^_^

The next morning comes too fast. Hands guide you where you are meant to go. Voices explain things you already know, or maybe things you will forget the second they stop speaking. You are given your arena uniform, a black long sleeve shirt made of flexible, breathable material that clings without constricting, black cargo pants with deep pockets, running shoes that feel solid beneath your feet. It is practical. Comfortable.

You are ushered onto an aircraft before your nerves can catch up with you, the roar of engines swallowing every stray thought. At some point a tracker is driven into your arm. It is large, a sharp white pain that steals the air from your lungs, and no one waits for you to recover before moving on. You are taken underground to a bunker, metal doors sealing behind you, then pushed toward a room with your name printed cleanly on the front. Inside, the room is bare except for a massive glass tube rising from the floor, a digital timer mounted above it.

Two hundred seconds, it reads. Your heart stutters.

Yeonjun stands beside it, and the moment the door closes he is already reaching for you, fingers tugging at your sleeves, smoothing fabric, adjusting seams that do not need fixing. He talks as he works, rambling instructions and where to keep your hands, his voice trying to outrun the fear written plainly across his face.

You barely listen. You watch him instead, the way his jaw keeps setting and unsetting like he might crack if he stops moving. The panic he is trying so hard to hide sits right beneath his skin, his eyes too bright, his mouth set too tightly. His hands shake when he thinks you are not looking. 

“Here,” he says, stepping back to reach for something. He presses a pin into the right side of your shirt. It is circular, about the size of a large button, gold catching the low light. A ring frames the image inside. A bird in flight. “It’s your district pin.” 

A mockingjay. 

“Thank you,” you say quietly. The words feel too small for everything he has done. “Thank you for everything.” 

He swallows and nods, fingers lingering near the pin. “Mockingjays, despite the Capitol’s best attempts, they’re survivors. No matter what the Capitol tried, they never got rid of them.” 

It is you. It has always been you. He grips your shoulders, hands firm, grounding. “Trust the pin,” he says, and his voice shakes despite himself. “Trust the pin. Promise me, Y/N.” 

“What?” 

“I need to hear it from you,” he insists, eyes searching yours. “I need you to trust me. Trust the pin. Promise me.” 

“I’ll trust the pin,” you say, without hesitation. 

His face softens, “You’ve got this.” He pulls you into a hug. “Just remember who your enemy is.” 

You nod against his shoulder, then step back before either of you can falter. You turn toward the tube and step inside. It hums as you enter, the door sealing shut in front of you. The floor begins to rise and light spills down from above, growing brighter by the second. You look back one last time. Yeonjun meets your eyes and gives you a smile that is all faith and fear tangled together, and then he is gone, swallowed by the walls as the arena opens to receive you. The platform shudders once, then stops. You straighten yourself instinctively, shoulders back, chin lifted, forcing your body to stand steady even as your pulse hammers against your ribs. 

You are in the arena now. 

The sun crashes into you all at once, blinding light so sharp it makes your eyes sting. Heat presses down on your skin, and a strong gust of wind slams into you hard enough to send you stumbling backward. You catch yourself just in time, boots scraping against stone, heart jumping into your throat. You breathe and take in what surrounds you. Your lips part despite yourself. You are standing on the top of a mountain. 

Brown dirt and jagged rock stretch out in every direction, uneven and unforgiving. The ground slopes and drops away, the height dizzying when you look too long. At the center of the circular clearing stands the Cornucopia, smaller than you imagined but no less striking, a tent like structure gleaming gold beneath the sun. Weapons and supplies spill out around it in chaos, metal catching the light, packs and tools scattered like offerings. 

The arena walls rise around the clearing in rough stone ridges, some towering high, others broken and climbable if you are desperate or stupid enough to try. Your eyes trace the terrain quickly. Tunnels cut into the rock at different points, dark mouths leading somewhere unseen, and your jaw tightens. You curse quietly, wishing for trees, for shade, for the familiarity of forest and water, anything that feels like home. District Twelve taught you how to survive among coal dust and roots, not exposed stone and open sky. 

The timer ticks down to thirty seconds. 

You force yourself to focus, scanning the tributes around you. To your right stands the girl from District Six, pale and shaking, her eyes darting everywhere at once like prey already running in her mind. To your left is a boy from District Eight, breathing too fast, fists clenched, terror written plainly across his face. You look farther out. Sunoo is positioned across the clearing, too far to reach, but his posture is solid, his jaw set with quiet determination. He looks ready to move, ready to fight for every second he gets. 

Your gaze snaps back to the Cornucopia. Bows and arrows gleam among the weapons, familiar shapes that pull your attention like gravity. You need them. Your body tenses, calculating distance, timing, the risk of being too slow. Your eyes lift without you meaning them to, and they meet Beomgyu’s. 

He is already watching you and the world seems to narrow to the space between you. I want to be allies. “Fuck,” you mutter under your breath. 

The timer finishes, the horn sounds, and you leap.

You should be feeling anxious, stressed, or scared. You should be terrified, bones shaking with the knowledge that the odds are stacked so violently against you. Everything in you should be screaming to run, to hide, to beg the earth to swallow you whole. 

But you are not. 

Your feet slam against the ground as you sprint forward, faster than you have ever moved in your life. The rock beneath you is brutal, nothing like the soft forest soil on the outskirts of District Twelve. Instead of slowing you down, it throws you ahead, every step sharp and clean, every breath burning in your chest. Your heart pounds, but it is steady. Focused. You dip low as you pass the pile of supplies. The backpack you marked flashes beneath your hand and you wrench it free in one smooth motion, swinging it over your shoulders without breaking stride. Survival secured, for now. Now you need a weapon. 

You hit the center alongside the fastest tributes, bodies colliding and scattering in every direction. The Cornucopia looms above you, chaos erupting beneath it. You angle toward the inner wall where the bows and arrows rest, already reaching, already planning, when a battle cry splits the air. 

You drop instinctively, heart spiking, and something whistles over your head, close enough to stir your hair. Shouts and metal crash together around you. You don’t think. You scramble for whatever is closest, fingers closing around cold steel. A sword. You yank it free, the weight of it almost pulling you off balance. The blade bites at your skin as you fumble for the grip, nicking your fingers, and you hiss as warmth slicks your palm. It is too long, too heavy, unfamiliar in your hands. 

Shit. You don’t know how to wield a sword. 

Another cry splits the air and you react on instinct alone. You roll onto your back and bring the sword up in front of you, one hand clenched desperately around the handle while the other slides up to pinch the blade near its tip. The metal shrieks, the impact rattling through your arms and nearly tearing the weapon from your grip. Whatever hit you skids away with a violent scrape. 

Your vision finally snaps into focus. It is the boy from District Seven, you think, eyes wide and sweat streaking down his face as he lifts his axe again. His hands tremble around the handle, knuckles white, breath coming in ragged gasps. You are still on the ground. You are still holding a sword you do not know how to use. “I’m so sorry!” he shouts, voice cracking even as he raises the axe high over his head. 

The apology gives you just enough time. You roll hard to the side, dirt and stone tearing at your clothes as you tumble away. The axe crashes down where your head would have been, the impact shuddering through the ground. The boy wrenches the axe free and lunges after you, face twisted with panic and resolve all at once. 

Then his body jerks sideways. A knife sinks into the side of his head with a sickening sound, and his momentum carries him past you before he collapses in a heap. Your neck snaps to the side, pulse roaring in your ears. The girl from District Five. Kazuha, you think.  She stands over him for half a second, expression hard and focused, already pulling her blade free. Ryujin is beside her, moving with the same efficiency, eyes scanning for the next threat. Kazuha glances at you once, her stare stern. Then they are gone, disappearing back into the chaos together. 

You lie there for a heartbeat longer than you should, fingers still locked around the sword, chest heaving, mind struggling to catch up. What? Why did she save you?

You scramble upward, muscles screaming as you shove yourself behind a stack of tall supply crates, wood splintered and stacked unevenly, barely enough cover but better than nothing. You press your back to them and try to breathe. The arena is alive with sound now. Screams tear through the air, metal clashes against metal, bodies collide somewhere. Your head spins. You need a plan. You need something solid to grab onto before panic eats you alive— 

A strong hand clamps around your arm and yanks. You whirl instantly, sword jerking up in your grip, fingers tight and clumsy around the handle as you swing blindly, heart slamming into your throat. “Hey!” 

It's Beomgyu. 

For a split second your brain refuses to catch up. This is it, you think wildly. You should have expected it, of course he would find you. Of course he would strike now, when everything is chaos and blood and instinct. He is close enough that you can see the grit on his cheek, the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes flick briefly to the sword in your hands before snapping back to your face. He's gonna kill you—

Then you see what he is holding. Your bow. Your arrows. Your fucking bow gripped in his hand, the quiver slung over his shoulder. He has your quiver too. He taps his chest quickly. Your eyes follow the motion, a gold mockingjay pinned against his shirt, catching the light. The calm you did not even realize had settled over you evaporates instantly, replaced by panic so fierce it makes your vision blur. Confusion crashes into it just as hard. Why does he have your weapon? Why does he have your pin?

Trust the pin. The words slam into you all at once. Yeonjun’s shaking hands. His voice pleading. Beomgyu’s eyes on you across the arena before the horn sounded. Everything collides inside your chest. 

“Bow and arrow, right?” Beomgyu snaps, dragging you back into the moment. He jerks his head toward the sword in your hands. “Swap.” 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck Choi Beomgyu. You meet his eyes, searching for hesitation, for betrayal, for anything that tells you this is a mistake. You find none. You loosen your grip on the sword. He steps in at the same time, movements quick, shoving the bow into your hands as you pass the useless blade to him. Your fingers close around the familiar curve of the wood and something inside you steadies instantly, like your body finally remembers who it is.

Beomgyu does not thank you. He only smirks, fierce and wild, already turning away. “Try to keep up,” he says, hands grab a random pack on the ground.

"Twelve!" He shouts when you don't respond, "Come on!"

You snap out of it and your feet move, following the dark line of his back through the chaos. Your fingers set an arrow on instinct, muscle memory guiding you as you draw and keep it ready. No one comes close to you. They circle wide, wary, as if the space around you has turned sharp. All around, tributes clash and scatter, bodies colliding and breaking apart again. Beomgyu cuts toward the edge of the clearing and you chase, bow still raised, eyes flicking to the sides in case someone is brave enough to try. He heads straight for one of the tunnel mouths carved into the mountain, and when you reach the edge you look down and your breath stutters. The ground is far below, the forest a dark sprawl waiting to swallow anyone who falls. The height makes your stomach twist, but it also makes something else spark in you.

A way out.

The rock here slopes just enough that you could slide, and you spot a narrow ledge about twenty feet down, pale stone cutting across the cliff. You glance left and right, both ends of the ledge vanish into tunnels that burrow into the mountain, black and waiting. The arena feels wrong, like it is herding everyone into those holes on purpose, like the Gamemakers want the tunnels to be your only choice. You bare your teeth to yourself, the taste of anger thick in your mouth.

Fuck tunnels. Fuck the Capitol. You glance up and find Beomgyu already halfway to the tunnel, one hand braced against the rock wall, the other gripping his sword. “What are you waiting for? Come on!”

You look back at the Cornucopia. Most of the tributes have scattered, but four still linger, watching you like predators. One of the boys breaks from the group and starts toward you. Your breath catches. The tunnels gape behind Beomgyu, dark and swallowing, and you know what waits inside them. No light. No distance. No space for a bow to matter. Blindness would turn your best weapon into dead weight. If you go in there, you go in wrong. “Don’t even think about it,” Beomgyu warns, stepping back toward you as if he can physically drag you the way he wants you to go. 

You turn and loose an arrow. The District Four boy jerks aside just in time, spear raised, eyes flashing as if he is deciding whether to throw. You do not have time for this. You do not have arrows to spare. The moment stretches, thin as wire, and something in you snaps. Fuck it. 

You meet Beomgyu’s stare once, then vault over the lowest part of the rock wall and throw yourself into open space. Gravity takes you immediately, ruthless and fast. Your free hand scrapes along stone, skin burning as you try to slow yourself, boots skidding and sending loose rock and dust into the air. The mountain drags you downward in a blur of impact and breath and fear, until you hit the ledge below with a hard jolt that rattles your bones. You stagger but stay upright. The bow is already back in your hands, another arrow drawn, your chest heaving as you lift your gaze.

Beomgyu comes over the edge a heartbeat later. You almost shoot him, there is a very real second where your fingers tighten and you consider it, but then his boots hit the stone beside you and the moment passes. “You’re fucking insane!” he snaps, breath sharp from the jump. 

“You didn’t have to follow,” you shoot back, already scanning the ridge above you, bow lifted again. 

“You’re insane,” he repeats, and you wish you could prove it by putting an arrow through him. You almost do, too, until your eyes catch the pin on his chest and something ugly and complicated knots in your stomach. “Come on. Move.” 

He turns toward one of the narrow openings carved into the rock, and you follow despite yourself, walking backward with your arrow still aimed at the sky. You hear footsteps scrape above you and a head appears over the ledge. 

You don’t think. You fire. 

The arrow strikes true, straight through the center of the District Four girl’s forehead. She drops out of sight without a sound, her body swallowed by the height. Your breath stutters. Your hands shake around the bowstring. You have killed someone. You have actually killed someone. 

“Twelve,” Beomgyu says. “Come on.” 

Beomgyu’s voice is low and unexpectedly soft. When you look up, his gaze skims your face as if counting you back into yourself, as if saying You're okay. There's no time to break apart now. You did what you had to do. His frustratingly deep brown eyes seems to steadies something deep inside you that you didn’t know was trembling. 

You look away, refusing him any vulnerability, swallowing the sob that claws at your throat. One last glance steals up to the sky, a cold blue expanse indifferent to the suffering below, and you let it anchor you. You step forward, into the tunnel, and with each echoing footstep, the world of light and death recedes behind you, leaving only the hum of your own pulse and the heavy realization of survival. 

The tunnels swallow sound, swallowing space, swallowing time.

It is dark enough to make your chest tighten, but your eyes slowly adjust, shapes emerging where there were none before, the faint outline of Beomgyu moving ahead of you. Your fingers brush the stone walls as you go, grounding yourself. Light begins to bleed in from the far end of the tunnel, thin at first, then brighter, and relief floods you so sharply it almost makes you dizzy. You have never liked the dark.

The light pours in all at once and you squint as you stumble out of the tunnel, air rushing cool. You find yourselves on a narrow path carved into the side of the mountain, a rough ledge that curves along the rock face, eerily similar to the one you slid down when fleeing the Cornucopia. You are lower now, noticeably so, the ground no longer dizzyingly distant but still far enough to make any descent reckless. Trees crowd closer below, their tops swaying in the wind like they are waiting for you. Beomgyu doesn’t say anything at first. He simply drops down onto the edge of the path, legs dangling over open air like the height means nothing to him. He exhales and tilts his head back toward the sky. “Rest,” he says finally, voice firm. “We’re far away now.” 

The moment he says it, your body rebels. Your legs buzz with leftover adrenaline, your chest still tight with urgency. Standing still feels wrong, dangerous. You glance down the path, eyes tracing the curve toward the next tunnel opening that would take you back into the mountain. “I could keep going,” you say, already half convincing yourself. 

He looks at you then, unimpressed. “You’re breathing hard,” he says flatly. “You’re tired.” 

“Sure,” you reply, swallowing, “but I can keep going.” Beomgyu does not argue. He sets his sword down beside him and pulls his pack into his lap, methodically opening it. He ignores you completely. 

You pull an arrow from your quiver, notch it, and draw the string back until it hums with tension, the tip aimed squarely at the back of Beomgyu’s head. Your arms are steady despite everything, despite the adrenaline still buzzing beneath your skin. “Give me one reason I shouldn’t shoot you right now,” you say. 

You do not understand him. You do not understand why he is so determined to stay at your side, why he went as far as dragging Yeonjun into whatever silent agreement this is. The questions pile up faster than you can sort through them, and every instinct tells you that evasiveness in the arena gets people killed. Nothing about this makes sense. Beomgyu does not turn around. He does not even flinch. He keeps rummaging through his pack like there is not an arrow trained on his skull. “Yeonjun,” he says simply, as if that explains everything.

And fuck him for it, because he is right. You do not trust Beomgyu, but you trust Yeonjun, and Yeonjun told you to trust the pin. The gold mockingjay on Beomgyu’s chest catches your eye, irritating and undeniable, and it feels like being cornered by your own promise. With a frustrated sound, you let the bowstring slacken. The tension drains from it and from you all at once. You slide the arrow back into your quiver and shrug the heavy backpack off your shoulders, irritation simmering under your skin. You drop down beside him and let your legs swing over the edge of the ledge, the open air yawning beneath your feet. “I hate you,” You mutter, “You’re irritating as hell.” 

“Glad we’re bonding,” Beomgyu replies dryly without looking up. He glances into his pack again. “You get anything useful?” 

“How do I know you won’t kill me?” you counter instead, eyes drifting to the terrifying distance between you and the trees below. One shove. One misstep. Either of you could be gone in seconds. 

“Because I would have already,” he says, finally looking at you, expression flat and almost tired. “Anything else?” 

You could shove him off the ledge while he is sitting right there. You could draw your bow and end it cleanly. You do not need him to survive, but you have seen him fight. You have watched him move in training, fast and ruthless, all sharp instincts and precision. In a place like this, that makes him dangerous, yes, but it also makes him useful. 

Trust is a luxury you do not have. You exhale slowly, resignation settling in your chest. Fine. You will go along with it. Not because you believe in him, not because you want to, but because the arena does not care what you like. For now, Beomgyu stays, whether you trust him or not.

You set your bow down carefully beside you and let the quiver slide from your shoulder onto the path, the sudden lightness making you roll your neck once in relief. Your shoulders ache now that the adrenaline has begun to ebb. You unzip the backpack you grabbed in the scramble and dig inside, fingers brushing past unfamiliar shapes until you pull out the first solid thing you find. A small box. You turn it over once, then snort. “Crackers.” Crackers. Food. 

You have been running on instinct and survival and blood pounding in your ears, and somehow you nearly forgot that hunger will be just as dangerous as any blade in this place. You will have to fight for food here. Every bite will matter. “Dried meat,” Beomgyu says, pulling an item from his own rucksack and tossing it lightly between his hands.

“Rope,” you add, fishing another thing out of your pack. 

“Water purifying kit.” You pause at that, brows knitting together. That would be useful, if you could actually get to water. And even then you would still need something to carry it in. As if on cue, your fingers close around metal. 

“Water bottle,” you say, a little too brightly, lifting it up. It is light but sturdy, the kind meant to survive being dropped from heights. Durable. Useful. 

Beomgyu leans closer, peering at it. “Anything in it?” 

You twist the cap open and look inside. Empty. Your brief optimism collapses instantly. “No.” 

“We’ll get to water,” he says, brushing it off like it is inevitable. He reaches back into his bag. “Sunglasses.” 

You blink at him. “We’re in an arena designed to kill us and they give you sunglasses?” 

He hands them over anyway. You slide them onto your face, squinting experimentally. If these are sunglasses, they are terrible ones. The glare barely fades at all. “I’ve seen those before,” Bepmgyu says thoughtfully, and before you can stop him, he plucks them straight off your face. You consider, very briefly, breaking his fingers. “Night vision glasses,” he finishes. 

Your head snaps up. “Night vision glasses?” 

Beomgyu looks at you then, one eyebrow lifting. “You sound excited.” 

You press your lips together, trying and failing to smother the small spark warming your chest, and you turn away before he can comment on it. “How did you know?” you ask instead, letting the question sound casual even though it is not, “about the bow. The arrows. I never told anyone.” 

Beomgyu stills for a moment, “First day of training,” he says finally. “You went straight for the weapons. Picked up the bow, set the arrow, tested the draw. Then you put it back the second I walked over.” He shrugs, eyes dropping to his pack as his hands keep moving. “Most people couldn’t even string the thing without swearing. Even Ryujin needed a few tries. You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t think. That kind of ease doesn’t come from guessing.” 

The realization settles uncomfortably in your chest. So you were never as invisible as you thought. You huff softly and roll your shoulders. “Guess I’m better with it than I give myself credit for.” 

He lets out a quiet scoff, not looking up. “That’s one way to put it.” 

Silence stretches between you, filled only by wind and the distant, hollow sounds of the arena below. “Do we have a plan?” you ask at last, staring out over the ledge instead of at him. 

He looks up, brows lifting slightly. “A plan.” 

“Yes,” you say, firmer now. “A plan to stay alive. Because if you’re tying yourself to me, you’re doing it on my terms. I know where I’m going. You don’t have to follow.” 

Something in his posture eases, tension draining from his shoulders like he has been waiting for this. “Alright,” he says. “What’s the genius idea?” 

You point down toward the valley, where green presses up against stone like it is trying to reclaim the mountain. “Trees.” 

He blinks. “Trees?” 

“I need cover,” you say, standing and reaching for your bow. “I need space. I can’t fight properly boxed in like this. Down there I can see, I can move, I can shoot. There’ll be water, wood for fire. We won’t freeze the first night.” You pause, then add quietly, “That’s where I survive.” 

He studies you for a second longer than necessary, then nods once. “Fine.” 

“Good. Then let’s go.” 

He gestures down the path with an exaggerated flourish. “After you.” 

You snort. “Absolutely not. Expendable people first.” 

His eyebrows shoot up so high you almost laugh. “You’re insane.” 

You shrug, tightening the strap of your quiver. “You’re the one who wanted to be allies. Plus,” you add, glancing pointedly at the gear in his hands, “you’ve got the night vision.” 

He sighs, but there is something like amusement in it as he slips the glasses on. Without another word, Beomgyu starts down the narrow path, careful and steady, and you fall in behind him, close enough to follow his steps, close enough to hear his breathing, the two of you moving together toward the trees like the mountain is finally loosening its grip. 

You hate the dark. Not in the dramatic way people talk about fear, not with shaking hands or whispered confessions, but in a quieter, more practical sense. You simply do not like it. Darkness takes away distance and choice and the space you need to think. You have been in the mining tunnels of District Twelve before, lungs burning with coal dust, walls closing in around you, so this is not unfamiliar. Still, that does not make it easier. In the dark, you cannot maneuver the way you want to. You cannot see an exit before you need it. It presses too close and asks you to trust what you cannot control. Beomgyu proves to be a capable guide, as far as guides in an arena built to kill you can be. His voice stays low and steady as he moves ahead of you, warning you when the tunnel narrows or widens, pausing when the stone underfoot shifts. At one point he stops entirely, murmuring something about a split in the path, and you tell him to take the route that feels closer to the outside of the mountain, closer to air and light. He does not question it. He just nods and moves. 

Time stretches thin and strange underground. You lose any real sense of it, but you can feel the steady downward slope in your legs, the subtle promise that ground level cannot be far now. Your calves burn. Your shoulders ache. Still, you keep going. Then Beomgyu stops. 

“What is it?” you murmur, straining your eyes uselessly into the darkness.

“It opens up,” he says quietly. “Big. A cavern. Maybe half the size of the training center.” 

Your breath catches. Even half that size is massive, a space large enough to hide danger in every corner. “What’s the ground like?” 

“Uneven,” he answers. “Real bad.” 

“How many ways out?” 

“Five,” he says after a pause. “That I can see.” 

“Which one do you like?” 

You cannot see his face, but you can picture the look he gives you. “Which one do I like?” 

You lift a shoulder in a small shrug. “The Capitol probably planted something awful behind all of them. We’re walking into a mess no matter what.” 

