fics, recs, and random thoughts

He smiles, and it's bright, and you spot a dimple that causes you to smile back just as he says your name. At the time, you didn't think anything of it, nose scrunching up just a bit as you get the soft scent of something strong that's just childlike enough you can't quite place it. Ever since you turned 11 your parents have warned you that your nose will get more and more sensitive until you present. For the most part it hasn't bothered you since your olfactory started changing, but you feel kind of like something is preparing for a slaughter. Maybe not now, maybe not tomorrow, but some day.

"Just call her Poppy, everyone does," Tasha says, before dragging him to the backyard, "C'mon Riki, I wanted to show you the river behind our house." They disappear, but not before Riki twists to look at you one more time. You wave goodbye, picking up your pen so you can finish your homework, shaking off whatever feeling you got earlier.

Later, you hear them talking about secondary genders and presentations. Something, you were aware, all six year old's do when they're first learning about them. Your sister says something rather blase about not caring either way. As long as she can still do whatever she wants, she'll be happy. But you can hear the pride in Riki's voice when he says, "I'm definitely going to be an Alpha."

"Cool."

And that was that. You don't think about it. It's not important anyways.

You present a few months later, after turning 12, with, to no ones surprise, a big fat α on your paper that has your father laughing. You're doing your math homework at the table again, a routine you swear by because it means you get your homework done faster so you can play on your Nintendo DS or Gamecube without worrying that anything is left unfinished, when he pulled it out the envelope. Tasha and Riki were out in the back playing again, something that has slowly started turning into a routine after the bus drops them off from school.

"Poppy," he says it with one of those amused tones, as if the fact was obvious, "do you want to see your test?"

You shrug, erasing your answer to scribble something else. "I don't care."

His eyes close, a breath close to another laugh, watching you with the fondest expression he's ever worn. "You are the oddest child," he murmurs, tipping the paper over so you can see the letter on it. Ironically, your father was a beta so he didn't have a particular leg in being excited for you presentation being alpha, but he also enjoyed being right. And he was right more than anyone liked. "We're gonna have to put you in soccer or something."

"Mom will be excited," you say, glancing at the paper before going back to your work. And it was true, she would be excited as a fellow female alpha herself. Your nose picks up the sweet scent of your sister and Maki playing behind the house. It scrunches tightly, eyes watering up as it pierces your nostrils.

"Everything okay?"

You rub your palms against your thighs as you think. "The smells in here are strong sometimes," you say softly, "it kinda hurts."

Your father nods slowly, mouth twisting, and he drops to the seat beside you. "You'll get used to it," he says, rubbing a hand on the top of your head, "It gets worse before it settles. Everything is all new."

"It's just," you trail off, slowly placing the pen down, "recently I've been smelling something really strong. It only happens for about a second, but it just…scary is all."

"Scary?"

You nod. "But then it goes away just as fast. So…"'

"Your mom might have a better take on that," he says thoughtfully, "I just got the nose. I don't get the feelings." He looks at you, watching as you grab the paper and shove it in your bag. "I'll talk to her about it, okay?"

"Thanks, Dad."

"Of course, Poppy." He makes a soft sound. "You know, we came up with that nickname because you didn't smell like much. And even now your scent is very soft, mild. Kind of unusual for an alpha." You roll your eyes, shaking your head.

"Mom said that our scents tend to be similar to our personality," you say, pushing your glasses up. "I guess I'm just soft or something."

"Or something." Your father noogies you very gently before he heads out in the backyard where your sister and Riki reside.

Tasha runs in, a little muddy but excited, after a few minutes, throwing out a: "Riki is staying for dinner! Daddy says I have to wash up!" She's gone as fast as she appears, and you muffle a laugh.

"Okay."

Your mom blows in with dinner in hand, and a kiss on your forehead. "Hey baby, let me go freshen up. Can you—"

"Yeah, I'll set up." You wave her away. "Oh, Riki is staying for dinner tonight." She's in then out with a thanks tossed over her shoulder as you get the table ready. It's nothing fancy, but you grab the paper plates and plastic utensils, because when your mom brings dinner no one wants to deal with the clean up.

You go to the back door to let your father and Riki know everything is ready when you hear it.

"Those are big words."

"If I'm gonna be her alpha some day, I gotta make sure I'm strong," Riki says, and you furrow your eyebrows, hearing your father laugh a little.

"Riki," he trails off, "Poppy is an alpha. I don't think she'll need another one." You feel like you're doused with cold water, heart pounding in your chest as you listen to the conversation unfurl.

It's quiet for a minute before: "I don't care. We're going to be mates one day. I know it."

"How old are, kid?"

"I'm six and a half." Riki sounds proud when he says it, and you can see him puffing his chest out in your minds eye.

"Listen, alpha's don't usually mate with other alpha's. But, if you're still serious about it when you're 18 you've got a long path ahead of you. Things change, though, you're six."

"This won't," Riki says it rather seriously, and your dad laughs again just as you knock on the doorframe to let them know you were there.

"Mom's getting comfortable," you say, "but dinner's ready."

When Riki turns to look at you, you feel caught. The feeling of a predator in the grass even though you can't see it, and you can't shake it no matter how much you try to. He's only six, there's no reason for you to feel that way. But the way he looks at you is unnerving, and even at this age you can recognize it.

"Tasha?"

"Still taking a shower, I'm sure." You turn around, but Riki is right by you already, his shoulder brushing yours as he sits in the chair that is right next to yours.

You don't know why, but you feel like something is going to happen to you. You don't know what, but something tells you it will happen eventually.

By the time you're 16, the people in your life think that Riki's infatuation with you is adorable. All young alpha's go through it, Poppy, everyone always says, they meet an alpha and they confuse their admiration with infatuation. It'll go away.

But they don't see the way he looks at you. They don't see how he interacts with you, and you feel like you're the only one worried about how it will develop the longer it lasts. Riki is too young to be doing half the things he's been doing. He scents your door when he's over, faint but unmistakably alpha even though he still had two years before he presents.

He likes to reach up to fix the collar of your school uniform to rub his wrist against the fabric. He stands next to you, just on the side of too close but just far enough that people don't think it's weird. And you grin and bare it because what else are you supposed to do?

Riki is a kid who thinks he knows what he wants, and you don't really know how to tell him again and again that you're too old for him. Once, on Valentines day, he'd presented you with chocolates and asked you to "Please accept my feelings!"

It was in front of all your friends, who cooed and pinched his cheeks as you scratched your neck awkwardly.

"Riki—"

"Awe, Poppy, he's so adorable!" Koko coos, mussing his hair up. "Accept his feelings."

"Koko, shut up." You look at Riki, making a face before ruffling his hair yourself to soothe the sting of your words. "I'm sorry, Riki. You're too young for me."

He pouts, and you can admit it's cute. But it's cute because he's 10 and declaring his love for you. His bottom lip wobbles a bit as he sniffs, and Koko makes a soft sound, wrapping her arms around him. "How can you say no to this face, Pops?" Her puppy dog eyes combined with his are lethal, and you sigh, feeling your shoulders drop.

"Koko, he's too young for me."

"Just let him take you out on a little date."

"No!" You look at Riki. "No. You're 10. I'm flattered, truly, but you're 10. Ask someone your age out." You turn on the balls of your feet, heading straight to your car. You were surrounded by the most insanely oblivious people, and it was absolutely fucking baffling.

He doesn't really quit even after that. When you pick up him and your sister after school he lingers. One time, as you were grabbing something to eat from the drive through, a pretty omega with a cute smile starts flirting with you. You like it, you reciprocate it, but somehow Riki scares the boy off, even from the backseat.

So, it comes at no surprise that he both (a) presents early and (b) is an alpha.

It feels a bit like a noose ties around your neck.

NOW | 25 & 20

There's a boy in your house, stinking it up, making your hair stand. It smells like what strong feels like. It's always hard to explain how scents work for you because it's not necessarily a smell but a feeling.

It smells like ownership, and your keys jingle as you unlock the door. You feel a bit bad, the last time you had been home was when you graduated 4 years ago. Back then you were excited to be An Adult, so you had moved far, far away. Business marketing is a lot of hopping around anyways, and when you turned 25 you had suddenly longed to be back home. You felt it under your skin, this itch you just couldn't scratch.

It didn't matter how many people you fucked, how many jobs you took, or anything. You wanted for something, and you couldn't put your finger on it.

But there's a boy in your house.

A man, really, clearly comfortable, and for some reason the tension in your shoulders loosen for the first time in almost a year. You open the door to your childhood home, and amber hits you.

Strong, amber, close, pack?—you cough, the smell cloying in the back of your throat.

"Poppy?"

Hands fall on your shoulders, pushing you just a bit a way to look at you.

"Poppy," the man breathes out, and you blink a few times, your vision clearing after your senses settle.

"Riki?" He looks the same, and yet different. Same bright smile, same dimple, same soft eyes; but fundamentally different: taller, wider, more more.

"The one and only." He hugs you then, swinging you around and you feel your teeth set, gums aching, salivating suddenly. When he puts you down, you swallow thickly. "How have you been?"

"Been," you pause, parsing through your thoughts, "been better, actually. I'm just staying with my parents until my apartment is ready."

His eyes light up, and you barely notice that he hasn't let go of you. In fact, his hand tightens on your waist, and it's easy for him to sweep you into another hug. Riki, as you are coming to find out, never grew out of his easy affection. Something you never knew how to deal with growing up because he was always hugging you, even when you'd freeze in his tiny arms and pat his back awkwardly. Now, his arms aren't so tiny, but you still don't really know what to do.

"You're moving back?" He rocks you both side to side before you, with a little struggle and much resistance, finally break out of his hold.

"Yeah. Um, not that I'm not happy to see you," you say, looking around the house, "but where are my parents?"

"Shopping," he says easily, "I was fixing the kitchen sink." Something hot swoops in your stomach, vision going blurry for a second.

Fixing the sink, he said he was fixing the sink, you think, putting a hand on your stomach, what is wrong with me right now?

Here's something most people don't know. You've never had your rut. You're a bit of a late bloomer in that way. When you were fifteen, you worried they had gotten your presentation wrong, going in to get a second test. It came back alpha then, and each subsequent time you've tested during times where you've felt a little left out. Your mother soothed many of your fears when you were a teen, telling you that it happens, that sometimes people don't experience their first rut for years. It could be anything, truly, but it'll happen eventually. But the older you've gotten the more worried she's become.

"It's not the worst thing in the world," your doctor had said, "but the longer it takes the harder it will hit, so I want you to be prepared, okay? I've had alphas who have their first rut at 40, and it takes them out for a week."

"So, I'm not…?"

"No, no. Truly, we still don't have the research for why or when ruts or heats hit. There's a general understanding that it's around 16/17. But that's based off statistics, not any scientific study." He patted your hand. "Don't fret too much. It'll happen when it happens."

This time when you take a breath you smell amber, vetiver, strong, capable, mine? You swallow it down, rubbing your head because scents, that was new. You got feelings, scents as ideas, but not as smells, and it kind of hurts.

"Oh," your voice sounds a little distant, even to you, and Riki makes a low crooning sound that has you tipping closer to him, "I think I…" you trail off, blinking hard. You don't know what you're trying to say, swaying on your feet before shaking your head. It clears your vision for a second, allowing you a moment of relief. "Uhm."

"You okay?" He leads you to the couch, one hand on your waist, the other gently holding your elbow. "You're looking flush."

"Hm." There's a struggle to keep your eyes open, and Riki shifts you closer to him, tucking you under his chin. "Sleepy. I'm sleepy, is all."

He makes a sound, something amused, but says nothing else, humming something soothing and distinctively alpha that has your shoulders dropping. Whatever is happening to you, whatever this is, settles for a moment, and you press your nose into his pulse point. The buzzing under your skin softens, and Riki's chest vibrates with a rumbling that has you close your eyes, just as the front door opens.

"Maki!" Your mothers voice rings out in the foyer, you can hear your father carrying the grocery bags as her shoes tap against the wooden floor.

"Living Room," he calls out, still holding you. When she gets in there, she drops to the couch, pressing the line of her jaw into your hair with a soft purr and you get oak, safe, home, rain, mom, packpackpackpackpackpack, you nose scrunching just lightly.

"Poppy." Your mom's doing that thing she does when she hasn't seen someone for a while and needs to scent them. She needs to make them smell like her and home and safe. She once told you that when she smells you she gets cub, mud, baby, protect, homehomehome, even at your big age of (almost) 26. "You're very earthy, Poppy. Like poppies." You wonder if it's changed much. "You look sick."

"M'sleepy," you slur, trying to tuck closer to Riki as you do so. Him and your mother make eye contact over your head, and you smell confusion, worry, petrichor (Riki), salt (your mother), restrestrestrest.

"Let's get you into bed." Riki lifts you up, and you make a soft sound from the strong, capable, amber smell that envelopes you, and you mumble something about how "I can walk" but don't fight him. He tucks you in, pushing some hair behind your ear. His forefinger trails down from behind your ear to your scent gland, the one that remains unmarred by a mating bond, and you groan. You push his hand away, rolling over to bring the covers up to your chin.

"Thank you."

He stands there for a moment, hesitating, before dropping on his hunches by your bed. "Anything for my mate." He says it so quietly, the only reason you hear it is because your room is so quiet.

"Not." You can barely get the words out. He laughs, standing back up to leave your room.

"Whatever you say, Poppy."

The noose you've escaped from tightens a notch.

You feel better the next day, waking up to the morning sun glaring through your curtain. Idly, you scratch your neck, push up from the plush bed to sit up. Your stomach rumbles, and you glance at the clock to figure out what time it was. 8:13 am. You hit the bed with a thick thwump, pulling the covers to cover your head. So fucking early.

After a few minutes, you roll out of bed, smelling bacon cooking from the kitchen, wafting in your nose. It feels a bit like when you were a kid, waking up on the weekend to breakfast, your parents listening to old 80s music, and dancing around. Between you and your sister, you were always the first one up, but it never took long for the smell of meat would get her to float downstairs, half asleep, and holding her blanket around her shoulders. After she presented as an Omega, things started making sense to you. Though, Tasha always complained that she could never smell you. You missed her, though it wasn't like you two didn't talk. She called you often, asking for help with homework, sending you pictures, among other things. But she was studying abroad for the next year and a half, only set to come home for the winter, spring and summer breaks. So, you miss her. You miss her in a way you've never missed anyone before.

You feel it in your gut, this feeling of not having all your people in eyesight, and worrying about it. So, you text her, knowing she was asleep, but also knowing that as soon as she woke up she'd send you a text back.

Miss you Send pictures when you can!

Your parents are still singing and dancing when you trudge your way downstairs. You've got Tasha's old blanket wrapped around your shoulders, the fabric still impossibly soft even after all these years, and your father shimmies over to you, gripping your forearm to twirl you around, tossing the blanket into the chair.

"What you know about Luther Vandross?" He has to shout over the music, and you giggle, leaning into your father as he croons in your ear Too much, never too much, never too much, never too much! He spins you away, swapping places with your mother to flip the pancakes, and she grabs you, wrapping her arms around your shoulders as the music continues.

She stands about 6'1 to your fathers 5'11, and you and your sisters 5'7 (the ongoing joke short for an alpha, tall for an omega running through your head), a presence of safety, pack, home, rain. The rain hits your nostril sharply, and you pull back just a bit, wrinkling your nose. They weren't bad smells. Your father is there, too: home, love, safety, beach. But you weren't used to it.

"Woke up today, looked at your picture just to get me started // I called you up, but you weren't there, and I was broken-hearted. Hung up the phone, can't be too late, the boss is so demanding // Opened the door up and to my surprise, there, you were standing," she sings, twirling around after she lets you go. For some time, it's just the three of you, dancing in the kitchen. You were missing Tasha, and, ironically enough, Riki from the moment.

Weekends spent at each others house, mornings being in charge of dropping them off at elementary school and then middle school, and then picking them up. Innocuous moments that would soothe layers of unnerving moments with something soft, something less scary. Suddenly, so suddenly, you want him in the house, too. You want to hear him singing along, laughing with your parents. Only when you can see him, smell him, will your shoulders loosen.

Like he was summoned, your mother spins you straight into his arms as he sings Oh, my love~ A thousand kisses from you is never too much. His voice is nice, masculine, deepened with age, the dimple peeking out as he holds you, arms around your waist, ducking his head to press his lips to the shell of your ear as he sings the chorus. Your father points, the last pancake flipped and placed on the fourth plate.

"Maki, Maki, Maki," he points, singing just a bit, as your mother grabs the plates and puts them on the table, "So nice of you to join us this morning. Just like old times, right?" It dawns on you, in this moment, that they've been calling him Maki and not Riki, and you turn to look at him, still in his arms. He hasn't let you go since coming in to the kitchen, back flush with his chest as he ushers you to the chair.

"Only one we're missing is Tasha," he says, making sure you sit down before he moves next to you. It's so absentminded, the way he leans down to grab the bottom of your chair and pull you closer to him. You wrap the blanket around your thighs, just so you can run your fingertips across the fabric.

Your jaw aches again, tongue sliding across your canines that, for a reason that eludes you, seem sharper than before. Amber, safe, strong, mine? Your mom looks at you, head tilting to the side, gaze sliding over to Riki, who keeps you close, knees knocking together, then back to you, eyebrows ticking up. The sound of your father and Riki talking fade into the background, muffled by something suddenly wanting in you. Vast. Hunger that has always lurked, but has never made itself known.

You feel distant again. Eating because you have to, because you're hungry, ravenous but not for food. You're not sure for what, exactly.

"..oppy? Poppy?"

You drag your gaze from the plate, scraped clean without you even realizing you had devoured in your haze of something, up to your mother.

"I'm sorry?"

"I asked if today was the official moving day?" Rain, salt, love, mom, safe, oak, packpackpackpackpack.

"Oh, uh, yeah." You nod, glancing at your father, then at your mother again. "My clothes don't get here until Wednesday. But I've got some bigger things I have to put together."

Your father takes a deep inhale, looking at you, leaning forward. "I'd help, but my—"

"Back is bad," you finish for him with a soft laugh, "yeah, I know." Beach, sand, pineapples, care, safe, packpackpackpack.

"But Maki here could help," your father says smiling, "Couldn't you?"

You squeeze your eyes shut for a second, inhaling sharply, pulling your bottom lip between teeth. Amber, vetiver, sandalwood, strong, mine?, mine?, mine?

"Of course." When he speaks, he has a little laugh in his voice that tilts the world on its axis, turning everything upside down and Topsy turfy.

"You don't need to, Riki." It seems silly of you, to keep using his name when even your parents have used this new nickname of his. This Maki that seems to roll off their tongue's with ease. But the idea of using a nickname when you talk to him makes you ill.

"Nah." He waves you off, hand dropping on your thigh and squeezing. "I like being a help. What time do we need to head out?"

Time has passed you by, glancing at the clock you realize it's much later than you thought, mid-morning sun high in the sky. 10:45. Two and a half hours slithering past you without knowing it.

"Uh." Mine? Strong. Mine? "Uh, 11:15 I get the keys. You don't mind?"

Strong. Capable. Amber. Strong. Mine?

"I like helping."

"Yeah, Poppy. He fixed the sink," you dad says cheerfully, "With my old man bones I would have had to call a plumber. Saved us some money." He nods, knocking his hand on the wooden table. "Okay. Me and your momma going to bingo. If you need anything call us." He makes a face, eyebrows raising. "Although, with Maki there, I'm sure no one will give you any hell."

"You guys act like I'm some helpless Omega," you grumble, plucking at the fibers of the blanket. "I'm a very capable alpha, I have you know."

You watch as your mother laughs, it's not mean or condescending, but one of those laughs of family. Pack, Rain, Beach, Safe, home. "Yeah—" she shrugs— "But you'll always be our pup, y'know?"

Riki is strong. There's a part of you that has always somewhat recognized he'd been strong, even when he was younger. Taller than most kids, able to carry heavier things even going so far back as 9 or 10. But these were things you'd idly recognized when he was a child, not something you recognized as an adult, for a multitude of reasons. One: you hadn't been around, or really seen, Riki in almost 4 years. Two: The most obvious reason, he had been much too young for you to recognize it.

But he's carrying all the heavy stuff, and it's a bit annoying, but sweet.

"I can carry that, y'know," you say, watching as he places the box down in your bedroom.

"I know." He laughs. "But what type of mate would I be if I let you carry all of this stuff?"

You pause, looking around your empty apartment. He said that yesterday, too, and you scratch your chin in confusion. Why he kept saying it, you don't understand.

"But we're not."

"Not what?"

You look at him, heart pounding in your chest. Riki seems so confused, head tilted to the side like a dogs. If he had ears they'd flop to the side.

"Mates. We're not mates, Riki," you stress, rubbing your chest and swallowing hard. He takes a step towards you, reaching out to grab your hand, turning it over to trace across your palm.

Hunger again. A ravenous vat in the pit of your stomach, mouth salivating, teeth hurting, jaw aching. Amber, vetiver, sandalwood.

"Yes we are."

"Riki. If we were mates I would know. I would've known when you were 10." Pack, safe, strong, capable. His face does something complicated, and you keep going. "Listen, I get it, you know? You were young and had a crush on me, and that's fine. But you have a mate out there." That felt wrong to say. Makes you ill. You can smell anger, annoyance, decay, rot and you swallow thickly. "You have a mate out there, Riki."

His neck cracks as he tilts it to each side, as if to dispel any tension that suddenly set in his shoulders. He doesn't move, his hold tightening on your hand before it loosens.

"Okay."

"Riki."

His smile is beautiful, disarming, eyes crinkling at the side with a soft chuckle. "What? I said okay." He turns, heading over to your bedroom. "I'm still going to put your bed frame together." You want to say you believe him. You want to say you know that it's the end of that. That he took your words serious, and is respecting your no.

But you can't.

You know Riki. You know him better than you know yourself sometimes, you think. Even after all these years apart. He doesn't believe you. He's not giving up, he's just moving on for the time being. If Riki is one thing, it's patient. He has patience in spades. You don't feel like it's over. But you feel your shoulders drop as he moves on, at peace for this moment that, not necessarily leaves but, lies in wait for the right time to strike.

He doesn't let you do anything, putting your bed frame together. It's quiet for a while as he does so, and you lay, spread out on your floor, staring at your ceiling. "Why do they call you Maki?" The drill pauses as he laughs under his breath.

"Uh, in high school I made this friend," he says, drilling the nails into the bed frame, "His name is Takayama Riki. As you can imagine, Tasha hated trying to get our attention because she'd go 'Riki. No not you, Riki. That Riki.' So all of our friends came up with a way to refer to us. Taki, first two letters of his last name, last two letters of his first name. And Maki—"

"First two letters of your last name, last two letters of your first name."

He points. "Exactly." He's smiling now, pushing the frame to test the integrity of the structure. "It stuck. He was always at our houses, so I think our parents picked up on it as well."

Quiet again, and you shift. Your back hurts suddenly. Strong, capable, safe. Mine? Your gums are hurting suddenly, and you hiss in pain, grabbing at your jaw.

"Everything okay?"

"Mm." You pause, rubbing your cheek. "My, uh, my gums."

You hear him shuffle over to you, dropping on his haunches, cradling your jaw in his big hand. "They hurt?"

You hum again, feeling a sharp pain again, and you moan softly. Amber, vetiver, safe, strong, capable, hungry, eat. "Sorry, I…I don't really know what's going on." You try to laugh it off, but Riki's pupils dilate, tongue running across his teeth as he turns your head, looking at you with hunger.

"Let me get your bed," he murmurs, standing up suddenly, a little twitchy, and leaving the room. He'd opened it so it could air out when the two of you were out grabbing other things. Your teeth, they hurt, no ache in a way they've never ached before. Your jaw is sore. Your back feels weird. Smells suddenly exploding across your senses in ways that didn't exist before.

Wood, home, fresh, clean, air, safe, amber, vetiver, hunger, food, want, mine, sandalwood, mine, wantwantwantwantwant.

Riki seems to be doing something faster than you can comprehend, lifting you up to place you on the bed. The sheets are soft, the duvet at the foot of the bed, and you groan. It's hot. You have to.

You have to.

Riki touches your forehead, making a soft sound underneath his breath. "I'm hot." You kick your pants off, the ache in your gums and jaw turning into pain, turning into—

You pant, mouth filling.

Amber, vetiver, sandalwood, mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Someone pries your jaw open, running a thumb across your canines. You don't hear yourself, speaking around the digit, chanting his name in confusion.

"Something's wrong," you slur, so unaware, you don't even realize you're pushing Riki's shirt up, trying to rip it off with a soft snarl, pulling away from his hand, dislodging his fingers from your mouth. "Riki, something's wrong."

Mine. Mine. Mine. Mine.

Your forehead presses against his sternum, and you sigh, soothed for a moment, cooling off for just a moment. "Riki," you groan again, and he coos, purrs something distinctively alpha, distinctively yours, helping you remove your shirt.

"Sh, sh." He runs his hands down your side, the rough of his palm setting your skin on fire. "Sh, Poppy, I'm here." Your mouth hurts. It hurts.

The tip of your tongue catches your canine, and it stings, you can taste the blood pooling in your mouth from how it cuts the cartilage up.

"Riki." This time when you say it, it's a sob, body shaking as you hear fabric rustle. The bed dips again as he shifts his whole body onto the queen sized bed, pants gone. Thighs press against yours, he's covering you with his body, with his scent.

"I got you," he hums, "I got you."

MINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINEMINE.

Han Dongmin has always been a force of nature – headstrong, determined, relentless – and in a Jaeger he’s truly unstoppable. At least that’s what he likes to think.

In reality, whenever Siren Fury is dispatched, there’s a chance he won’t make it back. Or at least, not as the same person he used to be.

Jaegers are built to be as indestructible as possible since they are humanity’s only hope against the Kaijus that emerge from the Pacific oceans. They are practically humanoid metal robots as tall as buildings to be able to fight back the dinosaur-size extraterrestrial monsters. Nothing of this size and delicacy can move on its own effectively like a toy car. So after trial and error all working models of Jaegers are built like humans: with a neural network running through their limbs and a control panel acting as their brain. The Conn-Pod needs at least two pilots to work because only one person cannot possibly handle all that without lasting brain damage. When attached to the Jaeger with their Drivesuit’s spinal clamp digging into their back, the pilots’ minds basically become one. That’s the only way proper coordination can work. Like the right and left halves of the brain working together.

Or at least that’s what Dongmin was taught at his Academy classes by J-technicians who never actually drifted with another person or saw what the world looked like through the eyes of a Jaeger. Dongmin is a soldier though, he doesn’t actually care how it works as long as it gets the work done. As long as humanity is winning against these monsters.

So it’s not often that he’s sentimental enough to contemplate the fragility of human life, but now he’s in the middle of the ocean waiting for the pick up team in the damaged Conn-Pod of Siren Fury with his unconscious co-pilot in his arms. The Jaeger’s half arm is in pieces scattered in the water with the remains of a Category IV Kaiju after they blew it off. Later, the Marshal tells him that it will take weeks to fix it up and it makes him feel useless because that means weeks of forced standby.

A Ranger is nothing without their co-pilot or their Jaeger after all.

Dongmin used to hate this fact, this dependance. All his life, there was nothing he couldn’t do alone. He learned early on that in his family’s dictionary there was no such thing as ‘can’t’. Not having the ability to do something was a weakness he couldn’t afford. Not if he wanted to make his father proud.

Three generations of navy soldiers, that was the dream they cradled since he was young. Then the Kaijus came and turned the world as they knew it upside down. So he was one of the first ones to sign up for the newly established Jaeger program in Busan, one of the youngest ones too.  It’s been six years since, two since he finally found a drift compatible partner and now, the girl who was in his head half the time went quiet.

Nevermind. A few hours later she’s up like she merely took an afternoon nap.

Dongmin crosses his arms in front of his chest at the leg of her hospital bed.

“He bought you flowers?” He asks with a grimace as he’s having a staredown with the bowl of water and flora that certainly wasn’t there when they were both brought in for post-mission check ups.

“Aquatic ones! These won’t just die,” his co-pilot glances at the gift dreamily and Dongmin sighs. If he thought it was annoying when she and that Kaiju researcher guy were both pining he might have had to re-evaluate. This could be so much worse now that they finally confessed their undying love for each other or whatever.

“Such a nerd,” he mutters under his breath, unimpressed.

“It’s romantic!” Even bedridden his military partner has energy to argue with him.

Dongmin rolls his eyes and sneakily picks up the honey butter peanut box from her bedside table to pop some into his mouth.

“Whatever. Just try not to think about kissing him when we’re drifting,” he says dryly and dramatically shudders at the thought just for the effect.

“You’re just jealous,” his co-pilot jabs back at him and snatches the snack back from his hand.

“Of you kissing Kim?” Dongmin makes a face and that earns him the pillow thrown at his head.

He knows it wasn’t what she meant but between rigorous training and fighting alien monsters, annoying her is the closest thing he has to normalcy in his life.

It’s a soft sound, somebody clearing their throat, that’s saving her from getting the pillow thrown back at her, hospitalized or not, because when Dongmin sees the presence of a nurse their age, he haphazardly hides the soft material behind his back as if to hide evidence of the childish fight.

“Sorry, I need to check on her vitals,” you say, pulling a clipboard close to your chest and raising your gaze. Soon enough, soft eyes meet his.

Now, this is the part when you should look away shyly, like a blushing, giggling mess. He’s used to that. Girls reacting to his presence like that. And he gets it, Rangers are idolized by the media like stars, they are heroes after all. He has given out autographs and taken selfies with fans who came to congratulate on their victories, so with the way you can’t take your eyes off of him, he thinks that maybe you will ask for one, too.

“Can you–” Ah there it is, just another fan request. He should have brought a pen. “–move aside?”

Wait, what?

“You’re in the way, idiot,” his co-pilot chides and he makes sure to scowl at her before stepping aside, so you can check on the monitor and how much liquid is still in the IV bag.

Embarrassment burns in the pit of his stomach but he doesn’t let it show. He leans against an empty bed, hopefully looking as nonchalant as humanly possible, even as his gaze follows your figure until it disappears down the corridor.

“Is she new?” He blurts out against better judgement but lucky for him his partner is too preoccupied with a text she got most likely from loverboy to notice the weird tone of his voice.

“Who? The nurse? I think so, why?”

Dongmin shrugs like he doesn’t care. Because he doesn’t. It just irks him that you didn’t even spare him a second glance before leaving. He’s not used to being disregarded.

With nothing better to do Dongmin throws himself into Kwoon combat practice. It isn’t like fighting with his co-pilot (not just with words) but she has been advised to not strain herself for at least a while, so he has to suffice with cadets. Not to brag but he can easily take two at a time, three on a good day or if they are really bad. Kwoon is about balance, about connection, it’s more of a dialogue than an actual fight to win but there is no balance if Dongmin is freaking bored with these kids. So he pushes himself more: morning Kwoon sessions, afternoon drift simulations with his co-pilot (if she doesn’t stop thinking about Kim Donghyun’s smile, he will put bleach into her shampoo), strategy discussions with the Marshal and late night gym visits. He watches the numbers climb on the war clock and the J-Techs slowly re-build Siren Fury’s arm while restlessness brews in his stomach.

Then Park Sunghoon visits from the Gangneung Shatterdome and beats his ass on the mat without breaking a sweat. Dongmin grits his teeth as he gets up, leaning more of his weight on the fighting stick.

“What’s with your left side? You rely too much on your right,” the senior Ranger points out calmly while putting the wooden prop away. Dongmin considers lying, saying he just prefers this way, but in the end just sighs.

“Just a bit of a strain, nothing serious,” he shrugs, slowly rolling his left shoulder back, grimacing at the ache seeping into his bones.

“Have it looked at in the infirmary just to be sure,” Sunghoon suggests and grabs his stuff from the floor. Before he leaves, he turns back once with a hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth. “Then find me for a re-match.”

And Dongmin is nothing if not disciplined. It has been drilled into him through military training since childhood, so there he is, at the infirmary. He hasn’t been back since his co-pilot has been discharged but it’s surprisingly empty. Still, it surprises him that the only person at the nurses’ counter is you.

“Oh, are you alone?” He blurts out and it makes him sound stupid when you glance up from the book you’re reading and pointedly look around.

“Do you see anybody else here?”

“I’m just asking. I didn’t know they allow new nurses to be on duty on their own,” he explains his surprise quite poorly if your unimpressed look is anything to go buy. So professional. You really don’t want his signature, huh?

“We don’t really have the luxury to have proper rotations. I guess you know how that is,” you shrug and turn the book upside down, leaving it open on the desk before standing up. He tries to catch what it’s about but the angle is off to read the title properly. You round the counter and point at the examiner table. He takes a seat with a straight back but his eyes are following you. 

You tie your hair back and pull a folder out of a drawer. His check up data most likely. He wonders what they say about him. If that folder catalogues all the injuries he has suffered ever since he joined the Jaeger Academy, if it even contains the result of his psychological evaluation that cleared him stable enough to pilot, if it made him seem like a soldier through and through or just somebody who bled through their teenage years to be here.

You move around with a confidence that newbies don’t have. It makes him want to ask where you came from but you beat him to it.

“So what’s wrong?” You step in front of him after leaving his files on the desk and look up. A hint of jasmine hits him and it has him inhale sharply. With him sitting, you’re pretty much eye level and suddenly he can’t make himself look away. You missed a strand of hair when tying your hair up but you’re too focused to care about it. His fingers itch to brush it back, so he curls them into a fist.

“My left shoulder feels off for a few days now,” he ends up saying. It’s the oversimplified version of the truth but admitting that he overestimated his limits and overworked himself to the point to strain a muscle sounds pathetic. He should have known better.

You don’t say anything, just hum quietly and round the table. When you touch him, thumb pressing lightly into his upper trapezius while the rest of your fingers rest on his shoulder, he tenses up for no reason at all.

“Does this hurt?” You ask, voice coming from much closer.

“No,” Dongmin lies because this much is nothing. He has once showed up to his Academy evaluation with a broken rib and nobody noticed. You hum again, contemplating, then press into the skin near his shoulder blade harder and he nearly blacks out from the sharp pain. “Ah, fuck.”

“Yeah, thought so.” That’s your only comment to his outburst before your hands leave him to rummage through a cabinet. “Take off your top.”

You say it like it’s nothing with your back to him, so you miss how fast his ears redden.

“What?” Dongmin’s voice jumps half an octave, dumbfounded, nearly getting a whiplash from how fast he turns to you, not making any moves to follow instructions. An exasperated sigh escapes you and turning back to look at him,  you put a hand on your hip.

“Do you always ask so many questions? Be glad I didn’t ask you to pull down your pants,” you raise an eyebrow almost challengingly which has him gaping like a fish. He had no idea being a nurse at the Shatterdome includes such duty.

“You do that too?” 

You cross your arms in front of you and deadpan:

“Yes, if some idiot needs a rabies vaccine.”

“Which idiot?” Dongmin is quick to inquire but you just give him a look, so he shuts up. But he would bet that it was Myung Jaehyun. That J-technician is a self-hazard.

“Come on. Shirt off. I need to apply ointment on your back,” you explain and he clears his throat to collect himself.

Right. Get it together, Han Dongmin, don’t act like you haven’t been in the infirmary before.

Dongmin would like to think he’s unaffected. Like totally. Why wouldn’t he be? But the fact that you were unaffected the entire time you had him half-naked on that uncomfortable examination table, fingers gently rubbing something that smelled strongly of peppermint into his skin bothers him more than it should have. Half the girls in the Shatterdome would have liked to be in your place just to ogle, so why do you act like it was nothing?

And yes, he knows that it doesn’t make sense. He’s usually annoyed by the amount of unwanted attention he’s getting. He’s usually busy making sure to keep people at an arm’s length. But now he’s staring up at the grey ceiling from his bunk bed, turning the dog tag of Siren Fury that hangs in his neck between his fingers and can’t sleep. He thinks of your eyes, neutral and never lingering longer than they should, and he couldn’t help but wonder: are you like that, professional and distant, with everybody or do you have something against him personally?

Dongmin kicks the blanket off himself and hauls himself out of bed. He grabs a jacket and his shoes and slips out of the room without waking his roommate. PPDC’s favourite or not, he doesn’t get the luxury of having his own room. Instead he’s roomed with a politician’s son. The Marshal said it’s because they’re the same age and moved to the Shatterdome around the same time but Dongmin has a feeling that it has something to do with how they both have powerful fathers. Commander Han and National Assembly member Lee might not be friends but they are both avid campaigners for the Jaeger Program funding over those useless Anti-Kaiju walls. Chanyoung is a good enough roommate though, he’s quiet but friendly, he knows when not to bother Dongmin.

On nights when Chanyoung can’t sleep, he goes for a swim. On nights when Dongmin can’t, his feet take him to the Kwoon combat room. However, this time around it’s not empty despite the late hour. The boy on the mat is tall and lanky, hasn’t built much muscle yet. He’s practicing hits with the wooden stick but he puts more effort into channeling strength than precision. He doesn’t even notice Dongmin watching from the open door, not until he pushes himself away from the frame and approaches the mat. The younger boy clearly startles and bows with widened eyes, his swift apology cut off by the Ranger:

“Straighten up properly. You put too much of your upper body into the swings. Like this you will tire yourself out before getting any hits,” Dongmin says matter-of-factly as he kicks off his boots and grabs a stick for himself.

When he turns around, the cadet still stands in that awkward position of just having stood up straight after a polite bow like he can’t quite believe he’s seeing an actual Ranger from up close. Dongmin gets it, he used to be starstruck too when he first met senior Rangers but he sure as hell did a much better job at hiding his fascination. This kid is practically vibrating out of his skin and effectively ignoring his previous advice.

Dongmin sighs and lands a soft hit on the boy’s lower back that effectively has him fix his spine.

“I said, straighten up,” he repeats like he’s bored already and nods towards the stick hanging uselessly from the cadet’s hand. “Try to get a point.”

The boy does not manage to get any hits.

Dongmin didn’t actually expect him to. If he managed anyways that would have meant that Dongmin was in a much worse form than he would have liked to admit it despite his healing injury. So the real achievement he wanted to see wasn’t any points but the cadet improving his stance and attacks. And to his credit, the boy tried his best and he has potential. He’s determined and doesn’t give up, not even after the dozenth hit Dongmin gets in lazily without actually straining himself to attack.

“What’s your name, cadet?” He asks when the boy is sprayed out on the floor with sweat dripping down his forehead and neck soaking the collar of his uniform. Dongmin offers him a hand.

“Kim Woonhak, sir,” the cadet rushes to answer while still trying to catch his breath once upright. Dongmin’s mouth pulls into a grimace at the formality that makes him feel much older than he actually is. 

“Just hyung is enough,” he corrects and he swears he sees Woonhak’s eyes sparkle.

“Yes, sir– Hyung!”

Dongmin cracks a smile and adjusts his grip on the stick.

“Again.”

When the next Kaiju emerges from the ocean near Brisbane, two Australian Jaegers are dispatched since they are the closest but it doesn’t change the fact that Dongmin feels useless watching the fight through the monitors hung up in the Shatterdome’s halls. What ifs plague his mind about the defenseless Southern coastline of the country and even though he knows that Kim’s idea saved them from being dragged into the water and being torn apart, rebuilding Siren Fury takes more time than he expected. Jaehyun also told him they might not be able to build a plasma charger in the new arm because funding is low and the component parts are crazy expensive. Most of the money goes into the new Mark-6 Jaeger they are building, hopefully launching next year with brand new pilots. At times like this the PPDC’s priorities boil the Ranger’s blood. Is it really better to have two half-built Jaegers than one proper one?

Later that night, after Jake and Leo defeats the Category III Kaiju, he visits the hangar bay smelling of grease and metal to check on Siren Fury. She stands tall and proud, all sleek steel and battleworn scars. Her left arm is open, wires and rods peeking out showing its half-finished state. Dongmin walks over the elevated walkway to get a closer look but halts as soon as he notices a figure already there. At first he thinks it might be his co-pilot driven by the same restlessness he feels but when he gets closer he recognizes you.

For once you don’t wear your usual nurse uniform and don’t have your hair tightly tied back either. Instead you have sweats and an SNU Med t-shirt on, hair falling into your face. It’s the first time he has seen you look so… casual.

Dongmin has half a mind to slip away like he hasn’t even been there but then his shoes made a squealing sound against the grated metal flooring and you look up straight at him. Whatever excuse he was about to say then freezes on the tip of his tongue when he sees your red-rimmed eyes in the hangar’s dim night light. Oh.

You look away quickly, sniffling as you wipe your face clear of evidence and Dongmin just stands there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with the situation. Should he leave you alone and pretend he saw nothing or offer some kind of comfort even though he’s shit at it? One would think having a girl co-pilot helps navigating situations like this but the Ranger girl has always had Kim Donghyun by her side and Dongmin never had to be the shoulder to cry on. Not to mention, you and him aren’t even close, so it probably would be weird if he suddenly initiated anything… right?

“How is it?” You speak up quietly before he could make up his mind. You don’t look at him, just keep staring ahead but it feels like a permission to stay. Like maybe you would actually appreciate some company.

“What?” Dongmin asks as he lowers himself into a sitting position against the railing in a decent arm’s length distance from you.

“Going out there and fighting in this,” you point at his Jaeger and while your words are emotionless, there’s a strain in your voice that most likely has something to do with why today’s Kaiju attack triggered something in you.

So Dongmin takes your question seriously, gives it a moment to think it over properly, instead of just blurting out the first thing that comes to his mind. Everybody has seen Jaegers on TV, some has seen them in real life but only a handful have ever been in a dispatched one. Dongmin is one of the few but he isn’t sure how to describe the feeling to somebody who has never ever sat in a simulator.

“Like you’re on the top of the world,” he says as he stares at the helmet of the blue-washed Siren Fury, at the Korean flag proudly painted on its side. His voice is tethering on the edge of sounding awed. “Piloting a Jaeger isn’t like piloting a plane. It’s not a separate entity. Once you’re attached, it becomes the extension of your own body. Practically, you, your co-pilot and the Jaeger become one after the drift. It’s hard to explain but suddenly you are more.”

Dongmin’s gaze drops to the robot’s legs. Somewhere on its mechanical ankles there are marks of two scratchy names. Him and his co-pilot carved their names into the steel with a knife after their first successful mission. The J-Tech must have noticed but nobody has ever said a thing.

“Isn’t it scary?” You ask quietly and he isn’t sure what you mean. The drift, the control over something so big or the fight against Kaijus? His answer is the same nevertheless:

“Only if you let it,” he says because he has long gotten used to all that. He has come to terms with the fact that he will probably die young in a Jaeger. He just wants to take as many Kaijus with him as he can. He can’t afford to let fear dictate his life. Nobody should, so he tries to crack a joke: “Otherwise it’s just a hyper realistic video game.”

When a hint of a smile graces your features, he considers it a win even if you don’t say anything.

For the first time, silence settles comfortably between the two of you. You don’t cry anymore and he lets the railing dig into his back more as he relaxes his shoulders. Siren Fury glows under the moonlight shining through the glass dome.

“I think being stuck on land having nothing to do is scarier,” Dongmin admits, quieter than before, his fingers mindlessly following the engraving in the dog tag that hangs from his neck between his pulled up legs.

Who is he if he is not out there fighting? It’s a question he has been turning in his head all day but he would like to think there was nothing in his voice that warranted you to look at him with all doe eyes. He clears his throat as he looks away.

“Why leave Seoul? It’s relatively safe there,” he stumbles to fill the void. It’s only fair if it’s his turn to ask, he justifies, and it seems like a neutral enough question. The assumption is also mostly a guess based on your shirt, but you don’t correct him.

“My younger brother joined the Busan Academy as a cadet. He’s all I have,” you answer simply, like it explains everything and maybe it does. The you followed him here part goes unsaid but it’s clear enough. Dongmin wonders what else you left behind in Seoul other than university.

He also wants to ask what happened with the rest of your family but the intensity you’re staring at the Jaegers towering over you is an answer too, he supposes. Wrong time, wrong place and a Kaiju. Everybody seems to have a story like this these days.

“Are you not… proud of him?” He asks instead. Tentatively because it sounds like you don’t approve of your brother’s decision to join the military, to work for keeping the country safe while you’re also on the frontline even if in a different role. Shatterdomes are built right by the water which makes them the closest targets when a Kaiju attack comes. Everybody risks their life by being there, not just the cadets who might pilot a Jaeger one day.

“I am,” you’re quick to protest but your voice breaks when you continue. “But I don’t want to lose him. Why does it have to be him who plays the hero?”

Dongmin clenches his jaw at the clear concern in your voice and stares out at the sea through the giant windows.

He grew up in a household built on discipline, diligence and loyalty. It has never been a question to him if he will put his life on the line for his country, it was a given. He still remembers the warmth of his father’s palm squeezing his shoulder when he officially became a Ranger and the smile on his mother’s face as she told her friends that her son had defeated Kaijus. He cannot disappoint them.

“Somebody has to do it,” he says.

