simp for jake sim

You push through the door, laptop bag sliding off your shoulder, already mentally clocking out of the first lecture before it's even started.

You’re so focused on going to your lecture that you nearly collide with someone.

Ni-ki is always recognizable through his scent most of the time, always that faint coffee smell to hide whatever he smoked on the drive over. His hand shoots out to hold something up between your faces. A small black clip. You spent 10 minutes looking for it yesterday with the little crack in the plastic from when you dropped it in your shower not so long ago.

"You left this," he says flatly.

Two days ago. You remember exactly where you left it ; on his nightstand, next to the empty can of soda and your phone that he'd moved so it wouldn't fall off the edge. He kept it in his pocket like a psychopath until now.

You take it. Your fingers brush his.

"Thanks," you say, because what else is there.

He's already stepping around you, hands shoved in his hoodie pockets, heading to the opposite direction of every single one of his classes. You watch the back of his hoodie disappear around the corner.

Jess is already in your usual seats, two rows from the back, her energy drink sweating onto her notebook. She clocks your face the second you sit down.

"God, you look terrified," she says. "What happened?"

You set the clip on the desk. "Ni-ki just returned my hair clip."

Jess's eyebrows go up. She knows, not everything, but enough to figure out your state. She knows you go over there and she knows you don't talk about it.

"And how was that exchange ?"

"Normal, I guess." You pull out your laptop, even though you know you're not going to take notes. "He said 'you left this' and walked away."

"Romantic."

"Right."

She's quiet for a bit, then leans closer, lowering her voice even though no one near you is paying attention. "Okay, real question. Are you, like... keeping track? I mean, number-wise."

You frown. "Like...body counts?"

"Yeah. Like, since this whole thing started. Are you even seeing other people? Are you counting repeats? Because I've been thinking about it and I genuinely don't know what the etiquette is."

"I don't think there is an etiquette for whatever this is." You tap your fingernail against the desk. "And no, I'm not counting anything."

"You should. For records, at least." She grins, but it fades when you don't mirror it. "Fine. Do you want to count him? Like, in a way that means something?"

The professor walks in and you watch the projector screen flicker to life.

"I don't know," you say. And that's the worst part, you don't know if you want him to mean something or if you just want to stop wanting it so badly. The line between the two has been blurred for months now.

Jess sighs. "Boys are so stupid, like actually brain-dead. I swear my ex thought the clit wasn’t a real thing."

That pulls a laugh out of you, tired and a little rough. "He wasn't that bad."

"Your bar is in hell as I can see."

The lecture starts. You zone out ten minutes in, thumb moving over the crack in your hair clip. He kept it in his pocket for two days. You don't know what that means and you're probably not supposed to know.

It's fine. You'll text him tonight. He'll reply with one word or nothing at all. And you'll go over anyway. Because that's what this is.

───

Break time hits and the courtyard is a mess. You find a spot at one of the picnic tables near the old oak tree, Jess refuses to sit at because she says it gives her anxiety. You don’t mind it. It’s farther from the main walkway, which means fewer people trying to make small talk.

Jess is already inside the cafeteria buying a pastry that she kept talking about during the whole lecture, so you’re alone for a minute, scrolling on your phone without really focusing on anything. The sun is too bright and the coffee you had earlier is making your hands feel jittery. You can’t stop thinking about the way Ni-ki held out that hair clip this morning like it was nothing.

You look up because something in your peripheral shifts, and there he is. Two tables over, diagonal across the courtyard, sitting with Jay and Jungwon and another guy you don’t recognize. He’s not paying attention to whatever Jay is saying ; his elbow is propped on the table, chin resting on his knuckles, and he’s looking directly at you.

You hold eye contact because looking away first feels like losing a battle you didn't even initiate.

He tilts his head slightly, lazy but intentional, and mouths something slowly so you catch every syllable: "My place. After classes?"

Sounds like it’s a statement dressed up like one.

You nod once, enough for him to catch it.

He smiles but not a big one, it's a twitch at the corner of his mouth, making it looks like he’s amused by the whole thing, you just confirmed something he already knew. Afterwards, he turns back to his friends like nothing happened, reaching over to steal Jay’s fries without looking at you again.

Oh you hate what you just felt at that exact moment.

Jess drops into the seat across from you a moment later, biting into a croissant that’s shedding crumbs everywhere. “Okay, so I have a chem lab at 2 and then I’m free,” she says, talking around the pastry. “You wanna grab food after? There's that new Thai place that opened and I’ve been thinking about their spring rolls for days.”

You blink at her, still half-focused on the back of Ni-ki’s hoodie across the courtyard.

“Damn, the wind must be really strong today.”

“Sorry. What?”

“Thai place after classes. You in or not?”

You hesitate for a beat too long and Jess’s eyes narrow.

“Oh Lord,” she says slowly, setting down her croissant. “You’re not free, are you?”

You pick at a splinter on the table. “Not tonight.”

“Let me guess.” She leans forward. “Tall and emotionally unavailable.”

“Is that how you see him?”

“Am I wrong?”

You don’t answer, and she groans into her hands.

“You’re actually killing me,” she says. “One day, you’re going to wake up and realize you’ve been in a situationship with a guy who communicates exclusively through neutral face expressions.”

“He talked to me this morning.”

“He returned your hair clip, that’s not talking. Girl, come on.”

You laugh despite yourself, kicking her foot under the table. “Just text me the menu and I’ll go with you next week.”

She sighs heavily as she picks her croissant back up. “Fine. But you owe me details. Not the weird ones, i don't want to know how he fucks. I just want to know...like his last name. I don’t even know his last name.”

You look back toward the other table. Ni-ki is laughing at something Jungwon said, head tipped back slightly, and for a second he looks younger than 21, less like the version of him that presses you against his mattress and more like the version that offered you a cigarette on a rooftop when you were both strangers.

You still don’t know his last name either.

“Yeah,” you say quietly. “Me neither.”

───

The last class of the day finally ends. By the time the professor dismisses you, the sun has already set down, letting the sky being painted in purple and orange shades.

You don't rush to the parking lot. Something about walking too fast feels like admitting out loud that seeing him was the only thing you were looking forward to the whole day. Which it was.

The lot is mostly empty now, most students cleared out ten minutes ago, desperate to escape. Your sneakers scrape against the concrete as you weave between rows of beat-up sedans and the occasional overcompensating truck. And you finally spot his car.

His black Camaro is parked in the far corner, the one closest to the exit, because of course he needs a quick getaway. The engine is already running ; you can tell by the faint exhaust curling from the back ; and through the windshield you can see him slouched in the driver's seat, one hand resting on the wheel.

His head is tilted down, probably at his phone, and for a second you think about turning around and walking away just to see how long it would take him to notice. But your feet keep moving because you're pathetic like that.

You pull open the passenger door and the warmth hits you immediately ; he always runs the heat even when it's not that cold outside. The leather seat creaks under you as you slide in, tossing your bag between your feet.

Ni-ki doesn't look up right away as he finishes typing something, locks his phone, and only then turns his head toward you.

"You took forever," he says.

"Class ran late."

He hums, unconvinced, but he doesn't push it. He reaches over and pulls your seatbelt across you, not because he's being sweet, but because he's watched you forget it three times now and he's tired of the car beeping.

His knuckles brush your collarbone.

He puts the car in reverse and backs out without checking his blind spot, which should terrify you but doesn't anymore. The parking lot exits onto a side street and then he's merging into traffic, one hand on the wheel, the other tapping against his thigh to some imaginary song.

You watch his profile. The way his jaw is set, the tiny scar near his eyebrow he's never explained, the way his hoodie sleeve falls just right on his wrist.

"So," you say, because sitting in total silence for the whole drive feels like something a hostage would do. "You had a good day?"

He glances at you, and there's something almost amused in his expression. "You don't care about my day."

"Maybe I do."

"You don't." He says it simply, he obviously assumes that you don't actually care about his day because you're only here for one reason. And the worst part is he's not wrong, or maybe he is wrong and you just haven't figured out how to prove it yet.

You look out the window instead. The buildings blur past, a laundromat, a bodega with a faded sign, a bus stop with one tired-looking person waiting. Just normal things.

After a minute, Ni-ki's hand leaves the wheel and lands on your thigh, resting there.

The car keeps moving.

───

His house is too big for one person. That's the same thing you think every time you walk through the front door, and tonight is no different. The entryway alone could fit your entire apartment, and the ceilings are so high you get a little neck cramp looking up at the chandelier that probably costs more than your tuition.

Ni-ki doesn't bother with the lights. He hits a switch near the door and the living room floods with warm overhead light, revealing a space that looks like something out of a magazine ; leather couches, a marble coffee table that's definitely never seen a coffee ring, floor-to-ceiling windows that face a backyard you've only seen once in the dark. Everything is clean.

He kicks off his shoes by the door and you do the same, lining your sneakers up next to his like a silent compromise between his mess and yours.

You're still shrugging off your jacket when he drops onto the massive sectional couch, sprawling across it like a cat going for a nap. His hoodie rides up slightly and you look away because looking at him in that way would feel criminal.

"So," he says, drawing the word out, and there's something in his voice that makes you pause mid-fold of your jacket. "We've done the bed. We've done the floor. We've done the kitchen counter that one time." He tilts his head against the cushion, eyes tracking you across the room. "What about the couch?"

You freeze with your jacket still in your hands.

There's a crease at the corner of his eye that gives him away. He's enjoying this ; the way your shoulders go stiff, the way you suddenly can't look at him directly. The couch is huge and leather and objectively fine, but something about the suggestion makes your face heat anyway. Maybe because it's different, maybe because it feels less like falling into bed and more like something you'd have to think about.

"Don't get shy now," he says, and his voice is lower, teasing but soft underneath. "You literally said yes before I finished asking last time."

"That was something else."

"How?"

You want to answer, but it's embarrassing. You're not shy about him, not really, not anymore. But the couch feels too exposed, too close to the windows, too close to the part of the house where someone could theoretically walk in even though no one ever does. It feels less like a decision and more like a dare.

You drape your jacket over the back of an armchair, stalling. "I'm not shy."

Ni-ki shifts, propping himself up on his elbow. His hair falls over his forehead and he looks annoyingly handsome like this, all loose limbs and lazy confidence. "Yeah? Then come here."

Three words. And your feet move before your brain catches up. He doesn't even have to beg, when he just says things like they've already happened and waits for you to catch up, knowing you will eventually.

You stop at the edge of the couch, looking down at him. He looks back up at you, and his expression softens a little.

"Or we can go upstairs," he says, and it's not a concession.

You hate how easy it is for him to make you feel seen.

You sit down on the edge of the couch, close enough that your knee touches his thigh. "The couch is fine."

His eyebrow goes up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

His hand finds your waist anyway, pulling you closer until you're half-draped across his chest, and the leather creaks beneath you both. His heart is steady under your palm but yours is not.

"Liar," he murmurs against your hair.

He's right. You are shy, and a really bad liar.

The walk up to his bedroom feels longer than it should, the anticipation is buzzing under your skin. You’re practically vibrating with nervous energy as Ni-ki unlocks the massive door and pushes it open. The room is dark and spacious, lit only by the soft glow of city lights filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

He immediately reaches for the hem of his oversized hoodie, yanking it over his head and tossing it carelessly onto the floor. The sight of his bare chest stops you in your tracks. You feel a sudden, overwhelming wave of shyness wash over you, your cheeks flushing hot as you avert your gaze, suddenly feeling incredibly exposed.

"Why are you getting shy again?" Ni-ki asks, his voice low and amused as he steps closer, invading your personal space. He tilts his head, his eyes studying your face intently. "You’re not usually like this. What’s up?"

You look up at him, your voice barely a whisper. "Can we...go soft this time?" you ask, feeling vulnerable. He pauses, a glint of confusion crossing his face, but he nods slowly, understanding dawning in his eyes.

"Okay," he says, his voice dropping an octave lower. "I'll be soft."

He pulls you in by the waist, his hands warm against your skin, and you can feel the tension building between you. He presses you gently against the doorframe, his lips capturing yours in a soft kiss. His hands wander down your back, his fingers digging into your flesh, but you don't want to rush. You want to feel every inch of him, dragging this out.

You kiss him back, your tongues tangling together, a slow and deep exploration. His hands slide up your shirt, his fingers tracing patterns on your skin, sending shivers down your spine. His hands move to the waistband of your pants, his fingers teasing the button and zipper. You shiver as he undoes them, letting them pool around your ankles, and you step out of them, kicking them aside.

He picks you up, wrapping your legs around his waist, and carries you to the bed. He lays you down gently, the mattress sinking beneath you. He climbs on top of you, his weight pressing you into the sheets. He kisses you again, his lips moving from the corner of your mouth to your jaw, then down your neck, his tongue flicking over your sensitive skin. You arch your back, giving him more access, his hands exploring your body, mapping out every curve and dip.

He moves lower, his lips trailing down your stomach, his fingers hooking into the waistband of your underwear. He pulls them down slowly, his eyes never leaving yours. He parts your legs, his fingers tracing the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. You gasp, your hips bucking slightly as he touches you there.

He leans down and spreads your legs wider, his fingers sliding into you. He begins to finger you, his movements slow and pleasant, his fingers curling inside you, searching for that sweet spot. You moan his name, your hands gripping a pillow beside you. He adds a second finger, stretching you, his thumb rubbing against your clit. You can feel yourself getting closer to the edge, your muscles tightening around his fingers.

He pulls his fingers out, and you whine at the loss. He looks up at you before bringing his fingers into his mouth, sucking on them. "Sweet, huh?" he says, smiling, before moving up to kiss you again.

He positions himself at your entrance, his eyes locking onto yours. He pushes in slowly, inch by inch, filling you completely. You gasp, his eyes rolling back slightly as he stretches you. He stays there for a moment, letting you adjust to his size, the friction building between you. "Tell me if it hurts."

"It's okay." You barely could answer.

He begins to move. He watches your face, wanting to see every reaction you have to him. He kisses you deeply, the kiss matching the pace of his hips. The feeling of him filling you up is overwhelming, the sensation of being so full and stretched is intense.

You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, encouraging him to go faster, but he holds back, his pace steady and controlled. He wants to make this last. He focuses on the sensations, the heat between your bodies.

He pulls out slightly, then pushes back in, his eyes never leaving yours. He leans down and kisses your neck, his teeth grazing your skin. You moan his name, the sound echoing in the room. He smiles against your skin, a small, satisfied smile, knowing he’s making you feel good.

He picks up the pace just a little, his thrusts becoming a little more urgent, but still slow. He wants to be inside you for as long as possible. The friction is delicious, sending sparks flying through your body. He kisses you again, his tongue tangling with yours, the taste of you driving him wild.

You can feel yourself getting closer to the edge, your muscles tightening around him. You look up at him, your eyes glazed with pleasure. "Ni-ki," you breathe out, your voice breathless and ragged. "I'm going to come," you whisper.

He nods, his eyes locking onto yours, and he keeps thrusting, his pace remaining steady, but he focuses on the spot that makes you see stars. You cry out his name as you unravel, your body clamping down on him. He follows moments later, his hips bucking against yours as he releases inside you, filling you completely.

He stays inside you for a long time, the silence of the room broken only by your ragged breathing. He leans down and kisses your forehead, his arms wrapped around you, pulling you close. "Fuck...that was good," he says, his voice quiet and tired.

He reaches for the bedside table and pulls out a small baggie and a lighter. He packs a bowl, taking a long drag, and then offers it to you.

You take a hit, your lungs filling with the smoke, and you cough slightly. He laughs, his chest vibrating against your back. He leans over you, blowing the smoke directly on your face. He pulls back, a mischievous grin on his face.

"Come closer," he whispers, his voice husky. He blows another cloud of smoke into your mouth, sealing it with a kiss. You feel the smoke swirl in your mouth and then pass it back to him, the taste of weed and mint mixing on your tongues.

"Ayy, that was kinda cool," he says, tracing the outline of your lips with his thumb.

"Was it?" you ask, a smile playing on your lips.

"Yeah," he says, his eyes darkening. "You should come over more often."

You just smile, content and relaxed, feeling the weight of the day melting away.

The bedroom is a mess of tangled blankets and discarded clothes by the time you both settle into the quiet evening. The floor lamp in the corner casts everything in a golden glow, just enough to see the shape of his arm resting above his head, the way his chest rises and falls.

You're on your back, staring at the ceiling, your shirt thrown somewhere near the night table.

Ni-ki hasn't moved to touch you. His hand is draped off the edge of the bed, fingers grazing the floor, and he's looking at the wall with that blank expression that could mean anything or nothing.

You don't know why you ask it and the words just fall out.

"Have you ever thought about getting a girlfriend?"

It sounds almost too casual. You keep your eyes on the ceiling so you don't have to see his reaction.

For a moment he doesn't answer. Then you feel him shift beside you, the mattress dipping slightly as he props himself up on one elbow. When you glance over, he's looking down at you with something unreadable on his face.

"What kind of question is that?" he says.

You shrug with one shoulder. "Just wondering."

He's quiet again, and you think maybe he's going to ignore it, change the subject or reach for his phone like he usually does. He exhales through his nose, almost a laugh, and runs a hand through his hair.

"There's this girl," he says, and your stomach drops. "She keeps calling me, texts me like three times a week. She wants to come over and fuck again."

You keep your face neutral. "And ?"

"And I don't really want to. She's kind of annoying, to be honest." He pauses, tilting his head like he's considering something. "But I might consider it. It kinda gets boring doing the same thing all the time."

The same thing. You. He means you.

Your jaw tenses and you look back at the ceiling because if you look at him right now, he'll see it ; the glint of something stupid. Jealousy. Over a girl you don't even know, over a guy who isn't yours and has never pretended to be.

You swallow it down. "So do it then," you say, and your voice comes out steady. "Not like we're exclusive."

"Exactly." He says it so easily.

There's a beat of silence. He shifts again, and you feel his gaze on your profile.

"What about you," he says. "You ever want a relationship? Like, one day."

The question catches you off guard. He's never asked you anything personal before. The closest he's gotten was asking if you wanted water that one time, and even that felt like an accident.

You should say yes. I mean you do want one. Just not with someone else. Maybe with him. But that's not what he's asking and you know it.

"No," you say, and the lie tastes bitter. "That's too much work."

He stares at you for a second longer before he drops back onto the mattress, arm going over his eyes. "Yeah," he says, voice muffled. "Same."

You lie there in the darkening room, his body warm next to yours but not touching, and you listen to the silence stretch.

He reaches for his phone on the floor and you reach for your shirt.

That's how it goes.

───

Friday afternoon, the sky is gray and it looks like it might rain but probably won't. You find yourself climbing the stairs to the rooftop before you've fully decided to go there. The pack of cigarettes in your pocket feels like an excuse, but it's the only one you have.

The door creaks when you push it open, and the air hits you instantly, a little damp, carrying the distant sound of traffic from the main road. You step out onto the gravel, lighter already in your hand.

Ni-ki is already there, leaning against the railing at the edge of the roof, the same spot where you first met him 8 months ago. His back is to you, shoulders hunched, a thin curl of smoke rising from between his fingers. He doesn't turn around when the door closes behind you. Either he didn't hear or he doesn't care.

For a second you think about leaving, turning around and going back down the stairs, pretending you never came up here. But your feet don't move, and neither does he, so you walk over to the opposite side of the railing and lean against it a few feet away.

You pull out a cigarette, light it and take a drag. The smoke burns on the way down.

Neither of you speaks for a long minute. The wind picks up, ruffling his hair, and he finally glances sideways at you. His eyes look tired, you already know he hasn't been sleeping at all.

"You smoke too much," he says, not even greeting you.

"So do you."

He huffs something that might be a laugh but it's hollow. He turns back to look at the skyline, the cluster of buildings and trees and the far-off blur of the highway. His jaw is tight, you could see it.

You should leave it alone. That's the agreement ; you don't do feelings, you don't do problems, you just do each other's bodies and then go home. But something about how his shoulders are set like he's holding something heavy, makes the words come out anyway.

"You okay?"

He takes a long drag, holds it and exhales. The smoke gets carried away by the wind.

"My parents," he says finally, and his voice is flat. "They want to cut me off."

You wait. He doesn't elaborate so you push. "Cut you off from what?"

"Everything." He flicks ash onto the gravel. "Money. My car. My card. All of it." A pause. "They say I've been doing bad things with it. That I'm out of control."

You can guess ; the late nights, the people he knows, the way his eyes look red sometimes when he picks you up. You've never asked before,it never felt like your place.

"So what are you going to do?" you say.

He looks at you then and there's something sharp in his expression. "What am I supposed to do? Get a job that I don't even like? Work at a café like a normal person?" He says it like the words taste bad.

You take a drag, thinking. "Maybe you could talk to them. Explain that—"

"I'm not explaining anything." His voice is harder now. "They don't listen. They never have. They just throw money at problems and then get mad when the problems don't magically disappear."

"Okay, but if they take the car, how are you going to—"

"I don't know." He cuts you off, pushing off from the railing and turning to face you fully. His cigarette is burning down between his fingers.

You take another drag. "You could...I don't know, sell some stuff? Or try to— "

"You don't get it."

His voice cuts through yours sharper than you expected. You turn to look at him. He's still facing forward, but his shoulders are tense now, his hand gripping the edge of the railing.

"I'm not saying I get it," you say carefully. "I'm just trying to help."

"Help." He says the word like an offense. "You can't help. You don't know what it's like to have everything and then have it pulled away. To have people look at you like you're just a spoiled kid who fucks up and that's all you'll ever be." His eyes are darker than usual. "You don't come from that. You don't understand."

It stings. Not because he's wrong about your background, he's not, you've never hidden that you're on scholarships and financial aid but because he's shutting you out in that particular way he does, it makes you feel like you're on the other side of a wall you can't climb.

"I'm not trying to fix it," you say, quieter now. "I just care. That's all."

He stares at you for a long second. His expression flickers, something almost vulnerable, almost soft, and then it's totally gone.

"Care," he repeats. "We're not close, Y/N. We fuck and that's it. You don't have to pretend like there's more, you know?."

He pauses. "I know what you're trying to do." His voice drops. "But you can't. You don't have parents like mine. You don't have...you live in a normal apartment and you worry about normal things. I can't just 'talk to them.' I can't just 'figure it out.' It's not the same."

Your chest tightens, you want to argue, you want to tell him about the hair clip, about the hundred small things that felt like something when you knew it didn't at all.

But you don't. Because he's right, isn't he? That's what you agreed to.

He drops his cigarette, grinds it out under his shoe, and stands. He doesn't look at you again.

You open your mouth to say something but he's already stepping back, dropping his cigarette to the gravel and grinding it out with his shoe.

"Forget it," he says. "I shouldn't have said anything."

He walks past you. The rooftop door creaks open, then shut.

You're alone.

The cigarette in your hand has burned down to the filter. You drop it, watch the last wisp of smoke rise up into the gray sky, and you don't follow him.

That's not your role and it never was.

───

The sand is hot enough to burn your feet by the time you and Jess find a spot near the water. You spread your towels out, anchor them with bags and a half empty bottle of sunscreen, and Jess immediately starts complaining about the seagulls.

"It's fine," you say, pulling your shirt over your head. "They're not gonna attack you."

"You don't know that."

You're about to respond when a volleyball smacks into the sand a few feet away from your towel. Jess jumps in surprise and you look up.

Jay is jogging toward you, already laughing, hand raised in apology. Behind him, Jake is doubled over for some reason, Jungwon is heading towards the shores, and further back, near the water, Ni-ki is standing with his hands in his shorts pockets, watching the horizon.

"Sorry," Jay says, grabbing the ball. "Jake's aim is ass today."

"Jake's aim is always ass," Jess says with a smile. She's known Jay since high school, and some habits don't fade.

Jay waves toward the others. "You guys wanna hang out? We've got a net set up. Well, Jake found a net. We're not sure where it came from though."

You glance at Jess and she shrugs.

"Yeah, okay," you say.

Walking over feels like walking into something you're not prepared for. The sand is soft, slipping under your feet with every step. Jake waves when he sees you. Jungwon is already in the water up to his knees, ignoring everyone. And Ni-ki is standing slightly apart from the group, not looking at you, which is fine because you're not looking at him either.

You haven't talked since yesterday at the rooftop, since he left you there with your cigarette burning down to nothing.

So you don't look at him and he doesn't look at you.

"We should play," Jake says, grabbing the ball from Jay. "Let’s make teams. Y/N, you're with me."

"You're gonna lose," Jess says.

"Bold talk from someone who hasn't touched a volleyball since middle school."

Jess flips him off.

The game is messy, no one really knows the rules except Jay, who keeps trying to enforce them, and Jungwon who doesn't care. You're next to Jake, which means you're laughing more than you're playing because he keeps making stupid comments every time he misses the ball.

"That was on purpose," he says after a ball flies past his head.

"Sure it was."

"I was just testing your reflexes."

You roll your eyes and serve. The ball actually goes over the net, it feels like a miracle. Ni-ki is on the other side, you realize. He misses it and watches it land in the sand next to him.

Jake whoops. "Good job Y/N."

The game ends when someone (no one knows who) decides it's over. Jess is already walking toward the water, pulling her hair into a messy ponytail. Jay follows her.

"Race you," Jake says, and he's already running before you can answer.

You run after him because you're competitive, and the water is cold when it hits your shin, colder when you fall forward trying to dodge a wave. Jake is laughing at you, so you push water at his face.

You two have a full on play fight right there in the shallows, splashing, shoving, Jake grabbing your wrist to spin you around. He's stronger than he looks, but he's also not holding that hard, so you manage to shove him back once, twice. His foot slips on a rock and he goes down, half sitting in the water, still laughing.

"Oh you're so dead," he says.

"You already are."

He lunges for your ankle and you stumble, catching yourself on his shoulder. For a second you're both just standing there, out of breath, water dripping down your faces.

Jake is still loosely holding your wrist.

"You fight dirty," he says.

"Just admit you're slow."

