'the vision'™

you're kneeling on the floor in front of the couch with three different medicine packets spread beside your knee, trying to remember which one doesn't make people drowsier than they already are.

the apartment smells faintly like alcohol and peppermint because you'd forced james to chew gum the second he stumbled through your door, swaying with one shoe untied.

a bucket sits beside the couch within arm's reach, a bottle of water balanced on the coffee table, and your phone is plugged in nearby in case he suddenly decides he's dying and needs emergency reassurance at three in the morning.

meanwhile, he's completely relaxed about the whole thing, sitting there with his head tipped back against the cushions and his hands folded over his stomach like he's on vacation instead of one bad movement away from throwing up. every few seconds he watches you move around with lazy eyes, following you silently while you mutter to yourself about electrolytes and whether soup would've been smarter than instant noodles.

"you're doing too much," he says eventually, his voice rough and sleepy as he watches you crouch by the table for the third time in five minutes.

"you said the room was spinning," you remind him without looking up, tearing open the medicine box to double check the dosage instructions again.

"yeah, but in a fun way," he replies with a lazy grin, shoulders sinking deeper into the couch cushions.

you shoot him a flat look while unscrewing the cap off the water bottle. "drink before you start speaking nonsense again."

"i've been speaking nonsense since birth," he takes the bottle from you with both hands because his coordination is terrible right now, fingers brushing yours for a second too long.

you sigh and move closer, pushing his hair back from his forehead because it keeps falling into his eyes every time he blinks. he lets you do it without complaint, sitting unusually still while you stretch the soft headband over his head and tuck the loose strands away from his face.

the second your fingers brush near his ears, he closes his eyes with a dramatic exhale almost like you've just granted him peace after years of suffering.

you ignore him and lean back to inspect your work, making sure nothing's bothering his skin because drunk james becomes weirdly sensitive to everything. his gaze stays fixed on you the entire time, heavy and unfocused but quieter than usual and that makes you nervous.

"you're pretty," he says suddenly, staring at you with the kind of sincerity only drunk people seem capable of.

you don't even look up from the medicine packets in your lap. "you're drunk. you must be seeing things."

"no, i mean it," he insists softly, brows furrowing slightly, hating that you brushed it off so quickly.

"mhm," you hum absentmindedly, pretending to focus very hard on reading the back of the medicine box.

"did i ever tell you that before?" he asks after a pause, voice quieter as he tilts his head against the couch.

you pretend not to hear him, too busy rearranging things on the table that honestly don't need rearranging anymore. the bucket is already in the perfect spot, the water bottle is full, and the medicine instructions are facing upward so even half asleep you could read them, but keeping your hands occupied feels safer than acknowledging the softness in his voice.

james watches you for another long moment before shifting slightly on the couch, the blanket sliding down one shoulder as he tilts his head. his eyes look glossy under the dim light, but there's something oddly awake about the way he's staring at you.

you can already tell he's about to start talking again, and drunk people always say things they don't remember later. right?

"the first time i met you," he starts slowly, eyes drifting toward the ceiling, "i thought you hated me."

you snort quietly at his words. "because i did."

"no, you didn't," he argues, shaking his head against the couch cushion with sleepy confidence.

"i remember rolling my eyes at you," you remind him, lips twitching into a small smile.

"yeah," he says with a crooked, tired grin, "and i liked you immediately because of it."

you finally glance over at him properly, and he's smiling to himself, probably replaying the memory in his head. his fingers tap lazily against the water bottle while he talks, words slightly slurred but still clear enough for you to understand every single one.

outside, rain taps softly against the windows, filling the spaces between his sentences while you stay crouched beside the couch listening. he looks strangely boyish like this, hair pushed back with the ridiculous plush headband and cheeks warm from alcohol and exhaustion. it makes him easier to look at and harder to ignore at the same time.

"you were sitting in the corner at that stupid party," he continues, blinking slowly as his gaze drifts back to you. "everyone else was trying so hard to look cool, and you looked miserable."

"i was miserable," you admit dryly, leaning your shoulder against the side of the couch.

"and you kept glaring at me every time i got loud," he says, sounding far too amused by that fact.

"you were very very loud," you point out, remembering exactly how unbearable he'd been that night.

"but you still handed me your charger when my phone died," he murmurs, smile softening at the edges.

you remember that night embarrassingly clearly once he mentions it. he'd spent nearly an hour making people laugh in the middle of the room while you sat on the armchair wishing your friend would finally decide to go home already.

at some point he'd dropped onto the floor beside you out of nowhere, smiling like you'd been friends for years, and asked if you had a charger because his phone was 'on spiritual life support.' you expected him to leave after that, but instead he stayed beside you talking nonsense until two in the morning, counting your silence as participation.

looking back on it, that was probably the first mistake either of you made.

james watches recognition settle across your face and laughs softly to himself.

"i remember thinking," he murmurs, rubbing sleepily at one eye, "‘she's mean, but like . . . in a pretty way.’"

"you're actually unbearable drunk," you tell him, even while heat creeps annoyingly into your face.

"no, no, listen," he says quickly, lifting a hand toward you as if trying to physically stop you from brushing him off again.

"you need water, not a confession, james," you mutter, reaching over to push the bottle closer to him anyway.

"i thought you were the kind of person who'd leave early and never talk to me again," his voice drops softer near the end that you almost miss it over the rain. the joking tone fades little by little until he's just looking at you with tired honesty sitting heavily behind his eyes.

you stop fussing with the medicine box and lean back against the couch instead, arms resting loosely over your knees while he talks.

"but then you kept showing up, you know?" he starts blinking heavily while his thumb rubs against the condensation on the water bottle. "you answered my messages even when they were stupid."

"yeah, they usually were stupid," you reply quietly, unable to stop the small smile pulling at your mouth.

"you remembered things about me," he continues, eyes still fixed on you.

"well, someone had to," you joke weakly, trying to lighten the sudden heaviness in the room.

"and every time i thought maybe you were getting tired of me, you'd do something that proved you weren't."

for a second neither of you says anything after that. the apartment falls quiet except for the distant hum of the refrigerator and the rain outside your windows.

your bestfriend stares at you with heavy eyelids, looking seconds away from passing out, but knowing him and his stubbornness, he will fight sleep just to keep talking.

"you make me feel safe," he says quietly, gaze dropping toward his hands for the first time.

your breath catches before you can stop it. "okay. you're definitely drunk."

"i know," he agrees with a small, tired smile, looking back up at you again. "still true, though."

"you should sleep before you start getting emotional. don't wanna see you cry your eyes out," you mumble, looking away first because holding eye contact suddenly feels impossible.

you don't know if he'll remember any of this tomorrow morning, and honestly you're not sure which possibility is worse. because if he forgets, then this becomes yours alone to carry.

"i met you and suddenly wanted to stay alive long enough to see you again the next day," he says softly. "that's kinda emotional already."

you stare at him for a long second, completely speechless for once in your life. he just blinks slowly back at you from under the ridiculous headband, looking so calm after casually dropping something devastating into the middle of your living room.

then, like the universe deciding you've suffered enough emotional damage for one night, his expression abruptly twists. you react instantly, grabbing the bucket and shoving it toward him while he groans and folds forward.

"oh my— waitwaitwait," you mutter, scrambling closer while holding the bucket steady in front of him. "there he is."

"i think i'm dying," he groans into his hands, voice muffled and pathetic.

he stays folded over the bucket for another minute, breathing dramatically like he's just survived something life threatening instead of one too many drinks and a bad decision involving tequila.

you sit beside him on the couch, one hand rubbing slow circles against his back while the other keeps the water bottle balanced on your knee.

his hair keeps slipping out from under the headband no matter how many times you push it back, strands sticking slightly to his forehead from the warmth in the room.

the second he leans away from the bucket, you immediately hold the water toward him with narrowed eyes because you already know he's going to fight you on this for absolutely no reason. sure enough, he squints suspiciously at the bottle.

"drink," you tell him firmly, nudging the bottle closer to his chest.

"i don't want it," he complains instantly, voice rough as he sinks deeper into the couch.

"you just threw up."

he turns his head away the second you try to hand it to him. you stare at him in disbelief before grabbing his jaw lightly to force him to look at you again. his skin feels warm under your fingers, cheeks flushed from alcohol and exhaustion, eyes half-lidded in stubborn refusal.

normally he's annoying in a loud, energetic way, but drunk james becomes difficult like a sleepy child fighting bedtime.

"james, please," you sigh tiredly, scooting a little closer so he can't avoid you as easily.

"i said no," he mutters immediately, keeping his eyes fixed somewhere near the floor instead of looking at you.

"you need water."

"i need the room to stop moving first," he complains weakly, pulling the blanket higher over himself.

"you're making this harder than it has to be."

"nah."

"please just one sip," you plead, trying to push the bottle back into his hands again. "you're going to wake up feeling horrible tomorrow."

he groans softly under his breath but still refuses to take it from you. you reach over, brushing his hair back again because it's sticking to his forehead from sweat. the second your fingers touch him, he goes quiet. his eyes close briefly like he's trying to focus on that instead of the nausea twisting through him.

"just a sip and i'll stop bothering you. promise."

"you never stop bothering me," he murmurs lazily.

"i'm serious."

"so am i."

"okay, james—"

"i like you."

the words cut cleanly through the middle of your sentence. your hand freezes around the water bottle while he keeps looking at you with this awful honesty that makes it impossible to pretend he's joking.

the room suddenly feels too warm, too quiet, every sound outside the apartment fading underneath the sharp pounding in your chest. james doesn't look away after saying it either. if anything, he looks relieved.

"you're drunk," you say quickly, forcing your expression into something unaffected even while your chest tightens painfully.

"i know i'm drunk," he says quietly, his brows pulling together slightly. "but i'm not confused."

"you don't mean that."

"yes, i do. i've meant it for a long time."

you look away first. "james . . . "

he watches you carefully, trying to decide whether he should stop talking while he still has the chance. but something about the way your fingers tighten around the water bottle must give you away a little because his expression softens instead of shutting down.

he leans his head back against the couch again with a quiet exhale, eyes fixed on the ceiling for a second before drifting back to you.

"i think i realized it the night you stayed with me at the hospital."

months ago, sometime past midnight, james had called you sounding strangely calm after getting into a minor accident on his way home. he kept insisting he was fine, said it wasn't serious, told you not to come because he'd probably get discharged soon anyway.

you completely ignored him, of course. you showed up at the hospital twenty minutes later still wearing pajama pants and mismatched flip flops because you left so fast you hadn't even noticed.

"you were angry at me," he continues quietly, eyes lowering toward his hands. "like genuinely angry."

"because you got hurt."

"no," he says softly, shaking his head once. "because you were scared."

you swallow hard but say nothing.

"i think nobody's ever looked at me like that before." he's talking slowly, carefully, like each sentence costs him something to admit out loud.

you remember sitting beside his hospital bed at two in the morning while fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and he kept trying to joke around despite the cut near his eyebrow and the bandages wrapped around his wrist. you'd spent hours pretending to be annoyed with him because being angry was easier than admitting how terrified you'd felt getting that phone call.

"you stayed the entire night even after i told you to go home and you fell asleep sitting in that horrible chair beside me."

you look down at the water bottle in your hands.

"and every time i woke up," he continues softly, "you were still there. i remember thinking that if i lost you someday, i genuinely wouldn't know what to do with myself."

there's nothing playful about his words anymore, nothing easy to laugh off or blame on alcohol. he looks exhausted saying it, eyes slightly red from being sick and tired and maybe from holding this inside for too long.

you don't think you've ever heard him sound this vulnerable before. james is always the person filling silence, making people comfortable, making everything lighter than it really is. but right now he sounds almost scared.

"you make everything feel less lonely," he admits quietly.

your throat feels tight suddenly.

"you made me want to tell you everything first. good things, bad things, dumb things. half the time something happened and my first thought was literally just ‘i need to tell her.’" he laughs weakly to himself before looking down again. "and whenever you got quiet or pulled away even a little, i'd spend the entire day wondering if i did something wrong. did i fuck something up? was it something i said?"

"you shouldn't say things like that drunk," you whisper.

his eyes lift back to yours immediately at that. there's something devastating about how serious he looks. it's almost like he's been waiting forever to say this and hates that it's happening under circumstances where you can dismiss it tomorrow if you want to.

he shifts slightly closer without seeming to realize he's doing it, shoulders brushing yours lightly beneath the blanket. "i tried not to like you. i really did."

"james," you say again because it's the only thing your brain can manage.

"but then you started becoming part of every important thing in my life without even trying. and one day i realized that every version of my future somehow had you in it."

"you take care of me even when i make it difficult," he murmurs, eyes flicking briefly toward the untouched water bottle still in your hands. "you remember things about me. you stayed."

your chest feels painfully tight, heartbeat uneven while he watches your expression carefully, bracing himself for rejection.

you stare at him for another long second before finally loosening your grip on the water bottle. he watches your face carefully while you unscrew the cap. you try not to think too hard about the fact that your hands are shaking a little when you hand the bottle over.

"and i think," he says slowly, almost embarrassed by how honest he sounds, "a part of me started loving you because of that long before i admitted it to myself."

he glances at the water bottle again. "can i have the water now?"

"here," you murmur quietly, finally placing it into his hands.

"thank you," he says just as softly, fingers brushing yours for a second before pulling away. he takes a slow sip of water while you sit beside him trying very hard to keep your breathing normal.

you glance away first again because looking at him too long suddenly feels dangerous. beside you, he swallows carefully before lowering the bottle into his lap.

"there," you say quietly, mostly because the silence is starting to make you awake of everything. "see? that wasn't difficult."

"i think i'm too exhausted to fight you anymore," he murmurs with a faint tired smile.

"that's dramatic."

"you like dramatic."

"i tolerate it."

he lets out a quiet laugh, but it fades quickly. his thumb rubs absently against the side of the bottle while his gaze drifts downward again.

"can i say something selfish?" he asks after a long pause.

you glance at him carefully. "you already confessed. i think we passed selfish a while ago."

he let's out a weak laugh, staring down at the water bottle in his hands for a moment before finally speaking.

"i really, really want it to be me someday," he admits softly. "the person that gets to stay beside you."

your chest tightens immediately.

"but if it isn't . . . " he pauses briefly, jaw tightening a little before he continues. "if somebody else makes you happier than i can, then i think i'd still be okay with it."

you blink at him quietly, caught off guard by the steadiness in his voice.

"because i like seeing you happy more than i like the idea of you liking me back."

you know he's not saying it in some self-pitying way or trying to make himself sound noble. if anything, he looks almost embarrassed admitting it out loud. like he hates that loving you has become something so genuine it stopped being about what he gets in return.

"that's a really sad thing to say," you murmur after a second, trying to keep your voice light even though it comes out softer than intended.

"it's true, though," his shoulders lift slightly in a helpless shrug.

"you shouldn't just accept that."

"i'm not accepting it." his eyes linger on your face before drifting away again. "i'm saying i wouldn't want you to stay with me out of guilt if your heart was somewhere else."

it's clear that he wants you to understand exactly what he means without making this harder for you than it already is.

"i think . . . " he exhales quietly. "i think loving someone should feel kind, even when it hurts."

you stare at him silently.

"my feelings for you were never supposed to become your responsibility. i never wanted you to feel trapped because i couldn't shut up about them."

"you're not trapping me."

"but i don't want you sitting here panicking because you think you owe me an answer tonight either."

that shuts you up immediately because unfortunately he's right. your thoughts have been spinning ever since he confessed, emotions crashing into each other too fast for you to sort through properly.

and even now, james is more worried about making sure you're comfortable than protecting himself from getting hurt.

"you know what my favorite thing is?" he asks suddenly.

"what?"

"when you laugh so hard you hide your face."

you groan quietly. "i don't do that."

"you do," he says with a tiny smile. "every time."

"and when you're excited about something, you start talking really fast."

you shake your head immediately, but he just looks amused in that sleepy, affectionate way that makes it impossible to argue with him properly.

you glance down at your hands.

"and you pretend you're cold whenever you want someone to stay close to you longer."

"that's not true."

"it is. i notice everything about you."

he says it so simply too, without expecting anything for it. maybe to james, paying attention to you was the easiest thing he'd ever done.

"i don't know," he murmurs. "i just— i think you deserve someone who looks at you and feels lucky every single day. if one day that's somebody else . . . then i'll still be glad they found you first before the world got mean enough to change you."

you look at him helplessly while he smiles softly to himself, already accepting something you haven't caught up to yet. there's no bitterness in his voice when he talks about losing you to somebody else someday.

"because you're good," he finishes quietly. "you don't even realize how good you are."

you can tell he's getting sleepier by the second, the water bottle loose in his hands. his words are slower, softer, shoulders sinking deeper into the couch cushions

you should probably make him sleep properly soon. instead, you stay exactly where you are.

he's debating whether to say one more thing before finally letting himself rest. then his mouth curves into something faint and sad all at once. "do you remember that charity gala thing martin tried setting us up for?"

your brows pull together immediately. of course you remember.

it had happened many months ago during one of your friend group dinners when everyone decided it would apparently be funny to pair the two of you together for the annual winter charity gala. couples tickets were cheaper, your friends had argued. besides, you and james were already attached at the hip anyway. the entire table had erupted into teasing almost instantly.

"oh my god, no," you'd said back then between embarrassed laughter while everyone kept talking over each other. "james would actually hate that."

you remember how easy it was to brush off at the time. how harmless it felt. just another joke. another thing to laugh away before anyone looked too closely at why your face had gone warm so suddenly.

beside you now, james smiles weakly, remembering the exact same thing. "you laughed so fast. was the idea of us together that ridiculous?"

"it wasn't like that," you say before you can stop yourself.

he shakes his head gently, still smiling. "no, i know. you didn't mean anything bad by it."

you swallow hard.

"but i remember everybody looking at me after you said no." his fingers tighten slightly around the bottle. "so i laughed too."

you remember him leaning back in his chair that night, grinning easily while waving your friends off like the idea amused him too. he'd joked about how unbearable you'd be as a date. everyone laughed and the conversation moved on quickly after that.

but sitting here now, hearing him talk about it like this, you suddenly wonder how much effort it took for him to sound casual back then.

"if the decision was only up to me," his eyes are unfocused, drifting through the memory more than speaking to you directly, "i would've said yes."

james lets his head fall back against the couch again with a tired exhale, exhaustion finally winning against the alcohol and emotions keeping him awake this long. still, he keeps talking anyway.

"i wanted to say yes so badly. it was embarrassing. i remember thinking . . . " he pauses, blinking slowly. "i remember thinking that if you'd looked at me for even one second like you wanted me there, i would've agreed immediately."

your fingers curl tightly in your lap.

"but you laughed first."

the worst part is that you remember why you laughed. not because the idea sounded impossible or because you didn't want it.

you don't know what to say to that.

"you should've told me," but the words feel painfully insufficient the second they leave your mouth.

"i couldn't. you looked so sure."

you'd laughed because everybody was staring, because your heart had jumped into your throat too quickly, because the idea of people noticing how much james already mattered to you had terrified you more than the joke itself.

but he didn't know that. all he saw was you rejecting the possibility before he even got the chance to want it openly.

"and i . . . i think i liked you too much already to hear you reject me twice in one night."

you look down quickly because suddenly your eyes burn. james shifts slightly closer without thinking, his shoulder pressing more fully against yours.

"if it was up to me," he says again, sleep beginning to pull at every word, "i would've said yes."

he blinks heavily, fighting to keep his eyes open while his fingers slowly loosen around the water bottle. the confession seems to have drained the rest of his energy.

"i would've gone with you. would've worn whatever stupid suit they wanted." his head tilts slightly until it rests against your shoulder without him realizing.

"if it was up to me," barely awake, he keeps mumbling the same thing over and over. "i would've said yes."

"i would've stayed beside you the whole night. would've said yes immediately if it was my choice." the words start slurring together near the end, exhaustion finally overtaking him.

you stay frozen beside him while his breathing gradually slows, warm against your shoulder.

maybe if he says it enough, someday you'll finally say yes. maybe if he says it enough, he'll finally get the happiest night of his life instead of just dreaming about it.

"always yes with you."

James has you pressed against the wall before you can breathe, his body hot and solid against yours like he’s been dying to get his hands on you.

He pulls his shirt off in one swift motion. Muscles flexing, stomach tightening and the second he catches the way your eyes linger, his mouth curls into a dirty, knowing smirk.

“Yeah?”

His voice drops, low and cocky.

“You like that don’t you?”

Your thighs clench without permission. You nod, helpless. He slides a hand down your waist, fingers dipping under your waistband, brushing heat, barely there, just enough to make your breath hitch.

“Fuck,” he laughs softly, lips dragging along your jaw. “Look at you—so pretty.”

His thumb presses against your clothed pussy, firm enough to make your hips jerk forward.

You gasp, a quiet, desperate sound, and he eats it from your mouth as he kisses you hard, tongue pushing past your lips like he owns the right. Your back hits the wall again.

His hips grind into you, slow and deliberate, the thick shape of his cock rubbing exactly against the spot that makes your knees buckle.

“Thought you’d break for me this easy,” he mutters against your mouth. His fingers slip lower “Let me hear it.”

“J-James.. I-“

You jolt so hard the pen flies out of your hand.

You’re instantly pulled back from your fantasy—heat to ice water in a heartbeat.

“Y/n?” your dad calls, voice muffled through your bedroom door. “Dinner will be ready in ten. Your sister will set the table today.”

You slap your palm over the letter like you’re hiding a crime scene. “I—I’ll be down in a sec!”

Your voice cracks. Horribly. Clearing your throat, you try again. “Yeah! Just—uh—finishing something!”

Footsteps retreat down the hallway. Silence drops. Then the fright hits you. You stare down at the paper. At the graphic, thirsty disaster you apparently wrote while possessed by a sex demon.

“Oh my fucking god.” You grab the paper in both hands, crumpling it so fast it practically crunches like aluminum foil.

“What is wrong with you, Y/n?” You fling the balled-up letter toward the overflowing trash can. It bounces off the rim and lands on the floor like it’s mocking you. Of course it misses. Even your garbage has better aim than your life. A waste of paper and your time. You bury your face in your hands and groan into your palms.

“He doesn’t even know you exist,” you mutter, pacing once, twice, like that might shake the embarrassment off. “How stupid do you have to be writing porn about James!”

James, the school’s most popular student who also happens to be in the soccer team. James who probably doesn’t know you exist and has a girlfriend. Or situationship. Or whatever the hell Amy counts as.

You drop back into your desk chair, heart still racing from the stupid fantasy. A mixture between wetness and heat still clings to your skin in places you wish it didn’t.

“This is insane,” you whisper to the ceiling. “Actually insane.”

You grab another sheet of paper, intending to write something normal. Something sane. Something not involving walls and grinding and his stupid smirk.

The page stays blank. Your hand trembles slightly. You shove it away and stand up.

“Dinner,” you tell yourself. “Food. Air. Brain reset. No… horny… writing.”

You take one step toward the door. Then stop. Then glance at the trash pile, the paper mountain you swore you’d never let anyone see.

One of them shifts from the movement of your fan. A small, sinking feeling hits your stomach. You really need to get a better trash can. Or maybe a shredder—no! Therapy. But first: dinner.

You yank open your bedroom door before you can psych yourself out again. And somewhere in the back of your head—the part you hate the most—James’s voice from your imagination lingers like smoke: Yeah? You like that?

You swallow hard.

“Shut UP,” you whisper to absolutely no one. You go downstairs anyway.

You drift down the stairs the minute the kitchen smells like something worth living for again. Your sister Annie is figuring out how her new phone works that she got for her thirteenth birthday recently. Your dad has his elbows on the counter, the kind of casual that says he’s trying to be chill but actually means business.

“You okay?” he asks between ladles of sauce. He always asks when you look a little too quiet. 

You shrug and grab a roll. “Yeah. Fine. Hungry.”

He’s stirring the pot and watching you like someone trying to read the news in a window reflection. “You’re eighteen, Y/n. That means you should try opening up to people a little. Join a club, meet someone new. Don’t close yourself off to the same circle forever.”

You give him the eyebrow. “You mean Bella?”

“Bella’s great,” he says, tone is deliberately even. “But reliable isn’t everything. You have this… tendency to tuck yourself away. Try something that rattles you.”

“Bella is the most reliable person one could ever know,” you scoff, crossing your arms in front of you. Suddenly, the words slide into the hollow place where your thoughts live and rattles something loose. Open up. Rattle. Shake. It’s stupid, obvious, and for reasons you can’t quite explain, it feels like the exact sentence you needed to hear.Before your dad can say anything else, you quickly get up from your seat.

“Honey- where’re you going?!” Your dad asks, your sister’s gaze following his. You don’t answer him. There’s no time for that. Sitting at your desk with your lamp low, you carefully grab another slip of paper.. You’ve always been the type to catalogue everything. Feelings, small humiliations, the way your chest tightens when you see James in the hallway, into the soft, safe pages of your diary. But you ran out of pages two days ago. You didn’t throw the journal away; you just taped the spine and pretended that was a solution. Now the spine is a Band-Aid and your life is still leaking.

So you do something slightly insane. You write a letter. A letter to James that you’re obviously not going to send. But you’re not going to send it—fuck no. You might be crazy but not to that extent. Instead, this letter will just fulfill your delusions, knowing you’re too much of a pussy to actually go talk to him. 

Plus, James as Amy. A girl that’s ten times prettier than you. Even if the letter was sent, it wouldn’t do anything but humiliate her. You sit down and you write like the instruction are pressed into your ribs. 

Dear James,

I don’t know what kind of courage is even required to put this into paper and not just into the soft pulp of my diary where it will sit forever and never hurt anyone but me. I’m out of pages. I like to pretend that’s why this is happening, but really it’s because your face keeps crowding the edges of the life I think I should lead and I am tired of pretending nothing has changed.

I’m writing this because my dad said something tonight about opening up, and for once his advice didn’t annoy me. It lit the part of my chest that likes to tell the truth. Usually, I tell myself the truth in tiny, private scribbles. I tuck things away in notebooks and call it safety. But safe is starting to feel smaller than the way my thoughts about you try to grow.

So here it is: I like you. Not the kind of like that’s polite and fits into a yearbook quote. The kind of like that rearranges the soundtrack in my head and makes dumb songs sound like they were written for mornings when you’re still asleep beside me. I like the way you laugh when someone says something stupid on the field. I like the way your that little pout you make when you miss your shot during your soccer practice. I like the scar on your thumb. I notice the ways you look at nothing and I wonder if you’re keeping a private joke with yourself.

I don’t expect anything. I’m not asking you to change your life, and I’m not asking you to break anything open to fit me inside. I’m just telling you the shape of my heart as honestly as I can. If you look back and you don’t feel anything close, that’s okay. I’ll make more pages. I’ll close my hands around the feeling and let it be pretty and lonely and mine.

If by some impossibility you feel even a fraction of this, if you ever want to talk in the quiet and not for show, I’d like that. If you want to laugh and make terrible jokes and steal fries off my plate, I’d like that too. If you want to touch me and find out how the rest of me holds together like how you do with Amy—well. I want that too, but more than anything I want you to be honest with me the way I’m trying to be honest with you now.

— Y/n

You read it back and feel twelve whole things at once — proud, mortified, relieved, as well as questioning your life decisions. You fold it carefully like it it’s an explosive and slide it into an envelope. You address it with your own hand: Zhao Yufan, his legal name. Under his name, you scribble the address you only learned after realizing he lives six houses down. You seal the flap, press it flat like a bandage, and set the envelope on your nightstand.

You think about putting it in the diary, or a secret drawer, or burning it in the tiny metal box you use to store old receipts, but something about the whole open up thing makes you stubborn. This one you want to feel like it could be sent. So you tuck it under a small stack of textbooks on the nightstand, slide a pen across it like you’re filing it into safety, and tell yourself you’ll shower, you’ll calm down, you’ll decide tomorrow whether you actually post it or not.

You strip and step into the shower, the hot water hitting your skin in a rhythm that slows the part of you that wants to panic. Steam climbs the glass and you lean your forehead against the wall and breathe. You imagine the envelope still on the nightstand where you left it, protected by the textbooks like a little fort.

You shampoo and rinse and think of nothing and everything and finally step out, towel-wrapped and lightheaded. You cross your room, expecting the envelope to be exactly where you left it. But you don’t see it.

You assume you put it somewhere else—under a different stack, in a drawer you forgot about, safe. That makes you breathe easier. You make a mental note to check after you put your hair up. Only thing is you don’t get the chance. As soon as you lay down on your bed, you’re fast asleep.

—

Morning punches you in the face the moment your alarm shrieks. You bolt upright with that weird post-shower fog still clinging to your brain, and then the memory hits you like a shovel: The letter.

“Shit—” You stumble out of bed, hair a disaster, sleep shirt twisted around your waist as you lunge toward the nightstand.

Textbooks: check. Pen you left on top: check. Envelope? Not check. You flip the books. Nothing. Just kill me.

You yank open the drawer. Receipts, scrunchies, a rogue stick of gum. Oh—there’s your favourite lip gloss you lost in eighth grade. No envelope.

You drop to your knees and check under the bed like the letter might be hiding out of spite. Nada. 

“Okay, no. No no no—” Your voice rises, scrapes, breaks. You tear through your desk. Under the lamp. Behind your laptop. In your laundry basket like you’re truly losing it.

It’s gone.

You freeze so hard your breath forgets what it’s supposed to be doing. For a full five seconds you just stand there, staring at the nightstand like it personally betrayed you.

“Y/N! You’re gonna make Annie late!” your dad yells from downstairs.

Jesus Christ. Of course the universe picks today to make you a missing-letter fugitive.

You slap on makeup with the precision of a maniac, yank on loose jeans, absolutely forget deodorant, and sprint out the door with Annie trailing behind you.

She’s eating a Pop-Tart like nothing is wrong in the world. “Can you walk faster?” you hiss.

“You woke me up late,” she mumbles around strawberry filling. “This is your fault.”

She’s not wrong, and it only makes you want to scream into a pillow. “Actually, you could have set an alarm on your phone,” you say defend yourself. “What’s the point of having a phone if you can’t put it to use?” Annie rolls her eyes. The whole walk to her school, your brain is doing a full Olympic-level panic routine.

You drop Annie off—barely hearing her bye—and then you’re speed-walking toward your school like your life depends on it. Which, honestly? It kind of does.

Inside the hallway, it’s the usual teenage circus. Lockers slamming. People laughing too loud. Someone aggressively spraying Axe body spray like they’re trying to fumigate the building.

And then, you see him. James. He’s leaning against his locker, talking to Jihoon and some really tall guy, hair falling over his forehead in that stupidly soft way that makes your chest squeeze. He wipes his bangs aside with his knuckles and you swear your soul leaves your body like you’re some Victorian child witnessing the beauty of art for the first time. 

Your feet keep walking but your eyes stay glued to him as you’re now walking backwards somehow—hey, is it just you or did he bleach his hair blondish orange?

“Ouch! Watch where you’re going.”

Your shoulder ricochets off a wall of person, and a sharp, irritated gasp snaps you back to reality. “Hi Amy.”

Believe it or not, you and Amy were best of friends back in middle school until popularity took over her. Her brown wavy hair is perfectly glossy. Her skin is so flawless it looks like someone airbrushed her in real time. She’s applying a swipe of lip gloss with one hand and glaring at you like you just stepped on her dog with the other.

“Oh, it’s just you,” she snaps, pursing her lips as she caps the gloss. “Some of us actually care about how we look in the morning.”

Heat floods your cheeks, crawling up your neck. You mutter, “Sorry,” but it comes out thin and squeaky—humiliating.

Her eyes flick over you, slow and critical, before she glances past your shoulder toward James—her whole expression softening instantly, like flipping a switch.

You try your hardest not to look. It would be very embarrassing to do so. But you do.

James is watching. Not glaring. Not smirking. Just watching with that unreadable, calm expression he always gets when he’s trying to figure something out. His friends are waving their hands in front of his face to catch his attention. 

Your stomach drops to your toes. Because for one terrible, dizzy moment, you wonder if that letter got somewhere it shouldn’t. You swallow tightly.

This day is already hell. And it’s only 8:07 AM. 

You don’t even get three steps down the hall before Bella materializes beside you like she teleported straight out of loyalty. Her ponytail bounces while her iced latte sloshes, eyebrows already raised. “I saw that, by the way,” she says.

You groan into your hands. “Please. Please, Bella. Don’t.” Bella wiggles her brows. “You full-on stared at him like he was Michelangelo’s David, and then you—what was that? Moonwalked into Amy?”

“Let’s. Not. Talk about it.” You want to crawl inside your hoodie and never come out. Bella laughs so hard she snorts. “Okay, fine. But holy crap, you’re lucky she didn’t claw your face off.”

You don’t tell her about the letter. God, no. Bella is your ride-or-die, but even she doesn’t deserve to carry that radioactive emotional grenade.

The day crawls by at the pace of a wounded snail. Class, class, pretend to take notes, class. After school, you follow your usual routine: cut through the side field, slip past the bleachers, and make your quiet little trail toward the soccer field.

It’s stupid. SO stupid. But watching the practices has always been… calming? Or maybe masochistic. Hard to tell. They’re already running drills. Cleats thudding. Shouts carrying. 

And there he is, James, wearing the neon-pinnied version of perfection. He’s quick. Controlled. Focused. The way his legs move is ridiculous. He spins the ball like it’s attached to him by secret magnets.

Usually Amy’s on the bleachers, cheering him on with her friends. But today there were no signs of her being no where near this field. Strange. You wonder where she is. That should make you feel relieved. It doesn’t.

For once, James isn’t playing like you’re invisible. Because suddenly, he sees you. Actually sees you. His brows knit. His chest rises, pauses. And before you can process what’s happening, he jogs off the field. Then he’s running. Running toward you.

Panic detonates in your ribcage.

No. No no no no—

He stops way too close. Close enough that you smell him—clean, sharp, expensive. Something like cedar and citrus and everything you absolutely should not like.

“Hey,” he says, breath still catching from the run. “Y/n? Is that your name?” You freeze. He rubs the back of his neck. Looks down for a second. Then back at you.

“I see you watching the games sometimes and I, uh… got your note.”

Your heart stops. Literally stops. If a doctor checked you right now, you’d be declared clinically dead. “I just—” he swallows hard. He’s awkward. He’s never awkward. “I didn’t want you to think I was ignoring it.”

Your mouth opens but nothing comes out. Not even a squeak. He shifts his weight, eyes flicking toward the field like he wishes someone would rescue him.

“Listen… I just got out of a breakup. Like. Recently.” He laughs once, dry and not very funny. “And… I don’t even know you. So I can’t—it wouldn’t be fair. Or right. You know?”

“Then get to know me.” That’s what you want to say. Instead you nod slowly. Or maybe you physically malfunction. Hard to tell. He gives you this tiny, apologetic half-smile that somehow hurts worse than being stabbed.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. And then he jogs back onto the field like he didn’t just smash your chest open with his bare hands. You stand there frozen long enough that a stray soccer ball rolls by your foot and you don’t even flinch.

James looks even better up close. And yeah he smells like something expensive. Something that makes your stomach twist. You were never supposed to know that. You swallow, throat tight. It’s the start of the new school year and this day was- well... You’re not sure there’s even a word for it.

The next few days are awkward as hell.

You avoid his locker like it’s a landmine. You walk a little faster in the halls. How the hell did he get his hands on your letter in the first place? If your brain had a mute switch, you would’ve used it. Bella notices and gives you the exact look that says tell me everythingwithout actually making you talk.

You don’t tell her anything. Not about the letter, and about how your stomach clenches when he passes.

One afternoon you cut across the field and freeze halfway, because there they are, the once infamous couple arguing in that tense whisper that looks loud from a distance. Amy’s hands are animated, her face flushed in that way people get when they think they’re right and are also angry. James is calm but tight; his jaw works like he’s chewing on something heavy. You don’t hear words. You only see the body language: Amy stepping closer, James stepping back. The rest of the team keeps practicing around them like it’s normal to be emotionally shredded in the middle of drills. Maybe this happens a lot? Expect this time, they’re arguing as exes, not as a couple.

Three days later, you’re sitting with Bella like every other lunch school-day—salad in front of you, two conversations happening at once. “Hey,” Bella starts, “you think that I could fit three French fries up one nostril?”

You barely get two fries into your mouth before a shadow falls over your lunch table. Bella freezes mid-sip of her iced latte. Her eyes go huge. “Um… incoming.” You turn slowly, like your neck is rusted, praying it isn’t who you think it is. 

James. Hands in pockets. Hair slightly damp from gym. Looking like a walking problem. You could recognize his cologne from miles away.

“Y/n,” he says, voice low. “Can we talk?” Bella nearly breaks her own neck nodding. You shoot her a warning look, but she just winks. Or tries to. It looks more like a seizure. You follow James out to the side courtyard, heart punching your ribs like it’s trying to escape. Did he see you eves dropping on him and Amy’s argument? Or even worse—he somehow got a hold of that piece of paper you wrote a whole entire smut scene of you and him on. No. There’s no way that’s possible. But the letter- shut up y/n.

Finally, he stops by a bench and shifts his body awkwardly. You brace yourself for whatever’s coming.

“Okay, so… about what I said a few days ago.” Deep breath. “I changed my mind,.”

You blink. Not once. Not twice. About twelve times. “I’m sorry—what?” He runs a hand through his hair, jaw tightening. “Amy found out I talked to you the other day.” His eyes flicker to you. “And she’s… not handling it well.” You say nothing. Your brain is buffering like bad Wi-Fi. “So,” he continues, “she’s convinced I’m into you. And she’s trying to make me jealous by flirting with every guy in our grade. Which is…” He grimaces. “Annoying.”You’re staring at him, blank-faced, because what else are you supposed to do? “So if she thinks you and I are together,” he finally says, “she’ll calm down. And maybe she’ll want to get back together. It’s just… easier this way.”

Ah. There it is.

It’s not because he suddenly sees you. It’s not because your face lives rent-free in his mind the way his does in yours. It’s because you’re convenient and somehow read the stupid love letter you were going to keep to yourself and through away after a few days. 

You swallow, throat scraping. “So you want me to pretend to be your girlfriend… so your get back together?” He nods, relieved you understand. “Yeah. Exactly.”

You take your time thinking—way longer than necessary, honestly. But you’re not stupid. Fake dating James? James, whose face makes your brain glitch? James, who already thinks you confessed some weird crush? Why the hell wouldn’t you?

“Fine,” you say eventually. “I’ll do it.” His whole body loosens like he’s been holding tension since August. “Thank you. Seriously. Okay, uh… we should follow each other on Instagram.”

Shit. 

He pulls his phone out. You do the same—hesitantly. “It’s @y_notn?” He repeats, typing the username into Instagram, then clicking onto your page. You see his lips form a smirk. “You’re already following me I see.” You cheeks match the color of his shoes.

He types fast. “I’ll tag you in my bio. You can tag me in yours too.” Your pulse jumps but you nod in agreement anyways.

He pockets his phone again. “Meet me after practice today. Same field as always.” He gives you a small smile that’s entirely too soft to be legal. “I assume you know what time that is.” Like you haven’t literally watched every practice he’s had since school started.

You nod, trying not to implode. “Yeah. I know.”

“Cool.” He steps back, gives you a once-over that feels like a warm hand on your spine. “See you then, Y/n.” When he walks away, you realize you’re not breathing. You’re not sure you’ll ever breathe normally again.

Bella ambushes you before you even sit down. She’s practically vibrating with questions, textbooks forgotten in her hand.

“So spill. What did you two even talk about? Why is he talking to you when he has a—what is she—Amy? What the freak is going on?” Her eyes are all sharp curiosity and that ridiculous, fierce-protective thing only best friends get. You do the only mature thing you can think of: play it cool. “It’s nothing,” you say, which is still a lie and also technically not. You haven’t explained anything to anyone, not even to yourself.

Bella doesn’t buy it for one second. “Nothing? Y/n. You’ve been crushing on that guy ever since I’ve known you. Do you know how dramatic that was? Spill.”

You fold your fork over your lips. “He said some stuff. Nothing huge.” You focus on making your voice flat, unimpressed, as though your heart didn’t vault into your throat and refuse to come down two hours ago. She leans in until her face invades your space. “Did he… break up with Amy?”

You stare at her. The question feels like a live wire. “Yeah,” you say before you can stop it. “They—he said they broke up.”

Bella’s jaw drops so hard you’d think she swallowed a stone. “And you didn’t tell me? Am I not your best friend anymore or what?” She half-pleads, half-accuses. You laugh because panic tastes weird and small. “I didn’t know until this week, B. Chill. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be the person who screams and jumps on him or whatever you do when you’re extremely dramatic.”

She pouts, not actually mad. “Wait—so was he talking to you because he likes you or something and wants to move from Amy?”

It takes you a moment to respond. “It’s… complicated,” you say, and she deflates into a theatrical sigh. “I’ll keep you updated for sure.”

Later, after classes pretend to move slower than molasses. You go to the side courtyard like you promised. He’s there early, hands in pockets, looking like he walked out of a billboard and then stole your ability to breathe. He waves you over like he’s practiced casualness in a mirror.

“So,” he says, hands folded like he’s bracing for feedback as you two settle down on a nearby bench. “About us.”

You swallow. “About us.” Something you thought you’d never hear come out of his mouth, This is ridiculous. Then you remind yourself why you’re here in the first place.

He exhales. “I should make—uh—parameters. Boundaries. Whatever you want to call them..” He looks earnest. Which is both disarming and scalding.

“Okay,” you say. “No kissing. No… anything farther.” You say it like you’re filing a restraining order against your hormones. Your cheeks heat up right after you say it, like you’ve exposed your soul in public.

He gives you a genuinely confused look. “What’s so wrong with kissing?” You look at him and feel stupid and stubborn and painfully sincere. “I want my first kiss to mean something. I don’t want my first kiss to be a prop in someone’s plan. I want it to be because of… feelings. Real ones.”

He studies your face. For a second you think he’s scoffing. Instead he looks surprised, like he expected something else out of you entirely. “So you’re saying you’ve never kissed anyone? You don’t seem like a first-kiss kind of person,” he says, like it’s an observation, not an accusation.

You don’t know if that’s supposed to be a compliment. “I’m not,” you say. “I just… want one that matters.”

He nods slowly, and shockingly, he takes it in. “Okay. No kissing,” he repeats. “No making out. No—anything. Got it. I was looking forward to that part though.” That last sentence makes you look up immediately. He lets out a “oh look at you, you feel for it,” laugh. Of course he didn’t mean it.

“And pet names? Like, are we team ‘babe’ or are we staying sane?”

You sigh. “Pet names are allowed but No PDA that crosses boundaries. Hand-holding okay. Quick pecks on the cheek—fine, but only if it’s not humiliatingly dramatic in front of Amy.”

He snorts at that, and for a moment the tension loosens. “Dates?” he asks. James going on a date with you? You want to poke yourself to make sure this isn’t all just a dream.

“Sure.”

You actually grin, and it feels like a defect in your usual composure. This is insane. You’re literally negotiating love like it’s a group project. He hesitates, then asks, “Can I—uh—pick you up to school? Like, to drive you? Make things look… convincing.”

Your brain short-circuits. “I walk my younger sister to school,” you say. “So no.” He brightens, thinking on his feet. “I can drive her too. Drop them both off. Make it seem legit.”

You gape. “You’d drive my twelve-year-old sister to school?” He shrugs like it’s nothing. “Yeah. Less awkward than you explaining a fake boyfriend every morning.”

“Wow,” you say, simultaneously mortified and oddly touched. “That’s… actually kind. Okay, maybe.”

“And—if you want—I can drive you home now,” he adds. “Make it easier. Practical.” You almost laugh because this feels exactly like a dream for someone else and not like your actual life. But then you see his eyes dart—just for half a beat—toward the tree line at the edge of the parking lot. Amy. 

He looks back at you and, without missing a beat, pulls you closer. His hand rests on the small of your back, which feels equal parts possessive and protective. His other hand ghosts over your arm, fingers light, claiming. “Smile,” he whispers into your ear, breath hot and soft and ridiculous.

His hands wander like they’re memorizing the geography of you—over your shoulder, along your ribs—nothing obscene, just bordering on intimate enough to make your teeth ache.

“Come on, baby. Let’s get you home.” He makes sure to emphasize on the baby part so it’s loud enough for Amy to hear. The pet name lands heavy in your chest.

He slides his fingers into yours and leads you toward the parking lot. Your sneakers scuff the concrete. Maybe the letter getting sent out wasn’t as bad after all. But then you remember this is all an act. James doesn’t actually like you. And once he’s back with Amy? You don’t even want to think about it.

You find the car before you recognize it. Low, polished, the kind of car that hums quietly like it was born rich. Leather seats. Chrome that catches sunlight like it’s showing off. You knew he was from money, but you’d never actually seen it up close like this.

He opens the passenger door for you with a theatrical little bow that somehow feels oddly considerate. “Hop in,” he says, and for a second the world narrows to leather and the faint plastic smell of air freshener and the rapid, stupid beating of your heart.

You climb in, and as the engine starts, you wonder which part of your life is a fever dream and which part, if any, is real.

James pulls up in front of your house like he’s done this a hundred times, like this is just routine for him now. The car quiets, he taps the steering wheel once, and turns toward you.

“Thanks for driving me,” you say, suddenly shy for no reason except he’s looking at you like that. You try to keep your smile contained, but it still slips out, tiny and embarrassing.

He catches it immediately. “Cute,” he says under his breath, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud. He clears his throat, hoping you didn’t hear him slip. 

“So this is where y/n lives? Didn’t know you lived a couple houses down from me.” You smile and reach for the door handle, trying to act like a normal functioning human being, when he stops you with a soft, “Y/n—wait.”

You blink at him. “Yes?” He holds up his phone. “Can I take a picture of us holding hands? For my Insta so Amy can see.” You swear you felt something real between you two until he snapped you back to reality. “Like… right now?”

