there's a book i Want to read, that has been on my radar even before i wrote the Royalty Tropes Post, but has now been so very loudly hyped up in the tags of it i'm worried i'll get dissappointed..... i did this to myself i Understand but aaugugh.
summary — the worst-cared-for girl in the county keeps washing up in jack’s er, and he can’t help but start paying attention.
warnings — 19.2k. large age gap (jack’s fifty/reader’s in twenties), doctor/patient dynamic initially, power imbalance (attending/nursing student, age, life experience), yearning!jack, protective!jack, jealous!jack, and literally every single word in the book, mutual pining, slow burn, he falls first, hurt/comfort, reader shows signs of adhd but it isn’t explicit, alcohol use (recurrent drunkenness, mention of alcohol poisoning, ER, and repeated intoxication played somewhat lightly), loneliness/self isolation, low self-worth, it’s very difficult for her to accept care, lack of family support/implied estrangement, financial stress and overworking, she’s also spending an unrealistic amt of time hanging out in the ed but it’s fanfic so it’s ok, jokes about financial stress, injuries (sprains, split lip, bruising, gravel burns), medical setting, blood, referenced patient death (patient dies, off-page, Jack grieves), making out/heavy kissing, suggestiveeee content (thumb-in-mouth beat, grinding) but nothing explicit.
notes — oops sorry this fic is so so self-indulgent 🫶 i literally loved writing them tho i was thinking about them for days on end. tried to take a swing at this based on this idea i had + thank you @ker0senebunny for inspriring the shoe scene!!!! inspired by this post + my er visits where i was literally the worst patient ever
Friday and Saturday after midnight, the board filled up with the same predictable words; alcohol poisonings, bar-fight lacerations, the kids who’d taken things they couldn’t name and showed up convinced they were dying when they were mostly just twenty and having a large thought. Jack triaged it on autopilot, and he’d stopped finding any of it interesting somewhere around year seven.
Sure, sometimes there were some cases that got a mild laugh out of him or turned his head. There was a kid who’d superglued his halloween mask on his own face for a dare. The guy who’d lost a bet and swallowed something he wouldn’t name in front of his mother, who was present and furious. The occasional genuinely strange thing the human body did that still, after all these years, made Jack think huh, that’s interesting, the small grim curiosity that was about the only part of the job the years hadn’t fully sanded down. He kept those and told them to new nurses over shitty coffee at four a.m. because he supposed that was a better story than what he could say about the Middle East.
The first time you came in, he’d handed you over to Shen. You were a sprained wrist and a BAC that explained the wrist, sixteen other things were louder, and Shen was free then.
He’d clocked you for half a second on his way to a GI bleed in bay nine: girl on the gurney, one heel too high on, and one somewhere in the greater metropolitan area, some little pink lace-trimmed thing sliding off one shoulder, telling Shen with enormous seriousness that she was so sorry, she didn’t usually do this, she’d had a singular margarita. Only.
Singular. He’d categorized it under the thousand other single margaritas he’d sworn to in this department and forgotten you before he’d reached the bleed.
The second time, he didn’t take you either, but he noticed the wrist.
Same wrist. Different night — a Saturday, three weeks in, the sort of shift where the waiting room sounded like a kennel — and he caught it sideways while he reviewed another chart. It was the same left wrist, taped this time, the nails on that one hand done in some soft pinky color gone chipped at the tips as though the week itself outlasted the manicure, somebody walking you through the discharge paperwork you clearly were ignoring. Something thought for him instead of him thinking much for it, some pattern-recognition thing buried under twenty-some years of reading bodies fast, the same instinct that made him glance twice at something almost normal. A wrist that kept coming back, he supposed. A thread snagging on a nail, there and gone.
The third time, it was Shen, breezing past the station with his Dunkin, saying over his shoulder, “Frequent flyer’s back.”
He shrugged, not yet placing that you were the frequent flyer, and went to bed four.
And that — somewhere between the third time and a number he stopped keeping an honest count of — was where it stopped being a chart and became some sort of thing. A bit, he’d say. The nights the bars let out and the board lit up, he’d find himself reading the incoming names a half-second longer than triage required, and feeling something wrong in his chest when yours wasn’t in them.
Pittsburgh was notoriously interesting, Jack learned through you, in that it apparently contained an infinite supply of ways a girl could get herself in trouble. He was convinced he could’ve drawn a map of the city by your injuries. There was the ankle, of course, a recurring grievance, always the shoes, never your fault. There was one time you’d burned your hand on a curling iron getting ready tipsy and come in more upset about the makeup you’d had to redo (because of crying it off) than the blister. The night you’d gone over in a parking lot because you refused to look at the ground while walking — looking at the ground, while drunk, you informed him, was how you trip — and the time you sliced your finger open trying to shotgun a White Claw with a key because someone had bet you couldn’t. You were really proud of the last one, you’d won the bet.
You were never the same disaster twice, he had to give you that. A little too keen on busting yourself up here and there, sure, but at least it was the wrist once, then a knee that met a curb, then a memorable evening involving a fence you’d been certain you could clear. You came in apologizing — always apologizing, to him, to the nurses, once, memorably, to the wall — and you came in sweet, which was the part that got under him, because drunk people in this ER were a lot of things and sweet was rarely one of them.
“Mmm,” you hummed the fourth or fifth time, the second your eyes found him through the gap in the curtain, going boneless with relief like Jack was the cavalry and not the man who was meant to flash light into your eyes for thirty seconds. “The pretty one.”
Jack let out a huff. “Thanks, doll.”
“Doll,” you repeated, the word going gummy in your mouth. “He calls me doll.”
“Eyes open. Follow the light.”
“You call everyone that, Dr. Abbot?” you said, his name coming out in a cluster like you were losing thread of it, the Abbot dissolving into something closer to a hum.
“Sure do,” he lied. “Track the light.”
You looked at his mouth, then his hands, then back up, a slow uncoordinated sweep because your eyes had stopped reporting to anything in particular, much less what they had to. Pupils blown wide and lazy. He thumbed your eyelid up a fraction to get the light where he needed it; your lashes were clumped and starry with whatever mascara had survived the night.
He held the penlight steady and waited you out. He had nowhere to be. That was the thing about the dead hours after bars closed; the bleed had been signed up to the floor, the chest pain turned out to be a panic attack and a large energy drink, and there was just you, and the saline ticking into your arm one slow drop at a time.
“What’d you get up to tonight?” he murmured, thumb finding the pulse at your wrist, counting without meaning to.
“S’fast ‘cause you’re here,” you said, sounding very pleased with yourself.
“Sure it is. Where’d you hurt yourself tonight?”
“... stairs,” you said after a moment, like your brain had to run a few laps to get to the word.
“Oh, yeah?” He hummed. You lifted your free hand a little off the mattress, lost track of it, and dropped it back down. “How many?”
“Mm. Four?” You squinted at the ceiling. “Maybe three. I dunno. Not the Great Wall or somethin’. Promise.”
“I believe you.” He nodded, then turned your forearm to the light, finding the scrape you’d come in with. It was gravel-burn, raw, the heel of your hand and a stripe up your wrist. Nothing that needed more than cleaning. You watched him do it with your head tipped against the pillow, gone quiet so the talking had run out for a second, which never lasted.
“Should I get a better first aid kit?” you asked, then clenched your jaw for a second like you felt something was wrong with it. “S’I don’t have to bother you all the time?”
“Might be a good idea to invest,” he said. He pulled the swab through the gravel-burn slowly, and you hissed and tried to pull back the hand on reflex. “Easy.” He kept it, his grip light yet unmoving around your fingers. “Almost done. Don’t fight me.”
You hummed, like you wanted a different answer.
Jack wet his lips, shaking his head slightly. He worked the grit out of the scrape, a fleck of it catching raw skin, and he tilted your arm to the light, getting it on the second pass, and wiped it on the gauze. Your hands twitched in his, and he pressed your fingers flat to the mattress with his thumb, and they stayed.
“You’d have to do it yourself, though,” he said. “Bathroom sink at three in the morning with one hand.” He reached for fresh gauze. “You’d make a mess of it.”
You frowned at the ceiling, nodding. “Sounds a little bad.”
“It’s a lot bad.” He laid the gauze over the scrape, thumbed the tape down at the edge of your wrist slowly, smoothing it flat where it wanted to lift. His knuckle dragged once over the thin skin there, and he felt your pulse jump under it. “You’d scar, probably.” His thumb passed the chipped polish, the chunky gold ring you’d kept on, even for this. “You’ve got nice hands. Shame to wreck ‘em over the sink.”
It took you a second. “You think so?”
“Don’t wreck ‘em.”
“You like when I come in,” you said, delighted.
“What I’d like,” he said, flat, lifting his eyes to yours, “is you off the stairs and down to the one drink.” His thumb settled over the back of your hand again. “But if you’re set on flinging yourself down, then you come here. Deal?”
Your fingers had curled around two of his somewhere in there loosely, without you noticing. He felt them settle, and he held very still so as to not spook you. He chose to not acknowledge it or look at it.
“Deal,” you mumbled, somewhere far off, probably forgetting the front half of the terms.
He let it go at that, taping down the last edge and turning over your wrist once more to be sure of it. Then he set your hand back on the mattress, yours still loosely hooked through his, going nowhere.
“Anyone out there to get you home?” he asked.
“Dunno.” Your nose scrunched. “Was gonna Uber.”
He sighed through his nose. “Where’s that girl — the one you came in with last time? Why don’t you call her?”
“That’s annoying, Dr. Abbot,” you said, almost in a whine.
“Yeah?” He kept looking at the wall behind you. “What’s annoying about a ride home?”
“Calling people. Making it a thing.” Your free hand flopped vaguely. “Then they gotta come get you, and they’re all — have to be nice about it, but you can tell.” Your nose scrunched. “It’s a whole production.”
He pressed his thumb flat back over your hand where your fingers were still caught in his.
“Oh? Nothing annoying about it, sweetheart. You call, she comes. Simple as that.” He turned to face you. “But if you insist on it, I’m not signing you off until you’re good enough to go home alone. So you call your girl, or you sit right here and keep my department company till you’ve cleared enough that I’ll sign off on it.”
Your eyes narrowed as you looked at him as though he’d spoken a different language. “Second one?”
“Obviously you pick that one,” he said.
He pulled the stool over and sat. For a few minutes, he had nowhere to be, and now, apparently, neither did you.
It wasn’t that you simply didn’t let people help you, either. Jack had never seen anyone so committed to being simply fine. Jack had met the stoic kind before; construction guys who walked in with rebar through a forearm acting like it was a small inconvenience; old ladies who’d been having a heart attack since last Tuesday and didn’t want to be a bother. But Jack had always believed those people to be suppressing, and you were just convinced, somewhere down in the foundation, that needing anything was an imposition.
That was also why the shoes confused him so much.
“This is the same damn ankle,” Jack said, turning your foot in his hands, watching the swelling outside of it.
“You don’t have to remind me. Most men buy me a drink before they get this familiar with my ankles,” you said, then groaned as you looked at his eyes going over the swelling.
“No drink.” He pressed along the bone. “Not my fault you keep handing your ankle to me.”
You tipped your head back against the pillow, groaning again. “Dr. Abbot, they look so bad. I feel like I’m pregnant.”
“I can do a quick blood draw and we can rule it out.” His palm flattened on the mattress beside your feet, leaning over to meet your eyes again. “But I think it’s those heels of yours, doll.”
Your eyes snapped to him. “Don’t be a dick, Dr. Abbot.”
He tilted his head, then pointed at the laminated paper stuck to the wall. “Aggressive behavior of any kind toward healthcare workers is a felony.”
“Then arrest me, doctor. I’ll die on this hill — and they’re not heels.” Your lips pursed, and the corner of your mouth kicked up. “Cuffs may be a little forward for a date, but I won’t stop you.”
“Aren’t you just so sweet,” he muttered. “What are they, then?”
“Bottega Lido Mules.”
The words meant absolutely nothing to him — could’ve been a pasta dish, a town in Italy, a wine — but they clearly did to you, so he remembered them.
“That’s nice, doll. They’ll be the reason I see you again.”
“Maybe, ‘cause I’ll never stop wearing them.”
You said the words your whole face, hands coming off the mattress to make the point with a drunk theatrical conviction as you argued something that genuinely mattered to you. Jack thought, not for the first time since he’d met you, that you’d have been magnetic stone-sober at a dinner party, the kind of girl that made a table lean in. It was just that he only ever got the 3am version.
At least you had a hill you’d die on and didn’t apologize for, Jack supposed.
“You married, Doctor?” you asked as he started icing your ankle.
“No,” he said, holding your eyes for a second. “Why — you got a boyfriend I should know about, then?”
He almost wished you did have one. He wished that there were somebody whose name you’d have said just now who’d be in the waiting room with his jaw tight because you’d gone and hurt yourself again. Somebody who’d take care of the ankle when you walked out of here in crutches, who took the keys when you had too many. He wished there was a person in the world whose job you were.
And you weren’t his first patient who he’d understood to not have someone taking care of them. He knew that if he carried them all, he’d drown inside a month if he tried to be the person nobody else had been. He’d never once had it turn into a wish, standing here with an ice pack in his hand going slack in his hand because he was too busy resenting someone who didn’t exist for not being in the waiting room.
He wondered when down the line you’d stopped letting the people in your life around you be the ones you could call, became a girl who said sorry for bleeding and had nobody, nobody, and looked at him like he was the warmest place she’d been in all week.
You laughed. “If I had a boyfriend, would I be laying it on so thick?”
He let out a breath through his nose, despite himself. “Stop wearing the heels, doll. Not nice to not have a foot.”
The next time you came in, it was a Thursday. With some pileup of bad luck, you came in somewhere past one with a split lip and a story about a dance floor he only half got the shape of. Jack hadn’t even been assigned to you yet, he’d just seen your name on the board, and reassigned himself quietly enough that dared anyone on shift to comment. Nobody did.
“Lip’s not bad,” he said, tilting your chin up under the light, thumb at your jaw. The split was already going fat and shining at the center of your lower lip, and he found his eyes stayed on your mouth a second past the part that was his job, on the soft unhurt swell of it under the hurt. He moved his thumb. “Doesn’t need anything. You bit it when you fell down. That’s all.”
“S’throbbing, Doctor,” you mumbled, the word coming around muffled around the split.
“It’ll throb. You’ve got a swollen lip.” He let go of your jaw and reached for the penlight. “Eyes on me.”
“I was so cute before this,” you said through a groan.
The huff that came out of him was almost a laugh, dragged out against his own will, and he shared a fleeting look with Bennet — a fairly new nurse — who had tilted his head briefly and was too afraid to meet your eyes.
“Alright. Still the prettiest girl I’ve treated tonight,” Jack said when your brows had furrowed together.
“You treat other girls?”
“It’s a hospital,” he said. “Few hundred a week.”
Your face looked wounded. “Few hundred.”
He leaned in slightly, faking a whisper. “You’re my top three.”
You were further gone than usual tonight. He’d noticed it the second he came around the curtain, the way your head was having a hard time holding itself up, the loose unmoored swim of your eyes that took longer than it should to find his finger. A piece of hair had come loose and stuck to the gloss at the corner of your mouth and you hadn’t the coordination to deal with it, and he had the unprofessional impulse to, and didn’t.
Bennet kept working the blood pressure cuff up your arm, half an eye on you, half on his own work.
“Track the light,” Jack murmured. “Slowly.”
“Too bright.”
“Tough.” The corner of his mouth moved up slightly. “You can bat your lashes at me when we’re done. Right now, I need ‘em open.”
You batted them anyway, slowly and theatrically, just to be a problem about it. They were long, and the theater of it was so ridiculous, and Jack had to bite down the inside of his cheek to keep his face flat to wait you out, until you gave up and tracked the finger. Your pupils were reactive, equal, and lagging half-a-beat behind. He clicked the light off.
“Too bright,” you said again.
“It’s off,” he drawled, chuckling.
Bennett thread a line into the back of your free hand, and you watched him sink it with a drowsy focus.
“Why’s it go in the back of the hand?” you mumbled. “More nerves there. Hurts more. Why not the — inside. By the elbow.” You tilted your head slightly to let your eyes wander to the crook of your arm. “Bigger vein. The antec—antecubital,” you said carefully, sounding out each syllable, afraid of messing it up. You wet your lips and turned to face him, then Bennet. “Why’s nobody use the good one?”
Jack pursed his lips and looked at you for a moment.
“Saves the good one,” he said, catching up, eyes going back to your chart. “AC vein blows easily when somebody’s moving around, and you —” He tipped his head at you, raising a brow, the squirming drunk of you. “ — Are gonna move around. Back of the hand’ll hold. I’d rather you be sore than re-stuck twice ‘cause you couldn’t sit pretty for thirty seconds.” He paused as he saw your eyes glaze over. He sighed. “Ask me how I know that about you.”
You’d gone busy, lips moving slightly like you were repeating it back to yourself so it’d stick, and Jack felt something in his chest shift a degree as he watched you do it.
He sighed, dragging a palm over the lower half of his face. “Where’d you learn that, then?”
“School,” you said to the ceiling, a small hint of pride taking over your voice. “M’gonna become a nurse. Gonna be good at it.”
Bennet snorted, finishing the tape. “Gonna be patching up drunk girls just like you then, huh,” he said. “Full circle.”
Jack watched the pride go out of your face slowly, like a house losing its power. Your chin dropped and your eyes slid from Bennet to the curtain as your hand fisted in your lap.
“Yeah,” you said, almost curiously. “Guess so.”
Jack’s jaw clenched involuntarily. It wasn’t the guy’s fault, not really. It was a nothing joke, the sort the whole department tossed off a hundred times a shift, the gallows shorthand that kept you sane at two in the morning. Jack had made worse about patients who’d never know, about drunks who wouldn’t remember, about exactly this, exactly girls like you. He’d just never had one of them go quiet before, watched the bright thing fold itself up and get tucked away.
“Bennet, you done?”
“Yeah, line’s good — ”
“Then go take vitals on six. I’ve got her.”
Bennet went, and it was just the two of you again.
Jack pulled the stool over with his foot and sat — lower than he had to, level with you, taking himself out of the column of people standing over you tonight and telling you what you were — and waited until your eyes came up off the curtain and found him.
“There she is,” he said when your eyes found him. He turned your taped hand over under the light like there was still something to do with it. There wasn’t, he just wanted his hands on something of yours while he undid what the room had done. “Look at me. Nothing good on the curtain.”
“How’s school treating you then, doll?” he asked, aiming for offhand and not steering you off whatever Bennet had knocked loose.
“Hard,” you said, but a small smile had crawled up your lips. “But I like it.” Your shoulders came up loosely.
“Yeah?” He kept his thumb moving over the back of your hand slowly, like he could press the bright thing back up to the surface where it belonged. “I think you’ll be good at it.”
It was such a strange feeling, Jack distantly noticed, to feel this utter conviction. He was rarely sure of anything good anymore. Sure of plenty else; sure within ten seconds of a bad rhythm which way the night was going to break, sure of which of the kids wheeled in at 2 am he’d see again and which he wouldn’t, a grim accumulated certainty that had nothing in it he’d ever wanted to be right about.
The job had made him an expert on the downslope of things. He could read the exact moment a body wanted to quit better than he could read most of what people said to his face. And here you were, and he was so sure of the other direction, and he felt the same weight of it behind his sternum, except it had swung and pointed at something good for once. You were going to be excellent at this.
It bothered him a little, how much he wanted to be there to see it, whoever you were going to be once you stopped washing up on his floor on the worst nights of your week. He’d known you, what, a handful of shifts as a frequent flyer, a bit, a name his eyes unconsciously caught on. He had no business feeling certain of anything about you, and he was, and he’d let himself feel it.
Your eyes found him properly again. “Liar.”
He huffed out a short laugh. “Tell you what. You finish that program, you get through all that mess where they try to drown you.” His thumb smoothed over the tape. “Then you come find me here and we’ll see if we can get you here with me on nights. Clearly you’re at your finest then.”
It was maybe something silly to say, and Gloria may have his head for it. He had no actual standing to say anything like it, even though you’d never remember it. He knew better; hope was a controlled substance in his field and he was stingy with it on purpose, because he’d seen the withdrawal.
But God, he’d love to see the part of you he could only catch glimpses of through the wreck like a light under the door. He’d love to be the one who taught you which arrogance to keep and which to let the job take away. He’d love, plainly and without anywhere to put it, to watch you become who you’d just told him you were going to be.
It was a lot of loving for a girl who’d been in his department and wouldn’t recall his face or a word of this by tomorrow morning. He was getting sentimental, or old, or both; the years stacked up behind his eyes until he started mistaking everything for a second chance at something.
Your lips moved. “So I can patch girls up like myself?”
“Nah.” He kept looking at your hand. “You can patch up old bastards like me, too.” Then, he pointed his index finger of his free hand at you, mock-stern. “Gotta make sure you’re not at point three BAC, though. Will have to do that work to get you working with me.”
“Mm.” Your eyes flickered up to the ceiling, weighing it with the enormous gravity of the very drunk as though he’d posed a very real proposition to you. “Okay. For you, I’d stop.”
“For me?” he repeated, mostly to buy himself a second.
“Mm-hm.” You turned your face to him and said it with such ease, no glance away to leave yourself an exit. “You’re worth not drinkin’ over.”
Your words went in clean, the way the best and worst things do, under the ribs where he kept nothing armored because nobody ever aimed there. Jack felt the back of his neck go warm and was abruptly, intensely grateful for the light that wouldn’t display it.
Jack huffed, having to look away at the floor then. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all year, and you’re not gonna remember it. Hell of a thing.”
When he made himself look back up, you’d tipped your face into the pillow, watching him from the side with your eyes gone soft and heavy, the smile arriving unguarded across your mouth. The split tugged one corner of it, that small wince folded right into the sweetness, and you seemed to not feel it.
He had the sudden, idiotic wish to have met you on a night you’d remember. To have perhaps caught you when you fell at the bar, to have been the stranger whose arm happened to be there, not the doctor it eventually routed you to. Perhaps he could’ve been a man in your night instead of a stop in it.
He shook his head. “You’re trouble, you know that, right? Saying all these nice things. What’s a man supposed to do with that?”
He’d have liked to have been remembered, was the bottom of it. By you specifically. He’d spent decades being the man people were grateful to and glad to forget.
“What’s your name, Doctor Abbot?” you asked, drowsy.
He looked down at his badge, then back up at you. “Take a wild guess?” Then, he added, “You never looked at my badge?”
“Sorry. Didn’t read.”
“Don’t apologize to me. It’s Jack.”
Jack was doing his usual rounds this Friday, on a rush from a chest pain in two that turned out to be a panic attack and a kid in five who’d put a kitchen knife through the meat of his own palm trying to halve a frozen bagel when Ellis caught him by the elbow at the board.
“Heads up, Abbot,” she said, grinning. She nodded toward triage, toward the doors. “Bed three. Your, uh—” The grin tipped over, delighted with itself. “Girlfriend’s got a boyfriend.”
It was a running thing now. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth time you’d washed up on his shift the staff had started on it — your frequent flyer, your stray, your girl’s back — and Jack had stopped bothering to deny it because that’d only feed it, and he’d learned not denying it had a way of starving the joke faster.
He looked, and was immediately able to notice what you weren’t doing more than what you were; you weren’t grinning at the ceiling, weren’t doing that boneless sweet-relief thing. You were sitting up too straight on the bed, hands folded in your lap, and there was a guy fitted to the chair beside you with one arm slung along the back of yours and a hand resting on your knee like he’d put it there to mark the spot. He was saying something low to the side of your face, and you were nodding at it, and not looking at anybody.
Jack felt a muscle tick in his jaw, immediately not feeling anything nice about the situation. “I got it — you mind taking six for me? I’ll come in a couple minutes.”
By the time he’d made it to you, he’d settled his face into something unbothered. You could read it, he’d realized at some point during your frequent visits, and that only meant he had to be on his better behavior around you.
“Evening.” He pulled the curtain half-round behind him, glanced at the chart clipped to the foot of the bed, then at you. “What’d we do tonight?”
“She caught an elbow,” the guy answered. “Some asshole on the dance floor. It’s nothing — she’s fine. She’s just a lightweight, aren’t you — ” A little squeeze on your knee. “ — didn’t even really need to come in, but y’know. Better safe.”
You weren’t a lightweight, he immediately wanted to correct. He’d seen you put away enough over the months to know your tolerance better than this guy apparently did; he knew the difference between the nights you were genuinely wrecked and the nights you came in clearer than you let on, and looking at you, tonight, you weren’t anywhere near the state implied.
“You,” he said, tipping his chin in your direction. “Not him. Where’d it get you?”
You lifted your hand up from your lap and touched your cheekbone, movement slow, and Jack stepped in and tipped your head up toward the light with two fingers under your chin, thumb resting just shy of the scrape. The skin had gone dark along the bone, tender, an elbow’s worth of it. Nothing that needed more than an ice and a night, but you were still holding still under his hand and not meeting his eyes, and that he didn’t like at all.
“It’s okay,” you said. “Really. S’not even — ”
“Let me be the judge of that, sweetheart. Gettin’ paid for this.” His eyes flicked down to yours and caught, holding it there a second with a small question in the rise of a brow, before he went back to the bone, thumb tracing the edge of the bruise so light you barely felt it. A small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth at the sight. “Follow my finger. Eyes only.”
You followed, pupils fine and equal. No concussion in it.
“She’s fine, I told you,” the guy said from the chair, a little laugh under it like he was inviting Jack in on something. “Hardly. She bounces back.”
Jack clicked the penlight off and turned to the side. “Gonna need the room.”
“I’ll stay.” The hand went back to your knee. “I’m all good here.”
“Can’t clear a head strike with people in the room. You get it.” Jack tilted his head to the side, raising a shoulder. “Liability. Coffee machine’s down the hall. Give me two minutes with my patient.”
The easy smile on the guy’s lips went thin around the edges, looking for a thing to push against and not finding it. He stood up slow, making a show of it, squeezing your knee and letting you know he’ll be back in a minute, babe, a hand trailing your shoulder on the way past, all of it aimed less at you and more at Jack holding the curtain. Jack pressed his lips in a thin line as he met the guy’s eyes.
The second the curtain closed behind him, a breath left you, tiny and involuntary, and your shoulders came down in the empty room.
“Sorry, Dr. Abbot,” you murmured. “I keep being a mess at this place.” You took in a short, almost shaky breath. “Sorry.”
“None of that,” he almost grumbled, penning your chart. “Your folks down here, sweetheart?”
“No,” you said to your lap, picking the edge of the blanket. “Back home. A few states over.” You let out a laugh. “Just me out here. S’nice.”
Jack forced a small smile, having to look at the ceiling while you looked down at your lap, shaking his head, more of an action for himself than for you. He pulled the stool over with his foot and sat, getting level with you.
“What’s goin’ on with you, huh?” he asked quietly, making sure there was nothing sharp in his tone at all. “Honest. I like seeing you but not like this bruised up with a guy who talks for you.” His thumb found your wrist. “So talk to me. What’s going on?”
“He’s fine,” you said. “Just likes being around.”
Jack tilted his head, dipping his head to meet your eyes that were still facing down. “Not the important part of the question, and you know it.”
You sighed. “Sorry, Jack.”
“Quit it. The only thing I want from you tonight is some honesty, alright?”
A corner of your lip kicked up, even though the dimness in your eyes held. “Your eyes look really pretty tonight.”
“Heard that one before,” he drawled. “Had ‘em fifty years. Try a new one.”
“Your neck’s going red,” you mumbled, fingers reaching up to press flat to the warm of his skin, right there below the jaw, like you just had to feel whether it was true.
Jack stilled. Your fingers were cold on his neck. He distantly registered his pulse was probably going under your fingertips, and you’d feel it if you held there a second longer. And then you caught yourself, hand snapping back to the blanket.
“Sorry. Sorry — I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have done that — ” you said, the words coming out in a taut string.
“Easy,” he said, voice coming out rough. He swallowed. “Got me all flustered and now you’re gettin’ all shy?”
You huffed a small laugh, your hand still fisted in the blanket where you’d snatched it back. “I’m not allowed to do that. I don’t think.”
“Had no idea you knew how to behave,” he leaned a little back from the stool, crossing his arms. “Should I be worried about that guy out there?”
“Jealous, Doctor?”
He rolled his eyes slightly, not responding.
You sighed when you realized he wasn’t taking the bait. “He’s fine. He just likes being around.”
He stood off the stool and reached for the discharge clipboard at the foot of the bed.
“Whatcha doing there?”
“My job.” He clicked the pen. “Clearing you. You’ve got no concussion. You’re not dying tonight.” He scrawled on the paper. “And I’m writing you a script for the bruise and a code for an Uber — ”
“No, no,” you said immediately. “Please don’t do that.”
He raised his hand with the pen, palm open. “You never let me Uber you back when you’re alone. At least have this.” Your face scrunched up, and he could practically feel the guilt building in you. “Don’t need to use it now. Or ever. You can keep it for whenever.” He set the slip on your lap before you could push it back at him, the matter completely closed on his end. “Goes in your phone case. You can forget it exists until you need it.”
“You can’t keep handing me stuff — ”
“Department’s got a whole stack. You’re not special.” He capped the pen, though the corner of his mouth made it slightly visible that his words were false. “Don’t flatter yourself, doll.”
You looked down at the slip, your thumb worrying the edges of it. “I don’t like taking things.”
“I noticed. A few hundred times now.” He tucked the pen back in his scrub pocket, and his voice came down a notch. “If it really makes you feel so bad, though, then maybe we can start taking care of ourselves so you don’t have to keep ending up here?”
Jack was in the middle of hand-off, Robby doing his thing before Robby left and did whatever the hell he did. They were at the board, Robby running down the floor. It was six-fifteen in the ugly hour, the in-between where the day shift was dragging itself toward the door and the night hadn’t started biting yet, the light through the ambulance doors gone gold and slanted and almost decent for once.
And then the doors slid, and you came through them. Jack’s attention peeled to you the second your shape entered the room, except this was wrong, he distantly registered. It was daylight and six in the evening and you were on your own two feet, upright and, assumedly, sober and walking in through the front like a person as opposed to a patient. You were wearing a jacket that swallowed you, and he assumed underneath it was shorts of some sort. He could see a stripe of navy cotton peeking from under the collar of your jacket as you adjusted a tote bag on your shoulder.
You looked, frankly, like a completely different species from the one he scraped off bed four on weekends. The jacket was too big — his first thought was that it was a man’s, and his second thought, which he didn’t care for, was about whose — sleeves shoved up to your forearms, a stripe of soft navy cotton on the collar, and below it bare legs and shorts and sneakers that had likely never seen the inside of a club. Your hair was up and a little damp at the temple and your face was scrubbed clean.
You looked like somebody’s whole good day, he thought. You looked around around the waiting room with slightly widened eyes, a lost expression coating your features like you’d built up a lot of nerve to walk in here and had no idea what to do with it.
“ — and the tox screen is still pending, so don’t let them,” Robby was saying.
“Mhm,” Jack said, attention already halved.
And Bennet, breezing past the triage desk with cheerful obliviousness, caught your figure and said, out loud, “Don’t tell me you’ve started day drinking. It’s barely past six, you gotta pace yourself — ” He let out a small laugh at his own joke, and kept walking, and didn’t see the way it landed.
Your body stiffened, and you looked like a deer in headlights. Your mouth opened, some sort of flustered apology forming, he was sure.
Jack let out a short groan, shaking his head. He set the tablet on the counter, already moving to cross the floor toward you. “Finish the hand-off with Shen. I gotta go deal with something.”
Robby said something at his back — deal with what? — but Jack was already gone, crossing the floor slowly but somehow still eating the distance fast, and he watched you spot him coming and watched the relief crash over your face. Except you were sober now, in the daylight, and your whole face was going soft and grateful and just slightly wrecked at the sight of him.
He stopped a couple feet short of you, closer than a doctor, further than he stood to you at night. He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands — there was no chart to hold (he should’ve brought the tablet) or wrist to take or a penlight to shine — so he clasped them behind his back, and tilted his head to get a better look at you.
“Hi,” you breathed.
“Hey,” he said, eyes doing a quick once-over to make sure you really didn’t have any new injuries.
You shifted the tote under his gaze and clutched whatever was in the bag a little tighter.
“Jack —” you started, stopped, like the name had come out wrong. “ — Dr. Abbot.” You winced, pinching your eyes shut for a second. “Jack?” you tried to say again, smaller, your eyes flicking up to check his face to check if you’d overstepped. “Sorry, I don’t know which — ”
“Jack’s great.” His mouth tugged up, despite himself. “You’ve called me a lot worse. Jack’s a step-up.”
You let out a startled little laugh, your mouth coming over your mouth like you could catch it, as your body eased a degree.
“I’m sorry — I don’t — God, this is so embarrassing. I’m sorry.”
“You know how many times you’ve apologized to me? Quit it.” He rubbed a finger over his lips. “What’s got you here today, then?”
“Um, I came to see you.” He raised a brow, and you let out a short breath, then continued, “I might not remember a lot of it, but I remember you took really good care of me. And my friends who came in with me sometimes said you took really good care of me.” The words came out softer now, flowing, more earnest. “Even though I was a mess. Especially when. So I just wanted to —” You shrugged, smiling slightly. “ — come say thanks.”
Jack felt the complete warmth of you land somewhere he kept no armor. “It’s the job,” he said quickly, before he could stop himself. “You didn’t have to come down here for that. That’s — it’s what we do. Anybody on shift would’ve done the same.”
Your expression faltered for a moment, and your eyes dropped to the tote at your side as your shoulders came in. You shook your head, a small motion, then smiled again.
“Right. No — yeah, of course.” You chuckled. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make it a — I know it’s your job.” You shifted the bag, then shifted your weight from one foot to another. “Still, though. You did, so I wanted to.”
Jack already wanted to take his words back, but he couldn’t, so he just shook his head. “Hey, you’re my problem, though. So thank you. For the thanks. We’re even.”
Your shoulders eased and you nodded. “Well, I also have something for you.” You hauled a container out of your tote and held it out to him with both hands before you could chicken out. “It definitely doesn’t make up for all of the times you helped me.” You looked down at the container. “And I don’t know if you’re lactose intolerant, or have a peanut allergy or anything. I’m sorry if you do — I can — ”
“I’ve got a cast-iron everything. The cookies won’t kill me.” When you pushed the container further to him, he took it off your hands, eyes quickly scanning the round chocolate chip cookies, forcing a smile down. He swallowed whatever had lodged in his throat.
“These are homemade?” He weighed the container in both hands, absurdly. You nodded. He swallowed whatever on earth had lodged in his throat at that.“Didn’t have to do all that for me.”
“I wanted to,” you said quickly. “I wasn’t sure how the food here is, so thought it might be a nice change.”
“Worse than you’re imagining,” he said, then tipped his head to the side as the memory crawled into his brain, uncalled for. “You’ve actually thrown a sandwich across the room.”
Your palm came up to your mouth, and you let out a muffled, “I’m so sorry.”
Jack snorted, shaking his head. Then, after a moment, he cleared his throat before it could get away from him. He looked back toward the board, then at you, knowing time was slipping and he’d have to go back to work and you’d have to go somewhere else, most likely.
“You got finals or anything coming up soon?” he asked.
Your lips curved down, and you nodded. “Yeah, in a couple weeks.”
“Am I gonna be seeing you getting wheeled in wasted?”
“I want to say no,” you said, smiling a little crooked. “I’m working on it. But I’ve said that before and ended up here. So.” You shrugged, lips jutting out like you were also unimpressed with yourself. “Ask me again in a couple weeks, I guess. I’d like it if you didn’t, though.”
“Then quit doing the hard nights alone,” he said, leaning in just slightly. “You keep yourself off the stairs, and you can come bother us instead here with a textbook.” He raised a brow as he held your eyes. “We’ve got a family room that’s almost always empty at night.”
“I couldn’t — ”
“Won’t be a bother. Trust me. You’d be silly not to use people’s help when they’ve clawed through the same exams to get the badge. You get stuck, somebody’ll know it cold.” He shrugged. “Half of ‘em are bored out of their minds some nights. You’d be doing us a favor.”
You let out a breath, brows pinching together. “That’s — yeah.” You let out a short laugh, looking away for a second. “I’d like that. A lot. Thank you, really. As long as you don’t mind.”
“This is a teaching hospital, doll. I don’t mind, so long as you don’t mind the company. Might be nice for me, too.”
You smiled and for a moment, neither of you moved to end it. Then you shifted the tote back up your shoulder, and Jack felt the pull to keep you here one more second before he could stop himself.
“Go home,” he said gruffly. “And I’ll be looking for you. So actually turn up, don’t make me look for nothing.”
The whole sun of you came up at that, stunned, like you hadn’t expected to be looked for by anyone. Jack felt the ground go quietly out from under him, the vertigo of having reached for a person’s happiness on purpose and connected, of being, for once, the cause of a face doing that. He’d gotten so used to delivering news that took the light out that he’d forgotten it ran the other way, too.
“I’ll turn up. I promise.”
He nodded, clearing his throat and turning for the board, bidding you a throaty goodbye.
“She’s the girl that everyone on night talks about?” Robby asked immediately, falling into step beside him.
Jack looked at him sideways, shaking his head. “You got something to say, too?”
“No,” Robby said, rubbing his palm at his chin like he was holding something in. “You like her or something?”
Jack halted for a second, pointing his index at Robby as he lowered his chin. “You shut up. She’s gonna be a nurse.”
“Oh, yeah,” Robby laughed. “Looks like she’s gonna be your nurse, old man. You’ll need it soon enough.”
Thank god you did turn up. Jack had the sense that maybe he’d scared you off altogether by his offer, and the line he’d toed had two very alternate spectrums: you’d find a new hospital altogether to go to in the metropolitan area after your falls or poisonings, or you’d be here a lot more often, which he still wasn’t sure would’ve been often enough.
The first time you came in, it was well past midnight and Jack had unfortunately not been able to catch you off the bat because he was in an emergency surgery. He’d walked out of it with his blood-stained surgical gown still on to be met with the sight of you by the nurse’s station, writing something down on the back of a discharge form for Lena, with another Tupperware laying on the table. He made the guess that you’d brought the whole floor something and were three minutes from having Lena eating out of your hand.
You’d found a corner of his department and made yourself a small soft home in it inside of ten minutes, and you were leaning in, and Jack stood there for a moment with the bad night still ringing in his ears and felt something unclench in his chest by a fraction.
“ — no, but you gotta,” you were saying to Lena in earnest as Jack approached closer. “If you put the brown sugar in while the butter’s still hot, it’s just — it’s a different cookie.”
“You taking the recipe, Lena?” Jack asked then, fully submerging into the knot you’d made with his charge nurse.
You turned to face him, a smile forming on your lips almost immediately, and then your eyes dropped over him, to the gown, the rust-brown stain dried dark across the front of it, the set of his shoulders.
“I am,” Lena replied. “Gonna make these for the kids.” She punctuated her sentence by holding up one of the cookies.
“Gonna make some for us, too, then?” Jack asked, raising a brow, and settled his elbows over the table. He turned his neck to face you properly, putting on his best smile.
Lena laughed shortly. “I don’t like you enough.” She pushed off the counter with some forms in hand. “Her, maybe. You can have whatever she leaves behind.” She shot you a look that was almost warm before she went and disappeared down the hall.
“Could be you someday,” Jack said, tilting his head in the direction of Lena’s chair.
You shook your head, then pushed the container in his hands. “I’ve got to graduate first. And pass pharm, which is currently — ” You patted your tote bag, textbooks heavy. “ — trying to kill me.”
