M!

You drop back against your pillow and exhale slowly. The ceiling stares back at you, indifferent and unhelpful. Somewhere outside your window the neighbourhood has gone quiet—it's late, later than you should still be awake, and yet here you are. Thermometer on the nightstand. Fever climbing. The elaborate skincare routine you had promised yourself—the one specifically designed to ensure you looked like a functioning human being tomorrow—sitting completely forgotten on your bathroom shelf.

Tomorrow morning, which is the morning of your first date with Kim Woonhak.

Even just thinking his name sends an embarrassing flutter to your chest. That small, involuntary lurch behind your ribs, the one you've grown so used to that you almost forget it hasn't always been there. 

Almost. 

The truth is you remember exactly when it started. It wasn't dramatic. No grand revelation or cinematic eye contact across a crowded room. Just the smallest detail—stupid and completely ordinary, and then it settled somewhere deep and refused to leave, through months of friendship and late nights that ran longer than they should have, through every conversation where you chose your words a little more carefully than necessary and every time you looked at him and had to remind yourself to look away.

And now, after all of that, tomorrow is finally arriving. 

Your first date. With him. Your first date with anyone, if you're being fully transparent with yourself, which you are actively avoiding because that particular truth makes everything feel even more enormous than it already does. The outfit is already hanging on your wardrobe door. You'd spent an almost unreasonable number of evenings narrowing it down, texting Woonhak about completely unrelated things while your floor was covered in rejected options, and the memory of it makes a quiet warmth bloom in your chest even now, even through the fever haze.

You reach for your phone. His contact is already open because of course it is, your thumbs have developed their own opinions about where they want to be apparently. The rational thing is right there—one text, simple and reasonable. “I'm not feeling well, can we move this?” He would understand. He would insist on it, even. He is, frustratingly, that kind of person.

You stare at the empty message box.

Then you lock your phone and set it face-down beside the thermometer.

No. Absolutely not.

You have waited too long for this. You've sat with this feeling for too long, through too many months of wanting a relationship you weren't sure you'd ever get to have. You are not surrendering tomorrow to a fever. You will sleep this off. You'll feel better in the morning—people recover from fevers overnight all the time, surely, and you will simply be one of them through sheer force of will if nothing else.

The glass of water on your nightstand, the one you poured an hour ago with genuine intentions of drinking it, sits completely untouched. The medicine in your bathroom cabinet stays in the bathroom cabinet. The half-eaten snack you'd abandoned on your desk earlier in favour of rereading your last conversation with him remains exactly where you left it, slowly going stale.

You turn off the lamp.

Tomorrow, you decide, with the serene and entirely unfounded confidence of someone who has comprehensively outsourced her common sense to her heart—you will be absolutely fine.

You close your eyes.

You are so utterly, devastatingly, hopelessly cooked.

 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

Morning arrives, and it is not kind.

You become aware of consciousness slowly. Everything feels heavy. Your head, your limbs, the very air pressing down against your skin—all of it conspires to keep you horizontal, and for a long, bleary moment you comply. The sunlight filtering through your curtains feels aggressive. Your throat has graduated overnight from sandpaper to what feels like gravel, and the low throb behind your temples from last night has settled in with the comfortable permanence of an unwelcome houseguest.

You lie there, blinking at the ceiling.

Something was supposed to happen today.

You can't quite—

Your phone lights up on the nightstand.

You reach for it with the slow, waterlogged movements of someone operating at approximately forty percent capacity, fingers closing around it weakly. The screen swims into focus. One notification. A text, timestamp seven minutes ago, from the contact name you may or may not have spent an embarrassing amount of time choosing.

“Good morning :) still up for today? or did you finally come to your senses and realise you can't handle me?”

The effect is instantaneous and completely involuntary.

You sit up.

The headache detonates behind your eyes like a personal vendetta, white, sharp and immediate, and you actually have to press the heel of your palm against your forehead for a moment, teeth gritted, vision briefly unreliable. A noise escapes you that is not remotely dignified. You stay very still until the worst of it passes, phone clutched to your chest, the room tilting gently at its edges.

Then you look back down at his message.

The smile happens before you can stop it.

“I’ve been ready since yesterday,” you type back, which is true in every sense except the one where you are currently sitting upright through sheer determination alone, fever still very much present, head still very much attempting to detach itself from your body. “don't keep me waiting :)”

You hit send.

