skye ⭑

The amount of NSFW content being created within the Coerblr/Cortisblr community (that has now spread to the LNGSHOT community) has become genuinely concerning. This isn't just one person making a bad decision, it's several people participating, encouraging each other, and acting like none of this is worth questioning.

To make matters worse, two of the people involved are 16-17 years old, which means they are still minors. Two others only recently turned 18, and now there are rumors that some people participating or interacting with this content may not even be the ages they're claiming to be. If people are faking their ages and are actually younger, that only makes the entire situation even more alarming.

Whether those rumors are true or not, the fact that there's enough uncertainty to even have this conversation should be setting off alarm bells for everyone involved. Instead, people keep brushing it aside or pretending it's normal.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: fandom spaces need boundaries. Or in other words, not every character, creator, or community needs to have NSFW content attached to it, especially when there are minors involved in creating it, consuming it, or interacting with it (and tbh, this won't stop at all). At some point, people need to stop and think about the consequences instead of prioritizing shock value or personal gratification.

I also don't understand why some people are treating any criticism as "puritanism" or "drama." This isn't about policing people's interests since from day one, this has beem about recognizing when a situation has become irresponsible and potentially harmful. If minors are involved in any capacity, people should be taking a step back, not doubling down.

That being said, I also need to address the people responding by telling these creators to kill themselves.

Stop.

You can criticize their actions, call out the behavior, report the content if it breaks platform rules, and even separate from the community entirely like half of us did due to the toxicity. But telling someone to end their life is making your point stronger.

It doesn't make you morally superior or the "good guy." It doesn't help protect anyone, all it does is contribute even more toxicity to an already messy situation. If your response to harmful behavior is to encourage someone to die, you've crossed a line yourself.

Hold people accountable without becoming another example of the toxicity that's already poisoning this community. If your goal is to make fandom spaces safer, then act like it.

I'm exhausted that this conversation keeps happening, but apparently we're still here. I'm just disappointed that we're still having this conversation in the first place. We keep talking about making fandom spaces safer, yet people continue to ignore obvious red flags until everything blows up again.

We should've learned from previous situations and know better by now.

I would also speak about the engene situation, but tbh, it just makes my blood boil and reinforces my reason on why i won't step again into enhablr and will only do it for the Jay story

TWELVE YEARS AGO. CHILDHOOD — slide away ✫ oasis [wc. 1,394]

if someone were to ask you how you’d met martin, or how your story began, you wouldn’t know where to start. he’d always just been there, like the familiar creak of that swing in your neighbourhood park, or like the chair in your school that has always been a little off-centre since the beginning of the year. his presence had become something steady and expected—something that had been there long enough that you stopped questioning when it started.

your mothers, on the other hand, told the story better. according to them, your first meeting was somewhat amusing.

“don’t touch that,” a small voice said very seriously. your hand paused—the one that was reaching for the glass sitting dangerously close to the edge of the table. you turned around slowly and blinked at the boy standing under the warm restaurant lights with his arms crossed, like he was already tired of you.

“why?” you questioned curiously.

“it’ll fall, and then you’ll cry,” he said in a very scientific and factual tone.

“i don’t cry,” you frowned.

“you will.” he looked entirely unimpressed.

you grabbed the glass anyway, and you almost smirked at him—before it slipped and shattered. you were crying so loudly that everybody in the room turned to look for the source of disturbance.

more than the fact that you—the ’fearless yn’, were crying—you hated the fact that the boy had been right. but he didn’t make a smug comment or anything. instead, he sat beside you awkwardly, his hand hovering near your arm for a second before he decided to pat it, like he had seen adults do.

“it’s okay,” he comforted you—or at least, tried to. “i have snacks.

you sniffled and rubbed your red eyes harshly. “what snacks?”

he pulled his sleeve over his hand before wiping away the snot from your face. “strawberry pocky.” he pulled them out of his pocket with his other hand, and offered them to you.

you looked at him carefully. “the whole thing is for… me?”

“we can share. or if you want it that bad,  you can keep it all.”

“share.” you decided firmly.

“ok,” he smiled. “let’s share.”

“i’m yn, by the way,” you said, as you bit into one of the pocky sticks.

“martin,” he grinned.

‘slide away’ by oasis—a band your father loved—played in the background, marking the start of your friendship with a boy you knew you’d fall in love with.

and after that day, he just… stayed.

“ynnie, stop running. you’re gonna fall!” martin called out while chasing after you as you sprinted across the park. your loud and reckless laughter echoed in the large space.

“nah!” you shouted back, right before you tripped hard. your foot caught on a stone and you turned to try and catch yourself. failing to do so, you fell flat on your ass.

he caught up with you quickly, crouching down beside you with a sigh that sounded too mature and old for someone your age. you were the same age, after all.

“she never listens to me,” he muttered to himself, pulling a decorated hello kitty themed bandage from his pocket.

“you carry bandages?” you blinked curiously at him.

“only when i’m with you,” he said while carefully placing it over your knee after making sure there was no dirt stuck to it. 

“why?”

“you fall a lot.”

you stared at him for a second.

“that means he cares,” you whispered to yourself.

“no, it doesn’t,” he said quickly and defensively, but his ears turned red enough to give him away. you pressed him about it for the rest of the day as you got up and continued running around again, but he didn’t argue anymore.

maybe that’s when you realised you’d fallen for your best friend. maybe it was when he’d made up gibberish words to help you out because you couldn’t pronounce some stuff clearly.

“martin!” you whispered. “pass me the guriguri!”

“wait, which one was that again? green?”

“yes!”

maybe, it was much later. maybe love had always been like that with him—small sacrifices done so quietly that nobody else noticed them.

you were at a fancy restaurant with your family and martin’s, to celebrate something unimportant to you.

there was only one brownie left, and you were both eyeing it skeptically.

“split it equally, okay? don’t fight,” your parents laughed and continued with their conversation.

martin looked up at you once, before pushing the bigger part towards you. “you can have more.”

“why?”

“because you’ll complain if i take it.” “well… true,” you laughed.

maybe, it was when he agreed to marry you even before either of you even understood what love really meant.

“boys and girls can’t be best friends forever unless they get married,” you’d overheard someone say in your class during lunch. you didn’t think much of it at first, but then, the thought kept returning no matter what you did—lingering stubbornly in the back of your mind while you brushed your teeth, while you changed into your soft pajamas, while you lay in bed staring up at the ceiling with your stuffed shark plushie tucked beneath your chin.

so, the next day, you asked martin, your best friend, about it.

“mars,” you called out, turning to your side to look at him sitting on the swing. “if we have to get married to stay best friends forever… should we?”

“okay,” he said without missing a beat.

as soon as you both made the decision, you ran to his house.

he googled ‘how to get married?’ on his mom’s laptop while you grabbed a pen and paper. you sat on the heated floor of his living room with your shoulders and thighs touching.

“what’s taxes?” you frowned, pointing to the screen.

“i don’t know.”

“sounds horrible.”

“yeah. let’s ignore that part.”

eventually, you had redirected your focus to amateur tutorials on youtube for ‘diy paper rings — no glue required!’.

you two sat surrounded by scraps of coloured paper and uncapped markers for the next two hours, completely focused on the task.

“it makes sense,” he said. “what?”

“we already like hanging out together all the time anyway.”

“yeah! and if we get married, then nobody can make us stop being best friends!” you exclaimed. he nodded with enthusiasm.

