NEEDY - seonghyoen cortis
The rain has been a steady, soft percussion against the window for hours, like a metronome set to the rhythm of your heartbeat. You should be asleep. You should be doing a dozen sensible things instead of sitting on the edge of the couch with your knees pulled up and your phone face‑down on the coffee table, pretending the silence isn’t loud enough to bruise.
You tell yourself you’re fine. You tell yourself you don’t need anyone to fix the hollow that opens in your chest when the lights go out. You tell yourself a lot of things that sound braver in the dark.
The door opens without a sound and he’s there before you can decide whether to look up. Seonghyoen fills the doorway like he belongs to the room like he’s always been part of the furniture, part of the air. He’s soaked at the shoulders, hair plastered to his forehead, but his eyes are dry and steady, and they find you with the kind of focus that makes your breath hitch.
“You’re awake,” he says, and it’s not a question.
You want to say you’re not. You want to say you were asleep, that you didn’t mean to be awake and thinking about everything you shouldn’t. Instead you shrug, a small, useless motion. “Couldn’t sleep.”
He crosses the room in three long strides and sits beside you without asking. The couch dips where he settles, and the world narrows to the space between your knees and his hands. He doesn’t touch you at first; he just sits, patient as a lighthouse.
“You’re quiet,” he says. “That’s not like you.”
You laugh, a sound that comes out too thin. “Maybe I’m practicing.”
Seonghyoen’s mouth quirks. “For what? Being a statue?”
You want to tell him it’s easier to be still than to explain the way your chest tightens when you think about being left alone. You want to tell him that sometimes the world feels like a room with the doors closing one by one and you don’t know which one will be the last. Instead you fold your hands into your sleeves and look at the rain.
He watches you for a long moment, and then his hand is on your knee, warm and sure. It’s a small thing, but it anchors you. “Talk to me,” he says. “Tell me the worst part.”
The worst part is admitting you’re afraid. The worst part is that the word need tastes like a confession you’re not allowed to make. You swallow it down until it’s a lump in your throat. “I don’t want to be a burden.”
“You’re not a burden,” he says, like he’s reciting something he’s learned by heart. “You’re… you.”
You want to argue. You want to list all the ways you’ve been inconvenient, all the nights you’ve called when you couldn’t sleep, all the times you’ve clung to him because the dark felt too big. But his fingers tighten, not in a grip but in a promise.
“Say it,” he murmurs. “Say what you’re thinking.”
You stare at the window, at the way the streetlights smear gold across the wet pavement. The words come out small and honest. “I don’t want to be alone.”
Seonghyoen’s face softens in a way that makes something inside you unclench. He leans closer until his shoulder brushes yours. “You won’t be,” he says. “Not if I can help it.”
There’s a steadiness in him that feels like a shore after a long swim. He doesn’t fix everything with a single sentence. He doesn’t promise miracles. He offers presence, which is somehow more dangerous and more necessary.
You let your head fall against his shoulder, a tiny, needy thing that feels both shameful and inevitable. He doesn’t flinch. He wraps an arm around you, fingers threading through your hair at the nape of your neck, and the world tilts back into place.
“Why do you always do that?” you ask, voice muffled.
“Do what?” His hand is warm, his breath steady.
“Make me feel like I can breathe.”
He hums, a soft sound that vibrates through your bones. “Because you let me,” he says simply. “Because you let me stay.”