He laughs and lets go, wading deeper, already turning to find Jay.

You look toward the shore without meaning to. Ni-ki is standing at the edge of the water, watching the whole scene. His arms are crossed. His expression is blank.

You hold his gaze for a second but he looks away first.

Jess appears next to you, hair soaked and grinning. "Jake's gonna ask you out by the end of the summer. Watch it."

"He's not."

"Did you see the way he looked at you the whole time ?."

"It was a play fight."

Jess gives you a look. "Sure. And Ni-ki is definitely not standing over there looking like he wants to punch someone."

You glance back at the shore. Ni-ki is walking toward the towels, not toward the water. His steps are quick.

"Hey," Jay calls out. "You’re getting in or what?"

Ni-ki doesn't stop. "Got stuff to do."

"We’re at the beach. What stuff?"

He doesn't answer and grabs his shirt from his bag, shakes the sand off, and starts walking toward the parking lot.

Jake watches him go, frowning. "What's his deal?"

No one answers. Jay looks at you.

"I'm gonna go get some water," you say, because you don't know what else to say.

Jess grabs your arm before you can move. "Don't."

"What?"

"You're gonna chase after him. I can see it on your face. And he's just gonna say something shitty and you're gonna feel worse."

You pull your arm back. "I'm not going to chase after him."

"Okay."

"I'm not."

She holds her hands up. "Okay."

You stand in the water, salt drying on your skin, and watch the spot where his car was parked until the space is empty. Jess is right. You'd only feel worse, but it doesn’t matter since you already do.

───

The door to your apartment clicks shut behind you and you drop your beach bag on the floor, sand already spilling out onto the tiles. Your shoulders are pink from the sun, your hair still damp and tangled with salt, and all you want is a cold shower and an unhealthy amount of time of scrolling on your phone.

You plug your phone in first because it died somewhere between the volleyball game and the drive home. The screen lights up after a few seconds, and you blink at the notification.

13 missed calls.

All from the same number. It’s unknown.

Your first thought is spam. Your second thought is a wrong number. Your third thought, the one you don't want to acknowledge, is him.

You hesitate for a moment, thumb hovering over the call button, you press “call”.

The line rings four time before going to voicemail. A generic automated voice telling you to leave a message. You hang up without saying anything.

You're about to toss the phone onto your bed when it rings again. The same number. You answer. For a few seconds, no one speaks. There's just a slow and uneven breathing, and something in the background that sounds like a TV.

"Hello?" you say.

Still nothing, so you decide to assume that it’s him.

"I know it's you," you say. "You called me thirteen times. You can at least say something."

A pause and you hear his voice, low and slurred around the edges. "Hey."

Ni-ki.

You close your eyes and lean against your bedroom wall. "You okay?"

"Define okay."

"You're high."

"I guess so."

You can hear him exhale, long and slow, probably smoke. It’s definitely weed. His words are sticky, running into each other like he's thinking too hard about each one before it leaves his mouth.

"I didn't like it," he says suddenly. "Today. At the beach."

Your chest tightens. "Didn't like what?"

"You know what. The way you were with Jake. All close and laughing and..." He trails off, and you hear him take another drag. "Whatever, it doesn't matter. I don't care. You do whatever you want."

"You just said you didn't like it."

"I said it doesn't matter."

The line goes quiet for a moment. You can picture him ; probably sprawled on that massive leather couch in his empty living room, the high ceilings and the chandelier that cost at least a kidney. One hand holding the phone, the other holding whatever he's smoking. His eyes half-closed, looking like a hot disaster.

"I really need you right now," he says, and his voice cracks on the last word.

Your heart does a flip.

"That's not fair," you say quietly.

"I’m sorry."

"You can't just call me when you're high and say stuff like that."

"I know."

Silence. The sound of the TV in the background on his end. You can hear your own breathing.

"Can you come over?" he asks, and he sounds smaller than you've ever heard him. Needy like he never lets himself be. "Please."

You could’ve say no, tell him to sleep it off and call you in the morning when he's sober and less likely to say things he'll pretend didn't happen. You have to protect yourself for once.

And here you are, already grabbing your keys.

───

The drive takes twenty minutes. His house is dark when you pull into the driveway, the only light coming from somewhere deeper inside. The front door is unlocked as it always is, and you let yourself in, kicking off your sandals by the entryway.

The living room is a mess. Everything is scattered. There’s a blanket on the floor, empty glasses on the coffee table and his hoodie draped over the arm of the couch. And there he is, slouched in the corner of the sectional, phone on the cushion beside him, a half smoked joint balanced on the edge of an ashtray.

His eyes are red and his hair is a mess. He looks up at you when you walk in and something in his expression changes. It’s relief, you might think.

"There’s no way you really came," he says like he's surprised.

"You called me thirteen times."

"Right."

You drop your bag by the door and walk over to him. The coffee table has a pitcher of water and some takeout containers from somewhere you don't recognize. You push them aside and sit on the edge of the couch, facing him.

"You're an asshole," you say.

"Yeah."

"Like, genuinely an asshole."

He's not arguing back so that's how you know he's really high.

You reach out and take the joint from the ashtray, stubbing it out even though there's still some left. He watches your hands, your fingers, the way you're sitting close enough that your knee almost touches his.

"When did you eat last?" you ask.

He blinks at you like the question requires calculus. "I don't know. Lunch?"

"It's almost ten."

"Oh."

You sigh and stand up, heading toward the kitchen. His kitchen is massive and spotless and useless because he barely uses it. You find bread, peanut butter, a banana that's not too brown. You make him a sandwich without asking if he wants one because he's not in a state to make good decisions. When you come back, he hasn't moved an inch. You hand him the plate and he stares at it for a second before taking it.

"Eat," you say.

"You're bossy when you're annoyed."

"I'm always annoyed. You just don't notice."

He takes a bite, chews and swallows. His eyes stay on you the whole time.

You sit back down, closer this time, and you watch him eat until half the sandwich is gone. You take the plate away and set it on the coffee table.

"Water," you say, pouring a glass from the pitcher. You hand it to him and he drinks. When he's done, he sets the glass down and leans his head back against the couch, eyes closed. His breathing is slower now.

"You didn't have to come, you know." he says.

"You asked me to."

"Yeah. But you didn't have to."

You look at him ; the dark circles, the dried salt on his skin from the beach he barely touched, the way his hands are trembling just slightly. He's a mess. He's always been a mess, yet he's sitting here, in this big empty house, and he called you. Amongst everyone he knew, he called you.

"Yeah, well," you say quietly. "I'm here anyway so..."

He opens his eyes and turns his head to look at you. His gaze is heavy and unfocused.

"You're gonna stay?" he asks. "For a bit?"

You have to go home, because you have class tomorrow. Your hair is still damp from the ocean and you're tired and you know that staying will only make things more complicated.

"Yeah," you say. "For a bit."

He shifts on the couch, making room, and you take the hint. You sit next to him, close enough that your shoulder presses against his arm, and he doesn't pull away. Neither do you.

After a few minutes, his head drops onto your shoulder. His breathing evens out. He's not asleep, heavy and warm against you.

You stare at the dark windows, the empty room, the ghost of smoke curling from the ashtray.

This isn't going to fix anything. You know that and he knows that. But for now, he's not pushing you away, so everything feels fine.

The high wears off slowly. You notice that his breathing changes, it’s less shallow and more present. His fingers stop trembling too. His head lifts from your shoulder and he blinks at the room like he's seeing it for the first time.

He's still loose, still soft around the edges, but he's coming back to himself. You can feel it.

"You okay?" you ask.

He nods, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm. "Yeah. Starting to feel human again."

"Good."

A silence settles between you, he turns his head, looking at you with those half-lidded eyes, and his voice is quieter when he speaks. "Did you shower yet? After the beach?"

You glance down at yourself. Your skin still has salt residue, your hair is stiff with dried seawater. "No. I came straight here."

He's quiet for a moment. "We could take a bath."

You look at him. His expression isn't teasing like usual, and it’s almost soft.

"A bath ?" you repeat.

"Uh yeah. The tub's big enough." There’s a pause. "We don't have to do anything. I just—I don't want to be alone right now."

That's the most honest thing he's said all night.

You nod. "Okay."

───

Even if you were already used to every corner of his house, you’d never get over how huge his bathroom is. Marble floors, a tub that could fit three people, candles on the counter that he never lights. He runs the water while you sit on the edge of the sink, watching him test the temperature with his wrist.

He's still in his beach clothes ; shorts, a loose t-shirt and a silver chain with a cross that he never takes off. You're in your bikini top and the oversized button-up you threw on over it.

When the tub is full, he turns off the water and looks at you. "You first."

You slide off the sink and step toward the tub, suddenly aware of how exposed you feel even though you've done much more than this with him. You take off your button-up and step out of your shorts, leaving your bikini on the floor. He does the same ; he pulls his shirt over his head, kicks off his shorts and his boxers.

The water is warm, almost too warm, and you sink into it with a sigh. The salt washes off your skin immediately, and you can feel your muscles relaxing. He gets in behind you, settling against the end of the tub, his legs on either side of yours.

For a minute, neither of you speaks. The water ripples softly. A candle flickers, he must have lit it while you weren't looking. You can feel him shifting, moving closer, and his arms come around your waist from behind. He pulls you back against his chest, resting his chin on your shoulder.

You freeze for half a second. He's never done this before. The fact of having this kind of moment with him doesn’t even feel real to you. You two have been intimate in so many ways but never like this.

"Is this okay?" he murmurs, breath warm against your neck.

"Yeah," you whisper. "It's okay."

His arms tighten slightly, holding you a little closer. You lean your head back against his shoulder and close your eyes.

This is new and terrifying. This is everything you've wanted without letting yourself admit it, but you know that things like that don’t really last. So you have to accept it.

───

The water starts to cool after a while, his thumb is tracing shapes on your stomach, absent-minded.

You think about what brought you here and how he sounded so small when he said he needed you.

"Ni-ki," you say quietly.

"Mm?"

You hesitate. You don't want to ruin whatever this is. But it's been sitting in your chest since all the times you've watched him disappear into himself.

"Those friends of yours that you mentioned before," you say. "The ones who got you into this stuff."

His hand stops moving.

"I'm not trying to start a fight," you add quickly. "I’m just worrying about you. You said they owe you money…And they're always pushing you to do more."

He's quiet for a long moment.

"They're not in my life anymore," he says finally.

You turn your head slightly, trying to see his face. "What?"

"I cut them off, like, a few weeks ago." His voice is steady and clearer. "They weren't friends. They just wanted someone to pay for everything and someone to get high with. I got tired of it."

You don't know what to say. He's never told you this or anything.

"Why didn't you say something?" you ask.

He shrugs, the movement rippling the water. "Didn't seem important."

"Not important? Ni-ki, they were using you."

"I know but," He presses his cheek against your hair. "That's why I stopped answering their calls. They'll figure it out."

You turn in his arms so you're facing him, knees on either side of his hips, water sloshing against the edges of the tub. His face is inches from yours. You can see that his eyes are tired.

"And the money they owe you?" you ask.

"It's just money." He says it like it means nothing. Or maybe to him, it doesn't. "I'd rather lose that than keep pretending they gave a shit about me."

Your hands find his shoulders, thumbs brushing over his collarbones and he lets you touch him.

"You're not going to fall back into that?" you ask. "When things get hard again?"

He looks at you for a long time.

"No," he says. "You’re here anyway. Everything feels different."

Your heart cracks a little.

"You can't rely on me to fix you," you force yourself to say, because you have to say it, you've seen too many people drown trying to save someone else.

"Y/N," He cups your face with one hand, thumb brushing your cheekbone. "I'm not asking you to fix me. I…I don't want to be alone anymore. It scares me more than you think."

The water is barely warm now. Your knees are starting to ache from the position.

"Okay," you whisper.

He smiles at you softly, and you nearly thought it meant something.

"We should get out," he says. "The water's cold."

"Yeah."

He pulls the plug and grabs a towel from the rack, wrapping it around your shoulders before his own. You step out of the tub together, dripping on the marble floor.

───

7:12 AM and your phone is rattling against the wood of your nighstand like it's trying to wake the dead. You grope for it blindly, eyes half-open and your brain still somewhere in a dream you can't even remember.

Ni-ki's name on the screen.

You answer. "Hello?"

"You sound like shit." His voice is rough like he hasn't slept either.

"Thanks. It's fucking seven in the morning."

"Well, no shit. Get dressed, I'm picking you up in twenty."

You sit up, rubbing your face. The memories from two nights ago flicker through your mind ; the bath, his arms around you. You brush it off as soon as the reality catches you.

You push it all down. "For what?"

"Does it matter?"

You're too tired to fight back. And a part of you, the stupid part, just wants to see his face.

"Fine," you say. "Twenty minutes."

He hangs up with no goodbye. Of course.

You throw on jeans and a sweater, brush your teeth. When you hear the engine outside, low and guttural, you grab your bag and head out. It's not the black Camaro. It's a Mustang GT ; sleek, black, newer than anything you've ever sat in. He's leaning against the driver's door, arms crossed, wearing a leather jacket and that same blank expression.

"New car?" you ask.

"Yeah, got bored of the old one." He opens the passenger door for you. "Get in."

The interior smells new and fresh. You buckle up as he slides into the driver's seat and pulls away from the curb without checking his blind spot. Some things never change. The city is waking up around you, coffee shops opening, joggers on the sidewalk.

You watch his profile, observing the sharp line of his jaw and his thumbs tap against the steering wheel like he usually does everytime he drives.

"You're staring," he says without looking at you.

" Am I not allowed ?"

He doesn't respond to that.

You take a breath. "Ni-ki."

"What."

"Why are you so cold sometimes?"

The question hangs in the air between you. His fingers tighten on the steering wheel before he relaxes.

"You think I'm cold?" he asks.

"Sometimes. You disappear, you push me away and...you say things you don't mean or you don't say anything at all." You're watching his face, looking for a crack. "I just want to know why."

He stays quiet for a long moment. The car slows at a red light and he finally glances at you. His eyes are tired again, that's how you know he smoked on the drive over.

Unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth twitches.

"You're cute when you're curious," he says.

"That's not an answer."

"Well," The light turns green, he accelerates. "I'll work on it."

───

The mall is mostly empty this early. A few senior citizens walking laps around the food court, some moms with strollers, employees unlocking gates. Ni-ki walks next to you, hands in his pockets. His presence is heavy but not uncomfortable. You wander past stores without really looking until one catches your eye ; a vintage thrift shop, the expensive kind with every luxury brands where clothes are curated and priced like art pieces.

You step inside more out of curiosity than intention. The racks are organized by color, the lighting warm, and there's a section in the back with dresses probably worn by celebrities considaring their prices.

Your fingers trail over the fabric ; silk, lace, velvet. One of them catches your eyes. A black dress, slip style but not cheap. It makes you think of old Hollywood movies and rooftop parties in the 60s. The price tag is tucked inside, and when you pull it out you actually laugh.

"300 dollars," you say, turning to Ni-ki. "For a thrifted dress."

He's standing a few feet away, watching you with a neutral expression. "Do you want it?"

"I want a lot of things I can't afford."

"That's not what I asked."

You look back at the dress, running your fingers over the fabric again. "It's gorgeous. But no. It's stupid to spend that much."

He pulls the dress off the rack and walks toward the counter without saying a word.

"Ni-ki. What are you doing?"

"Buying the dress."

"No. Ni-ki, come b─."

He ignores you, pulling out his wallet. The cashier, a girl with pink hair, looks between the two of you with mild amusement.

"Sir, would you like a bag?"

"Yes."

"Ni-ki, I'm serious." You grab his arm, but he doesn't stop. "You can't just buy me things like this."

He turns to look at you, and his face is softer than you expected. "Why not?"

"Because—" You don't even exactly know why. Maybe because it's too much or because it looks like it means something. He nods toward the rack, toward a deep red dress you didn't even realize you touched earlier. "You looked at that one first," he says. "I saw you run your fingers over it before you picked up the black one."

You blink. "You noticed that?"

"You touched it for like five seconds. I have to buy it now."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"Too bad then." He tells the cashier to add the red dress too. She does, wrapping both in tissue paper.

You stand there, mouth slightly open, watching him pay nearly six hundred dollars for two dresses you never asked for.

"Try them on," he says, handing you the bag. "If you don't like them, we'll return them."

You stare at him and he stares back.

"Fine," you mutter, grabbing the bag and heading toward the fitting room.

The room is small, with a full-length mirror and a velvet stool. You pull off your jeans and sweater and slide the black dress over your head. It falls perfectly, hitting just above the knee, hugging your waist, the fabric cool against your skin. You turn in the mirror, and for a second, you don't recognize yourself.

You step out of the fitting room.

Ni-ki is leaning against the wall across from the door, phone in hand. His eyes lift to you, and something shifts in his face. His jaw goes slack for just a moment.

"Well?" you ask, suddenly self conscious.

He looks at you ; up and down, slow, like he's trying to memorize every inch of you.

"You look," he starts then suddenly pauses. "It's fine."

"Just fine?"

He pushes off the wall and walks toward you, close enough that you have to tilt your head up to see his face.

"I should return it," he says, there's a teasing edge to his voice now.

"Why?"

"I don't really feel like fighting someone today."

Your face heats. "Shut up."

"I'm dead serious."

"Stop acting like that."

He almost smiles. "Keep the dress. Both of them."

───

The park is small, tucked between a residential street and a community garden. You're sitting on a bench near the pond, ice cream cones in hand ; his is chocolate, yours is strawberry. The sun is higher now, warm enough to make you take off your sweater.

He eats his ice cream in silence, staring at the water. You watch a duck paddle in circles.

"So," he says, not looking at you. "You and Jake seem close."

Your spoon pauses halfway to your mouth. "We're friends."

"Friends." He says lowly. "You were pretty cozy at the beach. I mean, sharing towels...wrestling in the water, all of that."

You narrow your eyes. "Are you jealous?"

He scoffs. "No."

"You're deflecting."

"I can't be observant ?" He casually takes a bite of his ice cream. "Just saying. He's around a lot."

"He's your friend too."

"Yeah, but he doesn't look at me the way he looks at you."

"Nothing's going on with Jake," you say finally.

He shrugs. "Doesn't matter. You do what you want."

There it is again ; that same line he always falls back on. He's always trying to make it sound normal but it comes out like a permission, you're always feeling like it's a test he's making you take.

"I don't want anything with Jake," you say. "I want—" You stop yourself.

He looks at you, waiting for you to continue.

You look away. "Never mind."

The ice cream drips onto your fingers.

"You have ice cream," he says.

"Where?"

He leans in.

His lips are cold from the chocolate, but his tongue is warm when it swipes across the corner of your mouth. You freeze, and you find him kissing you, deep and slow, his hand coming up to cup the back of your neck. It's not the kind of kiss you share in public, so obviously it surprises you.

When he pulls back, you're breathless. You can feel your face burning.

"What was that for?" you manage.

He shrugs, excluding the fact that his ears are pink. "You had ice cream on your mouth."

"That's not a fucking way to wipe off ice cream."

"It is now."

You stare at him and he stares back, expression carefully neutral, nethertheless you can see the cracks. His fingers are still resting on your neck and he's not pulling away.

"You're such a jerk," you whisper.

"Yeah," he says. "Might get strawberry next time."

You shove him in the chest in embarassement, which made him chuckle slightly.

All of this is not making you think about unanswered calls, the days where he decides to be insanely cold or whether he's going to push you away again. So you try to enjoy it as much as you can.

The sun has dropped behind the trees. The bench has gone from comfortable to uncomfortable about an hour ago. Your tailbone is starting to ache and you've shifted positions at least six times, each time less effective than the last.

"I'm bored," you announce.

Ni-ki glances at you from the other end of the bench, one arm stretched along the back, his ice cream cone long gone. "You're always bored."

"Come on, it's been an hour since we sat here."

He watches you with a half-lidded expression. You stand up and brush off the back of your jeans. "There's a playground over there. Let's go."

"A playground." He says flatly, unimpressed by your idea.

"Yeah. You know...swings, slides, kids stuff. Don't tell me you're too cool for swings."

He doesn't agree yet he stands up anyway.

The playground is maybe fifty meters from the bench, a small fenced area with wood chips instead of sand, a plastic slide that's seen better days, and a set of swings hanging from a metal frame. The chains squeak slightly when the wind blows.

You make a beeline for the swings, feet crunching on the wood chips, and plant yourself on the closest one. The rubber seat is cold through your jeans. You grip the chains and kick off just a little.

"Push me," you say, looking back at him.

He's standing at the edge of the wood chips, hands in his pockets, watching you like you from afar. "Push yourself, you're not a kid."

"That's not the point."

He sighs ; a theatrical and put-upon sound ; but he walks over anyway. He positions himself behind you, hands hovering near your lower back for a moment before he gives a firm shove. The swing arcs forward, the chains rattling, and you let out a small laugh. The air rushes past your face. Behind you, he pushes again, harder this time.

"You know," he says, voice carrying over the squeak of the chains, "I've seen this before. Like in a movie. A guy pushes a girl on the swing. Very romantic."

"It's not that romantic. Trust."

"Mm." There's another push. "In the movie, they usually end up doing it in the bushes after."

You kick your feet out, trying to go higher. "What ?"

"You heard it right."

"You're disgusting."

"You're the one who wanted to come here."

He pushes one more time before he steps back. The swing slows gradually, the arc shrinking until you're just swaying. He walks around and sits down on the swing beside you, the chains groaning under his weight. He's taller than you so his legs stretch out longer, boots dragging in the wood chips.

"Be careful," he says, watching you swing forward again. "You're gonna flip over the bar."

"I'm not even that high."

"You could be."

"You worry too much."

He shakes his head. "I just don't want you to stain my new car if you get yourself hurt."

You push off again, swinging higher this time, the chains straining. The wind whistles past your ears. For a second you feel like you could lift right off the seat and keep going.

"See?" you call out. "I'm fine."

"You're gonna eat shit."

"I don't care."

It's a challenge and he hears it. You see him tense from the corner of your eye. You can feel that he's off his swing, boots crunching toward you, and before you can swing back again, his hands are on your waist.

He catches you mid-arc, steadying you, slowing the momentum. His fingers press into your sides through your sweater. The swing creaks to a halt, your feet finding the wood chips, his body so close that you could feel the heat radiating through his leather jacket.

"I know you care," he says quietly. "You just pretend you don't."

You're looking up at him, your hands still on the chains and his on your waist. The sky is almost dark now and a single light on the playground flickers to life somewhere behind him.

"I don't know," you say. "Maybe I learned from the best."

His thumbs press into your waist, just slightly. Something in his face softens.

"Come on," he says, letting go and stepping back. "It's getting dark."

He doesn't wait for you, already walking toward the path, hands back in his pockets, back to his usual distance.

You watch him for a second, then push off the swing one last time, just to feel the air rush past.

He stops and looks back at you. "Are you coming or not?"

"Yeah," you say, hopping off the swing. "I'm coming."

───

One week after, and he disappeared again without a single text, like he always did, but this time it hurt more than usual. It would've hurt less if you haven't hang out with him like there was a title for what you were for each other. But here you are. The lecture hall is half-empty because it's Friday and no one wants to be here, including the professor. You're slouched in your seat while Jess doodles in the margin of her notebook. The guy in front of you is watching YouTube on his laptop with the brightness all the way down. No one seems to care today.

Your phone buzzes against the desk. You glance at the screen. ‘Ni-ki’

Ni-ki [10:22 AM]

going out of town for the weekend

you can fuck anyone u want

don’t wait for me.

You stare at it for a while. You don't know what to say because there's nothing to say. Why is he giving you permission for something you never asked permission for ?

Jess notices your face. "What?"

You turn the phone toward her. She reads it, and her expression shifts from curious to annoyed.

"That's weird," she says quietly.

"Yeah."

"He found another chick, maybe." She chuckled before going back to her doodles.

You lock the phone and set it face-down on the desk. The rest of the lecture drags and sit there, replaying the message in your head, trying to figure out what it actually means.

───

After class, you wait until you're outside, standing under the covered walkway where the smokers hang out. Jess lingers nearby, pretending to check her phone but definitely listening.

You call him.

It rings four times. You think he's going to ignore it, but then he picks up.

"Hey." His voice is flat, sounding like he’s distracted.

"Ni-ki." You grip your phone tighter. "What was that message?"

"What message."

"The one about me fucking whoever I want."

You hear him exhale ; he’s smoking a cigarette. "Just saying. You have options."

"I don't want options."

He's quiet for a second. "Why not?"

The question catches you off guard. You expected him to brush it off, to say it was nothing, to change the subject but not this.

"Because I don't," you say. "I'd rather not, with anyone else."

Another exhale, his voice lower now. "You make that sound like a bad thing."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing." You already know it's not nothing. The tone he takes when he says it ; clipped and distant, it sounds like he’s already out of the conversation.

You lean against the brick wall, watching people stream past with their coffee cups and backpacks. Jess catches your eye and you shake your head slightly.

"Ni-ki," you say, " What's happening ? You've been distant again for a whole week without texting me once, even after you said that you would work on it. Are you fucking someone else ?"

He doesn't answer right away. The silence stretches, and you can hear the faint sound of traffic wherever he is, maybe already driving out of town.

"That's not it," he says finally.

"Then what is it?"

"I don't know." His voice cracks a little. "I’m—I don't know what this is…and I don't know why you keep showing up when I keep being an asshole."

You close your eyes. "Could be that I like assholes."

"You really shouldn't."

"Yeah but that's not your call."

He laughs in frustration. "See? That's the problem. You don't let me push you away. You just keep coming back and I don't know how to handle that."

Your chest aches. "So you're leaving for the weekend because you can't handle me staying?"

"I'm leaving for the weekend because my dad wants to have a conversation about my future and I need to get it over with." He pauses. "The text was...I don't know. A test."

"A test for what?"

"To see if you'd get mad."

"Did I pass?"

