. . . d e l i r i u m | 9
in the midst of the crowds, in the shapes in the clouds, i don’t see nobody but you /// dhruv, double take
pairing: yeonjun x fem!reader
summary: sometimes love and hate exist on opposite ends of the map. other times, on separate floors of the same building.
genre: ex!yeonjun / enemies to lovers au / neighbour au
warnings: slow burn, mutual pining that is genuinely so intense i’m going to personally lock them both up, strong language, jealous!jjun, fluff, flirting & teasing & being idiots in love, maybe mild angst? all communication done sideways lol
words: 10.4k
[ ! ] this is a sequel to equilibrium
masterlist / read from the beginning
✦ • ─── SEPTEMBER 10, 2026. 3:30 PM
You’d spent most of Thursday in Professor Lee’s office, reviewing your students’ presentations until the PowerPoints blurred into one another.
Sungjae, the student who’d been raising his hand since the first lecture you’d taught (very rarely did it include a question), had come in last and insisted on taking you through every slide, every transition, every font choice, and every graph. You couldn’t tell blue apart from green by the end of it.
He was still explaining the philosophical implications of his contents slide, of all things, by the time you shut Professor Lee’s office door behind you.
“I feel like, visually, it creates an epistemological hierarchy,” he said, falling into step beside you as you crossed the lobby, “before the audience has even consciously registered it.”
You made a polite noise.
Sungjae had seemingly discovered the joy of over-intellectualising and decided that every sentence needed seasoning with words like paradigmatic and phenomenological. He reminded you a lot of someone.
You’d barely stepped out of the building when a car horn split through the air. A flock of pigeons launched off the roof. Heads turned across the quad.
You looked up.
When you’d agreed to attend one of the races Yeonjun was working, you hadn’t realised that also meant he intended to pick you up from university.
Now he was leaning halfway out of the driver’s window of his Mercedes in the parking lot across the quad, one hand planted on the steering wheel while the other waved high enough to change the direction of the wind. Then, because he clearly hadn’t yet drawn quite enough attention, he pressed the horn again.
Your shoulders dropped.
Beside you, Sungjae raised his eyebrows. “For you, I assume.”
You lifted an almost pleading hand towards Yeonjun, hoping he would understand the signal for please stop embarrassing me.
“For me,” you admitted.
“Boyfriend?”
You looked at Sungjae, momentarily thrown by how casually he’d asked this, before glancing back towards the Mercedes.
Yeonjun had already climbed out. Arms folded, he watched the two of you from beside the hood. Even from here, you could see him debating whether another blast of the horn would be excessive. Knowing him, he probably thought it wouldn’t be.
“Have a nice day, Sungjae,” you said instead of answering, already making your way down the stone steps. “Your presentation’s good. Just don’t spend longer explaining your design choices than your research.”
A faint blush appeared on his cheeks. “I wasn’t—”
“I’ll see you next week in class.” You crossed the quad before he could think to ask another question.
The grass shimmered beneath the late afternoon sun, freshly cut and fragrant in the breeze. Students lounged beneath the trees with their shoes and notebooks abandoned beside them, enjoying the last of the warmth. You had to veer sharply left as a cyclist swept past, offering you an amused apology that sounded more like laughter.
By the time you reached the Mercedes, Yeonjun had pushed himself off the hood. His gaze flicked past you towards the Law building.
“Who was that?” he asked.
You gave him a pointed look. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he said. “Who was that?”
You let your backpack slide from your shoulder. “My student.”
His attention returned to the boy, who, honest to God, looked like a primary school kid. He was pretending to check his phone while glancing up at you and Yeonjun every few seconds.
“Persistent bloke, isn’t he?” Yeonjun murmured. “What’s his name?”
“Why’s it matter?”
Yeonjun looked back at you then, properly.
“I enjoy meeting new people,” he said simply.
“Mhmm.”
“Should I go over, then, introduce myself?”
You ran your tongue over your teeth. “If you want to never see me again, sure.”
He clicked his lips. “Right. Another time, then.”
You didn’t dignify that with a response and slid your staff lanyard off your neck before tucking it into your backpack.
Yeonjun pulled the passenger door open. “Come on, then.”
The leather seats of his Mercedes had been baking in the sun, and the warmth seeped pleasantly through your jacket as you sat down, dropping your backpack between your feet. The scent of cedarwood lingered in the cabin, familiar enough by now that your lips curved automatically.
Yeonjun shut your door and rounded the hood. The car woke the moment he slid behind the wheel and turned the key, emitting a low sound that swallowed the rest of the campus noise.
He slipped his seatbelt on and shot you a glance. “Work okay?”
You exhaled, fumbling with your own seatbelt until it clicked into place.
“Yeah,” you said. “Shouldn’t you have been at work already, though?”
“Not for another half an hour.” He pulled away from the kerb with an easy turn of the wheel. “Figured I’d save you the trip home and pick you up from here. We can grab your student, too, if you’d like.”
You rolled your eyes as the car drove past the Law building. Sungjae still stood by the door.
“M’s sure he’ll find his way home,” you said.
"Mhmm." Yeonjun watched him until he disappeared from his field of vision.
“Thanks for coming,” you said, pulling his attention back to you as you tugged the seatbelt where it had begun sawing into the side of your neck. “D’you think Violet will be alright at mine?”
The Mercedes rolled through the narrow cobbled streets. The plush seats absorbed every uneven stone.
“Probably,” Yeonjun said. “I genuinely don’t think she even notices we’re gone, s’long as it’s still light outside.”
Your expression eased.
“Alright.” You settled back. “Tell me what to expect at the race, then.”
“Okay. So—”
“How many women will be there?”
“I—” His eyes flicked towards you before returning to the road. The queue at the main junction leading out of campus had already coagulated into a procession of brake lights. “I’m actually not sure. Why?”
“Trying to work out how quickly I’ll get bored if there aren’t any women to keep me company.”
Yeonjun understood the sentiment, but he didn’t much care for the idea of someone else providing that particular service for you.
“I’ll keep you company,” he said.
You turned to him. “You’re not a woman.”
He considered that.
“Okay. That’s true.” He gave a slow nod. His left hand rested loosely at the top of the steering wheel, his wrist bent at a careful angle. “But I am still your friend. Right?”
“Right.”
“So I still count.”
“You’ll be working.”
“I can still—”
“With other men,” you added.
That made him smile.
“Ah,” he said. “So their manliness will contaminate me, s’that it?”
You gave him a flat look. “It might.”
He chuckled. The traffic crawled forward another car length.
Watching the billboards on the side of the road, he found himself thinking about the conversations he’d overheard around the paddock. Half of them had been about engines, the other half about places with flashing lights and overpriced drinks.