Jack nodded toward the family room, placing the container on the table for a second beside him. “C’mon, then, doll. Let’s see what the pharm’s doing to you.”
“You don’t have to — ” Your eyes flicked down the gown again. “You just came out of surgery. You don’t have to help me study.”
“Actin’ like I’m the one who got the surgery,” Jack muttered, chuckling slightly. He was already peeling off the gown one-handed, balling it up to toss. He started walking, and you followed behind him. “C’mon. It’s pretty empty right now.”
It’d been pleasant that night and the few after to have five to ten minute increments of sitting with you helping you study in between doing his actual job. He’d duck in between things — a lull after discharge, the dread stretch while he waited for a CT scan, the ten minutes a trauma took to roll in once the call came — and you’d be there in the family room with your stack of cards on the couch. He’d drop on the chair across you or the couch beside you and pick up wherever you’d left off like he hadn’t left at all. Then his pager would buzz and he’d be gone, and you’d still be there an hour later when he came back, and he’d sit back down, and both of you’d pretend this was a completely normal way to study.
It’d annoyed him the first night how badly the flashcards were failing you; he’d seen you stare at the words and your eyes would glaze and slide right off it like they were greased. You’d memorized or retained nothing. And then he’d said, half to himself, a story for the why to click, and he’d watched it lock in you.
So he’d stopped quizzing you primarily off the cards and started telling you stories instead and you’d talk it back to him, reasoning out loud, getting there in the saying of it the way you never got there on the page.
The nights stacked up. The first week, you’d sat at a table across from him. By the second, you’d migrated to the chair beside him. Your coffee, the one by the far end of the table, was right by his elbow. Lena started leaving a second cup at the station when she saw you come in, his and yours, and never commented.
You’d stopped apologizing for taking up his time somewhere in there. He noticed when you’d started saving him the worst looking cookie on purpose because he’d once told you he liked the ugly ones. He’d noticed when you learned the rhythm of his pages; you’d go quiet and just hand him the next card when his eyes drifted to the board through the window of the door, would have it ready when he came back, like you’d kept his place for him while he was off keeping someone alive.
He noticed that he more than looked forward to it. Somewhere in the dead middle of a bad shift, his feet would take him toward the family room before his brain could catch up on the why of it all. An empty table on a night you didn’t come in sat wrong with him, a tiny disappointment he didn’t have anything in him to figure out why.
Sometimes, like now, you’d get distracted. Jack had learned. He’d walked into the family room to see you and Ellis folded into opposite ends of the couch, the flashcards abandoned in a fanned mess on the cushion between you, both of you mid-argument and enjoying yourselves too much.
“Poaching my study hall, Ellis?” he said, finally moving in.
Ellis pointed one stern finger in your direction as she pulled herself off the couch. “Do the crossword, not the sudoku.”
“She’s gonna make you a worse student,” Jack said to Ellis’s back.
“She’s making me a worse doctor,” Ellis said cheerfully, already at the door. “I’ve been here twenty minutes. I have patients.” She turned to you one final time. “Crossword. You’ll thank me later.”
She gave Jack a knowing look on her way out, one he didn’t want to read too much into, and she was gone, the door swinging shut behind her in one slow plunge.
You watched the door settle, and the entire wattage of your attention turned to him. He hadn’t gotten used to that, and he didn’t think he ever would. “Looks like I’ll never be a nurse.”
“Don’t say things like that.” He came around and lowered himself onto the couch beside you. “What’re you stuck on? Hit me.”
Your palm met his upper arm, a small smack.
He narrowed his eyes at you. “Hit me all you want. You’re not getting out of this.”
“But Jaaaack,” you drawled, tipping your head back on the couch. “Not here to study today.”
His eyes flickered over to your form briefly as he gathered the cards and squared them. “Oh, no? What’re you here for then?”
“Dunno.” You pulled your knees up to the couch. “Didn’t wanna be at mine. And work was a lot and boring.” You turned to face him then, a small smile growing on your lips. “Thought I’d bother yours instead.”
He set the squared deck on his knee. “Lucky me.”
He’d caught it, though, how you’d folded the sad thing in the middle of the sentence where it’d draw the least attention and moved on before it could sit. He let it move on, but he kept it. The image of you on a Tuesday, work behind you, and the choice you’d made was to drive to a hospital rather than go home to your own quiet. He was getting a picture of what that quiet looked like and learned that he didn’t like it very much.
“Work was boring, huh,” he said, though he couldn’t imagine what a fun day looked like as a waitress. “You working more?”
“Mm. Saturday girl quit, so now I’m on Saturdays, too.” You picked at your sock. “S’okay. Tips are good. I learned that old guys tip better when you call them ‘sir.’”
He huffed. “Do they?”
“Huge. It’s a cheat code.” You tilted your head at him, smiling shyly. “You’d tip well, I think. You’d overcompensate.”
“I’m not gonna sit here and get profiled by you in the only few minutes where I can catch my breath.” He held the card up, front to himself. “And I tip twenty-five percent like every functioning adult, thank you.”
You groaned. “Where can I get tipped more than that?”
“You don’t want me to answer that.”
“I do. I do. I’m a broke student. Point me to the money — where should I apply?” You shifted on the couch, fully facing him now, the cards apparently abandoned for the moment. “C’mon. You’ve lived a hundred years. You’ve gotta know where I can make some quick cash.”
“You’re sweet to me, doll,” he muttered, rolling his eyes. He set the cards down and looked at you, genuinely considering it now. He tried to ignore the fact that you likely had money troubles and tried to think about how he could actually help. “Define quick.”
“Like — by next Thursday.”
“Legally?”
“No.”
“Legally, you can sell plasma. Twice a week, they pay you, you sit there with a juice box.”
Your nose scrunched. “I don’t love needles in me sober.”
“You’re gonna be a nurse.”
“In other people. That’s totally different.” You waved it off. “Next. What else?”
“Sleep studies pay you to sleep. Egg donation pays a whole lot but it’s a whole process, not a Thursday deal.” He was ticking them off on his fingers, now fully committed. “Medical research’ll pay you to test things. Phase-one trials. You take an experimental drug and they watch you for side effects.”
“That’s the one.” You sat up. “How much?”
“No,” he said immediately, shaking his head. “Absolutely not. I bring you in here to keep you from blacking out. I’m not gonna have you volunteering to get poisoned for a quick four hundred bucks.” He pointed at you. “Maybe start laying on the ‘sir’ a little too thick from now on.”
“Sir.” You tested on him directly, dropping your voice, leaning in an inch, lashes going slow. “Could you help me out, sir? Tips have been so slow, sir.”
He turned his face away from you, now making himself look out the window. “I’m not entertaining this.”
“Oh, but sir.” You’d fully abandoned the cards now, scooting closer, a hand under your chin, the picture of innocence. “I’m just a girl. A poor, hardworking girl trying to be a nurse. Don’t you want to help me out, sir?”
“I am trying.” He pulled up the flashcards. “If it’ll help, I’ll bring my SWAT buddies into your place and they can run up a tab.” He waved a card in front of your face, trying to get your attention back to it. “You do this, I’ll have eight cops eating mozzarella sticks in your section by Friday, overtipping ‘cause I saved their lives. Won’t even have to call ‘em sir.”
“Right. No, that’s — ” You let out a little laugh too quickly, eyes widening at his words, and you took the card out of his hand mostly to have something to do with yours. “You don’t have to do that. Obviously. I was kidding — ” You batted the whole thing away with a shake of your head. “God. No. I’m okay, I promise. I was kidding.”
“I’m half-kidding,” he said, raising a brow. “I do know those guys. It’s no skin off me. But it’s okay.”
He let the offer sit like that, and he saw you pinch your eyes shut. He watched the whole thing happen on your face, the small involuntary recoil you always had when anyone offered you real kindness. You were bad at it. For a girl who lied so charmingly about how much she drank and how her night went, you had absolutely no poker face for being cared about. You had not the first idea how to hide it.
He found it unbearably endearing.
You opened your eyes and looked a little caught, a little sheepish as your thumb worried the corner of the card.
“You’re a strange girl,” he mumbled, fond, before he could stop it. “You know that?”
“Shit — Jack,” you said through a small laugh, shaking your head. “I don’t — I’m — ” You pressed your lips together and your shoulders came up almost to your ears in a stiff shrug. “Is there anything I can do for you? I can’t just accept — all your help.”
He snorted. “What help? I give you a study room and review flash cards.”
“Let me do something. I’m a good cleaner — ”
His head went back slightly, shaking his head. “You’re really not.”
“Okay,” you continued, rallying. “A dog? Guys like you always have dogs they don’t walk ‘cause of their hours. I can walk dogs.”
“No dog.” He raised his hand when he saw your mouth move again, stopping you. “You pay me back by passing your boards. You can pay me back plenty if you end up working here, doing good at the job.”
You went quiet for a second. “That’s just me doing my own thing. That’s not real.”
“That’s real to me.” He shrugged, like he hadn’t just made your whole future the price of his kindness. “I get a good nurse out of it someday.” He pulled himself off the couch. “And now I gotta go. Floor’s not gonna run itself.”
“Boo,” you said, pulling the entire deck on your lap now. “You’re the worst study partner. You leave constantly.”
Tonight, Jack had come into the family room after leaving you for a longer stretch of time than usual — a multi-vehicle situation that had eaten two hours and most of his patience — and found the studying had long since lost.
You’d migrated to the couch at some point. The textbook was open face-down on the cushion beside you like a small tented roof, your flashcards fanned across the middle seat, and you were folded in the corner with your knees pulled up and cheek mashed into the worn armrest, fighting your eyes and losing completely. You’d dimmed the overhead lights, lighting the lamp in the corner, the one nobody used, throwing everything low and gold.
He paused in the doorway. “You awake?”
“Mhm. Need a cat nap, though,” you murmured.
Jack snorted, shutting the door behind him as he walked closer to you. “How far’d you get?”
“Far enough.” Then, you added, “Cat nap.”
“Sayin’ it like I’m gonna not let you have one.”
Your eye cracked open a sliver, tracked him, then fell shut again. “Feel like you’re gonna make me do more cards.”
He toed the leg of the coffee table aside, reached down, and started clearing your mess off the cushions. He lifted the textbook and shut it around the receipt you’d jammed as a bookmark; gathered the flashcards and squared them in his palm; capped the highlighter and pocketed it. You watched the cleanup through one half-open eye, not lifting a single finger, your cheek staying flat to the armrest.
“There. No more cards. You’re done for tonight, doll.”
“Hooray,” you mumbled.
He nudged your socked foot where it had crept up across the cushion. “C’mon. Budge up a second. Don’t want you wrecking your neck sleeping like that.”
You made a small sound of protest but you went, peeling your cheek off the armrest with reluctance. There was a crease pressed into your skin where the fabric seam had been and your hair was flat on one side and mushed on the other. You blinked up at him, swaying where you sat, eyes glassy and unfocused in the gold lamplight.
He sank into the space he’d cleared, the cushion dipping, tipping the two of you a fraction into each other. That was all the invitation your body apparently needed, because you folded into him without a beat of thought — too tired to second-guess it, he supposed — your temple finding the warm of his shoulder, your whole side melting against his. You drew your knees up and tucked them against his thigh. Your hand came to rest on his chest, palm flat, fingers spreading once before they went still. You exhaled after a moment, long and slowly, and burrowed your nose into his neck.
Jack stilled.
“Ten minutes,” you murmured, the words barely coming out as words.
He took his arm off the back of the couch and settled it around your back, broad hand spanning between your shoulder blades and drawing you that last fraction deeper into him. You went boneless with it, a small contended hum slipping out of you.
Because he couldn’t help himself, he tipped his head down a fraction to say into your hair, “Been doin’ really well, y’know that, sweetheart?”
You hummed, the sound of it vibrating against his throat, your fingers curling the faintest bit in his scrubs. “Thanks, Jack.”
“Gonna be a good nurse,” he murmured, thumb moving once along your shoulder.
“Gonna work with you,” you mumbled, three-quarters gone. “You said.”
“Mhm.”
“Holdin’ you to it.”
“Yeah, I know you are.” The corner of his mouth flicked up where you couldn’t see it. “Go to sleep. You can hold me to it in ten minutes.”
When you didn’t answer for a second, Jack realized you were already gone. You were warm and trusting at his side, your hand slack over his heart, your breath sinking deep and even into his neck.
Jack let his head tip back against the couch, pinching his eyes shut at the feeling of you, at the feeling you caused. His hand spread slowly across your back, feeling the breath go through you — the proof of you — and he let his thumb find the curve of your shoulder and rest there, keeping his eyes shut. He sat with the enormous fact of you, the girl he’d not seen anyone circle back for, gone soft and so pliant in his arms like she’d always belonged there, and he stopped pretending he wasn’t already lost.
The ten minutes came and went. He let them. He’d have given you the whole night, the whole shift, the whole of whatever this was turning into. There wasn’t one place on the earth worth standing up for, and he’d known it for weeks, and only now, with your breath slow against his throat, did he let himself sit all the way inside of the knowing.
Jack came out of the OR and signed — albeit distantly, mind running a meter a minute about nothing good — what needed signing and said the things he was meant to, feeling the familiar piece of his own damn soul rotting away in the place those things went to rot. He knew the spot by now. It’d been decades of depositing them into the same place, and the place didn’t fill, exactly, but it never emptied, either. It just sat there, getting heavier, like things usually do when you keep adding to it and never take anything out.
This one would sit a while. Jack had started to sense it around the first year in this job; the ones that stayed had a weight, and you knew on the table whether you were getting one of those or whether it’d wash off by morning. This one wouldn’t.
He stripped his gloves, and somebody said something he answered without hearing, and then his feet simply walked past the board, carrying him down the hall toward the one door on the whole floor that wouldn’t have somebody else’s catastrophe behind it.
His hand was flat on the door. He was still wearing the gown, and he looked down and registered it too late. He should’ve changed it, left the thing in the dirty bin with the rest of what the shift had taken, the way he always did before he came to you, kept the two halves of the floor separate on purpose.
He opened the door. You were on the couch, one leg tucked under you and the other foot on the floor and a half-empty cup of coffee on the table going cold. You’d been doing something on your phone, or nothing, when the door opened, and you looked up with the easy expectant expression on your face you always had before it dropped. He watched it melt.
“Hey,” you said, making your voice soft.
“Hey.” His voice came out rough, and he almost winced as he heard it himself.
You set your phone face-down on the cushion and unfolded yourself from the couch and stood, crossing the room to close the gap between you. You stopped in front of him and looked up, your brow doing a small worried thing, and he let himself be looked at.
“Sit down,” you said. “You look like you’re gonna fall through the floor.”
He distantly registered you walking him to the chair — your hand finding his forearm, a light touch — and he let you. He folded into the chair like the strings of his own body had been cut, his elbows finding his knees and head dropping.
He heard you move, small domestic sounds of you filling a cup, the tap somewhere down the hall turning on then shutting off. Then your socks were back in his eyeline, toes pointed to him.
“Here.” You crouched, came into his lowered field of vision, and pressed a cup into his hands — water, cold — and folded his fingers around it when they were slow to close. “Drink it all.”
He drank because that was the path of least resistance. The water caught something he hadn’t registered was bone-dry. You took the empty cup out of his hands when he was done, setting it on the table behind you, and then he felt your hands find his shoulders.
He flinched just slightly, the smallest involuntary thing, for nobody touched him like that. Nobody put their hands on him that weren’t shaking one of his or needing something from him. You settled your thumbs into the iron base of his neck and pressed slowly, working the knots the night, the days, the weeks, and probably the year had wound there.
Your thumbs were unsure of themselves — you weren’t good at it, you weren’t trying to be, you were simply trying — and that was somehow worse because it got further to him than skill would have; there was the unpracticed earnestness to it, like you’d simply decided his shoulders had been holding too much and you wanted to put your hands there to take some of it down.
He felt his head drop lower, coming forward on its own, the tension bleeding out of his neck by degrees under your hands. Your thumbs found a place at the top of his spine that had been clenched so long that it had stopped registering as pain, and you pressed there, and a fraction let go. He felt his shoulders drop the inch they’d been holding up all night, and an uneven breath went out of him.
You kept your hands moving, your thumbs working the meat of his shoulders through the cotton, occasionally finding a knot and leaning your weight into it until it gave.
His head tipped a little forward after a stretch of time — chasing, or simply falling — and it found the soft of your stomach. His forehead rested against the front of you, where you stood close in the gap between his knees. He hadn’t intended for it, or maybe he had, somewhere under where the intention happened, his body had chosen to stop holding its own weight and give it to the nearest thing that felt like it’d take it. His eyes were already shut, and he stayed there, hands coming up on their own to rest at the sides of your waist. His fingers anchored into the fabric of your shirt.
“Shitty job sometimes,” he mumbled after a moment.
“Yeah,” you said softly above him. “I bet it is.”
Your fingers had found his hair, threading through the curls. Then, you added quietly, “But you’re really good at it.”
His fingers tightened a fraction at the fabric on your waist as he let out a short huff.
“Didn’t help him,” he said finally, the words coming out muffled behind his own mouth. “Whatever I’m good at didn’t help him.”
“Maybe not.” Your fingers scraped carefully at his scalp. “I think you were the best shot he had.”
He breathed you in, choosing to let the words rest in his skull for a while instead of fighting them.
“I’m — ” He heard you take in a breath and felt it go through your whole body. “I’m really grateful I met you, Jack.”
For some reason, he waited for you to take it back. There was a primally fast thing in him that told him that you’d take the words back, and he’d have understood.
“You don’t have to say anything,” you added. “I just wanted you to know. While you’re here being all — ” Your thumb moved at the back of his neck, tender and so gentle. “ — Figured it was a decent time to tell you I’m glad you exist.”
He took in a shaky breath against you, fingers tightening again.
“Thank you, sweet girl,” he said, and it sounded like it’d been punched out of him. “Likewise. More than you know,” he finished, his arms wrapping around the rest of your waist now, pulling you in like he could just fold himself smaller if he held hard enough.
Your fingers kept moving slowly in his hair, your other hand coming around the back of his head to hold him there. He couldn’t think of the last time he’d let anybody do this; as far as he could remember, he’d decided in some wordless permanent way that he’d carry his own weight from then on, that it was cheaper, that needing somebody was a bill that came due eventually and he’d rather not run the tab.
“You should sit,” he said after god knows how long without letting go. “Selfish, keepin’ you standing here.”
“It’s okay.”
He hummed, thumb moving once at your waist. “Two more minutes then.”
“Whatever you need, Jack,” you said, voice quiet. “I’m not going.”
Jack’s phone lit up on the arm of the couch at 10:52, face-down, buzzing itself a quarter-inch off the leather before he caught it.
He’d been working his way, with grim completionist patience, through an iceberg video you’d sent him three days ago with the message ‘THIS rabbit hole i need you to fall down.’ You’d followed it up by telling him, ‘do Not skip tiers!!’ He hadn’t skipped tiers. He was, in fact, ninety minutes deep and only about two-thirds down the pyramid, somewhere in the tier where a young man with a serious voice was explaining internet folklore he couldn’t believe was real.
He was fairly sure it’d been invented by some teenager, but Jack only shrugged, distantly wondering why on earth anyone would spend the labor — the diagrams, alone — hoaxing a thing this elaborate for an audience of complete strangers. He also wondered why on earth you were so interested in this. As quickly as the thought arrived, he realized that he was working down the iceberg himself.
Working down a thing you’d handed him felt adjacent to sitting next to you, and his apartment had become the sort of quiet that made adjacent worth ninety minutes of contemporary folklore. He’d sooner have chewed glass than admitted it out loud.
It was a good apartment and an unwitnessed one. He’d realized somewhere in the past year it was untouched by any hand but his. Every object was exactly where he’d last set it down, for there was no second person to nudge the remote three inches or leave a hair tie on the counter or ask why there was a mug in the sink and no bowl. His leg was off for the night, propped against the arm of the couch, the whole standing weight from his night shift to SWAT calls finally set down somewhere it was allowed to stay.
So, the phone going off, went off loud in the silence that had become almost-permanent. Your name lit across the screen, and the picture with it (one you’d set yourself, commandeering his phone to do it). It was already strange that it was a call. You never called; you texted in floods, six messages deep before he’d gotten to the first, but the ringing meant the thing had gotten past the point where typing it out would hold.
He looked at your laughing face buzzing on his phone for a second too long, the cold little instinct, and thumbed it green.
“Hey,” he said. “You know it’s almost eleven on my night-off. This better be good.”
You stayed silent for a second, and he could hear your breath and the hollow of a call connected in a car, the cooling engine’s tick and automotive acoustics.
“Hey,” you said finally, and Jack felt it wrongly. The back half of the word had gone soft and unsteady at the end.
Jack was already sitting up. “Hey, yourself,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” He heard you swallow quickly. “Sorry. God, this is so dumb. You — were you asleep?”
“I was almost through with your iceberg, if you want the truth.”
You made a sound that tried to be a laugh but didn’t clear the runway, breaking apart halfway. “You watched it?”
“Almost.” His fingers were drumming against his prosthetic leaning by the couch now. “Are you out?”
“I’m —” You paused, then hummed like you were debating. “I’m kind of near your place, actually?” Your voice rose toward the end, like you were embarrassed or questioning it all yourself. “I know. It’s creepy. But I think I need to — talk to you.”
“Yeah?” He tried to keep his voice light, though he could already feel something in his body start racing, panicking. “You break something?”
“No. No. Promise. It’s nothing like that.”
For some reason, that put a deeper hook in him. If it wasn’t a wrist, an ankle, or your body doing something it shouldn’t, then it was the other kind, and he had no idea how to hold something like that. He wasn’t sure what he could do with a sprain he couldn’t ice.
“Okay — ”
“Wait,” you interrupted, voice pitching higher, and he could see you were psyching yourself out. “I could just say it now, honestly. It’d probably be easier over the phone.”
Jack’s eyes widened a fraction at that. His stomach suddenly felt cold.
“No,” he said, voice rougher than he’d intended. “I won’t make it hard. Whatever you want to say, I promise. Just — not like this, okay? Come here.”
He listened to you breathe as you weighed it and knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he wouldn’t like what you were going to say. “Okay,” you breathed. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”
Jack opened the door after the first knock, unembarrassed of waiting. You’d come as you were, a coat thrown open over sleep clothes, good wool hanging loose over a thin cami with lace at the collar and soft shorts and bare legs down to the sneakers you hadn’t laced properly. The second fact that registered to Jack was that you’d been crying; there was a soft ruin around your eyes, the mascara long gone, wiped with a sleeve somewhere back in the evening. Your hair was up and losing, a claw clip hanging looser than he believed it was meant to.
“Hi,” you said, eyes raising to meet his. “Thanks for letting me come by.”
Jack felt his shoulders rise to his ears just slightly at the formality. He felt like a bucket of ice had been dropped upon him because somewhere in the past few weeks, you’d stopped apologizing to him as much, which had felt like a small victory he never told you he was counting. And here it was again, your stiff little courtesy, the door swung back shut on a thing that had been open. Jack didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all.
“You don’t thank me for coming by,” he said gruffly, opening the door wider.
You came in, but only just. Before he could steer you to the warmth of his apartment, you were already reaching into the bag on your shoulder — hands shaking, he realized, with a fine tremor — and pulling out a folded piece of paper, creased hard down the middle and then again like you’d tried to bundle it up into a fist.
He unfolded it and smoothed out the edges, eyes looking for yours briefly, but you’d already looked away. Your bottom lip was between your teeth and you were looking at the ground. He forced himself to look down.
It was your pharmacology exam. Your cramped looping handwriting scattered the margins, a star drawn to one question because you starred everything. There was red pen all down the side and a number circled on the top. The number, Jack saw immediately, was not catastrophic, not a failure even. It was a low pass, the sort of grade that would’ve stung for Jack in his school days and evaporated by the next exam. He’d expected worse from the way you’d been shaking holding it.
He looked back at you, confused more than anything. “Congratulations, you passed.”
Your jaw tightened, and he could see your eyes go bright and wounded. “It’s a seventy-one.”
“That’s a pass.”
“Barely. Barely.” You took the paper out of his hands, folding it away like you couldn’t stand looking at it anymore. “And you helped me with this so much and I still couldn’t. I’m so tired of — ” You stopped, looking up at the ceiling as you pressed your lips flat. “It’s not about the test.”
“Okay.” He leaned back against the counter, giving you the whole floor of the room. “Talk, then.”
You looked at him, and he watched you gather it all up, deciding, as it settled into your face, your mouth, whatever you’d come here to say.
“I don’t wanna waste your time anymore,” you said, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth as your eyes landed on the wall behind him. “I can’t — it’s not fair.”
Jack felt the whole floor shift under him and felt his brows go up an inch as he tried to keep his face seem collected.
“You’re you,” you continued. “You’ve got a whole life, a hard one, and I’ve been just — dumping mine on you. Making you sit there and hold my hand through studying and I’m — ” You shook your head, face going grim as you said the words. “It’s not fair to you. You’ve been carrying me for so long, and it’s not fair. None of this is yours to carry. I’m not yours to carry.”
His nose scrunched just slightly, something like burning blooming at the center of his face. Something in his chest had cracked along the seam he had no idea was there, because he’d never had to look at it once straight on. It was easy to carry your own weight when there was no one asking to take some. It was easy to call solitude a principle when nobody had ever made the alternative real. And you had. You’d made it real for months, and here you were proposing — no, telling — to take it back, to hand him his loneliness again because of some measurement of fairness.
The horror of how much Jack didn’t want it — how badly, how completely he didn’t want to go back to how it was before you — was the first honest look he’d taken at himself in longer than he could stand to count.
“That so?” was all he could say, voice roughening as his brows narrowed at you.
“Yes.” You mistook the roughness for agreement, or maybe you just needed to do so, because you kept going. “You don’t have to help me. The only thing I can think is you’re — you are a good person and I was there. And you help people, it’s what you do.” Your hand waved in the general direction of him as your voice cracked. “So help someone who’d actually make it worth it. Who won’t barely pass and keep getting too drunk and — ” You laughed slightly, and it was all wet and terrible, the sound. “I’m a bad use of you. You’re this — you are so much, Jack, and I’m a bad place to put it. So put it somewhere better.”
Jack had to force a swallow when you ended your words with a sharp intake of breath, the pool behind your eyes slipping free slowly down your cheeks. You’d run out of anything that’d make you wipe it away now, and that undid him worse than the crying itself, that you were standing there and letting it fall, done hiding, wrung all the way out.
“I’m sorry — ” he started.
“It’s okay,” you said immediately, shaking your head.
“For making you think that’s what it was,” he said, lowering his voice. “That’s on me, that you talked yourself into thinking this has been some sort of charity.” He cocked his head to the side then, wishing you’d look up at him. “But you’re gonna quit shaking your head for one minute, and hear the rest, ‘cause you got it wrong. All of it, backwards and upside down.”
He came off the counter and closed the space himself, until you had to lift your chin to keep his eyes.
“I’m not a man who spends his nights on a stray out of the goodness of his heart. Ask anyone I work with what I’m like. I don’t have that lying around spare.” His jaw tightened. “So take the halo off. That’s not what this was.”
“Then why — ”
“You,” he said plainly, for he learned it cost him nothing to do so, and a lot if he didn’t. “I wouldn’t do this for just anyone. There’s nowhere else I want to put it.”
He watched everything in your face tighten at his words, the disbelief and reflex to argue all curdling underneath.
“If you don’t want this.” Me. Me, he wanted to say. “Say it. I’ll leave you alone. You don’t owe me anything.”
“That’s not — ”
“But don’t act like it’s some favor for me.” He was closer now than he’d been. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving for my sake. That’s a lie.”
“It’s not — ”
“It’s a lie,” he said, voice going flat and so final, as he slowly nodded his head. He looked at you a second, lips coming between his teeth, then looked away as he felt something physical seize over his entire body.
Jack himself had to process the words as he said them, because he was only just realizing how much truth they held.
“You make it good.”
He forced himself to look back at you, and you had tilted your head now to look up at him, caught and still as stone, the arguing gone completely off your face now and replaced with something more frightened.
“Don’t — ” One of Jack’s shoulders came up in a half-hearted shrug. “You’re the one part of my day that doesn’t take anything out of me. Just — get that straight, sweetheart.”
You were just looking up at him with your whole face undone, the tears gone still on it, as though his words had knocked your own clean out of you.
“I don’t know what to do with that,” you said quietly. “People don’t — that’s not a thing that happens to me, Jack. Being — ” Your sentence broke apart and your hand had come up and fisted loosely in front of his shirt without either of you deciding it should, holding on, holding him there. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
“Nothing.” His hand came up slowly and covered yours where it fisted in his shirt, holding it flat there against his chest. “It’s just true.”
You made a small, pained sound and dropped your forehead against his sternum, right where his hand held yours, and he felt the whole strung-tight weight of you gave at once and settled into him. He felt you breathe against his shirt at the same time he felt his own pulse going too fast on your knuckles; he wasn’t bothered enough to try and slow it, because there was no point now. You’d already found out.
“Very grateful for you,” he murmured, his other hand pulled up to rest over the back of your skull. “Told you so earlier. Meant it more than you let yourself hear.”
You huffed against his shirt — half a sob, half a laugh, maybe the ruined cousin of both — and he felt it go through the cotton and land warm against his skin, felt your fingers uncurl a fraction from the fist they’d made then re-fist, like even now some part of you was checking he was still there to hold onto.
Jack held still for it, same as you had in the family room for him. He was good at holding still, it was half the job, but this was a different kind — he supposed — where there was a plain animal willingness to be a wall for as long as you needed one and not move a muscle that might spook you out of it.
He rested his chin at the top of your head, murmuring, “I don’t have to tutor you anymore, if that’ll help.” He swallowed, closing his eyes as he breathed in your faint perfume. “We can scrap the whole thing, if that’s what’s making you feel so bad.”
You stilled for a second, then made a small sound against him.
Despite himself, despite it all, he let out a short chuckle. “S’okay. I’m the reason you got a seventy-one. You’re allowed to switch.”
“You’re the reason it’s a seventy-one and not a thirty,” you said, and it came out muffled and immediate. You almost sounded cross, like you didn’t want the slander against him to stand even now.
After a moment against him, you added, “I don’t want to be just someone you help, I think. I don’t want to be somebody — I guess — that you’re just good to.”
When Jack hummed, you continued, “I don’t know what I wanna be instead. Just — a friend — or, I don’t know. Something that goes both ways.”
Jack’s chest swelled at the words. He felt that he’d have been anything you asked of him, simply because it had just become how it was. It was almost outrageous how, if you’d asked, he’d have handed it over, the whole rest of it, whatever you wanted the name to be, whatever box you needed him in.
A man his age was supposed to be past this. He was supposed to have calcified somewhere in the second decade of the job into something that didn’t reorganize himself around what someone he’d known properly only for the better part of the year had asked him.
“Consider it done,” he murmured, letting the word settle. Friend.
You breathed against him, and Jack felt himself want to remain exactly here and knew that he shouldn’t. He knew that the kind thing now was to give you somewhere to put your face that wasn’t his chest, some ordinary ground for you to set your feet back down on.
“C’mon.” He got a hand on your shoulder and eased you off him gently, a slow, slow reclaiming of the eight inches of air between your body and his. He dipped his head to catch your eyes, which were pink-rimmed and swollen and doing their utter best to avoid his now that the worst was out of you. “Do you want me to order food?”
Your neck rolled back slightly as you met his eyes, caught slightly off-guard at the shift of tone. You blinked. “That was a lot, and now you’re asking about food?”
“It was a lot,” he agreed. He reached up and thumbed a smudge of leftover mascara from under your eye briskly, and you let him. “And now it’s done. So, food, and we can watch the stupid video you sent me before you head home.”
It had been six days since you showed up at his apartment, and Jack had embarrassingly counted every single one of them. You’d left his apartment somewhere past two with your eyes finally dry and a paper bag of his leftover Thai you’d protested and taken anyway, and he’d walked you down to your car and stood in the lot like some idiot in a movie until your taillights turned off his street, and then he’d gone back up to a quiet that felt, for the first time in years, like something had been in it.
Since then it had gone like it always had and nothing like it; you still turned up with flashcards and left a graveyard of half-drunk coffees on every surface. But he’d noticed how you started letting him sit closer now, let a compliment land without flinching off, and once, mid-story, had reached over and fixed his scrub top where it had folded under, casual as breathing.
Friend was the word you’d settled on. Jack was thinking about that when Shen dropped into step beside Jack with a cup of fresh Dunkin sweating in his hand.
“You know it’s not standard to let your girlfriend occupy the family room for three hours of your shift, right?”
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Jack immediately clarified. It seemed more important to do now than it was earlier, when people only knew you when you came in as an emergency. Still, it felt wrong, like a key going in the wrong hole. “And you got a problem with it?”
Shen lifted the coffee in surrender, unbothered. “You know we’ve grown to her. She and I do the Wordle every midnight.” Then, he spread one hand. “Administratively, she’s not staff. She’s not a patient. She’s not family of a patient. Which leaves the category I’d have to call —” He tilted his head, faux thoughtfulness. “ — Abbot’s girlfriend, and I don’t think that’s in the handbook.”
“Try again,” Jack drawled, thumbing a form he wasn’t reading that didn’t need to be read. “She’s a nursing student getting hours of free tutoring off a board-certified attending. Put that in the handbook. Teaching hospital. I’m teaching.”
Shen shook his head, letting out a small laugh. “Alright. Alright. She’s not your girlfriend. Mind if I ask her out, then?”
Jack snorted. “If you could only be so lucky.”
“Clearly she has a type for attendings,” he pressed, grinning. “Or is it just the ones with gray hair?”
Jack looked at him sideways. “This is getting a bit weird, even for you.”
“I’m happy for you, man. Even if you’re gonna make us all watch you not do anything about it for the next six months.”
“Mind your own damn business.”
“Sure,” he turned, lifting a hand over his shoulder as he went. “Close the blinds anyway. There’s a window on that door. Everyone can see her making you dumb.”
Jack looked down the hall and set the form down before going there to close the blinds — telling himself it was for the window, for Shen’s real talk — and knowing, somewhere under that, that he was really just going to you.
He could see you through the window in the door before he reached it, which was, he supposed, exactly Shen’s point. You had a textbook open in your lap and you were chewing the end of your highlighter, brow pulled in, mouthing something to yourself, working a card over your head. You’d pulled the sleeves of one of his old sweatshirts down to your hands, the one you’d swiped from his locker two weeks ago and never given back and that he’d never once asked for, because he’d found he didn’t want it back, found he liked seeing it swallow you.
You gave him a smile when he walked in. He reached up and tipped the blinds shut on the window with two fingers, the floor outside tipping away.
“Why’d you close them?” you asked, slightly bored.
“Apparently the whole department’s been getting a show.”
You furrowed your brows then. “A show of what? Me failing?”
“Somethin’ like that.” He let it go at that, coming around and lowering himself onto the couch beside you, the cushion dipping and tipping you toward him a degree, what it always did that neither of you ever corrected. “How’s it going? Honest.”
“Honestly?” You blew out a breath, closing the highlighter. “I’d kill for a drink.”
“Oh?” Jack settled back against the couch, his arm coming up along the top of it behind you. “Telling that to the one man who’s seen what you look like at the bottom of the bottle.”
“Jaaaack,” you said, almost in a whine. “Let’s go to a bar.”
He snorted, dragging a hand down his face. “Now I’m wondering what’s pushing you toward the edge.”
He picked the flashcard you had set on the textbook, the one you’d been studying. He read the front of it without much intention — your handwriting was cramped and looping, a star drawn next to it — and turned over and checked the back. He did the same thing he always did, the story, the image; he’d done it a hundred times by now. He could do it half-asleep, and most nights he half was.
You thought about it for a second, your bottom lip tugged between your teeth, then walked yourself to the answer.
“Mhm. See. Good,” he murmured. He flipped the card to the back to check you, and you’d had it. Of course you’d had it, you’d had more of this than you ever gave yourself credit for. “Tell you what. Get the next three right, and I’ll get us a drink once your exams are done.”
Your brows narrowed. “Bribe?”
“It’s an incentive.” He held up the next card, eyes on you. “Don’t think. Just answer me.”
You did. One, then the next, then the one after. You were quicker now that there was something on the end of it, your lip caught between your teeth as you walked yourself there each time. He noticed you worked when there was something to earn. After all three, he hummed. “See. Good girl, there you go.”
He felt you go still beside him, and his eyes flickered up to you to see your eyes dropping to your textbook. He stayed silent a second, eyes raking over you, your thumb running the worn edge of a card back and forth.
Jack knew better than to point out how you being flustered was almost silly when he’d said the same words many times while taping you up or shining a penlight in your eyes. He let his arm stay where it was along the couch, hand not quite touching your shoulder, and watched the side of your face.
“You wanna do some more?” he said finally, voice coming out rougher. “Or are we done for the night?”
You held up a finger, as if telling him to wait.
“Okay, then,” he mumbled, leaning back further against the couch. “Take your time.”
After a second, he turned to say something dry to break the silence. You’d turned your head, too, and were closer than he initially realized, your eyes coming up off the card and finding his, near enough that whatever he had bubbling in his throat died there immediately.
Jack hummed involuntarily. You closed the sound by pressing your mouth to his, the feeling of the plushness so very featherlight, there and barely there, the softest press.
He went still as stone, every system in him locking at once. His hand was still along the back of the couch and his mouth hadn’t answered yours, not because he didn’t want to — God, he did — but because the entirety of him had gone still with the disbelief of it, with the you, here, choosing this — him — and the half-second of nothing stretched into a second, too damn long.
He’d seized on you, the fact you’d nearly walked, had stood in his kitchen finding the kindest way to disappear, and here you were, closing the last of the distance yourself.
You pulled back like you’d touched a stove, a gasp leaving your mouth, replacing where his own had been.
“Oh god.” Your hand flew up to your mouth, your eyes going wide before pinching shut completely. “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry, Jack. I read that so, so wrong. You’ve been so nice and I — fuck, I’m sorry.”
Jack made a pained sound that was lost somewhere in your ramble, at the sight of you snatching it back. Nothing had gone wrong. Jack knew you’d read nothing wrong, and that the only thing that had happened was that he’d been too slow, too stunned, too thirty-years-rusty to catch what had been handed to him in good reflex.
His hand came off the back of the couch and he caught your jaw, thumb on your chin as he pushed slightly against your skin. He was distantly aware that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so afraid about leaning in to kiss a woman, and went in to try and give you back the second he lost, mouth finding yours the exact way every bone in his body knew he should’ve the first time.
You made a startled sound against him before the entirety of you melted. His mouth worked against yours, thoroughly, making sure not to fumble it twice. His thumb stayed on your chin, tilting your face the half-degree he wanted it, and when your lips parted on half a breath, his entire upper body leaned in to follow it, deepening it.
It was you who moved first. Of course, it was you, always you. You followed it, the kiss pulling you up and forward, your knee coming over his thigh, and then you were settling over him. Jack let out the throatiest of a chuckle, still intent on keeping your mouth, as your hands slid from the front of his scrubs to his jaw.
Jack’s hands caught yours on instinct — one at your waist, one at your hip — steadying you down to him, your hips still slightly in the air like you weren’t sure you could close the last of the distance, your weight held in the suspended air in the ache of almost, thighs braced on either side of his.
Jack pulled back just enough to look at you, letting his head fall back against the back of the couch, dragging his eyes up the length of you poised over him. He blew out a short breath, the corners of his lips kicking up as his palm glided up and down on the side of your waist, catching onto your tank top on accident to show a sliver of skin at your lip — warm, soft, the band of your shorts sitting low — and he watched his own hand do it before he dragged his eyes back to your face.