“you’re a genius, ynnie,” he patted your head. you pushed his hand away and pouted at him.

“don’t touch my head. i’m a grown up girl.”

“whatever you say, pretty girl. you’re, like, six.”

“i’m turning eight this year, thank you very much! plus, we’re the same age,” you defended.

“same thing,” he rolled his eyes knowingly.

you made a ring of orange paper, with red suns and hearts messily scribbled on them. martin’s was much neater in comparison to yours—a light blue paper ring with black and dark blue stars neatly drawn—though, he continuously denied caring ‘that much’ about it.

“stop making yours look better than mine,” you accused.

“i’m not even doing anything.”

“liar.”

he laughed quietly.

you waited for your parents to gather at night, and only then choosing to present your rings in makeshift ring boxes (really, they were old shoe boxes you stole from your parents’ shoe racks) at dinner. your mothers pretended to tear up, and your fathers pretended to give martin a serious ‘boy talk’.

when it was finally time, you grinned at him as you pushed the orange ring onto his ring finger. he slipped the blue one onto yours with full concentration.

“done. now, we’re married,” you excitedly announced.

“we’re staying best friends forever,” he explained to your parents.

“is that so?” his mother asked with a smile.

“yeah. we planned it and all,” martin confirmed.

“we’re skipping the taxes thingie,” you whispered loudly to him and nudged his shoulder with yours. “tell them that too, mars!”

“oh yeah,” he realised and set his expression to a serious one. “we’re not doing taxes.”

everybody laughed like it was a joke, but you were both dead-set about the taxes thingie.

you remembered looking at him then, at the complete certainty on his face, at how easy it had been for him to say yes to a forever with you, and maybe that should’ve been your first clue.

you think now that you didn’t really know what love was, but if someone had asked you back then, you would’ve said it was something like this—something easy and comfortable and eternally beautiful, because no one else in the world would’ve answered you that quickly, if you had asked them to marry you.

TEN YEARS AGO. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL — first love / late spring ✫ mitski [wc. 1,293]

elementary school felt softer in your memories. maybe because you were still too young to understand embarrassment properly, or too young to realise how strange it might’ve looked to other people that you and martin moved through life like a matching set, like separating simply wasn’t an option. or maybe it was because loving him still felt easy back then.

“yn, you’re sitting wrong. again,” he pointed at your chair with the back of his pencil.

“a person can’t ‘sit wrong’, martin,” you rolled your eyes.

“well, you are.”

“how does that even work?”

“your chair is so far from your table. this is why your back pains after class everyday,” he said as-a-matter-of-factly. he stood up and pulled your chair—and you, by extension—closer to your table with an awful screech. your hands moved quickly to cover one of yours’ and one of his ears.

“martin!” someone yelled from nearby. he turned back to smile sheepishly at them.

“ow,” you scolded him for the noise.

“it’s your fault.”

“nuh uh.”

“yuh uh!”

“martin and yn. quiet,” your teacher reprimanded you. you glared at each other and then grinned.

“you can’t attack me during school hours,” he warned, reminding you of an old deal you’d made.

“firstly, it’s not attacking if my foot touches your foot very hard ‘by mistake’. and secondly, you’re calling this shitshow a school?” you mumbled. his eyes widened at the apparently new curse word you’d just used.

“what’s ‘shitshow’ mean?” he asked curiously.

“no idea,” you shrugged. “saw it in some movie yesterday. ‘shit’ is bad, so i’m guessing ‘shitshow’ is… more bad?”

he stared at you in disbelief for a second before laughing, your shoulders shaking as your teacher shouted at both of you to calm down once again.

neither of you listened very well. you rarely did when you were together.

maybe love had never arrived all at once for you. there hadn’t been some cinematic moment where everything magically made sense, no dramatic revelation where your heart raced and you realised oh. this is it. 

instead, it had settled quietly into the spaces between ordinary things, weaving itself into the shape of your everyday life so naturally that you hadn’t noticed it happening until much later. because back then, martin was just… your martin.

your classmate, minho, approached you during lunch one day. martin was away washing his hands.

“do you want to trade snacks?” he asked quietly.

you looked at his pudding cup suspiciously. you really really loved pudding.

“what do you want?”

he looked at the strawberry milk on your table. “that.”

you hesitated. martin always drank the strawberry milk from your lunch because your mom packed it even if you hated it.

“i can’t,” you decided firmly.

“why not?” he asked, disappointed.

“because martin likes it.”

minho blinked at you. “...okay?”

you frowned at his confused face. he was the weird and strange one, because obviously you saved things martin liked. that was just how it worked, right?

martin returned as minho left, pushing you further inside on the bench to sit beside you.

“you didn’t drink it?” he asked, pointing at the strawberry milk.

“i saved it.”

his expression softened in a way you didn’t understand fully.

“oh.”

“here,” you pushed it towards him.

“thanks, ynnie,” he smiled brightly at you, like you’d given him a diamond and not a 1-dollar milk carton.

you watched carefully as he poked his straw through it and took a sip. you felt strangely proud afterwards, like you’d done something important.

since then, you had stopped questioning the way he remembered tiny things about you, or the way your first instinct was always to save things for him too. once you grow used to someone being there in every ordinary moment, they stop feeling temporary. they start feeling essential, like a favourite song you’ve heard so many times that you don’t realise how much you love it until the day it suddenly stops playing. you realised that’s how you felt while listening to ‘first love / late spring’ by mitski.

next, you remember your first fight with martin. well, not exactly a fight, but it seemed quite world-ending at that age.

you couldn’t believe your eyes. he’d eaten your gummy worms. all of them.

“you’re evil,” you complained to him during break, sitting on the opposite side of the bench with your arms crossed tightly, unlike how you usually sit next to each other.

“i said i was sorry.”

“that doesn’t bring them back.”

“i’ll buy you more!”

“it’s not about the gummy worms” you grumbled.

his eyes widened. “what’s it about, then?”

you opened your mouth to bite back at him, but closed it again. you weren’t fully sure either, to be completely honest. you were just… upset. and somehow, being upset with martin felt worse than being upset with anybody else.

“forget it,” you said finally.

you didn’t talk to him for the rest of the day. he didn’t sit beside you during art class, and you didn’t share your crayons with him. you both looked so terribly sad and miserable, even your teacher noticed.

“did you two finally get tired of each other?” she joked.

“no,” you both answered immediately. and then you glared at each other again.

that evening, your mom answered a knock at the front door—revealing martin standing there in his school uniform, awkwardly holding a tiny plastic bag from the convenience store in your neighbourhood.

“hello, miss ln. can yn come outside?” he asked quietly.

you shuffled closer to the door suspiciously. “what?”

he held the bag out to you, filled with three packs of gummy worms. you gasped and your eyes widened at the same time.

“i used my allowance,” he confessed, looking at his shoes with a small pout on his face.

“all of it?” you looked at him carefully.

“maybe.”

you stared at the bag before looking up at him again.

“i forgive you,” you decided. his shoulders visibly relaxed and a triumphant smile stretched across his face. you pulled out one of the packets and handed it to him. “share?”

“share,” he smiled softer.

and just like that, everything felt normal again; because neither of you knew how to stay angry at the other for very long.

the next day, your english teacher surprised you all by giving you a free class with one condition.

‘who is your favourite person?’ he scribbled messily on the whiteboard.