"You got mad. So yes." He sighs, and you can hear the exhaustion in it. "I'm sorry. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to not be that guy who sends impulsive texts and pushes people away."

You slide down the wall until you're sitting on the concrete, knees pulled up to your chest. Jess sits down next to you without saying anything, her shoulder warm against yours.

"Just go see your dad," you say. "Text me when you get back."

"You're not going to fuck anyone else?"

"Why do you keep asking me that?"

"Because I need to hear you say it."

You swallow. The words feel too heavy. You say them anyway.

"I don't want anyone else. Just you. Even when you're being an asshole."

Long silence. "Okay. Love you."

"Wait wha—"

He hangs up. And you sit there on the sidewalk with Jess, phone in your lap, trying to process what he just said. You know it’s going to hurt as he doesn’t want you to stay. He’s an asshole and you’re aware of it. But you can’t help but see the broken person he is, wanting to take care of him and give him everything he needs.

───

You've been staring at it for an hour now, counting the seconds between the creaks of the old building settling. The clock on your nightstand says 11:47 PM, then 11:58, then 12:03.

Sunday night. He was supposed to be back by now. He didn't say when exactly, but Thursday to Sunday felt like a window that's already closed.

You checked your phone maybe 40 times since Friday, but no messages nor calls. You're stuck on the same text thread sitting there, his last words about fucking whoever you want that you haven't responded.

Your eyes are heavy but your brain won't shut up. You turn onto your side, then onto your back, then onto your stomach. Everything is wrong.

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand and you grab it before the second vibration.

Jake's name.

You don't talk to Jake often, maybe a few times in group chats. He's not the type to call you at midnight for no reason.

You answer. "Hello?"

"Hey, Y/N." His voice is different. "Sorry to call so late. You heard from Ni-ki?"

Your stomach drops. "No. Why?"

A pause on his end. You can hear him exhale. "He left Thursday, right? He said he was going to see his dad and was supposed to be back Saturday. It's Sunday now and no one's heard from him. Not me, not Jay, not even Jungwon. His phone's going straight to voicemail."

You sit up, your heart pounding. "Have you tried calling his house?"

"Yeah. No answer. I don't have the landline or whatever. I just have his cell."

You swing your legs over the side of the bed, already standing. "Okay. Let me try something."

"You think he's okay?"

"I don't know." You're pulling on a hoodie, tucking the phone between your ear and shoulder. "I'll call you back."

"Alright. Be careful."

You hang up and immediately dial Ni-ki's number. It rings once, twice, three times. Then voicemail. You call again. It goes straight to voicemail this time. Not even a single ring.

You try one more time but nothing.

The clock says 12:15 now. You stare at your reflection in the dark window. Your own face looks back, pale and anxious.

You text him.

You [12:16 AM]

Hey

Jake said you're not back

Call me when you get this.

Then you lie back down, but you don't sleep.

───

It's Monday morning. You skipped your first class, you could afford to miss.

You take the bus. You don't know why you bother with the bus when he's not there to pick you up, but walking would take an hour and you don't have the patience for that

The house looks the same as always. Big and quiet. The gate is closed but not locked. You push it open and walk up the driveway, the gravel crunching under your sneakers.

You ring the doorbell. The door opens, but not by much. An older man stands there, maybe in his sixties, wearing a simple button-up shirt. You've seen him before, once, maybe twice, always in the background. The butler, you guess or the house manager, something like that.

"Can I help you?" His voice is polite but guarded.

"I'm looking for Ni-ki. His friends haven't heard from him since Thursday." You try to keep your voice steady. "Is he here?"

The butler hesitates. His eyes scan your face, probably deciding if you're worth talking to.

"Mr. Riki is not currently at the residence," he says.

"When will he be back?"

"I'm not at liberty to say."

You feel frustration building in your chest. "Is he okay? Did something happen with his dad?"

The man's expression doesn't change. "I'm afraid I can't discuss the family's private matters."

"Please." Your voice cracks. "I'm not some random person. I'm his...I'm a friend. He's not answering his phone. We're all worried."

The butler looks at you in slience. He then glances over his shoulder, into the dark hallway behind him, before stepping out onto the porch and pulling the door mostly shut behind him.

"He left for his father's estate on Thursday afternoon," the man says quietly like he's not supposed to be telling you this. "There was a scheduled meeting regarding his future. Finances, education, that sort of thing." He pauses. "I have not seen him since. The family's driver returned alone on Saturday."

Your heart drops. "Alone? Where is he?"

"I don't know. I wasn't told." His voice softens slightly. "If you're a friend of his, I would suggest waiting. He tends to...disappear, when things get difficult."

That's totally the opposite reassuring.

"Can you at least tell him I came by?" you ask. "Y/N. He has my number."

The butler nods once. "I'll relay the message."

He steps back inside and closes the door. You stand on the porch for a minute, staring at the wood grain, your hands shaking. Afterwards you turn and walk back down the driveway, gravel biting through the soles of your shoes.

You call Jake on the way to the bus stop. He picks up immediately.

"Anything?" he asks.

"No. He's not there. The butler said the driver came back alone on Saturday." You swallow. "No one knows where he is."

Jake is quiet for a second. "That's not like him."

You want to say that you don't know what's like him anymore. That every time you think you understand, he does something else.

"Yeah," you say instead. "I know."

The bus pulls up. You get on, find a seat by the window, and watch the big house shrink behind you until it's just a smudge in the distance.

───

The best you could was getting to Jess's apartment. You've been sitting on her couch for twenty minutes, not really watching whatever Jake has on the TV, not really listening to Jay argue with him about something related to F1. Your phone is faced down on the coffee table. You stopped checking it an hour ago.

Jess is in the kitchen, the sound of running water and the clink of a mug against the counter. You can smell tea, something herbal.

"You good?" Jay asks from the armchair, not looking at you, because he's learned from Jess that direct eye contact when you're upset makes you clam up.

"No," you say. "But it's fine, I guess."

Jake glances over. "Still no word?"

You shake your head.

The TV is playing some local news channel. A middle-aged woman is talking about a road closure downtown. You tune it out.

Jess comes in with a tray of mugs, setting it on the coffee table. She hands you one without asking if you want it. The mug is warm against your palms.

"Thanks," you murmur.

She sits next to you. "Have you eaten?"

"Not really."

"I'll order something later."

You nod. The TV cuts to a breaking news graphic ; red and white, it seems urgent.

"We're receiving reports of a shooting in the industrial district," the anchor says, her voice steady but grave. "Details are limited, but we understand the altercation occurred around 2:00 this afternoon and involved individuals associated with drug dealing and money laundering operations in the area."

Jake whistles low. "Damn. That part of town is getting worse."

Jay shushes him.

"One person has been confirmed shot," the anchor continues. "According to sources close to the investigation, the victim is reportedly a tall male in his early twenties. He is believed to be the son of a prominent entrepreneur in the region. Authorities have not released a name pending family notification, but we have obtained a photo from witnesses who apparently recognized the victim during the scene."

The screen cuts to a photograph.

Your hand freezes around the mug.

It's him. Ni-ki. The photo is from some event ; he's in a dark jacket, looking off to the side, jaw set, eyes half-lidded.

"The victim's identity has not been officially confirmed," the anchor says as text scrolls across the bottom of the screen. "However, our sources indicate that the body has not yet been recovered from the scene. Police are continuing their investigation."

The mug slips from your fingers. It hits the coffee table and tea spills everywhere, soaking a magazine, dripping onto the carpet. You're staring at the screen, at his face, at the words scrolling past.

Body not recovered.

Jess grabs your arm. "Y/N. Y/N, breathe."

Jake is standing now, phone already in his hand, calling Jungwon. Jay is frozen, eyes wide, looking between you and the TV, still not believing what he saw. The anchor moves on to the next story and the graphic disappears. The screen fills with footage of a city council meeting.

You don't remember standing up but you're on your feet now, and the room is spinning, Jess is saying your name over and over, and all you can think is : His body hasn't been found.

Which means he could be alive, or he could be dead.

You don't know anything at all.

@kookieterry @wonderikii @rikisloverrr @icryforenhypen @hyyhwriter @nodoubtily @teddyberryy @genienha @simjakeyjake @2dolcee @heartheejake

“He’s gonna feel like death tomorrow.” Jake says, plopping onto his bed.

“I think I am too.” you kick your heels off.

“Yeah,” he flips onto his side to look at you. “You are a bit tipsy.”

“Just a bit” you fall onto your bed, your sundress hiking up high on your thighs.

The lighting in the room is dim and your bed is only a foot away from him. You’re giggly and cute and he so badly wants to pull you on top of him.

“Too bad I didn’t hook up with anyone tonight,” you sigh and Jake’s heart jumps.

“There’s still time to find someone before we leave,” he says.

“We leave tomorrow,” you complain. He climbs over to your bed and lays next to you.

“You smell good,” you say. “Are you wearing cologne?”

“Mhm,” he hums.

“Who are you trying to impress?” you joke.

“You.” he says plainly.

You turn to look at him and he does the same.

“Trying to impress me?” you cock an eyebrow and he nods. “Why, do you like me or something?”

“Maybe,” he crosses his arms and shrugs.

You giggle and tug on the sleeve of his shirt. Jake’s cute. You’ve known that he is. But lately he’s been kind of… hot. You notice the way he stretches his neck and you can see his adams apple, and the way he always bites his lip.

“For how long?” you ask.

“For forever.” he admits.

“Forever?” you giggle. “We met freshman year.” “Mhm, I’ve liked you since then, but more so nowadays.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re,” he pauses. “You’re- never mind.” he chuckles.

“What? What is it?” you prop yourself up on your elbow.

“You’re like… really hot.” he looks away.

“Really?” you rake your fingers through his hair.

“Yeah,” he exhales.

You take his chin and turn his head to look at you. His eyes are sparkly and his lips are plump.

“Kiss me then.” you say and without hesitation, he pushes his lips against yours. His hands are resting gently on your arms and you can tell that he’s timid.

“You can touch me, you know?” you chuckle and he blushes.

“Sorry.” he says and you shake your head before kissing him again.

He tastes like a strawberry daiquiri (Jake only drinks fruity cocktails, which the boys like to poke fun at) and he smells expensive.

You sling a leg and straddle him. His breath hitches and you giggle.

“Nervous?” you ask quietly.

He looks away and nods. You smirk before pushing your hips down onto his and he holds in a whine.

“Do you want to do it?” you kiss his jaw and he nods eagerly. “Is this your first?” He chuckles and turns away.

“So it is?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he says quietly.

“Don’t get shy,” you kiss down his throat. “I’ll be good to you, as long as you do what I say.” you say cheekily and his heart begins to race.

God, the things he thinks about when you aren't around. Sometimes even when you are around. He thinks about you pushing him onto his bed, ripping his clothes off, biting his neck, pulling his hair, making him beg.

The way your shirts hug your waist, he always imagines holding it and pulling you closer to him. Your shoulders, your hips, even the small things like your wrists and knuckles: he loves it all, he wants it all.

Your hands venture up his shirt and you feel his muscles tense under your touch.

You rock your hips again and he lets out the prettiest sound you’ve ever heard.

“Keep doing that,” he exhales. He sits up and holds your waist in his arms, his face nuzzled into your neck.

“Where are your manners?” you ask, noticing how damp your underwear has gotten.

He looks into your eyes. “Please?”

“Good boy.” you say and he basically melts under you.

He leans to kiss your jaw as you grind over his hard on.

“You’re so pretty,” he says quietly. “I like you so much.”

You chuckle and pet his hair. “I like you too,”

“Pull it,” he says.

“Hm?” you tilt your head, confused. “Pull my hair please,” he pleads.

You smirk and lace your fingers into the locks of hair at the back of his head before tugging. He whimpers and furrows his brows. Words can’t describe his beauty.

He pulls at your hips to get you grinding on him again.

“Feels so good,” he whines and you smile.

“My sweet boy likes a bit of pain huh,” you say and he tries to nod under the grip you have on his hair.

“Please fuck me,” he whimpers. “Please, I'll do anything.”

“Do you really want it that bad?” you kiss his forehead. “What if it ruins you? Makes you dirty?”

“I don’t care,” he says breathlessly. “I don’t care, I want it.”

“I don’t want to corrupt my sweet angel,” you caress his cheek and he leans into it.

“Please, I want you to ruin me,” he says. “Make me your slut.”

You grin and pull your dress off. His hands quickly find your bra, fumbling to take it off with eventual success.

He pulls your torso flush against his before softly kissing your chest, mewling with every kiss. He touches you longingly, like he’s been wanting this for forever. Holding your waist, grabbing and groping everything he can, but gently. He somehow figured out how to grope someone in a sweet way.

You reach down and pull his own shirt over his head. His hair fluffs up and you waste no time getting your lips on his.

You kiss him a bit hastily as your fingers unbutton his jeans. You watch him tremble as you palm him over his Calvins.

“Already so hard,” you tease and he whines.

“Do I really turn you on that much?” you ask.

He nods. “Please touch me.”

You kiss him before sliding your hand into his boxers and slowly stroke him. He moans into your mouth.

“More,” he says and you chuckle.

“Don’t be so eager, it feels better if you wait.” you tsk him.

“Can I touch you?” he asks sweetly and you nod.

His fingers gently skim over your underwear, too nervous to push down so you scoop your hips, telling him it’s okay to use some pressure. He feels around before finding your clit and rubbing soft circles (Jay taught him that). You tremble a little, so sensitive and needy. Your hand on his cock begins to fault when he pulls your underwear to the side and runs his fingers up your slit.

“So wet,” he whispers before sliding one finger into you. He begins to pump, eventually adding another. You adjust his hand, guiding him to your g spot.

“Fuck,” you whimper as his fingers curl just how you like it. “Don’t stop.”

He’s moved you onto your back where he looms ontop of you, kissing your chest, collarbones, shoulders, and every inch of skin he can reach while finger fucking you.

Guys tend to jack hammer into you, so confident that they’re doing it right. But he’s conscious of your reactions to his touch, he drinks them in and imprints them into his memory. He learns how fast you like it, how you like it when he rubs your clit at the same time, how your stomach tenses when something feels really good.

“Jaeyun,” you hold his arm as his fingers continue to slide in and out of you at the perfect pace.

He comes up to kiss your cheek. “Please cum for me, I want to make you feel good.”

Your knees close in as you get closer to the edge but he spreads them apart with his head, wanting to get a taste of you.

Your eyes roll back the second his tongue touches your clit. He swirls his tongue around you and holds your hips down when you start to squirm.

“Oh my god,” you whimper, mind blown by the pleasure. Where did he learn how to do this?

“Keep fingering me.” you beg and he happily obliges, completely focused on what you want.

You grip at his hair as you ride your high, floating around in bliss.

He comes up and gives you a kiss, letting you taste yourself.

“Where’d you learn that?” you ask breathlessly.

He shrugs before putting his fingers into his mouth and licking them clean. You could cum just from watching.

You tug his pants and boxers off and throw them onto the floor.

“Ready?” you straddle him and he nods vigorously.

You grab his cock and slowly sink down on him. You both moan, him from relief, and you from over stimulation.

He rests his head against your neck and lightly bites the area where your neck and shoulder meet.

“Feels so fucking good,” he whimpers. “Thank you.”

You smile and kiss the top of his head while slowly bouncing on him. You run your hands down his back, comforting him before he interrupts you.

“Please scratch me,” he says. “Leave marks.”

Your smirk, surprised by him again. You clench around him and scratch up his back, leaving pink rakes on his skin. The whine he lets out is more high pitched than usual and it makes you throb.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “You’re so wet.”

“Do you like the way this pussy feels around you?” you ask and he nods pathetically. “My needy little puppy.”

His embrace around you tightens at the nickname. He likes that.

He holds a hand out behind him for leverage before grinding up into you. His head falls back with a moan.

You reach out and scratch down his chest and he groans.

He holds your waist before flipping you onto your back. You land with a small squeal before he starts pounding into you.

“Fuck!” you moan, overwhelmed by the sudden pleasure. “God you’re good.”

He whimpers into your neck. “I’m just a toy for you,”

You chuckle. “My little slut, so eager to please me.”

His pace slows to a delicious grind and you claw at his back as he hits your g spot over and over.

“Can I cum please?” he looks you in the eye. You smile and get on top of him again.

“Mm, not yet.” you say and his head drops onto your shoulder.

“I don’t know if I can hold it.” he says, tremoring.

“Yes you can,” you flip him onto his back. “Be a good puppy.”

You slide onto his tip just to pull back off again, earning an urgent whine from him. Then you go half way before pulling off.

“Please y/n,” he groans. “Please I need it.” Jake is sweet but he's not ever overly emotional or desperate. So hearing him beg for your pussy like this is a big deal and is probably the hottest thing you've ever experienced.

“But do you deserve it?” you knock his chin.

“I’ve been good haven’t I?” he looks at you with sparkling, desperate eyes.

You squeeze around him and he whimpers.

“Take it,” you tug his hair back and he cries out.

You bounce on top of him, feeling him deep inside of you. He whimpers with every rock of your hips.

“Please please please,” he mumbles. “I can’t.”

“Cum inside of me,” you order. “Be good.”

His breathing gets heavier before sickly sweet moans drip out of his lips. You watch every feature on his face. His twinkly eyes, strong eyebrows, full lips, and tall nose. The vulnerability and hopelessness in his face is unfathomable. He's a painting.

“Thank you,” he exhales as your pace slows.

You kiss forehead and pet his hair as he calms down.

“You didn’t cum,” he looks at you as you cockwarm him.

You smile. “There’s always next time.”

He frowns then shifts down so that your cunt is hovering just above his mouth.

Granted, there are several reasons for the irritation simmering in your ten-year-old body. For one, you were stuck on a plane for over twelve hours, barely able to get a wink of sleep because of your father’s snoring that could rival the jet engines. Upon touchdown, it was ridiculously windy in London and the particularly strong gusts seemed to have a personal vendetta to knock you over. After surviving the hell that was customs and riding a taxi that reeked of cigarettes, it’d taken an outrageous amount of time to drag your luggage trunk up the cobblestone driveway of your new school. Surrounded by forests and a mile from the nearest city, the fortress that was Mount Othrys Preparatory School was effectively isolated from the rest of civilization. In its heyday, the castle structure had hosted all sorts of nobles and royalty, hence the need for a ridiculously long driveway. By the time you reach the front entrance where your parents were already conversing with their friends, your arms were aching and you could feel sweat beading at your temples. And to top it all off, Yoon Jeonghan was smirking at you like he was reveling in your suffering. 

Your mother’s fingers inconspicuously pinch your bicep and force you to tune back into the conversation.

“You remember Jeonghan and Seungcheol, I’m sure,” she says, referring to the two boys in front of you. You nod and school your face into careful blankness, your expression void of emotion just as your parents’ were. Seungcheol and Jeonghan were boys that you’d known of for most of your life but never knew closely, acquainted with them only by association because of your parents’ working relationships with the Chois and the Yoons. Growing up, you would see them in passing at Sector celebrations and holiday dinners; you could count the number of words you’d exchanged with either of them on one hand. Now you were attending Mount Othrys Preparatory School, a private boarding school exclusive to children under the High Table, and you’d be effectively stuck with them until you were eighteen. 

“You’re both much taller since the last time we saw you,” your father comments. “At the rate you’re growing, you’ll be able to serve the Table by the time you graduate.” Seungcheol’s response is measured and easily forgettable. You figured he was like you–he understood the importance of rules and maintaining appearances. On the other hand, Jeonghan’s smirk stretches into a cocky grin. It makes your stomach flip and simultaneously churn…or maybe that was your hunger talking. 

“Yes, and we would imagine doing nothing less with our lives, sir,” Jeonghan declares with a little too much fervor and you catch the side-eye Seungcheol sends to the boy next to him. “What does it matter if we have hopes and dreams of our own if they don't serve the Table?” You’re too young to completely understand the concept of sarcasm, but the effect lands on you all the same; you’re left wondering what possesses someone to say something like that. Your entire life was built on following rules, obeying your parents and, above all, serving the High Table; to put it simply, the hopes and dreams you had at ten years old were the High Table. However, you learn quickly that Jeonghan’s favorite pastime was to test limits, to poke the bear that was authority and see if it roared back. Your eyes narrow and you look to your parents to gauge what your own reaction should be, but if they catch the snark in Jeonghan’s words, they don’t show it. 

“Perhaps after you graduate, you can work under the Table together, as we do,” Mrs. Yoon proposes and the other adults nod in agreement. “I’m told you would make a wonderful adjudicator,” she comments, looking at you with a stare that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand straight. 

“She will,” your father confirms. “I’ve told her that if she isn’t class president by this time next year, she will not be welcome home.” You know he means it in a jesting manner, as the rest of the parents respond with politely bland laughs that don’t seem to carry humor, yet you struggle to release the sudden tension in your jaw. 

“Enforcing rules is your parents’ specialty, after all,” Mr. Choi adds and something in your chest tightens. “Tax collectors are unsung heroes under the Table. Without them, we would have no order.” 

“Sir,” you acknowledge despite your throat drying up. Both Seungcheol and Jeonghan are eyeing you warily, but you ignore them. You maintain your perfect composure through the rest of the dull conversation and afterward, as your parents’ taxi disappears down the road. 

You don’t cry when they leave–crying was prohibited in your household–and you make it a point to avoid both Seungcheol and Jeonghan the moment all of your parents are gone. You could see yourself getting along with Seungcheol just fine, but the fact that he and Jeonghan came as a package deal was akin to receiving a pencil and a grenade for Christmas. One you could deal with, but the other was so volatile that you might as well not deal with either at all. 

When the school year begins, you slip into the rhythm of classes and homework, following the rules as your parents expected you to. You weren’t without temptation, though; the other girls in your dormitory broke rules as easily as blinking. Megan snuck out after curfew on a nightly basis. Manon stowed dinner rolls in her blouse to snack on later. Lara and Daniella drew tattoos on each other in the bathroom. Sophia and Yoonchae carved their initials onto the bookshelves of the library. Part of you wanted to join them for the thrill, to see how far you could get away with something before authority stepped in, but your parents’ words always echoed in the back of your mind: Without rules, there can be no order. Without order, there can be no control. So, you keep your head down and maintain your perfect grades, tuck yourself into bed promptly at curfew and continue to evade Seungcheol and Jeonghan like they carried the plague. 

Your first year was deceptively easy. You excelled in your studies and were able to present your grades to your parents proudly, to which they would look at the paper and dismiss you without another word. As the year progresses, your eleventh birthday occurs without fanfare; your parents send a single vanilla cupcake to your dorm and give you a book about the history of the High Table. Fortunately for you, Seungcheol and Jeonghan were in different classes for your entire first year, so you only ever saw them briefly during break times in the castle gardens or the common areas. When you did make eye contact with either of them, Jeonghan would wave at you enthusiastically until Seungcheol yanked his arm down. Megan theorized that one of them had a crush on you, but crushes weren’t something you entertained simply because you knew your parents would already choose a husband for you; there was no point in being attracted to anyone else. You were far from ugly, if your friends’ constant gushing about your appearance was any indicator, yet you found yourself disinterested in their discussions on boys. Sophia and Lara still enjoyed teasing you, though, whenever Jeonghan was within sight of your group.

Ironically, the first time you break a rule is because of Yoon Jeonghan.

You were already struggling with algebra from the beginning of your second year–math was never your strong suit and your mind simply could not wrap itself around the concepts you were being taught. It didn’t help that Jeonghan, who you heard had nearly been expelled, was seated on your immediate right. Seungcheol sat in front of him, to your diagonal right, so you were forced to contend with Jeonghan’s antics on your own. But now, a small part of you missed Jeonghan talking your ear off and trying to slip doodles into your notebook as you redo the same problem for the third time. Your brain wasn’t remembering formulas correctly and every time you attempted the problem, one of your variables was wrong. You swallow the lump in your throat, erase your work, and fight back the tears pricking the corner of your eyes. From your peripheral vision, you see Jeonghan and Seungcheol taking their exams as well. 

Jeonghan clears his throat.

Seungcheol shifts in his seat. 

Jeonghan scribbles something down and then erases it.

Seungcheol scratches the back of his neck.

Jeonghan slips Seungcheol a small piece of paper while the teacher’s back is turned.

Wait. 

Your brain does a double-take and you watch as the paper disappears between Seungcheol’s fingers, all while Jeonghan wears the same self-assured grin that irked you a year ago. Your heart rate picks up as you start to realize what they were doing. Your friends cheated on exams, but it never crossed your mind that these two could do it too. It was so antithetical to your moral code that you just stare at them, frozen in shock. Your knee-jerk instinct is to raise your hand and report them to the teacher. It’s what your parents would want you to do, the same way they wanted you to get high grades and maintain a higher moral standard. Without rules, there can be no order. But, another thought makes your arm feel too heavy to lift. It’s not a fully formed thought, per se, but rather a memory of Jeonghan’s smirk that could fool you into thinking he was the king of the world. Without order, there can be no control. 

Why did it still feel like they were in control, even if they weren’t following the rules?

You look back down at the pencil lead smudged over your exam paper. The ink of the problem bleeds from a single water droplet that has fallen and–oh. You were crying. Embarrassed, you aggressively wipe at your eyes with the heels of your hands and flinch when you sniffle too loudly. Your parents weren’t here, but you were still breaking one of their rules. If you didn’t receive high marks on this exam, your grades would fall, and you would be breaking another one of their rules. The idea of breaking two of their rules makes you nauseous and you push down the next wave of tears that well up like a dam trying to overflow. With a shaky exhale, you glance to your right. 

Jeonghan is already looking at you. 

You glare and snap your attention back to your paper, shoving the tears streaking down your face to the side. It’s no use; every new attempt to lift your pencil is overtaken by panic. You can still feel Jeonghan’s eyes on you, but you also feel like everyone’s eyes are on you, because why would you be crying during a math exam? It was pathetic, and your parents would think it’s pathetic, and your friends would think it’s pathetic, and the High Table would think it’s pathetic, and Jeonghan would think it’s pathetic, and a balled up scrap of paper has appeared on your desk–

A balled up scrap of paper has appeared on your desk.