He has gotten used to it: people expecting him to be that somebody. He was the best of best, they said, if somebody could do it, it would be him. It has always filled him with pride, the trust they put into his abilities and the way they justified the hard work he has put into getting there. But listening to you talking about your brother with such unabashed care, he can’t help but want that. Somebody to care enough to worry about him too. It’s stupid because he’s better off without it and yet, now it keeps plaguing his thoughts.

Thoughts you break easily when you shift until you face him, you knee almost bumping into his side.

“You’re his role model, you know? That’s why he applied here,” you tell him and while it doesn’t sound like you’re blaming him, he feels a pang of guilt anyways. He doesn’t let it hurt though.

“Want an autograph?” He raises his eyebrows and flashes a charming smile at you. At the girl who has every reason to hate him because her brother might die one day because of his influence.

You snort at his silly question regardless and he finds that he doesn’t even mind it, at least you’re smiling. That’s good enough.

Dongmin hisses when the wound stings under running water. The bleeding has stopped already and now he just feels stupid trying to clean up broken glass with his hands. He brings his hurting hand up to his face to inspect the injury. Luckily it’s nothing serious, barely more than a paper cut. He normally ignores such things, because while sure, they’re mildly annoying for a few days when in contact with something, soon enough they’re gone without a trace. But now for some reason his feet take him to the infirmary’s floor, his brain already racking up explanations like how even such a small wound could get infected or affect his job if not taken care of professionally. You don’t ask for any of his excuses when you see him, just have him sit down and treat his cut with careful hands. It takes less than five minutes and he’s out of the infirmary with a plaster on his finger.

The thing is, normally Dongmin doesn’t get injured or sick often. At least not seriously enough to ask for help. No wonder even his co-pilot looks at him weird when after a Kwoon combat session, he’s off to the nurse station to have a freshly reddened bruise looked at. He leaves with a cooling cream in hand. You didn’t even ask him to take his shirt off!

One time he goes as far as pretending to have fever after his skin heats up from blow drying his hair but you just put a cool hand against his forehead and brush his fringe out of his face before dropping a sour candy wrapper into his hands. He’s not sure whether this is more humiliating or when only Mrs Hwang is in and he bolts after she tells him that it’s your day off.

So now he’s at the hangar bay, sitting on a stool too small for his long legs, while Jaehyun is working on his Jaeger’s hand. Dongmin is there to supposedly help, wearing a motion capture glove and bending his fingers every once in a while when the J-Tech guy tells him to, but he mostly just complains about the dissatisfactory health care service he has received lately as in not being able to talk with you properly because you always send him away once he’s treated.

“Dude, if you want her attention so badly, maybe talk to her instead of giving her more work,” Jaehyun advises while checking on the hand sensor settings on his tablet and making some modifications to the sensitivity levels.

“I don’t want–” Dongmin is quick to argue but he bites his tongue when his friend sends him a knowing look. He sighs begrudgingly. “I’m not that desperate.”

He has a reputation to uphold after all. He’s the Jaeger Academy’s best for a reason. The Pan Pacific Defence Corps’s favourite role model to parade for young cadets. Commander Han’s eldest son. He’s not some lovesick male lead from a tv drama.

And yet, somehow, half an hour later he’s back in the infirmary wing because he touched something on the workstation he shouldn’t have and now he has a fresh burn mark on his palm. For once, he feels more embarrassed than sneaky when he walks through the double doors and you look up from your desk. You don’t even seem surprised anymore to see him there.

“You know, for a Ranger, you’re kind of careless,” is the first thing you tell him after he shows you his newest injury.

“Excuse me?” The snarky reaction escapes Dongmin as defensiveness takes over. The callout feels unfair, because no matter what anybody says, he is one hell of a Ranger. He has medals the president awarded him for god’s sake.

You look him in the eye, unwavering, and press a pad of disinfectant against his wound as if to prove a point. Dongmin hisses and deflates like a balloon.

“Oh, that. Right,” he mumbles, casting his eyes down like a child that knows they were in the wrong.

You hold his hand gently while applying the disinfectant properly and spread a thin layer of cream over the burn. He already misses the subtle touch when you let go to get the gauze and wrap it around his palm. When your fingers linger a bit more than necessary after securing the bandage with a plaster, he might have just imagined that.

“You should be more careful,” you tell him belatedly, half scolding, half worried, while sitting down in front of the age-old computer to log his newest visit into his files. Dongmin has to turn his head away to hide his smile.

After that things slowly start to change.

You don’t ignore him anymore when he looks your way in the canteen. The first time he sits down at your table, the girls nearby stare and whisper and giggle not-so-subtly. But at least he gets to talk to you about how his burn is healing and that he managed to beat Park Sunghoon at Kwoon combat the last time they sparred. When you notice he doesn’t eat the eggplant on his plate, you steal it from his tray and give him a piece of chicken instead. He can’t stop smiling behind his can of soda.

During one of his now semi-regular practices with Woonhak, who is slowly growing on him despite his best efforts, you show up and he gets distracted enough for the cadet to easily land a hit straight on his chest. Only when Woonhak waves to you with wide smiles does he understand why you don’t seem surprised at all to see the two of them there. When you and Woonhak get ready to leave, he kind of expects you to tell him to go easy on your brother next time now that you’ve seen him get in several hits but instead, you mouth a thank you towards him. Dongmin watches you ruffle Woonhak’s hair dotingly which makes the younger boy whine with something squishingly soft forming in his chest.

One time he catches you in the gym on the treadmills and challenges you to a race. Unexpectedly you agree and get him the vending machine soda he asks for when he wins without complaining about his unfair advantage. Both of you are sweaty while you’re sitting there with your legs aching, slurping on your drinks, but when Dongmin is glancing your way, you’re smiling.

And then there are the late night meetings in the Jaeger hangar. Sometimes you’re just lying on your back on the catwalk and searching for stars on the pitch black sky through the glass dome. Sometimes you talk about everything and nothing. He gets to know you there slowly.

You like the hangar because your father was a mechanic and the district smell of oil, burning metal and fresh paint reminds you of his garage. Your voice breaks when you tell him that your father was working on the Anti-Kaiju wall that was destroyed by the Category III bringing catastrophe to the Southern shore years ago. He asks about your university days and tells you about the Jaeger Academy and how it wasn’t that different from growing up in a military family. You’re the first one to ask him about what he would do if one day the monsters stopped coming. He doesn’t have an answer, not then, but later, lying in his bed alone, staring at the starless ceiling, he hopes you’re there in a future like that.

"Category IV Kaiju alert! J-Tech, prepare Siren Fury for dispatch! Rangers report to Conn-Pod immediately! I repeat: Category IV Kaiju–”

The sirens are blaring throughout the Shatterdome, waking everybody up at 4AM. Dongmin laces up his boots haphazardly and swings the door open. Down the corridor he sees his co-pilot leave Kim Donghyun’s room.

“Are you ready?” She asks while she’s zipping up her jacket.

“So ready. Let’s kick some Kaiju ass,” Dongmin grins. Finally the restlessness he has felt in the last few weeks has a space to go as they are making their way to the Conn-Pod.

Chanyoung is already at LOCCENT, tracking the Kaiju’s movements on one monitor and checking the Jaeger’s energy levels on the other with other comm officers. When Dongmin puts on the Drivesuit, he hears him in his in-ear.

“I hope you slept well, it’s a really ugly beast.”

“Don’t worry, we will send it right back where it came from,” he says, ever so confident, wincing quietly when the spinal cord is attached. Some say it’s bad luck to celebrate early but Dongmin thinks it boosts morale. Not to mention no Kaiju could take them down before, isn’t that proof enough that it’s warranted? His roommate just wishes him luck, then starts the countdown.

“Initiating drift in 3, 2, 1…”

Dongmin closes his eyes and lets memories flood him. It’s a mix of old and new, his and his co-pilot’s. A Kaiju that has left him shaking, a beach town in ruins, late night practices until his body was sore and useless and still not good enough, Kim Donghyun smiling under the sunset, ice cream smeared on his lips, and your voice echoing in his ears, the sour candy he got from you tasting sweet on his tongue.

“Drift successful, connection stable. Rangers, confirm!” Somebody yells just and he opens his eyes, feeling the familiar presence of a companion in the back of his mind. He turns his head towards his partner who smiles and he already knows what she wants to say even before she opens her mouth.

“That was so cheesy.”

“You’re one to talk,” he rolls his eyes but with no malice and they move their hands at the same time, the Jaeger’s mechanic limb following their movements swiftly.

“Siren Fury is ready for deployment,” he confirms and when the Jumphawks hatch onto the mech’s shoulders to airlift them, he imagines you watching it happen through the big monitor in the hallways. It gives him one more reason to win.

It’s not an easy victory but it feels good. Every landed punch and every plasma hit right on target. After weeks of restlessness, Dongmin finally feels like he’s doing something useful. By the time the Kaiju’s lifeless body collapses into the Japan Sea, he’s sweating, his muscles ache and there’s a beginning of a throbbing headache in his temple. Yet, he feels delirious, the good kind, like he can take on the whole world.

It’s always a bit disorientating when they are back in the Shatterdome and the Conn-Pod is detached from the Jaeger. Suddenly it’s a lot quieter in his mind even though his co-pilot’s thoughts linger for a while like ghost touches.

“Let me guess, you will go for a check-up right away,” she wiggles her brows as she’s getting out of her Drivesuit.

“Shut up and go make out with your boyfriend or something,” Dongmin rolls his eyes instead of reminding her that medical check-ups after an actual drift were important. It would be hypothetical because he used to not care much despite the protocol. It would also be useless because he can already see Donghyun waiting like a puppy behind the Conn-Pod station’s glass doors.

He gives the Kaiju nerd a nod when he walks by him into the LOCCENT and accepts the pats on the back and congratulations from the officers with his usual nonchalance. He doesn’t intend to stay long but before he could escape, the Marshal finds him and tells him about an event they should attend to secure more funding for the Jaeger program. He agrees like a good soldier would because he doesn’t really have a choice anyways, then asks for permission to leave. When granted, he slips away through hidden corridors before anybody else could stop him.

Usually he loves the part when every resident of the Shatterdome gathers to celebrate the new win of humanity. These are the only few times when they get to relax before the next Kaiju appearance. They are allowed to have fun, to drink, to forget that the attacks are getting more and more frequent and the world might be doomed. Dongmin also likes the post-Kaiju fight high, the adrenaline pumping in his veins and the feeling of being invincible. He knows he will crash soon, either with the headache worsening or exhaustion taking over, but for now he feels like he could do anything.

When he opens the door to the infirmary, he catches you pacing from one end to another.

“–would be such a bad idea to–”

You stop when you notice him and another girl jumps off the counter. It’s Minju, Dongmin recognizes her from Donghyun’s lab.

“Uhm, I will go get coffee,” she exclaims abruptly even though there’s clearly a mug half-full of dark liquid on the counter where she just sat. When she passes by Dongmin’s side she shows him thumbs up and offers a “Good job today!” cheerily.

“Thanks,” Dongmin says and waits for you to agree, to comment on his performance, to say anything but when the door is closed behind your friend, you turn your back on him and shuffle back to the computer to pull up his charts. The examination table makes a creaking sound in the silence when Dongmin sits down without having been told. He knows the drill by now.

“How are you feeling?”

When you speak up, it’s in your usual work tone, all professional. He’s a bit disappointed but he refuses to wilt like a flower.

“Good. Just a little headache,” he says and watches you get up to grab a few things.

He knows what comes, he has been in the same situation multiple times just with different nurses. Mrs Hwang who works the alternate shifts is such a mother hen, treating all of them like children. The previous nurse who left before you came was so chatty, always had a new gossip whenever he sat there. He never really craved either of their acknowledgement, but with you he almost feels desperate for it.

“Did you watch us?” He asks when you fasten the blood pressure monitor’s cuff around his arm but you just shush him. He casts his eyes down, sulky, like a scolded child all the while the cuff tightens then loosens and the machine beeps. You jot down his results before stepping closer again. Your fingers are soft on his skin while you slip the medical device off his arm.

You don’t look him in the eye when you eventually answer. “No.”

It has Dongmin reeling. All this time he has thought that everybody was busy following the broadcasts of the Kaiju fights, he thought that you saw him defeat this newest alien monster, that somehow this could maybe appeal to you, but now he’s just confused.

“Why?”

You ignore his question and pick up the penlight instead.

“Follow the light with your eyes,” you tell him and he begrudgingly follows the instructions like a champ. However, when you drop your hand and turn away, he grabs onto your wrist to pull you back. You’re clearly startled as you stumble and have to catch yourself with a hand against his chest to not fall completely onto him.

“Why?” He asks again and there’s something defiant in your eyes when you finally make eye contact with him, your arm flexing under his hold, your fingers curling into his uniform shirt. He has half a mind to let go of you but he’s also relishing in the fact that you haven’t even tried to pull away, that you’re staying close on purpose. He’s basking in your subtle jasmine scent and the warmth of your shaky exhales.

“I don’t like seeing you hurt,” you whisper into the barely there space between the two of you and it ceases the ugly disappointment burning in the pit of Dongmin’s belly.

“I’m fine though,” he insists and swipes his thumb over the inner side of your wrist. It’s supposed to be soothing but when your breath hitches, he can’t help a grin at the reaction he finally got out of you.

“Ranger Han–” You raise your voice and it sounds like he’s in for a reprimand or a warning. He decidedly ignores it.

“Dongmin,” he corrects with a smirk as he tilts his head and continues the caresses on your skin.

For a long moment you just stare at each other as if to see who can take it longer. He can feel his cheeks heat up despite the confident act he puts up and when your gaze drops to his lips, his pulse jumps. There’s a tremble in his fingers when you lean closer and then…

“Noona! Have you seen–” Somebody barrels through the infirmary’s double doors and Dongmin has to hold himself back from dramatically sighing when you step back until your back hits the nurse desk. “Oh, hi, hyung! Oh my god, you were so cool out there!” 

Woonhak is all smiles and pure enthusiasm. He’s also totally oblivious to what he has interrupted. Still, he’s your brother, so Dongmin puts on a smile and answers all the questions Woonhak has about this new Kaiju and their strategy against it. He also promises to give him a tour around Siren Fury’s Conn-Pod one day. You drop a piece of sour candy into his hands before he has to leave.

The next time he ends up in the infirmary, it’s not on purpose and totally not his fault.

He was looking for his co-pilot so they could run a drift simulation but she was hanging out with her boyfriend in the labs. Apparently the K-scientists found something breakthrough regarding the anatomy of the Kaijus but Dongmin was busy checking on the different shades of blue vials labelled synthetic Kaiju blood to really pay attention. Nobody around him wore masks or gloves, so he assumed it was safe enough. That little piece of shiny rock on the petri dish wasn’t even blue, so the last thing he expected when he poked it was for his skin to stain a fluorescent color.

Apparently it was a sample from a beach that got exposed to Kaiju Blue, the deadly toxic agent in the aliens’ blood, and since the team was currently working on how to reverse its destructing effect on nature, they already had an antidote on hands for small exposures. Donghyun quickly had him drink something awfully bitter that stopped the pins and needles feeling slowly spreading in his arm.

Still, it caused quite a bit of fright for everybody present, so his co-pilot dragged him to the infirmary just to be sure he would be okay. You keep it professional while she’s in there explaining what happened but as soon as she leaves, you start scolding him.

“You know very well that Kaiju blood contains toxins. What were you thinking?” You tsk, flashing him a severely disappointed look before getting something from the cabinet. Then suddenly turn back to him and point an accusing finger at him. “You’re officially banned from the labs, got it?”

You don’t even wait for an answer, just keep mumbling something about him being so eager to put his life on the line under your breath while pulling out an IV bag. When you turn back to him, you have a cannula in your hands.

“There’s really no need–” He tries to protest but you cut him off with the authority of someone who has bossed men around all her life.

“Sit back down,” you tell him and Dongmin’s bottom hits the mattress even before his mind can process the words.

He has faced a dozen Kaijus. He has faced death. But apparently nothing scares him as much as you do when you’re mad at him. He has never seen you so agitated, frantic and frustrated. So he bears it without complaint as you put him on IV drip even though when you stab the needle into his arm, he’s pretty sure you do it with more force than necessary.

Even after you make sure the fluid is flowing into his bloodstream properly and that the last remnants of blue discoloring disappeared from his fingers, you’re still hovering over him. It makes him feel bad.

“I’m fine. You don’t need to worry about me,” he says, trying to coax you into a more relaxed state.

“Then stop getting hurt!” You shove at his chest but it’s weak because you clearly don’t want to cause him more pain.

Dongmin has the audacity to smile when he catches your hand and pulls you down to sit on the bed. You let him more easily than he expected. You also make no moves to pull your hand away.

“I will try, I promise,” he tries, gentler, rubbing gently your palm.

“You better,” you huff with downturned lips and avoiding his eyes like a sulky cat and Dongmin is awfully endeared. Who knew that he just needed to get exposed to almost deadly chemicals to see this side of you? It makes him want to push his luck.

“What about a get well soon kiss?” He asks playfully and you scowl at him, unimpressed.

“You don’t deserve it.”

He pouts, playing his disappointment up, and you roll your eyes at him. Your hand remains in his though and you don’t move from his infirmary bed, so he’s not complaining.

He can’t tell whether it’s from the IV bag’s contents or the antidote from earlier, but soon his eyelids start getting heavy. Just before he tips over the edge and slips into a dreamless sleep, he feels soft lips against his forehead. He falls asleep with a stupid smile on his face.

Before meeting you, Dongmin used to think that nothing can compare to the feeling of being invincible in a Jaeger. Now, he’s not so sure anymore. You make him feel on top of the world too.

END NOTES. title from the keshi song. header pic from the BEAT High magazine behind cut.

☆ BOYNEXTDOOR masterlist

💌 askbox

When Sanghyuk started his neuroscience studies, he didn’t expect the world to go to shit midway and to end up working for the military on a technology so advanced even the best of the field could barely comprehend it. He has always thought that his professor has recommended him to the Busan Shatterdome because he was on the top of his classes and a scholarship kid, so he couldn’t really afford to say no. But now as he watches yet another neural bridge fall apart during a Drift test, he wonders if it has something to do with his (mind you, still unfinished) thesis research on brainwave behaviour when different types of memories are triggered.

Everyone knows that there are two main reasons why the number of successful Drifts are low: R.A.B.I.T and the modesty reflex. When Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers occur, the pilots get stuck in a memory blurring lines between reality and subconscious, which unstabilizes the connection both between them and the Jaeger. Or worst case, their actions in the memory get reflected in the robot’s movements which can cause huge damage. Modesty reflex is kind of the opposite: it’s a psychologists-coined term about when the pilots try to control what memories appear during Drift, usually out of embarrassment. It’s probably why a lot of cadets are unfit to actually pilot. It’s especially frustrating when it happens to pairs who would be perfect for the role on paper.

“Let’s pull them out,” Chaein suggests but before she could but even before she could manually stop the drifting process, the compatibility score displayed on the computer plunges from a promising 56% to zero. The girl cadet rips the helmet off her head and turns to the boy lying in the seat next to her with barely concealed anger. Sanghyuk half-expects her to hit him but then she just sighs and turns to him instead.

“He’s not letting me in. It’s not going to work. I don’t get why they are making us keep trying,” she says and Sanghyuk understands her frustration but the rules don’t allow him to tell her that out of all the cadets, their simulation scores and combat styles are the closest to compatibility. That’s why the Marshal is making them do a test run weekly. In about two months, the Mark-6 Jaeger will be ready and it will need pilots.

“It won’t change unless he gets his shit together,” the girl points out the obvious. 

“Maybe I would if you didn’t barrel into my mind like a bull as soon as we’re connected,” Kim Woonhak protests immediately as he has sat up. His words only make the girl scowl at him.

“I’m not! But you know what? Whatever. I will be a Jaeger pilot way sooner than you,” she says decidedly and marches out of the Drift Test Room. The door closes behind her with a loud bang. Chaein stands up and follows her.

When Sanghyuk looks back at Woonhak, he has the decency to look somewhat sheepish at least. It makes it impossible to be mad at him. Sanghyuk knows he shouldn’t but he has somewhat of a soft spot towards him. It’s hard not to when he sits down at his table in the canteen, calls him hyung and flatters his ego with awestruck looks when he learns about his job. So Sanghyuk sighs and just adds their results into the system.

“She’s right, you know? You should stop trying to control memories during Drift. Just… calm your mind and try not to think of anything. If a memory pops up, let it pass,” he says while typing in the usual metrics: Drift length, compatibility score, achieved phase, cause of instability.

“I managed to Drift with Minjae though,” the cadet points out defensively and Sanghyuk gives him an unimpressed look.

“Yeah and then couldn’t keep the connection stable for five seconds because you kept laughing at something in your memories,” he reminds him, then after a deliberate pause turns in his chair to face him. “Look, Woonhak, you can be the best fighter out there but if you can’t Drift, you can’t pilot a Jaeger.”

“I knoow,” the boy whines not unlike how he does when Han Dongmin steals his fries during lunch. He looks like a defiant child when he insists: “But I can’t do it with her. She is like the bane of my existence."

Sanghyuk rubs his temple. Big words.

“She’s one of the best cadets,” he reminds him even though he knows Woonhak is well aware. The two of them have been competing ever since the boy set foot in Busan. It probably had something to do with the girl humiliating him during their first time on the Kwoon combat mat. Sanghyuk never asked, he isn’t nosy like that, Woonhak just likes to overshare and gossip goes around quickly in the Shatterdome. “Anyways, send in the next pair and don’t forget to meditate before our next session. I will know if you skip it.”

Woonhak salutes and makes promises he probably won’t keep because he has trouble sitting in one place for too long. Sanghyuk doesn’t have it in him to be angry, so he just prepares the Drift setup for the next cadet duo.

He’s ready to clock out from work for the day and get some fresh air that’s not the overly sterilized smell of K-Science wing or the accumulated rust, burned metal and grease from the J-Tech wing when the Marshal calls for him. Now, that’s not often that it happens, so he can’t help but wonder what he did… or didn’t do. Then maybe the man merely wants to ask about his personal opinion beyond the numbers about the cadets. He isn’t delusional about his position in the organization when the head of their department is right there but Miss Kim is rarely in for cadet tests since she’s more concerned with active Rangers.

“You called for me, sir?” Sanghyuk steps into the Marshal’s office after politely knocking and waiting to be granted permission to go in.

“Ah, Sanghyuk, yes. Please sit,” the man instructs him and shuffles through a pile of dossiers on top of his desk. He’s not the type of person to go in a roundabout way about anything and Sanghyuk appreciates his directness when he slides one of the folders in front of him. “PPDC transfers here a Ranger from Incheon for rehabilitation.”

Sanghyuk lets the last word echo in the room like a gunshot. He knows what it means. Something happened and the soldier is now unqualified to pilot. He opens the folder and scans through the first page. The girl in the picture is vaguely familiar to him but he can’t quite place where from until he spots the Jaeger name: Vicious Siege. It was all over the news a few months ago.

“Y/N lost her partner during the Shanghai attack. She has recovered since physically but mentally she has been struggling,” the Marshal continues while Sanghyuk reads further. Nightmares. Anxiety. Survivor’s guilt. It sounds like something a psychologist could help with, not him. So he doesn’t understand. He looks up at his superior, the question on the tip of his mouth but the man is already ready with the answer: “She wants to Drift again.”

“Oh,” Sanghyuk mutters and glances at the girl in the picture again while the Marshal talks about objectives and changes in his schedule. He nods robotically but his thoughts are miles away.

PTSD is not unusual, a lot of Jaeger pilots experience various versions of it. Some can’t make themselves get in a Jaeger again after seeing a Kaiju in real life. Some can’t overcome a traumatic Drift experience or losing their co-pilot. Usually when a Jaeger is destroyed, both pilots die, either from actual physical reasons like the Kaiju piercing through the Conn-Pod or sinking to the bottom of the ocean with their oxygen supplies cut, but it can happen from the mental stress as well. It’s rarer that one of the pilots survives and Sanghyuk hasn’t heard of a case when they went back to field ever again. They’re usually discharged from Ranger duties if not altogether leave behind their career at PPDC.

As he’s leaving the Marshal’s office with a dossier in hand, he can’t help but wonder what makes you want to be wired up to a machine again. Patriotism? Guilt? Or you just have something to prove?

Word gets around quickly in the Shatterdome about the new transfer and the whispers are quite loud. Everybody has heard of what happened with Vicious Siege. Everybody knows that only one of the pilots made it back alive. Everybody has different theories why.

The classified case file in Sanghyuk hand feels heavy.. He started reading it the day before but stopped after half a page. It just felt wrong to read about the tragic events so clinically described with numbers he knows well: Drift parameters, Jaeger sync data, Rangers referred to with numbers instead of names…

He knew what he needed to know. Nobody could forget the Shanghai attack. It was the first time a Category V Kaiju came from the Pacific Rim. It was not only massive in size but it was smarter than any of its peers, almost like these creatures learn and evolve even if Jaegers keep killing them off. This Kaiju hid in the waters and attacked from behind, bit into Vicious Siege’s leg and dragged it underwater then pierced through the robot’s body again and again with its spiky tail. The LOCCENT lost contact with the Jaeger after the Conn-Pod was breached. If the backup didn’t arrive in time from Hongkong and Fukuoka, the Kaiju would have surely left an unprecedented damage on the Chinese coastline. The broadcast was cut off right after the Kaiju was declared dead. Everybody was celebrating when not even twenty minutes later the news came: one pilot in critical condition and one dead.

Sanghyuk isn’t sure what he expected from meeting somebody who has been so close to being grasped by Death but when you walk into the Drift Test Room, it’s different. You don’t wear the usual Ranger uniform but two sets of dog tags still hang from your neck. You don’t carry yourself like something broken but there’s something ghost-like in your eyes, like you are not really there.

He stands up from behind the computer.

“Ranger L/N–” He greets you politely and bites his tongue where a sliver of hurt flashes in your eyes. What a great way to start, he internally scolds himself.

“I’m not a Ranger anymore,” you correct him in a neutral voice that makes him wonder whether it’s just how you think or you have been officially discharged from the post. But why would they go along with the drifting practice if either was the case? PPDC isn’t famous for its generosity when it comes to its resources.

Your attitude doesn’t tell much about your reasons as you glance around the room that’s not much more than a Pons system and two drifting seats. There are not even windows there, just the quiet hum of the ventilation system and for a moment Sanghyuk worries that it might bring a claustrophobic feeling and bad memories but then you turn back to him with a small smile on your face.

“Just Y/N is fine,” you tell him, your dry, bitten lips curling up slightly. He can’t tell who you’re trying to fool: him or yourself. “You’re Lee Sanghyuk, right?”

He nods and pulls out the extra chair from behind the computer. He doesn’t want to jump straight into drifting practice. He needs to know what to expect.

“The Marshal told me you want to practice drifting alone to see if you can still maintain a stable connection,” he says once you’re seated and he sits down as well. He wants to be on the same page with you about what you expect from these sessions. The Marshal also told him that every Drift initiated back in Incheon went awry, so going back to the foundation seems like a good idea. Cadets start drifting alone just to get used to having their minds hooked onto a machine before being paired up to attempt proper Neural Handshakes. 

“Yes, that’s what I told him,” you nod and Sanghyuk can tell that there’s more to it, so he raises an eyebrow at you in a silent question, not pushing, not rushing, just waiting. Eventually you give in. “But I don’t want you to pull me out when I get R.A.B.I.T.”

He notes that you say when and not if, almost like you’re sure it would happen or maybe you would even want it to. You’re a Ranger with experience: you have run through countless Drift tests, full-on simulations and even real Drifts. Sure, the trauma you have suffered could affect your ability to do so but even then the pattern your test results from Incheon show is too much of a coincidence: being hit by R.A.B.I.T every single time right after connection is established.

Almost like you’re not even trying to empty your thoughts and stabilize the connection.

“You want to relive your memories,” he realizes. It’s not a question but he looks at you for some kind of confirmation. You keep eye contact stubbornly, not denying it and that says enough.

“I was a left hemisphere pilot. Do you know what that means?” You ask as you glance sideways at the drifting seats.

It doesn’t sound like you expect him to say anything, so he keeps his mouth shut. Of course he knows. Right-hand pilots are considered the dominant ones. In case of conflicting decisions from the two sides, the right one would overrule the left. It also makes them have better chances at survival purely because of the instinctual brain reaction that also makes car drivers turn the steering wheel away when seeing danger.

“Statistically, logically, it should be me who’s dead. And I don’t remember why I’m not.”

There’s a tremble in your voice as you say that and your knuckles whiten as you curl your fingers into the chair you sit on. It’s the first crack in the strong facade you’ve put up so far. It does explain though why you would like to chase the rabbit on purpose. A Drift usually brings back memories from the subconscious even if they’re suppressed or old enough to be forgotten. But there’s always a reason why the brain decides to smudge details.

Once again Sanghyuk feels a bit out of his element. His job is to make sure drifting processes are safe and teach the cadets how to prepare for it, it’s not his responsibility to tell you that it’s a bad idea to relive traumatic memories even if he thinks so.

“Are you sure this is the best solution?” He asks quietly as he pushes back up his glasses and pinches his nose bridge. When he opens his eyes again, you’re looking back at him with something pensive swimming in your eyes.

“My psychologist told me not to force it. According to him I just need to get out more, make new friends, get new experiences. He says it will get better with time. He’s probably right but it’s hard to believe him when I still wake up crying or screaming in the middle of the night.”

Your honesty leaves Sanghyuk speechless for a bit. He’s not good with vulnerability, not his and much less others’. It always makes him feel like opening the door to something he shouldn’t see.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, not because it’s anywhere near his fault but because he doesn’t think anybody deserves to be plagued by nightmares and the heavy weight of grief and guilt. But like it or not, that’s the world they live in now. Marred with unfair losses and constant fear.

You shake your head but even when your hair falls into your eyes, you don’t bother to brush it away. It’s almost like you don’t even notice it because you have more important things to focus on.

“I didn’t tell you this to get your sympathy. I just want you to understand why I need to do this,” you tell him, determined. He might not understand it fully yet but he has no professional reason to stop you.

“If you’re really sure, we can try,” he says, reaching towards the computer to switch on the Pons systems and load in your data. “I won’t pull you out unless it’s starting to overwhelm you.”

That’s the most he can promise you. He won’t let you risk your life over memories no matter how important they are. You probably understand the weight of that responsibility too because you don’t argue, just nod and walk over to the drifting seat. It’s different from the proper Drivesuit with spinal clamps you’re probably more used to but for test runs, it’s unnecessary to get connected to something as complex as a Jaeger, for a simple Pons system a much lighter equipment is enough to imitate a Drift.

What comes after you’re seated is all part of the routine: he puts a pulse oximeter on your right index finger and a patch on the top of your spine. He hands you a Pons helmet which is also full of sensors. His computer screen fills with data about your heartbeat, hormone levels, brain activity and such. Everything looks normal. Sanghyuk expected elevated levels of sweat functions and rapid pulse but you seem calm. Then he realizes you have done this dozens of times if not hundreds. Of course you know how to regulate your reactions. The issues start when your subconsciousness takes over.

“Ready?”

Your gazes meet as you nod, then you close your eyes and he presses a button.

“Test Drift initiated,” a robotic voice announces and Sanghyuk watches your body tense up.

It will rain.

Dark splashes of clouds are gathering on the horizon and the waves are getting wilder by the minute. He can practically smell the rain in the air already, humid and heavy. He knows he should go inside but doesn’t move, just watches the sea eat up the beach, waves licking at the Shatterdome’s massive walls.

Over the sound of the sea and his loud thoughts, he hears the rooftop’s door open and close behind him faintly and then soon enough there’s a solid body right beside him.

“What’s gotten you so zoned out?” Jaehyun gets all into his space, rubbing their arms together like he needs the warmth of another person. Maybe he does: he has been surrounded by giant mecha parts all day and it’s not like the technicians can chit-chat among themselves at the workstation while drilling, laser cutting, forging and such. He’s still in his work overalls, smelling faintly of grease but Sanghyuk doesn’t mind; it’s familiar.

“If you watched somebody really close to you die, would you want to remember it? Even recall it on purpose?” The question stumbles out of his mouth after careful consideration. Not because he’s afraid Jaehyun wouldn’t take it seriously but because he isn’t sure how much he can tell without exposing too much. Nobody knows he has been assigned to guide you through Drifts again but it’s only a matter of time.

“I guess it depends on what happened. If they passed away in a brutal way, I don’t think I could stomach seeing it again but otherwise I would want to cherish our last memory together,” Jaehyun hums, leaning more into him when a particularly cold blow of air comes their way.

“Wouldn’t it be better to focus on the happy memories with them?”

“Life’s not all about the happy parts,” the J-Technician matters, thoughtful, before his mouth forms a grin and he playfully nudges into Sanghyuk’s side. “We wouldn’t have even met if it wasn’t for Kaijus trying to kill us.”

That makes Sanghyuk smile too and he lets Jaehyun drag him inside when the first big droplets of the rainstorm reach them.

When you started crying and your cortisol levels were rising during the first time he was watching over your Drift, he had the urge to go against your request and stop the process immediately but he respected you enough not to. The fact that you were there and trying shows that you’re stronger than most people. He swore he wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating you.

Now, you’re coming back every other day to try again and again and again.

Sometimes you don’t get to latch onto the memory you’re looking for. It’s always quite obvious when that happens because your charts are normal, your numbers are much less frantic. Afterwards sometimes you tell him bits about the memory you saw: your father teaching you to bike, the trouble you used to get in at school for not paying attention or your first time on the mat with your co-pilot. Sometimes you’re quiet and he knows better than to ask. He just shares his stack of sweets with you.

Other times you startle out of the Drift by yourself almost right after the initial connection is established. It’s like your brain has a built-in safety switch whenever you get close to remembering. You don’t say anything but Sanghyuk can tell that you’re getting frustrated whenever that happens, so he reads through every available neuroscience and psychology paper on the topic. He suggests doing thought experiments, brain dumps, walking him through that day until you remember.

He already knows how it went: the exact steps to the Conn-Pod from your bunk bed, the shade of the liquid filling your Drivesuit after the spinal cords are attached, your argument with your co-pilot the day before about something ridiculous, the eerie feeling of being watched after being dropped down into the ocean with no Kaiju in sight and then the yank from under the surface.

But the memories are not always sequential. He sees the exact moment something goes differently during your next Drift. Your body switches to fight-or-flight mode and your heart rate goes crazy. Your breathing becomes erratic and he can see the adrenaline spike on your hormone chart. It’s when you start shaking and whimpering your former partner’s name when Sanghyuk ultimately decides on pressing the kill switch and pulls you out of the Drift, disconnecting you from the machine. Even after the connection goes dead you can barely catch your breath beneath the Pons helmet.

“Y/N?” He calls your name, gently, trying not to startle you when he puts a hand over your arm. Your skin is cold and dressed in a thin layer of sheer sweat. You don’t answer but your body is still heaving and it scares him.

“Y/N… Can you hear me?” He takes the helmet off you and cradles your jaw in one hand, checking your forehead for fever with his other. You can barely open your eyes and keep gasping for air.

“I– I can’t breathe… I–” You mutter, clearly hyperventilating as you grab onto his wrist for some kind of anchor and Sanghyuk tries his best to stay still. He has had to calm down cadets too when a Drift attempt overwhelmed them but this is different. He lets you lean your weight on him and puts his free hand gingerly on your back while you’re sobbing into his shoulder.

“It’s gonna be alright. Listen to me, okay? We’re going to breathe slowly. In–” he instructs and demonstrates a long, deep inhale, encouraging you to follow him. “Then out.”

He repeats the pattern a few times until you’re doing well enough on your own, tears drying on your cheeks just before the panic settles over. It takes a few minutes of nothing but silence and quiet breathing but he can finally feel your body relax against him. It makes him relieved too. 

“Sorry,” you whisper into the air between when you pull back and realize that your tears have left a wet patch on his shirt.

“Don’t be,” Sanghyuk simply shakes his head and watches you carefully. “Do you feel somewhat better?”

“Yes but…” you cast your eyes down, cracking your fingers in your lap. “I was so close this time. I saw the Kaiju’s tail pierce through the Conn-Pod’s glass. We lost connection to the LOCCENT and the pod started to get filled with water. It felt like drowning.”

Your voice is still weak and you look visibly shaken up but at least you’re more present than before. Seeing you like this breaks Sanghyuk’s heart a little.

“Are you sure you still want to do this?” He finds himself asking because even though he understands why you would like to remember, he’s starting to think that maybe it’s better that you don’t. There must be a good reason why your subconscious is fighting back so intensely.

When you don’t answer, just sink your teeth into your already chapped lips like you’re trying to hold yourself back, he doesn’t push.

“I have this sort of hiding place where I go when things get a bit too much. Not that much of a hiding place anymore actually since my friends found out but it’s still nice,” he changes topic. It’s quite unprofessional of him, so he doesn’t blame you for looking at him surprised, but he pushes through the awkwardness. “Would you like to check it out?”

There’s a long moment of silence as you stare at him and he thinks you will call him out on acting weirdly. But instead, a shadow of a smile appears on your lips before nodding.

So Sanghyuk takes you to the rooftop and indulges your questions about how he figured out that the door leading there is never locked, about his friends who sometimes bother his peace even when he just wants to be alone (because they know as an overthinker it’s bad to let him simmer too long alone with his thoughts), about his job and what he likes about it. You even seem to appreciate his nerdy neuroscience fun facts about spinal cord mechanisms and neurons and such. You’re especially invested when he tells you that the reason why PPDC is pushing the Jaeger Academy programs is because the newest research shows that pilots under the age of 25, whose frontal lobe development hasn’t finished yet, are often handling Drifting better than their older counterparts. He talks about memory capacity and how access time changes with age and you joke that you would have paid more attention in training if he was your drift specialist back then. Sanghyuk blushes like a teenager because of that.

The two of you talk until the Sun sets and you seem much better than back in the Drift test room. It’s nice, just sharing a space and sharing stories. For a while it’s easy to forget that humanity is still fighting a deadly war.

Then two days later the attack alarm sets off and Sanghyuk watches through a screen as Canada loses a Jaeger and two Rangers. When he finds you in the crowd, you're shaking. He holds you until it stops.

“Would you drift with me?”

Sanghyuk can’t even pretend he is not taken aback when that question falls from your lips during your next session. You have barely lowered yourself into the seat and he got ready to set up the machine when you speak up. For a bit he thinks he has heard you wrong.

“What?”

“Maybe I could stay in the memory longer if I had somebody with me,” you say, more certain, like you have thought about it before. But you haven’t drifted with anybody since the Shanghai incident, so if you were, he would imagine it being better with somebody with more experience. The last time Sanghyuk drifted with somebody was during training when he got this job. So he’s about to protest, not because the thought of bearing your memories is too heavy but because you deserve better. A proper chance.

He doesn’t know yet that you don’t want anybody else. You want it to be him.

“And I… I trust you,” you whisper and that’s enough to make him give in.

That’s a big thing, a lot of responsibility. You’re entrusting him with your most traumatic memory. But two people drifting is never a one-way street, you would also poke into his brain. He knows it best that he shouldn’t control what comes to the surface once you’re connected but he realizes that with you, he doesn’t mind that vulnerability.

“Let me get Chaein,” is all he says and pretends not to notice your shoulders dropping in relief.

He finds the other drift specialist hanging out with the LOCCENT girls. When he steps into their circle and all of them look at him expectedly, he suddenly gets why even Jaehyun thinks twice before approaching a group of girls alone. They’re a bit scary.

“Uhm, hi! Can I borrow Chaein for a bit? I need her help with a Drift test,” he gets to the point in one big breath and luckily the girl is cool enough with the interruption. She’s not too weirded out about the idea of him drifting either and knows better than to ask one too many questions, so it’s all good.

In theory Sanghyuk knows everything about the drifting process. He has assisted probably hundreds since he came to the Shatterdome. He has helped dozens cadets master the art of emptying their thoughts and guided them through a smoother connection. And yet, it’s very different when it’s him who’s sitting in one of the seats. He keeps fidgeting with the Pons in his lap. He doesn’t want to mess this up for you. He would like it if he could help, if you were right about having him there with you could give you the push you need.

“You can still say no,” you remind him, patient, understanding but Sanghyuk shakes his head. How could he not do this when you have gone through hell? When you have been waking up in cold sweat for months? When you need this to move on? What kind of person – friend – he would be if he wouldn’t do so much for you? Or at least tried?

“Not happening. Unless you changed your mind?” He tilts his head, giving you a way out too, but you don’t take it. He smiles at you encouragingly before he puts on the helmet and leans back in the seat.

Chaein counts down and he closes his eyes, thinking of nothing but an empty space.

“Test Drift initiated,” the familiar robotic voice chimes and he feels thousands of tiny neuron shocks in his brain. Or maybe he just imagines it because he knows that’s how it’s supposed to go. For a long moment nothing happens, everything remains blank and static. He’s almost tempted to open his eyes. Maybe it’s not working. It would make sense on the first try. Two people might not need to be drift compatible to complete a test run but it’s still rare to immediately connect.

Then when he’s just about to give up, a white flash blinds him and suddenly he’s on a carousel of memories. They float around him like horses on that damned thing, spinning and moving up and down. He catches a few he recognizes: the last time he called his mom, that time he broke his arm in middle school, Jaehyun sitting at his table in the canteen after he spent his first two weeks at the Shatterdome making sure he sat alone. But he also sees unfamiliar faces and places and he knows these are your memories mixing with his.

He has never experienced R.A.B.I.T. himself, so he isn’t quite sure what to expect. When suddenly the world stops moving and everything stills like a movie frame, for a moment he thinks it’s over and you managed to connect with him successfully. But then he hears the loud beeping of a machine and feels something wet at his feet. He looks down and sees the rising sea water at his ankles. When he looks back up he’s suddenly in a Conn-Pod and there you are: attached with your Drivesuit’s spinal cord to the Jaeger right next to your co-pilot. You look horrified, eyes wide behind the shield of your helmet as you assess the damage in the cockpit around you.

Sanghyuk turns his head to the cracking glass of the Conn-Pod and his blood freezes when he sees the Kaiju’s massive scaled backside, its tail piercing right through everything that holds the control center of the Jaeger together.

“We lost connection to LOCCENT,” he hears your voice but he can’t be sure if it’s said out loud or it’s just in his mind. You’re connected after all. All of you: he’s wired to you who is in your past self’s body who is connected to your co-pilot. “Why is the plasmacaster not working? It will drown us at this rate. We should– Unnie…”

Your voice trails off and as Sanghyuk follows your gaze, the memory glitches, like an old television when the signal is too weak. Everything seems to blur around him and he feels you panic but it could be both present you or memory you.

“Stay with me, Y/N. You can do it,” he says, gentle and coaxing, trying to guide you with his voice. He isn’t sure you hear him at all but slowly his surroundings sharpen once again and suddenly everything is blaring and red around them. That’s when he sees it: your co-pilot’s Drivesuit slashed open and blood dripping down her side. It must have been the Kaiju’s spiky tail’s doing.

When your partner’s knees give out and you lean down to help her up, the Jaeger stumbles too. The movement makes the mecha sink fully beneath sea level and the Conn-Pod is rapidly filling with salty water. through the tail-shaped hole in the glass.

Sanghyuk feels himself lose balance and the memory gets blurry again. He calls your name.

The other girl whimpers something in pain but he can’t hear what she’s saying, only your loud protests:

“What? No! I’m not leaving you!”

The Jaeger gets another hit in the side and the warning signals are getting louder.

“Rangers are out of alignment. Jaeger shutdown initiated. Get ready for evacuation. Countdown from 10 starting…”

The water already reaches Sanghyuk’s knees. He knows it’s a memory, he knows it can’t hurt him but it all feels very real. Because it’s real to you. You have lived it through. You have watched your closest friend use the last of her strength to push you back into your hemisphere.

“Y/N… you need to survive.”

It’s the last thing your co-pilot tells you before she presses a button on the holographic screen hovering in front of her. Your pod closes around your body and you get ejected from the failing Jaeger. Somewhere between the disorienting sensation of the push and coming up on the surface of the sea, you feel it: the bone-deep fear and the inevitability of death. Not yours.

You faint.

The neural bridge collapses.

Sanghyuk is yanked out of the Drift.

He’s told that you need to stay in the infirmary under supervision for twenty-four hours. It’s nothing serious, just out of precaution, the nurse tells him when he visits. Han Dongmin has to drag him out of there, which is ironic if one knows anything about how much time the Ranger spends around the nurse station.

Sanghyuk has a hard time focusing during Drift tests the next day. Not even Woonhak’s bickering with his so-called nemesis can steal much of his attention. By the time all the cadets assigned for the day are finished, your infirmary bed is empty and it has him worried sick. It must be written on his face because Mrs Hwang is quick to reassure him:

“She’s fine. She was discharged not long ago.”

Sanghyuk thanks her and leaves the sterile corridors to wander around the Shatterdome aimlessly. His feet lead him to the rooftop like always. He expects it to be empty or maybe to find Jaehyun there moping about that girl that keeps breaking his heart but instead it’s you there.

The wind is blowing your hair wildly and the orange glow of sunset is like a halo around you. You look like something divine, like you were born out of sea and sunshine.