“answer this one by one, and then you can sleep or play, or draw on my face with the new colours i got,” he announced.

after five minutes of shouts and yells from you and your classmates, everybody quieted down.

kids around you shouted answers immediately:

“my mom!”

“cha eunwoo!”

“my dad!”

“spiderman!”

“justin beiber!”

“no, iu is better!”

when it was your turn, you answered without thinking—“martin!”

the class went quiet for a second before erupting into loud ‘ewww’s.

you blinked at them in confusion. “…what?”

“you like him!” leesol, your friend, accused dramatically.

“obviously i like him,” you replied, rolling your eyes. “he’s my favorite.”

the class groaned louder. then, your teacher pointed beside you. “what about you, martin?”

he looked up from his desk. “yn,” he answered immediately.

your class screamed louder this time. you looked at each other, equally confused by everyone else’s reaction, because to both of you, the answer had felt very obvious.

who else would it be?

when someone has been woven into every ordinary corner of your life since childhood, you stop knowing how to separate love from habit, or devotion from familiarity. you just know that every memory of growing up somehow leads back to them, and that somewhere along the way, your heart started treating their presence like it was the most obvious thing in the world. like there was no you without them at all.

SIX YEARS AGO. MIDDLE SCHOOL — call your name ✫ sawano hiroyuki [wc. 3,545]

middle school had been cruel in a quiet way. everything changed without actually changing.

you sat next to martin during classes whenever teachers allowed it. you walked home together after school with your bags bumping against each other every few steps because neither of you understood the concept of personal space around the other. you fought over meaningless things like who cheated during board games or whose turn it was to buy snacks from the convenience store. 

something had shifted somewhere along the way. you noticed it in stupid moments first, like how your stomach suddenly felt strange whenever he smiled at you for too long. or how you started fixing your hair before meeting him after school without fully understanding why. or how hearing another girl say his name too sweetly made something ugly and jealous curl quietly in your chest. it felt horrible, especially because you couldn’t stop it.

“do you like anyone?” wonhee asked you suddenly.

you looked up so quickly from your notebook, you almost broke your neck. “what?”

she leaned closer conspiratorily. “do you like anyone?” she repeated.

“no,” you answered too quickly.

she narrowed her eyes at you instantly. “lie.”

“nope. i just don’t like anyone.”

“it’s martin, isn’t it?”

you choked on air, coughing quickly to cover it up. “what? no!”

“bro, come on,” she smiled. “you look at him like he hung the sun.”

“it’s ‘hung the moon’, not ‘sun’,” you corrected, choosing to ignore the rest of her statement.

“you said he reminded you of the sun, so i thought it’d fit better,” she grinned, clapping a hand on your back. when you didn’t say anything, looking at a spot over a shoulder motionlessly with a small smile, she turned around and immediately groaned. “...and we lost yn to martin. again.”

“huh?” you jolted at the sound of your name.

“nothing. just noting how you stopped listening to me, like, twenty seconds ago, when he walked into the room.”

“shut up,” you said weakly, looking back to where martin was standing.

as cliche as it sounded, the sunlight did look beautiful when it spilled across the side of his face—not harshly, but quite the opposite. his hair was growing longer and slightly wavier, and you had made him promise you that he wouldn’t cut it for a while. you told him he’d looked like a prince, and he’d agreed to keep his hair if you’d liked it.

“you like him sooo bad,” wonhee pushed a hand against your shoulder.

you didn’t say anything, proving her words right. well, you did like him. a lot.

martin paused his conversation with his friend the moment he saw you grinning beside wonhee.

you looked beautiful in a way words couldn’t describe. it was unfair to other girls your age, he thought, because you never had a bad ‘phase’ ever. you just always looked pretty, were always smart, and always right by his side, so obviously, you were the best girl ever. not like he cared about other girls when you were there.

“you like yn,” juhoon’s voice brought him back suddenly.

he looked up from the math worksheet sitting idly on his table, waiting to be filled with nonsensical answers.

“no, i don’t.”

“you literally follow her around everywhere.”

“we’ve known each other since we were babies. obviously we hang out, juhoon.”

“right,” he nodded. “you definitely don’t stare at her during math class like a loser.”

he automatically turned to look at you by the window. he noticed the braid he'd tried on you that morning, and some pieces of your hair fell out of it—framing your face in an unbelievably chest-achingly pretty way.

“i don’t stare at her,” he frowned, while quite literally staring at you.

“sure.”

“i don’t.”

“you’re doing it right now.” a small smile tugged at his friend’s lips.

“i just don’t like math classes. shut up,” martin immediately turned away from you, cheeks warming slightly.

“explains the red cheeks and ears too, i guess,” juhoon noted to himself. “hm.”

“maybe i’m descended from northern europeans,” he deflected.

“what?”

“northern europeans,” he nodded solemnly. “their descendants tend to have more capillaries close to the skin’s surface, which makes flushed faces more visible.” he repeated, just as practiced for situations like this—to explain his quick redness.

“your ears are red too.”

he covered his ears with his hands quickly. “shut up.”

your next most memorable moment with martin was the year both of you discovered you needed glasses. the whole occasion felt strangely intimate.

your school had organised mandatory eye tests, and somehow both you and martin failed badly enough to end up sitting side-by-side in the clinic afterwards while waiting for the eyedrops to work properly before the actual test.

“mars,” you called out blindly. he hummed. “i can’t see shit.”

“language,” he automatically scolded you in a way that was second nature to him.

“you were the one who taught me to swear, just so you know,” you pointed out.

“yeah, but i don’t swear in front of nurses.”

“coward.”

the nurse laughed softly as she gently placed another set of drops into your eyes. you immediately recoiled, nearly blinding her.

“stop moving,” martin quietly laughed. “you almost headbutted her.”

“this is torture. it burns,” you whined.

“dramatic ass,” he whispered lowly so only you could hear.

“oh, now you swear?!”

“just not in front of nurses!”

“i hate you.”

“no, you don’t.”

you began to say something, to argue again, but realised… you really didn’t hate him. not even one bit.

your vision blurred even further, and you finally opened your eyes. everything looked fuzzy and soft.

“mars?” you muttered quietly. he hummed again. “where are you?”

“right here, pretty girl.” you felt his long fingers tap against your hand before intertwining your fingers. your chest tightened instinctively.

“oh.”

“can you see much?” he asked.

“you’re a blob,” you said truthfully.

“wow, so romantic,” he said dryly, making the nurse nearby laugh. later, when she briefly left the room, you carefully blinked your watery eyes open to look toward him again—his outline was a little blurry and unfocused. still, you recognised him immediately.

you thought then, stupidly and dramatically and very much like a middle-schooler, that maybe you would always recognise martin somehow, even if the whole world became impossible to see clearly.

one day, martin’s voice simply sounded deeper than before. one day, your school uniforms fit differently. one day, your classmates suddenly became obsessed with lip gloss and crushes and who sat beside who during class. and somehow, without either of you noticing when it happened, looking at him started feeling dangerous—not bad dangerous; just the kind that made your chest ache strangely afterwards.

“ow,” martin winced, fingers pressing down against the strings of his new guitar awkwardly. “this hurts.”

you sat cross-legged on his bedroom floor, flipping lazily through one of your science textbooks while he struggled through the same three chords for nearly an hour minutes straight.

“then quit,” you suggested dryly.

