YUKI

Tonight's performance had been exhausting. however, not in a bad way.

Actually, it was a satisfying kind of way.

The kind that left his muscles sore and his chest heaving afterward, sweat sticking uncomfortably to his skin beneath layered stage outfits.

LNGSHOT had only debuted a few months ago and yet somehow, after everything, all their hard work before their debut, all the hate, or all the flying and concerts, the packed schedules, everything already felt overwhelming in the best and but also worst ways possible.

To this day, Ohyul still finds it quite shocking how some people recognize him more often now when he crosses the street, be it in seoul it or the country he visits abroad and during their performances on stage, there are people actually screaming his name.

And honestly, it still felt unreal sometimes.

By the time the members finally returned to the dorm, everyone looked half dead.

Woojin disappeared straight into his room without even saying goodnight, Louis dramatically complained about starving before immediately lying face down onto the couch instead of actually getting food, and Ryul went to scold Louis.

Ohyul only laughed quietly at the sight before heading for the shower himself.

Warm water eased some of the tension from his body, washing away sweat, hairspray, and the lingering stickiness from performing under hot stage lights. By the time he changed into more comfortable clothes afterward, exhaustion sat heavier against his shoulders.

Now, most people, normal people at this time would've probably gone straight to sleep.

But not Kwon Ohyul.

He still reached for a hoodie.

Still slipped on his shoes.

Still left the dorm.

Because no matter how busy life became for him, Kwon Ohyul, never skipped his runs.

To him, running had always been one of the few things that cleared his head properly. Especially after long performances where adrenaline still lingered long after the stage ended.

And tonight, the weather felt nice enough for it.

The summer heat had finally calmed after today's evening rain earlier, leaving the air cool and damp instead of the unbearably humid. The streets still shimmered faintly beneath the city lights, the puddles reflecting neon signs and passing headlights as he ran through the quieter roads.

The rhythmic sound of his footsteps against the wet pavement slowly drowned out the noise in his head.

Out here, nobody could really bother him.

There were no cameras. No managers. No expectations from crowds.

Just him running through the cool air that hits against his skin, and the steady burn in his lungs as he ran.

Oh how he liked that feeling.

Liked how the city softened at this quiet night.

Eventually though, his pace slowed little by little until he finally came to a stop near a familiar street corner, his breathing heavier now as he dragged a hand through his slightly damp hair.

A nearby convenience store glowed warmly against the dark street ahead, bright lights reflecting across the rain slick pavement.

Right now....food sounded good.

Or at least a cold drink.

Something small for him to consume before heading back to the dorm.

Adjusting the face mask resting over the lower half of his face, Ohyul started walking toward the store,

Before slowing again...

There was someone sitting outside near the small tables beside the convenience store.

A girl.

A hood pulled over her head slightly, one leg tucked beneath the other as she scrolled absentmindedly through her phone.

The steam rose from the cup of ramyeon sitting in front of her, drifting upward into the cool night air. Beside it sat convenience store sushi and an opened drink can that had probably gone warm already considering how long it had...sat there.

Music leaked faintly from her earbuds whenever she shifted.

And draped around her shoulders—

Was a familiar blue hoodie.

Ohyul's steps slowed unconsciously.

Because something about it felt incredibly familiar immediately.

His chest tightened before his thoughts fully caught up.

Because he knew that hoodie all too well.

He knew the exact shade of blue faded from too many washes. Knew the sleeves stretched slightly from someone constantly pulling them over their hands.

For a second, it felt like time stopped on him. Ohyul forgot about the convenience store entirely. Forgot about the exhaustion weighing down his body. Forgot about the city around him.

Because suddenly all he could see...

was you.

And even after all this time,

he recognized you instantly.

The memory hit him quietly first.

Not like a sudden flash like you'd get when a camera clicks at you with it's flash on.

It was more like a soft tugging at the edges of his thoughts...soft, uninvited but impossible to ignore.

And suddenly

He was no longer at the convenience store.

He was back to that day.

Where it had been raining non-stop.

The kind of rain that didn't stop properly, just shifted between light drizzles and sudden heavier bursts as if the sky was indecisive that it couldn't decide what it wanted to do.

Ohyul had already walked out from Morevision's studio earlier that evening. An umbrella is hand, his navy blue jacket pulled tighter around himself than usual. He didn't mind the cold too much.

In fact, he almost preferred it like this. It was quiet, the streets were empty and there was no unnecessary street drama. If that makes sense.

A small cafe sat near the corner he passed on weekends. Warm lights spilled through its windows. Soft against the gray outside.

He only meant to stop in for a drink. Something warm, something simple. Just a small break before heading back.

The cafe was quiet when he entered. A few scattered customers. Mostly a couple of students hunched over laptops and papers. Someone reading by the window as the soft hum of music and rain tapping against the glass filled the space comfortably.

Ohyul ordered a drink without much thought and ended up choosing a seat near the window. He stared at the glass pane, looking outside, where the rain blurred into the streaks of grey and reflection.

That was when he saw you.

You, who were rushing under the rain from one stop to the cafe, head slightly ducked as if that alone could help. You, who clutched tightly around a large sling bag—pressed over your head in a failed attempt of shelter from the heavy rain.

And obviously, that didn't work and you ended up drenched. Not completely soaked enough that your clothes clung slightly to your figure. Ohyul noticed you, a stranger, your steps that looked increasingly frustrated with every second.

Eventually, the stranger stopped right outside the cafe entrance. Eventually stopping under the table outside with a large parasol attached to it.

You cursed under your breath, unbeknownst to the boy staring at you from the glass inside the cafe.

"seriously, of all days..."

Although the boy couldn't hear what you had said from inside, the irritation was obvious.

You adjusted the bag slightly, clearly debating whether to just run through the rain again or wait it out even though it didn't seem to have any plans of stopping anytime soon.

Ohyul blinked. His mind wandering in his head. Where have he seen you before. And eventually it clicked.

He did know you, though not well...or perhaps not yet but just vaguely he knew where he recognized you from.

A classmate. Someone who attended hanlim arts highschool along with him. One of his closest friends—Woonhak's friends. He never spoke to you before but he'd seen you wander around the halls enough to recognize who you were.

Eventually, his eyes caught the way you shifted again, clearly cold now, shoulders slightly tense as you looked at the reflection from one of them glass panes of the cafe as if it had personally betrayed you.

Something about that...made him pause.

And before he could overthink it—

Ohyul stood up.

The chair, scraped lightly against the wooden floor. A few people glanced over but paid no real interest to it—eventually looking away.

He grabbed his umbrella and walked towards the door. When he stepped outside the cold hit him immediately. He slowly walked to the table, to you standing under the parasol.

And you noticed him instantly.

"...uh?" she made a small sound of confusion.

Ohyul stopped right in front of you, when he realized too late that he hadn't thought this through. And for a second, there was just...silence. The sound of rain slowly muffled.

Then he cleared his throat slightly.

"you're drenched.." he said bluntly.

You blinked, confused. "I'm aware...?"

A pause.

"Right..."

That made you exhale through through nose, almost a laugh but not quite one. "Did you come out here just so you could tell me that..?"

"No.."

Another pause

"Are you...going to wait for the rain to stop?"

You chuckled before looking at the heavy rain. "I'm hoping it does." you muttered. "But clearly it had something against me...so I doubt it."

That got a small huff of air out of him. Almost a laugh.

Ohyul hesitated again...then without really thinking it through. He took off his hoodie.

"What are you doing?" you asked, perplexed at his actions. He outstretched his hands, the hoodie held out slightly for her to take it. "You're cold."

You blinked. He was right but... you've never been the type to admit vulnerability. "I'm drenched." You corrected, out of pride. "There's a difference."

"I know."

Eventually silence filled in again.

You stared at him, as if trying to figure out if he was serious or if he was just...strange.

"You don't even know me.." you pointed out.

"I know." He said simply.

That didn't help his case at all. But he still held the hoodie out, waiting for you to take it. After a few seconds of hesitation, you sighed. Your hands remained hugging your figure due to the cold.

"okay...this is either really kind of you, really weird."

"it's just a hoodie. It's not a big deal." He replied.

"From a stranger."

"Not exactly, we're classmates."

Eventually, you decided that...there was no way you could argue with him. You did recognize him, you saw him in hallways, you saw him with woonhak in class. So...he was technically not a stranger.

"Fine.." you muttered, reaching for the hoodie.

Your fingers didn't really touch him, but both of you felt something shift that day.

The hoodie was warm... probably from body heat. You immediately pulled it on, the oversized fabric swallowing you slightly.

"This is...definitely going to be weird to return." you muttered.

"Then you don't have to return it." he replied without thinking.

You paused. "That sounds even worse." That made him laugh.

"You're really strange."

"I've been told." He has, a lot. By Ryul. By Woonhak and by the staff of Morevision.

Another beat of silence.

But it wasn't uncomfortable. Just unfamiliar.

Your head tilted slightly, looking at him properly now for the first time.

"…Why did you come out here anyway?"

He glanced at the cafe behind them.

"You mean why I'm at the cafe?"

"Yes"

"…Warm coffee."

"That’s it?"

"It's cold today."

She nodded slowly like that made more sense.

"…Yeah, okay, that tracks."

Then, after a pause—

"I'll return this later," she added reluctantly. "Probably."

"You don't have to," he repeated.

"I'm going to," she insisted. “It’s basic respect.”

He didn't argue this time. Just nodded slightly.

The rain continued falling around them, softer now in the background of the café’s warm light.

"…You should go inside," he said after a moment.

"You too," she replied.

He paused.

"…Yeah."

Neither of them moved immediately.

Then finally, she stepped slightly toward the cafe door. Before entering, she looked back once.

"…Thanks, by the way."

He gave a small nod.

And somehow…

That didn’t feel like the last time they'd speak.

And it wasn't, because after that day, seeing each other somehow became normal.

At first, it happened through coincidence more than intention. You guys would pass each other through the schools hallways. There would be brief greetings exchanged during classes. Small acknowledgements whenever Woonhak dragged one of you into conversations with the other because he found out that you've conversed before and in his words it felt like he missed a whole chapter. Sometimes you'd end up walking together without really planning to, simply because they were heading the same direction anyway.

Then slowly—it stopped feeling accidental. The hoodie became an excuse at first. A reason to talk again where you kept insisting you'd return it eventually, yet every time you brought it up, something interrupted it and both of you would get distracted, be it during another shared walk with eachother or another afternoon where you two would linger around each other longer than necessary.

And somehow, somewhere between all of that—you two became close, so close it became obvious to others except the two of you. It started with little things. the shared drinks during breaks. The late night calls and messages, or the the moments of him sitting beside you during lunch while you kept rambling tiredly about something crazy you eavesdropped from someone as he rested his head on the table with you knowing well that he wasn't fully listening. But what mattered was that he cared enough to stay.

Back then, It was just you and him. Just two exhausted teenagers due to school, practices and other stuff life had offered them. Two teenagers who were trainees under different entertainment companies with big dreams who found comfort in eachother. Because somehow being with eachother felt so easy. so warm.

As time passes on, somehow and somewhere, being around each other made it easier. Like you could breathe properly for a moment.

Where some nights ended with long phone calls after practic and neither of you wanted to hang up first. There would sometimes be days where you both would barely even talk, just listening to eachother after after a long and exhausting day.

And other times, you would both talk until the sunrise threatened the edges of their windows through the blinds. You both would talk about dreams. About your hopes and wishes before and after debuting. About fears neither of you would admit to anyone else.

The closer you became, the more natural everything had felt.

Waiting outside each for eachother after school just to walk home together beneath the flickering streetlights. or the times where the both if you were sharing umbrellas during lazy rainy afternoons while his shoulder always ended up damp because he kept tilting it more towards you. The first time he held your hand happened naturally enough that neither of them even mentioned it afterward.

And when you both finally started dating, nothing really changed. Well....at least,

Not immediately.

Because you both already loved each other long before placing a lable onto it. Back then, the relationship felt soft in the way only first love could. It was messy. Young and overwhelmingly sincere.

The two of you loved each other through the exhaustion, through sore muscles after a long day of a workout or dance practice and through the nights where everything felt suffocating.

So maybe that was why losing each other later hurt so much.

Because for a while—both of you had been everything to one another. But of course growing older changed things quietly. Your schedules didnt line up with one another which led to less frequent hang outs. because when one of you had a break, the other would be busy.

Then thats where it started.

There were fewer shared walks home. Fewer late night calls with eachother. Replies became delayed, and that was not because either of you simply stopped caring and loving one another,

but because both if you were simply too exhausted to give more than what's already there.

And before you could notice, in just a blink of an eye, conversations turned into arguments. They weren't explosive. Just tired frustration and built up stress spilling onto the wrong person.

And suddenly there was a huge gap between you and him. a distance. Too many apologies spilled out from eachother. And eventually, even being together started feeling heavy. It no longer felt warm and easy. Instead it felt like trying to desperately hold onto something while slowly losing yourselves in the process. You both still loved each other dearly.

And that was the problem wasn't it?

Both you and Ohyul loved each other enough to notice how unhappy the other had become. Enough to realize neither of you knew how to keep giving without completely emptying yourselves. So both of you made a difficult decision.

Before graduation.

You chose to let go. And so did he. It was quiet. It was painful.

Because you the love for eachother never disappeared.

And afterward, life simply…kept moving. Graduation came. The preperations for debuting intensified. Your paths diverged naturally after that. That's it. No dramatic ending.

Just a distance settling where your love used to live.

And somehow—that hurt the most.

The steam from the ramyeon had started fading by the time Ohyul finally sat down across from you.

He didnt know why he chose to sat down, every part of his bone had screamed at him that it was a bad idea yet...his brain refused to listened and his instincts acted.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Strange isn't it?

How someone could become a stranger and still feel familiar at the exact same time.

"I see you still go out late at night to run" you pointed out eventually, pulling one earbud out completely this time.

Ohyul let out a quiet breath through his nose. "And you still have a habit of buying food but not eating it."

You glanced at the untouched ramyeon in front of you before giving a small shrug. “Fair point.”

Silence settled again. Not awkward. Just careful. It was evident that both of you were trying to figure out where to place years of distance between an attempt to have an ordinary conversation.

Then—"You debuted," you said softly.

And to Ohyul it still sounded slightly unreal coming from her. "Yeah..." Ohyul laughed quietly. "So did you."

You blinked surprised that he was aware. "You know?"

"I've seen clips online." He leaned back slightly in his chair. "Seems like you're doing pretty well."

A small sound left you, somewhere stuck between embarrassment and disbelief. "That’s… weird."

“What is?”

"You knowing that."

"You thought i wouldn't?"

"I don’t know." You looked down at your drink for a second before letting out a quieter laugh. "I guess I just didn't expect you to know about it."

Ohyul nodded slowly. Because to be frank, he understood that feeling more than he wanted to admit. There was another pause before you spoke again.

"You’ve changed." you laughed, admiring his new features now that his hood was down and so was his face mask that had concealed his face. "Your hair's longer and your braces gone..."

"Hopefully i changed in a good way..."

"Mmmm....I'm still deciding."

That made him laugh properly this time. God. How he forgot how easy talking to you used to feel.

"So how's the others? Woojin, Ryul." you asked.

"They're...well them?"

"So nothing changed."

"No not much."

A small laugh escaped your lips again. and God Ohyul found himself staring for half a second too long before looking away.

And somehow, little by little, as the night continued, the tension eased. The conversation started flowing more naturally after that. The two of you talked about schedules. About how exhausting debut life actually feels like compared to how glamorous people thought it looked online. But even so, everything felt exhilirating in a good way. At one point you started laughing while telling a story about your members and Ohyul found himself laughing hard enough that he had to lower his head slightly.

God...it felt familiar. Dangerously familiar. It was as if they were stepping into an old memory. And for a second, it almost scared both o of you, how easy it was to just slip back into this version of themselves. The version before things became complicated with eachother. Before distance they created together, before silence, before things got so exhausting.

At some point, your laughter softened.

and his gaze had drifted again. But not to your face this time. But to the familiar hoodie you were wearing. The navy blue hoodie that once belong to him.

It was subtle at first—almost absentminded. Like his eyes had simply fallen there while his mind was elsewhere. But then it lingered longer than it should've.

Until it wasn't absentminded anymore. You noticed eventually.

"…What?" you asked, glancing down at yourself before following his gaze. "What are you looking at?" Ohyul blinked once, like he had just been pulled back into the moment. Then he let out a quiet laugh. It wasn't dramatic, just...surprised.

That caught your attention immediately.

"What?" you repeated your eyes narrowed slightly.

He shook his head lightly, still smiling a little to himself. "I was just wondering…" he started slowly, voice calmer now, "…if you ever fixed that zipper."

That made you pause. Then you looked down at the hoodie too. “…Clearly not.” There was no hesitation laced in your answer. He hummed, leaning back slightly in his chair. "Yeah, I can see that."

A beat. Then, almost like he couldn’t help himself—

"You broke it, didn’t you?"

Your head snapped up immediately.

"I did NOT break it."

"Oh, you definitely did."

"I didn’t even do anything to it?!" You defended instantly. "It was already fragile when you gave it to me."

"That’s not true."

"it is so true."

He tilted his head slightly, like he was genuinely considering her argument, but the faint smile on his face ruined his seriousness.

"You used to fidget with it all the time," he said, slower now, like he was recalling it. "You'd just keep zipping it up and down while talking whenever you wore it. Like it was a habit."

"That does NOT break a zipper."

"You also never stopped doing it."

You frowned slightly. "That's not why it broke."

"Yes it was."

"How are you so sure huh?"

"It literally broke while you were doing it."

"If i don't remember it, it clearly never happened."

Ohyul laughed under his breath at that.

"Oh really...? how conveinient."

You leaned forward a little now, fully engaged in the argument despite the fact that neither of you actually sounded angry.

"I'm telling you, it was cheap ass material. wherever you bought it."

"I beg to differ...it survived me wearing it. It survived during rainy days. It survived before i gave it to you," he listed, ticking each point off casually, "but it didn’t survive you."

"That’s insulting. and very offending"

"Oh c'mon, it’s honest."

"It’s wrong."

"Is it?"

You stared at him for a second..becuase it wasn't wrong. you were just to prideful to admit it did break because of you. Eventually, you let out a small exhale through your nose, giving up on winning.

"…Whatever."

That should've been the end of it. But instead, the silence that followed didn't feel empty. It felt… reflective. Your fingers, still wrapped in the sleeve. And your eyes looked down at the hoodie again.

"…Do you… want it back?" The question hung there differently than everything before it. Ohyul sensed it. The hesitation that was laced in your question. Like you weren't sure if you should even be asking.

Ohyul didn’t answer immediately. For a second, his gaze dropped back to the hoodie too.

And suddenly—it wasn't just a hoodie.

It was the rain. The cold air biting at his skin. The cafe doorway. The memory of you standing outside, annoyed at the weather, soaked at the edges of your clothes, holding a bag over your head like it could fight the sky.

Then it was him stepping outside without much thought of it. It was warmth leaving his jacket and settling onto her shoulders. It was a stranger he didn't know then—

who somehow ended up becoming someone he couldn't really forget.

And then—memories came flooding one by one. The laughter in empty hallways. The shared beverages and snacks. The late night quiet conversations that lasted too long be it in person, through messages or calls. The running around in the rain when he had worked so hard to keep the umbrella on your side. The times where you'd share an earbud, your head resting on his shoulder. The version of life with you that felt simpler, even when it wasn't.

His gaze softened without him noticing. Then he let out a small breath. A faint smile appeared after and you can't lie, your heart still tugged because of it. That smile, that damn smile.

The smile he gives to you after a long day, the smile he'd have whenever you're feeling down telling you everything will be okay even if he wasn't sure himseld. The smile he'd show you to reassure you. It was so familiar, so warm and so genuine.

"…No," he said quietly.

You blinked confused.

"No?"

He shook his head once.

"Keep it."

A pause.

"You kept it for this long," he added, tone lighter now, almost teasing again, "why return it now?"

The tension on your shoulders, one you didn't even realize you were holding eased slightly.

and you leaned back a little. clearing you throat.

"…I was just asking."

"Mm."

There was a beat. Then he smiled faintly, eyes flicking back to you.

"Though I doubt you actually planne'd to give it back anyway."

That earned an immediate reaction. "I did."

"You didn't"

"I did!"

"You said that every time," he pointed out smoothly. "And every time, somehow you conveniently forgot."

"That was back then," you insisted. "I meant it this time..."

He raised a brow slightly. "Sure you did.."

"Don’t 'sure you' me mister."

His laugh came easier this time.

It was warm. Familiar in a way that made the moment feel less like two strangers catching up—but more like something that had briefly been paused rather than ended.

You huffed slightly, but there was a small smile tugging at your expression now too.

"You’re still annoying,"

"You're still wearing my hoodie"

"I'm wearing it."

"Same thing."

"It is not the same thing."

"Is it?"

"Yes it is—"

But you stopped yourself mid sentence. And your eyes drifted to look at him. And for a second, neither of you spoke. The laughter didn't fully disappear.

It just softened. Hung in the air a little quieter than before.

And something about it—something about sitting there like this again, arguing over something so small, so stupid, so normal—

made everything else feel strangely distant.

Like time hadn't completely erased them. Just stretched them apart. And it felt like you two were teenagers again...just a little older this time.

Until finally—

you exhaled slowly. you laughed, because god how you missed this feeling. how you missed talking to him like this even if things had clearly changed between them, even if they grew older, maturer into the perso they are now.

That caught his attention. For a brief second, neither of them said anything. But God. Ohyul missed this as much as you did.

Then quietly, unexpectedly—

"I miss this."

His gaze lifted towards you, surprised that you had chose to acknowledge the elephant in the atmosphere.

"You know…" you murmured, glancing down at the untouched food in front of you, "when it was just us."

A pause.

"Talking like this." you added.

Ohyul swallowed slowly.

"…Yeah."

Another small pause.

Then softer—

"Me too."

Silence settled between them again, but this time it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. If anything, it felt almost warm. Like finding something you thought you lost years ago. Eventually, Ohyul glanced down at his phone.The time made him exhale quietly.

"It's really late," he muttered.

"It is..."

He pushed himself up from the chair reluctantly, adjusting the mask resting beneath his chin again.

"I should probably head back before the others notices I've been gone too long."

"I can imagine the fuss they are gonna make" you chuckled.

He laughed again, shaking his head lightly.

God. There it was again. That feeling. Like no matter how much time passed, talking to you still came so naturally. He hesitated briefly before speaking again.

"…Hey."

You looked up. Ohyul rubbed the back of his neck once, suddenly feeling strangely nervous.

"Is your number still the same from back then?"

A small flicker of surprise crossed your expression. "…Yeah," she answered slowly. "Why?"

He glanced away for a second, embarassed, nervouse and hesitant before looking back at you again.

"If it’s not too much trouble…" he started quietly, "and if you’re not busy sometime…"

His voice softened slightly.

"Maybe we could catch up properly"

For a moment, you simply looked at him.

Then slowly—

"…Yeah," you said softly.