“Yeah.” He extends his hand, palm up, waiting. “C’mon.”

You place your hand in his because what else are you supposed to do? Say no? Die? Teleport? His fingers lace through yours, warm and soft, and your whole bloodstream turns into electricity. You feel your body heat up. This is your first ever physical contact with him.

He lifts his phone with the other hand and pulls your joined hands closer to the console where the lighting is better. Of course he knows his angles; he’s literally James.

“Look at me,” he murmurs. You do. He snaps the picture the moment you meet his eyes, like he wants you in the frame even if you’re only visible in the reflection of the screen. 

After the photo is taken, he stares at it for a quick second. Call yourself delusional but you swear you saw him holding back his smile. After tagging you, he uploads it instantly. Your heart legitimately forgets how to beat.

“Great,” he says, dropping your hand slowly, almost reluctantly. “Text me when you’re inside.”

“S-sure,” you mutter, stumbling over your own voice like a clown. You climb out of the car. He waits until you’re at the porch before he pulls away, tires rolling smooth and silent like he didn’t just flip your entire life upside down.

You walk in, still clutching the warmth of his hand like an idiot who’s never known happiness before. Your dad glances up from the kitchen, eyes narrowing with that suspicious dad-squint. “Someone’s smiling.” You almost choke. “I’m not—I’m literally—I wasn’t—”

He laughs. “Alright, alright. I’m not interrogating you. How’d you get home so fast?”

Panic rushes through your veins. “Uh. Bella’s brother drove us. We were going the same way.”

Lie. Instant lie. Horrible lie. Bella doesn’t even have a brother. You want to fistfight yourself.

“Huh,” your dad says, not looking convinced but not digging either. “Alright, well—oh! Before I forget.” He stands, wipes his hands on a dish towel, and smiles like he’s about to tell you something wholesome. Instead he says the single worst sentence you’ve heard in your entire life. “I forgot to tell you this but I saw that letter on your desk last week and helped mail it for you, honey.” Your stomach hits the floor. You swear your vision goes white around the edges.

“What—what letter?” You hear your own voice crack like a broken flute.

“The envelope under those textbooks on your desk thst was addressed to one of our neighbours? I figured it’d save you and I less time because I was stopping by the post office anyways,” He beams, proud of himself.

You cannot breathe. So that’s how James got your note. The letter that was literally your unhinged, handwritten, half-fantasy confession about James. The one you should have burned. “Thanks,” you whisper, voice tiny and hoarse. 

You bolt up the stairs the second you’re free, close your bedroom door with the gentlest click ever because of course tonight is the night you suddenly care about door volume, and just… collapse. Face-first into your bed. You don’t even bother turning the lights on.

Your body is still buzzing, like James’s handprint is burned into your skin. Your heart keeps replaying the whole car scene at 8K resolution, IMAX, Dolby Atmos, every upgrade possible.

James and Amy? Over. James talking to you? Actually real. James fake dating you? Also real. You? Completely malfunctioning.

You roll onto your back and stare at the ceiling like it personally betrayed you. Because the thing is, it’s fake. He asked for to take the picture for Amy, not because he wanted it for himself. He’s James. He dates girls who look like they stepped out of a perfume commercial. You literally tripped over air in homeroom last week.

Still… your chest squeezes around this tiny, dangerous wish. You wish it wasn’t fake, how he meant the way he looked at you in the car, and the warmth in his hand wasn’t just acting. But whatever. That’s not your life. Guys like him don’t like girls like you. You know that. You’ve always known that.

Next morning starts off painfully normal, which is honestly rude given the way last night cracked your brain open. You drag yourself out of bed, brush your teeth while half-asleep, pull on a hoodie that still smells vaguely like laundry detergent and despair, and braid Annie’s hair while she wiggles like a caffeinated squirrel.

“Hold still,” you mutter, trying to tame the last strand. “I am holding still,” she says, not holding still. You finally get her ready, grab your bag, and step out of the building with her hand in yours. It’s quiet outside, cool enough to wake you up a little. The walk to her school is familiar, easy, predictable.

Your brain needs predictable right now. You’re three blocks down before a car honk breaks the morning calm—one sharp, deliberate beep.

You and Annie both turn at the same time.

James’s car is parked at the curb. Leaning slightly toward the window, one hand on the wheel, raising his eyebrows in a “Really? You forgot?” kind of way.

“Oh shit,” you whisper. Annie gasps dramatically and sprints toward the car like she’s starring in her own movie. “Did you just say a bad word?” she calls out over her shoulder. “Also who’s that?”

“My… uh…” You have nothing. No explanation. Just panic. “Just—wait—Annie!” But she’s already yanking open the passenger door. “Did you forget about stranger danger?!”

“Hiiiiii!” she beams at him. James grins back, all sunshine and dimples. “Good morning.” He looks cute when he smiles.  You stumble up behind her, cheeks burning. “Sorry—she just—uh—”

“It’s fine,” he says. “She’s cute.”

Annie giggles like he handed her a scholarship. “My sister thinks cute! Her face literally turned red when she—” You quickly slap your palm on top of her mouth, nearly choke on your own tongue. “Annie! You can’t just—say things—!”

James laughs. “I can see that.” Fuck you. He nods toward the backseat. “You riding or walking?” Right. The whole fake dating thing. You climb in, mumbling, “I totally forgot you were picking us up.”

He shoots you a look in the rearview. Teasing. “Kind of figured.” Annie, meanwhile, is already telling him her entire life story. “So my sister woke me up late again, and Y/N didn’t let me have candy in the morning, so can you convince her t—“

“Annie,” you hiss, “personal space!” James glances at you, amused. “Your sister’s very bubbly.”

“Yeah,” you sigh. “Runs in the family.” He raises an eyebrow. “Really? Haven’t noticed much of that in you.” You look out the window so he can’t see your face fall and combust at the same time. “Well… it takes me a while to open up.”

There’s a beat of silence—soft, not awkward. Then, quietly, he says, “I don’t mind that. Your breath trips.  Annie thankfully interrupts you before your brain melts. “Are you Y/N’s boyfriend?” You and James say entirely different things at the exact same time.

You: “NO—no no no—he’s not—don’t—” James: “Something like that.”

You whip your head toward him so fast your neck protests. “What?!” He smirks. “Relax. Just keeping the story consistent.” “That’s not consistent, that’s— that’s—”

“Convincing,” he finishes, winking. You swear your pulse jumps like it’s trying to break out of your body. By the time he pulls into the school parking lot, your nerves are shredded.

“Wait.” His voice stops you again. You freeze halfway out. He gets out too. Walks around the car. And then extends his hand. Palm up, a silver ring on his index finger. 

“Come on,” he says. “They’re already staring.” Your stomach drops to your knees. You place your hand in his, because apparently you’ve lost all brain function. His fingers lace through yours. Firm. Warm. Familiar already in a terrifying way. You wonder what if he uses hand cream—and if so, what kind?

You walk side by side, hands joined, through the courtyard. Every. Single. Person. Looks. Someone literally whispers, “Are you kidding me?” as you pass. Another girl stares like you committed a war crime. You try to keep your face blank, but your heart is doing parkour. Even his friends look at him weird. James leans toward you just slightly. “You good?”

“I’m—fine,” you lie. He squeezes your hand. A tiny squeeze. You nearly short-circuit. Then you turn down the hall. And there she is. Perfect hair. Perfect face. Perfect everything. Leaning against her locker with her friends, scrolling through her phone—Amy.

Until she sees you and James. Her entire expression freezes—then sharpens. Expression goes from neutral to knives-out in half a second.

It hits you so hard your stomach does a full gymnastics routine. You instantly look away, like you’re gonna be burned alive if you make eye contact for more than a microsecond. James actually glances. Quick, sharp, assessing—like he’s checking if she saw. And apparently she did, because he gives the smallest nod to himself and keeps walking.

Your palm is sweating in his, which is honestly humiliating, but he doesn’t comment. Doesn’t squeeze or slow down or look at you twice. He’s just walking. Playing the part. Cool. Unbothered. Like this is all just logistics. People are still staring, whispering, straight-up gawking as you pass.  You keep your face forward. Try not to shrink… or die. All three are failing.

When you reach his locker, he drops your hand casually like he’s turning off a light switch. He spins his combo, grabs a book, and says, completely normal, “I saw her staring.”

Your heart is still in your throat. “It’s progress, I guess.” He nods once, satisfied. “Think it’s working.”

James doesn’t look at you again—just shuts his locker with a quick clack and tosses his bag over his shoulder like he didn’t just nuke your nervous system in the hallway.

“See you later,” he says, already turning away. And you’re left standing there, trying not to look like you’re about to dissolve into mist.

The rest of the week doesn’t calm down — it just mutates into this weird fever dream where James keeps doing things that make your brain short-circuit.

Like Wednesday morning, when you’re trying to open your locker and the stupid thing jams for the eighth day in a row. You mutter under your breath, “I hate this place,” and kick the bottom corner. Out of nowhere, James appears behind you, lean and warm and annoyingly tall.

“Move,” he says, voice low like he’s about to break into a safe.

“I’ve tried that,” you snap, not even looking up. “It doesn’t—” He slams his palm against the top left edge with one clean, confident hit. The locker pops open like it’s scared of him. Hot. “Are you—what? How—?!”

He shrugs, smirking. “You’re welcome.”

You roll your eyes way too dramatically, but you’re pretty sure your soul floats out the back of your head when he taps the top of your hair and says, “I’ll be here if you need help with anything else.”

You stare after him like a malfunctioning Roomba as he walks off.

Then there’s Thursday, when you’re walking through the courtyard with James and trip over absolutely nothing. Like, genuinely nothing. A single leaf. A shadow. Air. You go stumbling forward like a newborn deer. Before you can fall, James catches the back of your hoodie and pulls you upright by the hood like you’re a cat being relocated.

“I swear to God,” you wheeze, face on absolute fire, “the ground attacked me.”

“Yeah,” he deadpans, “the ground looked really hostile.”

You shove his shoulder because you can’t come up with a good comeback and also because you’re mortified. He lets out a quiet chuckle and it unlocks something sweet and dangerous in your chest.

Next it’s Friday morning. You and Annie are waiting for him outside, and your sister is bouncing around talking about how she wants to get a hamster named Bean. James comes out of the car, leans over the passenger seat, and gives Annie an exaggerated thumbs-up.

“Bean’s a great name,” he says, like he’s taking her dead seriously. “Very strong. Very intimidating.”

Annie giggles like she’s met a celebrity. You can tell that your sister likes him a lot. Too bad it might all end soon. You’re standing there blinking because why is he being sweet when no one is watching? There’s no audience at 7:53 AM on a suburban sidewalk. No reason to impress anybody. He looks at you for a beat too long. “What?” you say, defensive because your nervous system is fried.

“Nothing,” he says, that tiny smile tugging at one corner. 

Later that same day, you’re at his soccer practice again, this time on mandatory fake-girlfriend attendance, apparently, but this time you don’t sit on the bleachers. You’re late, so you stand awkwardly by the fence, hugging your bag. 

James sees you. Mid-scrimmage. He’s literally making it past two guys and still looks over like you’re a lens flare he enjoys catching. Amy’s on the far side of the field glaring daggers, and that’s probably why he does it, why he pushes a bit harder. For some reason, she started showing up again. 

But then he smirks. And it’s not aimed at Amy. He jogs up after scoring, out of breath, flushed, hair sticking to his forehead. The kind of sweaty that shouldn’t be attractive but absolutely is.

Before you know it, his practice ends, the sun’s low, and the field looks like it’s glowing. You’re standing by the fence scrolling your phone, pretending you’re not waiting for him even though obviously you are.

They scrimmage one more play. James gets the ball. The field actually erupts. He slips past two defenders, cuts left, shoots—Goal. The boys yell and explode like he just cured cancer. And then he does something so stupidly cinematic you almost faint: He runs straight toward you. Like you’re his checkpoint.

He stops right by the fence, cheeks flushed, chest heaving, jersey sticking to him — black and green, drenched in sweat, clinging to every muscle that should not legally exist on an 20-year-old.

“Did you see that?” he breathes out, grinning like he’s half-drunk on adrenaline.

“I—I mean—yeah,” you say, but it comes out more like a squeak because you are absolutely staring. His hair is plastered to his forehead, his neck glistening, jaw sharp enough to slice your willpower in half. He smirks when he notices.

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” he teases, voice low. You immediately snap your eyes away. “I wasn’t—looking. I was—blinking.”

“I didn’t know blinking took that long,” he murmurs, leaning a little closer to the fence. You nearly dissolve into the grass.

By the time he drops you off, your brain is a puddle. He taps the steering wheel, looks at you with that same unreadable-soft expression you’re starting to recognize. “Same time tomorrow?” 

Before you could answer, your dad comes out on the porch at the worst possible moment, holding a mug and squinting into the driveway. “Is that the handsome guy Annie keeps talking about?”

Why oh why. “Wha—dad—I—no—?” James, traitor that he is, just smiles and waves like this is a barbecue and not the crumbling of your sanity. “Yes I am!”

Your dad lights up. “Well! Why don’t you stay for dinner?” You see James glance at you like he’s asking for permission—like you’re the deciding vote before he says, “Sure. If that’s okay.” Okay?? You’re already having an out-of-body experience. Inside, Annie is THRIVING. She pats the couch between her and James like she’s the host of a reality show. You sit, fully preparing to be normal. You fail immediately.

Halfway through the movie, James shifts closer—casual, smooth, evil—and drapes an arm behind you on the couch, feeling himself at your home. Not even touching you yet, just… there. Warm. Heavy. Loud in your peripheral vision. Your heart is trying to escape your ribcage with a crowbar.

Then, out of nowhere, he reaches over and slides the scrunchie out of your ponytail. Slow. Deliberate. Like he’s unwrapping a present. Your hair falls down your shoulders and you swear the air temperature spikes 40 degrees.

“Looks better like this,” he murmurs, barely audible over the TV.

You’re going to combust. Annie is too invested in the movie to notice you dying.

He loops it around his wrist, then pulling out his phone to check something. You assume he’s going to post something on his Instagram for Amy to see, but he checks the time instead. Strange

Your dad comes in once to ask if you all want snacks. James answers politely. You stare at the wall like you’re seeing God. He grabs a piece and feeds it to you. Even morestrange.

Eventually it gets late, and he stands, gives Annie a little salute, thanks your dad for the evening, and looks at you with this unreadable softness that makes your stomach flip.

“See you tomorrow,” he says.

—

The night air is cold enough to bite, but he doesn’t feel it. His whole skin is still warm from your house, your couch, your hair brushing his shoulder. 

As he hopped into the car, shouldn’t be thinking about that. It wasn’t supposed to feel like that. Getting out, he walks up his front steps, keys halfway out of his pocket, when he freezes.

Amy is sitting on his porch. Arms crossed. Eyes sharp. Wearing that perfume he likes.

“James,” she says, chin tilted, voice honeyed she knows works on most people.

He exhales, slow. “Amy. What are you doing here?”

She stands up, taking a step closer. “I wanted to talk. We haven’t really—y’know—processed everything. And I…” She lets the sentence trail off, fingers brushing his arm like muscle memory. “I miss you. We were good together.”

He should want this. He knows that. This was the whole point, wasn’t it? Proving he could move on, making her jealous, getting her to come back.

“We were,” he says quietly. It comes out flat. Even he hears it.

Amy leans in, confidence flickering back. “I mean… moving on to someone like her?” She smirks. “Convincing. I’ll give you that.”

He doesn’t say anything. She slides her hand down his arm like she’s done it a thousand times — because she has. Her voice drops. “You could’ve just talked to me, James. You didn’t have to pretend.”

Her eyes glint. She steps closer again, enough that her breath hits his collarbone. “What do you say? Are you up for a redo?” Amy reaches for his wrist, then stops at a certain spot.

“Oh.” Her voice shifts — sweet turning sour. “What’s this?” Her fingers brush the scrunchie. Your scrunchie. Still warm from your hair. She looks up at him, eyebrows lifted like she’s caught him with a crime weapon.

“Is that Y/n’s?” she asks, sickly sweet. His voice is small, quieter than he expects. “It is.”

Amy lets out a low, humorless laugh. “Wow. You’re really committing to the bit.” He doesn’t correct her.

She slips it off his wrist and ties her hair with it, steps back, arms folding. “Well,” she says, lips curling, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow, James.”

She walks away without waiting for an answer. Her perfume lingers. But his wrist feels heavier than everything she tried to imply. He stands there a long time after she’s gone. And the scrunchie stays exactly where it is.

—

James picks you up like nothing happened, acting like he didn’t stand on his porch last night looking existential with your scrunchie on his wrist while his ex tried to crawl back into his life.

“Morning,” he says, voice warm, as you hop into the car. 

“Good Morning.”

He glances over, tapping the steering wheel. “Tired?” You scratch your neck, letting out a soft groan. “Not at all.”

He actually laughs under his breath. “Liar.” Ugh. Of course he knows.

He drives for a bit, a comfortable quiet settling between you — or, well… almost comfortable. Then he says it. Soft. Almost shy. “I really like spending time with you.”

You freeze. Brain: 404 error. “Why?” you say before your filter can save you. He looks over. “Why not?”

“No, like—” you wave a hand, “you don’t have to do the whole… nice boyfriend act right now. No one’s looking.” 

His brows pull together, confused, just a tiny bit hurt. “I know.” It’s nothing. It’s everything. You don’t know what to do with it, so you shove it into the mental junk drawer and slam it shut.

—

After your second class, Bella picks you up and you two walk to your lockers, minding your own business, when Amy appears like a horror movie jump scare, leaning against the lockers, arms crossed, eyes on you like target practice.

“You know James doesn’t actually like you?” She says sweetly.

It’s not like you didn’t know that. The thing going on between James and you is all for show. Bella stiffens beside you. You close your locker and keep walking. 

Amy clicks her tongue. “Y/n—you forgot something.”

You turn just in time to see her toss your scrunchie. It hits the floor at your feet like a punchline. Bella’s eyes go HUGE. “Um. What—?”

“I’ll explain later,” you mutter, scooping it up with fingers that are absolutely trembling.

You don’t go to his practice after that. Screw that. Screw all of it. You go home, burrow under your blanket, and try to convince yourself you don’t care even though you obviously care so much it feels like a bruise.

Around six, there’s a knock downstairs. Please don’t tell me it’s who I think it is.

You hear your dad open the door.

“Oh! Hi James!”

“Is Y/n home?” he asks, and his voice is nervous. Nervous? Since when does James get nervous? “Yes, she’s upstairs in her room, doing whatever you teenagers do.”

“Can I— uh— can I talk to her?”

“…Sure, come in.”

You want to sink into the floorboards. Your dad calls up the stairs, “Y/n! James is here!”

Yeah, you heard.

A moment later, there’s a soft knock on your door. “Can I come in?” You don’t answer, and quickly pull the cover over you. He opens just enough to peek inside. “Hey.” You sit up, knees tucked to your chest. “Hi”

He steps inside, closes the door behind him, runs a hand through his hair like he’s trying to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL on his own life. “Why didn’t you show up to my game? You always show up.” 

You look at him for a long second, then ask the question that’s been chewing through your ribs all day.

“Did you… meet up with Amy last night? And then give her my favourite scrunchie?” 

His head snaps up fast. “No.”

“No?”

“I mean—yes and no. It’s not what you think.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Then what happened?”

He sighs, shoulders dropping. “She just spawned in front of my house as I was driving home. I never asked her to come” Your chest tightens, but you keep your voice steady. “Right. And when she took my scrunchie… you just let her take it?” He flinches a little — just barely, but you see it.

“Yeah, that’s my bad,” he says quietly. “But hey, at least you got it back.”

You stay quiet, jaw set as you look down at the scrunchie on your wrist.

“And it’s not a big deal,” he adds quickly. “It’s just a scrunchie y/n.” He stops himself. “Well — not just a scrunchie. Yours.” Your lungs betray you with a small inhale. He moves a little closer, hands in his pockets. “I’m sorry,” he says softly. “Really. And… I wanna make it up to you.”

You tilt your head “How?” And because he’s him — chaotic, dramatic, inexplicably confident — he smiles.

“You heard of ‘Ski Slopes Nation?” The ski trip party my friend hosts every year. It’s, uh, kinda big. And really fun. I want you to come with me.”

You look down at yojr hands, unsure what to say. Strange, wouldn’t he have asked Amy? “James, I don’t even know anyone there.”

“Okay,” he says, shrugging, taking one small step closer. “So what? You’ll know me.”

“That’s not enough. You’ll be distracted by you know who.”

He sighs, walking towards your bed as he puts his finger under your chin, turning your head to face him. He tilts his head, smirk creeping back. “You’re the only distraction I need.”

Your stomach flips so hard you have to look away again. How can he say this when he doesn’t even like you?

“Think about it,” he murmurs. He reaches for the doorknob, pauses, glances back at you with that soft half-smile. “And for the record, I’ll buy you snacks for the whole time we’re there.”

Then he leaves you alone with your heartbeat trying to set a new world record.

“Wait… it was fake?!” Bella’s voice is a cartoon of betrayal—half screech, half wounded martyr. You’re sitting across from her at your usual greasy-spoon table, regretting your life decisions, and she’s dramatically clutching her phone like you’ve personally stolen her childhood.

“I thought he actually liked you,” she adds, scandalized. “I mean, everything! His stories, the way he looked at you—God, I practically had a panic attack of joy.”

You shrug, because what else do you do when your life is embarrassing and baffling at the same time. “It was the plan. To make Amy jealous. To get her to get back with James.”

Bella pokes your forehead with the end of a fry. “So you were a pawn? That is actually a geniu—horrible!”

You let out a sigh and then tell her about the ski thing—James’s invitation that felt suspiciously like a peace offering. Bella immediately goes into PR mode.

“Why aren’t you going?” she asks, all business now. “This could be huge. Honestly, go. I’ll totally come with you if that’ll change your mind.”

You almost say no. You almost say yes. You do say, finally, “Okay, but you cannot leave my side for once.”

She claps and picks up your phone from the table. “Text him now.” She demands while handing you her phone. Slowly, you unlock your phone and type in: “Ok, Ski Slopes Nation it is.” Sent.

Weekend flies. Saturday morning, you stand by the curb, heels tapping like a metronome, expecting Bella’s overzealous face any second. Typical you overpacked for a three night trip. James pulls up right on time, engine purring luxury. You get in. You do a full inventory of your nerves.

Ten minutes later you notice Bella’s text: one-line replies. 

Bella: Sorry guys, mom lowkey got mad because I fumbled my test 🙁. Maybe next time?

You stare at the message like it physically hurt. She didn’t tell you before. This was her plan all along for you to go to the Ski Slopes Event alone with James. She was never going to come.

You turn to James, ready to explode with “where is she?” but the words scramble and bail right out of you. Your hand goes for the door handle. You’re doing the awkward petty-exit thing when he reaches over, still driving, and grabs your wrist gently.

“Wait,” he says. His voice is small, not demanding, just…earnest. “Please. Don’t go.”

You stare at his hand on yours. Your knee-jerk plan is to get out and walk, to reclaim dignity off the side of the highway, but the highway is suddenly very far away and his palm is somehow steadying.

“Why?” you ask, because why not make him explain himself.

He pulls into the next parking spot, kills the engine, and turns fully to you like it’s the thing he’s meant to do all day. The car becomes its own little island of breath.

“I wanted you to come,” he says, simple and flat, like it’s obvious and he’s been dying to say it. “Not because of Amy. Not to make her jealous. I… I actually like doing this with you. I like spending time with you.”

Your brain files that under “unreliable information” and simultaneously under “this actually matters.” You blink. “But—wasn’t this whole thing supposed to get Amy back?”

He hesitates, then answers honestly, the way people answer when the truth is awkward but necessary. “Yes that was the plan. At first. But I don’t know if I want to go back to that. I don’t know if I ever did. And the more time I spend with you—not pretending—it’s not the same. You’ve made me felt something no one else has ever made me feel. But what I know is that I like you. A lot.”

You roll your eyes because dramatic vulnerability is embarrassing even when it’s kind of endearing. And your body heats up. Your cheeks are probably tomato colored, but you try staying nonchalant. “So what, you just switched teams mid-game?”

He gives you one of those looks that’s half apology, half dare. “Sort of. Do you… do you wanna keep doing this? Not for Amy. For us. Keep this—whatever this is—going?”

You inhale, exhale, try to be sensible. “You know how this looks,” you say. “Welp, the love letter sure worked out—just now how I expected.”

He smiles, small and stubborn. “It sure did.”

You can’t help the laugh that escapes—part incredulous, part hopeful. You tuck your hand back into yours under the dash. “Fine,” you say, because why be brave when you can be cautiously stupid instead. “But I’m watching you. One misstep and I will glare you into ashes.”

“Deal,” he says, a grin tugging at his lips that’s half triumphant, half relieved. “Also, I’m getting your scrunchie back. Properly next time.”

You look out at the highway ahead, and despite the chaos, despite the lying and the staging and the way your life currently reads like a badly edited montage, there’s a tiny part of you that answers before your brain can veto it.

“Okay,” you whisper. “Let’s keep doing this—carefully.”

He squeezes your hand. The car pulls back onto the road, and the rest of the world sounds like muffled static for a second, just you and the hum of the engine and the very complicated possibility of something messy and real.

“Are you sure you have snow tires on?” You double check as more snow comes down while you guys drive up the mountain. The atmosphere in the car was not quiet, but soft. Not awkward anymore, not tense, just this gentle humming between you two—like the car has its own heartbeat now and it somehow synced to yours. James lets out a low chuckle, reaching for your hand, giving it a tight squeeze. 

“I’m sure y/n.” The way he spoke your name was so attractive yet reassuring. Snow lines the trees like powdered sugar and the sky is a blue so obnoxiously pretty it looks edited. James keeps flicking quick glances at you like he’s checking if you’re still real. You’re still trying to get over the fact that you’re seated in Jame’s car that actually has feelings for you.

When he parks outside the lodge, you hop out and the cold instantly punches your lungs. He grabs the bags before you can even protest because he’s a show-off with biceps, apparently. Inside, the place is gorgeous—warm lights, crackling fireplaces, couples everywhere wearing matching sweaters like they’re in a Pinterest board.

James leads you down a hallway lined with wooden doors and stops at one. Unlocks it, then opens the door. You follow him in. And freeze.

There are multiple reasons why you freeze. First and most obvious reason, the scenery. You knew James and his friends were filthy rich, but this is on a next level. The place was small, but it felt so cozy and expensive at the same time. Second reason, the bed. Notice how it’s bed and not beds plural? 

“…Hold on,” you say, voice thin. “Where’s—uh—the other bed?” There is one bed. One. Big, yes. Fluffy, absolutely. But still ONE BED.

James glances at it like it’s the weather. “Oh. Yeah. They ran out of doubles.” He looks at you over his shoulder. “Is that okay? It is pretty spacious so we can sleep on either ends.” 

Is that OK??

Your soul: NOPE. SOUND THE ALARMS. EVACUATE THE PREMISES.

Your mouth: “Yeah it’s fine.”

Typical y/n. Always lying out of your ass crack.

He tosses his duffel on the floor and starts unpacking, casual as ever, while your brain is mapping out emergency escape routes and calculating the surface area of the bed to figure out how far you can sleep from him without dying.

“We’ve got, like, four hours until the big event,” he says, kicking off his shoes. “It’s basically a party with drinks and games. Then we go skiing. People kinda go all out.”

Skiing? You? “Is it bad that I don’t know how to Ski?”

He snorts—soft, fond. “It’s okay. I’ll teach you if you’re down. I’m sure you’ll be able to manage.

He finishes unpacking and flops onto the bed, arms behind his head. “You can talk, y’know,” he says, teasing. “You’re doing that quiet-stressing face again.”

“I’m not”—

“You are.”

“Stop reading my mind.”

“Stop being readable.”

You grab your water bottle just to have something to do. He watches you, amused. The silence stretches—not awkward, but charged. Like static in the air before lightning strikes. 

You sit on the edge of the bed, rambling about something—how cold it is, how Bella tricked you, how the hallway smells weirdly like cinnamon. You don’t stop talking because if you stop, you’ll think, and if you think, you’ll panic.

Halfway through your rant about overpriced ski equipment, you notice he’s not responding. He’s just… staring. Not in a bored way. Or in a polite-listening way.

In a hungry way. In a memorizing-your-mouth-movements way. In a way no fake boyfriend should ever stare. No one has ever looked at you like that.

You clear your throat. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

James’s voice is low, a little rough. “I don’t know.”

You short-circuit. “I—what—you—you don’t know—?”

“Yeah.” He shifts closer—just enough for your knees to touch. 

You swallow. Loudly. “Cute.”

“Mm.” His eyes drop to your lips like gravity dragged them there. “And distracting.”

Your heart is doing backflips. Your hands start sweating. You are ninety percent sure you’re about to ascend straight off the bed.

“James…” you whisper, though you’re not sure if it’s a warning or an invitation. He moves closer, slow enough to give you time to pull back. You don’t. You couldn’t even if you tried. His forehead almost touches yours, breath warming your skin. “Tell me if you don’t want this,” he murmurs.

You don’t answer. You lean in. Never once in life were you expecting James to be your first kiss. Obviously in those little fantasies of yours, but never in real life.

His lips brush yours—barely, like a question he’s too scared to ask out loud—and your breath catches so hard your ribs ache. He tilts his head, closes the space, kisses you properly this time, soft but hungry, like he’s been holding this in for weeks.

He pulls back, breathless, eyes flashing with something you can’t quite name. Then suddenly he’s dragging you into his lap, steady hands guiding you, brushing a stray piece of hair behind your ear before pulling you in for another kiss. This one is hungrier—messy, frantic, almost starving.

A small moan slips out of you the second his tongue pushes into your mouth. He’s good—too good. And you were the complete opposite. Heat blooms low in your stomach, and you can feel him hardening beneath you, the realization sending a shiver through your whole body.

He chuckles against your lips, the vibration buzzing straight through you as his tongue keeps exploring your mouth.

“You like that?” he murmurs, fingers trailing up your thigh. You nod instantly, needy, like your body answered before your brain could catch up.

He leans in, breath brushing your ear. “Tell me what else you want,” he murmurs. You part your lips, but nothing comes out—you’re too wound up, too turned on from everything he’s already done.

“Tell me, baby.” The pet name makes your pussy clench around nothing.

“I—I don’t know,” you finally manage to whisper.

“You don’t know?” he repeats, eyebrow lifting in a teasing way. Embarrassment floods your cheeks as you shake your head and bring your hands up to hide your face.

“Hey,” he says softly, pulling your hands away. Your eyes meet, and he him unintentionally bitting his lower lips, his eyes now roaming all over your body.

Before you can even react, he’s kissing you again—deep, consuming, pulling you straight back into the heat of him.

“Do you know how to grind on me?” he asks when he pulls away again. You shake your head no.

“Here, let me guide you.”

His hands settle on your ass, gentle but sure, guiding your hips back and forth over his clothed cock as he pulls you back into the kiss. You both let out soft moans, the sound tangled between your mouths. It’s overwhelming, your fingers sliding into his hair, tugging just enough to pull another sound out of him.

“God, baby… you look so hot on top of me,” he whispers, his hands roaming over your ass again.

Before you know it, James’s hands slide down to the zipper of your jeans. He wants more—you can feel it in the way his breath catches, the way his fingers hesitate there like he’s waiting for permission. You stop him, catching his hands before he can go any further.

He looks up at you immediately, eyes searching your face.

“Something wrong?” he asks softly, tilting his head just a little.

“I—I don’t want to go further than that,” you say, your voice small but steady. “Not right now.”

James searches your face like he’s trying to read every micro-expression you’ve ever had in your whole life.

“Am I making you feel uncomfortable?” he asks quietly. You shake your head fast. “No, it’s not that. I just… don’t wanna do that right now.”

His shoulders loosen immediately. “Oh. Okay.” And the way he says it—soft, not offended, not disappointed—makes something warm twist in your chest.

He presses one last kiss to your forehead before sliding you gently off his lap. “I’m gonna go shower,” he murmurs, thumb brushing your cheek, “then we’ll get ready for the party.”

When he disappears into the bathroom and the door clicks shut, the room feels too big. Too quiet. Too… loud inside your head. You flop back onto the bed and stare at the ceiling again, because apparently that’s your hobby now. And, of course, your brain immediately starts being a menace.

Yeah, he used to do this with Amy. Plus, breakup wasn’t even that long ago. Maybe you’re just some transitional little detour while he untangles whatever is still left inside him.

You groan into a pillow. “Get it together,” you mumble at yourself. Your overthinking is doing parkour.

Then the bathroom door swings open—and your soul exits your body.

James steps out with a towel sitting dangerously low on his hips, droplets rolling down his chest like they were directed by a film crew. His torso? Toned. Defined. Absolutely from-the-cover-of-a-ski-lodge-soccer-player-romance-novel level sculpted.

His dyed dirty blonde hair is wet, dripping onto his shoulders, making him look unfairly good. You snap your gaze to the window like it personally offended you.

He grabs his bag and looks over at you. “You gonna get ready?” he asks casually, like he isn’t currently the hottest man alive standing half-naked five feet away.

“Uh—yeah. Yeah, I was just… thinking.” (About your sanity evaporating.)

You peel yourself off the bed and rummage through your bag, already annoyed at yourself because you did not pack for a fancy winter party. You pull out something normal, plain, safe—because of course you brought nothing special. James glances over with a soft smile. “Going casual?” You shrug. “I didn’t really bring, like… party clothes.”

His eyes drag over your outfit, then your face.

“You’ll look amazing,” he says simply.

The Ski Slopes Nation’s “big event” is already at full volume by the time you and James walk in. It’s loud. Like… loud-loud. Bass thumping through the floorboards, laughter coming from every corner, people yelling over each other like they’re competing for the Olympic gold medal in being obnoxious. James doesn’t even flinch. He’s been to a million of these. You on the other hand—feel like you just walked into a live-action TikTok POV.

James keeps a warm hand at the small of your back as he leads you through the crowd. “C’mon,” he says, leaning down so you can hear him, breath brushing your ear. “Gotta introduce you.”

His friends spot him immediately.

“AYYYY ZHAO YUFAN BOY!” A giant wasian guy—Martin—throws his arms up like James just scored a goal. He’s tall. Like… tree-level tall. The kind of tall that makes you physically tilt your head back to make eye contact. Next to him is Keonho—smaller, ridiculously handsome, annoyingly charming. Both of them stare at you for a beat, confused as hell.

James just grins. “Guys, this is Y/N.” Martin nods like he’s analyzing an alien species. “Ohhh… she’s the one.” Keonho elbows him. “Bro, don’t be weird.”

You want to evaporate. James squeezes your hand like he can tell. People around the room keep glancing. Whispering. Doing double-takes. James showing up with another girl this soon after Amy? Yeah. You can practically feel the gossip starting to ferment.

You clear your throat. “I’m, uh, gonna grab something to drink.” James nods, gentle. “I’ll be right here.” The second you leave, Martin leans in with that tall-guy nosiness. “Dude. She’s so different from Amy.”

James rolls his eyes. “Okay?”

“No, like… in a good way,” Martin says. “She’s calm. Doesn’t have that whole… I’m-influencing-the-room energy.”

Keonho smirks. “And you like her. It’s obvious.” James gives them a look but doesn’t deny it. Across the room, Amy is staring—hard. Snow-white expensive looking sweater that somehow makes her look like a judgmental snow angel. She watches James talk to his friends, then looks you up and down like you’re the clearance rack version of her.

You return with a drink—your first real drink ever—and try to pretend the room isn’t spinning from nerves. You take a sip. And another. And another. Warmth blooms in your chest, buzzing under your skin. James finds you instantly. “Hey.”

His brows pinch. “You good? You seem… off.”

You look at him. And your brain decides now is the perfect time to unhinge.

“You… used to have sex with Amy a lot, right?”

James chokes. Like, full cough-wheeze combo. “That’s what’s been bothering you?”

You shrug, trying to play it off. “It—doesn’t really matter. I mean… I know you’re with me right now, so that’s all that counts.”

James steps closer, hand cupping your jaw gently. “Y/N. She’s my past. You’re the one I’m choosing now. And every second with you feels… different. Better.”

Your chest squeezes so tight you forget how to swallow.

You look down at your shoes. “It’s just… I guess my first time with you would be your… I don’t know… however-many-th time with her.”

A breath leaves him—soft, understanding. “Hey. Look at me.”

“I’m not comparing you to her. I’m not thinking about her when I’m with you. I’m here, with you. And I like us. A lot.”

You nod slowly. “Yeah. Okay. You’re right.” And just like that, the tension melts a little.

The night blurs in the best way—laughter, games, James’s friends warming up to you, your drink going down way too easily. You’re not drunk, but definitely… pleasantly wobbly. James stays close the whole time, his arm brushing yours, hand grazing your lower back, fingers brushing your knuckles. Subtle, tiny things that keep your brain fried the entire night. 

At one point Martin challenges James to some stupid game that involves taking shots and hitting a mini soccer ball into a trash can, and you swear the cabin shakes when everyone screams after he makes it. You’re laughing. Actually laughing. And your cheeks hurt in the happiest way.

Eventually, when you’re both a little tipsy and the cold outside feels way too sharp, James wraps an arm around your waist and walks you back to the room.

Inside, you both stand awkwardly over the giant bed again.

“Uh… I’ll sleep on that side,” you say, pointing to the edge like it’s a danger zone.

James nods. “Yeah. Sure.”

You settle under the covers, facing away, trying to breathe normally. James climbs in on the opposite end, careful, respectful, leaving a canyon of space between you. As you close your eyes, the coldness of your body was stopping you from falling asleep. After laying there for a few minutes, you finally resort to your last option.

“James?”

He replies immediately. “Yeah?”

“I’m cold.”

There’s a beat. A quiet little inhale. You could practically hear him breathing from the other side of the bed. Then the mattress dips as he moves closer, sliding an arm around your waist and gently pulling you back into him. Warm. Solid. Safe. You exhale without meaning to, your body relaxing instantly into his.

His breath brushes your neck. “Better?”

“Yeah,” you whisper.

And just like that, wrapped in him, heartbeat syncing with his, you fall asleep.

The next night creeps in faster than you expect. The final night of the trip—the big skiing day. The sky’s already going dark-blue, that weird shade where you can’t tell if it’s late afternoon or 11 p.m., and the cold is sharp enough to pinch your nose.

James helps you zip up your jacket, his fingers brushing your neck, sending chills that have nothing to do with the weather.

“You ready?” he asks, all smug confidence.

“No,” you answer instantly.

He laughs. “You’ll be fine. I’ll teach you.”

Outside, the slopes glow under tall floodlights, making the snow sparkle like someone dumped glitter everywhere. Kids and pros and show-offs are zooming down the hill like Olympic qualifiers. You’re already planning your funeral.

James clips your boots in for you because he doesn’t trust you with anything involving gravity.

“Okay,” he says, stepping behind you, hands gripping your arms gently. “Lean forward a tiny bit. Just enough to not fall backwards.”

“Okay,” you say, immediately leaning like a malfunctioning tower.

He steadies you. “Not that much—unless you wanna eat snow.”

“I’m gonna eat snow regardless.”

“That’s fair.”

He teaches you slowly, patiently—how to stop, how to turn, how not to accidentally kill yourself. And you… kinda get the hang of it? Ish? You manage to go five whole meters without face-planting.

Every time you wobble, he’s right there catching you by the waist. Every time you mess up, he laughs—not mean, but soft, fond, like he likes seeing you try. Eventually, you’re actually skiing—well, sliding down at the speed of an elderly turtle, but still.

James skis backwards in front of you, because of course he can. His eyes are warm, cheeks flushed red from the cold.

“You’re doing good!” he calls out.

“You’re lying to be nice!”

“I am,” he admits.

You finally stop at the bottom and nearly fall, but he lunges forward, catching you. Your helmet bumps into his chest.

“Hey,” he breathes, smiling down at you. “See? You didn’t die.”

“Yet,” you mutter.

After a while, you both sit in the snow, helmets off, catching your breath. Snow somehow gets down the back of your jacket and into your gloves and probably your soul.

You shriek. “OH MY GOD IT’S IN MY SHIRT—” James bursts out laughing. “You good?”

You do the most logical thing: grab a handful of snow and yeet it at his face.

He freezes. Then smirks. “Oh, it’s on.”

Next thing you know, you’re in a full snowball war—screaming, laughing, slipping everywhere, James chasing you around trees with perfect aim while you miss every single throw like you’re allergic to accuracy.

By the time you both stumble back toward the lodge, you’re breathless and soaked and ridiculously happy. Right outside the hallway to your room, James bumps your shoulder lightly. “Hey, uh… go ahead to the room. I need to tell Martin something real quick.”

“Oh. Okay.”

He kisses your cheek—quick, warm—before turning away.

You head inside. You shower, change, check your phone, sit on the bed, go through photos, scroll TikTok, stare at the ceiling, contemplate the meaning of life…

Forty-five minutes pass.

The door finally opens. James steps in, rubbing the back of his neck like he’s tired. “Sorry. Martin was being annoying.”

You smile. “It’s okay. I had fun these two days. Thank you for convincing me to come.”

His eyes soften. “I’m glad you did.”

—

The next morning is chaotic—bags everywhere, people rushing, doors slamming, winter air biting at your face. James looks exhausted, barely awake, stuffing clothes into his duffel like a zombie.

His other friend is waiting for him outside, yelling for him to hurry.

You zip your jacket and head into the hallway. Martin’s there, tying his boots.

“Hey, Martin?”

He looks up. “Hm?”

“What did you and James talk about last night?”

He blinks. “Last night? …We didn’t talk.”

Your stomach drops. “He didn’t see you?”

“No? I didn’t see him at all.”

Oh. Oh great. Fanfuckingtastic. A cold wave rolls through your chest harder than the mountain wind.

When you climb into the passenger seat of James’s car, he’s quiet—clearly tired. He yawns as he turns the engine on. The drive is silent for a long time. Like… too long.

Finally, he speaks. “Are you going to the match today?”

“No.”

He glances at you, confused. “Why not?”

You keep your eyes on the window. “Because I know you didn’t go see Martin.”

The air tightens.

“So who was it?” you ask. James doesn’t answer. Your heart beats loud enough to hurt. The coach starts calling him the second you guys pull into the parking lot.

“James! Let’s go! You’re 14 minutes late. Warm-ups!”

He’s still staring at the steering wheel.

“Tell me,” you whisper. “Did you go see Amy?”

“Look—” he starts, voice low, strained, “I can explain.”

The coach yells again. “FIVE MINUTES, JAMES!”

Your throat burns. “Am I just your second best?”

He winces—like the words physically hit him.

The coach yells again, sharper this time: “Last warning!”

James steps out of the car, but turns back, gripping the door.

“Please,” he says, eyes desperate. “Just come to the game. I promise I’ll explain everything after. Please.”

And then he’s gone, jogging off toward the field, leaving you sitting in the quiet car, heart pounding like it’s trying to break out.

—

The school library is quiet in that specific after-school way — soft humming lights, the vague smell of old pages, one kid coughing somewhere like he’s auditioning for a Victorian death scene. You’re still not sure about meeting up with James after his games. It has been a hell of a week,

You’ve been curled up in a corner armchair for about an hour or two with some random book you grabbed just to distract your brain from… everything. It’s working, sorta. 

Until you flip the page and land on a quote that hits you like a truck:

“If someone chooses silence when they owe you honesty, let them go.

But if your heart aches louder than your pride…

you’ll find your way back anyway.”

You stare at it like it personally slapped you across the face. Why does everywhere you go have to remind you of James. And then you glance at the clock.

You are one hour late to the end James’s game. 

Like — not fifteen minutes, not “oops my bad,”

but a FULL sixty minutes late.

“Shit.”

You jump up so fast the librarian gives you a death glare that could shatter glass.

You shove the book back on the shelf sideways (crime) and practically sprint out. It’s pouring outside — full dramatic movie thunderstorm pouring. The kind that soaks your socks instantly.

You take out your sad little umbrella and start the walk home, hugging your jacket to your chest like that’ll protect you from your own thoughts. But when you reach the edge of the outdoor courts—the ones the team cuts across after games—you pause,

Because there’s someone standing there. Alone. Soaked. Head down. Kicking at the gravel like he’s fighting ghosts. James.

He’s drenched top to bottom, rainwater mixed with sweat, hair plastered to his forehead, jersey clinging to him. And he’s… waiting. Still. Just standing there like he refuses to leave until something changes. Your chest does something stupid and painful, a mixture of guilt and anger.

You walk up quietly, stepping behind him, lifting the umbrella up on your toes so it covers the both of you. One tiny circle of dryness in a whole world of rain.

He tenses first—then turns slowly. The moment he sees you, his expression crumples in this soft, relieved way that knocks the breath right out of you.

“…You came,” he says, voice low, almost disbelieving.

You swallow. “Yeah. I— I was late. And then it started raining, so I was just walking home but…”

Your eyes flick to him.

“But you’re still here.”

You lower the umbrella slightly so you can see his face better. Drops of rain slide down his cheek, and he looks exhausted — not physically, but in that “I’ve been stressing about losing you for hours” kind of way.

“What made you come?” he asks quietly. You shrug, breath fogging the air. “I… read something. And it made me realize I wasn’t done. With us.”

His jaw clenches, and he looks away for a second like he’s overwhelmed.

You take a small step closer. “Who were you with, James?”

He lets out a breath that’s practically a sigh of defeat. “Amy.”

Your stomach sinks — until he lifts his head, eyes sharp, honest.

“But not for what you think.”

You don’t say anything. You just hold the umbrella and wait.

“I went to tell her to stop,” he says. “To stop showing up everywhere. To stop spreading shit about you. About us. To stop acting like I owe her something.”

