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Note : i literally hit flow state writing this AND I FINALLY LEARNED HOW TO DO GRADIENT TEXT đ„č (also ik a 3rd year student is diff ages in the UK/USA so jus to explain myself, typically a 3rd yr student in the uk is 20 - 21 yrs old, jus incase ppl from the USA get confused)
Warnings : Violence and underground fighting, Blood and injury, Medical procedures, Concussions and broken bones, Mentions of death and grief, Family conflict, kissing, Illegal medical practice, swearing.
Synopsis : When an injured underground fighter arrives at her apartment clinic, a hardworking medical student finds herself drawn into a world she never wanted to be part of. As their feelings grow, James must choose between the ring and the future they could build together.
The knock came at 2:50 AM.
You knew because you'd been staring at your anatomy textbook for the past three hours, the words blurring together into meaningless shapes. Cranial nerves. Twelve of them. You could recite them backward and forward, but your attending physician would still find something to criticise during rounds.
The knock came again, more insistent this time. Urgent.
You knew that kind of knock. It was the same desperate rhythm that brought the street kids to your door, the same cadence that accompanied split lips and broken ribs and injuries that couldn't see the inside of a hospital without questions being asked.
Sighing, you marked your page and padded to the door in your worn medical school sweatshirt and sleep shorts. The peephole revealed a man you'd never seen beforeâtall, broad-shouldered, with blonde hair falling into his eyes. He was holding his side, and even through the distorted fish-eye lens, you could see the blood seeping between his fingers.
Behind him stood Kai, one of your regulars. A fighter who knew better than to take hits to the head but did it anyway.
"Please," Kai called through the door. His voice was strained. "He needs help. Won't go to a hospital."
"They never do," you muttered, but you were already unlocking the deadbolt.
The door swung open, and the manâthe strangerâlooked up. His eyes were dark, intense, and even through obvious pain, there was something magnetic about him. Charismatic in a way that made you immediately suspicious.
"I can pay," he said. His voice was rough, accented with something you couldn't quite place. "Whatever you need."
"I don't do this for money." You stepped aside, gesturing them in. "I do it because people like you are too stubborn to get proper medical care."
Kai helped the stranger inside, and in the better light of your apartment-turned-clinic, you could see the full extent of the damage. Split eyebrow, swollen jaw, and that side wound that was still bleeding sluggishly through his black t-shirt. The shirt clung to a body that was clearly athleticâfighter's build, all lean muscle and controlled power.
"On the table," you instructed, pointing to the medical examination table you'd bought secondhand and set up in what used to be your living room. Your actual living space had been reduced to your bedroom and a tiny kitchenette. The rest was shelves of medical supplies, carefully organised equipment, and the sterile smell of antiseptic.
The stranger moved with surprising grace despite his injuries, settling onto the table with only a slight hiss of pain. Up close, you could see he was probably around your ageâearly twenties, maybe. There was something refined about his features, aristocratic almost, which seemed at odds with the violence written across his skin.
"What's your name?" you asked, pulling on latex gloves with practiced efficiency.
"James." He watched you with those dark eyes, tracking your every movement. "You're the med student Kai told me about."
"Third year." You lifted his shirt carefully, and he helped by pulling it over his head in one smooth motion. The movement made him wince, but he didn't complain.
The wound was a deep laceration along his ribsânot life-threatening, but it needed stitches. You'd done hundreds of sutures by now, on orange peels and pig's feet and eventually on real human skin in the controlled environment of the hospital. But there was something different about doing it here, in your apartment at three in the morning, with a man who looked like he'd walked out of some underground fight club.
Because that's exactly what he'd done.
"This is going to hurt," you warned, prepping the area with beta-dine. "I can give you local anaesthetic, butâ"
"Just do it." James's jaw was set, determined. "I've had worse."
You believed him. His torso was a roadmap of scarsâsome old and silvered, others relatively fresh. This wasn't his first fight, and it wouldn't be his last.
"Kai," you said without looking up, "there's coffee in the kitchenette. Make yourself useful."
Kai knew a dismissal when he heard one. He disappeared into your kitchenette, leaving you alone with James.
The needle pierced skin, and James didn't flinch. He just kept watching you with that unnerving intensity, like he was trying to figure you out.
"You're good at this," he said after the third suture.
"I should be. I'm drowning in student debt to be good at this." You kept your hands steady, your stitches even. "What happened?"
"Fight."
"Obviously. I meant why."
James was quiet for a moment. You could feel him considering his answer, weighing what to tell you. "Because I'm good at it," he finally said. "And because sometimes you need to prove something to yourself."
"By getting stabbed?"
"It was a punch. Guy had a ring on."
You glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised. "A ring did this?"
"He hit hard."
"Clearly." You returned to your work, fingers moving with practiced precision. There was something almost meditative about suturingâthe repetitive motion, the focus required, the satisfaction of seeing torn flesh knit back together under your hands.
James's breathing was controlled, steady. He had the discipline of someone used to pain, used to pushing through it. You'd seen it before in fighters, in athletes, in people who'd learned that showing weakness was dangerous.
"Why do you do this?" James asked suddenly. "Run a clinic out of your apartment for people who can't pay?"
"Someone has to." You tied off another suture. "The system fails people like Kai. Like you, apparently. People who need help but can't get it through normal channels."
"That's not an answer."
You paused, meeting his eyes. "My brother," you said quietly. "He got into some trouble when he was younger. Got hurt. Was too scared to go to the hospital because he thought they'd call the cops. By the time I found him, the infection had spread. He almost died."
"But he didn't."
"No. But he could have. And I decided that if I was going to spend years learning how to heal people, I wasn't going to let bureaucracy and fear stop me from actually doing it."
James nodded slowly, like you'd confirmed something he'd suspected. "You're idealistic."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"In my world, it usually is."
"Then maybe you're in the wrong world."
His laugh was short, humourless. "Maybe."
You finished the last suture and stepped back to examine your work. Clean, even stitches. It would scar, but it would heal properly. "Keep it clean and dry. Change the dressing daily. Come back in a week and I'll remove the stitches."
"I can pay you," James said again, reaching for his jeans pocket.
"I told you, I don'tâ"
"I know. But let me contribute to your supplies at least. Sutures aren't cheap."
He had a point. You went through supplies faster than your meagre budget could sustain, relying on samples from the hospital and the occasional donation from sympathetic attending physicians who looked the other way.
"Fine," you relented. "There's a jar by the door. Whatever you think is fair."
James slid off the table, moving more carefully now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He pulled his ruined shirt back on, and you noticed the way the fabric clung to his frame, the way he moved with a fighter's grace even injured.
Kai emerged from the kitchen with three cups of coffee. "You're a miracle worker," he told you, handing you a mug.
"I'm a med student with a saviour complex," you corrected, but you took the coffee gratefully. It was going to be a long night of studying after this.
James pulled out his wallet, and you deliberately turned away, focusing on cleaning your instruments. You heard the rustle of bills, the clink of the jar. When you glanced back, he'd put in what looked like several hundred dollars.
"That's too much," you started to protest.
"It's not enough," James said simply. "For what you do. For what you risk."
There was something in his voiceârespect, maybe, or understanding. Like he recognised the danger you put yourself in, running an unlicensed clinic, treating people who existed in the shadows.
"Come on," Kai said, clapping James on the shoulder carefully. "Let's get you home before you bleed through those stitches."
James moved toward the door, then paused. He turned back to look at you, and in the dim light of your apartment, his eyes were impossibly dark. "Thank you," he said. "Really."
"Just don't make it a habit," you replied. "Getting stabbed, I mean."
"I'll try."
But you both knew it was a lie.
After they left, you locked the door and leaned against it, suddenly exhausted. The coffee was already cold in your hands. You looked at the jar by the door, at the money James had left, and felt a strange flutter in your chest that you immediately suppressed.
He was a fighter. A man who made his livingâor his reputation, or whatever it wasâby violence. You'd seen too many fighters come through your door, too many broken bodies, and shattered lives. You weren't going to let yourself get drawn into that world.
You had medical school to finish. A career to build. A life that didn't involve patching up underground fighters at three in the morning.
But as you returned to your anatomy textbook, you found yourself thinking about dark eyes and controlled breathing and the way James had looked at you like you were something rare and valuable.
You shook your head, forcing yourself to focus on cranial nerves.
You wouldn't see him again after he came back for suture removal. You'd make sure of it.
âââââ-
James came back three days later.
It was early evening this time, the sun setting over the city in shades of orange and pink. You'd just gotten home from a brutal twelve-hour shift at the hospital, your feet aching and your mind numb from the endless parade of patients and the attending physician's constant criticism.
The knock was softer this time. Almost hesitant.
You opened the door to find James standing there with takeout bags in his hands and a sheepish expression on his face.
"Before you say anything," he started, "I know I'm not supposed to come back for four more days. But I wanted to thank you properly, and Kai said you never eat real food, just coffee and whatever you can grab between shifts."
You stared at him. He was wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket over a simple white t-shirt, and without the blood and injuries, you could see just how attractive he actually was. Unfairly so.
"I don't needâ"
"Thai food," he interrupted, holding up the bags. "Kai said it's your favourite. And before you protest, I already ate, so this is all for you. Consider it payment for putting up with me bleeding on your table."
Your stomach growled, betraying you. You hadn't eaten since a granola bar at six that morning.
"Fine," you sighed, stepping aside. "But just this once."
James's smile was brilliant, transforming his entire face. You could see why people would be drawn to him, why he'd have that charisma Kai had mentioned. There was something genuine about it, something warm that seemed at odds with the violence of his profession.
He set the food out on your tiny kitchen tableâthe only part of your apartment that wasn't dedicated to medical supplies. Pad Thai, green curry, spring rolls, mango sticky rice. Enough food for three people.
"This is too much," you said, but you were already reaching for the pad Thai.
"You look like you need it." James settled into the chair across from you, watching as you took your first bite. "Rough day?"
"Aren't they all?" You closed your eyes, savouring the explosion of flavours. God, when was the last time, you'd had actual good food? "My attending physician thinks I'm incompetent. I'm pretty sure I failed my last exam. And I had to watch a kid die today because his parents couldn't afford his medication."
The words spilled out before you could stop them. You never talked about your days, never let yourself process the weight of it all. But something about James's quiet presence made it easier.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he sounded like he meant it.
"It's not your fault." You took another bite, then another. "It's just... sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out for this. If I'm strong enough."
"You run a clinic out of your apartment for people who have nowhere else to go," James said quietly. "You stitch up fighters at three in the morning without asking questions. You're strong enough."
You looked up at him, surprised by the conviction in his voice. "You don't know me."
"I know enough."
There was a moment of silence, comfortable somehow, as you continued eating. James didn't push for conversation, didn't fill the quiet with meaningless chatter. He just sat there, present, and solid, like an anchor in the chaos of your life.
"How are the stitches?" you asked finally, falling back on professional territory.
"Good. No infection, minimal pain." He lifted his shirt slightly, showing you the bandaged area. "You do good work."
"I should. I've been practicing on orange peels since I was sixteen."
"Orange peels?"
"It's how you learn to suture. Orange peels, then pig's feet, then eventually real people." You smiled slightly. "My mom thought I was crazy, practicing on fruit in the kitchen."
"Were you? Crazy?"
"Probably. Who decides at sixteen that they want to spend the next decade of their life drowning in debt and sleep deprivation?"
"Someone who wants to help people," James said. "Someone who sees suffering and can't look away."
You met his eyes, and there was something in his gaze that made your breath catch. Understanding, maybe. Recognition.
"What about you?" you asked, deflecting. "Why fighting?"
James leaned back in his chair, considering. "I was good at it," he said finally. "Grew up doing taekwondo, ice hockey, break dancing. Anything physical, I excelled at. And when I found underground fighting, it was like... everything made sense. In the ring, there's no politics, no expectations, no pretending to be something you're not. Just skill and will and the truth of what you're capable of."
"That's very philosophical for someone who gets punched in the face for a living."
He laughed, a real laugh this time. "I contain multitudes."
"Clearly."
You finished eating, and James helped you clean up without being asked. It was domestic, almost intimate, this simple act of sharing space and food and conversation. You tried not to think about how nice it felt, how easy.
"I should go," James said, but he didn't move toward the door. "Let you rest."
"You should," you agreed, but you didn't move either.
"Can I come back?" The question was soft, almost vulnerable. "Not as a patient. Just... to check in. Make sure you're eating."
You should say no. You should maintain boundaries, keep your distance from this world of violence and danger. But when you looked at James, you didn't see a fighter. You saw someone lonely, someone searching for connection in a life that probably didn't allow for much of it.
"Okay," you heard yourself say. "But bring coffee next time. Good coffee, not the hospital cafeteria sludge I usually drink."
James's smile was like sunrise. "Deal."
After he left, you cleaned up the rest of the kitchen and tried not to think about the way your apartment felt emptier without him in it.
âââââ
James came back two days later with expensive coffee and pastries from a bakery you'd never been able to afford.
Then he came back three days after that with dinner and questions about your latest exam.
Then again, and again, until his visits became a regular part of your routine. He'd show up in the evenings, always with food or coffee, always with that quiet presence that somehow made your chaotic life feel more manageable.
You learned things about him in fragments, pieces of a puzzle that slowly came together. He was multilingualâChinese, Thai, Korean, Englishâand sometimes he'd slip between languages without realising it. He'd grown up privileged, the son of a Chinese businessman and Thai mother, but had chosen the underground fighting circuit as a way to prove himself outside of his family's expectations.
"They wanted me to take over the business," he told you one evening, sitting on your kitchen counter while you organised medical supplies. "Suit and tie, board meetings, corporate politics. But I couldn't breathe in that world. Fighting was the only place I felt real."
"And now?" you asked, labelling a box of gauze.
"Now I'm one of the best." There was no arrogance in his voice, just fact. "People come from all over to fight me. The purses are good. The reputation is better."
"But?"
He looked at you, surprised. "But what?"
"There's a 'but' in your voice. 'I'm one of the best, but...'"
James was quiet for a long moment. "But sometimes I wonder what I'm actually proving. And to who."
You set down the gauze and turned to face him fully. "You don't have to prove anything, you know. Not to your family, not to yourself. You're allowed to just... be."
"That's easy for you to say. You know exactly who you are and what you want."
"Do I?" You laughed, but it was bitter. "I'm a third-year med student who's failing half her classes, running an illegal clinic, and surviving on four hours of sleep a night. I have no idea what I'm doing."
"You're saving lives."
"I'm barely keeping my head above water."
James slid off the counter and crossed to you in two strides. He was close now, close enough that you could see the faint scar through his eyebrow from that first night, close enough to smell his cologneâsomething expensive and subtle.
"You're the strongest person I know," he said quietly. "And I know a lot of fighters."
Your heart was pounding, and you couldn't tell if it was from exhaustion or proximity or the way James was looking at you like you were something precious.
"I should finish organising," you said, but you didn't move.
"You should rest."
"Can't. Exam tomorrow."
"Then let me help you study."
And he did. James sat with you for the next three hours, quizzing you on pharmacology and anatomy, making terrible jokes to help you remember drug interactions, bringing you coffee when your eyes started to droop. He was patient and encouraging, and when you finally felt confident enough to sleep, he let himself out quietly, leaving a note on your kitchen table.
"You're going to be an amazing doctor. Get some sleep. - J"
You kept the note.
The next week, you removed his stitches. Your hands were steady as you snipped and pulled, but you were hyperaware of every point of contactâyour fingers on his skin, the warmth of his body, the way he watched your face instead of your hands.
"All done," you said, stepping back. "You'll have a scar, but it should fade over time."
"I don't mind scars." James ran his fingers over the healing wound. "They tell stories."
"What story does this one tell?"
"That I met someone who made me want to be more careful."
The words hung in the air between you, heavy with implication. You busied yourself with cleaning up, trying to ignore the way your pulse had quickened.
"Jamesâ"
"I know," he interrupted gently. "I know this is complicated. I know you have school and a career and a life that doesn't include someone like me. But I can't stop thinking about you. About this." He gestured around your apartment-clinic. "About how you make me want to be better."
You turned to face him, and the vulnerability in his expression nearly broke you. "I can't ask you to change who you are."
"You're not asking. I'm choosing." He stood, moving closer. "Every time I step into that ring now, I think about you patching me up after. About the disappointment in your eyes when I come back bleeding. And I'm starting to think that maybe proving myself isn't worth it if it means disappointing you."
"That's not fair," you whispered. "You can't put that on me."
"I'm not. I'm putting it on myself." His hand came up, hesitating just before touching your face. "Can I?"
You should say no. You should maintain professional distance. You should protect yourself from the inevitable heartbreak of caring about someone who lived such a dangerous life.
But you nodded.
His fingers were gentle as they traced your cheekbone, calloused but careful. "I have a fight next week," he said quietly. "Big one. Against Marcus Chenâhe's brutal, fights dirty, but the purse is significant. I already agreed to it, before I met you."
"Okay," you managed.
"I want you there."
"Jamesâ"
"I know it's a lot to ask. But I want you to see that part of my life. To understand it. And maybe..." He trailed off, his thumb brushing your jaw. "Maybe it'll help me figure out if this is still what I want."
You should say no. You should stay far away from that world of violence and blood and broken bones.
"Okay," you said instead. "I'll be there."
His smile was brilliant and terrified all at once.
ââââââ
The warehouse was exactly what you'd imagined and somehow worse.
It was an abandoned industrial building on the outskirts of the city, the kind of place that probably hadn't seen legal activity in decades. Inside, someone had set up a makeshift ringâchain-link fence formed into an octagon, harsh lights overhead, concrete floor that had seen too much blood.
The crowd was a mix of people you'd never want to meet in a dark alley and people who looked like they'd wandered in from corporate offices. Money changed hands openly, bets being placed with the casual ease of long practice. The air smelled like sweat and beer and violence.
Kai found you near the entrance, looking lost and overwhelmed.
"You came," he said, surprised.
"James asked me to."
Kai's expression softened. "He's different since he met you. More careful. Thinking about the future instead of just the next fight."
"I don't want to change him."
"Maybe he needs to change." Kai guided you through the crowd to a spot near the ring where you'd have a clear view. "Marcus is dangerous. He's put three fighters in the hospital this year. James is good, maybe the best I've seen, but Marcus doesn't fight fair."
Your stomach twisted with anxiety. "Should I have tried to stop him?"
"Would he have listened?"
"No."
"Then all you can do is be here. And patch him up after, if he needs it."
The crowd's noise swelled suddenly, and you looked up to see James entering from a side door. He was shirtless, wearing only black fighting shorts and hand wraps, his body a sculpture of controlled power. Every muscle was defined, every movement precise. He looked like a different person from the man who brought you coffee and helped you studyâthis was the fighter, the champion, the man who'd built his reputation on violence.
His eyes scanned the crowd and found you. For a moment, his expression softened, and he raised one wrapped hand in a small wave. You waved back, your heart in your throat.
Then Marcus entered from the opposite side, and the crowd went wild.
Marcus was bigger than James, heavier, with a reach advantage and a mean smile. He had the look of someone who enjoyed hurting people, who fought not for sport or proof but for the pure pleasure of domination.
You wanted to leave. You wanted to grab James and drag him out of this place and never let him come back.
But you stayed.
The refereeâif you could call him thatâgave brief instructions. No biting, no eye gouging, fight until someone taps out or can't continue. Everything else was fair game.
The bell rang.
Marcus came out aggressive, throwing heavy punches that James slipped with practiced ease. James was faster, more technical, landing precise strikes to the body and head. It was almost beautiful, the way he movedâlike a dance, like the break dancing he'd mentioned, every movement flowing into the next.
But Marcus was relentless. He absorbed James's strikes and kept coming forward, cutting off the ring, forcing James into close quarters where his size advantage mattered more.
Three minutes in, Marcus landed a brutal elbow that opened a cut above James's eye. Blood flowed freely, and you saw James blink it away, adjusting his strategy. He started targeting Marcus's legs, chopping away at the bigger man's base with low kicks that echoed through the warehouse.
The crowd was screaming, but you barely heard them. All your focus was on James, on the way he moved, on cataloging his injuries with a clinical part of your brain even as your heart raced with fear.
Round two. Marcus was limping slightly, but he'd adjusted, checking James's kicks and countering with punches that were starting to land more frequently. James's face was a mask of blood and concentration, his breathing controlled despite the pace.
Then Marcus did something you'd only seen in your worst nightmares of this momentâhe grabbed James in a clinch and brought his knee up hard, right into James's ribs. You heard the crack from where you stood, saw James's face go white with pain.
Broken rib. Maybe two.
But James didn't stop. He couldn't, not with the crowd baying for blood, not with his reputation on the line. He pushed through the pain, landing a spinning back fist that dropped Marcus to one knee.
The crowd went insane.
James pressed his advantage, raining down strikes, but you could see the way he was favouring his left side, the way each breath was agony. Marcus covered up, weathering the storm, and when James's pace slowedâjust for a second, just enoughâMarcus exploded upward with an uppercut that caught James clean on the chin.
James went down hard.
The referee started counting. One. Two. Three.
Get up, you thought desperately. Get up, James.
Four. Five. Six.
James stirred, rolling to his side. His eyes were unfocused, and you could see him fighting through the concussion, through the pain, through everything that should have kept him down.
Seven. Eight.
He got to his knees.
Nine.
He stood, swaying but upright.
The referee checked him, and James nodded that he could continue. You wanted to scream at him to stop, to tap out, to choose his health over his pride.
But you understood now. This was who he was. This was what he'd built his life around. And watching him fight through impossible odds, you saw the truth of itâthe beauty and the horror, the strength, and the self-destruction.
The final round was brutal. Both fighters were exhausted, injured, running on pure will. Marcus's leg was nearly useless, and James could barely breathe through his broken ribs. They traded strikes with desperate intensity, each looking for the one shot that would end it.
James found it first.
A perfectly timed counterâMarcus threw a wild haymaker, and James slipped inside, landing a short elbow that caught Marcus on the temple. The bigger man's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
The referee didn't even count. He waved it off immediately, and the crowd erupted.
James had won.
But as you watched him raise his arms in victory, you saw the cost. The blood, the broken ribs, the concussion, the way he could barely stand. He'd won, but he'd destroyed himself to do it.
Kai was already moving toward the ring, and you followed, pushing through the crowd. By the time you reached James, he was leaning heavily on Kai, his victory smile fading into exhaustion and pain.
"Hey," he said when he saw you, and his voice was slurred. Definitely concussed. "You stayed."
"Of course I stayed, you idiot." You ducked under his other arm, helping Kai support his weight. "We need to get him to my place. Now."
"Hospitalâ" James started.
"Would ask too many questions," you finished. "I can handle this. But we need to move."
Getting James out of the warehouse and into Kai's car was a blur of concerned fighters and congratulations that felt hollow. In the backseat, James's head lolled against your shoulder, and you kept him talking, checking his pupils with your phone's flashlight, monitoring for signs of serious brain injury.
"Stay with me," you kept saying. "Keep talking, James. Tell me about your first fight."
He mumbled something in Chinese, then switched to English. "Was scared. Thought I'd lose. But then I won, and it felt like... like I'd found where I belonged."
"And now?" you asked, your hand finding his, squeezing tight. "Does it still feel that way?"
"No," he whispered. "Now it just hurts."
ââââ-
Your apartment had never felt smaller than it did with James bleeding on your examination table and Kai pacing anxiously in the corner.
"Out," you told Kai, your voice sharp with stress. "I need space to work."
"Butâ"
"Out. I'll call you when he's stable."
Kai left reluctantly, and you turned your full attention to James. He was conscious but drifting, the concussion making him drowsy and confused. You needed to keep him awake, needed to monitor him for the next several hours to make sure he didn't have a brain bleed.
But first, you had to deal with the broken ribs.
"This is going to hurt," you warned, gently probing his left side. James hissed in pain, and you felt the telltale grinding of fractured bone. "Two broken ribs, maybe three. I need to wrap them, but you need to stay still."
"Always hurts," James mumbled. "Part of the job."
"This isn't a job, James. This is self-destruction." Your hands were shaking as you cleaned the cut above his eye, and you realised you were angry. Furious, actually. "You could have died in there. That last hitâif it had landed differently, if you'd hit your head on the concreteâ"
"But I didn't."
"But you could have!" You threw the bloody gauze into the trash with more force than necessary. "And for what? Money? Reputation? Proving something to people who don't care if you live or die?"
James tried to sit up, winced, and fell back. "You don't understand."
"Then explain it to me." You were wrapping his ribs now, your movements efficient despite your anger. "Explain why you'd risk everything for a fight. Explain why you'd put yourself through this when you could do anything else with your life."
"Because it's the only thing I'm good at!" The words burst out of him, raw and honest. "Because in that ring, I know who I am. I know my worth. Outside of it, I'm just... I'm just my father's disappointment, my family's black sheep, a guy who walked away from everything he was supposed to be."
"You're more than that." You finished wrapping his ribs and moved to check his pupils again. Still reactive, but sluggish. "You're smart, you're kind, you'reâ"
"I'm a fighter." James caught your wrist gently, stopping your examination. "It's all I know how to be."
You looked down at him, at this man who'd somehow become so important to you in such a short time, and felt something crack in your chest. "I can't do this," you whispered. "I can't keep patching you up just to watch you go back and get hurt again. I can'tâ" Your voice broke. "I can't care about someone who cares so little about their own life."
"I care." His grip on your wrist tightened. "I care more now than I ever have. Because of you."
"Then stop." The words came out as a plea. "Stop fighting. Find something else. Be something else."
"I don't know how."
"Then learn." You pulled your wrist free, stepping back. "Because I can't watch you die, James. I can't be the one who puts you back together knowing you're just going to break yourself again."
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by James's laboured breathing and the distant sounds of the city outside your window.
"I have three more contracted fights," James said finally. "After tonight. Three more, and then I'm done with this circuit. I was already planning to step back, maybe do some training instead of fighting. Tonight just... confirmed it."
You wanted to believe him. God, you wanted to believe him so badly.
"Why?" you asked. "Why were you planning to step back?"
James met your eyes, and despite the concussion and the pain and the exhaustion, his gaze was clear. "Because I met someone who made me want a future beyond the next fight. Someone who made me realise that proving myself doesn't matter if I don't have anyone to share my life with."
Your breath caught. "Jamesâ"
"I'm not asking you to wait for me. I'm not asking you to fix me or save me or any of that bullshit." He struggled to sit up, and this time you helped him, supporting his back. "I'm just telling you that you changed something in me. Made me want to be better. Made me want to be someone worthy of the way you look at me."
"I look at you like you're an idiot who gets punched in the face for a living."
"You look at me like I matter." His hand found yours, and his thumb traced circles on your palm. "Like I'm more than just a fighter. And I want to be that person. The one you see when you look at me."
You should pull away. You should maintain distance, protect yourself from the inevitable heartbreak. But instead, you found yourself squeezing his hand back.
"Three more fights," you said. "And then you're done."
"Three more fights," he agreed. "And then I'm done."
"And you're going to be careful. No more Marcus-level opponents. No more broken ribs."
"I'll try."
"You'll succeed." You stood, moving to get ice for his swelling. "Because if you come back here with another concussion, I'm going to kill you myself."
James's laugh turned into a cough, and he clutched his ribs. "Noted."
You spent the rest of the night monitoring him, waking him every hour to check his responsiveness, making sure the concussion wasn't worsening. Somewhere around dawn, you dozed off in the chair next to the examination table, exhausted from the emotional and physical toll of the night.
You woke to find James watching you, his good hand stretched out like he'd been about to touch your face but stopped himself.
"Hey," he said softly. "You should sleep in your bed."
"I'm monitoring you."
"I'm fine. Ribs hurt like hell, but the concussion's better."
You checked him anywayâpupils, responsiveness, memory. He was right; he was improving. The human body's capacity for healing never ceased to amaze you.
"You scared me tonight," you admitted, sitting back down. "When you went down, when he was counting, I thoughtâ"
"I know." James's expression was somber. "I scared myself. For the first time in years, I didn't want to get back up. I wanted to stay down, to let it be over. But then I thought about you watching, and I couldn't let you see me quit."
"That's notâ" You stopped, reconsidering. "James, there's no shame in knowing when to stop. In choosing your health over your pride."
"I know that now." He shifted carefully, making room on the table. "Come here."
You should say no. He was injured, you were exhausted, and this was crossing about a dozen professional boundaries. But you found yourself climbing onto the table anyway, careful of his ribs, settling against his right side.
James's arm came around you, and despite everythingâthe blood, the violence, the fearâyou felt safe. Like you'd found something you didn't know you were looking for.
"Three more fights," James murmured into your hair. "And then I'm yours. If you'll have me."
You didn't answer. You just closed your eyes and let yourself imagine a future where James wasn't a fighter, where you weren't constantly terrified of losing him, where you could just be two people trying to build something real.
It felt impossible.
But then again, so did running a clinic out of your apartment and falling for an underground fighter.
Maybe impossible was just another word for worth fighting for.
âââââââ-
Two weeks later, James kept his promise about being careful. His next fight was against a mid-tier opponent, technical but not brutal, and he won in the second round with a submission hold that didn't require anyone getting their face rearranged.
You didn't watch that one. You couldn't. Instead, you waited at your apartment, studying pharmacology and trying not to check your phone every thirty seconds.
When James showed up at your door an hour after the fight, he was barely markedâjust some redness on his ribs and a slight swelling on his jaw.
"See?" he said, spreading his arms. "Careful."
You pulled him inside and kissed him.
It wasn't planned. You'd been holding back for weeks, maintaining boundaries, telling yourself that getting involved with James was a terrible idea. But seeing him standing there, mostly intact, grinning like he'd just won the lottery instead of a fightâsomething in you just broke.
Or maybe it finally came together.
James made a surprised sound against your mouth, then his arms came around you, careful of his ribs, and he kissed you back with an intensity that made your knees weak. He tasted like sports drink and adrenaline, and when he pulled back, his eyes softened immediately.
"I've been wanting to do that since the night we met," he admitted, his forehead resting against yours.
"You were bleeding all over my table. That's a terrible time for a first kiss."
"Every moment with you feels like the right time."
You laughed, but it was shaky. "That's incredibly cheesy."
"Doesn't make it less true." His thumb traced your lower lip. "I have two fights left. Two more, and then I'm done. I've already told my manager. After that, I want to focus on training others, maybe open a legitimate gym. Build something that doesn't require me getting my face punched in."
"I like your face unpunched."
"Me too." He kissed you again, softer this time. "Come upstairs with me. To my place. Let me show you the life I want to build."
You'd never been to James's apartment. He always came to you, fitting himself into your world of medical supplies and late-night studying. But now, as Kai drove you both across the city to a high-rise in the expensive district, you realised how little you actually knew about James's life outside of fighting.
His apartment was on the top floorâa penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering city. It was beautiful and modern and completely impersonal, like a hotel room that no one actually lived in.
"I know," James said, watching your face. "It's not very homey. I've never really... I've never had a reason to make it feel like home."
You walked to the windows, looking out at the city spread below like a carpet of lights. "It's beautiful."
"It's empty." James came up behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist. "Like my life was before I met you."
"Jamesâ"
"I mean it." His voice was quiet, serious. "I've spent years building this reputation, making money, proving I could succeed outside my family's expectations. But I've been lonely. So, fucking lonely. And then you opened your door at three in the morning and looked at me like I was just another person who needed help, not a fighter or a disappointment or a success story. Just... me."
You turned in his arms, looking up at him. "You are just you. The fighting, the money, the reputationâthat's all external. The person who brings me coffee and helps me study and makes terrible jokes to help me remember drug interactionsâthat's who you really are."
"That's who I want to be." His hand came up to cup your face. "For you. With you."
"You don't have to change for me."
"I'm not changing. I'm becoming." He kissed your forehead, your cheeks, the corner of your mouth. "The person I was always supposed to be, before I got lost in proving myself."
You pulled him down for a real kiss, deep and slow and full of promise. James responded with a hunger that had nothing to do with violence and everything to do with connection, with the desperate human need to be seen and known and wanted.
When you finally broke apart, both breathing hard, James rested his forehead against yours. "Stay," he whispered. "Tonight. Just sleep next to me. Let me hold you without blood or injuries or fear. Just... be with me."
You should say no. You had early rounds at the hospital tomorrow. You had studying to do. You had a life that was already too complicated without adding a relationship with a fighter who was trying to retire.
"Okay," you said instead. "I'll stay."
James's bedroom was as impersonal as the rest of the apartment, but when he pulled you into his bed and wrapped himself around youâcareful of his healing ribsâit felt like the most natural thing in the world.
"Tell me about your family," you said into the darkness. "Your real story, not the abbreviated version."
James was quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing patterns on your arm. "My father built his business from nothing," he finally said. "Came from poverty, worked his way up, became successful beyond his wildest dreams. He wanted me to take over, to continue his legacy. But I couldn't be what he wanted. I tried, for years I tried, but I was suffocating."
"So you left."
"So I left. Broke his heart, disappointed my mother, became the family shame. And I told myself I didn't care, that I was better off without them. But the truth is, I've been trying to prove them wrong ever since. Every fight, every winâit was all about showing them I could succeed on my own terms."
"And did you? Prove them wrong?"
"I don't know." His arms tightened around you. "I proved I could fight. I proved I could win. But I'm not sure that's the same thing as proving I made the right choice."
You turned in his arms, facing him in the darkness. "Maybe you don't need to prove anything. Maybe you just need to live a life that makes you happy."
"Are you happy?" James asked. "With medical school, with your clinic, with the constant stress and exhaustion?"
You considered the question honestly. "I'm happy when I help someone. When I stitch up a wound and know it'll heal properly, when I diagnose something the attending physicians missed, when someone comes back to thank me for saving their life. Those moments make everything else worth it."
"That's how I used to feel about fighting," James admitted. "But lately, the only time I feel that way is when I'm with you."
Your heart clenched. "Jamesâ"
"I know it's fast. I know we barely know each other. But I can't pretend I don't feel this." His hand found yours in the darkness, fingers interlacing. "You make me want to be better. Not for my father, not for my reputation, but for myself. For us."
"I'm scared," you whispered. "I'm scared of caring about you and then losing you. I'm scared of building something real with someone whose life is so dangerous."
"I'm scared too." James pulled you closer, until you could feel his heartbeat against your chest. "I'm scared of letting you down. Of not being enough. Of going back to that empty feeling I had before I met you."
"So what do we do?"
"We try." His lips brushed your forehead. "We take it one day at a time. I finish my last two fights, I transition out of the circuit, and we figure out what comes next. Together."
It wasn't a perfect answer. It wasn't a guarantee. But as you lay there in James's arms, listening to the city hum outside the windows, you realised that maybe perfect wasn't what you needed.
Maybe you just needed real.
"Okay," you said. "We try."
James's kiss was soft and sweet and full of relief. "Thank you," he murmured against your lips. "For giving me a chance. For seeing me."
"Thank you for bringing me coffee and making me eat real food."
He laughed, and the sound vibrated through both of you. "I'm going to take such good care of you. I'm going to make sure you eat three meals a day and sleep more than four hours a night and actually enjoy your life instead of just surviving it."
"That's a tall order."
"I'm up for the challenge."
You fell asleep like that, wrapped in each other, and for the first time in months, you didn't dream about exams or patients or all the ways you were failing. You just dreamed about possibility.
âââââââ-
James's last fight was scheduled for three weeks later.
In that time, your relationship shifted into something real and tangible. James spent most nights at your apartment, helping you study, cooking meals you actually sat down to eat, making your chaotic life feel manageable. You spent weekends at his penthouse, slowly adding personal touchesâphotos, books, plantsâuntil it started to feel like a home instead of a hotel.
You met Kai for coffee and learned about James's early days in the circuit, how he'd been raw and talented but undisciplined, how he'd worked obsessively to become one of the best. Kai told you that he'd never seen James as focused or as happy as he'd been since meeting you.
"He's different," Kai said, stirring his coffee. "Lighter. Like he finally figured out what he was fighting for."
You also learned about the final fight. James's opponent was a rising star named Kim Jisung, young and hungry and looking to make his name by beating a legend. It wasn't supposed to be brutalâKim Jisung was technical, not a brawlerâbut there was always risk.
"I'll be careful," James promised the night before the fight, holding you close in his bed. "In and out, clean win, and then I'm done."
"And then you're done," you echoed, trying to believe it.
"And then I'm yours." He kissed you slowly, thoroughly. "Completely and totally yours."
The next evening, you found yourself back in that warehouse, back in the crowd of people betting on violence. But this time, Kai stayed by your side, a steady presence as you watched James prepare.
James found you before the fight, pulling you aside into a quiet corner.
"Hey," he said, cupping your face in his hands. "I need you to know something."
"Jamesâ"
"No, let me say this." His thumbs stroked your cheeks. "Whatever happens in there, I love you. I know it's fast, I know we're still figuring this out, but I love you. You changed my life. You made me want to be better. And after tonight, I'm going to spend every day proving that I'm worthy of you."
Tears pricked your eyes. "You don't have to prove anything."
"I want to." He kissed you, soft and sweet. "I want to be the man you see when you look at me. The one who brings you coffee and makes you laugh and supports your dreams. Not the fighter. Just... James."
"I love you too," you whispered against his lips. "So come back to me intact, okay? No broken ribs, no concussions, just a clean win and then we go home."
"Deal." One more kiss, and then Kai was calling him, and James was walking toward the ring.
The fight was everything James promised it would beâtechnical, controlled, almost beautiful in its precision. Kim Jisung was good, but James was better, and you could see years of experience in every movement, every counter, every perfectly timed strike.
It should have been easy.
But in the third round, Jisung got desperate. He threw a spinning kick that James blocked, but the momentum carried Jisung forward, and his elbow caught James in the templeânot intentional, just bad luck and worse timing.
James went down.
Your heart stopped.
The referee started counting, and you were moving before you realised it, pushing through the crowd toward the ring. Kai caught you, held you back, but you could see James on the canvas, see him struggling to orient himself.
"Get up," you whispered. "Please, James, get up."
He did. At the count of seven, James rolled to his knees, then stood. The referee checked him, and James nodded that he could continue, but you could see the glaze in his eyes, the slight sway in his stance.
He was concussed. Again.
The referee restarted the fight, and Jisung came forward cautiously, probably feeling guilty about the accidental blow. James circled, buying time for his head to clear, and you saw the moment his focus returnedâthe way his stance solidified, his eyes sharpened.
Then James did something you'd never seen him do before.
He tapped out.
Just walked to the referee and tapped his shoulder, signalling submission. The crowd went silent, confused, and then erupted in boos and shouts. Jisung looked shocked, like he couldn't believe what was happening.
But James just smiled, raised Jisung's hand in victory, and walked out of the ring.
He walked straight to you.
"I'm done," he said, pulling you into his arms despite the crowd's anger, despite Kai's shocked expression, despite everything. "I'm done fighting. I'm choosing you. I'm choosing us."
You were crying, you realised, tears streaming down your face as you held him. "You didn't have toâ"
"Yes, I did." He pulled back to look at you, and despite the concussion, his eyes were clear. "I felt that hit, and all I could think was that I promised you I'd come back intact. And I realised that winning didn't matter. My reputation didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was keeping my promise to you."
"Jamesâ"
"I love you," he said, loud enough for the people around you to hear. "I love you more than fighting, more than proving myself, more than any of this. And I'm done pretending otherwise."
You kissed him, there in the middle of the warehouse with the crowd jeering and Kai laughing in disbelief. You kissed him like he was your whole world, because in that moment, he was.
"Let's go home," you whispered against his lips.
"Yeah," James agreed, smiling. "Let's go home."
Epilogue: Two Years Later
The clinic was official now.
With James's financial backing and your medical credentials, you'd managed to get licensed as a community health centre, serving the population that fell through the cracks of the healthcare system. It was still in your apartment building, but you'd expanded into two additional units, with actual examination rooms and a small pharmacy and even a part-time nurse.
James ran the administrative side, handling insurance and billing and all the things you had no patience for. He'd also opened a gym three blocks away, training fighters in technique and discipline, teaching them that strength wasn't just about winning but about knowing when to walk away.
You were in your final year of medical school, top of your class now that you weren't running on four hours of sleep and coffee fumes. Your attending physicians praised your clinical skills and your dedication to underserved populations. You had residency interviews lined up at several prestigious programs.
Life was good. Busy, chaotic, but good.
"Hey," James said, poking his head into your officeâan actual office, with a desk and everything. "Last patient just left. You ready to go?"
You looked up from your charting and smiled. James was wearing jeans and a t-shirt from his gym, his hair slightly messy, and there wasn't a single bruise or cut on his face. He looked healthy and happy and completely at peace.
"Yeah," you said, saving your work. "Let's go."
You'd started a tradition of Friday night dinners on the rooftop of your building, watching the sun set over the city. James would cookâhe'd gotten surprisingly good at itâand you'd talk about your week, your dreams, your plans for the future.
Tonight, as you sat on the blanket James had spread out, eating pad Thai and watching the sky turn orange and pink, you felt a contentment you'd never experienced before.
"I have something for you," James said, setting down his food.
"If it's more medical supplies, I'm going to kiss you."
"It's not medical supplies." He pulled a small box from his pocket, and your heart stopped. "Before you panic, it's not what you think. Not yet, anyway. We're still young, you're still in school, and I want to do this right."
He opened the box to reveal a simple silver ring with a small stoneânot a diamond, but something blue and beautiful.
"It's a promise ring," James explained. "A promise that when you're ready, when the time is right, I'm going to ask you properly. A promise that I'm in this for the long haul. A promise that you're it for me."
You were crying again, but this time they were happy tears. "Jamesâ"
"You saved my life," he said softly, taking the ring from the box. "Not just that first night when you stitched me up, but every day since. You made me want to be better. You made me believe I could be more than just a fighter. And I want to spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you've made me."
He slipped the ring onto your right hand, and it fit perfectly.
"I love you," you said, launching yourself at him. He caught you with a laugh, holding you close as the sun set over the city. "I love you so much."
"I love you too." James kissed you, soft and sweet and full of promise. "My healer. My home."
You stayed on that rooftop until the stars came out, talking about the futureâabout residency programs and expanding the clinic and maybe, someday, a wedding. About the life you were building together, brick by brick, day by day.
It wasn't perfect. You still worked too hard, and James still had nightmares about his fighting days. You argued about money and time management and whose turn it was to do the dishes. But it was real, and it was yours, and it was worth every moment of uncertainty that had brought you here.
"Hey," James said as you were packing up to head inside. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For opening your door that night. For giving me a chance. For seeing past the fighter to the person underneath." He pulled you close, his arms around your waist. "For loving me."
"Thank you for bringing me coffee," you replied, smiling against his chest. "For making me eat real food. For showing me that it's okay to let someone take care of me too."
"Always," James promised. "For as long as you'll have me."
"Forever, then."
"Forever," he agreed.
And as you walked back inside, hand in hand, you knew that whatever challenges came nextâmedical school, residency, building your clinic, navigating life togetherâyou'd face them the same way you'd faced everything else.
Together.
A fighter and a healer, building something beautiful from broken pieces.
---
note: ngl i kinda cringed a bit while writing this but itâs okay we live. also blonde james đđđđ heâs been bias wrecking me too much recently, but im loyal to seonghyeon.
Note : i literally hit flow state writing this AND I FINALLY LEARNED HOW TO DO GRADIENT TEXT đ„č (also ik a 3rd year student is diff ages in the UK/USA so jus to explain myself, typically a 3rd yr student in the uk is 20 - 21 yrs old, jus incase ppl from the USA get confused)
Warnings : Violence and underground fighting, Blood and injury, Medical procedures, Concussions and broken bones, Mentions of death and grief, Family conflict, kissing, Illegal medical practice, swearing.
Synopsis : When an injured underground fighter arrives at her apartment clinic, a hardworking medical student finds herself drawn into a world she never wanted to be part of. As their feelings grow, James must choose between the ring and the future they could build together.
The knock came at 2:50 AM.
You knew because you'd been staring at your anatomy textbook for the past three hours, the words blurring together into meaningless shapes. Cranial nerves. Twelve of them. You could recite them backward and forward, but your attending physician would still find something to criticise during rounds.
The knock came again, more insistent this time. Urgent.
You knew that kind of knock. It was the same desperate rhythm that brought the street kids to your door, the same cadence that accompanied split lips and broken ribs and injuries that couldn't see the inside of a hospital without questions being asked.
Sighing, you marked your page and padded to the door in your worn medical school sweatshirt and sleep shorts. The peephole revealed a man you'd never seen beforeâtall, broad-shouldered, with blonde hair falling into his eyes. He was holding his side, and even through the distorted fish-eye lens, you could see the blood seeping between his fingers.
Behind him stood Kai, one of your regulars. A fighter who knew better than to take hits to the head but did it anyway.
"Please," Kai called through the door. His voice was strained. "He needs help. Won't go to a hospital."
"They never do," you muttered, but you were already unlocking the deadbolt.
The door swung open, and the manâthe strangerâlooked up. His eyes were dark, intense, and even through obvious pain, there was something magnetic about him. Charismatic in a way that made you immediately suspicious.
"I can pay," he said. His voice was rough, accented with something you couldn't quite place. "Whatever you need."
"I don't do this for money." You stepped aside, gesturing them in. "I do it because people like you are too stubborn to get proper medical care."
Kai helped the stranger inside, and in the better light of your apartment-turned-clinic, you could see the full extent of the damage. Split eyebrow, swollen jaw, and that side wound that was still bleeding sluggishly through his black t-shirt. The shirt clung to a body that was clearly athleticâfighter's build, all lean muscle and controlled power.