When you look back at Jeonghan, his smile has vanished and his gaze is only on his exam paper. He clears his throat and you realize that he might be trying to avoid your eyes. You look at him, then back at the paper, then back at him…and uncrumple the ball. 

circumference of half-circle: πr, add the two triangle sides’ lengths to get circumference of whole shape. and please stop crying it’s making me sad too

You blink at the paper and abruptly stop crying, a renewed sense of energy driving you to plug in variables and side lengths in a way that you’d somehow neglected to before. Sure enough, when the problem was solved, the solution actually made sense and, checking your work five times, you were sure you answered correctly. You turn in your exam to the teacher, who raises an eyebrow at your red-rimmed eyes, and return to your seat just as Seungcheol and Jeonghan rise to turn in theirs. You watch the teacher carefully as he takes their papers, but there’s no face of alarm or scolding to be found. No, Jeonghan and Seungcheol had cheated on the algebra exam and evaded getting caught. You had cheated on your algebra exam and evaded getting caught. 

Odd. If your parents’ rules were so ingrained in your mind that disappointing them sent you on a downward spiral, then why weren’t you more panicked? Why weren’t you groveling at the feet of the teacher or dragging Seungcheol and Jeonghan to the front to expose their academic dishonesty? Perhaps, in your eleven-year-old mind, you had finally scratched the itch to break a rule and see if you could get away with it, and Jeonghan had helped you. Jeonghan, who was now poking Seungcheol’s back and then pretending to be innocent when the other boy looked over his shoulder with a frown. You smile at their antics. Jeonghan catches you looking and grins back. 

You start sitting with them in the library a week later.

—

At twenty-two years old, Jeonghan has found a new game to pass the time. 

He still hunts as he normally does, targets that Seungcheol deems a threat to the Sector as well as a few low-level nobodies that fetch a couple hundred million won each. He uses the reward money to buy plane tickets and designer clothes and real estate holdings that he doesn’t really care about. He doesn’t care about anything these days, not since he saw you for the first time in four years at the 34th annual Sector celebration a few months ago. Your eyes were distant, dull. You looked through him like he was a spectre, like he wasn’t your rock for eight years and your lover for less than that. You called him Jeonghan, not ‘Han’ or ‘Hannie.’ Jeonghan, like he was just another cog in the High Table machine as you had become. Jeonghan. 

As if he wasn’t the love of your fucking life. 

It starts with framing a business that has a clean record with the High Table. After four years in the underworld and a lifetime of dodging authority, he knows what kind of information to slip to certain ears that will have the Table sending an Adjudicator to someone’s door. The business is always audited and, once the Adjudicator finds that nothing is out of place, left with a warning and the occasional slap on the wrist. Jeonghan’s goal was never to sabotage a business or sow unnecessary mayhem; he just needed a way to smoke out Adjudicators.

It’s well past midnight when a car pulls up to the front of the apartment building. From his position hidden in the shadow of the apartment’s side alley, he spots a middle-aged man with a goatee and an eyebrow slit exit the vehicle. The man’s black trenchcoat swishes behind him as he walks, his boots clicking on the stone steps as he punches in a keycode at the door. Bingo. Jeonghan moves like a ghost, stepping out of the darkness and slipping into the building just before the door latches. 

Dressed in stealth black and a well-loved messenger bag slung at his hip, he looks like the most fashionable burglar to ever grace the state of New York. His gloved hands brush his cheeks as he pulls his neck gaiter over the bottom half of his face, silently following his target up the stairs and toward his unit. There is no blood racing through Jeonghan’s ears, no heartbeat pounding with the insistence of a grandfather clock. No, his mind is completely blank, instinct taking over and driving him into a flow state like a lion hiding in tall grass. By the time the Adjudicator realizes Jeonghan is there, the syringe of anesthesia is already stabbed into his neck and the plunger is mercilessly pushed in. The man’s knees buckle and Jeonghan uses his key to let himself into the apartment, lugging the unconscious tenant in with him. A peek into the hallway shows the broken security cameras and neighbors none the wiser, so he gently shuts the door and secures the latches. 

He works quickly now, dragging the man across the hardwood to lean against the couch, removing his coat and anything from his pockets that could be of value, and cuffing his hands and feet with zip ties. There’s no point in bothering with a blindfold nor a gag, since by the time his target’s consciousness returns, Jeonghan will be long gone. With the Adjudicator accounted for, he turns his attention to his real prize–whatever was in the man’s pockets. Like the other four Adjudicators Jeonghan had ransacked, the man carried the same trinity of a phone, a wallet, and the hefty metal coin that signified an agent as an Adjudicator. Actiones Secundum Fidei reads the script under the ouroboros serpent. Actions according to belief. Anger flashes in his chest and he welcomes it. 

He’s just slipped the phone, wallet, and coin into his bag when his own phone rings. He reads the contact name, considers declining, and answers with an indifferent sigh.

“Yes, Jupiter?”

“Where are you?” Seungcheol’s voice is clipped. 

“New York,” Jeonghan replies, careful not to reveal which borough. If Seungcheol knew he was in Manhattan, he could have Jun and Seungkwan on his tail within a few hours; he wasn’t in the mood to explain to his friends why he was systematically robbing Adjudicators. With his phone squished between his ear and his shoulder, he continues to dig in the pockets of the Adjudicator’s coat, suit jacket, and dress pants.

“Are you working right now?” A keycard labeled ‘MET MUSEUM’ and another labeled ‘NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM’ are tucked into the right interior pocket of the man’s coat.

“Sort of,” Jeonghan evades. He tosses both cards into his bag, even taking the folded post-it note of phone numbers he didn’t recognize. He’d have to find someone to check who the numbers belonged to. He was never hunting for anything particular on these little detours, but it was nice to gather what information he could. “I’m kind of busy right now, Cheol.”

“Really? Because I just got off the phone with Joshua, who has been waiting at the bar of the New York Continental for almost an hour,” Seungcheol disagrees and Jeonghan grimaces. 

“Ah, the Continental? I was just about to leave for it,” he lies. In his excitement to rob another Adjudicator, he’d completely forgotten about his catch-up meeting with Joshua. Joshua was too kind to hold anything against him for too long, but that left Seungcheol and his eerily accurate intuition to worry about. Even if Joshua forgave him, his slip up had alerted the leader of his Sector, who would now press him endlessly until he confessed his activities. It was how Seungcheol kept them all in line–he knew everything about his members, down to their shoe sizes and allergies. “Could you hang up and let him know I’ll be on the way soon?”

“You’re not getting out of this so easily, Yoon Jeonghan,” threatens Seungcheol. The warning goes through one ear and out the other, though, as he roots around the last pocket and comes up with a USB drive the size of his thumb. There’s a small strip of duct tape on it, and scribbled in dark ink are the words ‘PROJECT: HARVEST.’ His eyebrows pinch. The Sectors made a point to know almost everything about the inner workings of the High Table, yet Jeonghan had never heard of such a project before. Harvest? What could the High Table possibly have to harvest? “Hey, are you even listening to me?” Jeonghan blinks and realizes that he had not registered a word Seungcheol had said. 

“Not at all, boss,” Jeonghan responds and he can hear his friend’s exhale from the other end of the line. With the Adjudicator’s pockets emptied, there was only one thing left to do to complete his ritual of thievery, but it would prove difficult if he also had to placate Seungcheol at the same time. “If reminding me of my meeting with Joshua is all you called about, then I’ll let you go now–”

“We’re worried about you, Jeonghan,” Seungcheol pleads. “You’ve been different since the Sector celebration. Everyone has noticed how quiet you’ve become, and don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve conveniently stopped replying to status check-ins.” 

“God forbid a man wants a little privacy,” Jeonghan snarks, making his way into the kitchen with his phone still smushed under his ear. “I’m just taking some time for myself, that’s all. Joshua’s been telling me that I need better self-care practices.”

“Ghosting your friends isn’t self-care,” Seungcheol deadpans. “Is this about her?” Of course it was about you. It was always about you.

“Why would you assume that?” Sometimes Adjudicators didn’t have something readily available to write with, so he would resort to drawing on people’s faces; fortunately, Jeonghan finds a small pad of paper and a pen in the drawer next to the oven. 

“When is it ever not about her?” Jeonghan fights a scowl and focuses on his work. He sketches the same image etched in his signet ring onto the hot pink square of paper, peels it from the pad, and returns to the Adjudicator. With an unceremonious slap, he sticks the picture to the man’s forehead and steps back to admire his work. “She’s my friend too, Jeonghan. I already lost her. I can’t lose you too.”

“I’m right here, Cheol. Talking to you. Can’t lose someone who’s still around,” Jeonghan states more shrewdly than he intended. The man’s pockets were emptied and he’d left his untraceable signature for whoever came looking for the unaccounted-for Adjudicator. Done. 

“She’s technically still around, too, but I think we can both agree we lost her after graduation,” Seungcheol spits. 

“You lost her after graduation. I lost her before that,” argues Jeonghan. It was easier to scorn you–to try and fall out of love with you–if he placed the blame for you leaving solely on you. Not your parents, not the Table, not Seungcheol, not himself and his failure to keep you safe. “Look, it was her decision to become an Adjudicator.”

“Was it?” Jeonghan knows in his soul that that isn’t the complete truth. He has his theories, but at the end of the day, your disappearance and subsequent reappearance several months ago remained a mystery.

“It was,” he insists. “She’s the one that abandoned us.”

“And we let her leave. We let her slip away. Why did we do that?” Seungcheol was never this vulnerable with the other members, only Jeonghan, and a small part of him hated the responsibility of knowing the worst of the Sector leader’s open wounds. “Couldn’t we have fought for her a little harder?” 

“I don’t know why the fuck you’re asking me this,” Jeonghan snarls and ignores the pang of guilt. His nose is burning, the familiar feeling of fighting back tears. It wasn’t fair for him to snap at his friend who just wanted to make sure he didn’t lose another loved one. 

“Because I know that you ask yourself the same questions,” Seungcheol replies tiredly. Jeonghan sighs deeply and pinches the bridge of his nose as he changes the subject. 

“You have any work for me?” He asks, knowing he had to lie low for a little bit while the High Table continued its investigation into who was harassing its Adjudicators. There was no law prohibiting going after agents of the High Table, only common sense and fear of the Table’s retribution, but he was sure he was still pissing someone off. Maybe it was Kronos. The thought makes him smile.

Jeonghan liked pissing off Kronos.

“No. I was just checking up on you, but you decided to be an asshole,” Seungcheol frowns. “Try not to be as much of a dick to Joshua, yeah?”

“Being an asshole is who I am, Choi Seungcheol,” Jeonghan replies carelessly. “How you’ve weathered it for nearly a decade is beyond me.” 

“I somehow doubt that.” His eyebrow quirks.

“What, that you’ve weathered it for nearly a decade?”

“No, you idiot,” Seungcheol corrects impatiently. “That being an asshole is who you are.” He goes to the window, slides it open, and climbs onto the fire escape. 

“Hasn’t made much of a difference, has it?” He doesn’t look back at the Adjudicator and his drawing of a sickle on the pink post-it as he lightly descends the metal steps. Seungcheol is quiet on the other end of the phone, the kind of quiet when someone doesn’t know what to say. “I’m on my way to the Continental now,” Jeonghan says as his shoes meet the wet alleyway asphalt and carry him in the direction of his car. “I’ll tell Joshua you said hello.”

“Be smart, Jeonghan,” Seungcheol says, a farewell more than a warning. He yanks the driver’s side door harder than he intends and even the swell of his engine sounds angry. His mouth curls into a humorless smile. 

“Aren’t I always?”

— 

From On the Proceedings of the High Table (1954) by Kronos IV

“The newly established Order of Tax Collectors will, no doubt, be of vital use to those seated at the Table and their subsidiaries. I can only imagine how much more efficiently business can be conducted now that the Table has designated agents to acquire tribute, similar to the role of the Adjudicator and her task in enforcing the policies of the Table. A sword and a spear, I believe–one to enforce legal policy and one to enforce financial policy. For without rules, there is no order. Without order, there can be no control.”

Your skin warms comfortably under the afternoon sun. It’s peaceful at your table next to the window, and from the second floor of the castle, you can catch the sound of other students playing in the yard outside. The library smells of old paper and wood polish, as well as the robust scent of coffee from the librarian’s desk. All is calm until Jeonghan drops himself into the chair in front of you. 

“I found a new way to escape the grounds,” Jeonghan says excitedly while you and Seungcheol are nose-deep in your textbooks. You ignore him with a shake of your head. Seungcheol doesn’t even blink, returning to a passage about the effects of the Industrial Revolution. You can sense the renewed energy spark in Jeonghan’s body; at twelve years old, you should know by now that failing to get something the first time only motivates him further. There’s a rustling noise as Jeonghan digs around in his bag for a piece of paper, slapping it down on the table with enough force to drag away both your attention and Seungcheol’s. “Take a look.” 

“What are we looking at?” Seungcheol questions with a frown, looking down at the map of the castle in confusion. “This is just a floorplan.” You’re inclined to agree, but a scrawl of writing on the yellowed parchment makes you take pause.

“No, wait. Look at the labels of the rooms,” you point out, focusing on the area that should have been labeled as the dining hall. “Where we take meals is labeled as weapons storage. Why would we need weapons storage at a prep school?” When you look at Jeonghan, he’s already staring with a mischievous smile. “Alright, Yoon. We’re paying attention. What is this?” 

“This, my friends, is a map of the castle when it was still being used as a castle. I found it tucked behind a book on Sumerian agriculture,” he proudly informs you and Seungcheol. You share a skeptical look with the latter. 

“It’s cool history, I guess,” Seungcheol comments, his tone unsure. 

“Fun to know they used to store spears where Megan and Yoonchae fight over the last serving of chicken,” you offer. “How is an old map supposed to help you get off castle grounds?” You ask and Jeonghan looks like a magician preparing for his final trick of the night. He pulls another piece of paper from his bag with a flourish–it’s a wonder he could find anything in there, considering how much stuff he shoved into it–and lays it carefully over the first map. 

“Remember this old thing I found in the helmet of one of the medieval armor sets?”

“I told you to stop touching those,” Seungcheol grumbles. “The groundskeeper already gave the boys’ dorms a warning because he found the sword you failed to replace.”

“I didn’t get caught, did I?” Jeonghan replies. He picks up both papers and holds them up to the window, allowing the light to diffuse through. You squint and, after a few seconds, realize that the top layer of the paper marks a series of lines running through the castle’s many rooms, even demarcating where the second through fourth floors begin and end. The majority of the lines go from room to room, but four extend beyond the walls of the castle in each cardinal direction, into the forest where students were prohibited to go. The pieces click in your head.

“Are these–”

“Tunnels,” Jeonghan finishes. “Twenty, to be exact. Sixteen allow users to navigate between the castle’s rooms, but four can be used as exits. The east tunnel, specifically,” he points to the line extending to the right of the castle, “spits you out in the forest and it’s only another thirty minute walk until you’re in the city.” 

“But it’s in the dark and there’s no path,” Seungcheol points out. “The rest of the forest extends for miles. What happens when you get lost?” 

“That’s what compasses and flashlights are for,” replies Jeonghan.

“You barely passed geography,” you remind him. “How are you supposed to travel thirty minutes, in the dark, with a map you don’t know how to read?” Jeonghan’s eyes sparkle as they bore right into you. 

“It’s a good thing I have a wonderful friend who passed geography with flying colors, isn’t it?” You gape at him. He beams at you innocently. You could manage your guilt from cheating on math exams, something you did relatively often now thanks to Jeonghan and Seungcheol, but breaking more rules still filled you with dread as heavy as a boulder. Sneaking off campus was punishable by expulsion, yet Jeonghan was discussing it like it was his winter holiday plans. 

“You want me to help you sneak off campus,” you state and he nods cheerfully. “In the dark. Where we could get lost. Or expelled.”

“Yep!” Jeonghan chirps. Seungcheol is quick to cut in, his expression hardening. 

“Absolutely not,” he says. “You’re not dragging her into your risk-taking.” 

“That’s not up to you to decide,” Jeonghan argues. 

“Fine,” Seungcheol glares and his attention turns to you. “You are not getting dragged into his risk-taking.” 

“You’re not the boss of her, Choi Seungcheol,” Jeonghan interrupts before you can speak. His voice develops an edge that you don’t hear often, something you only experienced when his patience was truly thinning. “She already has enough people telling her what to do, all the damn time.” You bristle; Jeonghan was the only one who openly spoke out against your tendency to follow what everyone, especially your parents, was telling you to do.

“And you’re telling her to help you get into trouble,” Seungcheol fires back. Even though you’ve heard the two bicker before, this argument was eerily reminiscent of your parents’ discussing your future without you having any say in it, despite being in the room with them. “How is that any different?” 

“Because I’m not telling her to do anything,” Jeonghan scoffs. “I want her to stop being a goody-two-shoes, flip the bird to mommy and daddy, and take a risk for once.” You stiffen as your frustration boils over, and you fight to keep your voice at a volume appropriate for a library.

“And I want you both to stop talking about me like I’m not sitting right here,” you snap, fixing the boys with a glare that has them both shrinking into their seats. “I mean, are you kidding me? I can make my own decisions. Seungcheol is not the boss of me. No one is,” you tell Jeonghan, yanking your bag open and shoving your books inside. 

“That’s not what I was trying to–” Jeonghan attempts, but you steamroll over his words while you continue to toss your things into your bag.

“And Jeonghan’s lost his mind if he thinks I’m going to help him,” you say to Seungcheol, who holds his palms up in surrender. “Not because I’m a goody-two-shoes who doesn’t know how to take risks, but because I understand how crucial rules are to our society, and nothing will ever change that.” The zip of your bag punctuates the tense silence. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to study in the girls’ dorm. I can’t deal with either of you right now.” You throw your bag over your shoulder and stalk out of the library, leaving the boys to sit in their shame as you try and ignore how Jeonghan’s words were cutting like a knife between your ribs. 

A few hours later, you’re perched on the windowsill of the girls’ common room, resting your cheek on your knees that you hug close to your chest. The common room is located on the second floor of the castle, overlooking the back gardens. There’s a fountain in the center and different rings of flowers grow between the cobblestone walking paths, perfect for picnics on warm spring days and snowball fights during winter. Now, you let your eyes wander and linger on the water cascading down the carved marble women in the fountain holding jars or bending to caress the pools under their feet. 

“We’re gonna sneak into the pantry; you want anything?” Manon whispers as she slips on her shoes near the door, breaking you from your trance. Daniella and Lara appear as well, throwing coats over their sleeping clothes. 

“I’m alright, thank you.” You tilt your head at the sound of their shoes knocking against the wooden floors of the dorm. “Can I ask a question before you guys leave?” 

“Of course, did you change your mind?” Lara asks, a little excited at the idea of you accompanying them. 

“No, I’m full from dinner,” you confirm and their smiles turn into pouts. “I swear.”

“You never go out with us,” Manon argues. 

“Because it’s against the rules,” you point out dryly. “And I don’t break rules. You know this.”

“Maybe we’ll have Yoonchae ask you next time,” proposes Daniella. “We’ve been trying a system where each of us asks you, and we see who you’ll respond to the best.” You snort. 

“Maybe you just need to find the right rule I would be willing to break,” you remark and they look at you skeptically. 

“Or maybe,” Manon begins, “It’s a matter of someone who’s not us asking.” Daniella catches on and wiggles her eyebrows at you; you know what they’re implying before Lara can open her mouth. 

“Would you break the rules if it were Jeonghan asking?” Lara goads with a teasing lilt in her voice. Your face heats and you quickly steer the conversation in a different direction.

“Enough,” you plead. “Look, I’m just saying–is the floor in the pantry stone or wood?” 

“Uh, wood. I think?” Dani replies. 

“You might want to wear your flats instead, then,” you recommend. “The heels might echo too loudly on the floorboards.” You have no idea why you’re telling them this. Even if you weren’t going down with them, advising them on how to avoid getting caught was just as bad. Jeonghan’s smirk unwillingly flashes across your memory again but instead of feeling angry, you just feel an ache in your chest. The girls think for a moment and then nod, toeing off their shoes and retrieving their flats from the bedrooms. Daniella’s out first and she pokes her head into the hallway to warn Sophia, Yoonchae, and Megan, who hurry to retrieve their flats as well. “Have fun,” you call and they send you a grateful smile. 

“If there’s anything sweet hiding in the shelves, we’ll pick it up for you,” Sophia promises.

“You’re always welcome to join us,” Megan adds. 

“Thanks, but I’m good here. Don’t get caught,” you conclude and they file out the door in their flats and their coats, six sets of footsteps padding much quieter than before. The common room is empty once again and you turn back toward the window, just in time for a pebble to launch itself at the glass. You startle backward so violently that you almost fall from your seat, and you’ve just regained your bearings when another pebble thuds against the glass. Your face pinches in confusion and you press your hands against the glass to look down at what could be tossing pebbles at your window from the garden. 

But when you focus on the garden below, it’s not what is throwing pebbles, but who. 

You roll your eyes and scooch as far away from the glass as you can, but Jeonghan lobs three more pebbles before you finally appear at the window again. He’s waving like he wasn’t both breaking curfew and damaging school property. When he gestures for you to come down and meet him in the garden, you adamantly shake your head. Not only was being outside the dorms after curfew against school rules, but you were also still mad at him for speaking so flippantly about you in the library. You’re about to shut the curtains for good, but the piece of paper he’s unfolded and holding up for you to see makes you pause. 

“I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. Please come down before I get caught,” you read under your breath, a laugh escaping you before you can catch it. You sigh and, five minutes later, you’ve donned your own flats and coat and slipped out of the dorm. 

“I knew you could do it,” Jeonghan remarks slyly, appearing from behind one of the stone pillars surrounding the perimeter of the garden. 

“If I’m going out of my way to sneak out after curfew, I want a better apology than something written on the back of your homework,” you say, crossing your arms over your chest.

“I know you do,” he confirms. “C’mon, I have somewhere we can talk.” He leads you through the hallways and ducks into a dark space that you thought was a closet, but ends up opening into a narrow stairway. Climbing the steps, you end up at a trapdoor that Jeonghan opens upward with a creak. You pull yourself up into the space with Jeonghan right behind you, and realize that you’re in a small nook at the top of one of the castle’s towers. It’s so small that you can almost touch both walls with your arms extended, but the view from a gap in the stones overlooks the entire front of the school. In the distance, you can see the lights of the city flickering like candlelight. 

“How’d you find this place?”

“Finding things in nooks and crannies also means I find new nooks and crannies,” he explains, sitting down and settling back against the bricks. 

“When did you find this one?” 

“Last week. I was gonna show you and Cheol earlier today, but then we started arguing like idiots and ruined the surprise.”

“Yeah, you were being idiots.” Despite your ire, you join him on the floor, sitting almost shoulder to shoulder. 

“Are you still mad at me?” You exhale shakily and try to keep your voice as even as possible.

“I am. It hurts, what you said about me being a goody-two-shoes.” His signature grin is gone from his face in a way that’s unnerving. “I mean, I know I basically am a goody-two-shoes, but the way you said it, like me following rules was a burden to you…that’s the part that hurt.” He nods and his throat bobs as he swallows. “I never want to be something holding you back.”

“You’re not a burden,” he promises. “You never are and you never will be.” The sincerity in his voice sends another ache through your chest. Your parents were never as honest or earnest with you as Jeonghan was.

“I can’t–I don’t know how not to follow rules,” you continue. “It’s just part of who I am. It’s what makes sense. It’s my comfort zone.” 

“I know,” he says. “It makes me sad, though. To me, rules aren’t fun, and if you follow them all the time, then you can’t have fun.” 

“Why do you follow certain rules, then? Attending class and turning in assignments are rules, and you follow those all the same.”

“Just because I follow them doesn’t mean it’s fun. I follow certain rules so I can better break others,” Jeonghan explains. You think it makes sense, in a way that only could for Jeonghan and no one else. “Do you have fun following rules?”

“I have fun when I’m with you,” you comment. “Sometimes I forget that rules exist when I’m with you, and I guess that’s the most fun about it. But going out of my way to break rules just for the sake of breaking them? I don’t know how you do it. It’s scary.” You pull your legs close to your chest and rest your chin on your knees, just as you’d done on the windowsill. 

“I’m sorry for hurting you. I don’t ever wanna do that,” Jeonghan vows and something in your stomach flutters. “I just want you to be happy. If following rules makes you happy, then I’m not in a place to tell you differently.” You don’t know why your nose burns and you suddenly have the urge to cry at how honest and understanding he was being with you; your parents never once asked what would make you happy, but they did love to tell you everything differently than what you believed. “Can I ask you something, though?” 

“Sure.”

“Have you ever done anything that made you happy that wasn’t following rules?” Your eyebrows furrow as you search your memories for any experience of the sort, but you come up empty-handed. 

“No, I don’t think I have.” 

“Then how do you know that following rules is the only thing that makes you happy?” You pause again.

“I guess I don’t? I’ve never really had the opportunity to find anything else, so following rules just became that source of happiness for me,” you theorize and you start to hear the cogs turning in Jeonghan’s brain. “Whatever you’re about to say, if it gets me in trouble, then I don’t want to hear it,” you caution and he bursts out laughing. 

“I didn’t even say anything!”

“You didn’t need to–I could hear your thoughts from over here!” You counter, a smile growing on your face. It was hard to stay angry at Jeonghan, especially when he kept looking at you like you were more special than any treasure he found in the castle. “So, when’s your first trip out of the castle?”

“Actually, I just came back.” Your jaw drops. 

“No way.” He makes an ‘X’ over his heart with his finger. 

“Swear on my life, I went out into the city. Granted, it was only for maybe ten minutes before I got lonely, but I did pick this up from a metalsmith for you.” Jeonghan reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small burlap bag. He hands it to you and you pull open the drawstrings, shaking the bag out into your hand where a gold signet ring falls into your palm. You glance at him accusatorily, and he throws his hands up. “I got me and Cheol rings too! I’m not proposing to you!” 