A small smile appeared afterward.

"I'd like that."

And somehow, beneath the luminiscent convenience store lights and the remains of the rare summer rain from this evening,

it felt a little like fate had decided to give them one more chance.

thanks for reading <3

It’s safe to say that no one wanted to feel James’s fire (pun intended) since that day. To you, it was actually a surprise to see his power. As the child of overprotective superheroes, you were finally able to show your powers after they manifested at the age of six, after you woke up feverish and frightened from a nightmare, and scared the living shit out of your nanny at the time.

Your mother remembered how ice crawled over your blankets in delicate silver veins, the window frosted over despite the summer heat outside. Your father burst into the room first, radiant in his gold-and-white suit, while your mother followed close behind with panic carved into her beautiful face.

They took all the time to teach you how to control your emotions and not to use your abilities around civilians, even if they were really close to you, and you were prohibited from practicing unsupervised.

So while everyone else at Sky High learned to fly, bench-press buses, or summon storms in gym class at kindergarten, you learned to remain calm and pretend your fingers didn’t ache every time someone brushed against your skin. The good news was that, after years of asking to go to Sky High (more than a decade, at this point) since the day you found your parents’ yearbook, you were finally able to do what you always wanted to do, promising you to do your best and get along with the children of their friends, whom thankfully, you did.

Until you saw James burn the bully’s ass off. The nurse had to pull out a fire extinguisher while the poor guy screamed for, like, ten minutes.

The memory still lingered vividly in your mind as you stood near your locker two weeks later, books pressed against your chest while students flooded through the hallway around you in noisy waves. And through all of it, James walked like he hated every second.

Everyone started to make some space when they saw his usual black boots and a worn leather jacket appear in the hallways. Hands shoved into his pockets like he was physically restraining himself from punching someone.

You tried not to stare. And failed miserably every single time.

Because James was terrifying, yes, but he was also unfairly pretty.

Sharp jaw. Dark eyes. Short hair with a few red strands. Sometimes he wore a scowl that should’ve made him unattractive, but it does the exact opposite. There was always warmth radiating from him, too—you notice it because your body reacts to temperatures instinctively. He basically felt like standing too close to a bonfire in winter.

Those two weeks, you built up the courage to talk to him with the help of Martin and Keonho, backing down once you were near his table and doing a “U” turn, just like you did today once you saw how one boot propped against the chair opposite him to discourage company.

What you didn’t expect, while putting on your protective gear, was for you and him to be paired together in P.E. to play probably one of the most nerve-wracking yet interesting games: Save the Citizen.

“Partners,” Coach Boomer barked from across the gym, clipboard tucked under his arm. “Move it!”

Students scrambled across the polished floor to have a clear view of the mechanical citizen mannequin hung high above the giant metal shredder in the center of the arena swinging slightly on its cable, while warning sirens blared overhead.

You stood frozen, your peripheral vision catching James standing lazily. Coach Boomer pointed directly at you. “Cryokinesis and Fireboy. You’re Team Hero.”

“Oh my God,” Martin whispered dramatically while passing by you in his own gear. “If you two explode, I’m taking cover behind the bleachers.”

Keonho gave you two thumbs up. “Try not to die.”

You nearly choked. “What do you mean by die?”

“You gonna stand there all day?” James asked.

Your head snapped up. “What?”

“The game starts in thirty seconds.”

“Oh. Right.”

James glanced at you again, eyes flickering briefly toward the frost forming unconsciously around your fingertips. You immediately shoved your hands behind your back.

“You nervous?” he asked.

You blinked. “A little.”

“Don’t be.”

“Easy for you to say that since you could probably punch through a wall if things go south.”

The Villain Team across the arena cracked their knuckles dramatically as the countdown started. The giant shredder roared louder beneath the dangling mannequin, and James glanced sideways at you.

“Stay behind me,” he muttered.

The buzzer screamed, and almost immediately, the chaos exploded.

One of the villains launched forward with super speed while another hurled purple energy blasts across the arena. James reacted before you could even process it—fire erupted down his arms in brilliant orange waves as he stepped in front of you, knocking a blast away with sheer force.

The heat should’ve burned you, but your powers reacted instinctively as the cold air spiraled outward from your body in silver-white mist, colliding against his flames without extinguishing them completely. Steam hissed violently between you both.

James looked back at you sharply.

Your stomach dropped. “Sorry—”

“Do that again.”

“What?”

“The steam. Do it again.” Another attack came flying toward you. This time, you reacted together.

James threw fire at the same time you released ice. The collision erupted into a massive cloud of steam so thick that the opposing team immediately lost sight of you both.

“Oh,” you breathed.

“Oh,” James echoed. Then, unexpectedly, He grinned. It transformed his entire face, causing you to almost walk directly into a laser beam. “Focus,” James barked, grabbing your wrist suddenly and yanking you sideways.

The touch lasted barely a second, enough for your body to react immediately as frost crawled up his sleeve and both of you stared at it. “Oh my God, I’m so sorry—”

Flames flickered gently beneath it, melting the thin layer you did and falling into droplets almost instantly.

“Huh,” he said quietly.

The game continued around you in violent bursts of powers and screaming students, but suddenly, all you could think about was the fact that James was still standing close enough for you to feel his warmth against your skin. And it was weird, considering how most people flinched from the cold.

Your parents loved you, of course, but even they subconsciously avoided prolonged contact when your emotions got unstable, even after spending years learning how not to freeze things accidentally. Clearly, watching James step closer as if it didn’t matter has had an impact on you right now, despite the situation.

“Hey,” he said.

You blinked rapidly. “What?”

“The citizen.”

Right. The giant fake civilian was still dangling toward imminent death, and each second the cable was lowering faster now, inching closer toward the spinning blades beneath it. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Doesn’t sound so reassuring.”

“It’s not.”

Fair enough.

Before you could ask further, James grabbed your arm again and pulled you forward through the steam cloud you created. Heat engulfed you, overwhelming you. But the villains spotted you immediately.

“THERE!”

Energy blasts came flying, and James blocked the first with fire as you froze the second midair. The third almost hit you directly before James shoved you behind him hard enough that flames burst violently across his shoulders.

“James!”

“I’m fine.”

He absolutely was not fine. One blast had clipped his side, making smoke curl from his jacket. Anger flashed through you so fast that the temperature in the arena dropped several degrees at the sight of them laughing.

Ice exploded across the floor, and the villain team slipped instantly.

James stared at the frozen arena beneath your feet.

“Remind me not to piss you off.”

You winced. “Sorry.”

“Why do you keep apologizing?”

Another alarm blared overhead. “THIRTY SECONDS REMAINING!”

“The cable,” James said suddenly. You followed his gaze upward.

“I’ll freeze it, you melt the release lock.”

“That’s insane.”

“Probably, but right now, I don’t care.” Both of you sprinted forward. James launched himself upward first, using bursts of fire beneath his feet to catch one of the support beams overhead, followed by you freezing footholds along the metal structure fast enough to climb after him.

The heat from his flames met your ice continuously, steam curling around both of you like storm clouds.

Below, the villains recovered. “STOP THEM!”

You slammed your hand against the descending cable, and ice shot upward instantly in glittering crystalline veins, freezing the mechanism solid. At the same moment, James thrust both burning hands toward the release lock.

The mannequin dropped directly into James’s arms a second before the buzzer rang.

GAME OVER.

Applause exploded everywhere. Coach Boomer looked emotionally devastated to admit it, but even he seemed impressed.

“Hero Team wins!”

James dropped lightly onto the arena floor with the mannequin under one arm. You climbed down more carefully, adrenaline still hammering through your veins. The second your boots touched the ground, students crowded around both of you excitedly.

Coach Boomer ruined the moment entirely. “You two,” he barked. “Good work. Terrifying teamwork. Hate whatever this weird elemental thing is you got going on.”

“Thanks?” you offered weakly.

The bell rang, and all the students slowly began dispersing toward the locker rooms afterward, still buzzing excitedly about the match. You started gathering your things as quickly as possible after changing, heart still racing from everything that had happened. You noticed James walking away with one of his hands shoved into his pockets while the other fixed the strap of his backpack.

“Oh, hey…” You said, catching his attention. “Uhm… you did well today. Sorry if I caused any trouble today.”

“Don’t bother. I’m surprised that you are a sidekick rather than a hero. Why?”

Your gaze drifted away after the question. “I’ve never actually used my powers on command, so when Coach Bommer at the beginning of the school year told me to show them off, I got designated in that category.”

“You froze half the arena,” he said finally. “Doesn’t exactly scream sidekick.”

Heat crawled up your neck instantly. “That was an accident.”

“You say sorry a lot for someone who almost won the game by herself.”

“I did not win by myself.”

James shrugged one shoulder lazily, though you caught the corner of his mouth twitching upward. “Sure.”

From that day onward, the two of you somehow kept finding each other.

Passing each other between classes and exchanging brief conversations that stretched longer each time. Sitting near each other during lunch because every other table in the cafeteria felt too loud. Training together whenever Coach Boomer paired students for combat exercises because, according to him, your powers “made terrifyingly good chemistry.”

Nobody took the adjustment normally.

Martin nearly inhaled an entire carton of chocolate milk the first time he saw James sit beside you voluntarily during lunch and not at his usual table at the very corner. Even looking everywhere to see if it was some sort of sophomore prank, and honestly, so were you.

Keonho reacted even worse.

“Oh my God,” he whispered dramatically, staring between both of you as he’d just witnessed history unfolding in real time. “The apocalypse is real.”

Juhoon attempted to remain calm. “To be fair, James hasn’t threatened anyone in almost three days.”

“That’s progress,” Seonghyeon agreed solemnly.

James looked up from stealing one of your fries. “I can still hear you.”

“See?” Martin said, pointing aggressively. “He’s communicating.”

“You guys are unbearable,” you muttered, trying not to laugh.

James leaned back in his chair beside you, dark eyes half-lidded with annoyance. “Do you realize idiots surround you?”

“Hey! But you just joined us today. We are good.”

James didn’t answer immediately. Instead, his gaze flickered briefly toward you before he looked away again. The tips of your fingers turned cold instantly.

It became frighteningly easy to be around him after that.

James still carried that sharp edge around everyone else. He still looked intimidating, standing in hallways with his leather jacket, dark expression, and permanent aura of barely restrained violence. Most students continued moving out of his way instinctively.

Just when both of you were alone, he softened.

He waited for you outside your classrooms without mentioning it. He carried your books whenever your hands got too cold after training. During combat exercises, he instinctively stepped closer anytime your powers became unstable, his warmth grounding you before panic could spiral too far.

And James noticed everything about you, too.

He noticed when you were overwhelmed before you even spoke, and he will warm up a tea. He noticed how your powers reacted to your emotions, how frost appeared unconsciously whenever you were anxious, embarrassed, or angry. He noticed when you skipped meals after difficult training sessions and silently shoved snacks onto your desk afterward without explanation or being seen.

Being near him stopped feeling frightening, and the realization hit nearly three months later, when James showed up outside your house carrying his physics textbook with an expression that already looked irritated. Principal Power personally called you to tutor him so he can pass Mad Science with at least a D.

“You’re failing?” you asked in disbelief after analyzing all of his tests.

James took off his leather jacket, revealing that “Smashing Pumpkins” shirt, dropping heavily into the chair beside your desk. “Apparently.”

“You literally scored highest in combat strategy last week.”

“Yeah, because combat strategy is similar to P.E.” He opened the textbook as it had personally offended him, pointing at all the study cases and scientific formulas. “This doesn’t.”

You tried not to smile while sitting beside him. Outside your window, rain tapped softly against the glass while warm lamplight filled the room in a soft golden glow. The atmosphere felt strangely intimate despite the scattered papers covering your desk.

“Okay,” you said, pulling the textbook closer. “Show me what you don’t understand.”

“Everything.”

“That’s not helpful.”

“Neither is physics nor science to me.”

You laughed quietly before pointing toward one of the problems.

The hours passed by, and with each hour, you would do a decent ice cube for him to melt and have water, too lazy and focused to go down to your own kitchen. 

 “Oh! This is nice, we reached the columns of easy problems.”

“Are there any easy ones, or is it you being smart?”

“C’mon, you just need to calculate the force trajectory based on velocity—”

James leaned closer beside you to look at the page. The movement brought him close enough for his shoulder to brush yours, the instant cold spread sharply through your fingertips while warmth radiated from him at the same time, causing thin frost to creep unconsciously across the edge of your notebook.

James noticed immediately. “Still freezing things when you’re nervous?”

“I’m not nervous.”

“You’re lying.” Your stomach tightens before looking away to calm yourself.

“That obvious?”

“To me?” James leaned back slightly in his chair, though his arm still brushed yours. “Yeah.”

Rain continued tapping against the windows while your heartbeat became embarrassingly loud in your own ears. James sat close enough that you could feel the steady warmth radiating from his skin, close enough that your powers instinctively reacted to him without permission.

It was strange.

“You know,” he said after a moment, his voice quieter now, “you don’t apologize as much anymore.”

Your fingers tightened slightly around your pencil. “I got comfortable.”

“With me?” The question sounded casual, but the way he looked at you wasn’t.

“Maybe.”

James turned slightly in his chair until he was fully facing you now, one arm draped across the backrest while his gaze held yours steadily. The air between you felt warmer as your cold curled instinctively toward his heat until faint steam rose where frost touched the edge of the desk near his hand.

Neither of you mentioned it.

“You still get nervous around me,” he said quietly.

“A little.”

“Why?”

You stared at him for a second in disbelief. “James.”

“What?”

“You cannot seriously ask me that.”

A faint smirk tugged briefly at the corner of his mouth. “I want to hear you say it.”

Your face burned instantly. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

Unfortunately, he sounded entirely too confident about that. James’s hand moved before you could retreat completely, his fingers tilted your chin gently upward until you were forced to meet his eyes again.

The touch alone nearly destroyed your ability to think.

Heat spread across your skin while frost crept instinctively along the sleeves of your hoodie. James’s thumb rested lightly near your jaw, warm enough to melt every icy thought straight out of your head. He leaned closer, your breath tangled somewhere in your throat as the distance between you disappeared inch by inch. His forehead brushed yours first, and James inhaled sharply at the contact.

The room felt impossibly quiet now except for the rain outside and the uneven rhythm of your breathing. His gaze dropped briefly toward your mouth before lifting again, dark eyes heavy with restraint. Your hands went to the back of his neck, closing the remaining distance carefully, his lips brushing yours in a kiss so soft it almost didn’t feel real at first. Both of your powers reacted violently beneath your skins as cold air curled through the room while embers sparked faintly near James’s fingertips.

Neither of you cared.

The kiss deepened slowly after that, hesitant only for a moment before James’s hand slid gently against your waist, pulling you closer like he’d been holding himself back for weeks. Which, honestly, he probably had.

Who would’ve thought that ice and fire would go so well and look this good?

─── GUESS WHO'S SHADOWBANNED i'm very pissed since that is indeed making me go on a semi-hiatus until further notice. Still. I wanted to scratch my itch of doing James as my childhood crush Warren Peace from the movie "Sky High"... idk if some of you even watched it (maybe bc you are quite young) BUT AT LEAST I DID IT, AND I'M HAPPY.

it was like ever since he was born to hate you and make your life a living hell.

your earliest memory of him was when he smashed a piece of strawberry shortcake into your face on your 4th birthday- that day marked the start of his life-long quest to annoy the shit out of you.

the phrases "haha- you have a funny face, shortcake!" or "get me a choco milk if you don't want your parents to find out that you failed your test!" were deeply embedded into your memory as traumatic events.

and it genuinely didn't help that both your parents were friends. so not only would you constantly see each other, your parents always dismissed your complaints of him!

"he just likes you- boys do stupid things to get girls to notice." your dad would say as he patted your fuming head.

perhaps it was his constant teasing and harassment, or maybe it was the fact that no one listened to you- but nevertheless, he left you with nothing but an unfathomable amount of hate towards him.

which is why, when he saved you from a group of thugs, you found it difficult to thank him.

his stance was lazy, throwing the last unconscious guy onto hard the floor by the collar.

with the pitch-black night sky and the lack of lighting in the alley, you could only slightly make out his black-framed glasses that were illuminated by the moon, and his tall, dark shadow upon your figure.

"what the hell are you doing here, shortcake?"

you tsk'ed at the childish nickname.

"why do you wanna know?"

you couldn't see it in the dark, but you knew he was flashing that stupid grin.

"whatever then, don't tell me." he said, stepped towards you, "but a 'thank you' would've been nice, no?"

seongje crouched down to meet your eye level, allowing you to see him clearer. you stared back, glaring so intensely you scrunched up your eyebrows.

"i could've beaten them myself. i've been in boxing classes for years, you know."

he snickered, condescension seeped through his words. "you? against five thugs?"

"ugh, so annoying."

he abruptly grabbed you by your forearm to yank you up with so much force, you stumbled towards him with a small yelp, which made him chuckle in amusement.

in all honesty, you actually haven't seen him in a while, but you did have some theories on why that is. the hushed conversations your parents and his had after you left the table, his absence in their routine dinners...

no, you don't care. not one bit.

"you're a real lunatic." you uttered as you stalked a few steps behind him.

he turned his head slightly without slowing his pace, a grin reappearing on his face again.

"awww, shortcake, you're so well-mannered."

you scoffed.

he laughed.

🍀

after a few months of that incident, you didn't encounter him again.

not that you cared.

life went on as usual- you hung out with friends, studied, awkward laughed through 'you get more beautiful as you grow!' comments from his parents...but in the back of your head, a question lurked.

where is seongje?

whatever, you shouldn't focus on that right now-

"y/n! are you even listening?"

your eyes snapped back to your friend, jiwoo.

"hm? oh, sorry..could you repeat that?" an apologetic smile made its way onto your face.

"yah, y/n-a, you've been spacing out a lot more lately." your other friend, seoyun commented.

"yeah! what's going on?"

a soft sigh left your lips as you stretched your arms across your desk, mentally weighing the pros and cons of telling them about seongje. your three closest friends had their heads tilted with worried looks as they stared at you.

"uhh...just a bit paranoid being home alone, don't really wanna talk about it." you sheepishly replied. you technically weren't lying, you figured.

your friend, nari, gently remarked: "oh, right... your parents will be back in a month, right? if there's anything wrong, just text us."

"yeah, okay. thanks, you guys."

after a beat, seoyun clapped her hands. "alright yall! let's not press our dearest y/n any further!"

you giggled at her energy as she continued, "anyway, have you guys heard of the 'union'?"

"what's that?" jiwoo curiously enquired, her face lighting up in hopes of potential drama.

seoyun excitedly explained the union with much enthusiasm- what they do, their earnings, the constant fighting and finally, their leaders.

"and it's led by this one, STRAIGHT A, student called na baekjin. but the most interesting part is his right hand man: geum seongje."

you visibly flinched, your eyes snapping to seoyun's.

your clueless friend leaned in to whisper.

"people call him wolf, and it's rumoured that he beats anyone who stares at him for longer than 3 seconds up! crazy, right?!"

your palms got increasingly sweaty as your friends continued on their gossip session. you felt like a deer in headlights.

seongje is in an organised gang? you did theorise he was probably into some shady shit- but as a right-hand man?

the bell rang.

the conversation died as everyone scrambled and returned back to their own seats. but the words rang in your head.

the right-hand man to the largest, most dangerous teenage-led gang in your area.

geum seongje. wolf.

the guy who literally smashed a piece of strawberry shortcake in your face in kindergarten.

🍀

the lessons were a blur. you told your friends you had boxing training today and left as quickly as you could to avoid suspision.

the gym was usually quiet at this time of night, which could be creepy to some people, but it became your comfort zone. the serene tranquility that came with the empty training ground was the reason why it was your favourite place to practice fighting.

you changed out of your uniform and into a pair of sweatpants and sports jacket before walking to the boxing training area.

the punching bag took hit after hit. your headphones tried its best to drowned out your worries thoughts, but it was to no avail. the curdling frustration in your heart just kept rising no matter how much you hit the damn bag.

"damn it...stop thinking about him." you muttered to yourself, grunting breathlessly as you threw a punch.

you peeled off your headphones and wiped off your sweat, deciding to just give up and head home.

as you turn a corner into an alley leading to your neighbourhood, some girls pass by you.

"bora, isn't that..." one of them mutters.

"yah, are you y/n l/n?" the 'leader' of the three girls named bora nods her head at you.

you stare blankly for a moment before answering. "do i know you?"

"no, but i do have one thing to say to you." she snarked, stalking towards you.

"what?"

her bright red lips curled into a smug smirk.

"stay away from seongje. he is already into me."

your heart dropped. your face remained neutral.

"that's two things." you sassed.

"you fucking-"

SLAP!

you toppled backwards, the ringing in your left ear getting louder and louder.

"you wanna be smart, huh?" the shorter girl behind bora chuckled.

that's it.

before she could comment further, your flung your fist with full force towards bora's perfectly make-up-caked face.

the satisfying bone crack of her nose echoed through the alley, followed by their coordinated choir of cacophonous screams.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" the other girl yells as she practically flies towards you, ready to fight.

adrenaline rushed through your veins- you grabbed her and threw her against the mould-infested wall before fisting her ponytail and smashing her head against the surface, full force, for good measure.

as the two girls laid flat on the ground, panting and whining in pain, you trekked towards the last one- who was shivering with reddened eyes.

"i don't care who seongje gets tangled up with. i do not want any part of it. got it?" your voice was low, eerily calm, but your heartbeat was so loud you could barely hear anything else.

the terrified girl nodded as a tear fell from her eye.

you turned to leave, adjusting back to your normal pace.

"you're...gonna regret this.." bora choked out.

when you got home, the adrenaline had already faded, which made you realise your knuckles were screaming in pain and agony. you rummaged through the bathroom cabinet until you found a few bandages and decided they can do the job.

you didn't know why you did that. you usually wouldn't let anything get to you, not even seongje- so why'd you do it?

your ears rang; your chest felt unusually heavy.

whatever. it's over now.

🍀

the digital clock next to your bedside read 03:28 when a harsh knock thumped on your window nonstop.

you tried to ignore it, but it just wouldn't stop.

you squinted your eyes until the blurry image of a creepy figure outside your window cleared to show you a familiar face.

upon unlocking the window, seongje swiftly climbed into your room like he owned the damn place. you were too exhausted to comment on it, but not tired enough to not give him your iconic glare.

"what do you want?" you whisper-shouted, sitting cross-legged.

he took off his windbreaker (which was rare) tossed it into a corner before joining you on your bed. for once, he wasn't giving you that off-putting grin like usual. instead, his expression was replaced by something else.

something you couldn't exactly put your finger on.

"are your hands okay?" his tone was so, so soft.

damn his annoying voice.

"uh..i guess? yeah." you muttered as you looked down on your poorly-treated knuckles.

seongje let out a small huff as he checked out your hand before taking out a roll of bandages and a small bottle of iodine out of his pocket.

after stealing a few cotton buds from your bathroom, he peeled off your plasters and started treating your wound.

your mind was getting less fuzzier as time went on. the faint smell of cigarettes and your aromatic reed diffuser formed a concoction of a scent that strangely gave you comfort.

the weird tenderness on your busted knuckles was leaving question marks in your mind. when you were finally fully awake a few minutes later, you realised how... truly odd, this was.

