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There was something wrong with you. 

Well, maybe that was too harsh. Let's just say there was something about you that some people sensed and decided to stay away from, while others were drawn to you, like a moth to a flame. That’s what people believed. It was the way the gloss glimmered on your lips, the way you crossed your legs and smiled as if you could read minds. Your boots were too colorful, your shorts were (ironically) too short, and what was kinda the ultimate sin, you weren’t from there. 

A city girl too curious and smart. People pursed their lips at you, just like when something is too big and shiny and therefore, strange. Dangerous. So mothers warned their sons about you when some eyes wandered with too much interest toward you, especially to your kneeling figure in the middle of a sermon. Sometimes you'd ask God if He found everything as ridiculous and bordering on funny as you did, and if it was a sin to think Mrs. Evan's dress was as ugly as you thought.

You understood it a little. You were a woman with a tempting smile in a place that preferred silent and sweeter girls, like the peach pies they baked. Too bad you were allergic to peaches.

It was dumb, really, how you weren’t a bad person but they looked at you like the coming of the Antichrist who wore clothes that accentuated the waist. 

Some of the aunties nearly fainted one time when you interrupted Father Mark to ask a question in the middle of the service. Father Mark, a hunched old man with a perpetually bored expression (you suspected he was more eager to go watch the football match on TV than to be there), seemed to spring back to life when you started arguing with him, and surely somewhere someone clutched their rosary very tightly when Sim Jaeyun joined the conversation too, front row. To take the Father's side, obviously, much to your irritation.

Older women swore they knew your type; how you could be a teenage dream or break a heart and ruin it, making it bitter forever. That's why some were offering a prayer for poor Sim Jaeyun, your boyfriend. The golden boy, the one with the easy smile, the captain who kept spirits high, and whom everyone knew simply as just Jake. People trusted him because it was easy to do. The mayor's good son, the one little children smiled at, the one who held the door when someone came in and stayed a few minutes longer after church chatting like the good sheep he was. 

Which was funny, considering the kind of things he whispered in your ear. 

Jake enjoyed playing the role of the prodigal son, the one all the parents approved of and all the girls swooned over, such a gentleman he was. While you didn't bother to hide the gleam specially designed by some wicked, lecherous demon in your eyes (as Mrs. Keer once said, very worried), Jake kept his hidden. 

He was the first to approach. Contrary to popular belief, you weren't actually a Vatican invention to test the chastity of young men, which meant the urban legend of you being a dangerous mermaid wasn't entirely accurate. Reality was very much simple. While some probably thought you were staying late at the library making out in the hallways, you were actually devouring books. Alone. 

And that's how Jake found you one day, sitting in a corner almost hidden by a bookshelf full of detective and suspense novels read so many times that the pages were folded at the corners and a little yellowed, the dust shimmering in the sunlight. You looked up from your book and found him smiling, his eyes traveling up your legs, to the hem of your skirt and then to the book you were holding. 

You sighed, pausing and lowering your book, feeling a little impatient. ‘’Need something? Or are you just going to look at me?’’

‘’I want to keep looking at you,’’ he responded, easy, almost quiet. Too honest to sound like a joke.

You made a sound, something between a laugh and a scoff. ‘’That line worked on the last cheerleader?’’

Jake tilted his head and smirked a little, not in a cocky way, not trying to irritate you more than you were, just in a way you couldn't understand yet but it said there you are. ‘’Is it working on you?’’ 

And then Jake sat down uninvited on the floor with you, with his knee touching yours and started talking about the book you were reading. And you answered him, and at some point in the conversation, as the sun was going down and the dust was settling, you decided that you liked having him around.

Time seemed to stand still in the back of Jake's car, and you didn't care that it was too cliché to be fucking at the highest point in town surrounded by nature; you wouldn't change a thing. The windows were fogged up, and you were kissing him without any rush, just the same way you were riding him; sliding lazily up and down, softly moaning into each other's mouths. 

Jake's hands roamed your back, your waist, grabbed your ass and squeezed it almost desperately. He helped you move on his cock more faster, and by God, there was nothing hotter than the sight of Jake with his hair disheveled, his broken moans, and his eyes dilated with lust. 

Your necklace with a little J bounced gently between your breasts from the swaying and caught Jake's attention; he lowered his face and scattered kisses and licks along your neck as your cunt squeezed around his length with a gasp.

‘’Good girl,’’ he rasped against your skin, sucking at your throat hard enough to mark. He thrust his pelvis upwards suddenly, pushing his cock even deeper and making you see stars, holding onto his shoulders as you began to ride him faster. ‘’Now ridin’ cock just like a town girl, aren’t you?’’

‘’Fuck— Jake,’’ you moaned, your hand pulling the hair at the nape of his neck to continue kissing him. ‘’I need— more, please,’’ you begged, voice used and raw from sucking his cock before. 

‘’More? This isn't enough for you, sweetheart?’’ He smiled at you, devilishly and too attractive, his hand going down to spank you hard and making you whimper from the burning sensation. His fingers found your clit and he began to massage it in circles, slowly, laughing softly and mockingly when you whimpered. ‘’Need daddy to fuck your needy hole? Ask nicely.’’ 

Your thighs burned, but you didn't care—you were still bouncing on his cock, feeling it so deep inside you it reached the edge of your cervix. You took Jake's jaw and squeezed it lightly, looking at him as you left a slow, wet lick on his mouth. His gaze darkened, and you almost purred with satisfaction, because not even Jake could resist your charm. It drove him wild, just like everything else about you.

‘’Daddy,’’ you whispered like a secret, staring at his eyes while gently digging your nails into his cheeks. ‘’Fuck me harder, I want your cock so deep it hurts,’’ you smiled a little, too cockdrunk to care if you were pushing him too much. Jake grunted and suddenly you were being lifted up and pushed against the car window, your ass being pushed back with a totally needy moan that made Jake curse under his breath. ‘’Put it back in, please, daddy. I want you to stretch my pussy and fill it with your cum.’’ 

Your mocking smile vanished as Jake thrust into you suddenly and completely, burying his cock until his balls slapped against your ass. You moaned, your hands scraping at the fogged-up window, leaving fingerprints as Jake began to fuck you mercilessly, making your body—and the car—bounce with each thrust.

‘’Not so mouthy now, sweetheart? You got what you wanted,’’ he grunted, slapping your ass again. Jake’s thrusts were fast and hard, almost punishing, and you loved it. ‘’Now fucking take it— cum on my cock, make it all creamy and wet.’’

You moaned his name like you were in heat, feeling the pleasure build up until it exploded, making you whimper when your climax hit you. Jake didn’t stop, feeling your pussy milk his cock with a husky moan on his own.

He cradled your tits from behind, squeezing them and playing with your nipples while slowly licking your ear. ‘’Got one more for me, yeah?’’

You nodded, unable to find the words, only moaning and whimpering at his thrusts, his thick cock forcing its way into your soft walls and stretching them to receive its size. Your eyes rolled back and you felt another one rising, your pussy clenching around Jake's cock.

‘’My pretty girl, can’t even talk now?’’ Jake chuckled, his hand going to your throat to straighten you up and press you against his chest, making you take his cock from an angle that made you feel it more deeply. His hand tightened its grip on your throat and you smiled through the haze of pleasure, your hand circling his wrist just to feel him, slowly covering his hand with a muffled moan. ‘’Just taking cock like a whore, letting daddy use your tight cunt, so good for me. Wet my cock again, sweetheart, cum all over me—’’

His other hand found your clit again, playing with the swollen little button until you whimpered and came with a small cry on his cock again. Jake panted against your ear, biting and sucking your neck almost desperately, needing to leave his mark on you. He thrust deep inside you and came with a ragged gasp, clinging to your body as his warm load filled you.

For a moment neither of you said anything, only the silence of the forest broken by the ragged breaths. Jake's hand on your throat gradually relaxed until it became a caress, slowly moving down your chest to your stomach, leaving soothing kisses on your shoulder and fresh marks.

Jake was the first to talk. ‘’You’re okay, sweetheart?’’ He asked and you simply nodded, too good and freshly fucked to string a sentence together. He noticed and chuckled softly, warmly, in that way that made your heart race. 

Much later, when Jake made up a silly excuse for you to sleep at his house and you were both snuggled up on the couch while a black and white movie played on TV, you noticed something in his expression. Jake wasn't someone who hesitated, but he was careful and thoughtful about the best way to approach things. Some might say he was manipulative or even Machiavellian, but to you, Jake was like an open book. That's why you noticed right away. How silent he was, the way he was touching you, how something was taking form behind his eyes; wanting to come out and play.

You knew your boyfriend too much. 

You stroked his cheek, your thumb brushing against his lower lip. ‘’A kiss for you thoughts, Jaeyun?’’

That made him smile, in that soft, familiar, real way, and Jake leaned in, kissing you. He stayed close, his nose brushing against yours. ‘’I’ve been thinking these days,’’ he started, voice low, almost… conspiratorially. And just like that, red flags were raised everywhere in your mind.

‘’Oh, no,’’ you snorted playfully, trying not to smile. 

‘’Okay, that hurt my feelings,’’ Jake said, arching a brow, gently pinching your side and making you laugh and pressing you against him to stop him. ‘’You’re so mean to me, my sweet peach ice tea.’’

‘’Please don’t say those words again,’’ you groaned and chuckled, hiding your face on his neck, ‘’and just tell me what you’ve been thinking of, country boy.’’

Jake propped himself up on one elbow to get a better look at you, the light from the television illuminating his features in a way that was almost unfair because of how handsome he looked even in the dark. He studied your face and you were filled with curiosity, wondering what was going through his mind that made him hesitate so much about how to begin. And then, he just went for it.

‘’You were looking at Heeseung the other day,’’ Jake said, dangerously calm. But what caught your attention most wasn't that; it was that his face showed no coldness or jealousy, simply... interest. Thoughtful. 

You blinked, staring at him a little confused. ‘’Uh? What?’’

‘’The other night, at Jay’s party,’’ Jake continued, slipping his hand under the t-shirt he had lent you to sleep in, placing his hand on the soft skin of your hip. ‘’You were looking at him and the girl he brought. The blonde.’’ 

‘’I…’’ you stopped yourself, because you knew better. You considered denying it and lying, but what was the point? You tilted your head, lifting your fingers to trace the shape of his mouth. ‘’I did. You noticed?’’ 

‘’I notice everything about you,’’ Jake responded, smirking slightly. But he still had more to say. ‘’Why were you looking at him, baby?’’

A silence fell between you, not awkward or heavy, just like two coyotes staring intently at each other, sizing each other up. Jake wanted to see how far he could bend you, and you wanted to get the joke before he laughed. He took your hand and kissed your fingers carefully, softly, his intense gaze still on you while he waited for your answer. You bit your lip, stretching the silence just because you could.

‘’You're setting a trap for me,’’ you accused him, frowning a little. You hesitated for a second. ‘’Why you’re asking?’’ 

Jake looked too entertained for someone who had been caught. ‘’What if I’m just curious?’’

‘’Your brain doesn't work like that,’’ you sighed, too tired to play one of his games that late. ‘’Just say what’s on your mind, Jake. You know it doesn’t scare me.’’

Jake seemed to consider your words for a few seconds, and that dangerous glint reappeared in his eyes, especially when he moved closer to you and his hand continued to wander over your body, distracting you with his touches. He gently settled you on your back, covering you with his body, and you let him. 

‘’I noticed how you were looking at him,’’ Jake said against your ear, slowly lifting your shirt, making you shiver from the change in temperature. When your breasts were bare, your nipples were already hard, and Jake didn't waste a second before covering them with his mouth, making you let out a gasp of surprise. 

‘’Jake!’’ 

‘’How you were watching him kiss that girl, how you stared when Heeseung cornered her and fingered her without anyone noticing,’’ he continued, playing with his tongue around your nipple, sucking softly and then going for the other. ‘’But you did notice, didn't you? You were sitting on my knee while I was chatting with Sunghoon and didn't say anything, sweetheart. You kept the show all to yourself.’’

‘’I— I wasn’t!’’ You tried to deny it, pressing your thighs together. Jake noticed and smiled against your tits, sucking one nipple harder, until it popped out of his mouth. ‘’That’s not—’’

‘’You were getting wet on your boyfriend’s lap seeing his best friend fucking a girl,’’ Jake taunted you, with a mocking glint in his eyes. He clicked his tongue and shook his head lightly, looking down at you with a fake pout. ‘’You’re such a dirty, perverted girl. Now, I want you to answer me honestly, alright?’’ 

Jake knelt on the floor and pulled you down until your ass was on the edge of the sofa and spread your legs with a wolfish grin while you yelped breathlessly. He stared at your bare, glistening pussy with hungry and dark eyes, an expression difficult to decipher but full of desire.

‘’Just like this,’’ he muttered to himself, tilting his face to lick from your ass crack to your clit, holding your bent legs to leave you completely exposed. You gasped at the licks of his tongue, your hand gripping his hair. ‘’That’s how wet you were,’’ he lifted his head and stared at you, while using the tip of his tongue to make slow circles over your clit, his saliva slowly dripping onto your folds from his open mouth. ‘’Do you think Heeseung’s attractive?’’ 

‘’I dont— I don’t know,’’ you moaned when he sucked on your clit, slurping the wetness with a thoughtful hum. Jake slapped your pussy lightly and your back arched with a shaky moan. ‘’Jake! Fuck,’’ you hissed. 

Jake slowly dragged his tongue along your pussy, pushing the tip inside your hole and moving it in circles before thrusting in and out until you whimpered. He pulled away suddenly, licking his lips; his mouth and jaw wet from your juices.

‘’Answer me or I’m stopping,’’ he threatened, voice sharper.  

‘’He’s— he is,’’ you groaned, brushing just enough to make Jake chuckle at you. He went back to your pussy, burying his face there and letting you rub against his nose while he continued licking and sucking up and down, playing with your clit. He gently sucked on it, pressing lightly while his fingers grazed your entrance. ‘’Mmm, Jake, yes, just like that,’’ you sighed, letting out a low moan. 

‘’Would you let him eat your pussy like this?’’ Jake questioned, pushing slowly one finger inside you. You blinked, mind completely blank; but you looked at him and you clenched around his finger. 

‘’Yeah,’’ you whispered, wanting to play back. Jake's eyes darkened and he smiled cruelly, lowering his face again and devouring your pussy like it was his last supper. He added another finger and pushed both in slowly but deeply, each thrust making a wet squelching sound that soaked his fingers. ‘’Oh my God, Jake— mmhg! Feels so good,’’ you moaned. 

‘’Think about him,’’ Jake whispered against one of your thighs, biting lightly. He licked the skin and moved his fingers faster as he let a strand of his spit fall right into your hole, mixing it with the juices that were dripping from your pussy. He continued licking you all over, sucking and playing with your clit in the most sloppiest way, making out with your pussy as if he couldn't get enough. ‘’Heeseung eating this pussy until you scream, fucking you with his fingers,’’ he gasped against your folds, moving his fingers even faster. ‘’You’d like that, don’t you? Heeseung having a taste of this pretty, wet pussy.’’ 

You shook your head but your walls clenched around his fingers and you whimpered, making him smile. The thought grew in your head thanks to Jake, and it was impossible not to think about it, even just a little, because it was true. That night at the party, you'd seen him flirting with a pretty girl all night and then making her cum in a dark corner while the party was in full swing, and you'd been surprised and aroused in equal measure because, who would have thought that the quiet and serious Heeseung could be so daring?

Has anyone else seen him sucking his fingers afterward and then kissing the girl like he wanted to devour her? Jake suspected something was up because you'd dragged him to the nearest room and begged him to fuck you right after?

‘’You’re such liar, sweetheart,’’ Jake licked your puffy folds, making circles on your clit with his tongue lazily, fucking your hole deeper. ‘’You love the idea, I fucking know it. Don’t worry, I’ll fuck the truth out of you.’’

And when Jake set his mind to something, he accomplished it. He fingered you and licked and sucked your clit until you came with a trembling moan and your thighs shook, but it wasn't enough. Tears welled up on your eyelashes from overstimulation, but Jake didn't care, looking at you almost tenderly, smiling mockingly as he fucked your pussy now with three fingers.

‘’Jake,’’ you begged, whimpering and eyes rolling back. He kissed you then, hard and dominating and a mess of tongue and spit and you fucking loved it— you clung to his forearms, your body arching with the overwhelming sensation of pleasure, making you tremble. ‘’I’m gonna cum, d-daddy— it’s too much,’’ you babbled, too sensitive and open, too lost in the pleasure and the sensation of Jake stretching your pussy again to say anything coherent. But that didn't matter because Jake kissed you again, melting into a needy, rough kiss, taking your breath away.

You came with a muffled cry, and Jake didn't stop his fingers even when you squirted, soaking him and the floor. He groaned approvingly against your mouth, swallowing every moan and whimper until you were nothing but a babbling mess. He pulled his fingers out of your cunt and slid them between your mouths, licking them and making you taste them too at the same time.

Your tongue tangled around his long fingers and you sucked with a glazed look, while Jake stared at you with an intense expression, completely fascinated by you.

The next morning was like every morning since Jake had asked you to be his girlfriend so many months ago; calm and lazy, the way time seems to pass in towns where there's no rush. Freshly showered and wearing one of Jake's giant and soft hoodies, you were drinking your hot coffee while Jake watched you leaning against the counter, wearing only sweatpants and nothing else.

He approached you from behind and began to leave kisses along your neck, and you smiled, snuggling up to him and offering him your cup. He took a sip and then used his fingers to gently turn your face towards his, giving you a slow, warm, coffee-tasting good morning kiss in the middle of the kitchen. 

“What would you do,” he asked carefully, “if I told you I think you should flirt with Heeseung?” 

nerdy loser!jake who followed you around like lost puppy, he looked up to you after all you were the class president, respectable and nice to every student and teacher, he just wanted to be exactly like you, not himself being teacher pet and studying obsessed.

nerdy loser!jake who always the first to help with anything you need, the answer to the pop quiz, he spill every answer to you but he loved helping you after school, helping you clean the classroom and watching you work and clean with confidence.

nerdy loser!jake who was too memorize by your beauty and 'kindness' he didn't even noticed that he was slowly being manipulated by his favorite classmate, he let you do anything to him in heartbeat if it meant he had your attention on him even for a second.

nerdy loser!jake who froze and paused, feeling himself blush feeling your hands touching all his body and he start feel himself get all hard and all arousal as your hand grope the bulge near his pants.

it was supposed to be a normal movie night right? just you and jake, tangled up in a mess of blankets on your couch, a half empty bowl of popcorn sitting between you. but the air in the room felt heavy, thick with a tension that had been building for months. jake wasn't watching the screen. he was watching you, his dark eyes tracing the line of your jaw, the way your lips parted slightly as you breathed, the way your oversized shirt slipped off your shoulder.

you knew jake was a bit of a deviant. he didn't exactly hide it from you, his best friend. he’d make offhand, shameless comments about things that should have made you blush, but you’d always laughed them off as jake just being jake. what you didn't know, what you only recently started to piece together, was how deep that fixation went when it came to you.

it started with small things. a look that lingered too long. the way he’d volunteered to do your laundry when you were sick, only for you to notice later that a pair of your lace underwear had mysteriously vanished, never to be found. you’d caught him once, standing in your bedroom when he thought you were in the kitchen, holding a sweater you’d worn the day before, his face buried deep in the fabric, inhaling your scent with a desperate, shaky breath. you hadn't said anything then, too shocked and, if you were being completely honest with yourself, too thrilled by the raw hunger in his eyes to confront him. but tonight, the boundaries were melting away.

jake shifted, shifting closer until his thigh was pressed hard against yours. you could feel the heat radiating off him. when you turned your head to look at him, you found him already staring, his gaze intense, almost agonizingly focused on your mouth.

"you're not even watching," you whispered, your voice cracking slightly under the weight of his stare.

"can't," jake muttered, his voice rougher than usual. "there's something much better to look at right here."

you swallowed hard, your heart hammering against your ribs. "jake, don't do this. we talked about this. we're friends."

"i know," he said, and the sheer desperation in his voice made your stomach flip. he reached out, his long fingers trembling just a little as he tucked a stray lock of hair behind your ear. his thumb brushed against your cheekbone, his skin scorching hot. "i know we're friends, y/n. i swear i try to remember that. but it's driving me fucking insane."

"what is?" you asked, though you already knew the answer.

jake let out a breathless laugh, dropping his hand to rest on the cushion right next to your thigh. "you. everything about you. i spend every single day thinking about you. do you have any idea what i do when i'm alone in my apartment? do you know what i think about?"

you stayed quiet, your breath hitching.

"i think about you," jake confessed, leaning in closer, his scent of cedar and pure warmth overwhelming your senses. "i take your clothes, y/n. that sweater you lost last month? i have it. it's under my pillow. i jerk off into it because it smells like you. i sit on my bed, closing my eyes, imagining it's your hands on me instead of my own. i'm a sick fuck, i know it. i'm a pervert. but i need you so bad it hurts."

the honesty of it, the absolute lack of shame mixed with such raw vulnerability, sent a shivering wave of heat straight to your core. you should have been offended. you should have kicked him out. instead, your thighs rubbed together beneath the blanket, already slick.

"jake," you breathed out, your hands coming up to rest against his chest, feeling the frantic, erratic thumping of his heart. "we can't. if we do this, if we cross this line, there is no going back. i don't want to lose you. you're my best friend."

"i don't want to lose you either," jake said, his forehead coming to rest against yours, his breath mingling with yours. "fucking hell, y/n, you're the best thing in my life. but i'm dying here. just looking at you, touching you like this, it's not enough anymore. i need to feel you. please. just let me have this. let us have this."

"and what happens tomorrow?" you asked, your fingers gripping his shirt, pulling him just a fraction of an inch closer.

"we'll figure it out tomorrow," jake promised, his voice dropping to a needy, pathetic whimper. "just please, y/n. let me." you didn't answer with words. instead, you tilted your head up and closed the small distance between you, pressing your lips to his.

jake let out a choked sound, between a groan and a sob, and instantly took over the kiss. it wasn't a gentle, sweet first kiss. it was a collision. his mouth opened over yours, his tongue sweeping in with a fierce, possessive hunger that left you completely breathless. he gripped your waist with bruising force, pulling you flush against his chest as if he wanted to meld your bodies together.

the popcorn bowl fell to the floor, forgotten, as jake shifted his weight, climbing over you and pinning you to the couch. he broke the kiss for a split second to tear his shirt off, tossing it blindly into the room, before diving right back down to feast on your lips. his skin was burning, slick with a light sweat of pure anticipation.

"y/n, oh god, y/n," jake chanted against your mouth, his hands wandering frantically over your body, bunching up your shirt, his palms rough against your bare skin.

he didn't even wait to take your shorts off. the need in him was too feral, too far gone. he settled himself directly between your thighs, the heavy, rigid length of his erection pressing hard against your center through both layers of your clothes. then, he began to grind.

it was a slow, heavy roll of his hips at first, finding the perfect angle. you let out a loud moan right into his mouth, your legs automatically wrapping around his waist to lock him close. that sound seemed to snap something inside him. the pace turned frantic, desperate, and completely unchecked.

jake dry humped you with a wild, rhythmic urgency that made the entire couch creak beneath you. every downstroke of his hips pressed his hardness perfectly against your aching core, creating a friction so intense you could feel the heat blooming inside you like wildfire. he buried his face in the crook of your neck, biting and sucking at the sensitive skin there, leaving dark marks that you knew would stay for days.

"you feel so good," jake gasped out, his whole body shaking with the effort of holding back. "even through your clothes, you're so warm. y/n, please. look at me."

you forced your heavy eyelids open, staring up into his face. jake looked completely wrecked. his hair was a messy nest, his cheeks were flushed dark red, and his eyes were wide, blown out, and filled with a devotion that made your heart ache just as much as your core.

"i've wanted this for years," jake whispered, his hips continuing their relentless, desperate friction against yours. his movements were getting faster, shorter, his breath hitching as he edged closer to the brink just from the sheer feel of you beneath him. "every single time i looked at you. every time you smiled at me. i'm so sorry i'm like this, y/n. i'm so sorry i'm so dirty for you."

"don't apologize," you whined, arching your back, throwing your head back against the armrest as another heavy roll of his pelvis hit you perfectly. "jake, don't stop. please."

"never," he groaned, his hands moving down to grip your thighs, keeping you pinned, keeping you open for him as he rode your thigh with a pathetic, whimpering sort of desperation. "i'm going to ruin myself for you. i already have."

the sheer friction of his jeans against your thin shorts was driving you insane. you could feel the dampness of your own arousal soaking through the fabric, making the contact even more intense, more electric. jake felt it too. he let out a loud, broken whimper, his hips slamming into yours over and over in a quick, merciless rhythm that had you gripping his bare shoulders for dear life, your nails digging into his skin.

"jake, i'm close, i'm going to," you cried out, your vision blurring as the coil of pleasure tightened to an unbearable point.

"cum for me, y/n. let me feel it," jake begged, his voice cracking. he gave one last, deep, heavy grind, his whole body stiffening as he buried his face in your hair.

the orgasm crashed over you in violent, pulsing waves, making your thighs quiver around his waist. right at that exact moment, with your body squeezing around him through the fabric, jake lost his grip completely. he let out a loud, guttural cry, his hips stuttering into you one, two, three more times before he completely froze, his muscles locking tight as he came hard into his own underwear, the heat of it transferring right through to your skin.

the room fell silent, save for the sound of your loud, synchronized, ragged breathing.

jake collapsed fully against you, his heavy chest rising and falling against yours, his face still hidden in your neck. he didn't move for a long time, just holding you as if you would disappear if he let go. his hands, still resting on your hips, were twitching slightly.

after a few minutes, he slowly lifted his head. the feral, perverted hunger from before was replaced by something incredibly soft, almost anxious. he looked down at you, searching your face, a sudden wave of panic in his eyes.

"did i ruin it?" he whispered, his voice incredibly small. "y/n, please tell me i didn't just ruin everything."

you looked at him, taking in his messy hair, his flushed face, and the absolute devotion shining in his eyes. a soft smile tugged at the corners of your lips. you reached up, cupping his cheek, your thumb wiping away a stray bead of sweat.

"you didn't ruin anything, you idiot," you giggled softly.

jake let out a long, shuddering breath, the tension leaving his shoulders as he leaned heavily into your touch, closing his eyes. "i love you so much. you have no idea. i'm still a creep, though. i'm still keeping that sweater."

you laughed, a bright, bubbly sound that filled the quiet room. "i know you are, jake. we'll talk about your theft problems later. but right now? i think you still owe me a proper round without our clothes on."

Your invisible steps were already altering his domain. Jake's pulse faltered for an instant, and a violent lurch in his chest nearly made him lose composure in front of his subjects as the aroma grew stronger. His fingers dug hard into the stone arms of the throne; the primal urge to stand and run toward the main doors nearly overwhelmed him. Nevertheless, forcing himself to maintain sanity for the sake of appearances, he clenched his jaw and delivered one final verdict with barely perceptible haste, abruptly cutting off the pleas of the soul before him.

"No, there is no way the punishment will be reduced. Those who must burn in the mud shall do so," he declared curtly, rising with hurried severity. "This session is over."

With that, the demon guards removed the wandering soul. The moment the grand hall stood empty, the facade crumbled completely. Jake practically ran toward his private chambers, his breathing ragged and his chest pounding at a frantic rhythm.

As he ventured deeper into the palace's private wing, the magic of your presence became increasingly evident. Outside, the sky of the Underworld-which for half a year had spewed violent lightning and clouds of ash-began to calm. The eternal fire devouring outdoors dwindled into a gentle blanket of embers, and the roar of the storm faded into a distant murmur. His ordeal was ending. With every step that brought him closer to you, the cruelty of his kingdom softened; it was an absolute certainty that wherever you went, you carried spring with you, even in the midst of death.

He was not the emotionless monster mortals feared, nor the stone-hearted God other deities judged. On the contrary, he carried the eternal remorse of having dragged you into his world, of the tumultuous way everything had begun. Precisely because of that guilt, each year he granted you the choice to remain above, the legitimate right to never look upon his shadows again if you so wished.

Living with that uncertainty was the cruelest autumn that tore at his existence-six full months tormenting himself with the thought that sunlight might make you forget the warmth of his hands, or that a cursed God like him could never be enough to compete with the beauty of the outside world.

That was why knowing you were in his chambers once more, aware that you had chosen to return despite being the mistress of your own freedom, was the only miracle capable of making his heart beat again.

The moment he flung open the doors to the room, the world stopped beneath his feet. There you stood, by the window, gazing at an exterior that was already beginning to shed its shadows thanks to your mere presence.

"And yet you dared lie to me again, claiming you'd be fine if I chose not to return," you said, with that subtle tone between teasing and reproachful, nodding toward the disaster outside that was only now beginning to stabilize.

He let the door fall shut behind him, unconcerned by the heavy thud that echoed off the walls. It was you-beautiful, real, back in his world after an eternity of winter. The moment your eyes met, the last remnants of his resistance dissolved entirely. Without uttering a single word, eyes glistening and lips trembling from the overwhelming longing that no longer fit in his chest, Jake advanced toward you with urgent steps. But before you could do anything, before you could even extend your arms to receive him, his legs gave out.

The God of the Underworld dropped to his knees before you, surrendering completely. He buried his face in your lap with no trace of pride, his strong arms wrapping around your legs in a desperate grip, as if terrified you might be a hallucination born of his own madness.

And at the first inevitable caress of your fingers through his black hair, the merciless God vanished. In his place emerged the first broken sounds of surrender-the soft, desperate whimpers of a man who existed only to worship you.

"You came back..." he whispered against your clothes, his voice shattered and choked with a sob of pure relief; an agony that had finally found rest.

Leaning down slightly, you traced your fingers gently along the line of his nape. That simple touch drew a muffled groan from his lips, a low and fractured sound of need, as he pressed even more desperately against you, seeking the warmth he had craved so badly.

"Of course I came back," you replied in a sweet whisper, letting your own voice betray how difficult those six months away from his side had been for you too. "I promised you I would, Jake. Look at me, please."

At your request, he let out a small frustrated noise, as if pulling even a fraction of an inch away from your body was unbearable physical punishment. Still, incapable of denying you anything, he slowly lifted his face. His dark eyes-usually cold and sharp-were now glazed and filled with such raw vulnerability that it squeezed your heart; his lashes were clumped with tears, and his cheeks were wet, revealing the crying he could no longer hold back.

"I thought... I thought this time you'd have the sense to stay above," he confessed. His voice sounded so broken, so stripped of its usual arrogance, that it ended in a faint, trembling whimper. "I gave you the choice... I set you free... but every damn second was sacrilege to me. Enduring the cold of this palace knowing your warmth was up there... it drove me insane. Still, I prayed to my own empty temple, begging that you'd forget me so you wouldn't suffer this hell anymore. But my soul was falling apart. I couldn't breathe, I couldn't think... it was consuming me. I only wanted this. I only wanted you, my queen."

You ran your hands over his face, wiping away the traces of his tears with your thumbs before cupping his jaw. You forced him to maintain eye contact, refusing to let those dark, misty eyes look away, while clicking your tongue in mild reproach and hardening your gaze.

"And yet you managed to go six whole months without appearing in my chambers even once. You're such a villain, Jake," you scolded, adopting a low, demanding tone that made him visibly shiver under your touch. "No one would be surprised if the God of the Underworld broke the pact to claim me on the surface. No one would dare question you. But you prefer to play fair to win, don't you? Leaving me free so the distance would do the dirty work and leave me aching and longing for you up there too. You knew perfectly well that staying away would make me come back on my own... I missed you so much."

Jake's chest rose and fell in erratic gasps, trapped and exposed beneath the intensity of your stare.

With a firm movement, exerting an imperious pressure that felt as though you controlled his body through an invisible, unbreakable spell, you made him stand. Jake obeyed instantly. His large, usually imposing frame rose unsteadily, entirely submissive to your command, completely surrendered to the magnetism you radiated. Once he was at your level, with both your breaths mingling in the narrow space between you, you closed every remaining inch and kissed him with raw need, devouring his lips in a burning claim that finally dispelled the last traces of winter from his soul.

The kiss turned hungry within seconds, becoming a wet, demanding, almost violent friction. Your hands tangled fiercely in his black hair, tugging hard to tilt his head and deepen the contact, forcing him to give you every last breath. Jake moaned into your mouth-a broken, desperate, vibrating sound that traveled along your tongue as he parted his lips for you, yielding completely to your rhythm.

"I need you, my queen..." he breathed against your lips between ragged gasps, his voice fractured and nearly sobbing. "Please... Six months... six fucking months without you..."

You didn't make him beg any longer. With a firm push to his chest, you forced him back until his legs hit the edge of the bed. Jake fell onto his back with a choked gasp, undone, his gaze hazy with desire and need. Without wasting a second, you straddled his lap.

Your skilled fingers tore open his shirt, exposing his heated, marked torso. At the same time, you hastily hiked the thin fabric of your dress up to your waist without removing it. You reached down to his pants and freed his cock-hard, thick, and throbbing, already dripping with anticipation.

A sharp, pitiful cry escaped his lips the instant your fingers brushed his sensitive head. Jake's back bowed sharply in a powerful spasm at the contact, instinctively seeking more.

"My queen..." he pleaded shakily, his hands sliding trembling up your bare thighs. "Ride me... I beg you. I need to feel you. I need you to use me."

The corner of your lips curved into a slow, malicious smile that darkened your eyes completely. Instead of giving him what he craved, you leaned forward, letting your hair brush his bare chest as you lowered only one side of your dress's neckline.

"Not yet, Jake," you purred against his lips, your voice low and commanding. "You said you wanted me to use you, right? Then you'll submit to my pace."

You braced your hands on either side of his head and lowered your hips, dragging your hot, soaked folds directly along his length in a slow glide. Jake released a strangled cry that shattered into a pathetic, broken sob. His eyes flew open when he realized you wore nothing beneath the dress.

"Y-you... you're not wearing anything underneath..." he stammered, completely unravelled, pupils blown wide with lust as his mind collapsed at the revelation. "You came like this... through the entire palace... just for me?"

The direct slide of your slick skin against his pulsing cock was far too intense after six months of abstinence. Jake's hips jerked upward instinctively, desperate to close the distance and bury himself inside you, but your hands on his chest firmly pushed him back down onto the sheets, reminding him who ruled the bed.

"Don't move," you ordered sharply, grinding against him again with deliberate slowness, coating his entire length with your arousal. "Or you get nothing."

A high, shattered, miserable sound tore from deep in his throat at the threat. Jake obeyed instantly, freezing his hips despite the torture. He dug his nails desperately into the black sheets while his whole body quaked with the effort of holding still. A violent blush burned across his cheeks, and his eyes glistened with tears of pure frustration and pleasure. Every slow drag of your center over his shaft drove him wild, making him believe that the next movement would finally let him sink into you. The direct friction of your bare skin was glorious relief, yes-but painfully insufficient against the agony of not having the heat of your core wrapped around him completely.

"I beg you..." he whimpered helplessly, his chest heaving with a barely contained sob. "I need you... I need you now... my goddess, take me already..."

You leaned further over him, letting your bare breast barely graze his torso, your hardened nipple tracing his heated skin. Jake stretched his neck with a desperate whine, trying to capture it with his lips, but you yanked his hair firmly and pulled him back.

"How needy you are..." you murmured with a dark smile, rolling your hips in slow, torturous circles over his cock. "Six months without my pussy and you're already worse than the souls burning out there."

Jake squeezed his eyes shut tightly, his cheeks blazing-not just from the heat of the room, but from the raw truth of your words. The ruler of the dead had been reduced to a trembling, desperate mess, aching for even the slightest touch. The circular motion of your center against his swollen head was driving him insane, coating both of you in a glossy layer of shared slickness.

"I swear I'll behave... just let me feel you," he implored one last time, his voice so thin and high it betrayed how his balls ached from the pent-up need for release.

You didn't drag it out any longer. Reaching down, you wrapped your fingers around his throbbing length and guided him to your entrance, positioning the tip right at your slick opening. Jake held his breath; his dark eyes snapped open, locked on yours, shining with intense, desperate devotion.

"Alright," you told him, voice husky, applying subtle but firm pressure to his cock. "But at the slightest attempt to take control, I stop."

Slowly, you lowered your full weight. The thick girth of his cock began stretching your walls, sinking inch by inch in a hot, wet, overwhelming invasion. Jake let out a strangled groan as his body jerked violently when your heat clenched around him. His large hands flew to your hips, fingers digging urgently into your skin-but obeying your command to the letter: not to thrust or seize control, but to hold on and silently plead for you not to stop.

"Ah-!" he cried out brokenly, tears finally slipping down his temples as he watched, utterly mesmerized, how your pussy swallowed his cock. "It's so tight... please, all of it... take all of me..."

You pressed your lips together, holding your breath. It hurt a little; after six months of emptiness, taking him fully was a slow, difficult task. Your chest rose with effort as your body adjusted to the length and thickness of his shaft inside you, forcing a sharp, ragged moan from your throat. Jake answered instantly with a pained groan of pleasure the moment you sank down to the hilt, your pelvises meeting with a heavy slap that left both of you trembling.

You stayed still for a few seconds, hands braced firmly on his tense abdomen, breathing deeply while your walls adapted to the complete invasion of his size. Below you, Jake was pure tension-eyes half-lidded and clouded with lust, jaw clenched to its limit. The brush of his swollen, aching balls against the base of your ass pulled short, erratic, heated gasps from him that scorched the air between you.

You lifted your hips slowly, rising in deliberate torment until only the tip remained inside you, then dropped back down with all your weight. The heavy impact of your bodies colliding drew a sharp, broken cry from Jake that echoed through the chamber. The sudden, deep, wet friction of your pussy swallowing him whole again was too much for his long abstinence.

Without mercy, you began riding him with firm, powerful strokes. The thin fabric of your dress bunched around your waist while your exposed breasts bounced lewdly with every thrust. Jake couldn't tear his eyes away from you; he was hypnotized, letting out uncontrolled moans and fractured sounds with every descent that buried him inside you.

You raked your nails down his broad chest, leaving four burning red lines across his divine skin. Jake released a shaky groan, his back arching hard as pain and pleasure blended in his voice.

"Yes, mark me..." he sobbed helplessly. "I want to wear your marks... I want everyone to know I'm yours... that I exist for you."

You immediately picked up the pace, riding him with raw force, your hips slamming savagely against his and filling the room with wet, obscene sounds. You leaned forward, smothering him with your heat. One hand wrapped around his throat, squeezing just enough to make his breathing even more labored, before you buried your lips in his neck and sucked hard, claiming his skin with a dark hickey.

Then you straightened, restoring his airflow, while he panted heavily, trying to catch his breath.

"Look at me," you commanded, voice husky and authoritative. "I want to watch you fall apart beneath me."

Jake obeyed instantly, without a millisecond of hesitation. He fixed his dark, glassy, tear-filled eyes on yours as he moaned and whimpered uncontrollably, completely lost in the relentless rhythm of your body.

"I love you... I love you so much..." he repeated between shattered gasps, his voice utterly ruined by overstimulation. "Never leave me... I can't survive without this... without you..."

The heat in the room became unbearable, thick with the mingled scents of spring and ash clinging to the black sheets. You felt his cock throbbing wildly inside you, so swollen and hot it stretched your walls to the brink of collapse. You knew he was done for.

You clenched around him with tremendous force, pulsing in rhythmic spasms that tore a sharp cry from his throat.

"I can't hold it anymore..." Jake warned, his hips giving one small, desperate upward thrust, unable to restrain himself any longer against the pressure of your tightness.

"Do it," you ordered, voice rough as you slammed down hard, grinding your pelvis against his. "Fill me up right now, Jake. All of it."

The direct permission finally short-circuited his brain. Jake let out a raw, shattering roar, his back arching violently, neck straining and veins standing out on his arms as his fingers dug into your thighs to brace for the impact. Inside you, his cock pulsed three times before releasing thick, scorching, abundant spurts that flooded you completely, filling you to the brim.

The feeling of his burning seed against your cervix triggered your own orgasm instantly. You moaned against his ear as your core clenched repeatedly around him, milking every last drop.

Slowly, the movement stopped. You collapsed forward, exhausted, resting your face in the crook of his neck right above the hickey that was already turning a deep purple. Jake welcomed you into his strong arms-still trembling from adrenaline and pleasure-and wrapped them protectively around your back.

"You're beautiful... the most beautiful being in any of the three realms," he murmured, stroking your back over the fabric.

You smiled softly against his skin, letting out a sigh of pure exhaustion and satisfaction.

"Jake, cancel your audiences for tomorrow," you requested, softening your tone. It wasn't quite an order, but a plea filled with intimate longing. "Stay in bed with me. I want it to be just us."

The God of the Underworld let out a delighted little chuckle against your temple, pulling you even closer to his chest like the most sacred treasure in his domain.

"Your wishes are my commands, my goddess," he whispered with total submission, sealing the promise with a tender kiss.

No more words were spoken in the chamber. As Jake's breathing grew heavy and steady, surrendering to a sleep tight he hadn't known in six months, you curled up against his chest. Outside, the shadows of his kingdom seemed to calm as well, yielding to rest. Spring had returned to the Underworld, but its stay would be fleeting until the inevitable biannual separation—that which condemned hell to its own winter and stripped the leaves from the heart of the sovereign of the dead.

Hi!

If you liked this fic and it’s your first time reading my work, welcome! I hope you enjoy my past fics as well as the future ones.

𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𔓕 𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗬-𝟬𝟮'𝘇

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𔓕 Latest Update (fluff!): 𖹭.ᐟ𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘙𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘦: 𝘗.𝘑𝘚

𔓕 Related themes: 𖹭.ᐟ𝘈𝘵 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘔𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘺: 𝘑𝘢𝘬𝘦

And it wasn’t his regular ringtone. Since when does Sunghoon assign ringtones to people? You were sure you didn’t have a different one.

He tenses and stops the moment, looking at his phone on the nightstand. A beat too long of silence before he mumbles, “I should..” but he doesn’t move to answer, and he doesn’t push you off him.

You roll away first to grab his phone off the nightstand, tossing his phone at his chest harder than you meant. “You should answer.”

Sunghoon shakes his head, does a little glance to see who was calling before declining the call. “Not anyone important right now.” It was so obvious he was lying.

It started simple. You two are music majors who matched each other's energies too well since your freshman year of college. It was during late-night sessions of composing music in your junior year of college when things started to change, and you and Sunghoon both agreed that sleeping in each other’s bed was way easier than walking back across campus at 3AM.

The moment your feet hit his dorm floor, Sunghoon’s voice chases you down with a: “Wait.”

You don’t. His sweater is on you half-zipped, you snatch your bag without looking back. Sunghoon’s hand catches you at the door—warm fingers squeezing like he can press an apology into your skin. “Where are you going?” He frowns as he looks down at you, then presses a soft kiss on your forehead.

You freeze at his touch—always so warm, even when everything else about tonight feels cold now. His lips linger against your forehead, and for a stupid second, you let yourself lean into it before abruptly pulling away.

”We didn’t finish our piece,” he murmurs, thumb brushing your wrist. It’s not technically a lie. Your joint project is overdue, and Professor Kang would skin you both alive if it’s late once again. But it was the way that Sunghoon says it, that makes your stomach twist.

Because you’ve been feeling a knot in your stomach for two weeks now, and you weren’t sure why. Last week, he rescheduled your studio time twice without a proper explanation. His stupid explanation was “something came up.” For Sunghoon, nothing ever comes up between you two.

Yesterday, you caught him laughing at his phone in ways that didn’t include you anymore. But he’s right in front of you now; his mouth red from where you bit it, and his hands still tracing familiar motions along your spine like nothing's changed at all.

His phone buzzes again in his hand with notifications of a number that had a heart next to the name. You couldn’t quite make out what the contact name was.

”I know, Hoon. I just— forgot my laptop in my dorm.” You told him, backing away from his touch before leaving his dorm to head to yours.

Three weeks later, it’s back to normal. You and Sunghoon finished that overdue project Professor Kang made you guys swear not to fail, so your weekly songwriting sessions are bound to feel less stressful.

Yet, everything’s changed between you two. The energy just isn’t the same anymore, the casual banter seems forced, and every smile is a little too tight. Sure, you and Sunghoon have had your ups and downs as friends, so why is it so difficult for you both now?

Even as you both work, it’s so quiet. There’s no laughter when one stumbles over a chord, no “accidental” brushes of skin when handing over music sheets anymore, no stolen smiles or teasing. You keep catching yourself biting your lip, fingers tapping to a note that’s familiar, but it wasn’t right.

The worst part about this is that Sunghoon doesn’t even seem to notice how wrong this feels, how you feel. He'd still be humming under his breath like it’s another one of your “normal” writing sessions.

So when you’re back in his dorm again after a couple of weeks of not seeing him at all, his mouth is on yours before you can think—hot, familiar, and desperate like he’s been starving for it. You let Sunghoon push you back onto the bed, his hands sliding behind you to unclip your bra.

His hands are everywhere at once—kneading your waist, tugging your hair back to expose your throat. You arch into him because god, you missed this. You missed him, even as the logical part of your brain tells you that this is a bad idea. You let him press you into the mattress, his teeth marking your throat. “I missed you..” He whimpered out, “Have you been avoiding me?”

Sunghoon was practically growling against your pulse, his grip on your hips was possessive enough to bruise. You dig your nails into his shoulders as he moves down to your chest, “I don’t think it matters now,” you groan into his ear.

Your breath was ragged against his ear as his hips were grinding down just to hear the way you choke on his name. “H-hoon..”

He was just staring into your eyes with dark hunger in his eyes, his hand slipping around your throat. His grip tightens—not enough to stop air, but enough that every desperate gasp fills with him instead of oxygen. Sunghoon’s teeth sink into the swell of your nipple when you try to speak, causing you to clamp your thighs around his waist like a plea.

”Tell me,” he rasps against his feverish skin, dragging his lips up just to watch goosebumps follow your path. “Am I the only one who gets to see you like this?”

You want to lie, but he starts unbuttoning your jeans and pulling them down. He can't control his hips anymore. “Maybe,” you finally manage as your hands shake when you tug his shirt over his head—trying to hide how affected you are by this.

You reach for Sunghoon’s shoulders, but he catches your wrists with one hand. “Not so fast, baby.” He uses it to pin your hands above your head, fingers sliding over your pulse’. He was taking in how your skin buzzes under his touch.

Sunghoon’s head ducks to your neck again, teeth grazing where your pulse jumps. You buck under him just to feel the way his grip tightens. “Keep squirming and see what happens.” He whispered, as if it were a promise.

You keep trying to get out of his grasp, but then his free hand slips past the waistband of your panties and you’re suddenly drowning. His fingers press in slow, deliberate circles while his mouth finds yours again, swallowing every gasp like he owns them.

When you try to twist away with a, “Stop teasing, Hoon.” Sunghoon bites down on your lower lip hard enough to sting. He pushes his fingers even deeper into the fabric, the edges of his smirk pressing into your neck when he feels you tense under him. Sunghoon’s hand stills, and all you can do is gasp at the smug look on his face. “Then stop trying to get away.”

You can’t even reply, it’s just a small whimper against his touch—and it’s like a switch flips. Sunghoo’s breath turns ragged against your bare skin.

”Did you miss this as much as I did?” He moaned, his pace torturously slow, just enough to make you arch into him again. But then he pulls away when you don’t answer, leaving you gasping in his wake. “Hm?” He hums, fingers slipping from beneath you to grab your chin, “Why aren’t you answering me now, pretty lady?”

You know he won’t move until you say it. So with a desperate whine, you manage to rasp: “Yes, Sunghoon. You’re the only.. the only person that makes me feel like this.”