“no.”

“why not?”

“because i already told dad i’d learn.”

“your dad also said he’d stop eating after midnight and then i saw him eating ramen at three in the morning yesterday.” 

he snorted quietly. “wow, traitor.”

“i’m just saying: lying runs in the family.” he kicked your foot lightly with his own.

“you’re annoying.”

“and yet you like hanging out with me every day.”

“because you invite yourself over every day.”

“details details,” you said in a singsong.

he rolled his eyes before looking back down at the guitar resting against his lap.

you watched him carefully from across the room—middle school had made him prettier in an unfair way. his hair had gotten even longer recently, soft black strands falling over his eyes whenever he looked down too quickly. even his voice had changed enough that sometimes it caught you off guard completely.

you hated how aware of him you’d become. you hated it even more because he seemed completely unaffected.

“what song are you even trying to learn?” you finally asked.

his fingers paused. “nothing.”

“that’s suspicious.”

“it’s not.”

“martin.” he sighed dramatically before reaching for his phone and shoving the screen toward you. your eyes widened immediately. “sawano hiro—call your name?”

he looked away almost instantly. “you said you liked it.”

your chest tightened so suddenly, you swore you could feel your heart beating against your chest. because you did love that song. you had cried listening to it once after finishing an episode of attack on titan and martin had laughed at you for nearly thirty minutes afterwards.

“you cried over giant naked people?” he had asked you.

“they were dying,” you had said, hiccuping.

“skill issue.”

“martin!”

and now he was sitting here with aching fingers trying to learn your favorite song in secret.

“…oh,” you said quietly.

“don’t make it weird.”

“i’m not making it weird,” you defended quickly, even though your face suddenly felt warm. “you’re the one secretly practicing emotional anime songs in your room.”

“it’s not emotional.”

“you looked constipated trying to play that last chord.”

“leave me alone.”

you laughed softly, but your chest still felt painfully full. martin looked back down at the guitar after a second, adjusting his grip before trying again. the notes came out messy at first—hesitant and imperfect. but then slowly, the melody began taking shape. you recognised it immediately, of course. your favorite parts too.

you stared at him silently while he played, fingers fumbling occasionally before finding the strings again.

“you practiced this?” you asked quietly.

“a little.”

“for me?”

he glanced up briefly. “…you like the song.” that wasn’t really an answer, but somehow it felt like one anyway.

you sat there long after he stopped playing, pretending to read your textbook while your heart beat embarrassingly fast. because maybe that was the problem with loving martin. he never did grand things, never anything obvious enough for you to point at and say: there. that means something. instead, he loved you quietly; through remembered details and practiced songs and strawberry milk cartons and paper rings made at eight years old.

and you, unfortunately, loved hard enough to turn every small thing he gave you into something precious.

sometimes, you think that was the first time you understood that yearning could sound beautiful too. like clumsy guitar strings echoing softly through his bedroom while he learned your favorite song by heart just because it mattered to you.

you almost confessed once. almost.

after a lengthy study session after school one day, the two of you sat on the empty bleachers waiting for your parents. the sky was turning pink slowly, cool evening light spilling across the football field while students gradually disappeared one by one through the gates.

martin sat beside you eating chocolate pocky loudly.

“you chew like a dying animal,” you informed, as if making a scientific observation.

“you’re just jealous because i have strong jaw muscles.”

“that is genuinely the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

“no, the stupidest thing i ever said was when i told our science teacher, miss eunchae, that birds weren’t real in third grade.”

you laughed despite yourself. “she looked so disappointed in you.”

“she hated creativity.”

“you told her pigeons were government drones.”

“and i stand by that.”

“in third grade,” you pointed out, shaking your head and smiling helplessly. then, your smile faded slightly as you looked at him. because he looked pretty—annoyingly pretty. his hair moved softly in the wind, and the setting sunlight fell against his skin in a way that made your heart beat so fast, so suddenly, you had to look down at your hands. you wondered, not for the first time, what it would feel like to hold his hand properly—not casually. not because you couldn’t see after eye drops. but intentionally, because he wanted you to.

“martin,” you said quietly.

“hm?”

you swallowed. your heart beat so loudly it almost embarrassed you.

“do you ever think that maybe—”

“martin!” both of you turned immediately. his father waved from the parking lot. “we have to go!”

the moment shattered instantly. you looked back at martin. he blinked slowly. “what were you saying?”

you stared at him for a second longer before forcing a shrug. “…nothing.”

he looked like he wanted to ask again, but he didn’t. and maybe that was the tragedy of middle school. you both kept almost reaching something before pulling away at the last second.

every accidental touch suddenly lingered too long in your head afterwards, and every smile from him seemed to stay with you for hours longer than it should have. it was horrible, because you were thirteen, and thirteen-year-old girls loved deeply and dramatically and silently all at once. especially girls like you—girls who loved so hard it became embarrassing. prom only made it worse… or better. you still couldn’t decide.

you had spent an unreasonable amount of time pretending you didn’t care about middle school prom.

“it’s literally just a school dance,” you told wonhee while she straightened your wavy hair in front of your bedroom mirror. you’d tried telling her it was a lost cause, because it would go back to looking wavier—like it usually did, but she insisted on trying.

“right,” she nodded. “and that’s why you’ve changed your dress four times.”

“i would like you to rephrase it to… strategic revisions,” you said smartly.

“you’re nervous because of martin.”

you immediately pointed your eyeliner at her threateningly. “don’t speak.” she grinned.

your room smelled faintly like hairspray and lotion, your orange dress hanging above your knees while an album called ‘2 cool 4 skool’ by some new korean boyband played quietly from your phone speaker. outside your bedroom door, you could already hear your’s and martin’s parents talking loudly downstairs. your families had insisted on getting ready together. (“because it’s cute!” your mothers had claimed. you thought it was psychological warfare.)

especially when you finally walked downstairs after four outfit changes and stabbing yourself in the eye with a mascara wand twice, you saw martin standing near the entrance adjusting the sleeves of his shirt.

your breath caught embarrassingly fast. he looked older somehow—still unmistakably martin, still slightly awkward and annoyingly pretty in that effortless way he always was, but older and more mature.

his hair was pushed back slightly from his forehead—his dad probably helped with the gel—and the dark navy vest made his shoulders look broader than usual. you hated the way your heart reacted to him.

martin looked up at the sound of your footsteps and froze. actually froze. his tie hung half-undone around his neck while he stared at you for a second too long.

“…oh,” he said quietly, almost whispering to himself.

you suddenly became hyperaware of yourself. “‘oh’, what? was that a bad ‘oh’? or a good ‘oh’?”

“nothing,” he replied too quickly. “you just look…”

your chest tightened painfully. “what?”

he blinked once before looking away awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. “…pretty.”

wonhee made the loudest fake gagging sound imaginable behind you. you wanted to kill her, but martin held your attention too well.

“thanks,” you mumbled, looking down at your feet because suddenly eye contact felt impossible. his ears were pink, matching the shade of your blush.

your mothers, unfortunately, noticed immediately, and immediately pushed you both to stand shoulder-to-shoulder before snapping many pictures. “look at them,” martin’s mom nearly cried. “they’re blushing!”

“remember when they got married at eight?” your mom laughed, as if you both weren’t right there. you both smiled for the pictures, relaxing a little bit.