"seongje."

he hummed lowly; the vibrations of his deep voice left your breath caught in your throat.

"how did you find out?"

his movements paused for a second. "that crazy bitch's goons sent a pic. don't worry, they'll be taken care of."

"what do you mean by that?"

he stayed silent.

you didn't question further.

[4:18AM]

your face looked so...peaceful, as you slept. seongje sat beside your chest, breathing in rhythm of yours.

his jacket was now your second blanket- its soft fabric and faint smell of laundry detergent was comparable to a lullaby rocking you to sleep.

seongje's fingers was feather-light on your newly, well-bandaged one.

gosh, he could stay like this forever.

as if sensing his yearning desire, your fingers curled into his as you turned your body facing him.

you're so adorable.

he let out a soft exhale, lips curling into a small, genuine smile no one but you will ever get to see.

big boss baekjin 🤑💵 seongje. are you coming or not?

wolf 🐺 so impatient.

big boss baekjin 🤑💵 we're starting in 5. be here.

in your dazed state, you think you feel a peck on your forehead before the warmth on your hands faded away.

oh well, must've been a weird dream.

🍀

22:08 ㆍ saturday

INCOMING CALL FROM SEOYUNNIE! ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ...

that's weird. she should be having tuition right now.

"yunnie? what's up?"

"y/n...are you outside?" her unusually hushed voice made you tense up instantly.

"no, what's wrong? where are you?"

you could hear a few familiar voices in the background, taunting seoyun.

her voice trembled. "okay, thats good..." "YAH, SHE'S HERE!" "i gotta go y/n, please don't leave your home!" "SEOYUN, WAIT!" she hung up on you. without wasting a second, you snatched your coat and sprinted outside, trying to call seoyun again and again. she didn't pick up, which made you even more paranoid.

your eyes darted around the sea of students leaving her tuition centre, but not one of them was your friend.

no. they couldn't've gone far.

you ran around the tuition centre, trying to locate any possible noises from them.

seoyunnie! ᕙ( •̀ ᗜ •́ )ᕗ [image] come to the rooftop, let's have some fun

damn it.

when you finally reached the rooftop in record-breaking time, you locked eyes with the perpetrator- bora. but now, she was surrounded by about five more minions than last time, outnumbering you by almost tenfold.

you could barely see the guilt in seoyun's tear-filled eyes, the mix of anger and relief and sorrow glistening through her swollen eyelids. her straight, jet-black hair was now tangled up in bora's filthy, fat fingers, holding your friend down to her bloodied knees.

"you came here fast, that's so fun." bora mocked, her screeching voice stabbing your eardrums.

"let her go and i will consider not pushing you off this rooftop."

she sneered, before tossing seoyun carelessly to the side. you instinctively wanted to run towards her, but her goons stopped you.

"let's see you try."

as they lunged towards you, you mentally calculated.

it's fine if you lose. you just need to get seoyun out of here.

as one of her goons lept towards you with a monstrous yell, you ducked underneath her and rolled to make her fall flat onto the concrete floor.

one down.

you were a step closer to a passed out seoyun.

you landed punch after punch, dodging as much as you could, but you were still injured. just like last time, the rush of adrenaline and pure unadulterated rage fueled the strength in your fists.

their hits landed on you hard, but you couldn't feel it. you couldn't feel anything except for the anger bubbling over in your chest.

the girls were knocked out one by one thanks to your boxing experience and their lack of fighting skills.

finally, only you and bora were left standing.

despite looking the most roughed up of everyone else and limping slowly, your presence was the most overwhelming. the once overconfident, arrogant persona slipped, now replaced with the image of a trembling pig.

because in her eyes, she saw a monster.

without missing a beat, you used your only working leg to lunge towards her and tackle her to the ground. your sweat-ridden palms latched onto her throat, asphyxiating her. her long, perfectly manicured nails dug into your increasingly whitening fingers, making a choked sound you couldn't quite hear over your own heartbeat.

you let her go just as she was about to pass out. as she fell onto the ground with a loud thud, trying to catch her breath. you looked over to your friend.

seoyun was still unconscious, but breathing. that alone made you relieved.

"yunnie..."

you crawled towards her and tried to carry her, but after the adrenaline wore out, you found that you had exhausted all of your strength, and you were about as injured as seoyun is. with the last bit of strength, you texted the groupchat with you, seoyun, nari and jiwoo inside your location and slumped next to your friend.

as you spaced out on the ground, about to black out from the fatigue, a pair of sneakers stepped into your vision, and then two another following behind.

"you alive?" a voice- not belonging to any one of your friends- sounded distantly in your eardrums.

you looked up, breathless.

"why are.. why are you here, who..?"

"they're here to help. and you texted me, shortcake."

you let out an annoyed huff- but you couldn't care less right now.

seongje reached for you as you uttered a few words about 'seoyun..' and 'please' that he couldn't quite catch before you blacked out.

🍀

you woke up to the beeping of heart-rate machines and the smell of disinfectant. the first thing you did was look for seoyun, who was lying in the bed right next to yours.

then, you noticed a white plastic bag with an orange sticky note stuck to it.

'call me when you wake up. -sj'

this prick, so demanding.

you checked your phone.

02:09 ㆍ sunday

shortcake 🍰 [📍location sent ] don't call the police we're at the rooftop, just carry us to the hospital.

worst guy ever 🖕 omw. don't pass out. - sent yesterday 23:58

oops. opened the wrong chat. as his note instructed, you reluctantly pressed the call button.

"hey, shortcake. you're a lot stronger than you used to be- can't believe you held out an 1v8." his magnetic voice rang through.

"...i think they got my message, right?"

"yeah. definitely. by the way, since your parents are away, i called to tell them i'd take care of you. you wouldn't want your parents to find out, right?"

you pursed your lips and sighed. take care of you?

"..i guess so, yeah."

"i'll come visit you later, got some things to do across the hall.."

"okay."

you hung up, inclined the bed and sat up, observing seoyun on the bed next to you. her mom was sleeping as well, trying to be comfortable on the chair next to your friend.

it was a bad idea to have messed with them.

you could handle yourself just fine, but who knows what would've happened if you didn't reach in time. or didn't pick up the phone. this is why you didn't usually pick fights.

gosh why is this happening.

you held back your tears. now is not the time to self-pity.

remembering the plastic bag on the meal table in front of you, you took it, deciding to explore its contents before seongje gets here.

inside were two bottles of water, some rice balls and a singular piece of strawberry shortcake.

bruh.

whatever. your ravenous hunger needed to be satiated, so you unpacked a rice ball and chowed down on them, staring the cake just sat solemnly on the table that mocked you by being the very thing that defined your existence to seongje.

"you still like those?"

you flinched at the sudden intrusion and met the man's gaze before relaxing.

"not since you caked my face." you retorted.

he laughed silently; his whole body shook. seongje stepped towards you and sat facing you on your bed. for some reason, the burning sensation of hate that used to fire up in your heart when you saw him has fully traveled to your ears and cheeks instead.

is this a new form of hate?

"well, i'm glad you have the energy to joke now, y/n."

"wow, so you do remember my name."

his eyes met yours, holding a sort of gentleness you haven't seen (or noticed) before. his chest heaved slightly, the fabric of his orange windbreaker shifting as he slowly reached for your hand, as if he was asking for permission to hold it.

"are you tired?" seongje's voice lowered to a whisper.

as his fingers interlaced with yours, you didn't move away. the warmth that submerged your freezing fingers sped up your heartbeat- was it hot in here??

your gaze didn't move from his, unwilling to back down in the staring contest.

“not really. i just want some fresh air right now though.”

“okay, let’s go.”

you blinked at him. “aren’t i not supposed to leave right now?”

“i have my ways.” he winked.

🍀

after seongje skilfully snuck you out on a wheelchair into the hospital’s garden, the two of you settled on a bench overlooking the greenery. the vast sky above was blanketed by the darkness that came with the absence of the sun, a few stars scattered across it like a small sprinkle of salt on black tablecloth.

“you mind if i smoke?”

“you’ll still do it even if i say i mind anyway.”

he puffed a cloud of smoke into the clear air. his orange jacket was draped over your shoulders- the warmth of his body heat lingered, functioning as a temporary heater for you.

your fingers fidgeted with the sleeves, debating whether or not you should ask the questions that were stuck on your mind like a stain you can’t quite wash off.

“if you have something to say, then say it.” seongje stated, still staring into the space above.

“well…uh, i have some questions.”

he hummed, beckoning you to go on.

you tapped your fingers on your lap, trying to find the words to form your question.

"why haven't you been going to the monthly dinners?"

a moment of silence followed as you waited for his answer, glancing at him. he seemed deep in thought- chest heaving a soft sigh.

"i got kicked out."

"o-oh...sorry." you stuttered, mentally cursing yourself for asking.

"you have more questions for me, don't you?"

"uh...yeah." you muttered, looking at him again just to meet his piercing gaze.

"why are you being so nice to me? i mean- i thought you hated me-"

your breath hitched as he leaned in unexpectedly, lips connecting with yours zealously. it was gentle, tender- everything you didn't think seongje was capable of until this very moment. his hand cupped your bandaged cheek with a feather-light touch that still sent shivers down your spine. he didn't give you time to reciprocate before he pulled back and fixed his glasses with a small grin.

"i was born to love you, shortcake."

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

Chapter 1

I.

The hallway smells the same.

You hadn’t expected that to be the first thing you noticed – not the people, not the noise, not the weight sitting uncomfortably in your tightening chest – but the smell.

Floor polish. Paper. Something faintly metallic from the lockers lining the walls.

It hits you all at once, sharp and disorienting, like memory isn’t something distant but something physical. Something that had been waiting here, unchanged, just beneath the surface.

You adjust the strap of your bag on your shoulder.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

It’s just a school. It’s just a hallway. It’s just two years.

Except it isn’t.

You turn a corner too quickly and almost collide with someone.

“Sorry—”

The apology dies halfway out of your mouth.

Not him.

The boy who bumped into you apologizes quickly and joins the group of boys passing by, laughing loudly, one of them spinning a basketball absentmindedly on his finger. The sound echoes off the walls, familiar in a way that tugs at something old and embarrassing.

You look away immediately. Keep walking.

Don’t think about it.

Coming back hadn’t felt real until now. You’d known it wouldn’t be simple. It couldn’t be, not after two years. Not after leaving the way you did.

On the plane, it had been abstract. Temporary. Something you could still convince yourself you weren’t actually doing. Even when you stepped back into your old house, even when you unpacked your things into a room that still felt half like someone else’s, you’d managed to keep a distance from it.

But this-

It was where everything happened. This was where everything had started.

And where you left things unfinished.

The lockers hadn’t changed. They were still the same dull colour, the same uneven doors. Same small dents and scratches which looked like they’d been there forever. You pass by one, and your eyes linger just a second too long. A memory flickers.

Leaning against it, talking, laughing. A figure beside you, eyes crinkled with a wide smile, saying something you couldn’t quite make out anymore.

And you don’t force yourself to. You tell yourself to focus. You were here now, and that was it. That was all that mattered. Not what used to be or what you left behind.

“Y/N?”

You don’t even realize how tense you are until your name, sharp and familiar, cuts through the noise and your entire body stiffens.

For half a second, your brain supplies the wrong voice. Your heart stutters.

Then you turn.

And it isn’t him.

Relief hits so fast it almost feels embarrassing.

“Megan,” you breathe out.

She’s already halfway down the hallway toward you, eyes wide, expression shifting rapidly between disbelief and something dangerously close to offense.

“Excuse me?” she says, stopping right in front of you. “You come back after two years and that’s the reaction I get?”

You let out a small, shaky laugh, pulling her into a quick hug before she can say anything else.

“I didn’t know you’d be here already,” you mumble into her shoulder.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know you’d just show up without telling me either,” she shoots back, but her arms tighten around you anyway.

You pull back, studying her face.

She looks the same. Maybe a little older, a little sharper around the edges, but still familiar in a way that makes something in your chest loosen slightly.

“Hi,” you say, softer this time.

Her expression melts, just a little.

“Hi,” she echoes.

There’s a pause. Then, like she can’t help herself-

“What the hell, Y/N?”

You wince.

“Okay, in my defense—”

“You left,” she cuts in, though there’s no real bite to it. “And then you barely texted. Some vague reason for moving. And now you’re just, what, back?”

“I did text,” you argue weakly.

“A few times every three months does not count.”

“I didn’t know you were keeping track.”

“I was keeping track,” she says immediately. “Because you’re my best friend, and you just…vanished.”

You open your mouth, then close it again.

Megan watches you for a second longer, her expression shifting, eyes narrowing slightly. “…Why?”

The question was simple, really. Too simple. You had an answer ready, once. Something vague and easy to accept. You use it now. “Family stuff,” you say.

It sounded rehearsed. Because it was.

Megan watches you for a second longer, and you could feel it, the second she considered pushing it further. Then she exhaled.

“Okay,” she says, not convinced. But letting it go, for now.

Walking with her felt strange. Familiar, but not easy. Like slipping into something that used to fit perfectly, but now sits just slightly wrong.

She talks. About school, teachers, things you missed. You listen and respond when you need to. But part of you is elsewhere. Your eyes move more than they should. Scanning, checking and anticipating. You don’t realize you’re doing it until-

“Who are you looking for?”

You stiffen. “I’m not.”

“You are,” she says immediately. “You’ve been doing it since I found you.”

You shake your head. “I’m just…getting used to everything again.”

Megan hums, unconvinced. “You look like you’re expecting something to happen. What is it you’re so scared of that you’re acting like you’re trying to be invisible?”

You blink, because that one lands. “I’m not trying to be invisible,” you say, a little too quickly.

“You kind of are,” she says gently. “You’re walking faster than everyone else. You’re not making eye contact. You’re-” she gestures vaguely, “-shrinking.”

You sigh, rubbing your forehead. “I just don’t want today to be… a lot,” you admit finally.

Her expression softens slightly. “…Because you just got back?”

You hesitate. There’s a name sitting on the tip of your tongue.

You don’t say it.

“…Yeah,” you settle on instead.

She watches you for a moment longer.

“Fine,” she says. “We’ll go with that.”

You nod, grateful.

“Good.”

“I’m coming over later,” she adds immediately.

You blink. “What?”

“Your house. After school. I’ve missed you!”

You laugh softly, as your chest fills with a pleasant warmth.

“…Okay.”

Your house still looked the same from the outside. The slightly chipped paint near the gate. The potted plants your mother insisted on keeping alive even when they clearly shouldn’t be. It should have felt comforting, and it mostly did, but there was that strange distance. Like you were walking back into something that had continued existing without you.

“Still cozy,” Megan grins as she steps in, slipping off her shoes like she’d done a hundred times before.

 Your parents are already smiling when they see her.

“Look who’s here again,” your mother says warmly, like Megan never left either.

Megan laughs, folding into a quick hug. “I missed you guys.”

“We missed you too,” your father says. “She wouldn’t stop talking about you before she left.”

You glance at your father. He doesn’t realize how that sounds. Megan does, her eyes flick to yours briefly. But she doesn’t say anything. Then the moment passes.

“Come on,” you say quickly, heading towards the stairs. “Before Mom starts telling her stories.”

Your room feels smaller with her in it. Not in a bad way. Just full, lived-in again.

It was exactly how you left it. The red LED lights still lined the edges of your ceiling, casting a soft glow across the walls. Dim, warm, slightly nostalgic in a way you can’t explain. Novels stacked unevenly on your bookshelf. Some worn, some barely untouched.

Radiohead posters were still taped up where they always were. Black-and-white, grainy and slightly peeling at the corners. Your eyes linger on them for a second too long.

And just for a second,

You’re sitting on the same bed, legs stretched out, back against your headboard. Someone beside you, too close to be casual, but not close enough to mean anything yet. One earbud pressed into your ear, the other in his, the wire tangling slightly between you.

“This one,” he’d said, nudging your shoulder lightly. “Listen properly this time.”

“I am listening!”

“You’re not,” he’d argued, reaching over to restart the song. “Trust me, get into the vibes.”

You’d rolled your eyes. But there had been something easy about it. The way he leaned back like he belonged there. The way the music filled the space between you without making it awkward. The way you didn’t realize when you stopped resisting and just…leaned against him to let yourself listen.

And you remember thinking…’Okay, maybe he’s right.’

You blink, as the present settled back in. The poster was just a poster again, and the room just your room.

“Wow. You really didn’t change anything,” she says, looking around.

You shrug, dropping your bag near your desk. “There wasn’t really a point.”

She hums, sitting down on your bed. “You thought you wouldn’t come back.”

She says it like an answer, not a question. “You’re quieter. You used to talk more.”

You turn away slightly, “People change.”

“Yeah,” she says. “But you didn’t just change.”

You don’t respond to that because you don’t want to have that conversation. Not today. Not now.

You both talk carefully, like you’re both testing what’s still safe to talk about. Then gradually, it loosens. You talk about small things first, then bigger ones, then stupid ones. At some point, you’re both laughing. Naturally. Easily.

You end up digging through your closet together, pulling out clothes you forgot you even owned.

“This is atrocious,” Megan says, holding up a funky, neon green popcorn shirt.

“You used to love that,” you defend.

“I was stupid. This should’ve been criminal.”

You laugh. And just like that…You’re trying things on. Throwing random outfits together, layering accessories that don’t match. Music plays from your phone. Too loud, followed by off-key singing. You don’t care.

“Y/N!” your mom calls from downstairs. You pause mid high-note. “Yeah?”

“Come here a second!”

You sigh. “I’ll be back.”

Megan waves you off without even sparing a glance, still rummaging through your closet, putting on a faux fur coat. “Go, go.”

“Don’t steal my stuff!” The door clicks shut behind you.

Megan scoffs, amused, going through your vintage pieces. Then her gaze drifts higher. To the shelf above her.

A box. Small, plain, easy to miss. A crossed-out heart on the lid.

She hesitates, she knows she shouldn’t. Her fingers tap lightly against her arm. Once. Twice. She gets on her tiptoes and brings it down.

It’s lighter than she expected. The lid came off slowly.

Letters, several of them. The guilt hits immediately, this wasn’t hers to read…But the words were already there.

One letter became two, then three. Each one different. Different tones, names and versions of you. Some soft, some uncertain and complicated.

She starts to understand. Not fully, but enough to see that these weren’t just random feelings. These were moments, connections. Things you had held onto, hidden for years.

She exhales slowly, closing the letters, her fingers lingering on the edges of the envelopes. Thinking. Processing. Deciding.

Footsteps approach. She freezes for a second, then everything moves quickly. The letters are gathered, the box shifts, the lid closes. By the time the door opens, she’s already sitting back on the floor.

“Tell me this isn’t yours,” she says easily, holding up a yellow feather headdress.

You glance at it and laugh. “Oh my God, I forgot that existed.”

And just like that, the moment disappeared, like it had never been there at all.

The second day felt different.

Not easier, not exactly, but less overwhelming in a way that allowed you to move through it without constantly bracing yourself. The hallways no longer pressed in on you the same way they had yesterday.

You still kept your head down, avoided eye contact when you could. But you were adjusting.

That didn’t mean the memories stopped.

They surfaced anyway, quietly and without warning, slipping into the present in ways that made it hard to separate what was happening now from what had already happened.

You passed a classroom and, for a brief second, you could almost see a notebook sliding across a desk toward you, a pen tapping impatiently beside it. A pair of soft eyes, gazing at you, encouragingly. You blinked, and the image was gone, leaving behind only an empty room and a lingering feeling you couldn’t quite name.

You didn’t let yourself dwell on it, you kept moving.

The bell rang, signalling the end of your class. You walked to your locker, going through the motions without thinking too much about them. Open, switch books, close. Adjust your bag.

You were just about to turn and head to your next class when you heard it.

“Y/N?”

Your name. Close, familiar, making your chest tighten before you even turned around. Slowly, you did.

And the moment your eyes landed on him, the present slipped.

You were back in that classroom again, two years ago, sitting across from him as the late afternoon sun filtered through the windows. He was leaning slightly over the desk, pen moving steadily across the page as he wrote something down.

“Look,” he had said, voice calm but firm. “You’re overthinking it again.”

You had scoffed, resting your chin in your hand. “I’m not, it’s just boring as hell.”

“Just watch,” he replied without looking up, already rewriting the equation.

There had been something steady about him. He never rushed, never got frustrated, never made you feel like you were falling behind. He just explained things again, and again, until they made sense.

And then, like he always did, he looked up. Checking.

Those dark brown eyes lifting from the page to meet yours, searching your expression for confusion, understanding, anything he might need to explain again.

The memory didn’t disappear all at once. It shifted, blurred, until it became the present again. Because those eyes were still looking at you.

Still standing there in the hallway, still caught in that same gaze. Just…older now. Taller. His features sharper, more defined but his expression unchanged in a way that made your chest ache unexpectedly.

Kim Juhoon.

For a brief second, all you felt was surprise. The kind that comes from seeing someone you hadn’t expected to see again, someone who belonged so clearly to a different version of your life.

Then your eyes dropped, and everything else fell into place.

The envelope in his hand. Your breath caught before you could stop it.

You recognized it immediately. The paper, the fold, the slight crease along the edge. Your handwriting. It was yours. That letter was yours.

That wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be. You had put it away, hidden it. You knew exactly where it had been. So how-

“Y/N,” he started again, stepping closer, confusion clear in his expression as he looked between you and the envelope in his hand.

You didn’t stay long enough to hear the rest. You couldn’t. If you stayed, you would have to explain, you would have to answer questions you didn’t even understand yourself. So you turned.

And ran.

You didn’t think about where you were going. You just moved, your steps quick and uneven as your thoughts spiralled faster than you could keep up with them. It didn’t make sense, none of it did. The letters had been in your room, in a box you hadn’t opened in years. So how…?

You didn’t stop until the noise of the school faded behind you.

The sports track was empty. The garden club beside it was quiet, rows of plants shifting gently in the breeze, the space removed just enough from everything else to feel separate, contained.

You slowed, then stopped, your hands bracing against your knees as you tried to steady your breathing. “What the hell….” You muttered under your breath.

How was this happening? How had that letter ended up in his hands? How had any of them-

“Hey…?”

You froze, again. The voice wasn’t familiar in the same immediate way. Not like before. You straightened slowly to look at him.

There he was, a few feet away, tall and still, his blonde hair catching the light just slightly as he looked at you. For a moment, your mind didn’t register him fully. And then, it slipped.

You’re in the library.

Not the crowded version of it, but the quieter corner you used to gravitate toward, where the shelves felt older and the air carried that faint, comforting smell of paper and dust.

You’re sitting cross-legged on the floor, a book open in your lap, flipping through pages faster than you’re actually reading them.

“Slow down,” he says from beside you, leaning back against the shelf.

“I’m reading it,” you argue, not looking up.