Before taking the job, he’d had no idea there were this many strip clubs in the city. Now he was convinced that most of them were financed solely by his drivers. Admittedly, that was quite comforting. The only good his drivers were for was keeping local businesses afloat.
All in all, Yeonjun decided, you were making a solid point.
“I’ll try not to stand too close to them,” he said finally, “and hopefully they won’t infect me.”
You snorted. The traffic moved, and he was finally able to merge onto the main street.
“You’ll be busy anyway,” you said. “How will you have time to keep me company?”
A faint crease appeared between his brows. “I always have time for you.”
Your fingers found the edge of your jacket. The stitching by the zipper felt fascinating—considerably more fascinating, in fact, than the memory of the first time he’d brought you to his race in grad school, and then skipped it altogether to walk around the woods with you instead.
“So,” you inhaled sharply, “no women, then?”
Yeonjun exhaled as the traffic lights turned red.
Resting one elbow on the open window, he drummed his fingers absently against the door while cyclists threaded between the standing cars.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Couple of teams have women around the garages, but I couldn’t tell you whether they’re engineers, mechanics, partners, or—I don’t know.” He lifted one shoulder. “Never asked. Bit awkward to go, hi, s’nice meeting you, d’you work here?”
You smiled. “Okay, fair, yeah.”
“Yeah. So I genuinely don’t know who’ll be there.”
“That’s fine, then.”
The lights flicked to green.
Yeonjun pulled forward, easing past a hesitant black BMW before its driver had registered that the traffic was moving again. Then he glanced across at you, his teeth catching briefly on his lower lip.
“Not particularly excited about this, then?” he asked.
You met his eyes for a moment before his attention returned to the road. The Mercedes turned onto a narrow lane flanked by warehouses whose corrugated walls shimmered in the sun, throwing ripples of reflected light across the windscreen.
“I am,” you said. The road felt older here, patched so many times that it looked like a black quilt. “Just nervous, I suppose. Crowds of people. You know.”
Yeonjun nodded.
To be honest, midweek races rarely drew much of a crowd. The only people who came were devoted regulars (all staggering ten of them), a handful of university students skipping lectures, relatives of the drivers, and the occasional curious passer-by who’d wandered over after seeing a social media post. Hardly the roaring masses you seemed to be imagining.
“I’ll be with you whenever I can,” he said. “Promise.”
The asphalt gave way to gravel. Loose stones crunched beneath the tyres, kicking pale dust into the air behind you.
“Thank you,” you said. “Don’t let me interfere with your work, though. I’ll survive.”
He shrugged. “My work will survive, too.”
You looked across to him. “You’re alright getting fired because you spent your shift babysitting me?”
“I am.” He caught your eye, his grin unbearably smug. “Problem?”
You looked away before he could enjoy your reaction for too long, folding your hands together in your lap.
“Well, not a problem for me,” you said. “But you quite obviously need professional help.”
“Mhmm. Think I’ve heard that before.”
“Might be worth considering.”
He laughed. Distracted by the sound, you didn’t notice the clouds sliding over the sun until the car around you dimmed.
Another ten minutes later, a broad metal gate appeared between shipping containers ahead, practically invisible until you were nearly on top of it. Little showed behind it, only flashes of colour and the occasional plume of smoke drifting into the sky.
The smell of hot rubber and petrol drifted through the open window. You could almost feel it in your throat.
“We’re here,” Yeonjun said, stopping just outside the gate and killing the engine. “Bit underwhelming from this side, I know, but hang on for me.”
You unclipped your seatbelt and looked across the uneven dirt parking lot. Cars had been abandoned wherever there’d been room, some leaning with one wheel sunk into the soft ground.
The dirt was vibrating as you stepped out of the car, deep enough to reverberate through the soles of your trainers.
It took you back to university at once. You almost expected to look up and find Beomgyu’s beaten-down Audi parked beside Taehyun’s unreasonably orange Corvette.
Yeonjun let you through the gate, which swung from a single tired hook that looked like it wouldn’t even keep pigeons out, let alone people. The smell of fuel seemed to sink into your clothes almost immediately. Yeonjun’s dark leather jacket, on the other hand, continued to smell of his cologne. Perhaps he’d grown immune to the scents here.
“Alright,” he said, extending his hands. “Welcome.”
The paddock was lively. It set you on edge at first, the loud noises, but about ten minutes of weaving through garages and trailers later, you had to admit that this wasn’t so bad after all.
There was a cosiness to the chaos around you: mechanics borrowed tools from each other without asking, drivers traded insults one minute, and shared energy drinks the next. Even the people dressed in casual clothes greeted the staff with enthusiastic high-fives. Everyone seemed to know everyone here.
It reminded you, absurdly, of your village.
You were surprised, then, once the two of you walked straight out of the paddock.
Before you could ask Yeonjun where he was taking you, he reached for your hand. Feeling your skin tingle all of a sudden, you let him guide you around the grandstands, between coils of electrical cable and past more fencing. He then turned up towards a grassy slope at the edge of the circuit.
“Why,” you asked, already out of breath as your trainers slipped against a tree root, “are we climbing a hill? Surely they aren’t racing uphill?”
Yeonjun tightened his grip to steady you. “Of course not.”
“So, what’s the—”
“You’ll see.” He stepped over another exposed root and paused to draw you around it. “Trust me.”
You brushed a loose strand of hair away from your face. “M’not a fan of surprises, you know.”
Yeonjun grinned. Instead of replying, he reached back again and gave your hand a gentle tug up the steepest stretch of the slope. The wind was stronger here, carrying the smell of damp grass. With every step, the paddock noise fell further away.
You understood why he’d brought you here the moment you reached the top.
The entire circuit unfolded beneath you: two long straights carved through the greenery before feeding into a string of quick chicanes. From up here, the tarmac looked almost painted onto the landscape, a dark ribbon between fields that ran on towards the horizon. Beyond them, the trees—some of them already golden—swayed under the steadily thickening clouds. The grandstands had shrunk to rows of silver benches, speckled with tiny, moving dots.
“Wow,” you breathed.
Yeonjun smiled and, for the first time that afternoon, looked oddly unsure of himself.
“Yeah?” He let go of your hand, a little awkwardly, and slid both of his into his pockets. “This is my favourite spot to work. At least until someone calls me back down.”
Your gaze drifted across the track. “I can see why. Got the best view here.”
“Yeah.” He nodded towards the nearest grandstand. “Not too bad over there either, if you sit near the top. Front row’s got the better soundtrack, though.”
You laughed softly. “I can imagine.”
He smiled to himself. Almost without thinking, he drew his right hand back out of his pocket and found his left wrist, rubbing his thumb over the skin.
You caught the movement out of the corner of your eye.
“Bothering you?” you asked without turning. “Your wrist.”
He looked down.
