Summary: You’re Jae-won’s girlfriend and you watch him die on set of Squid Game as Nam-gyu but it feels too real for you and freaks you out
Warnings: Angst, Character death
Word Count: 2.7k
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They wipe the blood off your face, but it still feels like it’s there. Sticky. Warm. In your hairline, under your nails, in the collar of the green tracksuit.
“Good job today,” one of the makeup artists says gently as she pulls off the little squib from your chest. “You died beautifully.”
You laugh because that’s what you’re supposed to do, a breathy, polite sound, but your throat is tight and your ears are still ringing with the phantom echo of gunfire and screaming. Red Light Green Light is over. Your character is dead. You’ve already taken off the number tag from your chest and handed it back like it never belonged to you in the first place.
But you’re still here weeks later.
You don’t go back to the green room. You don’t hop in the van. You tug your jacket tighter around your jumpsuit and wander back toward the monitors, because even though your character’s done, your boyfriend isn’t. Roh Jae-won is still on the call sheet, which means Nam-gyu is still alive, and you’re not ready to let him go.
Not yet.
From behind the cluster of monitors, the Jump Rope set looks unreal, like something out of a fever dream. The high suspended bridge with its metal grate floor. The massive rope swinging in slow rehearsal arcs. The rigging, the wires, the safety crew. It’s all so obviously constructed and controlled until the cameras roll, and then the game becomes real in your head whether you want it to or not.
“Rolling again in ten!” someone shouts.
You hug yourself, fingers buried in the sleeves of your jacket, and find him on the screen.
Nam-gyu. Or Jae-won. Or something in between.
His hair’s a little sweat-damp, falling into his eyes. The harness is hidden under the track jacket, but you know it’s there because you watched the stunt coordinator fit it on him earlier, watched them double-check the wires, watched Jae-won joke with the staff even though his fingers were tapping against his thighs.
You’d offered him a hug.
He’d taken two.
The assistant director leans closer to the monitor, jaw tight. The prop cross necklace, the one that used to hang from Thanos’s neck, dangles from Nam-gyu’s fingers in the shot. You know the beats of this scene already. You listened to the director explain it. You watched Min-su go over his blocking with that easy grin he always has offset.
“Min-su throws the cross,” the director had said. “Nam-gyu hesitates, goes after it, because he thinks the pills are still inside. That distraction, that choice, that addiction is what kills him in the end. Got it?”
Everyone had nodded.
You’d kept your arms wrapped around yourself even then.
Now, you watch it unfold.
“Action!”
On the monitor, Min-su’s face twists in a mix of fear and rage as he clutches the silver cross necklace. His shout echoes off the set walls, the words drowned beneath the thumping, anxious music blaring for atmosphere. Then he hurls the necklace out toward the bridge.
You see it clattering across the metal grate.
The camera whips to Nam-gyu. To Jae-won. To the way his eyes go wide, the way his breath hitches. Even from a distance, even through the monitor, you feel his panic all the way in your chest.
“Don’t,” you whisper under your breath, even though you know he will. He has to. That’s the scene.
Nam-gyu steps forward. He runs out onto the bridge, jumping in time over the swinging arc of the rope. He crouches to grab the necklace, fingers closing around it with desperate tenderness.
You’ve held that prop in your own hands in the green room, laughing while Thanos joked about it being his “holy stash.” You know exactly how cool the metal feels, how the tiny hinge opens, how the fake pills rattle inside.
Except this time, there’s no rattle.
On the monitor, Nam-gyu flicks it open with his thumb.
Empty.
The expression that crumples his face steals your breath. It’s not big, not theatrical. It’s small and broken, a quiet devastation. His whole body sags forward, like the air’s been punched out of him, like the last little piece of hope just dissolved.
You forget to blink.
Maybe he does too, because he doesn’t see the rope.
It swings back in a vicious, perfect arc.
Someone near you inhales sharply as it slams across his chest. You know it’s padded, you know the harness catches him, you know there’s a wire team and crash mats and rehearsals, but your heart still lurches into your mouth as his feet leave the ground.
On the monitor, Nam-gyu flies backwards, arms flailing. The cameras catch the shock in his eyes, the flail of limbs, the glint of the useless cross tumbling after him. Then he disappears off the edge of the bridge, out of frame, swallowed by the implied abyss.
Your stomach drops with him.
“Cut!” the director yells, but the word doesn’t hit you right away. It echoes weird, like you’re underwater.
You know he’s fine, you know he’s fine, you know he’s fine.
You still feel like you just watched your boyfriend die.
You press your knuckles to your mouth, eyes burning. The crew starts moving, resetting, doing what they always do. Voices chatter over comms. Someone jogs past you, laughing, “Good fall, hyung!” toward the bridge where they’re reeling Jae-won back up like a human yo-yo.
You can’t make your legs move.
“You good?” one of the PAs asks as they squeeze by you.
You nod automatically, but your throat closes up, tears blurring your vision. It’s stupid. You’ve died here already. You’ve watched half the cast get “shot,” watched your friends collapse in rehearsed slow motion. You’ve stepped over fake blood. You’ve seen the prop guns up close, bright plugs in the barrels.
This is different.
This is him.
When someone else tries to stand beside you to watch the playback, you mumble a quick apology and step away, heart hammering. The hallway outside the soundstage is dimmer, quieter. Your footsteps echo on the concrete as you head toward the nearest corner, some little nook between stacked set walls where no one’s paying attention.
Your hands are shaking.
You lean back against the cool plywood, tipping your head against it, and squeeze your eyes shut. You can still see it, that split second where Nam-gyu looks down and sees the empty cross, where his lips part in a tiny, shocked “oh,” like he finally realizes nothing’s ever going to save him, not money, not pills, not anything.
You drag in a shaky breath and it just shudders out again.
“Hey.”
His voice finds you before he does. Low, familiar, a little breathless from the stunt.
You open your eyes.
Jae-won is half in costume, half in not. Harness straps peek from under his jacket, clips jangling near his hips. His hair’s even messier now, cheeks flushed from the fall, the residual adrenaline still bright in his eyes. Someone’s already unhooked his wires, but there’s a little smear of fake dirt on his jaw that makes him look even more like Nam-gyu.
It doesn’t help.
You swallow. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
He raises an eyebrow, then gives you that crooked little smile that always makes your chest warm. “I got better.”
You huff out something like a laugh, except it cracks halfway through and turns into a shaky inhale. Your eyes sting traitorously.
His smile drops.
In two strides he’s in front of you, one hand braced on the wall beside your head, the other hovering like he wants to touch you but isn’t sure where yet.
“Hey,” he says again, softer now. “What’s wrong?”
You shake your head quickly. “Nothing, I’m fine, I’m just, I don’t know, being stupid.”
He frowns. “You’re shaking.”
You realize you are, fingers trembling at your sides, shoulders tight. The moment you notice it, it gets worse. Your throat burns, your vision blurs again, and suddenly you’re furious at yourself for this, for falling apart over a scene when everyone else is just doing their jobs.
“Is it the stunt?” he asks quietly. “Did it look bad from the monitors?”
“Yes,” you blurt, and then the dam cracks. “Jae-won, you just… you just fell. You just, you went over the edge and the necklace and…”
Your voice breaks completely. Tears slip free, hot and embarrassing.
His face softens in a way that makes it worse and better all at once.
“You know it’s safe,” he says gently. “We rehearsed it, baby. We practiced like… ten times? The harness, the mats…”
“I know,” you cut in, frustrated, wiping at your cheeks. “I know that. My brain knows that, but it still feels like I just watched you die. Again. My character’s already dead and Thanos is dead and now Nam-gyu’s dead, and it’s so stupid because they’re just characters, but I feel like I’m losing all of you in there and I…”
You trail off on a helpless little sob.
There’s a beat of silence. Somewhere farther down the hall, someone’s wheeling equipment. A distant laugh echoes.
Then Jae-won closes the distance.
He pulls you into his chest so suddenly you let out a tiny squeak, but his arms are there, solid and warm and real, wrapping all the way around your back, hands spreading between your shoulder blades like he’s trying to cover as much of you as possible.
Your face ends up pressed to the front of his green track jacket. It smells like stage dust, sweat, a faint hint of laundry detergent. Underneath that, that quiet, familiar Jae-won scent that has nothing to do with the character he’s playing.
Something in you unclenches.
“It’s not stupid,” he says into your hair.
You squeeze your eyes shut. “It feels stupid.”
“I cried in my trailer over the script the first time I read this episode,” he says. “Does that make me stupid too?”
You sniff. “A little.”
He laughs under his breath, chest shaking against your cheek.
“Wow. Brutal.” He rubs a slow circle on your back with his palm. “You’re allowed to be upset. You’ve been living in this world for weeks, you know. All the games, the set, the colors. You died out there today. That’s… that’s a lot already. Then you have to stand there and watch me go through it too.”
“Nam-gyu,” you mumble into his chest.
He hums. “Nam-gyu.”
“It’s not just you,” you say, voice small. “It’s him. It’s watching him go. He’s so… messed up, but he’s trying, and then they just… they take everything away, even the stupid pills, and he still goes after them because it’s the only thing he knows how to do, and then…”
You can’t finish. He knows how it ends.
You feel his lips brush the top of your head. “I know.”
“You looked so scared,” you whisper. “When you opened it and it was empty. You looked like someone just ripped your heart out.”
“That’s kind of what’s happening to him,” Jae-won says softly. “That’s the moment he realizes nothing’s left. No more escape, no more help, nothing to numb it. Just… rope.”
“Don’t say it like that.”
“Sorry.” He squeezes you a little tighter. “Hey. Look at me.”
You don’t want to. You do it anyway.
He lets one arm fall away so he can cup your face in his hand, thumb catching a tear at the corner of your eye. His brow is furrowed, but his gaze is steady, anchored right on you.
“I’m here,” he says. “I’m okay. See? Alive. Very much not splattered on the floor.”
You make a face. “Oh my god.”
“Too graphic?” he asks, wincing.
“Yes.”
“Sorry,” he says again, softer. The apology lingers in his eyes. “It’s my job to make it feel real, you know that. But I never want to make you feel like this.”
“You didn’t,” you argue quietly. “The story did. The writers did. The jump rope did.”
“The jump rope,” he repeats, like it’s personally offended you. “Okay. I’ll fight it later.”
A watery laugh escapes you, unwilling but real.
“I just…” You curl your fingers into his jacket, holding on. “My character died in Red Light Green Light. Everyone was screaming and people were dropping and I kept thinking, ‘At least he’s still there. At least Nam-gyu is still alive.’ And now he’s not. And I know we’ll go home together after wrap and eat something stupid and watch YouTube, but right now it just feels like I lost you in there and I hate it.”
The corner of his mouth lifts.
“You’re not losing me,” he says. “You couldn’t if you tried.”
“You say that now,” you mutter, “but you just willingly fell off a bridge.”
“For money,” he says. “And art. Mostly for money.”
You snort.
His thumb strokes along your cheekbone again, slow and careful. “Hey. You know what I thought about when I was hanging there?”
“What?”
“You,” he says simply. “I was upside down, staring at the ceiling lights, and all I could think was, ‘She’s watching. I hope she doesn’t freak out.’ So this is partly my fault. I didn’t freak out enough for both of us.”
“I miss him already,” you admit after a moment. “Nam-gyu.”
He nods. “Me too.”
You look up at him, surprised.
“What?” he asks. “You think I can just take him off like this jacket? I’ve been living in his head too, you know. I’ve been carrying around his addiction, his fear, the way he looks at Thanos, the way he walls everyone out.”
He exhales slowly, eyes going distant for a second.
“It’s like… letting go of a friend who drives you crazy,” he says. “You love him, but you also want to shake him all the time. When I opened that empty cross, it hurt.” He taps his chest lightly. “Here.”
You swallow. “Then why are we doing this to ourselves?”
“Because someone out there is going to see him,” he says calmly. “See Nam-gyu lose everything and think, ‘I know what that feels like,’ and maybe not feel so alone. Because stories like this stick. Because you and I get to be the ones who tell it right.”
You blink at him, throat thick again, but not in the same sharp way as before.
“And also,” he adds, lips twitching, “because the director said so.”
You laugh, really laugh this time, shoulders shaking. He smiles like that’s all he wanted.
“What if I never stop crying about him?” you ask. “What if every time I see a jump rope I just burst into tears in the street?”
He pretends to think about it. “Then I, Jae-won, your devoted boyfriend, will bravely take all future jump rope-related responsibilities. I’ll do all the skipping for us. You can just hold the handles and be pretty.”
His hand slips from your cheek to the back of your neck, thumb rubbing the small tense muscles there. “It’s sweet,” he says quietly. “It means you care. It means we’re doing something right.”
You stare at him for a long moment, the noisy blur of the set humming faintly in the background. The distant shouts, the scrape of metal, the crackle of walkie-talkies all feel far away when his eyes are right here.
“Can we just go home after you’re done?” you ask. “No after-party, no drinks, just… home. I want to see you in our ugly pajamas alive, not in a green tracksuit hanging off a bridge.”
“Yeah,” he says immediately. “Of course. I want that too.”
He lowers his forehead to yours, closing his eyes for a second. “I still owe you jjajangmyeon for letting them kill you first, remember?”
You sniff, smiling a little. “You owe me more than noodles for that.”
“I’ll throw in tangsuyuk,” he bargains. “Half sauce, half on the side.”
You were arrested with 3.2 grams too many and a whole damn suitcase of pre-rolls stamped with your own face. Your manager cried on camera, told press you had “a problem” and they were “getting you help.” No one asked why she let you perform high for months. No one asked why half the product was hers.
When you got out, no label would touch you. You were poison. You couldn’t even post without people calling you a fake activist or a burnout. So you stopped. Until the invitation came, money, clean slate, no cameras. Just a game.
—
The first time Nam-gyu sees you, you’re laughing like none of this can touch you.
You’re perched on one of the metal bunks like it’s a press tour couch, legs crossed, manicured nails tapping the rail in a slow, steady rhythm. Most people are still scanning for cameras or loopholes or a friendly face in a mask. Guards are posted like statues. Somebody’s crying into their sleeves. Somebody else is already counting exits.
You look bored.
Even Thanos does a double take, which is rare, since he’s usually the one people gawk at. He elbows Nam-gyu, eyes sharp. “Is that who I think it is? Bro, that’s her. The weed pop star. Sunshine smile, criminal record, the whole thing.”
Nam-gyu looks again, slower. It is you. Your face was on every other billboard a few months back, edited clean for the family brands. His phone had your songs in three different playlists. The last time he saw your name trending, the tags were ugly. The city ate you alive and then acted shocked about the bones.
You’re not smiling now. You’re watching. Head tilted like you’re building a list of who’s going to last and who’s going to get you killed.
Thanos heads over with the lazy confidence of a man who thinks he’s hot. “Hey. We should collab when we get out of here. I got a studio in Hongdae, couple of producers who’d sell a lung to work with you.”
“I’m not getting out of here,” you say. “And if I do, it won’t be with you.”
It isn’t cruel. It’s clear. Bright tone, clean cut. You let your gaze skip right off him, then you look at Nam-gyu and don’t look away.
“Him,” you say. “Who’s he?”
Thanos blinks like he forgot he brought a friend. “That’s Nam-su. He’s with me.”
You hum, studying Nam-gyu’s posture, the tension in his jaw, the way he keeps shifting like the floor’s unstable. “He doesn’t look like he wants to be.”
Nam-gyu goes still. You’re not wrong.
A siren crackles. The speaker above the door warbles. “All players, proceed to the game room.”
The guard lines shove the dorm into motion. Thanos falls in beside you, all grin. “Stick with me, princess. I’ll get you through.”
“I can walk,” you say. “And I’m not yours.”
“Not yet,” he shoots back.
You don’t dignify it. Your eyes are on Nam-gyu instead. He can’t figure out why you chose him as a point of reference so fast. There are a hundred bigger, brighter, stronger men in this crowd. He tries to cut his stare off your mouth and fails.
The stairs are a mess of color. Pink, mint, lemon yellow. Everyone winds up and up through painted halls that feel like a trap disguised as candy. You keep pace with Nam-gyu without saying it out loud. When the doors open, the smell hits first: dust, old grass, something sun-baked and familiar that shouldn’t be inside.
The ceiling splits. There’s a real sky above them, blue and impossible. A tree sits near the far end of a wide dirt field, and beyond it a finish line. The doll is huge and wrong, pigtails and a dress the color of a school picture day. Its eyes are dead glass. It watches.
“Players, you will have five minutes to cross the finish line,” the voice announces, flat as a line on a form. “Move on Green Light. Stop on Red Light. Those who fail will be eliminated.”
Thanos leans toward you like he’s about to whisper something romantic. “Five minutes. Easy. Let me know if you need a hand.”
You don’t lean back. “I won’t.”
He clicks his tongue and winks, then angles his body closer anyway. It’s a performance, the same one he does at clubs with girls who enjoy that kind of attention. It’s not working on you.
Nam-gyu ends up just to your right. He doesn’t speak. Your shoulder almost brushes his. He swallows and stands straighter.
“Green Light,” the doll sings in a clear child’s voice.
The crowd moves in cautious jerks. You step forward like you’ve done this before, eyes on the finish. Nam-gyu mirrors your rhythm without thinking. Thanos strides easy.
“Red Light.”
Freeze.
The doll clicks toward the tree, head turning with a whine. A ripple of shaky laughter passes through the back of the crowd. Something about this still feels staged. Then a guy way off to the left wobbles, catches his balance, and there’s a sound like a snapped branch. He drops. Somebody screams. The scream cuts off fast.
No one laughs again.
“Green Light.”
Movement turns small. People start breathing with their shoulders. You take measured steps, not fast, not slow, testing weight and wind. A bee floats down in front of a girl a few meters ahead of you and lands on her collarbone. She flinches and bites down on a sound, eyes round.
Thanos snorts. “Even the bee knows she’s a flower.”
“Shut up,” you murmur without looking at him.
“Red Light.”
The girl squeezes her eyes shut. The bee crawls up her neck. She freaks out and the shot still cracks through the field. She falls hard. Blood mists the air.
The panic hits like a wave. People try to run. More shots tear the dust up, red and dirt mixing into sick mud. Nam-gyu’s breath stops in his throat. He feels something cold peel down his back.
You stay still.
You look at the ground. You listen to your own pulse. It’s not that you’re fearless. It’s that you’ve already been through another kind of shooting, cameras pointed at your face, strangers with microphones trying to wring tears out of you on the courthouse steps. You know what happens when you twitch for an audience that wants you broken. You don’t give them what they want.
“Green Light.”
“Stay with me,” Nam-gyu says, quiet and strained.
“I am,” you say, just as low.
Thanos tries to cover you with his body like he’s the hero now. You edge away a hair. He takes the hint and keeps pace instead, hands up, mouth finally shut.
“Red Light.”
Your heel slides half a centimeter on loose dirt. Nam-gyu’s hand finds your elbow without thinking, steady pressure, hold and release. He doesn’t look at you, just the line where you’ll be safe. A shot goes off somewhere behind, close enough that you both feel the air snap past.
A body slams near Thanos’s feet. He swears under his breath and inches toward you like he hates that he’s scared. “Okay. I get it. You were right. This is not TV.”
“No kidding,” you whisper.
“Green Light.”
Your steps shorten. Nam-gyu starts counting his breaths, four in, four out. He’s done this in bathrooms and cars and on roofs at sunrise after nights he can’t take back. It works. He feels your cadence match his. It builds something thin and strong between you. He has no idea why you’d choose him for a line like that. He’s got nothing to offer except a good center of gravity and a habit of not letting people fall if he can help it.
“Red Light.”
There’s a cough three rows up, the wet kind that ends in a choke. Then silence. Nam-gyu stares straight ahead and tastes metal.
“Green Light.”
Almost there.
Thanos leans in, voice small for once. “On three, we go. One. Two..”
“Stop counting,” you say. “It’s messing me up.”
He bites back a grin, even now. “You’re bossy.”
“You’re loud.”
“Red Light.”
Three more shots. Closer. You feel Nam-gyu’s fingers brush your sleeve again, a ghost of restraint. It’s nothing, but it centers you better than anything else has all day.
“Green Light.”
You break the line.
For a second, everything goes white and quiet, like the world went to sleep around the edges. Then your lungs catch up and you’re breathing too fast and too hard, knees stinging where the dust has kissed sweat. Nam-gyu’s hand is still hovering near your arm like he forgot to put it down. You look at it, then at him.
“Thanks,” you say.
He doesn’t know what to do with the word. “Yeah.”
Thanos stumbles over, chest heaving, mouth moving through what he thinks is charm even when his face is pale. “Told you I’d get you through.”
“You didn’t,” you say. “He did.”
Thanos looks from you to Nam-gyu, then throws his hands up. “No loyalty. Unreal.”
“You met me ten minutes ago.”
“That’s long enough for me to fall in love.”
“Gross,” you say, and finally, finally you smile. It’s small, but it exists.
Thanos pretends to collapse against the safe zone wall, then drags himself up, overplaying the drama. Nam-gyu almost laughs despite the corpses and the smell of blood. Almost.
They march everyone back with guns at their backs. The sky shuts as the ceiling seals. The candy colors turn dull. The air tightens again.
Back in the dorm, the volume cranks. Some people sob. Some eat like nothing happened. Some stare. The three of you end up in the corner near the water station. Thanos goes off to talk to a guy he thinks looks like a producer. You sit on the floor, back to the bunk, and Nam-gyu, not knowing where else to be, slides down beside you.
His hands are shaking. You see it.
“Give me one,” you say.
He blinks. “What?”
“A hand.”
He hesitates, then offers the left. You flip it palm up, and it feels like heat against your cool fingertips. You study the scrapes, the tiny splits where dust has worked into skin. You tear a strip from the inside hem of your shirt where the fabric won’t show. You spit on it and wipe the dirt away with quick, efficient strokes.
“You don’t have to,” he says, too soft.
“I want to.”
“Why?”
You keep cleaning. “You didn’t move when that guy fell near us. You didn’t drag me or freeze. You just steadied me. That tells me enough.”
He stares at your mouth again, then jerks his eyes to the side. “You don’t even know me.”
You tie the strip snug around his wrist, neat knot. “Not yet.”
A quiet spreads between you that isn’t exactly peaceful, but it’s better than panic. He watches the room while you lean your head against the bed frame for a second, eyes closed like you’re recharging in a patch of sun. He remembers a headline. Drugs. Possession. Trafficking. Selling your own face in pre-rolls. He remembers a manager crying for cameras and a caption about “seeking help.” He remembers his own money vanishing when a friend convinced him Dalmatian would moon. It didn’t. It ate. He and Thanos walked their savings straight into the garbage disposal and left their pride on the counter beside it.
You open your eyes. “You’re thinking loud.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Just tell me your name again.”
“Nam-gyu.”
You try it out. “Nam-gyu.” You nod once. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“Okay, I’ll sit with you.”
He blinks. “Now?”
“Now. Tomorrow. Until one of us gets eliminated or we figure out how to get out of here, whichever comes first.”
He wants to ask why. He doesn’t want to ask it out loud, in case you answer with something that makes the floor tilt. He settles for, “You sure?”
“You want me to pick Thanos instead?”
Across the room, Thanos is mid-wink at someone and already pitching a collaboration that will never happen. He sends you a bright look and a little two-finger salute like this is all a music video and he’s hitting his mark.
Nam-gyu can’t help the half smile that tugs his mouth. “No.”
“Good,” you say.
The lights dim a notch. Guards post at the doors. The room’s hum lowers, not calmer, just more exhausted. For a while, you both sit without talking. You put your head back and watch shadows move on the ceiling. He watches your face. He’s in awe that a person like you can look back at a person like him and decide to stay.
“You didn’t run,” you say after a bit.
“Neither did you.”
“I used to run from a lot of things. Didn’t help.”
He nods. He thinks of the night he and Thanos signed papers they didn’t read because the pitch deck had a dog on the front and a promise inside that looked like a miracle. He thinks of every other night that felt like a door closing. He thinks of the shot that took the girl down and how he didn’t move because you didn’t.
You shift, more comfortable now that your heart has slowed. “If we make it to the vote, I’m hitting red.”
He looks at you, surprised. “You are?”
“Yeah. They said 4.56 billion out loud like it was a joke. That’s not enough for what they just made us do.”
He breathes out through his nose. “Thanos will say blue.”
“Of course he will. He thinks everything’s a stage until the curtain drops on his neck.”
Nam-gyu laughs, short and reluctant. You smile, pleased you got that out of him. Then you bump his shoulder with yours and let it stay there.
“Rest,” you say. “You’ll need it.”
“You too.”
You slide down a little and let your eyes fall shut. You don’t sleep, not really, not with the shots still echoing in the bones of the building. But you stay. And he stays. And when Thanos circles back, aching for attention, he takes one look at the way you’re angled toward Nam-gyu and lifts his hands in surrender.
“Fine,” he says. “New plan. I’ll be the hot best friend.”
“You’re so humble,” you murmur without opening your eyes.
“Yeah,” he says, grinning. “It’s my worst quality.”
Nam-gyu meets Thanos’s look over your head. For once, Thanos doesn’t say the thing that would ruin it. He just nods like, okay, okay, he sees it.
You breathe out and slide your fingers up to the strip of cloth you tied on Nam-gyu’s wrist. You squeeze it, barely there.
Not yet, you said. And Nam-gyu believes you. He doesn’t know why a star would pick him out of a crowd like a lifeline, but you did. He’s not going to move. Not unless you tell him to.
—
The second night in the dorms is worse than the first.
Not because of the lights or the guards or the looming threat of another game. Not even because of the blood that hasn’t quite washed off everyone’s shoes. It’s worse because now everyone knows. They know the guns are real. They know the rules don’t bend. And they know who panics first.
It’s quiet in the way a grave is quiet.
You’re sitting cross-legged on the floor again, back to the bunk post, picking at the corner of your tray without actually eating. Nam-gyu is beside you, legs stretched out, eyes on the food like he’s trying to convince himself to be hungry.
It’s been hours since anyone screamed. Long enough for paranoia to creep in and settle deep.
“You’re not gonna eat?” you ask without looking.
Nam-gyu shrugs. “Can’t.”
“You need to keep your strength up.”
“You sound like my mom.”
You glance at him. “She dead?”
“No. Just hates me.”
You hum and pass him your roll. “She’s not here. I am. Eat.”
He stares at the bread. Doesn’t move.
You don’t push. Just lean back again and watch the guards posted near the doors. Nam-gyu shifts like he wants to say something else but can’t find the right words. That’s when the roll hits him.
It comes flying from three bunks away and hits him square in the chest.
There’s a pause. A heavy one. You both look down at the crushed bit of bread now on the floor. Then the voice comes, sneering through the tension.
“Oops,” the guy calls. He’s stocky, mid-thirties maybe, and twitchy in a way that doesn’t feel natural. His laugh is mean. “Didn’t mean to startle the tweaker. You good, buddy? You need your fix?”
Nam-gyu stiffens.
You don’t.
You get up.
You rise slow, like you’ve done this before, and brush imaginary dust off your thigh. Nam-gyu grabs your wrist instinctively, but you’re already moving, smooth and calm like a wave right before it breaks.
