⠀₊ ˚ yuni ꒰꒰🎀꒱꒱

“Easy.” A voice cuts through the haze, soft but firm. “Don’t try to sit up yet.” He forces his eyes open, squinting against the dim candlelight. The ceiling above him is canvas, stained and sagging. A medical tent, he realizes slowly. The smell hits him next— blood, infection, unwashed bodies, death. He’s in a field hospital.

The battle. Right. There was a battle. He remembers musket fire, smoke so thick he couldn’t see three feet ahead, the screaming of men and horses. He remembers pain exploding in his chest, the ground rushing up to meet him, thinking this is it as the world went dark. But he’s not dead. Apparently.

“Welcome back to the land of the living, soldier.” Jungwon turns his head— slowly, because even that hurts— and sees her for the first time.

She’s young, probably close to his age, with tired eyes and capable hands currently wringing out a cloth in a basin of water. Her dress is simple, stained with blood that he hopes isn’t all his, and her hair is pulled back in a practical bun with loose strands escaping around her face. She’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. “How bad is it?” he manages, his voice rough and unfamiliar.

She glances at him, and something flickers in her expression— pity, maybe, or resignation. “You’ve been unconscious for two days. Musket ball to the chest, missed your heart by maybe an inch. Another in your leg. You’ve lost a lot of blood.”

“But I’ll live?” He tries for a smile. “You’re not just keeping me comfortable while I die, are you?”

“That depends entirely on whether infection sets in.” She wrings out the cloth and moves closer, pressing it gently to his forehead. It’s blessedly cool. “And on whether you follow my instructions and rest instead of trying to be charming.”

“I can’t help being charming,” Jungwon says. “It’s a curse.”

Despite herself, she almost smiles. Almost. “Save your energy. You’re going to need it.”

Over the next few days, Jungwon learns three things. One: Getting shot hurts significantly worse than he’d imagined, and he’d imagined it would be pretty terrible.

Two: Field hospitals are hell on earth— the sounds of men dying, the smell of rot and gunpowder, the constant stream of new wounded being carried in on stretchers.

Three: The nurse— he learns her name eventually, after asking three times because she keeps deflecting— is the only good thing about being here.

She tends to his wounds twice a day, changing bandages with gentle efficiency, checking for signs of infection. She brings him water when he asks, broth when he can stomach it, and occasionally reads to him from a battered copy of poetry she keeps in her apron pocket when the nights are long and he can’t sleep through the pain. “You don’t have to do that,” he says one night, when she’s been reading for nearly an hour.

She looks up from the book, candlelight catching in her eyes. “Do what?”

“Stay with me. I know you have other patients.”

“The others are sleeping.” She marks her place with one finger. “And you’re the only one who actually appreciates poetry. Most of the men just want me to write letters to their wives.”

“Do you do that?”

“When they ask.” Her voice softens. “When they can still speak clearly enough to dictate.” The implication hangs heavy between them. When they’re not too far gone.

“Will you write a letter for me?” Jungwon asks. “If it comes to that?”

She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “It won’t come to that. You’re going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do, actually. I’ve been doing this for two years. I know who makes it and who doesn’t.” She meets his eyes, fierce and certain. “You’re going to make it.”

He wants to believe her. God, he wants to believe her. “When I do,” he says, emboldened by fever or stupidity or both, “I’m going to take you on a date. Dinner, dancing, the whole thing.”

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling now— a real smile that transforms her whole face. “You don’t even know me.”

“I’d like to.” He reaches for her hand, and after a brief hesitation, she lets him take it. Her fingers are cool and steady against his. “I’d like to know everything about you.”

“You’re delirious.”

“Maybe. But I still mean it.” She squeezes his hand gently before pulling away to return to her rounds. But the next night, she comes back. And the night after that.

They talk, in those stolen moments between her duties. He learns that she’s a farmer’s daughter, that she learned nursing from her mother, that she came to the war because her brother was fighting and she wanted to help. He tells her about his life before— the apprenticeship he left behind, the family he hasn’t seen in months, the future he’d planned that seems impossibly distant now. “What will you do?” she asks one night. “After the war?”

“If we win? I don’t know. Go home, I suppose. Try to remember what peace feels like.” He shifts carefully, trying to find a position that doesn’t hurt. “What about you?”

“The same, I think. Go home. Try to forget all of this.” She gestures vaguely at the tent, the rows of wounded men, the ever-present specter of death.

“I won’t forget you,” Jungwon says quietly.

She looks at him for a long moment, something unreadable in her expression. “You should. It would be easier.”

“I don’t want easier. I want—” He stops, unsure how to finish that sentence.

“What do you want?” Her voice is barely above a whisper.

You, he thinks but doesn’t say. I want you. I want to survive this. I want to take you dancing like I promised. I want a future where we’re not surrounded by death and blood and the smell of gunpowder.

“I want to see you smile again,” he says instead. “Like you did the other night. A real smile, not the one you give the patients.”

She does smile then, soft and sad. “You’re a foolish man, soldier.”

“Jungwon,” he corrects. “My name is Jungwon.”

“I know.” She stands, smoothing her apron. “Get some rest, Jungwon. Doctor’s orders.”

“You’re not a doctor.”

“Close enough.”

The days blur together. Jungwon’s strength slowly returns— he can sit up without help now, can eat solid food, can even stand for a few minutes at a time with support. The wounds are healing, she tells him, better than expected. No infection. He’s lucky. He doesn’t feel lucky. He feels like he’s been given a second chance and doesn’t know what to do with it. “When can I leave?” he asks one morning.

She’s changing his bandages, her touch gentle but impersonal. “When you can walk unassisted. When the doctor clears you. When there’s somewhere for you to go.”

“Will you miss me?” He’s only half-joking.

“Terribly,” she says, but there’s something true underneath the sarcasm. “Who else will I read poetry to at midnight?”

“You could read to the other patients.”

“They don’t listen like you do.” She finishes with the bandage and sits back. “There. You’re healing well. Another week, maybe two, and you’ll be back to fighting shape.” The thought of going back to battle makes his stomach turn. Going back to the killing, the chaos, the constant fear. But what choice does he have? The war isn’t over. His unit will want him back.

“What if I don’t go back?” he asks quietly.

She looks at him sharply. “They’d call that desertion.”

“What if I don’t care?”

“Jungwon—”

“I could stay here. Help with the wounded. I’m no good as a soldier anyway— I got myself shot in the first real battle.”

“You’re talking nonsense.” But her voice is gentler now. “The fever—”

“I’m not feverish. I’m just…” He trails off, struggling to articulate the feeling. “I’m tired. I’m tired of war. I’m tired of watching boys die. I’m tired of pretending I’m brave when all I want is to go home.”

She’s quiet for a long moment. Then she reaches out and takes his hand, holding it between both of hers. “You are brave,” she says firmly. “Being afraid doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you human.”

“I don’t feel brave.”

“No one ever does.” She squeezes his hand. “But you’re still here. You’re still fighting. That takes courage.”

He looks down at their joined hands, her fingers small and delicate against his calloused palms. He wants to tell her that she’s the reason he’s still fighting, that the thought of seeing her each day is the only thing that makes the pain bearable, that he’s started imagining a future that includes her in it. But before he can find the words, she pulls away and stands.

“Rest,” she says. “I’ll check on you later.” He watches her move through the tent, stopping at each bedside, offering water or adjusting bandages or simply sitting with the men who have no one else. She’s good at this, he realizes. Good at offering comfort in a place where there’s so little of it to be found. He wonders if she knows how extraordinary she is.

That night, she comes to his bedside with her book of poetry, like she has every night for the past two weeks. “Can’t sleep?” she asks, settling into the chair beside him.

“Hurts less when I’m distracted,” he admits. “And your voice helps.”

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“It got you to stay, didn’t it?”

She shakes her head, but she’s smiling as she opens the book. “Where did we leave off?”

“The one about the soldier and his love,” Jungwon says. “The sad one.”

“They’re all sad.”

“Read it anyway.” She does, her voice low and melodic in the quiet tent. Around them, men sleep or moan in pain or whisper prayers to gods who seem very far away. But in this small circle of candlelight, it’s just the two of them.

When she finishes, Jungwon doesn’t want her to leave. “Stay,” he says. “Just a little longer.” She should say no. She should check on the other patients, get some sleep herself, maintain the professional distance she’s supposed to keep. Instead, she stays.

“Tell me something,” he says. “Something real. Not about the war or medicine or any of this. Tell me about you.”

She’s quiet for a moment, considering. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything. Anything. What makes you happy?”

“Small things,” she says eventually. “The first warm day of spring. Fresh bread. The sound of rain on the roof.” She pauses. “My mother’s garden. She grows roses, and in summer the whole house smells like them.”

“That sounds beautiful.”

“It is. Was.” Her voice catches slightly. “I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again.”

“You will,” Jungwon says with more confidence than he feels. “This war will end. You’ll go home to your mother’s roses. You’ll—” He stops, because he doesn’t know what her future holds. He barely knows what his own does.

“What about you?” she asks. “What makes you happy?”

He thinks about it. “Music. My sister plays the pianoforte, and sometimes in the evenings we’d sing together. And stargazing. There’s something about looking up at the stars that makes everything else feel smaller, more manageable.”

“I like that,” she murmurs. “The idea that we’re small. That all of this—” she gestures vaguely “—is small in the grand scheme of things.”

“Do you think the stars care about our little human wars?”

“I doubt it.” She tilts her head, considering. “But maybe the moon does. It’s closer, more personal. Maybe it watches us and remembers.”

Something about those words sends a shiver through him, though he couldn’t say why. “The moon remembers,” he repeats softly. “I like that.”

She stands then, and he feels the loss of her presence acutely. “Where are you going?”

“Just to the window,” she says. “I want to show you something.” She crosses to the side of the tent and opens the canvas flap that serves as a window, tying it back to let in the night air. Cool autumn wind rushes in, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and distant rain.

And there, hanging low in the sky, is the moon. Full and bright and impossibly beautiful. “Oh,” Jungwon breathes. She returns to his bedside, and together they look out at the moon in silence. “It’s lovely,” he says finally.

“It is.” She’s still gazing at it, her face soft in the silvery light. “When I was young, my mother used to tell me that the moon was a guardian. That it watched over travelers and lovers and anyone who needed guidance in the dark.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know. But I like the idea of it. That something up there is watching. That we’re not alone.”

Jungwon reaches for her hand again, and this time she doesn’t pull away. They sit like that for a long moment, hands clasped, looking at the moon. “Do you think the moon remembers us?” he asks suddenly.

She turns to look at him, confused. “What?”

“The moon. Do you think it remembers us? All the people who have looked up at it, throughout all of history?”

“That’s…” She trails off, searching for words. “That’s a strange question.”

“I know. But do you think it does?”

She considers it seriously. “Maybe. Maybe it keeps track of all the stories. All the lovers and soldiers and lost souls who’ve ever gazed up at it.”

“Then it will remember this,” Jungwon says quietly. “Remember us. This moment.”

“Why would this moment matter?”

“Because I want it to.” He squeezes her hand gently. “Because someday, when this is all over, I want to believe that something in the universe will remember that we were here. That we mattered.”

She’s looking at him with such tenderness that his breath catches. “You matter,” she whispers. “To me, you matter.”

And then she leans down and kisses him. It’s soft, gentle, over almost before it begins. But when she pulls back, they’re both trembling. “I shouldn’t have done that,” she says.

“I’m glad you did.”

“Jungwon—”

“When I’m better,” he interrupts, “I’m going to take you dancing. Like I promised. And I’m going to kiss you properly, somewhere that isn’t a hospital tent that smells like death.”

She laughs, and it sounds like tears. “You’re incorrigible.”

“I’m in love with you.” The words hang in the air between them, bold and terrifying and true. She doesn’t say it back. But she doesn’t let go of his hand either.

“Rest,” she says eventually, her voice unsteady. “You need to rest.”

“Will you stay?”

“For a little while.” She stays until he falls asleep, her hand in his, the moon watching through the open window.

For three more days, things are good. Better than good. She still maintains her professional distance during the day, but at night she comes to him with her book and her gentle hands and occasionally, when they’re alone, her lips.

He’s getting stronger. Can walk the length of the tent with only minimal pain. The doctor says another week, maybe two, and he’ll be fit enough to rejoin his unit. Neither of them talks about what happens then.

On the fourth night, something changes. Jungwon wakes in the middle of the night to find her beside him, like always. But something’s different. He feels… off. Feverish, maybe, though his skin is cool to the touch. “You should be sleeping,” she murmurs, noticing he’s awake.

“Couldn’t.” He shifts, and pain lances through his chest. “Feels different tonight.”

“Where does it hurt?”

“Everywhere. Nowhere. I don’t know.” He tries to sit up and finds he can’t. “I think… I think I’m more tired than I realized.”

Concern flashes across her face. She places her hand on his forehead, checking for fever. “You’re not warm.”

“I know. I just…” He trails off, struggling to explain the feeling. Like something inside him is winding down. Like a clock running out of time. “Stay with me?”

“I’m here.” She takes his hand. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Good. That’s good.” He closes his eyes for a moment, then opens them again. “Can you open the window? I want to see the moon.” She does, and the silvery light spills across his bed.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “Just like before.”

“Just like before,” she agrees, but her voice is strained.

“I want you to know,” Jungwon says slowly, each word taking effort, “that these past few weeks have been the happiest of my life.”

“Don’t.” Her voice breaks. “Don’t talk like that.”

“I mean it. Getting shot was the best thing that ever happened to me, because it brought me to you.”

Tears are streaming down her face now. “Jungwon, please—”

“Listen.” He squeezes her hand with what strength he has left. “If I don’t make it—”

“You’re going to make it. You have to make it. You promised me a dance, remember?”

“I remember.” He smiles, and it costs him. “But if I don’t… if something happens…”

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“But if it does.” He’s fading, he can feel it, like sand slipping through fingers. “I need you to know that I’ll find you in the next life.”

She’s sobbing now. “What are you talking about? There is no next life, there’s only this one, and you’re going to be fine—”

“I’ll find you,” he says again, and he means it with every fiber of his being. “However long it takes. Whatever it costs. I’ll find you.”

“Jungwon—”

“Promise me you’ll remember. Promise me you’ll look for me too.”

“I promise,” she chokes out, even though she doesn’t understand, even though she thinks he’s delirious. “I promise.”

“Good.” His eyes are getting heavy. “That’s good. I’m just going to rest for a minute. Just… just a minute…”

“No, stay awake. Please stay awake. I need to get the doctor—“ But she can’t bring herself to let go of his hand. Can’t bring herself to leave him, even to get help.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “Don’t be afraid. I’m not afraid.”

“I’m terrified,” she admits.

“Don’t be. I’ll see you again. I know I will.” He looks at her one more time, trying to memorize her face. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Did I tell you that?”

“No.”

“Well, you are. And I love you. I’ll always love you.”

“I love you too,” she sobs. “I love you, please don’t go—” But his eyes are already closing, his hand going slack in hers. “Jungwon? Jungwon!” She’s screaming for the doctor, for anyone, but she knows it’s too late. She can see it in the stillness of his chest, the absence of breath. He’s gone.

She collapses over him, sobbing, and outside the moon continues its silent vigil, remembering everything, bearing witness to yet another story of love and loss.

In the morning, they’ll take his body away. They’ll bury him in an unmarked grave with dozens of other soldiers whose names will be forgotten.

But she’ll remember. She’ll remember his smile, his promises, the way he looked at the moon and asked if it remembered them. She’ll remember for the rest of her life. And somewhere, somehow, the moon remembers too.

1850 — Your POV

The wedding is beautiful in the way that expensive things often are— beautiful and cold and utterly devoid of warmth.

You stand at the altar in a dress that cost more than most people earn in a year, ivory silk and French lace that weighs you down like chains. The church is full of people you barely know, friends of your father’s mostly, society figures who’ve come to witness the union of two respectable families. You don’t look at the man beside you. Your husband. The word feels foreign, wrong.

The ceremony passes in a blur. You say the words when prompted, mechanical and hollow. I do. I will. Till death do us part. Death seems very far away.

When it’s over, when you’ve signed the papers that make you his property in the eyes of God and the law, you’re ushered into a carriage for the journey to his— your— estate. And you still haven’t looked at him properly.

“Are you well?” he asks quietly as the carriage lurches into motion.It’s the first time he’s spoken directly to you all day. His voice is pleasant enough, polite, carefully neutral.

“Quite well, thank you.” Your own voice sounds distant to your ears. “And you?”

“Well enough.” Silence descends again. You stare out the window at the countryside rolling past, green and lush and utterly indifferent to your misery.

This is your life now. Mrs. Yang Jungwon. Wife to a man you’ve met exactly three times before today— once at the engagement announcement, once at a chaperoned dinner, and once in passing at a social function where you’d exchanged perhaps a dozen words.

You know almost nothing about him except what your father told you: good family, substantial fortune, respectable reputation. A suitable match. No one asked if you wanted to be suitably matched.

The estate, when you arrive, is massive and imposing. Gray stone, manicured gardens, the kind of old money grandeur that’s meant to intimidate. It works. “Welcome home,” Jungwon says as he helps you down from the carriage. Home. The word rings hollow.

The staff is assembled to greet you— housekeeper, butler, lady’s maid, cook, and various others whose names you immediately forget. They curtsy and bow, welcoming the new lady of the house, and you smile because it’s expected.

“Mrs. Choi will show you to your rooms,” Jungwon says. “I imagine you’ll want to rest after the journey.” Your rooms. Separate rooms. Of course.

“Thank you,” you murmur. Mrs. Choi, the housekeeper, is a stern-faced woman in her fifties who leads you up a grand staircase and down a long hallway to a suite of rooms that will be yours. Bedroom, dressing room, private sitting room. All decorated in shades of cream and gold, elegant and expensive and utterly impersonal.

“Dinner is at eight,” Mrs. Choi informs you. “Ring if you need anything.”

And then you’re alone. You sink onto the bed— your bed— and stare at the ceiling. This is it. This is your life now. You’ll live in this house with this stranger, produce heirs if you can manage it, and grow old in separate bedrooms. You don’t cry. You’re too numb for tears.

The first weeks of marriage establish a pattern. You see Jungwon at breakfast and dinner. The meals are formal, served in a dining room far too large for two people. Conversation is stilted and polite. He asks about your day. You ask about his. Neither of you says anything of substance.

At night, you retire to your separate rooms. He’s made no move to consummate the marriage, and you’re grateful for it. The thought of that kind of intimacy with a stranger makes your skin crawl.

You fill your days with the expected activities of a lady of the house— consulting with the cook about menus, reviewing household accounts, receiving calls from neighbors who want to inspect the new bride. It’s all terribly boring.

Jungwon seems equally miserable, though he’s better at hiding it. He spends most of his time in his study, managing the estate or whatever it is men do in their studies. Sometimes you hear him playing the pianoforte in the music room late at night, melancholy pieces that drift through the halls like ghosts. You don’t disturb him.

A month passes. Then two. You’re reading in the library one afternoon when he finds you there. “I’m sorry,” he says, hovering in the doorway. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“It’s your library.” You close the book. “You can hardly intrude.”

“I suppose.” But he doesn’t leave. Instead, he moves closer, looking at the spines on the shelves with genuine interest. “What are you reading?”

You show him the cover. “Byron.”

His eyebrows rise. “Not the usual choice for a lady.”

“I’m not the usual lady.”

“Clearly.” And for the first time since the wedding, he almost smiles. “I like Byron too. Though I prefer Wordsworth.”

“Wordsworth is lovely, but Byron has more passion.”

“Passion is overrated. Give me quiet reflection any day.”

“That sounds desperately boring.”

“Perhaps I am desperately boring.”You study him properly for the first time. He’s handsome, you suppose, in a classical way. Dark hair, serious eyes, the kind of refined features that look good in portraits. But there’s something sad about him too, a resigned quality that mirrors your own feelings.

“Why did you agree to this?” you ask suddenly. “The marriage. If you didn’t want it.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “How do you know I didn’t want it?”

“Because you’re as miserable as I am.”

He doesn’t deny it. “My father arranged it. Said it was time I settled down, secured the family line. I’m the only son, so…” He trails off with a shrug.

“So you had no more choice than I did.”

“No.” He meets your eyes. “I’m sorry. For both of us.” It’s the most honest conversation you’ve had.

“We’re rather pathetic, aren’t we?” you say. “Two people with everything anyone could want, absolutely miserable.”

“Quite pathetic,” he agrees. And then he does smile, small and wry. “But at least we have good taste in poetry.” It’s not much. But it’s something.

After that, things shift slightly. You start having breakfast together in the smaller morning room instead of the formal dining room. The conversation is still careful, but less strained. You discover he has a dry sense of humor that catches you off guard. He discovers you have opinions about things women aren’t supposed to have opinions about— politics, philosophy, the appalling state of labor conditions in the factories. “You’re very radical,” he observes one morning over tea.

“And you’re very traditional.”

“Not by choice.”

“None of us are anything by choice, apparently.” He laughs at that, and the sound surprises both of you.

You start spending time together outside of meals. Reading in the library simultaneously, taking walks around the grounds, playing cards in the evening. It’s not romance, but it’s companionship. Friendship, almost.

You learn things about him. That he wanted to be a physician but his father forbade it, said it was beneath their station. That he plays the pianoforte to calm his mind when he can’t sleep. That he has nightmares sometimes, though he won’t say about what.

He learns things about you too. That you wanted to attend university but of course that was impossible. That you’re terrified of thunderstorms. That you once punched a boy who tried to kiss you without permission, and your father was furious but your mother was secretly proud. “I would have liked to meet your mother,” Jungwon says one evening.

“She would have liked you.” You pause. “I think she would have been glad I ended up with someone kind, at least.”

“Kind seems like damning with faint praise.”

“It’s more than most women get.” He can’t argue with that.

Three months into the marriage, something changes. You’re coming back from a walk in the gardens when a thunderstorm rolls in suddenly, violent and loud. You make it to the house but you’re soaked through, trembling not from cold but from fear.

Jungwon finds you in the entrance hall, dripping water onto the marble. “Are you alright?” He’s at your side immediately, concerned.

“Fine. Just— the storm—” Thunder cracks overhead and you flinch badly. Without thinking, he pulls you against him, one hand coming up to cup the back of your head.

“It’s alright,” he murmurs. “You’re safe. It’s just noise.” You bury your face against his shoulder, embarrassed by your fear but unable to help it. He’s warm and solid and he smells like sandalwood and old books.

“I’m sorry,” you mumble into his waistcoat.

“Don’t be.” His hand moves in soothing circles on your back. “Everyone’s afraid of something.”

You stay like that until the worst of the storm passes, wrapped in his arms, feeling his heartbeat steady against your cheek. When you finally pull back, you’re both acutely aware of how close you are. His hands are still on your waist. Your fingers are twisted in his shirt. “I should change,” you say quietly. “Before I catch cold.”

“Yes. Of course.” But he doesn’t let go immediately.

“Jungwon—”

“I know.” He steps back, dropping his hands. “I’ll have Mrs. Choi draw you a bath.”

That night, you can’t stop thinking about how it felt to be held by him. How natural it seemed. How much you didn’t want him to let go. This is dangerous territory even though you’re married to him. But you can feel yourself falling.

After the storm, you can’t seem to go back to polite distance. You start sitting closer together when you read. Hands brushing when you pass the teapot. Long looks across the dinner table that make your pulse race.

One evening, you’re playing the pianoforte— badly, you’re the first to admit— and he comes to sit beside you on the bench. “May I?” he asks.

You slide over to make room. He begins to play, something soft and lovely that you don’t recognize. His hands move over the keys with practiced ease. “That’s beautiful,” you murmur.