Then you push the covers back, plant your feet on the floor, and decide with absolute finality that you are fine.

You are so fine.

 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

Getting ready takes longer than it should.

It’s not because you are indecisive—you already know what you're wearing, have known for days, the outfit still hanging exactly where you left it on your wardrobe door like a small monument to your own optimism. It takes longer because somewhere between washing your face and attempting eyeliner, your body keeps requesting breaks you haven't scheduled. A moment gripping the bathroom sink while the floor shifts unreliably beneath you. Another moment sitting on the edge of your bed, mascara wand in hand, waiting for a wave of dizziness to pass with the patience of someone who has decided that dizziness is simply not on today's agenda.

You look at yourself in the mirror.

You look terrible.

You look, specifically, like someone who ran a fever through the night and then got up anyway and tried to cover it with skincare and wishful thinking (which… is exactly what you did). Your eyes are glassy enough that no amount of concealer has managed to fully disguise it, and there's a specific quality to your complexion that sits somewhere between delicate and concerning.

You lean closer to the mirror.

Fine, you decide. Totally fine. Practically glowing, even.

Breakfast does not happen. You think about it briefly, open the fridge, register that the idea of eating anything feels genuinely implausible, and close it again. You'll eat later, during the date. That counts. That's basically the same thing.

By the time his text arrives—"on my way :)”—you are dressed, presentable by the loosest definition of the word, and running on a potent mix of adrenaline and delusion. You do one final check in the mirror, smooth down your outfit, and decide firmly that you look fine.

You look fine.

When the knock comes you cross the apartment in record time, pull open the door, and there he is.

And for a moment, you forget entirely that you feel like you're dying.

He looks like how he always does, which is to say unfairly good in an entirely casual way that he seems completely unaware of, and he's smiling at you with that radiant smile that has absolutely no business making you feel the way it does. His eyes do a quick, almost imperceptible sweep of your face—a brief, unreadable emotion passing through them—before settling back on yours like it never happened.

"You actually showed up," he says, delighted, like he genuinely wasn't sure you would. You lean against the doorframe with what you hope reads as effortless and not please give me something to hold onto.

"Told you," you reply. "Don't keep me waiting."

He laughs—bright and easy—and steps back to let you through, and you decide with complete certainty that you would drag yourself off your deathbed every single morning for the rest of your life for that sound without a second thought.

You grab your bag. You step outside. 

Yes, you are completely, totally fine.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

The night market is everything you imagined it would be.

Warm light strung low between stalls, the smell of frying oil and sugar competing in the air, noise layered over noise until it stops being individual sounds and becomes atmosphere. Woonhak grabs your wrist the second you step inside, already pulling you through the crowd before you've fully arrived, pointing excitedly at a stall halfway across the market.

"Okay, okay—do you see that? We're going there first. No arguments."

"We just got here—"

"No arguments," he repeats, already moving, and you laugh and follow him, and for a blissful, golden little while, you forget entirely that you are running a fever of nearly thirty nine degrees.

He's so bright tonight. That's the thing about Woonhak that you can never quite explain to anyone who hasn't stood next to him—he fills whatever space he walks into, this warm and restless energy that makes everything feel like it's moving slightly faster and more vividly than it did before he arrived. You've liked him for so long that you've genuinely forgotten what it felt like not to, and standing beside him now, it feels like a reality you keep having to convince yourself is real.

You feel strange tonight. Everything seems just a little out of focus, like your body can't quite keep up with the rest of the world. But his hand is warm around your wrist, grounding you, and the dizziness eases enough for you to catch your breath. 

You're here. You made it. Everything else can wa—

A sudden chill moves through you from your shoulders down, your whole body shuddering once, visibly, before you can catch it.

Woonhak turns immediately.

"Are you cold?"

"No," you say. "Just the breeze."

He looks at you. Then he looks very deliberately at the banners hanging from the stall directly beside you—completely, utterly motionless, not a single thread shifting—and then he looks back at you with his eyebrows raised.

"There's no breeze."

"There was one. It passed."

"It passed." 

"It was… very fast!”

He stares at you with his mouth slightly open, caught between disbelief and amusement, and then he laughs—short and bewildered—and shakes his head and turns back to the stall. You exhale quietly.

Fine. You're fine.

But when he falls into step beside you again he's closer than before that your arms brush with almost every step, and his hands have come out of his pockets, and you notice all of this and choose, very deliberately, not to think about what it means.