“we were visionaries,” you defended immediately.

martin snorted beside you. “we were planning on skipping taxes altogether.”

your fathers exchanged dramatic looks.

“i can’t believe i’m watching my son go to prom,” his dad sighed.

“not with our yn, though,” your father added teasingly. your smile faltered slightly before you could stop it. right. he wasn’t going with you.

before the silence could settle strangely, the doorbell rang—your dates had arrived.

you tried very hard not to notice the way martin’s expression changed slightly when jaehyun stepped inside holding flowers for you. your nose crinkled slightly at the sight of roses, your least favourite flowers.

“she likes lillies, dumbass,” martin muttered under his breath.

you tried even harder not to feel disappointed when lee-an, a really pretty girl from your grade, arrived for him shortly afterwards.

it was stupid, because really, you had no right to feel jealous. still, the feeling sat heavily in your chest anyway when you all rode together to the school because your parents had insisted.

you ended up squeezed into the middle seat beside martin while your dates sat on either sides of you both, awkwardly trying to make conversation.

your fingers felt strangely restless against your lap. you hated dresses. you hated awkward silence. you hated the fact that martin smelled really good and looked so handsome tonight.

“you okay?” he asked quietly after noticing you fidgeting and thumbing the hem of your dress.

“my toes hurt.”

“you said that ten minutes ago.”

“it still hurts.”

he laughed softly under his breath before his hand moved instinctively toward you, pulling your hand into his lap. he fiddled with your silver rings, stealing one for himself, and replacing it with one from his own hand.

you looked down at his hand. yours. together. and then, you looked at him. he didn’t seem to realise what he had done, or maybe he did. either way, he left his hands with yours, right there on his lap, for another few seconds before pulling away slowly. the warmth lingered afterwards—it always did.

prom itself was loud and bright and strangely disappointing, unlike most of the romcoms you’d watched with martin. the gymnasium had been decorated beautifully of course, soft lights hanging from the ceiling while music echoed through the room, but you spent most of the night painfully aware of where he was, even when you tried not to. you watched him laugh at something lee-an said from across the room and immediately looked away afterwards because your chest ached.

you danced when jaehyun asked you to. you smiled when people spoke to you. you pretended very convincingly that everything was fine. but every few minutes, your eyes found martin again anyway, like they always did.

eventually, you escaped outside for air. the hallway beyond the gym was quieter, the music muffled now behind closed doors while the cool air of the night came in through the open exit nearby. you leaned against the wall with a sigh.

“there you are.”

your head lifted immediately because of course, you’d recognise his voice anywhere. martin stood at the other end of the hallway, his tie loosened now. your heart betrayed you instantly.

“oh,” you said softly. “hi.”

“hi.”

“did you ditch your date?” he asked, walking closer to you.

“…maybe.”

he grinned slightly. “me too.”

you stared at him for a second before laughing. “we’re horrible people.”

“probably.”

soft silence settled between you—comfortable. familiar.

martin walked until he stood beside you against the wall, shoulders brushing lightly. neither of you moved away.

inside the gym, a slower song started playing faintly through the speakers. you looked toward the doors absentmindedly. “they’re probably wondering where we went.”

“yeah,” he replied quietly, like he couldn’t really care any less.

neither of you made any move to go back. you looked at your shoes. he bent down to slip them off carefully, blowing cool air at your red feet.

“i think,” you admitted softly, “i just wanted to be where you are.” the words slipped out before you could stop them. your heart nearly stopped afterwards.

he looked up at you immediately. you felt heat rush to your face, cheeks turning red faster than martin’s usually would.

“i mean—not like—”

“i know,” he interrupted gently, standing up to move back to his spot beside you. his voice sounded strange and careful, like the sentence had affected him more than it should have. before you could say anything else, the gym doors suddenly burst open behind you.

“there you both are!” wonhee yelled dramatically. “oh my god, this is actually insane. your dates are literally sitting together complaining about you guys.”

you and martin jumped apart immediately like you got caught doing something illegal, when you weren’t even doing anything.

wonhee narrowed her eyes. “…suspicious.”

“shut up,” both of you said at the exact same time.

she gasped loudly, clapping her hands together. “that was disgusting.”

martin laughed first, then you did too, and somehow, by the end of the night, you still ended up dancing together anyway—not because anyone asked or because it had been planned, but because somehow, no matter where the night started, the two of you always seemed to find your way back to each other in the end.

now, you think that middle school was the worst kind of almost, because everything felt so important but you were too young to understand it properly, too scared to say anything that might change what you already had, and maybe that was why you stayed stuck there for so long—in that space where everything meant something and nothing was ever said out loud.

( [yn’s prom dress] [martin’s prom suit] )

TWO YEARS AGO. HIGH SCHOOL — call out my name ✫ the weeknd [wc. 4,945]

high school was… fucked, for a lack of a better term. you were old enough to recognise what yearning was, but still cowardly enough to pretend you weren’t drowning in it. so, you had become good at loving martin quietly, which was unfortunate, because he had become devastatingly easy to love.

“you look like you have a personal grudge against the grim reaper and you’re not letting him take you away.”

“good morning to you too,” you muttered tiredly, dropping your bag onto the classroom floor and taking off your glasses before collapsing face-first onto your desk.

martin snorted from beside you. “did you even sleep?”

“track practice started at five thirty.”

“that was yesterday morning.”

“exactly.”

he laughed softly under his breath while you groaned dramatically into your folded arms, nuzzling your face as close to the table as possible. morning sunlight spilled lazily through the classroom windows, warming one side of your face while your classmates slowly trickled inside one by one. somebody at the back of the room was playing music quietly from their phone speaker, probably jihoon and hyun-wook, and the air smelled faintly like addicting coffee and fresh paper nobody used much.

you felt martin poke your cheek with his pen. “don’t die before the first class starts.”

“don’t tell me what to do,” you groaned as you tried to adjust your legs comfortably.

“you have calculus today,” he reminded you with a pessimisting grin.

“oh my god,” you whispered miserably. “i forgot.”

“that’s because your brain is deteriorating.”

you tilted your head just enough to glare at him. “i’m literally smarter than you.”

“academically, maybe.”

“what the fuck does that even mean?”

“you tried to heat metal in the microwave.”

“i was a very curious fifth grader,” you defended.

“you almost exploded the kitchen,” his eyebrows shot up.

“scientific progress requires sacrifice.”

he laughed properly this time, head tipping back slightly. “that’s not what you said when i tried to make a choco lava cake with crayons.”

your chest hurt immediately. it was honestly ridiculous now, because there he was, sitting beside you in the stupid, ugly school uniform that only looked good on him, with messy hair and pretty eyes hidden slightly under his bangs, and somehow you still looked at him like he was something extraordinary.

you hated it—you hated him. you loved him so much.

“why are you staring at me?” he asked suddenly.

your eyes widened. “i wasn’t.”

“you were.”

“prove it.”

“your eyes were pointed directly at my face,” he smirked.

“maybe i was zoning out. because you look weird,” you rolled your eyes.

“wow,” he placed a hand over his heart dramatically. “you’re actually so evil.”

“you’ll survive.”