“It’s Chopin. Nocturne in E-flat major.”

“Play it again?” He does, and this time you watch his hands instead of the keys. Beautiful hands, long fingers, careful and precise.

When he finishes, he doesn’t move away. “You’re staring,” he says softly.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He turns to look at you, and his face is very close to yours. “I stare at you all the time.”

Your breath catches. “You do?”

“Constantly. I thought you’d noticed.”

“I… no. I didn’t.”

“Well. Now you know.”

The air between you feels electric. You’re very aware of his thigh pressed against yours on the bench, the warmth of his body, the way his eyes drop to your lips. “We should—” you start.

“Yes,” he agrees. Neither of you moves.

“This is madness,” you whisper.

“Probably.”

“We barely know each other.”

“I know.” His hand comes up to cup your face, thumb brushing your cheekbone. “But I’d like to. Know you, I mean. If you’ll let me.”

“Yes.” The word comes out breathless. “Yes, I—”

He kisses you. It’s soft at first, tentative, giving you every opportunity to pull away. But you don’t. Instead, you lean into him, your hand coming up to rest on his chest, and the kiss deepens. When you finally break apart, you’re both breathing hard.

“I should go,” you say, even though you don’t want to.

“Stay.” His forehead rests against yours. “Please stay. I know we didn’t choose this. I know we started as strangers. But I…” He pulls back to look at you. “I’m falling in love with you. Is that insane?”

Your heart is pounding. “If it is, then I’m insane too.”

He kisses you again, deeper this time, and you feel something unlock in your chest. Permission to feel this. Permission to want. “Come with me,” he murmurs against your lips.

“Where?”

“To my room. If you want. We don’t have to— I just want to be near you.” You should say no. This is too fast, too sudden, even though you’re married and have every right. But you take his hand.

His bedroom is larger than yours, decorated in deep greens and dark wood. Masculine and elegant. The bed is massive, four-poster, imposing. “Second thoughts?” he asks, seeing you hesitate.

“No. Maybe. I don’t know.” You laugh nervously. “I’ve never… that is, I don’t know what I’m supposed to…”

Understanding dawns on his face. “Ah. Your mother didn’t—”

“She died before we could have that conversation.”

“I see.” He moves closer, taking both your hands. “We don’t have to do anything you’re not ready for.”

“I want to.” And you do. God help you, you do. “I just… don’t know how.”

“Neither do I, really.” At your surprised look, he shrugs. “I’ve had opportunities, but I never… it didn’t feel right. With anyone else.”

“And this feels right? With me?”

“Everything feels right with you.” He kisses you again, slow and sweet, walking you backwards until your legs hit the bed. You sit, and he kneels in front of you, looking up with such tenderness it makes you ache. “We’ll figure it out together,” he promises. “And if you want to stop at any point—”

“I won’t.” You cup his face. “I trust you.”

What follows is gentle and awkward and lovely. He helps you out of your dress with shaking hands, fumbling with buttons and laces until you’re both laughing. You help him with his waistcoat, his shirt, until you’re both down to undergarments and the laughter has faded into something heavier. “You’re beautiful,” he breathes, looking at you in your chemise.

“So are you.” He’s all lean muscle and smooth skin when he strips off his undershirt. You reach out to touch his chest, feeling his heart racing under your palm.

“Nervous?” you ask.

“Terrified.” But he’s smiling. “You?”

“Same.”

He lays you back on the bed, covering your body with his, and for a moment you just look at each other. “I love you,” you whisper.

“I love you too.”

The first touch of his skin against yours makes you gasp. He’s warm and solid and careful, so careful with you. “Tell me what feels good,” he murmurs, pressing kisses along your jaw, your neck.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then we’ll find out.” His hands are gentle as they explore your body over the thin chemise. Learning the shape of you, the places that make you shiver. When he brushes over your breast, you arch into the touch.

“There?” he asks.

“Yes. There.” He does it again, more deliberately this time, and pleasure sparks through you. His mouth follows his hands, kissing across your collarbone, down to the swell of your breasts still covered by fabric.

“Can I…?” He tugs at the hem of your chemise. You sit up enough to let him pull it over your head, and then you’re bare before him. For a moment, he just looks.

“Stop staring,” you mumble, fighting the urge to cover yourself.

“Can’t help it.” His voice is rough. “You’re perfect.” His mouth finds your breast, tongue swirling around your nipple, and you cry out at the sensation. He takes his time, lavishing attention on both breasts until you’re squirming beneath him.

“Please,” you gasp, though you’re not sure what you’re asking for.

“I’ve got you.” His hand slides down your stomach, over the curve of your hip, coming to rest on your thigh. He pauses there, giving you time to object. You spread your legs instead. “God,” he breathes. “You’re going to be the death of me.”

His fingers find you, exploring carefully. You’re wet, embarrassingly so, and he makes a sound low in his throat. “Is this alright?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

He strokes through your folds, learning what makes you gasp and moan. When he finds that sensitive bundle of nerves at the apex of your sex, you nearly come off the bed. “There,” you pant. “Right there, please—”

He circles your clit with careful pressure, watching your face as pleasure builds. His other hand is braced beside your head, supporting his weight, and you can see how much this is affecting him too— the flush on his cheeks, the way his pupils have blown wide.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” he murmurs. “So responsive.”

One finger slides inside you and you clench around the intrusion. It’s strange but not unpleasant, a fullness you’ve never felt before. “Okay?” he asks.

“More. Please, more.”

He adds a second finger, working them in and out while his thumb continues its maddening circles on your clit. The pleasure builds and builds, tension coiling low in your belly. “I think—” you gasp. “I think something’s happening—”

“Let it happen. I’ve got you.”

His fingers curl inside you, hitting some spot that makes stars burst behind your eyes, and you shatter. Your back arches, a cry torn from your throat as your cunt pulses around his fingers. He works you through it, gentle and steady, until you collapse back against the bed.

“That was—” You can’t find words. “What was that?”

“Pleasure.” He’s grinning now, looking thoroughly pleased with himself. “Did you like it?”

“I think I might die if we never do that again.” He laughs and kisses you, and you can taste your own arousal on his lips.

“Your turn,” you say when you can speak again.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” You reach for the fastenings of his trousers. “Show me?” He helps you strip him of the last of his clothing, and then he’s bare before you. His cock is hard, flushed and leaking, and you’re struck by how vulnerable he looks like this. You wrap your hand around him experimentally, and he hisses. “Too much?”

“No. Perfect. You’re perfect.”

You stroke him slowly, learning the weight of him in your hand, the way his hips buck when you twist your wrist just so.

“I want—” He breaks off, breathing hard. “Can I be inside you?”

“Yes.” You’ve never wanted anything more. “Please.”

He positions himself between your thighs, the head of his cock nudging at your entrance. He’s shaking. “This might hurt,” he warns. “I’ll go slow.”

He pushes in gradually, giving you time to adjust. There’s a pinch of pain as he breaches you, and you grip his shoulders.

“Breathe,” he murmurs. “Just breathe.” He goes deeper, inch by careful inch, until he’s fully seated inside you. The fullness is overwhelming, bordering on too much, but underneath the discomfort is something else. Something that feels right.

“Okay?” he grits out, clearly struggling to hold still.

“Okay. You can move.”

He does, pulling out slowly before pushing back in. The pain fades with each stroke, replaced by a building pleasure. You wrap your legs around his waist, changing the angle, and he hits something inside you that makes you moan.

“There,” you gasp. “Just like that.”

He finds a rhythm, steady and deep, his hips rolling against yours. One hand slides between your bodies to find your clit again, and the combined sensations are almost too much. “You feel so good,” he pants. “So perfect. Like you were made for me.”

“Maybe I was.” You’re babbling now, lost in pleasure. “Maybe we were made for each other.”

“Yes. God, yes.” His thrusts become more urgent, less controlled. You can feel him getting close, his cock swelling inside you, and you clench down deliberately. “Fuck,” he gasps. “I’m—I’m going to—”

“Do it. Inside me.”

He does with a broken moan, his hips stuttering as he spills deep inside you. The feeling of his cock pulsing, the warmth flooding you, pushes you over the edge again. Your cunt clenches around him as you come, milking him through his orgasm. He collapses beside you, pulling out carefully, and gathers you into his arms.

For a long moment, neither of you speaks. You just lie there, sweaty and satisfied and stunned by what just happened. “That was—” he starts.

“Incredible,” you finish.

“I was going to say ‘better than I imagined’ but incredible works too.”

You laugh and press a kiss to his chest. “You imagined it?”

“Constantly. For weeks. I was going mad with wanting you.”

“You could have said something.”

“And risk you thinking I was some beast who only wanted you for that?” He strokes your hair. “I wanted you to choose me. To want me back.”

“I do.” You look up at him. “Want you, I mean. All of you. Not just the physical parts, though those are very nice.”

He grins. “Very nice?”

“Exceptional. Earth-shattering. Is that better?”

“Much.”

You settle against him, content in a way you’ve never been before. This wasn’t what you expected when you walked down that aisle three months ago. You thought you’d be trapped in a loveless marriage, going through the motions for the rest of your life. Instead, you’ve found this. Found him.

“I love you,” you whisper.

“I love you too.” He kisses the top of your head. “My wife.” The word doesn’t sound wrong anymore.

The next few months are the happiest of your life.

You and Jungwon are inseparable. You spend your days together— riding, reading, walking the grounds. The nights are for other things, learning each other’s bodies with increasing confidence and creativity. You make love in his bed, in your bed, once daringly in the library. He learns all the ways to make you fall apart, and you learn what makes him lose control. It’s intoxicating, this intimacy. This partnership.

“I can’t believe I thought I’d be miserable,” you tell him one morning, wrapped in his arms after a particularly energetic session.

“I can’t believe I almost let you sleep in separate bedrooms for the rest of our lives.”

“What changed your mind?”

“That storm. Holding you.” He pulls you closer. “I couldn’t pretend anymore that I didn’t want this. Want you.”

“I’m glad you stopped pretending.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Do you think we would have found this eventually? If not for the storm?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe we would have stayed strangers forever.” You trace patterns on his chest. “I’m grateful we didn’t have to find out.”

Winter arrives, bringing cold rain and early darkness. Jungwon has been coughing more lately, but you don’t think much of it. Everyone gets sick in winter. But it doesn’t get better.

One morning in late December, you wake to find blood on his handkerchief. “It’s nothing,” he insists when you confront him. “Just a cough.”

“That’s not just a cough.”

“I’ll see the physician if it makes you feel better.” It doesn’t make you feel better. Especially when the physician comes and takes one look at Jungwon and his face goes carefully blank.

“Tuberculosis,” he says quietly. “I’m sorry.” The word hits like a physical blow.

“How long?” you ask, because Jungwon seems incapable of speech.

“Impossible to say. Months, perhaps. Maybe a year with rest and good care.” A year. Maybe.

After the physician leaves, you find Jungwon in the library, staring out the window at nothing. “We’ll get through this,” you say, taking his hand.

“Don’t.” His voice is hollow. “Don’t pretend this is something we can fix.”

“I’m not pretending. I’m fighting.”

“There’s nothing to fight.” He turns to look at you, and there are tears on his face. “I’m dying. And I finally—” His voice breaks. “I finally found something worth living for.” You pull him into your arms and let him cry.

The next months are a cruel inversion of your happiness. You care for him as he weakens, watching helplessly as the vibrant man you love fades into someone pale and frail.

He tries to stay strong for you. Jokes when he can manage it, reads to you when he has the breath, makes love to you when his body allows it though you tell him he doesn’t have to.

“I want to,” he insists. “While I still can. While I can still make you feel good.” Those moments are bittersweet. Tender and desperate, both of you trying to memorize every touch, every sound.

By spring, he’s confined to bed most days. You spend hours sitting with him, reading or just holding his hand. One night in April, you open the window to let in the fresh air. The moon is full and bright, hanging low in the sky. “Beautiful,” Jungwon murmurs from the bed.

You return to his side. “The moon?”

“Everything.” He’s looking at you, not the sky. “You’re beautiful. This life we built, however brief. Beautiful.” You take his hand, fighting back tears.

He turns his gaze to the moon, a small smile on his lips. “Do you think the moon remembers us?”

The question is strange, out of place. “What?”

“The moon. Do you think it remembers us? All the people who’ve looked up at it throughout time?”

You don’t understand why he’s asking this, but you answer honestly. “I’d like to think so. That all our stories, all our love, is remembered somewhere.”

“Good.” He squeezes your hand weakly. “Then it will remember this. Remember us. How much I love you.”

“Don’t.” Your voice breaks. “Don’t talk like you’re saying goodbye.”

“I have to.” He’s struggling to breathe now, each word an effort. “Have to tell you. In case… in case there’s something after this.”

“Jungwon—”

“I’ll find you.” He says it with utter conviction. “In the next life, if there is one. I’ll find you. However long it takes.”

Tears are streaming down your face. “Don’t leave me.”

“I don’t want to.” He lifts your hand to his lips, kissing your knuckles. “But I don’t think I have a choice.”

You climb into the bed beside him, careful of his fragile body, and hold him as gently as you can. “I love you,” you whisper. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too.” His breathing is getting shallower. “Thank you. For making me happy. For letting me love you.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“I do.” He’s fading, you can feel it. “You saved me. From a life of duty and emptiness. You gave me joy.”

“You gave me the same.”

He smiles, peaceful despite the pain. “Then we’re even.” His eyes close.

“Jungwon?” Panic claws at your throat. “Jungwon, don’t—”

“Just resting,” he murmurs. “So tired.”

“I know. But stay with me. Please stay with me.”

“Always.” His grip on your hand is so weak now. “Every life. Every lifetime. I’ll find you.” Those are the last words he speaks.

He dies as the sun rises, the moon fading into daylight, and you’re left holding an empty shell of the man who taught you what love could be. You don’t leave his side for hours. Can’t bring yourself to let go.

When they finally take him away, you return to the window. The moon is gone now, but you look up at the sky anyway.

“Remember us,” you whisper. “Please remember us.” Somewhere in the vast indifference of the universe, maybe it does.

1912 — Jungwon’s POV

The ship is bigger than anything Jungwon has ever seen. He stands on the dock in Southampton, neck craned back to take in the sheer scale of the RMS Titanic, and feels impossibly small. Four massive funnels reach toward the sky, the hull gleaming white and black in the April sun. Unsinkable, they’re calling it. The ship that even God himself couldn’t sink.

Jungwon doesn’t believe in unsinkable ships, but he believes in new beginnings. America. That’s where this floating palace is headed, and Jungwon along with it. He’s got a third-class ticket, everything he owns in a single worn suitcase, and hopes for a job in New York that might actually pay enough to live on.

England has nothing left for him— no family, no prospects, no future worth staying for. So: America. And the Titanic to get him there.

The third-class gangway is crowded with people like him— immigrants, workers, dreamers. The smell of unwashed bodies and cheap tobacco mingles with salt air. Jungwon shoulders his suitcase and joins the queue, shuffling forward slowly.

“Papers,” the officer barks when Jungwon reaches the front. He hands them over— passport, ticket, health certificate. Everything in order. The officer barely glances at them before waving him through. And then he’s aboard.

The third-class accommodations are exactly what he expected— cramped quarters, narrow bunks stacked three high, thin blankets that smell of mothballs. He’s sharing the cabin with five other men, none of whom speak English. They communicate in gestures and broken phrases, sorting out who gets which bunk. Jungwon ends up with a middle one. It’ll do. It’s only four days to New York.

He leaves his suitcase on the bunk and goes exploring. Third-class passengers aren’t supposed to wander into the upper decks, but the ship is massive and the crew can’t be everywhere. Jungwon has never been good at following rules.

He climbs stairs, follows hallways, nods politely at stewards who eye him suspiciously but don’t actually stop him. The ship is a maze of opulence and machinery— plush carpets giving way to metal floors, crystal chandeliers to bare electric bulbs.

He finds his way to the Boat Deck, where the lifeboats hang in their davits and the ocean stretches endless in every direction. The ship has pulled away from port now, Southampton shrinking behind them. The coast of England is a gray line on the horizon. Goodbye, he thinks. Good riddance.

He’s leaning against the railing, breathing in cold salt air, when he sees her. She’s first class— that much is obvious from the dress alone. Pale blue silk, cinched waist, a hat that probably cost more than his ticket. She’s standing near the stern with a man in an expensive suit, and even from a distance Jungwon can tell she doesn’t want to be there.

Her posture is stiff, uncomfortable. The man— her husband? fiancé?— has his hand possessively on her elbow, gesturing at the horizon like he owns it. She nods along, dutiful and detached.

And then she turns her head, just slightly, and her eyes meet Jungwon’s across the deck. The world stops. It’s not love at first sight— Jungwon doesn’t believe in that. But it’s something. Recognition, maybe, though he’s never seen her before in his life. A pull, deep in his chest, like a hook catching and refusing to let go.

She holds his gaze for three heartbeats. Four. Five. Then the man says something and she looks away, the moment broken. Jungwon should leave. Should go back to third class where he belongs, forget about the beautiful woman in the blue dress. He doesn’t.

He sees her again that evening in the third-class general room. Which is impossible, because first-class passengers don’t come down to third class. Ever. It’s practically a law.

But there she is, hovering in the doorway, looking around with wide eyes at the crowded, noisy space. Someone’s playing an accordion, children are running underfoot, people are drinking and laughing and speaking in a dozen different languages. She looks completely out of place and utterly enchanted. Jungwon makes his way through the crowd toward her.

“Lost?” he asks. She startles, turning to look at him. Up close, she’s even more beautiful— dark eyes, delicate features, a strand of hair escaping from beneath her hat.

“I—” She glances behind her, nervous. “I shouldn’t be here.”

“Probably not. Want to stay anyway?”

A smile tugs at her lips. “Maybe. Just for a moment.”

“Come on.” He offers his hand. “I’ll give you the grand tour. It’ll take about thirty seconds.” She laughs and takes his hand.

He shows her the general room, the modest dining area, the stairs leading down to the berths. She asks questions— where is he from, where is he going, what does he hope to find in America. He answers honestly, charmed by her genuine interest. “What about you?” he asks. “What brings you to third class?”

“Curiosity. And…” She hesitates. “Escape, I suppose.”

“From what?”

“A man with too much money and not enough imagination.” She says it lightly, but there’s bitterness underneath. “My fiancé. He thinks he owns me.”

“Does he?”

“Not yet. The wedding isn’t until we reach New York.”

Something cold settles in Jungwon’s stomach. “You don’t want to marry him.”

“No. But I don’t have much choice.”

“There’s always a choice.”

“Not for women like me.” She pulls her hand from his, wrapping her arms around herself. “I should go. He’ll notice I’m gone.”

“Wait.” Jungwon doesn’t know what he’s doing, only that he can’t let her leave yet. “What’s your name?” She shouldn’t tell him. It’s improper, dangerous even. But she does anyway. And Jungwon commits it to memory like a prayer.

They keep running into each other. Or rather, she keeps finding excuses to slip away from her fiancé and come find Jungwon. It’s reckless and stupid and neither of them can stop.

She comes down to third class when she can, staying for stolen minutes in hallways and quiet corners. They talk about everything— books, dreams, the lives they wish they could have. She tells him about growing up in a gilded cage, groomed from birth to marry well and look pretty. He tells her about growing up with nothing, fighting for every scrap.

“I envy you,” she says one night. They’re on the aft deck, hidden from view behind a lifeboat. It’s late, most passengers asleep. The stars are brilliant overhead.

“Envy me?” Jungwon laughs. “I have nothing.”

“You have freedom. You can go anywhere, be anyone. I’ve never had that.”

“You could. Come to America with me. Really with me, not with him.”

“Don’t.” But she doesn’t move away when he steps closer. “Don’t give me hope for things that can’t happen.”

“Why can’t they?”

“Because I’m engaged. Because he’d ruin you if he found out. Because—” Jungwon kisses her. It’s impulsive and foolish and she should push him away, should slap him, should run back to her fiancé and forget this ever happened. She kisses him back instead.

It’s desperate and messy and perfect. His hands in her hair, her fingers clutching his shirt. Four days they’ve been on this ship and it feels like a lifetime, feels like they’ve known each other forever.

When they break apart, they’re both breathing hard. “Come to my cabin,” he says. “Please.”

“I can’t—”

“I know. But please. Just tonight. Let me have tonight.”

She should say no. She should walk away while she still can. “Yes,” she whispers instead. “Yes.”

His cabin is empty— his bunkmates still in the general room, drinking and playing cards. Jungwon locks the door behind them, and for a moment they just stand there, looking at each other. “We don’t have to,” he says. “If you don’t want—”

“I want.” She’s already working at the buttons of her dress. “Help me?”

His hands shake as he helps her undress, revealing layers of silk and lace and finally, skin. She’s beautiful, all soft curves and pale flesh, and he can’t believe this is real.

She undresses him too, fingers fumbling with buttons and buckles until they’re both bare. The cabin is cramped and cold, but neither of them cares. “Have you—” he starts.

“No. Have you?”

“No.” They laugh, nervous and giddy, and then he’s guiding her to the narrow bunk, covering her body with his.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he murmurs, kissing her neck.

“You won’t.”

He takes his time, exploring her body with hands and mouth. Learning what makes her gasp, what makes her arch into his touch. When he slides his hand between her thighs and finds her wet, she moans. “Jungwon—”

“I know. I’ve got you.”

He strokes her clit, watching her face as pleasure builds. She’s gorgeous like this— flushed and wanting, all artifice stripped away. When she comes apart under his fingers, he feels like he’s witnessing something holy.

“Inside me,” she pants. “Please, I need—”

He positions himself at her entrance, the head of his cock nudging against her wetness. “This might hurt,” he warns.

“I don’t care.” He pushes in slowly, feeling her stretch around him. She winces and he freezes.

“Don’t stop,” she grits out. “Keep going.” He does, inch by inch, until he’s fully inside her. The feeling is overwhelming— tight and hot and perfect. He has to hold still for a moment, fighting the urge to move.

“Okay?” he manages.

“Okay. More than okay. Move, please—” He does, pulling out slowly before pushing back in. Finding a rhythm, careful and deep. Her legs wrap around his waist, heels digging into his back.

“Yes,” she gasps. “Like that, just like that—”

The bunk creaks beneath them, the sound embarrassingly loud in the small cabin. But Jungwon can’t bring himself to care. All that matters is this— her body beneath his, the way she’s looking at him like he’s everything.

“I’m close,” he warns. “I need to—”

“Inside me. Don’t pull out.”

“But—”

“I don’t care. I want to feel you.” That’s all it takes. He buries himself deep and comes with a groan, spilling inside her. The feeling of his cock pulsing, of his release filling her, pushes her over the edge. She comes around him with a cry, her cunt clenching and fluttering. They collapse together in the narrow bunk, sweaty and satisfied and stunned by what just happened. “I love you,” she whispers against his chest.

“I love you too.” He kisses the top of her head. “Come with me. To New York. Leave him and come with me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. We’ll figure it out. We’ll—”

“Shh.” She presses a finger to his lips. “Let’s not think about tomorrow yet. Let’s just have tonight.”

So they do. They make love again, slower this time. Learning each other, memorizing every touch. And afterward, they lie tangled together, talking in whispers about impossible futures.

Through the porthole, the moon hangs low over the water, full and bright. “Look,” she says, pointing. “The moon.”

Jungwon follows her gaze. “It’s beautiful.”

“Do you think the moon remembers us?” she asks suddenly. “All the people who’ve looked up at it throughout time?”

The question is strange, but somehow it doesn’t feel strange. “I don’t know. Why?”