“Your optimism is truly inspiring.” 

You huff softly, fingers tightening around your bow. “That’s me. A glowing beacon of hope. Alright. Lead the way, Mr. Doom and Gloom.” 

“If the Capitol doesn’t kill you,” he mutters as he starts forward again, “I will.” 

You let out a soft small chuckle, and step after him, senses straining. You cannot see the cavern, but you feel it. The air shifts, opening up around you, cooler and heavier, carrying sound in a way the narrow tunnels did not. The darkness remains absolute, hiding the height of the ceiling, the distance between the paths, the shape of the ground beneath your feet. You move carefully, every step slow, knowing that in a place like this, one wrong move is all it takes. Your toe catches on stone and pain jolts up your leg as you stumble, arms flailing for balance before you manage to steady yourself. The sound echoes too loudly in the cavern, scraping against the silence. 

“Watch your step,” Beomgyu says, his voice flat but sharp. 

“A little late for that,” you mutter, irritation flaring as you straighten. “You could’ve at least warned me that the ground was trying to kill me too.” 

“Quiet.” The single word lands heavy. The tone shifts instantly, Beomgyu's humor evaporating, and you freeze where you stand. Every muscle locks. If sight has abandoned you, then hearing is all you have left, and you cling to it desperately. 

There is a sound in the dark. Scratching. Light and skittering, like small claws dragging over stone. Your chest tightens as panic rushes in hot and fast. Capitol mutts you can handle. Mutated creatures, engineered horrors, at least you can see those. This though, this unseen thing moving around you in the dark, it makes your skin crawl. “We need to go,” you whisper, dread bleeding into your voice. 

Beomgyu’s hand clamps around your arm and you nearly jerk away on instinct. “Move,” he hisses. 

He takes off running and you have no choice but to follow, trusting him blindly because he can see and you cannot. The ground is treacherous, uneven rock slamming into your feet at the wrong angles, ankles screaming with every misstep. You barely manage to keep upright as the darkness swallows you whole. Then Beomgyu stops so suddenly you almost crash into him. There is a sharp whoosh of metal cutting through air, followed by a high, animal cry and a heavy thump against the stone. You both go still. The silence feels fragile, stretched thin. 

Beomgyu lets go of your arm, leaving you exposed in the dark. “It’s a bat,” he murmurs, disbelief and disgust tangled together. “That is a huge bat.” 

Bats. Of all things. Your stomach twists. “Do you see any more?” you whisper. For a heartbeat, there is no answer. When he speaks again, it's quieter. “We should run.” 

“How many?” you press, dread coiling tighter in your chest. 

The answer comes in the form of a screech that cuts through the cavern, followed by the unmistakable sound of wings beating the air. “Go!” Beomgyu shouts. 

You run. You do not know where, only that forward is better than staying still. One hand stretches out blindly in front of you, ready to catch stone before your face does, while behind you Beomgyu swings his sword in wide arcs. Something hits the ground with a wet sound. Then another weight crashes into you, landing hard on your shoulder. You scream, pure instinct, and slam your bow against it. The thing peels away, but not before its talons dig into your skin, sharp and burning. It was heavy, far heavier than it should have been. 

You are no longer running. Neither of you are. Beomgyu slashes wildly, connecting only every so often, while the bats circle and shriek above you, their wings slicing through the air. You swing your bow uselessly, not aiming so much as trying to keep them away, to survive the next second. You end up back to back without meaning to, bodies brushing as you move. The only reason you know he is still there is the solid bump of his shoulder against yours, grounding you. In the dark, with monsters screaming around you, it is the closest thing to reassurance you have. 

You hate this. You hate every second of it, the suffocating dark, the shrieking wings, the way the Capitol turns fear into spectacle. Fuck their mutts and fuck their games and fuck the hands that built this place just to watch people break. Your chest burns with it, anger tangled with terror, and it spills out of you sharp. “Give me the fucking glasses!” you shout, voice tearing through the chaos. 

Beomgyu laughs once, breathless and harsh, his sword biting into something solid with a sickening sound. “What, you gonna leave me blind in here?” 

You know exactly what he means. With the glasses, you could see the exits, map a path, maybe run and never look back. He could not. And yet he is still there, shoulder to shoulder with you, blade flashing, never once turning away even though he could have. The realization hits harder than the fear. You grit your teeth.

“Just give them to me,” you snap, panic bleeding into fury. The glasses are shoved into your hand a second later. No argument. No hesitation. 

You drop low, knees hitting stone as you fumble the bow aside just long enough to shove the night vision glasses onto your face. The world snaps into shape. You grab your bow again and stand, breath catching as the cavern finally reveals itself. 

Beomgyu had not exaggerated. The space is massive, swallowing you whole, the ground a chaotic sprawl of craters and jagged rock that makes your stomach twist when you realize how close you came to breaking something. The ceiling looms far above, easily twenty feet high, riddled with small tunnel mouths where shadows twitch and vanish. The bats come into focus and your heart sinks. They are enormous, bodies nearly the size of your head, wings stretching wide and powerful. You have seen bats back home in District 12, harmless shapes flitting through dusk. These are wrong, familiar and monstrous all at once, like the Capitol took something ordinary and twisted it just enough to ruin it. You try to count them and fail. Too many. At least a dozen, maybe more. You force yourself to breathe, fingers tightening around the bow as you do the math anyway. Twenty two arrows. That has to be enough. It has to be. 

“Get down!” you shout, as you lift your bow, fear sharpening into focus. 

Beomgyu drops without complaint, flattening himself against the ground with his sword still raised in front of his face, all sharp instinct and trust. You do not spare him a glance. You pull your first arrow from the quiver, muscle memory taking over as you notch it and draw. The bowstring hums and the arrow flies. 

It takes the first bat clean through the face. The creature falls with a shrill, broken cry that echoes through the cavern before it hits the stone with a dull thump. After that, something in you settles, clicks into place. The fear burns away, replaced by focus so sharp it almost feels calm. The bats circle, screeching and darting, waiting for an opening, but you are faster than their hesitation. Arrow after arrow leaves your fingers, each shot true, each impact followed by a cry and the heavy sound of a body hitting the ground. You move without thinking, twisting, ducking, dropping to one knee as another dives too close. Fire. Cry. Thump. Down, down, down. The cavern fills with noise and then slowly, impossibly, it does not. Your chest is heaving by the time you reach for another arrow and find only one left. You draw it anyway, bowstring pulled tight, eyes sweeping the cavern in a full circle. The ceiling gapes above you, empty. The tunnels are still. No more wings. No more shrieks. 

Shit. You actually did it. You ease your grip and slide the last arrow back into your quiver, hands trembling now that the adrenaline has nowhere left to go. If you were not still buzzing with leftover panic, you might have called it fun. 

“Holy fuck,” Beomgyu breathes. You take the silence as permission and sink down beside him, the stone cold beneath you as you try to remember how to breathe normally. He sits up, sword still in his hands, eyes scanning shadows that no longer move. For a moment, neither of you speaks. “Did you get them all?” he asks eventually. 

You pull the glasses from your face and tap his arm with them, done with seeing monsters where there are none. “See for yourself.” 

Darkness rushes back in, but it feels different now, quieter. You hear him stand, footsteps careful as he surveys the cavern. You stay where you are, letting the rush drain from your veins, grounding yourself in the sound of your own breath. 

After a while, he says, “How many arrows did you have?” 

“Twenty two.” 

A pause. “You killed twenty one bats.” 

You huff, fingers brushing the feathers of the single arrow left in your quiver. “Wow. You can count. Yeah. One arrow to spare.” 

“So you didn’t miss a single shot.”

You shrug, a small, tired motion. “Like I said. Half decent with a bow and arrow.” 

“Half decent, my ass,” he mutters, and you can hear the reluctant awe in it. 

Your lips twitch despite yourself. “Be a dear and collect my arrows,” you say lightly. “Since you’re admiring my handiwork.” He scoffs, but his footsteps move away all the same, metal and feathers clinking softly as he starts gathering them from the stone. 

There is an unpleasant, wet sound as Beomgyu pulls your arrows free, flesh tearing in a way that makes your stomach twist even after everything else. When he comes back, he drops the bundle into your lap without ceremony. You count them one by one, grounding yourself in the familiar rhythm, making sure all twenty one are there before sliding them back into your quiver. Only then do you push yourself to your feet, legs still shaky but holding. “Shall we?” you ask, voice lighter than you feel. 

Beomgyu scoffs somewhere in the dark. “Which tunnel?” 

“Whatever one looks best.” 

He snorts. “How the hell can a tunnel look good?” 

“Which one’s the prettiest?” you press, because humor is easier than thinking about where any of them might lead. 

“For fuck’s sake.” 

You roll your eyes even though he cannot see it. “Fine. You choose, asshole. Just pick one.” 

He goes quiet, considering, and then you feel a tap against your shoulder. Your hand comes up on instinct, ready to swat him away, but he speaks before you can. “Can you follow?” he asks, steady and serious, “or should I grab you?” 

There is no teasing in it. No edge. Just practicality. Back at the bloodbath, the path had been narrow, obvious, and panic had carried you forward without thought. Here, you have seen the ground, the holes and broken stone waiting to ruin an ankle or worse. You swallow. “I’ve seen what it’s like. I’ll take the guide.” 

He reaches for you carefully, fingers warm as they settle around your wrist, and then he draws your hand to him. Your grip finds his sleeve and tightens, knuckles brushing fabric and muscle beneath. “You trust me?” Beomgyu asks, quiet but heavy, like the answer matters more than he is willing to admit. 

You do not look at him. You do not let yourself think too hard about it. “I trust Yeonjun,” you say instead, because that much is true and solid and safe. “Lead away.” 

That seems to be enough. Beomgyu starts forward, and you go with him, steps careful, fingers locked into his sleeve as the dark swallows you both and the tunnel carries you deeper, together. 

Time slips past you and by the time you finally stumble out of the tunnels, the sun is gone. Night has settled in, quiet and blue, and the first thing you do is let go of Beomgyu like the dark itself has loosened its grip on you. Fresh air fills your lungs, cool and clean, and it feels almost dizzying after hours of stone and dust. Trees rise up around you, endless and familiar, their silhouettes layered into the distance, and somewhere close by you hear rushing water. You close your eyes for just a second and the arena falls away. You are back beyond the fence, back in the wild edges of District Twelve where the woods breathe and the world makes sense. The feeling hits harder than you expect. Your chest tightens, eyes stinging, because you did not realize how badly you missed this until it was right in front of you again. Home, or something cruelly close to it.

Beomgyu starts toward the sound of water and you fall in beside him. From the mountain above, you remember how the river curved around its base, and you figure if you keep moving away from the stone spine of it, you are bound to hit water eventually. You do. Five minutes later the river opens up in front of you, dark and glinting under the moon. Your throat aches with thirst, your body begging you to drop to your knees and drink until you cannot anymore, but Beomgyu is already pulling out his purifying kit, already holding out a hand for your bottle. You force yourself to breathe and wait. “How long more?” you ask as he tips the iodine into the water, watching it cloud. 

“Half an hour,” he says, screwing the lid back on. 

You scowl. Half an hour feels like a lifetime. “Tell me you’ve got a watch in that bag.” 

His mouth twitches. “Want the glasses?” 

You shake your head, glancing up at the sky. “Moon’s enough. I’m fine.” 

And you are. After the tunnels, this feels generous. You know how to move in the woods at night, how to listen, how to let your eyes adjust. You grew up with this kind of dark. Neither of you suggests a fire. It would be stupid, loud, inviting. Most of the dangerous tributes are probably still trapped in the mountain, tangled in tunnels and stone, but you know better than to assume safety. Some ran instead of fighting for supplies. Some people do not need weapons to kill. You have seen the tapes. You sit there, side by side, the river murmuring, the forest watching. When the silence starts to itch, you break it. “Why the sword?” 

Beomgyu glances up, blade resting across his knees as he rinses it clean. “Katana,” he corrects. “Because it works.” 

You snort softly. “You don’t just swing it. You know it.” 

He nods, simple and unguarded. “Yeah. This, or knives.” 

“Knives,” you echo, eyebrows lifting. 

“Mostly close combat,” he says. “But I can throw if I need to.” 

You think of training, of how easily he moved, how vicious and precise he was when it counted. You think of yourself with a bow in your hands, how that felt like breathing, and how lucky you thought you were to have even one thing you were good at. Careers are built differently. They are shaped for this from the start. The river keeps flowing. The moon keeps watch. And for the first time since the horn sounded, you are not running. 

“What was it like?” you murmur, the question slipping out before you can stop it. When Beomgyu finally lifts his eyes to you, you add quietly, “Being raised as a Career tribute.” 

He does not answer right away. Instead, he goes back to his sword, running the cloth along a blade that has been clean for a while now, like he needs something mindless to anchor himself. Finally, he speaks. “Hell,” Beomgyu says, voice flat and honest, and you do not push him for more. Some words are heavy enough to stand on their own.

Silence settles again, thicker this time. It is broken abruptly by music. The Capitol anthem swells through the air, polished and cruel, and Beomgyu’s head snaps up on instinct. You follow his gaze, watching the Capitol seal bloom across the night sky in sharp, glowing lines. Right. The dead. You count automatically, the distant echo of cannon fire replaying in your head. Eight.

The first face appears and your stomach twists. The one you shot. Your eyes flick toward Beomgyu and you see his shoulders sag just slightly, something loosening there. No one from One or Two appears, and the relief that flickers across his face only makes the questions pile up in your mind. Why is he here with you? Why not them? Why not a neat, brutal alliance like everyone expects? You think of Kazuha, of how she moved with Ryujin. Pieces that do not quite fit. 

The girl from Five follows. Then both tributes from Six. You recognize the boy instantly, the one who almost killed you at the Cornucopia, and your jaw tightens. The boy from Eight appears next. He looks impossibly young, all wide eyes and soft features, and your chest aches. Then both tributes from Ten fill the sky, and your stomach lurches hard. They are children. You cannot stop thinking that. Children dressed up for slaughter.

The last face flashes into place and the air leaves your lungs. Kim Sunoo. Your blood goes cold and hot all at once, a sharp burn behind your eyes. You had known, somewhere deep down, that he was too good for this place, too bright. His smile comes back to you uninvited, warm and easy, like the world was kinder than it ever really was. 

Then the anthem ends. The seal dissolves. The sky goes dark again, like nothing happened at all. Sixteen left. You turn your gaze back to the river, breathing through the ache, swallowing the sob that claws at your throat. Your eyes flicker to Beomgyu and you catch him already watching you, like he has been waiting for the moment you would look up. His mouth parts, like he is about to say something, anything, but you do not let him. “Save it,” you say quietly. “I wasn’t that close to him.” 

The lie sits heavy in your chest. Kim Sunoo’s bright smile flashes through your mind anyway, warm and vivid and painfully alive, and you have to look away before it breaks you.

There is a sudden flash that nearly blinds you, the sky splitting open in harsh white light. You squint hard, heart jumping, just in time to see a jagged bolt of lightning slam straight into the top of the mountain. Thunder cracks a breath later, loud enough to shake the ground beneath you, but there is no rain, no storm rolling in behind it. Just that single, violent strike, like the arena itself flinched. Neither you nor Beomgyu speak at first. You both listen, straining for a second sound, another warning, anything. Nothing comes. “Did that hit the Cornucopia?” you ask finally. “Or was it just… random?”

“Nothing’s random in here,” Beomgyu mutters, his eyes still fixed on the mountain, jaw tight. 

You let out a slow breath. If there is no cannon, then at least no one was there. Anyone left at the Cornucopia would have been dead on impact. Which means the remaining tributes are scattered now, either lost in the tunnels or hiding down here at ground level. The thought settles uneasily in your chest. There is something else gnawing at you too, a question that followed you out of the dark tunnels and refused to stay behind. 

“That was your first kill,” Beomgyu says after a moment, his voice quieter. “The girl from earlier?” 

You nod, unable to find words that feel right. He watches you, searching your face for something. “Well,” he says eventually, not unkind, “there’s more of that to go around.” 

The words land heavy. You think of home, of Kai and Hiyyih, of whether they are watching right now. You wonder what it looks like on screen, watching you loose an arrow and end a life without hesitation. A girl who did nothing wrong except exist in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I thought I was a good person,” you say softly, the confession slipping out before you can stop it. “Or some bullshit like that. But I don’t think good people kill. Or at least… they don’t kill easily.” 

The river keeps flowing beside you, uncaring. The mountain looms in the distance, scarred where the lightning struck. And somewhere deep inside, something shifts, quieter and more dangerous than fear. You keep your eyes on the ground, staring at dirt and stone like they might swallow the words you just said. You did not plan to say them.

“I don’t think there are good people,” Beomgyu says.Your head lifts at that. He is not looking at you, his gaze fixed on the water as it slides past, dark and restless under the moon. 

“Good people don’t exist,” he adds quietly, like the thought has been living in him for a long time and only just found its way out. 

You listen as he speaks, voice low, uneven in places. “Some people are better than others. Sure. But no one is just… good. Everyone has reasons. Everyone wants something.” He trails off, breath catching, then finally turns to you. “No one’s good,” Beomgyu says, clearer now. “Especially not in here.” 

You are not sure if he means the arena or the world beyond it. Maybe there is no difference anymore. The Capitol’s shadow stretches far, into the districts, into people, into choices. You press your lips together and nod once, because you understand more than you want to. “You should sleep,” he says after a moment. “I’ll take first watch.” 

Your heart beats once, hard, and then you answer, “Okay. Wake me when you want to switch.” 

He does not make a big deal of it. Just a small nod, almost imperceptible, before he leans back against a tree, sword within reach, eyes already scanning the dark. You lie down carefully, the forest wrapping around you, the river’s steady sound easing the tightness in your chest. There is so much you do not know about him, about why he chose you, about what he is really thinking. Tomorrow the Capitol will try again. Mutts, traps, blood, spectacle. You will need every ounce of strength you have. And if Beomgyu is truly on your side, maybe, just maybe, you will live long enough to see another sunrise. 

You settle into the ground, curling slightly on your side, the forest cool against your skin. Your eyes stay open longer than they should, tracing the shapes of branches overhead, listening to the river’s quiet insistence as it moves past you like it always has, like it always will. The night is dangerous, you know that, but for the first time since the Games began, it is not screaming at you. It is almost gentle. Your gaze drifts to Beomgyu’s back, the solid line of his shoulders outlined by moonlight as he keeps watch. He does not move much, but enough to remind you he is awake, alert, alive. It is strange, the way a presence that should make you wary instead brings something close to calm. Not trust, not entirely, but a fragile sense of not being alone. 

Sleep creeps in slowly, soft and heavy, tugging at your thoughts. The fear dulls at the edges. Your breathing evens out. There is a quiet, unfamiliar peace in knowing someone is standing guard while you rest, even if tomorrow promises violence and loss all over again.

As your eyes finally close, the last thing you see is Beomgyu’s silhouette against the trees, and for a fleeting moment, the world feels almost safe.

You wake with your eyes half-slit, sunlight pressing through your lashes. You had been waiting for Beomgyu to shake you awake at some point in the night so you could trade watch, so the brightness makes your chest jolt. For a stupid second, you think he left. That he took advantage of your sleep and disappeared into the trees without you. When your vision clears, he is exactly where you left him, sitting with his back against the trunk, knees drawn up, sword resting close to his hand. His head tilts slightly, as if he has already noticed you stirring.

He did not leave. He let you sleep through the night.

“You didn't fucking sleep?” you call out. 

“Good morning to you too,” he mutters, voice rough. 

He passed you an apple. “I've been thinking. You hit every single one of those bats in nearly the exact same spot. Dead center in the face.”  he says. 

“Yeah.” You glance up at him. “What’s your point?” 

“You’re good at this,” Beomgyu says. There is something almost entertained in his voice, as if this is not the conclusion he expected to reach. “I’ve never seen anyone with your level of accuracy.” 

You snort and slide the arrow back into your quiver. “When you grow up on your own and you need to eat, you get good at something. Especially with my brother, I picked archery. So yeah, I’m half decent.” 

“Your brother?” he repeats, arms folding over his chest, the corner of his mouth twitching. 

“He's dead.” you echo, Jungwon's face flashing on your mind. “He taught me that if you hit an animal in the eye, you don’t ruin the meat. You waste less.” 

He studies you for a moment, like he is trying to imagine a smaller version of you standing in some dusty market with dead animals in your hands. He observed how you were avoiding the topic of your brother, so he says the next thing in his mind. “You’re insane.” 

Your half smile comes back. 

“There’s still something you’re not telling me. It doesn’t make sense. I told you I had no interest in an alliance, and you still went behind my back for this.” You tug at the pin on your chest. “What, obsessed much?” 

“Obsessed,” Beomgyu repeats flatly, folding his arms. “You’re flattering yourself.” 

You tilt your head. “The facts speak for themselves, Beomgyu.” 

He straightens when you say his name, and for a moment the air between you tightens. You hold his gaze. He knows you have him cornered. Either he gives you something better than excuses, or you decide what to do with what little truth he is offering. He looks at you for a long second more, then exhales and turns his face away. “My mentor wanted it,” he says. “He saw your Reaping. He suggested it. Kept pushing even after you said you’d go solo.” His gaze stays fixed somewhere past the trees, like honesty might burn if he looks straight at you. “He told me to wear the pin. Said I’d understand once I got in the arena.” 

You shrug. “It’s believable that this wasn’t entirely your idea, considering you’ve threatened to kill me twice and complain about me nonstop.” 

“You’re easy to complain about,” he shoots back. 

“I live to serve.” 

Something almost like a smile tugs at his mouth before he can stop it, and the sight of it makes your own lips curve in answer. “So what’s the plan, then?” he asks. “Ally.” 

He drags the word out like it tastes bad. “Well, ally,” you echo, just as mockingly, “I was thinking not dying would be a solid start.” 

“Fair enough,” Beomgyu says. He tosses his apple into the air and catches it, already moving, sword in one hand and pack settling onto his shoulder. “Then let’s go.” 

He follows the river’s edge until it narrows enough to leap across, landing lightly on the opposite bank. You jump after him, boots skidding on wet stone before you steady yourself. “Where to?” you ask, glancing back at the mountain looming behind you. The tunnels still feel like open mouths waiting to swallow you again, and you have no desire to return to them, so crossing the river feels like choosing air over dark. 

Beomgyu keeps his eyes fixed ahead, away from the mountain, away from everything familiar. “I want to see how far we can go,” he says. 

Something sparks in you at that. “Testing boundaries is one of my favorite hobbies,” you reply. “I’m in.” 

You think you hear him scoff, but he does not turn around, and you cannot tell if it is annoyance or something closer to a smile. You decide it is probably the second one. As you walk, the thought creeps in that the Capitol is watching, as it always is. Cameras hidden in bark and stone, lenses drinking in every step you take. You wonder if this is what the audience sees right now, the two of you wandering and arguing instead of killing. Unless someone else is spilling blood, you are probably boring television. On impulse, you stop and raise your middle finger to the trees, turning in a slow circle so no direction is spared. If they are watching, you want them to see it. 

 You want them to see you alive and you're mad.

 “Why,” the President demands, stabbing a finger toward the massive central screen, “is she still alive?” 

The room feels smaller when he is in it. Forty gamemakers sit at their stations in tight silence, faces washed pale in the glow of dozens of monitors. Every tribute in the arena is displayed somewhere across the wall, shifting angles, live feeds, no moment unobserved. And there you are, centered on the largest screen beside the District Two boy, arm lifted high, your defiance unmistakable. 