"On the table," you instructed, pointing to the medical examination table you'd bought secondhand and set up in what used to be your living room. Your actual living space had been reduced to your bedroom and a tiny kitchenette. The rest was shelves of medical supplies, carefully organised equipment, and the sterile smell of antiseptic.
The stranger moved with surprising grace despite his injuries, settling onto the table with only a slight hiss of pain. Up close, you could see he was probably around your ageâearly twenties, maybe. There was something refined about his features, aristocratic almost, which seemed at odds with the violence written across his skin.
"What's your name?" you asked, pulling on latex gloves with practiced efficiency.
"James." He watched you with those dark eyes, tracking your every movement. "You're the med student Kai told me about."
"Third year." You lifted his shirt carefully, and he helped by pulling it over his head in one smooth motion. The movement made him wince, but he didn't complain.
The wound was a deep laceration along his ribsânot life-threatening, but it needed stitches. You'd done hundreds of sutures by now, on orange peels and pig's feet and eventually on real human skin in the controlled environment of the hospital. But there was something different about doing it here, in your apartment at three in the morning, with a man who looked like he'd walked out of some underground fight club.
Because that's exactly what he'd done.
"This is going to hurt," you warned, prepping the area with beta-dine. "I can give you local anaesthetic, butâ"
"Just do it." James's jaw was set, determined. "I've had worse."
You believed him. His torso was a roadmap of scarsâsome old and silvered, others relatively fresh. This wasn't his first fight, and it wouldn't be his last.
"Kai," you said without looking up, "there's coffee in the kitchenette. Make yourself useful."
Kai knew a dismissal when he heard one. He disappeared into your kitchenette, leaving you alone with James.
The needle pierced skin, and James didn't flinch. He just kept watching you with that unnerving intensity, like he was trying to figure you out.
"You're good at this," he said after the third suture.
"I should be. I'm drowning in student debt to be good at this." You kept your hands steady, your stitches even. "What happened?"
"Fight."
"Obviously. I meant why."
James was quiet for a moment. You could feel him considering his answer, weighing what to tell you. "Because I'm good at it," he finally said. "And because sometimes you need to prove something to yourself."
"By getting stabbed?"
"It was a punch. Guy had a ring on."
You glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised. "A ring did this?"
"He hit hard."
"Clearly." You returned to your work, fingers moving with practiced precision. There was something almost meditative about suturingâthe repetitive motion, the focus required, the satisfaction of seeing torn flesh knit back together under your hands.
James's breathing was controlled, steady. He had the discipline of someone used to pain, used to pushing through it. You'd seen it before in fighters, in athletes, in people who'd learned that showing weakness was dangerous.
"Why do you do this?" James asked suddenly. "Run a clinic out of your apartment for people who can't pay?"
"Someone has to." You tied off another suture. "The system fails people like Kai. Like you, apparently. People who need help but can't get it through normal channels."
"That's not an answer."
You paused, meeting his eyes. "My brother," you said quietly. "He got into some trouble when he was younger. Got hurt. Was too scared to go to the hospital because he thought they'd call the cops. By the time I found him, the infection had spread. He almost died."
"But he didn't."
"No. But he could have. And I decided that if I was going to spend years learning how to heal people, I wasn't going to let bureaucracy and fear stop me from actually doing it."
James nodded slowly, like you'd confirmed something he'd suspected. "You're idealistic."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"In my world, it usually is."
"Then maybe you're in the wrong world."
His laugh was short, humourless. "Maybe."
You finished the last suture and stepped back to examine your work. Clean, even stitches. It would scar, but it would heal properly. "Keep it clean and dry. Change the dressing daily. Come back in a week and I'll remove the stitches."
"I can pay you," James said again, reaching for his jeans pocket.
"I told you, I don'tâ"
"I know. But let me contribute to your supplies at least. Sutures aren't cheap."
He had a point. You went through supplies faster than your meagre budget could sustain, relying on samples from the hospital and the occasional donation from sympathetic attending physicians who looked the other way.
"Fine," you relented. "There's a jar by the door. Whatever you think is fair."
James slid off the table, moving more carefully now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He pulled his ruined shirt back on, and you noticed the way the fabric clung to his frame, the way he moved with a fighter's grace even injured.
Kai emerged from the kitchen with three cups of coffee. "You're a miracle worker," he told you, handing you a mug.
"I'm a med student with a saviour complex," you corrected, but you took the coffee gratefully. It was going to be a long night of studying after this.
James pulled out his wallet, and you deliberately turned away, focusing on cleaning your instruments. You heard the rustle of bills, the clink of the jar. When you glanced back, he'd put in what looked like several hundred dollars.
"That's too much," you started to protest.
"It's not enough," James said simply. "For what you do. For what you risk."
There was something in his voiceârespect, maybe, or understanding. Like he recognised the danger you put yourself in, running an unlicensed clinic, treating people who existed in the shadows.
"Come on," Kai said, clapping James on the shoulder carefully. "Let's get you home before you bleed through those stitches."
James moved toward the door, then paused. He turned back to look at you, and in the dim light of your apartment, his eyes were impossibly dark. "Thank you," he said. "Really."
"Just don't make it a habit," you replied. "Getting stabbed, I mean."
"I'll try."
But you both knew it was a lie.
After they left, you locked the door and leaned against it, suddenly exhausted. The coffee was already cold in your hands. You looked at the jar by the door, at the money James had left, and felt a strange flutter in your chest that you immediately suppressed.
He was a fighter. A man who made his livingâor his reputation, or whatever it wasâby violence. You'd seen too many fighters come through your door, too many broken bodies, and shattered lives. You weren't going to let yourself get drawn into that world.
You had medical school to finish. A career to build. A life that didn't involve patching up underground fighters at three in the morning.
But as you returned to your anatomy textbook, you found yourself thinking about dark eyes and controlled breathing and the way James had looked at you like you were something rare and valuable.
You shook your head, forcing yourself to focus on cranial nerves.
You wouldn't see him again after he came back for suture removal. You'd make sure of it.
âââââ-
James came back three days later.
It was early evening this time, the sun setting over the city in shades of orange and pink. You'd just gotten home from a brutal twelve-hour shift at the hospital, your feet aching and your mind numb from the endless parade of patients and the attending physician's constant criticism.
The knock was softer this time. Almost hesitant.
You opened the door to find James standing there with takeout bags in his hands and a sheepish expression on his face.
"Before you say anything," he started, "I know I'm not supposed to come back for four more days. But I wanted to thank you properly, and Kai said you never eat real food, just coffee and whatever you can grab between shifts."
You stared at him. He was wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket over a simple white t-shirt, and without the blood and injuries, you could see just how attractive he actually was. Unfairly so.
"I don't needâ"
"Thai food," he interrupted, holding up the bags. "Kai said it's your favourite. And before you protest, I already ate, so this is all for you. Consider it payment for putting up with me bleeding on your table."
Your stomach growled, betraying you. You hadn't eaten since a granola bar at six that morning.
"Fine," you sighed, stepping aside. "But just this once."
James's smile was brilliant, transforming his entire face. You could see why people would be drawn to him, why he'd have that charisma Kai had mentioned. There was something genuine about it, something warm that seemed at odds with the violence of his profession.
He set the food out on your tiny kitchen tableâthe only part of your apartment that wasn't dedicated to medical supplies. Pad Thai, green curry, spring rolls, mango sticky rice. Enough food for three people.
"This is too much," you said, but you were already reaching for the pad Thai.
"You look like you need it." James settled into the chair across from you, watching as you took your first bite. "Rough day?"
"Aren't they all?" You closed your eyes, savouring the explosion of flavours. God, when was the last time, you'd had actual good food? "My attending physician thinks I'm incompetent. I'm pretty sure I failed my last exam. And I had to watch a kid die today because his parents couldn't afford his medication."
The words spilled out before you could stop them. You never talked about your days, never let yourself process the weight of it all. But something about James's quiet presence made it easier.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he sounded like he meant it.
"It's not your fault." You took another bite, then another. "It's just... sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out for this. If I'm strong enough."
"You run a clinic out of your apartment for people who have nowhere else to go," James said quietly. "You stitch up fighters at three in the morning without asking questions. You're strong enough."
You looked up at him, surprised by the conviction in his voice. "You don't know me."
"I know enough."
There was a moment of silence, comfortable somehow, as you continued eating. James didn't push for conversation, didn't fill the quiet with meaningless chatter. He just sat there, present, and solid, like an anchor in the chaos of your life.
"How are the stitches?" you asked finally, falling back on professional territory.
"Good. No infection, minimal pain." He lifted his shirt slightly, showing you the bandaged area. "You do good work."
"I should. I've been practicing on orange peels since I was sixteen."
"Orange peels?"
"It's how you learn to suture. Orange peels, then pig's feet, then eventually real people." You smiled slightly. "My mom thought I was crazy, practicing on fruit in the kitchen."
"Were you? Crazy?"
"Probably. Who decides at sixteen that they want to spend the next decade of their life drowning in debt and sleep deprivation?"
"Someone who wants to help people," James said. "Someone who sees suffering and can't look away."
You met his eyes, and there was something in his gaze that made your breath catch. Understanding, maybe. Recognition.
"What about you?" you asked, deflecting. "Why fighting?"
James leaned back in his chair, considering. "I was good at it," he said finally. "Grew up doing taekwondo, ice hockey, break dancing. Anything physical, I excelled at. And when I found underground fighting, it was like... everything made sense. In the ring, there's no politics, no expectations, no pretending to be something you're not. Just skill and will and the truth of what you're capable of."
"That's very philosophical for someone who gets punched in the face for a living."
He laughed, a real laugh this time. "I contain multitudes."
"Clearly."
You finished eating, and James helped you clean up without being asked. It was domestic, almost intimate, this simple act of sharing space and food and conversation. You tried not to think about how nice it felt, how easy.
"I should go," James said, but he didn't move toward the door. "Let you rest."
"You should," you agreed, but you didn't move either.
"Can I come back?" The question was soft, almost vulnerable. "Not as a patient. Just... to check in. Make sure you're eating."
You should say no. You should maintain boundaries, keep your distance from this world of violence and danger. But when you looked at James, you didn't see a fighter. You saw someone lonely, someone searching for connection in a life that probably didn't allow for much of it.
"Okay," you heard yourself say. "But bring coffee next time. Good coffee, not the hospital cafeteria sludge I usually drink."
James's smile was like sunrise. "Deal."
After he left, you cleaned up the rest of the kitchen and tried not to think about the way your apartment felt emptier without him in it.
âââââ
James came back two days later with expensive coffee and pastries from a bakery you'd never been able to afford.
Then he came back three days after that with dinner and questions about your latest exam.
Then again, and again, until his visits became a regular part of your routine. He'd show up in the evenings, always with food or coffee, always with that quiet presence that somehow made your chaotic life feel more manageable.
You learned things about him in fragments, pieces of a puzzle that slowly came together. He was multilingualâChinese, Thai, Korean, Englishâand sometimes he'd slip between languages without realising it. He'd grown up privileged, the son of a Chinese businessman and Thai mother, but had chosen the underground fighting circuit as a way to prove himself outside of his family's expectations.
"They wanted me to take over the business," he told you one evening, sitting on your kitchen counter while you organised medical supplies. "Suit and tie, board meetings, corporate politics. But I couldn't breathe in that world. Fighting was the only place I felt real."
"And now?" you asked, labelling a box of gauze.
"Now I'm one of the best." There was no arrogance in his voice, just fact. "People come from all over to fight me. The purses are good. The reputation is better."
"But?"
He looked at you, surprised. "But what?"
"There's a 'but' in your voice. 'I'm one of the best, but...'"
James was quiet for a long moment. "But sometimes I wonder what I'm actually proving. And to who."
You set down the gauze and turned to face him fully. "You don't have to prove anything, you know. Not to your family, not to yourself. You're allowed to just... be."
"That's easy for you to say. You know exactly who you are and what you want."
"Do I?" You laughed, but it was bitter. "I'm a third-year med student who's failing half her classes, running an illegal clinic, and surviving on four hours of sleep a night. I have no idea what I'm doing."
"You're saving lives."
"I'm barely keeping my head above water."
James slid off the counter and crossed to you in two strides. He was close now, close enough that you could see the faint scar through his eyebrow from that first night, close enough to smell his cologneâsomething expensive and subtle.
"You're the strongest person I know," he said quietly. "And I know a lot of fighters."
Your heart was pounding, and you couldn't tell if it was from exhaustion or proximity or the way James was looking at you like you were something precious.
"I should finish organising," you said, but you didn't move.
"You should rest."
"Can't. Exam tomorrow."
"Then let me help you study."
And he did. James sat with you for the next three hours, quizzing you on pharmacology and anatomy, making terrible jokes to help you remember drug interactions, bringing you coffee when your eyes started to droop. He was patient and encouraging, and when you finally felt confident enough to sleep, he let himself out quietly, leaving a note on your kitchen table.
"You're going to be an amazing doctor. Get some sleep. - J"
You kept the note.
The next week, you removed his stitches. Your hands were steady as you snipped and pulled, but you were hyperaware of every point of contactâyour fingers on his skin, the warmth of his body, the way he watched your face instead of your hands.
"All done," you said, stepping back. "You'll have a scar, but it should fade over time."
"I don't mind scars." James ran his fingers over the healing wound. "They tell stories."
"What story does this one tell?"
"That I met someone who made me want to be more careful."
The words hung in the air between you, heavy with implication. You busied yourself with cleaning up, trying to ignore the way your pulse had quickened.
"Jamesâ"
"I know," he interrupted gently. "I know this is complicated. I know you have school and a career and a life that doesn't include someone like me. But I can't stop thinking about you. About this." He gestured around your apartment-clinic. "About how you make me want to be better."
You turned to face him, and the vulnerability in his expression nearly broke you. "I can't ask you to change who you are."
"You're not asking. I'm choosing." He stood, moving closer. "Every time I step into that ring now, I think about you patching me up after. About the disappointment in your eyes when I come back bleeding. And I'm starting to think that maybe proving myself isn't worth it if it means disappointing you."
"That's not fair," you whispered. "You can't put that on me."
"I'm not. I'm putting it on myself." His hand came up, hesitating just before touching your face. "Can I?"
You should say no. You should maintain professional distance. You should protect yourself from the inevitable heartbreak of caring about someone who lived such a dangerous life.
But you nodded.
His fingers were gentle as they traced your cheekbone, calloused but careful. "I have a fight next week," he said quietly. "Big one. Against Marcus Chenâhe's brutal, fights dirty, but the purse is significant. I already agreed to it, before I met you."
"Okay," you managed.
"I want you there."
"Jamesâ"
"I know it's a lot to ask. But I want you to see that part of my life. To understand it. And maybe..." He trailed off, his thumb brushing your jaw. "Maybe it'll help me figure out if this is still what I want."
You should say no. You should stay far away from that world of violence and blood and broken bones.
"Okay," you said instead. "I'll be there."
His smile was brilliant and terrified all at once.
ââââââ
The warehouse was exactly what you'd imagined and somehow worse.
It was an abandoned industrial building on the outskirts of the city, the kind of place that probably hadn't seen legal activity in decades. Inside, someone had set up a makeshift ringâchain-link fence formed into an octagon, harsh lights overhead, concrete floor that had seen too much blood.
The crowd was a mix of people you'd never want to meet in a dark alley and people who looked like they'd wandered in from corporate offices. Money changed hands openly, bets being placed with the casual ease of long practice. The air smelled like sweat and beer and violence.
Kai found you near the entrance, looking lost and overwhelmed.
"You came," he said, surprised.
"James asked me to."
Kai's expression softened. "He's different since he met you. More careful. Thinking about the future instead of just the next fight."
"I don't want to change him."
"Maybe he needs to change." Kai guided you through the crowd to a spot near the ring where you'd have a clear view. "Marcus is dangerous. He's put three fighters in the hospital this year. James is good, maybe the best I've seen, but Marcus doesn't fight fair."
Your stomach twisted with anxiety. "Should I have tried to stop him?"
"Would he have listened?"
"No."
"Then all you can do is be here. And patch him up after, if he needs it."
The crowd's noise swelled suddenly, and you looked up to see James entering from a side door. He was shirtless, wearing only black fighting shorts and hand wraps, his body a sculpture of controlled power. Every muscle was defined, every movement precise. He looked like a different person from the man who brought you coffee and helped you studyâthis was the fighter, the champion, the man who'd built his reputation on violence.
His eyes scanned the crowd and found you. For a moment, his expression softened, and he raised one wrapped hand in a small wave. You waved back, your heart in your throat.
Then Marcus entered from the opposite side, and the crowd went wild.
Marcus was bigger than James, heavier, with a reach advantage and a mean smile. He had the look of someone who enjoyed hurting people, who fought not for sport or proof but for the pure pleasure of domination.
You wanted to leave. You wanted to grab James and drag him out of this place and never let him come back.
But you stayed.
The refereeâif you could call him thatâgave brief instructions. No biting, no eye gouging, fight until someone taps out or can't continue. Everything else was fair game.
The bell rang.
Marcus came out aggressive, throwing heavy punches that James slipped with practiced ease. James was faster, more technical, landing precise strikes to the body and head. It was almost beautiful, the way he movedâlike a dance, like the break dancing he'd mentioned, every movement flowing into the next.
But Marcus was relentless. He absorbed James's strikes and kept coming forward, cutting off the ring, forcing James into close quarters where his size advantage mattered more.
Three minutes in, Marcus landed a brutal elbow that opened a cut above James's eye. Blood flowed freely, and you saw James blink it away, adjusting his strategy. He started targeting Marcus's legs, chopping away at the bigger man's base with low kicks that echoed through the warehouse.
The crowd was screaming, but you barely heard them. All your focus was on James, on the way he moved, on cataloging his injuries with a clinical part of your brain even as your heart raced with fear.
Round two. Marcus was limping slightly, but he'd adjusted, checking James's kicks and countering with punches that were starting to land more frequently. James's face was a mask of blood and concentration, his breathing controlled despite the pace.
Then Marcus did something you'd only seen in your worst nightmares of this momentâhe grabbed James in a clinch and brought his knee up hard, right into James's ribs. You heard the crack from where you stood, saw James's face go white with pain.
Broken rib. Maybe two.
But James didn't stop. He couldn't, not with the crowd baying for blood, not with his reputation on the line. He pushed through the pain, landing a spinning back fist that dropped Marcus to one knee.
The crowd went insane.
James pressed his advantage, raining down strikes, but you could see the way he was favouring his left side, the way each breath was agony. Marcus covered up, weathering the storm, and when James's pace slowedâjust for a second, just enoughâMarcus exploded upward with an uppercut that caught James clean on the chin.
James went down hard.
The referee started counting. One. Two. Three.
Get up, you thought desperately. Get up, James.
Four. Five. Six.
James stirred, rolling to his side. His eyes were unfocused, and you could see him fighting through the concussion, through the pain, through everything that should have kept him down.
Seven. Eight.
He got to his knees.
Nine.
He stood, swaying but upright.
The referee checked him, and James nodded that he could continue. You wanted to scream at him to stop, to tap out, to choose his health over his pride.
But you understood now. This was who he was. This was what he'd built his life around. And watching him fight through impossible odds, you saw the truth of itâthe beauty and the horror, the strength, and the self-destruction.
The final round was brutal. Both fighters were exhausted, injured, running on pure will. Marcus's leg was nearly useless, and James could barely breathe through his broken ribs. They traded strikes with desperate intensity, each looking for the one shot that would end it.
James found it first.
A perfectly timed counterâMarcus threw a wild haymaker, and James slipped inside, landing a short elbow that caught Marcus on the temple. The bigger man's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
The referee didn't even count. He waved it off immediately, and the crowd erupted.
James had won.
But as you watched him raise his arms in victory, you saw the cost. The blood, the broken ribs, the concussion, the way he could barely stand. He'd won, but he'd destroyed himself to do it.
Kai was already moving toward the ring, and you followed, pushing through the crowd. By the time you reached James, he was leaning heavily on Kai, his victory smile fading into exhaustion and pain.
"Hey," he said when he saw you, and his voice was slurred. Definitely concussed. "You stayed."
"Of course I stayed, you idiot." You ducked under his other arm, helping Kai support his weight. "We need to get him to my place. Now."
"Hospitalâ" James started.
"Would ask too many questions," you finished. "I can handle this. But we need to move."
Getting James out of the warehouse and into Kai's car was a blur of concerned fighters and congratulations that felt hollow. In the backseat, James's head lolled against your shoulder, and you kept him talking, checking his pupils with your phone's flashlight, monitoring for signs of serious brain injury.
"Stay with me," you kept saying. "Keep talking, James. Tell me about your first fight."
He mumbled something in Chinese, then switched to English. "Was scared. Thought I'd lose. But then I won, and it felt like... like I'd found where I belonged."
"And now?" you asked, your hand finding his, squeezing tight. "Does it still feel that way?"
"No," he whispered. "Now it just hurts."
ââââ-
Your apartment had never felt smaller than it did with James bleeding on your examination table and Kai pacing anxiously in the corner.
"Out," you told Kai, your voice sharp with stress. "I need space to work."
"Butâ"
"Out. I'll call you when he's stable."
Kai left reluctantly, and you turned your full attention to James. He was conscious but drifting, the concussion making him drowsy and confused. You needed to keep him awake, needed to monitor him for the next several hours to make sure he didn't have a brain bleed.
But first, you had to deal with the broken ribs.
"This is going to hurt," you warned, gently probing his left side. James hissed in pain, and you felt the telltale grinding of fractured bone. "Two broken ribs, maybe three. I need to wrap them, but you need to stay still."
"Always hurts," James mumbled. "Part of the job."
"This isn't a job, James. This is self-destruction." Your hands were shaking as you cleaned the cut above his eye, and you realised you were angry. Furious, actually. "You could have died in there. That last hitâif it had landed differently, if you'd hit your head on the concreteâ"
"But I didn't."
"But you could have!" You threw the bloody gauze into the trash with more force than necessary. "And for what? Money? Reputation? Proving something to people who don't care if you live or die?"
James tried to sit up, winced, and fell back. "You don't understand."
"Then explain it to me." You were wrapping his ribs now, your movements efficient despite your anger. "Explain why you'd risk everything for a fight. Explain why you'd put yourself through this when you could do anything else with your life."
"Because it's the only thing I'm good at!" The words burst out of him, raw and honest. "Because in that ring, I know who I am. I know my worth. Outside of it, I'm just... I'm just my father's disappointment, my family's black sheep, a guy who walked away from everything he was supposed to be."
"You're more than that." You finished wrapping his ribs and moved to check his pupils again. Still reactive, but sluggish. "You're smart, you're kind, you'reâ"
"I'm a fighter." James caught your wrist gently, stopping your examination. "It's all I know how to be."
You looked down at him, at this man who'd somehow become so important to you in such a short time, and felt something crack in your chest. "I can't do this," you whispered. "I can't keep patching you up just to watch you go back and get hurt again. I can'tâ" Your voice broke. "I can't care about someone who cares so little about their own life."
"I care." His grip on your wrist tightened. "I care more now than I ever have. Because of you."
"Then stop." The words came out as a plea. "Stop fighting. Find something else. Be something else."
"I don't know how."
"Then learn." You pulled your wrist free, stepping back. "Because I can't watch you die, James. I can't be the one who puts you back together knowing you're just going to break yourself again."
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by James's laboured breathing and the distant sounds of the city outside your window.
"I have three more contracted fights," James said finally. "After tonight. Three more, and then I'm done with this circuit. I was already planning to step back, maybe do some training instead of fighting. Tonight just... confirmed it."
You wanted to believe him. God, you wanted to believe him so badly.
"Why?" you asked. "Why were you planning to step back?"
James met your eyes, and despite the concussion and the pain and the exhaustion, his gaze was clear. "Because I met someone who made me want a future beyond the next fight. Someone who made me realise that proving myself doesn't matter if I don't have anyone to share my life with."
Your breath caught. "Jamesâ"
"I'm not asking you to wait for me. I'm not asking you to fix me or save me or any of that bullshit." He struggled to sit up, and this time you helped him, supporting his back. "I'm just telling you that you changed something in me. Made me want to be better. Made me want to be someone worthy of the way you look at me."
"I look at you like you're an idiot who gets punched in the face for a living."
"You look at me like I matter." His hand found yours, and his thumb traced circles on your palm. "Like I'm more than just a fighter. And I want to be that person. The one you see when you look at me."
You should pull away. You should maintain distance, protect yourself from the inevitable heartbreak. But instead, you found yourself squeezing his hand back.
"Three more fights," you said. "And then you're done."
"Three more fights," he agreed. "And then I'm done."
"And you're going to be careful. No more Marcus-level opponents. No more broken ribs."
"I'll try."
"You'll succeed." You stood, moving to get ice for his swelling. "Because if you come back here with another concussion, I'm going to kill you myself."
James's laugh turned into a cough, and he clutched his ribs. "Noted."
You spent the rest of the night monitoring him, waking him every hour to check his responsiveness, making sure the concussion wasn't worsening. Somewhere around dawn, you dozed off in the chair next to the examination table, exhausted from the emotional and physical toll of the night.
You woke to find James watching you, his good hand stretched out like he'd been about to touch your face but stopped himself.
"Hey," he said softly. "You should sleep in your bed."
"I'm monitoring you."
"I'm fine. Ribs hurt like hell, but the concussion's better."
You checked him anywayâpupils, responsiveness, memory. He was right; he was improving. The human body's capacity for healing never ceased to amaze you.
"You scared me tonight," you admitted, sitting back down. "When you went down, when he was counting, I thoughtâ"
"I know." James's expression was somber. "I scared myself. For the first time in years, I didn't want to get back up. I wanted to stay down, to let it be over. But then I thought about you watching, and I couldn't let you see me quit."
"That's notâ" You stopped, reconsidering. "James, there's no shame in knowing when to stop. In choosing your health over your pride."
"I know that now." He shifted carefully, making room on the table. "Come here."
You should say no. He was injured, you were exhausted, and this was crossing about a dozen professional boundaries. But you found yourself climbing onto the table anyway, careful of his ribs, settling against his right side.
James's arm came around you, and despite everythingâthe blood, the violence, the fearâyou felt safe. Like you'd found something you didn't know you were looking for.
"Three more fights," James murmured into your hair. "And then I'm yours. If you'll have me."
You didn't answer. You just closed your eyes and let yourself imagine a future where James wasn't a fighter, where you weren't constantly terrified of losing him, where you could just be two people trying to build something real.
It felt impossible.
But then again, so did running a clinic out of your apartment and falling for an underground fighter.
Maybe impossible was just another word for worth fighting for.
âââââââ-
Two weeks later, James kept his promise about being careful. His next fight was against a mid-tier opponent, technical but not brutal, and he won in the second round with a submission hold that didn't require anyone getting their face rearranged.
You didn't watch that one. You couldn't. Instead, you waited at your apartment, studying pharmacology and trying not to check your phone every thirty seconds.
When James showed up at your door an hour after the fight, he was barely markedâjust some redness on his ribs and a slight swelling on his jaw.
"See?" he said, spreading his arms. "Careful."
You pulled him inside and kissed him.
It wasn't planned. You'd been holding back for weeks, maintaining boundaries, telling yourself that getting involved with James was a terrible idea. But seeing him standing there, mostly intact, grinning like he'd just won the lottery instead of a fightâsomething in you just broke.
Or maybe it finally came together.
James made a surprised sound against your mouth, then his arms came around you, careful of his ribs, and he kissed you back with an intensity that made your knees weak. He tasted like sports drink and adrenaline, and when he pulled back, his eyes softened immediately.
"I've been wanting to do that since the night we met," he admitted, his forehead resting against yours.
"You were bleeding all over my table. That's a terrible time for a first kiss."
"Every moment with you feels like the right time."
You laughed, but it was shaky. "That's incredibly cheesy."
"Doesn't make it less true." His thumb traced your lower lip. "I have two fights left. Two more, and then I'm done. I've already told my manager. After that, I want to focus on training others, maybe open a legitimate gym. Build something that doesn't require me getting my face punched in."
"I like your face unpunched."
"Me too." He kissed you again, softer this time. "Come upstairs with me. To my place. Let me show you the life I want to build."
You'd never been to James's apartment. He always came to you, fitting himself into your world of medical supplies and late-night studying. But now, as Kai drove you both across the city to a high-rise in the expensive district, you realised how little you actually knew about James's life outside of fighting.
His apartment was on the top floorâa penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering city. It was beautiful and modern and completely impersonal, like a hotel room that no one actually lived in.
"I know," James said, watching your face. "It's not very homey. I've never really... I've never had a reason to make it feel like home."
You walked to the windows, looking out at the city spread below like a carpet of lights. "It's beautiful."
"It's empty." James came up behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist. "Like my life was before I met you."
"Jamesâ"
"I mean it." His voice was quiet, serious. "I've spent years building this reputation, making money, proving I could succeed outside my family's expectations. But I've been lonely. So, fucking lonely. And then you opened your door at three in the morning and looked at me like I was just another person who needed help, not a fighter or a disappointment or a success story. Just... me."
You turned in his arms, looking up at him. "You are just you. The fighting, the money, the reputationâthat's all external. The person who brings me coffee and helps me study and makes terrible jokes to help me remember drug interactionsâthat's who you really are."
"That's who I want to be." His hand came up to cup your face. "For you. With you."
"You don't have to change for me."
"I'm not changing. I'm becoming." He kissed your forehead, your cheeks, the corner of your mouth. "The person I was always supposed to be, before I got lost in proving myself."
You pulled him down for a real kiss, deep and slow and full of promise. James responded with a hunger that had nothing to do with violence and everything to do with connection, with the desperate human need to be seen and known and wanted.
When you finally broke apart, both breathing hard, James rested his forehead against yours. "Stay," he whispered. "Tonight. Just sleep next to me. Let me hold you without blood or injuries or fear. Just... be with me."
You should say no. You had early rounds at the hospital tomorrow. You had studying to do. You had a life that was already too complicated without adding a relationship with a fighter who was trying to retire.
"Okay," you said instead. "I'll stay."
James's bedroom was as impersonal as the rest of the apartment, but when he pulled you into his bed and wrapped himself around youâcareful of his healing ribsâit felt like the most natural thing in the world.
"Tell me about your family," you said into the darkness. "Your real story, not the abbreviated version."
James was quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing patterns on your arm. "My father built his business from nothing," he finally said. "Came from poverty, worked his way up, became successful beyond his wildest dreams. He wanted me to take over, to continue his legacy. But I couldn't be what he wanted. I tried, for years I tried, but I was suffocating."
"So you left."
"So I left. Broke his heart, disappointed my mother, became the family shame. And I told myself I didn't care, that I was better off without them. But the truth is, I've been trying to prove them wrong ever since. Every fight, every winâit was all about showing them I could succeed on my own terms."
"And did you? Prove them wrong?"
"I don't know." His arms tightened around you. "I proved I could fight. I proved I could win. But I'm not sure that's the same thing as proving I made the right choice."
You turned in his arms, facing him in the darkness. "Maybe you don't need to prove anything. Maybe you just need to live a life that makes you happy."
"Are you happy?" James asked. "With medical school, with your clinic, with the constant stress and exhaustion?"
You considered the question honestly. "I'm happy when I help someone. When I stitch up a wound and know it'll heal properly, when I diagnose something the attending physicians missed, when someone comes back to thank me for saving their life. Those moments make everything else worth it."
"That's how I used to feel about fighting," James admitted. "But lately, the only time I feel that way is when I'm with you."
Your heart clenched. "Jamesâ"
"I know it's fast. I know we barely know each other. But I can't pretend I don't feel this." His hand found yours in the darkness, fingers interlacing. "You make me want to be better. Not for my father, not for my reputation, but for myself. For us."
"I'm scared," you whispered. "I'm scared of caring about you and then losing you. I'm scared of building something real with someone whose life is so dangerous."
"I'm scared too." James pulled you closer, until you could feel his heartbeat against your chest. "I'm scared of letting you down. Of not being enough. Of going back to that empty feeling I had before I met you."
"So what do we do?"
"We try." His lips brushed your forehead. "We take it one day at a time. I finish my last two fights, I transition out of the circuit, and we figure out what comes next. Together."
It wasn't a perfect answer. It wasn't a guarantee. But as you lay there in James's arms, listening to the city hum outside the windows, you realised that maybe perfect wasn't what you needed.
Maybe you just needed real.
"Okay," you said. "We try."
James's kiss was soft and sweet and full of relief. "Thank you," he murmured against your lips. "For giving me a chance. For seeing me."
"Thank you for bringing me coffee and making me eat real food."
He laughed, and the sound vibrated through both of you. "I'm going to take such good care of you. I'm going to make sure you eat three meals a day and sleep more than four hours a night and actually enjoy your life instead of just surviving it."
"That's a tall order."
"I'm up for the challenge."
You fell asleep like that, wrapped in each other, and for the first time in months, you didn't dream about exams or patients or all the ways you were failing. You just dreamed about possibility.
âââââââ-
James's last fight was scheduled for three weeks later.
In that time, your relationship shifted into something real and tangible. James spent most nights at your apartment, helping you study, cooking meals you actually sat down to eat, making your chaotic life feel manageable. You spent weekends at his penthouse, slowly adding personal touchesâphotos, books, plantsâuntil it started to feel like a home instead of a hotel.
You met Kai for coffee and learned about James's early days in the circuit, how he'd been raw and talented but undisciplined, how he'd worked obsessively to become one of the best. Kai told you that he'd never seen James as focused or as happy as he'd been since meeting you.
"He's different," Kai said, stirring his coffee. "Lighter. Like he finally figured out what he was fighting for."
You also learned about the final fight. James's opponent was a rising star named Kim Jisung, young and hungry and looking to make his name by beating a legend. It wasn't supposed to be brutalâKim Jisung was technical, not a brawlerâbut there was always risk.
"I'll be careful," James promised the night before the fight, holding you close in his bed. "In and out, clean win, and then I'm done."
"And then you're done," you echoed, trying to believe it.
"And then I'm yours." He kissed you slowly, thoroughly. "Completely and totally yours."
The next evening, you found yourself back in that warehouse, back in the crowd of people betting on violence. But this time, Kai stayed by your side, a steady presence as you watched James prepare.
James found you before the fight, pulling you aside into a quiet corner.
"Hey," he said, cupping your face in his hands. "I need you to know something."
"Jamesâ"
"No, let me say this." His thumbs stroked your cheeks. "Whatever happens in there, I love you. I know it's fast, I know we're still figuring this out, but I love you. You changed my life. You made me want to be better. And after tonight, I'm going to spend every day proving that I'm worthy of you."
Tears pricked your eyes. "You don't have to prove anything."
"I want to." He kissed you, soft and sweet. "I want to be the man you see when you look at me. The one who brings you coffee and makes you laugh and supports your dreams. Not the fighter. Just... James."
"I love you too," you whispered against his lips. "So come back to me intact, okay? No broken ribs, no concussions, just a clean win and then we go home."
"Deal." One more kiss, and then Kai was calling him, and James was walking toward the ring.
The fight was everything James promised it would beâtechnical, controlled, almost beautiful in its precision. Kim Jisung was good, but James was better, and you could see years of experience in every movement, every counter, every perfectly timed strike.
It should have been easy.
But in the third round, Jisung got desperate. He threw a spinning kick that James blocked, but the momentum carried Jisung forward, and his elbow caught James in the templeânot intentional, just bad luck and worse timing.
James went down.
Your heart stopped.
The referee started counting, and you were moving before you realised it, pushing through the crowd toward the ring. Kai caught you, held you back, but you could see James on the canvas, see him struggling to orient himself.
"Get up," you whispered. "Please, James, get up."
He did. At the count of seven, James rolled to his knees, then stood. The referee checked him, and James nodded that he could continue, but you could see the glaze in his eyes, the slight sway in his stance.
He was concussed. Again.
The referee restarted the fight, and Jisung came forward cautiously, probably feeling guilty about the accidental blow. James circled, buying time for his head to clear, and you saw the moment his focus returnedâthe way his stance solidified, his eyes sharpened.
Then James did something you'd never seen him do before.
He tapped out.
Just walked to the referee and tapped his shoulder, signalling submission. The crowd went silent, confused, and then erupted in boos and shouts. Jisung looked shocked, like he couldn't believe what was happening.
But James just smiled, raised Jisung's hand in victory, and walked out of the ring.
He walked straight to you.
"I'm done," he said, pulling you into his arms despite the crowd's anger, despite Kai's shocked expression, despite everything. "I'm done fighting. I'm choosing you. I'm choosing us."
You were crying, you realised, tears streaming down your face as you held him. "You didn't have toâ"
"Yes, I did." He pulled back to look at you, and despite the concussion, his eyes were clear. "I felt that hit, and all I could think was that I promised you I'd come back intact. And I realised that winning didn't matter. My reputation didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was keeping my promise to you."
"Jamesâ"
"I love you," he said, loud enough for the people around you to hear. "I love you more than fighting, more than proving myself, more than any of this. And I'm done pretending otherwise."
You kissed him, there in the middle of the warehouse with the crowd jeering and Kai laughing in disbelief. You kissed him like he was your whole world, because in that moment, he was.
"Let's go home," you whispered against his lips.
"Yeah," James agreed, smiling. "Let's go home."
Epilogue: Two Years Later
The clinic was official now.
With James's financial backing and your medical credentials, you'd managed to get licensed as a community health centre, serving the population that fell through the cracks of the healthcare system. It was still in your apartment building, but you'd expanded into two additional units, with actual examination rooms and a small pharmacy and even a part-time nurse.
James ran the administrative side, handling insurance and billing and all the things you had no patience for. He'd also opened a gym three blocks away, training fighters in technique and discipline, teaching them that strength wasn't just about winning but about knowing when to walk away.
You were in your final year of medical school, top of your class now that you weren't running on four hours of sleep and coffee fumes. Your attending physicians praised your clinical skills and your dedication to underserved populations. You had residency interviews lined up at several prestigious programs.
Life was good. Busy, chaotic, but good.
"Hey," James said, poking his head into your officeâan actual office, with a desk and everything. "Last patient just left. You ready to go?"
You looked up from your charting and smiled. James was wearing jeans and a t-shirt from his gym, his hair slightly messy, and there wasn't a single bruise or cut on his face. He looked healthy and happy and completely at peace.
"Yeah," you said, saving your work. "Let's go."
You'd started a tradition of Friday night dinners on the rooftop of your building, watching the sun set over the city. James would cookâhe'd gotten surprisingly good at itâand you'd talk about your week, your dreams, your plans for the future.
Tonight, as you sat on the blanket James had spread out, eating pad Thai and watching the sky turn orange and pink, you felt a contentment you'd never experienced before.
"I have something for you," James said, setting down his food.
"If it's more medical supplies, I'm going to kiss you."
"It's not medical supplies." He pulled a small box from his pocket, and your heart stopped. "Before you panic, it's not what you think. Not yet, anyway. We're still young, you're still in school, and I want to do this right."
He opened the box to reveal a simple silver ring with a small stoneânot a diamond, but something blue and beautiful.
"It's a promise ring," James explained. "A promise that when you're ready, when the time is right, I'm going to ask you properly. A promise that I'm in this for the long haul. A promise that you're it for me."
You were crying again, but this time they were happy tears. "Jamesâ"
"You saved my life," he said softly, taking the ring from the box. "Not just that first night when you stitched me up, but every day since. You made me want to be better. You made me believe I could be more than just a fighter. And I want to spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you've made me."
He slipped the ring onto your right hand, and it fit perfectly.
"I love you," you said, launching yourself at him. He caught you with a laugh, holding you close as the sun set over the city. "I love you so much."
"I love you too." James kissed you, soft and sweet and full of promise. "My healer. My home."
You stayed on that rooftop until the stars came out, talking about the futureâabout residency programs and expanding the clinic and maybe, someday, a wedding. About the life you were building together, brick by brick, day by day.
It wasn't perfect. You still worked too hard, and James still had nightmares about his fighting days. You argued about money and time management and whose turn it was to do the dishes. But it was real, and it was yours, and it was worth every moment of uncertainty that had brought you here.
"Hey," James said as you were packing up to head inside. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For opening your door that night. For giving me a chance. For seeing past the fighter to the person underneath." He pulled you close, his arms around your waist. "For loving me."
"Thank you for bringing me coffee," you replied, smiling against his chest. "For making me eat real food. For showing me that it's okay to let someone take care of me too."
"Always," James promised. "For as long as you'll have me."
"Forever, then."
"Forever," he agreed.
And as you walked back inside, hand in hand, you knew that whatever challenges came nextâmedical school, residency, building your clinic, navigating life togetherâyou'd face them the same way you'd faced everything else.
Together.
A fighter and a healer, building something beautiful from broken pieces.
---
note: ngl i kinda cringed a bit while writing this but itâs okay we live. also blonde james đđđđ heâs been bias wrecking me too much recently, but im loyal to seonghyeon.
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Note : i literally hit flow state writing this AND I FINALLY LEARNED HOW TO DO GRADIENT TEXT đ„č (also ik a 3rd year student is diff ages in the UK/USA so jus to explain myself, typically a 3rd yr student in the uk is 20 - 21 yrs old, jus incase ppl from the USA get confused)
Warnings : Violence and underground fighting, Blood and injury, Medical procedures, Concussions and broken bones, Mentions of death and grief, Family conflict, kissing, Illegal medical practice, swearing.
Synopsis : When an injured underground fighter arrives at her apartment clinic, a hardworking medical student finds herself drawn into a world she never wanted to be part of. As their feelings grow, James must choose between the ring and the future they could build together.
The knock came at 2:50 AM.
You knew because you'd been staring at your anatomy textbook for the past three hours, the words blurring together into meaningless shapes. Cranial nerves. Twelve of them. You could recite them backward and forward, but your attending physician would still find something to criticise during rounds.
The knock came again, more insistent this time. Urgent.
You knew that kind of knock. It was the same desperate rhythm that brought the street kids to your door, the same cadence that accompanied split lips and broken ribs and injuries that couldn't see the inside of a hospital without questions being asked.
Sighing, you marked your page and padded to the door in your worn medical school sweatshirt and sleep shorts. The peephole revealed a man you'd never seen beforeâtall, broad-shouldered, with blonde hair falling into his eyes. He was holding his side, and even through the distorted fish-eye lens, you could see the blood seeping between his fingers.
Behind him stood Kai, one of your regulars. A fighter who knew better than to take hits to the head but did it anyway.
"Please," Kai called through the door. His voice was strained. "He needs help. Won't go to a hospital."
"They never do," you muttered, but you were already unlocking the deadbolt.
The door swung open, and the manâthe strangerâlooked up. His eyes were dark, intense, and even through obvious pain, there was something magnetic about him. Charismatic in a way that made you immediately suspicious.
"I can pay," he said. His voice was rough, accented with something you couldn't quite place. "Whatever you need."
"I don't do this for money." You stepped aside, gesturing them in. "I do it because people like you are too stubborn to get proper medical care."
Kai helped the stranger inside, and in the better light of your apartment-turned-clinic, you could see the full extent of the damage. Split eyebrow, swollen jaw, and that side wound that was still bleeding sluggishly through his black t-shirt. The shirt clung to a body that was clearly athleticâfighter's build, all lean muscle and controlled power.
"On the table," you instructed, pointing to the medical examination table you'd bought secondhand and set up in what used to be your living room. Your actual living space had been reduced to your bedroom and a tiny kitchenette. The rest was shelves of medical supplies, carefully organised equipment, and the sterile smell of antiseptic.
The stranger moved with surprising grace despite his injuries, settling onto the table with only a slight hiss of pain. Up close, you could see he was probably around your ageâearly twenties, maybe. There was something refined about his features, aristocratic almost, which seemed at odds with the violence written across his skin.
"What's your name?" you asked, pulling on latex gloves with practiced efficiency.
"James." He watched you with those dark eyes, tracking your every movement. "You're the med student Kai told me about."
"Third year." You lifted his shirt carefully, and he helped by pulling it over his head in one smooth motion. The movement made him wince, but he didn't complain.
The wound was a deep laceration along his ribsânot life-threatening, but it needed stitches. You'd done hundreds of sutures by now, on orange peels and pig's feet and eventually on real human skin in the controlled environment of the hospital. But there was something different about doing it here, in your apartment at three in the morning, with a man who looked like he'd walked out of some underground fight club.
Because that's exactly what he'd done.
"This is going to hurt," you warned, prepping the area with beta-dine. "I can give you local anaesthetic, butâ"
"Just do it." James's jaw was set, determined. "I've had worse."
You believed him. His torso was a roadmap of scarsâsome old and silvered, others relatively fresh. This wasn't his first fight, and it wouldn't be his last.
"Kai," you said without looking up, "there's coffee in the kitchenette. Make yourself useful."
Kai knew a dismissal when he heard one. He disappeared into your kitchenette, leaving you alone with James.
The needle pierced skin, and James didn't flinch. He just kept watching you with that unnerving intensity, like he was trying to figure you out.
"You're good at this," he said after the third suture.
"I should be. I'm drowning in student debt to be good at this." You kept your hands steady, your stitches even. "What happened?"
"Fight."
"Obviously. I meant why."
James was quiet for a moment. You could feel him considering his answer, weighing what to tell you. "Because I'm good at it," he finally said. "And because sometimes you need to prove something to yourself."
"By getting stabbed?"
"It was a punch. Guy had a ring on."
You glanced up at him, one eyebrow raised. "A ring did this?"
"He hit hard."
"Clearly." You returned to your work, fingers moving with practiced precision. There was something almost meditative about suturingâthe repetitive motion, the focus required, the satisfaction of seeing torn flesh knit back together under your hands.
James's breathing was controlled, steady. He had the discipline of someone used to pain, used to pushing through it. You'd seen it before in fighters, in athletes, in people who'd learned that showing weakness was dangerous.
