakes out his lightly matted tresses, a habit you’ve noticed over the passing weeks. “I played a little too closely to the fire with him once, and it landed me like this: no longer the owner of my being. I’d sooner chew off my own fingers than become his obedient dog, but I believe you also know that it’s best to soar low with this, no? Are we not together in this?” 

You press your lips into a thin line. In a way, you’d come to an alliance of sorts with Beomgyu. Despite his being a kelpie, the two of you are not so different now. Both confined to these walls, listening to Taehyun when he commands it. You don’t want any of your actions to snap back on Beomgyu, though. With you attending Court today, it’s almost definite that Taehyun will see you. You turn to face him. “Why don’t you join us, then?” you offer. “I’ll tell him myself that I commanded you to come with me. I’m sure he’ll be less upset if I have you there with me.” 

He gives it a thought, his eyes looking as tired and sunken as they always do. “I’m not one for Court,” he says. 

“But I’ll be there,” you plead, unable to help the twitching of smirk on your lips. “If we do it together, it can’t be so bad.” 

He frowns, but you can see that you’ve won. “I grieve for how the forest left me to my own,” Beomgyu grumbles. 

You surge up from your seat, eyes bright. “You’ll go?” you say, giddy to return to the thrill of faerie revelry and also to see the strange kelpie in the center of it. 

Grimacing, he answers, “I will join you.” 

You take his hands into yours and press a cheeky kiss to his forehead. “You’re not so scary as you try to paint yourself,” you tell him, watching as he catches bait. You laugh as he glowers. 

“Don’t push it.” He climbs off your bed. “I’m scarier than you should imagine, girl. I do this for my own reasons.” 

You pull a patronizing frown and nod. “Of course, I know.” 

You don’t have to wait for him to get ready to any capacity; he tells you that he has no intentions of making any impressions, and you’ve seen faeries in far more drastic states of disarray. Many show up for their reveling in just their skin. 

Beomgyu drones on about how he detests the audaciousness of the gentry folk while you make for the hall. The forest around you is as quiet as you remember it being when you’d first met him. It reminds you that, no matter how used you become to him, he is a creature to be feared. The little folk are right to hide away. For you, though, his might is a relief: should Taehyun be right, you’ll be safe. He moves at your beck and call. Though, the thought of forcing the kelpie to carry out your will is an uneasy one that you do not strive to fulfill. 

Once the buzzing of Court comes into earshot, wonderful faerie music along with it, you breathe it in. “First time in... how long since you’ve shown your face here?” 

“Perhaps four-hundred-something years,” he answers, looking over the scene with as much distaste in his face as his voice. “We solitary folk don’t make ourselves known here unless to bow to a crown. I do not bow to any crown.” 

Itching to find your prince, you gesture toward it. He should be fine—Court is supposed to be an insouciant place. “Don’t they host anybody who decides to come? Faerie hospitality, and all that? You’ll be fine.” 

“It’s all hospitality until you step foot from those trees,” he says. “And even hospitality is sometimes betrayed. You know how capricious we can be, I’m sure.”  

You approach the warm lights, but his words remain with you. It beckons you to remember that their minds are fickle and fundamentally different from yours. However you think they may act, they might act in the complete opposite way. You should at least let that guide how you conduct your actions a little bit. 

As you breach the pillars of trees and are finally surrounded once again by their pinched faces and gangly limbs, you search for both Taehyun and Yeonjun. You see neither, and so you make your way to the tables to seek snacks. You scour them for something sweet to chew over as you wait for him to appear. He’d said he’d be coming around this time, right? You surely hadn’t mistaken the time he’d told you? 

Beomgyu speaks from beside you, observing a hag that loiters nearby. “Is he not here?” he asks. 

Shrugging, you say, “He’ll be here soon.”  

You watch the hag inching closer, bent over with age; though, you assume that’s she’s been old for the entirety of her life. Her pointed ears droop from her thin tresses of silver, cuffed with gold.  

Turning from her, you gesture over the cavorting crowds, more frantically chasing their merriments than ever before. The solstice arrives tomorrow; they welcome its presence with their excitement. “This is all for the solstice?” 

He offers you an affirmative nod. “Just some excuse to entertain themselves like this,” he explains, “the solstice will arrive whether they encourage its coming or not. I believe that they just enjoy this debauchery too much.” His hollow eyes rake over the throngs. “Anyway, many of them are just here because it’s the only time that they’ll see Court. Otherwise, only the gentry gather here.” 