“A bit.” He flexed it experimentally. The joint answered with the same dull ache that had followed him all day. “Shouldn’t have fucked with the brace while it was on. My own fault.” His thumb kept working slowly over the bone. “I’ve also realised it gets worse whenever it’s about to rain, so m’thinking of starting a weather forecasting business.”
You snorted, eyes returning to the horizon. The leaves on the trees around the hill had begun shivering.
“It does smell like rain,” you said. “Your wrist’s probably right.”
He took a slow breath through his nose and lifted his head towards the sky.
It always seemed to darken here first. The circuit sat low enough that the storms found it before the rest of the city had even noticed the clouds.
“Hmm.” He narrowed his eyes at the western horizon. “Could be a wet race.”
“Those are usually fun,” you said.
“Well,” he gave a short laugh, “they’re fun until the team wants updated analyses every three minutes because the grip’s changing every lap. First wet race I worked, I finished convinced I’d be handing in my resignation the next morning.”
“Shit. Yeah?” You looked from the clouds back to him. “Excellent day to bring me here.”
He grinned.
“No, it is an excellent day,” he said. “You’ll be my reason not to quit.”
Your eyebrows lifted. Catching the amusement in your eyes, he gestured vaguely towards the paddock below.
“Meant that in a friendly way,” he explained. “Got to prove I’m incredibly cool and completely calm under pressure.”
You scoffed. “Of course, yes. All very important qualities. Couldn’t possibly be friends with you otherwise.”
“I’d think so,” he said, “considering Reina became Assistant Director, what—six months after joining her nonprofit?”
You smiled before you could help yourself. If promotions had been awarded by public vote, you were convinced Reina would’ve been running the organisation by now.
She’d get there eventually, you were sure.
“Well,” you said. “She’s built different. We can’t all be her.”
“And Nara and Beomgyu are about to start their own conglomerate.”
You frowned. “Are they? M’still not convinced whatever they’re doing is legal.”
He laughed. The wind caught the sound and scattered it down the hillside. Your eyes followed it move through the grass.
“Yeah, s’true, I actually don’t know either,” he said. “Point is, you’re surrounded by very ambitious people. I’ve got to fit in.”
The determination in his tone made you pause.
“They—but just happened to be like that, though,” you said, looking up at him again. “But we’re friends because they’re good people. It’s not—not because they’ve got impressive dreams or careers. If Reina quit tomorrow and became a groupie for some rock band, I’d follow them on tour with her.”
Yeonjun smiled at the image, but didn’t answer right away, his gaze settling on the grandstands.
He hadn’t considered that, although he should’ve known that you’d never cared much about being impressed.
He wanted to impress you anyway.
The wind shifted across the hillside, stirring the grass around his ankles.
“Do you think I’m a good person, then?” he found himself asking.
You turned to him. The breeze tugged at the open flaps of your jacket as you searched his face, trying to work out whether he was joking or simply fishing for compliments the way he usually did.
The relentless focus in his eyes, however, made it difficult for you to keep looking at him.
“I—I think you’re trying to be a good person,” you said, eyes dropping to the track. “Which is probably the most any of us can do.”
“Yeah?” Your careful wording pulled another small smile from him. “Would you have said that back in grad school?”
Below the hill, a marshal carried a stack of orange traffic cones under one arm, walking along the edge of the circuit.
“Definitely not,” you admitted. “But I wasn’t a good person back then, either.”
That surprised Yeonjun.
He turned fully towards you. “What makes you say that?”
“I was prejudiced and proud,” you said with a shrug. “Probably still am, if I’m honest. But now I’m at least trying not to stay that way.”
You glanced back at him, and Yeonjun found himself smiling again.
He liked hearing that being good wasn’t a destination you eventually arrived at, but something you kept moving towards. That sounded promising.
“Hm.” He folded his arms against the breeze. “I always thought it was more permanent. Like—”
“Choi Yeonjun!”
You both flinched.
Instinctively, you looked downhill. Below, one of the race officials stood outside a portable office, one hand planted on top of his bald head as though holding it on against the wind.
“Yeah?” Yeonjun shouted back.
“Come down here for a sec, would you?” the official bellowed. “The bloody computers have all frozen again. Sorry!”
Yeonjun sighed. “Yeah—coming!”
He looked sideways at you. There was an apology already settled into his face.
“Go on.” You nodded towards the increasingly distressed man below. “Didn’t realise you were IT, though.”
“Oh—” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m everything here.”
You smiled. “Well, go ahead, then. Save the world.”
He held out his hand.
“Come with me,” he said, nodding towards the slope. “Let’s get you down first.”
You glanced downhill. From here, it didn’t look especially intimidating. Granted, the climb up had left your calves tense, but that’s typical for hills as you knew them. Always easier to get down.
“I can walk,” you said.
“I’m sure.” His smile deepened. “Let me help anyway. Since it’s on my way.”
Your eyes dropped to his outstretched hand.
You realised, with a faint hitch in your breath, that you couldn’t refuse him. Never had before, and still couldn’t.
“Fine.” You slipped your hand into his. His fingers were warm as they closed around yours. Your chest was, too. “Let’s go.”
His grip tightened for half a second. Then, without another word, he launched himself downhill at full speed.
You gasped, stomach lurching as you stumbled after him, your trainers skidding across flattened grass before you found your footing again. An involuntary laugh burst from your chest.
Yeonjun darted around a patch of mud without warning, tugging you after him so abruptly that your shoulder bumped hard against his.
“Yeonjun, for fuck’s—”
“Y’alright, love?”
You tightened your grip on his hand and swatted his shoulder without stopping. He laughed so hard that he missed the low-hanging tree branches. His jacket sleeve caught on them, yanking him half off balance.
Stumbling backwards, he instinctively caught you with his free hand, steadying you both.
“You’re such a—such a shithead,” you puffed, dropping his hand as the ground finally levelled under your feet. Your heart was still pounding. “Could’ve warned me.”
Yeonjun bent slightly to catch his breath. He was still laughing.
“For the record,” you added, shooting him a look, “I don’t think you’re a very good person right now.”
Naturally, that made him laugh even harder.
When he finally looked up and saw the grass clinging to the legs of your jeans, the loose strands of hair plastered across your face, and the reluctant smile you couldn’t smother, he almost wanted to drag you back up the hill just so he could race down it with you again.
“M’really sorry about this.” He didn’t mean the hill. “I’ll be right back soon, though. I swear.”
You planted your hands on your hips while your lungs tried to accept a proper breath.
“Take your time.” You inhaled slowly. “I’ll be fine.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. Not climbing any more hills.”
Already about to walk away, he suddenly pulled back. His eyes were practically sparkling.
“What if it’s a smaller one, though?” he asked.
“No.”
“But what if I asked you to climb it with me really, really nicely?”
“No.”
“What if I gave you some sweets for it—”
You found yourself laughing again. “Go, Jun! Jesus. You’ve got work.”