 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

He talks without restraint, like every thought that crosses his mind is worth sharing. He keeps up a running commentary on every stall you pass, tells a story about Jaehyun that has him laughing before he even reaches the punchline, and bumps his shoulder against yours every so often to make sure you're looking at whatever has caught his attention.

You are. You laugh when he laughs, follow wherever he points, match his energy as best you can. It's just that every few minutes, the world blurs around the edges, and you have to blink until everything settles back into place before he notices.

"—and then he actually tried to convince the guy that it wasn't even his—" Woonhak glances over mid-sentence and catches you a half-beat behind, your gaze slightly unfocused, and stops. "Hey."

You blink back into the moment. "Sorry — those caught my eye." You gesture at a nearby stall. "What were you saying?"

He doesn't look at the stall. He looks at you, and underneath his expression a different frequency of attention has switched on—the laughter still warm in his face but behind it, watchful now. 

"You sure you're okay?" he asks.

"I'm great," you tell him, and you smile, and you put your whole self into it. "Tell me what happened."

The moment passes. He finishes the story and you laugh in the right place. But when you start walking he's closer again— closer than he was even a minute ago— and his shoulder stays pressed against yours, steady and deliberate, and you think he's started noticing more than he's letting on.

Inside, the throb behind your temples has quietly escalated. You breathe through it and keep walking and tell yourself it's fine, it's fine.

You're absolutely fine.

 ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

He buys you tteokbokki without asking, appearing at your side with it like it's the most natural thing in the world. He holds it out to you, his expression easy, but there's a quiet insistence beneath it.

"You haven't eaten anything this whole time," he says, and the teasing lilt that's coloured his voice all evening gives way to quiet concern.

"I've been pacing myself."

"For an hour."

"I'm very disciplined."

He looks at you, and for just a second, the easygoing expression slips away. What's left is intent—focused, a little worried.

"Eat," he says. "Please."

The word startles you more than it should. You don't think you've ever heard him sound quite so earnest. 

Before you can talk yourself out of it, you're reaching for the skewer. 

You smile, take it, and try. You genuinely do.

Two bites in, your stomach clenches in immediate protest. You stop chewing.

For a few long seconds, all you can do is stand there, swallowing carefully, willing the nausea back down. The skewer hangs forgotten in your hand as you fix your gaze on the lantern above the nearest stall, counting each breath and praying your face doesn't give you away.

It passes. Barely.

The third bite never comes.

You find a bin a minute later. When you return to his side his eyes go straight to your empty hands, and the silence stretches three full seconds longer than it should.

"You couldn't finish it?" he asks quietly.

"I wasn't as hungry as I thought," you offer.

He looks at you for a long moment, jaw shifting once. He has the expression of someone assembling a picture from pieces he doesn't want to believe, choosing very carefully not to say what he's thinking yet.

"Okay," he says, quiet and measured.

It's only one word, spoken in a tone you've never heard from him before. But it tells you more than anything else he's said all evening.

You take his hand without thinking about it, lacing your fingers through his, and he squeezes back—warm and immediate—and you feel him exhale through it.

"Come on," you say softly. "What's next?"

He lets you redirect him. But his thumb traces a slow, absentminded pattern against the back of your hand as you walk, and you don't think he realises he's doing it, and it keeps you tethered to the present unlike anything else tonight has managed. For a little while the fever recedes back to a murmur and you almost forget again.

Almost.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

The adrenaline leaves gradually, and then all at once.

There's no single moment where you register it happening. It's just a slow and incremental dimming. The idea of him has been powering you through this all evening—the wanting, the waiting, the electric reality of finally having what you'd spent so long hoping for—and ideas, it turns out, have limits when your body is running a fever on no food, no water and sheer stubborn devotion.

You're still beside him, matching his pace, answering when he speaks. But your reactions come a fraction too late now, every smile feeling just a little heavier than the last. He tells a joke that would usually have you laughing without thinking. It still reaches you. Somewhere beneath the fever, it's just as funny as it always would be. Your body simply can't keep up.

Woonhak has gone quiet.

The commentary has stilled entirely. He's just walking beside you now, close enough that your shoulders stay in constant contact, and you can feel the weight of his attention on the side of your face like a hand pressed gently against glass.

"Hey," he says, low.

"Hey."

"You having fun?"