“What makes you any different than them?” you ask. “What makes you so averse to offering your allegiance to the High Courts? Would it not be nice to have their protection, and to keep them off your back?” You seek Yeonjun once more in the crowds, but still, he doesn’t appear. “You know, so they don’t call you in for things like eating too much?” 

“I do not surrender my sovereignty to any. Come they to my doorstep and demand that I do, I could not care. I’m content with the way I make my life.”  

His refusal to do just that must be why Taehyun’s father had come to claim his life. You’re sure that it’s also why the coming of the General’s son to steal his autonomy must’ve made him so angry. You don’t blame him.  

Why would The Queen demand fealty from the solitary folk? You’d thought that, like the High King, she’d leave them to their forests. If they’re all as adamant as Beomgyu, it seems like a lost cause. 

“Well,” you say, “I’m glad that—” 

A gnarled hand, fingers knobbed against your skin and skin about as soft as tree bark, tugs your arm. You spin to find who owns it.  

The hag’s eyes remind you of Beomgyu’s, piercing and dull with the weight of a long life. Though, hers are much more unsightly than his mud-brown ones, saggy eyelids drooping over a pair of eyes with ink-black where the whites of her eyes should be. She pulls you toward her by your skirts.  

You tug yourself back, pinching your brows. “Who are you?” 

She points her clawed, grey hand out at you, bangles of gold and chunky beads jingling as she does. “You, girl,” the hag says, urgent. Her voice is harsh and it crackles as she speaks. She reaches inside of her furry robes and produces a wood trinket from it. In her palm that she shoves at you lays a bit of wood carved into the shape of a wolf, painted in black. Its shaggy black fur reminds you of the kind Taehyun would sometimes wear over his shoulder.  

“I don’t need that,” you say, rejecting her hand. Nothing in faerie comes for free—the hag just sees a human girl that she can offer free things to in hopes that you’ll know no better and take. Then, you’d be in her debt, and she’d demand something from you. You do know better, though. 

“Oh,” she says, shaking her head as she draws out the word. “You do, girl. Take it, take it. You need it, I know it. Take it, I won’t hold it to you, girl, just have it.” Razor teeth appear behind her curled lips. “It is dormant with me. But, in your hands... Take it.” She shakes her jousted hand out at you each time she demands that you take it. “It offers you protection. It would do no good in my possession. It beckons me to give it to you, its pleas are so loud—loud, loud, loud! Take it off my hand, won’t you?” 

Her urging unsettles you, but so do her words. You assume that it’s inlaid with some sort of protective enchantment. Why would you need protection? Although, she could also just be fooling you. She could be holding a perfectly plain hunk of carved wood in her palm for all you know. You shoot a look at Beomgyu. If she were any trouble, he’d tell you. 

He looks about as lost as you do, shrugging. 

“Oh, sakes!” the hag grumbles, clutching her robes to her body. She takes Beomgyu’s hands and places the thing there. “There. I have no reasons to be here fooling humans. Useless debts, what could you give me? Nothing I need.” She points a sturdy, twiggy finger at you. “Keep it on you, girl, else it won’t do its work.” 

With those final ill-boding words, the hag hobbles off, her curved back disappearing between the gaps in the crowd. 

“Here,” Beomgyu says, regarding the trinket with his observation. “That hag really wanted this to be yours, so I think it ought to be in your hands.” He tries pushing it off to you. 

Laughing, you don’t reach out to take it, darting his hand with your whole body. You hang your hands in the air. “I’m not taking that thing,” you say. “She handed it to you, so I really think it ought to be in your hands.” 

He deadpans. “I’ve just been collecting myself a heap of debts, haven’t I?” He closes it into his fist for his lack of pockets. “What’s this one to add?” 

“Does it... feel like it has anything bad on it?” you ask, remembering how he’d identified your geas. “Like a curse, or a bad enchantment, or something?” 

Shaking his head, he says, “No. I feel it does have a protective purpose, but the magic there is... odd. Hard for me to decipher. Probably that hag’s.”  

You purse your lips, nodding. Regardless, whatever protection that thing might have offered you, you’ll be fine without it. 

Shaking off the odd interaction, you resume perusing the snack platters in your wait. You skip over glazed pinecones. Those would be terrible on your human stomach and teeth. You can only imagine how they’d jab at your gums. You opt for a helping of braised fiddlehead ferns. Chewing on the furled thing, you entertain yourself with the revelers. Littler folk dart in and out of legs. Long-limbed gentryfolk with flowers in their hair spin with interlocked hands at the center of the clamor. Sharp-eyed faeries with even sharper mouths speak in clusters, no doubt scheming. In all its oddness, you’d missed it.  