"Why do you do this?" James asked suddenly. "Run a clinic out of your apartment for people who can't pay?"
"Someone has to." You tied off another suture. "The system fails people like Kai. Like you, apparently. People who need help but can't get it through normal channels."
"That's not an answer."
You paused, meeting his eyes. "My brother," you said quietly. "He got into some trouble when he was younger. Got hurt. Was too scared to go to the hospital because he thought they'd call the cops. By the time I found him, the infection had spread. He almost died."
"But he didn't."
"No. But he could have. And I decided that if I was going to spend years learning how to heal people, I wasn't going to let bureaucracy and fear stop me from actually doing it."
James nodded slowly, like you'd confirmed something he'd suspected. "You're idealistic."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
"In my world, it usually is."
"Then maybe you're in the wrong world."
His laugh was short, humourless. "Maybe."
You finished the last suture and stepped back to examine your work. Clean, even stitches. It would scar, but it would heal properly. "Keep it clean and dry. Change the dressing daily. Come back in a week and I'll remove the stitches."
"I can pay you," James said again, reaching for his jeans pocket.
"I told you, I don'tâ"
"I know. But let me contribute to your supplies at least. Sutures aren't cheap."
He had a point. You went through supplies faster than your meagre budget could sustain, relying on samples from the hospital and the occasional donation from sympathetic attending physicians who looked the other way.
"Fine," you relented. "There's a jar by the door. Whatever you think is fair."
James slid off the table, moving more carefully now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He pulled his ruined shirt back on, and you noticed the way the fabric clung to his frame, the way he moved with a fighter's grace even injured.
Kai emerged from the kitchen with three cups of coffee. "You're a miracle worker," he told you, handing you a mug.
"I'm a med student with a saviour complex," you corrected, but you took the coffee gratefully. It was going to be a long night of studying after this.
James pulled out his wallet, and you deliberately turned away, focusing on cleaning your instruments. You heard the rustle of bills, the clink of the jar. When you glanced back, he'd put in what looked like several hundred dollars.
"That's too much," you started to protest.
"It's not enough," James said simply. "For what you do. For what you risk."
There was something in his voiceârespect, maybe, or understanding. Like he recognised the danger you put yourself in, running an unlicensed clinic, treating people who existed in the shadows.
"Come on," Kai said, clapping James on the shoulder carefully. "Let's get you home before you bleed through those stitches."
James moved toward the door, then paused. He turned back to look at you, and in the dim light of your apartment, his eyes were impossibly dark. "Thank you," he said. "Really."
"Just don't make it a habit," you replied. "Getting stabbed, I mean."
"I'll try."
But you both knew it was a lie.
After they left, you locked the door and leaned against it, suddenly exhausted. The coffee was already cold in your hands. You looked at the jar by the door, at the money James had left, and felt a strange flutter in your chest that you immediately suppressed.
He was a fighter. A man who made his livingâor his reputation, or whatever it wasâby violence. You'd seen too many fighters come through your door, too many broken bodies, and shattered lives. You weren't going to let yourself get drawn into that world.
You had medical school to finish. A career to build. A life that didn't involve patching up underground fighters at three in the morning.
But as you returned to your anatomy textbook, you found yourself thinking about dark eyes and controlled breathing and the way James had looked at you like you were something rare and valuable.
You shook your head, forcing yourself to focus on cranial nerves.
You wouldn't see him again after he came back for suture removal. You'd make sure of it.
âââââ-
James came back three days later.
It was early evening this time, the sun setting over the city in shades of orange and pink. You'd just gotten home from a brutal twelve-hour shift at the hospital, your feet aching and your mind numb from the endless parade of patients and the attending physician's constant criticism.
The knock was softer this time. Almost hesitant.
You opened the door to find James standing there with takeout bags in his hands and a sheepish expression on his face.
"Before you say anything," he started, "I know I'm not supposed to come back for four more days. But I wanted to thank you properly, and Kai said you never eat real food, just coffee and whatever you can grab between shifts."
You stared at him. He was wearing dark jeans and a leather jacket over a simple white t-shirt, and without the blood and injuries, you could see just how attractive he actually was. Unfairly so.
"I don't needâ"
"Thai food," he interrupted, holding up the bags. "Kai said it's your favourite. And before you protest, I already ate, so this is all for you. Consider it payment for putting up with me bleeding on your table."
Your stomach growled, betraying you. You hadn't eaten since a granola bar at six that morning.
"Fine," you sighed, stepping aside. "But just this once."
James's smile was brilliant, transforming his entire face. You could see why people would be drawn to him, why he'd have that charisma Kai had mentioned. There was something genuine about it, something warm that seemed at odds with the violence of his profession.
He set the food out on your tiny kitchen tableâthe only part of your apartment that wasn't dedicated to medical supplies. Pad Thai, green curry, spring rolls, mango sticky rice. Enough food for three people.
"This is too much," you said, but you were already reaching for the pad Thai.
"You look like you need it." James settled into the chair across from you, watching as you took your first bite. "Rough day?"
"Aren't they all?" You closed your eyes, savouring the explosion of flavours. God, when was the last time, you'd had actual good food? "My attending physician thinks I'm incompetent. I'm pretty sure I failed my last exam. And I had to watch a kid die today because his parents couldn't afford his medication."
The words spilled out before you could stop them. You never talked about your days, never let yourself process the weight of it all. But something about James's quiet presence made it easier.
"I'm sorry," he said, and he sounded like he meant it.
"It's not your fault." You took another bite, then another. "It's just... sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out for this. If I'm strong enough."
"You run a clinic out of your apartment for people who have nowhere else to go," James said quietly. "You stitch up fighters at three in the morning without asking questions. You're strong enough."
You looked up at him, surprised by the conviction in his voice. "You don't know me."
"I know enough."
There was a moment of silence, comfortable somehow, as you continued eating. James didn't push for conversation, didn't fill the quiet with meaningless chatter. He just sat there, present, and solid, like an anchor in the chaos of your life.
"How are the stitches?" you asked finally, falling back on professional territory.
"Good. No infection, minimal pain." He lifted his shirt slightly, showing you the bandaged area. "You do good work."
"I should. I've been practicing on orange peels since I was sixteen."
"Orange peels?"
"It's how you learn to suture. Orange peels, then pig's feet, then eventually real people." You smiled slightly. "My mom thought I was crazy, practicing on fruit in the kitchen."
"Were you? Crazy?"
"Probably. Who decides at sixteen that they want to spend the next decade of their life drowning in debt and sleep deprivation?"
"Someone who wants to help people," James said. "Someone who sees suffering and can't look away."
You met his eyes, and there was something in his gaze that made your breath catch. Understanding, maybe. Recognition.
"What about you?" you asked, deflecting. "Why fighting?"
James leaned back in his chair, considering. "I was good at it," he said finally. "Grew up doing taekwondo, ice hockey, break dancing. Anything physical, I excelled at. And when I found underground fighting, it was like... everything made sense. In the ring, there's no politics, no expectations, no pretending to be something you're not. Just skill and will and the truth of what you're capable of."
"That's very philosophical for someone who gets punched in the face for a living."
He laughed, a real laugh this time. "I contain multitudes."
"Clearly."
You finished eating, and James helped you clean up without being asked. It was domestic, almost intimate, this simple act of sharing space and food and conversation. You tried not to think about how nice it felt, how easy.
"I should go," James said, but he didn't move toward the door. "Let you rest."
"You should," you agreed, but you didn't move either.
"Can I come back?" The question was soft, almost vulnerable. "Not as a patient. Just... to check in. Make sure you're eating."
You should say no. You should maintain boundaries, keep your distance from this world of violence and danger. But when you looked at James, you didn't see a fighter. You saw someone lonely, someone searching for connection in a life that probably didn't allow for much of it.
"Okay," you heard yourself say. "But bring coffee next time. Good coffee, not the hospital cafeteria sludge I usually drink."
James's smile was like sunrise. "Deal."
After he left, you cleaned up the rest of the kitchen and tried not to think about the way your apartment felt emptier without him in it.
âââââ
James came back two days later with expensive coffee and pastries from a bakery you'd never been able to afford.
Then he came back three days after that with dinner and questions about your latest exam.
Then again, and again, until his visits became a regular part of your routine. He'd show up in the evenings, always with food or coffee, always with that quiet presence that somehow made your chaotic life feel more manageable.
You learned things about him in fragments, pieces of a puzzle that slowly came together. He was multilingualâChinese, Thai, Korean, Englishâand sometimes he'd slip between languages without realising it. He'd grown up privileged, the son of a Chinese businessman and Thai mother, but had chosen the underground fighting circuit as a way to prove himself outside of his family's expectations.
"They wanted me to take over the business," he told you one evening, sitting on your kitchen counter while you organised medical supplies. "Suit and tie, board meetings, corporate politics. But I couldn't breathe in that world. Fighting was the only place I felt real."
"And now?" you asked, labelling a box of gauze.
"Now I'm one of the best." There was no arrogance in his voice, just fact. "People come from all over to fight me. The purses are good. The reputation is better."
"But?"
He looked at you, surprised. "But what?"
"There's a 'but' in your voice. 'I'm one of the best, but...'"
James was quiet for a long moment. "But sometimes I wonder what I'm actually proving. And to who."
You set down the gauze and turned to face him fully. "You don't have to prove anything, you know. Not to your family, not to yourself. You're allowed to just... be."
"That's easy for you to say. You know exactly who you are and what you want."
"Do I?" You laughed, but it was bitter. "I'm a third-year med student who's failing half her classes, running an illegal clinic, and surviving on four hours of sleep a night. I have no idea what I'm doing."
"You're saving lives."
"I'm barely keeping my head above water."
James slid off the counter and crossed to you in two strides. He was close now, close enough that you could see the faint scar through his eyebrow from that first night, close enough to smell his cologneâsomething expensive and subtle.
"You're the strongest person I know," he said quietly. "And I know a lot of fighters."
Your heart was pounding, and you couldn't tell if it was from exhaustion or proximity or the way James was looking at you like you were something precious.
"I should finish organising," you said, but you didn't move.
"You should rest."
"Can't. Exam tomorrow."
"Then let me help you study."
And he did. James sat with you for the next three hours, quizzing you on pharmacology and anatomy, making terrible jokes to help you remember drug interactions, bringing you coffee when your eyes started to droop. He was patient and encouraging, and when you finally felt confident enough to sleep, he let himself out quietly, leaving a note on your kitchen table.
"You're going to be an amazing doctor. Get some sleep. - J"
You kept the note.
The next week, you removed his stitches. Your hands were steady as you snipped and pulled, but you were hyperaware of every point of contactâyour fingers on his skin, the warmth of his body, the way he watched your face instead of your hands.
"All done," you said, stepping back. "You'll have a scar, but it should fade over time."
"I don't mind scars." James ran his fingers over the healing wound. "They tell stories."
"What story does this one tell?"
"That I met someone who made me want to be more careful."
The words hung in the air between you, heavy with implication. You busied yourself with cleaning up, trying to ignore the way your pulse had quickened.
"Jamesâ"
"I know," he interrupted gently. "I know this is complicated. I know you have school and a career and a life that doesn't include someone like me. But I can't stop thinking about you. About this." He gestured around your apartment-clinic. "About how you make me want to be better."
You turned to face him, and the vulnerability in his expression nearly broke you. "I can't ask you to change who you are."
"You're not asking. I'm choosing." He stood, moving closer. "Every time I step into that ring now, I think about you patching me up after. About the disappointment in your eyes when I come back bleeding. And I'm starting to think that maybe proving myself isn't worth it if it means disappointing you."
"That's not fair," you whispered. "You can't put that on me."
"I'm not. I'm putting it on myself." His hand came up, hesitating just before touching your face. "Can I?"
You should say no. You should maintain professional distance. You should protect yourself from the inevitable heartbreak of caring about someone who lived such a dangerous life.
But you nodded.
His fingers were gentle as they traced your cheekbone, calloused but careful. "I have a fight next week," he said quietly. "Big one. Against Marcus Chenâhe's brutal, fights dirty, but the purse is significant. I already agreed to it, before I met you."
"Okay," you managed.
"I want you there."
"Jamesâ"
"I know it's a lot to ask. But I want you to see that part of my life. To understand it. And maybe..." He trailed off, his thumb brushing your jaw. "Maybe it'll help me figure out if this is still what I want."
You should say no. You should stay far away from that world of violence and blood and broken bones.
"Okay," you said instead. "I'll be there."
His smile was brilliant and terrified all at once.
ââââââ
The warehouse was exactly what you'd imagined and somehow worse.
It was an abandoned industrial building on the outskirts of the city, the kind of place that probably hadn't seen legal activity in decades. Inside, someone had set up a makeshift ringâchain-link fence formed into an octagon, harsh lights overhead, concrete floor that had seen too much blood.
The crowd was a mix of people you'd never want to meet in a dark alley and people who looked like they'd wandered in from corporate offices. Money changed hands openly, bets being placed with the casual ease of long practice. The air smelled like sweat and beer and violence.
Kai found you near the entrance, looking lost and overwhelmed.
"You came," he said, surprised.
"James asked me to."
Kai's expression softened. "He's different since he met you. More careful. Thinking about the future instead of just the next fight."
"I don't want to change him."
"Maybe he needs to change." Kai guided you through the crowd to a spot near the ring where you'd have a clear view. "Marcus is dangerous. He's put three fighters in the hospital this year. James is good, maybe the best I've seen, but Marcus doesn't fight fair."
Your stomach twisted with anxiety. "Should I have tried to stop him?"
"Would he have listened?"
"No."
"Then all you can do is be here. And patch him up after, if he needs it."
The crowd's noise swelled suddenly, and you looked up to see James entering from a side door. He was shirtless, wearing only black fighting shorts and hand wraps, his body a sculpture of controlled power. Every muscle was defined, every movement precise. He looked like a different person from the man who brought you coffee and helped you studyâthis was the fighter, the champion, the man who'd built his reputation on violence.
His eyes scanned the crowd and found you. For a moment, his expression softened, and he raised one wrapped hand in a small wave. You waved back, your heart in your throat.
Then Marcus entered from the opposite side, and the crowd went wild.
Marcus was bigger than James, heavier, with a reach advantage and a mean smile. He had the look of someone who enjoyed hurting people, who fought not for sport or proof but for the pure pleasure of domination.
You wanted to leave. You wanted to grab James and drag him out of this place and never let him come back.
But you stayed.
The refereeâif you could call him thatâgave brief instructions. No biting, no eye gouging, fight until someone taps out or can't continue. Everything else was fair game.
The bell rang.
Marcus came out aggressive, throwing heavy punches that James slipped with practiced ease. James was faster, more technical, landing precise strikes to the body and head. It was almost beautiful, the way he movedâlike a dance, like the break dancing he'd mentioned, every movement flowing into the next.
But Marcus was relentless. He absorbed James's strikes and kept coming forward, cutting off the ring, forcing James into close quarters where his size advantage mattered more.
Three minutes in, Marcus landed a brutal elbow that opened a cut above James's eye. Blood flowed freely, and you saw James blink it away, adjusting his strategy. He started targeting Marcus's legs, chopping away at the bigger man's base with low kicks that echoed through the warehouse.
The crowd was screaming, but you barely heard them. All your focus was on James, on the way he moved, on cataloging his injuries with a clinical part of your brain even as your heart raced with fear.
Round two. Marcus was limping slightly, but he'd adjusted, checking James's kicks and countering with punches that were starting to land more frequently. James's face was a mask of blood and concentration, his breathing controlled despite the pace.
Then Marcus did something you'd only seen in your worst nightmares of this momentâhe grabbed James in a clinch and brought his knee up hard, right into James's ribs. You heard the crack from where you stood, saw James's face go white with pain.
Broken rib. Maybe two.
But James didn't stop. He couldn't, not with the crowd baying for blood, not with his reputation on the line. He pushed through the pain, landing a spinning back fist that dropped Marcus to one knee.
The crowd went insane.
James pressed his advantage, raining down strikes, but you could see the way he was favouring his left side, the way each breath was agony. Marcus covered up, weathering the storm, and when James's pace slowedâjust for a second, just enoughâMarcus exploded upward with an uppercut that caught James clean on the chin.
James went down hard.
The referee started counting. One. Two. Three.
Get up, you thought desperately. Get up, James.
Four. Five. Six.
James stirred, rolling to his side. His eyes were unfocused, and you could see him fighting through the concussion, through the pain, through everything that should have kept him down.
Seven. Eight.
He got to his knees.
Nine.
He stood, swaying but upright.
The referee checked him, and James nodded that he could continue. You wanted to scream at him to stop, to tap out, to choose his health over his pride.
But you understood now. This was who he was. This was what he'd built his life around. And watching him fight through impossible odds, you saw the truth of itâthe beauty and the horror, the strength, and the self-destruction.
The final round was brutal. Both fighters were exhausted, injured, running on pure will. Marcus's leg was nearly useless, and James could barely breathe through his broken ribs. They traded strikes with desperate intensity, each looking for the one shot that would end it.
James found it first.
A perfectly timed counterâMarcus threw a wild haymaker, and James slipped inside, landing a short elbow that caught Marcus on the temple. The bigger man's eyes rolled back, and he collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
The referee didn't even count. He waved it off immediately, and the crowd erupted.
James had won.
But as you watched him raise his arms in victory, you saw the cost. The blood, the broken ribs, the concussion, the way he could barely stand. He'd won, but he'd destroyed himself to do it.
Kai was already moving toward the ring, and you followed, pushing through the crowd. By the time you reached James, he was leaning heavily on Kai, his victory smile fading into exhaustion and pain.
"Hey," he said when he saw you, and his voice was slurred. Definitely concussed. "You stayed."
"Of course I stayed, you idiot." You ducked under his other arm, helping Kai support his weight. "We need to get him to my place. Now."
"Hospitalâ" James started.
"Would ask too many questions," you finished. "I can handle this. But we need to move."
Getting James out of the warehouse and into Kai's car was a blur of concerned fighters and congratulations that felt hollow. In the backseat, James's head lolled against your shoulder, and you kept him talking, checking his pupils with your phone's flashlight, monitoring for signs of serious brain injury.
"Stay with me," you kept saying. "Keep talking, James. Tell me about your first fight."
He mumbled something in Chinese, then switched to English. "Was scared. Thought I'd lose. But then I won, and it felt like... like I'd found where I belonged."
"And now?" you asked, your hand finding his, squeezing tight. "Does it still feel that way?"
"No," he whispered. "Now it just hurts."
ââââ-
Your apartment had never felt smaller than it did with James bleeding on your examination table and Kai pacing anxiously in the corner.
"Out," you told Kai, your voice sharp with stress. "I need space to work."
"Butâ"
"Out. I'll call you when he's stable."
Kai left reluctantly, and you turned your full attention to James. He was conscious but drifting, the concussion making him drowsy and confused. You needed to keep him awake, needed to monitor him for the next several hours to make sure he didn't have a brain bleed.
But first, you had to deal with the broken ribs.
"This is going to hurt," you warned, gently probing his left side. James hissed in pain, and you felt the telltale grinding of fractured bone. "Two broken ribs, maybe three. I need to wrap them, but you need to stay still."
"Always hurts," James mumbled. "Part of the job."
"This isn't a job, James. This is self-destruction." Your hands were shaking as you cleaned the cut above his eye, and you realised you were angry. Furious, actually. "You could have died in there. That last hitâif it had landed differently, if you'd hit your head on the concreteâ"
"But I didn't."
"But you could have!" You threw the bloody gauze into the trash with more force than necessary. "And for what? Money? Reputation? Proving something to people who don't care if you live or die?"
James tried to sit up, winced, and fell back. "You don't understand."
"Then explain it to me." You were wrapping his ribs now, your movements efficient despite your anger. "Explain why you'd risk everything for a fight. Explain why you'd put yourself through this when you could do anything else with your life."
"Because it's the only thing I'm good at!" The words burst out of him, raw and honest. "Because in that ring, I know who I am. I know my worth. Outside of it, I'm just... I'm just my father's disappointment, my family's black sheep, a guy who walked away from everything he was supposed to be."
"You're more than that." You finished wrapping his ribs and moved to check his pupils again. Still reactive, but sluggish. "You're smart, you're kind, you'reâ"
"I'm a fighter." James caught your wrist gently, stopping your examination. "It's all I know how to be."
You looked down at him, at this man who'd somehow become so important to you in such a short time, and felt something crack in your chest. "I can't do this," you whispered. "I can't keep patching you up just to watch you go back and get hurt again. I can'tâ" Your voice broke. "I can't care about someone who cares so little about their own life."
"I care." His grip on your wrist tightened. "I care more now than I ever have. Because of you."
"Then stop." The words came out as a plea. "Stop fighting. Find something else. Be something else."
"I don't know how."
"Then learn." You pulled your wrist free, stepping back. "Because I can't watch you die, James. I can't be the one who puts you back together knowing you're just going to break yourself again."
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by James's laboured breathing and the distant sounds of the city outside your window.
"I have three more contracted fights," James said finally. "After tonight. Three more, and then I'm done with this circuit. I was already planning to step back, maybe do some training instead of fighting. Tonight just... confirmed it."
You wanted to believe him. God, you wanted to believe him so badly.
"Why?" you asked. "Why were you planning to step back?"
James met your eyes, and despite the concussion and the pain and the exhaustion, his gaze was clear. "Because I met someone who made me want a future beyond the next fight. Someone who made me realise that proving myself doesn't matter if I don't have anyone to share my life with."
Your breath caught. "Jamesâ"
"I'm not asking you to wait for me. I'm not asking you to fix me or save me or any of that bullshit." He struggled to sit up, and this time you helped him, supporting his back. "I'm just telling you that you changed something in me. Made me want to be better. Made me want to be someone worthy of the way you look at me."
"I look at you like you're an idiot who gets punched in the face for a living."
"You look at me like I matter." His hand found yours, and his thumb traced circles on your palm. "Like I'm more than just a fighter. And I want to be that person. The one you see when you look at me."
You should pull away. You should maintain distance, protect yourself from the inevitable heartbreak. But instead, you found yourself squeezing his hand back.
"Three more fights," you said. "And then you're done."
"Three more fights," he agreed. "And then I'm done."
"And you're going to be careful. No more Marcus-level opponents. No more broken ribs."
"I'll try."
"You'll succeed." You stood, moving to get ice for his swelling. "Because if you come back here with another concussion, I'm going to kill you myself."
James's laugh turned into a cough, and he clutched his ribs. "Noted."
You spent the rest of the night monitoring him, waking him every hour to check his responsiveness, making sure the concussion wasn't worsening. Somewhere around dawn, you dozed off in the chair next to the examination table, exhausted from the emotional and physical toll of the night.
You woke to find James watching you, his good hand stretched out like he'd been about to touch your face but stopped himself.
"Hey," he said softly. "You should sleep in your bed."
"I'm monitoring you."
"I'm fine. Ribs hurt like hell, but the concussion's better."
You checked him anywayâpupils, responsiveness, memory. He was right; he was improving. The human body's capacity for healing never ceased to amaze you.
"You scared me tonight," you admitted, sitting back down. "When you went down, when he was counting, I thoughtâ"
"I know." James's expression was somber. "I scared myself. For the first time in years, I didn't want to get back up. I wanted to stay down, to let it be over. But then I thought about you watching, and I couldn't let you see me quit."
"That's notâ" You stopped, reconsidering. "James, there's no shame in knowing when to stop. In choosing your health over your pride."
"I know that now." He shifted carefully, making room on the table. "Come here."
You should say no. He was injured, you were exhausted, and this was crossing about a dozen professional boundaries. But you found yourself climbing onto the table anyway, careful of his ribs, settling against his right side.
James's arm came around you, and despite everythingâthe blood, the violence, the fearâyou felt safe. Like you'd found something you didn't know you were looking for.
"Three more fights," James murmured into your hair. "And then I'm yours. If you'll have me."
You didn't answer. You just closed your eyes and let yourself imagine a future where James wasn't a fighter, where you weren't constantly terrified of losing him, where you could just be two people trying to build something real.
It felt impossible.
But then again, so did running a clinic out of your apartment and falling for an underground fighter.
Maybe impossible was just another word for worth fighting for.
âââââââ-
Two weeks later, James kept his promise about being careful. His next fight was against a mid-tier opponent, technical but not brutal, and he won in the second round with a submission hold that didn't require anyone getting their face rearranged.
You didn't watch that one. You couldn't. Instead, you waited at your apartment, studying pharmacology and trying not to check your phone every thirty seconds.
When James showed up at your door an hour after the fight, he was barely markedâjust some redness on his ribs and a slight swelling on his jaw.
"See?" he said, spreading his arms. "Careful."
You pulled him inside and kissed him.
It wasn't planned. You'd been holding back for weeks, maintaining boundaries, telling yourself that getting involved with James was a terrible idea. But seeing him standing there, mostly intact, grinning like he'd just won the lottery instead of a fightâsomething in you just broke.
Or maybe it finally came together.
James made a surprised sound against your mouth, then his arms came around you, careful of his ribs, and he kissed you back with an intensity that made your knees weak. He tasted like sports drink and adrenaline, and when he pulled back, his eyes softened immediately.
"I've been wanting to do that since the night we met," he admitted, his forehead resting against yours.
"You were bleeding all over my table. That's a terrible time for a first kiss."
"Every moment with you feels like the right time."
You laughed, but it was shaky. "That's incredibly cheesy."
"Doesn't make it less true." His thumb traced your lower lip. "I have two fights left. Two more, and then I'm done. I've already told my manager. After that, I want to focus on training others, maybe open a legitimate gym. Build something that doesn't require me getting my face punched in."
"I like your face unpunched."
"Me too." He kissed you again, softer this time. "Come upstairs with me. To my place. Let me show you the life I want to build."
You'd never been to James's apartment. He always came to you, fitting himself into your world of medical supplies and late-night studying. But now, as Kai drove you both across the city to a high-rise in the expensive district, you realised how little you actually knew about James's life outside of fighting.
His apartment was on the top floorâa penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the glittering city. It was beautiful and modern and completely impersonal, like a hotel room that no one actually lived in.
"I know," James said, watching your face. "It's not very homey. I've never really... I've never had a reason to make it feel like home."
You walked to the windows, looking out at the city spread below like a carpet of lights. "It's beautiful."
"It's empty." James came up behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist. "Like my life was before I met you."
"Jamesâ"
"I mean it." His voice was quiet, serious. "I've spent years building this reputation, making money, proving I could succeed outside my family's expectations. But I've been lonely. So, fucking lonely. And then you opened your door at three in the morning and looked at me like I was just another person who needed help, not a fighter or a disappointment or a success story. Just... me."
You turned in his arms, looking up at him. "You are just you. The fighting, the money, the reputationâthat's all external. The person who brings me coffee and helps me study and makes terrible jokes to help me remember drug interactionsâthat's who you really are."
"That's who I want to be." His hand came up to cup your face. "For you. With you."
"You don't have to change for me."
"I'm not changing. I'm becoming." He kissed your forehead, your cheeks, the corner of your mouth. "The person I was always supposed to be, before I got lost in proving myself."
You pulled him down for a real kiss, deep and slow and full of promise. James responded with a hunger that had nothing to do with violence and everything to do with connection, with the desperate human need to be seen and known and wanted.
When you finally broke apart, both breathing hard, James rested his forehead against yours. "Stay," he whispered. "Tonight. Just sleep next to me. Let me hold you without blood or injuries or fear. Just... be with me."
You should say no. You had early rounds at the hospital tomorrow. You had studying to do. You had a life that was already too complicated without adding a relationship with a fighter who was trying to retire.
"Okay," you said instead. "I'll stay."
James's bedroom was as impersonal as the rest of the apartment, but when he pulled you into his bed and wrapped himself around youâcareful of his healing ribsâit felt like the most natural thing in the world.
"Tell me about your family," you said into the darkness. "Your real story, not the abbreviated version."
James was quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing patterns on your arm. "My father built his business from nothing," he finally said. "Came from poverty, worked his way up, became successful beyond his wildest dreams. He wanted me to take over, to continue his legacy. But I couldn't be what he wanted. I tried, for years I tried, but I was suffocating."
"So you left."
"So I left. Broke his heart, disappointed my mother, became the family shame. And I told myself I didn't care, that I was better off without them. But the truth is, I've been trying to prove them wrong ever since. Every fight, every winâit was all about showing them I could succeed on my own terms."
"And did you? Prove them wrong?"
"I don't know." His arms tightened around you. "I proved I could fight. I proved I could win. But I'm not sure that's the same thing as proving I made the right choice."
You turned in his arms, facing him in the darkness. "Maybe you don't need to prove anything. Maybe you just need to live a life that makes you happy."
"Are you happy?" James asked. "With medical school, with your clinic, with the constant stress and exhaustion?"
You considered the question honestly. "I'm happy when I help someone. When I stitch up a wound and know it'll heal properly, when I diagnose something the attending physicians missed, when someone comes back to thank me for saving their life. Those moments make everything else worth it."
"That's how I used to feel about fighting," James admitted. "But lately, the only time I feel that way is when I'm with you."
Your heart clenched. "Jamesâ"
"I know it's fast. I know we barely know each other. But I can't pretend I don't feel this." His hand found yours in the darkness, fingers interlacing. "You make me want to be better. Not for my father, not for my reputation, but for myself. For us."
"I'm scared," you whispered. "I'm scared of caring about you and then losing you. I'm scared of building something real with someone whose life is so dangerous."
"I'm scared too." James pulled you closer, until you could feel his heartbeat against your chest. "I'm scared of letting you down. Of not being enough. Of going back to that empty feeling I had before I met you."
"So what do we do?"
"We try." His lips brushed your forehead. "We take it one day at a time. I finish my last two fights, I transition out of the circuit, and we figure out what comes next. Together."
It wasn't a perfect answer. It wasn't a guarantee. But as you lay there in James's arms, listening to the city hum outside the windows, you realised that maybe perfect wasn't what you needed.
Maybe you just needed real.
"Okay," you said. "We try."
James's kiss was soft and sweet and full of relief. "Thank you," he murmured against your lips. "For giving me a chance. For seeing me."
"Thank you for bringing me coffee and making me eat real food."
He laughed, and the sound vibrated through both of you. "I'm going to take such good care of you. I'm going to make sure you eat three meals a day and sleep more than four hours a night and actually enjoy your life instead of just surviving it."
"That's a tall order."
"I'm up for the challenge."
You fell asleep like that, wrapped in each other, and for the first time in months, you didn't dream about exams or patients or all the ways you were failing. You just dreamed about possibility.
âââââââ-
James's last fight was scheduled for three weeks later.
In that time, your relationship shifted into something real and tangible. James spent most nights at your apartment, helping you study, cooking meals you actually sat down to eat, making your chaotic life feel manageable. You spent weekends at his penthouse, slowly adding personal touchesâphotos, books, plantsâuntil it started to feel like a home instead of a hotel.
You met Kai for coffee and learned about James's early days in the circuit, how he'd been raw and talented but undisciplined, how he'd worked obsessively to become one of the best. Kai told you that he'd never seen James as focused or as happy as he'd been since meeting you.
"He's different," Kai said, stirring his coffee. "Lighter. Like he finally figured out what he was fighting for."
You also learned about the final fight. James's opponent was a rising star named Kim Jisung, young and hungry and looking to make his name by beating a legend. It wasn't supposed to be brutalâKim Jisung was technical, not a brawlerâbut there was always risk.
"I'll be careful," James promised the night before the fight, holding you close in his bed. "In and out, clean win, and then I'm done."
"And then you're done," you echoed, trying to believe it.
"And then I'm yours." He kissed you slowly, thoroughly. "Completely and totally yours."
The next evening, you found yourself back in that warehouse, back in the crowd of people betting on violence. But this time, Kai stayed by your side, a steady presence as you watched James prepare.
James found you before the fight, pulling you aside into a quiet corner.
"Hey," he said, cupping your face in his hands. "I need you to know something."
"Jamesâ"
"No, let me say this." His thumbs stroked your cheeks. "Whatever happens in there, I love you. I know it's fast, I know we're still figuring this out, but I love you. You changed my life. You made me want to be better. And after tonight, I'm going to spend every day proving that I'm worthy of you."
Tears pricked your eyes. "You don't have to prove anything."
"I want to." He kissed you, soft and sweet. "I want to be the man you see when you look at me. The one who brings you coffee and makes you laugh and supports your dreams. Not the fighter. Just... James."
"I love you too," you whispered against his lips. "So come back to me intact, okay? No broken ribs, no concussions, just a clean win and then we go home."
"Deal." One more kiss, and then Kai was calling him, and James was walking toward the ring.
The fight was everything James promised it would beâtechnical, controlled, almost beautiful in its precision. Kim Jisung was good, but James was better, and you could see years of experience in every movement, every counter, every perfectly timed strike.
It should have been easy.
But in the third round, Jisung got desperate. He threw a spinning kick that James blocked, but the momentum carried Jisung forward, and his elbow caught James in the templeânot intentional, just bad luck and worse timing.
James went down.
Your heart stopped.
The referee started counting, and you were moving before you realised it, pushing through the crowd toward the ring. Kai caught you, held you back, but you could see James on the canvas, see him struggling to orient himself.
"Get up," you whispered. "Please, James, get up."
He did. At the count of seven, James rolled to his knees, then stood. The referee checked him, and James nodded that he could continue, but you could see the glaze in his eyes, the slight sway in his stance.
He was concussed. Again.
The referee restarted the fight, and Jisung came forward cautiously, probably feeling guilty about the accidental blow. James circled, buying time for his head to clear, and you saw the moment his focus returnedâthe way his stance solidified, his eyes sharpened.
Then James did something you'd never seen him do before.
He tapped out.
Just walked to the referee and tapped his shoulder, signalling submission. The crowd went silent, confused, and then erupted in boos and shouts. Jisung looked shocked, like he couldn't believe what was happening.
But James just smiled, raised Jisung's hand in victory, and walked out of the ring.
He walked straight to you.
"I'm done," he said, pulling you into his arms despite the crowd's anger, despite Kai's shocked expression, despite everything. "I'm done fighting. I'm choosing you. I'm choosing us."
You were crying, you realised, tears streaming down your face as you held him. "You didn't have toâ"
"Yes, I did." He pulled back to look at you, and despite the concussion, his eyes were clear. "I felt that hit, and all I could think was that I promised you I'd come back intact. And I realised that winning didn't matter. My reputation didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was keeping my promise to you."
"Jamesâ"
"I love you," he said, loud enough for the people around you to hear. "I love you more than fighting, more than proving myself, more than any of this. And I'm done pretending otherwise."
You kissed him, there in the middle of the warehouse with the crowd jeering and Kai laughing in disbelief. You kissed him like he was your whole world, because in that moment, he was.
"Let's go home," you whispered against his lips.
"Yeah," James agreed, smiling. "Let's go home."
Epilogue: Two Years Later
The clinic was official now.
With James's financial backing and your medical credentials, you'd managed to get licensed as a community health centre, serving the population that fell through the cracks of the healthcare system. It was still in your apartment building, but you'd expanded into two additional units, with actual examination rooms and a small pharmacy and even a part-time nurse.
James ran the administrative side, handling insurance and billing and all the things you had no patience for. He'd also opened a gym three blocks away, training fighters in technique and discipline, teaching them that strength wasn't just about winning but about knowing when to walk away.
You were in your final year of medical school, top of your class now that you weren't running on four hours of sleep and coffee fumes. Your attending physicians praised your clinical skills and your dedication to underserved populations. You had residency interviews lined up at several prestigious programs.
Life was good. Busy, chaotic, but good.
"Hey," James said, poking his head into your officeâan actual office, with a desk and everything. "Last patient just left. You ready to go?"
You looked up from your charting and smiled. James was wearing jeans and a t-shirt from his gym, his hair slightly messy, and there wasn't a single bruise or cut on his face. He looked healthy and happy and completely at peace.
"Yeah," you said, saving your work. "Let's go."
You'd started a tradition of Friday night dinners on the rooftop of your building, watching the sun set over the city. James would cookâhe'd gotten surprisingly good at itâand you'd talk about your week, your dreams, your plans for the future.
Tonight, as you sat on the blanket James had spread out, eating pad Thai and watching the sky turn orange and pink, you felt a contentment you'd never experienced before.
"I have something for you," James said, setting down his food.
"If it's more medical supplies, I'm going to kiss you."
"It's not medical supplies." He pulled a small box from his pocket, and your heart stopped. "Before you panic, it's not what you think. Not yet, anyway. We're still young, you're still in school, and I want to do this right."
He opened the box to reveal a simple silver ring with a small stoneânot a diamond, but something blue and beautiful.
"It's a promise ring," James explained. "A promise that when you're ready, when the time is right, I'm going to ask you properly. A promise that I'm in this for the long haul. A promise that you're it for me."
You were crying again, but this time they were happy tears. "Jamesâ"
"You saved my life," he said softly, taking the ring from the box. "Not just that first night when you stitched me up, but every day since. You made me want to be better. You made me believe I could be more than just a fighter. And I want to spend the rest of my life making you as happy as you've made me."
He slipped the ring onto your right hand, and it fit perfectly.
"I love you," you said, launching yourself at him. He caught you with a laugh, holding you close as the sun set over the city. "I love you so much."
"I love you too." James kissed you, soft and sweet and full of promise. "My healer. My home."
You stayed on that rooftop until the stars came out, talking about the futureâabout residency programs and expanding the clinic and maybe, someday, a wedding. About the life you were building together, brick by brick, day by day.
It wasn't perfect. You still worked too hard, and James still had nightmares about his fighting days. You argued about money and time management and whose turn it was to do the dishes. But it was real, and it was yours, and it was worth every moment of uncertainty that had brought you here.
"Hey," James said as you were packing up to head inside. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For opening your door that night. For giving me a chance. For seeing past the fighter to the person underneath." He pulled you close, his arms around your waist. "For loving me."
"Thank you for bringing me coffee," you replied, smiling against his chest. "For making me eat real food. For showing me that it's okay to let someone take care of me too."
"Always," James promised. "For as long as you'll have me."
"Forever, then."
"Forever," he agreed.
And as you walked back inside, hand in hand, you knew that whatever challenges came nextâmedical school, residency, building your clinic, navigating life togetherâyou'd face them the same way you'd faced everything else.
Together.
A fighter and a healer, building something beautiful from broken pieces.
---
note: ngl i kinda cringed a bit while writing this but itâs okay we live. also blonde james đđđđ heâs been bias wrecking me too much recently, but im loyal to seonghyeon.
hi coerblr, i was doing my daily unemployment scroll and came across this account @/juhoon-cortys3 making explicit audios about keonho??
first of all, what the fuck. can people stop sexualising minors as if it isnât illegal? is there ANY common sense to this? just because there are idols that may be older or younger than you does not make them subject to your disgusting incel fantasies.
get a life please. touch grass. literally do anything that isnât turning a safe space for coers into your personal wet dream.
tagging some moots so we can bring a little more attention: @j4eyxn @ramenoil @lowkeonho @jjudawn @cortismoon @dreamysugarplumii @aerienchanted @yuesning @katsukisser @marsgirltyshi
itâs disgusting and disappointing that so many writers and blogs on here have already brought attention to this, yet it keeps on happening.
not putting it lightly, if you interact with predators, you are apart of the problem why everyone thinks coers are weird. one thing ill never understand is why people prey on children or barley legal adults. you see how vulnerable someone is at a young age and decided that its okay to have thoughts about them and thats sooo weird.
if you find someone whos under the age of 18 attractive (not in a weird way) and your either a few years younger or the smallest bit older, i genuinely dont find an issue. but if your over 20, as ive seen people who usually do these kind of things are, get your head out of your ass and go to therapy cause your such a fucking weirdo its unexplainable. i knoww your unemployed, smell like ass and living in your parents having to pay rent to not get kicked out and it proves how pathetic you are.
saying how your younger than them is also not an excuse and you also need help because youve clearly got issues to be thinking about how another minor would fuck you in the first place. your all mank and vile if you even think that about children, no matter your age.
ohh and if your waiting til an idol or anyones 18th birthday to write explicit content about them, just admit your a pred cause clearly your waiting for something or if you hate on the writers that make silly little fics about them rather than the one making full blown smut then your also a weirdo whats the point lmao.
if you are interacting with seonghyeon or keonho nsfw content and under 18, your just as bad dont even start all that shit with me bro. like oh my god u can find someone cute or fine without having pedophilic thoughts about them or whatever the reverse thing for younger people finding interest in old people.
and if you interact with that one author who im not gonna name because i dont want to give them more attention. your disgusting and a waste of potential and space. arousal for of age people is a normal human thing, pedophilia isnt. neither am i gonna 'stfu' and 'dont yuck no ones yum' like ive been told multiple times on tiktok lmao pathetic, im gonna yuck your yum as much as i want when your being a weirdođ€Ł
I just got a message from someone informing me about the user @/juhoon-cortys3 who's actively posting NSFW content about juhoon and seanhyeon.
I've spoken out before about creators who make this kind of sick content, and it just enrages me that new creators like this are still popping up.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: STOP SEXUALIZING MINORS. and to those saying that the 08z are "technically" of age, stop making excuses so you can justify creating sexual content about these teens who are BARELY adults.
some creators try to defend themselves by saying that they're younger than the idols or minors themselves, and I will keep on saying that your own age DOES NOT MATTER. it's the idols' ages that you are sexualizing that matter; you being a minor DOES NOT JUSTIFY YOUR ACTIONS.
stop taking advantage of these teenagers' publicity. it's like you don't realize how negatively this can affect someone so young. the amount of disrespect to just disregard them as human beings and use their public image as fuel for not just yours, but any predator's sexual desires.
THIS IS NOT FAN BEHAVIOR. it's creepy, invasive, and extremely disrespectful. it baffles me how these creators call themselves fans.
please report and block this user.
tagging some moots because what the fuck : @coconhovr @bananagirl222 @j4eyxn @lovhyeon @aerinettes @bambcie @pinkmonchichi @aless1a6 @snowselle @bpmvhs @coergene @saevss @realseanshady @cranialberry @teacuplps
speaking out because even though i have the privilege to celebrate my birthday, a very sweet and beautiful girl does not.
Mina, a japanese enhypen stan, took her life from cyberbullying and harassment from engenes.
she was not a sasaeng. she was not a toxic stan. she was a normal girl who loved enhypen, especially sunoo and niki.
Mina had two bouquets of flowers : sunflowers and roses. her intention was to give the sunflowers to sunoo so that heâd pose and give the roses to niki so that heâd pose.
sunoo picked up the roses and mina told him to give them to niki, she was ALLEGEDLY rude ( which i do not believe whatsoever )
that moment should have ended right there but niki afterwards went on live and talked about how some fans want special moments for themselves.
he did not specify who he was talking about many engenes took it as the perfect excuse to go hate on Mina even though she did nothing wrong.
first because they thought she was rude to sunoo, and then because they thought niki was mad.
Mina apologized which she had no reason to but engenes kept attacking her, harassing her, slut shaming, sending death threats, doxxing her.
the hate only grew and grew. Mina went live, crying as more hate comments were posted.
Mina took her own life.
Mina had dreams. Mina had ambitions and aspirations. Mina graduated in March with hopes of studying abroad. Mina was only 26 years old.
this is such a heartbreaking and angering moment. Mina did nothing wrong, she was simply a stan who loved enhypen.
i would like to remind any engenes who contributed to her death that you do not know any of these men. nor do they know you.
as someone who left the fandom once heeseung left, i am so fucking infuriated that so many engenes took part in bullying Mina to death.
this needs to stop. this is not the first time that misogynistic hate has killed women and it will unfortunately not be the last.
anyone who bullied her or even liked posts about bullying her, you are fucking disgusting and scum on this earth. reflect on yourself and realize that you are a horrible person.
Mina, please rest in eternal peace. you will be missed, and iâm so sorry that you were not given the love and kindness you deserve.
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SYNOPSIS :: The sight of the queen bee with the schoolâs loser was peculiar to everyone who had been witness to your constant bickering, but they donât see how he seems to be the only person you can truly be yourself with. (skater!keonho x regina!reader)
PLAYLIST :: She's kinda hot - 5sos; sk8er boi - Avril Lavigne; Cupid's chokehold - Gym Class Heroes; Dirty little secret - The All-American Rejects; Cherry waves - Deftones; Colors - Halsey
SPINOFF :: She looks so perfect (6.6k)
Keonho was currently lying on his front in your bed, the pink fluffy blanket pulled up around him like he belonged there. His head rested on his crossed arms, dark hair falling across his forehead, eyes half-lidded as he tracked you pacing back and forth across the massive room. You were on the phone, your voice clipped and sharp.
"Well, if she said that to you, she obviously doesn't care how you feel." A pause. A flurry of muffled words from the other end. "No, don't cry. Crying is what she wants. You cry, she wins."
Keonho pressed his smile into his forearm. You were wearing his hoodie. The black one with the ripped sleeve. You'd stolen it three weeks ago and hadn't given it back.
He wasn't going to ask for it.
The sight of you wrapped in his clothes while he laid on your bed was peculiar to say the least. Especially to your entire school, who had spent months watching you argue in hallways and courtyards, never realising you were toeing the line between hatred and something neither of you had a name for yet.
The first time you'd really noticed him, he almost hit you with his skateboard.
It was the second week of junior year. The leaves were turning, and you were walking across the courtyard with Hana, mid-sentence about someone's ugly backpackâ"I'm just saying, if you're going to spend four hundred dollars on a bag, at least make it look like four hundred dollars"âwhen a blur of motion came flying around the corner.
Shhk shhk shhk. Wheels on pavement. Then a body slammed into your side.