“Nothing halfway with you, huh?” he said, the words practically coming out from his chest. His thumb rested against that bared sliver of you. “Climbing me at my work.”
You lowered your head, and your nose grazed against his. “You started it.”
“I did?”
“You closed the blinds.”
He let out a surprised laugh. “I can promise you I didn’t expect this when I did that.”
Your lips ghosted over his for a second, and his chest swelled at the sight of you trying to tamp down the sweetest smile. “Problem?”
“No.” The words came out immediately, because apparently somewhere in him, there was still something insatiable and teenage that had lurched up at the sight of you. “No. No problem.”
His hand spread flat and warm against the small of your back, fingers slipping under the hem of the top to your warm skin there, and he drew you down, finally, that last suspended inch collapsing as he settled your weight flush over him.
He had to pinch his eyes shut a second, then open them again to take in the whole sight of you. His hand came up to your jaw. The light caught the loose hair at your temple, the bare line of your shoulder where the strap had slipped. Your mouth was full and flushed from his, parted slightly, your breath coming. The skin under his hand at your back was hot to the touch, and he spread his fingers wider against it just to feel more of it.
You were trying not to smile. Your lip caught between your teeth, the corners pulling anyway.
His finger perched against your jaw moved to your lips, dragging slowly across the lower one, parting it under the pad of his thumb. He watched it give, your breath warm against his skin.
Your eyes flicked up to his as your lip closed around the first knuckle, your tongue hesitantly pressing flat against the pad, the wet heat of it catching him so completely off guard that the air went out of him in a rough exhale. His other hand fisted at the small of your back, turning over to gather the hem of your tank in his grip.
“Oh.” His eyes had dropped to your mouth and fixed there, his jaw slack as his head cocked to the side. “Pretty.”
His gaze was locked on the sight of his thumb disappearing past your lips, no hesitation in it, that same no-halfway boldness turned filthy and sweet all at once. The tired man in him went down all at once.
His thumb dragged free, catching on your bottom lip and tugging it down before it slipped loose. His chest heaved harder now under the warm weight of you.
“Where’d that come from?” he muttered gruffly, almost to himself, thumb pressing the slick of your own lip back against you. His palm moved to cradle your face, tapping your cheek softly once. “Can’t be doing things like that here, doll. I’m on call.”
“Then don’t make it so easy.” Your lips brushed his thumb, then you moved down to press your mouth to the line of his jaw, the stubble catching your lips, then lower to the warm of his throat.
“You callin’ me easy?” he said through a chuckle, letting his head tip back. You scraped your teeth over the cord of his neck and felt the whole of him go tight underneath you, his fingers flexing hard into the bare skin of your back.
“Alright.” His voice had dropped to stone. “You’ve had your fun.. No more of that,” he said, though made no move to stop you.
You peppered a line of pecks down his throat down to where his collar had started, your lips dragging over the jut of his collarbone through the thin cotton. He swallowed. One of your hands slid up to the back of your neck, fingers pushing into the soft gray at his nape, scratching light, and the other flattened over his chest, over the steady-then-not rhythm, fisting slow in the fabric just to feel him breathe wrong because of you.
You sat back an inch to look at him. His head was still tipped back against the couch, his throat bared where you’d left it momentarily pink and glossy, his eyes half-lidded. His hands had gone heavy and possessive at your hips, giving up pretending he wanted them anywhere else, you anywhere else.
You dragged your thumb over his bottom lip, watched it give, the same way he did to you.
“Can I ask you something?” you asked, quietly, your hips settling more firmly into his lap.
“Mm.” His hands spread wide, settling you down harder against him. “My social security number is — ”
You laughed.
“Two-two-six — ”
“Jack — ” You swatted at his chest, the seriousness dissolving into something giddier. “I’m being serious. Stop.”
“Okay, okay.” The corners of his mouth lifted up, and his hands squeezed slightly at your hips. He pulled his head up off the couch to meet your eyes properly. “Shoot. Doubt I could stop you.”
“Are you seeing anyone?”
He let the question sit, humming. His thumbs moved idly at your hips, head tilting against the couch like the question required any real thought. “There’s a few women,” he said, lowering his voice as he looked at you, like he was letting you in on a secret. “There’s a nice lady who brings me fruit baskets.”
Your hand, on the flat of his chest, slid up slow to his throat and he kept talking like he didn’t notice.
“ — there’s this nurse on days who keeps leaving me her number at the station — ”
You leaned in and closed your teeth slightly on his earlobe. He let out a short laugh, one that was dragged out of him, his head tipped to give more of it to you without permission.
“Alright. Okay,” he said as your nose dragged the line of his jaw. “Stop doin’ that. I don’t wanna explain teeth marks to the whole floor.”
Your hips set firmer into his lap. “Jack,” you warned. “I can’t do this if you’re seeing fifty other women.”
He sobered a degree, his thumb going still at your waist, his eyes coming up to actually hold yours. The joke drained out of his face as he realised the edge of seriousness you tried to tamp down, and he momentarily short-circuited at how it was even possible for you to wonder.
“Hey.” His hand came up off your hip, pushed the hair back from your face and stayed there, cradling. “Until five minutes ago, there were zero women. Forget fifty.”
Your only response to that was a smile and your cheek leaning further against his palm. He let his thumb move once across his cheekbone, watching the way your cheek turned into his hand. Your eyes drifted half-shut. There was a speck of dried highlighter ink on the side of your finger where it curled against his throat. The strap of your top had slid off your shoulder again; he looked at all of you and stopped bothering to pretend, even to himself, that he was looking at anything other than the only thing in the room he wanted.
“What about you? You seein’ anyone?” His thumb stayed where it was, but his voice had gone quieter. “‘Cause I’ve seen people bring you in. And I never liked one of ‘em.”
You huffed a small laugh, your nose grazing his. “Jealous, Doctor?”
“Yeah.” He watched the laugh stall on your face at how easy he gave it up. “If there is, he should be worried. I’d like to take you on a nice date to change that.”
“Ohhhh,” you drawled through a laugh. “There’s no one, but I won’t say no to the date.”
“Then you’ve got yourself one, doll.” He kissed you on it — short, sure, his hand still cradling your face — sealing the thing as the corner of his mouth caught yours before he pulled back. He let his forehead rest against yours for a second and breathed you in.
Then, with a short groan, he tipped his head back off of yours.
“I gotta get back out there.” His thumb was still moving at your jaw, clearly working against the very thing he was saying. “My work ethic’s going wrong and my residents might actually report me.”
Then, his hands found your waist and he lifted you off, setting you off his lap and onto the cushion beside him where the entire thing had started. You landed with a small affronted sound, your hand fisting in his collar a beat longer before he had to let it go.
You flopped back into the cushion where he’d deposited you, one hand pressed flat to your chest, the picture of wounded. “I guess it’s true what they say about old men. They use you. Wham, bam, thank you ma’am.”
He stood up and scrubbed his palm down his face like he could wipe the last ten minutes off it before he had to walk out and be a doctor again. He could still feel the heat sitting at the back of his neck and even though he’d tried to scrub your gloss off, he was sure there was a remnant somewhere the worst possible person would notice.
“Yup, got exactly what I wanted. Thank you, ma’am.” His hand came down to rest at the top of your head and gave it a slow, condescending pat, ruffling the wreck of your hair worse than it already was. “I’m a terrible man. You’re welcome to stay here while I go be one somewhere else.”
He made himself step back and snagged his pen off the table, the badge, the small armor of the job clipping back into place piece-by-piece. The whole time his eyes kept catching on you, sprawled and rumpled where he’d set you down, looking up at him like the night had gone exactly where it was supposed to. He’d seen this room a thousand nights. He’d never once not wanted to leave it.
“Mm. Gotta go home. S’almost three,” you mumbled. “And you get off at seven.”
“I do.”
“So.” You pushed yourself off the cushion, slow, gathering your hair back off your face and pushing up your strap, putting yourself back together piece by piece the same way he was, the night closing in on both ends. “I’ll go and let you be a doctor. You’ve been very neglectful.”
“Don’t I know it,” he muttered. He watched you reach for your textbook, your highlighter, the flashcards, and sweep it all back into your bag, feeling the small stupid pull of not wanting the room to empty out.
He stepped in before you finished, catching your jaw, tilting your face up to kiss you once more. You went still under it, the bag forgotten halfway zipped, your hand coming up to rest light on his chest. He pulled back an inch to look at you.
“Text me when you get home,” he said, thumb dragging along your jaw.
You chuckled, brows pulling in. “It’s a ten minute drive.”
“Text me. Humor an old man, since I’m so terrible to you already.”
genre: childhood friends to lovers, smut, university-ish au
word count: 23.0k
warnings: smut (mndi), swearing, alcohol consumption, post graduation existentialism, the horrors of the modern job market, jealousy, insecurity, itty bitty age gap (reader is one year older), he’s obsessed he’s possessive he’s jealous but in a very jungwon way
note: I in fact did not keep it under 20k #oops. But I had lots of you in my comments and inbox telling me that you prefer longer fics anyway, so I hope you enjoy all 23k words of jungwon who years and pines over his childhood bestie <3
⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖
One year your junior and a constant fixture in your life since before you lost your baby teeth, Yang Jungwon has always existed in a category of his own. You don’t see him as a brother, but you don’t see him as a man. He’s just… Jungwon. Steady, reliable, consistent Jungwon who’s always there when you need him.
It’s why you feel comfortable admitting to him the latest addition to your list of post-graduation anxieties: dating. Namely, the fact that no matter what you try, you just can’t seem to make it work. To make a connection stick. But Jungwon, despite all of his typical predictability, doesn’t take your complaints quite the way you expect him to.
or, you tell Jungwon that you think boys just don’t like you and he doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything quite so ridiculous.
⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖⋆.˚⟡ ࣪ ˖
If you look at it from a distance and squint, there really isn’t anything wrong with Park Sunghoon.
In fact, if anything, he might be a little bit out of your league. With full lips, an easy smile, and long, dark hair that dusts over the angular planes of his cheekbones, he’s a sight for sore eyes. Especially since they are rather sore. Your eyes, that is.
You’ve spent the last week fine tuning your resume for all thirty-six job applications you fired off with crossed fingers and a silent prayer. Your daily screen time is reaching dangerous levels, and you doubt the blue light blocking glasses you picked up from the dollar store are doing much to mitigate the effects of it.
Life post-graduation has been like this, more or less. Six months ago, officially earning your university diploma felt like victory, like the end of a hard earned battle.
But now, you aren’t so sure. Not when the last one hundred eighty days have been nearly identical copies of monotonous despair, one rejected job application after another.
A cover letter here, a mission statement there, a detailed history of your personal opinion on the role of social media in modern society — that one had been for a marketing gig that you weren’t even interested in, not if the advertised salary were as low as the posting claimed. But at this point, you were starting to get desperate.
And still, it’s all been to no avail. Rejection after rejection. Ghosting after ghosting. Ridiculous, you think. These are hiring departments after all, not some frat boy you hooked up with last Friday after one too many shots of tequila. All your effort surely warrants at the very least a response.
But forty-seven of the eighty-nine jobs you’ve applied to in the last month seem to disagree.
And it’s not like you hate the part time gig you picked up at the flower shop a few blocks away from your apartment, but you didn’t work your ass off for four years, earning your degree in a specialized field, just to spend the rest of your life explaining the differences between roses and dahlias to men that piss off their girlfriends.
It’s disheartening, to say the least. Demoralizing. A rinse and repeat cycle that becomes more exhausting with each passing day, each unreturned email.
Most days, you feel a little bit like a shell of yourself. Hollowed from the inside out, just waiting for a scrap of decent news.
It’s why you only said no three times when Sophia suggested that maybe you break up the monotony with a little good, old-fashioned romance.
And not just romance. Dating, blind dating, because she swore the mystery of it all would make it more fun.
The first three times she suggested it, you waved her off easily with some half-witted excuse and a roll of your eyes.
But the fourth time, your friend caught you in a weak spot.
“Come on,” she’d insisted over an overpriced latte. She didn’t mind shelling out for a soy milk substitute, even. She was one of the lucky ones that managed to line up a job immediately after graduation, one she got from the third-year internship she had.
So Sophia had her big girl job and her big girl salary. You, on the other hand, were wincing at the bitter taste of drip coffee straight from the machine.
“I don’t know…” You’d trailed off, unsure. That morning, you’d received a rejection notice from a company you were genuinely excited about. The position matched your qualifications and professional interests to a T. You weren’t one to make premature bets, but when you clicked submit on the official application three weeks prior, part of you had felt like it was fate. A sure thing.
The email this morning proved you wrong.
Dear Candidate, it had started. Because of course, even after all the time you spent tailoring your resume to their standards, you weren’t even worth the effort of typing your name.
Thank you for your interest in joining our team. We regret to inform you that we have decided to move forward with other candidates at this time. If, in the future, other positions become available, please do not hesitate to apply again.
Rejection wasn’t anything new at this point, but this one stung. It felt personal.
You were tired of constantly hearing no, of always having every path blocked the second you worked up the courage to venture down it. You were desperate for something to take your mind off of it all.
You wanted to do something fun. And more than that, you needed a reminder that you weren’t a failure. That at least in some capacity, your time and your presence and your efforts were worth something.
If the only available context for that was a date, even a blind one, so be it.
“It’ll be fun,” Sophia insisted. “I promise. Besides, the guy I have in mind is really cool. He’s been at my company for a couple of years now, and he’s really friendly, even to the new hires. Comes off a little cold at first maybe, but I think he’s just a little shy. You’d like him.”
You still weren’t sold. You took another long sip of black coffee and winced at the taste of burnt beans.
“What was his name again?” you asked.
Sophia grinned, knowing she’d finally won. “Sunghoon,” she told you, smile entirely too smug for your liking. “Park Sunghoon.”
Now, a week later, you can’t help but curse yourself for caving. After all, blind dates are a far cry from romance, and the only thing that your time with Sunghoon is doing, lovely as he may be, is giving you a different source for your headaches.
Across from you, Sunghoon takes a slow sip of red wine. His eyes stay where they should. You can at least appreciate that Sophia didn’t set you up with a total sleaze. If anything, you think he looks a bit unsure when he meets your gaze.
After another moment of stilted silence, he asks, “What do you like to do for fun?” You watch as Sunghoon swirls his half full glass before setting it back down on the table. Aerating it, probably. He strikes you as the kind of person that isn’t entirely bullshitting when they say they know their wines.
It’s a perfectly normal question, run-of-the-mill for a first date. And yet, your mind can’t seem to do anything but come up completely blank.
What do you like to do for fun? Even privately, you're beginning to wonder. It’s as if the job search has taken any joy you used to find in your free time and turned it into existential dread.
You like to go for walks, but it’s been extra rainy these days and you hate how the late autumn air makes your skin feel sticky after just a few minutes. Not to mention the end of season mosquitoes. You swear they’re bigger than any other time of year.
You like to read, but the last time you opened a book for pleasure was half a year ago. You’re pretty sure that same exact novel is still sitting half-finished beneath your bedside table.
Cooking is nice for stress relief, you suppose, but your meals are more for function than show. You doubt Sunghoon wants to hear about the frozen spinach you sautéed last night.
You have been catching up on the latest season of a ridiculously staged reality TV show lately, but you can hardly own up to that. If an hour’s worth of catty drama and hair pulling every Sunday night is the first hobby you think of, Sunghoon will no doubt think you’re the most vapid person he’s ever met.
So instead you say, “Oh, you know.” You try a laugh, hoping it will make you seem easy going instead of cagey. “Things.”
Sunghoon just arches a brow. He doesn’t know. That’s why he asked.
And it’s not like it’s a crime to be awkward on first dates, but you’re starting to feel like you’d be given a life sentence without parole if it was.
Desperate to get his gaze off of you, you return the question. “What about you?”
Maybe the universe will spare you and Sunghoon will be equally bad at condensing his life into bite-sized pieces easily digestible on first dates. Maybe his good luck starts and ends with his face and he’ll be equally tight-lipped about his own interests.
But then, after a pause to gather his thoughts, he starts talking. Your hope for equal footing starts to circle the drain with more urgency.
“I’ve been really into exercising lately,” he tells you. “I grew up figure skating, so it’s been nice to get back to doing something more physical. It’s been great, too, trying out some new protein-focused recipes and getting out for runs when the weather allows it. I really miss the ice, but it just isn’t feasible with work and everything else these days. It’s been fun to try out some new hobbies that are somewhat similar.”
“Oh,” you flounder for a moment. It’s truly pathetic, you think. Maybe talking about yourself is difficult, but how are you so unable to even respond to his answers? “That’s nice.”
Sunghoon, to both his credit and Sophia’s, really does seem to be a nice guy. He’s trying. Doing his best to keep the conversation going.
“Do you like to exercise?” he asks.
You wonder distantly if following a YouTube video at home on yoga for stress relief once in a while counts.
Deciding it doesn’t, at least not to a former figure skater, you shrug. “Not really.”
“Oh,” he nods. After a moment of awkward silence, he asks, “What do you think about the wine?”
It’s a simple question, an easy question, but it’s hard to get momentum once you’ve lost it. To you, this date already feels a bit like a sinking ship and even a question as simple as this feels like a test you’ll inevitably fail.
“It’s nice,” you say. “Goes well with the food.” And unfortunately does very little to soothe your frayed nerves.
“I agree,” Sunghoon nods. “Apparently it’s made from grapes grown in a specific region of southern France. They get more sunlight than the average vineyard, and the soil is fertilized in some special way that makes the flavor more intense.”
He smiles at you, and it’s objectively gorgeous. The kind of look that you feel like you should be fawning over, that you should go home dreaming about.
Park Sunghoon is the kind of guy that feels made for fantasies. Thinking about it now, you’re not really sure how he could even be single, or how Sophia managed to convince him to see you tonight.
But no matter how long you wait for the butterflies to come, they just… don’t.
It’s not because you don’t like him, but the idea of getting to know him, of letting him get to know you, is suddenly exhausting.
You’re afraid that whatever parts of yourself you reveal will come up short, will inevitably be found lacking. Your hobbies aren’t interesting enough for a guy like him. You’re not particularly well-traveled or well-read, and you did well in your degree but not enough for it to be part of a dinner conversation.
You just… you don’t feel interesting. Not in the kind of way that guys like him are attracted to. So when you go home after another half hour of stilted conversation and too-long lulls of silence, you’re not daydreaming about his smile or his dimples or the second date he definitely won’t ask you on.
Instead, you wait until you’re out of eyesight to let the smile you’ve been keeping plastered to your lips fall from your face.
Looking out at the sky, the sun that’s beginning to set on the horizon doesn’t feel like an omen or a fresh start. It just feels like a sunset. The end of another day full of nothing special. Unremarkable. Ordinary.
You’re not giddy or excited or particularly moved at all. You’re not angry either, though. Not disappointed. If anything, you feel a strange sense of hollowness, one with a glare that’s especially apparent under the street lights that are just beginning to glow.
You miss the days when things felt exciting, when you would meet the eye of someone cute across a lecture hall and go home daydreaming about it. Spinning around your room, kicking your feet like a schoolgirl with a crush.
It’s not Sophia’s fault. It’s not even Park Sunghoon’s. But when you finally get back home to your apartment and flick on the lights of your empty bedroom, all you do is sigh.
…..
You thought that when you walked across your university stage six long months ago and were officially given your diploma, you’d be done drowning your post-midterm stress with cheap beer.
But you forgot to account for one small detail — Jungwon.
You suppose your friendship with him might look a little strange from the outside, but he’s been a constant in your life since before you even knew how to tie your own shoes.
Like most childhood friendships, it wasn’t forged of your own volition. Your mother decided the summer before you started kindergarten that her new favorite hobby was going to be gardening. Which was fine and all, except for the fact that she knew literally nothing about gardening and had killed just about every houseplant she ever owned.
To her credit, she tried. She asked the kind elderly lady working the till at the garden supply store for advice and bought the overpriced gloves and trowel she suggested. She scoured blogs and Wikipedia articles and online forums for all the best and latest in flower cultivation.
But your mother simply did not have a green thumb, and after months of watching from her window in silent pity, Mrs. Yang decided to do something about it.
She took one look at your mother’s wilted tiger lilies and sighed. Gently, because even in her exasperation she managed to be kind, a trait she passed onto her son.
You weren’t so interested in whatever she told your mom about fertilizer and shearing, though. Nor were you really interested in the garden at all.
But you did find the boy currently hiding behind Mrs. Yang’s practical work pants far more fascinating than anything you’d seen in months.
Before school started, finding another kid your age was like striking gold. An only child, you were doted on by your parents but only rarely had the opportunity to play with other kids. This one, even if he was determined to hide out of sight, felt like a gift, a friend you were determined to make yours.
Back then, he was a shy kid.
It had taken a fair amount of coaxing from his mother, but he finally found the courage to meet your eye. To come out from his hiding spot and introduce himself.
Jungwon, he said his name was, and you gave him yours in return.
You asked about his birthday and could hardly contain the smug smile that spread across your lips when you realized he was younger than you. A whole ten months. Practically a baby. Nowhere near ready to start kindergarten, like you were. He’d have to wait a whole nother year.
Other than the bragging rights it afforded you, you didn’t mind so much.
That summer, Mrs. Yang helped your mother turn her misshapen, weed-addled, overgrown mess of a flower bed into something truly beautiful.
And nearly every time she came over, she brought Jungwon in tow. The two of you weren’t trusted to wander far yet, but he made your afternoons far more interesting, even under the watchful gaze of your mothers.
He was excited about the same things you were — searching for bugs in the flower bed, digging in the dirt with the plastic shovel set you’d been given for your last birthday, and building homes for the fairies you convinced him really existed using fallen leaves and twigs.
Your friendship might have begun as one of convenience, but the long, sunny afternoons you spent together ensured that none of it was forced.
Your mothers were thrilled too. Both of you were overly curious only children, and it was nice to have your attention occupied elsewhere, to share private smiles at how sweet your little friendship was becoming.
They sighed when you came back from an afternoon of playing with dirt smudged across your clothes and cheeks and cooed when you fell asleep after washing up, sprawled out across your living room floor with pillows you’d pulled off the couch.
Even though you’d been anticipating it for months, the beginning of kindergarten was something you started to dread. And the further you got in your academic journey, the one-year gap between you started to feel less like victory and more like a curse.
You still remember the failed math quiz you brought home from second grade one afternoon, a big, red F written across the top even though you were usually excellent with times tables.
It had taken a fair amount of coaxing, but your mother finally got the truth from you. How you were thinking that if you managed to do poorly enough to fail the second grade, you could just do it again next year. With Jungwon.
Of course she explained to you how terrible of an idea it was, and you didn’t try it again, but for the next few months, every aced exam still felt a little bit like defeat.
Until the seventh-grade, that is, when you decided to fully embrace your role as his elder.
Jungwon was just starting middle school, after all. He was brand new to the world of lockers and passing periods and so much axe body spray it seemed to permanently hover outside the boy’s locker room like a rain cloud.
You made him pinky promise you not to buy any, and all he did was scrunch his nose in distaste, insisting that he never would, that he didn’t like strong smells anyway.
Jungwon might have been new to it all, but you, however, had already been this whole middle school thing for a year. You were one year older and wiser and could help him navigate all of the pitfalls with your hard earned expertise.
You thought it was the best idea ever, an example of your commendable generosity and kindness, until one Wednesday afternoon proved you entirely wrong.
You were hovering just behind him as he worked through his locker combination, weight shifted to one hip as you balanced your science textbook against the other.
Still a couple inches taller than him thanks to the growth spurt that had hit you early, you didn’t have to crane your neck too hard to see over his shoulder. To provide any assistance he might need.
Finally, after getting the combination right, his locker clicked open.
Jungwon sighed. Glancing back at you, he mumbled, “Why are you here? Don’t you have science right now?”
“Yeah,” you nodded, gesturing to the textbook in your hands. “But that’s okay. I don’t mind waiting for you.”
“I have math next,” he pointed out, as if you didn’t already know. As if you didn’t have his schedule memorized before he did. “Which is in the opposite direction. Just go. You don’t want to be late again.”
It’s true. You don’t. Your mom said she’d shave an hour off of your allotted Saturday cartoon-watching time if it happened again.
But it was okay. It was a sacrifice you were willing to make. You told him as much.
“That’s okay,” You shook your head. “I’ll be fine. Besides, Mr. Lee usually isn’t too strict about tardies, so—“
“Just go,” he interrupted, back still turned to you. This time, his voice was sharper than usual. It cut through the air like an accusation, leaving you more than a little shocked. “You don’t have to follow me around everywhere.”
You frowned at that. But still, you thought that maybe he was just worried about you, about whatever punishment your mother had promised. So, to ease his worries, you insisted, “I don’t mind. I’m a year older, so I should—“
“Ten months,” he corrected, voice like ice. And he still wouldn’t look at you. “You’re ten months older.”
Your frown deepened. “Thats the same thing.”
“No it’s not,” Jungwon shook his head, voice rising. His anger, his annoyance, were apparent now. “Stop treating me like a baby.”
“I don’t—” You tried to protest.
But he wasn’t having it. “You do.” He insisted. “You treat me like I’m a little kid and it’s driving me insane. The other boys on the taekwondo team think so, too. They’re starting to say things—“
“What kinds of things? Who?” It didn’t matter if he was angry or annoyed at you. As far as you were concerned, if anyone was giving Jungwon a hard time, it was your business too. You didn’t know the boys on the taekwondo team very well, but you were suddenly feeling very violent, a bad idea given that the boys in question were trained in martial arts and you’d spent no time on a training mat in all twelve years of your life.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jungwon shook his head. He still wouldn't turn around and look at you. “Just leave me alone.”
You’d had fights before. Little tiffs that started nearly the same day you’d met. But they were always small, just bouts of bickering that may have left you pouting but never with any truly hurt feelings.
This was different. This… this stung.
Just like the tears that started to gather against your lash line without your permission, pressing dangerously against the inner corner of your eyes.
Still, you couldn’t help but ask, a little pathetically, “You don’t want me to walk with you?”
“I don’t need you to follow me around everywhere,” he repeated, crueler than he had to be, “fussing over me like you’re my mom or something.”
“Fine,” was all you said. Suddenly, you were grateful that he wouldn’t look at you. If he saw how affected you were, that you were on the verge of crying, it would be more humiliating than you could handle. “Just walk by yourself then.”
Turning, you only paused once you were a few steps away. “And here,” you’d reached into your pockets, pulling out the coupons you’d cut out of the newspaper earlier this week, the surprise you were planning to show him after school. “You can just have these. Give them to your taekwondo friends, since you care what they think so much.”
Jungwon waited until you were around the corner to turn around, to see what you’d thrown at his feet. Bending, he picked them up, guilt swirling deep in his gut as he tucked the coupons for half price ice cream from the nearby shop, the one that you knew always had his favorite flavor, into his pocket.
You didn’t talk to Jungwon for a week.
You were late to class that day, partly because of Jungwon and partly because you had to spend the next ten minutes calming down in the bathroom stall while you wiped evidence of your tears away.
True to her word, your mom didn’t let you watch cartoons Saturday morning. And you spent all your extra time thinking about where exactly you went so wrong.
The silent treatment didn’t last long. You and Jungwon were like that — you’d spent so much time together that you’d learned how to get over things quickly.
Grudges never held for long, and time didn't need to pass too far for both of you to forget what you were mad about in the first place.
But this time, even after the dust had settled, things between you didn’t go entirely back to normal. For starters, you didn’t wait for him by his locker anymore, didn’t offer to walk him to math or science or P.E. or any of his other classes.
Even though the two of you shared a school, the only time you really saw him anymore was on the bus ride home. And that was only on the days he didn’t have taekwondo practice.
But with Jungwon, things had a way of coming back around. It wasn’t long before he was seeking you out intentionally again, before your friendship felt less like walking on eggshells and more like something comfortable.
But you had learned two valuable lessons that day by his locker.
One, Jungwon was sensitive. More so than you ever realized. In ways you didn’t always fully understand.
And two, the gap between your ages may have been small, but he really, truly resented any attention you brought to it. In his own words, he hated it when you made him feel like a kid.
So you learned. You adjusted. And by the time high school came around, you were practically a pro at ignoring the ten months that separated you.
There were still times that you wanted to guide him, to help him, but you did your best to hold yourself back. You tried to empathize, too. To see things from his point of view. It made sense, you supposed. Jungwon didn’t want a second mother. He just wanted a friend.
One that wouldn’t dote on him too much or smother him or embarrass him in front of his teammates. That’s not to say he didn’t use your age to his advantage on occasion, though.
When you got your driver’s license a whole year before him, he wasn’t shy about asking for rides. And when junior year chemistry proved to be harder than he thought, he accepted your journal full of meticulously taken notes with little more than a sigh of relief.
You didn’t mind so much. Besides, it wasn’t like you were the only generous one in your relationship. Friendship with Jungwon never felt like a burden, never felt like a debt to settle.
For all of your age-afforded privileges, he more than made up for them just by being there. Because Jungwon grew up in the way few boys do—he learned to observe, to listen before he spoke. To treat words like something precious and use them only when he really meant them.
Jungwon was your confidant, your most trusted source of advice. You went to him with things that you felt like you couldn’t tell anyone else, and he received it all with open arms and a thoughtful furrow of his brow.
Jungwon wasn’t the type to pass judgment. He just listened, contemplated, and then gave the best, most logical answer he could think of.
He talked you down from your spiral of self-hate after you convinced yourself a failed physics test was the end of your life junior year and helped you analyze the pros and cons of your top university choices when your high school graduation date started approaching with alarming speed.
Affection came easy between the two of you, because it didn’t feel complicated. It felt natural, just like the day he introduced himself amongst the ruins of your mother’s failed garden.
So when you told him, senior year, that you agreed with his advice, that you had decided to attend university in your hometown, a mere thirty-minute drive from the high school you were graduating from, all he did was smile.
He hugged you after you accepted your diploma from your principal and handed you a bouquet of flowers. He complained about having to stick around in high school for another year, and you assured him that senior year was different from the others. It was better.
Your year apart was difficult, but it also gave you space for things you hadn’t considered before. Things like other friends. You met Sophia at freshman orientation, and the two of you became inseparable.
You still saw Jungwon, of course. Weekends, holidays, and even the occasional weeknight dinner meant he was still very much a part of your life. And when you couldn’t meet in person, you talked. Texted. Called.
Which is exactly how you broke the news of your first ever boyfriend.
There had been crushes in high school, but they were fleeting. Insignificant. This was different. Jay was different, and just as you always had, you spared Jungwon none of the gory details.
You told him all about the flowers he bought you, all about how romantic it was when he asked you on a proper date. How sweet it was when he picked you up and opened the passenger door of his car for you and how special you felt when he picked up the dinner check without so much as a sideways glance at you.
But Jungwon, steady, reliable Jungwon, seemed to become uncharacteristically terse whenever Jay came up. His texts got shorter, his responses further and fewer between.
The calls that used to drag on for hours started ending suddenly whenever you brought up your boyfriend. Jungwon always had an excuse ready—he had homework to do or a project to finish or an errand to run for his mom.
But you’d have to be stupid not to notice the common denominator in it all. Jay.
For a while, the choice was easy. Jay was here, with you. He wanted your attention and your time. He liked hearing about your day and telling you about his and spending as much time with you as your schedules allowed.
Jungwon, on the other hand, was becoming more difficult to reach the longer your relationship went on.
Slowly, but steadily, Jay started to become the person you went to for advice. The contact name you searched for whenever you had something to say. The boy you spent your weekends with, making new memories, laughing about nothing.
You trusted him. You were new to it, the feelings, the rush of it all, but after a few months, you were pretty sure you loved him.
Jay was your first relationship, your first real boyfriend, and eventually, the person you trusted enough to lose your virginity to.
Which made it all the more devastating when he told you, sometime in the middle of spring semester, that he didn’t want to see you anymore. That he enjoyed your time together, but he didn’t feel the same spark you did. The same level of connection.
You cried until you were numb, and you were numb until one by one, your feelings started to come back in overwhelming waves. And every time they did, the only person you really wanted to see was your best friend.
The boy you barely even spoke to anymore.
You weren’t sure if he would even answer, the night you drove all the way to his house in the pouring rain. You stood there on his porch, pathetic, soaked from just the short walk from your car, when he opened the door and found you like that.
“Jungwon,” you breathed.
He hadn’t said anything, just pulled you inside. Checked the warmth of his shower until it was the perfect temperature and left a towel and a clean pair of clothes on the bathroom counter for you. Waited outside, on the edge of his bed until you emerged twenty minutes later.
Clean, dry, but with eyes so red he knew you must have been crying.
He didn’t ask you what happened. He just scooted back until he was sitting against his pillows, patted the space next to him in invitation. Pulled you tight to his chest as you sobbed, long heartbreaking sounds that tore from somewhere deep in you.
You eventually told him everything—your breakup, your heartbreak, the sudden loneliness it had left in its wake.
Jungwon just held you through it, wiping your tears and soothing your cries as you laid against his chest.
And you talked. For hours, about nothing, about everything. All the little things you hadn’t been able to tell him for months, all the parts of your life that you’d wished you could share with him.
As it turns out, you’d missed important updates from his life, too. For starters, he’d chosen a university. The same one you were currently attending. You were so excited that you’d be together again, but part of you hated it, the way you’d missed out on such important news.
That night, things shifted again. It didn’t matter what your relationship status was or what distance separated you—the two of you promised not to ever go so long without talking again.
The following September, Jungwon officially started university at the same school as you, and it was the most excited you’d been in months. You loved showing him around all of your favorite places, pointing out the secret study spots you’d found in the library, introducing him to all of your friends and the coffee shop you loved just off campus.
It felt natural, felt right to have him in your life again. Even when things got busy, when you were so bogged down with assignments and projects and internships, you did your best to make time for one another.
You didn’t date again, and if he did, you never heard about it. When friends asked, you always gave the same excuse. You were too busy. You were focusing on yourself. School was more important to you than a relationship right now.
But if you were honest with yourself, your relationship with Jay had left you with a unique set of scars. You were scared of falling in love again only to be met with rejection, of course, but you were also terrified of losing Jungwon. Of the way letting someone new into your life could mean pushing him away, despite what you’d promised each other that night in his bed.
It’s why you haven’t mentioned Sunghoon to him yet. It’s not a secret, exactly, but it’s also not something you’re dying to share.
Now that you’ve graduated, you can hardly believe you’re standing outside Jungwon’s apartment with a six pack of cheap beer dangling from your fingertips. But something about all of your recent failures has you desperate for a bit of release, and you’re sure he could use some relaxation after midterms, too.
If anything, you’re hoping it will come as a nice surprise.
You knock on the door to his apartment, beer dangling loosely from your other hand. But when the door pulls open, it’s not Jungwon who greets you on the other side.
“Hi,” Jake grins, leaning against the doorframe. “Long time no see.” Jungwon’s roommate of two years now, he glances down at the beer. “And you brought presents.”
“Not for you, Sim,” you shake your head. “Is Jungwon home?”
“Depends.” Jake grins. “Are you just gonna leave if he’s not?”
You sigh, do your best not to roll your eyes. You’ve been subject to Jake’s antics long enough to know not to take any of it to heart. A golden retriever in every sense of the word, flirting comes as natural to him as breathing.
You’d be more worried if he suddenly started talking to you like a normal person.
“Can you tell me when he’ll be back?” You really should have checked to make sure Jungwon was home before driving all the way, but you’d only decided to come last minute. Besides, you remember what midterms were like. You wanted it to be a surprise.
“What’s the rush?” Jake asks. When you don’t bother to dignify that with a response, he pivots, “What are you up to these days?”
“Just working,” you shrug.
“Yeah?” he asks. “How’s post grad life treating you? Is the grass really greener after graduation?” Like Jungwon, he’s still a semester and a half away from it.
You laugh, but it sounds forced even to your own ears. “Something like that.”
“You’re still working at that flower shop over in your area, right? I was over there the other day, and I almost stopped by to say hi, but I couldn’t remember for sure. Is it—”
“I thought you said you were on your way out,” a voice interrupts from behind him. Jungwon’s. You’d know it anywhere. “Who are you talking to?”
That little shit. He lied to you. Or at least heavily implied it.
Jake at least has the decency to look sheepish when he glances at you. Opening the door wider, he reveals your best friend. Dressed in a pair of grey sweats and an oversized long sleeve white t-shirt, his hair is still slightly damp. Recently showered, if you had to guess.
“Surprise,” you grin weakly, holding up the pack of beer.
“___,” he breathes your name, surprise flickering across his features. His gaze falls to your feet for a moment before dragging back up to your face. “What are you doing here?”
“Is it a bad time?” The beer falls back down to your side. You really should have checked with him first before driving all the way here. “Sorry, I just wanted to surprise you.”
“No,” he shakes his head. “Not a bad time at all. Come in.” Side-eyeing Jake, he looks almost surprised to see him, as if he forgot he was even there. Then, he confirms, “You’re leaving, right?”
“Yep,” Jake nods, a trace of amusement flashing through his eyes. “I won’t be back until late.” He glances between the two of you. “Like, really late, probably. Enjoy… whatever this is.” Turning to you, he adds, “And it was good to see you again. Don’t be a stranger, yeah?”
“Sure, Jake,” you agree. “Have a good night.”
“You too,” he smiles. “Have fun.” Pausing for a moment, he considers, “Not too much fun, though—”
“Goodbye, Jake,” Jungwon interrupts, something unreadable crossing his features.
Jake takes the cue well enough. Stepping past the two of you, he leaves the apartment. The door closes behind him with a silent click.
And then it’s just you and Jungwon.
“You brought beer,” he reaches to take the drinks from you, passing them from your hand to his. “And yourself. What’s the occasion?”
“Midterms,” you explain. “I thought you could use a night off after all that studying. Besides, it’s been too long. The last time I saw you was when we got coffee, and that was already—”
“Two weeks ago,” he finishes for you. “Yeah.”
“Do you want to drink?” you ask, suddenly afraid you’ve placed your bets all wrong. Maybe midterms weren’t exhausting in the way that makes him want to drown his sorrows in cheap beer. Maybe they were just exhausting in the way that makes him want to crawl into bed. “I can come back a diff—”
Jungwon shakes his head. “It’s exactly what I need.” He smiles at you. It’s tired, but it’s genuine. “I’m glad you’re here.”
And that’s all it takes, all the reassurance you need to slip off your shoes and find a spot next to him on the living room sofa that’s seen better days.
It’s quiet at first, the two of you taking long sips as you ask the standard questions.
You ask how he thinks he did on midterms, and he says he’d rather talk about anything else.
He asks about your job search, and a shadow crosses your features as you also request a change in topic.
One bottle turns to two, and before long, your limbs are feeling heavier, your lips looser.
Jungwon looks at you, already flushed from the alcohol. He parts his reddened lips like he wants to say something. Closes them again.
Then, finally, “I heard something,” he says.
“Mm?” you hum. There’s a pleasant haze in your mind. One that makes it difficult to give much of a response at all.
A beat of silence passes. Another. You glance over at him, a question in your eyes, only to find his gaze already trained on your face.
Eventually, he gets it out. “You’re going on dates again.”
The tension in your shoulders is immediate. You’re not sure if he heard it from Sophia or somewhere else along the grapevine, but you suppose it doesn’t matter much either way. You shrug, feigning nonchalance. You have nothing to hide, you tell yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong. “I went on one.”
Jungwon takes a long sip of beer, the foam settling heavy when he sets it back down on the table. “How was it?” he asks. His voice is infuriatingly neutral. You can’t get a read on him.
“I don’t know,” you shake your head. “Fine.”
