mari’s reading room

he lets out a very quiet, careful sigh, making sure his chest doesn't expand too much. if he breathes in too deeply, he’s going to knock over the tower of jellycats stacked precariously near your feet.

you are sleeping completely fine. you’re curled up in a comfortable little ball right in the center of the mattress, one arm hooked around a plush bear, looking totally peaceful. you have no idea that your boyfriend is currently fighting for his life in the plushie trenches.

martin honestly hates sleepng at your place. he loves you, and he loves hanging out with you, but your bed is a literal hazard for anyone his height. he needs space to stretch out, but your room is basically a toy store warehouse.

the worst part is the plastic noses. right now, there are at least three different hard, plastic animal noses digging straight into his lower back. one of them feels suspiciously like a vintage care bear, and it’s hitting a nerve that’s making his left foot go numb.

he tries to slide his hand down to shove the care bear away, but the second his fingers move, the fabric of your blanket rustles.

you stir slightly, blinking your eyes open in the dark. "mars?" you mumble, your voice thick with sleep. "you okay?"

martin instantly freezes. he forces his muscles to relax, even though his spine is screaming at him.

"yeah, baby," he whispers back, his voice smooth and entirely casual. "just shifting a bit. go back to sleep."

"are you comfy?" you ask, shifting your weight to lean closer to him, which inadvertently pushes a giant plush penguin right onto his face.

martin takes a breath through his mouth, the soft felt of the penguin's wing tickling his eyelashes. he could easly tell you the truth. he could ask you to just throw the plushies on the floor for the night so he can actually breathe.

but then he thinks about how happy you looked showing him the new frog you bought yesterday, and his chest tightens for a completely different reason. he hates saying no to you. he absolutely sucks at it.

"so comfy," martin lies smoothly, reaching out his arm with great effort to pat your head through the dark. "best sleep of my life. close your eyes."

"okay," you murmur, completely satisfied. you bury your face back into your pillow and are asleep again within thirty seconds.

martin wait until your breathing evens out before he uses his fingers to gently pry the penguin's wing off his mouth. he accepts his fate. he accepts that his back is going to be completely ruined tomorrow during practice, and he accepts that he will probably have the imprint of a unicorn horn stamped into his cheek by morning.

he closes his eyes, letting his head rest against the hard wall, and prays for the sun to come up quickly.

It wasn’t objectively the safest place to stall out, with horns blaring around you like a road rage orchestra and cars speeding about while yours remained embarrassingly immobile. Eventually, a police officer took pity and helped tow it to a nearby shop in the city. The whole thing was all so suspiciously efficient, right up until the bill arrived, that is. And with another hit to your wallet, dinner plans with your friends dissolved into the expense of keeping your rust bucket running.  

But you’d trade a piece of anything just to keep this car alive; hell, heaven, whatever fell on either side of that. A Ford Mustang, your 1967 Shelby baby. Anything. 

Now, you weren't much of a car geek, but looking at it for the first time, you knew it looked too clean to pass up. And after a long stretch of convincing, it ended up waiting in your dad's garage on your eighteenth birthday. A parting gift, perhaps. Something to send you off to university with. 

Somewhere along that line, you eventually forgot that ‘vintage’, more than it meant ‘valuable’, also meant it was old. And age came with wear no matter how well-kept. 

“Honey,” Your mom began in that worried tone. “This is the third time this month that…thing has broken down.”

“I’m aware. I was there for all three events.”

From the other end of the kitchen, your sister perked up, suddenly useful. “I know a guy at an auto repair shop.”

To which you narrowed your eyes as you turned slowly to her. “You always know a guy.”

“Hey–”

“Okay,” Your dad cuts in, slicing clean through the escalating nonsense unfolding as breakfast was being prepared. He leaned back in his chair exhaustedly. 

“I know we all enjoy whatever this is–” he gestured vaguely between your sister and you, “–but I’m tired of picking you up from random highways, Y/n.”

You opened your mouth to defend both yourself and your car’s honor, but he beat you to it.

“Get it fixed,” he said plainly. “Or I’m scrapping it.”

“Dad you can’t just do that–”

“I’m the one with the lease.”

Which is how you found yourself in what can only be described as ‘nothing’ in the middle of nowhere, a stretch of gravel bleeding into the highway far ahead, and a few tired trees doing their best under the blaring sun. But this is Old Town Temecula, so none of that felt particularly out of the ordinary, and so was this repair shop. If anything, you’d like to simply feel bad for it. The exterior looked a little worse for wear.

“Hello?” You called out from outside the doorway, because you’re not entirely convinced this place was still open for business. You leaned in slightly, scanning for any sign of life. An employee, a shadow, a western-style tumbleweed situation. Nothing. 

You stepped forward and smacked the counterbell a little too enthusiastically. 

“Whoever runs this place, you’ve got yourself a customer!” 

Another beat of silence stretched out, and whatever optimism you had started closing in again. As you made plans to head right on home and tell your sister about how her ‘trusted location’ was in fact a sham, a door swung open and hit the wall with a loud bang. 

“Hey, lady!” 

When you turned back, you were met with the most wondrous sight. 

Like a scene slipping into place, there’s a guy that steps out through the door, probably over your age. White tank, worn jeans, both marked by some dirt and the intense weather. His hands looked it too. A wrench was tucked into his back pocket, and a rag hung from the other. Your unhelpful brain starts pulling references and time frames from several vague films: small town swelter, an open garage, and the concept of some dreamy cowboy mechanic. 

A hot guy in the hottest summer to date. The world must be running an experiment on me. 

But you digress, because this guy was looking for a reply, and unfortunately, none of your internal commentary would be appropriate to say in polite conversation. 

“Car givin’ you trouble, little miss?”

Little?

You briefly glanced around, just in case there'd been another designated “little miss” you somehow missed in the area. You realized he was referring to you. 

“...Uh, yeah.” You said slowly. “Lots of it.”

He leaned against the doorway and gave you a once-over. Eyes dragging up, down, then landing back on yours again. What? 

“Ain’t you something...”

“Huh?” 

He straightened himself up and cleared his throat.  “I said what kind of trouble?”

You’re fairly sure that was not what he said the first time, but you also definitely missed it, so you decided it’s safest to move forward. 

“It keeps breaking down,” you explain. Then, as if that isn’t already self-explanatory, you add, “Not right now. But it will.” 

He lets out a low hum, “Yeah?”

“Mmh hm.” You nodded. “Preferably whenever I’m driving on a highway.”

“I’ll take a look, see what I can do.” He jerked his chin toward the corner of the shop, at some cozy little lounging area. “Why don’t you sit down? Make yourself comfortable.”

Comfortable? Here with him? How ambitious.

You ended up on the sofa anyway, dropping with awkward commitment as you took in the surroundings of the shop. The place smelled like a hot spell, metal and tang, motor oil maybe, or grease. You looked around some more. At the mechanical parts lying around, at the tools hung on one wall, and then sometimes you’d let your eyes betray you at least once or twice, taking him in where he’d already be half-turned.

“You new here?” He asked.

“Kind of? My parents got a house here to get out of the city. It’s my first summer here, actually.” 

““Figures. Haven't seen this one around much.”

You blinked. “My car?”

“Yeah. It’s hard to miss. Very vintage.” He rolled right out again and gave you a small grin as he sat up.

“It was a birthday gift.”

“Must've been a good one.”

“It is,” You clicked your tongue as you reminisce bitterly. “When it works.”

He crouched by your hood, his shirt riding up just enough for you to catch sight of the tools tucked into his jeans. 

“I’ll get it to work.”

A nervous cough escaped you then as your eyes scrambled for anything else. Literally anything else will do, Y/n. 

“You sound pretty sure.”

He shrugged as he reached for a wrench. “I’ve got time.”

You hadn’t even realized you’d been dozing off after that, right there on the old couch of a random repair shop of all places. Maybe it was the smell of oil and the heat rising making your head a little light, but you woke up a while later by a few pokes at your shoulder. 

“Hey,” The guy’s voice reaches you through whatever heavy sleep you’ve sunken into. “Seize the day.”

You blinked slowly and let out a quiet yawn. “Sorry.”

“All good.” He’s standing over you, one hand half-lifted from where he’d been nudging. There’s a faint curve to his mouth, and you have an inkling feeling that he’s been watching you this whole time.

“Check it out.” 

You step out the shop and into the stretch of sun waiting just beyond the little shade, rough ground crunching under your shoes as you make your way toward where your car had been left. 

“So,” You circled the front, and half-expected it to look different somehow. You glanced back at James. “Is she gonna be ok?”

“She’s fine.” He leaned a shoulder against the side and folded his arms loosely over one another. 

“But your fuel pump’s an old piece of crap. That’s what's been killing it on you.”

“I uh, I don’t…” Confused was what you were.

“It’s okay.” He said it a little softer this time. “Your car's not great.”

You huffed out a small, offended sound under your breath.

“It runs fine,” he reassured you, and gestured toward the engine. “But then it doesn’t get the fuel it needs. That’s why it's cutting out on you, especially when you’re driving for longer.”

“Is that why I’m always breaking down on the freeway?”

“Yeah.” He said, and popped the hood open. “Your carburetor’s not in the best shape either. It probably hasn’t been touched in a while. And your wiring’s a little off.” 

He lifted a shoulder and added, “Nothing major, but it’s not helping.”

“Which means?”

“Which means, little lady,” He took a few steps toward you. “I can fix it. Just not today.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “How long will that take?”

“A couple days. Maybe three, depending if I have to order anything in.”

“I kinda need it,” You sighed, long and defeated. So much for being your group’s long-standing designated driver. 

“Yeah. But it needs a makeover.”

You kicked a loose pebble across the gravel and watched it skid under a few tires like that'll somehow help you decide. 

“And you’re sure you can fix it?”

“Have any doubts?” The guy tilted his head assuredly. “I’ll take care of it.”

You squinted at him a little. He squints back, in an effort to say what. 

“Okay,” you muttered, you accepted. “Guess I’ll take the bus back.”

“Do you know your way home?”

“I’ve figured it out. ”

You really hadn’t, but you’re grown. You’re going to have to figure it out.

He promptly reached for his back pocket and pulled out a flip phone, jamming in a few buttons before holding it out to you.

“By the way. Could I get your number?”

Well, he’s certainly straightforward. 

“Excuse me?”

He nudged the device toward you.  “To call you when it’s finished.”

You mentally face-palmed yourself for, once again, reading way too much into this guy.

“Right.”

Once you’ve typed in your number, you bidded each other a short goodbye as you stepped out toward the highway, where the bus stop waits a little further down. James has to squint through the glasses he’d just pulled from his shirt to make sure you actually get on one. Only when the bus carries you off does he return to the counter, write up the bill, and tuck it into his pocket. He made a mental note to stop by the bank soon, preferably before his dad noticed something was off with the payment logs.

It occurred to him with no small degree of disbelief and embarrassment in himself that this might just be the first time he’s been so horrendously head over his own shoes. Stupid, stupid James. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

“Is your ice cream any good?”

“Take a lick of my ice cream and I’m dumping it on your face.”

“Sounds like a yes,” Haerin mutters.

The sun hung overhead in its usual tyrannical fashion, pressing summer into everything in sight. You and your friends have claimed an outdoor table, holding ice cream and smoothies sweating through heir plastic cups. Condensation slips down the side of yours, cool against your fingers before pooling in the little hollow of your palm

“Oh look. It’s the Power Rangers.”

You follow their line of sight across the street where the park unfurls toward the water in a long stretch of green and glittering blue. Parked along the grass is a truck, and a handful of guys leaned against it in varying states of practiced poses, draped there as though they had been arranged specifically for public viewing. Someone would take their turn holding the camera, and the other being a subject. You thought it looked ridiculous. 

“A very managerless and underfunded boyband.”

“Are they trying to tan?”

There are five of them, sure enough, scattered around the truck with a sort of aimless patience. As your eyes move from one face to the next, your gaze snags on a familiar face, half-turned towards the water laughing at something one of them had said. The mechanic boy from the repair shop. The same one you had been eyeing up with all the subtlety of a Victorian man who’d just seen an exposed ankle. 

You take one aggressive sip of your smoothie in the hopes that the brain freeze might cool your head. 

You lean towards Haerin and jerk your head forward. “What’s that guy’s name?” 

“Grey shirt?” She asks as she tries to follow your line of sight.

“Next to him.”

She paused, then whipped her head at you. “James?”

Ah, so his name was James. You turn it over in your mind once, then again, and several more times. It suited him. Something sturdy and unfairly appealing. You think it would look rather nice written in your handwriting somewhere, though you wisely keep that thought to yourself. 

You shake your head and try to attempt the look of not caring, but achieve something considerably less convincing. 

“Isn’t he a mechanic?” You asked and tried to sound absentminded about it.

“How’d you know that?”

“I brought my car to the shop to get it fixed.” That earns you a look. 

“You seriously need to scrap that piece of junk,” Yunah says. 

“Moving on.”

“Right. Well, he’s not technically a mechanic. His dad owns the shop, and during breaks he takes shifts there. I’ve seen him around the community college a few times. He’s got an engineering track.”

Mina added in, “He kinda keeps to himself.” She nodded towards their direction. “Those are his friends. They’ve all known each other since forever. Just like us.” 

You look at them and think, sandbox love, a half-imagined and kind of shy concept for a group such as theirs. 

Yunah cuts in. “Remember Hana? I heard she’s still as obsessed with him as ever.”

“Oh my god, yeah.” Mina laughs. “It’s kind of tragic. Does he even like her?”

A shrug from Haerin. “I don’t think he likes anyone.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like girls.”

“What a bold assumption.”

You’d still been looking even as your friends dissolved into their usual spiral of gossip beside you. Judge me all you want. It was a cute guy in the wild. That’s not a situation you simply can ignore. Whether you liked him or not had very little to do with it; staring was practically a reflex at this point. Something encoded deep in the inner workings of every girl who had come out the other side of puberty with functioning eyes. 

Because you’re staring a little too intently, you started to notice things more clearly: his dark brown and slightly messy hair, the way he’s leaning back against the truck’s hood, and the subtle bop of his head keeping time with the music from a small boombox nearby.

You’re also able to make out how he turned his head upward, just slightly, before his gaze landed directly on you. 

You’re fairly certain he might not even remember who you are. Why would he? You had been, in the grand scheme of his life, just one overheated girl with a broken car. He likely saw a dozen of those a week. Maybe two dozen, depending on what he looked like that day. It would be less embarrassing if he weren’t so aware of possessing a face. You knew he did, surely right?

So you keep looking anyway. Your eyes wander with an interest that could, in a court of law, be used against you. Even then, it felt like his eyes were tracking yours, following whatever it landed on. He shifts where he’s leaning, and though the distance between you is considerable, there is an unmistakable deliberation in his movement. A subtle squaring of his shoulder, the conscious vanity of a man who knows he’s being observed.

His expression seems to say, Well? The lack of concern on his end, and the complete drought of restraint on yours, was weird enough. 

“Y/n, ready to go?”

Right then, the sound of your name yanks you clean out of whatever trance you’d been happily deteriorating in. All your friends are looking at you with varying levels of suspicion and delight.

You straighten so fast your straw nearly launches itself from your drink.

“I–yeah. Fuck yeah, let's go.”

An answer so immediate, so aggressively enthusiastic, that it condemns you on the spot.

“Why don’t you wipe the drool on your face first?”

Your hand flies instinctively to your mouth, which, to your immense relief, is perfectly dry. Mina bursts into laughter before you can even process the betrayal. You give Mina a small slap on the shoulder, to which she cackles in reply. 

“Asshole”

You grab your cup as Mina loops her arm through yours, and when your group begins to head out and cross the street, you risk one last glance over your shoulder. James is looking too. 

He lifts two fingers in a lazy salute. You hate the way you wave back. 

You were not drooling. This is one cornerstone belief. Because if you had been, then James might have seen it. And while he may be very alarmingly attractve for a man, you are not under any circumstances prepared to hand him that sort of satisfaction. No fucking way, dude. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

You bump your hip against something metal the moment you step into the shop, and the sharp clang that follows has you muttering a curse beneath your breath. James had said three days, but it had taken a week before the call finally came. Longer than promised, sure, but you can’t exactly hold it against him. Your car in fact is a piece of scrap. 

“James?” You called out as you step further in. “I’m back.”

A pair of boots appear from beneath the undercarriage of a car, followed shortly by James himself, rolling out on one of those little mechanic creepers. He pushed himself upright in one smooth motion and wipes his hands on a rag. There’s a streak of grease along his forearm, and another near his jaw.

“How’d you know my name?” he asks, squinting at you through the bright light pouring in from the garage door. 

“Oh, y’know, people talk.”

His mouth tilted upward. “Been asking around about me?”

“No, stop that.” You pointed accusingly before he can get any smugger.  “Is my car fixed or what?”

James laughed under his breath and tossed the rag onto the counter.

“A thank you would be nice.” 

“For extending our business relationship by four whole days? No sir.” 

He shook his head, though he’s still smiling, and gestured toward the far end of the garage where your car sat looking, somehow, the same and yet marginally less likely to explode. 

“Here it is.”

You walked on over and ran a hand lightly along the hood as though greeting an old, troublesome friend. James follows close behind.

 “Please,” he says, leaning against the driver’s side door, “try not to put too much force on the gas.”

“If I can’t do that, I might as well not use the car.”

“Not my fault it’s an old tinker.”

Then he tosses you the keys. “Try not to break it to soon.”

“Thanks James.”

You turn the keys over in your hand, the metal still warm from his palm. Funny, that observation. Metal shouldn’t be warm unless it’s been left in the sun or held onto for a while. 

“Still don’t know where you got my name from.” 

You offer him your most innocent look, which fools neither of you.

“Hm,” He narrowed his eyes, “Well, if your car’s all junked up again, come around, ‘kay?”

“I have a feeling it won't take long.”

“Lucky me, huh?” He gave you one of those cheeky grins/ 

You reached for your back pocket and pulled out your wallet. 

“How much is it?”

He blinked.

“How much is what?”

“Cost of repair, James. How else do you people earn money?”

“Right.” He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly looking far less certain than a man who had spent the last week trying to resurrect your corpse of a vehicle. 

“I haven't really thought about it.”

You stared at him blankly. “What.” 

He laughed, a little sheepish now. “I’m not a licensed mechanic, my dad is. I don’t get a fixed professional fee like he does. Usually I’d just go with a gut feeling.”

“And is your gut currently giving you a feeling or…?”

“Yes. It’s telling me to defer payment.”

Yor fold our arms over one another. 

“I can’t not pay you, James.” 

“Sure you can.”

“No, I literally can’t. That’s theft.”

“I think that’s just called generosity.”

You rummage through your purse and pull out the only cash you have: a slightly wrinkled ten-dollar bill.

“Here. Ten bucks.”

James looked at the bill, and then back ar you, somewhat deeply offended and amused.

“10 bucks for a car fix? You might as well just give me dirt.”

“Do you want my money or not?”

He plucks the bill from your fingers, stretching it out between two grease-stained hands.

“I don’t want your money. But I at least expected more of it.”

“Well, lower your standards.” 

He folded the bill in a neat little rectangle. Before you could protest, or more importantly understand his intentions, he stepped closer. Far too close. His hand brushed your hip as he reached for the pocket of your jeans, and carefully tucked the bill inside. Oh, you were gone. 

“It’s fine, alright?” His hand lingers for one treacherous second longer before he pulls away. And there was that crooked smile again.

“Maybe next time you'll come back here full of guilt, and that would be the perfect excuse to see you again.”

You blink at him slowly. “I don’t get it.”

He laughed, a quick startled sound, and then took a step backward as he made his way toward the back door. He wiped his hands on his pants, though there’d be nothing left on them now but the persisting feeling of your worn denim. 

“I’ll see you around, Y/n.” 

He turned away, but after one dreadful moment you freeze. Your mind, which had only just returned from a blackout, scrambled to catch up. 

“Wait… hey–” You straighten so fast you nearly lose your balance. “How'd you know my name–?”

James paused with one hand on the doorknob. He glanced back over his shoulder, and the fluorescent lighting caught that unripe sheen in his eye. 

“Oh y’know.”

He opened the door, stepping halfway through.

“People talk.” 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

After that, James seemed to migrate out of the garage and into the rest of your regular days with startling ease. This town seemed determined to place him directly in your little bubble, and you realized that summer didn’t so much follow your expectations as politely ignore them altogether.  

It kicked off at the bowling alley, your friends claiming one lane, and just a few steps to the right, that cluster of guys. Included, unfortunately, was the one you had been putting in a heroic amount of effort to ignore. 

Naturally, that effort lasted all of ten seconds.

With a focus usually reserved for something such as a life-altering decision, Juhoon stepped up, narrowed his eyes, and set the bowling ball down the lane. It rolled and rolled, and kept rolling, before slowly veering off into the gutter. Not a single pin moved. 

A performance, really. 

“Hey.” Haerin leans slightly over the divider as a laugh quickly slips through her words. “You know you’re supposed to hit the pins, right?”

Juhoon turns to her, caught somewhere between offended and amused, and wipes his hands on his jeans as if that might restore some of his dignity. “Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was in the presence of professionals.”

“Relax.” Mina shoots back and crosses her arms. “I’ve barely played this myself and somehow I don’t suck as bad.”

“You wanna talk big?” Keonho chimes in as he leans on their own divider as well.  “Let’s see you do better.” 

“You’re embarrassing us.” You murmured from behind. You’ve forgotten just how aggressively competitive Mina could get over something as low-stakes as this.

“Speak for yourself.” She shoots back under her breath. “You’ve barely picked up a ball.”

You huff out a quiet laugh, shaking your head as you let your attention ease itself out. To your friends, to them, to the easy back and forth. And then, inevitably, to James, who is already coincidentally looking back. Creepy. 

James looks back into the lane and clears his throat, then looks back at you again. 

“So when will your turn be?”

“I don’t–” you start and step back a little too soon. “I’m just here to give some moral support.”

“Kill joy.” he says, not unkindly, and then gives you a smirk.

“That’s a strong accusation for someone who's been sitting in the back the whole time since he’s got here.”

“Have you been taking notes on me?”

“Maybe I should stick to seeing you just at the garage. You’d be less insufferable if you’re being helpful.”

James doesn’t pretend to stifle the laugh that escapes him, and it's a nice sound, you decide. He doesn’t pretend to look away either. Not when you catch him or when you raise a brow in slight accusation. He only tilts his head in a considerable fraction.

You break eye contact first. Out of principle. Out of principle, Y/n. 

Your friend groups had merged into each other after that with surprising ease. A summer armistice, you called it, brokered over boredom and the simple fact that there were only so many interesting people in Old Town Temecula. They made things a lot more entertaining. 

Martin was easy company because you both shared a lot of common interests, particularly where music was concerned. You could spend an entire afternoon arguing over discographies, and each of you were convinced the other had somehow missed a foundational pillar of modern music. He was insufferable about it.

Keonho and Seonghyeon quickly assumed the role of the two younger brothers you never had. They were a matched set of nuisances incapable of minding their own business. Still, you think of them with nothing but fondness.

Then there was Juhoon, who possessed the personality of a man who had lived at least three separate lives and remembered fragments of each. He’d tell you something utterly deranged yet weirdly profound on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday, and then wander off. He was your wise old uncle. 

And then there’s James. You don’t know what he is to you. 

Everyone else seemed to fit into your labeled mind drawers. Friend. Acquaintance. Enemy. Sometimes two, sometimes all. 

You wouldn’t classify James as a friend. Friendship is like a tidy little house. You’d understand all its deep angles and know where the doors would lead. It wouldn’t usually contain that particular voltage. That’s right. Friends don’t prod at the electric fence just to watch it spark. Friends don’t test boundaries like that. Friends, generally speaking, also don’t flirt with each other. 

And you cared, far too much, about what he thought of you too. You had become quite skilled at disguising your curiosity casually when you’d ask one of his friends, as though it had only just occurred to you, whether James had happened to mention you lately. Your name, taking up room in his mouth. 

But acquaintances wouldn’t do either. That word was a handshake and a weather report, a polite distance, or a borrowed pen. You and James had long since trespassed beyond those borders. Whatever it was, it had sharp teeth.

And so you are left with the big question in the filing system of your life. If he wasn’t either, what other drawer could you possibly place him in? All these questions, and no one to answer them. 

But your hypotheses soon had the opportunity of being tested.

The beach was hardly the most forgiving place for you and James to see each other. 

But such were the circumstances that were so often stacked against you. The invite came with such spontaneity that you’d barely had enough time to throw a few beach essentials into your bag before there'd been a minivan already idling right across your house.

“You could’ve told me a lot earlier!” You shout from the front door, nearly tripping over yourself as you wrestle your sandals on. 

“I texted you thirty minutes ago!” Mina screamed back. It was thirty minutes too short. Entire civilizations would rise and fall in the time Mina usually took to get ready, so you had assumed she, of all people, would understand the necessity of advance notice. 

Then you spot James in the driver’s seat, window rolled down, and one arm draped lazily over the frame. He’s looking at you, actually looking, with an attention so direct it made you aware of every loose thread in your shorts and each misplaced hair on your head. You find yourself strapping your sandals much quicker than necessary. 

The drive to the resort transpired in a blur of Top 20 hits and some terrible group singing. Martin sat beside you, knowing every lyric to every song that came on, while Seonghyeon and Keonho contributed mostly by banging on the roof and shouting the choruses at times. A car full of kids drinking deeply from the season while it was still theirs. 

James didn’t say much during the ride. But every now and then, he would flick his eyes to the rearview mirror which had been angled just right, if only to catch you lost in song. 

By the time you arrive, and everyone had hauled themselves, their bags, and half the contents of a convenience store into the resort, the sun was hanging low and golden over the water like it too had paid for a weekend stay. 

The cottage sat right by the beach: bamboo walls, a tiny porch, and enough space to comfortably fit nine people. The door had barely swung open before Keonho burst out first with an overflowing paper bag to his chest.

“What’ve you got there?” you asked.

He angled the bag away immediately. “Get away.”

“You bought a dozen bags of chips.”

“The other ten are just emergency portions.”

“For what? The apocalypse?”

“The munchies.” 

Seonghyeon came out next, already wearing an inflatable around his waist. It squeaked every time he moved.

“I can’t find my sunscreen.”

Haerin points to his hand. “Kid. It’s right there.”

He looked down at the bottle in his hand while his mouth formed a little ‘O’ shape.

Martin followed close by, dragging a boombox nearly as large as the minivan’s side windows. He hoisted it onto one shoulder with all the pride of a man unveiling a monument. Juhoon glanced over from where he was taking off his sandals. 

“Y’know they charge a fee if you blast the music too loud, right?”

“What the fuck?” Martin froze.

“I didn’t ask my dad for extra money today!”

“Some employment would help,” James said from behind him as he carried in the cooler.

Martin gave James a side eye and a scoff. “I’m a teenager, James. I don’t need no goddamn job.”

“That mindset won’t pay them bills man.” Juhoon says, wise words from the wisest man. 

“What fucking bills–”

Mina sidled up beside you with the intention of delegating some sort of responsibility. She pressed a few crumpled bills into your palm.

“Y/n, why don’t you go order us some drinks?”

“You got two minors present by the way.”

Mina waved a dismissive hand. “Get them some juice.”

“I could drink,” Keonho says with confidence. You turned to him and shook your head.

“I’m serious! I have the liver of a champion.”

“No.”

“I got a mature palate.”

“You have the face of a middle school mathlete, Keon. What’ll the staff think when they catch you? You’re getting juice.” 

Keonho gave you a deflated stare. “You wanna be my mama so bad.”

“We’ll deal with you later.” Mina started counting on her fingers. “Two margaritas, a soda, one beer, juice, and some water.”

James emerged from… somewhere. He had changed into a loose shirt and swim trunks and glanced down toward the bar a little ways down the sand. 

“Need some help with that?”

“Um. Yes. Thank you James.”

Mina’s grin was immediate. “Oh, perfect.”

You narrowed your eyes at her with suspicion. When you turned around, James tipped his head toward the little path leading to the bar tucked just beside the open restaurant.

“C’mon.” 

So you fell into step beside him, your feet sinking into the sand as you passed the others who were still deep in argument.

“I’m not getting a summer job! I am seventeen! The only bill I have is my phone bill, and my mom still pays half.” Martin exclaims. 

Juhoon raises an eyebrow. “Half?”

“You burden this society.” Seonghyeon accused Martin with a pointed finger.

“I am society.”

“Who are you, fuckin’ Jean Jacques Rousseau–you’re a leech.”

“You guys are just jealous because I’m young, beautiful, and unemployed.”

“Only two of those things are true.”

“You’re a dead man, Eom.”

As soon as you step on the polished wood and under the hanging lights, you are hit with the smell of grilled seafood, sizzling meat, garlic, butter, enough to crave eating your body weight in some shrimp. The two of you made your way to the counter, sliding onto a pair of barstools, and the bartender handed you each a laminated drink menu. 

“You know,” you said after a moment of squinting, “a lot of these just sound like cleaning products.”

“That’s how you know they’re overpriced. Check this out. ‘Salted Breeze’.”

“‘Tropical Typhoon’? Jesus.” You turned the menu to show him. “Sounds like it could strip paint.” 

“Sounds tasty.”

“Kidneys, James. People need those.” 

“You only need one.” 

A few feet away, hidden just enough to be out of sight, Martin, Haerin, and Keonho had claimed a suspiciously dense bush. From behind it, three heads barely fit in the same line as they all angled toward you and James.

“I can’t see shit,” Haerin muttered as she shifted uncomfortably. 

“Move your giant head then.” Martin shot back.

“I have a normal-sized head.” She whispered defensively. “Your proportions, unfortunately…” 

Keonho leaned in between them as he squinted hard. “I’ll have you know we’re committing several social etiquette crimes.”

“We’re just taking a look.” 

“We’re stalking. If we were just looking we wouldn’t be hiding in a bush—hell, this itches.” 

“Potato potahto.” 

Keonho, who had insisted on bringing a bag of chips on the espionage mission, crinkled the packaging so loud it might’ve been able to alert a few wildlife nearby. 

You and James sat at the bar, leaning against the counter while the bartender prepared your orders. The string lights above cast everything in warm gold, and from this distance, the two of you looked really cinematic. 

“They’re talking,” Haerin reported. 

“How groundbreaking.”

“Oh my god they’re laughing.”

“People do that, right?”

Keonho dapped Martin’s shoulder hard. “Ohhhh, James touched her arm.” 

The entire bush shifted as everyone leaned forward at once, and Haerin had to grab Martin by the back of his shirt before he could topple out into the open. 

At the bar, James said something that made you laugh. Your head even tipped back. Martin had to clutch his chest. 

“He’s using jokes. Smooth bastard.” 

“That’s usually how flirting works. I doubt you’d know any of that.” Haerin said.

Keonho, mouth full of barbecue chips, narrowed his eyes. “Do you think they’re gonna kiss guys?”

“Keon,” Martin said blankly. “They’re just ordering mojitos.” 

“People have kissed over less.”

Haerin nodded in agreement. “That’s true. I see people make out on the bus every day. Like, over what? All you can smell are stinkin’ butts, and some people have died on that bus before.”

“What? I didn’t know this-”

“Wait wait–James is leaning in.”

James leaned closer to hear you over the music. Then the bartender handed him two drinks.

“False alarm.”

“I need a better angle.”

Before anyone could stop him, Martin rose approximately four inches too high. Unfortunately, four inches was all it took. James glanced over directly at the bush, and there was a beat of perfect silence after that. Then James slowly raised one eyebrow. 

Martin ducked first. The rest followed in a panicked domino effect as the branches shook violently.

“We’ve been made,” Haerin announced.

Martin is quick to tap out. “Abort mission, holy fuck–”

“Retreat. Hurry, go!” 

When you and James head back with a tray full of your orders, the three of the culprits were sitting on the porch in positions that bordered on performance art. Martin was whistling. Well, he was trying. Martin can’t whistle. Keonho was reading a magazine upside down, and Haerin still had leaves in her hair. 

James handed out the drinks without a word, though the corners of his mouth twitched suspiciously. 

“Oh, Haerin. You got a uh…” You gesture vaguely at his head. “A few leaves on your hair.”

“Yeah. Keonho pushed me into a bush. Sorry ‘bout that.”

“I did no such–”

Martin was quick to shush Keonho out, to which he let out a huff in turn. 

A little while later, once Keonho and Seonghyeon had sprinted into the water, Martin was left holding down the fort on shore. He was halfway through his juice, still salty about the fact that none of them wanted to hand him a margarita, when James wandered over and stopped behind him.

“Great hiding place, by the way.”

Martin choked on his juice so violently that some of it shot out of his nose. 

But eventually, no one cared enough to quarrel with the day. It was as gold and too open-handed for such a thing. The sun hung above like a coin freshly minted, bright enough to spend. The sea moved with its long and slow patience, folding salt into your skin, into hair, into the small seams of everyone else.

Troubles, those faithful little parasites, found the air too thin here, so they loosened their grip and drifted off like dandelion ash. And everyone was suddenly certain that this would be a day worth keeping. 

James sat on a sunbed a few feet from the shoreline with his sunglasses on and his shirt loosely unbuttoned to give way to the warm air. To his left, a few children have taken Martin hostage, burying him in sand and shaping him in what looks like a poor interpretation of a mermaid sculpture. To his right, Keonho’s trying to drag Seonghyeon down from his floaty. And in front of him, further out where the water is a lot stiller, you’re laughing and splitting the sea into smaller pieces as you pass through it in a fit of laughter. 

“Margarita?” Juhoon, who sits on the sunbed right beside him, passes him a glass.

“Thanks man.” 

Summer. It was a come-and-go concept to James. It would always come with promises, stay just long enough to keep him waiting, then abdicate. A season of suspension. While everyone else seemed intent on breaking free, he mostly found himself idling. The engine would be on, but there would be nowhere worth driving. He’d wait for summer to bring him something, then he’d wait for it to end. 

Summer was long. Summer was hot. Summer was sweat collecting at the base of the spine and sand in very weird places. Summer was–

“James! I caught a crab. Do you think we could cook it?” You shout from afar. 

Summer had you in it this time. Then, summer was brief as a struck match. Warm against his stomach. Sweet, sour, salty. A fruit eaten too quickly, juice running down the wrist, and always never enough. All this heat had revealed skin and nerves, all the thin bright wires beneath the casing. The things he preferred not to feel at all, now lit up like a switchboard. 

Summer has ruined the rest of the year for him. 

James huffs out a laugh and looks back out into the beach where he can maybe pull some restraint. “Do anything you want.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

You had texted James yesterday and asked if he’d seen a Walkman hanging around at the garage that you might’ve left. James checked, to which he did find one sitting idly at your spot on the couch. So he texted you back saying he’d bring it over the next day. 

Which is how he ends up standing very chivalrously at your front door. Because this is also how he meets your father for the very first time.

“Good mornin’ Mr. L/n.” James looks around to further solidify his little act. “Lovely weather today, eh?”

Your dad narrows his eyes in what can only be close to disgust. “You’re Zhao’s son.”

“Did you sense some resemblence?” James gives your dad a charming smile. “Good eye there.”

“Don’t bullshit me, son. What the hell kind of business do you have here calling my daughter–”

“James?”

Your voice cuts through from all the way inside the house, and when you emerge from the front door, James internally sighs in relief and gives you a little wave.

“Sorry, I got your text a little late.” You look at James, and then suspiciously at your dad, who is looking sternly right at James.

“Dad? Is there a problem?”

He looks at you and points accusingly at James with shot eyes. “This boy standing on my front porch is what's the problem.”

James wants to laugh. He knows exactly why your dad doesn’t like him, and it had nothing to do with him at all. It comes with a silly memory: his own father coming home, holding up a fish like a trophy with a blue ribbon tied neatly around its still, unblinking body.

“He’s been fixing my car like you wanted. The least you could do is say thank you.” You scold.

“I am not saying thank you to one of Zhao’s kin–”

“Y’know what, it’s all good.” James cuts through the transpiring little argument. “I stopped by to give this. You forgot to grab it from the shop.” 

He stretched his hand forward to lend you your Walkman back, and you take it in pretend formality. James looks back at your dad and offers another much more charming (he hopes) smile.

“You have a good day, Mr. L/n. Tell the missus I like the flower arrangements up front.” 

He’s ready to head in and leave before this got any more awkward when he hears you say his name. 

“Bye James.”

He turns around to steal another glance, and gives you a generous grin. 

“Bye.”

When James leaves, you take your dad back inside and prepare to reprimand. So much were the roles reversed today.

You turn to him immediately. “What was that about?”

Your dad, already walking deeper into the house, grumbles. “Nothing.”

You follow him into the kitchen. “This Mr. Zhao… isn’t he the one who’s been beating you at those fishing competitions?”

“I bet you he’s cheating.”

You let out an exasperated sigh. “All that rage for some petty contest.” 

You both had to admit there was something almost absurd about this long-standing, entirely unearned fatherly feud. It was hilarious and stupid. What would be even funnier is if maybe, assuming a possibility, that they’d find out about this little thing happening between the two of you. This unsure predicament, a scandal in the eyes of two middle aged men. You want to laugh. You almost do, right there on the kitchen island. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

James receives a panicked call from you at three in the morning a few days later as he’s half-asleep, buried under the dull noise of his father and his friends still arguing over a game on the television.

“Somebody better be dying,” he mutters, voice dragged through sleep.

On the other end, your voice cuts through in whispered panic. “Yes. It’s my Shelby. She’s dying again, James. What am I gonna do?”

“You can bring it to the shop later.”

“I know. I was gonna do that anyway.” 

He exhales into his pillow. “Then what’s the emergency?”

“You sure I shouldn’t just scrape this thing?” you ask with a suddenly unsure tone in your voice.

James opens one eye. “You’re thinking of killing her now?”

“She might as well be on life support.”

He closes his eyes again and lets out a sigh. There’s no denying your car really was a stubborn one. 

“Bring her to the shop, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

You pause. 

“We will?”

“Yes. Now can I go back to sleep?”

“Okay” You say through a small smile. “I’m trusting you James. Sleep tight.” 

“Tight as a bug.” he replies as he’s already halfway gone. “Bye.” 

Somewhere downstairs, the voice of a man is heard screaming in cheer. James buries his ears with his pillow and tries to go back to sleep. 

A little past noon, James was out back giving his motorcycle some attention. He had a towel slung over one shoulder, grease staining the heel of his palm, and was halfway through polishing the handlebars when he heard an engine spitter its way into the lot. It was a very particular, familiar sputter.

He tossed the used rag onto the workbench and headed around to the front. Sure enough, there you were, climbing out of your car with a frustrated expression. You shut the door a little harder than necessary. 

“I got her to work this morning,” You announce by way of greeting. “But I swear the engine’s making this weird noise.”

James circled the front, listening as the engine rattled in protest. “I heard it from the back. Did it break down again?”

“Just before I called you.”

James looked at you suspiciously. “Where were you off to at 3 in the morning?”

“My sister needed a ride home from a party.”

He popped the hood and propped it open. “‘Kay, I’ll take a look. You know the drill.”

A small smile tugged at your mouth as you headed inside. “I’ll take the couch.” 

So you had, in fact, taken the couch. 

There was something so deeply humbling about becoming a regular at an auto repair shop. It would tell people everything they needed to know: that your car was a piece of absolute shit from a butt. But at least the couch was comfy. That had to count for something. 

You were halfway through a bag of stale chips and a quarter through a sports magazine when James pushed through the garage door, wiping his hands on his jeans and staining them in the process. His expression alone told you everything.

“How bad is she?”. 

He looked like he bared bad news. 

“It’s your alternator.”

You blinked silently. “My what?”

“Alternator. It keeps your battery charged while the engine’s running.”

“So… important.” You deduced.

“Very.”

“Love that.”

James huffed out a laugh and told you to follow him.

“The bearings are shot, see? That’s the noise.”

You slumped your shoulders forward. “Can you f ix it?”

“I can. I should be able to replace it.

The pause he made was a little ominous, so you probe further.

“But?”

“But we don’t have one in stock.” He clicks his tongue. “And a new one isn’t exactly cheap.”

“Define cheap.” 

James named you a number, to which you nearly choked on your saliva.

“James, that is rent.”

He winced sympathetically. “Yeah. Such is the beauty of owning a car.”

“I didn’t even buy it myself. How am I supposed to afford that?” You turned back to walk toward the couch before slumping on it once more. 

“I should’ve asked for a horse.”

“Maintenance is worse. My uncle’s got a ranch up south with horses. They shit big.”

You sighed long and hard. “Horses don’t need alternators though.”

“Didn’t I just tell you? They shit big. And they bite too.” 

For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the faint hum of the soda machine and the distant clanking something he had left on. James tapped his finger on his lap thoughtfully.

“But I might know a way around it.”

You lifted your head in desperation.

“How illegal are we talking?”

He put his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Moderately legal?”

“James.” 

He gave you a mischievous grin. 

“There’s a junkyard about twenty minutes from here. They got totaled cars in all the time. If we’re lucky, we can pull an alternator off something compatible.”

“Dude. Isn’t that stealing?”

“It’s cheaper. Wait no, it’s free.”

That, admittedly, was a compelling argument. You narrowed your eyes at him.

“And you know this place how?”

“I know a guy.”

Of course he knew a guy. You suspected a lot of these mechanic boys operated like they were part of a secret underground network. They know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. 

“You had me at free.”

James grabbed his dad’s truck keys off the wall while you stood from the couch. You followed him outside, both of you climbing into the truck and buckling in. Desperation was going to take you places today. He reversed out of the lot with one hand on the wheel, and you caught the sunlight glinting off the silver ring on his finger. Then you were off. 

The drive was mostly filled with silence. The windows were down as the wind rushed in to occupy all the empty spaces. It threaded through the car, rifled your hair, and carried off any thoughts James was trying very hard not to have. 

Outside, the road kept company with the town’s river, each pretending not to notice the other. You watched the water slide past in silver influxes as James watched you in the rearward pull of seconds. The wind would unmake your hair and remake it a little better. He found this, like many things he’s thought of, very compelling. 

The junkyard was exactly just as you imagined.

Rows and rows of dead cars stretched beneath the afternoon sun, metal skeletons stacked two, sometimes three high, each one looking as junked up as the other. Windows were shattered, doors hung open, and somewhere in the distance, something metallic clanged with the ominous acoustics of a horror movie.

“People have gotten murdered here.”

“You got a strong feeling ‘bout that?”

“Absolutely.”

When you both got out of the truck, the air smelled like rust, hot rubber, and tetanus. A heavyset man behind a cluttered counter looked up from his newspaper as you approached. He wore a baseball cap that might once have been red. 

James gave him a nod. “Afternoon, Rick.”

The guy, Rick, squinted over the rims of his glasses.

“James!” He exclaims excitedly. “You break another one?”

James jerked a thumb toward you and shook his head. “Not mine this time.”

You placed a hand over your chest and bowed. “Thrilled to be here.”

Rick snorted before bowing curtly at you in return, and waved the two of you through the gate.

“Imports are in row seven. Don’t steal anything that ain’t bolted down, yeah?”

“‘Course, Rick. We all know how that went last time.”

That was sketchy, you think. You followed James between towering rows of vehicles, gravel crunching beneath your shoes. Every few feet, James would glance at a car, dismiss it, and keep walking. He looked like a vulture on the lookout. 

James stopped in front of an okay Mustang, and knew this particular model was manufactured just a few years before yours was. He figured it could work. 

“There she is.”

James popped the hood of the car with ease, and you leaned in beside him, staring at an engine that looked, to your untrained eye, like just a bunch of metal scraps put together.

“So which one is it?”

He pointed. “That.”

You nodded solemnly as if you understood anything at all. James reached into the small bag you had brought and took out some kind of tool, and went to work.

You folded your arms and watched him. His brow gathered itself to the middle in concentration, sleeves shoved carelessly to his elbows, grease smudging dark against his knuckles. There was sweat clinging to all sorts of places. His temples, along the line of his throat, tracing the strong cords of his arms where the veins stood out with clarity. 

It was incredibly rude of him to look that good in a junkyard. 

“Hold this.” 

He handed you a wrench, and you took it like he’d entrusted you with a sacred artifact. And so, under the blazing sun, you helped James steal (sorry, salvage) an organ from a dead car. Your week had taken a very strange turn. 

After he gets the part off, you both make quick work of stuffing it into the bag before heading back toward the big gate again. 

“Find everything you need?” Rick calls from where he idles.

“All good here Rick.” James replies. “You have a good one.”

A small nod, a mutual dismissal of the world, and you’re both back in motion. You toss the bag into the back of the truck, and James climbs in after you then turns the ignition. The engine makes a weird sound, but neither of you comment on it. 

You’re on the road for a while, and nothing seems to be the problem. That is, until the engine coughs first. A small, offended sound. Then again, this time deeper. The truck shudders, and with dread on both your faces, it finally gives up and stops. 

“James. What the hell.”

“I’ll go take a look.”

Both of you are out the truck in seconds. James lifts the hood and leans into it, and you watch from the side. He works in silence for a few minutes, which doesn’t really help the unease you’re feeling. He straightens eventually, and gives you the look.

“We’re fucked.”

That is how you both end up pushing the truck. Its wheels roll reluctantly, and you want to laugh at how utterly absurd this it. You both steer it into the nearest empty patch of land: an abandoned gas station’s parking lot. 

There’s nothing for miles, you believe. No phone booth, no convenience store. Not even the promise of signal. You checked your cellular and couldn’t pick up on anything.

James calls you through a whistle. “Hey. Look at that.”

You walk over toward him and follow his line of sight. There, just a few meters ahead, is a sign, which tells you there must be some sort of establishment nearby. 

“Let’s take our chances. It’s almost dawn.”

Because there are no better options or sudden miracles waiting in the wings, you head to the back of the truck and reach for the bag in case it gets snatched. James reaches into the dash, retrieves his wallet, and pockets it to the back along with his keys.. Then you walk. Side by side. 

A motel is what awaited you.

You exhale, long and unamused. A motel. Of all places. In the middle of nowhere. Onl motorcycles are parked up front, which suggested everyone else came here alone. Everyone except you two. 

“This sucks.” You say, staring up at the motel in quiet offense.

“Better than sleeping on a truck in an abandoned gas station.”

“I don’t even have any money on me right now.”

James takes out his wallet and waves it lightly in front of you. “Problem solved.” 

You hated how this looked from the outside. A boy and a girl walking into a motel close to night time. The story is practically writing itself. But night is already closing in, and better ideas are not arriving soon. So when James walks first, you trail close behind. 

The lobby was warmer than expected, and surprisingly clean. Not exactly luxurious, but as cozy as a motel in the middle of who knows where could offer: wood-paneled walls, a coffee machine humming quietly in the corner, a rack of brochures advertising attractions that looked suspiciously closed.

A woman sat behind the front desk, reading a magazine. She looked up as the two of you entered. James stepped forward while you wandered over to the little lounge area and sank into one of the couches.

“One room with two beds, please.”

The receptionist looked through some logbooks, then offered an unapologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, sir, but our double rooms are all occupied tonight.”

James nodded. “That’s fine. Two rooms, then.”

More checking of the logs. The receptionist’s smile grew somehow more apologetic.

“I do apologize, but we’re fully booked on singles as well.”

James blinked blankly. “…What do you have, then?”

She consulted with the papers on her desk.

“We currently have one queen room available.”

Silence.

From your spot on the couch, you suddenly found the complimentary pamphlets fascinating.

James turned slowly.

“Give me a moment.”

You spotted James making his way back across the lobby, and immediately straightened from your position on the couch. 

“Are we good to go?”

James stopped in front of you, one hand hooked on his hip. He looked almost amused, which should have worried you more than it did.

“Y/n.” That was already a terrible start.

“What?”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“They have…” He paused, and then again. “It’s a room with one bed. That’s all they’ve got.”

You stared at him. Then at the receptionist. Then back at him.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Wish I wasn’t.”

Which was only partially true, and James knew it. Unfortunately, he also knew better than to examine that thought too closely. He mentally shoved it into a locked drawer and sat on it.

You stood so quickly the couch wheezed beneath you.

“All the other rooms are booked? This place looks like a shithole, how are they fully booked?”

“I don’t know. I’ll just take the floor, okay?”

“I can’t let you sleep on a motel carpet James. These things have organisms—“

Before you’re able to chime in another word, James turns around again and heads back to the to the receptionist. He pulls a couple dollar bills and slides them on the counter surface. 

“We’ll take it.” 

The receptionist slid the key across the counter with a smile. James took it, thanked her, and turned toward you, giving a slight tilt of his head.

“C’mon.”

You pushed yourself off the couch and trudged upstairs, and it creaked beneath your feet as the two of you climbed to the second floor. The motel hallway stretched long and narrow, lit by buzzing overhead lights that did very little to improve its already questionable atmosphere.

James found your room quickly enough. He stopped outside the door, key poised, then hesitated. When he turned to face you, the teasing had slipped from his expression. 

“Okay. A few things.”

You nodded.

“If you ever feel uncomfortable at all about anything, just tell me.” The seriousness in his voice caught you off guard.

“I mean it,” he added. “I don’t want you pretending you’re fine about this. I get it, it’s weird. No walking on eggshells. Alright?”

You managed a small forced smile.

“Got it.”

“And another thing. Try not to head out alone too much tonight.”

He gestured toward the parking lot below. You leaned toward the small window just enough to spot those half a dozen motorcycles lined up beneath the flickering motel sign.

“A bunch of bikers are staying here. They’re in a group, I’d guess.”

“You say it like they’re a migrating species.”

“They usually are.”

You laughed as he rested one shoulder against the doorframe.

“Make sure the door’s locked and just… stay out of trouble.”

He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The room beyond was exactly as promised: one bed, one television, one lamp. You both stared at the queen-sized bed. Awkward.

James hurriedly moves to the bedside table and snatches up the telephone, and punches some numbers in. You, meanwhile, drift toward the balcony. The curtains part with a soft sound, and the sliding door gives you the entire cold night as you step out. 

“I’m heading to the bathroom.” You say as you head back in. “Does the telephone work?”

“Yeah,” he replies, hand still on the receiver. “I managed to call Rick for a tow truck. Says they won’t be able to come until 9 tomorrow.”

“You didn’t think of calling your parents first?”

“My dad would probably say I could get things sorted out on my own.” He says.

“Can I call my parents?”

“Sure. Do you know your landline?”

You pause. “We got a new one, so I don’t.” a dismissive shake of your head. “Never mind.”

You head to the bathroom and turn the lock behind you, the sound like a line being drawn. Inside, you try to breathe in something quiet and steady, but you can’t. In the mirror, you look for the parts of yourself you can pick on, the little flaws you think to be pluckable. Frustrated you were that they stay exactly as they are. 