Not hard enough to knock you over. Hard enough to send your phone flying out of your hand and skidding across the concrete, face-down, the sickening crack of impact echoing off the fountain your family had donated.
"Shitâsorryâ"
You stumbled, caught yourself on Hana's arm, and whipped around.
A boy you'd never seen before was already crouched down, scooping up your phone. His skateboard had rolled several feet away, still wobbling on its side. He was wearing the school uniform, but barely. The tie was missing and the top button of his shirt was undone. His dark hair was a mess under a gray beanie, and there was a small scrape on his palm where he'd caught himself.
He stood up and held out your phone.
The screen was cracked. A spiderweb of fractures spreading from the top left corner, right through your home screen. Your perfect, carefully curated home screen.
"You broke my phone," you said. Your voice was flat and cold.Â
He looked at the screen. Then at you. Most people would have started apologising immediately, groveled, turned red, stammered, promised to pay for it, even got down on their knees if that's what it took.
He just shrugged. "It's just a screen. You can get it fixed."
Just a screen.
As if you hadn't spent hours picking out the perfect case. As if the crack didn't ruin the entire aesthetic of the phone you'd only had for three weeks. As if he hadn't just barreled into you like a human wrecking ball and then had the audacity to act like it was nothing.
"Do you have any idea who I am?" you asked.
He tilted his head, studying you with an expression that wasn't quite recognition. More like mild curiosity. The kind you'd give a mildly interesting bug on the sidewalk.
"No," he said. "Should I?"
Hana snorted behind you. You could feel her phone already out, probably recording or texting the group chat.Â
You snatched the phone from his hand, holding it up so he could see the full extent of the damage. "This is a thousand-dollar phone."
"It was a thousand dollars," he corrected. "Now it's a thousand-dollar phone with a cracked screen. Still works, probably."
"Probably."
"Did you check?"
"No, I was too busy being hit by a skateboard."
He didn't apologise and didn't even look sorry. He just walked over to his board, kicked it up into his hand with a smooth, annoyingly practiced motion, and slung it under his arm.
"You should watch where you're going," he said. "You walked straight into my path. I had the right of way."
"Right of way?" Your voice came out half an octave higher than usual. "This isn't a road. It's a courtyard. For walking. There's no such thing as right of way."
"There's always right of way. It's basic physics. Object in motion stays in motion. You were an object. I was in motion."
"You're not a physicist. You're a guy on a toy."
His jaw tightened, just a fraction. "It's not a toy."
"It's a board with wheels."
"It's transportation."
"It's a mere hobby."
"At least I have a hobby." His eyes swept over you, slow and deliberate. "What's yours? Judging people? Making lists? Seeing how many compliments you can fish for in one outfit?"
Your mouth dropped open. Actually dropped. Nobody talked to you like that. Nobody. Not the teachers, not your parents, not the other kids who whispered behind your back but smiled to your face. Nobody had the nerve.
"I don't fish for compliments," you said.
"Sure you don't." He nodded at your outfit: designer boots, perfectly pressed skirt, blazer that cost more than most people's rent. "You just dress like you're going to a brunch meeting with your publicist because it's comfortable."
"I like fashion."
"You like attention, thatâs obvious."
Hana made a small, strangled sound that was either a laugh or a gasp. You couldn't tell. You couldn't think. Your face was hot, your hands were shaking, and this absolute nobody was looking at you like you were a puzzle he'd already solved.
"My family donated that fountain," you said, pointing to the marble monstrosity in the center of the courtyard. "My name is on a plaque in the main hall. I could make one phone call and you'd never eat in this courtyard again."
He looked genuinely unimpressed. "Cool. Doesn't make you immune to the walkway."
And then he just walked away with his skateboard under his arm and his beanie pulled low. His shoulders were loose, like he didn't have a care in the world, like he hadn't just committed social suicide in front of half the junior class.
You stood there, frozen, watching him disappear around the corner.
"Who the hell was that?" Hana whispered.
"I don't know." You were gripping your cracked phone so hard your knuckles went white. "But he just declared war."
The next day, you found him in the cafeteria.
He was sitting alone at the end of a table, eating what looked like a convenience store sandwich. The same gray beanie. The same frayed hoodie under his uniform blazer. His skateboard was propped against the table leg, and he was scrolling through his phone with his free hand, completely oblivious to the fact that everyone in the room was stealing glances at him.
Or maybe he wasn't oblivious and he just didn't care.
That made you angrier than anything else.
You walked straight up to him, dropped your bag on the table with a loud thump, and planted both hands on the surface before leaning in, making sure he couldn't ignore you.
"You owe me three hundred dollars for the screen repair."
He looked up slowly, still chewing on his sandwich before he eventually swallowed.Â
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You broke it."
"You dropped it." He leaned back in his chair, completely at ease. Arms crossed. One eyebrow raised. "I bumped you. You dropped it. That's on you. Physics."
"Don't start with the physics again."
"Why not? It's a solid argument. Cause and effect. Your hand let go of the phone. My skateboard didn't even touch you. I touched you. With my body. Which is flesh and blood, not a weapon."
He shrugged and took another bite of his sandwich, chewing with his mouth open just to annoy you. You could tell but you didnât say anything, too shell shocked from someone actually biting back.
"You've been thinking about me all night, haven't you?" He said, gesturing at you with the sandwich. "Couldn't sleep. Just lying there, replaying it, getting mad all over again."
Your face heated. Because he was right. You had been up half the night, tossing around, furious at the memory of his stupid face and his stupid skateboard and the way he'd looked at you like you were nothing. Like you were just another person, instead of the person.
"I don't think about you," you lied.
"Sure you don't." He picked up his sandwich again. "That's why you tracked me down in a cafeteria with like two hundred people in it. Because you don't think about me."
"I didn't track you down. I'm eating lunch."
"You don't eat in the cafeteria. Everyone knows that. You eat in the courtyard with your friends." He nodded toward the window. "The courtyard you apparently own. The one with the fountain. Your fountain. The one your family donated."
Your nails dug into the table. "How do you know where I eat?"
He shrugged. "I notice things."
Something about the way he said it so casually made your stomach flip. A tiny, traitorous flip that you refused to acknowledge.
"Three hundred dollars," you repeated.
"Zero dollars."
"Two hundred, then."
"Still zero."
"One hundred and fifty. Final offer."
He set down his sandwich and looked at you properly for the first time. His eyes were dark and warm, with little gold flecks you hadn't noticed before, not that you cared anyways.
"You're not gonna let this go, are you?"
"Never."
He sighed theatrically and reached into his pocket. Pulled out a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. Worn soft, the edges frayed. He slid it across the table toward you.
"That's all I have. Take it or leave it."
You stared at the twenty. Then at him. Then back at the twenty.
"You're serious."
"I'm a skateboarder, not a trust fund kid. Sorry I don't have a fountain donation in my back pocket."
The jab hit exactly where he meant it to. You snatched the twenty off the table and stuffed it into your blazer pocket.
"This isn't over," you said.
"I know." He picked up his sandwich again. "See you tomorrow, fountain girl."
"It's Y/N."
"I know that too."
He smiled. Just a little. Just enough to make you want to throw something at his head.
You turned on your heel and walked away, Hana falling into step beside you, already asking a million questions you didn't have answers to.
After that, the arguments became routine.
Every day, you found a reason to cross paths with him. Every day, he had a lazy comeback that made your blood boil. Every day, you walked away angrier than before, promising yourself that tomorrow you'd ignore him completely.
And every day, you never did.
"You're obsessed with him," Hana said one afternoon, watching you scan the courtyard for the familiar gray beanie.
"I'm not obsessed, I'm just dedicated like I always am."
"No, this is something else."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You've been looking for him for ten minutes. We haven't even sat down yet."
"I'm not looking. I'm observing my environment."
Hana gave you a long, flat look. "Your environment is a courtyard full of people eating lunch. What exactly are you observing?"
You spotted him near the bike racks where heâd moved to eat lunch after your canteen run in, the same as every other day, lacing up his skate shoes, and your feet were already moving before your brain could catch up.
"Keonho!"
He looked up, and that small smile appeared. The one that made you want to scream.
"Fountain girl. Right on time."
"Don't call me that."
"Okay⊠princess." He said it under his breath, just loud enough for you to catch. Your jaw dropped.
"Princess? Did you just call me princess?"
"You heard me." He didn't even look guilty. Just went back to tying his laces, all casual, like he hadn't just committed a felony against your entire brand. "You prefer 'your highness'? Because that feels like a mouthful. Lots of syllables. I might get tired halfway through."
"I prefer my name."
"Right. Y/N." He drew out the syllables like he was tasting them. "Y/N, who crossed the entire courtyard just to yell at me about a twenty-dollar bill I already gave you. A transaction which we both agreed was final."
"That twenty dollars didn't even cover the tax on the repair."
"Not my problem."
"Everything is your problem. You're the one who hit me with your skateboard."
"You walked into me."
"I was walking. On my feet. Like a normal person."
"So was I. On my skateboard. Which is a form of transportation, last time I checked. Legally recognised. Some cities have lanes."
"Skateboards don't belong in lanes. Skateboards don't belong anywhere near people."
"They belong everywhere. That's the beauty of it. I can go anywhere. No rules or restrictions. Just me and the board and the open road."
"You sound like some lame commercial."
"You sound like you've never had fun a day in your life."
The words landed. You felt them land. Your face went hot, then cold, then hot again.
"I have plenty of fun."
"Name one fun thing you've done in the past month."
"Iâthat'sâthat's none of your business."
"That's what I thought." He stood up, grabbing his board. "No fun. Just school and social obligations and making sure everyone knows you're the most important person in the room."
"I don't have to make sure. Everyone already knows."
"Sure they do." He spun the board in his hand, a lazy, practiced motion. "That's why you're here. Talking to me. Because everyone already knows how important you are, and you're bored of it."
"I'm not bored."
"You're definitely bored. You're the most bored person I've ever met. You have everything, and you're still bored. That's kind of sad, actually."
Your heart was pounding and your hands were shaking. How on earth could he read you so easily?
"You don't know anything about me," you said quietly.
"I know you're still standing here." He tilted his head, those dark eyes boring into yours. "I know you could have walked away five minutes ago. I know you didn't. I know you won't."
"Maybe I will."
"Maybe." He shrugged. "But probably not."
He started walking, and you fell into step beside him without thinking. He noticed. Of course he noticed.
"I've been eating lunch by the bike racks for two months since you banished me from the canteen," he said. "You'd never been here once before that. Not once. Now suddenly you're here every day?"
"Maybe I wanted a change of scenery."
"Maybe you wanted a change of someone."
You stopped walking. He stopped too, a few steps ahead, looking back at you with that insufferable half-smile.
"What is that supposed to mean?" you asked.
He turned to face you fully. The courtyard was mostly empty, everyone else already inside. It was just you and him and the sound of wind through the bike racks.
"It means," he said, taking a step closer, "that you're not as complicated as you think you are. You've got your perfect life and your perfect friends and your perfect little routines, and you're bored. And I'm the only thing in this school that doesn't bore you."
"That's notâ"
"It means," he continued, like you hadn't spoken, "that you don't actually hate me. You just don't know what else to do with me."
Your heart was pounding so hard you could feel it in your throat. "And what do you want to do with me?"
The question hung between you, heavier than you'd intended. His smile faded, just slightly, and for a second he looked almost... serious. Almost vulnerable.
"I don't know yet," he said. "Guess weâll have to figure it out."
He turned and kept walking toward the side door of the science building.
"Hey, Keonho?" you called out.
He looked back.
"You still owe me a hundred and thirty dollars."
His laugh echoed across the empty courtyard. "Keep dreaming, fountain girl."
"Stop calling me that!"
"In your dreams!"
You grabbed a pebble from the ground and threw it at him. He dodged it easily, grinning, and disappeared through the door.
You stood there for a long moment, alone in the cold, your left eyebrow doing something you couldn't control.
You don't actually hate me. You just don't know what else to do with me.
The worst part was, you were starting to think he was right.
Weeks continued like that. The arguments became the best part of your day.
It was strange, admitting it to yourself. You'd spent years building a life that was supposed to make you happy: the right friends, the right clothes, the right words at the right times. You were good at it. Everyone said so. You had everything anyone could want.
But nothing had ever made your heart race like stepping into the courtyard and spotting that gray beanie.
Some days you found him at the bike racks. Some days near the vending machines. Some days you'd round a corner and there he'd be, like he'd been waiting, like he knew you were coming before you did.
"You're late, princess,â he said one Tuesday, not looking up from his phone.
"I'm not late. Class ran over."
"Excuses."
"It's not an excuse. It's an explanation."
"Same thing."
"It's really not."
He looked up then, and that small smile was there. The one that made your stomach flip.
"You always have to have the last word, don't you?"
"Obviously."
"So do I."
"Then we have a problem."
"We've always had a problem." He pocketed his phone and leaned back against the bike rack, arms crossed. "That's kind of our whole thing."
You hated how easily he said it. Our whole thing. Like there was an us to have a thing.
"There is no our," you said.
"Sure there isn't." He tilted his head, eyes glinting. "That's why you're here. Every day. Like clockwork."
"I'm here because the courtyard is crowded."
"The courtyard is always crowded. You've been eating there for two years. You never left before."
Your jaw tightened. "Maybe I wanted a change."
"Maybe you wanted me."
Your heart stopped. Then restarted at double speed. "That'sâyou'reâno."
He laughed. Actually laughed, his whole face lighting up in a way you'd never seen before. It was annoyingly beautiful. His nose crinkled and his eyes disappeared into crescents. He looked like a completely different person.
"Your face is so red right now," he said.
"It is not."
"It's the color of your bag."
You looked down at your pink designer handbag. You wanted to throw it at him.
"I hate you," you said.
"No you don't."
"Yes I do."
"Then why are you still here?"
You opened your mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
Nothing came out.
He seemed to be the only person able to leave you speechless
The turning point was February. Valentine's Day, actually, which made it worse.
You'd been crying in the greenhouse behind the science wing. Not because you were sad, exactly. Because your mother had called and she'd reminded you, in that sweet, sharp voice she used when she was disappointed, that your "little art hobby"â the one thing you actually cared about, that made you feel like a real person instead of a performanceâwas "lovely but impractical." That you should probably focus on something that would "actually matter" in college applications. That there were expectations.
You'd thought you were alone.
You hadn't been.
Keonho was sitting in the corner, behind a rack of potted ferns, eating a granola bar. He had his beanie pulled low and his knees drawn up. He'd clearly been there first. Maybe he'd been there for a while.
"Go away," you said, your voice thick.
He didn't move. "No."
"I said go away, Keonho."
"And I said no." He took another bite of his granola bar, chewing slowly. "You're not gonna throw things at me, are you? Because you have scary good aim and I'm not trying to catch a rock with my face."
You stared at him, tears still wet on your cheeks, too exhausted to even be properly angry. "Why are you like this?"
"Like what?"
"Like you don't care about anything."
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "I care about stuff. I just don't care about the stuff you're supposed to care about."
Something about that, the simplicity of it, the way he said it like it was obvious, made something crack inside you.
You sat down on the dirty greenhouse floor. Right across from him. And you cried for real. Not pretty tears. The ugly ones that left your face blotchy and your nose running and every single wall you'd ever built crumbling into dust.
He didn't say anything. Didn't try to comfort you with empty words. He just handed you a crumpled napkin from his pocket and waited.
When you'd finally stopped, you looked at him with red-rimmed eyes and said, "If you tell anyone about this, I will end you."
"I know," he said. And then, so quietly you almost missed it: "I won't."
You sat there for a long time in silence. The greenhouse was warm and smelled like dirt and flowers, the ferns cast dancing shadows on the floor. Eventually you pushed yourself up, walking away without looking back.
After that, the hatred started to feel different.
Like a game neither of you were really playing anymore, but neither of you knew how to stop. The insults got softer. The fights got shorter. You found yourself seeking him out in crowds, just to see what he was doing, just to make sure he was still there.
"I think he likes you," Hana said one afternoon, and you laughed so hard you choked.
"He doesn't like me. He's messing with me."
"Thatâs the same thing sometimes."
It wasn't the same thing. It couldn't be. Because you didn't do boys like Keonho. You did boys with trust funds and family names and futures already planned out. Boys who understood the rules and played by them. Boys who would never dream of sitting on a dirty greenhouse floor or eating convenience store sandwiches or looking at you like they could see every single crack in your armour.
You didn't do boys who made you feel seen.
But maybe that was exactly the problem.
"Judging me again, princess?"
He was sat under the bleachers, back against the chain-link fence, knees drawn up with his skateboard across his lap. The afternoon light filtered through the metal slats, casting stripes of gold and shadow across his face. His beanie was crooked, his uniform shirt untucked, and he was looking up at you like you were exactly who he'd been waiting for.
You stood in front of him with your arms crossed, heels sinking slightly into the dirt. "I'm not judging. I'm wondering how you haven't been expelled yet."
"Charming."
"I'm serious. You don't do the work. You don't follow the rules. You show up late every single day. What's the point of even being here?"
He set his skateboard aside and leaned back on his hands, tilting his face up toward you. "Free wifi. Heated building. Sometimes they hand out granola bars in the front office."
"That's not funny."
"Wasn't trying to be funny. Was trying to be honest." He shrugged. "You should try it sometime."
"I'm always honest."
"No you're not." His voice was flat. Certain. "You've never had an honest conversation in your life. You just say whatever keeps you on top."
Your jaw tightened. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know you fake-laugh when your friends make jokes that aren't funny, which is all the time. I know you wait until everyone's looking before you do anything nice. I know you've never apologised to anyone for anything, ever, because that would mean admitting you were wrong." He tilted his head. "Should I keep going?"
"You don't know me."
"I know you better than your friends do."
"Stop."
"Why? Because I'm right?"
"Because you're insufferable." Your voice was rising now. You could feel the heat climbing up your neck, the tightness in your chest. "You think you're so smart. You think you've got everyone figured out. But you're just a guy with a skateboard and a chip on his shoulder who can't even affordâ"
You stopped yourself. The words hung in the air, half-finished.
He stood up slowly. Brushed the dirt off his pants. His face had gone very still.
"Can't even afford what?" His voice was quiet. Too quiet.
"Nothing."
"No, go ahead. You were saying something. Don't stop now."
"Keonhoâ"
"Can't even afford what, Y/N?" He stepped closer. "New shoes? A car that isn't fifteen years old? Lunch that didn't come from a gas station? What was it? What were you about to say?"
You took a step back. Your heel caught on a rock. You stumbled, caught yourself, and hated him for making you stumble.
"I wasn't going to say anything."
"You were. You always are. That's your whole thing." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "You walk around this school like everyone beneath you is a bug you might step on. You think I don't notice? You think I don't see the way you look at me?"
"How do I look at you?"
"Like I'm dirt." He jabbed a finger toward his own chest. "Like I'm something you stepped in and can't scrape off your shoe. And you know what? Fine. I don't care. I've been looked at like that my whole life. By people richer than you. By people meaner than you. By people who actually had a reason."
"I have a reason."
"What reason? Because I bumped into you one time? Because I didn't fall on my knees and beg for forgiveness when your precious phone cracked?"
"You called me fountain girl."
"And youâve called me poor."
You flinched. He saw it. His eyes narrowed.
"I didn't meanâ"
"Youâve meant every word. That's what kills me. You're not even pretending to be sorry. You just stand there with your arms crossed and your perfect hair and your perfect shoes and you look at me like I'm the problem."
"You are the problem!"
"How? How am I the problem, Y/N? Because I don't bow down to you? Because I don't laugh at your jokes? Because I won't pretend you're something you're not?"
"Because you won't just leave me alone!"
The words tore out of you. Loud and raw, echoing off the metal bleachers above.
He stopped. Blinked.
"You heard me," you said, your voice shaking now. "You won't leave me alone. You're everywhere. The bike racks. The vending machines. The greenhouse. Every time I turn around, there you are, with your stupid beanie and your stupid skateboard and your stupid eyes."
"So now I'm the problem because I exist?"
"Yes! No! I don'tâ" You pressed your hands to your face, breathed in, breathed out. "I don't know what I'm saying."
"Yes you do. You're saying you can't stop thinking about me."
Your hands dropped. "That is not what I'm saying."
"That's exactly what you're saying. You're just too proud to admit it."
"I am notâ"
"You are. You're standing under a set of bleachers with me instead of eating lunch with your friends. You're shouting at me instead of ignoring me like you ignore everyone else. You're here, Y/N. You've always been here. You just don't want to admit why."
"Don't tell me what I want."
"Then tell me yourself. What do you want?"
You opened your mouth. Closed it. Your heart was pounding so hard you could feel it in your temples.
"Nothing," you said.
"Liar."
"I want you to stop."
"Stop what?"
"Stop making me feel likeâlikeâ" Your voice cracked. You hated that it cracked. You hated him for making it crack. "Like I'm not allowed to just dislike you. Like I have to have a reason. Like I have to justify it."
"You don't have to justify anything. You just have to admit it's not dislike."
"It is dislike."
"It's not." He stepped closer. "You don't seek out people you dislike. You avoid them. You destroy them. You don't show up to them every single day with your arms crossed and your face flushed likeâ"
"My face is not flushed."
"Your face is so flushed right now." He laughed. Not the mean laugh from before. Something almost... fond.
You stood there, frozen, your arms still crossed, your heart still pounding, your face definitely still flushed. He was too close. He'd been too close for months. Too close in the hallways, too close in the greenhouse, too close in every argument that had somehow become the best part of your day.
"I hate you," you said.
"No you don't."
"Yes I do."
"Then why are you still here?"
The question hung between you. Heavy. Electric. Inevitable.
"Becauseâ" You stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "Because I don't know what to do when I'm not here."
His expression shifted. The teasing faded. Something else took its place: something softer, something almost tender.
"Y/Nâ"
"Don't." You held up a hand. "Don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
"Like you care."
"Maybe I do."
"Well, stop. People don't care about me. They're afraid of me. Thatâs how itâs supposed to be."
"Maybe," he agreed quietly. "But I'm not afraid of you."
"You should be."
"I'm not."
"Then you're stupid."
"Maybe." He shrugged. "Or maybe I just see something everyone else is too scared to look at."
Your throat was tight. Your eyes were burning. You weren't going to cry. You weren't. You'd cried in front of him once and you'd sworn you'd never do it again.
"What do you see?" The words came out smaller than you wanted. Quieter.
He stepped close enough to the point that you could smell him: cold air and soap and something warm underneath.
"I see someone who's exhausted," he said. "Someone who's been performing for so long she forgot there was a person underneath. Someone who's smart and talented and so terrified of being ordinary that she'd rather be hated than ignored."
"You're wrong."
"Am I?"
"Yes."
"Then tell me what I'm missing. Tell me what I'm saying wrong. Tell me you don't lie awake at night wondering what it would be like to just stop."
"Stop what?"
"Stop performing. Stop pretending. Stop being the person everyone expects you to be." His voice dropped. "Tell me you've never looked at me and thought about being free."
Your breath caught.
"I've seen you," he continued, quieter now. "In the art room. When you think no one's watching. You make things; real things, messy things, things that aren't for anyone but you. That's who you are. That's who you could be all the time if you weren't so busy being who everyone else wants you to be."
"You don't know anything about my art."
"I know you're good at it. I know you care about it more than anything else in your life. I know you'd rather be in that room than anywhere else in the world."
"Stop."
"And I know," he said, stepping even closer, "that you feel more alive arguing with me than you do with anyone else."
"Stop."
"Why? Because I'm right?"
"Because you'reâbecause you can't justâbecauseâ" Your voice was rising again, cracking again, falling apart in your hands. "Because you don't get to stand there and see me like that. Because no one sees me like that. Because if you see me like that, then I have to be real, and I don't know how to be real, I only know how to be herâ"
"Then stop being her."
"I can'tâ"
"Yes you can." He grabbed your arms, not hard, just firm enough to stop you from pacing, from running, from falling apart completely. "You can. You just don't want to."
"I don't know how."
"Then let me help you."
"You can't help me. You're just a guy with a skateboard. You don't have a plan. You don't have a future. You don't have anything."
The words landed like stones. Heavy and unforgivable.
His hands dropped from your arms. His face went blank.
"Wow," he said quietly. "Okay."
"Keonhoâ"
"No, you're right. I don't have anything. I don't have a trust fund. I don't have a fountain with my name on it. I don't have a future planned out for me by people who care more about appearances than they care about me."
"That's not what I meantâ"
"It's exactly what you meant." He stepped back. "It's what you always mean. You just said it out loud this time."
"I didn'tâI was angryâ"
"You're always angry. That's not an excuse."
"I know, I justâ"
"You just what? You just wanted to hurt me? Congratulations. You did." He ran a hand over his beanie, hair poking out at the ends. "You always do. And I always let you. Because some part of me thought maybe underneath all the armour there was someone worth waiting for."
Your heart stopped.
"But maybe I was wrong," he said. "Maybe there's no one underneath at all. Maybe you're just the armour."
"That's notâ"
"Then prove it." His voice cracked on the last word. "Prove me wrong. Show me there's someone in there. Just once. Just for a second. Please."
That broke something in you.
You didn't think. You just moved.
You grabbed the front of his stupid, frayed, too-big shirt,and yanked him down. The fabric bunched in your fists, pulling him off balance, forcing him to stumble forward into your space as you twisted awkwardly. His hands shot out instinctively, bracing against the chain-link fence on either side of you, caging you in without meaning to.
And then your mouth was on his.
It wasn't gentle or soft. It was months of frustration and confusion and the unbearable weight of being seen finally cracking open. You kissed him like you were trying to win an argument. Like you were trying to prove a point. Like you were trying to shove every word you'd never said directly into his lungs and make him breathe them.
Your lips crashed against his, off-center at first, your nose bumping his jaw before you corrected course. You didn't care. You couldn't care. Your fingers were still twisted in his shirt, knuckles pressed against his collarbone, and you were pulling him closer even as you were kissing him harder.
His lips were warm and softer than you expected for a boy who spent his afternoons falling off skateboards. The contrast sent something sharp and electric down your spine.
For a single, suspended second, he was frozen. Completely, utterly frozen. His body went rigid against yours, his hands still pressed flat to the fence, his lips parted but unresponsive beneath yours. You could feel his breath: caught somewhere between an inhale and an exhale, trapped in his throat like he'd forgotten how to let it out.
Then something shifted.
His hands uncurled from the fence. His fingers found your waist, the touch light at first, almost questioning, as if he was waiting for you to shove him away.
You didn't.
You kissed him harder.Â
His lips finallymoved against yours. Slowly at first, like he was waking up from a long sleep. He tilted his head, adjusting the angle, and suddenly the kiss fit differently: better, deeper.Â
Your fingers loosened in his shirt, then tightened again, pulling him closer until there was no space left between you. His chest pressed against yours, firm and solid. His heart was poundingâyou could feel it, or maybe that was your own heart, maybe they'd synced up somewhere in the chaos of the kiss. You couldn't tell anymore.
His hand slid from your waist to the small of your back, fingers splaying wide, pressing you into him. The other hand came up to your jaw, his thumb brushing along your cheekbone, tilting your face up to meet his more fully. He kissed you deeper now, with more confidence, like he'd finally caught up to what was happening and was making up for lost time.
Your head was spinning. Your lungs were burning. You couldn't remember how to breathe through your nose, and you didn't care, because pulling away meant stopping, and stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant admitting what you'd just done.
So you didn't stop.
You kissed him until your lips were numb. You kissed him until his thumb was tracing patterns on your jaw and his other hand was pressed flat against your spine and the chain-link fence was digging into his knuckles and neither of you cared. You kissed him like you were trying to crawl inside his skin, like you were trying to prove that you were more than armour, like you were trying to make him understand something you didn't have words for.
And then, finally, you pulled back.
Your hands uncurled from his shirt. The fabric was wrinkled now, permanently creased where your fists had been. You sideways, one step, then two, putting distance between you. Your heels sank into the dirt. Your chest was heaving. Your lips were swollen and wet and tingling.
You crossed your arms. Locked your knees. Lifted your chin.
And you looked at him with the most neutral expression you could muster.
"You talk too much."
Keonho was still standing before the fence. His hands were braced where you had left them, fingers curled around the chain-link like he needed it to stay upright. His beanie had slipped sideways, and a strand of dark hair had fallen across his forehead, and his lips were parted, pinker than before, slightly swollen.
He looked like someone had reached into his chest, rearranged his organs, and forgotten to put them back in the right order.
"Youâ" His voice came out rough. Cracked. He stopped, swallowed, and tried again, turning to face you fully. "You justâ"
"I just what?"
"You kissed me."
"Did I?" You tilted your head, fighting the smile threatening to break across your face.Â
He blinked. Once, then twice. His hands dropped from the fence, and he ran one of them over his mouth, fingers pressing against his lower lip like he was checking to make sure it was still there.
"I'mâyou can't justâ" He stopped. Ran his hand through his hair, dislodging his beanie entirely. It fell to the ground. He didn't pick it up. "You can't just kiss someone and then act likeâlike thatâ"
"Like what?"
"Like you didn't just short-circuit my entire brain."
You shrugged. One shoulder. Casual. Like your whole world hadn't just flipped upside down, and your lips weren't still buzzing, and your heart wasn't threatening to beat its way out of your ribcage.
"Maybe you should stop talking so much," you said. "I warned you."
"You didn't warn me about anythingâ"
"I've been warning you for months."
He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
And then something shifted in his expression, the shock faded, the confusion cleared, something else took its place.
"You think you're funny," he said slowly.
"I think I'm hilarious."
He was at a loss for words and you watched him struggle, try to reach for words that weren't there, his hands flexing at his sides as if he was trying to physically grasp a sentence and failing. His chest was still rising and falling too fast. His lips were still parted. His eyes kept darting from your eyes to your mouth and back again, like he couldn't decide which one to focus on.
"You're staring," you said.
"I'm not staring. I'm... processing."
"Process faster. You're making it weird."
"I'm making it weird?" He let out a short, incredulous laugh. "You justâyou just kissed me. Out of nowhere. In the middle of an argument. While I was begging you to be real with me for one second. And now you're standing there like you didn't justâlike you didn'tâ" He gestured vaguely at the space between you, at his mouth, at the air itself. "Like you didn't just do that."
"What do you want me to do? Apologise?"
"I want you to acknowledge it!"
"I acknowledged it. I kissed you. You were there. You felt it."
"That's notâthat's not acknowledging it, that's just doing itâ"
"Same thing."
"It's really not!"
"It really is."
There was a beat of silence. He stared at you and you stared back. The afternoon light shifted, stripes of gold sliding across his face, catching the flush on his cheekbones.
The wind picked up, rattling the chain-link fence beside him. Somewhere in the distance, a door slammed. The world was still moving, still spinning, still completely unaware that yours had just cracked open and rearranged itself into something you didn't recognise.
Keonho bent down and picked up his beanie. He didn't put it back on. Just held it in his hands, twisting the fabric, avoiding your eyes.
"Why did you do it?" he asked quietly.
"Do what?"
"Kiss me."
"You asked me to prove you wrong."
"That's notâ" He let out a breath, slow and shaky. "That's not a reason."
"Sure it is."
"No, it's not. It's an impulse. It's a reaction. It's not a reason." He looked up at you then, and his eyes were different: softer, almost vulnerable, stripped of the emotionless facade he usually wore. "I've been asking you for months. Months. To just be honest with me for five seconds. And you finally do something real, and I just... I need to know why. It wasnât just because you were trying to win an argument or to shut me up, you know that. Just tell me why."
Your throat tightened.
You could lie. You were good at lying. You'd been lying your whole life, to everyone, about everything. You could tell him it meant nothing, and you were just frustrated. You could tell him a hundred different things that would make this easier, simpler, less terrifying.
But he was looking at you like he could see every crack and he'd been waiting inside one of them for months just hoping you'd eventually climb down to meet him.
"Because I couldn't not," you said.
His brow furrowed. "What?"
"I couldn't not do it." Your voice was quieter now, stripped of its usual sharpness. "You were standing there, and you were saying all those things, and you were looking at me like⊠like you actually wanted to see me." You paused, swallowed, forced yourself to continue. "And I thought about walking away. I thought about saying something mean. I thought about every single thing I usually do to keep people at a distance. And then I thoughtâwhat if I just... didn't. For once. What if I just did what I actually wanted to do instead of what I was supposed to do."
"And what did you actually want to do?"
You met his eyes. Held his gaze. Let him see.
"I wanted to kiss you," you said. "I've wanted to kiss you for weeks. Maybe longer. I don't know. I wasnât keeping track."
The confession hung in the air between you, fragile and enormous.
Keonho didn't move. Didn't speak. His hands had stopped twisting his beanie. His eyes were locked on yours, wide and dark and unreadable.
"You're not joking," he said finally.
"No."
"You're not trying to mess with me."
"No."
"You actuallyâ" He stopped, swallowed, then started again. "You actually wantâ"
"Don't make me say it again."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm not good at this. I'm not good at being real. You know that. Iâve never known how to be anything other than what Iâve always been at this stupid school."
"And now?"
You looked down at your hands. They were shaking. You curled them into fists, then uncurled them, then curled them again.
"Now I don't know what I am," you admitted. "But I know I'm still standing here with you and I'm not running away."
He took a step closer and his beanie dropped to the ground again, forgotten.
"You're really bad at this," he said softly.
"I know."
"The whole vulnerability thing. You're terrible at it."
"I know."
"It's kind of endearing, actually."
"Keonho."
"Y/N." He stopped in front of you, close enough that you could see the individual lashes framing his eyes, the small scar on his chin, the way his lips were still slightly swollen from your mouth. "You kissed me."
"I'm aware."
"You said you've wanted to for weeks."
"I'm aware of that too."
"And now you're standing here, shaking, looking at me like you're about to either kiss me again or throw up."
"Iâm not throwing upâ"
"So kiss me again."
Your heart stopped.
"What?"
"You heard me." His voice was low, steady, certain. "You kissed me to prove a point. Now kiss me because you want to. No argument. Just you and me."
You looked at him and saw it all: the mess of his hair from his hand running through it too much, the frayed shirt collar, the dark eyes that had been seeing you for months when no one else bothered to look.
"You're annoying," you finally whispered.
"I know."
"You're insufferable."
"I know."
"You'reâ"
He kissed you to shut you up and it was nothing like the first kiss.
His fingers slid into your hair at the nape of your neck, not pulling, just there, a warm weight against your scalp. His other hand found your waist again, palm spanned the curve of your side like he was memorising the shape of it. His thumbs pressed lightly into the fabric of your shirt, and you could feel each individual fingertip through the thin material.
He kissed you like he had all the time in the world.
Where your mouth had been frantic and desperate against his, his was deliberate. Measured. His lips moved over yours slowly, like he was learning you from the start, like he was tracing the outline of something he'd been waiting to touch for months. He started at the center, pressing his mouth to the seam of your lips, then tilted his head and tried again from a different angle. And again. And again. Each kiss was a question. Each press of his lips was a sentence he didn't need words for.
Your hands, which had been hanging uselessly at your sides, found their way to his chest. Not pushing him away, nor pulling him closer. Just resting there, palms flat against the worn cotton of his shirt, feeling his heartbeat under your fingers. It was fast, much faster than his movements suggested. The contrast made something in your chest tighten.
He pulled back just far enough to breathe, his forehead still pressed to yours. His eyes were still closed. His lips were parted, slightly swollen, and you could feel his breath warm against your mouth.
You stayed like that for a moment, his thumb still tracing small circles on your waist and his fingers still tangled in your hair. The world under the bleachers had gone completely silent, like even the wind was holding its breath.
Then he kissed you again.
This time, his mouth was softer. He brushed his lips over yours once, feather-light, then again, then a third time, each touch gentler than the last. It was as though he was asking permission for something he'd already been given and he couldn't quite believe you were still there.
When he finally pulled back, after many more minutes, his eyes were open and he was watching you like you were something precious and breakable and he was terrified of dropping you.
His thumb came up to brush across your lower lip, where his had just been. The touch was so light it was almost not there.
"Say something," he whispered.
You couldn't. Your voice was gone, lost somewhere in your throat, buried under the weight of everything you'd just felt.
So instead, you pulled him down by his shirt again. And you kissed him.
Slower and far more certain this time.
His mouth met yours halfway. His hand cradled the back of your head. His body pressed against yours from chest to hip, and you could feel the warmth of him through both your shirts, solid and real and there.
You kissed him until your lips were numb and your lungs were burning and you couldn't tell where you ended and he began.
And that was the start of whatever was going on between the two of you.
Neither of you named it. Not that day under the bleachers, not in the weeks that followed, not even when you found yourself seeking him out between classes or staying late after school just to walk with him. There was no conversation about what you were, no labels, no promises. Just the quiet, unspoken understanding that something had shifted, and neither of you knew what to do with it.
The arguments didn't stop. If anything, they got worse.
Because you were still you: sharp-tongued and quick to deflect, armoured in expensive clothes and sharper smiles. And he was still him: infuriating and observant, unwilling to let you hide behind your walls now that he'd seen what was underneath. You'd crack open for him once and now he expected cracks all the time. Expected you to be soft. Expected you to be real.
And you couldn't. Not when the hallways were full of eyes and the courtyard was full of whispers and your whole life was a performance you'd been rehearsing since birth.
So you fought. Loudly and publicly. You called him a burnout to his face in front of the vending machines. He called you a robot in front of the bike racks. You told him he had no future ahead. He told you your designer bag cost more than his mom's rent and what did that say about you, really?
People stared. People whispered. People placed bets on when one of you would finally snap.
What they didn't see was what happened after.
The way you'd find him behind the gym twenty minutes later, breathless from running, your hands shaking as you grabbed his shirt. The way he'd already be waiting, like he knew you'd come, like he'd been counting on it. The way he'd pull you into the shadow of the building and kiss you like the argument had never happenedâor like it had, and this was the only way to finish it.
"You're late," he'd murmur against your mouth.
"I hate you," you'd breathe back.
"Sure you do."
And then you'd kiss properly, desperate and hungry, your fingers twisting in his frayed collar, his hands pressing into your waist. You'd stay there until the bell rang, until the world demanded you return to your separate lives, until you could compose your face into something that didn't look like a girl who'd just been kissed within an inch of her sanity.
Then you'd walk back to class. Straighten your skirt. Lift your chin. And pretend nothing had happened.
People noticed, though. How could they not?
You'd always been careful; meticulous, even. You knew where every camera was, where every teacher stood during passing periods, which stairwells stayed empty and which bathrooms had broken locks. You'd spent years cultivating your image, protecting your reputation, making sure no one ever saw anything you didn't want them to see.
But Keonho made you sloppy.
It started small. A hallway glance that lasted a second too long. A pause by the bike racks when you should have kept walking. The way your eyes shone when they tracked him across the courtyard, following the gray beanie like a compass pointing north.
Hana noticed first, because Hana noticed everything.
"You keep looking at him weird," she said one day at lunch, not even bothering to phrase it as a question.
"I'm not looking at him weird."
"Y/n, you literally look at him like heâs the answer to everything."
"Iâm looking at him the same as Iâve always done."
Hana stared at you. You stared at your salad.
"You're seeing him, aren't you?" she said quietly. "Like, seeing him seeing him."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Y/N."
"Hana."
She leaned closer, dropping her voice. "I saw you. Last week. Behind the science building."
Your heart stopped and your face went cold. "You saw what?"
"Nothing. I didn't see anything. That's the point." She paused. "But I saw you go behind the science building. And I saw him go behind the science building. And then you both came out five minutes later looking likeâ" She gestured at your face. "Like that."
"Like what?"
"Like someone who just got kissed and is trying really hard to pretend she didn't."
You set down your fork very carefully.
"You didn't see anything," you said.
"I know."
"Because there's nothing to see."
"I know."
"And if you tell anyoneâ"
"I won't." Hana held up her hands. "I'm not an idiot. I'm just... surprised."
"At what?"
"That you picked him." She glanced across the courtyard, where Keonho was sitting alone by the bike racks, eating his usual gas station sandwich. "I mean, he's cute. In a scruffy way. But he's not exactly... you know."
"Not exactly what?"
"Your type."
You looked down at your salad. At your perfectly manicured nails. At the designer bag hanging off the back of your chair.
"Maybe I don't have a type," you said.
Hana didn't respond. She didn't have to. Her silence said everything.
After that, you tried to be more careful.
You stopped seeking him out between classes, started taking different routes to the vending machines, sat with your back to the bike racks so you wouldn't be tempted to look.
It lasted three days.
On the fourth day, you found yourself behind the art building at 3:15, your back against the brick wall, his body pressed against yours, his mouth locked on yours.
"We have to stop," you whispered, even as your fingers tightened in his hair.
"I know," he murmured against your lips.
"We're being stupid."
"The stupidest."
"Someone's going to see."
He pulled back just enough to look at you with slightly swollen lips.
"Then stop me," he said.
You didn't.
You kissed him instead. Harder than before. As though you were trying to memorise the shape of his mouth, the taste of his breath, the way his hands felt on your waist.
And you were terrified of how much you didn't want to stop.
The first time anyone properly saw you alone together was behind the bleachers.
Someone's little brother was looking for a lost phone and he found you instead.
You were sitting with your back against the fence. Keonho was lying with his head in your lap, eyes closed, your fingers absently running through his hair. Neither of you was talking. Neither of you was fighting. You just... existed.
His hair was softer than you expected. His breathing had evened out until you weren't sure if he was awake or asleep. The late afternoon sun made everything gold and warm and stupidly cinematic.
You should have moved. The moment you heard footsteps crunching on the gravel, you should have shoved him off and stood up and smoothed down your skirt and pretended this never happened. The old you would have sensed someone coming from a hundred yards away. The old you was always watching, always calculating, always performing.
But the old you hadn't spent the last hour with her fingers in Keonho's hair, watching the clouds drift past, feeling something in her chest unfurl like a flower she'd forgotten she'd planted.
You looked up. The kid was standing at the edge of the bleachers, frozen mid-step. His mouth was open. His phone was in his hand, must have found it, and you realised with a sinking feeling that he'd been taking pictures. Or filming. Or both.
You didn't say anything. Neither did he. For one long, suspended second, the three of you existed in perfect, terrible stillness: you with your hands still in Keonho's hair, Keonho still half-asleep and oblivious, the kid staring like he'd just witnessed a unicorn.
Then the kid turned and ran.
His footsteps echoed off the floor, fast and frantic, disappearing around the corner.Â
Keonho stirred. His eyes fluttered open, squinting against the light. "What was that?"
"Nothing."
"Sounded like someone running."
"It was nothing." You pulled your hand out of his hair and your fingers felt cold without him. "We should go."
He sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes, his hair sticking up in a dozen different directions. He looked at your face and something in his expression shifted.
"Someone saw us," he said. Not a question.
"Someone's little brother."
"Did heâ"
"He had a phone."
Keonho was quiet for a moment. Then he leaned back on his hands and tilted his face toward the sky.
"Well," he said. "That's that, then."
"What do you mean, that's that?"
"I mean people are going to talk. Your friends are going to freak out. The whole school's going to know by tomorrow morning." He looked at you sideways. "You okay with that?"
You should have said no. You should have stood up and walked away and never looked back. You should have spent the rest of the week damage-controlling, spin-doctoring, finding ways to convince everyone that what they'd seen wasn't what they thought.
Instead you said, "I don't know."
Keonho nodded and didn't push any further.
"Come on," he said, standing up and offering you his hand. "I'll walk you to your car."
You took his hand and let him pull you to your feet, your fingers lingering in his for a moment longer than necessary.
"Your hair's a mess," you said.
"You're the one who did it."
"You shouldn't have fallen asleep on me."
"You shouldn't have been playing with my hair."
You took a good look at him: his crooked smile and his tired eyes and his stupid, beautiful, infuriating face.
âYour hair was too soft for me to stop," you said quietly.
His smile softened and he squeezed your hand once before letting go.
"Come on, fountain girl. Let's go cause some rumors."
The school lost its collective mind.
The photos spread like wildfire, your friends asked countless questions on if you were really dating him of all people.
Hana seemed to be the only one capable of at least showing a bit of support, in her own way of course.
"Okay, I don't understand it and I think you're making a mistake and I think you're going to get hurt." She reached to take your hand. "But you're my best friend. And if this is what you want then I'm not going to stand in your way."
"He's notâI don'tâ" You stopped. Took a breath. "I don't know what I want. I just know I'm tired of pretending I have it all figured out."
Hana squeezed your hand. "Then stop pretending."
You looked down at your joined hands and saw her perfectly manicured nails next to yours.Â
"I don't know how," you admitted.
"Figure it out." She let go of your hand. Leaned back in her chair. "But do me a favor?"
"What?
"Next time you're going to make out with the skateboard boy behind the bleachers, maybe pick a spot without a line of sight to the school."
Your face went hot. "We weren't making outâ"
"Your lips in those photos say otherwise."
"The photos werenât taken after weâhe was sleepingâ"
"Sure he was."
âHe was! His head was in my lap and he fell asleep and he I was just playingââ
âUh huh.â
"Hana."
"Y/N." She smiled a real smile, the first one you'd seen from her all day. "I'm teasing. Mostly. But seriously. If you're going to be with him, be with him. Don't sneak around, or lie, or pretend he's something you're ashamed of."
"I'm not ashamed of him."
"Then don't act like you are."
And from then on, you didnât hide. You stopped crossing to the other side of the hallway when you saw him coming. Stopped pretending not to know where he ate lunch. Stopped taking the long way to class just to avoid being seen walking next to him.
Everyone now knew that you two were a thing of some sorts, and maybe it was better that they all knew. The secrecy had been exhausting. The sneaking around, the lying by omission, the constant fear of being caught; it had been eating at you, wearing you down, making you someone you didn't want to be.