Jungwon’s palm splays against his knee, flexes. “Are you seeing him again?”
You feel a humorless laugh rising in your throat, one you barely manage to contain. “Probably not.”
You can feel his eyes boring into the side of your face when he asks, “Why?”
You sigh. This time, it’s you that takes a long sip of your drink. “I don’t know,” you shrug. Pulling your knees in towards your chest, you suddenly feel smaller than before. “It just wasn’t…” your words die as you try to find a way to explain the feeling you’d left the date with. Coming up blank, you decide instead on, “I don’t think he wants to see me again, anyway.”
You swear you feel a fraction of tension ease from the air. Still, Jungwon’s curiosity doesn’t seem to be sated. “Why not?” More to make you laugh than to actually guess at Sunghoon’s intentions, he asks, “Did you spill something on him?”
Wincing, you remember every one-word answer you gave. “I don’t think I spilled enough.”
Jungwon frowns, the turn of phrase not landing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know,” you repeat. “Sometimes, I just…” You lean your head back, letting it loll against the back of the couch. “I just feel like boys don’t really like me, you know?”
If you were looking, you’d see the way Jungwon goes completely still. A moment of silence passes before he breaks it, voice lower, less airy than before. “What did you just say?”
Head against the couch, you let out a small sound, breathless, a little pathetic. “Don’t make me repeat it,” you beg.
But Jungwon isn’t quite ready to let it go. You see his silhouette in your periphery, turning to face you fully. Leaning in, his attention is on you and nowhere else. His voice has an edge to it that you aren’t quite sure what to do with when he asks, “What do you mean, ‘boys don’t like you?’”
All you can do is sigh again. “I’m just… I’m not really charming or cute or good at small talk and things like that. I always say something weird or put my foot in my mouth, and it’s like I can see them losing interest in real time.”
Jungwon blows a stray strand of hair out of his eyes. Glances at you. “I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
“Jungwon,” you deadpan, “he asked me what my hobbies are, and I told him, verbatim, things.”
“Oh.” He pauses for a minute. Then points out, “Well, to be fair, that’s a horrible question.”
You frown. “It’s a standard first date question.”
“Yeah,” Jungwon agrees, “which is exactly why it’s horrible. No one wants to go on a first date and be asked all of the standard first date questions.”
You know that he’s only trying to comfort you, but something about him twisting the narrative so far in your favor just makes you want to sigh. You’re grateful for his defense, but it also feels a bit misplaced.
“How would you even know?” You try not to sound too mean, but the question comes out flat. “I bet you go on dates with those dimples and that…” you trail off, waving your hands noncommittally in his general direction.
Jungwon’s brows furrow. “You just gestured to all of me.”
“Exactly,” you nod. “You have that whole boy-next-door, easy going charm thing about you.” It’s true, and right now, you can’t help but think that it’s awfully unfair. “I bet you could ask whatever stupid standard first date questions you want and girls would still be falling at your feet.”
At face value, it’s a compliment. But there’s something about your tone, the trace remnants of sarcasm, of bitterness, that make him think otherwise.
“I’m not quite sure how to take that,” Jungwon finally tells you.
You sigh. You didn’t come here to project your insecurities on him. There might be layers of truth to it, but this isn’t his fault. You’re not being fair, and you know it.
“All I mean is that boys like you don’t have to try very hard. I feel like it all just comes so naturally to you. I wish I was like that, too. That’s all I’m saying.”
And Jungwon could protest, could launch into some speech about how you’ll find your person eventually, about how there’s someone out there for everyone.
But he knows you, is well-acquainted with that contemplative, overly self-critical look on your face. Can read all of your frustration and insecurity in the way you bite at your bottom lip.
You’re not looking for a lecture or false hope and certainly not empty words.
You came here with a case of beer and the intention to surprise him, to congratulate him for work well done.
He was the one that brought up the date, anyway. He knows that you’re not looking for advice. You’re looking for a friend.
So Jungwon waits for a moment before he says anything at all.
Then, he picks up your abandoned beer off the coffee table in front of you and holds it up to you. “C’mon,” he encourages gently, “join me.” He takes a sip of his own for good measure. “It isn’t going to drink itself.”
“I don’t know,” you sigh. “I already feel kind of—”
“I think I bombed econ,” he offers. You can’t tell if it’s true or not, but that’s not the point. He needs you out of your head. “Don’t make me drown my sorrows alone.”
You can’t help but think that for all the fuss he used to put up about you being older, he certainly doesn’t mind appealing to it when it’s to his advantage.
But even lukewarm beer looks tempting when it’s him that’s offering it to you. And you’ve never been good at saying no, at least not to Jungwon.
He knows it, too. Jungwon isn’t surprised when you accept the bottle from his hands with nothing more than a halfhearted grumble under your breath.
There’s no trace of shock in his eyes when you bring it straight to your lips despite your earlier protests.
He just grins before leaning back against his side of the couch, smile still stretching across his lips as he brings his own bottle up to join you.
…..
Thursday afternoons are your favorite time in the flower shop. Run by a kind woman in her late sixties, she takes advantage of the day to attend her weekly Zumba class at the senior center, which means you have the shop all to yourself, save for the occasional customer.
Usually, you’d savor the stillness. Use it to catch up on inventory or fulfill the handful or edible arrangement requests for tomorrow.
But today, the silence is making you jittery. Mostly because your mind won’t give you a moment of peace no matter how much you beg it too.
Despite the prediction you gave Jungwon three days ago in his apartment, Sunghoon did reach out to you again.
The message still sits at the top of your text threads like a curse.
I enjoyed our time together, he said. Succinct, straightforward, and all things considered, surprising. Are you free this weekend? I’d love to see you again.
And it’s flattering, so much so that you nearly find yourself agreeing without taking so much as a moment to think about it.
Sophia will be thrilled, you’re sure. And you won’t have to burden Jungwon again with tipsy confessions of your own insecurities.
But alone in the flower shop, another thought starts to creep in, just as your fingers hover above the keyboard. A feeling.
The same one you left from your last date with. That strange, hollow emptiness that had you spiraling for days, convinced there must be something deeply, fundamentally off about you.
Again, you start to wonder why you can’t just do it. Can’t enjoy a date and a free meal and the pleasant company of a handsome stranger. Why all of your answers always come out stilted, cagey, so terribly awkward.
Why you’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop, convinced that any scraps of attention that come your way must be part of some elaborate prank that the universe is playing on you.
Why even a barely-there, trace amount of vulnerability feels like nails on a chalkboard. Why you haven’t been able to form a real, meaningful connection with anyone since Jay. A relationship that ended nearly four years ago. It’s enough to make you feel a little pathetic.
Logically, you know that this is how it goes. You can’t form connections or welcome new things into your life without a leap of faith.
But the potential fallout is terrifying. The thought of trying, really trying, and still being found lacking is enough to sober even the most romantic of your fantasies.
Something about the status quo, no matter how boring or tiresome or monotonous, feels safe. Like a cage you’ve settled into and made comfortable.
Your fingers hesitate, then fall away completely. Locking the screen of your phone, you tuck it back into your pocket with a sigh.
Busying yourself with the arrangement orders, you do your best to push Sunghoon and his unanswered invitation from your mind.
For a while at least, you’re successful. The afternoon passes slowly.
A woman in her thirties comes, looking for a bouquet for her sister who just had a baby.
A man in his fifties wants to send flowers to his daughter’s office to wish her a happy birthday.
A couple comes in, hands intertwined, asking if your shop would be able to accommodate enough flowers for their wedding to be held at the end of the month.
You greet them, you smile, you answer their questions with patience.
And all the while, you leave Sunghoon’s question hanging.
As your shift draws to an end, late afternoon sunlight spilling through the windows, your phone buzzes in your pocket once more.
Half expecting to see a string of curses from Sunghoon, angry you ignored him, convinced you’ve wronged him, you're surprised when it’s Jungwon’s name that lights up your screen instead.
His short string of messages reads,
It was nice to see you again
Missed my favorite girl
Movie night this weekend at mine? Popcorn on me
Tugging your bottom lip between your teeth, you can hardly stifle the smile that threatens to overtake your entire face.
Unlike Sunghoon’s, Jungwon’s message doesn’t fill you with dread, doesn’t leave you with a sudden flurry of doubts and questions clouding your mind.
And, unlike his, it’s easy to say yes to.
You wait only a fraction of a second before sending your reply.
I’ll be there
…..
The left side cushion of Jungwon’s living room couch is starting to feel familiar at this point. It’s been less than a week since you were last here, and it already feels routine sinking down into it.
When Jake steps out from his room minutes after you settle in, he doesn’t comment on his roommate’s company. Just arches a brow.
“You two drinking again?” he asks.
Apparently, he gave Jungwon shit for forgetting to clean up one of the bottles after last time. Ironic, considering it’s Jake’s dinner dishes that are gathering dust in the sink.
“No,” Jungwon shakes his head. Remote in hand, he flicks through streaming service options until he lands on the one he’s looking for. “Just watching a movie.”
Jake pauses, eyes flickering towards the screen. “Which one?”
“Not sure.” Jungwon shrugs. “___ chose it.”
You turn over your shoulder, telling him the title. It’s some rom com that’s been terrorizing your twitter feed for weeks now. And then you offer, “You can join us if you want.”
You’re not sure if there’s enough space on the couch for the three of you, but you are the one crashing into their space. You’ll make it work if you have to.
“That’s alright.” Jake shakes his head. “I’m heading out.”
“Alright,” Jungwon waves him off without so much as a second glance.
“See you later,” you offer, still turned around.
Jake grins, looking at you before he makes his way to the door. “Enjoy your movie. And nice to see you again so soon, ___. I was worried you’d make me wait again.”
Next to you, Jungwon’s jaw clenches. He mutters something under his breath about making popcorn before standing up from his seat on the couch.
Jake leaves before he can rile Jungwon up any further, and the smell of popcorn begins to fill the room just as the opening credits begin to roll. An overzealous pop song plays in the background, one you recognize from the playlist your boss makes you put on shuffle, insisting the corny, upbeat lyrics will convince people to buy more flowers.
Jungwon comes back to the couch, sets the popcorn bowl on the table in front of you. He adjusts, moving closer. His knee brushes against yours. Both of you pretend not to notice. Intimacy and closeness is nothing new between the two of you. Hell, you grew up practically attached at the hip, sleeping in the same bed until you were in middle school.
But there was always practicality to it, a purpose. You held hands at the amusement park because you didn’t want to lose each other in the crowd. You let him put his head in your lap when you had a picnic in the park because the only other pillow available was the ant-filled grass.
This feels different. Intentional. Especially since there’s still plenty of space to his left.
You lean forward, reaching for the popcorn. The fabric of your pants rustles against his. Settling back into your seat, Jungwon takes his turn to reach forward. But instead of grabbing a fistful, he takes the whole bowl, bringing it to his lap.
“Here,” he nudges you. “It’s closer this way.”
You nod. Right. Closer.
In front of you, the movie begins to unfold. Saturated color grading, wardrobe choices that already look slightly dated despite the recent release date, and a female lead that first impressions paint as adorably quirky, it has all the makings of a brainless plot. The perfect way to waste a Friday night.
And Jungwon, who usually insists on holding his tongue until after the credits have rolled, leans a little closer to you just past the twenty-minute mark. Unnecessary, given how close the two of you are already sitting. His arm, bare from the short-sleeve shirt he wears, brushes against yours.
And his lips nearly touch the shell of your ear when he whispers, “This is ridiculous.”
You frown. “What is?”
“The premise,” he hums. “I mean, why would they pretend to date each other? It doesn’t make sense. There are plenty of other things he could do to get back at his ex.”
You roll your eyes. Leave it to him to analyze the storyline like it was designed for anything other than mindless entertainment. “It’s the oldest cliche in the book,” you explain. “It’s for the plot.”
“It’s obvious,” he shakes his head. “They’re going to fall in love with each other.”
“Of course they are,” you agree. “But not every movie has to have a million twists and turns. Sometimes it’s just nice to know how things will end and enjoy seeing how they get there.”
“You like that?” he asks, voice low. “When things fall into place exactly the way you expect them to?”
“Sometimes,” you breathe. “It’s nice to not always have to guess.”
“Would you ever do that?”
Your eyebrows raise. “Fake date someone?”
Jungwon nods.
“No,” you scoff. “I can barely handle a real date, remember?”
You’re not sure what it is, but something in your answer must satisfy his curiosity, at least for now. Next to you, Jungwon is quiet once again. In front of you, the characters on screen continue to tiptoe around each other, dancing around the obvious.
The onscreen tension builds and builds and builds, all the way until it breaks. With a heated confession in the rain and the one aspect of a rom com you forgot to account for before choosing your movie for the evening.
You’re a grown woman. You have the degree and the age on your driver’s license to prove it. But the flush on your cheeks is undeniable as the two characters on screen begin to kiss.
And kiss they do. Jesus christ, you think, just how much of the budget was allotted to close up shots of their mouths?
As the scene begins to heat, so does the temperature of your skin. You’re half afraid Jungwon will feel it, scalding him through the layers of fabric between your legs that still touch. Part of you wants to screw your eyes shut, to reach for the remote and click fast forward just to end the agony, but you’re pretty sure that would be even more humiliating.
Instead, you keep your eyes glued to the screen. Watch unmoving, trying to appear unaffected, as the male lead tangles his fingers through her hair, tugging slightly as she stifles a moan against his lips. It’s so raw, so intimate, that you’re tempted to pull out your phone and confirm the PG-13 rating you swear it had.
It’s involuntary, the way you squirm against the couch cushions. The movement is no help. All it does is make you brush further against the one person you’re suddenly desperately trying to ignore.
The man on screen brushes his fingers under the hemline of her shirt, drags the fitted material upwards.
Without even really meaning to, you dare a glance at Jungwon.
And find him already looking at you. Staring at you, lips parted, eyes locked on the flush spreading over your cheekbones.
Quickly, your eyes drop to your lap, but the image stays burned behind your eyelids. You don’t dare to look at him again, not even once the scene has ended, when the plot becomes ridiculous again instead of heated.
Even once the ending credits start to roll, you keep your eyes trained on the screen, as if the list of assistant directors is something you find fascinating. But Jungwon has other plans.
He shifts against you, knee nudging yours. You hear his exhale, heavier than before.
A moment passes. Another.
Then, he finally tells you, “I can’t stop thinking about it.”
Immediately your mind starts to swim. Thinking about what? The unbelievability of the premise? The questionable casting choices? Or, worst of all, the kiss?
Out loud, you do your best to school your question into something neutral. “Thinking about what?”
“What you said,” he tells you. It soothes exactly none of your frayed nerves.
What have you said? You suddenly can’t remember. You search for a list of recent statements you’ve made and come up completely blank.
It feels like a conversation that’s going nowhere when you ask, “What did I say?”
Jungwon doesn’t spare a moment. “That you think boys don’t like you.”
Oh. Oh. Nearly a week ago now, your tipsy, self-berating rambling must have stuck with him. Well, that’s fine, you suppose. That’s something you can explain away now. Sober, even if your mind is still spinning a bit.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” you try to explain. “I was drunk and my words weren’t coming out right. I just meant that it was frustrating going on a date and leaving feeling like something was wrong with me, you know?”
Only after he’s quiet for a full thirty seconds do you dare a glance at him. Jungwon’s brow is furrowed, his lips pulled tight in contemplation. He parts his lips like he wants to say something, closes them again as if he’s thought better of it.
When he finally finds a statement to commit to, he says, “Maybe you’re going on dates with the wrong people.”
“Oh, definitely,” you agree. “But that’s the hard part, isn’t it?” In retrospect, it’s a big part of why you were so hesitant to accept Sophia’s offer in the first place, why she had to ask you, to insist, four times. “I feel like I have to go on so many terrible dates that make me feel like shit just to maybe eventually find someone I want to spend more time with. It’s not like I think there’s actually anything wrong with me, but I do feel like I have a harder time than other people. You know, making friends, going on dates, finding people I actually want to be around of my own volition.”
After already feeling so rejected from your job search, your headspace has been even more fragile. Dating doesn’t feel like stress relief for you. It feels like a reminder of all the things you wish were different about yourself.
Jungwon’s gentle when he shakes his head. “There’s nothing wrong with keeping your circle small.”
“No,” you agree, “but sometimes it feels like it isn’t really my choice. Like, even if I wanted to have more friends or go on more dates, it wouldn't pan out the way I want it to. Sometimes it’s just easier to keep to myself, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t times I wish I could be more outgoing.”
After another momentary lapse, another beat of silence, he asks, “What about me?”
A flicker of surprise crosses your features. “What about you?”
“You have an easy time talking to me,” Jungwon points out. “And I feel the same about you. We’ve been hanging out since we were kids, and I’ve never felt uncomfortable with you.”
“Really?” Your brow arches. “Even when I forced you to go down that waterslide in third grade?”
Even his mom had been surprised. He’d been terrified of that thing, apparently kicking and screaming against anyone else that tried to drag him down it. But when you, in all of your fourth-grade glory, insisted that he joined you, he just tucked his hand in yours, let you lead him all the way up the ladder even as his legs shook beneath him.
Jungwon smiles at the memory, a soft thing. But his eyes are still serious, his gaze still weighted. “You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” you sigh, “but that’s different.”
“How so?”
“Because…” you trail off, searching for an explanation. “Because you’re Jungwon.”
“Yeah.” The heat in his eyes doesn’t settle. “And?”
“And I’ve never had to think about it,” you shrug. “We became friends before I was even fully self-aware. You’ve always just been Jungwon.”
He’s quiet for a moment, considering. And then, “Can I ask you something?”
“I feel like you’re going to anyway.” It’s meant to be lighthearted, to distract from that strange bit of tension that still simmers.
Jungwon’s eyes don’t lose their edge. “Why did you start going on dates again?”
“What do you mean?” His question surprises you. “I just graduated from university. I’m young and unattached and all that. Isn’t this the time that everyone’s going on dates?”
“I suppose,” he concedes, “But I feel like that’s why you’re so frustrated.”
You frown, and he clarifies, “You’re going on dates because you feel like you should. Not because you want to.”
He pauses for a moment, gauging your reaction. Deciding your silence is permission enough, he presses on, “You’re not even sure what you want out of them or what an ideal relationship looks like for you right now. You’re just going and hoping something will stick, like throwing darts with a blindfold. Then you get upset with yourself when it doesn’t live up to your fantasy, even though you haven’t decided what your fantasy even is yet. I mean, why did you even meet Sunghoon? Because you really wanted to, or because you wanted to get Sophia off of your back about it?”
You feel exposed all of a sudden. Seen right down to your bones in a way you were prepared for. “I…” There’s a maturity to his question that you weren’t expecting, an edge you can’t quite decipher. You turn the question back to him instead of answering. “Since when did you get so observant?”
“I’ve always noticed you.”
“Jungwon…”
“So I can help you figure this out, too,” he insists. “Really,” he adds when you still look unsure. “Who knows you better than me?”
You can’t quite meet his gaze, and it’s all the confirmation he needs.
“Exactly,” Jungwon nods. “So I’ll ask you again, why did you agree to go on a date with Sunghoon?”
It would be easy to deflect, to blame Sophia’s insistence. Or to double down on your earlier statement, that this is the time in your life to try new things, to meet new people. That it felt natural to say yes.
But when you really think about it, the cold, honest truth is just that—
“I think I was just tired of hearing no all the time.”
Jungwon’s brow furrows. “Who’s telling you no?”
You sigh, try to let out an airy laugh that comes out choked, a little pathetic. “Only every hiring manager in the country, apparently. You know, I’ve been sending out job applications like crazy since graduation, but it's been six months now and the only thing I have to show for it is a stack of rejection letters cluttering my inbox.”
A flicker of understanding passes through his gaze. “So you’re compensating, then.”
You glare. “Don’t make fun of me.”
“I’m not,” he shakes his head. With the same tone you’ve heard him use to soothe a skittish kitten, he adds, “That must have been so frustrating. Putting in all that effort and not getting the result you wanted.” He knee brushes yours as he leans in closer, something unbearably earnest in his gaze. “You’ve been working too hard.”
“I haven’t been working hard enough,” you argue. “If I had, then something would have panned out at this point. I just need to—”
“There you go again,” he interrupts, shaking his head gently. “Assuming that it’s all your fault. Maybe the hiring manager was just an idiot, or you caught them on a bad day.”
“Yeah.” Your words drip with self-effacing sarcasm. “I’d believe that if it were one or two. But I don’t think over a hundred of them just happened to wake up on the wrong side of the bed the day they reviewed my application.”
It comes out sharper than you mean for it to. Settles into the air a bit uncomfortably.
Jungwon takes a moment to respond. When he does, he just sighs your name.
“I know,” you scramble for something a little lighter, “like, the economy is shit and all, and one day I’ll look back at this and laugh or whatever. But it just sucks right now, you know? I’m so sick of it. I really just wanted to hear someone say—”
“Yes,” Jungwon finishes for you.
“Yeah,” you nod. “Exactly.”
“Okay,” he nods, resolve tightening as if he’s made his mind up about something. “Then ask me.”
“What?”
Jungwon doubles down. “You can ask me,” he insists again, that same damn earnestness in his eyes, “anything you want me to do.” Meeting your gaze, he adds, “I’ll say yes. I promise.”
Against your will, you feel warmth starting to rise on your cheeks again. There’s something weighted in his promise, something desperate that simmers just behind it. Something that you have absolutely no idea what to do with.
Suddenly desperate for a reprieve, you do your best to break the tension. “That seems like a terrible idea.” You curse the strange breathlessness in your voice. Why are you like this? It’s just Jungwon. “What if I ask you to jump off a bridge?”
Jungwon just grins. “I’ll take my chances. Besides, I know I’m safe. You’d miss me too much.”
“You know,” you start, “for someone who thinks fake dating is ridiculous, this feels even more absurd.”
Jungwon doesn’t budge. “Just try it,” he encourages. “Ask me something.”
You sigh. “Jungwon…”
“C’mon.” He’s relentless. “Just once.”
“Fine.” You glance towards the bowl still sitting in his lap. “Hand me the popcorn.”
Picking it up, he ignores your outstretched hands in favor of learning forward, all the way until he settles it in your lap. His fingers remain against the edges of the bowl until he’s sure the balance is steady. Only then does he lean back into his own space.
“Easy.” He grins. Then his brow furrows, considering. “Are you hungry?” he asks. “I could make you some real food, if—”
“No,” you shake your head. Picking up a single piece of popcorn, you add, “Just wanted to do this.”
Throwing it square at his face, it bounces off of his nose harmlessly before falling to the carpet below. Jungwon’s nose scrunches in a knee-jerk reaction, eyes screwing shut before he opens them again.
“Maybe I was wrong,” his eyes are heavy-lidded, voice lower than you expect. “You are going to use it for evil.”
“Of course.” You reach for another kernel. “So maybe you should reconsider—”
Jungwon doesn’t say anything, doesn’t give you a moment to prepare for the way he wraps his fingers around your raised wrist, locking it into place before you can toss another piece of popcorn in his direction.
His grip is warm against your skin. Tight, something you’re not sure you’d be able to break out of even if you tried.
Still, you attempt to fling the popcorn at him. With the restricted motion of your wrist, it doesn’t make it far. It flies through the air for only a split second before falling uselessly down to your own lap, just in front of the bowl it came from.
“Nice try,” Jungwon breathes, your wrist still encased in his grip.
Your eyes narrow. “I do my best.”
“I’m sure you do,” he allows, “but you’re trapped now.”
There’s something strange in his gaze. Something heavy, weighted that you can’t quite place. Something that feels entirely too real.
You test it, the strength of his grip on you. True to his word, your wrist hardly makes it an inch, his fingers a vice around them.
“You’re ridiculous,” you breathe, voice airier than you mean for it to be.
“Maybe,” he agrees. A breath passes between you. Another. His eyes are still locked on yours, searching, like he’s desperate to find something. Another moment passes, and he releases his grip. Your wrist falls slowly back to your lap. “But I meant it.”
“I know you did.” You can’t quite make eye contact, but his sincerity is evident even as you place your gaze elsewhere. “Thank you.”
“Seriously,” he insists. “My schedule is a lot lighter now that midterms are done. If you ever want to do something or go somewhere or you just wanna crash for a night on my couch, you’re more than welcome to.”
“Did you get Jake’s approval for that?” You arch an eyebrow.
Jungwon’s voice is tighter than before, just slightly. “Jake will be fine." And then, still strained but a bit softer, “If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know. Don’t make me wait two weeks to see you.”
Here, in the quiet of his living room, movie forgotten on the TV, it’s easy to agree to.
“Okay,” you whisper, regular speech suddenly feeling too loud, too abrasive. And then again, because you really do mean it, “Thank you, Jungwon.”
“Of course,” he insists, voice equally low.
For a moment, the two of you sit like that, legs brushing, you avoiding the eye contact he tries to maintain.
Then, Jungwon sighs, faces the TV again as he reaches for the remote. “Should we watch something else?” he asks.
You nod. “Something scary this time.”
Jungwon arches a brow. “You hate horror movies.”
Shrugging, you insist. “I’m in the mood for one now.”
He still doesn’t look like he quite believes you, but he doesn’t argue any further as he scrolls down, searching for the genre.
At his side, you’re quiet. It’s true. You do hate horror. But you’d take zombies and ghosts and jumpscares any day over the off chance of having to sit through another kissing scene tonight.
This time, Jungwon picks the movie. Learning back against the cushions, he reaches for a handful of popcorn.
The movie hasn’t started yet. There’s nothing on the screen to be scared of, but your heart thumps traitorously against your ribcage anyway.
…..
Two days later, you’re back at your favorite coffee shop. This time, though, it’s not Jungwon who sits across from you.
“So,” Sophia starts, and you already recognize that tone. Uh-oh, you think. “Sunghoon asked about you.”
“Why?” you ask, memories of your rather terrible date coming back unbidden. “To see if I’ve checked myself into an insane asylum yet?”
“No,” she glares. “Just to see how you’re doing.” She takes a sip of her drink, eyeing you over the rim. “Why didn’t you go on another date? He told me he texted you.”
That explains it then, you think. Him reaching out to you probably didn’t come from genuine interest. Maybe spending time with you felt like nothing more than a favor to his coworker. Maybe he was secretly relieved when you’d ignored his message. Maybe he only brought it up to Sophia to be polite.
Your eyes narrow. “Why are you so involved, anyway? You know, this is exactly why they say you shouldn’t shit where you eat.”
“I’m not dating him,” she points out. “And you two don’t work together.” It’s true. You’d applied for an open position a couple months back, actually. And, of course, had been promptly rejected. “That doesn’t apply.”
“Close enough,” you mutter.
“Why are you so against it?” she asks. “Did he suck or something?” Considering it, she’s quick to apologize. “Sorry. He always seemed so nice at work. A little shy, like I told you, but when he mentioned he was single, you were the first person I thought of. Did he say something weird to you or try to make you split the bill—”
“No,” you shake your head. “Nothing like that. He was perfectly nice. And polite.”
Her confusion returns. “So what gives? I didn’t expect the two of you to get married, but I thought you’d at least last a little longer than one date. Besides,” she leans in, voice lower but still not nearly quiet enough for what she’s about to ask you, “aren’t you practically shriveled up at this point? Did you take a vow of celibacy without telling me? When’s the last time you even had se—”
Eyes widening in panic, you interrupt her with an entirely too loud, too bright, “Hi, Jungwon!”
Frowning, Sophia turns back to look over her shoulder. Because there he is, the man in question. A surprising coincidence, perhaps, if you weren’t the one that introduced both of your friends to this cafe.
“Hey,” he grins, glancing between the both of you with his takeout cup in hand. “I thought that was you I saw over here.” Turning to your friend, he nods, “Hi, Sophia.”
“Jungwon,” she returns. Her gaze follows his, all the way from his eyes to yours. Settling back into her seat, she gestures towards the empty chair at your table. “Grab a seat,” she offers. “Join us.”
“Oh, that’s alright,” you glance at him apologetically. “I’m sure Jungwon has other—”
But he slides down into the chair without a hint of protest, your words dying on your lips.
“Sorry for interrupting,” he says. “What were you two talking about?”
You force a smile that looks anything but easy. “Nothing,” you insist, just as Sophia explains,
“____’s desperate need to get laid.”
“Oh my god,” you groan, flashing daggers at Sophia with your eyes as you pointedly avoid looking to where Jungwon sits on your right. “I did not say that.”
“So what?” she asks, either oblivious to your suffering or relishing in it. “You’re planning to be a nun forever?”
“I’m busy,” you deflect. “I have other priorities right now.”
“Busy people have sex,” she argues. “All that stress isn’t good for you. Like I said, you’ll shrivel up and—”
“Can we talk about literally anything else?” She has to know how embarrassed you are from the increasingly red shade of your face, how horrified you are that Jungwon can hear everything she’s saying. There aren’t many secrets left between the two of you, but the gory details of your nonexistent sex life isn’t something you’re exactly dying for him to be privy to.
Sophia leans back, some of the urgency of her insistence fading. Still, she’s not quite done. “I’m just confused,” she explains. “I mean, Sunghoon was kind and a gentleman and more than willing, if the way he keeps hounding me about you is anything to go by. I just don’t get it.”
Slowly, you brave a glance at Jungwon, who’s kept quiet this whole time. Maybe, at least, he shares some of your embarrassment, avoiding your gaze just as pointedly as you avoided his.
But when you turn towards him hesitantly, Jungwon is already looking at you. There’s nothing shy or avoidant as his eyes rake over you. And there’s no sign of embarrassment, no telltale flush, no fidgety shifting.
Jungwon’s just looking at you. With a cool, steady stare. Like he’s assessing you, clicking puzzle pieces into place.
When he finally breaks eye contact, it’s to look at Sophia. “Leave her alone,” he defends. His tone is light, teasing. But there’s an edge there. Something that doesn’t leave space for an argument. “She’ll find someone when she’s ready. Park Sunghoon isn’t the end all be all of men.”
“No,” Sophia agrees, “but surely he’s better than your left hand and the vib—”
“Oh my god,” you’re begging this time. “Stop.”
“What about you?” Jungwon asks, and both of you turn to him in surprise. When your eyes land on him, he’s looking at Sophia, not at you. “How’s your love life looking these days?”
“Love life…” She trails off, shrugging. “Nothing to report. But I haven’t joined your girl here,” she nods towards you, “at the convent yet. In that regard,” she grins. “I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Good for you,” Jungwon nods. “And the job is still going well?”
“Yeah,” she nods. “It’s not confirmed yet, but there’s a rumor that I might be in talks for a promotion next quarter. I’m…”
Her words trail off as you zone out, some of the adrenaline fading, the tension draining from your shoulders.
Not for the first time, you feel extremely grateful for Jungwon. It’s subtle, but it’s enough. And to you, it’s obvious. The way he maneuvered the conversation away from you. You’re sure that your discomfort wasn’t difficult to pick up on, but the way he handled it makes you appreciate him that much more.
Morbidly, you wonder what he thinks of your glaring lack of a sex life. Ever since Jay, you’ve kept the details of your relationships, or rather, lack thereof, close to the chest where he’s concerned. And even when you were with Jay, intimacy was never a topic you breached with Jungwon.
The thought has a flush starting anew on your cheekbones. You do your best to dismiss it.
Next to you, Jungwon keeps his eyes on Sophia, nodding at the appropriate times, commenting in a way that proves he’s listening.
But beneath the table, the warmth on his palm finds your knee. Without breaking conversation or giving even the slightest outward hint that his mind is anywhere besides your friend’s story about her boss’ most recent rampage, he squeezes.
Once, gently. Just to let you know that he’s there.
You fidget, and he does it again. This time, he can’t quite help the grin that spreads across his lips.
…..
Despite everything, you can’t shake the feeling of Jungwon’s hand on your knee beneath the table. Days pass, and in quiet moments, if you give your brain enough leeway, it always wanders back there.
To his easy, subtle defense of you. To the way it seemed so natural for him to soothe you silently with his touch.
To the way he looked at you, considering, evaluative, while Sophia laid out the gory details of your fruitless sex life on the table.
And maybe she was right to question you so thoroughly. Maybe it really has been too long, because that’s the only feasible explanation for the thoughts you’re having now.
It’s only natural, you suppose. Jungwon has been a constant in your life, a steady presence, for nearly as long as your memory extends. He’s been there through it all, your worst moments, your best memories. He’s seen all of it, knows you like the back of his hand, and he’s stuck around for it all.
For someone with an intense fear of rejection, it means more than you can say. You can’t think of anyone in this world that you trust more than him.
And intimacy… Intimacy is just an extension of that, you suppose. Being close with someone in that way is the ultimate act of trust.
Maybe that’s why things felt so stilted, so disjointed with Sunghoon. You had nothing against him, but you also didn’t know him at all. Trust is something that takes time, effort. How could you let your guard down with someone you had just met?
It’s just nerves, you’re sure. You’ve been out of practice since Jay, and with each passing day, that relationship just feels further and further away. A distant memory that you can’t recall well enough to guide you now.
Maybe if there was someone you really trusted, someone that you could just practice with, then—
No. You shake your head, dropping the thought as quick as it comes. It’s insane. It’s the exact opposite of everything your relationship with Jungwon has been for the last eighteen years of your life.
Still, when a message from him lights up your phone screen a handful of hours later, it takes you a full minute and a string of deep breaths to convince yourself to open it.
And when you reread the text, an invitation to drive out to a lesser known lookout where the two of you used to go to watch the sunset in high school, you agree easily. If your heart is beating a little too fast in your chest, well, you suppose no one ever has to know about it.
Years ago, you were the one that discovered the outlook. After a particularly awful day, due mostly to your terrible junior year biology teacher, you’d put your newly acquired driver’s license to good use. You had no destination in mind. You were still new to driving and liked the way that it felt, liked the way it seemed like you could outrun any problem if you just drove far enough.
A series of wrong turns led you straight to a forested area not too far from the highway. Jutting high out over a nearby valley, the scene you found sprawled out in front of you was gorgeous.
It was early spring, then. Flowers were just beginning to bloom, glowing in the late afternoon sun. You shifted the car into park, shutting off the engine. And then you sat, for hours, just looking out at all of it.
As the sun faded on the horizon, so did the most pressing of your worries. Looking around you, biology class had begun to feel a lifetime ago.
You realized that day that you found somewhere special, somewhere that you wouldn’t be willing to show to just anyone. Even then, there was only one person you thought you’d ever share the view with, that you’d ever let into your private little sanctuary.
So, one month later, when Jungwon came to your house after school with a crease between his eyebrows that usual methods couldn’t seem to soothe, you offered him the passenger seat of your car and the view you’d been keeping all to yourself.
That day, it became his too. And a tradition of sorts began to form. Whenever either of you was stressed or upset or just needed to get away from it all, you had a shared place to escape to. Somewhere that felt out of reach from everyone else. Somewhere for just the two of you.
You haven’t been back there with Jungwon for the better part of a year. Part of you is a bit worried as you see his car pull up from your apartment window—this time, he’ll be the one driving—that something happened.
After all, the two of you usually saved the outlook for difficult times.
But as you slide into Jungwon’s passenger seat, the only thing he greets you with is an easy smile.
“Good day?” he asks, handing you his phone so you can pick the playlist for the drive.
“Fine,” you nod, settling for an R&B album you know you both like. “What about you?” you ask, still wanting to dissuade your earlier concerns. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he nods, craning his neck as he checks for cross-traffic before pulling onto the main street. “I just wanted to see you. Thought it might be nice to go somewhere quiet. And it’s a beautiful day.” He looks towards the cloudless sky. “I thought the sunset would be nice.”
The drive goes quickly as you pass familiar streets, reminiscing as memories coming back at every turn.
“Oh my god,” you say as one comes back suddenly. “Remember that time we drove out here because James rejected me at junior prom?”
Jungwon frowns. “James was an idiot.”
It rings true in hindsight. “Yeah, but I was devastated. I cried so hard I got snot on my dress.” It’s easy to laugh at now, even if the sting was unbearable in the moment. “No wonder he said no.”
“He said no because he was a dumbass,” Jungwon argues. “Besides, it can’t be worse than the time we came here because I didn’t make the taekwondo competition team.”
Something about the memory, even now, makes your heart clench a little. “That was just sad,” you tell him softly. “You were so disappointed.”
“I got over it,” he shrugs. “The dartboard you made of my coach’s face helped.”
“Oh my god,” your eyes widen. “I forgot about that.”
Jungwon smiles like it’s a fond memory. “You were so violent.”
You shake your head. “Only for you. I don’t think I’d ever wanted to hit someone more.”
Trading memories like secrets, the two of you eventually reach the right exit. Pulling off the highway, the air around you immediately feels more still. Calmer.
And when Jungwon pulls right up to the overlook, shifting his car into park and shutting off the ignition, things feel just like you left them.
The sun is getting close to the horizon now. The valley that stretches out beneath you as far as the eye can see glows in the last rays of daylight.
Your gaze stretches out too, welcoming that sense of familiarity. “It looks the same,” you whisper.
“Yeah,” Jungwon agrees. “It does.”
Returning here now makes times feel sharper, more obvious.
“We’ve been coming here for what, six years now?” You shake your head. “I can’t believe it’s been that long. I can’t believe I graduated. Like, I’m just done with university now. I still remember when it felt so far away.”
“Yeah.” Jungwon nods, eyes on the horizon. “Me too.”
For a moment, the space between you is silent, the air filled with nothing but the sound of your quiet breaths.
You weren’t the one who asked him here, but if there was ever a place to admit the worries in your mind, you suppose it would be now.
Quietly, you say, “Can I ask you something?”
Jungwon turns to you, attuned to the serious tone of your voice. “Of course.”
“If it makes you uncomfortable, you can tell me,” you promise. “I know we don’t really talk about this kind of stuff usually, and—”
“___,” he interrupts, “Ask me.”
You take a breath. You can feel his gaze on you, but you can’t quite look him in the eye when you ask, “Do you think Sophia was right?”
“About what?” His shoulders stiffen. “Sunghoon?”
“No,” you shake your head, and the tension loosens, but only slightly. “About me.”
“What about you?” he breathes.
“That I…” you trail off, searching for the right words. “That it’s been too long since I was with someone.”
Even now, you can’t bring yourself to say it. To call a spade a spade. Jungwon reads between the lines easily enough.
He shakes his head. “It’s your choice to make. Yours and no one else’s, for whatever reasons you want. Don’t let Sophia make you feel bad just because her choice is different from yours.”
“I know,” you sigh. “But sometimes I think she’s right. That the longer I wait, the more difficult I’m making things for myself, like I’m just making the hurdle in my mind bigger and bigger. I mean, the last time I was with someone, you know, like that, was with Jay, and that was already—”
Jungwon’s inhale is sharp. “It was?”
“See?” you frown, mistaking his surprise for confirmation of your fears. “It’s been so long. Too long. Even you think so.”
“I don’t—” he tries, shaking his head. Now Jungwon’s the one scrambling for words. “I don’t think it’s been too long. I was just surprised,” he says. “That’s all.”
“Yeah, surprised because of how long it’s been.” You laugh humorlessly. “Now even you think I’m a nun.”
“I don’t think that,” he shakes his head. “Like I said, it’s your choice.”
“Is it though?” you ask. “The more time passes, the more I start to think that the cards just aren’t stacked in my favor.”
Jungwon frowns. “What do you mean?”
Your palms splay against your lap. The last rays of sun stretch over the valley, and your words are spilling out before you can stop them. “Maybe Sunghoon only acted interested because of Sophia. Maybe every time anyone has expressed interest, it hasn’t been genuine.” You sigh. “It’s like, logically I know that’s just the insecurity talking, but the more time passes, the harder those thoughts are to shake.”