“I just… I want something to remember this. Remember us. In case—” She stops, shaking her head. “Never mind. I’m being foolish.”

“You’re not.” He pulls her closer. “And yes. I think the moon remembers. I think it’s watched a million love stories just like ours.”

“This isn’t a love story. Love stories have happy endings.”

“Ours will too.” He says it with conviction he doesn’t quite feel. “We’ll make it work. We’ll—”

She kisses him, cutting off the words. They make love once more, desperate and clinging, like they’re trying to fight off the dawn.

When she finally leaves, slipping back to first class before sunrise, Jungwon lies in the bunk that still smells like her and tries not to think about losing her.

The next day, April 14th, dawns cold and clear. Jungwon doesn’t see her all morning, all afternoon. He walks the decks, hoping for a glimpse, but third class and first class might as well be different worlds.

By evening, he’s restless and frustrated. He shouldn’t have let her go. Should have convinced her to stay, to run away with him right then.

He’s in the general room after dinner, nursing a beer and trying not to think about her, when the ship shudders. It’s subtle— a grinding sensation, a slight lurch. Most people don’t even notice. But Jungwon feels it in his bones, a wrongness that makes his skin prickle. Around him, the conversation continues. The accordion plays. Children laugh. But something is wrong.

It’s another twenty minutes before the crew starts coming through, telling everyone to put on life belts and head to the Boat Deck. Their voices are calm, almost casual. Just a precaution. Nothing to worry about. Jungwon doesn’t believe them.

He grabs his coat and joins the stream of people heading upstairs. The corridors are crowded, confused. Why are they doing this? It’s freezing outside. The ship is fine. But when Jungwon reaches the deck, he sees the ice. Chunks of it, scattered across the forward deck like broken glass. And the ship— the unsinkable ship— is listing. Tilting forward, just barely, but

Crew members are uncovering lifeboats, their movements quick and efficient. Women and children are being loaded first, separating families, causing chaos. Jungwon scans the crowd frantically, looking for her. There are hundreds of people on deck now, maybe thousands. First class mixing with second and third, all the careful social hierarchies breaking down in the face of disaster.

He pushes through the crowd, searching. She has to be here somewhere. She has to— there. She’s near one of the lifeboats, her fiancé gripping her arm. She’s arguing with him, trying to pull away, and Jungwon’s heart seizes. He fights his way toward her.

“—not getting in without you!” she’s saying, tears streaming down her face.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” her fiancé snaps. “The ship is sinking. Get in the boat.”

“I won’t leave you—”

“You will if I tell you to—”

“Let her go.” Jungwon doesn’t recognize his own voice. It’s hard, angry, nothing like the gentle tone he used with her last night.

The fiancé turns, sees him, and his face twists with contempt. “Who the hell are you?”

“Someone who actually cares about her. Let. Her. Go.”

“You’re that third-class rat she’s been sneaking off to see.” The fiancé’s grip tightens on her arm and she winces. “I should have known. Guards!”

“Stop it!” She wrenches free, stumbling toward Jungwon. “Stop it, both of you!”

Jungwon catches her, steadying her. Up close, he can see the terror in her eyes. “The ship,” she whispers. “It’s really sinking, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then we need to— we have to—“ She looks around wildly at the chaos, the lifeboats being lowered, the growing tilt of the deck.

“Get on a boat,” Jungwon says. “Now. While there’s still room.”

“Not without you.”

“There’s no room for me. Women and children only.” He cups her face, memorizing her features. “Please. Get on the boat.”

“No. No, I won’t—” Her fiancé grabs her again, and this time he’s stronger, more forceful. He drags her toward the lifeboat despite her struggles.

“Jungwon!” she screams. He tries to follow but a crew member blocks his way.

“Back, sir. Women and children only.”

“That’s my—” But what is she? Not his wife. Not even really his lover, except for one stolen night. “Please, she needs me—”

“Step back or I’ll have you removed.”

Through the crowd, Jungwon watches helplessly as her fiancé forces her into the lifeboat. She’s fighting, crying, calling Jungwon’s name. Their eyes meet across the distance. I love you, he mouths. The lifeboat starts to lower.

“NO!” She’s leaning over the edge, reaching for him. “Jungwon, please! PLEASE!” But the boat drops away, down toward the black water, and she’s gone.

Jungwon stands frozen, watching the lifeboat pull away from the dying ship. She’s safe. That’s what matters. She’s safe.

The Titanic groans beneath his feet, the bow sinking lower. Around him, people are screaming now, the reality of the situation setting in. Not enough boats. Not enough time. He’s going to die here. The thought is strangely calm.

He makes his way to the stern, which is rising now as the bow sinks. The deck is tilting at a dangerous angle, people clinging to railings, crying and praying. Jungwon finds a spot near the back and looks up at the sky. The stars are brilliant, the moon nearly full. Beautiful.

He thinks about last night. Her body beneath his, the way she said his name. The plans they made that will never happen now. “I’ll find you in the next life,” he whispers to the moon, to the stars, to whatever might be listening.

The ship shudders violently. Somewhere below, something breaks with a sound like thunder. The stern is rising higher now, nearly vertical.

People are jumping, falling, screaming as they plummet into the icy water. Jungwon holds on, watching it all with strange detachment.

This is how he dies. Not in a fight, not of old age, but here on a ship that was supposed to be unsinkable, thinking about a woman he knew for four days. The ship breaks. He feels it— the hull splitting, metal screaming as the bow tears away and sinks. The stern bobs for a moment, and Jungwon thinks maybe, maybe—

Then it goes down. The water is so cold it stops his heart. He tries to swim but his limbs won’t cooperate, the freezing temperature shutting down his body piece by piece. Around him, people are screaming, thrashing, dying. He stops fighting.

As the water closes over his head, his last thought is of her. Of dark eyes and soft skin and a single night that felt like forever. I’ll find you, he thinks again. I promise. I’ll find you. The moon watches as he drowns.

In the lifeboat, she’s still screaming his name. Her fiancé tries to restrain her, tries to calm her down, but she’s hysterical. She saw the ship break. Saw it go down. Saw hundreds of people disappear into the black water. Including Jungwon. “He’s gone,” her fiancé says, not unkindly. “I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”

“No.” She’s shaking her head, denial and grief warring in her chest. “No, he can’t be. He promised. He said—” But she can’t remember what he said. Only that it felt important. That it felt true.

They’re rescued hours later by the Carpathia. She and her fiancé are wrapped in blankets, given hot soup, processed like cargo. She goes through the motions, numb and hollow.

Her fiancé tries to comfort her, tries to pretend the last four days didn’t happen. They’ll still marry when they reach New York, he says. Put this tragedy behind them. Move forward. She nods because she doesn’t have the energy to argue. But she knows the truth. She died on that ship too. The woman she was, the woman Jungwon made her feel like she could be— that woman drowned in the Atlantic. What’s left is just a shell.

On the Carpathia’s deck that night, she looks up at the moon. The same moon that watched them make love, that heard her ask if it would remember.

“Please,” she whispers. “Please remember him. Remember us.” The moon offers no answer. But somewhere, somehow, she thinks it heard.

1969 — Your POV

June 15, 1969 Dear Diary, I hate that I’m starting this like some teenage girl, but Mom gave me this journal and said writing might help. Help with what, I’m not sure. The fear? The waiting? The bone-deep terror that comes with loving someone who’s about to go to war? Jungwon got his draft notice today. He came home from the post office with this look on his face— not surprised, exactly, but resigned. Like he’d been waiting for this moment and now it’s finally here. First son. That’s what the letter said, like that explains everything. Like being born first means you’re obligated to die first too. We’ve been together for two years. Two perfect, beautiful years. We met at a protest, of all places— both of us marching against this stupid war, and now he has to go fight in it. The irony would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking tragic. He leaves in eight weeks. Sixty days. That’s all we have left. I don’t know how to do this. How to count down the days until I lose him. How to smile and be strong when all I want to do is scream. But I’ll try. For him, I’ll try.

You remember the day you met him with perfect clarity. August 1967. Washington D.C. The March on the Pentagon. You’d gone with friends from college, piled into someone’s beat-up Volkswagen van with hand-painted peace signs on the sides. The whole drive down you’d sung protest songs and shared joints and felt like you were part of something important.

The crowd was massive— thousands of people, maybe tens of thousands. You’d never seen anything like it. Everyone young and angry and alive, waving signs and chanting. “Hell no, we won’t go!” “Make love, not war!” The energy was electric.

You’d lost your friends somewhere in the chaos. Didn’t matter— you were swept up in the crowd, moving with the mass of bodies toward the Pentagon. The police were there in riot gear, a wall of shields and batons, and the crowd pressed forward anyway.

That’s when you saw him. He was near the front, dark hair falling in his eyes, wearing a denim jacket covered in pins and patches. He was shouting something at the police line, passionate and fearless, and you thought: I want to know him.

When the police charged, everything descended into chaos. People running, screaming, tear gas filling the air. You couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. Someone grabbed your arm and pulled you away from the worst of it. It was him.

“Come on!” he shouted over the noise, tugging you through the crowd. You ran together, lungs burning, until you were several blocks away. Safe. You collapsed against a building, coughing and laughing and high on adrenaline.

“You okay?” he asked, looking you over with genuine concern.

“I think so. Thank you. For—” You gestured vaguely back toward the chaos.

“Couldn’t leave a fellow revolutionary to get trampled.” He grinned, and it transformed his whole face. “I’m Jungwon.” You told him your name, and he repeated it like he was memorizing it.

You spent the rest of the day together. Found your respective friends eventually, but kept gravitating back to each other. Talking about the war, about politics, about music and books and dreams for a better world. He was smart and funny and so passionate about everything he believed in. By the time you had to leave, you’d given him your number. He called three days later.

Your first date was at a coffee shop in Greenwich Village, the kind of place with poetry readings and folk music and cigarette smoke thick in the air. You talked for six hours straight, until the owner kicked you out at closing.

Your second date was a concert in Central Park. Simon and Garfunkel. You sat on a blanket and he held your hand and you thought you might be falling in love.

Your third date ended in his tiny apartment in the East Village, with his hands in your hair and your legs wrapped around his waist and the certainty that this was it. This was everything.

Two years later, you’ve built a life together. It’s not much— a small apartment, mismatched furniture, more books than shelf space— but it’s yours. You work at a bookstore. He’s in his second year of college, studying literature because he loves it even though his parents think it’s impractical.

You go to protests together, make love to Motown records, cook dinners that are more ambition than skill. You talk about the future— maybe moving to San Francisco, maybe joining a commune, maybe just existing in this little bubble of happiness forever.

And then the draft notice came.

June 20, 1969. We went to the recruitment office today to see if there was any way out of this. Deferment, conscientious objector status, anything. There isn’t. The officer— this smug asshole with a crew cut and a flag pin— looked at Jungwon like he was dirt. Said being a first son means he has a duty to serve. Said if he tries to dodge, they’ll find him. Said a lot of boys would be grateful for the opportunity to serve their country. Jungwon didn’t say anything. Just nodded and took the papers and walked out. I wanted to scream at that officer. Wanted to tell him that this isn’t service, it’s murder. That we’re sending boys to die in a jungle halfway around the world for a war nobody even understands anymore. That Jungwon has already served— served the cause of peace, served humanity by refusing to hate people he’s never met. But I didn’t say anything either. On the way home, Jungwon finally spoke. He said he was scared. That’s all. Just those two words. And then he started crying, right there on the subway, and I held him while strangers pretended not to notice. I’m scared too. Terrified. But I can’t let him see that. Only fifty-two days left.

July 4, 1969 Independence Day. The irony isn’t lost on us. We went to a protest in the park instead of watching fireworks. Smaller crowd than usual— a lot of people are getting tired, I think. Tired of marching and shouting and nothing changing. The war keeps grinding on. Boys keep dying. But we went anyway. Held our signs. Chanted until our throats were raw. Afterward, we walked home through the city. It was late, past midnight, and the streets were mostly empty. Jungwon stopped suddenly and pulled me into an alley. He said he wants to remember this. Us. Me. Before everything changes. And then he kissed me, deep and desperate, and we made love right there against a brick wall. It was reckless and uncomfortable and perfect. When we got home, we stayed up until dawn making love again, slower this time. Memorizing each other. Thirty-eight days.

The countdown is torture. Every morning you wake up and think: one day less. One day closer to losing him.

You try to make the most of the time you have left. You go to all your favorite places— the coffee shop where you had your first date, the record store where you spent hours flipping through albums, the park where you’ve had a hundred picnics. You take pictures, filling up two whole rolls of film. You cook elaborate dinners and stay up late talking about everything and nothing.

And you make love constantly. In your bed, on the couch, in the shower. Sometimes slow and tender, sometimes urgent and desperate. Like you’re trying to fit a lifetime of intimacy into a handful of weeks.

Jungwon is quieter now. More withdrawn. You catch him staring at nothing sometimes, lost in thoughts he won’t share. “Talk to me,” you beg one night after he’s been silent through dinner.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Anything. Tell me what you’re thinking.”

He’s quiet for a long moment. “I keep thinking about all the things I’m going to miss. Stupid things, like… the way you hum when you’re cooking. Or how you always steal my coffee even though you have your own. Or the sound of rain on the window when we’re in bed.”

“You’ll come back.” You say it fiercely, like conviction can make it true. “You’ll come back and we’ll have all of that again.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Don’t say that—”

“We have to talk about it.” His voice is gentle but firm. “We have to acknowledge that I might not come home.”

“I can’t.” Tears are streaming down your face now. “I can’t think about that. If I think about that, I’ll fall apart.”

He pulls you into his arms, holding you while you sob. “Then don’t think about it. Just… remember that I love you. That I’ll always love you. No matter what happens.”

“I love you too. So much.” You make love that night with tears on both your faces, holding each other like you can physically stop time if you just hold tight enough.

July 28, 1969 Two weeks. That’s all we have left. Jungwon is trying to act normal. Going to classes, seeing friends, pretending like everything is fine. But I see the cracks. The way his hands shake sometimes. The nightmares that wake him up gasping. I asked him last night what he’s afraid of. He said dying but also coming back as someone else. If he comes back at all. I said you don’t die, you’ll come back and you’ll be exactly who you are now. But honestly, I don’t know if that’s true. How could anyone go through war and come back unchanged? We had sex three times today. I’m getting sore but I don’t care. Every time feels like it might be the last time, so we keep reaching for each other. This morning he went down on me for what felt like hours, making me come twice before he even took his cock out. Then he fucked me slow and deep, whispering how much he loves me, how beautiful I am, how he’s going to remember every second of this. I rode him after, taking my time, watching his face as he fell apart beneath me. He came inside me and I thought: let me get pregnant. Let there be some piece of him that stays even if he doesn’t come back. I didn’t say that out loud. It would terrify him. Fourteen days.

August 7, 1969 Five days. I can’t sleep. Can’t eat. Can’t think about anything except the calendar counting down. We went to Woodstock yesterday. Or tried to— the traffic was so bad we only made it halfway before turning back. But we could hear the music in the distance, see the crowds. It felt important somehow. All these people gathering to celebrate peace and love while the world burns down around us. Tonight we’re staying in. Just the two of us. I don’t want to share him with anyone else. Not now.

You spend the last five days in bed. Not the whole time, obviously— you have to eat, use the bathroom, occasionally answer the door when friends come by to say goodbye. But mostly, you stay in bed. Making love. Talking. Sleeping tangled together. Trying to memorize the feeling of his body against yours.

“Tell me about after,” Jungwon says on the third-to-last night. “When I come back. What are we going to do?”

“Everything.” You trace patterns on his bare chest. “We’re going to do everything we’ve always talked about. Move to California. Live in a commune. Grow our own food. Make art and music and love every single day.”

“Sounds perfect.”

“We’ll get married. Nothing fancy— just us and a few friends and maybe some wildflowers. I’ll wear a white dress and you’ll wear your denim jacket with all the pins.”

He laughs. “Very traditional.”

“We’ll have kids someday. Two or three. We’ll teach them to question everything and fight for what’s right and love fiercely.”

“I want that.” His voice cracks. “I want all of that with you.”

“Then come back to me. Promise me you’ll come back.”

“I promise I’ll try.” It’s not the same as promising to come back, but it’s all he can give.

You make love again, slow and reverent. He worships your body with his hands and mouth, making you come on his tongue before sliding inside you. You move together in perfect rhythm, years of practice making you instinctively know what the other needs. When you both finish, you lie there in the afterglow, holding each other. “I love you,” he whispers. “More than anything in this world.”

“I love you too. Come back to me.”

“I will. I swear I will.”

August 11, 1969 Tomorrow. He leaves tomorrow. I don’t know how to write this. Don’t know what to say that won’t sound trite or desperate or completely inadequate. We spent today doing normal things. Had breakfast at our favorite diner. Walked through the park. Went to the record store and bought the new Dylan album even though we can’t really afford it. Tonight we went up to the roof of our building. It’s illegal but no one cares. We brought a blanket and a bottle of wine and lay there looking at the stars. The moon was almost full. So bright I could see every detail of his face. Do you think the moon remembers us? Is what he’d asked me. I didn’t fully understand the question. He continued with how all the people who’ve looked at it, do you think the moons remember them and their stories? I said I didn’t know. He said how he wants it to remember us, remember this moment incase he doesn’t come back. I told him that it will, and I will, how could I forget him? We made love on that roof under the moonlight. It was cold and uncomfortable and the most beautiful thing we’ve ever done. Afterward, lying in his arms, he said it: if he doesn’t make it back that I should know that he’ll find me in the next life, no matter how long it take, no matter the cost. I told him he’s coming back to me in this one. He kissed me instead of arguing. And we made love again, desperate and clinging. We didn’t sleep. Stayed up all night holding each other, watching the moon travel across the sky. He leaves in six hours. I don’t know how to let him go.

The morning is gray and cold, unseasonably cool for August. You help him pack, though there’s not much to take. A small duffel bag with some clothes, toiletries, a few photos. He tucks the pictures carefully into the side pocket— one of the two of you at that first protest, one from a party last year where you’re both laughing at something, one from last week where you’re just looking at each other. “So I don’t forget,” he says quietly.

“You won’t forget.”

“No. But just in case.”

The bus station is crowded with other boys shipping out, their families crying and saying goodbye. You see mothers clutching sons, girlfriends sobbing into boyfriends’ shoulders. Everyone trying to be brave and failing. Jungwon holds you until the very last second. “I love you,” he says into your hair. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too. Come back to me.”

“I will. I promise.” He pulls back to look at you, memorizing your face. “Wait for me?”

“Always. Forever. I’ll wait forever if I have to.” One last kiss. Deep and desperate and tasting of salt from tears— yours, his, both. And then he’s boarding the bus with all the other boys in their too-new uniforms, and you’re standing on the platform watching it pull away.

He’s at the window. You can see him pressed against the glass, one hand flat against it like he’s reaching for you. You raise your hand in a wave. And then the bus turns the corner and he’s gone. You stand there for a long time after, staring at the empty street.

Someone touches your shoulder— another girl who just said goodbye to her boyfriend. She’s crying too. “They’ll come back,” she says, like she’s trying to convince herself as much as you. “They have to come back.” You nod because you can’t speak. But you’re not sure you believe it.

August 15, 1969 I’m at Woodstock. Finally made it. I came alone. Couldn’t stand being in the apartment without him. Everything there reminds me of Jungwon— his books still on the shelf, his jacket hanging by the door, the sheets that still smell like him. The festival is chaos. Mud everywhere, people as far as I can see, music blasting from the stage. It’s overwhelming and beautiful and exactly what I need. I’m not really here, though. Part of me is still on that bus station platform. Part of me is wherever Jungwon is right now— boot camp, probably. Learning how to kill people. I hate this. I hate all of it. But I’m here, in the mud and the music, because he would want me to be. Because this is what we believe in— peace, love, community. All the things we’re trying to build while the government tears them down. I’m going to survive this. I’m going to wait for him, and when he comes home, we’re going to build the life we talked about. I have to believe that.

September 3, 1969 First letter from Jungwon arrived today. I was so excited I almost ripped it opening the envelope. ‘My love, Boot camp is hell. They wake us up at 4 AM and work us until we drop. Everything is shouting and pushups and running until I want to puke. They’re trying to break us down, turn us into soldiers. Turn us into killers. I don’t know if I can do this. But I think about you every night. About your smile, your laugh, the way you look when you first wake up. About making love on our roof under the moon. Those memories are the only thing keeping me sane. I miss you so much it physically hurts. Miss your voice, your touch, the way you steal my coffee. Miss everything. I’ll write as often as I can. Tell me about your life. What you’re reading, where you’re going, who you’re seeing. I need to know that the world I’m fighting for (even though I don’t believe in this war) still exists. I love you. More than words can say. Forever yours, Jungwon’ I read it five times. Then I went into the bedroom and cried into his pillow.

September 20, 1969 I’m writing letters every day. Sometimes twice a day. I tell him about everything— the bookstore, protests I go to, albums I buy, books I read. Stupid mundane things that probably bore him, but he asked for them so I write. His letters come sporadically. Sometimes I get three in one week, sometimes nothing for two weeks. When they arrive, I devour them. He’s trying to stay positive, I can tell. But I read between the lines. The exhaustion. The fear. The slow erosion of the person he was. He finishes boot camp next month. Then he ships out. To Vietnam. I can’t think about it. If I think about it, I’ll lose my mind.

October 12, 1969 He called today. Five minutes on a pay phone before shipping out. His voice sounded different. Harder. Older. He told me he loves me, and that no matter what happens I need to remember that. I said I love him too and to be safe, to please be safe. And then the line went dead. That was eight hours ago and I can’t stop crying.

October 30, 1969 Letter from Vietnam. ‘My love, I’m here. In the jungle. In the war. I can’t tell you where exactly (they censor that) or what we’re doing (they censor that too). I can tell you it’s hot and wet and everything smells like rot and fear. I can tell you I think about you constantly. That your letters are the only good thing in this place. That I keep your photo in my pocket over my heart. I can tell you I’m terrified. Not of dying— though I am scared of that— but of becoming someone you won’t recognize when I come home. If I come home. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t write things like that. You need hope, not my fear. I love you. I love you. I love you. Stay safe. Live your life. Don’t put it on hold waiting for me. All my love, Jungwon’ I wrote back immediately: My love, I will always wait for you. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care what you’ve seen or done or become. You’re mine and I’m yours and nothing changes that. Come home to me. All my love, forever.

The letters continue. Back and forth across an ocean, across a war. Sometimes they’re full of mundane details— what he ate, what you did that day. Sometimes they’re deeper— fears, hopes, dreams for the future. You live for those letters. They’re proof he’s still alive, still him, still yours.

November 15, 1969 Haven’t heard from him in three weeks. I tell myself it’s fine. Mail is slow. He’s busy. He’s in the jungle where there’s no way to send letters. But the silence is deafening.

December 1, 1969 Five weeks now. I called his parents. They haven’t heard anything either. I’m trying not to panic.

December 10, 1969 Letter arrived today. Thank god. Thank god. ‘My love, I’m sorry for the silence. We were in the field— weeks in the jungle, no communication with the outside world. I wrote you letters every night but couldn’t send them. I’ll mail them all now so you’ll get a flood at once. I saw combat. Real combat. I can’t describe it. Won’t describe it. Just know that I’m okay. Physically okay, at least. The guys in my unit are good men. We take care of each other. That helps. I miss you so much I dream about you every night. Dream about being home, about holding you, about a life where there’s no war. Soon. I’ll be home soon. I love you endlessly, Jungwon’ Six more letters arrived over the next week. All written in the jungle, some barely legible, all filled with love and longing. I’m holding onto them like lifelines.