“Stealing my spot?” Sanghyuk’s words are laced with casual playfulness and he hopes it’s enough to dissipate any remaining awkwardness that might have followed the Drift session. He wonders whether you still hear the ghost of his voice in the back of your mind just how he hears yours, a side effect of the abrupt disconnect from the hardware.

“Maybe,” you answer with a twitch in the corner of your mouth as you turn to him. You stay still when he sits down next to you, fingers drumming on the concrete beneath you.

“Are you okay?” The boy finds himself asking quietly. He doesn’t mean it physically. A lot of people get overwhelmed from Drifts, especially after experiencing R.A.B.I.T. but your case is special. For you it wasn’t just a one time thing. That memory was buried under fear and denial. Recalling it was probably your final goodbye to your other half.

“I will be,” you nod slowly. “For the longest time I thought that it was somehow my fault. Maybe I did something stupid or I froze and that’s why I didn’t remember but… she saved me. She would want me to live fully, so I guess the least I can do is to try.”

Sanghyuk knows it’s not easy. Healing from such trauma is never just a walk in the park. You will need more time to be able to sleep through the night without nightmares and to be able to watch Kaiju attack broadcasts without breaking down. But the most important thing is to not give up. After all, sometimes the greatest wars are fought against ourselves.

“So what now? Now that you know what happened?” He questions.

The Marshal had already told him earlier that day that you would officially withdraw from the Ranger program, so more Drift sessions wouldn’t be necessary. He couldn’t help but wonder whether it meant you would go back home. You have no reason to stay in Busan after all.

“I don’t know. I didn’t really think that ahead. I don’t think I could ever get in a Jaeger again but maybe I will ask the Marshal if I could help with the cadet training.”

You sound uncertain even though it makes perfect sense. You might not have as much experience as Dongmin and his co-pilot, but you have more free time, so you could help out efficiently. However, you didn’t clarify where or which Marshal, so Sanghyuk just has to make sure:

“Here?”

This time you don’t even hesitate.

“Yeah. I’m doing better here. In Incheon everything reminds me of her,” you explain calmly and Sanghyuk tries not to show it but the thought of you staying makes him giddier than he expected. He doesn’t have the excuse of semi-daily Drift sessions to see you though, so after a few long seconds, accompanied by the crashing sound of waves, he takes a leap.

“Since you’re staying... How do you feel about a city tour? I know cool places outside of the Shatterdome too,” he proposes and he’s itching to tell you about this waffle place where every topping combo is named after a Jaeger.

“I could be convinced,” you smile at him with a crunched nose and sparkling eyes. It’s the brightest thing Sanghyuk has seen all day and he thinks he could spend the rest of his life trying to make you smile again.

END NOTES. header pic from the action concept photos

title from the taylor swift song, i think this part fits them:

To that bloodshed, crimson clover Uh-huh, the worst was over My hand was the one you reached for All throughout the Great War

☆ BOYNEXTDOOR masterlist

💌 askbox

Seven years ago, when the first Kaiju showed up on the shore of San Francisco and the news was plastered onto every billboard across the world, sixteen year old Donghyun turned to his best friend in triumph: “See? I told you aliens are real!”

At first, it seemed like a grotesque miracle. A never seen before huge monster showing up out of nowhere and leaving massive destruction behind. After a while people forgot about it. It happened once and far away, on American soil. Then six months later it happened again in the Philippines. Then it kept happening and so the countdown began.

Now, with you in a Jaeger’s cockpit, Donghyun wishes he had been wrong.

He wishes for a lot of things these days, he’s greedy like that. If not for world peace, for you.

He wishes he hadn’t been so fascinated by these creatures that he had applied to join the Kaiju scientist program right after graduation to become a cryptozoologist with his advanced fish biology knowledge. He wishes you hadn’t followed him to the Busan Shatterdome only to excel at the ranger training. He wishes you had never tested drift compatible with Han Dongmin. He wishes he didn’t have to watch you risk your life out there again and again while he’s safely tucked in the military facility’s laboratory analyzing Kaiju behaviour. He wishes you knew how much you meant to him. 

There it is again, that wrong feeling. The sirens are blaring but he can barely hear them. He just stares out of the glass panel of the lab, watching J-tech engineers running around to get Siren Fury ready for battle. The Jaeger stands 72 meters tall, made of sleek steel, Korea’s only Mark-5 model. It’s as much of a weapon as it is an armour, humanity’s only effective shield against these monsters, but you and your co-pilot always call it her, call it beautiful and Donghyun has to bite his tongue because chances are this metal giant will be your graveyard one day. There’s nothing beautiful about that. But you don’t fear death, not like him. You come face-to-face with it every time a new Kaiju emerges from the breach in the Pacific Ocean and you’re dispatched to fight.

He begged you before your first field mission.

“Please don’t do this,” he grabbed onto your wrist before you could have left the sleeping quarters. You were in his room, laughing at something stupid and meaningless when the speakers blared and you were summoned. Everything stopped being funny then.

“Donghyun–”

He could see something break in your eyes as you glanced behind your shoulder and then back at him. Your pulse thundered under his fingertips. The sound of sirens and footsteps dulled in the background.

“Don’t go,” he pleaded, cold fear grasping him with bony fingers. It was pathetic but he didn’t care. Now that it was happening, he didn’t think he could watch you fight a Kaiju. Simulations were different, you might have aced them all but this was the real thing.

“I haven’t trained for the last three years to give up now. I… we can die on the street during any attack. We don’t know when this will end, if this will end at all. I don’t want to sit around and just wait while people are dying. I want to do something,” you told him back then all determined, your eyes fiery, and he knew it was useless to argue.

He wanted to though, he wanted to ask why did it have to be this? He knows you though, after ten years of friendship, of course he does. He should have seen it coming since the first time you threatened to beat up kids who bullied him for his fish obsession. He knew you would make it since the first time he saw you on the mat, sparring with guys much bigger than you in the Kwoon combat room. You even kept up with Han Dongmin of all people and he came from a military family as expected from PPDC’s new favourite. He knew you were made for this.

“You know what’s the first thing they ask you in ranger training? Whether we would rather die here or in a Jaeger. You know what my answer is,” you added, quieter and put a hand on his to slide it off your wrist.

He let go, his fingers twitching and curling around nothing.

“ I know but… I can’t lose you too,” he whispered, swallowing around the glob in his throat. You had both lost too much when the Southern coastal line was attacked in Year 3 of the resistance. But the fear of losing you was so much more than that.

Still, you looked at him like you understood and you reached for his hand to squeeze it.

“You won’t,” you promised before catching up with your co-pilot yelling at you.

He still feels like he’s losing you, every single time. Even when you come back, he knows you will slip away soon enough. That’s why it hurts to let go even though he has no right to keep you back.

Today, it feels especially like torture. To watch it on the big screen in the Shatterdome as the Category IV Kaiju with its hardened scales, crocodile-like jaw and human-sized teeth tries to bite off Siren Fury’s arm.

The metal monstrum stumbles as the Kaiju drags it further into the water. The close combat seems unfair as the Jaeger’s left arm becomes useless and its right hand cannot seem to get a grip on the Kaiju that has a hard enough shell to not seem affected by the cannonball-sized bullets hitting it. Unfortunately firing a proper missile that might do some damage could also destroy the Jaeger from so close, so Donghyun knows why the fight is dragging out for so long.

“Did they mutate to be bulletproof?” He hears a girl from the K-watch team mutter under their breath and he presses his lips into a firm line. As somebody on the research team he knows exactly how these creatures evolved over time, how they got bigger, faster, smarter. It’s both fascinating and scary to see this fast paced evolution in real time and how Jaeger technology has had to match every new capability. It took six days, three destroyed cities and nuclear missiles to kill the first Kaiju, these days a Category IV takes two or three Jaegers and half an hour. But with the Japanese Midnight Ghost having its Conn-Pod detached from its body, Siren Fury is alone and they are losing.

“Did it rip out the electro blaster?” A girl gasps and Donghyun stands up so abruptly it knocks the chair he sat on over. He can’t just watch this.

He looks up at the communication center’s glass walls and the panicked faces before running out and taking the stairs by two. He’s heaving by the time he falls into the LOCCENT Mission Control room. He sees the Marshal’s eyes snap at him for his rude, unauthorized presence but he will deal with that later.

“Tell them to attack the underside of the neck or in the mouth,” he tells the officer behind the microphone. He doesn’t explain it because there’s no time. He sees the red warnings all over the computer screens, the health levels of the pilots dropping low, the Jaeger’s now disabled functions. It’s life or death at this point.

“What?” The officer blinks, looking up at the Marshal for instructions.

“Donghyun?” Your voice comes from the speaker broken and strained. Donghyun’s heart shatters a bit at the way his name sounds from your lips so differently from the usual teasing tone.

“With a body like that, it should be soft and weak in the neck,” he says firmly, now right into the microphone he has grabbed from the useless LOCCENT officer.

Kaijus might be aliens, they might have an anatomy the human race has never seen on Earth nor can comprehend. But they have flesh and blood – albeit toxic blood – like other mammals. They aren’t bulletproof and most have their gills on their necks to breathe underwater, so it’s as good of a guess as any.

“I sure hope you’re right, Kim, ‘cause we’re going to have to blow off our own arm for that since it’s still munching on us like we’re a chew toy,” Dongmin’s voice comes through the speakers too with its usual arrogance despite the heavy breathing.

“Well, do you have a better idea before it finds our generator too and Siren shuts down in the middle of the Japanese Sea?” You huff and Donghyun feels proud as he watches you and Dongmin work together to direct the right robotic arm’s open weaponized palm right to the base of the Kaiju’s neck.

The sound of the blast echoes in the tensely quiet control room until the monitor showing the Kaiju parameters declares it dead and the lifeless body of the Kaiju falls to the bed of the sea next to the victorious Jaeger.

“We did it,” Donghyun hears you say and he can practically see your smile just because of your voice. Relief washes over him as even the Marshal pats him on the shoulder. It seems like his reprimand has been postponed.

“Reset the clock,” the man says and the Kaiju attack counter restarts just as a beeping sound interrupts the cheers.

Your co-pilot calls your name the same moment Donghyun notices that your chart has a blinding red warning on the top of the screen.

By the time Siren Fury is brought back to the base, Donghyun is positively going crazy. Everybody is telling him that you will be alright but it doesn’t help. He can’t calm down until he sees you safe and sound.

But he sees Dongmin first. He looks haggard but okay, unlike you who has to be whisked away to the hospital wing.

“You!” Donghyun points at him accusingly and Dongmin has the nerve to look around as if he could be talking to anybody else. “You should have paid more attention to her. You shouldn’t have let her–”

“You and I both know there’s no such thing as letting her,” the ranger cuts him off and it only adds oil to the fire burning inside Donghyun because he’s talking big about you, acting like he knows you oh so well, which might be true but it still pisses Donghyun off. He’s supposed to be your best friend.

“Still. She shouldn’t have overexerted herself like that,” he says but it only makes the pilot guy cross his arms, unimpressed.

“Tell that to her yourself, maybe she will listen to you.”

Donghyun pouts because he has no good comeback for that and Dongmin gives him a pointed look.

“Dude…”

“What?” He snaps.

The truth is, Donghyun has never really liked Dongmin. At least not since you were paired with him. Personally, he doesn’t have anything against the guy, he is even kind of relieved that your partner is a capable soldier. But the link co-pilots share is almost more intimate than what lovers have. They see each other’s memories and they are in each other’s minds. From the moment you drifted together, the one who knew you the best was no longer Donghyun. So yeah, maybe it’s the bitter feeling of jealousy eating him up every time he looks at Dongmin, so sue him if he glares.

But Dongmin just shakes his head with a sigh as if the interaction already bored him.

“You were her last thought before she fainted. Just saying in case you want to do something about that,” he says with a tilt of his head and walks away, leaving Donghyun in a state of confusion.

Of course, he has to be by your side when you wake up. He feels your fingers twitch in his hand first, then he notices your eyelashes fluttering. Caught red-handed, he moves to pull away but your fingers curl, hooking into his, holding him back. Those damned words from Dongmin echo in his mind as his gaze meets yours.

“Hey,” your voice sounds a bit scratchy and you look a little sick under the unflattering white light of the infirmary but you’re alive. You will be okay. Now, he can finally believe it.

“Hey,” he breathes out, relieved, and even to his ears it sounds sickeningly fond.

Still, he lets himself stare a bit, at the way your cheeks get a healthier color and your hair falls into your eyes when you turn your head. When you push yourself up to sit – because of course you can’t stay still –, he rushes to help you by arranging the pillows and hands you a glass of water for your parched mouth. He briefly wonders whether he should call for a nurse but you don’t give him a chance.

“You saved us,” you speak up with a smile, a little awed and a lot proud. It makes him ridiculously shy, so he just shrugs it off.

“For once. It’s usually you who does the saving,” he says but there’s a small smile in the corner of his mouth.

“My knight in a white lab coat,” you tease and tug at the overcoat he forgot to take off since he left the lab in a hurry before.

“At your service,” he salutes playfully but your laughs fade into silence soon enough. It’s not heavy or uncomfortable, nothing ever is with you but there’s something building there, in the quiet space between you as his nails dig into his pockets. He wants to ask about what Dongmin’s big mouth said, but he has no idea how to bring it up. Not to mention, he’s afraid of what you would say. What if Dongmin was just pranking him?

“Kim Donghyun… I can see you thinking hard. Your forehead is getting all wrinkly,” you point out as you reach up to smooth out the lines with your thumb. Your fingertips are a little rough against his skin from years of training with the combat staff but he doesn’t mind. He mourns the loss of your touch as soon as your hand falls away. “What are you thinking about?”

“Just something stupid your co-pilot said,” he shrugs, playing it off but you tense nevertheless. So there is something to tell, he notes.

“Oh. What did he say?” You ask and he can tell that you’re aiming for casual while planning Dongmin’s demise in your head. So instead of answering directly, he prods further.

“What were you thinking about before you fainted?”

“Oh… I just realised I don’t want to die with regrets,” you shrug, averting your eyes and if his heart wasn’t doing aerobatics against his ribs, he would laugh at the glare you shoot at the heart monitoring machine by your bedside as it shows gradual increase in your pulse.

“And does that include me? Your regrets?”

Donghyun thinks that if aliens can be real, there must be a universe out there in which you love him back the way he wants. He just hopes it’s this one. He’s greedy like that when it comes to you.

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this here,” you huff and this time, he laughs. He’s not making you do anything, he just asked a question like a coward because you have always been the braver out of the two of them. So when you grab him by the collar and yank him closer, his laughter dies on your lips like a Jaeger shutdown. He needs a system reboot to catch on and kiss you back. He slides a hand behind your neck, his thumb caressing your cheek like he has always wanted to do. It makes you smile against his lips.

“No regrets anymore,” you whisper against the seam of his mouth and pull him in more.

That is, until you’re rudely interrupted.

“Yah, let the patient rest! Youngsters these days…” The nurse clicks her tongue but the roll of her eyes is quite doting as she comes to check on the IV dip by your bed. Donghyun’s ears burn as he listens to you negotiate your early discharge and the nurse advises against kissing, but he can’t help smiling when you shoot him secret looks.

A famous ranger once said that there are things you can’t fight unless you’re in a Jaeger. He called them acts of god. Donghyun isn’t so sure if any god has anything to do with it but he knows for sure that he could never fight his feelings for you, Jaegers or not. He tried and failed and he wouldn’t have it any other way, because if he were to die during the next Kaiju attack he would rather have it happen with no regrets too.

END NOTES. i'm currently writing a longer romcom but apparently my brain was like wait, what about something angstier in the meantime? and here we are.

title is from the ruelle song (although work title was acts of god because of the quote but that sounded too religious)

header pic is from the dangerous mv behind sketch

☆ BOYNEXTDOOR masterlist

💌 askbox

D-0

It wasn’t always like this.

As you scream your head off at the man in front of you, an accusing finger pointed at him, berating him for something he did at work earlier — or something he said just now, you can’t seem to remember — this is what you think: it wasn’t always like this.

There used to be a time you could look at Nicholas Wang without wanting to smash his head against a wall. There used to be a time you could look at him and feel something akin to happiness.

But now, there’s a vein on his reddened forehead that looks like it might explode any minute. He spits venom at you, neither of you listening to what the other is saying. This isn’t even an argument anymore, it’s a shouting match, and whoever is louder and lasts longer wins.

Chaewon stands next to you, a hand on your shoulder as she begs you to relax and sit back down. Nicholas swats Euijoo’s hand away every time his friend tugs his wrist, ordering with varying amounts of authority in his voice to just quit it. 

A voice at the back of your head reminds you how unfair this is to Chaewon and Euijoo. These days, with everyone’s busy schedules, it’s a near impossible task to get all four of you sitting at one table like before. And yet, they still attempt it once in a while, fully aware it’ll be an evening full of ill-intentioned quips and barely concealed hostility. But in your defense, every time you think of trying to deescalate things, or straight-up leaving, Nicholas says something to get you going again, as though he can tell you’re tapping out and knows exactly how to reel you back in.

There’s a singular second of peace, after he insults you in such an outrageous manner that you’re stunned into silence. As you take a breath, getting ready to shout even louder, one corner of his lips lifts into a smirk. It’s quick, barely noticeable, but hating Nicholas has turned you into an expert on every microexpression of his. It’s easier to play with his emotions when you can read his face like they’re the morning paper. 

This is how you know: the fucker is enjoying this.

Whatever your next words were going to be, no one will ever know, not even you—when you get like this, you have no idea what you’re saying. Nasty sentences pour out of your mouth before they’ve even fully formed in your brain. Knowing this is amusing to Nicholas while you feel like you’re two minutes away from an aneurysm has made you so angry, if you have to spend one more second in the same room as him, one of you will actually end up in the hospital.

“I’m leaving,” you suddenly announce. 

Nicholas scoffs, and you ignore him. You are the better person. You are peace and mindfulness. You are Buddha reincarnate.

Chaewon pleads with you to stay while you grab your coat and bag from her and Euijoo’s couch. “I’m sorry, Chae, I really am,” you tell her. “But I can’t. I just can’t.”

You dare a glance at Nicholas while you’re zipping up your boots. He’s sitting down again, sipping his wine as Euijoo admonishes him. His expression is infuriatingly blank. The only sign that he’s just been verbally abused and abusive is the slight blush on his otherwise perfect porcelain skin.

You’ve never hated someone this fucking much.

“I’m sorry it always ends like this,” you tell Chaewon as you hug her goodbye.

“It’s okay,” she says, clearly lying for your sake. The woman is an angel. Nicholas doesn’t even deserve to know her, let alone be in her vicinity at any time, or eat her food, in her apartment, with her cutlery.

Nicholas Wang doesn’t deserve anything good.

.

.

D-2945. 8 years, 23 days earlier

So it isn’t a coincidence—the Euijoo from the Video Game Society is the same Euijoo from Chaewon’s Korean Lit class that she’s been raving about for the better part of the semester. It isn’t like there are hundreds of Euijoos running around, but you assumed everyone in the Society was a STEM major. Most of the boys certainly look — and smell — like it. But out of all of them, Euijoo is easily the best one Chaewon could have picked to have a crush on.

In your first semester as roommates, Chaewon had never once mentioned a boy—so when she came home one afternoon at the start of the spring semester, a blush on her cheeks and stars in her eyes as she told you about the cute guy she sat next to in class, you knew it had to be serious. Although you’re surprised at seeing Euijoo and his friend here, it’s no wonder that Chaewon has a crush on him. With his big, kind eyes and shy but approachable demeanor, he’s practically the male version of her.

You wouldn’t call Euijoo a friend, but you’re on friendly terms. He’s one of the only guys in the club who doesn’t try to mansplain games you’ve been playing since you were 10, or who make fun of you and your friends when you just want to sit in a corner and play Animal Crossing. 

Someone is sitting next to him, arms crossed over his chest and a blasé expression on his face, and although you’ve never spoken to him, you recognize him from the Society, too. With a face like his, it’d be hard not to. Not that you’ve been looking, you just happen to have eyes, and in a room full of boys whose primary pleasure in life is gaming — no offence to them — you’d be hard pressed not to notice him, with his sharp gaze and chiseled jaw. You’ve only ever heard the low grumble of his voice when he played in a team with other members or when he and a few other guys sat huddled around their laptops, apparently coding their own game, in which you or any of the other girls have never been invited to participate, of course. It wasn’t like you, and some of the other girls, hadn’t started creating your own games in middle school, just like these guys and their superiority complexes. The few times you tried asking what they were up to, they exchanged amused or perplexed looks, then quickly dismissed you. “We’re coding a mobile version of Pong. Don’t worry about it,” they’d say, acting like it required a level of genius you simply didn’t have access to. Like Pong wasn’t one of the first games you copied when you first started coding. This guy, sitting next to Euijoo now, never said anything—neither against you or in your defence. He’d just look at you with the same closed-off expression he wears now. Suffice to say you didn’t have the best opinion of him.

As you and Chaewon enter the café, Euijoo’s eyes are only on her, so it’s a few seconds before his sheepish grin shifts into surprise at seeing you—good surprise, if the way he stands and waves the two of you over awkwardly means anything. But his friend, whose gaze stays trained on you the whole time you’re walking over to their table, wears an expression that betrays no emotion. For a second, you wonder if he even recognizes you. Sure, you’ve never actually talked to each other, but you’ve been attending the club every week for over a semester now—he has to at least be able to place you. But maybe you’re deluding yourself into thinking your face is as exceptional as his. When Euijoo introduces him as Nicholas, you suddenly remember hearing that name being called out during games, but having never played with him, you hadn’t had the opportunity to put name to face.

You’re not even really supposed to be here, but Chaewon’s puppy eyes can melt even the coldest of hearts. She said it’d be “weird” for her and Euijoo to hang out one-on-one, like she’d never heard of the concept of a date. She swears she only wants to get to know him better as a friend, and apparently the best way to do that is to drag you along. 

You had the sinking feeling that this would look awfully like a double date, and as you sit opposite Nicholas, Chaewon and Euijoo looking at everything but each other, your suspicions turn out to be true. Conversation quickly runs out—there’s only so much to be said about the café’s menu and whether you got here okay. Which you obviously did, considering you’re sitting here in one piece—but you don’t say that. 

Afterwards, as you wait for your drinks, it apparently falls on you to make conversation: Chaewon giggles nervously every time she says something, Euijoo can’t seem to string more than five words together, and Nicholas looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. You ask Euijoo questions, thinking about what Chaewon would like to know but is too shy to ask, but you quickly realize it only stresses him out further, his face reddening every time he meets Chaewon’s wide, curious gaze. So you turn to Nicholas instead. Asking him about his studies — Computer Science — his hobbies — video games — his hometown — Taipei. You’re not deterred by his one-word replies. If anything, they only work you up. Does he not realize you, too, would rather be spending your Saturday afternoon doing anything other than chaperoning your best friend on her date? 

Euijoo all but jumps as the restaurant pager goes off, signaling that your drinks are ready to be picked up. You turn to your friend, saying, “Chaewon, you should help him,” hoping your eyes are conveying your thoughts, namely, You’re nineteen, not thirteen, get a grip. Euijoo is already shaking his hands, saying he can handle it on his own as though carrying two drinks might kill Chaewon, but you’re more convincing. When they’re gone, you slump in your seat and release a deep breath. 

Nicholas seems unbothered. Too unbothered. Sitting up straight and fixing him a pointed look, you decide to change that.

“Thanks for the help,” you say.

He shrugs, a ghost of a smile appearing on his lips, so small and quick you almost miss it. “You seemed to be doing well enough alone.”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. “I’d be doing a lot better if you, you know, spoke in full sentences.”

He actually smiles then, and you’d almost get distracted by it if you weren’t so annoyed at him. “I don’t know, it’s pretty entertaining watching you struggle like that.”

You narrow your eyes at him, leaning over the table. “Are you a psychopath?”

He tilts his head, raises his eyes as if in thought. “Hm. I did spend a lot of time taking bugs apart in my childhood,” he muses pensively. Then, at your horrified expression, he chuckles. “I’m messing with you.”

“Right,” you say, unsure whether you believe him. “You know, I’m as happy as you about being here.”

“So, extremely?”

You ignore him. “This is going to be awkward as hell no matter what, so let’s at least try to make it a little easier for both of us. Maybe then they’ll actually talk to each other.”

He nods his head towards your friends, who are back at the table a few seconds after you finish speaking. Chaewon dives into her strawberry smoothie like she hasn’t had anything to drink in weeks, and after some moments of more silence, you think Nicholas has decided he truly couldn’t care less about what you told him. But just as you’re about to come up with a question for Euijoo, he speaks up, asking Chaewon about her studies. It’s not a very inspired topic, but it at least breaks the ice and finds common ground for Chaewon and Euijoo to stand on. They get to talking about the awful professor for one of their classes, and you get to relax in your chair once more and enjoy your chai latte. When you catch Nicholas staring at you, you raise your eyebrows at him as if asking, What do you want? But instead of looking away, he says, more like announces, “You’re the one who beat Heeseung-hyung’s ass at Super Smash Bros the other day.”

It interrupts Chaewon’s and Euijoo’s conversation, whose eyes ping-pong between you and Nicholas. Although you’re vaguely annoyed at him for stopping them in their tracks, you’re mostly taken aback. So he does recognize you. He just decided to make that clear now, and not when you first got here like a normal person would’ve.

“Yeah, I am,” you reply cautiously, almost defensively. What’s it to him?

“That was cool.” They’re three simple words, not even that much of a compliment, but still, combined with his steady gaze on yours, it makes an odd, surprising swirl of warmth heat your stomach.

“Thanks,” you say, unable to fight the smirk growing on your lips. “It was pretty cool to take his ego down a notch.”

“It was really satisfying seeing you do it,” he says, his smile mirroring yours. For a few, brief seconds, as you look into each others’ eyes, you wonder whether you got the wrong impression from him—but Euijoo joins in, saying he’d never seen Heeseung look so humbled, Chaewon adds something cute about you being the best video game player she knows (maybe because you’re the only one), and the moment fades away. 

.

.

D-2505. 6 years, 10 months, 7 days earlier

Peeking over your living room windowsill at the street outside your front door, you sigh contentedly as you watch Euijoo finally lean down towards Chaewon and press his lips to hers. Only took him a year and a half.

Over are the months of swearing up-and-down that they’re just friends, that she doesn’t like him like that, and that even if she did, he probably doesn’t feel the same. Chaewon is one of the smartest people you know, and yet, when it comes to Euijoo, she’s also the biggest fool—same goes for him. You’ve never seen any two people so clearly besotted with each other, yet so oblivious to it. 

At least, you weren’t alone in your frustration. Euijoo and Chaewon were such good “friends” that they barely hung out alone—even after that first time at the café, which didn’t turn out as disastrous as it started, they almost always made you and Nicholas tag along, as if they needed chaperones. It was easier dragging the cart along when there were two third wheels, you guess.

You shift from your spying position to a sitting one, back against the wall and a grin on your lips as you fish your phone from your back pocket. HE DID IT!!!!! you text Nicholas.

He replies instantly, as if he’s been waiting for this exact message. Fucking finally! Any longer and I was going to force their faces against each other, the message reads.

You smile. Not sure how they would’ve felt about that.

You watch the three dots on his side of your conversation appear and disappear. Then, after a torturously long minute, his reply comes through. I guess this means they won’t need us on their dates anymore.

Unexpectedly, you feel a pang of something like disappointment in your heart. You hadn’t thought about that. Since the start of second year, your little quartet has become a constant in your life. Chaewon growing closer to Euijoo meant he was around more; and if Euijoo was around, Nicholas was around. Movie nights, study sessions, hours spent eating and drinking at your favorite barbecue spot near campus—you’ve spent almost every weekend with them.

You live with Chaewon, so you have no qualms about growing apart from her just because she has a boyfriend. Certainly Euijoo will spend half his time at your apartment now, so no worries on that side either. 

But Nicholas…

Don’t overestimate them, you reply, ignoring the heaviness in your heart. I think they’ll need another couple of months before they can hold eye contact for more than five seconds.

But as it turns out, Nicholas is right. After years of pining relentlessly for one another, it seems all Chaewon and Euijoo want to do is be together. Alone. In the two months that separate their getting-together and summer, you barely see Nicholas. And only once it’s gone do you realize how much you’d come to cherish his friendship. 

As your friends kept dragging you to their dates, Nicholas became less and less of a mystery to you. The cold exterior that had intimidated you at first — which you managed to hide, telling yourself he couldn’t be that bad if he was friends with someone as kind as Euijoo — slowly thawed, until a more playful, more mischievous side of him appeared at the surface. Whenever he teased you or threw his head back to laugh loudly, you flattered yourself thinking it was a side of him not many people got to see. 

But now, even you barely get to see it. 

It isn’t that you miss him. You wouldn’t go that far. It’s the four of you that you miss, the way one evening spent in your friends’ company had the power to recharge you for the week to come. And it isn’t that you’re scared of losing him specifically, you just think it’s a shame that the potential of a close friendship would be squashed this way. And he was a good game partner. Came up with smart strategies, didn’t try to go off and do his own thing and ruin the mission for everyone else.

But you’ve never made plans with him before, and you can’t imagine starting now. Wouldn’t it be awkward, hanging out just the two of you—too much like a date? Spending a couple of hours gaming together every once in a while is one thing, but seeing him outside of that, reaching out and betraying your desire to see him specifically, that’s another thing entirely. 

Clearly, he must not be warm to the idea either, seeing as he hasn’t reached out since your friends got together, except to send you Reels and the occasional complaint about “Chaewon and Euijoo being cute in MY kitchen before I’ve even had my coffee.” When you log in at the same time and get on a call together, neither of you makes any mention of hanging out at some point. Life continues as if you didn’t use to spend half of your free time together.

But as they say, distance makes the heart grow fonder. And you hate it.

You don’t like the way your heart skips a beat when his name appears on your phone now, or how clammy your hands get, chopsticks threatening to slide from your fingers, when you meet his indecipherable gaze across the table at barbecue. Why is it that in just a few weeks, someone you’d grown so comfortable with has become someone whose eyes you can’t look into without feeling like you can’t breathe?

Soon, you won’t have to worry about this. You’re leaving for Tokyo in September, to study for a semester, then to intern at a game company. 

Surely, this is the kind of distance that makes the heart forget all about someone.

.

.

D-2118. 5 years, 9 months, 16 days earlier

When Ms. Komada told you that as a result of their soon launching a new game, your internship at Lucky Dragon Interactive might be more stressful than most, you hadn’t thought twice about it. You only saw the positive sides—you’d get to see the final steps of creating a game, then of getting it ready for launch, of handling all the post-release problems. Like medical students desperate to witness complicated surgeries, you knew that most of your peers would kill to experience that sort of excitement.

But maybe you should’ve braced yourself, too. You’ve been working overtime for two weeks straight, with half the salary of the full-time employees and none of the recognition or respect. You’re so tired that you order takeout or buy your meals from the convenience store every night, and spend your weekends in bed resting, trying your best to look at anything but a screen, maybe venturing outside if the weather allows it. It seems like every day, every hour, a new problem comes up, a narrative bug that needs to be fixed, an unhappy player that demands attention right away. At least you know you’ve found your calling—no matter how hard it gets, you’re still happy to clock in every day, still looking forward to one day launching your own game. 

Finally, after too many harrowing weeks to count, you start going home at normal, legal hours. As you switch on your computer and launch Steam, you wonder how many weeks it’s been since you’ve logged on, how long it’s been since you’ve thought about another game than your company’s. Your heart does a weird little skip when you see the green dot next to Nicholas’ username. It drums sharply in your chest when a call notification appears on your screen, seconds after you’ve logged in, almost as if he was keeping an eye on your status. You let two rings go by, hoping to steady your breathing, then accept the call.

“Hey,” Nicholas says, the smile audible in his voice. “So you’re alive.”

It’s only because it’s been so long since you last heard it that his voice has such a relaxing effect on you. Just a few words, spoken in that low, almost lazy drawl of his, and a weight feels like it’s been lifted off your shoulders. Your insides feel warm, your heart light, flapping like butterfly wings.

You chuckle. “Barely.”

“Chaewon says they’ve been working you to the bone in Tokyo.” The concern you detect in his tone must be the work of your imagination. 

“They have,” you say, sighing. “But it’s fun, really fun. I think you’d love it, actually.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! I remember you said you worked well in high-pressure environments. Well, it can hardly get any more high-pressure than this. The stakes feel so high, you’d think I’m working at NASA.”

He laughs, the melodic sound pouring right from your headphones into your ears. “Of course. Don’t you know that if something goes wrong with this game, the whole world will implode?”

“Right, right, how could I forget?” you say, laughing when he tuts at you. “What about you? How’s everything back in Seoul?”

“Same old, really. Heeseung-hyung is getting on half of the club’s nerves. Euijoo and Chaewon are head over heels in love with each other. I’m still the hottest guy in all of CompSci.”

Laughing, you say, “Glad to see nothing’s changed.”

“So you agree?” he asks after a small pause. You don’t need to see it to know he’s wearing that annoyingly handsome smirk of his. “You think I’m the hottest guy in CompSci?”

You roll your eyes, bite back a smile even if he can’t see you. “Alright, Weno. Ready to kill some monsters?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

.

.

D-1888. 5 years, 2 months earlier

The sun is just starting to bless the depressing Science campus with its warmth when you step into the library. Armed with a restful eight hours of sleep and the sugared promise of the bag of donuts in your hand, you’re ready to tackle the day ahead. Your exams are long behind you now, so the library is practically deserted—there aren’t many people as deranged as you to be here in the middle of winter break just a few days before Christmas. But you’re going home for the holidays, and you have to anticipate the chaos that will be your final semester at university. If you and Nicholas want to finish this game, you’ll need to power through.

You walk the familiar route to the space on the third floor dedicated to group work and open the door to the cubicle that unofficially belongs to you and Nicholas now—and freeze on the threshold. 

Nicholas is still here, sitting in the same spot you left him last night as though he hasn’t budged an inch. And indeed, he doesn’t move as you step inside and quietly set your bag down on the desk, taking a seat on the chair next to his. His head rests on his crossed arms over the table, turned away from you. Clouds part, and a ray of sunlight suddenly shines right onto his face. With a groan, he turns his head to the other side, facing you now, but he doesn’t seem to rouse any more than that.

You know he has a habit of staying up late, but he also usually gets up late, joining you at the library by midday. You wonder what it was that made him pull an all-nighter here, hoping it wasn’t another one of your frivolous ideas that sounds fun in theory but is nearly impossible to implement in practice.

In the past months since you’ve started working on this, you’ve rarely seen Nicholas look so peaceful. You’d needed some time to get used to his focused expression—with his furrowed eyebrows and intense gaze, you thought he was permanently mad at something. Turns out he was just highly concentrated. You’ve also seen him grumpy a few times, when his alarm had rung a little too early for his liking or when he just couldn’t figure out the source of a bug. Even then, you could only find him endearing, heart melting at his pout when he probably had no idea how cute he looked, laughing at his quiet muttering to his computer, as though talking to the machine would make it more cooperative. 

It’s nice to see him so serene-looking in sleep, to know that at least then, nothing is bothering him. You find that it calms you down, too. As the deadline for the competition approaches, nerves have started appearing in your stomach more and leaving less, but the sight of him like this is enough to put you at ease. Guided by an unnamable urge to bask in that feeling, you slide one of your arms out on the table, resting your head on it and simply watching Nicholas’ sleeping face. Your eyes slowly trace every centimeter of his face, detailing it like you want to commit it to memory. His features are delicate without being fragile: the straight nose, gently defined cheekbones, plump and impossibly soft-looking lips. His dark hair falls loosely around his forehead, a few strands over his eyes that make your fingertips tingle with the urge to brush them away.

You’ve always thought there’s something magnetic about him, something that keeps you craving another look, a little more time. In the back of your head, a small voice tells you that staring at someone while they sleep is considered, by many standards, creepy—but looking away would feel like having your blankets ripped from you on a cold winter morning. 

He stirs in his seat then, stretching his arms in front of him before blinking his eyes open. You’ve never sat up quicker, heart beating out of your chest as you hope he didn’t catch any of that. Thankfully, your laptop is already open, so you can pretend like something fascinating is happening on the screen while you start it up, so fascinating indeed that you wouldn’t even have noticed him waking. 

“Hey,” he simply says, voice still groggy with sleep. It makes your stomach flip, and you can only manage a quick glance at him over your computer screen. For some reason, you instinctively know that Nicholas’ face when he first wakes is not an image that you need to have in your head. 

“Hi. Were you here all night?” you ask, hoping the tremble in your voice isn’t that obvious. 

Nicholas sits up, slides a hand over his face with a sigh. “Yeah. I’m not sure when I passed out, though.”

“You should head home. Or at least sleep here a little more.” 

In your peripheral, you see him shake his head. “It’s alright. I’ll go grab a Monster then I can start on this again.”

“That’s not healthy, Weno—”

He shrugs before you can finish your sentence. “I’ll rest when we’re done with this game. Ooh, did you get us donuts?” he says, eyes widening at the sight of the paper bag next to you and its familiar logo. 

He reaches over you for the bag, and the sudden proximity makes your hands freeze on your keyboard. His face is so close to yours, close enough for you to see the last traces of sleep around his slightly puffy eyes and lips. His knee gently bumps into yours and warmth spreads through your entire body. He seems completely oblivious to your inner turmoil as he bites into the sugar and cinnamon donut, closing his eyes and humming a low sound of satisfaction which does nothing to help your racing imagination. 

You’ve always known Nicholas was an attractive man—anyone with eyes could say this much. But there’s a world of difference between objectively recognizing someone is attractive and being attracted to them. In your years of knowing him, you’ve become familiar with the warmth that blooms in your stomach when you hear his laughter, or when his gaze lingers on you for a little too long. You’ve become used to it, more like an old habit you can’t shake than something you feel compelled to act upon. But this feeling, this is something else entirely. Your heart feels like it might burst out of your chest, and you’re afraid that if you stay in this room for a minute longer, you’ll do or say something to betray your thoughts.

You push your chair away from the table in an awkward, loud screech against the floor tiles, and stand up abruptly. Nicholas’ head snaps towards you, but you still can’t bring yourself to look at him. 

“I’ll go get us drinks,” you announce robotically to the room.

“But you already got donuts—”

“It’s alright,” you interrupt, already grabbing your bag and practically running out of the room. Nicholas calls your name, but you ignore it.

The late December air feels cool on your burning skin as you step outside. Your brisk walk to the nearby convenience store somewhat helps to calm you down, although you belatedly realize that your odd behavior might have alerted your friend to the exact thing you wanted to hide. You head over to the refrigerated drinks section, grabbing a blueberry-flavored Monster for him and a storebrand smoothie for yourself.

You’re never really been interested in boys—not like that, at least. It’s not that you’ve kept yourself at a distance from them. Unfortunately, video games are still a predominantly male hobby, and so most of the people you’ve shared that passion with have been boys. Some of them make for decent gaming partners, and some, even for decent friends. But finding a boyfriend was never a priority or worry of yours, not even back in high school when it seemed to be all some of your friends could talk about. Not until you met Choi Soobin at a Game Developing camp — of course — during the summer between junior and senior year. He was everything you thought boys should be—quiet, kind, and a good gamer. Euijoo reminded you of him, and that’s why you so easily approved of him for Chaewon, who you believe deserves nothing but the best.

And although Nicholas is also quiet, kind, and a good gamer, you would never think to compare him to Soobin. He may come off reserved at first, but it’s not out of shyness—rather, he observes people first and determines whether they’re worth his time and energy. It seems that not many fit his indecipherable criteria; you, Chaewon and Euijoo must be part of the lucky ones.

There’s something cold, almost arrogant about him, something that ticked you off before you got to know him — and that still does now, truth be told — in his smirk whenever he beats someone at a game, in the tightness of his jaw when one of his teammates messes up. Something obsessive in the way he locks himself in his room to finish an assignment, or pulls an all-nighter at the library to debug something like he did today. Something that remains unattainable, mysterious, even to you, who’s known him for three years now, in the way he won’t explain why the smile drops from his face when he gets a call notification from one of his parents, in the way he won’t talk about how his breaks in Taiwan go. Maybe that’s why you find yourself so drawn to him, all his sharp edges reflecting yours, making you wonder what’s hiding beneath his surface in a way you’ve never been curious about anyone else before. 

But it’s that something that makes you feel like you can’t like him. Like you’re not allowed to. When you ask Chaewon whether she feels it too, that bay that he keeps people at, she shrugs and says he’s just a little more reserved than most. Then she side-eyes you and says something like, “As if you’re Little Miss Open Book yourself.” You drop the subject, but when you wonder if you’ll never get to cross that little remaining distance to Nicholas, an unexplainable sadness washes over you.

Anyway, it seems like the last thing on his mind is dating. He’s said very little about his family, but you know that both of his parents are doctors, and that they weren’t overjoyed at his love for video games, nor at the prospect of their eldest son going into Computer Science rather than Medicine, and in a foreign country at that. He’s one of the most studious people you know, and you wonder whether he works so hard to prove to them he can make it, that he didn’t choose the wrong path. He’s busy enough with his studies, and you’ve never once seen him express interest towards a girl. He still regularly complains about Euijoo and Chaewon making out in the shared parts of their apartment.

Spending so much time with him, working on your game, makes it easy to forget there are parts of him you don’t have access to. When he asked you whether you wanted to participate in your university’s game programming competition together, you weren’t in the least bit reluctant to accept his offer. You knew he wouldn’t be condescending or mansplain to you how code worked like many of your male Game Design peers, as though you weren’t studying the same thing. In fact, he’s been the opposite of that, treating your ideas with respect, working tirelessly to implement them into the structure of the game even when they force him to write a hundred additional lines of code, coming up with a satisfying alternative when something is just too complicated. 

So, despite yourself, you’ve come to cherish Nicholas as a friend, then as a gaming partner, and now even as someone who was easy and fun to work with. It doesn’t help that he remembers your coffee order by heart, that he puts your favorite side dishes in front of you whenever you eat out with Chaewon and Euijoo, and that he looks the way he does. You still get annoyed at yourself when your heart beats up a storm in your chest like it did earlier, just from his proximity.

In the end, it doesn’t matter whatever sort of feelings you might have for Nicholas—you know yourself, and you know you won’t ever make the first move. You tell yourself it’s better off this way. In less than six months, you’ll be done with university, and with his grades, Nicholas is already getting calls from the headhunters of some of the country’s leading companies. You may know close to nothing about Computer Science, but you know that he’s always in the top three students of his class and that he won your university’s Hackathon last year, so it’s no wonder that recruiters are reaching out to him before he’s even graduated. When you ask him about whether he’s accepted any of their offers, or about the kind of company he’d like to work for, he only shrugs, saying he hasn’t given it much thought. He doesn’t expand, and you don’t press.

Meanwhile, you’ve started applying for post-graduate internships and programs at practically every video game company in South Korea, no matter how big or small, and a few international ones you’re drawn to, although you’d rather stay in the country for now. It’d be a dream to land the Narrative Design Internship at Jellyfish Studios, but after putting your absolute all into the application, you try to think about it as little as you can and expect even less. It’s hard to do, especially when you check your emails every night hoping for an interview offer, but you do your best. It isn’t the biggest game company in Korea by any means, but they’ve always produced your favorite games, with amazing, emotional storylines and beautiful graphics. Every time you play one of their games, you wish you’d written it yourself. The next best thing would be to help design them.

For now, you’ll get through the last month of your last year of university, power through your final exams, and ignore the way your stomach flips every time you meet a certain pair of sharp eyes.

You’re glad he doesn’t question you outright when you’re back in your shared cubicle. “Thank you, Y/N,” he simply says as you hand him his drink. You think his gaze on yours is a little more insistent than usual, a little more searching, but you ignore it, and he doesn’t push. Instead, he turns his laptop towards you, lines of complicated code that your eyes need a few seconds to adjust to filling up his screen. “This is why I stayed up last night.”

When you recognize the actions and dialogue, you gasp. “No way, Weno… You were able to do it?”

You’d wanted to add a last minute plot-line to the game, something that would only become available to the player if they’d managed to complete their dialogue with a few particular NPCs. It would force Nicholas to add a bunch of variables and to go back and change some of his previous code, but you thought it would make for a much more emotionally satisfying ending for players who had gone through the pains of exhausting every dialogue option. Although he said he’d try his best, he also told you he couldn’t make any promises. You never expected him to spend so much time on this. 

His lips spread into a smile, an adorable mix of pride and shyness. “Yeah. It was really tricky, and took a hell of a long time, but I found some useful tips on a forum online. I just… I know how much this idea meant to you. And I truly think that it’ll give us an edge in the competition.”

“You’re amazing, you know that?” you say, too absorbed by his code to really pay attention to what comes of your mouth.

He shrugs. “It’s your idea that’s brilliant,” he says quietly. “I just executed it.”

You turn to him with a wide grin on your face. “We’re so gonna win this thing, Weno.”

He mirrors your smile, eyes plunged deep into yours. This time, when your heart hammers wildly in your chest, you’re not so worried about it. 

.

.