Laughing and promising five minutes one last time, Yeonjun reached out to squeeze your arm and finally jogged across the gravel to find his team.
✦ • ─── SEPTEMBER 10, 2026. 5 PM
Yeonjun’s five minutes quickly became ten, then thirty.
Surprisingly, you found you didn’t mind it all that much.
After walking along the pit lane, you discovered the food stalls behind the grandstands. One battered caravan had a queue trailing halfway back towards the paddock. Its white paint was peeling, the faded stickers coated in a thin film of grease. It looked as though it had been parked here longer than you’d been alive.
You soon understood why the queue had been so long – the hot dogs were fantastic. The bread was warm enough to send up steam on the first bite, and the pickles actually had flavour to them. You made a mental note to tell Yeonjun this should be the first stop of his tour when he brought someone here for the first time.
The only draining part of being here on your own, predictably, turned out to be the men.
It started pleasantly enough: a middle-aged man asked if you’d been here before. He was friendly and genuinely welcoming about it; even complimented your choice in hot dogs.
The second man caught up to you by the toilets and began explaining Qualifying to you before you’d even worked out why he was talking to you in the first place.
By the third (and fourth and fifth) man, the conversations had turned to the classic, could I get your number?
You declined each time with a polite smile. They smiled back and asked again, usually with a come on, sometimes with a don’t be like that.
By the time one of them asked whether you lived nearby, your smile felt more like a grimace.
“Sorry,” you said at last. “I’ve got a boyfriend.”
That didn’t work, either; something about a goalpost having a goalkeeper.
You hadn’t realised women were goalposts now, but you were not above taking a penalty kick at the next man’s head.
Eventually, though, once you’d repeated the boyfriend spell three more times, they decided to leave you alone, mumbling under their breath about who they thought you were. You had half a mind to hold yourself back, mostly out of respect for Yeonjun, who’d have had to be the one to bail you out of jail.
You retreated to the grandstands overlooking the track. Halfway up, you could see almost everything and spot anyone approaching long before they reached you.
Below, the cars had taken their places on the grid. Mechanics still moved between them, wheeling toolboxes across the tarmac. To your surprise, Yeonjun was back, and already pounding up the grandstand steps on the left, taking three at a time.
By the time he reached you, a sheen of sweat clung to his forehead. He dropped onto the bench beside you with a heavy exhale.
“God, I’m so—” He sucked in a breath. “—so sorry. Wasn’t expecting that to take so fucking long.”
“Don’t worry about it,” you said, lifting the empty polystyrene tray balanced on your knees. “I’m fine here. The food’s great.”
Yeonjun looked down at the tray.
“You got a hot dog without me?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He heaved another exhale. “Wow. Don’t know if I can forgive that.”
“And it was great, too. The pickles were excellent.”
“Oh,” he attempted a scowl, “were they?”
You grinned. “Did you get everything sorted?”
He leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees. “Yeah, eventually.”
Nodding, you turned back towards the track. It was surprisingly warm here; you were considering losing your jacket.
“Uh,” Yeonjun said. You glanced at him again. “Actually, for the last twenty or so minutes, I’ve been in there,” he pointed over his shoulder towards one of the portable offices, “listening to my engineers discuss you.”
Your eyebrows shot up. “What?”
“Yes,” he said. “And your boyfriend. How—how’d that happen in the time that I was gone?”
You groaned, tipping your head back against the aluminium bench.
Yeonjun wasn’t sure what to make of the sound. You looked uncomfortable, which made something in his stomach tighten, almost painfully. He shouldn’t have been gone this long.
Then it suddenly occurred to him that, despite everything that had happened over the past few weeks, you might’ve actually been seeing someone. The kiss at Reina and Soobin’s engagement party hadn’t necessarily proved anything—people kissed people they shouldn’t all the time.
He thought it would’ve made sense. You were you, after all. Beautiful and smart and caring and kind and funny, and he’d sit here, staring at his shoes, all night if he kept going.
“I lied to get rid of the idiots you work with,” you said eventually, some of the irritation still clinging to your voice. “No one taught them how to take no for an answer, apparently. Obviously m’not actually dating anyone.”
Beside you, Yeonjun plucked a speck of lint from his trousers. “Why, um—why obviously?”
You turned to him, puzzled by his puzzlement.
“Why would I decide to be friends with you,” you said, “and then immediately go off and date someone else?”
A sharp current climbed Yeonjun’s spine. Every thought in his head scattered at once, like a startled murder of crows. Or pigeons. Or sparrows, those were fidgety—
And he was thinking about fucking birds now.
“Does that—” He abandoned the sentence and tried again. “W-what does that mean?”
You’d expected the question. The moment you said the words, you knew they’d sounded larger than you’d meant.
“I don’t know,” you said, returning your gaze to the track below. “Means exactly what I said.”
Beside you, Yeonjun shifted closer to the edge of the bench. He could only see your profile from here; the wind kept sweeping strands of hair across your cheek, then dropping them again.
Stupid.
He wouldn’t have dropped them.
“It sounded,” he said carefully, “like you were saying you’d date me, if you could date anyone.”
You lifted one shoulder. “Suppose it did.”
His stomach lurched so violently that he worried he was about to be sick. That would definitely impress you.
“Is—” His voice almost disappeared. “—is that what you meant?”
You met his eyes, and Yeonjun physically felt his throat dry.
“It is,” you said.
There was no promise in your words, only the simple truth of it: it is.
If choosing someone had been as simple as wanting them, you’d have chosen him.
Yeonjun looked away. His fingers began tapping against his knees without him noticing. Below, the engineers gathered their equipment and stepped away from the cars. Someone, he knew, would come looking for him soon.
He didn’t think about that.
Instead, he thought about every joke he’d ever made over the years. Thought about the bet. About every time he’d wrapped the truth in humour and games, because it felt safer that way.
If there’s no beginning, Soobin had once summarised it for him, there’s no end.
You were protecting yourself from that version of him now.
He realised he was protecting himself, too.
There could be a beginning now. And there could be an end.
And if there was an end, there would be no friendship left for the two of you to fall back on. There’d be nothing.
“Does—does this work, then, do you think?” he asked after a long minute. “Us being friends.”
The wind picked up around you, nearly stealing his words. Down the grid, the yellow flags fluttered, snapping softly against their poles.
“I don’t know,” you said. “Think we’re trying our best, all things considered.”
Yeonjun smiled.
He thought that sounded a bit like a journey as well, just like being a good person, and decided he quite liked that. Quite liked that there were things to consider, too.
“Alright.” He stretched his legs onto the row below and exhaled some of the heaviness in his chest. “So, since we’re trying our best, yeah? You should start telling me everything you tell Reina.”
You turned to him with a scoff, then looked away the moment he started laughing.
“I don’t tell anyone what I tell Reina.”