Meanwhile, James watches you disappear into the bathroom and waits for the door to close you out of sight. Only when you’re fully gone does he drop onto the bed. He exhales then, long and unspooled.

There are many things James can handle. He had always considered himself fairly adaptable. Plans change, cars break down. He knows these men in leather jackets and wrinkled hands surrounding the rooms around them as he thinks these things through. He had, at various points in his life, been punched in the face and kicked in the shin, and more than once did he have to explain to his father how exactly he got each bruise if he ever got home with any, which was usually most of the time. 

All that, he could handle half-asleep with a hand tied behind his back while someone was yelling at him. He’s slept under less forgiving roofs, and he’s had worse company (worse had rarely been this pretty, though). 

Then put him in a room with one very beautiful girl he just so happened to be hopelessly, helplessly in love with, and watch all that competence go missing. 

He tried to shake it off. People shared these kinds of rooms all the time. Travelers. Families. Sports teams. Criminals on the run, probably. 

I need a cigarette. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

“I’m back.” You emerge from the bathroom a while later, still in your old clothes, a borrowed robe loosely tied over them. 

“Stuff on your mind?” You ask. 

James is on the balcony sitting on the ledge with his back turned half to you, and the rest towards the open night. He’s got a cigarette between his fingers, one you’re not sure where he got from. 

He glances back over his shoulder. 

“Yeah,” He said after a moment,  “You could say that.”

You step closer, and James watches you all the way. He realizes faintly that seeing you through the smoke makes his head feel a lot dizzier. 

“You really need to stop that.”

“Stop what?” 

“Smoking.”

He lets the cigarette tilt slightly between his teeth. “You don’t like it?”

“I don’t.” When you’re close enough, you flick the tip of it with a finger. “And your lungs don’t either.”

That earns you a laugh. “You sound like my mother.”

“Better that than an enabler, right?” 

Better that than an enabler, and James almost loses it. The irony is there. You have enabled much worse in him than a little ash or smoke in his lungs. Want, for one. Hope, for another. A hundred reckless instincts, each one wearing your face. 

He wants to either fold himself in half or shake some sense into you. To pry your skull and point: there, there, look at what you’ve done. 

“C’mere.”  

You step closer until you’re right in front of him, too close that you’re aligned with the bend of his knees on the ledge. James takes the cigarette from his mouth, holds it between two fingers like a small and solved problem, then tosses it over the edge. If you wanted him clean so badly, then so be it. 

Something in him responds as unsteady beings do when the wind would find their hems. A pressure and a lean toward form. Toward articulation. Toward you. But he keeps it contained by the narrowest margin of will, because he doesn’t know yet what it is.

“What is it?”

He shifts slightly from where he sits. “You think your dad's gonna kill me?”

“For what?”

“When he finds out I’m spending my sweet time with his precious little princess in a motel in the middle of nowhere.”

“If you say it like that, he might.”

“Well, what am I saying it like?”

“Like you have some… intentions.”

“Intentions.” He clicks his tongue and thinks. “What kind?”

The sun goes down, and the balcony becomes a place slightly outside the map. James sits there as though he has been left on a higher shelf of the world. You looked at him then, almost invasive.  If invasions could be curious instead of cruel. As if, by looking hard enough, you might just be able to persuade him into things. 

“I don’t know, James.” You lean forward on your toes, then backward on your heel. “You keep saying things a certain way. I have to retrace them until I go crazy.” 

“Don’t you think maybe you’re just reading into me too much?”

“Am I ?”

He could say yes. Could blame it on you, say you were overthinking, making something out of absolutely nothing. And if he played the role right, you might even buy it. But it’d be a lie, and James has found it incredibly hard to keep lies from you. He couldn’t even say no to you half the time, let alone lie through his own teeth. Not when he’d already gone out of his way to fix that junky Shelby, cutting corners on the bill, paying for things himself so his dad wouldn’t catch on that he’d been letting some girl leave the shop receipt-free every time. Subtlety, he’s never been good at it. 

“No.” Lying, even less so. “You think I should act on ‘em?”

“Your intentions?”

“Yeah.”

You look at him knowingly, hopefully and without unrest.

“If they’re not going anywhere, why not?” If you’re not going anywhere, why not here?

The season has gone on longer than he’d been able to imagine. Or maybe not long enough. Either way, when he looks back at you across the thinning dark, he understands to himself that he isn’t ready for it to end. 

Ah, what am I doing? 

Who knew a mere inch of opening was all James would ever need. It happens in the space of a blink. He steps down from the ledge, his hands already rising as they settle at the sides of your face. And then, in the slim, unsteady breath between one moment and the next, he leans down and catches your lips with his. 

It doesn’t take much after that for things to turn. In a fit of urge and desperation, he backs you up until your knees buckle at the edge of that tiny queen bed. ‘Queen bed’ as the receptionist said, was too much of a stretch for this one. Then another moment, you both collapse on it anyway. 

You discover quickly that James doesn’t like to drag things out. You feel it in these betrayals: the restless twitch of his hands and his protested stillness. You hadn’t pegged him to be the impatient type. Tonight, though, his skin runs warm, almost fever-bright. His breathing forgets its rhythm, then finds another. And when he reaches to switch on the lamp beside the bed, the room fills with amber, turning his eyes from their usual dark wood into something honey-struck. 

You switch it close immediately. 

“No, no James—I like it closed.”

“But I can’t see you.”

I’d look nicer when the lights are off, you try to tell him. The words are small and brittle in your throat. 

“You don’t have to.” You say instead.

I need to, he thinks. Else my insides get eaten up.

James laughs low and helplessly, the sound brushing warm against your skin. “You trying to hog?” 

He wants nothing more tonight than to take you in. Entirely and improperly, in visions, in motion, in all your strange fullness. The flush in your cheeks, the bright sheen at your throat, he’d only want to leave you more potent than how he found you. And when at last your pulse remembers its manners, he finds that he would like, very much, to be the reason for that too. 

“There’s nothing to hog.”

“Yeah, there is.”

The orange wash of the bedside lamp makes James greedy the instant he turns it back on and looks down on you. It gilds the room, gilds your skin, gilds his appetite, and he wonders how much worse it will get once it's morning and he wakes to find you there again as living proof rather than of a dream. 

“Maybe we really do need to turn the lights off,” he decides.

You tilt your head against the pillow. “Changed your mind?”

“Oh, my mind hasn’t changed a bit,” James replies, then inches closer once more. “You push me over, lady.”

“Don’t call me that.” 

His hand betrays him to humiliating degrees. Lifting, pausing, and reconsidering as it is traitorously decisive, until it finally settles lightly against the edge of your cheekbone. Your breaths breathe warmth into his face, and he registers with mild alarm that they turn him a little visibly red. Even as he’s above you, when he can only look down earnestly at the gleam and glow that's made up this whole season, all that sun made flesh, you still hold every right and all the ability to make him act entirely insensible.

“Make my night, yeah?”

His mouth is so inconveniently human as it tries to chase the sweetness he’s found in your own, like a child finding the unreachable cookie jar. His hands are no better, and his skin is rough against yours that is soft as they insist on remembering what they shouldn’t have been taught so quickly.

James has never been with anyone. Not like this. So he’s scared by how natural you seem to fit into places in him he hadn’t realized were so empty. 

“Only if you make mine.”

Your dad tells you time and time again, beware of boys, they’re never honest. Says they lie, that they always will. He tells you this with personal conviction. But like something you never thought you’d do, you want to tell him not this one. Not this boy. 

Perhaps every girl before you has thought the same. Maybe they were laying as you are now. But this one is different, you think, you believe. You bring the thought with you as James leans in and kisses you again, drawing you under until you’re pressed into the pillow with nowhere else to go. You believe it through the warmth of his hand tracing the skin under your jaw, with the other moving over your hair. And you believed it most when you touched him back and thought never to return. 

“I’ll make a fantasy out of you,” James breathes out as he buries his head in the crook of your jaw. And then I’ll make a believer out of myself. A flame and a moth. 

You huff out a little airy laugh. “Could you?”

He lifts his head just enough to look at you. “Have I ever disappointed you before?”

The rest of the night, if “night” is even the correct term for it, and James is not entirely convinced it is, breaks apart into the most non-linear little pieces, as though misfiled in the wrong century. There are, instead, these conditions: warmth with a clear origin, motions in improper geometry, and the strange, persistent closeness. 

James remembers the beaches of his childhood. Of tides returning to their remarkable shoreline no matter how often they should be pulled away. His thoughts, ordinarily so well-trained, behave much the same around you. It’s an inefficient system, all this remembering. 

Skin to skin, breath upon breath, there was nowhere else to go but under. 

And with all the pretty things James had whispered to you that night, if it were truly what you thought it to be meant anything at all, then you took them with you to your dreams in the hopes that they’d be better interpreted there. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

If you had just lived through the best night of your life a few hours ago, you certainly left no such obvious traces of it this morning. None that James could see. 

The diner sat in a quiet early-hour warmth just beside the motel, low light with clinking cutlery, and something steady about it. James has always been like that with breakfast. No matter where he ends up, no matter how far off or unfamiliar, he makes time for it. You sit just right across from him in the corner booth, and though he thought maybe this would be the perfect time to pick up on the conversation he’d left to fend for last night, you just wouldn’t look at him. 

You keep your head held low as you fix your attention to the food you’d been picking on your plate and chewing. Is facing him really going to cost me something? 

James clicked his tongue. “You don’t like eggs?”

“I don’t like the sunny side ups.” You say through a mouthful, not bothering to look up. 

“Give it here.”

You slide the plate across as ceramic grazes the table in a soft passing sound, slipping between the diner’s lull of conversations. He switches it out with his own, then shifts his plate of scrambled eggs closer to you. 

“Eat,” he says. You do. 

Not because you’re still hungry. You just need to give your hands something to commit to. Across the table, you feel him watching you in that pressing way of his. 

“Slept well?” he asks. 

“You tell me. I was literally next to you.”

His mouth shifts, and he wonders how far he’s able to take this.

“Just trying to add some light to this shit. You’re making it awkward.”

Why wouldn’t it be awkward?

You shake your head. “I’m not making it awkward.”

“Yeah?” He leans forward slightly as his elbows brush the edge of the table. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“I don’t know James.” You move your food around, and the grip on your fork is a lot tighter now. “This was so unplanned.”

“Hmm?”

“None of this would’ve happened if the truck hadn’t broken down.”

There’s something barely offended, but ultimately unreadable in his expression. 

“So what are you saying?” His voice lowers just a little. “You wouldn’t have wanted this to happen?”

And you finally look up at him for the first time today. “No, I–”

You wonder what it was you were even trying to argue against. There’s no denying you’d never regret what you had done yesterday. Not now, not later, not even if your dad found out. It seems entering adulthood had a way of overcomplicating things, layers upon layers where there might have been none if only you had tried. 

“Don’t tell me you got a boyfriend back in college you forgot to mention ‘cause I do not want to be your little homewrecker–”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, God, I’m not that awful.” You rub at the corners of your eyes in frustration.

“So what’s the matter?”

The matter for you was simple: that this was going to be one of those cute little flings, as fleeting as they were all unplanned for. The cruel fate of someday being remembered as that ‘summer of ‘02’ months or years from now, and nothing more.

“Nothing.” And you know he doesn't believe you. 

“I just,” Your fork pauses on your plate, and you think of either being straightforward or telling another one of your unbelievable lies. 

“I’m gonna have to go back to college sooner or later.”

A weak defense mechanism presents itself in your throat, small and evasive. It’s then that James now understands. So that's what you were fussing about. 

He’d been so caught up in the present tense that he’d neglected the so-called never-not-befores. By then, he’s realized a little late how soon you’d be gone for months at a time. It wouldn’t be the first. Only now, he’s going to have to learn the hard way of an act called letting go.

There were slips of transcripts his grandmother kept around the old house that he used to read. All those Chinese sayings about destiny, yuanfen, she called it. The idea of encounters not being all that random. and that certain intersections have been pre-authored into the margins of existence. Red strings, love locks, the Old Man of the Moon, the sort of things that make you think of magic. James had always found it a little too bogus to be true. And yet, if such a thing does exist, if yuanfen is by any bit operational at all, he hoped it would be on your side. 

“I hope you’re not taking that junky car with you–”

“Keep my Mustang out your mouth James.”

James can only smile at you in turn and think about that stupid car that started it all. He huffs a laugh and slides his leftover hashbrowns across the table. 

“You better eat it. Need to make up for the rice.” 

Your fork cuts through the food he’d offered as you take a big bite. “Alright.”

He hoped it would be you. 

Because then he wouldn’t have to worry in the end. Ten miles, a thousand, an ocean or two, it made no meaningful difference. Water returns to its level. Winds to their courses. You, he hoped, would return to him. Or he to you. 

The train ride back to Old Town Temecula had been as eventful in that it made your hairs stick out and your attention a little too heightened. You sat closely next to each other, as close as any two people could be. Looking around at everyone else, the old couple with their arms knotted together, the lonely guy just by the door, and behind him, a young pair stealing too many kisses as if they might run out, you realize nearly everyone’s got something of their own.

And while you were busy doing just that, James hovers his rough hand over your soft one lying on your side, doesn’t consider such consequences of it, and presses it down, nudging his fingers in between yours. They interlock much like zipper teeth. 

Just like your face, his hands stayed warm the whole train ride back, the way you had imagined often and always a little too vividly. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

James remembers the summers he’d spent in a plastic pool on Fridays, not a day over five. That, or when he’d spend them in Martin’s treehouse watching movies on the television they’d found at the back of a storefront. He remembers the heat pressed as close as another body, the exhilaration, the freedom to act his age. But this is the first summer he’s looked at a girl and almost scared himself to death from the guilt. Guilt, the word he uses to think less of his desire. But looking at you now, he could think of nothing more. 

This was the cruelest season of them all. 

“Do I look alright?” You ask from your vanity, turning just enough to catch James in the mirror who’s sprawled across your bed, hands folded behind his head. You’d waited until noon for your dad to leave for yet another fishing trip before sneaking James inside. It had been a successfully executed operation if you ignored the part where he nearly slipped off the roof and met an embarrassing end. The things James was willing to risk just to see his girl were far from limited. 

“Looks like it.”

“Seriously James?” You snap the cap back onto your lipstick with a sharp  click and move to the edge of the bed, bending down to slip on your shoes.  “Spent three hours getting ready for the date where you spent at most 10 seconds to ask me on. Some enthusiasm would be appreciated.”

Ah, but my throat’s all caught, Y/n. How could I say anything at all?

“You look great. Amazing. Your hair looks like a shiny toilet surface. Did you want that?”

The words came out clumsy on the way free. He had better ones, prettier ones lined up behind his teeth, but he was saving those for later.

“Thanks.”

For the better part, you suspected James had every intention of spending whatever time remained of your vacation planted firmly at your side. He’d developed this habit of appearing wherever you happened to be. Was he your boyfriend though? Absolutely not.

“I’m all ready. We should head out.”

But whether he was your boyfriend or not seemed beside the point, because when your ‘not boyfriend’ pushed himself upright, he once again tried his best to maintain composure and try not to tackle you back onto the mattress. You looked beautiful. Well you were always beautiful, but tonight you clearly made an occasion of it. The sight alone was enough to set James’ face ablaze.

“I’ll wait for you right here.” He said as he stood up, finding his way behind you so that he could whisper it in the shell of your ear. ‘Pretty, pretty lady’, to which you gave him a warm smile. His day opened up like a fruit under a knife. 

You hurry on downstairs, catching your mother in the kitchen. A quick goodbye, a promise that you’d be out with friends and come home late enough to warrant concern, but she let you go. James counted as a friend. Never to you, but technically, in the broadest possible sense, he was. You slipped outside and circled beneath your bedroom window, shielding your eyes from the rays as you looked up. James was perched on your sill like a disturbed cat. 

“Sight’s clear.” You announced in a stage whisper. James tried his best to wriggle out the window and grabbed for the nearby branch. There was a lot of rustling, a muffled curse, before he dropped to the patch fo grass with an unceremonious thud.

He brushed the dirt off his jeans, still catching his breath. “You seriously need to properly introduce me to your parents. I can’t keep this up.” 

“You don’t like sneaking up to my room?” You tease as you both make your way to where he parked the truck. Fixed, this time. You trust it to work. “That’s a shame. I happen to find it quite romantic.” 

“Try being on the climbing end, and you'll be thinking twice.” By the time James said it, the two of you had reached the clearing where the truck waited. A faint smile tugged at his mouth, as if the sight of it stirred up an old memory. You both scrambled inside, James fired up the engine, and the rock rolled forward. 

James figured that if he was gonna do this, he ought to do it properly. A real date, something with intention (and a lot of money) behind it. But time was proving itself annoyingly finite, so early afternoon would have to do. The sun was what brought you two together, so it seemed only right to make it a little centerpiece.  Besides, James liked you best in daylight. Not because you were any less lovely at night, but that daytime laid everything out to him in the clearest golden motions. Like citrus and canary yellow, sweet tea and dynamite. 

The drive pulls you farther into town, past the familiar corners and into the part with the nicer sidewalks. When James finally pulls up in front of a restaurant with gleaming windows and a valet service, you turn to look at him. He catched your stare and gave you that unreadable almost-smile, then shook his head. 

And dinner was wonderfully surreal. No boy had ever gone out of their way to take you someplace this nice out of their own volition. That was James all over, thoughtful in ways that would sneak up on you. He was so generous with you, honest too, and knew how to say the right things. He was also blessed, or perhaps cursed, with remarkable hands. One of the first things you’d learned about them was that they could fix almost anything put in front of them. The second was that, whenever given the chance, they were good at taking you apart. 

You saw it now too, as James sat across from you, laughing at every little thing you said. He did it with his whole body, as if his joy were too large to contain in something as small as his teethy grins. You found that he had the face of an old song, of one your mother liked to play through the record every morning. There is only so much considerable longing you can fit into the four minutes of a song. 

Halfway through your food, you suddenly remembered something, then quickly reached for your handbag.

“Oh! By the way…” James, who had been in the middle of demolishing a truly unfair amount of delicious clam shells, paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

You rummage through some receipts, a lip gloss, and maybe half your earthly possessions. At last, your hand emerged triumphantly, clutching a tiny plastic toy dog. 

“I wanted to give you this. Thought it looked like you.”  You placed it in his held out palm, and he turned it over in his fingers, brow furrowing. It was a small brown dog with oversized eyes and a permanently alert expression. Frankly, the ‘resemblance’ was confusing. 

“... What is it?”

“It’s a little pet, from the Littlest Pet Shop.” You said with all the reverence of introducing royalty. “I’ve been collecting them forever. They’re adorable, and look–” You reached over and tapped its head. It wobbled enthusiastically from side to side. James watched with captivation and held it up, examining it like an archeologist uncovering a priceless relic. 

“Thank you. Seriously. I could glue this down on my dashboard–”

Your expression turned murderous “Do not glue this anywhere, James. These are precious things. I expect you to care for this as your own child.” James nodded solemnly, and then cradled the little dog in both hands.

“Gotcha.” 

The little dog, Doudou, as James had named him (brown rice), sat perched beside the salt shaker keeping a vigilant eye on the proceedings. The restaurant had filled in around over the last few hours, and sunlight spilled through the windows, catching the rims of glasses and turning everything faintly sparkling. James had loosened up considerably, which was to say he kept taking unwanted bites of your cake, denying your every retort. 

“Hey–” You fought his fork away from your plate with your own. “You should’ve ordered another earlier. This is criminal.”

He shrugged unrepentant and took another piece. “Possession is only nine-tenths of the law, by the way.”

You pointed a fork at him accusingly. “One day James, your hubris will be your downfall.”

His smile was enough to make you forget whatever mean thing you’d been preparing to say. Eventually though, perhaps it was the angle of the light, or how your eyes drifted toward the window, again and again, that had James wondering yet again.

He sets his fork down. “What’s wrong?”

“You think we've been here long enough?” You asked.

A brow lifted. “Why? You wanna leave?” You glanced out at the lowering sun, and the sky beginning its slow descent, and nodded. 

“Yeah.” A small smile tugged at your mouth. “I wanna see the sun before it sets.” 

And so the bill was paid, Doudou was safely secured in James’ jacket pocket, and within minutes you were back in the truck, the engine rumbling to life from beneath you. 

The truck heads a little towards the edge of town and uphill, and the field beyond steals the breath right out of you. It rolls outward in waves of tall grass and dandelion silk, all gold and green and dreamlike as you both got out.

And though you dress was never made for such things, you run straight down the slope, the ground catching you in a fit of laughter as you fall to your side. James could only shout for you as you rolled on down. 

The sun had reached the ruinous hour when it seemed time to finally spend itself entirely. It scattered light all over, and it made you think of beauty and whether grass stains ever truly came out. James, for his part, felt his insides turn over like a drawer being searched. The land went on and on, exceeding the eye and all good manner. Yet for all that breadth, all that open country, he need only lower his eyes. 

You lay there on the grass with the last of the sun’s rays tangled in between your hair, smiling up at him from the same green earth that had made him, had made trees and rivers and every other ordinary miracle, and seen fit, had placed you here before him. And what is another miracle if not this?

“Please don’t do that ever again.” 

“Come–!”

You tug him by the hand and pull, and the two of you roll a little further down the slope in a tangle of hair, fabric, and breathless laughter. James has to gather your hair away from your face and disentangle it from your mouth just so he can kiss you properly, and fold himself around you like an unblooming flower. 

And when he looks at you after, he wants, wants, and wants some more. Against all the reasonably unreasonable forces. To be yours. To be of you and for you. To make a home somewhere in the crook of your neck or the dip in your chest, the two places where your heartbeat is clearest.

“My dress is all ruined.”

“I’ll buy you a new one, how does that sound?”

“You oughta just buy me a new car.” A joke, obviously. But James asks the question anyway.

“Will you like that?”

You both commit to a very spontaneous decision, and James is grateful he had the intuition to keep a clean blanket in his truck beforehand. The sun sets, and by the time the stars had gone up, he slid open the sun roof upon your request. In the blinking machinery of the darkness above, James points out plants like he’s naming his old acquaintances, then offers you the strange superstitions he collected as a child.

Then you fall asleep right there, wrapped in a blanket on the backseat of his father's truck while the stars slip down like a drawn curtain over the world. James stays awake and keeps vigil through the night, held up by the weight against his chest and the soft cadence of your breathing, borrowing from it a calm he’s yet to learn to keep for himself. 

A little later into morning, he drives the coastal road that leads home. And he pulls into that same clearing again, and lifts you carefully from the passenger seat. He reaches for your purse with the key to your front door, and lets himself i as quietly as he can. Inside, he moves slowly and watches his every step so the floorboards won’t creak. He takes the stairs just as carefully, until he makes it to your room without a suspecting soul there to catch him. 

He lowers you onto your bed gently, and you sink into your mattress much like he does as he follows, dropping down beside you to fit himself right into the sprawl of your limbs. His breath is warm where it brushes your skin, his nose tingling where it touches yours. 

“Wake up, little lady.” He murmurs, voice still rough with groginess..” You want me to clean you up??”

“Later…” You mumble. “Stop calling me that.”

“I’ll leave you be.” He shifts a lot closer, if being closer was still possible. “I need to head off to the shop.”

Your fingers crumple slightly around his sleeve. “Stay a while.” 

“How long did you want this while to be?” He looks at you earnestly, as he looks for a similarly earnest answer. 

The morning light slides further in through the curtains, catching on the edges of your hair, the folds of the blanket, and James grants himself a moment.

“A long kind of while.” 

He couldn’t say no to that. 

Later that afternoon, at the shop when James is helping adjust something from under the hood of a car, his dad’s sights narrowed onto that small dog figurine sitting new and unfitting on the counter next to the piles of papers and blueprints.

“What the hell is that thing?” He finally asks.

James doesn’t even need to look up from where he’s looking to know what he was referring to. “It’s a dog.”

“This yours?”

“Gift.”

“Whatever for?”

James tightens a bolt a little too firmly and scoffs, a tiny sign of a grin pulling at his face. “It’s normal to receive gifts dad.”

His father exhales through his nose unimpressedly. “Well this looks like a gift you give to a girl, and you ain't one.”

James wipes his ands on his stained jeans and turns to grab Doudou. From the counter, he quickly settles him onto the workbench, one he shared with his dad. Out of some half-assed spite that made him want to laugh, he turns to him and points at Doudou the dog. “Just deal with the damn toy.” 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Your mom has been trying not to cry since you’d went downstairs with your bags, which only made her more talkative as she circled around the same three instructions: study well, eat properly, wash your sheets when you get back. 

“And don’t forget to call, okay?” she says again, holding your hands like an anchor. You wanted to die of embarrassment because James was standing right at the front door. 

“I’ll be back before you know it, Ma.” you answer as you lean in to kiss her cheek. Your dad stands a little behind her, arms crossed trying not to be part of the emotional fiasco happening in front of him. He clears his throat when James shifts from where he stands.

“You’re always taking her off to places, huh.” 

“I’m getting her to the airport, Mr. L/n.” James tries to feign nonchalance, and your dad buys it cluelessly. Your mom finally lets you go, stepping back with a long look like she’s trying to memorize your face. When you turn back, James helps you haul your things out the door. As you start walking away, he glances at you sideways.

“You think your dad's softening up to me?” 

“He lets you in my room now. With the door closed, mind you. That’s gotta be it.”

The car ride was quiet. James didn’t know what to say for once, so he kept his eyes on the road, fingers drumming lightly against the steering wheel. He watched the streets roll by, the stoplight changing, strangers crossing intersections, and the usual moving on of life. 

By the time the airport came into view, James pulled into an empty space near the terminal entrance, close enough that he could spot the steady stream of travelers coming and going, departures, arrivals, reunions, the like.  He killed the engine, and you carefully unbuckled your seatbelt. James glances over at you, then quickly away, and back again. You folded your arms across your chest and turned to meet his gaze. 

“You have my new number saved right?”

“Yeah I do.”

“And you'll call?”

“I’ll call you when you arrive.”

James looks at you and catches something small and uneasy. He shifts in his seat and leans over the console. “What’s wrong?”

You look out the windshield for a moment. And once you seem like you’ve made up your mind about something, you lean in as well, and kiss James breathless. 

When you pull back, James looks struck, and a laugh seeps out of you. “I’ll let you be my boyfriend now.”

James thinks fucking finally. He’s waited this long. 

“You could’ve made the decision a little earlier, no?”

You give him a look of fake compassion and press your foreheads together. “We sure still had a good time.”

We sure did. 

“I’ll see you in a few months.”

He’ll certainly remember the way you would sing that godforsaken song, Shape of My Heart by Sting over and over, every time it was on the radio. And he wonders what shape his heart would prove to be (thank you Gordon Sumner) if you were to cut him open and take a peak. He would have to explain it to you then, if he could find the words:

Love, yes, he had love, and felt it in these accruals.  The way limestone was his peculiar little architect, building cathedrals in his mind out of the most ordinary memories. You’d be lodged to the base like a seed in a seam splitting ground and stone. Or maybe he’d be changing oil, or turning a wrench, and there you’d be again, threaded through the gears smiling from between its teeth.

The shape of his heart: an endless concept to think about. 

When he drives home, the seat is empty beside him. Somewhere above, his heart has slipped its moorings and gone migrating an inch closer to yours, just a few thousand miles away. And from where you were, you held the same bit of hopefulness, your measure of passing slowly turning into a clockwise cycle of before James, after James, and the exquisite ache of wanting for James again. 

Summer made conspirators of everyone. The trees would lean closer, the sun softened the pavement. Time, to most, could stretch themselves as thin as caramel. But summer has ended, so he’d have to stick to a memory on his way back. 

And the town could forget your tire tracks by autumn. Rain will smooth it over and leaves will litter over green and brown. James, though, knows he won’t. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

(BONUS)

A few months later, James steps into the auto lot the way he’s done a hundred times before. Rust, oil, hot metal, everything baked under the sun and layered into the air to smell. Rick sits on the hood of a sedan, half-slouched and wiping grease off his hands with a towel.

“Morning Rick.”

“Hey!” Rick waves, squinting at him and then the car he’s got. “Whatchu here for? What’s with the Mustang?”

“Here to scrape it. It’s done its time.”

Rick gives a low whistle, hopping down from the hood and eyeing the Mustang down. “Ah, then you'll have yourself a good deal for it. I’ll say.”

And that’s all James was really here for, really. To grant your one wish as though it were a dying one. It left him confused in some way, he’d have to admit. You loved that car. He hadn’t expected you to let go of it the moment you left.

Yet the poor thing had exhausted all of its potential by the time you were done with it, so the junk or resale was the next best thing.

Rick jerks his thumb toward a corner of the lot. “Oh these just came in.” He walks them over.

“They’re not brand new, but it’s solid condition. Engines clean, suspensions intact, minor wear on the bushings but nothing too big The boss man’s thinking of flipping ‘em for a nice penny.”

Theres a Toyota Prado sitting right at the corner, boxy and grounded, and built to take on dirt. James takes a closer look.

“Try and sell this one to me, will ya Rick? C’mon, advertise.” 

Rick raises a brow. “You don’t want that truck no more, huh?”

“‘S not for me.”

He looks at the mustang, that vehicle of memories he was so adamant on talking you out of scraping. A good gift, huh? 

“I’ll take it.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

It wasn’t objectively the safest place to stall out, with horns blaring around you like a road rage orchestra and cars speeding about while yours remained embarrassingly immobile. Eventually, a police officer took pity and helped tow it to a nearby shop in the city. The whole thing was all so suspiciously efficient, right up until the bill arrived, that is. And with another hit to your wallet, dinner plans with your friends dissolved into the expense of keeping your rust bucket running.  

But you’d trade a piece of anything just to keep this car alive; hell, heaven, whatever fell on either side of that. A Ford Mustang, your 1967 Shelby baby. Anything. 

Now, you weren't much of a car geek, but looking at it for the first time, you knew it looked too clean to pass up. And after a long stretch of convincing, it ended up waiting in your dad's garage on your eighteenth birthday. A parting gift, perhaps. Something to send you off to university with. 

Somewhere along that line, you eventually forgot that ‘vintage’, more than it meant ‘valuable’, also meant it was old. And age came with wear no matter how well-kept. 

“Honey,” Your mom began in that worried tone. “This is the third time this month that…thing has broken down.”

“I’m aware. I was there for all three events.”

From the other end of the kitchen, your sister perked up, suddenly useful. “I know a guy at an auto repair shop.”

To which you narrowed your eyes as you turned slowly to her. “You always know a guy.”

“Hey–”

“Okay,” Your dad cuts in, slicing clean through the escalating nonsense unfolding as breakfast was being prepared. He leaned back in his chair exhaustedly. 

“I know we all enjoy whatever this is–” he gestured vaguely between your sister and you, “–but I’m tired of picking you up from random highways, Y/n.”

You opened your mouth to defend both yourself and your car’s honor, but he beat you to it.

“Get it fixed,” he said plainly. “Or I’m scrapping it.”

“Dad you can’t just do that–”

“I’m the one with the lease.”

Which is how you found yourself in what can only be described as ‘nothing’ in the middle of nowhere, a stretch of gravel bleeding into the highway far ahead, and a few tired trees doing their best under the blaring sun. But this is Old Town Temecula, so none of that felt particularly out of the ordinary, and so was this repair shop. If anything, you’d like to simply feel bad for it. The exterior looked a little worse for wear.

“Hello?” You called out from outside the doorway, because you’re not entirely convinced this place was still open for business. You leaned in slightly, scanning for any sign of life. An employee, a shadow, a western-style tumbleweed situation. Nothing. 

You stepped forward and smacked the counterbell a little too enthusiastically. 

“Whoever runs this place, you’ve got yourself a customer!” 

Another beat of silence stretched out, and whatever optimism you had started closing in again. As you made plans to head right on home and tell your sister about how her ‘trusted location’ was in fact a sham, a door swung open and hit the wall with a loud bang. 

“Hey, lady!” 

When you turned back, you were met with the most wondrous sight. 

Like a scene slipping into place, there’s a guy that steps out through the door, probably over your age. White tank, worn jeans, both marked by some dirt and the intense weather. His hands looked it too. A wrench was tucked into his back pocket, and a rag hung from the other. Your unhelpful brain starts pulling references and time frames from several vague films: small town swelter, an open garage, and the concept of some dreamy cowboy mechanic. 

A hot guy in the hottest summer to date. The world must be running an experiment on me. 

But you digress, because this guy was looking for a reply, and unfortunately, none of your internal commentary would be appropriate to say in polite conversation. 

“Car givin’ you trouble, little miss?”

Little?

You briefly glanced around, just in case there'd been another designated “little miss” you somehow missed in the area. You realized he was referring to you. 

“...Uh, yeah.” You said slowly. “Lots of it.”

He leaned against the doorway and gave you a once-over. Eyes dragging up, down, then landing back on yours again. What? 

“Ain’t you something...”

“Huh?” 

He straightened himself up and cleared his throat.  “I said what kind of trouble?”

You’re fairly sure that was not what he said the first time, but you also definitely missed it, so you decided it’s safest to move forward. 

“It keeps breaking down,” you explain. Then, as if that isn’t already self-explanatory, you add, “Not right now. But it will.” 

He lets out a low hum, “Yeah?”

“Mmh hm.” You nodded. “Preferably whenever I’m driving on a highway.”

“I’ll take a look, see what I can do.” He jerked his chin toward the corner of the shop, at some cozy little lounging area. “Why don’t you sit down? Make yourself comfortable.”

Comfortable? Here with him? How ambitious.

You ended up on the sofa anyway, dropping with awkward commitment as you took in the surroundings of the shop. The place smelled like a hot spell, metal and tang, motor oil maybe, or grease. You looked around some more. At the mechanical parts lying around, at the tools hung on one wall, and then sometimes you’d let your eyes betray you at least once or twice, taking him in where he’d already be half-turned.

“You new here?” He asked.

“Kind of? My parents got a house here to get out of the city. It’s my first summer here, actually.” 

““Figures. Haven't seen this one around much.”

You blinked. “My car?”

“Yeah. It’s hard to miss. Very vintage.” He rolled right out again and gave you a small grin as he sat up.

“It was a birthday gift.”

“Must've been a good one.”

“It is,” You clicked your tongue as you reminisce bitterly. “When it works.”

He crouched by your hood, his shirt riding up just enough for you to catch sight of the tools tucked into his jeans. 

“I’ll get it to work.”

A nervous cough escaped you then as your eyes scrambled for anything else. Literally anything else will do, Y/n. 

“You sound pretty sure.”

He shrugged as he reached for a wrench. “I’ve got time.”

You hadn’t even realized you’d been dozing off after that, right there on the old couch of a random repair shop of all places. Maybe it was the smell of oil and the heat rising making your head a little light, but you woke up a while later by a few pokes at your shoulder. 

“Hey,” The guy’s voice reaches you through whatever heavy sleep you’ve sunken into. “Seize the day.”

You blinked slowly and let out a quiet yawn. “Sorry.”

“All good.” He’s standing over you, one hand half-lifted from where he’d been nudging. There’s a faint curve to his mouth, and you have an inkling feeling that he’s been watching you this whole time.

“Check it out.” 

You step out the shop and into the stretch of sun waiting just beyond the little shade, rough ground crunching under your shoes as you make your way toward where your car had been left. 

“So,” You circled the front, and half-expected it to look different somehow. You glanced back at James. “Is she gonna be ok?”

“She’s fine.” He leaned a shoulder against the side and folded his arms loosely over one another. 

“But your fuel pump’s an old piece of crap. That’s what's been killing it on you.”

“I uh, I don’t…” Confused was what you were.

“It’s okay.” He said it a little softer this time. “Your car's not great.”

You huffed out a small, offended sound under your breath.

“It runs fine,” he reassured you, and gestured toward the engine. “But then it doesn’t get the fuel it needs. That’s why it's cutting out on you, especially when you’re driving for longer.”

“Is that why I’m always breaking down on the freeway?”

“Yeah.” He said, and popped the hood open. “Your carburetor’s not in the best shape either. It probably hasn’t been touched in a while. And your wiring’s a little off.” 

He lifted a shoulder and added, “Nothing major, but it’s not helping.”

“Which means?”

“Which means, little lady,” He took a few steps toward you. “I can fix it. Just not today.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “How long will that take?”

“A couple days. Maybe three, depending if I have to order anything in.”

“I kinda need it,” You sighed, long and defeated. So much for being your group’s long-standing designated driver. 

“Yeah. But it needs a makeover.”

You kicked a loose pebble across the gravel and watched it skid under a few tires like that'll somehow help you decide. 

“And you’re sure you can fix it?”

“Have any doubts?” The guy tilted his head assuredly. “I’ll take care of it.”

You squinted at him a little. He squints back, in an effort to say what. 

“Okay,” you muttered, you accepted. “Guess I’ll take the bus back.”

“Do you know your way home?”

“I’ve figured it out. ”

You really hadn’t, but you’re grown. You’re going to have to figure it out.

He promptly reached for his back pocket and pulled out a flip phone, jamming in a few buttons before holding it out to you.

“By the way. Could I get your number?”

Well, he’s certainly straightforward. 

“Excuse me?”

He nudged the device toward you.  “To call you when it’s finished.”

You mentally face-palmed yourself for, once again, reading way too much into this guy.

“Right.”

Once you’ve typed in your number, you bidded each other a short goodbye as you stepped out toward the highway, where the bus stop waits a little further down. James has to squint through the glasses he’d just pulled from his shirt to make sure you actually get on one. Only when the bus carries you off does he return to the counter, write up the bill, and tuck it into his pocket. He made a mental note to stop by the bank soon, preferably before his dad noticed something was off with the payment logs.

It occurred to him with no small degree of disbelief and embarrassment in himself that this might just be the first time he’s been so horrendously head over his own shoes. Stupid, stupid James. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

“Is your ice cream any good?”

“Take a lick of my ice cream and I’m dumping it on your face.”

“Sounds like a yes,” Haerin mutters.

The sun hung overhead in its usual tyrannical fashion, pressing summer into everything in sight. You and your friends have claimed an outdoor table, holding ice cream and smoothies sweating through heir plastic cups. Condensation slips down the side of yours, cool against your fingers before pooling in the little hollow of your palm

“Oh look. It’s the Power Rangers.”

You follow their line of sight across the street where the park unfurls toward the water in a long stretch of green and glittering blue. Parked along the grass is a truck, and a handful of guys leaned against it in varying states of practiced poses, draped there as though they had been arranged specifically for public viewing. Someone would take their turn holding the camera, and the other being a subject. You thought it looked ridiculous. 

“A very managerless and underfunded boyband.”

“Are they trying to tan?”

There are five of them, sure enough, scattered around the truck with a sort of aimless patience. As your eyes move from one face to the next, your gaze snags on a familiar face, half-turned towards the water laughing at something one of them had said. The mechanic boy from the repair shop. The same one you had been eyeing up with all the subtlety of a Victorian man who’d just seen an exposed ankle. 

You take one aggressive sip of your smoothie in the hopes that the brain freeze might cool your head. 

You lean towards Haerin and jerk your head forward. “What’s that guy’s name?” 

“Grey shirt?” She asks as she tries to follow your line of sight.

“Next to him.”

She paused, then whipped her head at you. “James?”

Ah, so his name was James. You turn it over in your mind once, then again, and several more times. It suited him. Something sturdy and unfairly appealing. You think it would look rather nice written in your handwriting somewhere, though you wisely keep that thought to yourself. 

You shake your head and try to attempt the look of not caring, but achieve something considerably less convincing. 

“Isn’t he a mechanic?” You asked and tried to sound absentminded about it.

“How’d you know that?”

“I brought my car to the shop to get it fixed.” That earns you a look. 

“You seriously need to scrap that piece of junk,” Yunah says. 

“Moving on.”

“Right. Well, he’s not technically a mechanic. His dad owns the shop, and during breaks he takes shifts there. I’ve seen him around the community college a few times. He’s got an engineering track.”

Mina added in, “He kinda keeps to himself.” She nodded towards their direction. “Those are his friends. They’ve all known each other since forever. Just like us.” 

You look at them and think, sandbox love, a half-imagined and kind of shy concept for a group such as theirs. 

Yunah cuts in. “Remember Hana? I heard she’s still as obsessed with him as ever.”

“Oh my god, yeah.” Mina laughs. “It’s kind of tragic. Does he even like her?”

A shrug from Haerin. “I don’t think he likes anyone.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like girls.”

“What a bold assumption.”

You’d still been looking even as your friends dissolved into their usual spiral of gossip beside you. Judge me all you want. It was a cute guy in the wild. That’s not a situation you simply can ignore. Whether you liked him or not had very little to do with it; staring was practically a reflex at this point. Something encoded deep in the inner workings of every girl who had come out the other side of puberty with functioning eyes. 

Because you’re staring a little too intently, you started to notice things more clearly: his dark brown and slightly messy hair, the way he’s leaning back against the truck’s hood, and the subtle bop of his head keeping time with the music from a small boombox nearby.

You’re also able to make out how he turned his head upward, just slightly, before his gaze landed directly on you. 

You’re fairly certain he might not even remember who you are. Why would he? You had been, in the grand scheme of his life, just one overheated girl with a broken car. He likely saw a dozen of those a week. Maybe two dozen, depending on what he looked like that day. It would be less embarrassing if he weren’t so aware of possessing a face. You knew he did, surely right?

So you keep looking anyway. Your eyes wander with an interest that could, in a court of law, be used against you. Even then, it felt like his eyes were tracking yours, following whatever it landed on. He shifts where he’s leaning, and though the distance between you is considerable, there is an unmistakable deliberation in his movement. A subtle squaring of his shoulder, the conscious vanity of a man who knows he’s being observed.

His expression seems to say, Well? The lack of concern on his end, and the complete drought of restraint on yours, was weird enough. 

“Y/n, ready to go?”

Right then, the sound of your name yanks you clean out of whatever trance you’d been happily deteriorating in. All your friends are looking at you with varying levels of suspicion and delight.

You straighten so fast your straw nearly launches itself from your drink.

“I–yeah. Fuck yeah, let's go.”

An answer so immediate, so aggressively enthusiastic, that it condemns you on the spot.

“Why don’t you wipe the drool on your face first?”

Your hand flies instinctively to your mouth, which, to your immense relief, is perfectly dry. Mina bursts into laughter before you can even process the betrayal. You give Mina a small slap on the shoulder, to which she cackles in reply. 

“Asshole”

You grab your cup as Mina loops her arm through yours, and when your group begins to head out and cross the street, you risk one last glance over your shoulder. James is looking too. 

He lifts two fingers in a lazy salute. You hate the way you wave back. 

You were not drooling. This is one cornerstone belief. Because if you had been, then James might have seen it. And while he may be very alarmingly attractve for a man, you are not under any circumstances prepared to hand him that sort of satisfaction. No fucking way, dude. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

You bump your hip against something metal the moment you step into the shop, and the sharp clang that follows has you muttering a curse beneath your breath. James had said three days, but it had taken a week before the call finally came. Longer than promised, sure, but you can’t exactly hold it against him. Your car in fact is a piece of scrap. 

“James?” You called out as you step further in. “I’m back.”

A pair of boots appear from beneath the undercarriage of a car, followed shortly by James himself, rolling out on one of those little mechanic creepers. He pushed himself upright in one smooth motion and wipes his hands on a rag. There’s a streak of grease along his forearm, and another near his jaw.

“How’d you know my name?” he asks, squinting at you through the bright light pouring in from the garage door. 

“Oh, y’know, people talk.”

His mouth tilted upward. “Been asking around about me?”

“No, stop that.” You pointed accusingly before he can get any smugger.  “Is my car fixed or what?”

James laughed under his breath and tossed the rag onto the counter.

“A thank you would be nice.” 

“For extending our business relationship by four whole days? No sir.” 

He shook his head, though he’s still smiling, and gestured toward the far end of the garage where your car sat looking, somehow, the same and yet marginally less likely to explode. 

“Here it is.”

You walked on over and ran a hand lightly along the hood as though greeting an old, troublesome friend. James follows close behind.

 “Please,” he says, leaning against the driver’s side door, “try not to put too much force on the gas.”

“If I can’t do that, I might as well not use the car.”

“Not my fault it’s an old tinker.”

Then he tosses you the keys. “Try not to break it to soon.”

“Thanks James.”

You turn the keys over in your hand, the metal still warm from his palm. Funny, that observation. Metal shouldn’t be warm unless it’s been left in the sun or held onto for a while. 

“Still don’t know where you got my name from.” 

You offer him your most innocent look, which fools neither of you.

“Hm,” He narrowed his eyes, “Well, if your car’s all junked up again, come around, ‘kay?”

“I have a feeling it won't take long.”

“Lucky me, huh?” He gave you one of those cheeky grins/ 

You reached for your back pocket and pulled out your wallet. 

“How much is it?”

He blinked.

“How much is what?”

“Cost of repair, James. How else do you people earn money?”

“Right.” He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly looking far less certain than a man who had spent the last week trying to resurrect your corpse of a vehicle. 

“I haven't really thought about it.”

You stared at him blankly. “What.” 

He laughed, a little sheepish now. “I’m not a licensed mechanic, my dad is. I don’t get a fixed professional fee like he does. Usually I’d just go with a gut feeling.”

“And is your gut currently giving you a feeling or…?”

“Yes. It’s telling me to defer payment.”

Yor fold our arms over one another. 

“I can’t not pay you, James.” 

“Sure you can.”

“No, I literally can’t. That’s theft.”

“I think that’s just called generosity.”

You rummage through your purse and pull out the only cash you have: a slightly wrinkled ten-dollar bill.

“Here. Ten bucks.”

James looked at the bill, and then back ar you, somewhat deeply offended and amused.

“10 bucks for a car fix? You might as well just give me dirt.”

“Do you want my money or not?”

He plucks the bill from your fingers, stretching it out between two grease-stained hands.

“I don’t want your money. But I at least expected more of it.”

“Well, lower your standards.” 

He folded the bill in a neat little rectangle. Before you could protest, or more importantly understand his intentions, he stepped closer. Far too close. His hand brushed your hip as he reached for the pocket of your jeans, and carefully tucked the bill inside. Oh, you were gone. 

“It’s fine, alright?” His hand lingers for one treacherous second longer before he pulls away. And there was that crooked smile again.

“Maybe next time you'll come back here full of guilt, and that would be the perfect excuse to see you again.”

You blink at him slowly. “I don’t get it.”

He laughed, a quick startled sound, and then took a step backward as he made his way toward the back door. He wiped his hands on his pants, though there’d be nothing left on them now but the persisting feeling of your worn denim. 

“I’ll see you around, Y/n.” 

He turned away, but after one dreadful moment you freeze. Your mind, which had only just returned from a blackout, scrambled to catch up. 

“Wait… hey–” You straighten so fast you nearly lose your balance. “How'd you know my name–?”

James paused with one hand on the doorknob. He glanced back over his shoulder, and the fluorescent lighting caught that unripe sheen in his eye. 

“Oh y’know.”

He opened the door, stepping halfway through.

“People talk.” 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

After that, James seemed to migrate out of the garage and into the rest of your regular days with startling ease. This town seemed determined to place him directly in your little bubble, and you realized that summer didn’t so much follow your expectations as politely ignore them altogether.  

It kicked off at the bowling alley, your friends claiming one lane, and just a few steps to the right, that cluster of guys. Included, unfortunately, was the one you had been putting in a heroic amount of effort to ignore. 

Naturally, that effort lasted all of ten seconds.

With a focus usually reserved for something such as a life-altering decision, Juhoon stepped up, narrowed his eyes, and set the bowling ball down the lane. It rolled and rolled, and kept rolling, before slowly veering off into the gutter. Not a single pin moved. 

A performance, really. 

“Hey.” Haerin leans slightly over the divider as a laugh quickly slips through her words. “You know you’re supposed to hit the pins, right?”

Juhoon turns to her, caught somewhere between offended and amused, and wipes his hands on his jeans as if that might restore some of his dignity. “Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was in the presence of professionals.”

“Relax.” Mina shoots back and crosses her arms. “I’ve barely played this myself and somehow I don’t suck as bad.”

“You wanna talk big?” Keonho chimes in as he leans on their own divider as well.  “Let’s see you do better.” 

“You’re embarrassing us.” You murmured from behind. You’ve forgotten just how aggressively competitive Mina could get over something as low-stakes as this.

“Speak for yourself.” She shoots back under her breath. “You’ve barely picked up a ball.”

You huff out a quiet laugh, shaking your head as you let your attention ease itself out. To your friends, to them, to the easy back and forth. And then, inevitably, to James, who is already coincidentally looking back. Creepy. 

James looks back into the lane and clears his throat, then looks back at you again. 

“So when will your turn be?”

“I don’t–” you start and step back a little too soon. “I’m just here to give some moral support.”

“Kill joy.” he says, not unkindly, and then gives you a smirk.

“That’s a strong accusation for someone who's been sitting in the back the whole time since he’s got here.”

“Have you been taking notes on me?”

“Maybe I should stick to seeing you just at the garage. You’d be less insufferable if you’re being helpful.”

James doesn’t pretend to stifle the laugh that escapes him, and it's a nice sound, you decide. He doesn’t pretend to look away either. Not when you catch him or when you raise a brow in slight accusation. He only tilts his head in a considerable fraction.

You break eye contact first. Out of principle. Out of principle, Y/n. 

Your friend groups had merged into each other after that with surprising ease. A summer armistice, you called it, brokered over boredom and the simple fact that there were only so many interesting people in Old Town Temecula. They made things a lot more entertaining. 

Martin was easy company because you both shared a lot of common interests, particularly where music was concerned. You could spend an entire afternoon arguing over discographies, and each of you were convinced the other had somehow missed a foundational pillar of modern music. He was insufferable about it.

Keonho and Seonghyeon quickly assumed the role of the two younger brothers you never had. They were a matched set of nuisances incapable of minding their own business. Still, you think of them with nothing but fondness.

Then there was Juhoon, who possessed the personality of a man who had lived at least three separate lives and remembered fragments of each. He’d tell you something utterly deranged yet weirdly profound on an otherwise ordinary Tuesday, and then wander off. He was your wise old uncle. 

And then there’s James. You don’t know what he is to you. 

Everyone else seemed to fit into your labeled mind drawers. Friend. Acquaintance. Enemy. Sometimes two, sometimes all. 