Jiwoo, the master gamemaker watches you for a second too long before answering. “She is a fan favorite,” he says at last. 

The President slams his fist against the table. The crack echoes. Several gamemakers flinch. One drops a stylus. No one dares pick it up. “She should not be a fan favorite,” he spits. “She should not be alive. She should be dead.” 

Jiwoo folds his hands behind his back to keep them still. “We released the bats,” he replies calmly. “Only her and the District Two tribute encountered them. No one else. They neutralized the threat faster than projected.” 

“Then escalate,” the President snaps. “You have more assets. Use them.” 

Jiwoo’s gaze shifts to the screens again, to the forest, to the two figures moving through it together. “If we overwhelm them too obviously, the audience will notice,” he says carefully. “The illusion of fairness is part of the spectacle.” 

The President turns on him, face flushed, eyes bright with something colder than anger. “The only illusion that matters is control. Send the message clearly, put that spectacle on fire. Rebellion does not survive.” 

You and Beomgyu walk in a quiet that feels almost fragile until a sharp crack splits the air and a bolt of lightning tears down from a cloudless sky. The sound rolls through the forest, deep and unnatural. Both of you stop at once, eyes snapping toward the mountain in the distance. You cannot see the exact point of impact through the trees, but the peak is still visible above the canopy, and smoke curls faintly from near the summit. It is the second time you have seen it strike there, and with the sun blazing overhead, there is no pretending it is weather. 

You tilt your head back, squinting at the sky, judging the sun’s position the way you always have. “Noon,” you murmur. 

Beomgyu glances at you. “What?” 

“It’s noon. Sun’s right above us.” You look back at the mountain, unease tugging at your thoughts. “Noon and midnight?” 

He considers that, jaw tightening slightly. “If you’re right, there’ll be another strike tonight.” 

“Unless the Capitol’s just doing it whenever they feel like it,” you say. “Just to mess with us.” 

“Also likely.” 

“Great,” you mutter. He pushes a low branch out of your path. You duck past before he lets it snap back into place behind you. The forest begins to thin as you walk, the dense cover giving way to wider gaps of grass and stretches of exposed stone. You have been moving for hours now, the rhythm of it settling into your legs, the mountain slowly shrinking behind you. 

“How close do you think we are?” you ask, stripping a bit of dry bark from a tree you recognize as good for starting fires. 

Beomgyu shrugs. “No idea. Hopefully close.” 

You are not even sure what close means, not exactly, but you are glad to keep going. Anything is better than turning back toward that mountain and its waiting dark. You let the conversation fade and focus on the sounds around you instead. Wind slipping through leaves. The soft crush of grass under your boots. The distant rustle of something small moving through brush. You have always been good at listening. Back home, that is how you survived, standing still for long stretches in the woods beyond District Twelve, letting the world speak first, waiting for the faint shift that meant something living had wandered into range. 

You slow your steps and try to separate the forest from yourselves, filtering out the rhythm of your own movement. No birdsong, which sits wrong in your ears, but you have heard small creatures scurrying through leaves and scratching along bark. Squirrels, probably. Something to eat, if the Capitol has not twisted them into something else. Then you hear it. Faint, buried under the rustle of wind and branches, but steady. A thin vibration, like a wire pulled too tight. 

“Wait,” you say quietly, stopping mid-step. 

Beomgyu halts beside you. “What?” 

You tilt your head, narrowing your eyes, trying to place it. It is not wind. Not water. Not animal. It hums, low and constant, like the air itself is holding its breath. You take a careful step forward, then another, hand lifting slowly in front of you. Your fingertips meet nothing and everything at once. There is a sharp snap of energy and your hand jerks back on instinct, a startled breath catching in your throat. It does not burn, but it vibrates through your bones. The air in front of you ripples faintly, a shimmer bending the light. Forcefield. 

“Well,” you mutter, flexing your fingers. “We found the edge.” 

Beomgyu is at your side instantly. “Are you okay?” he asks, already reaching for your hand. He turns it palm up, inspecting your fingertips like you have just brushed fire. “Seriously? You just walked into a forcefield.” 

“I noticed,” you say, but you let him hold your hand, too thrown off to pull away. His fingers are warm and careful as they trace over your skin. “It didn’t hurt. Just surprised me.” 

“How did that not hurt?” His voice carries something close to disbelief, and something else you do not want to name. His thumb brushes lightly across your fingertips as his eyes lift to your face, brown and intent. “How did you even know it was there?” 

You realize all at once how close he is, how long he has been holding your hand, and you pull back, curling your fingers into your palm. Your chest feels tight in a way that has nothing to do with the arena. “I heard it,” you say, clearing your throat. “Didn’t know what it was, just a hum. A buzz. Really faint.” 

He listens for a second, head tilted, then shakes it slightly. “I can barely hear anything, and we’re standing right next to it. That’s insane.” 

You shrug, trying to play it off. “Occupational hazard. Hunter and all.” 

He steps away from the invisible barrier and starts walking along it, keeping a careful distance. You fall into step beside him. His mouth curves just slightly. “Yeah. That fits you.” 

You walk beside him in a quiet that feels different now, heavier, like something has shifted and neither of you has named it yet. His hand on yours, the way his voice softened, it lingers under your skin in a way that makes you restless. You have spent days telling yourself not to trust him, building careful distance, reminding yourself that he is a Career, that people like him do not care about people like you. And maybe he still has his own reasons for staying close, reasons he has not said out loud. But the concern in his voice had not sounded fake. It had sounded real, and that unsettles you more than cruelty would have. 

“Up on the roof,” you say. “When you said you hated them, was that just to get me to trust you, or did you mean it?” 

“Real,” Beomgyu answers without hesitation. He flicks a glance at you. “Though I don’t know why you’re asking when you’re just going to doubt me anyway.” 

“I’m trying not to,” you admit, picking at the string of your bow. “Trusting you is just… hard. Given everything.” 

He lets out a short breath. “Yeah. Fair.” 

“Do you trust me?” you ask. 

“Yeah.” 

You blink at him. “Just like that?” 

“Sure.” He looks at you when you stay quiet, like he realizes he owes you more than that. “I trust you not to stab me in my sleep. I trust your word. Everyone else plays a part in here. Smiles for the cameras. Pretends they’re softer than they are. You never did that. So yeah, I trust that you are exactly who you say you are. And I trust that you’re not my enemy.” 

Not my enemy. The words echo against something Yeonjun had told you before the Games began. Remember who your enemy is. It was never Beomgyu. It was never the others thrown in here to survive. It was always the Capitol. 

“They killed your brother,” Beomgyu says quietly, like he is stepping into deep water. You do not ask who he means. You do not have to. Your silence stretches between you, heavy and full, and that is answer enough. 

“When it first happened, I felt hollow,” you say, your voice far away, like you are speaking through years instead of air. “I barely spoke. Food tasted like nothing. I just… existed. I would hide somewhere no one would look and cry until I couldn’t breathe.” You swallow, the memory sitting sharp behind your ribs. “And then one day it stopped. I woke up and the tears were just… gone. I wasn’t sad anymore.” 

You stare ahead at the trees, at the dappled light that does not care about any of it. “I was angry.” The word is small. Too small. It cannot hold the sleepless nights, the way your hands would shake for no reason.

“Mad. I was furious and I stayed that way. Four years of carrying it around. Every step, every breath, just anger with nowhere to go. I didn’t know who I was without it, but I didn’t know what to do with it either.” You continue, voice smaller. “My brother was the soft side of me. After he was gone, that was gone too.”

“And then there was the Reaping,” Beomgyu says, softer now. 

“And then there was the Reaping,” you echo. A thin, humorless smile pulls at your mouth. “I hate admitting it, but part of me felt relieved. Like finally, all that anger had a direction. A target, better than letting it rot inside me for the rest of my life.” 

He studies you for a moment, something unreadable in his expression. “You talk like you’re planning to die in here.” 

“Aren’t I, though?” You glance at him, lips curving faintly. “You really think that even if, by some miracle, I’m the last one left in here, the Capitol’s just going to let me live?” 

He watches you for a second, face carefully blank. “They’d catch hell if they killed you after you won.” 

You shake your head, a dry sound leaving your throat. “No. They’d make it look like something else. An accident. A mistake. Like what they did to my brother.” 

Beomgyu exhales through his nose. “You heard it here first,” he says, voice low and edged. “If Twelve dies in some tragic, suspicious way, it wasn’t her idea.” 

You laugh, and the sound surprises you with how real it is. It feels strange in your chest, like a memory from another life. “You can stop calling me Twelve, by the way. I do have a name.” 

“What do you want me to call you?” 

“My name would be a start.” 

His mouth twitches. “Yeah? You’re okay with that?” 

“Mm.” 

He says your name, testing it, and it sounds unfamiliar coming from him, like it belongs to someone else. You huff under your breath, not sure what to do with the way it lands. He looks like he is about to say more when a sharp, high-pitched beep cuts through the air. Both of you freeze, heads snapping up, hands tightening around your weapons. The trees are thinner here, the sky more open, and it only takes a second to spot the silver shape drifting down. A small parachute. A sponsor gift. 

“That’s for you,” you say. “I’m pretty sure my mentor has written me off.” 

Beomgyu lets out a quiet breath that almost sounds like a laugh but does not argue. He steps forward and catches the package as it drops, and the beeping stops the moment it hits his hands. You watch as he peels back the wrapping and opens the small box inside. He pauses before touching what is in it, pulling out a folded slip of paper first. His eyes move over the words, then he hands it to you. You read it with a faint frown. 

Don’t mention the scent.  - S 

“They’re from my mentor,” Beomgyu says quietly, holding your gaze a moment longer than usual. There is weight in the look, a silent reminder to remember the note, to act like nothing is strange. You give a small nod and hand the paper back, understanding enough not to question it out loud. 

“What did you get?” you ask. 

He reaches into the package and pulls out a pair of gloves. Your eyebrows lift immediately. They are sleek and dark, made from material far too fine for anything you have ever owned. Beomgyu slides one on, and it molds to his hand like it belongs there. He flexes his fingers, studying the fit. “Durable and light,” he murmurs. “We trained with these back home. They’re good.” 

Gloves seem like an odd gift in the middle of a killing field, but then he reaches back into the box and pulls out a second pair. He holds them out to you. You hesitate only a second before taking them. The material is smooth, almost like leather, but thinner, lighter. You slide one on and your mouth curves before you can stop it. It fits perfectly, warming quickly against your skin. You flex your hand, testing the grip. “Wow,” you breathe, turning your wrist in the light. 

Then you notice it. A faint scent clinging to the fabric. You keep your expression neutral as you draw in a careful breath. It smells like roses, soft and clean and completely out of place here. Not unpleasant, just… deliberate. You say nothing. Do not mention the scent. You are not sure why it matters, but you trust the urgency behind it. “Your mentor sent a pair for me too?” you ask, sliding on the second glove. “That was nice of them.” 

“Or maybe our mentors coordinated,” Beomgyu says, flexing his fingers again like he still cannot quite believe the fit. 

You snort. “Minho coordinating anything would be a miracle.” 

His mouth twitches and you grin back without thinking. The moment passes quickly, and he looks back toward the open stretch of land behind you. “We’ve hit the edge. Nothing out here but the forcefield. If we want water, we should head back toward the river. We can make it before dark.” 

You nod and turn, starting the long walk back toward the mountain. He falls into step beside you. “Do we have dinner plans?” you ask lightly. 

“We still have some apples left,” he says without missing a beat.

After a few steps, you stop and turn toward him, holding out your hand. He looks at it, then at you, clearly unsure what you are doing. “Allies,” you say. 

His brows lift. “We weren’t already?” 

“No. I didn’t trust you. And you were annoying.” 

“Were?” 

“Are. Sorry. Present tense.” 

His lips curve before he reaches out and clasps your hand, shaking it once. “Allies, then. Even if you’re insufferable.” 

“Rich, coming from the guy who keeps twirling his sword like he’s fighting ghosts,” you shoot back, starting to walk again. 

“It’s a katana,” he says, matching your pace. “And I’m keeping my wrist loose.” 

“You don’t see me shooting imaginary people.” 

“Shut up.” 

“You shut up.” It is stupid and pointless and strangely easy, this back and forth, and for a little while the forest does not feel quite so suffocating as the two of you head back toward the mountain together. For a little while, you have a small smile on your face.

You reach the river while there is still plenty of light left in the sky, and the two of you waste no time setting up a small fire. The air is cool near the water, the sound of it moving over stone a steady backdrop. Between the two of you, you have a fair amount of supplies for now. Crackers, dried meat, a few apples. You both nibbled on some of the crackers earlier, but you know better than to rely on that kind of food for long. While Beomgyu settles to rest, you sit back on your heels and peel off your gloves, setting them beside your pack. They are good, better than anything you have ever worn, but your bow matters more than comfort. You dig your knife out and start carefully working at the fingertips of one glove, slicing away small sections. 

Gloves are safer. You know that. Your brother used to scold you about it all the time, pressing worn leather guards into your hands and telling you that protecting your fingers meant protecting your future shots. Maybe if you had time, you could get used to these, adjust to the slight difference in feel. But time is the one thing you do not have. You have been shooting for nine years. The pads of your fingers are already thick with scars and calluses, nerves dulled and skin long past saving. A little more damage will not change much. What will change things is a shot that misses by even a few centimeters because you could not feel the string right. So you keep cutting, shaping the glove into something you can live with, something that lets you survive. 

“You’re cutting the fingers off your gloves,” Beomgyu says, breaking the quiet. “How stupid can you be?” 

“I need to shoot,” you say, sawing carefully through the tip of the glove’s middle finger. “And I need to be exact. I can’t afford anything between my fingers and the string.” 

“That’s how you ruin your hands.” 

“Probably.” 

He shifts closer, frowning. “I’ve trained with a bow. Safety gear is non negotiable. Gloves are important. You can mess up the nerves in your fingers.” 

“Already did.” 

His head jerks slightly. “Already did?” 

You look up at him, unimpressed. “I’ve been shooting since I was nine. You do the math.” 

He does not look convinced. “All those years and you never wore gloves.” 

“I tried,” you say, pausing your cutting. “My dad had an old pair. Took days to adjust. My aim went to hell. That’s days without food. Days without anything to trade. We didn’t have the luxury of practice mistakes.” 

He goes quiet at that, and you know he does not fully understand. How could he? In your district, skill meant survival. If you could not bring something back, you did not eat. Simple as that. You force your shoulders to loosen. “I did try,” you add, softer. “It was fine, eventually. But the pain stopped after a while. Just numb. Couldn’t really feel much.” 

“That would be nerve damage,” he says quietly. 

You give him a thin smile. “Then yeah. Guess I have nerve damage.” 

He looks at your hands, then back toward the direction of the forcefield. “That’s probably why you didn’t feel it much.” 

You blink. “What?” 

“The shock. It should have burned. You barely reacted.” 

The realization settles slowly. You think about picking up hot pots and not noticing right away, about holding your fingers too close to flame without feeling the heat. Things you never questioned because you were always trying to survive. 

“Huh,” you murmur, slicing off another fingertip of the glove. “Guess that explains it. One down.” 

“You’re insane,” Beomgyu says, though there is less bite in it now. 

You lean back slightly, bow resting in your hand as the light begins to thin between the trees. Night creeps in, soft and quiet. Part of you wishes for the fancy night vision goggles Careers get, but you do not really need them. You hunted in the dark plenty of times back home, when animals were bolder and the woods belonged to you. The moonlight here is more than enough. Maybe fifteen or twenty minutes pass before your eyes snag on a ripple in the grass. You are moving before you even think about it, an arrow already notched, bow lifting in one smooth motion. Your breathing slows, your world narrowing to the faint sway of green blades under moonlight. It could be food. It could be a mutt. With the Capitol, there is no harmless option. 

The movement disappears, but you hold your aim, string drawn tight, muscles steady. You wait. Another shift, low and quiet, only a few feet from where Beomgyu sits. You track the sound, heart thudding in your ears. A small shape parts the grass and a narrow head rises into view, and you release. 

The arrow strikes clean, and a thin, strangled sound slips into the night as the body collapses. Beomgyu is on his feet in an instant, blade out, eyes sweeping the area. He follows the line of your shot. “Careful,” you call down. “I don’t know what it is.” 

He approaches cautiously and nudges the body with the tip of his sword. “Get down here,” he says quietly. 

You sling your pack and quiver over your shoulder and climb down, bow still in hand, fingers gripping bark as you descend. When your boots hit the ground, you move to his side and look. Your stomach tightens. “Is that a…” 

“It’s a snake,” Beomgyu says. 

You crouch slowly. It is long but thin, its scales a dull green that melts into the grass. No wonder you almost missed it. Your hands shake slightly as you pull your arrow from its skull and slide it back into your quiver. You hate snakes. Always have. Too quiet, too sudden. District Twelve had plenty, and none of those encounters had ended gently. 

“You think it’s alone?” Beomgyu asks. 

You open your mouth to answer, but a cold prickle crawls up your spine. You freeze, head lifting, ears straining. Then you hear it. Hissing. 

Snakes. Of all the things the Capitol could have thrown at you, it had to be snakes. You could handle claws and wings and teeth, but this, this crawls under your skin in a way nothing else does. Your hands shake as you notch an arrow, breath coming in shallow pulls. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you mutter, barely aware you are speaking out loud.

“You had snakes back home?” Beomgyu asks quietly, eyes never leaving the shifting grass.

“Some,” you manage, though the word sticks in your throat. He glances at you then, catching the edge of panic you cannot hide. The grass ahead ripples again. Your vision starts to narrow, the world shrinking down to that sound, that movement. You feel like you might choke on the air.

Beomgyu’s hand finds the back of your shirt and gives a firm, careful tug. You step back with him, slow and controlled, boots sinking into the damp earth near the river. His palm presses lightly between your shoulder blades, steadying you, keeping you from bolting or freezing completely. You stop at the water’s edge, bow still raised, string taut.

The grass parts. A narrow head rises, tongue flicking.

You draw back fully, ready to release, but more movement ripples through the green. Another snake slides into view, then another, scales catching the faint light. The grass seems to come alive, writhing and spilling forward. There are too many. Green black bodies twisting over one another, pouring out like the ground itself has turned against you. You could empty your entire quiver and it would not matter. Your heart slams against your ribs, breath shaking, eyes burning. For a second, you think you might break, right here, in front of him.

It feels personal, like the arena reached into your worst memories and dragged them out into the open. You know that is not how it works, that the Capitol cannot possibly know this fear so well, but the cruelty of it still lands deep, sharp and deliberate all the same.

“Hey,” Beomgyu says quietly beside you. “Stay with me.”

“Trying,” you breathe, teeth clenched so tight your jaw aches.

The snakes keep coming, but they do not strike. They fan out across the grass in slow, sinuous waves, heads lifting, tongues flicking as if tasting the air. Your arrow feels useless now, a single thread against a living carpet. You ease the tension on the string and slide the arrow back into your quiver, fingers clumsy. Your other hand pulls your knife free instead, the familiar weight grounding in a way the bow suddenly is not. They are not lunging. Not coiling to strike. They are circling. Curious. Testing. Why?

A scream rips through the trees and you flinch so hard it hurts. Beomgyu’s hand closes around your arm, firm and steady, keeping you from folding in on yourself. Both of you turn toward the sound. Even the snakes seem to pause, heads angling the same way. Another scream, closer now, ragged with terror. Branches thrash and a tribute bursts from the treeline and into the river, stumbling, splashing. You recognize him too late.

“District Seven,” Beomgyu murmurs.

Some of the snakes peel away from you at once, drawn to the chaos like iron to a magnet. You cannot move. The boy in the water thrashes, voice breaking as he shouts for something, anything. Then the snakes surge. They pour off the bank and into the river in a writhing wave of bodies, climbing over him, wrapping, biting. His screams turn sharp and frantic, then hoarse, then nothing. The water churns around him until his limbs stop fighting and go slack.

The cannon fires. The sound echoes through your bones. You swallow hard against the sob rising in your throat. Venom. Of course. Of course the Capitol would send something that kills slow and painful. But the question pounds in your skull. Why not you?

“Not the water,” Beomgyu says under his breath. “Trees. We climb.”

“Why aren’t they attacking us?” you whisper, air snagging in your chest. He does not answer, but he moves, hand slipping from your arm as he heads for the nearest tree. Instantly, several snakes lift higher, tracking him.

And then it clicks. Don’t mention the scent. The gloves. You look at him and he looks back, and in that moment something passes between you, a silent understanding that feels bigger than fear.

“Y/N,” he says, soft but urgent. “Come on.”

Hearing your name steadies you in a way nothing else can. You grab the bark and pull yourself up, muscles trembling, heart slamming. Beomgyu climbs beside you, close enough that you can hear his breath. The snakes swarm the base of the tree, bodies piling and twisting over one another like a living nightmare.

“Holy fuck,” you whisper.

“Keep going,” he says.

You climb higher, until the ground feels like another world. Slowly, the sounds below soften, the mass of scales spreading out again into the grass. Your breathing steadies. Your hands stop shaking. The night air feels thin and cold in your lungs. You look down at the shifting dark below, at the place that tried to swallow you whole, and you lift your hand toward the sky, middle finger raised to the invisible eyes watching from above. Up here, with bark under your palms and Beomgyu close enough to feel, you realize something quiet and fierce. The arena is designed to break you, to turn you into something small and desperate. But you are still here. Still choosing. Still fighting.

And you are not alone in it.

The anthem jerks Beomgyu awake, the sound echoing thin and distant through the trees. He does not need to look to know whose face will be in the sky. A second later, lightning cracks down onto the mountain peak, bright and violent against the dark. Midnight, then. The pattern holds.

He shifts carefully, trading the rope to you and helping tie you in with steady hands. You barely stir, exhaustion dragging you under the second you settle back against the trunk. Your head tips to the side, fingers still curled tight around your knife even in sleep. He looks down. The snakes have thinned, only the occasional ripple in the grass hinting that a few still linger. By morning, he hopes, they will be gone.

His gaze drifts back up to you. You have been sharp edged and unshakable since the Reaping, moving through danger like you were built for it. Seeing fear crack through you tonight had done something to him. It had made you real in a way the cameras never could. Not just the girl who flips off the sky and shoots things dead between the eyes, but a person. A person who has lost too much and is still standing anyway.

And you have no idea what is really happening.

He knows you have sensed it, that something about him does not quite add up. You are too perceptive not to. The question coils in his chest. Should he tell you? Soobin would not hesitate to say no. This is not part of the plan.

But the thought will not leave him.

He wants to tell you everything. Why he pushed for this alliance. What the pin meant. Why your survival matters more than you think. You walk around convinced you are already dead, that the Capitol will never let you leave alive. He knows that is not true. Not if he can help it. The thought lands hard.

Since when did your survival become something he feels in his chest like this?

He was supposed to play his role, keep the audience watching, buy time. Soobin had made it clear. If that meant you died later, that was acceptable. Necessary, even.

It is not acceptable anymore.

He watches the slow rise and fall of your chest, the way your grip never loosens on your knife even in sleep. You are reckless and stubborn and infuriating, and he cannot imagine this arena without you in it. You are sharp, quick witted, terrifying with a bow. Your senses are tuned to the forest like you belong to it. You do not deserve this place, but it fits you in a way that makes his chest ache.

You are exactly what Soobin needed and that realization hurts more than he expects.

Because now you are not just part of a plan. You are you. The girl who laughs too loudly at her own jokes, who flips off the sky like it can feel insult, who is still soft enough to break over snakes and still fierce enough to climb anyway. Beomgyu looks out into the dark and makes a promise he does not fully understand. Whatever the plan was supposed to be, whatever he was meant to sacrifice, he is getting you through this.