“barely.”

you rolled your eyes, but smiled anyway.

martin looked at you for another second after that, and then another, as his expression softened almost unconsciously, because you looked pretty when you were tired… which was unfair. your hair was messy from practice, and there was pen ink smudged against the side of your hand from where you had fallen asleep drawing fake tattoos on your hand yesterday, but he still looked at you and thought, helplessly, ‘damn. i love her.’ and the realisation terrified him every single time.

during break, you sat cross-legged on your chair, somehow fitting on it without falling off, sketching lazily in the margins of your notebook while the classroom buzzed loudly around you. hyun-wook was being bombarded with jihoon and kyung’s questions about some new karaoke place, while your homeroom teacher gave up on correcting some answer scripts, and instead resorted to watching some music videos on his phone.

martin leaned back in his chair beside you. “what are you drawing?”

“you,” you replied without missing a beat. he nearly choked. your eyes widened immediately before you burst into laughter. “you should’ve seen your face!”

“what the hell is wrong with you?” he coughed, turning red as quickly as he always does. you laughed harder.

“you looked terrified!”

“because you’re insane! who knows if you gave me the ugliest jawline known to man?”

“relax,” you grinned. “it’s just some car i saw a few days ago that looked good, jeez. besides, your jaw’s pretty ugly in real life anyway.”

he narrowed his eyes at you. “you’re demon-spawn.”

“i’m entertaining as fuck, and you love it,” you grinned.

“unfortunately.”

you smiled softer at that, because he always stayed. you turned your notebook around eventually, showing him the sketch. it was rough and unfinished, just a drawing of a porsche 911 turbo s you’d seen downtown. martin stared quietly for a second.

“…that’s actually really good art.”

“i know,” you nodded solemnly.

“the artist is humble too,” he noted, as if he was a curator, looking for art pieces.

“one of my best qualities,” you flashed him a quick smile.

he shook his head fondly before glancing back down at his own notebook. you noticed immediately that his page wasn’t filled with notes like it should have been. instead, messy lines of lyrics covered more than half of the paper.

“you’re writing songs during class again?”

“i’m multitasking,” he said sheepishly.

“you failed your last chemistry test.”

“music transcends chemistry.”

“you sound unemployed.”

he grinned slightly. you tried not to stare at him after that, but you failed horribly, because there was something about the way he looked while writing lyrics that always made your chest ache—his brows furrowed slightly whenever he concentrated, his fingers tapped absentminded rhythms against the paper between sentences.

you wondered suddenly what it would feel like if he ever wrote a love song about someone. then you wondered what kind of girl he would write about. and then you immediately felt sick.

“why are you staring now?” he asked without looking up, like he was peter parker with spidey senses. pretty boys be damned; your heart nearly stopped.

“you have ugly handwriting,” you scrambled for an excuse.

“liar.”

you smiled faintly, because the truth was much worse. the truth was you loved him. and maybe, the saddest part was knowing how little that changed. you could love martin with your entire soul and still sit beside him everyday pretending your heart wasn’t constantly betraying you.

the cruelest part about loving someone for so long is how naturally they become part of your life. martin had been there through every version of you—the loud little girl with scraped knees, the dramatic kid who got upset over gummy worms, the exhausted athlete falling asleep in class—and somewhere along the way, your heart stopped treating him like a person you could lose. so every time he called you his ‘best friend’, it felt less like rejection and more like grief, because loving him had become as instinctive as breathing, while being loved back somehow felt impossibly out of reach.

the bleachers symbolised the pinnacle of every high school love story, but you hated them after that day. they made things feel more dangerous somehow; maybe it was the way everything became quieter there after school ended.

you sat near the top row with your legs stretched across the bench beside you, exhausted after practice while cold water dripped from your hairline down your neck. martin sat one row below, elbows resting against his knees while he waited for you to stop complaining dramatically about life.

“coach park hates me,” you said firmly.

“you say that everyday,” he raised an eyebrow at you.

“because everyday, she makes me run like i committed a damn crime.”

“maybe you did.”

“my only crime is being beautiful and talented and smart as fuck, dude.” he laughed softly.

the track field below glowed gold underneath the setting sun, your teammates gradually leaving one by one until it was just the two of you remaining. always just the two of you.

martin had started staying after school for your practices so naturally that neither of you even questioned it anymore—he carried your water bottle sometimes, helped gather your equipment afterwards, waited beside the field doing homework while you trained. like it was obvious he would. like there was nowhere else he wanted to be.

you looked down at him quietly. “you know you don’t actually have to stay everyday, right?”

he looked up immediately. “…yeah, i know.”

“then why do you?”

he shrugged once. “someone has to make sure you don’t collapse from overworking yourself.”

your chest hurt again. stupid heart. stupid feelings. stupid stupid stupid boy.

“you sound like an old man,” you teased, aiming to deflect from thinking of your feelings for him.

“and you sound dehydrated.”

you smiled despite yourself before leaning back against the bleachers. the silence that settled afterwards felt comfortable, until you were interrupted by james—one of your seniors.

“you guys are actually married,” he yelled while passing by. “like seriously. just date already!”

you nearly inhaled your own saliva. martin laughed awkwardly. “we’re just best friends.”

oh. your smile faltered slightly before you could stop it. just best friends. right. of course. it was a very logical line to draw, you supposed. you looked down at your hands quickly.

“yeah,” you forced a dry laugh. “just best friends.”

he didn’t notice the way your voice changed, and suddenly, everything hurt because that was the problem with loving your best friend—sometimes he loved you deeply too, just not in the same devastating way you loved him.

when you were younger, loving martin felt light, and easy. something warm you carried around proudly in your chest without ever questioning whether it would hurt you someday. but high school had sharpened everything into something unbearable. suddenly, every time somebody teased you both about dating only reminded you that you weren’t. every time he smiled at you with that soft, familiar affection, your heart betrayed you a little more, because it was enough to keep your hopes alive while still never being enough to mean anything at all.

the party was loud in the kind of suffocating way only high school parties could be—music blasted so hard the walls practically trembled with it, coloured lights flashing across sweaty faces while people shouted over each other with drinks spilling from their hands. somebody knocked over snacks near the living room entrance twenty minutes ago and nobody bothered cleaning it up (of course). the entire house smelled like smoke, perfume, very cheap vodka, and the awful artificial fruit scent from flavored vapes. you already wanted to leave.

you sat curled into the corner of the couch with your knees pulled slightly to your chest—a very comfortable position, mind you—phone balancing uselessly on your knees while everybody around you seemed louder and happier than you could manage tonight.

“you look deeply unhappy,” iroha observed, dropping down beside you with a drink in hand.

“maybe because i was dragged here against my own will.”

“you literally chose to come.”

“peer pressure is real thing, you know.”

she snorted. “you’ve been staring at martin for the past fifteen minutes.”

your eyes widened immediately and you looked away from him very obviously. “i have not.”

“yn.”

“…maybe a little.”

“bro,,” she sighed dramatically. “you are actually gone.”

gone. yeah. that sounded about right. because martin stood across the room near the kitchen island, laughing softly at something some girl was saying, and even from this far away, you could tell the smile he was giving her wasn’t just fake politeness—he looked relaxed, and comfortable… and  very pretty. you hated how easy it was for him to ruin your entire mood without even trying.

“you know,” iroha started carefully, “maybe… you should just tell him.”

you laughed quietly, like the idea itself was ridiculous. “and ruin everything?”

“you don’t know that.”