For a moment, Jungwon is quiet. When he speaks again, his voice is low, serious. Pleading for your understanding. “___,” he says, “you’re beautiful. Truly. Any man would be lucky for even the smallest piece of your time or attention. I know that it’s hard sometimes, and that those voices and doubts can feel so loud, but I really wish you could see yourself the way other people do. The way I do.”
“Jungwon…”
“If you decide to have a relationship with someone, one of any nature, then it should be because you want to, not because you feel like you have to or because you’re trying to prove something.”
“What if I never get over it?” you ask, voice small, hardly a whisper. “What if I never get past this fear?”
“You will,” Jungwon promises. “It might not happen as fast as you want it to or in the way you expect it to, but you will.”
It’s so him, you think. So Jungwon to have more faith in you than even you ever could. He’s been here since the beginning, and he’s not going anywhere. He’s seen you face obstacles and challenges before, and he’s always done everything in his power to help you overcome them.
Maybe this is no different. Maybe the only thing you ever needed was some help from Jungwon.
Maybe…
No. Even with your logic twisting things to your favor, you know that this is different. This is different from asking for a favor or some moral support. If you ask Jungwon to do this for you, you’re crossing a line. One that you’re not sure you’d be able to come back from.
The friendship you have isn’t just something you’re unwilling to risk. It has quite literally become something you don’t know how to live without. You’ve never had to try, never even had to imagine a life without Jungwon at your side.
The only time that came close was during your first year of university, during your relationship with Jay, and that had been nearly enough to wreck you. The potential fallout from this could be worse, so much worse. You won’t risk it.
But then, unbidden, your mind supplies a memory. One from his couch, little more than a week ago.
“You can ask me,” he’d told you, earnest in his delivery, “anything you want me to do.” He said it himself. He promised you. “I’ll say yes.”
So, before you can lose your grip on the last remnants of courage you have, you ask, “Would you ever…”
It’s as far as you get before your bravery fails you, words trailing off into nothingness.
You wish you could take them back when Jungwon asks, a little breathless. “Would I ever what?”
You shake your head. “It’s nothing. It’s stupid. Just forget I said anything.”
But he won’t let you get away so easily. “Ask me.”
And you swear, it’s like he knows. His gaze bores into yours, searching, pleading, desperate, like he can see you all the way down to your bones. Like even the most secret of your thoughts have been laid bare before him.
“___,” he whispers your name. “Ask me,” he repeats.
“I just…” Your eyes screw shut. You can’t bring yourself to look at him. “What if we…”
“What if we what?”
You open your eyes, but only to look down towards your lap. “I trust you,” you whisper. In the silence of his car, it feels like you’re shouting. “More than anyone. Maybe I’ll be able to get over that hurdle in my mind if I just let you—”
“Let me what?” he asks. “Touch you?”
The breath you draw is ragged, shallow, as he hits the bullseye with little effort. Your fingers find a loose thread on the sleeve of your sweater. You know better, but you pull anyway. “Yeah,” you exhale. “If you…” You can’t look him in the eye, even now. It’s hardly a whisper, but you can’t bring yourself to say it any louder. “If I let you touch me.”
Jungwon’s inhale is sharp, his shudder involuntary. He leans across the center console, closer to you. Closer, closer, closer, until he stops, lips parting, face inches from yours.
He takes a deep breath in, holding it as his eyes search your face even as you keep yours turned down. Your heart hammers in your chest so violently you think it must be trying to escape. You still can’t look at him.
Jungwon’s breath escapes him in a shallow huff, dusting across your cheekbone. He lingers there for a second, like he can’t stand the thought of distance.
Then, without a warning, he sits back in his seat, knuckles white against the fabric of his jeans.
“I can’t,” he tells you.
You look up, eyes widening in surprise. “What?”
“I can’t,” he repeats. This time, he’s the one avoiding eye contact. You search his features for anything, any kind of explanation, but all you find is the tense set of his jaw, the heat that still simmers in his gaze. The restraint holding him back.
And suddenly, shame flashes through you. White hot humiliation that stings all the way down to your bones. It was one thing to imagine rejection from faceless men. But feeling it now, from him, from Jungwon, is so much worse than anything your mind ever conjured.
Trying not to let accusation sit too heavy in your tone, you whisper, “You promised.” It’s so pathetic, but there’s nothing left of your pride at that point. “You told me you’d say yes to anything.”
Jungwon flinches. “And I’m trying,” he tells you, an edge to his voice that sings with desperation. “Believe me, I am. I’m doing my best to make this about you, but…”
“But what?” You scoff. “You changed your mind? The thought of me like that is so repulsive you have to—”
“No.” He won’t let you finish. “But you’re sitting here, looking at me like you’d do anything for it, like you need it, and I can’t just say yes and give it to you because I do too.”
Your anger subsides, replaced with confusion. “What do you—”
“I need it too.” Only then does he meet your eye. Wide in the dying glow of lingering daylight, he’s begging for a bit of your understanding. “I’m trying to be selfless, but if I touch you, that won’t be just for you.”
Your brow creases. You still don’t get it. “I don’t—”
Jungwon releases a shaky exhale. “I’ve been thinking about getting my hands on you since I was old enough to know what it meant. Since I was old enough to want things like that at all.”
It’s all too much, too sudden. “Jungwon, what—”
“I know that you still think of me as the kid you grew up next to, and I’ve been doing my best not to shatter the illusion because you like me like that. But you come home from a date telling me it didn’t work out, telling me that boys don’t like you, and all I can think is good.” His hand curls into a fist, knuckles white. “I could do it so much better anyway.”
“I didn’t…” You shake your head. It doesn’t make sense. “You never—”
But Jungwon isn’t done yet. “You’re sitting here asking me to touch you, but I— fuck, ___. I can’t. Not when you’re only asking because you think it doesn’t mean anything to me. That it won’t change anything for me. You tell me that you trust me, and it’s the sweetest thing about you. I can’t take advantage of that.” His breath is practically heaving now, like he’s just finished running. “I can’t use your trust and break it like this.”
The sun dips past the horizon. The only lingering remnants of daylight cast his face into a gentle glow. Even as shadows begin to trace his features, he’s still Jungwon. Your Jungwon. But no matter how many times you spin his words through your mind, you can’t form them into something you understand. Something you have any idea what to do with.
“I…” It’s so confusing. It’s entirely too much. All you can think is, “Why did you never say anything?”
Jungwon laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “Would it have changed anything? I know you. You run when you get scared. You like me like this, your harmless little friend. You said it yourself, you think you know everything about boys like me. And you needed a friend. So that’s what I’ll be. Your friend. But I can’t say yes, not to this.”
“What if—”
“Don’t,” he cuts you off. “I know you think I can handle anything, but don’t tell me things you don’t mean.”
“Jungwon,” you try softly.
His fingers wrap around his steering wheel, knuckles turning white. “Just let me drive you home,” he pleads.
“But—”
“Please,” he whispers, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look so broken. “I know it was too much, that it’s not fair to you, but I can’t… I don’t think I can look at you right now and see all that confusion. So just,” he begs again, “please. Let me take you home.”
You want to press the issue, want to keep going until you have even a small fragment of understanding to call yours, but Jungwon is no stranger to making sacrifices for you. It seems he’s been making even more than you ever realized.
Tonight, right now, you can do the same for him.
“Okay,” you whisper.
The drive home passes in silence. Heavy, thick, uncomfortable like a blanket on a sweltering summer night. Neither of you bother to turn on the music this time. The only company to the quiet are the thoughts spinning through your mind, the moon that begins to shine as dusk turns to night.
Still, as he eases into the driveway just in front of your apartment, you can’t help but whisper, “Good night, Jungwon” as you step out of the passenger seat.
Whatever has passed between you, whatever terrible precipice the two of you have just fallen from, he doesn’t seem to be able to either.
“Good night, ____.”
By the time you make it inside, he’s gone. You know it will be, even before you check for his car from your bedroom window.
…..
“Um,” you begin, entirely unsure how to start the conversation. Across from you, Sophia sits on her favorite kitchen stool, scrolling through her Instagram feed while you wait for the pasta water to boil. “Something happened.”
“Mm?” She hums halfheartedly, eyes still trained on her phone screen.
Your words come out too fast, like you’re in a rush to have them over with as quickly as you can. “I was with Jungwon a few nights ago, and—”
“Oh my god,” she interrupts as she finally looks up, phone forgotten as she sets in on the counter. “You two finally hooked up?”
“What?” Your face pales at just how close she is to the truth. “Why would you even ask that? We’ve never even come close.” Well, of course, except for the incident you’re currently trying to explain. That you’ve been tiptoeing around for the better part of a minute.
“Are you kidding?” Sophia deadpans. “That boy looks at you like he wants to eat you.”
You splutter. “He does not.”
Sophia rolls her eyes. “He wouldn’t look at me for a week after I set you up with Sunghoon. And I thought he was gonna kill me that day he saw us at the cafe. All I did was mention the possibility of you having sex with someone that wasn’t him, and it’s like he was writing my name on some imaginary death note.”
“You don’t even watch anime,” you point out.
“I know the reference,” she argues.
Then, something more pressing draws your attention. “You did it on purpose,” you accuse, realization dawning. “You kept pushing the subject that day to see how he’d react.”
“No,” she denies, shaking her head. “I really do think you should put yourself out there more. Whether it’s Sunghoon or him or someone entirely different. Although,” she considers, “it is always kind of fun to see him get like that. Jungwon’s one of those people you don’t really expect it from, you know? He’s always so calm and collected. But I don’t know if I’ll try it again,” she looks at you, faking a shudder. “He’s scary when it comes to you.”
Any other day, in any other situation, you’d protest. You’d insist that Jungwon is entirely unaffected by you and your romantic choices. That Sophia must have been imagining things that day.
But Jungwon has already basically confirmed every last one of her claims, whispered them to you himself from the secrecy of his driver’s seat.
It’s the reason you invited her over today. To talk. To get a different perspective. To help you work through what happened.
Now, though, you just have a question.
“Why…” You still can’t wrap your mind around it. “Why did no one ever say anything?”
Sophia senses the shift, the way you go from defense to acceptance. From arguing to spiraling.
“Oh, ___,” she pouts. “My poor, sweet, oblivious ____.”
“I’m not oblivious,” you argue.
“Not usually,” she agrees. “But it’s like you have this blind spot when it comes to him. He’ll be in the middle of undressing you with his eyes and you’ll start telling some story about the matching diapers your moms bought when you were babies.”
“They were pajamas,” you correct.
“Whatever,” Sophia waves it off. “The point still stands. That boy wants you. Like, biblically.”
It’s consistent. It’s as much as Jungwon himself told you himself. But something about it makes you feel so terribly defeated, so completely unaware of everything you thought you knew about your friendship. About him. About yourself.
A bit helplessly, you ask, “What am I supposed to do?”
Sophia takes one look at you, at the dejection clouding your features, and sighs. “Can I be honest with you?”
You nod.
“I think you’re asking the wrong question. It’s not about what you’re supposed to do. It’s not about what Jungwon wants or what I think about your weird, sexually charged friendship.” Then, she asks the million dollar question, “What do you want to do?”
But that’s exactly the problem, you think, because, “I don’t know,” you admit. “I mean, I’ve never thought about it. He’s always just been Jungwon to me.” Pausing for a moment, you suppose you have little pride left to lose. You might as well be honest. “But the other night, when I was with him. I started thinking about… things.”
“Things,” Sophia repeats. She leans in closer, resting her chin against her palm as she asks, “What kinds of things? Feel free to be graphic, by the way.”
“Sophia.”
She pouts sympathetically. “You might not know right away. You’ve spent your entire life thinking of him as some untouchable, sexless entity. Which is kind of crazy, by the way. Like, have you seen the guy?”
You sigh. “Sophia—”
“I’m just saying, it might not happen overnight.” She looks at you, and you feel a sudden surge of gratitude for your friend. She may be wildly different from you in more ways than one, but she means it when she says, “It’s okay. Jungwon will understand, too. If you need some more time to decide if you want to jump his bones or not. He’s probably already been waiting since, like, junior prom. What’s a little longer?”
A little longer, you think. Part of you already spins with doubt, waiting for someone else to supply exact answers. How long is a little longer? When should you make your decision? How long is it supposed to take for you to know if your best friend of eighteen years is meant to stay as just that, or if the relationship between you has been building, slowly, surely, undeniably, into something else this whole time?
But you suppose that’s what Sophia means when she says it’s okay. What Jungwon meant when he told you it was alright to do things at your own pace, on your own time. You don’t need someone else to decide for you.
The difficulty isn’t a flaw—it’s a sign that this decision is one that matters to you, one that’s worth taking your time with.
So you do.
You think about it while you fine tune your resume for yet another job application. You think about it while you snip thorns off of roses at the flower shop, humming along absentmindedly to the playlist in the background.
You think about it in the shower and while you dinner. When your mom calls you and tells you about the new bulbs she just bought for her garden, the one that time and experience have allowed her to grow into something beautiful and thriving.
You think about it when you reach into the bottom drawer of your dresser one evening, pulling out the gift Jungwon gave you when you graduated high school nearly five long years ago.
A photobook, full of all your favorite memories together. Something to remember him by, he’d told you, so you wouldn’t miss him too much when you went off to university one whole year ahead of him.
In every picture, you’re smiling, grinning so wide you think your face must be in danger of splitting in two. And you’re so lucky, you think, to have someone to share all of these memories with. To have someone who’s been in your life for so long, who’s always been exactly what you needed.
And then, staring at a picture of the two of you in high school, his arm around your shoulders as the two of you laugh into the camera, you think it’s obvious.
You don’t have to make a choice between the Jungwon you know and the one you’re afraid to discover. Jungwon has been, and always will be, Jungwon. The way he smiles at you, because of you, isn’t an illusion, and the love he offers you isn’t conditional.
He’s been your friend for as long as you can remember, and he will be for the rest of your life. Your feelings and hopes and desires may have shifted, but he isn’t going anywhere.
He’s not scared of the truth, you realize. He never was. But he knew that you would be.
So he fed it to you slowly until it was too prominent to deny anymore. And even then, he gave you space. Time. Let you come to your own conclusions.
And somehow, that makes all the difference.
You think of the game you used to play as kids, the one where you put on your best dress and let him pick wildflowers for you from his back yard. The one where you used the welcome mat from his porch as a makeshift aisle. The one where every time you walked down it, he was the one waiting for you at the end.
You smile, nearly identical to the picture still splayed open across your lap, and you think that maybe there was never really a choice at all.
…..
Your knuckles barely rap against the door three times before you hear shuffling on the other side. Footsteps drawing closer until the latch opens, until the door draws back and you see him standing there. Jungwon.
If he’s surprised to see you, he doesn’t show it. Dressed in gray sweatpants and a plain, fitted black t-shirt, you don’t think he was expecting company.
“Hi,” you breathe. “Can we talk?”
Jungwon still says nothing, but he opens the door a bit wider, gives you space to walk in. Standing in the entry, you take your shoes off, setting them neatly with the others before drawing back up to full height. Prolonging the inevitable as if it makes any part of what you’re about to do easier.
You finally drag your eyes back to Jungwon. He’s already looking at you, expression unreadable. His hands are loose at his sides, but his posture is just slightly unnatural. Just a little too stiff. You know him. He’s nervous.
Finally, you break the silence building between you. “I’ve been thinking,” you tell him.
“About what?” he asks.
“You,” you admit. “Us.” A string somewhere pulls taught. A thread loosens.
Jungwon sighs, his exhale shaky. His hand curls to a loose fist before he tucks it into his pocket. “And?”
“I—” Your decision is still solid, not something you’ll back away from. But the words are harder to work out than you expected. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had in my life.”
Jungwon nods. “I know.”
“So,” you try, “it feels weird to suddenly have these thoughts about…”
He won’t let you leave things unsaid, not this time. “About what?”
“You know,” you try to deflect.
“Yeah,” he agrees, “but I’m gonna make you say it.”
You fidget a bit, eyes dropping, but you didn’t come all the way here because you weren’t sure. You know exactly what you want to tell him.
So you explain, “I just… you asked me, after my date with Sunghoon, what I was looking for.” It feels like a long time ago now, like a distant memory. “And I always felt like I didn’t know, but when I think about it, I always think about…”
“What?” Jungwon breathes.
“You.” Your eyes meet his. This time, neither of you looks away. “I think about you. I don’t have to try and come up with the best answer to my favorite hobbies because you already know. You know me better than anyone and you make me feel good about myself and all the things I usually don’t like. I don’t feel awkward or uncomfortable around you, and I don’t feel like I have to explain myself to you.”
Jungwon’s breath is coming heavier now. He takes half a step towards you, almost subconsciously, as if distance is something he’s finding more difficult to tolerate. But he knows you aren’t done, so he lets you continue.
“And then,” you add, “I was thinking about the difference between our friendship as it’s always been and the kind of relationship I think I want. And the only thing that’s really different is, you know, the sex.” Your words are spilling now, faster than even you can keep up with. “But even then, when I was trying to think of someone who I trusted enough to be with like that, the only person I thought of was—”
“Me,” Jungwon finishes, gaze unreadable.
“Yeah,” you breathe. “You. I don’t want to go on blind dates with Sophia’s coworkers or find random guys to hook up with. I just want you. It’s always been you. I want all of it to be you.”
Jungwon’s eyes shutter, brows going slack as he takes a deep inhale.
But you want to give him the same courtesy he’s been extending towards you this entire time. The decision, you want him to know, will always be his to make. “I know it might seem weird or sudden or out of the blue,” you tell him, “but I just needed you to know.” Thinking of his earlier promise you clarify, “You don’t have to say yes. I don’t even know if I’m really asking you anything—”
“You think about me?” he interrupts. “When you think about what you want in a relationship?”
The bluntness of it all still makes you want to squirm. But you hold steady. “Yeah,” you tell him.
“And when you think about having sex,” He’s so direct. It makes you want to hide your face behind your hands. “That’s me too?”
You can’t quite manage words this time, but your nod is confirmation enough.
Jungwon exhales, even harsher than before. “Are you just curious?” he asks. “It’s fine if you are, but I can’t— we can’t do this if you’re just trying to scratch an itch. If you’re just doing it to move on, to get over a fear.”
“I…” you’re trying to read between the lines, to make sure that you understand what he’s saying. It seems obvious, but there’s a strange haze in your mind that has you doubting everything, including your own judgement. “If we do…”
Jungwon doesn’t seem to have the same reservations for spelling it out. “If we have sex.”
“Oh,” you breathe. And then, “No.” You shake your head.
“No?” He echoes.
“I…” You trail off, trying to find the right words to explain. “I’m not—There’s no fear when it comes to you. I’m not trying to get over anything. And there’s no one else that I even want to be with like that, so…” You trail off, searching for the words. “You told me it was my choice, and I guess I just want you to know that it’s yours, too. You don’t have to agree to anything, because you’re afraid of disappointing me or hurting my feelings or—”
“___,” he whispers your name, the sound nearly broken on his lips. You look up at him, eyes wide. “Come here,” he begs.
It only takes two tiny steps for you to stand just before him, for your chests to nearly brush. For a moment, Jungwon does nothing. Then, his arms come up, one circling around your shoulders, the other against the small of your back as he pulls you flush to him.
The side of your face rests against his chest, his heartbeat erratic under your cheek. You hear him sigh and feel the way his breath flutters through your hair.
He leans back, just slightly, and you follow the movement, chin tilting upwards as your eyes meet his. The hand wrapped around your shoulders slowly unravels itself. He brings his hand up to your temple, brushes a strand of hair behind your ear.
His other hand stays steady against the small of your back.
Jungwon’s fingertips linger against the shell of your ear for a moment. You suppress a shudder as he begins to drag them down, tracing the line of your jaw until they come to settle just beneath your chin.
“Is this okay?” he whispers.
You nod, the movement making his fingers press more firmly into your skin.
Then, slowly, he begins to lean towards you. His nose brushes against yours, once, twice, a third time.
“I’ve thought about this,” he admits. “More times than I can count.”
He’s told you as much before, but now, with his hands on you and his lips just inches away, it feels different. It feels real.
“I imagined you looking at me,” he hums, pressing a kiss to your jaw, “with those big, wide eyes.” Another kiss, this time to the curve of your cheekbone. “Clinging to me,” a kiss to your eyelid as it flutters shut. “Sighing.” The tip of your nose. “And I’d try to hold back, but—”
“You don’t have to,” you shake your head. It comes out quieter than you mean for it too. It’s ridiculous, maybe, but even now, you feel shy.
“You mean that?” he asks, lips hovering so close you can feel their warmth.
You nod, nose brushing against his.
Jungwon sighs, takes a deep breath. And then he presses forward, just enough, until his lips finally brush against yours.
His grip tightens against you, fingers bunching the fabric of your shirt that rests against the small of your back.
He’s gentle, so impossibly sweet as his lips find yours. Upper lip slotting between both of yours, he tugs slightly against your bottom lip. Releases it with a soft, wet sound. Smiles against you as you giggle into him.
When his lips find yours again, it’s with renowned fervency. The pressure is more insistent this time, more demanding as he uses the hand beneath your jaw to angle you his liking.
Jungwon takes the lead, pausing, soothing his touch against your skin while you adjust to his pace.
Your hands find his hair, tangling in the strands near his neck. You tug, an involuntary response when you feel his teeth against your bottom lip, and he groans, shuddering against you.
Without breaking connection, he moves, walking backwards, leading blindly, until he sits down on the same couch you’ve been sharing moments on for weeks now. This time, he tugs you down with him, pulling you flush against his lap.
You feel it then, the evidence of just how affected he is. As if the drunk flush on his cheeks and swollen, red tint of his lips weren’t enough.
Jungwon wraps both hands around your waist now, pulling you tighter to him as your fingers cup his jaw, tracing, gripping.
You feel it then, his tongue against the seam of your lips, and you part them without a second thought.
Jungwon waits until you’re breathless above him to decide that he’s had enough of this position. Using the leverage of his hands around you, he maneuvers your body until you're flat against the cushions, head propped against the pillow that sits by the armrest.
Hovering over you now, he uses his hands to brace himself on either side of your head. Eyes trained on your features, on the evidence of his ministrations. His gaze gets darker, heavier, as he takes in the sight of you beneath him. Skin flushed, lips swollen and parted in anticipation, in permission.
Jungwon’s had his fantasies. Has kept them close to his chest and in the back of his mind for longer than he’d be willing to admit. But the sight of you now. Under him, reaching for him, begging for him, is enough to shatter every wet dream he’s had since he was a teenager.
Jungwon doesn’t maintain distance for long. Leaning down, he invades all of your senses. All you can see, even with your eyes screwed shut, is him. All you can feel is his lips, warm and insistent against your, the press of his hands on you, hovering just above the sliver of skin where your shirt had ridden up over your waistband. Every sound, every scent, every taste—it’s all him. Something warm and familiar and entirely new all at once.
His hand plays with the fabric of your hem for a moment, testing the waters. When all you do is kiss him back—harder—he decides to press his luck. Fingertips dancing against the bare skin of your lower stomach, he starts to drag your shirt upwards.
The air of his apartment is cool, even if his touch is anything but. It makes every inch of exposed skin that much more sensitive, goosebumps rising as his fingertips trace patterns against you.
His lips press against yours, a new angle, as a sound loosens itself from your chest. He swallows it, tongue pressing against you like he wants to savor it, like he’d do anything to hear it again.
He has your shirt nearly to your ribcage now, fingers tracing against the bottom seam of your bra, nerves singing with something new as you arch up against him. You need more.
Friction, pressure, touch, it doesn’t matter. You’ll take whatever he gives you.
Then, suddenly, you remember. Pulling back slightly, his lips chase yours.
“Wait,” you pant, the syllable muffled as he presses another kiss against you.
Once your request registers, he stops, mouth still brushing against yours. Leaning back slightly, he frowns. His chest still heaves when he asks, “You okay?”
“Yeah,” you nod, breathless. “But what about Jake?”
“What?” Jungwon asks above you. You don’t seem to be the only one struggling with coherent thought.
“Jake,” you repeat. “What if he comes in?”
He wouldn’t see anything, not really. Even the expanse of your bare torso is covered by Jungwon’s body on yours. But still, something in you hesitates. This, all of it, is for you and him. No one else.
Jungwon shakes his head. “He’s not home.”
“What if he comes back?”
“He won’t,” Jungwon insists. “He’s visiting his family for the weekend. He won’t be back until Monday.”
Still breathing hard, it’s as if your interruption knocked sense back into him. Palm still splayed against your ribs, he rubs gentle strokes with the pad of his thumb.
Looking down at you, his eyes crinkle slightly at the way you look so sweet under him, so shy despite what you’d been doing only moments earlier.
“Hey,” he leans down, nudging his nose against yours, “You doing okay?”
You nod, but you still don’t match his gaze.
“Yeah?” he confirms, “Then look at me.”
It takes a moment, but you do. Your cheeks only redden further, flush more apparent than he’s ever seen it before when you finally meet his eye.
Something in his chest swells. You might be a year older, but fuck if it doesn’t make him feel like such a man knowing that he’s the reason you look like this, that he’s the one who did this to you.
“You’re so pretty,” he whispers, grinning when you look away again. He presses a kiss to the tip of your nose. A chaste peck against the seam of your lips. “My beautiful, perfect girl.”
“Jungwon,” you whine.
“What?” he asks. “It’s true.”
“I thought you wanted to kiss me.”
“I can take a break to compliment you?”
You flush again, hands coming up to cover your face.
“Ah, ah,” Jungwon tsks, fingers wrapping around your wrists. “I asked you to look at me.” He pulls, gentle but insistent, until your hands fall away. Until he can once again look you in the eye.
“How long are you just gonna stare at me?” you ask.
“As long as you’ll let me,” he grins.
“Jungwon,” you whine again.
“Why?” he asks, practically cooing at you now. “Is my baby shy?”
You shudder at the pet name, and it awakens something devious in him.
“Oh,” he breathes. “I see. You’re getting impatient. Need me to touch you. Is that it?”
All you do is whine, but it’s a good enough answer for him.
“C’mon,” he urges, leaning back. “Up.”
You frown at the sudden distance, a furrow creasing your brow.
“The first time we have sex is not going to be on my living room couch,” he explains. Taking your hand in his, he guides you instead towards his bedroom.
And it’s not like you’ve never been here before, but something about the low light, the weight of what you’re about to do, makes it feel like uncharted territory.
You step into the room, even further than Jungwon, eyes trained on the queen size bed pressed up under the window on the far side of the room.
Your back to him, you hear Jungwon pull the door shut. It latches into place with a quiet click. And then, behind you, he asks, “What are you thinking about?”
“You,” you admit, turning to face him as you sit on the edge of his bed. “Us. I never thought…” you trail off, palm smoothing against the top of his sheets. “I never thought we’d be here.”
“I did,” Jungwon tells you.
“Really?” Your eyes widen when you look at him.
“Maybe thought is the wrong word,” he amends. “But I hoped.” He’s quiet for a moment, emotions playing out across his features. “Now that you’re here, I…” he hesitates, trying to find the words. “I don’t want to do anything wrong,” he admits. “I don’t want to scare you.”
“You won’t.” You shake your head. “I told you. I trust you. That includes this, too.”
Jungwon looks at you, gaze open. “You mean that?”
“Of course,” you nod.
Some of the tension drains from his broad shoulders, but he stays where he is, silhouette shrouded in the dim light of his bedroom.
This time, it’s you who takes charge.
“Jungwon,” you whisper, an echo of your earlier embrace in his entry way. “Come here.”
That’s all the encouragement he needs. His footsteps are even, steady, as he makes his way towards you. All the way until he stands just before you, looking down at where you sit on his sheets.
His hand comes to your cheek, thumb tracing patterns against your skin as you lean into his touch.
“Up,” he instructs. “Back against the pillows.” His hand falls from your face, trails down until his fingers interlace with yours. He follows in your wake as you move according to his instructions, all the way until you’re in a ghost of the position from his couch.
His body hovers over yours, breath warm as it fans against your cheekbone.
Again, his fingers find the hem of your shirt. This time, he’s less shy about pressing it upwards, all the way until it sits against the band of your bra.
Plain, black, built more for comfort than arousal. But you know Jungwon. He’ll take you as you are.
“Jungwon,” you breathe, just as his fingertip slips beneath the band. It takes him a moment to tear his eyes away, to look up and meet your gaze. “Kiss me.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice.
Lips meeting yours, the slow build from before is gone. He knows what he’s searching for now, has already learned what rhythm makes you breathless fastest, palms splaying against his chest like you’d do anything to be closer.
His hand comes to your hip, then slides to the sensitive skin of your inner thigh. You shudder as he guides it open, pliant to his touch. Jungwon uses the newly created space to slot his leg in between yours.
The shift has him brushing against you where tension is beginning to gather, exactly where you’re beginning to ache.
It feels good, but there’s something frustrating about it. The way sensation builds and falls in the same maddening ebb and flow, like the sea of an uncharacteristically quiet day.
You already know it’s not enough. Against his lips, you whine. A pathetic little sound that stays half trapped in your throat. But Jungwon understands.
Sees the way your hips are starting to roll against him, the way your brow creases in concentration as you try to find a better angle.
Leg still between yours, he lets his fingertips ghost over the planes of your bare stomach, dragging downwards until he’s exactly where you want him.
You whine against his lips and he shudders. “Is this what you need?”
You can hardly respond, can hardly think as his fingers dip below your waistband. Far more precise, it doesn’t take long to have you seeing stars.
He’s still kissing you, and you do your best to return it, but the sensations he levels you with are more than a little maddening. Lips parted against his, your mouth is practically slack as he works against you.
“Feels—good,” you sigh, eyes screwing shut.
“I can tell,” he whispers, some kind of awe in his voice. “Look at you.”
You’re so close. Jungwon can tell, too. He’s frantic now, movements tighter, faster as he watches the way your face twists in pleasure.
Your hand closes around his wrist, stopping him. “Jungwon,” you pant, the sound of his name hardly coherent. “Wait.”
Immediately, his hand stills. He doesn’t pull away though, just leaves it there, against you.
The sensation sends a fresh, aching throb pulsing from somewhere deep within you. Jungwon feels it too, against his fingertips, and groans.
Remembering himself, he asks, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” you shake your head. “I just… I’m ready.”
Jungwon thinks he knows what you mean. He’s imagined those same words from you before. A million times, in a million different contexts. But the sight of you beneath him, eyes wide, lips parted, so terribly sweet, is so much better than he ever dreamed.
“I want you,” you whisper, tugging at his wrist. “Please.”
Jungwon won’t make you wait. Fingers still hidden beneath your waistband, he slides them towards the top now, pulling, all the way until you’re bare beneath him.
He presses a kiss against your hip, just shy of where he was moments before.
He helps you slide your shirt over your head and shudders when your bra follows in its wake. He marvels at the feeling of your hands, smaller than his, tugging at his shirt, his jeans, until the two of you are in an equal state of undress.
Again, because it’s true and because he can’t help himself, he whispers, “You’re beautiful.”
You’re still shy, even more so with the weight of his gaze on you, but you manage, “So are you.” It’s his turn to flush.
Hands pressing against your shoulders, he guides you to lay down again. Hair fanning out against his pillows, he thinks you look a bit like an angel here, tangled in his sheets.
He’d tell you, if he weren’t so distracted by the sudden feeling of your leg coming to wrap around his waist.
Skin against skin, it feels even closer than before. Warmer, Softer.
“Jungwon,” your brows pull downward, eyes fluttering shut as you chase the sensations that have begun to drown you. “Please.”
He moves slowly, not from hesitation. Jungwon doesn’t think he’s ever been so sure of anything in his life. But he knows what this means to you, to him. He wants to take his time, wants to let every part of you adjust to him until you feel like an extension of one another, until your bodies can’t quite tell where one ends and the other begins.
He swallows your gasp as he presses into you. Brows furrowed, lips parted, he drops his head into the crook of your neck, scattering soothing kisses down the length of your throat.
“Feels so good,” he encourages as you whimper, adjusting. “Perfect, like you were made for me.”
The sentiment rings true, now and later, when he feels you relax around him, when he starts to move.
Slowly, reverently, at a pace that lets him press as deep as possible.
He brings his hand from your hip to the space just beneath your navel, palm splaying over your lower stomach, just above where he presses inside of you. Pushing down slightly, the added pressure makes you whine, tightening around him.
Jungwon groans, a long, deep sound that vibrates between your bodies.
“Jungwon,” you whisper, when the ache starts to sing, when the pressure starts to build. When you close your eyes and see stars behind them.
“I know,” he pants, like he feels it too. “It’s okay,” he assures. “I have you.”
It’s a reminder of what brought you here in the first place. And the sound of his voice is all you need.
Keening high in your throat, every muscle, every nerve, every fiber in your body goes taut. Tightens, pulls, before it releases. Jungwon leans down, lips parted against your collarbone as he groans, falling over the same edge only moments after you.
The shower he runs for you is warm, the touch he washes your hair with soothing as he rinses soap from your scalp.
The sheets are soft as you crawl between them, Jungwon’s chest firm as he pulls you tight against him.
“Sleep,” he whispers, pressing a gentle kiss against your temple.
Body exhausted, mind sated, it doesn’t take long for you to do as he says. In his arms, the rest that finds you is deep and dreamless.
…..
“Name?” Across from you, the secretary that sits at the front desk looks bored out of her mind. As if she’s seen one too many potential new hires and doesn’t think they’re worth remembering at this point.
You give her your name, and she types a brief note into her computer. Doesn’t bother memorizing it, but you won’t let that get to you, not today.
“You can sit over there.” She gestures towards the row of chairs against the far wall of the reception area. With a smile so tight you think her jaw must hurt, she adds, “I’ll call you when they’re ready.”
It’s not much. It’s barely even polite, but you can’t find it in yourself to care. Not when this is the first real company you’ve stepped foot in in months. When this is the first time you’ve gotten a string of congratulations in the subject line of your email inbox instead of rejections.
Still, it isn’t a sure thing. A test run, the hiring manager had called it. A week of in-person work at the company to see if you’ll be a good fit, if they’re willing to formally offer you a position.
An extension of the already lengthy interview process you’ve been subjected to for the last six weeks. But it’s far more than you’ve gotten from anywhere else.
It’s enough to have hope soaring in your chest, even at the prospect of a week of what is essentially unpaid labor.
Sliding down into the chair, you tug at the sleeve of your blazer, smooth the collar over one final time.
In your mind, you rehearse the answers you gave during your interviews. You’re not sure if you’ll be asked again, but you figure it’s better to be safe than sorry.
You’re interested in the position, because the company’s mission statement excites you. You think it aligns well with your experience and your hopes for a future career.
Are you good with deadlines? Better than nearly everyone you know. Do you work well under pressure? Absolutely. Where do you see yourself in five years? Advancing in your career as a young professional in the same field you earned your degree in. The same field a position at this company would put you in.
As the minutes pass, you remind yourself to breathe, to relax. The butterflies taking flight in your stomach won’t help you now, so you do your best to banish them.
And, minutes later, just as the secretary calls your name, you feel your phone buzz.
Glancing down, you grin at the message that comes through.
You got this, Jungwon says, the small heart next to his contact name shining like a reminder. Knock em dead
And then, beneath it,
Can’t wait to see you tonight beautiful
So, you stand up a little straighter. Shoulders square, chin high. You’re okay, even as your nerves threaten to send your heart beating out of your chest.
No matter what the results of this so-called trial run are, or every single attempt you’ll surely make after it, you’ll be fine. And if you fail, you’ll try again.
Whether this ends in an official offer letter or a bold-faced rejection, no matter what, you have Jungwon—rooting for you, thinking of you, waiting for you to come back and tell him all about it.
Jungwon, your best friend, your favorite person, and probably, if the feelings you’re starting to get whenever he’s near are anything to go by, the love of your life.
You meet the secretary’s gaze, smiling even as all she does is arch a brow. And then you tell her, “I’m ready.”
I got carried away again... this was supposed to be a stupid dumb drabble based on @yummyrevivalfluid 's YouTuber Senku post. but then I couldn't stop, and then I wanted to get some of my other senku ideas out of the way, and then it just spiraled into this long, semi-serious fic.... so yeah, enjoy!
cws: slow burn, strangers to partners to lovers, friends to lovers, mutual pining, nerds in love, social media stuff, reader is a flirt, eventual relationship, senku is lowk OOC, he's also down bad (#needthat), kinda cringe ngl...
nsfw cws: first times, emotional sex, switch dynamics, fingering, handjob, wrap it before you tap it (they do not...), hair pulling (giving), very implied voice kink,pillow talk, lmk if I missed anything major!
12.5k words
When you first stumbled across Mecha Senku, it was because your college chemistry professor couldn’t explain ionic bonding properly even if their life depended on it. And honestly? That would’ve been fine. You weren’t failing or falling behind on anything. You were the kind of person who took the time to color-code your notes. With pretty pastel highlighters and calligraphy titles like your professor wasn't speaking at 60mph.
You visibly got annoyed when someone asked a question that had already been answered. Five minutes ago. Word for word. And you weren’t subtle about it either. The eye twitches. The sigh. In fact, you studied chapters ahead for fun! Call it being a try-hard, but it was just how you functioned. So when something didn’t click? When you didn’t understand something?
You spiraled. Productively, of course.
So here you are. 1:34AM. Snuggled up in your bed, lights off, blackout curtains drawn, and laptop open at full brightness as you scrolled YouTube, bleary-eyed and annoyed. The only light in the room is the faint blue glow of YouTube’s homepage and your will to academically succeed (read: suffer).
You typed “bond angles” into the search bar. Hit enter, and scrolled. Then a thumbnail caught your eye.
“Predicting Bond Angles – (VSEPR Theory but not boring)” Channel: Mecha Senku Runtime: 5:28
And then you heard it.
That voice. you practically drooled at your screen. It was soft and deep, yet raspy, like he talked too much—which he did—or didn’t care if he wore out his throat explaining the same concept fifteen times. And when he rambled? Oh god. When he got caught up on a tangent about orbital hybridization—when his voice cracked just slightly because his brain was going faster than his mouth?
Yeah, you were soaked.
Kidding.
...Maybe.
You pulled your blanket tighter around your shoulders like that would protect you. Like you weren’t voluntarily listening to this man monologue about VSEPR models like it was foreplay.
You tried to focus on the science. Really, you did. He even had good diagrams—clean visuals, clear examples, actual accuracy. It was kind of annoying how helpful it was, actually. Like, did he have to sound hot while also being smart?
You watched the entire thing.
Then another.
Then another.
Before you knew it, you were five videos deep. At 2:11AM.
Your poor, old, worn-down laptop was probably overheating from the sheer amount of your spiraling. You didn’t even care.
And then… there was that video.
A short one. Barely three minutes.
“Iodine Clock Reaction – Visual Chemistry in Real Time”
You clicked on it like you were possessed.
It was simple—two clear liquids, a few drops of starch, and a timer. You knew the experiment already. You’d seen it done a dozen times in lab. You’d even done it yourself. But somehow, when he did it, it was a cinematic masterpiece.
The camera was angled just right—focused tight on his gloved hands, the faint clink of glass, the gentle pour of the liquid. His voice low, casual, like he was walking you through a magic trick instead of an actual chemical reaction.
And then—the clamps.
He adjusted the glassware with the same energy you imagined he’d use to unbutton his lab coat (which you have no idea why your thoughts immediately ran there)—methodical, focused, and totally unaware of the damage he was doing to your sanity. Forearms flexing, veins shifting, wrist angled just slightly—You blinked. Rewound ten seconds. Then watched it again.