His voice strengthens, anger threading through it.

“I told her if she messed with you one more time, I’d—” He stops, shaking his head. “—I’d actually lose it. I didn’t want things to blow up in front of you, so I waited until later. That’s it. That’s all it was.”

Your eyes sting. And your voice comes out smaller than you want.

“…Why didn’t you just tell me?”

He steps closer, rain dripping off his jaw. “Because when you asked, you already looked like I’d punched a hole in your chest. And then the coach was yelling at me, and I panicked.” He runs a hand through his hair. “I should’ve told you. I’m sorry.”

The rain softens around you, or maybe you just stop noticing it.

You whisper, “I thought you were… choosing her again.”

His face twists — hurt, like the idea physically wounds him.

“Y/N.”

He reaches out, fingers brushing your wrist gently, like he’s asking permission.

“You were never my second best.” Your throat closes up.

“And I waited,” he adds. “For an hour. In the rain. Just in case there was even a 1% chance you’d show up.” You let out a tiny, shaky laugh. “That’s really dumb of you.”

He smiles, soft and crooked. “Yeah. But I’m yours, so… it tracks.”

You look at him—really look—soaked, shivering, but eyes warm like he never doubted you’d return.

You step forward and tuck yourself against him, arms looping around his waist. He exhales like he’s been holding his breath the whole day and pulls you in, umbrella tilting awkwardly over both your heads.

His chest is warm even though his clothes are freezing. His chin rests on your hair. His heartbeat is steady and loud.

“Hey,” he murmurs into your ear.

“What?”

“Thanks for coming back.”

You pull back just enough to meet his eyes.

“Don’t make me chase you through a storm again,” you mumble.

He chuckles, brushing your cheek with his thumb. “Then don’t leave me behind.”

You shrug playfully. “No promises.”

He leans down, forehead touching yours, breaths mixing in the cold air.

Warm and close and full of everything you’ve been too scared to say.

“Let me walk you home,” he whispers.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Let’s go home.”

He takes the umbrella from you, threads his fingers through yours, and the two of you walk out of the storm together — matching steps, matching heartbeats — leaving every misunderstanding behind on the wet pavement.

And for the first time in a long, long time…

You don’t feel like you’re someone’s temporary choice. You feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. With him.

at twenty-two years old, your name carried the kind of weight most actors spent decades chasing.

not because you were loud or chased headlines, but because every role you touched became unforgettable. you were the actress critics called “emotionally dangerous” because people never watched your dramas casually, they felt them. deeply and pathetically at that. the kind of performances that left people staring at ceilings at 3 a.m. wondering why fictional heartbreak suddenly felt personal.

your rise happened obscenely fast.

at seventeen, you played the younger version of the female lead in a historical drama and completely overshadowed actresses twice your age with barely fifteen minutes of screentime. one crying scene alone went viral across korean platforms overnight, and directors began requesting you specifically after that.

at nineteen, you starred in your first lead role in the netflix drama ‘winter static’, a romance about two strangers communicating through old cassette tapes left inside a train station locker.

the drama exploded internationally, and tiktok edits of your scenes reached millions overnight. people quoted your monologues religiously, which was kind of stupid for you since they were just words stuck in your brain at this point.

your face appeared on billboards from seoul to tokyo to paris.

then came ‘velvet hour’ and ‘salt to the sea’, then the thriller ‘silhouette hearts’ that earned you your first baeksang arts award for best actress at the age of twenty-one. youngest actress in the category to win in over a decade.

after that, everything changed.

luxury brands fought over you. you became the global ambassador for miu miu and later the face of dior beauty in asia. campaign photos of you covered entire department stores. airport pictures became articles within minutes. fashiom editors loved your “old cinema” aura, soft eyes, elegant posture, expressions that looked heartbreakingly human even in still photographs.

and despite your fame, people adored you for smaller reasons too, your quirks became internet lore at some point. you were kind of awkward with the camera but in an endearing way, you didn’t know how to behave at award shows and came across as a socially akward person.

it wa also maybe the way you always carried disposable cameras instead of using your phone, and how you wrote handwritten letters to the staff after filming ended. how you fell asleep absolutely anywhere, chairs, makeup rooms, car rides shorter than ten minutes. fans also noticed you had a tendency to mirror people unconsciously. if someone leaned closer while talking, you did too. if someone laughed quietly, your voice softened automatically. interviewers said conversations with you felt strangely intimate because you listened with your entire attention and never felt unapproachable. there were compilation videos online titled:

“y/n being accidentally affectionate for 8 minutes straight.”

your management hated those videos. but the internet ate them up.

you also had one particular reputation in the entertainment industry: mv queen.

not because you appeared in many or anything, because every mv you touched became viral.

at eighteen, you starred in txt’s emotionally devastating “ghosting” inspired visual film project, playing a girl remembered through fragments an old footage. the chemistry between you and the members had fans posting edits of tiny interactions for months.

a year later, enhypen chose you for a vampire-themed comeback trailer where you portrayed a girl that anchored them to the mortal world. your final scene, holding member jake’s inanimate body in the sea, became one of the most replayed teaser moments of the year. you had a gift for making music videos feel cinematic instead of performative.

you understood silence, micro expressions, longing.

which was exactly why the cortis creative team wanted you.

specifically you.

mainly because of you name and the reputation you carried but also because “blue lips” wasn’t supposed to feel like a regular idol music video. it was supposed to feel like a lost teenager being put in an adult world after spending years as a trainee, caught on camera.

and your role inside it was very important. you would play the embodiment of what martin talked about in the song. the metaphor of swimming in a pool for a long period of time, referring probably to his trainee days.

you weren’t a girlfriend, not a muse either, something slightly in between.

the director had apparently rejected over thirty actresses before seeing one clip of you from ‘velvet hour’. a scene where your character silently cried while pretending to smile during dinner.

that was it.

the director reportedly paused the screen and said: “that’s her.”

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

so two weeks later, you found yourself seated inside a glass walled meeting room at the company building of one of the biggest rising fifth-generation groups in korea.

rain tapped softly against the windows outside while managers discussed paperwork around you, the conference table covered in contracts, visual references, concept photos drowned in blue tones.

You sat calmly in an oversized cream sweater, lazily spinning an expensive fountain pen between your fingers while your manager reviewed the conditions carefully.

“the filming schedule overlaps slightly with the milan campaign,” your manager noted, he was an overly serious guy with coffee problems.

one of cortis’ executives nodded immediately. “we’re prepared to accommodate her availability entirely.”

another added quickly: “the director is willing to reorganize scenes around her schedule if necessary.”

you tried not to smile, because it always felt surreal when entire productions adjusted themselves around you now. like you were more essential than you imagined.

at twenty-two, that level of influence still startled you sometimes. things came easy for you but that came with a price to pay.

the creative director slid a storyboard toward you, inside were rough sketches of scenes:

a flooded apartment, blue lipstick stains on skin, hands trembling beneath neon lights, a drowning scene, but everything weirdly coincided with the whole cortis aesthetic.

you skimmed through quietly. “it’s emotionally heavy,” you murmured.

“that’s why we wanted you,” the director admitted honestly.

he looked almost nervous speaking to you. you’d noticed that recently. older directors tended to treat you less like a rookie actress and more like someone they genuinely wanted approval from.

“the members were personally involved in choosing the female lead,” another staff member added.

“oh?” you glanced up with mild curiosity.

the director smiled faintly. “there was unanimous agreement.”

you tilted your head slightly. “that’s flattering.”

your manager laughed softly. “you say that like it isn’t obvious.”

you ignored him, not in a rude way but just because sometimes he made you look like a stuck up celebrity without meaning to.

the meeting continued for another hour, image rights, overseas distribution, teaser appearances, confidentiality agreements.

standard things. pleasantries if you will.

but eventually the conversation shifted toward the actual emotional dynamic of the music video.

the director leaned forward slightly, a head full of ideas, “the role requires natural chemistry with the members,” he explained. “especially james.”

your eyes flickered briefly toward the storyboard page featuring him.

you had had time to check who all the members were beforehand, not because you didn’t know them but because you simply never had a free moment to really give it a try.

cortis were monsters internationally right now, but james stood out even among them to you, he was extremely unfiltered, goofy even, alternating between insane visuals and unhinged moments. you heard he also had a reputation for being painfully outgoing offstage.

you had watched interviews while preparing for the meeting, he always spoke out and gave his opinion, always made funny faces and enjoyed things way too much.

the director continued speaking. “the emotional core of the mv revolves around your connection with him specifically, it’ll be grief and pain.”

your manager nodded. “understood.”

then the director smiled suddenly like he just remembered something,

“the members actually wanted to meet her personally tonight if she’s comfortable.”

you blinked. “tonight?”

“there’s a team dinner.”

your manager looked at you questioningly. you considered it for a moment before shrugging lightly.

“sure, i can make that work.”

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

and that was how, three hours later, you ended up entering a private hot pot restaurant room alongside two managers while five of the most talked-about idols in korea immediately stood up to greet you.

the room smelled warmly of broth and spice and low golden lighting reflected against polished wooden walls while steam curled softly from the simmering pots placed at the center of the table, the restaurant itself was cozy, sat tucked away in a quieter street of Seoul, the kind of place celebrities favored because paparazzi rarely bothered searching for it.

your manager walked slightly ahead of you as an employee guided both of you toward the reserved room.

“you’ve worked too much this week,” your manager muttered quietly while checking his phone. “try to eat properly tonight.”

“i always eat properly.”

“you had strawberries and iced coffee for dinner yesterday.”

“oh yeah… forgot about that.”

he sighed deeply. “one day I’m going to retire because of you.”

you smiled innocently just as the sliding wooden door opened.

inside, the members of cortis stood almost immediately. they bowed politely, intimidated not so much, but just cordial and respectful.

“thank you for coming,” one of the managers said warmly.

“thank you for inviting me,” you replied.

you greeted the members one by one.

martin was immediately charismatic, respectful but outwardly comfortable as if he treated this more like a job interview or a way to get more experience.

keonho shook your hand while joking that the pressure surrounding this music video already felt “oscar-level.”, he seemed the most introverted, nervous almost.

juhoon greeted you politely before admitting his sister would probably disown him if he didn’t get a selfie with you eventually, he seemed chill and easy to be around.

seonghyeon seemed calm and observant, speaking gently, a little nervous but growing confidence over the course of dinner.

and then there was james.

quiet.

polite.

a little reserved.

not at all what you’d expected, you were almost waiting to see him unhinged as he was on cortis’ reels, joking around, but he was way calmer, after all it wasn’t unknown that idol put on a bit of a show on-camera when asked.

he bowed respectfully, offering a soft greeting before pulling your chair out slightly without making a big deal out of it.

the dinner started slowly, mostly conversations between management teams about, and promotional timing. they talked about their new album, about how ‘blue lips’ would be totally different from other mvs and much more vulnerable.

this felt entirely different from your usual work settings, even though you weren’t immensely older than them, it still felt like grabbing lunch with high school friends, in a good way. you liked people who joked easily.

when it came to talking about the music video, you asked questions about the symbolism behind the flooded apartment set.

martin became overly passionate explaining how one choreography sequence represented emotional dependency.

he scratched the back of his neck with a small laugh at some point.

“it’s kinda embarrassing when people explain it seriously.”

“you wrote it,” juhoon replied. “you explain it.”

martin groaned dramatically while everyone else laughed softly.

the director slid one of the concept pages toward you. unlike the earlier boards filled with blue neon lights and cinematic references, this one was simpler.

a swimming pool with dark water and rippled reflections.

a figure submerged too long beneath the surface.

you looked up curiously.

martin rested his elbows against the table before speaking quieter this time.

“the song’s about being a trainee.”

you recalled seeing somwhere that he had spent 6 years as a trainee.

“i trained for years before debut,” he continued. “and eventually it starts feeling like you’re swimming without knowing where the edge of the pool is anymore. or at least that’s how i’d like to put it you know?”

“you’re exhausted all the time,” he continued with a small shrug. “but everybody around you is exhausted too, so you convince yourself it’s normal.”

your eyes drifted back toward the image of the water. cold enough to turn lips blue.

“the pool represents training?” you asked softly.

martin nodded. “the longer you stay in cold water, the harder it becomes to feel anything properly. but you still stay inside because leaving feels worse.”

for a moment, nobody joked, certainly not you, you hadn’t experience being a trainee, but you connected easily with words and experiences, so much that his words resonated with you in a silly way, really. You didn’t usually expect tha level of emotional intelligence coming from a person around your age.

then seonghyeon spoke gently.

“the song isn’t really about giving up though.”

martin nodded again.

“yeah.” his expression softened slightly.

“it’s more like… asking the people beside you if they’ll keep swimming too.”

that sentence stayed with you.

maybe because you understood it immediately.

not as an idol or anything. but as someone who entered the entertainment industry young enough to mistake exhaustion for ambition.

“that’s why the music video can’t feel overly glamorous,” the director explained carefully. “we want emotional intimacy more than perfection.”

suddenly all the visual references clicked together inside your head.

“you know what’s ironic?” martin said suddenly, picking his chopsticks back up. “the company hated the original demo.”

everyone burst out laughing.

“no seriously,” keonho added. “they said it was too depressing.”

the mood lightened again after that, but the conversation stayed centered around the song’s meaning now.

the members began sharing small pieces of their trainee experiences naturally.

long practice nights and monthly evaluations, the weird emotional numbness that came from repeating the same routines endlessly.

at one point, seonghyeon admitted quietly:

“you stop noticing how tired you are after a while.”

your expression softened instinctively. that sentence felt familiar too.

actors weren’t trained the same way idols were, but exhaustion translated across industries frighteningly well, especially when being underage in such a cruel industry.

“you just adapt to it,” you agreed.

several eyes turned toward you.

you laughed faintly. “filming is similar sometimes.”

“how long was your longest shoot?” keonho asked.

“twenty-one hours.”

the members stared at you in horror.

“damn that’s illegal.”

“it probably was.” you shrugged like it was no bigdeal

“what drama was that?”

“salt to the sea.”

martin physically pointed accusingly. “that drama emotionally destroyed my mother.”

“i’m getting blamed for a lot tonight… i mean not that i don’t usually get accused of sending people into meltdowns…” you cringed.

“you should. that shit was brutal.”

the table laughed again.

but then James spoke quietly from beside seonghyeon.

“i watched the behind-the-scenes documentary for that.”

your gaze flickered toward him.

he continued calmly, almost thoughtful.

“you kept filming even after collapsing during the staircase scene.”

you blinked once in surprise, very few people remembered that, probably you and your manager… that was about it.

the documentary itself had only shown brief footage before the production team cut the cameras.

your manager immediately sighed beside you.

“she scared everyone that day.”

“i was fine.”

“you passed out, y/n.”

“temporarily. see i came back.”

martin looked genuinely alarmed now. “why do actors live like nineteenth-century poets?”

“occupational hazards i guesss”

james smiled faintly into his drink at that.

“he watched all your dramas actually, big fan,” juhoon added helpfully, almost matter of factly.

keonho leaned dramatically across the table, chopsticks projecting sauce across the surface.

“he also defended your ending in velvet hour for two hours. which is weird since you killed someone and all.”

“because people misunderstood the symbolism—” james started.

“he took notes...”

you let out a soft laughter before even thinking. real laughter, the kind that makes your shoulders shake slightly.

at some point the staff began discussing practical filming concerns.

rain machines, and underwater camera rigs. cold temperature precautions and all the other overly serious things.

your manager immediately interrupted:

“she’s sensitive to cold filming environments.”

you groaned softly. “ah you say that like i’m an elderly victorian child.”

“you get sick every winter.”

“that’s just my immune system, i should be okay.”

the members laughed, then unexpectedly, james spoke up quietly toward the production staff.

“the water temperature should stay monitored anyway. hypothermia risks increase during long shoots.”

you glanced toward him. you didn’t take him as a serious and practical person at all before this.

the production manager nodded quickly. “of course.”

martin talked constantly, sometimes started rapping parts of his sentences like it was normal,

keonho teased everyone equally, even you, he was still 17 and had the energy of a high schooler. it felt refreshing to hang out with people around your age rather than 40 year olds.

juhoon had dangerously quick humor, pretty nonchalant guy overall, with a resting model face that made it hard to take him seriously.

and james… james observed today, he smiled from time to time but he put his bubbly personality aside for the night.

that was the first thing you noticed. he was not himself, or maybe he was just like that all the time and you were biased by youtube videos.

at one point you mentioned casually: “i haven’t slept properly in weeks because of filming, it’s been tough.”

twenty minutes later, without saying anything, james quietly slid the least caffeinated drink on the table toward you instead of soju after noticing what others were pouring.

cute, you thought.

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

the first day of filming began at 4:12 a.m.

you knew because you checked the time through half-open eyes while your alarm aggressively blared in your ears.

‘your driver is downstairs.’ your manager texted.

a muffled groan escaped you from beneath layers of blankets. you dragged yourself out of bed dramatically, hair messy, oversized sleep shirt hanging off one shoulder while your cat blinked judgmentally from the corner of the room.

early filming days always felt surreal, no matter how famous you became and no matter how many awards sat in your apartment collecting dust.

at four in the morning, every actor looked equally miserable.

your routine before shoots had become almost ritualistic over the years.

warm water first, never coffee immediately, your body reacted badly on an empty stomach.

skincare while still half-asleep.

voice warmups your acting coach forced into your life at nineteen.

then wardrobe references, probably the most annoying part.

your stylist had already sent final fitting photos the night before, so you scrolled through them while eating strawberries over the kitchen counter.

the styling for “blue lips” was intentionally understated compared to your previous projects. you usually ended up in chanel and dior but this time around it was way simpler. you liked that.

soft fabrics and muted colors, smudged makeup and natural hair.

nothing glamorous.

your manager arrived while you were still trying to force yourself awake properly.

“you slept three hours.” he checked the sleep schedule you had hung on the fridge.

“had to rehearse my lines for ‘if wishes could kill’”

another drama you were shooting.

he handed you iced coffee anyway, because despite his complaints, he enabled you constantly. he had worked with multiple celebrities but you were by far the most humble and hardworking one.

the drive toward the filming location stayed quiet.

seoul still looked asleep beneath pale blue dawn light while your phone buzzed endlessly with schedule notifications.

over the past few weeks, your life had become filled almost entirely with “blue lips.”

creative meetings, camera tests, wardrobe fittings, chemistry readings, storyboard revisions.

you’d met with the cinematographer twice alone just to discuss facial framing during emotional close-up shots.

rhe director was obsessive in the best possible way.

every visual detail mattered.

you also had several rehearsals with the members before filming officially began, not full acting rehearsals, but movement coordination, emotional pacing discussions, and camera positioning workshops.

those meetings unexpectedly became some of your favorite parts of preparation.

the members were involved in everything, fun to be around, and easygoing.

the filming location for day one was an abandoned motel complex outside seoul, transformed entirely by the production team overnight.

the moment your van pulled into the parking area, you could already see massive lighting rigs glowing through the early morning fog. staff members rushed everywhere carrying cables, garment bags, equipment cases.

the assistant director greeted you immediately.

“good morning y/n!”

“good morning,” you answered with a sleepy smile.

“you’re our first cast member here.”

“that’s concerning.”

he laughed. “the members finished rehearsal extra late last night, so they’re probably on their way.”

the makeup trailer smelled faintly like hairspray and coffee when you climbed inside, and for the next hour, your face slowly transformed into the exhausted melancholy the character required.

light concealer, smudged eyeliner, pale lips and a subtle shadows beneath your eyes.

the stylist adjusted your navy dress while reviewing continuity photos carefully.

“you look too healthy,” she complained.

“thank you?”

“no, for the scene.” she laughed.

she proceeded to make you look emotionally devastated again, because apparently it was a thing.

by the time you stepped back outside, the set had fully awakened, and unfortunately for your nervous system, so had cortis.

“you survived,” martin announced dramatically the moment he spotted you.

“barely.”

“you look sad already,” keonho noted approvingly.

“the makeup team worked very hard for this depression.”

juhoon immediately pointed toward your sweater, the oversized one you had put over the dress for temperature purposes. “damn youre even dressed like a cortis member now.”

you laughed softly while greeting everyone properly. the atmosphere felt noticeably easier compared to the dinner weeks ago.

familiar now, not totally strangers anymore.

even the staff interactions had relaxed over time.

then you spotted james standing near the monitor screens speaking quietly with the cinematographer.

black hoodie and messy dark hair, sleepy eyes.

he looked up when you approached.

“morning,” he greeted quietly.

“you look awake.”

a small laugh escaped him. “got some redbull, want one?”

“im good thanks, they make my heart go crazy.”

“…fair point.”

the first scene filmed that day took place inside one of the motel rooms.

the set design was extremely cortis-coded, sand in lieu of the floor, and dozens of misplaced items such as buoys and rubber ducks. dim blue lighting flooded cracked walls while rain projections moved softly across thin curtains. old cassette tapes littered the floor beside overflowing ashtrays and unfinished cups of coffee.

the room looked like something out of an abstract painting,

you sat cross-legged on the motel bed while martin paced near the window during his verse,

your role wasn’t to comfort him directly but rather just to exist beside him.

the director explained carefully before filming:

“you represent the reason he keeps enduring everything. not because you save him, but because loneliness feels lighter beside you.”

martin nodded thoughtfully, he hadn’t wanted to make this into a romantic music video but here you didn’t portray a lover but rather an emotion?

you understood immediately.

“action.” the room fell silent.

music echoed softly through hidden speakers while martin moved through the scene naturally, frustration building beneath restrained expressions. he was truly at ease with the cameras, the level of empathy needed to be an actor was really highlighted, so much so that you already begun imagining different career paths for him.

you watched him from the bed quietly, not smiling just observing while the camera cut through the room. the windows were open letting the curtains flow around martin’s figure.

the director loved it instantly.

“perfect,” he muttered behind the monitors. “don’t overact. keep it restrained.”

the next several hours blurred together in typical filming chaos. different angles, different lighting setups, endless camera adjustments.

one sequence involved all the members sitting together inside the motel’s dim laundromat at while water overflowed from broken machines slowly across the floor. another one showed you walking through narrow motel hallways illuminated entirely by flickering vending machine lights while james followed several steps behind, never quite reaching you.

the symbolism stayed subtle but emotionally heavy, it was truly nice seeing how invested they were in the artistic process.

at one point during setup delays, juhoon challenged everyone to balance grapes on their noses, it seemed like a common occurrence really, like it happened everyday.

seonghyeon succeeded immediately somehow.

martin cheated shamelessly, and you nearly choked when keonho dropped his directly into hot coffee.

meanwhile james sat across from you quietly watching them fool around.

“i really thought you’d be crazier,” you told him.

“i’m just too tired for that, i feel like u go through a threshold when you turn 20 and then you don’t have energy anymore,” he answered.

“hah, skill issues”

james smiled, his teeth peeking out as he wrapped his fluffy blanket around his shoulders.

the first real scene between you and him happened around noon. the setup was intimate visually but emotionally restrained.

a narrow hallway and a green screen for special effects purposes, you’d heard they wanted to add some kind of animal, again very cortis-coded.

your character sat against the wall while james stood nearby after an implied argument no audience would fully see.

no dialogue, just acted out emotional aftermath.

the director approached both of you before filming.

“don’t play romance,” he smiled “i know you’re used to it for the dramas etc and you’re obviously amazing at it, but right now it’s more….” he instructed carefully. “… familiarity.”

you nodded. and james beside you nodded too.

“action.”

the silence between you inside the scene felt strangely real almost immediately.

you stood while james leaned against the opposite wall, enunciating his verse while looking at you.

then slowly, without speaking, he slid a cup of vending machine coffee across the floor toward you.

that was it.

that was the scene.

the director looked content watching playback.

“…yeah,” he murmured softly. “that’s the feeling.”

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

by lunchtime, everyone looked genuinely exhausted already.

the production team moved outside near equipment trucks while staff distributed boxed meals and drinks. without cameras rolling constantly, the atmosphere shifted completely.

less professional.

you ended up seated in a circle of foldable camping chairs beside the members near the edge of the parking lot. large plaid blankets covered everyone because the wind had turned freezing unexpectedly.

martin looked half-dead beneath his blanket cocoon.

“i can’t feel my fingers anymore.”

“that’s because you keep standing in the rain you dick face,” seonghyeon replied calmly.

“the pics go hard though,”

“you’re gonna get hypothermia, that’s gonna hit harder.” a staff member said while walking past with cardboard boxes.

seonghyeon pointed at him like saying ‘see?’

you sat between juhoon and james while balancing hot soup carefully in your hands. for the first time all day, there were no managers nearby. no stylists fixing clothes, and no directors discussing angles.

just all of you resting together.

the conversation drifted naturally between random topics.

favorite dramas, terrible trainee dorm stories, foods everyone missed while dieting.

keonho confessed he once cried over fried chicken during debut preparations.

“that’s deeply moving,” you told him, ironically.

“it was a spiritual experience, shoulda been there.”

juhoon pointed at james suddenly like a kid remembering something, “he once got emotional over taiwanese food.”

james looked confused immediately,

“that happened once and stop oversharing dude.”

“three times.” juhoon raised a finger matter-of-factly.

you smiled quietly into your drink.

the members clearly adored embarrassing each other.

eventually martin stretched dramatically in his chair.

bside you, james sat slightly hunched in his chair scrolling through his phone silently, dark hair messy from filming. the sunlight caught faintly against the silver rings on his fingers.

and unfortunately for him, martin suddenly looked down at his screen with the exact expression of someone about to ruin another person’s life for entertainment.

“oh my god.”

james immediately narrowed his eyes.

Keonho physically turned away coughing dramatically into his fist.

“you know what’s weird?”

“what?” you asked.

“i feel like we haven’t addressed the rhino in the room.”

“elephant dude…” juhoon corrected.

“no this one’s way bigger and has big ahh horns and shit.”

you sat back, digging into your lunch, as everyone shot him a confused look.

“go straight to the point.”

“bro james, show y/n your saved folder on tiktok.”

james didn’t even look up from his phone when he said it, but the immediate redness creeping across his ears betrayed him instantly. he dropped his phone backwards on his lap.

“dawg shutup.” he gave you an awkward smile, “don’t mind him.”

“what’s in the folder ?” you asked, chewing on your food like you really had no clue wtf they were talking about.

“fangirling material” keonho coughed, looking around like ‘who said dat’.

“yeah my dude right here has thousands of edits of you saved.” martin chuckled, pushing his sunglasses on his nose like they would hide his amusement.

“why you out him like that?” you smiled, glancing at james.

the latter had one of his eyebrows raised, frozen and staring straight ahead.

“it’s nothing weird or creepy, he just always talks about how you’re the best actress korea has ever known.” seonghyeon comes to the rescue.

“well that’s sweet, can i see?” you turn directly to james now, trying to get him to look up at you.

the entire circle exploded immediately.

“OH MAH GOD.”

“BROTHER STAND UP.”

james looked ready to walk directly into traffic.

“it’s literally nothing,” he muttered.

“oh its absolutely somthing,” juhoon corrected.

you laughed quietly while trying to catch james’ gaze again.

“now i’m curious.”

for a second, he just stared at you, trying to determine whether you were joking maybe. but your expression stayed open and amused rather than mocking.

eventually he sighed softly through his nose.

“you guys are evil.”

martin looked proud. “look who decided to man up.”

james unlocked his phone slowly, still visibly embarrassed, before turning the screen slightly toward you.

and immediately your eyes widened. “dang.”

not because it was creepy or anything, it was just… extensive, there was a lot, you could probably scroll down a few times and still not come to the end of it.

edits from your dramas, interview clips, award show moments, cinematic compilations with dramatic music. one fan edit from winter static with over four million likes. you stared at the screen in disbelief while james, him, visibly contemplated death beside you.

“wait,” you laughed softly, “this edit has better color grading than my actual drama.”

james rubbed tiredly at his forehead.

“i told you it wasn’t weird.” martin mouthed.

“it’s adorable,” keonho corrected immediately. “he’s like a little fan boy.”

“it’s cinema appreciation,” martin added dramatically.

you kept scrolling slowly through the folder, some videos were emotional scene compilations while others focused on your interviews or behind-the-scenes moments.

then you paused at one specific edit. it was from salt to the sea. a scene where your character silently broke down at a bus stop in the rain while pretending to smile.

you remembered filming that scene vividly, it had taken hours because emotions were raw and because portraying mental decay and insanity was harsh on you.

“you saved this one?” you asked softly.

james nodded once. “it’s my favorite scene.”

something in his voice changed slightly when he said it. you’d knew then that this wasn’t a stupid crush or anything like that, it was just someone truly appreciating someone’s art.

you looked at him curiously. “why?”

for a moment, he seemed surprised by the question itself but then he answered honestly.

“because it didn’t feel acted.”

the others had quieted now too, because james rarely spoke this openly. he kept his eyes on the phone screen instead of directly on you.

“a lot of emotional scenes feel polished i think,” he continued carefully. “but that one just felt… human. and you transmit emotions in a way ive never seen before.”

your chest tightened unexpectedly, actors spent years hoping audiences would notice performances beyond aesthetics, not beauty or popularity, and in that moment you felt seen.

and somehow james articulated exactly what you’d wanted people to get from that scene years ago. you smiled softly without realizing it.

“thank you.” he finally looked up then.

and the expression on his face almost made your stomach flip unexpectedly, because he looked relieved, like he’d worried you might misunderstand him completely.

martin abruptly pointed between both of you.

“see this is why they have chemistry.”

“i been saying.” keonho added.

“oh my god,” james groaned, rolling his eyes.

“you literally analyze her scenes like a film professor,” juhoon added. “no really y/n we have to put up with his shit all the time.”

“meanwhile I just cry and move on,” keonho admitted.

“that’s cause you lack emotional depth,” martin informed him.

“you cried during toy story 3 my dude, fuck you mean emotional depth.”

“that movie is devastating.”

you laughed again, warmth settling naturally into your chest now. and honestly? there was something strangely touching about discovering that james admired your work so genuinely before ever meeting you. not in the shallow celebrity-crush way people often assumed.

he paid attention, and it explained a lot actually. from the thoughtful comments during rehearsals to the way he approached scenes carefully.

entually you handed his phone back gently.

“well,” you announced lightly, “i’m honored to apparently live inside your tiktok algorithm.”

james looked like he wanted the earth to swallow him whole, but beneath the embarrassment, there was the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth now too.

thankfully martin immediately ruined the moment.

“wow,” he sighed dramatically. “cinema soulmates.”

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

the second half of filming resumed around three in the afternoon. and somehow became even more chaotic. the official tiktok team arrived, which instantly destroyed any remaining dignity on set.

“oh no,” you muttered the moment you saw phones appearing.

“oh yes,” juhoon corrected.

you really weren’t into the whole tiktok filming thing, you’d given it a try but you looked akward more than anything.

thas how between filming emotional scenes, the members suddenly transformed into content demons. incorporating dance challenges to ‘blue lips’ choreographies that mind you, didn’t have anything to do with the vibes.

at one pointartin forced everyone into a trending transition video while staff members tried not to laugh watching from behind cameras. your manager had said something about requiring a few content for social media.

“you have experience with idol tiktoks already,” keonho accused while reviewing footage.

the social media manager immediately brightened.

“can we film one with only james and y/n too?”

james looked genuinely alarmed.

“why me?”

“fans will love it.”

unfortunately he was right.

the video itself was simple, just a slow cinematic trend using audio from “blue lips.” the concept involved james walking past the camera before the transition revealed you standing in the same hallway afterward, doing a silly tiktok dance.

easy in theory. except james became awkward anytime the camera focused too directly on him outside official filming.

“you’re overthinking it,” you told him while the staff reset lighting.

“i know.”

“pretend it’s an actual scene.”

“that’s worse.”

you laughed softly. and weirdly enough, that finally relaxed him.

the final take turned out perfect. the social media staff looked thrilled immediately.

“oh this shit is DEFINITELY going viral.” martin smiled at the screen. “‘s like two fandoms crossing.”

james looked exhausted already. “you people terrify me.”

“you chose fame my guy” martin reminded him.

“i was young and vulnerable.”

the sun had already started setting by the time day one finally wrapped.

everyone looked tired, cold and emotionally drained, but satisfied.

as staff members slowly began dismantling equipment around the motel set, you stood near the monitors reviewing final shots with the director. and honestly? the footage looked beautiful. exactly what the song deserved.

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

you said your goodbyes to the staff slowly before heading toward your van. as you climbed inside, your phone buzzed immediately.

lee minjae: u alive?

you snorted softly. you and minjae existed in that messy category of relationship nobody defined properly. friends sometimes, colleagues, occasional hookups other times. mostly convenience mixed with familiarity.

there had never really been emotions involved, which was probably why it worked.

he wasn’t deep, he was a stable constant, always there but not too much.

you: barely

minjae: come over after shoot?

you stared at the message for a second. normally maybe you would’ve considered it. a few hours together. satisfying sex, temporary distraction from exhausting schedules.

but tonight your entire body ached, and honestly?you just wanted silence.

you: too tired tonight sorry

three dots appeared immediately.

minjae: damn they got u working like a victorian child again

you smiled faintly.

you: exactly

by the time you arrived home, it was nearly midnight. your apartment felt blissfully quiet after the nonstop noise of filming equipment and staff chatter all day.

the first thing you did was shower. a long scrumptious hot shower. enough to thaw the cold still trapped inside your muscles from the rain scenes.

then came your actual night routine, an oversized hoodie, hair clipped loosely away from your face and your skincare lined neatly across the bathroom counter.

you moved through the routine automatically by now. cleanser, moisturizer, lip mask. finally you applied a cooling sheet face mask while walking barefoot into the kitchen for tea.

you were trying to be aesthetic but that failed instantly because the taste was awful. you hated tea. your apartment lights stayed dim while city noise hummed faintly outside enormous windows.

you should’ve slept immediately, but instead, you curled up on the couch with another script resting across your lap.

your next drama project. a psychological thriller filming later that year. something about wishes and an app. the character notes were covered in your messy handwriting already, underlined motivations, emotional beats, scene interpretations. you read through several pages while absentmindedly sipping tea, still half-lost in the atmosphere of “blue lips.”

then, annoyingly your thoughts drifted toward james again. specifically the way he observed scenes afterward instead of rushing away between takes. the way he listened carefully during emotional discussions.

the saved tiktok folder probably.

you smiled quietly to yourself before tossing the script aside.

“absolutely not,” you muttered aloud.

your brain needed sleep.

you eventually fell asleep sideways on the couch beneath a blanket, script pages still scattered nearby.

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

the next morning arrived cruelly fast. your alarm went off at 4:30 a.m.

you genuinely considered quitting the entertainment industry for a corporate job. for three full seconds before dragging yourself awake. today was the swimming pool shoot.

which meant one thing: cold.

the production studio sat inside an enormous indoor filming complex on the outskirts of seoul. when your van pulled inside, you immediately spotted massive water tanks, underwater camera rigs, lighting cranes suspended from ceilings, and crew members in waterproof gear rushing around the space.

the swimming pool itself looked unreal, huge and deep blue. artificial fog drifting softly above the surface beneath enormous studio lights.

underwater speakers played instrumental versions of “blue lips,” the haunting melody echoing strangely through the massive room.

the atmosphere felt dreamlike already. you stepped toward makeup still half-awake while staring around the set.

“this is insane,” you murmured.

one of the stylists laughed. “wait until you’re underwater for four hours.”

“don’t say things like that.” you chuckled, mentally preparing for the cold.

the styling process took almost two hours, you had to have the perfect amount of color corrector to look a certain way under the blue lights, but the makeup itself focused heavily on softness.

wet skin and smudged lashes with the signature pale lips, like someone submerged too long.

then came wardrobe, the dress waiting for you hung beside the styling rack beneath protective plastic. it was white and long, thin enough to become almost translucent underwater.

beautiful in a ghost way,

“its gonna weigh like twenty pounds once soaked,” the stylist warned while helping adjust the fabric.

“great. good news” you chuckled with her, sipping on your iced coffee.

“you’ll look amazing suffering though.”

when you finally stepped onto set fully dressed, several crew members visibly paused for a second. the dress flowed around you softly beneath the blue studio lights, already giving you an almost ghostlike appearance against the dark water.

and unfortunately, you also immediately spotted james already inside the pool.

your breath caught slightly, without you wanting, he gave you a small smile and went back to focusing.

his dark hair was completely soaked, floating against his forehead while stylists adjusted the drenched white button-up clinging to his frame underwater.

the first underwater sequence involved you diving into the pool after spotting james floating motionless beneath the surface. the symbolism represented trying to save someone emotionally drowning alongside you, from you’d been told.

the stunt coordinator explained everything carefully beforehand,

“you dive here,” he instructed, pointing toward a marked edge of the pool. “swim toward james, grab his wrist first, then pull upward.”

you nodded while adjusting your breathing, underwater filming always exhausted actors faster than people realized because everything became heavier and slower, each movement required extra strength.

after a few minutes of touch ups and the crew getting ready, you heard the director behind you.

“ready?”

you inhaled deeply. “yep, we can go ahead, i’m ready.”

the music started playing and like a choreography, you looked at the pool, seeing him in the water, the camera angled towards you as you walked, then dove.

cold swallowed you instantly, the white dress blooming around your body beneath the water while muted instrumentals echoed through the pool speakers.

across from you, james floated eerily still beneath blue lighting, eyes closed and body suspended weightlessly. you swam toward him quickly, fingers catching around his wrist before trying to pull him upward.

but the soaked fabric tangled instantly around your legs.

you both resurfaced coughing.

“cut!” everyone burst into laughter immediately.

“the dress is trying to murder me, i’m sorry, could we get it shortened maybe?” you gasped.

james pushed wet hair back from his forehead, laughing quietly too.

take two went smoother.

this time you reached him properly underwater, grabbing his arm while his eyes slowly opened beneath the surface.

the moment felt strangely intimate underwater, just eye contact and drifting fabric surrounded by blue light. you understood in that moment how one could think actors fell in love on set. this is probably how those stories started.

you pulled him upward carefully while cameras followed beside you.

“cut— beautiful!” several staff members clapped softly.

the cinematographer looked thrilled reviewing the monitor playback.

“again,” the director called. “one more for safety.”

several more takes followed afterward, some focused entirely on your expression underwater and others captured james reaching toward you weakly beneath the surface before sinking again.

by the fourth take, both of you were visibly freezing. your teeth chattered violently between resets while staff wrapped heated robes around your shoulders immediately after each cut

james looked equally exhausted.

“you okay?” you asked quietly while makeup artists fixed wet hair from his face.

he nodded once. “you?”

“yeah i’m good, cold though.”

martin suggested later, a brilliant idea really, that you guys filmed a tiktok with the sound ‘swim’ by bts, which you agreed to unwillingly.

the next sequence paired you with juhoon underwater instead. the concept was more abstract emotionally.

no rescue, no struggle, just two people drifting around each other in slow movements beneath dark blue lighting while the instrumental played overhead.

the underwater choreographer demonstrated soft turning motions and hand placements before filming began.

and once submerged, everything became eerily beautiful. your dress floated weightlessly around you while juhoon reached toward your hand underwater, both of you spinning slowly beneath the lights like fading memories. hair drifting, and fabric swirling.

at one point the director asked both of you to simply float motionless beside one another underwater while staring upward toward the surface.

the result looked haunting on playback and by the time the morning shoot finally paused, your entire body felt frozen.

staff immediately wrapped a heated blanket around your shoulders while you sat shivering near portable heaters.

wet hair clung to your neck while makeup artists tried repairing smudged eyeliner.

and then,

“rough?”

you looked up.

james stood nearby still damp from filming, oversized gray hoodie thrown over soaked clothes. you smiled tiredly.

“i can’t feel my limbs anymore.”

“good sign.”

“for hypothermia maybe.”

he laughed quietly before sitting beside you on one of the equipment cases, he reached on the small table behind him and handed you a warm drink of something.

“there you go, so you don’t get hypothermia.”

you smiled some more, fingers wrapping against the hot cup to get warm. “thanks, i owe you one.”

for a moment neither of you spoke, the massive studio echoed softly around you, crew members moving lights, water rippling gently behind cameras, distant instrumentals still playing faintly underwater.

then James glanced toward the pool.

“the underwater shots looked insane.”

“you saw playback?”

he nodded. “the scene where you grabbed my arm looked…” he paused slightly, “pretty real.”

you looked at him curiously beneath the blanket wrapped around you.

“well you were very convincing as a drowning man.”

“years of experience.”

you laughed softly.

and weirdly enough, sitting there dripping wet beside him beneath freezing studio lights felt strangely peaceful.

eventually lunch break arrived annd somehow the atmosphere felt even friendlier today than yesterday. everyone sat together around folding tables in oversized hoodies and blankets while inhaling hot food like survival depended on it.

martin looked emotionally broken already.“underwater filming was invented by sadists dude, fuck my life.”

“you swallowed half the pool, i’m dead.” keonho reminded him, cracking up.

“and lemme tell you something, that water tasted expensive. i kid you not i bet they fill it with fiji water.”

at some point seonghyeon asked about your upcoming project and everyone listened genuinely while you explained the thriller script you’d been preparing for.

“it’s like a cursed app thingy, shamanism and stuff.”

“shit that’s so cool, i wish i was an actor.” juhoon looked down.

“bro wants to be everything. model, idol, police man, dude pick a fight.” keonho turned to him.

“no but lowkey, acting is so cool, sounds exhausting though.”

“she works too much,” james said suddenly like he’d been thinking about it.

you blinked. “so do you.”

“yeah,” he admitted quietly. “but still.”

by early afternoon, your filming schedule wrapped for the day while the members prepared for additional solo scenes that didn’t involve you.

you said goodbye gradually while staff removed underwater equipment behind everyone.

“survive your scenes,” you told them while gathering your bag.

“no promises,” martin sighed dramatically.

juhoon saluted weakly from beneath three blankets.

and james looked up from his chair near the monitors.

“get home safe,” he said softly.

you smiled automatically, you did a lot of that these days.

“you too.”

then you climbed back into your van still smelling faintly like chlorine and studio fog, completely exhausted while Seoul blurred softly outside the windows on the drive home.

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

the studio doors slid shut behind your van and for about three full seconds, silence settled across the set.

then martin slowly turned toward james with the most insufferable grin imaginable.

“so.” he wiggled an eyebrow “how’s the crush going?”

james didn’t even look up from the towel draped over his head. “i’m going to drown you in that pool i swear to god.”

keonho gasped dramatically from nearby “you’re getting violent towards your homeboy, all this…. just for a woman. what happened to bros before hoes.”

“shut yo ass up keonho” james retorted.

“that sounded defensive,” juhoon pointed out immediately.

the members were still scattered around the massive pool set wrapped in blankets while staff members reset lighting for the next scenes. Wet clothes hung over equipment racks nearby, and the dress you had been wearing was there too.

james sat near one of the portable heaters trying to thaw himself back to life. unfortunately his members refused to let him exist peacefully.

martin dragged a chair directly beside him.

“no because lowkenuinely,” he continued, “you’re down catastrophic dude, talm about some artistic respect, man fuhhhh that”

james sighed deeply. “you guys say this every day.”

“because every day you prove us right,” seonghyeon replied calmly while sipping hot coffee.

james looked betrayed. “you too dude? no support whatsoever.”

“i support realism, fuck you mean.”

juhoon pointed dramatically across the empty set where you had been standing earlier beneath your heating blanket.

“bro looked at her like she personally invented cinema. she must be one of the lumiere brothers the way he bowed down to her.”

“ah shutup man, you don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

martin physically mimicked james’ expression from earlier, staring into the distance with exaggerated emo sadness.

“‘the underwater shots looked insane dude.’”

keonho clutched his chest dramatically. “the yearning…”

james shoved martin weakly with one hand.

“you’re all actually unbearable you bunch of virgins.”

“i might be a virgin looser,” martin replied smugly, “but i’m not incorrect.”

james groaned and leaned further back in his chair, towel still hanging over damp hair.

honestly? he knew they weren’t entirely wrong. that was the problem.

at first, before filming started, the crush had felt manageable, he just thought you happened to be the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, but overall just a celebrity crush. just someone he admired for their moving work. normal. but now?

after working a couple weeks with you in meetings, small artistic gatherings and whatnot, now that you sat beside him during breaks laughing quietly into your coffee. now he knew the exact expression you made before cameras rolled.

it was becoming a bad thing. what had started as a harmless crush, tripled in size by the hours. and apparently it was painfully obvious.

martin watched him silently for a second before speaking again, this time less teasing and more curious.

“you actually like her, huh?”

james stayed quiet, which unfortunately answered the question immediately.

keonho slowly sighed, “oh he’s cooked.”

“deeply cooked,” juhoon agreed.

james rubbed at his face tiredly. “i just think she’s…” he paused.

the members looked at him expectantly.

“really easy to be around. but i don’t thinks it’s a crush, it’s just admiration.”

that softened the teasing slightly, because they understood exactly what he meant cause you never acted superior despite your fame. never made filming awkward, never demanded attention. you listened carefully during conversations. thanked every staff member individually. stayed professional while still feeling warm somehow.

even martin had admitted privately that working with you felt comfortable.

still—

that didn’t justify why james felt this way,

martin leaned forward again. “she looks like she likes you too though.”

james immediately looked up. “… huh.”

“oh my god,” keonho groaned. “there he goes.”

“I’m serious,” martin insisted. “you think she smiles at all of us like that?”

“yes?” james replied cautiously.

the entire group stared at him. seonghyeon looked almost offended.

“she definitely doesn’t. she’s under that zhao yufine shit charm.”

juhoon nodded aggressively. “she laughs at your jokes specifically. That’s important.”

“that means nothing.”

“it means everything.” they continue feeding into his delusion.

james rolled his eyes but his ears had already started turning pink again. martin looked delighted noticing it.