 A silk-smooth voice steals your attention. “A kelpie?” Yeonjun says, regarding Beomgyu beside you. “Now, how did you manage to befriend a kelpie? Even better, how did you drag it here?” 

Your chest lights up. “Long story,” you say, brushing his curiosity off. “What took you so long?”  

He’s dressed in his Courtly best—cuffs made of ruffle and an array of rings decorating his fingers. They catch light as he brings his hand up to run a hand along the expanse of your collarbone. He hesitates to answer for a split second. “I ran into Kai on my way,” he explains. “He’s performing here today and for tomorrow's solstice.” 

Accepting his answer, you go to tell Beomgyu that you’re going off, but he’s not even there as you turn. He must’ve wandered off as Yeonjun had arrived. 

“Want to join them?” he asks, tilting his head toward the dancing bodies. Soft black strands drift over his eyes.  

Shaking your head, you offer him some of the sweets you’d been eyeing, knowing that he’s got a knack for sweets. “Not today. I think I want to remember all of tonight, and, well...” Memories of the way you’d danced uncontrollably until it’d fade to black lick at your mind. You want to revel in your return to normalcy fully, not with a buzzing mind. You can’t deny the allure of that tingling in your bones as you hear the faerie music, though. It curls a wild finger at you, beckoning. 

An uncomfortable look passes through his eyes, gone as fast as it had come. “All right, darling,” he hums, accepting the sweets. “Does the Lord know you’re here?” 

Lips tugging into a faint frown, you say, “Not yet, I think.” The quick expression doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Unlike the ice the Taehyun offers you, Yeonjun wears his feelings all over himself. It’s just one way that they are fundamentally different. “Is something wrong?” 

Yeonjun looks taken aback at your asking. “I’m doing just fine,” he says. “Why do you ask?” 

He does not say nothing wrong. You know it is because he cannot lie. You look him over. What had happened? And, why is he averse to telling you the truth? “Just thought you looked a bit upset.” You shrug. “Did you want to dance?” 

His nose crinkles with a laugh. “No, pretty. I’d be in your presence doing nothing and still be content.” He takes your hands into his, the metal on his fingers biting cold against your skin. “How about we go listen to Kai play?” 

He leads you to where the musicians work at concocting their works, claiming a chalice of some drink from a table on the way. Kai, of course, stands away from the rest, back to a tree while his fingers dance on the strings. You look around for Taehyun from here, but still, you don’t see his face. 

Yeonjun holds the chalice’s neck between his middle two fingers, sipping from it. “It’s nice to know that even as this season ends, I won’t be forced to go back there.” 

His pretty lips wrap over the edge of the chalice as he drinks from it. “Won’t your father know something is up when you don’t return?” 

Nodding slowly, he grimaces. “I suppose that time has finally come.” 

You squeeze his hand in yours. “We both sacrificed things to be here, huh?” you say. You don’t know a lot of what Yeonjun’s life back in his home court was like, but you know that it would be hard to revolt against your own family for anybody. Even for the prince of Faerie. 

He captures your eyes, his soft brown ones making crescents with his gentle smile. “We did,” he muses. 

“Remember our first night in Court?” you say. You’d been so uneasy, searching for a place to fit in. Then, from the crowds of overwhelming faces, he’d appeared, all charm and welcoming smiles. How couldn’t you have let your heart fall? 

Another flash of disconcertment, his smile faltering. He hides it behind another sip of his drink. Swallowing, he nods, laughing off-kilter. “I do. I think watching you dance that time was the best thing I’ve ever seen.” 

Odd, but you don’t push the issue. If he says that he’s fine, it must just be something to little effect. “What made you come up to me that night?” you say, remembering how confused you’d been when such a pretty gentry boy had taken interest in you. You’d agonized over why he’d done so for long, and sometimes you still, but you’ve made some peace with it by now.  

His lips are tight. “I... It’s hard to explain.” 

You accept that answer at face-value and let your head fall into his shoulder while you watch Kai dutifully work at his songmaking. Among those making the music for Court, his contributions stand out as the most enthralling. Faerie music is too elusive for you to decipher why, but perhaps it’s just his lazed passion. “I understand,” you say. His shoulder is tight and less cushy than you expect it to be. Looking up to him, you frown to see how he’s looking down at you, eyes stormy. He looks like he’s sick to his stomach. You go to ask if he’s going to be okay, but he speaks before you can. 

“Pretty, I... I have to tell you something.” He pulls you off of him to look into your eyes. He’s always been so steadfast and sure, but now his gaze wavers. “I’m so sorry.” 