Sunghoon’s soft smile towards you feels too intimate, pushing your thighs apart to press his bulge in his sweatpants closer to you. He grins his hips against yours just to feel you shudder. “Yeah?” Sunghoon moves a strand of hair off your face, “I can say the same.” He pecks kisses on your cheek.

His fingers dig into your thighs before dragging the waistband of your panties down with a torturous slowness. You arch off the bed when his palm slides up your inner thigh—not where you need him, just enough to make you whimper.

Him being satisfied enough, his fingers plunge into you with a reverence that borders on obsession, slow and deep like he’s memorizing every hitch of your mouth. The moment your back arches off the bed again, Sunghoon hums in please, and curls them just so, watching your lips part on a silent cry.

”Come on, give me those pretty eyes of yours.” Sunghoon breathes, thumb circling where you’re most sensitive until your eyes finally flicker open to meet his. There’s something terrifyingly raw in his gaze.

His free hand cradles the back of your head as he kisses you dizzy, swelling every broken note of yours as he picks up the pace of his fingers.

His thumb brushes your clit—once, twice—just to feel you underneath him. His fingers push deeper, curling in a way that makes your thighs clamp around his wrist. Sunghoon's breath hitches at the desperate grip.

The contrast between the kiss and his fingers is maddening: the gentleness of his mouth against yours while his fingers work you relentlessly. When your hips buck, he pins you down with his free hand, his palm splayed over your stomach like an anchor.

His fingers withdraw—just long enough for you to whimper at the loss—before he’s undoing his sweatpants with a rough jerk, freeing himself with a low groan and putting a condom on quickly. Sunghoon doesn’t give you time to adjust before throwing one of your legs over his shoulder and slamming in, burying himself so deep your vision whites out for a second.

“Fuck—!” His forehead drops against yours, hips stuttering when you clench around him. One hand fists in your hair, “I missed this.. how perfect we fit together, hm?”

Even as his thrusts turn punishing, even as tears prickle at the corners of your eyes from the overwhelming rightness of it all. “I did too,” was all that came out of your mouth. It was true—you did miss it, but why was there guilt in your stomach?

You don’t want to face the truth of it, but you can feel it in the way your heart races when he touches you. It was just the way your body responds to him—his touch like it was meant for you. Sunghoon was the only one who could pull these sounds from your lips, for fucks sake he was your first. He was the other half of your soul, for you, the half you didn’t realize you’d been missing. Does he feel the same?

The feelings are so goddamn undeniable even as he whispers, “You’re mine.” Yet, for some unknown reason, you felt like he wasn’t all yours.

After an hour, the water from the shower shuts off. You sit on the edge of his bed, fingers tracing the familiar creases in his sheets. The same sheets you’d use to tangle your legs in. Sunghoon always left them unmade after, too lazy to fix them when he’d rather pull you back under.

Your nail suddenly catches on something shiny—a shade of deep red under his bedside lamp. A lip gloss, a shade that you would never wear. Your stomach drops before you can stop it, looking at the tube in your palm.

The bathroom door creaks open, steam curling into the room as Sunghoon steps out with a towel slung low on his hips. “Baby—” He starts, then his smile falters when he sees what’s in your hand.

“Are you seeing someone?” You just asked softly. There was no anger behind it. No pain. The words hit him in the chest harder than anything could have, the way you sound so calm, like you’re already expecting it.

There’s a beat where he just stares at you like a deer in headlights, the lie stuck in his throat before he finally manages to say something. “No— I mean, yeah, I am. But it’s not serious.”

The denial feels too practiced to you, even to his own ears. Sunghoon takes a step closer, reaching out for you. “I swear. You know I’m not the type for relationships.”

That was bullshit. The word is practically written all over your face as you’re eyeing him down with a gaze. His hands twitch at his sides like he wants to reach for you, but the space between you feels heavier.

Sunghoon’s jaw works as he struggles to find the right words, but all that comes out is a weak: “It’s just a fling.” You don’t respond, instead holding up the lip gloss between your fingers like evidence. Your silence is louder than any accusation.

His shoulders drop. Defeat flickers across his face before he mutters. “..She doesn’t mean anything to me.”

You let out a small scoff that sounded too much like an amused laugh, placing the lip gloss back down on the bedside table. “Why are you getting so defensive?” You get up from the bed, “We aren’t dating, Hoon.”

Sunghoon flinches at your scoff, the guilt starting to worm its way in. The way you place the lip gloss back down—almost dismissively—is practically a blow to the gut. Sunghoon knows he has no right to be controlling when you’re not even dating, but he can’t help the flare of frustration when you say: “We aren’t dating.”

"I know that,” was all he attempted to say. It was just his guilty conscience and insecurity bubbling up at the same time. Sunghoon steps closer, a hint of desperation in his eyes as he repeats. “I know we’re not dating.”

He’s trying to find the right words. “It’s just—” He pauses again. Does he even know what he wants to say?

Sunghoon’s gaze flicks from the lip gloss, to the sheets still rumpled from where you were both tangled in them, to your face. He just can't seem to hold your gaze for more than a second, so he shifts his eyes to the floor.

He finally meets your eyes, his voice gruff. “I miss this,” he blurts out. He’s surprised by his open confession, and he bites the inside of his mouth. Because it’s true—he does miss it, even though he knows he doesn’t have the right to.

Sunghoon misses it all, and now that he’s said it out loud, he can’t stop. “I miss doing everything with you. I miss waking up next to you. I miss your soft skin, I miss your laugh, I miss how well we fit together—“

His voice cracks as the dam breaks, every repressed longing spilling out in a rush. “I fucking miss you.” He drags a hand down his face, shoulders slumping like he’s just lost a fight. Then quietly, almost to himself: “Even when you’re right here. I feel like you’ve just disappeared from me.” Silence for a heartbeat. “The sex didn’t even feel the same, damnit.”

Sunghoon’s confession hangs between you two. The only sound is his breathing, then he laughs, a bitter one while shaking his head like he can’t believe himself. “Pathetic, right?” His voice is rough, raw at the edges as he steps back from you.

“I fucked another girl just to see if it felt different from you.” A humorless smirk twists his lips as he gestures to the lip gloss. “Guess what? It never did.” The air is thick with the scent of sex still clinging to his sheets and the grim feeling of his heart laid out bare.

Sunghoon just turns away with a muttered curse and grabs a clean shirt from the top of his drawer. It's a moment like a punch to the gut—the way he admits the truth of it, and the way it hurts to hear. It’s a reminder of how you’re both in this toxic cycle.

Sunghoon just lets a laugh out again, no joy in it at all. “Do you think I’m okay with just being friends with benefits now?” He throws his shirt on haphazardly. “I just tell other girls I’m not looking for anything serious because.. I want it to be you.”

The silence that follows is deafening. Sunghoon’s shirt hangs half-buttoned, like he couldn’t even be bothered to finish dressing properly— too busy spilling his fucking guts out.

”Yeah. So. There’s that.” He drags a hand through his damp hair. “I don’t think you feel the same.” Sunghoon’s fingers freeze on the last button of his shirt, knuckles whitening like he’s physically holding himself back.

”Christ,” he mutters, dragging a hand down his face. “I sound insane.”

You just stare at him—his messy hair, trembling hands, the way his chest rises and falls. Then you close the distance between you in two strides, fingers twisting into his half-buttoned shirt to yank him closer.

Sunghoon stumbles into you with a gasp, eyes wide as your mouth crashes against his in answer. It’s not gentle. Its teeth and years of pent-up longing poured into every bruising kiss.

”Sunghoon, you’re more than just a fuck to me.”

He’d done it the second your hips started rolling against his thigh during what was supposed to be innocent cuddling his arms wrapped around you from behind, your back to his chest, legs tangled under the sheets. One slow grind of your clothed pussy against the hard line of his cock through his sweatpants and he’d practically whimpered, voice already wrecked.

“Baby fuck, look at you,” he breathed, eyes glassy with pure adoration as he hit record. “My perfect girl you’re already so wet I can feel it through my pants you want me that bad? God, I’m so lucky so fucking lucky.”

You rolled your hips again, harder, chasing the friction against his thigh. Sunghoon’s hands trembled as they slid under your oversized shirt, palms worshipping every curve like he was scared you’d disappear.

“That’s it, ride my thigh, princess use me im yours all yours.” His voice was pure simp soft, desperate, completely gone for you. He kissed the back of your neck, then your shoulder, then down your spine as you kept grinding, soaking the front of his sweats.

He flipped you onto your back without warning, eyes dark but still so reverent. “Need to see all of you on camera,” he murmured, peeling your shirt off and tossing it aside. The lens caught the way your tits spilled free, nipples already tight. Sunghoon groaned like he’d seen heaven.

“Look at these perfect tits fuck, baby, you’re unreal.” He leaned down and worshipped them mouth sucking, tongue swirling, teeth grazing while his hand shoved your panties to the side.His palm cracked against your pussy in a wet slap.

You jolted, a sharp cry escaping. He did it again, harder, eyes locked on the way your cunt fluttered and glistened under the camera light. “So pretty when you take it,” he praised, voice husky. “My greedy little pussy loves this, doesn’t it? Say it for the camera, baby tell me how much you love when I slap this sloppy cunt.”

Another slap. Your back arched, a broken moan tearing from your throat.Sunghoon’s eyes were wet with how much he loved you. “That’s my good girl so fucking good for me.”

He spat directly onto your clit thick and warm then rubbed it in with two fingers, circling, teasing. “Gonna fuck you raw tonight no condom i need to feel every inch of you creaming on my cock want you dripping my cum for days.”

You nodded frantically, already crying from the overstimulation of his fingers and the slaps and the way he kept praising you like you were his religion. He shoved his sweats down just enough to free his cock thick, flushed, leaking and lined up. One slow push and he was buried to the hilt, unprotected, groaning like he was dying.

“Fuck— tight, so tight, baby this pussy was made for me look at the camera, let it see how deep I am.” He started thrusting, slow at first, then faster, hips snapping. Every stroke dragged against that spot that made you see stars. He leaned down, spitting into your open mouth mid-moan, then kissed you filthy, swallowing every sound.

Body worship never stopped. His hands roame squeezing your tits, thumbs brushing your nipples, palms sliding down your stomach like he needed to memorize every dip and curve.

“I love this body every fucking inch you’re my everything my pretty little cumslut who lets me record her like this god, I’m such a simp for you i’d do anything— anything to keep you feeling this good.”

He angled his hips and pounded harder. You came first hard walls clamping down around him, tears spilling down your cheeks from the intensity. Sunghoon didn’t stop. He kept fucking you through it, thumb on your clit, slapping your pussy again just to feel you clench.

“Another one, baby give me another i know you can my perfect girl takes everything I give her.” Overstimulation hit like a wave.

Your legs shook, sobs of pleasure mixing with his name as he fucked you straight into a second orgasm, then a third each one messier, wetter, louder. The camera caught it all your tear streaked face, the way your pussy creamed around his cock, the wet slap of skin on skin.

Sunghoon’s voice cracked with pure devotion. “Look at you crying so pretty for me I love you like this love you ruined and dripping and still begging with your eyes you’re gonna make me cum so deep, princess. Gonna fill this pussy up until it leaks out.”

He buried himself to the hilt one last time and came with a broken whimper, flooding you hot, thick, endless while he kissed your tear wet cheeks and whispered, “Thank you thank you for letting me have you my perfect, perfect girl.”

“What the fuck is this?” You held up the crumpled piece of paper in between your fingers, “I thought I told you already that I don’t date cowboys?” 

“You did.” He tilted his head, a vexatious smile dancing on his lips, “But it was Jungwon who asked you back then, and we all know he’s not your type.” 

“And you are?” You scoffed, throwing the paper at his chest, “You know I can throw you out of here whenever I want right?” 

“Yeah?” He smiled on, really getting on your nerves now, “I’m sooo scared.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the wood. Any room he entered always hushed around him, as if the sound of mere breath would have him whipping out his revolver.

“Throw me out then.” Sunghoon said mildly, gaze flicking to the rows of liquor bottles behind you, “I’ll have my usual before you do though.”

“Is that supposed to impress me?” You scoffed, though your hands were already moving on their own, muscle memory betraying you as you reached for the rye. Sunghoon watched you intently, eyes as black as kohl. You were one of the rare ones to actually see them up close—usually they’d be hidden by the shadow of his hat.

You grabbed the mixing glass with more force than necessary, ice clinking sharply as you dropped it in. Then came the rye, measured clean and precise, peychaud’s bitters— exactly two dashes. Then, pointedly, you reached past the sugar jar and picked up the small vial of orange extract instead. He lifted a brow.

“Oh?” He murmured, “You remembered huh doll?”

“I remember all my customers’ orders,” You stirred the drink a little too hard. “Doesn’t make you special.”

“Sure.” He replied, lips curling. Cocky bastard.

You strained the drink into the glass, twisted a lemon peel over the top, then hesitated—just long enough for him to notice—before adding the barest hint of orange. The scent bloomed warm and sharp between you, you never really got to use the tiny vial much.

You slid the Sazerac across the bar and leaned in, meeting his eyes. He picked up the glass slowly, turning it once, inspecting it like a man who had never once doubted the world would give him what he wanted. Then he took a sip. A brief pause took over before his shoulders eased. 

“Perfect.” He crooned, “The sugar ruins the sharpness of the rye,” His gaze wavered for a fraction of a second, to your chest, “don’t you think?”

“You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?” You bristled, reaching for a glass to wipe down that was already spotless, “I prefer my poison sweet.” He took another sip, eyes never leaving your face, “Makes it easier to swallow.” Silence settled over you once more, as he sipped away at his drink and you cleaned up. The absence of people in the bar didn't faze you much; you were used to Sunghoon being the only customer at such an ungodly time.

“The Ice Prince.” You hummed, sitting down across from him. His eyes flicked up, a curious oppression danced on his face, “You know what people say about you?”

“That I don’t talk much.” He said tartly, “That I don’t smile. That I leave towns quieter than I found ’em.” He put his finished glass down, “And that I always pay my tabs.” He tapped the bar once, “Which I did. With interest.”

You let out a harsh laugh, picking up the piece of paper. “This—” You leaned forward, eyes hovering at his lips for a second, “—was not part of the tab.”

“Whatever you say, doll.” He chuckled, pushing his glass forward. “Last one before we call it a night?” For a heartbeat, you stared at him, the air felt tight and coiled.

“How about something new this time?” You chirped, catching his attention. Your hand reached for the shiny whiskey bottle sitting at the very top. “Got it in this morning. Supposed to be a new kind from the south.” You tipped it carefully into his glass, eyes fixed on the way it flowed in smoothly. Barrel aged probably, judging from the thickness. 

“Am I the first one to try this?” You grudgingly nodded at his question, pressing the bottle to your chest, “Well then I’m honoured to—”

BANG!

A gunshot cracked through the night like lightning, sharp and close. The night shattered, split open as horses outside reared and screamed, their panicked neighs cutting through the chirping of the cicadas, as hooves scraped violently against dirt and wood. Somewhere down the road, a stable door slammed, followed by hurried shouts.

You startled hard, the bottle jerking in your grip. Whiskey sloshed over the rim, splashing down the front of your shirt, warm and sharp-scented. Of course you didn't bother to close the bottle.

“Oh fuck me.” You set the bottle down instantly. As if it wasn't bad enough that you had worn your lowest cut shirt today, it was completely sopped through, your bare skin and black bra introducing themselves to the world with much gusto.

Sunghoon considered himself to be a calm man—a steady island amidst a hurricane. This hurricane would be the one to destroy him though.

Warm whiskey darkening the fabric of your shirt, the scent blooming sharp in the air; his eyes lingered at your tits pressed together as you tried to clean yourself up and his thoughts promptly scattered like spooked birds. Fuuckkk, what he’d give to be buried in between the valley of your chest.

He reached into his pockets without thinking. When he brought his hand back up, a clean folded handkerchief rested between his fingers. He didn’t meet your eyes when he offered it.

“Here,” he said quietly, voice steadier than his thoughts had any right to be. 

 For a split second, his fingers brushed yours as you took it. Just barely but enough to send a tingling sensation through him. Sunghoon’s thoughts kept circling back in ways they absolutely shouldn’t. His eyes flicked down again, caught on the spill for the briefest second, then snapped away with visible effort, blood rushing to his cheeks….and his dick.

“These fucking assholes.” He mumbled, getting up from his seat as if he were being dragged to school, “Don’t know the right time to settle shit.” He paused as he picked up his hat, “You need me to drop you home?”

“No thanks.” You muttered, covering yourself with his handkerchief, your cheeks warm for reasons that had nothing to do with the whiskey.

“Relax, doll.” He said, voice lower, gentler. “I’m not that kind of a man.” Another shout echoed outside, and Sunghoon exhaled through his nose, “The offer’s still on the table by the way.” His smile softened just a bit.

You folded your arms. “And if I say no?”

“Then I tip my hat, walk out, and don’t bother you again.” He tugged on his black jacket, walking towards the door, “Unless you want me to.” He added, before he opened it, glancing back at you with that cocky smirk, “You know how to reach me, yeah?” The door creaked open, cold night air sweeping in, “Night, doll.”

And he was gone with the same zeal he had entered in with earlier that evening.

Your fingers curled around the bar, heart racing. His glass sat in front of you, the new whiskey untouched. You picked it up silently, bringing your lips to it—it would have been a waste to dump it out. Your throat burned as the liquid seeped into your soul. Sunghoon would have hated this, you thought, it had a subtle sweetness to it that made the burn bearable. 

Your eyes lingered over to the handkerchief on the table, stained light brown all over. His initials were faintly visible at the edges, embroidered with green thread. You twirled the glass between your hands. It had been a long night.

It would be even longer the next morning.

__________________

It was the way he never rushed.

That was the first thing that got under your skin. Most men fidgeted when you glared at them—cleared their throats, shuffled their boots and scrambled for words. Sunghoon just waited. 

Leaned back against the bar with infuriating ease, one shoulder rolling as if your irritation was nothing more than background noise. Like he had all the time in the world and you were the highlighted one on his schedule.

And then there were his hands, of course.

Always doing something highly unnecessary. Pushing his hat back juust enough to expose those sharp eyes, dragging his thumb slowly along the rim of his glass before taking a sip. Letting his slender fingers rest flat on the bar, as if he wasn’t fully aware you were watching them.

He smiled at the wrong moments too. Always when you were on the edge of snapping—that cocky smirk would hang from his lips. When you told him to wipe that look off his face, he only tilted his head and smiled wider, like he’d just won something. When you threatened to toss him out, he hummed low in his throat, eyes flicking briefly to the door before settling back on you with a look that said no you won’t.

And the worst part?

The fact that you noticed it all.

The way he leaned in just enough to invade your space made your breath hitch despite yourself; the way his gaze lingered half a second too long, daring you to call him out on it; the way he turned away before you could win the stare-down, as if he already knew how it would end.

And you hated—absolutely hated—that some small, reckless part of you liked the way he drank your custom Sazerac like it was nectar.

You clenched your jaw as you stared at the neatly folded handkerchief on your kitchen counter. The crumpled note lay next to it. 

“From your favourite cowboy.”

You could practically see that douche bag’s smirk— God how you wanted to punch that smugness off his face. Which was deeply inconvenient, because some traitorous part of you also wanted to see it up close. 

You glanced at your clock before leaning back against the counter, head tilting back as you ran over every bad decision you had ever made in your life. Would calling Park Sunghoon at 10 p.m to tell him to pick up his stupid handkerchief really be one of them? 

“Is this a dream?” 

Yep, it was one of them.

“Pipe down asshole.” You rolled your eyes, “I’m calling about your handkerchief.” There was a pause on the other side. Bad decision, bad decision, bad decision.

“My handkerchief?”

“What, you can’t hear now?” You scoffed, was his voice always this smooth? “You didn't pop in today and I’ve had it all day. You don’t want it back?”

Another tentative pause. And then, a soft laugh. 

“You want me to come over at 10 p.m to get my handkerchief?” He snarked, “Wouldn’t that be too scandalous, doll?” 

“I swear I’ll set it on fire.” 

And that was the story of how you had the west’s most notorious (annoying) cowboy sitting at your kitchen counter while you fixed him a beer. 

“How did you know this is my favorite brand?” Sunghoon leaned back in his chair, toying with the beer you just slid him. You rolled your eyes, leaning on your elbows across him on the kitchen counter. Why did this asshole look so good beaten up? 

Sunghoon had miraculously gotten into a fight on his way here to your house. He won the fight of course; if he hadn't, he probably would have burnt his face off and hid from the world forever. As expected from someone who thought of himself as the best cowboy ever. 

….He was though.

“It’s all I had, asshole." You scoffed, “Had to take a cart home ‘cause no one would order it.” You took a slow sip from your own bottle and quickly understood why. It tasted shit.

“Hey, it’s not that bad.” Sunghoon tilted his head, chuckling at your disgusted expression.

“You can take the rest of them.” You mumbled, watching him intently. The angle of his sharp jay, the way his Adam's apple bobbed as he tilted his head back to chug the last drops. You squeezed your thighs together, mentally smacking your head against a wall.

“Keep starin’ like that princess–” Sunghoon slid his finished bottle away, “—and I just might think you’re in love with me.”

“Oh yeah?” You cocked your head to the side, this beer is way too strong, “Call me princess again and I might just kiss your stupidly pretty face.” You took a heavy swig, the bitter fizz sliding down your throat, and before you could stop yourself, you were walking over to him, grabbing his collar and pulling him close. 

Your lips crashed into his with a fierce passion, tongues tangling in a messy, desperate dance. You felt him freeze for a split second, before his strong hands gripped your waist as he kissed you back just as hard.

 It was all tongue and teeth as one of his large hands slid slowly up the back of your skirt to grab a handful of your ass. You let out a surprised moan but he swallowed it down, kissing you like a starved man. 

“Fuck, you’re gonna be the death of me.” He mumbled against your lips, circling his arm round your waist as he stood up, pulling you flush against him. The rough movement sent a zap of electricity straight to your core.

You could taste the beer on him, mixed with the faint salt of sweat from his day under the sun. He backed you up against the kitchen counter, the edge digging into your lower back as he pressed his body to yours. His chest heaved against your breasts, his hips pinning you in place, the hard bulge in his pants grinding subtly against your core.

"Sunghoon..." You gasped against his lips as he peppered kisses along your jaw. Your hands clawed at his back desperately.

“Yes doll?” Sunghoon’s calloused hands slid up your sides, sending shivers racing across your skin, “What do you want me to do?”

He broke the kiss just enough to nip at your lower lip, then dived back in, sucking on your tongue while his fingers slipped under the hem of your shirt. The fabric bunched up as Sunghoon explored higher, palms cupping your tits firmly. He squeezed them, thumbs circling your hardening nipples, pinching hard enough to make you gasp into his mouth.

“Oh you like that huh?” The counter creaked under the pressure as he kneaded your breasts, rolling the sensitive peaks between his fingers, drawing out filthy sounds from you, “Never knew you’d be a dirty little girl for me, baby.” 

Sunghoon leaned down and captured one of your nipples between his teeth, nipping at the sensitive bud. You cried out, tangling your fingers in his hair to hold him against you. His tongue swirled around the stiff peak before switching to its neglected twin. Each brush of his mouth and teeth against your breasts sent jolts of pleasure straight between your thighs.

Sunghoon’s hand slid down again under your skirt, cupping your warm pussy in your panties. He groaned at the wet feeling on his fingers.

"You're so fucking wet for me already." He chuckled, gripping your pussy tighter. You bucked against him, desperate for more friction. He chuckled again, darker this time and pulled his hand away. "Beg for it, baby."

 You glared up at him, heat flushing your cheeks as frustration mixed with the ache building inside you.

 “Fuck off, I’m not doing that.” You snapped, shoving at his chest half-heartedly. Your body betrayed you, nipples still hard from his attention, pussy throbbing with need, but your pride wouldn't let you cave so easily. Sunghoon raised a brow, amusement flickering in his dark eyes as he stepped back just enough to loom over you.

 “That’s not a very nice thing to say, is it now doll? Especially to the guy who’s got you dripping like this.” 

“What are you talk—”

Unfortunately for you, his fingers were faster and before you could retort, his hand dove under your panties, two thick fingers pushing past your slick folds and straight into your pussy. You practically screamed, knees buckling as he curled them upward, stroking that spot that made stars burst behind your eyelids.

 “Sunghoon—fuck….oh!” You gripped the counter edge to stay upright, as your walls clenched around him, pulling him deeper, but he didn't move, just held them there, letting you feel the stretch.

“Come on baby.” Sunghoon murmured, free hand bracing your hip to pin you down, “Just admit you want my cock buried in this tight little pussy and maybe I’ll let you cum.” He started pumping slowly, in and out, thumb circling your clit with just enough pressure to build the tension but not enough to tip you over. You rocked against his hand, chasing the friction, but every time your breaths quickened, he eased off, denying the release.

Oh fuck it.

“Sunghoon please please pleaseee.” You finally breathed, hating how desperate it sounded, “Need your cock—oh fuck!” He added a third finger and thrusted harder, the wet sound of your arousal filling the room, “Need your cock in me, please Hoonie?”

Your legs trembled, barely holding you up as his fingers twisted inside you, scissoring to stretch your pussy wider. Sunghoon pinched your clit lightly, making you jolt, your back arching off the counter.

“Please what? Use your words, baby.” God why were his fingers so fucking thick, “Tell me you want to cum on my fingers.”

“I—ah—want to cum.” You managed, voice breaking as he sped up, digits slamming into you now, hooking against your g-spot with sharp precision. The pressure coiled tight in your belly, orgasm hovering just out of reach. Your thighs quivered, threatening to give out entirely, and you clutched onto his shoulder for support, nails digging in.

But right as the edge loomed, Sunghoon pulled his fingers out of your soaked pussy with a wet pop, your juices glistening on his skin,  leaving you clenching around nothing. 

“Sunghoon!” You whined, slapping his chest, “Wha—”

 “Not yet pretty girl.” He said casually, bringing his digits to his mouth, sucking them clean while locking eyes with you, the taste of your arousal making his cock throb painfully in his pants. “'Bedroom—now. I want these pretty little legs spread out for me.”

You stumbled after him up the stairs to your bedroom, panties soaked and clinging uncomfortably. The bedroom door clicked shut behind you, and Sunghoon wasted no time, pushing you toward the bed. He took off his jacket as slow as he could, as if to test your patience. Cocky bastard, you thought, though your pussy was basically screaming for his stupid dick to be put in her, as you ripped your skirt off. Your panties were left untouched, you needed his skilled fingers for that.

“You wanna make this more fun princess?” Sunghoon climbed up the length of the bed and sat on his knees between your parted legs, a lazy smile dancing on his face. You caught a peek of his sharp canines (almost fangs) and heat rushed to your core. From his pocket, he pulled out a pair of handcuffs—real ones, the metal glinting coldly under the lamp light.

“Stole these from the sheriff’s last week.” On his knees, Sunghoon looked like a sinful worshiper. He climbed over you, one hand on your hip to keep you there beneath him, as he leaned in to lick a stripe on your neck. “Though they’d come in handy for a naughty girl like you.”

You shivered at the wet heat of his tongue tracing your neck, the sharp graze of his canines sending a fresh wave of arousal pooling between your thighs. Sunghoon's weight pinned you to the mattress, his hand firm on your hip, fingers digging in as if to remind you who was in control. 

The scent of his cologne mixed with the musky hint of your combined arousal hung heavy in the air, making your head spin. The idea of being restrained by him, helpless under his mercy, made your pussy clench in anticipation. 

He guided your wrists above your head, snapping the cuffs around them and securing the chain to the headboard. And you didn't even protest. 

How pretty, Sunghoon thought.

The cold bite of metal against your skin made you tug experimentally, but they held firm, leaving you exposed and helpless on the mattress. Sunghoon stripped off his shirt, revealing toned muscles and a faint trail of dark hair leading down to where his pants strained against his erection. He unzipped slowly, freeing his big cock—thick and veined, the head already leaking pre-cum.

Your mouth went dry at the sight, pussy aching anew as he stroked himself once, twice, lining up at your entrance. Sunghoon didn't bother with your panties, just shoved them aside and pressed the tip against your folds, making you gasp. 

His gaze raked over you, sharp and hungry, lingering on the way your face scrunched up merely at his tip. God why were you such a pretty little thing?

“Loook at this pussy.” His voice was rough as his hands gripped your knees, pushing them wider until your pussy was on full display, slick and swollen, “Drippin’ for me like she’s been dreaming of my cock aalll night.” 

“Just—” You sighed, “—put it in already.” If your hands weren't restrained right now you would have grabbed his stupid face and put your tongue in his stupid mouth. 

Stupid stupid Park Sunghoon.

An entire life of good decisions and yet here you were, wriggling pathetically under him, dying for his cock.

“Gonna fill you up so good.” Sunghoon said, rubbing the head through your folds, coating himself in your wetness. The tease made you whine, pulling at the cuffs, “You ready, baby?”

But of course, the absolute asshole that the west’s most notorious cowboy was, didn't even give you time to answer. He pushed in—slow at first, the stretch burning deliciously as his cock split you open.

As Sunghoon slowly pushed himself deeper inside your tight channel, inch by exquisite inch, you could feel yourself stretching to accommodate his thick girth. 

“Sunghoon—t-too big!” You cried out, nails digging into your own palms as you felt his hard length throb deep inside you. You could feel every ridge and vein of his cock as it nestled inside you, an amazing pressure that sent shivers of pleasure racing up your spine.

“Oh no honey, this is your fault.” The sheer size of him filled you completely, every inch draaagging against your walls, “You’re just too tight baby.”

His grin was feral, canines glinting. The stretch was immediate and overwhelming—his cock splitting your walls, inch by thick inch. The fullness hit you like a punch, your pussy clamping down hard around him, and an orgasm ripped through you without mercy.

You cried out, back bowing off the bed as waves of pleasure ripped through your core, juices gushing around his cock, soaking the sheets beneath. Stars exploded behind your eyelids, every nerve alight, and you thrashed against the restraints, the metal biting into your wrists.

Sunghoon froze, buried deep, his eyes widening in surprise before a laugh bubbled up from his chest, letting you ride it out as your walls milked him.

“Fucking hell princess, you came just from me putting it in?” He didn't pull back, just ground his hips in slow circles, while your walls fluttered helplessly around him, “So sensitive baby….your greedy little pussy’s sucking me dry already.”

The head of his cock nudged your cervix, prolonging the spasms. Heat flooded your cheeks, a mix of embarrassment and lingering bliss, but his words only made you clench tighter, drawing another hiss from him.

“Shut up and fuck me already.” Your chest moved up and down rapidly as you slowly wrapped your legs around his waist, “Or don’t tell me cowboys only know how to put it in and nothing more than that?” You didnt know what invisible force prompted you to say that, but thank fuck it did, because the dark look that came into Sunghoon’s eyes was perfect material for you to masturbate to for the next few weeks.

“Big words from someone who has their hands tied, princess.” Sunghoon chuckled, digging his nails into your waist, “I’m gonna enjoy this.”

With that, he pulled back almost all the way out, the drag of his thick fucking cock against your oversensitive pussy making you whimper, then slammed back in with brutal force. The headboard thumped against the wall as he set a punishing pace, hips snapping forward relentlessly, each thrust driving his cock deep into your core.

An obscene moan escaped you, the sound raw and unrestrained, as he pounded into you, his hands gripping your thighs, spreading them wider to a perfect angle, hitting that spot inside that made your vision blur. 

The cuffs rattled with every brutal slam, your wrists straining as you arched into him. He leaned forward, capturing your mouth in a messy kiss, tongue thrusting in time with his hips. His cock stretched you wide, the friction building heat that coiled tighter and tighter in your belly.

“Hoon oh right there!” You cried out, the wet slap of skin on skin punctuating your moans, “You’re so big—fuck fuck fuck!”

His hands gripped your thighs, hiking them over his shoulders to fold you in half, allowing him to drive even deeper. The angle hit your g-spot perfectly, reigniting the fire in your core almost instantly.

“Take it for me baby.” Sunghoon grunted, sweat beading on his forehead as he pounded into you, “Take it aaall for me—that’s my good fucking girl.” 

His pace never faltered, relentless and hard, balls slapping against your ass with wet smacks. He broke the kiss to trail bites down your neck, teeth sinking into the flesh as he rutted harder, the sharp points of his canines drawing a thin line of blood that he lapped up with a satisfied hum. The pain mingled with pleasure, pushing you higher, your pussy fluttering around his cock. 

“Gotta let the whole town know yeah?” Sunghoon murmured against your skin, “That their pretty little bartender is a cumslut for me.” He released one thigh to slide a hand down, thumb pressing down, down, down on your clit and rubbing in rough circles, ‘Go on baby. Who’s cumslut are you?”

“Y-Yours Hoonie!” It was too much—the brutal pace, the targeted strokes, the unyielding pressure on your clit, “Your cumslut Sunghoon—oh goddddd…”

“Yeah you are baby.” He chuckled, a deep moan escaping him as he felt your pussy squeeze him particularly hard, “My—hah—cumslut hmm?”

The dual assault overwhelmed you; pleasure spiked sharp and intense, your pussy fluttering around his pistoning cock. 

“Sunghoon—please, I'm—” Your words dissolved into a scream as your orgasm hit, fiercer than the first, a guttural scream tearing from your throat as your pussy convulsed, walls clamping down like a vice around his cock. 

Sunghoon groaned, thrusts stuttering as your release pushed him closer, but he held on, fucking you through it with savage intensity. The room filled with the obscene sounds of skin on skin, your shared breaths ragged. 

“That’s it baby—cum all over my dick.” He rasped, chasing his own peak now, “Fuck—pussy’s milkin’ me dry.”

Sunghoon's muscles tensed, cock swelling inside you, and with a final, brutal thrust, he buried himself to the hilt and came—hot spurts of cum flooding your pussy, painting your walls white, the warmth spreading through you as he ground against your cervix.

“Fucking hell….” He rasped, collapsing forward, forehead resting against yours as you both panted. Aftershocks rippled through your joined bodies, Sunghoon’s cock twitching inside your filled pussy. 

He finally pulled out with a wet slide, cum leaking from your abused hole, and unlocked the cuffs with a click. He rubbed the red marks on your wrists with surprisingly gentle thumbs—a complete contrast to the man who had been pounding into you five minutes ago without any mercy.

You lay there in a haze of post-orgasmic bliss, limbs heavy and trembling; every muscle ached from the brutal pounding, your wrists tender from the cuffs, and all you wanted was to curl into him and drift off.

Unfortunately cowboys were known for having immense stamina. 

And Sunghoon was known for being absolutely ruthless.

"Oh no pretty girl." He murmured, voice low and commanding, his sharp canines peeking through his smirk, “We’re not done yet.” His cock, still half-hard and slick with your combined juices, twitched against your thigh as he propped himself up on one elbow, that predatory glint returning to his eyes.

Before you could protest, his strong hands gripped your waist, hauling you upright with effortless strength. You whimpered in exhaustion, head lolling against his shoulder, but he didn't relent—shifting to sit against the headboard, legs spread wide as he pulled you onto his lap.

"Sunghoon…..I can't." You breathed, even as your body betrayed you, core clenching at the feel of his thickening cock pressing against your inner thigh. Your thighs burned from being folded like a damn leaf earlier, and the sensitivity between your legs made every shift send sparks through you.

"You can, and you will." Sunghoon’s tone left no room for argument, one hand tangling in your hair to tilt your head back, exposing your throat. He nipped at your pulse point, teeth grazing just enough to sting, drawing a gasp from you. “Ride me like a good girl would baby, go on.”

He guided your hips up, positioning you over his lap, and you felt the head of his cock nudge your entrance—still swollen and dripping from before. With a firm push on your ass, he lowered you down, his thick length stretching you open once more. 

“Ah—ahhh Sunghoon!” Your breath hitched, hands bracing on his broad shoulders as you sank fully onto him, “God you’re so big!”

His cock throbbed inside you, harder now, veins pulsing against your sensitive inner walls. Sunghoon was so deep in this position, the tip kissing your cervix not so gently with every subtle shift, and you clenched involuntarily, drawing a guttural groan from him.

“Pretty girl takin’ every inch…” Sunghoon rasped, large hands sliding to your hips to control the pace, “like your pussy’s made for me.”

“Feel so gooood Hoonie…” You whined as he lifted you slightly, then dropped you back down, the motion forcing his cock to drag along your g-spot. The wet squelch of your pussy swallowing him echoed in the room.

Sunghoon watched you intently, eyes dark with lust, one hand roaming up to pinch your nipple hard, twisting until you yelped and clenched around him.

"Harder," He demanded, bucking his hips up to meet your downward stroke, “Ride this cock like you mean it baby.”

“C-Can’t….Sunghoon please.” You sobbed, exhausting warning with the building heat inside you.

“Tch tch tch.” Sunghoon clicked his tongue, “Poor baby’s tired already? We haven't even done much baby.”

You started moving tentatively, his words spurring you on, rising up until just the head remained inside, then sliding down with a shuddering sigh. Each descent stretched you wider, his girth splitting you apart, and the friction against your clit from grinding at the bottom made your toes curl. 

Your breasts bounced with each bounce, and he took one into his mouth, sucking roughly on the peaked nipple, his teeth scraping the sensitive bud. His cock pistoning deep, his mouth devouring your chest—all of it pushed you higher and higher. If there really was a heaven you were close to reaching it.

"Sunghoon—oh god, too much too much!" You cried, head thrown back.

Your pussy fluttered erratically, oversensitive walls gripping Sunghoon like a vice, but you couldn't stop. The way he filled you completely, the lewd sounds of your arousal coating his shaft, it all blurred into a haze of need.

He released your nipple with a pop, leaving it red and glistening, and grabbed your ass with both hands, spreading your cheeks to thrust deeper.

“Fuck princess you’re soaking me.” He helped you grind down harder, cock hitting that spot inside you relentlessly.

The pressure built fast, your clit throbbing against his pubic bone with every roll of your hips. You rode him wildly now, nails digging into his shoulders, leaving crescent marks on his skin.

 "Gonna cum—fuck, I'm gonna cum again," You sobbed, the words tumbling out as your ecstasy crested.

“Shit—you’re so tight.” Sunghoon moaned, slamming up into you one final time, his thumb finding your clit to rub furious circles, "Cum on my cock baby—squeeze me till I fill this pretty pussy full again."

The orgasm crashed over you like a tidal wave, your vision whiting out as your pussy convulsed around him. You screamed his name, body seizing, walls clamping down in rhythmic pulses that pulled him deeper. 

Sunghoon followed seconds later, a deep moan ripping from his throat as he held you down, hips jerking erratically. His cock swelled, then erupted, pumping thick jets of cum straight into your core, overflowing and mixing with your juices to leak down your thighs. 

He bit down on your shoulder, canines piercing just enough to draw a bead of blood, the sharp pain prolonging your climax until you were a trembling mess in his arms.

Finally, you collapsed against his chest, both of you slick with sweat and spent. His cock softened inside you, but he didn't pull out, wrapping his arms around you possessively.

“Knew you had one more in you.” He whispered, kissing the mark on your shoulder as you panted against his chest.

“I’m dead.” You mumbled, pushing at his chest half heartedly, “You killed me you big dicked asshole.” 

“So you admit my dick is big.” He laughed, gently pulling you off, and laying you down beside him, “Sorry about your sheets by the way.” 

You snorted, eyes closing as you sunk into the mattress, utterly exhausted. 

“You’re doing the laundry in the morning before you leave.”

________________________

It was safe to say you didn’t go back to work for an entire weekend. Your legs were—to say it in simple words—dead. 

God damn Park Sunghoon and his huge fucking cock.

When you did go back, Sunghoon acted like he had reached Mount Olympus. His cocky attitude only got cockier—flashing you smirks across the bar, spreading his legs wide as he threw his head back to expose his Adam's apple every time he sipped on his Sazerac, his eyes promising nothing but more trouble. 

Over the past few days, you were utterly disappointed every time you rolled onto your bed before sleeping. Your fingers were nowhere near as good as his, and you had failed to make yourself orgasm about five times now.

God damn Park Sunghoon and his huge fucking cock.

God also damn your huge ego, that prevented you from calling him over again, preferring to just press down the carnal hunger in your chest every time he looked you up and down with those sharp eyes of his as he spit out cherry pits.

“Who’s cumslut are you?” 

You’d have to go out back, violently shake your head and come back every time that stupid voice drifted into your head.

“Are you listening to me?” Your sister tapped on the bar as you absent mindedly wiped a glass, staring off into the distance, “Honestly sweetheart, you’ve been drifting so much lately.” 

“Sorry.” You sighed, placing the glass down, “Just need a drink.” 

“That makes two of us.” She laughed as you poured sweet rum into two glasses, “Just one though, I have to stop by the bakery to pick up something for Jay.”

“That damn husband of yours reminds me.” You sighed, “Can you please tell him to stop scaring my patrons off? It’s bad for business.”

She snorted into her glass. “He doesn’t scare them. He just….stands there.”

“He stands there,” You repeated flatly. “with that look.”

“What look?”

“The ‘I’ve buried men for less’ look.”

She burst out laughing. “That’s just his face!”

“Well, his face is costing me money.” You scoffed, pouring more rum into your glass. You loved your brother in law of course, but him being the sheriff was definitely not good for your bar sometimes.

“You didn’t complain when he chased those gamblers out last month.” Your sister took a sip, studying you over the rim of her glass. 

“That was different.” You avoided her eyes—they always managed to squeeze out the truth from you.

“But you know who else stands there with that look?” She tilted her head slightly, a mischievous grin on her face. You shot her a warning glare and she gasped dramatically, leaning forward, “So you are drifting because of a man!”

“I am not.” You declared like a defeated judge.

“Sweetheart,” She said, reaching across the bar to poke your forehead, “you just poured rum into the tip jar.”

You froze and looked down. Sure enough, the (thankfully empty) tip jar sat half-full of amber liquid. You set your glass down and groaned, hiding your face in your hands.

Your sister grinned slowly. “Want to tell me his name, or should I start guessing cowboys?”

“And how do you know it’s a cowboy?” You stared at the ruined tip jar like it had personally betrayed you.

“I practically raised you.” Your sister laughed, “You think I don’t know your type?”

“I don’t have a type!” You defended yourself, while your sister looked on with a tinge of amusement in her eyes.

“Let’s see.” She cleared her throat, “Tall. Quiet. Brooding, definitely.” She checked points on her fingers, “And there’s one person in this entire town who fits that criteria.” She studied you for a moment before smiling, “It’s Sunghoon isn’t it?”

You stared at her before flopping down like a deflated balloon on the bar, pressing your forehead to the wood. You didn’t answer, but she didn’t need you to.

“Don’t even start right now.” You mumbled, looking up at your sister, who raised her hands in surrender, “That man….” You banged your head lightly against the wood again, “pisses me off so much.”

“Is that why you let him into your house at 10 p.m last week?” Your sister said, laughing at your shocked expression, “What, you think the sheriff’s wife doesn't notice what’s happening two houses over? You better thank god Jay came home late that evening.” 

“He doesn't even do anything that bad.” You said, sitting back upright, “Sunghoon is just….vaguely annoying. I don’t get why Jay’s so hellbent on catching him.”

She studied you for a long second, the teasing fading from her expression. “He’s dangerous, sweetheart.”

“He’s dramatic.” You corrected her, “And smug.” You clenched your jaw. “And he looks at me like he already knows something I don’t.”

“And?” She lifted a brow. You felt heat creep up your neck as you pouted in utter defeat.

“And I hate that I don’t really mind it.”

That made her smile gently. Your sister reached across the counter, took your hand in hers and squeezed it. 

“Sweetheart I’m not saying don’t see him.” She softened, but only a little. “I’m saying….know who you’re seeing.” You gulped as she continued, “Men like that live in the moment, and they don’t stay most of the time. And I don't want your heart to be broken because of someone like that.”  The quiet, empty bar suddenly felt even quieter. Sunghoon was a cowboy—a criminal. And by god did you want that criminal in your bed seven days a week.

 “It’s not like I’m running off with him.” You crossed your arms, defensive heat rising in your chest. Your sister laughed, downing her rum.

“I’ll chase you down myself if you do.” She said, “What a perfect romance it would be though. You and the man your brother in law hates.”

“Jay hates anyone and everyone with a pulse who stands too close to you.”

She waved a hand dismissively. “I’ll keep my husband at bay.”

“You will?” Your eyes flicked to hers, as relief flickered across your face before you could stop it.

“For now.” She said pointedly. “You’re allowed to have your fun.” She smirked. “Don’t look so grateful though, I’m doing this because I trust you.”

“And if it goes badly?”

“Then I got a nice little revolver in my bedside drawer that’s been dying to go out for a spin.” She shrugged. She squeezed your hand once before pulling back. “Just don’t lose your head over him.” She grabbed her coat and headed for the door, saying her last goodbyes and stepping back into the morning light.

The bell chimed as you stood there alone again in the quiet bar, sunlight stretching across the floor, rum still floating uselessly in the tip jar.

Ten in the morning.

Open sign flipped.

And somehow, he was already the first thing on your mind.

And he stayed there, through the slow trickle of noon customers, through the clatter of lunch plates, through the way you reached for rye instead of rum twice and through every creak of the door that made your head lift on instinct.

By the time evening rolled in, the bar had transformed. Rush hour on a Friday was the worst. Patrons packed the dimly lit space, their chatter and clinking glasses forming a cacophony that grated on your already frayed nerves. You and your fellow bartenders raced to keep up with the relentless flow of orders, beads of sweat trickling down your temples.

“Two lagers!” “Whiskey!” “Another round here!”

You moved fast—faster than most—hands steady even when your thoughts weren’t, as bottles uncorked, glasses slid and coins clinked. One of your fellow bartenders nearly collided with you and muttered an apology before diving back into the chaos. The air grew thick, warm and loud and you found yourself completely and utterly overwhelmed.

From across the room, a pair of piercing eyes inspected you—Sunghoon, slouched nonchalantly in his usual seat at the bar. A knowing smirk tugged at his lips as he watched you rush about, his gaze raking over your flushed cheeks and heaving chest. 

As if sensing your mounting frustration, Sunghoon pushed off from the bar and made his way towards you, effortlessly parting the sea of bodies. He paused beside you, close enough for his musky scent to invade your senses. 

“You’re about to drop that,” He said quietly near your ear. You glanced down, at your shaking hand pouring far too much gin into soda, and scoffed.

“I’m fine.” You muttered, shoving past him to reach for a row of shot glasses.

They say cowboys have excellent reflexes.

 In one swift motion, he grabbed your wrist, halting your movements. His hand hovered near your waist for half a second, before grabbing it decisively.

“Five minutes.” He said.

“I don’t have—”

“Yes you do.” His deep voice sent shivers down your spine, despite your irritation, "Please don't make me repeat myself, doll." His grip tightened, his thumb rubbing slow circles against your racing pulse. "You need a break. Now."

Before you could protest, he tugged you away, a firm hand at your lower back guiding you through the labyrinth of tables and towards the back. His large frame shielded you from prying eyes as he steered you down a narrow staircase leading to the cellars.

The cool, musty air enveloped you as you stumbled into the dimly lit space, wine racks towering on either side. Sunghoon kicked the door shut behind him, engulfing you in a heavy silence broken only by the distant thrum of the bar above.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. You leaned back against the stone wall, breathing hard, adrenaline slowly draining from your system. The cellar was dim, a single lantern casting warm light over dust and stacked crates. 

“You push yourself way too much baby.” Sunghoon gripped your hips possessively, trapping you with his body, “I know you got stamina but hell even I can’t do all that without a break.”