“Ah.” He slapped a palm dramatically against his thigh. “Well, then m’afraid we’ll never reach our full friendship potential.”
You turned sideways on the bench, tucking one leg under yourself. Your jeans lifted over your ankles.
“There’re layers to this, though,” you said. “Reina is Reina. No one else gets to be her.” You pointed at him. “You’re Yeonjun.”
His grin widened. “Oh, thanks for reminding me, love. Knew I shouldn’t have wandered so far from the psych ward agai—”
“Alright, tone it down.” You rolled your eyes, but he’d already caught the smile threatening your lips. “M’saying our friendship is naturally different.”
“Different how?”
“Well…” You tugged your white sock a little higher where it had slipped beneath the hem of your jeans. “Okay. Do you think Soobin and I are the same?”
He was already shaking his head before you’d even finished the question. “Definitely not.”
“Am I less of a friend to you, then?”
His gaze drifted towards the woods beyond the circuit.
You weren’t less, he thought, but you weren’t more, either. You just sort of were; an entire category of your own.
“Alright,” he conceded anyway. “You’re not.”
You spread your hands in humble triumph. “There you go, then.”
“Right.” He stared into the middle distance for another second. “There I go, then. Yeah. ‘Course.”
You dropped your hands back into your lap. “What now?”
A smile tugged at one corner of his lips as his gaze returned to the cars below.
“Nothing,” he said. “Was just thinking how offended you looked when you said you obviously wouldn’t date anyone else.”
He gave you a profoundly meaningful look—just to get you to roll your eyes. To his immense pleasure, you did.
“If you’re planning to keep bringing that up,” you said, “I might ask one of your drivers out purely out of spite.”
“No, but you couldn’t.” He leaned back against the bench, watching you from the corner of his eye. “Why would you turn me down and then date someone else?”
You clicked your tongue and let your gaze follow the last of the rain clouds as they slowly broke apart above the circuit.
You should’ve expected this, really. It was the chocolate syrup all over again.
“M’questioning my life choices every day with you,” you mumbled.
His laughter rang out across the rows of benches. “You should be.”
You refused to look back at him, despite the weight of his gaze pressing against the side of your face.
Below, the pit lane quieted for just a second. The mechanics hurried back into the garages. Drivers lowered their helmet visors. One by one, the engines roared into life until the vibration climbed up through the stands.
Beside you, Yeonjun drew a long breath.
“Duty calls?” you asked, nodding ahead.
His gaze shifted down towards the garages.
Maybe he should just quit. He was starting to have fun with this conversation and planned to bring up your magical apricots soon.
“It does.” There was reluctance in his voice as he stood, brushing a hand down his trousers. “Come with me?”
You finally looked up. “Where?”
He tipped his head towards the row of portable offices. “Inside.”
You followed his gaze. There were hardly any people in the pit lane now.
“Can I do that?” you asked.
“Have you lost your ability to walk?”
You stared at him. “I meant, am I allowed?”
He waved the question off before holding out his hand.
“I decide what’s allowed,” he said. “And I want you with me.”
Trying to control your pulse, you failed to control the smile on your lips. Your hand lifted to his, almost instinctive by now.
“So entitled,” you muttered, gathering your empty tray.
“Mhmm.” He pulled you to your feet. “You get special treatment when you’re here with me. Don’t forget that.”
“Oh, wouldn’t dream of it.” You matched his pace down the steps. “How will I ever express my overwhelming gratitude?”
He grinned at you over his shoulder. “You think about that, love.”
✦ • ─── SEPTEMBER 10, 2026. 8:30 PM
Yeonjun’s team didn’t do so bad in the end—they finished second-to-last, which, according to what the other engineers told you, counted as a respectable result for a team whose drivers had spent most of the race ‘eating shit.’
Very satisfied with the day he’d personally had, Yeonjun pulled you back to the Mercedes, insisting the two of you ate something proper. His original plan had been to stop at some place near the circuit, but the thought of Violet being alone for too long sent you back to the flats instead. You picked up takeaway on the way.
Violet, as it turned out, was still perfectly fine without you. Curled into a neat brown-and-white ball on the sofa, she barely acknowledged the creak of your front door. She only lifted her head to meow irritably at the volume of your voices—she’d been having a perfectly pleasant evening until the pair of you barged in.
“Sorry, little one,” you murmured, approaching her while Yeonjun balanced the stack of takeaway containers against one hip. “Ready to go home?”
The plan was to eat at his, so the cat would remember where home is. Your job was to transport said cat.
Chirping faintly, Violet allowed you to carry her downstairs and remained limp against your chest while Yeonjun fumbled for his keys with one hand. She weighed more than she looked, and you had to pause halfway down to adjust your arms around her.
“The one bloke on your team who just decided to brake halfway down the straight,” you continued, picking up the earlier topic, “is my Driver of the Day. Whatever’s his problem?”
Yeonjun snorted, holding the door open for you.
You stepped inside. Violet finally raised her head from your arms, blinking lazily at the dimness of his flat.
“Told you my team’s shit,” Yeonjun said, nudging the door shut behind him with his heel. “He told us he was setting up for the chicane. Was nowhere near the apex, but who are we to question his artistic interpretation.”
You snickered as you set Violet onto the floor. The instant her paws met the tile, she marched straight for her water bowl as though you’d left her parched for a week.
“His gearbox’s been fucked for weeks,” Yeonjun went on from the kitchen. “We finally fixed it, and now he’s braking for corners that aren’t anywhere near him.”
“Keeping you on your toes, then.”
“Always is, yeah.”
While he unpacked the takeaway across the kitchen island, you dropped your backpack to the floor and searched for a spot to leave your jacket. There still wasn’t anywhere. Without the mattresses occupying half the living room, the flat echoed around you again.
“You know,” you said, folding the jacket over your arm, “I remember how you’d filled the entire stairwell with boxes when you were moving in. Yet your flat’s empty.”
Yeonjun smiled to himself, setting down paper-wrapped chopsticks on the island. “That was mostly clothes. Some books. It’s all here.”
“Mhmm. Thoughts on furnishing this place properly as our next shared activity?”
Snorting, he relieved you of your jacket and draped it over the back of one of the stools.
“D’you reckon I need more pillows?” he asked.
“Sure. A few mattresses, to even out the number, too.”
He laughed at that.
To be fair, he didn’t think his flat was quite as empty as you insisted. It didn’t have much furniture, that was true, but it had you in it.
“Well, we could do that, but m’not in a rush.” He gestured ahead. “Already got everything I need anyway.”
You missed the look in his eyes as you glanced around again.
Everything he needed, you noted, seemed to be the twenty-odd mattresses stacked in the corridor outside his bedroom, a bed, a piano, several chairs, a kitchen, and a fern.