January 1, 1970 New year. New decade. I spent it alone in our apartment, drinking cheap wine and reading his letters. This year, he comes home. He has to.

The months blur together. Winter turns to spring. Letters arrive sporadically, sometimes cheerful, sometimes dark. You write back religiously, filling page after page with your life, your love, your hope.

You go to protests but your heart’s not in it anymore. You work at the bookstore. You see friends. You exist in a state of suspended animation, waiting.

The nightmares start in March. You dream of jungles and gunfire and blood. You dream of Jungwon dying in a thousand different ways. You wake up screaming, reaching for him, finding only empty sheets. You stop sleeping well.

April 20, 1970 Eight months since he left. I saw a news report today about casualties. The numbers are staggering. Thousands dead. Thousands more wounded. I couldn’t watch. His last letter said his unit was moving to a new position. He couldn’t say where. Couldn’t say what they’d be doing. I haven’t heard from him since. It’s been two weeks.

May 5, 1970 Three weeks. I’m trying not to think about what that might mean.

May 12, 1970 Four weeks. I called his parents again. Still nothing. I’m losing my mind.

May 20, 1970 Letter arrived today. But it’s not from him. It’s from his commanding officer. ‘Dear Miss, It is my duty to inform you that Private Yang Jungwon was killed in action on April 28, 1970, during combat operations in [REDACTED]. Private Yang died bravely, serving his country with honor. He was well-liked by his unit and will be deeply missed. Please accept my sincerest condolences for your loss. Respectfully, Captain Haruma, United States Army’ I don’t remember the rest of that day. I don’t remember screaming. Don’t remember collapsing. Don’t remember the neighbors breaking down the door because they heard me and thought someone was being murdered. I remember waking up in a hospital. Sedated. Numb. I remember his mother crying on the phone saying that he’s coming home. But he’s not coming home. Not really. Just a body in a box.

May 25, 1970 They buried him today. Military funeral. Flag-draped coffin. Gun salute. The whole terrible ceremony. I couldn’t look at the coffin. Couldn’t accept that he was in there. That the man I loved, love— vibrant and alive and so full of passion— was reduced to a body in a box in the ground. They gave me the flag. Folded into a perfect triangle. I wanted to scream at them. Wanted to throw the flag back in their faces and demand they give me Jungwon instead. But I just stood there, numb, while they lowered him into the ground. After, I went home and found a letter. Tucked into my mailbox. From him. Dated April 27. The day before he died. ‘My love, If you’re reading this, I’m gone. I wrote this just in case. Just in case the worst happens and I don’t get to say goodbye. First: I love you. I love you more than I knew it was possible to love another person. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. The brightest light in my life. Every moment with you was a gift. Second: This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault. Don’t torture yourself with what-ifs. We had no control over this. Third: Live. Please, live your life. Don’t spend it mourning me. Find love again if you can. Be happy. Make art. Change the world. Do all the things we talked about doing together. And finally: I’ll find you in the next life. I don’t know if there is a next life, but if there is, I’ll find you. I’ll find you in every lifetime. This isn’t the end. It can’t be. I love you forever, Jungwon P.S. - Remember the moon? How I asked if it remembers us? I hope it does. I hope something in this universe remembers that we existed, that we loved each other. That our love was real and true and worth something, even if it was brief.’

I can’t write anymore. Can’t see through the tears. He’s gone. The love of my life is gone. And I don’t know how to survive this.

The journal entries stop after that. The pages remain blank for months, then years. You keep the journal, but you can’t bring yourself to write in it. Can’t put into words the emptiness, the grief that never quite fades.

You do what he asked. You live. You finish school, get a job, move to San Francisco like you always planned. You go to protests, make art, try to change the world in small ways. You even date again, eventually. Nice men who try to understand why you sometimes go quiet and distant, why you can’t quite let them all the way in. None of them are him.

On the anniversary of his death, you go to the cemetery. Place flowers on his grave. Tell him about your year. “I’m trying,” you whisper to the headstone. “I’m trying to live like you asked. But god, I miss you. Every single day, I miss you.”

The wind rustles the leaves overhead. The sun shines. The world keeps turning. And you keep living. Because that’s what he wanted.

But part of you— the best part— died in a jungle halfway around the world on April 28, 1970. And you’ll never get it back.

2001 — Your POV

September 11, 8:32 AM

Jungwon kisses you goodbye at the elevator, quick and chaste because you’re at work and even though everyone knows you’re married, PDA in the office is frowned upon. “See you at lunch?” you ask, adjusting his tie even though it’s perfectly straight. It’s just an excuse to touch him.

“Can’t. Meeting with the Lehman team goes until two.”

“Dinner then. I’ll cook.”

He grins. “You mean you’ll order takeout and pretend you cooked.”

“I resent that. I’m an excellent chef.”

“You burned water last week.”

“That was one time!” You swat his arm, laughing. “Okay, fine. I’ll order from that Thai place you like.”

“Perfect.” He kisses you again, properly this time, not caring who sees. “I love you.”

“Love you too. Don’t work too hard.” The elevator dings and you step inside, waving as the doors close. Jungwon watches you disappear, then heads back to his desk on the 101st floor of the North Tower.

You and Jungwon have been married for three years, together for five. You met at Cantor Fitzgerald— both of you ambitious young traders trying to make a name for yourselves in the cutthroat world of finance.

The attraction was immediate. The love took a bit longer, but not much. He proposed after a year and a half, on the roof of your apartment building under a full moon. You were married three months later in a small ceremony in Central Park, just family and close friends.

Working together has its challenges— you’re competitive by nature, and sometimes that bleeds into your relationship. But mostly it’s good. You understand the demands of each other’s jobs. You can decompress together about difficult clients. You commute together, have lunch together when schedules allow, go home together. Your entire lives are intertwined. You love it.

You step out of the elevator on the 96th floor— your department is a few floors below his— and head to your desk. The morning is already chaotic, phones ringing, traders shouting, the energy that makes you love this job. You’re reviewing overnight reports when your phone rings. “Trading desk.”

“Mrs. Yang, it’s David from IT. We’re having some issues with your workstation remotely. Would you mind coming down to the 78th floor so we can take a look?”

You glance at your computer. It seems fine, but IT knows better than you. “Sure. Give me five minutes?”

“Perfect. Thanks.” You grab your phone and ID badge, tell your supervisor you’ll be back in fifteen, and head for the elevators.

The elevator ride down takes less than a minute. You step out onto the 78th floor— it’s quieter here, mostly administrative offices and IT. David meets you in the lobby. “Thanks for coming down. This should only take a minute. Just need to check something in the server room.”

You follow him down the hall, chatting about weekend plans, completely unaware that you have eight minutes left in the world as you know it.

8:46 AM

Jungwon is on a conference call when the building shakes. No— not shakes. Lurches. Like the entire structure has been hit by something massive. The lights flicker. Someone screams. The windows on the north side explode inward in a spray of glass and fire.

The conference call drops. Alarms start blaring. People are shouting, running, diving under desks. Jungwon’s brain struggles to catch up. What the hell just happened?

“Everyone stay calm!” His manager is shouting to be heard over the chaos. “Proceed to the stairwells! Don’t use the elevators!”

Jungwon grabs his phone and jacket on autopilot, joining the stream of people heading for the stairs. The office is in chaos— papers everywhere, computers sparked and smoking, the smell of jet fuel and burning. Jet fuel. Oh god.

He dials your number as he’s moving, pressed against a hundred other bodies trying to evacuate. It rings once. Twice. Three times. “Jungwon?” You sound confused. “What’s happening? We felt something down here—”

“Where are you?” His voice is urgent. “What floor?”

“78th. I’m with IT, they needed to—”

“Get out. Right now. Don’t go back to your desk, don’t grab anything, just get to the stairs and get out of the building.”

“What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Something hit the building. High up. There’s fire and—” He’s being pushed into the stairwell now, the crowd surging around him. “Just get out. Please.”

“I will. Where are you?”

“101st floor. I’m in the stairwell. I’m coming down.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll meet you outside.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Be careful.” The line cuts out as he enters the stairwell. No signal.

The descent is a nightmare. Hundreds of people packed into a narrow concrete shaft, everyone trying to move at once. It’s hot and dark and the smoke is getting thicker with every floor.

Jungwon tries to stay calm. Tries to breathe through his shirt. Tries not to think about what happened, about the fire above him, about the fact that he’s 101 floors up and the only way out is down. He tries your number again when he hits the 95th floor and gets signal for a moment. No answer. Again at the 90th floor. No answer.

The stairwell is moving so slowly. People are crying, praying, helping those who can’t move as fast. The woman in front of Jungwon is heavily pregnant and struggling. He helps support her weight as they descend. “My baby,” she keeps saying. “I can’t—my baby—”

“You’re going to be fine,” Jungwon tells her. “We’re all going to be fine. Just keep moving.” He doesn’t know if he believes it.

At the 85th floor, his phone rings.“Jungwon!” You’re crying. “Oh god, Jungwon—”

“I’m here. I’m okay. Where are you?”

“I’m outside. I got out. But Jungwon, they’re saying—” Your voice breaks. “They’re saying a plane hit the building. A passenger plane. It flew right into the tower.”

His blood runs cold. “What?”

“It’s on the news. It’s everywhere. And—” You’re sobbing now. “Another plane just hit the South Tower. Jungwon, this isn’t an accident. This is—”

“I know. I know. Listen to me—I need you to get away from here. As far away as you can. Go to Brooklyn. Go to your sister’s. Just get away from Manhattan.”

“I’m not leaving without you.”

“You have to—”

“NO.” Your voice is fierce through the tears. “I’m not leaving you. I’m staying right here until you come out.”

“Baby, please—”

“Don’t. Don’t ask me to leave you. I won’t do it.” He wants to argue but he knows it’s pointless. You’re the most stubborn person he’s ever met. It’s one of the things he loves about you.

“Okay. Okay. I’m at the 85th floor. I’m coming down as fast as I can.”

“How fast is that?”

“Slow. There’s a lot of people. But I’m moving. I’m going to make it out.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.” He stays on the phone with you as he descends. 80th floor. 75th. 70th. You talk to him the whole time. Telling him about what you’re seeing outside— the smoke, the emergency responders, the crowds. Telling him you love him. Begging him to hurry.

“I’m trying,” he says. “I’m trying.”65th floor. The building shudders. Different from before. More structural. The stairwell sways and people scream.

“What was that?” You sound terrified. “Jungwon, what was that?”

“I don’t know. The building just— it felt wrong.”

“You need to move faster.”

“I am. We all are. It’s just— there’s so many people—” 60th floor. The smoke is getting worse. People are coughing, struggling to breathe. Some are collapsing. Other people are helping them, but it’s slowing everything down.

Jungwon’s legs are burning. His lungs hurt. But he keeps moving. “Talk to me,” he says to you. “Tell me about something good. Distract me.”

“Like what?”

“Anything. Our honeymoon. Our first date. Anything that isn’t this.”

You’re quiet for a moment, and when you speak, your voice is steadier. “Remember our honeymoon? In Italy, that night in Venice? We got lost trying to find the hotel and ended up at that little square with the fountain?” He does remember. The moon reflecting off the water. Your hand in his. The way the whole city felt like a dream.

“And you asked me if I thought the moon remembered us,” you continue. “All the lovers who’d stood in that square over the centuries.”

“Did I say that?”

“You did. You said you wanted the moon to remember us. To remember our love story.”

55th floor. Jungwon is crying now, though he’s not sure when that started. “I still want that.”

“It will. The moon will remember us. I know it will.”

“Promise me something.”

“Anything.”

“If I don’t make it—”

“Don’t say that—”

“Listen. Please. If I don’t make it, I need you to promise me you’ll keep living. You’ll find happiness again. You won’t spend the rest of your life mourning me.”

“Jungwon—”

“Promise me.”

“I can’t. I can’t promise that. You’re my whole life. You’re everything.”

“Then promise me you’ll try. That you’ll at least try.”

You’re sobbing. “Okay. Okay, I promise. But you ARE going to make it. You have to make it.”

50th floor. He’s halfway. He’s actually halfway. Maybe he will make it out. “I love you,” he says. “More than anything in this world. You know that, right?”

“I know. I love you too. So much. So much.”

45th floor. The woman in front of him collapses. Jungwon and another man help her up, support her weight between them. She’s gasping for air, barely conscious. “Keep going,” Jungwon tells her. “We’re almost there.” 40th floor.

“I’m at 40,” he tells you. “Less than halfway now.”

“You’re doing so good. You’re almost out.”

“How’s it look out there?”

“Bad. Both towers are burning. There’s debris everywhere. But the firefighters are here. They’re going in to help people.”

“Good. That’s good.” 35th floor.

His phone is dying. Battery at 15%. “My phone’s almost dead,” he tells you.

“No. No, you have to keep talking to me.”

“I will. As long as I can. But if we get cut off—”

“We won’t.”

“But if we do, I need you to know—”

“I already know. I know you love me. I know we’re going to grow old together. I know we’re going to have babies and a house in the suburbs and a dog. I know all of it because you promised me.”

“I did promise you that.”

“So you have to keep that promise. You have to get out of there and come home to me.”

30th floor. Battery at 10%. “Do you remember our wedding vows?” he asks. “I meant every word. Every promise. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.”

“Me too.”

25th floor. “I can see the end,” he says. “I can actually see the bottom of the stairwell. Maybe ten more floors.”

“Oh thank god. Thank god.”

20th floor. Battery at 5%. The building shudders again. Violently this time. The stairwell groans.

“Jungwon? JUNGWON?”

“I’m here. I’m still here. Something’s wrong. The building—it doesn’t feel stable.”

“You need to run. Right now. Run as fast as you can.”

“I am. We all are.”

15th floor. The lights go out. Emergency lighting kicks in, bathing everything in red. People are screaming, pushing, panicking.

“Stay calm!” Someone is shouting. “Everyone stay calm!” But no one is calm. Everyone can feel it— the building is dying. 10th floor.

“I’m at ten,” Jungwon gasps into the phone. “Almost there. Almost—” The building lurches. Metal screaming. Concrete cracking.

“JUNGWON!”

“I’m okay. I’m still moving. Five more floors.”

5th floor. “I can see the lobby. I can see the exit. I’m going to make it. I’m actually going to make it.”

“Run. Don’t stop. Just run.” He does. The last few floors are a blur— feet pounding stairs, people streaming into the lobby, firefighters directing everyone outside.

Jungwon bursts out onto the street and the sight is apocalyptic. Both towers burning. Debris everywhere. Ash falling like snow. But he’s out. He’s alive. “I’m outside,” he gasps into the phone. “I made it. I’m out.”

“Where? Where are you?”

“West side, I think. Near—” The sound drowns out everything else. A roar like the end of the world. Jungwon turns and looks up. The South Tower is collapsing. “Oh my god,” he breathes.

“What? What’s happening?”

“The South Tower. It’s— it’s coming down.”

And then the cloud hits. Debris and dust and smoke racing down the street like a tsunami. People screaming, running, diving into buildings. Jungwon runs.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, just away from the cloud, away from the collapse. His phone is still clutched in his hand, your voice tinny and distant.“Jungwon! JUNGWON!”

“I’m here! I’m still here!” He ducks into a building— a store, doors standing open. The cloud follows him in, filling the space with choking dust.

He can’t see. Can’t breathe. Can’t do anything except hold the phone and hope. And then, gradually, the worst passes. He’s alive. Covered in dust, coughing up gray ash, but alive. “I’m okay,” he says into the phone. “I’m okay. The South Tower collapsed but I’m okay.”

“Oh thank god. Thank god. Where are you?”

“I don’t know. Some store. I can’t see anything. There’s dust everywhere.”

“Stay there. Stay inside until the dust clears. I’m coming to find you.”

“No. Don’t. It’s not safe.”

“I don’t care. Tell me where you are.”

“I don’t KNOW where I am—” His phone dies. “No. No no no—” He tries to turn it back on but it’s dead. Completely dead. He has no way to reach you. No way to tell you he’s alive. All he can do is wait for the dust to clear and try to find you.

You’re running. Your phone went dead ten seconds after his did, and now you’re sprinting through the chaos toward where you last heard him— west side of the North Tower. The South Tower is gone. Just gone. A pile of rubble and smoke where a building used to be.

And the North Tower is still burning. Jungwon’s tower. He made it out. He told you he made it out. He’s alive somewhere in this nightmare and you’re going to find him.

You’re pushing through crowds, screaming his name, looking for his face in a sea of ash-covered people who all look the same. “JUNGWON!” No answer. “JUNGWON!” The dust is thick. You can barely see ten feet ahead. But you keep moving, keep searching.

You’re maybe three blocks from the tower when you hear it. That sound again. Metal and concrete and the world ending. You look up. The North Tower is collapsing. “No,” you whisper. And then you’re screaming. “JUNGWON! JUNGWON!”

The tower comes down in a cascade of destruction, floor after floor pancaking, the cloud of debris exploding outward. You’re too far away. The cloud won’t reach you here. You’re safe. But Jungwon. He said he was on the west side. Near the tower. He was right there.

“No. No no no no no—” You’re calling his phone but it’s going straight to voicemail. Again and again and again. “JUNGWON! PLEASE! JUNGWON!”

People are grabbing you, trying to pull you back, away from the disaster. You fight them. “My husband! My husband was there! I need to— I have to—”

But there’s nowhere to go. The entire area where the towers stood is gone. Just smoke and rubble and death. You collapse on the pavement, screaming into your dead phone. He was right there. He made it out and he was right there and now— now the building is gone. And so is he.

They find Jungwon’s body three days later. He’d made it out of the building. Made it almost two blocks away. But when the tower collapsed, the debris cloud caught him. A piece of falling concrete, the medical examiner says. He died instantly. You identify him at the morgue. His face is peaceful, covered in dust. Like he’s sleeping. You don’t cry. You can’t. You’re too empty.

At the funeral, they play the voicemail you left him after the towers fell. The one where you’re screaming into the phone, begging him to answer, telling him you love him. You don’t remember leaving it.

You don’t remember much of anything from those first few days. The city buries thousands. You bury your husband. And then you have to figure out how to keep living.

Ten years pass. You never remarry. Never even date. How could you? Jungwon was your whole life. Your whole heart. You move out of New York. Can’t stand to be in the city where you lost him. You end up in a small town in Vermont, working at a library, living a quiet life.

Every year on September 11th, you visit the memorial. Stand at the reflecting pool where the North Tower used to be, looking at his name etched in bronze. YANG JUNGWON. You trace the letters with your fingers and remember.

Remember his laugh. His smile. The way he kissed you goodbye that last morning. Remember the phone call. His voice getting weaker as he descended. The way he said “I love you” one last time before his phone died. Remember standing in the street, watching the tower collapse, knowing he was gone.

At night, you look at the moon and think about what he said. About the moon remembering love stories. “Do you remember us?” you whisper to the sky.

The moon doesn’t answer. But you hope it does. Hope that somewhere in the universe, someone remembers that you loved him. That he loved you. That what you had was real and beautiful and worth something, even though it ended too soon.

You survive twenty more years. Never stop missing him. Never stop loving him. When you die at 65— heart attack, quick and painless— your last thought is of him. I’m coming, you think. Finally, I’m coming to find you. And maybe, somewhere, the moon remembers.

2026 — split POV

Jungwons POV

Jungwon is running late. He overslept— stayed up too late studying for his anatomy exam, his alarm didn’t go off, and now he’s sprinting across campus with his backpack half-open and his shirt probably on inside out.

Pre-med is killing him. Everyone said it would be hard, but no one mentioned it would be “survive on three hours of sleep and questionable dining hall coffee” hard. He rounds the corner by the library at a full run, checking his phone to see just how late he is to his 9 AM lecture—

And crashes directly into someone. The impact is total. Books go flying. Papers scatter. And Jungwon’s coffee— his precious, desperately-needed coffee— explodes all over the person he just barreled into. “Oh my god,” he gasps, stumbling back. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry—” He looks up and his brain short-circuits.

It’s a girl. A beautiful girl in a white shirt that is now completely drenched in his coffee. Dark hair falling around her face, wide eyes, an expression of pure shock. And the second their eyes meet, something in Jungwon’s chest cracks open. He knows her.

He doesn’t know her— he’s never seen her before in his life— but he knows her. Knows her the way he knows his own heartbeat. Knows her in a way that makes no logical sense but feels more real than anything he’s ever experienced. “I—” His voice doesn’t work. He tries again. “I’m so sorry. Your shirt—”

She’s just staring at him. Not angry, not upset. Just staring like she’s seeing a ghost. “It’s okay,” she says finally, but her voice is shaky. “It’s fine. I just—”

They’re both still frozen, standing in the middle of the path while other students flow around them. Jungwon forces himself to move. He shrugs out of his hoodie— thankfully he’s wearing a t-shirt underneath— and holds it out to her. “Here. Please. I’m so sorry. Take this.”

She looks at the hoodie, then back at him. “I can’t—”

“Please. I ruined your shirt. It’s the least I can do.” Slowly, she takes it. Their fingers brush and Jungwon feels electricity shoot up his arm. What the hell is happening?

She pulls on the hoodie— it’s too big on her, sleeves hanging past her hands— and something about seeing her in his clothes makes his heart do a weird flip. “Thank you,” she says softly. “I’m— uh. I have a class. I should—”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” He’s already pulling out his phone. “Can I get your number? So I can pay for dry cleaning. Or replace the shirt. Or—”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I want to. Please. I feel terrible.”She hesitates, then rattles off her number. He types it in with shaking hands. “I’m Jungwon, by the way.”

“I know.” Then her eyes widen. “I mean— I don’t know. You just— you look like a Jungwon.”

That doesn’t make any sense, but he smiles anyway. “And you are?”She tells him her name, and Jungwon commits it to memory like a prayer.

“I really am sorry,” he says again. “About the coffee.”

“It’s okay. Really.” She’s backing away now, but she keeps looking at him. Like she can’t quite make herself leave. “I should go. I’m late.”

“Me too. But—” He doesn’t want her to go. Can’t explain why, but the thought of her walking away makes him feel panicky. “Can I text you? About the shirt?”

“Sure. Yeah. That’s fine.”

“Okay. Good. I’ll— I’ll text you.”

“Okay.” She finally turns and walks away, and Jungwon stands there watching her go, his heart pounding for reasons he can’t explain. He’s never believed in love at first sight. Thought it was bullshit, something made up for movies and romance novels. But something just happened. Something big and important and completely inexplicable.

He doesn’t know what. But he knows, with absolute certainty, that he just met someone who’s going to change his life.

Your POV

You make it to class five minutes late, wearing a stranger’s hoodie, your heart racing. What the hell was that? You’ve never believed in fate or destiny or any of that romantic nonsense. You’re a history major, you deal in facts and evidence and things that can be proven.

But when you locked eyes with that boy— Jungwon— something shifted in the universe. You knew him. Know him. Even though you’ve never seen him before in your life. And the way he looked at you— like he knew you too. Like he’d been waiting for you.

You slide into your seat in the lecture hall and your best friend Mina immediately notices the hoodie. “Whose is that?” she whispers.

“Some guy’s. He spilled coffee on me.”

“And gave you his hoodie? That’s very chivalrous. Is he cute?”

You think about dark eyes and messy hair and the way his hands shook when he typed your number into his phone. “Yeah,” you admit. “Really cute.”

“Are you going to see him again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Your phone buzzes. Unknown number: Hi, this is Jungwon. The coffee disaster guy. Just wanted to make sure I got your number right. And to apologize again. I really am sorry about your shirt.

You smile despite yourself and type back: It’s fine. Really. The hoodie is very comfortable.

Keep it. It looks better on you anyway.