Your stomach drops. You don’t like the way he’s looking at you. “What?” you say, a tingle in your spine telling you that something isn’t right; that you’re not going to like what he’s going to say. “Yeonjun, you’re making me nervous. Is something wrong?” 

You know it’s awful and you’re not sure why you do it, but for a split second, you inspect the hall for possible attackers. A terrible bout of potent adrenaline makes you want to run or cry. Beomgyu is here, right? 

He swallows hard, face a ghostly pallor. “I can’t keep doing this,” he says, voice trembling. “I need to tell you the truth, it’s... it’s been eating me alive. I can’t look into your sweet face and know...” 

Acid climbs up your throat. Your heart joins it, thick in your throat and choking you. “What? Know what Yeonjun?” you ask, lips trembling. Your skin prickles, hair raising. You may throw up. He looks stricken in place, not answering you. “What?” you demand. 

“I didn’t come up to you for no reason that day.” 

Your heart, still caught in your throat, bursts. It’s a horrifying, bloody affair. “No,” you say, shaking your head. You feel so removed from your body that you can almost envision how your blood-drained face might match his. 

“I knew that you were the spies the moment I saw you. It was....” He sucks in a breath. Your world spins around you as you wait. “I was supposed to determine who the spies were. I was supposed to have them killed, but pretty, I knew I couldn’t do that the moment I saw you. I thought it was just going to be some... some random faerie that I’d...” 

If your world was spinning before, it’s now flipped upside down and inverted. “No,” you repeat, a guttural plea that you know won’t change anything. It’s the only word that your mouth will make for right now, though. 

You’re hurt. You’re scared. You’re angry. You’re frozen. 

Yeonjun grabs for your hands, but you rip yourself away from him, your glaring eyes so at odds with your wobbling lips. “It doesn’t change anything,” he says. “It doesn’t change how I love you now. You know I love you. You know I love you, right? I’m so sorry. I would never hurt you. I did my best to protect you. Please, I never wanted to hurt you,” he rambles, frantically grabbing for your arms as he falls down to his knees before you. 

A few faeries around you gasp, and a blur of their commotion forms around you. The crowned prince of Faerie just went to his knees. Your eyes dart wildly around their guffawing faces, and between a space you spot a familiar face: cold eyes and a cracked mask of indifference. He looks right at you. 

What on earth is going on? How is this life right now? You snap back to Yeonjun in front of you. 

“Please, don’t look at me like that, pretty,” he pleads. “Please.” His voice cracks, eyes frantic. “Slap me. Tell me you hate me for it. But please, don’t look at me like you’re scared of me.” 

Tears scald your cheeks. 

“I know that it’s selfish of me to ask you that; I know, I know it—but please, I can’t handle it, love. I was never going to let anything happen to you, I knew it the moment I saw you. I felt it right here”—he gestures to his beating heart, the one your hand had felt and cherished so only last night—“I knew that no matter how big my ambitions were, they would never be bigger than that.” 

You can’t listen to any more. His words pour out onto your skin, but they all slip off like rain upon a beast’s winter pelt. None can penetrate the ringing in your ears. 

Yeonjun sees how retracted you’ve become. “Pretty, please,” he says, slower and more dire now. “Say something." 

You don’t know what to do. Your feet are rooted fast to the ground, but you know that you have to leave, or else you’ll start creating excuses for him. You know yourself too well to let that happen. 

Picking up your skirts, you manage only a few words to part him with. “Though your kind can’t lie,” you say, “you have been the biggest liar I have ever known. You said you loved me.” 

“I do,” he says, shaking his head, eyes twinkling. “I do.” 

Maybe love is a different thing to a faerie. 

You take off. He calls for you, but it’s muffled by the restlessness of the folk around you and the still-playing music. You dart between openings and bounce off bodies, lights and angry faces a blur in your frenzy. Most folk don’t spare you even a glance; nothing could pull them from their merriment. But others gawk at you like you put on a performance, greedy eyes drinking in any amount of fanfare. Their eyes itch under your skin. Crossing the expanse of the hall has never felt so arduous.  

You’ve become their spectacle. 

Breaking into the cold night air, you don’t run home or collapse to your knees in a sob. You hold your dress hard in your hands, the one he’d gifted you among so many others, its fabric bunching in your fists, and stand there as if frozen staring into the tree line ahead. You don’t move and you don’t think; both would remind you that this is real and that you are a fool. You just allow the bitter air to swaddle your skin. 

You don’t even know if you doubt that he loves you. You don’t even know if he actually never intended to hurt you. Had there been times where all you’d done was look at him with starry eyes, and he’d look at you deciding whether or not to have you killed? 