You wouldn’t classify James as a friend. Friendship is like a tidy little house. You’d understand all its deep angles and know where the doors would lead. It wouldn’t usually contain that particular voltage. That’s right. Friends don’t prod at the electric fence just to watch it spark. Friends don’t test boundaries like that. Friends, generally speaking, also don’t flirt with each other. 

And you cared, far too much, about what he thought of you too. You had become quite skilled at disguising your curiosity casually when you’d ask one of his friends, as though it had only just occurred to you, whether James had happened to mention you lately. Your name, taking up room in his mouth. 

But acquaintances wouldn’t do either. That word was a handshake and a weather report, a polite distance, or a borrowed pen. You and James had long since trespassed beyond those borders. Whatever it was, it had sharp teeth.

And so you are left with the big question in the filing system of your life. If he wasn’t either, what other drawer could you possibly place him in? All these questions, and no one to answer them. 

But your hypotheses soon had the opportunity of being tested.

The beach was hardly the most forgiving place for you and James to see each other. 

But such were the circumstances that were so often stacked against you. The invite came with such spontaneity that you’d barely had enough time to throw a few beach essentials into your bag before there'd been a minivan already idling right across your house.

“You could’ve told me a lot earlier!” You shout from the front door, nearly tripping over yourself as you wrestle your sandals on. 

“I texted you thirty minutes ago!” Mina screamed back. It was thirty minutes too short. Entire civilizations would rise and fall in the time Mina usually took to get ready, so you had assumed she, of all people, would understand the necessity of advance notice. 

Then you spot James in the driver’s seat, window rolled down, and one arm draped lazily over the frame. He’s looking at you, actually looking, with an attention so direct it made you aware of every loose thread in your shorts and each misplaced hair on your head. You find yourself strapping your sandals much quicker than necessary. 

The drive to the resort transpired in a blur of Top 20 hits and some terrible group singing. Martin sat beside you, knowing every lyric to every song that came on, while Seonghyeon and Keonho contributed mostly by banging on the roof and shouting the choruses at times. A car full of kids drinking deeply from the season while it was still theirs. 

James didn’t say much during the ride. But every now and then, he would flick his eyes to the rearview mirror which had been angled just right, if only to catch you lost in song. 

By the time you arrive, and everyone had hauled themselves, their bags, and half the contents of a convenience store into the resort, the sun was hanging low and golden over the water like it too had paid for a weekend stay. 

The cottage sat right by the beach: bamboo walls, a tiny porch, and enough space to comfortably fit nine people. The door had barely swung open before Keonho burst out first with an overflowing paper bag to his chest.

“What’ve you got there?” you asked.

He angled the bag away immediately. “Get away.”

“You bought a dozen bags of chips.”

“The other ten are just emergency portions.”

“For what? The apocalypse?”

“The munchies.” 

Seonghyeon came out next, already wearing an inflatable around his waist. It squeaked every time he moved.

“I can’t find my sunscreen.”

Haerin points to his hand. “Kid. It’s right there.”

He looked down at the bottle in his hand while his mouth formed a little ‘O’ shape.

Martin followed close by, dragging a boombox nearly as large as the minivan’s side windows. He hoisted it onto one shoulder with all the pride of a man unveiling a monument. Juhoon glanced over from where he was taking off his sandals. 

“Y’know they charge a fee if you blast the music too loud, right?”

“What the fuck?” Martin froze.

“I didn’t ask my dad for extra money today!”

“Some employment would help,” James said from behind him as he carried in the cooler.

Martin gave James a side eye and a scoff. “I’m a teenager, James. I don’t need no goddamn job.”

“That mindset won’t pay them bills man.” Juhoon says, wise words from the wisest man. 

“What fucking bills–”

Mina sidled up beside you with the intention of delegating some sort of responsibility. She pressed a few crumpled bills into your palm.

“Y/n, why don’t you go order us some drinks?”

“You got two minors present by the way.”

Mina waved a dismissive hand. “Get them some juice.”

“I could drink,” Keonho says with confidence. You turned to him and shook your head.

“I’m serious! I have the liver of a champion.”

“No.”

“I got a mature palate.”

“You have the face of a middle school mathlete, Keon. What’ll the staff think when they catch you? You’re getting juice.” 

Keonho gave you a deflated stare. “You wanna be my mama so bad.”

“We’ll deal with you later.” Mina started counting on her fingers. “Two margaritas, a soda, one beer, juice, and some water.”

James emerged from… somewhere. He had changed into a loose shirt and swim trunks and glanced down toward the bar a little ways down the sand. 

“Need some help with that?”

“Um. Yes. Thank you James.”

Mina’s grin was immediate. “Oh, perfect.”

You narrowed your eyes at her with suspicion. When you turned around, James tipped his head toward the little path leading to the bar tucked just beside the open restaurant.

“C’mon.” 

So you fell into step beside him, your feet sinking into the sand as you passed the others who were still deep in argument.

“I’m not getting a summer job! I am seventeen! The only bill I have is my phone bill, and my mom still pays half.” Martin exclaims. 

Juhoon raises an eyebrow. “Half?”

“You burden this society.” Seonghyeon accused Martin with a pointed finger.

“I am society.”

“Who are you, fuckin’ Jean Jacques Rousseau–you’re a leech.”

“You guys are just jealous because I’m young, beautiful, and unemployed.”

“Only two of those things are true.”

“You’re a dead man, Eom.”

As soon as you step on the polished wood and under the hanging lights, you are hit with the smell of grilled seafood, sizzling meat, garlic, butter, enough to crave eating your body weight in some shrimp. The two of you made your way to the counter, sliding onto a pair of barstools, and the bartender handed you each a laminated drink menu. 

“You know,” you said after a moment of squinting, “a lot of these just sound like cleaning products.”

“That’s how you know they’re overpriced. Check this out. ‘Salted Breeze’.”

“‘Tropical Typhoon’? Jesus.” You turned the menu to show him. “Sounds like it could strip paint.” 

“Sounds tasty.”

“Kidneys, James. People need those.” 

“You only need one.” 

A few feet away, hidden just enough to be out of sight, Martin, Haerin, and Keonho had claimed a suspiciously dense bush. From behind it, three heads barely fit in the same line as they all angled toward you and James.

“I can’t see shit,” Haerin muttered as she shifted uncomfortably. 

“Move your giant head then.” Martin shot back.

“I have a normal-sized head.” She whispered defensively. “Your proportions, unfortunately…” 

Keonho leaned in between them as he squinted hard. “I’ll have you know we’re committing several social etiquette crimes.”

“We’re just taking a look.” 

“We’re stalking. If we were just looking we wouldn’t be hiding in a bush—hell, this itches.” 

“Potato potahto.” 

Keonho, who had insisted on bringing a bag of chips on the espionage mission, crinkled the packaging so loud it might’ve been able to alert a few wildlife nearby. 

You and James sat at the bar, leaning against the counter while the bartender prepared your orders. The string lights above cast everything in warm gold, and from this distance, the two of you looked really cinematic. 

“They’re talking,” Haerin reported. 

“How groundbreaking.”

“Oh my god they’re laughing.”

“People do that, right?”

Keonho dapped Martin’s shoulder hard. “Ohhhh, James touched her arm.” 

The entire bush shifted as everyone leaned forward at once, and Haerin had to grab Martin by the back of his shirt before he could topple out into the open. 

At the bar, James said something that made you laugh. Your head even tipped back. Martin had to clutch his chest. 

“He’s using jokes. Smooth bastard.” 

“That’s usually how flirting works. I doubt you’d know any of that.” Haerin said.

Keonho, mouth full of barbecue chips, narrowed his eyes. “Do you think they’re gonna kiss guys?”

“Keon,” Martin said blankly. “They’re just ordering mojitos.” 

“People have kissed over less.”

Haerin nodded in agreement. “That’s true. I see people make out on the bus every day. Like, over what? All you can smell are stinkin’ butts, and some people have died on that bus before.”

“What? I didn’t know this-”

“Wait wait–James is leaning in.”

James leaned closer to hear you over the music. Then the bartender handed him two drinks.

“False alarm.”

“I need a better angle.”

Before anyone could stop him, Martin rose approximately four inches too high. Unfortunately, four inches was all it took. James glanced over directly at the bush, and there was a beat of perfect silence after that. Then James slowly raised one eyebrow. 

Martin ducked first. The rest followed in a panicked domino effect as the branches shook violently.

“We’ve been made,” Haerin announced.

Martin is quick to tap out. “Abort mission, holy fuck–”

“Retreat. Hurry, go!” 

When you and James head back with a tray full of your orders, the three of the culprits were sitting on the porch in positions that bordered on performance art. Martin was whistling. Well, he was trying. Martin can’t whistle. Keonho was reading a magazine upside down, and Haerin still had leaves in her hair. 

James handed out the drinks without a word, though the corners of his mouth twitched suspiciously. 

“Oh, Haerin. You got a uh…” You gesture vaguely at his head. “A few leaves on your hair.”

“Yeah. Keonho pushed me into a bush. Sorry ‘bout that.”

“I did no such–”

Martin was quick to shush Keonho out, to which he let out a huff in turn. 

A little while later, once Keonho and Seonghyeon had sprinted into the water, Martin was left holding down the fort on shore. He was halfway through his juice, still salty about the fact that none of them wanted to hand him a margarita, when James wandered over and stopped behind him.

“Great hiding place, by the way.”

Martin choked on his juice so violently that some of it shot out of his nose. 

But eventually, no one cared enough to quarrel with the day. It was as gold and too open-handed for such a thing. The sun hung above like a coin freshly minted, bright enough to spend. The sea moved with its long and slow patience, folding salt into your skin, into hair, into the small seams of everyone else.

Troubles, those faithful little parasites, found the air too thin here, so they loosened their grip and drifted off like dandelion ash. And everyone was suddenly certain that this would be a day worth keeping. 

James sat on a sunbed a few feet from the shoreline with his sunglasses on and his shirt loosely unbuttoned to give way to the warm air. To his left, a few children have taken Martin hostage, burying him in sand and shaping him in what looks like a poor interpretation of a mermaid sculpture. To his right, Keonho’s trying to drag Seonghyeon down from his floaty. And in front of him, further out where the water is a lot stiller, you’re laughing and splitting the sea into smaller pieces as you pass through it in a fit of laughter. 

“Margarita?” Juhoon, who sits on the sunbed right beside him, passes him a glass.

“Thanks man.” 

Summer. It was a come-and-go concept to James. It would always come with promises, stay just long enough to keep him waiting, then abdicate. A season of suspension. While everyone else seemed intent on breaking free, he mostly found himself idling. The engine would be on, but there would be nowhere worth driving. He’d wait for summer to bring him something, then he’d wait for it to end. 

Summer was long. Summer was hot. Summer was sweat collecting at the base of the spine and sand in very weird places. Summer was–

“James! I caught a crab. Do you think we could cook it?” You shout from afar. 

Summer had you in it this time. Then, summer was brief as a struck match. Warm against his stomach. Sweet, sour, salty. A fruit eaten too quickly, juice running down the wrist, and always never enough. All this heat had revealed skin and nerves, all the thin bright wires beneath the casing. The things he preferred not to feel at all, now lit up like a switchboard. 

Summer has ruined the rest of the year for him. 

James huffs out a laugh and looks back out into the beach where he can maybe pull some restraint. “Do anything you want.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

You had texted James yesterday and asked if he’d seen a Walkman hanging around at the garage that you might’ve left. James checked, to which he did find one sitting idly at your spot on the couch. So he texted you back saying he’d bring it over the next day. 

Which is how he ends up standing very chivalrously at your front door. Because this is also how he meets your father for the very first time.

“Good mornin’ Mr. L/n.” James looks around to further solidify his little act. “Lovely weather today, eh?”

Your dad narrows his eyes in what can only be close to disgust. “You’re Zhao’s son.”

“Did you sense some resemblence?” James gives your dad a charming smile. “Good eye there.”

“Don’t bullshit me, son. What the hell kind of business do you have here calling my daughter–”

“James?”

Your voice cuts through from all the way inside the house, and when you emerge from the front door, James internally sighs in relief and gives you a little wave.

“Sorry, I got your text a little late.” You look at James, and then suspiciously at your dad, who is looking sternly right at James.

“Dad? Is there a problem?”

He looks at you and points accusingly at James with shot eyes. “This boy standing on my front porch is what's the problem.”

James wants to laugh. He knows exactly why your dad doesn’t like him, and it had nothing to do with him at all. It comes with a silly memory: his own father coming home, holding up a fish like a trophy with a blue ribbon tied neatly around its still, unblinking body.

“He’s been fixing my car like you wanted. The least you could do is say thank you.” You scold.

“I am not saying thank you to one of Zhao’s kin–”

“Y’know what, it’s all good.” James cuts through the transpiring little argument. “I stopped by to give this. You forgot to grab it from the shop.” 

He stretched his hand forward to lend you your Walkman back, and you take it in pretend formality. James looks back at your dad and offers another much more charming (he hopes) smile.

“You have a good day, Mr. L/n. Tell the missus I like the flower arrangements up front.” 

He’s ready to head in and leave before this got any more awkward when he hears you say his name. 

“Bye James.”

He turns around to steal another glance, and gives you a generous grin. 

“Bye.”

When James leaves, you take your dad back inside and prepare to reprimand. So much were the roles reversed today.

You turn to him immediately. “What was that about?”

Your dad, already walking deeper into the house, grumbles. “Nothing.”

You follow him into the kitchen. “This Mr. Zhao… isn’t he the one who’s been beating you at those fishing competitions?”

“I bet you he’s cheating.”

You let out an exasperated sigh. “All that rage for some petty contest.” 

You both had to admit there was something almost absurd about this long-standing, entirely unearned fatherly feud. It was hilarious and stupid. What would be even funnier is if maybe, assuming a possibility, that they’d find out about this little thing happening between the two of you. This unsure predicament, a scandal in the eyes of two middle aged men. You want to laugh. You almost do, right there on the kitchen island. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

James receives a panicked call from you at three in the morning a few days later as he’s half-asleep, buried under the dull noise of his father and his friends still arguing over a game on the television.

“Somebody better be dying,” he mutters, voice dragged through sleep.

On the other end, your voice cuts through in whispered panic. “Yes. It’s my Shelby. She’s dying again, James. What am I gonna do?”

“You can bring it to the shop later.”

“I know. I was gonna do that anyway.” 

He exhales into his pillow. “Then what’s the emergency?”

“You sure I shouldn’t just scrape this thing?” you ask with a suddenly unsure tone in your voice.

James opens one eye. “You’re thinking of killing her now?”

“She might as well be on life support.”

He closes his eyes again and lets out a sigh. There’s no denying your car really was a stubborn one. 

“Bring her to the shop, okay? We’ll figure it out.”

You pause. 

“We will?”

“Yes. Now can I go back to sleep?”

“Okay” You say through a small smile. “I’m trusting you James. Sleep tight.” 

“Tight as a bug.” he replies as he’s already halfway gone. “Bye.” 

Somewhere downstairs, the voice of a man is heard screaming in cheer. James buries his ears with his pillow and tries to go back to sleep. 

A little past noon, James was out back giving his motorcycle some attention. He had a towel slung over one shoulder, grease staining the heel of his palm, and was halfway through polishing the handlebars when he heard an engine spitter its way into the lot. It was a very particular, familiar sputter.

He tossed the used rag onto the workbench and headed around to the front. Sure enough, there you were, climbing out of your car with a frustrated expression. You shut the door a little harder than necessary. 

“I got her to work this morning,” You announce by way of greeting. “But I swear the engine’s making this weird noise.”

James circled the front, listening as the engine rattled in protest. “I heard it from the back. Did it break down again?”

“Just before I called you.”

James looked at you suspiciously. “Where were you off to at 3 in the morning?”

“My sister needed a ride home from a party.”

He popped the hood and propped it open. “‘Kay, I’ll take a look. You know the drill.”

A small smile tugged at your mouth as you headed inside. “I’ll take the couch.” 

So you had, in fact, taken the couch. 

There was something so deeply humbling about becoming a regular at an auto repair shop. It would tell people everything they needed to know: that your car was a piece of absolute shit from a butt. But at least the couch was comfy. That had to count for something. 

You were halfway through a bag of stale chips and a quarter through a sports magazine when James pushed through the garage door, wiping his hands on his jeans and staining them in the process. His expression alone told you everything.

“How bad is she?”. 

He looked like he bared bad news. 

“It’s your alternator.”

You blinked silently. “My what?”

“Alternator. It keeps your battery charged while the engine’s running.”

“So… important.” You deduced.

“Very.”

“Love that.”

James huffed out a laugh and told you to follow him.

“The bearings are shot, see? That’s the noise.”

You slumped your shoulders forward. “Can you f ix it?”

“I can. I should be able to replace it.

The pause he made was a little ominous, so you probe further.

“But?”

“But we don’t have one in stock.” He clicks his tongue. “And a new one isn’t exactly cheap.”

“Define cheap.” 

James named you a number, to which you nearly choked on your saliva.

“James, that is rent.”

He winced sympathetically. “Yeah. Such is the beauty of owning a car.”

“I didn’t even buy it myself. How am I supposed to afford that?” You turned back to walk toward the couch before slumping on it once more. 

“I should’ve asked for a horse.”

“Maintenance is worse. My uncle’s got a ranch up south with horses. They shit big.”

You sighed long and hard. “Horses don’t need alternators though.”

“Didn’t I just tell you? They shit big. And they bite too.” 

For a moment, the only sound that could be heard was the faint hum of the soda machine and the distant clanking something he had left on. James tapped his finger on his lap thoughtfully.

“But I might know a way around it.”

You lifted your head in desperation.

“How illegal are we talking?”

He put his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Moderately legal?”

“James.” 

He gave you a mischievous grin. 

“There’s a junkyard about twenty minutes from here. They got totaled cars in all the time. If we’re lucky, we can pull an alternator off something compatible.”

“Dude. Isn’t that stealing?”

“It’s cheaper. Wait no, it’s free.”

That, admittedly, was a compelling argument. You narrowed your eyes at him.

“And you know this place how?”

“I know a guy.”

Of course he knew a guy. You suspected a lot of these mechanic boys operated like they were part of a secret underground network. They know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy. 

“You had me at free.”

James grabbed his dad’s truck keys off the wall while you stood from the couch. You followed him outside, both of you climbing into the truck and buckling in. Desperation was going to take you places today. He reversed out of the lot with one hand on the wheel, and you caught the sunlight glinting off the silver ring on his finger. Then you were off. 

The drive was mostly filled with silence. The windows were down as the wind rushed in to occupy all the empty spaces. It threaded through the car, rifled your hair, and carried off any thoughts James was trying very hard not to have. 

Outside, the road kept company with the town’s river, each pretending not to notice the other. You watched the water slide past in silver influxes as James watched you in the rearward pull of seconds. The wind would unmake your hair and remake it a little better. He found this, like many things he’s thought of, very compelling. 

The junkyard was exactly just as you imagined.

Rows and rows of dead cars stretched beneath the afternoon sun, metal skeletons stacked two, sometimes three high, each one looking as junked up as the other. Windows were shattered, doors hung open, and somewhere in the distance, something metallic clanged with the ominous acoustics of a horror movie.

“People have gotten murdered here.”

“You got a strong feeling ‘bout that?”

“Absolutely.”

When you both got out of the truck, the air smelled like rust, hot rubber, and tetanus. A heavyset man behind a cluttered counter looked up from his newspaper as you approached. He wore a baseball cap that might once have been red. 

James gave him a nod. “Afternoon, Rick.”

The guy, Rick, squinted over the rims of his glasses.

“James!” He exclaims excitedly. “You break another one?”

James jerked a thumb toward you and shook his head. “Not mine this time.”

You placed a hand over your chest and bowed. “Thrilled to be here.”

Rick snorted before bowing curtly at you in return, and waved the two of you through the gate.

“Imports are in row seven. Don’t steal anything that ain’t bolted down, yeah?”

“‘Course, Rick. We all know how that went last time.”

That was sketchy, you think. You followed James between towering rows of vehicles, gravel crunching beneath your shoes. Every few feet, James would glance at a car, dismiss it, and keep walking. He looked like a vulture on the lookout. 

James stopped in front of an okay Mustang, and knew this particular model was manufactured just a few years before yours was. He figured it could work. 

“There she is.”

James popped the hood of the car with ease, and you leaned in beside him, staring at an engine that looked, to your untrained eye, like just a bunch of metal scraps put together.

“So which one is it?”

He pointed. “That.”

You nodded solemnly as if you understood anything at all. James reached into the small bag you had brought and took out some kind of tool, and went to work.

You folded your arms and watched him. His brow gathered itself to the middle in concentration, sleeves shoved carelessly to his elbows, grease smudging dark against his knuckles. There was sweat clinging to all sorts of places. His temples, along the line of his throat, tracing the strong cords of his arms where the veins stood out with clarity. 

It was incredibly rude of him to look that good in a junkyard. 

“Hold this.” 

He handed you a wrench, and you took it like he’d entrusted you with a sacred artifact. And so, under the blazing sun, you helped James steal (sorry, salvage) an organ from a dead car. Your week had taken a very strange turn. 

After he gets the part off, you both make quick work of stuffing it into the bag before heading back toward the big gate again. 

“Find everything you need?” Rick calls from where he idles.

“All good here Rick.” James replies. “You have a good one.”

A small nod, a mutual dismissal of the world, and you’re both back in motion. You toss the bag into the back of the truck, and James climbs in after you then turns the ignition. The engine makes a weird sound, but neither of you comment on it. 

You’re on the road for a while, and nothing seems to be the problem. That is, until the engine coughs first. A small, offended sound. Then again, this time deeper. The truck shudders, and with dread on both your faces, it finally gives up and stops. 

“James. What the hell.”

“I’ll go take a look.”

Both of you are out the truck in seconds. James lifts the hood and leans into it, and you watch from the side. He works in silence for a few minutes, which doesn’t really help the unease you’re feeling. He straightens eventually, and gives you the look.

“We’re fucked.”

That is how you both end up pushing the truck. Its wheels roll reluctantly, and you want to laugh at how utterly absurd this it. You both steer it into the nearest empty patch of land: an abandoned gas station’s parking lot. 

There’s nothing for miles, you believe. No phone booth, no convenience store. Not even the promise of signal. You checked your cellular and couldn’t pick up on anything.

James calls you through a whistle. “Hey. Look at that.”

You walk over toward him and follow his line of sight. There, just a few meters ahead, is a sign, which tells you there must be some sort of establishment nearby. 

“Let’s take our chances. It’s almost dawn.”

Because there are no better options or sudden miracles waiting in the wings, you head to the back of the truck and reach for the bag in case it gets snatched. James reaches into the dash, retrieves his wallet, and pockets it to the back along with his keys.. Then you walk. Side by side. 

A motel is what awaited you.

You exhale, long and unamused. A motel. Of all places. In the middle of nowhere. Onl motorcycles are parked up front, which suggested everyone else came here alone. Everyone except you two. 

“This sucks.” You say, staring up at the motel in quiet offense.

“Better than sleeping on a truck in an abandoned gas station.”

“I don’t even have any money on me right now.”

James takes out his wallet and waves it lightly in front of you. “Problem solved.” 

You hated how this looked from the outside. A boy and a girl walking into a motel close to night time. The story is practically writing itself. But night is already closing in, and better ideas are not arriving soon. So when James walks first, you trail close behind. 

The lobby was warmer than expected, and surprisingly clean. Not exactly luxurious, but as cozy as a motel in the middle of who knows where could offer: wood-paneled walls, a coffee machine humming quietly in the corner, a rack of brochures advertising attractions that looked suspiciously closed.

A woman sat behind the front desk, reading a magazine. She looked up as the two of you entered. James stepped forward while you wandered over to the little lounge area and sank into one of the couches.

“One room with two beds, please.”

The receptionist looked through some logbooks, then offered an unapologetic smile.

“I’m sorry, sir, but our double rooms are all occupied tonight.”

James nodded. “That’s fine. Two rooms, then.”

More checking of the logs. The receptionist’s smile grew somehow more apologetic.

“I do apologize, but we’re fully booked on singles as well.”

James blinked blankly. “…What do you have, then?”

She consulted with the papers on her desk.

“We currently have one queen room available.”

Silence.

From your spot on the couch, you suddenly found the complimentary pamphlets fascinating.

James turned slowly.

“Give me a moment.”

You spotted James making his way back across the lobby, and immediately straightened from your position on the couch. 

“Are we good to go?”

James stopped in front of you, one hand hooked on his hip. He looked almost amused, which should have worried you more than it did.

“Y/n.” That was already a terrible start.

“What?”

He rubbed the back of his neck.

“They have…” He paused, and then again. “It’s a room with one bed. That’s all they’ve got.”

You stared at him. Then at the receptionist. Then back at him.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“Wish I wasn’t.”

Which was only partially true, and James knew it. Unfortunately, he also knew better than to examine that thought too closely. He mentally shoved it into a locked drawer and sat on it.

You stood so quickly the couch wheezed beneath you.

“All the other rooms are booked? This place looks like a shithole, how are they fully booked?”

“I don’t know. I’ll just take the floor, okay?”

“I can’t let you sleep on a motel carpet James. These things have organisms—“

Before you’re able to chime in another word, James turns around again and heads back to the to the receptionist. He pulls a couple dollar bills and slides them on the counter surface. 

“We’ll take it.” 

The receptionist slid the key across the counter with a smile. James took it, thanked her, and turned toward you, giving a slight tilt of his head.

“C’mon.”

You pushed yourself off the couch and trudged upstairs, and it creaked beneath your feet as the two of you climbed to the second floor. The motel hallway stretched long and narrow, lit by buzzing overhead lights that did very little to improve its already questionable atmosphere.

James found your room quickly enough. He stopped outside the door, key poised, then hesitated. When he turned to face you, the teasing had slipped from his expression. 

“Okay. A few things.”

You nodded.

“If you ever feel uncomfortable at all about anything, just tell me.” The seriousness in his voice caught you off guard.

“I mean it,” he added. “I don’t want you pretending you’re fine about this. I get it, it’s weird. No walking on eggshells. Alright?”

You managed a small forced smile.

“Got it.”

“And another thing. Try not to head out alone too much tonight.”

He gestured toward the parking lot below. You leaned toward the small window just enough to spot those half a dozen motorcycles lined up beneath the flickering motel sign.

“A bunch of bikers are staying here. They’re in a group, I’d guess.”

“You say it like they’re a migrating species.”

“They usually are.”

You laughed as he rested one shoulder against the doorframe.

“Make sure the door’s locked and just… stay out of trouble.”

He unlocked the door and pushed it open. The room beyond was exactly as promised: one bed, one television, one lamp. You both stared at the queen-sized bed. Awkward.

James hurriedly moves to the bedside table and snatches up the telephone, and punches some numbers in. You, meanwhile, drift toward the balcony. The curtains part with a soft sound, and the sliding door gives you the entire cold night as you step out. 

“I’m heading to the bathroom.” You say as you head back in. “Does the telephone work?”

“Yeah,” he replies, hand still on the receiver. “I managed to call Rick for a tow truck. Says they won’t be able to come until 9 tomorrow.”

“You didn’t think of calling your parents first?”

“My dad would probably say I could get things sorted out on my own.” He says.

“Can I call my parents?”

“Sure. Do you know your landline?”

You pause. “We got a new one, so I don’t.” a dismissive shake of your head. “Never mind.”

You head to the bathroom and turn the lock behind you, the sound like a line being drawn. Inside, you try to breathe in something quiet and steady, but you can’t. In the mirror, you look for the parts of yourself you can pick on, the little flaws you think to be pluckable. Frustrated you were that they stay exactly as they are. 

Meanwhile, James watches you disappear into the bathroom and waits for the door to close you out of sight. Only when you’re fully gone does he drop onto the bed. He exhales then, long and unspooled.

There are many things James can handle. He had always considered himself fairly adaptable. Plans change, cars break down. He knows these men in leather jackets and wrinkled hands surrounding the rooms around them as he thinks these things through. He had, at various points in his life, been punched in the face and kicked in the shin, and more than once did he have to explain to his father how exactly he got each bruise if he ever got home with any, which was usually most of the time. 

All that, he could handle half-asleep with a hand tied behind his back while someone was yelling at him. He’s slept under less forgiving roofs, and he’s had worse company (worse had rarely been this pretty, though). 

Then put him in a room with one very beautiful girl he just so happened to be hopelessly, helplessly in love with, and watch all that competence go missing. 

He tried to shake it off. People shared these kinds of rooms all the time. Travelers. Families. Sports teams. Criminals on the run, probably. 

I need a cigarette. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

“I’m back.” You emerge from the bathroom a while later, still in your old clothes, a borrowed robe loosely tied over them. 

“Stuff on your mind?” You ask. 

James is on the balcony sitting on the ledge with his back turned half to you, and the rest towards the open night. He’s got a cigarette between his fingers, one you’re not sure where he got from. 

He glances back over his shoulder. 

“Yeah,” He said after a moment,  “You could say that.”

You step closer, and James watches you all the way. He realizes faintly that seeing you through the smoke makes his head feel a lot dizzier. 

“You really need to stop that.”

“Stop what?” 

“Smoking.”

He lets the cigarette tilt slightly between his teeth. “You don’t like it?”

“I don’t.” When you’re close enough, you flick the tip of it with a finger. “And your lungs don’t either.”

That earns you a laugh. “You sound like my mother.”

“Better that than an enabler, right?” 

Better that than an enabler, and James almost loses it. The irony is there. You have enabled much worse in him than a little ash or smoke in his lungs. Want, for one. Hope, for another. A hundred reckless instincts, each one wearing your face. 

He wants to either fold himself in half or shake some sense into you. To pry your skull and point: there, there, look at what you’ve done. 

“C’mere.”  

You step closer until you’re right in front of him, too close that you’re aligned with the bend of his knees on the ledge. James takes the cigarette from his mouth, holds it between two fingers like a small and solved problem, then tosses it over the edge. If you wanted him clean so badly, then so be it. 

Something in him responds as unsteady beings do when the wind would find their hems. A pressure and a lean toward form. Toward articulation. Toward you. But he keeps it contained by the narrowest margin of will, because he doesn’t know yet what it is.

“What is it?”

He shifts slightly from where he sits. “You think your dad's gonna kill me?”

“For what?”

“When he finds out I’m spending my sweet time with his precious little princess in a motel in the middle of nowhere.”

“If you say it like that, he might.”

“Well, what am I saying it like?”

“Like you have some… intentions.”

“Intentions.” He clicks his tongue and thinks. “What kind?”

The sun goes down, and the balcony becomes a place slightly outside the map. James sits there as though he has been left on a higher shelf of the world. You looked at him then, almost invasive.  If invasions could be curious instead of cruel. As if, by looking hard enough, you might just be able to persuade him into things. 

“I don’t know, James.” You lean forward on your toes, then backward on your heel. “You keep saying things a certain way. I have to retrace them until I go crazy.” 

“Don’t you think maybe you’re just reading into me too much?”

“Am I ?”

He could say yes. Could blame it on you, say you were overthinking, making something out of absolutely nothing. And if he played the role right, you might even buy it. But it’d be a lie, and James has found it incredibly hard to keep lies from you. He couldn’t even say no to you half the time, let alone lie through his own teeth. Not when he’d already gone out of his way to fix that junky Shelby, cutting corners on the bill, paying for things himself so his dad wouldn’t catch on that he’d been letting some girl leave the shop receipt-free every time. Subtlety, he’s never been good at it. 

“No.” Lying, even less so. “You think I should act on ‘em?”

“Your intentions?”

“Yeah.”

You look at him knowingly, hopefully and without unrest.

“If they’re not going anywhere, why not?” If you’re not going anywhere, why not here?

The season has gone on longer than he’d been able to imagine. Or maybe not long enough. Either way, when he looks back at you across the thinning dark, he understands to himself that he isn’t ready for it to end. 

Ah, what am I doing? 

Who knew a mere inch of opening was all James would ever need. It happens in the space of a blink. He steps down from the ledge, his hands already rising as they settle at the sides of your face. And then, in the slim, unsteady breath between one moment and the next, he leans down and catches your lips with his. 

It doesn’t take much after that for things to turn. In a fit of urge and desperation, he backs you up until your knees buckle at the edge of that tiny queen bed. ‘Queen bed’ as the receptionist said, was too much of a stretch for this one. Then another moment, you both collapse on it anyway. 

You discover quickly that James doesn’t like to drag things out. You feel it in these betrayals: the restless twitch of his hands and his protested stillness. You hadn’t pegged him to be the impatient type. Tonight, though, his skin runs warm, almost fever-bright. His breathing forgets its rhythm, then finds another. And when he reaches to switch on the lamp beside the bed, the room fills with amber, turning his eyes from their usual dark wood into something honey-struck. 

You switch it close immediately. 

“No, no James—I like it closed.”

“But I can’t see you.”

I’d look nicer when the lights are off, you try to tell him. The words are small and brittle in your throat. 

“You don’t have to.” You say instead.

I need to, he thinks. Else my insides get eaten up.

James laughs low and helplessly, the sound brushing warm against your skin. “You trying to hog?” 

He wants nothing more tonight than to take you in. Entirely and improperly, in visions, in motion, in all your strange fullness. The flush in your cheeks, the bright sheen at your throat, he’d only want to leave you more potent than how he found you. And when at last your pulse remembers its manners, he finds that he would like, very much, to be the reason for that too. 

“There’s nothing to hog.”

“Yeah, there is.”

The orange wash of the bedside lamp makes James greedy the instant he turns it back on and looks down on you. It gilds the room, gilds your skin, gilds his appetite, and he wonders how much worse it will get once it's morning and he wakes to find you there again as living proof rather than of a dream. 

“Maybe we really do need to turn the lights off,” he decides.

You tilt your head against the pillow. “Changed your mind?”

“Oh, my mind hasn’t changed a bit,” James replies, then inches closer once more. “You push me over, lady.”

“Don’t call me that.” 

His hand betrays him to humiliating degrees. Lifting, pausing, and reconsidering as it is traitorously decisive, until it finally settles lightly against the edge of your cheekbone. Your breaths breathe warmth into his face, and he registers with mild alarm that they turn him a little visibly red. Even as he’s above you, when he can only look down earnestly at the gleam and glow that's made up this whole season, all that sun made flesh, you still hold every right and all the ability to make him act entirely insensible.

“Make my night, yeah?”

His mouth is so inconveniently human as it tries to chase the sweetness he’s found in your own, like a child finding the unreachable cookie jar. His hands are no better, and his skin is rough against yours that is soft as they insist on remembering what they shouldn’t have been taught so quickly.

James has never been with anyone. Not like this. So he’s scared by how natural you seem to fit into places in him he hadn’t realized were so empty. 

“Only if you make mine.”

Your dad tells you time and time again, beware of boys, they’re never honest. Says they lie, that they always will. He tells you this with personal conviction. But like something you never thought you’d do, you want to tell him not this one. Not this boy. 

Perhaps every girl before you has thought the same. Maybe they were laying as you are now. But this one is different, you think, you believe. You bring the thought with you as James leans in and kisses you again, drawing you under until you’re pressed into the pillow with nowhere else to go. You believe it through the warmth of his hand tracing the skin under your jaw, with the other moving over your hair. And you believed it most when you touched him back and thought never to return. 

“I’ll make a fantasy out of you,” James breathes out as he buries his head in the crook of your jaw. And then I’ll make a believer out of myself. A flame and a moth. 

You huff out a little airy laugh. “Could you?”

He lifts his head just enough to look at you. “Have I ever disappointed you before?”

The rest of the night, if “night” is even the correct term for it, and James is not entirely convinced it is, breaks apart into the most non-linear little pieces, as though misfiled in the wrong century. There are, instead, these conditions: warmth with a clear origin, motions in improper geometry, and the strange, persistent closeness. 

James remembers the beaches of his childhood. Of tides returning to their remarkable shoreline no matter how often they should be pulled away. His thoughts, ordinarily so well-trained, behave much the same around you. It’s an inefficient system, all this remembering. 

Skin to skin, breath upon breath, there was nowhere else to go but under. 

And with all the pretty things James had whispered to you that night, if it were truly what you thought it to be meant anything at all, then you took them with you to your dreams in the hopes that they’d be better interpreted there. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

If you had just lived through the best night of your life a few hours ago, you certainly left no such obvious traces of it this morning. None that James could see. 

The diner sat in a quiet early-hour warmth just beside the motel, low light with clinking cutlery, and something steady about it. James has always been like that with breakfast. No matter where he ends up, no matter how far off or unfamiliar, he makes time for it. You sit just right across from him in the corner booth, and though he thought maybe this would be the perfect time to pick up on the conversation he’d left to fend for last night, you just wouldn’t look at him. 

You keep your head held low as you fix your attention to the food you’d been picking on your plate and chewing. Is facing him really going to cost me something? 

James clicked his tongue. “You don’t like eggs?”

“I don’t like the sunny side ups.” You say through a mouthful, not bothering to look up. 

“Give it here.”

You slide the plate across as ceramic grazes the table in a soft passing sound, slipping between the diner’s lull of conversations. He switches it out with his own, then shifts his plate of scrambled eggs closer to you. 

“Eat,” he says. You do. 

Not because you’re still hungry. You just need to give your hands something to commit to. Across the table, you feel him watching you in that pressing way of his. 

“Slept well?” he asks. 

“You tell me. I was literally next to you.”

His mouth shifts, and he wonders how far he’s able to take this.

“Just trying to add some light to this shit. You’re making it awkward.”

Why wouldn’t it be awkward?

You shake your head. “I’m not making it awkward.”

“Yeah?” He leans forward slightly as his elbows brush the edge of the table. “Why won’t you look at me?”

“I don’t know James.” You move your food around, and the grip on your fork is a lot tighter now. “This was so unplanned.”

“Hmm?”

“None of this would’ve happened if the truck hadn’t broken down.”

There’s something barely offended, but ultimately unreadable in his expression. 

“So what are you saying?” His voice lowers just a little. “You wouldn’t have wanted this to happen?”

And you finally look up at him for the first time today. “No, I–”

You wonder what it was you were even trying to argue against. There’s no denying you’d never regret what you had done yesterday. Not now, not later, not even if your dad found out. It seems entering adulthood had a way of overcomplicating things, layers upon layers where there might have been none if only you had tried. 

“Don’t tell me you got a boyfriend back in college you forgot to mention ‘cause I do not want to be your little homewrecker–”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, God, I’m not that awful.” You rub at the corners of your eyes in frustration.

“So what’s the matter?”

The matter for you was simple: that this was going to be one of those cute little flings, as fleeting as they were all unplanned for. The cruel fate of someday being remembered as that ‘summer of ‘02’ months or years from now, and nothing more.

“Nothing.” And you know he doesn't believe you. 

“I just,” Your fork pauses on your plate, and you think of either being straightforward or telling another one of your unbelievable lies. 

“I’m gonna have to go back to college sooner or later.”

A weak defense mechanism presents itself in your throat, small and evasive. It’s then that James now understands. So that's what you were fussing about. 

He’d been so caught up in the present tense that he’d neglected the so-called never-not-befores. By then, he’s realized a little late how soon you’d be gone for months at a time. It wouldn’t be the first. Only now, he’s going to have to learn the hard way of an act called letting go.

There were slips of transcripts his grandmother kept around the old house that he used to read. All those Chinese sayings about destiny, yuanfen, she called it. The idea of encounters not being all that random. and that certain intersections have been pre-authored into the margins of existence. Red strings, love locks, the Old Man of the Moon, the sort of things that make you think of magic. James had always found it a little too bogus to be true. And yet, if such a thing does exist, if yuanfen is by any bit operational at all, he hoped it would be on your side. 

“I hope you’re not taking that junky car with you–”

“Keep my Mustang out your mouth James.”

James can only smile at you in turn and think about that stupid car that started it all. He huffs a laugh and slides his leftover hashbrowns across the table. 

“You better eat it. Need to make up for the rice.” 

Your fork cuts through the food he’d offered as you take a big bite. “Alright.”

He hoped it would be you. 

Because then he wouldn’t have to worry in the end. Ten miles, a thousand, an ocean or two, it made no meaningful difference. Water returns to its level. Winds to their courses. You, he hoped, would return to him. Or he to you. 

The train ride back to Old Town Temecula had been as eventful in that it made your hairs stick out and your attention a little too heightened. You sat closely next to each other, as close as any two people could be. Looking around at everyone else, the old couple with their arms knotted together, the lonely guy just by the door, and behind him, a young pair stealing too many kisses as if they might run out, you realize nearly everyone’s got something of their own.

And while you were busy doing just that, James hovers his rough hand over your soft one lying on your side, doesn’t consider such consequences of it, and presses it down, nudging his fingers in between yours. They interlock much like zipper teeth. 

Just like your face, his hands stayed warm the whole train ride back, the way you had imagined often and always a little too vividly. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

James remembers the summers he’d spent in a plastic pool on Fridays, not a day over five. That, or when he’d spend them in Martin’s treehouse watching movies on the television they’d found at the back of a storefront. He remembers the heat pressed as close as another body, the exhilaration, the freedom to act his age. But this is the first summer he’s looked at a girl and almost scared himself to death from the guilt. Guilt, the word he uses to think less of his desire. But looking at you now, he could think of nothing more. 

This was the cruelest season of them all. 

“Do I look alright?” You ask from your vanity, turning just enough to catch James in the mirror who’s sprawled across your bed, hands folded behind his head. You’d waited until noon for your dad to leave for yet another fishing trip before sneaking James inside. It had been a successfully executed operation if you ignored the part where he nearly slipped off the roof and met an embarrassing end. The things James was willing to risk just to see his girl were far from limited. 

“Looks like it.”

“Seriously James?” You snap the cap back onto your lipstick with a sharp  click and move to the edge of the bed, bending down to slip on your shoes.  “Spent three hours getting ready for the date where you spent at most 10 seconds to ask me on. Some enthusiasm would be appreciated.”

Ah, but my throat’s all caught, Y/n. How could I say anything at all?

“You look great. Amazing. Your hair looks like a shiny toilet surface. Did you want that?”

The words came out clumsy on the way free. He had better ones, prettier ones lined up behind his teeth, but he was saving those for later.

“Thanks.”

For the better part, you suspected James had every intention of spending whatever time remained of your vacation planted firmly at your side. He’d developed this habit of appearing wherever you happened to be. Was he your boyfriend though? Absolutely not.

“I’m all ready. We should head out.”

But whether he was your boyfriend or not seemed beside the point, because when your ‘not boyfriend’ pushed himself upright, he once again tried his best to maintain composure and try not to tackle you back onto the mattress. You looked beautiful. Well you were always beautiful, but tonight you clearly made an occasion of it. The sight alone was enough to set James’ face ablaze.

“I’ll wait for you right here.” He said as he stood up, finding his way behind you so that he could whisper it in the shell of your ear. ‘Pretty, pretty lady’, to which you gave him a warm smile. His day opened up like a fruit under a knife. 

You hurry on downstairs, catching your mother in the kitchen. A quick goodbye, a promise that you’d be out with friends and come home late enough to warrant concern, but she let you go. James counted as a friend. Never to you, but technically, in the broadest possible sense, he was. You slipped outside and circled beneath your bedroom window, shielding your eyes from the rays as you looked up. James was perched on your sill like a disturbed cat. 

“Sight’s clear.” You announced in a stage whisper. James tried his best to wriggle out the window and grabbed for the nearby branch. There was a lot of rustling, a muffled curse, before he dropped to the patch fo grass with an unceremonious thud.

He brushed the dirt off his jeans, still catching his breath. “You seriously need to properly introduce me to your parents. I can’t keep this up.” 

“You don’t like sneaking up to my room?” You tease as you both make your way to where he parked the truck. Fixed, this time. You trust it to work. “That’s a shame. I happen to find it quite romantic.” 

“Try being on the climbing end, and you'll be thinking twice.” By the time James said it, the two of you had reached the clearing where the truck waited. A faint smile tugged at his mouth, as if the sight of it stirred up an old memory. You both scrambled inside, James fired up the engine, and the rock rolled forward. 

James figured that if he was gonna do this, he ought to do it properly. A real date, something with intention (and a lot of money) behind it. But time was proving itself annoyingly finite, so early afternoon would have to do. The sun was what brought you two together, so it seemed only right to make it a little centerpiece.  Besides, James liked you best in daylight. Not because you were any less lovely at night, but that daytime laid everything out to him in the clearest golden motions. Like citrus and canary yellow, sweet tea and dynamite. 

The drive pulls you farther into town, past the familiar corners and into the part with the nicer sidewalks. When James finally pulls up in front of a restaurant with gleaming windows and a valet service, you turn to look at him. He catched your stare and gave you that unreadable almost-smile, then shook his head. 

And dinner was wonderfully surreal. No boy had ever gone out of their way to take you someplace this nice out of their own volition. That was James all over, thoughtful in ways that would sneak up on you. He was so generous with you, honest too, and knew how to say the right things. He was also blessed, or perhaps cursed, with remarkable hands. One of the first things you’d learned about them was that they could fix almost anything put in front of them. The second was that, whenever given the chance, they were good at taking you apart. 

You saw it now too, as James sat across from you, laughing at every little thing you said. He did it with his whole body, as if his joy were too large to contain in something as small as his teethy grins. You found that he had the face of an old song, of one your mother liked to play through the record every morning. There is only so much considerable longing you can fit into the four minutes of a song. 

Halfway through your food, you suddenly remembered something, then quickly reached for your handbag.

“Oh! By the way…” James, who had been in the middle of demolishing a truly unfair amount of delicious clam shells, paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

You rummage through some receipts, a lip gloss, and maybe half your earthly possessions. At last, your hand emerged triumphantly, clutching a tiny plastic toy dog. 

“I wanted to give you this. Thought it looked like you.”  You placed it in his held out palm, and he turned it over in his fingers, brow furrowing. It was a small brown dog with oversized eyes and a permanently alert expression. Frankly, the ‘resemblance’ was confusing. 

“... What is it?”

“It’s a little pet, from the Littlest Pet Shop.” You said with all the reverence of introducing royalty. “I’ve been collecting them forever. They’re adorable, and look–” You reached over and tapped its head. It wobbled enthusiastically from side to side. James watched with captivation and held it up, examining it like an archeologist uncovering a priceless relic. 

“Thank you. Seriously. I could glue this down on my dashboard–”

Your expression turned murderous “Do not glue this anywhere, James. These are precious things. I expect you to care for this as your own child.” James nodded solemnly, and then cradled the little dog in both hands.

“Gotcha.” 

The little dog, Doudou, as James had named him (brown rice), sat perched beside the salt shaker keeping a vigilant eye on the proceedings. The restaurant had filled in around over the last few hours, and sunlight spilled through the windows, catching the rims of glasses and turning everything faintly sparkling. James had loosened up considerably, which was to say he kept taking unwanted bites of your cake, denying your every retort. 

“Hey–” You fought his fork away from your plate with your own. “You should’ve ordered another earlier. This is criminal.”

He shrugged unrepentant and took another piece. “Possession is only nine-tenths of the law, by the way.”

You pointed a fork at him accusingly. “One day James, your hubris will be your downfall.”

His smile was enough to make you forget whatever mean thing you’d been preparing to say. Eventually though, perhaps it was the angle of the light, or how your eyes drifted toward the window, again and again, that had James wondering yet again.

He sets his fork down. “What’s wrong?”

“You think we've been here long enough?” You asked.

A brow lifted. “Why? You wanna leave?” You glanced out at the lowering sun, and the sky beginning its slow descent, and nodded. 

“Yeah.” A small smile tugged at your mouth. “I wanna see the sun before it sets.” 

And so the bill was paid, Doudou was safely secured in James’ jacket pocket, and within minutes you were back in the truck, the engine rumbling to life from beneath you. 

The truck heads a little towards the edge of town and uphill, and the field beyond steals the breath right out of you. It rolls outward in waves of tall grass and dandelion silk, all gold and green and dreamlike as you both got out.

And though you dress was never made for such things, you run straight down the slope, the ground catching you in a fit of laughter as you fall to your side. James could only shout for you as you rolled on down. 

The sun had reached the ruinous hour when it seemed time to finally spend itself entirely. It scattered light all over, and it made you think of beauty and whether grass stains ever truly came out. James, for his part, felt his insides turn over like a drawer being searched. The land went on and on, exceeding the eye and all good manner. Yet for all that breadth, all that open country, he need only lower his eyes. 

You lay there on the grass with the last of the sun’s rays tangled in between your hair, smiling up at him from the same green earth that had made him, had made trees and rivers and every other ordinary miracle, and seen fit, had placed you here before him. And what is another miracle if not this?

“Please don’t do that ever again.” 

“Come–!”

You tug him by the hand and pull, and the two of you roll a little further down the slope in a tangle of hair, fabric, and breathless laughter. James has to gather your hair away from your face and disentangle it from your mouth just so he can kiss you properly, and fold himself around you like an unblooming flower. 

And when he looks at you after, he wants, wants, and wants some more. Against all the reasonably unreasonable forces. To be yours. To be of you and for you. To make a home somewhere in the crook of your neck or the dip in your chest, the two places where your heartbeat is clearest.

“My dress is all ruined.”

“I’ll buy you a new one, how does that sound?”

“You oughta just buy me a new car.” A joke, obviously. But James asks the question anyway.

“Will you like that?”

You both commit to a very spontaneous decision, and James is grateful he had the intuition to keep a clean blanket in his truck beforehand. The sun sets, and by the time the stars had gone up, he slid open the sun roof upon your request. In the blinking machinery of the darkness above, James points out plants like he’s naming his old acquaintances, then offers you the strange superstitions he collected as a child.

Then you fall asleep right there, wrapped in a blanket on the backseat of his father's truck while the stars slip down like a drawn curtain over the world. James stays awake and keeps vigil through the night, held up by the weight against his chest and the soft cadence of your breathing, borrowing from it a calm he’s yet to learn to keep for himself. 

A little later into morning, he drives the coastal road that leads home. And he pulls into that same clearing again, and lifts you carefully from the passenger seat. He reaches for your purse with the key to your front door, and lets himself i as quietly as he can. Inside, he moves slowly and watches his every step so the floorboards won’t creak. He takes the stairs just as carefully, until he makes it to your room without a suspecting soul there to catch him. 

He lowers you onto your bed gently, and you sink into your mattress much like he does as he follows, dropping down beside you to fit himself right into the sprawl of your limbs. His breath is warm where it brushes your skin, his nose tingling where it touches yours. 

“Wake up, little lady.” He murmurs, voice still rough with groginess..” You want me to clean you up??”

“Later…” You mumble. “Stop calling me that.”

“I’ll leave you be.” He shifts a lot closer, if being closer was still possible. “I need to head off to the shop.”

Your fingers crumple slightly around his sleeve. “Stay a while.” 