He will see you alive at the end of it, even if it means tearing the rest of the script to pieces.

You're shaken awake by Beomgyu jostling you around, yelling in your ear.

“Fire, come on, come on!” Beomgyu is saying, already fumbling with the rope at your waist. You surface from sleep into chaos. Smoke claws into your lungs before your eyes even focus. You blink hard, trying to understand, and then the world snaps into place all at once. Dark gray smoke rolls through the trees, thick and choking. Below, flames tear through the underbrush, bright and hungry, racing up trunks and leaping from branch to branch.

“What the hell!” you cough, fingers shaking as you fight with the knot. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

“It just started!” Beomgyu shouts over the roar. “Everything went up at once!”

You believe him. This is too fast, too sudden, too clean to be anything but the Capitol’s hand. The rope finally comes free and you stuff it into your bag, grabbing your things as Beomgyu swings himself down. There is a loud crack and the trunk jerks beneath you. The tree is going. No time to climb.

“Jump!” you yell.

“What?” You scan once and spot another tree only a few feet away that is still standing. You do not let yourself think. You leap.

Branches slam into your arms and chest as you crash into the other tree, hands grabbing for anything solid. Your pack nearly slides off your shoulder but you wrench it back into place. The gloves scrape against bark instead of skin, saving you from tearing your palms open. You twist back toward the falling tree. “Beomgyu!” you shout, reaching out.

He swears and launches himself across. His hand catches your forearm and you clamp down on his wrist, muscles screaming as his weight drags you down. His boots scramble uselessly for a second, sword still clutched in his other hand, before he manages to hook an arm over a branch. You haul back with everything you have and he pulls himself the rest of the way in. He squeezes your arm once. No words. There is no air for them anyway.

You start down the tree fast, smoke burning your throat. When you are close enough, you drop. The heat hits like a wall. Flames swallow the forest in every direction, devouring leaves and branches in seconds.

There is only one direction that is not already gone, back toward the mountain through whatever stretch of forest is still standing. Toward the place you swore you would not return to, because it is the only place left to run.

You risk one glance back at the tree just to make sure he is there. Beomgyu is almost down, slower with one hand tied up by his sword, boots slipping on bark blackened by heat, but he makes it. Relief hits you sharp and quick, gone just as fast because there is no time to feel it. You already have your bow, quiver, and pack slung over your shoulders, so you hit the ground running as soon as he does. He lands hard, coughs like his lungs are tearing themselves apart.

“Mountain!” you shout.He nods once, short and tight, and you both run.

You vault over a fallen trunk, boots pounding earth that is already too hot, and sprint for the river. You hit the narrowest point and jump. Your foot skids on the opposite bank, shoe plunging into the water, but you do not slow. You cannot. You will not. Something flares in the corner of your vision. You turn your head and your stomach drops.

A fireball is screaming toward you.

“Down!” You grab Beomgyu by the shoulder and drag him with you as you slam into the ground. The heat roars over your back as the fireball tears through the air where your heads had just been.

“Go, go,” he chokes, voice shredded.

You shove yourself upright. He is still moving. That is enough for now. You run again, batting at your sleeve when you realize it is on fire. When did that happen? You smack the flames out with your palm and keep going, lungs burning, vision blurring. Forward, you tell yourself. Just forward.

Another roar splits the air. You do not even think. You drop again, dragging Beomgyu down with you. He nearly crashes on top of you, catches himself with a hand inches from your face. The fireball whistles past, close enough that you feel the skin on your neck prickle.

“Up,” you rasp, but when he stands he stumbles.

Your heart lurches. Is he choking on smoke? Is there something in it? Of course there is. Of course the Capitol would lace the air with something just to make it worse. Do not you dare pass out, you think wildly, eyes locked on him. Not here. Not now.

The mountain looms ahead, dark stone rising through smoke like a promise and a threat all at once. You grab him with one hand, fingers digging into his arm, and with the other you clutch your knife like it might cut through fire itself. You haul him toward the tunnel entrance, boots slipping on loose rock.

They are trying to split us, you think. Flush us out. Herd us like animals. You will not let them take him. Not like this. Not burning. Not choking.

You drag Beomgyu over the threshold and into the tunnel, heat falling away in a rush that almost makes you dizzy. The air is cooler but thick with dust and stone. You both collapse a few steps in, coughing hard.

You turn to him immediately. “Breathe,” you say, even though you are barely managing it yourself. “Come on. Stay with me.”

His eyes are red, watering, but they find you. “You’re on fire,” he croaks.

“I put it out,” you snap, then softer, “I’m fine. Are you fine?”

He nods, then shakes his head like he cannot decide. You feel his eyes scan you and you almost laugh. He is the one who could barely walk and he is checking you. Even now. Even like this. You want to yell at him and thank him at the same time.

One hand locks around Beomgyu’s arm while the other grips your knife so tight your knuckles ache. You drag him over the stone lip and into the tunnel, boots scraping rock, lungs clawing for air that does not taste like smoke. Heat chases you to the entrance, snapping at your back like a living thing, but each step into the mountain steals a little of its bite. Darkness closes in fast, thick and swallowing, the kind you used to dread, the kind you swore you would never choose again. Still, you pull him deeper, coughing, blinking tears from your eyes, trading fire and light for cold stone and shadow because at least down here the Capitol cannot burn you alive.

By the time you drag Beomgyu into one of the tunnel entrances, he sounds like he is hacking up a lung. He has not spoken since the fire started, and you tell yourself it is just the adrenaline wearing off, the smoke finally catching up to him. The two of you sink to the ground a few meters in, still coughing, gasping, bodies folding in on themselves as you fight to clear your throats.

Your head swims as you try to think. District 12. The mines. Tunnel collapses. You remember the men who made it out, faces grey with dust, lungs sounding like they were tearing themselves apart. You had been a kid then, watching from too far away, convinced they were going to cough something vital out onto the ground. What did they do after? Sit upright. Slow breaths. Deep in, deep out.

You force yourself to straighten, pressing your back against the cold stone wall. Every inhale burns, every exhale rattles, but you keep going, counting it out in your head until the panic loosens its grip just a little. You turn to Beomgyu, voice shredded as it claws its way out of your throat. “Beomgyu,” you croak. “Sit up. It helps.”

He fumbles with his pack, sword slipping from his hand and clattering uselessly against the stone as he drags himself upright. You do not waste a second. You reach for his bag, fingers shaking as you dig until you find the water bottle. You are not sure if water helps with smoke inhalation. You are not sure of much right now. But you take a sip and the fire in your throat eases, just enough for you to decide it is better than nothing. You crawl closer to him, knees scraping stone, and when you are within reach you take his hand. Talking hurts too much, so you keep it simple. “Water,” you manage. “Tap twice for yes. Once for no.”

He is coughing too hard to nod, chest heaving, but his fingers move against yours. Twice. Yes.

You uncap the bottle and press it into his hand. He drinks like he has been stranded in the desert, gulping down at least half of it, choking as it goes down too fast. You stay close, one hand settling on his shoulder, telling yourself it is to steady him, to help if he collapses. You do not question the way you need the contact, the solid reassurance that he is still here, still breathing. When he finally lowers the bottle, he passes it back to you. You finish what is left, the water cool and grounding as it slides down your throat. “I’ll get more,” you say hoarsely, even as you picture the fire outside, the smoke, the chaos. Water is survival. You do not know how far these tunnels go or when you will see a river again.

Beomgyu taps your hand once. No.

“We’re going to,” you start, then break off into another cough, eyes stinging. “We’re going to need it.”

Again, he taps once. No.

You frown and shift, bracing your hands to stand, but his fingers close around your wrist. Not tight, not desperate, just enough to stop you. You look at him, and when he speaks his voice is wrecked, scraped raw by smoke and heat. “We stick together,” he rasps.“Don’t.”

Sticking together. You let out a slow breath and sink back down, turning so your back rests against the same wall as his, shoulders close enough that you can feel the warmth of him through the fabric. It steadies you more than you want to admit. “Alright,” you say quietly. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The two of you sit there, backs against stone, lungs slowly relearning how to work while the world outside crackles and roars like it is ending. Smoke drifts past the tunnel mouth in tired grey waves, and every now and then something collapses out there with a distant, splintering crash. You keep your ears open between your own ragged breaths, waiting for footsteps, voices, anything that means other tributes are running for the same shelter. No one comes. It is just you, Beomgyu, and the sound of the Capitol playing god with fire.

You do not know how much time passes before Beomgyu’s coughing eases into something less violent, but eventually his breathing evens out enough that he can speak. His voice is still rough when he asks, “How bad is it out there?”

You lift an eyebrow at him. “Am I allowed to check now?”

“Dumbass. Just—”

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” you mutter, pushing yourself to your feet. Your legs protest, but you ignore them and move toward the tunnel entrance, keeping low as you step just far enough outside to see.

The world looks like it has been chewed up and spat back out. The fire is not raging the way it was, not that wall of living heat that chased you through the trees, but it is still there in ugly patches, flames licking at whatever is left. The ground is black and blistered, more trees lying broken than standing. Smoke hangs low, turning the air into something heavy and bitter. You can still see the river through the haze, a thin silver line cutting through the ruin. Water. You swallow against your dry throat. “It’s a wasteland out here,” you call back, eyes scanning for movement. “I think we could—”

A streak of orange tears through the air. You do not even finish the sentence. You throw yourself sideways just as a fireball slams into the rock beside the tunnel entrance, exploding in a burst of heat and sparks that makes your skin sting. Ash rains down over you as you scramble back inside, heart hammering.

“Maybe not,” you cough, brushing soot from your pants.

“They’re trying to force us into the mountain,” Beomgyu says, already on his feet despite the way he still looks a little unsteady. His jaw is tight, eyes sharp now. “Burning everything else out so we’ve got nowhere to go. Whatever they want, they want us in here.”

“How thoughtful of them,” you mutter. Your throat aches, but the need for water aches worse. “We still need water.”

“Doubt there’s a miracle spring waiting for us in these tunnels.” He bends to grab the empty bottle, turning it in his hand like it might magically refill. “You’re right. We get some now, let it settle while we move.”

You huff a humorless breath. “We could try staying put, but they’d probably flood the place with lava or something just to keep it interesting.”

“Don’t give them ideas,” Beomgyu warns, but there is the faintest curve to his mouth. Even half-choked on smoke, he still finds room for that. “Alright. We go together. Watch each other’s back.”

“What, you going to slice a fireball out of the air?” you ask.

His expression does not shift. “Maybe.”

You roll your eyes, but it steadies you, this stupid back and forth in the middle of hell. “Fine. I’ll try not to miss if one comes at us. Teamwork.”

“Only way this works.” His gaze locks with yours, something serious settling there beneath the sarcasm. “Ready?”

You tighten your grip on your bow, nod once, and force your voice not to shake. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Leaving your packs tucked just inside the tunnel mouth so you can move faster, you and Beomgyu make a break for the river. Heat rolls across the ground in waves, smoke clawing at your lungs, but you keep low and run. One massive fireball tears through the air and forces both of you to dive into the dirt, hearts slamming, but after that the sky stays mercifully quiet. A burning tree crashes down a little too close for comfort, sparks bursting like angry fireflies, yet you clear it and reach the water.

You drop to your knees at the bank, hands shaking as you plunge the bottle into the river. The water looks almost peaceful compared to everything else, cool and indifferent as it rushes past. Beomgyu keeps watch, sword drawn, eyes scanning the treeline while you screw the cap back on. Then you run again, feet pounding over scorched earth, flames crackling behind you like they are laughing at the effort. This time nothing chases you but the smoke.

You stumble back into the tunnel entrance breathless but unburned. Beomgyu immediately grabs his bag and pulls out the purifier, movements quick and efficient despite the lingering rasp in his breathing. “The sooner this is done,” he mutters, working the filter into place, “the sooner we can drink it.”

“Not arguing,” you say, dragging your own pack back onto your shoulders. Your muscles protest, but you ignore them. “Are we moving?”

He seals the bottle and shoves it into his bag. “You want to?”

“I do.” You nudge a loose stone with the toe of your boot, watching it skitter into the shadows. “If we sit here, they’ll just find a more creative way to kill us. Flood it. Gas it. Something dramatic.”

Beomgyu straightens, adjusting the strap across his chest. “Please stop predicting our deaths out loud.”

Your lips twitch despite everything. “Fine. We go deeper into the creepy murder tunnels to avoid the very obvious death traps outside, and then what?”

“Then,” he says, glancing down at his sword, now streaked with ash and grime, “we run into other tributes. And we kill them.”

“Charming,” you reply. “After you.”

He gives you a flat look. “I’m still the expendable one?”

You offer him a bright, infuriating smile. “I don’t hear you volunteering me.”

“I hate you.”

“Feeling’s mutual. Lead the way, expendable one.”

He turns, but you catch the faint sound of a breath that might be a laugh, swallowed quickly as he steps into the dark. You follow close behind, the tunnel air cool against your smoke-burned lungs, the light of the burning world shrinking behind you until it is nothing but a dull orange glow at your backs.

The tunnel shudders without warning, a deep groan rolling through the stone like the mountain itself is clearing its throat. Dust sprinkles from the ceiling. The ground vibrates under your boots and for one tight second you are back in stories of cave ins and buried miners, lungs full of dirt and no sky left to look at. Beomgyu’s hand finds your sleeve in the dark, fingers closing tight, and you reach for him on instinct, gripping his arm. You stand like that, braced together, until the shaking fades and the silence rushes back in, heavy and close.

“Unprompted earthquake,” he asks quietly, letting go, “or lightning strike?”

You flex your fingers, forcing your breathing to slow. “Lightning, probably. Feels about noon. But I wouldn’t put it past them to mix things up.”

“Fair.” You hear the soft rasp of a zipper. “Hungry?”

“I could eat,” you admit. The word hungry feels different now. It is not the dull, familiar ache from home. It is sharper, threaded with the knowledge that there might not be more later. “How bad are we?”

He rummages a moment. “Two apples after this. Most of the dried meat. Some crackers.”

You do the math automatically. Stretch it, ration it, make every bite count. District 12 taught you that much. “Better than nothing,” you murmur, taking the apple he presses into your hand. You bite, and sweet juice floods your mouth so suddenly it almost hurts. “God. That’s so good.”

His footsteps start again and you hurry after the sound, one hand skimming the wall so you do not walk face first into stone. “You don’t get many apples back home?”

“Sometimes,” you say between bites. “Random tree here and there. Never like this.”

“They probably pump them full of chemicals,” he mutters. “Capitol perfection.”

You shrug even though he cannot see it. “I’m going to die anyway.” There is a pause, the kind that feels like an eye roll you cannot see, and then the quiet crunch of him biting into his own apple. You smile in the dark, small and unseen.

You walk as you eat, the tunnel sloping upward more often than not, the air cooler but thinner somehow, like the mountain is swallowing sound and light the deeper you go. Your steps echo too loudly. It feels wrong, this much emptiness. The Capitol loves spectacle, loves blood where people can see it. Endless dark stone does not make for good entertainment.

“They’ve got something planned,” you murmur, licking juice from your thumb.

“Yeah,” Beomgyu says ahead of you, voice low and certain. “They always do.”

The tunnel stretches on, and the mountain keeps its secrets. You have been walking long enough that time feels meaningless, just the scrape of boots on stone and the echo of your breathing chasing you down the tunnel. Side passages split off now and then, dark mouths opening into deeper black, and each time Beomgyu warns you under his breath before you both choose the main path, wider, safer, if anything in here can be called safe. The air tastes like dust and old rock, and you find yourself wondering if the sky outside is already dark, if night has fallen without you seeing it. Then you hear it. Soft. Wrong. You stop mid step and Beomgyu nearly walks into your back.

“What?” he asks quietly.

“I thought I heard something,” you murmur, straining your ears.

Something presses into your hand. His night vision glasses. You slide them on, the world shifting into eerie green. Two branching tunnels sit in your vision, one behind you to the left, another farther ahead on the right. You notch an arrow and move a few careful steps into the first one, scanning every shadow, every jagged edge of stone. Nothing moves. Nothing breathes.

You back out and check the other tunnel. Still nothing. The silence presses against your ears. “I swear I heard something,” you whisper.

“Even if you did,” Beomgyu says, close behind you, “do you really want to go looking for it?”

Fair point. You lower the bow, pulling the glasses off and handing them back. “Okay, lead on.” his fingers catching your sleeve to guide you forward again.

A few minutes later, a pale glow appears ahead. Daylight. Without meaning to, you both quicken your pace, drawn toward it like moths to something that is not quite flame. The tunnel opens onto a narrow path carved into the mountainside. The sun hangs low, painting the sky in dull gold, but below you the world is ruined. What was once green forest is now a charred expanse of black and gray, smoke still curling from fallen trees. It looks like the end of the world.

You step closer to the edge, heart heavy. “They really didn’t hold back, did they?”

“No cannons,” Beomgyu says thoughtfully, moving a little higher up the path.

You glance at him. “So you think this was just to herd us in here, not kill us? Because dropping a burning tree on our heads felt pretty personal.”

“Kill you,” he corrects. “You’re the special one.”

You snort. “I feel so honored. Guess that makes you special by association.”

“Lucky me.”

“You asked for this. You—”

Footsteps. You cut yourself off, already moving. The arrow is on the string before you fully turn. Beomgyu is beside you instantly, shoulder almost brushing yours as he draws his sword, both of you careful of the narrow ledge and the long fall waiting just beyond it.

A figure rounds the bend ahead, boots scraping stone. A silver spear catches the dying light, gleaming like a threat made solid.

District 1. The boy with the perfect posture and the colder eyes. Daeho, was that his name? You do not hesitate. The arrow is gone before the thought even finishes forming, slicing through the air toward Daeho’s face. He drops low, spear flashing up on instinct, and your shot whistles past, vanishing into the tunnel behind him with a sharp clatter against stone.

“Nothing personal,” he says, voice tight, a strip of his sleeve burned clean off. “I just need to kill you.”

You already have another arrow notched, string pulled back to your cheek. “What, did they put a leash on you?” you ask. “You their dog?”

He exhales hard through his nose. “Shut up.”

“Y/N,” Beomgyu warns.

You glance over your shoulder and your stomach drops. Two more tributes step out from the opposite tunnel mouth, boots scraping the ledge. The boy from District 11, the one who bumped fists with you after your interview, and a girl with uneven, singed hair. Both armed. Both looking like they have already made their choice. You turn back to Daeho, jaw tight. “Ambush,” you mutter.

“It was easy,” Daeho says, almost smug. “Heard you coming. I ducked into a side tunnel, they went ahead. Perfect spot.”

He is not wrong. The ledge is barely wide enough to stand shoulder to shoulder. One bad step and it is a long fall into nothing. No room to dodge, no room to run. Daeho tilts his spear toward your bow. “Put it down and maybe I’ll make it quick.”

You do not even blink. You swing your aim to the pair from Eleven instead. They slow when they see the arrow trained on them. Beomgyu shifts with you, back nearly brushing yours as he turns to face Daeho again, sword raised, body angled to keep both threats in view. The girl from Eleven grips a mace. The boy holds an axe. Close range weapons. Dangerous, but only if they get close enough.

“You’re teaming up with him?” you call out. “That’s low.”

“But he’s right,” the boy says, voice steady even if his hands are not. “You two together? Scores like that? You’re too dangerous.”

“You have to go,” the girl adds softly, like she is apologizing.

You let out a humorless breath. “He’s just mad he only got a seven.”

“Still talking,” Daeho snaps from behind you. “All that crap about not caring if you win, about burning the Capitol down. If you meant any of it, you’d just stand there and die.”

You keep your bow drawn, arms trembling with the strain. “Yeah, well,” you say, voice sharp as broken glass, “lying down and dying doesn’t exactly send much of a message either.”

Beomgyu’s back is almost touching yours, heat and breath and the quiet rhythm of him steadying himself. You know that stance now. He is about to move. You keep your bow raised, eyes flicking once to his shoulder, waiting for any sign. Daeho is still talking, still trying to sound in control, but you are no longer listening to the words. You are listening for Beomgyu.

Two quick taps land against your side. You almost grin. Good.

“You’re so full of shit, Daeho,” you call, voice bright with something that almost feels like laughter.

Beomgyu moves forward and you loose your arrow in the same heartbeat. It flies past him and slams into the District Eleven girl’s shoulder. She screams, stumbling backward into the tunnel wall. You already have another arrow up. You aim low this time. The District Eleven boy charges anyway, and your shot buries into his thigh. He grunts, falters, but keeps coming, axe raised.

“Beomgyu!” He is there instantly, sliding in front of you like a wall, sword flashing as he meets the boy head on. Metal rings against metal, sparks biting the dim air of the ledge. You stagger back a step to get a clearer shot and risk a glance behind you.

Daeho is retreating. No, not retreating. Fleeing.

Your stomach twists. His hand is mangled, two fingers gone, blood pouring down his wrist and dripping onto the stone. There is a deep slice across his face, from hairline to cheek, one eye squeezed shut as red runs down into it. You did not even see Beomgyu land those hits. He must have moved like lightning.

Pathetic, you think as you draw and fire again. Your arrow catches Daeho in the back of the calf. He howls and stumbles, then vanishes around the curve of the tunnel. All that talk, and he runs.

You start after him on instinct, rage buzzing hot in your veins, but the sound of steel scraping stone snaps your focus back. Beomgyu grunts, forced back half a step as the District Eleven boy swings again.

You spin. The girl from Eleven lunges clumsily with her mace, injured arm hanging useless, and Beomgyu pivots to intercept. His blade arcs in a clean, brutal line.

There is a wet sound, an arm flies, fingers still curled around the handle of the mace as it tumbles across the ledge and disappears over the side. For a split second, everything feels unreal, like the world has tilted sideways. Then the girl’s scream tears through the air, high and raw and animal.

For a moment your stomach lurches so hard you think you might actually be sick. Beomgyu had slipped past the first swing, and in one brutal, flashing arc of steel, the District Eleven boy’s axe arm was gone. The sound it made when it hit the stone will stay with you. He just stands there for a second, staring at the place where his limb used to be, face drained of all color, before he folds in on himself. Blood pours from his shoulder in violent pulses, splattering the rock at his feet.

Beomgyu does not hesitate. He turns toward the girl as she charges, grief and fury twisted together in her scream, mace lifted high. You do not give her the chance to bring it down. Your arrow flies before you even register the decision, and it strikes clean between her eyes. She drops like a puppet with its strings cut.

The cannon fires. Beomgyu looks at you, and for just a heartbeat there is nothing in his expression but relief. Not triumph. Not bloodlust. Just relief that you are still standing.

Then the ledge shifts.

The District Eleven boy, dying but not dead yet, tips backward over the edge. His remaining hand lashes out blindly and catches in Beomgyu’s pant leg. The pull is sudden and vicious. Beomgyu’s body jerks forward, balance lost, boots skidding on loose grit.

“Beomgyu!” He is already moving. His blade flashes again, severing the man’s hand at the wrist. The body drops, vanishing into open air. But the momentum has already dragged Beomgyu halfway over. His hips slam into the edge, torso scraping stone, legs dangling over nothing.

Your bow hits the ground as you run. “Are you okay? Come on, come on,” you breathe, voice breaking as you grab his wrist with both hands. He could probably haul himself up, you know that, but you cannot stand there and watch. You pull anyway, desperate, like if you let go he will slip through your fingers and disappear.