“You’re skimming,” he corrects lightly, reaching over and gently tapping the page. “If you’re going to read poetry, you have to actually let it sit.”

You roll your eyes but don’t pull the book away when he leans closer.

His fingers trace a line on the page before he reads it aloud. “There is a pleasure in loving without hope,” he says, glancing at you briefly, “but a greater one in loving without possession.”

You frown slightly. “That’s…kind of sad.”

“It’s not,” he replies. “It just means not everything has to be something more to matter.”

“…You think that’s true?”

He shrugs, but there’s something thoughtful in his expression. “I think some things are better the way they are.”

The memory fades slowly, like it’s dissolving into the present instead of being pulled away from it. Because you’re still looking at him, still standing there, caught in that same quiet steadiness he’s always had.

Martin Edwards Park.

Your gaze dropped instinctively, and there it was again. Another envelope. Of course.

He held it loosely, like he didn’t quite know what to do with it, like he had been turning it over in his hands one too many times already. His expression wasn’t accusatory or angry. Just confused, genuinely.

“Hey,” he repeated, voice careful to not startle you further. “Are you okay?”

You let out a small breathless laugh that didn’t quite sound like one. “I didn’t-” you started, then stopped, because you didn’t even know how to finish that sentence.

He waited, didn’t interrupt or push.

“I didn’t send that,” you said finally.

He studied your face for a moment, something in his expression shifting as he seemed to come to a quiet conclusion. “Okay,” he said. Just that. No skepticism, no pressure. Just acceptance.

“I wrote it a long time ago,” you added, your voice quieter now. “It doesn’t…It’s not how I feel anymore.”

He nodded, glancing briefly at the envelope before looking back at you. “Do you want to talk about it?”

You hesitated. Everything in you still felt unsettled, still caught somewhere between panic and disbelief. But unlike before, you weren’t being cornered. You weren’t being forced into an answer. He was just…asking.

“Not here,” you said after a moment.

He nodded immediately. “The café?” he suggested.

Your chest tightened slightly at the familiarity of it. You nodded. “After school.”

The café hadn’t changed. It still carried that same warm atmosphere, soft lighting casting a gentle glow over wooden tables, the quiet hum of conversation blending into the background like it had always been there. There’s a faint scent of coffee and something sweet lingering in the air.

When you stepped inside, he was already seated at a booth near the window. Two drinks sat on the table. You noticed them immediately. Matcha. Of course.

A faint memory surfaced, uninvited but clear.

You, sitting across from him, taking a sip and immediately making a face.

“This tastes like grass.”

He had laughed softly, “Give it time!”

“I don’t think time can fix this.”

“It can,” he had insisted. “You just don’t have good taste.”

You slid into the seat across from him, the present settling firmly into place again. “Hey,” he said.

“Hi.”

The conversation started slowly, both of you navigating it carefully, like neither of you wanted to say the wrong thing.

“I didn’t send it,” you said again, quieter this time.

“You said that already,” he replied. “I get it. It didn’t feel like something you’d just…send out of nowhere.”

You let out a small breath. “I liked you,” you said, deciding not to circle around it.

His expression softened slightly. “I figured.”

You almost smiled. “You were from my poetry class. The boy who read my inner monologues, who didn’t rush through it or treat it like it didn’t matter. You made things quieter, like I didn’t have to overthink everything all the time.”

Your fingers tightened slightly around your cup. “I think I just… liked being understood. And I guess I just held onto that feeling longer than I should have.”

A quiet pause followed. “But I don’t feel like that anymore,” you said. “I haven’t for a while.”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

You blinked up at him. “That’s it?”

A small smile tugged at his lips. “I could make it complicated,” he said, “but it doesn’t feel like it needs to be.”

He hesitated, then added, “I think I liked you too. Back then.”

You stilled slightly, not entirely surprised, but not expecting it either.

“But… I think we both liked the idea of each other more than anything else.” he clarified quickly.

You nodded. “Yeah.”

There was no tension in it. No lingering weight. Just something that had existed once, and didn’t anymore.

“Timing,” he said lightly.

“Timing,” you echoed.

The quiet settles between you again, but this time, it isn’t heavy. It doesn’t linger in an uncomfortable way. It just…exists, like something that’s been acknowledged and set down gently between you.

Martin leans back slightly in his seat, studying you for a second before speaking again. “So,” he says, a small shift in his tone, lighter now, “when did you actually get back?”

“…Yesterday,” you answer.

His eyebrows lift. “Yesterday? And you thought just showing up out of the blue after two years wouldn’t cause chaos?”

You huff out a laugh. “I thought I could just…blend in.”

He gives you a look. “You? Blend in?”

“Yes,” you reply, a little defensively. “I can be subtle.”

He smiles faintly. “You ran across half the school like a maniac today.”

You open your mouth to respond, then close it again, because, fair.

He watches you for a second longer, then shakes his head slightly, amusement softening his expression. “You disappeared for two years,” he says, not accusing, just stating it. “Barely told anyone anything.”

“I know.” You glance down at your drink, tracing the edge of the cup with your finger.

“Family stuff?” he asks.

You nod. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t push or ask anything else. Just accepts it, the same way he had earlier.

“I figured,” he says lightly. “You didn’t seem like someone who’d leave and cut off all her friends without a reason.”

Something about that settles tightly in your chest. “You didn’t try to find out?”

He shrugs. “I thought about it, I really did,” he admits. “But it didn’t feel like my place.”

That sounded like him. You nodded.

A small pause follows, but it’s no longer awkward. Just easy. Familiar in a quieter, more distant way than before.

His gaze flicks towards the cup you’re holding. “You’re not even going to try it?”

You take a slow sip, pause, then scrunch up your face. “It still tastes like grass.”

He laughs, properly this time. “You never gave it a chance, huh?”

“You’d said to give it time. I gave it two years,” you argue. “That’s more than enough time. If I didn’t like it back then, I’m not magically going to like it now.”

“You have no patience,” he grins.

“You just have terrible taste.”

He raises an eyebrow, mock-offended, “My taste is excellent.”

“You like pineapple on pizza,” you say flatly.

“It’s good.”

“It’s wrong.”

“It’s balanced. Sweet and savoury.”

“It’s a crime.”

“It’s innovative.”

“It’s disrespectful to pizza, is what it is.”

He laughs again, shaking his head. “You’re dramatic.”

“Agree to disagree.”

“Strongly.”

The conversation slips into something easier after that. You talk about small things. School. People you both vaguely remember. Things that happened while you were gone. It feels…normal.

By the time you both fall quiet again, the tension from earlier is completely gone. Not hidden, just resolved.

Martin glances at the clock briefly, then back at you. “I should probably go,” he says.

“Yeah, me too,” you agree.

He stands, grabbing his bag, and you follow a second later.

As you step out of the café together, the evening air feels cooler than before. There’s a brief moment where neither of you says anything.

“So,” you say, “friends?”

He smiles at you, “Were we not already?”

You smile back. “Better ones, then.”

He nods once. “Better ones.”

II.

That night, sleep doesn’t come easily.

You lie on your back, staring at the ceiling, the faint red glow of your LED lights washing the room in a colour that feels too familiar. Your mind keeps circling back to the same thought, over and over again, refusing to settle.

Juhoon. Martin. Both on the same day. Both with letters. Your letters.

You press your lips together, turning onto your side, pulling your blanket closer without really feeling it.

If they had them…then that meant...

No. You don’t even want to finish that thought.

Because if it’s true, then it’s not just them.

It’s all of them. And that means…

Him.

The thought lands heavier than the rest, settling somewhere deep in your chest.

You shut your eyes, exhaling slowly, like that might quiet everything down. It doesn’t. Because now, it’s not just the letters. It’s everything else too. The way you ran, literally. From Juhoon.

You groan softly, dragging a hand over your face. Great. That’s definitely going to make things easier tomorrow.

Morning comes too quickly.

You get ready on autopilot, your thoughts still tangled from the night before, your stomach tight with something that sits somewhere between dread and anticipation. You didn’t know what you were walking into, and that was the worst part.

The walk to school felt longer than it did yesterday. You took a deep breath just before stepping through the gates, steadying yourself, already preparing for the possibility of running into someone, anyone, holding one of those envelopes.

You just needed to get through the day without anymore chaos. No more-

“Y/N.”

You freeze mid-step, eyes shutting immediately. No. No, no, no. Not again. Please.

You turn slowly, bracing yourself for the worst.

Only to find the receptionist standing a few feet away, waving you over.

Your shoulders drop almost instantly. Oh. That’s…normal. You walk over, trying not to look as visibly relieved as you feel. “Yes?” you ask.

She smiles politely, flipping through a few papers on her desk. “Since you’ve joined mid-session, we’re assigning you mandatory tutoring lessons after school so you can catch up with the coursework.”

You blink. Was that all? No confrontations or emotional disasters waiting around the corner?

“Okay,” you say, nodding quickly. “That’s fine.”

She hands you a slip with the details. “Room 204. After school.”

You accept it. “Thank you.”

And just like that, you’re dismissed.

The rest of the day passes in a strange blur. You stay quiet, keep to yourself, avoid lingering in places too long. Every time someone says your name, or something that sounds like your name, your heart jumps before you can stop it.

But nothing happens, no one approaches you, no letters appear and no one looks at you like they know something you don’t. It almost feels like yesterday didn’t happen. Almost.

By the time school ends, you’re exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with actual work.

Room 204. You find it easily enough, the hallway quieter now with most students already heading home. The door is closed. Someone’s still inside.

You sigh softly and lean against the wall beside it, adjusting your bag on your shoulder as you wait. It’s not a long one.

The door opens a minute later, and the moment you look up, you know.

The gym flashes in your mind before you can stop it.

The sharp squeak of sneakers against polished floors. The rhythmic sound of a ball hitting the ground. The energy in the air during a match, loud and electric, and impossible to ignore.

You remember sitting in the stands, pretending you weren’t watching as closely as you were. The way he moved, quick, controlled and effortless in a way that made it hard to look away.

The moment where everything slowed just slightly as he took the shot. The arc of the ball. The perfect form. The net swishing cleanly as it went in, and then…

That grin.

Sharp, satisfied and completely self-assured.

The present snaps back into place and he’s standing right in front of you.

James.

For a second, neither of you says anything.

Then his eyes narrow slightly. Not in confusion. Recognition, slow and certain, like a realization clicking into place. You feel it before he even says anything. That look. You’ve seen it twice already. You know what it means.

He has it.

Oh, fuck.

You straighten instinctively, trying to look normal, trying to act like this is just another random encounter and not-

“So,” his tone was casual, but there was something underneath it. “It was you?”

There it is. You swallow.

“I didn’t send it,” you say immediately.

He tilts his head slightly, studying you. “But you wrote it,” he says.

It’s not a question.

You hesitate for half a second, then nod. “Yeah. A long time ago.”

He lets out a short breath, running a hand through his hair. “I didn’t even know you…noticed me like that.” He admits. “…You really had a whole thing going on, huh?” he says, almost dryly.

“It was…just a crush,” you reply, a little sharper than you intended.

He lifts an eyebrow. “Just a crush? You wrote a whole letter.”

You huff out a quiet, slightly embarrassed laugh. “You were kind of hard to miss.”

You pause.

“Not in a weird way,” you add quickly. “Just, you were everywhere. Games, matches, people talking about you. It wasn’t exactly subtle.”

The corner of his mouth twitches faintly. “Oh?” he says. “So I was that impressive?”

“You were…everywhere,” you correct.

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” He glances at you again, something less guarded in his expression now. “So what,” he says, tone shifting slightly, “You used to sit here and watch all my games or something?”

You hesitate for a split second. God, this was embarrassing. “Yeah…But it’s not weird. Half the school did.”

He shakes his head, “Half the school didn’t write such…detailed, emotional letters about it.”

“That was…two years ago!” you say, pointedly. “And anyway, I don’t feel like that anymore. Just so we’re clear.”

He nods once. “Yeah, I figured.”

“You figured?”

He shrugs. “You don’t look like someone who’s about to confess to me right now.”

You huff. “Good.”

“Relax,” he adds, a hint of amusement slipping back in. “I’m not that full of myself.”

“Debatable.”

That almost makes him smile again.

He shifts his weight slightly, stepping aside from the doorway. “You can go in,” he says. “You’re here for tutoring, right?”

You blink. “Yeah.”

“Go ahead,” he nods toward the room. “Today was my last session.”

“Last?”

“Yeah,” he says, tone turning more casual again. “Had to take it after I stopped playing.”

Something in the way he says it makes you look at him more closely. “Stopped?”

He shrugs, like it doesn’t matter, but it looks more practiced. “Injury. Lost the scholarship. Had to focus on grades instead.”

It’s said so simply that it takes a second to settle.

“Oh,” you say quietly.

He doesn’t linger on it, just gives you a small nod. “See you around.”

And then he’s already walking past you, like the conversation didn’t carry any weight at all.

You exhale slowly, reaching for the door handle.

“Oh, and Y/N?”

You turn around. “Yeah?”

“Try not to write me a sequel, yeah? One fan letter’s enough.” There’s the faintest hint of a smirk when he says it, like he knows exactly how it sounds. And then he’s gone.

You stand there for a moment, processing it, your grip tightening slightly around the strap of your bag. There’s a quiet kind of relief that settles in your chest.

He hadn’t taken it seriously, not in the way you’d feared. Not in the way that would’ve made everything heavier than it already was. It had been what you said it was. A crush, something fleeting that didn’t follow you into the present.

You exhaled slowly. Okay, that’s…good.

You turn the handle and step into the room, and the relief disappears instantly.

Juhoon is already there. Seated at the desk, a notebook, open in front of him, pen resting loosely between his fingers. He looks up the moment you walk in, then stands.

Not abruptly or aggressively, just, instinctively. Like he’s giving you space to leave if you want to, like he’s expecting you to.

For a second, neither of you says anything.

You feel it again, your pulse quickening, that same awareness of everything you avoided yesterday still waiting, still unfinished.

You could leave, you could turn around and walk right back out. But you don’t, because you can’t keep doing that. So instead, you step forward.

“Hey,” you say, keeping your voice as normal as possible. Casual, unbothered, like this is just another day, like nothing is sitting between you.

He watches you for a second, like he’s trying to read something you’re not showing. “Hey,” he replies, just as casually and controlled. He plays along.

You walk over and sit down. Pull out your books, open them, flip to a random page- anything to fill the silence, anything to make it feel normal.

Juhoon doesn’t sit immediately. He watches you for a moment longer before taking his seat again. You can feel it, his attention. Not intrusive, just…there. You keep your eyes on your notebook, tracing the lines on the page, adjusting your pen, turning a page you’re not even reading. He doesn’t say anything, you don’t say anything. The silence stretches.

You glance up. And that’s your mistake.

Because his eyes meet yours immediately. Dark brown. Soft, familiar, and entirely too focused. The same way they used to be when he was checking if you understood something. The same way they used to linger just a second longer than necessary.

Your breath catches for the briefest moment before you look away. Right, focus. You force your attention back to the page. Pretend to read, pretend to think, pretend this is fine.

It’s not. And he breaks first, not with anything big like an accusation or a confrontation. Just, “So.”

One word, quiet and simple. And somehow enough to send you unravelling everything you were trying to hold together.

“I wrote it a long time ago,” you continue. “It just…happened. I didn’t even know it was out until yesterday.”

You let out a small breath. “It wasn’t nothing. Back then.” The words come easier than you expected, maybe because you’ve already said them once today. Or maybe because this feels different. It feels like something that had been sitting unfinished for too long. “You were…always there,” you continued, slightly hesitant, searching for the right way to say it. “You listened. Even when I was just talking about random things that didn’t matter. You never got annoyed, you never made me feel like I was too much.”

Your fingers trace absent patterns against the edge of your notebook. “I’d ask the same question five times and you’d still explain it like it was the first,” you say, a faint, almost self-conscious smile tugging at your lips. “You’d let me get distracted, mess things up and then just bring me back to it. Like it wasn’t a big deal.”

You glance up again, briefly. “You made things feel easy, made me feel calm. And I started liking that feeling more than I realized…Until I started liking you.”

The room is quiet again, full. You sit back slightly. “That was two years ago,” you add, more carefully this time. “It’s not- I don’t want things to be weird now.”

You don’t say anything more than that, don’t answer what you know he’s really asking, don’t say whether anything changed. Because you’re not sure you want to.

Juhoon’s expression doesn’t change. He’s just silent for a moment, too silent. And when he finally speaks, it’s not what you expected. “I thought we were friends.”

The words aren’t sharp, but they land anyway.

His expression is calm, but there’s something underneath it, something you don’t immediately know how to place.

“You never told me you were leaving,” he continues. “Not properly.”

Your chest tightens. “I-”

“You just disappeared,” he says, still steady. “For two years.”

You don’t interrupt, because you don’t have anything that would make it better.

“I didn’t know where you went,” he adds. “Or if you were coming back.”

A small pause.

“If I’d done something wrong.”

That part lands the hardest.

Guilt settles in your chest, heavy and immediate.

“I’m sorry,” you say, your voice softer now. “I should’ve told you. I didn’t handle it well. I just…left.”

There’s nothing else to add, no excuse that would make it sound better. Just the truth.

Juhoon doesn’t respond immediately. He doesn’t look away either. He just sits there, taking it in. There’s no sharp reaction, no instant forgiveness, no dismissal. Just a quiet stillness, a mild resentment that feels heavier than anything he could’ve said.

Your chest tightens under it. Because this was the part you didn’t think about. Not the letter, not the confession. But this, the space you left behind.

His fingers tap lightly against the table once, as he looks down at the notebook in front of him like he’s grounding himself in something familiar.

“You should have,” he says. Not harsh, not gentle. Just honest.

“I know.”

“I didn’t like that…Not knowing.”

“I get that,” you say softly.

He holds your gaze for a second longer. Then, finally, he exhales again, a little deeper this time, like he’s letting something go. Not everything, but enough.

“Okay,” he says. It’s not a full resolution, not a clean slate but it’s something. And you feel it, the shift, subtle but real.

He leans back in his chair, studying you again, less distance in it. “I’ll let it go. On one condition.”

You straighten slightly. “What?”

There’s something quieter in his expression now, that wasn’t there before.

“I missed your rambling. Don’t disappear again.”

You don’t answer for a second, because something about the way he says it so simply, lands deeper than anything else in this conversation.

Warmth settles in your chest before you can stop it.

“I won’t.”

The moment lingers, as you smile and finally turn your attention to your books.

You don’t notice the way his gaze stays on you, the slight shift in his expression. Something that hadn’t faded the way it should have. You don’t notice, but it’s there, and it isn’t gone.

The courtyard is quieter than the rest of the school.

Not silent- there are voices somewhere in the distance, the faint scrape of chairs, the low hum of people moving between spaces- but it’s far enough removed that it feels like you can finally hear your own thoughts.

Which, right now, might be the problem.

You sit on one of the benches, elbows resting on your knees, staring down at nothing in particular as everything from the past three days replays in your head whether you want it or not.

Three days, that’s all it’s been. Three days since you stepped back into this place, thinking you could keep your head down, blend in, adjust quietly without drawing attention to yourself.

And somehow, in three days, your entire past has caught up to you. Not just memories and feelings, but actual, written proof of everything you had tried to leave behind.

You let out a slow breath, dragging a hand down your face.

Juhoon. Martin. James.

Each conversation different. Resolved, in a way, but it doesn’t feel clean. It doesn’t feel finished. It feels like you’ve just pressed tape over something that’s still cracked underneath, hoping it’ll hold long enough for you to get through the day.

Your shoulders sink slightly. Your mind doesn’t even want to touch the rest of it. Because if they got the letters, that means all of them did. Which meant-

You shut that thought down before it can fully form. No. You’re not doing that right now. You can’t.

“Heeeey.” The voice comes out of nowhere.

You flinch slightly, turning your head just in time to see Megan dropping onto the bench beside you like she owns the space.

She nudges your shoulder lightly. “What are you doing sitting here looking your life just fell apart?”

You let out a dry laugh. “Because it kind of did.”

Her eyebrows lift slightly, curiosity already sparking. “Oh?” she says. “I need details.”

You glance at her. There’s a part of you that hesitates and considers brushing it off. But at this point, you’re too tired and besides…what’s the point of holding it in?

“This is going to sound insane…”

“I’m ready.”

You pause briefly, trying to figure out how to even explain this without sounding completely unhinged. “Two years ago,” you say slowly, “I used to write letters. Like actual, handwritten ones.”

Her posture shifts almost imperceptibly. “…To whom?”

You hesitate for a fraction of a second. “To guys I liked,” you admit.

“Like love letters?”

“Yeah. And I kept them, all of them. In a box, just…hidden away.”

She blinks. “That’s…kind of embarrassingly cute. And?”

“They’re out,” you say. “I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but people have them. Like actual people. The people I wrote them to.”

Her fingers curl slightly against her lap. “…Wait,” she says carefully. “You mean they’ve read them?”

You nod, letting out a frustrated groan. “Yeah, Juhoon, James, Martin.” You shake your head. “All of them.”

Megan swallows, her expression tightening for just a second before she smooths it over. “That’s…insane.”

“Yeah,” you mutter. “Tell me about it.”

You press your palms against your face, dragging them down slowly as the exhaustion finally catches up to you.

“I don’t even understand how this happened,” you say, your voice muffled slightly. “And now…I’m just dealing with it. One conversation after another. Constant collisions of the past with the present.”

You drop your hands back into your lap.

“It’s like everything I left unfinished just came back all at once.”

Megan watches you carefully, then softens slightly. “I mean…” she says slowly, “maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing?”

You give her a sharp look. She lifts her hands slightly, like she’s trying to explain.

“Think about it,” she says. “You said it yourself. It was all unfinished. Now you’re…actually dealing with it.”

You don’t look convinced. “I’m being forced to deal with it,” you correct.

“Okay, sure,” she says. “But still. You’re getting closure, right?”

You lean back against the bench, staring up at the sky. “I don’t know if it’s closure,” you admit. “It feels more like temporary fixes.”

She tilts her head. “Temporary how?”

You exhale slowly. “Like putting tape over a crack in the dam wall and pretending it’s not about to burst,” you say. “Everything feels resolved on the surface, but I don’t know if it actually is. All these old faces, the feelings associated with them…”

“You’re overthinking it. Maybe it’s not perfect, but it’s still something.”

You hum quietly, not fully agreeing but not arguing either. “I just…” you trail off, rubbing your temple lightly. “I can’t deal with anything else right now.”

You let your head fall forward slightly. “No more drama. Please.”

There’s a brief pause, and then, Megan’s tone shifts. Subtly.

“Okay,” she says. “Then don’t.”

You glance at her suspiciously, “What?”

She smiles a little too casually. “Party at my place tonight.”

“No.”

She doesn’t flinch. “You didn’t even think about it.”

“I don’t need to think about it,” you say firmly. “The answer is no.”

“Why?”

“Because I just said I don’t want drama.”

“It’s just a party.”