Now there was nothing to hide.
You no longer had to explain why youâd stopped driving to school just to be able to walk with him, his skateboard rolling beside you, his hand occasionally brushing yours and your shoulders bumping as you talked. Or the new scratches on your knees, the scuffs on your formerly pristine shoes, the tiny bruise on your palm from catching yourself when you fell from Keonho attempting to teach you to ride his skateboard.
"You're doing it wrong," he said one afternoon, watching you wobble across the parking lot after school.
"I'm doing it exactly the way you showed me."
"You're doing it exactly the way I told you not to."
"You told me to not lean back, so I'm leaning forward."
"Don't do that either." He ran his free hand through his hair, the other reaching up to grab your arm, steadying you before you could tip over. His fingers wrapped around your bicep firmly, keeping you upright. "Leaning forward is just as bad as leaning back. Actually, it's worse. When you lean forward, the board shoots out from under you and you land on your face."
"I'd rather land on my face than on my back because Iâll catch myself before I hit the ground."
"That's the stupidest thing you've ever said."
"I've said stupider things."
"Name one."
"I told Mina her new haircut looked good."
He stared at you. "That's not stupid. That's just mean."
"It was stupid and mean. Her haircut was terrible."
He adjusted his grip on your arm, his thumb pressing into the inside of your elbow. "Okay. Listen. Actually listen this time."
"I always listen."
"You listen to argue, not learn."
"I don't know what that means."
"Yes you do."
"Stop talking."
"Stop proving me right." He stepped around to face you, both hands on your arms now, looking down at you with that exasperated expression you'd grown weirdly fond of. "Keep your weight centered. Right over the board. Imagine there's a string pulling you up from the top of your head."
"That's the worst visualisation I've ever heard."
"It works."
"It works for you because you're weird."
"I'm not weird. I'm effective."
"You're weird and ineffective."
"I taught myself to skateboard when I was twelve. I think I know what I'm talking about."
"You taught yourself. That explains why you're such a bad teacher."
"I'm not a bad teacher. You're a bad student."
"I'm an excellent student. I get straight A's."
"In history. This isn't history. This is physics."
"It's a board with wheels, Keonho. It's not that deep."
"It's literally that deep. Center of gravity, momentum, weight distributionâ"
"You're using big words to sound smart."
"I'm using big words because they're the right words."
"The right words are 'stand still and don't fall.'"
"The right words are 'engage your core and relax your shoulders.'"
"My core is engaged. My shoulders are relaxed."
"Your shoulders are up by your ears."
"No they arenât."
"Princess, they're literally trying to escape through your neck right now."
You glanced down at your shoulders. They were, in fact, up by your ears. You forced them down. "Happy?"
"Ecstatic."
"Don't be sarcastic."
"I'm not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely ecstatic that your shoulders are no longer trying to flee your body."
"You're so annoying."
"You're so tense."
"I'm not tense. I'm focused."
"You're so focused that you're forgetting to breathe."
"I'm breathing fine."
"You're holding your breath."
"I'm not holding my breath."
"You just turned purple."
"I did not turn purple."
"You turned a very lovely shade of lavender."
You exhaled. Hard. Right in his face.
He didn't flinch. Just raised an eyebrow.
"Feel better?" he asked.
"No."
"Then take a real breath. In through your nose. Out through your mouth."
"I know how to breathe."
"Then prove it."
You took a breath. In through your nose. Out through your mouth straight onto his face again. He blinked.
"Did you just exhale onto me again?"
"Maybe."
He just sighed, already realising he was losing this battle, and let go of your arms, stepping back. "Okay. Try again. Keep your weight centered. Shoulders down. Breathe. And for the love of God, stop leaning."
"I'm not leaning."
"You're leaning."
"I'm standing perfectly upright."
"You're leaning so far forward you're practically bowing."
You wobbled as you adjusted but managed to catch yourself.
"Look," he said, smiling at you softly. "You're doing it."
"I'm doing it."
"Don't sound so surprised."
"I'm not surprised. I'm impressed with myselfâ"
Before you could even finish your gloating, your weight shifted. One moment you were upright, almost steady, almost balanced, almost doing it. The next, the board slipped out from underneath you like the ground had turned to ice. Your arms windmilled. Your center of gravity betrayed you completely. And then your knees hit the asphalt hard: a sharp, jarring impact that sent shockwaves up your thighs before Keonho could even properly react and grab you.
His hands reached for you a second too late, fingers closing on empty air where your arm had been.
You stayed there for a moment, on your hands and knees, breathing hard. The asphalt was rough and warm beneath your palms, little bits of gravel digging into your skin. Your knees throbbed. Your pride throbbed harder.
"Y/N." His voice was closer now. His hand landed on your back, warm and steady. "You okay?"
"Fine."
"You're not fine. You're on the ground."
"I'm resting."
"You're bleeding."
"I'm bleeding and resting. Multitasking."
"Y/N."
"Keonho."
He crouched down beside you, his face level with yours and his eyes wide, scanning your face, your knees, your hands. "You went down hard."
"I've gone down harder."
"That's notâ" He stopped. Pinched the bridge of his nose. "That's not the flex you think it is."
He reached for your arm, gently pulling you up from the ground. His hands were more careful than usual, and you let him guide you to your feet, wincing as your weight settled onto your scraped knees.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
"I can walk."
"You're limping."
"I'm not limping. I'm just⊠taking my time."
He shook his head, but he was smiling. "Come on. Let's get you cleaned up."
He led you to the concrete steps outside the gymnasium, and you sat down heavily, stretching your legs out in front of you. The damage was worse than you thought: both knees scraped raw through what used to be your favorite pair of tights, thin lines of blood beading up through the torn fabric.
Keonho sat down next to you, close enough that his shoulder pressed against yours. He pulled a crumpled gas station napkin from his pocket and held it out to you.
"That's not going to be enough," you said.
"It's all I have."
"Then get more."
"Where am I supposed to get more?"
"I don't know. The bathroom. The nurse's office."
He ignored you and dabbed at your knee with the napkin anyway, gentle and inefficient, the cheap paper sticking to your skin. You hissed through your teeth.
"Sorry," he murmured.
"You should be. This is your fault."
"How is this my fault?"
"You're the one who put me on the board."
"You're the one who wanted to learn."
"I wanted to learn from a competent teacher."
"I am competent."
"You let me fall."
"You fell before I could catch you."
"You were literally right in front of me."
"You went down way too fast for me to react."
âWell maybe next time Iâll get an actual competent teacher to teach me how to skate.â
âOh really? And would that competent teacher still be here tending to your wounds?â He looked at you and something in your chest tightened. You looked away, down at your scraped knees, at his hand still holding the crumpled napkin against your skin.
"You're bleeding too," you said.
He looked down at his own hand. There was a small scrape on his palm, must have happened when he reached for you and caught the asphalt instead.
"That's nothing," he said.
"It's bleeding."
"It's a scratch."
"It's bleeding and you're not even complaining."
"Why would I complain?"
"Because that's what people do when they're hurt. They complain."
"I'm not hurt. I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're bleeding."
"It's a scratch, Y/N."
"It's a bleeding scratch."
He stared at you. Then he started laughing, bright and surprised, his whole face lighting up.
"What?" you demanded.
"Nothing." He shook his head, still laughing. "You're justâyou're sitting there with two knees that look like ground beef, telling me my paper cut is a medical emergency."
"It's not a paper cut. It's a gash."
"It's literally smaller than my fingernail."
"Size isn't everything."
"That's notâ" He stopped, his smile wide whilst he rubbed his hand over his face. "You're looking way worse than me."
You wanted to be annoyed at the fact that he was still laughing, his shoulder shaking against yours. You wanted to push him away and tell him this wasn't funny, that your knees were ruined and your tights were ruined and your pride was in shambles on the asphalt.
But instead, you started laughing too.
It bubbled up from somewhere unexpected, somewhere you'd forgotten existed. You laughed until your stomach hurt and your scraped knees throbbed and tears pricked at the corners of your eyes. You laughed because you'd just fallen off a skateboard in front of half the school and Keonho was sitting next to you with a napkin stuck to his palm, his eyes full of light, watching you finally, finally, be yourself.
When the laughter finally faded, you were both breathing hard. His shoulder was still pressed against yours. His hand had somehow found yours, fingers laced together, resting on the concrete step between you.
You eventually leaned your head against his shoulder. Just rested it there, your temple pressing into the worn fabric of his hoodie. He didn't move. Didn't pull away. Just sat there with you in the warm afternoon sun while the rest of the world went on around you.
At some point he turned his head and his lips brushed against your hair so softly you almost missed it, but you felt it. You felt everything.
People walked past, some gawked at the sight of you, others turned and whispered amongst each other, but neither of you seemed to care.
That seemed to become a recurring thing. The stares and the whispers. People still took photos when they thought you weren't looking. The speculation never ended: were you dating? Were you enemies? Were you friends? Were you something in between that no one had a word for?
But you stopped noticing. Or maybe you just stopped caring.
They couldn't understand what was going on between you two. How you'd go from wanting to strangle each other to cuddling up just a second later. How you'd be screaming in each other's faces one moment and then sitting in comfortable silence the next, your head on his shoulder, his hand in yours. How you'd call him every name in the book and then defend him viciously when someone else tried to do the same.
It didn't make sense. Not to them. Not to your friends, who still looked at you like you'd grown a second head every time you walked past the bike racks without stopping to sneer. Not to his friendsâthe few he had that you had only learnt about recentlyâwho raised their eyebrows every time you appeared and said nothing.
And, to be honest, neither of you understood it either.
But none of that mattered.Â
Not when he'd sit there and let you ramble for hours about whatever new person who annoyed you had done. How a girl had worn the same dress as you to a party and actually looked good in it: "She had no right, Keonho. No right. I specifically told her I was wearing the green one with the flowers, and she showed up in the exact same dress like it was nothing." Or how Hana had started talking to her ex again, the one from the football team, the one who'd cheated on her at summer camp two years ago: "I don't understand it. I don't understand her. He literally lied to her face for a whole weekend and she's just going to pretend that didn't happen?"
He never interrupted. Never told you to calm down or change the subject or stop caring so much about things that didn't matter. He just listened with his eyes half-closed, his head tilted back, and his fingers absently tracing patterns on his knee. Sometimes he'd nod. Sometimes he'd make comments like "that's messed up" or "she sounds exhausting" or "you're right to be annoyed." Sometimes heâd just watch you, a look in his eyes that made you feel giddy.
Not when he laid on your bed, still watching you pace back and forth whilst on a call that felt never ending.Â
He should have been paying attention and following the conversation, tracking the drama, even offering the occasional grunt of acknowledgment. But his eyelids were heavy, his body was warm, and the sound of your voice, even when it was sharp, annoyed, and mid-takedown, was somehow the most soothing thing he'd ever heard.
âOkay, call me later once she replies.âÂ
Keonho perked up as he heard you wrapping up the call, his chin lifting from his arm. His eyes tracked you still walking back and forth, back and forth, like you couldn't quite remember how to stop.
"You're gonna wear a hole in that ridiculously expensive rug," he commented, his voice thick with sleep.
You ignored him. Kept pacing. Kept muttering under your breath, something about âcan't believe she said thatâ and âwho does she think she isâ and âwait until I get my hands on herâ.
"Y/N."
Nothing.
"Y/N."
"I'm thinking."
"You've been thinking for like ten minutes. Think quicker.â
âIâd be able to if you shut up.â
He just blinked at you, slow and unbothered. âIâm not the one whoâs been pacing around for an hour.â
âIt was literally twenty minutes, and last I checked you were asleep.â
âThat was before you left me all by myself.â He pouted, his bottom lip jutting out, his eyes wide and faux-tragic, and you scrunched your face in disgust, though you'd never admit it secretly made your heart swell. The stupid, infuriating, adorable pout. The way his hair was all messed up from the pillow. The way the pink blanket was pulled up to his shoulders like a child who didn't want to get out of bed.
He mumbled something you were only just able to catch, his voice thick and sleepy: "Twenty minutes too long."
"I was on the phone."
"You were on the phone without me."
"You were asleep."
"So? You could have woken me up."
You sighed, rubbing a hand over your face before stepping forward. He twisted to lay on his side, the pink blanket pooling around his waist, and lifted the blanket up at your approach.
You climbed under the blanket with him, the sheets cool against your legs, the duvet soft beneath your head. His free arm enveloped you immediately, your face pressing into his neck, your nose brushing his collarbone, and your breath warm against his skin.
âYouâre so clingy.â You grumbled.
"You love it."
"I hate it."
"You love hating it."
You elbowed him and he didn't even flinch, just tightened his arm around you, pulling you even closer until there was no space left between you.
"I was in the middle of something," you said.
"You were in the middle of pacing."
"I was strategising."
"You were spiraling and I needed to stop it."
His hand found your hair. His fingers threaded through it, slow and steady, the way he knew you liked. His thumb brushed against your scalp, gentle circles that made your eyes flutter closed.
"I'm still thinking about it," you murmured.
"I know."
"I'm going to keep thinking about it."
"I know."
"I'm going to talk about it. A lot. For a long time."
"I know."
"And you're going to listen?"
"I'm going to try. No promises. I'm very tired."
"You're always tired."
"You're always thinking too much."
You wanted to argue. Wanted to fire back something sharp and cutting that would wipe that sleepy smile off his face. But his hand was in your hair and his heartbeat was steady under your ear and the world outside your bedroom door had stopped mattering.
"She's going to reply later," you said. "And when she doesâ"
"You're going to do nothing."
"I'm going to do something."
"You're going to do nothing," he repeated. "Because it's late. And you're tired. And whatever she said, it'll still be there tomorrow."
"Butâ"
"Tomorrow," he said. "You can destroy her tomorrow. Right now, you're going to sleep."
"You can't tell me what to do."
"I just did."
"And I'm not doing it."
"You're literally in my arms with your eyes closed."
"That doesn't matter." Despite your words, you snuggled into him tighter, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, your face pressing deeper into the hollow of his throat. He was warm, so, so warm, and his heartbeat was slow and steady beneath your palm, a rhythm your own heart had started to match without your permission.
You felt him press a kiss onto your hair, it seemed to be a thing he did subconsciously now.
"Mhm." He just about managed to say, the sound rumbling through his chest, vibrating against your cheek. His arms were loosening around you, his grip going slack, his body sinking deeper into the mattress. He was drifting off, you could feel it in the way his breathing had slowed, in the way his hand had stopped moving in your hair, in the way his heartbeat had dropped to a deep, steady thrum.
You lifted your head just enough to look at him as you felt him settle.
His face was soft in the dim light. The sharp lines of his jaw had blurred, his lips were slightly parted, his dark lashes fanned out against his cheeks. His hair was a mess across his forehead and he looked younger like this. Softer. Less like the boy who argued with you in parking lots and more like the boy who pressed kisses to your hair when he thought you weren't paying attention.
You should have woken him up. Should have told him to go home, to sleep in his own bed, to stop taking up space in yours.
But you didn't.
Instead, you reached up and brushed the hair off his forehead. Your fingers lingered there for a moment, tracing the line of his brow, the curve of his temple, the soft skin just above his cheekbone.
He didn't stir. Didn't wake. Just sighed in his sleep and pulled you closer, his arm tightening around your waist even as he dreamed.
You smiled, just a little, placing a featherlight kiss onto his jaw.
"You're impossible," you whispered, so quietly that not even the fairy lights that hung above your bed could hear.
Then you settled back against his chest, closed your eyes, and let yourself drift.
Tomorrow, you'd argue. Tomorrow, you'd pace and mutter and plot revenge. Tomorrow, you'd be sharp and cutting and impossible in all the ways you knew how to be.
i usually end up not liking fics/stories w this trope but THIS SLAPPED OMFG đđđđđâïžâïž it was genuinely so good,, the way he didnât back down just because she was trying to intimidate him sometimes and the way they were both being real by the end đ„čđ„č everything was so perfect, this fic got me in my feels fr đâŒïž
SYNOPSIS :: Youâd think having spent months âdatingâ that the two of you wouldâve sorted out whatever issues underlined every argument you shared, but, truthfully, you both enjoyed the bickering far too much to want it to stop.
PLAYLIST :: She looks so perfect - 5sos; My own worst enemy - Lit; Still into you - Paramore; Teenage dirtbag - Wheatus; Take me away - Christina Vidal Mitchell
You and Keonho had been⊠something for about three months now.
Three months of arguing over everything. The thermostat. The last slice of pizza. Whether or not a hot dog was a sandwich (he said yes, you said absolutely not, and you'd nearly broken up over it twice). You fought like cats and dogs, like fire and gasoline, like two people who had absolutely no business being in the same room.
But the thing that got you the mostâthe thing that made you want to scream, to pull your hair out, to shake him until his teeth rattledâwas his complete and utter inability to plan.
You planned everything. You had spreadsheets. colour-coded calendars. Alarms set on your phone for things that were still three weeks away. You knew where you needed to be and when and what you needed to wear and who you needed to impress and exactly how many minutes late you could arrive before it went from fashionable to disrespectful.
Keonho just⊠existed.
And apparently, for him, that was enough.
"We'll figure it out," he'd say, whenever you tried to pin down a date, a time, a commitment. "It'll be fine," he'd say, when you asked him what he was wearing to something important. "Don't worry so much," he'd say, when you were clearly, obviously, rightfully spiraling.
You wanted to strangle him.
You wanted to kiss him.
Usually both at the same time.
Tonight's fight had been brewing for weeks, simmering under the surface of every text he left on read, every plan he showed up late for, every time he looked at you with those stupid, calm eyes and said "we'll figure it out" like it was the easiest thing in the world.
The dinner was important. People who mattered would be there. People whose opinions could make or break things you'd been working toward for years. A single wrong move could, and would, unravel everything.
You'd told him about it three times. Texted him the address twice. Sent him a reminder the morning of, complete with a photo of the venue and a highlighted map. Told him, specifically, explicitly, begged him to wear something nice.
He showed up forty-five minutes late in a wrinkled band tee and ripped jeans.
You spotted him the second he walked through the door: that stupid beanie, that lazy slouch, the skateboard he'd somehow snuck past coat check. Your blood went cold. Then hot. Then cold again.
You excused yourself from a conversation and crossed the room in what felt like slow motion. Your heels clicked against the marble floor. Your perfectly applied lipstick felt like warpaint.
You grabbed his wrist and pulled him into the hallway before he could say a word.
"What is wrong with you?"
"Traffic," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. He looked completely unbothered and completely unaware that he'd just detonated a bomb in the middle of your perfectly constructed evening.
"You don't have a car."
"Pedestrian traffic."
"Keonho."
He shrugged. That infuriating, shoulders-up, I don't see the problem shrug. His beanie was crooked. His hair was a mess. There was a small rip in the knee of his jeans that you were pretty sure hadn't been there yesterday.
"I'm here, aren't I?"
"You're late." Your voice came out sharp, each word a knife. "You're dressed like that. I told youâI specifically told youâ"
"You told me a lot of things, princess."
"Don't call me that."
He tilted his head, beanie slipping further over one eye. There was something in his expression, not quite a smirk yet not quite a challenge, that made your stomach twist. "Then stop acting like one."
You wanted to hit him. You wanted to scream. You wanted to grab him by that wrinkled band tee and shake him until he understood.
"Do you have any idea how this looks?" You hissed, glancing over your shoulder at the crowd inside. Laughter spilled through the doorway. Glasses clinked. The world you were supposed to be performing in continued on without you. "I've been talking you up for weeks. Telling people you're coming. Telling them you'reâ"
"What? Worthy of being seen with the great and mighty you?"
"That's notâ"
"Is that what this is about?" He stepped closer, and suddenly the hallway felt smaller. His voice was quiet now, but no less sharp. "How it looks?"
"It's about respect, Keonho. It's about showing up when you say you will. It's about not making meâ" Your voice caught and you closed your eyes to recollect yourself. " ânot making me look stupid for defending you to everyone who said I was making a mistake."
He went quiet.
"Who said that?"
"It doesn't matter."
"It matters to me."
"It should matter to you that you were late. That you're wearing that. That you can't seem toâ" You stopped and pressed your fingers to your temples, the beginnings of a headache pulsed behind your eyes. "I had a plan. I had everything planned. I knew exactly how this night was supposed to go, and you justâ you justâ"
"We'll figure it out."
"We'll figure it out?"
You laughed. It came out sharp and bitter, nothing funny about it. The sound echoed off the hallway walls.
"That's your answer to everything." You were pacing now, heels clicking against the marble, back and forth, back and forth. "'We'll figure it out.' 'It'll be fine.' 'Don't worry so much.' You don't plan. You don't think. You just show up whenever you feel like it and expect everyone to be grateful that you bothered to exist in their direction."
"Maybe because I trust that things will work out without me having to control every single detail."
"Not everyone has that luxury."
He crossed his arms, leaned against the wall and watched you pace. "What's that supposed to mean?"
You stopped and faced him, your chest heaving.Â
"It means some of us don't have the option to just exist and hope for the best. Some of us have to earn our place. Some of us have to fight for every single thing we have, and one wrong move, or late appearance, or bad outfit can take all of it away."
He was quiet for a long moment.
"Do you understand how embarrassing this is for me?" You asked, and your voice was more tired now. "How it feels to stand there and watch people's faces when they see you? To know they're thinking that's who she chose?"
He pushed off the wall.
"Embarrassing."
"Yes."
"I'm embarrassing to you?"
"That's notâ" You stopped. Swallowed. The lump in your throat was hard to get past. "You're not trying, Keonho. You're not showing up. Not really. You're justâhere. Floating. Existing. And that's not enough. Not for this. Not forâ"
You didn't finish the sentence.
He stared at you. His face was unreadableâthat careful blankness he wore when he was actually hurt, when he was trying not to show it. His jaw was tight. His hands were in his pockets, but you could see the tension in his shoulders.
"Why does embarrassment matter so much to you?"
The question landed like a slap.
"What?"
"Embarrassing." He said the word slowly, like he was tasting it, turning it over in his mouth. "Why does it matter so much? Why do you care what they think?" He gestured toward the doorway, toward the laughter and the clinking glasses. "They don't know you. They don't know us. They don't know anything. They're just people with opinions that don't actually mean anything."
"Opinions mean everything."
"To who?"
"To me."
He nodded slowly. Something flickered across his face: disappointment, maybe. Or understanding. It was hard to tell.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "I know."
The silence between them was heavy. Wrong. Stretching like taffy, thin and about to snap.
You could hear your own heartbeat atop his breathing, the distant murmur of the party you were supposed to be charming slicing through the quiet.
"Look," he said, running a hand through his hair, knocking his beanie completely off. It landed on the floor with a soft thump. "I'm sorry I was late. I'm sorry I wore this. I'm sorry I'm notâwhatever you need me to be for this to work."
"Keonhoâ"
"I'm trying, princess." He bent down and picked up his beanie, dusted it off against his thigh. His voice was quiet, as though he was choosing every word carefully. "I'm just not trying the way you want me to. And I don't know if I can."
He turned toward the door and something in your chest cracked.
"Don't."
He stopped. His back was to you still and his shoulders were tense.
"Don't walk away," you said. "Not from me."
"I'm not walking away." His voice was soft, almost gentle. That made it worse. "I'm giving you space to go back in there and do your thing, make it the perfect evening." He glanced back at you over his shoulder. "I know you need that. I know you planned for that. So go. I'll see you tomorrow."
"And what about us?"
He was quiet for a long moment. The kind of quiet that felt like a held breath.
"We'll figure it out."
"Stop saying that."
"It's all I've got."
There was a momentary lull until you crossed the room before your brain could catch up with your body.
You grabbed the front of his wrinkled band tee, pulled him down and you kissed him.
Your fingers twisted in his shirt, knuckles white, pulling him closer like you were afraid he'd disappear. His free hand caught your waist and the other dropped his beanie again, completely forgotten, his fingers threading into your hair, loosening pins, ruining your perfect updo.
He kissed you back like he'd been waiting for it. Like the fight had been building toward this all along: every argument, every slammed door, every "we'll figure it out" and this was the only possible conclusion.
His mouth was warm. He tasted like the energy drink he'd been nursing on the way over, sweet and sharp, and his lips were slightly chapped, and you didn't care. You didn't care about any of it.
The party behind you faded away, the carefully constructed walls you'd spent years building came crashing down. All that existed was his hand on your waist, his fingers in your hair, his mouth moving against yours like he was trying to tell you something he didn't have words for.
When you finally broke apart, both of you breathing hard, your chests heaving, your foreheads pressed together, he let out a shaky breath.
"What was that?" he whispered.
"I don't know."
"You kissed me."
"I know."
"Why?"
You opened your eyes. He was so close that you could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes and the way his lips were slightly swollen.
"Becauseâ" You swallowed. Your voice was shaking. You couldn't remember the last time your voice had shaken in front of anyone. "Because I didn't want you to leave. Because I don't care about the dinner. Because you're right, embarrassing doesn't matter. It never mattered. I justâ"
"Just what?"
"I don't know how to be anything other than this." You gestured vaguely at the party behind you, at your perfect dress, at the life you'd built out of sheer will and terror. Your hand was trembling. "I don't know how to let go. I don't know how to trust that things will just work out. I don't know how to be like you: how to just exist and believe that's enough."
He was quiet for a moment. His thumb was tracing small circles on your hip, through the fabric of your dress. His other hand was still in your hair, loose strands falling around your face.
"I'm not asking you to be like me," he said finally. His voice was soft and gentle in a way that made your chest ache. "I'm just asking you to let me in."
You stared at him. His eyes were dark and steady and warm. There was no judgment or frustration there. Just... him. Just the boy who showed up late in wrinkled band tees and said "we'll figure it out" like it was a prayer.
"I don't know how to do that either," you whispered, and watched as his eyes scanned your face.
"Then we'll figure it out," he said. "Together."
He said it like a promise. Like a vow. Like he meant it.
You kissed him again and this time it felt less like a fight and more like a surrender. Your hands slid up from his chest to his shoulders, your fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt. His hand pressed flat against your lower back, pulling you closer, and you let him. You let yourself be pulled.
When you finally pulled back his band tee was even more wrinkled than before, your perfect lipstick was definitely smeared across both your mouths, and your updo was a lost cause.
"You're still late," you said.
"I know."
"You're still dressed like that."
"I know."
"And I still want to kill you."
"I know." He grinned that stupid, lopsided, infuriating grin that had made you want to scream the first time you saw it. "But you still kissed me."
"Shut up."
"Make me, princess."
And that sums up pretty much the entirety of your⊠whatever you are. Youâll be at each otherâs throats constantly, and yet you canât seem to stay away from one another.
Another aspect of you two being together was that you had the emotional expressiveness of a rock and would close in on yourself whenever something upset you, driving Keonho absolutely mad.
The first time you stopped going to the skate park, he didn't say anything.
He noticed, though. Of course he noticed. Keonho noticed everything about you: when you were tired, when you were faking, when you were one wrong word away from shattering.
And most of all he noticed when you started pulling away, though he let you be by yourself for a few days to mellow until he finally had enough.
You were half-asleep when you heard it: the soft scrape of a shoe against the trellis, the creak of the window frame, the quiet thud of a body dropping onto the roof that sat just below your window with a few too many scuff marks. Your heart lurched and you sat up, pink blanket pooling around your waist, hair a wild mess from tossing and turning.
And there he was.
Keonho, in the flesh, backlit by the dim glow of the streetlights outside, pulling your already slightly open window wider. You immediately rose, moving towards him and shoving your curtains aside, already knowing what this was about.
"Talk to me," he said, already swinging his leg through the frame. "Or I'm climbing in."
"You're already climbing in."
"So talk to me faster."
"You can't just show up at my window at two in the morning," you said, your voice still thick with sleep and something a bit too close to relief, moving back to sit on the edge of your bed.
"I can't? Because I just did."
"It's breaking and entering."
"My feet were already in the room before you said you didnât want me here." He dropped his skateboard against your wall, kicked off his shoes, and stood at the foot of your bed with his arms crossed. "That's not forceful. That's just... hovering without opposition."
"That's not a thing."
"It's a thing I just came up with." He tilted his head, beanie askew, hair falling into his eyes. "Now. Talk."
"I don't have anything to say."
"That's a lie." He took a step closer. "Your left eye is twitching."
"My left eye is notâ" It was, you could feel it. You hated him. "I'm fine."
"Stop saying that."
"Stop meddling."
"No."
You glared at him and he glared back. The air between you crackled. This was your love language: two people who cared too much and didn't know how to say it any other way.
"I heard your friends," you said finally.
He went still. Completely, utterly still. Like someone had frozen him in place.
"They said I was using you." Your voice came out flat, practiced, like you'd rehearsed it in the mirror a hundred times. "That I'd get bored. That I'd throw you away." You swallowed but your throat was dry. "And I thought maybe they're right. Maybe that's what I do. Maybe that's all I know how to do."
Keonho didn't say anything for a long moment. He just stood there, looking at you with an expression you couldn't read: something between frustration and tenderness and a third thing you were too scared to name.
Then he walked around the bed, sat down next to you, and knocked his shoulder against yours. Hard.
"Ow," you said.
"That's for ignoring me for six days."
"I wasn't ignoring you, I wasâ"
"Busy." He knocked his shoulder against yours again, softer this time. "Yeah, I know. You're always busy when you're scared."
"I'm not scared."
"You're terrified." He turned to face you, close enough that you could see the dark circles under his eyes from staying up toolate. "You're so scared you can't even say it without your voice going up at the end like a question."
Your breath caught.
"My friends are idiots," he said. "They don't know you."
"Neither do you."
"I know you leave your shoes in the middle of the floor even though you yell at me for the same thingâ"
"Because I live here. You're a guest."
"âI know you pretend not to like my music but you added three of my songs to your playlistâ"
"I added them so I could identify them and properly hate them."
"âI know you're mean because you're scared, not because you're cruel."
You opened your mouth. Closed it.
He was looking at you with something far too soft for his sharp face that made your chest ache and your eyes burn and your heart beat too fast. "I know you haven't thrown me away yet. And I've given you plenty of reasons."
"You are annoying," you whispered.
"Yeah." He almost smiled. "But you keep me around anyway."
"I'm reconsidering."
"No you're not."
"Get off my bed."
"It's my bed now." He leaned back on his hands, looking up at your ceiling like he owned the place. "I call dibs."
"You can't call dibs on someone else's bed."
"I just did."
You sat there for a couple of seconds, weighing up your options, then you grabbed your pillow and hit him square in the face with it.
He grabbed it and hit you back.
What followed was a full-scale pillow war, leaving feathers floating in the air and both of you breathless and laughing, his beanie somehow on your head and your silk scrunchie around his wrist.
You eventually ended up tangled together in the pink blanket, his chest against your side, your leg thrown over his, both of you gasping for air.
"See?" he said, grinning. "This is why you keep me around."
"I'm going to push you out the window."
"You'd miss me."
"I'd watch you fall."
"Kinky."
"Keonho!â
A week later, he crashed.
The call came from his friend, one of the ones who still looked at you like you were a bomb waiting to go off. "He's at your place. He said you'd know what to do."
You did.
You were already climbing out of bed, already pulling on the nearest hoodie (his, you realised later), already running down the stairs before your brain caught up with your body.
You found him on your front steps.
It was worse than you'd imagined. Worse than any of the scenarios that had played out in your head while you were running. He was sitting on the cold concrete, one leg stretched out in front of him, the other bent at an awkward angle. His jeans were torn at the knee and there was far too much blood. His palm was scraped raw, little flecks of gravel embedded in the skin, and his board was lying in the bushes where he'd apparently thrown it in frustration.
"Keonho."
"Hey princess." He looked up, and smiled like nothing was wrong and he wasn't bleeding on your mother's precious front steps. "Nice pajamas."
"You're bleeding on my steps."
"It's fine."
"It's not fine, get inside."
"I can't feel my left hand."
"Keonho."
He let you pull him up, though winced at the sudden weight on his injured leg. He let you drag him inside, through the foyer, up the stairs, down the hall to your bathroom. He let you push him onto the marble counter, that he had always commented was way too expensive, and he let you kneel in front of him to push his ripped jeans up his legs.
"It's fine," he said again.
"You keep saying that like it's going to become true."
"Optimism."
"It's delusion."
He watched you dab antiseptic on his kneeâwatched your face, specifically, the furrow between your brows, the set of your jaw, the way your lips pressed together like you were holding back a flood of words you didn't know how to say.
"You look like you're about to fight someone," he said.
"I'm about to fight you if you don't stop crashing into concrete."
"Skateboarding involves concrete. It's kind of the whole thing."
"Then stop skateboarding."
"Now that's delusion."
You pressed the antiseptic harder than necessary. He hissed through his teeth.
"Serves you right."
"You're so mean."
"You love it."
He went quiet, his gaze following your every move as you attempted to patch him up as well as you could. "You're really worried about me."
"I'm worried about your knees." You dabbed at a particularly nasty scrape, your touch gentler now. "They're going to be nothing but scar tissue by twenty-five."
"That's not what I meant."
You looked up at him and his face was soft in the bathroom light: no smirk, or teasing, or armour. Just Keonho. Just the boy who somehow, against all odds, makes you feel safe and loved and more yourself than ever before.
"Of course I'm worried about you," you said quietly. "You're an idiot who throws himself at the ground for fun."
"That's not why you're worried."
"You're very annoying today."
"You're avoiding the question."
"I'm cleaning your wounds. Show some gratitude."
He caught your wrist before you could pull away. His thumb pressed against your pulse point that was racing, betraying you, telling him everything you were trying to hide.
"You're scared," he said.
"I'm annoyed."
"You're scared and you're pretending to be annoyed because that's easier."
"You're scared and you're pretending to be fine because that's easier."
He blinked. You'd surprised him. Good.
"See?" You said, pulling your wrist free. "We both have things we don't want to talk about. Now let me finish cleaning you up so I can go back to hating you in peace."
"You don't hate me."
"I'm working on it."
He laughed, or at least attempted to, his breath hitching because moving his ribs hurt. You flicked his forehead.
"Ow."
"Stop making me worry."
"I can't promise that."
"Then stop crashing."
"I can't promise that either."
You sighed, long and dramatic, and went back to work on his other knee.Â
"You're gonna give me gray hair," you muttered more so to yourself.
"You'd look good with gray hair."
"Keonho."
"What? You would."
You pressed a kiss to his kneecap before you could think better of itâa quick, impulsive thing, your lips brushing against his scraped skin.
He went very still, then very red. The flush crept up his neck, spread across his cheekbones, turned the tips of his ears pink.
"Don't," you said.
"I wasn't gonnaâ"
"You were gonna smirk."
"...Maybe."
You flicked his forehead again. This time, he caught your hand and kissed your knuckles instead of complaining, one slow and deliberate kiss to each finger, his lips warm against your skin.
"That's cheating," you said.
"Is it working?"
"No."
"Your face says yes."
"My face says I'm going to smother you in your sleep."
"I'd love that."
"Get off my counter."
After that, he started coming over just to be there, sprawling across your pink blanket like he pays rent, watching you exist with an intensity that should have been illegal.
"Can I help you?" You said, for the fifth time, as you stood at your vanity.
"Nope."
"Then why are you staring?"
"Because you're doing something interesting."
"I'm doing my skincare routine."
"Exactly. Interesting."
You stared at him in the mirror. He stared back from your bed, chin propped on his hands, looking like a cat who'd found the warmest spot in the house. His scraped knee was bent, his bandaged hand resting on the blanket, and he looked so comfortable that it made your chest ache.
"What's that one do?" He asked, pointing at your toner.
"It balances my pH."
"Your... what?"
"pH. The acidity of my skin."
A pause. "That's a thing?"
"Yes, Keonho. That's a thing. Some of us care about our skin."
"I care about my skin."
"You use bar soap on your face."
"It works!"
"It works against you. Your pores are screaming for help."
He snorted. "You're so dramatic."
You ignored him, choosing to move through the stepsâcleanser, toner, serum, moisturiserâexplaining each one as you went. He asked questions just to annoy you. You answered them just to prove you knew more than him. It was a dance you'd perfected over three months, a back-and-forth that felt like second nature.
"So this one," he said, pointing at your serum, "is basically magic water?"
"No, it's⊠actually, yes. Kind of. But expensive magic water."
"So you're putting magic water on your face."
"Antioxidant-rich magic water."
"That's not a real thing."
"It's a real thing that costs eighty dollars."
He sat up so fast his hair became disshevelled in a scruffy mess that made him look almost⊠adorable. "Eighty dollars? For water?"
"It's not just water, I literally just explained the ingredients to youâ"
"You said 'fermented something' and I stopped listening!"
"That's on you!"
"I could buy three decks for eighty dollars!"
"You don't need three decks!"
"You don't need eighty-dollar water!"
You threw a cotton pad at his face and it ended up stuck to his forehead. He left it there, too focused on your current bickering.
"This is why I don't explain things to you," you said.
"This is why you should explain things to me. I'm learning."
"You're judging."
"Learning and judging. They're the same thing."
"Get out of my room."
âNo.â He grinned, cotton pad still stuck to his forehead, looking like the stupidest person you'd ever been in love with. "You'd be sad if I left."
"I'd throw a party."
"You'd cry."
"I'd celebrate."
"You'd cry while celebrating."
"Keonho."
"What's that one?" He pointed at the smallest bottle on your vanity.
You picked it up. "That's eye cream."
"What's it do?"
"It... moisturises my eyes."
"Your eyes?"
"The skin around my eyes."
He stared at you and you stared back. The cotton pad was still on his forehead because he still hadn't removed it.
"So," he said slowly, a grin spreading across his face, "most of these are just... different kinds of water?"
"I'm going to kill you."
"You put water on your face. Then more water. Then different water."
"I'm going to kill you and hide your body in my closet."
"You'd miss me too much."
"I'd miss nothing."
He tilted his head, the cotton pad finally falling onto the blanket, his smile so wide it made your chest hurt. "Say that again but look me in the eyes this time."
You threw the eye cream at him.
He caught it one-handed like some kind of action hero, and immediately shoved it into his hoodie pocket.
"I'm keeping this," he said.
"That's forty dollars."
"Then I'm keeping forty dollars."
"Keonho. You're not keeping the eye cream," you said, crossing your arms and turning to face him fully.
He patted his pocket. "Already in there. It's warm now. It's bonding with me."
"Take it out."
"No."
"Keonho."
"That's my name, don't wear it out."
You glared at him and he only looked back utterly unbothered and the absolute picture of smug satisfaction.Â
"You're actually going to steal from me?"
"I'm not stealing. I'm... relocating."
"To your pocket."
"Temporary relocation."
"You're not going to give it back."
"Temporary can mean a lot of things princess." He shrugged, utterly shameless.
You lunged for him.
You grabbed his hoodie sleeve and tried to shove your hand into his pocket. He twisted away, laughing that stupid, warm laugh that made your stomach flip, and you ended up half on top of him, both of you grappling like children fighting over the TV remote. The pink blanket bunched beneath you and your hair came loose from its clip.
"Give it," you hissed, your face inches from his.
"Make me."
"I will actually hurt you."
"You've been saying that for three months and I'm still standing."
"Barely."
He snorted. You used his distraction to jam your hand into his pocket. Your fingers closed around the tiny bottleâyesâbut his hand closed around your wrist at the same time.
"Nice try," he said, breath warm on your face.
"Let go."
"Say please."
"I'd rather die."
"Dramatic."
"Keonho."
He grinned, and for a moment, neither of you moved. You were tangled together on your bed, his back against the headboard, you half-sprawled across his lap, your hand in his pocket and his hand on your wrist and his face entirely too close to yours.Â
"You're ridiculous," you said quietly.
"You love it."
"I love nothing."
"You love me."
The words landed differently than they had before. He'd said them casuallyâjoking, teasing, the way he always did. But something about the way he was looking at you now, something about the way his thumb was tracing slow circles on your wrist, something about the way his voice had dropped an octave made it feel less like a joke and more like a test.
You pulled your empty hand out of his pocket, though you didnât care about the cream anymore.
"I'm serious," you said, sitting back slightly, though you didn't move off his lap. "Give me the cream."
"I'm serious too." He didn't let go of your wrist. Didn't stop tracing those circles. "Say it."
"Say what?"
"You know what."
"I really don't."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm an excellent liar. I've built my entire social reputation on it."
"Then be honest." His voice went quiet. "For once. With me. Just say it."
Your heart was doing something stupid in your chest. Something loud and panicked and entirely out of your control. It was hammering against your ribs like a caged animal, and you were sure he could feel it through your wrist, through the thin skin where his thumb was pressed against your pulse.
"I don't know what you want me to say," you whispered.
"You do."
"Keonhoâ"
"Three months." He shifted, sitting up straighter, bringing his face closer to yours. "Three months of fighting and stealing my hoodies and pretending you don't care. Three months of you letting me climb through your window at 2 AM. Three months of this." He gestured between you with his free hand. "And you're still going to sit there and tell me you feel nothing?"
"Yes."
"Stop lying to me."
You looked at him. His eyes were dark and steady and completely, terrifyingly sincere. There was no escape route. No exit strategy. Justhim, waiting and patiently choosing you.
"Why do you do this?" You asked, and your voice was smaller now. Smaller than you wanted it to be, than you'd ever let yourself sound in front of anyone else.
"Do what?"
"Stay." Your throat was tight. Your eyes were burning. "Even when I'm like this. Even when I push. Even when I say things I don'tâ" You stopped. Swallowed. "Why do you stay?"
"Because I know you don't mean it."
"What if I do?"
"You don't."
"You don't know that."
"I know you." He reached up with his free hand and brushed some hair off your forehead and tucked it behind your ear, the way he always did when he was being gentle. "I know you're scared. I know you've been hurt. I know you push people away before they can leave so you don't have to feel it when they go." His thumb traced your cheekbone. "And I knowâ" He paused. Took a breath. "I know that underneath all of that, there's someone who just wants to be chosen. For real. Not for the crown. Not for the reputation. Just... chosen."
You couldn't breathe.
"I'm choosing you," he said. "Right now. Every day. I'm choosing you. And I'll keep choosing you. Even when you're mean. Even when you push. Even when you throw things at my head." A small smile tugged at his lips. "Especially then, actually. You have crazy good aim princess."
"Keonhoâ"
"I love you."
There it was. Not a joke. Not a test. Not a weapon. Just... the truth. Dropped into the space between you like a stone into still water, sending ripples through everything.
"I love you," he said again, softer this time, like he was telling you a secret. "And you don't have to say it back. You don't have to do anything. I just needed you to know. Because someone should choose you. For real. And I'm done pretending that's not what I'm doing."
The room was too quiet and your heart was entirely too loud. You could feel tears prickling at the corners of your eyes and you blinked them back furiously.
"You're an idiot," you said.
"I know."
"You're the biggest idiot I've ever met."
"I know."
"You steal my skincare products and you put your shoes on my rug and you never shut up and youâ" You ran at of steam for a brief moment, breathing heavily. "You climb through my window at 2 AM and you see me and you stay and I don'tâI don't know how toâ"
You stopped, pressing your palms against your eyes. "I don't know how to be loved," you whispered. "I don't know how to receive it. I only know how to perform and defend and attack andâ"
"Then let me teach you."
You looked up. His face was so open. So vulnerable. So completely unlike the lazy, smirking boy who'd nearly murdered you with his skateboard when you first met. His eyes were bright, almost wet, and his lips were parted slightly, and he looked at you like you were the only thing in the world that mattered.
"Let me teach you," he said again. "Slowly. Badly. While we fight about the thermostat and the last slice of pizza and whether or not hot dogs are sandwichesâ"
"They're not."
"âthey're absolutely sandwichesâ"
"They're notâ"
"Stop doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Avoiding."
You closed your mouth and he waited.
Then, finally, quietly, like you were admitting something you'd been hiding your whole life:
"I love you too."
His whole face changed. Like the sun coming out from behind clouds. Like you'd handed him something precious and fragile and entirely unexpected, and he was holding it with both hands, afraid to drop it.
"Say it again," he said.
"You heard me."
"Say it again anyway."
"No."
"Say it and I'll give back the eye cream."
"Liar."
"Okay, I won't give it back." He was grinning now, wide and real and bright. "But I'll actually shut up.â
"You won't."
"No." He laughed. "I won't. But I'll try."
You laughed surprised and almost giddy. It bubbled up from somewhere deep in your chest, and you couldn't stop it, and you didn't want to.
"I love you," you said. "I love you and you're the most annoying person I've ever met and if you ever tell anyone I said this firstâ"
"You didn't say it first. I did."
"Semantics."
"I'm telling everyone."
"I'll kill you."
"Worth it."
He kissed you as soon as the words left his mouth.
His hand came up to cup your jaw, fingers splaying across your cheek, tilting your face exactly where he wanted it. His lips moved against yours with a confidence that made your head spinâslow at first, then deeper, then hungry, like he'd been waiting for this, and he'd been starving for it.
You kissed him back with everything you had. Your fingers tangled in his hair: soft, slightly messy, smelling like his cheap shampoo and the skate park. His other hand slid around your waist, pressing you against him until there was no space left between your bodies.
His mouth was warm. Addictive, even. He kissed you until your lungs burned and your lips tingled and the world outside your bedroom had ceased to exist entirely.
When he finally pulled back, you were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against yours. His thumb traced your cheekbone. His eyes were dark and soft all at once.
"Hey," he whispered.
"Hey."
"I love you."
"You said that already."
"I'm going to keep saying it."
"I know."
He kissed you againâsofter this time, just a brush of lips, a promise. Then again, a little longer. Then again, like he couldn't help himself from memorising the shape of your mouth against his own.
You smiled against his lips. "You're going to give me permanent lip damage."
"Worth it."
"Keonho."