He lets you help. Kicks once against the rock, then rolls back onto the ledge with you. The severed hand finally slides from his pant leg and tumbles over the side. The two of you scramble backward together until your backs hit the cliff wall. You are still holding his hand, knuckles white, and neither of you seem to remember how to let go.

For a long moment there is nothing but the sound of your breathing, harsh and uneven, and the wind moving through the broken mountain air. Another cannon booms. You both flinch, and you know without looking that the boy from Eleven is gone.

Neither of you let go. His hand is locked around yours, fingers tight and almost trembling, like he is afraid that if he loosens his grip for even a second you might slip through it. You feel the shake in him, small but there, and it sends a strange, aching warmth through your chest because Beomgyu does not shake. Not when he fights, not when he threatens, not when he stands in front of danger like it is something he was born to face.

But he is shaking now.

You cannot stop seeing it, the way he tipped over the edge, the empty air behind him, the split second where his weight was gone from the ledge. If that man had held on a moment longer, if Beomgyu had been even slightly slower with his blade, he would have disappeared over the side and there would have been nothing you could have done but watch him fall.

The thought makes your stomach twist. Since when does the idea of losing him feel like this? Since when did that possibility terrify you?

There was a time you were sure he would be the one to kill you. A time you watched him like a threat, measured the distance between you like it was a battlefield line. But somewhere between shared watches in the dark, stupid arguments, and the quiet way he stayed when you almost fell apart, the line moved. You stopped bracing for his blade and started looking for his shadow beside yours.

Now the idea of this arena without him in it feels wrong in a way you do not have words for.

You look at him and find his eyes already on you, wide in a way you have never seen before, breathing still uneven. There is blood all over him, streaked across his clothes and jaw, but he is not looking at himself. He is scanning your face, your shoulders, your arms, like he is checking for damage he might have missed.

“You good?” he asks, and the question comes out rough, almost unsteady.

“Am I good? You’re the one covered in blood.”

He shakes his head slightly, still staring at you like he does not believe what he is seeing. “I’m fine,” he says quickly. “That’s not what I meant.”

You try to swallow the tightness in your throat and nod. “Perks of a long distance weapon,” you manage, your voice thinner than you want it to be. “I don’t have to get that close.” Your eyes flick to your bow on the ground, then back to him. “You? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he repeats, but his hand tightens around yours again, like he needs to feel that you are still there. His gaze drags over you one more time, searching. “None of it’s mine,” he adds quietly, and for once he sounds less like he is reassuring you and more like he is trying to convince himself.

The two of you stare at the blood darkening the dirt, the metallic smell still thick in the air. “How the hell did you manage to cut his arm off?” you ask, looking at him like the answer might still be written somewhere on his face. “You’d have to swing ridiculously hard and hit the exact right spot and…”

“You just answered your own question.”

“Asshole. Don’t do that,” you mutter.

“Do what?”

“Scare me like that. I thought he was going to pull you over, for fuck’s sake.” Your voice tightens at the end, betraying more than you mean to. You squeeze his hand once, hard, then let go so you can push yourself to your feet. “And thank you for the backup,” you add over your shoulder as you move down the ledge.

“What happened to District 1?” Beomgyu asks while you retrieve your bow.

“He ran like the coward he is,” you say, anger slipping into your tone. “Talks big, sets up an ambush, then bolts the second things get messy. But you definitely did some damage.”

Beomgyu gives a small nod. “Good. Arrow count?”

You twist your quiver around and count by touch. “Eighteen. I might be able to get a few back.”

“Alright. Which way do you want to go?”

You do not answer right away. Instead, you walk to the other side of the path where the girl from District 11 lies still. You swallow back the nausea and pull your arrow from her forehead, then the one from her shoulder. Your hands are steady even if your stomach is not. Ammo matters more than comfort in here. When you turn back, Beomgyu is watching you quietly, waiting. His question still hangs between you, heavy and practical. You both know you are supposed to move, clear the area so the Capitol can collect their dead. You have never been good at doing what they expect.

“Do we have to go yet?” you ask, tucking the arrows back into your quiver. “Can we just sit for a bit?”

He studies you for a second, like he is measuring more than just the time. Then he nods. “Yeah.”

You sink back down where you were earlier, setting your bow and quiver within reach before leaning against the mountain wall. Your body feels like it has been wrung out, muscles trembling now that the fight is over. The forest below is nothing but blackened skeletons of trees, smoke still drifting through the air, but the sky above it is streaked gold and orange as the sun sinks low. It is wrong that something so ruined can still look beautiful.

Without really thinking about it, you reach for Beomgyu’s hand again.

He takes it immediately, fingers lacing with yours, grip firm and warm. Neither of you says anything. For a moment, the Games feel far away, like the world has shrunk down to this narrow ledge, the fading light, and the quiet proof that you are both still here.

Beomgyu is not walking evenly. You hear it before you really notice it, the faint hitch in his steps, the way one foot lands just a fraction heavier than the other. You think about saying something, about asking if he is hurt, but his pace never slows and you know him well enough by now to know he would brush it off. You tuck the worry away for later, for when you finally get a chance to sit without the world trying to kill you.

“You know,” you say lightly, trying to distract yourself, “for a place designed to torture us, it has nice sunsets and sunrise.”

Beomgyu lets go of your sleeve as you both step out of the tunnel and onto another narrow ledge. The drop beside you is steep, a long fall into blackened forest, but at least this time there is no one waiting to ambush you. You squint at the sky, streaked with deep orange and gold, smoke thinning just enough for the colors to bleed through.

He scoffs. “Yeah. Give us something pretty to look at before they kill us.”

You stop walking for a second, letting yourself breathe it in. You do not know how many sunsets you have left, and that thought presses quietly at the back of your mind. “I used to do this,” you murmur, more to yourself than to him. “Find the highest spot in the woods outside Twelve and just sit there until the sun went down.”

Home feels far away and too close all at once. You wonder who is watching, if anyone still believes you are alive.

“You coming?” Beomgyu calls, already a few steps ahead. You laughed., mutter idiot, moving after him.

A few hours later, you and Beomgyu finally find a place to stop. The tunnel bends in a way that creates a shallow corner, wide enough for two of you to sit with a clear view of both branching paths. You settle into the inner spot with your bow across your lap and the night vision glasses perched on your nose, the green glow making the stone walls look even colder than they are.

You break the quiet with what has been bothering you since sunset. “What’d you do to your leg?” you ask, keeping your tone light. “Or ankle. Or foot.”

There is a brief pause. You cannot see his face clearly, but you feel his attention turn toward you. “How’d you…” he starts, then trails off, and you cannot stop the small, knowing twitch of your lips. “Ankle,” he finishes. “Hit Daeho, heard you yell, turned to get back to you. Stepped wrong. Tweaked it.”

You wince, guilt settling heavy in your stomach. “How bad?”

“Walking’s fine,” Beomgyu says quickly, like he can hear the blame in your voice. “I can move. I can fight. It just hurts like a bitch.”

“We could wrap it.”

“Morning,” he replies. “When there’s light.”

You nod, though he probably cannot see it. You hope he is telling the truth, that this is not pride talking. Either way, you insist on taking first watch. He argues at first, but he is tired and you are stubborn, and eventually he gives in and stretches out along the wall.

Surely the Capitol cannot throw something else at you tonight. Snakes last night, fire this morning, an ambush in the afternoon. That is enough chaos for one day, even by their standards. Games are supposed to last weeks, sometimes longer. This is only your third night.

Only three days. It feels like a lifetime. The anthem drifts faintly through the mountain, warped and distant, but you do not need the screen to know who it is for. You sit there in the green glow of the glasses, bow in hand, listening to the song echo through the tunnels and wondering how many more nights you and Beomgyu will get to hear it together.

You are so deep in your own head that the first growl almost slips past you, threading low and ugly through the tunnel air. You freeze, every sense snapping tight. “Are you kidding me?” you mutter under your breath as you reach back and pull an arrow from your quiver, eyes narrowing into the dark stretch of tunnel you think it came from, the path leading back down the mountain. You rise slowly, careful not to let your gear clink against the stone, and take a few cautious steps forward. Nothing. Just black rock and stale air. Then it comes again, deeper this time, vibrating through the ground more than the air.

“Y/N?” Beomgyu’s voice drifts from behind you, rough with sleep. “What?”

“Shh,” you whisper, lifting your bow as you edge farther down the tunnel.

He is on his feet in seconds, the soft scrape of metal telling you he has his sword in hand. “What did you hear?”

“Growling,” you murmur. It comes again, longer now, and your skin prickles. “You hear that?”

“You’ve got freak hearing,” he grumbles, moving closer. “I can’t hear any—”

The next growl rips through the tunnel, loud enough that dust shakes loose from the ceiling. You do not look back, but you can almost feel his expression change. “Heard that one, did you,” you say dryly.

“Glasses,” he says, and you pass the night vision goggles back to him, letting the darkness swallow you whole. He moves ahead of you, footsteps light. He barely makes it three steps before a roar explodes through the tunnel, so loud it feels like it claws at your ribs. Your hands tighten on your bow. You are so tired of this.

“Other way,” you say immediately.

“Yeah,” Beomgyu answers, no hesitation. You both snatch up your packs and break into a jog just as another roar rolls after you. You follow the sound of his steps, trusting him to keep you from slamming into a wall, lungs burning as the tunnel twists. The air feels thinner, tighter, and then suddenly the ground levels out and the darkness thins.

You burst out into open air.

Beomgyu stops so fast you nearly crash into his back. The words die on your tongue as you take in the sight in front of you. You are at the top of the mountain, back in the clearing where the bloodbath began, the cornucopia gleaming under cold moonlight like some sick joke, and you are not alone.

Shapes stand all around the clearing, frozen in the same stunned realization. A cluster of three to your left, the two from District 4 and another you do not recognize. Daeho is across the clearing, doubled over, blood dried down one side of his face. On the right, the Careers have grouped up, the girl from Two, the tribute from Six, the girl from Seven, and with them the tall boy from Three. More figures spill out of other tunnel mouths, gasping, wild eyed.

Every remaining tribute. All of you, dragged here like pieces on a board. “Fuck,” Beomgyu breathes.

You do not argue. The silence stretches, thin and brittle, everyone waiting for someone else to move first, like maybe if no one does this will all dissolve into some bad dream. The growls drove you here. This is not coincidence. This is the Capitol tightening its fist. You lift your bow and notch an arrow, the familiar motion steadying your hands. “How’s your ankle?” you murmur, not looking at him.

“Fine,” he says, voice low. “You trust me?” He jerks his chin toward the District 4 group. “We go for them.”

You don't question his words. Lightning strikes the cornucopia, and everyone moves at once.  

The lightning does not send everyone charging like you expect. For one suspended, breathless second the entire mountaintop freezes, white light seared into your vision. Everyone stalls. Everyone except Beomgyu. He is already moving, already sprinting straight at the District 4 boy with his blade drawn, a shout ripping out of him like he has been waiting his whole life for this exact moment. You force your body to follow, dragging yourself out of that stunned pause before panic can root you in place. Chaos erupts all at once. Metal clashes. Someone screams. Boots scrape against stone. You turn toward the District 4 alliance just in time to see another figure slam into the fight from the far side. Ryujin. She collides with the District 4 girl, spear meeting steel in a blur of vicious, practiced strikes.

That leaves Beomgyu facing two. The District 4 boy and another tribute you think is from Five rush him together. One wears a helmet, the other some kind of chest armor that gleams dully under the moon. You do not hesitate. You fire. The arrow slams into the District 4 boy’s side and ricochets off with a hollow clang. Armor.

You adjust and aim for his face, but the District 5 boy shoves into your line of sight. Your arrow cracks against his helmet and bounces away. He stumbles but stays upright. Your stomach drops. At this rate, you are nothing but background noise.

Think. You drop to your knees, shrugging your pack off your shoulders as your fingers fumble for your rope. In front of you Beomgyu lunges, blade driving toward the armored boy’s chest, and the strike glances off uselessly. The recoil jars up his arms and he stumbles half a step back.

His ankle. Your chest tightens so hard it hurts. He cannot take two armored tributes head on, not with a bad ankle, not for long. You risk one quick look across the mountaintop. Ryujin and the District 4 girl are a storm of movement. Daeho is trying to retreat toward a tunnel, but the boy from Six is chasing him down. None of that matters. None of them matter. Beomgyu matters.

Your hands move on their own, tying the rope tight to the base of an arrow. The rest of the coil spills at your knees like a lifeline waiting to be used. You notch the arrow, breath coming fast and sharp. Behind you, steel scrapes stone. A presence. You twist just as a knife slices through the air where your neck was a second ago. The brown haired girl you noticed earlier lunges again, eyes wide and feral. Over her shoulder you glimpse her partner from Nine circling toward Beomgyu, machete raised, waiting for the perfect moment to join in.

Three on him, and more closing in. The girl in front of you slams into you before you can get another shot off. The two of you crash to the ground hard enough to rattle your teeth. Your bow skids away across the rock. You grab her wrist with both hands, straining to keep the knife from plunging into your chest. Her breath is hot and ragged against your face. Your arms shake under the pressure. Somewhere to your right you hear Beomgyu grunt, a sound of pain he tries to swallow down, and it tears through you sharper than the blade hovering over your heart. Fear flashes hot and wild. You cannot lose him here. Not like this.

You bare your teeth at the girl, breath hitching. “Five person alliance,” you choke out, muscles screaming as you hold her back. “What, you needed a whole army to feel brave?”

The girl throws her weight against your arms, face twisted with effort, and your muscles finally give in a different direction. Instead of pushing up, you shove her knife hand sideways. The blade buries itself in the dirt beside your ear with a dull thunk. You do not hesitate. You draw your fist back the way they taught you, tight, thumb tucked, and slam it into her jaw. Pain shoots up your knuckles but she cries out and rolls off you, scrambling, stunned. You are on your feet in a breath, heart crashing against your ribs, when a scream rips across the clearing. “No!” someone howls. “No!”

A cannon fires. Your eyes fly to Beomgyu on instinct, terror already clawing up your spine, but he is still there, still moving, still alive, locked in that brutal mess of bodies and weapons. The scream must have come from the other side, from the Career pack. You do not have time to look. You do not have time to care.

The girl from Nine rushes you again, empty handed now, desperation replacing strategy. You reach for an arrow but your fingers close around the one tied to rope. Not now. Swearing under your breath, you snatch the knife from the ground instead. She does not see it until it is too late. Your blade drives into her shoulder and her scream is sharp and shocked as you wrench it back out. She stumbles away, clutching the wound, blood soaking through her sleeve.

You turn, already searching for him.

Beomgyu’s back is nearly to the rock wall. The District 4 boy is down several meters away, struggling to rise, but the other armored tribute is still on Beomgyu, pressing, relentless. Two on one again. Nowhere to retreat. You cannot see blood from this distance. You cannot tell if he is already hurt. All you know is that he is running out of space.

Your knife falls from your hand as you grab your bow. The rope coils at your feet like a living thing. You lift the bow, aim past the blur of moving limbs, armor flashing under moonlight. Legs move too fast. Chests are plated. Helmets hide faces. This has to be perfect.

You draw back, breath trembling. “Thread the needle,” you whisper, voice barely there. “Thread the needle.”

You let the world narrow to a single line through the chaos. One opening. One heartbeat. You exhale and release. Your arrow slices through and buries itself in stone just behind Beomgyu and the District Five boy, so close it steals the air from both their lungs. The man flinches, just for a second, and that second is all Beomgyu needs. He drives his foot into the man’s chest and forces space between them, then turns and slashes at the District Nine boy. The blade catches flesh. The boy cries out and stumbles back, clutching his side as blood seeps through his fingers.

The armored one charges again. You yank the rope.

It snaps taut in an instant, a line pulled straight through the battlefield at the perfect height. The boy runs right into it. His throat catches, his body jerks, and he goes down hard, limbs tangling as he crashes to the ground. The jolt rips the rope from your hands and you stagger forward, but you do not need to hold it anymore. Beomgyu is already there. He moves like he has been waiting for an opening his whole life. His blade drives down and does not come back clean. The man thrashes once, twice, then goes still.

A cannon fires. The sound rolls through your bones. One less. You turn just in time to see the girl from Nine retreating, her injured arm cradled to her chest, the other boy shouting at her to move faster. They disappear into a tunnel, leaving her knife buried in the dirt like a forgotten thought.

Jay, another career, is locked with the District Four boy now, grappling near the edge, boots scraping rock. Somewhere beyond them Ryujin clashes with the other girl from Four, weapons ringing in sharp, frantic bursts.

You grab the abandoned knife and your pack in the same motion and run to Beomgyu, shoving the blade inside and yanking the zipper shut without looking. “You okay?” you ask, breathless as you reach him.

He is limping. He is breathing hard. He is staring at you like you are something impossible. “You’re fucking brilliant,” he says, voice rough, eyes wide in a way that has nothing to do with the fight.

You bark out a laugh. “Did you hit your head? You were the one out there playing hero with a busted ankle.”

“Would’ve had them easy any other day,” he mutters, glancing down at his leg like it personally offended him.

“I know,” you say softly, and you do. You look at the way he is standing, the pain he is pretending not to feel. “How bad?”

“I’ll check later.” His gaze lifts to the rest of the clearing. The battle has fractured into smaller storms. Steel flashes. Someone shouts. Someone else falls. No one is watching you.

You could run. “We can leave,” you whisper, urgent now. “Let them finish each other.”

He turns to you, and there is something steady in his eyes, something that pulls you in and holds you there.

“Is today a day you trust me?”

Your breath catches. It is such a small question.

You think of the burning trees, of your body tipping into harmful air and his hand clamping around your wrist so hard it bruised. You think of smoke in your lungs and his voice cutting through it, checking you first. You think of snakes and the way he never let go first. You think of how, even now, he stands angled toward you instead of toward the enemy, like the greater threat is not them but the possibility of losing you.

This arena was built to rot trust from the inside out. It was designed to make you suspicious, to make you cruel, to make you survive alone. And yet, he's asking for your trust.

“Yeah,” you say, and your voice is softer than the wind moving through the ruined trees. “I trust you.”

He looks at you, something in his shoulders eases, something tight and invisible unraveling. As if he had been braced for rejection and only now allows himself to breathe. “We take out the two from District Four,” he says, but the words are secondary. The real promise is in the way his gaze never leaves yours. “Then we go.”

Trust is not safe. Trust is stepping forward when the ground has already betrayed you once. Trust is handing someone your pulse and believing they will not crush it. You lift your bow. Your hands are steady.

“Okay,” you answer, heart hammering, not from fear this time but from something far more fragile. “After you.”

You follow him into the fight, into the fire, into whatever waits beyond this broken mountaintop, knowing that for the first time since your name was called, you are not walking alone.

What's the survival value of a sunrise?

📺 THE CARAT COMPANY.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 1: routine romance 🤝 Booked by @studioeisa, on behalf of talent recruiter!seungcheol and freelancer!reader. 📋 Agenda: you have a routine. a foolproof, tried and tested daily schedule. when the hell did choi seungcheol become part of it? 📊 Key Deliverables: humor, romance, pinch of angst. 📝 Meeting minutes: profanity, mentions of food. slowburn -ish, meet ugly, coffee shop romance, feelings realization/denial, seungcheol is a flirty bastard, discussions of freelancing/corporate life.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 2: Touching Yourself 🤝 Booked by  @straylightdream, on behalf of actor!jeonghan and f!reader. 📋 Agenda: After a stressful day on set leaves him wondering if being an actor is really what he wants, he calls you. One phone call leads to both you crossing lines you never imagined you would cross. 📊 Key Deliverables: smut, friends to lovers, mutual pining, romance, comfort, angst. 📝 Meeting minutes: depression, anxiety, jeonghan is really going through it, severe stress from a job, alcohol consumption, crying, lots of emotions, mentions menstrual cycles.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 3: stars in the night sky 🤝 Booked by @simpxxstan, on behalf of actor!jeonghan and reader. 📋 Agenda: yoon jeonghan has not a care in the world throughout the day - he’s the prince, it’s his time to reign. a million autographs every day, an unending echo of fanchants, and jeonghan knows he’s the most desired man in the country right now. but when the flashlights dim, the curtains are drawn, and the monsters step out of the dark, there’s only one hand he wants to hold. only one pair of eyes make his heart smile, only one voice lulls him into sleep every night, only one scent he desires to drown in, only one touch that lets him find himself again. 📊 Key Deliverables: co-workers to lovers, grumpy x sunshine trope, angst, smut, light fluff. 📝 Meeting minutes: smut warnings to be added later (mdni!), bickering and verbal banter, no private space, anxiety and panic attacks, online bullying, trolling, breakdown of self-confidence, nightmares, lots of angst really, casual flirting, more warnings to be added later.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 4: Please, Block Me 🤝 Booked by @okiedokrie, on behalf of social media manager!joshua and reader. 📋 Agenda: Joshua Hong, 29, Social Media Manager. Forced to learn whatever meme lingo the kids are saying these days. Got harassed by the Social Media Manager of Queen Quesadilla when he used to work for King Taco; he quit. He works for The Carat Company now, where unfortunately, you followed. 📊 Key Deliverables: TBA. 📝 Meeting minutes: TBA.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 5: Typo and Error 🤝 Booked by @gotta-winwin, on behalf of social media manager!joshua and actress!reader. 📋 Agenda: Joshua loves his job as social media manager for The Carat Company, except for one thing: the actress he’s in charge of. you hate his guts, and Joshua swears he returns those feelings with vigor, and yet… forced to work in close proximity, Joshua’s forced to reckon with the idea that just maybe, despite all the animosity, he’s still madly in love with you. 📊 Key Deliverables: fluff, crack, slight angst. 📝 Meeting minutes: light swearing, mutual pining, oblivious idiots in love, enemies to lovers(?), heavy denial of feelings, discussions of fame/film industry.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 6: Too Far 🤝 Booked by @lovetaroandtaemin, on behalf of Intern!Jun and Secretary!Reader. 📋 Agenda: When your friend suggested letting the new intern in your company's legal department move in with you, you had your doubts. As time went on, though, the two of you grew closer than you ever could have anticipated. The only problem was that you were certain that he didn't see you the same way you saw him. 📊 Key Deliverables: Angst, Fluff, Smut. Roommates to lovers 📝 Meeting minutes: Jun is a loser with jealousy problems, profanity, LOTS of suggestive/NSFW content that Will Be Determined Later, both of these fuckers need to work on their communication skills. 

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 7: company benefits 🤝 Booked by @studioeisa, on behalf of social media intern!junhui and copywriter!reader. 📋 Agenda: you can't really call wen junhui your ex-boyfriend. it was more of a friends with benefits situation—except you only got ghosted, while he got an internship at your recommendation. people always say to not bite the hand that feeds you; it looks like jun didn't get the memo. 📊 Key Deliverables: smut, romance, angst with a happy ending. 📝 Meeting minutes: profanity, mentions of food & alcohol consumption, job loss. ex-situationship, forced proximity, so much tension..., nepotism!!!, marketing terms, soonyoung gets his own warning.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 8: Be My Tigress? 🤝 Booked by @svtiddiess on behalf of Marketing Manager!Hoshi and Assistant Manager!Reader. 📋 Agenda: After moving halfway across the world to Korea, you landed a job as an Assistant Manager at Carat Company, a media company known for television production, music management, and digital content creation. Your boss, Soonyoung—though he insists everyone call him Hoshi—turned out to be an absolute whirlwind of chaos. From tiger-themed stationery and tiger-themed office décor to a full-on tiger fursuit, his relentless dedication to his so-called "tiger agenda" has left you questioning your sanity on more than one occasion. (Seriously, what even is a horanghae??) As you adjust to your new life and career, one question keeps nagging at you: how has he not been fired yet? No, really—why hasn't anyone reported this insane man to HR? 📊 Key Deliverables: crack, fluff, slightest of angst, smut, office romance. 📝 Meeting minutes: Tiger agenda is strong in this one, Hoshi is very unserious (and a diva), unrealistic workplace environment, multiple sex scenes, HR pls don't fire Hoshi. 