“You telling me how to run my bar now?” You scoffed, though your hands slowly went up to rest on his shoulders, your fingers pricking the back of his neck, “Is that why you dragged me all the way back here? To give me business advice?”

“Of course not sweetheart.” Sunghoon leaned in, now pinning you to the wall completely, “Just thought I’d relieve your stress a bit.” 

The cold stone bit into your back, a stark contrast to the heat of his mouth, his tongue pushing in to taste you, and it made your pussy throb with need. You grabbed his hair, tugging hard, and he moaned right into the kiss, the vibration hitting your lips and sending a jolt straight to your core. 

The cellar was cramped, shelves lined with bottles and crates stacked haphazardly, leaving just enough space for a worn workbench in the corner. Faint voices from the customers who'd lingered outside seeped through the thin walls, a low murmur that reminded you how close the world was.

You broke the kiss first, gasping for air, your nails digging into his scalp as you pulled his head back to meet his gaze. His eyes burned with lust, pupils blown wide, lips swollen and glistening from your shared saliva. 

“Relieve my stress huh?” You purred, “And how exactly do you plan on doing that?” His mouth curled into a  faint smirk, as Sunghoon released one hip to trail his fingers up your skirt, brushing the damp lace of your panties.

“Like this.” 

Two fingers pressed against your clothed slit, rubbing slow circles that made your hips jerk forward. The friction sent sparks through your nerves, your arousal soaking through the fabric instantly. 

“Pretty pussy remembers my fingers, yeah?” He chuckled low, the sound vibrating against your collarbone as he nipped at your neck, “Already so wet for me.”

Sunghoon’s free hand yanked your top up, exposing your bra, and he shoved the cups down roughly, freeing your breasts to the chilly air. He latched onto one, sucking hard while his teeth grazed the sensitive tip. You arched into his mouth, a moan escaping despite your attempt to stay defiant, while his fingers dipped under your panties, parting your folds to slide through your slickness.

“Fuck, Sunghoon…” Your thighs parted wider, as if on instinct, giving him better access. 

He plunged one finger inside you, then two, and then three, curling them to stroke your inner walls with expert precision. Your pussy fluttered around the intrusion, juices coating Sunghoon’s hand as he pumped in and out, thumb circling your clit in tandem. 

He released your nipple with a pop, leaving it shiny and red, before capturing your mouth again in a bruising kiss. His tongue mimicked the thrust of his fingers, deep and demanding, swallowing your cries. You rocked against his hand, chasing the building pressure, but he slowed down, teasing you with shallow dips that barely grazed your g-spot.

“So impatient, baby.” Sunghoon chuckled against your lips, withdrawing his fingers entirely. You whined in protest, but he silenced you by shoving his slick digits into your mouth, “Taste how desperate you are?”

The tangy flavor of your arousal flooded your tongue as you sucked obediently, eyes locked on his. Satisfaction flashed in his expression as he pulled his hand free, wiping the saliva on your exposed breast, before roaming down your sides, gripping your hips firmly as he ground his hardening cock against your thigh, the thick length straining through his jeans.

 The bar's distant hum of voices and clinking glasses filtered through the cellar door, a reminder of the thin veil separating this hidden depravity from the oblivious patrons above.

Sunghoon grabbed your wrist, pulling you against his chest, his free hand yanking his leather belt from the loops of his jeans with a sharp snap. The sound made you jolt, but before you could speak, he looped it around your head, threading it between your teeth like a gag. The thick leather bit into your lips, muffling any protest as he buckled it tight at the back of your neck.

“Hoon..” You tried to say his name, but it came out garbled, saliva already pooling under the restraint. Your eyes widened, heart hammering as he tested the hold, tugging lightly to make your head jerk forward. 

“Need to be quiet for me, yeah?” His lips curled into a smile as led you to the workbench, “Those assholes up there don't need to hear you screaming my name.” His voice dropped to a growl, hands already shoving your panties down.

Sunghoon spun you around, bending you over the workbench. Your palms slapped against the rough wood, elbows buckling as he kicked your legs apart. The position exposed you completely, ass up and pussy dripping in the cool air.

Sunghoon's belt dug into your jaw, the taste of leather sharp on your tongue, forcing your mouth open in a perpetual O. You could hear the zipper of his jeans, the rustle of fabric, and then the heavy weight of his cock slapping against your ass cheek—thick, veined, and hardening fast. He rubbed the head along your slit, coating himself in your arousal before notching at your entrance.

Without warning, Sunghoon thrust in, burying half his length in one brutal shove. Your muffled cry vibrated against the belt, body arching as your walls stretched around his girth. The last few days were enough to make you forget how fucking huge he was, filling you to the brink as he gripped your hips hard enough to bruise.

“Still so tight for me—fuck!” Sunghoon grunted, pulling back only to slam forward again, bottoming out until his balls pressed against your clit. The workbench creaked under the force, bottles rattling on the shelves nearby. Upstairs, a customer's laugh barked through the wall—way too close and it only heightened the thrill, your pussy clenching around him.

Sunghoon set a punishing rhythm immediately, hips snapping forward with wet, obscene slaps. Each thrust drove his cock oh so deep, the head battering your cervix. You gripped the edge of the bench, nails scraping wood, trying to push back but he held you pinned, one hand fisting your hair to arch your back. 

The belt muffled your moans into pathetic whimpers, drool slipping from the corners of your mouth to drip onto the surface below. 

“Quiet now, pretty girl.” Sunghoon whispered mockingly. “Don’t want them to hear now do we?”

He pounded harder, the angle letting him grind against your g-spot with every plunge. Your thighs trembled as pleasure coiled tight in your core. His fingers pinched your clit, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger, while his cock hammered relentlessly. 

“No no doll, you’re not runnin’ from me are you?” You shook your head, the belt pulling taut, but he yanked your hair harder, forcing you to stay bent. 

The pain was what finally tipped you over—your pussy spasmed, walls clamping down hard on his shaft as a feeling of ecstasy ripped through you. Muffled screams tore from your throat, vibrating against the leather, body convulsing as you squirted, hot liquid gushing out around his cock to soak his jeans and the floor beneath.

Sunghoon finally lost control, burying himself to the hilt as thick ropes of his cum flooded your pussy, overflowing to mix with your squirt and drip down your legs. He fucked you through it, prolonging the waves until your legs buckled, only his grip keeping you upright. 

“Oh my god princess.” He groaned, his chest pressing to your back, “So tight for me fuckkkkk” The warmth spread, filling you until it leaked out with each twitch. 

Sunghoon pulled out slowly, his cock glistening with your combined fluids. He unbuckled the belt with deliberate slowness, peeling it from your mouth, leaving your jaw slack and lips swollen. Drool coated your chin, and you gasped for air, voice hoarse.

“You…bastard.” You panted, voice heavy due to exhaustion.

“And you loved every second of it.” He smirked, tucking himself away before helping you stand on wobbly legs. Sunghoon wiped your chin with his thumb, then kissed you roughly, tasting the leather on your tongue.

“So?” He cocked his head to the side as you straightened your skirt, “Has your stress been relieved, doll?” 

“I will actually shoot you.”

___________________

Wednesdays really pissed you off.

And it wasn't for no reason. First off, it was the dead center of the week—too far from Sunday to feel hopeful and too far from Friday to feel close to relief. Second of all, there were never any customers on Wednesday. They’d all be at the ranches for the bull fight and you’d be left all alone with your thoughts—which rarely led to any good outcomes. 

Still, you tried your hand at mediation, but unfortunately, staring at the dramatic font of the gin bottle wasn't doing anything other than pissing you off about the uneven space between the letters. You sighed and pushed yourself off the bar. Might as well close shop for today, maybe even go visit your sister and bake—

Ding!

The bell above the door chimed and your heart jumped so hard it was embarrassing.

And there he was.

Park Sunghoon stood just inside the doorway, breathing slightly heavier than usual, hat missing, dark hair disheveled like he’d run his hands through it one too many times. His cheeks were flushed, his shirt clinging faintly at the collar, dust streaking his sleeves. He looked unfairly beautiful. 

“What happened to the bull fight?” You asked, trying very hard to sound normal. Sunghoon shut the door quickly behind him, glancing through the window before turning back to you.

“My horse chipped a hoof so I got late.” He said, stepping forward. “Which would’ve been fine—except your brother-in-law decided to conveniently step out right when I was walking by the saloon..”

“Jay saw you?” You rested your cheek on your palm, elbow propped up on the counter. This was amusing.

“Jay saw me,” Sunghoon confirmed grimly. “And since I may or may not have promised I’d behave myself this week, he wasn't exactly thrilled.”

“You have atleast three guns on you.” You crossed your arms. “Why are you running?”

“I’m not running.” He said, shrugging at your raised brow, “I’m just….strategically relocating.”

“You are literally out of breath.”

“A man can’t be out of breath now?”

You walked around the bar slowly, eyeing him up and down. His chest rose and fell faster than usual, a faint sheen of sweat catching the light at his temple. A loose strand of hair fell into his eyes, and he shoved it back impatiently.

“This was really the first place you thought to come to?” You chuckled, “The place your chaser’s sister in law owns.” Sunghoon held your gaze for a second too long, before sighing heavily. Your lips twisted into a winsome smile.

“You know if you ask nicely enough, I’ll hide you.” You said briefly.

Sunghoon huffed a quiet laugh, prodding his inner cheek with his tongue. “Nicely.” He moved closer to the counter, palms resting against the wood as he leaned in. “And what would that sound like?”

You shrugged. “Why don’t you try it out, pretty boy?”

If this was what power felt like, god damn you wanted to feel it everyday. For a brief second, Sunghoon looked almost offended. Then, surprisingly, he straightened.

The next few seconds would be laid down in history as the greatest moment of your life.

“Please.”

There wasn't any sarcasm, not even that cocky smirk. Sunghoon looked down at you with softened eyes. You wondered momentarily what it would feel like to see those eyes between your thighs.

“What was that?” You tilted your head, "Couldn't hear you that well.”

Sunghoon barked a haughty laugh and sighed again. Greatest moment of your life for sure.

“Please can you hide me from the big bad sheriff?” He said, his tone completely exasperated, “Pretty please?”

Outside you heard distant hoofbeats echo faintly down the street. You arched a brow, pretending to consider it. 

“Hmm, I don’t know.”

“Don’t toy with me right now, doll.” He muttered, though there was no actual bite to it.

“Oh, but you look sooo good all flustered.” You leaned forward slightly, resting your elbows on the bar, a cheeky smile spread across your face. His jaw flexed, a faint flush creeping higher along his carved cheekbones.

“Are you going to help me,” Sunghoon asked, voice dipping lower, “or keep admiring the view?” Another set of hoofbeats sounded, closer now. Sunghoon’s jaw tightened, but his eyes stayed on you. You grabbed his shirt and yanked him towards the counter. 

“Get under.”

“Under?”

“Under the bar, idiot.” You shoved him down, “Unless you’d like to test how fast Jay can draw his cattleman.”

Sunghoon held your gaze one last time, a faint twinkle in his eyes, before muttering something under his breath before crouching down on his knees, just as the bell chimed again.

“Don’t move.” You whispered sharply, shooting him a quick glance before going back to wiping down the neat counter with a rag.

A heavy set of boots thudded against the wooden floor as Jay walked in, scanning the room with sharp eyes under the brim of his hat. His uniform stretched taut over his muscled chest, a silver badge glinting as he approached the bar. 

“Morning, troublemaker.” Jay’s voice carried easily through the bar.

“If you’re talking about yourself, good morning.” You looked up and gave him a gentle smile.

Jay snorted and dropped onto a barstool with a heavy sigh, hat coming off and landing beside him. He ran a hand through his hair, already damp from the heat.

“It’s barely noon and I’m melting.” He complained, “Why’d we decide to live somewhere that feels like an oven again?”

“You married into it.” You shot back lightly.

“Worst decision of my life.” You raised an eyebrow at his words, “Second worst,” He corrected quickly. “Don’t tell your sister I said that.”

A laugh slipped out of you before you could stop it. Jay leaned his elbows on the counter, giving you a sideways look. “You look suspiciously calm today.”

“Am I not usually calm?” You scoffed. Below the counter, a hand brushed your ankle. This absolute dickwad.

“You are.” Jay narrowed his eyes, “But not on Wednesdays.”

“I’m evolving.”

“What a terrifying thought.”

“Why did my sister marry you again?” You reached for a glass, setting it down in front of him, “Want something cold?”

“Yes please.” Jay smiled, drumming his fingers on the countertop. If only he knew who was mere centimeters away from his feet, separated by nothing but wood. 

Below the counter, Sunghoon was thanking his luck.

You had decided to wear your short black skirt today—the one that hugged your hips and barely skimmed mid-thigh, paired with a fitted top that dipped low enough to tease cleavage. In short, it was everything that drove Sunghoon insane. 

His eyes traced over the smooth expanse of your legs. Your thighs were basically inviting him in, a beauty that would distract any man from his duties. Sunghoon let out a shaky breath, drinking in the way the fabric clung to your skin, the faint outline of your lace panties visible if he looked close enough.

You, on the other hand, were completely immersed in filling a tall glass with ice, pouring in lemonade before adding a splash of whisky. You knew Jay hated drinking on the job, but this wasn't anything fancy. Just something to take the edge off.

“Have I told you I love you?” Jay muttered as you slid the glass over.

“If you loved me, you’d let me have a colt.” You grumbled. Under the bar, Sunghoon’s presence was impossible to ignore; his hand kept going up your leg and all you wanted to do was smack him across his pretty eyes. 

“Yeah and then the both of us can die at the hands of your sister.” Jay laughed, “And I’m not one to disobey my wife.” 

“Ok lover boy.” You rolled your eyes, “How’s wor—”

That's when you felt it—a warm hand on your calf, tentative at first, then bolder, sliding up the back of your knee. His breath was hot against your skin as he shifted closer below the bar, emboldened by the shadows and the thrill.

Your breath hitched, but you covered it with a cough, straightening up to grab a coaster. Jay's eyes narrowed slightly, concern flickering in between them.

“You alright there?” He asked, taking a sip of his drink.

“Fine, just a tickle in my throat.” You lied, forcing your voice even as fingers— thick, rough and calloused—traced higher, bunching the hem of your skirt. Sunghoon’s palm flattened against your inner thigh, parting them just enough to expose more skin, his thumb stroking the sensitive flesh there.

“Uh huhhh.” Jay hummed, clearly unconvinced, but he went back to being seduced by the cold glass of lemonade, “Anyways, did I tell you about the case we got last week?” 

“Go on, sheriff, bore me with your details.” You busied yourself wiping a nonexistent spill, hips shifting subtly to discourage Sunghoon, but of course, the bastard took it as an invitation.

With agonizing slowness, his fingers hooked the edge of your panties, the thin lace barrier between propriety and chaos. Jay was mid-sentence, recounting some vague pursuit—“Had a lead on that rustler, but he slipped away like smoke”—when Sunghoon yanked.

A lighting bolt should have struck you down right there and then.

Your panties slid down your thighs in one swift tug, pooling at your ankles before you could react. Cool air kissed your bare pussy, already damp from the illicit excitement, lips swelling with arousal. 

You gasped softly, disguising it as a laugh at Jay's story, but your knees locked, thighs trembling as Sunghoon's hands gripped your hips from below, pulling you forward until your ass perched on the edge of your seat.

“Sweetheart seriously what’s wrong with you toda—” Jay started, brow furrowing, but you cut him off by pouring him another shot of whiskey, the liquid sloshing slightly from your unsteady hand.

“And then what happened?” You prompted, “Did you catch the guy?” Your voice was breathy, leaning back to create space—or so you told yourself. 

Underneath, hot breath ghosted over your exposed folds, Sunghoon’s nose brushing your clit as he inhaled deeply, savoring your scent. Your pussy throbbed, juices gathering at your entrance, and before you could whisper a warning, his tongue flicked out.

Jay kept dragging on about some bullets and some moon crap, but your senses were already done and dusted. It was a tentative lick at first, flat and broad, dragging from your dripping hole up to your clit. Electricity shot through you, making your fingers white-knuckle the table. 

“And then the bastard told me to…” 

Sunghoon was absolutely ravenous, muffled groans vibrating against your core as he sucked your labia into his mouth, tugging gently with his lips. His hands spread your thighs wider, knees pressing against the bar's supports, holding you open for his assault. Saliva mixed with your arousal, dripping down your ass crack to the floor, the wet sounds (thankfully) barely audible over Jay’s loud voice.

Jay's eyes were on your face now, searching, as he swirled his whiskey. “You sure you're okay right? You’re all red.” He reached out a free hand to press against your forehead.

“I’m fine Jay.” You murmured, “It’s just the heat. Go on, I wanna hear about the suspect.” You pursed your lips to stifle a moan as his tongue delved deeper, lapping at your slit with hungry strokes.

Jay nodded, oblivious, launching into details about the suspect—tall, dark-haired, evasive—while you nodded along, words tumbling from your lips in fragmented agreement. God damn Park Sunghoon and his glorious fucking tongue.

“Sounds dangerous.” You managed, voice pitching higher as a finger joined the tongue, circling your entrance before plunging inside. It curled immediately, hooking against your front wall, stroking that spongy spot that made your toes curl in your heels.

Sunghoon pumped his finger slowly, then added a second, stretching your pussy with scissoring motions while his tongue battered your clit. He sucked hard, teeth grazing the nub just enough to spark pain-laced pleasure, your hips bucking involuntarily. You gripped the counter's edge, knuckles paling, as Jay's boot tapped the stool leg—dangerously close to brushing the hidden figure.

“Another round please, sweetheart, thank you.” Jay said, pushing his glass forward

You reached for the bottle, arm trembling, and as you poured, Sunghoon's free hand snaked up, rolling your clit between his fingers. Your pussy spasmed around his fingers, walls fluttering, arousal gushing out to coat his palm. He lapped it up greedily, tongue thrusting alongside his digits.

Sweat beaded on your forehead, your top clinging to your breasts, nipples hard peaks—thank god you wore your good bra today. Sunghoon added a third finger then, and you were gone, stretching you wide, his tongue flicking rapidly over your clit in a rhythm that had your vision blurring.

“You know, if you’re bored, you can come over in the evening.” Jay hummed, downing his whiskey in one go, “I think it’s pecan pie tonight.” But all you could focus on was the building pressure in your core, the way the cowboy’s mouth sealed over your pussy, humming vibrations straight to your nerves.

You smiled despite yourself. “I’ll be there.”

Your thighs quivered, muscles straining to stay composed, but Sunghoon was relentless, knuckles-deep now, twisting his wrist to grind against your g-spot. His teeth nipped your inner labia, pulling them taut before releasing, then diving back in to suckle your clit like it was his lifeline. 

“Well I better get back.” Jay set his glass down with a clink, “That bastard Sunghoon got away from me before I came in.”

That bastard Sunghoon is currently eating your sister in law out, you thought, feeling Sunghoon smirk against your legs. His fingers curled harder, faster, pistoning in and out with squelching sounds that you prayed the bar's ambient noise drowned out.

“I’m surprised you haven’t proposed to him yet.” You laughed, eyes flicking down for a fraction of a second, “Sis says she hears more about him than anybody in your bedroom.” 

“She told you that?” Jay said, putting his hat on, “Huh, might have to ask her about that today.” 

“You do that.” You said, seconds away from collapsing on the floor, “I’ll be over by 7 today.” 

“Yep.” Jay tipped his hat, “Thanks for the drink sweetheart.” He paused at the door and smiled back at you, “Take care of yourself yeah?” 

With that, he turned, boots thudding toward the door, as he finally left, The bell jingled as he exited, the door swinging shut behind him, leaving the bar in sudden, echoing quiet. Relief—and release—crashed over you like a wave. 

A moan ripped straight from the bottom of your soul as your pussy clenched violently around the invading fingers, your climax ripping through you in shuddering waves.

Hot squirt erupted from your core, spraying in forceful jets over Sunghoon’s smug face, drenching his cheeks, lips and hair. He groaned in ecstasy, mouth open wide to catch every drop, tongue lashing out to lap at the gushing stream. 

“Sunghoon—fuck fuck fuck!” You screamed as his fingers fucked you through it, prolonging the spasms until your legs shook uncontrollably, knees buckling against his shoulders. Cum and saliva mixed, dripping from his chin onto his shirt, but he didn't stop—sucking your pulsing clit, milking every aftershock until you were whimpering, oversensitive and spent.

You sagged against the counter, panting, as he finally withdrew his fingers with a wet pop, licking them clean before planting one last, lingering kiss on your throbbing pussy.

“You taste like heaven, doll.” He murmured from below, voice rough with lust, emerging slowly with a glistening face and a cocky grin, “Better than your Sazerac.”

Your panties still tangled at your ankles, skirt hiked to your waist, you could only stare, chest heaving. The bar felt electric, the risk of it all making your skin tingle.

“I actually hate you, Park Sunghoon.” You hit his chest, “You were this close to getting caught, you absolute dickhead.”

“And yet I didn't." Sunghoon sighed dramatically, his hands caressing your waist gently, “And I got to taste your sweet little cunt in the process. It’s a win-win situation, doll.”

“Whatever.” You scoffed, sneakily leaning into his touch. You gazed into his eyes for a moment, before your gaze flicked to his lips. You smiled, “You know I think I’ll close up early today. I need to be ready by 7.”

“Seven hm?” Sunghoon leaned in, pressing his forehead to yours, “We’ll be done by five, pretty girl.”

The west’s most notorious cowboy—a hardened criminal, guilty of half the shit posted onto the bulletin board outside the Sheriff’s office, the ice prince as they called him, unmoving and cold, the most ruthless in all the west.

And the guy who was going to worship you all day long, with his head in between your legs.

God bless Park Sunghoon, his whiskey stained handkerchief and your inability to resist some good fucking dick.

fin.

The campus café is a small, cozy establishment nestled between the student union and the art building. You have been here exactly twice before, both times with Yunjin, and both times you have spent more money on a single drink than you usually spend on an entire meal.

Today, the café is moderately busy. A few students hunch over laptops, a couple in the corner have what looks like a very intense conversation about something, and a barista with an impressive mustache wipes down the counter. The smell of espresso hangs in the air.

"Why don't you grab us a table?" Heeseung suggests, pulling out his wallet. "I'll order. What do you want?"

You blink at him. "You don't have to pay for me."

"I'm the one who invited you. It's the least I can do." He tilts his head, that curious expression settling over his features. "Consider it part of the starting slow thing. Coffee first, then maybe a meal, then eventually I'll work up to buying you a gift."

You don't know how to respond to that, so you just tell him your order: a vanilla latte, the most basic thing on the menu, and flee to a small table near the window before your face can betray you any further.

Okay, okay, okay. This is fine. This is manageable. You are just having coffee with Heeseung, the guy who thinks you confessed to him, the guy you have been actively trying to repel, the guy who starred in your extremely inappropriate dream three nights ago. This is fine. Everything is fine.

You watch him at the counter, chatting easily with the mustachioed barista like they are old friends. He laughs at something the barista says, and the sound carries across the café, warm and genuine. A group of girls at a nearby table glance over at him, then put their heads together and whisper. Heeseung doesn't seem to notice. Or if he does, he doesn't react, doesn't do any of the things you would expect from someone with his reputation.

It's infuriating.

A few minutes later, he walks toward your table with two cups in his hands. "One vanilla latte for the lady," he says, setting yours down with a flourish, "and one Americano for me. I got you an extra shot of vanilla. You seem like you could use it."

"I could use a lot of things," you mutter, wrapping your hands around the warm cup. "Vanilla is a start."

Heeseung settles into the chair across from you, his long legs stretching out under the table. "So," he says, "do you want to tell me why you were hiding behind a bulletin board earlier? Or should I just keep guessing? My current theory is that you're secretly a spy for a rival university and you're gathering intel on our science department."

"Your theory is wrong."

"Then what's the real reason?"

I was hiding from you, you don't say. I was hiding from you because I dreamed about you eating me out and now I can't look at your face without spontaneously combusting.

"I'm just… very committed to checking bulletin boards," you say instead. "There's a lot of important information on them. Club announcements. Study group postings. Lost and found notices. Someone lost a cat last week. Did you see that poster? Very sad. I hope they found the cat."

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Rambling. You ramble when you're nervous." He takes a sip of his Americano, his eyes never leaving your face. "It's cute. But you don't have to be nervous around me, you know. I'm not going to bite."

The word "bite" should not make your stomach flip. It is a normal word. A mundane word. A word that people use in completely innocent contexts all the time. But your brain, still apparently haunted by the ghost of that dream, chooses to remind you of the part where Heeseung's lips trailed down to your collarbone, and suddenly you can't look at his mouth anymore.

"I'm not nervous," you lie. "I'm just… naturally like this. I'm a naturally weird person. This is my baseline."

"Your baseline is being weird?"

"Extremely weird. The weirdest. I once alphabetized my entire book collection by color instead of author name because I wanted to see what it would look like. It looked terrible. I kept it that way for three months."

Heeseung considers this. "That's not really weird. That's just… creative organizational choices."

"I also talk to my plants. All of them. Individually. I have a succulent named Jason and I tell him about my day."

"That's just being a good plant parent."

"I cannot snap my fingers. I've tried for nineteen years and I simply cannot do it. My fingers make no sound. It's like they're broken but specifically only for snapping purposes."

Heeseung smiles now, that same genuine smile that appeared in the cafeteria when you talked about League of Legends. "Okay, that one's a little weird. But in an endearing way."

Endearing. He called you endearing. This is not going according to plan.

"I should go get napkins," you say abruptly, pushing back your chair. "We need napkins. For the coffee. In case of spills. You can never be too prepared."

Heeseung glances at the napkin dispenser that is already sitting on the table between you. "We have napkins."

"These aren't… good napkins. I need the good ones. The thick ones. From the counter. I'll be right back."

You escape before he can protest, weaving through the tables toward the counter where the barista is busy steaming milk. You don't actually need napkins. You need a moment to breathe, to collect yourself, to remind your heart that it is supposed to be beating for Jungwon, not doing gymnastics every time Heeseung smiles at you.

The barista hands you a stack of napkins without you even having to ask. You clutch them to your chest like a shield and turn back toward your table.

Heeseung is watching you, his chin propped on his hand, his expression soft and curious and completely unguarded. The afternoon light from the window catches the angles of his face, the sweep of his hair, the slight quirk of his lips. He looks like a painting. He looks like something you would pin to a Pinterest board titled "dream boyfriend" and then immediately feel bad about because no real person should look that good while just sitting in a café.

You start walking back toward the table, your mind a whirlwind of panic and confusion and the desperate need to get through this interaction without making a bigger fool of yourself.

And then your foot catches on the leg of a chair.

It happens in slow motion. One moment you are walking, your napkins clutched to your chest, your eyes fixed on Heeseung. The next moment your toe hooks around a wrought-iron chair leg that is sticking out slightly from a nearby table, and your body pitches forward, and the napkins fly out of your hands, and the coffee, dear God, the coffee who's sitting on the table gets knocked off and sloshes out of your cup in a great wave.

Time speeds up again. You hit the floor with a thud that rattles your teeth, and the coffee hits you approximately 0.3 seconds later, soaking through your sweater and your jeans and possibly your very soul. The liquid is still warm, not scalding but definitely not pleasant, and it is everywhere, on your clothes, on your hands, dripping from the ends of your hair, pooling on the floor around you in a sad, beige puddle.

The café goes silent.

You sit there, on the floor, covered in your own vanilla latte, and stare at the puddle spreading beneath you. The napkins have scattered across the tiles like confetti, completely useless now. A drip of coffee rolls down your forehead and off the tip of your nose.

This is it. This is the moment you finally break. All the stress of the past week, the letter, the misunderstanding, the dream, the bulletin board incident has been building toward this, and now, sitting in a puddle of expensive café coffee with every eye in the establishment fixed on you, you feel the tears prick at the corners of your eyes.

You are going to cry. You are going to cry in front of Heeseung and the mustachioed barista and the couple in the corner and those girls who have been whispering about Heeseung earlier. You are going to cry, and there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop it.

But then you look down at your hands, and you realize something.

His coffee. The Americano. The cup who's been next to yours, you have managed, in the chaos of your fall, to keep it upright by holding it. Your arm lifted it above your head at the last second, some primal survival instinct kicking in to protect the beverage that isn't even yours, and the Americano is still sitting perfectly intact in its cup, not a single drop spilled.

You are covered in latte. Your sweater is ruined. Your dignity is in shambles. But his coffee is safe.

"I saved yours," you say, your voice coming out as a croak. You hold up the Americano like a trophy, your arm trembling slightly. "Look. I saved yours."

Heeseung is already out of his chair, already crouching beside you, his expression shifting from shock to concern to something else entirely, something soft and wondering and absolutely devastating.

"You saved my coffee," he repeats.

"It was a reflex. I don't know why. I don't even like you that much. I mean, I like you a normal amount. A regular amount. The amount you're supposed to like someone you accidentally-" You stop yourself before you can say more. "I saved your coffee."

Heeseung stares at you for a long moment. Then, very deliberately, he reaches out and takes the Americano from your hand. He looks at you, covered in vanilla latte, sitting in a puddle on the café floor, your glasses askew and your hair dripping.

And then he pours his own coffee over his head.

Just… tips the cup over and lets the dark liquid cascade down his hair, over his forehead, along the sharp bridge of his nose, soaking into the collar of his black hoodie and leaving trails of coffee across his skin.

You gape at him. The entire café gapes at him.

"What-" you start, but your voice has stopped working.

Heeseung sets the empty cup down with a quiet click and smiles at you, a warm, genuine, completely unhinged smile that makes your heart do a full backflip inside your chest.

"Now we match," he says.

You can't speak. You can't think. You can only stare at him, this absurd, beautiful, incomprehensible boy who has just poured coffee on himself in the middle of a crowded café for no other reason than to make you feel less alone in your humiliation.

"But… your hoodie," you manage. "Your hair. The floor. The-"

"I have other hoodies. My hair will dry. And the floor can be mopped." He reaches out and gently straightens your glasses, which have gone crooked during your fall. His fingers brush against your temple, feather-light. "You looked like you were about to cry. I couldn't let you cry alone."

"Alone?" Your voice cracks. "You couldn't let me cry alone?"

"I mean, ideally you wouldn't cry at all. But if you are going to cry, I figure I should give you company. Solidarity in humiliation, you know?" He's still smiling, still crouching in front of you, still covered in Americano like it is the most normal thing in the world. "We make a pretty good pair of disasters, don't you think?"

Your heart flips. It doesn't flutter. It doesn't skip a beat. It does a full, acrobatic, Olympic-level flip inside your chest, and you feel the sensation reverberate through your entire body.

Why is he like this?

Why is Lee Heeseung, reputed womanizer, notorious player, the guy everyone warns you about, sitting on the floor of a café covered in his own coffee just to make you feel better about spilling yours? Why is he looking at you like that, with those dark, gentle eyes, like you are something precious instead of the absolute disaster you clearly are?

You don't know. You don't understand. And the not understanding is starting to become a problem, because every time you think you have Heeseung figured out, he goes and does something like this, and your careful mental categories crumble a little more.

"We should probably…" You gesture vaguely at your coffee-soaked selves. "Clean up. Or something."

"Probably," Heeseung agrees. He stands up and offers you his hand, his coffee-stained, still-damp hand and you have no choice but to take it. His grip is warm and solid, and he pulls you to your feet with an ease that suggests you weigh nothing at all. "There's a student services office around the corner. They keep spare t-shirts for emergencies. We could both use a change of clothes."

You look down at your sweater, which is now more latte-colored than its original blue. "That's… probably a good idea."

Heeseung pulls out his wallet and drops several bills on the nearest table, far more than the cost of two coffees with a nod to the mustachioed barista. "For the mess," he says. "Sorry about the floor."

The barista nods slowly, his expression suggesting he has seen many things in his years at the café but has never quite witnessed anything like this.

And then Heeseung guides you out of the café, his hand hovering at the small of your back but not quite touching, and you walk through the student union in matching coffee-stained clothes like the world's most unfortunate pair of twins.

The student services office is a small, cluttered room tucked into a corner of the union building. It is staffed by a perpetually exhausted-looking graduate student who has clearly seen too much in his years of dealing with student emergencies. When you and Heeseung walk in, dripping coffee and smelling like a coffee explosion, he doesn't even blink.

"Coffee incident?" he asks flatly.

"Yes," Heeseung says.

"Both of you?"

"I'm told we match now."

The student stares at him for a long moment, then sighs with the weariness of someone who long ago stopped questioning the absurdities of university life. "We have spare t-shirts in the back. They're not fashionable. They have the university logo on them. You don't get to complain about the design."

"We wouldn't dream of it," Heeseung says.

The student disappears into a back room and emerges a moment later with two folded shirts. They are, as promised, aggressively unfashionable, a mustard yellow color with the university mascot printed on the front in peeling letters. Beneath the mascot are the words "Embrace the process!"

"These are incredible," Heeseung says, holding up his shirt with genuine delight. "I'm keeping this forever."

"The bathrooms are down the hall," the student says, already turning back to his computer. "Please don't track coffee into them. I just had the floors cleaned."

You and Heeseung change in separate bathrooms, and when you emerge, you are confronted with the sight of Heeseung wearing a mustard-yellow shirt that is slightly too small for him, the fabric stretching across his shoulders in a way that is definitely not doing things to your heart. The coffee has been wiped off his face, but his hair is still damp, curling slightly at the ends, and the combination of the terrible shirt and the wet hair and the ridiculously attractive face is so absurd that you actually laugh out loud.

"What?" Heeseung asks, grinning. "Do I look as good as I think I do?"

"You look like you traded shirts with a child."

"A very fashionable child. This slogan will hype me up for my next exam." He looks you over, his eyes crinkling. "You don't look half bad yourself. Yellow's a good color on you."

You are wearing the exact same shirt. You look like a banana. But Heeseung says it like he means it, and you feel that traitorous flutter in your chest again.

"We should go," you say, because standing in a hallway with Heeseung while wearing ridiculous matching shirts is doing something strange to your brain chemistry. "I have… I need to… there's a thing…"

"The mysterious thing," Heeseung says. "Your nemesis. Your arch-enemy. The eternal obstacle to us spending more time together."

"It's a very busy thing. It takes up a lot of my schedule."

"Right." He is still smiling, still looking at you with that soft, curious expression. "Well, before you run off to your very important thing, let me walk you to-"

"There you are, Heeseung! I've been looking everywhere for-"

The voice comes from the end of the hallway, and you know that voice. You know it the way you know your own heartbeat, the way you know the lyrics to every Ariana Grande song, the way you know that vanilla lattes are now your mortal enemy.

Jungwon walks toward you, his phone in his hand and a slight frown on his face, like he has been searching for Heeseung for a while. He looks so unfairly beautiful that your heart does the thing it always does when you see him, that painful, hopeful, aching thing that feels like a bruise that won't heal.

But then his eyes land on you, and he stops walking.

"Y/N?" His gaze travels from your face to your shirt to Heeseung's matching shirt to the general air of disaster that still clings to both of you. "What… happened to you guys?"

"Coffee incident," Heeseung says, with the casual air of someone explaining something completely normal. "She spilled hers, so I spilled mine too. Now we're twins."

Jungwon blinks. "You poured coffee on yourself?"

"Matching disasters. It's a new concept. We're pioneering it."

You want to say something, anything, to salvage this situation. Jungwon is looking between you and Heeseung with an expression you can't quite read, and your brain screams at you to explain, to clarify, to make sure he doesn't get the wrong idea about what he is seeing.

"It's not… we're not-" you start, but your voice comes out squeaky and strange. "The coffee was an accident. Well, my coffee was an accident. His coffee was on purpose. But not in a romantic way. In a… solidarity way. Against the humiliation. We are fighting humiliation together."

"Fighting humiliation," Jungwon repeats slowly.

"Enemies," you say, nodding too hard. "We're humiliation enemies. Humi-nemies. It's a whole thing."

Heeseung watches you with that amused expression again, and you can tell he is biting back a smile. "Humi-nemies," he echoes. "Right. That's what we are."

Jungwon is quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he smiles, but it isn't his usual warm smile. It is something smaller, something more careful, something that makes your stomach drop even as you can't identify why.

"You guys make a cute couple," he says.

The words hit you like a physical blow. Your mouth opens. Closes. Opens again. No sound comes out.

"We're not-" you try, but Jungwon is already stepping back, already half-turning away.

"I've got to get to class," he says. "Heeseung, I'll catch up with you later. Y/N… nice shirt."

And then he walks away, and you stand in the hallway with your heart in your stomach and Heeseung's matching shirt still warm against your skin.

"We're not a couple," you say, but it comes out as barely a whisper.

"Not yet," Heeseung says cheerfully, apparently completely oblivious to the emotional devastation that just occurred. "But we're off to a good start, don't you think? Coffee disasters, matching outfits, running into my friends, this is basically a textbook meet-cute progression."

You turn to stare at him. He is grinning, still radiating that unshakeable, inexplicable joy that seems to follow him everywhere. He has no idea. He has absolutely no idea that the boy you actually like just saw you in matching shirts with someone else and assumed you were a couple.

"Are you okay?" Heeseung asks, his smile fading slightly. "You look a little pale. Was the coffee too hot? Do you need to sit down?"

"I'm fine," you manage. "I just… I need to go. The thing. The very important thing. It's calling me."

You don't wait for him to respond. You turn and walk away, not running, because running would be too obvious, but walking very quickly, your mind a tornado of panic and regret and the image of Jungwon's smile fading as he says the words that just shattered your entire world.

You guys make a cute couple.

He thinks you are a couple. Yang Jungwon, the boy you have been pining over for four months, the boy you wrote a three-page love letter to, the boy who poked your cheek in the library and called you cute, he thinks you are dating Lee Heeseung.

You are trapped. You are so, so trapped.

By the time you reach your dorm room, you are practically vibrating with suppressed emotion. You close the door, lean your back against it, and press your hands to your face.

You guys make a cute couple.

"We're not a couple," you whisper to your empty room. "We're not a couple. We're humi-nemies. That's a real thing that I definitely didn't just make up because I can't communicate like a normal human being."

Your room does not respond.

You slide down the door until you are sitting on the floor, your legs stretched out in front of you. You look ridiculous. You feel ridiculous. Your entire life has become a comedy of errors, and you are the punchline.

But even as you sit there, drowning in self-pity and the lingering scent of vanilla latte, you can't quite forget the look on Heeseung's face when he poured his coffee over his head. The way he smiled at you, open and unguarded. The way he said I couldn't let you cry alone like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Why is he like that? Why is he so… him?

You don't have an answer. And that, more than anything else, is starting to scare you.

The library has become your second home.

Not by choice, exactly. More by necessity. The library is neutral territory, a place where you can exist without fear of coffee-related disasters, unexpected bulletin board ambushes, or tall informatics students appearing out of thin air to pour beverages on themselves in acts of solidarity. The library has rules. The library has silence. The library has mercifully dim lighting that hides the dark circles under your eyes from three consecutive nights of restless sleep.

It has been four days since the coffee incident. Four days since Jungwon looked at you in your matching shirt and said those fateful words: You guys make a cute couple. Four days of replaying that moment over and over in your head, analyzing every micro-expression on his face, every nuance in his voice, trying to determine if there was something else there, something like disappointment, or regret, or maybe even jealousy.

You have come to no conclusions. Your analytical skills, apparently, are useless when applied to matters of the heart.

So you do what any reasonable, emotionally overwhelmed STEM student would do: you throw yourself into your studies with the intensity of someone trying to forget their entire life. You have read the same paragraph about cellular respiration seventeen times. You have highlighted so many sentences that your textbook looks like a rainbow has thrown up on it. You have consumed approximately four hundred milligrams of caffeine in the past three hours alone, and your hands shake slightly as you turn another page.

It is fine. Everything is fine. You are fine.

"You're going to burn a hole through that book if you keep staring at it like that."

The voice comes from directly above you, and you jolt so hard that your highlighter goes skidding across the table and rolls onto the floor. You look up, your heart already doing that familiar, traitorous leap, and there he is.

Jungwon.

He stands beside your table with a gentle smile on his face, his backpack slung over one shoulder, his hair slightly messy like he has been running his fingers through it.

"Sorry," he says, stooping to pick up your fallen highlighter. "I didn't mean to startle you. You just looked so intense. Like you were trying to intimidate the biology into making sense."

"The biology is winning," you admit, accepting the highlighter with a hand that trembles slightly. From the caffeine. Definitely from the caffeine. "I've been reading the same page for twenty minutes and I still have no idea what oxidative phosphorylation is."

"It sounds like a spell from Harry Potter."

"That's what I've been thinking! But apparently it's something about electrons and I just-" You gesture vaguely at the chaos of papers spread across your table. "I'm losing the war."

Jungwon laughs, that bright, sunny sound that never fails to make your heart flutter. "Mind if I join you? I've been looking for a quiet spot to study, and honestly, sitting next to someone who's fighting for their life against biology sounds way more entertaining than sitting alone."

Your heart, the same heart that belongs to this boy, that has belonged to him since the moment he slid gummy bears across a library table at 2 AM, screams YES with the force of a thousand suns. Your brain, the traitorous organ that got you into this mess in the first place, reminds you of all the reasons this is a terrible idea.

"You probably don't want to sit with me," you say, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. "I'm not very good company right now. I've been mainlining caffeine and I think I can hear colors."

"That sounds like excellent company." Jungwon pulls out the chair across from you and sits down without waiting for permission. "What colors can you hear?"

"Biology textbook beige, mostly. It sounds like despair."

He laughs again, and the sound settles into your chest like a warm blanket. This is fine. This is okay. You can study with Jungwon without making it weird. You have done it before, you have spent a whole hour in this very library, watching him take notes and push his glasses up his nose and poke your cheek with that devastating smile. You can do it again. You are a professional. You are a master of emotional compartmentalization.

For a while, you actually do study. Or at least, you both pretend to. Jungwon opens his philosophy book and starts reading, his brow furrowed in concentration, his pen tapping absently against his notebook. You stare at your biology textbook with renewed determination, willing the words to make sense.

But your eyes keep drifting up, against your will, over the top of your book, to the boy sitting across from you. The way the library light catches the highlights in his hair. The way he bites his lower lip when he is thinking. The way his fingers curl around his pen, elegant and deliberate.

"You're doing it again," Jungwon says, not looking up from his book.

Heat floods your cheeks. "I'm not doing anything. I'm reading about oxidative phosphorylation. It's very interesting. Lots of electrons."

"Y/N." He looks up then, and his expression is softer than you expected. Gentler. "It's okay. I told you before, right? I don't mind being looked at like that."

"Like what?"

"Like I'm something worth looking at." He sets down his pen and folds his hands on the table, giving you his full attention. "You have a very particular way of looking at people. Did you know that? It's like you're trying to memorize them. Every detail. Like you're cataloguing things that most people wouldn't notice."

Your heart pounds so hard you are certain he can hear it. You want to say I'm only looking at you like this because it's you. But the words won't come. "That's… that's my STEM brain. I'm very analytical. I notice things. It's a curse."

"I don't think it's a curse." Jungwon's voice is quiet, thoughtful. "I think it's actually really special. Most people don't pay attention like that. Most people look at you and see what they want to see, not what's actually there." He pauses, his eyes searching your face. "You're different, Y/N. You actually see people."

The words hang in the air between you, heavy with meaning. This is it. This is the moment. The conversation has shifted into something deeper, something more intimate, and you can feel the confession building in your chest like a wave about to break.

You can tell him. Right now. You can tell him everything, the letter, the misunderstanding, the way your heart has been his since the very beginning. You can clear the air and finally, finally be free of the tangled web you have accidentally woven around yourself.

"Jungwon," you say, and your voice comes out steadier than you expect. "There's something I need to tell you. About Heeseung. About the confession. About everything. It's not what you think. It's never been what you think."

Jungwon's expression flickers, surprise, confusion, something else you can't quite name. "What do you mean?"

"I mean-" You take a deep breath, gathering your courage. "The letter. The one I gave to Heeseung. It wasn't-"

"Wait." Jungwon holds up a hand, stopping you mid-sentence. "Before you say anything else, can I say something first?"

You nod, your heart hammering.

Jungwon leans back in his chair, his eyes never leaving your face. "I've been watching you and Heeseung," he says slowly. "The past few weeks. Ever since he told me about the confession. And I've never seen him like this before."

Your stomach drops. "Like what?"

"Like… happy. Genuinely happy. Not the surface-level people-pleasing happiness he shows everyone else, but something real. Something that goes all the way down." Jungwon's voice is earnest, almost protective. "Heeseung is my friend. One of my best friends. And I know what people say about him, that he's a player, a womanizer, that he'll charm you and then move on. But that's not who he really is."

You don't know what to say. You don't know where this is going. But you can't seem to interrupt, can't seem to find the words to stop him.

"Heeseung is…" Jungwon pauses, searching for the right words. "He's the guy who will stay up all night helping you debug code even when he has his own assignments due. He's the guy who remembers everyone's birthday and always gets them a gift that shows he actually paid attention to what they like. He's the guy who can't say no to anyone, ever, because he's so terrified of disappointing people that he'd rather burn himself out than let someone down."

He smiles, but there is something sad in it. "Girls think he's flirting with them because he's nice to everyone. And he won't correct them because he doesn't want to hurt their feelings. So he just… lets them believe what they want to believe, and then he feels guilty when they get attached, and the whole thing becomes this cycle he can't break out of. It's not malice. It's the exact opposite of malice, it's too much kindness, too much caring, and not enough ability to set boundaries."

Your throat is dry. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I think you're different." Jungwon meets your eyes, and his gaze is steady and sincere. "I think you actually see him. Not the reputation, not the rumors, but the real him. And I think he's starting to see the real you too." He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer. Almost fragile. "So I need you to promise me something."

"What?"

"Take care of him. Please." Jungwon's smile is gentle, but there is something behind it, something that looks a lot like pain, carefully hidden, expertly concealed. "He's been alone for a long time, even when he's surrounded by people. I don't think he even realizes how lonely he is. But you… you could change that. I can see it."

The wave of emotion that crashes over you is so overwhelming that you can't speak. This isn't how this conversation is supposed to go. You are supposed to confess to Jungwon. You are supposed to clear up the misunderstanding. You are supposed to finally tell him the truth.

Who knows - Daniel Caesar playing now

But Jungwon isn't finished.

"There's something else I should tell you," he says, and his voice drops even lower, barely above a whisper. "Something I probably shouldn't say. But I think I need to, or I'll regret it forever."

"What is it?"

Jungwon looks down at his hands, folded on the table. When he speaks, his voice is steady, but you can hear the effort it takes to keep it that way.

"I like you."

The words don't make sense. They can't make sense. You hear them, understand them individually, but your brain refuses to assemble them into a coherent meaning.

"What?" you breathe.

"I like you," Jungwon repeats, and now he looks up at you, and his eyes are so full of something, regret, maybe, or longing, or both, that it makes your chest ache. "From the first day of philosophy class. You sat in the front row, near the window, and you had like eight different colored highlighters lined up on your desk, and you took notes so furiously that your pen ran out of ink halfway through the lecture. I remember you made this little frustrated noise and searched your bag for a spare, and you looked so genuinely distraught that I almost offered you mine."

The library. The philosophy lecture. The day you ran out of ink. You remember it, vaguely, distantly, a moment so mundane you never thought about it again. But Jungwon remembers. Jungwon has been watching you, just like you have been watching him.