“Thanks for the clarification, considering we’re literally twelve,” you snort and admire the craftsmanship in the sliver of moonlight shining into the tower, the image etched into the metal catching your eye. A lion roars back at you, its face reaching the edges of the circle where it was carved. 

“Do you like it? I thought the lion looked cool.” 

“I–I don’t know what to say,” you stutter. “I’ve never gotten anything like this.” You slip the gold ring onto your middle finger and watch it shine in the light. 

“But do you like it?”

“I love it,” you murmur. “Thank you, Jeonghan. What’d you get for you and Cheol?” Jeonghan shows you another gold ring wrapped around his own middle finger, and you squint at the carved symbol, a curved blade. 

“This one’s mine. I think the tool is called a sickle? It’s used in farming but I thought the shape looked cool,” he explains when he sees your confusion. “Cheol’s ring has a lightning bolt on it because he always threatens to smite me when I steal his food.” Your endearing smile falters as a concerning thought occurs to you. 

“Jeonghan, did you steal these?” 

“That’d make the most sense, wouldn’t it?” He jokes but when he sees the worry in your features, he sighs and relents. “No, I didn’t steal yours. I used my Christmas allowance.” 

“Just mine?”

“Hey, the vendor was counting my change and the other two were right there…so somehow they ended up between my fingers and in my pocket.”

“Yoon Jeonghan!” You scold, though you can’t bring yourself to take the ring off. He echoes your own name back at you with the same melodrama. What did it matter that he stole the ones that weren’t yours? It made you happy and you didn’t need to break a rule, so it all worked out. Morals be damned, you liked when he was looking at you like you were sunlight incarnate. “When’s the next time you’re escaping the castle?” 

“Why?” His smile turns daring. “Wanna come with me?”

“Not a chance,” you scoff. “I’m just wondering, because maybe you can grab more stuff for me. Not stealing, though. I’ll give you money beforehand.” 

“Whatever the lady wants, the lady gets,” Jeonghan promises. “No need to give me money, though. I’ll use my own.”

“Why? You’ll run out of allowance eventually,” you point out. He shrugs.

“Because I want to make you happy and if going broke is the way to do it, so be it.” You laugh it off, but something in his face tells you that he’s entirely serious. You don’t have an opportunity to comment on it, though, because suddenly there’s a commotion coming up the staircase beneath you and the trapdoor by your feet is swinging upward. 

Sophia’s head pops up from the space below, sees you and Jeonghan occupying the tower, and gasps like her book couple just kissed. Lara’s head appears next, and her jaw drops so far, it almost hits Manon trying to climb up too. 

“So you will sneak out if it’s Jeonghan asking!” 

— 

The Seoul Continental is quiet by the time Jeonghan makes his way back to the hotel with blood under his fingernails and a bruise blooming over his ribs. On the elevator to the 23rd floor, he shoots Seungcheol a text to let him know his target is eliminated and the contract has been fulfilled. The message is delivered and he shuts his phone off entirely, tucking it into the inside pocket of his suit jacket. A tap of his keycard and an open door later, he’s greeted by the dark void of his hotel room. He catches a shadow lounging in the armchair and a sharp scent of citrus lingers in the air. 

Seungkwan. 

“Mercury,” Jeonghan says with a tired smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. He flicks on the lights and sees the Sector’s official messenger cross-legged and sipping an iced Americano through a straw despite the time nearing two in the morning. “I hope there’s one for me in the mini fridge,” he continues, kicking off his shoes next to the door.

“Like you need more caffeine,” Seungkwan snarks and Jeonghan gives him a tired smirk. 

“Did Cheol send you?”

“No, he doesn’t know I’m here.” Jeonghan’s eyes narrow. It was rare that the leader of the Sector didn’t know something, and even rarer that the messenger was keeping something from him.

“Everything alright?”

“Sure, I’m meeting with a financial advisor from one of the Parks’ subsidiaries tomorrow.” A perfectly dodged non-answer. Seungkwan’s eyes follow Jeonghan as he shrugs off his jacket, hangs it in the closet, and begins to remove the weapons strapped in various places on his body. “Working tonight?”

“Yeah.” He tosses his extra magazines haphazardly on the hotel’s provided desk. 

“An actual job, or robbing Adjudicators?” Jeonghan goes deathly still for a barely perceptible moment before turning to Seungkwan with a slightly manic smile. 

“The former,” he answers carefully. “How long have you known?”

“I figured it was you when I first heard someone was stealing from Adjudicators in their own homes, but only had it confirmed when I followed you after your last one. The one in Dubai.” Shit. The most dangerous thing about Boo Seungkwan wasn’t that he killed for the Sector, but that he found people for it. There was no corner on the planet anyone could hide that Seungkwan wouldn’t find, and Jeonghan kicks himself mentally for thinking his latest pastime was an exception. “You’re the only one stupid enough to do something like that.”

“Or smart enough,” Jeonghan reasons. “Who else knows?” Free of weapons, he snags a water bottle from the mini fridge. He perches on the edge of the bed across from Seungkwan and cracks open the cap, taking a leisurely sip. 

“Just me. Figured I’d ask what the fuck you’re doing before running to Coups about it,” Seungkwan explains. Jeonghan hums over the opening of the plastic bottle. 

“Ask me then, what the fuck I’m doing,” he challenges. Seungkwan is unamused.

“I have a feeling you’re going to explain anyway, even if I don’t ask.”

“And I have a feeling you already know what the answer to your question is.” The corner of Seungkwan’s mouth twitches. 

“I know the why and the how, but I need you to enlighten me on the what,” concedes Seungkwan. “What is Yoon Jeonghan trying to accomplish by pissing off Adjudicators?” 

“Not just pissing off; I’m robbing them too,” Jeonghan adds matter-of-factly. 

“Yeah, that,” Seungkwan scoffs. “What’s the point in taking their stuff?” 

“Scratching an itch, I guess.” Jeonghan lifts one shoulder and the bruise on his torso aches. “Call it boredom. Call it restlessness. Call it–”

“Retribution? Control issues that weren’t resolvable in therapy?” Seungkwan cuts in knowingly and it’s Jeonghan’s turn to scoff.

“Yeah, that,” he echoes, picking at the dark red etched under his nailbeds. “The high has worn off though, I will admit.” 

“After how many?” Something dark flashes in Jeonghan’s eyes.

“Fifteen.” 

“Jesus Christ, hyung,” mutters Seungkwan. “You’ve robbed fifteen fucking Adjudicators?” 

“Was going to be sixteen until Cheol put me on a job,” Jeonghan deadpans and Seungkwan has half the mind to laugh. The former’s sharp eyes flicker over to the messenger. “When are you gonna tell him?”

“Seungcheol? Never, if you promise to do it first,” Seungkwan answers honestly. A skeptical frown pulls at Jeonghan’s expression. “You have to tell him at some point.”

“I know, I know,” Jeonghan dismisses with a wave of his hand, an idea forming in the back of his mind. “I’ll stop when I’m satisfied.” 

“And when will that be?”

“After I figure out what ‘Project: Harvest’ is,” Jeonghan baits and, just as he had hoped, the most information-savvy member of the Sector bites. Seungkwan’s eyes narrow a fraction, but it’s just enough for Jeonghan to notice. “Do you know what it is, Boo Seungkwan?” Seungkwan swallows and Jeonghan can see him mulling the question in his brain like they were playing poker–he was deciding how much to bet, how much to risk, how willing he is to lose what he has. 

“I’ve only heard bits and pieces,” Seungkwan begins and Jeonghan leans forward, letting the silence stretch until his junior feels the need to fill it with more information. “Something about restructuring the underworld, starting from the top of the Table.”

“Who’s running it?”

“No idea.”

“Your lady friend hasn’t heard anything?” Fondness briefly softens Seungkwan’s expression at the mention of his favorite agent under the Table, an assassin solely used to eliminate people who might know a little more than they should. Jeonghan has never crossed paths with her, thankfully, but her reputation rivaled that of Seungcheol or Jihoon.

“She kills the people that would know, unfortunately,” he reports.

“Hmm. A shame.” Pulling open the bedside drawer, Jeonghan retrieves the small USB drive he’d taken from the Adjudicator in Manhattan and tosses it to Seungkwan, who catches it with one hand. “Think you could get someone to crack that?”

“You couldn’t hack it?”

“Tried, but the files are password-protected,” Jeonghan admits. “Maybe you know someone who could get into it. My gut tells me something on that drive could affect the Sector.” Seungkwan nods and stands, dropping the drive into his breast pocket.

“I’ll try and find someone, but can you promise that you’ll talk to Seungcheol about what you’ve been doing?” Jeonghan blinks slowly.

“You want me to tell Choi Seungcheol that I’m robbing Adjudicators. Point blank.” Seungkwan makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. 

“No, I want you to tell him that you’re feeling–what did you call it? Bored? Restless? Vindictive?” 

“That last one is your addition,” Jeonghan quips and Seungkwan rolls his eyes, heading for the hotel room door. 

“Just talk to him about it and I’ll get your drive opened. If you won’t tell me what your end goal is, maybe Coups can get it out of you.” 

“You’re the best, Seungkwannie,” Jeonghan sings, swinging open the door for him.

“I know I am,” Seungkwan agrees. “Try not to get yourself killed, hyung. It’ll make matters worse for the rest of us.” 

“Take care, Seungkwan.”

—

From Aboard the HMS Cornwallis (1842) by Kronos I**

“In the signing of this treaty, Britain has fired the first of what I presume to be many arrows into the Achilles heel of East Asia. Our family and its business endeavors shall only continue to prosper with the accumulation of reparations paid by China, as well as the port opportunities afforded to us with the newly-acquired Hong Kong territory.”

**Note: The mantle of Kronos has been passed down from patriarch to patriarch, beginning with a Machiavellian politician from a noble family in the mid-19th century. Kronos I successfully siphoned capital into his private accounts after the Chinese government began transferring reparation monies to the British following the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. 

Seungcheol, despite swearing off sneaking out of the castle, caves a mere four months after Jeonghan’s first excursion, muttering something about needing to keep an eye on him as he wreaked havoc across the city. It became a weekly routine, following them into the tunnel system and seeing them off on their adventures into the city. You never climbed the rickety ladder that led into the forest; it was a line you weren’t ready and weren’t willing to cross, but that never bothered either of your friends. For two years, they happily regale you with tales about bartering with vendors, eating themselves sick on food that was drowned in grease and salt, and the occasional standoff with police that always ended in a chase through back alleyways. By the time you’re fourteen, a hollow sense of longing has burrowed into your heart. You longed to go with them, to explore with them, to outrun cops with them. There’s also a new sense of longing that has started to fester in your body, something hot and dangerous and all-consuming…and the cause of it kept smirking at you like he knew he was the reason it was happening. 

“I’m telling you, that jackass Axel was this close to getting his shit rocked by Cheol,” Jeonghan recounts, swinging his arms as wildly as he could in the cramped concrete tunnel. In his excitement, he nearly walked backward into Seungcheol, who marched just ahead with the oil lamp you found hanging on a trellis in the rear gardens. It was far better than your previous method of illuminating the tunnels, which was hunting around for a candlestick and matches and praying you had enough wax to get from the castle, to the forest, and then back. “‘Seat at the High Table,’ my ass. I don’t think he could even spell excommunicado if there was a gun to his head.” 

“Atlas probably could,” Seungcheol chimes in without turning around. “Get a seat at the table, I mean. It’s a given that he can spell excommunicado, seeing as the twins’ dad was declared it for trying to overthrow the Table.” You readjust their messenger bags on your shoulders, which were now empty and ready to be filled with various snacks and trinkets they picked up from the city.

“Probably,” Jeonghan concedes after a moment of thought. “Axel has the muscles and Atlas has the brains. That’s why I was going to tackle Atlas so Cheol could get a good swing on Axel.” He’s still walking backwards so that he can look at you properly, but he’s adjusted his steps so that he doesn’t collide with Seungcheol’s back. Even after knowing him all of these years, you can’t tell if Jeonghan values looking at you specifically or if he just values eye contact with whoever he’s entertaining. “We make a good team, no?”

“I think you’d kill me in my sleep if we teamed up officially,” Seungcheol monotones and you huff a laugh. Jeonghan’s lips pull into an indignant pout.

“I was asking the lady, thank you,” he snarks with the same unnecessary attitude you found yourself smiling over. “And for the record, I’ve had five years to kill you in your sleep. If I wanted to, I would’ve done it by now. Don’t you think so?”

“Yeah, I think you and Cheol make a formidable team,” you answer quickly before Seungcheol can turn around to flick Jeonghan on the forehead. 

“No, dummy. I’m talking about us three,” Jeonghan corrects and your stomach flips. “There’s no us without you, you know.” 

“He’s right,” Seungcheol adds. “You’re the one who helps us break rules only because you know all of them so well.” 

“I feel like me carrying your burglar bags is more productive than me nagging about being back by sunrise,” you protest. Seungcheol shoots you a frown over his shoulder.

“Don’t call them burglar bags. We don’t burgle people,” he insists. You raise an eyebrow. You could count on both hands the number of times Jeonghan had swiped a watch or a wallet from an unsuspecting victim, though you guess that counts as pickpocketing and not burgling. Either way, the bags were used at some point for illegal activities, and you carried them all the same just as they carried classwork and books during the day. You could add it to your mental list of rules that you were complicit in your friends breaking, but the list had become so long that it was a pain to remember. 

“Yeah, that’s only on special occasions,” Jeonghan agrees and this time, Seungcheol actually turns around to kick him in the shin. You unsuccessfully stifle a laugh and, before the two can break out into true rough-housing, you reach the trapdoor that leads into the forest. You hand the boys their respective bags and take the oil lamp from Seungcheol, who pulls a flashlight from his bag and switches it on. 

“Dried fruit is all you want, right?” Seungcheol clarifies and you nod. Bidding you goodbye, he climbs up the ladder and exits into the forest, leaving you alone with Jeonghan in the tunnel. Your heart rate picks up against your will; the question that he asked you every time you followed them through the tunnels was coming. 

“You’re sure you don’t want to see the city tonight?” Of course I’m not sure.

“Yeah,” you confirm. “Have fun.” 

“Anything I can do to make you change your mind?” Ask me one more time and I’ll probably say yes. 

“No, I don’t think so,” you chuckle and Jeonghan’s smile turns sad, as it always did. 

“Alright. We’ll see you at breakfast tomorrow then, okay?” His hand seems to move on its own as his fingers lightly brush against yours, like he wanted to hold them but couldn’t. The nerves tingle where he made contact with you, lighting your entire body on fire. You could be on fire and you wouldn’t care, not as long as he was looking at you like that.

“Okay.” By the time they’re gone and you’re walking back through the tunnels to your dorm, the tingling in your fingers still hasn’t dissipated, and you come to the horrifying realization that you might like Yoon Jeonghan in more than just a friendly way.

As if Year 10 couldn’t possibly get worse. 

Aside from having mediocre grades, which was the equivalent of failing in your family, puberty was hitting your classmates like a freight train and any whisper of drama became a drop of blood in a pool of sharks. You kept your newfound feelings to yourself, yet your friends seemed to have a sixth sense because they cornered you in the common room and insisted you tell them everything you felt about Jeonghan. 

You were able to narrowly avoid your secret being compromised only by fleeing to your room to work on Adjudicator training forms, a thick stack of papers that your parents had mailed you without warning. The practice scenarios were tedious and made your head pound, but the most sickening understanding you make is that you’re damn good at being what the Table wanted you to be. The scenarios differed in context, but you always followed the same pattern in adjudicating those who break the rules of the High Table: assess the situation, declare the violations, administer appropriate punishment. All that was left was to study High Table policies, which guided the other three steps of adjudicating. Sure, your parents have been training you to become an agent of the Table for your entire life, but it doesn’t make you feel any better to check the answer key and see that all of your responses were correct. Whether you wanted to or not, you were becoming the rule-following weapon that your parents and the High Table wanted you to become. 

Thankfully, your happy experiences stuck with you longer than the stress-inducing ones. If you weren’t absorbing gossip from your girl friends, almost every waking moment was spent with Seungcheol and Jeonghan. You strategically picked the same classes in your schedules, worked together on group projects, and always ended up at the same corner table in the library next to the window. Moreover, you’d stopped going home for breaks because neither Seungcheol or Jeonghan went back to their parents, and your parents barely sent you letters anyway. Your friends became your family, but your conscience kept you a strict rule follower nonetheless. 

That is, until your fifteenth birthday.

It’s the third year in a row that your parents have mailed adjudicator workbooks in lieu of a birthday present, and the fourth year without so much as a candy morsel sent as a treat. You didn’t care. Your girls somehow procured a whole strawberry shortcake and stuck a candle in it, shaking you from your sleep promptly at midnight so you could make a wish. Groggy and rubbing sleep from your eyes, you tiredly let them cut you a slice and you all ate in a circle on the floor of the bedroom. As your friends recounted their favorite memories of you in hushed whispers, you couldn’t care less about the couple of rules you knew you were breaking. They’d also gifted you all sorts of jewelry and cosmetics, as well as a new pair of flats that barely made a sound when you walked normally. For when you finally sneak off castle grounds, they’d said.

That day would come sooner than they could expect, as your birthday also happened to fall on one of Jeonghan and Seungcheol’s excursion days. Your decision was made long before you sneak out of the dorms, and you’re struck by the fact that it’s the first time in your entire life that you feel giddy. You wear the flats that fit like a dream as you make your way down the tunnels that have become a second home, brushing your fingers against the cool concrete while your friends bicker about some nonsense in their history class. There’s a feeling of a weight being lifted from your chest with every step you take toward the trapdoor into the forest, and you’re practically floating by the time Seungcheol climbs up first and Jeonghan turns to you with his routine question. 

“You’re sure you don’t wanna see the city tonight?” You pretend to think on it and see the way his body language shifts as he’s not immediately shut down; you weren’t cruel and you would never let him get his hopes up if there was no reason to. You smirk at his dumbfounded expression. 

“Actually, I think I do,” you reply and Jeonghan blinks at you like he didn’t believe what he was hearing. “And no, there’s nothing you can do to make me change my mind.” His brain computes for a few seconds more before he breaks out into the biggest grin you’ve ever seen, scrambling up the ladder to hold out his hand to you from the top. 

“You are the most wonderful person I have ever met,” Jeonghan declares and you roll your eyes lightheartedly. As you climb the handful of rungs, you can hear Seungcheol grumbling something, which abruptly stops when Jeonghan’s hand slips into yours and he pulls you up into the forest. It’s Seungcheol’s turn to stare at you, so flabbergasted that his bag drops from his shoulder with a comical thud. 

“What the hell are you doing here?” He questions and you wink at him. 

“It’s my birthday, Cheol. Time to flip the bird to mommy and daddy and do what I want,” you assert and Seungcheol’s mouth gapes even wider. Jeonghan’s eyes are sparkling and he’s physically incapable of looking away from you, even when your hand leaves his after holding it for a longer-than-needed amount of time. “Now, are we going or not?” 

The thirty minute walk through the woods to reach the city’s border passes in a blink, with Jeonghan and Seungcheol taking turns excitedly telling you about all that you would see and also exclaiming how surprised they were that you were with them. You’re doubled over laughing at several points during the walk, mostly because Jeonghan refuses to look where he’s walking and nearly runs into a tree. Seungcheol takes the lead, as he always does, but periodically checks in to make sure you didn’t change your mind. By the time you reach the edge of the treeline, the full moon looms high with the stars and all three of you are buzzing with excitement. 

You descend upon the city and have to stop to admire the bustle of the night market your friends had always told you about. Endless rows of string lights hang overhead, lighting the cobblestone streets lined with stalls and packed with swaths of people. There’s a savory smell of smoke wafting between the vendors, underlying the scent of fresh coffee from the vendor immediately to your right. Music is coming from somewhere just up the street, something jazzy heard between sellers advertising their products and people chatting about their day. 

“Pretty cool, isn’t it?” Seungcheol asks and your cheeks have started to ache from smiles.

“This is amazing.”

“You haven’t even seen the Turkish ice cream man,” Jeonghan beams, grabbing your hand and pulling you forward. Seungcheol makes a panicked gawking noise and you feel a tug on the back of your coat as the three of you meld seamlessly into the flow of bodies. 

Anything that you could have possibly imagined and more is there, from finger food to artisan goods to street performers drawing crowds as large as your classes. A magician pulls a dove from his hat that nearly flutters into your face. A florist hands you a white carnation. A jeweler shows you three different pairs of earrings she thinks would suit you. All the while, Jeonghan’s fingers remain firmly laced in yours as you’re guided to booth after booth in the market. With one hand permanently attached to his, you use the other to pick up trinkets that glint under the moonlight and eagerly try samples of skewers hot from the grill. He never lets you loosen your grip and you never let him stray more than a few feet away from you, not that he would want to. All the while, Seungcheol watches Jeonghan watch you, a content feeling of completeness settling in his heart. 

Jeonghan only releases your hand at the end of the night, when you’ve found a calm spot on the seawall bordering the River Thames. With him and Seungcheol on either side of you, you snack on fried food that soaks the paper tray in oil. Your legs dangle off the ledge of the wall, kicking lazily over the dark waves that lap at the stones. 

“I’ll find somewhere to throw this out,” Seungcheol announces, swinging his legs over the other side of the wall and wandering away to toss the empty food trays. You’re left shoulder to shoulder with Jeonghan and you wonder if he can hear just how hard your heart is pounding. 

“I think tonight is the best night of my life,” you declare and Jeonghan looks at you with a lopsided grin. 

“You wait until after Cheol has left to say that?” You roll your eyes and he nudges you with his shoulder. “I’m kidding. Keep talking.” 

“I just–I’ve never felt so free before,” you continue, staring up at the moon. “I should feel guilty for sneaking out, for lying to my parents, for breaking rules more often. But, I don’t. I don’t feel guilty in the slightest.” A smile tugs at the corner of your mouth. “D’you know my Adjudicator forms have been collecting dust on my desk?” Jeonghan’s mouth falls open dramatically.

“You? Putting off Adjudicator shit? The world truly must be changing,” he remarks. 

“Sometimes, I let Megan and Lara use them as doormats when it rains," you laugh. “Did I tell you the girls smuggled me a birthday cake?” 

“You didn’t, but I knew anyway.” Your eyebrows furrow.

“How?”

“Because I helped them,” Jeonghan states nonchalantly. “I showed them how to use the south tunnels, the ones that run primarily under the kitchen and pantry.” It seems humanly impossible, but your heartrate picks up anyway. 

“You let them use your precious tunnel system?” You say with a melodic lilt in your voice to cover up just how badly your face is burning. 

“For you? Of course,” he answers immediately. “I feel a little bad, though. I didn’t get you an actual present.”

“You bought me whatever food I wanted tonight,” you remind him and he chuckles.

“I guess you’re right. I wish I was able to get you something more meaningful though.” Jeonghan’s eyes flick down to the gold lion ring wrapped around your middle finger. “I feel like I used up all my good-gift-energy giving you that ring.” You shake your head and survey the silhouette of the city horizon sitting just above the river. 

“This is better than any gift you could have given me,” you promise. He waits a few moments more before speaking again. 

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Anything.”

“Why did you decide to come out tonight, of all nights?” 

“It’s my birthday,” you reply. “I should be able to do what I want, shouldn’t I?”

“Of course,” Jeonghan agrees. “But,” he inhales sharply and for the first time, you see Yoon Jeonghan look nervous. “Is there…any other reason?” Your mind quiets and you turn to look at him; he’s conveniently staring at the laces of his shoes. 

“What do you want me to say, Jeonghan?” You ask, genuinely curious. Your honesty makes him fidget. You could tell that he was pressing you to say something, but the one thing that you could share with him had the potential to ruin the atmosphere and possibly your entire friendship. Was he expecting you to tell him that you harbored feelings for him? Did he want that? 

“I’m not sure.” 

“You’re lying,” you state and he chuckles uneasily, running a hand through his hair. 

“Yeah, I am.” Jeonghan’s eyes flicker over to you, see your unwavering gaze, and quickly return to the tops of his shoes. “I want you to say something, and I think you’ve been wanting to say it too, but I don’t want to force you to say it. That’s–I never want to force you to do something.” You have enough people telling you what to do, is the implication and your stomach flips. Your voice drops to a whisper. 

“So, if I wanted to say, ‘I like you more than just as a friend,’ would that be what you wanted to hear?” His head whips toward you, like he needed you to say it again to be sure he heard it correctly. 

“As long as you’re saying it because you want to, not because I want you to,” he says slowly. 

“I’d be saying it because it’s true,” you confess, twisting the signet ring around your finger. “I like you a lot more than just as a friend.” Jeonghan blinks at you, stunned. You wait for your words to register in his brain; you know they do when he gives you a smile that isn’t his usual wide, boisterous grin. This one is soft, softer than you’ve ever seen him before, and his thumb comes up to gently trace your jaw. The rest of his fingers follow to caress your face, like you would break if he pushed too hard. “Are you gonna say something, Han?” His breathing hitches and his pupils go wide. He must have been dreaming–you’ve never used a nickname with him before, much less one that makes his entire body feel like putty. 

“You’re unreal,” he breathes. “You are absolutely unreal.” You lean closer until your foreheads meet and your breaths mingle, electricity shooting through your body at the first teasing brush of his lips on yours. 

“Jeonghan.” His eyes narrow ever so slightly, like you’d insulted him.

“Mmm, no,” he declares. “We’re never going back to just ‘Jeonghan.’ Call me the other one.” You laugh incredulously. 

“Han?” He hums, satisfied. “Or do you like Hannie better?” You catch the bob in his throat as he swallows. You can’t tell if the warmth around your cheeks is from his face or yours. 