“i do.”

because you knew martin. you knew the way he cared about people, the way he stayed, the way he loved quietly and loyally and completely.

but not like you. never like you. becuase you? you had spent years teaching yourself how to survive on crumbs—lingering touches, forehead flicks, soft smiles, him carrying your bag after practice. him remembering your cafe order, him texting you to get home safely even when he was exhausted himself. 

and the horrible thing was that he loved you deeply—just not enough, or maybe not correctly.

you looked away from him first because you always did whenever your feelings became too overwhelming to carry.

“i’m getting another drink,” you muttered.

“you hate alcohol,” iroha snickered.

“exactly. maybe it’ll kill me this time.”

“dramatic ass.”

you wandered toward the hallway mostly to escape your own thoughts, shoulders bumping roughly against strangers while somebody yelled lyrics off-key nearby. your chest already felt tight in that familiarly awful way—and then you saw him. martin stood near the hallway wall with that same girl from earlier standing close enough to touch him… too close. your footsteps slowed instinctively. the girl smiled up at him and said something you couldn’t hear over the music, but it couldn’t have possibly been romantic enough for him to turn red. for a second, he looked like his body was there but his mind wasn’t.

and then his eyes lifted straight toward you. your breath caught. for one horrible second, neither of you moved—you saw it then; something sharp and conflicted flickering across his face so quickly you almost missed it.

and then? then, he kissed her. your entire world went silent. 

well, not literally because the annoying music still blasted through the walls. people still laughed somewhere nearby, somebody dropped a bottle in the kitchen and shouted loudly afterwards, but none of it reached you anymore.

because martin was kissing another girl.

martin.

your martin.

the boy who carried pretty bandages for you in elementary school.

the boy who waited through every track practice.

the boy who knew exactly how you took your favourite drink and what songs you listened to when you were sad and what flowers you really liked.

the boy you’d loved so long that your feelings for him no longer felt separate from yourself.

the boy you loved more than you loved yourself.

he kissed her like he was trying to force himself to mean it… and maybe that hurt even worse.

you felt so sad. and mad. at everybody and everything. at yourself. but not at him. never at him. fuck.

your throat burned violently, and you turned around before he could see your face—before he could see what he’d done to you and your heart that was too big for your chest; before you started crying right there in the middle of some stupid stupid party surrounded by people who would never understand why this hurt like grief more than rejection.

you shoved past bodies too quickly on your way outside, ignoring confused complaints while tears blurred your vision embarrassingly fast. 

cold night air blew against your face the second you stepped outside, but it didn’t help. nothing helped. because all you could think was—of course. of course he didn’t love you like that. how stupid had you been to hope or believe otherwise?

meanwhile, martin pulled away almost immediately, his brows furrowing as something twisted uncomfortably in his chest. it didn’t feel right—it didn’t feel like anything.

“‘m sorry,” he said quickly, stepping back. “i—i shouldn’t have—”

he stopped. his gaze shifted across the room, instinctively searching for you, but you weren’t there. his stomach dropped, panic rose sharply and suddenly. he didn’t hesitate; he left.

“yn!” martin’s voice echoed behind you. you almost kept walking. 

he caught up quickly, turning you around by your wrist gently—so gentle, that you could’ve broken away if you wanted to. but of course, even in such moments, you were quite selfish. because all you wanted was to feel him close to you, no matter what. so you didn’t pull away.

“wait, please,” he said breathlessly. 

you looked at your shoes, the road—anything that wasn’t his face. “what?”

the moment he looked at you, his expression shifted completely. your eyes were red-rimmed, watery and destroyed. he loosened his grip without his own knowledge.

“shit.”

you laughed weakly, because at least one of you understood what had happened. 

“yn… i can explain,” he started. 

“don’t.”

“please.”

“why?” your voice cracked embarrassingly, but you went on anyway. “so you can tell me it didn’t mean anything? because honestly, martin? that would be a hell of a lot worse.” he stood silently in front of you. and somehow, even his silence hurt. “you can kiss whoever you want, man.”

“that’s not the point,” his jaw tightened. 

“then what is?”

his mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. “fuck, yn.” you watched his face carefully as frustration flickered across it, like he was fighting himself internally and… losing. 

because to him? the truth sat right there. he loved you. he loved you so much, it terrified him. but he thought it was wrong, somehow, dangerous and too important to ruin.

so instead, he tried constantly to kill his feelings by trying to replace you with other girls—girls who were easier to want. girls who weren’t you. but it never worked. 

you didn’t know any of that, though. 

all you knew was heartbreak.

“…you’re my best friend,” he said finally, voice quieter now, choosing his words carefully. “i don’t want this to become weird between us.”

there it was—‘best friend’. the two words hit you so hard it physically hurt. 

you smiled after a second, but it felt crooked and miserable and completely wrong. “right.”

he frowned instantly. “why do you keep saying it like that?”

“like what?”

“like it’s hurting you.”

because you were hurting. you always will. because you love him so so much, you didn’t know what to do with all that love anymore. 

instead of saying any of that, you just shook your head. 

“forget it,” you whispered tiredly.

he looked at you helplessly for a long moment, like he wanted to say something else… something important. but he didn’t. and maybe that was what finally broke your heart properly.

that night, you cried in the shower as quietly as possible, which felt humiliating, because girls in movies cried beautifully over heartbreak—mascara streaks, trembling lips, soft music playing in the background. but real heartbreak was uglier: sitting on your bathroom floor afterward wrapped in a towel staring blankly at nothing while everything physically ached; realising that loving him had quietly become the center of your entire life without you noticing; understanding suddenly that one day he really would fall in love with somebody else.

and it wouldn’t be you.

the next morning, you pretended so hard it almost worked. you arrived at school earlier than usual, mostly because you hadn’t slept enough to risk falling back asleep again. your head hurt, your chest hurt, and worst of all, your eyes still burned from crying in your bathroom at two in the morning while trying not to make any noise.

the classroom was quieter in the mornings. sunlight stretched lazily across empty desks, and the whiteboard still had half-erased notes from yesterday written across it. somebody had left a jacket hanging off the back of a chair.

martin was already there. he sat slouched in his chair with one earbud in. his notebook was open in front of him, untouched. he looked up the second you walked in, and his face fell immediately.

he looked awful; his hair was messy like he’d been dragging his hands through it repeatedly all night, and there were dark circles under his eyes that definitely weren’t there yesterday. his hoodie sleeves were pulled over his hands slightly, and he kept tapping his fingers anxiously against the desk like he didn’t know what to do with himself. you hated that part of you still noticed things like that; still loved him enough to notice.

“good morning,” you greeted casually while sliding into your seat beside him. your voice sounded almost normal.

he stared at you for a second too long before answering quietly. “…morning.”

you busied yourself immediately, pulling your books from your bag and flattening loose worksheets against the desk so your hands would stop trembling. your pencil case slipped from your fingers slightly, which martin noticed.

“why do you look like roadkill?” you asked lightly, refusing to look at him.

his brows furrowed. “why are you acting normal?”

you shrugged, keeping your eyes focused on your notebook. “because i am normal.”

“yn.”

“martin.”

the silence stretched. you could feel him staring at you properly now—not casually, but carefully, guiltily, and worried, like he knew you were lying and hated that you felt the need to. you kept your face neutral anyway, because if you looked at him for too long, you genuinely thought you might start crying right there.

finally, he leaned back in his chair with a quiet sigh, rubbing a tired hand down his face. “skip practice today.”

you blinked slowly, processing, and finally looked at him. “what?”