"I noticed you after that," he continues, and his voice is achingly soft. "The way you always sat in the same spot. The way you organized your notes. The way you bit your lip when you were concentrating. I kept telling myself I'd talk to you, but I could never find the right moment. And then midterms happened, and we were both in the library at 2 AM, and I saw you looking exhausted and stressed, and I just…" He laughs, but it is a sad sound. "I gave you gummy bears because I couldn't think of anything else to do. It felt so stupid at the time. Who gives gummy bears to a stranger at 2 AM?"

"A stranger who hadn't slept in thirty-six hours and was about to cry over organic chemistry," you whisper. "It wasn't stupid. It was the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me."

Jungwon's smile flickers. "I was working up the courage to actually talk to you. To ask you out properly. But then…" He trails off, and his expression shifts, something closing off behind his eyes. "Then Heeseung told me about the confession. And I saw the way he looked when he talked about you. And I knew… I knew I'd missed my chance."

No. No, no, no. This is wrong. This is all wrong. He hasn't missed his chance. The chance is right here, right now, sitting in front of him with a heart full of feelings that have always been meant for him.

"Jungwon," you say, and your voice cracks. "The letter… it wasn't-"

"I'm not telling you this to make things awkward," Jungwon interrupts gently. "I'm telling you because I want you to know. I like you. I really, really like you. And sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I'd been braver, if I'd said something sooner, if I hadn't waited until it was too late." He pauses, and his eyes meet yours, and the weight of what he says presses down on your chest like a physical force. "But I'm glad it's Heeseung. He deserves someone like you. And you deserve someone who sees you the way he does."

"You don't understand," you try, desperation creeping into your voice. "It wasn't supposed to be Heeseung. The letter was meant for-"

"Take care of him," Jungwon says again, and this time his voice is final. Resolute. Like he has already made his peace with something you haven't even realized he was struggling with. "That's all I ask."

He stands up, gathering his book and his notebook, and you watch him with a growing sense of panic. This can't be how it ends. You can't let him walk away without knowing the truth.

But then he pauses, looking down at you with that devastating smile, the one that crinkles the corners of his eyes and makes your heart do somersaults, and he reaches out and gently pokes your cheek.

"Boop," he says softly.

The gesture that once made you giddy with joy now feels like a knife twisting in your chest.

"Liking you was never a waste of my time, Y/N," he says, and his voice is tender in a way that breaks your heart into a thousand pieces. "I don't regret it. Not even for a second."

And then he walks away, and you are left alone at your table with a biology textbook you haven't read and a heart that is shattering into so many fragments you don't know if you will ever be able to put it back together.

I like you.

I gave you gummy bears because I couldn't think of anything else to do.

Liking you was never a waste of my time.

He liked you. He liked you this whole time. All those months of pining, of yearning, of writing and rewriting that letter and he has been feeling the same thing. You have been two ships passing in the night, each carrying the same cargo of unspoken feelings, and you have missed each other by a margin so narrow it is almost laughable.

But it isn't laughable. It is devastating. It is the most devastating thing that has ever happened to you, and you are sitting in the middle of a silent library trying not to fall apart.

You don't remember packing up your things. You don't remember leaving the library. One moment you are staring at the spot where Jungwon was sitting, and the next you are walking across campus in the fading evening light, your backpack hanging heavy from your shoulders, your feet carrying you automatically toward your dorm.

And then the tears come.

They start slow, a burning sensation behind your eyes, a tightness in your throat. You try to swallow them down, try to hold them back, but they won't be contained. By the time you reach the pathway between the science building and the student union, you are crying openly, tears streaming down your cheeks in hot, relentless rivers.

This isn't a romantic cry. This isn't the kind of crying that happens in movies, where the heroine looks beautiful and tragic and a single perfect tear rolls down her cheek. This is an ugly cry. A messy, hiccuping, snotty cry that makes your nose run and your shoulders shake and your breath come in ragged gasps. You are crying because the boy you liked liked you back, and instead of ending up together like you were supposed to, everything has gone terribly, irreversibly wrong.

You stop walking. You can't keep going. Your legs won't carry you any further. You lean against the rough bark of a tree and press your hands to your face, trying to muffle the sounds that escape from your throat.

You cry for the letter you sent to the wrong person. You cry for the courage it took to write it, and the cowardice that has kept you from correcting your mistake. You cry for Jungwon, who liked you and gave up on you because he thought you wanted someone else. You cry for yourself, for the hopeless romantic who dreamed of grand gestures and perfect moments and has ended up with nothing but misunderstandings and a heavy heart that breaks into smaller and smaller pieces.

You cry until your throat is raw and your eyes are swollen and you don't think you have any tears left to shed.

And then a voice, gentle, concerned, painfully familiar, cuts through the fog of your grief.

"Y/N?"

You look up.

Lee Heeseung stands on the pathway a few feet away, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, his expression shifting from casual curiosity to alarm as he takes in your tear-streaked face and trembling shoulders.

"Hey," he says, and his voice is softer than you have ever heard it. "Hey, what's wrong? What happened?"

You should make an excuse. You should say you are fine, that it's allergies, that you just got something in your eye. You should tell him to leave you alone, to give you space, to let you fall apart in private.

But the words won't come. All that comes out is another sob, and your knees buckle slightly, and then Heeseung is there, his hands on your shoulders, steadying you.

"It's okay," he says, even though he doesn't know what is wrong, even though you haven't explained anything. "It's okay. I've got you."

"No, you don't understand," you choke out. "Everything is messed up. Everything is so messed up and it's all my fault."

"Then we'll fix it." He says it with such simple certainty, like it is the most obvious thing in the world. "Whatever it is, we'll fix it."

"You can't fix this. No one can fix this."

"Maybe not." Heeseung's hands move from your shoulders to your upper arms, his grip gentle but grounding. "But I can be here. I can listen. And I can promise you that whatever it is, you don't have to deal with it alone."

Something in his voice, the steadiness, the sincerity, the complete lack of judgment, cracks through the last of your defenses. You stop trying to hold yourself together. You let the tears fall, let your shoulders shake, let yourself be exactly as broken as you feel.

And Heeseung doesn't flinch. He doesn't look uncomfortable or try to escape or offer meaningless platitudes. He just stands there, his hands warm on your arms, his presence solid and unwavering, letting you cry without asking for explanations or justifications.

After a while, you don't know how long, the tears begin to subside. Your breathing steadies. The storm inside you quiets to a dull, aching calm. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hand, suddenly aware of how awful you must look, how puffy and red and wrecked.

"I'm sorry," you whisper. "Your jacket is probably wet."

"My jacket has survived worse." Heeseung's voice is gentle. "Come on. Let's sit down somewhere."

He guides you to a bench nearby, a small wooden bench tucked under a cluster of trees, partially hidden from the main pathway. You sit down heavily, your legs still shaky, and Heeseung sits beside you, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his body but not so close that it feels invasive.

Dream - Keshi playing now

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. The evening settles around you, the sky shifting from pale blue to soft pink to deeper purple. A few stars start to appear, faint pinpricks of light against the darkening canvas overhead. The campus is quiet, most students already back in their dorms or the library, and the only sounds are the distant hum of traffic and the occasional rustle of leaves in the breeze.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Heeseung asks eventually.

"Not really."

"Okay." He doesn't push. He doesn't pry. He just sits there, his shoulder almost touching yours, his presence a quiet comfort in the gathering dark.

"You're not going to ask questions?"

"You'll tell me when you're ready. Or you won't. Either way, I'm not going anywhere."

The simplicity of it, the uncomplicated, undemanding kindness of it, makes your eyes sting with fresh tears. You blink them back, determined not to start crying again.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" you ask, your voice hoarse.

Heeseung turns his head to look at you, and his expression is unreadable. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Because… because I'm a disaster. Because I've been weird and awkward and I ran away from you and hid behind bulletin boards and spilled coffee on myself and I can't seem to do anything right. Because you barely know me, and what you do know is mostly just me making a fool of myself."

Heeseung is quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he smiles. Not the smirk or the teasing grin, but something softer. Something realer.

"Can you guess the movie I've watched recently?"

The question is so random that you blink. "What?"

"A movie I've watched recently. Can you guess?"

"Am I supposed to?"

"No, because I've never told you." He leans back on the bench, tilting his face up toward the emerging stars. "I don't usually tell people. It's kind of embarrassing."

You sniffle, curiosity temporarily overriding your grief. "What is it?"

"To All the Boys I've Loved Before."

You stare at him. "The Netflix movie? The one with Lara Jean?"

"The very same." He doesn't look embarrassed at all. If anything, he looks almost proud. "I've watched it like eight times. Maybe nine. I lost count somewhere around the sixth viewing."

"But… that's a teen romance. That's a movie about fake dating and love letters and-" You stop. "Oh."

"Yeah." Heeseung's smile turns wry. "The parallels weren't lost on me. Girl writes love letters she never meant to send. Letters end up reaching the boys. Chaos ensues." He glances at you sideways. "Sound familiar?"

Your heart does something strange, something fluttery and uncertain. "Why did you watch it?"

"Because Lara Jean is a hopeless romantic who's terrified of actually living the romance she dreams about." Heeseung's voice is thoughtful, almost contemplative. "She's brave on paper but scared in real life. She has all these feelings and no idea what to do with them. And she's convinced that if she actually tries to be vulnerable, everything will fall apart."

He turns to look at you fully, his dark eyes catching the faint glow of the distant streetlamps. "Does any of that sound familiar to you?"

Your breath catches in your throat.

"You write beautiful letters," Heeseung continues, his voice dropping lower. "You pour your heart onto paper because it's safer than saying things out loud. You make graphs about video game balance because you're passionate and detail-oriented and you can't help but go all-in on the things you care about. You talk to your plants and name your succulents and hide behind bulletin boards because real life is scary and rejection is terrifying and it's easier to dream about love than to actually risk your heart for it."

You can't speak. You can barely breathe. He is describing you, not the surface-level you, not the "weird first-year STEM student" you, but the real you. The you that lives in daydreams and love letters and the safety of your own imagination.

"The letter you wrote wasn't just a confession," Heeseung says quietly. "It was a work of art. The calligraphy, the words, the way you talked about noticing small things and finding beauty in ordinary moments, that's not something you write to just anyone. That's something you write when you've been paying attention. When you really see someone."

He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is almost a whisper.

"You remind me of her. Lara Jean. The girl who was so busy dreaming about love that she almost missed it when it showed up in front of her. You are Lara Jean. My Lara Jean."

Your heart races. Your palms are sweaty. The evening has grown dark around you, the stars fully emerged now, and Heeseung's face is half in shadow, half illuminated by the distant campus lights.

"Why are you telling me this?" you whisper.

"Because I think you're scared," Heeseung says simply. "I think you've been scared since the moment you handed me that letter. I think you're scared of what it means, scared of being vulnerable, scared of letting someone actually see you. And I want you to know that I see you anyway. Even when you're trying to hide."

He reaches out, and his hand finds yours in the darkness. His fingers are warm, his grip gentle.

"You don't have to be scared with me," he says. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to hurt you. And I'm not going to stop being interested just because you're awkward or clumsy or you spill coffee on yourself or you ramble about League of Legends until you run out of breath." He squeezes your hand. "That's the stuff I like about you. That's the stuff that makes you real."

You stare at him, your eyes still swollen from crying, your nose still red, your heart still aching from the conversation with Jungwon. And yet, sitting here on this bench with Heeseung's hand in yours and his words echoing in your ears, something shifts. Something changes.

"I don't know what I'm doing," you admit, your voice barely audible. "I don't know what I want. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel."

"Then don't figure it out tonight." Heeseung stands up, still holding your hand, and gently pulls you to your feet. "Come on. Let's get you back to your dorm. You need rest and probably some water. Crying is dehydrating."

Despite everything, the heartbreak, the confusion, the complete emotional chaos of the past hour, you almost smile. "That's a very practical observation."

"I'm an engineering student. We're practical by nature." He falls into step beside you, your hands still joined, and begins walking you toward your dorm building. "Also, I may have done some research on crying. You know, for science."

"You researched crying for science?"

"It was for a psych elective. But also for life skills. You'd be surprised how many people don't know that emotional tears contain stress hormones that need to be flushed out of your system. Crying is literally good for you."

"You're very weird," you say, but there's no bite to it.

"Coming from the girl who named her succulent Jason, I'll take that as a compliment."

You walk in silence for a while, the campus quiet and peaceful around you. The stars are bright overhead, and the air is cool against your tear-stained cheeks, and Heeseung's hand is warm in yours, steady and reassuring.

When you reach your dorm building, he stops at the entrance, turning to face you. The light from the lobby spills through the glass doors, illuminating his features, the sharp line of his jaw, the gentle curve of his lips, the way his dark eyes fix on your face like you are something worth looking at.

"Y/N," he says.

"Yeah?"

"I meant what I said earlier. You don't have to figure everything out tonight. You don't have to have all the answers. But whatever you're going through, whatever made you cry like that… I hope you know you can talk to me. About anything. Even if it's hard. Even if it's confusing. Even if it's not what you think I want to hear."

Your throat tightens. He has no idea how relevant those words are. He has no idea that the thing that made you cry is, in part, him or at least, the situation he is unknowingly caught up in.

"Thank you," you whisper.

Heeseung smiles, that same soft smile that appeared when he poured coffee over his head, when he called you a little mouse, when he listened to you talk about video games for fifteen minutes straight. And then, before you can react, he leans forward and presses a gentle kiss to your cheek.

It isn't romantic or it isn't supposed to be. It is brief and soft and chaste, the kind of kiss you might give a friend who is hurting. But his lips are warm against your skin, and when he pulls back, your cheek is tingling, and your heart does that traitorous flutter again.

"Goodnight, little mouse," he says. "Get some sleep."

And then he walks away, his hands in his pockets, his silhouette disappearing into the darkness of the campus night.

You stand there for a long moment, your hand pressed to your cheek where his lips have been, your heart a tangled mess of grief and confusion and something else, something warm and growing, something you don't want to name.

This is supposed to be simple. You are supposed to like Jungwon. You have liked Jungwon for four months. You wrote him a letter and dreamt about him and catalogued his habits and built an entire future around the idea of him.

But Jungwon walked away. Jungwon made his choice. Jungwon told you to take care of Heeseung and then poked your cheek one last time, a goodbye disguised as a signature gesture.

And Heeseung… Heeseung poured coffee on himself to make you feel less alone. Heeseung held your hand and told you that you were his Lara Jean. Heeseung kissed your cheek and called you little mouse and looked at you like you were something precious.

You don't know what to do anymore. You don't know what to feel. The map you have been following, the one that leads straight to Jungwon has crumbled in your hands, and now you stand in unfamiliar territory with no compass and no guide.

You push open the door to your dorm building and walk to your room in a daze, your mind still spinning. When you finally collapse onto your bed, still in your clothes, still wearing the tear tracks on your cheeks, you stare up at the ceiling and try to make sense of the chaos in your heart.

Jungwon liked you.

Jungwon gave up on you.

Heeseung said he wouldn't go anywhere.

Heeseung kissed your cheek.

You press your fingers to the spot where his lips have been and close your eyes.

"I don't know what I'm doing," you whisper to your empty room. "I really, really don't know what I'm doing."

Your room, as always, offers no answers. But somewhere in the distance, you can almost hear Heeseung's voice: You don't have to figure everything out tonight.

So you don't. You let the exhaustion pull you under, let sleep claim you, and try very hard not to think about the fact that the boy who just comforted you through your heartbreak is the same boy who might be slowly, quietly, unexpectedly stealing your heart.

The university, in its infinite and questionable wisdom, has decided that what the student body really needs is a three-day trip to a skiing station.

You received the email three weeks ago, skimmed it with the vague interest of someone who has never skied in her life and has no intention of starting now, and promptly archived it into the dark abyss of your inbox alongside seventeen other emails you will never open again. The trip is optional, after all. Attendance is not mandatory. You can simply stay on campus, enjoy the quiet emptiness of the dorms, and continue your ongoing mission of avoiding all tall informatics students while trying to piece together the shattered remnants of your romantic life.

It is a perfect plan. Flawless. Foolproof.

Until Yunjin gets involved.

"You're going," Yunjin says, standing in the doorway of your dorm room with her arms crossed and her expression one of immovable determination. She has just finished reading the email over your shoulder, and the glint in her eye is the same one she gets when she is about to bulldoze through every objection you can possibly raise.

"I'm not going," you reply, not looking up from your biology textbook. "I don't ski. I don't snowboard. I don't even own a proper winter coat. The heaviest thing I own is a cardigan, and I'm pretty sure it's made of acrylic."

"Then we'll get you a coat."

"Yunjin."

"Y/N."

"I can't go to a skiing station. I have studying to do. I have lab reports to write. I have approximately eight hundred flashcards to review before the next exam. My social life is already a disaster zone, I don't need to add frostbite and potential avalanche-related injuries to my list of problems."

Yunjin steps fully into the room, closes the door behind her, and fixes you with a look that you recognize as her "I'm about to say something brutally honest and you're not going to like it" expression. "You've been moping for two weeks."

"I haven't been moping. I've been processing."

"You've been moping. You've been staring at walls, listening to sad music, and eating instant ramen for every meal. I saw you crying over a nature documentary the other day because the baby penguin got separated from its family."

"That was emotionally manipulative editing! They set it to sad piano music! Anyone would have cried!"

"Y/N." Yunjin sits down on the edge of your bed, her voice softening. "I know about Jungwon. I know he told you he liked you and then walked away. I know you've been carrying that around like a weight on your chest. But hiding in your room isn't going to make it better. You need to get out. You need fresh air. You need to do something that isn't just staring at the same four walls and replaying the same conversation over and over in your head."

You set down your highlighter. "What if I run into Jungwon on the trip?"

"Then you'll be a normal human being about it. Or you'll be weird and awkward, which is your default state anyway, so nothing will have changed."

"Comforting."

"What if you run into Heeseung?"

The question catches you off guard. Your hand stills on your textbook, and you feel that familiar, complicated flutter in your chest, the one that has been appearing more and more frequently whenever someone mentions his name. "I don't know. I haven't really talked to him since…" Since the night he kissed your cheek. Since the night you realized that maybe, just maybe, your heart is no longer as firmly in Jungwon's camp as you always assumed.

"Exactly," Yunjin says, as if your silence has proven her point. "You need to figure things out. And you can't do that if you're hiding in your dorm room subsisting on sodium and self-pity. The ski trip is three days. Three days of fresh mountain air, hot chocolate, and the chance to actually talk to people face-to-face instead of through a fog of depression ramen."

"The ramen isn't that bad."

"The ramen is a cry for help."

You are quiet for a moment, staring at the pages of your textbook without really seeing them. Yunjin is right. You know she is right. You have been hiding from Jungwon, from Heeseung, from the tangled mess of feelings that you still haven't sorted out. The past two weeks have been a blur of avoidance and overthinking, and you are no closer to clarity than you were on that bench under the stars.

"Fine," you say finally, the word escaping before you can stop it. "I'll go."

Yunjin's face lights up. "Really?"

"But I'm not skiing. I refuse to ski. I'll sit in the lodge and drink hot chocolate and judge people from the window like a ghost."

"That's the spirit."

The morning of the trip arrives with a gray sky and a biting chill in the air. You stand outside the student union with your hastily packed duffel bag, which contains exactly zero items suitable for winter sports because your wardrobe is approximately eighty percent oversized sweaters and twenty percent academic stress, and watch your breath fog in the cold morning air.

The bus is already parked at the curb, a massive coach with the university logo emblazoned on the side. Students mill around, dragging suitcases and carrying thermoses of coffee, their chatter filling the air with a buzz of excitement. You spot a few familiar faces from your classes, a group of engineering students comparing snowboards, and your heart lurches, a flash of dark hair that might be Jungwon disappearing into the bus.

Yunjin has already boarded, abandoning you for a seat near the front because she wants to "network with the economics majors" or some other nonsense that you can't relate to. You are alone, clutching your bag and wondering if it is too late to fake a sudden illness, when a voice speaks directly behind you.

"Need help with your bag?"

You spin around so fast that your duffel bag swings in a wide arc and nearly takes out an innocent bystander. The innocent bystander, thankfully, has very good reflexes. He ducks, straightens up, and smiles at you with that familiar, devastating smile that has been haunting your dreams for weeks.

Heeseung.

He wears a black puffer jacket that makes his shoulders look even broader, a gray beanie pulled low over his hair, and a pair of snow boots that actually look like they belong on a ski trip. His cheeks are slightly pink from the cold, and his eyes are bright with that unshakeable, inexplicable cheerfulness that seems to follow him everywhere.

"Hi," you say, because your brain has apparently decided that monosyllables are all you can manage.

"Hi," he replies, his smile widening. "Fancy meeting you here. I thought you said you were photosensitive and couldn't be exposed to direct light. Is snow-light different from regular light?"

"That was a lie and you know it."

"I know." He reaches out and gently takes your duffel bag from your white-knuckled grip. "Come on. Let's find seats together. The bus is filling up."

"I… what… together?"

"Unless you already have a seatmate?"

Yunjin has abandoned you. You have no allies, no escape routes, and no valid excuses. "No," you admit. "I don't."

"Great." Heeseung starts walking toward the bus, your bag slung easily over his shoulder like it weighs nothing. "Fair warning, I'm a chronic window-seat person. I need to be able to stare dramatically at the scenery while contemplating the meaning of life."

"That's very specific."

"It's a lifestyle choice."

You follow him onto the bus, your heart doing that complicated gymnastics routine that it has perfected over the past few weeks. Heeseung navigates through the aisle with practiced ease, nodding at people who call out to him, exchanging quick greetings, but never stopping until he reaches an empty row near the middle of the bus.

"Window seat's yours," he says, gesturing for you to go first.

"I thought you said you were a chronic window-seat person."

"I am. But I'm making an exception." He stows your bag in the overhead compartment, then steps back to let you pass. "Consider it part of the whole starting slow thing. Sacrifices must be made."

You slide into the window seat, your heart hammering, and Heeseung settles in beside you. The seats are closer together than you expected. His shoulder brushes against yours, and even through the layers of your coats, you can feel the warmth of his body. You press yourself slightly closer to the window, trying to create more space, but the universe, in its infinite comedic wisdom, has clearly designed this bus to maximize accidental physical contact.

"Comfortable?" Heeseung asks, his voice tinged with amusement.

"Extremely. Never been more comfortable in my life. This is peak comfort."

"You're pressed against the window like you're trying to phase through it."

"The window is cold. The glass is… nice. I like glass."

Heeseung laughs, that genuine, surprised laugh that you heard in the cafeteria and the café and on the bench under the stars. "You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"The rambling thing. The nervous rambling thing." He turns in his seat slightly, facing you. "You know you don't have to be nervous around me, right? I thought we established this. Coffee disaster solidarity. Matching shirts. The whole thing."

"I'm not nervous," you lie. "I'm just… the bus is very… bus-like. It's making me feel things."

"Bus-like feelings."

"Exactly."

Heeseung shakes his head, still smiling, and pulls a pair of earbuds from his jacket pocket. "Here. Music helps me relax on long trips. We can share if you want."

He offers you one of his earbuds, holding it out between his fingers like it is something precious. The gesture is so simple, so unexpectedly intimate, that your breath catches in your throat. Sharing earbuds means sitting close enough for the cord to reach. Sharing earbuds means listening to his music, hearing the songs he likes, experiencing something together in the quiet space between words.

"Okay," you whisper, taking the earbud.

Your fingers brush against his, just for a second, and the contact sends a spark of electricity up your arm. You quickly insert the earbud, focusing very hard on not thinking about how close he is, how warm his shoulder feels against yours, how the faint scent of his cologne fills the space between you.

"What are we listening to?" you ask.

"A playlist I made," Heeseung says, scrolling through his phone. "It's kind of all over the place. Some indie, some R&B, some stuff I found on TikTok that got stuck in my head. I'm not very organized with my music."

"That's shocking. I assumed an informatics engineering student would have their music meticulously categorized by genre, mood, and decade of release."

"You assumed wrong. My playlists are chaos. This one is literally called vibes idk."

"That's the worst playlist name I've ever heard."

"It's an accurate playlist name. You'll see."

Lovers - Anna of the North playing now

He presses play, and music fills your ear.

"We should play a game," Heeseung says after a few songs have played. "To pass the time."

"What kind of game?"

"Twenty questions. But the version where you can skip questions if you don't want to answer. No pressure, no judgment, no awkwardness."

You consider this. Twenty questions with Heeseung is a dangerous proposition. There are so many things you don't want to answer, so many topics you have been carefully avoiding, so many truths that are still tangled up in misunderstandings and misplaced letters. But there is also something disarming about the way he offers the terms, no pressure, no judgment, no awkwardness, like he genuinely cares about making you feel safe.

"Fine," you say. "But you go first."

"Okay." Heeseung leans back in his seat, his shoulder still pressed against yours, his expression thoughtful. "What's your favorite movie of all time?"

"Pride and Prejudice. The 2005 version with Keira Knightley."

"The hand flex scene?"

You turn to stare at him. "You know about the hand flex scene?"

"Every person with a functioning heart knows about the hand flex scene. It's cinema history. Mr. Darcy flexing his hand after helping Elizabeth into the carriage because he's so overwhelmed by touching her? Iconic. Revolutionary. I think about it at least once a week."

You don't know what to do with this information. Lee Heeseung, reputed womanizer, hot informatics engineering student, the guy who is currently wearing a beanie and looking unfairly attractive in bus lighting, knows about the hand flex scene from Pride and Prejudice. He thinks about it weekly.

"You're very strange," you say.

"I prefer culturally literate."

"You said you've watched To All the Boys I've Loved Before at least six times."

"That's one of my favorite modern movies. Pride and Prejudice is my favorite classic. I contain multitudes." He nudges your shoulder with his. "Ask me something else."

The questions flow back and forth as the bus winds its way out of the city and into the mountains. You learn that Heeseung has an older brother who he FaceTimes every Sunday, that he chose informatics engineering because he loves the logic of coding but secretly dreams of being a music producer, that he loves Shin ramyeon and has created his own way of eating his instant noodles. He learns that you started collecting highlighters in middle school and now own over forty different colors, that you have named every plant in your dorm room after characters from classic literature, that you once won a poetry contest in high school but never told anyone because you were embarrassed.

The landscape outside the window shifts as the bus climbs higher into the mountains. Snow begins to appear, first in patches, then in sweeping blankets that cover the trees and the slopes and the distant peaks. The sky is a pale winter blue, and the sun glints off the snow.

"Next question," Heeseung says. "What's something you're scared of?"

The question hangs in the air between you, weightier than the ones that have come before. You could give a surface-level answer, spiders, heights, the dark, but something about the quiet intimacy of the bus, the warmth of his shoulder against yours, the gentle music in your ear, makes you want to be honest.

"Being seen," you say quietly. "Really seen. By someone who matters."

Heeseung doesn't respond right away. When he does, his voice is soft. "Why?"

"Because if someone really sees you, they might not like what they find. It's easier to stay on the surface. To be the version of yourself that you can control." You pause, watching the snow-covered trees blur past the window. "I'm good at dreaming about things. Imagining them. Writing them down. But actually doing them… actually putting myself out there… that's the scary part."

"That's why you write letters," Heeseung says. It isn't a question.

"Yeah. It's safer on paper. You can edit a letter. You can cross things out and start over. You can't do that with real life."

Heeseung is quiet for a long moment, and when he speaks, his words are careful and measured.

"For what it's worth," he says, "I've been seeing you for a few weeks now. The real you, I mean. The one who rambles and spills coffee and hides behind bulletin boards. And I haven't found anything I don't like yet."

Your heart stutters. You don't know what to say, so you say nothing, just let the music fill the space between you and try to memorize the exact timbre of his voice saying those words.

The skiing station is everything the brochure promised and more. A sprawling complex of wooden lodges and snow-covered slopes, nestled in a valley surrounded by towering peaks. The air is crisp and clean, carrying the scent of pine and woodsmoke, and the snow glitteres under the afternoon sun like a carpet of crushed diamonds.

You step off the bus and immediately sink three inches into a snowdrift.

"Excellent start," Yunjin says, appearing at your elbow and grinning. "Really graceful. Ten out of ten."

"I didn't see it."

"It's snow. It's everywhere. How did you not see it?"

You extract your foot from the drift and shake the snow off your boot with as much dignity as you can muster. "I was distracted by the scenery."

"Uh-huh." Yunjin's grin widens. "And by the scenery, you mean the six-foot-tall informatics student you spent the entire bus ride cuddled up with?"

"We weren't cuddling. We were sharing earbuds. There's a difference."

"There's really not."

You grab your duffel bag from the luggage compartment and follow the crowd toward the main lodge, your cheeks burning despite the cold. The lodge is a massive timber-frame building with a soaring ceiling, a massive stone fireplace, and windows that look out over the slopes. Students are already scattered across the lobby, checking in, collecting room keys, and making plans for the afternoon.

Your room is small but cozy, with a window that faces the mountains and a bed that looks impossibly inviting. You dump your bag on the floor, plug in your phone to charge, and then immediately find yourself staring out the window at the snow-covered landscape.

Yunjin finds you an hour later, dragging you out of your room and into the lodge's main café for hot chocolate. The café is warm and bustling, filled with students comparing ski passes and swapping stories about near-misses on the slopes. You find a table near the window, and Yunjin wastes no time in grilling you about the bus ride.

"So," she says, stirring her hot chocolate with a cinnamon stick, "Heeseung."

"What about him?"

"You spent three hours cuddled up with him on a bus."

"Sharing earbuds is not cuddling."

"You let him listen to music with you. You played twenty questions. You told him about your highlighter collection and the poetry contest you never told anyone about." Yunjin fixes you with a knowing look. "Those are not casual bus acquaintance topics. Those are I'm emotionally vulnerable with this person topics."

You stare into your hot chocolate. "I don't know what I'm doing, Yunjin. Everything is so tangled up. I started this whole mess because I was too scared to confess to the right person, and now the wrong person has been nothing but kind and thoughtful and unexpectedly perfect, and the right person told me he liked me and then walked away, and I don't know what I'm supposed to feel anymore."

Yunjin is quiet for a moment. Then she reaches across the table and places her hand on yours. "Maybe there isn't a supposed to. Maybe there's just what you actually feel, when you strip away all the expectations and the plans and the ideas about how things were meant to go."

You look up at her. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you've been so focused on the idea of Jungwon, the letter, the confession, the grand romantic gesture, that you might have missed what's been happening right in front of you." She squeezes your hand. "Heeseung poured coffee on himself so you wouldn't feel alone. He held your hand while you cried. He looked at you on that bus like you were the most interesting person he'd ever met."

"That doesn't mean-"

"Y/N." Yunjin's voice is gentle but firm. "When are you going to stop being scared and start being honest?"

The question hits you like a punch to the chest. Because she is right. Yunjin is always right, that is the infuriating thing about her. You have been scared since the moment you walked into that PC room, scared of rejection, scared of humiliation, scared of what would happen if you actually let someone see you. And that fear has led you into a labyrinth of misunderstandings and half-truths, and somewhere along the way, you have gotten so lost that you can't even see the exit anymore.

"I need to tell him," you say quietly. "Heeseung. I need to tell him the truth about the letter."

Yunjin nods. "I think that's a good idea."

"He might hate me."

"He might. But he also might not. And either way, you'll finally be able to stop carrying this around." She leans back in her chair, blowing on her hot chocolate. "Besides, from everything you've told me about him, I don't think hating you is high on his list of priorities."

"What if it ruins everything?"

"What if it fixes everything?"

You don't have an answer to that. You just sit there, watching the snow fall outside the window, and feel the weight of your decision settling onto your shoulders. Tonight. You will tell him tonight. Before dinner, maybe, or after. You will find a quiet moment, away from the crowds and the noise and the chaos of the ski trip, and you will finally, finally tell him the truth.

Finding Heeseung turns out to be easier said than done.

The ski station is massive, a maze of slopes and trails and lodges that all look exactly the same. You wander through the main lodge, check the café, peek into the game room, and even brave the equipment rental shop where a terrifyingly efficient employee tries to convince you to try snowboarding. You escape with your dignity barely intact and a pamphlet about beginner lessons that you immediately stuff into the nearest trash can.

It isn't until you step outside, squinting against the glare of the sun on the snow, that you spot him.

He is on the intermediate slope, a dark figure against the white expanse of snow, cutting down the mountain with the kind of effortless grace that makes your heart lurch into your throat. He is snowboarding, of course he is snowboarding, because apparently there is nothing Lee Heeseung can't do and he moves like he was born on a board.

You have two options. Option one: wait at the bottom of the slope like a normal person and flag him down when he finishes his run. Option two: try to reach him now, which will involve navigating the snowy terrain between you and the slope, a task for which you are woefully underprepared both in terms of footwear and basic motor coordination.

You choose option two, because you are an idiot.

The path to the slope is a gentle incline of packed snow that looks deceptively easy to traverse. You take three steps and immediately realize your mistake. The snow is slippery, not the powdery kind of snow that crunches satisfyingly underfoot, but the packed, icy kind that has been trampled by hundreds of skiers and snowboarders and now has the texture of a skating rink.

You take a fourth step. Your foot slides. You windmill your arms frantically. Your other foot slides in the opposite direction. For one glorious, suspended moment, you do something that might generously be called a split, and then gravity takes over and you go down in a tangle of limbs and snow and absolute humiliation.

"Y/N?"

The voice comes from above you. You look up, snow clinging to your hair and your eyelashes and probably places you don't want to think about, and there is Heeseung, standing over you with his snowboard tucked under his arm and an expression somewhere between concern and barely suppressed laughter.

"Hi," you say weakly. "I was looking for you."

"You found me." He kneels down beside you, brushing snow off your shoulder. "Are you okay? That looked like a pretty spectacular fall."

"I've had better. I've also had worse. This is somewhere in the middle."

"Your standards for falls must be very high."

"I'm an overachiever."

Heeseung laughs and offers you his hand. You take it, and he pulls you to your feet with the same easy strength he showed in the café, steadying you when you wobble on the slippery snow.

"Come on," he says, still holding your hand. "Let's get you somewhere less treacherous. The beginner slope is over there, it's flatter and a lot less likely to attack you."

"I don't snowboard."

"I'll teach you."

"Heeseung-"

"It'll be fun. I promise." He already guides you toward the beginner slope, his hand warm and solid around yours. "Besides, you came all this way to find me. The least I can do is give you a snowboarding lesson."

The beginner slope is, as promised, much less intimidating than the intermediate one. It is a gentle hill with a slow incline, populated by other beginners who fall over with the same frequency and enthusiasm that you anticipate for yourself. Heeseung finds a quiet spot near the edge, props his snowboard in the snow, and turns to you with an expression of exaggerated seriousness.

"Okay, lesson one: standing on the board without falling."

"That sounds fake."

"It's very real. I've done it many times."

"Show-off."

He grins and proceeds to walk you through the basics of snowboarding with the patience of a saint and the enthusiasm of someone who genuinely loves sharing his hobbies. He holds your hands when you wobble, catches you when you fall, and laughs with you instead of at you when you face-plant into a snowbank for the third time in ten minutes.

"You're getting better," he says, pulling you upright after your fourth fall. Snow dusts his beanie and clings to his eyelashes, and his cheeks are flushed pink from the cold. "That time you almost made it five feet."

"Almost being the key word."

"Almost is progress. Almost is the first step toward eventually."

You look at him, really look at him and feel something shift in your chest. This is it. This is the moment. You can't put it off any longer.

"I need to tell you something," you say, your voice coming out steadier than you feel. "Can we sit down for a minute?"

Heeseung's expression flickers, curiosity, concern, something else you can't name but he nods. "Of course."

You find a bench near the edge of the slope, tucked under a pine tree whose branches are heavy with snow. The afternoon sun starts to sink lower in the sky, painting the mountains in shades of gold and pink, and the air is cold enough to make your breath fog. You sit down, and Heeseung sits beside you, close but not too close, his snowboard propped against the bench.

For a long moment, you don't say anything. You are gathering your courage, trying to find the right words, trying to figure out how to start a conversation that might change everything.

"The letter," you say finally. "The one I gave you in the PC room. There's something I need to tell you about it."

Heeseung doesn't react. He just waits, his dark eyes steady on your face.

"It wasn't meant for you," you say, and the words come out in a rush, tumbling over each other in their hurry to escape. "I wrote it for someone else. For Jungwon. I'd been planning to confess to him for weeks, and I'd written this whole letter, and I asked someone where he was and they said he was in the PC room, and I walked in and I saw someone sitting at the computer and I just assumed it was him, and I didn't look, I didn't check, I just handed over the letter and started talking, and then you looked up and it wasn't him at all, it was you and I was so embarrassed and everyone was watching and I couldn't correct you in front of all those people, and then everything spiraled and I kept trying to tell you but I couldn't find the right moment and then Jungwon found out and I couldn't correct it in front of him either and now everything is a mess and I'm so, so sorry, and I understand if you're angry, I understand if you hate me, I just… I couldn't keep lying to you anymore. You deserved to know the truth."

You stop talking. Your heart pounds so hard you can feel it in your temples. Your hands shake, and you press them together in your lap to keep them still. You don't look at Heeseung, you can't look at him, can't bear to see the expression on his face.

The silence stretches for what feels like an eternity.

And then Heeseung says, in the most casual voice imaginable: "I know."

Your head snaps up. "What?"

"I know the letter wasn't meant for me." He smiles, not a smirk, not a grin, but something gentle and warm and completely without judgment. "I've known since the beginning."

"But… how… since when-"

"Since I read it." Heeseung leans back on the bench, looking out at the snow-covered slope with a thoughtful expression. "The letter was beautiful. Every word of it. But it wasn't about me. It was about someone who smiles a certain way, someone who gave you gummy bears at 2 AM, someone who studies hard during free time at the library." He glances at you sideways. "I've never given anyone gummy bears. And I'm an informatics student, I don't take philosophy."

Your brain short-circuits. "You knew. This whole time. You knew."

"I knew."

"And you didn't say anything?"

"What was I supposed to say?" Heeseung's voice is gentle. "You were so flustered and embarrassed, and I could see you panicking in front of everyone. If I called you out right there, you would have been humiliated. And then I kept waiting for you to tell me yourself, but you never did, and eventually I just…" He shrugs. "I got curious. You wrote this incredible letter, and you were so weird and skittish and interesting, and I wanted to understand you. So I kept showing up."

"You kept showing up because I was interesting?"

"At first. Then it became something else." He turns to face you fully, his expression open and earnest. "You're not like the other people who confess to me. They want the idea of me, the reputation, the image. You didn't even want the real me. You wanted someone else entirely. And that was… refreshing. You weren't trying to impress me. You were trying to get rid of me. It was the first time anyone ever hid behind a bulletin board to avoid me."

"I wasn't… I didn't…" You bury your face in your hands. "This is so humiliating."

"It's not humiliating. It's human. You made a mistake. A very entertaining, very elaborate mistake." He gently pulls your hands away from your face, forcing you to look at him. "And somewhere along the way, while you were busy trying to make me lose interest, I got to know the real you. The one who names her plants after literary characters. The one who writes passionate essays about video game balance. The one who cried over a baby penguin last week."

"Yunjin told you about that?"

"Yunjin and I have been texting. But don't worry she didn't spilled all your dirty secrets."

You gape at him. "You and Yunjin have been texting?"

"She reached out after the coffee incident. Said she wanted to make sure my intentions were good." He smiles, a little sheepishly. "I think I passed the test. She said I was less of a disaster than expected."

"I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill both of you."

"Before you do, let me finish." Heeseung's voice softens, and he takes your hand in his, the same way he did on the bench under the stars, steady and warm and reassuring. "I knew the letter wasn't for me. But I also know that somewhere along the way, something changed. Maybe it changed for you too. Maybe it didn't. Either way, I wanted to give you the space to figure it out on your own terms."

You stare at him, your mind reeling. He knew. He has known this entire time, and instead of being angry or hurt or humiliated, he just… waited. Gave you space. Let you come to him when you were ready.

"You're not upset?" you whisper.

"I'm not upset."

"You don't feel… I don't know, betrayed? Lied to?"

"Y/N." He squeezes your hand. "You were scared. I get it. I've spent my whole life being scared of disappointing people, scared of saying no, scared of letting anyone down. I know what it's like to be trapped in a situation you didn't mean to create. I'm not going to hold that against you."

The tears threaten again, not the ugly, heartbroken tears from that night on the pathway, but something softer. Something that feels almost like relief.

"I'm sorry," you say, your voice cracking. "I'm so sorry for not telling you sooner."

"You're telling me now. That's what matters."

"I don't know what I feel," you admit. "About anything. About anyone. Everything is so confusing."

"Then don't figure it out right now." Heeseung stands up, pulling you gently to your feet. "We have three days at a ski station. There's a jacuzzi. There's hot chocolate. There's an entire mountain to explore. Let's just… enjoy it. See what happens. No pressure, no expectations, no misunderstandings."

Just like that, the weight you have been carrying for weeks, the guilt, the anxiety, the tangled knot of secrets, begins to loosen. Not disappear entirely, but loosen enough that you can breathe again.

"There's really a jacuzzi?" you ask.

Heeseung grins. "There's really a jacuzzi. I saw it on the map. Outdoor, heated, with a view of the mountains. Very romantic. Very much the kind of thing you'd put in a letter about someone."

"You're making fun of me."

"A little bit. But also, I'm serious." He picks up his snowboard and tucks it under his arm. "What do you say? After dinner? We can go check it out."

You think about it. The jacuzzi. With Heeseung. In a swimsuit. In warm water under the stars, surrounded by snow-covered mountains. It is terrifying. It is ridiculous. It is exactly the kind of thing the hopeless romantic inside you has always dreamed about.

"Okay," you say. "After dinner."

By the time dinner rolls around, you are a nervous wreck.

You have spent the rest of the afternoon in your room, alternating between staring at the ceiling and frantically texting Yunjin for advice. Yunjin has responded with a series of increasingly unhelpful messages:

Yunjin: wear the cute swimsuit

You: i don't OWN a cute swimsuit

Yunjin: wear the one you borrowed from me for the pool party last semester

You: the black one???

Yunjin: YES the black one. he won't know what hit him

You: i don't want him to be HIT i want this to be NORMAL

Yunjin: nothing about your life has been normal since the moment you walked into that PC room. embrace it. wear the swimsuit.

You wear the swimsuit.

Underneath your clothes, of course. Underneath a thick sweater, a pair of jeans, and the oversized winter coat you borrowed from Yunjin specifically for this trip. You feel like you are wearing armor, except the armor is actually a swimsuit, and the battle is against your own nervous system.

Dinner is a blur. The lodge's restaurant is packed with students, the noise level somewhere between "lively" and "chaotic," and you barely taste the food on your plate. You keep glancing toward the table where Heeseung sits with a group of his friends, and every time he catches your eye, he smiles at you, that same soft, knowing smile that makes your stomach do complicated acrobatics.

At one point, you accidentally make eye contact with Jungwon across the dining hall. He sits with a group of philosophy students, and when your gazes meet, he raises his hand in a small wave. His expression is unreadable, not sad, not angry, just… neutral. You wave back, and then you both look away, and that is it. A quiet acknowledgment of everything that has happened and everything that hasn't.

After dinner, you return to your room and proceed to have a minor meltdown.

The text from Heeseung arrives at exactly 8:47 PM.

Heeseung: jacuzzi? meet in the lobby in 10? bring a towel

You stare at the message for approximately three full minutes. Then you type out seventeen different responses, delete all of them, and finally settle on:

You: okay

Just "okay." No punctuation. No enthusiasm. Just the monosyllabic response of someone who is either incredibly chill or seconds away from spontaneous combustion.

You grab your towel and make your way to the lobby. The lodge is quieter now, most students either in the game room or in their own rooms recovering from the day's activities. The fireplace in the main lobby still crackles, and a few people gather around it with mugs of hot chocolate.

Heeseung is already there, leaning against the reception desk with a towel slung over his shoulder and that same gray beanie pulled over his hair. He has changed out of his snowboarding gear into something simpler and when he sees you approaching, his face lights up with that genuine smile that never fails to make your heart flutter.

"Ready?" he asks.

"No," you admit.

"Good. Let's go anyway."

The jacuzzi is on the outdoor deck of the spa building, a steaming oasis surrounded by snow-covered rocks and pine trees draped in lights. The mountains rise in the distance, dark silhouettes against a sky so full of stars it looks like a painting. The air is freezing, the kind of cold that makes your lungs ache, but the water is perfectly, blissfully warm, and when you finally shed your coat and your sweater and your jeans and slip into the bubbling water in your borrowed black swimsuit, you let out a breath you didn't realize you have been holding.

"This is nice," you admit, sinking down until the water reaches your chin. "This is really, really nice."

"Told you." Heeseung slides into the water across from you, his towel discarded on a nearby bench. The lights catch the angles of his face, the curve of his shoulders, the way his hair curls slightly at the ends from the steam. "Sometimes I'm right about things."

"Sometimes."

"Rarely. Occasionally. Once in a blue moon."

You laugh, and it feels good, lighter than it has in weeks. The warm water, the cold air, the stars overhead, the boy across from you who has known the truth all along and hasn't run away, it all feels like something out of a dream.

"I'm glad you told me," Heeseung says quietly. "About the letter."

"Me too."

"And I'm glad you're here. At the ski station. In the jacuzzi. With me."

Your heart flutters. "Me too."

"So what happens now?" Heeseung asks, but there is no pressure in his voice. Just curiosity. Just openness.

"I don't know," you say honestly. "But I think… I think I'd like to find out."

Heeseung smiles, soft and real and full of something you are only just beginning to recognize.

"Then let's find out," he says. "Together."

The jacuzzi is bathed in purple light.

You don't know if it is intentional or if someone just installed colored LEDs and called it a day, but the effect is undeniably, unfairly romantic. The water glows with a deep violet hue, shifting to indigo where the bubbles break the surface, and the steam rising into the cold mountain air catches the light and turns it into something almost magical. It looks like a movie.

A romance movie, specifically. The kind you have watched a hundred times in your dorm room, wrapped in a blanket, dreaming about the day something like this would happen to you.

And now it is happening. And you are absolutely, catastrophically unprepared.

Heeseung sits across from you in the bubbling water, his arms stretched out along the edge of the jacuzzi, his head tilted back slightly to look at the stars. The purple light paints shadows across the planes of his face, the sharp line of his jaw, the curve of his lips, the column of his throat disappearing into the steam. Droplets of water cling to his skin, and when he tilts his head forward to look at you, his dark eyes reflect the violet glow in a way that makes your stomach drop straight through the floor.

"You're doing it again," he says, his voice low and amused.

"Doing what?"

"Staring at me like you're trying to figure me out."

"I'm not staring. I'm… observing. It's different."

"Is it?"

"It's scientific. I'm conducting research."

Heeseung's lips curve into that familiar smile, the one that is definitely a smirk's first cousin by now, maybe even its sibling. "And what has your research concluded so far?"

"That you're very annoying," you say. "And that the purple light is doing unfair things to your bone structure."

"Unfair things to my bone structure," he repeats, laughing. "That's a new one. I'll add it to the list of compliments I've received."

"You keep a list?"

"Mentally. It's not written down anywhere. I'm not that egotistical."

"Debatable."

He laughs again, and the sound echoes across the water, mixing with the gentle hum of the jacuzzi jets. You try very hard to be normal, to act like you aren't sitting in a bubbling hot tub with a boy who has known your secret all along and has still chosen to be here, in the purple light, looking at you like he wants to kiss you.

And then he reaches for your foot.

His hand closes around your ankle beneath the water, warm and gentle, and before you can process what is happening, he lifts your leg, guiding your foot toward him. Your heel presses against his chest, against the firm warmth of his skin, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, and your breath catches in your throat so abruptly that you make a small, strangled sound that is definitely not dignified. The memory of your wet dream surges instantly, and you mentally thank the purple lights for hiding the sudden flush on your face.