“That is literally the definition of potential drama.”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re acting like I’m throwing some insane rager. It’s just people, music and food. Nothing you can’t handle. Come on, Y/N! It's basically tradition for me to throw a party at the beginning of every session!”

You stare at her. “I have handled enough in the last three days.”

“Exactly,” she says, leaning closer. “Which is why you need a break, a distraction.”

“I need peace and quiet.”

“You need to stop thinking.”

You hesitate. She notices immediately.

“You’ve been in your head non-stop,” she continues, softer now. “You said it yourself. Everything feels overwhelming. So come do something that has nothing to do with it.”

You look away slightly. “I don’t know anyone there anymore.”

“You know me.”

You sigh. “I don’t want to run into anyone.”

“Even if you do,” she says quickly. “So what? You’ve already survived worse.”

That’s annoyingly true...She presses on.

“Come early before everyone shows up. Help me set up. We’ll get ready together, just like before.”

Your expression shifts slightly at that. “Just us?” you ask.

“Just us,” she nods. “Music, messing around, trying on outfits, judging each other’s choices. Very low stakes.”

You huff out a small breath. “That does sound…better.”

You hesitate again, weighing it, still unsure but not completely against it anymore.

“I won’t stay long.”

Her grin widens. “Perfect.”

III.

Megan’s house looks different that night.

What had felt normal just an hour ago- string lights hanging loosely across the backyard, speakers being tested, the faint smell of something fried drifting from the kitchen- has now transformed into something louder. Brighter. Alive in a way that feels almost unfamiliar.

The back door is wide open, leading to the pool where people are already gathered, music thumping through the ground in steady waves. Coloured lights flash across the walls, shifting between red, blue, violet, casting everything in a restless glow. Laughter spills from every corner. Voices overlap. Someone shouts over the music. Someone else is already too drunk.

It’s… a lot.

You stand in Megan’s room for a second longer than necessary, adjusting your hair in the mirror, trying to ground yourself before stepping out.

“You’ll be fine,” you mutter to yourself under your breath. You don’t entirely believe it.

By the time you step into the hallway, the party is in full swing.

It hits you immediately- the sound, the movement, the sheer number of people packed into one space. The bass of the music vibrates faintly through your chest as you move past unfamiliar faces, dodging someone mid-laugh, someone else mid-argument, the air thick with perfume, sweat, and something faintly bitter from the drinks.

You’re not used to this, not like this.

You glance around, trying to spot Megan, already pulling your phone out of your pocket.

‘Where are you??’ you start typing as you step into the living room-

And then you look up, and everything stops.

It happens all at once.

James, leaning casually against the drinks table, a cup in his hand, mid-conversation.

Juhoon beside him, quieter, listening more than speaking.

Martin, a little further back, resting against a pillar, his gaze drifting across the room.

And then, someone else.

Eom Seonghyeon.

Your breath catches. It’s not even a full memory, just a feeling- something soft and fleeting, something you never gave a name to but had still existed. A quiet presence. A moment that had meant more to you than it probably should have.

He sees you, and for a second, his entire expression changes. Shock, and something more vulnerable. Then, he turns. Too quickly. Disappearing into the crowd like he was never there.

You barely register it, because your attention has already shifted. Right beside where Seonghyeon had been standing.

Him.

Your heart stutters. Stops.

Everything else fades into the background- the music, the voices, the movement, until it feels like the room has narrowed down to just one point. Him.

Ahn Keonho.

He was laughing, bright and effortless.

The sound of it doesn’t reach you through the music, but you can see it anyway in the way his shoulders loosen, in the way his head tips back slightly as he turns.

And your breath catches.

Because there it was…That smile.

That stupid, beautiful, familiar smile.

Wide and boyish and warm in a way that instantly rips you backwards through time. His eyes crinkle slightly at the corners when he laughs, the same way they used to when he’d tease you over something ridiculous, the same expression he wore sitting cross-legged on your bedroom floor with one earbud in while insisting you needed to listen to another song.

His bangs shift softly with the movement, falling just slightly into his eyes.

And then it’s gone. Replaced so quickly, it almost feels like you imagined the first part.

The smile falters first. Then his eyes widen. Shock flashes across his face so openly it almost hurts to look at.

Because for one impossible second, he looks exactly like someone who had wanted to see you again. Then, realization hits. You watch it settle into him.

His gaze flicks over your face like he’s trying to process whether you’re actually standing there or if he imagined you. Like he can’t reconcile the person in front of him with the version he’s spent two years angry at.

The lights flash red.

Green.

Blue.

Red again.

And each colour catches a different expression across his face.

Confusion. Disbelief. Something almost wounded. Betrayal.

It settles deepest.

The smile disappears completely.

You stop breathing, because, suddenly, it doesn’t feel like a party anymore. It feels like the entire room has narrowed into a straight line between you and him.

Just you and Keonho.

And every unfinished thing hanging between you like exposed wires.

You don’t even realize you’ve taken a step forward. “Keonho-”

He turns away, just like that, no hesitation. No chance for you to explain.

One second he’s there, looking at you like he doesn’t know whether he wants to yell at you or pull you closer, and the next he’s disappearing into the crowd.

Just like you’d disappeared from him.

“Wait!” You move immediately, pushing forward instinctively, your heartbeat slamming violently against your ribs as you weave through bodies and flashing lights.

Someone bumps into your shoulder, someone laughs too loud beside you.

“Keonho!”

Nothing. Just strangers, moving bodies swallowing him whole. You stop, breath uneven, chest tight with frustration as you look around one last time. But he’s gone.

Slowly, you back out of the crowd, overwhelmed too quickly by the heat, the noise, the way your thoughts are beginning to trip over each other.

You make it back toward the center of the living room almost numbly before collapsing onto the edge of a couch, rubbing your hands over your face.

Your pulse won’t calm down, because, of course he got the letter. Of course that was how he found out. Not from you, not after everything.

“Hey.”

You look up slightly.

Martin stands beside the couch holding out a drink toward you, his expression softer than before. Almost apologetic.

You take the cup automatically.

He lowers himself into the seat beside you with a quiet sigh, glancing briefly toward the crowd where Keonho disappeared. “…So,” he says carefully, “that just happened, huh?”

A breath leaves you in something between a laugh and pure exhaustion. “You think?”

Martin winces sympathetically. “I knew you guys were close before you left,” he admits. “I just didn’t expect…that tension.”

Neither did I, you almost say. Instead, you just take a sip. It burns going down. Good. Maybe it’ll burn through the panic too.

Martin leans back against the couch, voice quieter now beneath the music. “He looked pissed.”

“I noticed.”

“You gonna talk to him?”

“…I don’t even know what I’d say.” That’s the worst part. Because what do you say to someone who used to know you better than anyone else? What explanation could possibly cover two years of silence, one massive unresolved fight, and a love confession accidentally delivered far too late?

Martin watches you for a moment before nudging your shoulder lightly. “For what it’s worth,” he says, “Keonho really cares about you. Even now. He took it really hard when you left. I’m sure he’ll hear you out, he just needs some time, Y/N. You really hurt him.”

That hurts more somehow, because you know he’s right.

The night blurs after that, the music grows louder and the lights flash harder.

People move around you in streaks of colour and laughter and perfume and sweat while your thoughts slowly begin slipping out of focus around the edges.

Someone refills your drink. Then another. And another.

You don’t even remember accepting half of them, you just keep swallowing. Anything to quiet the noise in your head. To stop replaying the look on Keonho’s face over and over again.

Martin asks if you’re okay and you insist you are. He keeps hovering nearby like he’s afraid you’ll spiral.

Every few minutes, your eyes drift unconsciously toward the crowd again. Still looking for him, and not finding him. Until eventually…the alcohol softens everything just enough for exhaustion to take over instead.

You can’t stay here anymore. Your chest felt tight and your thoughts were tangled beyond repair. You pull your phone out, squinting slightly at the brightness as you open Megan’s contact. Your fingers fumble twice before finally hitting record. “Hey,” you slur slightly, leaning against the hallway wall. “I’m leaving. I just-” you exhale shakily. “I feel kinda shit right now and I wanna go home before I do something stupid.”

There’s noise behind you, someone shouting, someone laughing too loudly. You close your eyes briefly.

“Sorry,” you mumble. “Tell me tomorrow if I missed anything dramatic.”

You end the voicemail before you can embarrass yourself further. Then you leave.

The cold air outside hits immediately. It helps a little.

Your steps are uneven as you walk down the sidewalk, your head buzzing unpleasantly now, not fully drunk, just emotionally wrecked enough that the alcohol has made everything softer and sharper at the same time.

Your thoughts refuse to stay in one place.

Juhoon.

Martin.

James.

Seonghyeon.

Keonho.

Especially Keonho.

That look on his face keeps replaying against your will.

You shove your hands into your jacket pockets, walking faster like somehow you can outrun your own brain. The streets are quieter here. Dim streetlights stretching across the pavement in pale pools of orange light.

You almost make it halfway down the block before,

“Y/N!”

The voice cuts through the night violently. You stop walking instantly. Your stomach drops, because you know that voice.

You turn slowly.

Keonho is striding toward you, breathing hard like he came after you the second he realized you’d left. And he looks furious. Not quiet anger, not cold distance. Actual anger.

His hair is messy from the party, his hoodie sleeves shoved halfway up his forearms, and his expression is tight in a way you’ve almost never seen before.

You stare at him for a second too long.

He stops a few feet away.

“What the fuck was that?” he demands.

Your exhausted brain struggles to catch up. “…What?”

“What do you mean what?” he snaps. “You show up out of nowhere after two years, I find out you’re back because of that letter, and then you just stand there looking at me like nothing happened?”

The word letter immediately makes irritation flare through the haze in your head. “Oh my god,” you mutter, dragging a hand over your face. “Not this again.”

“Yeah,” he says sharply. “This again.”

You laugh once, disbelieving. “You avoided me at the party.”

His jaw tightens. “Because I didn’t know what the hell to say to you.”

“Well, congratulations,” you shoot back. “Now neither do I.”

He stares at you incredulously. “You left.”

The words hit harder than expected. “You left without saying anything.”

“I said goodbye to people.”

“Not to me.”

Silence. Your chest tightens instantly. The alcohol makes your emotions feel too close to the surface now, raw and impossible to properly contain.

“I didn’t know how,” you admit, frustrated. “Okay? I didn’t know how to talk to you after that fight.”

“What fight?” he says immediately. “The one where you got mad at me for hanging out with other people?”

Your expression hardens. “See?” you snap. “That’s exactly what I mean.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means you never understood why I was upset!”

“Because you never explained it!”

“You were supposed to know me!”

The words leave your mouth before you can stop them, and the second they do, both of you freeze slightly.

Because that,

That is the actual wound underneath all of this.

Keonho stares at you, something flickering across his face too quickly to fully catch. “You disappeared,” he says again, quieter this time but somehow angrier for it. “For two years.”

Your throat tightens. “You really think that was easy for me?”

“I don’t know!” he fires back suddenly. “Because you never told me anything!”

His voice echoes slightly down the empty street. “You just vanished!”

You laugh bitterly. “Oh, right, because you cared so much.”

His expression changes instantly.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

You’re too emotional now to stop yourself properly. “It means you stopped noticing me way before I left,” you say, your voice shaking. “You had your own life, your own friends, your own everything, and I was just supposed to be okay with slowly becoming less important to you.”

Keonho looks genuinely stunned. “Are you serious?”

“Yes!”

“I was still there!”

“You weren’t there for me!”

The silence afterward is brutal.

Your breathing is uneven now. So is his.

And somewhere beneath the anger, you can see it now…the hurt. Deep and old and unresolved. Then his expression shifts again, harder.

“What was in that letter?” he asks suddenly.

You look away immediately.

“No.”

“What do you mean no?”

“I mean I’m not doing this right now.”

“You wrote that you loved me.”

Your chest constricts painfully. The words sound unbearable out loud.

“You think I don’t deserve an explanation for that?”

“I wrote it two years ago!” you snap, finally losing patience completely. “I didn’t even mean for you to read it!”

“That doesn’t answer anything!”

“Well maybe I don’t have the answers anymore!” Your voice cracks slightly at the end.

And for a second, neither of you says anything.

The tension between you feels unbearable now. Thick enough to choke on.

Keonho shakes his head once, frustrated beyond words. “You know what?” he says finally. “Forget it.”

You stare at him. “Keonho-”

“No,” he cuts in sharply. “You don’t get to do this.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It means you don’t get to wreck everything and then act like you’re the only one hurting.”

That lands directly in your chest. You open your mouth immediately, but nothing comes out.

Because part of you knows he’s right.

And part of you hates him for saying it.

His eyes linger on your face for one long second, then he laughs bitterly under his breath. “I can’t even recognize you anymore.”

.

.

Before you can respond, he turns sharply and starts walking away.

“Keonho, wait-”

He doesn’t. Doesn’t look back. Doesn’t slow down. He just keeps walking until the darkness swallows him completely, leaving you standing there alone in the middle of the street, breathing unevenly, your entire chest aching like something inside it has finally split open.

You don’t know how long you stand there after he leaves. A few seconds. Maybe a minute.

Long enough for the cold air to start biting through the warmth left behind from the party. Long enough for the alcohol in your system to stop feeling numbing and start feeling nauseating instead.

Your chest hurts. Actually hurts.

You inhale shakily, wiping harshly at your face before realizing your vision has already blurred. “Fuck,” you whisper, your voice sounds small. You hate that.

So you start walking.

The park is only a few streets away. You don’t consciously decide to go there. Your feet just carry you automatically, like your body remembers the route before your brain does.

The swings creak softly in the wind when you step onto the empty playground. Everything looks different at night. Smaller somehow, sadder. The dim orange glow of the streetlights barely reaches the play structures, leaving most of the park washed in shadow. You move toward the swings numbly before sinking down onto one, your fingers curling weakly around the cold chains.

And for a second, you just sit there, breathing.

Trying not to fall apart.

Trying and failing.

“I don’t even understand why you’re mad at me right now.”

The memory slams into you so suddenly it almost makes you flinch.

Keonho’s voice, frustrated, tired.

That night. That awful final night before you left.

“I’m still here,” he’d said, running a hand through his hair in exasperation. “So what’s the problem?”

You remember staring at him back then, wanting so badly to explain it properly.

But how could you? How were you supposed to admit that the problem was never just him spending time with other people?

The problem was that you loved him. And he didn’t know.

Your grip tightens around the swing chains.

You squeeze your eyes shut, and another memory rises anyway. Different this time.

Softer.

You and Keonho sitting on top of the playground slide after school, your notebooks spread out between you while the evening sun dipped lower behind the trees.

You remember groaning dramatically while staring at a math problem. “This makes no sense.”

Keonho snorted beside you, leaning over to look at your paper. “You’re doing it wrong.”

You immediately looked at his worksheet. “You’re doing it wrong too.”

“Yeah,” he said easily, completely unbothered. “But at least I’m confident about it.”

You had laughed so hard you almost slipped off the slide. And he’d laughed too.

The memory fades.

And suddenly you’re back here.

Back now, back in the cold.

Everything feels painfully sharp, because those moments don’t exist anymore. Not really.

The two of you had once fit together so naturally that you never questioned it. Best friends in the kind of way that made everyone assume you’d stay in each other’s lives forever.

Now everything between you feels ruined.

Twisted into something unrecognizable.

The fight.

The silence.

The letter.

All those feelings you buried now dragged violently into the open where neither of you knows what to do with them.

You press the heels of your palms against your eyes.

But it’s useless. The tears come anyway. Not graceful tears, not quiet movie tears.

Real ones. Messy ones.

The kind that leave your chest heaving painfully as years worth of emotions finally crack open all at once.

You cry because you missed him. Because you were angry at him. Because you loved him. Because leaving hurt more than you ever admitted to anyone. Because somewhere along the way, the person who used to know you best became someone standing across from you like a stranger.

You cry because nothing feels fixable anymore. Because the version of you that sat beside him on playground slides and shared earbuds in your bedroom feels impossibly far away now.

Your shoulders shake harder as you bow your head forward, your hair falling around your face while quiet sobs finally break loose into the empty park.

You don’t hear him approach. Not until- An arm wraps around you.

Suddenly you’re being pulled gently backwards, your body giving in almost instantly from pure exhaustion until the back of your head rests against someone’s chest. A hand settles carefully against the side of your arm.

Not gripping, Just holding and grounding.

Your breath catches sharply as you look up through blurred vision.

Seonghyeon.

For a second, you just stare at him in confusion.

His face is softer than you’ve ever seen it. Concern etched quietly into his features as he looks down at you beneath the dim park lights, his dark hair falling slightly over his forehead from the wind.

“How…” your voice cracks. “How did you—”

Did he follow you? Did he hear everything?

Your stomach twists suddenly.

Oh god. The letter. He got one too. Of course he did.

Panic immediately rises again through the haze of your breakdown as you pull back slightly, words tumbling out messily. “Seonghyeon, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for you to read that, I swear, I never thought the letters would actually—”

“Hey.” His voice cuts through yours softly. Not sharp or demanding. Just enough to stop you.

You blink at him, breathing uneven, and then you realize something.

He isn’t angry. There’s no confusion in his expression. No expectation. No confrontation waiting behind his eyes.

He isn’t here for answers. He isn’t here to make you explain yourself. He isn’t here to ask what you meant, or why you wrote it, or whether you still feel that way now.

For the first time that entire day, someone is simply here for you.

The realization hits so hard it almost makes you cry harder.

Seonghyeon’s arm tightens slightly around your shoulders as if he can physically feel the moment you understand that. “It’s okay,” he murmurs quietly.

You shake your head immediately. “No, it’s not, I just…I didn’t know they were sent out and then Keonho and the fight and everything is just so messed up and-”

“Shh.”

The sound is almost drowned out by your breathing. But you hear it. Feel it. His hand moves slowly up your arm, comforting, patient.

“We’ll talk later,” he says softly. “Not now.”

You stare at him.

“We don’t have to do this right now,” he continues gently. “You don’t owe anyone explanations when you’re like this.”

Your chest aches painfully at the kindness in his voice. Everyone else had wanted something from you today. Answers. Clarifications. Closure.

But Seonghyeon…

Seonghyeon is just letting you fall apart.

And somehow that hurts most of all.

Your face crumples again before you can stop it, another sob escaping your throat as you bury your face against his chest.

Immediately, his arms close around you properly. Secure, protective.

“It’s okay,” he repeats quietly, his chin resting lightly against the top of your head. “I’m here.”

The words break something open inside you.

Because Keonho had once said that too.

I’m still here.

And somewhere along the way, that stopped feeling true.

But right now, with Seonghyeon’s arms around you beneath the dim glow of the park lights, your tears soaking into the fabric of his hoodie while he quietly holds you together without asking for anything in return…

It feels true again, at least for tonight.

So you let yourself cry. And Seonghyeon lets you without rushing you, without questions.

Just his hand slowly moving through your hair while the swings creak softly beside you in the empty park, his voice low and steady every time your breathing starts breaking apart again.

“Shh,” he whispers gently. “It’s okay.”

James has you pressed against the wall before you can breathe, his body hot and solid against yours like he’s been dying to get his hands on you.

He pulls his shirt off in one swift motion. Muscles flexing, stomach tightening and the second he catches the way your eyes linger, his mouth curls into a dirty, knowing smirk.

“Yeah?”

His voice drops, low and cocky.

“You like that don’t you?”

Your thighs clench without permission. You nod, helpless. He slides a hand down your waist, fingers dipping under your waistband, brushing heat, barely there, just enough to make your breath hitch.

“Fuck,” he laughs softly, lips dragging along your jaw. “Look at you—so pretty.”

His thumb presses against your clothed pussy, firm enough to make your hips jerk forward.

You gasp, a quiet, desperate sound, and he eats it from your mouth as he kisses you hard, tongue pushing past your lips like he owns the right. Your back hits the wall again.

His hips grind into you, slow and deliberate, the thick shape of his cock rubbing exactly against the spot that makes your knees buckle.

“Thought you’d break for me this easy,” he mutters against your mouth. His fingers slip lower “Let me hear it.”

“J-James.. I-“

You jolt so hard the pen flies out of your hand.

You’re instantly pulled back from your fantasy—heat to ice water in a heartbeat.

“Y/n?” your dad calls, voice muffled through your bedroom door. “Dinner will be ready in ten. Your sister will set the table today.”

You slap your palm over the letter like you’re hiding a crime scene. “I—I’ll be down in a sec!”

Your voice cracks. Horribly. Clearing your throat, you try again. “Yeah! Just—uh—finishing something!”

Footsteps retreat down the hallway. Silence drops. Then the fright hits you. You stare down at the paper. At the graphic, thirsty disaster you apparently wrote while possessed by a sex demon.

“Oh my fucking god.” You grab the paper in both hands, crumpling it so fast it practically crunches like aluminum foil.

“What is wrong with you, Y/n?” You fling the balled-up letter toward the overflowing trash can. It bounces off the rim and lands on the floor like it’s mocking you. Of course it misses. Even your garbage has better aim than your life. A waste of paper and your time. You bury your face in your hands and groan into your palms.

“He doesn’t even know you exist,” you mutter, pacing once, twice, like that might shake the embarrassment off. “How stupid do you have to be writing porn about James!”

James, the school’s most popular student who also happens to be in the soccer team. James who probably doesn’t know you exist and has a girlfriend. Or situationship. Or whatever the hell Amy counts as.

You drop back into your desk chair, heart still racing from the stupid fantasy. A mixture between wetness and heat still clings to your skin in places you wish it didn’t.

“This is insane,” you whisper to the ceiling. “Actually insane.”

You grab another sheet of paper, intending to write something normal. Something sane. Something not involving walls and grinding and his stupid smirk.

The page stays blank. Your hand trembles slightly. You shove it away and stand up.

“Dinner,” you tell yourself. “Food. Air. Brain reset. No… horny… writing.”

You take one step toward the door. Then stop. Then glance at the trash pile, the paper mountain you swore you’d never let anyone see.

One of them shifts from the movement of your fan. A small, sinking feeling hits your stomach. You really need to get a better trash can. Or maybe a shredder—no! Therapy. But first: dinner.

You yank open your bedroom door before you can psych yourself out again. And somewhere in the back of your head—the part you hate the most—James’s voice from your imagination lingers like smoke: Yeah? You like that?

You swallow hard.

“Shut UP,” you whisper to absolutely no one. You go downstairs anyway.

You drift down the stairs the minute the kitchen smells like something worth living for again. Your sister Annie is figuring out how her new phone works that she got for her thirteenth birthday recently. Your dad has his elbows on the counter, the kind of casual that says he’s trying to be chill but actually means business.

“You okay?” he asks between ladles of sauce. He always asks when you look a little too quiet. 

You shrug and grab a roll. “Yeah. Fine. Hungry.”

He’s stirring the pot and watching you like someone trying to read the news in a window reflection. “You’re eighteen, Y/n. That means you should try opening up to people a little. Join a club, meet someone new. Don’t close yourself off to the same circle forever.”

You give him the eyebrow. “You mean Bella?”