"So much fun." You mean it. You mean it with everything you have left, which isn't much, but every last bit of it is his. "I really am."

He nods slowly. "You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?"

Your chest tightens. "Nothing's wrong," you say. "I promise."

He doesn't push. But his free hand finds the small of your back, warm and steady, and it keeps you upright in more ways than one.

Almost there. 

Just the rooftop. 

You just have to get to the rooftop.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

The street leading away from the market is quieter, lined with low amber light and the particular stillness that follows when a crowd falls away behind you. Woonhak mentions the rooftop ahead with practiced casualness—definitely looked it up, definitely pretending he didn't—and even now, even like this, the quiet effort behind it makes your heart soften.

You make it halfway down the street.

The dizziness arrives without warning and without mercy—a full and consuming wave that drains the colour from the edges of your vision and turns the pavement unreliable beneath your feet in a single, devastating second. Your steps falter. Your free hand reaches for something solid to grab onto and finds only air.

"Hey—" Woonhak feels it through your joined hands before you've even fully registered it yourself, turning towards you instantly. "Hey, what's—"

"I'm—" But the word dissolves. The world tips. Your knees buckle before you can catch yourself, and the pavement rushes up to meet you—

Arms catch you before you reach the ground, immediately pulling you in against him, and the impact you braced for never comes, just the solid warmth of him and his voice saying your name with an urgency that cuts through the fog like the first clear word you've heard all evening.

"Hey — hey. I've got you. Can you hear me?"

"Mm." It's all you can manage. Your hands have found the front of his jacket and are holding on with what little grip you have left.

For a moment he just holds you, one hand braced at your back, and then his palm comes up to press against your forehead, and the sharp breath he draws in tells you everything about what he's been expecting.

"You're burning up." His voice is low and even and very, very careful. "How long have you been feeling like this?"

You close your eyes. "Since yesterday."

Silence settles between you.

"Since yesterday," he repeats. His grip doesn't loosen, but it changes somehow, tightening just enough for you to notice. His gaze searches your face as if he's trying to reconcile the answer with the version of the evening he'd convinced himself was real.

"I didn't want to cancel," you say, into his jacket, very small. "I've been waiting for today for so long. I just—I really didn't want to cancel."

He doesn't say anything for a moment. You feel him exhale, slow and deliberate, feel the way his arms adjust around you with a care so methodical and certain that your throat tightens with it. Before you can ask what he's doing, your feet leave the ground. The movement is so smooth you're already tucked against his chest by the time it registers that he's carrying you.

"Woonhak—"

"Don't," he says softly. His jaw is set and his eyes are forward and his hold on you does not waver for a single second. "Just stay with me, okay?"

You try.

You really, genuinely try—you focus on the amber light above you, on the steady rhythm of his footsteps, on the warmth of his chest against your side and the sound of his voice and every small anchor that might keep you tethered here, present, with him. You want to stay. You want to see where this street leads, what the rooftop looks like and every version of tonight that has yet to come.

But the fever has been patient all evening, and it is done being patient.

The amber light blurs and stretches. His voice reaches you from somewhere far away, your name in his mouth sounding like the last clear sound in a room going slowly, gently dark—and your hands, still curled into the front of his jacket, go slack.

ᡣ𐭩 •｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅

You wake slowly, and the first thing you register is cold.

A damp cloth sits folded over your forehead, cool water tracing a thin line down towards your temple, and beneath it your skin feels tender and overheated in a way that makes the cold almost unbearable and welcoming at the same time, like your body can't decide which sensation to trust. You lie there for a long moment without opening your eyes, just breathing, just existing inside the strange heavy quiet of a body that has been running on empty for far too long.

The air smells different from your own room—cleaner, somehow, with an undertone of a warm, familiar scent that you can't immediately place, not until your mind catches up and supplies the answer : him. It smells like him.

You open your eyes.

The ceiling above you is not your ceiling. The light fixture is wrong, the crack in the corner that you've memorized from your own bedroom missing entirely, replaced by smooth unbroken white. You blink, slow and uncertain, and let your gaze drift sideways instead—soft grey walls, a desk cluttered with things that are clearly not yours, textbooks stacked at an angle that suggests they were shoved aside in a hurry, a hoodie thrown carelessly over the back of a chair like someone changed out of it in a rush and didn't bother folding it.

His hoodie. His desk. His room.

Oh.