“How long did you want this while to be?” He looks at you earnestly, as he looks for a similarly earnest answer. 

The morning light slides further in through the curtains, catching on the edges of your hair, the folds of the blanket, and James grants himself a moment.

“A long kind of while.” 

He couldn’t say no to that. 

Later that afternoon, at the shop when James is helping adjust something from under the hood of a car, his dad’s sights narrowed onto that small dog figurine sitting new and unfitting on the counter next to the piles of papers and blueprints.

“What the hell is that thing?” He finally asks.

James doesn’t even need to look up from where he’s looking to know what he was referring to. “It’s a dog.”

“This yours?”

“Gift.”

“Whatever for?”

James tightens a bolt a little too firmly and scoffs, a tiny sign of a grin pulling at his face. “It’s normal to receive gifts dad.”

His father exhales through his nose unimpressedly. “Well this looks like a gift you give to a girl, and you ain't one.”

James wipes his ands on his stained jeans and turns to grab Doudou. From the counter, he quickly settles him onto the workbench, one he shared with his dad. Out of some half-assed spite that made him want to laugh, he turns to him and points at Doudou the dog. “Just deal with the damn toy.” 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Your mom has been trying not to cry since you’d went downstairs with your bags, which only made her more talkative as she circled around the same three instructions: study well, eat properly, wash your sheets when you get back. 

“And don’t forget to call, okay?” she says again, holding your hands like an anchor. You wanted to die of embarrassment because James was standing right at the front door. 

“I’ll be back before you know it, Ma.” you answer as you lean in to kiss her cheek. Your dad stands a little behind her, arms crossed trying not to be part of the emotional fiasco happening in front of him. He clears his throat when James shifts from where he stands.

“You’re always taking her off to places, huh.” 

“I’m getting her to the airport, Mr. L/n.” James tries to feign nonchalance, and your dad buys it cluelessly. Your mom finally lets you go, stepping back with a long look like she’s trying to memorize your face. When you turn back, James helps you haul your things out the door. As you start walking away, he glances at you sideways.

“You think your dad's softening up to me?” 

“He lets you in my room now. With the door closed, mind you. That’s gotta be it.”

The car ride was quiet. James didn’t know what to say for once, so he kept his eyes on the road, fingers drumming lightly against the steering wheel. He watched the streets roll by, the stoplight changing, strangers crossing intersections, and the usual moving on of life. 

By the time the airport came into view, James pulled into an empty space near the terminal entrance, close enough that he could spot the steady stream of travelers coming and going, departures, arrivals, reunions, the like.  He killed the engine, and you carefully unbuckled your seatbelt. James glances over at you, then quickly away, and back again. You folded your arms across your chest and turned to meet his gaze. 

“You have my new number saved right?”

“Yeah I do.”

“And you'll call?”

“I’ll call you when you arrive.”

James looks at you and catches something small and uneasy. He shifts in his seat and leans over the console. “What’s wrong?”

You look out the windshield for a moment. And once you seem like you’ve made up your mind about something, you lean in as well, and kiss James breathless. 

When you pull back, James looks struck, and a laugh seeps out of you. “I’ll let you be my boyfriend now.”

James thinks fucking finally. He’s waited this long. 

“You could’ve made the decision a little earlier, no?”

You give him a look of fake compassion and press your foreheads together. “We sure still had a good time.”

We sure did. 

“I’ll see you in a few months.”

He’ll certainly remember the way you would sing that godforsaken song, Shape of My Heart by Sting over and over, every time it was on the radio. And he wonders what shape his heart would prove to be (thank you Gordon Sumner) if you were to cut him open and take a peak. He would have to explain it to you then, if he could find the words:

Love, yes, he had love, and felt it in these accruals.  The way limestone was his peculiar little architect, building cathedrals in his mind out of the most ordinary memories. You’d be lodged to the base like a seed in a seam splitting ground and stone. Or maybe he’d be changing oil, or turning a wrench, and there you’d be again, threaded through the gears smiling from between its teeth.

The shape of his heart: an endless concept to think about. 

When he drives home, the seat is empty beside him. Somewhere above, his heart has slipped its moorings and gone migrating an inch closer to yours, just a few thousand miles away. And from where you were, you held the same bit of hopefulness, your measure of passing slowly turning into a clockwise cycle of before James, after James, and the exquisite ache of wanting for James again. 

Summer made conspirators of everyone. The trees would lean closer, the sun softened the pavement. Time, to most, could stretch themselves as thin as caramel. But summer has ended, so he’d have to stick to a memory on his way back. 

And the town could forget your tire tracks by autumn. Rain will smooth it over and leaves will litter over green and brown. James, though, knows he won’t. 

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

(BONUS)

A few months later, James steps into the auto lot the way he’s done a hundred times before. Rust, oil, hot metal, everything baked under the sun and layered into the air to smell. Rick sits on the hood of a sedan, half-slouched and wiping grease off his hands with a towel.

“Morning Rick.”

“Hey!” Rick waves, squinting at him and then the car he’s got. “Whatchu here for? What’s with the Mustang?”

“Here to scrape it. It’s done its time.”

Rick gives a low whistle, hopping down from the hood and eyeing the Mustang down. “Ah, then you'll have yourself a good deal for it. I’ll say.”

And that’s all James was really here for, really. To grant your one wish as though it were a dying one. It left him confused in some way, he’d have to admit. You loved that car. He hadn’t expected you to let go of it the moment you left.

Yet the poor thing had exhausted all of its potential by the time you were done with it, so the junk or resale was the next best thing.

Rick jerks his thumb toward a corner of the lot. “Oh these just came in.” He walks them over.

“They’re not brand new, but it’s solid condition. Engines clean, suspensions intact, minor wear on the bushings but nothing too big The boss man’s thinking of flipping ‘em for a nice penny.”

Theres a Toyota Prado sitting right at the corner, boxy and grounded, and built to take on dirt. James takes a closer look.

“Try and sell this one to me, will ya Rick? C’mon, advertise.” 

Rick raises a brow. “You don’t want that truck no more, huh?”

“‘S not for me.”

He looks at the mustang, that vehicle of memories he was so adamant on talking you out of scraping. A good gift, huh? 

“I’ll take it.”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

YOU ONCE HAD A friend who hated airports. When you’d asked him, thoroughly perplexed and half in disbelief, he’d told you that it was because it meant departure. People left, and wouldn’t be able to see their loved ones until they returned. It reminded him of his mother leaving, he said, whenever she went to her home country and couldn’t bring him along. 

You saw things differently. You saw them with the eyes of someone who wished to travel to lands of new opportunity, to places where you could leave your old self behind and start anew. A new place meant new people, new experiences, new sights, new outlooks on life. It reminded you of when you arrived in your new home country, young and naive and full of dreams. 

It was in this way and many others that you and Chao Yufan differed.

Funnily enough, the first time you met him was in an airport. Or, well, close to one.

北京 BEIJING

2022

You were beat. While the flight from Taipei to Beijing wasn’t far, or long, or truly anything that warranted your current exhaustion, your endless training of the past week certainly was. Your limbs ached with overexertion as you climbed off the aeroplane, hauling your carry-on with you while your coach, Peiling, walked purposefully several paces in front of you.

The airport was busy as you made your way to the baggage claim area, filled to the brim with families and couples on their way to and from different places in the world. The energy was overwhelming in a manner that made your words fail you. The atmosphere was emotionally charged, charged with the weight of families separating for the holidays, or a couple reunited after a business trip. Teenagers leaving home, adults returning. It made the air smell sweet with emotion, tears and smiles and laughs and sobs all to be heard and experienced in scenes within mere metres of one another.

You, like several other athletes on your flight, had travelled to Beijing for the Junior Asian Winter Games to represent their country on an international scale. It wasn’t too big of an event, featuring only competitors from a few countries across the continent, but for someone of your calibre—who’d only ever performed locally—it was like landing on Mars. More important, in fact. All Mars had was craters and buggies. Beijing had everything.

It had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity given to you by a bored sponsor who had nowhere better to spend their money, but you didn’t care what it was that brought you here. All that mattered was that you’d made it, and you wouldn’t let the opportunity to make the best of it pass you by.

Baggage claim was as busy as the rest of the airport, filled to the brim with people fighting over who deserved to take their luggage first, who deserved to wait, and who deserved to lose an eye for the Louis Vitton suitcase that had made its tenth rotation without any sign of its owner stepping forward to claim it. You paused at the sight; the crowd, moving like one angry, sleep-deprived entity, and in a split second decided it would be physically safer for you to give up taking your luggage before you even started trying.

Unfortunately, you were travelling with an even angrier, even more sleep-deprived middle aged coach who was not about to waste her precious dollars simply because of your crippling anxiety, and so, you ventured into the storm. 

As you made your way to the mechanical spiral which rotated everyone’s bags like a silent urge for them to step up and claim what was theirs, your shoulders continuously bumped by nainais out for blood, you thought to yourself that whoever said the eye of the storm was the calmest bit was a dirty liar and a certain cheat. You yelped when an older gentleman pushed you cleanly out of the way, your hard-earned strength failing you in the moment of shock. Peiling yelled something at him in her Northern drawl and he backed off immediately. After that terrifying interaction, you simply kept to the sides, the areas where people didn’t bother to wait, your gaze fixed on the moving conveyor belt, on the lookout for a large suitcase with a bright, shiny pink shell.

It was after a few moments of staring and zoning out that you spotted it, pointing towards it with a victorious sound as if your newfound powers of voice-activated telekinesis would make the thing levitate towards you. Alas, it did not, and you had to use your hands and arms like the rest of the world.

You picked it up with quite a bit of effort, less because you’d overpacked and more because whatever equipment you couldn’t fit in your carry-on had been thrown into your suitcase, which, given Beijing’s tight policies on carry-on weight, was most of it. You nodded to Peiling, widening your eyes as if to say, I’ve got it. We can go. She gave you a quick thumbs up and turned to leave, and you followed shortly after. 

Sunset had inched over the horizon by the time you made it outside, the cold November air hitting your face and freezing your cheeks. Peiling raised her one free hand to hail a cab, pushing you into the open backseat once it arrived. You took a heavy seat while she loaded your luggage into the boot before finally joining you, sighing like an old man with joint issues. You watched in silent amusement as she got settled, noticed your stare, and smacked your arm, clicking her tongue in disapproval. “Aiya, you’re such a badly behaved child. Don’t laugh at your elders like that.”

“I wasn’t laughing!” you objected, though the giggle that you fought said differently.

She tsked. “Whatever. You and the rest of the athletes from Taiwan will be staying in the same hotel for the week that we’re here. Lights are out at nine, and you will be awake by six. I will not wake you up. Understood?”

“Yes, coach,” you said, still grinning like an idiot.

“Ai,” came the voice of your driver, fast-paced and slurred as you’d been told the Beijingers spoke. “You going to tell me where you want to go, or what?”

Peiling made a noise of irritation, but supplied nonetheless, “The Starlight Five Star, shifu. By Wonder Ice Sports Centre.”

He input the location in his GPS, asking, “You here for the Games?”

Peiling nodded. “Mm.”

He didn’t say anything after that, but you could see him nodding to himself as he drove off. Peiling leaned back in her seat, muttering something about Mainlanders before she asked you, “By the way, when did you add those stickers to your suitcase?”

You’d stolen someone’s suitcase.

This, you realised after you’d flopped unceremoniously onto your bed as Peiling made herself comfortable in her joint bedroom, zipping it open and finding it chock full of men’s clothes. Now, you weren’t necessarily the most outwardly feminine girl in the world, but you’d never gone as far as shopping in the men’s section, so you knew there was no way these clothes could’ve possibly been yours. Furthermore, the likelihood that you’d taken someone else’s luggage by mistake was only a bit higher than that of someone stealing all your clothes and replacing it with men’s clothes in some sort of sick act of villainy.

You sat up straight, a small, confused noise leaving your mouth as you rummaged through the stranger’s luggage in growing panic. Where you’d stored your signature leg warmers now were a pair of basketball shorts big enough to fit someone three times your size; where you’d packed a variety of hair products and creams for competition day, someone had carelessly chucked in a pair of shin guards and stocky gloves. And most importantly, where you’d neatly folded up the custom-made leotard your coach had spent half her life savings on, was simply a copy of some sort of anime film on DVD.

“What the hell is this?” you muttered, tossing more tubes of chapstick than was necessary for a man behind you, searching as if you’d find the contents of your suitcase beneath the layers and layers of his things. “How in the hell did this happen?”

“…When did you add those stickers to your suitcase?”

Your eyes widened, falling back onto your heels as a wave of realisation swept over you like the salty sea rollers on Fulong Beach. This wasn’t your suitcase. You’d taken someone else’s luggage, and were now armed with all the wrong equipment one day before the biggest competition of your career so far.

Ah, crap.

You groaned in frustration, dragging a hand over your face as you flopped onto your back, head falling against the soft, heavenly hotel pillows you’d be sleeping on for the night. Unfortunately, you were far too stressed to even be able to enjoy them. 

From somewhere on the other side of your room, behind the door that joined Peiling’s with yours, you heard her shout, “What happened now?”

When you didn’t answer, she pestered, “Tell me why you sound like you’re dying, la!”

“I took someone else’s luggage at the airport!” you yelled back, screwing your eyes shut in embarrassment and exhaustion at your own uselessness. Maybe if you’d glanced at it more than once, or waited for another rotation you’d see that it clearly wasn’t your suitcase despite the uncanny resemblance it bore to it. For starters, it looked more worn, with chips and scratch marks yours didn’t have. The owner had customised it as well, with stickers and tags and his name and number in permanent ink and—

You sat up again, this time with more purpose as you recognised the familiar traditional characters jump in front of your eyes. Even after all these years, it took some time for you to be able to decipher every letter, but after a moment or two, you could fully read what was in front of you, murmuring the words as you went.

“If lost, please return to…” you narrowed your eyes, squinting to read the handwritten scrawl in the low light of your hotel room, “…please return to James Chao.” Then, beneath the message, the ten digits that would lead you to him.

Your one-eighty reaction must’ve given Peiling quite the scare, because when you yelped in victory and started shoving the stranger’s belongings back into his suitcase, slamming the pink shell shut and already reaching to your bedside table for your phone, she opened the door and rushed into your room, stormy eyes widened in an expression of shock. “What is it? Why are you making such noise so late at night?”

She looked a bit ridiculous, her dewy, done-up skin and fuzzy robe doing little to add to the shock and growing frustration in her voice.

“I stole someone else’s suitcase,” you said, rehashing the previous moments’ occurrences to her, “but then I saw that the owner wrote his name and number on the front, so I can call him and find him and get my suitcase back because, you know, since we have the same suitcase, it’s only right to assume he’d taken mine—anyway, I can find him and get my suitcase back as well, hopefully before the competition tomorrow.”

She gave you a long stare, before nodding in the way that told you she’d believe what you said, but that whatever you did was your responsibility. “Alright,” she murmured. “But you can’t rely on hope. You better pray to Mother Guanyin that this pans out, because if not, I’ll have you compete in sweatpants and borrowed skates. Understood?”

You shivered in equal parts horror and disgust. “Yes, coach.”

Peiling shook her head in obvious disappointment, while you made a mission of dialling the stranger’s number to call him. The phone rang for several moments before he picked up—chrrr… chrrr… chrrr…

“Yes?” came the voice of a very irritated James Chao. You could imagine him, the stranger, his face a blur of what his voice brought to mind, his brow furrowed in frustration. His voice was gentle, but persistent, raspy, a bit nasally in a way that wasn’t too annoying just yet.

What a bad time to be an introvert. And what an even worse time to be someone who performed badly socially under even the slightest bit of pressure. “Um, hi. I, uh… I’m…” You paused, giving him your name, and then, “I think I may have something of yours.”

The other line was silent for a moment. Then, “You better be the person who has my suitcase.”

“I am,” you said. “It’s a pink Louis Vitton with stickers and shit all over it, right? And it has, like, I don’t know what kind of equipment—”

“Hockey equipment,” he answered for you, with more snark than was truly necessary. “And yours has a bunch of sparkly tutus and, like, a shit ton of lip gloss. And… footless socks?”

“Leg warmers,” you corrected, more defensive than you’d meant to be. “They’re leg warmers. I’m a figure skater. I use leg warmers. My socks have feet.”

“Alright, okay,” he acquiesced. “Where are you?”

“The Starlight Five Star,” you said. “Right by—”

“Wonder Ice in Beijing,” he interrupted, a seconds’ realisation spoken into existence. You could imagine him furrowing his brows as he further grasped, “You’re Taiwanese.”

“I grew up there,” you corrected, brain on autopilot. You were used to pointing out the difference to people. “Not Taiwanese Taiwanese, but—”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re in Beijing to compete, right?” You nodded like he could see you, and he continued, “All of us are on the seventh floor. Find me in front of the elevator in fifteen minutes, and we can swap our bags. Got it?”

“Okay,” you said, nodding definitively. The longer you spoke to James, the more eager you were to hang up and get the interaction over and done with. “See you then.”

His final words to you were, “Yeah, whatever.”

Once you’d told Peiling what you’d arranged with James, and she let you go with a firm nod and an encouraging smack on your shoulder, you pulled on a jumper over your pyjamas and lugged the stolen suitcase out of your room and down the carpeted hallway. The elevator was several paces to the right of your room—because the event organisers loved you so much, they’d stuck you in the furthest corner of the seventh floor, meaning you had to walk past the skiing and curling teams who, in spite of the nine o’clock cutoffs for all athletes, were all still hooting and hollering like they were at a house party.

Your feet thumped gently on the carpeted floor as you made your way down the hall, James’ suitcase rolling silently behind you. You stopped at the elevator, as discussed, turning your head this way and that in search of someone to match your current state: tired, pyjama’d, and in the mood for business.

James Chao first appeared before you that night you’d accidentally taken his suitcase and he yours, long after the athletes’ curfew and only a few hours before both of you would be competing the following morning. Black hair swept over a pair of dark eyes narrowed in apparent frustration, smooth, tanned skin glowing under the warm lights of the hotel as he frowned like he’d been personally wronged. Which, if he was nearly as dramatic as he’d sounded on the phone, may or may not have been his personal truth. A baggy graphic shirt and basketball shorts swallowed the lean figure beneath, and just as you were about to get a proper look at him, he said,

“You scratched it.”

You paused. “What?”

“My suitcase. You scratched it.”

Frowning, you looked down at the hard shell in your hold, looking no less damaged than it had when you’d taken it from baggage claim. “Um, sorry,” you said anyway, because you weren’t in the mood to prove your innocence currently. “I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s whatever,” he dismissed. His voice was clearer in real life. I mean, of course it was, but, you know. He shook his head, looking as eager to get back to his hotel room as you were. “Anyway, uh, here’s your suitcase back.”

He rolled it out from behind him, and you did the same. For a moment or two, you both stood there in virtual silence, staring down at the other’s suitcase. You swore you heard crickets once the silence stretched to thirty seconds. Then, with just as many words as you’d exchanged beforehand, which is to say, none, you switched bags, and balance was restored to the universe once more.

James looked up at you, sent you a firm, definitive nod. You did the same. Despite the moments leading up to the interaction being less than desirable, you completed what needed to be done, and did so without that much of an issue.

Or so you thought.

As you turned to make your way back to your room, your suitcase rolling behind you, footsteps joined by the sound of James’ own, you heard him stop, slipper-clad feet skidding to a halt on the carpeted floor. Stop. Pause. Turn.

“You went through my stuff.”

You stopped. Paused. Turned. “Yeah,” you admitted, eyes narrowed in that same way that people who are in an outlandishly drawn out and overdone interaction do, the same way someone who shouldn’t have to be explaining themselves does. “I thought it was my bag, so I opened it up.”

“And, what, you just mess up your entire suitcase the moment you open it?” he asked. Oh, he was getting far too bratty for your liking. 

You stepped forward, the movement like an accusation. “How do you even notice something like that?” you asked nonsensically. “Something so… so minute, so minuscule—”

“Big words for someone of your size,” he spat, equally as nonsensical. 

“What the hell is that even supposed to mean?”

“You know damn well what it means!”

You threw up your hands in a gesture that you were sure conveyed your frustration, exhaustion, and impending insanity all at once. “What is your problem?!”

“What’s yours?”

You pointed at him frantically, as if he were the obvious answer. “You! You’re my problem!”

He pointed right back, index finger in your face and all. “And you’re mine! I have a game at seven tomorrow morning and I’m standing here arguing with you!”

“Oh, trust me, I do not want to be stuck defending myself against a diva with a competition only a few hours ahead of me,” you said. “The feeling is horridly mutual.”

He scoffed. “You’re such a pain.”

Before you got a chance to retort at all, much less properly, James turned on his heel and left, walking with the conviction of a man scorned. The last you saw of him was him walking down the hall, hips swaying this way and that with more sass than you felt was fit for a man.

And because you were so very mature, such an emotionally intelligent young woman who knew when to walk away from a confrontation, you turned and left once you grew sick of staring at his departing form, muttering to yourself, “Stupidhead.”

You hoped you never had to see his dumb face again.

台北 TAIPEI

TWO WEEKS LATER

It was only you in the rink before he arrived.

You swept across the ice, legs moving as if by their own will. The cold stung your cheeks and creeped in through your tights, the sort of cold that sat in the back of your mind while the rest of your body burnt with exertion, limbs starting to ache from the push and pull of temperatures. Music drifted from the speaker you’d placed somewhere outside the rink, possibly in the stands where you’d left your personal belongings, slow and melodic and not at all matching your current mood.

You huffed in frustration as yet another Salchow failed to come to fruition, the edge of your skate blade as uncooperative as it had been for the past several training sessions. Something about the way you moved, or the angle of your foot, or the ice—something had to be wrong, and you needed to find out what it was and fix it. 

Peiling had told you that your second place performance in Beijing was good enough, which was rather uncharacteristic for her. She’d always been the one to push you to the edge, to test the limits of your abilities and patience. Her simply throwing in the towel and saying your performance in an international competition was good enough meant something. It meant she thought you were tired. Losing your edge. In a rut.

You were determined to prove her wrong.

Minutes turned into hours that you’d spent at the rink back in Taipei after your usual practice session; the rink where you’d first put on skates, where you’d spent birthdays and Christmases and good days and bad days on the ice. Where you’d found your purpose. 

It seemed the longer you tried to perfect your moves, to swivel your body or sweep your skates a certain way, the more you seemed to be failing. Shinya Kiyozuka and his upbeat, romantic masterpieces weren’t exactly helping your mood, either, though you weren’t sure if anything else would. Maybe you were just being impossible today.

You knew every athlete had their off days. Days where nothing seemed to stick, where they seemed to forget everything they’d learnt until that point. Days where the universe didn’t seem to be ruling in their favour, where their coaches and teammates patted them on the back and said, “Maybe next time.” But you weren’t that sort of athlete, the sort that could afford to be bad for a day.

In between the jump and twists and the growing cold and the flakes of ice floating through the air you failed to notice the double doors of the rink swinging open languidly, nor the set of footsteps that came afterwards. You bent your knee deeply, gliding backwards with your leg raised, before planting it into the ice, twirling into the air, one, two, three times, arms raised high above your head. A simple triple flip, but it was more than you’d been able to achieve all day.

A sharp sound rang through the air. Once, twice, thrice before it gave way to a neverending cacophony that made you turn your head. Someone was clapping, approaching with their hands set in a lazy position of applause. It echoed throughout the entire rink, travelling across the ice and straight to your ears; piercing, the sort of sound that made people flinch.

James walked towards the ice with an undeniable swagger in his step, not unlike his gait when you first met him. Though, could you say met, when the whole interaction lasted less than five minutes? He looked different this time, more put together, standing taller, like he owned the world and it owed him everything. A jacket hung loosely around his frame, opening just enough to show the graphic tee he’d most likely hand-selected, silky black hair in meticulous tousles. 

“What are you doing here?” were your first words to him since Beijing.

He didn’t say anything, hopping down the steps that led to the rink in silence, hands still braced for applause. Only until he reached the ice, leaning against the barrier separating you from normal ground did he say anything. He smiled, and it was difficult to deduce if it was friendly or not. “You’re pretty good, ice queen.”

You stayed planted in the middle of the ice that reflected white on your black stockings, matched your white leg warmers. You crossed your arms over your chest, not caring if the action made you appear petulant. “You say that like it’s a surprise. What are you doing here?”

While you couldn’t confidently assert that his face fell, there was a loss of amusement in his expression when it became clear you wouldn’t play ball with him. “I’m just here for some solo practice,” he explained, lifting the large duffel bag he’d slung across his front.

You paused. “You skate here, too?”

“Not during the week, usually,” he admitted. “But today’s a special day, it seems like. Practice got cancelled and my usual roller hockey rink is booked right now. So—” he grinned again, quick and sly— “here I am. And here you are. My problem.”

You were sure he meant it jokingly; as you could tell by the obvious switch from serious to sarcastic in his tone of voice. He was simply referencing the last time you met, when you called him your problem and he called you his. But there was something about the way he said it this time, snarkier and perhaps even more arrogant than before, derision in place of anger, that made you want to roll your eyes to the back of your head. What about him, exactly, enraged you so?

You’d find out soon enough.

Turning your back to him, you continued your desperate swipes and turns to try and mimic someone who knew what the hell they were doing. You weren’t convinced that you succeeded. 

James watched, thankfully silent, leaned all the while against the barrier. Somewhere in between your several flutzes, he’d pulled on his gear; knee pads and skates and silver chains that dangled as he hopped over onto the ice, floundering a bit from the extravagant entrance.  

“I watched you at the Games.”

This made you stop and, once again, turn towards the boy. You could guess he was a year or two older than you—not from how he spoke or composed himself, but from something deeper that told you things about him he didn’t even need to say himself. It was that same something that had told you to trust him down the line, the same something everyone has, telling them things they know about people they don’t. It’s important to remember that you can’t always trust when that something speaks.

“Oh, yeah?” you asked with feigned disinterest he’d never catch onto. “Thought you had a match at seven.”

“I did,” he said. “And your performance was at nine.” He skated towards you, gliding easily. “The rink you performed in was a five minute walk from ours.” He shrugged then, adding, “A few friends and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about after we won our match.”

“And?” you prodded. “Was it worth your time?”

“I’d say so, yeah.” He shifted one leg in front of the other, movements calm and effortless. “You’re pretty good.”

You preened at the compliment despite it being from someone you weren’t too fond of at that moment, because, like any teenager, you were a bit full of yourself when it came to the things you were good at.

James tilted his head. “But you’re too gentle.”

You scoffed. Too gentle. There was no such thing in a sport as graceful as figure skating. It didn’t matter that Peiling had told you the same thing three sessions ago, that your attempts at poise had made your art lacking. James didn’t need to know that. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He didn’t let up. “I see what you try to do in your moves, it just translates wrong on the ice. Your gracefulness comes across as hesitance; that’s why you only got second place.”

You scowled, ignoring the pinch in your heart. He was a stranger who knew nothing about your craft, not even the simplest thing. Why would you need to listen to him? “I don’t need you to explain skating to me,” you snapped. His unwanted presence and unneeded commentary had become too much to bear. “I got in second because I slipped. Not because of anything you might’ve convinced yourself is relevant.”

“Listen, all I wanna do is help,” he tried, nearing you. In turn, you glided backwards, intent on keeping your distance. “You wanna win, don’t you?”

“What’s it to you?” you muttered.

“Nothing,” he confessed. “It’s not important to me. But it could be important to you.”

A long stretch of silence followed. You stayed where you were, James only a few paces ahead. From what you could see, he meant nothing ill by his words, though there was still something that kept you from replying just yet. Maybe it was your own scepticism. It was an odd scene, an odd interaction; the sort that comes so unexpectedly that you don’t even have the slightest idea of how to continue, so all you really can do is just that.

“You don’t look Taiwanese.”

“I’m not,” he said, “technically. Dad’s from Hong Kong and my mom is Thai.”

“Yet you play in the national youth league?” you asked.

“Yep.”

“Must be nice.”

He nodded, the action softer compared to his previous ones. While Taiwan had many excellent foreign athletes to represent the country, it took a lot of exceptional skill—more so than the locals required, many cried—for them to make it out of the foreign leagues they were so kindly sorted into. James could only imagine how hard it must’ve been on foreign kids, when he himself worked so hard to keep his place in the league as a local.

Then, with the finesse of a newborn fawn walking on solid ground for the first time, you switched the subject. “I saw a few of your highlight reels from the Games. You’re not bad.”

Good to know that twelve years of practice got him a compliment like that. “Thanks,” he said dryly. “I try my best.”

If you were to take him up on his offer—which you weren’t even sure you would just yet, it was just a silly, fleeting thought—you were, in essence, rolling a dice you had no idea even had numbers on. It would be a shot in the dark, a complete leap of faith towards someone you’d met once and were sure you held a great amount of contempt for. 

But then, how would you know if the outcome would be bad? In short, you wouldn’t. You had just as much of a chance of learning something meaningful from him than you did wasting your time on him and vice versa. Like he’d said, it wouldn’t be important to him, but it could be important to you.

“The only thing is,” you started, grabbing his attention, “you’re like an elephant on the ice.”

James made a noise in the back of his throat, the crassness of your comment catching him off-guard. “Excuse me?”

“You don’t have any tact when you skate,” you pressed, “especially in handling the puck. It’s like you’ve got cement for hands.”

“What would you know about ice hockey?” he asked, snippy.

“As much as you’d know about figure skating,” you said.

He froze, mouth clamped shut in shock.

And checkmate.

You narrowed your eyes, watching him carefully. To an outsider it would’ve looked like a glance with reservations and its own opinions; maybe even to you. But what it really was was a look of assessment, a look that acted as the buffer between your thoughts and the answer they’d give you, the answer you’d soon give James.

“James is a pretty weird name for a Taiwanese kid,” you said. Half and half the truth and a fabrication, really. Most Taiwanese children answered to their Mandarin names, while some went on to choose English names as they expanded their professional horizons. “Is it your real name, or a Hong Kong thing?”

He didn’t answer your question, not fully. “My friends call me Yufan. Everyone else calls me James.”

“And what can I call you?” you asked.

“It depends. What would you like to call me?”

The statement in and of itself didn’t betray any deeper meaning, though you knew what he meant. Would you keep your distance from him, tell him that you didn’t need his help, remain professional, or would you say yes, accept his help, and become his mentee—even more, perhaps even his friend.

Maybe he’s lonely, you thought. Lonely and clueless on how to ask someone to be his friend. Or maybe he was just some prick on a power trip trying to make you feel bad about your skills.

You wouldn’t know unless you took a chance on him.

“Alright, how about this.” You clasped your hands together, earnest. “You give me pointers on how to improve my figure skating, and I’ll help you become better at ice hockey. It only seems fair,” you added as he went to protest, “since we’d only be assisting each other in specific elements. You good with that?”

He seemed to mull over your proposal, though he seemed unhappy to learn that you were not impressed with his own skill. “Fine,” he said begrudgingly. He stuck out his hand for you to shake, wriggling his lean, ringed fingers. “Training buddies?”

You took it, your palm cold against his warm skin. “Training buddies.”

Before you knew it, weeks had passed.

James became a regular feature in your life since he’d rather rudely inserted himself into it, squeezing himself in between your Tuesday cram school and your Thursday solo training. He always arrived with a smile on his face, though the contents of it always differed; some days he was smug, impatiently tapping your legs as he waited for you to get a manoeuvre right; other days he was soft, assuring you that not having the strength you needed to do a certain drill wasn’t the end of the world, even when you acted like it was.

Similarly, you’d been able to whip him into shape with the mindset of a ballet teacher in skates, stern and precise and never in the mood for the endless nonsense he dished out. You balanced each other’s energy like that. Where you were rigid schedules and languid, flowing movements, James was pure, unfiltered bursts of creativity and crashes into barriers. He showed you how to colour outside the lines, and you taught him how to outline the sketches he needed to play.

But before all that happened, more than a few things went wrong.

Before you learnt how to trust him, you’d hit him over the head with his own hockey stick.

The air was tense, alight with the anger and frustration you shared. James glared at you with the fire of a thousand suns burning in his eyes, jaw set in a scowl that made your blood curdle. “You’re a little brat, you know that? A brat who refuses to cooperate the moment she has to do something she doesn’t want to—”

“Don’t you dare talk to me like that,” you snapped. 

“I’ll talk to you however I want,” he shot back. “As long as you keep being useless—”

Right, said the reasonable part of your brain. Enough is enough. So, in a split-second decision, you grabbed the stick he’d been holding—the old but sturdy taped-up contraption he’d been using to correct your posture that didn’t need correcting—and reared your arms back, coming down hard on his back as he ducked for safety.

You didn’t hurt him that badly, you could see afterwards. But he made sure to milk the shit out of your sympathy once you realised what you’d done.

Before he learnt how to take you seriously, he told you stipid things like,

“You know, you shouldn’t act so haughty all the time. You and I both learnt the same things in beginners skating lessons.” He glanced you up and down in a way that you weren’t sure if it was judgemental or merely observant. “You’re not teaching me anything new, here.”

You paused, your arms still braced in the elegant position you’d been in to demonstrate the gentler movements that would help him during matches. You placed your hands on your hips in a very unladylike fashion, scowling. “Last I checked, I’m not a beginner figure skater, and last I checked, I don’t constantly injure myself because of my poor form.”

He scoffed. “Pfft—okay, my form is not that bad—”

“You skate like a fucking pensioner.”

“—defence players are literally the best skaters on the ice. And we play two different sports! You can’t compare the styles of the two.”

You raised a brow. “I thought you just said we learnt the same basics.”

He froze. “Shit, yeah. Okay. That— that was on me, this time.”

Before you learnt to work together like a well-oiled machine, you’d bruised yourselves bumping heads like bulls.

“If you think, for even one second, I’m going to skate laps around this rink while you sit on your ass and time me, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“And if you think I’m just going to stand here and argue with you all afternoon instead of getting shit done, you’ve got an even bigger thing coming. Put on your skates.”

You threw him a filthy look, still stubbornly in your worn trainers. “Make me, princess.”

“I’ll make you eat your hands, is what I’ll make you do,” he replied, pressing his index finger halfway to your face.

However, after several gruelling hours and unproductive days, you realised that it was in both your best interests to simply pretend like you got along. And it worked.

You watched with bated breath as James glided across the ice, parroting the moves you’d shown him earlier. Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, turn, and repeat. Since you’d given him your begrudging, hard-handed guidance, he’d become more graceful in his skating, more careful in his movements. He no longer moved with the tact of a baby elephant, and he’d even gotten better at handling his puck, though you had nothing in particular to do with that.

James looked back at you from over his shoulder, eyes expectant and awaiting your praise. “How’s this? Am I doing it?”

Manoeuvring your soft expression into a manner of nonchalance, you leaned your arms against the barrier, shrugging your shoulders. Your leg raised behind you in a subconscious movement, a stretching exercise Peiling had drilled into you so effectively that you did it without thinking. “You’re getting there,” you admitted, watching as he perfected the exercises you’d told him to work on in his downtime.

James’ face fell to an unimpressed scowl at the impartial remark, but he could easily fool himself into thinking he saw, if just for a moment, a glimmer of pride in your eyes when he first turned to you. It was a quick, fleeting look you’d given him when you thought he couldn’t see, but he caught on. He always did. After all, he was a defenceman. He needed to keep a keen eye. 

And before you fell apart, Chao Yufan showed you a part of him that he hadn’t shown anyone else.

“You know, it’s kind of difficult to believe you don’t like Yufan.”

Those were the first words that your senior and longtime comrade spoke to you since returning from a training camp in China.

Lin Shihan was one of the most renowned Taiwanese figure skaters in the world of winter sports, Peiling’s first prodigy and, most importantly, the girl you’d been calling ‘big sister’ for as long as you could remember. She entered the rink with a look on her face, because that seemed to be the way everyone you knew was greeting you these days, and crossed her arms over her chest. She was dressed in her civvies, a stark contrast to your fitted black training gear—tights, skirt, top, leg warmers and all—her hair done up in its usual tight bun.

She’d met James in passing a few times, even though their schedules almost never overlapped. The interactions had been friendly enough, from what you could deduct. All you knew she thought of him was that he had too much attitude and that she refused to call him James on account of being older than him. Not that she had any knowledge of your dynamic, much less persuasions or opinions of it.

You turned to her with wide eyes, because you were used to her greeting you with a little more than a wild accusation that you liked your training buddy. Usually she gave you a, “Hey, how was your week?” Sometimes you were even lucky enough to get, “I missed you while I was gone.” Not today, it seemed.

“What… is that supposed to mean?” you asked dumbly. 

“Oh, don’t play dumb with me,” she scoffed, motioning for you to skate closer. You did, stopping only a few centimetres short of where she stood, leaning your elbows against the barrier as you came closer for some serious girl talk, because that’s what her expression told you you were in for. She quirked a brow, as if challenging you to tell her differently from what she believed. “I’ve seen you two training together. You’re soooo yunlan.”

“Nuh-uh,” you scoffed petulantly. “Am not.”

“He definitely likes you,” she added quickly. Unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately, for her—you caught it. Her brown eyes shifted from somewhere in the middle distance to you, like she was trying to be nonchalant and failing on purpose, like people do in the movies when they want someone to realise something. And you did.

You gasped. “He does not!” 

“Say what you want,” she sang, “but the proof is all there.”

“He literally hates me,” you said, perhaps a bit dramatically. “We only train together because we need each other’s help, you know that. Outside of that, we practically never talk. And he’s always so rude to me! Remember that time he wanted to trip me just because he felt like it? That’s so not yunlan behaviour.”

She shrugged. “He’s pulling on your pigtails.”

You pointed an accusatory finger in her face. “You do not exist to plant doubt about my training buddy in my brain, okay? That is not your purpose in the plot.”

“I kind of do,” she said. “Isn’t that what big sisters are for? Making you doubt yourself? No,” she corrected herself, tilting her head. “That’s what coaches are for.” She turned back to you, smug. “I’m just here to annoy you.”

“Why are you even here to talk about James?” you whined. “You just came back from Harbin, and the first thing you do instead of telling me about the competition is tease me about a crush I don’t have.”

She sighed, rolling her eyes like you asking about her trip was the last thing she wanted to talk about. “Fine. What do you want to know about the trip? I went, I won. I remain the undefeated champion in Asia for women’s singles in the senior division.”

“Well… what was your hotel like?” you enquired innocently.

“Big.”

“And Harbin? What’s it like this time of year?” you tried again.

“Cold.”

You threw up your hands in a hopeless gesture. “You’re doing that on purpose!” you accused. “You’re trying to make me less interested in Harbin so you can bother me about my nonexistent crush on James. And don’t say it’s not nonexistent,” you said, catching her look. “Because it’s not. Not nonexistent. It’s not— it doesn’t exist.”

“Ugh, why are you so opposed to a little romance?” she asked. “You’re a teenager. Shouldn’t you be all over a cute older guy like him?”

“I’m not opposed to it,” you said. “It’s just not the most important thing to me right now.”

“And, what? Skating is?” Shihan shook her head. “You can’t live your whole life like that.”

An uncharacteristically solemn silence followed. 

You deflated, your posture growing sloppy where it once had been stilted, standing at attention. Her statement hung in the air, blunt and unsoftened by a joke or jest as it usually would’ve been. The air was cold, more so than before, and you felt the tips of your fingers beginning to numb.

You knew she was right. She hadn’t even affirmed her position outright; all she’d done was ask you a question and tell you that you couldn’t live your life a certain way. But you knew well enough what she meant—your whole life, short-lived as it had been until that point, could not revolve around one thing and one thing only. You were a teenager with all the time and opportunity in the world. Why didn’t you take a break every now and then?

You knew, and so did Shihan, that there was no such thing as a break when it came to this sport. Figure skaters started young, competed young, dominated young, and spent the rest of their lives either still competing or training other young ones. You started when you were five, competed from the age of ten, dominated from thirteen up until now, and would probably spend the rest of your life doing the same. 

You couldn’t—wouldn’t—start resting, kicking back, enjoying life now. Or ever, for that matter. You weren’t destined for a life of joy and relaxation. You were destined for greatness. And that came at the price of your childhood; a price you were already paying; a price you wouldn’t stop paying until you were standing on that first place podium at the Winter Olympics. Who cares what you wanted out of life? It wasn’t about you, or being yourself, but what you owed to everyone who helped you in getting to where you were now; too far along to be able to give up, too privileged to be able to complain about something as small as freedom.

“I know you think so,” you said, and she took careful note of your word choice. Then, mustering up a small smile, you added, “I’ll try to have some fun this year. How’s that sound?”

Good enough for me, her expression seemed to say. Keenly looking into your doleful eyes, your empty smile. You tried. You really did. You tried to be positive for her. But she knew, she’d been where you were. She was where you were. There was no positivity for anyone or anything that did not get you to where you needed to be, which was in first place. You wouldn’t let anything get in your way. Not friends, not family, not cram school, and certainly not a boy.

Though, in hindsight, you didn’t much mind letting James get in your way, did you?

The city of Taipei was busiest at night, when the streets were filled with people and the night sky was lit up by street lamps and neon signs. Marketplaces were especially crowded, with tourists and locals alike bumping elbows to try and get to their favourite stalls, nainais and ahyis yelling to be heard over the hustle and bustle of the vendors. You steered James through the teeming streets, his bigger hand fitting snugly in yours as you tried to locate the stall you’d been telling him about all week. You moved with the purpose of a girl on a mission, ready to prove yourself correct.

It all started one afternoon after training, when Peiling and James’ coach, Chen Yuhsuan—a man in his forties who seemed to have an oddly extensive, tense history with your own coach—had let you go for the day and you were left to your own devices. It had become something of a routine for the two of you to get lunch together, at a small place just a hop, skip and a jump away from the train station you parted ways at in the evenings, when it was high time for you to return home. You’d been sitting across from him at your usual table, a low, rickety wooden thing that cramped your legs together, making your knees knock each other’s, when James had casually mentioned being a street food connoisseur, and that, in his highest opinion, you were wrong about which street food was the best.

“I’m sorry?” you’d said, pitch picking up at the end as an indication of incredulous question. “What do you mean gua bao isn’t the reigning champ of Asian street food?”

“I mean just that,” he replied, taking a nonchalant spoonful of his congee. “Pad kee mao is undoubtedly the best of the best. You’ll never get anything better, like—” he shrugged, as if the truth were out of his hands— “anywhere.”

“Okay, that… is just objectively wrong,” you said. “Gua bao is a classic that no food in the world can compare to. That’s just a fact.”

He pouted, as if sympathetic. “I can’t blame you for thinking that way. Taiwan doesn’t have the best Thai cuisine, so you’ve probably never tasted pad kee mao in its native excellence. You’ve only got a limited scope of the best food in the world.”

You scowled, jabbing your chopsticks threateningly in his direction. “Don’t speak so definitively, prettyboy. Soon enough, you’ll be proven wrong.”

He raised a singular, dark brow. “Oh, yeah? How so?”

“I’ll take you to the best gua bao spot in Taiwan,” you promised. “Next week, after practice, at this night market by the station.”

He leaned back in his seat, the tips of his fingers playing with the rim of his glass, the plum-coloured and flavoured drink casting a pinkish glow over his hand, smiling in amusement. “…Fine. It’s a date.”

You’d balked. “It is?”

He tilted his head. “If you’d like for it to be.”

Which brought you here, a week later, on your not-a-date date, ready to prove him wrong and change his perspective on the world and food as he knew it.

You found the stall easily enough, if not for its bright lighting and in-your-face advertising, then certainly for the heavenly smell of braised pork belly and fluffy white steamed bread. You let go of James’ hand, showing it off with a flourish and a tada~! he seemed to find adorable. He glanced blankly up at the sign, the warm lights from the overhead lanterns casting a white glow over his glasses, like a character from those mangas he read religiously.

He didn’t say anything as you ordered two of your usual, the classic, the timeless, the unforgettable gua bao as made by Nainai Chen, who’d been making them the same way since before either of you were born. You waited with thinly-veiled anticipation threatening to spill over at even the slightest indication from James’ side that he was anything other than neutral towards what was happening in front of him. A small part of you hoped he knew you’d never done something like this for anyone before. Taken someone out to one of your favourite stalls, the place you kept hidden away from everyone you knew for fear that they would make it their own place.

Yeah. You gatekept your favourite things. So what?

A bigger, more rational part of you knew he probably just thought of this as a friendly outing. A platonic hangout with his younger friend whom he terrorised sometimes. He’d joked about it being a date, but, of course, that’s all it had been—a joke. James Chao was a professional joker, no one to take seriously. Sure, he made jokes, and sure, he was handsome in his own unique way… with nice hair, and tanned skin, and plump lips that were accentuated out by his adorable yet very faint overbite. Why were you thinking of him romantically, again? You weren’t. Didn’t. You didn’t.

Once she finished wrapping up your food, you gave Nainai Chen a grateful bow, paying her several dollars more than you were supposed to, like you always did. She’d learnt to stop refusing your extra money, merely taking it with a kind smile on her weathered face. 

You turned to James with your hand already outstretched. He accepted his bao, and you waited in trembling anticipation for his final verdict as he took his first bite. And then his second. And his third. And his—

You threw up your hands, starting, “Oh, come on—!”

“It’s good,” he nodded, chewing thoughtfully. Then, noticing your look, he grinned. “Still not better than pad kee mao, though.”

You deadpanned. “You’re kidding.”

“I maintain that you just haven’t had good drunken noodles yet,” James asserted, while you took an angry bite of your gua bao. “I’ll take you for some proper ones sometime. Promise.”

“Thought you said Taiwan doesn’t do Thai cuisine justice,” you pointed out. “You gonna book us tickets to Bangkok after playoffs, or something?”

“I actually know someone who makes pretty good pad kee mao in Taipei,” he said. He glanced at you, catching onto your questioning look, and said simply, “Mama Chao.”

Your eyes widened. “Your mom?”

“Yep. She’s no chef, but you wouldn’t know that if you only knew her from her cooking. She makes some of the best noodles this side of the world,” he boasted, while you were still trying to process the fact that he wanted you to meet his mother and, by extension, his father, as well.

Meeting the parents had never been such a big deal between friends, so the fact that you were freaking out was perhaps a bit dramatic. But it was different for pairings like you and James. Girls and boys. Even if you were friends, strictly and only ever friends, there’d still always be that added element your biological differences brought to the equation. People still expected most friendships like yours to end in romance, especially parents. What would they think when James brought you home, the girl he’d been training with since November? And for dinner, no less?

He didn’t mention his mother again that night. Not after you drifted from Nainai Chen’s legendary gu bao stall, nor when you walked further into the marketplace in search of something sweet. Not after you’d given up halfway through your mission and opted for convenience store ice cream, nor when you took a seat at a bus stop situated under the stars.

He did say something else, though. When you were halfway through your caramel-flavoured treat, your lips swollen from the chill and covered in sugar, his voice, softer than usual, rang through the air like church bells.

“Why did you agree to be my training buddy?”

You turned to him. You’d been waiting for the moment he’d ask that inevitable question, for the day those words left his plush lips. 

“Hockey players always have something to learn from you guys,” he continued, “but figure skaters… you were already talented enough. So why did you even… I don’t know. Why’d you even give me the time of day?”

You squinted up at the moon, bright and pale and silently basking in its glow. “Why did you ask me if you could give me pointers?”

“Honest?” You nodded, and he said, “Because I didn’t know how else to catch or keep your attention.” His eyes flicked to yours, and briefly, swept over your lips. “I dunno if you’ve noticed, but I’m pretty bad at making friends.”

You smiled softly, exhaling through your nose. Not a laugh, not nothing. “Honest?” He nodded, and you said, “Because I wasn’t sure of myself. I mean, I know it sounds stupid. A figure skater not being confident in herself. Crazy, right?”

“Not crazy,” he said softly. “Stupid, maybe. But not crazy.”

You sighed. “Yeah, well.” A grin picked at your mouth. “I know how to do everything. I know how to throw my weight around and to twirl seventy times without puking. But after a while, doing the same routine— the same moves, to the same music, in the same glittery tutu… it gets old, and I lose myself a little bit. When you came around, I’d been in a slump for months. I was consistently placing second in all my competitions, and nothing I did could fix it.”

You remembered when you’d first told Peiling about your plan, she took it surprisingly well. In fact, she—and don’t fall out of your chair when I say this—agreed with what you suggested.

You’d been standing across from her on the ice before one of your usual training sessions, hands floating through the air as you gesticulated, when she nodded in understanding. “Cross-training isn’t too out of the ordinary,” she mentioned, laying a thoughtful hand on her hip. “It’s usually hockey players that train like figure skaters to improve their skating skills, but it’s not unheard of to go the other way around. I didn’t suggest it to you because you’d been performing perfectly until now. Though after Beijing…”

She tilted her head, her face already telling you before she even needed to say a word.

Coming in second wasn’t bad in itself. Silvers were better than nothing in any sport. However, when you went from winning gold at every competition to consistently placing second as you supposedly progressed, well, that was a different story altogether.  You knew you were gold medal material; you knew you had the makings of a star in you. That’s what made your silver medals so humiliating. You were so close, you came so close, to winning every competition you qualified for, but you lacked that little bit that separated you from proper winners.

And you couldn’t have that, not for one second.

You tried to ignore the sinking feeling in your gut at her words, wringing your hands in anticipation. “So… would it be possible for us to train together?”

Her face softened. “Of course. We’ll just need to get his coach’s contact details, and set up a training schedule that doesn’t interfere with either of your plans during the week. After that, we can get down to the specifics of what you need to improve on, and what he can learn from you.”

“I didn’t need to improve,” you said. “But I needed inspiration again. And you…”

“I’d suggest that we switch out Tchaikovsky for some Arctic Monkeys, maybe?”

“Mm. How about you try that one combination… the spinny one and the one that has something to do with toes? Like you did that other time.”

“Let’s just throw shit around and see what sticks, okay?”

You chuckled. “You helped a lot.”

“Oh, yeah?” Yufan grinned. “I’m an inspiration to you, huh?”

“Shut up,” you murmured, shoving his shoulder. But you didn’t say no.

The sound of your skates gliding against the ice filled the air as you and Yufan did a few laps around the rink, legs moving languidly behind you, your gaze trained over your shoulder to see where you were going.

“Remember to keep those knees bent!” you called, turning to look in front of you where Yufan was very earnestly focusing on your command, easily dropping lower on his knees, switching more weight onto the outer edges of his skates as you rounded a corner.

“You know, I find it very interesting how, in the three weeks we’ve trained together, you haven’t once picked up a hockey stick,” he said. “Except for that time you hit me with one.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, running a hand over your warming face. “I told you I was sorry about that.”