Thanos looks up from across the way with a mouthful of rice and blinks. “Uh oh. She’s up.”
The guy sees you coming and lifts both hands in mock surrender. “Hey, hey, my bad, superstar. Didn’t mean to ruffle the label-free queen. I’m just saying, if this guy starts clawing at the walls for his pills, don’t come crying..”
“Say it again,” you say.
He stops. Blinks. “What?”
“Say it again. About him.”
Nam-gyu’s on his feet now. “Hey. It’s fine. Just let it go.”
You don’t.
You step into the guy’s space, tilting your chin, voice low and dangerous behind your smile. “You think making it through one game gives you a license to bark, is that it? You think everybody here’s your punching bag now?”
He tries to laugh, but it’s choked. “It was a joke.”
“No, it wasn’t. You threw food at someone who didn’t even look at you. You thought that was funny. That makes you weak. Not clever. Weak.”
A few people nearby go still. They’re watching now.
“Come on,” Nam-gyu says, touching your arm gently. “Seriously. It’s not worth it.”
You glance back at him, then return your gaze to the man. “He’s not a tweaker.”
The man raises a brow. “Oh yeah? You his little nurse now?”
You take a step closer.
“I’m the one who’ll fuck you up if you ever touch him again.”
Thanos whistles low from the background. “Damn. She’s got claws.”
You don’t break eye contact with the guy. You just smile, sugar-sweet and terrifying. Then you turn, hand still twitching like maybe you were about to slap him after all.
Nam-gyu grabs your elbow and gently guides you away.
“Alright,” he mutters under his breath. “Okay. We’re walking.”
You let him pull you toward the corner again, your breath still tight in your chest.
He stops just before the bunk and turns to face you, his hand still on your arm.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
You shrug. “Did it anyway.”
“I’m used to it.”
“Doesn’t make it right.”
Nam-gyu stares at you like you’re in a language he can’t read. He shakes his head once, eyes flicking away.
“You don’t know what I am,” he says.
“Don’t care.”
“You should.”
“No,” you say, and step in closer. “I shouldn’t.”
His jaw flexes. “People don’t stand up for me.”
“They do now.”
You sit down again like nothing happened, like your heart isn’t still thudding behind your ribs. Nam-gyu follows slower, gaze stuck on the floor. He rubs at the corner of his eye with his thumb and breathes through his nose like he’s swallowing something big.
Thanos plops down beside you, plate in hand, grinning. “Well. That was hot.”
“Shut up, Thanos,” Nam-gyu mutters.
“No, seriously. She nearly bit that guy’s face off.”
“She was defending me.”
“Exactly! I’m flattered on your behalf. I’m also now 10% more scared of her, which is hot in its own way.”
You take the untouched bread from earlier and chuck it at Thanos’s head. He catches it with a laugh.
Nam-gyu still hasn’t moved. You glance sideways.
He’s staring at the back of his hand like it doesn’t belong to him.
“You okay?” you ask.
He nods once.
“You’re lying.”
Another pause. Then he says, quieter, “Why did you do that?”
“I told you already.”
“That’s not a real reason.”
You look at him.
He looks tired. Not from lack of sleep, he hasn’t looked rested since he got here, but from a long, quiet kind of exhaustion. The kind that sets into people who’ve spent too much of their lives trying not to be seen. The kind that convinces them they don’t deserve protection.
You sigh. “I’ve been called a lot of things, Nam-gyu. Addict. Slut. Dealer. Criminal. Fraud. One of my old managers said I had ‘weaponized charm and a martyr complex.’”
He lifts a brow. “Did you?”
“Maybe,” you say. “But I know what it’s like to be treated like you’re disgusting for surviving.”
He doesn’t speak.
So you add, gentler, “You’re not disgusting. You’re just tired.”
He swallows hard. “That guy’s not wrong. I used to, before we got here, I was a club promoter, I’ve probably tried it all, Thanos has pills. I use. He wasn’t wrong.”
“He was still an asshole,” you say. “And you’re still worth defending.”
He stares at you like you just cracked something he didn’t want touched. Then he rubs the heel of his palm against his eyes and exhales slow.
Thanos, mercifully, says nothing. He just shoves more food into his mouth like it’s his job.
You all sit there in a little triangle of silence while the rest of the dorm shifts and buzzes. Eventually, Nam-gyu lays back on the floor beside you, arms folded behind his head.
You sit cross-legged again, watching the ceiling.
The guy who threw the bread avoids looking at you for the rest of the night.
And Nam-gyu, when he speaks again, says it so softly you almost miss it, “Thank you.”
—
The guards don’t give much warning. Just march into the dorm after breakfast, boots echoing, voices flat.
“You will form teams of five. You have ten minutes. Failure to comply will result in elimination.”
The room erupts in chaos. People grab arms, shout names, scramble toward familiar faces. Others freeze, paralyzed by the pressure.
You don’t hesitate. You latch onto Nam-gyu’s sleeve and then Thanos’s. “Us three. Find two more.”
Se-mi spots you almost instantly. She’s wiry, sharp-eyed, not the type to wait around. “I’m in.”
That leaves one slot. Min-su, nervous but loyal, drifts over and nods like he already decided he’d follow wherever Thanos went.
“Perfect,” Thanos says, clapping once. “We’re unstoppable. The Avengers.”
“Shut up,” Nam-gyu mutters.
You smirk. “Then you’re Iron Man, right?”
“Obviously.” Thanos grins, tugging at his purple hair. “And Nam-gyu’s… Thor. But, like, a skinny Thor.”
Nam-gyu groans, but you catch the edge of pink on his ears.
—
They line you all up in fives, guards clamping cold metal straps around each of your ankles until you’re a single awkward line. Thanos on one end, Se-mi on the other, you sandwiched in the middle beside Nam-gyu and Min-su.
“Don’t trip me,” you warn.
“Don’t jinx us,” he shoots back, but there’s a twitch of a smile tugging his mouth.
Five stations are set up across a wide gymnasium-style hall. Each marked with bright banners: Ddakji, Flying Stone, Gonggi, Spinning Top, Jegi.
“The teams that clears all five games in sequence will advance. Teams that fail will be eliminated.”
Eliminated. The word sits like a nail in your chest.
“Piece of cake,” Thanos mutters.
“Say that again and I’ll shove you into the cake,” you say.
—
Round One: Ddakji
You step forward as the chosen player for the first station. A pile of folded squares of thick paper wait on the mat. You square your shoulders, bend down, and grab one.
“Go on, sunshine,” Thanos says, bouncing on the strap that’s tied to your ankle. “Show ‘em that pop star flick.”
You flick your wrist, and the first card slaps against the mat. The opposing tile flips cleanly.
“Boom!” Thanos cheers.
Nam-gyu leans in with a grin he can’t quite smother. “Not bad.”
You roll your eyes, but the warmth spreads in your chest anyway.
—
Round Two: Flying Stone
Se-mi crouches, lines up the small stone across the painted board, and launches it with practiced precision. It skips like she’s been training her whole life.
“Clear!” a guard calls.
“Queen,” you murmur. Se-mi winks.
—
Round Three: Gonggi
Min-su takes this one, hands trembling at first. He tosses the small stones up, fumbles the first try, but steadies himself. “Sorry,” he mutters.
“Hey.” Thanos pats his back with his free hand. “You got it, boy, my bro, Min-su.”
Min-su breathes deep, tosses again, and this time he nails the rhythm. Catch, drop, sweep. The last stone lands perfectly in his palm.
“Clear!”
You and Nam-gyu cheer at once, voices overlapping. Min-su beams, cheeks red.
—
Round Four: Spinning Top
Nam-gyu steps forward. He rolls the wood top between his palms, eyes narrowed.
“You got this,” you say quietly.
He glances at you. Something about your tone lands deeper than the words. He nods, sets the top on the string, and pulls hard.
The top spins across the painted circle, steady, smooth. It wobbles once, then rights itself and keeps going.
“Clear!”
He exhales, shoulders dropping. You bump your hip into his gently. “Thor.”
He groans. “Don’t start.”
—
Round Five: Jegi
Thanos cracks his neck like he’s about to step into a boxing ring. He flips the feathered jegi once in his hand. “Watch and learn.”
He kicks it up, again, again, counting out loud. “One, two, three..”
By ten, he’s grinning. At fifteen, he throws in a little twirl. The guards don’t even stop him. At twenty, he lets the jegi drop dramatically, like he meant to.
“Clear!”
He bows. “And that’s how it’s done.”
You clap slowly, unimpressed. “Dramatic much?”
“You love it.”
—
The straps at your ankles unlock with a heavy click. You’re all breathing hard, but none of you fell. None of you failed.
Around you, other teams aren’t as lucky. Guards drag away players who couldn’t spin the top or missed a gonggi throw. Their teammates scream and claw, but the guns are already raised.
You reach out, fingers brushing Nam-gyu’s hand without thinking. He squeezes once before letting go, like it’s too much, like he’s not allowed.
But the look he gives you says everything.
—
The five of you collapse together, trays of food untouched for the moment. Thanos is still bragging, Se-mi is smirking, Min-su is trembling with leftover nerves.
Nam-gyu sits quiet, head bent, eyes darting toward you every time you shift.
You finally catch him. “What?”
He shakes his head, voice rough. “Nothing. Just… didn’t think I’d still be here.”
“You are,” you say. “Because of us. Because of you.”
He stares at you like he can’t decide if you’re real.
Thanos leans back, arms behind his head, grinning wide. “We’re a goddamn dream team. Pentathlon champions. You see us? We’re unstoppable, Thanos World, baby.”
You throw a piece of egg at him. He catches it in his mouth like a seal, and everyone actually laughs.
For the first time since the games began, the air feels a little lighter.
—
A speaker pops, then the flat voice fills the dorm. “If all remaining players choose to end the games now, each will receive 78 million won.”
Everyone goes quiet the way people do when money walks into a room.
Thanos whistles. “That’s not nothing.”
“It’s not enough,” you say.
Nam-gyu nudges his tray with a spoon. “It’s not enough.”
Se-mi raises a brow. “Same page for once.”
Min-su stares at his rice like it might answer a prayer. “It sounds like a lot.”
“It sounds like bait,” you say.
Thanos side-eyes you. “She’s right. They want us to argue.”
“They don’t have to want it,” you say. “We’ll do it anyway.”
The table goes quiet, the five of you chewing, pretending your hands aren’t shaking. Thanos wipes his mouth with the back of his wrist, then fishes under the table like he’s dropped something. When his hand comes back up, there’s a pill pinched between two fingers.
Nam-gyu looks at it like a thirsty man looks at rain. Thanos tilts his head. “Half?”
Nam-gyu hesitates, glances at you. You don’t say yes. You don’t say no. You just hold his gaze long enough for him to feel seen. He breaks the pill clean and slides half back to Thanos.
“Cheers,” Thanos says.
“Don’t say cheers with pills,” you mutter.
He grins and swallows. Nam-gyu does too, throat working, eyes closing for a second like he’s apologizing to someone you can’t see.
Time moves weird after that. The edges soften. The drone of a hundred stressed out people fades into background fuzz. Nam-gyu’s knee knocks yours once, twice, then stays. When he looks at you again, his pupils are warmer and his mouth is soft around a small, dopey smile.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” you say.
“Sunshine.”
You blink. “No.”
He tilts his head. “No?”
“Don’t call me that.”
“It fits,” he says, sing-song, already cute in that unbearable way people get when they’re floating. “You’re bright. You stand in the ugly and make it look less ugly.”
“Jesus,” you say, fighting a smile. “No. Don’t.”
He leans in, whispering like you’re sharing a secret inside a secret. “Sunshine.”
You give him the look you give reporters who ask if you regret smoking on stage. “Stop.”
He pouts. It’s ridiculous. It should be illegal for him to be this pretty while high. Thanos snorts at the face Nam-gyu pulls and kicks his ankle under the table.
Nam-gyu drags the corner of your tray closer with one finger. “Do a bit with Thanos.”
“What?
“A bit,” he says, pleased with the word. “You’re a popstar, he’s a rapper. You two should collab. Right now. To celebrate the pentathlon win. A little show.”
“Why?”
He grins. “Because I want it.”
You stare. “That’s your argument?”
He nods, beaming. “Please.”
“I don’t know any of his music,” you say, deadpan.
Across the table Thanos slaps a hand to his chest and lets his head roll back. “I’m wounded. My legacy. Dead.”
You sip your water. “I don’t follow SoundCloud links, I’m sorry.”
“Wow,” he says, sliding down the bench like he’s been shot. “She’s brutal. You hear that, Nam-su? She said I’m nothing to her.”
Nam-gyu cannot stop smiling. “Do it. Please?”
You point a finger at Thanos. “If this is corny, I’m shutting it down.”
Thanos sits up straight, palms on the table. “Baby, I invented tasteful corn. Watch.” He flips his tray over with a smack, finds a beat with his knuckles. Min-su startles, then grins despite himself. Se-mi hums once, amused. The rhythm lands. Simple. Clean.
You fight the itch to step into it. The itch wins.
He adjusts. You test a few counts with your tongue against your teeth, then drop in with a half-spoken hook, nothing you’ve written before, just shape and attitude.
“Second night, second breath, still standing in the blood,
Count it down, count it up, don’t drown in the flood.”
Thanos grins, picks up the rhyme. He isn’t bad. He’s actually stupid good when he isn’t trying to make a girl laugh. He slides an internal rhyme in there like a magician palming a coin.
“City on my back, but the bag got a hole,
Put my savings in a dog, watched him chew on my soul.”
You huff a laugh even as you keep it going, voice low. You don’t sing. You talk the melody like you’re tracing it with a fingertip.
“Five games, five links, we don’t break, we don’t bend,
You tell me this is mercy, I call bull at the end.”
Around you, a few people go quiet and listen. One guy across the aisle taps his tray. A guard shifts, annoyed, but as long as no one stands on a table, they don’t intervene.
Nam-gyu leans his cheek on his fist and watches you like a sunflower tracks the sun. It would make you shy if you weren’t busy pretending you’re not shy.
Thanos drops the beat to a fingertip tic and jerks his chin, passing the mic you aren’t holding. “Eight bars. Go off.”
You keep it tight. No long notes, nothing that could be mistaken for begging. You don’t beg anymore.
“Pop girl, jailbird, smear me in your ink,
You throw rocks at my window, I’ll throw back and watch you blink.
Got a smile like a weapon and a spine like a wire,
If I’m sunshine it’s because I crawled out of a fire.”
Thanos slaps the table. Se-mi goes, “Oof.” Min-su breathes, “Damn.”
Nam-gyu looks like you just gave him a gift with a bow.
“Okay, my turn,” Thanos says, and he runs it back with something silly on purpose to lighten it, tossing in a line about the creepy doll scanning like a customs machine and a bar about jegi that makes Min-su choke on his water. You don’t know his catalog, but you get what he can do. It’s the first time tonight you hear people laugh without flinching.
You lean back, done, and let them have the noise. Nam-gyu is still watching you like he’s on a balcony and you’re the stage. It should make you uncomfortable. It doesn’t.
He scoots closer, bumping shoulders, voice softer so it’s just for you. “You were so good.”
“You’re high.”
“I’m right.”
“Stop calling me sunshine.”
He smiles at his own knees. “I like it.”
“I don’t.”
He twists to look at you. “Why not?”
You roll the paper cup between your hands. “It’s lazy. People called me that when they wanted to use me. Smile for the cameras. Smile through the apology. Shine on cue. Sunshine is a job.”
He sobers, just a little. “Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I won’t call you that,” he says. Then he tries to ruin it with a grin. “I’ll call you something else. Smalls. Captain. Shark. Boss.”
“Absolutely not.”
He laughs. “Angel?”
“Worse.”
He leans in, playful again. “Trouble.”
You consider it. “Better.”
“Trouble,” he says, testing it, pleased with himself like a cat that got into the cream.
Across from you, Thanos keeps the bit running until the table around you becomes a small audience. He wraps it with a flourish and a bow that’s somehow both mocking and sincere. “Thank you, you’ve been terrible, tip your masked servers.”
He sits, still grinning. “So. Collab later. After we don’t die.”
“I’ll consider it,” you say.
“That’s a yes,” he says, smug.
“It’s not.”
“It is in my heart.”
“Get your heart checked.”
Nam-gyu snorts. You turn at the sound, surprised by how happy it makes you. He’s loose now, chin tipped toward you, that soft smile back. High, sure, but also safe for five minutes in a place that’s built to take that away.
“Thank you,” he says, quiet.
“For what.”
“For the bit. For the line about the fire. For sitting here.”
You pretend to study your nails. “You’re welcome.”
He tucks his chin, shy again, and you feel a pressure in your chest you don’t have a name for. You ignore it. You steal a piece of egg from his tray. He lets you.
The room’s hum returns. People argue softly about the 78 million. Some say it’s enough to crawl out of debt and breathe. Others say it’s an insult. You decide you’ll say red. You don’t know what Nam-gyu will say. Thanos will say blue just to watch you roll your eyes. That’s fine. Let him.
Lights dim a notch. The three of you stay until someone else wants the spot. Thanos stands and stretches like a cat. “I’m going to go make five new friends and three enemies.”
“Be back,” Nam-gyu says.
“I always come back.” He taps two fingers against his temple, then points them at you like a cartoon gangster. “Boss.”
“Don’t.”
He laughs and saunters off.
It’s just you and Nam-gyu. The quiet between you is warm now, not empty. He drops his head back against the metal frame and closes his eyes.
“You tired?” you ask.
“Kind of.”
“You can sleep.”
He cracks one eye open. “You’ll stay?”
“I’ll stay.”
He exhales, like that answer does something medical to him. He folds his arms and lets the pill turn the noise into cotton. You watch the guard at the door. You watch Thanos at the far end, already holding court, annoying someone into liking him. You watch Nam-gyu’s lashes flicker as he fights sleep, then lose.
When his breathing evens out, you lean in a little. You don’t touch. You just look.
“Not sunshine,” you whisper to yourself. “Trouble.”
His mouth tips up like he heard you in a dream.
You let your shoulder rest against the frame again and keep the watch. Someone has to. Tonight it’s you.
—
Lights out turns the dorm into a low tide. Voices drop, bodies settle, the metallic clink of trays gives way to the tick of the vents. Guards stand like statues in the dark, rifles angled, eyes blank. You lie on your side under the thin blanket, staring at the underside of the bunk above you and counting your breaths. Nam-gyu is a warm line at your back, not touching, close enough that you can feel the heat of him. Thanos is on the lower bunk across the aisle, one leg hanging off like he fell asleep mid-brag.
You wait until the room softens. Until the hum of the vents drowns the leftover noise of people pretending they’re not afraid.
Your bladder won’t let you rest.
You slide out of bed slowly, tugging your hoodie down over your hips. Nam-gyu shifts. His voice is a whisper.
“Where you going?”
“Bathroom.”
“I’ll come.”
You glance down. He’s already propped on an elbow, eyes half-lidded, concerned but quiet about it.
“I’m just peeing,” you murmur. “I’ll be right back.”
He hesitates, then lays back again, jaw tight. “Two minutes.”
You smirk and pad across the cold floor. No one looks up. One guard near the door watches you pass, unmoving, unreadable. He doesn’t follow.
The hallway outside the dorm is dim and stale. Fluorescents hum overhead like dying bees. The bathroom smells like bleach and metal. You finish, wash your hands, catch your own face in the mirror for half a second too long. Your eyes are ringed with exhaustion, your jaw set like it’s forgotten how to unclench. You take one breath. Then you leave.
You don’t even see him at first.
He’s leaning against the wall by the door. Shorter than Nam-gyu, bulkier. Greasy hair, pale under the lights, a grin that makes your skin itch.
“Hey,” he says, like he’s been waiting. “Popstar.”
You pause. “Move.”
He doesn’t. Just pushes off the wall and steps closer, hands out in a way that pretends to be innocent but isn’t.
“Easy. I’m just saying hi. You looked lonely.”
“I’m not.”
He chuckles. “Come on. You’re always with those two. That rapper and the twitchy one. Thought you could use someone new.”
“I said move.”
Instead, he reaches for you.
You don’t flinch. You don’t freeze.
You move fast, drop your weight into your hip, drive your knee up hard.
He doesn’t even scream. He makes a sick, choked little sound, doubles over, and drops to the floor like someone cut his strings. You stand over him, breathing hard, your hands still clenched, your heart punching your ribs from the inside.
Nobody comes.
The guards don’t move.
One of them, a few feet down the hall, watches it happen and doesn’t blink.
A couple players further down the corridor peer out from behind the dorm door. One guy whispers a laugh. No one steps in. No one helps him. No one helps you.
You don’t need it.
Footsteps approach at a sprint.
Nam-gyu’s voice comes just before he rounds the corner. He sees the guy first, curled on the floor, groaning, and then you, standing over him, steady but flushed. He doesn’t hesitate. He moves right to you, stepping between you and the guy like a wall.
“What happened?”
You jerk your chin at the mess of limbs on the floor. “He grabbed me.”
Nam-gyu’s eyes flicker, but his voice stays soft. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” You cross your arms. “I handled it.”
Thanos stumbles into the hallway, hoodie half-zipped and hair a mess. He stops short, blinking at the guy on the floor. “Yo. Damn, sunshine. The fuck you do to him?”
“Don’t call me that,” you mutter, but you’re already calming down. You shake out your hands.
Thanos whistles. “Knee?”
“Right to the dick.”
“Oof.” He leans down, not to help the guy, just to get a better look. “Clean shot.”
Nam-gyu touches your arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”
“I’m not scared.”
“I know,” he says. “That’s not why I want you to go.”
You let him guide you back. The guy’s still moaning. Nobody helps. The guards stay frozen, like you’re all ants under glass. One of them actually smirks.
Back in the dorm, Thanos flops back into his bunk and stretches like a cat. “Remind me never to touch you without permission.”
“You were never in danger,” you say.
“Still. Noted. For safety.”
Nam-gyu sits with you on the bunk, still wound tight. His hand hovers like he wants to check your waist where the guy grabbed you but doesn’t know if he should. You take it and place it there yourself, letting him feel the place. There’s no bruise yet. Just heat.
“I didn’t want you to have to do that,” he says.
“I’ve done worse,” you murmur.
“That doesn’t mean you should have to.”
You blink at him.
“I’ll come with you next time,” he says, like it’s a promise. “Even if you’re just peeing.”
“You’ll be my piss bodyguard?”
“Yes.”
You crack a smile. “That’s romantic.”
He smiles too, small and crooked. “You’re safe now.”
“I was safe the second he touched me.”
Thanos hums from his bunk. “That’s the part that got him wrecked.”
Nam-gyu glances at him, then back at you. He leans forward slightly, like he might fold into you if he had permission. You tilt toward him first.
“You still mad I didn’t let you rescue me?”
“No,” he says. “I’m mad he thought you needed it.”
You lay down, facing the wall. Nam-gyu curls in behind you slowly, careful, like he’s asking. You let him. His arm slides around your middle. You lace your fingers with his without thinking.
Thanos’s voice is already fading into sleep. “Damn sunshine… should’ve made it a pay-per-view…”
You throw a sock at him. He catches it in his sleep.
Nam-gyu’s breath slows behind you. Your knee aches a little, but it’s a good kind of ache. A warning to anyone who thought your smile meant softness.
You try to sleep. You really do. You pull the blanket over your head, curl into the warmth of Nam-gyu’s body behind you, and close your eyes. His hand stays steady at your waist, thumb drawing absent-minded circles, like he doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. The dorm hums with low breaths and the occasional cough.
But every time you start to drift, you see greasy hair and a hand where it shouldn’t have been. The echo of his breath in your ear. The look on the guard’s face when he didn’t move an inch. You flip onto your back, exhale hard.
Nam-gyu lifts his head. “You can’t sleep?”
“Nope.”
“You want me to tell you a story?” His tone is dry, teasing.
You glance at him. “You don’t look like the bedtime story type.”
He shrugs. “Could try.”
Across the aisle, Thanos stirs, rolling onto his back with a groan. “Jesus Christ, you two whisper like grandmas. Some of us are trying to dream of better places.”
“You were snoring,” you shoot back.
“I don’t snore. I purr.” He props himself up on an elbow, purple hair sticking up in every direction, eyes still heavy with sleep. Then his grin sharpens. “Yo, sunshine. Bet you get hella guys chasing you around out there. Popstar and all.”
You blink at him, then smirk. “Not just guys.”
Thanos whistles low. “Oh, word? Girls too?”
You shrug, casual. “Girls too.”
Nam-gyu, sitting cross-legged beside you, blinks like he just learned a new language. His lips twitch but he doesn’t comment. He just watches, eyes flicking between you and his best friend.
Thanos clutches his chest dramatically. “Damn. Expanding the market. Respect.”
“Don’t sound so shocked.”
“I’m not shocked. I’m impressed. But let’s be real.” He leans forward, grin widening. “I get way more pussy than you.”
You laugh, sharp and loud enough that someone down the row groans for quiet. “In your dreams.”
“Not in my dreams. In my real, tangible life.” He taps his own chest. “Certified lover boy.”
“You’ve been rejected by half the girls in this room already.”
“They were nervous,” he insists. “They didn’t know how to handle greatness.”
“Or they saw through your bullshit.”
Nam-gyu snorts before he can stop himself. Both of you glance at him, and he ducks his head, suddenly shy, like he forgot he was visible.
You grin and elbow him lightly. “See? Even Nam-gyu agrees.”
“Don’t drag him into this,” Thanos says, wagging a finger. “He’s my boy. He knows I pull.”
Nam-gyu raises his brows. “You pull… something.”
“Oh, betrayal,” Thanos groans, collapsing back dramatically against the bunk. “First sunshine calls me out, now Nam-su too. My own family.”
You can’t help the laugh that bubbles up. It feels good, sharp edges softening a little. Nam-gyu watches you, not saying much, but there’s something in his eyes, like he’s memorizing the way you look when you forget what you’ve been through for five seconds.
Thanos peeks back up from his flop. “Admit it, sunshine. You could never beat me.”
You lean back on your hands, smirk tugging your mouth. “I don’t have to. I don’t need numbers. I’ve got quality.”
“Ooooh,” Thanos howls, clutching his heart. “She hit me with the quality line. I’m bleeding out.”
“Good.”
Nam-gyu laughs again, low and quiet. You glance at him, surprised by how soft it sounds. He shakes his head. “You two are insane.”
“We’re entertaining,” Thanos corrects, already grinning again. “Audience of one. Nam-gyu, rate the performance.”
Nam-gyu shrugs, but his lips curve. “Ten out of ten.”
“For me, right?” Thanos asks.
“For her,” Nam-gyu says.
You snort. Thanos groans again, tossing his blanket over his head in fake despair. “I can’t win with you two.”
“That’s because I already did,” you say, settling back against the frame.
Nam-gyu shakes his head, still smiling, and for the first time since the game started, you feel like maybe you can close your eyes without seeing blood.
Thanos finally gives up, flopping back to his bunk with a dramatic sigh, “I can’t argue with the queen. I’m getting my beauty sleep,” and within minutes he’s snoring, one arm dangling off the edge, mouth open.