Why are you even here? There is nothing left for you. Whatever simple joys you thought you’d found, they’re gone. You’re so far away from home, and you’ve nobody to call home. You’d left behind your beginnings of a purpose, and now the only purpose you serve is to rot away in Taehyun’s estate because you demanded that you stay here. 

All that time you’d spent worrying, and still, you walked yourself into this. You’re a joke. And now, you’re fully serving your purpose as one—to be laughed at.

White breaths unfurl into the night air before you, floating off to join the snowflakes and heavy fog. You just watch those fluffy flakes fall for a while. 

Snow creaks under a few footsteps behind you, someone letting you know that they’re there. “You’ve gotten awfully good at sneaking around,” Taehyun says. 

You let your head fall back, sighing slowly out through your nose. Turning to him, you spit, “I understand. You were right. I got it, okay? I don’t need you to come here and rub it in.” 

Beomgyu approaches from behind Taehyun. 

Taehyun doesn’t say anything for a bit, ice-hard eyes darting all over your face. “Take her back to the estate,” he tells Beomgyu. 

Glad to escape him, you begin your way on your own. You know that he’s only looking at your break down as pathetic. Perhaps it is, but recognizing that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Wind lapping at your wet cheeks have them stinging as you walk. 

Beomgyu awkwardly trails behind you as you follow the path that had become trodden in the time that you and Taehyun have been here, foliage and shrubbery broken down to make somewhat of a path. 

He doesn’t speak; you don’t expect him to. Instead, you break the quiet yourself, unable to stand only the sound of wind twirling between trees. “I should’ve taken that ridiculous charm thing,” you say, laughing through your tears. That hag had absolutely been able to feel what was coming with you with whatever intuition that the magic in her bones lends her. 

“But then,” Beomgyu says, “you wouldn’t know the truth.” 

That’s true. Not knowing the truth doesn’t make it untrue, but at least it spares your fragile heart. “I don’t know if I’d mind that,” you tell him. “I think I’d prefer it.” 

Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes. 

❆

You don’t remember falling asleep. You remember climbing into your bed, dreading that you’ll be in your head all night, but to some mercy, you’d found sleep not long after that. 

You’d pulled yourself from bed, no matter how it had grown a gravitational pull and insisted that it’d hold you warm while you weep. If you hadn’t, you might not have gotten up at all. As a girl, you’d force yourself into the day’s routine when you had your worst days. It’s the only way that you live through it. You’d also made an effort to walk past your wardrobe. It carries so much of him: the lovely things he’d gifted you, his letters, and that book he’d lent you. It’s not that you don’t want any of these things; to wither away in your bed, to go through his things and wonder how someone who’d showered you so had meant to be your killer, to drag your feet... It’s that you can’t. 

You poke your needle through the fabric. On the cut of white fabric stretched inside the embroidery hoop, you’ve embroidered a dozen woven wheel stitch flowers of different colors and types. Your bottom aches against the hardwood flooring and your lower spine strains, but you don’t pay any mind to their complaining. You just continue to embroider the little flowers. Some are poppy, some rose, and some you’d made up just to have more to stitch. 

A knock resounds through the war room from the doorway. You look to see Taehyun there. He’s dressed in his Court attire. 

“You should get dressed,” he says. “It’s almost midnight. If you want to make it in time, you’ve got to get ready now.” 

Since when had he decided that you’re okay to go? It’s as if this elusive threat that’d he’d been so careful has up and disappeared. “You can go. It’ll take me too long to get ready.” 

Truth be told, you’d go sick seeing Yeonjun’s face, and you know without a doubt that you would. 

“It’s the solstice,” Taehyun says, stepping into the room. He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. 

Despite how much you had wanted to see it, your heart is too apathetic for it to be worth anything now. Returning to the same faces that had seen your demonstration and no doubt now talk of it... You’d rather finish your fifth rose. “I know.” 

He hesitates, studying you while gears turn in his head. “Hadn’t you thought that something would happen on the solstice?” he says. “Come on. It’s worth seeing how this unfolds.” 

“Why? We aren’t spies anymore. I don’t care what happens in their conflict. It’s well beyond my control as a human here.” 

He grimaces, but you don’t recognize the look there to be anger, more a rigidness. He rests his hand on his sword as he always does. “Then we’ll stay here.” 

You furrow your brows. “Huh?” 

“We can celebrate the solstice here,” he elaborates. “We don’t need to do it there. Plenty of folk celebrate on their own.” 