Your heart does a stupid flutter: I should probably return it at some point.

How about tomorrow? I could buy you coffee. To replace the shirt.

You shouldn’t. You don’t know this guy. He could be anyone. But you’re already typing back: Tomorrow sounds good.

Perfect. I’ll text you details. And again— really sorry.

Stop apologizing. It was an accident.

Still feel bad.

Don’t. I’m fine. Great, even. I got a free hoodie out of it.

Ha. Fair point. See you tomorrow?

See you tomorrow.

You put your phone away and try to focus on the lecture. But all you can think about is tomorrow. About seeing him again. About why the thought of it makes you feel like you’re coming home.

Jungwon’s POV

Jungwon changes his outfit three times before leaving his dorm. “You’re being ridiculous,” his roommate Jake says, sprawled on his bed playing video games. “It’s just coffee.”

“It’s not just coffee.”

“It’s literally just coffee. You’re meeting a girl you spilled coffee on to buy her coffee to apologize for the coffee. It’s coffee inception.”

“Shut up.”

Jake grins. “You like her.”

“I don’t know her.”

“But you like her.”

Jungwon doesn’t answer because the truth is yes, he does like her. Has been thinking about her non-stop since yesterday. Can’t explain it, can’t rationalize it, but it’s true. He settles on jeans and a simple black shirt, checks his hair one more time, and heads out.

They agreed to meet at the campus coffee shop— ironic, given the circumstances— at 2 PM. Jungwon arrives ten minutes early and immediately regrets it because now he has to stand around looking awkward.

He’s checking his phone for the third time when he sees her walking up. She’s wearing casual clothes— jeans and a sweater— and she’s carrying his hoodie, neatly folded. Her hair is down today, falling past her shoulders, and Jungwon’s brain goes momentarily offline. “Hi,” she says, smiling.

“Hi.” He sounds like an idiot. “You came.”

“I said I would.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” Get it together, Yang. “Should we go in?”

They order coffee— she gets a vanilla latte, he gets an americano— and find a table by the window. For a moment, they just sit there, both suddenly shy. “So,” you say finally. “Pre-med, right? I saw your anatomy textbook when you dropped everything.”

“Yeah. First year. It’s brutal.”

“I can imagine. I’m history. Much less brutal.”

“History’s cool. What kind of history?”

“All kinds. But I’m focusing on American history right now. Specifically the 20th century.”

Something flickers in Jungwon’s chest at that. He doesn’t know why. “That’s really interesting,” he says. “Any particular reason?”

You shrug. “I like understanding how we got here. How the past shapes the present. Plus the 20th century was just… a lot. Wars, social movements, technological revolution. It’s fascinating.”

“Do you think the past matters? Like, do you think we’re shaped by history or do we shape ourselves?” The question comes out more philosophical than he intended, but you don’t seem to mind.

“Both, probably. We’re products of our time, but we also have agency. We can make choices that change the trajectory.” You pause. “Why? Do you think the past matters?”

“I think…” He’s not sure how to articulate this. “I think sometimes the past isn’t really past. I think sometimes it echoes forward. Into the present.”

You’re looking at him with this intense focus, like he’s said something profound instead of just vaguely poetic nonsense. “Yeah,” you say softly. “I think that too.”

The conversation flows easily after that. You talk about classes, about campus life, about your respective hometowns. Jungwon tells you about wanting to be a doctor since he was a kid, about the pressure from his parents but also his genuine love for medicine. You tell him about your love of research, about wanting to be a professor someday, maybe write books.

Two hours pass without either of you noticing. “I should probably go,” you say reluctantly, checking your phone. “I have a study group at five.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” Jungwon stands when you do, not ready for this to end. “Can I walk you?”

“Sure.” You walk across campus together, the conversation never stopping. It’s easy with you. Comfortable. Like you’ve done this a thousand times before.

When you reach your building, you turn to face him. “Thanks for the coffee. And for not being a serial killer.”

He laughs. “Thanks for giving a clumsy pre-med student a chance to apologize.”

“It was a good apology.” There’s a moment where you’re just looking at each other, and Jungwon feels that pull again. That inexplicable sense of knowing you.

“Can I see you again?” he asks. “Not as an apology. Just… because I want to.”

You smile. “I’d like that.”

“Friday? There’s a film festival on campus. Foreign films. Probably boring to most people but—”

“I love foreign films.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

His heart is going to beat out of his chest. “It’s a date then?”

“It’s a date.”

He walks away grinning like an idiot, and when he checks his phone later, there’s a text from you: Had fun today. See you Friday :)

He stares at the smiley face for an embarrassingly long time before responding: Me too. Can’t wait. And he means it. He genuinely can’t wait to see you again. Which is crazy. He barely knows you. But it doesn’t feel like barely knowing you. It feels like coming home.

Your POV

You and Jungwon are dating. It’s not official-official— you haven’t had the “what are we” conversation— but you’re together constantly. Study dates that turn into actual dates. Late-night conversations that stretch until 3 AM. Stolen kisses between classes. It’s fast. You know it’s fast. Mina keeps asking if you’re sure about this, if you’re not rushing into things. But it doesn’t feel fast. It feels exactly right.

You learn things about him: that he’s terrible at cooking but makes excellent coffee. That he stress-cleans before exams. That he has nightmares sometimes and won’t talk about them. That he looks at the moon when he’s thinking.

He learns things about you: that you hum when you’re concentrating. That you steal his coffee even though you have your own. That you’re afraid of thunderstorms. That you’ve always felt like you’re searching for something you can’t name.

Tonight, you’re in his dorm room— Jake is conveniently gone for the weekend— sprawled on his bed while he attempts to study for biochemistry. “This is impossible,” he groans, throwing his highlighter at the textbook. “Why do I need to know the Krebs cycle? When will I ever use this as a doctor?”

“When you’re explaining cellular respiration to a patient, obviously.”

“That will definitely happen. Constantly.” You laugh and roll onto your stomach, watching him.

He’s wearing glasses tonight— he usually wears contacts but he ran out— and they make him look unfairly adorable. “You’re staring,” he says without looking up from his notes.

“You’re pretty.”

“I’m not pretty. I’m ruggedly handsome.”

“You’re pretty.”

He looks up, grinning, and tackles you onto the bed. You shriek with laughter as he pins you down, his weight warm and solid above you. “Take it back,” he demands.

“Never. You’re the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen.”

“Terrible. The worst.” But he’s smiling as he says it, and then he’s kissing you, and your brain shuts off. You’ve kissed before— many times over the past six weeks— but it still feels new every time. Still makes your heart race and your stomach flip.

His hand slides under your shirt, fingers skimming your ribs, and you arch into the touch. “Is this okay?” he murmurs against your lips.

“Yeah. Yes. More than okay.”

Things heat up quickly after that. Clothes coming off, hands exploring, breathless whispers in the dark. You’ve fooled around before— heavy petting, getting each other off— but you haven’t gone all the way yet. Tonight feels different. “Do you want to?” Jungwon asks, pulling back to look at you. “We don’t have to. There’s no pressure. I just—”

“I want to.” You cup his face. “I want you.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

He kisses you deeply and reaches for his nightstand, pulling out a condom. “I’ve, uh. I’ve never actually done this before.”

“Me neither.”

“So we’ll figure it out together?”

“Together,” you agree. What follows is awkward and sweet and perfect. He’s gentle, careful, constantly checking if you’re okay. There’s fumbling and nervous laughter and moments where you have to adjust and try again.

But when he finally slides inside you, when you’re joined completely, it feels right. It feels like coming home. “God,” he breathes, forehead pressed against yours. “You feel amazing.”

He moves slowly at first, finding a rhythm, and the pleasure builds gradually. It’s not earth-shattering— first times rarely are— but it’s intimate and meaningful and when you both finish (you first, then him shortly after), you feel closer to him than you’ve ever felt to anyone.

After, you lie tangled together, sweaty and satisfied and happy. “That was…” Jungwon trails off.

“Yeah.”

“We should probably do that again sometime.”

“Definitely.” He laughs and pulls you closer, pressing a kiss to your forehead. You settle against his chest, listening to his heartbeat, feeling utterly content.

“Hey,” he says after a while. “Can I ask you something weird?”

“Always.”

“Do you ever feel like… like we’ve done this before? Not the sex,” he clarifies quickly. “Just… this. Us. Being together. Like we’ve been here before.”

Your heart skips. “Yeah. All the time.”

“Really?”

“Really. I can’t explain it. But from the moment we met, I felt like I knew you. Like we were supposed to find each other.”

“Me too.” He’s quiet for a moment. “My roommate thinks I’m crazy.”

“My roommate thinks I’m rushing into things.”

“Are we? Rushing?”

You think about it. Six weeks is fast. But it doesn’t feel fast. It feels inevitable. “I don’t think so,” you say. “I think… I think sometimes you just know. When something’s right.”

“Yeah.” He tightens his arms around you. “I think you’re right.”

You fall asleep like that, wrapped around each other, and you dream of things you can’t quite remember when you wake. Battles and hospitals and sinking ships. A jungle. A burning building. And through it all, his face. Always his face.

You’re officially together by December. Boyfriend and girlfriend. You changed your relationship status on social media and everything.

Mina has stopped asking if you’re sure and started asking when you’re getting married, which is ridiculous because you’re only twenty-one, but sometimes you look at Jungwon and think yes, that one, forever. Which is insane. You’ve only known him for three months. But it doesn’t feel like three months. It feels like always.

It’s winter break now. Most students have gone home, but you and Jungwon both stayed on campus— you have a research project, he has lab work. Which means you basically have the whole university to yourselves.

Tonight, you’re at his apartment (he moved off-campus this semester) cooking dinner together. Or rather, you’re cooking while he sits on the counter and provides commentary. “You’re going to burn the chicken,” he observes.

“I’m not going to burn the chicken.”

“The pan is smoking.”

“That’s just—” You check the pan. It’s definitely smoking. “Okay, fine. You do it.” He laughs and hops down, gently moving you aside to take over. Within minutes, he’s rescued the chicken and gotten everything under control.

“I thought you said you couldn’t cook,” you accuse.

“I said I’m terrible at cooking. Doesn’t mean I can’t do basic stuff. I just prefer not to.”

“So you’ve been letting me struggle this whole time?”

“I like watching you try.”

You swat him with a dish towel and he catches your wrist, pulling you against him. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi yourself.” He kisses you, slow and sweet, and you melt into him. Three months in and he still makes your knees weak.

Dinner is actually good— turns out Jungwon can cook when properly motivated. You eat on his tiny balcony despite the cold, wrapped in blankets, watching the city lights. “I have something for you,” Jungwon says when you’re both finished eating.

“It’s not Christmas yet.”

“I know. But I saw this and thought of you and I couldn’t wait.” He pulls out a small wrapped box from his pocket.

“Jungwon—”

“Just open it.”

You unwrap it carefully. Inside is a delicate silver necklace with a tiny moon pendant. “Oh,” you breathe. “It’s beautiful.”

“I know you love looking at the moon. You always point it out when we’re walking at night. And I just… I wanted you to have something that reminded you of…” He trails off, looking embarrassed. “This is cheesy, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfect.” You kiss him. “Help me put it on?” He fastens the necklace around your neck, his fingers gentle on your skin. The pendant rests just below your collarbone, catching the light.

“Beautiful,” he murmurs, but he’s looking at you, not the necklace.

That night, you make love in his bed, slow and tender. You’ve gotten better at it over the past few months— learned what each other likes, how to move together, how to make it good for both of you. When you’re both satisfied and drowsy, you curl up against his chest.

“I love you,” you say. It’s the first time either of you have said it. You’ve been thinking it for weeks, but you weren’t sure if it was too soon, if it would scare him off.

Jungwon goes very still. Then he tips your chin up so he can see your face. “You do?”

“Yeah. I do. I love you.”

“I love you too.” He says it like a revelation, like he’s just discovered something amazing. “I’ve been wanting to say it for weeks.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Scared. Didn’t want to freak you out.”

“You could never freak me out.”

“Good to know.” He kisses you again. “I love you. So much. More than I knew was possible.” You fall asleep in his arms, the moon pendant warm against your skin, and everything feels perfect.

Your POV

Spring semester is brutal. You’re both drowning in work— your senior thesis is due in two months, Jungwon is applying to medical schools and studying for the MCAT. You still see each other every day, but it’s different now. Stressed. Tired. Neither of you sleeping enough.

One evening in late March, you’re both in the library, sitting at the same table but working on separate things. You’ve been here for six hours. Your eyes are burning, your back hurts, and you’re pretty sure you’ve read the same paragraph seventeen times without retaining any information.

You glance at Jungwon. He’s hunched over his biochemistry textbook, highlighter in hand, looking exhausted. “Break?” you suggest.

“Can’t. This exam is in two days and I’m nowhere near ready.”

“You’ve been studying for weeks. You’re ready.”

“I’m not. There’s still three chapters I haven’t reviewed and—”

“Jungwon.” You reach across the table to take his hand. “Take a break. Ten minutes. Please.”

He looks like he wants to argue, but then he sees your face and sighs. “Okay. Ten minutes.”

You both step outside into the cool spring air. The campus is quiet— it’s almost midnight, most people are asleep or partying. You find a bench and sit, and Jungwon immediately slumps against you. “I’m so tired,” he mumbles.

“I know. Me too.”

“When does it get easier?”

“I don’t think it does. I think we just get better at handling hard.”

He laughs weakly. “Philosophical.”

“I’m a history major. We’re all secretly philosophers.” You sit in comfortable silence for a while. The moon is visible through the trees, nearly full.

“Look,” you say, pointing. “The moon.”

Jungwon looks up, and something crosses his face. Something you can’t quite read. “It’s beautiful,” he says quietly.

“Makes me think of the necklace you gave me.” You touch the pendant, which you wear every day. “Do you ever wonder if the moon gets lonely? Just hanging up there, watching everyone?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Or maybe it’s comforting. Being able to witness everything. All the love stories, all the lives, all the history.” There’s something strange in his voice. Something distant.

“You okay?” you ask.

“Yeah. Just… sometimes I get this feeling. Like I’m supposed to remember something important but I can’t quite grasp it.” He shakes his head. “Ignore me. I’m sleep-deprived and saying weird things.”

“I get that feeling too sometimes.”

He turns to look at you. “You do?”

“Yeah. Especially when I’m with you. Like there’s something just out of reach. Something I should know.” You’re both quiet, staring at each other, and the moment feels heavy with meaning you can’t articulate.

“Weird,” Jungwon says finally.

“Yeah. Weird.” You go back to studying, but the feeling lingers.

—

It happens on a Tuesday.

You’re driving back from the library— late night, you stayed to finish a research paper. You’re tired, ready to collapse into bed. The light is green. You’re sure it’s green. You start through the intersection and— impact.

The car hits yours from the side, metal crunching, glass shattering. The world spins. Your head slams against something. And then everything goes dark.

Jungwon’s POV

Jungwon is in his apartment, half-asleep on the couch with a textbook on his chest, when his phone rings. Unknown number. He almost doesn’t answer. “Hello?”

“Is this Yang Jungwon?” A woman’s voice, professional and careful.

“Yes?”

“This is Mercy General Hospital. You’re listed as the emergency contact for—”

His blood turns to ice. “What happened? Is she okay? What happened?”

“There’s been an accident. A car accident. She’s alive, but she’s unconscious. You should come to the hospital as soon as possible.”

Jungwon doesn’t remember the drive. One minute he’s in his apartment, the next he’s running through the hospital corridors, demanding to know where you are. They lead him to a room in the ICU. You’re there, lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to machines. Your face is pale, bruised. There’s a bandage around your head.

“Oh god,” he breathes.

A doctor intercepts him before he can reach you. “Mr. Yang?”

“How is she? What happened?”

“She was hit by another vehicle. Traumatic brain injury, some internal bleeding. We’ve stabilized her, but she’s in a coma.”

“A coma.”

“Her brain is swelling. We’re monitoring closely. The next 24-48 hours are critical.”

Jungwon sinks into a chair, his legs giving out. “Can I—can I sit with her?”

“Of course.”

He pulls a chair to your bedside and takes your hand. It’s cold. “I’m here,” he whispers. “I’m right here. You’re going to be okay. You have to be okay.”

The machines beep steadily. Your chest rises and falls. But you don’t respond. Jungwon sits there for hours. Days. He leaves only when forced, only for bathroom breaks and when the nurses make him eat something.

He talks to you. Tells you about his day, about stupid things happening in his classes, about how much he misses you. Begs you to wake up. On the third day, your eyes open.

Your POV

You wake up slowly, consciousness returning in pieces. White ceiling. Fluorescent lights. Beeping sounds. The smell of antiseptic. Hospital. You try to sit up and pain lances through your head.

“Hey, hey, don’t move.” A familiar voice. Warm hands gently pushing you back down. “You’re okay. You’re in the hospital. You were in an accident.”

You turn your head— slowly, because it hurts— and see Jungwon. And suddenly, you remember everything. Not just this life. Not just Jungwon the pre-med student you’ve been dating for nine months. You remember everything.

1770. A field hospital, a dying soldier, promises whispered under candlelight. 1850s. An arranged marriage that became real love, tuberculosis stealing him away. 1912. The Titanic, stolen moments, his face disappearing into chaos. 1969. Vietnam, journal entries, a letter written the day before he died. 2001. September 11th, a phone call, watching towers fall.

Five lifetimes. Five times you’ve found each other. Five times you’ve lost each other. And now this. Now here. You gasp, tears streaming down your face. “You,” you sob. “It’s you. It’s always been you.”

He looks confused and worried. “What? Hey, it’s okay, you’re probably disoriented—”

“I remember,” you say desperately. “I remember all of it. The hospital in 1770. Our wedding in 1850. The ship. The war. The towers. I remember, Jungwon. I remember everything.”

He goes very still. “What did you just say?”

“I remember. All the lifetimes. All the times we found each other and lost each other. The moon— you always asked if the moon remembers us. And you always said you’d find me in the next life. And you did. You always did.”

Jungwon is staring at you, his face white. “How do you—” His voice breaks. “How do you know about that?”

“Because I was there. I was there every time. And so were you.”

“I thought I was crazy,” he whispers. “I’ve been having these dreams since I was a kid. Different times, different lives, but always you. Always the same person. I thought they were just dreams. Just my brain making up stories.”

“They weren’t dreams. They were memories.” You’re both crying now, holding onto each other like you’re drowning.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Jungwon says. “My whole life, I’ve been looking for you. And when I saw you that day on campus, I knew. I knew it was you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because it sounded insane! How do you tell someone you just met that you’ve loved them for centuries? That you remember dying in their arms in a field hospital in 1770?”

“You remember that?”

“I remember all of it. Every lifetime. Every death. Every promise I made to find you again.” He cups your face. “And here you are. You’re finally here and you remember me.”

“I almost died,” you realize. “That’s why I remember now. Being so close to death triggered the memories.”

“I don’t care why. I’m just glad you do.” He kisses you desperately. “I love you. I’ve loved you for lifetimes. Literal lifetimes.”

“I love you too. In every life, I’ve loved you.” You hold each other, crying and laughing and trying to process the impossible truth: you’ve lived before. Multiple times. And every single time, you’ve found each other. And every single time, you’ve lost each other.

“Not this time,” Jungwon says fiercely, like he can read your thoughts. “This time we’re not losing each other. This time we get our happy ending.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I’m not letting you go. Not for anything. We’ve waited too long. Suffered too much. This time, we’re keeping each other.” You want to believe him. God, you want to believe him. But you’ve believed before. And it’s never been enough.

Six Months Later - Your POV

You recover from the accident slowly but completely. The doctors call it a miracle— the brain injury should have had lasting effects, but somehow you’re fine. You know it’s not a miracle. It’s something else. Something to do with the lifetimes, with the universe giving you another chance.

You and Jungwon are inseparable now. Not in the cute couple way— in the “we’ve literally died and been reborn six times to find each other” way. You talk about the past lives constantly. Comparing memories, filling in gaps. He remembers things you don’t. You remember things he doesn’t. Together, you piece together the full story.

“In 1770, you promised me a dance,” you tell him one night.

“Did I?”

“You said when you were healed, you’d take me dancing. But you died before you could.”

“Then I owe you a dance.” He stands, offering his hand. “May I have this dance?”

There’s no music, but he pulls you into his arms anyway, swaying with you in the middle of his living room. You rest your head on his chest and close your eyes. “This is nice,” you murmur.

“Better late than never.”

“Only about 250 years late.”

He laughs. “I’m nothing if not punctual.”

You dance until you’re both tired, then collapse on the couch together. “Do you think it will happen again?” you ask quietly. “Do you think we’ll lose each other?”

“I don’t know.” His arm tightens around you. “But even if we do, I’ll find you again. I always do.”

“That’s not comforting. I don’t want to lose you again. I don’t want to go through that pain.”

“Me neither. But if I had to choose between loving you and losing you, or never loving you at all? I’d choose loving you every time.”

You know he means it. Across five lifetimes, through wars and sickness and disasters, he’s chosen to love you every single time. “Marry me,” you say suddenly. “We’ve wasted enough time across enough lifetimes. Let’s not waste any more.”

“Are you serious?”

“Completely serious. I love you. You love me. We’ve loved each other for centuries. Why wait?”

A slow smile spreads across his face. “Okay. Yes. Let’s get married. Let’s do it right this time. Let’s build the life we’ve never gotten to have.”

You kiss him, laughing and crying at the same time. “When?”

“Now. Tomorrow. Next week. I don’t care. Whenever you want.”

“Next month,” you decide. “Small ceremony. Just us and a few friends. Nothing fancy.”

“Perfect.”

You get married in October, in a small ceremony in Central Park. You wear a simple white dress. He wears a suit. Mina and Jake are there, along with a handful of other friends. The officiant asks if you have your own vows.

“I do,” Jungwon says, taking your hands. “I’ve loved you in more lifetimes than most people get to experience. I’ve died loving you. I’ve been reborn to find you. And every single time, choosing you has been the easiest decision I’ve ever made. This time, I’m choosing you for the rest of this life. However long that is. I’m choosing you every day, in every way. I love you. I’ve always loved you. I will always love you.”

You’re crying. “I promise to love you for the rest of this life and whatever comes after. I promise to remember. I promise to choose you, just like you’ve chosen me, across time and space and whatever separates us. You’re my home. You always have been.”

“I now pronounce you husband and wife.” He kisses you, and it tastes like forever.

Fifteen Years Later

You’re both in your fifties now. Jungwon is a successful cardiologist. You’re a tenured professor with three published books. You never have kids. It’s a choice you make together— you’ve lost each other too many times, you can’t imagine bringing children into that uncertainty. 

Instead, you pour your love into each other, into your careers, into making the world a little bit better. Jungwon volunteers at free clinics. You mentor graduate students. You both donate to causes you believe in. Your lives are full and meaningful and happy.

One evening, you’re both at a gala for Jungwon’s hospital. Fancy clothes, fancy food, schmoozing with donors. It’s not your favorite thing, but you do it for him. During the dancing portion of the evening, he pulls you onto the floor. “Remember when I promised you a dance in 1770?” he says, one hand on your waist, the other holding yours.

“You mean the dance we had in your apartment about twenty years ago?”

“That was a down payment. This is the real thing.”

You laugh and let him lead you around the floor. He’s a good dancer— you both are, after years of these events. “Do you ever regret it?” you ask quietly. “Choosing me? Building a life with someone who carries all this history?”

“Never. Not for a single second.” He pulls you closer. “Do you?”

“No. But sometimes I wonder what it would have been like. If we’d been normal people. If we’d met in just this lifetime and didn’t carry all that weight.”