You and Nam-gyu are left in the hush that only comes when a whole room of people are pretending not to listen. The vents hum, someone coughs, but it’s just the two of you, knees knocking under the thin blanket. He keeps glancing over at Thanos, like he’s waiting for backup, but then finally lets himself look straight at you.
“You’re way out of my league,” he says, quietly, almost sheepish.
You turn, a slow grin pulling at your lips. “You keep saying that like it means anything.”
He tries to play it off, but there’s a faint tremor in his voice. “It does mean something. You’re… you. And I’m…” He shrugs. “Not the kind of guy people write songs about.”
That makes you laugh, soft and honest. “Sure about that?”
He shrugs again, face heating. “Thanos makes sense with you. I’m just..” he waves a hand, lost for the word.
You tilt your head. “So, I’m not out of his league, but I’m out of yours?”
He blinks, mouth working, and you see the wheels turning like he’s still trying to catch up. “I mean, you’re both famous, he’s loud, he makes friends with everyone. I just… I don’t see why you’d want me.”
You can’t help teasing him, voice dipping a little softer, “Baby, you could be famous with me. We could have a moment. You’d look good next to me, you know?”
He laughs, but it’s a nervous sound. “Yeah, right.”
You smirk. “I could put you in a video. Make you my boyfriend onscreen. People would eat that up.”
He goes dead still at the word, ears turning red. “Boyfriend?” he repeats, like it’s a dare.
You let it sit there, heavy, then tilt your head, eyes shining. “Yeah. Unless you want me to cast you as my boyfriend in real life?”
The look on his face is priceless. Every muscle tenses, and for a second he actually glances down at his hands like he wants to disappear. His cheeks flush, his mouth opens, closes, opens again.
“What, you wouldn’t want that?” you tease, your voice suddenly lower, real. “Because I’d be down with that.”
His head jerks up. His eyes are wide, so open you almost want to reach over and pull him into your lap. “You.. You would?”
You lean closer, so close he can count your freckles in the half-dark. “Yeah, Nam-gyu. I would. I like you. I like this.”
He swallows. “Even if I’m not… famous? Or loud? Or..” he trails off.
“Even if you’re just you.”
He lets out a breath like he’s been holding it for years, mouth curving in a soft, startled smile. “You’re serious?”
You bump his knee with yours, gentle. “Dead serious.”
He glances over at Thanos’s sleeping form, like he still needs to check if this is real. Then he looks back at you, more hopeful than you’ve ever seen him.
“I’d want that,” he says quietly.
“Good,” you reply, and settle back against the bunk, warmth blooming in your chest and in the space between your knees.
For a while you just sit there, quiet and close, the word “boyfriend” hanging in the air like a dare you both already accepted.
The first time Nam-gyu rolls a joint in your apartment, it’s so casual you almost miss it. You’re both sprawled on your bed, shoes off, dinner forgotten somewhere in the kitchen. The window’s cracked, cool city air mixing with the warm vanilla scent of his hoodie. The TV is on but you’re not really watching, too lost in the way he’s half-smiling at something only he knows.
He sets the grinder between you, fingers nimble as he taps out dry green buds, humming under his breath. The lighter flicks, the paper glows, and he takes the first slow drag, eyes fluttering closed, like it’s a prayer.
He exhales, turns to you. “Wanna try?”
You hesitate. “I’ve never… I mean..”
He just grins, gentle, warm, nothing pushy in his voice. “Only if you want to. Not gonna make you.”
You swallow, nod. You trust him. You’d do just about anything for that sleepy, crooked smile.
You let him hold it for you at first. His hand covers yours, steady and sure, guiding you as you take a hesitant hit. You cough, burning in your chest, and he laughs, low and affectionate. “That’s normal, babe. Here..”
He hands you water, rubbing circles on your back. You try again, slower this time. The world blurs at the edges, your limbs go heavy and loose, and everything feels easier, lighter.
“Good?” he asks, voice soft, eyes searching yours.
You nod, dizzy, grinning like an idiot. “Yeah. I feel… weird. Good weird.”
He laughs and tugs you closer, your head on his chest. His heartbeat thumps under your ear, solid and real. The joint passes back and forth, the haze growing thicker, your laughter softer. Time gets slippery. His fingers trace shapes on your arm, over your ribs, along your thigh.
“See? Told you,” he says. “You’re glowing.”
You roll your eyes, but your cheeks go hot. “I am not.”
He kisses your nose, your temple, your lips. “You are. You’re gorgeous when you’re happy.”
His voice does something to you, makes you melt. You bury your face in his shirt, mumbling, “Stop, I’m gonna blush.”
He laughs and pulls you on top of him, hands sliding under your shirt, mouth finding yours again. Kissing is different like this, softer, deeper, all sensation, no hesitation. You forget the world outside, the work stress, the money worries, the old wounds you both never talk about. There’s only his mouth, his hands, the heat blooming low in your belly.
He rolls you beneath him, slow and gentle, taking his time. He asks if you’re good, if you want to stop. You shake your head, gasping, “Don’t stop, please.”
Clothes peel away, thrown across the room. Every touch is amplified, every sigh feels like music. He slides inside you, slow, careful, and it’s so much, too much, but perfect. He keeps whispering your name, “So pretty, so sweet, my girl, you’re mine,” as he moves, rocking you both through waves of sensation.
You come undone with him, soft and needy, your moans muffled against his shoulder. He holds you close, never letting go, breath stuttering as he follows you over the edge.
After, you lie tangled in the sheets, skin sticky, hair wild, the room heavy with the scent of sex and weed and comfort.
You feel safe with him. Safer than you have in years.
He props up on one elbow, brushing sweat-damp hair from your face. “You okay?”
You nod, eyes heavy, body spent. “Yeah. Perfect.”
He kisses you, slow and lingering, thumb stroking your cheek. “We could just stay like this forever, you know?”
You almost believe him. Almost.
You fall asleep with his arm locked tight around your waist, his breathing slowing under your cheek, the joint long gone cold in the ashtray.
The next morning, you wake up sore and warm, the memory of his laugh tangled in your sheets. You find yourself looking forward to the next time, already wanting more, of him, of the haze, of the feeling that nothing else matters as long as you’re in his arms.
You and Nam-gyu settle into something that feels like a secret world, just yours, just his. You trade laughter in bed and late-night takeout on the floor, weed smoke curling up to the ceiling, new albums looping in the background, always a little softer when he knows you’re listening. Every night he finds new ways to touch you, every morning you wake up craving his arms like air.
You notice the little bottles, orange prescription vials, stashed in drawers and hoodies, the crinkle of foil blister packs in his bag. He takes pills sometimes, chasing them with water or sometimes something stronger. You watch him do it, how he sighs after, slumps down beside you, gaze turning soft and glassy. He tells you not to worry, but his voice sounds far away.
He never hides it, not really. He offers you one the first time, a small blue pill pressed into your palm like a secret. His thumb circles the back of your hand.
“It’s not heavy,” he says, voice careful, coaxing. “Just makes you feel light, like you can float. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
You trust him more than anyone. You’d follow him anywhere. So you say yes.
The pill melts slow through your bloodstream, muscles going loose, your mind feathering away from every worry you ever had. Nam-gyu’s face swims in front of you, so close you can see every freckle, the curve of his mouth as he smiles, as he leans in and kisses you, soft and deep. You giggle against his lips, the high settling in, the room warm and spinning, his hands everywhere.
After, he tucks you under his chin, strokes your hair until you fall asleep.
“That’s my girl,” he murmurs, voice thick with something that’s half pride and half fear. “You did so good. You’re so good for me.”
You wake up and your first thought is wanting to feel like that again, weightless, close, safe. You start asking for it. Sometimes he offers something new: a little yellow pill, a pink capsule, something clear in a dropper. Sometimes you’re not sure what you’re taking. You stop asking. You trust him.
You start missing work, canceling plans, screening calls from friends who notice your voice sounds foggy, your laugh a little too loud, your texts all “sorry, can’t tonight, next week?” The only place you want to be is wherever Nam-gyu is, curled up with him on a mattress that always smells like weed and sweat and cheap cologne, the city outside forgotten.
One night, he comes home later than usual, looking wrecked, a storm in his eyes. You sit up in bed, heart pounding.
“What happened?” you ask, reaching for him.
He sits on the edge, pulls out a tiny black baggie, a lighter, a kit that looks sharper, more serious than anything before. His hands are trembling.
“You don’t have to,” he says, voice broken. “But I can’t do this alone anymore. I just… if you wanna feel close to me, if you trust me…”
He trails off, jaw set, eyes desperate. You’ve never seen him like this. It makes something inside you ache.
You crawl over, wrap your arms around his waist, press your face to his shoulder. “I trust you. Whatever you want. Just don’t leave me, okay?”
He kisses your temple, tears in his voice now. “Never. I’m right here. Always.”
He’s so gentle, so careful, talking you through every step. Cleans your arm, ties off your bicep, waits for you to say yes, really, yes, with your eyes open and your hand in his. The needle pinches, then burns, then the world erupts, flooding your body with heat, then syrup-slow waves of perfect, dizzy relief.
He holds you through it, rocking you, shushing you when you cry, whispering, “That’s it, baby. I got you. You’re mine. My brave girl.”
You both float for hours, time meaningless, tangled up in sweat and shaky laughter and soft, wild confessions that only make sense when you’re this far gone. You tell him he’s the only person who’s ever made you feel safe, he tells you he can’t live without you, that he’d rather die than let you go.
It becomes your new ritual. Sometimes you do it together, sometimes you watch him, sometimes he watches you, both of you saying “just this once” while you know it’s a lie.
You notice you’ve started to need it, that the days without the rush feel sharp, cold, jagged at the edges. He sees it, too. Some nights, he wakes up shaking, his face slick with sweat, and you cradle him, whispering that you’re here, you’re not leaving. He does the same for you.
Your world shrinks to just the two of you and whatever you can put between your skin and the pain. Rent goes unpaid, calls go ignored. You stop looking in the mirror because you barely recognize yourself anymore, but every time he touches you, every time you shoot up together, it feels like proof you’re still alive, still needed, still loved.
Some nights are soft, slow sex, heads together on the window ledge watching the city lights, arms wrapped so tight it hurts. He tells you he loves you, voice shaky, promises things will get better. You believe him, because you want to, and because you can’t imagine any world without him in it.
Sometimes, you wonder how far you’ll fall before you break. But then he kisses you, and everything else disappears.
It’s always easier to say yes. Yes to the pill, yes to the shot, yes to “just one more time.” Yes to Nam-gyu’s shaking hands, his forehead pressed to yours as you both whisper, “I need you, I need you, I need you.” Yes, because it’s the only way you both remember how to feel safe.
But everything outside the two of you turns gray. The apartment’s a mess of clothes, wrappers, pill bottles, needles, half-eaten food, and every curtain drawn tight. Sometimes you wake to find Nam-gyu staring at you in the dark, his face pale and shadowed, a look of desperate love and fear so raw it makes you want to cry.
He starts using more, sometimes disappearing into the bathroom for half an hour, sometimes just sinking to the floor beside you, clutching your hand like you’re the only anchor he has left. You’re using more, too, your body aching for that warmth, that soft nothingness, even as it gets harder to find.
The nights blur together, the highs and lows all tangled, until you can’t tell if the pain in your chest is love, withdrawal, or both. You stop caring about bills, laundry, the rent notice taped to your door. The only thing you care about is the next moment with him, the next rush, the next time he murmurs, “I’ve got you, baby. You’re safe with me.”
You try to remember how you got here, a blurry montage of giggles and weed, sleepy sex and whispered confessions, his gentle hands guiding you through every new step. There was always trust, always love. Now, even the love feels like a shackle you can’t break.
It gets worse in the rain. You haven’t slept in two days, skin buzzing, mouth dry, head pounding. Your hands shake so hard you can barely hold the lighter. Nam-gyu’s eyes are wild and wet, jaw clenched, a look you’ve never seen on him before.
“Let me do it,” he says, voice shaking. He’s trying so hard to stay steady, to be gentle, but he’s almost falling apart. “I’ll take care of you. Just trust me.”
You nod. “Always. I trust you.”
He ties off your arm, wipes the skin, kisses your knuckles. You’re already crying and you don’t know why, fear, relief, exhaustion, love. All of it. He presses his forehead to yours, breath ragged, his thumb stroking your cheek.
“You’re okay,” he whispers, voice thick and desperate. “You’re okay, I promise. I’ve got you. We’ll feel better soon. Just breathe.”
You do, but the needle burns deeper than before, heat flooding your veins. Your heart thuds, once, twice, then stutters. The edges of your vision blur. You gasp, trying to speak his name, but your tongue is thick, your body suddenly leaden. You feel his hands clutching your face, his voice distant, muffled, panicked.
“No, no, no, babe, wake up..don’t do this, come on..please..no, please..somebody help! Please..”
Everything goes black.
—
You float for a long time. There are voices, bright lights, a cold wind that cuts through the dream. Sirens, maybe. Someone shouting. You want to answer, but you can’t move, can’t even scream.
You see flashes: Nam-gyu’s face above you, white with terror, eyes shiny and red, mouth moving in prayers you can’t hear. Hands on your chest, voices counting. A mask over your face. Then, nothing.
You wake to a different world. A hospital, too-bright, too-clean. The sheets are stiff, your arm itches where tape holds in an IV. Machines beep steadily in the background. You stare at the ceiling, blinking, trying to remember how to breathe.
Your throat aches. You reach up with heavy hands, feeling bandages, the IV, bruises blooming on your skin.
You turn your head. There’s an empty chair next to your bed, a scratchy blue blanket thrown over the armrest, a Styrofoam cup still warm with someone’s fingerprints. But Nam-gyu isn’t here.
Panic claws up your spine, sharp and choking. You mash the nurse button, heart hammering, mouth dry.
When the nurse comes in, soft-faced, tired, she tries to smile. “Hey, sweetheart. You’re awake. Do you remember your name?”
You croak it out, your tongue thick. “Where… where is he? Was someone with me?”
Her face falls a little. “Someone brought you in. He called the ambulance, rode with you. Stayed until you got here, but then he… he left, honey. Gave us your name, your phone. He wanted you to be safe.”
You choke on a sob, fighting the blankets, desperate for your phone. It’s on the little table, screen cracked, battery low. Your hands shake as you unlock it. There are texts from friends, missed calls, nothing from Nam-gyu. Your eyes blur, tears stinging.
You call him. Voicemail. You call again, and again, each ring twisting the knife deeper. Finally, on the tenth try, he picks up.
There’s silence. You hear cars, wind, and then his voice, raw, small, so unlike him it scares you.
You sob, broken. “Where are you? Please, Nam-gyu, I need you, I can’t..please..”
He’s crying, you hear it in every breath. “You almost died. I almost… I can’t keep hurting you. I thought..if I left, maybe you’d get better. Maybe you’d live.”
You shake your head, helpless. “I can’t do this alone, I don’t want to..please..come back, come back, I love you, I need you, please..”
He can’t even talk, just breathing hard, sobbing. “I love you. That’s why I have to go. Don’t look for me. You have to live, even if it’s not with me. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”
He hangs up. You scream his name into the empty room. You throw the phone, curl into the hospital sheets, sobbing until your body aches and the nurses come running.
But all you can think about is his voice, the last thing you have left.
I love you. That’s why I have to go.
You clutch the hospital blanket, rocking yourself, whispering into the cold air, “Don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
You don’t remember how many days have passed. They blend together, washed out under hospital lights. The nurses talk in gentle voices, their faces kind but distant, offering trays you barely touch. You ignore your phone unless you’re calling Nam-gyu. You call him in the morning, at midnight, half-asleep and half-hoping that if you just try hard enough, you’ll bring him back.
Nothing.
Each call that rings out makes your chest ache. Each text goes unseen, lost somewhere in the city’s wires.
please, I need you
I’m sorry, just come back
I can’t do this alone
nam-gyu
please
The IV tape itches at your skin. Your friends visit, trying to coax you into small talk, but you just close your eyes and pretend to nap. The only time you feel real is when you hear footsteps in the hallway, just in case it’s him. It never is. You get angry sometimes, then numb again. You dream of him, the first time you smoked together, his smile in the blue TV light, the sound of his laugh muffled against your throat.
You lose weight. You cry when you think no one’s looking. You wonder if this is what dying feels like, slow, empty, a kind of cold that starts in your chest and spreads everywhere.
You stop eating. If there’s no reason to stay clean, what’s the point?
—
Nam-gyu tries. At first, he really tries.
He throws out everything in his apartment, bags, needles, pills, lighters. He bleaches the kitchen, scrubs the floors, opens all the windows and tries to breathe. He watches the city from his balcony at three in the morning, clutching a mug of cold coffee in hands that still shake. He tells himself he’s doing this for you, that maybe if he stays away, you’ll get better, that he’ll get better too.
But every day is torture.
He dreams about you: your voice, your warmth, the way you always smelled like coconut and weed and something soft, like hope. He remembers the way you’d whisper “I love you” after using, how your laugh would curl into his chest and make him feel almost human again.
Without you, he doesn’t know what to do with the quiet. He stares at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, lips pressed tight, veins ghosting beneath his skin. Some days, he paces his apartment, fingers twitching, heart pounding. He answers your calls sometimes, listening in silence, the sound of your voice making him cry and then hang up.
He lasts almost a week. Seven days of fighting, of white-knuckle showers and cold sweats and lying to himself, she’ll be better off, she’ll be better off, she’ll be better off…
The eighth day, he sits on the floor, back against the couch, staring at the old kit he never threw away. He’s sobbing before the needle even bites his skin.
He thinks it’ll make him forget. Instead, all it does is make him miss you more. He pictures your face, the way you’d squeeze his hand, the way you’d shush him when he cried, the way you’d say, “Don’t leave me, okay?” every time he started to drift away.
He feels like he’s failed you in every possible way. He knows you’re hurting, knows you’re alone, and still, he can’t make himself move.
That’s when the hospital calls.
A nurse’s voice, soft but serious. “Mr. Kim? Your girlfriend… she’s not doing well. She isn’t eating. We think seeing you might help.”
He wants to scream, wants to break his phone, wants to go back to the moment he left and drag himself home by the hair.
He hesitates. Then he caves. He showers, pulls on clean clothes, washes his face in the sink until the redness fades, and takes a taxi across the river.
He stands outside your hospital door, breathing hard, hands shaking, guilt crawling up his throat. He wants to run. But he doesn’t.
You’re lying on your side, curled up small, when you hear it, soft footsteps, the whisper of the door.
You look up. You see him, pale, eyes red, shoulders hunched in a way that makes him look so much younger. For a moment, neither of you breathes.
You bolt upright, blankets twisted around your legs, eyes wide with disbelief and relief and fear. He’s already moving, crossing the space in two long strides, dropping to his knees beside the bed. You reach for him, clinging, sobbing, hands clawing at his shirt, his arms, anything to anchor yourself.
You’re both crying, the kind that leaves your faces wet, your chests aching. He presses his forehead to yours, arms shaking as he holds you.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes. “I’m so sorry. I thought if I left, you’d get better. I thought I could do it for you. But I fucked everything up, I hurt you, I can’t..”
You shake your head, your own voice breaking. “Don’t go. Please, Nam-gyu. I need you, I need you. I can’t do this without you, I don’t want to. I can’t breathe, I can’t eat, I can’t..”
He hugs you tighter, like he’s trying to fuse you both back together. “I used again,” he sobs. “I’m so sorry. I tried, but I couldn’t… I just missed you so fucking much. I thought it would make it easier, but it made it worse. I just want you. I just want you, okay?”
You nod, crying harder, clutching his face in your hands. “I don’t care. Just stay. Don’t leave again, please.”
He kisses you, salty and frantic, tears on your cheeks, your mouths. He pulls back just enough to look you in the eyes. “We have to try. I don’t know how, but I’ll do anything. I don’t want to lose you. I can’t.”
You and Nam-gyu stay clinging together for a long time, silent except for sniffles and the quiet whir of machines. His hoodie smells like rain and cigarettes and the faintest trace of old cologne, and his arms are wrapped so tightly around you, you almost believe you could never fall again.
You don’t hear the door at first. The nurse is gentle as always, her knock soft, her presence warm but not intrusive. She sees you both, puffy-eyed, knotted together, hands clutching each other’s sleeves like drowning people on the same piece of driftwood.
She doesn’t rush. She just sits on the foot of your bed, hands folded. “I’m glad to see you two together,” she says, voice low and calm, like she’s seen heartbreak like this a hundred times before.
You nod, not letting go. Nam-gyu’s breathing is still shaky, but he tries to pull himself together, wiping his cheeks with the back of his hand.
“There’s someone I want you both to meet,” the nurse says. “He’s our counselor. He’s helped a lot of our patients here. He has an idea I think you should hear.”
She steps out, returns a minute later with a man in his thirties, button-down wrinkled, eyes kind but sharp. He introduces himself as Jihoon, the hospital’s addiction counselor.
He pulls up a chair, doesn’t make either of you let go. “I know you’re scared,” he says gently. “But I’m going to be real with you, getting clean is hell. It’s even harder for people who love each other and are scared to let go.”
You nod, not trusting your voice. Nam-gyu’s jaw clenches, but he keeps holding your hand.
Jihoon glances between you, assessing, then softens. “There’s a new program that started in Hongdae a few months ago, a couples addiction rehab. You live together in a little apartment. You go to therapy together and separately. You do withdrawal together, you rebuild together. It’s not easy, and you have to really want it, both of you. But it’s worked for people who couldn’t imagine getting clean alone.”
He lets that sink in. The silence stretches, thick and heavy.
You press your forehead to Nam-gyu’s, voice trembling. “Could we… really do that? Together?”
Nam-gyu looks at Jihoon, eyes wild but suddenly, just for a second, hopeful. “Would they even take us? We’re both so fucked up.”
Jihoon’s smile is tired but warm. “Honestly, you’re exactly who it’s for. The hardest thing is when two people get so tangled up in each other’s addiction, they feel like it’s impossible to pull out unless they rip each other apart. But this place… they help you learn to hold on to the good and let go of the rest.”
The nurse squeezes your foot. “You’d have to want it. You both would have to check in, no using, no running, no lies. It’s not a lock-up. But if you show up, they’ll help you fight.”
Nam-gyu’s fingers tighten around yours. You can feel him shaking, see the fear and longing flickering behind his eyes. You’re terrified too, of failing, of pain, of what it will mean to finally look at each other without the haze of drugs between you.
But you nod. “I want to try. If it’s with him, I want to try.”
Nam-gyu lets out a shaky, half-sobbing laugh. “Yeah. Me too. I want to live, I just… I want you there. That’s all I ever wanted.”
Jihoon nods, scribbling on a clipboard. “I’ll make the call. It’s not a miracle cure, but it’s a start. They have a room open now. If you say yes, we can have you there by tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. The word makes you both flinch. But you squeeze Nam-gyu’s hand, and for the first time in what feels like forever, you don’t feel totally hopeless.
You press your lips to his knuckles, whispering, “We’ll go. We’ll try.”
He nods, blinking back tears, and pulls you into his arms, burying his face in your hair. The nurse and Jihoon quietly step out, giving you the moment.
“I’m scared,” you admit, voice muffled.
“Me too,” he breathes, holding you tighter. “But not as scared as I am of losing you.”
You fall asleep that night in his arms, your hands linked on top of the blanket. When you wake in the morning, there’s fear in your chest, but for the first time in months, there’s hope too, a fragile, trembling kind, but real.
You expect rehab to feel cold, sterile, maybe a little like jail. But when you and Nam-gyu walk into the little apartment in Hongdae, clutching your bags and each other’s hands, it almost feels like moving in together for real. It’s small, bare walls, tiny kitchen, creaky floor, bedsheets that smell faintly of lavender and bleach, but it’s yours for now, and you’re together.
You both stand in the entryway, shoes off, not sure what to do next. For a moment, you let yourself pretend you’re just a normal couple starting a new life.
Nam-gyu drops his bag and wraps his arms around you from behind, his chin on your shoulder. “Home, huh?”
You nod, tears in your eyes. “Home.”
For one night, things feel almost light. You eat instant ramen on the floor, make up stories about your imaginary neighbors, and take turns showering. He finds an old radio, and you fall asleep listening to a late-night DJ mutter sleepy Korean between old indie songs, tangled up under the cheap white sheets. You feel his hand in yours, warm and real.
But the next morning, the hell begins.
It’s not the shakes at first. It’s the want, deep in your bones, gnawing at you, your mind racing for ways to get out, to run, to score. You both try to ignore it, but every hour the cravings get louder, needier, like a hunger that owns your whole body.
Then the real pain starts.
It’s relentless, muscles aching so badly you cry just from moving, skin burning and freezing at once. Sweat soaks the sheets, then you’re shivering, teeth chattering like you’re dying of cold. Your stomach twists into knots, and you’re running to the bathroom over and over, vomiting, then diarrhea, then dry heaves that wring out all your strength.
Nam-gyu goes through it too, right beside you. Sometimes he’s on the floor, curled up, clutching his knees, groaning so loud it scares you. Sometimes he’s shaking so hard he can’t even hold a cup of water. You take turns in the bathroom, one of you retching while the other sits by the door, whispering soft encouragements, half delirious.
There are days you both can’t even get out of bed. The world becomes a blur of sweat, pain, nausea, chills, and shame. You cry, beg for it to stop, beg for just one hit, but you know you’re here because you can’t have it, and neither of you will let the other go.
You talk through the worst of it, voices thin and hoarse.
“I feel like I’m dying,” you whimper, curled against the cold wall, hair stuck to your cheek.
Nam-gyu manages a shaky laugh. “Me too. I’d say we’re dying together, but honestly, I want to live, jagi. I want to live so fucking bad.”
You reach for him, and he clings back, both of you trembling, sticky with sweat. Sometimes you hold each other so tight you ache in new places, but it’s the only thing that keeps you from flying apart.
The insomnia is brutal. Your bodies ache, but you can’t sleep, thoughts racing, skin crawling, legs kicking, time dragging. When either of you drifts off for a minute, the other stays awake, whispering, “I’m here, it’s okay, you’re not alone,” until you both collapse into another fit of crying or vomiting.
The staff check in every few hours. Sometimes a nurse helps clean up, brings soup or Gatorade, gives you medicine for the fever or cramps. Sometimes a counselor sits on the end of the bed and just lets you cry, holding your hand.
But most of it, you get through together.
You make it a rule, if one of you wants to give up, the other has to stay. Sometimes you both break down, swearing and sobbing, cursing the world and each other and the drugs and the pain. But in between, there are tiny moments, him brushing your hair off your face, you tucking a blanket around his shoulders, both of you giggling at something stupid on TV at 3am, your laughter hoarse but real.
A few times, you both almost bolt. The cravings feel bigger than love, bigger than you, bigger than anything. Nam-gyu cries on the floor one night, begging you to let him run. You grab his face, press your forehead to his, and sob, “No, please, don’t leave me. We’ll get through it. Please. Just one more hour. Just stay.”
He stays. So do you.
—
The worst is over by day six, but the ache lingers, your bones hurt, your nerves feel raw, your thoughts dark and looping. But when you look at each other, there’s something new there, a stubborn hope, a pride in every single minute you’ve survived.
You made it. Not clean, not yet, but alive. Together.