“Bella’s great,” he says, tone is deliberately even. “But reliable isn’t everything. You have this… tendency to tuck yourself away. Try something that rattles you.”

“Bella is the most reliable person one could ever know,” you scoff, crossing your arms in front of you. Suddenly, the words slide into the hollow place where your thoughts live and rattles something loose. Open up. Rattle. Shake. It’s stupid, obvious, and for reasons you can’t quite explain, it feels like the exact sentence you needed to hear.Before your dad can say anything else, you quickly get up from your seat.

“Honey- where’re you going?!” Your dad asks, your sister’s gaze following his. You don’t answer him. There’s no time for that. Sitting at your desk with your lamp low, you carefully grab another slip of paper.. You’ve always been the type to catalogue everything. Feelings, small humiliations, the way your chest tightens when you see James in the hallway, into the soft, safe pages of your diary. But you ran out of pages two days ago. You didn’t throw the journal away; you just taped the spine and pretended that was a solution. Now the spine is a Band-Aid and your life is still leaking.

So you do something slightly insane. You write a letter. A letter to James that you’re obviously not going to send. But you’re not going to send it—fuck no. You might be crazy but not to that extent. Instead, this letter will just fulfill your delusions, knowing you’re too much of a pussy to actually go talk to him. 

Plus, James as Amy. A girl that’s ten times prettier than you. Even if the letter was sent, it wouldn’t do anything but humiliate her. You sit down and you write like the instruction are pressed into your ribs. 

Dear James,

I don’t know what kind of courage is even required to put this into paper and not just into the soft pulp of my diary where it will sit forever and never hurt anyone but me. I’m out of pages. I like to pretend that’s why this is happening, but really it’s because your face keeps crowding the edges of the life I think I should lead and I am tired of pretending nothing has changed.

I’m writing this because my dad said something tonight about opening up, and for once his advice didn’t annoy me. It lit the part of my chest that likes to tell the truth. Usually, I tell myself the truth in tiny, private scribbles. I tuck things away in notebooks and call it safety. But safe is starting to feel smaller than the way my thoughts about you try to grow.

So here it is: I like you. Not the kind of like that’s polite and fits into a yearbook quote. The kind of like that rearranges the soundtrack in my head and makes dumb songs sound like they were written for mornings when you’re still asleep beside me. I like the way you laugh when someone says something stupid on the field. I like the way your that little pout you make when you miss your shot during your soccer practice. I like the scar on your thumb. I notice the ways you look at nothing and I wonder if you’re keeping a private joke with yourself.

I don’t expect anything. I’m not asking you to change your life, and I’m not asking you to break anything open to fit me inside. I’m just telling you the shape of my heart as honestly as I can. If you look back and you don’t feel anything close, that’s okay. I’ll make more pages. I’ll close my hands around the feeling and let it be pretty and lonely and mine.

If by some impossibility you feel even a fraction of this, if you ever want to talk in the quiet and not for show, I’d like that. If you want to laugh and make terrible jokes and steal fries off my plate, I’d like that too. If you want to touch me and find out how the rest of me holds together like how you do with Amy—well. I want that too, but more than anything I want you to be honest with me the way I’m trying to be honest with you now.

— Y/n

You read it back and feel twelve whole things at once — proud, mortified, relieved, as well as questioning your life decisions. You fold it carefully like it it’s an explosive and slide it into an envelope. You address it with your own hand: Zhao Yufan, his legal name. Under his name, you scribble the address you only learned after realizing he lives six houses down. You seal the flap, press it flat like a bandage, and set the envelope on your nightstand.

You think about putting it in the diary, or a secret drawer, or burning it in the tiny metal box you use to store old receipts, but something about the whole open up thing makes you stubborn. This one you want to feel like it could be sent. So you tuck it under a small stack of textbooks on the nightstand, slide a pen across it like you’re filing it into safety, and tell yourself you’ll shower, you’ll calm down, you’ll decide tomorrow whether you actually post it or not.

You strip and step into the shower, the hot water hitting your skin in a rhythm that slows the part of you that wants to panic. Steam climbs the glass and you lean your forehead against the wall and breathe. You imagine the envelope still on the nightstand where you left it, protected by the textbooks like a little fort.

You shampoo and rinse and think of nothing and everything and finally step out, towel-wrapped and lightheaded. You cross your room, expecting the envelope to be exactly where you left it. But you don’t see it.

You assume you put it somewhere else—under a different stack, in a drawer you forgot about, safe. That makes you breathe easier. You make a mental note to check after you put your hair up. Only thing is you don’t get the chance. As soon as you lay down on your bed, you’re fast asleep.

—

Morning punches you in the face the moment your alarm shrieks. You bolt upright with that weird post-shower fog still clinging to your brain, and then the memory hits you like a shovel: The letter.

“Shit—” You stumble out of bed, hair a disaster, sleep shirt twisted around your waist as you lunge toward the nightstand.

Textbooks: check. Pen you left on top: check. Envelope? Not check. You flip the books. Nothing. Just kill me.

You yank open the drawer. Receipts, scrunchies, a rogue stick of gum. Oh—there’s your favourite lip gloss you lost in eighth grade. No envelope.

You drop to your knees and check under the bed like the letter might be hiding out of spite. Nada. 

“Okay, no. No no no—” Your voice rises, scrapes, breaks. You tear through your desk. Under the lamp. Behind your laptop. In your laundry basket like you’re truly losing it.

It’s gone.

You freeze so hard your breath forgets what it’s supposed to be doing. For a full five seconds you just stand there, staring at the nightstand like it personally betrayed you.

“Y/N! You’re gonna make Annie late!” your dad yells from downstairs.

Jesus Christ. Of course the universe picks today to make you a missing-letter fugitive.

You slap on makeup with the precision of a maniac, yank on loose jeans, absolutely forget deodorant, and sprint out the door with Annie trailing behind you.

She’s eating a Pop-Tart like nothing is wrong in the world. “Can you walk faster?” you hiss.

“You woke me up late,” she mumbles around strawberry filling. “This is your fault.”

She’s not wrong, and it only makes you want to scream into a pillow. “Actually, you could have set an alarm on your phone,” you say defend yourself. “What’s the point of having a phone if you can’t put it to use?” Annie rolls her eyes. The whole walk to her school, your brain is doing a full Olympic-level panic routine.

You drop Annie off—barely hearing her bye—and then you’re speed-walking toward your school like your life depends on it. Which, honestly? It kind of does.

Inside the hallway, it’s the usual teenage circus. Lockers slamming. People laughing too loud. Someone aggressively spraying Axe body spray like they’re trying to fumigate the building.

And then, you see him. James. He’s leaning against his locker, talking to Jihoon and some really tall guy, hair falling over his forehead in that stupidly soft way that makes your chest squeeze. He wipes his bangs aside with his knuckles and you swear your soul leaves your body like you’re some Victorian child witnessing the beauty of art for the first time. 

Your feet keep walking but your eyes stay glued to him as you’re now walking backwards somehow—hey, is it just you or did he bleach his hair blondish orange?

“Ouch! Watch where you’re going.”

Your shoulder ricochets off a wall of person, and a sharp, irritated gasp snaps you back to reality. “Hi Amy.”

Believe it or not, you and Amy were best of friends back in middle school until popularity took over her. Her brown wavy hair is perfectly glossy. Her skin is so flawless it looks like someone airbrushed her in real time. She’s applying a swipe of lip gloss with one hand and glaring at you like you just stepped on her dog with the other.

“Oh, it’s just you,” she snaps, pursing her lips as she caps the gloss. “Some of us actually care about how we look in the morning.”

Heat floods your cheeks, crawling up your neck. You mutter, “Sorry,” but it comes out thin and squeaky—humiliating.

Her eyes flick over you, slow and critical, before she glances past your shoulder toward James—her whole expression softening instantly, like flipping a switch.

You try your hardest not to look. It would be very embarrassing to do so. But you do.

James is watching. Not glaring. Not smirking. Just watching with that unreadable, calm expression he always gets when he’s trying to figure something out. His friends are waving their hands in front of his face to catch his attention. 

Your stomach drops to your toes. Because for one terrible, dizzy moment, you wonder if that letter got somewhere it shouldn’t. You swallow tightly.

This day is already hell. And it’s only 8:07 AM. 

You don’t even get three steps down the hall before Bella materializes beside you like she teleported straight out of loyalty. Her ponytail bounces while her iced latte sloshes, eyebrows already raised. “I saw that, by the way,” she says.

You groan into your hands. “Please. Please, Bella. Don’t.” Bella wiggles her brows. “You full-on stared at him like he was Michelangelo’s David, and then you—what was that? Moonwalked into Amy?”

“Let’s. Not. Talk about it.” You want to crawl inside your hoodie and never come out. Bella laughs so hard she snorts. “Okay, fine. But holy crap, you’re lucky she didn’t claw your face off.”

You don’t tell her about the letter. God, no. Bella is your ride-or-die, but even she doesn’t deserve to carry that radioactive emotional grenade.

The day crawls by at the pace of a wounded snail. Class, class, pretend to take notes, class. After school, you follow your usual routine: cut through the side field, slip past the bleachers, and make your quiet little trail toward the soccer field.

It’s stupid. SO stupid. But watching the practices has always been… calming? Or maybe masochistic. Hard to tell. They’re already running drills. Cleats thudding. Shouts carrying. 

And there he is, James, wearing the neon-pinnied version of perfection. He’s quick. Controlled. Focused. The way his legs move is ridiculous. He spins the ball like it’s attached to him by secret magnets.

Usually Amy’s on the bleachers, cheering him on with her friends. But today there were no signs of her being no where near this field. Strange. You wonder where she is. That should make you feel relieved. It doesn’t.

For once, James isn’t playing like you’re invisible. Because suddenly, he sees you. Actually sees you. His brows knit. His chest rises, pauses. And before you can process what’s happening, he jogs off the field. Then he’s running. Running toward you.

Panic detonates in your ribcage.

No. No no no no—

He stops way too close. Close enough that you smell him—clean, sharp, expensive. Something like cedar and citrus and everything you absolutely should not like.

“Hey,” he says, breath still catching from the run. “Y/n? Is that your name?” You freeze. He rubs the back of his neck. Looks down for a second. Then back at you.

“I see you watching the games sometimes and I, uh… got your note.”

Your heart stops. Literally stops. If a doctor checked you right now, you’d be declared clinically dead. “I just—” he swallows hard. He’s awkward. He’s never awkward. “I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring it.”

Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. Not even a squeak. He shifts his weight, eyes flicking toward the field like he wishes someone would rescue him.

“Listen… I just got out of a breakup. Like. Recently.” He laughs once, dry and not very funny. “And… I don’t even know you. So I can’t—it wouldn’t be fair. Or right. You know?”

“Then get to know me.” That’s what you want to say. Instead you nod slowly. Or maybe you physically malfunction. Hard to tell. He gives you this tiny, apologetic half-smile that somehow hurts worse than being stabbed.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. And then he jogs back onto the field like he didn’t just smash your chest open with his bare hands. You stand there frozen long enough that a stray soccer ball rolls by your foot and you don’t even flinch.

James looks even better up close. And yeah he smells like something expensive. Something that makes your stomach twist. You were never supposed to know that. You swallow, throat tight. It’s the start of the new school year and this day was- well... You’re not sure there’s even a word for it.

The next few days are awkward as hell.

You avoid his locker like it’s a landmine. You walk a little faster in the halls. How the hell did he get his hands on your letter in the first place? If your brain had a mute switch, you would’ve used it. Bella notices and gives you the exact look that says tell me everythingwithout actually making you talk.

You don’t tell her anything. Not about the letter, and about how your stomach clenches when he passes.

One afternoon you cut across the field and freeze halfway, because there they are, the once infamous couple arguing in that tense whisper that looks loud from a distance. Amy’s hands are animated, her face flushed in that way people get when they think they’re right and are also angry. James is calm but tight; his jaw works like he’s chewing on something heavy. You don’t hear words. You only see the body language: Amy stepping closer, James stepping back. The rest of the team keeps practicing around them like it’s normal to be emotionally shredded in the middle of drills. Maybe this happens a lot? Expect this time, they’re arguing as exes, not as a couple.

Three days later, you’re sitting with Bella like every other lunch school-day—salad in front of you, two conversations happening at once. “Hey,” Bella starts, “you think that I could fit three French fries up one nostril?”

You barely get two fries into your mouth before a shadow falls over your lunch table. Bella freezes mid-sip of her iced latte. Her eyes go huge. “Um… incoming.” You turn slowly, like your neck is rusted, praying it isn’t who you think it is. 

James. Hands in pockets. Hair slightly damp from gym. Looking like a walking problem. You could recognize his cologne from miles away.

“Y/n,” he says, voice low. “Can we talk?” Bella nearly breaks her own neck nodding. You shoot her a warning look, but she just winks. Or tries to. It looks more like a seizure. You follow James out to the side courtyard, heart punching your ribs like it’s trying to escape. Did he see you eves dropping on him and Amy’s argument? Or even worse—he somehow got a hold of that piece of paper you wrote a whole entire smut scene of you and him on. No. There’s no way that’s possible. But the letter- shut up y/n.

Finally, he stops by a bench and shifts his body awkwardly. You brace yourself for whatever’s coming.

“Okay, so… about what I said a few days ago.” Deep breath. “I changed my mind,.”

You blink. Not once. Not twice. About twelve times. “I’m sorry—what?” He runs a hand through his hair, jaw tightening. “Amy found out I talked to you the other day.” His eyes flicker to you. “And she’s… not handling it well.” You say nothing. Your brain is buffering like bad Wi-Fi. “So,” he continues, “she’s convinced I’m into you. And she’s trying to make me jealous by flirting with every guy in our grade. Which is…” He grimaces. “Annoying.”You’re staring at him, blank-faced, because what else are you supposed to do? “So if she thinks you and I are together,” he finally says, “she’ll calm down. And maybe she’ll want to get back together. It’s just… easier this way.”

Ah. There it is.

It’s not because he suddenly sees you. It’s not because your face lives rent-free in his mind the way his does in yours. It’s because you’re convenient and somehow read the stupid love letter you were going to keep to yourself and through away after a few days. 

You swallow, throat scraping. “So you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend… so your get back together?” He nods, relieved you understand. “Yeah. Exactly.”

You take your time thinking—way longer than necessary, honestly. But you’re not stupid. Fake dating James? James, whose face makes your brain glitch? James, who already thinks you confessed some weird crush? Why the hell wouldn’t you?

“Fine,” you say eventually. “I’ll do it.” His whole body loosens like he’s been holding tension since August. “Thank you. Seriously. Okay, uh… we should follow each other on Instagram.”

Shit. 

He pulls his phone out. You do the same—hesitantly. “It’s @y_notn?” He repeats, typing the username into Instagram, then clicking onto your page. You see his lips form a smirk. “You’re already following me I see.” You cheeks match the color of his shoes.

He types fast. “I’ll tag you in my bio. You can tag me in yours too.” Your pulse jumps but you nod in agreement anyways.

He pockets his phone again. “Meet me after practice today. Same field as always.” He gives you a small smile that’s entirely too soft to be legal. “I assume you know what time that is.” Like you haven’t literally watched every practice he’s had since school started.

You nod, trying not to implode. “Yeah. I know.”

“Cool.” He steps back, gives you a once-over that feels like a warm hand on your spine. “See you then, Y/n.” When he walks away, you realize you’re not breathing. You’re not sure you’ll ever breathe normally again.

Bella ambushes you before you even sit down. She’s practically vibrating with questions, textbooks forgotten in her hand.

“So spill. What did you two even talk about? Why is he talking to you when he has a—what is she—Amy? What the freak is going on?” Her eyes are all sharp curiosity and that ridiculous, fierce-protective thing only best friends get. You do the only mature thing you can think of: play it cool. “It’s nothing,” you say, which is still a lie and also technically not. You haven’t explained anything to anyone, not even to yourself.

Bella doesn’t buy it for one second. “Nothing? Y/n. You’ve been crushing on that guy ever since I’ve known you. Do you know how dramatic that was? Spill.”

You fold your fork over your lips. “He said some stuff. Nothing huge.” You focus on making your voice flat, unimpressed, as though your heart didn’t vault into your throat and refuse to come down two hours ago. She leans in until her face invades your space. “Did he… break up with Amy?”

You stare at her. The question feels like a live wire. “Yeah,” you say before you can stop it. “They—he said they broke up.”

Bella’s jaw drops so hard you’d think she swallowed a stone. “And you didn’t tell me? Am I not your best friend anymore or what?” She half-pleads, half-accuses. You laugh because panic tastes weird and small. “I didn’t know until this week, B. Chill. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be the person who screams and jumps on him or whatever you do when you’re extremely dramatic.”

She pouts, not actually mad. “Wait—so was he talking to you because he likes you or something and wants to move from Amy?”

It takes you a moment to respond. “It’s… complicated,” you say, and she deflates into a theatrical sigh. “I’ll keep you updated for sure.”

Later, after classes pretend to move slower than molasses. You go to the side courtyard like you promised. He’s there early, hands in pockets, looking like he walked out of a billboard and then stole your ability to breathe. He waves you over like he’s practiced casualness in a mirror.

“So,” he says, hands folded like he’s bracing for feedback as you two settle down on a nearby bench. “About us.”

You swallow. “About us.” Something you thought you’d never hear come out of his mouth, This is ridiculous. Then you remind yourself why you’re here in the first place.

He exhales. “I should make—uh—parameters. Boundaries. Whatever you want to call them..” He looks earnest. Which is both disarming and scalding.

“Okay,” you say. “No kissing. No… anything farther.” You say it like you’re filing a restraining order against your hormones. Your cheeks heat up right after you say it, like you’ve exposed your soul in public.

He gives you a genuinely confused look. “What’s so wrong with kissing?” You look at him and feel stupid and stubborn and painfully sincere. “I want my first kiss to mean something. I don’t want my first kiss to be a prop in someone’s plan. I want it to be because of… feelings. Real ones.”

He studies your face. For a second you think he’s scoffing. Instead he looks surprised, like he expected something else out of you entirely. “So you’re saying you’ve never kissed anyone? You don’t seem like a first-kiss kind of person,” he says, like it’s an observation, not an accusation.

You don’t know if that’s supposed to be a compliment. “I’m not,” you say. “I just… want one that matters.”

He nods slowly, and shockingly, he takes it in. “Okay. No kissing,” he repeats. “No making out. No—anything. Got it. I was looking forward to that part though.” That last sentence makes you look up immediately. He lets out a “oh look at you, you feel for it,” laugh. Of course he didn’t mean it.

“And pet names? Like, are we team ‘babe’ or are we staying sane?”

You sigh. “Pet names are allowed but No PDA that crosses boundaries. Hand-holding okay. Quick pecks on the cheek—fine, but only if it’s not humiliatingly dramatic in front of Amy.”

He snorts at that, and for a moment the tension loosens. “Dates?” he asks. James going on a date with you? You want to poke yourself to make sure this isn’t all just a dream.

“Sure.”

You actually grin, and it feels like a defect in your usual composure. This is insane. You’re literally negotiating love like it’s a group project. He hesitates, then asks, “Can I—uh—pick you up to school? Like, to drive you? Make things look… convincing.”

Your brain short-circuits. “I walk my younger sister to school,” you say. “So no.” He brightens, thinking on his feet. “I can drive her too. Drop them both off. Make it seem legit.”

You gape. “You’d drive my twelve-year-old sister to school?” He shrugs like it’s nothing. “Yeah. Less awkward than you explaining a fake boyfriend every morning.”

“Wow,” you say, simultaneously mortified and oddly touched. “That’s… actually kind. Okay, maybe.”

“And—if you want—I can drive you home now,” he adds. “Make it easier. Practical.” You almost laugh because this feels exactly like a dream for someone else and not like your actual life. But then you see his eyes dart—just for half a beat—toward the tree line at the edge of the parking lot. Amy. 

He looks back at you and, without missing a beat, pulls you closer. His hand rests on the small of your back, which feels equal parts possessive and protective. His other hand ghosts over your arm, fingers light, claiming. “Smile,” he whispers into your ear, breath hot and soft and ridiculous.

His hands wander like they’re memorizing the geography of you—over your shoulder, along your ribs—nothing obscene, just bordering on intimate enough to make your teeth ache.

“Come on, baby. Let’s get you home.” He makes sure to emphasize on the baby part so it’s loud enough for Amy to hear. The pet name lands heavy in your chest.

He slides his fingers into yours and leads you toward the parking lot. Your sneakers scuff the concrete. Maybe the letter getting sent out wasn’t as bad after all. But then you remember this is all an act. James doesn’t actually like you. And once he’s back with Amy? You don’t even want to think about it.

You find the car before you recognize it. Low, polished, the kind of car that hums quietly like it was born rich. Leather seats. Chrome that catches sunlight like it’s showing off. You knew he was from money, but you’d never actually seen it up close like this.

He opens the passenger door for you with a theatrical little bow that somehow feels oddly considerate. “Hop in,” he says, and for a second the world narrows to leather and the faint plastic smell of air freshener and the rapid, stupid beating of your heart.

You climb in, and as the engine starts, you wonder which part of your life is a fever dream and which part, if any, is real.

James pulls up in front of your house like he’s done this a hundred times, like this is just routine for him now. The car quiets, he taps the steering wheel once, and turns toward you.

“Thanks for driving me,” you say, suddenly shy for no reason except he’s looking at you like that. You try to keep your smile contained, but it still slips out, tiny and embarrassing.

He catches it immediately. “Cute,” he says under his breath, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud. He clears his throat, hoping you didn’t hear him slip. 

“So this is where y/n lives? Didn’t know you lived a couple houses down from me.” You smile and reach for the door handle, trying to act like a normal functioning human being, when he stops you with a soft, “Y/n—wait.”

You blink at him. “Yes?” He holds up his phone. “Can I take a picture of us holding hands? For my Insta so Amy can see.” You swear you felt something real between you two until he snapped you back to reality. “Like… right now?”

“Yeah.” He extends his hand, palm up, waiting. “C’mon.”

You place your hand in his because what else are you supposed to do? Say no? Die? Teleport? His fingers lace through yours, warm and soft, and your whole bloodstream turns into electricity. You feel your body heat up. This is your first ever physical contact with him.

He lifts his phone with the other hand and pulls your joined hands closer to the console where the lighting is better. Of course he knows his angles; he’s literally James.

“Look at me,” he murmurs. You do. He snaps the picture the moment you meet his eyes, like he wants you in the frame even if you’re only visible in the reflection of the screen. 

After the photo is taken, he stares at it for a quick second. Call yourself delusional but you swear you saw him holding back his smile. After tagging you, he uploads it instantly. Your heart legitimately forgets how to beat.

“Great,” he says, dropping your hand slowly, almost reluctantly. “Text me when you’re inside.”

“S-sure,” you mutter, stumbling over your own voice like a clown. You climb out of the car. He waits until you’re at the porch before he pulls away, tires rolling smooth and silent like he didn’t just flip your entire life upside down.