“We wouldn’t be us. All those lifetimes, all that loss— it made us who we are. It taught us to appreciate what we have. To not take a single moment for granted.”

“That’s true.” You rest your head on his shoulder. “I love you.”

“I love you too. In this life and every other.” 

You’re not sure what the future holds. You’re not sure if the two of you broke the cycle. But right here, in 2026, is all that matters. You found eachother after seven lifetimes.

You know your neighbors the way you know background characters in a movie you’ve seen too many times. Familiar. Unremarkable. Just part of the scenery.

Which is why it’s strange that you’ve never properly noticed the man in 3A. You’ve seen him, obviously. In passing. At the mailboxes. Once in the car park when you were both leaving at the same time and did that awkward thing where you both reached for the door simultaneously and then laughed and said sorry at the same time. He’s tall. Dark hair. Has a nice face in the vague way that you register nice faces without really looking at them.

He moved in about eight months ago. Keeps to himself. Quiet. You’ve never heard a peep through the wall you share, which you appreciate deeply after two years of listening to the previous tenant’s aggressive taste in late night television. You know his name is Jake because it’s on the mailbox.

That’s it. That’s the extent of your knowledge of the man in 3A. Until 6:58 on a Tuesday morning when someone knocks on your door.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

You are not a morning person. You are, in fact, the opposite of a morning person. You are someone who sets four alarms and ignores three of them and considers getting out of bed before eight a personal attack. Your first class doesn’t start until ten. You were planning to sleep until at least eight thirty, mainline coffee until nine, and leave with approximately four minutes to spare.

So when someone knocks on your door at 6:58 AM you lie there for a full thirty seconds convincing yourself you imagined it. Then it happens again. Small. Rhythmic. Insistent. knock knock knock

You groan into your pillow. Drag yourself upright. Pull on the hoodie hanging off your desk chair and shuffle to the door, hair catastrophic, eyes barely open, prepared to be deeply unpleasant to whoever is on the other side.

You open the door. There is no one there. You blink. Look left. Look right. The hallway is empty and quiet and— “Hi.”

You look down. There is a child sitting on the floor outside your door. She is approximately three years old, round-cheeked and bright-eyed, wearing a yellow pajama set covered in tiny ducks. Her dark hair is escaping from two lopsided pigtails. She has a serious expression on her face like she has somewhere important to be and is merely pausing here briefly.

She is, without any competition, the most adorable thing you have ever seen in your entire life. You stare at her. She stares back. “Hi,” she says again, very patient, like she’s giving you time to catch up.

“Hi,” you manage. “Um. Who are you?”

She considers this question with great seriousness. “Mia.”

“Okay. Hi Mia.” You look up and down the empty hallway again. “Where did you come from?” She points at the door directly across from yours. 3A. “Are you—” You crouch down to her level. “Did you come out of your apartment by yourself?”

“Mr. Bunny is lost,” she explains, as if this answers everything. And apparently, in her world, it does. She stands up, remarkably steady on her feet for someone so small, and peers past you into your apartment with undisguised curiosity. “Is he in there?”

“Is who— Mr. Bunny? I don’t think so, sweetheart. I haven’t seen any—”

“Can I look?”

“I— well—” She’s already walking past you into your apartment.

You stand in your doorway, blinking slowly, watching a three year old you have never met toddle into your living room and start investigating with the focused energy of a tiny detective. She checks under the coffee table. Behind the couch cushions. She picks up one of your throw pillows, examines it, puts it back. “He’s not here,” she announces, sounding genuinely disappointed.

“I’m sorry.” You’re fully awake now, adrenaline doing what four alarms couldn’t. “Mia, does your dad know where you are?”

She looks at you. Blinks. And then, for the first time, something flickers across her face that isn’t complete confidence. Something small and uncertain. “Daddy’s sleeping,” she says quietly.

Oh no. Oh no.

“Okay,” you say, very carefully, going into full calm adult mode even though internally you are having a minor crisis. “Okay, that’s okay. Let’s go wake daddy up, yeah?”

You take her hand — she gives it to you immediately, tiny fingers wrapping around yours with complete trust, and something in your chest does something weird and unexpected — and you walk her across the hall to 3A.

You knock. Nothing. You knock louder. A crash. Muffled swearing. Footsteps. The door flies open.

Jake Sim, your neighbor from 3A, looks absolutely terrible. He’s in gray sweatpants and no shirt, hair destroyed, eyes wild with the specific panic of a parent who has woken up to find their child missing. There’s a pillow crease down his left cheek. He looks like a man who has just experienced the worst thirty seconds of his life.

He looks down at Mia standing beside you, her hand still in yours, looking up at him with the expression of someone who has done absolutely nothing wrong. The relief that crosses his face is so profound it’s almost painful to witness. “Mia.” His voice comes out wrecked. He drops to his knees right there in the doorway, gathering her up, holding her against his chest. She pats his back tolerantly. “Mia, I— you can’t— how did you—”

“I was looking for Mr. Bunny,” she explains into his shoulder, very reasonable.

“You can’t leave the apartment by yourself, baby, I’ve told you—”

“But Mr. Bunny—”

“I don’t care about Mr. Bunny right now—”

“Daddy.” She pulls back to look at him, deeply offended. “Mr. Bunny cares.”

You press your lips together very hard to keep from smiling. Jake looks up at you over Mia’s head, and he looks so mortified you almost feel sorry for him. Almost. It would be easier to feel sorry for him if he didn’t look — even rumpled and panicked and creased from sleep — really quite unfairly attractive. You file that observation away to examine later, when a child is not present.

“I’m so sorry,” he says. “I’m so, so sorry, she’s never done this before, I don’t know how she got the door open—”

“She knocked,” you tell him. “Very politely.”

He closes his eyes briefly. “Oh god.”

“I used my reaching stool,” Mia informs him helpfully. “For the handle.”

“We’re getting rid of the reaching stool,” Jake tells her.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“Daddy, no—”

“Mia.” He pulls back to look at her properly, and his voice goes soft but serious. “You scared me. Really scared me, okay? You cannot leave without waking me up first. Ever. Do you understand?”

She looks at him. Her lip wobbles, just slightly. “I just wanted Mr. Bunny.”

“I know, baby.” He pulls her back in, pressing a kiss to her hair. “I know. But you have to wake me up. Promise me.”

“Promise,” she mumbles into his neck.

He holds her for another moment, and you feel like you’re witnessing something private. Something that belongs to them. You take a small step back. “I’ll let you—”

“Wait.” Jake stands, Mia on his hip, and looks at you with an expression that’s somehow equal parts exhausted and sincere. “I really am sorry. And thank you. Genuinely, thank you for— I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if she’d gone downstairs instead of just across the hall.”

“She was perfectly safe,” you say. “She was very focused on her investigation.”

“Mr. Bunny is lost,” Mia reminds both of you gravely.

“We’ll find him,” Jake tells her. Then to you: “I’m Jake, by the way. Since apparently we’ve been neighbors for eight months and I’ve never actually introduced myself, which is—”

“Terrible,” you supply.

“Yeah.” He winces. “Yeah, it really is. I’m sorry about that too.”

“Y/N,” you tell him. “3B.”

“I know. I’ve seen your name on the mailbox.” He shifts Mia on his hip. She has turned to look at you with renewed interest, the Mr. Bunny crisis temporarily suspended. “I kept meaning to knock and introduce myself properly but then time just—”

“It does that,” you agree.

He smiles. It’s a tired smile, still coming down from the panic, but it’s genuine. It does something to his face that you also file away for later. Mia is still staring at you. “You have pretty hair,” she announces.

“Mia—” Jake starts.

“Thank you,” you tell her seriously. “Yours is very pretty too.”

She reaches up and touches one of her lopsided pigtails, considering. “Daddy did it,” she says, with the tone of someone being very diplomatic about a disappointing situation.

You look at Jake. He looks back at you. The pigtails are genuinely quite bad. “I’m working on it,” he says.

“We could—” You stop yourself. You don’t even know this man. You’ve spoken to him for approximately four minutes. “Never mind.”

“No, what?”

“I was just going to say I could show you. If you wanted. It’s not— it’s easy once you know the trick.” You gesture vaguely. “But you probably have things to—”

“I would love that,” Jake says immediately. “Genuinely. Every morning is a disaster. She came home from daycare last week and her teacher had written a note that said ‘we love Mia’s creative hairstyles’ and I’m pretty sure that was a polite way of saying—”

“Daddy can’t do hair,” Mia explains to you, very straightforward.

“I cannot do hair,” Jake confirms.

You laugh. Actually laugh, fully awake now, standing in the hallway at seven in the morning in your old hoodie with your own hair catastrophic, and it surprises you a little. How easy it is. How natural. “Come over tomorrow morning,” you find yourself saying. “Before daycare. I’ll show you a couple of things.”

Jake looks at you like you’ve offered him something much more significant than a hair tutorial. “You don’t have to—”

“I know.” You crouch down to Mia’s level. “I hope you find Mr. Bunny.”

She studies you with those serious dark eyes. Then she reaches out and puts her small hand on your cheek, very gentle, the way toddlers sometimes do when they’re deciding something important about you. “You’re nice,” she declares.

“So are you,” you tell her. She nods, satisfied, like this has confirmed something she already suspected.

Then she tucks her face back into Jake’s neck, done with the interaction, and Jake gives you a helpless sort of smile over her head. “Thank you,” he says again. “Really.”

“Anytime.” You stand up and take a step back toward your own door. “And Jake?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe put a chain lock on. Up high. Before tonight.”

He looks at the door. Looks at Mia. Looks back at you with the expression of a man who has just realized how many things there are to think about when you’re doing this alone. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “Yeah, good call.”

You don’t go back to sleep. You make coffee and sit on your couch and think about the way Mia put her hand on your cheek like she was taking your measure. The way she gave you her hand without hesitating, tiny fingers trusting yours completely.

The way Jake held her when he found her safe. Like she was the most important thing in the world, which she obviously was, which was obvious in every single line of his body.

You think about his apartment, which you caught a glimpse of through the open door. The small pair of shoes by the entrance. The sticker on the light switch at toddler height. The general chaos of someone who is managing, but only just. You think about the note from the daycare teacher and the terrible pigtails and the way he said I’m working on it without a single drop of self pity.

You finish your coffee. Make another one. You have a feeling that next door is going to become a lot more complicated than background noise and a name on a mailbox.

You’re not sure yet if that’s a good thing. But when you close your eyes you can still feel the ghost of small fingers wrapped around yours and you think— yeah. Yeah, you’re probably already in trouble.

Mr. Bunny turns up two days later. He is in the freezer. Neither Jake nor Mia can explain how he got there.

You laugh about it for five minutes straight when Jake texts you, and then you look at your phone and realize you’ve been texting your neighbor for two days like it’s completely normal and you’ve known him for years. You put your phone down. Pick it up again. Type back: at least he’s preserved.

Jake sends back a string of crying laughing emojis and then: Mia wants me to tell you that Mr. Bunny says thank you for looking for him

You smile so hard your face hurts. You are, you realize, completely and utterly done for. And you haven’t even properly met him yet.

The hair tutorial happens on Wednesday morning. You hear them before you see them — Mia’s voice carrying clearly through the wall at seven fifteen, a stream of cheerful commentary about something, Jake’s lower voice responding, the particular domestic chaos of someone trying to get a toddler ready for daycare on a schedule. Then a knock at your door.

You open it to find Jake holding Mia like a football under one arm, a hairbrush in his free hand, and the expression of a man who has already lost this morning’s battle comprehensively.

Mia is upside down and completely unbothered. “Hi,” she says, from her inverted position.

“Hi,” you say. You step back and open the door wider. “Come in.”

They troop inside, Jake setting Mia down on her feet in your living room where she immediately begins a thorough reinvestigation of the space, picking up where she left off two days ago. She examines your bookshelf. Touches the small succulent on your windowsill very gently with one finger. “Plant,” she observes.

“His name is Gerald,” you tell her.

She looks at you. Looks at Gerald. Looks back at you with the gravity of someone receiving important information. “Hi Gerald,” she says politely. Jake makes a sound that might be him trying not to laugh.

“Okay.” You take the hairbrush from him. “Sit her up on the couch and I’ll show you.”

What follows is twenty minutes that you will think about for the rest of the week for reasons you can’t entirely explain.

Mia sits between your knees on the couch, remarkably patient once she’s settled, holding Gerald the succulent in her lap because she asked and you said yes and Jake gave you a look that suggested he has learned to pick his battles. You work through her hair slowly, showing Jake each step — how to section it, how to hold the hair so it doesn’t pull, how to make the pigtails sit even.

He watches with the focused attention of someone who is genuinely trying to learn this. Not just nodding along but asking questions, asking you to slow down, watching your hands. At one point he leans in close to see what you’re doing and you’re very aware of how near he is and the fact that he smells like clean laundry and something warm underneath.

You focus on Mia’s hair. “The trick,” you tell him, “is that you do both sides before you tie either one off. Otherwise the first one pulls when you do the second.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing wrong,” he says. He sounds genuinely relieved, like you’ve solved something that’s been bothering him for months. Which, apparently, you have. “I couldn’t work out why they always went lopsided.”

“They were very lopsided,” Mia agrees pleasantly.

“Thanks, Mia.”

“You’re welcome, Daddy.”

You finish, tying off the second pigtail with the elastic, and smooth a hand over her hair. Perfect and even and neat. She reaches up and touches them carefully. “Pretty?” she asks.

“Very pretty,” you confirm.

She twists to look up at you, satisfied. Then she holds Gerald out. “You can have him back.”

“Thank you for taking care of him.”

“He was scared,” she explains seriously. “He doesn’t know me yet.” She places him very carefully back on the windowsill, patting the pot once. “It’s okay Gerald. I’m nice.”

Jake is watching his daughter with this expression — quiet and soft and a little undone at the edges — and when he catches you looking at him he clears his throat and looks away. Picks up the hairbrush from the cushion beside him. “Right,” he says. “We should get going. Daycare at eight.”

“Nooooo,” Mia says, without any real conviction. She’s already moving toward the door with the pragmatic acceptance of someone who knows the schedule.

“Thank you,” Jake says to you. He means it. You can tell he means it in that way where the words are bigger than they sound. “Seriously. This was—”

“It’s just pigtails.”

“It’s not just—” He stops. Starts again. “She talks about you. Since Tuesday. You’re the pretty lady from across the hall.”

Your face warms. “That’s very generous of her.”

“She’s got good taste.” He says it simply, matter of fact, and then looks slightly like he didn’t mean to say it quite like that. “I mean— she’s a good judge of character. Generally.”

“Y/N,” Mia calls from the doorway where she is putting her shoes on the wrong feet with great confidence.

“Yeah?”

She looks up at you. “Will you be here tomorrow?”

Something squeezes in your chest. “Yeah, I’ll be here.”

She nods, satisfied, like this is settled. Like you have made a commitment and she is holding you to it. Then she holds her foot up at Jake. “Daddy. Shoes.”

Jake crouches down to fix them, and you lean against your doorframe and watch, and you think about what Liv said to you once about knowing when something is going to change your life. How you can feel it sometimes. The specific weight of a moment that’s about to matter.

You feel it now, watching Jake tie his daughter’s shoes in your doorway at seven forty in the morning while she holds your door handle for balance and hums something tuneless to herself. You feel it, and you file it away with everything else, and you tell yourself it’s too early for any of this and you need coffee.

You leave cookies outside 3A that afternoon. You don’t examine why. You made a batch because you were stress baking about an assignment and you made too many and they were just sitting there and Jake mentioned once — in the mailbox, months ago, one of those nothing conversations you’d forgotten until now — that Mia liked anything with chocolate.

You leave them outside the door in a container with a post it note that says for Mia (and you, if you want) and then you go back inside and finish your assignment and don’t think about it.

At nine fifteen that night your phone buzzes: jake 3a: she ate four before I could stop her and is now absolutely feral and won’t sleep. I’m blaming you

You grin at your phone. you: that’s fair

jake 3a: they were really good though like genuinely really good. Did you make them from scratch?

you: yes

jake 3a: of course you did

jake 3a: I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means, that came out weird. I just mean they were better than anything I could make. I’m a terrible baker.

you: how terrible?

jake 3a: I made Mia a birthday cake in August and it came out flat and she cried

you: oh no

jake 3a: not because of the cake. She thought it was funny. She cried laughing. It was actually one of the best moments of my life which probably tells you everything about my standards right now

You’re smiling at your phone like an idiot. you: I’ll make the cake next time. You send it before you’ve fully decided to, and then stare at it. It’s October. You’ve just committed to being in this man’s life until at least next August.

Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again. jake 3a: you really don’t have to

you: I want to. she told Gerald not to be scared because she was nice. I feel like she deserves a good birthday cake.

jake 3a: yeah she really does

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

The drawing appears under your door on Thursday morning. You almost step on it when you come out of your bedroom, a folded piece of paper on your doormat. You pick it up and unfold it and find a crayon drawing — several figures of varying heights and proportions, all labeled in Jake’s handwriting because Mia clearly directed and he transcribed.

Mia. Daddy. Gerald. Mr Bunny. And then, on the end, slightly larger than the others, with yellow crayon hair: Y/N. She’s drawn you into her family portrait.

You stand in your kitchen holding a crayon drawing with yellow-haired you standing next to a rectangle that is apparently Gerald and you feel something crack open in your chest so softly and so completely that you have to sit down.

You take a photo of it. You put the original on your fridge. You text Jake a photo of it on the fridge and he doesn’t respond for ten minutes and when he does it just says: jake 3a: she worked on it for an hour last night

jake 3a: kept starting over because she wanted to get your hair right

You stare at that message for a long time. you: tell her I love it

jake 3a: she’s going to lose her mind. also she asked if you want to come to the park with us Saturday

Three dots. Then: jake 3a: I want that too, for what it’s worth. If you’re free.

You look at the drawing on your fridge. Yellow-haired you, standing in a row with Mia and Daddy and Gerald and Mr. Bunny like you’ve always been there. you: I’m free Saturday

Saturday at the park is easy in a way that surprises you. You’d half expected it to be awkward — the three of you, still essentially strangers, trying to fill silence in an open space. But Mia eliminates the possibility of silence entirely. She has opinions about the swings (good), the slide (excellent, requires multiple repetitions), and the ducks by the small pond at the park’s edge (deeply suspicious, do not approach).

“They’re just ducks,” Jake tells her.

“They’re watching,” she says.

“They’re not watching.”

“Daddy.” She gives him a very patient look. “They are watching.”

Jake looks at you. You shrug. “They do look pretty focused,” you offer.

He points at you. “Don’t encourage her.”

Mia takes your hand and pulls you toward the swings, away from the ducks and away from Jake’s protests, and you go because she’s three and determined and her hand is in yours and you’ve decided that’s reason enough for basically anything at this point.

You push her on the swings while Jake sits on the bench nearby, and you watch him watching the two of you. He has his elbows on his knees and his face is open in a way you’re starting to learn is rare for him — in a crowd or with strangers he goes carefully neutral, pleasant but contained. But here, watching Mia go higher and higher and shriek with delight, he looks unguarded. Younger, somehow. Like something in him relaxes when it’s just the three of you. “Higher!” Mia demands.

“You’re already very high,” you tell her.

“Higher.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Please.”

“Nice try.”

She cackles. Pure delighted toddler sound, head thrown back. And you find yourself laughing too, pushing her at this very reasonable height, and when you look over at Jake he’s smiling at you with an expression you don’t quite have a name for yet. You look away first.

After the swings, Mia finds a stick, which becomes the most important object in the world for the next twenty minutes. She examines rocks. She makes Jake carry her on his shoulders. She falls asleep on the walk home with her cheek on his head and one fist clutching his jacket, completely unconscious, utterly trusting.

Jake walks carefully, holding her legs, talking to you in a low voice so he doesn’t wake her. “She doesn’t do this with many people,” he says.

“Fall asleep?”

“Trust people.” He adjusts his grip on her. “She’s friendly, obviously, she’ll talk to anyone. But she doesn’t— she doesn’t hold hands with people she doesn’t know. She doesn’t draw people.” He pauses. “She drew you in four days.”

You don’t know what to say to that. So you say, “she’s special.”

“Yeah.” His voice is quiet. “She really is.”

You walk in silence for a moment, the easy kind. “How long has it been?” you ask. “Just the two of you.”

He doesn’t tense the way you half expect him to. Just exhales, slow and steady. “Since she was four months old. Her mom left.” He says it flat, without bitterness, which somehow makes it worse. Like he’s had a long time to practice saying it that way. “Just— left. Packed a bag while I was at work. By the time I got home it was just us.”

“Jake—”

“It’s fine now.” He glances at you sideways. “It wasn’t, for a long time. But it’s fine now. It’s good, actually. It’s really good.” He looks up at Mia’s sleeping face. “She’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I didn’t know it was possible to love someone this much.”

You look at him. At the way he holds her. At the careful tenderness of it. “She knows,” you say softly. He looks at you. “That she’s loved like that. You can tell.” You hold his gaze. “She knows.”

Something moves through his expression. Quick and unguarded and gone before you can name it. “Thanks,” he says quietly.

You walk the rest of the way home in comfortable silence, Mia asleep above you, the afternoon sun going golden through the trees lining the street. It is, you think, a very good Saturday.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

It becomes a routine without either of you deciding it should. Wednesday mornings, Jake knocks with the hairbrush. You do Mia’s hair while she holds Gerald and narrates her thoughts about the day ahead. Jake makes coffee in your kitchen like he knows where everything is, which after three weeks he does.

Saturdays are the park, or the farmers market two streets over, or just the three of you on one of your balconies eating whatever Jake has cooked because it turns out that while he cannot bake to save his life he is an genuinely excellent cook and he seems to enjoy having someone to cook for.

Evenings sometimes, when Mia’s in bed and Jake knocks quietly and you sit on his couch and watch something and talk about nothing in particular until one of you falls asleep.

It is domestic and soft and easy. It is also, you are increasingly aware, becoming something that would hurt to lose.

Mia calls you her Y/N now. Not just Y/N. Her Y/N, possessive and certain, the way she says her daddy and her Mr. Bunny and her Gerald. You are hers in her taxonomy of the world and the certainty of it does something to your chest every single time.

She tells the woman at the bakery you buy her the jam scroll she likes every Saturday. She tells a child at the park. She tells Mrs. Kim from 1A who coos and looks between you and Jake with an expression that makes Jake find something fascinating to look at on the middle distance.

You’re folding laundry in your apartment on a Thursday evening, three weeks in, when Jake knocks. You open the door. He’s holding two containers of leftover pasta, still warm. He holds one out. “Made too much,” he says.

You take it. Step back to let him in. This is how it goes now. “Mia asleep?” you ask.

“Out cold. She had daycare and then apparently spent an hour reorganizing her stuffed animals by color.” He sits on your couch. “It took everything she had.”

You sit beside him, open the pasta. It’s good — it’s always good. “Did the reorganization meet her standards?”

“She made me come and approve it before bed.” He pauses. “Mr. Bunny is in the orange section even though he’s gray.”

“He has warm undertones,” you say seriously.

Jake looks at you. Starts laughing. Not the polite laugh of someone being friendly but the real one, the one that takes over his whole face, and you’ve been cataloguing that laugh for weeks now, the way it comes out surprised sometimes like he forgot he was allowed to do it.

You’re laughing too, both of you over toddler stuffed animal color theory at eight PM with pasta containers in your laps, and when the laughter settles it leaves something warm and quiet in its place.

Jake is looking at you. Not the quick sideways glances you’ve been trading for weeks. Really looking, steady and open, and you feel it the way you feel a change in weather. The pressure of it. The way the air shifts. “Y/N,” he says.