You collapse onto the clean sheets, a mess of sweat and tears, holding hands.
“Still want to be with me?” you whisper, half joking, half scared.
He looks at you, eyes bloodshot, cheeks hollow, but smiling. “Always. Even if we’re a mess. Especially then.”
You nod, pressing your forehead to his, and breathe for the first time in days.
The first week after the results, you move like a ghost.
You sleep too hard or not at all. You forget to eat, then eat nothing but rice crackers at 2 a.m. You stop putting on mascara. Some mornings you sit on the edge of the tub for twenty minutes, towel around your shoulders, staring at a cold cup of tea and the floor drain like they might give you a different answer.
Nam-gyu doesn’t know where to put his hands.
He tries the things that used to work, bad jokes, long hugs, hiding his face in your neck and bribing you out of bed with convenience-store jellies, but grief makes you slippery. He’ll wrap you up and feel you there and somehow still feel you far away.
So he does the only thing he can think to do: he starts learning.
The browser tabs multiply, sleep hygiene, endocrine disruptors, folate vs. folic acid, vitamin D, CoQ10, AMH and AFC and what they actually mean. He reads clinic blogs at 4 a.m., watches nurses on YouTube prime syringes and flick air bubbles out of vials. He bookmarks an article about Mediterranean-style diet and quietly swaps your butter for olive oil, buys salmon, sneaks spinach into your ramen. He texts Su-bong to cover more club nights and turns down drinks without telling you why. He tosses the last pack of cigarettes in the trash and doesn’t fish them back out.
By the third week, there’s a cheap pastel binder on the kitchen table with a label he hand-lettered and then immediately scratched out because it made him cry: Team… Us.
Inside are printouts with highlighter, a calendar with ovulation windows marked in pencil (not pen, he says pencil feels kinder), a pocket full of appointment cards you haven’t made yet. Post-its bloom like tiny flags: ask about PGT? vitamin D labs acupuncture? only if you want.
He practices injections on an orange he bought just for that, counting out loud, hands shaking, trying to be brave in front of fruit.
You watch from the doorway, head tipped, hollowed out by love and fear in equal measure.
One night he finds you sitting on the kitchen floor with the fridge open, cold light pooling over your knees. He slides down beside you without a word, shoulder to shoulder.
“I don’t know how to do this,” you whisper.
He nods. “Me neither.”
You stare at the binder. “I hate that there’s a binder.”
“I know.” He swallows. “I also made a playlist. It’s bad.”
You huff the smallest laugh. “Of course it is.”
He rests his head against the cabinet, looking up at the ceiling. “Noona… jagi… can I ask something without you thinking I’m trying to fix you?”
“You can ask.”
He takes a breath. “Would you want to try IVF? Only if you want to. If you never want to, I’ll never bring it up again. I promise.” His voice goes soft. “I’m scared too. But I’ll learn the meds. I’ll set alarms. I’ll mix vials. I’ll do every shot if you let me. I’ll carry you to the bathroom if the bloat hurts. I’ll talk to the nurses and pretend I’m not about to pass out. I’ll be there for retrieval, and transfer, and for every day we don’t get good news. And if we stop, we stop. I don’t love you for a baby. I love you because you’re you.”
The word IVF sits between you like something breakable.
You twist your fingers together. “I want to,” you say, and your voice fractures on want. “I really do. I’m just… I’m terrified. Of the hormones. Of the shots. Of hoping again. Of failing again. Of becoming nothing but this.”
He turns, takes your hands, puts them on his chest so you can feel him shaking too. “Then we’ll be terrified together. And when you can’t be brave, I’ll be brave for both of us. And when I can’t, you’ll carry me like you always do.”
You swallow. “What if it doesn’t work? What if it breaks me?”
He blinks fast. “Then we choose the version of us that survives. We can adopt. We can be the obscene aunt and uncle with too many stickers and snacks. We can buy a van and a ridiculous dog. We can fill a tiny apartment with records and plants and bad art. We can do none of that and just hold each other on a Tuesday.” He searches your face. “I want a family with you. However it looks. But I won’t lose you to get it.”
You close your eyes. The binder is still there when you open them, but it looks a little less like an indictment and a little more like a bridge.
“Okay,” you whisper. “Let’s… book a consult. Information only. I need a nurse to tell me I won’t die from one milliliter of Menopur.”
He exhales all at once, a wet laugh breaking free. “I already have three clinics favorited.” He winces. “That sounded creepy.”
“Deeply.”
He grins, wrecked and earnest. “Pick one and I’ll shut up.”
You nudge his shoulder. “You won’t.”
“True.” He sobers. “Can I… make us dinner? The salmon? And the ugly salad I keep trying to make sexy?”
You sniff, smile wobbly. “It’s the least sexy salad I’ve ever seen.”
“I’ll wear the apron with nothing under it.”
You snort. “That’s sexual harassment in the kitchen.”
“Of my fiancé,” he says, eyes warm. “File your HR complaint.”
“Denied,” you murmur, and lean into him until your forehead rests against his.
He presses a kiss there, then one to each knuckle. “Tomorrow I’ll call,” he says softly. “Tonight we eat, and we breathe, and we watch something stupid where nobody gets pregnant accidentally in the first act.”
“Deal.”
Later, he sets his phone to vibrate with four quiet alarms labeled like small prayers: vitamins, stretch + water, call clinic, be gentle.
He makes the tteokbokki just the way you like, humming some old song as he stirs the pan, careful to slice the green onions thin so you won’t pick them out. He sits close, knees knocking yours, filling your bowl and watching your face like your happiness is the only thing that matters.
You joke that he looks like a housewife, apron tied crooked, hair stuck up in the steam. He snorts, flicks a grain of rice at you, but the smile in his eyes is so warm it almost hurts.
For a little while, you almost forget the ache.
You eat until your belly is full, until you’re leaning into his shoulder and laughing at some silly variety show. The binder sits closed on the counter, your phone on silent, the world outside your window blurred and distant. For one night, you let yourselves just be people who love each other. People who still get to hope.
You fall asleep with his arms around you, his breath soft at your ear, thumb tracing the curve of your wrist. His last words before you drift off, “Love you, always. Just us.”
—
But morning brings a different kind of wakefulness.
You surface out of dreams feeling wrong, heavy, sour, the world swimming sideways. You barely make it to the bathroom, dropping to your knees as your stomach lurches violently. You clutch the toilet, forehead pressed to cool porcelain, heart hammering with fear and confusion.
Nam-gyu stumbles in after you, bare feet slapping tile, panic on his face.
“Noona? Noona, hey, are you okay?”
He drops down beside you, hands trembling as he sweeps your hair away from your face, rubbing your back in frantic circles. You retch again, tears streaming, and his voice cracks, “Was it the tteokbokki? Did I give you food poisoning? Fuck, I’m so sorry, jagi, I’ll throw it all out..should I call someone? Should I..”
You shake your head, breathless, the taste of bile sharp in your mouth. “It’s not your cooking. It’s not..” You have to pause, swallow hard, try to find air. “I just… I don’t know what’s wrong.”
He presses a cold, wet towel to your forehead. “Shit, shit, shit, what do I do..?”
You can feel him vibrating with worry, kneeling beside you in his boxers and t-shirt, eyes wide and wild, every bit of his love turned to helplessness. You lean against the tub, dizzy, spent. Your hand finds his and squeezes.
Then, as the worst of it passes, you both just sit in silence, catching your breath.
That’s when it hits you. A sudden, shared knowing.
He looks at you, eyes brimming with a new, terrified kind of hope. “Do you think… could it be..?”
You stare at him, pulse fluttering, afraid to even name it out loud. “I don’t know, Nam-gyu. Maybe. But..”
You remember the doctor’s words, unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. You want to protect yourself, protect him, from hope. But the hope is there, alive and trembling, pulsing between you like a heartbeat.
He gets up, hands shaking, and rummages through the drawer until he finds an old pregnancy test at the back, faded and dusty but still sealed. He presses it into your palm, kneeling in front of you, voice rough and thick with everything he can’t say.
“No matter what, okay? No matter what that says, I love you. I love you so much, and it’s just us. Just us forever, no matter what.”
You nod, tears sliding hot down your cheeks, voice nothing but a whisper. “Okay.”
Your fingers shake as you open the box. He waits outside the bathroom, pacing, muttering prayers to any god that will listen.
You pee on the stick, cap it, set it on the sink with hands that barely feel like your own. You sit on the closed toilet lid, wrap your arms around yourself, and stare at your knees, willing yourself not to count the seconds.
Nam-gyu comes in, crouches at your feet, eyes locked on yours, hope and dread warring in his chest.
Three minutes.
He takes your hands, threading your fingers together, resting his forehead against your knees.
“I know it’s scary,” he says, voice trembling. “But whatever happens, I won’t leave you. I’ll be here. Even if it’s just us, or if it’s all three of us. You’re my whole world, noona. I don’t want anything else.”
You close your eyes, press your forehead to his, and breathe. For those three minutes, it’s just the sound of your hearts, the warmth of his hands, the smallest, brightest hope you’ve ever let yourself feel.
You’re both shaking when you finally reach for the test.
You reach for the test together, hands trembling so hard you nearly drop it. The room feels impossibly small, the air thick, your whole world distilled to the pale plastic stick on the edge of the sink.
You flip it over, heart in your throat.
Two lines.
You blink, sure you’re seeing things, and look again.
Two lines.
One bold, one faint but real. Undeniable.
For a moment, the world just… stops.
You can’t breathe. Can’t move.
Nam-gyu’s eyes are locked on yours, wild and searching, as if waiting for you to tell him what’s real and what’s just hope finally breaking you.
You cover your mouth with both hands, tears streaming, a choked laugh rising out of your chest.
“Nam-gyu,” you whisper, voice shaking, “I think..I think it’s..”
He grabs the test, stares at it, then looks at you, then at the test again. He doesn’t say anything, he just sinks to his knees, clutching your waist, forehead pressed to your belly like he’s afraid you’ll disappear if he blinks.
You’re both crying now. Ugly, shaking, gasping tears, the kind that leave you breathless and raw and lighter than you’ve felt in years.
He kisses your stomach, over and over, sobbing, “Noona… noona, we did it, oh my god, you did it, you did it, jagi..” His hands tremble as they cradle your hips. “Is this real? Please tell me it’s real. Please..”
You laugh, half-hysterical, tugging him up to your chest, fingers tangling in his hair. “It’s real. It’s really real, Nam-gyu.”
He crushes you in his arms, rocking you both back and forth on the bathroom floor. “I love you. I love you so much. You’re..oh my god, you’re going to be a mom. I’m going to be..fuck..I’m going to be a dad. We’re going to be a family. Noona, we’re a family.”
He’s babbling, crying, kissing every inch of your face he can reach. You can’t stop laughing through your tears. You run your fingers down his cheeks, press your forehead to his.
You whisper, “We’re a family. We’re really, finally, a family.”
You don’t move for a long time. You just stay there, clinging to each other on the bathroom floor, the test stick between you, as if neither of you can let go without waking up from the best dream you’ve ever had.
You’re shaking, and laughing, and crying, and you don’t care how messy it all is. It’s yours. All of it.
Just you, and Nam-gyu, and hope made real.
The next morning, neither of you really sleeps. Every time you wake, two, three, four a.m., Nam-gyu’s there, wrapped around you, fingers drifting to your stomach like he still can’t quite believe what’s happened. The test sits on the nightstand, lines faded but still visible, a little altar to the impossible.
You call the clinic the minute they open.
They squeeze you in that afternoon.
Nam-gyu won’t let go of your hand for a second on the subway, staring at you like you might disappear if he blinks.
The waiting room is quiet and cold, all antiseptic and sunlight on linoleum. Nam-gyu squeezes your knee, whispering, “Just us, jagi. Whatever they say, just us.”
When your name is called, you both stand. His hand stays tangled in yours all the way back to the little exam room.
The doctor is kind, gentle, efficient, a little older, the kind of person you want to trust with everything. He scans your chart, frowns at the diagnosis, and then congratulates you with real warmth.
But he’s serious when he talks you through the risks.
He explains this pregnancy, for you, is more fragile than most. Your uterus is small, the lining thin. The odds, he says quietly, are not on your side, but hope is hope, and sometimes, rare things do happen.
He orders blood work, an ultrasound, pages of paperwork. He talks about warning signs, about complications. Then, carefully, he looks at you both and says, “I’m going to be honest. This is extremely high risk. If you want any chance at all of carrying to term, I’m putting you on immediate bed rest.”
Nam-gyu stiffens, eyes wide. “Bed rest? For how long?”
The doctor’s face is gentle, but firm. “As long as you’re pregnant, if we want to give this baby the best shot.”
You nod, tears burning behind your eyes. You’re not sure if it’s relief, or terror, or both.
Nam-gyu squeezes your hand. “We’ll do it. Whatever it takes.”
The doctor smiles, approving. “Rest as much as you can. No lifting, no work, no stress. I’ll see you every week.”
He leaves you with a printout, a little bean-shaped blur, barely visible. Nam-gyu holds it like it’s the most precious thing in the world.
When you get home, he piles pillows on the couch, fusses with blankets, Googles every food that’s “good for pregnancy.” He won’t let you get up for anything, not even for water.
He kneels beside you, kissing your hands, your cheeks, your stomach. “I’ll take care of everything. I swear. You just stay right here and let me love you.”
The first few days of bed rest are harder than you expect.
It’s not that you’re not grateful. It’s not that you don’t want to do everything in your power for this tiny, impossible hope blooming inside you.
It’s just… you’re not built for this kind of stillness.
You’re used to moving, puttering around the apartment, going to the market, folding laundry, cooking, wandering into Nam-gyu’s arms whenever the mood strikes.
Now you’re stuck, on the couch, in bed, propped up by a fortress of pillows, always under Nam-gyu’s watchful gaze.
He means well. He brings you cut fruit, makes soup, stocks the fridge with yogurt and barley tea and all the folic acid snacks he can find. He fluffs your pillows, reads pregnancy forums out loud, and rearranges the room a dozen times a day to “make you more comfortable.”
But you’re restless.
Every time you try to shift or sit up, he’s there, gentle but unyielding.
“Let me, noona. Doctor’s orders.”
You grumble, roll your eyes, but there’s no getting past him. He’s determined.
He even offers to help you to the bathroom, hovering in the hallway like you’ll faint on the way.
It’s sweet.
And infuriating.
The worst part, though, is the no-sex rule.
You expected him to take it hard, after all, he’s always been needy, always reaching for you, always ready to turn a lazy afternoon into hours tangled up together.
But he just shrugs when you bring it up, settling beside you with his head in your lap, thumb tracing idle circles over your knee.
“I’m fine, jagi,” he says, voice soft. “You and the baby come first. I can wait.”
You study him, waiting for the telltale pout, the puppy eyes, the hands that can’t help but wander.
But he really means it. He curls up with you at night, reading to you until you fall asleep. He rubs your back when you get cranky. He brings you ginger tea for the nausea, cold packs for your neck, and new books when you finish the last one.
Still, some nights, when he thinks you’re asleep, you feel his breath on your shoulder, the way he clings to you a little tighter, his hand splayed gentle and protective over your belly.
You know this is hard for him.
You know it’s hard for both of you.
The frustration builds, sometimes it comes out in snapping at him when he hovers too much, sometimes in quiet tears you blink away before he sees.
He catches you once, turning your head away on the pillow, and he presses a kiss to your cheek.
“Hey. Don’t. Don’t be mad at your body. Don’t be mad at me for hovering. I just, I don’t know what else to do. I’m scared too.”
You sniff, brush at your eyes. “I just hate this. I want to be able to, do things for myself. For you. I want us to be normal.”
He cups your cheek, thumb wiping a tear away. “Normal’s overrated, noona. You already gave me the one thing I thought I’d never have.”
He smiles, tremulous but fierce. “I can handle not having sex. I can’t handle losing you.”
You let him pull you close, breathing in the comfort of his arms.
You whisper, “I’m sorry I’m so grumpy.”
He just laughs, nuzzling into your neck. “I like you grumpy. Means you’re still you.”
The days crawl by, slow, careful, full of small moments and bigger fears. But every night, he’s there, tucking you in, kissing your forehead, whispering, “We’re okay, jagi. Just us. We’re okay.”
Weeks pass. The world outside your window shifts from late summer to early autumn, rain on glass, distant car horns, the occasional burst of laughter from kids walking home from school. You mark time by your doctor’s appointments, the number of prenatal vitamins left in each bottle, the careful notes Nam-gyu keeps on the calendar.
He’s so gentle, hovering, doting, always there. You start to wonder if you’re leaning too hard on him, but every time you apologize, he just squeezes your hand and says, “Let me.”
But somewhere in the third week, you feel a shift.
He stops singing in the kitchen. Stops reading to you at night. You catch him staring at his phone for long stretches, face unreadable.
He still brings you snacks, but he forgets the ginger tea once, and when you tease him he just shrugs and says he’s tired. You reach for him at night, and he holds you, but he feels… far.
You ask, softly, “Is everything okay?”
He forces a smile. “Just tired, noona. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
You want to believe him, but the doubt gnaws.
And then, one night, after another restless hour alone on the couch, it comes back to you, Jae-in. That cloying, too-bright laugh, the easy way she’d called him “baby” in front of you at the store. You remember how easily she’d stepped back into his life last time. How desperate she’d been to remind you both of the things she’d given him that you couldn’t.
You tell yourself not to spiral, but you can’t help it.
You picture his phone, her number, still in his contacts, just a swipe away.
You imagine her pouncing on any crack in your armor, any moment of doubt or loneliness.
You sit up, heart pounding, and make your way to the bedroom.
You shouldn’t, bed rest, doctor’s orders, but you need to see him, need to look him in the eye and know.
The door is half-shut.
Inside, the room glows blue with laptop light.
You stop short in the doorway. Nam-gyu is sprawled across the bed, headphones on, eyes glued to the screen, hand moving under the blanket in a rhythm you know all too well.
Your stomach lurches.
He doesn’t hear you at first.
But you step forward, voice trembling, “Nam-gyu?”
He jumps, scrambling to slam the laptop shut. “Noona..I..what are you doing? You’re supposed to be on the couch..”
You glance at the laptop, at him, at the way he’s flushing red. “Were you talking to her?”
His brows furrow, genuinely confused. “Who?”
“Jae-in. Are you… are you calling her? Messaging her? Letting her watch you again?”
He looks stricken. “No! Noona, I swear, it’s not like that. It’s just… it’s just porn. I promise.”
You swallow, relief battling with a different kind of ache. “Then why are you..why that girl?”
He follows your gaze to the still-lit screen. The girl on the paused video is everything you’re not, impossibly thin, long blonde hair, perfectly round tits, skin glowing, legs like a supermodel’s. Your stomach twists. You don’t look like that. Not now, maybe not ever.
You fold your arms, voice small. “She looks nothing like me.”
He stares at the blanket, shoulders hunched, defensive and miserable. “Noona, come on. I’m not cheating on you. It’s just porn. It’s just… I’m going crazy here. I can’t touch you. I can’t do anything. I haven’t even jerked off in, like, two weeks and my balls fucking hurt. I’m not proud, okay?”
You blink hard, trying not to cry. “So you’d rather look at… her? Than even imagine me?”
He winces. “It’s not like that. It’s just… it’s different. It’s nothing. You’re everything. Noona, you know that. You have to know that.”
You bite your lip. The truth is, you do know.
But the hurt sits between you anyway.
You stand at the foot of the bed, arms wrapped tight around yourself, fighting the urge to cry. “But you have videos of us. You have photos. You have..” You choke a little, trying not to sound as desperate as you feel. “You literally have hours of me. So why? Why this girl? I’m not… I’m not blonde, I’m not skinny, I don’t have…” You gesture helplessly. “Any of that.”
He drags his hand over his face, frustration bubbling up, voice sharp with nerves. “It’s not about that, okay? Porn isn’t about… who I want. It’s just something to get off to. It’s just..whatever pops up. It’s not like I’m comparing you or anything..”
You shake your head, voice rising. “So why get off to her? Why not at least..fuck, Nam-gyu, why not pick something that looks a little like me? Or use one of our videos? Is it because I’m not..”
He sits up fast, eyes flashing, tone almost angry. “Noona, it’s not about you! It’s not! You think I want her more than I want you? Jesus. You think if I could fuck you, I’d be in here with my headphones on, jerking off to some random cam girl with fake tits and a voice that makes my ears bleed?”
Your voice cracks. “You’re the one who picked her. You picked watching that over..over even texting me or coming to sit with me, Nam-gyu! I’ve been out there all night just hoping you’d come out and be with me and instead you’re in here..”
He throws his arms out, blanket slipping. “What do you want me to do? You want me to just… never get off again? Just because you can’t, I shouldn’t, either?”
You flinch at that. “I’m not saying that, I just..I just want to feel like you want me. Like you still think I’m enough. You never even touch me now, you barely look at me, and now I walk in and you’re..” Your voice breaks.
He rakes a hand through his hair, agitated. “I can’t touch you! If I so much as put my hand on your thigh, you flinch, or you cry, or you say you’re tired. I’m trying to do what the doctor says. I’m trying to be careful. But I’m fucking lonely too, noona. I feel like I’m losing you every day.”
You bite your lip hard, blinking furiously. “You’re not losing me.”
He shakes his head, desperate. “It feels like it. I don’t know how to fix it. I’m scared all the time. Scared you’re going to leave me, scared something’s going to happen to the baby, scared you’ll never look at me the same again because I’m just some pathetic loser who jerks off to girls that look nothing like you because I can’t have you.”
You clench your fists. “Don’t call yourself that. You’re not pathetic. I just..”
He’s shaking, voice gone raw. “Then stop making me feel like shit for something that means nothing. I’m not Jae-in. I’m not out here sexting exes or sending dick pics. I just needed to forget for five minutes how fucking scared I am. And now I can’t even do that without feeling like I’ve ruined everything.”
You collapse onto the bed beside him, burying your face in your hands, both of you breathing hard. For a minute, neither of you speaks, just the sound of your hearts thudding in your chests, the ache of wanting things to be easy and knowing they never will be.
Finally, you whisper, voice tiny, “I just wish I was enough.”
There’s a long, sharp silence. The weight of your words hangs between you, heavy and suffocating. Nam-gyu lets out a noise, half groan, half sigh, and covers his face with both hands, voice muffled.
“For fuck’s sake, Soo-ah, you’re enough. You’ve always been enough. More than enough. I don’t know how many ways to say it before you believe me.”
You look away, shoulders hunched. Your voice shakes. “It doesn’t feel like I am. Not when you’re in here with her on the screen. Not when you barely touch me anymore, or even look at me half the time. Not when I’m stuck on the couch and you’re shutting me out.”
He sits up straighter, hands dropping, eyes red and frustrated. “That’s not fair. You think I want to be like this? You think I want you to feel like I’m shutting you out? I’m trying to do what’s best for you, for the baby, for us. I’m trying not to fuck it up. But I can’t just..just turn everything off inside me.”
You wipe at your eyes, stung by how quickly you both get raw. “I know. I just… I just wish it wasn’t always me feeling like I’m the one left behind. I wish you’d talk to me instead of disappearing in here.”
His jaw works, like he’s trying to keep from yelling or crying. “And I wish you’d believe me when I say you’re enough, instead of acting like I’d trade you for some internet stranger with big tits. I wish I didn’t have to keep proving myself every time you get scared.”
You flinch at that. “You don’t have to keep proving yourself. I just..I just want you to want me. Even now. When I’m like this.”
His voice breaks a little. “I do want you. I want you so bad it hurts. Every time I see you lying there I want to crawl next to you and hold you and kiss you and..” He bites down hard on the next words, looking away.
You stare at your knees. “Then why does it feel like you don’t? Why does it feel like I’m already losing you to something I can’t even fight?”
He lets out a shaky breath, quieter now. “Maybe we’re both just scared. Maybe I’m scared that if I let myself want you, I’ll mess everything up. Maybe you’re scared that if you can’t be what I need, I’ll leave.” He finally looks at you, eyes glassy. “But I’m not leaving. I don’t want anyone but you, Soo-ah. Not for five minutes, not for five seconds.”
You press your lips together, throat thick. “Then please just tell me next time. Don’t make me feel crazy. Don’t make me find you like this and have to wonder if I’m still the person you want.”
He hesitates, voice softer. “Okay. I promise. I’ll tell you. Even if it’s embarrassing. Even if it’s pathetic. You’re the only person I ever wanted to tell anything to anyway.”
For a minute, the fight drains out of you both, replaced by exhaustion, grief, and something stubbornly, quietly loving underneath. He inches closer, pulling you in like he can’t help himself. You let him, curling into his chest, his arms tight and desperate around you.
He murmurs against your hair, “You’re more than enough. Even if you don’t believe it right now, I do. I always will.”
You sniffle, still curled against his chest, but your voice is sharp when you speak. “So what, you’re gonna tell me every time before you jerk off now?”
He lets out a frustrated groan, dropping his forehead to your shoulder. “Is that really what you want me to do? Give you, like, a five-minute warning? ‘Hey noona, heading to the bedroom, gonna look at some boobs and cry about my life, brb’?”
You snort despite yourself, the edge in your tone softening just a little. “No, dumbass, but you get what I mean. It just… it sucks. How would you feel if you walked in and I was getting off to some huge ripped guy, all muscles and abs, with a dick the size of my forearm?”
He stiffens, then sits back, eyebrows up. “You’re implying I don’t look like that?”
You shoot him a look. “Nam-gyu, you eat instant noodles for breakfast. You have the slightest inclination of abs because you’re too lazy to eat three meals a day, not because you work out.”
He pouts. “Still! I have some muscle. And you said my dick is perfect.”
You can’t help but laugh, rolling your eyes. “It is. But you know what I mean. Wouldn’t you feel like shit? Wouldn’t you wonder why I’d rather look at that than think about you?”
He goes quiet, gaze flicking away. “Yeah. I’d probably lose my mind. But that’s not even your type anyway.”
You pause, studying him. “Oh? So is blonde girls with fake tits your type?”
He shakes his head so hard his hair flops into his eyes, offended. “No! Are you kidding? I don’t even… That’s not even the point! It’s just, whatever the algorithm gives me. It’s not like I go searching for it, it just pops up and I’m already desperate, and it’s not about her, or anyone, it’s just about… I don’t know, not thinking for a minute.”
You poke his chest, stubborn. “Well, next time, try not to pick something that makes me feel like a fat troll, okay?”
He grabs your hand, lacing your fingers together, earnest and pleading. “You’re the only person I want to look at. Even when I do that, I’m usually just trying to distract myself from wanting you so bad it hurts. I don’t want anyone else. Ever. Even if I’m an idiot sometimes.”
You sigh, letting your head drop against his shoulder. “I just wish it didn’t make me feel like I’m not enough. Or like I’m not allowed to want you, too.”
He kisses your hair, softer now. “You can want me as much as you want. We’ll get through this, noona. You and me. Even if we’re idiots sometimes.”
The quiet settles for a bit, both of you still sniffling, the worst of the argument ebbing away. Nam-gyu strokes your hand absentmindedly, lost in thought, then suddenly squints at you, suspicious.