"What? You're kissable."
"That's not a word."
"It is now. I invented it."
"You can't just invent words."
"I just did. Kissable. It means deserving of many kisses." He demonstrated. Twice. "See?"
You shoved his chest weakly. He caught your hand and kissed each of your knuckles, slow and deliberate, the way he'd done in the bathroom.
"You're ridiculous," you said.
"You love it."
"I love you. There's a difference."
"Is there?"
"Yes."
He grinned, and you kissed him again just to wipe that stupid thing off his face.
It didn't work. You could feel him smiling the whole time.
When you finally settled: both of you tangled in the pink blanket with your head on his chest and his arms wrapped around you, he pressed a kiss to the top of your head.
"The eye cream is still mine," he said.
"Over my dead body."
"We can arrange that."
You shoved him. He fell back against the headboard, laughing, and you let yourself fall on top of him, face buried in his hoodie, heart so full it hurt.
"I love you," you mumbled into his chest.
"I know."
"Don't get cocky."
"Too late."
You could feel him smiling against your hair. His arms tightened around you, one hand tracing lazy shapes on your backâcircles, spirals, a heart. The other hand was definitely still clutching the eye cream in his pocket. You could feel the little bottle pressing against your hip.
"Hey," he said again.
"Mm?"
"You're my favourite person to fight with."
"You're my least favourite person to exist near."
"Same thing."
"It's really not."
"Shut up and let me hold you."
"You shut up."
He laughed a warm, rumbling sound that traveled through his chest and into yours. You smiled into his hoodie. And somewhere in his pocket, your forty-dollar eye cream sat warm between your bodies, a tiny hostage in the middle of a war neither of you wanted to win.
Because winning meant stopping.
And stopping meant no more fights.
And no more fights meant no more this.
And thisâmessy and loud and full of arguing that truly served no purposeâwas exactly where you wanted to be.
SYNOPSIS :: Your campers see you and Seonghyeon beating around the bush and decide to take matters into their own hands.
W.C :: 6.4k
CONTAINS :: campcounselor!seonghyeon, the campers are matchmakers, confessions, crack, fluff
PLAYLIST :: Everybody talks - Neon Trees; Are you bored yet? - Wallows, Clairo; Iâm yours - Jason Mraz; Can I call you tonight? - Dayglow
The sun shone brightly over camp that afternoon, scattering stars across the surface of the lake as the water shifted in slow, shimmering waves beneath the weight of the summer heat. Along the shore stood you and Seonghyeon, both decked out in full counselor regalia: whistles hanging from bright lanyards around your necks, clipboards tucked firmly beneath your arms, sunglasses perched on your faces like armor against both the glare and the chaos currently unfolding in the swimming area.
Or, more accurately, the chaos you were attempting to manage.
âCabin Three,â you called out, pitch carrying across the water, âif I see one more person pretending to drown, swimming privileges are gone for the rest of the day!â
A chorus of dramatic groans answered you.
Beside you, Seonghyeon snorted quietly, pushing his sunglasses higher up his nose with the hand that wasn't clutching his coffee. âYou say that like they fear consequences.â
You shot him a look over the rim of your own sunglasses. âMine do.â
Right on cue, one of your campers cannonballed directly into the roped-off shallow section, sending a spray of water across three indignant lifeguards.
âNever mind,â you muttered.
Seonghyeon laughed under his breath, the sound almost drowned out by the shrieking kids and the relentless splash of water. It was a nice sound, you noticed distantly. Warm, even.
You pushed the thought away immediately.
Out in the lake, however, neither of your cabins were paying the slightest bit of attention to the actual swimming. Clusters of campers floated near the wooden docks, treading water in loose circles as they whispered amongst themselves with all the subtlety of investigative reporters.
âI'm telling you,â one of Seonghyeon's campers whispered dramatically, her voice carrying across the water despite her best efforts, âthey were together during breakfast again. Sitting at the same table. Sharing the syrup.â
âCounselors eat breakfast together all the time,â your camper argued, though she sounded uncertain.
âNot. Like. That.â
âWhat does that even mean?â
âIt means there was eye contact.â
A beat of silence passed between the floating conspirators.
ââŠOh my god.â
Further out in the water, another camper squinted toward shore, shading his eyes with one dripping hand. âWait, wait, look. He's smiling.â
Half the group gasped as if they'd just witnessed a crime.
âNo, because he only smiles like that around her. Did you see his face during archery this morning? Stone cold. Stone. Cold.â
âYou're insane.â
âI'm right.â
Back on shore, completely oblivious to the psychological warfare taking place twenty feet from where you stood, you reached for the sunscreen bottle sitting on the wooden bench beside Seonghyeon at the exact same moment he picked it up.
Your fingers brushed. Barely a touch that lasted less than half a second.
From somewhere in the lake came the distinct sound of a child choking on pool water.
âDID YOU SEE THAT?â Someone whisper-screamed, so loudly that several nearby children glanced over.
âHe definitely did that on purpose.â
âNo way!â
âYes way,â the camper insisted, aggressively dog-paddling closer to the group, eyes wide with conviction. âThat was, like, straight out of a movie.â
âYou guys are actually delusional.â
âLook,â another one cut in, pointing dramatically toward shore with the kind of urgency usually reserved for shark sightings, âthey're still staring at each other.â
Every head in the water turned at once.
Onshore, Seonghyeon was indeed still holding the sunscreen bottle, though now mostly because you refused to let go of it. The two of you stood frozen in a ridiculous tableau, your fingers tangled around the plastic bottle like neither of you knew how to let go.
âYou know there are, like, six other bottles,â you said, your voice flatter than intended.
âAnd yet,â Seonghyeon replied, entirely too calm, âyou reached for mine.â
âOh my god,â someone in the water whispered, voice trembling with barely contained glee. âFlirting.â
âIt's not flirting if they don't know they're flirting.â
âYes it is!â
Seonghyeon finally released the bottle with a laugh, shaking his head as you nearly stumbled backward from the sudden lack of resistance. The shift in balance caught you off guard, your heels sinking into the sand as you fought to stay upright.
âCareful,â he said easily, reaching out to steady your arm before you could lose your balance completely. His fingers wrapped around your elbow to ground you.
Silence fell over the lake.
Thenâ
âHE TOUCHED HER AGAIN.â
Several campers began smacking the water in disbelief, sending up sprays that caught the sunlight like confetti. One of yours grabbed another by the shoulders, shaking her with desperate excitement.
âTHIS IS WHAT I'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT,â she hissed.
Meanwhile, completely unaware of the chaos you'd just unleashed, you were glaring at Seonghyeon over the rim of your sunglasses, your arm still tingling where his hand had been.
âYou're so annoying,â you muttered, crossing your arms.
Before he could respond, a sharp whistle cut across the lake from further up the shoreâthree short, piercing blasts that sliced through the noise like a knife.
Immediately, groans erupted from every direction.
âNooo!â
âWe just got in!â
âFive more minutes! Please!â
One of the camp managers stood near the dining hall path with her hands cupped around her mouth, her silhouette unmistakable against the trees. âActivity time is over! Back to cabins, shower up, and be at dinner in twenty minutes!â
The swimming area descended into chaos almost instantly. Campers scrambled toward shore in dripping, panicked groups, abandoning floaties and goggles in the sand as counselors everywhere started shouting instructions that no one was really listening to.
âCabin Three, line up before someone breaks an ankle!â
âWho stole my shoe?!â
âStop throwing water at each otherâJasper, I saw that!â
You pinched the bridge of your nose, feeling the beginnings of a headache forming behind your eyes.
Seonghyeon, meanwhile, looked entirely too relaxed for someone whose cabin was currently attempting to body-slam each other into the lake one last time. He stood with his weight shifted to one hip, watching the chaos unfold like it was a nature documentary rather than his responsibility.
âHow are they still this energetic?â you muttered, mostly to yourself.
As campers continued flooding past one of yours suddenly skidded to a stop directly in front of the two of you. Water dripped from her hair in steady streams, pooling in the sand around her feet, but her expression was deadly serious.
âCounselor,â she said breathlessly, looking between you and Seonghyeon. âCabin Three has a question.â
You already knew, with the bone-deep certainty of someone who had been dealing with these children for three weeks straight, that this was going to be terrible.
ââŠWhat.â
The camper pointed directly at Seonghyeon, her arm steady as a compass needle. âIf he asked you to go stargazing with him, would you say yes?â
There was a beat of silence.
Then, from somewhere behind her:
âOH MY GOD THEY ACTUALLY ASKED.â
Seonghyeon choked on air beside you, his composure finally cracking as he coughed into his fist.
âYou guys are unbelievable,â you said, though your face had gone noticeably warmer beneath the afternoon sun. You could feel the heat creeping up your neck, spreading across your cheeks like a slow sunrise.
The camper ignored you completely, her eyes wide with anticipation. âWell?â
âGo shower,â you deadpanned.
âThat's not an answer.â
âNow.â
She groaned dramatically before jogging backward toward the cabins. As she went, she cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled to the others still lingering by the dock:
âSHE DIDN'T SAY NO!â
Instant screaming broke out down the trail and you could only cover your face with both hands, pressing your palms against your burning cheeks.
Beside you, Seonghyeon was very obviously trying not to laugh. His shoulders shook with the effort, and when you peeked through your fingers, you could see him biting the inside of his cheek.
âOh, don't start,â you warned without looking up.
âI didn't even say anything.â
âYour face is saying plenty.â
You ignored him after that, already turning to follow after your campers as they sprinted up the path toward the cabins in a trail of wet footprints and continued shrieking. Their voices echoed through the trees, bouncing off the cabin walls like rubber balls.
âWalk!â You called after them automatically, the word as reflexive as breathing at this point.
Nobody listened. They never did.
You could only sigh as you trudged up the path, the sand giving way to packed dirt and scattered pine needles. Behind you, Seonghyeon watched you go, and even without turning around, you could feel his gaze on your back: warm, steady, and entirely too distracting.
âMr. Seonghyeon.â
One of his campers stood a few feet ahead on the trail, hands planted on her hips as she stared at him.Â
The small smile on his face disappeared almost instantly.
ââŠWhat.â
She narrowed her eyes, tilting her head like a bird examining something interesting. âYou are very obvious.â
âAbout what?â
She didn't respond. Just gave him a long, pointed look before turning and running after the rest of the campers, her wet ponytail bouncing behind her.
Seonghyeon stood there for a moment longer than necessary, watching her go.
Then he sighed, pushed his sunglasses back up his nose, and followed.
The very next morning, you stood outside the main lodge with a fresh clipboard in your hands, eyes scanning down the list of counselor duties pinned beneath layers of brightly colored sticky notes and doodled smiley faces.Â
Breakfast cleanup. Archery supervision. Arts and crafts rotation. Lifeguard rotation. Tandem canoeâ
You nodded absentmindedly until your eyes caught a very familiar name directly beneath yours.
Your brows furrowed. Then lowered.
âDid you sign me up for tandem canoe duty?â
Across from you, Seonghyeon looked up slowly from the clipboard resting in his lap, his expression far too calm for someone about to be accused of conspiracy. He was sitting on the lodge steps, long legs stretched out in front of him, looking for all the world like he didn't have a care in it.
âNo?â He said, and the upward tilt at the end of the word was definitely suspicious.
âThen why,â you asked carefully, holding up the clipboard like evidence in a trial, âare our names written with hearts around them?â
A beat passed as he leaned forward slightly to inspect the paper, squinting at the glitter-covered section you were pointing to.
âOh,â he said finally, as if just noticing. âPurple glitter pen.â
You stared at him.
âThat means my campers,â he clarified, as if this explained everything.
Sure enough, surrounding both your names on the duty chart were aggressively drawn purple hearts, silver stars, and what appeared to be two very badly sketched wedding rings. One of the rings had a giant sparkle in the center. The other appeared to be on fire, though that might have been a drawing error.
One particularly ambitious camper had even written: âMR + MRS ???â in loopy cursive beside it, complete with a question mark that had been turned into a tiny heart.
You closed your eyes briefly, counting to ten in your head. âThey're evolving.â
Seonghyeon snorted into his coffee, narrowly avoiding snorting it out of his nose in the process. âYou sound concerned.â
âI am concerned.â
âYou should be,â he agreed lightly, dabbing at his mouth with the back of his hand. âMine have started calling you âCounselor Y/N-Seonghyeonâ behind your back. I heard two of them arguing about whether you'd hyphenate or just take the name.â
Your head whipped toward him so fast you nearly gave yourself whiplash. âThey what?â
âIt's mostly the younger ones.â He shrugged, but his eyes were bright with amusement. âThe older ones are focused on wedding venues.â
âThat's somehow worse.â
Before Seonghyeon could answer a blur of camp shirts sprinted across the field toward the counselor board. Two figures moving fast, their feet barely touching the grass.
Both of you turned just in time to watch two of his campers abruptly freeze upon realising you were already standing there, mid-stride, looking like deer caught in very guilty headlights.
Silence descended over the morning.
One of them slowly lowered the uncapped purple glitter pen still clutched in her hand. A single drop of sparkle ink plopped onto the grass between them.
ââŠGood morning,â she tried weakly.
You pointed at the clipboard, not bothering to hide your accusatory tone. âWas this you?â
Immediately, they turned on each other with the kind of ferocity usually reserved for reality TV reunions.
âWhy are you looking at me?â
âYou literally brought the pen!â
âYou drew the hearts too big!â
âI told you subtlety mattered!â
âYou wrote MR AND MRS!â
âThe moment called for it!â
Seonghyeon made absolutely no attempt to hide his laughter now, shoulders shaking beside you as the campers descended into mutual betrayal.Â
âYou think this is funny?â you asked flatly.
âA little,â he admitted.
âYou're the reason they're like this.â
âThat feels deeply unfair.â
One of the campers gasped loudly, whipping around to face the other. âWait, wait, listenâthey're bickering like an old married couple again.â
The other slapped her arm urgently, eyes wide. âWrite that down.â
You blinked. âAre you documenting this?â
âNo,â they answered immediately, in perfect unison, which meant yes.
A small notebook labeled OPERATION: SUMMER ROMANCE â DO NOT READ (unless you're part of the mission) stuck halfway out of one camper's pocket. It was covered in glitter glue, heart stickers, and what looked like a dried noodle that had been glued on for texture.
Seonghyeon spotted it too. His laughter cut off abruptly.
ââŠIs that glitter glue and pasta,â he said.
The camper slowly pushed the notebook deeper into her pocket.
Nobody said anything.
Safe to say, you and Seonghyeon ended up spending the next two hours stuck in the same canoe.
Not alone, unfortunately. The campers were everywhere: bobbing across the lake in mismatched practice canoes, splashing each other with paddles, and generally creating the kind of chaos that made you understand why some animals ate their young.
Around you, the water glittered under the late morning sun as campers struggled to steer their rented canoes across the lake with varying levels of success. Some were actually doing quite well, gliding in smooth, straight lines toward the far shore. Others were⊠less successful.
You and Seonghyeon sat in the middle of the water in a canoe that had seen better decades, attempting to coach from your position as the designated "lead canoe." Attempted being the key word.
âNo, noâif both of you paddle on the same side, you're just gonnaââ
One canoe spun violently in a circle, the two campers inside yelping as water sloshed over the sides.
ââthere it is,â Seonghyeon finished with a sigh.
From the front of your canoe, one of your campers twisted around to face you, nearly tipping the whole vessel in the process. âCounselor,â she called out, cupping her hands around her mouth, âwe can't focus when the tension between you two is so distracting.â
You nearly dropped your paddle.
âThere is no tension,â you called back, your voice pitching higher than intended.
âThat sounds exactly like someone with tension would say!â Another camper shouted from a nearby canoe, and a ripple of knowing laughter spread across the water.
Seonghyeon leaned back slightly in his seat, his paddle resting across his knees, clearly enjoying this far more than he should have been. The morning light caught the side of his face, illuminating the faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
âYou know,â he mused, loud enough for the nearby canoes to hear, âthey might have a point.â
You turned toward him so quickly your canoe rocked dangerously to one side. Several campers screamed dramatically, clutching the sides of their own vessels as if expecting a capsize.
âSit properly!â you snapped.
âI am sitting properly.â
âYou're instigating.â
âThat too,â he admitted, and his smile widened.
A splash suddenly erupted nearby as one camper completely lost balance trying to stand up inside their canoe despite your clear instructions not to. The canoe tipped, the camper shrieked, and then there was a large splash as they went overboard.
âOh my godââ
âDon't stand up!â
âWHY WOULD YOU STAND UP?â
The camper resurfaced laughing, sputtering water out of their mouth while their canoe drifted away riderless, spinning lazily in the gentle current.
At least four other campers abandoned their own paddling to yell updates about the situation like sports commentators.Â
Meanwhile, your own canoe had started drifting lazily toward the middle of the lake, away from the main group, away from the shouting, away from everything except the glittering water and the warm sun.
You sighed, dipping your paddle back into the water with a practiced stroke. Beside you, Seonghyeon mirrored the movement automatically and the canoe straightened almost immediately, gliding forward like it was on tracks.
The synchronisation made several campers go eerily silent.
One of his campers pointed shakily, her finger trembling like she'd witnessed a miracle. âDid you see that.â
âThey paddled at the same time.â
âThat's actually insane.â
âIt's because they're soulmatââ
âFinish that sentence and you're cleaning cabins tonight,â Seonghyeon warned, but there was no heat in it. He was still smiling.
The camper only grinned, utterly unafraid.
You shook your head, tryingâand failingâto hide your own smile as the canoe glided over the water, sunlight reflecting in scattered patterns around you both like shattered glass. The lake was beautiful this time of day, all gold and blue and shimmering warmth.
Unfortunately, your campers noticed your expression too.
âShe's smiling.â
âNo, because look at him smiling behind her too. They're doing it at the same time. That's a thing people in love do.â
âGuys,â another camper whispered urgently, already pulling out the glitter-covered notebook again, âthis is huge we have to write it down.â
Packing up afterward was chaos and you'd offered to handle it with your cabin while Seonghyeon took his campers back up the hill. The logic was sound: if you split up, the cabinsâ shower schedules wouldn't overlap, and everyone would make it to lunch on time.
Logic, unfortunately, had very little power over a group of determined campers.
âCounselor.â
You glanced up from where you were hauling dripping life jackets into the storage bin near the docks. The afternoon heat had settled over the lake like a blanket, and sweat was already beading at your temples despite the breeze.
One of your campers stood nearby holding an armful of paddles, her expression far too innocent to mean anything good. The paddles were clutched to her chest like a shield, but her eyes were sharp and calculating.
âYeah?â You said warily.
She tilted her head thoughtfully, the picture of casual curiosity. âIf you and Mr. Seonghyeon got married, would that make you Mrs. Seonghyeon?â
Your brain stopped functioning.
Completely.
Somewhere behind you, another camper dropped a paddle with a loud clatter into the sand. The sound echoed across the dock like a gunshot.
Your cheeks burned instantly. You could feel the heat spreading from your chest up your neck, across your face, all the way to the tips of your ears. You probably looked like a tomato wearing a counselor polo.
Because honestly, what were you even supposed to say to that?
If you corrected herâif you said well, technically, his last name is Eom, so I'd be Mrs. Eomâthey would absolutely twist it into:
âSo you HAVE thought about it.â
Which you hadn't.
At all.
Never.
Definitely not during counselor meetings when he pushed his sleeves up to his elbows. Or when he laughed at something stupid during dinner. Or when he looked at you like thatâ
Nope. Absolutely not.
âWhy,â you said carefully, enunciating each word, âwould you ask me that.â
The camper shrugged, still holding the paddles. âJust curious.â
âLiar,â another one muttered from somewhere behind you.
Immediately, the first camper whipped around, paddles swinging dangerously. âWhose side are you on?â
âThe truth's side.â
âThe romance side.â
âThe same thing!â
You made a strangled noise somewhere in the back of your throat. âOkay,â you interrupted quickly, holding up your hands, âI think we're done talking forever actually.â
Several campers burst into laughter, their voices carrying across the water.
âBut you didn't answer,â one pointed out.
âI noticed that too,â another agreed suspiciously, narrowing her eyes at you like a detective who had just found a crucial clue.
You grabbed the nearest stack of towels entirely to avoid eye contact, clutching them to your chest like a lifeline. âSome of you need hobbies.â
The campers refused to let it go.
Any time you and Seonghyeon so much as stood next to each other, whispers instantly broke out behind cupped hands, entire groups of children watching the two of you like they were tracking a slow-burn drama in real time.Â
It was unbearable.
And somehow, impossibly, getting worse.
By free period the next day, the situation had escalated so badly that both cabins had apparently merged into one large investigative unit with a single mission: aggressive matchmaking.
You discovered this in rather harsh fashion.
One of your campers had come running up to you with wide, panicked eyes, claiming there was a raccoon trapped in the large storage cupboard inside the boys' cabin. She'd been very convincing: teary-eyed, trembling, the whole performance. You'd followed her without question because, frankly, you'd dealt with raccoons at camp before and they were not to be trifled with.
Meanwhile, somewhere across camp, a similar story involving a "massive spider" had sent Seonghyeon hurrying toward the same location.
The result was predictable in hindsight.
The door slammed shut behind you both before you'd even processed what was happening. The sound was loud in the small space: a heavy thunk of wood against wood, followed immediately by the scrape of something being wedged through the door handles on the outside.
You stared at the door.
Then at Seonghyeon.
Then back at the door.
âDid your campers just lock us in here?â
From the other side came muffled whispering, frantic shushing, and the unmistakable sound of someone stage-whispering: âGO GO GO RUN BEFORE THEY BREAK OUT.â
The sound of retreating footsteps faded almost immediately, replaced by the distant shrieking of triumph echoing across the camp groundsâa chorus of children who had just committed a crime and felt absolutely no remorse.
You pressed your palm flat against the storage closet door. It didn't budge. Not even a little.
âI can't believe this,â you said, more to yourself than to him. âI actually can't believe this.â
Behind you, Seonghyeon exhaled slowly in half a laugh, half a sigh. His footsteps shifted on the wooden floor as he turned to survey the prison.
A beat passed in the darkness. The closet was small. Much smaller than you'd realised from the outside. Shelves lined both walls, crammed with extra sleeping bags, board games with missing pieces, a deflated volleyball, and what smelled like several summers' worth of forgotten arts and crafts supplies. The air was warm and close, thick with the smell of dust and old wood.
And you.
And Seonghyeon.
Who was currently standing close enough that you could feel the warmth radiating off his arm without even trying. Close enough that if you turned your head a little to the right, your shoulder would brush his. Close enough that you could hear him breathing.
âWe could just push it open,â he said after a moment, his voice low in the darkness. âIt's not locked. They just jammed a broom handle through the handles.â
You tested the door again, pushing harder this time. The wood groaned, but the handles didn't give. âThere's no way we'd be able to break a broom handle from this angle.â
âSo we're stuck.â
âTemporarily,â you said, because admitting otherwise felt like admitting defeat.
He shifted slightly beside you, resettling his weight, trying to find a comfortable position in the cramped spaceâand something on the shelf above him clattered dangerously. A box teetered, then stilled.
âCareful,â you warned, your hand shooting out instinctively to steady the shelf. âIf you knock over the craft glitter onto us, I'm going to kill you.â
He laughed quietly, barely more than a breath. It reverberated off the close walls, wrapped around you like the warmth of the afternoon sun filtering through the cracks in the wood.
And you were suddenly, acutely, almost painfully aware that there wasn't enough room to step back.
Not that you wanted to.
Not that you were thinking about that.
âYour campers are feral,â you said instead, steering the conversation firmly away from whatever your brain was trying to do. The words came out sharper than intended, a little too fast.
âYour campers shoved us in here.â
âThey're a joint effort at this point. A collaborative disaster.â
âTrue.â He tilted his head slightly, and even in the dim light filtering through the cracks around the doorframe you could see the smile tugging at his mouth. âCabin Three-and-a-half.â
âDon't encourage them.â
âI'm not encouraging anyone.â He held up his hands in mock surrender. âI'm simply observing that our names are still on the counselor board with wedding rings drawn around them.â
You closed your eyes, leaning your head back against the door. The wood was cool against your scalp. âDon't remind me.â
âThe hearts have doubled in number since yesterday.â
âWhen did you see the board?â
âI walked past it this morning.â A pause. âThere's a Venn diagram now.â
You turned to stare at him, your eyes adjusting to the dim light. His face was half in shadow, half illuminated, and he looked entirely too serious for someone who was trapped in a closet with his coworker.
âI'm serious,â he said, and his lips twitched. âLabeled âtraits they shareâ and âtraits that would make them good parents.ââ
âParents?â
âThey're very invested.â
You made a sound somewhere between a groan and a laugh, dropping your head back against the door with a soft thunk. The sound echoed in the small space. âThey're going to be insufferable when we get out of here.â
âWe'll just have to wait and see,â Seonghyeon said, and there was something in his voice that made you open your eyes again.
He wasn't looking at the door anymore.
He was looking at you.
The dim light caught the edge of his jaw, the curve of his shoulder where his counselor shirt pulled tight across the fabric. His sunglasses were hooked into the collar of his shirt instead of on his face where they belonged, and without them, his eyes were⊠intense. Dark and focused and fixed entirely on you.
You realised abruptly that you could count his eyelashes if you wanted to. That you were, in fact, already counting them without meaning to.
You didn't want to.
You absolutely did not want to.
âI'm going to kill them,â you said, and your voice came out slightly thinner than usual. Slightly higher. Completely unconvincing.
âThe campers?â
âAll of them.â
âMurder seems extreme.â
âThey locked us in a closet, Seonghyeon.â
âFair point,â he conceded, but he was still looking at you like that, and you couldn't look away.
Neither of you moved.
From somewhere outside, distant shouting echoedâcampers running, probably, or maybe just general chaos. The lake glittered somewhere beyond the cabin walls, invisible but present. The afternoon sun shifted through the cracks in the wood, striping Seonghyeon's face in gold and shadow, and the world felt very small and very large all at once.
âYour campers asked me something yesterday,â he said quietly. The shift in topic was so abrupt that it took you a moment to process.
You blinked. âWhat?â
âThey cornered me after archery.â His voice was casual, almost conversational, but something underneath it made your stomach flip. âWanted to know my intentions.â
You stared at him. ââŠYour intentions.â
âToward you.â
Your heart did something complicated in your chest: a stutter, a skip, a full stop and restart. Something warm and dangerous spread through your ribs like honey.
You ignored it.
âAnd what did you say?â
He was quiet for a moment, and the silence stretched between you like a held breath. The closet seemed smaller suddenly, the air between your bodies feeling charged.
âI said I didn't know what they were talking about.â
âGood answer.â
âThey didn't believe me.â
âMy campers don't believe anyone.â Your voice was barely a whisper now, and you weren't sure when that had happened.
âTrue.â He shifted again, and this time his shoulder brushed yoursâdeliberately or accidentally, you couldn't tell. The contact sent a spark down your arm, a trail of heat that lingered even after he pulled back. âBut they weren't wrong.â
The words hung in the dim air between you, suspended like dust motes in a sunbeam.
Your throat felt tight. Too tight to speak, too tight to breathe, too tight for anything except the pounding of your heart against your ribs.
âWhat does that mean?â You asked, and your voice came out quieter than you intended. Softer. More honest.
Seonghyeon turned toward you fully. The movement brought him closerâclose enough that you could count the freckles scattered across his nose, the faint shadows beneath his eyes from too many late nights and early mornings. Close enough that you could see the way his pulse flickered at his throat, matching the frantic rhythm of your own.
âI think,â he said, and his voice was low, careful, like he was handling something fragile, âyou know what it means.â
Outside, someone screamed with laughter, the distant, joyful sound of children being children.
Inside, the world had gone very still.
You stared at him and he stared back. The space between you had never felt smaller.
Your mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.
No sound came out.
Seonghyeon didn't move or push or attempt to fill the silence with nervous chatter or awkward jokes. He just stood there in the dim light with his shoulder almost touching yours and his eyes steady on your face, patient as the tide, like he had all the time in the world.
Which, technically, you both did. The door wasn't opening itself.
âI don'tââ you started, then stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. âI don't know what you want me to say.â
âThe truth usually works.â
âThe truth,â you repeated, and you laughed a little. âThe truth is that my campers have been asking me if I'm going to marry you for three days, and I haven't said no once.â
Something soft and wondering flickered across his face. Like you'd just confirmed something he'd been hoping for but hadn't dared to believe.
âBut,â he said carefully, and his voice was gentle in a way that made your chest ache, âyou haven't said yes either.â
âTo marriage? Seonghyeon, we've known each other forââ
âNot to marriage.â His voice dropped slightly, barely above a whisper now. âTo anything.â
The air between you felt charged now, like before a thunderstorm. Like the moment the lake goes still right before the wind picks up, the moment when the world holds its breath and waits for the sky to crack open.
You looked away firstâcouldn't help it. Your eyes landed on the shelves beside you, the dusty board games, the half-empty bag of marshmallows someone had clearly hidden from their cabinmates days ago. Anything to avoid the weight of his gaze.
âYou make this really difficult,â you muttered.
âWhat?â
âBeing normal about you.â
He didn't laugh or make a joke. When you mustered the courage to glance back, his expression had gone serious in a way you almost never saw.
âYou don't have to be normal about me,â he said quietly, and his voice was rough at the edges in a way that made your stomach flip. âI'm not normal about you either.â
Your heart stopped.
Then started again, twice as fast, beating so hard you could feel it in your throat.
âWhat does that mean?â you whispered.
His hand movedâjust slightly, just enough that his pinky brushed against yours where they rested against your thigh. The touch was barely anything. Barely there. A ghost of contact, a question more than a statement.
âIt means,â Seonghyeon said, and his voice was steady even though his hand was not, âthat I signed us up for tandem canoe duty.â
Your breath caught. âYou told me you didn't.â
âI lied.â
âThe hearts on the clipboard?â
âMy campers. But I didn't stop them.â His pinky curled around yours, tentative, questioning, giving you every opportunity to pull away. You didn't. âIt means I've been volunteering for breakfast cleanup even on my off days because that's when you're scheduled. It means I told the camp director the lakeside cabins needed two counselors for night checks even though they don't, just so I'd have an excuse to walk you back to your cabin after evening activities.â
Your chest felt too full. Like something was cracking open inside you, something you'd been trying very hard to keep shut and locked and buried. Something that wanted very badly to be seen.
âWhy didn't you say anything?â you asked, and your voice cracked on the last word.
âBecause you're my coworker.â He said it simply, like it was obvious, like he'd turned it over in his mind a thousand times. âBecause we're here for the kids. Because I didn't want to make it weird ifââ He stopped. His hand tightened around yours, just slightly, just enough that you could feel the warmth of his palm against your skin. âIf you didn't feel the same.â
The closet was so quiet you could hear both of you breathing. His breath, steady and slow. Yours, shallow and quick.
âSeonghyeon,â you said.
âYeah?â
âI almost dropped an entire pile of life jackets because one of my campers asked me what my last name would be if we got married.â
He blinked. Once. Twice. His hand tightened around yours.
âI mean,â you continued, and now the words were spilling out like water over rocks, unstoppable, undeniable, âI didn't even correct her. I just stood there like an idiot holding a life jacket while my face turned approximately the color of a strawberry popsicle. And then i thought about how youâve always smiled at me and Iââ You stopped, suddenly aware of how much you were saying. How much you were admitting. How much of yourself you were laying bare in the dusty darkness of a storage closet.
Seonghyeon was staring at you like you'd just handed him something precious. Something breakable. Something he'd been reaching for his whole life without knowing it.
âYou what?â he prompted softly.
You took a breath and held it for a moment before eventually letting it go.
âI thought about it,â you said. âThe last name thing. Not because I want to get marriedâI mean, not that I don't want to get married, someday, to someone, hypotheticallyâbut because I look at you and I just think⊠oh.â Your voice dropped to barely a whisper. âLikeâoh. Like I've been looking at a half-finished puzzle my whole life, and suddenly someone handed me the last piece. Like everything makes sense when you're standing next to me, and I don't know how to be normal about that. I don't know how to be casual about someone who looks at me the way you do.â
The silence that followed was unbearable.
Then Seonghyeon laughed, disbelieving. His forehead dropped toward your shoulder, his breath warm through the fabric of your counselor polo, and he stayed there for a moment. Just breathing. Just being.
âYou can't just say things like that,â he said, his voice muffled against your shirt.
âWhy not?â
âBecause I'm trying very hard to be respectful right now,â he admitted, and you could hear the smile in his voice, âand you're making it impossible.â
You couldn't help it. You laughed too:giddy and ridiculous and probably a little hysterical. And somewhere in the middle of it, his hand found yours properly, fingers threading together like they'd been made to fit, like they'd been waiting for this moment their whole existence.
âOkay,â you said, when you could breathe again.
âOkay what?â
âOkay, we're doing this.â You looked up at him, at his bright eyes and his smiling mouth and the purple glitter dusted across his shoulders the excess droppings of a crafts box. âWhatever this is. We're doing it.â
He lifted his head. His eyes were bright in the dim light, warmer than the afternoon sun streaming through the cracks in the walls. âYeah?â
âYeah.â You squeezed his hand. âBut if your campers put another drawing on the counselor board, I'm denying everything.â
âLiar.â
âYou don't know that.â
âI know you.â He squeezed back, his thumb tracing a slow circle across your knuckles. âI've been watching you teach eight-year-olds how to paddle a canoe without capsizing for three summers. I know you'd frame the drawing and hang it in our apartment.â
âOur apartment?â
The word slipped out before you could stop it, hanging in the air between you like a promise neither of you had meant to make.
Seonghyeon's ears went pink. Actually, visibly pink, right there in the dim light, spreading from the tips of his ears down to his neck.
âI meantâhypotheticallyââ
âMhm.â
âShut up.â
âYou said our apartment, Seonghyeon.â
He groaned, dropping his head back against the shelf behind himâand that's when the box of glitter, already teetering from earlier, finally gave up the fight.
Purple sparkles rained down on both of you like an explosion in a craft store, dusting your hair, your shoulders, the collars of your counselor shirts. You blinked up at the falling glitter, too surprised to move, and felt a flake land on the tip of your nose.
You stared at each other.
Seonghyeon had glitter in his eyelashes, is hair looked like a disco ball and there was a purple sparkle directly in the center of his forehead, right between his eyebrows like a third eye made of craft supplies.
Then you both started laughing so hard you nearly knocked over the rest of the shelves.
Outside, a camper's voice drifted through the door, hushed and urgent:
âAre they⊠laughing?â
Another camper responded, equally hushed but clearly delighted: âThat's either a very good sign or a very bad one.â
âShould we let them out?â
A pause. A heavy, dramatic pause that you could feel through the wood.
âAbsolutely not. Let them cook.â
You buried your face in Seonghyeon's shoulderâpurple sparkles and all, the glitter scratching gently against your cheekâand felt his arm wrap around you like it belonged there. Like it had always belonged there, and you'd both just been too oblivious to notice.
âYour campers,â you said into his shirt, your voice muffled but smiling, âare menaces.â
His chest shook with quiet laughter, his chin coming to rest on top of your head. âOur campers,â he corrected.
SYNOPSIS :: Following your campers locking you and Seonghyeon in a closet together, you try to pretend he doesn't exist, but Seonghyeon and your two cabins of relentless matchmakers have other plans.
W.C :: 4.6k
CONTAINS :: campcounselor!seonghyeon, a spinoff of mr and mrs camp counselor, the campers are menaces, stubborn reader, crack, fluff, angst if you squint, the love bomb, skinship, kissing
PLAYLIST :: Tongue tied - grouplove; Itâs not living (if itâs not with you) - the 1975; Slide away - Oasis; You are the right one - Sports
It had been exactly one day since the storage closet incident that saw you and Seonghyeon finally confess that there was something between you both.
When the two of you were freed from the makeshift prison you had attempted to give the campers a thorough talking to. Really, you had.
You'd marched them all to the main lodge, mustered your most authoritative counselor voice, and launched into a speech about boundaries, respect, and the importance of not locking people in confined spaces.
They'd stood there in a ragged semicircle, faces arranged in expressions of performative contritionâand then one of them had pointed at your hair and whispered, "It's still there."
Another had started giggling, then another.
Within thirty seconds, the entire group had devolved into helpless laughter, tears streaming down their faces as they pointed at the glitter still stubbornly clinging to your part, your temples, the collar of your counselor polo, all the while you tried to maintain your composure.Â
Then you'd glanced at Seonghyeon, who had somehow gotten it worse: his entire left shoulder sparkled like a disco ball, and there was a particularly stubborn cluster of purple flakes stuck to his eyebrow, and you'd lost it too.
The "talking to" had devolved into all of you laughing so hard the camp director had come outside to check if someone was dying.
Safe to say, you deemed the whole thing a wash and the lecture was officially canceled. The campers had won yet again.
And so, in your own stubborn and unrelenting methods of punishment , you refused to allow the campers to see you interact with Seonghyeon at all in the hopes that eventually the campers would stop being so persistent.
It was petty, sure, but seeing their faces: the way their eyes would light up whenever you so much as glanced in his direction, and they'd scramble for that ridiculous notebook, then they'd start narrating your every move like you were characters in their personal dramaâit all made you want to scream.
So you'd decided: no interaction, no eye contact, no accidental hand brushes, no standing within ten feet of each other. No anything that could be documented, analysed, or turned into another entry in Operation Summer Romance.
You were going to starve them of content.
It was a brilliant plan. Foolproof. Diabolical, even.
It lasted approximately one day before collapsing.
You had started the morning off strong, positioning yourself on the complete opposite end of the counselorâs dining table to Seonghyeon, as far away from him as physically possible.
The campers noticed immediately, and you watched their faces drop, eyes darting between the two of you.
"Why is she sitting so far away?"
"Is she... avoiding him?"
"Why would she avoid him? They were literally trapped in a closet together yesterday."
"Maybe she's embarrassed."
"Maybe he did something wrong."
"He wouldn't do anything wrong. He's perfect."
"Nobody's perfect."
"He is. He's perfect for her."
You stabbed your oatmeal with unnecessary force.
Seonghyeon, at the opposite end of the table, was pointedly not looking at you. You could tell he was trying not to look at you. His eyes kept drifting in your direction, then snapping away, like he was fighting a physical urge.
It was kind of adorable, but you weren't going to think about that.
The whispers continued as breakfast finished up, it was only natural for them to speculate anyways, they had quite literally witnessed you two fall into each other laughing upon your release from the closet. The sudden switch up from "they're obviously in love" to "she won't even look at him" was jarring, even for the most dedicated investigators, especially considering both you and Seonghyeon still had the remnants of glitter dusted across you, so what could have possibly happened in that short time period?
You could feel their confusion radiating from the other side of the dining hall like a physical force.
Eventually you pushed your bowl away, your oatmeal a lost cause.
Standing up, you collected your tray and turned to your campers, who were still huddled together, watching you with the intensity of hawk-eyed detectives.
"Clean up," you said firmly. "We have archery in twenty minutes. I don't want to hear any excuses about being late."
Your campers exchanged glances. They clearly wanted to ask more questions and demand answers, but something in your tone made them hold their tongues for now.
You walked toward the tray return, keeping your gaze fixed straight ahead. You could feel Seonghyeon's eyes on you from across the room, the weight of his attention like a physical presence, warm and steady and impossible to ignore.
You didn't look back, you refused to.
That afternoon you were walking back from the archery range when you saw him coming the other way, flanked by his campers. The path was narrow, there was nowhere to go, and you were going to have to pass him.
You squared your shoulders and lifted your chin, prepared to walk past him like he was a stranger, a complete non-entity, someone you'd never met in your entire lifeâ
"Counselor Y/N."
His voice stopped you in your tracks.
You turned to see his campers watching with barely contained glee. Your campers were watching from a distance, having somehow materialised out of thin air the moment they sensed an impending interaction.
"Yes?" You said, keeping your voice flat.
Seonghyeon smiled that soft, private smile that was only ever for you. "You have something in your hair."
"Really."
"Really."
"Let me guess, glitter?"
"Purple."
You reached up. Your fingers brushed against a cluster of stubborn sparkles still clinging to your part. You tried to pull them out, but they were completely stuck despite your insistence.
One of Seonghyeonâs campers squealed quietly, barely able to contain her excitement as she watched Seonghyeonâs smile turn even fonder than it already had been, "He's going to help her."
"He's going to touch her hair." Another responded, swinging the arm of the camper beside them in uncontrolled glee.
Seonghyeon stepped closer, his hand already reaching out towards you. "Do you wantâ"
"I've got it," you said quickly, far too quickly. "I'm fine. Thank you."
You turned and walked away, continuing your trek down towards the camp. Behind you, the campers gasped. "She walked away!"
"He looks so confused." Your camper whispered behind her hand, watching Seonghyeon carefully from a distance. The crowd of kids surrounded him like concerned bodyguards, all of them tracking his every micro-expression following the... rejection, if you could even call it that.
"He looks hurt."
"She hurt his feelings."
One of the younger campers pouted dramatically, her lower lip wobbling as if she'd personally been rejected. "Why would she do that? They were so happy yesterday."
"Maybe she's playing hard to get."
"What do we do? We canât let this stand." Seonghyeonâs camper declared, shaking his head dramatically.
"We'll fix it, somehow."
âHow???â
What every single one of them failed to notice, in their mass whispers of shock and concern, was the smirk that now rested on Seonghyeon's lips as he watched you go.
He had worked out almost immediately what you were doing. The moment you'd sat at the opposite end of the breakfast table, refused to make eye contact, and now walked away from him on the pathâhe'd seen right through it.
You weren't rejecting him.
You were testing him, or rather, you were testing yourself. You were trying to prove that you could resist him, that you could keep things professional, that the campers hadn't already won.
It was absolutely adorable, and also completely, utterly futile.
He watched you disappear around the bend, your shoulders still squared with your chin still lifted and your hair still glittering with purple sparkles that caught the afternoon light like tiny stars. You were trying so hard to be strong, distant, and untouchable.
But he knew you.
He'd known you for three summers. He'd watched you comfort homesick campers at midnight and laugh so hard at a camper's joke that you'd snorted juice out of your nose.
He'd even watched you fall in love with himâjust as he'd fallen in love with you.
This little performance of yours wasn't going to last, he'd make sure of it.
"You know," he said, not turning around to face his campers, "she's very stubborn."
"Yeah, we noticed."
"She's SOOOOO stubborn."
"Stubborn enough to walk away from true love."
Seonghyeon chuckled. "She's also very determined. Once she decides on something, she doesn't give up easily."
"Is that supposed to be a good thing?"
"It is when she's determined about the right things." A camper pointed out.
"And right now, she's determined about the wrong thing."
"Don't worry," Seonghyeon said, finally turning to face his campers. His smirk had softened into something warmer and more certain. "She'll come around."
"How do you know?"
"Because I know her." He tucked his hands into his pockets, already planning his next move. "And because I'm very, very patient."
"Patient for what?"
"For her."
The campers exchanged glances. Then, slowly, their expressions shifted from despair to hope, realising they had maybe underestimated their counselor.
That evening, you found yourself back in the boys' cabin.
It wasn't by choice, exactly. The glitter situation in the storage closet had become a genuine hazardâcampers were tracking purple sparkles everywhere, and you'd drawn the short straw when it came to cleanup duty. So there you were, knee-deep in craft supplies, trying to contain the chaos that your campers had unleashed.
The irony was not lost on you.
You were just reaching for a particularly stubborn cluster of glitter that had somehow migrated to the ceiling when you heard footsteps behind you: the soft tread of sneakers on wooden floorboards that were familiar and unmistakable.
"I'm not talking to you," you said without turning around.
"I didn't say anything," Seonghyeon replied.
"Your presence is saying plenty."
"My presence?"
"Yes. It's very... present."
He laughed warmly, making your stomach flip. You'd heard that laugh a hundred times before, but somehow it still managed to catch you off guard and make your heart do that annoying little skip it had been doing for three summers now.
You refused to acknowledge it.
"I was just passing by," he said, and you could hear the smile in his voice. "I didn't realise you'd be in here."
"Liar."
"Excuse me?"
"You're a terrible liar, Seonghyeon. You always have been." You finally turned to face him, still holding the glitter container like a shield. "You knew I'd be here. One of your campers told you, didn't they?"
He had the decency to look slightly caught out. His hand came up to rub the back of his neckâa nervous habit you'd noticed years ago, one that he only ever did around you.
"Maybe," he admitted.
"Maybe?"
"Okay, yes. Jungwoo mentioned it during free period. He said you were 'on a glitter crusade' and that I should 'seize the opportunity.'"
You pinched the bridge of your nose. "They're coaching you now?"
"They're very invested."
"They're meddling."
"They prefer the term 'facilitating.'"
"Seonghyeon."
"Y/N."
You stared at each other across the small cabin. The evening light slanted through the windows, catching the glitter dust still floating in the air like tiny purple stars. Somewhere outside, a bird sang. Somewhere further away, campers shouted and laughed and continued their endless chaos.
But in here, it was just the two of you.
"I'm doing this for a reason," you said.
"Which is?"
"The campers. They're watching us all the time, and if we give them any more material, they're going toâ" You gestured vaguely. "âdo something. I don't know what. Something worse than the closet."
"Worse than the closet?"
"Yes. They're creative and unhinged. They have that stupid notebook, for godâs sake."
Seonghyeon took a step toward you. "So your solution is to pretend I don't exist?"
"It's a temporary measure."
"For how long?"
"Until they lose interest."
He raised an eyebrow. "They're not going to lose interest."
"They will eventually."
"Y/N. They've been watching us for weeks. They locked us in a closet. They have a Venn diagram." He stopped in front of you, close enough that you could see the flecks of colour in his eyes. "They're not losing interest."