D-1686. 4 years, 7 months, 10 days earlier

You graduate on a beautiful July morning. Nicholas looks smart in his navy three-piece suit and white button-up that fit him like they’ve been perfectly tailored to his body—you’ve had to look at him in increments, too afraid you won’t be afraid to detach your eyes from him if you let them linger too long. 

It’s just that you can’t quite wrap your head around the fact that this is the end for both of you. You have no doubt that you’ll stay friends, but it won’t be the same. You’re both going home for the summer, and then who knows. Neither of you has something lined up for the fall: you’re waiting on a decision from Jellyfish Studios, whom you should hear from any day now, before you accept any other offers you’ve been made. Meanwhile, Nicholas still shrugs whenever you ask him about his plans. You’ve never seen anyone so relaxed about the uncertainty of their future.

You sit at opposite ends of the graduation hall, packed with students from two other STEM degrees. With his freshly dyed blond hair, which you saw his parents scold him for earlier, he stands out among everyone. You look at the balcony above you, searching for Chaewon and Euijoo who graduated last week, and your family who travelled to the city for your graduation. When Computer Science gets called forward and each student makes their way across the stage one by one to receive their degree from the respective department heads, you only have eyes for him. Your heart pounds like you’re the one waiting to walk up the stairs, and you’re screaming his name and clapping louder than anyone else as he crosses the stage, a blush creeping up his cheeks as he avoids eye contact with the camera recording the ceremony. 

No matter how many times you rehearsed your walk in your head, finding your family and friends beforehand expressly so you could wave at them on stage, once you’re there, the only person you remember to smile at is Nicholas. In the few seconds that your gazes interlock, you think of how far the two of you have come along since the day you properly met at that café until now, of all the sleepless nights spent blinking at your computer screens, of the feeling of creating something with him. 

You’re not sure you’re ready to leave all that behind already.

Afterwards, Chaewon finds a sunny spot in front of the graduation hall to take pictures: of the four of you, of you and your family, of Nicholas and his. Euijoo uses his broken English to communicate with Nicholas’ family while Chaewon catches up excitedly with yours, undeterred by your parents’ reserve, badgering your little brother with questions. Nicholas grumbles the entire time, adorable as he rolls his eyes when he’s asked to take another picture, then proceeds to pose as nonchalantly as he can, hands in his trouser pockets, chin held high to accentuate his jaw, eyes squinting at some faraway point. So you’re surprised when it’s him who comes to you for a photo, and not the other way around—he got to it before you could gather the courage. You just stand next to each other at first, leaving a little space between your bodies, but Chaewon is not easily satisfied. She peers from behind her Nikon with an expression that says, Really?, then gestures for the two of you to get closer. Clearing his throat, Nicholas takes a step to the side, looking straight in front of him as he wraps an arm around your waist. The touch is gentle, almost timid, but it’s enough for your breath to catch in your throat. As you stare up at him in wide-eyed surprise, a small smirk blooms on his lips. “Look at the camera,” he says, voice low, only for you to hear. You turn your head towards Chaewon, but you’re not sure your smile looks very natural anymore.

As you’re about to go your separate ways for lunch, Nicholas says a few words to his parents in Mandarin, then turns to you, asking if he can talk to you quickly. He leads you to a quieter spot nearby. You’ve never seen him so nervous as he stands in front of you, rocking on his feet, eyes trained on the ground between you. Despite your burning curiosity, you let him take his time, enjoying this rare opportunity to stare shamelessly at him, the way the sun softens even his sharp features, the way this uncharacteristic uneasiness tugs his eyebrows together and his lip corners downward. You’d want to smooth it all out with your fingertips if you didn’t find it so endearing—it almost distracts you from the red-hot question on your tongue, namely, what the hell does Nicholas need to tell you that he couldn’t wait until later?

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while now. I should’ve told you earlier, but if I don’t tell you now, I’m not sure I ever will,” he says, voice breathy, unsure. His voice is almost drowned out by the intensity of your heartbeat, pounding in your ears. Finally, he meets your eyes, and whatever he finds there must reassure him, because his expression melts into a small smile. “Y/N, I—”

He’s interrupted by the simultaneous pings of your phones. Your eyes go wide—this is a sound you’ve trained yourself to look out for for the past weeks. “Sorry, Weno, I really have to check this,” you say as you fish your phone out of your purse, the blood drained from your body from the notification alone, an email from Jellyfish Studios. You type in your password with trembling hands, and almost drop your phone when you read the first sentence.

Dear Y/N L/N,

Congratulations!

We are pleased to inform you your application for an internship in Narrative Design has been accepted. If you would like to join us, please contact us in the following days to go through with the hiring procedures.

Dumbfounded, you stare at the words on your screen as if they might rearrange themselves out of nowhere. Nicholas’ voice is soft as he breaks the silence. “Did you get in?” You look up at him, mouth agape as you nod wildly. His smile widens. “Guess you won’t be getting rid of me so soon, then.”

When you tilt your head, he chuckles and holds his phone out for you to read. The same words of acceptance but tailored to him — Dear Wang Yixiang; an internship in Game Engineering — blink up at you. Your eyes ping-pong between his screen and his face. There are so many thoughts racing through your head that you can’t even get a single one out through your mouth. 

“I didn’t want to tell you I applied,” he explains. “Didn’t want to get either of our hopes up.”

“Oh my God, Weno,” you whisper. 

“I know,” he says, matching your tone. Somehow, it’s his excited grin that gets you out of your trance, that makes you realize how real all this is — you’re accepted, so is Nicholas, you’re getting an extra year with him — and you all but jump into his arms, his own wrapping around your middle immediately, like he was always ready to catch you.

But the feeling of his body pressed against yours, close enough for his perfume with its fresh and woody notes to fill your nostrils, snaps you back down to Earth. You step out of his embrace as quickly as you jumped into it, scared to have overstepped a boundary even though Nicholas looks not the least bit offended as he keeps his steady, gentle gaze on you.

Before an awkward silence has time to settle, you remember something: “What were you about to tell me? Was it this?”

You watch as Nicholas’ expression fluctuates from fondness to surprise to neutrality, an unusual show of emotions coming from him. “Yeah, yeah. That was it.”

Behind him, his mother calls out his name, seemingly growing impatient. He glances at his family, then back at you. “I’ll talk to you later, yeah?” he asks.

You nod your head in small, quick movements. “Yeah.”

Nicholas takes a few steps then stops, turning back towards you with a weary expression on his face. “You are happy about this, right?”

Although you wonder where he got the idea that you might not be overjoyed by this from, his concern endears you. Lets you see through a crack of his mask that he cares about this friendship as much as you do. You tilt your head, smiling at him. “Of course I am, Weno.”

A grin grows on his lips, the kind you wish you got to see more often. “Okay.”

You watch him walking away, excitement bubbling in your stomach at the thought that this won’t have to be the last image you have of him.

.

.

D-1604. 4 years, 4 months, 20 days earlier

Drumming your fingers on the wooden table, you look outside the café’s foggy window to the Jellyfish Studios offices across the street. In thirty or so minutes, you’ll be crossing those glass doors yourself and stepping inside the lobby with a half-dozen other bright-eyed and bushy-tailed new interns. You don’t know yet on which of the nine floors your desk will be, or what your colleagues will look like, or the kind of games you’ll be working on, but that unknown excites you. You’ve never been so hopeful about anything, never seen your future so open and inviting in front of you as you do now, staring at your new company’s logo on the top left corner of the building.

“Here,” Nicholas says, low voice snapping you out of your reverie as he sets a steaming cup of coffee in front of you.

“Thanks, Weno.” You turn your attention back to the building across the street, a small smile on your lips as you rest your head on your palm. “Aren’t you excited?” you say dreamily. “I feel like we’re gonna do great things in there.”

He chuckles. “I’m sure you will,” he replies, a little teasingly, a little earnestly.

You look at him. “So will you! You only wrote the code for the game that won our university’s competition, after all.”

“Maybe, but the ideas all came from here,” he says, reaching his finger to tap your forehead gently. It’s a small, fleeting touch, but it makes warmth spread through your entire body. You feel your face heat, and you take a sip of your scalding caramel latte just to hide your flusteredness. Nicholas sits back, watching you with a smile—but if he guesses the thoughts in your head, he says nothing.

It’s only that you haven’t seen him in a while. You stayed with your parents all summer, wanting to spend as much time with your brother before he left the country for university, only leaving to go on a trip to Japan with Chaewon. You last saw Nicholas a few days after graduation, when the flowers were in full bloom and the sun beat down on you relentlessly; now, leaves are already starting to turn all shades of orange and yellow, and you’ve fished out your jackets from the back of your closet. Of course you’re going to need some time to get used to being around Nicholas again. It doesn’t matter that a big part, bigger than you’d like to admit, of your summer evenings were spent on a call with him, playing video games and complaining about living with your parents again after four years away. Hearing his voice through your headphones and seeing him in the flesh are two entirely different things.

Thankfully, he doesn’t try to touch you again—the brushes of your knees or your feet together beneath the table are only accidental. You don’t have much to catch up on, so once you’ve forced him to list everything he was excited about for this internship then made him listen to your own list, you sit in comfortable silence, sipping on your coffee that’s finally the right temperature and eavesdropping on the people around you. 

It’s soon time to go. On the way there, Nicholas tells you, voice so quiet you barely hear it over the rumble of cars and passers-by, “I’m glad we’re doing this together. It… It makes it easier, knowing that you’re here.”

Compared to Euijoo and Chaewon, neither of you are very well-versed in the art of saying nice things to each other. You’re more comfortable teasing each other, showing your affection either through sarcastic quips or silent gestures. So coming from Nicholas, this is practically a confession of his ultimate devotion. You stare up at him, a grin spreading on your face the more he tries to avert his gaze from yours, clearing his throat and muttering for you to stop it. But you can’t help it—it’s not often that you feel you have the upper hand on him, so you want to enjoy it while you can.

“I agree,” you say. “You’re lucky I’m here. I’ll make sure you won’t get fired within a week.”

He rolls his eyes but his smile tells a different story.

In front of the wide glass doors, you freeze. The tall building suddenly feels vertiginous as it spreads into the sky, and a gnawing sensation of nervousness starts to take over your excitement.

And although you didn’t say it back, you really are glad to be doing this with Nicholas. He stands next to you, arm slightly brushing yours, his presence immediately soothing. Nudging his shoulder with yours, he says, “We got this.”

You nod your head once, determination settling on your features. “We got this.”

You walk in together, and at the welcome desk, the receptionist redirects you to a group of people who look about your age, standing a few meters away from you in the lobby, and says someone will be there to get you soon. The group is exactly what you’d picture when you think of interns for a video game company: bespectacled nerds (meant positively, of course), unsure what to do with their arms, looking at everything but each other, their soon-to-be coworkers. The awkward atmosphere permeates even yours and Nicholas’ conversation, so you stand there side-by-side, Nicholas scanning the room, his head held high like he already owns the place, while you smile at everyone you make eye contact with, no matter how briefly.

To your relief, a woman who looks to be in her thirties approaches your group before long. She introduces herself as Ms. Seo, Assistant Manager in Human Resources, and welcomes you all. She congratulates you then tells you how happy she and everyone at Jellyfish are to meet their new interns, how you’ll become an invaluable member of your respective teams, and how she’s sure your time here will be greatly beneficial to your future career—it’s clearly a rehearsed pitch, but it works. Her words make you feel giddy, and you hold onto her promise of becoming part of something greater than yourself like a newborn onto its mother.

Afterwards, she takes you on a tour of the building and the different departments, from Marketing to Sound to Test & Quality, pointing out who is in charge of the interns in each team. Design and Engineering share a floor, so Nicholas will be close by at all times—when you grin up at him upon finding this out, he smiles back fondly. Each floor has its own break room and meeting rooms, but there’s a cafeteria on the sixth floor and a café on the ground floor. In the basement are the Archives, both of paperwork and records that the company has kept throughout the years, and of the games they’ve produced. They even have the old consoles needed to play games released in the 90s and early 2000s, and employees are allowed to go down and play for a little during their breaks. In a conspiratorial tone, Ms. Seo shares that you just need to be careful of the archivist on-duty, some of them being less lax about the amount of time you spend down here than others.

When the tour is over, she lets you head back to your respective departments and introduce yourselves to the person who’ll be in charge of you. This person, for you and the other intern who introduces himself as Taki, is Mrs. Kang, a Senior Writer who’s been working at Jellyfish for over fifteen years. She mentions a few games she’s helped create and chuckles as your jaw falls more and more open—some of those games shaped your teenage years, especially Still Life, an RPG following a girl in high school in which just one choice can drastically change the storyline.

“I don’t know how many hours I played, trying to get every dialogue and ending.”

She smiles. “That’s good to know. You’re dedicated.”

You nod vigorously. You’ve known this woman for all of two minutes, but you’re already desperate for her validation. She asks you and Taki a few questions about your background, the kind of games you like to play, the ones you’d like to create. The two of you have similar answers: choice-driven games where the player and character go on an emotional journey together. “With pretty artwork,” you say.

“And a cool soundtrack,” Taki adds.

Mrs. Kang nods, seeming satisfied. “You chose the perfect place for that.”

She briefly introduces the rest of the team to you. You can’t remember eight new names right away, but at least everyone seems friendly, and you’re glad there are about as many women as there are men. When you look behind you, you can see Nicholas going through the same presentations as you, but in an all-male team, save for the other intern with him. You already feel bad for her.

The Head of your department has his own office. Mrs. Kang knocks at the glass door and lets herself in, and her boss only has a second to click a bunch of times on his computer mouse and assume a more professional pose than the one he was previously in, leaning back on his desk chair, one hand behind his head.

“Mr. Lee, these are our new interns, L/N Y/N and Takayama Riki.”

You both bow as Mr. Lee clears his throat, straightening his tie. “Right, right. Welcome, both of you. I’m sure Mrs. Kang has told you everything you need to know, so I won’t bore you. I hope you’ll like it here, and if you have any questions or concerns, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Anyone on the team will be happy to help.”

You and Taki thank him, and as you’re filing out of the room, Mrs. Kang turns back around to the older man, her eyes narrowed. “Mr. Lee, were you playing the Sims again?”

He starts clearing his throat again, eyebrows furrowed as he looks at anything but her. She tilts her head. “Mr. Lee…”

“It’s called benchmarking! I’m staying one step ahead of the competition,” he mumbles, clearly not believing his own words.

She sighs. “We have a whole department for that, Sir.”

“Right, right.”

Back with the rest of the team, she shows you to the desks you and Taki will be occupying, just across from hers, and tells you to get settled in. Your eyes widen at the computers waiting for you there, high-performing server desktops that you can’t believe you’ll get work on. If this is what Narrative Designers get, you can’t even imagine what sort of jewels the programmers will be working with.

Mrs. Kang asks if you’ve got any questions, and Taki raises an eager hand. “Will we be meeting Murata Fuma?” he asks. The name is unfamiliar to you, but Taki’s eyes are wide and starry as he awaits an answer. Mrs. Kang smiles like she’s seen this expression a thousand times before.

“Right, I forgot to mention that. As you’ve noticed, Mr. Murata isn’t here right now. He’s working at our American branch at the moment, but you’ll get to meet him soon, once he returns. We usually handle one intern each, so that you have a personal point of contact.”

Taki sighs dreamily. “Wow. I can’t believe I’ll finally get to meet him.” When he meets your curious eyes, he leans forward on his desk. “Don’t you know him?” he asks, gasping when you shake your head. “You don’t know Murata Fuma? The brain behind The Curious Village?”

“Oh, I’ve heard of it, but I never got around to playing it.”

“You’d love it,” he says, eyes wide and excited, puppyish grin like he’s about to let you in on the most fascinating story. “It starts off with you, the main character, moving into a new town. Everything’s so cute that you let yourself be fooled it’ll just be a sweet story about making friends and finding a new home. But it quickly turns super mysterious and super dark… I did my first play-through in three days. I didn’t even shower.”

“That’s… wow. Sounds fun.”

“Fun doesn’t even start to describe it,” he says. “Murata is a genius. Village was his first game as Lead Designer, and it was both a critical and player success. I can only hope to be like him someday.”

Ms. Kang watches this exchange with an amused glint in her eyes. “Looks like we have a new addition to the Fuma fanclub. You’ll fit right in, Taki. Everyone loves him around here—although I must say, most of his fans tend to be women.”

You can’t help but chuckle. This Murata guy sounds like the quarterback of a 2010s American teen movie—all the girls want him, all the boys want to be him. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t curious to meet him and see what all the fuss is about. And to play that game of his.

.

.

D-1603. 4 years, 4 months, 19 days earlier

Life has never been more beautiful, and you’re sure it has nothing to do with the half-pint of beer you’ve had. No, it has everything to do with Mrs. Kang, who’s had about three times as much to drink as you have but seems three times less inebriated, and who’s turning out to be the most amusing storyteller you’ve ever met. Ms. Cho and Ms. Song, your new coworkers from the Game Design team, have become Miyeon and Yuqi to you since the first round of meat was served. Yuqi in particular seems bent on grilling the meat and making wraps for you, opening her mouth wide so you’ll mirror it, like you’re her baby and not the new hire. She’s had about two sips of her beer.

“This is the thing about gamers,” Taki tells you, voice low as he leans in conspiratorially closer. “They all have horrible alcohol tolerances because they never go out. But me?” He smirks. “I was a menace in high school. Some might say I’m a reformed bad boy. We used to spend weekends in Hongdae, the bouncers knew we were seventeen and didn’t give a shit. Anyway, I think I fucked up my liver sometime in senior year and now I can drink like crazy, it doesn’t even affect me. Look at this—”

“—I don’t think that’s healthy, Taki,” you try to say, but he’s quicker, grabbing his pint and downing it in five impressive gulps. Under your horrified eyes, everyone at the table applauds and cheers him on.

“Another beer here, please!” Mr. Lee shouts. He beckons Taki towards him with a gesture of his hand, then wraps an arm around the younger man’s shoulder, pulling him down slightly like he’s about to let him onto something big.

Jellyfish sure knows how to welcome its new interns and employees. They throw something like this twice a year, three or four departments renting out a room at a restaurant together to celebrate the most recent round of hires. From your seat, you can see Nicholas sitting at another table with his colleagues, laughing, tapping his glass with theirs, and of course, wolfing down the free food. You catch his eye once in a while, the spark that zips down your spine growing bigger with every sip of your beer. 

Laughter erupts from his side of the room, complete with snorts and hand slams on the table, making a few heads swivel in their direction. Miyeon and Yuqi roll their eyes. “Someone must’ve made some obscure C++ joke. Hilarious, I’m sure,” Yuqi comments sarcastically.

Noticing your confused expression, Miyeon glances back at the engineers then leans in towards you. “Our team and theirs aren’t exactly on the best terms,” she explains.

“But don’t you work together all the time?” you ask.

“Of course, that’s why it’s so complicated. We have to work together, but the way we see games are completely different. They take something whimsical and fun and beautiful and turn it into a series of lines—”

Yuqi, who’s been nodding along vigorously, cuts her off. “They suck the soul of them. They’re always saying, No, I can’t code that, you need to take that out, I’ll have to rebuild the structure from scratch if you add that, blah, blah, blah,” she says, imitating an oafish male voice that you can’t help but chuckle at.

“But isn’t it literally their job to put our storylines into code? I mean, I didn’t take CompSci, God forbid, but how hard can it really be?” Miyeon says.

“They act like they get the short end of the stick, but we’re the ones who come up with the whole story, characters and dialogue from A to Z. Their job is completely dependent on us,” Yuqi asserts.

You think back on your time working on your game with Nicholas, the way you handled every clash easily, how you both worked and conceded certain things to make the other’s life easier. Naively, perhaps, you thought that this type of collaboration would extend to your professional life. You thought a good, mutual understanding between game engineers and designers was the basis of making any game.

You want to argue that surely all engineers can’t be like that, but Yuqi is quicker. “Plus, on a more personal note,” she starts, dropping her voice to a whisper, “in terms of relationships? Do not go there.” Miyeon nods along, her eyes wide and staring into your soul. “I used to date someone from that team, thank fuck he doesn’t work here anymore, but oh my God, he was the worst boyfriend. Always so rational, saying he couldn’t talk to me when I was being “emotional” during arguments, trying to come up with solutions when I kept telling him all I wanted was for him to comfort me. And he couldn’t go five minutes waiting in a line without playing World of Warcraft. And, not to overshare, but he was by far the worst lay of my life. Couldn’t make me come for the life of him. Now that I think about it, I’m not sure why I even stayed a year with him,” she finishes, looking thoughtful as she takes a sip of her beer.

“Maybe his disgusting salary helped,” Miyeon says, smirking.

Yuqi snaps her fingers in a sort of Eureka! moment. “Yeah, that was it! He did buy me a shitton of stuff. Think he felt bad about the orgasm thing, actually.”

They tell you that for every department, there’s probably one woman who has a similar story to tell. Your eyes flicker over to Nicholas, his eyes bright and a small smile playing on his lips as he listens to one of his coworkers talk, and you think that he can’t possibly be like that. Either for the work stuff or the… other stuff. You can’t help the disappointment or the feeling of injustice simmering in your chest, like this condemnation of some of the men in Nicho’s line of work is a condemnation of your friend himself.

But you can’t linger on that thought too long, because Mr. Lee, whom you hadn’t noticed had left the room, comes back in, waving his cellphone and wearing a radiant smile. “Mr. Murata will be back next week,” he announces to your table. “He’s wrapping up a few things in LA, and he’s decided to take a few days off before flying back to Korea.”

Excited chatter erupts around the table, as it has always done whenever Murata’s name has been mentioned in the past week since your internship started. You’ve overheard coworkers, from both your team and others, gossiping about him in the break room, wondering in hushed, giggly whispers whether he’s got a girlfriend or what it’d be like to date him.

Finally, you’re able to ask the question that’s been weighing on your tongue. “So, what’s the big deal with Mr. Murata? Why does everyone seem to love him?”

Miyeon and Yuqi exchange an amused look as if to say, Oh, this girl. “You haven’t met him, Y/N. You’ll understand as soon as you see him. And you’ll become one of us after you’ve talked to him,” Miyeon explains.

“It’d be fine if he was just hot,” Yuqi continues. “And that, he is. But he also happens to be extremely kind, funny, easy to work with, and good at what he does.”

“Obviously, any man that showers every night and isn’t insufferable to talk to for more than two minutes is going to be popular in our office, seeing the material we’re working with,” Miyeon says as she scans the room, lasers of sheer disgust pointing out of her narrowed eyes.

She isn’t wrong in that you’ve never seen this many people at once wearing graphic t-shirts with mathematical puns or anime characters. And it’s a work setting. Nicholas and a few other of your male coworkers stand out in their button-ups or knitted sweaters and hair that somewhat looks styled—no wonder hordes of people drool over Mr. Murata if he’s as good-looking as Yuqi says.

“But even without comparing him to other men at Jellyfish? He’s a catch and a half. I know he’d make my head turn in the street,” Miyeon concludes, shrugging and taking a sip of her beer like she’s resolved herself to the fact of having a crush on her colleague.

“So is it like a Mr. Murata belongs to everyone sort of situation?” you joke, thinking of all the high school shojos you’ve seen where popular male students were out of everyone’s reach, as a matter of general peace-keeping. “No one girl can have him because the others would riot?”

The girls laugh. “A little,” Miyeon concedes. “Let’s just say that if he dated someone out of the office, it might make a few people jealous, but she wouldn’t get like… doxxed or anything.”

“And anyway, HR is pretty strict about workplace relationships, so most people run around trying not to get caught. Not that they never do,” Yuqi adds with a smile. 

You’re about to ask more questions, eager to know about what you’re sure are the many rumors circulating around the office, but cheers from the other side of the room grab your table’s attention. It seems like someone has managed to get employees from different departments to all play a drinking game together. Around the room, others get up to join—when you check on Nicholas, he’s sitting alone at his table, smiling hazily at the commotion his coworkers are making, the flush on his cheeks visible from here. He never could handle his alcohol very well. 

With everyone mostly distracted, you take the opportunity to slip away from your table and head towards Nicholas. After what Yuqi and Miyeon said about the relationship between your department and Nicholas’, there’s a vague feeling of entering enemy territory, like you’re Juliet sneaking out to meet Romeo. But who knows? Maybe the two of you will mark the end of the rivalry between Designers and Engineers.  

He smiles at you as you approach, keeping his eyes on you the whole time until you sit by his side. Even his ears and throat are flushed red. “Hi,” you say, giggling at the stupidly content look on his face. You’ve rarely seen him so tipsy—conscious of being a lightweight, he never drank much when you, Chaewon and Euijoo went out. You wonder if he felt uncomfortable, sitting at a table of near strangers. 

“Hi,” he replies, then mirrors your laugh. “Having fun?”

“Yeah, my coworkers are great. Didn’t feel like joining yours?” you ask, nodding your head towards the group of them downing shot after shot.

Nicholas shakes his head. “Needed a little break from socializing.”

“Oh. Should I leave you alone?” you say, trying not to side as disappointed as you feel. Nicholas has always been on the more introverted side, you should know better than to take it personally.

He hums a ‘no’ sound, shaking his head again, harder this time. “Stay. It feels different with you. Less like work.”

You smile. Look at him, being an honest type of drunk. Maybe one more pint and he’ll be telling you how much he cherishes your friendship, like Chaewon at 2 a.m. whenever you go out clubbing.

You’re a little more extraverted than Nicholas, being in the presence of others requires more effort for him than for you, but you still immediately know what he means. Less judgment, less expectations, less of a role to play. You can just be… yourself.

He’s really cute like this, all tipsy and messy hair and more open than usual. It almost makes you want to tease him, to see how many nice words you might exert out of him now that his filter is dampened. But you don’t. Instead, you smile at him, and tell him how glad you are to have been hired together. To have a familiar face around. 

When you say this, he closes his eyes like a woman in a yogurt ad, all blissed-out and perfectly content, like a better dairy product has never existed. “Me too,” he simply replies. His eyes open slowly, gazing into yours with a fondness that makes your heart skip. 

Nicholas has a lingering problem. Back at university, whenever your eyes met across a table or a room, while you were quick to look away, he always stayed there for a few seconds before focusing on something else. While you tapped his shoulder to get his attention or flicked his forehead to tell him off, his hand remained on your lower back to guide you through a crowd or took its slow time pinching tree fallings from your hair, dust from your jacket.

Tonight is no different, except that you decide you’ll linger, too, just to see what it’s all about. Of course, you instantly realize it’s a disastrous idea. With every second you stare into Nicholas’ eyes, whole universes seem to expand inside them, flecks of gold glittering in seas of dark, intense brown. You make the fatal mistake of letting your eyes trail down his face, taking in his pristine skin, honey hidden behind the blush of his cheeks, until they reach his lips, slightly apart and so pink and plump and kissable and—

You look away. You’re short of breath, heart beating so hard you feel it in your throat. You take Nicholas’ pint and down the rest of it, needing something to cool you down, but it’s gone stale and lukewarm and the sound of his laughter when you grimace in disgust only makes your face feel hotter. You eventually find an excuse to make your way back to your table, trying not to look suspicious under Yuqi’s and Miyeon’s curious gazes even as the moment replays on a loop in your mind.

.

.

D-1593. 4 years, 4 months, 9 days earlier

The office is far too agitated for nine on a Monday morning. There’s chatter all around you, your coworkers craning their heads in the direction of your department lead’s office, like they’re all trying to get a peek. All you see is the back of a dark-haired head and a pair of broad shoulders. As you take a seat at your desk, you don’t even need to ask to find out what’s going on. With his huge, characteristic grin, Taki skips the greetings and immediately tells you that Murata Fuma is back. 

“He’s in the office with Mr. Lee right now. I talked to him, Y/N. Like actually exchanged words with this guy.”

“That’s… great?”

“It is! He’s the whole reason I joined this company in the first place.”

You try to immerse yourself in your work, but with all that background noise of whispers and giggles, the words on the script you’re supposed to be revising don’t quite reach your brain. When you look around the office, you see it’s not just your department jabbering away, but practically the whole floor—and mostly women, just as Mrs. Kang had said on your first day here. This Murata guy seems more like the lead singer of a pop-rock band, his adoring fans waiting for him outside a venue after a concert, than the Narrative Designer at a medium-sized video game company that he is. 

Finally, the door to Mr. Lee’s office opens, and even you can’t help but raise your head at the sound. You now have visual access to Mr. Murata’s side profile, which is worlds more interesting than the back of his head. The two men shake hands vigorously, Mr. Lee’s hand on Murata’s shoulder as he tells him it’s nice to have him back. 

They walk towards your department together, and everyone’s either stood up or swivelled in their chair to face them before Mr. Lee’s even had to ask for a brief moment of their attention. “We will be celebrating Mr. Murata’s return with a team dinner in due time. How does Hanwoo beef sound?” he starts, which gets whoops and cheers from your team. This is probably one of the only times you’ll get to stare unabashedly at Mr. Murata, so you do—and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t get what all the hype was about. With a smile on his lips and his hands behind his back, he looks friendly and confident at once, like he knows he belongs at his Lead Designer desk without being a prick about it. It helps that he looks like he could be the male love interest in a 90s rom-com, his face the perfect balance of soft and masculine features, and like he takes his gym sessions seriously, his biceps visible through the fabric of his white button-up. You’d expected someone much older, a man of the salt-and-pepper variety that explained at once how he could be so respected for his work yet so beloved for his personality and looks. But to your surprise, he doesn’t even look like he’s in his thirties yet. Despite his higher position, he seems to be around Yuqi’s and Miyeon’s age, just a few years older than you.

Mr. Lee’s voice interrupts your analysis and you turn your attention to the older man, a pale sight in comparison, you must admit. “Let me just introduce him quickly for those of you who joined us in the months he was away. Murata Fuma is one of our Lead Designers here at Jellyfish, and a brilliant one at that. You’ll have heard of The Curious Village and many other successful projects he’s been a part of. This past year he was sent to our Los Angeles branch to work on a game whose creator had specifically asked for him as Narrative Designer. I’m sure he’ll be delighted to tell you about this experience, should any of you be curious. Please welcome him back warmly.” 

Your department and a few other neighbouring colleagues join Mr. Lee in a round of applause, to which Mr. Murata responds with a masterful half-bashful, half-proud expression, bowing his head slightly and thanking those around him, laughing when a few of your coworkers whoop for him. “Thank you. I’m sure you’re all very busy, so I won’t take up too much of your time,” he says once the applause dies down. “As much as I enjoyed my time in LA, I must admit that it’s very nice to be back among you all, and to meet some new faces,” he says, smiling at Taki, who seems on the brink of fainting. “Mr. Lee told me we’ve got some very exciting projects coming up, so I’m looking forward to getting back to work here.” 

It’s another half hour before Mr. Murata’s able to sit at his desk: everyone wants a moment of his time, a morsel of his attention. It’s like a demi-god has entered the premises of Jellyfish. You’d perhaps understand this sort of treatment from interns like Taki and other regular employees, but even his peers and superiors seem enthused by his presence, almost deferential towards him. You’re curious, although a little confused—what on Earth has this man done to deserve such respect and adoration? 

Maybe if you talked to him, you’d find out. But he’s busy catching up with everyone else, letting Miyeon and Yuqi smother him in office gossip he probably does not need to know so urgently, listening to other Designers get him up to speed with the department’s most recent and ongoing projects, everyone hoping to sway him in their project’s favor. No one thinks to introduce him to the interns, and while Taki looks like a kicked puppy for not getting to exchange more words with him (he’s already recounted their thirty-second exchange three times to you), you don’t take it too personally. You’ll get to interact with him eventually. 

You keep your eyes on the script and try to work, but it isn’t your fault your ear picks up some snippets of his conversations. They are speaking in the middle of the office. You notice that he does have this friendly quality about him. His smile rarely leaves his face, and he manages to make it look genuine even while one of your coworkers talks to him about her newborn baby for five minutes straight. He’s polite, but not cold; listens to others intently but can delight them with anecdotes of his own. He manages to make a typical kerfuffle with a Game Engineer over technical constraints sound like the most entertaining story that’s ever been told. 

The general excitement that buzzed throughout the office seems to have mostly faded by lunchtime. For everyone, except for Taki, apparently. Eating with Nicholas and Yizhuo, the other Game Engineer intern, in the company cafeteria, he can’t stop talking about Murata, and Murata’s arrival, and Murata’s games, and when you tease him about having a crush on the man, he blushes so furiously you think you might’ve actually guessed right. 

Next to him, Yizhuo listens intently, interrupting here and there to recount Murata-related gossip in the Engineering department. He’s apparently one of the slightly less hated of Designers among Engineers, because while he gets just as many crazy ideas as the rest of them, she says with air-quotes, he is also the most willing to find more efficient alternatives and doesn’t bitch up a storm whenever one of his ideas can’t be implemented. “I tried telling them about the misogynistic undertones of that statement but they ignored me. Who would’ve guessed? Anyway, now that I’ve seen him, I definitely get why half of the office is in love with him. That man is hot,” she concludes, stuffing a meatball in her mouth. 

As is his usual, Nicholas stays relatively quiet throughout lunch, only laughing or asking a question here and there. You think he’s just fundamentally disinterested in office gossip and romance, so it takes you aback when on your walk to the café across the street, he asks you what you think of “this Murata guy.”

“What I think of him?” you repeat, surprised to hear this topic brought up again by Nicholas of all people.

He shrugs, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. “Yeah. You didn’t say much during lunch, so I was curious.”

“I don’t know, Weno. I haven’t spoken to him yet, but he seems nice enough. And he sounds like he’s great at his job.” 

“And do you find him… hot?” You pause, then burst into laughter. Nicholas frowns, and is that a little red you see dusting his cheeks? “I’m just repeating what Yizhuo said,” he says, sulky.

You sigh, amused. “I mean… He’s objectively quite handsome, yes. But I like to think that a person is only truly hot if their personality goes with it.”

“Oh?” When you turn your face towards your friend, he still seems a little bit embarrassed, but a small smirk tugs at one corner of his lips, warning you of the turn this conversation might take. “And what kind of personality would that be?”

“I don’t know. It’s not just about being attractive, it’s about…” Being kind. Being attentive. Being thoughtful. “Just being a decent person, I guess. Even with a pretty face, an asshole is an asshole. And assholes aren’t deserving of the hot title.”

He chuckles. “That’s vague. Who do you know fits that description, then?”

Thankfully, your brain is faster than your lips, and you’re able to stop yourself from replying “You.” Nicholas’ good looks and kindness aren’t news. Even your attraction towards him isn’t much of a surprise; by now, you’ve come to accept it for the fact it is, like the blueness of the sky or the sunrise every morning. But admitting it to yourself and admitting to him are two wildly different things. This friendship is too precious to you to ever risk it, and so you don’t even like daydreaming about what might happen if you told your friend you sometimes thought of him as more than that, whether that outcome is positive or negative. 

You reach the crosswalk, but too lost in your thoughts, you don’t realize it’s still red. With a quick stretch of his arm, Nicholas stops you just as a car whizzes past. “Careful,” he says, voice low, meeting your gaze.

Your heart skips a beat, from the near-death experience, or from Nicholas’ sudden proximity, you aren’t sure. They feel similar.

“Thanks,” you say, your head swiveling towards the crosswalk light. It’s still damnedly red, and while Nicholas barely looked at you the whole walk, his eyes now burn holes in the side of your face. Surely, he couldn’t have guessed at your thoughts? “Anyway,” you continue, eager to get away from this topic, “we’ve never talked about… guys, or crushes, or anything remotely even of that sort even in college, so let’s not start now.”

It’s only thanks to Chaewon, who gets her intel from Euijoo, who gets his intel from badgering Nicho, and thanks to hints that he’s dropped in conversations here and there, that you know anything about his love life. That he had a girlfriend in high school that he broke up with before moving to Seoul for university. That he sometimes saw her during summer break, although you have no idea whether he ever wanted for them to get back together. That out of nine girls in his CompSci class, four of them asked him out at some point. That he said yes to one only, at first only because she was among the top students, but that they really did go out for a bit in third year. Which you never saw firsthand, since it was during your year abroad.

“Why not?” he asks.

“Because… It’s awkward. You don’t need to know about the kind of man I like. And it’s not like there’d be much to tell, anyway.” You aren’t completely made of stone. That summer at camp with Soobin was fun, and there are guys you’ve found cute, crushes you’ve made up to have a reason to go to classes you didn’t like. And while you find yourself having a grand old time talking to Chaewon about them while sharing a bottle of rosé, you don’t see yourself telling Nicholas about them. You never even thought he’d be interested to hear about them. This conversation was just confusing you further with every passing second.

Perhaps sensing he’s hitting a wall, Nicholas retreats. “Okay, sure. Well, if you ever change your mind, I’m here.”

Finally, the light turns green. “Just buy me my caramel frappuccino, Wang.”

You smile at each other. “You know I will,” he says.

.

.

D-1455. 3 years, 11 months, 25 days earlier

The first few months of your internship, you feel like you’re constantly running around the company, making yourself useful where you can, assisting your superiors where they require your help. They give you small, slightly repetitive tasks, but you know every last detail matters in creating video games, so you take pride in the work you do. Even when that work entails coming up with dozens and dozens of lines for NPC barks and background chatter. There’s only so many creative ways to make a mysterious entity tell the player they shouldn’t tread further.

It’s fun, and you learn more in a month there than in your lifetime of amateur game writing but you do miss the satisfaction of working on one specific game and watching it inch closer to fruition every day. After hinting at this once or twice during check-ins with your supervisor, you finally get assigned to a big project that requires many hands. No Way Back II is the sequel to one of Jellyfish’s games that got popular three years ago, receiving praise from critics and players alike—there’s a lot hanging on this new release, and it’s at once terrifying and exciting to be a part of it, even if your creative input is minimal. Your tasks are mostly the same as before, but at least they’re all focused on this one game. Mrs. Kang even said that if you do well, you might be able to start drafting your own side quests or alternative scenarios eventually.

What’s more, Nicholas is also working on this project. You don’t interact much, since everything both of you do has to go through your superiors first, but it’s still amusing, sitting quietly across from him during a meeting, looking all serious and focused, or trying not to burst into laughter when you meet each other’s gazes as your teams go through the same arguments they repeat every week. The Designers have great ideas, but don’t realize how much work goes into even the simplest of requests; the Engineers don’t seem to understand how crucial certain additional plot points are to the player’s experience. If you took a shot every time your side mentioned emotional beats and player immersion, or Nicholas’ team emphasized clean architecture and technical constraints, you’d end up black-out wasted at one of these meetings. Sometimes, you wish you would.

Everyone stays very civil to each other, starting their sentences with, “I understand, but…” or “That sounds perfect in theory, but…” but by the end of the hour, it’s clear that frustrations are running high. Although everyone in the room wants to achieve the same goal, namely to create a good game, each side’s view of what that means are so different that agreements are hell to reach. 

The first few meetings were interesting, to see first-hand how these negotiations went, how either side convinced the Game Creator, who had the final say in what would be cut or not, who decided which of the Designers’ ideas would be worth the additional work for Engineers. But when twice a week, you have to listen to the same people make the same arguments, it gets a little tiring. If it wasn’t for Nicholas discreetly rolling his eyes when only you were looking at him, you’re not sure how you’d get through them with all of your sanity still about you.

During your hang-outs with Euijoo and Chaewon, whenever the topic of work comes up, you and Nicho rat out your respective teams, recounting both sides of a conflict at the details omitted by his coworkers and the ones exaggerated by yours, the way they never fail to make the other side sound irrational or overly stubborn or bad-faithed. Of course, you’ve never told him that nine times out of ten you fully understand your coworkers and realize that you’d probably react the same way—frustrated and wishing the Engineers could show a little more… whimsy. You also never mention how uncomfortable these arguments make you, in case it would worry Chaewon and bring Nicholas’ attention to you the next time one occurs during a meeting. Plus, you objectively know that on the scale of conflicts, these are very tame, mere professional disagreements. You’d probably look a little ridiculous, admitting how much they stress you out, how much you apprehend them.

Today’s meeting starts out fine, as it always does. Your team kicks things off, Mr. Murata going over the last revisions they’ve made to their script, Mrs. Kang asking, “Think you can make it work this time?” in a tone she probably intends more playful than what actually comes out. Mr. Song, Nicholas’ supervisor and the lead Engineer on this project, cocks an eyebrow at her remark but acquiesces. It’s when they start discussing the new quest that things get tense. You can tell Mrs. Kang tries to keep herself in check, but the longer she details her vision for this part of the game, the more her excitement takes over: with a glint in her eyes and the help of a flowchart she designed herself, she goes over all the dialogue options a player might go for, and their subsequent consequences. She talks in the Game Creator’s direction more than in the Engineers’, knowing it’s him she truly needs to convince. It also allows her to ignore whenever Song cocks his head to the side in a show of doubt or frowns at some of her more complex ideas. “Some of these might seem insignificant at first, but they turn out to have an impact later down the line. It makes players realize that even the smallest of choices matter, that nothing in this game is left up to chance.”

The Game Creator nods along to her words, letting a few beats of silence pass before asking what Engineering thinks. Song unhesitatingly launches into his reply. “These are all good ideas in theory—” (take a shot) “—but implementing all of it isn’t feasible.” Even at the front of the room, standing before her Powerpoint presentation, you can see Mrs. Kang tense. You brace yourself for the oncoming conflict. Even if you’re not in the middle of it, the raised voices and impassioned tones trigger something inside of you, make you feel uneasy. Song continues. “Some of these options ultimately result in routes that are very similar to each other, so it’d be a waste of time mapping all of them out. We should focus on two, three at the very most.”

She inhales deeply, in a practiced manner that shows how many times she’s had this exact conversation. “They may seem similar now, but they have long-term consequences. They change things about the protagonist’s personality—”

“These changes are so small, it’ll all look the same to the player, and it’ll just make them confused—”

“It’s because the changes are gradual that the emotional build-up is satisfactory—”

And it just goes on and on, both of them airing out the same grievances they do every week, never listening to the other, not even bothering to wait for the other to be done speaking to interrupt them, only managing to reach an agreement because at the end of the day, it’s the Creator who gets the final say.

So, you and Nicholas sit there silently, exchanging half-amused, half-exasperated glances. You already know you’ll have a field day rehashing this exact moment next time you hang out. 

And indeed, that weekend, when you join Chaewon and Euijoo for a drink at a bar near their apartment and the couple asks you about work, all it takes is a shared look with Nicholas for you to launch into a rant about the tensions between your teams and the immature attitudes of your coworkers, who spend fifteen minutes after these meetings complaining about each other. Nicholas mostly listens with a smile on his face, adding precisions here and there or sharing what his own team grumbled about. As always, you both agree that while it’s normal for each side to feel frustrated with the other, there’s no reason for anyone to be acting so childishly. You think it’ll end there, as it always does, reaching the conclusion that you won’t behave like them later on in your careers. But then, Nicho says something that gives you pause.

“To be fair, your supervisor’s ideas were starting to be a little far-fetched. Just listening to her, I knew most of it would take way too much time to code.”

Your head whips towards him, but you say nothing for a couple of seconds, taken aback to hear Nicholas say anything even remotely in his team’s favor for the first time. Up until now, you’ve both been very neutral about this issue, willing to understand the other’s side and admit your own’s faults. But suddenly, you feel the need to rush to Mrs. Kang’s defence, like a comment on her work is a comment on your own, on the very essence of what your department does. 

“Far-fetched?” you repeat, too stunned to say anything else, wary but still interested to know more of what he thinks.

He takes a sip of his beer, shrugs. He seems relaxed, but your heart starts to beat a little harder, the way it always does when arguments start to brew in the meeting room. “Yeah. I mean, I get what she’s going for, but she’s doing a little too much. It’s unrealistic to ask us to code all of it, and anyway, it would only make the gameplay heavy.”

Your hand suddenly feels clammy around your glass of beer. These are not new grievances—they’re practically identical to what his supervisor accused yours of in the last meeting. You remember Mrs. Kang, hunched over her keyboard, all of the dialogue and options she poured her heart into to make sure the player felt truly immersed in the universe of the game, and to ensure an entirely new experience every time someone decided to start a new game.

“It’s exactly the charm of the game that there are so many options. If a thousand people play it, a thousand different stories will happen.”

Nicholas starts to say, “I just think that might get overwhelming for the player,” but when you scoff, he interrupts himself. “What?”

Staring at him, you search his face for a reminder that this is your friend you’re talking to, not a colleague you need to convince of the value of your work. His brows are furrowed, his cheeks a little red from the alcohol, or from this conversation, maybe, and you immediately regret scoffing. It feels rude, and unlike anything that has its place between you and Nicholas.

“I just… Mrs. Kang just wants to make the gameplay as full as possible, player immersion is all she thinks about when she’s writing—”

“Is it really?”

You frown. “What do you mean?”

Nicholas turns away with a sigh, like even he doesn’t want to say what he does next. “I don’t know. It just seems to me like she makes it about herself when she wants to write the coolest story ever, with way too many details and possible outcomes, and forgets about the actual player along the way—”

“Are you really that worried about player experience? Or does your team just want to have to code as little as possible?”