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 9: Beyond the Transcripts 🤝 Booked by @joonsytip, on behalf of CEO!wonwoo and Head of Legal!Reader. 📋 Agenda: Jeon Wonwoo, the calmest and untainted CEO to ever exist, gets his world shaken up when he finds you again, as the legal department head at his own company and your only registered family is a little guy who resembles him a bit too much. Alternatively, you are smooth in onboarding Wonwoo into your son's life but problems arise when he tries to slide back into yours. 📊 Key Deliverables: angst, smut, fluff, exes to co-parents to lovers. 📝 Meeting minutes: themes of co parenting, mentions of past difficult pregnancy, misogynistic slurs being used at workplace, minor accident.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 10: Prologue To ??? 🤝 Booked by @chugging-antiseptic-dye, on behalf of HR Manager!Jihoon and Operations Manager!Reader. 📋 Agenda: You did not know HR manager Jihoon. You did not want to know HR manager Jihoon. However when fate throws you and an unconscious body to make his acquaintance, you realize that still water truly holds its depths. And maybe diving in head first was not the best decision. Yet, what else could you do? The show must go on. 📊 Key Deliverables: Horror,  Murder Mystery, Paranormal, Psychological Thriller, Suspense, Urban, Angst, Hurt/Comfort. 📝 Meeting minutes: POV Switching, Amnesia, Blood, Gore, Grief/Mourning, Injury, Kidnapping, Morally Grey Characters, Mentions of Death/ Murder, Body Horror, Descriptions of Injury, Nightmares, Substance Abuse, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Coworkers to maybe lovers, Ambiguous Open Ending.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 11: Emails I Can't Send 🤝 Booked by @diamonddaze01, on behalf of  Managing Director of HR! Jihoon and Planning and Recruitment Specialist! Reader. 📋 Agenda: Jihoon has always been clear: work is work, and co-workers are co-workers. Boundaries keep things clean. Professional. Predictable. As Managing Director of HR at The Carat Company, that's exactly how he likes it. But when a too-charming, too-bright former Sebong Corp employee joins his team, Jihoon is forced to confront the one boundary he may no longer be able to hold: the one between you and him. 📊 Key Deliverables: humor, fluff, angst with a happy ending. 📝 Meeting minutes: epistolary, suggestive for sure, consumption of alcohol.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

📺 SEBONG CORPORATION.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 1: An Alluring Score 🤝 Booked by @seoloquent, on behalf of Artists and Repertoire Representative!DK and Conductor!Reader. 📋 Agenda: Willing to risk everything, his career included, Seokmin knew you had to be the one in charge of Sebong Corp’s newest feature film’s score soundtrack. The only issue was, you had no physical proof of experience. Despite the doubts coming from executives, your family, and even yourself, Seokmin resolved to help you prove everyone wrong, and showcase your alluring score to the world. 📊 Key Deliverables: fluff, humor, slight angst, strangers to lovers. 📝 Meeting minutes: seokmin has a slight issue with boundaries (could be a little annoying), depictions of misogyny, grief, mentions of death (not important character), inaccurate representation of film industry (I did as much research as I could!). 

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 2: LoserBoy vs. HaterGirl 🤝 Booked by @gyubakeries, on behalf of Social Media Intern!Mingyu and IT Specialist!Reader. 📋 Agenda: When Kim Mingyu, the new addition to the Social Media department of Sebong Corp. shows up at your office, requesting you to feature in one of the 'promotional tiktoks' he's been assigned to film, you tell yourself that it'll be your last interaction with the puppy-faced, hyper-energetic intern. A few months, twenty tiktoks, and a diabetes-inducing amount of sugar, you can't quite remember exactly why you had wanted to stay away from him in the first place. 📊 Key Deliverables: comedy, romance, light angst, one-sided enemies to lovers, grumpy x sunshine, pining, a dash of slowburn. 📝 Meeting minutes: sexual content, mingyu being a teensy bit annoying, a lot of obliviousness.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 3: HR Meets Heart 🤝 Booked by @soo0hee, on behalf of HR Manager!Minghao and afab!reader. 📋 Agenda: When you didn't get the promotion you were licking your fingers for, you weren't at all amused. When it was the one person you were sure was out for your every last nerve to get said promotion, you were even less amused. Now stuck with a new boss you loathed you were sure you'd go insane — but what if it's in a different way then you thought.... 📊 Key Deliverables: fluff, enemies to lovers. 📝 Meeting minutes: suggestive, language, alcohol.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 4: Mr. Boo: Coffee, Campaigns, and Confessions 🤝 Booked by @smiley-pansy, on behalf of Marketing Manager!Seungkwan and Brand & Promotions Coordinator!Reader. 📋 Agenda: You and Seungkwan work behind the scenes at Sebong Corporation, a bustling movie production company. When you're assigned to co-lead the marketing campaign for Eclipse Rising—the studio’s most high-profile release yet—your already-close working relationship takes center stage. Through morning coffee runs, chaotic brainstorming sessions, late-night strategy meetings, and a surprisingly sweet team-building retreat, your friendship deepens into something more. 📊 Key Deliverables: fluff, slight crack, coworkers-to-lovers, (attempt at) comedy. 📝 Meeting minutes: light swearing, adorable idiots in love.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 5: damage control 🤝 Booked by @vampsol, on behalf of and actor!vernon and reader. 📋 Agenda: Hansol Vernon Chwe is one of the most frustrating clients to have on the payroll yet one of the biggest and brightest stars on cable television. He's reckless, carefree, and always dancing to the beat of his own drum. And it is up to you, his new assistant, to hold onto the reigns in time for the press run and upcoming premiere of his hit show's second season. No matter what it takes, or how hard you fall for him in the process. 📊 Key Deliverables: TBA. 📝 Meeting minutes: TBA.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 6: homemade dynamite 🤝 Booked by @miniseokminnies, on behalf of actor!vernon and fem!director!reader. 📋 Agenda: Vernon Chwe is a serious actor. That’s how his company, Sebong Corporation, markets him at least. He couldn’t be less interested in that strategy, he’d much rather focus on projects that inspire him. When an email from you, an indie film director that’s been on his radar, comes through his inbox he practically jumps at the opportunity. Trust him on this, okay? It’ll turn out amazing, he’ll make sure of it. 📊 Key Deliverables: fluff, smut, strangers to co workers to lovers. 📝 Meeting minutes: Vernon causing problems for his boss, deeply inappropriate use of a lake, semi public sex, angst if you squint, feelings of being lost. 

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 8: Entertaining Pleasures 🤝 Booked by @bitchlessdino, on behalf of Entertainment CEO!Chan and afab!TV Producer!Reader. 📋 Agenda: Chan didn't think he had what it takes and motivation to be a CEO when he rather be the one on stage. It wasn't until he met the most obnoxious TV producer he's ever met that he was committed to being the best goddamn Entertainment CEO they and Carat Company has ever seen. 📊 Key Deliverables: fluff, comedy, smut, enemies to fwbs, fwb to ??? 📝 Meeting minutes: cocky!chan, undermining!reader, poor use of filming/modeling sets and their equipment, lowkey exhibitionism. 

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

🗓️ CONFERENCE ROOM 7: On Your Side 🤝 Booked by @chanranghaeys, on behalf of ceo!lee chan and cfo!fem!reader. 📋 Agenda: Being seatmates with Chan for your senior year back in arts high school changed your life forever. Being estranged and distant friends with Dino, celebrated idol-slash-actor, messed with your head—and your heart. Being the Chief Financial Officer and right hand of Sebong Corporation’s newest CEO, Mr. Lee Chan turned you both into people that barely knew each other. But would you both be willing to stick it through to the end, claiming to be on each other’s side? 📊 Key Deliverables: high school friends to estranged friends to office colleagues to enemies to ??? 📝 Meeting minutes: puppy love and high school crushes, borderline office romance, mutual pining but they’re adamant to antagonize each other.

Read the teaser here. Read the full fic here.

You grin around the banana mush and Soonyoung pushes himself off the desk.

“I’m gonna raid the snackbar– oh no, do not look at me like that. You’re not getting a thing.”

You swallow thickly, it makes a gross sound. “We get to raid the snackbar? There’s a snackbar?”

“Are you an idiot? Of course there’s a snackbar. And officially, no we don’t get to raid it, but unofficially Junhui doesn’t care.”

“What do they have?“

“Snackbar stuff, I don’t know.” Soonyoung shrugs. “Leave me alone now, I’m leaving.”

You grab at him. “Please please please can I have something bready. I need carbs or I’ll die. I need coffee. Please Soonyoung, please.”

“Ew oh my God, get off me, freak.”

Thirty minutes later, he still isn’t back, and you’ve got your head in your arms on your desk. You’re famished. You’re wasting away. You’re–

“Hi.”

You lift your head to see there’s a blonde man outside your booth. You’re stunned, is what you are. He’s maybe the prettiest man you’ve ever seen. You blink, still sleepy, and say, “Sorry, we’re not open yet.”

He blinks comically slow. “Uh– no. I work here.”

He points to the little visor with Carat Bay’s logo printed on the front, perched atop his head. Red and white. Makes him look like a Pokemon trainer.

“Oh. What’s your name?”

“I’m Jun– Junhui.” He goes to shake your hand but stops when he seemingly remembers there’s a pane of glass separating you. Oh my God, he’s cute.

You make your eyes go big. “No fucking way, dude,” you exclaim. “That’s my name too.”

You have no words to describe his expression, but you have to work hard to keep your face straight.

“Really?”

“Really. You wanna see my birth certificate?”

His eyes narrow. “Your name isn’t Jun.”

“No, it’s Jun Junhui.” The corners of your lips twitch.

“Are you new?”

“Yup,” you say. “Started yesterday.”

It’s April, and the water park adjoining the area’s most popular resort is just opening up again for the season. The only reason you got this job is because you were bullied into it by your roommates, Soonyoung and Minghyu, who would really really like it if you didn’t go into debt this time to make your share of the rent (they never listen when you tell them that’s what your student loan is there for) and both of whom have been working here for years.

Your place is supposed to be (strictly) a student let, but Soonyoung dropped out within the first two months of university, and has since worked two jobs most of the year, and somehow fits in a lifeguarding position at Carat Bay April through October. Mingyu worked the hotel reception for a while, graduated two years ago, and now he works as the resorts’ LFTS Coordinator. Whatever that means. He’s well paid and could move into somewhere much nicer, but he says he likes the company (for some reason) and he’s saving to buy a house in a nicer part of the city, so he’ll stay so long as your landlord keeps avoiding all contact. Anyway, what’s crucial here is that they’ve forgotten what it’s like to live as a poverty stricken film student. (You’re fine, just a little broke.)

The turn of winter into spring has been marred by your lack of 1) funds, 2) social life, and 3) inspiration. You’ve got a few months before your final project is due but it’s supposed to be half done by now, and you’re struggling to find a drop of creativity. Your last attempt fell through as you were two thirds into filming thanks to your useless fuck of a partner, and you spent weeks trying to work through it by yourself before giving up entirely. There were too many plates for one person to keep spinning. Your notebooks are a mess of scratched out ideas and fragmented thoughts. It doesn’t need to be long– in fact, shorter is probably better. Quality over quantity and all that. You thumb through Mingyu’s books, love letters your grandparents wrote, Soonyoung’s softcore porn collection (why does he have them in magazine format anyway? Is he from the 80s?) and the old photographs tucked away in your parents garage for inspiration– but it doesn’t come. You had wanted something romantic, something sweet and full of feeling, but everything came to a standstill. Maybe you’re just bitter that you’ve been left to pick up the pieces of a failed start.

Maybe you’re bitter about Jiho. It was fun while it lasted, but he is precisely the reason you had your preference for crushes over relationships in the first place. It’s not your fault he slipped in during the night. It’s not that your feelings are hurt, per se. It’s more that the chance for something real wasn’t there for the taking like you’d come to think. It’s more that you’d rather have just kept it light like always, and he didn’t, and then you didn’t, and the safety net wasn’t there when you needed it. It’s something of a relief that he got himself kicked off the course when he did. You haven’t spoken since.

Back to the point– item 1 is how you end up working (just part time, you’re not as ambitious (read: insane) as your roommates) in the ticket booth at Carat Bay. You didn’t get to meet many of your coworkers yesterday, since the morning was eaten up by induction (not much to induct, you think, since all there is to do is take the money, push a few buttons, give customers their wristbands, and make sure to upsell the goggles.) and lunch was taken in a break room that was completely empty, save for a few harvest spiders and one dead wasp.

You learned quickly (from Joshua, the other ticket staff who sits across the entryway) that the shifts are long and boring, since you’ll be sitting in a single occupancy booth for four to eight hours. Apparently it’s a rush of people at opening, having barely-there interactions with most of the patrons, and they come in dribs and drabs throughout the day. Occasionally a lost kid will wander over, and you’ll get to make a call for their adult over the tannoy. Before you knew it, Mingyu was scolding Soonyoung for leaving handprints and kiss marks on your window (someone has to clean that, Soonyoung!), and it was time to go home.

“What’s your real name?” says Jun Not Junhui, leaning in through your open window to look for the name badge that you’ve forgotten to put on. He smells like your type- good weed and expensive soap.

You tell him the truth this time, since he’ll find out soon enough anyway, and he repeats it for confirmation. Twice. You roll your lips between your teeth in effort not to laugh.

“Soonyoung’s talked about you a lot,” he says, looking you over. “You don’t seem evil.”

“You should’ve seen me an hour ago,” you grin. “You run the snackbar?”

Jun blinks, surprised. “Food and Beverage Manager. Did I say that already? I didn’t feel my mouth move.”

“No,” you say. “Soonyoung mentioned you. He’s gone to the snack bar to get us breakfast.”

His eyes blow wide. Panicked, he says, “Kwon Soonyoung is in my kitchen?”

“Uh–”

“He’s using my kitchen?”

“Um–”

“Why didn’t you say that earlier?”

“Why would I say that?”

He doesn’t reply. He takes off sprinting into the park, yelling Soonyoung’s name, and as he disappears around the corner of the locker rooms, you remember that you’re supposed to check everyones’ staff ID cards. Oops.

Soonyoung walks back over a minute later, one to-go coffee stacked precariously on top of the other, and a couple of paper bags clutched in his other hand.

“I just met Jun,” you say, taking the balanced cup from him as soon as he gets to your booth. You take a sip– it tastes burned, but it’s caffeine. Anything will do.

“Yeah, I figured. I heard him screaming like a banshee and had to hide in the log flume so he didn’t see me,” he grumbles. He tosses a paper bag at you. Inside is an egg and cheese bagel. “My ass is wet.”

“You’re a lifeguard in a water park. You’re wearing board shorts. Isn’t getting wet part of the job description?”

“Not before nine AM.”

“Thought you said he didn’t mind people raiding the kitchen?” You take a bite of your bagel. It’s– uh. It’s edible.

Soonyoung smiles mischievously. “Well yeah, so long as he’s there to supervise. He doesn’t like anyone touching his precious fridge magnets.”

“He didn’t seem like a manager.”

“He’s full of surprises, that one.”

You’re interrupted by the sound of slammed car doors and a rev of the engine as it pulls away, and a moment later, in trudge a bunch of guys in a uniform similar to Soonyoung’s. White polo shirt, pink board shorts, comically small pink visor. You want one too, why haven’t you got a visor? Soonyoung wears a white shirt too, but his has ‘LIFEGUARD’ emboldened on both sides in red. You just get the white polo, three sizes too large because it was either this or one that was clearly from unsold children’s merch stock. Nothing cute in pink, or blue like Joshua.

“Who are they?”

Soonyoung points them out left to right. “Chan, mat racing. Minghao, kiddie slide. Vernon, wave pool. Seungcheol, hot springs.” You’ve heard a lot about these guys at home.

When they get to your booth and Soonyoung starts introductions, Chan hangs back a little.

“Oh my God,” he says, wide eyed. “A woman.”

You stare at him.

“Sorry about him.” Minghao grimaces as he presses his ID against your window. “He didn’t mean that in a weird way.”

“Is there a not-weird way?” you ask, tapping his name on the ipad to mark him signed in.

“There hasn’t been a woman hire in like, eight years,” explains Seungcheol, showing his ID too. “There was a little scandal with the HR guy last season. Turns out he ran some incel subreddit and it bled into his hiring practice.”

There’s a long pause while you wait for someone– anyone– to laugh. No one does.

“You’re joking?”

“He’s been sacked. Don’t worry.”

You rag a hand over your face. “You’re telling me I’m the only woman who’s worked here in nearly a decade?”

The four men stare at you. If this were a sitcom you’d be hearing crickets.

You turn on Soonyoung, who’s trying to escape out of your booth unnoticed. Too slow.

“AH! Let go!”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that, Soonyoung?” You tighten your grip on his hair. He yelps. “Doesn’t that seem like crucial information your best friend should know before taking a job here? It does, doesn’t it?”

“I forgot, you psychopath! Best friends don’t hurt each other!”

You twist and Soonyoung falls into a squat in an effort to break free, smacking at your hand. “Men best friends tell their women best friends when they’re stepping into a testosterone fuelled snake pit.”

“Little harsh,” whistles Minghao. “The snakes are standing right here.”

“There was that one woman,” says Vernon, tongue pushed into the fat of his cheek, eyes up in thought. “The elderly one. What was her name? Jun’s cook from a few years ago?”

“The one he killed?” asks Chan.

“What?” you sputter, releasing Soonyoung, who falls backwards out the door.

“He didn’t kill her,” insists Minghao.

“She’s not even dead,” says Vernon, brow furrowed and mouth agape. “Jun visited her two weeks ago.”

“She had a stroke, didn’t she?” questions Seungcheol.

Minghao rolls his eyes. “It was never proven that it was Jun’s fault though.”

Is everyone working here insane?

You can hear flip flops smacking the pavement and you turn to look– Soonyoung is running away. Fearing premature hair loss, probably. You and the guys watch him go.

“He’ll suffer later,” you reassure yourself.

“So– uh– you live with Soonyoung?” asks Seungcheol. “And the events guy?”

“Events guy?”

“Mingyu,” confirms Vernon.

Events– is that what Mingyu does? What the fuck does FSHL stand for then?

“That’s me.”

“We’re not all incels,” says Chan. “We only had one.”

Everyone turns to look at him. Minghao’s mouth is hanging open and Vernon is wide eyed and tight-lipped, trying not to laugh.

“Okaaay?”

“Well. Only one that we know of,” he blurts. “Although–”

He’s cut off as Minghao elbows him hard in the ribs.

“We’ll be seeing you then!” Seungcheol smiles. “What time is your lunch?”

“Twelve–thirty.”

“Same as me,” Vernon pipes up. “Wanna meet some of us at Sharkbait?”

“Where?”

“Jun’s place–” Vernon taps the spot on the map taped to your window. “Next to the log flume. It’s where we all take our breaks.”

Explains the empty break room. You’re not sure how safe you’ll be in Jun Not Junhui’s territory, given recent revelations, but you’re curious.

“Sure, see you then.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Sharkbait is pretty small. The exterior is pastel blue, serves what can only be described as beige food, and there’s a huge plastic shark in sunglasses and bermuda shorts riding a surfboard attached to the roof. It’s nestled amongst a bunch of other themed eateries, and the tables on the veranda outside are spilling over with people. There’s a long line of people queuing, and one bored teenager behind the counter on the left. Soonyoung is at the other end of the bar, pouring himself a drink and chewing on a peperami. He waves you over when he spots you.

“Hey,” he says, as you reach the bar. “We’re friends right?”

“I guess,” you say, shrugging. It’s been eight years, you’re stuck like glue. “Why?”

“Will you settle something for us?”

“Us?” you ask, peering over the counter, because save for the kid working the till, he’s the only one there.

Soonyoung ignores your question. “Is a waffle just a grilled pancake?”

“What?” you say, leaning on the counter and unboxing your sandwich. It’s gone all soggy and gross next to your salad.

Vernon pops his head through a hatch behind Soonyoung. He’s eating a hard-boiled egg.

“Pancakes are waffles– same ingredients, same thing, right?” says Vernon.

Your eyebrows furrow. “By that logic ice cream is just frozen flavoured butter.”

“Yeah!” shouts Vernon, pointing his egg at you. “See, she gets it.”

“Pretty sure that wasn’t her getting it,” says Soonyoung. “Pretty sure she was saying butter and ice cream are distinctly different things.”

Vernon scoffs and his eyes slide over to you. “Is that what you meant?”

You shrug, too busy inspecting your wet bread, looking for a bit that isn’t mushy. Your stomach rumbles so loud that the guys stare at you quietly for a moment.

“Agree with me and I’ll get Jun to make you a grilled cheese.”

Two cheese heavy meals in a day? Your guts might complain but your mouth certainly won't. “Sold.”

“That’s bribery,” argues Soonyoung. He turns on you. “I’ll remember this, traitor.”

Vernon laughs. “Wanna come hang out back here?”

You nod, and Vernon disappears out of view. You make your way around the bar, and follow Soonyoung through the door to the kitchen.

Jun is already starting on your grilled cheese. He’s slicing the bread and offering you a smile as you walk in and copy Vernon and Soonyoung, pulling yourself up to sit on the only counter not being used for prepping food. Jun is wearing his visor backwards, and there’s flour (powdered sugar?) dusting his nose. Cute.

“Hi Jun Junhui.”

He blinks, confused. “Sorry, it’s just Jun– not Junhui.”

Oh, so he’s easy to fuck with.

“Junnot Junhui?”

He stares at you blankly. “Call me Jun.”

“I’ll try to remember,” you say, with mock-earnest. “But Junnot is pretty cemented in there now.” You rap your knuckles on your head. “Ow.”

Jun glances at Soonyoung. “Is she always like this?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, dramatically. “She’s even worse when you get to know her. Problem is she’s actually pretty useful so you end up keeping her around.”

You grin. “I’m like a bedbug.”

Vernon frowns. “What’s great about bedbugs?”

“Huh,” you say, thinking hard. He’s got a point. You click your fingers– “A rat!”

“If I found a rat in my kitchen I’d get the traps out,” says Jun flatly, and then clarifies– “The no-kill ones. I’m not a monster.”

“Type two diabetes?” offers Vernon.

Soonyoung shakes his head. “She’s not sweet enough.”

“Dandelions,” cuts in a voice behind you, making you jump. Mingyu’s face is peeking through the hatch, he looks so out of place here, in his crisp shirt and expensive blue tie. The others go a little quiet in his presence, so you wonder how often he spends time out of his office in the resort.

“For fuck’s sake,” you groan, scowling. “Could you breathe louder so we in the land of the living know you’re coming?”

“Dandelions are perfect,” Soonyoung agrees, clicking his fingers. “Annoying, everywhere-“

“Can’t get rid of them-“ Mingyu chimes in.

“Suck a dick and die, assholes.”

A wicked grin spreads across Soonyoung’s face. “Kind of ugly until the sun comes up-“

“I’m not ugly,” you say with a petulant pout. “I’m an easy eight, nine on a good hair day.”