“and the way she looked at you during lunch?”

“please stop talking.”

“nah cause see i’m analyzing.”

“nobody asked you to.”

martin ignored him completely.

“there’s tension.”

“there’s literally not.” james rolled his eyes.

“brother she asked to see your saved edits folder voluntarily.”

keonho pointed upward like that proved divine intervention existed. “that’s basically marriage.”

james nearly choked on his drink. “yall need serious help.”

juhoon shrugged. “we’re not the one staring at an actress like she’s gta 6 with a 50% discount.”

silence, then seonghyeon added calmly:

“don’t listen to him, that shot did look kinda insane though.”

unfortunately that was true. even the staff had noticed the chemistry during playback earlier.

martin suddenly leaned back in his chair dramatically.

“damn.”

“what now.”

“now that i think about it you’re living every man’s dream.”

james narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “what that mean?”

“you have a mutual slowburn with the nation’s most beautiful actress while filming a devastating music video. shit you might be blessed.”

“you need to touch grass.”

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

the final day of filming arrived wrapped in rain.

real rain this time, not artificial studio water or carefully controlled downpours created by production crews. actual gray skies stretched over the city from early morning onward, leaving streets slick and reflective beneath traffic lights.

your manager glanced out the van window while driving toward set.

“kind of fitting. did you grab an umbrella?”

you hummed softly in response, half-awake beneath your hoodie. last night you’d slept a little late, crawling under work. you were also preparing to be the mc of a variety show in a few months, everything was kinda crazy.

the atmosphere already felt different before you even arrived, final filming days always carried a strange emotional weight to them, even though this one wasn’t a big one, it still felt too good to end. you’d truly loved the project and the aesthetics, but especially working with the whole cortis crew. you saw shoots as a little world that people packed up once it was over.

you arrived at the set around six in the morning, as today was a shorter day, more centered around correcting any possible mistakes and issues.

today’s location was an abandoned indoor train station with graffitis on the wall. the signature blue fluorescent lights reflected against wet concrete floors while massive industrial fans pushed cold air through the enormous space probably to add visual effects onth hair. fake rainwater dripped steadily from ceiling pipes into shallow puddles arranged carefully for reflections.

The final scenes today would focus heavily on group shots, lypsincing with no excessive action.

you stepped into the makeup room while staff buzzed around quietly preparing for the day and even the stylists had stopped pretending they enjoyed early call times.

today’s makeup stayed minimal again, pale skinn, tired eyes and slight redness beneath the lashes. your stylist pinned sections of damp hair away from your face while studying continuity photos carefully.

“does this bother you? the piece of hair in your face.”

“yeah, if you could possibly pin it, please.”

“sure, should i add some more product or does that feel like too much on your head right now?”

“do whatever you think looks best, you’re the professional, either way you do amazing work.”

“you’re annoyingly kind, what are we gonna do once you’re gone.”

you laughed softly. “might need to start working on my sets.”

outside the trailer, you could already hear the members somewhere nearby arguing loudly over coffee. by the time you stepped onto set fully dressed, filming had already started on martin’s opening shots.

you paused automatically near the monitor screens. the scene looked pretty sick, martin stood alone beneath flickering station lights while rainwater dripped from dark hair onto his face, he was wearing baggy jeans as always.

you watched quietly beside the director until someone approached from your left.

“morning.”

james.

you looked up. his dark jacket hung loosely over layered black clothing while damp hair fell messily across his forehead. He looked tired too.

“morning,” you replied. “you look freezing.”

“i am freezing.”

you dug inside your pockets, “well i have these pocket warmer thingys, if you’d like one.”

he blinked once, then nodded as you handed them over, “warm, thank you”

you noticed immediately that talking to him no longer felt careful because atthe beginning of filming, every interaction carried awareness beneath it. professional politeness and measured conversation.

now things slipped naturally, like two good friends working together.

the assistant director eventually called you both toward the first setup together.

today’s scene involved you and james sitting inside the abandoned train car while rain hammered softly against the windows outside. you were supposed to be just sitting there, special effects added later to make it look like the train was moving, and to stare at the camera while james lip synced.

the director explained quietly before filming:

“remember, you’ve both stayed in the water too long by this point emotionally.”

you nodded.

“no dramatic sadness,” he continued. “you’re past that stage now. just tired.”

james glanced toward you briefly after that, and an eye contact that lingered half a second too long ended in a small smile.

“action.”

your character stared absently out the rain-covered window. and james watched you, lip syncing the word as if he were actually talking to you.

my blue lips ( we’ve been in here way too long) i’ve been feeling way too cold.

then slowly, your eyes met his, nothing dramatic. no touching. no speaking. but something unspoken passed between both characters anyway. recognition maybe. the understanding that neither of you knew how to leave the pool anymore.

“cut.”

nobody spoke immediately. the director stared at the playback monitor for several seconds before exhaling softly.

“…yeah.”

several staff members exchanged glances quietly behind cameras.

“let’s do a couple more just to be sure, but i’ve never gone through a scene this quickly, you guys are truly phenomenal.”

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

the next few hours passed through constant filming setups around the station. one sequence involved all the members standing motionless on separate train platforms while water slowly flooded the tracks below them.

another showed you wandering through empty hallways while distorted station announcements echoed overhead. everything felt dreamlike. the emotional tone of the project had settled fully into everyone now.

between takes, the members still joked around constantly, but softer today, like everyone subconsciously knew this temporary atmosphere was ending soon.

at one point keonho started aggressively singing ‘blue lips’ while staff reset lighting equipment.

martin threw a plastic spoon at him. “shut the fuck up bro.”

“yeah dude i’m tired of the song already. i’ve been hearing it too much.” juhoon expressed.

“fair.”

you smiled quietly from your seat beside a portable heater, you had your phone in hand, you and a friend texting back and forth about an upcoming event.

james sat nearby scrolling through monitor playback again.

you nudged his shoe lightly with yours. “you re gonna watch every take?”

he glanced up. “most.”

“why?”

he considered the question briefly. “i don’t know we all look pretty fly in them, it doesn’t feel like reality.”

you smiled faintly. “so i’m not fly off screen? that what you’re saying?”:

a small silence settled before he quietly corrected himself, “no, you look pretty fly all the time i’d say, i was mostly talking about me and the guys.”

before you could respond, martin suddenly appeared between both of you holding coffee cups.

“wow.” he said, dreamy.

james closed his eyes immediately, smiling amused. “please fuck off before i loose it.”

“am i interrupting cinema?”

“yes,” both of you answered at the exact same time.

james and you were growing friendlier, talking more, like it came easy. nothing had happened technically.

but something was definitely happening.

the afternoon scenes focused heavily on physical closeness.

one setup involved james resting his forehead briefly against yours while both characters sat on the flooding train tracks, completely exhausted. this was specially intricate, because it couldn’t cross an invisible line at the risk of upsetting fans.

the director explained carefully beforehand:

“you’re comforting each other without actually fixing anything.”

the scene sounded simple, but it absolutely was not. how could you communicate a feeling that wasn’t love, but still looked like it.

the station lights dimmed low around you while cameras moved closer slowly.

“action.”

you sat facing one another in silence. water started flowing the tracks, but none of you paid attention..

then slowly, james leaned forward, his forehead touching yours lightly. warm despite the cold set.

the proximity felt startling suddenly because you could hear his breathing, feel it on your mouth. feel water dripping from his hair against your skin.

things like these happened more than you’d like to think, physical touch scenes were always complicated to film because of the body’s natural reactions to being close to someone, it wasn’t necessarily that much of a challenge with james because you didn’t mind his closeness.

and worse, neither of you pulled away immediately after the director called cut.

just half a second too long, like you’d enjoyed it.

“that’s wrap!”

the entire station exploded instantly. staff members cheering. applause echoing everywhere.

you blinked slowly beneath dripping hair while reality returned all at once.

james looked at you quietly and for one strange suspended second, neither of you joined the celebration immediately, just stood there beneath the rain staring at each other like maybe something unfinished still lingered.

then martin screamed somewhere nearby:

“YES MY CHICKENS, THATS A WRAAAAAP.”

and you couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

james stood quieter near the monitor station speaking softly with the director while absentmindedly pushing soaked hair away from his face.

your eyes drifted toward him automatically.

dangerous habit.

he looked handsome like that, with a bandaid on his left cheek from a careless scratch.

the director eventually gathered everyone together beneath the rooftop overhang for final thank-yous.

“i mean this genuinely,” he said while looking between you and the members, “this project only worked because everybody trusted each other emotionally.”

the atmosphere softened instantly.

the cinematographer nodded toward you specifically.

“we had to chance to work with the amazing y/l/n y/n, you brought exactly the realism we needed.”

you bowed your head slightly.

“thank you for trusting me with it.”

“and thank you,” the director added while turning toward the members, “for being vulnerable enough to tell this story honestly.”

“oh no,” Keonho sighed dramatically. “that’s so artistic i might cry.”

eventually people started separating naturally, staff packing up, managers discussing post-prod, stylists collecting clothing pieces from dressing rooms downstairs.

you had just started walking toward the elevators when martin suddenly clapped loudly behind you.

“food.”

juhoon looked up instantly from inside his fuzzy blanket.

“yes.”

“i’m serious,” martin continued. “we survived hypothermia together. we deserve meat.”

“real,” juhoon agreed.

“there’s a barbecue place nearby,” seonghyeon offered.

everyone looked interested instantly. then martin turned toward you.

“you’re coming.”

you blinked. “ was that a question or do i not have a choice ?”

“you don’t.”

twenty minutes later, the six of you were crammed into a private room inside a small korean barbecue restaurant tucked into a quieter seoul side street.

the moment you stepped inside, heat hit your freezing skin instantly. actual heaven.

everyone collapsed around the low table dramatically while staff brought endless plates of meat and side dishes.

shoes were kicked off beneath seats and heoodies tossed carelessly aside. exhaustion settling comfortably over everyone.

martin immediately raised his water glass.

“to good meat”

“cheers.”

“to chlorine poisoning,” juhoon added, coughing.

you laughed softly while clinking glasses with everyone. you and james were the only ones drinking alcohol as you were the only people of age, you had picked a japanese beer while he went with strawberry soju.

the atmosphere loosened almost instantly afterward, alcohol seeped in your veins, making you instantly more comfortable. conversations overlapped naturally while grills crackled loudly in the center of the table.

martin aggressively cooked meat while pretending he was a professional chef while keonho criticized him nonstop. juhoon kept stealing pieces directly off the grill before they finished cooking.

“you people are animals,” seonghyeon muttered calmly. “someone’s gonna get food poisoning if you don’t wait for the meat to cook.”

“erm hello? i’m martin edwards park i don’t get food poisoning. the only i poison is dat beeeeaaaat.” he said the last part loudly.

“unfortunately.”

you sat beside james almost accidentally after everyone settled into seats. not that anyone failed to notice.

the conversations drifted between memories of the tiktoks you hadmade, keonho’s hand showing the videos over the table, best places to eat in the city and other non importants.

at one point juhoon asked: “what was everyone’s hardest scene?”

“the underwater one,” keonho answered immediately. “saw my ancestors man.”

“you barely submerged.”

“dude i can’t hold my breath fr long.” he rolled his eyes.

martin pointed dramatically toward you.

“hers with James on the rooftop though?”

james closed his eyes immediately like he already knew where this was heading.

“here we go,” he muttered.

“i’m serious,” martin continued shamelessly. “the tension was insane.”

“there was no tension,” james replied too fast.

you smiled, looking at him while sipping on your second beer, the table went silent briefly.

then juhoon slowly leaned back. “that sounded crazy defensive not gon lie.”

keonho nodded solemnly. “bro folded instantly.”

you hid your smile behind your cup, he was the only one embarrassed cause you genuinely didn’t mind the teasing.

“this group is a nightmare.”

“shutup cause you’d be unemployed without us.” seonghyeon said.

“no the fuck i wouldn’t?” james frowned.

he was objectively hot, now that the alcohol made its appearance in your veins. sharp jawline and all tight muscles. nah you were definitely not going there.

but it didn’t help that at some point while everyone argued about whether mint chocolate was overrated, you reached toward the grill at the exact same moment as james.

your fingers brushed lightly.

both of you paused instinctively. the warmth blooming of the tiny moment suspended strangely long beneath restaurant lighting.

“my bad” he quickly said, leaving you space to grab meat.

who would’ve thought zhao yufan was shy when provoked.

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

somewhere between the endless teasing, food, and celebratory drinks, you and james had both crossed into that dangerous almost-drunk state.

you hadn’t controlled the drinks, just kept diving in for some more, it felt natural, like a friend gathering.

you felt warm in the cheeks, you were probably flushed red by now, loose around the edges.

james was becoming less guarded, easier, he laughed louder now, shoulders relaxed while leaning back against the wall beside you.

at one point keonho stared dramatically between both of you across the table.

“oh my god.”

james narrowed his eyes immediately. “what now.”

“you guys are literally glowing.”

you started laughin, not because it was necessarily funny but… yeah you didn’t even know why.

james was also laughing beside you, head dropping slightly while rubbing at his eyes. “you people genuinely need hobbies.”

“we had hobbies,” martin replied. “but now we’re gonna have to take you home.”

you hid your smile behind your drink, feeling way too jolly for your wellbeing.

honestly the alcohol made everything feel softer tonight, you weren’t one to drink usually but this felt right, like finally you claimed back all those teenage years spent working. the only thing that was bad though, was james’ lingering looks and the way they felt nerve-wracking. you’d promised yourself not to be stupid, and here you were.

eventually when the table became empty, everyone slowly started gathering their things. managers had long since gone home, trusting the members enough to survive one celebratory dinner without supervision. outside, the city glittered beneath rain-slick streets and blurred neon reflections like a scene straight out of cyberpunk.

cold air hit your face immediately when you stepped out of the restaurant. “damn,” juhoon muttered. “it’s so cold”

“pissesme off, we had sun last week,” keonho agreed while tightening his jacket.

the group lingered outside for several minutes beneath the restaurant awning while figuring out rides home. juhoon seonghyeon keonho and martin called an uber, while james claimed he would wait to sober up before coming back. you were gonna call a ride back home too.

the 6’3 giant looked between you and james suspiciously one last time before grinning.

“don’t do anything we would do.”

“that leaves literally nothing,” seonghyeon pointed out.

james groaned , “shutup you ball of hair.”

“fuck off receding hairline” martin shot back instantly.

“goodnight.” james deadpanned, already turning around.

everyone burst into laughter. then slowly, one by one, the members disappeared into separate cars still yelling dramatic goodbyes through open windows.

until eventually, only you and james remained beneath the glowing restaurant sign. rain had softened into mist now, cool against your cheeks while distant traffic hummed somewhere beyond the narrow streets.

you were painfully aware of how flushed you were and how undone your hair probably was, but decided not to worry, at the end of the day, he had seen you underwater, under the rain, in various weird situations.

then james caught your attention by shoving his hands deeper into his jacket pockets and glancing toward you.

“so…” he started softly. you looked up.

“do you have somewhere to be?”

the question lingered gently between you, he wasn’t pushy nor presumptuous. maybe he meant it in a friendly manner but it came across as hopeful.

you shook your head slightly. “not really.”

something subtle shifted in his expression then, probably relief.

“you wanna hang out a little longer?”

your stomach flipped embarrassingly fast, probably the alcohol.

“yeah,” you answered quietly like it was evident.

james smiled, the bandaid on his cheek crooking.

“cool.”

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

twenty minutes later, the two of you stood inside a convenience store near the han river laughing over candy choices like idiots. the alcohol absolutely wasn’t helping.

“that shit’s gross, worst flavor ever. you can’t possibly eat that.” you frowned.

“watch me.”

that made both of you laugh for some reason, carefree, like two morons.

“what flavor do you want?” james chuckled,

“those peach ones, stop with the crap we’re not eating cherry ones.”

he laughed, grabbing the peach bag, almost letting it fall.

the cashier looked mildly amused while ringing everything up, he couldn’t recognize you with your masks. james insisted on paying, struggling to get his card to go through with how much he was swaying.

outside again, cold night air wrapped around both of you while plastic bags swung gently from james’ hands.

the han river stretched dark and glittering beneath city lights ahead, and you eventually settled onto a quiet bench near the water. the city skyline reflected beautifully across the river while distant bikes rolled past occasionally along the paths nearby.

you sat tucked into your coat while james leaned back against the bench beside you sipping canned coffee despite already being energetic enough.

“you know,” you murmured, “this is pretty nice actually. i never thought you and i would be friends.”

he looked toward you, the word friend stabbing through his heart. ouch.

“yeah me neither”

“you’re pretty cool, i like hanging with you.” you said, head dizzy.

you took a sip of water, leaning closer to him for warmth. you gestured vaguely between both of you and the river and the convenience store snacks.

“i don’t even really hang out with people actually. i mean- i have friends but i never have time to hang out. so this is nice. ”

james smiled faintly.

“yeah, i’m glad, you can call me anytime if you wanna hang.”

“i probably will if i have time. schedules are pretty tough these days, i bet you guys have it the same.”

he nodded at that, “yeah we’re preparing for upcoming shows and stuff, it’s hectic. but i’ll make time for you.” you looked down briefly at the snack bag in your lap, trying unsuccessfully to hide your smile.

“that sounds dangerous,” you murmured.

“what does?”

“you saying things like that.”

james laughed quietly under his breath. “sorry.”

“you don’t sound sorry.”

“i’m not.” james leaned back slightly against the bench, shoulder still brushing yours.

then suddenly he squinted toward your phone sticking halfway out of your coat pocket. “…is that an arcane keychain?”

you blinked. “maybe.”

his head turned so fast it almost made you laugh.“no way, you play league?” the genuine disbelief in his voice was somehow offensive.

“yes?” james stared at you for a full second.

“you’re lying.”

“i literally have the keychain.”

“that proves nothing. people fake interests every day.”

“you’re lame”

“i need proof.”

you immediately pulled your phone out. “gatekeeping lol like millions of people don’t already play it.”

james leaned closer automatically to look at the screen and unfortunately your shoulder pressed fully against his now. his eyes widened immediately.

“you actually play.”

“told you.”

“what rank?”

you narrowed your eyes suspiciously. “that’s classified.”

“oh my god you’re bronze.”

“i’m not bronze.”

“so silver.”

“i hate you.”

james looked genuinely delighted now, like a kid. “this changes everything.”

“how?”

“i don’t know yet but it definitely does.”

you laughed softly while shoving his shoulder lightly. “what about you then, idiot?”

he looked annoyingly smug suddenly. “emerald.”

your jaw dropped. “no way.”

“way.”

that’s how you both ended up yapping about league of legends, because it was easier to do that than to pretend like there wasn’t an underlying tension.

“and junglers— oh my god don’t even get me STARTED on junglers.”

“you literally play jungle sometimes.”

“yeah and every lane blames me for EVERYTHING. top dies in a 1v1 thirty seconds in? ‘jg diff.’ bot lane pushes to enemy tower with no wards and gets ganked six times? somehow it’s MY fault. i could physically cure disease and my mid laner would still ping my smite cooldown.”

he then realized he had spoken without stoping for a breath, so he did just that, your shoulder brushed his slightly while reaching into the snack bag.

your eyes were bored on his, slightly drunk but it wasn’t just that. maybe it was the whole league of legends rambling that got you going, who knew you were into geeks. but you suddenly felt way too honest.

“that was the hottest thing i’ve ever heard.” your eyes trailed on his face, your voice carrying the softest drunken slur.

james didn’t expect that, his eyes slightly widened, but his ears went red. “what? you’re serious? i didn’t know that league of legends was hot…”

you didn’t waste a second, alcohol bringing back that bold side of you, “no, you are.”

his eyes went wild, like he couldn’t believe what you had just. said. “huh?” he said dumbfounded.

“just keep on talking.”

james took a shaky breath, hand retreating to his lap, and he looked around trying to distract himself from your gaze, your absolutely breathtaking gaze. you were so much bolder than he ever was, he hid behind jokes but he would’ve never been capable of telling you all the things he wished he were doing to you right now.

your heart stumbled violently against your ribs and the city noise around you suddenly felt very far away. when james’ eyes drifted back to you, they landed on your lips before lifting back to your gaze again.

“you know what the worst part is about all of this?” he murmured, trying to change the subject for his sanity. “i can’t watch your scenes normally anymore.”

your breath caught slightly, not really understanding where this was going. “why?”

a tiny smile pulled faintly at the corner of his mouth.

“because now i know what you sound like laughing between takes.” the whole changing the subject thing wasn’t working. “i know how you feel when you’re close to me and i know what you smell like.”

you stared at him silently. and maybe kissing a friend wasn’t all that bad. not that you had ever been friends truly. friends didn’t want to undress each other. at least that’s what you knew.

the tension stretched tighter but neither of you moved. james swallowed once before speaking again, quieter this time.

“can i?” he asked softly. then even quieter: “please.”

you nodded, you knew what he was asking for. with the way he was looking at your lips, it was painfully evident.

he wasted no time cupping your jaw, knees brushing against candy bars, he kissed you.

slow at first, like he’d imagined this too many times and was terrified of ruining it now that it was real.

his mouth moved carefully against yours, warm and slightly tasting like coffee and sweet alcohol while the city blurred somewhere far beyond the river.

you felt him exhale softly when you kissed him back harder, like tension physically leaving his body.

one of your hands instinctively grabbed the front of his hoodie, pulling him closer without even realizing it.

that made something shift in him immediately, the kiss deepened, like you weren’t outside, like you weren’t two famous celebrities eating each other in public. but that was long forgotten, the alcohol taking away every ounce of responsability.

james’ thumb brushed slowly against your jaw while his forehead nearly bumped yours from how close he’d gotten on the narrow bench.

and god,

he kissed just like he looked at you.

undressing you with attention, reverence and undeniable respect. your heart hammered violently against your ribs when he pulled back barely an inch, just enough for both of you to breathe.

you found yourselves in the same position as in the filming, foreheads pressed together, warm breaths, but this time it was different, because he had just kissed the living hell out of you.

“you have no idea,” he murmured quietly, “how long i’ve wanted to do that.”

the tension somehow got worse after the kiss. because now you knew exactly how he tasted. how he sounded when he lost composure for half a second. how his hand tightened gently against your jaw when you kissed him back.

“you’re staring,” you whispered.

“can you blame me? you’re beautiful.” his nose brushed against yours, mouths opened and chasing each other’s.

your stomach flipped hard but before you could answer, he kissed you again. this time there was nothing hesitant about it. his hand slid from your jaw to the side of your neck gently, thumb brushing beneath your ear while he leaned closer against you on the bench. the kiss deepened almost immediately, not afraid to use tongues, a little messy from laughter and alcohol and too much tension finally snapping loose at once.

you kissed him back harder without thinking and that earned the quietest sound from him,barely there, almost swallowed by the river breeze, but it made your entire chest tighten anyway. james’ other hand settled instinctively against your waist, pulling you closer until your legs brushed fully against his.

the convenience store bag tipped sideways somewhere beside you but neither of you cared. your fingers slid into the front of his hoodie, bunching the fabric of his undershirt slightly while kissing him again and again and again like maybe you were both trying to make up for weeks of holding back.

being kissed by someone who already liked you this much felt unfair. you could feel it in everything. it was so painfully sweet yet so filthy, so him. like the way he gripped your waist, scared to go lower, the way his sloppy kisses sent thrills down your body, the way he kept pausing for half-seconds just to look at you before kissing you again, like you were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

james tilted his head slightly, kissing you deeper now while his hand ventured underneath your shirt, tentative. he wanted to pull you on his lap right then and there, but that was the alcohol speaking.

“you’re killing me,” he murmured quietly against your mouth.

“you started this.”

“i know.”

then he kissed you again immediately like he physically couldn’t stop himself, his hands brushed against the under sides of your breast through your clothes for a second before he slid them down.

at some point your hand brushed against his lower stomach and james visibly lost composure.

“oh my god,” he muttered softly against your lips.

and then, a bike sped past somewhere nearby. very nearby.

both of you froze instantly. the reality of being outside in public slammed back into place all at once. james pulled back just enough to look around quickly while still keeping one hand at your waist.

you stared at each other for half a second, out of breath, not thinking straight.

“you were one second away from climbing into my lap.” he stated.

“like you would’ve said no.”

“right here yeah, i can control myself, i don’t want anything bad happening to your career.” he said.

you breathed out, taking his hand in yours and playing absentmindedly with his fingers and rings. you didn’t know what to say and everything was a blur.

so, you didn’t know how you ended up in the hallway leading to your apartment, pinned to a wall while james kissed his way to your neck.

it had probably started when you had resolved to innocent conversation but one wrong sentence ended up in another kiss, and another, and another, until you’d been halfway on his lap on the bench, both of your hoods pulled over your heads for a minimal privacy. after that youd stood up, hands unable to leave him, and you’d called over a taxi, putting face masks back on and requested your address. the drive had been intense, you’d wanted to climb on his lap right then and there, just to see how far his kisses would go.

the second you had been out, james had pulled you closer, almost running towards the elevator, and once inside he had pinned you to the wall, making you gasp in the feverish kiss.

and now, you struggled with your key to open the door, while he was behind you, mouth on your neck, your ass pressed right against his hardness. truth is, he didn’t wanna be disrespectful but he had a thing about your ass, had to physically refrain himself for looking at it while you walked past these last few weeks, couldn’t help but imagine how it’d feel against his palms, or if he ever got to slap it while you bounced on-

you let out a moan when he reached for the hem of your hoodie, tugging at it upwards, he managed to take it off as the key finally got in, you forced the door open, and he pushed you inside. it took everything in his power not to take you right there against the door,

"bed," you said with a shaky voice.

"yeah," he nodded, walking backwards, still kissing you while you guided him through the mess of your apartment.

once in your bedroom, he didn’t look around, he was too focused on you, on how perfect you sounded against him, undone, breathy, he sat you on the edge of your bed and his hands slid up your sides under your top,slow and deliberate and stopped at your chest. both of them. full. you inhaled sharply.

"fuck," he breathed, more to himself than you.

his thumbs dragged over your tits, testing, squeezing, like he had been thinking about this in the privacy of his own mind.

"is it wrong that i’ve thought about this?." he whispered against your neck, leaving wet kisses there.

you shook your head immediately, “no… tell me about it, i wanna hear.”

he pulled your top and bra down and his mouth replaced his hands, warm and open, taking your tit into his mouth, tongue circling your nipple before he sucked, harder than you expected. you gasped, back arching off the mattress while his other hand stayed on your other breast, squeezing, rolling your nipple between his fingers, alternating between slow and sharp until you had your hands in his hair and your eyes shut tight, absolutely no remaining composure.

“thought about these so many times, how perfect they looked in that dress, in the swimming pool, you’re fucking perfect y/n, so beautiful, everywhere.”

you moaned at his words, “james”

“i know, i know pretty thing.” he said, not looking up. he dragged his teeth lightly over your nipple as he pulled away, causing you to shiver. then he dropped to his knees.

“you know how many times i had to stop myself from staring at you? cause id feel guilty, always wanted to be so respectful, but i couldn’t stop imagining you…”

he got your jeans off and pulled you to the edge of the mattress; his mouth found your inner thigh, in absolutely no hurry. he mapped out slowly in open-mouthed kisses, the slight scrape of his teeth occasionally, and you propped yourself on your elbows to watch him, his hair tousled, eyes black and wild with arousal. he glanced up, catching you looking and the almost-smile he gave you was genuinely unfair.

when he finally got to your pussy, you shuddered, thighs already trying to close around his head, one hand draped across your face in anticipation. he started with the flat of his tongue, one long stroke, as the breath punched out of you. only then did he settle in. he learned you fast: what made your hips stutter, what made you tug at his hair. his tongue working your clit in slow circles, pulling you taunt like a thread, and when he slid two fingers and curled them just right, the dual pleasure made you go crazy. you thought you’d come with that gesture alone, your chest moving up and down with uncontrolled breaths.

"there," you say. “right there… please…”

he kept the same pace, looking up at you with adoration, learning the faces you made when you were touched right. his mouth then stayed on your clit while his fingers worked that spot relentlessly.

“look at you, so pretty, so fucking pretty.” he praised against the skin of your thigh, hooking your legs over his shoulders.

he was so turned on, his pants tight with the throbbing ache between his legs, he thought he could cum in his pants just by eating you out alone. he’d seen a lot of things in his short life, but nothing compared to this. to seeing you stretched out around his fingers, ever so compliant, beautiful and wrecked.

you moaned as he found the perfect rythm, the perfect coherence of fingers and tongue, your release building in the pit of your stomach, it was usually rare for someone to make you come that fast, but you weren’t at the end of the surprise, because when your hips started grinding down on his tongue, he flipped you around, ass up, arched on the soft sheets.

and god, james thought he knew what living felt like. he thought he was pretty damn accomplished already, a promising idol career, fans, brand deals, but this? james just stared,like this sight of you was a religious experience he wasn’t worthy of. 

you whimpered just then, face buried in your pillow, and he looked down, mesmerized, surely the alcohol had worn off, but now it was a different type of drug that possessed him. “so beautiful like this, all for me. what am i gonna do with you…”

your hips moved back, triggered by his words, and your ass pressed right against his pants. james clicked his tongue, the flat of his hand grabbing your ass. “what do you want? huh? tell me what you want and i’ll give it to you.”

you preened, one hand reaching behind you, spreading your ass shamelessly, your pussy glistening with your arousal and his saliva, clenching around nothing like you just couldn’t fathom not feeling him inside of you. you were ready to beg, you weren’t normally into that, but the way he carried yourself so differently from usual, not shy, not afraid of anything, made you want to tell him he could do anything with you.

“fuck… you’re gonna kill me.” james bent down to press a kiss against your spine and you shivered, so empty… and so cold.

“please… please” you crossed one of your boundaries, you had never thought you would ever want to- scratch that- need to beg. but it felt so good, the way his breathing stopped for a second, the way his hips rutted against your bare ass, like it was the best thing he’d ever heard.

“please what, baby?” he sucked a spot on your spine, right where you had a tattoo. “tell me what you need. use your words.”

and fuck, you’d always thought you were kinda dominant… maybe? or vanilla. sex only ever cringed you out when dudes started calling the girl ‘good girl’ and manhandling them. but this? you thought you would die from the tone of his voice, reverant but so fucking firm. it made your insides turn into burning fire, made you rethink your whole view on sex.

“please… i need you to fuck me.” you spoke, like a big girl. you felt james’ tongue drag a path down your spine, until it reached your tailbone.

“that’s it, you’re doing good.” he dropped a kiss there, one of his hands going back to your pussy.

he spread you, still giving unwavering attention to your tailbone while two fingers slipped inside, earning a dragged out moan from you. “so fucking loud… such a good girl.”

who was this? cause this certainly wasn’t the james from set, the james whose ears would turn red everytime you spoke to him for too long, the james who was worried he’d be a pervert if he so much as gazed at your tits. but you had no complaints whatsoever. your soaked thighs were enough evidence. you clenched around his fingers at his words, gripping the bedsheets, and he gave your shoulder a kiss. “is that good pretty thing? you like that?”

you nodded instantly, afraid he’d stop if you didn’t manage an answer, your breathing had long turned franctic, leaving you a mess, but it’s like he knew what he was doing to you, and he wanted more. he knew how surprised you were, god even he was surprised at himself.

“you want more? yeah?” james worked his jeans open, only the zipper, as his other fingers were busy hitting that delicious spot inside of you, the one that made you reconsider pleasure. the angle made it so unbearably good that you couldn’t even manage words out.

“yes … yes fuck yes please… - please.” you babbled, ass pushing against his hand with unabashed need.

“look at you, my pretty girl is so needy.” james pushed his jeans down, along with his boxers, his thick cock resting on your ass now.

you ground your ass against him, the feeling of him so heavy sending jolts right where his fingers where working tirelessly. you were so close, so so close, and he was so good, like he had done this hundreds of times, he touched you exactly where you liked being touched. “please… fuck me.” you begged, wanting to be properly filled.

“you’re being such a good girl for me right now… you think you deserve it?” he mused, tip leaking on your lower back, so much so that at first he thought he’d came.

you nodded aggressively against the pillow, teetering on the edge of release,walls fluttering around his digits. “yes yes - fuck yes- i don’t know… please… please i’ll- i’ll be your good girl, i’ll listen, just please.”

this was new for you, so foreign, but it felt somehow right, like you relished in his praise, his taunting tone. james was all man, and you were already ruined.

“so desperate, my sweet thing…” he sped up his fingers, cock now shamelessly grinding against the skin of your behind. “you’re gonna be a good girl and take what i give you okay?”

you nodded, because his hands were driving you insane, and now he was pinching your nipple, twisting it between his fingertips, and you were a goner.

your orgasm crashed into you like a train, body lapsing into convulsions while you didn’t even try to be keep sane anymore. you moaned over and over not caring about how loud you were, about how vulnerable you were, ass spread for him as he made you cum with only two fingers, and he kept praising you, like you were a precious thing, like he couldn’t believe he was getting to see you like this, he whispered sweet things in your hair, fingers never stopping.

only when he was satisfied with the mess between your legs, he flipped you around, on your back, his mouth immediately latching onto your neck, careful not to leave any marks that could harm your career, he spread your legs, throwing his shirt across the room, and settled between your thighs, cock heavy on your lower stomach. “you did so good… might have to do that again but this time i wanna see your face.” james said agains your jaw, mouth brushing but not quite touching.

your fingers raked through his hair, softly tugging, until he was groaning, cock slipping to where you needed him the most. when you felt his tip nudge your clit, you arched, breasts touching his chest. “so wet, look at you baby…” he kissed your cheek then forehead. “you want me to fuck you, yeah?”

you nodded incapable of forming coherent thoughts, your legs wrapping around his waist, “i’ll fuck you my love, i think you deserve that don’t you? you’ve been so good to me, came on my fingers like a champ…” james kissed your pulse point, cock sliding between your folds.

his forehead pressed against yours, he cursed, guiding the tip at your entrance. “are you sure my pretty girl?” you nodded immediately, hips chasing him. james wrapped his hand around his cock, almost like he had to restrain himself from burying himself inside of you, and he slid the tip inside, cursing. “shit… so wet baby.”

you whimpered, as he took in the sight of your pussy accommodating his length, squeezing on only the tip of him. he slid in ever so slowly, and when he was fully seated inside, he didn’t move. he thought he could cum from just the feeling of you, squeezing him, the tight fit, your moans… he couldn’t take it. “fuck… you’re taking me so well pretty thing…”

he took a second, grounding himself, before finally moving. he slid all the way out before slamming back in, kicking the breath out of your lungs. you moaned, so close to him in all the senses of the word, filled to the brim with only him. your heels dug on his lower back, you felt him so deep that you wanted to honestly cry.

you wrapped weak fingers around his wrist, without thinking it through, and guided his hand on your neck. it wasn’t something you thought you’d ever enjoy, but there you were, his hands so fucking attractive you could only think about them choking you. so he did exactly that, following your movements, he wrapped his fingers around your neck and squeezed, mouth slightly open at the sight of you, you were being so good, so perfect.

“so beautiful with my hand around your neck, you know that right ? you know how fucking pretty you are?” he rasped, eyes wild with want, and devotion. “answer me baby,” his lips trailed down your neck.

you nodded, gasping, but he didn’t seem content with that response, his cock dragging inside of you. “nuh-huh, words baby. i need to make sure my girl is aware- fuck- of how beautiful she is.”

and there he was, calling you his girl, you didn’t mind it one bit, cause somewhere in your head you were already ready to be his. “yes—… i know… fuck i know.”

james pushed impossibly deeper, knocking the sense out of you, “good girl,” and he showed you, just how pretty you were, every drag of his cock sending you closer to a devastating edge.

“mmmh… james” you moaned, the intimacy of the moment overtaking you, “- need more”

“yeah?” he reached for one of your leg, lifting it to rest on his shoulder. “there, better?”

you nodded, the pressure in your lower belly unbearable, the new angle dragging sounds you didn’t even know were yours out of your mouth. he fucked you harder into the mattress, his hands around your neck never too overwhelming, whispering sweet nothings interrupted by curses agains your skin.

“m so- so close…” you said delirious, arms wrapped around him, pulling him impossibly closer.

truth is, you had never felt so good, and that scared you, you were discovering another side of you, another side of him, and it was so dangerously good. you wanted to crawl into his skin, keep him around forever.

“mmhh… so tight, you’re squeezing me so tight sweet girl, are you gonna cum for me?” he pushed in faster and deeper, if that was only possible.

your walls fluttered around him, nails digging on his back, and you felt him twitch inside you, he wanted to tease you, edge you until you couldn’t take it anymore, but he was so close he couldn’t sustain that, he ached for you, wanted to bury himself inside of you and never leave.

“so so so sweet… so good to me, you’re doing so good my princess…” he whispered, feeling you getting closer and closer.

one last push was all it took, your orgasm shook you beyond reason, you trembled against him, moaning his name over and over, you weren’t even sure how long is lasted, james kept dragging out your pleasure, until he was the one violently twitching.

he buried his face in your neck, rutting inside of you, “oh fuck fuck fuck… so fucking… good” his hips snapped fast, “i’m cumming, i’m cumming… shit.” you felt him come inside, thick and warm, filling you up until it dripped between your thighs. james kept panting, pushing it deeper, before he crumbled on top of you, exhausted with the force of his release.

it dawned onto you just then, how fucking gone you were.

⋆˙⟡. ⋆˙⟡

what had undeniably been the best sex of your life ended with you both falling asleep jus like that.

exhausted by the alcohol, the tension, the day of filming, and the world wrecking sex. james didn’t pull out, he tucked you against him, still buried deep inside, and in a beat you were both asleep.

what was, as unspoken as it was, supposed to be a good time, nothing much more, ended up in- well… much more.

you started seeing often. when the screening of the music video came around and you saw the chemistry you had on screen, you remembered glancing at him through your lashes across the room, he’d felt the same things. you snuck out right after, kissing like lovesick teenagers not worried about loosing their jobs. he fucked you in the bathroom, loosing himself in you all over again. it happened a couple of times after, until one day, balls deep inside of you, he asked if you could be his. it was an evidence for you, and you retorted that you were already his.

that was how you ended up falling in love with him, pushing aside every boundaries you once had about dating, you couldn’t care less about anything. he loved you like a sickness, and that was enough to make the risk worth it.

Needless to say, he was hooked, hadn't been able to listen to anything else in weeks and only sound coming out of his AirPods was your music. Layered synths, a bass that hit just enough to make his shoulders move on their own, and that voice —god, that voice— cutting through the mix like it was whispering little secrets only he was meant to hear.

Maybe that was what mythological creatures were all about, he'd figured.

He'd replayed your latest EP until the waveforms were burned into his brain, every subtle reverb, every intentional breath between phrases, every tiny creative choice ? He'd memorized them all.

Your english was so precise and so devastating that Martin had to remind himself -sometimes- what you'd told an interviewer once.

That you'd learned the language just to write in it.

That you thought in mandarin, dreamed in mandarin, but chose english for your songs because- and this was the part that had replayed in his head more than any other- "it creates distance. distance is easier to be honest inside of."

You were so beautifully spoken he had a hard time believing you were his age, you sounded like you were 200 years old and had a lifetime of sorrow behind you. Martin secretly loved it, the way it bled into your music, the way he'd —shamelessly— shed a couple tears listening.

You were terribly deep in both languages.

He'd also watched the interview that quote came from three times— which was how he knew that when the host tried to follow up in english— ,you'd smiled politely and waited for your interpreter. He knew you'd nodded along with the translation and answered in your own language without self-consciousness, unhurried, like the language barrier was simply a feature of the landscape and not a high wall.

He was not okay with those facts. Embarrassingly so.

Probably captivated also.

Not with you, exactly- he kept making that distinction to himself, because it felt important.

It was the music.

He'd produced enough songs to know when someone was doing something only technically correct, and when someone was doing something true. And every single choice on that EP had been 'true' in a way that made his own recent work feel like a rough draft.

Martin needed to understand how your brain worked— he needed to be in a room with you.

Which was why— after two weeks of replaying your songs and one increasingly embarrassing pitch to his label about something like 'creative synergy' and 'sonic landscape expansion' (which had not been in his vocabulary prior to that)- Martin was now standing outside a studio door. He had his laptop bag on one shoulder, a track he'd rewritten six times since Tuesday, and —this was the part he was least proud of- a folded piece of paper with notes written in mandarin.

Rough mandarin- embarrassingly rough, typed into a translation app and then hand-copied because he'd read that you found it more sincere when people tried.

He wasn't sure where he'd read that and maybe  he'd made it up. Maybe he'd just wanted a reason to spend forty minutes practicing chinese characters at midnight.

The label had set this up as a "casual introduction," but Martin had spent the last three days rewriting his own beat just in case you asked to hear something.

He wanted- scratch that needed- to co-produce with you.

In his ideal world, the two of you would lock yourselves in this room for twelve straight hours, trading ideas until something magical happened.

But you weren't the type to be easily impressed.

He knew that much from the interviews he'd watched twice (okay, three times).

You were blunt, focused, and notoriously picky about collaborators. You didn't do fan-service. You didn't do ego-stroking. You just made music that stuck like chewing gum in people's heads.

And Martin was thirsty, hungry to finally figure out the person behind these songs, to know how a simple human brain could create lyrics so beautiful they made even the most intransigent men cry.

The door to the studio opened before he could knock.

You stood there in an oversized hoodie, headphones around your neck, one eyebrow already arched like you were sizing him up— in your hand was a book that he didn't recognize.

"Martin." your voice was exactly what it sounded like on the tracks- low, a little raspy, entirely unbothered. "Cortis."

That wasnt a question.

Your English landed cleanly, each word chosen like you kept an inventory of vocabulary, and it sounded like Martin was in a waiting room waiting for a job interview. If he was honest, you looked quite terrifying, intimidating but at the same time— you looked exactly like the melodies in your songs, scalding and forever impossible to reach.

"Come in. Thirty minutes. I have session after." you spoke.

Thirty minutes. In his ideal world- Martin would get thirty hours- a whiteboard and room service.

But he stepped inside, eternally grateful, trying not to grin like an idiot when your arm brushed his as you closed the door. The contact was brief, casual, but it sent a stupid little spark up his spine anyway. He imagined that was what fans felt whenever their idols would accidentally touch them- then he thought of himself as the biggest idiot in the world.

"I've been listening to your EP," he started, which was an understatement so severe it was nearly a lie. "The track- 红底鞋."

He tried the mandarin- and almost certainly fucked it up.

"Red Bottoms. The way you built the bridge- the vocal chops, and everything-" He shook his head like he was still in disbelief. "I've never heard anyone make these choices and have them sound so good."

You tilted your head, an avid listener.

"It's smart. Really smart. I brought some sketches I've been messing with. Thought we could try bouncing ideas."

You leaned back, arms loosely crossed, watching the screen

with mild disinterest. "Alright. Play then."

Martin queued up the first track and the room filled with his rough beat-, built around a sample he'd been obsessed with for days. You listened without nodding, without comment, fingers tapping once against your arm— and when it ended, you gave a small shrug.

"Clean," you nodded. "Structure is good." A pause. "What do you want from it?"

Martin had prepared several professional answers to this question. He said none of them.

"I- um... kept coming back to your music because it does something to me," he started, keeping his eyes on the waveform. "Not just the technique-though that's insane- but the way it hits emotionally. 'red bottoms' makes me feel this... sorry i'm gonna be corny but— ache, like nostalgia for a place I've never been. That's rare. That's why I pushed for this session. I think we could make something that does that even stronger."

You were quiet for long enough that Martin wondered if he'd said something wrong, or if the translation -the invisible constant translation running behind your eyes- was taking a moment.

Then you rolled your chair a little closer, your knee brushing his in the tight space. You didn't pull away, instead you reached over and dragged the trackpad yourself, restarting his demo from the beginning.

"Play again," you spoke, voice still cool but now carrying a thread of curiosity. "From the top. And tell me where you hear the ache."

   The thirty minutes became ninety— maybe Martin was in his ideal world. You'd pulled up your own project files somewhere around the forty-minute mark- swiveling your monitor slightly so he could see the arrangement without being asked and Martin had leaned forward without thinking, elbows on knees, studying your session like it was a text he needed to memorize before an exam (he'd given up on school long ago.)

Your layers were immaculate. That was the word that kept arriving, they weren't clean- clean was what he'd been going for in his own work, clean was achievable- yours were Nobel prize worthy.

Alright maybe that was exaggerated.

But fuck, it felt true in the moment. Martin was leaning so far forward his elbows were digging into his knees, eyes glued to your screen like it held the secrets of the universe.

Your layers weren't just stacked— they breathed. There was this one vocal stem buried so deep he almost missed it, a whispery mandarin phrase reversed and pitched down, sitting right under the main hook.

You pointed at it with two fingers. "You can't hear that one."

"I... yeah, no. But it's there," he said, half-laughing in disbelief. "Why bury it?"

You shrugged, the oversized hoodie slipping off one shoulder. "Because it should feel like memory. Not loud. Just... there."

Martin's brain short-circuited for a second. God, she's cool. Like actually, terrifyingly cool. He wanted to say something smart but all that came out was, "That's fucking genius."

You gave him a small look— half amused, half 'why is this guy like this' —and dragged the playhead back. "Play again. From the ache part."

He did. And this time when the bridge hit, he actually pointed out the exact moment his shoulders had lifted the first time he heard your EP. You listened without nodding, but your fingers tapped a different rhythm on your arm, not matching his beat but something of your own.

The thirty minutes bled into ninety, then two hours. Your manager knocked once but you waved her off with a quick mandarin phrase that sounded like 'five more minutes'. Martin didn't speak the language but he understood the tone: don't fuck with my flow.

At some point you pulled out a half-empty bag of spicy peanuts from your bag and offered him some without ceremony. He took a handful, immediately regretted it when the heat hit, and coughed like an idiot.