Something dark and sinister bloomed in your chest. Something carnal. Unholy. You buried half your face in your pillow and made a sound that can only be described as a blowdryer on max output immediately followed by a deep, guttural moan. Like your soul was trying to evacuate your body in protest—but got stuck halfway out, sobbing.
You didn’t even know you had a thing for forearms.
Yet here you are. You were a mess. A high-functioning, academically driven, chemically confused mess, replaying a three-minute video about reaction rates like it was an award winning movie. Like it wasn’t educational.
“This is fine. I’m still learning.” You whispered to yourself
You weren’t.
At least, not about chemistry.
Extra notes about mecha senku!
Certified yapper; it gets so bad he just add timestamps to when he gets back on topic
Always says that stupid little catchphrase— “this is exhilarating, get excited” he can’t help himself, its like second nature
While editing his experiment videos, he add little text boxes that say “*item* acquired” ( like in the anime)
That comes in handy later
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
At first, it was a side project. Something to kill time between lectures, experiments, and tutoring sessions with students who couldn’t tell a mole from a molecule if their GPA depended on it. He kept the uploads short. Clean. No face, no fluff. Just experiments and explanations—combustion, osmosis, acid-base reactions. The basic building blocks of chemistry and physics, broken down in that signature tone of his: concise, confident, and just slightly condescending.
Naturally, people loved it.
Especially college students. Especially the ones who’d seen too many dead-eyed professors stumble through half-baked PowerPoints that they repurposed over the past 5 decades and somehow still made them boring.
He didn’t need gimmicks. Just science.
And, apparently, his voice.
The comments were... something. He ignored them, mostly. Or at least, tried to.
But even he had limits.
@lo1itado11: FLASH US!!!
@freakwy: ong WE all cracking
Username: i will combust and it won’t be a controlled reaction.
Anotherusername: i can literally get off to his voice rn bro omg…
He sighed, deeply. Then dragged a hand through his loosely tied-up hair, fingers threading through strands that refused to stay neat. He didn’t even bother hiding the twitch in his left eye.
Degenerates. All of them.
Still, every new upload got thousands of views in under an hour. Every deep dive request was more unhinged than the last. And while he could ignore the thirst comments, he couldn’t deny the numbers.
His channel was growing. Fast. And if someone asked him to demonstrate a specific experiment?
Well.
He was a scientist.
And who was he to deny a request in the name of scientific curiosity?
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
Now, Senku wasn’t exactly an avid social media user.
Sure, he had all the apps downloaded—after relentless badgering from Gen and Ryusui, who had both made it their mission to pressure him into being “normal” for once.
Senku used Instagram occasionally, mostly to lurk. To like Taiju’s blurry gym selfies. To comment “inaccurate” under Chrome’s chaotic science photo dumps—half of which somehow included a blurry photo of him.
Nothing on his own feed, though. His personal account was private, untouched, maxed out at like 26 followers—half of which were probably bots, and one was definitely just Ryusui’s alt.
However, he was used to getting notifications on his side account. His real one. The one that mattered.
@/mecha.senku.
So when he got a ping from TikTok, he didn’t think much of it. Just a red-and-white flash in the corner of his screen as he walked past a group of undergrads in the quad, huddled around a phone, laughing. Loudly.
Then it happened again. Another ping. Then another.
People tagging him in the same comment section. Spamming him.
Weird.
It wasn’t until after his lecture, holed up in the farthest corner of the campus library, headphones in, laptop open, coffee cooling rapidly at his elbow, half-forgotten.
The notification trail led to a single video.
At first glance, it was just a cake.
A badly decorated one at that—a war crime in the form of buttercream—uneven icing, no symmetry, and piped text that looked like it was written mid-seizure. He could’ve done better blindfolded. He was about to swipe away.
Until he saw the video thumbnail again.
He squinted. Froze. Looked closer.
It was you.
Holding a handful of what looked like paper-taped sticks. Your fingers curled delicately around them, like you’d spent time choosing each one. The video hadn’t even started yet and it was already climbing in views, the likes ticking like a metronome. The top comment had nearly eighty thousand likes.
@/semioli: “I KNEW YOU’D PUT HIM FIRST OMFG”
Senku blinked. Then, almost reluctantly, pressed play.
“Okay, so this is my ‘Hear Me Out’ cake,” you said with a breathless little laugh, voice rich with amusement and just the right touch of self-deprecation. “Please don’t judge…”
You laughed nervously at the camera, your voice familiar in the way ambient noise becomes addictive. He knew you—kind of. You were popular, at least on campus. Friendly with everyone. Smart. You asked questions in class that weren’t dumb, which was rare. People actually listened when you talked.
But he never—not once—imagined you listened to him.
Until the moment your fingers—painted nails and all—planted the first stick dead center into the cake. His channel logo. Bright. Unmistakable. Front and center.
Senku sat still. Very still. His breath caught somewhere in the back of his throat.
“I don’t know what it is about him,” you went on, eyes wide and glittering like you couldn’t believe what you were admitting, “but I feel a carnal type of desire whenever I hear his voice.”
Silence.
Real, gut-wrenching silence.
Senku just stared at the screen. One brow lifted. Lips parted slightly. Blinking. Nothing.
“…What.”
It wasn’t like he hadn’t heard shit like that before. He had. The comments under his videos were riddled with deranged confessionals and late-night voice-induced breakdowns. He’d seen them. Sighed at them. Maybe rolled his eyes on occasion.
But something about hearing you say that—out loud—while staring directly into the camera, shoving his logo into a cake like it was the most natural thing in the world…Now he’s reading the rest of the comments, most of which you had liked.
“his voice scratches my brain in just the right spot i can’t explain it.”
“if he ever does a face reveal it’s over for all of us.”
“whoever he is irl i hope he’s single bc i’m mentally married to him already.”
“i can’t even watch his videos in public anymore istg.”
A laugh, airy and sharp, passed out through his nose.
It was barely even a sound, just air. His head tilted back slowly against the chair, bones creaking lazily. One hand reached up, dragging through his hair—half-loose from the shitty tie job he’d done earlier. He didn’t even realize he was smirking. Eyes narrowed. Lashes lowered. Something wicked curled across his face, subtle but steeped in ego.
So.
You were into him.
And you didn’t even know that he sat two rows behind you in lecture. That the guy scribbling thermodynamic equations while you twirled your pen and tapped your knee was the same voice that apparently haunted your dreams.
Interesting.
Very, very interesting.
Senku closed the tab. Then reopened it not even ten seconds later, still somehow thinking his sleep deprivation was finally catching up to him. Big mistake.
You were still there—smiling at the camera, laughing like you hadn’t just shoved a stick into a cake bearing his logo and said you felt a “carnal desire” whenever you heard his voice.
He stared at the screen like it personally offended him. It didn’t. Not really. The offense was fake—just a weak cover for something worse, something much more humiliating.
You were attractive. That much had always been obvious.
He had eyes, didn’t he?
He wasn’t blind. He noticed things. Like the way you always had some elaborate doodle in the margins of your notebook that changed depending on your current hyperfixation. Like how you spoke with your hands, too fast sometimes, expressive. Like how your voice always had a bit of a lilt when you were excited about something, like you were trying not to talk over yourself. Like how you liked sitting near the window in lecture, even if it made it harder to see the board.
He noticed everything.
Which was the problem.
Because now he couldn’t stop noticing.
Your face. Your voice. Your laugh.
And the worst part?
You were smart.
Not smart like “gets good grades.” That wasn’t hard. No—smart like engaged. Curious. Your own brand of chaotic genius that showed up in how you argued with professors and picked at theories like they were complex puzzles meant for your hands alone.
You were confident. Passionate. Sharp.
You were…
Fuck.
He sat back in his chair and rubbed his face with both hands, groaning.
He didn’t do this. He didn’t get… distracted. He didn’t get flustered. Romance wasn’t even on the table. It was too messy. Too emotional. Too inefficient. He had research. He had goals. The last thing he needed was—
Another notification.
He glanced over. More tags. More people replying to your video.
More people joking, “@mecha.senku bro SAY SOMETHING!!! WE KNOW YOU SEE THIS.”
He hovered. His cursor blinking over the comment section.
He shouldn’t. There was no reason to. There was no benefit. No scientific purpose. No—He cracked his knuckles once. Took a slow breath. And typed.
@mecha.senku: Just a hear me out huh?
He pressed enter, then shut the laptop.
And immediately regretted everything.
Because within 30 seconds, the comment had over 2 thousand likes. The reply threads birthing entire romance novels in real time.
“OH MY GOD HE COMMENTED OH MY GOD OH MY—”
“HE KNOWS. HE FUCKING KNOWS.
“NAH??? THE MAN HIMSELF??? NO WAY”
“@y/n GIRL U NEED TO WAKE UP RN”
Every five seconds, your phone buzzes.
Buzz.
Buzz.
BuzzBuzzBuzz.
It starts slow—innocent. A like here. A tag there. Then, as if the universe pulled a lever, it turns into an avalanche. Your screen lights up like it’s trying to melt in your hand. TikTok. Twitter. Instagram. Even people from your group project in history are texting you like girl what the actual fuck did you DO?
You’re sitting cross-legged on your bed, charger barely keeping up, blanket wrapped around your shoulders like it can protect you from the moment. Your face is hot. Your jaw is slack. Your soul? Practically nonexistent.
You stare at the screen in disbelief.
Right there, in the comments, bolded like the laws of physics decided to write you a personalized romance book:
@/mecha.senku: just a hear me out huh
You blinked once. Then twice. Rubbed your eyes. Because—no. No way.
There’s absolutely no way that the literal voice of your academic downfall and emotional spiral just casually acknowledged the fact that you want to climb him like a fucking molecular structure.
Your mouth opens. Nothing comes out. You double-tap your phone by accident. Scroll. Scroll again. Scroll back. It's still there. You suck in a breath like it's going to help. It doesn't.
Your room spins a little—not in a dizzy way, more like the fabric of reality is reconfiguring around your phone screen. Like you’ve accidentally made a deal with a god and now the god is texting you back. Casually. In lowercase.
Your body chooses to react the only way it knows how—by laughing. Not normal laughing. That kind of panicked, unhinged, screeching laugh that sounds like it’s being wrung out of you like a wet rag. A noise clawing its way up your throat as you slowly tip sideways, dramatic as hell, into the mattress.
“Wow,” you say out loud to your empty room, chest rising and falling, heart jackhammering somewhere behind your ribs. “No way. This is such a crazy-ass dream…” Your voice cracks at the end. You sound borderline delirious.
But the comment is still there. Pinned by the original creator. Which is you.
You just close your eyes. Face-down into your pillow.
Your dignity? Gone.
Your supposed crush? Apparently omniscient.
Your life? Ruined. Maybe. Probably.
But your phone’s still vibrating under your thigh like it’s trying to combust.
And yeah. You’re never going to be normal about this again.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
It’s a few days later when you finally have biochem again.
Your professor had sent out an email at the end of last class—something about paying attention to the partner list for the next lab. You hadn’t even looked. Too busy hyperventilating over the Mecha Senku situation. Too busy swiping through your phone at 1 a.m., rereading that comment like it might suddenly disappear, or—worse—turn into something more incriminating.
You didn’t sleep much. Or at all. You just kinda laid there, vibrating at a frequency only dogs could decipher, while mentally reviewing every second of that video and every stupid thing you’d ever said about his voice.
So when your professor calls out your name and tells you to head to the back bench to meet your assigned partner, you’re still in a daze. You adjust your lab coat, swipe lip balm on with hands that are definitely not still shaking, and make your way to the station with the dull dread of someone walking to their own execution.
And then you see him.
Senku Ishigami.
Hair pulled into that slightly messy half-up style he always wears. Safety goggles already on, sleeves rolled up, already gloved. He doesn’t look up at first—he’s swabbing the inside of a petri dish with a level of focus you reserve only for exams and existential dissociations. Then he glances at you, just a quick flick of the eyes.
“Hey,” he says, voice low, casual. A little rough around the edges, like he just got over a cold or hadn’t talked to anyone in hours.
Your spine locks. You blink. Hard.
“Hi,” you manage, but it comes out thinner than you mean it to—stretched at the edges, fraying like an old thread. “You’re… my partner?”
He glances at the roster sheet clipped to the bench as if just now confirming something he already knew. “Looks like it.” There’s the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth—barely a smirk, more like a thought trying to become one. “Hope you’re decent with a microscope.”
You nod. Too fast. Too eager. Like your neck forgot how to move naturally. You try to smile like this is fine. Like this is normal. Like this isn’t currently short-circuiting every neuron in your academic-functioning brain.
You’ve never really spoken to Senku Ishigami before. Not really. Maybe a passing nod in the hallway. A blink-and-you-miss-it smile between lecture shifts. A polite “excuse me” when your bags bumped in the lab supply room once. But that was it. That was the whole sum of your direct interactions.
Everything else was observation. Safe distance admiration. Seeing him carry entire study groups with nothing but a half-dry marker and that ever-focused look in his eye. Taking note of how he argued with professors—calm, surgical, relentless—and somehow still walked out of every debate not only correct, but respected.
You admired him from afar. Kinda academically. Kinda not. (mostly not.)
But you’re a girl dedicated to her degree. A girl with goals, with caffeine basically in your bloodstream and deadlines stitched into the fabric of your week. You don’t get distracted. Not by things like this. Not by people like him. Or at least you didn’t. Until now.
Because working with him shouldn’t be this bad. Shouldn’t feel like the center of gravity shifted slightly under your feet, like the air got thinner and thicker all at once.
Except he rolls his sleeves up higher. Forearms peaking out. The lean muscle dusted in faint freckles, veins running like undercurrents
And then—God. The way he adjusts the microscope. Methodical. Controlled. His fingers moving like he’s done this a thousand times and still treats the equipment like it’s breakable—which it is, so you have no idea why him treating it as such is doing something to you—it all starts to blur together in your head.
You blink again. Swallow hard. And then you start to think back.
His voice.
That same voice. The cadence is exact. Steady and sharp with a rasp that scrapes along your spine in the worst/best way. A quiet breathless ramble as he explains the agar base—like the information is too much to simply stay in his head, like he forgets other people are listening. That subtle catch on certain consonants. That dry, low huff of amusement when your glove doesn’t go on right and you curse under your breath.
And then his hands.
Long fingers. Familiar motions. The way he handles the petri dish with practiced ease, adjusts the swabs like he’s composing something. You know those hands. You’ve seen them before. Over and over. In reaction videos. In slow motion clips, 0.25x speed. In the YouTube comments people timestamp for “scientific purposes.”
You freeze.
Fully. Completely paralyzed in real time like someone hit pause on your central nervous system. The classroom noise goes muffled. Muted. The hum of fluorescent lights above you turns sharp and migraine inducing bright. Your pulse is in your mouth now—behind your eyes, in your fingertips.
Because you’re looking at him. Really looking.
And it hits you like a truck doing 90 in a 60.
That’s him.
That’s him.
Your biochem lab partner. Senku Ishigami.
Is Mecha Senku. The, Mecha Senku.
And he knows. Oh, he knows.
He’s not even looking at you right now, but you swear—swear—there’s the faintest curve at the edge of his mouth. A smirk barely there, as he slides a sample onto the tray like he didn’t just casually detonate your grasp on reality.
“Oh my god,” you breathe. Not loud. But not quiet, either.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t react. Doesn’t so much as flinch. But you feel it. The moment it registers. The moment he knows that you know. Because the corner of his mouth twitches higher. Just a little. Just enough to catch onto. And then—still not looking at you, still pretending to be invested in his perfectly aligned swab placement, voice smooth and clinical like this is just another lab session—he says,
“Something wrong?”
You want to bang your head on the table.
Instead, you choke, swallow whatever dignity you had left, and squeak out,
“No. Nope. All good. Just… thinking.”
He hums, low and amused, like he already knows what you’re thinking about.
You're going to die here. Right next to your science tutor YouTuber crush who is also your real-life lab partner crush—for completely unrelated reasons—who has definitely, 1000% seen the video where you said hearing his voice makes you feel like your guts are being spiritually rearranged.
God.
You are so unbelievably, irreparably screwed.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
It doesn’t happen right away.
In fact, it almost doesn’t happen at all.
Because after the Mecha Senku revelation, after the comment, after the lab, after the video—you basically short-circuit. You try to act normal in the days that follow. You show up to class. Try to pretend like it’s no big deal that your anonymous science tutor crush is also your lab partner who is also your mutual…acquaintence? Friend? You didn't know which term you fell under in this situation. You tell yourself it’s fine. It’s not weird. You’re being mature about this.
And then he likes one of your posts. One of your older ones. A video from 3 months ago where you’re ranting about a series that you were into at the time while getting ready for the day. It was a stupid, pointless video. One which he had no reason to like. But he did.
That’s when you panic.
Not in public. But you lie in bed again at 2AM, staring at your screen like it might suddenly catch on fire. He’s watching your content. On purpose. He’s scrolling. Deep enough to find something from weeks ago, which means he’s either curious, bored, or—God forbid—interested.
You stop posting for three days.
Not out of pride. Not even out of posting strategy. Just fear. Raw, buzzing fear that anything you say or do will somehow make this whole situation worse. You delete a draft. Then another. Then six more. Your camera roll becomes a graveyard of half-filmed attempts at being funny or cute or sweet or not on the verge of a breakdown. But nothing feels right.
And meanwhile, Senku is being maddeningly normal.
He shows up to lab on time. Speaks when necessary. Makes the occasional snide remark when a burner malfunctions or a pH test fails. He doesn’t bring up the video. Doesn’t mention the TikTok. Doesn’t acknowledge the fact that you both know that this is like some weird fucked up romcom scenario that immediately got put on Tubi for its low budget. He just acts like… himself. Detached, sharp-tongued, observant, and unbothered. You, on the other hand, are barely holding it together every time he passes you a report sheet.
The dam doesn’t break until two weeks later.
You’re walking out of lecture, halfway through stuffing your notes into your bag with a granola bar half-eaten in your mouth when you hear someone fall into step beside you. Quietly synced with your rhythm, like they’d been waiting for the right second to align.
You glance over.
Senku.
Of course it’s Senku. His sweater sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Satchel strap slung lazy across his chest, and a half drunk energy drink swished in his hand. His expression is unreadable, somewhere between tired and calculating, but the fact that he’s here, walking beside you unprompted, is enough to make you question every single one of your life choices.
You’re not sure if you should say something first. Or if you should pretend not to notice the way your posture stiffens whenever he's in your general vicinity. You take another glance at him through your peripheral vision.
He still has that same unreadable expression on his face—bored, maybe. Or focused. Or just better at masking than you are. He doesn’t say anything right away, and you’re half-preparing yourself for some comment about glycolysis pathways or the upcoming quiz that you’ve been dreading over.
But then he exhales through his nose and says, “I’ve been thinking.”
Which is a terrifying sentence coming from someone who does more thinking in one day than most people do in an entire semester.
Your gaze doesn’t stray but you raise an eyebrow. “About…?”
He pauses for a beat. A way too long beat. Long enough to make your stomach drop. Then, casually: “A collab.”
You blink. “What?”
“A video,” he clarifies, like this is something completely normal that happens all the time. “A joint one. On your account. Or mine, doesn't matter to me. Mutually beneficial, wider audience reach, strategic engagement—pick whatever reason you want.”
You stop walking. He doesn’t.
“Wait,” you say, catching up. “You mean, like… a TikTok?”
He shrugs. “Sure. That’s your area. Whatever gets views. I figure if everyone is already suspecting something, I might as well do a face reveal while I’m at it.”
Silence. Pure, deafening silence. You can’t even think of what to say. Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
Because it’s not just the words—it’s the way he says them. Like it’s no big deal. Like the internet hasn’t been begging for a glimpse of his face since his third viral video. Like he hasn’t been a literal science cryptid for the past three years and now he’s just… casually deciding to unmask like it’s just something to check off on his bucket list.
“Why now?” you ask, finally. Your voice sounds weird in your own throat.
Senku lifts a shoulder, a faint smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth like he’s trying to suppress it.
“Felt like the right time,” he says, glancing at you out of the corner of his eye. “Besides, you’ve already done the hard part.”
You blink. “The hard part?”
He hums, nodding once. “Making me realize it’s not that deep.”
You blink again, brain buffering like it just hit a patch of missing code. “Wait… what?”
He shrugs again, like it’s nothing. Like this isn’t the culmination of literal years of silence and mystery and curated anonymity. “People’ve been asking for a face reveal since the beginning. I always told myself it wasn’t worth it. Kept saying it didn’t matter, that it’d just mess things up. But then you…” He pauses, and there’s this barely-there curve at the corner of his mouth. Not a smile—something quieter. More dangerous. “You made it feel kind of… harmless.”
Your pulse stutters. Your stomach flips. You don’t even have time to brace for what’s next.
“I mean, it’s not every day someone from your school logs online just to say she practically gets off to—”
You don’t let him finish. You physically can’t. Your hands are already flying up, face buried before your brain fully catches up, a sound of absolute mortification ripping out of your throat.
“Oh my God,” you groan, fingers pressing into your temples like you can massage the memory out of existence. “Please don’t say it like that. This is already, embarrassing enough as it is, The whole video was like a public humiliation ritual”
He lets out a chuckle at that. Way too satisfied with your reaction. Like he predicted it. When you don’t continue further he decides to speak up again.
“Think about it,” he says before splitting off toward his next class. “You pick the trend. I’ll show up.”
And just like that, he’s gone.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
You kind of forget about the whole thing.
Not on purpose, of course. It’s just that coursework piles up, assignments stack on top of quizzes that stack on top of projects, and somewhere between stressing over due dates and wanting to evaporate from existence after another surprise pop lab, the entire conversation with Senku slips to the back burner. Not in a “never doing that” way, but more like… “I will emotionally process this after midterms or death, whichever comes first.” kind of way.
There’s just never a good moment to circle back and be like, “Hey… remember that video idea you volunteered for? Wanna hang out and pretend we’re not both chronically online and know what we’re doing?”
Yeah, no. No way.
But then the first break in your schedule opens up—a blessed, random Sunday with no looming assignments due at 11:59, no labs, no back-to-back lectures sucking the soul from your body—and before you can talk yourself out of it, you’re typing a text.
It’s short, simple, and only took you about seven drafts before you finally sent it.
hey, i got a day off and i saw this new exhibit at the museum. thought it’d be nice.
You follow it up fast, like too fast:
for the collab that is!
Smooth. Very smooth.
He replies six minutes later.
sure. what day?
That’s it. That’s the whole text. Dry. Short. And so to the point it makes you start to question if he even wants to go, but you’ll take your chances. You send him the info—location, hours, all that—and hope for the best. Hope you don’t show up alone. Hope you don’t sit around pretending not to be stood up for a date that isn’t a date but still kind of feels like one.
But of course, who would Senku Ishigami be if not maddeningly consistent? If not a man ruthlessly punctual, stubbornly dependable, and irritatingly true to his word?
He’s already there when you arrive.
Not just there— but early. Waiting outside like it’s the most natural thing in the world, casually leaned against a concrete planter with one hand in his pocket and the other scrolling aimlessly on his phone. He’s not dressed up, exactly, but there’s something about his fit that feels intentional. Dark gray-beige slacks. Cream button-up shirt, top button undone. Black cardigan layered over it. Loose tie slung around his neck—totally optional, probably just for the aesthetic. Hair half-up in that signature man-bun style, the front strands framing his face.
You stop short a few paces away, your brain stalling mid-thought as your gaze continues to flicker up and down his form.
Because you? You are wearing a plaid skirt, a ruffled cream blouse, stockings, and boots that are way too tall to pretend you didn’t also plan your outfit, and a tote bag that’s got absolutely nothing useful inside besides your phone, wallet, lip gloss, and an emotional support water bottle.
Which is exactly when you notice it.
The colors. The textures. The vibe.
Oh my god.
You blurt it out before you can stop yourself, stepping the last few feet toward him like you weren’t just frozen in place two seconds ago. “We’re kind of matching.”
Senku glances up, and there it is. That thing he does. The slow, calculated glance from the hem of your skirt to your blouse to the edge of your bag and back up again, all while maintaining that unreadable expression. Like he’s gathering data. Like your outfit’s a puzzle he’s solving in real-time. His mouth twitches, just slightly, into something that toes the line between smug and genuinely amused.
“Yeah, I guess so…” He shifts his weight, pocketing his phone. “You look nice.”
You blink. Buffering. “You—uh. You too! I mean, not that I was—uh, yeah, thanks. You look good too.” You internally wince. Recover. “I hope you weren’t waiting out here long?”
He shakes his head, “Not really. Got here early on purpose.”
You nod, awkward and a little breathless, trying desperately not to read too much into it. You glance toward the entrance, mostly just to distract yourself in something that’s not his facial structure or the way the light catches on the slope of his nose.
“Should we… go in?” you ask, gesturing toward the doors. He hums, a quiet sound, like he's still mildly amused, and nods, stepping in beside you. Not ahead. Not behind. Right beside.
You scan your tickets at the entrance, hands just barely steady, and try not to overanalyze the exact distance between your shoulders. You try not to notice the faint smell of something clean and earthy—maybe his shampoo? Maybe something herbal?—that drifts off of him every time he turns to speak. You try, in vain, to be normal.
The museum’s quiet. Dim lighting. Cool air. Echoes of hushed conversations and soft-soled shoes against the polished floors. The first exhibit is drowned in amber lighting and filled with fossils in glass cases. You both drift to the same one without speaking, reading the plaque in tandem, standing so close your elbows almost brush.
He speaks first.
“Cretaceous, huh,” he says, voice low and a little warm, like he’s half-talking to himself. “Not exactly cutting edge, but still cool.”
You blink at him. “Are you—are you seriously judging the dinosaur bones right now?”
He glances at you. “Just saying, there’s been more interesting finds. I’d rather see a well-preserved stromatolite, personally.”
You snort. Actually snort, and he grins, which is possibly the worst thing he could do because now you’re staring at his lips and—
“God, you’re such a nerd,” you mutter, grinning before you can help it.
“And you’re not?” He raises an eyebrow, tilting his head slightly as if daring you to lie.
You scoff, turning back to the plaque like you can hide behind a block of educational text. “Yeah, okay, fair. But at least I pretend to be normal in public.”
“Mm. Is that what this is?” he says, and he doesn’t even try to hide the smile this time. It’s subtle, just a twitch at the corners of his mouth, but it makes your stomach do a little flip anyway.
You don’t answer. Not right away. You’re too busy trying not to combust.
You keep walking, slowly, drifting from case to case. The exhibits start to blur together after a while—early mammals, glacial imprints, fossilized flora—because your brain is short-circuiting every time his voice dips a little lower to point something out, or his hand lifts to gesture near your shoulder, or his sleeve brushes your arm.
You can tell he knows it, too. Maybe not the full extent of your internal spiral, but enough to sadistically enjoy how flustered you get. He’s not smug about it, nor cruel. Just quietly observant. Like he’s keeping a mental note every time your breath hitches a little or you laugh a beat too fast.
Somewhere between the meteorite collection and the preserved taxidermy wing (which he naturally had opinions about), you start filming. Nothing extravagant. Just quick clips on your phone—soft pans over the displays. He doesn’t comment, doesn’t shy away when the camera catches his shoulder or the back of his hand. Just lets you do your thing.
You’re halfway through the museum when your feet start to ache (your fault for wearing boots with no sole support) and your stomach lets out the saddest, weakest little growl. Senku hears it, of course. He doesn’t say anything—just jerks his chin toward the small, in-museum café tucked into the corner past the rotating exhibit, and heads that way without needing a response.
You order something simple. He does the same, and somehow, magically beats you to pulling out your wallet and paying. And then you both end up at a tiny table tucked near the window, warm afternoon light refracting through the glass and shining just right. You’re pulling your phone out again before you can really think about it.
He raises an eyebrow when he sees you tying—and failing—to discretely smile at your phone.
“I know that face,” he says, stirring his coffee. “What are you scheming?”
You grin, wide and sweet and a little mischievous. “You said I could pick the trend.”
“Unfortunately,” he mutters, setting down his cup.
You show him the audio.
He watches the sample once. Then again. Then nods. “Got it.”
You give him a quick breakdown anyway—“Ok so basically we just shake hands. So you would film me first to ‘My name is Pink, and I’m really glad to meet you.’ Then you do ‘You’re recommended to me by some people.’ Then back to me: ‘Hey, ooh, is this illegal?’ And you finish it: ‘Hey, ooh, it feels illegal?’ You got that? ”
Senku just gives you that flat, unimpressed look, the one that makes it impossible to tell if he’s judging you or already planning your execution in terrifying detail.
“Simple enough,” he says. “Let’s get it over with.”
You record it in pieces. The lighting’s good, the cafe’s not too crowded, and somehow, despite the secondhand embarrassment threatening to combust your entire being, you pull it off. You film each other, trade off holding the phone, and try your hardest not to start laughing as you record Senku's deadpan face. By the time it’s done, your face hurts from holding back a smile, and Senku looks a little too smug for someone who just debuted on the internet via meme format.
You save the clips to your phone, already planning how to edit it later.
You both take your time finishing your drinks after that—talking more now. About the exhibit, about the parts you skipped, about other museums you like. The vibe’s different. It’s looser, comfortable in a way you didn’t fully expect to get this quickly. He’s still sarcastic, still has that flat tone and know-it-all quips, but now he says your name a little softer. Looks at you a little longer when you talk.
Eventually, you both stand, a little reluctant but you both know you should leave before it gets too dark. The sun’s setting once you step outside the museum, casting everything in that amber-gold glow again, and it makes his profile look unfairly cinematic as he stretches.
“You’re surprisingly tolerable company,” he says as you walk out together.
You scoff. “Wow. Thanks. I’ll be sure to put that in my LinkedIn endorsements.”
“I’m just saying,” he replies, glancing at you, “You’re not as obnoxious as most people.”
You bump your shoulder into his. “Aw, you like me.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You implied it.”
He doesn’t argue with that, which might be worse.
The walk back is slow. Neither of you really rushing, just sort of drifting through the early evening like you're trying to stretch out the time you have together. Somewhere between chatting about your favorite childhood shows and bickering over whose major has more long-term debt attached to it (his argument: “You can’t put a price on revolutionizing orbital propulsion”), it hits you how easy this is.
And more dangerously—how fun. You can’t remember the last time someone made you feel this keyed-in without even trying. Like your brains are constantly sparking against each other like flint and steel.
Then he says something offhanded. Something completely innocent. He’s explaining something about a propulsion system prototype—specifically, fluid resistance and force ratios.
“It’s all about tension and release,” he says, absently adjusting his sleeves as he walks. “That’s how you maintain velocity without risking collapse.”
You glance at him sideways, smile sinisterly curling at the corners. “Mm. I’ve got some tension I’m sure you could release.”
He stops. Stops walking. Like his operating system just force-quit.
“…What?”
You keep walking a few paces before turning to look back at him, mock-innocent. “What? I’m just being honest. You should be more careful with that mouth of yours, Ishigami. You’ll feed into the online delusions.”
He blinks once. Twice. Visibly buffering. You can see it—like the gears in his big science brain just misfired, unable to reconcile engineering terminology with whatever the hell that was. His ears go a little pink—barely there, but enough to clock if you’re looking for it. Which, obviously, you are.
He clears his throat, and mutters something under his breath about “not being responsible for your interpretations.”
But he keeps talking after that. He can't help it now. Neither of you can. The conversation never drops again, not even as you split off at the corner of campus, your fingers still curled around your phone like it's holding the rest of the evening in its little glowing blue-light screen.
You go home buzzing. Not from the caffeine. Not even from the TikTok you’re already editing. But from him.
Because if there’s one thing that’s true about you—it’s that once you start liking someone?
Oh, they never get to rest.
Extra notes time again! || Sorry I really didn't feel like writing out the trend and like the comments and stuff again… I physically cant think like that anymore
Anyway! Both your respective fans go crazy when the initial collab drops
Comments and dm’s begging you guys to post together more—and I mean, who are you to deny the fans?
You make appearances in all of his videos where he “needs” an extra pair of hands
And he’s always seen in your “what i do in a day” videos or weekly vlogs
The tension on camera is undeniable and everyone is always asking if there's something going on, but neither of you ever respond.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
After that, you two just… keep hanging out. Off campus, mostly. Call them dates, call them… whatever—no one’s really labeling it, but they keep happening. Even in a group, you and Senku have your own orbit. It starts with subtle things. Shared glances, half-smirks, a sarcastic “oh really?” muttered under your breath every time he says something too smug. He always responds with a coy, “Don’t look at me like that unless you want something,” and you always raise a brow and say, “Maybe I do.”
You’re both like that.
Witty. Sharp. Teasing.
During stargazing, you’re lying side-by-side on a scratchy old blanket, staring up at the sky when he starts pointing out constellations, spouting off facts like an open textbook. You interrupt mid-sentence with, “Is this your way of seducing me? Because it’s working.”
He glances at you sideways. Doesn’t even pause. “You’re the one lying next to me under the stars. I’d say the seduction’s mutual.”
And at the beach? The energy’s dialed up even more.
You’re in a bikini under his oversized button-up, hair still damp from taking a dunk in the ocean, when you say something cheeky like, “You’ve been watching me all day. Just admit it.”
He doesn’t even blink, much less looks at you. “I’m studying gravitational pull in action.”
“Oh?” you hum sweetly. “Like, my body’s gravitational pull?”
“I meant the tide,” he deadpans. “But your ego has its own orbit, so sure.”
You throw a handful of sand at him. He dodges. Barely. And then throws a precise, infuriatingly accurate clump right at your ankle.
Even when your schedules are packed, you somehow always find time to circle back to each other.
There’s never been a conversation about what it is between you, but neither of you need one. You’ve both carved a little space into each other’s lives now—distinct, irreplaceable, and entirely yours. No one else quite fits the shape.
So it’s no surprise that you spend a lot of time in each other’s dorm—or in this case, Senku’s off-campus apartment. Sometimes for studying when the library’s full, but mostly just to hang out in the comfort of each other's presence.
You’re dressed in low-rise sweats and a tank top, now buried beneath one of Senku’s old sweaters. The one he threw at your head earlier after you started loudly complaining about the cold. The sleeves cover your hands, and the collar’s stretched from years of wear. It smells like detergent and something vaguely medicinal—like tea tree or menthol or maybe him.
He’s at his desk, deep into some spreadsheet or CAD model, muttering to himself about air resistance. You’re flat on his bed, legs swinging, phone held above your face as you scroll through TikTok with the sound barely audible. Every now and then you giggle. Sometimes you send him one. Sometimes he looks away from his screen to actually watch it.
The silence isn’t awkward. It never is with him. Just the quiet clack of his keyboard, the soft hum of his laptop fan, and whatever sound bytes your phone decides to throw at you next. It’s routine by now. Domestic, in a weird way.
He leans back in his chair eventually, spinning halfway to glance at you. “Hey,” he says, like he didn’t just finish modeling an entire turbine blade. “In class the other day—when Takahashi brought up reward pathways—you didn’t say anything. You disagree with the textbook stuff?”
You glance over your phone, one brow raised. “What, the dopamine bit?”
He nods. “And the serotonin model. You looked like you were biting your tongue.”
You shift onto your side, propping yourself up on your elbow. “I mean, yeah. Kinda. The textbook oversimplifies it. Dopamine’s not just a ‘pleasure’ chemical. It’s tied to motivation, reinforcement, emotional memory—like, the anticipation of reward, not just the reward itself.”
He’s still watching you. “Go on.”
And that’s all the permission you need. You sit up straighter, words spilling out like second nature. You talk with your hands, tangents spiraling into other tangents—sliding effortlessly into a topic you’ve buried yourself in for years. Limbic circuitry, behavioral loops, cortisol inhibition. You explain how physical touch spikes oxytocin and drops heart rate variability, how endorphins are natural painkillers, how the brain is wired to crave proximity.
Senku’s not even pretending to work anymore. His laptop’s still open, screen glowing against the side of his face, but his eyes are all on you—sharp, focused, borderline amused.
He hums. “So… theoretically,” he says, tapping his pen against his lip, “if someone were, say, stressed. Touch could help regulate that.”
“Yeah,” you nod, without hesitation. “That’s why hugging works. Holding hands, even brief skin contact; it’s all connected to emotional regulation. Even something like—”
You pause. Shouldn’t say it. But do anyway.
“—making out.”
There’s a pause. One beat. Two.
You glance at him. He’s still watching you, face unreadable. “Making out?” he repeats slowly.
You shrug, casual. “I’m just saying. High dopamine, high oxytocin, a little adrenaline from the novelty? Basically a neurochemical cocktail.”
His head tilts, expression unreadable. Then, like it’s the most normal thing in the world:
“Wanna try it?”
Your brain blanks. “What?”
“You’re the one who brought it up.” He says it flatly. Almost like he’s bored. But there’s a twitch at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes haven’t moved from yours once. “For science. Of course.”
You stare at him. “You’re not serious.”
He shifts to stand, lazy and unbothered. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
And then he’s walking over, bracing a knee on the mattress beside you. You stay frozen. Your heart is in your throat. Or maybe your stomach. It’s hard to tell with the way it’s pounding. He leans in just enough that you can feel his breath, hovering, giving you a chance to pull away.
You don’t.
And that’s all it takes.
The kiss is warm. Careful at first. Testing. You breathe out against his mouth, one hand finding the front of his hoodie and fisting it without thinking. He shifts, deeper into it, his weight pressing into the mattress as he moves over you. Still careful, but less hesitant now. Focused. Like he's calculating every angle, and still surprised by the result.
His hand finds your waist. Yours slide up to his neck.
You’re not sure when it stopped feeling like a joke. But it doesn’t feel like one now.
He shifts again, weight fully settling over you, a knee anchoring beside your hip as he deepens the kiss. His hands are warm—calloused in the way only someone who spends too long with tools and lab equipment can be—sliding up beneath the hem of his own sweater draped over you. Fingers brushing your bare skin tentatively, like he’s cataloging each reaction, each hitch in your breath.
Your arms move to curl up around his neck, pulling him closer, and your fingers find his hair. Tugging gently, then a little harder. He exhales into your mouth like it startled him.
You smile into the kiss—just a little. And he kisses you harder.
There’s something methodical in the way he touches you, like he’s studying even now. Testing reactions. Adjusting accordingly. But it’s not the detached, cold type of analyzing. It’s quiet intention, attentive hunger. The kind that says he doesn’t let himself want things often. But he wants this.
Wants you.
The sweater slips slightly off your shoulder. His palm follows the curve of your spine like it’s a path he’s memorizing. You’re already pulling him back down the moment he shifts to rise, needing more—needing him. He goes willingly. He always does.
His lips hover near your neck, and when he finally presses them there, it’s with purpose. A mark, claiming. You feel the heat it brings you all the way down to your core.
“You react so easily,” he murmurs, voice low and smooth, like he’s more fascinated than surprised. “Like your body’s just waiting for me to touch it.”
You hate how right he is. Or maybe you don’t. Not when his hands are gliding down, lower and lower, caressing the skin of your ribs to your hips.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
Senku almost feels bad for baiting you with that question earlier. Almost. If it weren't for the way you were staring up at him, all teary eyed, lips swollen and neck marked—courtesy of him, of course—he’d probably apologize. But he has you exactly where he's been wanting you, and you’re definitely not complaining, if the way you're squeezing around his fingers have any say in the matter.
“Fuck… you're tightening up. Are you close already?” he’s cooing down at you, eyes gleaming with a sort of sadistic look, his lips curled into a smirk.
You can't even respond, it's pathetic really, your brain is already turned to mush and he's barely even touched you. You tear your gaze away from him. Your legs are shaking, twitching uselessly at your sides, and you can feel just how wet you are, can hear it every time his fingers sink deeper into you.