“So wait… you’ve actually seen porn with a guy who has, like, a dick the size of your forearm?” His voice is almost small, half incredulous, half a little wounded.
You burst out laughing, the tension finally breaking. “Oh my god, Nam-gyu. Who’s jealous now, huh?”
He flushes, sulking. “I’m not jealous. I’m just..like, genuinely curious. Because that doesn’t even seem enjoyable, honestly. That seems… dangerous.”
You snort, still giggling. “I’m sure it wouldn’t be. It’s not exactly my fantasy. I’m not out here searching for ‘gets impaled on a traffic cone’ porn. It’s just… you know. Sometimes it pops up.”
He mulls it over, glancing down at himself like he’s doing mental math. “But seriously, that’s, like… that’s not even… I mean, who would even want that? That sounds like a medical emergency.”
You wheeze, laughing so hard your eyes water. “Stop! You’re making me regret ever bringing it up.”
He grins, warmth returning to his eyes. “Good. You should. Because now I’m just going to ask every day, ‘was that guy bigger than me? Would you rather have The Hammer or your actual fiancé?’”
You settle back against the headboard, wiping tears from your eyes, and sigh. “Honestly, you want to look at girls with watermelons for tits, I think I’m totally justified to look at guys with horse dicks, Nam-gyu.”
His mouth drops open, scandalized. “Noooo, noona, don’t say that, what the hell!” He grabs a pillow and buries his face in it, but you can still hear his muffled, dramatic whining. “I don’t even like that! I just, sometimes it’s what the algorithm gives me! I swear, I’m not, like, obsessed with giant boobs or whatever. I like yours! Yours are perfect.”
You snort. “Oh, so now mine are perfect. Is that before or after you watch Blondie with her gravity-defying chest bounce around for twenty minutes?”
He groans, peeking out from the pillow, cheeks red. “I swear, if I ever see you watching some dude with a third leg, I’m going to cry for a week.”
You grin, leaning over to press a kiss to his forehead. “Maybe I should start searching for it just to see what happens. See how you like it when the tables are turned.”
He sits up, pulling you into his lap, eyes wide and pleading. “Noooo, please, I’m too sensitive for that. I’ll have a complex for life. I’ll be ruined. I’ll never recover.”
You roll your eyes, amused despite everything. “You’re ridiculous, you know that?”
He wraps his arms around your waist, clinging to you. “I’m serious! I can’t compete with a horse dick, noona. Don’t do this to me.”
You soften, brushing his hair back. “Don’t worry, puppy. You’re the only one I want. Even if you’re a freak who watches weird porn when he’s sad.”
He brightens, pressing his forehead to your chest. “Promise?”
You nod, resting your cheek on top of his head. “Promise.”
—
The next baby appointment comes faster than you expect. For once, you’re not dreading the wait or the long ride to the clinic; you’re just anxious, heart pounding, one hand on your belly the whole way there.
Nam-gyu is even more nervous than you. He hasn’t stopped fidgeting since breakfast, flipping through his binder of printed pregnancy articles, asking you every fifteen minutes if you feel okay, if you want water, if you’re too hot, too cold, too tired. You almost snap at him, but there’s something in his face, hope and fear tangled together, that makes you just squeeze his hand instead.
The nurse smiles at you both when you check in. “Looking good today, Mom. How’s our Dad holding up?”
Nam-gyu tries to smile, but you can see his hands shaking as you settle onto the exam table.
You reach for him and he sits at your side, white-knuckling your fingers as the doctor comes in and goes through the usual checks.
And then, it’s time for the Doppler.
The doctor finds the spot on your belly, presses gently, and suddenly the room fills with that unmistakable, rapid thumping.
A heartbeat.
Not yours.
Tiny, fierce, perfect.
Nam-gyu’s mouth drops open, tears immediately springing to his eyes. He doesn’t even try to hide them, just lets out a shaky, laughing sob and presses his lips to your hand, eyes squeezed shut, overwhelmed with relief and wonder.
You blink fast, holding it together only because he’s falling apart beside you.
The doctor grins, adjusting the Doppler so you can both hear. “That’s one healthy heartbeat. You’ve made it to a big milestone. Baby’s strong, and so are you.”
Nam-gyu wipes his eyes, then, because he’s Nam-gyu, and this is what he does, blurts out, “So, um… does that mean we can, like… you know, have sex again?”
You shoot him a look. The doctor raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t seem surprised. “It’s not completely off the table anymore, since you’re beyond the first trimester and everything looks stable. But you’re still high risk, so you need to be careful. Nothing too vigorous. Check in if you notice anything unusual, bleeding, pain, contractions.”
You open your mouth, but Nam-gyu jumps in, suddenly shy. “So, uh… gentle. Gentle is fine, right?”
The doctor laughs. “Gentle is fine. You know your body best, listen to it. If it hurts, stop. But yes, it’s safe to try, as long as you’re careful.”
You groan, face in your hands. “Please stop talking about this in front of my OB.”
Nam-gyu just squeezes your hand, eyes still shiny, grinning so wide his cheeks hurt. “Sorry, jagi. Just… had to be sure.”
After the appointment, you sit in the car together, listening to the recording of the baby’s heartbeat on your phone.
He pulls you into his arms, still a little teary, whispering, “That’s our baby. That’s our fucking baby.”
You rest your head on his shoulder, smiling so wide your face aches.
“Yeah. That’s our baby.”
On the way home from the clinic, the world feels different, brighter, full of relief and possibility. The faint whoosh of your baby’s heartbeat still echoes in your ears every time you glance at Nam-gyu. He keeps grinning over at you at stoplights, like he’s afraid if he looks away he’ll forget it’s all real.
Halfway through the drive, your phone vibrates in your lap.
You answer on speaker. “Hello?”
“Unnie!” It’s Ha-yeon, all bright and chirpy. “You and Nam-gyu wanna come over for dinner tonight? Su-bong’s making too much food again and he’s threatening to freeze the banchan in ice cube trays if I don’t invite you.”
You laugh, exchanging a look with Nam-gyu. “That sounds perfect. We’d love to.”
Nam-gyu glances at the dashboard clock, then leans over the console, voice just a little too eager. “Tell her we’ll be there, but… uh… in, like, two hours? Maybe a little later.”
Ha-yeon snorts on the other end. “What, you got a hot date first? You two are disgusting. Just come hungry, okay?”
“Always,” you promise, and end the call.
As soon as the line clicks off, you turn to Nam-gyu, brow raised. “Two hours? What exactly do we need to do before dinner?”
He tries to play innocent, but his ears go pink. “Noona, don’t even act like you don’t already know.”
You try to keep a straight face. “Oh, you mean laundry?”
He snorts. “Yeah, the laundry that involves you naked and me being very, very gentle.”
You smack his arm, but you’re grinning so hard your cheeks hurt. “You’re unbelievable.”
He leans over, eyes bright and warm and just a little wild. “After this many months? I’d pull this car over right now if we weren’t ten minutes from home.”
By the time you get home, the anticipation is almost sweetly unbearable. The apartment feels hushed, sun spilling across the floor, everything quieter and softer than usual. You set your keys down, turning to him in the entryway, and he’s already watching you like he’s never seen you before.
You kick off your shoes. He slips his hand into yours, thumb rubbing circles into your palm. Neither of you says anything, just drift together into the bedroom, slow and nervous, like the first time all over again.
He sits beside you on the edge of the bed, brushing your hair behind your ear, looking at you with all the wonder in the world. “Are you sure?”
You nod, and he kisses you so gently it’s almost nothing, barely there, a brush of lips that’s more promise than hunger. His hands never leave your face, holding you like you might break, but his eyes are shining and wide, full of relief and awe.
He helps you out of your clothes, patient and reverent, lips tracing over every inch of bare skin revealed. He whispers, “Tell me if anything hurts. Tell me if you want to stop.” You nod, reaching for him, fingers threading into his hair, pulling him closer.
Nam-gyu is the softest you’ve ever seen him, no teasing, no bravado. He takes his time, worshipping every part of you with hands and mouth, like he’s trying to memorize the shape of your body all over again. His kisses are slow, unhurried, lips moving down your neck, over your collarbone, then back to your mouth. He keeps his forehead pressed to yours, eyes searching, breath shaking.
He settles between your thighs, moving so carefully, hands braced on either side of your head, and he’s shaking a little. “You okay?” he whispers, and you nod, pulling him in.
The first push is slow, careful, and he nearly stops, but you wrap your arms around his back, whispering, “I want you. I promise.”
He breathes your name into your hair, a broken, grateful sound. He moves inside you with the gentlest rhythm, like he’s terrified to go too deep or too fast, barely rocking, just enough for you to feel the slow, spreading heat, the long-missed ache of being filled and loved and needed.
You clutch him close, burying your face in his neck. He kisses your cheek, your jaw, your mouth, repeating over and over, “I love you. I love you so much. You’re everything to me. I missed you. I missed you.”
You lose yourself in the feeling, his body, his voice, the warm press of his hand splayed over your belly like a vow. Everything is slow and sweet, no urgency, just the building pleasure of being wanted, treasured, safe.
When you come, it’s soft and aching, more relief than ecstasy, tears springing to your eyes. He follows right after, pressing his mouth to your temple, voice caught on a ragged whisper, your name, a thousand promises, a quiet thank you.
He holds you after, tucking the blankets around you both, stroking your hair as your heart slows.
You look at each other, faces flushed, eyes glassy, and all you can do is smile. It’s the safest, happiest you’ve felt in months.
Nam-gyu presses a kiss to your forehead, murmurs, “Best doctor’s orders I’ve ever gotten,” and you laugh, curling closer, content and whole and so in love you feel brand new.
By the time you’re dressed again, there’s barely enough time to fix your hair and touch up your face before heading out. Nam-gyu insists on helping you into your shoes, stealing one last kiss as you stand in the doorway, both of you glowing with a softness you can’t quite hide.
The short drive to Su-bong and Ha-yeon’s is full of quiet laughter and gentle teasing. He squeezes your hand at every stoplight. You don’t talk about what just happened, you don’t need to. It’s written all over both your faces.
When you arrive, Su-bong opens the door, already in an apron, hair tied back, face flushed with kitchen heat. “You’re late,” he says, but he’s grinning, and the apartment smells like roasted garlic and something spicy bubbling on the stove.
Ha-yeon peeks out from the kitchen, waving a wooden spoon. “Unnie! Oppa! Come in, come in, I made your favorite japchae but Su-bong keeps eating all the mushrooms.”
Nam-gyu wraps his arm around your waist as you kick off your shoes, helping you inside. “She threatened us if we didn’t show up hungry,” he calls, giving Su-bong a look.
Su-bong snorts, waving him off. “Sit. I’ll bring out the banchan.”
You settle around the small table, four bowls, too many side dishes, and a big pot of spicy chicken stew in the center. It’s loud and happy, laughter bouncing off the walls, Ha-yeon fussing over everyone’s rice and Su-bong pouring drinks like he’s hosting a royal banquet.
Nam-gyu is extra gentle with you, fetching napkins, refilling your water, serving you the best bites of chicken. You catch Ha-yeon watching you both, a sly smile on her face.
“Unnie, you look… I don’t know. Happier than usual,” she says as she spoons more japchae onto your plate.
You squeeze her hand under the table. “I am. Today’s a good day.”
Su-bong raises his glass. “To good days, then.”
You all toast, and for a moment, it feels like everything hard in the world is miles away.
Nam-gyu leans over to whisper in your ear, soft enough that only you hear, “I love our family.”
You smile so wide your face aches. “Me too.”
For the rest of the night, you eat until you’re stuffed, trade stories, and let yourself believe, for just a little while, that you’re already living your happiest ever after.
After dinner, when the table is a clutter of empty dishes and laughter, Ha-yeon starts making tea. Su-bong sinks back into his chair, stretching his arms with a dramatic sigh. “Next time, we order takeout. I’m too old for all this chopping.”
You snort. “You’re not even forty, ajusshi.”
Nam-gyu’s hand finds yours under the table, fingers lacing together, his thumb stroking lazy circles over your palm. He’s been quieter than usual all night, content, but bursting with some secret, the same look you know is mirrored on your own face.
Ha-yeon catches it. “What’s with you two?” she says, mug in hand. “You look like you just robbed a bank together.”
You and Nam-gyu glance at each other, sharing that wordless, conspiratorial grin.
“Actually,” you say, “we have news.”
Su-bong perks up, interested. Ha-yeon sets the mug down and leans in.
You take a breath, glancing at Nam-gyu, and your voice is a little shaky with excitement. “We heard the heartbeat today. At the doctor’s. Strong and steady. We even have a recording.”
Ha-yeon’s hands fly to her mouth, eyes immediately filling with tears. “You did? Really? Let me hear! Let me hear!”
Nam-gyu’s phone is out before you even finish the sentence. He hits play, and the room fills with that tiny, fierce, impossibly fast thumping.
Su-bong’s face breaks into the widest grin you’ve ever seen, clapping Nam-gyu on the back, then squeezing your shoulder. “That’s amazing. That’s so fucking cool, you guys.”
Ha-yeon’s sniffling, tears streaming down her cheeks as she presses her hand over yours. “Unnie, I’m so happy for you. Oh my god. It’s really happening.”
Nam-gyu is beaming, tears in his eyes too. He presses his forehead to your shoulder, his voice shaking, “I thought I was gonna pass out, honestly. But it’s real. We heard it. Our baby.”
When the excitement settles and the recording has been played three more times, you squeeze Ha-yeon’s hand, your heart full. “What about you? How’s your little one doing? You’re four months ahead of us, you must be feeling the kicks now, right?”
Ha-yeon’s whole face lights up, tears replaced with a proud, shy smile. She pats her belly with both hands, glancing at Su-bong, who immediately softens, reaching to rest his palm on her stomach.
“It’s wild,” she says, voice quiet with awe. “They started really moving last week. Like, actual kicks, not just the little fluttery stuff. Sometimes it’s so strong it wakes me up.” She laughs, glancing at Su-bong. “He keeps talking to my belly at night, like they can hear him through all the blankets.”
Su-bong grins, a little embarrassed but not denying it. “Gotta start the musical education early. Yesterday I played them their first BigBang album. They kicked hardest for Zutter.”
Nam-gyu snorts, “So you’re raising another little club rat.”
Ha-yeon rolls her eyes, but she’s glowing. “Honestly, I just want them to be healthy. But… yeah. The doctor says everything looks good. They’re a little big for their age, actually.”
You reach over, resting your hand lightly on her belly, eyes shining. “I can’t believe it. Two babies in one family, just months apart.”
Nam-gyu perks up, finally relaxing. “They’re gonna grow up like siblings, aren’t they? Imagine the chaos.”
Su-bong gives him a look. “You just wait until they team up to drive you crazy. Payback for all the shit you pulled on me.”
You all laugh, the mood impossibly bright, that shared hope running underneath everything, binding you tighter than ever.
Ha-yeon leans in, quieter now. “If you ever need anything, unnie, call me. Any time. Even if it’s just to ask what’s normal, or what’s weird, or if you’re scared. I’m scared all the time, too. But… we’ll figure it out together, right?”
You squeeze her hand, your throat tight. “Yeah. Together.”
No grace roaring in your veins, no Hell-fire licking at your heels. Just gravity and wind and a lot of very human panic.
You hit something soft.
You wheeze out all your air into what turns out to be… grass.
Real grass.
It’s rougher than Heaven’s manicured lawns, softer than Hell’s brittle scrub. It smells like sun and dirt and something faintly sharp, dry plants, maybe, heat-baked and humming with bugs.
For a second you just lie there, face smashed into the ground, lungs refusing to work.
Then your body remembers how breathing is supposed to go.
You suck in a huge gulp of air, cough on it, roll onto your back.
Blue.
Actual sky-blue, not Heaven-blue. There’s no inner glow, no choir light. Just a big depthless dome overhead, hazy at the edges where the late afternoon sun paints everything gold.
You raise your hand.
No glow.
No halo shadow in your peripheral vision.
Your heart spikes.
“Okay,” you croak. “Okay, that’s… new.”
You push yourself upright, everything creaking in ways you’re not used to. Your muscles feel heavier. Your balance is weird. There’s an immediate lack of weight behind your shoulders that makes your stomach drop.
You twist.
Your back is just… back.
No wings. No feathers. No folded white arc to catch the light.
You reach behind you, patting like maybe they’re invisible.
Nothing.
“Oh,” you whisper. “Oh, that’s..”
“Don’t faint,” a familiar voice mutters. “I’m not carrying you.”
You jolt so hard you almost topple over.
Nam-gyu is a few feet away, sprawled on his back in the grass, one arm flung over his face. His horns are gone. His eyes, when he shifts his arm enough to peek at you, are still ember-warm, but they sit in a much more human face. His shirt’s the same wrecked thing from the summit, torn, bloodstained, but the worst of the mess has dried, now a stiff, dark crust.
He doesn’t have wings either.
The absence is wrong. You’re used to feeling the space they take up, the weight of them in the air. Now there’s just… shoulders. A back. A boy who looks far too mortal for what you know he is.
“You’re… different,” you blurt.
He snorts. “You’re one to talk, Su-mi.”
You scowl, but the way he says it, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, makes something in your chest unclench.
You push to your feet, wobbling once before you stabilize. The world tilts a little, then settles.
You’re standing in the middle of a field.
Golden grass up to your knees, dotted with wildflowers. A few scrubby trees nearby, eucalyptus and something else, casting thin strips of shade. In the distance, low rolling hills, soft and brown in the fading light. The air’s warm, dry, with a faint tang of something you don’t recognize.
Earth.
America, supposedly. California.
You spin slowly, taking it in.
“I expected more… smog,” you admit.
“Give it time,” Nam-gyu says, groaning as he sits up. “We probably got dropped in the scenic part.” He squints around. “Figures. The universe thinks we’re a romantic comedy.”
You squint too.
Off to your right, there’s a dusty road, two tire tracks cutting through the grass. A fence runs alongside it, wooden posts and sagging wire. A small house sits tucked among a cluster of trees, just at the edge of your vision. It’s not big. One story, maybe two. White-ish, with a peaked roof and what looks like a little porch. Smoke curls lazily from a chimney like someone, somewhere, still storyboarded this whole thing.
You stare.
“Please tell me that’s not ours,” you say.
Nam-gyu finally drags himself to his feet, brushing grass off his pants. He sways once, then catches himself.
“Why not,” he asks. “You don’t like cottages?”
“I don’t like being… placed,” you say. “Like we’re pieces on a board.”
“We are pieces on a board,” he points out.
You glare at him. “You’re not helping.”
He pats himself down like he’s checking for damage. Hands to chest, ribs, pockets. He reaches into the first, comes up empty. Second.
His fingers close on something.
He freezes.
“What,” you ask immediately. “What is it. Don’t tell me it’s a Hell-flower. We’re on thin ice with space-magic plants.”
He doesn’t answer.
He pulls his hand out slowly. Keys.
A small ring of them, three or four, jangling softly. Attached is a little plastic tag, off-white and worn around the edges. There’s writing on it, smudged but legible.
He stares at them.
You stare at him.
“Nam-gyu,” you say, very calmly. “Why do you have mortal keys?”
“I… don’t know,” he says, equally calm.
You snag them out of his hand before he can react.
“Hey!”
“Shut up.” You squint at the tag, trying to make sense of the fading ink.
There’s a number. A street name you don’t recognize. The kind of casual, mundane labeling that screams normal human life.
You read it out loud anyway.
Nam-gyu glances up, following your line of sight.
The cottage waits, quiet, under the trees.
You both look from the keys, to the tag, to the house, and back again.
“No,” you say.
“Absolutely not,” he agrees.
You stand there in stubborn silence for a full five seconds.
Then you both start walking.
You can’t help it. It’s like the space is gently nudging you, herding you along the dusty road. The closer you get, the more details snap into focus. The paint on the cottage is peeling a little in places. There are flower boxes under the front windows, half full of thriving green things and half full of dead stems. The path up to the porch is lined with little solar lights, the tops dusty.
There’s a mailbox at the edge of the property.
You pause to read the numbers on the side.
They match the tag.
“Of course they do,” you mutter.
Nam-gyu leans over your shoulder, close enough that you can feel the heat of him.
“You agreed to exile,” he says. “Exile comes with real estate now. Very modern of them.”
You march up the path to the front door, heart pounding.
It’s a simple wooden thing, painted the same white as the house. There’s a little iron knocker shaped like a bird. The welcome mat says hey in all lowercase letters.
You stare at that for a second, irrationally offended.
“Why does this feel like a sitcom,” you mumble.
“Because it is,” Nam-gyu says. “Somewhere in the distance, a laugh track is warming up.”
You shove the keys at him. “You do it.”
“You stole them,” he points out. “You open the door.”
“You’re the demon,” you say. “Breaking and entering is literally your brand.”
He narrows his eyes. “We’re banished. We’re on a different brand now.”
“Nam-gyu,” you warn.
He rolls his eyes, snatches the keys back, and fits one into the lock.
It slides in like it’s done this a thousand times.
Your chest tightens.
He turns it.
The lock clicks.
For a second, neither of you moves.
Then he glances at you, one brow raised.
“Last chance to run back to Heaven,” he says lightly. “Oh, wait. We can’t.”
You make a face at him even though your stomach twists at the reminder.
“Just open it,” you say.
He does.
The cottage smells like dust and old wood and something faintly sweet, like someone baked here once and forgot to close the jar of sugar. Light spills in from the front windows, catching floating motes in the air.
You step over the threshold, half expecting to… feel something.
A seal. A binding. A big cosmic thunk that says congratulations, you’ve arrived at your prison.
Nothing.
Just a room.
A small living space opens up in front of you: couch, coffee table, a tiny TV on a low stand. Shelves along one wall, half filled with books, half empty. An archway leads to what’s probably the kitchen. You catch a flash of countertops, a small round table, two chairs.
There are pictures on the wall.
You go cold.
“Wait,” you say. “What if it’s someone else’s house.”
“Then they’re very generous,” Nam-gyu says, stepping in behind you and kicking the door shut with his heel. “Or about to be very surprised.”
You edge closer to the nearest frame.
It’s empty.
Just a pretty piece of glass and a backing, no photo inside.
They all are.
Dozens of frames on the wall, some clustered, some spaced out, all waiting.
Your throat tightens.
Nam-gyu wanders into the kitchen like he owns the place.
“Fridge is empty,” he calls. “Cabinets too. So at least they didn’t stock the prison pantry.”
“Don’t call it a prison,” you say weakly.
“Holiday cottage?” he offers.
You shake your head, dazed.
“This is weird,” you say. “Even by our standards.”
“Oh, it gets weirder,” he says.
You turn.
He’s holding something up between two fingers.
A slip of paper, folded once. It’s been wedged under a magnet on the fridge.
Your pulse jumps.
“Is that… for us?” you ask.
He shrugs and tosses it to you. “You’re the one with the good handwriting training. Read.”
You unfold it carefully.
The paper’s thick, slightly textured. There are only a few lines, written in a hand that’s somehow both precise and annoyingly vague.
Su-mi & Nam-gyu, Welcome home.
No signature.
No instructions.
Your throat closes.
“Let me guess,” Nam-gyu says, leaning against the doorway. “No return address.”
You hold the note out to him. He takes it, skims it, snorts.
“Of course,” he mutters. “Classic management. Vague emails, no follow-up.”
Something inside you snaps.
“Are you seriously making jokes right now?” you explode. “We just got kicked out of Heaven and Hell, dropped into some random mortal field in the middle of California, handed a house like it’s a consolation prize, and you’re… you’re doing bits?”
He blinks, taken aback. “Okay, first of all, my bits are great..”
“Nam-gyu.”
Your voice cracks on his name.
He shuts up.
You realize you’re shaking.
You clutch the edge of the kitchen table just so you don’t crumple. Everything hits you at once: the lack of wings, the emptiness where Heaven’s constant hum used to be, the weird quiet where Hell’s heat isn’t pressing at the edges of your awareness.
The cottage feels too small.
Your chest feels too tight.
“What if this is it,” you blurt. “What if this is just… what we are now. Stuck in some human house on some human hill in some human country, forever, with no choir, no light, no..”
You cut yourself off before you say no God.
“I can’t even feel them,” you say instead, softer. “It’s just… gone.”
Nam-gyu watches you, eyes steady.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “That’s kind of the point.”
“I know it’s the point,” you snap. “That doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck.”
He huffs out a breath, pushes off the doorway, and crosses the room.
You straighten automatically, bracing for something, comfort, teasing, another joke you’re not ready for.
He stops right in front of you.
“You’re shaking,” he says.
“No I’m not.”
He gives you a look.
“Shut up,” you mutter.
He reaches out, slow enough that you can swat him away if you want.
You don’t.
His fingers brush your forearm, then wrap around your wrist, grounding you in exactly the same way they did at the border, on the ledge, in the halfway room.
Your nerves calm, just a little.
“You were going to freak out either way,” he says. “Jokes or no jokes. I’m choosing jokes.”
“That’s your coping mechanism,” you say. “Not mine.”
“I know,” he says. “Yours is ‘catastrophic spiraling with a side of martyrdom.’ We’ve got both ends of the spectrum covered.”
Despite yourself, you huff out a breath that’s dangerously close to a laugh.
His mouth twitches.
“We’re not stuck stuck,” he says. “We can leave the house. We can walk around. Touch grass. Commit minor crimes. Whatever humans do.”
“You’re banned from crimes,” you remind him weakly. “They said so.”
He shrugs. “They banned me from summoning and soul-brokering. Pretty sure jaywalking’s still on the table.”
You stare at him.
He squeezes your wrist, just once.
“Look,” he says. “You choose exile because you didn’t want to be alone in a place that didn’t fit anymore. Congratulations. You’re not alone.”
He nods at the house around you.
“And this doesn’t have to be a cage,” he says. “It’s a… starting point. Think of it as one of those stupid mortal shows where they drop people in a house and watch them fall apart. Except we’re better looking.”
You choke. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Why not,” he asks, smirking.
You yank your wrist free, heat stirring under your skin for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with panic.
“Fine,” you say. “We’re here. We have… a house. Keys. No food. No money. No plan. What now?”
He looks around, squinting.
“First,” he says, “we find the bathroom. If exile comes with indoor plumbing, I’m going to call that a win.”
“Nam-gyu.”
“And then,” he continues, ignoring you, “we check the bedrooms. There better be two.”
Your heart skips. “Why?”
He gives you a flat look. “Because you snore, Su-mi.”
“I do not.”
He grins, all teeth again. “I’ve heard weirder things in your sleep. I’m not taking chances.”
You groan, but some of the crushing weight in your chest lifts.
He lets go of you fully, turning toward the hallway that branches off from the main room.
You stand there for a second, fingers still tingling where he touched you, watching him move, awkward in this new, heavier body and still somehow balanced, as if gravity’s just a suggestion he’s learning to respect.
You glance at the note on the table.
Welcome home.
You don’t know whose idea of “home” this is.
But when Nam-gyu yelps from down the hall because he’s opened a door onto a tiny laundry room instead of a bedroom, you find yourself laughing.
There’s a tiny hallway off the living room with three doors. First one: laundry. Nam-gyu yells like he’s been personally betrayed. Second: the bathroom, small, tiled, gloriously normal.