“I deserved it,” he conceded. “But that’s not my point. I’ve been learning all these fancy figure skating moves—and for a good reason, of course… I just— I’d like to… I dunno.” He sped up, inner edges taking the brunt of the acceleration. “I’d like to maybe, if you’d like, teach you sometime.”

You smiled as he stuttered his way through the proposal. “What, to play ice hockey?”

“Or roller hockey,” he added, shrugging. “Whichever one you’re more interested in.”

“I’m not really interested in either of them, if I’m gonna be honest with you,” you said. “The idea of me playing hockey sounds terrifying. I’d, like, take someone’s eye out.”

“It would probably be mine,” Yufan said. “And I wouldn’t be opposed to that. It gets me one step closer to my true dream: being a pirate.”

You shook your head, fitting in a quick toe loop before gliding to a halt. “You’ve got your heart set on this, don’t you?”

He stopped in front of you, only a metre and a bit between your bodies. “As a matter of fact, I do, yeah.”

Ever since that night at the marketplace, Yufan had been acting differently. Not oddly, per se—or, perhaps, any more odd than he did usually—but not close to normal, either. He’d been friendlier, softer, uncharacteristically gentle towards you. He gave you nothing but encouraging smiles and sure words, it almost made you suspicious. And, God, the way he looked at you… with such tenderness, with affection so unlike him. It made your knees weak in all the best and worst ways.

You narrowed your eyes then, your suspicion finally reaching its boiling point when he gave you another one of those damn smiles. “Okay, what is it with you, these days? You’re all cheesy, and now you’re suddenly asking me if I want to learn hockey from you? What’s wrong? Are you dying, or something?”

He scoffed. “No. I— I just…” Hanging his head, he gave a tiny, adorable sigh. “Can’t a guy ask a pretty girl out?”

“Well, yeah, but— wait, what?”

“You heard me.”

You stared at him. Hard and long. “Yeah, I did. Clear as damn day. What I’m asking is, like— are you sure? Are you sure you have the right girl?”

He tapped his chin, his gaze turning heavenwards as he pretended to think. All the while, he floated closer to you, his warmth entering your sphere. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I do.”

“You… want to take me out,” you said.

“That’s the gist of it, yeah,” he replied.

“Is that allowed?”

He snorted. “What?”

“Like— I don’t know.” You made a vague shape in the air with your free hand, the other coming up to press against your hip, the aching joint throbbing beneath your palm. “I just— I don’t know! You’re asking me out and you’re standing right there and you’re, like, really pretty and you’re making me nervous!”

He frowned. “Sorry,” he apologised, though you could see the faintest hint of a smile creeping through his expression. “I mean, it’s a pretty easy question to answer. Just— say yes or no.”

You glanced at him, and for a moment, caught in his expression the slightest bit of hesitation. That’s when you realised this was as much of a risk for him as it was a surprise for you. And that made deciding just a little bit easier.

“I, um… I’d love to play out hockey with you.” Your eyes widened. “I— What I mean to say is that I’d love to take you out for hockey. Or you— I’d love for you to take me out to play hockey… Jeez! Sorry. I don’t know what happened there.”

That got a laugh out of him, breaking the bright beam he’d worn the entire time you stuttered through your acceptance. “It’s fine. I understood you the first time.”

You smiled breathlessly. 

And that was all Yufan needed.

You didn’t play hockey for your first date. Or your second. Or third, or… any of them. In fact, you didn’t even near the ice until you became familiar enough with one another to know your something unnamed had become something quietly expected. Something implied.

He promised to take it slow with you, not only because neither of you had ever been in a relationship before, but because you had so many external engagements that, well, proper dating wasn’t exactly an option just yet. One of these many engagements, of course, was game season.

Out of all the winter sports, ice hockey was reputed as being one of the most invigorating amongst athletes, and once you started going to Yufan’s games, you understood why. The rink was cold, filled to the brim with people sitting in the stands, cheering as the players swept across the ice, blurs of blue and red and black and yellow. The air was alight with the glimmering of ice shavings from how quickly the players raced over the ice, like glitter under the harsh lights.

You sat back in your uncomfortable plastic seat, knees to your chest as you watched with a keen eye what occurred only a few metres below you. Yufan rushed along the ice, no more than a smudge of colour. Yet you spotted him as if it were second nature, eyes catching onto the bright lettering on the back of his jersey. Taipei Polar Bears. Number 16.

Despite having played it a few times, you weren’t one hundred percent sure how ice hockey worked. Or, honestly, even ten percent. Zero would be the closest estimate, in this scenario. Your eyes flicked continuously from the rink to your phone screen, which was open on a Wikipedia page on the rules and play-by-play of ice hockey, for whenever the announcers spewed some nonsense over the intercom like,

“Our local Taipei Polar Bears are far behind at only three points midway, while Les Champions de Marseille stay true to their names and dominate with double that.”

I won’t go too in-depth into what happened in the game, not only because you weren’t a hockey player and therefore had no idea what was going on, but because I, the author, have even less idea of what was going on.

Long story short, things happened, good and bad. Yufan whizzed past other players, stole the puck from them, did everything in his power to stop the other team from scoring. From what you heard, defencemen could have either constant or nonexistent contribution to scoring; Yufan seemed to be somewhere in the middle, switching between offensive and defensive play dependent on what he deemed necessary in that particular moment. All you could do was watch, perhaps with small hearts thumping where your irises would’ve been, perhaps not.

Players pushed each other into the barrier, the audience yelled obscenities, and so went the spirit of ice hockey. For all your lack of knowledge on the game, you could feel that there was an undeniable tension in the air. The team’s captain and Coach Chen seemed to be butting heads every other intermission, while things escalated between the two teams. The French skaters seemed to think significantly less of the Polar Bears, and it was clear in how they spoke of them to the referee. Every now and then they’d skate over to the short, weathered man, and rapid fire what looked to be enraged French when a mistake had been made on the referee’s side. Even the translator didn’t look happy.

If this game had a soundtrack, the song to set the scene playing out in front of you probably would’ve been something off of Verdi’s Requiem. Skaters yelling expletives at one another, pushing each other against the barriers, blood spattering the ice as those with authority tried to keep things civil to no avail. Pucks being chucked from one end of the ice to the other, sticks breaking, skates skidding. 

Two of the Polar Bears’ forwards had turned to one another, yelling something about the centre focusing too much on flair and too little on actual play, exchanging curses back and forth in Mandarin and Hokkien. Yufan stood between them, hands braced on both of their chests, holding them apart with growing annoyance. He said something, the words too soft to travel across the ice and through the chaos, but they didn’t let up in their argument, skating away while pointing fingers at one another.

You’d asked Peiling what to expect of a game of ice hockey, and she’d told you to prepare yourself for anything. You wondered how she knew, why her eyes became misty when she said, “All I can tell you from the hockey games I’ve been to…” Regardless of her past with the sport, she was right. You had to prepare yourself for anything. The only downside?

You hadn’t. 

You sucked in a sharp breath as the intermission was over, and the game was on again. Something about sitting there in the stands, surrounded by strangers who shared your interest and perhaps misguided passion in ice hockey—it invigorated you. And something about watching Yufan as he rushed across the ice, skating with the finesse of a professional dancer, made your heart thump harder than you thought possible.

After the game, you found Yufan at the entrance of the teams’ locker rooms, sweaty and breathless and starry-eyed like no other. You caught each other’s eyes across the hall, people passing by you in a haze, and you asked a silent question. Shall we? And he nodded without hesitation.

One of your many after-game rituals was going out for hotpot at one of your regular spots. No parents, no friends, no teammates. Just the two of you. It was something that had begun as a way to connect when you started training together, and it had just stuck and stayed strong till now. He sat across from you in the crowded restaurant, fingers deftly clasped around his chopsticks as he ate. He said nothing; you knew he wouldn’t, not for the first few minutes. It always took him a moment to regain his breath, get his brain out of the game and back to you.

“You did well out there,” you spoke into the silence, over the sound of the bubbling soup between you.

He glanced at you, hooded eyes clear in their question, in their understanding. “Even when we lost six-four?”

You shrugged. “I don’t care about any of that. All I care about is how good you did for yourself in the game, and… you did.”

A nod from his side, eyes set in a pensive stare. He’d confided in you before that this particular season had been hard on the team, what with all their consistent losses and all the fights that broke out amongst them. You thought, maybe, that he was in a similar position to you a few months ago. Coming so close to victory, the tips of your fingers brushing a gold trophy, and making it just not far enough.

It affected him; at the very least, his morale when playing. And you, noticing as you did everything, tried to lighten up the mood whenever he started brooding.

“And don’t call me ‘Ice Queen’. It’s stupid.”

Yufan smiled. “Nice to know you see my solo potential in a team sport.” He adjusted his posture, sitting further back in his chair. “What else am I supposed to call you, then? Would you like to be demoted to ‘Ice Princess’?”

You scoffed softly. “I’d just like it if you called me something normal guys called their…” You paused, because your words had, for lack of a better term, utterly failed you. What were you? Were you boyfriend and girlfriend? Were you training buddies who went on dates? Were you too young to try and label whatever romantically-charged relationship you had with a boy who was how many years your senior?

He quirked a brow. “…Girlfriend?” he wondered gently, doing nothing to hide his amusement at your hesitation. “You seem like you’d be my girlfriend by now.”

You tilted your head. “Oh, yeah?”

“Uh-huh. I don’t go on dates with just anyone.”

You pretended to give the statement an ounce of thought, when in reality, you’d be thinking about those nine words for years to come. “Well, then, what would you call your girlfriend?”

He mimicked your expression, cocking his head to the side as if in thought. “Lots of things. Pretty girl, for one. Babe. Stupid… Ice Queen.”

“No fair! You’re not allowed to reuse shit ones just ‘cause you think it’s funny to make me mad!”

He laughed this time, loud and true, the sound bursting through the thick air that hung between you. It was a nice thing to hear; a rare thing to witness. Chao Yufan was not someone who laughed easily—he was too serious for that. Or so he would like to have you believe. You knew, though. You felt it. There was something in you that told you he was happier than he let on.

You didn’t know then not to trust that fickle, unreliable something. 

Yufan was three things when he was in love. 

First, he was gentle. All soft smiles and laughs you could barely hear over the chatter of whatever place you’d found yourselves in. He placed loving hands on your face when he squeezed your cheeks between his fingers, murmuring something about how you looked like a flower, in that voice reserved for you, and only you.

He still teased you, of course. That seemed to be something he would never be able to let up. His childishness; his mischievous nature. It was unrelenting in its intensity and recurrence, neverending tongue-in-cheek comments meant anywhere between endearing and straight up mocking.

One afternoon, you’d been sitting together on the pavement outside his family home, arms tucked under your legs as you waited for either one of you to gain the confidence to say it was time for you to go home. Time for you to part, time for you to say goodbye, to say, “Until next time.”

The sun had already begun to set, sunk below the high rises and apartment buildings dotting the city, yet the air was alight with activity, with sound, with sights. It was as if Taipei itself was telling you, Not yet. Taunting, Look, I’m still awake. What reason is there for you to leave now?

Yufan looked at you, if he hadn’t already been looking. You sat next to him, eyes fixed on something in front of you, something he couldn’t see, bathed in the glow of the setting sun. Hues of purple and pink and orange and red covered the patchy, imperfect surface of your skin, your silver jewellery glinting like stars next to your full cheeks. You were so pretty, like something straight out of an old film. That, he decided, was a face worth pining for. And he did, quietly, whenever you weren’t looking, weren’t listening as intently as you always did. Weren’t ready to ruin the moment with your stupid humour, your unnecessary little quips.

Like now, when you noticed him staring, and a wide, shit-eating grin spread across your plump lips. “What’re you looking at?” you asked, accent exaggerated like those cute girls in dramas from the Mainland.

He rolled his eyes, because he’d been caught out. Again. Said, “Not you, that’s for sure,” because he had no other appropriate response. Because he was a teenager who wasn’t used to the feelings swirling in his heart at that moment, and being cruel is easier than being honest.

You stuck your tongue out at him, blowing a raspberry while your eyes screwed shut. “Boo, you ass.”

He mimicked your expression, giving you a light shove with his weaker hand. The one that wouldn’t be able to pack as much of a punch as it usually would’ve, because he’d hurt it trying to show you a cool trick with his hockey stick earlier. “You’re so much prettier when you shut that big mouth of yours.”

And you smiled, because you knew, or you thought, beneath all those layers of defensiveness and snippy jokes, Yufan really did like you. After all, what else would he keep you around for?

Second, he was reverent. Not a day went by where he didn’t admire your skill, or your tact, or your beauty, or that little scar you had on your cheek from when you fell on your face as a toddler, and didn’t make it completely obvious to everyone around him. As a rising star in the sports world, he was meant to keep his personal life secret, yet when it came to you, he couldn’t be bothered to hide what people insisted needed to be hidden.

Whenever you completed a trick, a well-placed Axel or something close to it, he’d skate over to you with his mouth hanging open in exaggerated awe; whenever you were walking next to him and he got a glimpse of you standing in a certain light, the shadows and contours of your body displayed just right; whenever you helped him with his stupid twelfth grade homework, explained functions to him like you were the older one—scenes and moments where all he could really do was lean back, drink you in, and say, “You’re amazing.”

Like when he tried to teach you how to play hockey on ice, and you skated circles around him. Granted, he was going easier on you than he would normal beginners, but you still played like you’d been in the game longer than him.

The rink was dark, only the harsh glow from the overhead lights rendering you sight. Music drifted from the speakers, something you’d picked out, or perhaps something you’d forced Yufan to listen to that he just got used to and started loving the way he loved you. Steadily, patiently, neverendingly. You swept past him, holding his stick—his newest one, the one that he hadn’t had to tape back together for this game, like the one he was playing with—in your hands as you dealt with the puck, shuffling it over the icy surface beneath your feet with grace, speed that he assumed came from your many years of training.

“Aaannnddd here she comes, the Polar Bears’ newest addition, sweeping the opposition off their feet with her mad skills!” you narrated, head down, trained on the puck. “She crosses over the, uh… the blue line, and passes by the opposing team’s very handsome defencemen before she comes to the goal to shoot—” you reared your stick back, the flat coming down to strike the puck straight into the open, unattended goal— “and score!”

Yufan watched as you skated around the rink, pumping your fists in the air and whisper-shouting praises to yourself, playing as the crowd, with sound effects and all. If, like the cartoons, there could’ve been hearts in his eyes, there would’ve been. “You’re doing so well, pretty girl,” he praised. “You’re basically a pro already.”

“I know that’s right,” you gloated, trying—and failing—to do a dorky little victory dance that made you look incredibly stupid. Really, genuinely like an idiot.

And Yufan loved every second of it.

Third, he was kind. Not just to you, or to his friends, but to everyone he felt, and even didn’t feel, deserved it. His family—the Chaos—were all kind, inviting people, enough so that you could pinpoint exactly where Yufan had gotten in from. Kind, in the sense that they were accepting of you, their son’s very different, very eccentric girlfriend. Kind, in the sense that they treated you as though you were one of their own, already married into the family. Kind, in the sense that it made your heart ache to wonder why such a family, such a boy, would ever have to struggle.

He introduced you to his family shortly after officially asking you to be his girlfriend. It was rather in order for him to, given the fact that you’d nearly crossed paths with them at the games of his you’d gone to. Your first meeting had been unexpected, because they’d anticipated for him to bring home a local girl, born and bred in Taipei with her own traditions and opinions to counter their own. What they hadn’t expected was you, just as local, with just as many traditions, but something that bound you to them in a way no one else would truly understand. Your bond, of foreigners who’d found their home, who’d lived their lives in it, yet felt like outsiders, felt like they had more to prove than was truly necessary.

Yufan was a lot like his mom, you realised one night, the first night he’d invited you over for dinner at his house. It was a small, cozy place, really only enough for three people, the architecture reminiscent of old-school Japanese homes with their sliding doors and cool wooden floors. You all sat around the dinner table, plates stacked up with all the different delights Yufan’s parents had made in preparation for your arrival—from his father’s side, dishes like beef brisket noodles, and his mother’s side, dishes like tom yum soup, and her famed pad kee mao.

She was Thai, you’d been told, and spoke with the sweetest accent curling around her words. Don’t be mistaken, she spoke rapid fire Mandarin while conversing with her husband, but there was something undeniably gentle, perhaps hesitant about the way she spoke, the way she enunciated. You wondered if you sounded like that to other people. She insisted that you just call her Mama, because, in her words, “Yufan probably won’t bring home another girl since we already like you so much.” However the comment terrified you, it was just as flattering.

Your boyfriend and his mother shared a sense of humour, loud and obvious where his father preferred to stay silent, and smile in gentle amusement. They spoke a lot—really, you thought that maybe you got in five or so words that night—and never ran out of things to comment on. It was like watching a real-life variety show. 

They also shared a temperament, it seemed, their patience something fickle and short that could run out at any moment, and their gentleness neverending, not even when their partners were annoying the living daylights of them. The kind of temperament that had him flicking your temple after you’d said something stupid, that had his mother chiding her husband for his attitude. The kind of temperament that made him help you up from your seat and open doors for you, that had his mother taking her husband’s dishes and calling him handsome out of nowhere. The kind of temperament that made her expose his deepest secrets to you while priding himself on doing the same to you.

“You know, darling,” Mama began, turning to face you, “Yufan told us all about you before you even started dating.”

Your boyfriend’s face dropped, fell slack in shock. Conversely, a smile crept its way onto your face, and you looked at Mama Chao with newfound interest. “Oh, really?” you prompted, wanting nothing than to hear more about it.

She nodded sweetly, though you could see that familiar glimmer of mischief in her eyes, the one you so often saw in Yufan’s. “Oh, yes. I think it was in December, wasn’t it? that he came home with stories about you. I could imagine that he’s been rather taken with you since then.”

Yufan tried, “I wouldn’t exactly say—”

“I would,” his father spoke up, the first thing he’d said in ages. “I could see it in your eyes.”

Yufan, like his family, was kind in love, but incredibly, unrelentingly teasing all the same.

Once the new year rolled around, it was far more difficult to follow Shihan’s well-meaning advice and have fun. Not only because you had newfound obligations to your family, but because you had old obligations to your passion, old obligations that you’d put on the back burner since deciding that having fun was more important than committing to something that had cost your parents a fortune to finance.

Practice would need to become an even more regular feature in your daily life than it already had been. That meant no more cram school, and no more joint training sessions with Yufan. You’d have to commit, mind, body, and soul to this sport, to figure skating, or you’d have lost your window for everything. You’d go to competitions, and dominate as you had before, and that left little to no space for a social life.

When you first told him this, he was disappointed. Predictably so, because no teen boy liked having to spend less time with their girlfriend, especially one as dedicated to you as Yufan was. He didn’t talk to you for a few days following the announcement, but you didn’t really have time to coddle him into forgiving you. It was a harsh thought, but if Yufan wanted to end everything you had over something like this, he could go ahead and do it. You didn’t have time to stop him.

You went on a training camp in China without so much as a goodbye to him while he, similarly, travelled to Hong Kong with his team without looking back. After all, you had more important commitments now. Did this mean you wanted to break up? No. But if he was going to be a child about it, there was no need for you to be your usual understanding self (which has been hiding where, exactly?) and try to make amends.

You lasted precisely five days before you caved and called him. It had been a particularly rough day, with yours and the other skaters’ coaches having been unforgiving in their routines; you’d been up hellish heights in roller skates, done laps upon laps around the facility’s rink, and been pushed onto the ice in soccer cleats for whatever nonsense reason they could give you, probably something to do with strengthening your balance on the ice. Tensions had run high between the local and Taiwanese skaters, with you and your peers choosing to spend your evening hiding away in your shared dorms while the locals went and played a game of hockey in the rink… which was what led you to think of Yufan, and be unable to stop thinking of him until the next thing you knew, you were dialling his number and staring at your own reflection in the outgoing video call.

Yufan lasted approximately five seconds before he caved and answered your call. Like you, he’d been sentenced to two weeks of training hell, the likes of which were incomparable to even the worst torture anyone could survive. Mostly because he didn’t survive; not really, not when every one of his limbs ached and his joints screamed whenever he moved too quickly. 

His face appeared on your screen like a blessing from the heavens, and all you could do was stare into his dark brown eyes too embarrassed to say anything. His hair had gotten a bit longer since you’d last seen him, his face a bit more mature. Oh, who were you kidding? He looked exactly the same, you were just being dramatic again. He was still your Yufan, all smooth, tanned skin, and plump, pink lips that you desperately wished you’d could kiss.

When you looked deep into his eyes, looked past the droopy, hooded lids, and the feigned indifference, you could see the same embarrassment you felt. But he still spoke first. “Hi, pretty girl.”

The sound of his voice, light and airy like you hadn’t heard in nearly a week, would’ve made your knees buckle if you hadn’t been sitting cross-legged on your bed, lifted a weight you hadn’t realised was resting on your shoulders until it dissipated. Like tension resolved without words. Like wounds eased with the wind. He still liked you. He still called you his pretty girl. He didn’t hate you. 

“Hi, Yufan,” you said. Stupid, stupid you. Could you not come up with something better than that? ‘Hi’?! “How… how’s the training camp been?”

He nodded imperceptibly. “Fine. Or, well— no. Not fine. I hurt myself pretty bad during a scrimmage a while ago. But it’s whatever,” he dismissed. You noticed a bruise on his neck, and on his shoulder, where his loose sleeping shirt exposed the skin. “How’s it been in China?”

“Oh.” You gave him a meek shrug. “Not too bad. There are, um… some political tensions rising, but that’s about it.”

He managed a snicker. “Oh, yeah? The coaches fighting about the same old stuff?”

“Yep.” You smiled softly. Yufan thought you looked really pretty when you did that.

“…I saw you guys at the airport before we left,” he told you, ducking his head to avoid your gaze. His nose scrunched, and he added, “I wanted to say goodbye to you.”

Your face fell. “Oh. I’m— you could’ve, if you really wanted to. I would’ve let you.”

“No, it’s fine,” he assured you. “You needed your time to cool off. It just reminded me a little why I hate airports.”

“You do?” Still?

“Yeah.”

This was a conversation you’d had before, the feeling airports gave you. It first came up while you were laying together on the floor of your bedroom, staring at the glow in the dark stars pressed into the ceiling. You loved airports, because it meant you got to go somewhere new. Got to explore, got to see new places and learn new things. Yufan hated them, because,

“It reminds me that the people I love are leaving,” he said. “That… that I won’t be able to see them until they come back. Like my mom, when she goes to visit family in Thailand and I can’t come along. My dad, when he goes to Hong Kong for business and doesn’t come back for a month.” He paused, then, “Like you, when you go to Beijing or Seoul for competitions and I’m not sure when I’ll see you next.”

You sighed, the action more of a sad, rueful exhale. “Oh, Yufan…”

Another pause. Yufan looked into his phone camera, eyes on you still. You couldn’t detect any malice in his stare. Then, why would there be any? “Listen, pretty… I’m sorry about last week,” his soft voice came over the speaker. “About how I acted. That— it was stupid. I shouldn’t have behaved like that. It’s… your career is important. More important than I am.”

You frowned, your brow creasing as your heart ached. You were young, too young to be having these sorts of conversations. Too young to be talking of careers, of your importance in each other’s lives. You both understood that there was nothing to be done about it, but just for a moment, you had the fleeting thought that it wasn’t fair.

Fair. What an odd word to use, to try and define. Nothing was fair. Ever.

“That’s not true,” you said, “and you know it. I’ll always have time for you.” You wouldn’t. “If I don’t, I’ll make time.” Wrong again. 

He smiled gently. “It’s alright, stupid.” It wasn’t. “I know why you need to focus more these days. I can wait.” He couldn’t. “Or, maybe… I could help you out a little?” When you raised a sceptical brow, he eagerly continued, “We don’t do cross-training anymore, which I get, but what if I help you with your routines, and stuff? I could help you practice choreography, and you wouldn’t need to do everything alone. I— the hockey season’s quieting down, anyway, so I’ll have plenty of free time.”

You paused. “You wouldn’t mind doing that for me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Baby, do I ever?”

You found yourself smiling, uncontrollable only in the fact that you physically couldn’t help reacting to his words the way you did. Couldn’t help accepting his proposal, missing the way the light in his eyes dimmed with every word, missing the way his smile seemed pained where yours wasn’t. Missing the way he looked at you, like you were something he’d already lost.

There were many technicalities that came with being a foreign athlete in Taiwan. There were many technicalities that came with being a foreign athlete anywhere, you were sure, but Taiwan was heart-piercingly clear in how it viewed non-natives. Though you could compete on an international scale, you were given a specific category to perform in. You didn’t represent Taiwan. You represented foreigners in Taiwan.

Which, considering the fact that you’d lived there for more than half of your life, considering the fact that you were a Taiwanese citizen, hurt. Especially considering the fact that there was little separating you from your local, same-aged peers besides a name that sounded a bit different, proportions that didn’t fit with what society deemed as appropriate for young girls your age.

It put you at odds with your friends, your fellow athletes; everyone you knew who trained the same way you did, did the same routines, faced the same struggles, but who could confidently say they represented their home country. Could you even say you had one, really, when you felt your birthplace was not yours to claim, and your home country separated you from its locals?

The Taiwan Figure Skating Championships were an annual competition that gathered several up and coming figure skaters to choose the lucky athlete that would represent Taiwan at the World Championships, and other such international competitions. It was an honour to any skater who entered to even make the top three, but that wasn’t what you were aiming for.

You’d entered your name with an intention, not hidden or concealed in any way. You’d filled out the application with confidence, confidence that they’d look at your portfolio, your history, your skill set, and consider you as one of the few options that would be able to compete. 

You’d sat at your desk at home, finger hovering over the email you’d received in the hours after you returned from cram school, filled with anticipation and fear and impending regret as you contemplated the results to come.

Did you even open the email? Did you brace yourself, for equal parts victory and failure, or did you just throw your hat in and leave it unopened, convinced you didn’t deserve a spot, anyway?

I mean, think about it this way. You’d been training for Nationals before registrations had even opened. Even before you’d met Yufan in Beijing all those months ago, you’d already choreographed and practiced both your short program and free skate. You’d spent all your time in the off-season following the previous Championships training, and exercising, and choreographing, and slaving away in that dark, lonely rink. All that time would, if you didn’t open the email and face your fate, be wasted.

But all that time would also, if you hadn’t been accepted, be wasted, anyway. So, how exactly were you supposed to choose what to do next?

It seemed you didn’t need to, because one of your parents would. You’d been sitting at your desk, your mother and your stepfather, Chihming, crouching anxiously behind you. Shihan and Peiling were waiting for you over the phone, and Yufan had already sent you his own words of encouragement.

雨 you’re going to do great, pretty girl

i just know it

After five minutes of you deliberating, procrastinating, prolonging—every word that could describe you doing everything in your power to avoid opening the email, the pressure seemed to become too much for Chihming, so he reached forward and took over. Predictably, chaos erupted. Your mother yelled for him to back off, while Peiling and Shihan screamed confused obscenities at the ruckus, and all you could do was smack a hand over your eyes so you wouldn’t have to face the inevitable rejection.

Silence. Then, Chihming tapped you on the shoulder. With great reluctance, you opened your fingers just that little bit to read the opening lines.

Dear athlete, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted to compete at the—

“Holy crap!” you exclaimed, your voice rising impossibly high.

Your mother, bless her soul, frowned in confusion. “What?”

Chihming pointed frantically at the screen. “Look!”

She deadpanned. “I can’t read that, peh bak.”

“Neither can we!” Peiling and Shihan chimed in.

“I got in,” you said quickly. Then, jumping up from your seat, effectively clearing the space as your mother and stepfather took a careful step back, “I got in! Oh, my GOD, I got in! I’m competing at Nationals! I’m gonna be a star!”

And that’s where things went south. 

Yufan was someone who was used to pretending that everything was fine when his life was falling apart. Perhaps it was an unfortunate side effect that came with being an only child to immigrants, always putting on a brave face for your parents in times of trouble, which later became putting on a brave face in front of friends, other family members, teammates, and eventually, your neurotic girlfriend. 

You’d been going at it for hours by the time he arrived at the rink to help you, just like he’d promised he would. You, however, were not supposed to have been busy when he came, and yet here you were, spent and not looking like you were going to give up whatever you were trying to perfect very soon. It was something he noticed when you trained together; your obsession with perfection, almost comparable to his.

Your approaches differed in two main ways. Where Yufan became unhealthily devoted to whichever task he’d set out to do, you threw yourself into the process blind, unsure of whether you’d emerge in one piece. Where he was cold and calculated, you were hot and reckless, not stopping until your limbs trembled and you couldn’t see straight. Both of you felt things intensely, but there was something about the way your emotions took hold of you, kept you in a vice, that Yufan couldn’t imagine feeling like that, ever.

From what he’d seen, though, it was your approach that got you places. Your sheer dedication not to routine, but to repetition was something to behold. If you couldn’t do something, you’d do it over and over and over again until the soles of your skates were stained with blood and you had no choice but to take a step back. Between the two of you, you were the one who consistently placed first in your competitions, you were the one who was on her way to Nationals. You weren’t the one who was tied to a shitty team and an even shittier self worth hiding behind layers of sarcasm and feigned charm. You were yourself, through and through.

And he wouldn’t be lying if he said he was a little jealous of it. Of you. Not in a predatory, competitive sense, in a way that meant he wanted exactly what you had, felt entitled to it. No, rather, in a way that had him wishing he had your confidence, your self-assurance in your skill. He didn’t have that, and it showed in his games.

Which is where the saving face came in. He’d come straight from a gruelling practice that had ended in Coach Chen asking him an impossible question, weathered face contorted with something like hopeless rage. Do you even want to be here? When you play like that, who could be able to tell that you’re passionate about all of this, and not just wasting our time?

But that didn’t matter. Not now, anyway, when he had you in front of him. You, his wonderful girlfriend, who was not afraid to get snippy with him, who hugged him whenever he got off the ice after a game, who said he was doing just fine for himself, and that that was all you really cared about. You, his talented girlfriend, who was on her way to Nationals, World Championships, and who knows what else, who was better than he was in any regard, who was leaving him behind in Taiwan to become an international star. Who deserved nothing less from the world.

You didn’t notice him at first, and he wasn’t surprised, with how lost you were in your own dark little world. Music blasted from the speakers—probably something from that one English indie band you never stopped talking about. Peiling was sitting in the stands, eyes narrowed as if in disapproval. Yufan knew her to be quite the strict coach; perhaps not as bad as Coach Chen, but certainly a nightmare in her own right. In her hands she held a clipboard, and when Yufan sat down next to her to pull on his skates, she angled it away from him. Not that he was planning on looking, but now that she’d hidden it, he felt his suspicion growing.

He knew she didn’t like him—for whatever reason, he wasn’t too sure. Maybe she didn’t like hockey players. Actually, now that he thought of it, remembered how she and Coach Chen had beheld one another with more scepticism than was necessary when they first met, that seemed to be the exact case. 

She didn’t greet him, rather opening the conversation with, “You’re here to help again, I assume.”

The sound of your skates sliding against the ice drifted through the air. “I am,” he confirmed.

She hummed, clearly still unhappy.

Yufan pulled his laces tighter, extending his leg further from him to get the most out of it. He said, without looking her in the eye, “Something tells me you don’t like me, shifu. Why?”

She tsked, almost as if she didn’t want to respond. Then, “Hockey men are bad luck for my girls. My first student had a boyfriend just like you, and he almost ruined her career.”

Well, that was one reference point, the audience might be thinking. Right? That hypothesis is totally flawed. “Trust me, I want nothing more than to help,” he said earnestly, because it was the truth. He wanted you to succeed, and if he could make your path to destiny more bearable, why wouldn’t he?

“Hmph.” She glanced at him, through the corner of her eye. “We’ll see about that.” Before he could retort, or dig himself deeper into the hole she’d made for him, a sharp sound echoed from inside the rink, the sound of skin and bone thumping against the ice. Peiling turned, eyes narrowing as she rushed to the barrier, shouting, “What happened? What did you do now?”

“Nothing,” you wheezed, holding up a hand to signal that you were alright. “Just a triple toe loop gone wrong.”

Yufan shook his head in mild amusement, opening up the barrier door and getting onto the ice after following after your coach, skating over to where you’d fallen to help you up. “You alright?” he asked, glancing at you with badly disguised concern. “That looked pretty bad.”

“It’s fine,” you assured him, squeezing your hip—where he’d assumed you’d fallen. “I’ll probably just have some bruising; it’s nothing that’ll keep me from practicing. Speaking of…”

And so, the rest of his afternoon was lost to your training. You went over your programs, the moves you’d planned, the music you’d picked out. For your short program, you were planning on a triple flip and toeloop, a double Axel, fly camel spin, triple Lutz, change combo spin, step sequence, and a layback spin, all to On the hills of Manchuria. You flowed through the practice session easily, moving through the routine, through the music, as if it were second nature.

Your free skate was a different monster. Triple Lutz, triple loop, triple toeloop, and double Axel that transitioned into a quadruple fly camel spin, a choreography sequence that made way for another double Axel, single Euler, and triple flip. Again, triple Lutz, double toeloop, triple flip, quadruple layback spin, and at the swell of the music, a quadruple Salchow. You’d finish with a triple step sequence, and a quadruple change combo spin, to none other than a shortened version of Tchaikovsky’s The Sleeping Beauty’s Valse.

Only two other female figure skaters in the history of the sport had ever attempted a quad Salchow—while the jump on its own was one of the easier ones, completing it in four rotations was virtually unheard of. For you to attempt it at your age… It was a high-risk, high-reward move. You’d been practicing it since you were introduced to quads, you’d told him, though there was something about the Salchow, some sort of mental or physical block, that had made it nearly impossible for you to complete twice in a row.

You went through the motions of your free skate, Yufan keeping a reasonable distance behind you as you circled the ice. “Tell me if you need me,” he’d told you, though he knew you didn’t. “Just look back, and I’ll be there.”

You got all the way through the first half without a hitch; after your closing move, you landed on your left foot, rushing backwards with your arms spread, body swaying to the music as if you were dancing. Yufan watched as you bowed, lifted yourself up in one languid movement, gliding across the ice in one consuming sweep. You turned, readying yourself for the triple Lutz; as you spun through the air, thinking of your next move, Yufan found himself entranced with the way you landed and swept yourself straight into it, placing the pick of your skate behind the other, vaulting yourself into the air. You wheeled around, legs moving back and forth over the smooth surface beneath you, before twisting to launch yourself into a triple flip, sweeping your leg out from behind you and spinning like a top, your hands coming up from behind you, above you, around you, moving in time to the up and down of the string instruments; the jaunty tune playing perfectly to your ministrations.

For a moment you didn’t look like a girl who had too many ear piercings or an attitude; you looked like a proper lady, who spoke clearly and gently. It was odd, seeing that part of your personality, even though Yufan knew it was there. The music only added to your grace, to your impossible elegance. The violins and piccolos all layered over one another… it felt like falling in love.

That was when you stumbled, just as you were about to take off, your arms braced around your front and all. You cursed as you landed oddly, skidding to a halt at the edge of the rink. Yufan followed soon after, stopping a few metres behind you, waiting for you to say something.

You took a moment to regain your composure, before you turned to the barrier, where Peiling had been observing your practice with a stony face. You gave her a thumbs up, silver rings glimmering in the harsh rink light, and said, “I’ll try again!”

And, boy, did you try. And try, and try, and try, until the sun had set and there was no way within human limits that you were not exhausted yet. The music did not stop, not Tchaikovsky, nor Ilya Shatrov, and neither did you. It got to the point where you’d done so many loops, so many spins, that Yufan was beginning to get nauseous on your behalf. When you dared to try and practice your quad Salchow a fourth time, and doing so by starting your routine from the very top, Yufan skated towards you, laying gentle, sure hands on your shoulders, and looking into your eyes with the intensity of a man who wanted to be in bed yesterday.

“Pretty girl,” he said, voice hushed from exhaustion. “Babe. Baby. Ice Queen. Please… no more.”

You exhaled, struggling to catch your breath. Still, you didn’t seem to catch on to the signals your own body was sending your way. “You can go home if you’d like, Yu. I didn’t expect you to stay all the way through for all of my practices.”

He chuckled breathlessly, because who were you to be so disgustingly devoted to your work? “That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the fact that we have been here for hours, and that, I’m sure, your feet are going to start bleeding if you don’t go home in the next thirty seconds.”

You hesitated, eyes flicking to the ground. “But… I feel like I could practice my Salchow more.”

He raised a brow. “How long has it been part of your routine?”

“Since I was introduced to quads,” you answered immediately, the words sending you into inspirational autopilot.

“Right. And you’ve been practicing it for just as long. So, what I’m trying to say is,” he added, because he noticed you wanting to protest yet again, “you’ve got this.”

“What if I don’t?” you asked. “What if I try it, and I fail?” Your eyes widened, pupils shaking as more questions piled into your mind. “What if I fall in front of all of those judges, and I have to go into early retirement from the embarrassment? Wh— what if I make a complete fool of myself in front of the whole panel of judges?” You huffed, growing agitated in the face of his silence. “Why aren’t you saying anything? Yu—”

“You’re a talented girl,” Yufan interrupted firmly, giving your shoulders a little shake. “I know that. You know that. Everyone knows that. But what you need to realise is that whether or not you succeed, whether or not you become the star you want to be, is completely up to you. And you know what you’re doing.”

There was something about you, standing in front of him, full cheeks and dreamy eyes, that made his heart hurt. That made him wonder where all his talent, all his tact had gone. He’d been on top of the world when he met you, and since then, he’d just been going backwards. You, however, did the opposite. You’d been placing second and winning silver when you met him, and since meeting him, you’d been invited to prestigious events, been on training camps out of the country, gone further than he ever would. 

It wasn’t fair. That you had the ability to work as hard as you did, but once Yufan reached a certain point, his body simply refused to cooperate. Why couldn’t he be pushed to your extremes, the kind that kept your posture upright, that kept your body fit, that kept your mind sharp? Why couldn’t he be more like you?

“Thanks, Yufan, but will all due respect, I think I know my abilities better than you do,” you murmured, taking a step back from him.

Okay. What the fuck? “All I said was that you know what you’re doing,” he pointed out lightly. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

You didn’t take it as lightly as he presented it. “My technique has been slipping for the past week, so, no, I wouldn’t. I’ve still got a lot of headway to make, and your patronising comments aren’t helping in the least.”

“I’m not trying to be patronising,” he laughed, in growing disbelief. 

“Oh, really? Whether or not I succeed is completely up to me? I already know that, genius, and you saying anything about it isn’t going to help me become a better skater,” you snapped.

Yufan could see in your eyes that you were tired. That’s why you were being like this. Difficult. Yet still, he bothered to respond like you were in your right mind, “I’m just lifting you up a little, babe. It’s not a big deal. You should be more confident in yourself. A quad Salchow should be nothing to you.”

That was not the right thing to say.

“Nothing?” you spat. “Only two women in the history of figure skating have executed it in competition, and it should be nothing for me?”

He tried, “That’s not what I meant—”

“How could you know what you’re talking about?! You’re a hockey player, Yufan. We’re not on the same level.”

Silence. He took a step back, face hardening with something like anger. A deep, shuddering breath escaped his lips, and when he looked up at you, his jaw twitched. “You don’t mean that,” he tried lowly.

You stubbornly stood your ground. “Don’t I?”

He didn’t want to believe you did, no. Not when he’d spent so much time with you by his side, helping him, teasing him, loving him. How heartbroken was he supposed to be if it turned out to be the truth? If the girl he’d unknowingly idolised for so long didn’t even respect him enough to hear him out on something he was so sure of?

Then again, why would he have to compromise himself for you when you’d shown time and time again you wouldn’t ever do the same for him. Why waste that time? Why take that risk? He chuckled, the sound dark and brittle, shrugging. “I don’t need this,” he announced. “You don’t want me here? I’ll leave. I’ll leave you to roll in self-pity, because you seem to like your own company a hell of a lot more than mine.”

You froze. For a moment, he could imagine traces of disappointment in your features. But just like the seasons, just like your love, it was gone as soon as it had come. “Door’s that way,” you chirped, indicating the exit.

“Right,” he said. And then he was gone. You were alone all over again.

As you watched him leave, something in your gut told you to take off your skates and run after him. Fix things, tell him you were sorry about what you said. You didn’t think he was stupid, or worth less just because he played a different sport. Why would you even say something like that? There were a million reasons, none of them good enough for Yufan. It wasn’t the heat of the moment; it wasn’t stress, or fatigue, or fear. It was nothing more than your own selfishness, your own ill temper.

You sighed, shoulders sagging as you reluctantly threw in the towel and called it a night, skating to the edge of the barrier and opening up the short swing door, climbing off the ice with wobbly legs.

THAT SAME NIGHT

The locker room was, from what you could see after practice, deserted. Peiling hadn’t been in the stands for a while, though when you’d jogged outside the check if she’d gone home for the night, you came face to face with her beat up Prius in the parking lot; she was probably still in the rink somewhere, out of the sight from you, doing her odd coach things.

You strode back inside and to the locker rooms, tugging at the next of your top, which had begun to feel far too tight near the end of training. You approached the door, which was open only a crack, stopping once you heard voices, the sound of shoes pacing around the room. It sounded like someone, a woman and a man, talking over the phone.

“I don’t understand what you mean by that,” the woman said, disbelief staining her words. Your blood ran cold when you recognised Peiling’s voice. “She qualified just like everyone else.”

“But the board are looking to review her qualifications,” the man replied calmly. He sounded old, perhaps your grandparents’ age, or a bit younger, if you had to think about it. “We’ve considered that perhaps some of her competition points could be below the standard for skaters of her… her origin.”

“I cannot believe my ears. You are insinuating that because she is a foreigner, she cannot represent Taiwan, when all of our country’s biggest stars in this sport were born overseas?!”

“That is a different case altogether—”

“No, it is not. I built her up from nothing. I made her the skater that qualified, and I say she’s just as good as anyone else in her position, if not better, because she has to deal with old-fashioned folks like you constantly bringing her down. She deserves just as much as anyone else to represent her home country.”

“Not when the topic of foreign representatives has already stirred up controversy and feelings of inferiority in local skaters.”

A beat. Then, “She’s going to compete at Nationals, whether you like it or not. Got it? I didn’t waste ten years of my life on this girl for you to tell me she can’t perform.”

What a nice thing to hear from your coach.

You woke up on the morning of Nationals with a knot in your stomach. Everything felt off, from the moment you stepped out of bed and onto a floor that was too cold to bear, to the moment your parents drove you to the rink, and you met Peiling at the entrance, the sun looking wrong in the sky; its rays too pale, its heat too sparse.

In all regards, you looked ready. You were dressed in your costume—a glittering black ensemble that spoke of maturity and grace you didn’t feel you possessed, hair neat and completely out of the way. There was not a rip or a draw in your stockings, the blades of your skates shimmered as you hoisted them up to show to her, but nothing felt right.

Peiling grasped your shoulders, looking into your eyes with nothing but pride swimming in hers. Pride, and expectation. The neverending, unrelenting expectation of someone who had waged all their money, time, and dignity on a young girl with a dream. How cruel of her to believe in you.

Your parents made their way to the stands, but not without your mother crouching down to press a kiss to your forehead, Chihming giving you a gentle pat on the back, their actions speaking louder than words ever would. Good luck, their smiles seemed to say. We believe in you. You’re going to do great. Don’t mess this up. Please don’t mess this up. Shihan had texted you earlier that she’d already saved seats for your parents and for Yufan, right next to where she’d booked her seat, proclaiming having gotten the best view of the rink. Their eyes would be on you the whole time, she boasted. They’d get to see everything.

The locker room was eerily quiet, and at the very same time, a cacophony played over and over in your ears. Something mechanical—a fan, or a massage gun—buzzed to the right of you; someone knocked their skate guards against the floor as the hard plastic slipped out of their hands; someone was talking over the phone; someone else was praying. And you sat on your designated bench, your shaking legs braced in front of you. 

Yufan hadn’t spoken to you all morning, save for the minimal texts you’d exchanged when talking about his and his parents’ seating arrangements. He’d barely even spoken to you since your last training session, since you’d stormed out on him and told him that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Just thinking about it made your insides churn. You were wrong for that. So, so wrong. You’d agreed, however, before all of that had happened, to meet each other, just for a moment, in the locker room, long before you were due to start. You hadn’t spoken of a time—you’d just told him that he could come whenever he wanted to. You felt now like you shouldn’t have told him to come at all.

You didn’t hear the door open, and only when a pair of familiar sneakers came into view did you realise that Yufan was already there. No avoiding him now. You looked up at him, eyes settling on his face—pretty, angered, worried—and stood up. He didn’t greet you; he knew he didn’t need to. You’d say all you needed to say right now, as you stood in front of him, if you were brave enough.

“I hope you and your parents didn’t have any problems finding your seats,” you began. He simply nodded. Somewhere in the far corners of the room, you could hear Peiling speaking with one of the other skaters’ coaches.

“She deserves just as much as anyone else to represent her home country.”

Yufan looked at you—really looked at you, attention as unwavering as his affection had been. “We didn’t,” he said. He paused then, though a silent question hung in the air. Why am I even here? Good question. Why was he even there? When you’d already told him that he didn’t know what he was doing, that he wouldn’t be useful to you going forward? If you wouldn’t, he’d bite. “Is there something you need to tell me?”

“Not when the topic of foreign representatives has already stirred up controversy and feelings of inferiority in local skaters.”

If you were brave enough, you could tell him. Tell him exactly what was on your mind. If you were brave enough. If only you were brave enough. “I’m thinking of cutting the quadruple Salchow from my routine.”

You’d wondered what his reaction would be to that in the days leading up to the competition. Would he be disappointed? Would he sigh to himself and say he’d expected you to chicken out? Would he be relieved? Would he say he was hoping that you would because of how dangerous it was, given the fact that you’d only accomplished it a handful of times? Would he be indifferent? Would he act normally and say what you did in your routine was your business, he was merely a spectator? Nothing you thought could’ve prepared you for the real thing.

“What do you mean?” he asked, brow furrowing in genuine confusion. “Wh— what do you mean you’re dropping it?”

“Well, I figured that since I’d only actually executed it a few times, I shouldn’t necessarily take the risk of trying it right now,” you explained. “I rather wouldn’t do it than do it badly.”

“You can’t do it badly, though,” he pointed out. “You’ve practiced it enough times to be able to do it right.”

“Okay, I’m just not confident enough just yet,” you replied, words quick. “I don’t want to take that risk.”

“How can you not be confident enough when you’ve been practicing this routine for years?” he asked, and the words came out harder than he’d meant for them to. Or maybe they landed just as he’d intended. “This sport is all about risks.”

You paused. “Figure skating isn’t the same as hockey, Yufan. I can’t just get onto the ice and do as I please. I need to be fully assured that I’m capable—”

“The thing is, you are,” he interrupted, “and you’re being ridiculous by suggesting that you aren’t.”

“Don’t interrupt me,” you said sternly. “Losing confidence is normal in this sport, okay? I’m not like you.”

He narrowed his eyes, mouth set in a thin line of question. “You know what? I’m not even going to ask you to expand on that disgustingly elitist comment, because I’m more concerned with the fact that, all of a sudden, you can’t do what you’ve been doing for the past ten years.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” you tried.

“Well, it sounds a lot like it! It doesn’t matter how many times you’ve executed it perfectly; you’ve been practicing the quad Salchow for years. You’re thinking too much about this. Just go out there and do your thing, and you’ll see, you’re capable.”

“Yufan, I’m trying to tell you that I’m not, okay? I can’t do it! It’s not me!”

“What is ‘you’, then? What are you, who are you, if not someone who can do this? When did you become such a coward?!”

Silence.

You took a step back. “Excuse me?”

“I asked, since when were you such a coward?” he repeated, unapologetic. “Since when do you think too much and act too little?”

“I’m not a coward,” you spat.

“Prove it,” he challenged. “Trust your skill and do the quad Salchow when it’s your time to perform.”

“That’s not how these things work, okay? I can’t just make up my mind not to do something, and change plans the day of a competition! It’s not like—”

“I swear to God, if you say something about hockey again—”

“You know what?” you asked, voice raising. “I’ll say what I want about your stupid sport. You don’t get to belittle me and call me names just because it’s what you’re used to as an athlete. If you want to treat me like one of your teammates, you can leave.”

He scoffed. “What, you’re telling me to leave because you can’t handle tough love?”

“This is all tough!” you said. “Where’s the love?” You shook your head, and when your eyes landed on him again, you beheld him with something akin to acceptance. “Get out.”

This seemed to sober him up. “What?”

“I said, get out. Walk away, and don’t look back. I wouldn’t want you to. We’re done.”

The first thing you noticed about the rink at Nationals was how bright it was. All ice skating rinks had to, according to the rules of the sport, be well-lit so as to ensure safe skating for any athlete, but there was something different about a rink that hosted the country’s best skaters. The ice was whiter than white, cold, and crisp, with the detailed swirls and twirls of blades engraved into its surface. The crowd was massive, a darkened mob surrounding your stage, the lights nearly blinding as you stepped onto the ice for your warmups.

You shared the space with one other skater; a girl by the name of Nana, who looked more familiar than she should have. She skated well, though you noted a slight hesitation in her movements whenever she readied herself for a spin. You failed to notice the tremble in your own hands, those moments between loops and twirls where you could’ve stumbled.

Your short program was a success, racking up a total of 78.45 points—42.43 in technical elements, and 36.02 in components. You’d done as you were told and moved in time with the music, losing yourself in the unfamiliarity of the sounds, of the sort of song you could only bear when your career depended on it. You were serenaded with a shower of gifts; flowers, teddy bears, and the approving nod of Peiling on the other side of the ice. Your parents cheered for you, whistling and clapping and waving the poster they’d made specially for you.

You’d smiled from your spot on the ice, grinning like a madwoman in the midst of all the praise, your chest rising and falling with rapid breaths as you tried to compose yourself. Your makeup, bold and bright and completely unlike you, glimmered under the lights, shimmering like the mist that separated fantasy from reality.

When you glanced at the leaderboard, you saw that you’d come steadily in second. You couldn’t reason that it was only because all the other skaters before you had fallen, or because they hadn’t executed their moves correctly. You had faith that you would win. You had to. Otherwise, what would it all have been for?

There was a small intermission that allowed you to catch your breath, while Peiling reviewed your routine from where she was seated next to you. She didn’t look at you as she spoke, rather at the judge’s panel, where she glared at one of the older men sitting at the very end. “You’ve dropped the quad Salchow from your routine, correct?” she asked.