It dawns upon you that this is his stilted attempt at comforting you. It’s the only way he knows how. You push off the ground. You couldn’t ignore this sliver, however little, of tenderness. You’re not sure if you’d ever see it again if you did. You’ll take anything to distract your mind, as well. You can’t escape the image of Yeonjun’s eyes as he’d pleaded with you from the ground. “I’m not sure Beomgyu will join us, though. He doesn’t believe in the need to celebrate the solstices.” 

“He will if I command it,” he says.  

“What, you’re going to command the poor kelpie to sit and watch a bonfire with us?” you say, imagining how he’d brood. 

The north is wickedly cold at all times, but it’s especially so after night falls. You shuffle closer to the bonfire that Taehyun had built. It’s multitudes smaller than the bonfire you’d sat around with Yeonjun, but it’s warm enough for just the two of you. You quickly shove down those tainted memories before they sting. A lump of emotion forms in your throat before you can, though. You clear it. “Is there anything special that you’re supposed to do?” 

Feeding one last log into the flame, he watches it catch. “We started this really early,” he says. “The fire is supposed to keep you warm and represent the sun’s warmth until sunrise...” He trails off, sliding the cuffs of his shirt that he’d slid up to his elbows to tend to the fire down and sucking in an awkward breath. He looks between the fire and you as though he’d not fully thought out his offer when he’d made it. 

You face your palms to the orange flame, letting the roiling waves of heat warm them. “It’s nice like this.” 

The flame sizzles and pops, spewing sparks and eating up the wood, for a few long moments. You’re not in a talky mood, and Taehyun doesn’t seem to know where to begin on conversation with you that isn't functional. No snow falls around you, and any wind is cut by the estate. This—a place to lose yourself to your mind—is both the thing you need and what you most should not have. 

Taehyun stands watching the fire twirling, his arms over his chest.  

“Is your shoulder healing fine?” you ask, once the air starts feeling a bit heavy with the weight of the prolonged quiet. “Are my stitches holding up fine? No infection, or anything?” 

His gaze flicks up to you. “You stitched it up pretty well,” he answers. “I saw the flowers you were making. You’ve got a good hand.” 

Frowning, you say, “You didn’t say it’s not infected...” 

“It’s not infected,” he says. 

That could be a lie or the truth, you know. But... this sort of deception, you’re more comfortable with. Your human mind can pick up on these subtleties, can catch the careful intonation of somebody trying to hide something behind a lie. “Could I see it?” you ask him. 

He hesitates, expression flat as his eyes convey the extent of his consideration. “You can.” He grabs at his tunic, the fabric the only thing his frost blood even needs to wear out in the cold, and pulls it over his head. 

You swallow hard and fight the flush to your cheeks at the sight of his scar-flecked flesh, his muscled abdomen disappearing as he turns around to show you his back. When you’d last seen his bare skin, you’d been so high on your fear and adrenaline that you’d barely flinched.  

Blinking, you focus on the arrow puncture at his shoulder blade. It’s done some healing, but tinged by an angry red and visibly swollen around the stitches. You curse. 

Of course, he’d rather let his shoulder rot away than admit that he needs any more of your help than he’d been forced to allow. That would require admitting that he’s not just an impenetrable wall of ice. “That is definitely infected,” you say. “Were you just going to let that kill you? Infections like that are beyond help once they get in your bloodstream.” 

“I’ve had infected wounds before,” he says, preparing to put his shirt back on. “This one is nothing. It’ll take a bit longer, but... It’ll heal up fine.” 

You grab his arm. “Just let me clean it a bit,” you insist. “It’s not that big of a deal. You’re not scared that it’s gonna hurt, are you?” 

Sighing, Taehyun says, “I thought you wanted to enjoy the solstice.” 

The hopeful girl you’d been had wanted that, but now it’s just a reminder of everything you don’t want to remember. You wave your hand in the air dismissively. “We did. Come on.” 

You find a bucket to fill with water and cloth along with some stash of ancient spirits in the kitchens, their containers lined with a layer of dust so thick that you know they’re left over from Taehyun’s father. He watches you gather it all. 

You beckon him to turn and show you his shoulder again. He does, bracing his arms on a counter and letting his head hang. You spill out some of that strong liquor into the wound. You’re not really sure if it’ll work as a disinfectant, but as a girl you’d seen an older woman pour it over her wound once, and it’s all you know. 

Gently dabbing at his shoulder now with the water-soaked rag, swollen except for where the stitches sinch it, you say, “You should’ve been going gentle on this thing.” 

Taehyun doesn’t make any fuss as you prod at the wound. “I had more important things to concern myself with,” he says plainly. You press the wet rag to the wound and hold it there, and he begins to try and redirect the conversation to anything other than about himself. “What did the prince say to you at Court?” 