"What are you doing?" you manage, your voice coming out several octaves higher than normal.

"You were floating awkwardly," Heeseung says, like this is a perfectly reasonable explanation. His thumb traces a slow circle against your ankle bone, feather-light and devastating. "I thought you might want something to anchor you."

"My ankle. You're anchoring my ankle."

"Ankles are very anchorable."

"That's not a word."

"It is now. I'm an engineering student. I can invent words."

Your heart pounds so hard you are certain he can feel it through the sole of your foot. His hand still wraps around your ankle, warm and steady, and the position is so unexpectedly intimate, your leg stretched across the space between you, your foot pressed against his chest, his thumb drawing lazy patterns on your skin, that you don't know where to look or what to say or how to breathe.

"You know what's funny?" Heeseung says, his voice conversational, like he isn't currently holding your foot against his heart. "The jacuzzi scene in To All the Boys I've Loved Before."

Your brain, which is already operating at approximately ten percent capacity, struggles to process the shift in topic. "The… jacuzzi scene?"

"Lara Jean and Peter. The ski trip. The hot tub." He gestures vaguely at the purple water around you. "They're in a jacuzzi together for the first time, and Lara Jean is all nervous, and Peter is trying to be cool about it, and there's all this tension because they're fake dating but they're both starting to feel real things."

"I know the scene," you say, your voice faint.

"It's kind of the turning point in the movie. The moment where the fake relationship starts becoming real." Heeseung tilts his head, and his eyes meet yours, and there is something in them, something dark and warm and knowing—that makes your skin tingle. "Funny how we ended up in a jacuzzi too. At a ski station. Just like them."

"Are you saying we're in a romance movie?"

"I'm saying the parallels are getting a little uncanny." His thumb traces another circle on your ankle, slow and deliberate. "The letter. The ski trip. The hot tub."

"Well, technically the parallels are there but it's still different…"

"You're right. At the end of the day we're not in a movie… This is real life."

"Which means…"

"Which means we're in uncharted territory now." Heeseung's voice drops, becoming something lower, something that vibrates through the water and into your bones. "No movie to reference. No script to follow. Just… whatever happens next."

Your mouth is dry. When did your mouth become so dry? You are surrounded by water, and yet every drop of moisture has apparently evaporated from your body.

"That's terrifying," you whisper.

"Is it?" His hand tightens slightly on your ankle, grounding you. "I think it's kind of exciting. Don't you?"

You don't know how to answer that. You don't know how to articulate the complicated knot of fear and anticipation and something else, something warm and fluttering that has taken up residence in your chest. So you do what you always do when you don't know what to say: you deflect.

"You're very smooth, you know that?" you say, aiming for teasing and landing somewhere closer to breathless. "Has anyone ever told you that? The ankle thing, the movie reference, the uncharted territory line, it's a lot."

Heeseung's lips twitch. "Is it working?"

"I'm not answering that."

"That's an answer in itself."

"You're insufferable."

"And yet you're still here." His eyes flicker down for just a moment, barely a second, but enough to make your skin flush. "Letting me hold your ankle."

You pull your foot back, but he doesn't let go. His grip remains gentle, steady, his palm warm against your skin. "I'm not letting you do anything. You just… did it."

"And you didn't stop me."

"I was being polite."

"Polite." Heeseung's smile widens. "Right. That's what this is. Politeness."

The purple light flickers slightly, casting new shadows across his face. The bubbles swirl around you, warm and enveloping, and the cold mountain air nips at your exposed shoulders, creating a contrast that makes every sensation feel heightened. You are acutely aware of everything, the heat of the water, the chill of the breeze, the rough texture of the jacuzzi edge beneath your fingers, the steady pressure of Heeseung's hand on your ankle.

"Can I ask you something?" Heeseung says.

"You're going to anyway."

"True." He pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer. More curious. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Done what? Sat in a jacuzzi?"

"Been physical with someone. Intimate." He says the words without embarrassment, without leering, just genuine curiosity. "You get so flustered every time I touch you. Earlier, when I kissed your cheek, I thought you were going to combust. And I'm not trying to make fun of you, I'm genuinely asking. Is this… new for you?"

Your cheeks, already flushed from the heat of the water, burn even hotter. "That's a very personal question."

"You don't have to answer. Remember? Twenty questions rules. No pressure."

You are quiet for a moment. The bubbles churn around you. The stars glitter overhead. Heeseung's thumb continues its slow, hypnotic circles on your ankle.

"I've kissed people before," you say finally. "A few times. But it was always… quick. Awkward. Spin the bottle at parties, that kind of thing." You pause, gathering your courage. "I've never had a real relationship. I've never… you know."

"Made out with someone?"

The bluntness of the question makes you choke on air. "I… that's… yes. That. I've never done that."

"Okay," Heeseung says simply.

"Okay? That's all you have to say?"

"What else would I say?"

"I don't know. Something. Most people would say something."

Heeseung is quiet for a moment, his expression thoughtful. Then he says, "I haven't either. Much, I mean. I've had my few moments but the amount you can count on your fingers. People assume I have, because of the reputation, but the truth is I've never really… connected with someone like that. I've had opportunities, I guess, but I didn't want to do it just for the sake of doing it. I wanted it to mean something."

The confession catches you off guard. You assumed, everyone assumed, that Lee Heeseung was experienced, that his womanizer reputation was built on a foundation of romantic conquests. But here he is, in the purple light of the jacuzzi, telling you that the reputation is just that: a reputation. Smoke and mirrors. Assumptions built on his inability to say no.

"We're both disasters," you say.

"Absolutely. But at least we're disasters together."

"Disaster twins."

"Matching shirts and everything."

You laugh, and it comes out lighter than you expected. The tension that has been coiling in your chest begins to ease, replaced by something warmer. Something that feels almost like comfort.

Wus Good/Curious - PARTYNEXTDOOR playing now

Somewhere in the lodge, someone has connected their phone to the outdoor speakers. The song that starts playing is slow and sensual, the timing so absurd, so perfectly, comedically timed, that you can't help but laugh. "Did you plan this?"

Heeseung laughs too, shaking his head in disbelief. "I swear I didn't. The universe is just showing off at this point."

"This is the least romantic song that could have possibly played."

"I don't know. It's got a certain vibe." His eyes meet yours, and there is a glint of mischief in them. "Very sensual. Very on-the-nose for a jacuzzi scene."

"It's about-" You stop, your face heating.

"It's about what?"

"You know what it's about."

"I want to hear you say it."

"You're the worst."

Heeseung grins, and the purple light catches the curve of his lips, the sparkle in his eyes, the way the water droplets trace paths down his neck and across his collarbone. The song continues playing, and you are suddenly very aware of how close he is, how the space between you has somehow shrunk without you noticing.

"Come here," he says softly.

"What?"

"Come here. I want to show you something."

Your heart hammers so hard you can feel it in your throat. "Show me what?"

"Trust me."

And you do. That is the terrifying thing. Despite everything, the misunderstandings, the secrets, the weeks of chaos and confusion, you trust him. You trust the boy who poured coffee on his head to make you feel less alone. You trust the boy who held your hand while you cried. You trust the boy who has known your secret all along and has never once made you feel foolish for it.

You move through the water, closer to him, and the purple light swirls around you like something out of a dream. When you are within reach, Heeseung's hands find your waist beneath the water, gentle but sure, and he guides you until you are straddling his lap, your knees on either side of his hips, your faces inches apart.

"Is this okay?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

Your breath comes in short, shallow gasps. His hands are warm on your waist, his thumbs tracing slow circles against the curve of your hips. His face is so close you can see the individual droplets of water on his eyelashes, can count the shades of brown in his eyes, can feel the warmth of his breath against your lips.

"Yes," you whisper. "This is… okay."

"You're shaking."

"I'm nervous."

"I know." His hands slide up from your waist, over your ribs, coming to rest on either side of your face. His palms are warm against your cheeks, his fingers threading gently into the wet strands of your hair. "We don't have to do anything you're not ready for. We can just sit here. We can talk. We can get out and go back inside. Whatever you want."

The gentleness of his voice, the patience in his eyes, the way he holds your face like you are something precious, it makes your chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the realization that you are in very, very deep trouble.

Because this boy, this absurd, beautiful, incomprehensible boy who stumbled into your life through a misplaced letter and a catastrophic misunderstanding, has somehow become someone you can't imagine letting go of.

"What I want," you say, your voice barely steady, "is for you to kiss me."

Heeseung's eyes darken. The purple light flickers across his features, and his thumbs trace the line of your cheekbones, and his lips part slightly, and for one suspended moment, the entire world holds its breath.

"Okay," he murmurs. "But we're going to do this right."

And then he kisses you.

His lips meet yours softly at first, gentle, exploratory, the barest brush of contact. He tastes like the mint tea he had after dinner, and his mouth is warm, and the kiss is so sweet and so tender that you feel your entire body melt into him. Your hands, hovering awkwardly at your sides, come up to rest on his shoulders, and you feel the muscles beneath his skin shift as he pulls you closer.

But then you try to deepen the kiss, and it goes wrong.

Your nose bumps against his. Your teeth clack together with an audible click. You pull back, mortified, your face burning. "I'm sorry… I didn't… I don't know what I'm doing-"

"Hey." Heeseung's voice is gentle, his hands still cupping your face. "Hey. It's okay. Look at me."

You force yourself to meet his eyes, expecting to see amusement or frustration or something worse. But all you see is patience. Warmth. Something that looks a lot like affection.

"Everyone's first real kiss is awkward," he says. "That's normal. That's how it's supposed to be."

"It wasn't supposed to be with someone who actually knows what they're doing."

"Then let me teach you." His thumb traces your lower lip, feather-light. "We'll go slow. You follow my lead. And if at any point you want to stop, just say the word. Okay?"

Your heart pounds so hard you can feel it in your temples. "Okay."

He leans in again, slower this time, giving you every opportunity to pull away. When his lips meet yours, the pressure is deliberate, gentle but firm, guiding you. His mouth moves against yours in a slow, languid rhythm, and you follow, mimicking his movements, learning the dance as you go.

"Tilt your head a little," he murmurs against your lips. "There. Like that."

You adjust, and suddenly the angle is better, the kiss deepening naturally. His hands slide from your face down to your waist, pulling you closer, and you feel the length of his body against yours, warm and solid and very, very real.

"Now try parting your lips," he whispers. "Just a little."

You do, and the kiss changes. Becomes something deeper, more intense. His tongue brushes against your lower lip, a question rather than a demand, and when you open for him, the sensation is so overwhelming that a soft sound escapes your throat, something between a sigh and a gasp.

"Good," Heeseung breathes. "You're doing so good."

The praise sends a shiver down your spine. Your fingers curl into his shoulders, gripping him like he is the only solid thing in a world. The kiss deepens further, his mouth moving against yours with a confidence that makes your head spin, and you follow his lead, letting him guide you, letting yourself get lost in the warmth of his body and the taste of his lips and the steady, grounding pressure of his hands on your waist.

"Now," he murmurs, pulling back just enough to press a kiss to the corner of your mouth, "there's variation. You don't have to do the same thing the whole time."

"Variation," you repeat, your voice dazed.

"You can kiss here-" His lips brush the edge of your jaw. "-and here-" A kiss to the sensitive spot just below your ear. "-and here." A kiss to the hollow of your throat that makes your breath catch and your fingers tighten on his shoulders.

"That's… a lot of places."

"There's more." He pulls back, and his eyes meet yours, dark and warm and full of something that makes your stomach flip. "But we can save those for later. If you want."

"If I want," you echo, still dazed.

"Only if you want." His hand comes up to cup your face again, his thumb tracing your cheekbone.

"This is insane," you whisper.

"Completely insane."

"I can't believe this is happening."

"Neither can I." He presses his forehead against yours, his breath warm against your lips. "But I'm really, really glad it is."

"Can we try again?" you ask, your voice small but steady. "The kissing thing. I think I need more practice."

Heeseung laughs, and the sound vibrates through his chest and into yours. "Practice makes perfect."

"I'm a STEM student. I believe in empirical evidence."

"Then let's gather some data."

He kisses you again, and this time, you are ready. Your lips meet his with more confidence, your hands sliding from his shoulders into his hair, it is soft, damp from the steam, and the way he sighs against your mouth when your fingers thread through it makes you feel powerful in a way you have never experienced before.

This time, when you deepen the kiss, it's less clumsy. It's more natural, instinctive, the kind of kiss that feels like it has been waiting to happen for weeks and is finally making up for lost time. Heeseung's hands tighten on your waist, pulling you impossibly closer, and the water swirls around you.

Your hands roam over his chest, feeling the firm muscles beneath your fingertips. Heeseung's tongue teases your lower lip, seeking entrance which you grant without hesitation. The kiss becomes hungrier, more desperate as your bodies press together in the warm water. He has been patient with you, letting you set the pace, never pushing for more than you are ready to give.

You feel something hard pressing against your thigh through the thin fabric of your swimsuit. You pull back slightly, breathless, your cheeks flushed with both desire and embarrassment.

"Don't mind it," Heeseung murmurs, his voice husky with arousal. "It's just a natural reaction to kissing someone I find incredibly attractive."

But instead of shying away, something bold awakens inside you. You've been waiting for this moment, wanting to take your relationship to the next level. Taking a deep breath, you meet his gaze directly, though your words come out in a clumsy rush.

"I want to... I mean, if you want to... I think I'm ready to... do it," you stammer, feeling your face heat up even more. "With you."

Heeseung's eyes widen slightly before softening with affection. "Are you sure? Here? Your first time should be special."

"It is special because it's with you," you insist, trying to sound more confident than you feel. "I want this. I want you. I want to be honest with myself."

A slow smile spreads across his face. "Okay," he murmurs, his hands moving to cup your face. "But we need to prepare you properly. I don't want to hurt you."

His thumb brushes against your cheek as he continues, "Have you ever... touched yourself before?"

You shake your head, feeling a mix of embarrassment and excitement.

"That's okay," he assures you. "I'll teach you. I'll make sure you feel good."

WGFT - Gunna playing now

Heeseung shifts slightly, adjusting your position on his lap. One hand trails down your back, over your hip, and between your legs. Even through the fabric of your swimsuit, his touch sends sparks through your body.

"First, I need to make sure you're ready," he explains softly. His fingers find the edge of your swimsuit bottom, toying with the fabric. "May I?"

You nod, your breath catching in anticipation.

Slowly, his fingers slip beneath the fabric, finding your folds. You gasp at the contact, your body tensing for a moment before relaxing into his touch.

"It's twitching," he murmurs against your ear. "That's good. It means your body wants this too."

His fingers explore gently, learning your anatomy as you bite your lip to hold back moans. He finds your clit and circles it slowly, watching your face for reactions.

"When I touch you here, it should build pleasure." he explains.

He demonstrates, applying a bit more pressure. You can't help but arch your back, a soft cry escaping your lips.

"Like that?" he asks with a knowing smile.

You can only nod, lost in the sensations he's creating.

After a few minutes of this delicious torture, he slides one finger lower, testing your entrance. "I'm going to prepare you," he warns softly. "It might feel a little strange at first, but I promise it will get better."

His finger enters you slowly, carefully. There's a slight discomfort, but as he begins to move in and out, the sensation transforms into pleasure. He watches your face intently, adjusting his movements based on your reactions.

"Does that feel good?" he asks.

You nod, your hips beginning to move in rhythm with his hand.

He adds a second finger, stretching you further. "You're so tight," he groans. "I can't wait to be inside you."

His words send another wave of desire through you. His thumb returns to your clit, rubbing in circles as his fingers continue their work inside you. The dual stimulation is overwhelming in the best way possible.

"Heeseung," you gasp, your hands clutching at his shoulders.

"I know, little mouse," he murmurs, kissing you deeply. "Let it build. Don't fight it."

The pleasure intensifies, coiling in your stomach like a spring. Your movements become more erratic as you chase the feeling building within you.

"That's it," he encourages. "Good girl"

With a cry, you shatter, waves of pleasure washing over you. Heeseung continues his movements, drawing out your orgasm until you collapse against his chest, trembling and breathless.

"You're so beautiful when you come," he whispers, kissing your forehead. "Can you do more?"

You can only nod, still recovering from the intensity of your first orgasm with someone else.

He slides down his shorts slightly just to reveal his already hard cock and slides your swimsuit to the side. His hands move to your hips, and you begin to grind against him instinctively. The water sloshes around you as you move, his lenght sliding between your folds, creating a delicious friction under the water. Lost in the moment, you shift your hips, trying to get closer, to feel more of him.

Suddenly, you both freeze as you feel him slip inside you. There's a sharp pain, followed by a sense of fullness that takes your breath away. Your eyes widen in shock as you look at Heeseung, whose expression mirrors your surprise.

"Oh my god," he gasps, his hands tightening on your hips. "I... I didn't mean for that to happen. Are you okay?"

You nod, still processing what just happened. The initial pain is already fading, replaced by a strange mix of discomfort and pleasure.

"I'm so sorry," Heeseung continues, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment. "I should have been more careful. I didn't..."

As he stammers through an apology, you can't help but let out a small laugh. The absurdity of the situation , your first time happening so accidentally, so clumsily, suddenly strikes you as hilarious.

Heeseung looks at you in confusion before a smile breaks across his face. "You're laughing?"

"We're so clumsy," you giggle, the tension breaking between you. "All that careful preparation and then..."

He joins in your laughter, the moment transforming from awkward to intimate. "Well," he says once the laughter subsides, "since we're already here... are you okay to continue? We can stop if you want."

You shake your head, a new determination filling you. "No, I want to continue. Show me what to do."

Heeseung's expression softens with affection. "Okay," he murmurs, his hands guiding your hips. "Just relax and let me do the work. Move with me, but let me lead."

He begins to move slowly, guiding you in a gentle rhythm. The water sloshes around you as you find a pace together. With each thrust, pleasure builds, different from before but just as intense.

"You feel so good," Heeseung groans, his control beginning to slip. "So tight around me."

His praise only heightens your arousal. You try to meet his movements with your own, but your motions are awkward and uncoordinated. You feel clumsy, unsure of exactly how to move to maximize pleasure for both of you.

"Don't worry about doing it perfectly," Heeseung reassures you, noticing your frustration. "Just feel. Let your body respond naturally."

He adjusts your position slightly, changing the angle of his thrusts. A gasp escapes your lips as he hits a particularly sensitive spot.

"There," he murmurs, repeating the movement. "How does that feel?"

"Amazing," you breathe, your hands clutching at his shoulders.

Heeseung's hands roam your body, caressing your breasts, your back, your hips. His mouth finds your neck, sucking gently at your pulse point. Marking you as his.

"I've wanted this since the moment we got in the jacuzzi," he admits between kisses. "But I was too scared you would run away if I decided to act up."

"I want it," you assure him, your voice breathy with pleasure. "I want all of you. I'm not scared anymore."

Your words seem to unleash something in him. His movements become more deliberate, more purposeful as he chases his own release. One hand moves between your legs again, finding your clit and rubbing in time with his thrusts.

The dual stimulation quickly pushes you toward another orgasm. "Heeseung," you cry out, your nails digging into his shoulders.

"I know," he groans. "Come with me this time."

His words are all it takes to push you over the edge. As you clench around him, Heeseung finds his own release, burying his face in your neck with a guttural moan.

For a moment, you stay connected, catching your breath as the water continues to bubble around you. Heeseung presses soft kisses to your shoulders, your neck, your cheeks.

"Are you okay?" he asks softly, pulling back to look at you.

You nod, a contented smile spreading across your face. "Better than okay. That was..."

"Incredible," he finishes for you, returning your smile. "You're incredible."

As you slowly separate, Heeseung adjusts your swimsuit back into place before

As you both recover in the warm bubbling water, you notice something pressing against your thigh again. You glance down and see that Heeseung is already getting hard once more. A blush spreads across your cheeks as you meet his eyes.

"Already?" you ask with a small laugh.

Heeseung grins, a hint of embarrassment in his expression. "I can't help it," he admits. "You feel so good, and I've wanted this for so long. My body seems to have a mind of its own around you."

A boldness takes hold of you, spurred by the confidence your first time gave you. "If you want to do it again... your way this time... I don't mind," you say, trying to sound casual despite the flutter in your stomach.

Heeseung's eyes darken with desire at your words. Without warning, he pounces, lifting you effortlessly from his lap. He carries you to the edge of the jacuzzi and gently sets you down on the edge. The contrast between the warm water and the cool air sends a shiver through your body.

"My way?" he asks, his voice husky with arousal. "I like the sound of that."

He kneels in the water between your legs, his hands spreading your thighs apart. His eyes never leave yours as he leans forward, pressing soft kisses to your inner thigh. You watch, mesmerized, as he works his way upward, leaving a trail of fire on your skin.

When he reaches your core, he pauses, his breath warm against your most sensitive flesh. "I've wanted to taste you since the first time I saw you in that swimsuit," he confesses, his voice low and intimate.

Then he dives in, his tongue exploring your folds. You gasp, your hands flying to his hair as waves of pleasure wash over you. Heeseung maintains eye contact as he eats you out, his dark eyes watching your every reaction, learning what makes you moan, what makes you arch your back.

"You taste so sweet," he murmurs against you before returning to his task, his tongue circling your clit before dipping inside you.

The sensations are overwhelming, building quickly toward another orgasm. Heeseung seems to sense your approaching release and redoubles his efforts, adding his fingers to the mix, curling them inside you as he continues to lavish attention on your clit.

"Heeseung," you cry out, your hips bucking against his face. "Please don't stop."

He doesn't. Instead, he increases his pace, his tongue and fingers working in perfect harmony until you shatter, crying out his name as waves of pleasure crash over you. He continues his ministrations, drawing out your orgasm until you're trembling and breathless.

Only then does he pull back, a triumphant grin on his face as he licks his lips. "Delicious," he declares, rising from the water.

He kisses his way up your body, over your stomach, between your breasts, along your collarbone, up your neck, until finally his lips claim yours. You can taste yourself on his tongue as the kiss deepens, passionate and hungry.

Without breaking the kiss, Heeseung positions himself at your entrance. This time, there's no accidental slip, he enters you deliberately, slowly, filling you completely. You moan into his mouth at the exquisite stretch and fullness.

He begins to move, his hips thrusting in a deep, slow rhythm that drives you wild. Each stroke is measured and controlled, hitting all the right spots. His movements are faster and harder than before, but still gentle, still considerate of your inexperience.

"You feel incredible," he groans, his voice thick with pleasure. "You're taking it well."

His hands roam your body as he moves, caressing your breasts, your hips, your thighs. His mouth finds your ear, his warm breath sending shivers down your spine as he whispers praises and encouragements.

"You're doing so well," he murmurs. "Taking me so deep. You feel amazing wrapped around me."

His words only heighten your arousal, pushing you closer to another peak. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him deeper, matching his rhythm as best you can despite your inexperience.

After a few minutes, Heeseung pulls out gently. "Turn around," he commands softly.

You obey, positioning hands at the edge of the jacuzzi. He enters you from behind, this new angle allowing him to reach even deeper inside you. You cry out at the intensity of the sensation.

"Is this okay?" he asks, his voice strained with restraint.

"More than okay," you manage to gasp. "Don't stop."

He resumes his movements, his hands gripping your hips as he thrusts into you. The water sloshes with each movement, adding to the sensory experience. Heeseung's pace increases, his thrusts becoming more urgent as he chases his release.

His moans fill the night air, raw and uninhibited. "I'm getting close," he warns. "Where do you want me?"

"Inside me," you answer without hesitation.

Heeseung hesitates for a moment. "Are you sure? We didn't use anything."

Your mind races for a second before you respond, "I'm on the pill. It's okay."

With a groan of relief, Heeseung continues his movements, his pace becoming erratic as he approaches his climax. With one final deep thrust, he buries himself inside you, his body trembling as he finds his release.

For a moment, he stays inside you. Then he pulls out gently and helps you turn back over. He leans to slowly kiss you while stroking himself a few times before releasing again onto your stomach, warm and sticky.

You look at him in surprise.

"I couldn't," he explains, noticing your confusion. "I couldn't resist, I wanted to see you covered of me."

He reaches for a nearby towel, gently cleaning your stomach before pressing a soft kiss to your lips. "Next time," he promises, "I'll be more gentle. We'll take our time, explore everything properly."

"There's going to be a next time?" you ask with a smile.

Heeseung grins, pulling you into his arms. "Oh, there's definitely going to be a next time. And a time after that, and after that... I'm never getting enough of you."

The walk back to your room feels like floating.

Not literally, of course, your feet are very much on the ground, leaving wet footprints on the wooden floorboards of the lodge hallway, but your mind is somewhere else entirely. Somewhere purple-lit and steaming, somewhere filled with the taste of mint tea and the feeling of warm hands on your waist and the sound of Heeseung's voice murmuring instructions against your lips.

You have had sex. In a jacuzzi. Under the stars. With Lee Heeseung.

The hopeless romantic inside you does cartwheels. The realistic part of your brain is still buffering, stuck on a loading screen that says "please wait while we process what just happened." Your body is somewhere in between, pleasantly warm despite the cold air, tingling in places you hadn't known could tingle, wrapped in your borrowed coat and your towel and the lingering sensation of his skin against yours.

Heeseung walks beside you, his hand intertwined with yours. He hums softly, and when he catches you looking at him, he smiles that devastating smile and squeezes your hand.

"What?" he asks.

"Nothing. Just… processing."

"Processing what?"

"Everything." You gesture vaguely with your free hand. "The conversation. The jacuzzi. The… everything after the conversation."

"The everything after the conversation," he repeats, his smile widening. "Very descriptive."

"I'm a STEM student, not a poet."

"You wrote a three-page love letter with calligraphy. You're absolutely a poet."

"That was a one-time thing. A fluke. I've since retired from poetry."

"Tragic. The literary world has lost a great talent."

You reach your door, and Heeseung stops, turning to face you.

"Are you okay?" he asks, and his voice is gentle. "Really okay? That was… a lot. I know it was a lot. And I want to make sure you're not freaking out."

"I am absolutely freaking out," you admit. "But in a good way. I think. It's hard to tell. My brain is still catching up."

"Good freak-out or bad freak-out?"

"Good. Definitely good. Just… overwhelming." You pause, searching for the right words. "It wasn't how I imagined my first time would be. It was awkward and clumsy and it accidentally went in, and I'm pretty sure I made some very weird sounds, and-"

"It was perfect," Heeseung interrupts softly. "It was real. It was you. That's all I want."

Your heart, which has already been through approximately seventeen different emotional states in the past hour, does another complicated flip. "You're very good at saying the right thing."

"I'm not trying to say the right thing. I'm just telling you the truth." He reaches up and tucks a damp strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering against your temple. "You're amazing, Y/N. And I'm not saying that because of what just happened. I'm saying it because it's been true since the moment you walked into that PC room and handed me a letter that wasn't meant for me."

"You're going to make me cry again."

"Please don't. I've seen you cry twice now, and both times it made me want to fight whoever made you sad. I can't fight myself. That's a conflict of interest."

You laugh, and it comes out a little watery. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm aware." He leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead, soft, gentle, lingering. "Goodnight, little mouse. Get some sleep."

"Goodnight, Heeseung."

He pulls back, his hand slipping from yours, and walks backward down the hallway for a few steps, still smiling at you. "Dream about me."

"I make no promises."

"I'll take that as confirmation."

He turns the corner and disappears, and you are left standing in front of your door with the lingering warmth of the best night of your life.

The moment you step into your room, Yunjin is on you like a hawk on a field mouse.

"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"

You close the door behind you, leaning against it with a dazed expression. Yunjin sits cross-legged on her bed, her phone in her hand, a half-eaten bag of chips on the nightstand. Her eyes are wide, her expression a mixture of curiosity and accusation.

"The jacuzzi," you say faintly.

"For three hours?"

"Was it three hours? It doesn't feel like three hours."

"Y/N." Yunjin shuts her laptop with a decisive click. "You're wearing a towel. Your hair is wet. You have that look on your face, the one that says I just did something and I don't know how to process it. Spill. Now. Every detail."

You push yourself off the door and collapse onto your bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"We had sex," you say.

"What?!"

"We had sex, don't make me repeat it please or I'm gonna die…"

Yunjin is silent for exactly two seconds. Then: "YOU GUYS FUCKED?"

"Yeah…"

"IN THE JACUZZI?"

"There aren't exactly a lot of alternative locations. The water is warm. There's purple lighting. It's very atmospheric."

Yunjin scrambles off her bed and crosses the room in three steps, grabbing your shoulders and pulling you upright. "I need details. I need all the details. How did it happen? Who initiated it? Was it good? Was he good? Did he-"

"Yunjin!" You press your hands to your burning cheeks. "I can't just… I don't know how to-"

"Start from the beginning. The jacuzzi. What happened?"

You take a deep breath, gathering your scattered thoughts, and then the words start tumbling out of you as you tell her everything.

Yunjin is quiet for a moment, processing. Then she lets out a long breath. "So your first time was in a jacuzzi, under the stars, with a hot informatics engineering student who knew you'd accidentally confessed to the wrong person and liked you anyway."

"That's… yeah. That's basically the summary."

"And you're telling me you're still worried this is some kind of disaster?"

"I'm not worried," you say slowly. "I'm just… confused. About what we are. We don't exactly have the what are we conversation. We just kind of… had sex. And now I don't know if we're dating, or if it was a one-time thing, or if he's going to wake up tomorrow and realize he made a huge mistake and-"

"Stop." Yunjin holds up a hand. "Just stop. I'm going to tell you something, and I need you to actually hear it."

"I'm listening."

"Lee Heeseung has known your secret for weeks. He's seen you at your absolute worst, hiding behind bulletin boards, choking on lettuce, spilling coffee all over yourself, crying on a bench in the middle of the night. He's seen you ramble about video games until you run out of breath, and he's seen you face-plant in the snow eight times in one afternoon. And after all of that, he still chooses to spend three hours in a jacuzzi with you and make sure your first time is special and safe and good."

Yunjin leans forward, her expression intense. "That's not the behavior of a guy who's going to wake up tomorrow and change his mind. That's the behavior of a guy who is completely, thoroughly, absolutely gone for you."

The words settle into your chest. "You really think so?"

"I know so. And I think you know so too. You're just scared to admit it because admitting it means this is real, and real is scary."

"When did you get so wise about relationships?"

"I've been watching you be a disaster for months. I've picked up a few things."

You laugh, and it comes out lighter than you expected. "So what do I do?"

"Tomorrow, you go find him. You see how he acts. And if he acts like nothing's changed except that he's even happier to see you than usual, then you'll have your answer."

"And if he acts weird?"

"Then I'll key his snowboard."

"Yunjin!"

"Kidding. Mostly." She grins and flops back onto her bed. "Now go to sleep. You've had a big night. You need rest. And honestly, I need time to process the fact that my best friend had a romantic jacuzzi rendezvous while I was sitting here eating chips and doomscrolling on TikTok."

"You could have come to the jacuzzi."

"And interrupt whatever is happening between you two? I'm a good friend, not a saint. I'd be third-wheeling so hard I'd need a snowplow to get out."

You laugh again, and for the first time in weeks, you feel light. Unburdened. Like the weight you've been carrying since the moment you walked into that PC room has finally been lifted.

"Goodnight, Yunjin."

"Goodnight, you absolute disaster of a human being. Dream about your hot engineer boy."

"He's not my-"

"Yet. He's not your boy yet. But I give it twenty-four hours."

You throw a pillow at her. She catches it and tucks it under her head with a satisfied grin.

The next morning, you wake up with a start, your heart racing. Dreams of purple light and warm water and hands on your waist and a voice murmuring good girl, you're doing so good against your lips haunt your memory.

You press your face into your pillow and scream.

It is a happy scream, mostly. A disbelieving, giddy scream. But it is also a nervous scream, because in approximately one hour, you are going to have to go downstairs and face Heeseung in the cold light of day, and you have absolutely no idea how that is going to go.

Would he be awkward? Would he be distant? Would he pretend nothing happened? Would he-

Your phone buzzes on the nightstand.

Heeseung: good morning little mouse. breakfast in 30?

You stare at the message for a solid ten seconds. Then you type back:

You: okay

Heeseung: you're very eloquent in the morning

You: i haven't had caffeine yet

Heeseung: i'll have a vanilla latte waiting for you. extra shot of vanilla. just like last time

Heeseung: hopefully with less spilling this time

You: no promises

You get dressed in a daze, pulling on approximately four layers of clothing because you still don't own proper winter gear and the borrowed coat can only do so much. Yunjin is already gone, she has left a note on the nightstand that says went to find the economics majors. don't do anything I wouldn't do. (do everything I wouldn't do), so you are alone with your thoughts as you make your way down to the lodge's dining hall.

You spot Heeseung immediately. He sits at a table near the window, two cups of coffee in front of him, his hair still slightly messy from sleep. When he sees you approaching, his entire face lights up.

"There you are," he says, standing up and pulling out a chair for you. "I was starting to think you'd bailed."

"On breakfast?"

"On me. On this. On everything." He says it lightly, but there is a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes, a tiny crack in his usual confident demeanor. "I wasn't sure if you'd want to see me this morning, or if you'd need space, or-"

"Hey." You reach out and touch his hand, just briefly. "I'm here. I want to see you."

The relief that washes over his face is so genuine, so unguarded, that your heart clenches. "Okay. Good. That's… good."

You sit down, and he slides the vanilla latte toward you. Your fingers brush as you take the cup, and the contact sends a spark of electricity up your arm. You both pretend not to notice, but the way Heeseung's ears turn slightly pink suggests he feels it too.

"So," you say, taking a sip of your latte to give yourself something to do with your hands. "Breakfast."

"Breakfast," he agrees. "Eggs. Bacon. Possibly a pastry if we're feeling adventurous."

"Very adventurous."

"I'm a risk-taker."

You try to eat normally. You really do. But every time you look up from your plate, Heeseung looks at you with that soft, wondering expression, and you forget how to chew, and you end up staring at him with a piece of toast halfway to your mouth like you've been frozen in time.

"You're doing it again," he says.

"Doing what?"

"The staring thing. The I'm trying to figure you out thing."

"I'm not trying to figure you out. I already figured you out. You're a people-pleaser who can't say no and you have a secret soft spot for romantic comedies."

"Then what are you thinking about?"

You set down your toast. "I'm thinking about last night. And what it means. And what we are now."

Heeseung's expression shifts, becoming more serious. "Do you want to have that conversation? The what are we conversation?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"I asked you first."

"That's very mature."

"I have my moments." He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table. "Look, I know we did things kind of backwards. Most people start with coffee and work their way up to jacuzzis. We started with a misplaced love letter and somehow ended up in a hot tub under the stars. It's not exactly a conventional timeline."

"When has anything about us been conventional?"

"Fair point." He reaches across the table and takes your hand, his thumb tracing circles on your palm. "I don't know what we are. Labels feel… complicated. But I know what I want us to be."

"What's that?"

"Something real. Something that isn't built on misunderstandings or accidents or letters that weren't meant for me. Something that's just… us. Figuring it out together."

Your heart does that fluttering thing again. "That sounds terrifying."

"I know. But you've been scared this whole time, and you've still kept showing up. That's the bravest thing I've ever seen."

"I haven't felt brave. I've felt like a disaster."

"Disasters can be brave. The two aren't mutually exclusive." He squeezes your hand. "So what do you say? Want to be brave together?"

You look at him, really look at him, and see the boy who poured coffee on his head, the boy who held you while you cried, the boy who knew your secret and waited for you to tell him in your own time. And you feel the fear, familiar and insistent, coiling in your stomach.

But beneath the fear, there is something else. Something warmer. Something that feels a lot like hope.

"Okay," you say. "Let's be brave together."

Heeseung smiles, real and open and devastating. "Okay."

The afternoon finds you back on the beginner slope, strapped into a snowboard and wondering how you let Heeseung talk you into this again.

"You said you wanted to practice," he reminds you, tightening the bindings on your boots. "Snowboarding, I mean. Not… other things."

"My entire body is sore from yesterday. Both from the snowboarding and from the… other things."

"Then we'll take it slow. No jumps, no tricks, just a gentle run down the beginner hill." He stands up and offers you his hand. "I'll be right there the whole time."

"You said that yesterday, and I still fell eight times."

"And you got up eight times. That's the important part."

You take his hand and let him pull you to your feet. The beginner slope stretches out before you, populated by other beginners who fall over with roughly the same frequency as you.

"Okay," you say, taking a deep breath. "Okay. I can do this. I'm a capable human being. I understand physics. Snowboarding is just physics with extra steps."

"That's the spirit."

"I'm going to fall."

"Probably."

"And you're going to catch me?"

"Always."

The word hangs in the air between you, heavier than it should be. Always. Not just on the ski slope, but everywhere. Always.

"Okay," you whisper. "Let's go."

You push off.

The first few seconds are wobbly, your balance shifts, your arms flail slightly, your heart pounds in your ears. But then something clicks. Your body remembers the lessons from yesterday, the way Heeseung taught you to lean into the turns, to keep your weight centered, to trust the board beneath your feet.

You pick up speed, and instead of panicking, you lean into it. The wind rushes past your face, cold and exhilarating.

And then, miraculously, impossibly, you reach the bottom of the slope without falling.

"I DID IT!" you scream, your voice echoing across the mountain. "I DID IT! I SNOWBOARDED!"

You are laughing, giddy with adrenaline and triumph, and you turn around to find Heeseung, to share this moment with him, to see the proud expression on his face.

But Heeseung isn't at the bottom of the slope.

He is still at the top.

And he is shouting something.

"Y/N! Y/N L/N!"

The entire slope seems to go quiet. Other skiers and snowboarders slow down, turning to look at the boy standing at the top of the beginner hill, his hands cupped around his mouth, his voice carrying across the snow with startling clarity.

"I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!"

Your heart stops. Then starts again, twice as fast.

"I'VE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAY THIS FOR WEEKS!" Heeseung shouts. "AND I REALIZED THAT THE BEST WAY TO TELL YOU IS THE SAME WAY YOU TOLD ME, WITH WORDS THAT I CAN'T TAKE BACK!"

People are staring. Everyone is staring.

"LEE HEESEUNG, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" you shout back, your voice cracking.

"I'M CONFESSING!" he yells. "PROPERLY! IN FRONT OF EVERYONE! BECAUSE YOU DESERVE A CONFESSION THAT'S JUST FOR YOU! YOU DESERVE THE LOVE YOU'VE DREAMED ABOUT!"

"THE FIRST LETTER WASN'T FOR ME!" Heeseung continues, his voice ringing across the snow. "BUT I WANT TO WRITE YOU ONE! I WANT TO WRITE YOU A HUNDRED LETTERS! I WANT TO LEARN YOUR FAVORITE HIGHLIGHTER COLORS AND THE NAMES OF ALL YOUR PLANTS AND THE EXACT WAY YOU LIKE YOUR VANILLA LATTES!"

Someone in the crowd lets out a wolf whistle. Someone else starts recording on their phone. You can't move, can't speak, can't do anything except stand at the bottom of the slope and stare up at the boy who shouts his heart out for everyone to hear.

"YOU'RE A DISASTER!" Heeseung yells, and his voice is full of joy, full of affection, full of something that looks a lot like love. "YOU'RE A HOPELESS ROMANTIC WHO'S TOO SCARED TO LIVE THE ROMANCE YOU DREAM ABOUT! YOU HIDE BEHIND BULLETIN BOARDS AND YOU CHOKE ON LETTUCE AND YOU SPILL COFFEE ON YOURSELF AND YOU MAKE GRAPHS ABOUT VIDEO GAME BALANCE AND YOU CRIED OVER A BABY PENGUIN IN A NATURE DOCUMENTARY!"

"This is the worst confession I've ever heard!" you shout back, but you are laughing, tears streaming down your face, your heart so full it feels like it might burst.

"I'M NOT FINISHED!" Heeseung takes a deep breath, and when he speaks again, his voice is softer, still loud enough to carry, but more intimate, more vulnerable. "YOU'RE A DISASTER, Y/N L/N! AND I'M A DISASTER TOO! I'M A PEOPLE-PLEASER WHO CAN'T SAY NO, I HAVE A REPUTATION THAT DOESN'T REFLECT WHO I ACTUALLY AM, AND I POURED COFFEE ON MY HEAD BECAUSE I COULDN'T STAND TO SEE YOU CRY ALONE!"

He starts walking down the slope toward you, his snowboard forgotten at the top, his boots crunching through the snow.

"AND I THINK, NO, I KNOW THAT I'VE BEEN FALLING FOR YOU SINCE THE MOMENT YOU WALKED INTO THAT PC ROOM AND LOOKED AT ME LIKE I WAS THE WORST THING THAT HAD EVER HAPPENED TO YOU!"

He gets closer now, close enough that you can see the nervousness in his eyes, the vulnerability beneath the bravado, the way his hands shake slightly despite his confident posture.

"SO I'M ASKING YOU, IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE, ON THIS VERY EMBARRASSING SKI SLOPE, IF YOU'LL BE MY DISASTER. OFFICIALLY. NO MORE MISUNDERSTANDINGS. NO MORE LETTERS MEANT FOR OTHER PEOPLE. JUST US."

He stops a few feet away from you, his breath fogging in the cold air, his dark eyes fixed on your face.

"WHAT DO YOU SAY, LITTLE MOUSE?"

The silence that follows is deafening. Every person on the slope watches you, waiting for your answer.

And you, you, the hopeless romantic who has always been too scared to live the romance you dream about, you take a deep breath, throw your arms out wide, and shout at the top of your lungs:

"I LIKE YOU TOO, YOU ABSOLUTE IDIOT! I'VE LIKED YOU FOR WEEKS AND I DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO SAY IT AND YOU JUST SHOUTED IT FROM A MOUNTAINTOP LIKE A CHARACTER IN A KDRAMA!"

Heeseung's face breaks into the biggest smile you have ever seen. "IS THAT A YES?"

"THAT'S A YES! THAT'S A THOUSAND TIMES YES! NOW COME HERE AND KISS ME BEFORE I PASS OUT FROM THE EMBARRASSMENT OF HAVING THIS CONVERSATION IN FRONT OF LITERALLY EVERYONE!"

He doesn't need to be told twice. He crosses the distance between you in three long strides, catches your face in his hands, and kisses you, deep and thorough and joyful, right there at the bottom of the beginner slope, with the snow sparkling around you and the crowd erupting into cheers and someone's phone recording what will undoubtedly become the most-watched video on the university's social media for the next month.

When he pulls back, his forehead pressed against yours, his breath warm against your lips, he grins like he has just won the lottery.

"You shouted your feelings from a mountaintop," he murmurs. "You, the girl who was too scared to even correct a misunderstanding, just shouted your feelings from a mountaintop."

"You started it."

"I did. And you finished it." He kisses the tip of your nose. "I'm so proud of you."

You have never been more embarrassed in your entire life, and you have never been happier.

"We're still disasters," you say.

"Absolutely. But now we're disasters who are dating."

"Are we dating? Is that what this is?"

"This is me, shouting from a mountaintop that I want to be with you. I'm pretty sure that counts as dating." He pauses, his expression shifting to something more serious. "Unless you don't want-"

"I want." You grab the front of his jacket and pull him closer. "I want everything. The letters and the coffee disasters and the matching shirts and the snowboarding lessons and the jacuzzi conversations and the ridiculous mountaintop confessions. I want all of it."

Heeseung kisses you again, and this time it is softer, sweeter, full of promise.

"You know what this means," he says against your lips.

"What?"

"We're going to have to tell Jungwon."

You groan. "Can we wait until after the trip? I need at least twenty-four hours to recover from this before I have another emotionally complicated conversation."

"Deal." He pulls back, taking your hand in his. "Come on. Let's get out of here before someone asks us for an interview."

And hand in hand, laughing like fools, you run away from the crowd and the chaos.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

the way your eyes roll behind your lids, the way your lips are parted just enough that the tip of your tongue sticks out, the way your chest rises and falls from heavy, rapid breathing—the way your, his favourite, tits bounce with each time sunghoon plunges his cock deep…

wouldn’t they look nice all swollen and leaking with milk…?

his mind is spinning, all dark and possessive. what if… what if he doesn’t pull out? what if he stays right here, filling you up until it takes? until your pretty womb and uterus takes him well? right into those fallopian tubes where his cum penetrates your egg?

what happens then?

you’d be tied to him.

the thought shatters when your hand plants against his cheek, your thumb brushing the apple of his cheek. sunghoon blinks, lashes fluttering. 

“hoonie…” you whispered breathlessly, voice sweet and needy—dripping like molten honey. “want more, please—give me more, my pretty boy,”

he clicks his tongue. a low, possessive scoff rumble in his chest as he leans down, capturing your lips in a deep, messy kiss. his teeth clash against yours, sharp canines dragging along your bottom flesh. his hips start thrusting and moving again—more intentional with how deep he’s even going. 

“yeah?” he rasps against your mouth, his hand caresses and brushes back your hair sticking at your damp forehead. “you want more, pretty baby? i’ll give you more—i’ll give you everything.”

he hooks one of your legs higher around his waist, angling himself so he can drive even deeper—the head of his cock kissing your cervix with every roll of his hips. his pelvis brushes against your lower stomach, right where he imagines his baby will grow.

you’re both still so young, barely figuring out the world. the biggest problem for you is your next exam, and his biggest stress is his lab test result. you still laugh about silly things and he thinks thrice, no four times, before buying a snack.

but he doesn’t care anymore.

not tonight. not when you’re underneath him, all warm and soft and moaning his name like that. not when everything’s uncertain—but one thing sunghoon knows for sure is that nothing is separating you from him. not in this life, the next or any fucking lifetime after that.

“yn, i love you so much, hm?” sunghoon murmurs against your neck, his lips nipping at the soft spot. “you can never walk away from me.” his hand slides between you, palm pressing flat and heavy over your lower tummy as he fucks you harder, feeling the shape of his own cock buried beneath the fat.

you’re a little confused tonight—your boyfriend’s being both rough and gentle at the same time. but you couldn’t care less. not when he’s making you feel so good, so heavenly, so loved. 

it’s taking your mind off the fact that your midtests are coming up.

sunghoon begins to thrust harder, grinding his hips against that spot where he keeps imagining swelling for him. his cock throbs hard inside you at the thought, hips snapping forward with clear purpose now.

you’ll probably hate him so fucking much—so much that he knows you’ll say meaningless things like breaking up and calling it off and aboring. but sunghoon knows you more. probably more than you know yourself—that you, will never, ever, ever, 

abort his baby. 

you can never leave him. not with his physical imprint growing inside your own body. 

The bus station in Fairview Fall is not really a bus station. It is a parking lot beside the post office with a painted sign on a wooden post that reads Fairview Fall — Pop. 2,847 and a single bench that has seen better decades. You step off the bus into heat so thick it feels like walking into something solid, and the first thing you think is that your mother would have had something to say about this. Something funny. She always had something funny. You are still working on finding it funny.

Your bag is on your shoulder and your mother’s cardigan is tied around your waist because you could not bring yourself to pack it and you could not wear it either, not in this heat, but you needed it close. The driver hands down your suitcase from the hold and then the box — your father’s records, wrapped in an old bedsheet and taped within an inch of their lives — and you take it with both hands like it is something that could break, because it is. “Y/N.” You turn around.

Birdie is standing at the edge of the parking lot in a yellow sundress with her dark hair pinned up and her hands clasped in front of her like she is trying to hold herself together by sheer force of will. She is younger than you keep expecting — younger than your mother was, softer somehow, with the same eyes. That is the thing you were not prepared for. The eyes. She opens her arms and you walk into them and she holds on tight and doesn’t say anything for a long moment and that is exactly right, that is the only right thing, and you press your face into her shoulder and breathe. “Okay,” she says finally, quietly, into your hair. “Okay. Let’s get you home.” She takes the suitcase without asking. You keep the records.