“That’s what I’d planned on,” you said, voice trembling.

She hummed. “Mm. Alright. Then just make sure you do your other moves well enough. Skate like you didn’t even need it in the first place.”

You nodded. “I’ll try.”

“You won’t try,” she said. “You will.”

And before you could delay fate, it was your time.

You stepped onto the ice with shaking legs, your fingers trembling from where they rested at your sides as you glided to the centre, twisting and turning your body every which way to loosen your aching muscles. You looked down at your leading leg, exhaling deeply. Bruises and sore spots littered the joint, and surely many other areas of your body. You could barely hold yourself together.

Your routine started off well, with you sliding backwards across the ice, bracing yourself, lifting your arms in a gentle dance. You took a deep bow, twisting yourself up into the air, spinning once, twice, thrice, blades barely touching the ice before you were back in the air again, landing with little effort. After that, a backwards glide that ended in you pole vaulting into the air, assisted by the pick of your skate. The music drifted through the air, the bass reverberating through your body. You pulled your lips into a tight smile, facing the crowd as you rushed forward, lifting your knee for a double Axel. You turned, once, twice, and stuck the landing.

You moved easily through the single Euler and triple flip, and the crowd cheered briefly when you executed a particularly impressive triple Lutz. As you moved across the ice, your blades scraping against its freezing surface, you counted down in your head the numbers you had left before you could be blessed with a completed routine—double toeloop, triple flip, quadruple layback spin, and…

You hoped no one noticed you falter as your brain listed the quadruple Salchow as an automatic addition. Did you do it, and surprise everyone with an unexpected twist, or did you continue as everyone had anticipated, and complete your routine without taking any real risks?

You turned, readying yourself for the quadruple Salchow. As you bent your knee, arms lowering with the rest of you, you thought of Miki Ando. The first and only girl to land the move you were about to attempt. She’d been your age, performing on a much higher level, for a much larger audience. How were you supposed to feel, knowing that the one move you’d spent your entire career practicing had already been done before? Maybe Yufan was right. Maybe you did think too much, act too little. Maybe you were a coward. You sucked in a sharp breath as you flew into the air, the world around you spinning like a top. One, two, three…

Four. Your right foot made contact with the ice, its cold, hard, unforgiving surface. And then you spun again.

Except, you weren’t supposed to. You were supposed to glide seamlessly back into your routine, basking in the audience’s applause. Instead you turned, and now the ground was rapidly approaching.

Snap!

When people get injured, they often describe it as an out of body experience. Something that seems faraway, as if they weren’t present to witness the moment. Your injury was nothing like that.

You cried out as you came down, your shoulder hitting the ice. The pain travelled up at an alarming rate, the joint becoming dead weight.

In an instant, your senses sharpened. You became hyperaware of the pain shooting up your arm, not stopping until it seemed to throb inside your head, your temples burning with the ache. Of the harsh lights cast above you, next to you, behind you, shining even from under your closed eyelids. You heard people, voices cutting through the sound of your own ragged breathing. Skates rushing along the ice, faint sharp lines barely visible through your narrowed eyes. You weren’t sure if you screamed, or if you stayed silent. If you cried, or if the wetness on your cheeks was because of something else.

Whenever you finished a program, there was a moment of silence before the audience erupted in cheers. Before the bouquets were thrown and your name was called, over and over until even you believed you’d made first place. That never came. Instead, you were faced with the deafening silence of a shocked crowd, covering their mouths in horror.

And all you could do was stand up.

The medics tried to help you, but you brushed them off, shakily getting to your feet. You knew what happened next—you’d smile, bow to the crowd while wiping your tears, and they’d all let out a sigh of relief as you stepped off the ice and took a seat. That didn’t happen. Because when you attempted to bow, it was as if every muscle in your body screamed for you to stop, for you to stand upright and try to support your shoulder. It sagged forward, the bone bent at an odd angle.

“Fuck,” you swore, the word out before you could stop it. A medic rushed forward, and this time, you didn’t refuse his help. You let him, and several others of the medical team, help you off the ice, their hands braced firmly against your back. 

Peiling was waiting for you at the barrier, her hands desperately grabbing onto you as she half hoisted you up, lifting your numb legs to sheathe your skates. You let her guide you to the kiss and cry, where you sat down with a heavy heart and medics fussed over you until they reached their final conclusion.

They said many things as they examined you; your body, your current state of being. A shock, murmured one, testing to see if she could pop the joint back into place. You teared up and told her to stop, and she did. Totally unexpected, murmured another in Hokkien. Other words and terms were also thrown around. Bad injury. Bone. Joint. Fractured collarbone. Broken clavicle. 

“We’ll have to take her to the hospital,” said one of the medics, an older woman who turned to Peiling as she spoke. As if you weren’t even there. “This fracture requires immediate intervention that we can’t give her.”

“You think?” asked the younger man, the one who spoke Hokkien. Probably a medical student. Not much older than you.

“I know,” she said gravely.

All your coach did—all she could do—was nod, accepting the fate that had befallen you. There was nothing to be done about your routine, or what of it you were able to perform. As they carried you out of the rink on a stretcher they’d practically pushed you onto, you realised that you wouldn’t win. An incomplete set didn’t even get you second place. You’d done all that, all those jumps, those twirls, those nights you’d spent at the rink instead of being with your family, those fights you had with Yufan about your courage—all of it in vain.

Your parents made an appearance after all was said and done, when the ambulance had been called and activity in the competition had been halted as thousands of people awaited the outcome of your failure. Just before you were forcefully helped onto the stretcher, they came barrelling through a crowd of security guards, shouting obscenities as they tried to hold them back.

“Let them through,” Peiling barked. “They’re family.”

Your mother rushed to your side, taking your cold face in her warm palms. “Are you alright? Oh, my darling—what’s… what happened?” Then, before you could respond, to the young medic who’d practically carried you off the ice, “Will she be alright?”

He hesitated. “She—”

“My collarbone,” you said, your voice an unfamiliar drawl, a moan of pain, “clavicle. It’s broken.”

She gasped, Chihming’s hands coming up to keep her steady as she began to cry. You felt pity for her, you really did, but when you were the one who’d been injured, a wailing mother was not exactly a nice backing track to your pain.

You waved a hand in Peiling’s direction, and she seemed to understand your signal. Please make it stop. I love her, but please make it stop. Chihming did, as well, because when your coach approached your parents to gently urge your mother into silence, he just nodded and said he’d bring their car around so they could follow the ambulance to the hospital.

“Let us know if anything else happens,” he said, both to you and to Peiling. “Drive safe.”

Then came Shihan, her beautiful face taut with worry and panic. You’d been carried out by that time, and she’d jogged after the medics before you could get to the ambulance from where it wailed on the pavement outside the rink. You could hear the music of another skater’s set through the faint thrum of your own heartbeat. No surprise, they continued despite your absence. That was one of the things you’d loved about figure skating; no matter how bad something seems, no matter how many hits you take, you’d always have to get back up and let the show go on. 

And your show couldn’t go on for much longer.

“Are you okay?” was the first thing she asked after pushing herself past the medics crowding you. Her hair fell over her shoulders in inky cascades. “Are you alright? Don’t tell me it’s a broken shoulder, or— or something bad like—”

“Han-eh,” Peiling said, voice low. “Calm down. We’re taking her to the hospital now. She’ll be fine.”

She glanced at your coach, then back at you, taking in the way your face was contorted in pain, the tears streaming down your cheeks. She reached up to wipe them away, saying, “Your— Yufan’s looking for you. He’s here. He wants to see you.”

Then a call of your name, in that sweet, high voice that once warmed you to your core, distressed and frenzied with fear. Now all it did was make your blood run cold.

You grabbed at Shihan’s wrist, shaking your head. You wanted to speak, wanted to scream, Get him away, but all you could do was say, with more acidity than she deserved, “I don’t want to see him.” Desperately, spitefully.

Her brow creased in confusion. Right. She wasn’t there, before the competition. “Not now?”

“Not ever,” you whispered.

It was all a disparaging blur once the ambulance doors shut. You were escorted to the emergency room, where you were immediately assisted by a doctor who spoke like the Osaka businessmen you’d met on training camps in Japan. Your parents stood by your side, each clutching one hand, braced for the worst despite already learning what everyone else knew of your injury.

The elderly medic had been correct in her assumption that you’d suffered a broken collarbone. The bone had shifted, nearly shattered during your fall. Your doctor told you that you’d been unlucky to fall from such a height, at such an impossible speed. You could only grimace as he pulled up an X-ray of your front, talking about the possible paths you could take in your healing. If you were careful, and took it terribly seriously not to move too much, and received a plentiful blessing from the gods, it would heal completely in four to six months.

Half a year. That was how long you’d have to wait to start training seriously again—who knew about how long it would take you to be restored to your full strength and health. Waste. Waste. Waste. That was all you could hear. Failure. The end of times. The worst of the worst.

You cried more times than you’d like to admit. Grieved harder for something you weren’t even sure was lost yet, that you were sure you’d never be able to get back. Your doctor merely glanced at you like you were something to pity, some sort of distressed child that was crying over nothing. Peiling had disappeared out of the room somewhere in the midst of everything, keeping her phone tucked between her shoulder and her cheek as she answered a call. Shihan sat at the edge of your bed while the doctor walked out, your parents following behind him.

She crossed her legs easily over the thin mattress, observing your surroundings. You’d been hastily given a scratchy grey blanket to wear over your costume, and were constantly readjusting your posture, frowning in discomfort. The emergency room was busy, despite it being the middle of the day. Perhaps more peoples’ lives fell apart than you thought every day. Perhaps you’d just never noticed them because you’d never been one of them. Conversations floated through the air, bits and pieces of patients’ personal lives revealed to you, laid bare under the flickering fluorescent lights.

When she spoke, she didn’t say what people had been telling you since you’d arrived. She didn’t tell you that everything was going to be alright, that you were sure to make a speedy recovery if you just rested enough and listened to the doctor’s advice. She didn’t hastily assure you that your career was over, or that this would all be a wonderful story to tell when you won the Olympics, or some anxious, sentimental drivel like that. She said,

“I used to have a Yufan, you know.”

Her tone of voice—soft, saccharine, thick with emotion—caught you off guard. She’d never sounded like that before. “What?” you asked, narrowing your eyes, swollen from crying.

“Yeah. He was a hockey player, and he was a year or two older than me. We met when I was around your age,” she told you. “He’d always let me sit at the very front of his games, and even gave me a signed hockey stick.” She frowned, smiling. “Not that I know who Wayne Gretzky is, but he did. And he cared, so I did, too.” She tilted her head, nodding to you, “Then we broke up… right before one of my competitions. That’s where I got this.”

She pulled up the left leg of her jeans, where you could see stitch marks on her knee, the skin raised where she’d been cut. Your eyes widened. When you glanced up at her, her gaze was still focused on the spot. “Is this why you took that break a few years ago? Because you got hurt?”

“Mm,” she nodded. “It took me months to even get back on the ice. Peiling’s hated hockey players ever since.”

Perhaps it was that single, throwaway comment, or the pain, or the absurdity of it all, but you laughed. For the first time in a while, you laughed; genuinely, and without scorn. It was a light sound, unfamiliar in how loud it was, how it tore through your body like it had been waiting to escape. Shihan laughed, too, and when you heard it, you realised you hadn’t ever heard her genuine laugh. It was a nice sound to hear.

“You know,” she said, when silence had finally settled over you again. “It’s not the end of the world that you got injured. And I’m going to spare you the motivational speech, because I know you’re probably sick of it by now.” She looked at you, long and hard. “Just know that you’re stronger than you think, and that your fate is in your hands. Not anyone else’s.”

Before you could continue your conversation, your very own coach rushed into the room, face drained of colour. You both glanced up at her, brows furrowing in confusion at her expression. “What is it, shifu?” Shihan wondered.

“What happened?” you echoed, concern etched into your pretty features.

Her voice was hoarse when she answered, as if she’d been screaming. Or crying. “The judges have made their decision… and we are expected to make an appearance at the stadium as soon as possible.”

东京 TOKYO

2024

Long story short, you got first place at Nationals. And again two months later at the World Championships, representing your country.

It was a momentous occasion, when you were called up to the podium by the announcer, her American accent sounding harsh pronouncing the gentler tones of your name. But you didn’t care how it sounded, or how badly she butchered it, because you’d won. After all your hard work, you’d finally won, and you had something worthwhile to prove it.

The work didn’t end there for you, unfortunately, not considering your injury.

It still hung in the air like a foul smell after your wins, after you became the Taiwanese public’s darling, after the world learnt your name. News outlets covered your fall at Nationals extensively, thought out excellent and horrible names for it, for what it meant for you as an athlete. A major setback, some called it, something that would permanently impact your career for years to come. A reminder that everyone, even the most talented skaters, are human, said another publication. You liked that one, though it left a bad taste in your mouth regardless.

Despite all that, despite your well-placed hatred for it, despite your family’s fear of it, despite your coach’s grief towards it, you did your best to treat it as gently as you would any life-altering injury, to give yourself the time to recover while refusing to atrophy, refusing to give in to the temptation of premature retirement. You simply couldn’t, was your reasoning, throw all your hard work away because of a fractured collarbone. It was only an injury; you were only a person. It could heal. You could heal. You would heal.

You practiced as frequently usual, though took it undeniably easier on yourself in terms of exercises. You listened to your doctor, took her advice in stride and applied it diligently, determined to get yourself back to the way you were before you could change too much. You went on training camps, focused on rehabilitation, did everything you could in your position.

You did, however, take an indefinite hiatus from competing. You wouldn’t return to the beloved sport until you’d healed, physically and mentally. You wouldn’t return to the rink until you did so on your terms, no one else’s. 

It was on one of these training camps, in the wonderful city of Tokyo, that you found, after hearing from a friend of a friend who’d been travelling with you, that there would be a series of hockey games in the area. The local team, the Tokyo Snow Leopards, playing against several smaller, less well-known teams. One of them being the Taipei Eagles.

“You know one of the players, right?” Lili, one of the girls you’d been training with since arriving in Tokyo, asked you one night. She’d signed herself up after suffering a nasty cut to the face that her teammate gave her during pairs training. “Um… what’s his name?” She turned to your other roommate, Jingxue, a girl from Shanghai who’d come after an ACL injury, and snapped her fingers as if searching for the answer. “He’s the cute defenceman?”

Jingxue shrugged hopelessly. She didn’t say much, you’d noticed.

You butted in, eager to get Lili to stop talking. “Yeah, I, uh… I don’t remember his name, but I know who you’re talking about. Yeah, we used to train together, a while ago. Not sure how he’s been these days.”

Lili rolled her eyes at her own forgetfulness, waving it off dismissively. “I’ll remember his name soon, but, yeah, you know who I’m talking about. Have you seen him since… I dunno, since?”

You shook your head. “Nope,” you denied, popping the ‘p’.

It’s what brought you here, at the nearest ice skating rink, sitting in the stands, caught between a roaring crowd around you and a deteriorating game in front of you. The Taipei Eagles uniform was different from the old team’s—or, could you really say old, when this was simply the senior league, and the Polar Bears had been the junior league? Regardless, where their uniforms had been red, white, and blue, the Eagles went for an undeniably mature look, opting rather for black, white, and navy blue.

James was as easy to spot as he had been two years ago, still the quickest player on the ice, still a large, bold 16 on the back of his jersey. You couldn’t see much else of him; couldn’t see much else of anyone besides the crowd members around you, really. Hockey was certainly a spirit- and personality-forward sport where the audience couldn’t judge anyone by appearances. That’s how you knew you wouldn’t ever be able to play the sport—you liked appearances far too much. 

The air was as stale and electric as the air at any other hockey game would’ve been, lit up with the sounds of players’ skates slicing against the ice, with the smell of snow in your nostrils, with the heat of the moment creeping up your neck. It was undeniably addictive, and just as dangerous.

The game progressed well, or, perhaps, as well as you could perceive it did, because for all the changes you’d gone through since you’d last been in a place like this, you’d learnt nothing new about hockey. And just as well, really. You had far more important things to worry about. You wondered, then, how much James had changed, if at all. Looking down at him, it seemed he’d grown at least a bit. Perhaps a centimetre or five, something that could elevate him from a teen boy to a young adult. You wondered if he was still a clown. Still bitter inside. Still obsessive, still mean. Still your Yufan.

You knew he wouldn’t be. Yours in the literal sense, you mean. It had been nearly one and a half years since you’d last seen him, and you’d made it clear how you felt about each other that day. That last, all-too fateful day. But you wondered if he was still yours in the sense that he was still the same James you’d known. Still funny. Still passionate. Still kind. Still your Yufan.

Time passed, and eventually the first intermission became the second, then the third, and people were starting to get impatient waiting for the outcome of the game. It was a close one so far, Snow Leopards, six, Eagles, five. Only one or two more goals to determine who would be taking home this game’s trophy, this audience’s hearts.

The players were moving in a way that didn’t completely make sense to you. Agitation hung in the air, and it translated into their jerky movements, their sudden, reckless decision-making. At one point, one of his teammates threw James against the barrier, yelling in his face about a some kind of mistake he’d made. He’d simply shrugged him off, rolling his eyes like he would have years ago. The game continued, but you, and you were sure everyone else, could tell that something was off.

It was odd, how much it reminded you of your first performance at Nationals, despite the two having no correlation. But something in the air was the same; the prickling of nerves, the expectations hanging like heavy clouds threatening rain. The light was the same, the rink too bright, the stands too dark. You could only imagine what it looked like to the skaters on the ice—the looming darkness circling them, giving them tunnel vision. A loud, mechanical buzz cut through the pop music booming from the arena speakers that hadn’t done much to help the growing tension, the agitation you felt. The Snow Leopards had scored another point. Seven, five.

Buzz! Eight, five.

Buzz! Eight, six. A Japanese player was showed to the penalty box, face sour.

Buzz! Eight, seven. One of his teammates joined him, the Taiwanese skaters jeering in glee. That earned them a stern look from the referee, a young woman, and they shut up soon after that.

It was in the final minutes of the game that everything fell apart. The Snow Leopards had been spread thin, half of the team in the penalty box, the other half a mixture of their lacklustre and bench players. And yet, they still seemed to be sweeping the floor with their opponents. Tensions rose, and the Eagles were getting desperate for the win. 

Two players had collided, fists and sticks flying. Somewhere in the midst of their scuffle, the puck had been stolen, and the crowd held unanimously their breath. Below, James raced across the ice eyes, alight with opportunity. This was his chance. His I made it moment. He’d make it. He would score, he thought, he knew, as he passed by the commotion, moving with all the grace of a trained figure skater, with the determination of a man who’d committed his life to a sport that would repay him now. All those evenings after school, all those training camps that nearly bankrupted his parents, all those fights, all that pain, it would all be worth it if he just made this one goal. His third of the game, his last of the season. He was close. So, so close.

A small sound, so quiet, so internal that no one but James could hear it. Small, nonthreatening, as he twisted his leg, just that little bit too far, too hard, too desperate, to make a turn. Snap!

You shot up from your seat.

He stopped. In the middle of the ice. Dead in his tracks, flat on his side. The scuffle stopped, players hovered around him with taut faces, expressions contorted with tension. Silence swept over the stadium like a hushed storm; some people stood up, their hands clutched to their chests; others stayed where they were, clamping their mouths shut in shock. What would’ve happened if this were a normal fall was this: the crowd would wait in anticipation for James to get back to his feet, to bow and show that he was fine, he was unharmed. That never happened. They’d wait for the okay, before erupting into applause, cheering for a diligent, passionate athlete taking a chance. That didn’t come.

Instead, he stayed where he was, curling into a foetal position, gloved hands encircling against his knee. His coach, a younger man, perhaps a decade or so older than James himself, rushed from beyond the barrier, slipping onto the ice in nothing but his sneakers, struggling until he reached him. They exchanged a few words, and the two teams skated closer, hiding them from the crowd. It was all a blur of activity from there; medics rushing the ice, James pushing them away and insisting that he was fine, that he didn’t need their help to stand up. Teammates exchanging worried glances, opponents bowing in respect as he finally took his leave, wincing in pain with every move. 

“Apologies, everyone, but we will need to take an emergency intermission on account of the Taipei Eagles’ defenceman’s injury. We will back in fifteen minutes with an update, and the game will resume shortly thereafter. Thank you for your patience.”

It seems to be so that, when the gods bring together two people as competitive and desperate as yourself and James, they throw a dice to decide who would win. And winning, well, that looks different to everyone. Sometimes it is literal—they beat their opponent; their opponent is their love, and their prize could be physical. Sometimes it refers to something larger than any two people—life, how it beats them; they are in a match against fate, in a fight against life and death, and their lives depend on the outcome of the game.

Other times it’s a mixture of both. The competitors—lovers, friends, family, enemies, all four at once—are thrown into the game of life, and each trial they face, they live through together, on opposite sides of the net, or the glass, or the field, is a period in the match. There are intermissions, inbetween moments where the tensions ease, where you could love one another. These don’t last too long, not usually. Not when you are as competitive as you are. Once they are over, once the whistle has been blown, it is as if you are nothing and everything to each other.

You forget this, that love isn’t really supposed to be a game, that fate does not favour those that adhere to its ridiculous fancies with the simple belief that it will lead them to where they belong. You forget that humans connect by cooperating, by listening, by compromising. You forget that you are not pieces on a chess board, the outcome of your game dependent on anyone besides yourselves, athletes standing in front of judges and spectators, waiting for someone else to decide how they should continue.

There is a winner. Of course there is—in these games, there always is. But this win, it’s bitter. It leaves a sour taste in your mouth, leaves tears brimming in your eyes. It makes you remember that the path to victory is paved with heartbreak and betrayal. It reminds you that there can only be one winner that takes it all. 

You were the one unlucky enough to win. You returned from the hospital after Judge Liu had called Peiling to tell her that you’d won, that you’d placed first in the 2023 Taiwan Figure Skating Championships, and you were helped onto the podium by the two skaters who’d placed in the positions below you, bronze and silver. You turned to the cameraman in front of you, holding your gold medal with trembling fingers, smiling as widely as you could will yourself to. Cameras flashed all around you, blinding you, burning into your retinas. The cheers of the judges and spectators were deafening, though their voices all faded away when all was said and done, when you’d looked at your peers, and realised you were all alone on that podium.

Wen Jiyi, a figure skating prodigy from Kaohsiung, the girl who’d come second place to you, turned to find her family all rushing towards her with large smiles on their faces, thanking Buddha for his kindness towards them, towards their daughter, who not only made it to Nationals, but made it this far. You could hear her friends cheering for her from the stands, chanting her name like a carol.

Hsu Nana, one of your old classmates, the girl who’d come in last, was embraced by her father, his strong arms enveloping her in a strong hug. They’d only had each other, you remembered; her mother was out of the picture before she could get any siblings, and her father had never remarried. And still, with what little they had, with her coming in third overall, her father murmured into her hair, “You’ll always be a winner in my book.”

And you? You were alone. Your family was at a private hospital, filling out forms for you, listening to your doctor explain your healing plan to them. Your friends had fallen away over the years because you’d chosen to focus on the one thing that would repay you more graciously than any relationships would. Your coach watched fretfully from the barrier, holding your new crutches in her hands. And your boyfriend’s parents were watching you, clapping for you, unaware that you’d left their son behind simply because he’d questioned your confidence.

You’d won. You’d made it. All that lay ahead was success; some healing would get in the way, yes, but after those quick four, five months, you’d be free to become the star you’d always been meant to be. Nationals, World Championships, Grand Prix, the Olympics. The world was an oyster you’d wrenched open, and you could do what you pleased with it. But all that, at what cost?

The spotlight shone brighter on those without anything to hold them back, but did it keep you warm when night fell, and people forgot about the stars in the sky?

“What are you doing here?” were James’ first words to you since Nationals.

You stood in front of him, a gentle, contemplative expression on your face. Behind you, the nurse had closed the curtains so that you could have some privacy, though it did nothing to drown out the sounds of the emergency room. You could faintly hear the conversation of a couple in the bed next to you, and tried to pay no mind to the fact that it sounded as if the patient’s boyfriend were accusing her of arson.

James had changed in the time you were apart; neither for better or for worse, just… naturally, as all humans change. Your suspicion that he’d grown taller was proven correct as your eyes swept over his form, over the plains of his lean body. His hair was longer, bleached and coloured to a light brown that looked like autumn. His face was the same, if not more mature, the twist of his lips dissatisfied where it had always been content. His eyes were still as kind as you remembered them, yet undeniably morose. Like something had broken him, and he hadn’t gotten to healing it yet.

You could only imagine how different you looked from the last time you saw James; taller, more mature, stronger, yet carrying yourself with that familiar attitude that dared anyone to doubt you. It was more steadfast than before, perhaps. There were wounds, and tears, and breaks, but that didn’t make you any less yourself.

“I was worried about you,” was your response.

He stared at you like he’d been staring at you for the past ten minutes. “That’s not what I mean,” he said, as if you were supposed to know. “I mean, what are you doing in Japan?”

You smiled softly, the realisation shifting your demeanour. “Oh. I was here on a training camp, just for some rehab. I hurt my ankle pretty badly in a competition a few weeks ago, and Peiling insisted I come to Tokyo for treatment and practice.”

He nodded, not gracing you with a response just yet. His gaze drifted from you, dropped somewhere below him, surveying the brace around your ankle. “So nothing’s changed,” he spoke, voice empty. “You’re still as clumsy as ever.” He remembered all the bruises, all the accidental falls when you failed to adjust to being off the ice, the cases of wobbly legs where he needed to brace you against him, his arm winding over your shoulder, keeping you close to him.

“I guess so,” you agreed. The silence that followed wasn’t natural; it was one that came only to people who’d once in their lives meant everything to each other, and met again when they were completely different people. Except, you weren’t that different from before, were you? “What’s the diagnosis?”

He sighed. “A severe lateral meniscus tear. I’m out for the season.”

You had anticipated something like that. But no amount of anticipation could’ve prepared you for the pain falling over his handsome face. There was something about it that made you feel as if you weren’t meant to see it—the tremble of his bottom lip, the way he tried to keep his tears at bay, the sheer, charged emotion of the scene, humanity in its rawest form. Yet, here he was, James Chao, letting you see, not for the first time in your lives, a part of him he’d hidden from anyone else.

No, the first time had been much happier. It had been when he’d introduced you to his parents, then again when he’d indirectly hinted that he loved you as much as he loved his own friends and family. Then it had been in every fight you had where he didn’t yell, where he didn’t disagree simply to prove a point, where he let you humiliate him like he never would’ve allowed anyone else to. 

He tried to keep a brave face; of course he did. That was his forté, pretending as if he were unaffected by anything that happened around him, to him. You wished he hadn’t built up those walls around you, but this time around, you couldn’t fault him for it. He’d let them down and you’d selfishly exploited that. You didn’t deserve to see him any more vulnerable than he was already allowing you.

You took a seat at the end of his bed, next to where he’d braced himself on the heels of his palms, his legs swung over the edge, not because he’d invited you, but because you could feel something in you telling you to sit down. To brush your clothed knee with his bandaged one, to press your shoulder against his arm. The gods, high above, sitting along their great panel, moving another piece on the playing mat which was your intertwined fates. Taking pity. Thinking, Maybe?

James let you, ducking his head until he was almost level with you, where he was usually a head taller. He let you touch him, if only briefly, let himself bask in your unfamiliar warmth. You felt differently from how you did, once, when you were younger. Not bad. Just natural. Like all people are different as they grow.

“I’m sorry,” you said, when the silence became too much for you to bear. Your voice was hushed, and you felt like a criminal standing before a judge, eager to keep the attention off you, to fill the silences in which you could be accused, or asked questions. “For not…”

What? For not visiting? For not apologising sooner? For not being a better person to you? For behaving awfully when all you were trying to do was help? For being a scared, misguided, dogged teenager? For taking advantage of your kindness? For not kissing you after that last practice we had together, after you moved closer and told me you wanted to?

“…for everything,” you sighed. “You deserved better. You deserve better than what I can give you.” Than what the world’s given you, you thought, but couldn’t say.

He smiled breathlessly, wiping harshly at his eyes as if to clean tears that hadn’t yet fallen. “What am I going to do, now?” he asked, perhaps to no one in particular, perhaps to you specifically. After all, you’d dealt with a career-altering injury before. You’d know how to go about it, what he should do next, which steps he should take to get himself back on track. But the path that works for one may not work for the other. 

You knew what he was thinking: what he’d been thinking for the longest time. That hockey was his only option, the only thing he was good at, the only future he saw for himself.

You exhaled gently, hands twitching as if they longed to reach out and grasp onto his ringed fingers, feel his warmth. And you told him the words that could’ve helped you once, if you’d been more grateful then, “You’re a talented boy, Yufan. I know that. You know that. Everyone knows that. But what you need to realise is that your talent doesn’t only lie in one thing.”

“But what if it does?”

You shrugged. “How are you supposed to know if you never try something new?”

If you never give yourself a second chance?

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

When he cried, when he broke down in tears next to you, burying his face in his hands as sobs racked his body, you acted against your better judgement and curled an arm around his shoulder. He responded to the touch like it was second nature, leaning into your chest like you were a lifeline who’d left him when he’d needed you most. Your hands froze, stayed millimetres from his skin, only a breath away from actually touching him like you wanted to. Needed to.

In that moment, there were a million things you could say. A million things you wanted to say. But all those words, those sentiments, those apologies, those proclamations and confessions, died in your throat; because nothing could mend the wound you’d caused. Not even you cradling him to your chest could fix it, could fix the hurt you’d inflicted on him, not even the way his lips pressed against your healed collarbone could erase the words he’d said, the things he’d done in his anger and jealousy towards you. Nothing could change what you’d said when you were nothing more than two terrified teenagers who didn’t know the difference between competition and love.

Could they ever be erased, or fixed, or mended, or healed, if a second chance came along? Or would that simply be something you were left to ponder as you grew?

香港 HONG KONG

2025

“Okay, so, our flight is in two hours, which means we’ll need to be at the boarding gate in fifteen minutes—”

“In what world should we have to wait at the boarding gate for over an hour? We’ve got plenty of time to explore and pass the time until at least half an hour before we need to board.”

Your friend gave you an unimpressed look, like, Really? Kim Juhoon, despite being a world-famous, overachieving figure skater at the ripe age of seventeen, was somehow one of the most neurotic, perpetually unsure people you’d ever met. So much so that, on his way back from competing at the World Championships as one of the two youngest athletes, where he would be hopping on a plane to Taipei so that you could show him where you’d grown up, he insisted that you wait at the boarding gate for more than an hour and a half, just to be safe. His words, not yours.

“Don’t make that face at me,” you said, shaking your head like a dismissive elder sibling. “I know what I’m talking about. You need to relax, Jju. Nothing bad is going to happen if we’re not a million hours early for our flight.”

He pointed a perfectly manicured and terribly accusatory finger at you. “You’re exaggerating to make me look stupid, and I won’t let you do it. I just won’t.”

“You already did,” you teased, grinning.

Even in all these years, airports had never lost their charm to you. The fluorescent lights beat down on the polished white floors, the night sky countering it like the moon did the sun. People filled up the place, walking to and fro, making arrivals and departures, saying goodbye to their families, kissing their spouses in greeting. The air smelled fresh, like air freshener and new beginnings. Old memories, new places. The good, and the unexpected.

Your coaches looked at you from where they strode at an alarming pace several metres ahead, before turning to each other, like, These kids. Meanwhile, you and Juhoon marvelled at the sight of a couple dragging their very fussy toddler out of a nearby takeout spot, the baby a screaming, wailing mess.

“That’s kind of how I feel right now,” Juhoon noted calmly.

You chuckled softly. Both of you were still reeling from your competition—the annual World Championships, this time held worlds away in Boston, had left you fatigued and a little bit out of sorts. Like, on a different plane of existence out of sorts. Still, you’d qualified, and secured spots at the September Qualifiers in Beijing, so it would all pay off in time.

“Same,” you agreed, bobbing your head.

Since Juhoon had insisted on being at the boarding gates two hours early, you’d made your way through the airport without much consideration for ogling at the great building, though Hong Kong International Airport was, in your opinion, a true beauty to behold. You did, however, stop at a few of the digital advertisements, displayed on larger than life boards and featuring some of your friends promoting products from their various sponsors. Juhoon snapped a selfie of the two of you in front of an Adidas board, sending it to one of his school friends—a swimmer on his way to the 2028 Olympics—with a particularly cheeky caption; the two of you posed in front of one of Shihan’s Dior adverts, pulling faces and mimicking her own, and so on and so forth you went until you actually came across an ad with your face on it.

It was one of your more recent campaigns for an energy drink—the audience is open to decide which, depending on how they view you. You were posed on the ice, in your training outfit, jewellery glimmering in the grainy film shot. There was some sort of quirky caption written in the air next to you, something that convinced the audience you actually got your energy from their product. It seemed like a candid scene, poised as if you’d been caught in a mundane moment in the middle of training, though the way you appeared more photogenic than you knew you were let you, and only you, know that it was staged. You tended to look a bit less human when you’d been exercising for two hours straight.

“Wah,” said Juhoon, mouth open in feigned shock. “Looking good, ttangkong.”

“Pfft— shut up,” you said, shoving his shoulder. “I didn’t say anything about your Louis Vitton ad, wugui.”

“I saw you snap that sneaky picture,” he shot back. He turned to you, narrowing his eyes. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you posting it, either.”

You rolled your eyes, raising your hands in a gesture of surrender. “So I posted a picture of my talented, handsome friend,” you said. “Sue me.”

He shook his head, yawning. He stretched his arms over his head, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, his shirt riding up to expose the too-low waistband of his jeans. “I’m too tired to call my lawyer right now. You’ll have to settle for a formal complaint.”

You shrugged. “Fine by me. Now—” you picked up your shoulders, pulling your pink suitcase behind you— “we going to the boarding gate, or what?”

Juhoon smiled softly, nodding. “Yeah,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “Leggo, or I’ll have an anxiety attack.”

“Jjinja?” you teased, the world rolling uneasily off your tongue.

“Ni hen fan ei,” he sighed, swift and easy.

You scoffed, landing a faint punch to his shoulder. “So annoying,” you muttered. “Let’s go.”

On your way to the boarding gate, you were distracted for a second time by something catching your eye. You stopped; Peiling, Juhoon, and his coach kept walking, not noticing that you’d halted, and were now staring at the double doors of the airport’s gift shop, gaze trained on whatever was behind the thick glass. 

Something churned in your stomach, told you to go inside, to see what the tiny tourist trap had to offer. You turned to them, speaking absently over your shoulder, “Uh, you guys go ahead. I just want to check something out, here.”

“Hmm?” Juhoon hummed in question.

“I’ll be with you now,” you said, your feet already carrying you to the entrance. And that was the last any of them saw of you for the next fifteen minutes.

You wandered into the shop, your entrance signalled by the chime of a bell above the door, and realised relatively quickly that it certainly wasn’t its charm that had pulled you in. It was chock full of tacky tchotchkes, red and yellow lanterns hung all over, with rows upon rows of magazines and T-shirts that said ‘I HEART HK’ all over the front. You wrinkled your nose in distaste, wilfully ignoring the fact that you were wearing a shirt with the same print on it, though the smell of incense was a welcome sensation.

The shop seemed to be empty save for you and the elderly owner, who was ducked behind the counter, seemingly in search of something. Music drifted through the air from an old record player, the quality as dusty and old-fashioned as the tunes themselves, reminiscent to the Cantopop you knew James’ father listened to. 

You found James Chao among the racks of tasteless souvenirs, perusing the shelves as if he were actually thinking of buying something. You stopped in your tracks when you saw him, your boots scuffing against the grainy floor. That something. It had always been that something.

He looked different from the last time you’d seen him in Tokyo. Of course he did—people changed. You’d changed. Your parents had changed. Taipei had changed. Why wouldn’t James? He couldn’t be your emotionally constipated older boyfriend forever.

It seemed he’d finally finished growing, standing nearly a head taller than you still; that hadn’t changed, at least. His hair was shorter, spikier, blonde highlights peeking out from between his natural roots. He wore a fitted denim jacket, tufts of fur lining the collar; his jeans hung low on his slim hips, and for a moment, you wondered when he’d become so fashionable. So grown up. You supposed it needed to happen sometime. He was due to turn twenty this year, after all.

A few things hadn’t changed, as well, perhaps to ease your heart out of the assumption that the boy you’d loved had become a man you knew nothing of. A pair of tinted, frameless glasses were tucked into his T-shirt, and when he slid them onto his face to examine the price of a snowglobe with a miniature Buddha in it, he looked almost identical to how he did on the nights he brought his homework to the skating rink, solving complex Calculus equations while you skated frenzied laps around the ice. A pair of silver earrings dangled from his earlobes, the same you’d gotten him for your one month anniversary. Odd to think you’d even made it that far when you fucked it up immediately afterwards.

Again, you wondered what he would think if he’d turned to see you staring at him. You’d grown up quite a bit since Tokyo, since Nationals. You now wore the glasses you’d dreaded to in place of those tricky contact lenses; your eyes still didn’t work. You had more jewellery, earrings lining your lobes and cartilage, rings encircling your fingers; they were all still silver. Your hair had grown; it was still unruly. Your shoes were still dirty. Your smile was the same. 

He did notice you eventually, with the fear and reluctance of someone who had noticed, through the corner of their eye, the intense stare of a stranger. And when his gaze landed on you, still shorter than him, still with that wild kindness in your eyes, still with those lips he’d wished he’d gotten to kiss before it was too late, he couldn’t help but soften.

“Hi,” he breathed, and you swore your knees would give out.

“Hi,” you replied, obviously suave and cool and not awkward at all. “How— are you—? Are you good? Well? Are you well?”

He nodded. “Yeah. You?”

“As well as I could be,” you said. 

He raised his chin, as if to nod again, but simply kept it there. His eyes flicked somewhere to the right of him, and he said, “Tired from the competition?”

Your eyes widened. “Wha—? How did you—?” You turned to where he was looking outside the shop’s window, and came face to face with a large screen replaying the highlight reels from your routine in Boston. “Oh. That’s— it’s— yeah. A little. Sorry, that’s…” You wrinkled your nose at the sight. “I could’ve gone without seeing that. Again.”

You turned back to look at James, but his eyes were still locked on you. On the screen; a larger than life figure he’d once held securely in his arms, picked up like you’d weighed nothing. A small smile was etched into his features, appearing on his handsome face like watercolour on a canvas. Soft, bleeding through the edges.

“I saw it on the television earlier,” he said. “You did well.”

You couldn’t help grinning. “Yeah? You think?”

“I know. So, what are you in Hong Kong for?”

“Oh, my friend and I are on our way back to Taipei, but we just wanted to make a quick stop here for a day or two. I had to show him where Chungking Express was filmed.”

James chuckled softly. Something that hadn’t changed, he noted. Your obsession with niche films. 

“And you?” you asked.

He shut one eye, as if in thought. “I came to visit some family. It was my grandma’s eightieth, so I stayed for the month.”

“Oh, really? That’s great!”

It was a bit of an odd scene, to be honest. Talking to the man you’d had a very passionate, unhealthy, short-lived relationship with as a teenager like you were two friends catching up over coffee. But that’s what you and James were, before everything else. Friends. Begrudging, snappish, eye-rolling friends. Training buddies who spent too much time together. You practically hadn’t seen each other properly for two years, but it was easy to fall back into that dynamic with him.

He nodded, though he didn’t grace you with a direct reply. Instead he said, “Yeah. I’ve been trying to figure things out recently, so I decided staying overseas for a bit would help.”

You paused. “You’re not playing for the Eagles anymore?”

He shook his head.

“You retired?”

“Yeah. I figured I didn’t want to waste my life trying to make something of a sport I didn’t even like that much.”

“But you had the talent for it,” you tried, attempting an encouraging smile.

He returned it in all its gentleness and beauty. “I know. But I’m not you. I can’t lose myself in my passion the way you do. Doesn’t make me any less committed, I just… I guess I realised my talent doesn’t lie in only one thing.”

You hummed softly. “You did? I’m glad.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s helped a lot.”

The silence that enveloped you reminded you of the hospital in Tokyo. It was thick, and filled with the feeling of your guilt. It was your own guilt, of course, nothing projected onto you, nothing brought upon you by anyone by yourself. It was the self-aware sort, the kind people felt when they knew they had sins to answer for, mistakes they’d made, bad decisions they’d left in the gods’ hands.

Your second apology was different from your first one in that you didn’t try to cover all your fronts in one sentence. Instead, you stepped closer to James, effectively grabbing his attention, and said, “I’m sorry I thought less of you because you played hockey.” Then, “I’m sorry I treated you like shit just because I was scared.” And, “I’m sorry I couldn’t give you the love you deserved when you so readily gave it to me. I’m sorry I was a bad friend, and a bad girlfriend, and a bad person. I know I was younger, and I was dumber, but that doesn’t make what I did any less… shitty. I was a little asshole, and I deserved your anger for all those years.”

Instead of agreeing with you, curling his lip in anger and telling you off for your wrongdoings, James looked at you like you hung the moon and the stars, wrote the code he lived and loved by. “It’s okay,” he said. “We were just kids.”

“Kids do fucked up shit sometimes,” you protested. “And I did.”

“Still okay.” He noticed the look you were giving him, and added, “That doesn’t mean I’m forgiving you immediately. I’m still furious with you. But, I got my second chance. I’d say it’s only fair you get yours.”

Your brow furrowed in a frown. “Are you saying we should… try again?”

Yufan shrugged. “Why not? Love is more fun the second time round, anyway.” He stepped forward, face inching closer to yours. “As long as I get to have you as my first kiss, because I’ve been waiting for three damn years.”

And who were you to deny him that luxury?

Your first ever kiss happened in a tacky souvenir shop in Hong Kong International Airport, with reels of you playing on a television in the background, and Cantopop drifting through the air as you moulded your body to his, lips slotted together in an embrace that said please don’t let go. Yufan pulled you impossibly closer, his soft lips pressed against yours like a whisper of encouragement for you to get lost in him. Years and years of tension, pent up frustrations, and wishes leaked into the kiss, years of history and years of love that you hadn’t had the heart to receive before you were ready.

“I’m not going to admit it right now,” Yufan said, breaking the kiss only enough that he was murmuring against your lips, though he was going to do just that in the next ten seconds, “but I’ve had the fattest crush on you since I saw you three years ago when you stole my suitcase.”

perm taglist @hyuneskkami @ramenoil @cranialberry @teacuplps @en-dream @luffyloving @beaseungiu @tmrwsuns @eunjjx

the original guitar loop is great, it loops around the entire track and sets a good tone. I would still prefer it to be kinda louder than it is, it feels a bit too muffled/muted for my liking.

the bass that kicks in by the prechorus feels softer than I'd like too, but I can feel they're building to something bigger. a critique here is that the track could use some more stuff to fill the space. it feels kinda empty by this point and I'm feeling a bit reliant on the vocals to keep listening.

the chorus is AMAZING in terms of what the track was building to by this point. the bass kicks in louder, theres layers to the guitar and there's more overall sound. all empty space that was felt prior is temporarily forgotten. the layering of the voices is exactly what you wouldn't exactly expect, but once you've heard it, it's like “of course I'd want it this way.” it's satisfying

the voice and tone is great for the song. they really killed it with the vocals and I don't have any critique here.

the lyrics are GREAT too, there's so much ambition and feel that gives it so much overall “cool”ness. I don't even want to pick a fav line because they're all just sooo cooperative with each other, the song just gets better and better with each line and the overall delivery is extremely satisfying to listen to.

my overall feeling I'm left with— 6.9/10 due to the production and the potential I can hear this song have, im partially satisfied and a bit upset. the song is SO my style and really wanted it to be more. the track feels kind of empty, despite how much I enjoyed the chorus. like I said, the bass seems muffled, the instrumental seems softer than I'd like, there seems to be almost no "final chorus" things that you sometimes hear in many songs. I'd have really loved a louder guitar, a more emotional guitar, some adlibs of them screaming or making odd noises that give the final chorus more texture and pay off.

REDRED

the morse code spelling out “redred” was cheeky, kind of funny how it wasn't intentional.

there's a lot of 8-bit elements to the song which I kind of enjoy.

the gliding 808 (the constant bass going up and down, up and down or wee-woo-wee-woo) is something I thoroughly enjoy, although it's kind of overwhelming and loud to the ear compared to the previous song TNT.

the transition to the next few verses after the first chorus is really refreshing, I enjoy that.

the lyrics are kind of cheeky, and ultimately fun to listen to. they have a really nice playful vibe to it, and they deliver a really good message too. my favorite lyrics are “팔랑귀 팔랑귀 that's redred” it's so simple but really sets the tone well for what they're trying to communicate throughout the entire song.

I love the way their vocals sound, the adlibs and the background vocals really really honor the track and take it up to the next level. it's fun and ultimately super enjoyable of a song.

overall feelings— 5/10 first listen, 7.3/10 now. the reason I gave it a lower initial score is because it's definitely not meant for casual listening, but rather to be performed, and you can really see that because watching the performance really makes a heck of a difference in how the listener interprets the song.

when I first heard it, the whole track had me so overwhelmed and due to the way it's structured, telling apart the verses from the chorus was difficult, and I just felt like the whole thing was blending together. now, because I know how the song goes, I can truly appreciate how it's meant to be heard. but this is a huge hurdle to jump over if you, the listener, are only just discovering cortis. and it could turn the listener off immediately because it's a track doing a lot.

something to note; I found myself raising my volume to truly appreciate TNT, and then having to lower it almost immediately for REDRED, which is a bit disappointing to do as a listener. it feels like the tracks are mixed (in terms of production) so differently— I can't appreciate the instrumentals because I'm constantly worrying if I can even hear it or if I'm hearing it too much.

ACAI

holy peak of an intro. “nasty” (positive) is the first word that comes to my mind. it's getting the same reaction as UGH! from BTS got me— I just immediately start vibing from the “who is choking? ion care” line repeating

the instrumental is so so SO good, there's so much texture from the sound effects alone. the panning of a lot of audio tracks and sound effects really really helps the track feel extremely dynamic. the bass is such a good part.

this is such a sick song, the adlibs are soooooo addicting to listen to; “ye— ye— ye—” “uh, uh, uh” “WHÆE!” “YEAH!” “LETS GOO!” “SKRRRR” blowing raspberries, an actual “BLEEAAAGHHHH!!!” like a zombie, literally soooo good and soooo sick, these parts harmonize so so well with the textures of the rest of the track. it gives the track so many layers and almost edges— it's a very prominent song, despite not being traditionally “loud”

THE BEST LINES EVER.

“who is choking? ion care” “hundred acai; bring that acai” “내가 많이 좋아해, acai” I loveeeee the unserious lyrics

this part of the chorus

벌컥, 벌컥, 땡겨, 땡겨, i just choked on acai

THE WHOLE PRECHORUS !!! WHAT DELIVERY.

당나귀, 당나귀처럼 동서남북 지구

한 바퀴, 한 바퀴 돌다 보면 순간 울려, “ba-ra-ring”

배꼽에 알람이; it's time to acai, it's time to acaiiiii”

and this very strong part of verse 2. again, insane tone and delivery. especially on “stack ’n stack” I looove the subtle growl 🤤😝

acai 묻은 tee, acai 묻은 pants, acai 묻은 album, 만들어 버려 jam

난 키워 버려 trend, 다 묻혀 버려 SNS에 stack ’n stack ’n stack; but I ain't tryna blend...

my only criticism is that the mixing is done so that you can hear the individual tracks of the whole song, but you don't feel. they don't really stand out or “stain” your ears like the lyrics or their tone/delivery do. I really want to hear MORE of the instruments and the textures, so I turn the volume up, but then the voices get too loud and I'm left feeling like something is missing.

overall probably one of their more “unserious” songs that is tremendously done well and refined pretty good. a solid 8.2/10, unfortunately I still struggled with the “i wanna hear more” issue that I've been communicating so far. the bass could be louder, the individual tracks could be louder and it could be sharper of a track (than it already is)

ts was cunty asf I'm sawry they ATEEE THATTTT

YOUNGCREATORCREW

who's goddamn idea was it to put acai and ycc back to back cuz 👏 you son of a bitch 👏 you have done it again 👏

HOLYYYYYY CUNTTTTTTTT 😝😝😝

ycc gives me the satisfaction I've been asking the entire mixing of the album to give me 😭 so desperately 😭

the bass is LOUD. the drums have emotion, there is texture, there are shouts, claps. a “ayeee oohhhh” crowd voice kind of track in the chorus, which I really want to know if it's vocals chopped up/sampled to make a track, or an actual instrument, however I'm sure it's vocals. the siren/alarm is such a NASTY addiction during the prechorus to prep for the last chorus. there is a high pitched synth (?) I believe that acts as a beep almost, and it changes pitches which makes me believe it's an instrument. I could be wrong though.

the lyrics are extremely memorable, kind of silly, there's a huge theme of unity, creative soul, young rebellion 느낌. there are no specific lyrics I want to take apart but they flow so well together. it's so influential, it has you convinced that you, too, carry a “young ho” kinda swag and it just gets you hyped. another good performance song, but unlike redred (for me) I actually would find myself genuinely listening to this on a regular.

the tone and delivery is sick. the background vocals add so many layers to the entire song's lyrics, and there are so many adlibs I enjoy thoroughly. there is a "YEAH!” that comes after each "youngㅋㅋ" in the chorus and it is SO addicting. the vocal riffs are so addicting to listen to.

there are screams, shouts, "WOO!”s, blows, “WAH! LETS GO!” “HUH!” “AAAAH!!” tongue clicks, growls, barks and whistles

a really cute thing I wanted to point out specifically and isolate was martin's scream around 2:12/2:13 mark— it seems to pan from the left ear to the right ear if you wear headphones, like he's running behind you. it's so so satisfying and gives the track such an insane sense of space and dynamic. It's a very small detail, easy to miss, but I geeked out listening to that.

overall another strong strong song in the album, a soliddd 9.1/10 because it is loud in a delicious way.

WASSUP

i love the tired vibe. it's so familiar I immediately feel it in my bones.

I really enjoy the sped up drums that kick in during the intro. it reminds me of “funky drummer” drums sample by james brown but sped up and rearranged. it's so prominent in music today, so I wouldn't be surprised if the drums were inspired by funky drummer and created for this track.