Your stomach drops. “It was nothing.” 

“I know that’s not the truth,” he says, picking up his head to try and look over his shoulder at you. “Tell me the truth.” 

You take the long, torn strips of cloth and begin wrapping it around the expanse of his broad shoulders in a sloppy and amateurish wrap. As long as it shields the wound, it’ll work. “That’s rich coming from you,” you say. “There’s plenty that you lie to me about. You even lied about this.” You tap his shoulder. 

Turning now that you’re done, Taehyun eyes you. You don’t know if he’d been able to hear anything over the sounds of Court or if he’d heard it all with his better hearing ears. You can’t tell which it is.  

“I’ll hear it from some Court gossiper anyway. I think you’d prefer to tell me it yourself.” 

The thought of that scene being a topic of Court gossip makes you ill, but you know that it’s true. The folk love the show, especially one that includes a prince of Faerie on his knees in front of a human. Red-hot embarrassment takes a leisurely stroll up your spine. Your biggest fear has taken flesh in the cruelest way possible.  

Well, if he’s going to end up knowing anyway... You’d prefer it’s from your mouth. You don’t know what sort of conflated half-truths the folk might come up with, since they have no more idea what happened than what they saw. “He was supposed to kill us,” you say, chest too tight to explain it in any depth. “Or, at least, find out who we are, so that we could be killed.” 

Taehyun doesn’t look shocked. He nods. “So, they anticipated our arrival, then. The odds had been stacked against us from the beginning.” 

You nod. Would you have been able to escape? If things had never become entangled between you and Yeonjun, would you and Taehyun lived beyond the first day? Taehyun is strong and you know that he’s no doubt survived plenty in his life, but you’d have been caught completely unaware. “Yeah.” 

“I told you that he’d show you his colors eventually.” 

You want to fight him on that, but you can’t. You have nothing to say. He’d been right. 

What’s left for you now that he has?  

← →

🪶⦂ AHHH! like i said, this part gave me a bit of grief because part 3 was left so open ended—i had so many options and paths i could follow, but ultimately, i chose this one! how do we feel?

▸ 𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑙𝑖𝑠𝑡 @lvrs-street2mmorrow , @soohashits , @f4iryfever , @arcturus444 , @linqed , @serenityism00 , @immelissaaa , @luv4cheol , @lickingan0rchid , @20-cms , @hhoneylix , @beestvng , @hyucktapes if your tag isn't working, check the mentions part of your settings! ༉⋆

you know what time it is...

taehyun

yeonjun

Voting ended onSep 26, 2024

[gyu-tori]

Teaser: Red Poppies | H.K

Pairing: florist!hueningkai x fem!reader Genre: Soulmate AU, Fluff, Angst

1/5 of the valentine's event with the most talented and amazing people I know!! See the full event here.

Dreams are meant to be the canvas where soulmates first appear—where fate paints the shape of the one destined for you. But for you, the nights are blank, a hollow silence stretching endlessly. While others wake with glowing stories of love and connection, you rise with nothing but the weight of questions: Are you broken? Forgotten? Or simply unworthy of the bond everyone else seems to find so easily?

Then there’s Kai—a boy with eyes that hold too much history, like a shattered mirror pieced back together but never quite whole. He knows the ache of emptiness better than anyone. His own dreams once held the promise of forever, only to have it severed before it could even begin. He carries that loss with quiet strength, masking his hurt behind the kindness he offers you.

Together, you stumble through the darkness, searching for meaning in the absence of light. He helps you untangle the threads of your dreams, even as his own heart remains tied to the past. And yet, the more time you spend together, the more it feels like you’re building something unspoken—something fragile but undeniable.

But when shadows in your dreams begin to take form, hope sparks within you—a promise that maybe, at long last, your soulmate is reaching out. For Kai, though, the same shadows bring dread, reopening wounds he thought he’d buried.

As the figures sharpen and truths begin to unfold, you’ll both have to face what it truly means to find a soulmate—and whether the bond you’ve been waiting for was ever written in the stars at all.

Release date: February 14, 2025 | 4:00 PM KST Word count: 14.2k

Taglist: @pagelets @hueningstar @hhoneyhan @immelissaaa @lovingbeomgyudayone @xylatox @i-like-to-read-at-4am Open!! Just leave a comment if you want to be added and tagged!! If you want to be tagged in all of my fics, go here to be added to my permanent taglist.