“Ten,” says Jun quickly. You give him a thumbs up and he smiles, casting his eyes down to focus very hard on grating cheese. You’re making him your new favourite.

“We’ve seen you drunk with your head in a toilet,” says Mingyu simply. “We’ve seen you when pneumonia bit your ass so hard you didn’t shower for nearly two weeks.”

“You smelled so baaaaad, dude,” nods Soonyoung emphatically.

You pull an affronted face. “I feel like looking like shit while having a life-threatening illness shouldn’t count against me, actually.”

“Every time you coughed you almost peed yourse–”

“Key word being almost–” you interrupt, nearly yelling. You turn to face the people you met just a few hours ago to insist– “I’ve never peed myself.”

Soonyoung laughs, delighted.

“Say something nice about dandelions or I’ll cry.”

Mingyu looks up into his big empty brain to think. “Good for bees…” he trails off.

Jun cuts in- “and for making wishes on.”

“Thanks so much, guys. Way to make a girl feel good.” You roll your eyes. “What are you here for, anyway?” you say to Mingyu. “Are you keeping tabs on me?”

Mingyu raises an eyebrow. “No,” he says, reaching through the hatch and holding out a sheet of paper for Vernon to take. “We’ve got a crew on site in two weeks, they’re filming the ads for the summer. They’ll want to–”

“Uhh, hello?” you interject. Mingyu looks at you expectantly. “Why are you paying a film crew when you literally have an in-house filmography student?”

“No offence,” he starts gently, and he does actually look like he means it. “But this might be above your pay grade. You know this is a multi-million dollar resort, right?”

“Damn. Fair enough,” you say. You didn’t realise that, actually. You knew it was nice, sure, but Jesus Christ. “Out of curiosity, what’s the budget for the filming?”

“Just the film crew?” he asks. You nod. “Sixty thousand, ish.”

You whistle, low. “Could’ve paid my rent with that.”

Mingyu laughs in a fake way.

“I’ll keep you in mind next time,” he says. “Haven’t they given you your proper uniform yet?”

You glance down at your much too-big polo shirt. “Should I be in something different?”

“You should be in blue. White means you’re first aid trained.”

“Oh shit, yeah,” you say, eyes widening. “No one wants me doing mouth to mouth, I’d be more likely to kill them.”

Vernon cackles and kicks at Jun, who ignores him.

“Yup,” agrees Mingyu. “Call in at reception at closing and we'll get Seokmin to find you the right kit.”

You nod, and with a wave to the group, he’s gone.

“Any allergies? Is there anything you don’t like?” Jun asks.

“No allergies. But a big no to beans. Texture’s weird.”

“Got it.”

Soonyoung makes to leave, his break’s over. As the door shuts behind him, the remaining three of you settle into comfortable conversation. You ask Jun and Vernon how long they’ve worked here– five and three years respectively. Vernon grew up here, like you and Soonyoung, just a different part of the city. Tutors English via Zoom as his main job, but he works the wave pool every year just for the plot, apparently. Jun got a job here during a summer trip and never left. He works in the resort kitchen during the off-season, but he prefers it out here in the park.

“Less eyes on you,” he says, drizzling something red and sticky over your sandwich. He presses the pieces together, and moves it over to the grill.

“How ominous.”

Jun smiles but doesn’t elaborate. “You’re a film student?”

“Yeah,” you say, sighing dramatically. “Until I get kicked out for failing.”

“Why are you failing?” asks Vernon, around a mouthful of fries.

Two months, three weeks, and one day left. You have nothing, nada, zilch. Stumped for ideas, inspiration, and manpower. Fuck Jiho and his absent manpower.

“Got a project due soon that I haven’t even started– well, I did start, but then my partner got kicked out of school and it was too big to keep going by myself. So now I need something new.”

“What’s the brief?”

“We’ve got a lot of creative freedom to be honest. Fiction, non-fiction– doesn’t matter. Just needs to be between twenty and thirty minutes and have a quote-unquote nostalgic feel.”

“Sounds simple enough,” says Vernon, casually.

“Uh huh,” you deadpan. “You come up with something for me then, Mr Spielberg.”

He’s biting his lip, embarrassed, while Jun laughs, plating your grilled cheese next to a much more appealing salad.

“Order up.”

“Ooh thank you, this looks way better than what I had.”

Jun eyes the box sitting next to you. “Not a difficult challenge to beat.”

“Hm, I’m not much of a cook,” you say, pausing to take a bite. Oh God. It’s spicy and sweet and cheesy. It’s the best thing you’ve ever eaten. The best thing you’ve ever eaten from a place called Sharkbait and made by a guy who smells like weed. How tragic. “This is– uh– it’s pretty good.”

Jun scoffs. “It’s really good. They won’t let me put it on the menu though.”

“Fuck those guys,” says Vernon.

Jun smiles. “Yeah. Fuck ‘em.”

You devour your lunch in record time. Jun looks pleased with himself as he rushes out the rest of the orders coming through from out front, and Vernon says his goodbyes as he heads back to the wave pool.

And then it’s just the two of you. Jun works fast and methodically. He doesn’t talk so much as listens to you yap away, but answers a question here and there, laughs at your jokes.

“Hey, how come you’re the manager if you don’t have anyone here to like– manage?”

“It’s usually just me in the kitchen ever since Marnie had an aneurysm, and Jay out front. I can handle it until high-season, and then they’ll hire a temp to see us through.”

You mull this over. “Don’t you get lonely?”

Jun shakes his head. “Everyone comes to visit me, I could use a little more alone time, actually.”

You pout. “So I shouldn’t come back for lunch tomorrow?”

Pink creeps up his neck, and he turns to busy himself tossing the fries in seasoning. “I didn’t say that.”

“Cool,” you say. “Cause I’m gonna need one of those off-menu grilled cheeses for every single shift I pick up.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

It turns out everyone who works here is a comedian and/or an idiot, as evidenced when you meet Seokmin, Front Office Manager, and the most sunshine personified dude you’ve ever met.

You turn up at the resort’s reception at closing hours, and now you know why your parents never brought you to the restaurant here for your birthday dinner all these years, because God is it expensive. It’s all marble floors, and gilded details, but in that elegant way that doesn’t throw the money in your face.

Seokmin brings you into the office and motions for you to have a seat while he calls the uniform company.

He smiles brightly as he asks them for your size, then falters.

“You only do unisex clothes?” Seokmin says into the receiver. “Don’t you do unisex for women?”

You poorly disguise your snort as a sneeze as he doesn’t appear to understand whatever the sales rep is telling him.

“Unisex is fine,” you whisper, and Seokmin smiles at you with relief.

He’s still on the phone a minute later, when Mingyu pops his head in the open door.

“Soonyoung’s got a date, I’ve had a day from hell, and you’re my only irresponsible friend,” he whispers. “Wanna come get high with me?”

“Hell yeah,” you say, jumping up as Seokmin waves you off. Wait– “Fuck you, man, who are you calling irresponsible?”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Your plug’s place isn’t far, a ten minute walk at most. On the way you talk about work, you ask questions about the people you’ve met so far, but Mingyu doesn’t know them as well as he’d like. He’s always shut in the office. You ask what his job title is again, he levels you with a look, and he tells you– LTPS. Or something. He’s in charge of like, resort events and some other really boring shit like– uh– whatever, you’ve already forgotten.

Mingyu concedes he’s buying, since he has been extra snappy lately, but that’s just on account of the extra pressure that comes with the busy season. Once he’s into the swing of summer, he settles down and he’s back to his usual loveable self.

Not long later, you’re standing in Mark’s kitchen, staring at him in disbelief.

Mingyu isn’t sure either. He tugs at your hand holding the bag, sniffs, and immediately recoils. “This smells like shit, man. Don’t you have what we usually get?”

“Frosty Flurkle is so goooood, dude,” Mark insists. “My buddy grew that!”

“Tell your buddy that the people don’t want to smoke lavender and cat vomit. Not for twenty-five a gram.”

He snatches the bag out of your hands. “Well I dunno what to tell you, this is what I’ve got.” Mark puffs out his chest. “I’m his sole dealer.”

“Hmmm.” You draw out the sound. “Maybe you should have a little think about why that is.”

Mark scoffs. “Do you want it or not?”

You look at Mingyu. He looks at you. Your last dealer moved across the country, and you can’t be bothered searching out anyone else at this time of night. Might as well take one gram, you say with your eyes, see if it’s better once it’s in your system. Would be silly to go home empty handed, you assume Mingyu says with his.

“One gram,” you say. “And we’re only paying fifteen.”

“Twenty tw–”

“Sevente–“

One hour and twenty dollars later, you feel sick to your stomach, Mingyu is clutching his head, and you set a reminder to hire an Etsy witch to curse Mark’s entire bloodline. Then you order cheese fries and fall into a restless sleep before they even arrive.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Sunday is probably the worst day to be at work. Why would you pick up a shift on a Sunday when you have so many assignments to procrastinate on? Especially this Sunday, when you’re feeling the fuzzy effects of a crappy high, an empty stomach, and a bad night’s rest.

“Woah,” says Jun upon arrival. He smells much nicer than the Foisty Flumple you had last night. Good weed and nice perfume. And pretty. God, he looks amazing. On a better day you’d flirt outrageously with him, but today is one of those days where it was an effort to wash your face, let alone put on makeup. What a cruel, awful world. “You look–”

“If you don’t say some variation of stunning, beautiful, and/or captivating, Jun Junhui, I will eat you alive.”

He grins. “Ravishing.”

Your brows pinch together and a smile tugs at the corner of your mouth.

“Interesting choice.”

“Uh huh.” Jun rubs the back of his neck. “Hungover?”

You shake your head. “Bad high.”

“Want breakfast?” he asks. You perk up at that. Literally– your face immediately feels less grey. He laughs. “Sweet or savory?”

“Sweet please,” you say, leaning closer to the window. “Just like you.”

You’ve never seen a grown man blush harder. Cute.

He’s back a little later with an iced americano and a warm croissant, filled with raspberry jam, and dusted with sugar.

“Junnot Junhui, you’re the best,” you mumble around a bite. “I could kiss you.”

“Hahahaha,” says Jun, not casually at all. “I– uh– I’d–”

“I’m joking, Romeo.” You wipe the jam from the corner of your mouth. “Settle down, I can smell your adrenaline spiking from over here.”

“Oh, yeah I knew that,” he says, running a hand through his hair in what he must think seems nonchalant and chill. It doesn’t. Your grin is akin to the Cheshire Cat.

“I don’t kiss people at work,” you say. And then, meeting his eyes, “You’ll have to take me on a date if you’d like one from me.”

Jun’s Adam's apple bobs in his throat.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

You’re having lunch at the snackbar again, and this time it’s so rammed full with staff on their breaks, it takes Jun a little while to get around to handing over your sandwich. He goes silent when he works, only stopping to break the chaos with a sharp yell, anytime someone messes with the cat magnets on his fridge. You like watching him– his arms while he chops vegetables, the way his little muscles flex when he’s carrying a heavy box, the movement of his fingers when he’s sprinkling seasoning over a pan.

Jeonghan, who works the big slide, grins at you with sparkling eyes. You can sense his evil nature bubbling beneath that angelic facade– that’s best friend material. “You know you’re practically drooling, right?”

You pat your stomach. “Really hungry.”

“For the food or for Jun?”

You push your tongue into the fat of your cheek. “Both.”

Jun makes his way through the people crowding his station, plate held high above his head. He’s smiling lovely when he reaches you, and pushes the plate into your hands.

“Thanks, Junhui, you’re so sexy.” He’s immediately bright red, and Soonyoung throws a wet cloth at you. It smacks off your collar and drips dishwater down your shirt. “AH! Soonyoung, what the FUCK?”

“Don’t flirt with him!”

You wave at him dismissively. “I flirt with everyone.”

“You’ll corrupt my sweet, innocent, Junnot Junhui!”

Jun makes a frustrated sound. “Not you, too? How did I get this nickname?”

“You did it to yourself, sweetheart,” you say, fondly stroking his arm. It’s a feeble excuse to touch.

“You haven’t flirted with me yet,” complains Seungcheol.

You play your part and bat your eyelashes. “Oh, darling, would you like me to?”

He nods, making puppy-dog eyes and pouting. You squeeze his bicep and gasp for the drama of it. “Cheollie, have you been working out?”

Soonyoung gags, and you smirk. Jun looks down at his arms.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Despite the last experience, you are back at Mark’s. Mingyu had a particularly bad day in the office, you will do anything for the bit, and Mark has assured you that his supplier has something better.

You have your reservations, but surely nothing could be as bad as Foisty Farmyard. Surely?

It’s whatever. Mark cuts you a deal on account of your bad experience last time, and that should’ve been your first red flag. The second should’ve been that you met his supplier, Johnny, who apparently wears the jeans low enough to hang off his kneecaps and a huge, gold chain with a dollar sign unironically. But what a deal Mark cuts! Two grams for the price of one can’t be that bad.

Dear reader: it is that bad.

Mingyu greens out within ten minutes. You’re not far behind. Soonyoung comes home from his date and finds you both on the bathroom floor, rolls his eyes, and leaves you both to sort yourselves out.

In the morning, Soonyoung says that if you don’t find a witch to curse Mark, he certainly will.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

All of your new colleagues are easy to like (they’re loud, funny, sweet in their own ways), but it’s Jun who quickly becomes your favourite. Your shifts start with a sweet pastry and an iced americano, sometimes left in your booth with a note, sometimes hand delivered with a sleepy smile. You thought he was quiet, and he is, but he’s also sharp, and playful, and funny in that really cool, witty way. He shines brighter in quieter spaces, when fewer staff crowd his kitchen, and when he forgets his shyness. On the days he’s in early enough to deliver your breakfast, he’ll squeeze into your booth and take your chair while you sit on the counter, and he’ll try very hard to ignore the way you flirt with him.

You’ve been thinking about the vanilla danish he left on your desk all day, and with the way you had to skip lunch, you haven’t had a chance to thank him yet. Two minutes before your break starts is precisely when the film crew arrived on site and for some reason the office radioed through to make it your job to organise their visitor passes. There were so many of them it took up most of your break, and Joshua ended up having to bring you a neatly packaged panini from Jun to speed-eat on the floor of your booth. So with Mingyu’s meeting running over, and Soonyoung heading over to the lazy river to persuade Jihoon to come over for drinks, you rush through the park to catch Jun before he heads home.

The park is deathly quiet at this time– no patrons, no staff, no overplayed feel-good pop music playing from the speakers. From outside the snackbar looks spotless and empty, the hatch window firmly closed. It stinks, though. Jun is here, somewhere. Pushing open the door, the kitchen is just as clean as the front, but with a haze of smoke filling the room. You round the corner and find Jun laying on the floor– joint in hand, staring, unblinking, at the ceiling.

You kick his foot and he doesn’t move. “Dude, are you dead?”

“Maybe,” he chuckles. “Hey, did you know the camels in Petra have wifi?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“It’s true,” he insists, laughing so hard tears stream from his bloodshot eyes. “It’s shav– it’s shaved into their neck hair.”

You laugh. “That can’t be right.”

Jun pats the floor. “Sit with me, I wanna ask you stuff.”

You roll your lips between your teeth to stop your smile spreading further, and you sink cross-legged on the floor next to him. Jun rests his hand on your shoe, little finger tracing the edge of your sock.

“Can’t stay long, Mingyu’s driving us home,” you say, plucking the joint from his hand and taking a drag. “Holy shit, this is good. You wouldn’t believe the crap we picked up last.”

“Mhm, yeah it’s pretty nice.” Jun looks pleased with himself. “You live far?”

“That’s your question? Borrrrring.”

Jun turns to smile up at you, lazy and slow, with dark half-lidded eyes. God, he’s hot.

“No. I know where Soonyoung lives. And you live with Soonyoung.”

“You’ve been to our place?”

“Just once. You weren’t there. I’d have remembered.”

There are butterflies in your stomach. You let them swirl.

“Ask me something better, then.”

Jun stares at you. Quietly, he says, “I can’t think straight.”

His little finger brushes your ankle, pretty mouth parted, and looking like there are too many thoughts behind his eyes. Can’t sort through them, probably, on account of the weed fogging his brain, but it’s nicer to imagine it’s because of you. The silence hangs, so quiet you can almost hear the cogs turning.

You take another drag before offering up the joint above his mouth– your fingers brush his lips as you place the joint between them as he takes a hit. The softness of them is really fucking with you. Boys' lips shouldn’t be that soft. You should ask him what lip balm he uses.

It’s like this, quiet, and soft, and hazy for a little while, the joint getting shorter and shorter as you pass it back and forth. Your body goes liquid and heavy and Jun laughs along with you when you get the giggles over the feeling of his lips brushing your fingertips again. Feels weirdly intimate for sitting on the floor of an industrial kitchen.

“Question.”

“Hit me.”

“Have you–” A long pause. If he weren't looking directly at you you’d think he’d fallen asleep. “You ever been to the Galapagos Islands?”

“Uh,” you cough. “No.”

“Damn. I wanna know what the big heads feel like.”

“Probably really hard.”

Jun chews on his lip. “Yeah.”

Your phone is ringing. Feels like a million miles away. Mingyu’s name is on the screen, and you know you need to answer, but you’re high as shit and he’ll only give you grief for smoking at work. Something something unprofessional. Something something irresponsible. Something something hypocritical. You don’t want to hear it. You let it ring off, wait for a moment, and send him a text.

Me: hanging out with jun. i’ll get the bus

Gyu: You sure?

Me: yeah, won’t be long <3

Before you forget you look up the time for the bus– there aren’t many at this time of day– and set an alarm so you’ll make it to the bus stop in time.

Gyu: Be good. Don’t kill the guy

Me: would never kill the guy i have a big fat crush on

Gyu: 🙄 you have big fat crushes on everyone

“I’ve got one,” you say, leaning back against the dishwasher. Jun turns on his side to look at you properly. “What did you wanna be when you were a kid?”

The corners of his lips twitch. “Promise not to laugh at me?” You smile and shake your head, you’d never promise such a thing. Jun laughs, cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment. “I wanted– oh God. I wanted to be Jackie Chan.”

“An actor?”

“No, like actually him.” Jun is the first to start laughing, full body shakes, his hands fly up to cover his face, and you’re near silent with laughter just watching him. It’s not even that funny, but he is. “I wanted– I wanted to like.. morph into his body or something. I wanted become actual Jackie Chan.”

The silence you fall into is easy. There’s nothing left to smoke and the feeling sets in, a soft buzz in your body, heavy arms, heavy eyes. This is so nice.

“Got ‘nother one,” Jun says, after a little while. “What was your project about? The one you dropped.”

It’s hard to explain. “S’about how, like– like how crushes are better than the real thing, y’know?” Just looking at him, you can tell he doesn’t get it. “Like when you get a crush, and it’s fuzzy and silly and exciting, and everything about them feels electric. And you think they’re the best person you’ve ever met, and your stomach is in knots wondering what they think about you. And your imagination runs wild wondering how they like to kiss.”

Jun is staring at your lips. Your breath hitches. There are flashes of Jiho in your mind’s eye. It’s not like you loved him or anything, it was just turning into something a little more than like. Him in the morning, sleepy and soft, texting other girls. Him fresh out of the shower– water in his hair and running down his neck, snapping a selfie in the mirror to use on Tinder– then slipping back into bed just to get annoyed that he couldn’t make you come. More likely that you wouldn’t fake it for him. Whatever. A ‘red-flag’, your friends had called him. It’s okay. A walking reminder of why crushes reign supreme. It’s really okay, you weren’t in deep enough for it to matter.

“But six months later it’s real, and you can touch, but they don’t get you off like you’d hoped, you know? And you don’t like the way they kiss as much as you did in your imagination. And they don’t always say the right thing. They’re always competing with the imaginary version you made up of them, and you’re fighting something invisible to be seen as enough.”

“You keep saying ‘you know’,” he says carefully. “But this sounds like a unique experience.”

The silence hangs between you.

“Was it about you? You prefer limerence over the real thing?”

Yes and no. It’s not that you prefer limerence as such, but nothing you’ve experienced yet has been better than the feeling of almost. If the real thing ever lived up to the make believe in your head you’d snatch it up in a heartbeat. The trouble is that it feels rare, only meant for a few and not the many.

“Crushes are easier to come by,” you say. “It isn’t like that for you?”

Jun shakes his head. “I hardly ever like anyone. No projections when I do, though.”

You gawk at him. “Wah, what a life. What’s that like?”

“Pretty good,” Jun says, smile spreading crooked across his lovely face. His hand isn’t draped across your ankle anymore, it rests by his side on the tile floor, and you miss the weight of it. “Easier than whatever the fuck you’re doing. Your way would give me anxiety.”

You nudge him in the side. “Oh, is your way going well for you, then?”

Jun stretches his arms out, pushes himself up to sit, and says, “I’m still single; so not that well, no.”

Your alarm goes off, and when you say you’ve got to get going, he almost looks a little disappointed. You push yourself off the ground and turn.

“Are my shorts covered in dirt?”

Jun eyes you with suspicion. “Are you trying to get me to look at your ass?”

“Obviously.” You peek at him over your shoulder. “Is it working?”

“You’re not slick,” Jun scoffs lightly, and tips his head back against the cupboard, exposing the long line of his neck. It’d be nice to kiss him there. You pout at him, make moments like these light so you can play pretend in this crush a little longer. He laughs, and his eyes flicker down. “Dust yourself off a little– there, now you’re good.”

“Thanks, pal.”

“You’re welcome, amigo.”

“See you later, alligator.”

“In a while, crocodile.”

“Wait–” Jun grabs your wrist on your way out. The tips of his ears are tinged red. “Gimme your number. In case– y’know, in case you can’t find any good shit again.”

God, he’s cute.

Later, when you get home and find yourself raiding all the snacks in the cupboard, Mingyu catches you in the act, immediately clocks your bloodshot eyes and the stench of weed, and chews you out on the spot for 1) getting stoned in the workplace, and 2) not sharing the good stuff with him.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

“I met Weird Al Yankovic once,” Jun says, when you ask if he’s ever met any celebrities. “We made eye contact through the hatch and told me to be careful not to chop a finger off. That’s probably when my fear of knives kicked in.”

“Dude, I mean this in the nicest possible way, but you’re like the strangest person I’ve ever known.”

Jun plucks the joint from your lips and puts it to his own. You like when he does that. When the smallest brush of skin can be felt all over.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Getting stoned with Jun after work is fast becoming a semi-regular thing. Never anywhere but his kitchen, never organised but it becomes expected. At lunch, if he’s planning on staying late, he’ll ask if you’re riding with Mingyu or getting the bus, and that’s the decider. Sometimes Vernon is there, sometimes Seungcheol.

After the third session you start offering to buy, because you’re smoking all his shit and it seems unfair that you’re probably putting his kitchen at a deficit too. Jun waves you off. He likes to do things for people, apparently. After the sixth, you start asking who his dealer is (mostly on account of Mingyu, who is vehemently against getting dummy high at work, but is just as bitter he’s been left with Mark With The Bad Stash as a supplier.) but Jun won’t say. No amount of flirting will make him fold.

Trading ridiculous questions on the floor of Sharkbait’s kitchen is becoming a semi-regular thing too. The questions are silly, always surface level, could be one of those scripted five minute mock-interviews you see online sometimes, and you know it’s because you hardly know each other to ask the real stuff yet, but you like it. It’s easy. It’s simple.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Mingyu is positively grey when you get home from visiting your parents on Thursday evening.

“Do not tell me you went to fuckass Mark again?”