“i’m taking you somewhere after school.”

“does this plan end with me getting kidnapped and my organs harvested by the end of the night?”

“just trust me.” your chest twisted painfully at that: ‘trust me’. like you hadn’t been doing exactly that your entire life.

you looked away first. “…fine,” you muttered.

his shoulders loosened slightly after that, like he’d been terrified you would say no, and somehow, that hurt too.

you smiled too easily that evening. 

the aquarium glowed blue around you both. soft light reflected across the glass tunnels overhead while pretty fish drifted lazily through the water above your heads. children pressed their hands excitedly against the tanks nearby while couples wandered slowly through exhibits shoulder-to-shoulder, speaking quietly underneath the dim lights.

everything felt strangely underwater—muted and far away.

you walked beside martin silently, your hands shoved into the sleeves of your hoodie while cold blue lights flickered across his face every few seconds.

it should’ve hurt more than it already did. instead, standing beside him just felt painfully familiar, like muscle memory. like home.

you stopped near one of the jellyfish tanks automatically, eyes following the soft floating movements inside the water. the lighting painted everything blue and silver. “…you remembered,” you said quietly.

martin looked at you immediately. “of course i remembered.”

your chest hurt instantly, because of course he did. martin remembered everything about you, which was part of the problem. he remembered your favorite places, your favorite snacks, the exact tone your voice got when you were close to tears, which hoodie was yours even when it got mixed into his laundry somehow, how you hated pulp in orange juice and how you got headaches after practice if you didn’t drink enough water. he remembered everything except the fact that you were in love with him.

“you cried right here—literally in this spot—when we were ten because a stingrey ignored you,” he added after a moment, smiling faintly.

you scoffed immediately. “it was being rude. on purpose.”

“yeah,” he nodded solemnly. “the stingrey definitely had personal beef. with you, specifically.”

“thank you for understanding me during this difficult time.”

he laughed softly under his breath. and god, you hated that you still loved hearing him laugh. even now; even after last night. the sound still settled somewhere deep inside your chest like it belonged there.

you continued walking after that. martin stayed close beside you naturally, accidentally bumping his shoulder lightly against yours whenever somebody passed too close. like always—like nothing had changed, which almost made it worse.

eventually, you both settled near one of the larger fish tanks with shared cookies ‘n cream pocky packets and redbulls sitting untouched between you. differently sized manta rays drifted overhead slowly, their shadows passing across your faces every few seconds.

the silence between you wasn’t awkward… just heavy.

martin picked at the edge of the pocky box absentmindedly before finally speaking. “…about yesterday.”

your stomach dropped immediately. you stared down at your hands resting in your lap. “you don’t have to explain.”

“i want to.” 

you swallowed hard but stayed quiet.

he rubbed the back of his neck slowly before speaking again. “i didn’t even like her.” that hurt too… because if he didn’t even like her, then why had he kissed her so easily?

“okay,” you answered quietly, not knowing what else you could possibly say.

he exhaled shakily through his nose and leaned forward slightly, elbows resting against his knees. “i thought maybe if i kept trying hard enough, eventually i’d…” he stopped abruptly. your heart nearly stopped with him. ‘eventually i’d stop loving you’, is what you hoped he was going to say, because a tiny part of you still wished he loved you as a woman, not just as a best friend. the possibility of that unfinished sentence hung painfully between you. you looked up sharply, but he was already looking away, jaw tightening like he regretted saying even that much.

“…forget it,” he muttered.

the silence afterward felt unbearable. children laughed somewhere nearby. water swished softly against the glass tanks. an announcement echoed faintly overhead. meanwhile, your entire world felt like it was balancing on the edge of a terrifying cliff.

martin finally looked back at you, and his eyes looked softer… sadder too. “…i’m sorry,” he whispered quietly.

you stared at him for a second before looking away again, blinking too hard, and you realised then that apologies were cruel sometimes, because they implied there had been something to save in the first place.

you didn’t talk about it again after that—not properly, at least.

the conversation dissolved somewhere between shared pocky sticks and tired glances, both of you pretending not to notice the unfinished sentence still lingering heavily between you. martin didn’t push further, and you didn’t ask the question burning through your chest.

eventually, the aquarium lights stopped feeling painfully blue. eventually, you started breathing normally around him again. sort of.

you stood quietly beside one of the smaller touch tanks while children crowded around excitedly, dipping their hands into the shallow water.

“don’t push,” an exhausted employee, with a nice red cap and a name tag that read ‘shin yun-je’, repeated for the tenth time.

martin leaned against the railing beside you, nudging your shoulder lightly. “you wanna touch the starfish or are you scared?”

you gasped in offense. “i’m not scared.”

“you screamed when a fish brushed against your ankle at the beach.”

“it felt slimy!”

“fish live in water, yn. what else did you expect?”

you narrowed your eyes at him before reaching into the tank dramatically. “watch this.”

he watched carefully, with a small smirk on his face, as you confidently dipped your fingers into the water only to flinch immediately when something moved beneath your hand.

“oh my god,” you hissed, jerking back violently.

he burst into laughter so suddenly that nearby kids turned to look at him.

“shut up!” you whisper-yelled, horrified at both the starfish and at the number of people looking at you both.

“you looked genuinely betrayed,” he laughed harder, clutching the railing slightly. “your face—”

“martin.”

“you almost jumped onto a child.”

“martin!”

he kept laughing anyway and the stupid thing was that the sound fixed something inside you a little. just a little. because this was the version of him your heart knew best. him laughing too hard at you, teasing you until you got annoyed,looking at you like spending time with you was the easiest thing in the world. you hated how quickly your anger weakened around him, or maybe you hated that it never stayed properly in the first place.

later, you both ended up sitting outside the aquarium, near the harbor, while the evening sky slowly turned purple above the water. your legs stretched across the bench beside his while he picked absentmindedly at the label on his soda cup, like he learnt to do from your past journalling habits. 

the wind was colder now, and even if you personally didn’t feel too cold, you tugged your sleeves over your hands instinctively.

martin noticed immediately—he always did, so, without saying anything, he shifted slightly closer until your shoulders touched and warmth bloomed in the space between your bodies. you stared quietly at the water ahead of you while a few boats rocked gently near the docks.

“…i was really mad yesterday,” you finally admitted.

he went still beside you. “i know.”

“but mostly sad,” you sighed. he swallowed hard. you glanced down at your hands. “and i hated that i still wanted to go home with you afterward anyway.” the confession slipped out more honestly than intended.

martin looked at you immediately after that—really looked at you. his expression softened in that awful way that always made your heart beat painfully faster. “…yn.”

“don’t,” you interrupted quietly, shaking your head once. “please.” because if he apologised again, you thought your heart might genuinely split open.

he stared at you for another second before nodding slowly. “okay.”

the wind moved softly through his hair, and you leaned your head against his shoulder before you could overthink it. he froze slightly in surprise, then relaxed immediately. his head tilted gently against yours for one quiet second as neither of you spoke.

cars passed somewhere behind you. waves crashed softly against the docks below. the city lights slowly blinked awake one by one around the harbor. everything felt strangely suspended in that moment, like the world was giving you both a few extra minutes before things became complicated again.

now, you think that maybe that was the problem with you and martin. no matter how badly you hurt each other, loving him still felt instinctive afterward—like muscle memory. like returning home after getting lost.

© hyuneskkami ❦