The realization comes quietly as the memories begin to return, uneven and out of sequence, as though your mind is still catching up to everything your body has already lived through. The market, warm, loud and golden. Lanterns strung low overhead. Tteokbokki you couldn't finish, the way his eyes had gone straight to your empty hands when you came back from the bin. His hand at the small of your back, steady even as the ground had started to feel unreliable beneath you. The street after, quieter, amber-lit, his voice mentioning a rooftop with poorly disguised excitement.

And then the ground tipping. His voice, sharp and urgent, cutting through a fog that had already started swallowing everything else. Your name, said like it mattered more than anything else in the world.

And then nothing. A long, formless nothing, dark and total.

You lift a hand—slowly, testing, like you're not entirely convinced it will cooperate—and press your fingers lightly against your own forehead, beneath the cloth, as though you might be able to feel the fever from the outside if you just try hard enough. It's still there, quieter now, banked down to a more manageable ache than whatever had been raging through you last night, but present all the same. A dull, insistent hum beneath your skin.

You have never in your life felt more like a zombie than you do in this exact moment, and the humiliating part is that you know, somewhere in the honest core of yourself, that it isn't only the fever's doing. You'd spent the entire week rotting quietly from the inside—skipping meals because his texts felt more urgent than hunger, staying up because talking to him felt more important than sleep, letting every small warning sign slide because nothing, nothing, felt more pressing than the fact that you were finally, finally going to get to have this. Him. A date. A version of tomorrow you'd been aching for since the moment you realized you were in this deep.

Lovesick, in the most literal, humiliating, medically inconvenient sense of the word.

You almost laugh, except your throat is too dry and your head throbs in mild protest at the idea, so instead you just lie there, staring at his ceiling, marinating in the specific mortification of having quite literally fallen ill over a boy.

Maggots for brains, you think, a little deliriously. If he ever found out that phrase existed, you would never, ever hear the end of it.

The door opens.

"OH MY GOD—okay, okay, you're up, you're actually—" Woonhak comes in fast, too fast, a bowl balanced with visible concentration in one hand like he'd been hovering just outside the door waiting for exactly this. The moment his eyes land on you properly, something in his whole body seems to loosen, relief washing so plainly across his face that it's almost startling to witness, like he'd genuinely been bracing for the alternative.

"Do you know how long you've been out?" He crosses the room in a handful of long strides, setting the bowl down on the nightstand with more care than the rest of his movements would suggest he's capable of right now. "A full day. Twenty four hours, I've been checking your temperature every hour like some kind of lunatic, Jaehyun's been texting me asking if I've lost my mind, I genuinely think I might have—okay, here, sit up, slowly, don't just—wait, let me—"

His hands hover, uncertain, torn between the cloth on your forehead and the pillow behind you and you in general, like he can't quite decide what needs fixing first and is mildly panicking about the sheer number of options.

"Okay, cloth first, probably, or—no, wait, are you thirsty, should I get water, I have water right here actually—" He reaches for a glass on the nightstand you hadn't even noticed, thrusts it slightly in your direction, then seems to reconsider whether you're upright enough to drink anything and pulls it back halfway. "Or not. Not yet. Cloth. I'll do the cloth.”

 It would be funny, you think distantly—the way concern turns him chaotic instead of calm, all that easy confidence from last night nowhere to be found—except you don't have it in you to laugh, not yet, because somewhere between the door opening and him crossing the room, the full shape of everything has finally caught up to you.

The date. The one you'd wanted for months, quietly, achingly, through every late-night conversation and every carefully chosen word. 

"—and I texted my mom, actually, don't ask me why, I panicked and she was just the first person in my contacts who wasn't you—" He resettles the cloth against your forehead with a gentleness that doesn't match the speed of his voice at all, two entirely different registers running at once. "She said to give you soup. I'm already doing that. I feel very ahead of the curve here, honestly—”

The one you'd promised yourself you'd be present for, fully, unmistakably yourself, not this. Not fainting in the middle of a street. Not losing an entire day. Not waking up small and fever-warm in his bed while he hovers over you like you're a fragile object he's afraid of breaking further.

"—I mean it, I nearly had a heart attack, you just went completely limp, I've never carried anyone that fast in my life, I think I set a personal record actually, not that this is a competition, but if it were—" He stops, and notices, maybe, that you've gone very quiet beneath him, that your eyes have taken on a glassy, distant quality that has nothing to do with the fever.