"Shit—warn a guy," he wheezed, eyes watering.

You actually smiled. "Weak."

"My spice tolerance is bad, sorry."

That got a soft huff out of you and Martin felt it like a hook sinking into his ribs. Don't get flattered, dumbass.

But it was hard not to when you started explaining your process. You talked about sound like it was weather— how certain frequencies felt like fog rolling off the Yangtze, how a good drop should hit like summer rain on hot pavement. He hung on every word, even the ones where your English tripped and you switched to typing on your phone for precision.

You were unconsciously poetic— the thing was, you didn’t even realise what you were saying was potent and moved something deep inside his chest.

Then you asked him something —a technical question, he thought, about sidechain compression and whatnot, but the sentence had restructured itself between your brain and your mouth.

Lost in translation.

And Martin was aware of something now that he hadn't let himself be aware of before.

There was a door in this room that neither of you had a key to.

He was fluent in your music. He could hear your creative language with accuracy —could predict, sometimes, where a track was going, could feel when a choice was wrong before he could articulate why.

In that language, he and you were almost eerily aligned.

You'd leaned back at some point arms loosely crossed, and for once your expression softened by a millimeter. "We're not so different in here," you said quietly, tapping the screen. "Outside... maybe. But here?" A small shrug. "Same language."

Around the 2 hours mark, your manager knocked twice and opened the door without waiting, she said something in your language, one hand on her hip.

You looked at him. "I have to-" You gestured at the door. "Session."

"Right." He started closing his laptop. "Yeah, of course."

You were looking at his screen- at the demo, still open, the waveform sitting there half-discussed. Then you walked him to the door, which wasn't a long walk in a studio that size- and when he stepped into the hallway you were already turning back toward the board.

No 'nice to meet you'. No 'I'll be in touch'

Just- back to work. Like he'd been a parenthesis.

Gosh- had he really been that awkward?

"I'll send you the updated file," he spoke to your back.

You raised one hand- not really a wave, more like an acknowledgment and the door closed. Martin stood in the hallway for approximately four seconds, then started walking.

Fuck my life, he thought.

He sent the file that evening. Clean mix, properly labeled, a short note underneath—  because he didn't know what the right amount to say was and defaulted to less.

He watched the delivered receipt appear, then he watched it stay delivered for three whole days.

MARTIN THOUGHT MAYBE it was because of the language barrier- maybe you preferred working with people who could actually understand you without having to use Google translate.

Maybe after he left you'd sat back down at the board and thought, 'never again', and that had been that.

He also wondered if maybe you hadn't liked his music- his way of working- or maybe it was his personality?

He'd talked too much about what your music did to him, which in retrospect- was possibly a lot to say to someone he'd met eleven minutes prior.

He could've come across as a lot.

He was potentially a lot.

Instead of spending hours trying to figure out what he could change about himself— Martin chose to do something much healthier with his time— listen for the umpteenth time to your EP.

The first time he'd ever encountered you- your name had not been immediately googleable. He'd heard the track on Juhoon's phone- he had it queued in a playlist, one of those late-night sessions where nobody was making anything, just listening, sprawled across studio furniture with takeout going cold.

And Martin had sat up halfway through the second verse and said 'who is this'.

Like he needed to know right know or he'd die.

Juhoon hadn't known the artist name offhand. Had to dig through the playlist- and the name that came up was your alias- two words.

When Martin searched it, the results were sparse.

A Soundcloud with six tracks, oldest upload three years ago, an Instagram with maybe forty posts, mostly studio photos -equipment, waveforms, the occasional selfie.

He'd found an interview eventually- a small music publication, with english subtitles- you were on screen in a plain chair in what looked like your own studio, answering questions.

Your English in the interview was functional but minimal- you chose words lik you were packing a bag for a short trip— nothing unnecessary.

But when you talked about the music you lit up in a different way.

Here is the thing Martin had not said to Juhoon, or Seonghyeon, or even James, because there wasn't a version of it that didn't sound insane:

You were extraordinarily beautiful and but it was almost completely irrelevant.

He'd seen your face for the first time in a video someone had posted from a small showcase- grainy phone footage really. You looked objectively nice- screw that- nicer than anything he'd ever seen.

Martin wasn't foreign to pretty girls trust me— but the knowledge that you made music so touching added even more to your already beautiful face.

So yes, you were beautiful, in the way that became a secondary fact.

Like learning that a book you loved also had a gorgeous cover.

Noted. Filed. Definitely not the point.

YOU ALMOST DIDNT GO.That was the thing anybody could've known from looking at you in that lobby -standing there, weight on one foot, like an idiot.

You'd listened to his file the night he sent it. That was the other thing. The delivered receipt wasn't indifference- er.. maybe it was.

You couldn't pin point it though- what had brought you there in that specific moment.

Here is what you knew about him before the session; Cortis.

The group, the name, the general thing, not much more.

You existed in the same industry without overlapping much —your world was smaller, quieter, more underground, and you'd kept it that way deliberately. But you'd heard his name in production circles.

'Good ear', some guy had said once. 'Real one'.

Then he'd walked in your studio and said your EP name in mandarin, badly, clearly practiced, and you'd found it secretly endearing.

Funny guy, you'd thought, awkward and weird.

People talked about your music in a particular way- in interviews and comments and the occasional review- random words that seemed way too complicated. You'd learned to receive those words with the same expression you received everything: mildly, without giving away whether they'd landed.

But Martin had said it much more simply, 'nostalgia for a place I've never been' and then had looked almost embarrassed about saying it, eyes on the waveform instead of you, and something in your chest had done a thing you hadn't anticipated and hadn't appreciated.

Because your music wasn't all that complicated- it wasn't "ethereal" or whatever stupid word critics used to seem smart; your music was simple, based on experiences and stuff you'd learned, there was no need to get pretentious.

And you'd never heard anyone say it back to you in those words. Humble. In mandarin or rnglish or anything in between.

Now— the receptionist at the Hybe building had been professional about it.

You'd asked for him by name in english, careful enough to be understood, explained in the most efficient possible sentence, and you waited.

You'd been fine while waiting.

And then the elevator had opened and Martin had walked out in dance practice clothes, slightly out of breath, water bottle in hand- hair unmanaged.

He wasn’t expecting to see you— understandable— so his eyebrows rose to his forehead, mouth opening and closing like a blob fish.

Funny, you thought as he scrambled for words.

"You said you'd show me," you raised your chin."The bridge. What you would put there." You made a pause that wasn't awkward because didn't seem to do awkward. "I have time now."

Martin stood there for approximately three seconds wondering what the fuck was going on.

Three weeks. Three weeks of delivered-and-nothing. Martin still wasn't even sure you remembered his name and now all of a sudden, you came looking for him.

"Erm- okay," he ended up saying.

He almost heard Keonho's voice in his ears, "what wouldn't you do for the huzz..."

And apparently he needed to add 'absolute pathetic douchebag' in his personality traits.

The elevator ride up was quiet. Martin was aware that he was in dance practice clothes. He was aware that his hair was doing something crazy on top of his head. He was also very aware that you were standing approximately two feet away from him in an elevator that felt, for no reason, very small.

He wanted to ask 'why now', but he didn't.

The elevator opened on his floor.

"It's not a proper studio," Martin announced, leading you down the hall, which was true -it was a production room, good equipment, acoustically treated, but smaller than what you were used to, he guessed, based on the setup he'd seen at your session. “We use it for demos mostly. Personal stuff."

You nodded, taking in the hallway with the same mild attention you seemed to give everything. He opened the door, the room was exactly as he'd left it that morning —his project file still open on the monitor, three empty water bottles on the desk that he immediately wanted to remove.

You walked in and went directly to the monitor. Not the couch, not the chair- the monitor. You leaned forward and read the open file without touching anything, just looking.

Martin watched you clock the timestamp, the track name, the arrangement and whatever else your brain extracted in those few seconds.

"You kept working on it," you stated, neutral.

"Ah- yeah..."

You straightened and looked at him. "Play it."

He set down the water bottle, moved to the chair, pulled up the current version -not the one he'd sent you, three iterations past that now- and pressed pay.

You listened with your arms loosely crossed, expressionless. And when it ended, the silence was a different kind than before.

You looked at him, he wasn’t sure what exactly what was going on— you’d came in, all business, and hadn’t even explained the past few weeks, acting like you were just two friends making music.

"What do you want to do," you asked him. "What are you expecting?"

Martin opened his mouth. Closed it. He didn't even know what to say.

"Well-" He exhaled. "Erm." He turned the water bottle in his hands once. "I don't know, I thought maybe you'd- I thought if you replied, we could maybe discuss a possible-" He paused. "Well. But you didn't really reply."

You looked at the monitor, trying to figure out what to say. "I was out of country,"

Lie. You'd been in this city for the entire three weeks.

"The-" You paused, reaching for the word. "Computer. Was not working." Also not true. "But I'm here now. Yes?"

"Yeah." Martin nodded. "Yeah, I can see that. I was- well. What I'm trying to say is- if maybe you'd consider giving me a chance. I really wanna work with you."

You rubbed the center of your chest once, almost absentmindedly, the way people do when heartburn hits. Then you leaned forward again as if nothing happened.

"Is this why you sent demo?" you asked flatly. "You want work with me. Really bad."

"Yes." it was immediate with no hesitation. "I'm sorry if I was being pushy- I just really like-" He stopped to correct himself. "Love your music."

You were quiet, assembling words in your mind to make a sentence.

"I don't know," you said finally. "I'm busy these days. I don't know."

"Well- I could give you time to think about it, if you—”

"No." you cut him, dry, but not unkind. "I'm busy these days, I said. Maybe one day."

Martin was quiet for a moment but then decided to stop being careful and to say it in his own stupid messy way.

"Look. Let me put it clearly. I've never felt this way about any other music. Not like this." He held your gaze. "Please consider this. Or- heck, I don't know."

A short, slightly helpless exhale came out of his mouth, "Free your schedule. Let's do something outside and I'll show you I'm really serious about this." He paused. "Please."

You considered him- maybe because the word 'please' in english always sounded more exposed than in mandarin, you'd always thought. Less formal architecture to hide inside- it just sat there, plain and asking.

"I can't," you concluded. "Have two meetings later. Can't."

"Tonight then?"

You looked at him.

"Please," Martin insisted.

"Tonight?" You repeated it back.

"Yes. Tonight."

The room was very quiet as you wondered if you should give him a chance. Maybe something- anything could come out of it. Maybe you'd gain some sort of competence- maybe even new english vocabulary.

"Not long then," you decided.

Martin's expression did something he didn't fully manage to contain- like a kid being allowed to eat sweets.

"Not long," he agreed, immediately like he was agreeing before you could change your mind.

You looked back at the monitor. At his arrangement, still open, the bridge sitting there, "Finish the session first," you said. “I meet you there later.”

THE RECORD SHOP was the kind that didn't have a sign you could read from the street. It was just a door and a window with a few sleeves propped against the glass and —when you pushed it open— the smell of old vinyl and central heating.

Martin was already inside.

He'd worn a mask and a cap pulled low, the standard-issue attempt at anonymity that you recognized because you'd put on your own mask for the same reason.

He was flipping through a section near the back when you came in, and he looked up with the expression of someone who —had been trying to look like they hadn't been watching the door.

"You found it," he observed.

"The pin was good," you said.

He smiled, slightly. The mask hid most of it but not the way his eyes changed. You put your hands in your pockets and looked around the shop- it was small and dense, organized neatly with color coded alleys.

"Do you come here a lot?" you asked him.

"When I can." He moved to make room beside him. "Which is not a lot. But- when I need to think about something differently. About music. I come here and I remember what made me want to do it."

"What made you?" you interrogated- like the answer would help you make a quicker decision.

"The feeling of hearing something for the first time that-" He paused for a beat "That takes the top of your head off. You know?"

You knew- for a fact— what he meant. You didn't say so but you moved to the nearest shelf and started looking, because that was easier than going into depth about the tragic reason why you started making music.

You moved through the sections without talking much, which suited you and Martin drifted nearby - doing the same thing. He'd pick something up occasionally- hold it out for you to see without commentary- you'd look, and either nod or make the small sound of approval.

"Okay," Martin began, after a while. "Favorite album. What do you go back to."

You considered the question seriously, the way it deserved. You had quite a few in mind, but only one sat at the top of that list, so you walked three shelves over, found the section you wanted, and flipped through it.

When you found it you pulled it out and held it toward him, he took it— looked at it and went very very still.

Jar of Flies- Alice in Chains.

The cover art faced up in his hands, worn at the corners, a used copy that someone had loved before it got here.

"You like Alice in Chains," he almost choked out.

It wasn't quite a question though- he had the living proof in his hands.

"Yes." You watched his face. "Why. You don't like?"

"I-" He looked up. "I love."

You recognized the thing people did in reaction to your broken english- they accommodated without even realizing- started to use the same manner of language unconsciously. It was funny.

Something in his expression had shifted entirely though— replaced by something unguarded and disbelieving.

"I love them. I just didn't-"He stopped. You watched him recalibrate. "Well. Now that I think about it." He looked at you. "You do seem like the type of person who listens to good music. Since you make good music and all-"

"Martin."

"Yeah?"

"What's yours," you cut him off. "Favorite album."

"Oh-" He paused. Looked down at the sleeve in his hands. "Um. Well." A short exhale, almost a laugh. "It's kind of in my hands, actually."

You looked at the record. Then at him. "What. Jar of Flies?"

"Yeah." Martin turned it over, looked at the tracklist like he'd memorized it a long time ago and was just confirming. "I always go back to that one. I listen to it when I need to breathe."

“You make it sound like medication.”

“It kind of is.” he shrugged.

Silence stretched between you as Martin ran his thumb along the edge of the cardboard sleeve.

“My dad used to play records when I was a kid.” He shrugged. “Not because he was one of those vinyl purists. He just couldn’t afford Spotify for a while.”

You smiled despite yourself.

“So we’d sit on the floor and he’d play albums from start to finish.” His eyes stayed on the record. “No skipping. No playlists. If track three sucked, well…” He lifted a shoulder. “Too fucking bad.”

“You had to earn track seven.” you added, speaking from experience.

“Exactly. But it fucked me up, though.”

“How?”you tilted your head, very mcuh aware that you were having a full blown conversation in the middle of the shop like it was a coffee table.

“I can’t listen to music casually anymore. I think like… if an album doesn’t feel like someone’s whole nervous system got printed onto plastic…” Martin grimaced. “I don’t know. It just feels empty.”

You stared at him for a second “Music is different for everyone.”

His eyes lifted but you looked away first.

“In China,” you said carefully, searching for words, “my father…He worked. So, no music allowed in the house. Only in the headphones. So it was private. When I was young everything was loud.”

You hated speaking English. Every sentence felt like dragging furniture through a doorway too small.

“But music…” You touched two fingers against your chest without thinking. “…made one room.”

Martin didn’t answer immediately, people would think he didnt understand what you meant because your english was messy— (and to be fair I don’t think you readers understood what y/n meant either). But that went behind the point, because he could see clearly through your thoughts, like he’d known you for years.

“Jesus.” he said. “I’ve never heard anyone explain headphones like that.”

You frowned. “Is it bad English?”

“No.” he smiled fondly, “It’s good truth. You’re doing great.”

It felt nice. You’d been around enough people to know that accents— especially a chinese one, were constantly mocked, made fun of and used for shits and giggles. Nobody saw through that— nobody saw the girl standing in a country far too big, head still in a place her feet don’t recognize anymore.

You folded your arms tighter. “I don’t think people hear songs. I think they hear themselves.”

“Hm.”

“They say they love an artist, but really…They love who they become for four minutes.” you gestured vaguely, “who do you become when you listen to Alice in Chains?”

Martin stared, as if the answer wasn’t just sitting on the surface waiting to be spoken.

“I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “Smaller. Not in a bad way. Just… the parts of me that are always trying to explain themselves kind of shut up.”

You glanced around, the shop empty felt like you were both existing in a secluded space in time— one where conversations were truly meaningful and went beyond weather-talks. One in which you could be yourself and not be called ‘too emotional.’

“So?” you said.

“So?”

“You want to produce with me.”

“I do.” Martin let out an amused laugh, kind of nervous at the same time.

“Because I speak weird? Or because what?”

“I want to produce with you because your demos pissed me off.” he admitted

You blinked. “…huh?”

“They’re unfinished but they still made me feel like shit.”

You scoffed, cocking an eyebrow, “…Thank you?”

“I mean that as a compliment.” Martin clarified.

“You Americans are confusing.” you rolled your eyes, slightly amused.

He stood there from his 6ft-something tower, looking down at you like you were the craziest thing he’d ever met, the brilliant shell of a woman— and didn’t even get mad when you confused his nationality because at least you were acknowledging his presence.

“I’m Canadian.” he simply said, matter-of-factly.

“Oh.”

And God, you hated that you sounded like a bitch.

“…Sorry.”

“I’ll recover.” he gave an awkward laugh, hand on the back of his neck.

A tiny smile threatened the corner of your mouth before you killed it, but he noticed anyway.

“There it is.”

“What?” you brought back the poker-face.

Martin’s cheeks got red for an instant, “You smile.”

“I don’t.”

“You literally just did.”

“Oh, fuck you.” it slipped out faster than intended, and you clutched your mouth.

Cursing was bad— you’d learned it from a very young age. You never cursed, having always been taught to be put together and classy— but inside your mind? You did nothing but.

“There she is.” Martin chuckled when you rolled your eyes.

Martin smiled like he’d won something— not the argument— just the sound of your laugh. And it was very you, very beautiful. He committed it to memory, keeping it in a locked box inside his brain, one he planned to open every now and then just to remind himself of how sweet it sounded.

“You know,” he said after a moment, quieter now, “I don’t actually care if we make a track… I mean—I do. But that’s not why I asked you to come here.”

“No?”

He shook his head. “I heard your music before I saw you. And I had this really stupid feeling that whoever made it might understand me.”

The shop was quiet around you until somebody somewhere decided to put a needle down and the soft opening of a familiar song filled the space.

'I want someone badly' by Jeff Buckley.

Here we go. You braced for impact.

You couldn’t tell him why the song had affected you. For one, trying to explain it in english would be impossible, and his mandarin was practically nonexistent. But mostly because there was nothing to explain that wouldn’t sound completely ridiculous.

You knew it was. You’d always known there was something a little wrong with you.

Music was the only thing that didn't need translation for you- social relationships did- but music didn't.

And now, standing there with heat creeping up your face, you wondered if it was really possible to start liking someone simply because they liked the same songs you did.

He was a stranger —with good music taste— but a stranger nonetheless.

You wanted to believe that music taste told a lot about who a person was- that maybe if you listened to 'Jar of flies' with him- you could figure him out in minutes.

And the Jeff Buckley song only accented that- because you believed if you stood there for a few minutes more— you'd actually start to appreciate his presence.

You ended up buying three records. Martin bought two, including a pressing you'd pointed at without comment- that he'd looked at for a long time before putting under his arm.

When you got out, the city had gotten colder— you and Martin walked in the direction of nothing in particular, which was the only direction either of you seemed to have— bags from the shop in hand, masks back up against the cold and the recognition.

"Not long," you reiterated, which was what you'd agreed to, and which had now been almost two hours.

"Right," Martin nodded, glancing sideways at you. "Are you hungry?"

You considered it. "A little."

"There's a noraebang near here." He said it carefully, watching your face. "Not a big one. Private rooms. We could-" He paused. "Or not. If you have to leave-"

"Noraebang," you repeated.

You thought about your empty apartment- your studio, which you'd been in for nine hours before coming here. The two meetings that had ended at six and left you with an evening that had no shape yet. Boring.

"Okay," you ended up saying, shrugging.

Martin looked straight ahead but you saw his shoulders do a weird something.

The place was small, the way he'd said— a narrow staircase down from street level, a front desk staffed by a woman who didn't look up from her phone, and corridor of numbered doors.

The room he booked was just large enough- a curved booth, a screen, two microphones on the table, and a tambourine absolutely nobody was going to touch.

The song catalog was on a tablet between you- a small speaker in the corner played an upbeat song while you ordered food from the laminated menu, communicating with the front desk through a buzzer system that required no language whatsoever. It suited you.

"You pick a song first," Martin said, sliding the tablet toward you.

"Me?"

Yeah you, idiot.

"You." He leaned back- arms crossed. "I wanna see what you pick."

You looked at him for a moment before you took the tablet. You found your song without much searching- you'd known before you sat down, if you were being honest, from the moment the song had come through the record shop speakers and made you feel conflicted.

You typed Jeff Buckley into the search bar, found the song almost immediately, and stared at it for a second before pressing queue.

The opening drifted through the room’s speakers—softer than it had been in the record shop, but it carried the same strange shift in temperature, the same subtle way of changing the air around you.

You reached for the microphone, your fingers wrapping around its base.

This was dangerous. For all you knew, you’d end up crying before the song was over. Loud music had always done something strange to you, overwhelming you with an inexplicable urge to cry, as though your body responded to volume before your mind ever could.

Still, you knew this song the way you knew your own name in both languages, so you sang it.

You didn’t look at Martin. Instead, your gaze settled somewhere in the middle distance—the place singers on television always seemed to look, as if fixing their eyes on something far away was the only way to stop their feelings from spilling out.

So you let the song do what it had always done.

It arrived fully, without asking permission, in that particular way Jeff Buckley had of slipping into your mind and wrapping himself around your brain tightly.

Your singing voice in English barely sounded like your speaking voice, it was steadier somehow, as though the language created just enough distance for honesty to slip through the cracks.

Now I want someone badly. Got a girl here tonight, want someone new. Someone new. A little cry, want someone badly I wanna know if this is a bad lease on me

(I want to know) I want to know. Am I sure that I heard you right. I want to know

If you're leaving, just do it tonight. Now I want someone badly. To burn in here with me, you better listen, baby 'Cause I, I cry all over madly

Don't do anything, do it for me Ooh-ooh, I wanna know (l wanna know. Am I sure that I have your love I wanna know (I wanna know). If you're leaving, just make sure it's right. Now I want someone badly.

Could it be true that someone is you?

You finished the last line and let the note go- the backing track faded and the room was quiet for a moment that lasted. You lowered the microphone and looked at Martin- who'd been silent the whole time.

He was facing the table- and when you looked more carefully—

"Martin."

He didn't look up immediately, but when he did, he was weird- you registered it in pieces. The brightness in his eyes- the way he was pressing his mouth together- the extremely controlled quality of his breathing.

He was crying.

Martin Edwards Park was crying.

The evidence was there, undeniable, in the corners of his eyes and the particular set of his jaw- and the wetness on his cheeks.

You stared at him and he made a sound that was almost a laugh.

"Don't-" He stopped. Pressed the back of his hand against one eye, quick, like he could undo it. "Sorry. I'm-" Another sound, closer to a laugh this time. "Shit. I'm so sorry this is ridiculous."

"You're crying," you remarked.

"I'm aware," he deadpanned. "Thank you."

"Why?"

"It's the-"

Martin exhaled, looked at the ceiling briefly and when he looked back at you his eyes were still bright, his expression had shifted into something that was equal parts embarrassed and helpless.

"This is- I feel stupid. I feel genuinely stupid right now."

You looked at him- something happening in your chest that moved up into your face before you could manage it, and you laughed.

Martin stared at you. "You're laughing at me," he spoke.

"No-" You pressed your hand over your mouth. "No, I'm not- I'm-" The laugh came again, quieter. "Sorry. Sorry, it's not-"

But the words wouldn't come- not in english.

There was so much you could've said to him if only he'd understood your language.

"It's a little bit at me." Martin tilted his head.

"It's a little bit at you," you admitted.

He looked at you for a second, then he laughed through the tears too.

"I can't help it," he explained, when he'd recovered enough. "I've been like this since I was a kid. My members make fun of me for it. Keonho once caught me tearing up in the studio and told the whole group chat. That was a difficult week."

"You cried in the studio," you repeated, trying not to laugh.

"I was mixing something really sad- well it wasn't really that sad. But i tend to- like... feel music way too deeply. Until it becomes overwhelming, i can't help it... i'm sorry."

You wanted to say a lot of things- but the language barrier wouldn't let you. To be honest it wasn’t the only reason, you were just scared of oversharing if you opened your mouth— because wMartin was so relatable in that moment it felt comical.

"What song." you shifted your attention elsewhere.

He told you- and you knew it. It was the kind of song that deserved that reaction, at least in your book. And when you told him so- Martin looked at you with an expression that suggested nobody had ever validated this particular aspect of his personality before.

Like maybe he wasn't all that ridiculous for feeling too much and too intensely.

"I thought it was-" He searched for the word. "Too much. That I was too much about it."

You considered this as a person who’d been endlessly told she was too much and took too much place.

"That’s not true. Music should feel like something... big. Or, what is it for?"

The room was quiet as Martin looked at you for a long moment.

"Yeah," he ended up saying quietly. "Yeah, exactly."

You could tell in that moment- the moment when two souls shared the same ugly sensation.

That same dramatic feeling when meeting someone and thinking- this is the person.

The brain says it's absurd but not the heart.

The feeling when living a whole life of never being fully understood and finally being seen for something. That naive and ridiculous thing that- rationally - shouldn't exist with someone you've been around only a few times.

But you didn't step back this time, you weren't sure why. Maybe it was the record shop. Maybe it was Jar of Flies worn at the corners in his hands.

Maybe it was the crying -the way he hadn't tried to hide it and hadn't tried to explain it away until you'd already seen it, and even what he'd said. 

That he felt music too deeply, like that was something to apologize for- rather than the only correct way to feel it.

So you didn't make a big deal out of it.

"Your turn," you told him, nodding at the tablet.

He took it without argument, scrolled for a moment and queued something without showing you the title, wiping his face.

The opening came through the room's speakers- just guitar at first, bare and unhurried- and you placed it immediately.

Alice in Chains. Down in a Hole. Unplugged version.

You looked at him and he'd already picked up the microphone. He was looking at the same place you'd looked during Buckley when he started to sing.

You had not been prepared for that. Not for his voice itself -you'd known, abstractly, that he was an amazing singer, that singing was the thing, professionally, that he did.

But there was a difference betwen knowing- and then sitting three feet away from Martin Edwards Park in a small room while he sang Down in a Hole with his eyes half-closed.

His voice did something low and unhurried and raspy in exactly the right places- those were different experiences entirely. It came from somewhere far inside his body- like it had to travel a long way to get out.

You went back and forth for a while after that-you'd pick something, he'd pick somethingz. Then the food arrived and got slowly eaten between songs- the tablet passing between you with less and less ceremony.

You sang 'Rotten Apple' at some point— he listened without moving and when you finished he smiled. Martin sang something of his own after- slower, something you didn't recognize, not a cover. You didn't ask, you just listened the same way he listened to you.

It was a good song, it grieved in exactly the right place but ou didn't tell him that yet.

Instead you said :

"I think- We could make good music together."

And Martin's head turned like he'd been waiting for this.

"I was being complicated," you continued, looking at the table. "I just didn't want to- involve myself. I have um-" You paused, reaching. "What is the word? Deadlines. And I don't know....I'm not good with working with others. Usually."

He was quiet for a moment- reflecting.

"That's okay," he finally said. "I respect that. I'm not asking for much- I just wanted you to consider it. I really like what you do. And I think we could do good things. Fuck that. Great things."

He held your gaze without flinching, which you noted, because most people didn't do that when they'd just said something that exposed them.

"Yeah," you answered slowly. "You're right- but I don't know how it's going to work. I don't speak very good english and you—well…”

You gestured at him, at the general fact of him—korean and obviously busy; operating in a world that ran on a language you'd taught yourself through song lyrics and netflix tv shows.

"I'm learning mandarin," Martin responded quickly, like it was already decided. "I can learn."

You looked at him for a moment before your lips curved into a laugh.

Silly boy.

"Mandarin." You shook your head. "You can't learn it in a week, Martin."

"Well-" He made a face. "Yeah, you're right. But we'll make it work. And plus I don't think there's much to be said anyway. When we're making music. I feel like— Okay this is gonna be corny."

"Say it," you encouraged.

"I just... I feel like you get me. A little bit. So you'd understand me. In there." He tilted his head toward an imaginary studio, an imaginary session, something that hadn't happened yet.

"I don't get you," you replied. "But i get your music, maybe."

"That's the same thing," he maintained. "My music is basically- Me. It's just me. Everything I can't say out loud or don't know how to explain- it goes in there. So if you get the music, you get me.”

"Okay," you concluded. Like it was a decision. Probably a bad one at that.

"We try. One session. Properly." You held up one finger. “One. And if it doesn't-"

If it doesn't work. If the door is still there. If the language is still a wall.

"One session," Martin agreed immediately before you could attach more conditions to it. "That's all I'm asking."

You nodded- looked at the tablet and woke the screen.

"One more song," you announced. "Then I go."

"One more," he agreed with a hint of a smile.

You handed him the tablet.

"You pick," you said. "Something that's you." You touched your chest. "From here. So I can- So I know what I'm working with."

He found it extremely endearing the way you couldn't name your body parts so you resolved to pointing at them. It was on top of a long list of things he couldn’t possibly keep track of.

The room, without the music, was just a room again. Like you, sort of.

You put your mask back on and so did Martin; the street was quiet- a  few people passing but nobody paying attention to anyone else.

Martin looked in the direction of the road while you held your bag strap with both hands.

This was the part, you were realizing, that the evening hadn't prepared you for- the inside of the record shop had been easy- the noraebang room had been easy.

But out here there was no music

"I'll-" Martin started.

"Yes," you said, at the same time- realizing you sounded like a complete idiot.

"I was about to say I'll get you a car," he continued. "It's late."

"I can get myself a car"

"I know you can." He answered "I just want to."

He was already on his phone, the app open- and you let him, because the english for "i dont like when people pay for my stuff" wasn't available and you weren't going to pull out google translate.

You stood beside him on the pavement while he sorted it- realizing you were both going to go back to being separate people in separate places, after sharing one of your most intimate forms of art.

"Three minutes," he updated you, showing you the phone with the little car moving on the map.

"Okay," you nodded. "Thanks, you didn't have to. And for the session, I'll have my manager reach out. For scheduling."

"Yeah," Martin agreed. "Yeah, that works."

Formal, correct.

The language of two professionals who hadnt just spent the last two hours singing 'Alice in chains’ to each other in a small warm room

A car turned onto the street, the one on the map, slowing toward you. You picked up your bag properly, adjuste your mask.

Martin stepped to the curb slightly, checking the plate and confirming it then he opened the door for you, standing there with his hand on it, close enough that the city noise seemed slightly further away.

"Thank you," you said "For the record shop. And the-" You gestured back in the direction of the noraebang.

"Thank you for coming to my company building," he looked down- cheeks flushing. "With your laptop bag. And your face."

Your lips curved into a smile, revealing your teeth.

"That came out wrong," he shook his head immediately.

"It's okay, I make sure to bring my face again next time, yeah?"

You got in the car— feeling the driver's impatience.

You gave him one last smile- because apparently you were smiling now- and Martin gave it back sheepishly, cheeks the same color as tomatoes.

THE SESSION WAS SCHEDULED for a Thursday. Two weeks after the noraebang- long enough for the ugly feelings to slowly fade- leaving the usual indifference you'd always had.

Your manager had coordinated with his people; scheduling it in a neutral studio, not yours, nor his- a place in the middle that belonged to neither of you, which you'd requested without explaining why.

Yours felt too much like yours- and his felt too much like walking into someone's space.

You'd told yourself it was one session.

You were still telling yourself that on Thursday morning when you packed your laptop bag and stood in your apartment for a moment before leaving- and thought, it's just music.

Martin was already there when you arrived -the studio already open, monitors on and a project file open on the screen that he closed as soon as you came in. He was in a plain sweatshirt and the same cap from the record shop, and he looked up when the door opened, hair doing a bouncy thing on his head.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hi," you responded simply.

You looked at each other for a moment- it felt strangely professional- like standing inside a corporate office and talking to a co-worker.

Two weeks of voice memos, file exchanges and a scheduling chain that had gone through four different people- had set you guys back to separate people in separate worlds.

"Coffee?" he cleared his throat.

"Please,"

The first five minutes were practical- coffee, bag down, laptop out, the equipment check that you did automatically in any new space- testing the monitors, looking around.

"Okay," he finally said, settling into the chair beside yours. "So I was thinking-"

"I have an idea," you said, at the same time.

You both stopped.

"You first," he let out a breathy laugh.

"No," you conceded. "You."

"Well- i've been building something. Since the noraebang actually. I wasn't going to show you yet but-" He reached for his laptop. "Can I just play it? And you tell me what you think."

"Play it," you nodded.

He queued it up and the room filled with it- a rough sketch, clearly, but the bone structure was good. Better than good.

You listened without moving- trying to figure out what part of the tune sounded the most like him.

When it ended you concluded, "The intro is too long."

"Yeah," he agreed immediately. "I know. I couldn't figure out where to cut it."

"Four bars," you indicated. "Cut first four bars, start where the bass comes in."

He nodded, already reaching for the mouse. "And what about the—"

"The mid section needs something. It's missing-" You reached for the word. "Weight. In the low end. It floats too much in the middle."

"I was thinking sub," he said. "But I didn't want to make it sound weid"

"Sub would work. Careful with the frequency. It can get muddy there."

"Yeah, I was going to sidechain it to the kick."

The first hour was good. Better than good -actually. Professional, filled with a bunch of overcomplicated words. You could point at a section of the waveform and he'd already know what you were about to say. There was no need for google translate.

You built on his sketch, adding layers, pulling things back, making decisions that you could feel both of you arriving at simultaneously from different directions.

He'd pick something up and you'd extend it- it worked surprisingly well.

This part of you- didn't need translation. You'd known that from the first session— from the way you could finish each other's musical thoughts mid-sentence.

Then you were working on the bridge- the section that had been the conversation piece since the very beginning- nd you had an idea for it that you'd been developing for three days.

Something specific.

You started to explain it in english- and you got through the first sentence fine- and then in the second sentence, which was where the actual reasoning lived, you flunked it.

"I want it to feel like-" You paused to reach for a word. "Like when you are in a place that used to be- Like the moment before you remember something that-"

You pressed your fingers against your temple briefly. "There's a word. There's specific- in mandarin there is a word for this exact thing and I can't-"

"Take your time," Martin said, gently.

"I don't want to take time," you shook your head. "I want to say the thing."

"Okay," he said, recalibrating. "Well explain it to me."

"It's like-" You tried again. "You know when you're in a city. And the city look like home but is not home. And your body thinks it's home and then- And then it isn't. And there's this -this feeling in the chest-"

"Like a false recognition?" Martin hypothesized.

You looked at him- expression indecipherable

"Is that-" He gestured with his hands "Like something that looks like home but isn't."

"Yes," you nodded. "That. That's what the bridge should feel like. That specific-" You put your hand to your chest briefly. "Here."

"Okay," Martin said, nodding, leaning forward. "Okay I get that- so you want it to feel like-"

"Like 乡愁," you said, and it came out in mandarin because that was where it lived- the ache of homesickness.

English had the word 'homesickness' but it was a flat translation that didn't carry the weight that '乡愁' carried.

Martin had his phone out- he typed it in. You watched him type the characters, getting them wrong the first time and correcting, the translation app loading.

"Homesickness," he read.

"Yes," you said. "But more than that- homesickness is- it's too simple. 乡愁 is the grief of it. Not just missing. Grieving. For a place that is still there but you are not in it, and you might not-"

You stopped again- the words were spinning in your head and you wanted to honestly cry- you could've been so much clearer, so intelligible in your own language. You could’ve sounded so smart.

"Might not go back," Martin finished quietly.

You looked at the screen instead of him- nodded, feeling like a complete idiot.

"So the bridge," he said, carefully navigating back to the music, which you appreciated. "You want it to carry that. The grief of a place that still exists without you."

"Yes. And to do that I need to strip it back. Because 乡愁 is- it's a quiet feeling. it's not loud. It lives here-" You touched your sternum. "Quietly. All the time. So the bridge needs to be quiet. Remove layers. Let it breathe."

He reached for the mouse and started pulling layers out of the bridge section, muting tracks, and when he'd done the obvious ones- there was still something wrong.

Something that'd been lost in translation.

"The piano," you pointed. "Move it. It's sitting in the wrong place-"

"Where do you want it?"

"Later. Two bars later. After the-"

"After the vocal comes in?"

"No, before. One bar before."

He moved it. Played it back.

"That's- no," you shook your head. "That's not-"

You knew you were being a pain- deep down- but you were so frustrated- so so frustrated, because in some ugly way- you wanted him to see how smart you could be in your own language.

"Too early?" Martin asked.

"No it's not about early or late it's about-"

You stopped because the word wasn't coming. The specific word for what was wrong with it- the word that would explain why the placement felt off, was sitting in mandarin and wouldn't translate into something useful.

"It needs to feel like it arrives after the feeling. Like- like someone who sees you crying and doesn't say anything but puts their hand— i don't know how to say."

"I understand," Martin said simply. "Let me try something,"

He moved the piano in a different position, slightly later, a rhythmic placement you wouldn't have chosen but that he seemed sure about.

It was close. Very close. But something was still sitting wrong.

"It's almost right," you said.

"Almost where?"

"Almost- The note. The first note of the piano. It's-"

"Too bright?"

"It's not a technincal thing- When you write in English, and you want to say something sad- you choose words that sound like the thing. The sound of the word matches the feeling. Yes?"

"Yeah," Martin said, following you. "Like sonic texture in language."

"Yes. The first note of the piano sounds like-" You searched. "Like question. And it should sound like statement. Like something that already been decided. Like grief... is not asking to be felt but is simply- felt. Present. 已经在了."

You said the last part in mandarin without meaning to- already there and Martin reached for his phone again.

And something about that- the translation app, the inevitable flattening of '已经在了' into something that would come back technically correct but emotionally miles from the thing you'd said— made you loose your patience completely.

"I could really-" You stopped to take a breath.

Martin looked up at you- curious.

"I could really be myself right now," you told him. "And say the things I want to say. If I were speaking mandarin."

"I know," Martin nodded quietly.

"You don't know," you said- not unkindly. "You hear what I say and you think you know what I mean. But I'm giving you—" You held up your hand, fingers close together. "This much. I'm giving you this much of what I actually mean. Because this much fits in the English i have." You looked at him. "The rest-" You opened your hand and motioned letting it go.

"The feeling I'm trying to describe," you continued, "In my language it takes one word. One word and you understand exactly and we move on and the music would be correct." You looked at the screen. "Instead we are here."

"Then teach me," Martin said very quickly.

"I can't teach you '乡愁' in an afternoon, Martin." You said it flatly. "I can't teach you what it feels like. You have to have felt it. You have to have been far from a place and felt it missing from your body. Like here" You touched your ribs.

"But, I have." Martin claimed.

"Then you know '乡愁," you said. "You just don't have the word for it."

"But you do," he continued. "And I don't. And that's the problem.” He stopped.

You looked at the screen. At the bridge section, the piano sitting in its almost-right position, the bridge almost carrying the thing you needed it to carry.

"I'm not-" You started. "I'm not frustrated with you. I want to be clear. I'm frustrated with-" You gestured at the space between you. "This."

"I know," Martin nodded. "I do- but it's gonna be okay- we'll end up understanding each other. If we try a little more."

"I came here today and I had things I wanted to make- I could hear them and I could feel them and I-" You exhaled. "I can't get them out in a language that isn't mine. I don't want music to feel dumb- just because i don't speak the language."

"It's not." he shook his head. "Hey, one day you said something in an interview. You said it in english- i remember it. You said that- 'music doesn't need translation the way relationships do.' And not to be weird or anything- but i think you sound smart in all the languages. You dont need a translation because you already have the feeling- that's enough."

The thing about being seen in a language that wasn't yours was that it arrived differently than being seen in your own.

In mandarin, someone understanding you was expected- the words did their job. But in english, when someone reached through the reduced version of you- through the compressed thought, it was a different kind of 'being seen'.

"I've been trying to learn mandarin,” Martin continued when he saw you were struggling to reply, "I know it's not enough. Iknow a few words and tones I'm mispronouncing and a phrase I looked up at midnight isn't- enough. I know that."

"It's not about learning Mandarin," you finally spoke, a small smile tickling the corners of your lips. "It's about- It's about the fact that I have been far from home for two years. And in those two years I have said- Maybe thirty percent of what I actually think. But today I wanted to say the full thing. So we could understand each other."

Outside, somewhere in the building, music was playing from another session. Another song. Another room. Someone else making something in whatever language they had.

"Do you miss it," Martin asked quietly.

"Every day," you smiled. "The food first, I know that sounds- fat"

He found it amusing, the way you'd used the word "fat".

"No it doesn't sound fat, i miss korean food too when i'm abroad." he chuckled.

"There is a- a specific noodle. From a specific place near where I grew up. I try to find it here. Something similar. I can't." You shook your head. "And my mother makes soup. In winter. And I can smell it sometimes. When I'm in the studio very late and I'm tired."

The boy listened, eyes bored on you, like listening to a very interesting TED talk.

"I miss speaking without thinking," you continued. "I miss saying exactly the thing I mean without building it first. Without losing half of it. My thoughts in mandarin are so interesting. In English they are dumb.”

"I'm sorry," Martin replied.

"Don't be," you shrugged. "I chose this. I chose to come here, to work here, you didn’t drag me out of china.”

And you realized maybe you'd said entirely too much until Martin spoke again.

"Earlier you said you missed noodles. Specific noodles. From a specific place. What kind ?"

You looked at him for a moment, one eyebrow raised.

"Why," you questioned.

"Because I wanna know," he said simply.

"重庆小面," you replied, "重庆, It's the city where I'm from." And 小面 means like- small noodles. But small is wrong. The translation is wrong. They're not small. They're humble, maybe. That's better. Humble noodles. Street noodles."

Martin listened, the track long forgotten.

"The woman who made them- she was there since before I was born. Very small, very fast. I watched her when I was a child."

"Is she still there," Martin asked, eyes bright now. Like he was smiling with his eyes.

"It's her daughter now," you said. "Same hands. Same speed."

So you told him about your country. Like you'd tell a good friend about things that didn't really matter in that moment- since you were both supposed to work. You told him about Chongqing, about the food, about your old house... a little about the rivers and the mountains. The fog that came in off the Yangtze in the mornin- the hotpot restraints open until four- the smell of charcoal. Many many things.

You talked- he listened, and then he told you about where he came from, the food he enjoyed, the things he did.

And you started to understand a little more why Martin was the way he was. He'd grown up full of love- a child with too many passions- and it showed now, in his adult form.

"Songpa-gu is where i grew up," he said. "Seoul. So technically I'm from here- but it didn't feel like this city when I was growing up. It felt like its own thing."

"Your family is here?," you asked.

"My mother is Korean," he said. "My father is Canadian. So- It was always a little bit of both. A little bit of neither, sometimes."

You looked at him. "You grew up between two languages."

"Yeah, we lived in Ottawa for a year and a half when I was a kid. So English came early. And then Korean at home with my mother."

"Did you like it, Ottawa?"

"I liked the snow," he said. "And I liked that nobody knew who anyone was. Like-" He paused. "I was just a kid there. Not a Korean kid or a half-Canadian kid or anything with a label. My sister hated it though. She was thirteen and very unhappy about the whole thing."

"You have a sister," you said.

"Older," he said. "By a few years. She's the reason I'm serious about anything- she was always more disciplined than me. More focused. I had way too many interests."

"Like what?” you asked- finding him more and more relatable.

So he told you about the passions, plural and overlapping. Music first and always, but also: drawing, which he'd done seriously until he was a teenager and then stopped without knowing why— photography, briefly, one summer. Cooking- specifically one dish he'd learned from a YouTube video at seventeen and had since made approximately two hundred times.

"And then there was the fish," he announced with a smile.

You looked at him, deadpanning. "The fish."

"I went through a phase of wanting to learn everything about deep sea fish. Specifically. For about eight months when I was sixteen."

"Why," you chuckled.

You thought maybe you'd heard it wrong- maybe your english was that bad, but turned out Martin was really talking about fish.

"I don't know," he shrugged. "I genuinely don't know. I just became very interested in the fact that there were things living at the bottom of the ocean that had never seen. I thought that was— something."

Martin had grown up full of love- a child with too many passions and a father who cried at Nutshell on the third listen. A mother who fed everyone who came through the door.

It made sense that he'd been moved by Layne Staley's voice at twelve, everything made sense.

He'd grown up being listened to, and it had made him into someone who listened the same way.

LATER THAT DAY. . .

Martin thought about countless ways he could make you smile, for days. You looked like you weren’t necessarily doing good— and in all likelihood he would have to do something about it- that’s just the way he was. He spent the afternoon looking for places that had your specific noodles, one that wouldn’t be too far away but familiar enough.

He thought about getting you something, a gift maybe, then he opted out— that would make him look ridiculous. Come on, he didn’t even know you all that well. But he spent the next few days planning how to ask you regardless— drafted different messages in different tones, compared them withthe help of James, and decided to just send a quick, ‘hey, i wanna take you somewhere to eat, is that okay?’

He stared at the sent message for a solid ten minutes, heart doing that stupid flip thing again. ‘Fuck, what if she thinks I’m a creep? Or worse, what if she says no and I just ruined the whole music thing?’

Your reply came two hours later, which felt like two years.

You: Okay. When?

Martin almost dropped his phone. He typed back way too fast.

Martin: Tomorrow night? 7? There’s this place I found. Chongqing style. No pressure tho

You: Fine. Send location.

That was it. No emojis. No “sounds good.” Just Fine. Martin grinned at his screen like an idiot anyway.

‘She said yes. Holy shit she said yes.’

The restaurant was small, tucked between a closed karaoke bar and a convenience store. Red lanterns hung outside even though it wasn’t a holiday, and the smell of chili oil and garlic hit Martin the second he opened the door for you. You walked in first, mask down now that you were inside, scanning the place with that same careful look you gave everything.