You both stand in the doorway for a second, staring at the sink like it’s a miracle.
“Is that…” you say slowly, “mortal plumbing?”
He reaches out and twists the faucet handle.
Water gushes out.
You both jump.
Then you lunge forward and shove your hands under it. It’s cold and sharp and real, biting at your too-human skin. You laugh out loud, almost giddy, feeling it run over your fingers, drip down your wrists.
“It’s just water,” Nam-gyu says, but there’s something like awe under it.
He crowds in beside you, bumping your shoulder, cupping some of it to his mouth. He swallows, blinks, then grins.
“Oh, that’s good,” he says. “Not fire-flavored. Ten out of ten.”
You elbow him, but you’re grinning too. When he flips the hot tap, the pipes shudder and complain, but a few seconds later, steam curls up.
“Okay,” you admit. “Indoor plumbing is… a solid exile perk.”
“We’re gonna waste so much water,” he says reverently.
“You’re not supposed to..”
“Su-mi,” he says, deadpan. “They kicked us out of eternity. I’m taking long showers.”
You open your mouth, close it again, and he gives you a satisfied little smirk like he’s won something.
You leave the bathroom before you can die of secondhand ego and shove open the third door.
Bedroom.
It’s small but bright, a window looking out over the field, light pooling on a neatly made bed. The bed itself is big, mortal-king-sized, maybe, but there’s only one. A dresser against the wall. A nightstand on each side. One door that’s probably a closet.
You stand in the doorway.
Nam-gyu comes up behind you, peeks over your shoulder, and groans.
“Oh, great,” he says. “Of course.”
“There’s only one,” you mutter.
“Of course there’s only one,” he says. “Why give the banished idiots two beds when you can force them into close proximity and see what happens?”
“We’re not..” you start, then stop, because you don’t actually know what you’re denying.
He steps around you, goes to the closet, and yanks it open.
Just empty hangers.
He squints into the space like he can will clothes into being. When nothing happens, he sighs and turns back to the bed.
“All right,” he says. “I’ll take the floor.”
You blink. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re not sleeping on the floor.”
“I’ve slept on worse,” he says. “Rocks. Bones. Bureaucratic chairs.”
“That’s not the point.”
He shrugs. “I’m heavier. I’ll break the mattress.”
“That’s… not how mattresses work.”
“You don’t know that,” he says. “You’ve never been corporeal this long.”
“You haven’t either,” you fire back.
He lifts a brow. “So you’re volunteering to share, then.”
Heat crawls up your neck. “I didn’t say that.”
“Uh-huh.” He leans his shoulder against the wall, folding his arms. “Look, princess. We have one bed, two of us, zero spare blankets unless they magically appear later. We can be adults about this or we can take turns and get even more sleep deprived and homicidal than we already are.”
“Homicidal isn’t a personality trait,” you mutter.
“Tell that to my performance reviews.”
You stare at the bed.
It’s… just a bed.
A mortal bed, with a plain comforter and two pillows and absolutely no idea what it’s being dragged into.
You breathe out, slow. “We share,” you say finally. “Top rule: no weird stuff.”
He brightens instantly. “Define weird.”
“Nam-gyu.”
“Okay, okay.” He lifts his hands in surrender. “No weird stuff unless specifically requested.”
You throw a pillow at his face.
It hits dead-on.
He catches it, laughing, and for a moment the tight ache in your chest eases.
You back out of the bedroom before he can see how rattled you actually are and head for the kitchen again. Practical problems. You need practical problems.
“Food,” you say. “We need food. Humans eat like… three times a day, right?”
“More, if they’re stressed,” he calls back. “I’ve seen them. They panic-snack.”
You open the fridge out of habit, even though you know it was empty an hour ago.
You freeze.
It’s not empty now.
Milk. Eggs. Butter. A carton of orange juice. Some weird fizzy drinks in colorful cans. Fresh vegetables in the crisper drawer. Fruit piled on one shelf in a little bowl that definitely wasn’t there before.
You shut the door.
Open it again.
Still full.
“Uh,” you say.
“What,” Nam-gyu asks, drifting in.
You step aside.
He peers in, blinks twice, then whistles low. “Well, that’s efficient.”
“The fridge was empty,” you say weakly. “It was empty.”
“Yeah, and now it’s not,” he says. “We’re apparently on the ‘starter pack’ program.”
You fling open the cabinets.
Same story.
Cans. Pasta. Rice. Oil. Salt and spices. Boxes of cereal with bright graphics. Peanut butter. A bag of coffee. A ridiculous amount of instant ramen, which makes Nam-gyu actually laugh.
“The universe knows me,” he says.
“The universe is weird,” you say.
You check under the sink half expecting to find a stack of gold bars. Just cleaning supplies. For once, that’s almost comforting.
“I guess that answers the money question for now,” you say. “We’re not gonna starve immediately.”
“That’s a problem for Future Us,” he agrees. “Right now, Present Us has food, water, a bed, and..” he sniffs the air theatrically “..no immediate smell of cosmic doom. I call that a win.”
You should argue.
You don’t.
Your whole body suddenly feels fifteen times heavier, like your bones just realized what they’ve lost and what they’re holding up.
You drift back to the bedroom and just… flop.
The mattress gives under you, soft and shockingly comforting. The ceiling is low, white, boring in a way that makes your throat sting.
You don’t realize you’ve closed your eyes until the bed dips on the other side and you feel the shift of his weight.
He stretches out beside you, hands tucked under his head, socks still on, like there’s nothing strange about this at all.
You stare at the ceiling together.
“You realize,” he says eventually, “we haven’t actually… rested. Ever. Not like this.”
“I’ve rested,” you object. “I’ve slept in Heaven.”
“That’s not rest,” he says. “That’s spiritual standby mode. This is..” he pats the mattress “..economy class.”
You snort.
Silence stretches.
It’s… not uncomfortable.
Your body’s buzzing with the day, with the fall, with the note, with the way you keep reaching for wings that aren’t there and hitting sheets instead. But the house is quiet. The air is warm. The bed is, begrudgingly, really nice.
You sigh and let yourself sink deeper into it, limbs sprawling just a bit.
“Well,” Nam-gyu says after a minute, tone annoyingly casual. “Only thing left to do now is fuck.”
Your brain bluescreens.
You jerk your head toward him so fast your neck twinges.
“What??”
He turns his head to look at you, all innocence and smugness wrapped together.
“What?” he echoes. “We’ve got a house, food, running water, one bed. We’re banished. Eternity’s a long time, Su-mi. Might as well cross that item off the list.”
Your mouth opens and closes soundlessly.
“I’m.. we’re.. you can’t just..”
“It’d be hot,” he says, like he’s commenting on the weather. “I mean, you were already hot, but add the whole ‘ex-border angel fallen to Earth’ thing and it’s kind of..”
“I’m not an angel anymore, genius,” you snap, heat slamming into your face.
He grins.
It’s softer than his usual sharp smirk, but just as devastating.
“You’re my angel,” he says.
You gape at him. “That’s.. that’s not.. you can’t just say that.”
“Why not?” he asks. “It’s true.”
Your heart is doing stupid things in your chest, thudding against your ribs like it’s trying to climb out and slap him.
“Say that again,” you manage, voice thin.
“You’re my angel,” he repeats, more smug now because he knows exactly what he’s doing. “No wings, no halo, still mine.”
You grab the pillow nearest you and whack him in the face with it.
He laughs, catching it on the second hit, holding it between you like a shield.
“Violence,” he says. “Very unangelic of you, Su-mi.”
“You started it,” you hiss. “You can’t just.. you don’t just.. people don’t just say stuff like that.”
“Earth people do,” he says. “All the time. In movies. On those terrible dramas you’re going to binge when you figure out TV.”
“We don’t have a TV,” you say, even though you’re pretty sure there was one in the living room.
“We do,” he says. “I saw it. It’s small and sad, but we’ll make it work. Like us.”
You stare at him.
His hair’s a mess from the fall, sticking up in odd directions. There’s a fading smear of dried blood along his jaw. He looks tired in a way you’ve never seen before, the kind of tired that doesn’t come from too many contracts or border watches, but from being… human-shaped for the first time.
He also looks like he’s absolutely enjoying how off-balance you are.
“You’re unbelievable,” you mutter.
“And yet,” he says, “you chose me anyway.”
“I chose not to be alone,” you correct. “You were just… there.”
“Ouch,” he says lightly. “Harsh. Kiss it better.”
You throw the pillow at his chest this time.
He catches it, laughing, but there’s a flicker in his eyes that’s not all teasing.
You feel it too..that fine, humming line between joke and something else. Between the way you’ve always talked at the border and the fact that now there’s no barrier, no wings, no keyboards of light to hide behind. Just skin and a bed and a very long future.
Your body remembers every time his hand was on your wing, every time his magic slid along your feathers, every shared jolt of pain. It remembers the way you held onto him in the veil. The way your fingers fit around his wrist. The way his voice sounds when he’s not performing for anyone but you.
You swallow.
“The only thing left to do now,” you say carefully, “is figure out how to be… whatever we are. Here. Without breaking anything else.”
He studies you for a long beat.
Then he sighs, dramatic.
“Fine,” he says. “We’ll do it your way. Feelings first. Ethics. House rules. ‘No weird stuff.’”
“And?” you prompt.
“And,” he adds, eyes glinting, “maybe we revisit my plan later. Once you stop looking at me like I set your hymn book on fire.”
You don’t admit that part of you kinda liked that idea.
Instead, you roll onto your back again, staring at the ceiling, heart still racing.
“We’re not doing anything tonight,” you say firmly.
“Tonight we sleep,” he agrees. “I’m not trying to pull a muscle my first day as a human.”
You choke on a laugh.
He laughs too, softer this time.
The bed creaks when he shifts, settling in. After a moment, you feel the slightest brush of his fingers against the back of your hand, tentative.
You could move away.
You don’t.
You let your pinkie hook with his, just barely.
Outside, the California evening deepens, painting the field in blues and golds. Somewhere, a coyote howls. Or a dog. You’re not sure yet.
Inside the little cottage, two exiles lie side by side on a too-big bed, not touching except for the smallest link between their hands, both pretending the other’s words aren’t still echoing in their heads.
You’re somewhere in between, finally in a place that matches the line you’ve been walking for a long time.
You wake up with someone’s breath on your neck.
Warm. Slow. Way too close.
For a second your sleepy brain files it under weird dream, shifts a little, sighs.
Then an arm tightens around your waist.
You freeze.
Your eyes snap open.
The little cottage bedroom is full of soft morning light, stripes of it cutting across the ceiling. The sheets are tangled around your legs. Your back is pressed against a very solid chest. There’s a heavy weight hooked over your hip, pinning you in place.
You look down.
A hand.
Nam-gyu’s hand.
His fingers are splayed over your stomach, thumb tucked under the hem of your shirt, palm hot against your skin like he’s always done this.
You suck in a breath.
He makes a low sleepy sound behind you and nuzzles into your hair.
That’s what snaps you.
You jolt so hard you almost roll off the mattress.
“What the hell!”
He flails awake like someone yanked him out of a dream. The arm around your waist tightens before he realizes what he’s doing, then he lets go so fast he smacks his hand on the headboard.
“Ow, what, who died, where’s the fire,” he splutters, hair sticking up everywhere.
You scramble away, nearly tripping over the comforter, sitting cross-legged at the far edge of the bed. Your heart’s pounding like you just got caught making out behind a choir stall.
“You were all over me,” you accuse, jabbing a finger at him. “Why were you all over me.”
He squints at you, still half asleep, then at the space between you, then at the warm dent on the mattress where you were.
His mouth twitches.
“Relax,” he says. “It’s just that demon magnetism.”
You grab the nearest pillow and launch it at his face.
It hits him square in the nose.
He grunts, catches it on the rebound, and starts laughing.
“You crawled over here in the night,” he says, muffled through the pillow. “I’m innocent.”
“I did not.”
“You did,” he insists. “You were like ‘oh poor cold ex-demon, let me be your personal space heater, Nam-gyu’.”
“Shut up,” you say, cheeks hot. “I was sleeping.”
“Exactly,” he says smugly. “Your true nature comes out.”
You want to argue, but your body still remembers the way his arm felt around your waist, the steady thump of his heart against your back, the way your muscles had finally unclenched enough to let you sleep.
You cross your arms instead. “Ground rule,” you say. “We stay on our own sides of the bed.”
He leans back against the headboard, pillow in his lap, hair wild, eyes amused.
“Sure,” he says easily. “Let me know when your unconscious obeys rules.”
You make a frustrated noise into your hands.
He lets you flail for another few seconds, then his expression softens.
“You okay?” he asks. Not joking. Just… asking.
You meet his eyes.
You’re in a mortal bed, in a mortal body, in a mortal house, with no wings and no halo and no choir humming backup in your veins.
But you woke up.
With him.
“I’m… not not okay,” you say honestly. “Which is better than I thought I’d be.”
He nods once, like that answer makes sense.
“Come on,” he says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “Let’s go do the exile thing.”
“The what?”
“The exile thing,” he repeats. “Touch grass. Eat mortal food. Commit to our bit.”
“Can you stop calling my entire afterlife a bit,” you ask.
You throw the pillow at his back as he stands up. It bounces off his shoulder. He doesn’t even flinch.
You get dressed in silence, which is mostly you glaring into the closet that’s now somehow full of clothes in your size and style and him swearing quietly at jeans that fit suspiciously perfectly.
“Seriously,” he mutters, tugging at the waistband. “How do they know my ass measurements?”
“God’s creepy,” you say, pulling on a soft oversized shirt that smells faintly like nothing at all. “Or Hell’s creepy. Or both.”
You find a pair of sneakers by the door. They fit.
There’s a small dish on the entryway table with keys in it. Cottage keys. A mailbox key. And, sitting neatly beside them, two wallets.
You and Nam-gyu stare.
“They’re really committed to this immersive experience,” he says.
You pick yours up.
Inside: an ID with your face on it, a Californian address that matches the cottage, a name in neat letters. Su-mi.
Su-mi Park.
You swallow.
“Guess you’re legal now,” he says, flipping his open. “Nam-gyu Kim. Wow, they really went all out with the fake government data.”
There’s a debit card. A credit card. Some cash.
“This feels illegal,” you say.
“We’re under divine and infernal witness protection,” he says. “Use it.”
You lock the front door behind you, keys clinking, and step out into the sunlight.
It’s warmer today, the kind of mild heat that sinks into your bones without being oppressive. The field waves in a soft breeze. The sky is glaringly blue.
You squint at the road.
“Okay,” you say. “We walk. We find something familiar. A sign. A… Starbucks.”
“Why Starbucks?” he asks.
“Humans are always talking about Starbucks,” you say. “If we can find coffee, we can figure out everything else.”
“That’s terrible logic,” he says. “I love it. Let’s go.”
You start down the dusty lane that leads from the cottage to a more paved road in the distance. Cars whoosh by every so often, flashes of color and noise that make your feathers twitch in memory you don’t have anymore.
You reach the edge of the main road and pause.
There’s a crosswalk painted on the asphalt, white lines already a little worn. A sign with a squiggly person and the word PED XING.
You look left.
A car’s coming, far enough that you think you have time.
You step out.
Nam-gyu’s hand clamps around the back of your shirt and yanks you back so hard you stumble.
A car blasts past you, horn blaring.
The gust of wind from it nearly knocks you over.
Your heart leaps into your throat.
“What is wrong with them,” you shout, more shaken than you want to admit. “Why didn’t they stop? Don’t they know we’re ethereal beings?”
“We are very specifically not ethereal anymore,” he says, dragging you fully back onto the curb. “We’re squishy. Don’t walk into the murder machines unless the glowing stick man tells you to.”
You glare at him, then at the red hand glaring back from the crosswalk signal.
“I hate it here,” you mutter.
The light changes to a little white walking figure.
He tugs your sleeve. “Now.”
You cross, this time watching every car like it personally offended you.
On the other side, the scenery starts to look more like what you’ve seen from above. Houses closer together. Trees planted in neat lines. A gas station, weird and chemical-smelling. A strip of shops.
And, gloriously, the green and white mermaid.
Starbucks.
Nam-gyu points. “There. Your god.”
“Don’t be blasphemous,” you hiss. “We’re technically still on some kind of probation, I don’t need caffeine deity jokes.”
He smirks. “Sure, Su-mi. Go get your holy bean water.”
The moment you step inside, you’re hit with a wall of coffee smell. Bitter, warm, complicated. There’s music playing quietly. People in line. People at tables staring at laptops, faces lit by screens. The air buzzes with low conversation and espresso machine hiss.
You and Nam-gyu join the end of the line.
There’s a huge menu on the wall behind the baristas. You stare up at it, trying to make sense of the words.
“Cold brew, nitro, flat white, chai, macchiato, frappuccino…” you mumble. “What is any of this?”
Nam-gyu squints. “Half of these sound like spells that went wrong.”
“What’s a venti,” you whisper.
“Big,” he whispers back confidently. “Or possibly small. Or medium. I don’t know, humans are insane.”
The line moves.
The barista at the register looks like she’s done with everyone’s nonsense for the day and it’s not even noon. Dark hair in a bun, green apron, eyeliner sharp enough to cut. She rattles off orders to the guy beside her without looking.
“Next,” she calls.
You step up.
She hits a button on the register. “Hi, what can I get started for you?”
You open your mouth.
Nothing comes out.
You glance up at the menu again like it’s going to start giving you holy guidance. It doesn’t. It just stares back, full of choices you don’t understand.
“Uh,” you say eloquently.
The barista waits.
Nam-gyu leans in over your shoulder. “Two… coffees,” he says.
She stares at him. “We have like twenty kinds of coffee.”
“Right,” he says. “The… normal one?”
“There is no normal one,” she says flatly. “Do you want brewed coffee, cold brew, latte, cappuccino, macchiato, americano, flat white, mocha…”
You blink faster.
“Stop saying words,” you whisper.
She sighs, checks the line behind you, then looks back with a strained sort of patience.
“Hot or iced,” she says. “Start there.”
“Hot,” you blurt. “Please.”
She nods like she’s talking to toddlers. “Do you want it with milk or just black.”
“Black,” you say, then remember you are in fact a sugar person. “Wait, no, the… milk. And sugar.”
“Cream and sugar,” she translates. “Size?”
You glance helplessly at Nam-gyu.
He shrugs. “Big.”
“Venti,” the barista says, already punching buttons. “So two venti lattes?”
You panic-nod. “Yes. That.”
She lifts a brow. “Any flavors? Vanilla, caramel, hazelnut..”
“Vanilla,” you say before she can overwhelm you again. Vanilla sounds safe. Heavenly, even. You bite your tongue.
“One vanilla, one caramel,” Nam-gyu says.
You squint at him. “Since when do you know what caramel is.”
“I read,” he says. “Also it sounds sticky, which is fun.”
The barista just nods, tapping it all in. “Names?”
You freeze.
“Uh,” you say, brain briefly blank on everything including what letters are.
“Su-mi,” Nam-gyu says smoothly, pointing at you.
You shoot him a look. He just grins.
The barista writes it down, slightly wrong. “Sue-me?”
You decide not to fight it.
“And for you?” she asks him.
“Nam-gyu,” he says.
She stares. Blinks. “Sorry?”
“Nam-gyu,” he repeats, slower.
She writes down something that is absolutely not that.
You resist the urge to peek.
“That’ll be eleven forty-two,” she says.
You fumble your new wallet out, nearly drop the card, and hand it over like you’re passing off a bomb. She slides it, hands you a receipt, and already calls, “Next.”
You shuffle to the side, numbly.
“That was stressful,” you say under your breath.
“That was amazing,” Nam-gyu says. “Did you see her face when you short-circuited at ‘hot or iced’.”
“You weren’t any better,” you say. “You said ‘two coffees’ like a medieval peasant.”
He puts a hand to his chest, offended. “I am a timeless being of chaos, I’m allowed to be vague.”
The barista at the drink bar calls something that sounds vaguely like your new Earth name. “Sue… me? Vanilla latte?”
You step forward, take the cup like it might bite you.
Your name is scribbled on the side in black marker. Wrong spelling. Close enough.
Nam-gyu’s is a disaster. Some nonsense like “Man-goo.” You snort when you see it.
He takes the cup anyway, unbothered. “I’ve been called worse.”
You both stand there for a second, staring into your drinks. They smell sweet and sharp and strong.
“Moment of truth,” he says.
You take a careful sip.
Warmth floods your mouth, sweet vanilla and bitter coffee and foam. It’s… a lot. Your whole tongue tingles.
You swallow.
“Oh,” you say.
“Good?” he asks.
“… yeah,” you admit. “It’s… really good.”
He tries his caramel, eyes going wide. “They gave mortals this and expected them to be normal?”
“You’re vibrating,” you point out.
“I’m about to ascend again,” he says solemnly. “On sugar alone.”
You wander to a small table by the window, cups cradled in both hands like they’re holy relics. Outside, cars go by. People move. Somewhere, a dog sticks its head out of a passenger window, tongue flopping.
You sit.
The chair creaks a little under you. Sunlight hits the table. Condensation beads on the plastic of other people’s cold drinks.
You take another sip.
“This is so weird,” you say quietly. “We’re not supposed to be here.”
Nam-gyu leans back in his chair, stretching his legs out, ankles crossing. “We are literally supposed to be here. They dropped us. They gave us fake IDs, a house, and a starter pack of snacks. This is as ‘supposed to be’ as it gets.”
You swirl your cup, watching the foam traces on the sides.
“I mean…” you search for the right words. “We were… up there. And… down there. And now we’re… in a strip mall.”
His expression softens around the edges.
“Hey,” he says. “You survived Heaven. I survived Hell. We can survive Starbucks.”
“That’s not the same,” you say, but you can’t quite keep the smile off your face.
“It’s the same vibe,” he says. “Long lines, annoying people, questionable management.”
You laugh in spite of yourself.
He takes a long sip of his drink, then sets it down and studies you over the lid.
“So,” he says. “We didn’t die crossing the street. We acquired bean juice. Step one complete.”
“Step two?” you ask.
He tilts his head, thinking.
“Figure out Wi-Fi,” he says finally. “We need to know what cursed corner of the internet we’ve landed in. And you’re going to lose your mind the first time you see cat videos.”
You blink. “What’s a Wi-Fi.”
He grins slowly.
“Oh, Su-mi,” he says. “You have no idea.”
You sip your coffee, the taste settling into something warm and addictive, and watch his face light up with mischief and plans.
The walk back feels shorter.
Maybe it’s the caffeine. Maybe it’s the fact that you almost got taken out by a Honda already and survived, so now everything feels like a bonus level.
By the time you reach the cottage, the sun’s starting to tilt lower, turning the field into one giant soft-focus postcard. Your shoes crunch on the gravel path. A bird on the fence eyes you like you’re the weird ones.
You unlock the door like you’ve done it a hundred times instead of once.
Inside, the house smells like dust and faint coffee on your breath.
Your stomach growls.
Loud.
Nam-gyu glances over, amused. “Well, at least one part of your new body works.”
“Oh, shut up,” you mutter, hand on your abdomen like you can shame it into silence. “We should… make food. Mortals don’t live on coffee alone, right?”
“I mean, I’ve seen them try,” he says. “But yeah. Food.”
You march into the kitchen with purpose.
Fridge: blessedly full.
Cabinets: also full.
You rummage, determined, and pull out a box of spaghetti noodles and a jar of tomato sauce. The label has a picture of a cartoon tomato winking at you like it knows you’re about to embarrass yourself.
“Easy,” you announce. “We’ll make this.”
Nam-gyu leans in the doorway, arms crossed, watching you with too much amusement already. “You know how to make that?”
“How hard can it be?” you say, opening the box and sliding a handful of long noodles out. They’re stiff and dry, clacking together faintly. You frown. “Why is it hard?”
“It’s dried,” he says.
You snap a noodle in half experimentally. It breaks with a sharp crack.
You frown harder. “It’s… broken.”
“That’s what it does,” he says. “You’re supposed to cook it.”
You stare at him. “Cook it?”
“Yes, Su-mi.” His mouth curves. “Cook it. In water. Like every mortal on earth who knows what a stove is.”
You look from the noodles in your hand, to the stove, to him.
“You’re making that up,” you say.
“Uh-huh.” He pushes off the doorway, comes closer, and plucks the broken noodle from your fingers. “What did you think they were doing in all those romance movies with the noodle scene, just eating it raw like horses?”
“They never show the part where it’s dry,” you argue. “It’s just… there. Soft. Wiggly. Ready.”
He snorts. “Welcome to the director’s cut of reality.”
You narrow your eyes. “Fine. Genius. Show me, then.”
He grins, way too pleased.
“Step one,” he says, opening a cabinet and pulling out a pot. “We need this. The metal bucket of fire.”
He fills it with water from the tap, sets it on the stove, and twists one of the knobs. There’s a little click-click-click and then a bloom of blue flame under the metal.
You jump.
He glances back at you, smirk immediately turning into something a little softer when he sees your face.
“Gas stove,” he says. “Not Hell-flame. Chill.”
“That’s worse,” you hiss. “They just have… fire in the house? All the time?”
“Not all the time,” he says. “Only when they want water to stop being boring.”
You hover on the other side of the counter like the stove might lunge at you.
The water starts to steam, then bubble, then roll.
“Okay,” he says. “Now we…”
He trails off.
You wait.
“Do you not actually know what you’re doing?” you ask slowly.
He clears his throat. “I do. I just haven’t done it personally.”
“You’ve watched,” you say flatly.
“Yes.”
“You’ve never cooked spaghetti in your life.”
“I’ve… absorbed the concept,” he says defensively.
You pinch the bridge of your nose. “We’re going to die. Not from a car, from carbs.”
“It’s boiling,” he says quickly. “That’s the important part. Now we put this in.”
He grabs the box from you, dumps in a bunch of the hard spaghetti. The pieces stick up out of the water stubbornly at first, then slowly soften and sink as he pokes them with a wooden spoon he definitely just randomly grabbed.
“There,” he says. “Cooking.”
You squint into the pot. Steam fogs your face. The noodles swirl, pale and bendy now.
“That’s it?” you ask. “You just… put them in hot water and wait?”
“Sometimes you put salt,” he says. “And oil. Maybe. I don’t know, I wasn’t paying attention to that part.”
“You’re useless,” you inform him.
“You picked me,” he reminds you. “This is on you.”
You shove him lightly with your shoulder and he shoves back, just enough that you almost step into the stove and then both of you panic and grab each other and the counter at the same time.
“Okay,” you say, breathless. “Rule: no shoving near fire.”
“Agreed,” he says.
He pulls the sauce jar closer, squints at the label, and unscrews the lid. The smell of tomato and herbs hits you, sharp and not entirely unpleasant.
“At least this part’s idiot-proof,” he says, tipping some into a second pot and turning on another burner. When the flame flares again, you both flinch in sync.
“Totally not traumatized by eternal torment,” you mumble.
“Couldn’t be us,” he says.
You stir the sauce because it feels like something productive to do. He pokes at the pasta again, then fishes out a strand and blows on it.
“What are you doing?” you ask.
“Testing,” he says.
He slurps the noodle into his mouth, chews thoughtfully, then shrugs. “Close enough.”