There was no rooftop. There was no ending. There was just—an entire day gone, swallowed whole, and the quiet devastating certainty that you'd taken the one thing you'd wanted most and broken it before it had even properly begun.

Your eyes sting before you can stop them.

Woonhak's rambling cuts off mid-sentence.

"Hey—hey, what's wrong?" His hands finally land, one bracing gently at your shoulder, the other hovering near your face like he's afraid to touch without permission. "Is it your head? Are you dizzy, do you need me to—"

"I…" You swallow hard. "I r-ruined it." Your voice catches on the second word, and you squeeze your eyes shut, willing yourself to stop.

It doesn't work.

The tears come anyway—hot, fast, and completely outside your control, spilling over before you can do anything to stop them. 

"I ruined the whole thing." Your breath hitches. "I wanted it to be p-perfect. I wanted to be—I don't know." You shake your head, another sob breaking through. "I just wanted to be normal."

Your next words come out in a rush, tripping over each other.

"I wanted you to have a good first date, and instead I passed out in the middle of the street, and you had to carry me, and there was no rooftop, and I missed an entire day, and I'm s-sorry." The apology fractures around another shaky breath. "I'm so sorry. I just wanted it to be good, and I—"

"Hey. Hey, no—" Whatever he was about to do gets abandoned entirely. He sinks down onto the edge of the bed, closer now, and his hands come up slow and careful, as though you're a frightened animal that might startle at sudden movement. One thumb brushes beneath your eye, catching a tear before it can fall further, and then his palm settles against your cheek, warm and steady, like it belongs there.

"You didn't ruin anything," he says, and there's no trace of teasing left in his voice now. Only a quiet certainty, delivered as though it isn't even a point worth arguing. "You showed up to see me with a fever of thirty nine degrees because you didn't want to disappoint me. Do you understand how insane that is? You ate tteokbokki you could barely keep down because I asked you to. You held my hand through an entire night market while you were actively about to pass out, and you still laughed at my stupid Jaehyun story, and you still smiled at me like—" He stops himself, exhales, shakes his head slightly, like even he can't quite find the right shape for it. "Like I was the only good thing in the whole market. That's not ruining a date. That might be the most anyone's ever tried for me in my entire life."

You blink up at him, throat too tight to answer, more tears slipping free despite his thumb's best efforts to catch them.

"There's going to be a rooftop," he says softly, still wiping at your cheeks with a patience that leaves your chest painfully tight. "There's going to be a hundred rooftops, I promise you, I already looked up five more just in case. I'm not going anywhere. This isn't the only chance we get." His voice grows gentler with every word. "You could've just told me you were sick, you know. I would've shown up at your door with soup and my bad taste in movies instead. I wouldn't have cared about some rooftop."

"I wanted the date," you mumble, small, pressing your face slightly into his palm without quite meaning to. "I've wanted it for so long. I didn't want a fever to be the reason I didn't get it."

"I know." His thumb sweeps once more beneath your eye, gentle. "I know, you absolute menace. You've got maggots for brains, you know that? Fever like that and you still texted me 'don't keep me waiting.'"

A wet, surprised laugh escapes you despite everything, undignified and hiccupping. "That's so mean."

"It's affectionate," he says, entirely unbothered, leaning forward to press his lips briefly to your forehead, right where the cloth had been. "Extremely affectionate. I've been thinking about it all day, actually—maggots for brains, over me. I don't think I've ever felt so honored to be someone's rot."

"Please stop talking."

"Never," he says, grinning now, some of the earlier panic finally bleeding out of him now that you're laughing instead of crying. He reaches for the bowl on the nightstand, angling it towards you with exaggerated ceremony. "Soup. Made by my own two hands, so lower your expectations accordingly. And then you're sleeping, and I'm staying right here, and tomorrow—when you've got actual functioning brain cells again—we're renegotiating this whole rooftop situation. Non-negotiable."

You take the bowl from him, your fingers brushing his, and the tightness in your chest eases for the first time since you woke.

"Okay," you say quietly.

"Okay?"

"Okay." You manage a small, worn-out smile. "Take care of me, then."

The look that crosses his face at that—soft, a little stunned, like you've handed him permission to hope—stays with you long after he's tucked the blanket back around your shoulders and settled into the chair beside the bed, close enough that his hand finds yours without either of you really deciding it should. The fever hasn't broken yet. There's no rooftop tonight, no ending you'd planned for.