The auntie behind the counter lit up when she saw you, like she could just tell you were a native. She said something fast in Mandarin and you answered back without hesitation, your voice suddenly smoother, faster, like English had been weighing it down the whole time.

Martin stood there awkwardly, smiling like he understood a single word.

You glanced at him. “She says the noodles are fresh today. Sit.”

He followed you to a corner table like a puppy.

The place was half-full, mostly locals, and the auntie brought water and a menu without asking. You ordered for both of you— Chongqing small noodles, mild for him, normal for you—then handed the menu back.

The noodles arrived fast, steaming bowls piled with green onions, peanuts, and that dark red sauce. You picked up your chopsticks and took the first bite. For a second— just a second—your whole face changed, your eyes softened, shoulders dropped, and you made this small satisfied sound in the back of your throat.

“Fuck… good,” you muttered, almost to yourself.

It seemed the curse words just couldn’t stop flowing around him, like you could finally speak your thoughts without being called ‘vulgar.’

Martin laughed, nearly choking on his first bite. “Holy shit this is spicy. My mouth is dying.”

You looked at him, chopsticks paused. “You picked mild. Still too much?”

“Yeah but I’m surviving. I’ll be aight.” He took another bite, eyes watering. “Tell me about the real place. The one near your house.”

You ate slowly, like you were savoring every strand. “重庆小面. The auntie there knew me since I was small. Always extra peanuts for me. She yelled at boys who tried to talk to me after school.” A tiny, rare smile tugged at your lips. “I sat there every day after class. Did homework. Ate. Listened to music on cheap earphones.”

Martin watched you, mesmerized. “Sounds nice. I wish I could’ve had that, I became a trainee when I was like… thirteen? Fourteen? Everything after that was schedules, practice rooms, sleeping in the dorm.”

You tilted your head. “Thirteen? That is very young. No normal childhood?”

“Nah. I mean, it was fun sometimes. But I missed a lot. First dates? Never really had normal ones. Just… sneaking around or group stuff where everyone was watching.” He rubbed the back of his neck, laughing awkwardly. “My last ‘relationship’ was mostly texting between schedules. She got tired of me canceling plans. Can’t blame her.”

You nodded, understanding flickering across your face. “Idol life. I saw some. Very… strict. I stayed underground longer. More freedom. But lonely too.”

“Yeah?” Martin leaned in. “Any crazy ex stories? Or am I being nosy?”

You took another bite, chewing slowly. “One. Trainee too. Thought music was competition. Always compared our streams.” You made a small dismissive sound. “Annoying. I ended it. Better alone than pretending.”

“Damn. Brutal but fair.” Martin grinned. “I had one who said I was too emotional because i cried during sad movies. She called it cute at first, then said it was embarrassing in front of friends.”

You looked at him directly. “Crying is honest. Nothing wrong.”

Martin’s chest did that warm flip again. “You’re the first person who’s ever said that without laughing.”

The auntie came back, refilling waters and chatting with you again in. You spoke more freely this time— laughing quietly at something she said, gesturing with your chopsticks. Martin just watched, smiling softly.

You translated bits for him without him asking.

“She says you look like a good boy. But too skinny. Eat more.”

He laughed. “Tell her I’m trying. These noodles are trying to kill me though.”

You relayed it and the auntie clapped her hands, saying something that made you huff. “She says Korean boys cannot handle real spice. Come back when you are stronger.”

Martin clutched his chest dramatically. “Ouch. Tell her I’ll train every day.”

You did, and for a moment the three of you were laughing— you translating between languages, the auntie patting your shoulder like you were family. Martin caught the way your face lit up when you spoke your own language.

It was so rare. Beautiful. He wanted to see it more.

As the bowls emptied, conversation drifted deeper. You talked about your friends back home, asked him about his music, about Cortis. He told you about sneaking snacks into the dorm, swarmed airports, and how stressful it all was. Then he talked about how lonely it felt not to be able to live teenage life normally, how happy he was back when he could mess around with girls without consequences.

“I had zero game,” he admitted, poking at the last peanuts. “Still don’t, honestly. I get too excited about music and forget how to talk like a normal person.”

You were quiet for a second, pushing a stray hair behind your ear. “You talk fine. When it is about music. Real.”

Martin felt his face heat. “Thanks. Coming from you that means a lot.”

The flutter came back while you were talking— a familiar tightness under your sternum. You pressed two fingers there lightly under the table, breathing slow.

Not now. It must’ve been the spice.

You hid it well, sipping water like nothing happened. Martin didn’t notice. Or if he did, he thought it was the heat from the noodles.

After he paid (he insisted, waving off your protest), you stepped out into the cool evening air. The city was loud around you, neon mixing with the leftover chili warmth on your tongues.

“You liked it?” he asked, walking beside you.

You nodded. “Yes. Tasted like home.” Your voice was quieter now, the exhaustion was creeping in, hollowing out the small joy from the noodles. But you didn’t say it. Couldn’t.

You felt grateful, that he’d taken time out of his day to make you smile like that— it wasn’t his job— but he did it anyway.

Martin walked close but not too close. “I’m glad. I spent way too long googling places. James called me pathetic.”

You huffed, almost a laugh. “Not pathetic. Thoughtful.”

That sentence died the second you started coughing, you folded in half, hand over your mouth. Martin thought it was probably the cold night air— or the spice again.

He stopped under a streetlight, turning to you. “Hey.” His hand lifted slowly, giving you time to pull away.

When you didn’t, he brushed a loose strand of hair from your face, tucking it gently behind your ear, his fingers lingered half a second longer than necessary. “Are you fine? Breathe.”

You straightened up, pressing the back of your hand on your mouth. “I’m okay. Just spice.” you cleared your throat, suddenly very aware of his hand.

Your breath caught. His eyes met yours—searching, soft, like he was trying to read every layer you kept buried. For a moment it felt like he could see straight through the careful english and the guarded expressions, right into the tired, aching parts you hid even from yourself.

“I’m glad you smiled today, looks good on you.” he said quietly. “Are you okay though?”

You looked away first, heart doing something complicated. “I am fine.”

The lie tasted heavier than the noodles. You felt seen— dangerously seen—and it made guilt twist in your chest right next to the flutter.

He is trying so hard. And you are hiding. Always hiding.

Martin pulled out one earbud from his pocket and offered it to you. “Here. Walk back with this, we don’t have to talk.”

You took it, surprised, and he started playing one of his unfinished demos on his phone— The shared sound connected you as you walked, shoulders occasionally brushing.

It felt intimate. Too intimate for two people who barely knew each other. But it also felt terribly right.

At the corner where your car would pick you up, you stopped. “Thank you, for the noodles. For trying.”

“Anytime,” he said, meaning it. “So… more sessions? Real ones this time?”

You hesitated, the guilt and exhaustion heavy, but the music pulled stronger. “Yes. More sessions. One more at least, we will see.”

Martin’s smile was bright enough to cut through the night. “That’s all I’m asking.”

You climbed into the car when it arrived, watching him wave through the window. Alone again, you pressed your palm flat against your chest and closed your eyes— thhe flutter had settled, but the hollowness remained.

Martin made you feel seen in a way no one had in this city. That was terrifying.

Because the more he saw, the harder it became to keep hiding how much everything— the distance, the language, your body— was wearing you down. You leaned your head against the seat, replaying the way his fingers had brushed your hair.

Just music, you told yourself. It has to stay just music.

But you already knew it wasn’t.

Music was deep. Martin was even deeper.

The next time— you arrived first, laptop already open, the rough demo from last time playing low on the monitors and Martin showed up ten minutes late, hair messy like he’d run here, two iced coffees in hand and a stupid grin that made him look twelve instead of his own age.

“Sorry, practice ran long,” he said, sliding into the chair right next to yours. The wheels squeaked as he scooted closer without asking. Your arms were already brushing when he set the coffee down. “One’s for you. No idea if you like it sweet or whatever, so I got it kinda in the middle.”

You took it, fingers grazing his. “Thanks.” You sipped. It was too sweet, but you didn’t say anything. The chair was close enough that your knee kept bumping his when you moved.

Martin leaned in, elbows on the desk, peering at your screen. “Okay so… we’re really doing this? Finishing it today?”

You nodded, mouse already moving. “Yes. Let’s finish.”

He bumped your arm on purpose this time. “Bossy. I like it.”

You gave him a sideways look but didn’t pull away; the work started easy, you tweaked a vocal chop while he messed with the low end— arms brushing every few seconds. Accidental at first, then erm… not so much.

“You’re so focused, stop biting your lip so hard” Martin said, laughing under his breath as he dragged a fader. “I know you were desperate to collab with me but damn…”

You huffed, a small amused sound. “Right. Funny guy.”

“Oh c’mon, we’re past that now.” He nudged your chair with his foot. “We’re practically best friends now.”

“I did not say that,” you said, adjusting a reverb tail. Your elbow brushed his again. “I never said it.”

Martin snorted. “Mmhh… right. Okay. Whatever you say bossy.”

You shook your head, fighting a smile. “You are dramatic. Crying in noraebang. What’s next, crying in this studio because we’re not friends ?”

“Probably,” he admitted cheerfully. “But also if this bridge comes out right I might actually sob. Fair warning.”

You both laughed at that—quiet at first, the chairs so close your shoulders touched when you leaned back. It felt easy. Stupidly easy.

Martin queued up a silly sample he’d added yesterday —a cartoonish boing sound. “What do you think? Genius or garbage?”

You listened, head tilted. “Garbage. Delete.”

“Jeez, tough crowd.” He clutched his chest like you’d stabbed him. “I worked so hard on that boing. Two whole minutes.”

“Two minutes wasted.” You reached over and deleted it yourself, your arm fully pressed against his now. “Better.”

He groaned dramatically but was grinning. “You’re so mean when you’re focused. I respect it though. My members just nod and say everything’s fire even when it’s ass.”

You took another sip of the too-sweet coffee. “They lie to protect your feelings. I don’t lie about music.”

“Brutal honesty. Noted.” He bumped your knee again. “Okay, real talk though— did you actually like the noodles or were you just being nice because I looked desperate?”

You paused the playback. “I liked them. Really. Tasted close enough to home. The auntie was funny too.” Your voice softened just a fraction. “You googled a lot for that, right?”

Martin rubbed the back of his neck, ears going pink. “Yeah… maybe too much. James said I was down bad. I told him to shut up.”

You let out a short laugh. “Down bad. What does that mean exactly?”

“Like… really into someone. Can’t stop thinking about them. Pathetic levels.” He glanced at you, then quickly back at the screen. “Not saying that’s me. Just… the phrase.”

“Uh huh.” You dragged the playhead, arms brushing again for the nth time, “You are a little pathetic. But nice pathetic.”

“Hey” He poked your arm lightly. “Rude. I bought you coffee and everything.”

You poked him back, surprising yourself. “Coffee is bribe. Not enough.”

He laughed, bright and loud, the kind that filled the entire room and made him look like a kid again. “Okay, fair. Next time I’ll bring a whole offering or something, deal?”

“Deal.” You restarted the section.

Martin started humming along off-key on purpose. “This part needs more… soul. Like this—” He did a ridiculous vibrato that cracked halfway.

“Shutup.” You couldn’t help laughing. “Or what do they say again? Shut you ass up??”

“Yeah don’t say that” But he was laughing too, leaning into you so your arms pressed fully together. “Dont say this okay? Thats not something you tell random people, you can say it to me but don’t go saying it to other people or you’ll get into trouble.”

“Okay, shut your ass up then.”

“Yes maa’m.”

The work continued like that— talking over the music, fixing tiny things while trading stories. Martin told you about the time he accidentally walked into the wrong practice room and danced to girl group choreography for ten minutes before realizing. You told him about sneaking into underground shows back home when you were sixteen, pretending you were older.

“Trainee life sounds exhausting,” you said, mouse clicking steadily.

Your pinky brushed his on the desk— mind you the room was big enough to avoid that— but your bodies kept finding each other’s.

“It was. Still is. But worth it most days.” He turned his hand slightly so your fingers touched more. “What about you? Ever get homesick so bad you wanted to quit everything?”

“Sometimes,” you admitted. “But then I make something and it feels less heavy.”

Martin nodded, eyes soft. “Yeah. Same.”

The demo was coming together. You added a layer; he adjusted the bass, complementary.

At one point Martin tried to reach for the keyboard and nearly knocked his coffee over. You caught it just in time, both of you freezing with your hands overlapping on the cup.

“Nice reflexes,” he said, voice a little quieter.

“You are clumsy,” you replied, but there was no bite to it.

He didn’t move his hand right away and quite frankly neither did you.

Your manager had texted earlier saying she’d be late picking you up, so time stretched. The song kept playing on loop as you refined it.

The tension was thick, you knew it. Palpable even. Your heart was doing that annoying flutter again, but you ignored it, pressing your free hand lightly under the table against your sternum for a moment.

It was probably the coffee.

Martin noticed the small movement but misread it. “You okay?”

“Fine.” You straightened a little, but your knee stayed locked with his.

The demo was nearly done when Martin played the full thing from the top. You listened with your eyes half-closed, shoulder pressed solidly to his. When it ended, the laughter faded into comfortable quiet as you both focused on the final stretch.

The song was beautiful, it was as if you’d carved out both your souls and put them in a mixer together. A pretty mix of you both.

Neither of you had moved away in the last forty minutes and the forced proximity had become its own kind of conversation— every brush of fabric, every shared inhale, every accidental graze of fingers feeling heavier than the last.

Martin turned his head slowly, his face was only inches from yours now, you could smell everythung from the coffee on his breath to the scent of his hoodie.

His eyes searched yours, except he wasn’t playful anymore. His gaze dropped to your lips for a long second before flicking back up, like he was asking permission without words.

It was the song, you told yourself, the artistic euphoria of making something beautiful and wanting to let those feelings spill out- it was a human reflex.

But the tension had been building for hours—the physical was aligning with the emotional— everything you’d felt for him, everytime your soul had recognised his, it translated into body language now.

Want. Fear. The terrifying knowledge that this was crossing a line you didn’t know how to uncross.

Martin swallowed hard, his voice came out rough, barely above a whisper. “I’ve been thinking about this since… the record shop. Since… fuck, since the first session probably.” His hand lifted slowly, giving you every second to stop him, his fingers brushed your cheek, then tucked a strand of hair behind your ear with aching gentleness. “Tell me if I’m reading this wrong. Tell me to stop and I will, okay?”

You didn’t speak, instead, you leaned in just a fraction— barely anything, but enough. Your nose brushed his. The air between you holding all the things you couldn’t say properly in english or mandarin.

The body did not know language barrier.

Martin’s breath hitched, then he closed the last inch.

The kiss was soft at first— hesitant, almost careful, like both of you were afraid of breaking something fragile. His lips were warm, slightly chapped from biting them nervously during the session. You felt like you were holding something very dear in your hands, never squeezing tight in fears of breaking it.

You tasted the sweetness of coffee and the salt of his skin when your lips parted just enough and his hand slid from your jaw to the back of your neck, fingers threading gently into your hair, holding you there like he still couldn’t believe this was real.

Your own hand came up to grip the front of his hoodie, knuckles brushing the warm skin at the base of his throat where his pulse hammered wildly.

His other arm wrapped around your waist in the cramped space, pulling you closer until there was no space left between your bodies. Your knees pressed hard together, your chest against his. You could feel his heartbeat through the fabric—fast, unsteady, matching the flutter in your own chest.

Could Martin feel yours? Could he feel how wrong it was beating, trying to catch up with his rythm?

The music was still playing softly in the background as he fell in deeper.

It felt like drinking straight out of the bottle when you had spent your whole life using glasses. Risky. Dangerous. Messy and overwhelming and everything in between.

But it was all you had ever wanted. You felt incredibly overwhelmingly seen.

When you finally broke apart, foreheads still pressed together, breaths mingling, neither of you spoke right away. Martin’s eyes stayed closed for a second longer, like he was trying to hold onto the feeling, is thumb brushed your bottom lip gently.

“Fuck,” he whispered, voice wrecked. A small, disbelieving laugh escaped him. “I’ve wanted to do that for so long, is it… is that bad? Was that okay?”

But before you could say anything, his phone exploded with ringing on the desk.

He jumped, fumbling for it without thinking.

Juhoon’s name flashed and Martin answered fast. “Hey man, I’m kinda in the—”

Juhoon’s voice blasted on speaker because Martin had hit it accidentally. “Yo. So how’s it going with fine shit? You finally kiss her or what?”

Martin froze, face instantly tomato red. “Juhoon—what the fuck—”

You stared at the phone, then at him, amusement flickering across your face.

Juhoon kept going, oblivious. “Come on, did she friendzone you already? I told you not to be such a simp with the noodles—”

Martin looked like he wanted the floor to swallow him, he kept fumbling with the hang up button. “Dude. She’s right here. Shut the fuck up.”

There was a pause, then Juhoon: “Oh shit. My bad. Uh… hey. I’m gonna—”

Before he could hang up, you leaned in, grabbed Martin by the front of his hoodie, and kissed him again— firmer this time. A clear “not friendzoned” statement. Martin made a surprised sound against your lips but melted into it immediately.

From the speaker came a dramatic fake gag. “Oh god— ewww, I can hear that man. Gross. I’m hanging up now.”

The call ended with a click.

Martin pulled back, face burning, eyes wide. “I’m actually dead. Kill me. Please. He’s never letting me live this down.”

You were smirking, still holding his hoodie. “Fine shit? Friendzone?”

He groaned, burying his face in your shoulder, arms wrapping loosely around you “I’m so sorry. He’s an idiot. I’m an idiot—”

You laughed quietly, the sound vibrating against him. “It is funny. And I am not friendzoning you.”

Debatable considering what you’d said earlier.

Martin lifted his head, still red but smiling now and bumped his forehead gently against yours. “So… more sessions? Or did that just scare you off forever?”

You stayed close, your hand still loosely on his hoodie, the flutter in your chest was back, but the warmth from him made it easier to ignore. “More sessions. We can try.”

His grin came back, silly and bright. “Yeah?”

“Yes. But no more speaker phone. Ever.”

“Deal.” He bumped your knee one last time, reluctant to create any distance. “And maybe more coffee bribes. And no more surprise calls from idiots.”

The next few weeks blurred into something that felt a liiiitle too close to routine. After that night in the studio— things shifted without either of you naming it. You kept telling yourself it was just music, just proximity. (you were that delusional.)

But Martin made it impossible to stay detached.

He started texting more, just stupid shit that made you huff a laugh in your empty apartment, memes he thought you’d like.

Voice notes of him trying (and failing bad) new mandarin phrases he’d learned from Duolingo at 2 am “Nǐ hǎo, wǒ shì Martin. Wǒ xǐhuān nǐ de yīnyuè… and also you. Wait, that last part wasn’t in the app.” His tones were still garbage, but you laughed anyway, the sound surprising you.

One night he picked you up after a long session.

“Late-night walk?” he asked, already knowing you’d say yes. You ended up on some empty road outside the city, Martin’s hand found yours fingers threading together like it was the most natural thing.

“Remember when I sounded like a mess trying to speak mandarin?” he said, grinning. “Well, you’ll be surprised I’ve been practicing. Listen—”

He proceeded to butcher a full sentence about liking spicy food and— tall mountains??

You corrected him between laughs, your head leaning against him. The flutter in your chest came again many times, but you breathed through it, squeezing his hand instead of pressing against your sternum.

Another time you dragged him to a second record shop, smaller and dustier than the first. You pulled out underground Chinese indie—artists he’d never heard— and played snippets on your phone while flipping through sleeves. “This one,” you said, pointing to a track with raw, lo-fi production. “You need to listen, it makes me think of you.”

Martin listened with his whole body, eyes closed, shoulder pressed to yours in the narrow aisle. “Damn, that means i’m kind of sad...” He tried pronouncing the artist’s name and mangled it so badly you actually laughed out loud, covering your mouth.

He looked proud as hell. “Worth it just for that sound.”

You showed him mandarin rap next, late one evening in his dorm when his members were out. Sitting on his bed with laptops open, you translated bits while the aggressive beats filled the small room— Martin attempted to rap along to a line and sounded so ridiculous you had to pause the track, shoulders shaking. “You are terrible,” you told him, but your voice was softer than usual.

“Yeah, but you’re laughing,” he shot back, pulling you closer until your back rested against his chest. “I’ll take the L.”

Those months had pockets of warmth like that. Deep conversations that started light and turned heavy. One night after another record shop visit, you sat in a rental car in the parking lot, engine off, the city humming around you. You tried to explain the growing numbness— the way everything felt further away lately, like you were watching your own life through frosted glass.

“It’s not just missing home,” you said slowly. “My words fail again. Stupid. But i’m happy here with you. I wish I could take you home.”

Martin pulled you into a hug right there in the front seat, arms wrapping tight around you. His chin rested on your head. “Hey. It’s okay. I get it—you miss home. You’ve been here alone for so long.” He kissed your forehead, soft then another on your temple. “I’m here though. For whatever you need.”

You let him hold you, guilt twisting harder because he thought it was simple homesickness.

You didn’t correct him. Couldn’t. The flutter had been worse that week, and you were tired down to your bones. “I am okay,” you murmured against his hoodie. “Just tired.”

He believed you. Of course he did. He terribly wanted to.

You recorded vocals for the song a few days later the studio was dim, just the two of you. Martin hugged you after the take, forehead kiss again, whispering how proud he was. You leaned into him, letting the warmth cover the hollowness for a little while.

The turning point came quietly, the way bad things often do, you started canceling sessions. First one was “manager changed my schedule.” Then another: “tired today, tomorrow?”

Martin noticed— you were quieter in texts, slower to reply—but he chalked it up to your busy schedule. You were an artist after all, underground didn’t mean easy.

In person it was harder to hide— you’d lost a little weight; your hoodie hung looser. You stared into space more at times,eyes distant while he talked about his day.

When he asked, you always said the same thing: “I’m okay. Just tired. Studio work is a lot.”

Martin believed you because he needed to. He’d pull you closer in those moments, arm around your shoulders, playing your shared playlist until you relaxed against him.

Your family started hearing about him around then— your mom called one evening while you were at his place, you answered in mandarin, voice lighter than it had been in weeks. Martin sat quietly on the couch, pretending not to listen but clearly curious and when you hung up, he raised an eyebrow.

“She asked who the boy who keeps stealing my time is,” you said dryly. “I told her ‘he is annoying but makes good music’.”

Martin grinned like an idiot.

Later that month you met his members—casual dinner at the dorm. Juhoon was there, of course, and immediately brought up the speakerphone incident. “So you’re the one who friendzoned him and then didn’t,” he teased.

Martin turned bright red and tried to smother him with a pillow while you watched, amused.

The others were nice—loud but welcoming. They teased Martin for being down bad and you for putting up with him. You didn’t talk much, but you stayed close to Martin’s side, his hand on your knee under the table.

He introduced you as “the genius behind the best song I’ve ever made.” The pride in his voice made your chest ache in many different ways.

It all piled up, messy, beautiful. You’d never felt so safe.

He kissed you often now— soft forehead kisses when you looked distant, longer ones in private when the music hit just right, hesitant and deep like he was still scared you’d disappear or walk away.

One evening after a shortened session you canceled the next day, Martin showed up at your building with flowers.

“Not a big gesture,” he said, sheepish. “Just… missed you. You’ve been quiet lately.”

You let him in, let him hug you for a long time. “I am fine,” you whispered into his shoulder.

The lie tasted worse every time, your body felt heavier,the numbness deeper. But his warmth made you want to believe it too, just for a little longer.

Your mom started asking more questions on calls. “This Martin boy— he treats you well? You sound tired, daughter. Come home soon.” You reassured her, but the guilt sat heavy.

Martin was trying so so hard— learning clumsy phrases, planning small dates, holding you like you were something precious— he met your guarded silences with patience and stupid jokes that made you laugh despite everything.

He thought the distance was just homesickness.

You let him. Because admitting more felt impossible, and the music— the song you’d made together— still felt like the only honest thing between you.

Those months were the brightest.

Martin e looked at you like you hung the stars, but underneath, the cracks were widening. You shortened more sessions, started off more. Lost more weight. Martin noticed the changes but always accepted “just tired” because the alternative scared him too much.

And you? You felt seen in a way that terrified you. Guilty for hiding, hollow in ways the music couldn’t always fix anymore. But you kept saying yes to one more drive, one more kiss, one more late night in his arms.

For now, that was enough.

He wanted to believe you were fine. Fuck, he needed to believe you— so he planned something stupid and big and hopeful.

A surprise trip to Chongqing, just a long weekend.

He’d cleared it with your manager through a million careful texts, booked tickets, found a small airbnb near the river, even researched noodle spots that matched the one you’d described.

He practiced the mandarin for “I want to see your home with you” until his tongue hurt.

This would fix it. Seeing home, even briefly, would bring you back.

Bring you back to him.

The insomnia was worse tonight, you lay in bed staring at the ceiling, chest tight, breaths shallow. Every time you closed your eyes the flutter came — irregular, annoying, like your heart was arguing with itself.

You thought about telling him. Really telling him. But the words wouldn’t line up in english, and the idea of worrying him felt dreadful.

Just a little longer, you thought. One more good day please.

“Martin,” you started. “I need time.”

He froze from his side of the bed, phone in hand, “Time?”

You looked at the ceiling. “Time to go home. Really home. For a while. Things are… not good. I need space.”

The English came out wrong and clipped and distant. You meant ‘I need to return to China for my health, for rest, maybe a month or two’. But it landed like— I need time away from ‘this’. From us.

Martin’s face changed and the hopeful light drained fast. “Oh. Fuck. Okay… You need time from… us.”

You tried to correct it. “Not us. Home. My body—”

But he was already panicking, scooting closer, hands gentle on your arms. “Wait, please. I know I’ve been a lot— I can back off. I can give you space here. Don’t… don’t pull away completely. We can make this work. The song, us, everything. I’ll learn faster. I’ll be better.”

His voice cracked a little as he pulled you into a hug, tight and desperate, forehead pressed to yours. “I’m sorry if I made it worse. Just… don’t say you need time from us. Please.”

You let him hold you, pretending the flutter wasnt back, worse. You wanted to explain — the insomnia, the way food wouldn’t stay down, the way your heart kept skipping like it was tired of carrying everything alone. But the words stuck. “I am tired,” you said instead. “Very tired.”

Martin kissed your forehead, then your temple, then your cheek —small, frantic kisses like he could hold you together through touch alone. “Then rest. Here. With me. I’ll take care of everything baby. We don’t have to go out. We can stay in. Just don’t leave yet.”

You nodded because arguing felt impossible, because part of you wanted the warmth— also because saying the full truth was too heavy in this language.

You were pulling away. He could feel it. The surprise trip was supposed to fix things, but now you were saying you needed time and he was spiraling. He became clingier without meaning to, texting more when you were apart. Showing up with food after shortened sessions. Planning more small dates. Anything to distract from the huge gap in between you.

Every time you said “I’m okay, just tired,” he hugged you tighter. Forehead kisses turned into long embraces where he rocked you gently.

“I got you,” he’d whisper. “Whatever it is, I got you.”

To Martin it was still homesickness. Stress. He’d fix it by loving harder.

Sessions got even shorter at som. point. You canceled two in a row so Martin showed up at your door with takeout and that worried, hopeful smile.

“I’m giving you space but also… not really,” he admitted, rubbing his neck. “Sorry. I’m bad at this. But I’m here.”

You let him in, let him hold you on the couch while music played, the flutter was constant now. The numbness even deeper. You pressed your face into his shoulder and said nothing.

He thought he was helping, and he was, on some level. You felt so stupid for not being able to tell him, not being able to pick up the damn google translate and say the things that needed to be said. Because it would mean all of this had an expiration date, and you weren’t ready for that.

You felt the walls closing in, one misunderstood sentence at a time. Martin sensed the wrongness but kept reaching holding you closer every time you seemed distant.

You spiraled quieter— you blamed the studio air, the long hours, everything except the truth your body was screaming in a language only you could hear.

And Martin, desperately in love, heard only what he could understand: that you needed time.

He just didn’t realize how little time might be left.

You canceled two sessions in a row but when you finally met, you were quieter, staring at the studio screen without really seeing it. Your hoodie hung looser and your breaths came shallower.

“I’m okay,” you kept saying. “Just tired.”

He didn’t believe it anymore, but he pretended he did.

Martin stayed by the desk, fists clenched at his sides. His voice was barely a whisper as you reached the door a couple hours later.

“When you feel like leaving… just come to me. I’ll always be there. Even if it’s only half.” he said.

That night you fought. You fought because of a lot of things that don’t need explaining. People fight, people in love fight.

You fought because admitting the truth felt like handing him the knife— better to push him away with half-truths than watch him break trying to carry something he couldn’t fix.

He fought because love had made him porous. Every time you pulled back, he felt it in his bones, a fear so deep it tasted like childhood abandonment dressed up as adult terror.

“I’m right here,” he kept saying, the sentence looping “Why does it feel like you’re already gone?”

Two days after the fight, Martin showed up at your apartment door with a bag full of snacks, a new hoodie that looked exactly like your favorite oversized one, and red eyes like he hadn’t slept.

You opened the door in silence— he looked at you for a long second, then stepped inside without waiting for an invitation.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately, voice rough. “I was an asshole. I heard what I wanted to hear instead of what you were actually saying. I’m really fucking sorry.”

You stood there in the hallway, arms wrapped around yourself. “You were scared,” you said finally. “I was tired. We both said things.”

Martin set the bag down and crossed the distance slowly, like you might bolt. When you didn’t, he pulled you into his chest, arms wrapping around you so tightly it felt like he was trying to hold all your broken pieces together. “I don’t want half,” he whispered into your hair. “I want all of you. Even the parts I don’t understand yet. Even when you need space. I’ll wait. I’ll learn. Just… don’t disappear on me.”

You let yourself lean into him- for once, you didn’t pull away. “Okay,” you murmured against his hoodie. “Not disappear. But I still need… slower.”

He nodded fast, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. “Slower. Got it. I’ll be whatever you need. Just let me take care of you a little. Please.”

That night he stayed over. He ran you a shower without asking twice and when you came out in his oversized hoodie (the new one he’d bought), hair damp, he was waiting with warm tea and your favorite peanuts arranged in a silly heart shape on a plate.

“You’re ridiculous,” you said, but the corner of your mouth twitched.

“Ridiculously in love with you, yeah.” He pulled you onto the couch, settling you between his legs so your back rested against his chest. His arms wrapped around your middle, holding you tight. “Is this okay?”

You nodded. For the first time in weeks, the hollowness felt a little smaller.

He kissed the side of your neck, soft and slow. “I brought stuff from that auntie’s stall near your old house. The one you told me about.”

And God, he wanted to tell you about the trip— felt like his heart was leaping out of his body at how excited he was to surprise you.

You turned your head to look at him, his eyes were so earnest it hurt. “You did all that?”

“Obviously.” Martin kissed your forehead, then your temple, then the corner of your eye like he could kiss away the tiredness. “I’m going to make you feel better. Even if it’s just a little bit every day. You don’t have to be strong all the time with me.”

That night he held you in bed like you were something precious, one arm under your head, the other wrapped around your waist, legs tangled. Every time you shifted, he pulled you closer, pressing lazy kisses to your shoulder. “I’ve got you,” he whispered when your breathing hitched. “Sleep. I’m right here.”

The next few days were devastatingly sweet.

Martin basically moved in, he canceled practices when he could, brought over his laptop so you could work from bed. When you were too tired to shower, he helped —gentle, careful, no pressure. He washed your hair with slow fingers, massaging your scalp until you almost fell asleep standing up, he wrapped you in warm towels after, carried you back to bed like you weighed nothing, then held you while your hair dried.

“You don’t have to do this,” you mumbled one evening, face buried in his neck.

“I want to,” he said simply. “Let me. Please. It makes me feel useful when I can’t fix the big stuff yet.”

He gave you pieces of himself in return.

One night he played you old voice memos from when he was a trainee —awkward, cracking voice singing covers, crying after a bad evaluation. “This is the me before I learned how to hide it,” he said, cheeks pink. “The overly emotional mess. I figured if you’re giving me the hard parts of you, I should give you mine too.”

You listened with your head on his chest, his heartbeat steady under your ear. “I like this version,” you told him quietly. “The real one.”

He kissed you then —slow, deep, full of all the things he couldn’t say right. When he pulled back, forehead against yours, he smiled that silly, devoted smile. “Good. Because he’s all yours.”

Another night he cooked terrible Korean-Chinese fusion food and fed you bites when you had no appetite. He made you laugh with awful mandarin impressions, then held you tight when the laughter turned into quiet tears you couldn’t explain.

“I’ve got you,” Martin repeated like a promise, rocking you gently. “I’ve got you okay?”

He kissed every part of you only he could reach— your knuckles when your hands trembled, your closed eyelids when you were fighting sleep, the spot right over your sternum when you pressed your fingers there without thinking. “Whatever this is,” he whispered against your skin, “we’ll figure it out together. No more half. Okay?”

For those few days, it felt like enough. He was devoted in the most heartbreakingly pure way — cooking, carrying, kissing, listening even when you couldn’t explain. He thought it was homesickness and stress. He thought his love could carry the weight.

You let him believe it, like a stupid stupid mean mad-woman.

Martin woke up tangled in his sheets, smiling like an idiot before he even opened his eyes. The past week had been pure warmth. He’d held you every night, arms locked around your smaller frame like he could shield you from the world. He’d washed your hair in the shower, fingers gentle on your scalp while you leaned into him with a tired little sigh that made his chest ache in the best way.

He made breakfast that morning —terrible scrambled eggs and toast cut into hearts because he was a sap and proud of it.

He sent you a voice note in broken mandarin: “Good morning, sexy beautiful wonderful woman. Eat something today, okay? I’m coming over later with real food. Miss you.” His tones were still awful, but he knew it would make you huff that tiny laugh he was addicted to.

Martin felt hopeful. The fight was behind you, you were letting him in more, the trip to Chongqing was coming closer and closer.

But something felt off.

A low stomach ache had settled in his gut since he woke up, not bad enough to ruin the day, but persistent. Like his body knew something his brain didn’t.

He rubbed his abdomen absently while scrolling through social media— reading fan comments from cortis’ latest comeback.

It was probably just nerves, he thought despite the unease, or maybe he’d ate too much again.

The morning unfolded gently, the way good days were supposed to. He deep cleaned his laptop with music playing low —one of your unfinished demos.

Martin spent twenty minutes picking flowers from the small patch near his dorm building — pink and white ones, the kind you once said reminded you of spring in Chongqing even if they weren’t the same. He arranged them clumsily in a glass jar, feeling like the biggest sappiest idiot on earth. No reply yet, but that was okay. You were probably still sleeping. You’d been so tired lately.

By midday the stomach ache had sharpened, a dull twist that made him wince when he bent down to tie his shoes. He ignored it. Popped some medicine. Told himself it was anxiety about making the trip perfect. He wanted everything right for you. He practiced more mandarin on the way to your place, murmuring full sentences under his breath in the taxi. “Wǒ ài nǐ. Nǐ shì wǒ de yīqiè.” Martin’s accent was still terrible, but the intention felt real.

The driver asked if he was okay. Martin laughed it off. “Yeah, just excited. Taking my girl somewhere special.” The words felt good in his mouth. My girl. After all the half-steps and half-understandings, it finally felt like you two were moving forward.

His phone buzzed on his thigh and the screen lit up with your name. His heart did a full flip —that stupid, lovesick jump he never got tired of and he answered immediately, grin wide.

“Hey precious—”

“Martin?”

It wasn’t your voice.

The woman on the line sounded shaky, speaking careful english with a heavy accent. One of your friends —the one you’d mentioned a few times, that one producer you trusted. “This is Lin. I’m… I’m calling from the hospital. Y/n collapsed last night. They brought her in this morning.”

The world tilted on its axis.

Martin’s stomach dropped like a stone, the ache flared sharp and vicious. “What?— I’m coming… i’m coming right now—. where?”

“She’s stable for now,” Lin said, but her voice cracked. “Just… get here. She was asking for you before she lost consciousness again.”

He was already signaling to the driver, heart hammering so hard he felt dizzy. “Tell her I’m coming. Tell her I love her. Fuck— tell her I’m sorry I didn’t come over last night.“

“Martin. Just get here.”

He hung up and told the taxi driver the adress.

It was hell. Martin sat in the back, leg bouncing, stomach twisting into knots. Guilt ate him alive. Why didn’t he go over last night? you said you were tired, but he should’ve known.He should’ve pushed. He should’ve been there to hold you.

He thought it was just homesickness. Stress. He thought this love was enough.

The driver weaved through traffic while Martin stared out the window, phone clutched so tight his knuckles were white. “Faster, please,” he begged. Tears pricked his eyes.

He arrived at the hospital in record time, throwing cash at the driver and bolting toward the entrance. The parking lot was chaotic —cars honking, people rushing, ambulances pulling in. His stomach ached worse now, sharp and nauseating, he felt like throwing up, like the world was ending and he was the only one who hadn’t seen it coming.

His phone rang again. Same number. Lin.

Martin answered instantly, voice cracking. “I’m here! I’m in the parking lot, almost inside. How is she? Can I see her? Tell her I’m coming—”

“Martin.” Lin’s voice was different this time. And it made him sick to his stomach. “Are you somewhere safe? Where are you right now?”

“I’m in the fucking parking lot!” he snapped, panic rising. “Why? What’s going on? Is she awake? Can I talk to her?”

There was a long, horrible pause. Time was a fucking traitor.

“Martin… you need to come inside. But I need you to breathe, okay?”

His legs felt weak. “Why are you saying that? Why? What the fuck is going on???”

Lin’s voice broke completely. “She… she passed away while you were on the way. The doctors tried everything. Her heart… it just gave out. I’m so sorry.”

The words hit like a truck.

Martin stopped dead in the middle of the parking lot. Cars honked around him. Someone shouted. He didn’t hear any of it.

“What?” His voice was small. Childlike. “What did you say?”

“She’s gone, Martin. I’m so sorry.”

The phone slipped in his grip but he caught it, squeezing it like a lifeline, the world spun. His stomach ache exploded into pure agony, his body dizzy, vision blurring.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no— that’s not— Stop.”

His knees buckled.

And oh, Martin felt like a kid again.

He dropped to his knees, the hard concrete scraping the caps, bits of dirt engraving into his skin until it felt raw. He dropped to his knees except this time it wasn’t to love you.

The phone still squeezed in his grip, his other hand clasped over his mouth- fingers molding itself to the shape of his lips. Lips that once caressed yours with such duplicity, eating at you until you were nothing but scraps of flesh.

Martin wanted— in that moment— to call his mom. He wanted to crawl back in her womb, forget all that had your name, forget he even had existed for the tiniest moment.

Maybe he would finally, finally, learn. Learn how not to feel so deeply- so painfully- maybe he’d finally be less of a man.

But the only thing he could do in that moment, was sit there until his knees bled into the ground, until maybe the wind erased the smell of you from his clothes.

Cars kept honking, someone asked if he was okay. He couldn’t answer. The phone had gone silent in his hand. The world kept moving around him —people rushing to appointments, families laughing, life continuing like his hadn’t just ended in a hospital parking lot.

Martin wanted to bargain. That was until his stomach pushed out everything he’d eaten that day, and he heaved on the ground like a wounded animal. You’d never know he was on his way to see you. He threw up again, food and a bit of his heart.

Martin remembered the way you used to steal the last bite of everything. Not in a greedy way. Never that. You’d push your plate toward him at the end of every meal, fork hovering with that one perfect remaining piece —whether it was the crispy edge of a dumpling, the last strawberry in a bowl of fruit, or the final spoonful of rice. “You have it,” you’d say, voice quiet but certain, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I saved it for you.”

Martin had teased you about it once, early on. “You always do that. Why?”

You had shrugged, looking almost embarrassed. “Because you eat like the food might disappear if you don’t enjoy it. I like watching you enjoy things.”

It was such a small thing. Stupidly human. Just you — thoughtful in the quietest ways, saving the best for someone else even when you were the one who needed it more. He had fallen a little harder every single time you did it. You were his silly silly girl, his beautiful precious girl.

But now that small habit haunted every meal he tried to eat.

You left fingerprints on every version of his future.

They were everywhere, in the way he reached for two mugs out of habit and had to set one down with shaking hands. In the empty side of the bed that still smelled like your shampoo. In the way he caught himself practicing mandarin phrases out loud, only to realize there was no point cause he’d learned it for you, only you.

Learning you were gone was the closest he’d felt to dying.

And now the apartment still expected you. So did he.

The hoodie you’d worn last time hung on the back of the chair, a half-empty bag of peanuts sat on the counter where he’d left it for you. The playlist you’d made together still queued up automatically every time he opened his laptop. He kept thinking he’d hear the door open, that soft sound of your footsteps, your voice saying “Hi, baby— no! ‘Fuck face’, i learned that new word today!”

You were supposed to outlive his bad habits, you were supposed to be the one who stayed when he got too emotional, when he cried at songs, when he overthought everything. Instead he was the one left behind, staring at the ceiling at 4 a.m., stomach aching with guilt and grief so heavy it felt physical.

A few days blurred into nothing.

Martin didn’t cry, not even once. The numbness had settled in deep, like frostbite that reached all the way to his bones, he barely moved from the couch. His company had issued a hiatus notice — “personal reasons” —and the members checked in constantly, but their voices sounded far far away. He answered texts with single words. Ate when someone forced food into his hands. Slept in fits and starts, waking up reaching for you.

He learned afterward that you’d been sick for a long time— longer than anyone had let him believe— longer than he’d been holding your hand without realizing how carefully you had been rationing your strength, how many smiles had cost you something, how many times you’d said you were just tired when your body had already been quietly losing a war.

Everyone seemed to brace themselves for his anger when they told him, as though betrayal was the only thing love could become after death. But he never felt betrayed, not even for a second.

What would have been the point? Whatever reasons had made you carry that weight alone had died with you, and he refused to drag them back into the light just so he could resent someone who wasn’t there to defend herself.

He never wanted to ask why you hadn’t told him, the question had nowhere to go. There would never be an answer that could change anything, never be a version of the truth that ended with you alive again.

Maybe you had been scared.

Maybe you had wanted one part of your life to remain untouched by hospitals and pity, maybe you had convinced yourself you were protecting him, maybe you hadn’t known how to say the words out loud without making them real. None of it mattered anymore.

Martin loved you before he knew, and he loved you after he knew.

He didn’t need an explanation. He didn’t need someone to blame. He only wished, with a grief so quiet it never stopped hurting, that for just one evening, just one impossible hour, you had let him be afraid with you instead of letting you be brave all by yourself.

Your friends had texted him about the funeral, he read the message three times before it sank in. Closed casket. Private ceremony. They thought it would be easier that way.

He got ready on autopilot. Black shirt, black pants. He stared at himself in the mirror for a long time, wondering if the person looking back was still the one you had kissed so gently in the studio.

The funeral was small.

He sat in the back, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles were white. Thank god the casket was closed. The thought made him feel like shit immediately — how could he be relieved not to see you? — but the other part of him ached with it.

He wanted to see his sweet girl one last time, the one who scrunched her nose when she was thinking hard— not the one who was gone.

Your friends and family spoke. Beautiful, painful words in mandarin and english. Stories about your laugh, your stubbornness, the way you poured everything into your work. He listened like a ghost haunting the edges of someone else’s life.

Then your aunt turned to him, eyes red but kind. “Martin? Would you like to say a few words?”

The room went quiet.

The boy stood up without thinking, legs carrying him to the front like they belonged to someone else. The paper in his pocket —the speech he hadn’t written —stayed blank. He gripped the edge of the podium, staring at the closed casket draped in white flowers.

For a long moment, he didn’t speak. He stood at the podium, hands gripping the edges like it was the only thing keeping him upright, no notes, no plan, just his heart cracking open in front of everyone.

"My sweet girl." His voice almost disappeared "You hated when I looked sad. So... this is awkward. But I just need to talk to you. Even if you can’t hear me anymore.”

Martin didn’t dare look at your casket— in hopes he’d find you to be anywhere but there.

“You… you remember the first time we met? I stood outside in that studio like a complete idiot and told you I’d learn mandarin so we could work together properly. You looked at me with that one eyebrow raised and said I couldn’t learn it in a short period of time. You were right.”

His voice shook, and broke.

“But I did, baby. I learned it. And now we finally speak the same language.”

His voice broke hard, a sob catching in his throat as fresh tears fell. He didn’t wipe them. “I’m so sorry, baby. I've been trying to remember our last conversation but I can’t. I remember your laugh, and… I remember what you were wearing, but I don’t— sorry. I don’t remember what i told you. I hope it was ‘I loved you’. I wish I could’ve learned your language earlier— cause maybe if I spoke it… then maybe I could’ve understood you better, maybe i could’ve loved you better.”

Martin’s voice shattered completely on the last words, shoulders shaking with deep, broken sobs he couldn’t hold back anymore.

“I found out afterward. I found out you’d been sick for so long, and… I didn’t even feel betrayed. Everyone keeps asking me if I’m angry that you never told me, and I’m not. I swear to God, I’m not”

“I just keep thinking about what it must’ve been like for you to wake up every morning already knowing something I didn’t. I’m wondering how many times you looked at me and decided, ‘Not today. I’ll let him be happy one more day.’”

His voice cracked again.

“You were protecting me.”

A tear slipped from his jaw.

“And that’s so unfair.”

Martin’s lips quivered. “Not because you lied to me. Because even while you were dying… you were still taking care of me.”

“You barely spoke my language when we met. Half our conversations were messy.” He gave a watery smile, “But somehow… you understood me better than people who’d known me for years.”

He looked down at his shaking hands.