I like the sped up, pitched up voice that's part of the instrumental, it's looping throughout the whole song. I really enjoy the bass, the I love love love the guitar that's looping throughout the entire track.

the second verse is extremely strong— I really enjoy the almost "despair" kind of tone they have throughout the entire song. they really let their voice carry a lot of the lyrics and they really know how to communicate their feelings through it.

the prechorus “been through these lows; now we're getting high” is SO strong, both in delivery and in instrumental. it stands out immediately, its almost the kind of part that seeps into the listener's bones and jolts them. immediate goosebumps. I think this is probably one of the killer parts of this entire track.

i thoroughly enjoy the lyrics, its unbelievably relatable. it's such an eye-opener into the lives of kpop idols and small artists in general trying to make it big— it's true that the small discomforts of a long, promising journey will seep into their daily lives til they're absolutely tired of it. and this goes for everyone trying to live and make it to their dreams; cortis captures this track's intensity through it's lyricism— precisely what this track cannot shine without it.

I love the subtle distortion throughout the entire track, not just on the smaller instrumentals, but especially on the vocals. the prechorus, again, is where I feel most drawn to in terms of production.

overall— a very strong song, 7.9/10 cortis breaks down the wall that separates an artist from their fan and let's one peep into their daily lives; and what it takes to build the short moments of glamor.

BLUE LIPS

mama.....................i can't do this .......

this track deserves its own analysis post like I did with joyride 😭😭😭😭 it's beautiful and it's so so heartfelt. I'll focus on the production and touch a hair on the lyrics because if I genuinely start talking about the lyrics and start piecing them apart, I WILL make this too long 😭

immediately in the intro: the sample of the underwater audio needs to be louder. it is such a strong part of the entire track and I'm disappointed I can't hear more of it. I genuinely imagine sitting by the pool in the dark, dunking my ankles, letting the water ripple and just staring. and staring. and staring. and ironically, it's a comfortable middle to be in, both metaphorically and literally. I'm still “in” the pool, but not quite. I'm still by the memory, I want to leave but I refuse to part; refuse to let my ankles out of the water.

the pitched up voice of the members— martins in the intro, (allegedly, according to genius) juhoon's voice in the outro; it's so so so native to dominic fike and frank ocean. I love the little glitch in martins voice when he says “dont want to lose you.”

“saw you swimming in the pool; thought we were going out for dinner” this casual lyricism, conversational delivery style is so traditional to dominic fike in his What Else Could Go Wrong? and Don't Forget About Me. he has such a way with his words and he knows how to make casual, mundane things, so so prominent and permanent to the listener. it immediately breaks down the disconnect that could form in translation from the artist to the reader, and suddenly— everyone connects. because everyone has thought, “thought we were going out for dinner.” this clear inspo is so lovely to recognize.

simultaneously, I also immediately thought of frank ocean's self control— not only is his intro is a pitched up voice, but it's so closely related to cortis' “pool” metaphor. “poolside convo about your summer last night; about your summer last night.”

cortis uses chords to carry the whole song, and warm (?), almost sweet synth pads that dominic fike uses a lot in his music. fike's Think Fast (ft. Weezer) is the most prominent example I can think of this— towards the outro at the 3:33 timestamp, the track has a synth very prominently inspiring the synth that plays at 0:16 seconds in Blue Lips.

the whole song has an angelic sweet tune to it, the little tune that plays at the 0:55 mark reminds me so much of something dominic fike but I can't find what song or what timestamp it reminds me of ☹️ the ambience of blue lips is so beautifully composed and arranged.

I also adore the harmonization that the boys manage with themselves, it's gorgeous and they, yet again, carry such emotion with their voices. there's background vocals, especially in the final chorus, which stretch the feeling of yearn and dread til the very end. I think they executed that beautifully.

the entire track has the members talking about their growth, their development and their struggles with still eyeing hope at the end of the tunnel. but, as the days go by, even staring at that very light grows into a two edged sword— staring is what gets them moving towards their future, but their eyes are tired. their feet are tired. they grow tired of the very thing they chase.

and they cross the tunnel, they will accomplish old dreams and need a “new why.” the tired grows. what seemed out of reach has been long touched and reached— an ambitious mind can't keep reaching for more without first consuming what it's been desperately craving; chasing all this time. cortis sings for a moment of quiet, a moment to rest, to get rid of the tired— where they can stay in the pool before life pulls them out.

in the end, they can't keep staying in the same old pool. the future may be cold, but the water keeps growing colder. the comfort of staying where they are is making them freeze— giving them “blue lips.”

maybe as a final act of self love, or selfishness— they stay in the pool one last time. feeling the warmth through the lens of a memory, a warmth that has slowly ceased to exist.

if I had to pick a part that finds a way into my chest and tightens, it's the outro

we've been in here way too long, I've been feelin way too cold

can we stay in here lil bit more? out of the pool, I know you'll be gone.

so, so, can we stay in here lil bit more?

with me, with me, with me

overall — 9.4/10. extremely strong in terms of production, delivery, emotion and just a beautiful beautiful track. it's up there with joyride and lullaby in it's beauty. I didn't even touch on the "inner child" metaphor in this analysis, so if I ever make a proper breakdown, I'll be sure to find every theme possible in this.

in conclusion — I really enjoyed the texture each track. there was so much to explore, listen to, and experience. a huge personal problem, as a listener, I seemed to experience was dissatisfaction due to feeling like the track or it's elements weren't loud enough. I really struggled with wanting to really hear more, but because of the mixing or the volume control, I really couldn't.

During patrol, you came hurling out of the clouds in a trail of fire, and your hair streamed behind you like a comet’s tail. He had sprung into motion then in an instinct to save and protect, hands outstretched just in time for you to crash directly into him. The impact nearly knocked the breath from his lungs when you both tumbled onto the empty asphalt in a heap of limbs and smoke. 

Robin! Martin, who had already lost his breath catching you, only to lose the rest of it the moment he finally got a proper look. 

Robin! Martin, who had been a Titan for long enough to know that a routine mission usually meant this exact opposite. Fires, explosions, the occasional giant robot trying to destroy the city. It all came with the territory. What did not, however, come with the territory was some space woman dropping out of the sky and kissing him square on the mouth. 

It was neither a peck nor a brief little smooch. In fact, it was a real, firm, and entirely unhesitating kiss. 

Martin froze completely. Around him, the rest of the Titans did much the same, save for Beast Boy, whose jaw dropped so far down it threatened the structural integrity of his jaw bones. If he had any permanent ones, that is.

“She’s certainly a straightforward kind of gal.” He jabbed Cyborg sharply in his metal ribs, grinning like Christmas had come early this year.

Cyborg let out a low laugh. “White boy still got it.”

A few seconds after you pulled away, Martin finally found the ability to function, though only just. His domino mask did nothing to hide the red climbing up his neck.

You smiled up at him, open and radiant. It was cute how entirely oblivious you were to what you had just caused.

“Thank you for saving me.” Each word came out careful and a little unnatural, so neatly separated from the next that Martin considered, if only for a moment, of the possibility that you might just have been a machine like Cyborg was. 

Martin cleared his throat. “It’s no problem.” He pointed at you, then at his own lips. “A thank you kiss, was it?”

You tilted your head as confusion flickered across your face.

“My people can learn the language of other civilizations through mouth-to-mouth contact.” 

Even Raven looked up from whatever dark thoughts she’d been cultivating. Martin’s expression shifted into something between mortification and fascination.

“Ah,” his voice cracked just enough for Beast Boy to start cackling. Martin shot him a glare that only encouraged him further. 

“Can they now?”

Robin! Martin, who is rarely the first one to lose his temper. Seriously. 

He is, by designation and reluctant habit, the leader after all. He says ‘reluctant’ only in the way a person is reluctant to breathe: he does it because someone must. It’s his job to smooth things over, crack a joke or two, and step in between arguments before they turn into fights. It was part of what made him Robin, once upon a time, and later, what made him a Titan. He was willing to be the center of gravity in a room of people who would otherwise tip too far into themselves or each other. 

But when he discovers where Cyborg’s put you, he loses it.

“She’s an unknown extraterrestrial with unmeasured abilities.” Cyborg explains thinly with the confidence of someone speaking from behind several reinforced doors. The doors being that metal body Martin is thinking of cracking like a tin can at the moment. 

“Listen, I don’t wanna know if she had a love potion swirling in her saliva when she kissed you, and I don’t care, because standard protocol requires–” 

“Standard protocol,” Martin cuts in, with each word clipped enough to shave some skin, “usually involves informing the team before locking someone in the basement. Informing the leader of this team, Vic.”

Cyborg wisely says nothing, and Beast Boy has the good sense to take one step back. Even Raven, who usually doesn’t react when fights happen, folds her arms and raises an eyebrow. 

But Martin doesn’t get to see all of their reactions to it’s end, because he’s already moving towards the elevator. The ride down is too slow, and his boot taps in a staccato rhythm against the metal floor all the way. When the doors finally part, he’s out before they fully open.

“I was beginning to think this was your custom for welcoming visitors.”

Suspended in the center of a cylindrical containment chamber is you, separated from the room by thick transparent walls and some faint alien dampeners. You look up at the sound of quick approaching footsteps and smile the moment you see him. It’s a small thing, but it hits him like a punch.

Martin stalks up the glass, fury tightening every line of his body.

“It really isn’t.” 

“You seem… angry.” Martin is angry. 

He says nothing, which is perhaps the clearest indication of all. Instead, he pivots toward the control panel and begins pressing buttons (much harder than necessary, mind you) until the chamber unlocks with a hydraulic hiss.

Steam curls between you theatrically guided, and it reminds him of something like the grand entrance of a circus magician. 

You step out and directly into Martin’s carefully maintained personal space, which, until now, had been one of his more reliable assets. You come close enough that he can feel the heat clinging to you and the lingering warmth rising from your skin. Or was it your hair? Charged and cracking at the ends, and carrying with it that strange ozone-sharp scent. 

“Are you cold?” He asks, because he certainly is. He wondered how you stayed warm in that container for so long.

You look at him and smile, mellow, telling. “Me? I’m never cold, robin bird.” 

Robin! Martin, who loves to spar with you.

Though the first time, it was only a matter of necessity. The team had agreed that the mysterious alien girl currently residing in their tower should probably know the difference between a training room and, say, downtown Manhattan. You were so eager and bright-eyed, just a little too excited by the prospect of ‘friendly combat’. Martin really should’ve taken that as some sort of warning.

Beast Boy and Cyborg have claimed front-row seats in the training room, and Raven is also present in some dark corner. She’s reading, though the occasional turn of her page suggested she was paying more attention than she admitted. 

Martin rolls his shoulders and tries to loosen up.

“Okay,” He slips (not so easily) into instructor mode. “The point here isn’t to win, alright? You just gotta learn control.”

You nod solemnly. “Understood.”

Then you punch a hole straight through one of the practice dummies.

Cyborg whistles low and leans in to whisper to Beast Boy. “Remind me never to owe her money.”:

Beast Boy, who doesn’t look away from the torn dummy, whispers back. “You think she even knows what that is?”

Martin stares at the mangled remains of what once was Titan property, then slowly back at you. “... We’ll work on your restraint.”

He circles you once, staff spinning idly between his fingers. You smile at him entirely unafraid. 

“Just follow my lead.”

“I will try not to break you.”

Martin snorts. “Incredibly reassuring, space lady.”

You don’t seem to understand sarcasm yet, which is frankly making his life even more difficult. Quickly and precisely, Martin lunges a testing strike first, and you block it effortlessly. His brows shoot up. Incredible.

He sweeps low, and you leap clean over it. He presses harder and strings attacks together in a rapid blur of motion. You only matched him beat for beat, edge for edge, adapting to him frighteningly fast.

You move differently than anyone he’s fought in the past. You’re less trained and rely more on your instincts. Like dancing, he thinks. Martin feints left, and you take the bait.

He hooks his staff behind your knees, and for one glorious second, victory seemed just within reach for him.

But you grab his wrist in the speed of sound and with an unrivaling strength, and Martin has exactly enough time to think, huh, before you flip him flat on his back.

Beast Boy falls off the bench laughing, and Cyborg steps on his feet to offer some applause. He bets even Raven twitches the tiniest bit.  Your face appears above Martin’s, upside down from his perspective, and framed by that fiery mane of hair. 

“Am I any good?”

Martin bares his teeth in a wolfish grin and the truth spills free from the tip of his tongue.

“You’re perfect.” 

Robin! Martin, who learns very early on that when someone tells you to ‘create a distraction’, there’s a very important and unspoken clause that they should always explicitly write it down for you in bold. He’s learned his lesson. 

This particular lesson arrives somewhere over Gotham’s warehouse district.

A Falcone shipment is being unloaded three stories below the docks as the city slicks with rain and is painted dark. The air smells like river water, engine oil, and so much crime, a deeply Gotham combination. Martin will later insist that he doesn’t miss Gotham. Though at present, he’s crouched on a rooftop in the middle of it feeling nostalgic. 

Beside him, you balance effortlessly on the ledge looking entirely too happy for a mission such as this one. The broken streetlamp close by flickers in irregular intervals, throwing his domino mask into alternating shadow and light. He glances down through the grimy skylight at the dozen armed men below. 

“Alright, space lady,” he addressed you quietly. “We gotta split them up. Simple, huh? You take the east entrance and–”

You nod immediately and enthusiastically. 

“–create a distraction.” He finishes, glancing ominously at you and bracing. Martin opens his mouth once more, more aware that perhaps his instructions could have benefited from a few additional parameters. 

“Now when I say distraction I mean–” But you fly away before he’s able to finish. 

“Wait–” Martin desperately wants to believe you have chosen the east entrance like a normal, rational vigilante partner. The normal, rational vigilante partner he wants to believe you are. 

But then the skylight explodes. 

Glass erupts inward in a magnificent cascade, and it rains down like crystal confetti at the world’s most illegal gala. This explosion of sound silences the entire warehouse below. 

When he looks at you again, you’re standing in the exact center of the floor framed by shattered glass and steam from a ruptured pipe. You brush a sliver of particles from your shoulder and look up toward the roof. Did I do well? You mouth at him. Martin, ever the pleaser, gives you a measly thumbs up. 

Yes, the skylight is obliterated. Yes, Bruce is going to ask Martin why there’s now an insurance claim shaped suspiciously like your silhouette. Yes, this is going to be one expensive assignment, and Bruce’s accountant is going to develop a really shitty migraine. 

But Martin had asked for a distraction. And in fairness, you had provided one so distracting that no one in that warehouse would ever forget it. The mission was accomplished all the same anyway.

Robin! Martin, who stands nearly eye to eye with you and is close enough in height, save for the occasional half-inch granted by his posture or some particularly ambitious boots. 

The Titans (more so Wallace), having collectively appointed themselves experts on the decidedly undefined nature of whatever is going on between the two of you, are interested in Martin’s thoughts on the matter. Though he’s never entirely certain whether they mean taller, empyrean, or more intimidating. He contests at least half of those labels and only shrugs his shoulders. 

“Makes conversations easier. I mean, it’s less of a neck strain, isn’t it?” 

Which is true. But it also means he doesn’t have to tilt his head very far to find your eyes, those green improbable things that always seem to catch light from places light has no business being in. He’s spent hours attempting not to look at them, and it’s an act at which he’s shown remarkable persistence in but no talent whatsoever.

He likes that you meet him straight on. And he also likes looking at you (far more than is reasonable. Then again, reason has never been a useful thing where you are concerned).

Robin! Martin, who almost lost it after that rescue mission. 

He was already close to his own limit. Frayed, thinking too fast and too much, so it might have been anything. Honestly, it might just have been you. 

The med bay is quiet at this late hour. Machines hum in low and steady rhythms, and you lie against the white surface of a bed, breathing, present. Martin dwells at the doorway for so long just looking at you. 

He tells himself you’ll be fine, or that you’ll wake up and forget where you are and who he is. But he tells himself a lot of crazy things. 

Eventually, he crosses the room and settles at the edge of your bed. His hand lifts to smooth a strand of hair from your face, and then he looks at you again. When his hand finds your arm, your warmth is unembellished and as comforting to his heart. Warm, and again warm. Real and alive. 

Your fingers curl faintly around his, and he takes this as encouragement, maybe more than intended. He leans in close enough that his breath ghosts across your skin, and almost–

Almost. 

He pulls back too quickly like you’ve just burned him.

Martin, despite everything, is terrified of you. 

It’s true, though not in the way it sounds. Not that he fears you. No, you’ve never been something to fear. He’s scared of what he turns into and understands the consequence of this. But understanding does nothing to change it. If there were a line, he wouldn’t hold it. If there were a choice, he’d choose you. Now, later, and at the end of anything. 

Hell, you could reduce the Titan Tower to ash, and that may not even be far from an impossibility given that you weren’t exactly in control of your senses just a while ago. But he thinks he’d do it all the same even then. It’s not a choice he wants to make. But he knows, still, what would happen. A life would have been worth giving away. 

Curse the Citadel and its appetite. Curse Psimon and his illusions. Curse your sister, who will call it love. 

Love, yeah, maybe that was the word. 

“You always pull back.” Your eyes slowly open, having been aware of what Martin was trying to do. 

“Bad timing, I guess.”

“Or fear.”

He exhales through something tighter than his patience. “Y/n, tell me you’re feeling alright.”

“Oh I don’t feel alright at all.” 

“Y/n.”

“Don’t you see, Martin?” You cut in, softer now, but no less certain. “I don’t know what customs of affection you have on Earth. I’ve yet to figure it out. But I can’t seem to read into you, and it’s killing me. Right here.” You point to your chest. 

Eventually, you let out a long sigh. “I even have dreams about it.” 

Dreams, you say? 

There are things he keeps meaning to tell you, and he wants you to know that. But they’ve always remained, stubbornly and always, in the future. He supposes time may as well be now. 

Martin takes your hands slowly, fingers folding around yours as he brings them up to press a soft kiss to your knuckles.

“Then tell me your dreams, I want to dream of them too.”

You look at him earnestly, as full as you always felt whenever you did. “You don’t have to, Tin. Your mind is your own.”

He leans in closer until he’s hovering over you, and his fingers find yours first, then your nails, tracing upward and relinquishing you from yourself one small piece at a time. When he looks at you again, a screw is knocked loose once more. 

“Well, you could say that. My mind is mine, these hands are mine, my eyes to see you, my mouth to humor you, and these parts, all mine.” He points to all of them as he says it, then leans his head on your pillow. It’s the closest he’s ever come to seeing you, with what little distance is left seizing to mean anything at all. 

“But I can choose.” A breath and an inhale, slow and stuttering. “And I choose to be yours.”

That first kiss you shared left a whole day burning in him, and the remainder of your fire like a blowtorch in yourself. It was a moment for the ages, one Martin will preserve for a long, long time. 

Robin! Martin, who in the interim period between too many identity crises, takes a break from the team for a few months. In that interval, he had discovered something that had been circling him for some time. Bruce’s shadow was getting a little too dark.

Don’t get him wrong. He owed Bruce quite a lot. The survival instinct passed down to him made him capable. Still, even the best-built wings aren’t meant to stay folded, and Martin could feel his stretching. Such as a son who will always one day rebel against his own father, Martin was an eager bird waiting to leave the nest.  

Maybe he was good by Batman's standards, but it was the same scale his competence had always been measured against. And what he wanted, more than freedom in the breakaway sense, was authorship. To do good work by his own name. He thought that growing into a man still answering to the name Robin felt absurd. 

There was a story Clark had mentioned once to which he still remembers. A fragment of Kryptonian mythology from before the destruction, and before Earth. Before that particular hope symbol. It was the legend of Nightwing and Flamebird, two tandem existing figures. One would move through the dark, the other through light, and neither defined by any form of hierarchy. Martin wanted something a lot like that.

Then he hears of this new guy. 

His name was James. From what Martin picks up, it had started with an attempt to steal the hubcaps of the Batmobile. He almost respects the audacity, He suspects that Bruce, however, treated this as the start to another mantle-shaped problem. Martin hopes the word sidekick wouldn’t sit too bitterly on James’ tongue, at least not too soon.

They meet on a rooftop of all places. James is already there when Martin arrives, perched on the ledge with one foot dangling over empty air, hands buried in his jacket pockets.  

James doesn’t turn around. “You always drop in like that?”

“People can act pretty stupid sometimes,” Martin says. “Figured I’d get ahead of it.”

“Relax.” James scoffs. “M’not touching that stupid car again.” 

“Right. Unless you want Bruce to develop some personal vendetta.” 

Martin shifts the duffel on his shoulder, reaches in, and pulls out the folded suit. Red, green yellow. Cleaned up, packed tight, and much too bright. He tosses it over and James catches it, eyes grazing the laid down fabric.

“This is–what, a hand me down?” 

“Think of it as recycling,” Martin replies with a quick grin. “I’m very eco-friendly.” 

James lifts the suit a little. “I’ll look like a clown in this.”

“Look, it’s durable. The seams are reinforced, light armor plating, decent mobility too. Try not to wreck it in the first week, yeah?” 

“Try not to wreck it,” James repeats. “That’s your big speech?”

“Oh, you wanted a speech?”

“I mean–kinda?”

Martin considers this for a second. Really, he does.

He just shakes hsi head.

“Nah. Sounds like something Bruce would do.” 

James huffs out a laugh under his breath before he can stop it, and Martin glances out over the city, the long rows of rooftops and fire escapes and water towers. Gotham looked bigger and meaner. All of it to learn from, and if James lets it, enough to get lost in. 

“Don’t die in that.” He adds.

James lowers his gaze to the suit in his hands. “Yeah. I’ll… try not to.” 

Martin nods once, and deeming this quite enough for the newbie, he turns to leave and steps toward the ledge. James calls after him.

“Hey! So what am I supposed to do with this?”

Martin pauses just long enough to look back over his shoulder.

“Make it yours.” Then he’s out of sight. 

James and Martin both become something new that night, unbeknownst to anyone.

Nightwing! Martin, who once brought you to a Gotham charity gala, having forgotten that you possess exactly zero filter for all this billionaire nonsense. 

In his defense, he had not so much forgotten as chosen optimism over experience, which, as Bruce would tell you, has always been one of Martin’s more expensive character traits. 

“It’ll be easy.” he had promised while adjusting his cufflinks in the mirror. “Smile like you always do. Make polite conversation. Try not to threaten anyone, yeah?”

You had looked up from where you were fastening an earring. “My, Martin. I’ve never threatened anyone at a fundraiser.”

My, Martin. My Martin.

Wayne Manor was transformed for the evening. It’s marble gleams, chandeliers lit up for once, and there’s enough old money in this house to destabilize several other old money folks. Gotham’s most elite drifted from one conversation to the other looking like a bunch of well-dressed sharks. 

Martin comes in search of you later in the evening to find you conversing with some oil executive, asking whether there was such a thing as a free market in the alien civilization, and why there should be.

“Most advanced species stop monetizing basic survival after a certain point.” You had said in reply, and the executive excused himself from your presence almost immediately.

You weren’t wrong, though. Gotham was as corrupt a world as any other. It didn’t matter that it had the Batman (though he was, in more ways than one, just the same). Bruce had taught him quite early on that power barely even looked like power from the inside. It would sometimes look like philanthropy, campaign donations, charitable foundations with carefully engraved plaques speaking of hope and resilience. 

If he thought about it a little more, the difference between a criminal empire and a corporate one largely depended on its aesthetic, and that was it. In the end, both need territory, loyalty, and the comforting lie that their victims always consented. From this, Martin would often wonder whether masks had ever truly been constrained to vigilantes. 

But it seemed that there were nights when Gotham’s true rulers wouldn’t wear masks at all. Crime here was rarely a matter of hunger or haste. It was all paperwork. A signature in the right column or a stamp through, enough ink on enough paper was all it took, and whole city blocks could be condemned more efficiently than any supervillain might manage with a death ray. 

It was easier, most times, to fight a man with a gun. 

And perhaps that was why you unsettled them so thoroughly. You hadn’t thought much of all these titles, and had no instinct to deter to something simply because it sparkled. Billionaires, senators, board members, even Bruce Wayne himself, you looked at them all the same. They were people first, and only then as whatever strange little hierarchies they built around themselves. They’d hate you more later. They hated you now. 

An environment Martin had been so accustomed to not being accustomed to you at all. It was a funny thought. 

But he’d look at you from across the room and forget, for a long while after that, why he was even thinking all this in the first place. Because here, tonight, among the ugly and the gilded, the polished and the predatory, you were something he figured he wouldn’t have been able to imagine so long ago. 

You were beautiful, yes. You are beautiful. But Martin believed beautiful was too simple a word for what he saw. Stars are beautiful. So are paintings, and oceans, and all these earthly things. All the beauty that was left of a world gone rotten. He’s seen them all and named them all, and when he saw you…

“Martin?” You walk over to him looking a little worn. “May we leave now?”

He thinks of a contradiction and then another, and takes your hand. 

So it is then that Martin believes perhaps the cruelest thing about falling in love with someone born of the heavens is not having a single word in the human language to describe them. 

Nightwing! Martin, who, even before you were living together, had the habit of keeping up with all kinds of events. Everything from anniversaries to numerology to vaguely sentimental coincidences he could justify on the fly.

It was well past midnight when he knocks on your door. You open it to find him there, hair still windblown from the rooftop winds, mask gone, suit half-zipped down… how? There’s a paper bag (takeout, you assumed) in one hand, and in the other, a small bunch of flowers. 

His knuckles are bruised, there’s a little cut near his chin, but as usuals go, he gives you a smile, teeth and all. 

“I’m punctual, aren’t I?”

You lean against the doorframe confused. “Punctual for what?”

“What?!” He fakes a gawk as if you’ve missed something so obvious. “You didn’t know?”

You raise an eyebrow.

“It’s the thirteenth of the month.” He says like that would even explain anything. 

When you look just as confused, Martin, infinitely undettered, shifts the flowers slightly and gestures vaguely for the takeout bag.

“Thirteen is your lucky number, right? You thought I forgot? That I, Martin Edwards, of all people, would forget?”

Even you forgot you ever told him about that. 

“Surprise. Now let me in.” A sheepish grin grows on the tips of his lips. 

You let him in. Of course you do. You had let him in for more stupid reasons before.

Nightwing! Martin, who you only fully come to understand after moving in together, can’t cook for shit.

“Don’t panic, babe.” He says. But how could you not?

There’s a pan still on the stove, and there’s smoke curling upward in slow accusatory spirals. Something had been in there a minute ago, you’re sure. Maybe eggs? An empty egg carton sits on the counter beside the burner, but you remember it being full yesterday. 

“What were you even trying to make?”

“Eggs.” Well, you knew that. Youdon’t even know why you asked.

“Eggs for dinner?”

He looks at you like you were the one that set the kitchen aflame. “They got protein, don’t they?”

That night, you ended up with takeout spread across the counter like a ceasefire. You told Martin he wasn’t allowed to eat until the kitchen didn’t look like a warzone. He hadn’t argued of course. He never really did when it came to your absolute laws.

When he finished, he stepped out of the kitchen still wearing that apron that read Kiss the Chef in ridiculous lettering. You stood up,  crossed that small distance between you with the intention of following those instructions to the letter, and kissed him breathless. 

And then you both drift off on the couch, a romcom playing in the background while Martin succumbs to sleep and snores up a storm. You’re half-curled against him as the television continues its small, earnest portrayal of love stories no one is awake to witness. One thing’s for sure, the last thing Martin was aware of before he dozed off was the warmth of your ever-blazing hair to his side, and that same warmth blooming straight in the chest. 

Nightwing! Martin, who learns that being with a Tamaranean means ordinary Earth inconveniences can quickly become the biggest incidents ever. 

Like moving in together, for instance. In hindsight, he should have seen it coming. While most people would bring furniture, boxes, or at least a sense of domestic intent, your contribution to their shared home was what can only be described as a fully assembled arsenal. 

Martin briefly imagines their future visitors stepping into the apartment and trying very politely to pretend this was all just a part of one of those IKEA ensembles, as much as they hoped it would be. Absolutely fucking priceless.

A weapon rack sits where a bookshelf should be. Something long and bladed leans against the wall beside the sofa, and on the coffee table, a set of smaller pieced blades are laid out with deliberate spacing. They’re cleanly aligned, too. 

Martin exhales through his nose, trying to look away before he can let out the most ridiculous snort.

“You don’t like them?” You ask, stepping out of the bathroom like nothing in the living room is deemed unusual to you. Martin can only turn to you and place a long and lazy kiss on your forehead. 

“Nah,” he says, pulling back just enough to look at you properly, voice flat with affection and defeat. “I love ‘em, honey.”

Nightwing! Martin, who is reminded the most of the fact that you aren’t from Earth, and therefore not inherently built for it. Sometimes, you don’t know what to think of this, only that something in you is always faintly elsewhere. It hums and aches for something lost to you. 

There will be days when this Earth would feel merely the same as a room with four walls. Days such as today, where you lay awake on your side looking out the window while Martin slept soundly beside you. You think of it’s horizon as too near, this gravity too insistent. Even the sky, as vast as it is to anyone else, didn’t feel nearly as expansive enough to hold everything you were so used to seeing. 

Martin shifts from where he lies. “What’s the matter, babe?” He whispers hoarsely and strings his fingers through your dimmed hair. 

“Tin, why is this planet’s moon so lonely?” 

“Hmm?”

You let out a sigh. “I used to look at two moons back in Tamaran. They were one for the other, I believed.” 

Martin has no intention of competing with the moon, so instead, he gets up and opens the window. As thin and inadequate as you think the sky is tonight, it’s the only sky they have.

He learns of the moons you miss so much. Tamaran I and II as you described them would lean toward each other, and in that devotion, paint Tamaran’s skies in gold and violet tides. Their light would warm your skin instead of pale it, and the air carried the scent of sunfruit groves and the distant heat of living fire. 

Martin doesn’t know what it means to be exiled. He couldn’t fathom it. Banished from the only home you’ve ever known and cast into a world you knew nothing about. But as you both now settle on the long love seat by the window, he understands that you’re still reaching for it. And so, he leaves the curtains open. 

“Go to sleep, hun’.” 

Tamaran never asked you to be anything but what you were. It was a planet that rose to meet its sun, answering heat with heat, brightness with something brighter still, and every feeling was given freely to the spice-warmed winds. You carry the inheritance of your planet wherever you go, if the sunfire in your veins and your hair were anything to go by. But Earth is different. There are things you feel, and only so much of them are allowed to be shown. You find yourself, for the first time, holding words behind your teeth, bottling up laughter, and crouching to someone else’s less superior height. 

There are nights when you miss Tamaran so fiercely you feel your own flight gravity pull and push until you can barely float.

Martin is unmistakably of Earth. Robin, Nightwing, the Boy Wonder. He is of the same elements that make up the blood and bones and instincts as all else here. Oh, but when you met him, he didn’t think of letting you translate all these differences, even as he remained just as different from you as he was from the rest at large. 

And when his hands find yours, when your name leaves his mouth, you understand. 

You’re not as far from home as you think. 

Nightwing! Martin, who gets jealous easily. 

The mission briefing had been very clear: undercover, low profile, and absolutely no improvising whatsoever. Which is why, ten minutes into standing in a damp warehouse with a Russian arms dealer who looked increasingly offended the longer a disguised Martin spoke in English, everything was already falling off the rails.

When the team regroups, no one has any idea on the next plan of action.

“... I got none of that.” You say.

“Same,” Raven admits. “I didn’t even get the tone this time.”

Martin, standing slightly behind you, exhales through his nose like he’s trying very hard not to make this a big problem.

You glance at the group. “But I can try.”

“You?” Beast Boy asks. “How?”

“I can try mouth-to-mouth contact. If I can just get close to him, I’ll be able to understand–”

Martin immediately straightens. “I’m sorry, you can what?”

You blink. “It worked with you, didn’t it?”  

“We’re not doing that.”

Raven cuts in on the conversation. “Unless any of you got some secret ability to learn a language in ten seconds, I’d say it’s worth a shot–”

“Rae, respectfully, I don’t want to hear the end of that suggestion.” 

Much later, the team watches from the sidelines as Martin, with unmistakable irritation, decides that he’s done negotiating. The arms dealer is now tied to a chair, and Martin’s disguise has been shed somewhere along the way. The man’s got a bloodied nose, tears streaking down his face as he please in a language none of you understand. Well, at least Martin proved himself very useful tonight. 

Martin really hadn’t wanted to beat the stubborn guy into submission, truly. His start with reasoning had already been a generous offer. But he had made the unfortunate mental connection between this guy’s utter confidence and the fact that, just earlier, you had suggested kissing him. Gross. The thought alone had been enough to clarify his priorities, then it became easier to get his job done. 

There’s a collective expression hovering somewhere between concern and horror. At the back, though, you are very clearly trying your best not to laugh. 

Nightwing! Martin, who lets you win arguments. 

If it isn’t anything particularly important, if neither your life nor his hangs in the balance, the need to win against you is never strong. So he’ll let you win arguments as an act of devotion, because he likes the domesticity of it. The strange intimacy tucked within something so ordinary. He likes the sight of you standing there with your arms crossed in triumph over something inconsequential. 

He’ll grumble dramatically, sigh like a man condemned, then slide over with his secret smile like he’s gifting you something precious. Because to him, being able to yield without fear has always felt precious. His nearly untouched exception. 

To anyone else, Martin can be maddeningly competitive, stubborn to the point that it’s irritating. But even when you’d be wrong, he’d just laugh and let it pass. Once, during patrol, the two of you argued over comms while chasing someone through the streets of Bludhaven. You said left alley, and he said right. Still, he followed you without hesitating right up until the path ended in a dead end. 

You groan and turn to him. “Don’t say anything.”

Martin lands beside you as he tries to suppress a grin. “Wouldn’t dream of it, honey." 

“You should’ve argued with me a little harder.”

He gives you this unbearably boyish shrug. “You sounded pretty confident though.” 

He’ll only stop letting you win when things get serious, which is how you learn the difference. He usually bends around you easily, playful and yielding and so very indulgent. But the moment something dangerous comes up, he becomes… older, somehow. Firmer.

Whenever you’re both left with the seemingly reasonable option to split up on missions, Martin’s teasing compromises are replaced resolutely, and he gets really serious about making that choice.

“I’ll go left, Martin. I can handle it myself–”

“No.”

“Martin–”

“No. I’m serious.” 

And it startles you every time because it’s a choice made and remade.  He gives you ground simply because he wants to, because loving you has never been a contest with a winner.

Nightwing! Martin, who struggles with what happened during the chemical destruction. 

What else was he supposed to do other than grieve himself into the ground? There is no manual feeling for coming back to his city only to find it reduced to ruin, knowing he had left a hundred thousand ordinary people to face that tragedy alone.

When you both relocated to New York, he would disappear for days at a time with no way to reach him. He twitched constantly now too, and most nights barely even slept. There was no balance left in him. He was too careful one moment, too careless the next, with whatever equilibrium he once had having stripped itself clean off him. 

He takes on missions constantly now, refusing to step back even when they were minor enough to delegate to someone else in the team. With the bags under his eyes and the faint tremor that’s developed in his hands, you begin to realize he’s compensating for something he can’t outrun. 

You had seen the reports on his desk once. Then again, and again, and again after that. Printed case files and brittle news clippings scattered beneath his beautiful handwriting. Photographs that never looked too real until you noticed the warped edges of those buildings and the ash-heavy streets, figures caught mid-collapse, blistered and charred skin in the aftermath of a city long gone. You see them quite often, actually. 

And it was on this particularly dim night when Martin jolts awake from a horrific dream, gasping and shaking as sweat damped against his skin and tears clung to his lashes. You wake up beside him almost immediately and rub on his back, because though this was the first time he’s actually slept next to you since New York, you simply knew him all too well to not understand what was happening. 

“Hey, you’re okay. You’re okay.” You murmur in sweet breaths with your hand steady against his back and the other smoothing out his hair.

“This–” his voice breaks on an inhale, rough and too sharp in the dark. “This is why I don’t sleep with you as much anymore.” 

He swallows hard as he stares at nothing in particular, his eyes still too wide and far away. It takes him a moment to understand that his dreams have become so unnervingly vivid. He had barely dreamed at all until recently, which only made it more bizarre. The scene was too clear, the smell was so heavy, and the horrible image of standing above a thousand bodies as proof of what had been spared made him vomit most nights. It was a title he wanted ripped off his skin. 

“I always want you close, Tin. It doesn’t matter that you cry in your sleep now. You’re never too loud for me.” You see his fear and his grief, and can’t bear to flinch. You'd gladly be strong enough for both of you.

“I don’t even know what I’d done if I arrived a few hours earlier.” His voice breaks on the last word as he looks away.

“I don’t know–” he inhales sharply, and his breath catches in his throat because it hurts to take them sometimes. “He killed a whole city, Y/n.” 

And he had thought himself so small before this. Barely even one person. A hundred thousand people gone for the price of what was only half a life, that thought was always a suffocating one. 

“You have me.”  Your words come gentle, as they always do. “You always have me.” 

When you put him to bed, for the first time in a long while, his dreams were not all ruin and red noise this time. He saw butterflies wreathed in flame, clouds shaped like the waters of Atlantis, and the strange soft mercy of things becoming beautiful again in his sleep. And even if it was only for a little while, he believed it until he could breathe again: that he had you. 

Nightwing! Martin, who is but a lover at heart. Because hearts, stubborn things that they are, always remember their way back. And he could only hope yours could too. 

You stood at the center of Brother Blood’s corruption as a figure out of his own mind and judgment, no longer the radiant ally of the Titans, but the Confesor General and The Church’s fiercest weapon. At this exact point, Martin knew there was innocent blood on your hands and the wreckage of rebellions at your feet. You were a sight to behold, he’ll be damned. 

In all his training under the Batman himself, none of those tactical lessons ever taught him how to face the sight of you looking at him and not recognize who he was. 

“Stand down,” Diana shouts from behind him. And the battlefield rains with chaos, energy cracking in the most violent arcs. 

But how is he supposed to stand down? You were looking at him a lot differently, and he couldn’t even blame you for it. Not when Brother Blood has hollowed your memories out and your mind has now been twisted into something nearly unrecognizable. For the first time, he saw no softness in your eyes. No love when they looked at him. Martin wants to cry, as embarrassing as it is to admit. 

He’s not even wearing his own suit. The Batman armor fits him in the technical sense. It’s molded perfectly enough to move in, but it sits wrong on him everywhere else. It punches beneath his shoulders when he twists and drags against his ribs and chokes at the base of his neck as if the cowl itself is trying to close a hand around his throat. There’s no blue, nothing of him in it, and for one awful moment he wonders if the suit was part of what made him look too much like a ghost to you.  

He feels misplaced inside his own skin, but he has to find himself before he can find you beneath all this. It was always that simple: parts of you existed in him, and several of his in you. 

Now, Martin has talked down gods before. Monsters, world-ending threats, the most arrogant of geniuses, and every manner of terrible thing without a problem. But not you. Never you. He wasn’t going to start now.

“Hey gorgeous,” He sees your eyes narrow, as if something in his voice had scraped against a buried nerve. 

“You know, usually when you want my attention, dinner works just fine.” Martin, because he is Martin, because his humor is sometimes the only bridge over a very deep canyon, gives you a sly grin. Your head tilts almost curiously before you fire a bolt toward him. 

Martin barely managed to sidestep the strike, boots skidding against the hard ground as you came at him again before he could regain a bit more balance. Every motion is sharp and unnatural, unlike you, and he blocked what he could, but he wouldn’t hit back. He couldn’t do it even if he tried. 

“Got some moves, amnesia chic.” 

“Martin,” Juhoon warns over comms, the tone that tells him he thinks whatever he’s thinking would make a terrible plan. But he already knows, and risks are always easy to take when they’re for you. 

As the others fought to contain the creatures you commanded, Martin cut through the battlefield with singular focus until he stood directly before you. He loved you still. Loved you even now, even with all the terrible things he knows your hands had done. 

The awful thing about this feeling, he thought grimly, was that knowing you had been twisted into this did nothing to lessen what he felt for you. 

“Y/n, listen to me.” Martin steps forward.

Just look at me and love me, darling. Let it be this simple. 

“How…” Your voice fractured in confusion.  “How do you know that name?”

“I know everything about you.” He walks closer and says it as the simplest truth in the world.

“I guess I’ve always known, even before Psimon showed me the way things should be.” Your hair trickles of fire, and the air between tightens with something unsurely volatile.  But his gaze doesn’t falter, his feet certain.

“And I think you’ve felt the same way too.”

The battlefield around you feels distant now. The noise, the motion, and violence reduced to irrelevance compared to the decreasing space between you and him. 

“Call off your bloodhounds, Y/n. It’s me you want.” Who you’ve always wanted.

“From the very first moment we met.”

Martin could put a strike to your nerves and end this early, but he doesn’t. He won’t. He’s done the same to defeat his enemies a hundred times over, and you aren’t an enemy to defeat. You’re someone he wants to bring home. Christ, he still had that velvet box tucked away in the hidden corner of his desk drawer. Giving up on you wasn’t something twenty thousand dollars could ever buy him out of, he thinks, bitterly amused. 

So he does only what he knows, and leans in to kiss you. 

Maybe it was an ode to what you did to him the first time you both met. Where you had kissed him to learn his language, he kissed you now in the hopes that you would learn the way of his heart. And more than that, to find your way back to yourself. 

The grim light in your eyes begin to falter, and your hounds all die down and vanish into dusk. A few seconds later, like a breath you finally remember to take, you kiss him back. 

“Stop starin’, Gar.” Cyborg says a few feet away from the scene.

Beast Boy looks to him in turn and fist bumps the air. “Love conquers all baby!” 

When you pull away, Martin sees immediately that you look like yourself again. He waits helplessly for you to maybe jump into his arms so he can spin you around the way people write it in movies. Or maybe for you to kiss him again. Anything. 

Instead, you give him a good slap.

He holds his cheek, reddened by the way, in a hurtful caress before turning to you again expectantly. 

“Did you snap out of it, though?”

“Such is obvious.” And then you wrap your arms around him in a warm hug. 

Martin grins into your neck. “What can I say? I’m a really good kisser, huh?” 

Nightwing! Martin, who already knows, and has already admitted to himself in secret, that he probably did fall in love with you the day he met you. Like a dawn breaking over Bludhaven, he believes that across the entire multiverse, there was never a version where he didn’t fall in love all at once. 

And because of this, he is nervous of what your reply would be.

For the record, he had planned a fancy dinner. Everything was set: the reservation, the timing, they were all planned. Well, most of them. There was always a villain and always an interruption waiting in the clockworks to ruin everything. And tonight, like so many others, hadn’t bothered to be different. 

Which is how you and Martin end up on a rooftop instead of a candlelit table meant for two, the city spread out beneath you while you wait for the all-clear that the fight is finally over. The air still carries the aftershock of it all, and somewhere below, sirens wail and fade. 

A portion of your dress is torn at the waist, and Martin is no better. His suit is dusted with debris and grime, mask slightly askew and unmatching with his outfit. They both looked netirely too disheveled for hte kind of plans Martin had. 

What a bunch of third wheel extraordinaires, he thinks.

Not that he says it out loud. He’s trying very hard to be a man proposing marriage with dignity though in the middle of a crime scene.

“Yknow,” you started, floating over the ledge as you look out into the city. “You’ve been weird all night, Tin.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Which is unfortunately a lie. He thinks its a very obvious one. 

“You’ve been checking your pockets every five minutes, and… twitching. Even with your punches.”

“I wanted to do this right.” he admits after a beat, running a hand through his hair anxiously. “I swear. But timing’s been a bitch to me the whole night.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“Listen,” He reaches for his pockets and pulls out a velvet box, one that makes your heart leap a few beats to the future. 

“I’ve been thinking about this for a long long time.” He’s sweating as he says it, and there’s no quip ready to wipe it off or any charm he can hide behind.  

“I know this isn’t how it’s normally supposed to go. Haha–would’ve been better to say this with a fewer people trying to kill us.” He admits quietly, a breath of a laugh leaving him because he can’t quite believe his horrible timing tonight.

“But I don’t think there’s ever going to be a ‘right’ moment. Not in this life. Not with us, or them.” Martin jerks his head toward the rest of the Titans as they commit to their own interrogation. 

“So I’m just gonna say it here. I want us to be together. And as close as ‘together’ can get for both of us, I think this is the only step I haven’t taken yet.”

Another step closer, not closing distance to prepare for a fight tonight, but for something far more terrifying to him. 

He opens that velvet box that’s been weighing his pocket down all night.  Inside sits an orange citrine, cut with radiating lines that flare outward like a contained sunburst. WHen he looks up at you again, your eyes were something solar.

“Will you marry me?” 

The gem inside catches what little light there is, and his hand tightens slightly around the case like he’s afraid it might suddenly build up it’s weight. 

“Oh, Martin.” Your voice is soft and disarming, and when he puts the ring around your finger, he lets out the biggest smile of the night, and you share a kiss that sends a wave straight through his chest. 

“I want to love you to our ends too.” 

Nightwing! Martin, who can now say that he has seen a shooting star before. It came down years ago in the shape of a blazing woman, back when the wing of the night was but a robin bird in reckless and childish flight. A child and a fool. 

Looking back, that risk he took in reaching for that strange interstellar woman has been enough to show him a kind of beauty that existed beyond his own world, one that could’ve been as brief as a flash of light and gone before one could hold onto it. 

Because what else could you call it? To find something from the stars and discover it could laugh, and bruise, and love? 

You could compare it to the feeling of witnessing a God cry, or catching sight of the rarest species on a busy road. But Martin would be the argument the universe will keep losing to as it insists on you both as separate events. And if it won, he’d still find you in the sliver of a second between near-misses, in the opening that might appear and vanish just as quickly, again, and again, and again. 

He’d recognize you in any version of the world, at any age he might be, across every possible life that could have been written for him. But in this one, in this exact world and this exact timeline, he has a big wedding to plan and a beautiful woman to spend the rest of his life with. For once and for long, the cape, the cowl, and all his weird alien opps could sit this one out. 

After all, the Justice League has always lived by the saying that the greatest victory was still just getting to come home. 

발문 EPILOGUE

마지막 전투가 끝난 지 며칠 후…

…우주는 자신의 내부 싸움을 벌입니다.

A FEW DAYS AFTER THE LAST BATTLE…

…WOOJOO FIGHTS AN INTERNAL BATTLE OF HIS OWN.

It’s odd how easily someone can go from being accustomed to a person’s presence to being accustomed to the lack of it. How you’re used to hanging out with someone, used to seeing them every day, and after a while, if they don’t come back, you start getting used to that, too.

At least, that’s what Martin’s heard. He can’t relate for shit.

He’d been brooding over about what he’d said to you after that last fight with Noeul since the moment he walked out of that observatory in Namsan Tower. The words repeated over and over in his head, fighting with the emotions sitting in that frozen chasm in his chest. His heart, hard then with hatred and indignation, had softened, had started to pain, to ache after your presence, needing it like he needed air.

At first, he felt wronged. Of course he did. His girlfriend of nearly half a year had hidden such a big, dangerous secret from him, and her sloppy planning had almost gotten him thrown off Namsan Tower, had almost had his near-death excused as a suicide and nothing but. Tombstone’s men told him what would happen come morning.

Then, he felt angry. Less so than when he saw your face appear from under that mask, your pretty, bruised, bloodied face from under that torn red hood, but still livid. How could you? How could you have hidden this from him? What did you take him for? Some sort of… of idiot? Some sort of clueless mortal? He knew how to protect himself, and he’d be damned if he let you try to protect yourself without his help.

In the end, after a gruelling forty-eight hours of ruminating, after an interrogation from Woojin, who’d been so worried he nearly puked when he strolled into his dorm as if nothing had happened, Martin finally felt regret. Not because of his words. He meant those. He thought you were stupid for trying to handle everything by yourself. But because of the way he’d said them.

I mean, did he have to be such a dick about it?

He knew if you were here you’d have said yes, he needed to be. After all, his feelings were valid. But it was such a bizarre situation that he didn’t even want to sit and think about what might’ve been an appropriate reaction. All he wanted to do was see you again. But he couldn’t.

Because he was the one who had walked out.

His sister had been the one to check up on him when he first came home, because his parents had been worried far too much to even try and face him. God, he didn’t think he’d ever seen his mother more petrified than when he walked through that door, scared half to death and with several bruises littering his lanky body. She gave him the scolding of a lifetime, beat him worse with a rolled up newspaper than Tombstone’s own thugs had with much worse.

After a while, even her concern had gotten to be too much. So he went to the next place he could think of—Woojin’s dorm.

That was his first mistake. 

Because he’d forgotten that Woojin was ten times the worry wart his entire family was, combined.

“Eat,” he instructed, flicking the rim of Martin’s bowl from where it sat in front of him. Miyeokguk that he’d made from scratch; his grandma’s recipe, apparently. 

Martin didn’t answer, gaze merely flicking up wordlessly from where it had been fixed on his computer screen, opened on an empty document he didn’t have the heart to finish. Or start, for that matter. “Thanks, Jin. I’ll get to it, now.” He nodded to his friend, who had a backpack slung over one shoulder, his phone in one hand, baseball cap in the other. “You heading out?”

“Yup. Tutoring session with that dumbass French kid,” he said. “I’ll be back by, like, seven or so. Let me know if you need anything— and no, before you say you can get it yourself, you absolutely cannot. Don’t even think about it.” He turned and made the way to his front door, bidding him farewell with a quick salute. “Catch you later.”

Martin feebly parroted his words before turning back to his computer, the few words he’d managed to type out over the past month flickering back at him in that incensing Comic Sans typeface.

Spider-Woman has long been a staple in Seoul’s recent history, making her first appearance in the late summer of 2023 with the public takedown of Doctor Olivia Octavius, a scientist turned crime lord out for blood.

Since she came out into the public, she’s been the subject of widespread praise and ridicule, mostly regarding her public conduct and assumed rejection of societal norms in terms of crime fighting. In both cases, whether she’s presented as our messiah or our pariah, she is depicted as a larger than life figure.

My mission is to break that narrative, and to bring forth the girl behind the mask.

…And that was it. Nothing else. No other words had come to him in the three weeks since his professor had suggested the writing event he was now desperately trying to compete in. 

Part of why he couldn’t write is because he couldn’t complete a Spider-Woman piece without… you know, Spider-Woman. You couldn’t exactly interview someone you weren’t on speaking terms with. But for the most part, he couldn’t write because he couldn’t stop thinking about you. Not Spider-Woman. You. Even though those were the same person, the same girl, the same love of his life, you.

He sighed irritatedly, chair scraping the floor as he viciously raced up, bracing his palms flat against the sun-baked desk. He needed to get out, and he needed to get some fresh air. That’s all he needed. Some nice, natural oxygen that wasn’t permeated with Woojin’s expensive cologne, and maybe a coffee or three.