This time, it’s Nicholas’ head that whips towards you. “Where’s that coming from?” he asks, defensive now, but before you can reply, Chaewon reaches a hand towards you, making both of you turn to her.

“Okay, let’s maybe not talk about work anymore.”

You blink a few times, as if remembering yourself and your surroundings. In all your years of friendship, this is the first semblance of an argument you and Nicholas have ever had. Even while you gamed or worked together, situations that can get tense and feel disproportionately high-stakes, you’ve never come close to this. Nicholas is easily the calmest, most patient person you’ve ever met, and you’ve never liked to be in any sort of conflict. The few times you’ve felt pangs of annoyance towards him, they were short-lived and easily forgotten. 

Your stomach hurts, and your skin prickles with residual anger, but what you feel most is confusion. You’ve always cared about making games, even more so since starting this internship—even with such a minor role as yours, you feel a deep connection to this current project. You’ve found every idea that Mrs. Kang and Mr. Murata have come up with terrific, and while you understand concessions are necessary, every time something was scrapped, you couldn’t help but feel as though the quality of the game would dip just that much. That Nicholas, of all people, Nicholas who tried his damnedest to implement all of your ideas when you worked together for that competition back in college, Nicholas who always saw your vision and managed to transform its vagueness into solid code, couldn’t see what you saw now, irritated you. Perhaps irrationally so. 

“Right, sorry,” you manage to say with an awkward chuckle. “I got a little carried away.” Nicholas says it’s okay and quickly returns the apology, and that’s that. Euijoo switches the topic to an old professor of his that he ran into at the supermarket, and no one mentions work again. 

But you’re unable to shake off that lingering tension in your body for the rest of the night. Throughout the evening, you’re hyperaware of Nicholas’ presence next to you, every brush of his arm or knee against yours feeling like a slap in the face. Some deep, hidden part of you, which you don’t exactly understand and can’t say you’re proud of, wants to goad him into another argument, to get him riled up again, to get yourself riled up. Just to see what happens. How far it could go. But obviously, you don’t. Just because a stupid voice in the back of your head is curious to find out whether there are things left unsaid, doesn’t mean you’re going to listen to it. Maybe you’ve just spent too much time with your team, and their rhetoric has infiltrated your head. You know that Engineers have a lot on their plate on top of Designers’ demands; of course, you do. 

In the end, to your surprise, it’s Nicholas who brings it up again. Chaewon and Euijoo have already gone home, and he waits for your train with you before going his own way. “Is that what your team says about us? That the reason we reject some of your ideas is so we have less work?” he asks, but his tone isn’t defensive or accusing; it’s genuine, and even a little sad, that you could think of him like this, perhaps. 

You suddenly feel very guilty for even briefly wanting to push this further. Nicholas’ small, probably unconscious pout, the way he kicks at invisible rocks while listening to your answer, makes you feel like a monster. “I mean… some of my coworkers have hinted at it, yes. But I don’t think that way. I get that you can’t make everything we want come true. We like to aim for the stars, I’ll give you that. But, Nicho… You haven’t seen them work on a quest for weeks, only to find out they need to cut it by half. It feels like so much time and effort gone to waste, all because your superiors won’t add a few more lines of code.”

He stuffs his hands in his back pockets. “But it’s never just a few lines of code. It’s whole new branches that need to be tied up cleanly by the end. Just one additional option means hours, maybe even days of work on our side. Some of your demands seem easy to you, but they require us to change the entire structure of our program.”

You’re silent for a little while. You know this. You’ve seen Nicholas at work. But he made it look so easy back then, never made you feel like what you asked for was unrealistic, and even when it was, he found ways around it. Finally, you say, “Could you… show me, one day? What it looks like? My head hurts just thinking about the little coding I did back at university, and they were for the most basic things ever. Maybe if I really saw the work that went into it, I’d understand.”

When you meet Nicholas’ gaze, he’s smiling, looking genuinely pleased that you’ve asked. “Of course. We’ll find some time over lunch this week. And you can tell me all about your ideas for this game. I’m sure you’ve got plenty, but can’t share them with your supervisors just yet.”

You grin back. He hit it right on the nose; of course, he did. “Sounds good.”

“And in the meantime, let’s keep work at work. Even if we disagree on something, let’s not bring it up after we clock out. Let’s not make it the others’ problem.”

You nod. “Yeah, you’re right. Chaewon looked like she was on the verge of passing out,” you half-joke. You’d hardly ever seen your friend so worried. 

“She really did,” Nicholas says, chuckling. “And Joo clearly had no idea what to do with himself. I wonder if they ever argue.”

“They definitely don’t. They both look like lost kittens, they’re probably unable to even get mad at each other.”

Nicholas laughs, then you’re both silent for a little while. Your train is set to arrive in a minute, but before you can tell him he should head out now, he starts speaking. His voice is slow, and his eyes stay trained on the empty tracks in front of you. “I…” he hesitates, cocking his head to the side. “I didn’t like arguing with you. If you can even call that an argument. It didn’t feel nice.”

And just like that, what felt like a peaceful moment with your friend turns into something more, something you can’t bring yourself to name—especially when you doubt he feels the same. Your heart beats a little faster as you reply, “No, it didn’t.” And maybe it’s the alcohol lowering your inhibitions, or it’s Nicholas opening up to you in his own way, that makes you say what you say next. “But it was kind of interesting.”

“Interesting?”

One corner of your lips tugs upwards. “Yeah, it was like seeing another side of you. You know, you’re kind of cute when you get mad.”

Okay, it’s definitely the alcohol talking. But when Nicholas’ cheeks redden ever-so-slightly, and he purses his lips in a clear attempt to bite back a smile, you think that might not be such a terrible thing. “Your train’s here,” he says.

You roll your eyes playfully, taking a step towards the opening doors. “Anything to get out of complimenting me back, I see.”

You step onto the train, and when you turn back to face him, he’s smiling fully. “You’re cute, too.”

And you probably look like a crazy woman on the train, smiling to yourself the whole way back home.

.

.

D-1390. 3 years, 9 months, 18 days earlier

You haven’t interacted with Mr. Murata much while working on No Way Back II. It’s mostly Mrs. Kang who gives you tasks and feedback; while this is her main project at the moment, Mr. Murata’s attention is divided between multiple games, so he only solicits you or Taki once in a while to assist him on easy but time-consuming tasks. 

With the first semester coming to a close, everyone has deadlines they’re rushing to meet. From your first internship in Japan, you knew that working overtime was considered part of the job, so you haven’t complained too much when you had tasks that took thirty minutes, an hour past the end of your day. But this stretch has been insane—last week alone, you had dinner at the office three nights out of five. You’re never alone, clocking out with two or three coworkers that also stayed back, while the others either decide to come in earlier or to take their work home. But no way in hell are you waking up at five in the morning, and you know you won’t be able to focus once in your apartment with the siren call of your bed just a door away. 

There’s only one night where you find yourself truly alone in the office—even Nicholas clocked out after asking you five times if you were sure you didn’t want to leave with him. But, satisfied with your work, Mrs. Kang has tasked you with writing the dialogue for a small side quest she designed. She even said you could tweak a few things here and there. In the grand scheme of things, it isn’t the side quest that’ll change the entire course of the game, but you feel a world of pressure on your shoulders, and you won’t quit until it’s perfect. 

It’s nearing ten p.m. now, at least two hours since you’ve been alone here. But you’re almost done, only have one more conversation with one of the companion characters to write, one last thorough check-up of your draft, and you’ll be free to go home. You want to be able to show this to Mrs. Kang tomorrow morning so that it’ll be one less thing for her to worry about. 

You’re so immersed in your work that when a male voice appears from behind you, saying, “Still in here?” you yelp, nearing jumping out of your own skin. You swivel around in your chair, armed with a sharp pencil and a “I’m terrified but don’t fuck with me” look. Thankfully, it’s only Mr. Murata, who doesn’t even bother to hide his amusement. “Nice reflexes you got there, Ms. Y/L/N.” 

Through your nerves, you’re briefly charmed by the way he calls you by your last name, a show of respect amidst people who always called you by your first name without asking or by just calling out, “Intern!” unbothered whether you or Taki come rushing over. 

“Oh,” you simply say, lowering your pencil back to your desk. “Sorry, Mr. Murata. I got startled.”

“Yeah, I saw that.” He lights his desk lamp, his soft features now bathing in golden light, a playful smile on his lips. Almost like he’s refraining from teasing you further. “I just came back to drop off my laptop. I made the dumb mistake of taking it home with me, but I know I’ll work through the night if I keep it.”

“That’s probably a good call. You’ve been working hard lately, you deserve a break,” you say, then immediately regret your words, questioning whether what you meant as friendly, professional concern might sound like showing too much interest. “I mean, the whole team has,” you add quickly. With the way his smile widens, you think you might’ve just made it worse. It makes you wince internally.

“So have you,” he replies. “We can head out together. It’s getting late.” There’s a hint of worry in the furrow of his brows. It should feel out of place between two coworkers that have rarely ever interacted, albeit being on the same team, but it doesn’t. It feels genuine.

You glance at the unfinished script on your laptop, wavering momentarily. “I just have a few things to wrap up. I’m almost done.”

Mr. Murata stares at you for a few beats, seeming to be deep in thought. It only lasts a few seconds, but you find yourself unable to look away, like you have to stay there and find out what he’s thinking about. Eventually, he says, “Okay. Can I just run something by you, then? Keep you hostage for a little longer.”

You grin back. “Sure.”

He rolls a chair towards your desk and sits, opening up his laptop to a Powerpoint presentation. “I have an important meeting tomorrow. I couldn’t stop tweaking this presentation all evening, even when there was nothing left to change anymore,” he says, and you nod, relating silently. “I have this idea, but I really need to get Producer Kim on board if we want to convince the Programming team…”

You listen intently as he tells you about his plan to make NPCs remember every interaction with the protagonist and have their reactions and dialogue based on the level of trust and amiability they feel towards them. It’s a brilliant idea, in line with the overall theme of the game of every little choice mattering, but you understand why he’s apprehensive about this meeting. The Programmers would have to search through their code for every NPC interaction and create new variables. And if you took anything away from that conversation you had with Nicholas a few months back, it’s that this sort of task is no easy feat. It’d take weeks to complete. Might even delay the schedule slightly. Mr. Murata himself acknowledges it’d be more work for everyone involved.

But… “It’s worth it,” you say. “If you explain it the way you just did to me at that meeting tomorrow, I don’t know how anyone could be unconvinced. Producer Kim mentioned wanting NPCs to be important in the game. This would be the perfect way to make that happen.”

Mr. Murata looks visibly relieved. While he talked, there was a nervous edge to his voice, in the way he kept glancing back-and-forth between you and his screen. It endeared you to him, this man who always seems so sure of himself when he gives a presentation or even just walks around the office. It makes him more… human. Like he isn’t just some sort of genius, swoonworthy game-writing machine, the way everyone has made him out to be.

“Thank you, Ms Y/L/N. If I get this to go through, will you work on it with me?” he asks, grin wide, hopeful, almost childish in a way. Your eyes widen. This is a momentous task, and not just in its timeframe, but in its importance to the game. By far the biggest thing you’ve been asked to do so far. Perhaps sensing your hesitation, he says, “If you’re not interested, that’s totally fine. But don’t decline because you think you aren’t capable.” He sighs, leans in slightly. “I’m sorry I haven’t been very present as a mentor. I’m supposed to assist Mrs. Kang in supervising you and Mr. Takayama, but as you can see, this project has been taking a lot of my time. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been keeping an eye out, and you always hand in stellar work, Ms. Y/L/N. Your writing flows nicely, you understand the characters deeply. I could definitely use a mind like yours for this.”

Oh, wow, you think. The delicious rush of professional validation washes over you, makes you giddy at the same time as it ties your tongue. You open your mouth to start speaking twice, only getting it right on the third time: “It’d be an honor, Mr. Murata. Thank you so much.”

He leans back, satisfied. “And thank you for listening to me. Now, finish up what you’re doing quickly, and get home safe, yeah?” he says, standing up. “I don’t like knowing you’re out so late.”

Your eyes widen again, but this time, it’s for a very different reason. If what you said earlier was concern between coworkers, the way he worded this sounds a lot more… intimate. He must hear this too, because he looks just as surprised as you feel, and starts shaking his hand as if to stop you from getting the wrong idea. “Sorry! I just mean, you know, it’s never safe for any woman. At your age especially.”

His bashfulness undoes yours, and you grin, amused. He looks visibly relieved that he hasn’t offended you. You remember just how young he actually is. He may be your superior, but he can’t be more than what, five, six years older than you? Coming from Mr. Lee, you wouldn’t even have questioned what he said. The man probably bakes cookies for his grandchildren on weekends. But from someone like Mr. Murata… well, it could easily be misconstrued, especially if he’s aware of his reputation at work. He doesn’t seem like the sort to wilfully lead someone on. 

“Thank you, Mr. Murata. You get home safe, too.”

“Right,” he says, clearing his throat, looking a little sheepish. He turns away, then turns back. “Call me Fuma, please. We’ll be working together, so… I find it more comfortable.”

“Okay, Fuma,” you say, trying on the new title like a pair of shoes at the store. It fits well. “Call me Y/N.”

He smiles. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow, Y/N. Good night.”

“Good night.”

With one last glance in your direction, he picks up his coat and heads out. In the silence of the office, your heartbeat’s a little louder than usual.

Okay. You think you get it now.

.

.

D-1368. 3 years, 8 months, 27 days

Fuma had been right to expect some pushback from Engineering. His idea easily charms Producer Kim, but Mr. Song all but assails him once the presentation is over, badgering him question after question. Once or twice, he glances over at you; all you can do is smile reassuringly, but it seems to give him the boost he needs, and he holds his ground against Song and other Engineers. 

In the end, the idea does go through, albeit in a reduced form. There won’t be the nuance Fuma was hoping for, but it’s better than nothing and he seems satisfied. 

He finds you after the meeting, thanking you again for your help, waving you off when you say you barely did anything. “I’ve got a couple things to finish up, then we’ll get started on this, yeah?” he asks, and you nod. He grins. “Perfect. What’s your schedule for tomorrow like?”

And that’s how, for the following month, you find yourself working with Fuma a few times a week in one of the smaller meeting rooms. You’re surprised at how… easy it is. Enjoyable, even. Ideas keep flowing out of you, egged on by his own imagination and creativity, and the both of you keep getting carried away, floating way past the frame he and Mr Song have agreed upon. It’s always disappointing when one of you notices this, and brings you both back down to Earth. When you’re not exchanging ideas, you’re working on your respective parts quietly, sometimes breaking the comfortable silence to get a second opinion.

Once, when a discussion over one of the companion characters slides into a more personal one, and you tell each other about what drew you not just to games but to creating them, you realize that it isn’t only working with him that’s easy. It’s being with him, just talking to him like he’s your lifelong friend and not a coworker — a superior, even — you met three months ago. For someone who usually takes a while to open up, you find yourself wanting to tell him everything—and you probably would, if he only asked. There’s something about his easy-goingness, the warmth of his smile, his own willingness to share personal stories and anecdotes, even the embarrassing ones, that makes you think it’s okay to tell him things. That he won’t make fun of you. Maybe that he’ll even care. 

It’s destabilising. It took a whole semester of living with Chaewon for you to start telling her about your family. Even longer to tell her about your deepest fears and insecurities, and only when it felt right—in the darkness of one of your rooms, when she wanted to have a sleepover despite sharing an apartment, or on the bus, going home from a party where you’d had one drink over your usual limit. 

Even with Euijoo and Nicholas, your closest friends after Chaewon, you don’t feel compelled to share anything too personal, anything that could change the way they see you. But unlike Chaewon, who’s always scratching at your surface, this wall you’ve put up doesn’t seem to bother them. Why would it? It’s not like there’s anything particularly interesting to see behind it. Just your common load of the consequences of bad parenting and trust issues, like every other person on this planet. You neither understand why anyone would want to know about it, nor how they could stick around once they did. Chaewon truly is an abnormal person. You remember meeting her and being flabbergasted that anyone would willingly share so much of themselves: their fears, their aspirations, their crushes. You remember her being flabbergasted that you wouldn’t do the same so easily.

Maybe Fuma’s weird, too. Because when you tell him you got into fiction and gaming for escapism, he asks why. Wants to know what kind of world ten-year-old you lived in that she already wanted to run from it. And the weirdest part, is you tell him. Not in excruciating, tear-jerking detail, but the basic facts of it. The emotionally distant parents. How their only reaction to you or your brother throwing tantrums or expressing any sort of intense emotion was to ignore you. The way it became easier to feel things when it was a protagonist feeling them. You feel silly the moment the words leave your lips, like you’ve overshared in this deeply embarrassing, unprofessional way, and the way silence stretches as he stares at you only worsens that feeling. But then, he speaks again, tells you that games were the only thing he had in common with his dad, a widower who spent more time at work than at home, giving his son money to stay at the PC café after school. “Sometimes, instead of walking me home directly, he’d stay for an hour, and we’d play together. It was the only way we bonded, and even that was done virtually.” 

Minutes after your confessions, you get back to work. Fuma isn’t reporting you to HR or spreading rumors through the office. The only thing that’s changed is the way he smiles at you, like you share a secret. 

You’d be fine if it stayed at that, but Fuma has a way of showing up in unexpected places. Behind you in line at the office café, striking conversation and paying for your latte, only slightly teasing you for your four pumps of vanilla syrup. Beside you in front of the office as you wait for the rain to settle down, handing you his umbrella then making a run for it all the way to the subway station, his briefcase over his head, turning around briefly to grin at you. 

When your curiosity finally gets the best of you, and you download The Curious Village on a Friday night, then spend the weekend in front of your computer, your eyes are red and sensitive by the time you get to work the following Monday. He asks if something’s wrong, and you don’t know whether to be annoyed or delighted by the worry furrowing his brows. In any case, it makes you feel something, and you’re not sure what to do about that. When you tell him that Taki was right, his game is pretty good, he beams at you. Your confusion only grows.

Your general disinterest in men has made you think you wouldn’t be swayed by him the way your coworkers are. Could you have been wrong?

Overall, you do a pretty good job ignoring whatever it is you’re feeling, that is, until Nicholas confronts you with it. He’s noticed you seem to get along with Fuma, or so he says, at a bar after work on a Thursday, just the two of you while you wait for Chaewon and Euijoo to arrive. You simply cock an eyebrow at him. “I mean, you guys are always cooped up in that meeting room. I’ve heard you guys laughing. I can’t help that it’s right next to our department.”

It’s always hard to decipher Nicholas’ intentions. His expression is more often than not painfully neutral, and right now is no exception—although there’s something… put-on about his neutrality. Like he’s hiding something.

“Yeah, we get along,” you offer. “He’s easy to work with.” 

He nods slowly, taking a sip of his beer, and you think he’ll leave it there. But then, he adds, “That’s all?”

You cock your head at him. “What do you mean?”

“He’s only easy to work with? You don’t, I don’t know…”

You think you know what he’s trying to get at, but it wouldn’t hurt to tease your friend a little. After all, you’ve both been so busy at work lately, that you haven’t properly talked or joked around with him. It’s fun, seeing him like this again, struggling to find words, rolling his eyes at your smirk. Despite seeing him every day in the office, you realize you’ve missed this. 

You dismiss the feeling the moment you notice it. It’s normal to miss your friends.

“I don’t what, Nicho?”

He hesitates. “Like him, maybe?” he says, voice low, eyes furtive. The word ‘adorable’ comes to mind. You’ve seen him curse out people in three different languages while gaming, but he can barely talk about crushes without blushing. 

You lean back, thinking for a bit. It’s true that you aren’t as indifferent to Fuma now as you were originally. “I definitely don’t dislike him,” you eventually reply. Nicholas’ brows furrow, making you laugh. “Sorry, that’s a bit vague. He’s a colleague I enjoy working with, and a senior I respect. I haven’t figured out yet whether there’s more to it or not,” you say, although knowing it’s half of a lie. You do know there’s more to it—the skips of your heart when he smiles at you and the pang in your stomach when you see him laugh with other female coworkers, the way it makes you doubt whether he’s just nice to you the way he is to everyone else, are sure signs of that. But what good would come out of telling Nicholas about these things? You’ll tell Chaewon if she asks. But you work with Nicholas now, and it’d be embarrassing to reveal your office crush to him. It’s already embarrassing knowing he’s seen you with Fuma and assumed there was something there. For some reason, the thought of Nicholas seeing you laugh coquettishly or brush a strand of hair behind your ear, even though you’ve never done either of those things, terrifies you. Makes you somehow vulnerable to him in a way you can’t bear. 

It’d help if his face was less closed than a hardback without its dust jacket. That way, you’d maybe be able to tell whether he’s asking out of simple friendly curiosity, or out of… what exactly? Jealousy? His eyes are a little more narrowed than usual. And it is the second time he’s asked about Fuma specifically. But you almost laugh out loud at the mere thought of Nicholas caring that you’d like another man. 

Thankfully, with a final thoughtful nod, he drops the subject there, switching the topic to some indie game he found while scrolling through a list of new releases last week, then it isn’t long before your friends arrive. 

Afterwards, you don’t think much of this conversation, and Nicholas doesn’t mention it again. You’ve practically forgotten about it until, a few weeks later, everyone who’s working on No Way Back II has gathered to celebrate the end of a successful first semester at a bar near your workplace. Neither you nor Nicholas like drinking much, and you eventually find yourselves sitting together in a quieter corner of the room that was reserved for your company, watching your older colleagues laugh loudly and argue light-heartedly. You can’t help but glance in Fuma’s direction from time to time, making eye contact with him once or twice, but if Nicholas notices your furtive eyes, he says nothing, just sips his beer quietly as he always does.

From across the room, Yuqi catches your gaze and wiggles her eyebrows at you. You liked it better when she and Miyeon were suspicious of your friendship with Nicholas, accusing you of fraternising with the enemy. Now that they’ve seen he’s relatively harmless and that “his heart hasn’t yet been tainted by the rest of his team,” as they’d put it, they’ve instead started to tease you about him, asking when you met, if you’re sure he doesn’t have feelings for you. No matter how many times you tell them, they always find something to pick up on, your defensiveness whenever the topic comes up, the way you laughed with him that one time in the break room, the look they saw you exchange during a meeting. You know sitting here with him only makes things worse in Yuqi’s eyes: why are you spending time with the one person here you could see anytime outside of work, and not your coworkers you’ve specifically come here to celebrate with? 

Without thinking, you roll your eyes at her—you hadn’t meant to alert Nicholas to her behavior, had made a point of not telling him what they thought of the two of you, but you’d betrayed yourself just now. Rim of his glass against his lips, he freezes, slightly turning in his seat and glancing behind him, before turning back to you with a quizzical look on his face. Your cheeks heat up before he’s even asked the question. “What was that about?”

The pint you’ve had slows your brain, stops you from coming up with a believable lie, so you give in and tell him the truth. “Some of my coworkers have noticed that we… spend a lot of time together,” you say, suddenly very interested by the french fries in front of you. You pick one up and it’s as cold as it looks.

“And?” Nicholas asks.

Could the man show a little more emotion? You can’t tell if he’s amused, offended, confused, or none of the above.

“And…” you trail. There’s not many roundabout ways to say this. “They think we’re dating. Or that we inevitably will be.”

He cocks one eyebrow. Stares at you without saying anything for so long you wonder whether he’s even heard you. Then, slowly, one corner of his lips rises. “Oh,” is all he says. 

He’s not giving you much to work with, and you aren’t sure how to react. Should you laugh it off, be outraged on your and his behalf, decry the ideology that men and women can’t be friends? In the end, all you come up with is, “Yeah. Awkward, right?” 

His expression freezes. “Sure. I wonder where they got that from,” he says, looking away from you to take a swig of his beer.

Thankfully, before you can make this situation even worse than it already is, his phone lights up with a phone call. His face falls further and he excuses himself. 

Now alone, you could join your coworkers, or the table next to you, but you don’t feel like it. You like getting a few moments to yourself, and anyway, you’d feel bad if Nicholas came back and found you’d replaced him. It’s getting late, so you can get him to slip away with you pretty soon.

Checking your phone, you only have time to watch one of the many Reels that Chaewon sends you on a daily basis; you look up to find Fuma standing in front of you, beer in hand, clearing his throat before asking if he can take a seat.

You smile. “Of course.”

He sits where Nicholas was just moments ago, and, with no preamble, asks, “So, you and Nicholas, huh?”, taking you aback. It’d almost feel like an accusation if there wasn’t a playful smile on his lips. “I’ve heard what people say.”

“By people, do you mean Yuqi and Miyeon?” you ask, and he laughs.

“I won’t reveal my sources.”

“I didn’t take you for an office gossip, Fuma,” you reply, a slight edge of challenge to your tone. This feels different from your usual exchanges. Maybe it’s the relaxed atmosphere, the fact that everyone’s state ranges from tipsy to wasted, that gives you the confidence to talk to him like this. Or maybe it’s all Fuma’s smile, making you want to take yet another brick from your wall, scrub away at the mortar that has solidified over the years. 

“And you’re not answering my question.”

You chuckle. “Fine. Nicho and I have been friends since college. End of the story.”

As if unconvinced, Fuma cocks an eyebrow, but doesn’t push. “Okay,” he says. “Are you seeing anyone else, otherwise?”

Your brows shoot up. Did he just ask you if you were single? And in such a straightforward manner? The confidence vanishes from your body, leaving you flustered and stuttering. “I’m—I’m not, no.”

There’s a hint of smugness in the smile that blooms on his lip, and it’s debilitatingly attractive. “Good,” he says, lifting his glass to his mouth. Your heart races. There’s no misinterpreting that kind of message. The unwavering gaze over the rim of his glass as he takes a swig, the slight lopsided smirk as he sets his beer down.

Before you can react, either passing out or somehow finding a way to flirt back, he gestures towards the table he was sitting at just before, asking whether you wanna join the others, his smile friendly again, his eyes round and inviting and impossible to say no to. You feel a little dazed as you accept, grabbing your empty drink just to have something to hold onto as you follow him to your team’s table. 

A few curious pairs of eyes greet you as you sit, but thank heavens, Yuqi is too engrossed in conversation with her neighbor to embarrass you.

It’s only when Nicholas walks back in that you remember you’d meant to stay where you both sat, exactly so this wouldn’t happen—him scanning the room for you, brows slightly furrowed before his eyes land on you. He glances at Fuma, then back at you. There’s a tightness in his jaw, a closedness in his expression that’s subtle to the naked eye, but obvious to someone like you, who’s gotten used to observing every single one of his microexpressions, just to get an inkling of what was going on in that mysterious head of his. He must’ve been on the phone to his parents. 

You wave him over, but he’s already turning away and walking towards his team’s table. Fuma notices the exchange, perhaps senses your disappointment. “It’d probably be awkward for him, sitting with a bunch of Designers,” he offers.

You watch Nicholas, the smile on his lips as his teammates greet him. You recognize it as the smile he gives people when he doesn’t know them very well but doesn’t want to come off cold. “Yeah, probably,” you mutter back. For the rest of the evening, you’re unable to catch his gaze.

Fuma walks you to the train that night.

.

.

D-1270. 3 years, 5 months, 21 days earlier

You have no idea how any of you thought this would be amusing in the slightest. Hindsight is 20/20, and now that you think about it, shaving your friends’ heads before they’re sent off to the military doesn’t sound like the most pleasant of group activities, but when Chaewon first pitched it to you, you saw nothing wrong with it.

Now, Chaewon has run off to her room in a fit of tears halfway through shaving her boyfriend’s head. She must be really upset not to laugh at the sight of him, comforting her with half a head of hair. 

Truth be told, you’re not faring much better yourself. The evening had started off fairly light-hearted, but as you stand behind Nicholas, the only sound in your friends’ bathroom is that of the electric razor and of tufts of his hair falling slowly to the floor. You’re very focused on the task at hand, but you still steal glances at him once in a while. The whole time, he stares at himself in the mirror. Avoiding your gaze or simply deep in his own thoughts, you aren’t sure. 

In the last months of your internship up until now, things haven’t been the same between you and Nicholas. Just enough that you feel like something’s wrong, but not so much that you can bring it up with him without sounding paranoid. It’s not even something you can clearly point to—you still have lunch together a few times a week, still text each other for emergency coffee breaks. But silences last longer. Laughter doesn’t feel as genuine. His gaze doesn’t linger the way it used to. 

You ignore it. You don't mention it to him or anyone else, letting the both of you pretend nothing’s changed. And maybe, to him, that truly is the case, and you’re the only one feeling that way. 

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” you ask. In the mirror, he meets your gaze, brows furrowed in confusion. “With the razor. I have no idea what I’m doing,” you admit, smiling. 

He smiles back, and even though it’s small, a barely-there upward tug of the corners of his lips, it eases your nerves instantly. Like things aren’t so bad, after all. Like they can be fixed. 

He checks his hair in the reflection as if he’s noticing for the first time that the hair around his left ear has been sheared off. “You’re not hurting me,” he says. “But you are kind of doing a terrible job at this. Don’t give me a bald patch, please.”

You grin. “I don’t need to, nature is already doing that on its own.”

The blood drains from Nicholas’ face. “Where?” he asks, lifting his head to search through his hair.

His sudden mortification makes you burst into laughter. “I’m messing with you, Weno.”

As the old nickname slips out, you realize it’s been months since you’ve called him that way. It feels like it’s been months since you’ve called him anything at all. He rolls his eyes at you, but it’s playful, and he finally really looks at you, gaze boring into yours in the mirror. Now it’s your turn to avoid him, suddenly feeling shy.

His hair, especially the ends, is a little dry between your fingers, fried from the numerous times he’s dyed it in the past years. Still. It’s the first time you touch it, the first time you’ve made so much constant contact with him. It’s always a source of teasing on Euijoo’s end to ruffle his friend’s hair, knowing he hates it. But with you, he hasn’t recoiled even once. He sits there, docile, almost peaceful-looking.

Maybe it’s because you know he’ll be leaving for four months, maybe even longer if he decides to stay in Taipei for a bit before coming back to Seoul, but you can’t help but let yourself linger. You card your hand through his hair, fingertips brushing along his scalp as if to create a path for the razor. 

Once closely shaved, you shamelessly pet his head like a dog’s, not even bothering to hide how amusing — and nice — you find the feel of his soft yet spiky hair against your palm. He closes his eyes, grinning.

When you reach the halfway point, you feel time truly start to slip between your fingers along with his hair. You might not want to address directly the distance you’ve felt growing between you, but you know you’ll feel terrible, letting him go like this. You realize that speaking to him, God forbid, might be the only way to make things right. To assure these four coming months won’t make you drift further apart.

“How do you feel?” you ask, voice low, feeling a little shy. Feelings are uncharted territory for you and Nicholas. “About leaving. Going back to Taiwan.”

His eyes flutter open, and he takes a little time to think. “It just feels like… Something I have to do before I can get back to my life. Like doing the dishes at the end of a long day. I don’t really want to but it’s not the worst thing ever. Plus, it’s only four months. I might feel different if I had to leave for eighteen months like Euijoo.”

As though she heard you through the walls, Chaewon’s sobs amplify right then, and you feel your heart break for your friend. It really is like a wife sending her husband to war in the 19th century. Even if she knows she’ll have him back eventually. And that she’ll be able to text and call and even see him once in a while. So not really like a wife in the 19th century, but close enough, at least in her point of view. 

“Have you decided what you’ll do afterwards? Stay home for a bit, or come back here?”

He finds your gaze in the mirror, a smirk already tugging at his lips. “Why, miss me already?”

You roll your eyes. “No, so I know when to move out of the country.” He brings a hand to his heart, pretends to have been shot. You lift his head gently. “Stay still, Weno. I’m already giving you a bad enough haircut as is.”

He shrugs. “It’ll grow back. Anyway, I haven’t really decided yet. My parents want me to stay with them while I find a job. But you know…” he trails, hesitating, or maybe searching for the right words. “Taiwan hasn’t felt like home in a while. It’s the place I grew up, and I love it, I love going back and speaking Mandarin and eating guabao and seeing my high school friends, but it’s not the same. Not as comfortable as being here.”

You hum, slowly nodding. To a certain extent, you feel the same way about going home. It’s nice to go back, but only once in a while, and only for a short period of time. Every time you went back, you felt that itch to return to Seoul, to your studies or job and your friends and your life in the city. To Chaewon and Euijoo. 

To Nicholas. 

“We’ll be here when you come back,” you say softly, voice low to keep it from echoing off the bathroom walls. Like you want it to reach Nicholas’ ears only. “Well, not Euijoo, but… Chaewon and I. And Jellyfish will take you back. I don’t know why you rejected their offer instead of just asking to defer it a few months. They would’ve said yes.” Something in Nicholas’ expression seems to close off then, and it makes you panic—for once, he was so open, so accessible, and all of a sudden he’s drifting out of reach again. You scramble for something, anything that will bring him back to you. “I mean, it just, it would be nice to keep working together. We barely got to during our internship, but, who knows… We could get assigned the same project and actually work with each other. Like we did in college.”

His expression softens again. You almost sigh of relief. “That would be nice,” he concedes. “I just wanted to keep my options open. But I’ll think about it.”

You smile. That’ll have to do for now. Even if things have been weird lately, you’re still able to talk to him like this. You don’t want to part on a bad note, for the awkwardness permeating your relationship to be the last memory he has of you before he leaves. 

You’re silent for the remainder of the haircut, a sniffling Chaewon and a red-eyed Euijoo coming out of their bedroom eventually to see how the two of you are getting on. They’re only able to laugh weakly at Nicholas’ appearance, a third of his long hair left, the rest patchy and shaved at irregular lengths. They leave to make tea in the kitchen, and a few minutes later, you’re shearing the last strip of his dyed locks. You rest your hand on his shoulder. Instead of inspecting his own reflection, it’s you he looks at.

“There you go. Bald and ready to serve your country,” you say, trying to smile, but your heart feels heavy. Your eyes sting, and it’s been so long that you don’t recognize the feeling immediately—you’re about to cry. 

Maybe Nicholas senses this, understands what your frown means, because he doesn’t laugh either. Just looks at you in the mirror, his furrowed brows matching yours. “Thank you, Y/N,” he says, with a gravity that makes it sound like it’s not just the haircut he’s thankful for. 

You attempt a smile. “Of course, Weno.” 

Your tears threaten to spill with every passing second, so you eventually turn away, reaching for the broom resting on the wall. But Nicholas catches your hand as it slips off his shoulder, fingers wrapped loosely around your wrist. His eyes are wide, more worried than you’ve ever seen before. There’s something almost frantic, almost desperate about the way he’s looking at you. “You’ll be here when I get back,” he says, echoing your words from earlier. “You’ll wait for me?” 

Your frown deepens. “Where else would I be, Weno?” you ask, voice soft, as if speaking to a frightened child.

“No, I mean—Wait for me, Y/N. Please, wait for me.”

You stare back at him, searching for an explanation in his face, but it provides none. Maybe even he isn’t sure what he means. Maybe this is just what future soldiers go through before leaving for the unknown, and he wants to make sure something familiar will greet him once he comes home.

So you don’t ask for clarity. You squeeze his shoulder and say, “Of course, Nicho. I’m not going anywhere.”

This seems to appease him, albeit only slightly. The tension doesn’t entirely leave his shoulder, or the worry, his face. “Right. Okay, then,” he says.

In the kitchen, there’s little of the usual cheer and banter the four of you share. With Chaewon practically unable to look at him, Euijoo goes to the bathroom to take care of the rest of his hair himself. You understand her: the sadness is so clear in his round eyes and pouty lips that it’s hard to look at him for too long, impossible to tease him on the shape of his head or anything else. You and Nicholas were meant to stay over for dinner, but once you’ve finished your tea, you share a look and silently agree to leave the couple alone for the evening. They leave tomorrow to spend the weekend at Euijoo’s family home before he enlists on Monday. Nicholas flies to Taiwan tomorrow and starts his service next week. 

You’ve always hated good-byes, the inherent sadness and uncertainty of them. The reminder that these people make up your life, manage to make every day something exciting to look forward to, that without them, you don’t have all that much left. You hug Euijoo tightly but quickly, wishing him luck. You tell Chaewon to call you once she’s back. The whole thing is over in a few minutes, and once you and Nicholas are outside, walking towards the subway station, your arms are tightly crossed over your chest, your eyes pointedly on the ground ahead of you as you repeatedly tell yourself don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry. Beside you, Nicholas is silent.

It’s a fifteen-minute subway ride to the central station, where you and Nicholas will part ways. What is there even to say? You want to tell him to stay safe, to eat well and sleep early every night, to stand up for himself if a superior abuses his power, but also not to get into unnecessary trouble. But these words feel trite, superficial. You met when you were nineteen, but Nicholas is a grown man now. He can take care of himself.

Instead, as you sit next to each other, you drop your head on his shoulder. It expresses what you’re too afraid to put into words: I’ll miss you. Come back to me quick.

Nicholas doesn’t flinch, doesn’t budge an inch. Only whispers, “Come on,” once you reach the station. Without a word, he walks to your train with you, waits for it even though it’ll make him have to take a later one. The silence cuts painfully through your heart as you wait side-by-side on the platform, not looking at each other. Only once your train rolls in does he turn to you, sadness in his eyes that can’t be hidden behind his wan smile. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” he asks, something akin to hopefulness in his tone.

“Okay.”

You find a seat on the train. You know he must still be on the platform, waiting for your train to leave, but you can’t make yourself turn to look at him. Can’t bear the sight of him waving you off, his face so forlorn it becomes unfamiliar even to you. 

Your tears are too impatient. They can’t wait to be home before they start falling from your eyes, scalding your cheeks, wetting your lips and chin. 

.

.

D-1270. 3 years, 5 months, 21 days earlier

You have no idea how any of you thought this would be amusing in the slightest. Hindsight is 20/20, and now that you think about it, shaving your friends’ heads before they’re sent off to the military doesn’t sound like the most pleasant of group activities, but when Chaewon first pitched it to you, you saw nothing wrong with it.

Now, Chaewon has run off to her room in a fit of tears halfway through shaving her boyfriend’s head. She must be really upset not to laugh at the sight of him, comforting her with half a head of hair. 

Truth be told, you’re not faring much better yourself. The evening had started off fairly light-hearted, but as you stand behind Nicholas, the only sound in your friends’ bathroom is that of the electric razor and of tufts of his hair falling slowly to the floor. You’re very focused on the task at hand, but you still steal glances at him once in a while. The whole time, he stares at himself in the mirror. Avoiding your gaze or simply deep in his own thoughts, you aren’t sure. 

In the last months of your internship up until now, things haven’t been the same between you and Nicholas. Just enough that you feel like something’s wrong, but not so much that you can bring it up to him without sounding paranoid. It’s not even something you can clearly point to—you still have lunch together a few times a week, still text each other for emergency coffee breaks. But silences last longer. Laughter doesn’t feel as genuine. His gaze doesn’t linger the way it used to. 

You ignore it. You don't mention it to him or anyone else, letting the both of you pretend nothing’s changed. And maybe, to him, that truly is the case, and you’re the only one feeling that way. 

“I’m not hurting you, am I?” you ask. In the mirror, he meets your gaze, brows furrowed in confusion. “With the razor. I have no idea what I’m doing,” you admit, smiling. 

He smiles back, and even though it’s small, a barely-there upward tug of the corners of his lips, it eases your nerves instantly. Like things aren’t so bad, after all. Like they can be fixed. 

He checks his hair in the reflection as if he’s noticing for the first time that the hair around his left ear has been sheared off. “You’re not hurting me,” he says. “But you are kind of doing a terrible job at this. Don’t give me a bald patch, please.”

You grin. “I don’t need to, nature is already doing that on its own.”

The blood drains from Nicholas’ face. “Where?” he asks, lifting his head to search through his hair.

His sudden mortification makes you burst into laughter. “I’m messing with you, Weno.”

As the old nickname slips out, you realize it’s been months since you’ve called him that. It feels like it’s been months since you’ve called him anything at all. He rolls his eyes at you, but it’s playful, and he finally really looks at you, gaze boring into yours in the mirror. Now it’s your turn to avoid him, suddenly feeling shy.

His hair, especially the ends, is a little dry between your fingers, fried from the numerous times he’s dyed it in the past years. Still. It’s the first time you’ve touched it, the first time you’ve made so much constant contact with him. It’s always a source of teasing on Euijoo’s end to ruffle his friend’s hair, knowing he hates it. But with you, he hasn’t recoiled even once. He sits there, docile, almost peaceful-looking.

Maybe it’s because you know he’ll be leaving for four months, maybe even longer if he decides to stay in Taipei for a bit before coming back to Seoul, but you can’t help but let yourself linger. You card your hand through his hair, fingertips brushing along his scalp as if to create a path for the razor. 

Once closely shaved, you shamelessly pet his head like a dog’s, not even bothering to hide how amusing — and nice — you find the feel of his soft yet spiky hair against your palm. He closes his eyes, grinning.

When you reach the halfway point, you feel time truly start to slip between your fingers along with his hair. You might not want to address directly the distance you’ve felt growing between you, but you know you’ll feel terrible, letting him go like this. You realize that speaking to him, God forbid, might be the only way to make things right. To assure these four coming months won’t make you drift further apart.

“How do you feel?” you ask, voice low, feeling a little shy. Feelings are uncharted territory for you and Nicholas. “About leaving. Going back to Taiwan.”

His eyes flutter open, and he takes a little time to think. “It just feels like… Something I have to do before I can get back to my life. Like doing the dishes at the end of a long day. I don’t really want to but it’s not the worst thing ever. Plus, it’s only four months. I might feel different if I had to leave for eighteen months like Euijoo.”

As though she heard you through the walls, Chaewon’s sobs amplify right then, and you feel your heart break for your friend. It really is like a wife sending her husband to war in the 19th century. Even if she knows she’ll have him back eventually. And that she’ll be able to text and call and even see him once in a while. So not really like a wife in the 19th century, but close enough, at least in her point of view. 

“Have you decided what you’ll do afterwards? Stay home for a bit, or come back here?”

He finds your gaze in the mirror, a smirk already tugging at his lips. “Why, miss me already?”

You roll your eyes. “No, so I know when to move out of the country.” He brings a hand to his heart, pretends to have been shot. You lift his head gently. “Stay still, Weno. I’m already giving you a bad enough haircut as is.”

He shrugs. “It’ll grow back. Anyway, I haven’t really decided yet. My parents want me to stay with them while I find a job. But you know…” he trails, hesitating, or maybe searching for the right words. “Taiwan hasn’t felt like home in a while. It’s the place I grew up, and I love it, I love going back and speaking Mandarin and eating guabao and seeing my high school friends, but it’s not the same. Not as comfortable as being here.”

You hum, slowly nodding. To a certain extent, you feel the same way about going home. It’s nice to go back, but only once in a while, and only for a short period of time. Every time you’ve gone back, you’ve felt that itch to return to Seoul, to your studies or job and your friends and your life in the city. To Chaewon and Euijoo. 

To Nicholas. 

“We’ll be here when you come back,” you say softly, voice low to keep it from echoing off the bathroom walls. Like you want it to reach Nicholas’ ears only. “Well, not Euijoo, but… Chaewon and I. And Jellyfish will take you back. I don’t know why you rejected their offer instead of just asking to defer it a few months. They would’ve said yes.” Something in Nicholas’ expression seems to close off then, and it makes you panic—for once, he was so open, so accessible, and all of a sudden he’s drifting out of reach again. You scramble for something, anything that will bring him back to you. “I mean, it just, it would be nice to keep working together. We barely got to during our internship, but, who knows… We could get assigned the same project and actually work with each other. Like we did in college.”

His expression softens again. You almost sigh of relief. “That would be nice,” he concedes. “I just wanted to keep my options open. But I’ll think about it.”

You smile. That’ll have to do for now. Even if things have been weird lately, you’re still able to talk to him like this. You don’t want to part on a bad note, for the awkwardness permeating your relationship to be the last memory he has of you before he leaves. 

You’re silent for the remainder of the haircut, a sniffling Chaewon and a red-eyed Euijoo coming out of their bedroom eventually to see how the two of you are getting on. They’re only able to laugh weakly at Nicholas’ appearance, a third of his long hair left, the rest patchy and shaved at irregular lengths. They leave to make tea in the kitchen, and a few minutes later, you’re shearing the last strip of his dyed locks. You rest your hand on his shoulder. Instead of inspecting his own reflection, it’s you he looks at.

“There you go. Bald and ready to serve your country,” you say, trying to smile, but your heart feels heavy. Your eyes sting, and it’s been so long that you don’t recognize the feeling immediately—you’re about to cry. 

Maybe Nicholas senses this, understands what your frown means, because he doesn’t laugh either. Just looks at you in the mirror, his furrowed brows matching yours. “Thank you, Y/N,” he says, with a gravity that makes it sound like it’s not just the haircut he’s thankful for. 

You attempt a smile. “Of course, Weno.” 