You swallowed. "So what do you suggest?"
He reached up, very slowly, very deliberately, and brushed a cluster of purple glitter from your hair, his fingers lingering against your temple. "I suggest we stop pretending," he said quietly. "They already know. Everyone already knows. The only people who don't seem to know are us."
The words hung in the air between you, heavy with meaning.
You opened your mouth to respond, deflect, argue, do anything other than admit that he was right, and then you heard it.
A soft gasp from behind you. Barely audible, but unmistakable.
Your eyes widened. You started to turn to see who was there and had been watching, ready to question how long they'd been listeningâ
But Seonghyeon's hands were suddenly on your cheeks, cupping your face, gently but firmly holding you still. His thumbs brushed across your cheekbones, warm and steady, and his eyes locked onto yours with an intensity that made your breath catch.
"Don't turn around," he murmured.
"Seonghyeon."
"Don't."
"Seonghyeon, Iâ"
"Just look at me." His voice was soft, almost pleading. "Please. Just look at me."
You wanted to argue and pull away to see who was at the window and put an end to whatever scheme the campers had cooked up this time.
But his hands were so warm, his eyes were so steady, and the way he was looking at youâlike you were the only person in the world, like nothing else mattered, like the campers could be watching or not and it wouldn't change a single thingâmade it impossible to move.
"Seonghyeon," you said again, and this time your voice came out as a warning, low and threatening. The kind of voice you used when campers were about to do something stupid.
He just tilted his head, his expression entirely innocent. His eyelashes fluttered and he smiled so softly you felt your heart clench.
"Yes?" He asked, his voice dripping with false sweetness.
You stared at him and he stared back, completely unrepentant.
Despite everything surrounding you at this moment, you felt the fight drain out of you.
You sighed, a long, defeated exhale that seemed to come from somewhere deep in your soul. "You're impossible," you said.
"I know."
"This is exactly what they want."
"I know."
"And you're just... going to give it to them?"
He smiled, his thumbs still stroking your cheeks. "I'm not doing it for them," he said quietly. "I'm doing it for us."
Your heart stuttered in your chest. "Seonghyeon..."
"Y/N." His forehead touched yours. "I've been waiting for three summers. I've been patient. I've been professional. I've been careful." He let out a soft breath. "I'm tired of being careful."
"You're tired of being careful?"
"I'm tired of pretending I don't want to kiss you every time you laugh at one of my jokes, and watching you walk away and not following. I'm tired ofâ" He stopped, his voice catching slightly. "I'm tired of loving you from a distance."
Your breath caught. "Seonghyeon..."
"I know the campers are watching." His voice was barely a whisper now. "I know they're going to make this into a whole thing and we're never going to hear the end of it." He smiled, soft and warm. "But I don't care."
"Theyâre going to actually plan our wedding."
"I figured."
"Seonghyeon."
"Y/N."
He was so close. His hands were on your face, his forehead was against yours, and somewhere behind you, through the window, a dozen campers were watching with bated breath.
But in this moment none of it mattered.
"You're not worried?" You whispered.
"Not even a little," he whispered back, his lips curving into a smile.
And then, before you could overthink it, you surged forward and kissed him.
His lips were warm, slightly chapped from the summer sun, the way they always were this time of year, and you'd noticed that detail a hundred times before without ever admitting it to yourself. You'd noticed the way he bit his lower lip when he was thinking, the way he licked them before he smiled, the way they curved around words that made you laugh.
But you'd never let yourself imagine what they'd feel like against yours.
Now you knew.
His hands were still cupping your face, and as you kissed him, his thumbs traced slow, reverent circles across your cheekbones. The gesture was so tender, so careful, that it made your chest ache with something you couldn't quite name.
You felt his breath hitch against your lipsâa soft, surprised sound that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest. His hands then slid from your cheeks into your hair, fingers threading through the strands, pulling you closer, deeper, like he'd been waiting for this moment his entire life.
Which, you realised with a jolt, he had.
Three summers. Three years of stolen glances and accidental touches and breakfast cleanup shifts, three years of watching you from across the dining hall, of finding excuses to be near you, of loving you from a distance.
And now, finally, finally, you were here.
The kiss deepened, and you felt his body press against yoursâwarm and solid and real. His chest against your chest, his hands in your hair, his lips moving against yours with a slowness that felt almost deliberate.Â
You reached up, your fingers finding the collar of his counselor polo. You tugged him closer, and he made a soft sound against your lipsâa sound that was half laugh, half sigh, entirely content.
When you finally pulled back, you were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against yours, his eyes still closed, his lips parted slightly.
"Y/N," he whispered, and your name sounded softer on his lips now.
"I'm here," you whispered back.
He opened his eyes. They were bright, warm, filled with something that made your heart stutter in your chest. "I've wanted to do that for so long," he said.
"I know."
"You know?"
"You signed up for breakfast cleanup on your off days for three summers, Seonghyeon. I wasn't oblivious." You smiled, your fingers still tangled in his collar. "I was just..."
"Scared?"
"Patient."
"You're not patient. You're stubborn."
"Same thing."
He laughed and pressed his forehead more firmly against yours. "I love you," he said quietly. "I've loved you for three summers, and I'm tired of pretending I don't."
"I know."
"Say it back."
"Seonghyeon."
"Say it back," he repeated, and his voice was soft but insistent. "Please."
You looked at him, seeing his warm eyes and his soft smile and the single purple glitter flake still clinging to his eyebrow. He was the man who had been waiting for you for three summers, who had signed up for shifts he didn't need and duties he didn't want, who had loved you from a distance and never once given up.
"I love you too," you said.
His smile was the brightest thing you'd ever seen. "Say it again."
"I love you too."
"Again."
"Seonghyeon."
"Again."
You laughed, pulling him closer. "I love you. I love you. I love you." You pressed a kiss to his forehead, then his nose, then the corner of his mouth. "Is that enough?"
"Not even close," he murmured, and then he was kissing you again: deeper this time, slower, like he had all the time in the world.
Behind you, the campers erupted.
âTHEYâRE KISSING!!!â One shouted as the two campers beside her screamed and covered their eyes, trying to erase the sight from their memories.
âWE DID IT!â
âOPERATION SUMMER ROMANCE IS COMPLETE!â
You felt Seonghyeon smile into the kiss as the campers voices filtered in through the cracks of the window, the sun shhining bright onto the grounds. Maybe it was time to give in and accept that the campers were victorious, though if it meant you got to kiss Seonghyeon more often, you werenât going to complain.
EXTRA ::
The sun hung low and golden over the lake, casting long shadows across the water as the final afternoon of camp drew to a close. The air was thick with the scent of pine and sunscreen and the bittersweet weight of endings. Summer was almost over, the campers would leave tomorrow, the cabins would empty, the laughter would fade into memory.
But not yet. Not quite yet.
You stood at the edge of the dock, the wooden boards warm beneath your bare feet. The water lapped gently against the pilings, a soft, rhythmic sound that seemed to echo the beating of your heart. Beside you, Seonghyeon's hand was warm in yours, his fingers laced through yours like they'd always been there.
The campers were gathered on the shore, a chaotic cluster of cabin shirts and sunburned noses and glitter-covered notebooks. They'd been watching you both all weekâfollowing you around like ducklings, documenting your every interaction, adding to their ever-growing collection of evidence that you were now, officially, a couple.Â
"Are you ready?" Seonghyeon asked softly, his voice barely audible over the sounds of the campers' chatter.
You turned to look at him. The golden light caught the edges of his face, illuminating the warmth in his eyes, the soft curve of his smile. "Ready for what?" You asked, though you already knew.
He smiled gently. "To make a memory."
Your heart swelled in your chest. "I've already made enough memories with you to last a lifetime."
"Then make one more."
The campers on shore were growing restless. You could hear their whispers and excited murmurs. "They're holding hands."
"They're always holding hands now."
"It's so romantic."
"It's so gross."
"Shush!! Itâs beautiful."
You laughed, the sound bright and unguarded. Seonghyeon's hand squeezed yours, and you turned to face him fully. "Together?" You asked.
"Together," he confirmed.
And then you jumped.
The water was cold and shocking and perfect. It closed over your heads like a curtain, muffling the sounds of the world above. For a moment, there was nothing but the weight of the water around you, the pressure of Seonghyeon's hand still gripping yours, the strange, suspended feeling of falling without falling.
You then kicked upward, breaking the surface with a gasp.
The air was warm against your wet skin. The sun was bright in your eyes. The campers were screaming from the shore, their voices a chaotic chorus of excitement and disbelief.
But you barely heard them because Seonghyeon was there, treading water beside you, his hair plastered to his forehead, his eyes bright and laughing. Water droplets clung to his lashes like tiny diamonds and his smile was the widest you'd ever seen it.
"You're crazy," you said, laughing.
"You're the one who jumped with me."
"I didn't say I wasn't crazy too."
He laughed heartily and pulled you closer. His hands found your waist beneath the water, steadying you, anchoring you to him. "I love you," he said, and the words came easy now, as natural as breathing.
You smiled, water dripping from your chin. "I love you too."
He kissed you.
His hands tightened on your waist, pulling you closer, and you felt your feet leave the bottom of the lake. You floated together, suspended in the golden water, the world reduced to the warmth of his lips and the steady beat of his heart against yours.
When you finally pulled back, you were both breathing hard. His forehead rested against yours, his eyes still closed.
"Best summer ever," he murmured.
"Best summer ever," you agreed.
From the shore, the campers had lost their collective minds.
"THEY KISSED IN THE WATER!"
"THAT WAS SO ROMANTIC!"
"WE DID THIS! WE'RE MATCHMAKING GENIUSES!"
"WE'RE LEGENDS!"
Then, without warning, the first camper jumped.
A splash followed by a shriek and a burst of laughter, then another, and another.
Within seconds, the air was filled with flying bodies and screaming children and the unmistakable chaos of two cabins' worth of campers launching themselves into the lake with absolutely no regard for safety or dignity or the fact that they were all still wearing their clothes.
"CANNONBALL!" One shouted before they hit the water, you quickly turned your face away to avoid the spray of water from hitting your eye.
You watched in horror and delight as the chaos unfolded around you. Campers splashed and shrieked and laughed, their voices echoing across the lake like the sound of pure, unfiltered joy.
And then, as the realisation hit youâ
"WHERE ARE YOUR LIFE JACKETS?!" You shouted, your counselor instincts overriding everything else.
A camper paddled past you, grinning. "Relax, Counselor! We're in the shallow end!"
"The shallow end is still deep enough to drown!"
"We're fine!"
"You're not fine! You're going to drown!"
"I can swim!"
"Thatâs not the point!"
Seonghyeon laughed beside you, his arm still wrapped around your waist. "They're not going to listen."
"Seonghyeon."
"Just let them have this."
"Someone's going to injure themself!"
"Well at least they would be having fun whilst doing so."
You turned to stare at him. "Did you just joke about campers getting injured?"
He grinned, water still dripping from his chin. "I'm very funny."
You splashed him in response.
The water caught him square in the face, and his head snapped back with a startled laugh. For a moment, he just froze: jaw dropped, eyes wide, water streaming down his cheeks like he couldn't quite believe what had just happened.
Then he turned to you, and his grin turned wicked. "Oh, it's on."
Before you could react, his hand came down in a sweeping arc, sending a wall of water directly into your face. You sputtered, gasping, as the lake water invaded your mouth and nose.
It quickly devolved into the two of you splashing water at each other relentlessly, wide grins on both your faces: your hands churning the surface into a frenzy, his laughter echoing across the lake as he dodged and retaliated. Water flew in every direction, catching the golden sunlight like scattered diamonds.
One of your campers shouted: "WATER FIGHT!"
It then became an all-out war. A free-for-all, even.
Campers descended from every direction, shrieking and laughing, their bodies cutting through the water like torpedoes. You couldn't tell who was an ally or an enemy anymoreâonly that you were aiming to stop swallowing so much water. Hands splashed from every angle, faces appeared and disappeared in the chaos, the lake had become a battlefield of pure, unfiltered joy.
You spun in circles, trying to defend yourself, but it was hopeless. There were too many of them and they were everywhere: behind you, beside you, in front of you. Water filled your eyes, your nose, your mouth. You were laughing so hard you could barely breathe.
Somewhere in the middle of it all, you caught a glimpse of Seonghyeon. He was surrounded by at least five campers, all of them splashing him relentlessly, and he was laughing so brightly his cheeks were turning red. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his shirt clung to his chest, and you realised truly that you'd never loved him more.
The sun shone brightly above, its rays gleaming against the rocking water. The lake sparkled like a sea of scattered stars, each ripple catching the light and throwing it back toward the sky. The air was warm and sweet with the scent of summer. The sounds of laughter and splashing echoed across the water like music.
In the middle of it all, surrounded by chaos and campers and the golden light of the setting sun, you found yourself thinking that this was it. This was the moment you'd remember forever.
The summer you fell in love.
The summer the campers won.
The summer that changed everything for the better.
SYNOPSIS :: Juhoon had left you heartbroken to chase his dreams, so why were you seeing posts of him sat at the very bus stop it had all began? Why did he look like he too was still haunted by the ghost of your love? And why, after years of trying to forget him, couldnât you stop staring?
W.C :: 16.9k
CONTAINS :: idol!juhoon, angst with some fluff, small hometown, childhood lovers, longing/yearning, miscommunication, brief mentions of burns (coffee), swapping of timelines and povs a lot, break up, kissing, reader is a bad dancer, profanities, brief mentions of the members, parents make an appearance
PLAYLIST :: The man who can't be moved - The Script; Letter home - Childish Gambino; It had to be you - Frank Sinatra; Blessed - Daniel Caesar; This town - Niall Horan; Alexandra - reality club; Breakeven - The Script; Coming up roses - Harry Styles
The espresso machine broke twice, a customer yelled at you because their oat milk latte wasn't "oaty enough," and your manager disappeared into the back room for forty-five minutes to "take a call" that was definitely just him watching TikTok.
By the time you punched out, your feet were screaming, your hair smelled like stale coffee grounds, and you had a small burn on your thumb from a rogue steam wand.
But you were done. Finally done.
The walk back to your dorm was short: three blocks, past the convenience store with the flickering sign, past the elderly couple who walked their tiny dog every night at the exact same time and smiled sweetly at you. You let your mind go blank. It was easier that way.
Your dorm was exactly as you'd left it: messy, too small, and mercifully empty. Your roommates were either still out or already asleep behind their closed doors. You didn't care which.
You toed off your sneakers, dropped your bag by the door, and shuffled to the kitchenette in your thick socks. The leftover noodles from two nights ago were still in the fridge and looked edible enough. You pulled the container out, peeled back the lid, and stuck it in the microwave, setting the timer for three minutes as the beeps echoed around the room.
You leaned against the counter, crossing your arms as you watched the numbers count down.
You picked it up, swiped open the screen, and started scrolling.
Past the many updates of your school friends embracing their first year of freedom, past the random cooking videos, gossip pages, and the endless cycle of social media
Then your thumb stopped as your eyes locked onto a post.
It was uploaded by a random account, looked to be a fanpage, and it was an engagement-bait tweet that had somehow clawed its way onto your feed. The kind of thing the algorithm shoved at you because it knew something you didn't want to admit from your 2 am searching when your nostalgia grew to heavy and you couldnât resist the urge.
"does anyone know why CORTIS's Juhoon is just sitting at a random bus stop?? this is like the fourth sighting tonight đ"
Below it was a photo.
It was blurry, taken from a distance and probably zoomed in from a car window. But the figure in the frame was unmistakable.
Hood up, shoulders curved inward, sitting completely alone on the bench of an old bus stop.
Your bus stop.
The one with the crooked tin roof and the faded ads for phone cards that hadn't existed since you were eleven. You could recognise it anywhere, it was the place where you'd waited every single morning before school, your backpack heavy with unfinished homework, Juhoon's shoulder warm against yours as he peeled an orange and handed you half.
The microwave beeped, your noodles finally heated up.
You didn't move.
Your food sat inside, spinning to a slow stop as steam fogged the inside of the door. But your eyes stayed locked on the screen, on that blurry photo, on the shape of a boy you used to know better than your own reflection sitting at a place you'd both promised never to forget.
The microwave beeped again, impatient.
You didn't hear it.
You were already somewhere else entirely. You were back at that bench, the first time you ever met him.
It was the first day of middle school. Humid. Late August. The kind of morning where the air felt thick as syrup and your new uniform itched at the back of your neck. Your mother had walked you to the end of your road, not because you needed her to, but because she said "first days are important" and kissed the top of your head like you were still small.
She left you at the corner and gave you instructions to just continue following the road.
You'd nodded, adjusted your backpack straps and walked.
The bus stop was easy to spot: crooked tin roof, faded bench, a trash can that always smelled faintly of warm soda. What you didn't expect was the boy already sitting there.
He was small for his age. Too-thin wrists sticking out of a uniform that looked like it had been bought a size too big on purpose, a reflection of yours. Dark hair falling into his eyes because he hadn't figured out how to style it yet. He had a comic book open on his lapâsome old superhero thing with bent cornersâbut he wasn't reading it. He was watching the ground, kicking at a loose pebble with the toe of his scuffed sneakers.
You almost walked past, too shy to even attempt speaking to a stranger without making your stomach curl. But the bench was the only place to sit, and the bus wasn't coming for another seven minutes according to the schedule nailed to the post.
So you sat on the far end. As far as you could without falling off.
He looked up.
His eyes were dark, wide, even a little startled, like he hadn't expected anyone to actually show up. For a second, neither of you spoke. A bird called somewhere in the distance. A car drove past, radio blaring something you didn't recognise.
Then he said, "You're new."
Not a question. Just an observation. Like he'd catalogued every kid in the neighbourhood and you weren't in his mental file.
"Yeah," you said. "Moved here over the summer."
He nodded slowly. Then he looked back down at his comic book. You thought that was itâthat the conversation was over, that you'd spend the rest of middle school as strangers who happened to share a bus stop.
But then he held out his hand, open-palmed, and in it was a crumpled cheap packet of fruit snacks.
"Want half?" he asked. "My mom packs too many."
You looked at him, the too-big uniform and the scuffed sneakers and the way he wasn't quite meeting your eyes because he was shy too, probably, in the same exact way you were.
You took the fruit snacks.
"I'm Juhoon," he said.
You told him your name.
And for the next seven minutes you sat together on the cracked wooden bench, splitting a packet of fruit snacks, not saying much of anything. But it wasn't awkward. It was the opposite of awkward.Â
When the bus doors hissed open, he stood up first.Â
"Come on," he said. "I'll save you a seat."
You followed him on.
You were eleven years old. You didn't know it yet, but that was the moment everything started.
You'd became friends slowly.
Arriving at the bus stop a few minutes earlier each day, just in case the other was there. Saving seats on the bus, and walking together from the bus to school even though your classrooms were in different directions.
By second year, you were inseparable, making so many memories that still stick with you.
You remembered the first time he kissed you. He was teaching you dance moves in the empty parking lot near the bus stop, it seemed to become a regular occurrence after the first time,
It was summer. The kind of evening where the heat finally breaks and the air goes soft and gold. You'd walked with him after school, neither of you wanting to go home yet, and ended up in the parking lot behind the convenience store. The one with the cracked asphalt and the single streetlight that wouldn't turn on until dark.
You'd asked him to show you what he was practicing.
He'd been embarrassed at first. Shook his head. Said it was stupid. Said you'd laugh.
"I won't laugh," you'd said.
"You'll laugh."
"I promise I won't laugh."
"You always laugh."
"Because you're funny. Not because your dancing is funny. Different things."
He'd looked at you. You were sitting on the curb, chin in your hands, waiting. The gold light was catching your hair, making it look like something from a dream.
"Fine," he'd said. "But you promised."
He'd pulled out his phone, found the song he'd been working on. Placed it on the curb beside you. Stepped into the middle of the parking lot and tried to pretend you weren't watching.
He was nervous. That was the thing. He'd danced in front of people before but this was different. This was you. And for some reason, your eyes on him made his hands shake.
The song started. He moved.
It wasn't his best performance. He knew that. Missed a few beats, stumbled on a turn, almost lost his balance at one point. But he kept going, pushing through, trying to show you what he'd been working on for weeks.
When the song ended, he stood there breathing hard, waiting for your reaction.
You clapped.
Actually clapped, like he'd just finished on a real stage, your face bright with enthusiasm.
"That was amazing!" you'd said. "Do it again!"
"I'm not doing it again."
"Please? Just one more time?"
"No."
You stood up and walked toward him. "Then teach me."
"Teach you?"
"Yeah. Show me the steps. I want to learn."
He'd laughed. Actually laughed out loud. "You can't dance."
"I can too."
"You absolutely cannot."
"I can learn. That's what teaching is for. Come on."
So he'd tried.
He started with the basic footwork. Simple stuff. Step-touch, step-touch. You'd watched intently, nodded like you understood, and then tried to copy him.
You were terrible.
Graceless in a way that was almost impressive. Your feet tangled. Your arms went everywhere. You looked like someone being attacked by bees.
"That's notâno, your feetâokay, stop, just stop for a second."
You'd stopped, grinning. "What? I'm doing it."
"You're not doing it. You're doing something else entirely."
"Same thing."
"Absolutely not the same thing."
He'd walked over to you, positioning himself behind you. Reached around and took your arms, guiding them into the right position. "Like this. And then your feet goâhere, step on my count. One, two, threeâ"
You'd stepped on his foot.
"Sorry!"
"It's fine. Again. One, two, threeâ"
You'd stepped on his foot again.
"You're doing that on purpose."
"I'm not!" But you were laughing, and he was laughing, and neither of you could remember the steps anymore.
You'd turned to face him, still laughing, your face flushed from the heat and the movement. "Hopelessly in love with you," you'd said.
And then your face had gone red.
Deep red, spreading from your cheeks to your ears to your neck. Because neither of you had said that word before. Not really. Not out loud. You'd danced around it for months, circling closer and closer, but never actually saying it.
The laughter stopped.
The parking lot went quiet.
You were looking at him with wide eyes, like you couldn't believe what you'd just said and you might take it back if you could.
He didn't give you the chance.
He kissed you.
Just a quick kiss, soft and gentle, his lips barely pressing against yours. A question more than anything. Testing and hoping.
When he pulled back, you were looking at him with eyes he still saw in his dreams. Bright and surprised and full of something he couldn't name but wanted to see every day for the rest of his life.
You didn't say anything.
Neither did he.
The streetlight above you flickered on, casting yellow light across the parking lot. The convenience store hummed in the distance. Somewhere a dog barked.
Then you'd whispered: "Took you long enough."
And you'd kissed him back.
Your heart clenched at the memory. Youâd both been so young and so in love, believing the world was much simpler than it turned out to be.
The noodles were going cold but you didnât care, you scrolled down to the comments on the post, hoping to get a hint of something, though you didnât know what you were truly looking for.
"omg that bus stop is so random??"
"maybe he's filming something?"
"his company hasn't said anything"
"he looks so sad help đ"
"someone go get him"
Your thumb twitched.
The microwave beeped a third time, a setting that intended to ensure your food wouldnât get cold, though it already failed at that. The sound cut through the fog in your head. You blinked and the dorm came back into focus: the stack of unpaid bills on the counter, your roommate's cheap incense burning low on the shelf, the hum of the old refrigerator.
Normal and regular things that belonged to the life you'd built after.
But the photo was still on your screen. And Juhoon was still sitting there.
You locked your phone. Set it down face-upâa mistake, because now the photo was the only thing you saw every time you glanced over. You grabbed your cold noodles from the microwave, peeled back the lid, and took a bite.
Tasted like nothing.
You chewed and swallowed anyway, leaning against the counter and stared at the wall.
Don't.
The word appeared in your head fully formed. Sensible. Adult. You'd spent two years learning how to not think about him. How to scroll past CORTIS content without pausing. How to delete the old texts without rereading them first. How to fall asleep without picturing the way he used to tuck your hair behind your ear when you were too tired to do it yourself.
You were good at it now. Really good.
You took another bite of cold noodles, then you looked at your phone again.
The photo was still there. Juhoon was still there. Alone. At 1 a.m. On a broken bench. In a neighbourhood neither of you had lived in for months.
You could just... check.
Not go. Obviously not go. That would be insane. That would be something the old you would do; the girl who believed in grand gestures and movie endings and promises made at bus stops. That girl had cried herself raw and learned better.
But you could check. One quick scroll through the replies to see if anyone had posted an update. See if he'd left yet.
You picked up the phone.
No new sightings. Just more people confused, more people speculating, more people tagging his company with âwhere is his manager??â
You sighed, dropping the phone onto the counter and rubbing your hand on your face.
What on earth was he doing?
Sitting there. At 1 a.m. On a bench that had probably given you both splinters a hundred times. In a neighbourhood that wasn't his anymore. In a life that wasn't yours anymore.
It didn't make sense. None of it made sense.
You picked up the phone again. Stared at the photo. His shoulders curved inward like he was trying to make himself smaller and his hands were clasped loose between his knees. The hood was pulled low, hiding his eyes.
This wasn't a PR stunt. There were no cameras. No managers hovering in the background. Just him, alone, in the dark, at a bus stop that hadn't seen a bus past 10 p.m. in years.
You thought about the last time you'd spoken properly, before he officially ended things.
It was the night before his final audition. He'd called you from his bedroom windowâhis way of saying come outside without saying it. You'd climbed out your own window, crossed the lawn in your bare feet, and found him sitting on his porch steps, guitar in his lap, looking at you like you were the last good thing in the world.
"What if I make it?" he'd asked.
"Then you make it."
"What if they want all of me?"
You'd laughed, not understanding. "They can't have all of you. Some of you is mine."
He'd smiled at that. But the smile hadn't reached his eyes.
You should have asked what that meant. You should have stayed on those porch steps and pulled the truth out of him, word by word, until there was nothing left hidden. But you were sixteen and stupid and you thought promises were enough.
They weren't.
You locked your phone again. Set it down. Picked up your cold noodles and scraped them into the trashâyou weren't hungry anymore, hadn't been hungry since you saw the photo.
You turned off the kitchen light and walked to your room, leaving your phone on the counter.
You didn't check the photo again. You didn't scroll through the comments. You didn't look for updates. You just brushed your teeth, washed your face, and changed into an old t-shirt that used to be his, one you'd kept even though you told yourself you should throw it away.
The fabric was soft, worn thin at the collar. It smelled like your detergent now, not him. That had happened months ago. You remembered the exact wash when the last trace of him disappeared, how you'd cried a little before putting it back in your drawer and pretended you hadn't.
You climbed into bed and pulled the blanket to your chin, staring at the ceiling.
What on earth was he doing?
The question circled your brain like a song you couldn't shake. You turned onto your side. Then your back. Then your stomach. The pillow was too warm. Then too cold. Nothing felt right.
You thought about the bench. About the crooked tin roof. About the way the streetlight flickered every seventeen secondsâyou'd counted once, years ago, while waiting for a bus that was running late, and Juhoon had laughed at you for counting.
"You're such a weirdo," he'd said.
"You like it."
"Yeah," he'd said, soft. "I do."
You closed your eyes.
The photo was burned into the back of your eyelids. Juhoon, alone. Juhoon, waiting. Juhoon, sitting at a place you'd both promised never to forgetâ
You forced your eyes open.
Stop.
You didn't need to go. You didn't need to check. You didn't need to be the girl who ran to a bus stop at 1 a.m. for a boy who'd made it clear he was done with you.
That girl had learned better.
That girl had moved on.
That girl was going to sleep.
You rolled over, punched your pillow into submission, and closed your eyes again.
The room settled. The refrigerator clicked off. The world got quiet.
And eventually, slowly and stubbornly, you fell asleep, already knowing youâd be checking your phone again the next day.
Juhoon was going mad, that was as clear as day.
The company finally gives him a long-deserved break after months of workâcomeback preparations, variety show appearances, endless fansigns, flights that blurred into other flightsâand this is how he spends it?
He had arrived home only two days ago, his parents fussing over him like he was still sixteen. His mother had made his favourite soup. His father had clapped him on the back and said "you look too thin" three times in one hour. The house smelled the same. The floorboards creaked the same. Everything was exactly as he'd left it.
Except for you.
Your house, three doors down, had new curtains. He'd noticed the first night, standing at his bedroom window like a ghost, watching the warm glow of your family's living room. He'd watched for longer than he wanted to admit, hoping for a glimpse of a silhouette, a shadow, anything.
He saw your mother. Your father. Your younger brother, taller now.
He didn't see you.
That was the first night.
The second night, he walked past your street entirely. Took the long way. Told himself he was just stretching his legs, just clearing his head, just enjoying the neighbourhood air that didn't smell like Seoul traffic and anxiety.
His feet carried him to the bus stop anyway.
The bench was still there, though smaller than he remembered. The wood was more splintered, the paint more peeled, the crooked tin roof more crooked. But it was still there. Waiting. Like it had been waiting since heâd left.
He sat down.
Just for a minute, he told himself. Just to see.
The minute became an hour. The hour became two. He didn't have his phone out. Didn't have headphones in. Didn't have anything except the weight of his own thoughts and the cold seeping through his jeans.
He wasn't sure what he was waiting for.
That was a lie. He knew exactly what he was waiting for.
He just didn't know if you'd come.
The first night, you didn't.
He stayed until 2 a.m. Walked home with stiff fingers and an empty chest. His mother was waiting up and he'd mumbled some excuse about jet lag, couldn't sleep, just went for a walk.
She'd looked at him like she saw straight through him.
"Is it her?"
He hadn't answered, didn't need to.
The second night, he went back.
Earlier this time: 11 p.m. He told himself it was because he wanted to see the bus stop in the dark for longer, the way the streetlight flickered, the way the shadows moved. He told himself a lot of things.
He sat on the left side of the bench, leaving your side free. He rememberedâof course he rememberedâthat you always sat on the right because you liked leaning into his shoulder, and his right arm was stronger, so he could hold you steady when the wind picked up, a silly little habit you had grown used to over the years.
He remembered everything.
That was the problem.
The second night, you didn't come either.
But someone else did. A car slowed down as it passed. He heard the window roll down, heard a whispered "is thatâ" and then the car sped off. Fifteen minutes later, a different car. Same thing.
By the third night there were more. He'd lost count. Phones pointed at him from behind tinted windows. Whispers, laughter, confusion. Someone had clearly posted about it online by now, meaning his manager would probably call in the morning.
He didn't care.
He sat on the bench with his hands clasped loose between his knees, his hood pulled low and he waited.
For what?
For you to walk out of the shadows, maybe. For you to round the corner with your jacket zipped to your chin and your hair messy from sleep, looking at him like he was insaneâbecause he was, clearly, certifiably insane.
For you to sit down on the right side of the bench, like you used to, and say his name. Just his name. That would be enough.
That was all he wanted. All he'd wanted for two years. Not the screaming crowds, not the awards, not the magazine covers or the endorsement deals or any of it. Just you, saying his name in a voice that wasn't filtered through a screen.
He rested his elbows on his knees and dropped his head. The hood fell forward, hiding his face completely now.
He thought about the last time he'd seen youânot on a screen, not in a dream, but real. Flesh and bone. Standing at the bus stop with your arms crossed and your eyes wet, asking him "do you not like me anymore?"
And him, too young and too scared and too stupid to say anything except "I'm sorry."
Not I'll come back. Not wait for me. Not I love you.
Just I'm sorry.
He'd been saying it to himself ever since. In the dorm shower. In the back of vans between schedules. In the dark of hotel rooms in cities he couldn't name. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
It had never felt like enough.
The streetlight flickered. Seventeen seconds. He counted, just as you had always done.
The wind picked up, and he couldnât help but shiver and pull his hood tighter.
Somewhere in the distance, a car door closed. Footsteps. He didn't look up. He'd stopped looking up after the second hourâevery shadow was a false promise, every sound a trick of the wind.
He sat, he waited, and he went a little more mad.
His mind too replayed memories, whether he wanted it too or not.
He remembered how people always assumed you were dating, even before you were officially boyfriend-girlfriend. But Juhoon remembered the exact moment he realised he wanted to be. Sitting on this bench, waiting for the bus, watching you complain about a math test. You were eating a rice ball from the convenience store, talking with your mouth full, gesturing with the half-eaten thing, and he'd thought: I want this forever.
And that was it. Not a big realisation or dramatic moment that prompted him. Just a quiet knowing, sitting on a bench, watching you eat a rice ball and wishing he could see you do that forever.
He remembered winter mornings most of all.
The way you'd arrive shivering, your coat never warm enough, your hands stuffed deep in your pockets. How you'd stand close to him without thinking about it, seeking warmth, and he'd started bringing an extra scarf just in case you forgot yours, which you always did.
"Again?" he'd say, pulling it from his bag.
"You're my hero," you'd say, wrapping it around your neck, and the way you said it made his chest feel tight in the best way.
He remembered the morning you fell asleep on his shoulder on the bus. Just for a few minutes. Your head heavy against him, your breath slow and even. He'd sat completely still, not moving, not breathing, terrified of waking you up. The bus had jostled and bumped and he'd stayed frozen, watching your eyelashes, wondering how someone could be this beautiful just existing.
You'd woken up embarrassed, apologising, face red. He'd said it was fine. Didn't say he'd wished it could last forever.
He remembered the first time you held hands.
Not officially, officially. Just walking home from the bus stop one afternoon, and your hand had brushed against his, and neither of you moved away. Then your fingers had tangled together, tentative, questioning. He'd squeezed gently, and you'd squeezed back.
You didn't talk about it, just kept walking with your hands together and your hearts pounding.
He remembered the exact texture of your palm against his. The way your thumb had traced small circles on his skin. The way he'd gone home that night and stared at his own hand like it had become something different, something important, because it had held yours.
He remembered the countless times you both stayed at the library after school to study, though not much studying actually happened.
The library was old and smelled like paper and dust and the faint cleaning solution the janitor used. Your usual table was in the back corner, near the window, where the afternoon light came through gold and warm and caught your hair in just the right way. Your notebooks stayed empty while you talked about everything and anything.
About teachers who gave too much homework and classmates who whispered behind their hands. About songs you'd heard and movies you'd watched and dreams you hadn't told anyone else. About your parents, your siblings, the small frustrations of being fifteen and stuck in a town that felt too small for the people you were becoming.
He remembered the way you'd lean across the table when you had something important to say, your voice dropping to a whisper even though no one was near enough to hear. The way you'd bite your lip when you were thinking too hard. The way you'd reach over and touch his hand when you wanted his attention, just a quick tap, like you needed to remind yourself he was there.
He remembered the time it snowed.
Heavy snow, unexpected, that made the whole town go quiet. You'd stayed at the library later than usual, watching it fall outside the window, neither of you wanting to leave. The buses had stopped running. Your phones had buzzed with worried parents.
"We should go," you'd said, not moving.
"Yeah."
More snow. More silence.
Then you'd looked at him. "Walk me home?"
The walk had taken forty minutes in snow that came up to your ankles. You'd shared his umbrella even though it was useless against snow, just for the excuse to walk close. Your cheeks were red. Your nose was red. You were entirely beautiful.
Halfway there, you'd stopped in the middle of the empty street and looked up at the sky. Snowflakes catching on your eyelashes and your breath coming in white clouds.
"Look," you'd said. "It's like the whole world stopped."
He'd looked at you instead of the sky.
"Yeah," he'd said. "It is."
You'd turned to him, caught him staring. For a moment neither of you moved. Just stood there in the falling snow, the whole street white and silent, no cars, no people, no sound except your breathing and the soft hush of snow landing on snow.
Your face was so close. He could see each snowflake melting on your skin. Could see the way your eyes moved from his eyes to his lips and back again. Could feel his heart beating somewhere in his throat.
Then you'd kissed him.
Not like the first time, which had been quick and nervous and over before it really started. This was different, so much slower. Your cold lips pressed against his, soft and searching, and he felt your gloved hand come up to rest against his chest, right over his heart, like you wanted to feel it beating.
He'd kissed you back.
One hand holding the umbrella above you both that slanted sideways now, the other finding your waist, pulling you closer. Your lips parted slightly and he felt the warmth of your breath against his mouth, felt you lean into him, felt the snow landing on his hair and shoulders and he didn't care, didn't care about anything except this moment, this street, this girl.
When you finally pulled back, you were both breathing hard. Your face was flushed despite the cold: a deep, rosy pink that spread from your cheeks to the tips of your ears. Your lips were slick and slightly swollen, parted as you gasped for air. Snowflakes clung to your lashes like tiny diamonds, and your eyes were brightâso brightâreflecting the streetlamp and the winter sky and something else, something that made his chest ache with a feeling he didn't yet have the courage to name.
He couldn't speak, could barely think.
You were smiling that small smile, the one he'd come to love without knowing he loved it.
"What was that for?" he'd managed to ask.
You'd looked at him for a long moment before reaching up and brushing a snowflake from his cheek.
"Just in case," you'd said. "In case the world starts moving again."
He'd pulled you close then, wrapped his arms around you, buried his face in your snow-damp hair, and held you there in the middle of the empty street with snow falling all around and the whole world silent and still.
He'd held you like he'd never have to let go.
He remembered the night before he left.
You'd met at the bus stop, the same place as always, except everything felt different. He'd already made up his mind. Already decided it was better this way. Better to cut clean than to drag it out.
You'd sat close, like always. Your shoulder against his. The streetlights casting long shadows across the road.
"I'm going to miss this," you'd said. "This bench. This bus stop. All of it."
He'd nodded, not trusting his voice.
"But you're going to do amazing things," you'd said. "I know it."
And he'd known he had to do it then. Had to end it before you got any more attached. Before you started planning a future that included him, because his future didn't include anyone. Couldn't include anyone.
He'd explained it badly.
Long distance wouldn't work. His schedule would be crazy. You deserved someone who could be there. All the standard lines, all the things people say when they're too scared to say the real thing.
You'd gone very still beside him.
"What are you saying?"
"I'm saying we should end this. Before it gets complicated."
The silence that followed was the worst thing he'd ever heard.
Then you'd asked, quiet: "Do you not like me anymore?"
And he'd hesitated.
Just for a second. Just long enough for you to see it. Long enough for you to draw your own conclusions.
He'd wanted to say: I like you too much. That's the problem. I like you so much that I can't stand the thought of you getting hurt because of me. I like you so much that I'd rather lose you now than watch you suffer later because of who I'm becoming.
But he didn't say it, only letting out a small breath. âIâm sorry.â
He let you think what you thought. Let you walk away believing he'd stopped caring. Let you hate him, because hate was cleaner than love that couldn't go anywhere.
You'd stood up, looked at him for a long moment with eyes he couldn't read, then you'd walked away.
He'd watched you go, standing at this bus stop, and hadn't called you back.
That was his biggest regret, letting you believe for even a second that he didn't care about you. The problem was he cared too much, too deeply, too completely.
And he'd been a coward.
That was the truth he couldn't outrun, no matter how many flights he took or how many stages he stood on. He'd been sixteen and terrified, not of the audition or the training or the unknown, but of dragging you into it. Of making you wait. Of watching you grow tired of cancelled dates and missed calls and a boy who belonged more to the company than to himself.
So he'd cut the rope.
Told himself it was mercy. Told himself you'd forget him. Told himself you'd find someone betterâsomeone who could walk you to the bus stop every morning, who could hold your hand in public without a contract forbidding it, who could love you without thousands of people watching.
He wanted that for you.
But God, it killed him to think about.
And sitting here now, on this splintered bench, in this cold, at 1 a.m., he knew the truth.
Zoomed in on your smile. On the curve of your cheek. On the way your hand held a coffee cup, fingers wrapped around the warmth.
He'd saved it.
Then deleted it.
Then saved it again.
He was pathetic. He knew that. He was an idol with millions of fans, magazine covers, award show invites, and he was saving grainy photos of his ex-girlfriend from a stranger's Instagram story like some lovesick teenager.
But he couldn't help it.
Because every time he thought he'd moved on and convinced himself he was over you, that it had been years, that you'd probably forgotten his name, something would happen. A song would come on. A smell would drift past. Someone on the street would laugh in a way that sounded like yours, and he'd freeze, heart slamming against his ribs, hope and dread tangled together.
He'd written songs about you. Dozens of them. None of them saw the light of dayâthey were tucked away in notebooks and voice memos, too personal to share, too precious to delete. The other members knew something was there, something he never talked about. They'd ask sometimes, gently, and he'd deflect with a joke or a change of subject.
But at night, alone in his bed, he'd pull out his phone and look at the photo. Wonder if you were looking at his photos the same. Wonder if you ever thought about him. Wonder if you'd even care that he was sitting here right now, freezing, alone, going mad.
The streetlight flickered again.
A car passed. Slowed. He heard the click of a phone camera.
He didn't look up.
Instead, he closed his eyes and let himself remember one more thing. Not a big moment this time. Not the first kiss or the last fight or any of the things that made for good stories.
Just a Tuesday.
An ordinary, forgettable Tuesday in October. The leaves had been turning. The air had smelled like cinnamon and something burning from a fireplace down the street. You'd been sitting on this bench waiting for the bus, but you were quiet. Quieter than usual.
He'd asked if you were okay.
You'd nodded. Then shaken your head. Then nodded again.
"Do you ever think about the future?" you'd asked.
You were fifteen. It was a winter morning, cold enough that your breath made small clouds in the air. You were wearing his scarfâyou'd forgotten yours, and he'd wrapped his around your neck without thinking.
"Sometimes," he'd said.
"What do you think about?"
He'd shrugged. "I don't know. Graduation, I guess, if I donât get into the company. Adult stuff."
"That's boring."
"What do you think about, then?"
You'd been quiet for a moment. Then: "I think about being old enough to make my own decisions. Like, really my own. About where I live and what I do and who I spend time with."
"That sounds lonely."
"It sounds free."
He'd looked at you. At the way your nose was slightly red from cold. At the way his scarf framed your face. At the way your eyes looked toward the future like it was something you couldn't wait to reach.
"If you're free," he'd said, "will you still talk to me?"
You'd turned to look at him. Smiled that small smile. "Obviously. You're part of the plan."
Juhoon closed his eyes as his chest ached.
The memory was so clear it hurt. He could feel the cold air on his skin. Could see the steam of your breath. Could hear your voice saying you're part of the plan like it was the most natural thing in the world.
What had happened to that plan?
He'd broken it. That's what happened. He'd made a decision without you, for you, and in doing so had destroyed everything you'd built. He'd told himself it was protection. Told himself you'd thank him someday, when you were living a normal life without the scrutiny that came with dating an idol. Told himself he was being selfless.
But sitting here, years later, with your ghost on the bench beside him he wasn't so sure.
Had he been protecting you? Or had he been afraid?
Afraid that you'd see who he was becoming. Afraid that you'd realise he wasn't worth waiting for. Afraid that the distance would break you slowly instead of quickly, and that slow breaking would hurt more.
He'd chosen the quick break for both of you.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he ignored it.
It buzzed again. Then a third time.
His manager, probably. Or one of the members. Someone had clearly seen the posts online by nowâthe blurry photos, the confused tweets, the mounting speculation about why CORTIS's Juhoon was spending his precious break sitting at some random bus stop in his hometown.
They'd ask him about it tomorrow.
He'd lie.
He always lied.
Just needed some air.
Couldn't sleep.
Didn't realise anyone was watching.
Standard, easy answers that cost him nothing except the truth.
The truth was too heavy to say out loud. The truth was that he'd spent two years building a wall between himself and the only person who'd ever known himâreally known himâand he'd almost convinced himself it was for the best. Almost convinced himself that the ache in his chest was just nostalgia, just growing pains, just the natural sadness of leaving something beautiful behind.
But it wasn't.
It was grief. Pure, uncomplicated grief for a future he'd thrown away.
He looked up at the sky and noticed that the stars were dimmer here than he remembered. Or maybe his eyes were just different now. Maybe he'd spent too many years looking at city lights and phone screens and the backs of his own eyelids.
Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. A car door closed. The world kept moving, even at 1 a.m., even in a sleepy neighbourhood that had forgotten how to be young.
He thought about going home.
He should go home. His mother was probably worrying and his father was pretending not to. But his legs didn't move.
His body had made a decision his mind hadn't caught up to yet. He was staying. He was waiting. He was going to sit on this bench until the sun came up if he had to, because the alternativeâgiving up, walking away, accepting that you weren't comingâfelt like something he couldn't survive.
He'd already walked away once andhe couldn't do it again.
The bus wasn't coming, he knew that. It hadn't come in years. The route had changed, the schedule had been discontinued, the whole stop was just a relic of a time that no longer existed.
But he was still here waiting.
For what, he didn't know anymore.
For you? Maybe. For closure? Possibly. For a sign that he hadn't made the biggest mistake of his life?
He wasn't sure.
But he knew he couldn't leave.
Not yet. Not until the sun came up. Not until his body gave out. Not until somethingâanythingâhappened to break the spell.
You spent the next two days in a weird, floaty haze.
You just felt off, like the world had shifted two degrees to the left and you were still trying to find your footing.
He wasn't there anymore. The fan account had posted a follow-up a few hours after the original sighting: "He left around 4am. walked home alone. still no word from his company."
4am.
He'd sat there until 4am.
You tried not to think about what that meant. Tried not to imagine him shivering on that bench, hood pulled low, waiting for somethingâsomeoneâthat never came.
You failed.
The second day, you almost went.
It was late, nearly midnight, and you were standing by your front door, keys in hand, jacket zipped. Your heart was pounding, your mouth was dry. You could picture the route back home: a short train journey, left at the convenience store next to the station, right at the oak tree. You could picture the bench. Could picture him.
But you didn't move.
Because what would you even say?