He ambled around the city without reason or direction, hands stuffed in his pockets. It had been a relatively chilly spring, temperatures lower this time than it had been the previous year. Cherry blossoms drifted through the wind, and immediately Martin thought of you.

You scrunched your nose in distaste, the fallen cherry blossom rested directly on the soft curve of your upper lip. “Blegh,” you said, trying to blow it away.

Martin could only laugh, equal parts amused and enchanted by the sight of you laying in his lap, the breeze ruffling your dress and the light blanket beneath you, desperately trying to rid yourself of the bothersome cherry blossom, as light and as pink as the chest of a pink robin.

It was almost unsettling, how his mind instantly jumped to you. Every time he saw something that even remotely reminded him of you, something popped into his mind. When he passed by a coffee place you used to frequent, he remembered the first time you’d gone together.

You were wearing jeans that day. Martin remembered because he’d slipped his hand in your back pocket, less to echo the iconic movie scene and more to initiate the closeness he always craved. You’d been standing in line, eyes scanning over the menu when you said, “It feels weird being here again.”

Martin raised a brow. “You’ve been here before?”

You stopped then, like you’d said too much. “Um… yeah. Once. With Juhoon. I didn’t remember when you mentioned it, but, looking at the menu… yeah. It seems pretty familiar.”

He hummed, merely placing his chin atop your head, thinking nothing more of it.

When he saw a family on his way to wherever his body wanted to be, he remembered that conversation you’d had one day about children.

“I wonder how babies experience the world,” Martin spoke into the calm silence. You’d been resting against his shoulder, your cheek pressed into the sharp bone, your arm slung around his waist, playing with the frayed edges of his shirt.

“It’s got to be terrifying for them,” you said. “I mean, everything is massive and everyone is loud and you keep crapping yourself for no reason. And also everyone wants to touch you without even asking if it’s okay.”

Martin snorted. “You been thinking about this, huh?”

“Briefly,” you shrugged.

He saw you even in places where you weren’t, where you never would’ve been before that moment. He saw you in the shadow that passed over the street as he crossed over. He heard you in the laughs of young girls nearby, probably joking about something stupid. He found you on the televisions replaying newsreels from Spider-Woman’s last public appearance, and where she may have disappeared to.

Good Lord. He was pathetic.

And he missed you so badly.

His legs carried him to the nearest subway station, the area bursting with activity as always. People hurried past one another, leapt over stairs and ducked behind closing doors, each going about their own, separate lives, brought together momentarily by the need for transport. A large screen sat between two printed advertisements, broadcasting The Daily Bugle’s afternoon scoop, the infuriating face of Jang Jaeseong making Martin’s lip curl in dislike. He knew the guy was his Journalism professor, but he could not resist the urge to shiver every time he saw his moustached face.

“Several reports have suggested that Namsan Tower has recently been used as the meeting point for Seoul’s resident lowlifes, namely crime lord Lee Yoojung—known more widely by his alias, Tombstone—and what looked to be a university student by the name of Min Noeul. The latter has been detained after being turned in by none other than this city’s own superhero, Spider-Woman, who, in related news, is being diligently pursued by our fearless journalists with a large bounty on her head.”

Martin resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Professor Jang had been on this train for as long as he knew him. In his mind, he’d be the one to catch and unmask ‘public disgrace’ Spider-Woman, when in reality he was the only one who saw an issue with her.

He took a seat on the bench which served as a waiting area for people who’d come too early for their train, or who truly just wanted to take a moment for themselves and sit down. 

A lot like he was now, actually. 

He was alone for the first few minutes, eyes trained straight ahead of him, focusing on everything at once and nothing at all. The only sound reaching his ears were the announcements of the woman calling out departure and arrival times in that calm, toneless, serene voice of hers. Then, after he’d been staring into the void for a while, an unfamiliar voice pulled him from his daze,

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Martin turned, and realised he had been joined by a curious stranger in the time he’d sat down. Who he, with a slight cringe, realised he hadn’t taken any notice of. He smiled softly, in that dismissive way overthinking teenagers did, and said, “Nah, it’s… it’s nothing.”

The stranger glanced at him from behind thin, silver-rimmed glasses. He was tanned, with a very faint five o’clock shadow resting on his cheeks. Wide brown eyes searched for Martin’s avoidant ones. “It doesn’t look like nothing. You look like you’re debating the fate of the world in there.”

Martin laughed, because— “I kind of am, actually.”

The admission lifted an unseen weight off his shoulders, just him saying those five words. Getting them out into the open.

The man quirked a brow. “Yeah?”

Maybe it was because Martin was stressed, and his mind was running several thousand kilometres per hour, and he was going dizzy with how much he missed you, or maybe the guy sitting beside him just had a really welcoming aura, but Martin said, “Yeah. I— I’ve been torn up about something. Like, really torn up. And I’ve got no idea what to do about it.”

He nodded, like, Continue.

“Okay, so, I won’t get into specifics, but, like, my girlfriend hid something from me. Something really important. Really, really important. And— and when I confronted her about it, she just freaked out and gave me a bunch of excuses as to why she didn’t tell me,” he said. “I walked out on her because I didn’t want to hear her excuses, ‘cause I was so tired and angry and it felt like she didn’t trust me or depend on me at all, and it just—” against his will, his voice cracked— “it hurt like hell, man. I haven’t spoken to her since.”

The stranger nodded, as if processing everything he’d been told. Which, truth be told… had been a bit of a mouthful. And something told him that wasn’t the end of it. “And…?”

“And I’m regretting it,” Martin confessed. “A lot. I feel like crap for ignoring her for so long, for not giving her a chance to explain herself properly. For… for everything.”

He hummed, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose from where they’d slipped off. He tilted his head as if in consideration, and they fell into mutual silence. “I don’t think you’ve really got a problem I can solve,” he admitted gently.

Martin screwed his eyes shut, sighing. Perfect. Some mysterious guy came up to him on the subway offering a penny for his thoughts, which was almost always a sign that someone was a psychic, and he just told him he couldn’t help him.

The stranger eyed him curiously. “I also don’t think you’re telling me everything.” When Martin said nothing, he smiled. “You aren’t, are you? What aren’t you telling me?”

Martin glanced at him, weighing his options. He’d already shared so much with this guy. Why not just go all in?

It happened two days after he walked out.

Martin had been sitting in Woojin’s dorm, a few days before he officially decided he’d be staying there, laying on his bed and ruminating. His hair was a matted, knotted mess due to the fact that he hadn’t bothered to brush it since he got kidnapped, and his fingers trembled with how little he’d been able to eat. His appetite had disappeared just about as quickly as he himself had.

Woojin was out on a date, so Martin knew he was alone.

Which was why he froze when someone knocked on the door.

He sat up, propping himself up on his elbows, ears perked for the words that would surely come. He expected maybe one of Woojin’s other friends, perhaps a crazy ex-girlfriend making her monthly rounds.

Then you spoke.

“Hey, Tin.”

He nearly fell flat on his face with how quickly he rushed out of Woojin’s bed, stopping once he heard you pause. Just that second, those two words you said, in your softest, sweetest voice, the one you only used with him, was enough to knock the breath from his lungs. It sounded different from usual—more hesitant, sadder… more pained. He hated knowing that he was the cause of it.

“Martin,” you repeated, and he realised you were waiting for him to open the door and let you see his face. 

He couldn’t do that. Because he was still angry, as pitiful as you sounded. Because you’d still lied and avoided him, even when you had a reason to. Because he knew that if he opened that door and looked you in the eyes he’d forget why he was upset with you at all. Because he knew he’d give in and forgive you even when you’d done nothing to earn it.

“I know you’re in there. I can see your shadow moving around. And Woojin told me you’ve been crashing here.”

He froze, standing up straighter as if that would erase his shadow. 

He heard you sigh softly. Something thumped against the door; probably your shoulder, you leaning against it as you always did when you were bracing yourself for something. Rejection. Heartbreak. A confession. “Okay. I— I understand. You don’t have any reason to be listening to me. I just, uh… I just wanted to talk. I can do that with a door between us, if you’ll listen.”

He said nothing. Which meant he said yes.

“I’m, uh… God, this is hard. I’m sorry about how things ended. Between us. At the… tower. Yeah. I’m sorry. I— I can’t talk for too long, because I’ve got a class in, like, twenty minutes,” you said quickly, as if trying to convince yourself of why you couldn’t stay. “But I want you to know that I really am sorry. And that… you deserved better.”

He shut his eyes, swallowing a lump in his throat. It burned with unsung sorrows and tears needing to be cried. But he wouldn’t. He couldn’t.

“I’m… I’m here, if you ever want to talk to me. I’m always here, if you’re ready to have me. Or just to talk to me. Or yell at me. Or— just— whatever you want to do to me. I’m here. Wherever or however you need me.”

He heard a shuffle outside the door; your feet against the floor, getting ready to leave. He wiped harshly at his burning eyes. Not now. Not while you could hear.

“And Tin?”

Nothing.

“I miss you. So, so much.”

And with a shaky sigh, you were gone.

Like he’d done in the days before, Martin shut his eyes as soon as he felt the tears wanting to fall. When he opened them again, red and rimmed with emotion, the stranger was staring at him, eyes narrowed in thought. A faint smile tugged on his lips, like he was in on something Martin didn’t know.

Except… “I think it’s pretty obvious you know what to do, kid. Don’t you?”

Martin exhaled, and with it came a relieved chuckle. Like the world had been lifted off his shoulders. Like life made sense again. “Yeah,” he breathed. “I do.”

일주일 후

A WEEK LATER

You were at your wit’s end. 

It had been nearly two weeks since you’d last seen Martin properly, and you were starting to go insane.

Despite that, despite wanting to go to him, despite needing to make it up to him, you had no idea how.

So, you did the next best thing: wallow in your own self pity until someone dragged you out of your dorm room by your ankle.

That someone happened to be Juhoon, who, for the nth time since you’d met, had grown sick and tired of your self-pitying antics.

The door of your room burst open, revealing your best friend staring at you with the fire of a thousand suns, stance wide and as intimidating as someone as pretty as him could be. You looked up from where you’d been rotting on your bed, eyes adjusting to the sudden wash of light; your curtains hadn’t been properly opened in ages. “Alright,” he said resolutely, “that’s it.”

“What’s what?” you said, groaning at the feeling of your cozy sheets being pulled from your body.

“You’re getting out of this dorm, whether you like it or not,” he said, fingers curling around your ankles as he turned his back to you. You yelped, grasping at air to try and get out of his hold as he picked you up, keeping you upside down against his back. He jumped up and down, effectively flinging you around your own room while you could do nothing but take it. “Come on. When was the last time you left your bed, huh? This place smells like stale cake and broken dreams. It’s disgusting and unlike you.”

You sighed, letting your arms fall over your head, knuckles brushing the floor. “Leave me be, Juhoon. I don’t deserve this pep talk.”

“You’re right,” he said. “You’re a desolate human being who treated all her friends like shit. But you know who else was?”

You already knew the answer. Noeul. And you’d shown her compassion. You’d told her to choose a better life. You’d turned her in instead of ending her life like she’d have done with you. You’d given her a second chance many probably felt she didn’t deserve.

“It’s not the same,” you tried.

Juhoon stilled, sighing irritably. He let you go, plopping you onto your feet. “You’re hopeless,” he said, shaking his head. “You literally saved the entire country from being turned into mutants and you’re sitting here wallowing because your boyfriend hasn’t spoken to you in a week.”

“He’s probably not my boyfriend anymore,” you muttered. “I’m pretty sure he hates me.”

Juhoon paused. Martin didn’t hate you. He knew that much from the conversations they’d had since the fight. Sure, he was livid. He felt betrayed, belittled that you hadn’t trusted him with your secret. But tough luck to him. You don’t just tell your boyfriend of four months that you’re a superhero. That’s not how these things worked.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out, isn’t there?” he asked.

You rushed to say, “Juhoon, don’t even—”

“His exhibition is this week, and—”

“No!”

“—I think it could really help if you went!”

“He didn’t invite me,” you protested. “It would be rude of me to go without being wanted there.”

Juhoon narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying.”

“Why the hell would I be lying?!”

He shook his head. “I don’t know how to prove it, but you’re definitely lying. No way Martin wouldn’t want you at the opening of his exhibition.”

“Well, believe it, because it’s true,” you said. “He hasn’t said anything to me this past week.”

“Have you tried talking to him?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Then that’s what we need to be doing!” He turned, already rummaging through your desk in search of your phone. You whined in protest, trying to pull him out of your personal belongings. He merely persisted, pushing you off.

In the midst of the chaos, you narrowly missed the unmistakable sound of something being slipped under your door. You both froze, slowly turning to glance at the light brown envelope that now lay on your floor. You exchanged a silent look. 

A beat.

You barrelled towards the door, Juhoon following eagerly after, his hands hidden behind his back as you picked up the envelope. There was no address or name stamped on it, no indication that you may know whoever had sent you the letter that was surely inside. You ripped the envelope open, eagerly reaching for the folded lined paper inside.

You pored over its contents, stopping once you saw only four lines had been occupied. The familiar scrawl of your boyfriend’s handwriting made your heart nearly stop in your chest. There, before you, in permanent ink, were his first words to you since he walked out on you a week ago.

come to the opening. or don’t. i don’t care. – mj. 

Juhoon read it from over your shoulder, mouthing the words as he went. When he finished, he turned to you, breath hot on your cheek. “Well, now you have to go.”

You pushed him off you, yanking your door open and leaning into the hallway, turning your head to try and see if the messenger had already gone. You were met with silence and an empty hall—you’d missed him. Narrowly. By two seconds’ margin. Your face fell with disappointment; when you turned back into your room, Juhoon was already staring at you.

You could see the desire in his eyes before he even spoke. You started, “Jju, don’t even—”

“Time for a fashion show.”

Tuseokgi had you by the throat, a stinging, snarling mess hovering above you like an angel of death. His hands, closer to talons now, reached out for your mask. You grasped desperately at him, trying to push him off of you. “Don’t— please— please don’t take it off,” you said, voice barely above a whisper.

Noeul tugged at the remains of your mask. You grabbed her wrist, ripping her hands off you. “No. No. Get off me. Don’t even think of touching me!”

Before you could process what was happening next, a hand swung out to strike at Tuseokgi, stunning the mutant long enough that you could see the assailant’s face. Too sweet, too young, too clueless to be anyone but your Gyumin.

From the corner of your eye, you saw Martin rise slowly, rubbing at his temples. He blinked, registering how close you were to him and, like a fool, rushed forward to help you.

Your eyes widened. 

Gyumin.

Martin.

In moments like these, the brain couldn’t really distinguish between two equally terrifying events.

You shot up, eyes wide as you rose from your mattress, hair sticking to your forehead, broken out in a cold sweat. Your eyes darted around your dark room, mapping the space. Your desk sat in the corner, untouched. Your floor was occupied by a spare mattress and duvet you’d laid out for Juhoon, who’d insisted on staying the night with you, mostly because he’d sworn he’d see to it that you make it to the opening of Martin’s exhibition and not give you a single chance to escape.

You still remembered what Martin had looked like the first time you stayed the night at his dorm. He’d passed out on his pillow, permed hair a mess, splayed over his pillow like a knotted halo, mouth open in nocturnal bliss. He looked so peaceful, yet so… him.

Everything in your room was normal. No monsters under the bed, no villains around the corner. No dead bodies on your floor, no blood on the walls. You were still in one piece, though maybe a bit bruised, but that had become your normal at that point.

It was just a nightmare. 

It wasn’t real. At least, not the second bit.

You still remembered the day of Gyumin’s funeral. Whether in dreams or nightmares or simply memories, it was always fresh in your mind like an open wound. 

Sunrise came over Seoul as usual that morning, pale orange sky telling of a new day on the horizon. It had been a cooler spring than usual, the air blowing through your jacket like the winds of unwanted change, cold and harsh and unrelenting, ushering you on to continue with your life despite the odds. You wore black like everyone else.

The burial took longer than usual. It had taken his parents nearly a week to even accept the fact that he was injured beyond human repair, much less that the possibility of any repair had become nonexistent. It had taken you even longer to stop crying to deliver your section of his eulogy. 

Standing up there, protected and faraway, staring down at his family, his friends, all of whom had arrived hastily and without any notice or hesitation, you felt sick. Felt sick knowing that you were the last one standing and not him. Felt sick having to go on with your life knowing it was your fault. Felt sick knowing you were wearing borrowed clothes because you’d refused to change out of the ones stained with his blood for even a moment. Felt sick knowing, just a week ago, just before the service, you’d been staring down at his lifeless body, wishing it was you instead.

You had to attend a second funeral you went back to school that week; one the teachers had arranged in his honour, to celebrate a truly wonderful student, a kind child, a courageous boy who used his last breath to defend you, his best friend, from a crazed attacker.

That’s what you’d told them. That’s all you could tell them.

Candles were lit, pictures and flowers and notes placed down at the altar they’d made for him in the hallway outside his classroom. Your classroom. The one you’d once shared. The one you now had to walk to alone. 

The air was stale and stifling. Even Juhoon’s hand on your back couldn’t ground you, couldn’t keep you from running outside and emptying your lungs into the nearest potted plant outside the school entrance. Your throat was still too tight, still not relaxed enough for you to breathe comfortably, to breathe at all. 

You ran as fast and as far as your legs could carry you that day. Until you were away from that school, from your problems, from the sympathetic stares and sentiments you’d receive the moment you came back. And even when you did, you’d left that day in the past. You’d tried your absolute best. 

Unfortunately, your life liked to rotate like a kaleidoscope.

Which is how, just like after the funeral, you found yourself back home.

You didn’t grow up in a big house, nor did you actually spend much of your time there after you and your father relocated to Seoul. Yet, it always brought your ever-racing heartbeat to a gentler rhythm when you walked up the front steps and came face to face with the same wooden door you’d been staring into for most of your middle school years.

Your father was away in Jeju for work, so only your stepmother, Mirae, would be present for any conversations you might have wanted to have if you didn’t chicken out.

Juhoon had made you swear an oath that the detour wouldn’t make you late or end in you simply turning around and going back to your dorm, where he’d threatened he’d be waiting behind your door with a broom and a spray bottle which, thinking back on it now, just sounded like something he wanted to say because he wanted to scare you. What a weird best friend you had. Thank God you didn’t get stuck with someone who actually made sense most of the time.

You stood a few paces from the door, fingers flexing as you warred with yourself to approach it and knock. If you did, Mirae would surely open the door, and then you’d have no other option but to go in and have tea, and she’d drag you into a conversation that would, inevitably, end in you spilling all your tears along with several secrets you should definitely not be telling her.

You sighed to yourself. “Don’t be such a coward,” you chided, brows pulling into a frown. You were Spider-Woman, for goodness sake. You’d done far worse things than go to your stepmother for dating advice. This was supposed to be nothing.

Yet it felt like you were risking everything.

“Don’t be such a coward about what?”

You yelped, whirling around at the sound of a familiar voice coming from behind. Before you could stop yourself, your index and middle finger had closed over your palm, and you webbed Mirae’s farmer’s market purchases to the front of her fuzzy jumper.

She paused; glanced at the brown paper bags, then at you. At the bags, then you. 

“I suppose I’ll need more than one explanation,” she guessed, “from your expression.”

Safe to say, you told her everything.

You started off with the easiest bit; that you were a superhero who regularly waged her life for the greater good and occasionally travelled from one dimension to another trying to save the universe.

She nodded, listening intently to the words as they spilled clumsily from your mouth, hands clasped over her lap, grocery bags set down from where she’d pulled you to sit next to her right on the front steps of your house. “Hmm.” She glanced at you through the corner of her eye, expression glimmering with something. “I’d had my suspicions for quite a while, but I’m glad you came out and told me yourself.”

You froze. “What?”

She turned to you fully, smiling slyly. The same way you did when you’d caught someone ought. “You’re not very good at hiding things, you know? I’ve had to wash your Spider suit at least more than once after I came into your room and found it crammed under a pillow, or something.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. Now, you said you had two things you wanted to discuss with me. What was the other one?”

You hesitated. Then, when deliberating over how you could perfectly phrase how badly you’d screwed up with your second and last chance at love got to be too much, led to virtually nowhere, you hung your head between your knees, sighing heavily. 

“I screwed up. Big time. And I have absolutely no damn idea how to fix it.”

You spent the next twenty or so minutes recounting the past week, and every other moment leading up to it. The dates you missed to go after Noeul, the excuses you’d made to both yourself and to Martin to justify why you kept leaving. You told her about the radio silence and the explosive fight, about him getting kidnapped and what happened in Seoul Station. You told her about Namsan Tower and the moments afterwards, all until she’d gotten the full story, drawn the full picture, and spent more time than was comfortable for you in dead silence. 

Then, after nearly five minutes of nothing, she hummed. “Hmm. That’s quite the situation you’ve found yourself in.”

“No shit,” you sighed.

She smacked your arm. “Ah—! Language. You may almost be eighteen, young lady, but that is no reason for you to start swearing like a sailor.”

You pouted. “Yes, Eomma.”

She smiled, pleased with herself. “Now, regarding the sticky situation at hand… I feel you might not be telling me everything. You’re leaving out important details.”

Maybe.

When you heard your landline ringing earlier that week, you’d run immediately to it, eager to hear Martin’s voice. If your Spider sense was good for anything, it was to spot him in a sea of people, to know exactly when it was him calling you. To memorise him inside and out, body and soul, until you started to forget which traits belonged to you and which belonged to him.

You picked it up, waiting with bated breath to hear Martin’s voice. Your ears pricked at the sound of him breathing on the other line—the sound gentle, like an autumn breeze. You wished you could feel it on your face again, wished you could hear his voice from next to your ear, not through a line with an entire city separating you from him. You hadn’t a care in the world how desperate that sounded.

It never came. He never spoke. He hung up the phone before he could say anything he would inevitably regret. But he’d called you. And if he’d called to break up with you, he would’ve done it without a second thought. 

She raised her chin, as if having come to a realisation. “…Because you already know what you need to do, don’t you?”

“Yeah,” you breathed. “I do.”

The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies was located in Hannam-dong, nearly an hour away from the SNU campus. It was a small, brutal white building in Hannam-dong, home to a restaurant, exhibition space, and a fashion collection on the top floor.

It was busy by the time you arrived, only a few minutes after the grand opening. A chill drifted through the night air, ruffled your skirt as you approached the entrance.

Warm lights beckoned you inside, telling of a comfortable, relaxed atmosphere. 

You stopped just short of the steps leading inside, turning to Gyumin with apprehension. You couldn’t even question why you were seeing him there, in that moment, still beaten and bruised, half-blind in one eye like an animal that had lost a fight. “I’m scared,” you admitted, struggling to keep the wobble out of your voice. “I mean— I’ve already screwed it up so badly with him—”

“So it can’t get any worse,” he interrupted, stoic. His lips quirked upward in a soft show of understanding, his eyes said, I know. It’s fine. Your Gyumin. Once upon a time, he’d been the glue to hold you together.

But now, it was your turn to keep yourself in one piece.

“You’re right,” you said, nodding. Your neck still ached from the fight. “If he really hated me, he wouldn’t have invited me here tonight.”

“He could never hate you,” he murmured.

You turned, missing his last words. “What?”

But he was already gone.

Now it was just you. You, your thoughts, and the scars you bore. You exhaled, steeling your nerves. Juhoon had told you before coming to just walk in and get it over with; because once you were inside, there was no turning back. You’d have to face Martin. You’d do it scared if you had to.

It was crowded when you entered, the chatter of people taking over your senses one by one. Next came the smells, paint and printer ink and finger food being passed around on trays by waiters moving faster than light. Then came the sights. First, you noticed the people. There were a lot of them, many of them Martin’s schoolmates from Hanyang, many more old friends from Siryeok. There were professionals there, as well, other photographers and journalists and reporters with massive cameras and foam microphones.

Everyone was well dressed, clean cut and unbruised, while you very much were cut and bruised. Your denim skirt did nothing to hide the scars littering your legs, your white knit top doing little to protect you from peoples’ critical stares. Your hair was unruly, untamed and untouched. But then, that was you, wasn’t it? Exposed, scarred, untamed. Why would you ever try to be anything else?

You wandered through the exhibit, eyes catching on all the different photos on display. All the familiar sights, scenes, and memories from the past four months—and before that. It began, what looked to be, a year ago, with Martin and Woojin standing in front of the school gates at Siryeok, their parents and siblings at their sides. Then, slowly, picture by picture, it became more recent. A picture from early February, Martin’s reflection posed in his mirror, his brand-new camera in his hands. Shots from in-between leaves, families and animals and… you. That night you asked about the newspaper. The night you found out about his interest in Spider-Woman. All the days in-between, where you got to know one another, some from the festival, some from other, random days you decided to hang out. You at the park. Both your shadows reflected on the pavement, the sun shining brightly behind you. The corner of your face pressed against his, only your eyes in the frame, the crinkle of your lids as you smiled.

You and Juhoon, as you tried to wrestle a basketball from each other’s hands. Woojin and Martin again, this time in a picture you’d taken with your own camera, all grainy film and romantic light. Spider-Woman made a few appearances as well, shot at different angles, different days of the year, in different states of mind. 

And lastly, in the very centre of the exhibition, cast in a pale blue light from above—seven figures, smiling widely on the soccer pitch at Siryeok. You, Martin, Juhoon, Seonghyeon, Keonho, Mrs Lee, and Noeul. All a little different, a little younger, a little less jaded.

“I never knew Martin was quite so fond of you.”

You turned at the sound of a familiar voice, before wondering to yourself how she could’ve possibly been familiar, because when your gaze settled on her, you realised you’d never seen the woman in front of you before. Martin’s mother smiled at you from a few paces behind you, gaze heavy-lidded and warm. You could see the resemblance between her and her children clear as day. The gentle eyes, the tanned skin. 

You sputtered for a reply, then, giving up on trying to speak, you simply bowed. “Thank you, ma’am. It’s a big honour to have been invited here.”

She said nothing of the mess on your face. “I’m sure. Woojoo means a lot to you, doesn’t he?”

Your throat tightened, but you nodded nonetheless. “Yes, he does. He means the world to me, Mrs Park.”

She shook her head, disapproving of the formality. “Please, call me ‘Mother’. I can’t stand the thought of my son’s girlfriend calling me anything but.”

You faltered. “Are you sure? Because if you aren’t—”

“No, no, nonsense,” she dismissed with a smile. “If my son’s girlfriend is as good as my daughter, I’m as good as your mother.”

You couldn’t fight the smile that followed her words. You bowed to her again, deeper this time, wiping the tears from your eyes before they could fall. She beheld you with something akin to care, her hands clasped in front of her.

“Eomma, I hope you’re not scaring my girlfriend away.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Mrs Park chided, smacking her approaching son on the arm. She turned to you, eyes expectant. “I’m not scaring you away, am I?”

“Not at all,” you laughed softly, shaking your head. You gingerly lifted your head to meet Martin’s gaze, only to find him already staring. “It’s— I’m… it’s fine.”

Against all your expectations, he smiled. “That’s good.” He momentarily turned back to his mother, crouching down to whisper in her ear, “Could we get a moment alone, please?”

Her eyes widened in understanding, and she sent the two of you a knowing look before parting from you with little more than a bow, walking off to go find someone else to talk to.

Once the two of you were alone, the atmosphere was reduced to awkward silence, tension thick enough to cut through. You didn’t miss Martin’s gaze on you, could feel his eyes sweep over your form, over the scars and imperfections, the curls and twists, the swells and cinches of your body. You would’ve admired him just as much if you hadn’t been afraid of meeting his eyes in the process. Unlike the others, who were dressed to the nines in suits and gowns, he wore his favourite pair of jeans and signature bomber jacket, camera slung around his neck as always. It made you feel a bit better about the casual approach you’d taken. Even when separated, you thought alike.

The first thing he said to you was, “You came.” His voice was soft, betraying no surprise or disappointment.

“You invited me,” you replied. Your voice sounded small in your own ears.

He tilted his head. “Well, you didn’t need to come. But… I’m glad you did.”

You lifted your head to finally meet his eyes. The distance between you was smaller than you’d thought. “You are?”

“‘Course I am. Every artist needs their biggest fan at their first important event.”

You chuckled breathily. “Yeah. I guess you do, don’t you? Wouldn’t have known what to do without me.”

“Exactly,” he smiled. Then, his face softened with concern. It was faint, almost impossible to see, but it was there. “Are you okay? You look…”

You smiled, and the blister that had formed in the corner of your mouth burnt with pain. You definitely got the short end of the stick between the two of you. “Like shit? Yeah. I feel like it, too. But I’ll be fine. I’m more concerned about you, right now. I mean, look at you.” You reached up, thumb brushing the green bruise on his forehead. “You’re all cut up, and—”

“I’m fine,” he interjected, shaking his head as if his lip hadn’t been split open. 

A small pause followed. Martin ducked his head. “Listen, about last week—”

“No, don’t even apologise—”

“But what I did was shitty, and—”

“It was my fault, okay? Not y—”

“Yeah, but I could’ve at least made it better by not walking out—”

“I completely understand why you did what you did, so don’t even—”

“Okay. Hold up. Pause.” He shook his head, scrubbing a hand over his face. “We’re just gonna drive each other crazy trying to have a conversation like this. Let’s just— all the guests are settled, no one’s gonna ask me any more questions about why there are so many pictures of Spider-Woman on display, so let’s… go, okay?”

Your brows raised in question. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure. It’s getting stuffy, anyway,” he dismissed. Without a second thought, he held out his hand for you to take, wriggling his lean fingers invitingly. “Come on. Let’s blow this joint.”

You didn’t need to be told twice.

Wausan-ro was quiet when you and Martin stopped in front of the familiar restaurant block, breathless from running from the station. His hand was clasped around yours all the while, the warmth from his palm contrasted by the icy chill of the rings on his fingers.

You’d narrowly avoided getting entrapped in a conversation by Martin’s photography teacher—Jang Jaeseong, also known as The Daily Bugle’s most infamous reporter and the most widely known critic of Spider-Woman—an older man who was convinced he’d met you before.

You stopped in front of the same restaurant you’d had your first date, walking until you reached the pavement. Then, Martin plopped down onto the sidewalk, pulling you down with him.

The silence that came afterwards was different from the previous ones, more tense, more charged than before. A silent reminder hung in the air; you were alone now. He could drop any façades expected of him in public.

He didn’t break the silence, so for the first time, you took it upon yourself to.

“I’m sorry about what happened,” you said. “And before you hijack my apology and make it about how you’re actually wrong, because I know you will, just… let me say this.” 

He merely stared at you, waiting for you to continue.

“Being a superhero is hard. Being the partner of a superhero is even more difficult.” You sighed. “I didn’t tell you, because I didn’t want to open up that world of danger to you. I wanted to tell you. God, I wanted to tell you so badly it hurt. I wanted you to be able to trust me, and to know where I disappeared off to. But I just couldn’t expose you to that. And yet, even when I tried my best to keep my two lives separate, I still messed it up. I still let you get hurt, because I was being selfish, and…” 

“Hey, shh,” he said, reaching up to wipe tears you didn’t realise had started falling. “It’s okay. I…” His jaw clicked, as if the next words physically struggled to come out. “I overreacted, too. This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” he added quickly, and you nodded immediately. He was under no obligation to do so, and you wouldn’t force him to. “I— I still think it was screwed up that you didn’t tell me anything. I still think you have a lot to answer for.”

You hung your head. There was no denying it. He’s right. 

“…But I want you to tell me on your own time.”

So, you told him. You told him everything. From the first day you were bitten to the night you lost Gyumin, from your first villain to the days leading up to your final fight with Noeul. You spared him no detail—gave him the whole picture, spider sweat and natural webs and everything. You told him about how Juhoon was there for you since the first day, how you couldn’t be there for him the same way. You told him about your first love, about your predestined fate, and how you couldn’t do anything about it without putting the entire world at risk.

You told him about Gyumin, how scared his death had made you in the face of a second chance at love. How he’d followed you to Seoul Station that night, how he hadn’t gone back home. How villains didn’t care about bystanders, how that night with Noeul echoed everything that had happened nearly three years ago. How you couldn’t stand to see it happen a second time.

And, he listened. He listened so well. His eyes remained fixed on your face the entire time, gaze soft and trying so desperately to understand what you were trying to tell him. He held you, wiped away your tears, and let you hide your face in his jacket when things got ugly. He stayed, and listened, and nodded, and got what he’d been wanting from the beginning. You, in your entirety, with all the unsavoury, scarred bits, all the gory details and heartbreaking stories. 

You were about to tell him about your trip across the spiderverse before he gently put his hands on your knees, signalling for you to let him speak. “Okay, you’ve been answering every question I have, and I really want you to keep going, but I am also starving. I haven’t eaten since this morning, and if I have to take another second sitting outside of Seoul’s best pizza place without stuffing my face, I am literally going to die.”

You laughed through your tears, standing up with him as he led you inside.

About twenty minutes, a round of sodas, two massive pizzas and a recount of your life since 2023 later, Martin nearly lost his shit.

“So you’re telling me there are other universes in which different versions of you are Spider-Woman? Or Spider-Man? And you’ve travelled to different dimensions before? And there’s a punk Spider-Man? And you used to be part of a secret society that gave you a special watch to travel between dimensions? All before sixteen?”

You smiled, nodding.

“And there’s, like, some sort of magical thing tying all y’all’s lives together, called The Canon, that, if those events included in it don’t happen, your universe collapses?”

“Or the entire space time continuum,” you corrected.

“Damn,” he said, stunned. “And the… your canon events. They’re done?”

You shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel like I’m caught up, but… I might have to do some asking around. I know there’s a canon event I’m missing from the list I gave you, but I can’t remember it now.”

“Aw,” he pouted. “That’s a bummer. But, uh…” He glanced at you conspiratorially, “…boyfriends of Spiders don’t maybe get, like, free passes to different dimensions, right?”

You snickered. “You’re still my boyfriend, huh?”

Martin scoffed. “Oh, don’t be ridiculous. I was always still your boyfriend. Now tell me—” he took a sip of his soda, eyes wide— “will I get to meet your punk best friends, yes or no?”

You hummed, considering his enquiry. “Well, Juhoon did say he’s been missing Mumbattan.”

“Oh, come on! Juhoon got to go dimension-hopping before me?” Martin complained.

“Only because I accidentally gave him my watch to look after,” you corrected, “and he got trigger happy and pressed a button he shouldn’t have pressed. No other reason.”

“Okay, okay… but for real, do I get to go one day?”

“…Shut up and eat your gross fruit pizza.”

“Do not be hating on Hawaiian like that!”

The night passed in a similarly amiable fashion, the two of you exchanging stories and jokes, smiles and secret glances from over the rims of your glasses. It mostly consisted of you telling each other about your lives up until that moment, no details wasted. 

At some point, as the drinks flowed and conversation ebbed, Martin glanced at you, differently from before. Earnestly. Gently. Circling his hands around the hot mug of coffee in front of him, because it had gotten to that point. “What’s it like… doing this, all the time?” he asked.

You paused in consideration. Then, “Honestly? It’s hard. It’s really, really hard. Sometimes I question why I even do it. And then…” You shrugged. “I see a family reunited after I saved them, and I remember. I look out to the city at night, and it all makes sense. I—” your voice cracked, wobbled with emotion— “I see my friends, my family, I see you, and… I have the strength to keep going.”

Martin kept his eyes on you, listening intently.

“I need to keep going anyway,” you said. “As Spider-Woman, no matter how many hits I take, I always have to get back up. But sometimes… sometimes it’s nice being reminded that I have more than one reason to.”

“Am I one of them?” Martin asked softly, though he already knew the answer.

You shook your head. “You’re the first one.”

He didn’t smile; though you could see, in his eyes, in the way he looked at you. It meant more to him than he’d say. Maybe because it was too intimate to properly express in words. Maybe because this level of vulnerability left people speechless.

“You’re my reason, too,” he murmured.

My reason to get back up, no matter how many hits I take. My reason to stay focused, no matter the task at hand. My reason to open up, no matter how difficult it is at that moment. My reason to keep trying, to keep doing, to keep giving, to keep going.

When hours passed by and you finally settled your bill, you found yourselves outside again, caught between going back to the gallery and staying right where you were. Martin stood just outside the door, hands shoved in his pockets. He glanced at you expectantly, as if you’d have the answer to whichever questions he had.

“You wanna go back and let Mr Jang bother you some more?” he said. You felt like he’d be teasing you a lot more about him since you revealed he’d always suspected you were Spider-Woman for no reason besides his own paranoia.

You hummed. “I think it’s more important that you get back to your own exhibition.”

He shook his head. “It’s showing for another week. I don’t need to be there tonight.”

Nonetheless, you stepped out from under the overhang, and Martin narrowly avoided walking into some scaffolding a few metres away, where a new restaurant was being built. It looked like a shawarma place, maybe.

You pulled him closer by your web, the sticky substance caught onto his hip. He yelped, surprised by the sudden sensation. 

“Watch out for the scaffolding,” was all you said.

You made it a few more paces before you realised that Martin hadn’t moved a centimetre since you’d shielded him from hitting his head. Turning around, you saw him still at the base of the scaffolding, glancing up at the wooden plank he’d almost bumped into.

You could see the cogs turning in his head. “What are you plotting, Woojoo?”

He didn’t look at you when he said, “I wanna try something.”

In a wholly unexpected moment, Martin leapt up, hoisting himself onto the scaffolding with a grunt of effort. You rushed forward, instinct taking over the moment you saw him flail. “Don’t worry!” he told you breathlessly. “I think I know what I’m doing.”

You think?

So you stood back and watched as Martin hooked his legs over a metal pole hanging above him, and found himself hanging upside down, facing you. His body shook with the exertion, but he extended his arms towards you, beckoning you closer. “C’mere.”

You raised a brow, sceptical. “What are you planning?”

You remembered telling him about the upside-down kiss that happened in every universe. A Spider hanging from scaffolding, kissing their Gwen for the first time. But this… this setup was a bit different. Martin smiled, simply gesturing again for you to come. You never would get used to that sight; your heart still acted as if you were seeing him smile for the first time whenever he did. God, he was so pretty.

You approached him hesitantly, until he reached for your belt loop and pulled you closer. From this angle, you had to crouch in the slightest to be eye-level with him, though his gaze was focused on your lips. His shirt rode up—down?—a bit, exposing his navel, and he tried to hold back a laugh when you kept it up for him.

Alright. Let’s do this one last time. Seriously. 

You cupped his face as best as you could from that angle, letting him draw closer until his lips brushed yours. Your first kiss with Martin Edwards Park was sweet, and swift, mostly due to the fact that his core was burning from the strain his odd angle provided. His lips were soft, plush and pillowy against your own, tasting of sugar and the scented lip balm he swore by. His hair brushed your chin, tickling the sensitive skin.

You laughed into the kiss, your nose bumping his chin in the process. He simply pulled you closer, and kissed you until he physically couldn’t anymore. And by that I mean his legs finally gave out and you had to catch him, making sure he didn’t concuss himself seconds after your first kiss.

When you were sixteen, you were bitten by a radioactive spider, and for the last two and a half years, you’d been your dimension’s one and only, very flawed Spider-Woman.

He shakily got to his feet, watching as you laughed at him, your pretty face scrunching up with joy. So, so pretty. He shook his head, already reaching out for you again, pulling you closer until your chest was flush against his, his hand resting easily in the small of your back. He kissed you for a second time, this time slower, calmer, deeper, with the confidence of someone who knew he was exactly what you wanted.

“I kinda like that you’re stronger than me,” he admitted once he’d pulled away, simpering.

You scoffed a laugh, playfully smacking his cheek, though it was little more than your hand brushing his skin, the action more affectionate than anything. Not really using your strength. Just teasing your Martin. “You’re weird.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You love it.”

“Yeah. I love you.”

He froze. “What?”

You took a step back, grinning. “What? I didn’t say anything.”

Martin shook his head. “No, I’m pretty sure you—”

“The wind is really weird here, and—”

When you turned to leave, to speedwalk to safety, to leave him in shocked silence, Martin didn’t even let you walk five paces before he had you by the belt loop again, turning you around to face him.

His nose brushed yours with how close he was. “I love you, too, loser.”

I think you know the rest.

After winning Professor Jang’s writing competition and having his first exhibition, Martin went on to get an internship at The Daily Bugle as a photographer and writer—the paper’s resident Spider-Woman fanatic who seemed to know a bit too much than was normal for a civilian.

He got in-depth reports about new stories involving you, snapped pictures that seemed to be the sort of close that a simple zoomed-in camera couldn’t capture, all while being zipped across the city on dates and other such excursions with you. He helped you out on cases when Juhoon was too busy with schoolwork, or when he simply wanted to take a step back and make you see how much effort he put into being your guy in the chair, and he enjoyed it a bit too much. So much so that, the last time he helped you catch a big bad, Juhoon had ushered him out of his chair and said, “Okay, your help is no longer needed here. You can go back to being her boyfriend.”

Your life similarly gained some direction. You may not have known what exactly what you wanted to do with your life, but you had finally found something you were good at, had finally found something that you could imagine yourself doing, had finally found someone you were content with spending it with.

You only remembered your last canon event months later, when spring had gone from summer to autumn, when the leaves had changed colours and you’d become an amalgamation of the old and new parts of your life.

You saved the city, saved the city some more, and over and over again until you lost count. And no matter how many hits you took, you always got back up.

The memory popped into your head while you were out with school friends—Juhoon, Seonghyeon, Martin, and Woojin from Siryeok; Iroha, Ella, and Hyein from your department at SNU—in a small, warmly lit Chinese restaurant on Wausan-ro. You’d been in the middle of digging through your purse in search of incriminating evidence that Juhoon was indeed emo in middle school, when your fingers closed around a crumpled piece of paper you’d long forgotten of.

You finally started focusing on university, and found your niche. Fashion, a major which was surprisingly enough caused by your spider-like sewing skills and eye for colours.  

Iroha snickered softly at the sight of you rummaging through your purse. “So messy,” she chided, narrowing her eyes in amusement at the sight across from her.

“You should see what her room looks like,” Juhoon said dryly.

That’s how you’d met your new friends who, by the way, were all the rage when it came to hangouts with your arguably odd confidants.

You took it out curiously and, absently placing the polaroid of Juhoon with his hair combed over his eyes on the table—much to his horror—read the note.

come to the opening. or don’t. i don’t care. – mj.

MJ…

“Don’t give up yet, kid. I thought I ruined everything by walking out on MJ, and in the end, she took me back when I was ready. Look at us now!”

“Really?” you asked, glancing at him and the squirming baby in his arms curiously. “She gave you a second chance?”

“Hell yeah! I mean— Ah, crap. I swore in front of the kid.”

You hummed, none the wiser to his parental struggle. “Thanks for that. I, uh, don’t think I’ll be trying to have a second chance at love just yet, but if I ever do, I’ll make sure to swing by and say thanks.”

You frowned, leaning into Martin amidst the jeers and cackles coming from your friends, Juhoon desperately trying to defend himself. His eyes were wide with indignation, quite uncharacteristically for someone as nonchalant as himself. “Have your initials always been MJ?”

You learnt how to love again. It was a little hard, adjusting to it. Your new life demanded a lot of the attention you’d been pouring into your past life—old habits, old memories, old demons that you couldn’t bring yourself to forget. 

He glanced at you oddly, and in the back of your mind, you could remember reading his name a few times in the past. It hadn’t stuck back then, clearly. “Uh, yeah? Martin Jacob Edwards.” He laughed softly, eyes narrowing in feigned, joking confusion. After all this time, he still smelled of cologne and printer ink. “It’s been my name since I was born, I’m pretty sure. Why do you ask?”

You shook your head, unable to control the smile that overtook your features. Martin Jacob Edwards. The name was familiar, and you found yourself repeating it after he’d told you his full name. Martin Jacob Edwards.

The same Martin you’d met several months before in the middle of a tech aisle on a late-night shopping trip.

“Anyway, do I… know you? You look kind of familiar. Do you go to Siryeok Academy?”

The same Martin you’d grown close to over the course of the following weeks by joining the school paper after your best friend had forced you to.

“Would you have any idea where we could go to join? Somewhere to sign up, maybe?”

“Uh, yeah, actually, I do. I could just introduce you guys at the next meeting, and we can take things from there. The team has a meeting once a week, and you guys can just jump in whenever. We’ll probably talk specifics after that.”

The same Martin who’d confided in you how big of a fan he was of you without knowing you were his hero.

“I’m not even trying to find out who’s behind the mask. I just want to talk to her. To ask her… what it’s like, doing what she does, every day. How she does it. What keeps her going. I mean, is she like us? Is she a normal teenager? Does she have a family? Does she not? Is that the reason why she protects other people, because she couldn’t protect the people she loved?”

The same Martin who’d asked you out on a date because he’d simply felt so entranced by you, unexplainably so.

“Anytime before sunset is fine. I just think we should get a bite to eat, and then… I dunno… see where the night takes us?”

The same Martin who, over the course of several months up until this very moment, had stayed by your side—perhaps not unwaveringly, but as best as he could with the time and knowledge he had, which was all you really needed.

“No reason.” You pressed a chaste kiss to his lips, and when you pulled away, his eyes had widened in polite surprise, still adorably puckered. “I was just wondering.”

But you opened yourself up to new people, new experiences, when you realised that both of your worlds—familiar and alien, old and new—could coexist seamlessly, no tragedy needed.

He kissed you back then, taking back the opportunity he missed to savour the feeling of your lips on his. “Alright,” he said, pulling away. His arm rested easily around your shoulder. “If you say so.”

You also finally found your MJ.

THE END!

taglist @teacuplps @hyuneskkami @cranialberry @ramenoil @pearlywhitefics @kaikaikoi @r0ckst4rjk

It was usual to take your time packing your things, not feeling the collective sense of urgency to leave like your classmates. Your fingers smoothed over the edge of your notebook before placing it carefully into your bag, aligning it with the others out of habit. The late afternoon sun had begun to settle low once you stepped outside, turning the dust in the courtyard into something almost golden.

As per usual, the boys had taken over the field, running without restraint while their shoes kicked up dry earth with every turn. The girls stayed closer to the edges, gathered in small groups to keep their past conversations going, or simply watched them play.

“Did you hear about Sunhee?” Near you, two girls stood close together, speaking in hushed tones.

The other leaned in. “No—what happened?”

“She was seen walking with—” Despite how badly you wanted to know that piece of information, your attention was diverted for longer than you’d care to admit

He stood in the corridor with a teacher in front of him. His uniform was perfectly neat; the dark jacket sat straight across his shoulder, the brass buttons catching the light as he moved. The only thing that barely messed up his polished self was a faint trace of chalk along one of his sleeves, as though he had brushed against the board earlier without noticing.

He gave the teacher his full attention, his posture straightening almost instinctively. When the teacher finished speaking, he bowed—clean and measured, neither exaggerated nor careless.

“Yes, sir.” Despite the low tone, it was clear enough to reach where you stood.

The teacher gave a short nod. “Make sure you review that section again. You were close.”

“I will,” Another bow, smaller this time, and the teacher moved on.

You were too immersed to notice how Wonhee nudged your arm lightly beside you. “You’re not listening at all today.”

You blinked, turning toward her. “I am.”

She didn’t believe you, but she let it go. “We’re going to the market later. Are you coming?”

“Maybe.”

“You always say that.” A faint smile appeared on your face, your attention already drifting back. This time, he had stepped down into the courtyard, now joining the others. 

“Juhoon! Don’t just stand there!” A boy whom you recognized as Seonghyeon threw him a ball, and the catch was so easy that it made his friends cheer him on.

“Hey,” The voice from Yunah softly broke in as she followed your gaze. “Who are you looking at?”

“No one,” you answered a little too quickly.

“Are you looking at Kim Juhoon?” The bell rang sharply, a clear cue to dissolve the moment into motion again before you can answer. Students began to move toward the gates, voices blending in familiar patterns. 

Trying to keep up with the conversation between your two friends was a little hard as you nodded at the right moments and offered brief responses when needed. It wasn’t difficult to stay present enough that no one questioned you; it was your forte, even when part of your attention was somewhere else.

And yet, just before all three reached the gate, you turned your head just enough to find him again.

Kim Juhoon… that’s a pretty name for a pretty boy. The name settled more easily in your mind than you expected.

At the time, you didn’t think much of it. Names were just names, and people existed around you every day without leaving any real impression. So why was there something about him that seemed so different that it stuck with you a little longer than usual? In a way, that should have been the end of it, but when your eyes noticed him again the next day, you knew it wasn’t.

It was surprising that it was not deliberate; you weren’t looking for him. Simply more aware of where people stood, how they moved, and of the small changes that others overlooked. It was something you had always done without thinking.

He sat near the front during morning assembly. Again, back straight, right through the teacher's speech, which was longer than necessary. He definitely carried the idea of the ideal student when you saw him ignore his friend's whisper and keep his gaze forward.

Later, in class, you realized he wrote quickly—but never carelessly. He didn’t pause to think of what to write; he paused to make sure it was right.

“Why do you keep looking over there? It has been a couple of days.” You startled slightly, turning to Wonhee, who had already caught you in the act.

“I’m not.”

It didn't take long for her to stop where your gaze fell. “You totally are.”

“I was just thinking.”

“About him?” she asked, not bothering to lower her voice as much this time.

“... No.”

Yunah leaned forward from the other side, resting her chin lightly on her hand. “It’s not a bad choice,” she said, almost thoughtfully. “He’s pretty, but not… reliable.”

“That’s what you’re looking for?” Wonhee teased.

“It’s what everyone is looking for,” Yunah replied simply.

It was the first time you didn't respond because you weren't sure that was really what you were sensing. As days passed by, it happened more often that you even began to recognize patterns.

He arrived earlier than most and always from the same direction, would greet the teachers properly, even when others only bowed halfway or not at all, and most importantly, he studied quietly, talked briefly and to the point, and became his friendly self when he was with his usual group of friends.

Once, you saw him lend a pencil to another student without being asked without making a point of it or wait for thanks—just passed it over and returned to his work. Another time, during a short break where Wonhee spoke about his interaction with Keonho, his friends tried to pull him into a game.

“Juhoon, come on. Just one round.”

“I can’t,” he replied, who you believed was Seonghyeon.

“Again?”

“I have something to finish.”

“Tell us something we don't know.” At that, he gave a small, almost apologetic smile, not moving from his seat. Due to the look on his face, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to join them; it was that he chose not to.

“Again? It’s like a million times today.” Wonhee murmured, barely hiding her teasing smile.

“No!”

“You were.”