[gyu-tori]

Teaser: Letters of Yesterday | H.K

Pairing: cursed writer!hueningkai x fem artist!reader Genre: Angst, Slow-Burn, Bittersweet Ending

READ HERE!!!

When love is as fragile as memory, Kai is cursed to forget everything—and everyone—he loves. No matter how deeply he feels, the magic erases him, leaving only blank pages where once there were memories. But Y/N refuses to give up, even when every day brings a new heartbreak. As she clings to the fleeting moments of their time together, she fights to keep their love alive, knowing that each day could be the last he remembers her.

In a cycle of forgotten smiles and vanished kisses, can love survive when memories are fleeting? Or will the price of holding on to Kai’s love be more than she can bear?

Release date: January 22, 2025 | 9:00 PM KST Word count: 9.1k

Taglist: @yunverie @dawngyu @hueningstar @hhoneyhan @immelissaaa | Still open!! Just leave a comment if you want to be added and tagged!! If you want to be tagged in all of my fics, go here to be added to my permanent taglist.

© all rights reserved ─ @gyu-tori 2025

Rei's Notes ✎: I was supposed to start writing a soobin/yeonjun fic but got distracted. I know I've been posting a lot of fics recently, but I hope that's a good thing for you guys. This made me cry while writing so it better make you guys bawl your eyes out (in a good way). Please give this some love too~

[bibibinnie]

ur txt x chubby!reader fics have been so good 🥹 i love seeing chubby!reader representation so i can’t tell u enough how obsessed with them i am. can i request some kai x chubby!reader pls?

anon...u have enlightened something in me. idk why i never(?????????) had specific chubby!reader thoughts w kai i always be thinkin about chubby!reader x soobin but kai's so chubby!partner coded huh? godDAMN im an absolute idiot i might just need to write hueningkai x chubby!reader for the rest of my life to make up for it.

anyway- hell yes u can request kai x chubby!reader thank uu 🥹 and thank u for the compliments~

nsfw. mdni. requested !

cw. boyfriend!hueningkai x chubby!afab!reader, squeezing body parts, praise, dirty talk, kai picks reader up, fingering (f. receiving), reader wears a dress/skirt/lingerie, biting/marking, cunnilingus (f. receiving), sex (protection not mentioned/implied), reader has hair (hair type is not specified), cumming on reader's tummy, pet names (babe).

boyfriend!hueningkai who admires and adores every part of his chubby!girlfriend.

boyfriend!hueningkai who tries teaching you a song on the piano, but catches you staring at his long fingers, wishing they were playing with you instead. what are you staring at? as he moves closer to you, hand just barely gracing your thigh until he squeezes harshly, squishy bits of it spilling over his fingers, eventually pushing ur panties to the side.

boyfriend!hueningkai who always buys you sundresses that are way too short and have too deep of a neckline just so he can push you against the wall, bury his face in your tits, wrap your leg around his waist, and grab your ass the second you're alone.

boyfriend!hueningkai who always has something to compliment you about—you look gorgeous in that outfit, your hair looks beautiful today, i'm so lucky to be with such a sexy woman like you. whether it's sitting across from u at a coffee shop or against ur skin as he's undressing you.

boyfriend!hueningkai who loves picking u up—bridal style, to spin you around, just to give you a big bear hug. but especially legs wrapped around his waist so he can carry you to the bedroom to throw you down on the mattress, attacking your body with kisses and giggles as he tells you over and over again you're so, so sexy.

boyfriend!hueningkai who blushes every time you wear thigh-high anything, but especially socks with short skirts. the way your socks squeeze ur plush thighs, leaving lil indents for when he takes them off after fucking you in the them. and the way your cheeks peek out the bottom of ur skirt when you bend over.

boyfriend!hueningkai who simply loves biting your ass. of course always asking is that too hard? does that feel ok? and u reassure him every time how much u love it when he does that before he goes down on you.

boyfriend!hueningkai who watches tv while using any part of u as a pillow—tits, tummy, thighs, he can't get enough. almost always ending with little kitten licks that turn into full on marking and sloppy sucks, which then turn into eating u out right then and there.

boyfriend!hueningkai who has a death grip on your tit while in missionary, using his other thumb to rub circles on ur clit. watching ur other tit bounce and jiggle and ur ass ripple with his thrusts.

boyfriend!hueningkai who turns positively giddy when you wear lingerie. the way the lace looks on ur skin...he can't comprehend how gorgeous u look. just w-wow...oh my...wow...you look...come here.

boyfriend!hueningkai who loves cumming on ur tummy. the way his cum finds its way into the nooks and crannies of ur skin, sliding down ur waist until u insist he stop staring and get me a towel, babe.