You walk in, still clutching the warmth of his hand like an idiot who’s never known happiness before. Your dad glances up from the kitchen, eyes narrowing with that suspicious dad-squint. “Someone’s smiling.” You almost choke. “I’m not—I’m literally—I wasn’t—”

He laughs. “Alright, alright. I’m not interrogating you. How’d you get home so fast?”

Panic rushes through your veins. “Uh. Bella’s brother drove us. We were going the same way.”

Lie. Instant lie. Horrible lie. Bella doesn’t even have a brother. You want to fistfight yourself.

“Huh,” your dad says, not looking convinced but not digging either. “Alright, well—oh! Before I forget.” He stands, wipes his hands on a dish towel, and smiles like he’s about to tell you something wholesome. Instead he says the single worst sentence you’ve heard in your entire life. “I forgot to tell you this but I saw that letter on your desk last week and helped mail it for you, honey.” Your stomach hits the floor. You swear your vision goes white around the edges.

“What—what letter?” You hear your own voice crack like a broken flute.

“The envelope under those textbooks on your desk thst was addressed to one of our neighbours? I figured it’d save you and I less time because I was stopping by the post office anyways,” He beams, proud of himself.

You cannot breathe. So that’s how James got your note. The letter that was literally your unhinged, handwritten, half-fantasy confession about James. The one you should have burned. “Thanks,” you whisper, voice tiny and hoarse. 

You bolt up the stairs the second you’re free, close your bedroom door with the gentlest click ever because of course tonight is the night you suddenly care about door volume, and just… collapse. Face-first into your bed. You don’t even bother turning the lights on.

Your body is still buzzing, like James’s handprint is burned into your skin. Your heart keeps replaying the whole car scene at 8K resolution, IMAX, Dolby Atmos, every upgrade possible.

James and Amy? Over. James talking to you? Actually real. James fake dating you? Also real. You? Completely malfunctioning.

You roll onto your back and stare at the ceiling like it personally betrayed you. Because the thing is, it’s fake. He asked for to take the picture for Amy, not because he wanted it for himself. He’s James. He dates girls who look like they stepped out of a perfume commercial. You literally tripped over air in homeroom last week.

Still… your chest squeezes around this tiny, dangerous wish. You wish it wasn’t fake, how he meant the way he looked at you in the car, and the warmth in his hand wasn’t just acting. But whatever. That’s not your life. Guys like him don’t like girls like you. You know that. You’ve always known that.

Next morning starts off painfully normal, which is honestly rude given the way last night cracked your brain open. You drag yourself out of bed, brush your teeth while half-asleep, pull on a hoodie that still smells vaguely like laundry detergent and despair, and braid Annie’s hair while she wiggles like a caffeinated squirrel.

“Hold still,” you mutter, trying to tame the last strand. “I am holding still,” she says, not holding still. You finally get her ready, grab your bag, and step out of the building with her hand in yours. It’s quiet outside, cool enough to wake you up a little. The walk to her school is familiar, easy, predictable.

Your brain needs predictable right now. You’re three blocks down before a car honk breaks the morning calm—one sharp, deliberate beep.

You and Annie both turn at the same time.

James’s car is parked at the curb. Leaning slightly toward the window, one hand on the wheel, raising his eyebrows in a “Really? You forgot?” kind of way.

“Oh shit,” you whisper. Annie gasps dramatically and sprints toward the car like she’s starring in her own movie. “Did you just say a bad word?” she calls out over her shoulder. “Also who’s that?”

“My… uh…” You have nothing. No explanation. Just panic. “Just—wait—Annie!” But she’s already yanking open the passenger door. “Did you forget about stranger danger?!”

“Hiiiiii!” she beams at him. James grins back, all sunshine and dimples. “Good morning.” He looks cute when he smiles.  You stumble up behind her, cheeks burning. “Sorry—she just—uh—”

“It’s fine,” he says. “She’s cute.”

Annie giggles like he handed her a scholarship. “My sister thinks cute! Her face literally turned red when she—” You quickly slap your palm on top of her mouth, nearly choke on your own tongue. “Annie! You can’t just—say things—!”

James laughs. “I can see that.” Fuck you. He nods toward the backseat. “You riding or walking?” Right. The whole fake dating thing. You climb in, mumbling, “I totally forgot you were picking us up.”

He shoots you a look in the rearview. Teasing. “Kind of figured.” Annie, meanwhile, is already telling him her entire life story. “So my sister woke me up late again, and Y/N didn’t let me have candy in the morning, so can you convince her t—“

“Annie,” you hiss, “personal space!” James glances at you, amused. “Your sister’s very bubbly.”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Runs in the family.” He raises an eyebrow. “Really? Haven’t noticed much of that in you.” You look out the window so he can’t see your face fall and combust at the same time. “Well… it takes me a while to open up.”

There’s a beat of silence—soft, not awkward. Then, quietly, he says, “I don’t mind that. Your breath trips.  Annie thankfully interrupts you before your brain melts. “Are you Y/N’s boyfriend?” You and James say entirely different things at the exact same time.

You: “NO—no no no—he’s not—don’t—” James: “Something like that.”

You whip your head toward him so fast your neck protests. “What?!” He smirks. “Relax. Just keeping the story consistent.” “That’s not consistent, that’s— that’s—”

“Convincing,” he finishes, winking. You swear your pulse jumps like it’s trying to break out of your body. By the time he pulls into the school parking lot, your nerves are shredded.

“Wait.” His voice stops you again. You freeze halfway out. He gets out too. Walks around the car. And then extends his hand. Palm up, a silver ring on his index finger. 

“Come on,” he says. “They’re already staring.” Your stomach drops to your knees. You place your hand in his, because apparently you’ve lost all brain function. His fingers lace through yours. Firm. Warm. Familiar already in a terrifying way. You wonder what if he uses hand cream—and if so, what kind?

You walk side by side, hands joined, through the courtyard. Every. Single. Person. Looks. Someone literally whispers, “Are you kidding me?” as you pass. Another girl stares like you committed a war crime. You try to keep your face blank, but your heart is doing parkour. Even his friends look at him weird. James leans toward you just slightly. “You good?”

“I’m—fine,” you lie. He squeezes your hand. A tiny squeeze. You nearly short-circuit. Then you turn down the hall. And there she is. Perfect hair. Perfect face. Perfect everything. Leaning against her locker with her friends, scrolling through her phone—Amy.

Until she sees you and James. Her entire expression freezes—then sharpens. Expression goes from neutral to knives-out in half a second.

It hits you so hard your stomach does a full gymnastics routine. You instantly look away, like you’re gonna be burned alive if you make eye contact for more than a microsecond. James actually glances. Quick, sharp, assessing—like he’s checking if she saw. And apparently she did, because he gives the smallest nod to himself and keeps walking.

Your palm is sweating in his, which is honestly humiliating, but he doesn’t comment. Doesn’t squeeze or slow down or look at you twice. He’s just walking. Playing the part. Cool. Unbothered. Like this is all just logistics. People are still staring, whispering, straight-up gawking as you pass.  You keep your face forward. Try not to shrink… or die. All three are failing.

When you reach his locker, he drops your hand casually like he’s turning off a light switch. He spins his combo, grabs a book, and says, completely normal, “I saw her staring.”

Your heart is still in your throat. “It’s progress, I guess.” He nods once, satisfied. “Think it’s working.”

James doesn’t look at you again—just shuts his locker with a quick clack and tosses his bag over his shoulder like he didn’t just nuke your nervous system in the hallway.

“See you later,” he says, already turning away. And you’re left standing there, trying not to look like you’re about to dissolve into mist.

The rest of the week doesn’t calm down — it just mutates into this weird fever dream where James keeps doing things that make your brain short-circuit.

Like Wednesday morning, when you’re trying to open your locker and the stupid thing jams for the eighth day in a row. You mutter under your breath, “I hate this place,” and kick the bottom corner. Out of nowhere, James appears behind you, lean and warm and annoyingly tall.

“Move,” he says, voice low like he’s about to break into a safe.

“I’ve tried that,” you snap, not even looking up. “It doesn’t—” He slams his palm against the top left edge with one clean, confident hit. The locker pops open like it’s scared of him. Hot. “Are you—what? How—?!”

He shrugs, smirking. “You’re welcome.”

You roll your eyes way too dramatically, but you’re pretty sure your soul floats out the back of your head when he taps the top of your hair and says, “I’ll be here if you need help with anything else.”

You stare after him like a malfunctioning Roomba as he walks off.

Then there’s Thursday, when you’re walking through the courtyard with James and trip over absolutely nothing. Like, genuinely nothing. A single leaf. A shadow. Air. You go stumbling forward like a newborn deer. Before you can fall, James catches the back of your hoodie and pulls you upright by the hood like you’re a cat being relocated.

“I swear to God,” you wheeze, face on absolute fire, “the ground attacked me.”

“Yeah,” he deadpans, “the ground looked really hostile.”

You shove his shoulder because you can’t come up with a good comeback and also because you’re mortified. He lets out a quiet chuckle and it unlocks something sweet and dangerous in your chest.

Next it’s Friday morning. You and Annie are waiting for him outside, and your sister is bouncing around talking about how she wants to get a hamster named Bean. James comes out of the car, leans over the passenger seat, and gives Annie an exaggerated thumbs-up.

“Bean’s a great name,” he says, like he’s taking her dead seriously. “Very strong. Very intimidating.”

Annie giggles like she’s met a celebrity. You can tell that your sister likes him a lot. Too bad it might all end soon. You’re standing there blinking because why is he being sweet when no one is watching? There’s no audience at 7:53 AM on a suburban sidewalk. No reason to impress anybody. He looks at you for a beat too long. “What?” you say, defensive because your nervous system is fried.

“Nothing,” he says, that tiny smile tugging at one corner. 

Later that same day, you’re at his soccer practice again, this time on mandatory fake-girlfriend attendance, apparently, but this time you don’t sit on the bleachers. You’re late, so you stand awkwardly by the fence, hugging your bag. 

James sees you. Mid-scrimmage. He’s literally making it past two guys and still looks over like you’re a lens flare he enjoys catching. Amy’s on the far side of the field glaring daggers, and that’s probably why he does it, why he pushes a bit harder. For some reason, she started showing up again. 

But then he smirks. And it’s not aimed at Amy. He jogs up after scoring, out of breath, flushed, hair sticking to his forehead. The kind of sweaty that shouldn’t be attractive but absolutely is.

Before you know it, his practice ends, the sun’s low, and the field looks like it’s glowing. You’re standing by the fence scrolling your phone, pretending you’re not waiting for him even though obviously you are.

They scrimmage one more play. James gets the ball. The field actually erupts. He slips past two defenders, cuts left, shoots—Goal. The boys yell and explode like he just cured cancer. And then he does something so stupidly cinematic you almost faint: He runs straight toward you. Like you’re his checkpoint.

He stops right by the fence, cheeks flushed, chest heaving, jersey sticking to him — black and green, drenched in sweat, clinging to every muscle that should not legally exist on an 20-year-old.

“Did you see that?” he breathes out, grinning like he’s half-drunk on adrenaline.

“I—I mean—yeah,” you say, but it comes out more like a squeak because you are absolutely staring. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his neck glistening, jaw sharp enough to slice your willpower in half. He smirks when he notices.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” he teases, voice low. You immediately snap your eyes away. “I wasn’t—looking. I was—blinking.”

“I didn’t know blinking took that long,” he murmurs, leaning a little closer to the fence. You nearly dissolve into the grass.

By the time he drops you off, your brain is a puddle. He taps the steering wheel, looks at you with that same unreadable-soft expression you’re starting to recognize. “Same time tomorrow?” 

Before you could answer, your dad comes out on the porch at the worst possible moment, holding a mug and squinting into the driveway. “Is that the handsome guy Annie keeps talking about?”

Why oh why. “Wha—dad—I—no—?” James, traitor that he is, just smiles and waves like this is a barbecue and not the crumbling of your sanity. “Yes I am!”

Your dad lights up. “Well! Why don’t you stay for dinner?” You see James glance at you like he’s asking for permission—like you’re the deciding vote before he says, “Sure. If that’s okay.” Okay?? You’re already having an out-of-body experience. Inside, Annie is THRIVING. She pats the couch between her and James like she’s the host of a reality show. You sit, fully preparing to be normal. You fail immediately.

Halfway through the movie, James shifts closer—casual, smooth, evil—and drapes an arm behind you on the couch, feeling himself at your home. Not even touching you yet, just… there. Warm. Heavy. Loud in your peripheral vision. Your heart is trying to escape your ribcage with a crowbar.

Then, out of nowhere, he reaches over and slides the scrunchie out of your ponytail. Slow. Deliberate. Like he’s unwrapping a present. Your hair falls down your shoulders and you swear the air temperature spikes 40 degrees.

“Looks better like this,” he murmurs, barely audible over the TV.

You’re going to combust. Annie is too invested in the movie to notice you dying.

He loops it around his wrist, then pulling out his phone to check something. You assume he’s going to post something on his Instagram for Amy to see, but he checks the time instead. Strange

Your dad comes in once to ask if you all want snacks. James answers politely. You stare at the wall like you’re seeing God. He grabs a piece and feeds it to you. Even morestrange.

Eventually it gets late, and he stands, gives Annie a little salute, thanks your dad for the evening, and looks at you with this unreadable softness that makes your stomach flip.

“See you tomorrow,” he says.

—

The night air is cold enough to bite, but he doesn’t feel it. His whole skin is still warm from your house, your couch, your hair brushing his shoulder. 

As he hopped into the car, shouldn’t be thinking about that. It wasn’t supposed to feel like that. Getting out, he walks up his front steps, keys halfway out of his pocket, when he freezes.

Amy is sitting on his porch. Arms crossed. Eyes sharp. Wearing that perfume he likes.

“James,” she says, chin tilted, voice honeyed she knows works on most people.

He exhales, slow. “Amy. What are you doing here?”

She stands up, taking a step closer. “I wanted to talk. We haven’t really—y’know—processed everything. And I…” She lets the sentence trail off, fingers brushing his arm like muscle memory. “I miss you. We were good together.”

He should want this. He knows that. This was the whole point, wasn’t it? Proving he could move on, making her jealous, getting her to come back.

“We were,” he says quietly. It comes out flat. Even he hears it.

Amy leans in, confidence flickering back. “I mean… moving on to someone like her?” She smirks. “Convincing. I’ll give you that.”

He doesn’t say anything. She slides her hand down his arm like she’s done it a thousand times — because she has. Her voice drops. “You could’ve just talked to me, James. You didn’t have to pretend.”

Her eyes glint. She steps closer again, enough that her breath hits his collarbone. “What do you say? Are you up for a redo?” Amy reaches for his wrist, then stops at a certain spot.

“Oh.” Her voice shifts — sweet turning sour. “What’s this?” Her fingers brush the scrunchie. Your scrunchie. Still warm from your hair. She looks up at him, eyebrows lifted like she’s caught him with a crime weapon.

“Is that Y/n’s?” she asks, sickly sweet. His voice is small, quieter than he expects. “It is.”

Amy lets out a low, humorless laugh. “Wow. You’re really committing to the bit.” He doesn’t correct her.

She slips it off his wrist and ties her hair with it, steps back, arms folding. “Well,” she says, lips curling, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, James.”

She walks away without waiting for an answer. Her perfume lingers. But his wrist feels heavier than everything she tried to imply. He stands there a long time after she’s gone. And the scrunchie stays exactly where it is.

—

James picks you up like nothing happened, acting like he didn’t stand on his porch last night looking existential with your scrunchie on his wrist while his ex tried to crawl back into his life.

“Morning,” he says, voice warm, as you hop into the car. 

“Good Morning.”

He glances over, tapping the steering wheel. “Tired?” You scratch your neck, letting out a soft groan. “Not at all.”

He actually laughs under his breath. “Liar.” Ugh. Of course he knows.

He drives for a bit, a comfortable quiet settling between you — or, well… almost comfortable. Then he says it. Soft. Almost shy. “I really like spending time with you.”

You freeze. Brain: 404 error. “Why?” you say before your filter can save you. He looks over. “Why not?”

“No, like—” you wave a hand, “you don’t have to do the whole… nice boyfriend act right now. No one’s looking.” 

His brows pull together, confused, just a tiny bit hurt. “I know.” It’s nothing. It’s everything. You don’t know what to do with it, so you shove it into the mental junk drawer and slam it shut.

—

After your second class, Bella picks you up and you two walk to your lockers, minding your own business, when Amy appears like a horror movie jump scare, leaning against the lockers, arms crossed, eyes on you like target practice.

“You know James doesn’t actually like you?” She says sweetly.

It’s not like you didn’t know that. The thing going on between James and you is all for show. Bella stiffens beside you. You close your locker and keep walking. 

Amy clicks her tongue. “Y/n—you forgot something.”

You turn just in time to see her toss your scrunchie. It hits the floor at your feet like a punchline. Bella’s eyes go HUGE. “Um. What—?”

“I’ll explain later,” you mutter, scooping it up with fingers that are absolutely trembling.

You don’t go to his practice after that. Screw that. Screw all of it. You go home, burrow under your blanket, and try to convince yourself you don’t care even though you obviously care so much it feels like a bruise.

Around six, there’s a knock downstairs. Please don’t tell me it’s who I think it is.

You hear your dad open the door.

“Oh! Hi James!”

“Is Y/n home?” he asks, and his voice is nervous. Nervous? Since when does James get nervous? “Yes, she’s upstairs in her room, doing whatever you teenagers do.”

“Can I— uh— can I talk to her?”

“…Sure, come in.”

You want to sink into the floorboards. Your dad calls up the stairs, “Y/n! James is here!”

Yeah, you heard.

A moment later, there’s a soft knock on your door. “Can I come in?” You don’t answer, and quickly pull the cover over you. He opens just enough to peek inside. “Hey.” You sit up, knees tucked to your chest. “Hi”

He steps inside, closes the door behind him, runs a hand through his hair like he’s trying to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on his own life. “Why didn’t you show up to my game? You always show up.” 

You look at him for a long second, then ask the question that’s been chewing through your ribs all day.

“Did you… meet up with Amy last night? And then give her my favourite scrunchie?” 

His head snaps up fast. “No.”

“No?”

“I mean—yes and no. It’s not what you think.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Then what happened?”

He sighs, shoulders dropping. “She just spawned in front of my house as I was driving home. I never asked her to come” Your chest tightens, but you keep your voice steady. “Right. And when she took my scrunchie… you just let her take it?” He flinches a little — just barely, but you see it.

“Yeah, that’s my bad,” he says quietly. “But hey, at least you got it back.”

You stay quiet, jaw set as you look down at the scrunchie on your wrist.

“And it’s not a big deal,” he adds quickly. “It’s just a scrunchie y/n.” He stops himself. “Well — not just a scrunchie. Yours.” Your lungs betray you with a small inhale. He moves a little closer, hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “Really. And… I wanna make it up to you.”

You tilt your head “How?” And because he’s him — chaotic, dramatic, inexplicably confident — he smiles.

“You heard of ‘Ski Slopes Nation?” The ski trip party my friend hosts every year. It’s, uh, kinda big. And really fun. I want you to come with me.”

You look down at yojr hands, unsure what to say. Strange, wouldn’t he have asked Amy? “James, I don’t even know anyone there.”

“Okay,” he says, shrugging, taking one small step closer. “So what? You’ll know me.”

“That’s not enough. You’ll be distracted by you know who.”

He sighs, walking towards your bed as he puts his finger under your chin, turning your head to face him. He tilts his head, smirk creeping back. “You’re the only distraction I need.”

Your stomach flips so hard you have to look away again. How can he say this when he doesn’t even like you?

“Think about it,” he murmurs. He reaches for the doorknob, pauses, glances back at you with that soft half-smile. “And for the record, I’ll buy you snacks for the whole time we’re there.”

Then he leaves you alone with your heartbeat trying to set a new world record.

“Wait… it was fake?!” Bella’s voice is a cartoon of betrayal—half screech, half wounded martyr. You’re sitting across from her at your usual greasy-spoon table, regretting your life decisions, and she’s dramatically clutching her phone like you’ve personally stolen her childhood.

“I thought he actually liked you,” she adds, scandalized. “I mean, everything! His stories, the way he looked at you—God, I practically had a panic attack of joy.”

You shrug, because what else do you do when your life is embarrassing and baffling at the same time. “It was the plan. To make Amy jealous. To get her to get back with James.”

Bella pokes your forehead with the end of a fry. “So you were a pawn? That is actually a geniu—horrible!”

You let out a sigh and then tell her about the ski thing—James’s invitation that felt suspiciously like a peace offering. Bella immediately goes into PR mode.

“Why aren’t you going?” she asks, all business now. “This could be huge. Honestly, go. I’ll totally come with you if that’ll change your mind.”

You almost say no. You almost say yes. You do say, finally, “Okay, but you cannot leave my side for once.”

She claps and picks up your phone from the table. “Text him now.” She demands while handing you her phone. Slowly, you unlock your phone and type in: “Ok, Ski Slopes Nation it is.” Sent.

Weekend flies. Saturday morning, you stand by the curb, heels tapping like a metronome, expecting Bella’s overzealous face any second. Typical you overpacked for a three night trip. James pulls up right on time, engine purring luxury. You get in. You do a full inventory of your nerves.

Ten minutes later you notice Bella’s text: one-line replies. 

Bella: Sorry guys, mom lowkey got mad because I fumbled my test 🙁. Maybe next time?

You stare at the message like it physically hurt. She didn’t tell you before. This was her plan all along for you to go to the Ski Slopes Event alone with James. She was never going to come.

You turn to James, ready to explode with “where is she?” but the words scramble and bail right out of you. Your hand goes for the door handle. You’re doing the awkward petty-exit thing when he reaches over, still driving, and grabs your wrist gently.

“Wait,” he says. His voice is small, not demanding, just…earnest. “Please. Don’t go.”

You stare at his hand on yours. Your knee-jerk plan is to get out and walk, to reclaim dignity off the side of the highway, but the highway is suddenly very far away and his palm is somehow steadying.

“Why?” you ask, because why not make him explain himself.

He pulls into the next parking spot, kills the engine, and turns fully to you like it’s the thing he’s meant to do all day. The car becomes its own little island of breath.

“I wanted you to come,” he says, simple and flat, like it’s obvious and he’s been dying to say it. “Not because of Amy. Not to make her jealous. I… I actually like doing this with you. I like spending time with you.”

Your brain files that under “unreliable information” and simultaneously under “this actually matters.” You blink. “But—wasn’t this whole thing supposed to get Amy back?”

He hesitates, then answers honestly, the way people answer when the truth is awkward but necessary. “Yes that was the plan. At first. But I don’t know if I want to go back to that. I don’t know if I ever did. And the more time I spend with you—not pretending—it’s not the same. You’ve made me felt something no one else has ever made me feel. But what I know is that I like you. A lot.”

You roll your eyes because dramatic vulnerability is embarrassing even when it’s kind of endearing. And your body heats up. Your cheeks are probably tomato colored, but you try staying nonchalant. “So what, you just switched teams mid-game?”