Her truck is an old Ford the colour of rust and good intentions. It smells like vanilla and, underneath that, the faint ghost of something that went wrong in a kitchen recently. Birdie swings out of the parking lot with the ease of someone who has been driving these roads for years and cracks both windows so the hot air moves, and for a minute neither of you says anything.

The town scrolls past — the diner, the hardware store, the church, a barbershop with a striped pole still spinning — and you watch it go by with your elbow on the window ledge and the sun on your arm. “It’s smaller than I thought,” you say. “It’s small,” Birdie agrees easily. “You get used to it. Then you start to like it. Then one day you realise you can’t imagine being anywhere else and that’s just that.” She glances over at you. “Happened to me and I came here for a man, which tells you something about how good the town is.” “What happened to the man?”

“He left.” She says it without any weight on it, like a fact about the weather. “Best thing he ever did for me, honestly. I got to keep the town.” You look back out the window. There is a bookshop on the corner of main street with a display in the window — paperbacks arranged around a small ceramic rooster — and a hand-painted sign above the door that reads Read a Cookie in cheerful red letters. “Is that—” “That’s mine,” Birdie says, and the pride in her voice is warm and uncomplicated. “Named it myself. People told me it didn’t make any sense. I told them that was the point.” Something loosens very slightly in your chest. “My mom would have loved that name.” Birdie’s hands shift on the steering wheel. “Yeah,” she says softly. “She would have.”

The town gives way to a residential street, quieter, lined with oak trees that are losing the fight against the August heat. Birdie pulls up outside a small white house with a porch and a hanging basket and a cat sitting in the front window staring out at the street with the energy of someone who has appointed himself neighbourhood watch. “That’s Gerald,” Birdie says. “He doesn’t warm up to people easily.” She pauses. “He’ll be on your lap by Thursday.”

The house is warm and slightly chaotic in the way that feels lived-in rather than messy — books on every surface, a quilt over the sofa, a kitchen that smells like sugar and ambition. Your room has a window overlooking the street and a quilt that matches the one downstairs and a small vase of wildflowers on the dresser that Birdie must have put there this morning, and you have to look at the ceiling for a moment before you can say anything. “It’s lovely,” you manage. “Thank you, Birdie.”

“Don’t,” she says simply. “You’re family. This is just where family goes.” She leaves you to settle in. You sit on the edge of the bed for a while before you do anything else. Then you open the box of records carefully, take each one out, and line them up against the wall until you can find something to put them on properly. You run your thumb along the spines of them — your father’s handwriting on some of the paper sleeves, little notes he’d written to himself, great for Sunday mornings and Y/N will like this one when she’s older — and you breathe through it, in and out, until you can. You take out the journal Birdie sent you in the weeks after. Brown leather, your name on the inside cover in her loopy handwriting. You open to the first page. We’re here, Dad, you write. It seems like a good place.

August bleeds away slowly, the way time does when you are somewhere new and the shape of your days has not yet formed. Birdie puts you to work in the bookshop most mornings — not because she needs the help, though she doesn’t turn it down, but because she is perceptive enough to know that you need somewhere to be. You shelve books and make change and learn the names of regulars who come in and stay too long, browsing without buying, talking to Birdie about their lives while she leans on the counter and listens like she has nowhere else to be.

They look at you with open curiosity every single one of them. Not unkind. Just unsubtle. “This your niece, Birdie?” “That’s her. In from New York.” “Well, welcome to Fairview Fall, honey. You settling in alright?” “Yes, thank you,” you say, every time, and mean it, and still go home some evenings feeling so full of warmth from strangers that you don’t know what to do with it. You write about it.

You write about your mother and how she would have made friends with every single one of them inside of five minutes, your mother who could talk to anyone, who remembered every name, who made a room feel like a party just by walking into it. You write about your father and the record shop you found on main street, the one he would have disappeared into on day one and emerged from an hour later sheepish and happy with something tucked under his arm. You write in present tense. It is the only way you know how to keep them with you.

The grief comes without warning and without schedule. A song on the radio in the bookshop one afternoon that your mother used to hum in the kitchen and you have to go into the back and sit down until it passes. A customer who wears the same cologne your father wore and you spend the rest of the morning slightly underwater. Birdie always knows. She brings you things — a cookie, a glass of water, a hand on your shoulder — and she does not ask you to explain and she does not try to fix it and that, more than anything, is why you are starting to love her. She is an awful cook. She is a spectacular baker. These are two entirely different skills that exist peacefully in the same person and Fairview Fall has long since made its peace with this fact. The dinners are ambitious and variable. The baked goods are extraordinary, and she knows it, and she is not modest about it.

September comes and brings with it the particular dread of a first day at a new school. The night before, you cannot sleep. You lie in the dark and listen to Fairview Fall settle into quiet around you and you think about your old school, your old locker, your old seat by the window in English class, your old life. You think about how none of it exists anymore in the same way. You think about walking into a building where everyone already knows everyone and you are the city girl, the new girl, the one staying with Miss Birdie, and how that will precede you through every door.

In the morning Birdie is up before you. You come downstairs in your mother’s cardigan and your jeans and your stomach in knots and she turns from the kitchen and says “sit down, baby” and puts a plate of blueberry muffins in front of you that are so good it is almost offensive. She sits across from you with her coffee and she talks — about the town, about the teachers, about nothing important — and she lets you eat and lets the morning be ordinary, and by the time you have to leave your stomach has unknotted itself by about half.

She drops you at the school gates in the truck and squeezes your hand before you get out. “You’re going to be just fine,” she says. “I know,” you say, which is not the same as believing it.

Fairview Fall High School is a low brick building with a football field that is clearly the town’s real pride and joy — the grass better maintained than anything else on the property, a hand-painted banner above the gymnasium doors reading GO HAWKS in red and gold so fresh it must be new this week. The gate is open and everyone is moving through it with the ease of people who have done this a hundred times, which they have. They know where they are going. They know who they are going with. They move in clusters that have been the same clusters since middle school and they talk and laugh and do not notice you standing just outside the gate with your bag on your shoulder and your mother’s cardigan tied around your waist trying to figure out if you could leave without anyone noticing.

You are still trying to figure it out when a car pulls up to the kerb beside you — a blue thing, old and a little battered but clearly loved, clearly tended to — and the door opens and someone gets out, and he is tall, dark-haired, broad across the shoulders in the way of someone who has been physical his whole life without thinking about it, wearing a Fairview Fall Hawks t-shirt with the sleeves cut and an easy, unhurried look on his face that you will come to understand is just him, that is just what he looks like, like the world is something he finds genuinely good.

He leans against the side of his car and looks at you. Not in a way that makes you feel looked at. Just in a way that sees you. “You look like you’re trying to figure out if you can leave without anyone noticing,” he says. “That obvious?” “Little bit.” The corner of his mouth lifts. “You’re staying with Miss Birdie, right?” Of course he knows. Of course. “That’s me.” He nods, easy, like this confirms something he already suspected, and then he just pushes off the car and extends his hand like it is the most natural thing in the world. “Lee Heeseung,” he says. “Come on, I’ll walk you in.” You look at his hand. You look at the gate. You look back at him. “Okay,” you say, and shake it.

He walks with the kind of ease that parts a crowd without trying. People call his name and he calls theirs back — first names, last names, nicknames, little details lobbed like catching up even though school has not started yet, how’s your daddy’s back, tell your sister congratulations on the baby — and he does it all without breaking stride, without making you feel like an afterthought beside him. He introduces you to people in the hallway with a hand half-raised in your direction, this is Y/N, she’s staying with Miss Birdie, and they say hi Y/N and welcome to Fairview Fall and love your cardigan and you say thank you, thank you, thank you. He takes you to the principal’s office himself. Sits in the chair beside you like he belongs there, which apparently he does because the secretary says “morning, Heeseung” without looking up, and the principal shakes his hand before he shakes yours. You come out with a timetable and a map of the building and Heeseung looks at both and says “okay, your first class is this way” and just starts walking.

At the door of your first class he leans in the doorframe — just leans there like he was born to lean, like all doorframes exist in anticipation of him — and looks at you with that easy grin. “I’ll find you before lunch,” he says. “You can sit with me and my friends.”

“You don’t have to do that,” you say. “I know I don’t.” He says it simply, without any performance behind it. “I’ll find you before lunch.” You look at him for a moment. “Okay.” “Okay.” He pushes off the doorframe. Starts to go. Then he glances back over his shoulder at you, grin already in place. “See you later, city girl.” The door closes behind him. You turn around and find a seat and spend the first ten minutes of class thinking about absolutely nothing related to the lesson.

He finds you before lunch. He materialises at your locker with the punctuality of someone who means what he says and says what he means, and he falls into step beside you down the hallway and pushes open the cafeteria door and steers you toward a corner table where two people are already sitting. The boy is leaning back in his chair with his arms folded and the look of someone who has a lot of feelings about Wednesdays and none of them are positive. He is handsome in a sharp, clean way, dark-haired, and he looks up at you and nods once like you have passed some preliminary inspection.

The girl beside him is already looking at you like she has made a decision. She is in a bright green dress with her hair down and she has the kind of face that is interesting before it is pretty, quick and watchful and warm all at once, and she says “oh good, another girl” before you have even sat down. “I have been the only one for six years and I want you to know it has been a lot.” “Hi,” you say. “Hi,” she says, and scoots over to make room. “I’m Immy. That’s Hoon, he’s not as unfriendly as he looks.” “I’m plenty friendly,” Sunghoon says, and steals something off her tray without looking at it. “Hoon.” Her voice goes flat. “Sweetheart.” His doesn’t change at all. “I told you not to call me that.” He looks at her then, and there is something in his face that is so straightforward and so completely unbothered that you almost laugh. “I know you did,” he says pleasantly. Immy stares at him. She is fighting a smile and losing. She turns back to you like none of that happened. “So. New York City.” She says it like she is tasting it. “What’s it like?”

“Loud,” you say. “A lot of people. Everything’s very fast.” “Do you miss it?” It is a direct question. You appreciate that she asks it like she actually wants to know rather than like she is being polite. You think about it honestly. “I miss the familiarity of it,” you say. “I miss knowing where I am.” Immy nods. “You’ll know where you are here pretty quick,” she says. “It’s not a big place to learn.” She slides a chocolate milkshake across the table to you. “You look like you need this.” You did not order it. You do not know when she did. “Thank you.” “Don’t mention it, honey.”

Across the table Heeseung is watching you with that quiet, attentive look he has — the one that notices things, that collects details and keeps them somewhere. He catches you looking and grins, easy, and goes back to his food. Sunghoon steals from Immy’s tray again. She elbows him without looking up from asking you about the bookshop. He absorbs the elbow with equanimity. He does not stop eating her fries. You think: Mom, you would love these people. Present tense. Always.

The school day ends and you come out through the front doors into the late afternoon gold of a September in Texas and you are thinking about the walk home — Birdie drew you a map this morning on a paper bag, fifteen minutes, turn left at the church — when a car horn sounds once, short and friendly, and you look over and there is the blue car at the kerb and Heeseung leaning out the window. “Get in,” he says. “I’ll give you a lift.” “I was going to walk.” “It’s a hundred degrees.” It is not quite a hundred degrees. It is close enough that you do not argue. You go around and get in the passenger side and the inside of the car smells like worn leather and something warm, like a radio that’s been on all day, and there is a small St. Christopher medal hanging from the mirror that swings when you close the door. He pulls out into the street unhurried, one hand on the wheel, and you tell him the address and he nods like he already knew. “How was the rest of it?” he asks. “Okay,” you say. “Miss Beaumont gave me a book.”

“She does that.” He says it warmly. “She gave me East of Eden sophomore year and told me to come back when I’d read it. I came back two weeks later and we talked about it for an hour after school. She’s good people.” You look at him sideways. He is watching the road. “You don’t seem like someone who stays after school to talk about books,” you say. He glances over, amused. “What do I seem like?” You think about the football banner. The teammates who called his name in the hallway. The easy authority of someone the whole building seems to orbit without him asking for it. “I don’t know yet,” you say honestly.

He nods like that is a fair answer. “Good,” he says. “Keep looking.” He pulls up outside Birdie’s house before you have figured out what to say to that. You are still working on it when the front door opens and Birdie comes out onto the porch, dish towel over her shoulder, and her face does something warm and immediate at the sight of the car. “Heeseung Lee,” she calls. He cuts the engine and gets out — of course he gets out, of course he does not just wave from the window — and he pulls himself up to his full height and says “afternoon, ma’am” with such genuine politeness that you watch it happen like it is something to study. Birdie gives him a look. “Ma’am,” she repeats. “Yes, ma’am.” “Heeseung.” She puts a hand on her hip. “I have known you since you were a tot. Small enough to fit in that window box.” She points at it. “Now you call me Birdie.”

He has the grace to look slightly abashed, which on him is mostly just the grin getting a little sheepish. “Yes, ma— yes. Sorry. Birdie.” “Better.” She looks between the two of you with an expression that is doing several things at once and landing primarily on satisfied. “You staying for supper?” “No thank you, I’ve got to get home. But I appreciate it.” “Another time then.” She says it like it is already decided. “You drive safe.” “Always do.” He looks at you. “See you tomorrow, city girl.” “See you tomorrow,” you say. He gets back in the car. You stand on the kerb and watch him pull away — the blue car disappearing around the corner at the end of the street, the St. Christopher swinging — and then Birdie is beside you with the dish towel still over her shoulder and a look on her face that is entirely too knowing for this time of day.

“Come inside,” she says. “I’ll put the kettle on.” You follow her up the porch steps. Gerald is in the window, watching. Inside the house it smells like vanilla and a baking experiment and something that might be dinner taking a turn for the ambitious, and Birdie fills the kettle and sets it on the stove and leans against the counter with her arms crossed and that look still on her face. “So,” she says. “You met Heeseung.” “He found me outside the gates,” you say, dropping your bag on a chair. “He showed me around.” “Mmhm.” She says it in a way that contains a lot. “He’s nice.” “He is.” She nods slowly. “He’s a good boy, Heeseung. His family have been here as long as mine have. His daddy taught him to fix that car himself, the blue one — he was about fourteen when they started on it, worked on it for two years. His mama makes the best peach preserves in the county and she will give you a jar if you so much as look at them.” She pauses. “He’s going to be offered a football scholarship.” You look up. “Yeah?” “Yeah. He doesn’t want it.” She says it simply, without editorialising, like it is just a thing she knows. “He wants to stay here and study music. Plays guitar, did he tell you that?” “No.”

“He wouldn’t, first day.” She unfolds herself from the counter as the kettle starts to murmur. “He doesn’t show that to many people.” She glances back at you with those familiar eyes, your mother’s eyes, and something in her expression is soft and deliberate. “You had a good day.”

It is not a question exactly. You think about Immy’s arm through yours in the hallway. You think about Sunghoon’s complete indifference to being elbowed and Immy’s losing battle with her own smile. You think about Heeseung in the doorframe, easy as breathing, see you later, city girl. “Yeah,” you say. “I think I did.” Birdie smiles and pours the tea and doesn’t say I told you so, which is generous of her, and the evening settles around you soft and warm and ordinary in a way that feels, for the first time, like something you might be able to live inside. Gerald comes down from his windowsill and sits on your feet. “Thursday,” Birdie says, without looking. “I told you.”

By the end of the first week you have learned the following things about Fairview Fall High School. The bathroom by the science block floods if someone flushes the third stall, which Immy told you on day one and which you have since witnessed firsthand. The cafeteria does a peach cobbler on Fridays that is apparently worth rearranging your entire lunch schedule around, according to Sunghoon, who said it with a sincerity usually reserved for serious matters. Miss Beaumont assigns reading like she is prescribing medicine — specific and deliberate and not up for debate. The football team practises every day after school on the good grass and half the school finds reasons to walk past the field while it’s happening, which everyone pretends is coincidental and nobody believes.

You have also learned that Heeseung is there every morning. Not waiting for you, exactly. He is never standing at the gate with any kind of obvious intention. He is just — there. Leaning against the blue car with one ankle crossed over the other and his face tipped up to whatever the morning is doing, talking to someone or not talking to anyone, and when you come through the gate he sees you the way he seems to see everything, which is immediately and without making a production of it, and he falls into step beside you like it is the most natural thing in the world, which by Friday it almost is.

“Morning, city girl.” “Morning.” “Sleep alright?” “Better than the night before.” “That’s something.” He holds the door. You go through. “Birdie feed you before you left?” “Lemon muffins today.” “Lord.” He says it with feeling. “Her lemon muffins are something else.” “You’ve had them?” “She used to bring them to my mama when I was small. I’d eat about four before anyone noticed.” He grins at the memory, easy and unguarded, and you look at him sideways and think about what Birdie said — he doesn’t show that to many people — and you file it away without knowing exactly why.

On Friday Immy decides, without consulting anyone, that you are all going to the diner after school. She announces this at lunch with the confidence of someone who has never once proposed something and been told no, which you are beginning to understand is simply accurate. Sunghoon says “I was going to go home” and Immy says “no you weren’t” and he considers this and says “you’re right, I wasn’t” and that is the entire negotiation. Heeseung looks at you across the table. “You in?” “I don’t have anywhere else to be,” you say. “That’s the spirit,” Immy says, pointing a fork at you approvingly.

The diner is called Mae’s, which is also the name of the woman behind the counter who is somewhere between sixty and ageless and who looks at you when you walk in and says “you must be Birdie’s girl” before you have opened your mouth. You say yes ma’am and she nods like you have passed something and brings over four menus that nobody looks at because apparently nobody here needs a menu. “Usual?” she says to Heeseung. “Yes ma’am.” “Immy, you want the grilled cheese or the club today?” “Grilled cheese, Mae, I’m not complicated.” “Hoon.” “Chocolate shake and whatever Immy doesn’t finish,” Sunghoon says. Mae looks at him over the top of her notepad with an expression that has lived in this diner for thirty years. “I’ll put in an order for you like a normal person.” “I appreciate that.” She turns to you last and there is something in her face that is not pity but is in the neighbourhood of kindness, the particular kindness of someone who has watched a lot of life come through a door and knows what it looks like when someone is still finding their feet. “What do you like, sweetheart?”

You look at the menu properly. Everything on it is the kind of food that takes its time — burgers and cobbler and sandwiches that come with a side of something and a pickle that nobody asked for and nobody minds. You order a club sandwich and a chocolate milkshake and Mae writes it down and goes, and you put the menu back behind the napkin holder and look around. The diner is warm and a little worn in the way of places that have been genuinely used — the vinyl on the booths cracked at the edges, the counter stools slightly uneven, the jukebox in the corner playing something slow and country that you do not recognise but that sounds like it belongs here.

There are photographs on the wall near the register, decades of them, Fairview Fall laid out in black and white and faded colour. Football teams and school groups and a ribbon cutting for something and a woman who might be a younger Mae standing in front of the counter with her arms crossed and a look on her face that has not changed. “She’s been here since before I was born,” Heeseung says, following your eye line. He is beside you in the booth, close enough that you are aware of it without it being a thing. “Her husband built the counter. She buried him about ten years ago and kept coming in every day.” “That’s sad,” you say. “She doesn’t seem to think so.” He tilts his head slightly, considering. “She says this place is where she’s most herself. That she can feel him in it.” He pauses. “I think that makes sense.”

You think about your father’s records lined up on the shelf in your room. The way you run your thumb along the spines of them sometimes before bed without taking any out. You think about how some things are sad and a comfort at exactly the same time and how nobody tells you that before you need to know it. “Yeah,” you say. “It does.” Across the table Immy is telling Sunghoon something with her hands, which is how she tells everything — full body, gestures large and certain — and Sunghoon is watching her with his chin in his hand and the expression he gets when he is listening to her properly, which is soft in a way he would probably deny. She is talking about something that happened in her chemistry class, a lab that went sideways, and she is making it very funny, and Sunghoon is not laughing but he is very close to it, the way he always is with her, like she is the only person who can find the seam of him. “How long have they been together?” you ask quietly. Heeseung glances over at them. “They’re not,” he says. You look at him. “Really.”

“Really.” He says it with the patience of someone who has had this conversation before. “They’re just — Immy and Sunghoon. They’ve been Immy and Sunghoon since we were thirteen.” “That sounds like together.” “Don’t tell Sunghoon that, he’ll short-circuit.” He picks up his water glass. “He knows what it is. He’s waiting for her to decide she knows too.” You look back at Sunghoon, who has apparently made a quiet comment because Immy has stopped mid-gesture to stare at him and then shove his shoulder and he has absorbed the shove with complete serenity, the ghost of something pleased at the corner of his mouth. “How long has he been waiting?” you ask. Heeseung thinks about it. “Thirteen,” he says. “So about four years.” You consider this. “That’s very patient.” “That’s Sunghoon.” He says it simply, like it is just a true thing about his friend, like patience is just the shape of him. “He’d wait forever if that’s what it took.”

The food arrives and the conversation opens up and you let yourself be carried by it — Immy asking you about New York with genuine curiosity and not the performative kind, what do people do there, what does it smell like, is it true the pizza is actually better. Sunghoon asks if you’ve ever been to a baseball game and when you say yes, a lot, his whole face does something interested. Heeseung mostly listens, eating his food — a burger, you note, always a burger — and occasionally adding something that reframes the conversation entirely without seeming to try.

You order the peach cobbler because Sunghoon tells you to and because by now you understand that Sunghoon’s food opinions are to be taken seriously. It arrives warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream going slowly soft at the edges and the first bite is the kind of thing that makes you close your eyes for a second. “Told you,” Sunghoon says. “You did,” you admit. He nods once, satisfied. Steals a bite of Immy’s cobbler. She moves it closer to him without comment, which is so unconscious that you are not sure either of them notices they’ve done it. You notice.

Mae brings the check and Heeseung takes it before anyone else can reach it and there is a brief argument about this that he wins through the simple method of already having his wallet out, and you make a note to be faster next time.

Outside the diner the September evening is doing something beautiful — the sky going amber and deep at the edges, the heat off the day softened to something almost gentle, the main street quiet in the way it gets when school is out and supper is being thought about. Immy loops her arm through yours on the sidewalk. This is already just something she does. “Walk me home?” she says, and it is not really a question. “It’s on the way to Birdie’s.” It is not on the way to Birdie’s. You have seen Birdie’s map. You walk with her anyway. She talks the way she does everything — fully, with her whole self in it. She tells you about growing up in Fairview Fall, about the way the town feels small until you know where all the seams are and then it feels like it contains everything. She tells you about the lake, twenty minutes out, where everyone goes on Friday nights in summer. She tells you about the drive-in and how Heeseung once narrated an entire film in the wrong voices because the sound wasn’t working in his car and had half the lot in tears laughing. She tells you about the high roads above the town, the ones that wind up through the hills, and how on a clear night you can see the lights of Fairview Fall spread out below you and it looks like something impossible. “You’ll see it,” she says. “When the time’s right, you’ll see it.”

You walk through a neighbourhood that is going golden in the evening light, porch lights coming on, someone’s radio on somewhere, a dog barking once and stopping. It smells like cut grass and the beginning of autumn and something good cooking in someone’s house. “Can I ask you something?” Immy says. “Sure.” “How are you doing.” She says it without the question mark, which you understand means she wants a real answer and not the performed one. You think about it. The real answer, not the easy one. “Some days are okay,” you say. “Some days it hits me out of nowhere and I don’t know what to do with it. Today was okay.” You pause. “Today was actually good.” Immy nods, arm still in yours. “Good days are allowed,” she says. “You know that, right? You’re allowed to have them.” You do know that, in theory. You are still working on knowing it in practice. “My mom would be furious with me if I wasn’t living,” you say. “She was — she was very much a person who lived. Loudly and fully. She would hate for me to stop because of her.” “She sounds amazing.” “She was.” Present tense is the only way. “She is.”

Immy doesn’t correct you. She just squeezes your arm and keeps walking, and you are grateful for that in a way you couldn’t put into words if you tried.

Her house is a white clapboard on a corner lot with a porch swing and a magnolia tree in the front yard that has shed its flowers all over the path. You stop at the gate. “Same time Monday?” she says. “For what?” “For everything.” She waves a hand. “School. The diner, probably. Heeseung driving you home and pretending it’s just convenient.” She gives you a look that is very Immy, which is to say warm and blunt and absolutely certain of itself. “He drove you home the first day.” “He said it was a hundred degrees.” “It was seventy-eight.” She smiles. “See you Monday, honey.” She goes up the path through the fallen magnolia flowers and up the porch steps and the door opens before she reaches it — Sunghoon, who apparently walked her home by a different route and got here first — and she stops on the top step and looks at him and says “how did you—” and he says “I know a shortcut” and she shakes her head and goes inside and he follows her and the door closes.

You stand at the gate for a moment in the evening quiet. Then you walk home through the golden streets of Fairview Fall with your mother’s cardigan tied around your waist and your hands in your pockets and something in your chest that is not quite happiness but is something adjacent to it, something that has warmth in it, something that you think might be the beginning of okay. Birdie is on the porch when you get back, coffee in hand, Gerald at her feet. “Good?” she says. “Good,” you say. She smiles and opens the door and the house wraps around you, warm and vanilla-scented and familiar already in the way that good places get familiar, like your body knew before your mind caught up, and you go upstairs and take out the journal and sit on the bed and write.

Mom, you write. I think I’m making friends. Real ones. The kind you would approve of. Dad, there’s a record shop on main street. I keep meaning to go in. I think I’m working up to it. I wore your cardigan today. It still smells like you, a little. I’m glad.

Outside your window Fairview Fall is settling into night, the street going quiet, a dog somewhere and a radio somewhere and the distant sound of a screen door. Gerald jumps up onto the bed and turns three times and lies down against your leg with the certainty of an animal who has decided this is now his arrangement. You close the journal. You think about Immy saying good days are allowed, the matter-of-fact kindness of it, the way she said it like it was just true and not something that needed softening. You think about Heeseung in the diner, his voice low, she can feel him in it — I think that makes sense. You reach over and touch the edge of the nearest record sleeve. Your father’s handwriting. Y/N will like this one when she’s older. “I’m getting there, Dad,” you say quietly, to the room, to the record, to wherever he is. “I promise I’m getting there.”

—

Miss Beaumont teaches English the way some people play music — like she means every note of it, like she would be doing it even if nobody was listening. Her classroom is the kind of room that accumulates over years. There are books on every surface that was not strictly designed for books. There are quotes written on strips of paper pinned along the top of the blackboard, running the full length of the room, and on your first day you spent the better part of the lesson trying to read all of them instead of paying attention to what she was actually saying, which she noticed, and which she did not comment on, which told you something about her. There is a rug under her desk that does not match anything else in the room and a lamp in the corner that she switches on instead of the overhead light on grey days, which makes the whole room feel like somewhere you might voluntarily spend time. You like it in there. You did not expect to like anything about a new school this much this quickly and you are choosing not to examine it too closely.

The poem is Whitman. Song of Myself, the sixth section, the one about the grass. Miss Beaumont writes the last few lines on the board in her clean, deliberate hand and then sets down the chalk and turns around and looks at the class the way she always does, like she is genuinely curious what you are all going to do with it. “Well,” she says. “What is he saying?” The class does the thing that classes do, which is to say it does very little. Someone offers something careful and non-committal about nature. Someone else agrees with that person. Miss Beaumont listens with her arms folded and the expression of someone waiting for the room to warm up. Your hand goes up before you have fully decided to raise it. “Yes,” she says, and looks at you with something that sharpens slightly, like a lens adjusting.

“He’s not really talking about grass,” you say. “The child asks what grass is and he says he doesn’t know, but then he spends the whole section telling you exactly what it is. It’s the handkerchief of the Lord. It’s the hair of graves. It’s everyone who ever lived, compressed into something ordinary that we walk on without thinking.” You pause. “He’s saying that everything we’ve lost is still here. Just in a different form. And we keep stepping on it and not noticing.” The room is quiet for a moment. Miss Beaumont looks at you with an expression you cannot fully read. “And what do you make of that?” she says. “The idea that the lost are still here.” You think about your father’s records. Your mother’s cardigan. The way you write in present tense because past tense feels like a door closing. “I think it’s something people need to believe,” you say carefully. “Whether or not it’s true.” Miss Beaumont holds your gaze for a moment longer than feels strictly academic. Then she nods, once, and turns to the rest of the class, and the lesson moves on, and you look back down at the poem in your textbook and read the last line again. The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. You underline it. You are not sure if you believe it. You are not sure you need to.

She asks you to stay after. The class files out around you and you gather your things slowly and approach her desk where she is making notes in the margin of something, and she finishes her thought before she looks up, which you appreciate. Teachers who perform attentiveness by stopping what they’re doing the second you arrive have always made you vaguely suspicious. “Sit,” she says, nodding at the chair beside her desk. You sit. The lamp in the corner is on today.

Outside the window the school grounds are going quiet, the afternoon emptying out. “Where are you from originally?” she says, though you suspect she already knows. “New York.” “I thought so.” She sets down her pen. She has the kind of face that has always been interested in things, fine lines at the corners of her eyes from a lifetime of reading in insufficient light. “What did you read there?” “Everything I could find.” You think about your bedroom in the apartment, the shelves your father built along one whole wall, the library card that you used until it was soft at the edges. “My dad used to take me to the Strand on weekends. We’d spend hours.”

“Good man,” she says simply. She opens her desk drawer and takes out a book and sets it on the desk between you. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Zora Neale Hurston. The cover is worn in the way of a book that has been loved by more than one person. “Have you read it?” “No.” “Then read it.” She slides it across. “And come back to me with those wide opinions from the city.” She says it without any edge, but with something pointed in it, something that is less criticism than it is challenge. “You see things. That’s good. I want to know what you see when you’ve read something that will make you work for it.” You look at the book in your hands. “When do you need it back?” “I don’t,” she says. “It’s yours.” You look up. She is already picking up her pen again. “Thank you, Miss Beaumont.” “Come back when you’ve read it,” she says, by way of goodbye.

Heeseung is leaning against the blue car in the parking lot when you come out, turning his keys over in his hand, face tipped up to the sky in that way he has, like he is checking what the weather is planning. He looks over when he hears the door. “Beaumont keep you?” he says. “How did you know?” “She kept me twice in the first month of sophomore year.” He opens the passenger door. “What did she give you?” You hold up the Hurston. He looks at it and nods with the slow approval of someone who has been given books by this woman and understands the system. “Good one,” he says. You get in. He goes around and folds himself into the driver’s side and starts the engine and pulls out of the lot and the afternoon opens up around you — the sky wide and still going gold at the edges, the roads quiet, the radio low. He drives the way he does everything, unhurried, one hand on the wheel, the St. Christopher medal swinging gently. You are almost at Birdie’s when he takes a turn you don’t recognise. “This isn’t—” “I know.” He glances over. “I need to drop something at my daddy’s. Two minutes, I promise.”

He pulls up outside a house that is not unlike Birdie’s — white, porch, well-kept, a truck in the drive — and cuts the engine and reaches into the backseat for a brown paper bag that you didn’t notice before. “Come on,” he says, like it is obvious you would.

You get out. The front yard has a garden along one side of it that is clearly someone’s serious project — beds of herbs and late-summer tomatoes and something flowering that you don’t know the name of, staked and tended, the kind of garden that is visited every day. There is a woman kneeling at the far end of it with her sleeves rolled up and a wide-brimmed hat and garden gloves gone brown at the fingers, and she sits back on her heels when she hears the gate.

“There he is,” she says, and her face does the thing that mothers’ faces do, warm and immediate, like just the sight of him settles something. She pulls off a glove and pushes up the brim of her hat and looks at you with eyes that are Heeseung’s eyes, that same quality of attention, noticing and not making it a thing. “Mama, this is Y/N,” Heeseung says. “She’s staying with Miss Birdie.” “I know who she is.” His mother stands, brushing her knees off, and extends her unglov­ed hand to you with a smile that is the easiest thing you have ever encountered. “I’ve been meaning to get over to Birdie’s and introduce myself properly. I’m sorry it’s taken me this long.” “It’s lovely to meet you,” you say. “Likewise, sweetheart.” She looks at you for a moment with that honest, unhurried attention. “You settling in alright?” “Better every day,” you say, and mean it.

She nods like this is the right answer, then turns to Heeseung and takes the paper bag he’s holding out. “Your daddy’s in the back.” “I’ll just be a minute.” He goes around the side of the house and you are left in the garden with his mother, who does not seem to find this strange at all. She pulls her glove back on and crouches back down beside the tomatoes. “Do you garden?” she asks, conversationally. “No. We had a balcony in the apartment. My mom grew herbs in pots.” You look at the beds, the order of them, the care. “This is beautiful.”

“It keeps my hands busy and my head quiet.” She ties a stem to its stake with a small piece of twine, efficient and practiced. “There’s a lot to be said for things that do both at once.” She glances up at you. “Birdie tells me you’re working in the bookshop.” “Most days after school.” “Good.” She says it simply. “Good for you, and good for her. She’s been on her own in that shop a long time.” She pauses. “She loves having you there. She tells it differently but that’s what she means.” You look at the garden so she does not see what your face does with that. Heeseung comes back around the side of the house with his hands in his pockets, unhurried, and his mother stands up again. “Stay for supper,” she says to him. “I was going to take Y/N home.” “Take her home and come back.” He looks at you. You look at him. Something in his face is asking a question without exactly asking it.

“Actually,” you say, before you know you are going to say it. “Birdie would probably— I mean she always makes too much.” You pause. “You could stay. At ours. If you wanted.” He blinks. Just once, just briefly, like you have slightly surprised him, which is not something that seems to happen to him often. Then the grin settles back into place. “Yeah?” “She’ll be pleased,” you say. “She always asks.” His mother is looking between you with an expression she is not bothering to conceal, which is to say fond and unhurried and absolutely certain of something. “Go on then,” she says, and turns back to her garden.

Birdie opens the door before you have reached the porch steps. She looks at Heeseung and then at you and then back at Heeseung and the smile that crosses her face is the most unguarded thing, warm and quick and immediately suppressed into something more dignified. “Staying for supper?” she says. “Yes ma’am,” Heeseung says. She gives him the look. The I have known you since you were a tot look. “Birdie,” he says, correcting himself. “Better.” She steps back to let you both in. “I’m making pot roast. I want no opinions about it until it’s on the table.” “I don’t have opinions about pot roast,” Heeseung says, following her into the hallway. “You haven’t had mine yet.” She disappears into the kitchen. “Y/N, show him where everything is.” You look at Heeseung. He looks at the house around him with the comfortable ease of someone who is good at being in other people’s spaces — not intrusive, just present, taking it in without making it a thing. He looks at the books on every surface, the quilt on the sofa, Gerald on the windowsill who opens one eye and then closes it again. “Nice place,” he says quietly, and means it. “Come on,” you say. “She’ll want someone to set the table.”

You show him where the plates are and he takes them down without being asked twice, and he sets the table with the straightforward helpfulness of someone raised by people who taught him how to be in a house, and Birdie comes in and out of the kitchen with things and talks to him about his parents and about the football season and about a leaking gutter on the bookshop that apparently his daddy offered to look at three weeks ago and has she called him about it, and he says no ma’am — Birdie — and she says she will tomorrow, and it is the most ordinary thing, the three of you moving around each other in the small kitchen and the small dining room, and it does not feel strange. That is the thing you keep noticing about Heeseung. He does not make things feel strange. The pot roast arrives at the table and Birdie sits down and looks at it with the particular expression of someone who is unsure and hoping for the best, and Heeseung looks at it and says “that smells incredible, Birdie” and she looks at him and says “it could go either way” with such naked honesty that you both laugh. It goes fine, actually. More than fine.

You eat and the conversation wanders — Heeseung talking about the football season, the game next Friday, the way he says it with enthusiasm that is genuine without being the only thing about him, just a part of him, one part among many. He asks you about the Hurston and you tell him what Beaumont said, come back to me with those wide opinions from the city, and he laughs and says “she said something almost exactly like that to me once, I don’t remember what about” and Birdie says “she said it to everyone who’s worth saying it to, she said it to me years ago and I’ve never forgotten it either.” You look at Birdie. “You know Miss Beaumont?” “Before she was Miss Beaumont.” Birdie waves a hand. “She’s been here a long time. Came for reasons of her own and stayed.” She says it with a look that suggests the reasons are a whole other story and not for tonight.

The evening goes slow and easy, the way good evenings do. Gerald comes and sits under Heeseung’s chair, which Birdie points out has never happened with a dinner guest in living memory, and Heeseung looks down at him and says “hey there” very quietly and Gerald does not move, which is apparently a significant endorsement. You clear the plates and Birdie produces a peach cake from somewhere that is extraordinary and the three of you eat it at the table while the night comes in through the window screens, and Heeseung talks about music — carefully, like he is not quite used to doing it, like it is something he keeps in a different pocket — and Birdie asks questions that are good questions, not polite ones, and you watch him answer them and think about what his mother said in the garden.

It keeps my hands busy and my head quiet. You think Heeseung understands that too. You think music is that for him. You think the guitar is something he goes to the way you go to the journal, the way you go to the records — because some things need somewhere to go. He leaves at half past eight, because he has school in the morning and because he was raised right and he knows when an evening has found its natural end. He thanks Birdie for supper with a sincerity that is so complete it is almost formal, and she squeezes his arm and says come back anytime and means it, and he says good night to you at the door with that easy grin, the one that is just him, that is just what he looks like. “See you tomorrow, city girl.” “See you tomorrow.” The door closes. You stand in the hallway for a moment and listen to the blue car start up outside and pull away down the street.

Birdie appears from the kitchen with a dish towel. “Nice boy,” she says, in a tone that contains an entire conversation she has decided not to have yet. “He is,” you say simply. She nods and goes back to the kitchen and you go upstairs and sit on the bed and open the journal and look at the blank page for a while. You don’t write anything tonight. You just sit with the evening, the weight of it, the warmth of it. Gerald jumps up and settles against your leg. Some things don’t need words yet.

The record shop is called Spinning Wheel and it has been on the corner of main street since before Heeseung was born, which he tells you on the walk over on a Thursday afternoon in late September when the heat has finally started to relent into something that feels like the beginning of a season changing. You have walked past it every day since you arrived. You have looked at the window display — a handwritten chalkboard of new arrivals, a turntable set up so you can see it spinning from the street, a cardboard cut-out of Johnny Cash that has been there so long it has faded at the edges — and you have not gone in. You were not ready to go in. The record shop was your father’s thing, his particular joy, the errand that was never really an errand, and you needed to be ready. You did not tell Heeseung any of this. He asked on Wednesday if you had been in yet and you said no and he said “come on then” like it was the simplest thing in the world, which for him it probably was, and that was that.

The bell above the door sounds when you push it open. Inside it smells like dust and something warmer underneath it, like the particular smell of vinyl that you know from your father’s study, from Saturday mornings, from every good memory you have of being small and sitting on the floor beside the record player while he talked you through whatever he was playing. The walls are shelved floor to ceiling. There are crates on the floor sorted by genre in handwriting that has changed systems at least three times.

At the back counter an old man with reading glasses pushed to the end of his nose looks up when you come in and nods at Heeseung with the recognition of a regular. “Lee,” he says. “Mr. Cole,” Heeseung says back. “This is Y/N. She’s staying with Miss Birdie.” Mr. Cole looks at you over his glasses. “You browse,” he says, which you understand to mean take your time and don’t ask me where anything is because it’s organised in a way only I understand. “Yes sir,” you say. He goes back to whatever he is reading. Heeseung moves through the shop the way he moves through everything — easy, familiar, at home. He goes to a crate near the window and starts flicking through without any urgency, pulling things out to look at the sleeve and putting them back, occasionally holding something up in your direction with a questioning look. You move through the other side, slower, running your fingers along the tops of the sleeves.

It hits you about three minutes in. Not hard, not the kind of grief that knocks the wind out of you, but the quiet kind — the kind that just settles behind your sternum and sits there. Your father’s hands doing exactly this. Your father’s voice: you have to feel the edges, you can tell a lot about how it’s been kept. Your father’s face when he found something he had been looking for, the particular happiness of it. You stop at a sleeve and look at it for a moment without seeing it.

“Hey.” Heeseung is beside you, not quite touching. He has learned already, somehow, when to come closer. “You alright?” “Yeah.” You mean it, mostly. “It’s just — my dad loved record shops. This is the first one I’ve been in since.” You pause. “It’s fine. It’s a good thing. I just needed a second.” He nods. He does not say I’m sorry or we can go or any of the things that are well-meaning and wrong. He just waits, turning the record in his hands, giving you the second. Then he holds something out to you. “Look at this one,” he says. You take it. The sleeve is navy blue, simple, the title in clean white lettering. You look at it and something moves in your chest because you know this record. You know this record the way you know your own name — you know the A-side and the B-side and which track your father always skipped back to and the scratch at the beginning of the third song that he said was just part of it now, just part of how it sounded.

“This is—” Your voice does something you do not intend. You clear it. “My dad had this one.” Heeseung looks at the sleeve and then at you. He does not know what he has just handed you. He genuinely does not know, you can see that, he picked it up because he loves it and wanted to show you and that is all, and that somehow makes it more rather than less. “It’s one of my favourites,” he says, carefully, watching your face. “Mine too,” you say. “My dad’s too.” A beat of quiet. Mr. Cole turns a page at the back counter. “You should have it,” Heeseung says. “Heeseung—” “I’ve already got a copy.” He nods at the shelf like this is a minor logistical point and not a kindness. “Take it.”

You look at the sleeve in your hands. Your father’s copy is on the shelf in your room at Birdie’s. This one would be yours. Given to you by someone who loved it without knowing why you needed it. “Thank you,” you say, and your voice is steady, and you are grateful for that. He just nods and goes back to the crate and pulls out something else entirely and holds it up. “What about this one. Your dad ever play you this?” And just like that the shop becomes something you can be in. You spend an hour in there, moving through the crates, playing things on the turntable that Mr. Cole sets up for you without being asked — he is gruff and does not make conversation but he puts a record on when you hold one up with a question in your face and that is its own kind of welcome. Heeseung knows more than you expected and less than your father did and the combination of those two things makes the whole afternoon feel like something that was supposed to happen.

You leave with two records. The navy blue one and a second one Heeseung insisted on, something you had never heard of, trust me, city girl, just trust me. He drops you at Birdie’s in the early evening and cuts the engine but doesn’t get out this time, one arm resting on the wheel, easy.

“There’s a game Friday night,” he says. “Football?” “The very same.” He glances over at you. “You should come. Immy’ll be there — Sunghoon plays, so she’s always there. It’s a whole thing.” “A whole thing meaning what?” “Meaning the whole town comes out. Mae’s does a special. There’s a band that plays in the parking lot after, sometimes.” He says it without selling it too hard, just laying it out, taking or leaving. “It’s a good time.” You think about Friday nights in New York. The specific texture of them — the noise, the speed, the way the city never once lowered its voice. You think about a football field in Fairview Fall with the whole town in the stands and Immy beside you and the evening going cool. “Okay,” you say. He grins. “Okay.” He reaches over and opens your door from the inside, which is a thing the blue car requires because the handle sticks. “See you tomorrow, city girl.” “See you tomorrow.”

Upstairs your room is the particular gold of a late September evening, the light coming in low through the window and lying in strips across the floor. Gerald is on the bed, which is his default position. You drop your bag and sit beside him and look at the records on the shelf for a moment — your father’s, lined up the way he kept them, spines out, everything in its place. You take the navy blue one out of the paper bag and hold it.

Then you get up and go to the shelf and take out your father’s copy of the same record and sit on the floor with both of them in your lap and that is when it comes, the grief, the real kind, the kind that does not warn you. It comes up from somewhere low and you put your face in your hands and you cry in the way you mostly cry which is quietly and completely, not performing it for anyone, just letting it happen because there is nowhere else for it to go. Dad, you think, not in words exactly but in the way grief communicates which is more like weather than language. Dad, someone gave me your record. Someone who didn’t know it was your record. Someone who just loved it. I think you would like him. You sit on the floor until it passes. It always passes.

You wipe your face with the sleeve of your mother’s cardigan and sit there in the evening quiet with two copies of the same record in your lap and Gerald comes and presses his head against your knee, solemn and warm. “Thanks, Gerald,” you say. He purrs. You put your father’s copy back on the shelf in its place. You put Heeseung’s copy beside it. Then you take out the journal. Dad, you write. Someone gave me your record today. He didn’t know. He just handed it to me because he loved it and wanted to share it with me and I think that’s one of the most him things anyone has ever done without knowing they were doing it. I think you would have liked it here. I think I’m starting to.

Friday night arrives cool and clear, the sky over Fairview Fall the deep blue of early evening with the first stars coming through. Birdie sends you out in your jeans and your mother’s cardigan with a scarf she presses into your hands at the door because it gets cold by the second half, baby, take it. Immy is waiting at the gate to the football field in a red Fairview Fall Hawks scarf and an expression of someone who has been doing this for years and still finds it genuinely exciting, which you are starting to understand is just Immy. She finds things genuinely exciting. She is not performing enthusiasm, she simply has it, in abundance, about most things. “You came,” she says, like she is pleased but not surprised. “I said I would.” “I know.” She loops her arm through yours. “Come on, I’ve got us good seats. Middle of the stands, you can see everything.”

The field is lit up and the stands are already filling — families and couples and groups of kids and older men with their arms folded and the studied expressions of people who take high school football seriously, which in Fairview Fall is everyone. There is a smell of popcorn and cut grass and the first bite of real autumn air, and the band is warming up on the far side and someone is selling something from a cart by the gate and the whole thing has the particular energy of an event that a town has built its Fridays around for generations. You find your seats and the teams come out and the stands go up like a wave. You find Heeseung immediately. You are not looking for him specifically but you find him anyway — tall, easy even in the middle of forty people doing drills, moving with the same unhurried quality he has everywhere, like he has never once been in a hurry in his life. He is laughing at something

Sunghoon has said, head tipped back, and from this distance you can see the shape of him clearly — the way he takes up space without demanding it, the way people orient toward him. “There’s Hoon,” Immy says, pointing, then looks at you. “And there’s Heeseung.” She says it without inflection. “I see them,” you say, equally without inflection. She smiles at the field.

The game is not something you know well but Immy talks you through it in a low running commentary that is partly explanation and partly editorial — that was a bad call, that ref has always had it out for us, oh that’s good, that’s Heeseung, watch — and you watch. Heeseung plays the way he does everything, which is to say with a kind of complete and total presence that makes it look effortless even when it isn’t. He is fast and he thinks ahead and when he does something good the stands go up and you find yourself going up with them without quite deciding to. “You’re cheering,” Immy says, pleased. “I got caught up in it,” you say. “Everyone does.” She is already back to watching. “Hoon!” she shouts, when Sunghoon does something that earns it, and he does not look up at her because he is a professional, but something about the set of his shoulders changes. Fairview Fall wins by two touchdowns. The stands come down in a wave of noise and Immy grabs your arm and squeezes it and you are laughing and you are not entirely sure when you started.

The diner after is Mae’s again, every table full, the jukebox going, the particular noise of a town celebrating something. You are in the big corner booth — you and Immy and Sunghoon, still in his jersey, and Heeseung, hair damp from the locker room, the easy energy of someone who has just played well and knows it and is not making a thing of it. The booth is full and warm and loud and Mae brings milkshakes without being asked because she knows, she always knows, and Sunghoon and Immy are already in a detailed debrief of the game in which Immy is more knowledgeable than you would have expected and Sunghoon is listening to her notes with the expression of someone taking them seriously.