The large pink bear from the arcade sat propped against a carton of orange juice in the middle of the kitchen island, too, its arms splayed out. You pretended not to see it.
“Hmm. Least the fern’s doing alright.” You nodded towards the window. “Even in your cave.”
“Yes, I set an alarm on my phone to water it,” he said, peeling the lids off the food containers. “Due diligence.”
“Ah, very responsible of you.”
“I know, yes.”
Steam rose off the kitchen island as you helped lift the remaining lids, inhaling the rich scent of garlic and soy sauce. Your stomach immediately reminded you just how little the hot dog from earlier had accomplished.
Yeonjun turned back to the drawers for cutlery.
“Hasn’t improved the ambience much, though,” he muttered, gesturing at the fern with one of the spoons. “But the bear’s done miracles.”
“Well.” You continued to ignore the bear. “One plant can only do so much. And with those curtains—I mean, Batcave is ambience, too, technically, but, uh…”
Yeonjun laughed, setting the spoons and knives down on the island before unwrapping the chopsticks.
“Got a piano here, too.” He nodded towards his room. “This is an open, creative space.”
“Oh, s’right.” You looked over at the polished lid of the instrument, its edges catching the warm kitchen light. “I, uh—I heard you playing the other day, actually.”
That surprised him. Then he remembered how thin the walls between the flats were, and what surprised him instead was how self-conscious that made him feel.
“Yeah?” He turned to toss the packaging into the bin under the sink. “Sorry if it was—”
“I didn’t mind it,” you cut in. “Couldn’t work out what you were playing, though.”
“Chopin, I think.” He returned to the island. “Been thinking about him the past few days. Wanted to see if I still remembered the Raindrop Prelude.”
“Sounded like you did.”
His smile returned, quieter.
Together, you divided the dumplings between two plates and settled onto the stools at the island. The food was still far too hot, but that didn’t stop either of you.
You bit into a dumpling straight away and hissed through your teeth as the filling spread across your tongue. The meat was worth the suffering: spicy, rich with garlic and ginger, tender enough to fall apart as it burned the roof of your mouth.
“W-where’d it come from?” you managed, lifting a hand over your mouth while you tried to swallow. “The Chopin piece.”
“Oh.” He finished chewing first, breathing heavily through his nose. “I—shit, s’hot—I made Alain teach it to me after I heard it in the Halo 3 trailer.”
You looked up. “Halo—the video game?”
“Yes.”
You stared at him for another second before lowering your gaze back to your plate.
“Alright,” you said. “Can’t say that’s where I’d expect anyone to discover anything by Chopin, but if it works, it works.”
Grinning, Yeonjun reached for another dumpling. He blew on it a few times, which did nothing whatsoever, and stuffed it into his mouth.
Trying not to smile at his bulging cheeks, you blew thoughtfully onto your own dumpling and took a slow bite.
“So, then.” You reached for a paper napkin by the bear’s leg as you finished chewing. “You said you play when you’re in a good mood.”
Yeonjun met your eyes for less than a moment, wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Yeah,” he said, picking up his chopsticks. “Usually.”
You nodded quietly.
It was comforting, for reasons you couldn’t explain to yourself, to know that the music drifting through your floorboards was proof he was happy.
“S’a little strange, I guess,” he said after a moment, turning his chopsticks slowly between his fingers. “Never thought I’d willingly touch the piano again. But recently, if I’ve had a decent day, I kept remembering pieces I learnt years ago. Then I end up sitting down just to see if I still remember them right.”
You looked back at the piano. It was easy to picture him there, on quiet evenings, playing fragments that refused to leave him alone.
“That’s still crazy to me,” you said, “that you know some of those pieces by heart.”
His smile softened.
“Just bits of them,” he said. “Not the whole thing. Usually my favourite parts.”
“I’d love to hear them.”
He looked up at you, half-convinced you were teasing.
“We—we’d be here all night,” he said.
You reached for your phone in the back pocket of your jeans, angling the screen towards yourself to check the time.
Across the island, Yeonjun forgot about the dumplings or the carton of noodles beside his plate.
“I’ve got lunch with Reina tomorrow,” you said, “but after that, I haven’t got anything important.”
“No class on Fridays?”
“I said nothing important.”
Yeonjun stared at you as you locked the screen and slipped the phone back into your pocket. Then a grin spread across his face, so bright that it seemed to light up the whole flat.
“You’d skip class for me?” he asked, voice climbing half an octave. He’d stopped bothering to care about his dignity.
“For the music,” you corrected. “Seeing as you’re the prodigy here.”
He placed one hand dramatically against his chest. “Oh, wow. We’ve come so far.”
You snorted and picked up your own carton of noodles. Steam still rose above it.
You wouldn’t argue. You had come far.
“I’ll play for you,” Yeonjun decided, pointing a chopstick at you, his eyes faintly narrowed. “But I’m expecting something in return.”
You lifted an eyebrow. “Oh, tit for tat, is that it?”
His grin returned. “Sure. Been doing all these favours for you, after all.”
“What favours?”
“Got to experience a professional race,” he said, “and now you’re in the presence of a highly skilled piano player.”
Scoffing, you scooped up a mouthful of noodles and chewed for a thoughtful second. They were thicker than you were used to, but pleasantly chewy.
“Alright.” You swallowed. “Appreciate all that you’ve done for me. Let’s negotiate.”
Yeonjun did his best to arrange his face into something reasonable.
“Help me get ready for my birthday,” he said.
You lowered the noodle carton onto the island. “What’d you need help with? Thought you said it’ll be casual.”
“Yeah, but...” He reached for his phone in his back pocket. “I booked that club, but it’s, uh—empty.”
After unlocking the screen, he opened his gallery and placed the phone between the takeaway containers. Photographs of the venue filled the screen: tall dark timber walls, grey concrete floors.
“Needs decorating?” you said.
“Yeah.” He pinched to zoom in on the decorative moulding running along one wall. “S’not bad as is, but needs—balloons? Or something that looks cool, but isn’t too over the top.”
You smiled. “Don’t want people to think you tried too hard, yeah?”
“Precisely, yes.”
He picked his noodle carton back up and slurped down another mouthful while you continued studying the photographs. He hoped you wouldn’t swipe too far and find the screenshots of the photos he’d saved from Reina and Soobin’s engagement party.
“Alright,” you said, pushing the phone back towards him. He reached out to lock it. “I can help with that.”
“Good,” he said and swallowed the noodles. “S’a deal, then.”
He extended one chopstick across the island. You regarded it for a second, then laughed under your breath and tapped your own against it.
Violet returned as the two of you resumed eating.
Yeonjun had mentioned on the drive home that she usually fled the kitchen whenever he made ramen—something about the scent of soy sauce that she found objectionable—but tonight curiosity seemed to outweigh her standards.