“Yeah?”

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Looks down at his pasta container, turning it in his hands. “Nothing. Never mind. It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

He looks at you again and this time he doesn’t look away. “I really like spending time with you.”

You hold his gaze. “I really like spending time with you too.”

“I haven’t—” He exhales. “I haven’t wanted to spend time with someone like this in a long time. Maybe ever. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

The honesty of it lands softly. No performance, no deflection. Just him, telling you the truth. “I don’t either,” you say. “But I don’t think I want to stop.”

He looks at you for a long moment. Then he leans in, slow and deliberate, giving you every opportunity to pull back. You don’t pull back.

His mouth finds yours, gentle at first, questioning, and then you lean into it and it stops being a question. It’s warm and unhurried and it tastes like the pasta and something underneath that is just him, and when you finally break apart you’re both quiet, foreheads almost touching.

“Okay,” he says softly.

“Okay,” you agree.

He pulls back just slightly. His expression is open and a little nervous and more serious than the moment requires, or maybe exactly as serious as it requires. “I need to say something,” he says.

“Okay.”

“If we—” He pauses, choosing his words. “Whatever this is. Whatever it becomes. Mia comes first. Always. That’s non negotiable for me. I need you to know that going in.”

You look at him. At the set of his jaw, the quiet certainty in his eyes. A man who has built his whole life around a three year old with lopsided pigtails and a stuffed rabbit and absolute confidence in the people she decides are hers. “Jake,” you say.

“Yeah.”

“I know.” You hold his gaze. “I love her. She’s— she put her hand on my face the first morning and I was gone. I was completely gone.” You shake your head a little. “I think I fell for her before I even fell for you.”

Something moves across his face. Deep and quiet and undone.“Yeah?” he says, and his voice is rough at the edges.

“Yeah.” He kisses you again. Softer this time. Like something has been settled, like the last lock has clicked open. His hand comes up to cup your jaw and you lean into it and outside the window the city is doing whatever cities do at eight o’clock on a Thursday and in here it is warm and quiet and it feels, very specifically, like the beginning of something.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

The first time Mia is at the babysitter’s overnight, it’s an accident.

Not the overnight part — that’s planned. Sandy, Mia’s regular babysitter three streets over, has been asking for weeks if she can have Mia for a sleepover because her own grandchildren are visiting and Mia and the youngest, a boy named Theo, have formed the specific intense friendship that only exists between toddlers who have decided they are best friends after forty five minutes together at a playground.

Jake agrees because Mia asks with her whole body, bouncing on her toes, and because Sandy has been his lifeline for two and a half years and he trusts her completely. What’s accidental is what happens after.

He drops Mia off at four on a Friday afternoon. You’re not there — you have a late class — but when you get home at six thirty and knock on 3A because it’s become reflex, Jake opens the door and the apartment is quiet in a way it never is.

You’ve been in this apartment dozens of times now. You know its sounds. The particular creak of the second floorboard in the hall. The way the kitchen tap needs an extra turn to stop dripping. The constant ambient noise of Mia — her commentary, her singing, her negotiations with various stuffed animals about bedtime.

The silence is enormous. “Weird, right?” Jake says, reading your face.

“Really weird.” You step inside. “How long has she been gone?”

“Two hours.” He closes the door. “I’ve cleaned the whole apartment and reorganized the pantry and I don’t know what to do with myself.”

You look at the pantry, which is indeed immaculate. You look at Jake, who is in dark jeans and a simple white t-shirt and looks simultaneously very attractive and genuinely a little lost. “Have you eaten?” you ask.

“No.”

“Cook me something.”

Something in him settles. He moves into the kitchen, and you sit on the counter the way you’ve started doing, and he makes pasta — different from the other night, something with lemon and herbs — and you open the wine you brought from your apartment and it is easy, it is so easy, the way everything with him has become easy without you noticing it happening.

You eat at his kitchen table. You talk about your classes and his current project — branding for a new café opening in the city — and the book you’ve both apparently been meaning to read for months and never have. You talk about Mia, because you always talk about Mia, about the things she’s said recently that have floored you both. “She told me yesterday,” Jake says, “that she wants to be a paleontologist.”

“She’s three.”

“I know. I asked her what a paleontologist was and she said ‘a person who finds old bones’ and I have no idea where she learned that word.”

“That’s— that’s genuinely impressive.”

“She then said she also wants to be a cat.” He takes a sip of wine. “So. Range.” You’re laughing, and he’s laughing, and the kitchen is warm and the wine is good and at some point the laughter fades and you’re just looking at each other in the quiet.

It’s been two weeks since the kiss on your couch. Two weeks of nothing changing and everything changing — the same routine, the same easy rhythm, but with this new current running underneath it. His hand finding yours sometimes. The way he says goodbye now, at the door, that takes longer than it used to. The awareness of him that hums in your chest constantly, warm and insistent.

You haven’t had a night without Mia before. You’re both aware of it. “Y/N,” he says.

“Yeah.”

“Can I—” He stops. Starts again. His jaw works slightly, that tell you’ve learned. “I’ve been thinking about this. About us. And I want to— I want to do this properly. Take you on an actual date, not just—” He gestures at the table, the apartment, the comfortable domesticity of it. “Not just this. You deserve—”

“Jake.” You set down your glass. “I like this.”

“I know, but—”

“I mean I really like this.” You hold his gaze. “I don’t need a restaurant. I don’t need— I just want you. This. Whatever this is.” He looks at you for a long moment.

Then he pushes back from the table and crosses to you and kisses you like he’s been thinking about it all evening, one hand cupping your jaw, the other finding your waist. You slide off the counter and into him and he makes a low sound against your mouth that does something devastating to your concentration. “Stay tonight,” he says against your lips.

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Okay.”

You end up on his bed.

It happens slowly, the way things happen when there’s no rush, when the whole night stretches ahead and neither of you is going anywhere. He takes his time, unhurried and thorough, like he wants to learn you. Like you’re something worth learning.

He lays you back against his pillows and looks at you for a moment, just looks, and something about being seen like that — careful and wanting and completely focused — makes heat pool low in your stomach before he’s even touched you. “Hi,” he says softly.

“Hi,” you say back.

He leans down and kisses you again, and it’s different from the doorway kisses and the couch kisses. Deeper. More deliberate. His hand slides up your side, pushing your shirt up, warm palm against your skin, and you shiver.“Cold?” he murmurs.

“Opposite.” He smiles against your mouth. Keeps moving, finding the hem of your shirt, and you lift your arms and let him pull it off. He sits back to look at you, and his expression is so openly appreciative, so uncomplicated in its wanting, that you feel heat rise to your face.

“Don’t,” he says quietly.

“Don’t what?”

“Look away.” His thumb traces your collarbone. “I want to look at you.” You keep his gaze. He keeps his.

He gets rid of his own shirt and you run your hands up his chest, his stomach, the way you’ve been wanting to since— longer than you’ll admit. He’s warm and solid and he watches your face as you touch him like your expression is telling him something important.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing.” He catches your hands, pins them gently above your head, leans down to press his mouth to your jaw. Your neck. The soft skin below your ear. “Just thinking about how long I’ve been wanting this.”

“How long?”

He mouths at your pulse point and you gasp, arching up. “Longer than I should admit,” he murmurs. “Probably since the morning with Mia. You opened the door half asleep with terrible hair and you crouched down and talked to her like she was a real person and I thought—” He lifts his head to look at you. “I thought I was in serious trouble.”

“Your daughter was upside down under your arm,” you manage.

“I know. Terrible timing.” He releases your wrists, hands moving to the button of your jeans. “Is this okay?”

“Yes. God, yes.”

He undresses you slowly, pressing his mouth to each new piece of skin like punctuation. The inside of your wrist. Your hip. The soft skin of your inner thigh that makes you grip the sheets and breathe out his name. He looks up at you from there, chin resting on your thigh, expression somewhere between fond and wrecked. “Jake—”

“I’ve got you,” he says quietly. “Okay? I’ve got you.” And then his mouth is on you and your head falls back and you stop being able to think in complete sentences.

He takes his time the way he does everything — with complete attention, reading every sound you make, every shift of your hips, adjusting until he finds exactly what makes you come apart. He slides one finger inside you and then two, curling them just right while his tongue works your clit in slow, devastating circles, and you fist your hand in his hair and try to remember how to breathe.

“Jake— fuck— I’m—”

He doesn’t speed up. Doesn’t change what he’s doing. Just keeps that perfect steady rhythm like he has all the time in the world, like getting you there is the only thing on his agenda, and you come with your thighs clamped around his head and his name on your lips and it crashes through you in waves that don’t seem to stop.

He works you through every second of it, only easing off when you tug at his hair, oversensitive and shaking.

He moves up your body, pressing a kiss to your stomach, your sternum, your mouth. You can taste yourself on him and somehow that makes heat flare through you all over again. “Hi,” he says again, soft and amused.

“You,” you manage, “are very good at that.”

“Yeah?” He looks pleased.

“Don’t get smug about it.”

“I’m not smug.” He is a little smug. You find you don’t mind. “You okay?”

“More than okay.” You reach up, pull him down to kiss him properly, deep and unhurried. “Your turn.”

You get his jeans off, and his boxers, and you wrap your hand around him and he hisses through his teeth, hips jerking slightly.“Sorry—”

“Don’t apologize,” you tell him. You stroke him slowly, learning the weight of him, and he drops his forehead to yours and just breathes. “Tell me what you like.”

“That,” he says roughly. “Exactly that. Just—” He covers your hand with his, adjusts the pressure slightly. “Yeah. Like that.”

You watch his face — the way his jaw goes tight, the way his eyes flutter. He’s trying to stay composed and not quite managing it and you find that incredibly satisfying. “Y/N.” His voice has gone rough. “I want— can I—”

“Yes,” you say. “Please.”

He reaches into his nightstand drawer. You take the condom from him and roll it on yourself, slowly, which makes him close his eyes and exhale hard through his nose.“You’re going to kill me,” he says.

“You’ll be fine.”

He settles between your thighs and you feel him there, pressing in, and you both go still for a moment. He pushes forward, slow and careful, watching your face, and the stretch of him makes you exhale hard, fingers pressing into his shoulders. He stops halfway, checking. “Good?” he asks.

“So good.” You shift your hips, urging him on. “Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t stop. He seats himself fully and you both breathe through it, foreheads together, and then he starts to move and everything else falls away.

He fucks you slowly at first, deep and thorough, finding the angle that makes you gasp and then staying with it. His hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, and you make a sound that you’d be embarrassed about in any other context.“There?” he asks.

“There,” you confirm breathlessly.

He keeps going. Steady and focused and impossibly good, hitting that spot inside you on every stroke while his thumb works you in tight circles, and you can already feel it building again, embarrassingly fast. “Jake— fuck— already—”

“Let go,” he says against your temple. “I want to feel you.”

You come clenching around him, and he groans deep in his chest, the rhythm stuttering, and you feel him follow you over with your name on his lips, buried deep, shaking.

Afterward you lie tangled together in the quiet. He traces absent patterns on your arm. You listen to his heartbeat slow. “Hey,” he says eventually.

“Hey.”

“That was—”

“Yeah.” You tilt your head up. “It really was.” He presses a kiss to your hair. You feel him smile against it.

Outside, the city is doing its Friday night thing, indifferent and ongoing. In here the lamp is warm and the sheets are soft and Jake’s heartbeat is steady under your cheek and you think about the drawing on your fridge and the hand on your cheek and Mr. Bunny in the freezer and all the ordinary extraordinary things that have built this without you quite realizing. “Stay,” he says.

“I’m already here.”

“I mean—” He tightens his arm around you. “Stay. Not just tonight.”

You’re quiet for a moment. “You’re going to have to define that.”

“I know.” His thumb moves slow on your arm. “I’m working up to it.”

“Okay.” You settle back against him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Mia comes home at eleven the next morning. You’re still there.

You’re in Jake’s kitchen making coffee, wearing his hoodie and your underwear, when the front door opens and Sandy’s voice floats through — “here we are, my love, home sweet home” — and small feet thunder down the hall.

Mia appears in the kitchen doorway. She takes in the scene. You, in her daddy’s hoodie. The two coffee cups. The general evidence of your presence. Her face does something complicated and then completely simple. “My Y/N,” she says, delighted, and launches herself at your legs.

You crouch down and catch her, and she wraps around you like a koala, warm and sleep-soft and smelling like Sandy’s house, and you hold her and look up at Jake in the doorway and he’s looking at the two of you with that expression again. The one that’s bigger than his face can hold.

“Hi baby,” you say into Mia’s hair. “How was Theo’s?”

“We found a worm,” she says. “His name is Dave.”

“Did you bring Dave home?”

“Sandy said no.” A pause. “I think that was wrong.”

“Dave is probably very happy in Sandy’s garden.”

She considers this. “Okay.” Then, muffled against your shoulder: “Are you staying for breakfast?”

You look at Jake. He holds your gaze, steady and warm. “Yeah,” you say. “I’m staying for breakfast.”

Mia pulls back, satisfied. “Daddy makes good eggs.”

“I know he does.”

“You can sit next to me.”

“I would love that.”

She takes your hand and tows you toward the table with the authority of someone who has decided how this morning is going to go, and Jake moves to the stove, and outside the kitchen window the Saturday morning is doing its soft unhurried thing, and this— this is everything.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

The weeks that follow are the best of your life. You don’t say that out loud. It feels too large, too exposed. But it’s true in the quiet way that the truest things are — not dramatic, not announced, just sitting solidly in your chest every time you’re aware of it.

The three of you fall into a rhythm so natural it’s almost hard to remember the before. Jake knocks on your door with the hairbrush and leaves with coffee. You come to theirs for dinner more nights than not. Mia insists on showing you everything — every drawing, every discovery, every development in the ongoing organization of her stuffed animal collection.

The farmers market becomes yours. Every Saturday, the three of you. Mia on Jake’s shoulders, small hands wrapped in his hair, pointing imperiously at things she wants to examine. You buy her a sunflower from the flower stall in week two and she carries it home with both hands like it’s precious, and after that it becomes the thing — every week, a sunflower for Mia, who has decided they are her favorite and cannot be argued with on this point.

Jake watches you with her constantly. You catch him doing it — that soft unguarded look — and he doesn’t stop when you catch him, just holds your gaze until you look away first, which you always do because the directness of it does something to your chest that you haven’t found words for yet.

Mia tells her daycare teacher about you. You know this because Jake texts you a screenshot of a drawing she brought home — the same configuration as before, Mia Daddy Gerald Mr Bunny Y/N, but this time you and Jake are holding hands.

jake 3a: her teacher asked who the people were, she said ‘that’s my daddy and my Y/N they’re in love’

You stare at the message. you: she’s three

jake 3a: three and apparently very perceptive

you: what did you tell the teacher

jake 3a: I said she wasn’t wrong

You put your phone face down on the desk and press both hands over your face and sit there for a full minute. Then you pick it up. you: jake

jake 3a: yeah?

you: are you in love with me

A pause. Longer than usual. Your heart does something complicated in the silence. jake 3a: I’ve been trying to find the right moment to say it properly not over text but yes, very much yes. I have been for a while

jake 3a: is that okay?

You read it three times. you: yes, it’s very okay. also I love you too

jake 3a: yeah?

you: yeah

jake 3a: okay, good. I’m going to say it properly tonight with Mia asleep so she doesn’t narrate it

you: she would absolutely narrate it

jake 3a: she would make it about herself somehow

you: she would bring Mr Bunny as a witness

jake 3a: he’d be very moved

You’re smiling so hard your face hurts, alone in your apartment at two in the afternoon, and you think about the morning you opened your door and found a small person sitting on your doormat in duck pajamas looking for her rabbit.

You think about tiny fingers in yours on the way back across the hall. You think about you’re nice delivered with complete certainty by someone who had known you for four minutes.

That night, after Mia is asleep, Jake says it properly. Standing in the kitchen, cup of tea going cold on the counter, both of you knowing it’s coming and neither of you in any rush because there’s no need to rush anymore.

“I love you,” he says. Simple and direct. “I love you and I love that she loves you and I don’t want to do any of this without you.”

“I love you too,” you say. “Both of you. The whole— all of it. Everything.”

He kisses you there in the kitchen and it tastes like coming home, which is a thing you didn’t know kitchens could taste like until now.

Later, in his bed, you press your face into his shoulder and listen to the particular quiet of the apartment at night — the creak of the building, the distant city, the soft sound of Mia breathing through the baby monitor on the nightstand. “Hey,” Jake says quietly. “You know what Mia asked me today?”

“What?”

“She asked if you were going to live with us.”

Your heart turns over. “What did you tell her?”

“I said I hoped so.” He tilts his head to look down at you. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” you say softly. “That’s okay.” He pulls you closer. You close your eyes. Outside, a siren somewhere. The building settling. Mia’s breathing through the monitor, slow and even and completely safe.

In here, you think. Everything is in here. You never see it coming. That’s the thing about a knock at the door when you’re happy. You don’t brace for it. You don’t clock the risk. You’re just— there. In the warm. Thinking about nothing that isn’t good.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

It’s a Sunday. Mia is at Sandy’s. Not overnight this time — just the afternoon, a regular arrangement while Jake works on a deadline.

Except Jake finished his deadline by noon and texted you and you came over and the afternoon became the best kind of afternoon, the kind that starts with coffee and talking and turns into something else entirely when Mia isn’t home, when there’s nowhere to be and no particular reason to leave the bedroom.

You’re in his bed. Late afternoon light coming gold through the curtains. His hand on your back tracing lazy patterns on your spine. You’re boneless and warm and half thinking about nothing and half thinking about whether Mia will want to show you the worm situation at Sandy’s when Jake picks her up.

“Sandy said she asked to bring Dave home three more times,” Jake says, like he’s reading your mind.

“Persistent.”

“She gets it from somewhere.” His hand moves up to the back of your neck, squeezing gently. “You hungry?” “Not yet.”

“Okay.” He presses a kiss to your shoulder. “We’ve got a couple of hours before I pick her up.” You hum. He pulls you closer. The afternoon light shifts.

Then someone knocks at the door. Jake’s hand stills on your back. “Expecting anyone?” you ask.

“No.” He frowns slightly. “Sandy would call.” He sits up, reaching for his t-shirt. “Probably Danny about the tap.”

You stretch out across the warm space he’s left, drowsy and content, listening to his footsteps down the hall. The sound of the door opening. Silence.

Not the brief silence of oh hi Danny it’s fine. A longer silence. A loaded one.

Then a voice you don’t recognize — a woman’s voice, careful and slightly uncertain — saying his name. “Jake.”

You go very still.

Jake says nothing for a long moment. When he speaks his voice is completely flat in a way you’ve never heard from him before. Like all the warmth has been removed surgically. “What are you doing here?”

“I just— I wanted to—” The woman’s voice. “Can I come in?”

“No. How did you find me?”

“Your mum. She didn’t— she thought I knew the address, I think. I don’t think she realized—”

“Why are you here.” Not a question. A demand.

A pause. “I want to see her,” the woman says. “I want to see Mia.”

The name lands in the apartment like something dropped. You sit up slowly, pulling the sheet around yourself, and the drowsy warmth of the afternoon has gone completely. In its place something cold and alert.

“You need to leave,” Jake says.

“I know I don’t have the right to—”

“You left,” Jake says, and his voice is still flat, but underneath the flatness there is something enormous being held very carefully in check. “She was four months old and you left. You’ve been gone for three years. You don’t get to knock on my door and say you want to see her like it’s a reasonable thing to say.”

“I know.” The woman’s voice cracks slightly. “I know that. I just— Jake, please, I just want—”

“To see her? Or to see me?” Silence. “Yeah,” Jake says quietly. “That’s what I thought.”

You get up. Quietly. You find your clothes in the soft afternoon mess of the room, pull them on, and you stand in the hallway outside his bedroom door and you look at the front door.

She’s standing in the doorway. Tall, dark-haired, pretty in a way that might have been beautiful before whatever she’s been carrying got into her face. She’s looking at Jake with an expression that mixes guilt and want in proportions you don’t have to be a genius to read.

She sees you. Her eyes move over you — your rumpled clothes, Jake’s apartment behind you, the obvious geography of the afternoon — and something hardens in her expression that you recognize. The specific hardening of someone who wanted to find a door open and has found it closed.

Jake turns. He sees you in the hallway. Something moves through his face — protective, apologetic, something else underneath that you don’t have time to read. “Y/N,” he says. “Hi.” You keep your voice steady. “I’ll— I can go.”

“You don’t have to—”

“It’s okay.” You look at him clearly, trying to say with your eyes what you can’t say in front of her: I’m fine. I’m not going far. Handle this. “I’ll be across the hall.”

He holds your gaze. His jaw is set, his eyes tight at the corners, but he gives you the smallest nod.

You pick up your keys from the bowl by the door — yours, in the bowl by Jake’s door, which happened so gradually you can’t remember it beginning — and you step past the woman in the doorway without looking at her.

You go into 3B. You close the door. You sit on your couch and you listen to the muffled sound of voices through the wall, and you hold yourself very carefully together, and you wait.

You sit on your couch for forty minutes. You know because you watch the clock. Not obsessively — you’re not counting seconds — but every time your eyes drift to it another chunk of time has passed and the voices through the wall have not stopped.

You make tea you don’t drink. You open your laptop and close it again. You pick up your phone three times and put it down without texting anyone because what would you even say.

My boyfriend’s ex showed up. The one who left when their daughter was four months old. She’s been there forty minutes and I’m sitting in my apartment trying not to think about the way she looked at him.

You put your phone face down on the cushion beside you.

The thing is — and you know this, you do — you trust Jake. That’s not the part that’s making your chest tight. You’ve watched him for months now. You know who he is. You know the way he holds his daughter and the way he laughs and the way he looks at you when he thinks you’re not watching. You know he means what he says.

The part that’s making your chest tight is her face when she saw you. Not guilt. Not embarrassment at the intrusion. Something proprietary. Something that said what are you doing in my space even though she is the one who left. Even though she forfeited any claim to this apartment and this life and this man the day she packed a bag while her four month old daughter slept.

You’re familiar with that expression. You’ve worn it yourself, briefly, watching other women talk to Jake at the market or at the park. You know what it means. She wants him back. Mia is the reason she knocked. But she wants Jake back.

You’re still sitting with that when your phone buzzes. jake 3a: she’s gone, can you come back?

You’re across the hall before you’ve fully decided to move. He opens the door before you knock. He looks terrible. Not falling apart — Jake doesn’t fall apart, you’ve figured that out, he goes very still and very controlled when things get bad, which is almost worse — but there are lines around his eyes that weren’t there this morning and his jaw is set in that way that means he’s been holding something in for a while.

He steps back to let you in. Closes the door. You turn to face him and he looks at you for a moment like he’s checking that you’re real, that you’re still here, that the afternoon hasn’t completely dismantled itself. “You okay?” you ask.

“I should be asking you that.”

“I’m fine. I was across the hall.” You hold his gaze. “Are you okay?”

He exhales. Long and slow. Runs a hand through his hair. “She wants to see Mia. She says she’s been in therapy. That she’s been— working through things. That she made a mistake and she knows that and she just wants—” He stops. His jaw works. “She was here for forty minutes and Mia’s name came up maybe three times.”

Your stomach tightens. “What did the rest of it cover?” He looks at you with an expression that answers the question without words. “Jake—”

“I told her no,” he says. “To all of it. I told her— Mia doesn’t know her. She’s three years old, she has no memory of her, and showing up out of nowhere and announcing herself as her mother would be— I’m not doing that to her. I’m not letting someone walk in and blow up her world because they’ve decided they’re ready now.”