Heeseung nudges the milkshake toward you and you take it and then he takes it back and takes a pull through the straw and pushes it back and neither of you mentions that this has just happened, that you are sharing a milkshake, that this is apparently a thing you do now. “Good game,” you say. “Decent game.” He says it honestly, not falsely modest, not proud. “Second quarter was sloppy.” “Immy said the ref had it out for you.” “Immy says that every game.” He glances over at her, fond. “She’s usually right though.” The booth is loud and easy and you eat and talk and the evening stretches out comfortable around you and Mae brings cobbler that nobody ordered and everybody eats and Sunghoon says something very quiet to Immy and she goes pink in a way you have never seen on her before, pink and pleased, and she shoves him and he grins and steals her spoon. You are watching them when you become aware that Heeseung is watching you watch them. You look over. He does not look away. “What?” you say. “Nothing,” he says. He picks up the milkshake. “You just look like you’re somewhere good.”

You take a second with that. With the diner and the noise and Immy’s laugh and the cobbler and the autumn air coming in under the door. “I think I am,” you say. Outside the temperature has dropped the way Birdie promised it would and you cross your arms against it and Heeseung, without any preamble or ceremony, takes off his letterman jacket and holds it out to you. You look at it. “I’m fine.” “You’re cold.” “I’m from New York.” “New York is cold in winter,” he says patiently. “This is October in Texas. Completely different kind of cold.” He shakes the jacket slightly. “Take it.” You take it. It is warm from him and heavy across your shoulders and smells like the blue car — worn leather and something warm — and you put your arms through the sleeves and the cuffs come past your hands entirely and Immy, walking ahead of you with Sunghoon, looks back and says nothing, which is somehow louder than if she had said something.

Heeseung walks you home. Not formally, not announced, just — falls into step beside you through the streets of Fairview Fall while Immy and Sunghoon peel off at the corner with goodnights, and the town is quiet around you, lit up warm in the dark, and your breath shows faintly in the air. You talk about nothing in particular. The game. A song that was on the jukebox. Whether the peach cobbler is better at Mae’s or Birdie’s, which is a debate that has a clear answer and you both know it but you negotiate it anyway because it is the kind of conversation you have when you are not ready for the walk to be over. Birdie’s porch light is on. You stop at the bottom of the steps. “Thanks for coming tonight,” he says. He is standing close enough that you are aware of it, the way you are always aware of it lately, something you keep not naming. “Thanks for asking,” you say. “I didn’t know I’d like it that much.” “Football?” “Fairview Fall,” you say, and mean something slightly larger than that.

He looks at you for a moment with those attentive eyes, and then he leans in and presses his lips to your cheek, warm and brief, the most natural thing in the world. “Goodnight, darlin’,” he says, and takes a step back with that easy grin, hands in his pockets. “Goodnight,” you say. You watch him go back down the street toward where he parked the blue car, unhurried as always. You stand on the bottom porch step in his letterman jacket with the sleeves too long and your cheek warm and you think: that’s just what people do here. That’s a western thing. A friendly thing. That’s just Heeseung being Heeseung. You go inside. You hang his jacket on the hook by the door and go upstairs and sit on the bed and open the journal and look at the blank page for a long time. You write: I think people are just more affectionate here. Then you look at what you have written. Then you close the journal and lie back on the bed and look at the ceiling and listen to the quiet of Fairview Fall and your cheek is still warm and you think, carefully, about nothing at all.

October arrives and picks up speed. This is the thing about settling somewhere — it happens in the background, without announcement. You do not notice you are settling until you already have, until the shape of your days has formed without you consciously building it, and then one morning you wake up and know where everything is and it does not feel like someone else’s house anymore. Birdie bakes on Saturday mornings. This becomes a fact of your life the way the sun coming through the east window becomes a fact, the way Gerald on your feet becomes a fact — inevitable, warm, something you would notice immediately if it stopped. She does not ask you to help but she does not tell you not to, and somewhere in the second week of October you start appearing in the kitchen on Saturday mornings in your mother’s cardigan with your hair still unbrushed and she hands you something to do without comment and you do it, and that is that.

She is teaching you, without calling it teaching. How to fold butter into pastry. How to know by smell when something is ready. How to clean as you go because a clean kitchen is a kind kitchen, which is a thing her mother told her and which she says with the particular tone of someone passing something down. “My mom couldn’t bake,” you tell her one Saturday, your hands floury, watching her crimp the edge of something with a thumb that has done this a thousand times. “She could cook though. Really well. Everything from scratch.”

“Different skills,” Birdie says, without looking up. “I can’t cook to save my life and I’ve made peace with it.” She pauses. “What did she make? Your mom.” You think about it. The specific things, the ones that come with smell and light attached. “Sunday pasta,” you say. “Always from scratch, never from a box. She’d make it in the morning and leave it to dry on the rack and the whole apartment smelled like it all day.” You pause. “And her chicken soup. When I was sick. It was the kind of thing that actually made you feel better, not just warm.”

Birdie is quiet for a moment, working the pastry. “She learned from your grandmother,” she says eventually. “Their mama. She was an incredible cook.” She glances over at you. “Your mom used to write me letters about it when we were young. She’d describe meals she’d made like they were events.” This is new. You look at her. “You wrote letters?” “We weren’t close in the way that means seeing each other all the time,” Birdie says carefully. “But we were close in the way that means I knew her.” She smooths the pastry down. “She wrote beautifully. You get it from her.”

You look back down at what you are doing. Your hands in the flour. The kitchen warm around you. “I know,” you say quietly. “I get it from both of them actually. Dad too.” “I know you do,” Birdie says. “I’ve read your journal.” You look up sharply. She meets your eyes with an expression that is completely unrepentant. “It was open on the table,” she says. “I read one page. The one about the record shop.” She pauses. “I closed it immediately after. I’m not a monster.” You stare at her. “You write beautifully,” she says again, simply, and goes back to the pastry. You go back to the pastry too. There is nothing to say to that, or there is everything, and either way the kitchen is warm and smells like butter and Saturday morning and for a moment the grief sits quietly, like it is giving you the room.

Shopping with Immy is its own education. She moves through the two clothing shops on main street — there are only two, a fact that she acknowledges and has made her peace with — with the authority of someone who knows exactly what she is looking for and exactly where it is and has strong opinions about everyone else’s choices too. She holds things up to you without asking if you want her opinion and gives it anyway and you have learned that her opinion is usually right, which is annoying and convenient in equal measure. “This,” she says, holding up a blouse in a warm amber colour. “I don’t know.” “I do.” She puts it in your hands. “Your colouring. Trust me.” You try it on. She is right. You buy it without further discussion. In return you talk her out of something she has convinced herself she needs on the grounds that she doesn’t need it, she wants it, which is fine, but the cut is wrong and Immy is a woman who should only wear things that are right on her and she knows that, and she knows that you are right, and she puts it back with the reluctant dignity of someone conceding a fair point.

“How do you know about cuts?” she says, on the sidewalk after, linking her arm through yours. “My mom,” you say. “She was very particular about clothes. She said wearing something that doesn’t fit right is like telling a lie with your body.” Immy considers this with the seriousness it deserves. “I’m going to think about that for a long time,” she says. “She was good at saying things like that.” “She sounds incredible.” “She was.” Present tense is the only way. “She is.” Immy squeezes your arm and keeps walking and you walk with her through the golden October streets and the trees are starting to turn and Fairview Fall in autumn is something you were not prepared for, the particular beauty of it, the way the light goes amber and the air goes clean and everything smells like something ending and beginning at the same time.

Their Eyes Were Watching God takes you a few days, which is fast for a book that requires that much of you. You read it in the evenings after the bookshop and in the mornings before school and once for two hours on a Sunday afternoon while Birdie baked downstairs and Gerald slept on your legs and the wind moved in the oak tree outside your window. You go back to Miss Beaumont on a Tuesday after school with the book under your arm and she looks up from her desk and says “sit” before you have opened your mouth and you sit. The conversation lasts forty minutes. She asks you questions that are not really questions — what did you make of Janie’s horizon, what does the pear tree mean to her, where do you think she ends up when it’s all over — and you answer them and she listens and pushes back and you push back at her pushing back and at some point you realise you are arguing, genuinely arguing, about a novel, and it is the most alive you have felt in a classroom in longer than you want to think about.

When you finally stop she looks at you over the top of her glasses with an expression that takes you a moment to read. It is not quite pride — it is something more precise than that, something more like recognition, like she is seeing something she suspected and has now confirmed. “You argued three of those points better than my graduate students did,” she says. “And I was one of them.” “I disagreed with part of your reading,” you say. “About the ending.” “I know you did.” She takes the book back and holds it for a moment. “I think you’re right.” She says it plainly, without qualifying it, and then puts the book on the shelf behind her. “What do you want to do with this? With reading and writing and thinking. After school.”

You have not been asked this since before the crash. You have not asked it of yourself. “English literature,” you say, slowly, like you are finding it as you say it. “I want to study it properly. I want to learn how to talk about books the way you just did.” Miss Beaumont looks at you for a moment. “Good,” she says. “Don’t let anyone talk you out of it.” She opens her desk drawer. “Take this.” Another book. To the Lighthouse. Virginia Woolf. “Come back when you’ve read it,” she says. “Same deal.” You look at the book and then at her and you think about your father, who would have loved her, who would have argued with her for hours and walked out glowing. “Thank you, Miss Beaumont,” you say. “Go home,” she says. “It’s getting dark.”

The cardigan tears on a Wednesday. You catch it on the corner of a shelf in the bookshop — the left cuff, your mother’s favourite, the one she always pushed up to her elbow when she was doing something with her hands — and it snags and you hear it before you feel it, a small clean sound, and you look down and there is a pull in the wool, a run, and then a tear, and you stand very still in the aisle of the bookshop with your hand over it like you can hold it closed. Birdie finds you like that. She comes around the end of the shelf with a stack of returns and sees your face before she sees the cardigan and puts the books down. “Hey,” she says. “Hey, what happened?” You show her. You cannot speak around it, which is ridiculous because it is a cardigan, it is a thing, it is wool and buttons and it can be fixed, but it is also your mother’s and it smells like her and you have worn it every single day since the crash and you cannot speak around it. Birdie takes your hand away from the tear very gently and looks at it. Then she looks at you. “Come on,” she says. “We’re closing early.”

She sits you on the sofa and takes the cardigan and her sewing kit and she fixes it while you watch, her hands sure and small and practiced, and you do not cry while she is doing it because you are past the acute part by then, past the part that takes your breath, and you sit with Gerald in your lap and watch her work and the lamp is on and the house is warm and quiet. “She bought it in a shop on fifth avenue,” you say eventually. “I remember going with her. I was maybe nine. She tried on about six things and came back to this one and said this one is me and bought it.” You look at your hands. “She wore it all the time. It was her comfort thing.” “And now it’s yours,” Birdie says, without looking up from the needle. “And now it’s mine.” Birdie ties off the thread and smooths the cuff and holds the cardigan up to the light and inspects it and then holds it out to you. The repair is invisible. You cannot see where it tore. “Birdie,” you say. “Don’t,” she says, which is what she always says when you thank her, which is her way of saying of course, you don’t have to say it. You put the cardigan back on. She refolds her sewing kit. Outside the window Fairview Fall is going dark and gold and the first proper cold of October is in the air. “Mom loved you,” you tell Birdie. “She thought you were the funniest person..”

Birdie laughs, short and bright and a little wet at the edges. “She was funnier than me,” she says. “She always was.” She closes the sewing kit. “We should have been closer. I should have — I kept meaning to, and then there wasn’t — “ She stops. Clears her throat. “Anyway.” “I know,” you say. “I know you know.” She stands up and smooths her skirt. “I’m making pasta tonight. I’ve been practising.” She pauses. “It will not be as good as your mother’s.” “It won’t,” you agree. “But I’ll eat it.” She laughs again, more solidly this time, and goes to the kitchen, and you sit on the sofa with Gerald and your mended cardigan and the quiet of the house around you, and it is not fine, exactly, but it is something that can be lived in. In the morning you come downstairs and there is a note on the kitchen table. Birdie’s handwriting, on a piece of paper torn from the back of a receipt. For my girl — who is braver than she knows and more her mother’s daughter than she realises. Keep wearing it. She’d want you to. You fold it up and put it in the journal.

The Lees have you and Birdie over for dinner on a Friday in late October. Heeseung’s mother has made enough food for twice as many people, which Heeseung says is just how she cooks, she cannot make a small amount of anything, it is a documented fact. His daddy is a broad quiet man with Heeseung’s eyes and a handshake that is very firm and a way of listening that makes you feel like whatever you are saying is worth hearing. He asks about New York and you tell him and he asks follow-up questions and you tell him more and by the time you are at the table you have told him things about the city you have not thought about in months — the specific smell of the subway in summer, the way the light hits the buildings at six in the evening, the sound of it, the particular sound that is not one thing but all things at once. “You miss it,” he says. Not accusing. Just observing. “I miss parts of it,” you say. “It’s complicated.” He nods like he understands complicated. “Most real things are,” he says, and passes you the bread.

The dinner is loud and warm and good, Birdie and Heeseung’s mother finding each other across the table with the ease of two women who should have been friends years ago and are making up for lost time, and Heeseung’s daddy and Birdie talking about the bookshop gutter which he has apparently actually been meaning to fix, he is sorry about that, he’ll come by Tuesday. At some point the adults move to the sitting room with wine and you and Heeseung look at each other across the cleared table and he tilts his head toward the back door.

The garden is dark and cool, lit by the light from the kitchen window and a three-quarter moon that is doing a lot of heavy lifting. There is an oak tree at the back of the yard and from one of its lower branches hangs a wooden swing — old, clearly original to the house, the rope thick and worn. Heeseung sits on it and you sit beside him on the grass, your back against the trunk, and for a while neither of you says anything in particular. “Mocks next week,” you say eventually. “I know.” He pushes the swing back and forth with one foot. “You worried?” “A little.” You pull your knees up. “I didn’t miss much school after — after the crash. My teachers were good about it. But I still feel like I’m playing catch-up.” “In what?” “Everything except English.” “English you could teach,” he says, easily, matter-of-fact. “I’m not sure about that.” “I am.” He says it simply, like it is a thing he has assessed and concluded. “I’ve seen you in Beaumont’s class. You think differently to everyone else in there.” He pauses. “That’s not a criticism of everyone else. It’s just — you see the seams of things.” You look at the moon through the oak branches. “My dad used to say that,” you say. “He said I could find the argument in anything.” “Smart man.” “The smartest.” You pause. “He would have talked to your daddy for six hours straight tonight. They have the same way of listening.”

Heeseung is quiet for a moment. “I’ll take that,” he says. “That’s a real compliment.” You sit in the cool dark and talk about the mocks — his, yours, Immy’s periodic panic and Sunghoon’s inexplicable calm — and about what comes after, the haziest outline of it, what it might look like. Heeseung says community college like he always does, easy and certain, and you think about Miss Beaumont saying don’t let anyone talk you out of it and think that maybe you are starting to know what you want too, the shape of it at least, English literature and something that uses the part of your brain that found the argument in Whitman and the horizon in Hurston.

“You’ll pass everything,” Heeseung says, when you circle back to the mocks. “I know you will.” “You don’t know that.” “I know you,” he says. “Same thing.” You look at him on the swing in the dark. The kitchen light on one side of his face. The moon on the other. “Heeseung,” you say. “City girl,” he says back. You look away. “Goodnight.”

The mocks come and go in a blur of early mornings and index cards and Birdie’s good baking and Immy’s voice notes that are mostly panic and occasionally useful. You sit in the exam hall with your pen and your mother’s cardigan and you write and write and write, and when it is over you go to the bookshop and shelve things in alphabetical order because it is the most calming thing you know how to do.

The results come on a Thursday morning. You open the envelope at the kitchen table with Gerald watching from his windowsill and Birdie pretending not to hover by the kettle. You passed everything. English, highest mark in the year. Miss Beaumont’s handwriting in the margin of the practice essay: This is what I meant. Well done. You sit with it for a moment. Then you pick up the journal. Mom, you write. I passed. All of it. English highest in the year. I wish you could see it. I wish I could call you. I wish I could hear you say you knew I would. I know you knew I would. Dad, Miss Beaumont says I think differently. You always said that too. I’m starting to think it might actually be true. I’m going to study English literature. I think I’ve known for a while. I’m writing it down now so it’s real.

You close the journal. Birdie puts a cup of tea in front of you and squeezes your shoulder and doesn’t say anything and that is exactly right. You run into Heeseung outside the school gates at lunch, which is where he always is when the weather holds, leaning against the blue car with his face in the sun. He looks over when he hears the gate and reads your face before you have said a word.

“Well?” he says. “Passed everything,” you say. “English highest in the year.” What happens next is that he crosses the space between you in two steps and picks you up, both arms around you, lifting you clear off the ground and turning once, and you make a sound that is mostly surprise and partly laughter and you grab his shoulders and hold on, and he is warm and solid and he smells like the blue car, like worn leather and something warm, and he is laughing too, low and real, right beside your ear. He sets you down. His hands stay on your waist for a moment, just a moment, before they don’t. “Told you,” he says. His voice is the same. His face is the same. Everything is the same except that your heart is doing something you do not have a word for yet. “You told me,” you agree. He grins. “Highest in the year.” “Don’t make it a thing.” “City girl.” He steps back, easy, hands in his pockets. “It’s already a thing.”

That evening Sunghoon finds Heeseung in the parking lot after practice, when everyone else has gone, and leans against the blue car with his arms folded. Heeseung is loading his bag into the back. He glances over. “What.” Sunghoon does not say anything for a moment. He has the expression he gets when he has thought about something thoroughly and arrived at a conclusion and is choosing his moment. “You picked her up,” he says. Heeseung straightens. “I was happy for her.” “I know you were.” “She passed everything. Highest in English.” “I know.”

Sunghoon looks at him. “Heeseung.” “What.” “You know what.” Heeseung is quiet. He shuts the car door. He looks at the middle distance with the expression of someone who has been told a thing he already knew and was hoping not to have confirmed out loud yet. “It’s not—” he starts. “It is,” Sunghoon says. Not unkind. Just clear, the way Sunghoon is always clear, the way he cuts through the middle of things without making a mess of them. Heeseung puts his hands in his pockets. He looks at the school building, the last of the afternoon light on the brick. “She’s still finding her feet,” he says, finally. “I know,” Sunghoon says. “I don’t want to—” “I know.” He pushes off the car. “I’m not telling you to do anything.” He picks up his bag. “I’m just telling you what I see.” He pauses. “You’ve known since the gate on the first day. You should probably get used to the idea.” He walks off across the parking lot.

Heeseung watches him go. The school is empty and the afternoon is going gold and the blue car is warm from sitting in the sun all day, and Heeseung stands beside it for a long time after Sunghoon has gone, looking at nothing, thinking about a girl who talks about her parents in present tense and picks arguments with Whitman and holds his record like it is something precious without knowing why. He gets in the car. He sits for a moment with his hands on the wheel. “Yeah,” he says to no one. “Okay.” He starts the engine and pulls out of the lot and drives home through the golden streets of Fairview Fall with the radio low and the St. Christopher swinging and something settled in him now, something named, sitting quiet and certain in his chest like it has been there a long time. Because it has.

November comes in quietly, the way months do when you have finally stopped counting them. You notice it first in the light — the way it changes angle, goes thinner and more golden, lying longer across the floors in the mornings and disappearing earlier in the evenings until the town is dark by five and the porch lights are all on by the time you walk home from the bookshop. The oak trees on Birdie’s street have gone fully now, the last of them letting go, and the sidewalks are deep in leaves that nobody seems in any hurry to clear because they are beautiful and this is Fairview Fall and there is time.

You have been here four months. You know this the way you know the layout of Birdie’s kitchen, the way you know which stair creaks and which drawer sticks and the precise angle Gerald prefers to be scratched behind the ear. You know the regulars at the bookshop by name and by reading habit. You know Mae’s by booth and by order. You know the way Immy talks with her hands and the way Sunghoon goes quiet when he is actually paying the most attention and the way Heeseung’s voice drops slightly when he is saying something he means, which is most of the time, because Heeseung does not say things he doesn’t mean. Four months. You turn it over in your hands like a stone, testing its weight.

It is heavier than it sounds. It is lighter than you expected.

November does what November does, which is arrive and then be over before you have properly registered it. There are things inside it — Immy’s birthday, which is celebrated with the particular enthusiasm of someone who has been looking forward to it since October, a dinner at Mae’s that goes on until closing and ends with Sunghoon presenting her with a gift that makes her go very still and then throw her arms around his neck while he stands there absorbing it with his hands in his jacket pockets and a look on his face that is the most unguarded thing you have seen on him yet. You do not ask what the gift was. Some things are not yours to know.

There is a Sunday afternoon at the bookshop with Miss Beaumont, who comes in on her day off and spends an hour in the poetry section and buys three things and talks to you about To the Lighthouse across the counter in a conversation that keeps getting interrupted by customers and keeps resuming the moment they leave. She says before she goes, pulling on her coat, “you should think about what you want to write, not just what you want to read” and then she leaves before you can ask her what she means, which you are beginning to understand is her preferred method.

There is a Tuesday when the grief comes out of nowhere — a smell in the street, someone’s perfume, your mother’s perfume, and you are at the corner of main street and you have to stop walking and stand very still for a moment and breathe through it with your hand against the wall of the hardware store while the town moves around you. It passes. It always passes. You write about it that night — three pages, which is more than you usually write, and when you are done your hand aches and the feeling has somewhere to be that is not inside your chest.

There is a Thursday when Heeseung drives you out past the edge of town for no stated reason and parks on a rise where you can see for miles — the land going flat and wide in every direction, the sky enormous above it, the late November light turning everything amber and still. You sit on the hood of the blue car and don’t say very much and it is one of the better silences of your life, the kind that only happen with people you trust without having decided to. November passes. December arrives and brings with it cold that is serious now, cold that means something, and Birdie puts a second quilt on your bed and buys cinnamon for the baking and the town strings lights along main street that go on at dusk and make the whole place look like something you would make up if you were trying to imagine a Christmas.

The drive-in is showing Christmas movies on a Friday in mid-December. This is announced on a chalkboard outside as Holiday Double Feature and whoever writes the chalkboard has drawn a small lopsided Christmas tree beside it that has clearly been done with great affection and no particular artistic talent, and Immy calls it the most charming thing she has ever seen and takes everyone.

Sunghoon’s truck is better for this than the blue car, which Heeseung acknowledges without any defensiveness because the blue car is many things and a comfortable place to sit in the back of on a cold December night is not one of them. You all pile into the truck bed with blankets from Immy’s house — she brought four, which was the right number — and the speakers rigged up on the dash inside play the drive-in audio through the open rear window, tinny and warm. The first film starts. Something black and white, something with snow and a big house and people in good coats making complicated decisions about love. You are not entirely following it. You are warm enough, tucked under a blanket with your knees drawn up, and the cold air is sharp and clean on your face, and above the screen the actual sky is enormous and dark and full of stars in the way that a sky over a small town in December can be, which is a way that the sky over New York never was.

Immy is against Sunghoon’s side with his arm around her in the way that is just their arrangement now, comfortable as furniture. He says something low to her and she tips her head up to answer him and you look away because some things are private even in a truck bed.

“You cold?” Heeseung is beside you, close in the way the small space of the truck bed makes everyone close, close enough that you are aware of it as something other than proximity. “I’m fine,” you say, which is the answer you give. He looks at you sideways. “I’m a little cold,” you say. He lifts the blanket and pulls it more squarely over both of you and you shift slightly without meaning to so that you are closer, and he stays very still when you do, and then he is just — there, warm along your left side, solid and present, and you look at the screen and do not think about it because you have been not thinking about it for a while now and you are getting quite practiced. You are not getting that practiced.

Immy and Sunghoon disappear at some point in the middle of the first film — popcorn, Immy says, we need more popcorn, and they climb out of the truck with the blanket and do not come back for a while. The drive-in hums around you, other cars and trucks glowing softly in the dark, the screen washing blue and white light across everything. You are watching the film. You are also aware of his hand, which has found your knee through the blanket, just resting there, warm and heavy, the way his hand always rests on things — without urgency, without asking for more than it is. “Do you like it here?” he says.

You turn to look at him. He is already looking at you, and his face in the light from the screen is soft and serious and very close, and his eyes have that quality they always have, that quality of seeing you, and you look at him and something in your chest does something you are not ready to name but can no longer pretend is nothing. “Yeah,” you say. Your voice comes out quieter than you intended. “I really do.”

He looks at you for a moment longer. The film plays on. His thumb moves once against your knee through the blanket, a small thing, barely a thing at all. Then he leans in and presses his lips to your temple. Warm and still. Not the quick friendly press of before — this one stays, just a moment, and his nose is cold against your hair. “Good,” he says quietly, against your hair. You look at the screen. Your heart is doing something complicated. It’s not just friendliness, you think, clearly, for the first time, the thought arriving with the quiet certainty of something you have known for a while and have finally let yourself know. It is not just western friendliness and it is not just him being Heeseung and I have been so careful not to see it and I see it. You do not say this. You look at the screen. His hand stays on your knee. The film goes on.

Immy and Sunghoon come back with popcorn that is too buttery and a shared expression of people who went for popcorn and did something else as well and are not talking about it. Immy drops back into the truck bed and looks at you and then at Heeseung and then at you again and her face does the thing it does when she knows something, which is to do nothing, perfectly, too carefully. You take some popcorn. You watch the rest of the film. On the drive home Immy sits in the front with Sunghoon and you and Heeseung are in the back seat of the truck and his shoulder is against yours and neither of you moves away and the St. Christopher swings on the rear view mirror and the heater makes the windows fog at the edges and outside Fairview Fall goes past, lit up and cold and yours, more and more yours every day.

Christmas is the two of you. You and Birdie in the small warm house with Gerald and the tree she made you help her decorate on the first of December because she does not believe in waiting, and the smell of whatever she has attempted for Christmas dinner which is ambitious this year, genuinely ambitious, and the radio on the kitchen windowsill playing carols that neither of you knows all the words to and both of you sing anyway. It is a good day. It is also the hardest day. You knew it would be. You have been knowing it was coming the way you know weather is coming, something in the air before it arrives. Your parents were people who made Christmas — made it loudly and fully and with too much food and a specific record your father played on Christmas morning while your mother made coffee and you sat on the floor in your pyjamas and the apartment smelled like pine and something good. That record is on your shelf in your room. You did not take it out this morning because you were not ready and you knew you were not ready.

After dinner — which is better than it had any right to be, Birdie has been practising — you sit on the sofa with your tea and Gerald and the tree lights going soft in the corner and Birdie comes in from the kitchen and sits beside you and she has something in her hand.

“I’ve been thinking about when to give you this,” she says, “and I decided Christmas was right because your mother would have given it to you herself someday and I want to be the one to do it in her place.” She opens her hand. Your mother’s wedding ring. You know it immediately. The plain gold band, the small diamond, the slight asymmetry where she knocked it against something years ago and had it repaired and you could always see where if you looked. She wore it every day of her life. You have not seen it since the hospital. You cannot speak for a long moment.

“How—” you start. “It came to me with her things,” Birdie says quietly. “I’ve been keeping it safe.” She takes your hand and presses it into your palm and closes your fingers around it. “It’s yours. It always was going to be yours.” You look at your closed hand. “Birdie,” you say, and your voice does not work properly, and she opens her arms and you go into them the way you did in the bus station parking lot in August, and she holds on and you cry into her shoulder, properly, the way you mostly don’t let yourself in front of people, the way you usually save for your room alone.

You cry for your mother and your father and the Christmas morning with the record and the coffee and the apartment and the life that was yours before it wasn’t, and Birdie holds you through all of it and does not say hush or it’s alright because she is too wise to say either of those things and she just holds on. When you surface she is crying too, quietly, in the way she always cries which is privately even when she is in company. “Sorry,” you say. “Don’t,” she says. Which means of course not, never. You sit together on the sofa with the tree lights and Gerald and your mother’s ring in your hand and the radio still playing something gentle from the kitchen, and it is sad and it is also okay, both things fully true at the same time, and you are learning that this is how it is and how it will be — the grief and the warmth living in the same rooms, not cancelling each other out, just coexisting, because they have to. You put the ring on the chain you wear around your neck, the thin gold one your father gave you for your sixteenth birthday. It rests against your chest. It is warm from your hand. You write about it that night. Mom, you write. Birdie gave me your ring. I’m wearing it. I’ll wear it every day the way you did. I’m okay. I’m more than okay, most days. I miss you both so much it’s like weather — it changes, it comes and goes, and sometimes it’s very bad and sometimes it’s just there in the background, part of everything. I think I’m building something here. I think you’d both be glad. Merry Christmas.

January comes cold and clear and the town shakes itself out of the stillness of the holidays and picks back up, and with it comes the Winter Festival.

You have heard about this since October — Immy mentioned it in passing as something the whole town does, and Birdie mentioned it as something that has been happening since before she arrived, and Mae mentioned it as her second busiest weekend of the year and said it with the satisfaction of someone who likes being busy. It takes over the centre of town for a weekend — stalls and food and a brass band and lights strung between the buildings and a stretch of the main street cleared for dancing on the Saturday night, which is the real reason anyone comes, which nobody admits.

Heeseung picks you up in the blue car on Saturday evening. You are wearing the amber blouse Immy picked out for you in October under your coat, and your mother’s cardigan underneath, and the ring on its chain, and he looks at you when you come down the porch steps with the same expression he gets sometimes, the one that is only there for a second before the grin settles back into place, but you see it now, you have been seeing it, you are done pretending you don’t. “You look nice,” he says, easy. “Thank you,” you say, equally easy, and get in the car.

The festival is everything Immy promised and a few things she forgot to mention, including the fact that the brass band is genuinely excellent and the food stalls go on longer than the main street which means someone has taken over the hardware store car park and nobody seems to mind. You move through it in a loose group — you and Heeseung and Immy and Sunghoon, picking up other people from school and putting them down again, stopping at stalls and eating things that are too good and too hot and burn your fingers in the good way. Immy buys something fried and inexplicable and shares it with you and declares it the best thing she has ever eaten and Sunghoon takes one look at it and says “absolutely not” and eats it anyway when she holds it out to him, and you are laughing, you are genuinely laughing in the cold January air with the lights above you and the brass band somewhere close playing something that gets into your feet.

The dancing starts at eight. The main street clears itself in the way of places where this has happened for generations — people just know, they move back, they make space — and the band shifts into something slower and the first couples move into the middle and then more, and it is warm from all the bodies and lit gold from the strings of lights and it smells like winter and something sweet from the stalls. Heeseung holds out his hand to you. You take it. He dances the way he does everything, which is well and without making a production of it, and you know the steps well enough because Birdie taught you in the kitchen in November on a rainy evening when there was nothing else to do, this is just a two-step, baby, it’s not complicated, and it is not complicated, it is just his hand warm in yours and his other hand at your waist and the two of you moving through the same space in the same direction. You dance for a while.

Around you Immy and Sunghoon are dancing the way they exist, which is easily and entirely, and other couples are moving and the band is warm and the town is all around you, Fairview Fall in January, lit up and cold and full.

The song changes to something slower. Heeseung does not let go. You do not move away. The space between you closes in the natural way of a slower song and you are close enough now that you can feel the warmth coming off him and you look up at him and he is looking at you, and his face is doing the thing it has been doing for a while now, that serious and certain thing, and he opens his mouth. “I’ve been thinking,” he says. “Okay,” you say. “I’ve been thinking that—” He stops. Starts again. “The thing is, I—” He exhales. “You know when you know something and you keep not saying it because you don’t want to—” “Heeseung,” you say. “Yeah.” “Kiss me.” He blinks. Just once. And then something in his face settles, completely, like a thing that has been held at tension for a long time and has finally been allowed to let go, and he brings his hand up from your waist to your jaw, careful, and he kisses you.

It is soft and unhurried and entirely certain, the way he is — no performance, no question in it, just him, just this, just the two of you in the middle of the Winter Festival in the middle of Fairview Fall in January with the brass band playing and the lights overhead and the cold air around you and his hand warm on your jaw.

When he pulls back his eyes open slowly and he looks at you and neither of you says anything for a moment. “Hi,” he says finally. “Hi,” you say. He laughs, low and real, and you laugh too, and he presses his forehead to yours and you stand like that in the middle of the street while the town moves around you, and it is so far from where you started — the bus station, the parking lot, the small wooden sign that said Fairview Fall, Pop. 2,847 — and so completely, entirely right. His thumb traces your jaw once, gentle. “Darlin’,” he says softly. “I know,” you say. “I know.”

You walk home from the festival with his hand in yours. This is not discussed. It just happens — the crowd thinning around you, Immy and Sunghoon peeling off at their corner with goodnights that contain entire conversations neither of them says out loud, and then it is just you and Heeseung on the quiet streets of Fairview Fall in January, your breath showing in the cold air, the festival lights fading behind you, and at some point between the main street and Birdie’s road his hand finds yours and holds it and that is that. You walk without talking much. There is not much that needs saying yet. The kiss is still warm in you, sitting somewhere low and certain, and the town is quiet around you and the stars are out and his hand is warm and you think: this is what it feels like when something is right. You have not felt it before, not exactly like this, and you hold it carefully the way you hold things that are new and true and slightly frightening.

At Birdie’s porch he stops at the bottom step and you turn to face him and he is looking at you in the way he has been looking at you for a while now, except that now neither of you has to pretend it isn’t happening. “Goodnight, darlin’,” he says.“Goodnight, Heeseung.” He squeezes your hand once before he lets go. You watch him walk back down the street — unhurried, hands in his pockets, the blue car waiting at the kerb — and you stand on the bottom step until he is gone and then you go inside. The house is quiet. The tree lights are still on in the sitting room, Birdie having forgotten or having left them on deliberately, which is entirely possible. You hang up your coat and stand in the hallway for a moment, your hand still warm from his. Gerald appears from the sitting room, looks at you, and turns around and goes back. “I know,” you say, to no one. You go upstairs. You sit on the bed. You pick up the journal and hold it and then put it back down because some things need a night to settle before you put them into words. You lie back and look at the ceiling and you are smiling and you do not try to stop it.

Birdie knows in the morning. You do not tell her. You do not have to tell her. You come downstairs in your mother’s cardigan with the ring warm on its chain and she is at the kitchen table with her coffee and she looks at your face and her whole expression does something slow and warm and satisfied, like a woman who has been patient about something for a long time and has been proven right. “Morning,” you say. “Morning, baby,” she says. “How was the festival?” “Good,” you say. “Mm.” She wraps both hands around her mug. “Just good?” You get yourself a cup and sit down across from her and look at her and she looks back at you with those familiar eyes, your mother’s eyes, and she is fighting a smile with everything she has and losing.

“Birdie,” you say. “I’m not saying anything,” she says. “You’re saying everything.” “I’m drinking my coffee.” She takes a very deliberate sip. “I’m simply a woman drinking coffee who is extremely happy on a Sunday morning for no particular reason.” You look at her. She looks at you. The smile wins, on both sides. “He’s a good boy,” she says, finally, simply. “I know,” you say. “His mama will be insufferable about it.” She says this with the warmth of someone who likes his mama very much. “In the best possible way.” You wrap your hands around your cup and look out the kitchen window at the January garden, frost on the grass, the oak tree bare. Something has settled in you, something that was restless and is not restless anymore, and you sit with it in the warm kitchen while Birdie finishes her coffee and does not make a production of anything, because she never does, because she is exactly who she is. “Thank you,” you say, eventually, not about anything specific. She reaches across the table and puts her hand over yours for a moment. “Don’t,” she says. Which means of course. Always. You don’t have to say it.

Monday morning arrives and you walk through the school gate and Immy is there. She is leaning against the wall beside the gate with her arms folded and an expression that is doing extraordinary things — warm and knowing and delighted and restrained all at once, the expression of someone who has known something for a long time and has finally been vindicated. “Hi,” you say. “Hi honey,” she says. “Good weekend?” “Good weekend.” “Anything interesting happen?” “Immy.” “I’m just asking.”

She falls into step beside you. “I’m asking a perfectly normal question about your weekend. I happened to be at the Winter Festival. I happened to see certain things. I’m not saying anything about those things. I’m just asking about your weekend.” “Immy.” “Yes?” “He kissed me.” She stops walking. You keep walking. She catches up in three steps. “I know he kissed you,” she says, and her voice has gone high and bright around the edges in the way it does when she is genuinely delighted and cannot fully contain it.

“I saw him kiss you. Sunghoon saw him kiss you. Half of Fairview Fall probably saw him kiss you.” “That’s fine,” you say, because it is. She grabs your arm and stops you in the middle of the hallway and looks at your face with her hands on your shoulders and her eyes going soft. “Are you happy?” she says. Just like that, direct and real, the way Immy always asks the things that matter. You think about it. The honest answer, the real one. “Yeah,” you say. “I really am.” She makes a sound that is mostly just joy, pulls you into a hug that is brief and tight and completely certain, and then releases you and straightens and composes herself into someone who is simply walking to class. “Good,” she says briskly. “That’s all I wanted to know. Come on, we’ll be late.”

You walk to class. You are smiling. You cannot stop doing that today. Heeseung finds you before lunch. He always finds you before lunch. This is not new. What is new is that when he falls into step beside you in the hallway he takes your hand, easy as anything, like it is something you have always done, and you look down at your joined hands and then up at him and he looks back at you with that grin that has always been just him, that has always been the most natural thing in the world. “Hi,” he says. “Hi,” you say.

“Is this okay?” He means the hand. “Very okay,” you say. He nods once, satisfied, and walks with you down the hallway through the midday noise of Fairview Fall High School, and the school moves around you the way it always has, except that now you are holding his hand and the whole building seems to know it and most of it seems pleased.

It is in the corridor outside the science block that you see Cassie Howard. She’s been interested in Heesueng since October from what you’ve seen. Always loitering beside his locker and asking him to help her with reading for English. She’s a nice girl. But when these interactions happened you couldn’t help but feel jealous. She is with two girls from her class, laughing at something, her hair in a high ponytail, and she looks up when you pass and her eyes go to your joined hands and then to your face. Something moves through her expression — you see it, brief and honest, the particular look of someone who has let something go and is at peace with having let it go — and then she smiles at you. A real smile. Warm and direct. She lifts a hand. You lift yours back. She turns back to her friends and keeps talking and that is the whole of it, clean and simple and kind, and you look at it as you walk past and feel something in your chest that is gratitude, or respect, or both.

“What was that?” Heeseung asks. “Cassie Howard waved at me.” “Yeah,” he says, easy. “She would.” He glances over at you. “This town doesn’t really have time for conflict.” You look up at him — the grin, the certainty of him, the way he says it like it is just a true thing about the place he loves — and you smile, properly, all the way through it. “I like this town,” you say. “I know you do,” he says. “I’ve known for a while.”

The conversation about what you are happens that afternoon, in the blue car, parked outside Birdie’s with the engine running for the heat and the radio low. It is not a serious conversation. That is the thing you will remember about it — it is not fraught or uncertain or full of the nervous energy of something that could go wrong. It is just the two of you in the warm car in the cold January afternoon, talking about it the way you talk about most things, which is honestly and without making it harder than it is.

“So,” he says. “So,” you say. He looks at the steering wheel. Then at you. “I’d like it if you were mine,” he says, which is simple and direct and so entirely him that something in you softens completely. “If that’s something you want too.” “It’s something I want,” you say. He nods. The grin. “Okay.” “Okay,” you say. He reaches over and tucks a piece of hair behind your ear — careful, like he has been wanting to do it for a while and is allowing himself to now — and his fingers brush your jaw and rest there for a moment. “I’ve wanted to do that since October,” he says. “Which part?” “All of it.” He says it plainly. “The hair. The—” He pauses. “All of it.” You look at him in the afternoon light, this boy who found you outside a gate on the first day and showed you around a town that was not your town and drove you home and stayed for dinner and gave you a record he loved without knowing why you needed it, and you think: I was not supposed to stay. I was not supposed to build anything here. I was not supposed to end up in a blue car in January in Fairview Fall, Texas feeling like this. You think: I am so glad I did.

“Heeseung,” you say. “Yeah.” You lean across the console and kiss him, soft and certain, and his hand comes up to your jaw the way it did last night and he kisses you back the same way he does everything, which is completely and without any hurry, like he has all the time in the world and intends to use it, and you think that there is something very specific about being kissed by someone who actually means it, who is not performing it, who is just — there, entirely, in the moment with you. When you pull back he is smiling. Not the grin, not the easy public one — something smaller and more private, something that you think might be just yours. “Go inside,” he says. “It’s cold.” “It’s warm in the car.” “Go inside,” he says again, and the smile gets wider. “Birdie’ll be watching from the window.”

You look at the house. The curtain moves. “Oh my God,” you say. He laughs, fully, head tipping back, and you get out of the car before you start laughing too, and you take the porch steps two at a time and the front door opens before you reach it and Birdie is standing there with the most unconvincing innocent expression you have ever seen. “How was school?” she says. “Birdie.” “What? I’m asking about your day.” You push past her into the warm house and she closes the door behind you both and the sound of the blue car pulling away from the kerb is very clear in the quiet and Birdie hums something small and satisfied to herself in the hallway. “Not a word,” you say. “Not a single one,” she agrees, and goes to put the kettle on, and you lean against the wall and press your hand to your mouth and smile into your palm while Gerald winds around your ankles and the house wraps around you, warm and full, yours.

February in Fairview Fall is the quiet month. The festival is over and the holidays are long gone and the town settles into the particular stillness of a place waiting for spring, going about its business without any special occasion to dress itself up for. The cold is still real but it has lost the bite of January — it is a softer cold now, the kind you can walk in without bracing, and on the clearest days there is something in the light that is almost a promise, a brightness at the edges of the afternoon that was not there in December.

You and Heeseung find your rhythm the way rivers find their course — not by deciding, but by going the way that is natural, the way that offers the least resistance. He picks you up in the mornings. He walks you to class. He finds you before lunch without fail. He drives you home in the blue car with the radio low and his hand finding yours across the console somewhere between the school and Birdie’s road, easy and unhurried, like it is the most obvious thing in the world. It is the most obvious thing in the world. You are still slightly amazed that it gets to be. Birdie makes pointed remarks about how often there are two cups on the drying rack now instead of one, which she does with such elaborate innocence that it is impossible to be annoyed by it. His mother sends peach preserves home with him for you — a jar, then another jar, then a third with a small note attached in handwriting that is Heeseung’s handwriting in thirty years that simply says for Y/N, with love — and you put them in Birdie’s kitchen and they make everything taste like summer. Immy has taken to calling you both insufferable with enormous affection. Sunghoon has said nothing, which is the loudest thing Sunghoon can do.

He takes you to the high roads on a clear Saturday in late February when the sky is the particular shade of blue that only happens in winter, deep and cloudless, the kind of sky that goes on forever. You have seen the high roads from below — from the town, looking up, the winding line of them against the hillside — but you have not been up them yet, and when he turns off the main road and the blue car begins to climb you understand immediately why this is somewhere people go.

The town falls away below you slowly, revealing itself in pieces — the water tower, the church steeple, the football field, the grid of streets you know now, that you could walk from memory — and by the time he pulls off onto the flat ridge at the top and cuts the engine you can see all of Fairview Fall spread out beneath you like a map of a life. You get out of the car without speaking. You both do. The wind up here is different — wider, cleaner, coming from somewhere far away — and you stand at the edge of the ridge and look at the town below and the land beyond it going flat and enormous in every direction and the sky above it all doing what the sky does up here, which is everything. “My dad used to take me to the roof of our building in the city,” you say. You do not plan to say it. It comes out the way things come out when you are somewhere that opens you. “Not to see the city — we could see that from our windows. He took me up for the sky. He said the city was too bright to see it properly from the street but if you got high enough above the light you could still find them.” You pause. “The constellations. He knew all of them.”

Heeseung is beside you, not quite touching, listening the way he listens which is with his whole self, not waiting for you to finish so he can speak but actually receiving what you are saying. “He’d stand behind me and point over my shoulder,” you say. “And he’d say there, do you see it? and I’d say yes even when I couldn’t always see it because I loved the way he talked about them. Like they were old friends.” You look at the sky. The February afternoon is going and the first stars are beginning, faint at the edges of the blue. “He said every constellation has a story and every story is about the same things. Love and loss and people trying to find their way home.” The wind moves. “He sounds like someone worth knowing,” Heeseung says, quietly.

“He was the best person I’ve ever known,” you say. “Him and my mom both. They were—” You stop. The grief is here, the real kind, the kind that comes up from the ground. “They were just the best people. And I don’t know how to—” Your voice goes. “I don’t know how to stop feeling like I should call him every time I see something I want to tell him about.” Heeseung puts his arm around you. Not to stop the crying — you are crying now, quietly, the tears going cold on your face in the wind — but just to be there, to be solid, to be the thing you are not falling into even though you are falling. “You don’t have to stop,” he says. “You can want to call him every time.” “It doesn’t go away,” you say. “People say it gets easier but it doesn’t go away.” “No,” he says. “I don’t think it does.” He says it simply, without flinching from it, without trying to fix it into something more comfortable, and you love him for that in a way that you do not yet have a word for — the particular love of someone who tells you the true thing instead of the easy thing.

You cry for a while in the wind on the high roads above Fairview Fall with his arm around you and the town below and the stars coming through above, and he holds you and does not say it’s okay because he is too wise for that, and he does not say hush because that is not something he would ever say to you, and he does not let go.

When you surface he turns to you and lifts his hand and presses his thumb to your cheek, gentle, and catches a tear that has not finished yet, and then he leans in and kisses where it was, soft, his lips cold and warm at the same time, and then the other cheek, and your eyes close. “Hey,” he says softly, against your face. “Hey,” you say back. He pulls you in properly, both arms, and you press your face into his jacket and breathe and he rests his chin on top of your head and you stand like that on the ridge above the town until you are steady again, until the grief has done what it came to do and settled back into the place where it lives, and the stars are properly out now, a handful of them at least, and you pull back and look up.

“There,” you say. You find the one you know most certainly, the one your father always found first. “That one. Orion. My dad said find Orion first and everything else follows.” Heeseung looks where you are pointing. “I see him,” he says. “He’s always there,” you say. “My dad said that. He said some things are always there, you just have to know where to look.” Heeseung looks at the sky for a moment and then looks at you, and his face in the starlight is so careful and so certain and so entirely his. “Smart man,” he says. “The smartest,” you say. He takes your hand and you stand on the ridge and look at the stars until the cold drives you back into the car, and on the drive home the radio plays something soft and country and his hand is warm over yours on the console and Fairview Fall comes up to meet you, lit and small and entirely yours.

Spring arrives in March like it means it. Overnight, or what feels like overnight, the brown gives way to green and the air changes temperature and quality and the town opens up the way it does when winter is done — windows, doors, people on porches, Mae’s putting tables out on the sidewalk for the first time since October. The football field goes bright again. The oak trees on Birdie’s street bud out and within two weeks are full and green and moving in the warm breeze. Immy announces the lake on a Friday in late March the same way she announces everything, which is as a fact that has already been decided. “Saturday,” she says at lunch. “The lake. All four of us. It’s warm enough.” “It’s barely warm enough,” Sunghoon says. “It’s warm enough,” she says again, with finality. It is warm enough. Just. The lake in spring is the colour of something deep and clear and cold, ringed with trees that are only just coming into leaf, the banks soft with new grass. There are other people there — it is a public place, a Friday night place in summer, but on a Saturday morning in late March it is quiet enough that you have the good stretch of bank largely to yourselves.