With one effortless leap, she landed on the island between you, her nose twitching. She wound her tail around the pink bear’s neck as she inspected the empty plate of dumplings, then his carton of noodles. Realising she did not have a designated plate here, she lifted her head to look directly at Yeonjun: explain yourself.
He slurped down the noodles.
“Already gave you enough today, love,” he mumbled, reaching out his free hand to scratch her neck. “You know there’s a limit to the treats.”
Violet lifted her chin just a little higher to guide his fingers to her favourite spot. She did not think there should’ve been a limit to the treats.
“Told my mum about her, by the way,” he added. Violet tipped her head, seemingly confirming it. “Earlier today.”
You looked up from your noodles. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t as bad as I expected, actually.” He rested the chopsticks across the edge of the carton. “She rang this morning, said she was working nearby and wanted to grab a coffee. I told her to come over instead, but warned her I’d got a cat.” He scratched absently at the side of his left wrist. “Thought she’d change her mind, but she actually came.”
“Oh, wow.”
“Yeah.” He snickered. “Got cat hair all over her coat, but only complained about it after I’d shut the door. Heard her out in the corridor, going, oh, for God’s sake.”
There was a smile pulling at his mouth that made you smile back, almost on reflex.
“She wasn’t a big fan of the building, either,” he continued. “Said she thought it’d been bulldozed years ago.”
You sucked your lips in. “Yeah, even my grandad’s not a fan of this building.”
Yeonjun laughed properly. Violet gave his chopsticks a cautious sniff.
“Hopefully she liked the coffee, at least,” you said.
He nodded. “Yeah, my dad actually texted me later, said Mum told him I make great cappuccinos. Apparently, that surprised her.”
Your smile returned. “Should’ve had her try one of your pies.”
A soft glimmer appeared in his eyes. “Shit—yeah. Maybe next time.”
“Mhmm.” You lowered your gaze to the cat. “M’sure Violet left a good impression in the meantime.”
Violet turned her blue eyes towards you at the sound of her name. You reached over to stroke the soft fur between her ears. She immediately leaned into your hand.
“Yeah.” Yeonjun watched her for a second. “Doubt Mum will be rushing to come back again, but, uh—no lectures about how unhygienic animals are, so I’ll take it.”
In the middle of allowing Violet to inspect your chopsticks, you realised you’d never once minded animals and their hygiene invading your personal space; not even when the chickens back at the farm—especially Eugenie and Camille—would sit down on your still-warm laptop out in the garden.
“Oh.” A quick laugh escaped you. “She’d hate my grandparents’ farm.”
Yeonjun snorted. He didn’t need to picture it; he knew that not a single Horseman of the Apocalypse could’ve persuaded his mother to set foot outside a big city.
When he’d been little, just driving past fields on the motorway had been enough. She’d spot cows through the window and physically lean away from the glass, as though they might somehow cross three lanes of traffic and contaminate her Maybach.
“She definitely would,” he said. “But she’s not the one going. Unless, uh—unless you’ve changed your mind about taking me?”
The laughter settled.
“Why would I?” you replied.
His eyes dropped to the countertop.
His uncertainty surprised him, too. He hadn’t realised, until the question had already slipped out, that some part of him feared that if he took your invitation for granted, the universe might notice it and take it back.
You recognised that particular tone of fear in his voice anyway; you’d heard it on the last night at his old house.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” you said after he didn’t speak.
He looked back up.
“Okay.” His shoulders loosened a touch. “Good.”
You traced a fingertip around the rim of your noodle carton.
“Was it nice, then?” you asked. “Having your mum over?”
Yeonjun leaned back against the stool, crossing one ankle over the other.
“Nice has never been the word I’d use about her,” he said, smiling despite himself. “But, uh—she did laugh when I told her about the mattresses.”
You smiled, too. “She did?”
“Yeah. Well, it’s Soobin’s fault I’ve got them anyway, and she’s always liked him.”
“That still sounds like progress.”
“Yeah, hope so.” He tapped his fingers lightly against the island. “She, uh—she asked about you as well, actually.”
He’d said the words softly, but your stomach tightened all the same. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” His gaze dropped to the takeaway containers between you. “Told her we’re friends, and that that’s new for us. She said she’d assumed we’d always been friends.”
You raised both eyebrows, then snorted before you could stop yourself.
“Oh, absolutely,” you deadpanned. “Close as siblings, us two.”
Yeonjun laughed. Violet’s ears flicked towards him. Abandoning your chopsticks, she padded back towards his side of the island instead.
“Right, yeah.” He shook his head, giving the cat a smile. “In any case, I didn’t tell her we’re neighbours, too.”
“Still don’t trust her?”
“Not yet.”
“Hmm.”
He offered Violet the back of his hand. She sniffed it, considered him for a second, then decided she had more pressing matters elsewhere and hopped gracefully down onto the floor.
“She looks like she’s trying,” Yeonjun said, watching the space Violet had just vacated, “but I don’t want to push my luck.”
“That’s, uh—” you searched for the word without looking at him, “—reasonable.”
Yeonjun sensed there was something uncomfortable in the kitchen with the two of you now, and it wasn’t Violet padding with solemn purpose towards the litter tray in the corridor.
He shifted on the stool, rubbing a thumb over the edge of the marble island. Perhaps he shouldn’t have mentioned his mother; she had a remarkable ability to sour a room without ever stepping into it.
“Um.” His hand wandered to the back of his neck. “That’s not to say that, uh—I don’t want it to sound like you’re some dirty little secret, or anything like that. I just figure this isn’t any of her business.”
You glanced up, suddenly amused by the phrasing.
“Shit.” You tilted your head. “Am I not your dirty little secret anymore?”
He pressed his lips together.
“No, no,” he said. “Those days are over. We’re public knowledge now.”
“Oh, wow.” You matched his exaggeratedly grave tone, though your pulse had quietly picked up. “Should I start expecting paparazzi outside my flat?”
“Please.” He waved the idea off. “S’over as well. We’ve become dull, haven’t you noticed?”
“No more tabloid headlines?”
He pretended to consider it. “Well, ‘Former Rivals Share Noodles’ sounds like a tiring read, I think.”
Your nose scrunched.
Yeonjun thought that looked incredibly endearing on you and wanted to suggest several more headlines to see you do it again.
“Because that’s awful,” you said. “Makes it sound like we’d been in a rap battle at some point before.”
“I’d have won that, too,” he said, “if we had been.”
“Too?” You folded your arms. “What else have you won?”
“Well, most things against you, really.” He shrugged, careless. “But the competition, admittedly, wasn’t fair, since I’m obviously naturally gifted at everything.”
You stared at him for a long second. Then you shook your head, more fondly than you’d intended to let show.
“I’d almost forgotten how arrogant you are,” you said.
“One of my finer qualities, I’ve heard.”
“Mhmm. How’re you so full of fine qualities and still single?”