Why did he have to be so good at this?
“You’re really that sensitive, huh?” he mummers, dragging his thumb just barely over your clit and he chuckles when your body jerks forward. Your thighs try to close but he’s already in between them, his other hand prying them open, keeping you exposed and needy under his touch.
He’s transfixed on the sight of you. Watching every twitch of your hips, every spasm in your thighs, every time your walls clench around his fingers, the way your eyes roll back when his fingers prod at a particularly sensitive spot. And, of course, the way you bite down on the back of your hand in an attempt to muffle the sounds spilling out of your mouth.
God, it turned him on in more ways than he possibly imagined.
Senku leaned in, his lips brushing the shell of your ear, just to watch the way you squirm. “C'mon,” he breathes, his voice barely above a whisper, “don’t hide from me. I want to hear everything.”
You whimper at that—a soft, choked sound, and he feels it all the way down. His cock throbs in his pants, neglected, untouched, but he doesn’t care about that right now. Now when this is happening. Not when you’re this responsive, this wrecked just from his fingers. And so… Senku moans. Deep and guttural like your reaction does something to him. Like watching you get off is more satisfying than touching himself could ever be.
The way your body moves against his hand is erratic now, your hips shifting up to match the pace of his thrusts, trembling on the edge. He can feel it in the way your walls flutter around him, can see it in the way your lashes are soaked with tears, the way you jerk with each slow curl of his fingers.
You’re close. So, so close.
So he gives it to you—just the right rhythm, the right amount of pressure, and that voice again, like a switch flipped inside of him:
“Go on, baby, it’s okay. Be a good girl and come for me.”
And you do. Practically sobbing into the sheets as your body shudders around him. Your muscles tighten,back arching off the bed, and breath hitching in your throat before it spills out in a loud, desperate moan. And Senku swears he almost loses it just watching you. Watching what he did to you.
“Fuck, that's it… just like that.” He’s a little breathless now, still working you through it, fingers moving gently as you shake and throb beneath him, blissed-out and absolutely ruined. Even as he pulls his digits out, and licks them clean, your body still hasn't stopped twitching.
You're sprawled out beneath him, brain soft and heavy, your thighs sticky, your chest heaving. There's a buzz under your skin you can't seem to shake—like your body hasn't figured out the comedown yet. Like you're still coiled tight, waiting to snap again.
Senku's still above you, propped on one elbow, eyes dragging slowly over your face like he's trying to memorize the exact expression you're wearing—ruined, flushed, lips parted, still trying to catch your breath.
And when he speaks again, his voice is low and rough, the edge of smugness barely masking the heat beneath it. "You should see yourself right now." He leans closer, nose brushing yours, lips just barely hovering. "You came so hard, baby."
You should roll your eyes. Should say something back. But instead, you kiss him. It's clumsy at first—your hands reaching for him, fisting into the front of his shirt, dragging him down with more desperation than you meant to show. But he goes down willingly, groaning into your mouth like he's been waiting for it, like he's starving for you.
His lips are warm and soft, and when his tongue brushes against yours, something in you snaps. You moan into it, tugging him down even closer, legs shifting to wrap around him until he’s fully on top of you, pressed chest to chest.
The kiss turns filthy fast. Sloppy. Hungry. You taste yourself on his tongue, feel his teeth graze your bottom lip, and when you break apart for air, there's a thin string of saliva still connecting the two of you.
Senku stares down at you, his lips pink and wet, eyes dark with an unmistakable desire. But you don’t say anything. You just drag him back down and kiss him again. And this time, you take control.
You find the strength to gently shove his shoulder. A silent request for him to switch positions, this time with you on top. Your hands slip between your bodies, fingers tugging at his waistband, undoing buttons and zippers with trembling precision. You don't rush it, you don’t even speak. You just stare down at him, eyes locked on his, and you let your palm glide over the front of his boxers—feel how hard he is. How long he’s been holding back.
"You didn't touch yourself," you whispered against his jaw, lips ghosting down to his neck. You kiss the column of his throat. You can feel his adam's apple bob under your mouth. "You just... watched me."
Senku shudders, eyes fluttering shut as he hisses through his teeth. "Of course I did," he says, voice low, breath hitching when your hand dips beneath the fabric and wraps around him. "You think I could look away from you like that?"
You smile into his skin, lips dragging over his pulse point, before licking a small stripe against it, warm and possessive. "Then you're gonna let me return the favor."
He tries to say something, probably a snarky comment, or some teasing remark, but it dies in his throat the second you stroke him. Thumb pressing over the tip, spreading the pre-cum, watching his face go soft and slack and honest. His cock twitches in your hand, and he groans-deep and low, like he's trying to keep quiet and failing.
"You're so responsive,” you murmur, voice dipped in faux sweetness. "Bet I could make you come just like this—barely even touching you."
His head rolls back as he nods.
"You'd let me?"
"F-fuck," he breathes, biting down on a groan as your pace picks up, "I'd let you do anything right now."
And there it is-that crack in his composure. The unraveling. You've got him now, pinned under you. Your hands, your voice, your mouth ghosting back up to kiss him again while you work him with steady, torturous strokes. And you swear he looks like he's about to lose it just from that.
"You're close," you whisper, forehead pressed to his, your hand never stopping. "Aren't you?"
He nods again, faster this time, eyes wide, and dazed. You find him beautiful like this.
“it’s okay,” you whisper, kissing the corner of his mouth, “Come for me, and don't look away."
He doesn't.
You watch each other the whole time-while his body tenses, his breath catches, and he spills into your hand with a whine—it’s with your name on his lips. And even after, when he's still trembling, breath ragged, forehead resting against yours, he kisses you again.
It’s softer now. Slower, more sensual. Like he’s trying to catch up to everything that just happened.
You climb up to adjust your position, shifting in his lap to properly straddle him, and feel him twitch beneath you. The air thickens again. You start to move—slow, subtle grind that makes both of you gasp.
“Is this okay?” you murmur, lips brushing his. “We don’t have to…”
His hands find your hips, tentative, but firm enough to tell you he doesn’t want you to stop. “Y-yeah,” he swallows hard. “Just—condom. They’re in the nightstand.” he adds, voice barely above a rasp.
You pause, looking down at him, your hair falling into his face as your lips curl in a slow, nervous smile. “I kind of just want to feel you,” you say softly. “Just you.”
His breath catches, and his grip on your hips tighten. “You’re gonna ruin me,” he mutters, tone somewhere between a joke and the truth.
“I’m on the pill,” you say, brushing your thumb along his cheek. “And I haven’t been with anyone. Not since we started hanging out…”
His gaze locks with yours—surprised, a little shy. “Me neither.”
There’s a beat. Neither of you says it—what this means, or where it’s going—but you don’t need to. Not right now.
You lean in and kiss him again, deeper this time, while he lets you settle over him fully. And when he finally lets go of whatever he’s been holding back, it’s not a fall. It’s a full body surrender.
You shift your hips, sliding your hand between your bodies. Senku watches you, wide eyed and panting, as your fingers wrap around him once more. He’s still hard, heavy and warm in your hand, and the sound he makes when you stroke him again makes your head spin.
His hands tense on your thighs. "God," he whispers, barely holding on. "You-you don't have to—"
"I know," you say softly, guiding him to where you want him. "I want to."
You angle yourself, breath catching as you line him up. He sucks in a sharp breath, eyes locked on where your bodies meet, like he can't believe this is happening.
And when you start to sink down—inch by inch, taking your time—his head falls back against the pillow, lips parted, throat working like he's trying to remember how to breathe.
You stop halfway, adjusting your hips, one hand braced against his chest. He feels so good stretching you open like this. You look down at him.
He nods, frantic, his voice almost breaking.
"Yeah. Just—don't stop. Please."
You don't.
You ease down the rest of the way, and when you're fully seated, hips flush to his, both of you just stay there for a second, gasping, trembling, overwhelmed. And when you finally start to move; the slow, steady rolls of your hips—his hands come up to grip your waist like he's afraid he might actually fall apart under you.
At first, it’s easy to stay in control. You set the pace, savor the friction, chase the tension building in your belly.
But it doesn’t last.
Your thighs start to burn, trembling with the effort, barely cooperating anymore. Every bounce turns sluggish, your movements dragged down by the growing heat in your limbs—but you're still moving. Still trying. Because he's looking at you like that.
Senku's laid out beneath you, hair a mess, lips kiss-bitten, and pupils blown so wide there’s barely a sliver of red left. And he’s watching you. His gaze is steady, and intense—like he sees everything. Like he’s not the one unraveling here. You are.
And through the fog in your head, it hits you that he’s smiling.
Not mockingly, just this small, breathless grin, like you’re an experiment he doesn’t want to stop testing. And the way he says your name, low, and rough, like he’s been holding in his mouth for months, sends heat crashing right through your core.
You try to keep moving, but your body stutters. Your breath shudders.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t have to.
He just says, “You're falling apart, aren’t you?”
You don’t answer. You can’t. And then he speaks again, a little more sure this time.
"That's it, baby. You're doing so good for me... just like that."
His voice—God, his voice. It's low and thick and soaked in wonder, like he can’t believe this is real. Like he can’t believe it’s you. You nearly fold right there.
The noise you make is somewhere between a sob and a moan, your hands scrambling against his chest like you need something to anchor you, or maybe just him. Your whole body pulses at his words like they hit deeper than anything else, heat unraveling inside you faster than you can hold it together.
"F-Fuck, Senku..." you whimper, blinking through tears, hips faltering as you try to keep the rhythm. "I c-can't—"
"Yes, you can," he murmurs, fingers tightening just a little on your thighs, just enough to remind you he's there, guiding you, grounding. Not pushing—never pushing. Just wanting. "You're already doing it.”
His voice dips again, breathless. “Look at you..."
It’s awe. Pure, undiluted pleasure. Every word that falls from his lips sounds like it’s unraveling him as much as it is you. And somehow, that’s what undoes you more than anything
You bury your face into his neck, because if you look at him again you'll crumble-and maybe that's the point. Maybe that's what he wants. To break you down, piece by piece, until you're too far gone to think about anything but how good he makes you feel.
And God, he is breaking you.
He drags one hand up your back, fingers threading through your hair, just to keep you close. He needs you close. Needs you to feel how much he's coming apart beneath you. He's grounding you, ruining you, worshipping you with every tremble in his touch.
"Just one more," he whispers, lips brushing your ear. His voice is strained, like he's barely holding on. “Just give me one more…”
He's losing control fast. Your soft, whiny little sounds are killing him. Every breathy moan, every gasp, every whimper—you're driving him insane, and maybe, just maybe, that's what gives him away.
The way his voice breaks when he speaks again.
"God-you feel so good," he chokes out, hips stuttering beneath you. "You're so—fuck, you're perfect around me, I can't—"
He whines-actually whines—a raw, desperate sound ripped straight from his throat, like he doesn't know how to hold it back anymore.
"I c-can't stop," he breathes, hips twitching up into you without rhythm now. "You're—you're making me crazy—how are you so fucking—tight—?”
You make another sound—desperate and broken—and he feels it. The way you clench around him, the way your whole body answers before your mind can even catch up.
And then, softer-almost pleading:
"Let me hear you when you come, yeah?"
You whine—God, you whine—and he groans, like the sound physically does something to him. His hands are shaking now, trying to hold you steady while everything inside him unravels.
The way you look, the way you sound, the way you're still trying to ride it out, still trying to give him what he wants even as you fall apart on top of him. It's too much.
And he wants more.
Your name falls from his lips again-raw, reverent, broken at the edges-and it hits you deeper than anything else has all night.
You try to keep moving, but your body betrays you. Your hips falter, your thighs tremble, and your forehead presses against his collarbone, like hiding might save you—but it doesn't. He's still looking right at you, and God, he's still talking.
"Just like that... you're so—fuck, you're so perfect like this."
His voice is breathless, thick with disbelief and need. "I can feel you... every time you move, I-shit—"
And maybe you don't mean to do it. Maybe you're just grabbing onto something—anything—to stay grounded. But your fingers slide up into his hair, tugging just a little. And he moans.
Full-bodied. High-pitched, desperate, absolutely shameless. His eyes slam shut. His hips jerk up into you with no rhythm, just want. "Shit–do that again—" he gasps, voice cracking. "Please–fuck—!"
So you do.
You fist your hand in the mess of his pale strands and pull.
He falls apart.
"God—I'm–fuck, I'm coming—" The words are slurred, ruined, his face pressed into your hair as he bucks into you once, twice, and then spills inside you with a choked-off moan. His hands fly to your hips, gripping tight, like he's trying to keep you locked to him, like if he lets go for even a second he'll die.
You're already shaking, breath stolen out of your lungs, your own release crashing through you. You sob into his hair, overwhelmed, while he trembles beneath you, hands still gripping, body still twitching.
When you finally still, everything is quiet. Just your breathing, his heartbeat, frantic against your chest. Your fingers are still tangled in his hair. And he hasn't stopped shaking.
You don’t move for a long moment. You just melt into him, limp and boneless, your forehead pressed to his shoulder, your chest rising and falling against his. He’s still inside you, still warm, still twitching faintly with aftershocks. And even though your muscles are shaking and your skin is flushed and sticky, all you can do is breathe.
Senku doesn’t speak right away either. He wraps his arms around you, his hold is loose at first—like he’s not sure he’s allowed—and then tighter, like he can’t help it. Like letting go now would undo him. His voice is hoarse when he finally whispers, “You okay?”
You nod into his neck, barely moving. “Yeah. You?”
He lets out a shaky breath, something between a laugh and a sigh. “I think I’m still alive.” He says. “But barely.”
You smile, eyes closed, cheek pressed to his skin. “Was that…?”
“Yes,” he says instantly, like you needing to ask the question is absurd. “Don’t even finish that sentence.”
You laugh softly and feel him grin against your temple. There’s a pause—comfortable, heavy with the weight of what just happened—and then he shifts, brushing your hair gently away from your face.
“I didn’t… hurt you, or anything?”
“No,” you murmur. “You were perfect. Seriously.”
You finally lift your head, just enough to look at him. His hair’s a mess, his cheeks are still flushed, and his eyes are glassy—but he’s smiling. Soft. Uncertain. Happy. And for a moment, he’s not the genius, not the scientist, not the voice behind a screen.
He’s just a boy, flushed and messy, still a little out of breath, and completely, irreversibly gone for you.
You lean down and kiss him once—just a press of lips. Nothing more. Then you collapse on top of him again with a soft groan.
“We should probably clean up,” you mumble into his chest.
He hums. “Eventually.”
Neither of you moves.
⋆.⌬ ˚𒉭 ⋆
Later, you do get up—clean up, change, all that boring post-mindblowing-sex routine—but it’s quiet. Natural. And once you're both back in bed, it’s like gravity pulls you together again without even trying.
The room’s quiet, warm, filled with the soft hum of your joined breathing. Your legs are tangled beneath the sheets, and your head is tucked under his chin, chest rising and falling against his.
Senku’s still. His hand hasn’t moved from your back, fingers lazily tracing the curve of your spine like he doesn’t know how to not be touching you now.
And then, without looking at you, he says quietly:
“…So is this the part where we pretend that never happened?”
You blink. “…Do you want to pretend that never happened?”
He’s silent for a moment too long.
“No,” he admits. “Not even a little.”
You shift just enough to look up at him. His hair’s still messy, cheeks still faintly pink,and there's a light trace of sweat on his temple, but his eyes are sharp, focused on you now in a way that makes your breath hitch.
“I’m not exactly…” He hesitates, frowning slightly. “Good at this stuff.”
You smile. “Sex?”
“No. Well—” His ears go red. “That too. But I meant… this. Whatever this is. Relationships. Wanting someone this much. Letting them in.”
You don’t say anything right away. Just reach up, gently brushing some of his hair out of his face.
“Senku,” you murmur, soft and certain, “you don’t have to be good at it. We’re figuring it out together.”
He swallows, throat tight. “…You’re not gonna run when you realize I’m not exactly the most conventional partner?”
You blink, lips twitching. “After what just happened? I’m definitely not running. I can barely walk.”
He huffs—almost a laugh. Then finally, finally, he meets your eyes again. Really meets them.
“And besides,” you add softly, “I knew how you were before all of this. I’m your friend first, always. I love you just the way you are.”
“I didn’t mean to fall for you,” he says, blunt in that way only Senku can be. You were just… there. Constant. Loud. Infuriatingly smart. Always messing with my things, always in my space.”
You raise an eyebrow. “You’re digging a really deep hole right now.”
He exhales—short, almost a laugh. “Yeah, well. Then one day I realized I didn’t want any of it to stop. I didn’t want you to stop. I think that scared me more than anything.”
Your lips twitch. “You call that romantic?”
“I’m a scientist,” he deadpans. “Not a poet.”
You grin, pushing up slightly so you can lean over him, your hands braced on either side of his head.
“Well,” you murmur, eyes soft, “guess I’ll have to be the romantic one.”
His eyes flicker to your lips, then back to your gaze.
“You always were.”
You lean in and kiss him—slow, like it’s not a first or a second or a tenth, but something you’ve always had the right to do. He kisses back like he’s finally letting himself want you out loud. When you pull away, you rest your forehead against his again, noses brushing. His hands drift to your waist under the blanket, not trying anything, just holding.
“…So,” you say softly. “What do we call this now?”
He hums thoughtfully. “An unplanned but highly successful chemical reaction?”
You snort. “Try again, scientist.”
His mouth quirks. “Girlfriend acquired?”
You blink. “Did you just say that like you unlocked an achievement?”
“I say that every time I make something new in the lab,” he says, matter-of-factly. “Why would this be any different?”
You roll your eyes, but your heart is doing dangerous things in your chest. “God, you’re such a dork.”He shrugs under you. “Yeah. But I’m your dork now. Apparently.”
Ignore the lowk OOC last line… genuinely couldn't find another way to end this quickly
ANYWAY BACK TO THE EXTRA NOTES!
You guys both go kind of MIA for a while; one second you’re posting like normal, sometimes popping up on each other's page, then just… radio silence.
Fans lost their minds, and during your time away, they start making these crazy long theories trying to explain what they think happened to the both of you to fill the void.
Literally ranging from, "He's secretly a serial killer and she was the last victim so he deleted his digital footprint to evade capture.”
“They eloped in the mountains. She’s pregnant. They’re living off the grid with goats.”
“She accidentally killed him during an experiment and is covering it up.”
All of these are objectively incorrect.
In reality? You’re working through your first relationship, and when you’re ready, you’ll both be back.
an: can't blame anyone but yk I gotta be rude to my kitten whiskers bella... already tagged her though so sigh... anyways this was supposed be DAYS ago but I kept adding more stuff. this is the cycle of my life , I can not shut up for the life of me.
I also haven't written smut in a while (can you tell?) so if its bad.. yeah, I tried my best fr. lowk a closeted freak ONG do not leave me in a room with Senku he WILL end up pregnant.
how i study when my energy is low but my goals are high
i no longer wait to feel motivated.
as someone who's goals are super high, like becoming a doctor, living in a new york penthouse, going to an ivy league med school.
i don't have time to wait for motivation to start working on attaining my goals. some days i want my goals more than i have energy for them.
and that's fine.
⋆ what “low energy” actually means for me
my low energy isn't random, it comes from thinking all the time, consuming all the way, always having something open in my mind. even when i'm resting, i'm still processing. what i actually need in these moments is predictability. like familiar routines, gentle structure that tells my nervous system, "hey, you're safe enough to focus"
⋆ how i study when i feel drained
i lower the activation energy.
♡ — books already open, i like setting this up because it's the first step to surrounding myself with what i need to actually start
♡ — tabs preloaded. one of my favorite tasks. organizing my tabs into groups and naming them help me stay organized and make it less-distracting.
♡ — notes half-started. the date, time, topic, energy level etc
♡ — i start before i feel ready. i immediately start my Pomodoro timer. (i use flocus, but most of the time i like to use ambient/music Pomodoro's on youtube. and i just start, no thinking, no planning. just start
♡ — i keep sessions short so my brain doesn't panic. not 45 minutes, not 60 minutes, just 20-25 minutes and a 5-minute break always.
the goal is to make starting stupidly easy
♡ — one topic only. i have this strange addiction to multitasking. like right now as i'm writing this blog post, i'm also planning other parts of my brand, planning my study schedule tomorrow, and rebranding myself for 2026. yes.... but when it comes to studying, i choose one topic only,
♡ — i also set one clear outcome for each study session. like read, review, rewrite, finish ___ chapter. etc
my brain relaxes when it knows there's an ending, and a goal at the end of the session
i also like to keep my study environment more intimate during my low energy days
♡ — for my lighting choices, i hate using overhead lights when studying, so i like to use my desk lamp, or warm fairy lights
♡ — when i'm reading something i like everything silent, but sometimes rain ambience is really nice to listen to.
♡ — i loveeeee warm drinks, homemade coffee + caramel macchiato creamer. plus, i like setting the temperature to be cool, not too cold, not too warm.
i also don't like to change my study system during these days. i choose gentle study methods like
♡ — rereading with a pen in hand to annotate
♡ — active recall, but only a few questions
♡ — i also explain concepts out loud.
i learned to stop before i'm depleted. i end sessions while i still have a little energy left. i also leave something unfinished on purpose, so i can slowly return back later before the end of the day. this is how i build trust with myself.
i do not support toxic motivation, i will not push myself until i burnout of fall into depression. i stop when it feels kind.
⋆ what i don’t do anymore
♡ — i don't wait for motivation
♡ — i don't compare my pace to high energy days, because that isn't fair
♡ — i do NOT romanticize exhaustion
♡ — i stopped studying past mental saturation, never force yourself to consume information when you're depleted.
♡ — i no longer force long sessions, like i mentioned earlier in this post. i keep it to 20-25 minutes only, nothing beyond that.
♡ — i also don't turn one low-energy day into a story about failure. i used to do this a lot.
how i measure success now
♡ — i show up gently
♡ — i touch the material daily, at least once
♡ — i don't avoid the subject, even if i hate it
you do not need to suffer to be serious. these are all little reminders and tasks i've been doing this winter to just enjoy studying more. winter has always been a low-energy season for me, so keeping all this in mind whenever i focus on my academics has really changed a lot for me.
cherie’s note — take a shot everytime i used an emdash (—) fr. having family over this week, so posting is still going to be a little inconsistent but i'm trying! i missed you cuties. (◜ᴗ◝)
you barely had time to process how perfect it felt — how right it was to finally have rafe inside of you. how thick his cock felt inside of you, nice and full, your warm velvet walls morphing to fit snug around him. how it seemed to split you open in a way that made your mind dizzy, brain too foggy with the feeling of him so deep inside of you — before it all unraveled.
his hips stutter the second he bottoms out, his breath hitching sharp against your throat, one strong arm braced beside your head. his other hand is trembling where it clutches at your thigh, fingers digging into the soft flesh like he was struggling to hold himself together.
"f-fuck," he gasps, voice cracking. his eyes screw shut, "baby—i'm gonna—shit, i can't—"
you blink up at him through your lashes, flushed and dazed. your heart pounds from the stretch, and then the sudden stillness. "what?"
he buries his face in your neck, his whole body tensing against yours.
"rafe."
his hips twitch once — just once —and then he groans, low and broken and almost embarrassed, as you feel him spill inside of you before either of you have even moved. one deep thrust and he's done — the warm, sticky foreign feeling flooding your cunt for the very first time.
"fuck," he says again, softer now, like he's not even talking to you — more to himself, if anything. "fuck me, i'm so fucking sorry, baby."
he doesn't move. just stays there, breathing hard, his weight starting to sink heavier into you as the silence stretches. you can feel how wrecked he is, breathing uneven in small pants. his pulse races against his skin, eyes squeezing shut with a frustrated sigh.
"rafe..."
his voice comes out rough, barely above a whisper. "i didn't mean to. you were just—you felt so fucking good, and i couldn't help it. i—god, i swear i can go again—just, give me a minute—"
your kiss-swollen lips part, but no words come out — not at first. you're still catching your breath too, blinking through the haze of surprise and something softer, a little warmer. your thighs twitch around his waist, still trembling from the stretch, but it's not frustration that curls in your chest. it's something closer to disbelief.
he came — just from being inside of you. one thrust, and he fell apart.
he's still trying to hide, forehead pressed to your neck like maybe if he stays there long enough, hidden away from the world, the shame of it all might not eat him whole. like maybe you'd forget it even happened in the first place.
you thread your fingers through the damp hair at the nape of his neck, fingers gentle and steady. "hey," you murmur. "look at me."
he doesn't move.
you tug lightly, "rafe."
he lifts his head just enough for you to see his face, flushed red with embarrassment. lashes still a little damp, brows pinched with guilt. "you don't have to say it," he starts hoarsely. "i know it's—fuck, i ruined it."
your hand finds his cheek, thumb brushing the hot skin beneath his eye. he looks so different now — vulnerable. like every shred of masculinity within him had been crumbled to pieces as a result from a single mistake. "you didn't ruin anything."
his brows knit tighter, almost like he doesn't believe.
"rafe," you whisper, voice firmer now. "do you have any idea what it means that you lost control like that?"
he just stares at you, breathing uneven — cerulean eyes shifting over your face, trying his best to read your mind, predict what might happen next.
you offer a small, shaky smile. "you barely touched me. you felt me and came. that kind of—" you laugh once, still breathless. "—insane. kind of hot, actually."
he groans again, this time with more anguish than lust. "don't say that. i swear, give me like five minutes—maybe less—i just need—"
you press a kiss to the corner of his mouth before he has another chance to speak. "i'm not mad."
"but you didn't even—" he starts, eyes wide, ashamed.
"yet," you cut in, grinning softly. "you're gonna make it up to me, remember?"
his throat bobs as he swallows, gaze locked on yours, and you can see the shift in him — the hunger of the moment creeping back behind the guilt, bright blue eyes flooding with something dark. the desperation to fix it. to prove something.
Summary: Jack comes over after shift, and for once, it is not because of sex. He remembers the smoke detector you complained about once. He shows up with batteries, fixes it like it's nothing, and somehow makes your apartment feel even more dangerous than his townhouse. Because Jack has started taking up space everywhere. His coffee in your kitchen. His charger beside your bed. His toothbrush in your bathroom. His shirt is in your laundry. And then he touches you like you matter. But after a brutal pediatric case leaves you shaken, you reach for him in a way that has nothing to do with heat. You reach for safety. For his house. His bed. His steady voice. His arms.
And Jack shows you exactly where the line is.
Warnings: Explicit sexual content, oral sex, condom use, reader on top, emotionally intimate sex, friends-with-benefits/casual arrangement, domestic intimacy, Jack being careful in ways that hurt, prosthetic leg mentioned/removed in a casual domestic context, pediatric medical emergency, child in respiratory distress, near-loss of a child patient, blood mention, emotional exhaustion, rejection, angst, Reader realizing she deserves more than crumbs of affection.
Author's Note:
Welcome back to Nothing Casual, where Jack Abbot continues his reign of emotional terrorism by fixing a smoke detector, switching laundry, keeping his toothbrush in Reader’s bathroom, and then somehow acting like this is all still casual. This chapter is where the cracks really start showing. There is heat, because of course there is. These two are very good at using sex to avoid having an actual conversation. But the real damage in this chapter comes from the domestic stuff: the coffee, the laundry, the quiet ways Jack shows up, and the way she starts realizing that all those little pieces of care have made her feel safe with him. And then she actually needs that safety. That’s when everything starts to hurt.
Also, Robby is here being a chaos gremlin with a candy bar, because even in emotional devastation, we deserve snacks.
Xoxo, Del
MDNI 18+
Previous Part(s): | Chpt. 1 |
Chapter Two: Crumbs
The smoke detector chirped at 2:17 p.m.
At first, you thought you had imagined it. You were buried too deep in sleep to make sense of anything quickly, body heavy beneath the sheets, hair somehow still damp from the shower you had barely survived after shift. The room was dim, blinds half-closed against the afternoon light, your apartment quiet as you were trying to sleep off a night shift.
Then, from the hall outside your bedroom—
Chirp.
You opened one eye. “No.” Silence. You closed your eyes again.
Chirp.
You stared at the ceiling. There were many things you could handle. Blood. Vomit. Angry family members. Drunk men with opinions. Doctors who forgot nurses had more than two hands.
You could not handle a smoke detector with a dying battery.
Not today.
Not when your body was exhausted, and your brain refused to turn off. Not when your apartment already felt too quiet after the last time you had slept in Jack’s bed, too still without the creak of his old townhouse stairs, too yours in a way that somehow felt less restful than it should have. You rolled onto your side and grabbed your phone. There was a text waiting.
Jack:
Are you awake?
Your heart did one stupid, immediate thing in your chest. Of course it did. You blinked at the screen, still half-buried in your pillow, hair damp at the ends from your shower, bare legs tangled in the sheet. You should have waited before answering. Made yourself less available. Less predictable. Less whatever you had become when Jack Abbot’s name appeared on your phone.
Instead, you typed back:
You:
Yeah.
His reply came almost immediately.
Jack:
Can I come over?
You stared at it. Four words this time. Not come over. Not the usual blunt, post-shift directive that made heat gather low in your stomach before you could decide to be smart.
Can I come over?
Still, your body understood before your brain caught up. You looked toward your bedroom door, toward the hallway, toward the apartment that had already started betraying you in small, quiet ways. His charger was still plugged into the outlet beside your bed.
On his side.
Not that he had a side.
Except he did, apparently, because every time he stayed over, he took the side closest to the door without saying anything about it. The charger had appeared there three weeks ago after he complained once about his phone dying during an on-call check-in, and then it had stayed. In your bathroom cabinet, his deodorant sat beside your moisturizer. His toothbrush leaned next to yours in the cup by the sink. In your kitchen, a bag of coffee beans he liked was clipped shut on the counter because he hated the brand you bought, and had solved that problem by bringing his own without asking if he should.
One of his black shirts was in your laundry basket.
Jack Abbot had been taking up space in your apartment so gradually you had almost convinced yourself it was accidental.
The smoke detector chirped again.
You flinched. Then you looked back down at the phone.
You:
Yeah. Door’s unlocked.
You set the phone face down on the mattress, then immediately picked it back up and checked the thread again, as if the words might have changed.
They hadn’t.
Can I come over?
Your stomach warmed despite yourself. You were tired. You should have told him no. You should have said you needed sleep, because you did. You should have let the smoke detector chirp itself into madness and dealt with it after your body remembered how to function. Instead, you got out of bed. You changed into sleep shorts and an oversized T-shirt that did not belong to him, because apparently, you still had some survival instincts left. You brushed your hair back. You checked the bathroom mirror and told yourself you were not trying to look like anything.
The smoke detector chirped.
“You are on borrowed time,” you told it.
By the time Jack knocked once and opened the door, you were standing in the kitchen with your arms crossed, pretending you had not been listening for his footsteps in the hall. He stepped inside wearing jeans, a dark hoodie, and the same tired expression he always had after night shifts, the one that made him look carved down to bone and patience. His hair was still a little damp, like he had showered and then given up on sleep too.
Your gaze dropped to his hands.
Batteries. A small screwdriver.
You blinked.
Jack shut the door behind him. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
His eyes moved over your face. Then down to your T-shirt, your bare legs, your feet on the kitchen tile. Not slow. Not obvious. Enough. Heat stirred anyway.
Then he lifted the batteries slightly. “Smoke detector.”
You stared at him. “What?”
“You said it was chirping.” He replied.
You blink again, “I said that yesterday.”
“At work.” Jack glanced toward the hall as the smoke detector chirped again, perfectly on cue. His mouth tightened. “Still is.”
You looked at the batteries in his hand, then back at him. He had remembered. Not because you had asked him to. Not because you had texted him in dramatic distress. Not because it was a big deal. You had mentioned it once near the nurses’ station while pouring bad coffee into a paper cup, sleep-deprived and annoyed, something about ripping it off the ceiling if it chirped one more time.
Jack had apparently heard that.
Remembered it.
Come over to fix it.
Your chest tightened in a way that felt deeply inconvenient. “You came over for my smoke detector?”
Jack looked at you like the answer was obvious. “It’s been bugging you.”
“It wasn’t an emergency.” You murmur.
His gaze flicked up the hall again. “It was going to become one.”
You almost smiled.
Almost.
That was the problem with Jack. He did not bring flowers. He did not make speeches. He did not say things that could be held up to the light and examined.
He showed up with batteries.
He walked down your hallway like he knew the route because he did. He dragged one of your kitchen chairs beneath the smoke detector and stepped up with the same quiet competence he brought into every room, every crisis, every impossible hour of the shift.
You leaned against the wall and watched him work.
You shouldn’t have.
There was nothing especially intimate about a man changing a battery.
Except it was Jack.
Except his hoodie rode up slightly when he lifted his arms, showing a narrow strip of skin above his waistband. Except his jaw was shadowed and his hair was still damp, and he was standing in your apartment, fixing something you had complained about once.
Except his toothbrush was in your bathroom, his shirt was in your laundry, and his coffee was in your kitchen.
Except this was starting to look an awful lot like a life in pieces neither of you had agreed to assemble.
The smoke detector opened with a small plastic click. Jack changed the battery, tested it, then snapped the cover back into place. The apartment went quiet. Completely quiet. No chirp. No washer. No hospital noise. No easy explanation for why your throat felt tight.
Jack stepped down from the chair and set the screwdriver on the counter. “There.”
You looked at him. The silence after the chirping was almost worse. “How can I ever thank you?” you asked.
His eyes came to yours. The sentence was light. Teasing. Familiar enough to be safe. Or it should have been.
Jack’s expression barely changed, but his eyes did. “You could stop threatening to dismantle safety equipment.”
Your brow furrows, “That was one time.”
“It was specific.” He shrugged a shoulder.
You stepped closer. “I had other ideas.”
The air shifted. There it was. The thing both of you knew how to do. The door you could open when everything else started feeling too close. Heat was easier than gratitude. Want was easier than saying, You remembered something small, and it mattered to me.
Jack watched you cross the kitchen. He did not move away.
Your fingers slipped to his belt.
Jack caught your wrist. Not hard. Just enough.
You looked up.
His gaze had gone dark, but his voice stayed low. “Not as payment.”
Your chest tightened. There he was again. Careful in the places that made it worse. “Then what?” you asked.
Jack’s thumb moved once over your pulse. “Because you want to.”
The words went through you so cleanly, you almost hated him for them. For the restraint. For the care. For the way he could make something filthy feel honest, and still refuse to name anything about it.
Your fingers flexed under his hand. “I want to.”
Jack held your gaze for one beat. Then he let go. You took his hand and pulled him toward your bedroom.
He followed.
The apartment felt different with him behind you. Smaller. Warmer. Too aware of him. The charger by your bed was still plugged into the wall, cord coiled loosely on what had become his side. Your laundry basket sat near the closet door, one black T-shirt visible on top. You saw Jack glance at it, then away. Not embarrassed. Not pleased. Just noticing. Jack always noticed.
You turned before you could let yourself think too long about that and pushed him gently back onto the bed. He sat first, then moved with practiced ease, removing his prosthetic and setting it within reach beside the bed without making a thing of it. No pause. No performance. Just another private rhythm he trusted you not to turn into something fragile.
Then he lay back, eyes on yours.
You climbed over him. His hands came to your hips immediately. Loose, at first. Letting you decide. That almost undid you. You kissed him hard enough to avoid whatever was rising in your chest. Jack answered, one hand sliding up your back, the other still at your hip, steadying but not steering.
Your shirt came off first.
Jack helped only when you let him, his fingers brushing your ribs as the fabric lifted over your head and landed somewhere near the foot of the bed. His gaze moved over you, dark and focused, and for one second, neither of you breathed quite right. Then your hands were on his hoodie. He sat up enough for you to pull it over his head. His T-shirt followed. Your palms found warm skin, the hard line of his shoulders, the scarred, familiar places you knew too well for someone you were still pretending not to love.
Jack’s jaw tightened when your nails dragged lightly down his chest.
Your shorts went next. He watched you slide them down your thighs, his hands flexing once against the sheets like he was making himself wait. Still letting you choose. Still careful. Still making it worse.
You moved back over him, bare skin against his, and his breath caught.
Your mouth moved over his, his jaw, the rough line of his throat. His breathing changed beneath you, deepening, catching, but he did not take over.
You shifted lower, fingers going to his waistband.
Jack’s hand found your wrist again. Not hard. Just enough.
Your eyes lifted.
His jaw was tight now. His control was thinning; you could feel it under your palm, in the tension of his body beneath yours.
“I said not as payment,” he said.
“This isn’t payment.” You answer.
His gaze held yours.
You did not soften it. You did not make it a joke. “I want to.”
Jack’s fingers loosened around your wrist. For one second, neither of you moved.
Then he let go.
You moved lower before he could say anything else. Jack watched you settle between his thighs, his breathing already uneven, his body still carrying the tension from the kitchen, the smoke detector, your hand at his belt. He was already half-hard from the way you had looked at him earlier, all quiet intent and darkening eyes and the kind of want neither of you knew how to leave alone.
Your fingers wrapped around the base of him.
Jack’s hands clenched in the sheets.
You leaned in and dragged the flat of your tongue along the underside in one slow, deliberate stroke.
His abs tightened visibly.
That did something to you.
Not just the way his body answered. Not just the heat of him, the weight of him in your hand, the rough sound he tried to swallow before it could become too much.
It was the fact that he let you see it.
Jack, steady and guarded and careful, Jack, lying in your bed with his control thinning beneath your mouth. One of his hands lifted toward your hair, then stopped short. Hovered. Pulled back. Your chest tightened even as heat moved through you. Still careful. Still trying not to take what you had not given.
You took him deeper.
His breath caught hard.
Your lips sealed around him, wet and warm, your tongue working in slow, lazy circles as you watched the fracture happen piece by piece. His head tipped back against the pillows, throat exposed, jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked beneath the skin.
You knew that jaw. You knew that restraint. You knew exactly what it meant when it started to fail. His breathing turned rougher, short exhales that caught on your name without quite forming it. You felt the tremor in his thighs, the way his hips fought not to push up. The way every part of him wanted, and every part of him was trying to be good about it.
The ache of that went right through you.
Because this was what he did.
He made restraint look like care.
He made wanting you feel safe.
“Fuck,” he muttered, voice low and frayed. “Don’t stop.”
Almost a plea. Almost. Still, Jack enough to hold the shape of control around it, but barely. Your pulse throbbed hotter at the sound. At the sight of him like this. Steady, guarded Jack Abbot coming undone because of your mouth, because of your hands, because you were allowed this close to him in your bed with his charger plugged into the wall and his toothbrush in your bathroom.
You were allowed so much of him.
Just not the part you were starting to want most.
You took him deeper again, and this time his hand found your hair. His fingers threaded through it, not pushing. Not forcing. Just holding on. His hips shifted once beneath you, helpless and restrained all at once. You felt him swell against your tongue. Felt how close he was. Jack’s breath broke.
You pulled away.
His eyes opened immediately.
He stared down at you, wrecked and confused, chest heaving, lips parted around a breath he had not gotten back yet. For one second, something raw crossed his face. Not anger. Not frustration.
Almost betrayal. His body had already trusted the fall. You had changed the direction. Then he caught himself. Of course he did.
You reached for the nightstand without looking away from him. The foil tore loudly in the quiet room. Jack’s gaze dropped to your hands as you rolled the condom down his length with slow, deliberate strokes. His stomach tightened again, his head falling back for half a second before he forced his eyes open and looked at you.
Like he did not want to miss a single part of this.
Like watching you want him mattered.