Immy has brought a blanket and approximately half of her kitchen and she sets up on the bank with the efficiency of someone who has done this many times while Sunghoon wades in without ceremony and makes a sound that suggests Immy was generous in her assessment of the temperature. You are standing at the edge of the water in your swimsuit — the one Immy helped you pick out, the green one, the one she said was exactly right with your colouring — with your toes in the cold and the spring sun warm on your back, looking at the lake and deciding whether you are brave enough.

You become aware that Heeseung has stopped moving beside you. You look over. He is looking at you. Not in a way that is rude or obvious — in a way that is simply honest, a way he does not quite school fast enough, a way that you catch before it becomes the grin. “What?” you say. “Nothing,” he says. The grin arrives. “You just look—” He does not finish the sentence because Sunghoon, from the water, sends a splash that catches him full across the chest, and you take several steps back to avoid the second wave. “Eyes forward,” Sunghoon says, with absolute serenity. “I wasn’t—” Heeseung starts. “In,” Sunghoon says, and splashes him again. Heeseung goes in, retaliating immediately, and you stand on the bank and laugh at both of them until Immy materialises beside you and says “we should go in before they start trying to dunk each other” and takes your hand and you go in together, fast, because fast is the only way, and the cold hits you all at once and you gasp and then you are in it, properly in it, and after thirty seconds it is perfect, the kind of cold that makes you feel entirely alive.

You spend the morning in the water and on the bank and in the water again. Sunghoon and Heeseung have an argument about something that happened in a football game two years ago that neither of them can fully remember and that Immy referees with the authority of someone who was there and remembers everything. You and Immy lie on the blanket in the midday sun while the boys swim further out and she tells you about the summer she was twelve and she and Heeseung and Sunghoon built a raft in Heeseung’s backyard and carried it out here and it sank immediately and Sunghoon said he knew it would and he had told them so and Heeseung said he was the worst and Sunghoon said he knew that too.

“He was right though,” Immy says. “It was terrible construction.” “Did Heeseung admit that?” “Eventually.” She shades her eyes to look at the water. “He always admits it eventually. He just needs a minute.” She pauses. “That’s one of the things about him. He comes around. He always comes around.” You look at the water too, at Heeseung out in the middle of it, dark head, easy stroke. “I know,” you say. She smiles at the sky.

The afternoon goes golden and then the four of you build a fire on the bank in the early evening in the practiced way of people who have done this before — Sunghoon doing most of the actual work while Heeseung hands him things and makes suggestions that Sunghoon ignores — and you sit around it with blankets and the remains of what Immy brought and the lake going dark and still in front of you.

At some point Immy stands up and says she needs to be home for dinner and Sunghoon stands with her immediately, the way he always does, and there is a small exchange of goodnights and the sounds of them packing up, and then their voices going up the bank toward the road, and then quiet. Just you and Heeseung and the fire and the lake. He has been quiet the last hour in a way that is not unhappy, just interior, something running underneath. You sit with it because you know him well enough by now to know when to wait. Gerald is teaching you this too. Everyone in your life is teaching you to wait. He gets up and goes to the car and comes back with his guitar. You look at it. You have never seen him carry it out of the house before — you know it exists, Birdie told you, you have known it was coming in the way you know spring is coming, something in the air before it arrives.

He sits back down beside you and settles it in his lap and does not look at you. “You don’t have to listen,” he says. “I want to,” you say. He nods once. He adjusts the tuning quietly, the small careful sounds of it, and then his hands find the strings and he begins to play.

It is not a song you know. You do not think it is a song anyone knows — it has the quality of something made, something that grew rather than was written, the melody finding itself as it goes. It is quiet and unhurried and the notes go out over the water and the fire pops and the spring air holds it and you sit very still because you do not want to be the thing that breaks it.

He plays for a while. You look at the lake. You look at the fire. You look at him — his hands on the strings, the concentration on his face, the way he is entirely present in the music, the way everything else about him is here but this particular part of him goes somewhere else, somewhere interior, the same place the journal takes you. He lets the last chord go. The quiet comes back. “That was yours,” you say. Not a question. “Yeah.” He sets his hand flat against the strings to still them. “I’ve been working on it for a while.” “Does it have a name?” He looks at you sideways, and something in his expression is careful and open and slightly vulnerable in a way he rarely is in company. “Not yet,” he says. You look at the lake. “It should,” you say. “It’s too good not to have a name.”

He is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “I’ll figure it out,” and it sounds like he already has, and you do not push it, and the fire burns down and the stars come out and the two of you sit by the lake in the early spring dark and he plays a little more — things you half-know, things that are fully his — and it is one of the best evenings of your life, quiet and full, the kind you will come back to when you need to remember what good feels like.

March becomes April and the bookshop comes into its busiest season — spring cleaning, Birdie says, people remember books exist when the weather turns — and you are in after school most days, shelving and helping and making change and talking to the regulars who have become your regulars too, people who ask after you by name and bring you things from their gardens and tell you things about the town that Birdie has not told you yet.

You are on the ladder reaching for the top shelf on a Thursday afternoon, a stack of returns to be reshelved, when the bell above the door sounds and you do not look down because you are busy and Birdie is at the counter. “She’s in the back,” you hear Birdie say, and then, a beat later: “second aisle.” Footsteps on the wooden floor. You are still reaching for the shelf. “Need a hand?” Heeseung says, below you. “I’ve got it,” you say. You get it. You come down the ladder with the empty stack and he is there at the bottom of it, leaning against the shelves with his jacket on and his hair slightly messed from the wind outside, and he looks at you the way he looks at you now — that private, warm, certain look that is just yours, that you have stopped being surprised by and started simply receiving. “Hi,” he says. “Hi,” you say. “I’m working.” “I know.”

He pushes off the shelf and steps into the aisle and it is narrow enough that he is very close, and he takes the empty stack from your hands and sets it on the floor without breaking eye contact and you look up at him and the afternoon light from the window at the end of the aisle is warm and golden and his hands find your waist. “Heeseung,” you say, with a very specific kind of not-seriousness. “I’ll be quick,” he says, and he is grinning, and then he kisses you back against the shelves, his hands warm on your waist, and you put yours on his chest and the shelves press gently into your back and it is soft and thorough and entirely him and the bookshop smells like paper and vanilla and spring through the open window.

A sound from the direction of the counter. A very deliberate cough. You pull apart. Heeseung drops his forehead to yours and his shoulders shake once, silently. Another cough. Pointed. Patient. With the timing of a woman who has been a bookshop owner for years and has heard everything happen in her aisles and has Opinions. “We should—” you start. “Yeah,” he says. He steps back. He picks up the empty stack from the floor and holds it out to you with the expression of a man attempting innocence. “Reshelving.” “Reshelving,” you agree.

You go back to the front of the shop. Birdie is behind the counter with a customer, her back to you, discussing a book recommendation with complete concentration. She does not look at you. She also does not stop smiling. You catch Heeseung’s eye across the shop. He presses his lips together against the grin. You look at the ceiling. “Really?” Birdie says, to no one, to the air, conversationally, still not looking at you. “We’re working,” you say. “Mm,” she says. “I see that.” The customer looks between all three of you with polite confusion. Birdie recommends them something excellent and sends them on their way and then turns around and looks at you both with the expression of a woman who has said everything she intends to say on the subject without saying a word.

Heeseung clears his throat. “Afternoon, Birdie.” “Heeseung,” she says pleasantly. “You know my stockroom needs reorganising if you’ve got time on your hands.” He reorganises the stockroom. You shelve the returns. Birdie bakes something in the back that smells extraordinary and pretends this is all very normal and you work through the afternoon in the warm, paper-scented air of Read a Cookie while the spring goes on outside the window and Gerald sleeps on the counter and the town moves past the glass. Later, walking home, Heeseung says: “I like your aunt.” “She likes you too,” you say. “That’s what makes it worse.” He laughs, and takes your hand, and you walk home through the April streets of Fairview Fall with the trees fully green and the light going gold and warm and the ring on its chain warm at your chest, and everything is tender and good and slightly too full to hold, the way the best things are.

Birdie goes to visit a friend in Austin on a Friday in April — an old friend, someone from before Fairview Fall, someone she has been meaning to visit for two years and has finally committed to, leaving Thursday evening with a bag and a list of instructions about Gerald that is longer than it needs to be. “He eats at seven,” she says, at the door. “Not six-thirty. Seven. He knows the difference and he will make your life very difficult if you get it wrong.” “I know, Birdie. I live here.” “I’m just saying.” She picks up her bag. “There’s a cobbler in the fridge. Don’t let Heeseung eat all of it.” “I wasn’t planning on—” “I know you weren’t planning on it.” She gives you the look, the fond and entirely unsubtle one. “I’m just saying.” She kisses your cheek. “Be good.” “Always,” you say. She gives you a look that suggests she finds this moderately believable and goes.

The house is very quiet on Friday evening. You feed Gerald at seven — exactly seven, he does know the difference — and you sit on the sofa with your book and the lamp on and the spring evening going dark outside the window, and it is fine, it is completely fine, you have been alone before, and then the phone rings and it is Heeseung. “Hi,” you say. “Hi.” His voice is warm and easy. “How’s the house?” “Quiet.” “Birdie get off alright?” “With a list of Gerald’s dietary requirements and a pointed comment about cobbler.” He laughs. “She left cobbler?” “Don’t.” “I’m just asking.” “Heeseung.” A pause, warm at the edges. “My parents are at my uncle’s tonight,” he says. “I’m at the house alone.” Another pause. “You could come over. If you wanted.” You look at the quiet room. Gerald looks back at you from the armchair with the expression of an animal who has no opinions about your personal life. “Give me twenty minutes,” you say.

The Lee house is lit warm from the inside when you come up the front path, the porch light on, the garden going dark around it. He opens the door before you knock — he must have heard the gate — and he is in a soft shirt with the sleeves pushed up and his feet bare and he looks at you on the doorstep for a moment with that expression, the private one, the one that is just yours. “Hi,” he says. “Hi,” you say, and he steps back to let you in. The house has the particular quiet of a place that is usually full and is not full tonight, and it is warm from the day’s heat still in the walls, and it smells like his mother’s cooking and something underneath that is just the house, just the smell of a place that has been lived in well. He takes your jacket and you follow him to the kitchen where there are two glasses on the counter and something on the stove that he has apparently made, which surprises you. “You cook?” you say. “My mama taught me.” He lifts the lid and checks it. “I’m not as good as she is.” “Nobody is.”

He makes a sound of agreement and you sit at the kitchen counter and watch him finish it and it is domestic in a way that sits warmly in your chest, the ease of it, the two of you in a kitchen with the evening outside and nowhere else to be. He plates it up — something simple, something good — and you eat at the kitchen table and the conversation wanders the way it does when you are somewhere comfortable, from school to music to something Sunghoon said at practice that made the whole team laugh, to the book you are reading, to nothing in particular. “Miss Beaumont asked about you today,” you say. “Yeah?” “She said you were the best argument she ever lost.” He looks pleased. “What were we arguing about?” “She didn’t say. She said you were wrong but you made her think harder about why, and that’s rarer than being right.” He considers this with the seriousness it deserves. “I’ll take that,” he says. “That’s a real compliment.” “I told her that’s what you’d say.”

He smiles at his plate, private and warm, and you look at him across the kitchen table in the lamplight and think about what it is to know someone — to know the way they receive things, the way they hold compliments, the way they go quiet when something matters and loud when something is funny, the way they drive and the way they listen and the way their voice drops when they are saying something true. You have been building this knowledge for eight months without knowing you were building it and now it is just — there, solid, a thing you can lean on.

After dinner he washes up and you dry, the way you have fallen into doing it at Birdie’s, and it is the same quiet domestic ease, his hands in the water and yours with the cloth and the radio low on the windowsill, and at some point he says something that makes you laugh and you lean into his shoulder without thinking about it and he turns his head and presses his lips to your hair and stays there a moment, and then he takes the cloth from your hands and hangs it over the tap and turns to you. “Come on,” he says, quietly.

His room is at the back of the house, overlooking the garden, the oak tree visible through the window in the dark. It is a room that has been lived in for seventeen years — worn at the edges, comfortable, everything in its place but none of it arranged for display. There are records on the shelf, the good kind, stacked carefully. His guitar in the corner on its stand. A photograph on the desk of the three of them — him and Sunghoon and Immy, young, maybe thirteen, standing at what looks like the lake, all of them squinting into the sun and grinning. Books, more than you expected, stacked on the nightstand and on the floor beside the bed. You go to the records first, because you cannot help it, running your finger along the spines the way your father taught you. “You and my dad would have gotten along,” you say. It comes out soft and easy, not weighted, just true. “I know,” he says, from behind you. “You’ve told me enough about him that I feel like I know him a little.”

You turn around. He is close, in the way he is always close now, in the way you have stopped registering as proximity and started registering as just — him, just the space he takes up in your life. “I love you,” you say. You have not said it before. You have known it — you have known it for longer than you have allowed yourself to know it — but you have not said it, and it comes out now in this room with his records and his guitar and the photograph of him at thirteen with his whole life ahead of him, and it comes out the way true things come out when you stop holding them, which is simply and without apology. He looks at you for a moment. Something in his face does what it does when something matters, which is go very still and very certain. “I love you,” he says back. “I’ve loved you since the gate on the first day and I’m done not saying it.”

You look at him. He looks at you. “Since the gate,” you say. “Since the gate,” he confirms. You step into him and he meets you halfway and the kiss is different to the others — not urgency, not the sweet tentativeness of the first one, but something fuller and more certain, something that has all the months in it, all the mornings in the blue car and the evenings at the diner and the high roads and the fire by the lake and the bookshop and the kitchen and all of it, every bit of it, and his hands are in your hair and yours are on his chest and you are both entirely present in it, entirely there. He pulls back just enough to look at you, his forehead against yours, his hands framing your face. “You sure?” he says. Quiet and straight, the way he always is. “I’m sure,” you say. “Are you?” “Since the gate,” he says again, soft, and you laugh against his mouth and he smiles into the kiss. Your hands slide into his hair immediately, pulling him closer, and he exhales sharply, his hand moving from your face to the back of your neck, gripping a little tighter now, holding you in place as the kiss deepens. His mouth moves against yours with more intent, his tongue slower but heavier, like he’s tasting you properly now, like he’s not holding back the fact that he wants this. Wants you.

Your hands move down his back, pressing him closer, feeling the solid warmth of him, and he responds instantly, his body shifting into yours, his thigh pressing between yours without thinking. “Fuck—” he exhales quietly against your mouth. He pulls back just enough to breathe, but his lips don’t leave you — they trail along your jaw instead, down your neck, slower again but heavier, his mouth open against your skin. You feel it everywhere. “Heeseung—” you breathe. He hums softly against your throat, the sound low, vibrating through you, and then his teeth graze your skin — not enough to hurt, just enough to make your breath catch.

“Heeseung—” you breathe. He hums softly against your throat, the sound low, vibrating through you, and then his teeth graze your skin — not enough to hurt, just enough to make your breath catch. “Darlin’…” he says again, against your neck this time, his voice rougher. “You have no idea—” His hands move down from your face, your neck, over your shoulders, your arms, then back in — pulling your shirt up, slower than before but more intentional, like he’s aware of every inch of skin he’s uncovering. You lift your arms for him and he drags the fabric off you, his eyes dropping immediately to your chest.

He exhales. “Jesus—” His hands come up to your tits instantly, full, firm, like he’s been waiting to touch you like this. His thumbs drag over your nipples and you arch into him without thinking. “There,” he murmurs. “Yeah— you feel that?” “Yes—” He presses harder. Rolls your nipple between his fingers. You gasp. “Fuck—” he breathes, almost to himself. “You’re so—” He cuts himself off and leans down, his mouth replacing his hand, taking your nipple into his mouth, his tongue circling slowly before he sucks. Your fingers tighten in his hair. “Heeseung—” He groans softly against your skin, the sound unguarded, and it makes your stomach flip. “Yeah,” he murmurs, pulling back just enough to speak, his breath warm against your chest. “Say it again—” You say his name again, softer this time, and his hands tighten on you, his mouth returning, slower but deeper, like he’s losing track of how careful he was trying to be. His other hand stays on your other breast, squeezing, his thumb dragging over your nipple in time with his mouth, and the combination makes your hips shift under him. He notices immediately. Of course he does. “Sensitive,” he murmurs. “Fuck— I can feel it—”

Your hands move down his chest now, pushing his shirt up, needing to touch him too, needing something solid under your palms. He lets you, lifts his arms so you can pull it off, and the second your hands hit his skin, he exhales. “Yeah,” he says softly. “There—” You run your hands over him, his chest, his stomach, feeling the tension in him, the way his body reacts to your touch just as much as yours reacts to his. “You’re shaking,” he murmurs, kissing along your neck again. “So are you,” you whisper. He lets out a quiet, breathless laugh against your skin. “Yeah,” he admits. “I am.”

His hand slides down your stomach, slow, his fingers tracing the line of your waist, your hips, before settling on your thigh. He presses gently, encouraging you to open for him. You do. His breath catches slightly when he sees you open.. His fingers brush between your thighs, light at first, feeling the warmth, the slickness already there. “Fuck,” he exhales quietly. “You’re already—” He stops himself and looks back at your face. “You okay?” “Yes,” you say, breath uneven. “Yeah?” he asks softly. “Good girl,” he murmurs. His fingers move again. More deliberate now. He runs them through your folds, slow, spreading the wetness, learning you the same way he learned everything else — carefully, completely. When his thumb finds your clit, he presses lightly, testing. You react instantly, hips shifting. He notices. “Right there?” he asks. “Yes—”

He circles it slowly, steady, his other hand still resting on your thigh, holding you open. His touch isn’t rushed, but it’s precise, like he’s mapping exactly what you need. “You’re doing so well,” he murmurs. “So good for me.” His fingers slide down, then back up, then he presses one finger into you. Slow. You gasp. He stills. “Okay?” “Yes,” you breathe. “Don’t stop.” He nods slightly. “Alright. I’ve got you, darlin’.” He moves again, pushing deeper, then adding another finger, curling them slightly inside you, watching your face for every reaction. “That’s it,” he says softly. “Just relax— I’ve got you—” His thumb keeps working your clit, his fingers moving in a steady rhythm, and you feel it building, tightening low in your stomach. “Heeseung—”

“I know,” he murmurs. “I know—” He leans down and kisses you again, softer now, his movements syncing — his fingers, his mouth, everything aligned. When he finally moves over you properly, settling between your thighs, his body warm and solid against yours, the shift is immediate. Closer. Heavier. Real. He lines himself up slowly, his hand coming back to your face again, thumb brushing your cheek. “Look at me,” he says softly and then he pushes into you. You gasp, your body tightening around him instinctively. He stops immediately. Completely still.

“Okay?” he asks. “Yes,” you breathe. “Don’t stop.”He moves again, slower than he wants to, you can feel it — the control, the effort — but underneath it there’s something stronger now, something that wants more. His hips press into yours, deeper each time, his hand sliding to your hip, holding you, grounding you. “Fuck—” he exhales. “You feel—” You say his name and it breaks him. His rhythm deepens, still controlled but heavier now, more intent, his forehead pressing to yours again. “I’ve got you, darlin’,” he says. “You’re alright— I’ve got you—” Your hands move all over him — his back, his shoulders, pulling him closer, and he responds immediately, pressing deeper, his pace shifting just enough to make your breath catch.

“You feel incredible,” he murmurs. “So warm— so tight—” You gasp. Your body tightens. He feels it. “Yeah— I know—” he breathes. “I know—” His mouth finds your neck again, kissing, slower now but deeper, like he can’t stay away from it, like he needs to feel you there while he moves. “Stay with me,” he murmurs. “I am—” “Good girl,” he says softly. “That’s it—” It builds. Steady and inevitable.. Your body tightens, your hands gripping him, your breath breaking, and he stays right there with you, not rushing, not pulling away, just with you.

“Darlin’—” he breathes. “You’re doing so well—” You come.. His whole body reacts, his rhythm stuttering, then deepening as he follows, his voice breaking softly against your neck as he finishes, still pressed close, still holding you. He stays there. Inside you. Breathing hard. His hand comes back to your face again, thumb brushing your cheek, softer now. “You okay?” he murmurs. You nod, smiling faintly. “Yeah.” He exhales. Relieved. And kisses you again, slow and warm, like he’s not done touching you yet. “Stay with me,” he says softly.

Afterward you lie in the warm dark with his arm around you and your head on his chest and his heartbeat under your ear, and neither of you speaks for a long time because there is nothing that needs saying and it is enough to just be here, to just be this. “Hey,” he says eventually, into your hair. “Hey,” you say. He tightens his arm around you once, just once, and then loosens it, and you lie there in the quiet of his room in the house where he grew up and you think: I was not supposed to stay. I was not supposed to build anything here. You think: I am going to stay.

You fall asleep without meaning to and wake to the dark room and Heeseung warm beside you and the clock on his nightstand reading half past ten. You lie still for a moment, listening to the house, the spring night outside, a dog somewhere distant. Heeseung is awake. You can tell by his breathing. “You okay?” you say. “Yeah.” He says it easily, and he means it, but there is something underneath it, something that has been there since dinner, something you noticed and did not push. You wait. He exhales. “There’s something I should have told you,” he says. “I’ve been meaning to and I kept — I don’t know. I kept waiting for the right time and there wasn’t one so I just didn’t.” You lift your head to look at him. In the low light his face is serious. “The scholarship,” he says. You go still. “Coach put my name forward in January,” he says. “To three programmes. I found out in February that one of them wants me. Full ride. Music programme at a school in Nashville.” He pauses. “It’s a good programme. It’s a real one.” The room is quiet.

“You’ve known since February,” you say. “Yeah.” “It’s April, Heeseung.” “I know.” “That’s—” You sit up. The warmth of the last hour is still in you but something else is in you now too, something cold and specific. “That’s two months. You’ve known for two months and you didn’t—” You stop. “Why didn’t you tell me?” “Because I didn’t want it,” he says. He says it simply, like it is an explanation. “I still don’t want it. I want to stay here. I want community college and music and—”

“That’s not the point,” you say. “The point is you didn’t tell me.” You look at him in the dark. “I heard about it, Heeseung. Someone at school — I don’t even remember who — said something about Coach pushing you for a scholarship and I thought they meant the football one, I thought — I had no idea there was a music one, I had no idea it was real and current and something you were sitting on—” You hear yourself and stop. He is looking at you with an expression that is not defensive, which somehow makes it worse.

He looks like someone who knows he is wrong and is not going to pretend otherwise. “You heard about it at school,” he says. “Weeks ago,” you say. “I didn’t know what they meant. I didn’t know enough to ask.” You get up and find your clothes and he sits up and watches you and does not try to stop you because he understands that this is not something to stop, this is something to let happen. “I’m not angry about the scholarship,” you say, pulling on your cardigan. Your mother’s cardigan, warm and familiar. “I’m angry that you didn’t trust me with it. I’m angry that I heard it from someone else. I’m angry that you let me fall in love with you and didn’t tell me there was a version of the future where you might not be here.” Your voice does not break. You are grateful for that.

“That’s what I’m angry about.” “I know,” he says. “You’re right.” “I know I’m right.” You pick up your jacket. “I’m going to go home.” “Let me drive you.” “I’ll walk.” “It’s dark—” “Heeseung.” You look at him. He looks back, and his face is open and honest and not making excuses, and you love him, you still love him, that has not moved at all, which is its own kind of complicated. “I just need tonight. Okay? I just need tonight.” He nods. “Okay.” You go to the door. You stop. “I’m not going anywhere,” you say, and you mean Fairview Fall, you mean him, you mean all of it. “I just need tonight.” “I know,” he says. “I’ll be here.”

You go home through the spring dark, the streets of Fairview Fall quiet and lit around you, your mother’s cardigan warm on your shoulders and your heart doing several things at once. Gerald is in the window when you come up the path. You go inside and sit on the sofa in the lamplight and pick up the journal. You write for a long time. At the end of it you close the journal and sit in the quiet house and you are still angry and you are still in love and both of those things are fully true and you are learning, slowly, that love is not the absence of anger, it is just what is there when the anger passes. It will pass. He will be there. You know both of these things the way you know Orion — certainly, completely, because someone you loved taught you where to look.

The thing about being angry at someone you love is that it lives in your body. It is not a clean, distant thing. It sits in your chest and your throat and behind your eyes and it makes everything heavier — the morning, the walk to school, the seat at lunch, the backseat of Sunghoon’s truck where the space beside you is wrong now, off-balance, like a room where the furniture has been moved in the night.

You give yourself the weekend. You walk home Friday night and you cry into Gerald and you write in the journal and in the morning you get up and you make tea and you sit with the quiet and you let yourself feel it fully — the anger, and underneath the anger, the fear, and underneath the fear, everything else. You give yourself the weekend because you said you needed tonight and one night was not enough and you are learning to know what you need. Monday comes and you walk through the school gate and he is there, beside the blue car, and you look at him and look away and keep walking, and the air between you is something you have never felt between you before, which is distance.

You do not sit with him at lunch. You sit with Immy, who does not ask questions, who hands you half her sandwich and talks about her chemistry coursework with the focused energy of someone who understands that the best thing she can do right now is be normal, and you love her for it even as you are aware of Heeseung across the cafeteria not looking at you in a way that is very much looking at you. Sunghoon says nothing. He eats. He is a barometer of the situation and he knows it and he stays very still.

Wednesday he comes to the bookshop. You hear the bell above the door and look up from the returns you are sorting and he is there in his jacket with his hands in his pockets and he looks at you with an expression that is not an argument, that is just — him, open and present and a little wrecked around the edges in the way you have not seen him be before.

“Hey,” he says. You look back at the returns. “I’m working.” “I know.” He does not move from the door. “I’m not here to push. I just—” He stops. “I wanted to see you.” “I’m here,” you say, to the books. He stands there for a moment. Then he goes to the shelf nearest the door and starts looking at things, not browsing, just — being in the same room. Giving you something without asking for anything back.

Birdie comes out from the back and sees him and sees your face and does the thing she always does which is to read the room completely and not comment on a single thing she has read. She says “Heeseung, those top shelves need dusting if you’ve got a minute” and he says “yes, Birdie” and she hands him a cloth and he dusts the top shelves and you sort returns and nobody talks and the afternoon goes by and he leaves at closing without saying anything else and the door bell sounds and then the shop is quiet. Birdie puts the closed sign up. She comes to stand beside you at the counter. “You don’t have to tell me,” she says. “But I’m here if you want to.”

You look at the counter. The grain of the wood. The small chip at the corner that has been there since before Birdie bought the shop, that she has never repaired because she says it is part of the history of it. “He kept something from me,” you say. “Something important. For two months.” Birdie is quiet. “A scholarship,” you say. “A real one. Music, in Nashville. He knew in February and he didn’t tell me.” You pause. “I heard it from someone else. I didn’t even understand what I was hearing because I didn’t have enough information.”

“Ah,” Birdie says. “I’m not angry about the scholarship. I know he doesn’t want it. I believe him.” You press your palms flat to the counter. “I’m angry that he didn’t trust me with it. That I had to find out from someone else. That—” Your voice does something unexpected. “That there’s a version of this where he’s not here and he didn’t tell me.” The last part is the real part. You hear it when you say it. Birdie hears it too. She turns to face you fully. “That’s not really about the scholarship,” she says, gently. “No,” you say. “That’s about not knowing,” she says. “About not being told. About something changing without warning.”

The grief comes up then, the real kind, the deep kind, the kind that has been sitting underneath the anger all week waiting for you to stop being angry long enough to feel it. Your parents did not call to say they were leaving the work event. They did not say goodbye. One moment they were in the world and the next moment they were not and you had no warning, no preparation, no chance to hold the last conversation more carefully because you did not know it was the last one. You know this is not the same. You know Heeseung withholding a scholarship is not the same as a car crash on a highway. But fear does not do logic. Fear finds the shape of itself wherever it can. You put your face in your hands and you cry, properly, the ugly kind, the kind that has been building for days and longer than days. Birdie puts her arm around you and holds on and lets you. “I know,” she says, softly, into your hair. “I know, baby.”

“I’m so scared of losing someone else,” you say, into your hands. “I know that’s not fair to him. I know it’s not the same. But I’m so scared.” “That’s not unfair,” Birdie says. “That’s just true. You’re allowed to be scared.” “I love him,” you say. “I know you do.” “It makes it scarier.” “That’s how it works,” she says. “That’s just how it works. The loving and the scared are the same size.” She rubs your back. “That doesn’t mean you stop. You just carry both.” You cry until it’s done.

The shop is quiet and dark except for the lamp at the counter and outside the April evening is warm and the town is going about its business and Gerald has appeared from somewhere and is pressing himself against your leg. You wipe your face. You breathe. “I need to talk to him,” you say. “You do,” Birdie agrees. “When you’re ready.” “I’m almost ready,” you say. She squeezes your shoulder. “Almost is enough,” she says. “Come on. I’ll make tea and we can eat cobbler for dinner and not tell anyone.” “Birdie.” “I’m just saying what’s going to happen,” she says, and goes to put the kettle on, and you stand in the quiet bookshop and breathe and look at the chip in the counter and think about history and what you carry and what you build and the difference between the two.

Almost ready turns out to be another week. Finals are close now — three weeks out — and the school has that particular compressed energy of the end of a year approaching, everyone slightly too loud or slightly too quiet depending on their disposition. You study in the evenings at the bookshop after closing, your books spread across the counter, Birdie moving around you with tea and the occasional baked thing. You study well. Miss Beaumont has given you a reading list for the summer that is long enough to be a compliment, and you are working through it alongside the exam texts, because you cannot not. Heeseung studies too. You know this because Immy tells you, casually, the way she drops things casually that are not casual — Heeseung’s doing his English revision at the library after school, he asked me to recommend something Beaumont would like — and you do not comment and she does not push and the information sits with you.

He still drives you to school in the mornings. You did not ask him to keep doing it. He just keeps doing it. You get in the car and you say good morning and he says good morning and the radio is low and the drive is short and it is the saddest version of something that used to be the best part of your day. He offers his hand one afternoon in the backseat of Sunghoon’s truck, the four of you coming back from somewhere, and you look out the window instead, and you feel him pull his hand back, and the silence in the truck is enormous for about ten seconds until Immy says something completely unrelated in a bright voice and Sunghoon responds and the moment passes but it does not pass, not really, it just goes underneath.

Immy appears at your locker on a Tuesday morning two and a half weeks before finals with an expression that is equal parts loving and done. “Come with me,” she says. “I have class.” “You have ten minutes before class.” She closes your locker for you. “Come with me.” You go with her. This is the thing about Immy — you always go with her. She takes you to the science block. The old one, the one that floods, the one nobody uses anymore for anything except storage. She has a key, which you do not ask about. She opens a door at the end of the corridor and you follow her into a room full of old equipment and afternoon light through dusty windows and— Heeseung.

He is standing by the window with his hands in his pockets and when you come through the door he looks at you and then at Immy and she says “you’re welcome” and steps back into the hallway and pulls the door closed and you hear the key turn in the lock. You look at the door. You look at Heeseung. “She planned this,” you say. “Since last week,” he says. “Sunghoon drew a diagram.” “Of course he did.” A pause. The room is dusty and warm and smells like old chemicals and something that has been closed up for a long time. Light comes through the window in long stripes and dust moves in it.

Heeseung looks at you. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I need to say that first and I need to say it properly.” He takes his hands out of his pockets. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I’m sorry you heard it from someone else. I’m sorry I let two months go by and kept it from you.” He pauses. “I thought I was protecting you from something that wasn’t going to be a thing. I thought if I turned it down before you had to know about it then it would just — not exist. Not be something you had to think about.” He exhales. “That was wrong. I treated it like my decision when it was about both of us and I didn’t give you the chance to be part of it.”

You look at him in the dusty light. He looks back. “You scared me,” you say. “Not the scholarship. You. The not telling. It made me feel like—” You stop. Start again. “My parents didn’t tell me they were leaving that night. They didn’t call to say goodnight. It was an ordinary evening and then it wasn’t and I had no — there was no warning, there was no chance to—” Your voice is steady. You are proud of that. “I know it’s not the same. I know that. But fear doesn’t do logic and when I realised you’d been keeping something from me about your future it hit me in the same place.”

He crosses the room. He does not reach for you — he stops just short, close enough, and he looks at your face with that quality he has always had, that complete attention. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says. “I know.” “The scholarship—” “Tell me,” you say. “Tell me properly. What do you want to do.” He is quiet for a moment. “I want to turn it down,” he says. “I’ve known since February that I want to turn it down. Nashville is — it’s far. It’s not here. It’s not—” He pauses. “Music is mine. It’s the thing that’s actually mine, more than football, more than any of it. And I want to study it the way it deserves. But I want to do it here. Community college. Close to my family. Close to Birdie.” He looks at you. “Close to you.” He says it plainly, without making it a plea, just a fact. “This is my life. You’re in it. That’s not something I’m willing to set aside for a programme in a city that isn’t mine.” You look at him. “It has to be your choice,” you say. “Completely yours. Not because of me.”

“It is completely mine,” he says. “You’re part of my life. Choosing my life isn’t choosing because of you. It’s choosing because this is where I belong.” He pauses. “But I should have told you. I should have trusted you with it. That part I got wrong and I know I got it wrong.” The room is quiet. Dust moves in the light. “I was so angry at you,” you say. “I know.” “I’m still a little angry.” “That’s fair.” “I cried to Birdie about it.” Something moves through his face. “I’m sorry,” he says again, and means it.

You look at him for a long moment. The boy who found you outside a gate. Who drove you home and stayed for dinner and gave you a record and took you to the high roads and held you while you cried and played guitar by the lake and kissed you at the Winter Festival and said since the gate and meant it completely.

You close the space between you and put your arms around him and he wraps his around you immediately, both arms, tight, and you press your face into his shoulder and breathe and he presses his lips to the top of your head and holds on. “I’m not going anywhere either,” you say, into his jacket. His arms tighten once. “I know,” he says. “I love you,” you say. “Even when I’m angry at you.” “I love you,” he says, into your hair. “I’m sorry it took me so long to be honest.”

You stand like that in the dusty science lab in the old building that floods, held together by a plan that Immy drew up and Sunghoon diagrammed, and it is not romantic exactly and it is also completely romantic, because this is Fairview Fall and this is them, and you would not have it any other way. From the other side of the door, very faintly, you hear Immy say something to Sunghoon. You hear Sunghoon’s low response. You hear Immy make a sound of satisfaction. Heeseung laughs against your hair. You laugh into his shoulder. He pulls back enough to look at your face and he wipes your cheek with his thumb — you did not know you were crying until he does it — and he kisses you, soft and certain, and you kiss him back the same way. “Are we okay?” he says, against your mouth. “We’re okay,” you say. “Go tell your coach.” “Tomorrow,” he says. “Today,” you say. He looks at you. He nods. “Today,” he says. You step back.

He goes to the door and tries it and it is still locked and he knocks twice and from the other side Immy says “are you done?” and he says “yes” and the key turns and the door opens and Immy is there with Sunghoon behind her, both of them wearing expressions that are so carefully neutral they are the least neutral things you have ever seen. “Good talk?” Immy says. “Good talk,” you say. She looks at your face and his face and her carefully neutral expression gives way completely to something warm and bright and entirely herself. She puts her arm around your shoulders. “Come on,” she says. “We’re going to be late.” You walk to class through the old science corridor — you and Immy ahead, Heeseung and Sunghoon behind — and from behind you you hear Sunghoon say, very quietly, something you cannot make out, and Heeseung says something back, and then there is a sound that is Sunghoon being shoved and not minding. Immy squeezes your shoulders. “Okay?” she says. “Okay,” you say. And mean it, fully, all the way through.

Finals arrive the way the end of things always does — faster than you were ready for and slower than you could stand. The last three weeks of the school year compress into a particular kind of time, dense and pressurised, the days full of index cards and highlighters and the specific exhaustion of a brain that has been asked to hold too much at once. You study at the bookshop counter after closing and at the kitchen table with Birdie’s tea going cold beside you and in the blue car in the school parking lot during free periods, your textbook open on your knees and Heeseung beside you doing the same, the two of you in companionable silence broken occasionally by one of you reading something out loud that the other has to hear.

This is its own kind of intimacy. You did not know that before. You know it now — the particular closeness of working in the same direction, of being tired together, of someone handing you a biscuit at ten o’clock at night because Birdie left a tin and they know you forget to eat when you are deep in something. Immy studies in bursts — intense, focused, slightly panicked, then suddenly fine.

Sunghoon studies the way he does everything, steadily and without visible stress, which Immy finds both reassuring and personally offensive. “How are you not worried?” she says at the diner one evening, revision notes spread across the booth. “I’m worried,” Sunghoon says. “You don’t look worried.” “I know.” He takes a fry from her plate. “It’s a gift.” She stares at him. She steals his milkshake. He lets her. You watch them across the booth and Heeseung’s knee presses against yours under the table and you look over at him and he is already looking at you and the grin is there, warm and private, and you think: I am going to be okay. I have been okay. I am building something here that is mine.

The exams themselves are five days of early mornings and the exam hall and the scratch of pens and the particular silence of a room full of people thinking as hard as they can. You sit in your assigned seat with your mother’s cardigan over your shoulders and the ring warm on its chain and you write. English is last. Three hours in the same hall, the same seat, and Miss Beaumont is one of the invigilators and she does not look at you differently to anyone else in the room — she is professional and precise and entirely fair — but when you hand in your paper at the end and walk past her desk she looks up briefly and gives you one small nod, and that is everything.

You walk out of the exam hall into the May sunshine and Heeseung is there — leaning against the blue car in the car park, face tipped up to the sky, and when he hears the doors he looks over and reads your face before you have reached him. “Well?” he says. “Good,” you say. “Really good.” He opens his arms and you walk into them and he holds you in the school car park in the May afternoon sun and you press your face into his jacket and think: Mom. Dad. I did it. I really did it. “Proudest person in Fairview Fall,” he says, into your hair. “Birdie might have something to say about that.” “Tied,” he says. “Birdie and I are tied.”

The weeks between exams and graduation are the loosest, most golden weeks of the year. There is nothing left to do but wait for results and show up and let the school year finish itself, and so you do — you and Heeseung and Immy and Sunghoon filling the days with the things that have become your things, the diner and the lake and the high roads and the bookshop and long evenings on Birdie’s porch and longer evenings in the blue car parked somewhere with the radio on. The results come on a Thursday morning and they are good — better than good, all of you, and Miss Beaumont leaves a note in your locker that is two lines long and says more than two lines usually can: You were the best argument I ever lost. Go do something with it. You keep it. You put it in the journal.

Heeseung turns down the scholarship the week before graduation. He calls Coach into his office himself — does not wait to be summoned, does not ask anyone to do it for him — and he tells him clearly and without apology that he is grateful and he is declining. He tells you after, in the blue car, with the same simple directness he brings to everything that matters. “How did he take it?” you ask. “He was disappointed,” Heeseung says. “He’ll get over it.” He pauses. “He said I was making a mistake.” “What did you say?” “I said I disagreed.” He looks over at you. “Respectfully.” “Of course.” “I’m always respectful.” “Always,” you agree. He takes your hand across the console.

“Community college music programme starts in September,” he says. “I already registered.” “I registered for English literature last week,” you say. He squeezes your hand. You look out the window at Fairview Fall going past — the main street, the bookshop, the diner, the church, the barbershop, all of it so known to you now, so entirely yours — and you think about September and what it will look like, this town in autumn again, the light going amber, the oak trees turning. You think about being here for it. You think about the shape of a future that is not the one you were supposed to have and is better than you could have built on purpose. “Birdie’s going to cry at graduation,” you say. “My mama’s going to cry at graduation,” he says. “My daddy’s going to pretend he’s not crying and fail.” You are both smiling and the blue car takes you home through the early summer streets of Fairview Fall and the St. Christopher swings and the radio plays and everything is very good.

Graduation is on a Saturday in early June. The ceremony is held on the football field — of course it is, this is Fairview Fall, everything important happens on the football field — with white chairs set out in rows and a small stage at one end with a podium and the faculty in a line behind it and the bleachers full of families who have been looking forward to this for eighteen years. Birdie is in the front row of the family section in a yellow dress — her good one, the one she saves — with her hair pinned up and Gerald’s absence conspicuous because you would not let her bring him, which she argued about and lost.

She is already crying when you find her before the ceremony and she says “I’m not crying” and you say “Birdie” and she says “I’m just very warm, it’s June” and you hug her and she holds on tight. Heeseung’s mother is two seats down with a camera that is serious enough to suggest she means business. His daddy is beside her in a good shirt with the look of a man who has decided to hold it together and is not certain he will manage it. They both pull you into a hug before you go to find your place in the graduating line and his mother holds your face in her hands for a moment and says “we’re so proud of you” and means the we completely. You find your place in the line. Immy is two ahead of you in her gown with her cap at an angle that is very her, and she turns and finds you and grabs your hand and squeezes it hard. “We did it, honey,” she says. “We did it,” you say. Sunghoon is behind Heeseung somewhere in the line and you cannot see him from here but you know he is doing the thing he always does which is standing very still and holding everything together quietly, and Immy knows it too and the knowing is in her face.

Heeseung is ahead of you by several places. He turns before the line starts moving and finds you over the heads of the people between you and he grins — that grin, the one that has always been the most natural thing in the world — and you grin back and then the music starts and the line begins to move.

The ceremony is long in the way that ceremonies are long, which is to say that individual moments of it are everything and the rest of it is just time passing. Names are called and people walk across the stage and the bleachers erupt for each one the way small towns erupt, which is completely and without irony, and Mae is in the stands hollering for every single graduate regardless of whether she knows them, because this is Mae and this is what she does.

When your name is called you walk across the stage and shake the principal’s hand and the bleachers go up and you hear Birdie clearly above everything else, Birdie who is not crying, who is simply very warm, and you think: Mom. Dad. Look. And then the speeches.

The principal speaks first, the usual things, and then she says: “This year’s student address will be given by someone who needs very little introduction in Fairview Fall. Lee Heeseung.” The bleachers respond the way the bleachers always respond to Heeseung, which is warmly and immediately.

He walks to the podium with his hands in his pockets and his cap slightly crooked and he looks out at the crowd with that easy, unhurried quality he has, like he has all the time in the world and intends to use it well. He speaks about Fairview Fall the way someone speaks about a place they love without sentimentality — honestly, specifically, with the detail of someone who has paid attention. He talks about what it means to grow up somewhere that knows your name, about the particular gift of a community that shows up, about Mae’s cobbler and the football field grass and the record shop on main street. He makes people laugh twice and mean it both times. And then he pauses.

“This year we welcomed someone new to Fairview Fall,” he says. “Someone who came here when she didn’t choose to, who stood outside these gates on the first day of school not knowing a single person inside them.” He looks out at the crowd and his eyes find you in the graduating class with the ease of someone who always knows where you are.

“She taught this town a few things this year without meaning to. She taught me what it looks like to carry grief and keep living inside it. She taught me that some things are always there if you know where to look.” He pauses. “She came here for someone else’s reasons and she stayed for her own. And I think—” He stops. The grin, private and certain, just for you. “I think that’s the best thing a place can do for a person. Give them reasons that are theirs.”

The bleachers are quiet in the way of people who are feeling something. Then they are not quiet at all. You look at him at the podium and your vision goes slightly and you blink and the ring on its chain is warm against your chest and you think: Mom. Dad. Do you see? You know they see. The caps go up. This is the moment — the principal says I hereby declare you graduates of Fairview Fall High School and the field erupts and every cap in the graduating class goes up into the June sky at once, a cloud of them, black against the blue, and you throw yours and you are laughing and Immy beside you is laughing and Sunghoon beside her is smiling the widest smile you have ever seen on him and the bleachers are a wall of noise.

Heeseung finds you in about four seconds. He crosses the field with purpose and when he reaches you he takes your face in his hands and he kisses you, right there, in the middle of the graduating class of Fairview Fall High School with the caps still coming down around you and the bleachers still going and Birdie in the front row making a sound that is probably not crying because she is simply very warm. He pulls back and looks at you and his eyes are bright. “Hi,” he says. “Hi,” you say. You are still laughing. “That speech.” “Too much?” “Perfect,” you say. “It was perfect.” He keeps his hands on your face for a moment. Around you the field is full — families flooding in from the bleachers, people finding each other, photographs being taken, the particular happy chaos of an ending that is also a beginning.

“Fairview Fall, Texas,” you say. “Population now includes you,” he says. “Permanently.” “Permanently,” you agree. He kisses you again, softer, and then his forehead is against yours and the June sun is warm on both of you and the town is all around you and somewhere behind you Birdie is making her way across the field in her yellow dress with her camera and his mother is right beside her with hers and the two of them are going to take approximately forty photographs of this moment and you are going to let them. “What comes next?” he says, against your forehead.

You think about September and community college and English literature and his music programme and the bookshop and the blue car and the high roads and the record on its shelf and the ring on its chain and Birdie’s baking and Immy’s late night phone calls and Sunghoon’s quiet certainty and Mae’s cobbler on Fridays and the lake in the summer and Fairview Fall in every season, yours in every season, for keeps. “Everything,” you say. He smiles. “Yeah,” he says. “Everything.” The caps come down around you like the beginning of something. You catch yours. You stay.

hearing the ping of your phone immediately as you put it down made you smile. looking down at the new message ‘ for your nails baby get something pretty for me <3’ followed by a cash deposit into your account.

you loved getting your nails done; picking out pretty colors and fun designs — you especially loved going home and showing sunghoon what he spent his hard earned money on.

“hoonie!”

the boy had his phone to his ear talking to jake ; lazily sitting in the chair. his sweats low on his hips , black shirt slightly lifted up revealing his stomach. “hey baby.” he mouthed , you sat down next to him he wrapped his arm around your shoulder.

“jake , ima call you back.” he said. “yeah , she just came in— shut up , i’ll see you tomorrow.” he hung the phone up , ready to give all his attention to you. “you got them?”

“look!” excitedly holding your hands out. “i even got gems this time and a 3d flower.” he watched you go into detail about what exactly you told your nail lady. “aren’t they pretty?”

“so pretty baby , you know i love spending money on your nails every month.”

he held your hands , caressing them; the smell of the vanilla lotion you kept in your car filling his nostrils as brought your hand to kiss your knuckles. “your hands are so soft, baby.”

you knew sunghoon didn’t spend money on your nails every month just to see you bring back different variations of pinks and gossip from the salon. “i know , the lotion is so worth it.” you caressed his cheek , your hands traveling down his neck; down his torso. “fuck.” he sighed as you reached his waistband.

“keep going baby.” he sighed, feeling the warmth of your hand on his stomach. your hand slipped into his sweats , palming his half hard cock. he cursed under his breath as you massaged his cock. “fuck baby , take me out.”

he lifted his hips up allowing you to pull his sweat down enough to free his erected cock; his tip leaking with precum as it sat against his stomach. “touch it pretty.”

he groaned feeling your soft hands wrapping around his cock. “so warm baby , keep going.” you stroked him softly , kissing his neck. his head was thrown back against the couch , eyes half open as your hand moved up and down. “fuck baby , ima about to cum.”

your thumb swiping across his tip; making him cum , covering your hand. “shit.” he sighed as his load spill over your hand , his eyes finally opening, right as you were two of your freshly done nails that were covered in his cum into your mouth , sucking on them.

“shit.” he chuckled breathlessly, throwing his head back. “you’re gonna fucking kill me.” you giggled. “so pretty baby.” he kissed your lips. “i should pay you back.” he gently pushed you on to your back , hovering above you.

you loved getting your nails done , but you loved sunghoons reaction the most

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