“Either is good, but I think calling me yours is my personal preference,” he grins before finally kissing you properly, something cosmic snapping into alignment when he slots his mouth against yours. The first kiss is brief, barely a second long, but Jeonghan’s quick to close the distance again and keep you against him by a hand on the back of your neck. “I need Seungcheol to take the long way around to find somewhere to throw the trash away,” he murmurs in between kisses.

“I think he had a feeling something like this might happen,” you add, breathless. “There’s a bin by the stairs he could have used. It would have taken him thirty seconds, max.” 

“I can’t even be mad at him if I finally get you like this,” he admits, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Would you consider this a good birthday?” 

“The best,” you agree. “You’re never getting rid of me now that you have me, by the way.” 

“If I ever let you go, I need you to shoot me,” he deadpans, “because I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.” 

“Deal,” you conclude. You’re about to duck forward and kiss him again when a shuffling noise from the walkway behind you catches your attention. You both turn to see Seungcheol with a wide, knowing grin, having thrown the trash away several minutes ago and hiding behind a lamppost until you two got your shit together. “You have something to say, Choi Seungcheol?” You challenge lightheartedly and he shrugs, unable to hide the happiness on his face. 

“Nothing at all,” Seungcheol confirms. “C’mon, you two. We should head back.” Jeonghan sneaks one more kiss against your lips before swinging his legs over and hopping off the wall, offering his hand to you as you do the same. He keeps your hand in his as you leave the Thames behind, your gold signet rings clinking against each other like halves finally being made whole. 

—

Jeonghan had a love-hate relationship with Sector celebrations. On one hand, it was comically easy for him to charm his way around the room and report back to Seungcheol with at least fourteen new tidbits of information. Drunk informants were the best informants, especially when he didn’t need to pull a weapon on them to get them to talk. He enjoyed the part of the celebration where he could stalk around the room looking for someone to toy with; it was a game, after all, and Yoon Jeonghan loved games. On the other hand, there was no amount of champagne in the world that could make him want to play nice in a room full of assassins, mercenaries, and High Table elites that probably ate breakfast with diamond-encrusted forks and shit in gold-plated toilets. 

“You’re frowning again,” Joshua says quietly with a nudge of his elbow, breaking Jeonghan out of his trance as he absentmindedly scans the crowd in the ballroom below.

“I’m not frowning. This is my neutral face,” he reasons. From their place at the top landing of the enormous staircase, he can spot anybody and everybody moving through the swaths of people. The Table has gone for a theme reminiscent of the Palace of Versailles, all candlelight chandeliers and golden candelabras and a heinous amount of velvet-draped mirrors. The space itself isn’t very large, yet the reflections in the mirrors make the dance floor seem larger than it actually is. Suit-clad staff weave between cliques with trays of bite-sized foods topped with mounds and mounds of caviar. The entire affair screams decadence and it makes Jeonghan want to set the place ablaze.

“Your neutral face is smirking like a jackass. Anything other than that is frowning,” Joshua replies. He downs the remainder of his champagne flute and makes a face like a cat spitting out a hairball. “For holding a party in France, of all places, you’d think the Table would get better champagne,” he croaks, placing the empty glass on a passing tray. 

“You just say that because you’re used to wines from Napa, or whatever the fancy vineyards in California are,” teases Jeonghan. “Rich kid.” Joshua’s smile sharpens. 

“Says the one that went to a private school in London.” 

“Touché.” Jeonghan’s about to fire back a quick remark when he spots Vernon climbing the stairs, no doubt coming to escape the introvert’s nightmare occurring behind him. “C’mere, Vernonie. Come stand with the cool kids.” Vernon positions himself beside Joshua with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his dress pants. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” Vernon answers. “People keep talking to me but by the time we reach the end of the conversation, I feel like I haven’t exchanged any actual information.”

“It’s not that way with Flora, though, I presume,” Jeonghan reasons and he stifles a laugh as Vernon’s ears turn a shade pinker. “She always has a certain way of talking to you in a way that you actually enjoy.”

“She’s friendly. That’s all,” Vernon argues weakly. Joshua and Jeonghan share a knowing look. “I’m surprised you two aren’t out there working the crowd.”

“We were, believe me, but even I get fatigued talking to this many people,” Joshua explains. Vernon hums, casting a sideways glance at Jeonghan. 

“Catch anything interesting tonight, hyung?”

“Not anything you would need to know yet,” Jeonghan states cryptically, to which Vernon nods and accepts the non-answer. “I’ve caught some things that might be useful, but Cheol always gets to know first.” A couple slipping through the crowd like a pair of twin shadows catches his eye and Jeonghan’s mouth stretches into a triumphant grin. He bumps his shoulder against Joshua’s. “Found ‘em.”

“No way,” Joshua protests. “Where?” Jeonghan’s finger guides Joshua’s eyeline toward Minghao and the woman they affectionately referred to as Nyx disappear into the darkness behind a towering white column. Seconds later, Song Daeshim and Min Kyubok, two out of three members of the High Table’s Anti-Sector Trinity, station themselves to whisper in the same corner, not knowing that two master spies were listening just a few feet away. “That’s not fair; you have a better vantage point.”

“We’re literally standing at the same height with no obstructions,” Jeonghan objects.

“What were you two doing?” Vernon puzzles. 

“We play a game where we try to find Minghao and Nyx in the crowd at every Sector celebration. If there’s anyone who will work the crowd the entire night, it’s those two,” Joshua informs him. 

“Though Seokmin and Seungkwan might give them a run for their money,” Jeonghan chimes in. “Give them a night and those two can talk through the entire country of Austria.” A comfortable silence falls between the three members, who all survey the scene and act as their own personal security, even though weapons were strictly prohibited at the door. That didn’t stop Vernon from smuggling in two of his favorite kunai, though, nor Joshua sneaking in his butterfly knife. Jeonghan is less subtle, choosing to tie back half his hair with a long gold hair stick that was sharpened to a deadly point should he choose to remove the cover on one end. 

An anxious chill blows over Jeonghan’s spine at the same time as Vernon’s eyes narrow on three figures in the crowd.

“Who’s that with Coups and Jun?” He asks and Jeonghan’s entire world tilts violently on its axis. Of all the people he expected to see at a Sector celebration, you were not one of them. 

He had failed to see you at any of the other four celebrations since he joined SECTOR 17, yet this was the day that fate decided to royally fuck up his mental stability. His vision becomes all but a kaleidoscope, the only clear image being you and your dress and the long black gloves snaking their way up your forearms and past your elbows. You were here. You were here, and he was seeing you for the first time in five–no, maybe it was six–years? You looked essentially the same as the last night he saw you, albeit several years older, yet you carry yourself with a different demeanor. It’s different from the quiet introspection he’d grown to associate with you, now honed to something deadlier and more ominous. His body acts before his brain can, forcing him down the crushed velvet staircase and in the direction of where you were conversing with Seungcheol and Jun. You turn over your shoulder to look at him a second before he reaches you, and the expression on your face makes his heart plummet. 

You did not look alive. 

Physically, you looked healthy, yet there was no spark behind your eyes. You looked like a zombie, the most well put-together zombie in the world. Sunken and dull, your eyes looked not at Jeonghan, but straight through him, like he was the ghost here and not you. You don’t smile when you see him, recognition barely flickering across your face. Your face remains as blank and emotionless as your parents’ faces, from what Jeonghan could remember about the first day he met you. The realization makes his blood run cold. You’d done it. You’d successfully turned off all other emotions and become an Adjudicator. You nod at him and return to face Seungcheol and Jun. Jeonghan brushes past you, purposefully making contact with your shoulder to see if you would react, yet you barely spare him another glance. With a rough clearing of his throat, he comes to stand next to Seungcheol, flanking him with Jun. 

“Look who I ran into, Jeonghan,” Seungcheol states with a tailored smile. Jeonghan knows that smile. It’s the look the leader of his Sector gives him when he knows something is wrong, but can’t exactly figure it out. Cheol knows something is off, too. 

“Hello, Jeonghan,” you say too evenly with no change in your voice. You sound neither happy nor sad to see him, and he’s not sure what hurts more. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he answers robotically. His voice, though it comes from his mouth, sounds distant. “And you? Where have you been?”

“I have completed my Adjudicator apprenticeship,” you declare. “I will now adjudicate cases for the Table on my own.” 

“What are you doing at a Sector celebration?” Jeonghan asks. You pause and blink at him. If someone told him you had been replaced with an android, he would believe it. It sickens him. 

“I received an invitation from Kronos. He informed me that Seungcheol and his members would be present, and thought it best that I attend as well.” Jeonghan does nothing to hide the distaste that appears on his face. His distrust of Kronos hadn’t dissipated after he graduated, and definitely not after Seungcheol reached out asking him to join SECTOR 17. Somehow, you had become folded into Kronos’ plans, plans that Jeonghan mentally kicked himself for not figuring out. 

“What else have you been up to lately?” Jun asks, sensing the worsening tension between the group and seeking to resolve it. 

“What do you mean?”

“What do you do in your free time?” Seungcheol clarifies. “When you’re not working?” Jeonghan tells himself that he doesn’t imagine the way your jaw clenches.

“I do not have the privilege of ‘free time’ that you refer to. I adjudicate cases, and I sleep. There is no downtime. I am always working to serve the Table.” The question escapes Jeonghan’s mouth before he can filter it. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Your head snaps to him and your eyes widen the slightest bit, caught somewhere between shock and indignance. Jun stifles a cough into his sleeve, looking around to reassure nearby guests with an apologetic smile. Seungcheol’s nostrils flare, but Jeonghan couldn’t care less about the rising heat clawing up the back of his neck. “All that High Table brainwashing make you forget how to have fun?” 

“Jeonghan,” Seungcheol warns. “Not here.” 

“If not here, then where? Who’s to say she won't run away again like she did the night before graduation?” 

“I’m gonna grab Jihoon. Or Joshua. Or literally anyone else,” Jun decides, retreating into the crowd and leaving Jeonghan with you and Seungcheol. 

“It’s just us three now,” Jeonghan tries. “You can cut the bullshit now.” 

“Maybe we can go somewhere quieter to talk,” Seungcheol proposes and you shake your head. 

“Enjoy the rest of the celebration,” you finish a little hurriedly. Jeonghan watches your face carefully, noticing the way your eyes have started to dart around the room like you were watching for an impending threat. 

“God forbid you remember what it’s like to be your own person,” Jeonghan sneers and you take the bait. 

“I am entirely my own person,” you retort, your voice tightening. 

“Doesn’t seem like it, seeing as you eat, sleep, and breathe the High Table. What happened to flipping the bird to mommy and daddy and doing what you wanted?” For the first time that day, something different flashes in your face. It’s panicked, it’s desperate, and more than anything, it’s carefully restrained to not give anything away. You were hiding something, you’ve been hiding something since the day before graduation. For a moment, he thinks he’s won as you open your mouth to say something before your face hardens.

“I hope I never cross paths with you again, Yoon Jeonghan,” you conclude before turning on your heel and disappearing. 

— 

From Reflections of a High Table Adjudicator (1994) by Unknown

“Adjudication is, perhaps, the most vital asset for the High Table. The Table and those under it function under rules and consequences, both of which keep us from descending into anarchy and barbarism. The Adjudicator is not so much a sword or a spear, but a club. Blunt and firm, but with enough strikes, able to fell even the strongest of adversaries. An Adjudicator must be unfeeling, unwavering, and above all, unyielding to even the strongest of temptations.” 

You live in an unpoppable bubble for fourteen months after the night you kiss Jeonghan. 

Jeonghan. He loved you loudly, as outwardly as he could without getting you both detention. He held your hand under tables, kissed you when no one was looking, and stared unapologetically even if you were doing something as mundane as reading your notes. Loving Yoon Jeonghan and allowing him to love you opened a door that silenced any voice of authority drilled into your head. The world fell away when you were alone with him, and with it any thought of Adjudication and the High Table and your parents’ expectations. On a certain night, when it was just you two in the castle tower, he introduces you to the indulgence of imagining a future that was truly your own. Not the future made by your parents, but something truly yours.

“I haven’t really thought about that before,” you admit with your head against his shoulder. 

“I know you haven’t, which is why I asked,” he replies in that snarky, matter-of-fact manner that used to bother you, but now sends butterflies fluttering in your stomach. Jeonghan had a habit of asking you things you never considered. “I think you could do it. Make something of your own, without your parents breathing down your neck.” 

Up until now, you didn’t consider being with Jeonghan a betrayal of your parents; they had notified you of no marital prospects, so there was no pretense for you to stray from. Technically, they never notified you of anything, not anymore. Even on your birthdays, your mailbox at the school remained filled with nothing but cobwebs and dust. The thought of breaking away completely is enticing, sure, but a small amount of anxiety creeps up the back of your neck at the thought of directly defying your family’s wishes. Physiological reactions and classical conditioning, your psychology teacher would call it. Jeonghan just calls it the side-effects of shitty parenting.

“What will you do after we graduate?” 

“Wait for you to come with me, probably,” Jeonghan states and you feel the familiar heat rise in your face. He smirks at your flustered silence. “I’m serious. There is no me without you, so wherever you go, I will follow.” 

“If I do stay with you, would you become an Operator and move up the ranks, like your parents do?”

“I think I’d rather die,” he deadpans and you snort. His arm around your shoulders pulls you closer. “No, I think I’d take on contracts. Seungcheol and I haven’t been sparring for nothing, you know?”

“I do know, trust me,” you hum. “I’m the one who’s always keeping score after you scared away that transfer kid.” 

“Jun, yeah,” Jeonghan muses. “I think he got freaked out when Cheol’s nose started bleeding.”

“You did hit him with a shovel.” 

“We were practicing fighting with what we have,” Jeonghan defends. “Improvisation is important, especially when you don’t know who you’re fighting.” A new question pops into your mind.

“Have you ever thought about joining a Sector?” You ask. 

“I’m not the biggest fan of other people,” he remarks, giving you a skeptical look.

“True,” you agree with a smile. “If Seungcheol joined one, though, would you?” He pauses, his eyebrows furrowed in thought.

“Depends on who’s in it and if I can tolerate them,” he states after a few moments of consideration. “If Seungcheol made a Sector, though, I’ll be the first member there with him.”

“I’d like to go with you.” 

“I think I’d go crazy if you didn’t.” 

“Then maybe that’s the future that I imagine for myself, without my parents. Somewhere I can stay with you and Seungcheol, and we get to face the world together.” You stare up at the sliver of night sky you can see through the small window of the tower and, when you look back at Jeonghan, he’s watching your face like you were the only person in the entire world. You’re about to tease him when he takes it upon himself to break the moment with his signature, one-line humor. 

“We’d have to find Cheol a girlfriend; he’ll be miserable if he’s our third wheel forever,” he points out with grave seriousness and you burst out laughing, hiding your face in his shoulder.

“You’re unreal, Yoon Jeonghan.” He presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“That’s why you love me, isn’t it?”

“Something like that.”

For fourteen months, your life was perfect. Your life remains mostly the same–you attend your classes, study with Seungcheol while Jeonghan tries to distract you both, and dodge your parents’ letters about becoming an Adjudicator. During the day, you were a picture-perfect student with the highest grades and the most positive feedback on assignments. At night, however, you roam the grounds in your flats that make your footsteps silent. You sneak out as often as your girl friends did, whether it was joining them to raid the pantry or adventuring into the city. You were never caught when you broke any rules, you made sure of it; you knew the rules too well and that was what made it so easy to break them. As the Adjudicator workbooks continued to sit untouched in a pile on your desk, you hid your extra cash and trinkets you acquired at the market beneath a loose floorboard next to your bed, as well as the cheesy love notes that Jeonghan slips you during classes. Everything in your life fits together like puzzle pieces, the closest you’d ever been to a truly perfect life.

Then Seungcheol’s parents are found dead the morning after he turns sixteen. 

A targeted attack, you hear the teachers whisper. Their necks slit while they slept, your classmates murmur. Quick and untraceable. Two deaths that would easily be brushed over. Dead for what, you couldn’t fathom. At sixteen, you already had a relatively deep understanding of the world under the Table. The Choi family wasn’t high up in the underworld–it was how your parents and the Yoons had met them in the first place because they all worked on the same level. Your parents were Tax Collectors, the Yoons managed Operators, and the Chois were a cog in the machine of Administration. For someone to kill the Chois simply didn’t make sense; their absence wouldn’t cripple the Table, but their presence wasn’t adding anything revolutionary. They were simply there, and in the time that followed, it felt like the person targeted the most wasn’t the two dead Chois, but their orphaned son.

A month after his parents are in the ground, Kronos V collects Seungcheol like tribute. 

“I don’t know what we’ll do, but I won’t be at school anymore,” Seungcheol says hollowly on the last night the three of you are in the city. You’ve had the urge to cry since he told you he was leaving, but you fight the burning in your nose every time the feeling arises; if Seungcheol hasn’t cried yet, then you wouldn’t either. Your legs swing off the edge of the seawall over the Thames, but the waves are much more violent tonight as they crash against the stones. The sky is moonless, shrouded with clouds and layered with fog that has settled over the city. It feels like the city is mourning with you. 

“Where will you go?” You ask, your voice wavering. In just under eight hours, your best friend would be gone, disappearing under the wing of a titan of a man who arrived a day earlier and claimed to be his godfather. Seungcheol doesn’t explain the details, but Kronos had given him a choice–he could stay and complete his studies, or he could help hunt down the people who killed his parents. For him, the same passionate boy who nearly knocked Axel’s lights out when you were fourteen, the correct answer was evident.

“I don’t know. Kronos didn’t tell me,” Seungcheol replies. He would hunt down his parents’ killers and continue to train under Kronos. Where that left you and Jeonghan, you had no idea, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to fault him for what he was doing. The same couldn’t be said about Jeonghan, whose eyes had something dangerous burning behind them that you had never seen before. 

“I don’t trust him,” Jeonghan says through gritted teeth and the muscle in Seungcheol’s jaw clenches. “If he’s your godfather, why did your parents never mention him?”

“They kept a lot of things from me. All our parents keep a lot of things from us,” Seungcheol argues. “At least, mine did. Probably what got them killed in the first place.” You run your thumb over the lion etched into your signet ring, but tonight it brings no comfort nor bravery. 

“We’ll be able to see you after we graduate, right? This isn’t goodbye,” you state, still holding on to the hope that Seungcheol wouldn’t just disappear with this stranger who happened to be tied to the founder of your school. Seungcheol hesitates, and that’s enough of an answer for Jeonghan.

“Sure feels like it,” he scoffs and you shoot him a withering glare. “What? It’s not like I’m wrong. He hasn’t exactly given us reassurance that he’s coming back.” Your chest flares with indignance, but Seungcheol interrupts before you can hiss a response. 

“Because I don’t know if I’m coming back. Kronos says he’s gonna restructure the Table and that he wants my help to do it. That starts with finding the people that killed my parents,” Seungcheol argues tiredly. You three had hashed ten different versions of the same conversation since Kronos arrived. “I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know what I’m walking into.” 

“But you sure know what you’re walking away from,” Jeonghan sneers. 

“Leave it alone, Han,” you warn, but Seungcheol is already fired up. 

“Is there something you wanna say? Or are you just angry there’s no rule you can break to control the situation?” You jut your elbows out to the side to keep apart, but they swing their legs over the side to confront each other directly. 

“That’s enough,” you attempt to no avail.

“Control freak tendencies catching up to you, Yoon?”

“Your fragile pride catching up to you, Choi?” 

“Stop it!” You bark, shoving yourself between the two. “What the fuck is wrong with you both?” Jeonghan is about to back off, but then Seungcheol turns his glare to you.

“Go ahead, goody-two-shoes. Take his side like you always do,” Seungcheol spits and Jeonghan’s expression darkens. Your chest stings like you’d been stabbed. 

“What the fuck are you talking about, Cheol?” You whisper, horrified. It’s the first time you’ve sworn at him, yet he doesn’t flinch. His eyes burn brightly with emotions you couldn’t distinguish, a flaming mess of wrath, despair, hurt, and fear. If Jeonghan notices the conflict behind his best friend’s eyes, he ignores it.

“You don’t talk to her like that,” he threatens in a low tone. His fists clench and unclench, ready to punch. “Don’t ever talk to her like that.” Seungcheol laughs humorlessly.

“You’re perfect for each other, you know? The one with no spine and the one who pretends he has one.” A hush falls over the city. The world around you slows. One moment, you’re forcing your best friends not to rip out each other’s throats. 

The next, your hand is striking the side of Seungcheol’s face. 

His head jerks to the side, his eyes wide open. Your palm stings from the force of slapping his cheek. Jeonghan stands frozen behind you, his own arm raised to stop you a second too late. The waves of the Thames ease their crashing rhythm. 

As the moon appears from behind the clouds, you witness Choi Seungcheol finally collapse under the weight of his grief. 

You don’t remember moving, but in a blink you’re on your knees with him, winding your arms tightly around his shoulders as they shake. Jeonghan is there a second later, wrapping himself around Seungcheol’s back and holding him steady when all three of you begin to cry. Seungcheol convulses with every sob that violently wracks through his body, hoarse cries tearing themselves from his throat while his forehead falls onto your shoulder. You and Jeonghan hug him tighter, if only to feel that you were still there with him. In between choked breaths, Seungcheol whispers a string of apologies–to you, to Jeonghan, to his parents. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. You just nod and rub your hand up and down his shoulder, murmuring reassurances you know he isn’t hearing. The three of you stay huddled on the floor for what feels like forever, until Seungcheol’s breathing evens out and he utters one more broken apology to you both. 

At promptly 7:00 A.M. the next morning, you slip your hand into Jeonghan’s as you watch Kronos’ SUV disappear with Seungcheol down the school’s driveway.

—

Though they were few and far between, Seungcheol sometimes sent his members on hunts that targeted individuals who could be a threat to the Sector’s livelihood. After Jeonghan robs his twentieth Adjudicator in Casablanca and deals with half a dozen nobodies trying to stab him in an alleyway, he practically pounces on the next assignment that appears in the Sector’s groupchat–a Ruska Roma ballerina getting a little too involved with the Anti-Sector Trinity. Easy enough. 

Three days later, Jihoon is waiting for him in the lounge of the New York Continental, sipping a Manhattan and glowering like a demon who crawled its way out of hell. He lurks in a rustic leather armchair and sits shrouded by long shadows cast by the dim chandeliers, an apt appearance for the ‘King of the Underworld.’ A nasty bruise spreads shades of blue and purple just under his left eye, no doubt a parting gift from an attacker similar to Jeonghan’s in Casablanca.

“Who pissed in your whiskey?” Jeonghan questions with a dry smile, plopping into the identical armchair across from his friend. Jihoon’s eyes remain dark, but the corner of his mouth twitches. 

“Glad to know you weren’t caught unaware in Morocco,” the latter says casually, like they were discussing something as trivial as the weather. Jeonghan raises a single eyebrow and fights the impulse to poke Jihoon’s bruised eye, just for fun. 

“You don’t seem too fazed this time around,” he observes, fully aware of the other hotel guests eyeing him and Jihoon like they would bleed gold coins if cut open. It was no secret that the members of SECTOR 17 were high-value targets, but the commandment authorizing eye-for-an-eye retribution tended to ward off smart hunters. The less smart ones ended up being minor inconveniences at best and the cause of Jihoon’s black eye at worst. “I see you dealt with the cannon fodder sent after you.” 

“I did,” Jihoon confirms. “I still think the Table’s been quietly trying to get rid of us since we tamed Hoshi, but they don’t have reasons to put out contracts on us.” 

“It’s a good theory, though I don’t know if tamed is the right word for Soonyoung. The only one who can truly say they tamed him is your twin from the Ruska Roma,” Jeonghan snorts. “But I digress. High Table or low-level Sector, an advance warning would have been nice. I prefer to know when someone’s trying to kill me.” 

“Blame Seokmin for pissing off the Table this time, not me,” Jihoon protests over the rim of his glass. “He’s the one who wandered into Holy Spirits in the first place.” 

“Ah, so it was Table soldiers, specifically Trinity soldiers.” 

“If my hunches are correct, yeah.” 

“Our favorite Trinity is getting a little too bold, lately. It’d be so much fun to blow up their shitty little dive bar,” Jeonghan remarks. He vividly recalls the one and only time he’d ever stepped foot into the establishment notoriously owned by the three most vocal Anti-Sector members of the High Table; he and Joshua had to drag Seungcheol out when he purposefully went looking for a fight. His lip curls in disgust at the memory. “That’s all it is, really. Holy Spirits is a glorified dive bar with shitty LEDs, not enough to call itself a nightclub.”

“Seokmin insists there was good karaoke,” shrugs Jihoon unconvincingly and Jeonghan shakes his head, disappointed. “If there’s one good thing about him wandering into that place, though, it’s that we know to eliminate Nadia.” 

“Remind me what’s bad about her, again?”

“She’s a trained Ruska Roma ballerina, for one,” Jihoon states. “Two, she signed a deal with Park Jum and now has the authorization to train other ballerinas to do the Trinity’s bidding, which could very well include targeting the Sector.”

“Ah, yes. The Father and the Holy Spirit are nothing without the trigger-happy Son,” Jeonghan concludes. “So, I need to kill her before she tries to kill us.” 

“Correct.” 

“Wanna come with me? Visit your old stomping grounds?” Jihoon’s expression hardens into a grimace. 

“I think the Director would be very disappointed if the first time I return home is to kill one of her star pupils.” Jeonghan opens his mouth to throw out a smart remark, but Jihoon is already anticipating it. “And yes, it does still matter even if you’re the one pulling the trigger.” 

“Morals, schmorals. No one knows how to have fun anymore,” Jeonghan grumbles, frowning and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“Don’t sulk, hyung. It’s not a good look for you,” Jihoon teases and Jeonghan lovingly flips him off. “You’ll have to be quick to take out Nadia, since the Ruska Roma will shoot your ass when they find out you killed her.” 

“If they find out,” mumbles Jeonghan. 