He gives you one of those looks that’s half apology, half dare. “Sort of. Do you… do you wanna keep doing this? Not for Amy. For us. Keep this—whatever this is—going?”

You inhale, exhale, try to be sensible. “You know how this looks,” you say. “Welp, the love letter sure worked out—just now how I expected.”

He smiles, small and stubborn. “It sure did.”

You can’t help the laugh that escapes—part incredulous, part hopeful. You tuck your hand back into yours under the dash. “Fine,” you say, because why be brave when you can be cautiously stupid instead. “But I’m watching you. One misstep and I will glare you into ashes.”

“Deal,” he says, a grin tugging at his lips that’s half triumphant, half relieved. “Also, I’m getting your scrunchie back. Properly next time.”

You look out at the highway ahead, and despite the chaos, despite the lying and the staging and the way your life currently reads like a badly edited montage, there’s a tiny part of you that answers before your brain can veto it.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Let’s keep doing this—carefully.”

He squeezes your hand. The car pulls back onto the road, and the rest of the world sounds like muffled static for a second, just you and the hum of the engine and the very complicated possibility of something messy and real.

“Are you sure you have snow tires on?” You double check as more snow comes down while you guys drive up the mountain. The atmosphere in the car was not quiet, but soft. Not awkward anymore, not tense, just this gentle humming between you two—like the car has its own heartbeat now and it somehow synced to yours. James lets out a low chuckle, reaching for your hand, giving it a tight squeeze. 

“I’m sure y/n.” The way he spoke your name was so attractive yet reassuring. Snow lines the trees like powdered sugar and the sky is a blue so obnoxiously pretty it looks edited. James keeps flicking quick glances at you like he’s checking if you’re still real. You’re still trying to get over the fact that you’re seated in Jame’s car that actually has feelings for you.

When he parks outside the lodge, you hop out and the cold instantly punches your lungs. He grabs the bags before you can even protest because he’s a show-off with biceps, apparently. Inside, the place is gorgeous—warm lights, crackling fireplaces, couples everywhere wearing matching sweaters like they’re in a Pinterest board.

James leads you down a hallway lined with wooden doors and stops at one. Unlocks it, then opens the door. You follow him in. And freeze.

There are multiple reasons why you freeze. First and most obvious reason, the scenery. You knew James and his friends were filthy rich, but this is on a next level. The place was small, but it felt so cozy and expensive at the same time. Second reason, the bed. Notice how it’s bed and not beds plural? 

“…Hold on,” you say, voice thin. “Where’s—uh—the other bed?” There is one bed. One. Big, yes. Fluffy, absolutely. But still ONE BED.

James glances at it like it’s the weather. “Oh. Yeah. They ran out of doubles.” He looks at you over his shoulder. “Is that okay? It is pretty spacious so we can sleep on either ends.” 

Is that OK??

Your soul: NOPE. SOUND THE ALARMS. EVACUATE THE PREMISES.

Your mouth: “Yeah it’s fine.”

Typical y/n. Always lying out of your ass crack.

He tosses his duffel on the floor and starts unpacking, casual as ever, while your brain is mapping out emergency escape routes and calculating the surface area of the bed to figure out how far you can sleep from him without dying.

“We’ve got, like, four hours until the big event,” he says, kicking off his shoes. “It’s basically a party with drinks and games. Then we go skiing. People kinda go all out.”

Skiing? You? “Is it bad that I don’t know how to Ski?”

He snorts—soft, fond. “It’s okay. I’ll teach you if you’re down. I’m sure you’ll be able to manage.

He finishes unpacking and flops onto the bed, arms behind his head. “You can talk, y’know,” he says, teasing. “You’re doing that quiet-stressing face again.”

“I’m not”—

“You are.”

“Stop reading my mind.”

“Stop being readable.”

You grab your water bottle just to have something to do. He watches you, amused. The silence stretches—not awkward, but charged. Like static in the air before lightning strikes. 

You sit on the edge of the bed, rambling about something—how cold it is, how Bella tricked you, how the hallway smells weirdly like cinnamon. You don’t stop talking because if you stop, you’ll think, and if you think, you’ll panic.

Halfway through your rant about overpriced ski equipment, you notice he’s not responding. He’s just… staring. Not in a bored way. Or in a polite-listening way.

In a hungry way. In a memorizing-your-mouth-movements way. In a way no fake boyfriend should ever stare. No one has ever looked at you like that.

You clear your throat. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

James’s voice is low, a little rough. “I don’t know.”

You short-circuit. “I—what—you—you don’t know—?”

“Yeah.” He shifts closer—just enough for your knees to touch. 

You swallow. Loudly. “Cute.”

“Mm.” His eyes drop to your lips like gravity dragged them there. “And distracting.”

Your heart is doing backflips. Your hands start sweating. You are ninety percent sure you’re about to ascend straight off the bed.

“James…” you whisper, though you’re not sure if it’s a warning or an invitation. He moves closer, slow enough to give you time to pull back. You don’t. You couldn’t even if you tried. His forehead almost touches yours, breath warming your skin. “Tell me if you don’t want this,” he murmurs.

You don’t answer. You lean in. Never once in life were you expecting James to be your first kiss. Obviously in those little fantasies of yours, but never in real life.

His lips brush yours—barely, like a question he’s too scared to ask out loud—and your breath catches so hard your ribs ache. He tilts his head, closes the space, kisses you properly this time, soft but hungry, like he’s been holding this in for weeks.

He pulls back, breathless, eyes flashing with something you can’t quite name. Then suddenly he’s dragging you into his lap, steady hands guiding you, brushing a stray piece of hair behind your ear before pulling you in for another kiss. This one is hungrier—messy, frantic, almost starving.

A small moan slips out of you the second his tongue pushes into your mouth. He’s good—too good. And you were the complete opposite. Heat blooms low in your stomach, and you can feel him hardening beneath you, the realization sending a shiver through your whole body.

He chuckles against your lips, the vibration buzzing straight through you as his tongue keeps exploring your mouth.

“You like that?” he murmurs, fingers trailing up your thigh. You nod instantly, needy, like your body answered before your brain could catch up.

He leans in, breath brushing your ear. “Tell me what else you want,” he murmurs. You part your lips, but nothing comes out—you’re too wound up, too turned on from everything he’s already done.

“Tell me, baby.” The pet name makes your pussy clench around nothing.

“I—I don’t know,” you finally manage to whisper.

“You don’t know?” he repeats, eyebrow lifting in a teasing way. Embarrassment floods your cheeks as you shake your head and bring your hands up to hide your face.

“Hey,” he says softly, pulling your hands away. Your eyes meet, and he him unintentionally bitting his lower lips, his eyes now roaming all over your body.

Before you can even react, he’s kissing you again—deep, consuming, pulling you straight back into the heat of him.

“Do you know how to grind on me?” he asks when he pulls away again. You shake your head no.

“Here, let me guide you.”

His hands settle on your ass, gentle but sure, guiding your hips back and forth over his clothed cock as he pulls you back into the kiss. You both let out soft moans, the sound tangled between your mouths. It’s overwhelming, your fingers sliding into his hair, tugging just enough to pull another sound out of him.

“God, baby… you look so hot on top of me,” he whispers, his hands roaming over your ass again.

Before you know it, James’s hands slide down to the zipper of your jeans. He wants more—you can feel it in the way his breath catches, the way his fingers hesitate there like he’s waiting for permission. You stop him, catching his hands before he can go any further.

He looks up at you immediately, eyes searching your face.

“Something wrong?” he asks softly, tilting his head just a little.

“I—I don’t want to go further than that,” you say, your voice small but steady. “Not right now.”

James searches your face like he’s trying to read every micro-expression you’ve ever had in your whole life.

“Am I making you feel uncomfortable?” he asks quietly. You shake your head fast. “No, it’s not that. I just… don’t wanna do that right now.”

His shoulders loosen immediately. “Oh. Okay.” And the way he says it—soft, not offended, not disappointed—makes something warm twist in your chest.

He presses one last kiss to your forehead before sliding you gently off his lap. “I’m gonna go shower,” he murmurs, thumb brushing your cheek, “then we’ll get ready for the party.”

When he disappears into the bathroom and the door clicks shut, the room feels too big. Too quiet. Too… loud inside your head. You flop back onto the bed and stare at the ceiling again, because apparently that’s your hobby now. And, of course, your brain immediately starts being a menace.

Yeah, he used to do this with Amy. Plus, breakup wasn’t even that long ago. Maybe you’re just some transitional little detour while he untangles whatever is still left inside him.

You groan into a pillow. “Get it together,” you mumble at yourself. Your overthinking is doing parkour.

Then the bathroom door swings open—and your soul exits your body.

James steps out with a towel sitting dangerously low on his hips, droplets rolling down his chest like they were directed by a film crew. His torso? Toned. Defined. Absolutely from-the-cover-of-a-ski-lodge-soccer-player-romance-novel level sculpted.

His dyed dirty blonde hair is wet, dripping onto his shoulders, making him look unfairly good. You snap your gaze to the window like it personally offended you.

He grabs his bag and looks over at you. “You gonna get ready?” he asks casually, like he isn’t currently the hottest man alive standing half-naked five feet away.

“Uh—yeah. Yeah, I was just… thinking.” (About your sanity evaporating.)

You peel yourself off the bed and rummage through your bag, already annoyed at yourself because you did not pack for a fancy winter party. You pull out something normal, plain, safe—because of course you brought nothing special. James glances over with a soft smile. “Going casual?” You shrug. “I didn’t really bring, like… party clothes.”

His eyes drag over your outfit, then your face.

“You’ll look amazing,” he says simply.

The Ski Slopes Nation’s “big event” is already at full volume by the time you and James walk in. It’s loud. Like… loud-loud. Bass thumping through the floorboards, laughter coming from every corner, people yelling over each other like they’re competing for the Olympic gold medal in being obnoxious. James doesn’t even flinch. He’s been to a million of these. You on the other hand—feel like you just walked into a live-action TikTok POV.

James keeps a warm hand at the small of your back as he leads you through the crowd. “C’mon,” he says, leaning down so you can hear him, breath brushing your ear. “Gotta introduce you.”

His friends spot him immediately.

“AYYYY ZHAO YUFAN BOY!” A giant wasian guy—Martin—throws his arms up like James just scored a goal. He’s tall. Like… tree-level tall. The kind of tall that makes you physically tilt your head back to make eye contact. Next to him is Keonho—smaller, ridiculously handsome, annoyingly charming. Both of them stare at you for a beat, confused as hell.

James just grins. “Guys, this is Y/N.” Martin nods like he’s analyzing an alien species. “Ohhh… she’s the one.” Keonho elbows him. “Bro, don’t be weird.”

You want to evaporate. James squeezes your hand like he can tell. People around the room keep glancing. Whispering. Doing double-takes. James showing up with another girl this soon after Amy? Yeah. You can practically feel the gossip starting to ferment.

You clear your throat. “I’m, uh, gonna grab something to drink.” James nods, gentle. “I’ll be right here.” The second you leave, Martin leans in with that tall-guy nosiness. “Dude. She’s so different from Amy.”

James rolls his eyes. “Okay?”

“No, like… in a good way,” Martin says. “She’s calm. Doesn’t have that whole… I’m-influencing-the-room energy.”

Keonho smirks. “And you like her. It’s obvious.” James gives them a look but doesn’t deny it. Across the room, Amy is staring—hard. Snow-white expensive looking sweater that somehow makes her look like a judgmental snow angel. She watches James talk to his friends, then looks you up and down like you’re the clearance rack version of her.

You return with a drink—your first real drink ever—and try to pretend the room isn’t spinning from nerves. You take a sip. And another. And another. Warmth blooms in your chest, buzzing under your skin. James finds you instantly. “Hey.”

His brows pinch. “You good? You seem… off.”

You look at him. And your brain decides now is the perfect time to unhinge.

“You… used to have sex with Amy a lot, right?”

James chokes. Like, full cough-wheeze combo. “That’s what’s been bothering you?”

You shrug, trying to play it off. “It—doesn’t really matter. I mean… I know you’re with me right now, so that’s all that counts.”

James steps closer, hand cupping your jaw gently. “Y/N. She’s my past. You’re the one I’m choosing now. And every second with you feels… different. Better.”

Your chest squeezes so tight you forget how to swallow.

You look down at your shoes. “It’s just… I guess my first time with you would be your… I don’t know… however-many-th time with her.”

A breath leaves him—soft, understanding. “Hey. Look at me.”

“I’m not comparing you to her. I’m not thinking about her when I’m with you. I’m here, with you. And I like us. A lot.”

You nod slowly. “Yeah. Okay. You’re right.” And just like that, the tension melts a little.

The night blurs in the best way—laughter, games, James’s friends warming up to you, your drink going down way too easily. You’re not drunk, but definitely… pleasantly wobbly. James stays close the whole time, his arm brushing yours, hand grazing your lower back, fingers brushing your knuckles. Subtle, tiny things that keep your brain fried the entire night. 

At one point Martin challenges James to some stupid game that involves taking shots and hitting a mini soccer ball into a trash can, and you swear the cabin shakes when everyone screams after he makes it. You’re laughing. Actually laughing. And your cheeks hurt in the happiest way.

Eventually, when you’re both a little tipsy and the cold outside feels way too sharp, James wraps an arm around your waist and walks you back to the room.

Inside, you both stand awkwardly over the giant bed again.

“Uh… I’ll sleep on that side,” you say, pointing to the edge like it’s a danger zone.

James nods. “Yeah. Sure.”

You settle under the covers, facing away, trying to breathe normally. James climbs in on the opposite end, careful, respectful, leaving a canyon of space between you. As you close your eyes, the coldness of your body was stopping you from falling asleep. After laying there for a few minutes, you finally resort to your last option.

“James?”

He replies immediately. “Yeah?”

“I’m cold.”

There’s a beat. A quiet little inhale. You could practically hear him breathing from the other side of the bed. Then the mattress dips as he moves closer, sliding an arm around your waist and gently pulling you back into him. Warm. Solid. Safe. You exhale without meaning to, your body relaxing instantly into his.

His breath brushes your neck. “Better?”

“Yeah,” you whisper.

And just like that, wrapped in him, heartbeat syncing with his, you fall asleep.

The next night creeps in faster than you expect. The final night of the trip—the big skiing day. The sky’s already going dark-blue, that weird shade where you can’t tell if it’s late afternoon or 11 p.m., and the cold is sharp enough to pinch your nose.

James helps you zip up your jacket, his fingers brushing your neck, sending chills that have nothing to do with the weather.

“You ready?” he asks, all smug confidence.

“No,” you answer instantly.

He laughs. “You’ll be fine. I’ll teach you.”

Outside, the slopes glow under tall floodlights, making the snow sparkle like someone dumped glitter everywhere. Kids and pros and show-offs are zooming down the hill like Olympic qualifiers. You’re already planning your funeral.

James clips your boots in for you because he doesn’t trust you with anything involving gravity.

“Okay,” he says, stepping behind you, hands gripping your arms gently. “Lean forward a tiny bit. Just enough to not fall backwards.”

“Okay,” you say, immediately leaning like a malfunctioning tower.

He steadies you. “Not that much—unless you wanna eat snow.”

“I’m gonna eat snow regardless.”

“That’s fair.”

He teaches you slowly, patiently—how to stop, how to turn, how not to accidentally kill yourself. And you… kinda get the hang of it? Ish? You manage to go five whole meters without face-planting.

Every time you wobble, he’s right there catching you by the waist. Every time you mess up, he laughs—not mean, but soft, fond, like he likes seeing you try. Eventually, you’re actually skiing—well, sliding down at the speed of an elderly turtle, but still.

James skis backwards in front of you, because of course he can. His eyes are warm, cheeks flushed red from the cold.

“You’re doing good!” he calls out.

“You’re lying to be nice!”

“I am,” he admits.

You finally stop at the bottom and nearly fall, but he lunges forward, catching you. Your helmet bumps into his chest.

“Hey,” he breathes, smiling down at you. “See? You didn’t die.”

“Yet,” you mutter.

After a while, you both sit in the snow, helmets off, catching your breath. Snow somehow gets down the back of your jacket and into your gloves and probably your soul.

You shriek. “OH MY GOD IT’S IN MY SHIRT—” James bursts out laughing. “You good?”

You do the most logical thing: grab a handful of snow and yeet it at his face.

He freezes. Then smirks. “Oh, it’s on.”

Next thing you know, you’re in a full snowball war—screaming, laughing, slipping everywhere, James chasing you around trees with perfect aim while you miss every single throw like you’re allergic to accuracy.

By the time you both stumble back toward the lodge, you’re breathless and soaked and ridiculously happy. Right outside the hallway to your room, James bumps your shoulder lightly. “Hey, uh… go ahead to the room. I need to tell Martin something real quick.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He kisses your cheek—quick, warm—before turning away.

You head inside. You shower, change, check your phone, sit on the bed, go through photos, scroll TikTok, stare at the ceiling, contemplate the meaning of life…

Forty-five minutes pass.

The door finally opens. James steps in, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s tired. “Sorry. Martin was being annoying.”

You smile. “It’s okay. I had fun these two days. Thank you for convincing me to come.”

His eyes soften. “I’m glad you did.”

—

The next morning is chaotic—bags everywhere, people rushing, doors slamming, winter air biting at your face. James looks exhausted, barely awake, stuffing clothes into his duffel like a zombie.

His other friend is waiting for him outside, yelling for him to hurry.

You zip your jacket and head into the hallway. Martin’s there, tying his boots.

“Hey, Martin?”

He looks up. “Hm?”

“What did you and James talk about last night?”

He blinks. “Last night? …We didn’t talk.”

Your stomach drops. “He didn’t see you?”

“No? I didn’t see him at all.”

Oh. Oh great. Fanfuckingtastic. A cold wave rolls through your chest harder than the mountain wind.

When you climb into the passenger seat of James’s car, he’s quiet—clearly tired. He yawns as he turns the engine on. The drive is silent for a long time. Like… too long.

Finally, he speaks. “Are you going to the match today?”

“No.”

He glances at you, confused. “Why not?”

You keep your eyes on the window. “Because I know you didn’t go see Martin.”

The air tightens.

“So who was it?” you ask. James doesn’t answer. Your heart beats loud enough to hurt. The coach starts calling him the second you guys pull into the parking lot.

“James! Let’s go! You’re 14 minutes late. Warm-ups!”

He’s still staring at the steering wheel.

“Tell me,” you whisper. “Did you go see Amy?”

“Look—” he starts, voice low, strained, “I can explain.”

The coach yells again. “FIVE MINUTES, JAMES!”

Your throat burns. “Am I just your second best?”

He winces—like the words physically hit him.

The coach yells again, sharper this time: “Last warning!”

James steps out of the car, but turns back, gripping the door.

“Please,” he says, eyes desperate. “Just come to the game. I promise I’ll explain everything after. Please.”

And then he’s gone, jogging off toward the field, leaving you sitting in the quiet car, heart pounding like it’s trying to break out.

—

The school library is quiet in that specific after-school way — soft humming lights, the vague smell of old pages, one kid coughing somewhere like he’s auditioning for a Victorian death scene. You’re still not sure about meeting up with James after his games. It has been a hell of a week,

You’ve been curled up in a corner armchair for about an hour or two with some random book you grabbed just to distract your brain from… everything. It’s working, sorta. 

Until you flip the page and land on a quote that hits you like a truck:

“If someone chooses silence when they owe you honesty, let them go.

But if your heart aches louder than your pride…

you’ll find your way back anyway.”

You stare at it like it personally slapped you across the face. Why does everywhere you go have to remind you of James. And then you glance at the clock.

You are one hour late to the end James’s game. 

Like — not fifteen minutes, not “oops my bad,”

but a FULL sixty minutes late.

“Shit.”

You jump up so fast the librarian gives you a death glare that could shatter glass.

You shove the book back on the shelf sideways (crime) and practically sprint out. It’s pouring outside — full dramatic movie thunderstorm pouring. The kind that soaks your socks instantly.

You take out your sad little umbrella and start the walk home, hugging your jacket to your chest like that’ll protect you from your own thoughts. But when you reach the edge of the outdoor courts—the ones the team cuts across after games—you pause,

Because there’s someone standing there. Alone. Soaked. Head down. Kicking at the gravel like he’s fighting ghosts. James.

He’s drenched top to bottom, rainwater mixed with sweat, hair plastered to his forehead, jersey clinging to him. And he’s… waiting. Still. Just standing there like he refuses to leave until something changes. Your chest does something stupid and painful, a mixture of guilt and anger.

You walk up quietly, stepping behind him, lifting the umbrella up on your toes so it covers the both of you. One tiny circle of dryness in a whole world of rain.

He tenses first—then turns slowly. The moment he sees you, his expression crumples in this soft, relieved way that knocks the breath right out of you.

“…You came,” he says, voice low, almost disbelieving.

You swallow. “Yeah. I— I was late. And then it started raining, so I was just walking home but…”

Your eyes flick to him.

“But you’re still here.”

You lower the umbrella slightly so you can see his face better. Drops of rain slide down his cheek, and he looks exhausted — not physically, but in that “I’ve been stressing about losing you for hours” kind of way.

“What made you come?” he asks quietly. You shrug, breath fogging the air. “I… read something. And it made me realize I wasn’t done. With us.”

His jaw clenches, and he looks away for a second like he’s overwhelmed.

You take a small step closer. “Who were you with, James?”

He lets out a breath that’s practically a sigh of defeat. “Amy.”

Your stomach sinks — until he lifts his head, eyes sharp, honest.

“But not for what you think.”

You don’t say anything. You just hold the umbrella and wait.

“I went to tell her to stop,” he says. “To stop showing up everywhere. To stop spreading shit about you. About us. To stop acting like I owe her something.”

His voice strengthens, anger threading through it.

“I told her if she messed with you one more time, I’d—” He stops, shaking his head. “—I’d actually lose it. I didn’t want things to blow up in front of you, so I waited until later. That’s it. That’s all it was.”

Your eyes sting. And your voice comes out smaller than you want.

“…Why didn’t you just tell me?”

He steps closer, rain dripping off his jaw. “Because when you asked, you already looked like I’d punched a hole in your chest. And then the coach was yelling at me, and I panicked.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I should’ve told you. I’m sorry.”

The rain softens around you, or maybe you just stop noticing it.

You whisper, “I thought you were… choosing her again.”

His face twists — hurt, like the idea physically wounds him.

“Y/N.”

He reaches out, fingers brushing your wrist gently, like he’s asking permission.

“You were never my second best.” Your throat closes up.

“And I waited,” he adds. “For an hour. In the rain. Just in case there was even a 1% chance you’d show up.” You let out a tiny, shaky laugh. “That’s really dumb of you.”

He smiles, soft and crooked. “Yeah. But I’m yours, so… it tracks.”

You look at him—really look—soaked, shivering, but eyes warm like he never doubted you’d return.

You step forward and tuck yourself against him, arms looping around his waist. He exhales like he’s been holding his breath the whole day and pulls you in, umbrella tilting awkwardly over both your heads.