Your tears threaten to spill with every passing second, so you eventually turn away, reaching for the broom resting on the wall. But Nicholas catches your hand as it slips off his shoulder, fingers wrapped loosely around your wrist. His eyes are wide, more worried than you’ve ever seen before. There’s something almost frantic, almost desperate about the way he’s looking at you. “You’ll be here when I get back,” he says, echoing your words from earlier. “You’ll wait for me?” 

Your frown deepens. “Where else would I be, Weno?” you ask, voice soft, as if speaking to a frightened child.

“No, I mean—Wait for me, Y/N. Please, wait for me.”

You stare back at him, searching for an explanation in his face, but it provides none. Maybe even he isn’t sure what he means. Maybe this is just what future soldiers go through before leaving for the unknown, and he wants to make sure something familiar will greet him once he comes home.

So you don’t ask for clarity. You squeeze his shoulder and say, “Of course, Nicho. I’m not going anywhere.”

This seems to appease him, albeit only slightly. The tension doesn’t entirely leave his shoulder, or the worry, his face. “Right. Okay, then,” he says.

In the kitchen, there’s little of the usual cheer and banter the four of you share. With Chaewon practically unable to look at him, Euijoo goes to the bathroom to take care of the rest of his hair himself. You understand her: the sadness is so clear in his round eyes and pouty lips that it’s hard to look at him for too long, impossible to tease him on the shape of his head or anything else. You and Nicholas were meant to stay over for dinner, but once you’ve finished your tea, you share a look and silently agree to leave the couple alone for the evening. They leave tomorrow to spend the weekend at Euijoo’s family home before he enlists on Monday. Nicholas flies to Taiwan tomorrow and starts his service next week. 

You’ve always hated goodbyes, the inherent sadness and uncertainty of them. The reminder that these people make up your life, manage to make every day something exciting to look forward to, that without them, you don’t have all that much left. You hug Euijoo tightly but quickly, wishing him luck. You tell Chaewon to call you once she’s back. The whole thing is over in a few minutes, and once you and Nicholas are outside, walking towards the subway station, your arms are tightly crossed over your chest, your eyes pointedly on the ground ahead of you as you repeatedly tell yourself don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry. Beside you, Nicholas is silent.

It’s a fifteen-minute subway ride to the central station, where you and Nicholas will part ways. What is there even to say? You want to tell him to stay safe, to eat well and sleep early every night, to stand up for himself if a superior abuses his power, but also not to get into unnecessary trouble. But these words feel trite, superficial. You met when you were nineteen, but Nicholas is a grown man now. He can take care of himself.

Instead, as you sit next to each other, you drop your head on his shoulder. It expresses what you’re too afraid to put into words: I’ll miss you. Come back to me quick.

Nicholas doesn’t flinch, doesn’t budge an inch. Only whispers, “Come on,” once you reach the station. Without a word, he walks to your train with you, waits for it even though it’ll make him have to take a later one. The silence cuts painfully through your heart as you wait side-by-side on the platform, not looking at each other. Only once your train rolls in does he turn to you, sadness in his eyes that can’t be hidden behind his wan smile. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” he asks, something akin to hopefulness in his tone.

“Okay.”

You find a seat on the train. You know he must still be on the platform, waiting for your train to leave, but you can’t make yourself turn to look at him. Can’t bear the sight of him waving you off, his face so forlorn it becomes unfamiliar even to you. 

Your tears are too impatient. They can’t wait to be home before they start falling from your eyes, scalding your cheeks, wetting your lips and chin. 

.

.

D-1167. 3 years, 2 months, 9 days earlier

19:34 you nichooo 19:34 you come help me with this boat order  19:34 you i need the xp to get to the next level and unlock the soup maker

21:50 weno hey just got my phone 21:50 weno you and your mobile games i swear… you shame me 21:50 weno anyway i can’t tonight

21:51 weno some guy was caught watching porn so now we have no internet access for a week 21:51 weno sorry :( you’ll have to find someone else to support your hay day addiction

21:52 you it’s not an addiction.  21:52 you anyways sad to hear you won’t be able to do your 30 min pinterest scroll today 21:52 you how’s that for an addiction

21:52 weno i need the inspo if i’m going to stay best dressed at our company

21:52 you so you’re coming back???? confirmed????

21:54 weno not sure yet

21:54 you wenooo

21:55 weno ik ik i just have some stuff to figure out okay 21:55 weno can we call? even if i can’t help with your boat order

21:56 you i mean if you insist 21:56 you :)

.

.

D-1101. 3 years, 5 days earlier

This number is currently available. Please leave your message after the tone.

“Hi Weno! Seems like we keep missing each other. Things have been crazy at Jellyfish lately. We’re rushing to get No Way Back out on time, but the original schedule turned out to be too tight, so it’s pure chaos… Anyway, I know you’ve got a lot on your plate. Euijoo told me about that job you got, which, congrats, obviously, super proud of you and always knew you could do it or whatever, but it would’ve been nice to hear directly from you, you jerk! What, are you too cool for me now that you’re in Shanghai? You can make it up to me by letting me beat your ass at Valo this weekend. Call me back, okay? Reason I called you in the first place is I’ve got some news of my own to share, and I wanted to be the one to tell you, and not a certain Byun Euijoo, whoever that is. Bye! Talk to you soon!”

.

.

D-1009. 2 years, 9 months, 2 days earlier

22:18 weno hey sorry can’t log on tonight 22:18 weno work was crazy i’m exhausted 22:18 weno raincheck?

22:23 you oh :( that’s ok rest up weno 22:23 you lmk when you’re free

22:24 weno i will 22:24 weno good night y/n

22:25 you good night weno. i miss you 22:31 you night weno

© asahicore on Tumblr, 2026. please do not repost, translate, or plagiarize my works. support your creators by reblogging and leaving feedback!

Blue violets — melancholy of lost love and the pain of being forgotten.

The sheer, unadulterated irony of life is that it doesn't just kick you when you're down. It waits until you're wearing your favorite blouse, gives you a dazzling smile, and then shoves your face into a puddle of mud. Or, in your case, a puddle of very expensive imported white hydrangeas.

You're sitting on the edge of your office desk, starting down at a piece of paper that feels less like a financial lifeline and more like a beautifully calligraphed nightmare: a retainer check.

How can a retainer check be a nightmare, you ask?

Well, the number written on it is large enough to cover your shop's rent for the next nine months, pay your employees for the rest of the year, replace the temperamental walk-in cooler that has been threatening to freeze your hydrangeas to death since October, and still leave enough to tackle the thousand other expensive problems lurking in both your business and personal life.

But it's the last name signed in the bottom right corner that's making the room spin.

Chwe.

You see, New York City has over eight million people. It spans five massive boroughs, boasts thousands of blocks, and houses hundreds of high-end floral designers who would gladly sacrifice their firstborn child for a wedding budget this astronomical. If you want a floral arch in Manhattan, you're spoiled for choice.

Yet, out of every flower shop on the island, the universe decided to guide this specific bride right through the glass doors of Poppy's Garden.

It's hilarious, really. If you don't laugh, you're probably going to throw up.

"Y/N, sweetie, are you still with us?" Angela's voice cuts through your spiraling thoughts.

As one of Manhattan's most sought-after wedding planners, she's known for two things: flawless events and a bun the size of a pear, pulled so tight it could double as a facelift. It isn't the first wedding you've worked with her, and judging by her ever-growing client list, it certainly won't be the last.

"Yes! Sorry," you say, blinking yourself back to the present as you quickly force your lips into a bright, professional smile. A few quick blinks bring the two women seated across from your desk back into focus. "Just… marveling at the scope of this. It's an incredible vision, Hannah."

Hannah — the bride to be — beams at you. She is quite literally a walking angel. With glossy, shoulder length hair, a soft laugh, and eyes that crinkle at the corners whenever she talks about her upcoming wedding. She's impossible to hate. Over the last forty-five minutes of your consultation, she hasn't made a single bridezilla demand. She even brought you a latte from the café down the street because she remembered you mentioning it in your initial email thread.

She is lovely. She is kind. And you're currently fighting the deeply irrational urge to bolt out the back door because you're almost certain she's marrying the love of your life.

"I know it's a lot," Hannah ventures, leaning forward to rest her hands on her knees. A massive diamond ring nearly blinds you for a split second. "But the moment I saw your portfolio online, I told Angela this is it. Your style is so romantic, so organic. I don't want traditional arrangements. I want something that feels alive."

The corners of your mouth lift. "You came to the right place."

"And when I told my in-laws about you, they insisted we book you immediately. They said my fiancé and I deserved nothing but the absolute best."

Your stomach lurches violently. Yep, you might actually throw up.

When the initial inquiry form landed in your inbox two weeks ago, signed simply by Hannah's Events, you'd noticed the groom's last name buried in the details: Chwe & Yang. A knot of suspicion had settled in your gut right then. Hansol's last name wasn't exactly rare, but it wasn't particularly common in New York high society either.

Of course, you had brushed it off. Don't be ridiculous, you told yourself. You're just projecting. You hadn't seen or spoken to him in four years, and now you were convinced every Chwe in the tri-state area was him.

But seeing his father's full name printed right there on the memo line of the check was no coincidence. It was simply all the confirmation you needed.

You stare down at the signature again. The man who used to grill burgers for you on the rare weekends you and Hansol managed to escape your university schedules and visit his family home. The same man who had looked at you with concern during your final semester, knowing—just as you and Hansol had known—that the two of you were about to be pulled in opposite directions.

Did they know the shop belonged to you now? Would they have sent Hannah there on purpose?

You want to believe—and hope—not. There's no way they could have known. You changed the shop's name when you took over, renovated the whole space. Besides, Hansol's parents had never been unpleasant or cruel to you. If anything, they loved you like a daughter throughout your entire relationship.

"So…" Angela pulls you back as she taps her pen against her iPad screen, eyes narrowing slightly, clocking your sudden drop of energy. "The budget covers the rehearsal dinner, the full ceremony installation, the reception, bouquets for the bride and bridesmaids, boutonnieres, twenty-five grand in table centerpieces, and so much more. We need a firm commitment today, Y/N.”

Angela had never been one to beat around the bush. Time was money, and you knew that better than anyone, because it was for you too.

“So, if your shop can't handle a production this size, I have three other florists on standby."

Say no, your brain screams. Tell her you're fully booked. Tell her you have a sudden rose allergy. Tell her you're closing the shop and moving.

You look past Angela's shoulder, out in front window of your shop. A couple walks by, laughing, as they duck from a sudden drizzle. Inside, the shelves are beautifully curated, filled with imported vases, delicate terrariums, and the fragrant scent of eucalyptus and fresh-cut roses. This shop is everything you have sacrificed over the last four years.

When university ended, you knew Hansol was going to Los Angeles to chase his dreams in music. You had every intention of following him, hoping to land a position at a prestigious botanical conservatory, a future your degree in botany had made possible, and one you'd been working toward for years.

Then the bomb dropped, and just like that, the choice to take over the shop was made for you.

You loved each other fiercely. You had tried the long-distance thing, the late-night calls, the clashing time zones, counting down the hours just to hear his voice. But love, in the end, hadn't been enough to bridge the gap between you.

And the thing is… if you reject this contract, you might not be able to pay rent next month. The landlord has already sent his second warning. If you walk away to protect your bruised, fragile little heart from watching your first love marry someone as lovely and adorable as Hannah, you lose the very business you broke up with him to keep.

Talk about a cosmic joke.

"Y/N?" Hannah's voice pulls you back to the present yet again, her brows furrowing with genuine concern. "Are you okay? You look a little pale. We can totally scale back the thousand peonies if it's too much for your team—"

"No!" you blurt out, voice a little too high, a little too desperate. You quickly smooth down your apron, fingers pressing the fabric flat, and paste a reassuring smile back onto your face. "No, Hannah, I'm so sorry. I was just mentally calculating the flower orders."

Guilt needles at you for lying to someone so nice as her. But what else can you do? Tell her the truth? Yeah, absolutely not.

You swallow hard, then press on. "Summer is a busy season the Dutch auctions, and I want to make sure we secure the best batches for you. The thousand peonies are entirely doable." You manage another smile, somehow steadier this time. "It's going to be breathtaking."

Hannah lets out an audible and visible sigh of relief, her shoulders dropping. "Oh, thank goodness. You really scared me for a second. I've been dreaming about this since I was a little girl."

Another wave of guilt settles into your chest. Looking at Hannah, you feel like a monster. She's sitting there, entirely innocent, sharing her dream wedding with a florist who used to blow her fiancé under the table when he was working from home. She doesn't know. To her, you're just a vendor helping build her fairytale. To you, she's the woman living the life with Hansol that you had to let go of.

And you can't ask about him. You seriously cannot bring yourself to say his name out loud in this context. Where he is the groom and you're not the bride.

Angela claps her hands together once, completely oblivious to the emotional warfare happening inside your head. "Excellent!" She slides a thick, leather-bound contract across the table toward you. "If you'll just sign on the dotted line, we can lock in the timeline. We'll be handling all communication through my office, of course. Hannah is very busy with dress fitting, and the groom is currently out of state, so you won't have to worry about coordinating with him at all. It'll just be us."

He's out of state right now. Of course he is. You'd bet you even know the address.

"Perfect!" Your fingers tremble slightly as you pick up the pen. In your ears, your voice seems to belong to someone else. "That sounds perfectly fine."

You don't look at Hannah as you press the pen to the paper. You don't think about Hansol's laughter, or the way his brown hair looked when you ran your fingers through it, or the promises you made in a cramped dorm room, ones that neither of you could keep. You just focus on the blue ink flowing onto the page, binding you to the biggest contract of your shop, and the absolute worst nightmare of your life.

Pink eglantines — a wound that will not heal.

Nothing says out-of-body experience quite like standing in your ex-boyfriend's parent's backyard, clipboard in hand, discussing the placement of fifty thousand dollars' worth of imported white hydrangeas for his wedding to another woman. Forget roller coasters. If someone asked you for a guaranteed adrenaline rush, you'd recommend this instead.

You didn't even have so much as the luxury of a warning. One minute you were plugging the address into your GPS, convincing yourself it was just another private estate in Scarsdale, and then next, your beat-up delivery van was rolling past a set of wrought-iron gates you had driven through a thousand times before.

Your feet automatically steer around the loose stone on the third step of the grand patio as you walk in, guided by nothing more than muscle memory. You know better than stepping on it. Hansol used to trip over it every single time you were here, despite knowing it was there. You know they've probably fixed it by now, but your body avoids it instinctively.

Beyond the patio, the massive, rolling insanely green backyard stretches out before you, looking exactly as it did in your memories. Only now, it's being measured for Hansol's wedding.

Considering everything, you're not surprised your heart is currently performing a full Olympic gymnastics floor routine inside your ribcage instead of simply skipping a few beats.

On the bright side, Angela and Hannah had both mentioned that Hansol was out of state, which meant he didn't have time to be here. And really, that was the only thing keeping you from climbing back into your van and driving to literally any other state instead of heading back into the city.

"Y/N, look at this space." Hannah's voice bubbles with pure excitement as she sweeps her arm toward the perfectly manicured lawn.  "We're thinking the main floral arch should go right between those two ancient oak trees. What do you think?"

You swallow the dry lump in your throat the size of a golf ball. You were there for a topographical venue preview, florist speak for scoping out exactly how much rigging you'd need to suspend thousands of dollars' worth of foliage around the space and turn it into something out of a fairytale

"It's… it's beautiful, Hannah," you manage to squeak out, your throat drier than the dehydrated fern on your left.

You grip your clipboard a little tighter, holding it like a shield against the ghosts of your own past trying to hunt you down.

You know exactly how the light hits those oak trees at sunset. You know that because Hansol kissed you breathless against the trunk of the left one the first time he brought you here, exactly at sunset. So yes, professionally speaking, it's a perfect location. Every photograph taken beneath it will be breathtaking.

You squeeze your eyes shut, trying to force the memory away as you pretend it's just the sunlight bothering them.

Professional. You are a professional. Look at the perimeter. Measure the archway. Leave.

Before you can spiral any further, you take a deep breath, raise your laser measuring tape, and aim it at the lower branches of the oak tree.

You're focused on measuring and writing everything down when, a few minutes later, the distinct scent of a jasmine perfume drifts through the small boxwood hedges. Every survival instinct you own kicks into overdrive. You know that perfume very well because it belongs to Hansol's mother. It's the same one that used to linger on the hugs she'd pull you into whenever you arrived for Sunday dinners. You know it by heart.

"Hannah, dear, you have to see the caterer's mock-up for the champagne tower!"

Her voice slices through the air, sweet and melodic as ever. Your entire body locks up, pencil freezes against the paper, blood draining from your face so fast you actually feel dizzy.

Hannah waves happily toward the veranda. "Oh, there's my mother-in-law! Eomeonim, this is—"

You don't think. You just act.

"You know what?" you cut her off. "I need to go measure the clearance on the side gate really quickly. I just want to make sure our delivery carts can fit."

The lie slips out effortlessly, punctuated by nervous laughter, your feet already carrying you backward.

"I'll just be a minute!"

Without waiting for Angela or Hannah to reply, you duck behind a massive, towering trellis covered in ivy, pressing your back against the wooden slats. You hold your breath, heart hammering a frantic rhythm against your chest. Through the gaps in the leaves, you watch Mrs. Chwe glide down the stone steps, looking immaculate in a polka-dot dress.

She's gesturing toward the very spot you were standing thirty seconds ago as she speaks, "It's going to be placed right over there, near the rose garden," Mrs. Chwe explains to someone you can't see.

"It's perfect, eomeonim," Hannah says, her voice carrying genuine excitement. "You've been so incredibly helpful. I know how much this must be."

"Nonsense," Mrs. Chwe replies, stopping just a few feet away from your hiding spot. You hold your breath for what feels like the hundredth time since you got here, terrified that the erratic thumping of your heart might give you away. "It is my absolute pleasure."

You watch her gently stroke Hannah's arm, and something pinches in your chest. You can't stop thinking that you've stood in that exact spot in her life before.

Mrs. Chwe continues, turning her attention to Angela. "Our family has hosted many events here, but this one is different. It has to be flawless."

"It will be," Angela answers smoothly. If she's intimidated, she doesn't show it. "That's why we assembled the best team possible."

She nods once, satisfied. "It is my son’s big day, after all." Her gaze sweeps across the lawn, taking in the measurements, the sketches, the carefully marked plans. A smile softens her features. "He deserves nothing but absolute perfection."

My son's big day.

You brain desperately claws for an alternative—any alternative—but your own memories immediately slam the door shut.

It couldn't be his brother. It simply couldn't.

You vividly remember sitting at their family dinner table, listening as Seungcheol raised his glass and toasted to his freedom after his latest brutal breakup. He'd declared, loud enough for the entire family to hear, that he was going to remain a bachelor for life and leave Hansol and — ironically — you to carry on with the family name.

In your memories, Seungcheol was a cynical and independent corporate workaholic who viewed marriage as nothing more than a bad business merger. Hansol was the romantic one, even if he had his own, very particular, way of showing it. So, if a Chwe son was finally standing beneath a floral arch in the backyard, the math pointed to only one devastating conclusion.

You cannot stay here. You cannot spend another second scouting this property without throwing up your breakfast all over their perfect lawn.

You wait through agonizingly five long minutes until Mrs. Chwe links her arm through Hannah's and guides her back toward the sweeping doors of the sunroom. The moment the doors click shut behind them, you practically sprint toward the front of the house, this time tripping on the third step of the grand patio but barely registering it.

You throw yourself into the driver's seat of your cargo van at record speed, slamming the door shut behind you, hands shaking so violently you drop the keys twice before finally jamming them into the ignition. You put the van into reverse, back out of the side lot, and start down the long driveway, making a mental note to text Angela and apologize for the sudden escape.

You just want to get back to the safety of your flower shop. To bury yourself in your flowers and customer invoices and pretend none of this is happening.

You don't even realize you're crying until you feel the wet streak on your cheek, your vision starting to blur with frustrated tears, mind a swirling tornado of grief and panic. You press your foot harder on the gas, reversing the van far too fast down the gravel path, so consumed by the panic that you barely register what happens next until it's already a disaster.

See, the house has a long, winding driveway lined with ancient, thick-trunked oak trees—just like the ones in the garden—forming a blind curve near the iron gates at the entrance. On the drive out, the only thought in your mind is that you just need to reach the street, back to the safety of city asphalt.

You even check your rear-view mirror for a fraction of a second, clearing the blind curve. But apparently, whoever is watching over you isn't on your side today.

BAM.

It isn't a tap, much less a gentle bump. It's a bone rattling, deafening crunch of metal on metal that throws you forward against your seatbelt, the strap locking painfully across your collarbone. The van lurches to a violent halt shattered plastic, screeching tires, then the sickening hiss of a damaged radiator.

"Oh my god," you gasp in horror, the wind completely knocked out of you. "No, no, no, no."

Great. Perfect. Just what your terrible, horrible day needed: some rich delivery driver—or a catering scout, whatever—rear-ending your bumper. Rage, hot and bubbling and fueled entirely by heartbreak, surges in to replace your panic.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" you yell at the empty cabin.

One of your hands flies to your face, rubbing your temples as a shockwave of adrenaline floods your system. You throw the van into park, your legs feeling like overcooked spaghetti as you shove your door open and step out onto the gravel driveway, ready to absolutely lose your shit on whoever hit you.

Directly behind your delivery van, its front bumper aggressively crumpled against your rear doors, is a sleek, dark, expensive-looking SUV. Smoke, or maybe steam, curls lazily from the cracked grille of the black car.

It doesn't take a genius to realize the accident might have been your fault after all. Of course it has.

You let out a small whine, an incredulous sigh escaping you.

"I am so sorry!" Your voice crackles as you rush toward the driver's side of the SUV. "I was backing up too fast, I didn't see you coming around the—"

The driver's door swings open, and within seconds it takes the person to step out of the car, your breath hitches so sharply you choke on the crisp air.

Hansol.

He's much taller now. How is he possibly taller? Aren't people supposed to stop growing at a certain age?

Even though years have gone by, he still looks as boyish as ever, complemented by the sharp angles of his jaw and his naturally relaxed shoulders. His eyes are exactly the same kind of brown, only even more beautiful under the sunlight, currently widening in absolute, unadulterated shock as they lock onto your face.

His hair is shorter than you remember, still graced by the most perfect shade of brown you’ve ever seen, and goddammit, how did the hell get more handsome?

The silence that settles between you bothers you more than you care to admit. The universe seems to pause somehow, and for a second, you think even the birds stop singing. Even the hissing radiator seems to hold its breath.

You stare at each other across the three feet of gravel separating you, neither blinking, nor entirely convinced the other is real and not just a stress-induced hallucination.

God, you're going to throw up.

"Y/N?"

His voice is deeper than you remember. A rough, gravelly sound that sends a shockwave straight down your spine.

"Hansol…" you breathe out, unsure whether you didn't pass out minutes ago and are now hallucinating.

You wrap your arms around your chest, suddenly hyper-aware of your dirt-stained slacks and the messy ponytail piled on top of your head.

He stares at you like he's seeing a ghost, eyes scanning your face as if trying to confirm you’re actually standing on his parent's driveway. "What… what are you doing here?"

You swallow against the dry sand in your throat, forcing your spine completely straight as you point a trembling finger toward your vehicle.

Do not cry, you scold yourself.

Hansol's eyes quickly dart from your face to the massive vinyl logo plastered across the side of your battered van, and then up toward the sprawling estate behind you. A look of deep confusion still washes over his features, his eyebrows pulling together.

"I, um. My shop. We're… I'm doing the wedding. The flowers."

He blinks once, then twice, the confusion slowly melting away and being replaced by something else. You might be hallucinating, but you swear you see the faintest trace of a proud smile tug at the corner of his lips, though his eyes remain clouded with something you can't quite read.

"Oh. So… things are going great for you, then."

"Yeah," you lie, voice tight and brittle. "It's going great. Really great."

"That's… that's amazing, Y/N. Truly. I always knew you'd make it happen."

He keeps nodding slowly, hands slipping into the pockets of his jacket. He rocks back on his heels, gaze sweeping over you enough to make your skin burn. He doesn't mention Hannah. He doesn't mention the wedding. He doesn't bring up the fact that his family home is being transformed into a bridal wonderland, and you certainly aren't going to congratulate him on finding your replacement.

You just want to run.

"Your hair," he murmurs, eyes lifting to your long messy ponytail and the stray pieces framing your face. For a second, you almost think he's going to touch it by the way he pulls his hands from his pockets. But he doesn't. "It's long now."

Your hand twitches, a desperate urge to reach up and touch your hair, to hide behind it.

When you were dating, your hair never fell past your shoulders. You liked keeping it short enough that it never got in the way, especially considering your hands were constantly buried in soil and plants. But after the breakup, you barely had time for a haircut, so you simply let it grow, cutting the ends whenever they started getting too long, and—

Why is he looking at you like that?

"It grew," you say stupidly, your brain unable to form a reasonable thought with him staring at you. You take a step back, gesturing frantically toward the smashed bumpers of your cars. "Look, Hansol, I am so sorry about the car. It was completely my fault, I was distracted. But I really, really have to go."

More like you really, really need to run and hide.

Hansol frowns, finally glancing down at the wreckage as if he'd completely forgotten the reason you were standing here in the first place.

"You can't just drive off. The bumper is completely caved in. We need to exchange insurance information. I need to get this fixed for you—"

"It's fine, Hansol, really. It's a work van. It already had a few dings," you rush to assure him, backing up toward the driver's side door. The urge to escape becomes almost overwhelming.

You had rehearsed this moment in your head countless times. Different versions where you would meet again, realize the breakup had been stupid, and decide you should spend the rest of your lives together, growing old and gray-haired side by side.

None of them involved a wedding to someone else, and definitely not a wrecked bumper.

"Y/N, please. Don't be stubborn," he insists, stepping closer. The proximity is dizzying. "I—"

"No, no, it's fine!" you interrupt, panic rising in your chest again. You can't be here. You can no longer stand three feet away from him, smelling his cologne underneath the strong scent of crushed radiator fluid.

"At least give me your number. Or your contact info. I'll have my insurance handle it, or I'll just write you a check directly. Please."

Realizing he isn't going to let you leave until he has a way to resolve it, you reach into your pocket, fingers trembling as you pull out a pink business card. You hold it out, careful not to let your fingers brush when he takes it. You're sure you'd melt right there if they did, and you've already had enough emotions for a day.

"Here. This is the shop’s card," you stammer, hesitant, because you don't really want to give him access to you, especially not now that he's tying the knot with your most expensive client. "My cell phone number is on the back. Just… send me the bill for your car. Whatever the mechanic says, I'll pay it. I have insurance."

He looks down at the card, his thumb tracing over the name printed in gold. "Poppy's Garden," he reads quietly.

You just nod.

"I really have to go," you blurt out, frantically checking your bare wrist as if you're wearing a watch. "I'm on a super tight schedule. I'm supposed to pick up Poppy from school, and if I'm late, she'll never let me hear the end of it."

"How's Poppy?" Hansol looks up, a genuine spark of curiosity breaking through his expression.  "Wow. She must be, what, fourteen now. Tell her I said hi."

You ignore what him correctly guessing your sister's age makes you feel inside. "I will," you lie, knowing there's no way on earth you're going to tell your little sister that you've run into the guy who broke your heart and hers.

You grab the handle of your van door and pull it open, ready to climb back into your safe, insulated bubble. But as you set one foot on the running board, the crushing weight of the situation catches up to you.

The unfairness of it all twists in your gut.

You stop, knuckles turning white as you grip the edge of the car door, turning your head to look back at Hansol—who is still standing in the same spot where you left him, looking like he saw a ghost—over your shoulder. The sun filters through the trees, casting shadows across his face.

Your eyes burn, but you force yourself to hold his gaze.

"I didn’t know, Hansol," you say. A half-truth. A half-lie. Your voice cracks just a little, betraying the tough exterior you've tried so hard to hold up. "I didn't know this wedding was for your family. If I had known, I would have said no."

Hansol stands frozen on the gravel, your business card caught in his hand so tightly it's starting to bend. The wind rustles the leaves of the old oak trees behind him, pushing strands of his hair across his face.

He stares at you for a moment too long. Finally, his shoulders drop by a fraction of an inch, sadness washing over his beautiful features, making you want to do something—anything—to take it away from him. Only to realize that it is not your job anymore.

He doesn't argue, though. He just swallows and gives you a small, gentle nod. "It's fine, Y/N," he finally says, stepping back from the van. "Drive safe."

You pull the door shut, shift the van into drive, and pull away, leaving Hansol standing in the small wreckage of your brief collision, utterly oblivious to the fact that he's breaking your heart all over again.

Lilac — the magic of first love and youthful innocence.

The university greenhouse smelled strongly of damp potting soil and fertilizer. You sat on the edge of a metal workstation; your high Converse braced against a bag of perlite. Across your lap a battered, leather-bound copy of The Dictionary of Flowers.

It wasn't assigned reading for the botany peer tutoring session you were supposed to be running, but it was a Tuesday evening, and no one had walked through the doors in the last forty minutes—which wasn't unusual. Botany wasn't exactly a popular subject, and most people weren't interested in spending their free time studying plants.

Well... except you.

You flipped to the section on purple hyacinths, tracing a finger down the yellowed page. Sorrow. Please forgive me. It was a contrast to the bright, cheerful marigolds on the previous page, which apparently symbolized grief and cruelty despite looking like little bursts of sunshine. The book was ridiculous, highly unscientific, and entirely captivating.

A metallic screech echoed through the greenhouse as the heavy glass door was shoved open.

You looked up quickly, closing the book over your thumb to keep your place.

A guy stepped into the humid room, stopping past the threshold. He was wearing an oversized grey hoodie with the university logo faded across the front and carrying a single, battered-looking notebook under his arm. His hair was a bit messy, falling into his eyes as he looked around the rows of hanging ferns and tables covered in starter pots. He didn't look like the typical biology majors who came in to whine about memorizing the Krebs cycle; he just looked completely out of place.

"Is this the botany tutoring thing?" he asked. His voice was so calm and unhurried it seems to bounce off the glass walls.

"If you're here because you're trying not to fail your midterm, you're in the right place," you said, hopping down from the workstation. Your sneakers hit the floor with a dull thud. "I'm Y/N."

"Hansol," he replied, walking over with an unhurried stride.

He didn't seem stressed about the fact that the exam was in forty-eight hours at all. He stopped on the other side of the metal table, dropping his notebook onto the zinc surface.

"My advisor said if I don't pass this elective, I'll lose my studio hours next semester. Apparently, music production majors still need to know how photosynthesis works."

"A very important subject for sonography." You smiled at him sympathetically, pulling a stary piece of dried eucalyptus out of your hair and tossing it toward the trash can. "Okay, Hansol. What are we struggling with? Plant anatomy? Taxonomy?"

He sighed, leaning his hip against the table and shoving his hands into his hoodie pocket. "All of it." He wasn't frantic or embarrassed; he was just stating a fact. Then, his eyes drifted down to the leather-bound book you were still clutching. "Damn, is that a book just about plants?"

From the calm, even way he spoke, you couldn't tell whether he was making fun of you or not. You hoped he wasn't.

"Ah… not really. It's a Victorian flower dictionary," you said, feeling a sudden, slight flush of embarrassment. You set it down on the table, the cover flaking a tiny bit of leather onto the metal. "It assigns emotions and messages to different plants. It's completely useless for your test."

Hansol tilted his head, looking at the ornate, gold-foiled scrip on the cover. He reached out with two fingers and flipped the book open to a random page. His eyes scanned the text for a second.

"Geraniums. Gentility?" He looked up, an amused quirk at the corner of his mouth. "People actually used to send these to each other instead of texting?"

You giggled. "Yep," you said, pulling the biology textbook from your backpack to get down to business. "If you sent someone a yellow carnation, it meant you disdained them. Total rejection. It was the original left on read."

Hansol lets out a quiet laugh, the sound genuine enough to make you wonder whether he was actually interested or simply being polite. He didn’t immediately turn his attention to the textbook. Instead, his eyes lingered on your face, watching the way you animatedly explained the ridiculous historical trivial. There was a calm, observant stillness about him, a total lack of the usual frantic energy most college students carried.

You didn't know it then, but Hansol found the whole thing mildly entertaining. More importantly, he found you interesting.

"What about those? " he asked, nodding toward a tray of bruised, slightly wilted purple flowers sitting in the corner of your workstation. They had clearly been discarded from a lab session earlier in the day, their petals torn and dark at the edges.

You glanced over at the sad little pile. "Those are cyclamen. In the dictionary, they usually mean resignation or goodbye. Like something that's already broken."

Hansol looked at the bruised petals, then backed up at you. His expression didn't turn overly sentimental; he just nodded slowly, absorbing the information.

"Cruel," he murmured smoothly, finally pulling his notebook toward him and clicking open a pen. "Alright, teach. Show me the stuff that's actually on the test so I can keep my studio space."

For the first forty minutes of the session, you helped Hansol with everything he needed to know for tomorrow's exam, giving him practice exercises along the way. Surprisingly, he breezed through every single one of them. His eyes stayed fixed on you as you explained each concept, following every word with attentiveness that made you think he really wanted his studio time back—which could only meant he really needed a good grade.

"Damn, you're really into plants, aren't you?" It wasn't really a question. It was an observation, delivered as he leaned back against the stool with an amused smile.

You gave him a small, sheepish shrug. "Are you making fun of me?"

Most people usually did.

His eyes went impossibly wide, and for the first time, Hansol looked genuinely shaken, as though the idea that you might think he'd make fun of you genuinely bothered him.

“No, no—God, no,” he rushed out, his voice suddenly frantic as a stream of frantic no's tumbled from his mouth.

He dragged a hand through his brown hair, the tips of his ears turning an unexpected shade of pink. It was the absolute first crack in his cool, unbothered facade.

"I wasn't making fun of you," he clarified, his voice back to its usual low pitch, though there was a sudden earnestness there. "I think it's cool. You actually care about this stuff."

You let out a breath you didn't realize you'd been holding, the defensive tension completely draining from your shoulders. "Oh. Well... thanks."

"Yeah." He cleared his throat and picked up his pen. "Now, show me how these plant cells work so I don't fail."

The rest of the session went smoothly. By the time the clock hit nine, he had aced the practice midterm. You started zipping up your backpack, fully expecting him to grab his notebook and bolt back to his dorm like every other student would do.

Instead, Hansol slid his notebook into his bag and casually started helping you close. He grabbed a broom to sweep up some spilled potting soil while you wiped down the zinc tables. He even helped you heave the heavy bag of perlite back into the storage closet, completely unfazed by the white dust getting on his hoodie.

"You didn't have to stay to do that," you told him as you locked the glass doors of the greenhouse.

"I know." He shrugged, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Which way is your dorm?"

He walked you back across campus. The walk was quiet, but it wasn't the awkward kind of silence you usually had to fill with small talk. It was just easy. You pointed out a stray campus cat sleeping on a retaining wall; he told you a little bit about the bassline he was trying to fix in his latest mixtape. By the time the bricks of your dorm building came into view, you realized you didn't actually want him to leave yet.

You stopped at the bottom of the concrete steps, turning to face him under the overly bright yellow porch light.

"Well, thanks for the help cleaning up." You smiled at him, shifting your backpack onto your shoulder. "Good luck on the midterm tomorrow. I think you're gonna ace it."

"Thanks to you."

He didn't immediately turn around to leave. Instead, Hansol rocked back on his heels, his eyes studying your face in the dim light. There was that calm, observant stillness again.

"So," he began, his tone becoming something incredibly casual, as if he were commenting on the weather. "It's probably too soon for me to ask you out. Like, logically."

Your mouth snapped open. You stared at him, your hand freezing halfway to the handle.

Usually, guys spend three weeks hovering around the tutoring desk, making terrible jokes, or sliding into your DMs at 2 AM before making a move. They didn't just lay their cards face-up after exactly one study session.

"I—what?" you stammered.

Hansol didn't even blink. He didn't look embarrassed or flustered by your obvious shock; he just offered a small, thoroughly amused shrug.

"I'm just being efficient." He gives another easy shrug, a small grin following close behind. "Saving us both some time. I know I want to take you out, so there's no real point in waiting three weeks to say it." He pulled one hand out of his pocket, gesturing slightly toward the building. "So. Coffee tomorrow after my exam?"

The unfiltered honesty of it gave you mental whiplash. He wasn't playing a game. He wasn't trying to be overly smooth or intensely romantic. He just liked you, knew what he wanted, and figured there was no logical reason to wait around.

You would later learn that this was simply how Hansol moved through life. He never beat around the bush. When he wanted something, he said so. He didn't believe in games. It was one of the many, many things you liked about him.

You looked at him standing there under the bad lighting with his messy hair and his calm eyes, and you couldn't stop the genuine smile that broke across your face.

"Coffee," you repeated, your voice finally steady.

"Coffee," Hansol confirmed, a slow, incredibly satisfied smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He took a step back, melting into the shadows of the sidewalk. "I'll text you. Have a good night, Y/N."

Bleeding hearts — my heart is open and unguarded.

The three weeks leading up to the wedding become a masterclass in sleep deprivation and manual labor. Your fingers are perpetually stained a faint, grassy green from stripping rose thorns, your cuticles are destroyed, and you’re certain your bloodstream is now composed of roughly seventy percent caffeine.

Sleep deprivation, of course, has less to do with the flowers and more to do with the fact that you're reliving the biggest heartbreak of your life, crying yourself to sleep whenever the weight of it all becomes too much to bear.

Seungkwan and Seokmin—your two employees, who also happen to be your best friends—at times, and practically on their knees, begged you to walk away from this wedding, while insisting you were torturing and driving yourself crazy.

They weren't wrong, but you couldn't back out. You're not a twenty-two-year-old college girl anymore. You don't have the luxury of making business decisions based on your feelings. And even if you lied to them and told them you were over Hansol, he was still just a memory from a different lifetime. This shouldn't matter.

Which is why you channel every single ounce of your heartbreak, regret, and resentment straight into the foliage. If you keep your hands busy, your brain won't have the bandwidth to spiral.

That is the theory, anyway.

"Y/N, seriously, look at this texture. It's like holding a cloud."

Hannah's voice is bright as she stands by the main display table, brushing her fingertips against a plush cluster of white peonies. She looks effortlessly chic, her diamond ring catching the shop's warm pendant lights a little too eagerly. Standing right beside her is a tall woman, introduced to you twenty minutes ago as Leonor, the maid of honor from LA.

You force your lips into your practiced smile of professional vendor.

"They really are perfect, Hannah," you say, stepping out from behind the counter with a bundle of silk ribbons over your arm. "They're imported from Holland, so they'll be at maximum bloom right when you walk down the aisle. For your bridesmaids, I was thinking we tie them with this muted sage ribbon to match their dresses."

Hannah gasps, clapping her hands together. "Oh, I love that." She turns to Leonor, her eyes practically sparkling. "Didn't I tell you she was a genius? Look at how it brings out all the undertones in the fabric."

Leonor nods in agreement, making a quick note on her iPad. "It's stunning, Hannah. Your man is going to absolutely lose his mind when he sees you walking toward him with these."

"Ugh, don't make me cry," Hannah laughs, leaning her shoulder against Leonor's. A tender expression washes over her face. "Honestly, he's so stressed with work right now, but every time I bring up the wedding details, he just smiles and tells me to get whatever makes me happy. He's just… he's so perfect."

Hannah continues talking about how he stayed up until midnight helping her assemble the welcome baskets for the guests, even though he had a call meeting at six this morning, how he keeps telling her he just wants the day to be exactly what she's always dreamed of.

You let it wash over you, only half listening. And then you tune it out completely.

The last thing you want is to hear how good Hansol is at being someone else's perfect fiancé. It doesn't matter how kind Hannah is, or how happy she sounds; you still don't have the emotional bandwidth for that particular kind of detail.

"Stop, you're making me nauseous," you hear Leonor teasing, smiling warmly at her friend. "The man is obsessed with you. We get it."

Yep, you certainly do.

"Anyway!" Hannah turns back to you, completely oblivious to the emotional devastation she's casually causing you. "I have my final dress fitting in fifteen minutes, so we have to run. But the bouquet mock-ups look absolutely incredible, Y/N. Thank you so much."

"Of course," you manage to say, your voice steady through sheer, desperate willpower. "Have fun. I'll see you Saturday."

You watch them gather their bags, exchanging bright goodbyes as the bell above the shop door chimes softly behind them. The moment the door clicks shut, the silence of the shop rushes back in and swallows you whole.

You let out a long, shuddering exhale, your shoulders dropping as you lean your weight against the wooden counter, and look down at the beautiful white peonies, suddenly feeling incredibly small.

You grab a pair of shears and aggressively clip the end of a rogue stem, trying to shake the heavy weight from your limbs. You need a distraction. You need to wash out the plastic buckets in the back. You need to do anything that doesn't involve thinking about Hansol's midnight basket-tying sessions.

The bell above the front door chimes again.

"We're actually closing for lunch in ten minutes," you call out without looking up, your focus fixed entirely on slicing through a stubborn branch of eucalyptus. "But feel free to browse the front display if you're just looking for a quick—"

"I'm not looking for a quick bouquet, Y/N."

The shears slip from your fingers, clattering loudly against the tabletop. Your heart does a violent back flip. You raise your head slowly, eyes widening as they lock onto the figure standing just inside your doorway.

Hansol.

He's standing there looking very layered for a summer day, and far too cute for your own good. Rugged yet relaxed, he looks so achingly familiar that your chest tightens with an emotion you can't bring yourself to name. So much that, for one terrifying split second, you forget you aren't twenty-two anymore.

"Oh…" Your voice comes out breathy. You quickly wipe your damp hands against your apron, trying to ground yourself. "You… you just missed Hannah. She left literally two minutes ago. If you run toward the corner, you can probably catch her—"

"I didn't come here looking for Hannah," Hansol interrupts quietly, looking rather confused.

He doesn’t move from his spot by the door. His eyes sweep over the front of the shop, taking in the exposed brick walls, the dangling fairy lights, and the floor-to-ceiling shelving stacked with geometric ceramic pots and lush, thriving monsteras.

"The place looks great," he murmurs, voice low. He finally takes a few slow steps forward, stepping deeper into the shop. "A lot different than when your parents ran it."

Your fingers grip the edge of the zinc counter tightly. "We did some renovations when I took over." You don't know why you feel the urge to update him on this, but you do. "It… it took a lot of work."

The shop hasn't always been Poppy's Garden. For twenty-five years, it had been a neighborhood staple run by your parents. Your dad was the business brain, and your mom was the visionary, the heart of it, her hands constantly covered in dirt. You had grown up hiding under these prep tables, watching them build a life from the soil up.

But life, as you were rapidly learned, didn't care about your plans.

Right around the time Hansol was packing his bags to move back across the country, the tremors started. At first, your mom just thought she was tired. Then she started dropping vases. Then came the doctor's appointments, the sterile waiting rooms, and the devastating diagnosis. Parkinson's.

It moved faster than any of you anticipated. Within a year, your dad—a man who had never missed a day of work in his life—had to step away from the shop entirely just to become her full-time caretaker. The medical bills piled up within months. The physical therapy, the home modifications, the specialized medications, it was a financial avalanche.

The shop started drowning. They were weeks away from selling the business to a commercial developer who wanted to get the building and turn it into a trendy vape lounge when you stepped in. You took the degree you had just earned, swallowed the bright, shiny dreams you had of working in California, and anchored yourself to this shop.

The bright side is that you don't regret the decision you made, and at the end of the day, you're happy and love working here.

"It suits you."

Hansol reaches out, his long fingers casually tracing the rim of a vintage terracotta vase sitting on the display table. He runs his hand over the textured surface with a slow pace, his gaze dropping briefly to the floor before lifting again to lock onto your face.

From where you stand, the air feels charged with a suffocating tension that makes it hard to draw a full breath. He's standing in your shop again, the shop he knows you stayed in New York for. The shop that had essentially acted as the final barrier between your relationship four years ago.

"What are you doing here, Hansol?" you ask, dropping the vendor tone entirely. Your voice is a little defensive, a little raw. Whatever reason brought him, it certainly wasn't to catch up or talk about the place.

He let his hand drop from the vase, sliding both hands into the pockets of his jeans. He shrugs one shoulder. "I came because of the van."

Of course.

"I tried calling, but it kept going straight to voicemail, so I figured the line was just busy since things are going so well."

The shop's phone is not a particularly busy line. Seokmin does a great job handing online and phone orders. But here's the thing: Hansol hasn't changed his number in the last four years, and when it started popping up on your screen—dozens of times, at least—you chose to ignore every single call, telling, or rather ordering, Seokmin to do the same.

You let out a dismissive breath, crossing your arms over your chest. You really don't want to go over this again, so you lie. "I told you, it's fine." Never mind that your van isn't currently working and you had to bike across the city to make a delivery earlier. "I already handled it. The damage is completely taken care of."

Hansol stares at you, his expression flatlining into a deadpan look that you recognize instantly. It's the exact face he used to make whenever you tried to convince him that your social battery hadn't run out and that he didn't need to leave the gathering early on your account, both of you knowing you were already halfway to exhaustion.