“Close enough?”
“It’s not a Michelin star,” he says. “It just has to not break our teeth.”
You roll your eyes and help him turn off the burner. You watch him carefully pour the water and pasta into a colander in the sink, steam billowing up in a terrifying cloud. He yelps when a little splashes onto his hand and you smack his arm for good measure.
“Careful,” you scold. “You’re human now, you can actually blister.”
“You’re so bossy,” he complains. “It’s kinda hot.”
You ignore that.
You combine the noodles and sauce in a big bowl because that seems right. Red on white, steam curling, smell actually kind of… good.
You both make plates that are maybe a little too full for two people who have never eaten as humans before and sit down at the tiny kitchen table.
You twirl the fork, like you’ve seen a hundred people do from above, and take a cautious bite.
It’s… fine.
A little too soft, a little too salty, sauce straight from the jar.
But it’s warm, and it’s food, and your new mortal stomach does something that feels very close to happy.
“Oh,” you say around the bite. “Okay. That’s… that’s actually not bad.”
Nam-gyu chews, then grins. “We didn’t die. We cooked. We’re basically domestic gods.”
“You almost boiled yourself,” you remind him.
“Details,” he says, waving his fork. “Next time we add… garlic bread.”
You point your fork at him. “One step at a time. Today we learned the pasta has to be cooked. That’s enough revelation for one day.”
He kicks your ankle gently under the table. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
You look around the little kitchen, the mismatched plates, the humming fridge, the open box of spaghetti with a few brittle sticks still rattling inside.
You look at him, hair a little frizzed from steam, t-shirt dotted with tiny sauce flecks, eyes warm and alive in a way they never were when he was technically immortal.
You take another bite.
“Yeah,” you say quietly. “I think we might.”
—
The dishes are done. The kitchen is cleaner than it was when you arrived, mostly because you’re both scared you’ll break something mortal and never be able to replace it. The sun’s gone down, leaving the cottage lit in gold and soft shadow, warm and unreal.
You sit at the tiny kitchen table, twirling the last traces of spaghetti sauce around your fork, heart thumping for reasons that have nothing to do with carbs.
Nam-gyu leans back in his chair, legs kicked out, arms folded. He looks content, sleepy, a little smug in the way only he can pull off, and somehow even more dangerous in this new, softer body.
You catch yourself staring.
He notices, of course.
“What?” he says, brow raised.
You tap your fork against your plate, keeping your voice as casual as possible. “So… about your offer last night.”
He blinks. “Offer?”
You smirk and pitch your voice lower, imitating him, “Only thing left to do now is fuck.”
He just sits there, blinking. Once. Twice. Like his brain is buffering the moment.
“Wait… really?” His voice goes up just a little at the end, all pretense of casual dropping out of his face.
You try to look completely unaffected, but you can feel the blush creeping up your neck. You shrug, meeting his eyes. “Well, you said it. You sounded pretty confident.”
He stares at you for another beat, eyes searching your face, as if he’s looking for a joke or a trick.
Then he sets his fork down with deliberate care, gaze locked on you, expression suddenly very serious.
“So… are you saying you want to?” He doesn’t even try to hide the hope or the nervousness, just lays it all out, open, vulnerable, real in a way neither of you have been since falling out of the sky.
You rest your chin in your hand, watching him try to play it cool and failing. “Maybe I do. Maybe I want to see if all that demon magnetism is good for something besides stealing the covers.”
He grins, bright and dangerous, all that easy arrogance flashing back for a second.
“I mean,” he says, standing up and holding out his hand for you, “guess there’s only one way to find out, angel.”
You let him pull you up, feeling the tremble in his fingers, like even now, he can’t believe you actually said yes.
You bump your shoulder against his on the way to the bedroom, rolling your eyes. “Just don’t expect me to go easy on you.”
He grins back, eyes full of heat and trouble. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
You barely make it down the hallway. You’re pretty sure you hit the doorframe with your hip, maybe twice, but Nam-gyu’s mouth is already on yours and his hands are everywhere, and you’re laughing and shoving and breathless as you both tumble back onto the bed. For two people who used to be celestial, you’re embarrassingly human at this.
It’s awkward at first, too many arms, not enough space, both of you fighting to be on top until you dissolve into a tangle of sheets and cursing. But it’s also new and desperate and stupidly hot, and every time his hands slide up under your shirt, it’s like every nerve remembers what it was like to touch across a border that doesn’t exist anymore.
Somehow, you end up straddling him, knees digging into the mattress, your shirt halfway off, your skin humming where his fingers dig into your hips. He’s grinning up at you, eyes dark, hair a mess, and it hits you all at once that you get to have this, that you chose this.
You lean down, kissing him until he’s breathless, then pull back just to watch him squirm.
“Still smug?” you tease, rolling your hips slowly.
He bites his lip, lets out a shaky laugh. “Try harder, angel.”
You do.
There’s a kind of magic left in both of you, buried under all the mortal weight. It’s not as sharp as it was before, no wings, no haloes, no fire burning out your ribs, but it’s there, humming under your skin, sparking where his mouth meets your neck, your collarbone, the swell of your chest. Every time your hands find each other, the air shivers a little, almost like Heaven and Hell are still watching and rooting for both of you to fall further.
He groans when you sink down on him, his hands flying to your hips to anchor you, holding you steady as your bodies find a rhythm that feels more cosmic than any choir ever managed. There’s heat where you meet, a pulse that isn’t just mortal. The pleasure builds, sharp, dizzy, overwhelming. Your skin glows a little where you touch. You feel the edge of the old power, gold threaded with red, as if the border is remaking itself in your bodies.
You lose yourself in it, in him, until he tenses under you, hands tightening, jaw slack.
He groans your name, Su-mi, and when he comes, it’s not normal.
There’s a glow, soft and shimmering, at the place where your bodies join. You freeze, breath caught, staring down.
He’s still coming, but it’s not just heat and wetness, it’s light, warm and golden and laced with the faintest hint of ember-red. It spreads inside you, fizzing with some leftover spark of magic neither of you are supposed to have anymore.
You stare, brain short-circuiting.
Nam-gyu blinks up at you, a little dazed, a little smug, a little in awe.
You finally find your voice. “Nam-gyu, if it glows inside me, I swear to god..”
He bursts out laughing, whole body shaking under you. “That’s not in the manual,” he gasps. “But damn, talk about divine intervention..”
You smack his shoulder, but your heart is racing, the aftershocks still shimmering through both of you. “This is not normal, right?”
He grins, glowing, literally and figuratively. “Angel, nothing about us is normal.”
You flop forward, forehead to his shoulder, both of you a mess of tangled limbs, sweat, and fading light.
It takes a while for your breathing to even out. He strokes your back, still grinning, still proud, still way too smug for someone whose cum just literally glowed.
When you finally sit up, you poke his chest, serious this time. “If this gets me pregnant with some sort of glowing demon-angel baby, I am making you change every diaper.”
He laughs harder, arms curling around you, pulling you back down into him. “Deal,” he murmurs against your ear, and you believe him. Because the magic might be almost gone, but it’s still yours, and so is he.
Before -Part Four- (angst/comfort/mild smut) 💔❤️🩹❤️🔥
-Nam-gyu x You-
(Nam-gyu’s POV)
After breakfast, the dorm is all hum and static, nerves strung tight as people whisper about the vote and try to act like the last game didn’t fry something inside them. I’m barely there. I hear Ma-ri’s voice in pieces, muffled behind the roar in my head.
She glances up from her tray, eyes searching my face. “Nam-gyu? You alright?”
I keep my head down. My mouth is dry and my hands won’t quit shaking. I want to say yeah, I’m fine, but I know it’ll sound like a lie.
Thanos sets his tray aside, shifting his weight so he blocks some of the room from view. His voice drops, softer than I’m used to. “He lost someone, Ma-ri. A long time ago. Leukemia too. Her name was Ji-yoo. She was… everything.”
The words hit like a punch. I’m glad it’s Thanos saying it, not me.
Ma-ri’s eyes go wide. “Oh… oh, Nam-gyu. I’m so sorry.”
She moves closer before I can react, arms wrapping around my shoulders. She’s so small, barely heavier than the blanket she drapes over my lap when the nurses aren’t looking. Her hair smells like cheap shampoo, her body all warmth and sharp edges. I freeze. My first instinct is to pull away, but I don’t.
She just hugs me, fierce and honest, her cheek pressed against my arm.
“You saved my life out there,” she whispers. “And you don’t even know me. I’m sorry you lost her. But you’re not alone now, okay?”
My breath shudders out, slow and ragged. I keep still, let her hold on. For a moment, it almost feels like something real is plugging the hole where grief leaks through.
Thanos looks away, pretending he’s checking his phone, but I know he’s just giving me the space I need.
Part of me wonders, for one wild second, if you sent Ma-ri here. If you, Ji-yoo, are watching from somewhere, tired of seeing me rot from the inside out, and thought maybe I deserved one more try. Maybe you picked her out, a girl with scars under her sleeves, fierce where she’s small, soft enough to sit with me in the ache.
Or maybe it’s all just random luck and borrowed time.
She finally lets go, sitting back but leaving her hand on my wrist like she’s anchoring me there. I look down at her tiny fingers, the way they grip, and something in my chest flinches. I don’t know what it means. Not yet.
The room is still buzzing, the vote looming, guards moving through the bunks collecting trays and checking names. Ma-ri sits with me, her shoulder pressed against mine, and Thanos cracks some dumb joke about the food being worse than army rations just to break the silence. I almost smile. Almost.
For now, I just breathe and let myself be here, held and holding on, wondering if I really believe in second chances, or just want to.
—
The guards wheel in a podium, heavy metal scraping across the concrete. The room quiets to a buzz, hundreds of eyes turning toward it. It looks simple enough, like something you’d see in a game show, two buttons, one lit red with an X, the other blue with a circle. But the way the guards stand on either side with rifles says there’s nothing playful about it.
“All players must vote,” one of them announces, voice echoing through a speaker. “Step forward when your number is called. Press your choice. A blue circle means you wish to continue the games. A red X means you wish to end them. After voting, you’ll receive a patch to display on your chest.”
The rules slice through the air like knives. Nobody moves at first. Then the first number is called and the line begins.
They go in reverse order. The highest numbers first. People shuffle forward, one by one, press the button, step aside, patch handed to them like a verdict.
The first few hit red without hesitation. The room murmurs. Someone cheers when a blue circle glows. It’s like watching a storm form, every press of the button another lightning strike.
When Ma-ri’s number is called, 399, she stands. She’s tiny, shoulders straight, her tray-thin arms trembling as she walks toward the podium. Thanos elbows me, murmurs, “She’s braver than she looks.”
I don’t answer. I just watch.
She hesitates for half a heartbeat, then presses the blue circle. It lights under her hand, bright as a brand. A guard steps forward and slaps the patch into her palm. She takes it, lips pressed tight, and when she passes us again, she fixes it to her chest with shaking fingers.
She doesn’t look back.
The votes keep rolling down. Red, blue, blue, red. A pattern that means nothing until the last number is called.
When Thanos’s turn comes, 230, he struts up like it’s a stage. He smacks the blue circle without hesitation, grin sharp, and turns back to the crowd like he just dropped a verse. The guard hands him the patch and he sticks it to his tracksuit proudly, right opposite his number.
He winks at me as he walks back. “Ride or die, Nam-su.”
Then it’s my turn. 124.
I push myself up slow, my legs heavier than they should be. The podium is taller up close, the buttons brighter, and for a moment my hand hovers between them.
Red means ending it. Walking out. Going back to my apartment with nothing but debt and ghosts. Blue means risking everything here, throwing myself into whatever nightmare they’ve got planned next.
Neither feels like a choice.
I press blue.
The light flares under my palm. A guard drops the circle patch into my hand, and I pin it on, the cloth hot against my chest.
When I turn back, Thanos is grinning and Ma-ri is watching me, her face unreadable, her tiny hands clasped together like she’s holding in a prayer.
The vote keeps crawling down the line. Red, blue, red. A hundred choices stacked on top of each other. By the time I sit back down, my stomach is a knot, the air thick enough to choke on.
Nobody knows which way it’ll land.
But the patch on my chest feels like it weighs a hundred pounds.
—
The vote ends. Close enough that people are holding their breath, some already standing like they’ll be let go. But when the last player presses blue, the screen lights up with the majority.
The games continue.
The dorm is half relief, half despair. Some clap like idiots, others drop to the floor like the air’s gone out of them. Thanos stretches out across his bunk, grinning at me. “Told you, Nam-su. We’re in it now.”
I don’t grin back. I just stare at the patch on my chest, the blue circle staring back like an eye.
That night, they feed us. Metal trays with rice, kimchi, a square of egg. It feels like school lunch, if school lunch came with guards and rifles and the taste of gunpowder still in your teeth.
Ma-ri sits close, her tiny body tucked in beside us, trying not to take up space. She eats quiet, eyes on her tray.
That’s when Seo-ah makes her move.
She slides past, “accidentally” bumps Ma-ri’s tray, spilling half her kimchi onto the concrete. Then she laughs, bright and fake, like it’s a joke the whole room should enjoy. “Oops. Careful, you’ll starve if you can’t hold onto your food.”
Ma-ri stares at the mess, shoulders tight, lips pressed thin.
Before she can say anything, I stand. The scrape of my chair on concrete is loud enough that half the row goes silent. Seo-ah looks up, her smile faltering when she sees me.
“Pick it up,” I say.
She blinks, tilts her head like she didn’t hear me right. “What?”
“You knocked her tray. Pick it up.” My voice is low but it carries.
People are watching now. Guards don’t care. They never do unless someone bleeds.
Seo-ah’s face twitches. She tries to laugh it off, hair flipping over her shoulder. “You’re seriously defending her? Nam-gyu, come on.”
I take a step closer, enough that she has to look up at me. My shadow cuts across her tray. “Pick it up,” I repeat, steady.
For a second she just stares, all that fake sweetness cracking. Then she crouches down, snatches up the scraps with jerky motions, and dumps them back onto Ma-ri’s tray. “There. Happy?”
I don’t answer. I just sit back down beside Ma-ri, my shoulder brushing hers as I slide half of my own egg onto her tray.
Her eyes flick to me, wide, a little stunned.
Seo-ah goes quiet, her face tight, and stalks back to her side of the dorm.
Thanos whistles low, shaking his head like he’s watching some drama unfold. “Damn, Nam-su. Didn’t think you had it in you to play knight in shining tracksuit.”
I shoot him a look. “Shut up.”
Ma-ri whispers, barely audible. “Thank you.”
I don’t look at her. I just pick up my chopsticks again and keep eating.
But the knot in my chest loosens, just a little.
—
Lights out doesn’t mean silence. It never does.
The guards kill the lights and walk out, and the room hums like a hive. Some people whisper, some cry. Others laugh too loud like they’re trying to scare the dark away. The smell of sweat and fear hangs heavy, the kind that seeps into your clothes and won’t wash out.
Thanos is already snoring across from me, one arm flung over his eyes. Nothing rattles him. He could sleep through an earthquake.
Ma-ri’s not sleeping. She’s curled on the edge of the bunk beside me, knees tucked up, hands folded under her chin. The blue glow from the patch on her chest catches faint in the dark. She looks like a kid at a sleepover who can’t relax.
“You’re awake,” I murmur.
She turns her head toward me. “So are you.”
“Yeah. I don’t sleep much.”
“Because of… Ji-yoo?” she asks carefully.
The name cuts. Thanos must’ve told her earlier. I let the silence sit for a long minute before I answer.
“Yeah,” I say finally. “Because of her. She was my best friend. Since I was seven. We grew up together. She… she got sick when we were sixteen. Leukemia. Six months later she was gone.”
Ma-ri doesn’t rush to fill the space. She just lets me talk, and it comes easier than I expect.
“I stayed in the hospital with her. Every day. I thought… I thought that had to count for something. If I stayed close enough, maybe she’d stay too. But that’s not how it works. I kissed her once, right before she found out she didn’t have long. We promised we’d spend whatever time she had left together.”
My throat burns. “That was the last promise I ever kept.”
I don’t realize my hands are clenched until Ma-ri touches one lightly. Not holding it, just brushing her fingers over my knuckles like she’s reminding me she’s there.
“I get it,” she whispers. “Not the same, but… I had leukemia too. Beat it. Just barely. Treatment’s why I’m in here. My parents went into debt keeping me alive. The bills didn’t stop even after the cancer did. So here I am.”
I turn my head to look at her. The tiny girl who looks fifteen, who carries herself like she’s made of glass but talks like steel.
“All that and you still chose blue,” I say quietly.
She nods. “If I win, I can pay it all back. They won’t have to carry me anymore.”
There’s nothing to say to that. I just nod, because I understand. Too well.
After a while she asks, “Seo-ah. She was… someone too, wasn’t she?”
My chest tightens. “Yeah. After Ji-yoo, I told myself I couldn’t do it again. Couldn’t feel like that again. But Seo-ah… she slipped in anyway. Two years, I thought it was real. Then I came home and found her with someone else. In my bed.”
Ma-ri goes still. Then she exhales. “So that’s why she hates me.”
I glance at her. “Why do you say that?”
“Because I remind her. She sees me near you, and she sees what she broke. She’s trying to get to me because she can’t undo what she did to you.”
Her voice is steady, but her hands are tight in her lap.
I almost laugh, bitter and quiet. “You talk like you’re older than me.”
She smiles faintly. “You just haven’t noticed. Surviving makes you old fast.”
The room hums around us. Snoring, whispers, the occasional clank of metal when someone shifts in their bunk.
We talk until my voice is rough and her eyelids are drooping, about little things, music we like, food we miss, dumb things Thanos says. But under all of it, I feel it: the weight of Ji-yoo’s absence, Seo-ah’s betrayal, Ma-ri’s debt, all of it pressing down.
She’s gone quiet again.
Our voices had dwindled to whispers, then just breathing. But I can feel she’s still awake. Her body’s curled inward like she’s trying not to take up space. Like maybe the dark will forget she’s here if she stays small enough.
“Nam-gyu?”
“Mm?”
She hesitates. “Can I sleep with you?”
I blink, turn my head slightly. “What?”
“No!” she rushes. “No, not like… I just mean.. beside you. I’m sorry, I should’ve worded that better, I just..”
“Hey,” I cut in, quiet. “It’s okay. I just didn’t expect it.”
She exhales, embarrassed. “I haven’t really slept in days. I thought maybe… if I was next to someone I trust…”
My throat tightens at that. Trust. In here.
I shift over without a word, leaving her space. She gets it, climbing onto my bunk as carefully as if she’s breaking a rule. Her body’s small, warm, cautious when she settles beside me.
We lie there, stiff at first. Our arms barely brush. She doesn’t try to move closer, doesn’t say anything.
“You sure you’re comfortable?” I ask.
She nods. “Yeah. It’s just… better this way.”
I don’t ask what way she means. I think I already know.
And after a few minutes, I feel her breathing even out. Her hand slips near mine under the blanket, not touching, just close. Like she’s making sure I’m still there.
I stare up at the dark ceiling and think about Ji-yoo.
I wonder if she’d sent this girl.
Not to replace her, not even to heal me. Just to stay alive long enough that something, someone, might reach me again.
Ma-ri shifts in her sleep, a little sigh leaving her lips.
I let my hand rest closer to hers.
—
Morning hits like a slap.
Lights up. Doors open. Guards bark for breakfast. Metal on metal, a hundred trays scraping at once. People move in a slow knot toward the food line, all of us the same green and white, all of us pretending we slept.
I slide off the bunk and look down. Ma-ri blinks up at me, hair mussed, eyes puffy. She startles like she forgot where she was for half a second, then remembers all of it.
“Come on,” I say, soft. “Let’s go before the rush turns into a crush.”
I put her in front of me. Close. Close enough that if she steps back she’ll hit my chest. She barely reaches my shoulder. Five feet to my five nine. It makes something in me go protective even when I don’t want it to.
Thanos falls in behind us, humming some dumb hook, already flirting with a girl two rows over. “Morning, little one,” he tells Ma-ri. “Morning, Nam-su. You look like garbage.”
“You sound like it,” I say.
The line crawls. Guards stand at the corners with those blank masks, rifles held like punctuation. The smell is rice, broth, disinfectant. People mutter about the vote, the game, the shots. Someone up front tries to cut and gets shoved back so hard he stumbles into a table. No one helps him.
He grins. “Consistency.”
I keep my eyes moving, but my body stays where it needs to be. Between Ma-ri and anything that thinks about bumping her.
She keeps her hands folded over her number patch, head down. When she peeks up, it’s quick. She’s scanning like me. Learning the shape of danger.
We’re almost to the trays when I feel it. That hot little stare on the side of my face.
Seo-ah.
She’s two lanes over, already holding a tray, smile bright enough to blind someone who doesn’t know better. Her gaze slides to Ma-ri, then to me, then back. Measuring, petty, hungry. I turn my shoulder and block her view.
Her voice carries anyway. “Morning, Nam-gyu.”
I don’t look. “Keep moving,” I tell Ma-ri.
We get our trays. Rice, thin soup, a strip of pickled radish. I make sure they don’t short her on the pour. She whispers thanks and tries to step aside. Someone shoulders in and I catch her by the elbow before she spills.
“Stay in front of me,” I say.
Thanos flops down first, leaves space for Ma-ri, then me. He’s already tearing into the radish like it’s gourmet. “You know what I miss?” he says around a mouthful. “Kimchi that doesn’t taste like a hospital.”
“Eat,” I tell him.
He winks at Ma-ri. “He’s always this romantic.”
She smiles a little, then focuses on her rice like it’s a test. Her hands shake once. She breathes through it. Starts again.
The room shifts and I feel Seo-ah before I see her. Her perfume, light and too sweet, cuts through the bleach and broth. She slows near our table like she might stop. I don’t give her the chance.
“Keep walking, Seo-ah,” I say without looking up.
A beat. Then a laugh that isn’t one. “You’re still mad,” she says, all sugar. “I was going to say hi to your friend.”
“She doesn’t need your hi.”
Silence stretches. I can feel her face burning without seeing it. Thanos sips his soup, amused. Seo-ah pivots on a heel and goes, tray clattering a little when she sets it down three tables away. Her group starts whispering before she even sits.
Ma-ri peeks at me. “You didn’t have to do that,” she whispers.
“I know.”
“I don’t want to make trouble.”
“You didn’t.”
She nods and goes back to her food, shoulders loosening a fraction. Thanos kicks my boot under the table. “Dad mode,” he murmurs.
“Eat,” I repeat, and he snorts.
We finish in an ugly quiet. Guards start shouting for cleanup. People scrape trays, stand, shuffle. I take Ma-ri’s when she’s done and stack it with mine so she doesn’t get bumped at the barrel. She tries to protest. I shake my head. She lets me.
On the way back to the bunks, we have to pass the aisle where Seo-ah sits. She looks up right as we’re level. Something mean sparks behind her smile. Her hand twitches like she might stick a foot out.
I stop. Look her dead in the eye.
“Don’t,” I say.
She freezes. For a second I see the real thing under the makeup. Hurt. Anger. The part of her that still wants me to pick her side even when she burned it down.
We keep moving.
Back at the bunk, Thanos drops and sprawls like a cat. “What a lovely family breakfast,” he says. “Ten out of ten. Would dine again.”
“Shut up,” I tell him, but there’s no heat in it.
Ma-ri perches on the edge of the lower mattress, fingers knotting the hem of her jacket. “Thanks,” she says, barely louder than the hum of the room.
“You don’t have to thank me for basic things,” I say.
She shakes her head. “I know. I still want to.”
I sit, elbows on my knees, eyes on the guards who are already rearranging the floor like it’s a stage. Somewhere above us a speaker clicks. The sound makes my teeth clench. Another game, another headcount, another round of people who won’t be here for dinner.
My hand finds the edge of the mattress. Her hand is there too. Not touching. Just close.
I don’t move it.
—
The guards start herding us out right after breakfast. The clang of the doors is sharper this time, more urgent, and their boots echo like metronomes down the corridor. Nobody asks where we’re going. You don’t waste breath when rifles are your only answer.
We climb stair after stair, past the same endless maze of colors that feels like a child’s dream turned inside out. Up close it isn’t cute. The paint flakes, the corners echo, the guards stand at every landing like statues. Ma-ri stays close in front of me, so close I could count every fray on the back seam of her jacket. Thanos keeps pace at my side, humming under his breath like we’re on our way to a gig.
Then we spill out into a room I didn’t expect.
It’s an arena. Huge. The ceiling rises high enough that the lights feel like a second sky, and the floor is covered in bright circles of color, track lanes that curve and overlap in dizzying loops. It looks like a playground designed by someone who forgot what kids look like.
The loudspeaker cracks alive. A flat voice says, “The second game will begin shortly. You will compete in teams of five. You have ten minutes to form your teams.”
The crowd erupts. Ten minutes isn’t long when everyone’s desperate. People grab each other by sleeves, shout names, scramble toward friends like they’re in line for the last boat out. Some stand frozen, waiting to be picked. Others start crying already.
I don’t think. I turn to Ma-ri and Thanos. “We stick together.”
Ma-ri nods immediately, eyes wide but steady. Thanos just grins. “Wouldn’t dream of leaving, Nam-su. You’d cry without me.”
We’ve got three. We need two more.
The panic around us grows sharper. A man is shouting across the track for his brother. Two women argue over who gets who. Nobody looks like they want to be left behind.
Then I hear it. “Hey, Nam-gyu!”
I turn. Se-mi. Short hair, quick stride, eyes too sharp for how small she is. She’s pulling Min-su with her, both of them weaving through the chaos. We knew them in passing from the dorm, enough nods and muttered words to not feel like strangers.
“Teams of five, right?” Se-mi says, breathless but smiling like she’s already decided. “You’re taking us.”
Min-su just shrugs. “Better than rolling dice.”
Thanos laughs and slaps Min-su on the shoulder. “Now it’s a party.”
Ma-ri looks at me, hesitant. I give her the smallest nod. “Alright. That makes five.”
Se-mi exhales in relief and steps in tight with us, eyes darting at the frantic groups forming all over the floor. People are still scrambling, a man shouting that he needs just one more, two kids practically begging to be taken in. The timer above the wall ticks down in red numbers.
Ma-ri edges closer to me, small enough that she nearly hides behind my arm. I shift so she doesn’t have to.
Thanos stretches his neck, rolling his shoulders like we’re just backstage. “So, Nam-su. Any guesses on what we’re playing today?”
I glance at the bright loops painted on the ground, the ridiculous rainbow shapes. My stomach knots. “Something that looks fun until it isn’t.”
Se-mi mutters, “That’s everything in here.”
The timer hits the last thirty seconds. The room grows quieter, as if everyone knows there’s no point scrambling anymore. Teams stand clumped, five by five, some tight as families, others thrown together like strangers in an elevator.
I look at ours: Thanos, larger than life even in this hell; Se-mi, sharp-eyed and already bracing for whatever’s next; Min-su, solid but unreadable; Ma-ri, small, nervous, steadying herself; and me, in the middle whether I want to be or not.
It doesn’t feel like a dream team. It feels like survival stitched together by chance.