You climbed over him, knees bracketing his hips. Jack’s hands came to your waist. Loose. Waiting. Letting you choose. That almost undid you more than if he had grabbed you. You sank down onto him in one steady glide, and the sound that came out of him was guttural, dragged from somewhere deep and unguarded.
For a second, you could not move. Neither of you could. You were full of him, your hands braced on his chest, his palms warm and open at your waist, the air between you heavy with everything neither of you would say.
Then you started to move. Slow at first. A careful roll of your hips. Another. The rhythm building in your body before your thoughts could catch up.
Jack watched you like he was losing another piece of himself every time you rose and sank back down. His gaze moved over your face, your mouth, your chest, then back to your eyes, dark and fixed and devastatingly focused.
His fingers flexed at your hips. Still not taking over. Still letting you have him. That was worse.
You had meant to make this dirty. Easy. Something both of you knew how to survive.
But Jack was looking at you like there was nothing casual about the way you moved over him. Like he could see every thought you were trying not to have.
It was too much.
Your eyes dropped. Just for a second. Long enough to find the safer place: his chest beneath your hands, the sheets twisted under his body, anywhere but his face.
Jack’s thumbs stilled at your hips.
Then his voice came low and rough beneath you. “Look at me.”
Your rhythm faltered. Not because it was filthy.
Because it wasn’t.
Because he had noticed you leaving the moment before you had even fully left it.
You lifted your eyes back to his.
Jack’s face changed, just barely. Something tender and dangerous moved through the heat, there and gone too quickly to accuse.
Then he sat up.
Suddenly, he was everywhere.
His arm banded around your back, pulling your chest flush to his. His mouth found your neck, hot and open, then lower, dragging over your collarbone, your chest, every place he could reach as if he had all the time in the world to learn you and no intention of wasting a second.
You wrapped your arms around his shoulders. His hand moved up your spine, broad and steady, holding you close while you kept moving over him. The pace shifted, not slower exactly, but deeper. More intimate. Less like chasing release and more like neither of you knew how to stop touching once you had started.
Jack’s mouth came back to your throat. “You’re beautiful,” he said.
Your breath caught.
The words landed wrong.
Or maybe they landed exactly right.
They did not sound like dirty talk. They did not sound like something said because bodies were moving, and heat made liars out of people. They sounded like Jack had looked at you and forgotten, for one dangerous second, that there were things he did not say.
You went still enough for him to notice.
His hand spread across your back. He looked up at you. Really looked.
Your chest tightened so hard it almost hurt.
Then Jack pulled you down and kissed you. Not filthy. Not rushed. A kiss that made everything worse. Because it was careful. Because it was deep. Because his hand cradled the back of your head and his mouth moved against yours like he had no idea how much damage tenderness could do when it came from him.
You moved again, and he moved with you.
His hands found your hips now, guiding, not taking. His breath broke against your mouth. Yours broke back. The room narrowed to the heat between your bodies, the creak of your bed, the rough slide of skin, the way Jack held you like he could feel every place you were trying not to fall apart.
His hand slipped between you. Your rhythm stuttered. Jack caught it immediately, mouth brushing your jaw as his fingers found you with devastating accuracy. Not rushed. Not careless. Even now, even with his body tense beneath yours and his breath coming apart against your skin, he was still paying attention.
“Jack—”
“I know,” he said, voice rough. “I know. Keep going.”
You tried.
God, you tried.
But his fingers moved in tight, practiced circles while you rode him, and every roll of your hips drove him deeper, dragged you harder against his hand. It was too much. Him under you. Him inside you. Him touching you like he knew exactly where you ended and where you broke. Your hands tightened on his shoulders. Jack’s other arm locked around your back, holding you there, chest to chest, his mouth open against your throat.
“That’s it,” he murmured. “Let me have it.”
You shattered. The orgasm tore through you hard enough that your body folded into his, your face buried against his neck, your breath breaking on his name. Jack held you through it, fingers slowing but not leaving you, his body going rigid beneath yours as he felt you come apart around him.
“Fuck,” he breathed.
His control went with you. You felt it happen. The sharp inhale. The hard flex of his hands. The way his hips drove up once, deeper, his whole body tightening as he followed you over. His mouth found yours in a broken kiss, more breath than anything, and he came with a low, wrecked sound against your lips.
Neither of you moved. Your forehead rested against his. One hand spread over your spine, the other moved to cup your face. His breathing shook through him, uneven and warm against your mouth.
Then Jack moved. Slowly. Carefully.
He rolled you to the side with him, one arm still wrapped around your back, guiding you down against the mattress like he was afraid to let the moment break too sharply. Your body followed because it knew him. Because it trusted him. Because apparently that was another dangerous thing you had started doing without permission.
You expected him to pull away.
To breathe. To recover. To put the room back together like he normally does.
Instead, Jack kissed you.
Not hard. Not hungry. Not the kind of kiss that led anywhere. One long, tender kiss, his hand at the side of your face, his thumb against your cheek, his mouth moving over yours like he had forgotten there was no reason to be gentle now.
It surprised you so much that your chest hurt.
The heat you could understand. The dirty talk. The wanting. The way he lost control under your hands. All of that belonged to the arrangement. All of that had a place to go.
This didn’t.
This kiss had nowhere safe to land.
Jack’s mouth slowed against yours, soft and careful, and for one terrifying second, you let yourself kiss him back like it meant something.
When he finally pulled away, he did not go far. His forehead rested near yours. His hand was still on your face. You stared at him, breath uneven, heart doing something humiliating beneath your ribs.
Jack’s eyes opened.
Whatever he saw in your face made his own expression shift. Barely. Enough. Then his thumb moved once along your cheek, and he let you go.
For a few minutes, you let yourself be stupid. You let yourself pretend this was a thing people could have without wanting more. A man in your bed. His mouth against your hair. His hand on your spine. His toothbrush in your bathroom, his charger is beside your bed, and his coffee in your kitchen.
You let yourself pretend none of it was building a home inside you.
Then the bathroom became an excuse. “I’m going to clean up,” you murmured.
Jack stilled for a moment, then nodded once. “Yeah.”
You took your clothes from the floor and went into the bathroom without looking back. That was safer. The bathroom cabinet was still open from earlier. His deodorant sat beside your moisturizer. His toothbrush leaned against yours in the cup by the sink. Two toothbrushes. One medicine cabinet. You cleaned up slowly, giving yourself time to put your face back together. Your body still felt warm from him. Your lips felt tender. Your chest felt worse.
It was one thing for Jack to want you.
It was another for him to look at you like that in your own bed and call you beautiful, like he had not meant to give you something you would have to carry. You turned off the faucet.
That was when you heard it. A soft sound down the hall. The laundry closet. The washer door opening. Wet fabric shifting.
You froze.
Then you opened the bathroom door. Jack was in the narrow hallway near your laundry closet, shirtless, hair mussed from your hands, jeans riding low on his hips. He had one of your wet towels in his hand and was transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer with the same grim focus he brought to trauma protocols. Your black leggings. A pair of socks. Scrubs. You stood there, barefoot and clean and still shaky in ways you did not want to examine.
You leaned against the doorframe. “You didn’t have to do that.”
He put the towel into the dryer and reached for the lint trap. “I heard it go off.”
As if that explained anything.
As if he had not just changed your smoke detector, kissed you in your bed, called you beautiful, and then started switching your laundry because he heard the washer finish.
As if this was not exactly the kind of thing that made casual feel like a lie.
You watched him close the dryer door. The apartment had gone quiet around him. No chirping. No washer. No easy joke to hide behind. Just Jack, making himself useful in your life like he had never once considered what it would do to you when he left. He pressed the start button. The dryer rumbled to life.
Then he turned back to you. “What?” he asked.
You shook your head. “Nothing.”
But it was not nothing.
It was the toothbrush. The charger. The coffee. The shirt in your laundry. The smoke detector. His hands on your body. His voice saying beautiful. The dryer humming behind him because Jack Abbot had heard a domestic sound in your apartment and answered it like he belonged there.
You pushed away from the doorframe before your face could give you away. “Coffee?” you asked, because apparently you had learned from him.
Jack’s mouth moved faintly. “Yeah,” he said. “Coffee’s good.”
You walked toward the kitchen. He followed.
And the worst part was how easy it was to let him.
By 6:52 p.m., you had convinced yourself you were fine. Mostly. Your smoke detector had not chirped once since Jack left your apartment, which should have been a relief. Instead, the quiet had followed you around for the rest of the afternoon like a second heartbeat. No chirp from the hallway. No washer buzzing because Jack had switched your laundry before you could get to it. No excuse to text him. No reason to stand in your bathroom and look at the two toothbrushes in the cup beside the sink. Just quiet.
And the smell of his coffee in your travel mug. That, you told yourself firmly as you walked through the employee entrance, was not symbolic. It was caffeine. Caffeine was a survival tool. A workplace necessity. A professional resource. If Jack Abbot happened to have better coffee beans than the burnt, bitter nonsense you had been buying from the grocery store near your apartment, that was not emotional.
It was quality control.
You lifted the mug to your mouth as you crossed into the ER. Shift change was already doing what shift change did best: making the department sound like three different conversations, two printers, and one impending disaster stacked on top of each other. The day shift was trying to leave. The night shift was trying to figure out what kind of mess it had inherited. Someone was arguing gently but firmly with the pharmacy on the phone. A patient down the hall was demanding a sandwich with the passion of a man who had discovered civil rights.
Normal. Good. Normal was useful.
You clipped your badge into place and headed toward the nurses’ station, travel mug warm in your hand, hair still slightly damp at the nape from the shower you had taken after Jack left. Your body felt too aware of itself. Too aware of him. Of your bed. Of his mouth. Of the way he had rolled you gently to your side afterward and kissed you like the sex was over, but wanting you somehow was not.
You took another drink of coffee. Bad idea. It tasted like him. Not literally. Obviously not literally. It was coffee. Dark roast. Smooth. Slightly nutty. Annoyingly good. Still. Your fingers tightened around the mug.
At the central station, Jack was already there. Dark scrubs. Badge clipped neatly. Hair still just damp enough to betray that he had gone home and showered too, though apparently not slept much, judging by the faint shadow under his eyes. He stood with one hand braced on the counter, reading over the board while Lena ran through open rooms. Professional. Contained.
Impossible to read.
Which was rude, considering you had seen him come apart in your bed less than four hours ago. You looked away first.
That felt like a small victory until you realized he had not looked at all.
“We are light on beds and heavy on opinions,” Lena said, handing you the assignment sheet.
“So a normal Tuesday,” you said.
“Unfortunately.”
You scanned the rooms, grateful for something concrete. Room four is waiting for repeat labs. Room seven detox watch. Room nine abdominal pain, CT pending. Room twelve elderly fall, family en route. Work. You knew how to do work.
You were still reading when Jack moved closer.
Not close-close. Not anything anyone else would notice. Just beside the counter, angled enough that his voice would not carry over the noise of the shift change.
His gaze dropped to your travel mug. “I knew you’d like my brand better than the crap you were buying.”
You looked up at him. There it was. Barely anything on his face. Maybe the smallest edge at the corner of his mouth. Maybe nothing. Jack could be smug with fewer facial muscles than anyone you had ever met.
“You don’t know if this is your coffee.” You reply.
He gave you a look. Flat. Unimpressed. Very Jack. You took another sip out of pure stubbornness. His eyebrow moved. Barely.
You lowered the mug. “Fine,” you said. “Maybe it’s your coffee.”
His mouth curved. Not much. Enough. A smirk, if Jack Abbot could be accused of something like being undisciplined.
Your pulse betrayed you immediately.
“I rest my case,” he said.
You opened your mouth to argue, because arguing about coffee was safer than thinking about the fact that he knew what your kitchen looked like, what your bed felt like, how your voice sounded when you were trying not to fall apart.
Something landed on the counter in front of you. Your favorite candy bar. You stopped.
Slowly, you looked down.
Then up.
Robby stood on the other side of the workstation with his backpack slung over one shoulder and his jacket half-zipped, clearly on his way out and just as clearly incapable of leaving before inserting himself into someone else’s business. Day-shift ER chief. Attending. Chaos gremlin in expensive sneakers.
You stared at the candy bar. “Is that—”
“Don’t make it weird,” Robby said immediately.
Your face broke into a smile before you could stop it. “Robby.”
Robby looked at you. “It was an accident.”
“This is my favorite.” You replied.
“Allegedly.” He leaned one elbow on the counter, already committed to the lie. “I bought mine, and that one fell too. Vending machine error. Very tragic. Very binding.”
You held up the candy bar, “You bought this for me.”
Robby looked scandalized, “I did no such thing.”
You picked it up, still smiling. “Thank you.”
Robby looked briefly uncomfortable with the sincerity, which was how you knew it had landed. “Yeah, well.” He tugged at the strap of his backpack. “Night shift deserves hazard pay and chocolate. Since administration refuses to provide either, I’m doing grassroots labor support.”
Your laugh came soft and tired and real.
Jack looked down at the chart in front of him.
You were too busy smiling at Robby to notice the way his hand stilled around his pen. It should not have mattered. It was a candy bar. A vending machine candy bar, Robby was pretending very badly not to have bought for you on purpose. But Robby could do that. He could hand you chocolate in the middle of the ER and make you smile where everyone could see. He could remember something small about you and make it obvious. He could be kind out loud, careless with it, easy in a way that cost him nothing.
Jack remembered things, too.
He remembered your coffee. Your smoke detector. The way you took your first breath after waking. The place behind your ear that made your whole body go quiet. The sound you made when you were overwhelmed and trying to hide it.
He kept all of it behind closed doors.
You held up the candy bar. “You’re very generous for a man who terrifies residents for sport.”
Robby put a hand to his chest. “I educate residents.”
“You made one cry over potassium last week.” You pointed out.
Robby shrugged, “That was growth.”
Jack’s mouth twitched before he could fully stop it. Robby caught it.
His eyes narrowed with immediate interest. “Was that a smile?”
“No,” Jack said.
“That was almost a smile,” Robby said.
Jack narrowed his eyes, “It wasn’t.”
“It was medically significant.” Robby insisted.
“Go home, Robby,” Jack replied.
Robby pointed at him. “Hostile. Defensive. Probably under-caffeinated.”
“He’s had coffee,” you said before you could stop yourself.
Jack looked at you. So did Robby. The silence lasted half a second too long. Then Robby’s gaze dropped to your travel mug, flicked to Jack, and came back to you with the kind of delighted horror that meant he had just found a loose thread and intended to make it everyone’s problem.
“Oh,” he said.
You unwrapped the candy bar aggressively. “Don’t.”
Robby’s eyes are wide. “I didn’t say anything.”
“You said ‘oh.’” You say to him, breaking off a piece of chocolate.
Robby turned to you, “That’s a vowel. You can’t criminalize vowels.”
“Watch me.” You reply with a challenging look in your eyes.
Robby grinned, but his eyes stayed sharper than his smile.
Jack had gone very still beside you.
Not obviously. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But you felt the shift anyway, the way he pulled back without moving. Professional distance clicking into place over something neither of you had meant to show.
Robby glanced between you one more time. Then, mercifully, he let it go for now.
“I’m leaving,” he announced. “Before night shift infects me with whatever this is.”
“Goodbye, Robby,” you said.
He pointed at the candy bar. “Eat that before one of your patients steals it or Abbot judges it nutritionally.”
Jack answered instantly, “I don’t care what she eats.”
Robby looked at him. You looked at him, too. Jack’s jaw shifted once. Then he looked back at the board.
Robby’s smile went slow. “Oh, this is fantastic.”
“Home,” Jack said, without looking at him.
“Going,” Robby said, backing away. He disappeared toward the exit, still smiling as he had just watched the first five minutes of a movie he absolutely planned to finish. You watched him go, candy bar in hand, warmth sitting unexpectedly under your ribs. Robby was easy. Not simple. Not shallow. He noticed more than he let on, and he used jokes the way other people used a stethoscope, pressing lightly until he found the tender place. But he was easy to care about in public. Easy to laugh with. Easy to accept kindness from because the kindness did not need hiding. You could say thank you to Robby and mean it. You could smile at him across a workstation.
Jack shifted beside you. The air changed again. You looked down at your assignment sheet, suddenly aware of the travel mug in your hand, the coffee inside it, the way Jack’s gaze had dropped to it like recognition.
“Room nine’s CT is back,” he said. Work voice. Attending voice. The one with clean edges.
You took the offering because you needed it too. “Appendix?”
He nodded once, “Looks like it.”
“I’ll call report when surgery accepts.” You replied.
For one second, the rhythm was there again. Not sexual. Not domestic. Clinical. The two of you moving around the same problem from different sides, knowing where the other would step before they did it. It was another kind of intimacy, maybe. A safer one. The kind you could use in public. Then the radio crackled at the charge desk. Lena lifted a hand, and the department sharpened. “Medic four inbound. Pediatric respiratory distress. Seven-year-old male. History of asthma. Sats in the eighties despite treatment en route. ETA four minutes.”
Everything in the ER changed shape. The candy bar in your hand suddenly felt absurd. You set it down beside your travel mug.
Jack was already moving. “Room two,” he said.
“On it.” Your voice was steady because it had to be. You grabbed gloves. Someone called respiratory. Lena cleared the room while another nurse pulled pediatric supplies. The automatic doors at the ambulance bay hissed open and closed as if the building itself had started breathing faster. Jack reached for a gown. You did the same. For one brief second, his shoulder brushed yours at the sink. Neither of you looked at the other. There was no room now for coffee. Or smoke detectors. Or toothbrushes. Or the way his mouth had felt when he kissed you after. There was only the sharp cry of a terrified mother as the ambulance doors opened. A stretcher. A small body. A child struggling for air. You stepped forward. Nurse first.
Everything else later.
The ambulance bay doors opened with a rush of cold air and panic. That was the first thing you noticed. Not the stretcher. Not the medic walking fast beside it. Not Jack stepping into the room with his shoulders squared and his hands already gloved. The panic. It came in ahead of everyone else, sharp and living, carried in the broken sound of a mother’s voice.
“Please, he was fine this morning. He was fine. He just had a cough.”
Then the stretcher crossed the threshold, and the room narrowed. Seven years old, maybe. Small enough that the sheets swallowed him. Blue dinosaur pajama pants. One sock was halfway off his foot. Oxygen mask fogging over his face with every shallow, frantic breath. Noah, the medic said. Seven-year-old male. History of asthma. Cold symptoms for two days. Worsening respiratory distress. Nebs en route. Sats are still low.
You moved before the report finished. Nurse first.
Everything else later.
“Hey, Noah.” Your voice came out calm, which felt like a small miracle, considering the sound his breathing made. “I’m right here. You don’t have to talk, okay? Just look at me if you can.”
His eyes found yours over the mask. Huge. Wet. Terrified.
Your chest tightened. You smiled anyway. “There you go. Good job. We’re going to help.”
Jack’s voice cut through the room, low and level. “Transfer on three.”
Not loud. Jack never needed loud. Everyone heard him anyway. One, two, three. The team moved him from the stretcher to the bed. You reached for leads, pulse ox, and blood pressure cuff. Respiratory slid in beside you with equipment. Someone pulled pediatric supplies. The monitor beeped, numbers flickering, too low, too fast, too bright. Noah’s mother hovered at the edge of the room, one hand over her mouth, the other gripping the strap of her purse like it was the only thing keeping her upright.
“Mom,” Noah rasped. Barely a word. Barely air.
His mother made a sound you felt in your spine. You looked over your shoulder. “Mom, come here.”
She blinked at you.
“Right here by his head,” you said, already making room for her. “Where he can see you.”
She trembled, “I don’t want to be in the way.”
“You won’t be.” You caught her eyes and held them. “He needs to see you. Talk to him. Let him know you’re here.”
Her face crumpled. Then she stepped forward.
Jack glanced up once, just once, from the foot of the bed. You saw him see it. Then he was back in the case. “Continuous neb,” he said. “IV access. Steroids. Respiratory: I want high-flow ready. Let’s get peds ICU on the line.”
You were already reaching for the IV kit. Noah’s arm was small under your hand. Too small. You hated pediatric IVs. Not because you couldn’t do them. You could. You were good at them. You hated the way a child’s fear made the room feel too honest. Adults could swear at you. Bargain with you. Pretend they were fine. Kids looked right at you and let terror sit on their faces because they did not yet know how to hide it.
“You’re doing great, Noah,” you told him.
His mother stroked his hair with shaking fingers. “You’re okay, baby. You’re okay. Mommy’s right here.”
Noah tried to breathe. His whole chest worked for it. Every rib. Every muscle. His shoulders lifted with each breath like his body was trying to climb out of itself to find air. The IV flashed.
You secured it, taped it, flushed it, your hands steady because they had to be. “IV’s good.”
Jack nodded. “Mag.”
The room moved around him. Orders. Hands. Plastic. Tubing. Albuterol mist. The soft hiss of oxygen. His mother’s voice, trembling but there. “You’re doing it, honey. Look at me. Look at Mommy.”
Noah’s eyes fluttered. Your stomach dropped. Not dramatically. Just a clean, cold drop.
Because the wheezing changed, it got quieter. People thought quiet was good. Quiet was not always good.
Jack heard it too. You knew because his expression shifted by nothing at all. That was how you knew.
“He’s tiring,” Jack said.
The room went sharper. Noah’s mother looked at him. “What does that mean?”
No one answered fast enough. So you did. “It means he’s working really hard,” you said, keeping your hands moving, keeping your voice even. “We’re going to help his lungs do less work.”
“Is he—” Her voice broke. “Is he going to be okay?”
You could not lie to her. You would not. Jack was already reaching for another step, another option, another line between Noah and the edge. “We’re getting everything ready,” you said. “That means we have options. Right now, he is still here with us, and we are right here with him.”
Jack looked at you again. Only a fraction. Then he said, “Prepare airway. If he drops further or tires more, we intubate.”
Noah’s mother made a sound like the floor had disappeared. Your own breath tried to catch. You did not let it. You reached for supplies. Tape. Syringes. Tubing. Everything familiar. Everything awful.
Noah’s small fingers curled weakly around the sheet. “Mom,” he whispered.
His mother bent over him immediately. “I’m here. I’m here, baby.”
You swallowed around the hard thing in your throat. “She’s right here,” you said, because maybe he needed more than one voice telling him. Maybe his frightened little brain needed the room to agree on the most important fact. “She’s right here, Noah.”
His eyes shifted toward you. For one second, they held. And you saw it. The fear. The plea. The small, unbearable trust of a child looking at the adults in the room and believing you could fix what was happening to him.
You wanted to promise.
You wanted to say yes, absolutely, we have you, nothing bad will happen here.
You knew better.
So you worked.
The next few minutes happened in fragments.
Jack’s voice. Respiratory at the head of the bed. The monitor alarm. Noah’s mother was crying softly while she kept telling him he was brave. Your gloved hand adjusting tape. A smear of blood near the IV site before you caught it with gauze.
Jack said, “Again,” in that steady voice.
Noah’s chest is rising too fast. Then slower. Then better. Not good. Better. The numbers climbed in pieces. Eighty-eight. Ninety. Ninety-two.
You did not trust it at first. No one did. The room stayed tight, waiting. Jack listened to Noah’s lungs, face unreadable, stethoscope moving over a chest that was finally not fighting quite so hard. “He’s moving more air,” he said.
Respiratory nodded. “Better exchange.”
Noah’s mother started crying harder. Relief, you knew, could look almost identical to terror when it first arrived. You handed her a tissue without her having to ask. She took it with shaking fingers. “Thank you. Thank you. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
You shook your head, “You don’t have to apologize.”
“I didn’t know it was this bad.” She said, shaking.
“You brought him in,” you said. “That matters.”
She pressed the tissue to her mouth and nodded like she was trying to believe you. Noah’s eyes were half-open now, still scared, still exhausted, but not panicked in the same animal way.
You leaned closer. “Hey, bud.” His gaze found yours, exhausted and glassy above the oxygen mask. “You were so brave, Noah.”
For a second, he only looked at you. Then his mouth moved behind the mask. Not much. Barely a smile.
But enough.
Your chest cracked around it.
His small hand shifted against the sheet, fingers searching weakly until they found yours. You took his hand carefully. His grip was tired. Too light. Still there.
“Yeah,” you whispered, your voice somehow steady. “I’m right here, so is your mom.”
His mother let out a broken sound, half sob, half exhale of relief. Noah’s eyes moved toward her.
You smiled. “She’s right there. Told you.”
He blinked slowly.
The crisis loosened by degrees. Not gone. Never gone. But the room began to breathe again. PICU accepted him. Transport would come when he was stable enough to move. The airway supplies stayed ready but unused. The intubation kit remained unopened on the tray, a threat that had come close enough to leave fingerprints. Eventually, there was nothing left for you to do in the room except the next thing. There was always a next thing.
You stepped out into the hall. The department noise hit you all at once. Phones. Monitors. Someone is laughing too loudly near the med room. A call light chiming. A patient asking for discharge papers. The ordinary, relentless churn of an ER that had already started moving on because that was what ERs did.
Your body did not move on with it. You looked down. There was blood on your shoe. Not much. Just a thin red smear near the sole where the IV gauze had slipped for half a second before you caught it.
You stared at it.
Your hands were steady.
Your breathing was not.
You flexed your fingers once. Twice.
Behind you, the door to room two opened.
Jack stepped out.
He stripped off his gloves and tossed them into the trash. His face was the same as it always was after a close call: controlled, focused, already moving through the next steps in his head.
Then his gaze dropped to your shoe. Back to your face. He saw too much. Of course he did.
“You good?”
There were many answers to that question. No. Not yet. I can still hear his mother. I keep seeing his hand on the sheet. He looked at me like I could save him, and for one second, I wasn’t sure we could.
You said, “Yeah.”
Jack looked at you. Just looked. The lie sat between you, thin and useless. He did not call it out. That might have been kinder. Instead, he reached to the counter beside him, picked up a sealed bottle of water, and set it in front of you. “Take a minute.”
“I’m fine.” You say instantly.
“I didn’t ask if you were fine.” He answered gently.
Your throat tightened. Wrong moment. Wrong place. Jack, saying exactly the kind of careful thing that made it impossible to remember he was not yours. You picked up the water because refusing it would have taken more energy than you had. Jack’s eyes stayed on yours for one beat longer. Then Lena called his name from the desk, and he turned away.
Work did not wait. You twisted the cap off the bottle and took a drink. Your hand shook once. Just once. You made it stop.
Across the hall, Noah’s mother was still murmuring to him through tears. You could hear her voice through the half-open door. Mommy’s right here. Mommy’s right here. The words lodged somewhere behind your ribs.
You went back to work. Room nine still needs a report. Room four wanted discharge paperwork. Room seven had pulled out an IV and was insisting it had happened “spiritually, not physically.” Someone vomited in triage. Someone else yelled because the vending machine took their dollar. The night kept going. You kept going with it. That was what you did. You charted. You medicated. You called. You cleaned. You answered the same question from the same family member four different ways because fear made people forget. You ate half the candy bar Robby had given you at 3:08 a.m., standing in the med room with one hip against the counter, tasting chocolate and exhaustion and the metallic ghost of adrenaline.
Jack passed you twice after that.
Once, near the supply cart, his hand brushed the edge of the shelf beside yours, stopping before it touched you. Once, at the board, his eyes found your face and left too quickly. You were grateful.
You hated that.
By the time the shift ended, the sky outside had gone pale again. Morning pressed against the windows in that watery Pittsburgh way, gray and tired and too honest. You changed your shoes in the locker room because you could no longer look at the blood smear. You put the candy bar wrapper in the trash. You washed your hands even though you had already washed them a hundred times.
Then you walked to your car. The parking garage was cold. Your footsteps echoed. You got into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and sat there with both hands on the wheel. For a moment, you did not move. You did not want to go home. Your apartment would be quiet. The smoke detector no longer chirped because Jack had fixed it. Your laundry would be dry because Jack had switched it. His toothbrush would be in your bathroom. His charger would be beside your bed. His coffee would be in your kitchen.
And none of that would be enough.
Not after tonight.
Not after Noah’s small hand clutched yours. Not after his mother saying he was fine this morning, like a prayer that had failed her. Not after Jack’s voice saying prepare airway and the way your body had gone cold because for one second you had thought you might watch a child slip too far away to reach.
You did not want sex.
That was almost funny, in a bitter, exhausted way.
You did not want Jack’s mouth, his hands, or the heat you both used like a language when everything else got too close.
You wanted his townhouse.
That was the humiliating truth of it.
You wanted the old brick steps. The porch light. The door that stuck when the weather changed. The quiet creak of the staircase under his weight. You wanted his bed with the curtains drawn and the sheets that smelled like him. You wanted his arm around your waist. His chest against your back. His familiar presence in the dark, solid and warm and steady enough to borrow.
You wanted his voice near your ear. Low. Certain.
“I’ve got you. You’re safe.”
He did not even have to say it exactly like that. Jack probably wouldn’t. Jack would put water beside the bed. He would pull the blanket over your shoulder. He would rest a hand on your hip and let the quiet do the work. He would notice if you were cold. He would notice if you were shaking. He would know not to ask too many questions. You wanted that. You wanted him. Not the arrangement. Not the heat.
Him.
Your eyes burned. You blinked hard and reached for your phone before you could talk yourself out of it. The text thread was still there. Of course it was. His last message from earlier had been short. Practical. Nothing you could hold against him.
You typed:
You:
Are you going home?
You stared at it. Then you sent it. The three dots appeared after almost a minute. Disappeared. Appeared again.
Jack:
Yeah.
Your thumb hovered over the keyboard. This was the line. You knew it before you crossed it. You were so tired of knowing better.
You typed:
You:
Can I come over for a little while?
No joke. No flirtation. No easy door back into sex. Just the ask. Just your exhaustion, your fear, your need sitting naked in six words. You watched the screen. The garage hummed around you. Somewhere below, a car alarm chirped once and went silent. Your hands had started to shake again, so you tightened your grip on the phone until they stopped. Three dots appeared. You held your breath. They disappeared. Then appeared again. For one awful second, you let yourself imagine it.
The screen blurred. You blinked once. Then again. Not today. I’m beat. Sorry.
You sat very still in the driver’s seat, phone glowing in your hand, Noah’s mother’s voice still caught in your chest. It was fine. It had to be fine. Jack was allowed to be tired. He had worked the same shift. He had been in the same room. He had stood at the foot of the bed and carried the same almost loss in his own body. He did not owe you his morning. He did not owe you his bed. He did not owe you a place to fall apart. That was not what this was. You knew that. You knew.
Still, the hurt opened anyway. Small. Clean. Mortifying.
You swallowed around it and typed with fingers that felt too cold.
You:
Okay.
You stared at the word. Then you added:
You:
Get some sleep.
Because apparently, even hurt had not made you less pathetic. You sent it.
Jack did not answer.
For a while, you sat there with the engine off and the garage cold around you, trying to convince yourself you had not just asked for something you had no right to want. Then you put the phone facedown on the passenger seat. You started the car. And you drove home to the apartment where Jack’s smoke detector was silent, his coffee waited in your kitchen, and his toothbrush stood beside yours like evidence of a promise he had never made.
That evening, you came in early. Not because you were eager. Because your apartment had been too quiet again, the smoke detector stayed silent. Your laundry sat folded on top of the dryer because you had not had the energy to put it away. Jack’s shirt was still mixed in with your things, clean now, black cotton folded between your scrub pants and a pair of socks, as if it belonged there. His toothbrush was still in your bathroom. His charger was still plugged in beside your bed. His coffee was still in your kitchen. All of it stayed. He did not.
That was dramatic, you told yourself as you drove to the hospital with one hand on the wheel and the other wrapped around your travel mug. Dramatic and unfair. Jack had not promised to come over. Jack had not promised anything at all. He had said he was tired because he was tired. He had worked the same shift you had. He had stood in the same room with Noah and his mother and the unopened airway kit. He was allowed to go home. He was allowed to sleep. He was allowed to say no. You knew all of that. Knowing did not make your chest feel any less hollow.
By the time you reached the ER, you had packed the feeling away in the same place you put everything else that did not help during a shift. Behind your ribs. Under your badge. Somewhere quiet enough that you could still do your job. The department was loud when you walked in. Good. Noise helped. Noise gave your brain places to go that were not Jack’s unanswered text. Not the way you had sat in the parking garage with your phone glowing in your hand. Not the humiliating little hope you had felt before his reply came through.
Not today. I’m beat. Sorry.
You clipped your badge to your scrub top and stepped toward the nurses’ station. “Okay,” you said under your breath. “Normal.”
The universe, apparently, took that as a challenge. Robby was at the central desk, sleeves pushed up, backpack on the floor by his feet, finishing something on the computer with the offended focus of a man who had been punished twice: once by administration and once by patients. He looked up when you came in. His eyes narrowed.
“Oh, good,” he said. “Night shift has arrived to inherit my problems.”
You sighed, “You say that like your problems don’t follow you home.”
“They do, but at home I can ignore them in sweatpants,” Robby replied.
You set your bag beneath the counter. “That’s emotionally healthy.”
“I had an administrative meeting this morning. My emotional health is none of your business.” Robby said.
Despite yourself, your mouth moved. Not quite a laugh. Close enough. Robby noticed, because Robby noticed more than he had any right to. His gaze flicked over your face. “You look tired.”
You exhaled, “I work nights.”
“You look extra tired.” Robby tried again.
You pressed your lips together, “I had a shift.”
“We all have shifts,” Robby mumbled.
You gave him a look. He lifted both hands. “Right. Sorry. Forgot nurses are scarier than doctors when sleep deprived.”
You pointed at him, “Excellent survival instinct.”
“I’m evolving.” He clicked something on the computer, then leaned back in the chair, studying you with an expression that had gone a little too gentle under the nonsense. “How’s the kid from last night?”
The question hit softer than you expected and harder than you wanted. You looked down at the papers on the counter. “PICU admitted him. Last I heard, he was stable.”
Robby nodded, “Good.”
“Yeah.” You answered. There was a pause. Not awkward, exactly. Just full. Robby let it sit for a second, then cleared his throat in the exaggerated way people did when they were trying to step back from sincerity before it got on their shoes.
“So,” he said conversationally, “I had an admin meeting this morning and still somehow ended up listening to Abbot brood into pancakes after his shift, so I feel like I provided community service.”
Your hand stilled on the assignment sheet. The words went in slowly. Not because they were complicated. Because some part of you tried, very kindly and very stupidly, to make them mean something else.
Robby kept talking, unaware for one disastrous second that he had just opened something sharp. “Breakfast was my idea, technically. I was already awake, against my will. Shen came too for about five minutes, stole half my hash browns, and left. Ellis said she was too smart to socialize with physicians before noon, which was rude but not incorrect.”
You looked at him.
Robby stopped. His face changed. Not dramatically. Robby was too quick for that. Too practiced at turning a room before anyone noticed where the floor had cracked.
But the humor left his eyes. “Oh,” he said.
You blinked once. “What?”
He sat up a little. “I just stepped on something.”
“No.” Your voice came out too fast. Too bright. “No, you’re fine.”
Robby did not believe you. You knew because his expression stayed open in the way kind people looked when they knew better than to reach for a bruise in public.
“It was just breakfast,” he said carefully.
You nodded. “Yeah.” The word was easy. Small. Manageable.
Everything else was not.
Jack had been tired.
He had been too tired for you.
Too tired for your shaky hands in the parking garage. Too tired for Noah’s mother’s voice caught in your throat. Too tired for you to sit on his couch without trying to make it sex. Too tired for his bed and his steady breathing and the old, quiet safety of his house.
But not too tired for breakfast.
Not too tired for Robby.
Not too tired for pancakes, and hash browns, and whatever version of himself could sit under diner lights and be exhausted in a way that did not ask anything dangerous of him.
It was different.
That was the part that hurt.
Because you understood the difference immediately.
Robby was easy. Shen was easy. Breakfast was easy.
You were not.
You stood there with the assignment sheet in your hand, hearing Noah say Mom in that thin, airless voice. Feeling his small fingers searching weakly for yours. Remembering the exact second your phone lit up in the parking garage and you let yourself imagine Jack’s door opening.
You had not wanted much.
That was the humiliating thing.
You had not wanted a promise. You had not wanted an explanation for every toothbrush and every cup of coffee and every shirt left in the laundry. You had not wanted him to name the thing both of you kept stepping around. You had wanted to be somewhere you felt safe. You had wanted him.
And he had gone to breakfast.
Your throat tightened. You looked away from Robby before your face could do anything unforgivable. “I’m going to check my rooms,” you said.
“Hey.” His voice softened. “You okay?”
There it was again. The question everyone asked when the answer was already showing.
You made yourself smile. It felt awful. “Yeah. Just tired.”
Robby held your gaze. For one second, you thought he might push. He didn’t. “Okay,” he said quietly.
You appreciated him for that almost as much as you hated the need to be appreciated. You walked away before he could see your eyes burn. The supply room was empty.
Thank God.
You stepped inside and let the door fall almost shut behind you. Not closed. You were still on shift. Still reachable. Still a nurse before anything else. But for one second, you let your hand brace against the metal shelf. Your breath came in once. Shallow. Then again.
The tear slipped out before you could stop it.
One. Small. Furious.
You wiped it away so hard your skin stung. “No,” you whispered.
Not here. Not over this. Not over a man who had never promised you anything except text me when you get home, and good and sleep, and come over.
Your jaw tightened. That was the problem, wasn’t it?
He had never promised more.
He had just acted like more in every way that mattered.
He fixed your smoke detector. He switched your laundry. He kept his toothbrush in your bathroom and his coffee in your kitchen. He kissed you after sex as if the tenderness had nowhere else to go. He watched you drink water before you drove home. He stood in doorways until he knew you were safe.
And then, when you reached for him with both hands full of fear, he had reminded you without saying it that none of those things counted.
Not enough.
Not like that.
You pressed the heel of your hand to your sternum, trying to force the ache back into a shape you could work around.
You loved him.
The thought arrived without permission.
Clean. Terrible.
Obvious in a way that made you feel foolish for not naming it sooner.
You loved him.
Not because of the sex, though God, the sex had made it easier to stay stupid. Not because of the coffee or the sweatshirt or the way he said your name when he was close to losing control.
You loved him because he made room.
And you had mistaken the room for a place to belong.
Another tear threatened.
You swallowed it. No. You were not doing this here. You were not going to bleed out quietly in a supply room over crumbs of affection and call it a meal.
Because that was what they were, weren’t they?
The coffee. The laundry. The water. The careful kisses. The smoke detector. The toothbrush. His hand at your hip.
Crumbs.
Beautiful crumbs. Warm crumbs. Crumbs he gave you, then denied were anything close to bread.
You deserved more than that.
The thought shook through you harder than the crying had.
You deserved more. Not because Jack was cruel. That would have been easier. Cruel would have given you something clean to hate. Jack was not cruel. Jack was careful and generous and devastating in all the wrong directions. Jack could care for you in the aftermath. He could want you in the morning. He could make room for your body, your coffee, your toothbrush, your sleep-heavy silence.
He just could not make room for your need.
And maybe that was the answer.
Maybe that was the thing you had been trying not to understand.
You wiped under your other eye before anything could fall.
Then you straightened.
The ER kept moving outside the door. Phones ringing. Feet rushing past. Someone was laughing by the med room because the night had not gotten to them yet. You breathed in. Out.
Nurse first.
Everything else later.
You opened the supply room door and stepped back into the hall. Across the department, Jack stood at the board, one hand braced on the counter, head bent toward a chart. Professional. Contained. Unreadable. Your chest hurt when you looked at him. That was not new. What was new was the small, terrible clarity underneath it.
Loving him did not mean you had to keep surviving on what he was willing to leave behind.