“There’s a back entrance to the theater that’s usually guarded by two or three big guys. A silencer will do the trick,” Jihoon continues. “From there, go past the catwalk to the stairs and climb to the top floor. That’s where the principal dancers and instructors sleep. Classes are usually done by 11:00. and she should be in her room by 11:30 at the latest. Get in, take her out, leave through the window.” 

“Shall I bring a parachute?” Jeonghan jokes dryly. “Or is there a fire escape?”

“A rickety one,” Jihoon clarifies, “but it should be fine since it’s just you.” 

“Got it. Anything else I should know before I break into your childhood-home-slash-child-assassin-factory?”

“Yeah. If you get caught, you’ll be beaten to death by a bunch of European giants that eat a dozen raw eggs like potato chips. No pressure,” Jihoon informs him too calmly. Jeonghan sighs and peels himself off the armchair, tossing out a few gold coins that previously belonged to Adjudicators. Jihoon frowns like he’d been insulted. “I don’t need your shit. I’ve probably got more money than you.” 

“I know you don’t need them, but they were weighing down my pockets and bothering me,” Jeonghan interrupts. Truthfully, he’d stolen them off an Adjudicator in Jakarta and forgotten to take them out of the pockets of his pants. “Use them to buy more Manhattans, or something. I’ll let you know when the job’s finished.” He nods in farewell. “Thanks for the info, Pluto.”

“Happy hunting, Saturn.” 

—

From The Art of War by Sun Tzu (c. 475–221 BCE)

“One may know how to conquer without being able to do it.”

Your gut tells you something is wrong on the day before your graduation. The halls remain a flurry of activity, but the impact misses you like a train passing a station. After successfully pulling you away from Jeonghan, your girls have done nothing but chatter in your ears about how excited they were to finally get out of the castle and see the world, albeit with a knife in their boot and a gun strapped to their belt. Their conversations go in through one ear and out of the other, and any sort of excitement is replaced by a lingering sense of paranoia that has you checking over your shoulders relentlessly. A murky feeling of nausea and dread churns in your stomach that makes all the lights seem too bright, every smell seem too strong, and every voice too piercing. 

You get a brief reprieve when a student messenger summons you to the headmaster’s office in your last class, thinking that maybe that was what your gut was trying to warn you about. Following the messenger quietly into the area of the castle where the administration’s offices were, you’re struck by a feeling of contentment. If you had to answer for sneaking off school grounds or swiping extra snacks from the pantry, so be it. You completed your classes with the highest marks and could plausibly deny adventuring into the city, so what could the headmaster possibly get you in trouble for? It’s this line of reasoning that steadies you as you push open the heavy double doors of the headmaster’s office and glance around the seemingly empty room. A throat clears. You turn to the small wooden table in the corner of the office and your heart drops. With a stack of papers that looked suspiciously like Adjudicator forms, your parents sit watching you like a cat hunting a bird.

And they’re smiling. 

“Hello, daughter,” your mother states. It sounds more like a threat than a greeting.

“Mother. Father,” you reply more uneasily than you intend. “I wasn’t aware you were attending graduation.” 

“We’re not, nor are you,” your father clarifies, his voice unwavering. 

“We’re here to collect you and escort you to Osaka.” Your body betrays you and you take another look around the room, as if to ask the headmaster if this is even allowed. “There’s no one to consult, daughter. We’ve already spoken to the school’s administration, and they have agreed to mail your diploma to us.” Your chest tightens. Every fiber in your body screams at you to run, yet your feet remain rooted to the floor, just as you were trained to do in the presence of your parents. 

“What’s in Osaka?” You question with a lump in your throat. 

“A number of seasoned Adjudicators have selected apprentices,” your mother answers. “The Adjudicator you will be shadowing is based in Japan and has instructed us to meet her at the Osaka Continental the day after tomorrow. You will serve as an apprentice for four years, and then be distinguished as an Adjudicator.” 

“You will now fulfill your duty to the Table,” your father states with an air of finality. Your skin prickles under the unnerving stares of your parents. Out of habit, your fingertips brush the lion ring on your middle finger and your heart aches remembering the conversation about the future you had with Jeonghan. 

Jeonghan.

You look your parents dead in the eyes, steel your nerves, and lift your chin.

“No.” Your father’s forehead creases. 

“No?” Your mother repeats, tilting her head slowly to the side, tasting the word you’d never uttered to them. 

“No. I don’t want to be an Adjudicator,” you declare. 

“And what do you suppose we have you do instead?” Your mother’s voice is curt , but the fire growing behind your eyes is too intense to be stamped out. 

“Not what you would have me do. It’s what I want to do, and what I want to do is graduate tomorrow with my friends and figure out where to go from there. Without you telling me what to do.” You don’t realize how your hands have balled into fists until you feel the edge of your ring digging into your palm. Silence falls between you and your parents, the only sound being your ragged breathing. Without another word, your mother flips open the cover of the fifth Adjudicator workbook you left untouched on your desk. 

“It seems your time here has changed you, daughter,” she remarks evenly, looking not at you but at the contents within the book. You take a single step forward and fight the urge to vomit at what you see inside. Extra cash. Stickers. Stamps. Paper trinkets from the city’s markets. Jeonghan’s love notes. All the secret contraband you’d hidden under the floorboard in your dorm, your parents had found it, and were now presenting it to you like evidence from a crime scene. One print in particular catches your eye, a strip from a photobooth Jeonghan had dragged you and Seungcheol into. “I knew those boys would be a bad influence on you. Seungcheol was unexpected, but I don’t need to be a fortune teller to predict the Yoon boy’s insolence.” 

“Don’t talk about him like that,” you growl. “He’s smarter than either of you will ever be.” That makes them both go still. Your mother exhales a deep sigh through her nose. Your father follows your gaze and snags the photostrip before your hand can dart out to grab it, peering at it with beady eyes. 

“You’re young. You’re stupid. You still have time to fix your mistakes,” your mother begins but your face contorts into such an aggressive scowl that she pauses. Her eyes narrow on you, and you glare right back. “Fix. Your. Face,” she orders.

“Or what?” You counter. 

“Enough,” your father seethes, tearing the photostrip cleanly in two with a rip that makes your blood boil. “Our family will not be sullied by your stupidity.” He crumples the shredded paper in a single fist and discards it over his shoulder.

“Cut me off and allow me the pleasure of never seeing either of you again,” you demand. 

“And let our only asset to the High Table go off doing God knows what? I don’t think so,” your mother retorts, irritation seeping into her voice. “You will follow our orders and serve the Table, the way we tell you to.” 

“And if I don’t?” 

“Then we kill the Yoon boy,” your father says. A wave of fear breaks cold against the back of your neck, but you call their bluff anyway.

“Bullshit. The Yoons would never let that happen, work partners or not.” Your mother’s mouth twists into a conniving grin. She gestures at the various pieces of paper scattered across the open workbook.

“One must know the rules in order to best break them, daughter. You don’t think your father and I know that?” The way your face falters fuels her further. “We’re Tax Collectors. We do the dirtiest work under the Table. We could have the boy gone before you could get across the grounds to warn him.” 

“If I tell his parents, what then?” You demand. 

“They’d ask why you killed their son,” your father adds coldly. Your head snaps to him and you see a shadow over his eyes that you’d never seen before. “We don’t want to, but understand that we can and we will make it look like you killed that boy. Who do you think they’ll believe, their long time colleagues? Or the boy-obsessed brat whose fingerprints are all over the knife?” You pinch the inside of your wrist hard enough to draw blood, willing yourself to wake up from this nightmare. Every effort you made to challenge them, to push back, they were already four steps ahead of you. You were backed into a corner. 

“Why?” You hiss, tears burning in the corners of your eyes. “Why can’t you just let me leave?” 

“Because you are not a person. You are a weapon of the Table, and that is all you will ever be,” your mother concludes indifferently, standing elegantly and pushing in her chair like she was leaving a casual Sunday breakfast. Meanwhile, you’re frozen in time, caught between a rock and a hard place with no way out. 

“We leave at dawn tomorrow. Should you refuse, the boy’s life will be considered forfeit,” your father states as he mirrors your mother, taking the Adjudicator workbooks and tucking them under his arm. He exits the office in four long strides, his shoes knocking against the creaky wood. Your wrath is too great for panic to set in as he leaves. Your mother, on the other hand, rounds the table and approaches you, grasping your chin with her entire hand. 

“Warn the boy and I will slit his throat myself, do you understand?” The glob of spit fired at her face leaves your mouth by pure instinct. She recoils backward and lifts her hand to strike you, but you catch her wrist and hold it there, feeling her push against you to no avail. 

“One day, you will die,” you whisper, tightening your fingers as much as you can without her bones breaking, “and I will rejoice.” For the first time in your life, you let your tears flow freely in front of your mother, allowing them to run down your face and serve as evidence of your anger. The message was clear: they may have regained control over your life, but something has awoken within you that refuses to stop fighting. 

Releasing her wrist, you watch as she retreats and stand silently in the office until your feet carry you back to your dorm. You skip dinner and hide in the bedroom until it’s well past curfew, the sacred space beneath your floorboard void of everything except dust and cobwebs. The girls go out for one last pantry raid, but your ears don’t register the sounds of them giggling as they sneak into the hall. 

You unfurl yourself from the windowsill around midnight and slip out of the dorm, creeping toward Jeonghan’s room. He’d previously shared a room with Seungcheol, but the bedspace had remained empty since Cheol’s departure from the school, allowing you to come and go at will as long as you didn’t get caught. Your stomach growls and your eyes sting from crying, but you do your knocking sequence against his door anyway to check if he’s awake–long, short, short, long. The door cracks open just enough for him to take your hand and tug you inside, his other hand locking the door behind you as soon as you’re in the room. Almost immediately he’s flopping back onto the bed, waving you over in a way that makes you chuckle and simultaneously want to start sobbing again. 

“Did I wake you?” You settle next to him with your cheek on his chest, his fingers mindlessly drawing patterns on your arm. 

“Not really. I was about to throw rocks at your window to ask why you weren’t at dinner,” he replies. You ignore the way your stomach pangs at the mention of dinner. 

“I wasn’t feeling well,” you answer, not quite a lie but far from the truth. You tuck your face further under his chin, squeezing your eyes shut and willing the world to fall away like it usually did, but it didn’t. Your parents’ threat remained all the same. 

“I call bullshit,” Jeonghan remarks. “Wanna tell me what’s really going on?” 

“That’s all it is,” you insist. Lie. “I wasn’t feeling well, and now I am.” Another lie. 

“Nervous about tomorrow?” 

“Something like that.” Not technically a lie. You swallow the panic that rises in your throat, curling further into Jeonghan. 

“You’re unusually affectionate tonight,” he observes and it pulls a broken laugh out of you. 

“You make me sound like a feral cat.”

“You’ve got the claws for one, that’s for sure.” You hum in lieu of answering, knowing your wavering voice would give you away. “You’re sure there’s nothing else going on?”

“I’ll be fine.” You peek up at him to find his eyes studying you. 

“That’s a terrible answer.” You look away again, his quiet intelligence too much for you. 

“It’s the honest one.”

“How do you want me to help you?” A pathetic noise escapes your lips. The earnestness of that single question nearly breaks you completely, and you abruptly flip away from him with a jerk. He undoubtedly sees the shaking in your shoulders now, and you taste blood from how hard you’re biting your tongue to stifle a sob. “Hey, hey, hey–what happened? Are you in pain?” You screw your eyes shut and imagine he’s propped up on one elbow, the other arm hovering over you like he doesn’t know where to put it. You shake your head and try to fold even further into yourself, small enough to fall through the cracks in the floor and disappear. “Angel, you gotta talk to me–” 

“I’m scared, Han,” you choke. “I’m so, so scared.”

“Of what, my love?” He tentatively drapes his arm over your waist and pulls you close, his chest to your back. You’re rigid in his arms, unmoving as a statue. “I would never let anything hurt you.” 

“What if I had to hurt you?” He tenses for barely a moment. “I had a nightmare,” you add quickly and the ease of which the lie falls from your tongue hurts more than any broken bone. “I had to hurt you to keep you safe, and you hated me because of it.”

“I could never hate you. I love you too much,” he replies as easily as breathing. “I think I would know that you’re hurting me to keep me safe, don’t you think? I consider myself a relatively intelligent person.” 

“But wouldn’t that hurt more? Knowing that I hurt you to keep you safe?” 

“I mean, if you cut off my arm or something, I might be a little pissed,” Jeonghan reasons. You find the courage to flip back over and face him. His joking smile falls at the sight of you. “Oh, baby,” is all he says as his thumbs brush under your tear-filled eyes. 

“I love you,” you sniffle. “I love you. I love you. I love you. Don’t ever doubt for one second that I could ever stop loving you.” You catch the way Jeonghan bites the inside of his cheek. When he attempts to smile at you again, the smile you probably would never see again, there’s a flash of uncertainty that blinks across his face.

“I love you too,” he promises and you duck forward to kiss him like you’re dying. 

You kiss Jeonghan knowing that it’s the last time you ever will, yet he matches your intensity like he knows you need. He lets you bite his lip and tug at his hair until you’re gasping for breath, murmuring quiet words of reassurance that only twist the knife lodged in your chest. When another round of sobs crash over you like a tidal wave, he holds you steadily and waits for your breathing to even out. Eventually, he drifts to sleep with an arm tucked under his head and the other holding you against his chest, but you don’t shut your eyes for more than a blink. You pray that the world would somehow stop, that time would pause if only for a few more hours with him. No such miracle occurs, and when the sky turns from black to a lighter gray, you slip out of Jeonghan’s bed. 

With one more long kiss on his forehead and a whispered I’m sorry, you leave Yoon Jeonghan behind just to keep him alive. 

—

Seven years.

Technically three as a solo Adjudicator, but seven years of your life after prep school are spent doing nothing but administering the justice of the High Table. You fall into a rhythm as monotonous and unfulfilling as a life without Yoon Jeonghan would be, killing the part of you that loved him still every morning. Your face becomes schooled into a permanent state of blankness, the people that beg for leniency or the businesses that are set aflame by your matches becoming nothing but static. You thanklessly keep those under the High Table in line and you consciously have to remember your own name on the days when you feel more of a machine than a human. The only time you allow your anger to seep through the cracks is when you down an entire bottle of Jack’s in a single night and chuck the empty bottle at the wall; part of you hopes the alcohol will kill you, but you wake up the next morning disappointed, hungover, and pissed that you have to clean up broken glass. This cycle continues for seven years, intensified by the paranoia that your parents were watching your every move. It’s useless and probably more hurtful to keep track, but you know you’re in New York on the seventh anniversary of the day you became an Adjudicator. 

In the taxi on the way to your last assignment of the night, you wonder how early you could retire. With the recent deaths of your parents, shot by a business owner in Rio who refused to pay taxes to the Table, you found yourself unnerved by the sudden prospect of freedom their absence brought. For better or worse, you had next to nothing now; Seungcheol and Jeonghan had each other in SECTOR 17, the most powerful and feared Sector whose power rivaled that of the entire Table. You’d witnessed their bond and their influence at the 34th Sector celebration, the first and only one you ever imagined yourself attending because you knew that if you saw Jeonghan again, you would truly break and your parents would fulfill their threat. While the boys had their Sector, you were left to rot under the endless demands of the Table. After seven years of adjudication and running on autopilot more than truly living, rules no longer held the same value to you as they did when you were young. 

Or perhaps, they never mattered in the first place. 

It storms outside the Tarkovsky Theatre, sheets of heavy rain slamming sideways onto the sidewalk. The droplets pelt your umbrella like bullets as you approach the old woman at the window of the ticket booth. You place your Adjudicator coin on the lip of the window and she eyes it shrewdly before waving you forward, a towering agent of the Ruska Roma opening the double doors for you to enter the theater lobby. Water clings to the black wool of your trenchcoat and you shake it off as you step into the building. The smells of whiskey, incense, and tobacco hit your nose and stick to every corner of the Baroque architecture comprising the room; if you didn’t know any better, you would guess that it was the entrance foyer of Dracula’s castle. Behind the ornate wooden table situated in front of the grand staircase sit two more Ruska Roma men, and a half a dozen others dot the room in carefully-spaced increments. You recognize the two acting as receptionists–Hans and Hermann Bauer, the Director’s heads of security. 

“An Adjudicator in our theater,” Hans remarks with a condescending amount of bravado. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“I’m here to see Nadia Wagner. She has business with members at the Table,” you reply evenly. 

“Perhaps we can have business with you after you’re finished with Nadia,” Hermann snarks in his native tongue, unaware that your Adjudicator apprenticeship and time at Mount Othrys allowed you to pick up at least nine languages, including German. Hans and Hermann share a mocking look and you fight down the impulse to scowl. Your years of training as an Adjudicator had taught you how to keep your emotions in check, no matter the situation, but your patience was waning. You were restless, and adjudication never scratched any itches you possessed. You clear your throat and flex your fingers inside your leather gloves to keep from giving away any emotional response. “Oh, right. Shall we take your coat for you?”

“That won’t be necessary. If you could show me the way to Nadia’s room, that would be appreciated.” Hans’ eyes become snakelike. 

“As you wish, Miss Adjudicator. However, the Ruska Roma has a very strict weapons policy in our theater. I’m afraid even Adjudicators are not exempt,” he explains with faux-diplomacy. You bite your tongue in lieu of sighing, peeling off your leather gloves and placing them neatly on the table. The cool metal of your Glock 27 meets your palms as you pull it from your belt, also removing your two extra magazines and setting all three next to your gloves. Your umbrella joins the array after you reveal the thin blade hidden in the handle as a show of goodwill. The only two weapons you keep hidden on your body are a Colt Walker revolver tucked in a hidden pocket of your trenchcoat and a switchblade on the inside of your boot. 

As you step back and allow the brothers to examine your collection, you can’t help but feel guarded when Hermann’s attention narrows onto the ring wrapped around your middle finger. “Are you a married woman, Miss Adjudicator?” You mentally scold yourself for not removing the ring with your gloves, though the idea of leaving behind the signet ring with a bunch of strangers was not one you were very fond of. 

“I am not.”

“Then may I ask about the gold band on your finger? What is the image on it?”

“A lion.” 

“Ah, die Löwin. A fierce animal for a fierce woman.” Hans tongue darts out to run across his lips and it makes you want to grab the umbrella knife and cut out the organ altogether. 

“Direct me to Nadia’s room, if you would please,” you grit. 

“Fine, fine,” Hermann relents. “Up the stairs and through the west wing. Her room is the last one on the left.” 

“Thank you. Is that all, gentlemen?” You ask before you truly do act on one of your fantasies. The twins seem disappointed but relent with a dismissive gesture. But, as you pass the table and climb the staircase, you truly can’t help yourself. “Arschloch,” you call over your shoulder with a glare. By the time the two realize what you said, you’re already disappearing into the west wing of the theater, in the direction of Nadia’s bedroom. 

You’re not sure what you’re expecting when you open the door of the last bedroom on the left, but the scene before your eyes was the farthest from the realm of possibilities. 

Because why the fuck was Nadia in a standoff with Yoon Jeonghan?

“Oh, thank God. I was hoping the Table would send one of you to talk with me,” Nadia remarks shrilly, her hair still half in a bun and her makeup smudged like she was interrupted as she was removing it. She holds a revolver as well and you draw your own on pure instinct, but your body seems to be physically unable to point the barrel at Jeonghan. Instead, your aim drifts to the right like it has a mind of its own, where Nadia stares back at you, dumbfounded. “What the fuck are you doing? Why are you pointing that at me? Don’t aim at me, idiot! Aim at him!” 

“Shut up! I need to think,” you hiss, blinking rapidly to try and process what the hell was going on. You cast a sideways glance at Jeonghan, whose pistol remains locked on Nadia but whose eyes keep flicking to you. “What are you doing here, Han?” He scoffs a humorless laugh and pulls back the hammer of his gun. 

“Hmm, I’m Han again? I would have loved to hear that three years ago,” Jeonghan counters. “Now, I’m not so sure. I’m debating shooting you too since I don’t know if I can trust you.” Everything that leaves his mouth feels like a slap to the face and a needle to your heart. Any words that you had for him die on your tongue, and you’re left staring at a stranger. Yet, even as your eyes sting from the venom dripping from his mouth, you can’t bring yourself to fix your gun on him. 

“Shit, are you two estranged exes or something?” Nadia shifts uneasily and you pull back the hammer of your revolver to make her freeze. 

“Shut up, Nadia,” you and Jeonghan snap at the same time.

“Stop moving and stop talking. I’m not asking again,” you command.

“What she said,” Jeonghan agrees. She obeys, going still but watching you with bewilderment. An Adjudicator was pointing a gun at her, after all, rather than the Sector hitman who was also in the room. 

“Why haven’t you shot her yet?” You question.

“I was in the middle of questioning her when you barged in. I told her if she screamed, I’d shoot where it hurt. If she was quiet, I’d make it quick,” he explains, his face cold and calculating. 

“Maybe you two can just shoot each other and I’ll–”

“I know where to shoot where it hurts, too. Don’t test me,” you say and she falls silent again. 

“She dies either way, but it’s up to her how she wants to go,” Jeonghan concludes.

“I can’t let you do that,” you say, trying to will your arms to aim at him, but it’s no use. Your body physically protests any attempt to do him harm. “She has business with the Table.” 

“Then shoot me and get it over with. Get me out of the way,” he spits bitterly, like he was hoping you would kill him. Your chest feels like someone is cracking it open with a mallet. “Kill me.”

“I–I can’t do that either,” you whisper. “I don’t–I don’t know what to do.” For the first time in your life, you were at a crossroads and the decision would be entirely your own. Not your parents, not the Table’s, but yours. 

If you shoot Jeonghan, even if it was a survivable wound, you would solidify yourself as a loyal agent to the Table but also sever any remaining ties you have to him and Seungcheol. The thought of losing him permanently felt worse than death.

If you shoot Nadia, you would be renouncing your status as an Adjudicator, burning your life that your parents had established for you, and leaping headfirst into an unknown darkness of contracts and assassinations…and there was no guarantee Jeonghan would be with you. Why would he be, after you left him and treated him like he was nobody? 

If you shot neither of them and decided to just leave them be, you would not only be responsible for whoever died while you turned your back, but you would also be running away without taking accountability for the consequences. 

Squeezing your eyes shut, you force your arms to drift their aim left and point at Jeonghan. Your fingers tremble on the trigger of your revolver. Shooting Jeonghan was following the rules. Killing Jeonghan was following the rules. Continuing your adjudication task was following the rules. At the end of the day, it was always safest to follow the rules, even if you weren’t happy. Yet, when you open your eyes to look at him, there is no malice or hatred in his expression. He nods, like he was giving you permission. 

“It’s your decision, angel,” he says, his pistol pointed at the ballerina but his eyes completely on you. The rest of the world falls away. 

You jerk your arms to the right and squeeze the trigger. 

There’s a click instead of a gunshot, and your heart drops. Your revolver had jammed.

Nadia’s gun swings wildly in your direction, but she never gets the chance to fire as she’s cut off by the BANG! of Jeonghan’s pistol. Jeonghan’s bullet tears precisely through Nadia’s forehead and she slumps back against her vanity dresser, the revolver clattering against the hardwood floors. Your ears ring from the sound of the gunshot and you feel like you’re underwater, everything around you becoming murky and slow. A high-pitched whine undulates in and out of your hearing, and your eyes have trouble focusing on anything other than the pool of dark red spreading under Nadia’s body. Footsteps thunder up the steps outside the bedroom, no doubt Hans and Hermann and all the Ruska Roma agents coming to see why a gunshot just rang out in their prized ballerina’s room. 

“Hey. Hey, we gotta go,” Jeonghan says, appearing in front of you and taking your face in his hands. “Angel, snap out of it. It’s done. She’s dead. We need to get out of here.” 

“Han,” you attempt, but the words catch in your throat and the only sound that leaves your mouth is a croak. Your impending assailants would hesitate to harm an Adjudicator, but would absolutely shoot Jeonghan on sight if they caught him in the room. “You should–you should go. You need to go. I'll handle the Ruska Roma.” 

“No. I’m not letting you leave me again.” He grabs your hand and attempts to pull you toward the window he shoved open, but you remain rooted in place. “We're leaving. Right now.”

“I'll make sure they stay off your trail. After everything I did, I don't deserve–” The sound of fists pounding against Nadia’s bedroom door makes you jump and Jeonghan takes that opportunity to guide you towards the window. 

“Angel, I do not give a fuck about what you think you deserve. I don't care. You did what you had to do, but now I need you to stay with me. I need you with me. Okay?” You blink at him, breathless.

“Okay.” You clamber onto the fire escape first and the rickety metal creaks under your weight as he joins you, but you don’t have time to worry about the stability of the staircase as he grabs your hand and forces you to follow him down the steps. “You should hate me, Han,” you state as you descend from the final landing. 

“And yet I don't, and that's how it is,” he cuts in a little impatiently, leading you to a black sports car shrouded in a back alley behind the theater. 

“Did you mean what you said? About not caring?” Your hand slips from his and you hesitate as his grip tightens around the car door handle. “Would you have really shot me?” 

“No. There are a lot more things I have to say, but the answer to both your questions is a hard no.” Your shoulders relax and you finally feel like you can take a proper breath. “We'll talk, I promise we will,” he reassures you as he opens the door to the passenger seat. “But right now, we–shit! Get in the car! Right now!” 

You unceremoniously dive into the car as a shower of bullets sprays across the front of the vehicle, denting the hood and splitting spiderweb cracks across the bulletproof windshield. Jeonghan crouches behind the open door as the shots continue firing. Through the darkness, you see two attackers fall from two precise shots he fires around the edge of the door, and you have half the mind to return fire when you suddenly remember the way your revolver had malfunctioned. On a pure hunch, you throw open the glove compartment and mentally thank Jeonghan for having a loaded pistol ready. You slap his arm to get his attention in between shots. 