âHey, I saw you on Twitter. Weird night, huh?â
âLong time no see. You look tired. I look like I haven't slept in two years. Guess we match.â
âI hated you for so long. I'm not sure I stopped.â
You put the keys down, unzipped your jacket, went to bed and dreamed about snow.
The third day, your roommate Hana cornered you in the kitchen.
"Okay, what's wrong with you?"
"Nothing."
"You've reheated the same cup of coffee four times."
You looked down at the mug in your hands. She was right, you hadn't taken a single sip.
"I'm fine," you said. "Just tired."
Hana crossed her arms. She'd known you for almost a year nowâsince you both moved into this dorm, fresh out of high school, wide-eyed and broke. She knew about Juhoon. Not everything, but enough. Enough to recognise the hollow look in your eyes.
"Is it him?" she asked quietly. "The bus stop thing?"
You stiffened. "You saw that?"
"Everyone saw that. It's all over Twitter." She paused. "You know he's been back every night, right? People are posting about it. He shows up around 11pm and stays until almost dawn."
Your stomach dropped.
Every night. He'd been sitting there every night.
"I don'tâ" You stopped. Swallowed. "It doesn't matter. That's not my life anymore."
Hana looked at you for a long moment. Then she shrugged. "Okay. If you say so."
She walked away, leaving you standing in the kitchen, coffee growing cold in your hands, and tried to believe the words you'd just said.
That night, you didn't even pretend to sleep.
You lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the dorm settling around you. The pipes groaned. The refrigerator hummed. Somewhere outside, a cat yowled.
Your phone was face down on the nightstand.Â
You'd charged it. Checked it. Put it down. Picked it up again.
The tweets kept coming. New sightings. New photos. The same bench. The same hoodie. The same lonely figure, sitting in the dark, waiting.
The comments were getting weirder too. Some people were romanticising itâ"omg he's like a sad prince waiting for his lost love"âwhile others were speculating about mental health, about burnout, about whether the company should step in.
His company hadn't released a statement yet.
That worried you. Juhoon's company was fast with PR. If they hadn't said anything, it meant either they didn't know, which was completely impossible at this point, or they were letting him do this. Letting him sit alone in the cold night after night, because maybe they understood something you didn't.
Or maybe they didn't understand anything at all.
You turned onto your side and stared at the wall.
Just go.
The thought was small but insistent. Like a scratch you couldn't stop itching.
Just go. Just walk there. Just see him. You don't have to talk. You don't have to forgive him. Just... see.
You closed your eyes.
When you opened them again, it was morning. You'd slept, somehow. The sun was creeping through your thin curtains, pale and weak.
Your phone said 7:23am.
And there was a new notification.
"CORTIS's Juhoon spotted at same bus stop for fourth night in a row. Fans are getting worried."
You stared at the screen.
Fourth night.
He'd been there every night since you saw that first photo.
Every. Single. Night.
You thought about the bench. The crooked tin roof. The flickering streetlight. The cold. The way he used to wrap his scarf around your neck. The way he used to say your name like it was something precious.
You thought about years of silence and pretending and building a life that didn't include him, only to realise that life felt like a house with a room you were too afraid to enter.
You sat up, swung your legs over the side of the bed. The floor was cold against your bare feet, but you didn't care.
You were done waiting.
The morning air was sharp and cold and your breath fogged in front of you as you walked to the train station, feet moving on autopilot.
You were going home.
The ticket machine beeped as you tapped your card. The train wasn't scheduled for another twenty minutes so you found a seat on a cold plastic bench and waited.
That was when the thoughts started creeping in.
What are you doing?
He left you. He chose this. He chose everything except you.
You don't owe him anything.
You pulled out your phone and opened Twitter. The photo was still thereâthe original one, the blurry one, the one that had stopped your thumb three nights ago. You looked at it again: his shoulders, his hood, the bench.
You locked the phone and shoved it back in your pocket.
The train arrived and you got on, finding a window seat. Pressing your forehead against the cold glass, you watched the city blur past and give way to suburbs and highways and the familiar stretch of road you'd driven a hundred times as a kid.
Your hometown wasn't far. Forty minutes by train. Forty minutes to think about everything you were going to sayâor not say. Forty minutes to change your mind.
You didn't change your mind.
The station was smaller than you remembered.
You stepped off the platform and into the cold.
The walk from the station to your street was fifteen minutes. You knew every step. Past the convenience store where you'd bought rice balls after school. Past the library with the gold afternoon light. Past the row of houses you'd walked past a thousand times, includingâ
You stopped.
Three doors up from yours. A house you knew better than your own.
Juhoon's parents' house.
The curtains were drawn. A pair of shoes sat on the front step: men's sneakers, not his father's style. His, probably. The thought made your chest tight.
You looked away and kept walking forward towards your own door.
What you failed to notice was the ruffle of the curtains as you passed.
Juhoon's mother stood at the window, hidden behind the thin fabric, watching you walk down the street. Her hand was pressed against her chest, right over her heart. Her eyes were wet.
She'd known you since you were eleven years old. Had watched you grow up in parallel with her sonâfirst as a friend, then as something more, then as a ghost that haunted every family dinner she tried to have with Juhoon after he moved to Seoul.
"Is she okay?" she'd asked him once, early on, when the silence between you was still fresh.
"I don't know," he'd said. "She doesnât want to talk to me."
"Have you tried harder?"
He hadn't answered that. She remembered the guilt on his face and the way he'd looked down at his hands like they'd failed him somehow.
She watched you disappear around the bend, heading into your old home where your parents still lived and would be surprised to see you, questioning why you had come home in the middle of a semester.
She didn't need to ask why, she already knew.
Juhoon's mother let the curtain fall back into place and walked to the kitchen. The kettle was still warm. She poured herself a cup of tea she didn't want and sat at the table, staring at nothing.
Her son was broken. She'd known it the moment he walked through the door four days ago. He'd smiled like always but his eyes were empty from years of pretending.
She'd asked him that first night, when he came home at 2am with frozen fingers and a face like a storm cloud.
"Is it her?"
He'd hesitated. Just for a second. But a second was all she needed.
"I don't know what I'm doing anymore, Mom."
She'd held him. Her eighteen-year-old son, famous and successful and so, so lost. She'd held him like he was eleven again, coming home from a day of middle school, nervous and excited and full of stories about the girl who heâd shared fruit snacks with on the bus.
"Go to bed," she'd said. "We'll figure it out in the morning."
But they hadn't figured it out. And he'd gone back the next night. And the next. And now you were home for the first time in months, and she didn't know what was about to happen, but she prayedâsilently, desperatelyâthat it would be something good.
Because her son had been waiting for you for two years, and he was running out of nights.
She took a sip of her tea and looked out the window again.
The street was empty now. You were gone. Juhoon was still asleep upstairs, he'd only come home at 5am, collapsing into bed without a word.
She wondered if he'd wake up before you headed to the bus stop that she knew youâd visit later. Wondered what would happen if he didn't.
Wondered if any of this could be fixed.
She set down her teacup and folded her hands on the table.
And she waited.
Your parents were exactly as you remembered.
Which was to say: overwhelming, in the best possible way.
The moment you walked through the front door, your mother's hands were on your face, cupping your cheeks like you were still seven years old and coming home from a friend's house.
Your father appeared from the living room, newspaper still in hand, reading glasses perched on his nose. He didn't say much, he never did, but his eyes went soft the way they only did when he looked at you.
"Surprise," you said weakly.
Your mother pulled you into a hug so tight your ribs protested. "You should have called. I would have made rice soup. I would have cleaned your room. There are boxes in there from when we redecorated, I hope you don't mindâ"
"Mom. It's fine. I'm just here for a day. Maybe two."
She pulled back, searching your face. The same way she'd always done when you were hiding something. She was a human lie detector, your mother. It was exhausting and comforting in equal measure.
"And why," she said slowly, "are you here in the middle of the semester?"
You opened your mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Needed a break," you said. "Classes are intense."
She didn't believe you. You could see it in the way her eyes narrowed, the way her lips pressed together, but she didn't push, not yet. Your father gave you an outâa classic Dad move.
"Leave her alone," he said, folding his newspaper. "She's an adult. She can come home whenever she wants."
Your mother shot him a look that said we're talking about this later but let go of your face. "Fine. But you're eating dinner with us. Real food. Not whatever microwave garbage you've been surviving on."
You laughed as lightly as you could. "Deal."
Your room was almost exactly how you'd left it.
The walls were the same pale blue. The posters were still up: bands you didn't listen to anymore, movies you'd outgrown. Your desk was empty, cleared of notebooks and pens, waiting for a student who no longer lived here.
But there were boxes. As your mother had warned. Stacked in the corner near the closet, labeled in her neat handwriting: WINTER CLOTHES, BOOKS, KEEP, DONATE.
And one box that wasn't labeled.
You knew that box.
It was shoved at the bottom of your wardrobe, hidden behind old sweaters and a suitcase you hadn't used since high school. You'd put it there years ago, the night before you left for university, actually. You'd told yourself you'd throw it away someday. Told yourself you'd open it when you were ready.
You'd never been ready.
But today, somehow, you were.
You pulled the box out and sat cross-legged on your childhood bed. The cardboard was soft with age, the corners bent. You'd sealed it with packing tapeâtoo much packing tape, like you'd wanted to make sure nothing could get in or out.
You grabbed a pair of scissors from your desk and cut through it cleanly, watching the flaps fall open.
The first thing you saw was the scarf.
His scarf. The one he used to wrap around your neck on cold mornings because you always forgot yours. It was navy blue. Cheap. A little frayed at the edges. You'd never given it back.
You picked it up and held it to your face.
It didn't smell like him anymore. Just like cardboard and time. But you remembered how it used to smell: like his laundry detergent, like the cologne he'd started wearing in high school, like something warm and distinctly him.
You set it aside carefully as though it was made of glass.
Underneath the scarf were photos, dozens of them. Printed at the convenience store for a few hundred won each, corners slightly curled. You'd forgotten how many you'd taken, how many moments you'd tried to freeze before they slipped away.
The two of you at the school festival. He was wearing a ridiculous headband, you were laughing so hard your eyes were closed.
The two of you at the library. He'd fallen asleep on his textbook, and you'd taken a photo instead of waking him up.
The two of you at the bus stop. A selfie. His arm around your shoulders, your cheek pressed against his. The streetlight flickering behind youâyou could almost see it, almost feel the seventeen-second pattern.
You traced your finger over his face in the photo.
He looked so young. So happy. So unaware of what was coming.
Beneath the photos were ticket stubs.
Movies you'd seen together. The train ticket from the time you'd visited Seoul before he auditioned, before everything got complicated. A wristband from the festival where he'd won you a stuffed animalâa small dog that you'd slept with every night for years, until the fabric wore thin and you'd retired it to this box.
You looked for the dog. Found it at the bottom, squished and faded and missing one button eye.
You held it, and for the first time in two years, you let yourself cry.
Not the angry crying you'd done after he left. Not the exhausted crying you'd done during exam weeks. Just... sad crying. Missing-something crying.Â
You cried for the eleven-year-old who'd shared fruit snacks on a bus.
You cried for the fifteen-year-old who'd kissed in the snow.
You cried for the sixteen-year-old who'd watched him walk away.
And you cried for the eighteen-year-old you were now, sitting on your childhood bed, holding a broken stuffed animal, wondering if some wounds never really healed.
Juhoon woke up to sunlight.
He lay still for a moment, letting the ache in his body register. His back hurt from sleeping in his clothes. His fingers were stiff from the cold. His eyes felt gritty, like he'd cried in his sleepâthough he didn't remember crying.
He checked his phone.
12:47pm.
He'd slept for nearly eight hours.Â
He dragged himself out of bedâhis old bed, the one with the creaky frame and the too-soft mattressâand shuffled to the bathroom. He looked at himself in the mirror and barely recognised the person staring back.
Dark circles, pale skin, hair a mess. He looked like someone who'd spent four nights sitting on a cold bench, waiting for a ghost.
Maybe because he had.
He padded downstairs in his socks, following the smell of coffee.
His mother was in the kitchen. She had her back to him, stirring something on the stoveârice porridge, probably. She always made rice porridge when she was worried.
"Morning," he said, voice rough.
She turned. Her eyes swept over him the same way they always did, cataloguing every sign of exhaustion, every hint that he wasn't taking care of himself. Her expression softened into something that looked like pain.
"Did you sleep?"
"A little."
"Eat something."
He sat down at the kitchen table without arguing. She placed a bowl of porridge in front of him, along with a spoon and a glass of water. He stared at it. His stomach felt like a closed fist.
"Juhoon."
"Mm?"
She sat across from him and folded her hands on the table. The same way she did when she had something he probably didn't want to hear. "You need to stop."
He looked up. "Stop what?"
"Going to that bus stop." Her voice was gentle but firm. The kind of gentle that came from watching your child hurt himself and finally saying enough. "You're not sleeping. You're not eating. You're just... sitting there. Every night. Coming home frozen and hollow. It's not healthy."
Juhoon set down his spoon. "Momâ"
"I know why you're going." She cut him off, not unkindly. "I've always known. But she's not there, honey. She hasn't been there for months. And sitting on that bench isn't going to bring her back."
He flinched.
The words landed exactly where she'd aimed themâright at the wound he'd been pretending didn't exist.
"You don't know that," he said quietly. "You don't know she won't come."
His mother hesitated, breathing a sigh. Then she said, quietly, "Sheâs back at her parents' house."
The words hit him like a physical blow.
She was home, three doors down. Close enough that if he walked outside and stood on the porch, he'd be able to see her front door from here.
Close enough that it hurt.
"Is she..." He stopped, swallowed and tried again. "Did she look okay?"
His mother's expression softened into something sad. "She looked like someone who hasn't been sleeping either."
That made his chest ache in a whole new way.
He thought about you at sixteen: bright-eyed, warm, always the one to pull him out of his own head. He thought about the way you'd looked at him the last time you spoke, eyes wet and voice breaking.
âDo you not like me anymore?â
He'd hesitated.
He'd hesitated like a coward.
"Juhoon." His mother's voice pulled him back. "Are you going to do something? Or are you going to stand there looking like a lost puppy?"
He blinked. "Momâ"
"I'm serious." She crossed her arms. "You've been sitting at that bus stop for four nights, freezing, waiting for a sign. Well, here it is. She's home. She's right there. So what are you waiting for now?"
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"I don't know what to say to her."
"Then say that. Say 'I don't know what to say.' At least it's honest."
He stared at his mother. For a moment, he was eleven years old again, nervous about his first day of middle school, and she was kneeling in front of him, tying his shoelaces, telling him just be yourself, sweetheart. that's enough.
But he wasn't eleven anymore. And "himself" was someone who'd broken your heart and spent two years regretting it.
"She might not want to see me," he said quietly.
His mother looked at him for a long moment. Then she walked to the front window and pulled the curtain aside. She looked out at the street, at your house, just visible through the bare winter trees.
"She came home in the middle of the semester," his mother said. "She didn't tell anyone she was coming. She got off a train, walked past our house, and went straight to her parents' door." She let the curtain fall and turned back to him. "You really think that has nothing to do with you?"
Juhoon's heart hammered.
"I'm going to change," he said suddenly. "I can't show up looking likeâ" He gestured vaguely at himself, at his wrinkled clothes, his messy hair, the exhaustion written all over his face.
"You're going to change?" His mother raised an eyebrow. "Juhoon, you've been sitting on a cold bench for four nights in the same hoodie. She's not expecting a fashion show."
"Momâ"
"Go." She pointed at the door. "Before you overthink it and talk yourself out of it."
He hesitated for one more second, then he grabbed his hoodie from the hook and pulled it on. He didn't bother with his hair. Didn't bother with shoes. Just slipped into some slides.
The door swung open and the air was sharper than he remembered.
He walked past his driveway. Past the row of hedges that separated his house from the neighbour's. Past the old oak tree at the corner.
Your house came into view.
He stopped walking.
Your parents' car was in the driveway. The front door was closed and the curtains in the living room window were drawn, but the ones upstairsâyour old roomâwere partially open. He could see a light on inside.
You were up there. You were twenty meters away.
His feet wouldn't move.
What if she doesn't want to see me?
What if she slams the door in my face?
What ifâ
The front door of your house opened and his heart stopped.
Your father stepped out onto the porch. He was holding a coffee mug, steam rising from it, and he was looking directly at Juhoon. Not with anger. Not with surprise. Just... watching. The way fathers did when they were assessing a situation.
Juhoon's throat went dry.
Your father didn't say anything, didn't wave or call out. He just took a slow sip of his coffee, looked at Juhoon for a long, measuring moment, and then turned his gaze toward the bus stop.
The bus stop at the end of the street.
Then he looked back at Juhoon. Raised his eyebrows slightly. Like he was asking a question without using any words.
Are you going to stand there all day?
Juhoon swallowed. Nodded once: a small, jerky movement.
Your father nodded back. Then he turned and went inside, closing the door softly behind him.
Juhoon stood there for another thirty seconds, frozen.
Then he turned away from your house and started walking toward the bus stop.
He didn't know why.
Maybe because your father had looked in that direction. Maybe because his feet had memorised the route. Maybe because he couldn't knock on your doorâcouldn't face you in your own home, with your parents there, with all the weight of two years pressing down on him.
The bus stop was neutral ground, it belonged to both of you. To the eleven-year-olds who'd shared fruit snacks. To the fifteen-year-olds who'd kissed in the snow. To the sixtteen-year-olds who'd fallen apart.
If there was any place in the world where he could say the things he needed to say, it was there.
He rounded the corner and the crooked tin roof came into view, itâs shadow cascading over the empty bench.
Empty.
He stopped walking. His chest caved in.
She wasn't there. Of course she wasn't there. Why would she be? She'd just gotten home. She was probably upstairs, unpacking, resting, doing anything exceptâ
A sound behind him stopped his running thoughts. It was footsteps on pavement.
He turned and saw you standing at the end of the block.
Jacket zipped. Hair messy. Eyes redâlike you'd been crying, or like you hadn't slept, or both. He couldn't look away from your face.
Neither of you moved as the world held its breath.
And then you took a step forward, slowly closing the distance between you two.
Fifteen feet between you. Then ten. Then five.
Juhoon didn't move. He barely breathed. His hands were shoved deep in his hoodie pockets, but you could see them shaking.
You stopped when you were close enough to see the dark circles under his eyes. Close enough to see the small blush on his cheeksâthe cheek you used to trace with your finger when he fell asleep on your shoulder on the bus.
Close enough to realise he was real.
Not a photo. Not a tweet. Not a memory you'd replayed a thousand times.
Him. Juhoon. Here.
"Hi," he said. His voice was hoarse, cracked, like he hadn't used it in days.
You swallowed. "Hi."
That was it. Two years of nothing and a universe of unsaid things crammed into two letters.
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Ran a hand through his hairâmessy, unstyled, the kind of messy you remembered from sleepovers and study sessions and early mornings when the bus came too fast.
"I didn't think you'd come," he finally said.
You looked at him. "Neither did I," you said.
He flinched slightly, like your words had hit something soft.
You should have felt satisfied. You'd imagined this moment a hundred times: the moment you'd get to throw his silence back at him, make him feel even a fraction of the hurt you'd carried. But standing here, watching him flinch, all you felt was tired.
"Why are you here, Juhoon?"
He blinked. "What?"
"Here." You gestured at the bench. At the bus stop. At the street that hadn't changed since you were kids. "Why are you here? Every night? Sitting on this bench like it's going to do something?"
He was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that the wind picked up and you shivered, pulling your jacket tighter.
"I don't know," he said finally. "I thought I was waiting for something. An answer. A sign. I don't know."
"An answer to what?"
He looked at you then. Really looked. His eyes were dark and tired and so, so familiar. "To whether I made the biggest mistake of my life."
Your chest cracked open. "You're asking a bus stop that question?"
He shook his head slowly. "No." His voice dropped. "I'm asking you."
The air between you went thin.
"You can't just..." Your voice broke. You stopped. Pressed your lips together. Started again. "You can't just disappear for two years and then sit on a bench for four nights and expect me toâ"
"I don't expect anything." His voice was raw. "I don't expect you to forgive me. I don't expect you to even want to look at me. I just..." He pulled his hands out of his pockets. Let them hang at his sides, open and empty. "I just needed to be somewhere that felt like you."
The words landed somewhere deep in your chest, somewhere you'd been protecting.
"That's not fair," you whispered.
"I know."
"You don't get to say things like that."
"I know."
"Stop repeating that."
He almost smiled. Almost. The corner of his mouth twitched, and for a second he looked like the boy you'd known: the one who'd kissed you in the snow, the one who'd held your hand on the bus, the one who'd promised to wait.
"I'm sorry," he said.
You'd heard those words before, they replayed in your head constantly like a broken record, how he hadnât seemed to mean it back then. But this time, standing at the bus stop with the wind in your hair and his shadow on the pavement, they sounded different.
This time, he looked like he meant it.
"What are you sorry for?" you asked. "Be specific."
He blinked. Then, slowly, he started talking.
"For everything," he said. "For the way I ended it. For not calling. For not texting. For making you think you didn't matter when you were the only thing that did."
You crossed your arms, partly from cold, partly from the need to hold yourself together. "That's not specific."
He let out a breath. It fogged in the air between you.
"The night before my final audition," he said, "you climbed out your window. You came to my porch. You sat with me on the steps and you told me everything was going to be okay. And I wanted to believe you. I really did. But I was so scared."
"Scared of what?"
"Of losing you." His voice cracked. "Which is ironic, right? Because I ended up losing you anyway. But back then, I thought if I held on too tight, I'd just drag you down with me. The company, the schedules, the fans, the scrutinyâI didn't want any of that touching you. You were the one good thing in my life. The only thing that was just mine."
You felt your throat tighten. "So you decided to throw me away before I could get thrown away by accident?"
He flinched again. Harder this time.
"When you say it like that, it soundsâ"
"Like what? Like the truth?" Your voice rose. "You didn't ask me, Juhoon. You didn't say 'hey, this is what I'm scared of, what do you think?' You just decided. For both of us. And then you vanished."
He nodded slowly. Swallowed. Didn't look away.
"I know," he said. "I know I should have talked to you. I know I shouldn't have made that decision alone. But I was sixteen. I was terrified. And every time I picked up the phone to call you, I imagined you crying because of me, or waiting for me, or putting your life on hold for someone who couldn't even tell you when he'd be free. And I couldn'tâ" His voice broke. "I couldn't do that to you."
"So instead you did nothing."
"Instead I did nothing," he agreed quietly. "And I've regretted it every single day for two years."
You wanted to stay angry. You wanted to hold onto the hurt like a shield, like something that could protect you from the wreckage of him. But standing here, watching his eyes fill with tears he was clearly trying not to shed, the shield started to crack.
"The night you left," you said slowly, "I waited. I sat on my bed and stared at my phone for hours, thinking maybe you'd call. Maybe you'd text. Maybe you'd show up at my window like you used to. But you didn't."
He shook his head. "I couldn't. I knew if I saw you again, I wouldn't be able to go through with it."
"And that would have been bad?"
"Yes." His voice was barely a whisper. "Because I needed to go. I needed to try. But I also needed to know you weren't waiting for me. That you were moving on. Living your life. Being happy."
You laughedâa short, bitter sound. "You wanted me to be happy? While you left me heartbroken?"
"I wanted you to be happy even if it wasn't with me."
"That's very noble," you said. "It's also bullshit."
He stared at you.
"You don't get to decide what makes me happy," you continued. "You never did. And the fact that you thought you could? Juhoon, I would have stuck with you through anything."
The words hung in the cold air between you and you watched him grow very still.
"I would have waited," you said, your voice quieter now but no less fierce. "I would have figured it out. The long distance, the crazy schedules, the secrecyâall of it. I would have done it because it was you. But you didn't even give me the chance to choose. You just decided for me and walked away."
Juhoon's breath came out shaky. "I know."
"Do you? Because I don't think you understand. I would have followed you anywhere. I would have stood in the back of every crowd. I would have pretended to be just a fan if that's what it took. I would haveâ" Your voice cracked. You stopped and pressed your palm against your mouth, closing your eyes briefly.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stood there, hands clenched tightly either side of him, tears sliding down his face.
"I would have loved you through all of it," you finally whispered. "If you'd just let me."
The silence that followed was enormous.
Then Juhoon made a soundâa raw, broken thingâand his composure shattered. His shoulders shook. His hands came up to cover his face. He cried the way he used to cry when he was young, before he learned how to hide it. Messy, uncontrolled, and entirely human.
"I'm sorry," he choked out. "I'm so sorry. I was stupid. I was scared. I thought I was protecting you but I was really justâ" He gasped for air. "I was just terrified that one day you'd wake up and realise I wasn't worth the sacrifice. So I left before you could leave me."
Your heart cracked open.
You'd spent two years imagining this moment. Two years rehearsing everything you'd sayâevery sharp word, every accusation, every piece of hurt you'd hand him like a weapon. But now that you were here, watching him fall apart by this old bench, the weapons felt heavy and wrong.
You took a step forward, and then, without really deciding to, you reached out.
Your fingers brushed his wrist. He flinched, startled. You gently pulled his hands away from his face. His eyes were red, swollen, desperate.
"I'm not saying I forgive you," you said quietly. "I'm not saying any of this is okay."
He nodded miserably. "I know."
"But I'm here." Your voice wavered. "I got on a train. I walked to this bus stop. I'm standing in front of you. That has to count for something."
He stared at you like you'd hung the moon.
"It counts," he whispered. "It counts more than you know."
You should have stepped back. You should have kept your distance, protected the walls you'd spent two years building. Instead, you pulled him into a hug.
His arms wrapped around you so tight you could barely breathe and his face pressed into your shoulder, you felt his tears soak through your jacket, cold against your skin.
You cried too. You hadn't meant to, but the tears came anyway, hot and messy, and you buried your face in his hoodie and held on like he might disappear if you let go.
"I hated you," you said into his chest. "I hated you so much."
"I know."
"I tried to forget you."
"I know."
"I dreamed about you every single night."
He let out a shaky breath. "Me too."
You pulled back just enough to look at him. His face was a messâtears and redness and dark circles. Yours probably looked the same.
"What are we doing?" you asked.
He let out a wet, broken laugh. "I don't know. Crying at a bus stop, apparently."
You laughed too. It was small and sad and real.
"We can't just..." You trailed off, not sure what you were even trying to say.
"I know," he said again. "I know we can't just pretend the last two years didn't happen. I know I hurt you. I know I don't deserveâ"
"Stop." You pressed your hand against his chest, right over his heart. It was pounding. "Stop deciding what you do and don't deserve. That's what got us here in the first place."
He went quiet.
"I'm not saying we're okay," you said. "I'm not saying I forgive you. I'm not saying anything except..." You looked down at your hand on his chest, then back up at his face. "I'm not walking away. Not today."
His breath caught. "What does that mean?"
"It means sit down." You stepped back, pulling him toward the bench. "We're both exhausted. We're both crying. We're both still wearing the same clothes we slept in. So sit down, and talk to me. Really talk. Not the idol version. Not the version you think I want to hear. Just you."
He looked at the bench.Â
"Just me," he repeated, like he was testing the words.
"Just you," you confirmed.
He sat on the left side, his side.
You sat beside him. Not close enough to touch. But close.
The wind blew. A car passed. Somewhere in the distance, a train horn sounded.
Juhoon turned to look at you. His eyes were still red, still wet, but there was something else there now. Something that looked like hopeâfragile, terrified, barely holding on.
"Can Iâ" He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. "Can I try? To make things right? I don't know how. I don't even know if it's possible. But can I try?"
You looked at his hand, resting on the bench between you. His fingers were inches from yours.
You thought about being eleven years old, sharing fruit snacks on a crooked bench, not knowing that the boy beside you would break your heart and then come back to try to put it together again.
"Try," you said. "But don't lie to me. Not ever again. Not even to protect me."
"I won't," he said. "I promise."
He took a breath, then another. His fingers twitched on the bench between youânot reaching yet, but wanting to.
"The first time I realised I loved you," he said slowly, "wasn't some big dramatic moment. It was a Tuesday. We were sitting right here. You were complaining about a math test and eating a rice ball with your mouth full. Rice was falling everywhere. You didn't care." He let out a small, shaky laugh. "And I thoughtâI want to see this every day. I want messy rice ball mornings and cold bus stops and you. Just you."
Your throat tightened.
"I thought it would last forever," he continued. "I thought we'd graduate together. I thought we'd figure everything out. And then the audition happened, and suddenly forever didn't feel guaranteed anymore. It felt like something I had to fight for. But also something I had to protect."
"By pushing me away."
"By pushing you away," he agreed. "It was the dumbest thing I've ever done. And I've done a lot of dumb things."
You almost smiled. Almost.
"When I left for Seoul, I told myself you'd move on. I told myself you'd find someone better. Someone who could be there. Someone who didn't have millions of people watching their every move." He looked down at his hands. "I told myself a lot of things to make the hurt feel like the right choice."
"But it wasn't."
"It wasn't," he said. "It was the wrong choice. It was always the wrong choice. I just didn't know how to take it back."
"You could have called."
"I know."
"You could have shown up."
"I know." His voice cracked. "I was a coward. I'm still scared. But I'm here now. And I'm not asking for everything. I'm not even asking for forgiveness. I'm just asking for a chance to prove that I can be better. That I can be the person you deserved two years ago."
The wind picked up and you shivered. Juhoon noticed. He pulled off his hoodie and held it out to you.
"I don't needâ"
"You're cold," he said simply. "Take it."
You looked at the hoodie. At him. At the vulnerable set of his shoulders now that he was just in a thin t-shirt. "You'll freeze."
"I've been freezing for four days," he said. "One more won't matter."
You took the hoodie. It was warm from his body heat, and it smelled like himânot the cologne he used to wear, something different now, but still unmistakably Juhoon.
You pulled it over your head and it drowned you. Too big, just like your uniform had been on the first day of middle school.
He watched you with something soft in his eyes. "It looks better on you anyway," he said.
"Don't."
"Don't what?"
"Don't say things like that." But your voice had no heat. "I'm still angry."
"I know."
"Stop making me feel bad for being angry."
"Sorry." He paused. "Wait. Am I supposed to apologise or not?"
You snorted, a real snort, embarrassing and involuntary.
Juhoon's eyes went wide. "Did you justâ"
"No."
"You did. You snorted."
"It was the wind."
"The wind snorted?"
"You're insufferable."
"You used to say that with more affection."
"You used to deserve more affection."
He winced. But there was a ghost of a smile underneath it.
You looked down at the hoodie sleeves, bunched around your hands. Then at him, shivering in his thin t-shirt, dark circles under his eyes, nose red from cold and crying.
"Tell me something," you said. "One thing that happened in the last two years that you actually want to tell me. Not the highlights or photoshoots, or whatever you do when famous. Just... one real thing."
Juhoon was quiet for a long moment.Â
"I wrote songs about you," he finally said. "Dozens of them. None of them are good enough. None of them say what I actually want to say. But I kept writing anyway, because it was the only way I could still feel close to you."
Your heart clenched.
"What do you want to say?" you asked.
He turned to face you fully. His knees brushed yoursâaccidentally, maybe, or maybe not.
"I want to say that I'm sorry," he said. "But that's not enough. I want to say that I love you. But that sounds like an excuse. I want to say that I never stopped thinking about you, not for one single day, and that every time I stood on a stage and heard people scream my name, all I could think about was how quiet it was when we sat on this bench together. How peaceful. How much like home."
You couldn't breathe.
"I want to say," he continued, voice barely above a whisper, "that I know I broke your heart. But mine broke too. And I don't know how to put either of them back together. But maybe... maybe we could try. Together. Slowly. If you want."
The silence stretched between you before you reached out for his face, your fingers brushing his cheek, cold and damp from tears.
"I don't know if I can trust you yet," you said.
His eyes fluttered closed at your touch. "I know."
"But I want to try."
He opened his eyes. They were glassy, hopeful, terrified. "Yeah?" he breathed.
"Yeah."
And there, sat on the crooked bench, Juhoon let out a breath he'd been holding for two years.
He didn't kiss you. Didn't pull you close. Didn't rush.
He just sat there, your hand on his cheek, and let himself believe that maybe, just maybe, he hadn't lost you forever, that he still had a chance to win you back. And he was going to do everything in his power to do so.
It had been six months since you and Juhoon had reunited in your hometown, and, to be honest, it all felt like a blur.
Not in a bad way, more like the way snow fell so fast you couldn't catch individual flakes, you just knew the ground was covered and everything had changed.
You moved on autopilot: steaming milk, pulling shots, calling out names for pickup. The rhythm was familiar now, almost comforting. Your regulars smiled at you, your coworkers had stopped asking why you were smiling so much lately.
"One caramel macchiato for Hana!"
Your roommate appeared at the counter like a summoned ghost. She'd been sitting in the corner for the last hour, pretending to study, actually scrolling through Twitter on her phone.
"You look like death," you said as she grabbed her cup.
"Thanks. You look like someone who's dating an idol." She took a long sip. "Wait. That came out wrong. You look happy, like, disgustingly happy. It's annoying."
You flipped her off with a smile.
She laughed and retreated back to her corner table just as the bell above the door chimed.
You looked up.
The boy who walked in was wearing a black mask, a baseball cap pulled low, and an oversized hoodie you recognised immediately because it used to be yours. A faded band sweatshirt from high school that he'd "borrowed" three months ago for an outfit and never returned.
Juhoon's eyes met yours through the gap between his cap brim and mask.
You felt your face break into a smile before you could stop it.
He walked to the counter with his head down, hands shoved in the pocket of your hoodie, casual and unbothered. Like he wasn't an idol who'd flown in at 6am just to spend a few hours in your city.
"The usual?" You asked, trying to sound professional.
"Is the usual still on the menu?" His voice was muffled behind the mask, but you could hear the smile in it.
"The usual is always on the menu for you."
"Then yes. The usual."
You rang him up and he paid with his card, his fingers brushing yours when he took the receipt.
"Find a seat," you said. "I'll bring it to you."
He nodded and disappeared into the small crowd of afternoon customers.
But you knew the slope of his shoulders. The way he tapped his fingers against the table when he was waiting. The way his eyes kept drifting from his phone to the counter, to you, back to his phone, back to you.
You made his drink without looking at the recipe.
Iced Americano, light ice, an extra shot. You'd memorised it after his first spontaneous visit to your job
You carried the cup to his table and set it down, pausing for a moment instead of walking away.
"Can I get you anything else?" you asked.
He looked up, his eyes warm above the mask. "Just you. When's your break?"
Twenty minutes later, you hung your apron on the hook and walked to his table.
He pulled out the chair across from him
"You're here early," you said whilst sitting down.
"Flight got in sooner than I expected." He finally pulled down his mask, just enough to take a sip of his drink. "I only have until tomorrow morning. Then I fly back for rehearsals."
"That's half a day."
"It's half a day," he agreed. "Worth it."
You looked at him. At the dark circles that never seemed to go away. At the way your hoodie hung off his frameâtoo small for him, really, but he wore it anyway because it was yours. At the small smile playing at the corner of his lips.
"How was the flight?" you asked.
"Long. Boring. I slept through most of it."
"Did you eat?"
"Not really."
"Juhoon."
"I know, I know." He held up his hands in surrender. "I'll eat. I promise. There's a rice bowl place down the street. I saw it on the way here."
"You're impossible."
"You still like me."
You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling. "That's debatable."
He placed a hand over his heart in mock offense. "You wound me."
"Someone has to keep you humble."
He leaned back in his chair, mask still pulled down just enough to drink. His eyes traced your face like he was cataloguing every detailâthe way your hair had grown since last month, the small burn on your finger from the steam wand, the tiredness around your eyes that matched his own.
You kept talking, catching up on as much as you could in twenty minutes.
Eventually, from the counter, your coworker called your name. Your break was over.
"I have to go," you said.
"I know."
"You'll still be here when I finish?"
He pulled his mask back up, hiding his smile. But his eyes gave him away.
"I'll be here," he said.
The next three hours were chaos.
The afternoon rush hit hard: students, office workers, a family with three kids who all wanted different drinks. You didn't have time to look at the corner table. Didn't have time to think about anything except orders and milk temperatures and the growing pile of dishes in the back.
But every time you glanced up, he was there.
Still in the corner. Still drinking his Americanoâthough it had probably gone warm by now. Still watching.
He answered calls, scrolled through his phone, typed out messages you assumed were for his manager or his members. But every few minutes, his eyes would find yours, and he'd give you a small nod, and you'd remember why you were smiling.
At 4:45, the rush finally died. You wiped down the counter, restocked the cups, and checked the time.
Fifteen more minutes.
Your phone buzzed in your apron pocket.
Juhoon: You're almost done.
You glanced at the corner. He was looking at his phone, typing.
You: Counting down?
Juhoon: Maybe.
You: That's cute.
Juhoon: I try.
You bit back a grin and shoved your phone back in your pocket.
At 5:00 exactly, you hung up your apron.
Your coworker shot you a knowing look. "Boyfriend?"
"Something like that."
"He's been sitting there for hours. Didn't even order anything else."
"He's shy."
"He's staring at you like you hung the moon."
You felt your face warm. "He's dramatic."
But when you walked to the corner table, hoodie in hand, bag over your shoulder, Juhoon looked up at you with those dark, tired eyes, and your heart did the same stupid flip it had done six months ago at the bus stop.
"You waited," you said.
"I told you I would."
"You could have sat somewhere more comfortable."
"I was comfortable." He stood up, pocketing his phone. "I was watching you."
"That's not creepy at all."
"It's romantic."
You laughed and shoved his shoulder. He caught your hand before you could pull it back.
"I have leftovers you could eat at my dorm," you said. "Hana made too much stew."
"Your roommate hates me."
"Hana doesn't hate you."
"She called me a 'walking red flag' last time."
"She calls every guy that. Youâre not special."
Juhoon laughed, his whole face crinkling. You'd missed that sound for two years. You still weren't used to hearing it again.
"Okay," he said. "Leftovers. But only if I can help with dishes."
"You're an idol."
"I'm your boyfriend first."
The word still made your chest tight. Boyfriend. You'd been calling each other that for four months now, ever since he'd askedâproperly, nervously, with flowers and a speech he'd clearly rehearsedâif you'd let him try again.
You'd said yes.
You still said yes. Every day. Even on the hard days.
The dorm was empty when you got there, Hana had headed to a late afternoon library session.Â
Juhoon stood in the middle of your tiny kitchen, looking around like he was trying to memorise it: the cheap cabinets, the humming refrigerator, the microwave that had beeped at you six months ago, the one you'd ignored while scrolling through a tweet that changed everything.
"This is where you live," he said.
"This is where I live."
"It's small."
"It's cheap."
He smiled. "I like it."
He helped reheat the stew. Set the table without being asked. Sat across from you in a chair that was too small for his shoulders, eating Hana's cooking and telling you about his weekâthe radio show where James had accidentally cursed on air, the photoshoot in freezing rain, the fan who'd recognised him at a convenience store at 2am and asked for a photo while he was buying ramen.
Normal things. Regular things. Things that belonged to the life you were building together, piece by piece.
After dinner, he did the dishes and you stood beside him, drying, your shoulders brushing.
"I have to leave at five tomorrow morning," he said quietly.
"I know."
"I wish I didn't."
"I know."
He set down the last plate. Turned to face you. His hands were wet, soapy, warm when they found your waist.
"Six months," he said.
"Six months," you agreed.
"Does it feel... okay? Is this okay?"
You looked at him. At the boy who'd broken your heart and come back to try to fix it. At the boy who still asked permission to hold your hand, who still looked at you like you might vanish, who still showed up even when it was hard.
"It's not easy," you said. "But it's okay. You're okay."
His forehead dropped to yours.
"I love you," he said. "I know I don't say it enough. I know I should say it more. But I love you, and I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to be worthy of you."
"Juhoon..."
"Let me." His voice was soft. "Let me be cheesy. I didn't get to be cheesy for two years. I have a lot of cheese saved up."
You laughed and he kissed your forehead before you wrapped your arms around his neck, pulling him close.
"Stay until the last possible second tomorrow," you murmured into his chest.
"I will."
"Don't say goodbye when you leave."
"I won't."
"Just..." You tilted your head up to look at him. His face was soft in the dim light of your kitchen, the shadows carving out the exhaustion you'd learned to read like a second language. "Just promise me something."
"Anything."
"Don't disappear again." Your voice was small. Smaller than you wanted it to be. "I don't care if we fight. I don't care if you're busy. I don't care if you can only send a single text at 3am. Just... don't disappear."
Juhoon's hands tightened on your waist.Â
"I promise," he said. "No more disappearing, no more silence, no more deciding what's best for you without asking." He pressed his forehead back against yours. "I'm done being a coward."
"You're not a coward."
"I was."
"You were sixteen."
"So were you. And you were braver than me."
You shook your head slightly, noses brushing. "I just didn't have as much to lose."
"You had everything to lose." His voice cracked. "And you were still willing to risk it."
You didn't know what to say to that. So you just held him tighter.
Outside, the city was loud: sirens, traffic, the hum of a thousand lives being lived all at once. But here, in this tiny dorm kitchen, wrapped around each other like you were afraid the world might pull you apart again, everything was quiet.
"You're really here," you whispered.
"I'm really here."
"And tomorrow you'll be gone."
"And tomorrow I'll text you from the airport. And the day after that, I'll call you between schedules. And the day after that, I'll send you a photo of whatever stupid thing Keonho is doing. And then I'll come back. And then I'll leave again. And then I'll come back." He pulled back just enough to look at you. "That's what this is. That's what we are. And I know it's not fair to youâ"
"Stop." You pressed a finger to his lips. "Stop deciding what's fair for me."
He went quiet.
"I know what this is," you said. "I know you're an idol. I know you have schedules and fans and a company that watches your every move. I know we can't have normal dates or walk down the street holding hands or post couple photos on Instagram. I know all of that." You lowered your finger. "And I'm still here. I chose to be here. So stop apologising for things I already accepted."
Juhoon stared at you for a long moment. Then he let out a breath, shaky and relieved, like he'd been holding it for six months.
"How did I get so lucky?" he asked.
"You broke my heart and spent two years making up for it. That's not luck. That's stubbornness."
He laughedâwet and bright. "Yours or mine?"
"Both."
He kissed your forehead again. Then your nose. Then the corner of your mouthânot quite a real kiss, but close. Asking permission, like always.
"Can Iâ"
"Yes," you said. "You don't have to ask anymore."
"I want to ask. I never want to assume."
You pulled him down by the collar of hisâyourâhoodie and kissed him properly.
His lips were soft. A little chapped from the cold. He tasted like coffee and the remnants of Hana's stew and something sweet you couldn't name. His hands slid from your waist to your back, pulling you impossibly closer. One of your hands tangled in his hair and the other rested over his heart, feeling it pound beneath your palm.
When you finally broke apart, you were both breathing hard.
"Okay," you said, a little dazed. "You can keep asking."
He grinned. That full, bright, unguarded grin that he only ever gave you. "Good. Because I have about two years' worth of kisses saved up."
"You're ridiculous."
"You like it."
"I love it." You paused. Realised what you'd said. Your face went warm.
Juhoon's eyes went wide. "Youâ"
"Don't make it a thing."
"You saidâ"
"I know what I said."
"You love me?"
You looked away, embarrassed. "I never stopped. That was the problem."
He cupped your face in his hands, still slightly damp, and turned you back to face him.
"I love you too," he said. "I never stopped either. I just forgot how to show it."
"Then show me now."
He kissed you again. Slower this time, deeper. Trying to pour every apology, every regret, every ounce of longing from the last two years into a single moment, and felt it. You could feel all of it.
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Weâd like to thank everyone greatly for the endless outpour of kind comments and asks following us opening the inbox of this archive, Eli has adored reading all of the messages you have sent and misses you all dearly.
Weâd also like to take this time to discuss a matter that has been brought to our attention, more specifically the shadiness of which some bloggers had moved on here following Eli leaving. Eli did block the hate anons, anyone suggesting she hadnât is entirely incorrect. She valued her blog like it was her child, none of you know the amount of work she put into every post, she was writing extremely long fics for you all as rapidly as she could even during exam season, and so to imply she didnât âgenuinelyâ value her blog is ludicrous. Furthermore, to suggest that her removing herself from this app could negatively affect someone elseâs choice to start writing on here is effectively pushing the blame onto her. Eli shouldnât have to know what she was getting into because such events shouldnât have occurred anyway, it shouldnât be required for her to have thick skin to be able to post a hobby that she loves??
Iâm going against Eliâs wishes by saying this, but another factor that pushed her to leave was the sheer loneliness she felt on here. Sheâd have a small amount of writers interact with her, many of whom she grew to adore, and despite her attempts of branching out further in the community she was met with little response. Despite also defending some writers on her own blog from hate anons, when she reached out for help during the major hate train she received nothing in return. If there is someone new joining the community you should welcome them, greet them, be kind to them, it doesnât take a lot to do so, choosing to actively ignore new creators doesnât bode well or make the community feel âwelcomingâ at all, and this is a belief iâm sure is felt by many other new writers on coerblr. This is not addressed to anyone who treated Eli in a kind way, because there were many of you who did so, it is just for those who did the opposite. You are not above anyone just because you arrived on coerblr earlier, it is as simple as treat everyone how you want to be treated.
As a final note to this I would also like to add that this archive will be closing in about a month. We believe that it has done its duty of allowing people to find Eliâs works, and if anyone would like to pick it up and set up their own archive of it they are welcome to do so. Eli wants nothing to do with tumblr anymore, the toxic culture that surrounded her has forever tainted her view on it and so we believe it best that we lose connection with her works on here as a whole.
We thank everyone greatly for everything they have done to help with this blog, it is simply unfortunate that it has come to this in the first place.
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