He slowly turns his head, looking out at the large glass front window of the shop. Directly across the street, parked perfectly in a loading zone, is your delivery van. The rear bumper is still aggressively caved in, a massive, jagged silver dent gleaming proudly in the afternoon sun, looking exactly like it had three weeks ago.

Hansol turns his gaze back at you, raising a single eyebrow. "Right." He drags the word out slowly. "Taken care of. Is that a new avant-garde design choice for the bumper, or are you just waiting for it to magically heal itself?"

A stubborn flush of embarrassment creeps up your neck. You lift your chin, refusing to back down. "The mechanic is backed up, okay?" you say, harsher than you intend. "The parts are on back order from Germany. It takes time."

"Y/N, it's a delivery van. The parts are made in—I don't know—Buffalo?" he counters, taking a step toward the counter. "I know you're trying to avoid sending me the bill because you don't want to owe me anything."

"Well, I don't owe you anything!" you argue, your voice rising a fraction. "I was the one who backed into you! If anything, I should be paying for your smashed SUV grill."

Knowing Hansol, there's no way he'll let you pay for it. But there's also no way you'll let him pay for anything, either. You don't want your ex-boyfriend and first love—who will soon be a married man—doing you any favors.

"My insurance covered it," he says evenly, his tone completely unflappable against your rising panic. "And yours should cover this, but you haven't filed the claim because you know your premiums will skyrocket, and the shop ledger can't handle the hit right now."

You open your mouth to shoot back a fierce, biting lie, but the words die in your throat. He knows you too well. Even four years after the breakup, he can still read through your defenses like a children's book. It's infuriating.

"You don't know anything about my ledger," you mutter, looking down at your green-stained fingers.

"I know you," he simply says.

You like to think he doesn't.

Because despite everything, there are things he doesn't know. He doesn't know that your father called you yesterday because your mom's physical therapist is recommending a new intensive program. He doesn't know it's an extra three days a week, and that it isn't covered by their insurance. He doesn't know your father sounded tired, and that he didn't ask you for money, but he didn't have to, you simply know.

And then there's Poppy, your smart-ass little sister, somehow both annoyingly and brilliantly smart. She's pulling straight A's in honors classes while surviving the absolute nightmare of being a fourteen-year-old girl, all while dealing with the fact that her mom can't even braid her hair anymore.

He doesn't know that your parents' savings are gone. Drained. Every spare dime the shop makes goes into a high-yield savings account for her, and it's still barely a drop in the bucket. Because if Poppy wants to go to Stanford and enroll in their pre-med program, she will. You'll make sure of it.

"No, you don't anymore."

He lets out a humorless laugh. "Yes, I do. I know that you'd rather work yourself to the bone than ask for a single dollar of help. Some things don't change, Y/N."

"A lot of things change," you snap, finally looking up to meet his gaze. Your chest rises and falls too quickly, like you've been running instead of standing still. "People change. We haven't spoken to each other in four years. So don't stand there and act like you still have me figured out."

Hansol's eyes darken, his jaw tightening as though the thought of not knowing you anymore bothers him far more than he'd ever admit. He shifts his weight, his hands clenching inside his pockets. For a moment, he looks like he's about to say something about that, but the words never come.

"I'm just trying to pay for the bumper, Y/N." His voice drops into a careful, measured tone. "It's a standard transaction. You don't have to make it an emotional battlefield."

"Everything with you is an emotional battlefield," you whisper before you can stop yourself.

He takes another half-step forward, closing the distance between you until the clean scent of his cologne completely overwhelmed the fragrance of the sweet-pea bundles on the counter.

Hansol opens his mouth to answer you, but before he can say anything, the shop's front door swings open, the bell chiming loudly overhead.

"Sis! The farmers' market was hell. If you ever make me, go with these two again, I am going to—"

Poppy marches in dressed in her school uniform, two paper bags clutched in her hands, while Seokmin and Seungkwan trail after her, bickering about something you can't quite make out over the noise of the traffic outside.

She stops dead in her tracks, whatever complaint she'd been about to make dying on her lips as her eyes land on the man standing in front of the counter. Her jaw drops, and the bags fall onto the hardwood floor.

"Hansolo!" she shrieks.

Before you can even open your mouth to stop her, Poppy launches herself across the floor. She doesn't walk; she literally runs, skidding to a halt right in front of him and throwing her arms securely around his waist, burying her face into his jacket.

Hansol's eyes widen in brief shock, but a second later, a smile breaks across his face—the first real smile you had seen from him since you parted ways. He pulls his hands from his pockets and wraps his arms around her, lifting her completely off her feet for a second and shaking her slightly.

"Hey, kiddo," he laughs, his voice instantly dropping into a warm, familiar tone that sends a devastating wave of nostalgia straight to your gut. "Look at you. You're huge. What happened to the braces?"

You see, Poppy loved Hansol. Your relationship began when she was very little, and considering how much time she spent around the two of you, it didn't take long for her to consider him an honorary older brother. He let her ride on his shoulders, helped her with her school art projects, even took her to Coney Island, buying her a whole lot of candy and gifts because he simply couldn't say no to her.

When she found out he was getting married, she seemed a little more heartbroken than you, her nose scrunching as she looked genuinely offended. "He's getting married? To someone who isn't you? I liked him. We liked him."

Seungkwan is the first to enter the store after her, his eyes almost popping out as he takes in the scene, and then you. Even from outside, you can hear Seokmin's exaggerated gasp as he follows inside. They're the perfect combination of two people who are anything but discreet, looking between you and Hansol and gesturing like two completely insane men who have just witnessed something they shouldn't have.

You simply sigh, signaling for them to move, and the two head straight to the back with a small nod of greeting to Hansol, who is still wrapped up in a very excited Poppy.

"I got them off last summer!" Poppy beams, stepping back but keeping her hands gripping tightly to his elbows. "Oh my god, you look so old! Why are you here? Are you back in the city? Did you bring me those pink tacos from the truck near your old apartment?"

Hansol lets out a booming laugh, reaching out to playfully ruffle her hair, completely ignoring her squawk of protest. "No pink tacos this time, Pops. And I'm not old, I just have a more distinguished face now."

He pauses, his smile softening as his eyes drift away from Poppy and lock onto yours.

"But yeah. I'm back in the city. Permanently."

The silence that follows is deafening.

"W-what?" The word falls out of your mouth before your brain can filter it. Jerky breaths stutter over your lips, your eyes widening despite your best attempt to hide it. "You're back?"

"Yeah. I moved back last week," he confirms, watching your face closely, eyes searching for a reaction. "The production company is opening an East Coast branch."

Your mind completely goes blank. Nada.

He's back. Here. In your zip code.

A sudden, treacherous spark of hope flares up in the center of your chest. Why now? After all this time, why would he uproot everything to come back to the city? The thought comes uninvited, dangerous that could he have missed—

Hannah.

The spark is violently extinguished, replaced by a cold, heavy dread that settles in the pit of your stomach like a stone.

Of course. Hannah. The beautiful, sweet fiancée who was just standing in this very shop fifteen minutes ago, gushing about the man of her dreams. Hannah, whose family is rooted in New York. Hannah, who has been talking about looking at brownstones and loving the autumn weather.

"Wow," you finally manage to say, forcing your rigid facial muscles into a polite, hollow smile. You take a step back, putting the physical barrier of the counter between you and the crushing reality of his new life. "That's... great. I'm sure your family is thrilled."

"Are you moving back to West Village?" Poppy interrupts, completely oblivious. She leans against the counter, looking at Hansol with wide, hopeful eyes. "Because if you are, you still owe me that trip to the Natural History Museum. The one we were supposed to do before you moved."

Hansol stops. He looks at Poppy, then back at you, his eyes catching on the frantic, jerky movements of your hands as you start to scrub the counter surface like your life depends on it. He lets out a heavy, defeated sigh, running a hand through his hair.

"Brooklyn, actually," he tells Poppy, though his gaze never leaves yours. "And yeah. I know still owe you that trip."

That's when Poppy starts rambling about her own life, her face glowing with the same adoration she's had for him since she was a little kid watching him help her build a volcano for the science fair. But then, as if a switch had flipped inside her brain, Poppy's smile suddenly vanishes. Her eyes dart from Hansol, over to your stiff, pale face, and then back to him.

You can see the realization hitting her.

Poppy drops her hands from his arms as if his clothes have suddenly caught fire. She takes a massive step backward, her expression twisting into a fierce, protective scowl. She crosses her arms tightly over her chest, mimicking your previous posture exactly.

"Wait." Her voice drops into a dramatic, frosty tone. "I forgot. I am currently mad at you. You are on my banned list."

Hansol blinks, looking entirely amused but trying to hide it, eyebrows rising. "Your banned list?"

"Yes," Poppy declares, lifting her chin with an immense amount of teenage drama. "You broke up with our family, Hansol, which is a major violation of the honorary big-brother protocol. So, I am rescinding my hug. Goodbye."

You slap your forehead, taking a deep breath. "Poppy, back room. Now."

Poppy gives Hansol one last, lingering glare that's slightly ruined by the fact that she still looks like she wants to ask him for help with her arts homework, before she spins on her heel and marches behind the curtain, letting it slam shut behind her.

The silence returns infinitely more awkward than before.

"She... she hasn't changed much," Hansol murmurs, looking at the curtain with a faint, nostalgic smile.

"She has biology homework to do," you say stiffly, hands flat against the counter.

You can't look at him anymore. Seeing him with Poppy—seeing how naturally he could still fit into your life for those brief minutes—is entirely too much to bear.

"Look, Hansol. I appreciate you coming by, but I really am very busy. The wedding is on Saturday, and I have a massive shipment arriving from the auctions. You need to leave."

Hansol stares at you for a long, agonizing moment. You can see Adam’s apple rise and fall as he swallows hard, his eyes searching yours for something you're determined not to let him see.

He lets out a quiet, defeated sigh. "Fine. I'll leave."

But instead of turning toward the glass door, Hansol takes one step closer to the counter. He reaches inside his denim jacket, pulling out a small, neatly folded rectangular slip of thick blue paper. He doesn't hold it out for you to take. He just slides it across the surface, coming to a stop right next to your discarded floral shears.

He looks up, and it almost shocks you that you can still recognize the exact moment his guard drops completely.

"I didn't just come here to argue about a bumper, Y/N," he says, his voice becoming a whisper only loud enough for you to hear. "I came because I wanted to see you. I just... I needed to see you again."

The air is sucked from your lungs. Before you can formulate a single word—before your brain can even begin to process the confession—, Hansol turns on his heel. The little brass bell chimes wildly against the glass as he pushes the door open and steps out.

You stand entirely frozen, staring at the empty space where he had just been standing. Your chest rises and falls in ragged, shallow gasps before your legs finally move. You walk over to the wicker table near the door, your heart pounding against your ribs.

Slowly, your eyes drop to the counter, your fingers trembling as they reach for the folded paper. You unfold it to find a personal check. The amount printed is astronomical, more than enough to replace the bumper, repaint the van, and probably buy a second transmission just for fun.

On the memo line, in his familiar, messy scrawl, are five simple words: For the van. Please.

"Sis?"

You look up to find Poppy standing in front of the curtain, her voice small and uncertain. You immediately force on a bright smile, swallowing back tears that appeared out of nowhere.

"Yes, honey?"

"If I help you load the delivery van on Saturday, am I allowed to kick him in the shin for breaking up with you, or does that violate the vendor contract?"

You walk over and press a kiss on her forehead. "Pack up your things, Pops," you murmur, grabbing her empty lunchbox from the counter. "I'm buying you tacos for dinner. And no kicking the clients, please. I'm a professional."

"That sucks."

Pink camellias — my longing for you is endless.

Four days later, dead center of Hansol's family back lawn, you're wearing an unbothered, I've-got-this smile for six hours straight, with your cheeks are already starting to hurt.

Underneath the black apron, your spine has been making its best impression of a question mark ever since hour four, while the three layers of concealer working overtime under your eyes are trying their absolute best to hide the fact you're running on two hours of sleep.

That, and the fact that you spent the entire night crying.

You cried into your pillow until the memory foam was soaked. You cried in your perfectly-fixed-bumper delivery van while Seokmin navigated the early morning traffic, pressing your face against the cool glass of the window with him and Seungkwan tactfully pretending the radio news was fascinating, and completely abandoning their usual morning sing-along.

And, most pathetically of all, you cried while assembling the bridal bouquet.

It was supposed to be a joyous task. Instead, standing in the cold walk-in cooler at two in the morning, you had systematically bound together pristine white peonies, trailing sweet peas, and delicate lilies of the valley, while hot, bitter tears slid silently down your cheeks and dripped onto the zinc prep table.

You were making the perfect bouquet for the perfect girl who would walk down the aisle and marry the only guy you ever loved—and he, too, was perfect.

"Y/N, we need eyes on table fourteen!"

Seungkwan's voice snaps you back to the present. You blink rapidly, forcing the stinging heat behind your eyelids to retreat. You plaster on a smile so bright and unbothered it makes your jaw ache. For a moment, you wonder if people are actually buying that smile, or if you just look like a raving lunatic.

"The centerpieces are slightly off axis," you call back, walking swiftly across grass, dodging catering staff carrying towering trays of crystal glassware.

You reach table fourteen and gently rotate the massive, cascading arrangement of white hydrangeas and orchids by two inches. You've done countless weddings. None of them had been as big as this one. And none of them needed to be this perfect either.

"The cascading orchids need to face the entrance, not the head table. We want the guests to feel pulled into the space, not blocked off by the foliage."

"Got it, boss!" Seungkwan salutes as if he were reporting to a general, even though his eyes keep darting over your face with concern. He reaches out, gently brushing a stray leaf off your shoulder. "Are you okay? You look like you're about to either faint or commit a felony."

You shake your head. "I am a vision of zen," you lie, grabbing your clipboard and checking off the reception tables. "I am practically levitating with inner peace. Now, where's Seok?"

"He is finishing the floral aisle for the ceremony. Everything looks incredible, Y/N. You outdid yourself."

You swallow hard, the knot in your throat feeling thicker than a fist. "Good. That's good. Everything has to be perfect."

You take a deep, shaky breath, looking down at the small tray resting on table thirteen. Sitting on the top of the velvet lining are five meticulously crafted boutonnieres, featuring a single white ranunculus blossoms accented with trailing greenery.

"I'm going to run these up to the main house," you announce, voice sounding too hollow for your liking. "If Angela comes looking for me, tell her I am delivering the boutonnieres to the groom's suite and will be back in ten minutes to do the final sweep of the aisle."

Seungkwan opens his mouth to offer to go in your place — you can see the pity forming in his eyes — but you grab the tray before he can formulate the words.

You can't let him do it. If you're going to survive today, you must face the worst of it. You have to look Hansol in the eye on his wedding day and cut the invisible cord that has kept your heart tethered to him for years.

When you walk in, the inside of the house is quiet compared to the bustling chaos of the backyard. The Persian rugs swallow the sound of your sensible flats, creating an eerie silence that only amplifies the frantic, terrified hammering of your heart.

You walk up the staircase toward the second floor, your hands gripping the edges of the tray so tightly your knuckles are stark white. The air up here smells like lemon polish, layered with the familiar scent of the house you used to spend your weekends during your university days.

You mentally rehearse the script in your head, over and over. Congratulations. Have a wonderful wedding. Clean. Professional. Devoid of the fact that you want to scream until your lungs give out.

First, you hand out the groomsmen's boutonnieres one by one, not recognizing a single face among them. It makes you wonder what happened to Hansol's friendship with Minghao and Chan—his two best friends—and whether these men belong to this new chapter of his life, one you are not part of.

They're all nice, of course, and one of them even flirts with you, giving you the certainty that they don't know who you are. The one who introduced himself as Mingyu flashes you with a beautiful smile and asks if he'll be seeing you at the reception later.

Not a single chance. Not even over your dead body.

Finally, you reach the double doors of what used to be his father's study, now converted into the groom's holding room for the day. You raise a trembling hand, preparing to knock. But before your knuckles can even graze the wood, the handle clicks loudly and the door swings open, violently knocking the air straight out of your lungs.

Hansol steps out into the hallway, and your brain immediately flashes the mental equivalent of a TV with no signal.

He isn't just handsome — he's absolutely, devastatingly breathtaking. He's wearing a custom-tailored black tuxedo, but the jacket is nowhere to be seen. His crisp white dress shirt is unbuttoned at the collar, exposing the long line of his throat. A black silk vest molds perfectly to the expanse of his chest, though it's still unfastened, and a black satin bow tie hangs loose around his neck, completely undone.

He looks flustered, his hair slightly ruffled as though he's been running his hands through it in frustration. "I swear to God, if they put one more safety pin in this collar…" Hansol grumbles to himself, looking down at his cuffs.

He looks up, and the moment his eyes lock onto yours, he freezes.

The silence is absolute as you stare at each other, both of you forgetting, if only for a minute, what you were supposed to be doing.

You force your eyes away from his face, lowering your gaze to the tray holding the only two boutonnieres left in your hands, because if you look at him for one second longer, you're going to fall apart right here against the wainscoting.

Surprise colors his voice as your name leaves his lips. "Y/N."

"I brought the boutonniere," you rush to explain before he even has a chance to ask, the words coming out almost mechanically. "For the groom and the groomsmen. I didn't want to leave them with the caterers' downstairs. They… they need to stay fresh."

Hansol doesn't look at the tray. He looks at your face, his gaze sweeping over your carefully applied makeup, catching on to the subtle, undeniable puffiness around your eyes that the concealer couldn't quite hide. A long exhale slips past his lips as his hands drop from his cuffs to hang at his sides.

"Right. The flowers."

He seems almost disappointed, looking down at his unfastened vest and the tangled silk of his bow tie. A helpless almost boyish look crosses his face—a look you haven't seen since you were nineteen and he was trying to figure out how to fold a fitted sheet in his dorm room.

"My hands are too shaky to do the tie," he admits, rubbing the back of his neck. When he looks back up at you, there's a vulnerability in his eyes. "I can't get the knot right. And these fucking buttons on this vest are microscopic."

He hesitates. He doesn't have to say it, you can already see the question in his eyes.

"Could you… do you mind?"

He shouldn't ask. You shouldn't even consider. This is the absolute definition of crossing a line. You're nothing but the florist here, and he's your first love and potentially the love of your life, and he's getting married in an hour. You already know that when you tell your friends about this, they're going to call him anything but pretty for asking you — of all people — to do this.

But the panic in Hansol's eyes overrides every single rational thought in your brain.

You nod once, a jerky movement. You carefully set the tray down on an antique half-moon table sitting flush against the hallway wall. You take a breath, commanding your legs to work and step into his space.

Closing the distance between you is like stepping directly into the blast radius of a bomb. The moment you're inches from him, the scent of his perfume wraps around you. Your hands are trembling so badly you have to clench them into fists for a second before you reach up.

"Turn toward the window," you whisper, your voice barely audible, gesturing to the sunlight streaming in from outside.

He turns lightly, his chest rising and falling with heavy, uneven breath. You reach out, your fingertips grazing the crisp cotton of his dress shirt. The heat radiating off his skin is impossible to ignore, and it takes the strength of a saint to keep your focus on the tiny black buttons of his vest instead of letting your gaze drift above his collarbone.

You slip the first button through its hole, your knuckles brushing against the firm plane of his stomach. The contact is fleeting, but you feel his muscles instantly contract under your touch.

Show no emotion. You are an unfeeling, emotionless void, you chant in your head.

You move up, fastening the second button, then the third. You see his breath catching just enough that you feel it under your knuckles. Neither of you says a word. Your fingers linger on the fourth button longer than they need to, and his pulse keeps thudding against your wrist.

Damn. Wedding jitters really were a thing, you think, trying to ignore the ache that thought leaves behind.

Once the vest is secured, you reach for the black satin tie draped around his neck.

"Lift your chin," you instruct.

He obeys, tilting his head back slightly. You step even closer, the toes of your flats pressing right against the leather of his dress shoes. You loop the silk around his collar, your wrists hovering just millimeters from the skin of his neck. There you can still feel the rapid, thumping beat of his pulse right beneath his jawline.

It's now racing just as fast as yours.

"You look tired," he declares, with no trace of doubt in his voice.

You shrug slightly. "I've been working," you reply stiffly, pulling the loops of the silk bow taut. You adjust the edges, making sure they are perfectly symmetrical. "Weddings are exhausting."

A quiet scoff escapes him, his mint-scented breath fanning across your face. “Your eyes are red, Y/N,” he says flatly.

You smooth your hands down the lapels of his vest, giving it one final, unnecessary adjustment.

"Allergies. The ranunculus is aggressive this season."

He looks like he wants to say something, but you step back so suddenly it almost startles him, forcing a massive, unbearable distance between you. The sudden loss of his body heat leaves you feeling hollow and inexplicably freezing cold.

"There. You're done. The tie is perfect."

Hansol lowers his chin, his eyes locking onto yours, searching for something in your face. If you didn't know better — if you weren't standing here because he was about to get married to someone else — you would think he looks like he wants to grab your hands and pull your right back into his chest from how utterly torn apart he seems.

It's too much. The intimacy, the proximity, the crushing reality that within an hour, he is going to stand under the floral arch you built and pledge his life to someone else. You can't do this anymore. The dam inside you is cracking, and if you don't leave right now, you're going to sob hysterically at his feet.

You turn quickly, grabbing the tray from the table, and picking up the small box containing the most elaborate boutonniere: the one that belongs to the groom. You turn back to him, lifting your chin, forcing every ounce of professional detachment and fake bravery you possess into your posture, and hold the box out to him.

"Here…" You convince yourself your hand is trembling only slightly. "This is for you. The other one is for the best man."

He looks down at the box, making no move to take it.

"Have a wonderful wedding, Hansol," you force the words out, each syllable tasting like ash on your tongue. "I mean it. I want you to be happy. And Hannah is… she is a lovely girl. You guys are going to have a beautiful life together."

Hansol freezes almost comically. The intense gaze he had fixed on you vanishes entirely, replaced by a look of profound, absolute bewilderment. He stares at you like you have just started speaking entirely in a whole new language. He looks at the box in your hand, then back up to your face, his brow furrowing so deeply it creates a crease between his eyes.

"What?"

"I said, have a wonderful wedding," you repeat against your will. You just want him to take the box, so you can flee. "Just take the box, Hansol, please. I have to go back to the yard."

Before you can shove the box into his chest and run, his hand shoots out. His fingers wrap gently but firmly around your wrist, interrupting your movements completely.

"Y/N…" Your name comes out like it costs him something to say it, incredulous, laced with a sudden, dawning realization.

Hansol steps closer, paying no attention to the tray between you or the two boutonnieres resting on it. His eyes search your face frantically, as though it might be the last face he'll ever see.

"It's Seungcheol's wedding."

If your brain had been a TV with no signal, now it's a frozen screen desperately trying to reload.

You don't even blink. You just stare at him in complete astonishment. "What?"

"Seungcheol," Hansol repeats slowly, as if speaking to a deeply confused child. "My brother. It's his wedding. I'm just the best man."

You're pretty sure the hallway does a full three-sixty around you.

You feel stupid. You feel utterly ridiculous. The ground could — and should — open and swallow you whole. Heat floods every inch of your body, your face burning with embarrassment so intensely you can feel spreading through your face in different shades of red.

Hansol's not the groom.

The relief that crashes over you is instantaneous. It feels like a literal boulder has been lifted off your chest. Your lungs expand, drawing in the first full, deep breath you've taken in almost a month.

He isn't marrying Hannah. He isn't marrying anyone.

How deep in denial had you been to dismiss the possibility of Seungcheol getting married the very moment it crossed your mind?

Hansol's eyes flutter shut briefly, and when he opens them again, confusion is written all over his face, brows knit together. "Wait," he breathes, his eyes widening to the size of saucers. "Wait a second. The whole time… you thought I was getting married?"

He steps fully into your space, his grip on your arm shifting as his hand slides down to lightly grasp your fingers. You stare at him, mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish, brain so empty you're completely incapable of forming a coherent lie.

"Yes," you admit, your face burning with a fresh new wave of fiery embarrassment. "Your father's name was on the check. And… and you were at the driveway. And I… I just assumed."

"Why would you do that?"

"Because!" you blurt, sounding distressingly like a child throwing a tantrum. "God, that explains why Minghao and Chan aren't here."

"Why would they be at my brother's wedding?"

"I thought we'd just established that I believed this was your wedding."

Hansol lets out a breathless, stunned sound that is half a laugh and half a gasp of disbelief, shaking his head. "I haven't even spoken to a woman with those intentions in years. And you thought I could plan a wedding? You thought I would not mention my impending nuptials to you, of all people?"

"I don't know, Hansol!" you squeak defensively, taking step back enough so his hands drop to his side, though the loss of his touch instantly makes you crave it again. "You were acting weird! And your mom said something about her son's big day and I just thought—"

"She has two of them!" Hansol cuts you off, running a hand through his hair, looking stressed.

"But Seungcheol said once that he was staying single for the rest of his life!"

"That was before Hannah." He looks at you, his eyes dancing with a chaotic mix of amusement and shock. "God, no wonder you've been looking at me like I peed in your sunflowers. You thought I was making you decorate my wedding to another woman."

You look down at the vintage rug, mortified beyond belief. "It seemed entirely plausible at the time."

Hansol takes a step closer, the amusement in his voice and eyes fading into something intensely serious like you’ve only seen once before—when the two of you broke up. His hands are on your shoulders again.

"Y/N. Look at me."

You don't want to. You want the hardwood floor to open and swallow you. But you slowly lift your chin, meeting his gaze.

"If I was getting married, you wouldn't be just the florist."

Your heart stops. You swear you can feel it flatline right there, lurching from a frantic rhythm to nothing at all before kicking back to life in a wild, panicked sprint.

Before you can even process the magnitude of what he just said, before you can formulate a response, the doors of the master suite down the hall fly open with a violent BANG.

"It's catastrophe! It is an absolute disaster!"

Hansol and you instantly jump apart, the bubble between you popping instantly.

Two seconds later, Angela bursts into the hallway like a one-woman tornado in a tailored pantsuit. Her signature tight pear-bun is beginning to fray, and she's clutching her iPad to her chest as though it's the only thing keeping her tethered to the earth.

You're certain you've never seen her like this before.

"Angela, what's wrong?" you ask, feeling Hansol's gaze reluctantly shift from you to her.

"Is it Seungcheol? Did he hyperventilate again?"

Angela gasps, marching down the hallway. "No, the groom is fine. He's with your mother." She stops short in front of you, her wild eyes sweeping over you from head to toe in frantic assessment. "It's Leonor. Her flight was grounded because of a massive freak storm. She's not going to make it."

"Okay…" Hansol says, calm as ever. "That's unfortunate. But I can just walk down the aisle alone, and—"

"You don't understand!" Angela interrupts, her voice shrill. "Hannah is inconsolable. And the symmetry is ruined. I cannot have an uneven bridal party. It's asymmetrical. I do not do asymmetrical weddings!"

Watching her spiral makes you — though unwillingly — step far away from Hansol, slipping back into your role as the florist, and just another professional hired to keep this wedding from falling apart.

"Angela, breathe," you say, resting a reassuring hand on her forearm. "It happens. If you want, I can adjust the floral arch to cover the empty space on the bridesmaids' side—"

"No!" she snaps, pointing a manicured finger directly at your face. "We don't need more flowers. We need a body. And Hannah specifically asked for you."

There's no way you're hearing her correctly. "I'm sorry… what?"

Angela steps directly into your personal space, her eyes so wildly determined that even Hansol takes a step back.

She points a finger squarely at your chest like she's just solved the world's biggest problem. "You. Hannah loves you. And you know the schedule. You're young, you're objectively very good-looking, and more importantly, you look like you can fit in Leonor's dress."

A cold, creeping dread starts to pool in the pit of your stomach.

"Angela, no. I'm the florist. I'm wearing a black apron covered in sap."

"Leonor's dress is in the master suite," Angela barrels on, completely ignoring you. She grabs your arm with an iron-clad grip. "It's a silk slip. It requires zero tailoring. We have the hair and makeup team on standby. They can fix…" she waves a hand vaguely at your face, "whatever happened to your eyes."

"I cannot walk down that aisle!" Your voice comes out in another panicked squeak as you struggle to keep it from turning into a full-blown shout, desperately trying to pry your arm free from her vice-like grip.

You turn to Hansol for help.

"Tell her this madness! Tell her I'm just a vendor!"

Hansol stares at you for a moment before slowly turning to Angela. A dangerously slow grin spreads across his face.

"Well…" he drawls, crossing his arms and leaning into the hallway wall like he has all the time in the world. He looks entirely too relaxed for a guy whose brother's wedding is supposedly imploding. "The symmetry is very important, Y/N. We wouldn't want to ruin Hannah's day."

"I will kill you," you hiss at him.

Angela yanks you forcefully toward the master suite. "C'mon! We have exactly forty-nine minutes before the prelude music starts!"

You stumble after her, your brain desperately trying to catch up with the absurdity of your life. You're about to be forced into a bridesmaid dress for a woman you spent the last three weeks deeply resenting because of a misunderstanding. A misunderstanding that, in hindsight, was a spectacular problem of your own making.

You dig your heels into the carpet, forcing Angela to a sudden halt. You twist your body around, looking back down the long stretch of the hallway.

Hansol is still standing exactly where you left him. The tray sits abandoned on the table beside him. The grin is gone. Instead, he's watching you, his brown eyes blazing with that same complicated emotion that had brought your heart to a complete standstill only moments ago.

He raises a hand, adjusting his cuffs, and even from twenty feet away, his voice carries perfectly down the quiet corridor.

"I guess I'll see you at the altar."

Primrose — a sweet bond and young love.

Marriage only came up once during your entire relationship with Hansol.

Not because you didn't want to marry him, or because you thought he didn't want to marry you. It was more like you didn't think he wanted to get married at all.

It wasn't that he didn't love you, you never doubted that he did. It was just that marriage had never seemed like his thing—the idea of legally binding himself to someone for the rest of his life. Meanwhile, you had always seen marriage as little more than a social contract, a legal institution created to interfere in people's private lives and, sometimes, pressure them into bringing more children into the world, as if the planet wasn't already populated enough.

You loved each other deeply, and neither of you believed a piece of paper could strengthen what already existed between you. Love was enough. As long as he was walking through life beside you, you never needed anything else.

But as you watched Chan, the youngest in your friends group, marry the love of his life at barely twenty-one, you couldn't help wondering throughout the ceremony whether Hansol had ever given that possibility any thought.

The reception was very loud, the exact kind of thrown-together party you'd expect from a couple still finishing their sophomore year. Minghao was DJing for the night, blasting early 2010s club anthems alongside an impressive amount of Michael Jackson. The open bar consisted entirely of cheap vodka and aggressively sweet cranberry juice, both of which you were avoiding religiously.

You were leaning against the edge of a sticky high-top table, watching Chan and his new wife attempt to drop it low on the dance floor without tearing her rented tulle dress.

Hansol was standing next to you, his shoulder brushing yours. He had already ditched his suit jacket, tossing it over a nearby chair, and had rolled the sleeves of his crisp white dress shirt up to his elbows. He looked entirely too good, which unfortunately had your mind wandering straight to the private after-party you definitely weren't supposed to be thinking about.

He was nursing a can of beer, nodding along to the beat of On the Floor.

"I give Chan a lot of credit," Hansol said, tipping his can in the Chan's direction. "He's twenty-one and he just signed away his right to file single on his taxes. That's brave."

You let out a small laugh, peeling the lid off your plastic cup filled with ginger ale. "You think he even knows how to do his taxes yet?"

"Absolutely not." Hansol shakes his head, taking a slow sip.

You watched his throat work as he swallowed, your thumb now tracing the condensation on the cup. You took a breath, keeping your eyes fixed firmly on the chaotic dance floor, trying to make your voice sound as casual as humanly possible.

"Have you ever thought about it?" you asked, the words coming out a little too quickly for someone trying to sound nonchalant.

Hansol didn't flinch. He didn't choke on his drink or tense up. He just turned his head, his eyes studying the side of your face. "Thought about Chan's taxes?"

"No," you corrected, forcing yourself to meet his gaze. You bumped your shoulder against his, a defensive little reflex. "Getting married. The whole thing."

He looked at you for a long moment, and your heart rises into your throat, almost making you regret asking the question at all. He didn't look panicked by the loaded question, though. He just looked like he's processing it, turning the thought over in his mind like a piece of information he wants to understand before answering.

"Not really," he finally said, resting his elbows on the table. "Never saw the appeal of paying the government to validate a relationship."

It was exactly the answer you expected. It aligned perfectly with his practical, logic-driven brain, and yet, a tiny, irrational silver of disappointment snagged in your chest.

You nodded, going back to picking at your cup. "Right. Yeah. Makes sense."

Hansol shifted his weight, closing the small gap between you. He bumped his shoulder back against yours, his voice dropping slightly so you could hear him clearly over the music.

"But," he added, his tone entirely conversational, "if it was with you, I'd be down."

You froze, your fingernail catching on the edge of the cup. You looked up at him. "You would?"

"Yeah." Hansol nodded, confirming it with a small shrug. He didn't look like he's making some grand, theatrical declaration. He looked like he's stating a completely obvious fact. "I'd do the whole thing. The legal paperwork, the expensive rings, the house with the yard in Westchester. Two kids."

You abandoned your plastic cup on the sticky high-top table, turning to face him completely. Stepping into his space, you reached up, lacing your fingers together behind the nape of his neck.

"Two kids, huh?" you asked, a teasing smile breaking across your face.

His hands settled naturally on your waist, pulling you just a fraction closer over the pounding of the music. "Yeah," he murmured, his eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement. "The first one is going to need company."

You let out a genuine, breathless laugh. The image was entirely ridiculous. "Babe, you don't know the first thing about kids. Last week at the grocery store, a toddler waved at you in the cereal aisle, and you froze up and gave him a stiff salute like he was a foreign dignitary."

"I'll figure it out," he stated, completely unfazed by his own total lack of qualifications. He leaned in a little closer, his thumb tracing a slow, absentminded circle against your hip. "I'm a fast learner. If it's with you, I don't really care about the rest of it. I'm in, babe."

He didn't make a big deal out of it. He just stood there holding you in the middle of the chaotic reception, entirely unfazed by the fact that he had just casually rearranged your entire internal universe.

You stared into his eyes, a ridiculous warmth spreading from your chest all the way to your fingertips. You couldn't stop the huge smile that broke across your face, so you buried it against his chest before he could catch you grinning like an absolute idiot.

Snowdrop — hope and the warmth of a heart waking up.

You're shoved, zipped, and sprayed into a bridesmaid status in precisely forty minutes and twelve seconds. The makeup artist-slash-hairstylist worked like a woman possessed, wielding a canister of strong-hold hairspray in one hand and powder puff in the other, muttering something about miracles under pressure while aggressively taming every flyaway.

The sage green satin slipped over your hips with a satisfying rustle, the fabric molding effortlessly to your figure. The softly gathered sweetheart neckline settles perfectly across your chest, draping exactly as it's meant to, as though the dress had been made for you instead of Leonor.

You barely had time to send a message to the group chat with Seokmin and Seungkwan, telling them you'd explain everything later and that they were okay to leave. They even offered to pick you up afterward, but you turned them down, knowing that would only delay the inevitable conversation waiting for you later.

You're still fastening the strap of your left heel when Angela grabs you by the elbow and practically catapults you out of the room.

You burst into the back hallway just as Hannah is finishing her final veil adjustment. She looks breathtaking, a vision delicately off the shoulder lace, her dark hair falling in soft waves around her glowing face. The moment she sees you, her eyes light up, completely devoid of any panic.

Hannah squeals, entirely ignoring Angela's horrified gasp as she steps forward and wraps her arms tightly around you. "Y/N!"

The scent of her expensive orange blossom perfume surrounds you. She leans back just enough to hold you at arm's length, her expression shifting into a radiant—and conspiratorial—smile.

You can't help but wonder how much she knows about... well, everything.

"Thank you so much for doing this!" Hannah whispers in your ear, her voice bubbling with excitement. "You look so beautiful!"

You smile back at her, tilting your head. "Me? You look like a literal goddess," you say, voice breathy with genuine awe. Your fingertips lightly graze the delicate lace of her sleeve. "You look gorgeous, Hannah."

Hannah smile gets even bigger, a soft, very knowing sparkle dancing in her eyes as she gives your hands another squeeze.

"Thank you. I really hope we can be great friends after today. And, you know…" She wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. "Maybe someday sisters."

Your heart breaks into a violent tap dance against your ribs. But before you can process—let alone question—the implication of her words, Angela is already dragging you away again, steering you toward the grand staircase.

"Positions! Now!" Angela hisses.

At the bottom of the staircase, the groomsmen are all lined up. And there, standing at the very front of the line, is Hansol.

The moment your foot touches the bottom step, his eyes find yours. Every trace of his usual relaxed posture vanishes, replaced by a sudden stillness. His gaze follows the line of the sage green silk, lingering at your collarbone before finally returning to your eyes. You hold your breath.

Hansol steps forward, offering you his arm. His black tuxedo jacket is fully buttoned now, his bow tie perfectly straight. You thread your hand through his arm, and even through the fine wool of his jacket, the warmth of his body seeps into your skin, sending a flush creeping across your cheeks.

He clears his throat. "Nice dress," he murmurs, teasing tone in his voice as you both step into queue behind the other couples.

"Don't start, traitor," you grumble, keeping your eyes fixed forward as the double doors leading to the backyard swing open. The warm summer breeze carries in the sound of a string quartet playing what sounds like a cello-and-piano rendition of You're Still the One.

"I'm serious, though. You look beautiful."

You do your best to ignore what his words do to you—how the sound of his voice settles deep in your chest—because, at that very moment, the two of you step out into the ceremony. Hundreds of guests turn their heads, their eyes sweeping over you both as you walk down the aisle towards the massive archway you spent all morning constructing.

"I still can't believe you thought I was the one getting married," Hansol whispers, keeping his stride perfectly in time with yours. There's humor in his voice again.

You wave subtly at distant relatives of Hansol's you recognize. "I don't want to talk about it," you mutter through a frozen smile.

He doesn't seem to care, though. "To Hannah? Really?"

Hansol doesn't sound dismissive of Hannah when he says it—far from it. If anything, he sounds as though the very idea is the most absurd thing in the world.

Then, his shoulders start to vibrate.

You glance sideways to find Hansol biting his lower lip, his jaw clenched in a desperate attempt to maintain his composure. But it's a losing battle. A moment later, a breathless snort escapes him, completely shattering the solemn, elegant atmosphere of the processional.

"Hansol, stop it," you hiss, smile tightening into a grimace. "People are looking."

"You—" he starts, but his voice cracks, and he has to stop, clearing his throat, his chest heaving. He looks up at the sky, trying to blink back tears of amusement. "You actually thought… oh my god, Y/N."

"I had a momentary lapse in judgment!" you whisper-yell, cheeks burning with a heat that has absolutely nothing to do with the burning sun above you.

Another wave of silent laughter hits him, making his shoulders roll, and this time you're laughing with him. A lady in the third row, wearing an enormous, feathered fascinator, gives you a highly disapproving look, Hansol barely notice; he's too busy trying to draw a breath without snickering.

"It completely blows my mind that you actually thought I could ever stand at an altar with anyone else."

Your chest does a funny thing, stomach currently doing a dizzying free-fall.

"Shut up," you breathe, staring straight ahead.

As you pass the front row of chairs, your eyes catch his mother. She is sitting in the place of honor, looking like a queen in her dusty rose gown. Seeing her son recovering from a literal laughing fit while walking you down the aisle, she offers you a smile, raising her eyebrows an inch in a silent, conspiratorial smile that makes your own brows knit together in confusion.

What the hell is going on?

You reach the altar and you release Hansol's arm, stepping to the left to take your place exactly where Leonor was supposed to stand.

As you settle into place, you look up and lock eyes with Seungcheol. He—standing stiffly in his suit—looks at your face, then down at the dress, and then back at your face. His thick brows furrows in absolute, comical bewilderment. He raises a hand gives you a small, incredibly confused wave, his mouth twisting into a silent, What on earth are you doing here? expression.

You offer him a helpless, apologetic little shrug in return.

Hansol steps to the right, taking his place beside his brother, who immediately nudges him with an elbow, whispering what can only be a frantic question that Hansol shuts down with a quick entertained shake of his head.

You stand rigidly, clutching your small bouquet of peonies. You have absolutely no idea what you are doing. You don't know when to hold Hannah's train, you don't know when to take her bouquet, and your mind is entirely consumed by the fact that Hansol is standing directly across from you, his eyes not leaving you for a second, watching your every move.

The music swells. The guests stand. Hannah walks down the aisle, a radiant beam of light, and the ceremony officially begin.

But as the minister starts to speak, the words wash over you in a blur. Your focus is entirely pulled to the guy standing across the floral-draped altar. The space between you feels incredibly small, charged with unsaid words, missed phone calls, and the lingering sting of a sunny July afternoon.

Seungcheol clears his throat, taking Hannah's hands as they prepare to exchange their vows.

You would have thought that, not knowing their story, the vows wouldn't affect you all that much. You are proven wrong the moment Seungcheol opens his mouth.

"I don't promise you a life without hardship," he begins, his voice clearly emotional, not even trying to hide. "I know there will be days when the road is steep, when the answers aren't clear, and when life asks more of us than we think we can give. But what I do promise is that you'll never have to face those days alone."

Across the altar, you can see the exact moment Hansol's expression changes, darkens, even. Any lingering traces of laughter that had been in his gaze moments ago completely disappear, replaced by a raw vulnerability that cuts straight through you.

You wish you didn't know him well enough to understand what was going through his mind. Even if parts of you tried to deny it, your heart already knew. His gaze, his expression, they were telling you the same thing.

Hansol was thinking about you.

"I promise to stand beside you when the world feels too much, to hold your hand when you're afraid, and to remind you of your strength when you've forgotten it yourself. And if distance ever separates us, my love won't. Whether there are miles between us or life pulls us in different directions, I'll keep choosing you, Hannah. I'll always find my way back to you, because home has never been a place for me, it's wherever you are."

Seungcheol's vows shouldn't feel like a brutal mirror, reflecting every single piece of your unresolved wreckage back at you while Hansol and you make unbroken eye contact—but they very much do.

You can't stop the hot, fat tear that spills over your eyelashes, tracing slowly down your cheek. An overwhelming mix of emotions crashing over you all at once. The sudden relief of knowing he isn't marrying someone else tangled with the aching regret for all the years you wasted, sitting in your own separate silences, waiting for the other person to break first.

But most of all, you're feeling hopeful.

Because as you wipe the tear away with a trembling finger, Hansol doesn't look away. He watches you, his own eyes shining with a faint, watery warmth, even if you know he’s not going to cry, his gaze holding something so that fuels that feeling. He is looking at you exactly the way he did before he left—like you're his home, and he is finally ready to walk through the door again.

Forget-Me-Not — true, undying love.

The battery percentage on your screen ticked down to fifteen percent, but you barely notice. Your eyes remain fixed on the digital clock in the top corner of the screen marking 7:42 PM, wondering what acceptable time would be to leave.

The reception in the backyard is a mix of a live jazz band, clinking glasses, and people laughing happily under canopy of warm fairy light strung between the trees. In the last three hours, you watched the newlyweds' first dance, the bouquet toss, and a dozen other wedding traditions, yet you still couldn't find a moment alone with Hansol.

You barely caught glimpses of him through the crowd.

So now you just sit by yourself at a table near the edge of the dance floor, staring at a plate with a half-eaten slice of wedding cake.

It didn't help that a few of Hansol's relatives had already made a point of coming over to speak with you. His great aunt had stopped by your chair to pat your shoulder with an agonizingly happy smile, telling you that she had always known you and Hansol would find your way back to each other. Meanwhile, his older cousin had asked if you were seeing anyone new yet, her eyes scanning your face for any sign of a breakdown.

You had just smiled until your cheeks cramped, nodding through the thinly veiled interrogations while aggressively shredding a paper napkin under the table.

"The cake is actually terrible, isn't it?"

You jump slightly in your chair, startled.

A guy is standing next to your table, and you recognize him immediately. He's the same one that flirted with you earlier while you pinned a white ranunculus boutonniere on his lapel: Mingyu. He's tall, with a really nice smile, and he's already ditched his tuxedo jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his crisp white shirt, and loosened his black bow tie so it hangs casually around his neck.

"Never said it was terrible," you reply, offering a polite smile.

"You didn't have to," Mingyu laughs, pulling out the empty chair next to you and sitting down. He rests his elbows on the table, holding a glass of club soda with lime. "I watched you push that same piece of frosting around for a solid two minutes. It's okay to admit it. Fondant is basically edible plastic." 

"It really is," you admit, relaxing a little. "I think people just buy wedding cakes for the pictures. No one actually expects them to taste good."

"Exactly. I'm hitting up a diner for a real burger the second this is over," Mingyu says, setting his drink down. He leans back in his chair, looking at you with a thoughtful expression. "I thought I wouldn't be seeing you here tonight."

You thought that too. But you don't tell him that. You pick at the edge of your paper napkin, instead, offering a small smile. "Small change of plans."