“I used to think being understood was this like… huge miracle. Then I met you. And suddenly I wasn’t explaining myself anymore— I was just… existing. And you loved me there.”

His breathing faltered.

“I don’t know if you ever understood what that did to a person like me. To be loved by someone so precious— i’m sorry,” he choked on a sob, “By someone so smart and so creative. And I keep thinking about how you didn’t even realize it, like you thought you were just… existing, but you were doing so much more than that for everyone around you. Especially for me. And now I just don’t know how I’m supposed to unlearn what it felt like to be seen by you.”

His voice dissolved into tears. “So if theres a language that’s more appropriate for this… if you can hear me somewhere,”

He spoke the next words in Mandarin, slow, careful, with the same determination he’d had the first day he’d promised he’d learn.

“I love you. I loved you. I will keep loving you. Okay? You’re my girl.”

The room was silent, nobody spoke. He didn’t want to monopolise the funeral, so he retreated a bit.

"My sweet girl. I’m gonna leave now,” his voice shook, "I've never gone anywhere without making sure you were coming too. I don't really… know how to do this. So if you can...”

Martin closed his eyes, tears spilling out.

"wait for me a little, yeah?”

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · ·

Quick vocabulary :

Sixty-Four Squares: The chessboard

Open File: A clear lane used for a direct attack

Table One: The top board for the highest-ranked players

Swiss Rounds: A tournament format matching players with similar scores

Sicilian Defense: A famous, highly aggressive strategy

Notation: The code used to record moves

Tipping the King: Surrendering the game.

The scent of stale tobacco, damp wool coats, and heavy industrial pine floor wax always hung thick in the basement of the St. Jude Community Center. It was October of 1964, and the sharp autumn chill had driven the local chess circuit completely indoors. Outside, the historic streets of Cincinnati were slick under the heavy, flickering amber glow of the gas streetlamps, the rain coming down in steady, rhythmic sheets that drummed against the high, rectangular basement windows near the concrete ceiling.

Inside, the environment was a stark contrast of forced silence, thick humidity, and mental warfare. The only consistent sounds were the hollow, rhythmic thick of weighted wooden pieces meeting canvas boards, the low, gravelly muttering of older men over their wrinkled paper score sheets, and the occasional, sharp metallic click of a mechanical tournament clock resetting.

You adjusted the collar of your hand-knit green cardigan, keeping your eyes trained entirely on the sixty-four squares laid out in front of you. At seventeen, you had spent more than a decade navigating these crowded, low-ceilinged rooms. You knew the exact weight of a German-made Staunton king, the faint, maddening ticking of a mechanical clock, and the specific, dismissive way older men stared when a young Black woman sat down across from them in a tournament hall.

You were a prodigy, a quiet, immovable fixture of the local clubs since you were four years old, but you remained a deliberate outsider. You were an introvert in a world that demanded total psychological dominance, a loner by choice because keeping your distance kept the noise out.

You didn't join the idle chatter between tournament rounds. You didn't analyze your games with strangers over the pharmacy soda fountain. You simply played, won, and retreated instantly into your own mind. To you, the board was a beautiful sanctuary where the rules never changed, unlike the turbulent, rapidly shifting social landscape of the mid-1960s just outside the basement doors. On the board, every action had an equal, predictable reaction, and birthright meant nothing compared to the precision of a calculated strategy.

Across the table, A-na was chewing aggressively on the edge of her left thumb, her brow deeply furrowed over a badly fractured French Defense. You had beaten her in the finals of the city championship three months ago. A swift, brutal endgame that by all accounts should have made you bitter rivals. Instead, she had tracked you down at the corner soda fountain the next afternoon, bought you a cherry flavored soda, and demanded to know how you had seen the knight fork on move twenty-four.

She had been your only real friend ever since, the only person permitted to crack your carefully constructed perimeter. She was loud where you were quiet, social where you were isolated, but on the board, you spoke the exact same language.

"You're going to take my rook, aren't you?" A-na muttered, her voice incredibly low so as not to disturb the neighboring tables where the local masters were deep in calculation. She reached up to push her thick, black horn-rimmed glasses up the bridge of her nose, her eyes scanning the board with a mixture of dread and fascination. "Just do it quickly. Don't let me linger here in this position. It’s absolutely embarrassing."

"You left the long diagonal open," you said softly, your voice barely carrying across the table. "You rushed the castle because you wanted to escape the pressure in the center, but you didn't look at what you were leaving behind. You can't run away from tension on the board, A-na. You have to resolve it. If you try to hide your king without securing the files, the whole structure collapses. Look at your light squares."

Before you could reach for your wooden bishop to finalize the capture and end her misery, a loud burst of laughter erupted from the heavy wooden entryway of the basement. It was a disruptive, confident sound, entirely out of place in a room dedicated to silent, agonizing calculation. You didn't look up immediately, maintaining your strict, disciplined posture, but A-na did, her fountain pen pausing mid-air over her paper score sheet.

Two boys had walked in, shaking the heavy Ohio rain from their thick collegiate jackets. The louder, more animated one was Keohno, a local junior known more for his sharp wardrobe, Ivy League styling, and quick mouth than his actual chess ratings. He was currently making a show of wiping the rainwater from his leather loafers, gesturing wildly to the older men at the registration desk. But it was the boy standing completely motionless beside him who drew the room's sudden, guarded attention.

His name was Eom Seonghyeon.

He had moved to the school district over the summer, and whispered rumors had already begun to circulate through the high school leagues like wildfire. They said he had picked up the game less than a year ago after finding an old book in his grandfather's house. They said he was a freak of nature, a geometric genius who saw the board not as a series of historical plays or memorized book lines, but as pure, cold numbers. He was already defeating established club players without ever looking at a traditional opening manual.

Seonghyeon didn't look like the traditional, anxious intellectuals who frequented St. Jude. He carried himself with a quiet, deliberate composure that bordered on chilling. His dark hair was neatly parted in the clean-cut style of the mid-sixties, his dark wool coat tailored perfectly to his tall frame, his eyes scanning the room with a cold, analytical precision that felt entirely clinical. He didn't look nervous about entering a room full of veterans; he looked like an auditor checking an inventory. He was completely detached from Keohno’s loud antics, his hands tucked into his pockets as his gaze slowly swept across the rows of tables.

You finally raised your eyes from the board, catching Seonghyeon's gaze just as he looked toward the back of the hall. For a brief, sharp second, his dark eyes locked onto yours. There was no warmth in them, no polite nod of acknowledgment, no teenage awkwardness. Only the intense, calculating look of a player assessing a new variable in a complex equation. He looked at you the way he looked at the pieces: with an absolute desire to find the underlying logic.

You didn't blink. You didn't shift in your seat or offer a polite smile. You simply met his stare with the unshakeable confidence of someone who had ruled this basement for years. Slowly, without breaking eye contact with Eom Seonghyeon, you reached down, lifted your wooden bishop, and placed it firmly onto the canvas board. You captured A-na’s rook with a decisive, echoing click that cut right through the low hum of the basement, announcing your presence without saying a single word.

The high school cafeteria was a battlefield of a different kind, a cavernous, high-ceilinged room loud with the chaotic clatter of plastic trays, the metallic hum of the vending machines, and the latest Motown hits fading out from a portable transistor radio perched precariously near the courtyard windows. The air was thick and heavy, smelling of overcooked green beans, institutional floor wax, and cheap hairspray.

You sat at the very end of the long, scratched wooden table near the back exit, a paperback book on endgame theory propped securely against your half-empty milk carton, effectively building a physical wall between yourself and the rest of the student body. The social hierarchy of 1964 was rigid and entirely unforgiving, but you bypassed its labyrinthine rules completely by choosing to remain entirely invisible to the naked eye.

A-na dropped her heavy plastic tray across from you, the sudden, jarring scent of the Thursday hot lunch breaking your deep concentration. "He's doing it again," she said without any preamble, nodding her head subtly toward the center of the crowded room where the noise was loudest.

You looked over the top of your book, keeping your expression completely neutral to mask the sudden curiosity blooming in your chest. Seonghyeon was sitting with Keohno and a few members of the varsity track team. While Keohno was animatedly gesturing about a rare jazz record he had bought over the weekend at a downtown shop, Seonghyeon was entirely detached from the conversation swirling around him. He had a small plastic pocket chess set resting flat on the Formica table, his long, pale fingers tracing the sharp edge of a black rook. He wasn't eating his lunch.

He was staring at the miniature pieces as if the crowded, shouting room around him didn't exist at all. He moved a pawn, captured a knight, and reset the entire board within seconds, his movements mechanical, fluid, and incredibly fast, completely oblivious to the social scripts of high school life.

"He's incredibly strange," A-na remarked, breaking a piece of white bread precisely in half. "He doesn't talk to anyone outside of Keohno. When people try to congratulate him on his weekend wins at the St. Jude club, he just stares at them blankly until they get uncomfortable and walk away. It's like he doesn't understand the social script everyone else is reading. He doesn't even know who the Beatles are, Keohno told me this morning during homeroom."

"He's just calculating," you said, deliberately returning your gaze to the small, printed text of your endgame book. "People are unpredictable, A-na. Their expressions change without warning, their motives aren't clear, and they break social rules without any notice. The board isn't like that. It follows absolute, mathematical laws. It makes perfect sense that he prefers it to a crowded cafeteria."

"You two should get along beautifully then," A-na teased, though her voice carried a protective, affectionate edge. She knew how much you fiercely guarded your solitude, how hard it was for anyone to break through your perimeter.

Later that afternoon, the autumn rain returned in heavy, dark sheets, turning the Ohio sky a deep, bruised gray against the brick facade of the school building. You stayed late in the library, waiting for the downpour to slow down so you wouldn't ruin your delicate notation notebooks on the long walk to the bus stop.

When you finally walked down the main stairwell toward the exit, the building was largely empty, the overhead lights dimmed in the long, linoleum corridors. You found Seonghyeon standing completely still under the concrete awning of the double exit doors, staring out at the heavy water hitting the black asphalt of the parking lot.

He didn't have an umbrella, a raincoat, or a hat. His hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his dark school trousers, his shoulders slightly tense against the damp, biting chill of the autumn wind.

You stopped a few feet away from him, opening your own large black umbrella with a sharp, echoing snap that broke the silence of the evening. The sudden noise made him turn his head slowly, his dark eyes fixing on you with that same clinical, unblinking intensity you had witnessed from across the tournament hall at the community center. Up close, his expression was entirely unreadable as if a wall of absolute composure that felt impossible to crack with normal conversation.

"The crosstown bus is running late because of the weather," you said, the words slipping out of your mouth before you could actively stop them. It was a rare, strange impulse for you to speak first to anyone, let alone a boy who had been silently analyzing your presence across tournament rooms for weeks.

Seonghyeon looked at you, his dark eyes dropping down to the worn chess book peeking out from the top of your canvas satchel, before returning to your face. "The Nimzo-Indian defense you played against Louis last Thursday night was fundamentally flawed," he said. His voice was completely level, devoid of any malice, arrogance, or teenage posturing, stating it merely as an objective mistake he had cataloged in his mind. "You pushed the c-pawn two moves too early. You compromised your entire center for a temporary tactical advantage on the queenside."

You felt a sudden, sharp prickle of irritation flare hot in your chest. You had won that match in twenty-eight moves, completely outplaying Louis’s endgame with precise calculation. "It wasn't flawed. It was a deliberate provocation. Louis handles central tension poorly, so I intentionally gave him a target to make him miscalculate his positioning. I knew he would overextend his pawns."

"It was an unnecessary risk," Seonghyeon replied, turning his gaze back to the gray sheets of rain falling over the streetlamps. "A stronger player wouldn't have panicked at the provocation. They would have punished the empty space you left behind. You shouldn't rely on your opponent's weakness to justify a fundamentally bad move."

He didn't wait for your reply, nor did he look back to see your reaction. He stepped out from under the safety of the concrete awning, his head down as he walked directly into the heavy downpour toward the street, his dark wool jacket soaking through instantly. He left you standing entirely alone on the concrete steps, your fingers tightening tightly around the curved handle of your umbrella, your jaw set in pure, quiet frustration at his absolute certainty.

The invisible tension between absolute predictability and unpredictable chaos completely defined the next two weeks of the cold autumn term. Everywhere you went within the crowded school, Seonghyeon’s quiet presence seemed to loom like a heavy shadow over the local high school chess circuit. At the Saturday invitationals hosted in the nearby high school gyms, he climbed the regional ranks with an unsettling, aggressive speed that terrified the older, seasoned club regulars.

His style was entirely unlike the traditional players who relied on decades of memorized book openings from old, translated Russian manuals. Eom Seonghyeon played with a raw, geometric logic that felt almost architectural, systematically stripping his opponents of their tactical options until they were forced to resign out of sheer mental exhaustion. He didn't look for clever traps, he simply created suffocating, inescapable positions.

You watched his matches from a disciplined distance, standing quietly by the heavy wooden coat racks while A-na analyzed her own messy score sheets with a pencil. Because you were a natural observer, you noticed the small, microscopic things that the loud spectators completely missed. You noticed the way he never offered a handshake until his opponent initiated it, as if intentionally avoiding any unnecessary human contact.

You noticed the way his fingers hovered barely a millimeter over a piece before he moved it, never showing a single hint of hesitation, doubt, or second-guessing. He was a perfect machine, but you knew from your years of experience that even the most complex machines could be jammed if you introduced a human anomaly into their rigid programming.

"He's officially entered the regional tournament in December," A-na told you as you walked home from the public library one chilly Friday evening, the air crisp enough to show your breath in small white puffs under the flickering streetlamps. The distant radio from a passing Chevrolet played a smooth jazz tune, the heavy bass notes vibrating faintly through the cold concrete sidewalk beneath your loafers. "Keohno says Sean is spending eight hours a day on the canvas board after his homework is finished. He’s completely obsessed with perfecting his lines."

"Sean?" you repeated, the Westernized nickname feeling entirely unfamiliar, sharp, and heavy on your tongue.

"That's what Keohno calls him around the school. It's much easier for the regional club directors to announce during the Swiss-system pairings, apparently." A-na sighed softly, adjusting the thick wool scarf wrapped around her neck. "He's going to completely clear out the local bracket, you know. The only person in this entire city who can actually stall his pawn structure or disrupt his tempo is you. Everyone else in the league is completely afraid of his calculation speed."

You didn't answer her immediately. The mere thought of facing him across a tournament table made your pulse quicken behind your ribs. Not out of a sense of fear, but out of a profound, stubborn desire to prove his clinical analysis wrong. He thought your creative play was risky and overly emotional. You thought his play was sterile, completely devoid of the human element that made chess a beautiful art form rather than a computer's cold calculation. You wanted to force him into a complex position where pure logic failed him, where he would have to rely on intuition alone.

The following Monday afternoon, a crisp white envelope was waiting for you on the wooden sign-in desk at the St. Jude chess club. Your full name was written on the front in a precise, sharp, angular handwriting that utilized thick black ink. Inside the envelope was a single, folded sheet of notebook paper with a list of chess notation coordinates and a specific time written at the very bottom: Tuesday, 4:00 PM. The library basement archive.

There was no signature on the paper, but you recognized the sharp handwriting instantly from the school bulletin boards. It was a direct challenge, entirely stripped of all polite preamble or teenage small talk.

"Are you actually going to meet him?" A-na asked, leaning over your shoulder to read the handwritten numbers as you stared at the paper.

"It's an analysis session," you said, your voice remaining perfectly steady despite the sudden, uncharacteristic warmth blooming in your cheeks. "He wants to see exactly how I think when there isn't a tournament clock forcing my hand. He wants to see if my strategic choices are truly as reckless as he claims they are."

"Don't let him get under your skin," she warned softly, her eyes serious as she looked at you through her horn-rimmed glasses. "He doesn't play the game like the rest of us do. Keohno says Sean views every single person in that tournament room as a complex puzzle to be solved, categorized, and discarded. Don't let him discard you."

You folded the thick paper carefully along its creases and slipped it deep into the pocket of your knit cardigan. "A puzzle can be disassembled from both sides, A-na. Let's see who gets broken down first."

The library basement archive was a subterranean vault that smelled of damp limestone, decaying leather bindings from the late nineteenth century, and the faint, sweet chemical tang of old newspaper microfilm. It was a space entirely removed from the high school’s social static above, reachable only by a narrow concrete stairwell hidden behind the foreign language stacks.

A single brown-shaded banker’s lamp sat at the center of a heavy oak table, casting a sharp, localized pool of amber light over a walnut-and-maple tournament board. Eom Seonghyeon was already seated when you arrived, his wool coat draped perfectly over the back of his chair, his hands resting flat against the table with the absolute precision of a surveyor waiting for an alignment.

The heels of your loafers clicked with a lonely, hollow resonance against the unpolished concrete floor as you walked into the room. You didn't offer a greeting, nor did he look up to acknowledge your entry. You slid into the heavy oak chair opposite him, placing your canvas satchel onto the floor beside your feet. The white pieces were on his side of the board while the black pieces sat in perfect, motionless ranks on yours. The silence between you grew dense, filled only by the low, industrial thrum of the school’s distant furnace kicking to life somewhere deep within the concrete walls.

"You're exactly three minutes late," Seonghyeon said. His voice was flat, level, and entirely devoid of accusation, stating it merely as an observed deviation from a schedule. He didn't look at your face as his eyes remained fixed on the white e-pawn.

"The hallway near the chemistry wing was blocked by the janitor's cart," you replied, your voice matching his flat tone. You reached out, adjusting your knit cardigan slightly, keeping your posture deliberate and straight. "We can begin."

Without another word, his long, pale fingers pinched the king’s pawn, lifting it smoothly and placing it onto the e4 square with a firm, solid thick. The classical opening. It was the move of a player who expected standard development, structured responses, and a logical progression of geometric territory. You didn't hesitate. Your hand moved to your c-pawn, sliding it forward to c5. The Sicilian Defense. It was an immediate declaration of asymmetry, a refusal to give him the clean, predictable lines he preferred.

For the next twenty moves, the basement archive became an echoless chamber of rhythmic clicking. White knights developed to f3, black pawns claimed the center, pieces were traded and set aside on the rough wood of the table with mechanical finality. Seonghyeon’s play was an exhibition of cold, architectural logic. He didn't look for flashy sacrifices or dramatic tactical traps. He instead, squeezed the board, systematically stripping away your options, trying to reduce your perimeter until you were forced into a passive defense. His movements were swift, his calculations seemingly instantaneous, his breathing shallow and regular.

But you had been navigating these sixty-four squares since you were four years old, studying under the flickering lights of small-town recreation centers while the world outside ignored your existence. You knew that pure logic was a construction, and every construction had a point of stress where the human element could force a fracture.

On move twenty-two, you found the fracture. You lifted your light-squared bishop, bypassed the obvious defensive line that would have secured your queenside, and placed it on a square that left it entirely exposed to his advanced knight. It was a positional sacrifice. A chaotic one, deeply counter-intuitive move that defied standard endgame theory but altered the psychological balance of the game completely.

Seonghyeon’s hand, which had been hovering over his white rook, stopped mid-air. His fingers remained perfectly suspended, a fraction of an inch above the wood, for ten seconds. Then twenty. The mechanical regularity of his play vanished. Slowly, his head rose, his dark eyes lifting from the board to lock onto yours for the first time since you had sat down. There was no anger in his expression. Only a deep, intense focus that felt heavy, almost physical, crossing the small space between you.

"That's an error," he said, his voice dropping an octave, the cold composure of his tone wavering slightly. "You lose material in four variations. The pawn structure is ruined."

"It's only an error if you assume I want to save the bishop," you said softly, leaning back slightly in your chair, keeping your hands folded in your lap. "You're looking at the material, Sean. You aren't looking at the space behind it. You're waiting for me to play the manual, but I'm talking to you. And you aren't listening." Your head tilting to the left in the slightest way.

The sudden use of his nickname, the one Keohno used to make him sound accessible to the club directors caused his jaw to tighten. A small, faint pulse throbbed at the side of his neck. He looked back down at the board, his eyes scanning the squares with a rapid, frantic motion that you hadn't seen from him before. The neat, clean lines of his calculation had been contaminated by a variable he couldn't quantify: your willingness to invite chaos.

He didn't take the bishop. Instead, after another long minute of silent tension, he moved his queen back into a defensive retreat, a concession that ruined his center and allowed your black pieces to flood the open diagonals.

The match ended twenty minutes later in a draw by repetition, both of you locked in an unbreakable cycle of checks and blocks that neither could abandon without losing. As you reached down to place your notation book into your satchel, Seonghyeon remained motionless, his hands gripping the edge of the table, his eyes burning into the empty, tied squares as if trying to force the wood to reveal the exact moment his logic had failed him.

By the middle of November, the last of the wet maple leaves had turned to black sludge along the concrete curbs of Cincinnati, and the morning air carried the sharp, metallic smell of impending snow. The television sets in the shop windows downtown showed grainy, black-and-white footage of political rallies and interviews about the space program, but within the heavy brick walls of the high school, the outside world was entirely eclipsed by the approach of the tri-state winter invitational.

The relationship between you and Seonghyeon had entered a phase of constant friction. You no longer occupied separate universes. But instead, an unspoken, magnetic awareness had developed between you. If you were working in the back row of the study hall, you could feel his presence three tables over, his head down over a physics textbook but his profile turned slightly toward your section of the room. In the crowded corridors between periods, amid the slam of metal lockers and the blare of pop music from portable radios, your eyes would inevitably find his through the sea of wool coats. It was a silent, daily war of observation.

"He's completely stopped reviewing his own matches," A-na told you on a cold Thursday afternoon. You were sitting in the back corner of the local library's reference section, a radiator hissing loudly beside your chair. A-na adjusted her thick glasses, leaning over a stack of high school tournament records. "Keohno told me Sean spent his entire Wednesday evening in the dark room at their house, looking through old newspaper clippings of the 1961 junior championship in Chicago. Your championship."

You didn't look up from your notebook, though your pen paused for a fraction of a second over a line of notation. "He's looking for a pattern. He thinks everything has a formula."

"It's driving him crazy because you don't have one," A-na said, her voice dropping to a protective whisper. She looked at you with a serious, maternal intensity that had defined your friendship since the day you had dismantled her French Defense. "He knows exactly when everyone else will break. He knows Louis will panic under time pressure and he knows Keohno will make a bad trade just to look flashy for the spectators. But you? He can't predict your choices, and it's making him look at you like you're the only real thing in the building."

"I am real," you said quietly, finally closing the book. "He just doesn't know how to look at people without a grid."

That evening, the school building had emptied out early due to a district-wide teachers' meeting, leaving the long corridors dark and silent. You had stayed late in the journalism office to finish a proofreading assignment, and your loafers made an echoing, solitary sound against the polished linoleum as you walked toward the senior locker bay. The yellow twilight was fading outside the high, industrial windows, casting long, geometric shadows across the floor.

Seonghyeon was standing by your locker, his tall frame leaning back against the painted metal door, his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his dark trousers. A copy of a British chess quarterly was rolled up tightly in his right hand. He didn't shift his weight when you approached; he simply watched you walk down the hall, his eyes steady and unblinking.

"The tournament committee posted the final brackets on the main bulletin board before the office closed," he said. His voice was quiet, the lack of ambient noise in the hallway making it sound deeper, more intimate than usual.

"I saw them," you said, stopping two feet away from him. The distance was close enough that you could smell the cold air still clinging to his wool jacket, mixed with the faint scent of cedar tobacco from his grandfather’s house. "We're on opposite sides of the draw."

"If we both win our preliminary matches, we meet in the semifinals on Saturday morning at Table One," he continued, his eyes remaining fixed on your face, refusing to allow you to retreat into your usual polite distance. "There won't be a draw by repetition this time. The regional rules state that any match ending in a draw before move forty must be replayed with halved time on the clocks."

"I don't intend to draw with you again, Sean," you said, looking up to meet his gaze directly. The small space between you felt heavy with a sudden, sharp intensity that had nothing to do with the tournament brackets.

A tiny, almost imperceptible shift occurred in his expression. Like a faint tightening of his lower jaw that you had come to recognize as his definition of total focus. "Good," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to linger in the empty corridor long after he turned and walked toward the exit doors, leaving you alone in the dimming light.

The tri-state winter tournament was held in the grand ballroom of the historic Gibson Hotel downtown. A massive, fading monument to the previous century, with soaring ceilings decorated with peeling gold leaf, massive crystal chandeliers that creaked faintly in the constant winter draft, and long rows of folding tables draped in heavy white linen.

The atmosphere inside was thick and suffocating, a dense fog of tobacco smoke from the spectators, the smell of wet wool coats drying near the floor vents, and the bitter tang of stale coffee from the large metal urns positioned at the back of the hall. Flashbulbs from the local newspaper photographers exploded occasionally, leaving temporary green and purple spots dancing in your eyes.

You dispatched your first three opponents with a cold, systematic efficiency that surprised even A-na. You weren't playing with your usual quiet patience or gentle restraint. Your mind was entirely fixed on the raised wooden stage at the front of the room, where Table One sat isolated behind a thick, dark red velvet rope. You played with an aggressive, unyielding edge, forcing mistakes early and executing your endgames without a single moment of hesitation.

Every time you finished a match and signed your score sheet, your eyes would look toward the large master chalkboard on the wall. Seonghyeon’s name was written at the top of the bracket in bold, white chalk, with three consecutive 'W's marked beside it. His matches had been short but brutal, thirty-move executions that left his opponents sitting at their tables looking completely hollowed out.

Yet, whenever he finished a round, he didn't join Keohno and the other boys at the hotel soda fountain to celebrate. He remained in his chair on the stage, his body turned slightly toward the back of the room, his dark eyes tracking your movements through the dense crowd of spectators.

During the Friday evening intermission, the heat inside the ballroom became unbearable, the air thick with the collective anxiety of fifty competitive players. You retreated to the hotel's mezzanine balcony, a long, carpeted gallery that overlooked the main lobby below. The noise of the crowd faded into a distant hum here, replaced by the soft ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner. You leaned your hands against the red velvet railing, staring down at the hotel guests moving across the marble floor.

"You're giving too much ground against the Caro-Kann," a familiar voice said from the dim space behind you.

You didn't turn around immediately, your fingers tightening slightly against the velvet of the railing. Seonghyeon walked out of the shadows, his hands tucked into his trousers pockets, his white dress shirt crisp and bright under the light of the mezzanine sconces. He stood a foot away from you, his shoulder nearly brushing yours as he looked out over the lobby.

"It's called positional restraint, Sean," you said, keeping your eyes on the scene below. "I'm allowing them to exhaust their tactical options before I take the center."

"It's hesitation," he countered, turning his head to study your profile with an unblinking, analytical gaze. "You're waiting for them to commit a mistake instead of forcing them into one. Against a master, that restraint will just give them time to organize their pawn structure. Against me, it won't work. I don't get tired when the clock is running down."

"Good for you I guess?” Your voice trailed off. “Everyone has a breaking point," you said, finally turning your head to face him fully. The light from the chandelier caught the sharp, angular line of his jaw and the dark intensity of his eyes, making him look older, further removed from the high school world you shared. "Even you. You've just never been pushed hard enough to find where your seams are. You've never had to play when you're afraid of losing."

"Then push me," he said. The words were quiet, spoken with a raw, unshielded directness that had nothing to do with the tournament or the pieces on the board. He didn't move away, he simply stood his ground, his eyes locking onto yours with a challenging, heavy intensity that left the entire ballroom behind them in the dark.

Saturday morning arrived with a bitter, crystalline frost that coated the grand windows of the Gibson Hotel in intricate, web-like patterns, completely obscuring the downtown Cincinnati streets below. Inside the grand ballroom, the air was heavy with the collective nervous energy of the remaining players and the sharp, metallic smell of old cast-iron radiators working at full capacity.

The room was packed to the walls with spectators, their hushed, low whispers creating a vibrating hum that made the crystal pendants of the chandeliers tremble faintly in the constant winter draft. Table One was elevated above the rest of the room on a raised wooden stage, completely isolated behind a thick, dark red velvet rope that kept the pressing crowd at a disciplined distance.

You sat down in the heavy upholstered chair at the table, taking a slow, steadying breath to calm the rhythm of your pulse. You smoothed the skirt of your dark dress, ensuring your printed paper score sheet and your fountain pen were aligned perfectly parallel with the edge of the polished mahogany wood. A second later, Eom Seonghyeon ascended the wooden steps and took his seat across from you. He looked slightly pale under the harsh spotlight, the faint dark circles under his eyes suggesting he had spent the entire night pacing his room, analyzing your past games. Yet, his posture was completely rigid, his shoulders square beneath his tailored dark suit.

He didn't look at the crowd, nor did he look at Keohno, who was watching anxiously from the front row. He looked only at the board, and then, for a brief, heavy second, he raised his dark eyes to lock onto yours.

The tournament director stepped forward between you, checking a silver pocket watch. Without a word, he reached down and pressed the button on the mechanical tournament clock with a sharp, heavy click. He stepped back into the shadows of the stage, leaving the two of you alone within the perimeter of the board.

Seonghyeon reached out, his long fingers steady and deliberate, and moved his queen's pawn to d4. You responded immediately, sliding your knight to f6, establishing the Indian Defense.

The match progressed with an agonizingly slow, rhythmic pace that tested the patience of everyone in the room. For the first two hours, the board remained entirely balanced. Neither of you gained a single piece of material advantage; instead, it was a war of positioning, a slow, suffocating constriction of territory where every single pawn advancement felt like a monumental psychological decision. The spectators pressed closer against the velvet rope, their breath almost visible in the chilly room as they watched the intricate geometric web unfold across the wood.

You could feel the physical heat of his concentration across the table. Every time you moved your hand toward a piece, his dark eyes followed your fingers, tracking the motion with an intensity that made your skin prickle under the fabric of your dress. It wasn't the distant, clinical Seonghyeon from the school cafeteria anymore.

This was a boy who was acutely, painfully aware of your presence. He wasn't just calculating the mathematical variations of the pieces; he was reacting to the subtle cadence of your breathing, trying to map the hidden patterns of your mind.

On move thirty-two, you decided to break the structural harmony he was trying to force. You lifted your queen's rook, bypassing the standard defensive lines laid out in the old manuals, and advanced it to an open central file, a dangerous, highly unconventional rook lift that completely violated classical positioning but created an unpredictable, chaotic imbalance in the very center of the board.

Seonghyeon stopped. His hand, which had been hovering over his white bishop, froze mid-air. He stared at the board, his chest rising and falling in shallow, quick breaths as his mind frantically tried to recalculate a scenario that didn't exist in any of his grandfather's books. Slowly, he raised his head to look at you, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and a quiet, intense focus that made the entire ballroom disappear.

The clock was ticking loudly between you, the small red flag hanging precariously near the hour mark. He had less than three minutes left on his side to find a response to an endgame he had never trained for.

The pressure within the grand ballroom was suffocating, the air thick with the scent of cheap hotel coffee and old tobacco smoke. Keohno was standing near the back corner of the stage, his usual easy, confident smile completely gone, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as he watched his best friend struggle for the first time since picking up a chess piece. A-na was gripping the wooden railing of the stage, her knuckles white, her eyes darting anxiously between your face and the complex layout of the board.

Seonghyeon’s fingers trembled slightly as he finally reached for his queen. It was a tiny, almost imperceptible movement, but to you, it was a seismic shift in the match. The unshakeable genius had a flaw, and it was fracturing under the weight of your defense.

He made his move, placing the queen on an aggressive diagonal that threatened your king, but the choice left his back rank completely exposed to a counterattack. It was a move born out of sudden desperation, a frantic attempt to force you into a hasty, panicked retreat because he could no longer calculate the infinite variations of the center under the pressure of the clock.

You looked down at the mechanical timer. You had exactly four minutes remaining on your side.

Instead of retreating your pieces or playing a safe, defensive line to secure a draw, you leaned forward over the polished wood of the table, your eyes meeting his. You didn't look down at the board. Instead, you looked directly into his eyes, forcing him to face you without the armor of his calculations. "You're running out of time, Sean," you whispered, the words barely a breath across the space between you.

He didn't look away. The silence between you stretched, heavy and thick with an unspoken understanding that bypassed the tournament rules entirely. He knew what you were about to do. He knew that the line he had chosen was a trap, and that you had seen through it before he had even lifted the piece from the velvet wrapper.

You reached out, your fingers deliberate and steady, and slid your knight to f3. "Check," you said softly.

The referee moved closer to the table, his eyes fixed on the board. Seonghyeon looked down at the pieces, then back up at you. The sharp, analytical wall he had built around himself for months seemed to shatter completely, leaving him looking vulnerable in a way that made your heart skip a beat against your ribs.

He didn't move his king to escape the check. Instead, with a slow, deliberate motion, he reached out his long fingers and gently tipped his own wooden king onto its side against the green felt.

"I resign," he said, his voice quiet but completely steady.

The grand ballroom erupted into a low, chaotic chatter as the spectators began to wildly discuss the massive upset. A-na rushed forward onto the stage, wrapping her arms around your shoulders in a breathless, laughing hug, while Keohno moved quickly to Seonghyeon’s side, talking rapidly and clapping him on the back with a look of total disbelief.

But you caught none of the noise. Your eyes were fixed entirely on Seonghyeon as he stood up from the table. He didn't look angry. No, he looked completely consumed by a private, heavy thought. He caught your eye through the sudden crowd of reporters and local club directors, gave a single, respectful nod, and walked out the side doors of the ballroom into the cold winter air.

An hour later, after the formal trophy presentation and the polite, empty handshakes with the tournament directors, you managed to slip away from A-na and the lingering crowd. You walked down the quiet service hallway toward the back exit of the hotel, where the delivery trucks parked in the snow.

Seonghyeon was sitting on a cold concrete step, his heavy coat unbuttoned, staring intensely at a small pocket chess set balanced on his knee. The snow had begun to fall again, small white flakes drifting down onto his dark hair and his shoulders.

You walked down the steps and stood beside him, the cold metal of your regional trophy heavy in your hand.

"You should be inside," you said, your breath misting in the air between you. "It's freezing out here."

"I was replaying move thirty-five," he said, not looking up from the tiny plastic pieces. "If I had moved the bishop to e3 instead of the queen, I could have forced a perpetual check. I could have saved the match."

"No," you said, sitting down on the concrete step next to him, ignoring the chill of the stone against your skirt. "I had the g-pawn protected from the back rank. You would have lost the knight three moves later anyway. Your calculation forgot that my pieces can move backward too."

He paused, his fingers resting on the tiny plastic king. He slowly turned his head to look at you, the distance between your faces shrinking to mere inches in the cold twilight. The winter air was crisp between you, smelling of pine and exhaust, and for the first time, the space between you felt completely unburdened by the game.

"You see everything, don't you?" he asked, his voice soft, completely stripped of all the defensive armor he usually wore at school.

"Only when I'm paying attention, Sean," you replied, looking at his mouth before returning to his eyes.

The Monday following the tournament brought a fierce, blinding blizzard that completely shut down the city of Cincinnati, burying the streets under ten inches of dense, white snow and canceling classes for the entire week. The silence that settled over the neighborhood was absolute, a heavy blanket that muted the usual industrial roar of the city. Inside your house, the radiators hissed and rattled, keeping the small living room warm while you sat by the window, staring at the empty street.

The quiet was broken by a soft, hesitant knock at the front door. When you opened it, you found Seonghyeon standing on the porch, his face flushed red from the biting wind, snow clinging to the thick wool of his collar and eyebrows. He had a heavy leather satchel slung over his shoulder, and his breath came out in short, rapid white clouds.

"The library is closed," he said by way of explanation, his voice slightly rough from the cold. "And my house is too loud. Keohno is staying with us until the roads are cleared."

You stared at him for a second, surprised by his sudden appearance on your doorstep, before stepping aside to let him into the warm hallway. "Come inside before you freeze, Sean." You did not even bother to wonder how the hell he got your home address.

He stepped in, carefully stomping the snow off his boots onto the rubber mat, his movements carrying that same meticulous, deliberate care he used when aligning his pieces on a chessboard. He pulled off his heavy coat and followed you into the small dining room, where a low amber lamp cast a warm glow over the wooden table.

Without a word of small talk, he opened his satchel and pulled out a thick, leather-bound notebook. When he opened it, you saw rows upon rows of neat, handwritten chess analysis, interspersed with complex geometric diagrams and mathematical formulas that looked entirely foreign compared to standard chess notation.

"This is how I see the board," he said, pushing the notebook toward you as he sat down across the table. "It's not about historical games or memorized book lines for me. It's about force vectors and spatial control. But against you, the equations keep breaking."

You leaned forward, your fingers tracing the sharp, angular lines of his handwriting. Looking at his notes was weirdly intimate. It was like looking directly into his mind. A place of absolute order, beauty, and immense loneliness. You realized then that his cold detachment wasn't a sign of arrogance rather a shield he used to protect a mind that felt everything too intensely.

"You're trying to calculate human intuition, Sean," you said softly, looking up from the notebook to meet his dark eyes. "You can't write a formula for the way a person feels when they look at a position. Sometimes, a move just feels right because of the tension in the room, not because the math adds up."

He looked at you, his gaze shifting from your eyes down to your hands resting on the table, then back up again. The space between you across the small wooden table felt incredibly small, the heat from the radiator making the room feel dense and intimate.

"So show me," he whispered, his voice dropping into a quiet register that made your heart skip a beat. "Show me how you see it without the math."

You pulled a wooden chess set from the shelf and began setting up the pieces between you, your fingers brushing against his as you both worked to fill the squares. The contact was brief, but it left a lingering warmth that made the winter storm outside disappear completely.

By the third day of the snowstorm, the city's main roads remained mostly impassable, leaving the high school completely dark and the local recreation centers locked up tight. The deep freeze had turned the snow into a hard, glittering crust that crunched sharply under your boots as you walked toward the public library. It was the only municipal building downtown that had managed to open its doors, operating on a skeleton crew of neighborhood volunteers who spent their time tending to the massive coal furnace in the basement.

You shook the white powder from your knit hat as you stepped into the main foyer. The air inside was heavy with the comforting, dusty scent of old paper and wood polish. The grand reading rooms were entirely empty, the long oak tables stretching out in silent rows under the high, frosted windows.

You found Seonghyeon tucked away in the very back corner of the history stacks, sitting on the floor with his back against a shelf of heavy encyclopedia volumes. He had a small wooden traveling set resting between his legs, his fingers hovering over a complex middle-game position.

"I knew you'd come here," he said without looking up, his voice low and raspy from the cold air he had walked through to get here.

"A-na said you were planning to stay at the club house, but I knew they didn't have the heating on," you replied, sliding your canvas satchel off your shoulder and dropping it onto the floorboards. You sat down cross-legged directly across from him, the space between your knees barely spanning a few inches over the tiny wooden board.

For the first hour, neither of you spoke a word. You simply took turns moving the miniature pieces, playing through a series of tactical exercises from an old Soviet quarterly. But the dynamic had changed entirely since your match at the hotel. There was no aggressive snapping of the pieces, no cold calculations meant to intimidate. Instead, the movements were gentle, exploratory, and strangely synchronized. Your hand would retreat from a square, and his would immediately take its place, his long fingers moving with a fluid grace that felt almost conversational.

As the afternoon light began to wane, casting long, pale blue shadows across the library floor, Seonghyeon reached out to capture your knight. His knuckles brushed against the back of your hand. A sudden, electric point of contact that made the quiet of the empty library feel incredibly dense.

He didn't pull his hand away this time. His dark eyes rose slowly, meeting yours with an unshielded intensity that made your breath catch in your throat.

"I've been replaying our semifinal match every night," he whispered, his voice steady but carrying a vulnerability you had never heard from him before. "And I realized something. I wasn't frustrated because I lost the position."

"Then why were you frustrated, Sean?" you asked softly, your heart beating in a quick, heavy rhythm against your ribs.

"Because for the first time in my life, I wasn't looking at the board to find the next move," he said, his fingers sliding slightly over yours, his palm warm and solid against your skin. "I was looking at it to see when you would look back at me."

The raw sincerity of his words shattered the last of your carefully constructed defenses. For years, you had used the rules of the game to keep the rest of the world at a safe distance, believing that isolation was the only way to protect your gift. But looking at Seonghyeon now, his face illuminated by the pale winter twilight filtering through the high windows, you realized that the board wasn't a wall meant to keep people out. It was a bridge that had finally brought you exactly where you needed to be.

The snow began to turn to a fine, icy mist by Friday morning, glazing the brick facades of the city in a clear, fragile shell. Inside the St. Jude basement, the regular club members had slowly returned, their heavy boots tracking slush onto the linoleum floors. The old men gathered around the master board at the front desk, their voices low as they discussed the upcoming state selections, but the air in the back corner of the room remained entirely still.

You were sitting at your usual table, your fountain pen neatly aligned next to your notation book, when Seonghyeon walked in. He didn't have Keohno with him this time. He moved through the crowded room with his characteristic quiet purpose, his dark wool coat damp from the sleet outside. He stopped at the edge of your table, his dark eyes locking onto yours with an unspoken question.

"A-na is helping the tournament director sort the registration cards in the back office," you said, breaking the silence before it could grow too heavy. "The table is open."

He pulled out the wooden chair across from you and sat down, his movements slow and deliberate. He didn't reach for the velvet bag containing the pieces right away. Instead, he rested his hands flat on the canvas board, his long fingers spanning across the squares.

"My grandfather told me this morning that the state invitations were mailed out yesterday," he said, his voice dropping into a quiet register that felt entirely foreign in the crowded basement hall. "They only selected two players from our district."

"You and me," you stated softly. It wasn't a guess; it was the only logical conclusion after the results at the Gibson Hotel.

"Yes," he replied, his gaze dropping to the empty squares between you before returning to your face. "The national committee wants us to play a series of exhibition matches in Chicago before the spring term begins. They want to showcase the two different styles."

You felt a sudden, sharp quickening of your pulse against your ribs. Chicago was where the national master titles were awarded, the place you had been working toward since you were four years old. But the thought of navigating that massive, high-pressure arena didn't feel as lonely as it used to. The perimeter you had built so carefully over the years to keep the world out had shifted, its lines redrawn to include the boy sitting across from you.

"Are you going to analyze my games all the way to Illinois, Sean?" you teased, a small, genuine smile turning up the corners of your lips.

"I don't need to analyze them anymore," he said, his voice steady but carrying a depth of warmth that made the chill of the basement disappear completely. He reached out, his hand moving across the center lines of the board, his fingers stopping just short of yours. A silent, unshielded invitation that had nothing to do with the game. "I already know how the line ends."

The house belonging to the Eom family sat on a quiet, sloping cul-de-sac on the western edge of the district, shielded from the main road by a dense perimeter of overgrown pine trees. Inside, the rooms were completely silent, scrubbed clean of the chaotic static that defined the hallways of the high school. The air was warm, carrying a faint, unfamiliar scent of toasted barley tea, cedar shaving blocks, and the clean, sharp tang of a winter radiator working at full capacity.

Seonghyeon led you into a small, sunlit living room where a massive, beautifully carved wooden chess table sat directly in front of a wide picture window. Outside, the purple twilight of a January afternoon was slowly bleeding across the untouched snow in the backyard.

"Sit wherever you like," he said, his voice dropping into a quiet register that felt entirely foreign after months of hearing him speak in crowded tournament halls. He pulled his heavy wool coat off, draping it with his usual meticulous care over the back of a nearby chair, before disappearing into the kitchen.

You sat on the edge of the low, textured sofa, your fingers tracing the smooth, polished lip of the mahogany chess table. A moment later, he returned carrying two small porcelain cups, the steam rising in slow, lazy spirals between you. As he handed you a cup, his fingers brushed against yours. It was a brief, electric point of contact that made the quiet of the house feel suddenly dense, almost fragile.

For the first hour, you both deliberately retreated into the safety of the game. He brought out a leather-bound notebook filled with handwritten analysis of the reigning national junior champion's preferred king-side structures. You took turns moving the heavy wooden pieces across the squares, testing the lines, looking for the tiny, structural fissures where a passive defense could be dismantled.

But as the darkness deepened outside the window, casting your reflections against the glass, the tempo of the pieces began to stall. Your hands moved slower and slower until the board sat between you completely untouched, a complex, frozen web of wood that neither of you had the heart to resolve.

"Why do you keep the perimeter so thick?" Seonghyeon asked suddenly. He didn't look down at the pieces. His dark eyes were fixed entirely on your face, watching the way the amber lamplight caught the line of your jaw.

You kept your eyes on your teacup, your heart thumping against your ribs with a sudden, heavy cadence. "I don't know what you mean, Sean."

"You do," he said, leaning forward, his chest nearly touching the edge of the table. "Every time we get close to talking about something that isn't an opening variation, you retreat. You look at me like I'm an opponent you're trying to outmaneuver on the tournament clock. You calculate every word before you say it."

"Because I know how to handle an opponent," you said softly, finally raising your eyes to meet his. The raw sincerity in his expression made your breath catch in your throat. "I’ve spent my whole life being the only person like me in the room, Sean. Being a loner is safe. It means nobody can miscalculate you, and nobody can disappoint you. I don't know how to navigate... whatever this is between us without a set of rules."

Seonghyeon reached across the sixty-four squares, his long fingers moving with an agonizing, painful slowness, giving you every possible second to pull away if you chose to, wanted to. He didn't touch your face; instead, he simply rested his palm face up on the fabric of the sofa cushion right beside your hand as a silent, unshielded invitation.

"The board has rules," he whispered, his voice steady but thick with an intensity that left the high school world completely behind. "But I don't want to play a game with you anymore."

You looked down at his open palm, the quiet vulnerability of the gesture shattering the last of your defenses. Slowly, deliberately, you slid your fingers into his, the warmth of his skin absolute and unshakeable against yours.