—
The loudspeaker crackles. “Welcome to the 6-Legged Pentathlon. Each team of five will be padlocked at the ankles. Finish all five stations in under five minutes. One player per station. Fail and you are eliminated.”
The guards clamp the cuffs on. We line up Thanos, me, Ma-ri, Min-su, Se-mi. The floor is split into five colored lanes: ddakji, flying stone, gonggi, spinning top, jegi. The clock lights up at 5:00 and starts counting down.
“Order?” a guard asks.
“I’ll take ddakji,” Ma-ri says before anyone breathes.
“Flying stone,” Se-mi adds.
“Gonggi,” Min-su shrugs.
“I’ll do the top,” I say.
“Leave me the jegi,” Thanos grins.
The horn blasts and we lurch forward together, cuffs biting.
Ddakji.
The guard drops a thick folded blue tile on the mat. Ma-ri kneels, squares her shoulders, and slaps her tile onto it. Nothing. Second try, a twitch. She adjusts, bends lower, snaps the air with her wrist, and smacks it clean. The blue flips flat. Buzzer. We’re moving.
Flying stone.
Se-mi palms the flat throwing stone and sights the little tombstone on the ground. First throw skates wide. Second throw clips the edge. She breathes, loosens her shoulder, and slides the stone in a clean line. The stone thunks to the floor. Buzzer.
Gonggi.
Min-su crouches and gathers the five little pebbles. He tosses one up, scoops the rest with a fast rake of his fingers, and catches the first on the back of his hand. He moves through the counts, clumsy for a second, then quick. Last toss, last scoop, last catch. Buzzer.
Spinning top.
I wind the string around the wooden top until it looks right, heart loud in my throat. The guard nods. I drop to one knee and yank. The top hits, wobbles once, then finds its axis and spins clean. That’s all we need. The judge’s hand goes up and the buzzer hits. I exhale like I’ve been underwater.
Jegi.
Thanos rolls his ankle and grins at the line judge. “Five, right?” The guard doesn’t answer. Thanos flips the feathered shuttle up with his toe and starts. One. Two. Three. He loses balance on four, gathers it back at the last second, then taps five crisp and controlled. He catches the jegi in his palm and bows like it was a stage. Final buzzer. The clock shows 0:47 left.
They unlock our cuffs. Somewhere on another lane, a team misses the flying stone and the sound that follows is a hard slap of reality. We stand still until our legs remember how to work.
Ma-ri looks up at me, eyes shining. Se-mi whoops and bumps my shoulder. Min-su finally smiles. Thanos leans in and mutters, “Told you to leave the finish to me.”
—
The guards march us back through the maze after the Pentathlon, boots heavy, rifles heavier. The echo of the buzzer is still in my chest. My calves ache from being chained to four other people, and my shoulder’s sore from yanking that stupid top string like my life depended on it. Which it did.
Ma-ri walks next to me, quiet, fingers hooked in the edge of my sleeve like she’s making sure I don’t drift off. She’s small enough that the cuff had looked too big on her ankle, the metal rattling when we ran between stations. She didn’t let it slow her. Still, she’s wobbling now, steps uneven.
When we reach the last stairwell, she tugs on my sleeve. “Nam-gyu?”
I grunt. “Yeah?”
She looks up at me, cheeks flushed from the climb. “Will you… carry me?”
I stop, frown down at her. “What?”
She points at her feet. “Piggyback. Just for a bit. I’m tired.”
I stare. The hall is crowded with players dragging their feet, and she wants to ride on my back like this is elementary school? “You can walk, Ma-ri.”
“I know,” she says softly. Then she leans closer. “But I’d feel safer.”
Before I can think of a way out of that, Thanos claps me on the back, nearly knocking me forward. He grins like he heard every word. “Come on, Nam-su. Be a gentleman. If you don’t want to, I’ll carry her.” He crouches halfway, arms open, already performing.
“No,” I snap, sharper than I mean to. Both of them look at me. I clear my throat. “No, it’s fine. I’ll do it.”
Ma-ri’s face lights up. Thanos smirks like he won a bet.
I crouch awkwardly, and Ma-ri climbs onto my back, arms winding around my neck, legs locking at my sides. She’s light, almost too light. I can feel her ribs through the fabric of her uniform. Her cheek rests against my shoulder like she’s done this before.
“You good?” I ask, standing slow.
She hums. “Mhm. You’re warm.”
I feel my ears heat up instantly. Thanos sees it, of course. He laughs loud enough for the guards to glare at him. “Look at you, Nam-su. Carrying tiny women through death games. You’re evolving.”
“Shut up,” I mutter, adjusting my grip so she doesn’t slip.
We walk the rest of the way like that, me stiff as a board, her clinging like I’m the last tree in a storm. Thanos whistles some rap beat under his breath, clearly entertained.
By the time we reach the dorms, my shoulders ache, but Ma-ri looks more relaxed than I’ve seen her since this nightmare started. She slides off carefully when I crouch again, tugging at my sleeve once more.
“Thanks,” she says, small but real.
I don’t know what to do with the way my chest feels, so I just nod and find us a spot on the bunk. Thanos shakes his head, grinning as he flops down beside us. “Nam-su, you’ve got no idea what you just signed up for.”
—
By the time I make it back from the bathroom, the dorm’s already loud. Clattering trays, people arguing over seats, that constant undercurrent of fear dressed up like boredom. I spot our bunk, the same spot we always eat now.
But something’s off.
Thanos is standing. Not lounging, not sprawled out with his tray balanced on his knees like usual. Standing. Arms crossed, jaw tight, looking down at someone like he’s daring them to say one more thing.
Seo-ah.
Of course.
She’s got Ma-ri’s tray in her hands, like she just yanked it away, and Ma-ri’s still sitting there stunned, hands in her lap, eyes wide like she’s trying to make herself invisible.
“I said put it down,” Thanos says. His voice isn’t loud but it cuts through everything.
Seo-ah laughs. That high, fake kind she used to use at clubs when she was flirting with men who disgusted her. “Relax. I just thought maybe the baby bird here should share. She’s barely eating anyway.”
“Maybe you should share your dignity for once,” Thanos fires back.
I’m already walking fast, fist clenched before I even realize it.
Seo-ah turns as I reach them and puts on that same damn smile she used to give me when she got caught lying. “Nam-gyu. Tell your friend to chill. We’re all hungry.”
I grab the tray out of her hands and set it down hard in front of Ma-ri. “Back off.”
She blinks. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t touch her food. Don’t speak to her. Don’t look at her.” I’m not yelling. I don’t need to. She knows me well enough to hear when I mean it.
Her mouth tightens. “You’re really gonna take her side? After everything we..”
“Yeah,” I cut in. “Because she didn’t lie to me. Or cheat on me. Or throw everything away for a guy who can’t even finish a sentence without flexing.”
The words hit. Her face flushes, then pales. She looks at Thanos like she’s expecting backup. He just shrugs and sits back down.
“You had your chance,” I say, quieter now. “And now I want you to leave her the hell alone.”
She scoffs, tossing her hair over her shoulder like she didn’t just get humiliated in front of a dozen people. “Whatever. Have fun playing house with your little pet.”
I take a step forward. She flinches.
But I don’t hit her. I don’t even raise my voice again. I just stand there until she turns around and walks off.
Ma-ri’s hands are shaking when she picks up her spoon again. She hasn’t said a word.
Thanos breaks the tension, nudging me with his elbow. “Took you long enough.”
I sit down beside her, tray untouched. “You alright?”
Ma-ri nods, eyes still on her rice. “Yeah. Thanks.”
I want to say more. I want to tell her that it won’t happen again, that I’ll make sure of it.
But for now, I just stay close.
And keep my eyes on Seo-ah.
Just in case.
—
Lights out comes, but I can’t sleep.
It’s too quiet. The kind of quiet that doesn’t comfort, the kind that claws at the inside of your skull. Guards outside, cameras in the corners, people shifting in their bunks like animals waiting for the next test.
I’m lying on my side, staring at the bars above Thanos’s bunk, when I hear soft footsteps. Slow, hesitant, almost swallowed by the snores and rustle of bodies.
Then her whisper. “Nam-gyu?”
I roll onto my back. Ma-ri’s standing at the edge of my bunk, clutching her blanket to her chest like it’s armor. Her eyes are wide, catching what little light leaks in through the vents. She looks even smaller in the dark.
“Can I…” she swallows, glancing at the empty space beside me. “…sleep here again?”
I don’t even think. I just nod and shift over, lifting the blanket. She climbs in carefully, trying not to touch too much, curling on her side like she’s apologizing for existing.
I slide my arm over her waist anyway, pulling her close until her back rests against my chest. Her hair smells faintly clean, a trace of whatever cheap soap the guards throw at us.
For a long while we just breathe. Her small frame rises and falls under my hand, steadying me more than it should.
Then her voice, barely a thread. “I’m scared.”
My chin rests against the top of her head. I murmur into her hair, “I know. Me too.”
She shakes her head, a quick little movement against my chest. “No. I mean… I’m scared of the cancer coming back.”
The words hit harder than any game could. My chest tightens, breath stuttering.
Her voice trembles. “Everyone talks about surviving, but no one talks about after. Every bruise, every stomach ache, every bad dream, I wonder if it’s back. I wonder if I’ll wake up and be sick all over again.” She swallows. “Sometimes I think… maybe I never really left it behind.”
I close my eyes, press a long kiss to the top of her head. My lips linger there, like maybe I can convince her, convince myself, that she’s safe just by holding her tighter.
“You’re here now,” I whisper. “That’s what matters. You’re breathing, you’re fighting, you’re alive. That counts. And if… if it ever does come back, you won’t be alone. Not again.”
She doesn’t answer, not with words. She just curls into me tighter, her forehead pressed to my chest, her small hand clutching at my shirt like she’s anchoring herself to me.
And I hold her, my arm wrapped firm around her, my other hand stroking absent circles over her arm.
But inside, I’m tearing apart.
Because part of me doesn’t want this. Doesn’t want to feel the warmth of her pressed against me, doesn’t want to memorize the sound of her breathing, doesn’t want to let my chest ache with something like love again. Not after Ji-yoo. Not after watching her fade, not after crying into stone, not after eleven years of drowning in her absence. And not after Seo-ah, who proved that even when you think you’ve found love again, it can gut you and leave you bleeding in your own bed.
I swore I wouldn’t do this again. I swore I wouldn’t give myself to anyone like that again.
But Ma-ri is so damn hard not to love.
Tiny, fierce, stubborn Ma-ri, who still laughs even when her hands shake, who still tries even when the odds are impossible. Who reminds me of you, Ji-yoo, in flashes I can’t escape, but who is also her own, someone who fights for every breath like it matters.
And as much as I want to push it down, as much as I want to stay the bitter man who doesn’t need anyone, my body betrays me. I kiss her head again, softer this time, and I don’t let go.
I can’t.
So I just hold her while the dorm hums with fear and exhaustion, while the cameras watch, while the nightmares press in from every side.
And I pray she can’t hear the war raging inside my chest.
—
I wake up cold.
The spot next to me is empty.
It takes my brain a second to register it, just long enough for my hand to find the still-warm dent in the blanket where Ma-ri had been curled against me like a kitten. My fingers curl into the fabric before I sit up.
Thanos is still stretched out on the lower bunk, one arm thrown over his face like he’s pretending not to notice I’m awake.
“Where is she?” My voice is rough.
He doesn’t move. “Bathroom, I think.”
“You let her go alone?”
Thanos finally peeks out from under his arm, squinting at me like I just asked him to recite his social security number. “Bro. What do you want me to do? Follow her into the bathroom? She’d scream. I’d look like a damn perv.”
I sigh and throw the blanket off, already stepping down. “She shouldn’t be alone.”
He shrugs, muttering something under his breath about how I’m already whipped, but I’m not listening. My eyes are scanning the dorm.
Then I see it.
Across the room, near the corner where the dorm bathrooms are, Seo-ah is standing too close to Ma-ri. Way too close. She’s got that same smug look on her face, that fake little smile she always wore when she wanted to seem like she wasn’t being a bitch, but she always was.
Another girl’s there too, one of the louder ones who hangs around Seo-ah like a backup dancer.
Ma-ri’s backed up against the wall, arms tucked in, trying to look small. She’s already small. It’s not hard.
Seo-ah says something I can’t hear from here, but I see Ma-ri flinch.
Then Seo-ah shoves her.
Not hard enough to make a scene. Just hard enough to hurt. Ma-ri stumbles sideways, bumping into the wall.
And then she does it again.
Ma-ri doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t cry out. But I see her eyes. I see her try to duck away.
Then the other girl joins in. A second shove. Another cornered laugh.
Ma-ri starts to turn, maybe to walk away. But Seo-ah grabs her wrist and yanks her back and..
She shoves her. Full-force this time.
Ma-ri hits the ground with a dull thud. Her elbow hits first, then her side. Her head snaps forward, chin striking the concrete, and when she lifts it..
Blood.
Her nose is bleeding. It’s not gushing, but it’s enough. And she just sits there, stunned, one hand braced on the floor, the other trembling against her shirt.
Everything inside me goes hot and sharp.
I’m moving before I realize it. My heart is pounding in my ears, footsteps heavy against the floor.
Seo-ah looks up just in time to see me coming, and her face falters for a split second. Then she tries to hide it again. That smile creeps back on, too slow to be real.
“Oh, Nam-gyu,” she says sweetly, like nothing’s wrong. “She tripped. Didn’t watch where she was going.”
I don’t say a word.
I walk right past her and kneel next to Ma-ri.
Her eyes widen when she sees me. She looks more embarrassed than hurt, nose bleeding, palms scraped. I reach into my pocket for one of the tissues Thanos always teases me for hoarding. I press it gently to her nose, careful with her hand.
“You okay?” I ask low.
She nods once, quick, not trusting her voice.
I turn around.
Seo-ah’s still standing there with her friend, trying to look unbothered.
“You put your hands on her?” I ask.
“She fell.”
“No. You shoved her.”
“I didn’t mean..”
“You shoved her.”
The whole dorm is quieter now. People are watching. Pretending not to, but watching.
I stand.
And for a moment, I don’t know what I’m going to do. My fists are clenched. My pulse is loud.
Seo-ah opens her mouth to speak again, but I take one step closer and she shuts it.
“I don’t care how bitter you are. I don’t care what happened between us. If you touch her again..” I stop, inhale through my nose. “Try me again, Seo-ah. See what happens.”
Her friend grabs her arm, pulling her back. Seo-ah scoffs, trying to save face. “Whatever. She’s not worth it anyway.”
She walks off.
I watch her go. I don’t move until she’s disappeared into the bunks.
Then I crouch again and turn to Ma-ri. “Can you stand?”
She nods shakily, trying to wipe her face with her sleeve. I take her elbow gently, guiding her up. She stumbles once, so I catch her again, holding her steady.
“Back to the bunk?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
I lead her there. She doesn’t say much. Just sits quietly while I help clean her up. Thanos has gone quiet too, and when I glance at him, he gives me a small nod, like yeah, I saw.
But I’m not calm. Not really. Not inside.
Because seeing her hurt like that, on the floor, bleeding, quiet and trying not to cry, lit something in me I thought I buried with Ji-yoo.
This protectiveness. This instinct. This… feeling.
And I don’t know what to do with it.
But I know one thing: no one’s laying a hand on Ma-ri again. Not if I can help it.
—
Another vote.
Everyone froze when it came in.
A guard barked out the instructions, just like last time. “You will be called up in reverse order by player number. Press your decision. Receive your patch.”
The room murmured, soft panic under breath.
There were 255 of us left. Less than half of what we started with.
We sat with our backs against our bunk. Thanos on one side of me, Ma-ri on the other, her knees pulled to her chest.
Her shoulder touched mine.
“Nam-gyu,” she said softly, almost whispering. “I’m voting red.”
I turned, surprised. “What?”
“I want to go home.”
“But your debt..”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I know what I said before. But now I… I don’t know. I’m just.. scared.”
I didn’t say anything right away. Just looked at her. Really looked at her.
She wasn’t pale like before. Not shaky or sick. But her eyes were glassy, and she had this quiet tension in her jaw, like she was trying to hold everything in.
“I can’t tell you what to vote,” I said finally. “But we’ll protect you. You’re not alone here.”
She nodded, but she didn’t change her mind.
When her number was called, Player 399, she walked slow, eyes on the floor. She reached the podium, pressed the red ❌, and received the patch without looking up.
When she came back, she didn’t sit beside me. She sat on the end of the bunk, quiet, folding the patch in her lap over and over like it would change if she just held it long enough.
Thanos went next. 230.
He didn’t hesitate. Blue ⭕️. Stayed grinning the whole walk back like this was still some joke that hadn’t ended.
Then it was me. 124.
I stood.
Ma-ri didn’t look at me.
I walked to the podium, palms sweaty, gut tight, and pressed the blue circle.
The guard slapped the patch into my hand without a word.
I walked back and sat down beside her again. She didn’t ask. I didn’t say anything.
Eventually the vote finished. A guard stepped forward, voice sharp.
“The majority has chosen to continue the games.”
The dorm exhaled all at once. Some groans. Some cheers. Some silence.
I looked at Ma-ri.
She didn’t cry.
She just nodded once, like she’d expected it, and she turned and leaned into my side.
And I let her.
—
We don’t talk on the way back to our bunk. The dorm feels colder than usual, every light overhead like an interrogation lamp, every pair of eyes watching us as we climb to the second tier and pull the thin blanket over our knees.
Thanos is off somewhere, making friends or deals, so it’s just us, tucked against the wall where the noise fades. For a long time, Ma-ri says nothing. She just traces the seam in the blanket, lips pressed tight, eyes red.
Finally, she whispers, “I don’t want to die here.”
My chest aches. I pull her closer, tuck her under my arm like I could make a wall out of my body. “You won’t. I promise.”
She laughs, small and bitter. “You can’t promise that.”
I try anyway. “I’ll keep you safe. Thanos will too.”
She shakes her head, tears threatening. “It’s not just that. I just… I don’t want to die a virgin.” Her voice breaks at the word, cheeks pink, eyes brimming. “If I die here, I’ll never even know what it’s like to be wanted. Or… to be touched. Not like that.”
A wave of guilt and sadness hits me so hard it’s hard to breathe. I start to say something stupid, about how she’ll get out of here, find a good guy, fall in love, but she cuts me off with a soft, shaky, “I already found a good guy.”
It’s quiet after that. She’s looking at me, really looking, and I see it all at once, the hope, the fear, the way she’s holding herself together by a thread.
“Please?” she says, barely more than a breath.
My whole body tenses. I want to say no, that now isn’t the time, that we’re in a room full of strangers, but the look in her eyes guts me. It’s not just about sex. It’s about being alive, about taking something for herself before it’s too late.
I reach for her, slow and careful, touch her cheek with the back of my hand. She shivers at the contact, eyes fluttering shut.
“You sure?” I whisper.
She nods, tears slipping down her face. “I just want to know what it’s like. I want… you.”
There’s no hunger in it, no heat, just ache. Need.
I kiss her forehead, then her temple, then finally her mouth, soft, gentle, like a question I don’t really want answered. She melts into me, quiet tears on my cheek.
My hand slides down, hesitates at her waist. She tenses, then relaxes, and I move under the blanket, careful not to let anyone see. My fingers trace the line of her hip, her thigh, then slip under the hem of her shorts.
She bites her lip, eyes wide, but doesn’t stop me. I kiss her again, softer this time, as my fingers find the heat between her legs.
She gasps, quiet, trembling. “Is this okay?” I ask, voice barely audible.
She nods fast, clutching my shirt in her hands. “Please.”
I move slow, gentle, circling her clit with careful fingers. She’s tense at first, holding her breath, but I murmur her name and tell her to relax, that she’s safe with me. It takes a minute for her to believe it, but when she does, her head drops to my shoulder, breath coming faster.
I kiss her hair, her forehead, anywhere I can reach. “You’re okay,” I whisper. “I’ve got you. Just feel.”
She does. Her hips move, shy at first, then bolder. I keep my hand steady, keep my eyes on hers. The rest of the room disappears. There’s just us, breathing together, pretending this is any other place, any other night.
When she comes, it’s soft and startled, like she didn’t know she could. She buries her face in my neck, muffles a cry against my skin. I hold her through it, keep my hand on her thigh until the tremors fade.
After, she’s quiet. I wipe her tears with my thumb. She clings to me, tighter than before.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “I just needed… I just needed to feel something good.”
I kiss her again, slow and careful. “You are good. All of you.”
Afterwards, she’s quiet.
Still curled against me, still breathing fast, but quieter now. Her body’s soft and heavy where she’s tucked under my arm, the heat of her skin bleeding into mine like she’s trying to sink inside me and disappear.
I thought she’d fall asleep, honestly. Most people do after something like that, especially here, especially after crying. But she doesn’t.
Instead, her hand moves. Slow. Careful.
She takes mine, the one I just touched her with, and lifts it gently to her chest.
I almost pull back.
“Ma-ri…”
She shushes me, not with sound but with the look on her face. It’s not teasing. It’s not even shy. It’s something else, like she’s asking me to help her feel real.
She pushes my hand under her shirt, slides it over the soft warmth of her breast, and covers it with her own. Her skin’s flushed. Her breath’s uneven.
“I just want to know what it’s like,” she says quietly. “To be wanted everywhere.”
I stare at the ceiling. My heart’s a fucking war drum.
My thumb brushes over her nipple and she exhales, shaky. She’s so small, it fits in my palm like a secret.
I could tell her no. Should tell her no. This place isn’t safe. Nothing about this is normal.
But something in me shatters at the way she trembles, not from fear, but from hope. Like she finally found a piece of kindness in a collapsing world and she’s not sure if she’s allowed to hold it.
I kiss the top of her head. “You’re wanted,” I say, voice low. My fingers move, gentle. “You’re so wanted.”
She sighs, deep and quiet, like it’s the first time someone’s ever said that and meant it.
Her eyes are closed now. I feel her press her face against my collarbone, her lashes brushing my skin.
“I don’t need all of you,” she whispers. “I just needed… something. Something that’s just mine.”
“You got it.”
She doesn’t say anything after that. Just breathes.
And I keep my hand there, against her skin, heartbeat thudding in my wrist.
I’m not thinking about Seo-ah. Or Ji-yoo.
Just Ma-ri.
Just this strange little moment she asked me to give her, and the terrifying, stupid, impossible truth that I already want to give her more.
—
She’s still quiet hours later. Not shy exactly, just soft. Heavy. Like her thoughts are weighing her down.
I don’t move. I want to, but I don’t. Because every time I even twitch, she tightens her grip on my wrist. She won’t let me take my hand off her chest. It stays there under her shirt, warm against her skin, her little heartbeat pulsing steady under my palm.
I’m staring at the ceiling, wondering if the guards even notice us like this, when she whispers, “You know I’ve never seen a dick before.”
I nearly choke.
My whole body goes rigid, heart hammering, brain flipping through words like cards but none of them make sense.
“What?” My voice cracks like I’m fifteen again.
She doesn’t look at me, just keeps her cheek pressed against my chest, eyes half-closed. “I’ve never seen one. Not in person.”
“Ma-ri…” I try to laugh it off, but it comes out strangled. “What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?”
She finally looks up at me, and there’s this sharp little smirk on her lips that doesn’t match the tears she cried last night. “You’re gonna let me die in here without even seeing a guy’s cock?”
I almost fucking whimper.
My head falls back against the wall like it’ll hold me together. The way she says it, tiny voice, matter-of-fact, but cutting straight into me, it’s fucking with my brain worse than any pill I’ve ever taken.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, rubbing my free hand over my face. “You can’t just… say shit like that.”
“Why not?” she asks softly, tilting her head. “You said I’m wanted. Isn’t that part of it?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “That’s not what I meant and you know it.”
But she doesn’t let me go. She’s still got my hand under her shirt, holding it there like proof. And she’s looking at me now with those big eyes that make her look fifteen until you see the pain behind them and realize she’s lived twice the life of most people her age.
I swallow hard. My throat’s dry as hell.
“Ma-ri, we… we shouldn’t. I…”
She just waits. Quiet. Patient. Terrifying.
And something in me snaps, all at once.
“Fine,” I breathe, voice rough and wrecked.
Her smile is tiny, fragile. Like she knew I’d break eventually.
And all I can think, as my stomach knots and my pulse slams in my ears, is that Ji-yoo’s ghost is probably screaming at me right now. Seo-ah’s shadow is probably laughing. And yet here I am, trembling over a girl who’s too small for this world but somehow strong enough to fucking undo me with one sentence.
Every alarm in my head is blaring. It’s so wrong, here, now, after everything. But she’s looking at me like I’m her whole world, like if I say no she might shatter. I want to tell her she’s too good for this, too good for me, but the words die on my tongue.
Instead, I swallow hard and, shaking a little, guide her hand lower, over my stomach, down to the thick line of my sweatpants. She freezes for half a second, her fingers featherlight, then cups me through the fabric, gentle, so careful, like she’s afraid I might break. Her eyes go wide.
“Whoa,” she whispers, and there’s wonder in her voice, like she’s looking at something rare. Something real.
The innocence in that word kills me. I choke on a laugh. “Yeah, well. That’s… that’s me.”
She glances up, searching my face for doubt, for a reason to stop. I almost give her one. But then she squeezes, just a little, and I can’t help the stuttering sound that slips out.
Her lips part, surprised but delighted, and suddenly she’s bolder, curious. “Can I…?”
I nod, biting the inside of my cheek. “Go slow, yeah?”
I think she’s just going to keep her hand on me, maybe touch me a little through my pants. But she’s shaking her head, determined, and before I can even blink, her small fingers are sliding under the waistband, skin on skin.
“Ma-ri..” My voice cracks. I’m not ready. I’m not even close.
But she’s not hesitating. She wraps her hand around me, small, soft, unsure, and gives a slow, tentative stroke. My whole body shudders.
“Is this okay?” she asks, looking up, wide-eyed.
I can barely breathe. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah, it’s… it’s good. You’re good.”
She grins, more confident now, and does it again, a little firmer. She’s clumsy at first, shy, but she’s watching me for every reaction, learning what makes me twitch and gasp and bite my lip to keep from moaning too loud.
I keep my hand over hers, guiding her, whispering how to move, how tight, how slow. She follows every cue, curious and gentle, but hungry too, like she’s starving for any proof she’s not just unlucky, not just another number waiting to die.
I lose track of everything but her, her hand, her breath, her voice in my ear when she says, “I want you to feel good too, Nam-gyu. Please.”
I can’t help it. I start to shake, the world narrowing to the soft, desperate heat of her touch and the fear that I’ll never get another chance at something like this. When I finally come, muffling the sound in my elbow, she watches, awed, and doesn’t let go until I’m done.
After, we just breathe together in the dark, her head on my shoulder, my heart still racing. I want to apologize. I want to promise her a future. All I can do is kiss the top of her head, trembling, and pull her close.
“You’re amazing,” I whisper, voice raw. “I mean it.”
She smiles into my neck, pride and relief all tangled together. “Thank you. For trusting me.”
We don’t say anything else. We don’t have to. There’s only the quiet, the pounding in my chest, and the terrifying, beautiful feeling that maybe, for just a minute, we’re both alive in a way that matters.