But his hand is warm around yours, and his eyes stay on you even after you've closed your own, and for the first time all week, the ache in your chest doesn't feel anything like sickness at all.

Maybe this was just the thing that happens when your baby stays. 

@coriihanniee ᯓᡣ𐭩

˖➴ reblogs are appreciated! ty for reading! <3

even though it’s dark outside, the curtains on the windows are wide open. there’s remnants of an evening snack all over the kitchen countertops, a stray plate and crumbs on the dining table. the television has been left paused on some youtube video, the bright screen casting the room in a pale glow. he glances down - your shoes are lined up neatly next to his own feet. so you must be home.

“y/n?” he calls out, blinking in confusion when he hears no reply.

well. that’s strange.

he says your name again, stepping further into your shared home with slow, careful steps. when you reply, your bright voice carrying mutely from the bedroom, something in his chest loosens.

taesan’s feet pad softly across the floor as he makes his way over to where you are - yet when he turns into the bedroom’s doorway, the sight of you makes him pause. there you are, perched precariously on the edge of your bed, pressing your fingers to the ceiling. you must hear him leaning against the doorframe, because you turn to him with a smile. “you’re finally home!”

he nods, smiling back. “hi, darling.”

“hi,” you say, but your gaze is intense as you scan his face. he looks away after a moment, eyes settling on a few sheets scattered on your bedside table underneath soft lamplight.

“what have you been up to?”

you sit down on the bed, shaking your head. “nothing much. sit down,” you say, patting the space next to you. taesan obliges, letting out a small sigh when he settles on the soft mattress. you watch him, tilting your head slightly. “how was work?”

he’s silent for a moment. “tiring,” he says. “i… i wanted to work on songs today. but i just couldn’t.”

you hum softly, and taesan feels yet another knot unravel, deep in his chest where his soul must be. he hadn’t quite realized how tired he was until you’d asked. he reaches out to tuck a strand of your hair behind your ear, smiling when you look up at him with wide eyes.

“i just wanted to see you,” he says quietly, his fingers trailing down your arm before finding your hand. he intertwines his fingers with yours, and he watches as your features soften, your lips curving up and rounding your cheeks.

“i’m here,” you murmur as taesan pulls you towards him. his palm settles on your waist as both of your hands come up to cup his face. then he’s kissing you, or you’re kissing him. who knows? not him. all he knows is that you’re warm, you’re solid underneath his fingertips, you’re real and here and he gets to feel the softness of your lips against his. you pull away after a moment, your fingers sliding into his hair as you press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. but taesan chases after your lips, kissing you again, smiling against your skin when you giggle softly.

when he finally pulls away from you, it’s not to anywhere far. he lets go of your hand to place his palm on your back, pulling you down with him as he leans back. you let out a small yelp as you fall onto the mattress beside him, and taesan laughs, for the first time in what feels like a while.

that’s when he notices it.

a soft, green glow from the ceiling. glow-in-the-dark stars. he looks at you with a small smile. “when did you do that?”

you grin. “just today. i was putting up the last of them when you came in. do you like them?”

taesan looks up at the ceiling again. the stars are scattered in constellations across their new sky, and he thinks he can recognize a few. he turns back to you, to your bright eyes and wide smile. to you, who has quite literally hung the stars in the sky.

his sky.

“i love them,” he whispers, brushing your hair out of your face to see the reflection of the stars in your eyes. “thank you, darling.”

as you snuggle closer to him, taesan thinks he can barely remember why he was so tired. here, with you, under a ceiling full of stars, he’s perfectly content. he’s perfectly content to just lie here and do nothing with you.

٠ ࣪⭑ © starriniqhts 2026, all rights reserved.

⋆.˚ ☾⭒.˚ want to check out the planetarium's other exhibits?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sanghyuk rubs his temple. Big words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He stands up from behind the computer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Ready?”

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

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

It will rain.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Would you drift with me?”

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

“What?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What? No! I’m not leaving you!”

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

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

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

“Y/N… you need to survive.”

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

You faint.

The neural bridge collapses.

Sanghyuk is yanked out of the Drift.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Here?”

This time you don’t even hesitate.

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

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

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

END NOTES. header pic from the action concept photos

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

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

☆ BOYNEXTDOOR masterlist

💌 askbox