By the middle of March, the thick, gray winter ice had finally begun to crack along the banks of the Ohio River, leaving the city streets wet and glistening under a pale, hesitant spring sun. The morning news on the transistor radios was filled with the sounds of a changing country, but within the local chess circuit, the entire state's attention was fixed on a single, historic pairing.

"They're putting you two in the center spotlight for the opening round of the national invitationals," A-na announced on Friday afternoon. She slammed the printed tournament bulletin onto the library table, her eyes wide behind her horn-rimmed glasses. Keohno was standing right behind her, his hands tucked into his pockets, a rare, serious expression on his face.

The news spread through the St. Jude basement like wildfire that evening. The club directors wanted a rematch of the dramatic December regional finals to draw the crowds downtown. The older players kept looking over at your table, whispering into their hands, but you remained completely unmoved, your fountain pen gliding across your notation sheet with total precision.

Seonghyeon was sitting across from you, his fingers lightly tapping the edge of the wood. He raised his head, a quiet, knowing smile turning up the corners of his lips as he met your gaze.

"A-na says the registration numbers are twice what they were last year," you said, breaking the silence as you lined up your pawns. "Seems like everyone wants to see if the machine can be broken twice."

"A rematch," he said softly, his voice meant for your ears alone, completely ignoring the noise of the crowded room around you.

"Are you planning on tipping your king over again, Sean?" you teased, leaning your elbows on the table, the old friction between you returning with a warmth that felt entirely different now. No longer a shield to keep him out, but a bridge holding you together.

"I've spent the last three months analyzing my opponent," he replied, his dark eyes locking onto yours with an unblinking, profound focus that made your chest tighten with a familiar, welcome intensity. "I know exactly how she handles pressure when the space gets small. I know which files she likes to keep open, and I know exactly when she's trying to provoke me into an error."

"Knowing the line isn't the same as playing it," you whispered back, reaching out to adjust your rook.

"I'm not afraid of the variations anymore," he said, his voice completely steady.

That evening, as the final bell of the club rang and the lights were turned off one by one by the volunteer staff, you walked out of the community center together into the crisp spring air. The world outside was moving fast, the city waking up from its long winter hibernation, but as you walked down the damp sidewalk toward the bus stop, his hand slipped into yours, his fingers locking between your own with a certainty that made the rest of the universe fade into absolute insignificance.

The platform of the Cincinnati train terminal was an absolute cavern of iron, glass, and white steam on the morning of the departure for Chicago. The massive, black locomotive hissed loudly against the concrete tracks, its great steel pistons vibrating the very air within the station. The platform was a chaotic blur of travelers in heavy topcoats, newsboys shouting the morning headlines about the civil rights marches down south, and a small, dedicated crowd of local chess players who had come to see the city's two prodigies off to the national tournament.

A-na was standing near the luggage cart, her nose red from the damp morning air, wrapping you in a tight, fierce hug that smelled faintly of lavender and rain. "You make sure you dismantle the Chicago champion's defense on move twenty," she demanded, her voice cracking slightly with emotion. "Don't let them tell you your creative style doesn't belong on Table One."

"I'll play exactly the way I always do," you said softly, pulling back to look at her through her thick glasses. "With absolute restraint until they give me the open file."

Keohno was clapping Seonghyeon on the shoulder a few feet away, talking rapidly about a jazz club near the loop that he insisted they visit if they had a free evening between the Swiss rounds. But Seonghyeon wasn't really listening. His eyes were fixed entirely on you, his dark wool coat buttoned to the chin, his leather satchel containing his notebooks gripped tightly in his right hand.

When the conductor blew the final, echoing whistle for boarding, the crowd of well-wishers began to step back into the steam. You and Seonghyeon walked up the metal steps of the passenger car together, the heavy iron door slamming shut behind you, cutting off the noise of the platform instantly.

The interior of the train car was plush, lined with green velvet seats and polished walnut paneling that gleamed under the small electric sconces. You found an empty compartment near the back of the car, sliding your canvas bags onto the overhead rack before sitting down by the large glass window. The train jerked forward with a massive, rhythmic groan of steel, slowly pulling out of the station and into the gray, misty Ohio countryside.

Seonghyeon sat down directly across from you, the space between your knees minimal in the cozy compartment. He reached into his satchel and pulled out the small, familiar traveling chess set, placing it flat on the small wooden table that extended between the seats.

"One last game before we cross the state line?" he asked, his dark eyes looking up at you with a quiet, challenging warmth that had become the defining feature of your relationship over the winter.

You looked down at the board, where the wooden pieces were perfectly aligned in their starting ranks, ready for a new conflict. Then you looked up at his face, tracing the sharp, familiar line of his jaw and the deep intensity of his gaze. The old fear of being known, the stubborn desire to keep the world at a distance through the strict rules of the sixty-four squares, had completely evaporated, replaced by a profound, unshakeable sense of peace.

"No, Sean," you said, a genuine, easy smile breaking across your face as you reached out and gently closed the wooden lid of the board, trapping the pieces inside. You moved your hand across the small table, sliding your fingers into his, the warmth of his palm immediate and solid against your skin. "Let's just look at the landscape for a while."

When you step onto the ice, you think it might really be over.

It’s Nationals, which means that this is your last chance to make it. To prove, to everyone in the figure skating community, that you still have what it takes.

The pressure is on, especially since your childhood friend, Sunghoon, is dubbed the favorite within the men's program. You surpassed all expectations and are coming off an incredibly strong short program, which makes you the last one to leave it all on the ice.

You cross one skate over the other, gliding toward center ice. You lift your arms as you hear your name announced over the speakers. Through your nerves, like you’ve done a hundred times before, you flash a bright smile at the crowd. The only face you somehow manage to catch is Sunghoon’s that’s nearly pressed up against the glass. The rest are a blur, but it gives you some comfort to know there’s at least one person still rooting for you out there.

The first half of your program is hands down your favorite, as it features enough technical difficulty while allowing you to lean into your artistry. You hit your jump combinations flawlessly and execute the elements just the way you want. For the first time in years, your competitive spirit is confident. Unhindered.

Your fire carries you through the first half, until you feel a familiar fatigue pulling at your right hip.

Leading up to this season, almost all skating forums, live commentators, and journalists always positioned your narrative over one central detail: the fact that this is your first season back on the ice after an almost career-ending hip tear.

That was enough reason for you to skip over articles and most social media commentary—reliving your surgery, post-op, and shaky comeback through the eyes of other spectators was too much. You remembered the heartache and depression that manifested when you were injured as an Olympic hopeful, and you’d be damned if you let skeptics drag you back into that mindset. You deserve to be here. You are here to prove that you deserve to move forward.

You grit your teeth, fighting through your spins and pushing into each jump. It’s working until you realize what’s next.

An element highly contested by yourself and your coach was your last jump combination: the double axel, double toe, single loop jump wedged into the second half of your program for maximum point potential. It’s something you’d struggled to execute in the past, but it was a stretch for your recovering body post-injury.

Your coach is probably off to the side praying that you opt for an easier version of this combination, but you decide to press on.

Watch me, you think as you take off. Your entire face scrunches with the effort, but it pays off. You hit the double axel, and the adrenaline rush carries your momentum to hit the double toe as well. As you’re continuing into the last jump, your hip muscles pinch in sharp pain. You flinch, and the falter causes you to underrotate the last jump completely and land on two feet. At this point, it’s a miracle that you don’t fully eat shit in the process.

The crowd gasps. You recover your bearings just enough to finish out the program with somewhat convincing artistry. Your hip burns at the scar site, the muscle underneath fatigued and tender. When the crowd applauds, you skate off to the kiss and cry, trying to keep a smile steady as you hug your coach.

“At least you left it all out there,” he says. That’s his way of saying Not perfect, but it might do.

You force a neutral expression on your face as the camera focuses on your reaction. It’ll be close, especially since a good amount of the women had skated clean. To podium, you need a score close to your season’s best, so the question is obvious: did your mistake ruin your chances?

You fidget with the pink bunny plush from your childhood in your usual kiss and cry tradition. The audience pauses in anticipation, and you feel like you’re going to vomit. Then, you hear your total score.

You’ve done it by two measly points. By the skin of your teeth, you’re making it to the podium. You cry in front of the cameras, too shocked to hold in the sobs heaving from your chest.

❅˚

In your daze and general shock at medaling, you’re hyped up into attending an afterparty before you even know it. It’s hosted by the main sponsor of today’s competition, and you typically never like to go to things like this. Of all people, it’s Sunghoon who ultimately convinces you to go.

“We should celebrate both of our comebacks,” he says with a smile. “Plus, only other skaters will be there.”

It’s enough to get you out the door in the black dress you’d managed to pack in your carry on just in case.

You’re regretting it an hour in as Sunghoon’s pulled into conversation after conversation. He’s always had the larger network between the two of you, which leaves you sipping your drink in the corner as you avoid dragging down his conversations.

You’re feeling buzzed when you feel a tap on your shoulder and hear a familiar voice speak your name.

Your jaw drops to the floor. “Jaemin?”

For the first time in a year, Na Jaemin stands in front of you. He wears a suit that’s a little too formal for this event, but it somehow makes him even more handsome than you remember.

“It’s me,” he laughs.

“I thought this was for skaters only.”

“Ouch,” he pretends to be hurt. “Are you saying I’m not a skater?”

You roll your eyes. “A skater that actually competed today, Jaemin.”

“I know some people. Come on,” he grins. “Are you really that unhappy to see me?”

Along with Sunghoon, you’d grown up attending the same rink as Jaemin. Your trio had been three peas in a pod throughout skating school; you’d even trained as an ice dance pair together for a year until Jaemin and his family decided to specialize him into speed skating. From then on, to your dismay, interactions with him had been few and far in between with your conflicting schedules. The distance only grew as you moved from juniors to then seniors in your respective disciplines.

If Sunghoon was like your brother, Jaemin was the schoolyard crush that never quite faded away. Sure, you’d dated some guys here and there over the years, but any whispers of Jaemin dating sent you scrolling on Instagram in full investigation mode. Considering that he was considered an athlete-turned-influencer with his own fan base, you saw these rumors often.

Even so, you try to play it cool by taking a long sip of your drink. “Of course I’m glad to see you, but when was the last time you even laced up your skates?”

“Ah,” Jaemin shoots you a bright smile, although you can see the nerves peek through his facade as he hesitates. “Well…last week?”

“Last week?” You raise an eyebrow. “As in…you’re thinking about coming back?”

“It’s a work in progress,” he says with a wink.

“Hmm.” Your heart beats wildly in your chest.

He seizes your sarcasm to change the subject. “You look like you’re fully back out there, though.”

“Something like that.”

“Well, you podiumed, which is more than something.” He pauses for a beat before adding, “you looked really good out there.”

The knowledge of Jaemin watching your near-disastrous free skate sends hot embarrassment crawling up your neck.

“My lead from the short program saved my ass. It would’ve looked better if this,” you point to your bad hip, “would behave the way I want it to.”

He frowns. “It’s not fully recovered?”

“It is, but it’s not. Since I spent so much time off, the muscles on my right are weaker than my left, which sucks since my right is my landing leg.” You force a smile. “The road to full-strength recovery is long.”

“As always, you need to be nicer to yourself,” he sighs. “At least you kept Mr. Hops to comfort you in the kiss and cry.”

Your face burns even hotter. “I didn’t think you would remember him.”

Mr. Hops had been Jaemin’s gift to you for your tenth birthday. You’d taken the pink plushie for your first serious competition as a junior, and you’d continued taking him well into adulthood as a good luck charm. Your hip tear had occurred during a competition where you’d left Mr. Hops sitting in your hotel room, which, in your eyes, verified your long-standing superstition.

“Of course I remember,” he smiles wide. “I’m just glad you’ve gotten a bunch of mileage out of him.”

If the earth could open under your feet and swallow you whole, now would be the time. Not only does your childhood crush remember your pink bunny’s name, but he also knows that you’ve been hauling it around everywhere for at least the past decade.

“Well,” you clear your throat. “I think Mr. Hops and his well-traveled wisdom at least reduces the odds of me having a full mental breakdown.”

“You really didn’t need to worry about anything,” he insists. “Out of everyone, I think you were the most bea–”

“Jaemin!” Sunghoon calls. His face is flushed and his breath carries the trace smell of alcohol. “Guys! Everyone wants to drink!!”

You look at Jaemin wildly for help, but he shrugs in a way that conveys what am I supposed to do about it?

You’re pulled into the main group of fellow skaters that are much too drunk; one look at the three of you together has them hollering and forcing drinks into your hands in the name of reunion. You’re not used to partying, and you’re sure as hell not used to being the center of attention among your peers. Even during your prime, you’d preferred to hang around only a couple close friends after any competition.

The spotlight puts you in a vulnerable position to accept any and all drinks. You stay much later than expected, even when Jaemin offers to help you make a quick exit. You’re the most drunk you’ve ever been, both on the physical drinks as well as the atmosphere. Once you're dancing on a table with someone who you think is Cha Jun-hwan, the night is long gone.

The next morning you wake up to banging on the door of your hotel room. Running to the entrance, you peek through the peephole first, which reveals the livid face of your PR manager, Mei.

“God!” Thunk. “Wake up, already!” Thunk thunk.

Mei isn’t the most level headed person, but, even for her, it’s way too early to be this aggressive. Whatever it is, it’s serious.

You take a deep breath, trying to will away the hangover pounding in your head as you swing the door open. “Hey, Mei–”

“Don’t hey me.” She growls. Mei stalks around your room, sticking her head into your bathroom and closet. She only hesitates when peeking around the corner toward your bed then exhales in relief.

“What on earth is going on?” You ask in bewilderment, and your gut twists. The first thing that crosses your mind is that there must be some sort of serious scandal—a failed test for a controlled substance, maybe. You don't know what else would warrant this level of panic.

“Did you have anyone over last night?”

The question catches you so off guard that you nearly trip over your own feet as you follow her erratic path around your room. “What? No!”

Mei searches behind the curtains and even bends down to look under your bed. “Just reminding you that, as your PR manager, it’s to both of our advantages if you’re forthright about any indiscretions…”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” You shriek. You didn’t need to hear this from someone who’s known you since your teen years.

Finally registering your genuine confusion, she squints at you. “...I thought you were ignoring me, but have you really not checked your phone at all today?”

Numbness cascades down your nerves. Your phone currently sits charging on your nightstand. “No?”

Your manager shakes her head and fishes out her laptop from her bag, placing it on the hotel dining table. The display immediately brightens into a gossip article published an hour ago.

ICE ROYALTY TO PARTY ANIMALS: A WILD NIGHT FOR THE NATION’S SWEETHEARTS

Your heart sinks low into your chest as you scroll through the contents of the article. It’s you, alright, down to last night’s little black dress while arm-in-arm with both Sunghoon and Jaemin. It’s you, leaving the car disheveled and dangerously close to a wardrobe malfunction. It’s unfortunately you, previous child prodigy, downing shots and dancing on the front page of one of the most popular gossip sites.

Shit, you think. Sunghoon must be freaking out. Jaemin, too.

While both men had gathered the nickname of Ice Prince, it was for entirely different reasons. Sunghoon carried the name for his public aloofness, while Jaemin's persona fulfilled the image of charismatic royalty.

While you’d long accepted the unfair scrutiny of being labeled a “controversial” female athlete, both Sunghoon and Jaemin ruled their private lives with an iron fist. Every post and press release was curated and picked through in order to protect their squeaky clean Ice Prince images–especially with the rising cult following of girls.

And you had messed it all up in one night.

“Was it worth it?” Mei snaps. “Did you have fun? Because it sure looks like it.”

Opening the full slideshow, almost every attendee from last night has been captured. However, the most prominent features are still yourself, Jaemin, and Sunghoon.

Wordlessly, Mei pulls up multiple social media sites, where all commentary centers on the three of you. Most old skating fans remember your friendship as a trio, but many new ones—particularly Jaemin’s new legion of followers—fixate on your presence.

did he fly out just to see her? they’re so together y’all

that picture of her on both of their arms makes me sick THAT SHOULD BE ME

embarrassing that her boyfriend had to witness such a mid program, she should retire already

You nudge the laptop so that you can no longer read the words on the screen. “I was not aware of this.”

“I see.” Mei thinks before gathering all of her things back into her bag. “Take some time to process this. Don’t make any statements to anyone yet. If you’re smart, you’ll turn off your social media notifications. We’ll talk.”

“Okay.” You’ve learned not to question her. She’s gotten you out of enough sticky situations. “I’m sorry, Mei.”

“This is just the beginning, kid,” Mei shoots you a pitying smile as she lets herself out. “Just get yourself ready for the storm that’s coming.”

❅˚

Mei gives you two days.

When she requests your presence at her office, you don’t protest. You get there ten minutes ahead of time and wait politely.

“I’m not going to yell at you,” she sighs when she sees your too-straight posture.

“Wouldn’t be unwarranted,” you mutter. “I shouldn’t have gotten swept up in the atmosphere.”

“As your manager, I agree.” Mei shoots you a look. “As someone who’s always telling you to enjoy your life—I’m glad you finally stopped punishing yourself.”

You tug with your sleeve without commenting.

Mei continues. “Obviously, you already posted the official statement that we sent over yesterday. Nothing else public on social media, aside from the official pictures we got from Nationals. After that—no posting for a while.”

You nod. It’s fair enough. You’d already gotten too many unsolicited comments from strangers. Notifications were decidedly turned off, and only the bravest of souls could field your direct messages.

“There’s been something else I’ve considered for this season,” Mei hesitates. “If you’re open to it.”

Alarm bells go off in your head. “Interviews? Variety content?”

“The ice show,” Mei says.

“Classics on Ice?” You frown. “Sunghoon and I were already planning on skating.”

“You’ll skate there, sure,” Mei says, “but now it’s more.”

“More as in…promotions? Volunteering?”

Your manager shakes her head. “Yes, benefit shows usually yield good coverage. It’s also an opportunity to showcase your relationships within the skating community. During and leading up to the event. Public perception and opinions are unavoidable, but I think if you’re seen out and about being friendly with respected athletes…”

You cringe at the implication: you are simply an athlete—not a respected one. “That’s a fine idea and all, but wouldn’t that harm those athletes? I’m friends with a lot of skaters, but those friendships are away from the cameras. Except Sunghoon.”

“Right. It would be out of the blue to suddenly hang out with skaters you’ve been training and competing against for years, especially with no public history.” She leans forward. “But if there was suddenly an old friend re-entering the community—maybe that would be believable?”

Your blood chills. You recall what Jaemin told you: it’s a work in progress.

“Jaemin?” You fight to push the words out. “Jaemin’s actually returning to skating?”

Mei nods. Her shoulders relax, perhaps relieved that she didn’t have to directly break the news. “His team is making the announcement at the end of the week.”

You’re happy for him—really, you are—but disappointment tugs at your gut. Why hadn’t he told you when you asked?

“So you want me to skate in this ice show and prove that I have at least two friends. Got it. I can do that.”

Mei’s expression twists. “One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“With Jaemin coming back into the skating world, and the rumors already circulating between the two of you…” Mei bites her lip. “His management reached out to discuss, and we came to the conclusion that showcasing a…closer relationship would likely be beneficial for both parties.”

It’s her pleading expression to not freak out that makes the last puzzle piece fall into place. “A PR romance? With Jaemin? How on earth would that benefit either of us? He’ll get angry fans, and I’ll get the angry fans’ death threats!”

“You don’t need to be over the top with it,” Mei’s waving both hands, which could be her attempt to calm you down or to enact a physical barrier from you. Maybe both. “Nothing crazy or formal—people already think you're dating! Just lean into the rumors. Hang out with or without Sunghoon. Jaemin is popular, but it’s common knowledge that you all were rink rats together. You’ll get some fan hate, but we see people overall getting really into it.”

You’re speechless. You run through the impending possibilities in your mind. Jaemin, back in your hometown. Seeing him in passing. Existing in the same sphere for the first time in years.

“I still don’t understand how that would benefit him,” you say.

Mei hums. “His team can explain it more.”

“His team?” Your stomach drops. “They’re coming here? Today?”

“Oh, no,” Mei says. “We’re grabbing lunch with them.”

–

Mei whisks you away in her car. You barely process that you're heading somewhere at all. When the car pulls up in front of the nicest restaurant in the city, you think, briefly, that you must be hallucinating this entire ordeal.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she scoffs as you stumble out of the passenger’s side.

You follow her lead, baffled at the long roman-style columns at the entrance and dim, ambient lighting. Inside, you can’t even tell that it’s daytime, let alone high noon.

You’ve walked through the interior for minutes before you make a sudden left turn into a more private section of the restaurant. There, at a table around the corner, sits Jaemin with his manager.

His manager rises to shake both your and Mei’s hands. “Jeff.”

“Nice to meet you,” you manage to say, although your throat scratches like sandpaper while speaking.

When Jaemin stands up to face you, your brain glitches on the protocol. Is it proper to shake hands with a childhood best friend, especially when you’re both portrayed on the front cover of tabloids together? When you just saw him a few nights ago, and he only hinted at a comeback? When his team is proposing a PR arrangement? Is a hug too casual for this heavy atmosphere?

“Hi.” You shoot him a pained smile and sit down to avoid confronting the issue entirely. Confusion flickers across his face, but he lowers back down into his seat.

Jeff immediately transitions into business. “Thank you for meeting us today. I hope Mei was able to explain our current situation, especially since the headlines have complicated things.”

Mei nods. “She’s aware. Obviously, we’ll have to be very intentional moving forward.”

Your gaze bounces between the two as they discuss details such as social media use and public outings. You try to catch Jaemin’s eye, but he pokes around at an appetizer on his plate.

You try to listen to their brainstorming of strategies, but you can only take so much before your curiosity gets the best of you. You blurt out to Jaemin directly. “What do you get out of this deal?”

Jaemin’s eyes widen, but he still jumps to speak, as if he’s been waiting for your permission to talk. “Well, I—”

“Jaemin wants to re-enter the skating world,” Jeff interjects. “This…relationship could renew interest in his previous success, since you’re very deeply linked with that time period.”

You frown, but you’re starting to get the picture. You’re sure that this morning’s article alone has most likely sent fans hunting for old skating footage. There’s even some old trio pictures still visible on both your and Sunghoon’s Instagram profiles.

You’ve also seen enough fragments of Jaemin’s fanbase online to know that a public girlfriend would likely alienate the most unhealthily attached fans.

Maybe that’s what someone like him needed to be taken seriously in the athletic world again, just like how you wish people would speak about your current skating and instead of the old.

“Anything else I should know? Any stipulations before I offer myself up as bait for one of the most viral athletes known for having crazy fans?”

Jaemin’s gaze shoots up at you in the corner of your eye. You ignore it as you glare down Mei and Jeff.

“There’s one thing our team is thinking of,” Jeff starts. He side eyes you as if you’re a wild animal ready to pounce. “The charity ice show you’re skating in.”

You raise an eyebrow. “What, they’re having a speed skating demo?”

Your sarcasm falls on deaf ears; if he picks up on it, Jeff doesn’t even flinch. “We’ve been told that both you and Jaemin trained together in ice dance before settling in your respective sports.”

Your jaw tightens. “No. I’m not committing to an ice dance routine. It’s way too late to be practicing for that.”

Mei says nothing, but she nods her head.

“As you wish.” Jeff seems unfazed. “We’ll find something else for Jaemin. If you change your mind, please let us know.”

“I won’t. I mean, I don’t foresee that changing, but we’ll let you know,” you hastily add after sensing Mei’s disapproval. “Thank you.”

Mei and Jeff dominate the discussion throughout lunch, and they’re still chatting as you all rise to leave your table. You find yourself in stride with Jaemin, who seems to be looking everywhere but you.

“So. You're moving back,” you say.

He turns towards you, surprised. “I am. I’m moving out of my old place next Monday.”

“So it was a work in progress, after all.” You try to keep your tone light, but it doesn’t prevent the sour edge in your voice from seeping through.

His expression twists with guilt. “I was going to tell you, but then things started moving too fast. I lost the opportunity. This relationship—PR situation—was not my idea.”

You don’t respond. Your ego stings; you’d asked him so many questions out of a genuine interest to catch up, and the whole while he'd held you at arm's length. Your teams concocted this plan, rather than talk it through first with you as a friend.

Jaemin searches your face. “What do you think of all of this?”

You think that you want to delete Instagram altogether, retire from skating, and tell everyone to stuff their clout-chasing proposals up their—

Really, you should calm down. You have to admit that you could benefit from this arrangement. Sure, there would be hate and an uptick in public interest in your private life, but Mei is right. After these headlines, you’re bound to receive more criticism anyway—maybe returning the focus to your oldest friends would remind the world of your younger self. Before all of the hardship. Nostalgia as a vehicle of empathy.

As for Jaemin, you’re not sure what to make of his sudden re-appearance in your life. Any giddiness is now tempered by the jaded realism of your position. Maybe knowing his true intentions is better for your working relationship, since, moving forward, you should be treating this as a professional arrangement.

“Let’s do it,” your laugh sounds harsh and flat. “What more do I have to lose, right?”

❅˚

Upon returning home, you’re allowed one day of sweet radio silence from any obligations. You mute almost all notifications and lose yourself in your favorite shows.

Then, Jaemin’s announcement drops, and all hell breaks loose.

The overall response shows widespread support for Jaemin’s return to speed skating. The speculation of his move, however, has everyone up in a flurry trying to figure out why. Technically, his city’s rink is superior in all of their facilities and amenities. His coach was based mainly in your rink, but he was so close to retirement and was open about only coaching Jaemin.

You’re not sure why he’s chosen to return here, either. From what you know, a large portion of speed skating training isn’t always in the rink, anyway.

Everyone online, however, is staunchly convinced that you must be the reason. You scroll past everything from pregnancy rumors to social media accounts posting threads surrounding the early “evidence” to prove the existence of this secret relationship. As far as your social media feed is concerned, you're practically married.

Half of it seems to be in good fun—a lot of supportive fans make jokes about finally glimpsing into Jaemin’s notoriously private life. The other half of it is not so fun, manifesting in hate comments and threatening direct messages that trigger you to crack down on your account privacy.

Hey, Jaemin texts you after you temporarily set your Instagram to private. You okay?

You don’t respond. Something stubborn and petty wants to double down . So what if you got photographed drinking with friends? Was society really so fucked up that you had to put in work to protect your peace while both of the ice princes got off scot-free?

When you pull your car into the rink parking lot to a couple of flashing cameras, you know that the answer is undoubtedly yes. You’d hoped for a serene first practice back, but you anticipate Jaemin’s presence before you even open the door.

In fact, he’s literally on the other side, sitting at one of the benches between the back entrance and the ice.

Jaemin stands when he sees you. “Hey, good morning—”

You cut to the chase. “What do you want, Jaem?”

“I just thought I’d say hi before your practice,” he says. He seems encouraged by your use of his old nickname; you make a mental note to avoid using it again.

“You got up at the ass crack of dawn to send me off to practice?”

“Uh—no?” Jaemin points over his shoulder. “I’m doing some strength training first in the gym, then I’ll take over the ice for some light stuff after you.”

“Alright then,” you say. You step past him and continue on. “See you.”

“Will I?”

You turn around. “Will you what?”

“Will I see you soon?” Jaemin studies you. “You’re not answering my texts.”

“There’s nothing in our contractthat requires me to text you back,” you point out. You’re all too familiar with the terms and conditions, as you reviewed and signed the paperwork in the days prior. “I can talk to Mei to put a staged outing on the calendar.”

“No.” He exhales and runs a hand through his hair. “I’m trying to say that we should actually do something together. No calendars, no managers. Definitely no cameras.”

You frown. “Why would we do that?”

“Because we’re friends?” There’s a slight gravel to Jaemin's voice. He’s losing his patience with you, and you’re relishing in it.

“We were friends,” you say. Your grip on your duffel bag tightens. “I thought we were still friends up until Nationals. Before you wanted to use our friendship for notoriety.”

“We can still be friends through this,” he says. “It’s not one or the other. And I told you, this wasn’t my idea.”

You sigh. If he’s going to be so persistent about this, you might as well be direct. “Let me be clear. I hate this arrangement. I’m only doing it because Mei thinks it’s a good idea, I trust her, and for once I’d love for people to stop betting against my skating. That’s it. I’m not doing this because we’re friends. That was pretty much ruined once the paperwork was signed.”

Jaemin opens his mouth to argue, but he’s cut off by a voice from the other side of the rink.

“Hey!” Your coach shouts. “That’s a whole lot of talking and not a lot of warming up.”

You give Jaemin your fakest smile. “You heard the man. Have a good work out, Jaemin.”

You put your all into practice to clear your mind. It’s hard, but the determination to stand on your words keeps your focus razor sharp.

When you’re wiping your blades down and stowing away your things, you think that’s the end of it. Then, you hear the sound of the doors to the ice shutting. You straighten your back and peek through the glass.

Jaemin’s already set up a series of small cones that you assume must be to simulate the short track path. He skates around in long, fluid circles.

Your throat catches. He’s always been so beautiful on the ice. Sure, speed and power were par for the course with speed skating, but his edge control and maneuvers are so finely tuned that you're impressed. Even after all these years, Jaemin still looks like a top athlete.

Jaemin’s skates scrape across the ice as he stops. As if he has a sixth sense for your presence, he turns his gaze towards you. He nods, then, after a moment, raises his hand in a wave.

You turn away and stuff your last remaining item into your duffel. You don’t look back as you leave.

Over the next few weeks, your encounters with Jaemin go more or less the same. He waits to greet you in the morning, and you shut him down every time. You’re not sure what he aims to achieve by waiting it out— you’ve made yourself quite clear—but nevertheless he seems to show up day after day, morning after morning.

Until one day, he doesn’t. When you march through the rink one morning, you’re not met with Jaemin but by an old man that you haven’t seen in a very long time.

You start and nearly drop your bag. “Coach Brown?”

Coach Brown’s smile lines spread over his entire face. While he’s gotten older, you haven’t forgotten the kindness that your childhood coach exudes. “I had to come by now that the three musketeers are back under this roof.”

You laugh, but it’s held taut by guilt. “It’s definitely an unexpected development.”

The old man’s eyes gleam with amusement. “Although the three of you are in a bit of a rut, aren’t you?”

Your palms sweat. “You saw Jaemin this morning?”

“Just ten minutes ago,” Coach Brown shrugs. Then, his expression darkens. “You know, the worst thing you could do is turn your back on your past.”

You blink. “Sorry? What did Jaemin—”

“Sunghoon,” he waves you off before continuing. “It’s been explained to me that you are…less than enthused about the situation, but you still should treat your peers with respect. Carving out a path for yourself doesn’t mean you need to block out the others.”

“Coach—” You can’t even fully process his sentence before he cuts you off again.

“You’ve always had the worst temper of the three,” Coach Brown wags his finger in your face. “Calm yourself down and face it like an adult.”

As fast as he came around, he marches away and disappears through the doors leading up to management’s office.

You stare after him long after the doors close, dazed. You feel twelve-years-old again, getting nagged at to be nice to the boys.

After your training ends a bit early, you happen to catch Jaemin as he puts on his skates. “Morning,” you say.

Jaemin’s head whips up so fast that he swings too far back and bumps his head against the back of the boards. “Oh shit—hey?”

“I saw Coach Brown this morning,” you say.

He brightens. “Me too. I hope I’m half as active as him when I’m that age.”

You don’t respond, instead searching his features and body language for any dishonesty. It’s a stare-off—you, chewing on your lip and Jaemin, confused and massaging the back of his head.

That’s it, you admit to yourself. He didn’t tell Coach Brown anything.

And admittedly—both from the open hope in Jaemin’s expression and your shame from being nagged at—perhaps the old man was right about some things, after all.

“Would you be free to grab lunch tomorrow?” You ask before you change your mind. “There’s a new ramen place that opened up last weekend—”

“Yes!” He answers before you’ve fully finished your sentence. “I know which one you’re talking about. I can pick you up?”

“Oh—uh—that’s okay, I think.”

Jaemin shakes his head. “You’re on the way, let me do it.”

Your jaw tightens, but you swallow your pride. “Sure. Noon?”

He nods without saying anything. The two of you stare at each other.

“Well,” you break the awkward silence first. “Have a good practice.”

“You too.” Jaemin cringes. “I mean, shit, have a good day. See you tomorrow.”

At that, you turn away.

Take that, Coach Brown, you think. Look whose temper is adequately controlled.

❅˚

Twenty minutes before noon, you nearly jump out of your skin when there’s a knock at the door.

You rake over your appearance in the mirror and make desperate last-minute touch-ups. Sure, it's just lunch, but you were never sure when a rogue camera might snap pictures of you in public. The paparazzi had ceased showing up outside of the rink after the first two days, but the initial onslaught had left you paranoid of any flash or loud chatter.

“You’re early,” you say as you open the door, a little breathless.

Sunghoon blinks back at you. “I am?”

It’s your turn to stare. “Sunghoon. Why are you here?”

Regardless of your confusion, you step aside to let him in. As always, Sunghoon makes himself comfortable on your living room couch. “I was bored. Wanna get lunch?”

“About that.” You cross your arms. “Jaemin is picking me up in fifteen minutes.”

Sunghoon’s eyebrows raise. “You finally decided to stop hating him?”

“I don’t hate him—” you fume. “I still disagree with how he went about things, but I might have just gotten a little too mad.”

Your friend snorts and mumbles something under his breath.

“What?” You punch his arm.

“Ow!” Sunghoon swats away your swings. “I said big surprise—clearly you’re the most hotheaded one out of all of us.

“Brown said the same thing,” you mutter.

Sunghoon pauses. “Isn’t it a little crazy that people are just letting him go right back to work? Right after his surgery, too.”

You shrug. “He seemed healthy enough to lecture me about Jaemin. He said I had the worst temper out of us three.”

He smirks. “Wow. The old man needed to get involved to get your head out of your ass.”

“And who tipped him off in the first place?”

“And who with the worst temper gave me this red mark on my arm just now?”

Touche. “Anyways,” you change the subject. “Wanna go with us?”

“Um,” Sunghoon grimaces. “Not if it’s going to be awkward.”

“It won’t be,” you insist. You shoot out a quick text to Jaemin: Sunghoon randomly showed up at my place. Mind if he comes?

Within thirty seconds, your phone vibrates again. Of course. The more the merrier, it says.

“See,” you hand your phone to him. “Jaemin doesn’t care.”

“He’s not in the position to object,” Sunghoon laughs. “From that wall of text? This is clearly the first time you’ve texted him in weeks. He’s probably just saying yes so that you don’t change your mind and run away.”

You roll your eyes. “So you’re not coming?”

“I didn’t say that,” Sunghoon says. "I'm hungry."

You would’ve been more nervous about merging the group if you’d known about Sunghoon’s intrusion beforehand, but it works out well for the car ride over. Jaemin and Sunghoon seem to pick up right where they put their friendship down.

Their conversation goes from topic to topic, but your mind is reeling. It’s too easy, riding as a passenger in Jaemin’s old car, to feel like you’re a teenager again.

The new ramen place is tucked away in a plaza constructed in the last two years. It’s still finding its niche—the only other businesses in the center are a pharmacy and a dollar store—and the ramen place is the most exciting thing to have happened to it.

“Oof,” Sunghoon says as you approach the shop. From the outside, you can see that there’s only a handful of people inside. “Is that too awkward?”

Jaemin steps forward. “It’s not empty.” He swings the door open before any of you can think about it further.

Jaemin and Sunghoon are full steam ahead with their conversations. You’re jealous, in a way. Both of them have so much natural charisma that it overflows into all their interactions. On the other hand, you feel like you always have to work for it.

You all end up ordering different things from the menu. You’re halfway through observing the interior decor when you realize the rest of the table has gone silent.

“So…” Jaemin says. He leans his head into his hand. “How’s it been?”

“How’s it been?” You repeat.

“Since Nationals,” Jaemin clarifies.

Sunghoon stiffens in the corner of your vision. You try to level your facial expression.

“I mean,” you can’t help the wry smile rising to your face. “I deleted social media from my phone. Mei’s posting for me so I don’t have to see the hate. I’m avoiding the news outlets for the same exact reason."

Jaemin swallows. “Right.”

“What about you?” It’s as much as a way to change the topic as it is genuine curiosity. “How are your fans taking the return announcement?”

“Mostly well,” he admits. “Older fans are excited. Younger fans are confused but trying to be supportive, which I appreciate.”

The elephant in the room goes unaddressed. You saw the comments before officially deciding to hand the reins over to Mei. You know for a fact that there were rumors on top of rumors swirling around your connection to both Jaemin and Sunghoon.

“I delete all of the hate comments,” Sunghoon says as if reading your mind. “Just for my own peace of mind, really. I can’t stand seeing that shit on my page.”

“You should try filtering words,” Jaemin suggests. “That’s helped diffuse some of it for me.”

You frown. While you can tell that both have good intentions, it doesn’t make you feel any better. In fact, it’s worse—you feel like a taboo to hide from the world, despite your status as a well-known figure in the skating world.

“You don’t have to delete or filter anything.” You feel a deep sense of resoluteness. “Let them talk.”

The guys exchange glances. “Sure, people will talk,” Jaemin says. “Doesn’t mean you need to entertain seeing it.”

You shrug, looking between the two as your bowls of ramen are placed in the table space in front of you. “Filtering out words won’t stop them. We’ll just give them something to talk about before they move on.”

Jaemin’s smile curls. A hint of his teeth pokes through. “What do you suggest we do to make them talk?”

You think for a moment before holding your phone in the air with a shake of your hand. “Pose for me?”

❅˚

After that first lunch, talking to Jaemin gets easier. You chat briefly whenever you run into each other at the rink, and sometimes you grab a post-practice coffee if your schedules line up. You don’t text, but Jaemin sends a few skating memes after you log back into Instagram—a cautious way to test the water.

“What’s your goal with coming back?” You ask during one brunch after training.

Jaemin’s eyebrows raise, but he doesn’t lose his easy smile. “My goal?”

“I mean—” you scramble to find the right words. Hell, you should think before speaking sometimes. “Why decide to come back now? You have so many opportunities outside of skating.”

Skaters who would kill for his following. Not many people would intentionally halt their own momentum, let alone actively endanger it with a fake relationship.

Jaemin leans back in his chair. “Why did you come back? After your injury?”

“Rude. I asked first.” Regardless, you think out loud. “No one’s actually asked me why. Everyone just assumed that I would try to come back after I was ready.”

“Would you have, even if they hadn’t assumed?” He asks.

“Yes,” you say without hesitating.

“Why?”

“It’s not what people would expect from me,” you start. “I knew it was going to be a long road to any sort of podium, and I didn’t even expect to get there at all. I came back…to see if I could, I guess. Skating has just been such a big part of my life; I wasn't ready to give it up.”

Jaemin’s smile brightens. “That’s my answer too.”

“Uh…” You bite your lip. “It’s not that I don’t admire you for coming back, but you weren’t injured. You left first.”

“I did.” Jaemin thinks for a moment. “When I quit, I genuinely thought that skating had nothing more to offer me. But the more time passed, the more I realized that something was missing.”

This is the most you’ve ever heard him talk about his choice to leave. He had never spoken about it outside of the initial press statement, and he’d all but disappeared from the community after. “What made you realize something was missing?”

“Ah, you know.” Jaemin scratches the back of his head. “Just intuition.”

You stare at him. “You came back after years based on some magical intuition? Right out of thin air?”

His cheeks turn pink. “What’s wrong with trusting your intuition?”

“Just seems too good to be true, I guess.” You take a long sip of your drink. “Ignore me. I’m a pessimist nowadays.”

Silence. Then, Jaemin speaks up again. “If you have to know, I saw some old footage. I got the urge to get on the ice, so I did. Casually skating didn’t feel like it was enough. I felt the pull to do everything—compete the right way, by coming home and reconnecting with everyone.”

It’s like his dark eyes are looking through you and your thoughts.

You think back to the months following your injury. In the darkest moments when you considered giving up skating for good, it always led to reminiscing via old videos. Everything from old competition footage to videos of you messing around with the other kids—sometimes it was your last anchor to hope. More than the nostalgia interwoven in the past, you craved to perform again.

“I know exactly what you mean,” you smile, then hesitate. “I’m glad you’re back.”

The seriousness melts away. He wiggles his eyebrows. “Mean it?”

You snort. “Forget it.”

“Too late,” Jaemin points to his temples. “It’s already saved here. No camera needed.”

❅˚

You push on your bike, fighting for your life to pedal to the music while trying to follow the spin instructor’s directions. Beads of sweat roll down your skin, and your throat feels dry.

You sneak a glance at Jaemin. The bastard looks like he’s barely breaking a sweat. In fact, if it he wasn't right next to you, anyone could easily mistake him as the instructor.

He leans toward your bike. “Are you doing okay?”

“I have decent cardio!” You pant over the bass-loaded music. “I’m fine!”

You sound so not fine that Jaemin throws his head back in laughter.

“You two in the back!” The instructor calls out. “Less talking, more pedaling!”

There were only so many cafes close to the rink to try, so working out together is your most recent attempt at activities together. Jaemin insisted that it’s valuable cross-training for your respective sports—you’re not sure that you agree with the sentiment for your discipline, but it’s a nice supplement to your training schedule.

“What did you think about that instructor?” Jaemin asks as he holds the door open for you.

You snort. “Too intense and too much bass boosting.”

Your phone vibrates with texts and phone calls. You don’t even flinch as you start blocking and reporting the unknown callers.

“Wow, you’re popular,” Jaemin jokes while he backs out of his parking spot.

You don’t say anything. There’s no use in dragging Jaemin into it; not when there’s nothing to be done. At the very least, you appreciate that Jaemin always offers to drive.

“Can I ask you something?” Jaemin asks as he pulls up to your place.

“No,” you laugh before registering the nervousness creeping in on his expression. “What’s wrong?”

“Well,” Jaemin clears his throat. “Remember when my team brought up performing an ice dance together at that benefit show?”

“I do.”

“I know that it wasn’t brought up in a very good way.” Jaemin’s eyes flit around your face. “But do you think there’s any part of you that would be open to reconsidering that decision?”

The question makes you freeze. “Why?”

“My team won’t let up about it. I keep telling them that there’s really no need for me to participate…”

He’s continuing into some sort of explanation, but you’re hung up on the first part of his sentence. Sure, Mei and Jeff had been the catalyst for your reunion, but something about the mention of my team douses you as a cold reminder. In the midst of early morning rides and deep conversations over brunch, you’d forgotten that this was all manufactured.

“Our agreement ends right after the ice show, right?” You ask.

He nods. “But it’s just the official clause—of course, I want to—”

“Can you please tell your team that I will not be entertaining this notion again?” You reach for the door.

“Wait, stop. What did I say?” Jaemin’s climbing out of the car too, and a high pitch beeps over and over as he abandons the driver’s seat.

“Maybe I’m just tired,” you huff. “I see you almost every day, and I’m still training. Am I supposed to be all happy-go-lucky all the time? It’s not like we’re friends.”

Jaemin physically recoils. “This again? We are friends.”

“I hadn’t talked to you in years before you decided to come back,” you state matter-of-factly. “We’re bound by a contract. We’re not friends, Jaemin. We’re coworkers.”

You turn on your heel and walk towards your place.

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” Jaemin calls after you. “You just get to say your piece and storm off?”

You face him. “Go on, then. What do you want to say?”

He stands there for a minute, and his face flashes through a chain of expressions. Jaemin opens his mouth to speak but then closes it again. He shakes his head before shutting himself back in his car. The tires squeak against the asphalt as he drives away.

You pace around your house in angry circles. You should feel better, but instead you generate new reasons to be mad at him. Aside from the contractual nature of your arrangement, didn’t he understand that interfering with your art was an entirely different matter? You could go on a million fake dates and post content on social media, but your time on the ice is the only thing that’s truly yours.

You’re halfway through rage-cleaning your kitchen when your screen lights up with Jaemin’s name. You ignore it, but then Sunghoon calls second, then Mei calls next.

You choose to call Sunghoon back, ready to defend your outburst, but your stomach plummets when you pick up the phone to Sunghoon sniffling.

All your anger dissipates into fear. “What happened?”

“Coach Brown collapsed today,” he rasps. “They're not sure if he's going to make it.”

❅˚

Mei and Jeff sit at the front of the conference room. Mei openly observes you and Jaemin. Jaemin sits scrolling on his phone with the hood of his jacket pulled over his head. You cross your arms and try to look anywhere else.

Mei and Jeff review the last month in social media posts and general media coverage. You nod to yourself without listening—they always say the same things anyway: good reception, decent reach, more posting if possible. Today’s presentation is much shorter than expected, with no concrete dates to post strategic content.

You take it as a sign to leave and grab your bag. Jaemin moves as well, putting his phone into his pocket.

“I’m sure you both are worried about Coach Brown,” Mei says suddenly.

You both freeze in place. Your eyes dart to Jaemin, to gauge his reaction, but he’s already looking at you.

You had thought about texting Jaemin a million times since the news broke. You’d checked in on Sunghoon, but he was the type of person to hold things in until later down the line. You didn’t want to push him too hard, since you’re sure that he’s hurting just as much as you.

Looking at the glassiness of Jaemin’s eyes, you’re certain that he’s thought about reaching out to you, too.

“He'll fight through it,” your voice croaks against the silence. “He was a great man.”

“The greatest,” Jaemin says without taking his eyes off of you.

“This may feel a little premature, but the foundation reached out,” Mei prefaces. “They’re having part of the ice show's proceeds go directly to Coach Brown’s family. They asked to confirm if both of you—and Sunghoon, of course—are still planning on participating?”

“Of course,” you answer.

“Are they sure they still want all of us?” Jaemin asks. “I’m not competing in figure skating or ice dance.”

Mei shrugs. “You were in talks before, but I’m guessing it’s because the three of you are his most prominent students. Of course, you went to speed skating eventually, but you were still under him for the entirety of your juniors career.”