“Get in the car, I'll shoot!” You yell and he nods, slamming your door shut and dashing toward the back of the car. The engine turns over with a roar as he throws himself inside and opens the sunroof for you. His hand stops you from climbing onto the center console and he gestures to something in the backseat. “I hope that’s a bigger gun!” 

“It's a big gun!” Jeonghan shouts back a little maniacally. He drags an AR-15 out from under the dark blanket it was hiding under, letting you do the rest as he throws the car into drive. “Go get ‘em!”

Jeonghan stomps on the gas pedal, throwing you forward. Pain blooms on your ribs as your torso collides with the edge of the sunroof, but you're quickly regaining your footing and taking aim at the dozen figures firing from the other side of the alley. Squeezing the trigger and feeling the familiar vibration of the gun under your fingertips, you sweep the barrel back and forth while the Ruska Roma continues to shoot. Wind bites your face and stings the tips of your ears, slapping you with cold air. The car growls under the rhythmic blasting of the gun and the shooters you fail to hit fling themselves to the sides as Jeonghan peels out of the alley and into the street. When the theater and the outraged Ruska Roma disappear from the rearview mirror, he gently tugs the hem of your coat to coax you back into the car. It purrs like a cat, cutting through the rain that continues to splatter on the cracked windshield. 

“Are you hurt?” He asks when you're settled back in the passenger's seat and clicking your seat belt into place. 

“I'm fine.” You wince and brush your fingers over your sternum, where your torso slammed into the sunroof edge. “An ice pack would do me some good, though.”

“You got hit?”

“Of course not. Just some damage from the driving. I’ll live.” He nods and breathes a heavy sigh, running a hand through his hair. It's shorter than the last time you saw him at the Sector celebration, and you finally have a chance to really look at him. In the silence, he catches you unapologetically watching but doesn't comment on it. 

“Did you have somewhere you need to be after adjudicating? I don’t know how your cases work, but I’ll go wherever you need to finish up work,” Jeonghan states a little tersely. 

“You can, uh, just drop me off anywhere,” you reply. “I'll find my way and get out of your hair.” Wrong answer. The car screeches to a halt as Jeonghan slams his foot against the brake, and you're thrown so violently forward that your forehead almost hits the dashboard. 

“Are you serious?” He spits, more in disbelief than anger. 

“What the fuck was that for?” You gape at him indignantly, glancing through the back windshield and fortunately finding nothing but an empty street behind the car. 

“Answer my question,” he demands, some semblance of irritation finally leaking into his voice. “Are you actually asking me to drop you on the side of the street? After some dickheads just shot my car to hell?” 

“I'm just making a suggestion, since I already know I've royally fucked up your night, and probably the better part of your life!” You argue and he barks a laugh of disbelief. “What the hell is so funny?” 

“You don't get it, do you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“You think you deserve to be pushed away after everything you did, but I don't care,” he seethes. “I. Don’t. Care. Angel, I have you with me, and that’s enough. Are you hearing me?” His composure completely broken, he grasps his scalp with his fingers in frustration. “If you really want to leave, you have ten seconds to get out. If you don't, then I'm taking us to the Continental, we're going to wash up, and then we'll talk.” 

“But–” 

“No buts. It's your decision.” His tone softens the briefest amount. “It's always your decision.” Ten seconds come and go, and you make no move to exit the vehicle. Jeonghan sighs in relief and puts the car back in drive much gentler than he did before. “You know, you drive me insane.” 

“I know,” you murmur. He shakes his head.

“I don’t think you do.” The drive back to the Continental is quiet, as is the elevator ride up to his hotel room. You don’t speak another word until you've both finished showering, the steam from his shower fogging the mirror as you enter the bathroom to clean up. You turn the water temperature up until it’s nearly scalding, burning off the dirt and sweat and doubt clinging to your body. Once you’re done, you tug on one of his sweaters and a well-loved pair of pajama pants that Jeonghan left for you on the bathroom counter. 

You catch the last part of a conversation he holds on the phone when you step out of the bathroom, and you suspect that he was on the phone with Seungcheol. While you were washing up, he took the time to remove the remainder of the weapons strapped to his body, placing them neatly on the hotel desk. With his phone squished between his cheek and his shoulder, he fishes around his messenger bag–the same one from your school days, you notice–to toss you a bottle of painkillers. Retrieving a bottle of water from the mini fridge, he cracks it open for you before joining you as you perch on the edge of the bed. 

“For the bruises. I’m sorry for jolting you around in the car.” 

“I can’t really criticize getaway car driving if it means I’m alive, but thank you.” You swallow two pills, along with the lump in your throat. “Can I talk first?” You propose tentatively, tugging at the sleeves of the sweater covering your torso. He nods. 

“Of course.” 

“It's gonna be a lot,” you warn. He takes your hand in his and it’s the first time in almost a decade that your skin is directly against his. It feels like coming home. 

“It's okay. I've gotten really good at waiting,” he reassures you with an encouraging smile. “I've waited all this time for you. I'm ready to listen.” 

— 

From scratch paper messages #26 written during Year 11 chemistry class, by Jupiter (J), Saturn (S), Terminus (T), and Ops (O)

**Note: The teacher of the class strictly forbade conversations during lectures, so above students were forced to improvise by writing back and forth on a sheet of notebook paper.

S: foot volleyball after class?

J: you have a makeup exam for algebra 2

S: jun snuck me the answer key i’ll be fine

T: the fuck i did not

O: language

T: you literally called atlas a dickwad to his face yesterday

O: yeah he deserved it

J: i second that

S: sooooo no foot volleyball?

O: finish your exam han and then we’ll play if it’s still light out after

S: i love it when you talk smart to me 

T: ew

J: kill me

O: what a sap

S: only for you <3 

J: enough i’m taking my damn paper back

In the aftermath of Nadia’s death and the Ruska Roma’s sudden interest in having your head on a spike, Seungcheol is quick to absorb you into the safety of the Sector and the reputation that it brings. Hans and Hermann, along with a dozen other agents, hunt you for a week and a half before you, Soonyoung, and Jihoon ambush them, beating them within an inch of their life and effectively warning them what should come if they try to hurt you again. From then on, the Ruska Roma don’t touch you, nor do the High Table and other Adjudicators. Though you agree with Jihoon that the Table was trying to quietly take out SECTOR 17, you knew they couldn’t risk all out war and have all the remaining Sectors rally behind Seungcheol as their commander. So, it remains quiet between the Table and the Sectors, a kind of Cold War settling in as one side waits for the other to throw the first punch. You complete your induction task exactly two weeks after Nadia’s death, officially becoming a member of the Sector with Jeonghan, Seungcheol, Jun, and Vernon as your witnesses. Seungcheol has your signet ring engraved with the Roman numeral two, a subtle match with Jeonghan’s that bears the same number. You’re given the alias Ops, goddess of prosperity and abundance. 

You also don’t protest when you realize that Ops is the wife of Saturn.

While it takes you two weeks to join SECTOR 17, it takes you three months to let yourself love Jeonghan again. He waits for you patiently, like he promised he would the night in the Continental when you talked until the sun came up and then passed out together on the hotel bed. He’s steady as you go through the cycle of thinking you’ve healed, realizing you haven’t, spiraling, and then repeating, over and over and over again. He lets you stay with him in his apartment just outside Seoul, though you’re not there very often as you start taking contracts together. Being in Jeonghan’s proximity again gradually softens the hard shell you had molded around your heart after becoming an Adjudicator, and you find yourself smiling and laughing more as the weeks go by. You cook with him. You eat with him. You watch shitty reality TV with him. You fall asleep on the couch with him and wake up with a blanket carefully tucked around your body. You talk to him about anything and everything, from contracts to movies to betting on Mingyu’s love life. On the nights you wake up screaming, even if you’re rooms away, he always comes in and gently reassures you that he’s not leaving, even after everything that you’ve both said and done. He never pushes you more than what you have to give, and eagerly accepts the little affection that you do muster up the courage to provide. Slowly but surely, you allow yourself to love and be loved, and you help each other heal every wound the other had inflicted. At the end of your fourth month being back in Jeonghan’s life, you ask him to kiss you. He does, enthusiastically, and you both end up holding back a mixture of laughter and tears as you curl up on his living room couch. Loving Jeonghan, as it always did, came as naturally as breathing. 

You attend the 37th annual Sector celebration in Rome wrapped in matching Yves Saint Laurent thanks to Salacia’s savvy handling of the Sector’s business affairs. The Sector is fifteen members strong, finally securing Chan after eight years of convincing. However, his induction task and Joshua’s subsequent appointment to manager of the Los Angeles Continental has left the criminal underworld shaken, and you feel the crowd shift as the Sector steps onto the sprawling agricultural estate where the celebration was being held. You end up huddled around a standing table with Seungcheol, Jeonghan, Jun, and Joshua, watching the sky turn into a watercolor painting as the sun sets over the Italian hillside. 

“Another?” Jeonghan murmurs when you’ve finished your first flute of champagne. 

“I’m alright for now, though I wouldn’t mind a cup of water,” you request. 

“What the lady wants, the lady gets,” he confirms, peeling away from you with a light hand on your hip. Your eyes follow him as he moves in the direction of the bar and you smile when he’s pulled into a lively conversation between Seungkwan and Dino. You weren’t getting that water anytime soon. 

“Don’t be offended when I say that I’m glad to see you smiling again,” Seungcheol says, snapping you out of your thoughts. You quirk an eyebrow when Jun and Joshua nod in agreement. 

“Why would I be offended by that?”

“Because it implies that you never smiled before,” elaborates Joshua and you chuckle. 

“I mean, I didn’t,” you agree with a shrug. “But that’s also because I wasn’t happy before.”

“Neither was Jeonghan,” Jun adds. 

“Did he tell you why he called me on the night you finally saw each other again?” Seungcheol asks and you shake your head. “He said three things to me,” he begins, raising a finger for each comment he recalls. “One, that he had run into you on the ballerina job. Two, that you had chosen him over adjudication, and three, that he had been robbing Adjudicators.” Your mouth falls open.

“He picked then to tell you that he was robbing Adjudicators?”

“That’s what I said! I almost had a heart attack in the middle of a job,” Seungcheol recounts and you give him a sympathetic smile. “But it all worked out. You worked it out, like you always do.” 

“He explained all of his solo escapades that night. Robbing Adjudicators, the job in Morocco, his year of being a solo assassin after graduating before he joined the Sector–” You’re abruptly cut off by Joshua’s melodramatic groan.

“He was so messy back then,” he laments. “The only reason he’s on a first name basis with Continental janitorial is because he does his messiest work in my city.” 

“He’s cleaner now, though. I’m sure you’ve seen,” says Jun. “You’ve been doing contracts together, right?

“We came straight here from a contract in Munich, actually.” Joshua lets out a low whistle. 

“I think I’d faint if both of you were trying to kill me. Jeonghan’s scary, but you have, like, ex-Adjudicator aura.” Your friends burst into laughter, and Jeonghan returns with a cup of water just as you settle back into comfortable silence. 

“You’re not shit-talking me with my wife, are you?” He accuses jokingly and you gratefully take the plastic cup of water from him. 

“Of course not,” Joshua swears. “We would do that to your face.” 

“We have done that to your face,” Jun corrects.

“It’s one of our hobbies, actually,” adds Seungcheol.

“I’m telling Salacia,” Jeonghan fires back with a grin.

“Good. She’ll agree with me,” Joshua grins.

“The only thing we’ll be telling Salacia is how thankful we are that we don’t look like hot messes tonight,” you chuckle and Jeonghan surrenders with a playful show of his palms. 

“That’s true,” Joshua concurs. “I’ve already sent her flowers for holding down the fort in L.A.”

“As you should,” you smirk. “And I will say, we do look pretty damn good in YSL.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Seungcheol declares, raising his half-finished glass of wine. Two blurry figures pass quickly behind Jun, almost invisible if you weren’t already looking for them, and your face lights up with a gasp. 

“I win,” you announce. “I found Nyx and Hao.” The table immediately raises their voices in protest, arguing about how you have the better vantage point and that your former job was literally keeping an eye on people. “Talk all you want; it doesn’t change the fact that I spotted them first.” 

“Alright, but did you see who they’re surveilling?” Jun questions. You squint and crane your head to observe the faces in the crowd, but the couple and whoever they were tailing have disappeared. You curse under your breath. “See, that’s the other part of the game. You haven’t won yet, Ops.”

“I think I have an unfair advantage, then, since I told Hao to keep an eye on someone tonight,” Seungcheol concedes. Your faces fall in confusion. It was rare that Seungcheol targeted a specific source of information rather than letting Minghao sweep through the crowd like a metal detector. “I told him to trail Kronos.” The carefree atmosphere dies the moment Seungcheol mentions his former mentor, shadows falling over the eyes of Jeonghan and Joshua. You glance at Jun, who stretches his neck like he was readying for a fight. 

“What’s your angle?” Jeonghan asks, his voice low. His arm snakes protectively around your waist.

“I’m not sure,” admits Seungcheol. “I’ve been on edge since Salacia’s induction task.”

“Is there any way he could directly attack us without us predicting it?” Joshua asks you, relying on your thorough knowledge of the Table’s rules. 

“Not unless one of the members fucks up, like getting declared excommunicado,” you explain and Seungcheol frowns. “There’s precedent for it. Entire Sectors have been wiped out by High Table forces the instant one member disobeys a commandment. But, that’s also why we have protocols in case something like that does happen. If we’re caught unaware, at least we have a plan of what to do in order to regroup.” 

“Plans that couldn’t have been made without you knowing all the loopholes of the rules, I’ll add,” Jeonghan clarifies. 

“One must know the rules in order to best break them,” you quote, quietly pleased that you don’t feel a wave of guilt after echoing your mother’s words that she had used to hurt you. Seungcheol takes a deep breath and you watch him force the tension to release from his shoulders. 

“In any case, it’s nothing that we can worry about tonight,” he concludes. “I have Hao on Kronos, Jihoon’s keeping Chan and Soonyoung in check, and Vernon’s planning on asking Flora for a dance.” The summary makes your group a little less tense, though you’re sure they’re scanning the room for danger just as often as you are. “Enjoy tonight as much as you can. Watch out for each other.” Seungcheol’s eyes fall on you and Jeonghan. “And try to let yourselves be happy.” The rest of the table nods and takes that as a cue to disperse into the rest of the party. 

“Dance with me?” Jeonghan asks with your hand in the crook of his arm.

“Do I really have a choice?” You remark jokingly. 

“You always have a choice,” he replies and your heart sings. He leads you out into the middle of the dance floor and takes one hand in yours, the other pulling you closer by the small of your back. Under the darkening sky, you sway as the string lights above the estate’s courtyard flicker to life. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m happy. Really happy,” you answer truthfully. “The impending fear of death is still there, obviously, but at least I’m with you. And you? Are you feeling okay?”

“I’m fantastic,” he assures you, twirling you slowly and watching your dress flow around your body. “I’ve got a pretty lady in my arms and twelve people watching my back while I dance with her. Life can’t get much better than that.” 

“I think it can,” you state cryptically and he raises one eyebrow.

“Can it, now? Do tell, my dear wife.” You smile and drop your voice to a whisper. 

“I’ve found someone to open Seungkwan’s drive.” 

“For the record, I found it first,” Jeonghan reminds you. “But cool. That’s really cool. Good job, Angel.”

“I know, I know, but Kwan’s the one who asked me if I could open it. I’ve got an Accountant that owes me a favor.” His head tilts to the side.

“I thought Accountants dealt with tech from like, the 80s. The kind of computer monitors that are the same size as our microwave.” Your grin widens.

“That’s what I thought, right? But then I found out that she’s a coder too. She makes sure that the algorithms that send contracts out to assassins’ burner phones are working well.” Jeonghan nods, opening his mouth to congratulate you again, but you’re not finished. “And there’s more. Not only does she code and is able to crack Seungkwan’s drive, guess where she works out of?” He shrugs, having no idea. “Budapest,” you reveal and the cogs in Jeonghan’s brain whir to life. 

“Wait, you’re not saying–”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” you whisper excitedly. 

“The Accountant who’s gonna help us figure out ‘Project: Harvest’ is the girl Mingyu is in love with?” He summarizes and you nod, unsuccessfully stifling your laughter. Jeonghan’s jaw hangs open, a mix of amusement and disbelief painting his features. “When did you find this out?”

“Right after the Munich contract ended, she texted me back. I’ve been wanting to tell you but it got super busy once we landed here,” you explain. 

“Angel, that’s the funniest thing you’ve ever told me. Holy shit,” he grins. “Your tech girl is Mingyu’s tech girl. His life truly is a sitcom.”

“I wholeheartedly agree,” you beam. “There’s uh, one more thing I’ve been thinking about.” The rest of the world has fallen away again, and it’s just you and Jeonghan under the golden lights. 

“Go on.”

“You know how, even though she and Joshua are together now, Salacia joined the Sector through the marriage clause?” 

“How could I forget? I’m the one who pushed them to get married in the first place,” he hums. 

“Well, I was thinking,” you take a breath, trying your best to slow your racing heart. “Even though I’m already a member of the Sector, not via the marriage clause, I still…want to get married.” Jeonghan’s body goes still and you’re not entirely sure he’s breathing. “I’d like to get married, if that’s something you would–”

“Tomorrow?” Your brain short circuits. 

“I–what?” You sputter and he laughs, the happiest grin you’ve ever seen on him breaking out over his face. 

“Tomorrow. We’re not doing anything tomorrow, so let’s get married,” Jeonghan continues and you blink at him. 

“I didn’t think you would agree so quickly, or so soon,” you admit with a nervous chuckle. He looks at you like you painted the stars in the sky. 

“I’ve wanted to marry you since you were pulling your suitcase up the school driveway,” he remembers. “Since you sat with us in the library. Since you snuck out of the dorms. Since you kissed me on your birthday.” Your smile turns melancholy.

“Even when I left without saying goodbye?” He nods slowly.

“Even when you had to leave to keep me safe,” he confirms. “When you were gone, I thought to myself that if I’d told you what I wanted sooner, you would have stayed. We were together, and I stupidly thought that it would always be that way, so I got complacent. I should’ve fought harder for you. I told myself that even if something went wrong, I could just break all the rules to get you back.” You let the tears run down your cheeks, unafraid to cry with him. There was nothing you would ever fear with him. His thumb brushes your face and he presses his lips to your forehead. Your eyes flutter shut with a sigh. “I’ve been yours since the moment you let me help you cheat on that algebra test. I’ve never stopped being yours.”

“Would you believe me if I said that I never stopped being yours, too?” 

“As long as you’re saying it because you want to, not because I want you to,” he whispers and suddenly, it’s your fifteenth birthday and you’re dangling your feet over the Thames. Your head is airy and your stomach is full from too much street food, but all you can think about is how Yoon Jeonghan is looking at you. What an odd but welcome sense of deja vu. 

“I’d be saying it because it’s true,” you murmur back, echoing the first time you finally told him how you felt. “I’ve always been yours. I’ll always be yours.” He tilts his head to brush his nose against yours. 

“I think this is the part where I kiss you, right?”

“Yeah, it is,” you breathe and he finally kisses you, unhurried and leisurely like you weren’t in a room full of trained killers. “You still haven’t said yes.”

“To what?” The corner of his mouth twitches.

“My proposal, that we get married.”

“Only as long as you say yes to mine,” he teases. 

“Which is?”

“That we get married tomorrow. Seungcheol’s friends with the Rome Continental’s manager. We’ll use the roof.” You start visualizing the logistics in your head, a much more pleasant task than creating logistics for adjudication cases. 

“And who’s gonna officiate?”

“Seungkwan, duh,” he states, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. “We’ll gather everyone there. Eat. Drink. Play games.” 

“We need to fly in Salacia,” you point out. “And I want Flora and Nyx there too.”

“Of course,” he agrees. “Everything you want, it’s yours.”

“I’ll need a dress.”

“I’m sure Salacia can scrounge up something in,” he glances at the watch on his wrist, “sixteen hours.” 

“You’ll need to write vows.”

“I already have them up here, angel,” Jeonghan says, tapping his finger against his temple. “I’ve been writing them since we were eleven.” Your laugh turns into a snort and he spins you around, holding you close as he dips you at an angle. “So? What do you say?”

“Oh, it’s my decision now?”

“You already know what I’m going to say, angel,” he concedes. Everything is your decision. 

“Yes, Yoon Jeonghan, I will marry you,” you answer and he lights up like a Christmas tree. “Tomorrow,” you add with a chuckle and if the courtyard had walls, he’d be bouncing off of them. 

“We should tell everyone so they can get ready, shouldn’t we?” He asks so enthusiastically that your stomach flips. 

“Kiss me one more time first?” 

“What the lady wants, the lady gets.”

—

TOP PRIORITY: High Table Sector #17 leader "JUPITER" has initiated SCATTER protocol. All members of High Table Sector #17 are henceforth excommunicado and now hold open contracts no less than 1 billion KRW each. Access to services and privileges under the Table are suspended. Relocate current position immediately and avoid contact with other members. Rendezvous instructions to follow.

You’re on a speedboat to Isla Caballo when the SCATTER protocol message comes through. At the same moment, the driver of the speedboat receives a notification that all members of SECTOR 17 are under open contracts sanctioned by the High Table. Your hand calmly drifts to your gun, but he makes no move to kill you. You nod at each other in understanding. You were going to Flora’s island to protect her, and Kronos’ men stationed on Isla Caballo were arguably more loyal to her than to her father. The same song is sung for the other two dozen security officers scattered across the island as you ride the golf cart to the ranch house at the center. They watch with grim expressions as you pass, torn between duty to their boss and loyalty to the boss’ daughter. Even the ranch hands are tense, leading Flora’s massive herd into the stables and away from the airfield where your husband will land. All the staff will leave the island within half an hour, unable to protect Flora but unable to kill her. 

In the end, loyalty wins out for all except one guard. 

Flora’s covered in blood and trembling when you find her on her knees in the back lawn of the house, the grass shooting up so high that you almost miss the lifeless corpse of a guard bent in front of her. Tearing through the tall stems of wildflowers, you wordlessly lift her to her feet by her wrists and corral her into the house, verifying that there was no one except you two inside before hitting the button in the security room to lock down the building. You let yourself breathe only after the heavy metal panels stretch over the windows and the doors bolt themselves shut. She’s exactly where you left her, perched on a barstool at the kitchen counter, when you return from sweeping the house for threats. 

“Where are you hurt?” You ask gently but firmly, scanning her body for injuries as you crouch in front of her. Her shirt and jeans are soaked in blood, but you figure that most of it isn’t her own based on the fact that she hasn’t passed out yet. “Flora, you need to answer me. Where are you hurt?”

“I–I hit my head,” she says quietly. “Or, something hit my head. I don’t–I don’t know. The butt of a dagger, I think.” 

“Where else? Are you bleeding out anywhere?” There’s a gash on the side of her thigh that’s likely to leave a scar, but it would be fine once you stitched it up. Flora shakes her head. “Okay. Let’s get this stuff washed off you. C’mon,” you say, standing and holding out a hand for her to take. She stares directly ahead, her eyes unfocusing. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she had to kill a traitorous guard, and you kick yourself for not getting to her sooner. “Your husband’s gonna kick my ass when he gets here if I don’t get you cleaned up.” She blinks and finally raises her eyes to meet yours at the mention of Vernon. 

“Hansol’s coming,” she states more to herself than to you. 

“Yeah. Jeonghan and Salacia, too. It’s a liability and against protocol to have all of us together, but Vernon insisted I’m the best person to keep you safe. Joshua apparently had the same idea,” you explain and she nods once, taking your hand and letting you help her into the bathtub. “Wash up as best you can. I’ll take care of your stitches after.” The bath water turns pink as she scrubs the blood from her body, and you hop up onto the sink counter to dial your husband. He picks up after two rings. 

“Are you safe?” He asks as soon as the call connects. 

“Yes. We both are,” you answer. You hear him exhale in relief on the other end. “You?”

“Yeah. We’re about to get on the last plane over to the island.” You find a small piece of comfort in knowing that Jeonghan would be there soon. 

“How’s she doing?” 

“Salacia? Yeah, she’s pissed.” 

“I’d be too if you dumped me on Neptune and disappeared to who knows where,” you say sympathetically. Even though Psyche had secured the Sector’s phone lines, you still stick to using aliases rather than real names. “Have you explained why you’re with her and her husband isn’t?”

“Sort of, but she’ll probably listen more to you. She’s too mad at me right now.” 

“Did Neptune say anything about where he’s gonna go?”

“Not to me. If I know him, though, then he’s probably going somewhere that’s super deep-underworld. Somewhere only Nyx and Pluto would know.” 

“And Jupiter?” 

“M.I.A. He’s alive, though, or else we would’ve heard otherwise.” The sound of a Cessna plane roars through the phone. “Gotta go. I’ll see you soon, okay?”

“Alright. Fly safe, Han. I’ll see you soon.”

“Will do. I love you.”

“I love you.” 

When Flora is patched up and tucked into the corner of the couch against the wall of the security room, you drop yourself into the swivel chair and fiddle with the signet ring on your left hand. Soon, your husband, Salacia, and Vernon would arrive, and you would need to figure out next steps. What those next steps would be, you had no idea, but you knew for certain that the consequences of Seungcheol breaking High Table law were ones you could never have prepared for. The lion on your ring roars back at you under the light of the security camera monitors. 

“Ops?” 

“Hmm?” You spin yourself to face Flora. 

“Are there rules for when the Table declares war?” You shake your head. 

“Not that I know of.” 

“So we’re in uncharted territory,” Flora summarizes. 

“For the most part.” 

“Are we gonna get wiped out by the Table?” Your forehead creases and you think for a long moment. “Ops?”

“No,” you decide. “I don’t think we will.”

“How are you so sure?”

“I’m not sure,” you correct. “But I know the members of this Sector, and I know Seungcheol. And if the Table wants to go to war against SECTOR 17…I hope for their sake that they’re prepared when we fight back.”