“I went to fuckass Mark,” he wails.

“Whyyyyyyy, Mingyu? Why fuckass Mark?” You start to shake his shoulders but stop short when it looks like he’s about to empty his stomach over your shoes. “Get yourself to bed.”

“Can’t,” he says, ashen face knotted up into a frown. “You’re gonna have to take me.”

“You’re the size of an ostrich, Mingyu, be serious.”

“I’m not an ostrich,” he cries. “Please please please help me.”

Jesus Christ. “You’re a baby.”

He pouts. “A sick baby.”

“Soonyoung,” you yell down the hall. “Come help me drag the baby to bed.”

“Will you curse him this time?”

“Soonyoung? Did he melt a chopping board on the stove again?”

“No,” says Mingyu, screwing his eyes shut. “Mark.”

“Sure, why not.”

Finding the right kind of Etsy witch proves difficult. It’s not the scams you care about as such, but more so one that isn’t too scary looking. You don’t actually want anything serious to happen to Mark, you’ll settle for something like a bad case of halitosis– but all of these Bad Luck spell reviews cite awful occurrences that you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy, let alone some doofus who overcharged you for shitty weed.

You’re sitting on the floor of your apartment, freshly showered and drinking leftover wine, while Soonyoung lays across the sofa and peers at your laptop screen over your shoulder. You’re waiting on your food to arrive before starting your show, and figured you’d better find a witch sooner rather than later.

“What about this one?” says Soonyoung, pointing at a listing.

“You want me to buy a curse from someone called LadyEviliansCoven?” you say, incredulous. “The one who literally has Evil Ian in her name?”

Your phone goes off.

Jun: Will you be my guinea pig tomorrow?

Me: depends. what’ve you got in mind for me ;)

Jun: Lol. It’s a surprise.

Me: okaaaaaaay fine

Me: just so long as it’s not cheese again, i fear i’m going to turn into a block of cheddar

Soonyoung reads over your shoulder. “You’re talking to Jun?”

“Yeah, we swapped numbers last week.”

Jun: I like cheddar :)

Me: omg you’re so smooth :)

Soonyoung tuts.

“What’s with you lately,” you ask. “Why are you being so weird?”

He sighs heavy. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way–” and it immediately gets your back up because he’s about to say something offensive and– “but could you not be a– um– a flirt at work?”

You spin around to pull a face at him. “I thought you were going to call me a whore for a second.”

Soonyoung smirks. “I considered it.”

“I’m not flirting with everyone.” Not seriously, anyway. Soonyoung levels you with a look. “I’m not.”

Jun: Wanna come get high with me? I have better shit than your weed guy.

“All I’m saying is don’t toy with Jun for the bit. He’s too soft-hearted.” It’s so rare that Soonyoung goes serious that it’s hard to counter it. He’s right. You have a tendency to take a joke too far, to flirt your way into and out of too many crushes. People get attached quicker than you do and it’s easy to forget when you move like the wind. Maybe it’s the other way around? Move like the wind so it’s easier to forget.

Me: can’t, sorry. it’s gilmore girls night. raincheck?

Jun: I’ll hold you to it :)

“She’s so fucking hot,” drools Soonyoung, reaching across your shoulder to jab at your screen. “Pick her.”

You scoff. “Who chooses an Etsy witch based on her level of hotness–” You stop short as you peer closer to inspect the sellers’ profile picture. “Soonyoung, that’s an AI photo, you fucking imbecile.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Sharkbait has been off limits for the last three days for recording. Mingyu said on no account can Jun or anyone else (i.e. you) get high in there until filming has wrapped, and you’re quietly convinced it’s because he wants to be invited to your smoke sessions. You don’t blame him.

This is how you end up sitting on the living room floor with everything feeling pink and golden, and off balance in that really cool, roller coaster moving in slow motion type of way. Mingyu is laying face down on the sofa, fast asleep and drooling. The bowl lays as spent as him on the table, embers fading out. Vernon and Soonyoung are chatting away and you can hardly focus on the words. Jun catches your eye, and he makes this funny expression like he’s making fun of you, and though you’re not quite following it makes you laugh anyway.

You’ve become hyper-aware of his body next to you. The long line of his legs, how he stretches out like a cat, and how you could fit your finger between the part in his lips. Soonyoung is saying something about how hungry he is, and you are too but you can’t get up from the floor as fast as Jun.

“Come help me,” Jun says. “Show me around your kitchen.”

“Ughhhhh,” you groan. But he’s pulling you up by the wrist and you’re thinking how unfair it is that someone so wiry is as strong as he is. Not just unfair but hot. Crushes are evil, you think. He’s tugging you into the kitchen by the hand, and it’s all clammy and warm but not so bad you want to let go.

You’re too high to be of much help, but you direct Jun to where you keep whatever he asks for, hold the ingredients he pulls from the fridge, chop whatever he tells you to chop, and stir whatever he tells you to stir.

“That’s a lot of garlic,” you muse.

“Yeah,” says Jun. “I know how to party.”

You’re not much of a cook, but Jun is, and he’s here with his soft voice and his soft heart, and very occasional soft touches keeping you steady. He doesn’t look at you often, but when he does his smile near breaks his face. God, it’s so nice.

Time moves strange and fluid, and the laughter from your friends filters faintly down the hallway. They sound so much further away. And then Jun is in front of you, holding a spoon up to your lips and telling you to open wide. Hard not to hear the implication behind the words, hard not to look him in the eye as you open your mouth for him and take what he offers. You’re too high for this.

There are butterflies in your stomach, in your eyes, in your mouth. You let them fly.

You swallow, thick. Lick your upper lip, slow. Under his breath, Jun swears.

“This is so good, I’d let it get me pregnant.”

Jun startles. “Uh– I’m not ready to be a dad.”

“The food, Junhui.”

A long pause. Jun stares. “Right. Hahaha.”

Mingyu is in the doorway, white-knuckling the frame. “OhmyfuckingGod, guys,” he says. “I got this vision you were kissing. I think I’m telescopic.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Monday morning rolls around far too quickly and you’re wondering who decided an eight o’clock lecture would be appropriate for the start of the week. Professor Lee talks of how the progress of technology affects aesthetics in her usual soft way of speaking, and you make an attempt at concentrating enough to take notes while ignoring the incessant buzzing in your pocket. At the end of the session, Professor Lee calls your name as you’re packing up your bag. Your friends hang back, but knowing the line for coffee will be miles long if they don’t hustle you tell them not to wait and to grab you a coffee, and you make your way to the front.

Professor Lee greets you warmly. She’s felt sorry for you ever since Jiho left you in the lurch. When it all came to light she’d tried to get you to join another group, but your peers were so far into their projects you’d only disrupt their rhythm if they had to find something for you to do, and your contribution would be next to nothing. You’ve never liked being a burden, but with the deadline edging closer you’re starting to regret not taking Professor Lee’s advice.

“I wanted to check in with you,” she says gently. Bless her. “How’s your assignment coming along?”

One month, two weeks, and five days left. You still have nothing, nada, zilch. Unfortunately, your first instinct is to lie out of your arsehole.

“Good, thank you!” you say brightly.

“I didn’t see your name on the equipment rentals list?”

Fuck. Fucking shitballs.

“Oh, that’s because I’m filming on my dad’s Super 8.” Shit shit shit shit. He does have a Super 8 but there’s not a chance in hell he’ll let you use enough film to make up twenty minutes worth of footage. “Thought it’d give it that authentic nostalgic feel.”

Professor Lee’s eyebrows fly up in surprise. “Super 8? Audio film is hard to get hold of these days. What are you doing for sound?”

“Tascam. I’ll edit it together in post.”

“Are you having someone slate for you? It’s tricky to sync if you don’t.”

“Yeah, one of my friends.”

This lie is already getting too big. You have no time– since for all the days you’re not in lectures, you’re at work, and it’s not like there’s anything to film there. People on animal floaties bobbing down the lazy river? Bored lifeguards messing around by the wave pool? Jun, high as fuck, making you sandwiches and pretending not to have a big fat crush on you and pointedly ignoring how you flirt with him?

Wait.

Wait.

It’s a moment not unlike all those old cartoons, in which the light bulb flashes above the characters head.

“I’ve got to say– I’m really concerned you’ve bitten off more than you can chew,” Professor Lee says, her voice low and serious. But you’re not paying it mind, because now– now you finally have an idea. And the guys will help, they’re all born entertainers. The trouble will be convincing your dad. The trouble will also be not telling Mingyu and convincing Soonyoung to not give the game away.

“I’m okay, really.”

Professor Lee is unconvinced, but you’re resolute now. You can turn this around.

Out in the hallway, you pull out your phone to see a slew of messages.

Gyu: I need your help

Gyu: I’m FUCKED

Gyu: I also need to get catastrophically drunk and/or stoned tonight, please beg Jun to give up his dealer because I sure as shit am not going back to motherfucking Mark

Jun: guinea pig duties tomorrow? new pancake recipe

Gyu: I’m so fucked CALL ME

Soonsoon: u will never guess what’s happened

Gyu: Never forgetting that you abandoned me in my time of need

Gyu: If I pay you a lot of money will you call me????

Soonsoon: btw mingyu’s about to have a heart attack please call him so he stops crying

Gyu: I think I’m dying, please make sure my family know it was your fault

You call Mingyu back. It’s hard to hear through all the tears and the wailing but eventually Soonyoung snatches the phone from his hand and walks you through the drama of the day. The long and short of it is Mingyu has been scammed out of fifty percent of the filming allowance, a whole thirty-thousand dollars and the biggest budget he’s been tasked with managing so far. The film crew has disappeared into thin air. The deadline for rolling out the summer ad is looming over his head, and now he’s begging you to help him fix it before he loses face, and/or his job.

Well.

Shit.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Okay. The plan is you’ve got the green light for a mockumentary, of sorts– in exchange for a thirty-second ad for television. And you’re being paid. Not the same amount as the scammy crew, of course, but way more than you could’ve hoped for as a filmography student. Sure, you’re good, but this is unheard of. Unbelievable. You’re taking it as a compliment, even though Mingyu was unnecessarily clear about only asking you because it’s too late in the game to ask anyone else.

Truth be told, you had no idea Mingyu had so much power. He’s talked your manager into giving you a half shift off ticket booth duty until filming is complete, and wrangled you an intern from the office to assist.

Seungkwan the intern is apparently grateful to be ‘let out of the dungeon’ and although he doesn’t have the first clue about what he’ll be doing for you, he’s a quick learner and very eager to avoid hot desking and spending his day fetching coffee. You’ve roped in a bunch of your coworkers to act as your characters. Some extreme version of themselves will do, you’d said, but some of them want to bring something new to the table. Seokmin in particular was rather excited.

You’ve settled on using Super 8 for both projects. You figure you could recycle some of the footage if necessary, and it saves switching between two different styles and sets of equipment. With the payment Mingyu has approved for you, you can afford to buy your own film instead of attempting to persuade your dad to use his, so for all intents and purposes– it’s all systems go.

Except it’s closing hours, and tomorrow will be your first half-day of filming, and you’re laying down in the log flume, not knowing where you’ll start. This is where Jun finds you, legs flopped over the edge of the plastic log, picking at your cuticles and fretting over the enormity of the work you have before you.

“Bad day?” he says. He’s wearing his visor backwards, hair falling in his soft eyes, looking like sugar and all things nice.

“Weird day.” You heave a sigh. “I think I’m not good enough for this.” Jun doesn’t reply, just waits for you to carry on. How could he know what you’re good for? “I think I peaked when I was fourteen, and now it’s all downhill.”

“Fourteen was a nightmare for me, who peaks at that age?” says an unconvinced Jun.

“I could do, like, fuckloads of backflips. Like ten at a time.”

Jun’s eyes bug out. “Like, in a row?”

“Yeah.”

“Woah,” says Jun, under his breath. “So does that make you up-down dizzy instead of circle dizzy?”

You furrow your brow. “I never really thought about it.”

“This isn’t helping?”

You purse your lips and shake your head. “Not at all.”

“Wanna come over and I’ll make you dinner?”

It takes all of 0.3 seconds to mull it over. “Yeah, okay,” you say, stretching out an arm for Jun to pull you up from the log. He wraps his long fingers around your wrist and tugs, setting you on your feet, and as you start to walk he slings his arm, familiar and friendly, to rest across your shoulders.

“Can we have literally anything that isn’t cheese based?”

Jun sucks air between his teeth. “Well– I had planned on lasagne.”

“Jun, please no,” you beg, clutching at his waist. “My heart is two grams of saturated fat away from sending in its resignation letter.”

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

His place is bigger than you expected. But whatever, his finances aren’t your business. Much bigger than you’d thought would be manageable for a guy on a cook’s salary. He gives you the tour. There’s three bedrooms. Two of which are devoid of any character, and his, which is full of it. Very him.

“Are your roommates at work?”

“I don’t have any,” he says. “Just me.”

Oh. His finances aren’t your business.

“I like your cat painting,” you say, pointing to the wiry black kitten sitting in a bodega fridge, hanging above his bedside table.

“Thanks,” he says.

He shows you out the bedroom and back downstairs, for quote unquote the rest– there’s more?

There is more. In the entryway is a door you’d assumed a cupboard, but no– it leads downstairs through to a fucking cinema room.

“Dude are you, like, rich?”

Jun laughs, rubs the back of his neck, goes a little red. Very cute.

“This place belonged to my uncle.”

“Woah,” you marvel. “All I ever inherited was the foot in mouth gene and my granddad’s Hi-Fi system.”

“What’s that?”

“Exactly.”

Much like at Sharkbait, you sit on the counter and yap while Jun cooks. He makes hot pot (thank god, because your body has been crying out for vegetables for too long) and keeps having you taste the stock, and when it’s finally done, he asks you to choose something to drink– “beer, wine, liquor, choose whatever,” he says. “It’s all there.”

You chew on the corner of your mouth as you stare at the selection. There’s too much of it and everything looks expensive. The wine bottles have real corks, for Christ’s sake. It’s starting to feel like you’ve been standing there too long, confirmed when Jun comes to stand beside you and asks if you like red. You do, so he picks up something with a worn label. Pomerol, or something. 1952.

“Do you collect this stuff?” you ask, as Jun pours two glasses, and slides one over to you.

Jun laughs for real this time.

“Nah, it was my uncle’s hobby,” he says. “Feels weird to get rid of it.”

“I’m so sorry,” you say softly, resting your hand on his arm.

Jun blinks at you, confused. You take a sip of wine. It tastes old.

“Were you close?”

“Oh– no, he’s not dead. He’s in prison for tax fraud.”

You nearly choke.

Jun slaps your back so hard you’re sure it’ll leave prints that’ll last long enough for Soonyoung to drag you for, and when you finally get your breath back you leap into scolding him.

“Why’d you make it sound like he died?”

Jun gapes. “Hey, you just assume! I didn’t make it sound like anything!”

“You should’ve led with the prison thing, fucknut! People get the wrong idea.”

Jun’s lips twitch. “You’re right, I should introduce myself like that,” he scoffs. “Hi, I’m Jun– by the way, my uncle is a felon and I live in his obnoxiously large house.”

You laugh. “Solid intro.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, rolling his eyes but he’s smiling. “Want me to top up your glass.”

“Fuck no, it tastes like shit.”

“Oh, thank God. I hate it too.”

“Have you got anything stronger?”

Jun grins like the devil.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Your head is throbbing. So sick to your stomach that you can’t stand the smell of the breakfast sandwich Jun had slipped into your bag this morning, before you’d run out the door to get to work early. But now Soonyoung is here being a bother– initially concerned but now delighted.

“Where’d you sleep last night?” he sing-songs.

“Fuck off, Soonyoung.”

“Not Jun’s place, surely?” He’s putting on his gross cutesy voice.

“Fuck off, Soonyoung.”

“Did you get dicked down?”

“Nothing happened, Soonyoung.”

“Oooooh! You wanna tell me the dirty details so bad!”

“I wanna ram this fucking boom mic up your asshole,” you snap, waving it at him menacingly, and it’s enough to make Soonyoung to take a step back and cover his backside with his hands.

“I hate when you’re hungover,” he mutters. “You’re mean.”

“You and me both, sunshine,” you grumble. “But you’re annoying.”

“Yup,” he says. “Can I have your breakfast? I didn’t eat yet.”

“Go nuts.”

Soonyoung inhales your food, and it doesn’t do much to settle your stomach. Seungkwan, Seokmin, Mingyu, Joshua, and Chan show up– and you try very hard to concentrate on explaining the shots you want for the advert. A walk-through of the entrance, Joshua handing over their tickets, and following them walking into the park. And later, when it’s busier with actual customers, focusing on them on the rides, eating lunch, hanging out on the lazy river. Splashes of water from the slides, etcetera etcetera. Some of this might do for an intro to your mockumentary, too.

You ready the camera, Seungkwan stands there waiting with the slate, Soonyoung is on mic duty, the others are in their positions.

And you try to focus, you really do, but your mind just keeps slipping back to last night– going over the conversations you had on the floor of Jun’s living room, after a bottle of something you can’t begin to pronounce and the shittiest rolled joint you’ve had since you were a teenager. You’d played twenty questions, Jun hesitated, and like an idiot you pushed.

“I really wanted to ask if you flirt with me ‘cause you like me or if it’s the same for everyone.” He sucked in a breath. “But I chickened out. Don’t wanna have my dreams crushed yet.”

“Uh huh,” you’d said, as you passed the joint back to him. His fingers brushed yours. “Ask me again when you wanna know.”

You’re chicken too.

“Sound?”

Soonyoung nods.

“Camera rolling.”

Seungkwan claps the slate.

📓Call It What You Want — Choi Seungcheol 📝 Genre: Forbidden Love/Rivals to Lovers ❤️‍🔥 At Carat University, a long-standing rivalry has simmered for years between two Greek houses: Sigma Veta Tau and Delta Kappa Epsilon. Choi Seungcheol, the charming and confident frat president, is the face of Sigma Veta Tau, while you, a sharp-tongued women’s rights activist, lead the powerhouse sorority across the street. You’ve been at odds for as long as you can remember, total opposites who can’t stand each other... or so you think. 📅 Drop date: 5/29 📎 [read here]

📓 Point of No Return — Yoon Jeonghan 📝 Genre: Brother’s Best Friend/Enemies to Lovers 🗞️ As a journalism major, your latest assignment is to write a feature on SVT: what kept the fraternity alive for 100 years and what makes it different. You expect your brother, the president, to help. Instead, he volunteers Jeonghan, his annoying, smug best friend. You’ve never liked him, and he’s made it clear the feeling is mutual. But being forced together—interviews, frat events, late-night writing sessions—makes it harder to deny what’s always been there. And now? You’ve reached a point you’re not sure you want to return. 📅 Drop date: 5/30 📎 [read here]

📓 Just Might Be Yours — Hong Joshua 📝 Genre: Good Boy x Bad Girl 📚 Joshua is the quiet, clean-cut finance major with the perfect GPA and an even more perfect reputation. You’re the swim team’s infamous rule-breaker, and unless you pass econ, you’re off the team. So now you’re stuck with him as your tutor. Maybe the golden boy isn’t so untouchable after all. And maybe, just maybe—he’s been paying attention to you, too. 📅 Drop date: 5/31 📎 [read here]

📓 A Little Bit Dramatic — Wen Junhui 📝 Genre: Fake dating/Theater Co-Stars 🎭 You’re cast as Juliet Capulet. Jun, the charming Sigma Veta Tau actor who never takes anything seriously, is your Romeo Montague. When the director asks you both to work on your “real chemistry,” and rumors start to swirl around campus, you both decide to lean into the story—onstage and off. 📅 Drop date: 6/1 📎 [read here]

📓 Bringing Up, Baby — Kwon Soonyoung 📝 Genre: Exes to lovers/Dance Rivals 👯‍♀️ You were childhood best friends—neighbors, partners in every dance competition, and later, high school sweethearts. But before university, something fractured, and you broke up without a word. Years later, you’re a rising star from a rival university fifteen minutes from his. And now you're forced to work together to choreograph a local middle school presentation and neither of you is ready to admit the past isn’t as buried as you’d like to believe. 📅 Drop date: 6/2 📎 [read here]

📓 Mr. Always Wins — Jeon Wonwoo 📝 Genre: Academic Rivals 🎓 You and Wonwoo have been neck-and-neck for top of the class since freshman year—always trying to outscore each other, always competing for the top spot. You hate his smug face. He hates your color-coded notes. When a major research project pairs you up, the stakes are higher than ever; this one might determine not just academic validation, but future career paths. 📅 Drop date: 6/3 📎 [read here]

📓 The Song Inside Of Me — Lee Jihoon 📝 Genre: Friends to lovers 🎧 Jihoon is used to control every aspect of his life. But when he overhears someone singing in the empty campus music hall he’s obsessed with the voice. Who is it? He searches everywhere, convinced it’s a stranger, unaware that the voice haunting his thoughts belongs to his very own best friend. 📅 Drop date: 6/4 📎 [read here]

📓 Through Your Eyes — Xu Minghao 📝 Genre: Artist x Cynical/Strangers to lovers 🎨 Since childhood, you’ve never believed in love. Xu Minghao, a reclusive art student, believes in it fiercely. Desperate for money, you sign up to be one of the models for the university's art class, which leads to you being assigned to be the girl he will paint for his final project, strictly professional. But the way he sees you, sketches you, understands you… it starts to chip away at everything you thought was true. 📅 Drop date: 6/6 📎 [read here]

📓 Tell Me You Don't Want My Kiss — Kim Mingyu 📝 Genre: Friends with Benefits 🩺 You’re a busy pre-med student who sets up a seemingly perfect arrangement when you offer your best friend Mingyu a relationship with one rule: no strings attached. But when a fling becomes a thing, can sex friends stay best friends? 📅 Drop date: 6/7 📎 [read here]

📓 Come As You Are — Lee Seokmin 📝 Genre: Grumpy x Sunshine 🌞 You didn’t come to this school to make friends—you just want to keep your head down and graduate. But Lee Seokmin, the radiant upperclassman everyone adores, has other plans. He’s all bright smiles and boundless energy, determined to make you feel at home. Everyone sees him as the campus sweetheart. But you’re the only one he sees. 📅 Drop date: 6/8 📎 [read here]

📓 Match Point — Boo Seungkwan 📝 Genre: Enemies to Lovers/Rival Volleyball Captains 🏐 You’re the captain of the women’s volleyball team. He’s the captain of the men’s. Your rivalry is legendary—trash talk, sabotage, and a never-ending scoreboard of who has more wins. One day, you make it official: whoever ends the season with more wins has to do anything the other says. 📅 Drop date: 6/9 📎 [read here]

📓 Now and Then — Chwe Hansol 📝 Genre: Childhood Best Friends to Lovers 💔 You and Hansol have always been inseparable. That was until something happened two weeks ago that ruined everything. Now, you’re stuck in an awkward limbo, trying to fix what’s broken, surrounded by friends desperate to know the truth. But how do you mend a friendship when the only way forward is to admit the one truth you’ve been avoiding your entire lives? 📅 Drop date: 6/11 📎 [read here]

📓 Out of My Limit — Lee Chan 📝 Genre: Boyfriend’s best friend 🫧Your last boyfriend was a nightmare—lying, cheating, breaking promises. Chan, his best friend, has always watched from the sidelines, quietly in love with you and wishing you’d see him instead. After the breakup, you start leaning on Chan more than you expected. And suddenly, the friend you never noticed becomes the only one who truly understands you. 📅 Drop date: 6/12 📎 [read here]