He grinned, a challenge sparking in his eyes. “Want to play a game and see why?”
You scoffed. “Yeah? For two weeks?”
“Of course.”
You made a show of thinking about it, one finger tapping against your pursed lips.
“Eh.” Your wrist flicked dismissively through the air. “No, thanks.”
Yeonjun clicked his tongue.
“Okay, see—” He uncrossed his ankles. “—my dirty little secret never would’ve refused.”
“Your dirty little secret didn’t know any better.”
His smile widened automatically. Then, just as quickly, it faltered.
His thoughts returned to your balcony—to every question you’d asked him, every answer he’d given, and all the questions he hadn’t found the courage to ask in return.
Slowly, he met your eyes. “Do you regret it?”
“The bet?”
“Yeah.”
Your gaze fell to the marble countertop. Grey veins wandered through the stone, almost like rivers on a map. Without thinking, your fingertip began tracing one of them until it disappeared under the carton of noodles; then you found another one.
There had never, you realised, been a version of your life in which you wished you hadn’t met him. You’d wished for countless other things instead. That the bet hadn’t ended. That he’d trusted you. That he’d stayed.
“No,” you said.
The knot in Yeonjun’s chest let go, all at once. Only then did he notice how tightly his fingers had been laced together. He laid both palms flat against the warm stone of the island.
“No?” he repeated.
You lifted your eyes again. “No. Wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the bet.”
The relief he felt was dangerous. It brought hope with it, along with the memory of the way you’d looked at him earlier, when you’d said you wouldn’t date anyone else.
“That, uh…” He swallowed. “That almost sounds like you’re glad we’re here.”
Your gaze dropped again.
Violet emerged from the corridor, wearing a contemplative expression. She sat down in the bedroom doorway with her back turned to you both.
“Well.” You nodded towards her. “Meeting Violet’s been the highlight of my year. Very happy she’s here.”
Yeonjun’s expression skipped straight past surprise and landed in theatrical outrage. He let out a generous scoff.
Your laughter bounced softly off the bare walls. He rolled his eyes at it, but quietly memorised the sound anyway—for the next evening he sat at the piano. And for every evening after that.
“Right.” He clicked his tongue, pointing vaguely between you and himself. “Let’s ignore the elephant in the room, then.”
“You’re the elephant, are you?”
“Obviously.” The wounded dignity in his voice set you off laughing again. “Are you not happy I’m here?”
You watched him for a long moment, your smile softening at the corners.
“I’m happy,” you said, “that you’re very resilient.”
“Thanks. That’s very—” He frowned. “How’d you mean?”
Your fingertip found the same grey line on the marbletop and followed its winding course once more.
“I, uh…” The marble felt warm under your finger. “I seem to have spent quite a lot of time pushing you away.” You glanced up. “Yet here we are.”
Yeonjun couldn’t remember the last time you’d looked at him like that: this openly, this warmly. Couldn’t remember the last time his chest had responded this way, either: with enough force to pull him forwards before he’d even realised he’d leaned over the island.
“Did you actually want me to leave you alone?” he asked.
“I think I did in the beginning,” you admitted. “Every time I snapped back at one of your stupid comments back in uni, I’d think to myself, right, that’ll do it. He’ll piss off now. But you wouldn’t. And you wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t.” Your thumb brushed idly across the edge of the stone. “And then, I think, uh—somewhere along the way, I stopped waiting for you to leave me alone. Started hoping you wouldn’t again.”
Yeonjun stopped moving altogether. Breathing struck him as unnecessary, too.
“That—” he started and realised he didn’t have enough air in his lungs to finish. He drew a hurried breath and tried again: “T-that’s terrible of you. Enjoying the chase as much as I was.”
He clicked his tongue in exaggerated disappointment.
Your laugh was warmer this time. “Mhmm. Doomed from the start.”
Outside, a gust of wind rattled the balcony doors. For a moment, it seemed intent on being let inside, on joining in. Then it hurried on.
“Don’t know if that even makes sense, actually,” you admitted.
Yeonjun looked almost offensively delighted. “I like that it doesn’t.”
You raised your eyebrows. “You like not making sense?”
“I like that you don’t know what it is about you that’s kept me around.” He propped his chin on his palms. “Means you’re still trying to work it out, and who knows how long that’ll take. I’m your longest-running research project.”
Despite yourself, you laughed again. “You’re my longest headache.”
Yeonjun accepted that with pride.
“D’you think we’d still have ended up in the same building,” he asked, “if there’d been no bet? No New York, no nothing?”
You glanced towards Violet, now asleep in the doorway of his bedroom. Then to the heavy curtains on his windows, no longer crooked, and finally to the lonely fern in the corner.
There was a chance, you had to admit, that if university had gone differently and your lives had never once tangled together, you would’ve still met on that Monday morning, when Yeonjun had been wrestling his window loudly enough to disturb at least three floors, yet somehow only bothering you.
“We might’ve,” you admitted.
“I think so, too,” he said. “Clearly, we’re destined to keep running into each other.”
You frowned. “This is the first time we’ve run into each other.”
He shook his head firmly. “No, starting uni counts, too. We’d both dropped out and ended up studying Sociology. How’s that not destiny?”
You rolled your eyes, yet the smile tugging at your lips refused to leave.
You’d never really believed in destiny, if you were honest. But you’d always wanted to.
“Right, yeah.” You leaned back on the stool. “All written in the stars, then, is it?”
He nodded again, with complete conviction. “Star-crossed enemies.”
You winced, and this time the scrunch of your nose nearly made him vault straight over the kitchen island.
“Christ,” you mumbled. “And you pull out the most embarrassing phrases out of nowhere. I’d forgotten that, too.”
Yeonjun laughed.
“Yes, I am multi-talented,” he said, running his tongue over his lips. “Remember to keep up, yeah, love?”
You looked at him for a long, defeated second.
You were remembering, he could tell.
Then you returned to your forgotten noodles.
For the rest of that Thursday evening, Yeonjun sat at the piano and played the pieces that he’d carried with him for years. Every now and then he’d strike the wrong note, mutter a quiet fuck under his breath, shake his head, and begin again, refusing to skip over the mistake.
You sat on the edge of his bed with Violet snoring softly across your lap, and listened to all of it: the music and the pauses and his confidence returning with each familiar chord. And as the notes drifted through the flat, you remembered, too – all of it. How to keep up with him, and how it had felt, the first time you’d heard him play, back in Taehyun’s theatre, after the conversation in your old flat about whether you believed he liked you.
You remembered the way his eyes had looked that night, with reflections of the streetlights and the night sky scattered against the dark brown. Remembered, too, the way you’d kissed him in the stairwell. The way you hadn’t wanted him to go once the night was over.
A year and five months had passed between that night and this one.
It felt like less than a heartbeat.
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