"Well, it's a really nice thing you did for Hannah." Mingyu gestures toward the dress and the surrounding floral setups with a smile. "Seriously. The flowers look incredible."

"Thanks, Mingyu," you reply, feeling a small wave of relief at his easygoing demeanor.

He gestures toward the centerpieces this time. "Hannah told me you own a shop in the city. Poppy's Garden, right?"

"Yeah, that's me."

"That massive flower arch thing during the ceremony?" Mingyu continues, shaking his head in mild disbelief. "I have no idea how you built that without it falling over on the minister."

He sounds like he means it. He isn't giving you a sleazy line. He’s just a genuinely nice guy making conversation.

"A lot of zip ties and silent prayers," you explain, letting out a real laugh for the first time in hours.

Mingyu smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He takes a sip of his drink, then sets it down again and looks at you. "So, you've been sitting over here by yourself for the last forty minutes. I know because I've been trying to figure out an excuse to come talk to you."

You blink at least three times, slightly taken aback by how straightforward he is. "Oh. You didn't need an excuse."

"Good to know." He leans back in his chair, tilting his head toward the dance floor. "The band is actually pretty decent. I know you've probably been on your feet all day dealing with the setup, but I was wondering if you’d want to dance."

"W-what?"

"I mean… you're definitely the most beautiful girl here, and it seems like a shame that you're hiding in the corner."

It's a nice compliment. It's polite, it’s flattering, and Mingyu is objectively very handsome. You open your mouth, fully intending to say yes, just to get out of your own head for a few minutes.

Before you can even form the first syllable, a shadow falls over the white linen tablecloth.

"She's actually taking a break right now."

The voice is low, flat, and completely devoid of inflection.

You look up to find Hansol standing right behind Mingyu's chair.

He still has his tuxedo jacket on, though it's unbuttoned. His hands are shoved deep into his trouser pockets. He isn't glaring, and he isn't puffing his chest out. He just looks incredibly, intensely solid—and hot. His eyes fixed on Mingyu, and his jaw is set in a rigid, immovable line.

Mingyu turns around, looking up at Hansol in surprise. "Oh. Hey, man. I was just asking Y/N if she wanted to hit the dance floor."

"I heard." He doesn't move an inch. "She has company, though."

Mingyu blinks, looking back and forth between Hansol and you as he pieces it together. He's smart guy, it only takes him two seconds to reach the tension rolling off Hansol in waves. He let out a short, incredulous laugh, raising an eyebrow at Hansol.

"Wait... I thought you guys broke up."

"We're handling it." Hansol's tone isn't aggressive, but it's final. He doesn't offer an explanation. He just holds Mingyu's gaze, projecting an aura that very clearly says this conversation is over until the message lands loud and clear.

Not even you knew what exactly you were handling, let alone Mingyu.

"Got it," Mingyu finally says, holding his hands up in easy surrender as he stands up from the chair. He picks up his drink, giving you a slightly amused wink. "My bad. I'll leave you two to it. Catch you later, Y/N. Great job on the flowers."

You offer him a small wave. "Thanks, Mingyu."

Mingyu walks away, disappearing into the crowd near the bar.

You sit frozen, staring at Hansol. Your heart is suddenly beating so hard you can feel it in your throat. Seeing him act like this is entirely jarring. In all the time you dated, Hansol was the king of nonchalance. He never got jealous. If a guy ever hit on you, Hansol would just laugh, wrap an arm around your waist, and shrug it off. He was always so ridiculously secure in himself. And most of all, he always trusted you.

But right now? He looks very territorial. And you absolutely hate that the only thing you can think about is how incredibly hot it is.

Hansol watches Mingyu walk away until he is completely out of sight. Then, he pulls his hands out of his pockets. He takes a step forward, closing the distance between you, and holds his right hand out to you, palm facing up.

"C'mon."

You stare at his hand. "Come on where?"

"Dance floor," he clarifies, like it's the most obvious thing in the world. It isn't.

You let out a short, incredulous laugh. "Hansol, you don't dance. The last time we went to a wedding, you literally hid by the buffet table for three hours eating crab cakes so my aunt wouldn't drag you out there."

"I know." He shrugs, not withdrawing his hand. His eyes lock onto yours, completely serious. "But I want to dance with you."

The lack of hesitation in his voice leaves you totally speechless. There is no joke, no sarcastic deflection. He is just standing there, waiting for you.

You reach out and place your hand in his, his fingers closing around yours immediately. His grip is warm, firm, and familiar. He pulls you up from the chair, and the silk of your dress rustles against his trousers as he leads you way from the table, navigating through the maze of guests and empty chairs.

You step onto the dance floor just as the band transitions into a Frank Sinatra song.

Hansol doesn't ask how you want to hold him. He just steps in close, sliding his right hand firmly onto the small of your back, right at the dip of your spine. The heat of his palm seeps instantly through the thin silk of the dress. You rest your left hand flat against his chest, right over his heart, and your joined hands settle comfortably between you.

It leaves you breathless how you fit together exactly the way we did years ago. Your heights match perfectly. The muscle memory is so immediate, so natural, that it actually makes your chest ache in the best way possible.

For the first minute, you just sway. You don't say a word. You move slowly to the song, ignoring the dozens of couples swaying around you. You keep your eyes focused on the knot of his bow tie, acutely aware of his thumb tracing a slow, absentminded circle against your spine.

"You shouldn't have been rude to Mingyu. He was just being nice," you say eventually.

"I wasn't rude," Hansol states, his chin brushing the top of your head. "I just stated a fact. You were busy."

"I was sitting by myself staring at a napkin."

"You were busy," he repeats stubbornly.

You shake your head, looking up at him. "I'm only here because of your sister-in-law, Hansol."

"Mhm." His lips twitch. "Not even a little for me?"

"You're asking that after I spent the last three weeks terrified because I thought you were the one getting married today?"

A laugh escapes him. "I think it's safe to say we had a pretty catastrophic case of miscommunication there."

You glance around the reception, only to find his parents watching from a nearby table, both wearing impossibly—and suspiciously—wide smiles. Across the dance floor, Hannah and Seungcheol wear that very same expression, their attention fixed on the two of you as well.

You tilt your head to the side, meeting Hansol's gaze without breaking your rhythm. “I suspect that was entirely intentional.”

Hansol sighs and looks away toward the band.

"I know." He looks down at you again, as though he's about to confess something. "My mother and Hannah planned all of this behind my back. They purposely booked your shop, so we'd run into each other again."

A corner of his mouth lifts shyly.

"It was all on purpose."

"They actually wanted me to think you were the groom," you gasp, the absurdity of the situation finally sinking in. "They wanted a reaction."

"Did it work?" he asks, one perfectly lined eyebrow arching.

"I threw up in a trash can behind the loading dock this morning," you admit, deciding you don't care about preserving your pride anymore. "What do you think?"

Hansol's jaw clenches, and he stops swaying for a second. His hand tightens against your back, pulling you a fraction of an inch closer, as though the mere thought of having caused you that much pain unsettles him.

"I'm sorry. I never would have agreed to that. It was a stupid, manipulative thing to do."

You shrug, looking away. "It doesn't matter. The wedding is over. You can go back to your life, and I can go back to mine."

"But I told you I'm living in Brooklyn now," Hansol reminds you, his eyes searching yours. "I transferred my contract to the New York division. The rest of my stuff is getting shipped next week."

He sounds hopeful, and against your better judgment, you feel hopeful too.

You nod, the memory of what he told Poppy weeks ago still making your thoughts scramble. Even so, there's one thing you still need to know.

"Since when?"

You don't need to explain. Hansol knows.

"The day I saw you in the driveway."

An incredulous, breathy laugh escapes you. You shake your head, your mind scrambling to make sense of the timeline. “You decided to uproot your entire life and move across the country because we had one awkward conversation?”

"It wasn't just the awkward conversation, Y/N." His voice was losing the casual tone. "You looked at me like you hated me. And it bothered me so much I couldn't sleep for two days."

"But you were fine for four years!" you argue, your voice rising slightly over the music. The frustration is bubbling up, fast and hot. "You were completely fine, Hansol."

"I wasn't fine," he admits bluntly. "I hated it."

You hated it too.

Your break wasn't dramatic. It hadn't been a screaming match over who was right or wrong.

It was a random Tuesday afternoon, and Hansol had come over to your apartment to pick up the last of his winter coats before his flight back to Los Angeles after spending the weekend in New York again. You had been sitting at the kitchen table, buried under a pile of your mother's medical bills and past-due notices for the flower shop. You were exhausted, hair a mess, and you hadn't slept in three days.

When he sat down beside you, you both just looked at the paper mountain between you. There wasn't any fight left in either of you over whether you were going to Los Angeles anymore. You both already knew the answer; you were staying in New York. So, you looked each other in the eye and mutually agreed that pulling the plug was the only logical thing to do.

He had been so calm. So logical. You laid it out together like a business transaction, like two partners analyzing a bad contract and agreeing to walk away. Neither of you cried. Neither of you begged. You hugged goodbye, he picked up his bag pack and walked out the door. It was the absolute, shared coldness of it—the silent agreement to just give up—that had broken you.

Hansol lets out a sharp exhale. He drops his hand from yours, bringing it up to rub the back of his neck, looking incredibly frustrated. "I went along with the breakup because I felt completely useless, Y/N. I didn't push back because I knew I had nothing to offer you."

You frown. "What?"

"I was standing in your kitchen," he continues looking at you intently, "and you were drowning. Your mom was sick, you were working twelve hours a week, and you were stressed out of your mind. And I was leaving again. I couldn't pay your bills. I couldn't fix your mom. I couldn't do a single thing to actually help you."

He drops his hand, stepping closer to you again, forcing you to look up at him.

"I'm a practical guy, baby," he says, lifting his shoulder. "I couldn't fix your life, and I wanted to. So bad. When you suggested maybe we should end it, I went along with it because I knew if we stayed together, I would just be one more thing you had to worry about. One more person you had to text, one more schedule you had to manage. I thought letting us both walk away was doing you a favor."

Meanwhile, you believed you were doing him a favor by lifting the burden of your life off his shoulders with the breakup. And then you hated yourself for feeling hurt—for feeling almost hypocritical—that he hadn't fought against it.

You stare at him, your chest aching. "That is the stupidest logic I have ever heard."

"I know." He nods, a self-deprecating smile pulling at his mouth. "It was stupid. I was twenty-two, and I was an idiot. I thought we were being realistic. I didn't realize that being practical doesn't matter when you're miserable."

You stare up at him, the fairy lights blurring slightly as his words settle over you. For four years, you had convinced yourself that he walked way without a fight because it was the easiest thing to do. To hear him admit that he had been just as miserable—that he had broken his own heart out of some misguided attempt to protect yours—shifts the foundation of your memories.

"Have you dated anyone?" you ask, the question finally pushing its way out of your throat before anything else. You feel a little silly, yes, but you need to know.

"I went on a few dates," he answers, because of course he must be factually accurate. As always. "They sucked. All I could think about was how much I wished it was you instead. I couldn't do it." He gives the smallest shake of his head. "So, I just stopped trying."

The simplicity of his confession is staggering. There are no grand declarations, or poetic metaphors about stars and fate. It's just Hansol. The same you've always known. The same you've always loved.

"Why come back now?" you ask, your voice trembling. "My life is still messy, Hansol. The shop is doing objectively better, but everything is still the same. I still work crazy hours. None of the logistics have actually changed."

"I changed," he says simply.  

He reaches out, resting both of his hands on your waist. His thumbs press against the silk of the dress, right over your ribs.

"Forget about logistics. I have a stable job. I have a car. I can drive your mom to her physical therapy appointments. I can come to the shop and carry the heavy buckets when you have a massive order. I don't need to fix your life, Y/N. I just want to be in it. I want to carry everything with you."

The tears you've been fighting back since the ceremony ended finally spill over, tracking down your cheeks and ruining whatever setting spray the makeup artist used.

"Are you seeing anyone?" Hansol asks, his thumbs brushing against your sides. "Tell me the truth."

You shake your head. "No."

He breathes out a sigh, and you can see the tension completely drained out of his shoulders. The rigid posture is quickly replaced by the relaxed, comfortable Hansol you know. "Thank God. I really don't want to have to fight another groomsman tonight."

A wet laugh escapes you. "You are an idiot."

"Yeah. I really am."

The next second, Hansol is closing the final few inches between you, and when he kisses you, it's like you've been trapped in a coma for four years.

A soft, involuntary moan escapes you, almost more of a gasp than a sound. He swallows as your hands slide up his chest and curl around the back of his neck, fingers tangling in the short, soft hair at the nape of his neck and holding on to him as though your next breath depends on it. Hansol's arms tighten around your waist, pulling you squarely against his chest so there's no space left between you.

His mouth moves against yours with grounding pressure, almost as though he's been waiting for this for years and has no intention of rushing it. You kiss him back just as hard, parting your lips just enough to meet him halfway, catching the cool taste of peppermint and the lingering hint of whatever he'd been drinking earlier mixed on his tongue.

The jazz band keeps playing, and the other guests keep dancing around you, but you barely notice them or when the music changes to another Frank Sinatra song. You just stand there in the middle of the crowded floor, holding onto him for dear life as though letting go would mean losing him all over again. All while letting him explore your mouth deliberately, sucking and biting deliciously.

For the first time all day, you aren't thinking about the time on your phone, the flower shop, or making a quick exit.

Hansol pulls back just an inch, his forehead resting against yours. He is breathing a little heavily, a genuine smile breaking across his face.

"I'll buy you a burger after this," he murmurs against your mouth. "Since you hate the cake."

"Okay," you whisper, smiling back. "Okay."

Except the burger doesn't happen.

Well, not right away.

Because two songs after the kiss on the dance floor, Hansol's hand is fisted in yours and he's pulling you through the crowd of guests, past a slightly tipsy Seungcheol who whistles at the sight of you, past his mother who pretends not to see the urgency her son is dragging you toward her house, past Angela who is too busy directing the sparkler send-off to notice her florist flipping away from the reception with the best man.

You laugh, stumbling over your heels on the stone patio. "Hansol, slow down."

You try to slow him down, but he only tightens his grip on your hand, glancing back at you with hungry eyes.

"Can't," he mutters, tugging you through the doors and into the quiet hush of the house. "I'm not waiting another goddamn minute."

The house is empty, since the staff are all outside handling the reception and the guests are gathered on the lawn. The only sound is the distant thumping of the bass from the band and the click of your heels against the hardwood as Hansol pulls you up the staircase, two steps at a time.

He leads you unhesitatingly to the last door on the left, exactly where you knew he would: his childhood bedroom.

The hallway passes you in a blur before he's pushing the door open and pulling you inside. The room is like a whole new wave of memories. The same navy-blue walls, the framed vinyl records above his old desk, the queen bed against the far wall with its rumpled white duvet. You can see that he probably slept here last night, because there's a duffel bag by the closet and a pair of sneakers kicked off near the desk.

The door clicks shut behind you.

And then Hansol is on you.

His hands cup your face, tilting your chin up, and his mouth crashes down onto yours with none of the careful restraint he'd shown before—if you can even call it that. This kiss is greedy and hungry. His tongue slides against yours, and you're, once again, moaning into his mouth, hands flying up to grip the lapels of his tuxedo jacket.

The way he kisses you— like he's been starving, like you're the only thing he's ever craved—makes your mind spin. You want nothing more than to be devoured by him.

"Fuck," he breathes against your lips, walking you backward until your shoulder blades hit the closed door. His hands drop from your face to your waist, gripping the silk of the dress. "Fuck, I forgot. I forgot how good you taste."

"Hansol—"

He kisses you again before you can say another word. One hand slides up the side of your throat to cup your jaw, tilting your head exactly the way he wants. His thumb presses against the corner of your mouth, and you open for him willingly, letting him lick into you with slow, filthy heat that makes your knees go weak.

Your hands are shaking as they push his tuxedo jacket off his shoulders. It falls to the floor with a soft thump, and Hansol doesn't even glance at it. He's too busy dragging his mouth down the line of your jaw, the column of your throat, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses to the pulse fluttering wildly under your skin.

"Look at you in this fucking dress," he murmurs, voice a low rumble against your collarbone. His hands slide down to your hips, gripping them possessively.

You gasp, arching into him as his teeth assault your throat. "It's not my dress."

He nips at your skin, and you feel it all the way down between your legs. "Don't care. It might as well be made for you."

His mouth is on yours again, and this time his hands start moving more frantic than before. They slide up your sides, thumbs brushing the underside of your breasts through the silk, and you whimper shamelessly, feeling like you could melt right there.

Your head spins as he slowly draws back from your lips again, a fine thread of saliva stretching between them. He rests his forehead against yours for the briefest moment before nuzzling his face into the curve of your cheek, his lips brushing your ear in a teasing bite.

"You have any idea," he groans, breath hot against your ear as his hands skims down over your hip, gathering the silk of the dress in his fists, dragging the hem higher, "how many times I've thought about having you again? Every fucking night. Every fucking night for four years."

"Hansol—" His name breaks on your tongue as his palms slide under the hem of the dress, up the outside of your bare thigh.

"Tell me you thought about it too."

"I did," you whine. "So much."

His fingers trace the elastic of your underwear, and you feel him smile against your throat. "Yeah? Tell me, then. Tell me what you thought about, baby."

You can't. You can barely form words right now. His hands are inching up, thumbs pressing against your hipbone, and you're clinging to his shirt like you'll fall over if you let go.

Hansol seems to take pity on you, pulling back just enough to look at your face, and what he sees there makes his eyes darken to almost full black. A millisecond later he's kissing you again, and moving, and before you fully register what's happening, he's guiding you across the room to his old study desk.

In one smooth motion, he grips your waist and lifts you up onto it. You gasp at the sudden movement and the cool wood pressing against the backs of your thighs where the dress has ridden up. Hansol steps between your knees, forcing them apart with his hips, and cups your face again, pressing a soft kiss to your lips.

Then he drops to his knees.

Your breath leaves your lugs. He's still in his tuxedo pants and his white dress shirt, sleeves shove up his forearms now, his bow tie hanging loose around his neck—the one you tied for him hours ago—and he's staring up at you like you're something holy.

"Hansol."

"Yeah, baby?"

"I—" You don't know what you're going to say. You just want to say his name again. And again, again, again, again.

He smiles, soft and slow. And then his hands are on your knees, spreading them wilder, pushing the silk dress up higher until it's bunched around your waist and you're bare to him except for the thin cotton of your underwear. For a moment, you wish you were wearing something prettier and nicer for this moment, but those thoughts are soon silenced by his voice.

"Fuck me."

His fingers trace the edge of the fabric where it meets your thigh, and your hips roll forward instinctively at the touch.

"You're already wet, baby. I can see it through your underwear."

You cover your face with your hands. "Oh God."

He immediately catches your wrist, grip gentle as he guides your hand away. "Don't. Don't hide. I want to see you."

Hansol then hooks his fingers into the waistband of your underwear and drags it down your legs, slowly, taking his sweet time, his eyes fixed on your core. You lift your hips to help him, and he pulls it off over your heels, then shoves them into his pocket.

"Hansol!"

He grins, and it's so wolfish, so filthy, that more heat floods between your legs. "Mine now."

He plants his hands on your inner thighs, spreading you wider. His breath ghosts over you, warm and unbearable, and you shudder.

"Look at that," he murmurs, almost reverent. "Look how pretty. Missed this. Missed you so fucking much, baby."

The first stroke of his tongue makes you cry out, your hips jerking forward, and he immediately clamps a hand down on your hip to hold you in place. Hansol drags his tongue up through your folds, slow and thorough, and you throw your head back so hard it thuds against the wall behind the desk.

"Oh fuck!"

"That's it. Let me hear you," he groans against your core.

Hansol knows exactly what he's doing. Most importantly, he remembers—God, he remembers—that you like it slow at first. Long, flat licks up your center, his tongue soft and unhurried, warming you up. His hand slide under your thighs, hooking your knees over his shoulders, pulling you closer to the edge of the desk.

You look down at him and almost combust. His head is buried between your legs, his dress shirt rumpled from your grabbing hands, and his eyes flick up to meet yours the exact second you look at him. He holds your gaze while his tongue drags a slow circle around your clit, and the sight of him—your Hansol, one his knees for you—is almost enough to push you over on its own.

A whimper escapes you, certain there's no air left in your lungs. "Baby."

You don't even know how it's possible, but his gaze grows darker. Hansol sucks your clit into his mouth, hard, and your back arches off the wall.

"Hansol!"

He hums against you, appreciatively, and the vibration makes your thighs shake around his head. He's making obscene, borderline pornographic noises, wet, filthy sounds that echoes through the room, and he's not slowing down, not letting up, his tongue flicking against your clit in fast, precise strokes that have you climbing embarrassingly fast.

"Oh god, I'm—already, I'm gonna—"

"Yeah, you are," he growls, pulling back just enough to speak, his lips glistening. "Come on my tongue. Give it to me."

Hansol dives back in, and this time he slides a finger inside you, then a second, curling them up in that perfect way that only he ever figured out how to in all these years. There, you lose it. Your hand flies to his hair, gripping tight, and you come hard with a broken cry, thighs clamping around his head, hips bucking helplessly into his mouth.

He works you through it. Slow, gentle laps of his tongues, his fingers sliding out of your and stroking soothingly along your inner thigh. When you finally slump against the wall, boneless and shaking, he presses one last kiss to the inside of your thigh and looks up at you with the most self-satisfied smile you've ever seen.

"There she is."

Your voice is wrecked but you manage to say, "Shut up."

"Missed that face."

"Hansol, I swear to god—"

He stands up, and before you can catch your breath, he's kissing you again. You can taste yourself on his tongue, and it should be too much but instead it makes something hot coil low in your belly all over again. His hands cup your face, his thumbs stroking your cheekbones, and he kisses you like he can't help himself.

"Bed," he says against your mouth.

"Please."

He pulls you away from the desk. Your legs are so shaky that you would have stumbled if he hadn't slipped an arm around your waist to steady you. Without letting go, he guides you backward to his old bed, dressed in navy sheets and topped with mismatched pillows, before easing you down onto the mattress as though you're made of glass.

Then he stands at the foot of the bed and looks at you like he can't quite believe you're real.

You're a mess. The dress is bunched around your waist, one strap slipping off your shoulder, your hair coming loose from the chignon. Your legs are bare, spread slightly, and you can feel yourself still throbbing from his mouth. You should be self-conscious, but the way Hansol's looking at you makes it impossible.

"Get up here," you practically beg.

"In a second."

His fingers move to his bow tie, tugging it loose the rest of the way. It drops to the floor. Then the buttons of his vest, one by one—the same vest you buttoned for him hours ago. Then the crisp white shirt, tugged out of his waistband and unbuttoned with maddening slowness.

You can't take it. You sit up, reach for him, and pull him down onto the bed on top of you.

Hansol laughs against your mouth, a real, warm laugh, and then he kisses you slowly, one hand cradling the back of your head, the other sliding down to grip your hip. He rolls his body against yours, and you feel his hardness straining against the fabric of his pants, making your hips buck into his.

"Off," you gasp, tugging at his shirt. "Off, off…"

He shrugs the shirt off his shoulders, and then he's shirtless above you, all muscle and warm skin, and you drag your palms down his chest, over his ribs, memorizing him all over again. There's a tattoo on his ribcage, a small line of Korean script, that you don't recognize.

You trace it with your fingers. "What does this say?"

He looks down at you. His eyes are soft. "I'll tell you later."

"Hansol—"

"Later, baby."

He closes the distance between you again, and this time when his hand slides down your body it's to shove the bunched-up silk of the dress up over your head. You lift your arms and let him pull it off, and then you're lying beneath him in nothing but strapless bra and your heels.

He sits back on his heels, taking you in. His pupils are blown wide.

"You," he says, voice rough, "are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen."

"Body worship later," you reply, breathless. "Pants off now, Chwe."

Hansol laughs, but he obeys. He stands off the bed just long enough to unbuckle his belt and shove his pants and briefs down together, kicking them off with his shoes and socks in one graceless motion, and then he's back on the bed, back on top of you.

You feel him against your thigh, hot and hard, and you gasp.

"Hansol, please…"

"I know, baby." He reaches down between you, wraps a hand around himself, and drags the head of his cock through your slick, coating himself. "I know. I'll take care of you."

He pauses right at your entrance. His forehead drops to yours.

"I don't have anything," he whispers. "I didn't—unlike my mother, I wasn't planning this."

You giggle briefly. "I'm on the pill. I'm clean, I haven't… it's been a while."

"Me too. It's been a while."

"Then don't stop. Please."

He kisses you as he pushes inside you.

You both moan. His forehead is pressed to yours, and his eyes are squeezed shut, and his jaw is clenched so tight you can see the muscle jumping. He sinks into you inch by inch, and it's been so long that it's almost too much, the stretch of him, the heat, the familiar-unfamiliar feeling of him inside your again.

"Fuck. Holy shit, you feel—"

"Hansol." You cup his face. "Hansol, look at me."

He opens his eyes.

"Hi," you whisper.

His voice cracks. "Hi."

You pull his mouth down to yours, and he starts to move.

Slow—so slow. Long, deep rolls of his hips that push him all the way inside you and drag him back out to the tip, and every stroke he groans against your mouth like it's killing him. His hand slides down to grip the back of your thigh, hitching your leg up higher around his waist, and the new angle makes him hit somewhere inside you that has you gasping into his mouth.

"That's it," he mumbles. "Feel that?"

"Yes!"

"I know. I know, baby. I've got you."

He kisses you again, and again, and again. Between every stroke. His mouth on yours, on your jaw, on the hinge of your neck. His hand slides up from your thigh to your breast, thumb rolling over your nipple through the bra, and you arch up into him with a whimper.

"Take this off," he groans against your throat, tugging at the strapless bra. "Wanna see all of you."

He slips it off your shoulders and tosses it over the side of the bed as though it has personally offended him, and then his mouth is on your breast, tongue circling your nipple as he continues to fuck into you with those deep rolls that are unraveling you thread by thread.

He's whispering something against your skin, but you can barely make it out, your mind clouded by everything he's making you feel with every stroke.

"Beautiful. Every inch of you. Fucking perfect. Made for me."

"Hansol…"

"Made for me," he repeats, biting down gently at the swell of your breast. "Say it."

"Made for you."

He drags his mouth back up to yours. "Yeah. That's right. That's fucking right, baby."

Hansol picks up the pace just enough that the pleasure that had been slow and unfurling suddenly starts to spark hotter. Your hand slides up his back, nails scraping lightly, and he groans and drops his forehead to your shoulder.

"Do that again."

You do. You drag your nails down his back, and he shudders, hips stuttering, and buries his face in your throat.

"Fuck, I'm not gonna last if you—"

"I don't care." You turn your face into his hair. "I don't care, Hansol, I want you to."

"No." He pulls back. Kisses you hard. "No. You come first. You always come first."

He slides a hand between your bodies, his thumb finding your clit, and starting to circle it in tight, precise little strokes that match the rhythm of his hips, and you feel it building fast, embarrassingly fast, that hot coil low in your belly winding tighter and tighter.

"That's it," he coaxes, watching your face. "I can feel you, you're squeezing me so tight."

You come with a cry, gripping his shoulder hard enough to bruise, and he fucks you through it with those same slow, deep strokes, his thumb still circling your clit until you're twitching and oversensitive and pushing his hand away.

"Good girl," he murmurs, kissing your temple. "Good girl. Look at you."

You can barely catch your breath before he's rolling you.

You gasp as he flips you onto your stomach, one big warm hand splayed at the small of your back, holding you down. He drags a pillow under your hips, tilting you up, and then he's pushing back inside you from behind and you're moaning into the pillow before he's even fully seated.

"You okay, babe?" His hand slides up your spine, gathering the loose strands of your hair into his fist. He tugs, gently, tilting your head back. "Fuck, this angle."

"Yeah, more. Please."

He drives into you, deeper this time—thanks to the new position—his hand in your hair keeps your head tilted so he can lean down and speak against your ear, and his other hand is gripping your hip so tight you know you'll have marks tomorrow.

"So good," he mumbles. "So fucking good for me. Taking me so well. You feel so goddamn perfect around me. Missed this. Missed you."

You whimper into the pillow.

"Yeah? You like this?" He tugs your hair again. "Talk to me, baby."

"I love it, Hansol, I love it, please don't stop."

His voice cracks. "Never. Never again. I swear to fucking god, never again."

He fucks you like he means it. Even deeper and harder, purposeful strokes that have you gripping the sheets, whimpering with every thrust. His hand releases your hair and slides down under you, finding your clit again, and you nearly sob.

"Hansol— Hansol, I can't— again, I'm gonna—"

"Yeah you are. That's three. Come on. One more."

His fingers work you in tight circles, and his hips don't let up, and you fall apart under him for the third time, your orgasm ripping through you so hard that your whole body shakes. You feel him falter, feel him groan into your hair, and then his fingers tighten on your hip.

"Holy fuck, I'm gonna—"

"Inside." You barely recognize your own voice. "Inside, Hansol, please."

Hansol curses again, and slams into you one more time. And then he's coming with a low, guttural groan against your shoulder, his hips jerking, his forehead pressed to your back, and you feel every pulse of him deep inside you.

For a long moment, neither of you move. His weight is warm and heavy on your back, and his breath is ragged in your hair, and you can feel his heartbeat pounding against your spine.

He kisses your shoulder. The nape of your neck. Behind your ear.

"Babe," he mumbles.

"Hmm?"

"Don't move."

Hansol carefully slides out of you, and you feel him, hot and thick, dripping down your inner thigh, and you make a small, embarrassed sound into the pillow.

"Hansol, oh my god!"

"Shh." His hand slides down between your legs, and you feel his fingers gather what's spilling out. "I've got you."

You feel him drag his fingers back up, pushing it back inside you, and you moan into the pillow.

"There we go. That's mine. All mine."

He does it again one last time, slow, deliberate. Then he turns you gently onto your back, and he's staring down at you with such open, wrecked adoration that your eyes prick with tears.

"Open your mouth, baby."

You do.

Hansol brings his fingers—slick with him, with you—to your lips, and slides them in. You close your mouth around them and taste him, salt and heat, and his eyes go completely black.

He bends down and captures your lips in another kiss, licking into your mouth, chasing his own taste on your tongue. The kiss turns wonderfully deep and messy, leaving you both breathless before he finally pulls back just.

"Fuck. You have no idea what you do to me."

You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him down against you. He collapses onto his side, gathering you into his chest, one heavy leg thrown over your hips, keeping you pinned to him.

There's a small silence, and you can hear the distant thump of the reception band, still going strong outside. Someone must have started the sparkler send-off; you can hear cheers filtering up through the window.

Hansol traces slow circles on your bare hip.

"The tattoo," he says quietly, after a long moment.

You lift your head from his chest. "Hm?"

"You asked what it said." He looks at you. "It's from that old book you had. The Dictionary of Flowers? The meaning of a forget-me-not."

You feel dizzy.

"I got it after I realized I was never going to feel it again unless I came back to you."

You don't have words. So you kiss him instead. When you pull back, he brushes your hair off your forehead. His eyes are impossibly soft.

"Still want that burger?" he asks.

You laugh. Wet, watery, real.

"Yeah, Hansol."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But maybe in an hour."

"An hour." He grins, slow and wicked, and rolls on top of you again. "And maybe tomorrow we can take Poppy to the Natural History Museum."

"Sounds perfect to me."

# NAVIGATION | MASTERLIST | PERMANENT TAGLIST

If you’re enjoying it, don’t forget to reblog, helps so much and gets the fic out there!! 💗

PERMANENT TAGLIST: @bmo-bri @codeinebelle @tinyelfperson @dcrlingyou @my-atiny-kookie-rkive @haaruki @bath1lda @hoshstruck @wubbz05 @jihoonsbbygirl @smiileflower @tastyluvr @gyuguys @nerdycheol @christinewithluv @jesauiin @ughokmyg @raggedypansexual @caratcak3 @ateez-atiny380 @meowchella @jeonsfries @whoisbaek15 @damnedangel98 @sumzysworld @theidontknowmehn @mingyuuulover @andreethier @sarabencze @weepingsweep @minhui896 @blaycke @miyx-amour @pl4netx1a @ohwowzersthatscool @ahuiahoe @bee-the-loser @im-gemmy @ssamarzi @my-neurodivergent-world @wonsrat @starmy-143 @wonu13 @unlikelysublimekryptonite @nonuverse @gyuhao365 @healingmv @coupsarchive @imhereonlytoread

"i'm not calling you that," you laugh when he introduces himself on the first day of class. "what's your real name?"

"yudai," he smiles. "but really, nobody calls me that."

"nice to meet you, yudai."

it doesn't take very long for your study dates to turn into real ones.

he confesses first. it happens after the two of you are sitting in the library, discussing the latest script you've had to read for class.

"excuse me," some boy comes up to talk to the two of you. "are you two dating?"

"no," you answer, a bit too quickly for k's liking.

"then can i take you out some time?" the boy asks. you nod politely and give him your phone number.

when he leaves, k is quiet. he's never quiet.

"are you going to go out with that guy?" he finally asks while walking you to your dorm.

"i'm not sure yet," you tell him.

"i don't want you to."

"what?"

"i like you."

"oh."

"i've liked you for a while now."

you replay all of the times that he's picked you up from a party when you're drunk or stayed up late while you finished an assignment.

it's not like you don't like him back. you do, a lot. but you also know how much attention he receives from other girls.

you've always thought it was a bit strange how he liked studying with you so much, but you're good at breaking down scenes and memorizing lines.

it's never occurred to you that out of all of his options, you'd be the one that he chooses. but he's standing here, telling you that he likes you, and you have no choice but to believe him.

so, you let him take you out to dinner. after, the two of you spend the entire night making out and ignoring your homework.

he tells you he loves you after two months of dating. you say it back a few days later.

one night, the two of you are laying in bed and talking about the future.

you confess to him that you've never considered being with someone in the same field as you.

"i think i need stability," you tell him. it's not until he sits up that you realize what you've actually said. i don't see us lasting long term.

he's spent months pouring out his hopes and dreams to you. how he doesn't care about where he ends up and he'll start at the bottom and work his way up if it means that one day it'll all be worth it.

you manage to get him to come back to bed and he holds you until you fall asleep.

in his head, the two of you can make it work. he'll act and you'll write and it'll be okay.

in your head, it's not that simple.

it's not that you don't think he has what it takes to make it big. if anything, k is the most hardworking and talented person that you know.

but you worry about one of you becoming successful before the other, and growing resentful of that. you'd like to think you'd be happy for k. you wonder if he'd be happy for you, too.

things start to unravel when you realize that you can't predict that.

you pull away from him, cancelling dates and making excuses. sometimes, the only time you see each other is during class.

he notices. one day, after you've forgotten that the two of you had plans, he asks you if you still love him.

when you say "i don't know," you swear you can see his heart break.

he nods and suggests that the two of you stop seeing each other, and you agree, and then you go your separate ways.

that night, you cry yourself to sleep.

weeks later, you're still not used to sitting next to someone else in class and pretending like you don't know each other.

the worst part is that your cohort is small. everybody knows. girls start flocking to him again. he lets them.

someone makes up a rumor that he must've cheated on you. you quickly shut it down in front of the entire class one morning.

later that night, he texts you: thank you.

you don't reply.

you convince yourself that you’re not allowed to miss him. that you’re the reason things ended and you deserve to feel guilty about it.

so, when the guy who tried to ask you out in the library all those months ago spots you sitting by yourself, you take his invitation seriously this time.

he’s smart, and nice, and getting his master’s in accounting.

he’s stable.

you still miss k, even at night when your new boyfriend is whispering in your ear about how pretty you are and how good you feel.

every time you see him around campus, he’s with a new girl, and you wonder whether or not you were just holding him back from doing all of the exploring that he wanted to.

you don’t know that he’s never once touched any of them. he just… doesn’t like sitting in his apartment by himself. so, he says yes to every invite he gets, and he gets a lot of them.

you break up with your boyfriend right before the end of the semester, when he asks if you’d like to meet his parents over winter break and the idea of starting a future with him makes you physically ill.

the next few months are spent working on your thesis and going to class. you throw yourself into writing your play, a two-person show about siblings cleaning out the apartment of the brother that they've recently lost to suicide.

you're particularly having trouble casting the twin of the dead sibling, with male actors being in low supply and many already committed to other productions this late into the school year.

you know who'd be perfect for the role. your producer knows too, when she tries to broach the topic towards the end of the audition cycle, after neither of you are impressed by the people you've seen.

"just text him," she tells you gently, but firmly.

"i haven't talked to him in months," you admit.

"he still stares at you in class, you know."

"no he doesn't," you laugh.

"he does. he'd make time for your show if you asked."

"fine. help me draft the text and if he says no, i'm putting you in a wig and sending you onstage."

he replies to you in six minutes flat: send me the script.

a week later, you're introducing him to mina, the undergrad that you've cast as his sister.

"we kind of look alike," he laughs, shaking her hand before looking at you. "was that intentional?"

“i just cast the people i thought did this best during their auditions,” you shrug.

sometimes, you feel useless as a director. it’s not that the actors don’t listen to you—they’re wonderful to work with. it’s just that k has such a way of completely understanding the lines you’ve written that sometimes you have no notes to give, and mina follows suit.

you’re lucky, you think to yourself. but another thought creeps into your head as rehearsals go by: yudai is a much better person than me.

you’ve spent half of the school year ignoring him because you couldn’t make up your mind about how you felt, and he’s so professional that he’s willing to put all of that aside to bring your words to life.

you know now, that if you were still together and you had gotten your big break before he did, he would’ve been really happy for you.

k has never made you question how he feels about you. it’s you that’s the unpredictable one. the reason that it’s never mattered how stable the other person is.

you decide that ultimately it was the best thing for the two of you to break up all those months ago, and that you would’ve just held him back. he shines so much in the role and you’re not sure things would’ve been the same if he were still your boyfriend.

you’re not even sure if this play would exist.

you wonder if when he thinks about how much it hurts to lose someone, if you’re part of the memories that he draws on. you immediately disregard this thought, reminding yourself that losing a twin and ending a three month fling are incomparable.

he stays after rehearsals a lot, to help you reset the classrooms after mina has already gone home.

you move tables and chairs together in silence, clearing off any blocking diagrams you've drawn on the chalkboard.

if it's particularly late, he'll offer to walk you back to your dorm, like old times. you know it's not in the same direction as his apartment, but you let him anyway.

once, while he's saying goodnight, his eyes linger on yours a bit too long before he turns to leave.

"wait," you tell him, grabbing onto his sleeve before he can go. he turns back to you, a flicker of hope on his face.

"yes?"

you stare up at him, your words stuck in your throat.

"do you want me to come up?" he asks softly, as if he's read your mind. his hand is already on your waist.

you nod.

the two of you don't even make it inside your room before he has you pressed up against a wall, his mouth on yours, desperate to make up for lost time.

"tell me you missed me," he sighs, before sucking on your neck, light enough to not leave a mark.

"i missed you so much," you admit in between moans. "so, so much."

he holds you after you finish, just like he used to, pressing soft kisses to your shoulder until you fall asleep.

when you wake up in the morning, he kisses you goodbye, too. sometimes, you walk to class together, although you still make sure to enter separately and sit with other people.

this becomes your routine for the next few weeks. neither of you talk about what it means.

you don't go on dates. you don't touch when you're in public. you just... pick up where you left off when behind closed doors.

there's no "i love you" in the script you've written for yourselves. only "that was nice" or "see you later."

it almost feels easy, not asking for more. at least for you.

for k, he's constantly reminding himself not to repeat the same mistake of smothering you. he'll take what he can get if it means he can have at least some part of you again, no matter how much the lack of certainty hurts.

every day, the play comes together more and more. eventually, it's opening night.

k finds you sitting cross-legged on the stage an hour before the house is set to open, your eyes closed and fingers clasped together.

"i thought you weren't religious," he says, prompting you to open your eyes.

"i'm not," you laugh, standing back up. "just making a wish."

"for the play? you think i'm that bad at acting?" he teases.

"i just get nervous," you admit, crossing your arms. "but i know you're going to do great."

right before he and mina go onto the stage, you hold their hands and tell them how proud and grateful you are for how they've helped shape your ideas into a reality.

k lingers a bit while mina takes her place in the wings, his hand still in yours.

"break a leg," you say, just loud enough for only him to hear. he nods, and then the stage lights come on and he's gone.

the show is better than any full run you've ever done in rehearsals. it goes on for two more nights, each performance becoming stronger as you work through the last-minute kinks.

before you know it, it's over. you're sitting in the theater on a sunday morning, moving furniture onto a truck and packing up costumes and props.

mina goes with your producer to drive the set pieces back to the warehouse, leaving you and k to carry any boxes of smaller things to your dorm.

neither of you talk, knowing that there's no excuse to see each other outside of class anymore.

graduation is in three weeks. you've run out of time.

“you’re headed to chicago, right?” you ask him midway to your building.

“you heard,” he smiles.

“yeah.” you don’t know how to tell him you’re happy for him.

“what about you?”

“i don’t know.” there are those words again. they land heavier than you intend.

“i mean, i don’t have anything lined up,” you clarify. “i applied to a few programs at some theaters but i haven’t heard back from anyone.”

“there’s still time,” he says. he’s always believed in you, even when you’ve felt you didn’t deserve it.

you stop walking and set the box in your arms down on the pavement. k notices and does the same.

“is everything okay?” he asks. his voice is soft, like when he talks to you late at night.

you look at him and do your best not to cry.

“i don’t know anything,” you say, barely above a whisper. “i—i don’t know anything.”

you can’t hold your tears back any longer the second he pulls you into his chest, your sobs coming out muffled.

“i’m sorry,” you tell him, although neither of you are sure what the apology is actually for. “i’m sorry, yudai. i’m sorry. i’m so—”

“shh, it’s okay. you don’t have to apologize. it’s okay.”

“it’s all my fault.”

“what is?”

“us.” and there it is. the guilt that you’ve been carrying for months is finally out in the open.

you feel his grip on your body loosen, as if he’s somehow finally remembered how much you hurt him all that time ago.

“yudai?” you ask, peering up at him through blurry eyes.

he’s quiet, thinking of what he wants to say.

"you never asked me," he finally speaks.

"what?"

"if i still loved you. when we broke up."

you stare at him, your mind blanking on a reply.

"i wanted you to." his voice is steady, his expression calm. it's as if he's practiced these lines before. "i wanted to tell you that i loved you so much, and that i'd wait for you to feel the same way back. but i could tell it wasn't what you wanted to hear, anyway."

"no, it wasn't," you shake your head. "i had already made up my mind."

"you've always been so honest with me," he laughs halfheartedly.

"that's not true."

"it's not?"

"when i told you i didn't know... it wasn't exactly a lie. i had a lot going on inside my head," you explain, pausing to prevent yourself from rambling. "what i'm trying to say is that i realized that same night that i did love you. but i had already hurt you and i was worried i'd do it again and again."

it takes him a second to register your words. you stare at your feet, waiting for him to be mad at you. to tell you how much time you've wasted that you could've spent together.

instead, he wraps his arms back around you. he holds you tight for a long time, long enough for your heart to slow down to match his.

eventually, you both pick up the boxes and continue with your walk.

you don’t invite him to stay after. he doesn’t ask to.

it takes you hours to fall asleep without his touch.

the cast party comes a week later. between how hot it is outside and the school year basically being over, everybody is drinking and you run out of ice much too quickly.

“i’m going to refill the bucket,” you say, lifting it into your arms. it’s big and heavy and k quickly sets his cup down to help steady you.

“i got it,” he says, taking it from you as if it weighs nothing. you haven’t talked to him since that day.

the dorm kitchen isn't far, but every second that passes feels like hours.

you watch as he fills the bucket with ice, careful not to drop a single cube onto the floor.

he looks so pretty in his dress shirt, his hair a little bit messy as if he ran out of his apartment to make sure he wasn't late today.

you know how badly you're going to miss seeing his face around campus.

"do you remember that wish you caught me making?" you ask. "on opening night."

"i do," he answers, looking up at you so you know he's listening.

"it came true. last night. i got an email about being accepted into one of those incubator programs."

he immediately gets up from the ice bucket to hug you, your feet leaving the ground for just a moment before he sets you back down.

"that's amazing," he tells you, his hands still resting on your waist as if that’s where they belong. "where is it?"

"chicago."

you watch as a big smile breaks out across his face.

"it's only for six months," you add. he can hear the apprehension in your voice. "i don't know what i'll do after that."

"you'll figure it out," he reassures you. "you're better at making things work than you give yourself credit for."

you glance over at the bucket. the ice has already started to melt.

there's something about his certainty that shifts something in you, and you realize that this isn't fate. it's a result of all the hard work that both of you have put in to fulfill your dreams.

"i'm scared," you admit. "i don't know if i'll ever stop being scared."

"probably not," he nods. "but i'll be there. whether we're in the same place or not, i'll always be there for you. and we can try to manage it."

he doesn't tell you not to be afraid. he doesn't say that everything's going to be fine. he just... promises to stay.

"yudai?" you ask, hesitant to meet him where he's at, but his expression encourages you to keep going. "do you think you'd know anybody who would want to explore the city with me?"