“That’s right,” you say quietly.

“Is it?” He looks genuinely uncertain, and that more than anything tells you how rattled he is. Jake is not an uncertain man. He’s careful, he’s considered, but when he’s decided something he holds it steady. Watching him doubt himself is unfamiliar and uncomfortable. “Because part of me thinks— she’s her mother. Biologically. Does Mia have a right to know her? At some point? And am I—”

“Jake.” You cross to him. Put your hand on his chest, flat over his heart, and look up at him. “You are the most present, devoted, thoughtful parent I have ever seen. You have been both of them for three years. Whatever you decide about this, it comes from that. Not from fear, not from jealousy. From knowing your daughter.” He looks down at you. His hand comes up to cover yours. “She’s not here because of Mia,” you say gently. “You know that.”

“Yeah.” His voice is rough. “Yeah, I know that.”

“So you handle the Mia question in your own time, with proper advice, on your terms. Not because she showed up at your door on a Sunday afternoon.”

He’s quiet for a moment. Then: “When did you get so—”

“Wise?”

“I was going to say steady.”

“Same thing.” You press your palm flatter against his chest. “You’re okay. Mia’s okay. This is just— a thing that happened on a Sunday. It doesn’t have to be more than that right now.”

He looks at you for a long moment. Something in his face shifts — the held-in thing loosening slightly, the lines around his eyes easing. “I really love you,” he says quietly.

“I know.” You reach up, press your hand briefly to his jaw. “I love you too. Go get your daughter.”

He comes back with Mia at five thirty. You’re in his kitchen making dinner — you’d found pasta and vegetables and half a block of good parmesan and it seemed like the right thing to do, to be here, to have something warm happening when they got home.

Mia comes through the door at full speed, as always, and finds you at the stove and absolutely loses her mind with delight. “My Y/N is here!”

“Hi, my Mia.” She barrels into your legs and you crouch down and catch her, and over her head you watch Jake close the front door and lean against it for just a second, eyes closed. Like he’s taking a breath. Like he’s counting the things still here and finding them all present.

Then he opens his eyes and sees you watching him and something in his face goes soft. “Dave update,” Mia says urgently against your neck.

“Tell me everything.”

“Sandy said he moved.” Her voice is full of significance. “She doesn’t know where he went.”

“Dave is living his life.”

“That’s what Sandy said.” She pulls back to look at you. “I think he went to find his family.”

“That’s a very hopeful interpretation.”

“Worms have families,” she tells you solemnly. “Probably.”

“Definitely,” you agree.

Jake has moved into the kitchen. He comes up behind you — Mia still in your arms — and presses a kiss to the side of your head. Quick and quiet. Gratitude and love in a single gesture. “Smells good,” he says.

“Twenty minutes.”

“Can I help?”

“You can set the table.”

“I want to help,” Mia announces.

“You can put the napkins out,” you tell her, and she accepts this responsibility with great seriousness, and Jake sets her down and gets the napkins and she carries them to the table one at a time with both hands like they’re fragile, and Jake catches your eye across the kitchen and mouths thank you and you shake your head slightly because there’s nothing to thank you for.

You’re exactly where you want to be.

Later, after dinner, after Mia’s bath, after two bedtime stories and one negotiation about the structural integrity of a fort she wants to construct in the living room (tomorrow, baby, it’s bedtime), after small arms around your neck and a kiss pressed very seriously to your cheek and night my Y/N into the dark—

You and Jake sit on his couch in the quiet. He has his legs stretched out on the coffee table. You’re tucked into his side, his arm around you. The lamp is the only light. The apartment has the particular peace of a small child asleep in the next room. “She’s going to come back,” Jake says quietly.

“Probably.”

“I’m going to talk to a lawyer. Get clear on where things stand legally before she does.” His thumb moves on your arm. “She signed over custody voluntarily. I don’t think she has grounds for anything. But I want to know for certain.”

“That’s smart.”

“I don’t want Mia to know about this until I do. I don’t want her picking up on anything.”

“She won’t hear it from me.”

He turns his head to press a kiss to your hair. “I know.” You sit in the quiet for a moment. “She looked at you,” he says. “The way she looked at you when she saw you there.” His arm tightens slightly. “I need you to know that whatever she came here wanting, it was never going to— she left, Y/N. She made her choice. There’s nothing there.”

“I know that too.”

“I just—” He exhales. “I don’t want you to have any doubt. About this. About us.”

You lift your head to look at him. His face in the lamplight, tired and earnest and completely, simply honest. “I don’t,” you tell him. “Not even a little.”

He holds your gaze. “Good,” he says quietly. He kisses you softly, and you let yourself melt into it, and outside the window the night is doing its ordinary thing, indifferent and ongoing.

When you break apart you settle back against his shoulder. “Stay,” he says.

“Obviously,” you say. He pulls you closer.

In the next room, Mia sleeps, completely safe, completely loved, completely unaware that someone knocked on the door today and was turned away.

She’ll know, eventually. Jake will tell her, carefully, at the right time, in the right way. That’s the kind of father he is. But tonight she just sleeps. And you and Jake stay on the couch until you both drift off, warm and quiet and whole.

The lawyer’s name is Ms. Park and she is very thorough.

Jake comes back from the meeting on a Wednesday looking lighter than he has all week. He finds you in his kitchen — where you are most afternoons now, it’s become accepted fact — and he leans in the doorway and says:

“She has no legal standing. She relinquished custody voluntarily and completely. If she wants any kind of access she would have to apply through the courts and demonstrate sustained rehabilitation and it would be a long process with no guarantee.”

You set down the mug you’re washing. “Okay.”

“She came here once and I turned her away and she hasn’t come back.” He exhales. “I don’t think she’s going to pursue it. I think she came here for me and when that didn’t work—”

“She has no reason to stay.” You cross the kitchen to him. Put your hands on his chest. “How do you feel?”

He thinks about it genuinely, the way he does. “Relieved,” he says. “And— sad, a little. That it’s this way. That Mia doesn’t have—” He stops.

“She has you,” you say. “She has Sandy and Mrs. Kim and the daycare teachers who love her and Theo the worm friend and—” You meet his eyes. “She has me. For as long as you’ll both have me.”

Something moves through his face. “Forever, then,” he says simply.

Your heart turns over. “Yeah,” you say softly. “Forever works.”

He kisses you there in the kitchen and it tastes like relief and sunlight and something settled and permanent. From the doorway comes a small voice. “Are you kissing again?”

You break apart to find Mia standing in the hallway in her socks, Mr. Bunny under her arm, regarding you both with the patient exhaustion of someone who has seen this many times and has opinions. “Sorry,” Jake says, not sounding sorry at all.

“It’s fine,” Mia says, generous. “You can kiss. But after can we do the fort?”

“We can do the fort,” you confirm. She nods, satisfied. Turns and toddles back down the hall.

Jake looks at you. You look at Jake.“The fort,” he says. You nod in agreement and follow him and your daughter down the hall.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Three months later, Mia stops calling you my Y/N. She starts calling you mama.

It happens on a Tuesday. Not a special Tuesday. Not a significant one. Just an ordinary Tuesday in February where the sky is doing that flat grey thing it does in late summer when the heat hasn’t broken yet and everything feels slightly sticky and slow.

You’re doing her hair. The Wednesday morning routine has migrated — it’s every morning now, most mornings, because somewhere between October and February the question of which apartment are you sleeping in stopped being a real question. You’re here. You live here, functionally, in every way that matters except the technical one. Your toothbrush is here. A drawer is yours. Gerald the succulent has been relocated to the kitchen windowsill where he gets better light and Mia waters him every second day with great ceremony.

Jake is in the kitchen. Coffee is happening. Mia is between your knees on the couch, holding Mr. Bunny, and you’re doing two neat braids because she has decided braids are her preference this week and you’ve been practicing. “Tighter,” she instructs.

“If I go tighter it’ll pull.”

“I want tight braids.”

“You want braids that feel comfortable and also look good.”

She considers this negotiation. “Okay,” she concedes.

You keep going. She hums something to herself, swinging her feet, and you work through the second braid, and it’s quiet in the good way, the way that only exists when everyone in a space is completely comfortable. “Mama,” Mia says.

“Hmm?” You tie off the braid.

“Can I wear the yellow dress today?”

You’re reaching for the second hair tie when it lands.

Mama.

She said it like it was nothing. Like it was the most natural word in the world. Like she’s been saying it her whole life, which — you realize, with your heart doing something enormous and unsteady in your chest — maybe in her head she has been.

“Yeah,” you manage, and your voice comes out almost normal. “Yeah, baby, we can find the yellow dress.”

She scrambles off the couch and heads to her room, completely unbothered, Mr. Bunny trailing from one hand. You sit there. In the kitchen, the coffee maker finishes its cycle.

Jake appears in the doorway with two mugs, takes one look at your face, and stops. “What happened? Are you okay? What—”

“She called me mama,” you say.

The mugs go onto the coffee table. Jake sits beside you and looks at you with an expression that is doing the same enormous unsteady thing yours probably is. “Just now?”

“Just now.” Your voice is not quite steady. “She asked if she could wear the yellow dress and she called me mama and then she just— walked off. Like it was nothing.”

“Y/N—”

“I’m not upset.” You turn to him, urgent, needing him to understand. “I’m not— I’m not upset, Jake, I just—” You press a hand to your chest. “I don’t know what to do with this.”

He looks at you for a long moment. Then he takes your face in both hands, careful and deliberate, and presses his forehead to yours. “I do,” he says quietly.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He pulls back just enough to look at you. “You say yes. That’s what you do. You just— say yes.”

From down the hall: “Found it!” A pause. “Mama, can you do the buttons?”

You close your eyes. “Okay,” you breathe. Yeah.” You open your eyes. Look at him. “Yeah. Okay.”

He kisses you, quick and soft, and then you get up and go down the hall to do the buttons on a yellow dress, and Jake stands in the living room doorway watching and the expression on his face is the most complete thing you’ve ever seen on a human being.

That night, after Mia is asleep, Jake asks you to move in. Not impulsively. Not as a reaction to the morning. You can tell he’s been thinking about it for a while — there’s a particular quality to his stillness when he’s been working up to something, and you’ve learned it the way you’ve learned all of him, gradually and permanently.

You’re on the couch. Late. The lamp on, the city quiet outside. His hand in yours. “Move in,” he says. You look at him. “Properly,” he says. “Not the drawer and the toothbrush. All of it. Gerald and everything.”

“Gerald’s already here.”

“I know.” The corner of his mouth moves. “Consider it a trial run.”

You look at your joined hands. At the apartment that has been yours in every meaningful sense for months. At the hallway where Mia is sleeping with Mr. Bunny and her color-organized stuffed animals and absolute certainty that you will be here in the morning. “Yeah,” you say.

“Yeah?”

“Obviously yeah, Jake.” You lean over and kiss him. “Obviously.”

He pulls you in and holds you there, and you feel him exhale slowly against your hair. “She’s going to lose her mind,” he says.

“She’s going to tell Gerald first.”

“She’s going to tell Gerald, then Mrs. Kim, then Sandy, then everyone at daycare.”

“In that order.”

“In that exact order.”

You’re both laughing, quiet so you don’t wake her, and it settles into something warm and certain. “Hey,” Jake says. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” You press your face into his shoulder. “Both of you. The whole thing.”

“The whole thing loves you back,” he says simply.

You tell Mia in the morning. Jake does it, at breakfast, with the careful measured approach of a man who has learned that toddlers receive important news better when they’re eating something. “Hey Mia. You know how Y/N stays here a lot?”

Mia looks up from her toast. Looks at you. Looks back at Jake. “Yes.”

“How would you feel if she stayed here all the time? Like, lived here. With us.”

Mia blinks. Puts down her toast. Looks at you with enormous serious eyes. “Like forever?” she asks.

“Like forever,” Jake confirms.

She stares at you for a long moment with the focused intensity of someone making a very important assessment.

Then she gets down from her chair, crosses to you, climbs into your lap uninvited and completely certain of her welcome, and wraps both arms around your neck. “Okay,” she says into your shoulder. “You can live here.”

“Thank you,” you manage, arms tight around her.

“Gerald will be happy,” she adds.

“He really will.”

She pulls back. Looks at your face. Puts her small hand on your cheek exactly the way she did on the very first morning, in the hallway, four months ago when she was looking for her rabbit. “Don’t cry,” she says kindly. “It’s good news.”

“I know.” You laugh, wet at the edges. “Happy tears.”

“Oh.” She considers this. “Okay.” Then, satisfied, she climbs back down, retrieves her toast, and resumes breakfast.

Jake is looking at you over her head with an expression that could power something. “Told you,” he mouths. You shake your head, still smiling, still blinking hard.

The whole thing loves you back. Yeah. Yeah it really does.

The move takes a weekend. It’s not a big move — your apartment was small and you’ve been migrating things gradually for months without meaning to — but there’s something significant about doing it officially. Carrying boxes across the hall. Hanging your clothes properly in the wardrobe. Arranging your books on the shelves beside Jake’s.

Mia supervises. She is a very involved supervisor, offering opinions on where everything should go and occasionally redirecting items she feels would be better placed in her room. You negotiate firmly on the throw blanket. You surrender the small lamp without a fight because she’s put it next to Mr. Bunny and it does look good there, objectively.

By Sunday evening the apartment is a comfortable chaos of rearrangement and you’re all sitting on the living room floor eating pizza from the box because no one has the energy to locate the table under the moving debris.

Mia is in your lap. Jake is beside you, shoulder to shoulder, pizza slice in hand, looking around the apartment that has shifted and expanded and settled into something new. “Looks different,” he says.

“Good different?”

He looks at you. “Yeah. Really good different.”

Mia tilts her head back to look up at you from your lap. “Can we build the fort now?”

“We live in a fort,” you tell her, gesturing at the surrounding box landscape.

Her eyes go wide. She looks around. Looks back at you. “We live in a fort,” she breathes.

“We live in a fort,” Jake confirms solemnly. She is overcome.

You and Jake look at each other over her head, laughing, and it is — this moment exactly, pizza and boxes and a delighted three year old and the lamp in the wrong place and Gerald on the windowsill — it is everything. Absolutely everything.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

A year later

The morning of the wedding, Mia wakes up at five forty-three AM. You know this because she comes and stands beside the bed and breathes on your face until you open your eyes. “It’s today,” she whispers.

“It is,” you confirm.

“I’m the flower girl.”

“You are.”

She absorbs this with great seriousness. Then: “I need to practice.”

“Mia, it’s not even six—”

“I need to practice.”

Jake makes a sound beside you that is him absolutely not laughing. You elbow him. “Okay,” you say. “But quietly. So we don’t wake the neighbors.”

She nods, solemn and focused, and turns and walks very slowly back down the hallway, scattering invisible petals with great ceremony, narrating under her breath — and then I walk here, and then here, and then I find mama—

You lie there in the early morning grey and stare at the ceiling and think about the word mama the way you have thought about it every day for the past year and a half. The way it still does something enormous to your chest. The way you don’t think it will ever stop.

Jake rolls toward you. Presses his face into your neck. “Morning,” he murmurs.

“Your daughter is practicing flower girl technique in the hallway.”

“She’s been planning this since we told her.” His arm comes around you. “She asked Sandy if she could practice at her house. She practiced at daycare. She made Theo be the groom so she could practice walking toward someone.”

“She’s extremely prepared.”

“She’s extremely her.” He presses a kiss to your jaw. “How are you feeling?”

“Good.” You turn to face him. His face in the early light, sleep-soft and certain and completely, permanently yours. “Really good. You?”

“Best day of my life,” he says simply. “After the day she was born. And the day you moved in. And the day you said yes when I asked.” He pauses. “Top five, at minimum.”

“That’s very good company.”

“You’re very good company.” He kisses you properly, slow and warm, and from the hallway comes the sound of small feet completing another practice lap.

“…and then I find mama, and she’s the prettiest—” You pull back from Jake, blinking hard. He looks at you. Reaches up and brushes his thumb under your eye, gentle.

“She’s not wrong,” he says.

“It’s five forty-five in the morning, I look terrible—”

“You look like the person I’m marrying today.” He holds your gaze. “Which means you look perfect.” You press your face into his shoulder and hold on for a moment.

From the hallway: “Okay I’m ready. Can we have breakfast now?”

Sandy comes at nine to take Mia for hair and getting dressed — a situation Mia has been anticipating with the focused excitement of someone who has been told she gets curls and a flower in her hair and has not stopped thinking about it since.

She submits to the process with remarkable patience, sitting very still while Sandy works, only turning her head twice to update you on developments. “It’s getting curlier,” she reports.

“I can see that.”

“Do I look like a princess?”

“You look exactly like a princess.” She nods, satisfied, and returns to stillness.

When it’s done she stands in front of the mirror in her small white dress — simple, with a yellow sash, because she requested yellow and you would move mountains before you’d say no to that — and looks at herself for a long, serious moment.“I look nice,” she concludes.

“You look incredible,” Sandy says.

“Yeah.” She turns to look at you. Her eyes go wide. “Mama. You look so pretty.”

You’re in your dress — simple, exactly what you wanted, nothing complicated — and your hair is done and you’re holding your bouquet and you’re trying very hard not to cry and failing slightly.“So do you,” you tell her.

She crosses to you. Reaches up and takes your hand, the way she did in a hallway a long time ago, completely certain of her welcome.“Don’t be nervous,” she tells you.

“I’m not nervous.”

“Good.” She squeezes your fingers. “Daddy loves you the most.”

“He loves you the most.”

She considers this with genuine fairness. “He loves us the same,” she decides. “Equal. Like a tie.”

“That’s exactly right.”

She nods. Pats your hand once, settling the matter. “Okay,” she says. “Let’s go get married.”

The venue is small and warm and full of people who love you.

Mrs. Kim is in the third row in her best jacket, already dabbing her eyes. Sandy is beside her. Jake’s parents flew in from Brisbane — his mother cried when she met you and his father shook your hand for a very long time and said thank you for making them happy and you’d had to excuse yourself to the bathroom for five minutes after that.

Your own family. Your friends. The people who have been the walls of your life. And at the end of the aisle, Jake.

In a dark suit, hands clasped in front of him, hair the way you like it. He’s talking quietly to the celebrant and then someone touches his arm and he looks up and sees Mia in the doorway.

His face does what it always does when he sees her. That open, completely unguarded thing. She waves at him. He waves back.

Then he sees you behind her and his face does something else entirely.

The music starts. Mia goes first. She has been told, approximately as many times as you can tell a four and a half year old anything, that flower girls walk slowly. Measured. Elegant. She lasts four steps.

Then she spots Jake at the end of the aisle and she goes — there is no other word for it — feral with excitement, sunflowers clutched in both fists, petals going in every direction except down, grinning so hard her whole face is the grin, half walking half skipping half something entirely her own.

“DADDY I FOUND HER” she announces at full volume to the entire assembled gathering. “I FOUND HER SHE’S HERE”

The room erupts. Not polite wedding laughter. Real laughter, the kind that comes from somewhere genuine, rippling through every row. Mrs. Kim is crying laughing. Sandy has her hand over her mouth. Jake’s mother is gripping his father’s arm.

Jake is crouching down to catch Mia as she reaches him, scooping her up, pressing a kiss to her chaotic curls, the flower in her hair somehow surviving the sprint. “Good job,” you hear him tell her.

“I practiced,” she says, very serious.

“I know you did, baby.” He sets her down. She takes her position with great dignity, as though the sprint did not happen, as though she has been standing here elegantly the entire time.

And then Jake looks up at you. You walk toward him. The room goes soft around the edges — not blurred, just quiet, the way things go when you’re paying attention to the only thing that matters. The faces on either side are warm and familiar and you see them without seeing them because you’re looking at Jake.

Jake, who opened his door on a panicked Tuesday morning and showed you his worst fear and his whole heart in the same thirty seconds.

Jake, who makes coffee before you ask and remembers every small thing and says what he means with a simplicity that still sometimes catches you off guard.

Jake, who watched you fall in love with his daughter before you fell in love with him and let it happen without trying to manage or protect or preempt it, because he trusted you, because he looked at you and knew.

You reach him. He takes your hand and holds it like he’s been holding it his whole life. “Hi,” he says quietly.

“Hi,” you say back.

Beside him, Mia has taken your other hand. She holds it with both of hers, feet planted, present and accounted for, witnessing this with the gravity it deserves.

The celebrant begins. The vows are Jake’s own words. You knew this. You wrote yours too, separately, privately, the way you’d agreed. But hearing them — in his voice, in this room, looking at his face — is different from knowing.

He talks about the morning Mia escaped into the hallway and how he stood in your doorway afterward watching you crouch down to his daughter’s level and felt something shift that he couldn’t name yet and didn’t try to.

He talks about Wednesday mornings with the hairbrush. About leftover pasta and late night texting and the drawing on the fridge.

He talks about the way you love Mia — not as a condition of loving him, not as an extension of it, but first, entirely and separately first, because that’s who you are.

She picked you, he says, before I had a chance to. And she has never once been wrong about anything important. Beside you, Mia straightens slightly at this. You feel her grip on your hand tighten.

I’m not a man who believed in easy, Jake says. I thought love was supposed to be something you work and worry at. And then you moved in across the hall and you were just — easy. Everything with you has just been easy. Not without difficulty. Not without fear. But easy the way breathing is easy. The way I can’t imagine not doing it. His voice has gone rough at the edges.

I love you. I loved you in October and I loved you in February and I love you today and I’m going to love you when Mia is grown and gone and it’s just us and I’m going to love you in every ordinary Tuesday that comes after this one because that’s where you live. In the ordinary Tuesdays. And I want every single one of them.

The room is very quiet. You are absolutely crying. You decided before today that you weren’t going to cry until after the vows at the earliest and you have failed completely. “Don’t cry,” Mia whispers, helpful. “It’s good news.”

Laughter moves through the room like a wave. Jake laughs too, wiping his eyes, and you laugh through yours, and it breaks the solemnity just enough, the way the best moments always do — serious and true and then suddenly full of light.

Your vows. You talk about duck pajamas and a stuffed rabbit and a small hand in yours in a hallway. You talk about a crayon drawing on a fridge and a child who put you in her family portrait before you knew you belonged there.

You talk about a man who carried his daughter on his shoulders through a farmers market and came home to make dinner and knocked on your door with leftover pasta and showed you what it looked like when someone decided that loving people well was the most important thing they could do.

You taught me that, you say. Both of you. You showed me what it looks like when love is a decision someone makes every single day without drama and without conditions. Mia does it for everyone she meets. You do it quietly and completely and I want to spend the rest of my life doing it back. You look at Jake.

I love you. I love our ordinary Tuesdays. I love Wednesday mornings and Saturday markets and bedtime stories and all the Gerald updates and every single version of this life we’ve built in an apartment across the hall from where I used to live alone. I love your daughter.

You look down at Mia. She is watching you with her whole face. Completely still, completely focused, taking this in with the seriousness it deserves.

She is the best thing, you say. She is the absolute best thing, and I promise her, today, in front of everyone who loves us, that I am here. I am not going anywhere. She is mine and I am hers and that is permanent and unconditional and nothing will ever change it.

Mia’s lip wobbles. Just slightly. You watch her decide, with great effort, not to cry, because she is a flower girl and flower girls are professionals and she has a reputation to maintain. She squeezes your hand instead. Very hard. You squeeze back.

I now pronounce you married.

Jake kisses you, and the room rises, and somewhere in the noise you hear Mia announce to no one in particular and everyone simultaneously:

“THAT’S MY MAMA NOW. THAT’S OFFICIALLY MY MAMA.”

And then, apparently satisfied that this has been adequately communicated, she inserts herself between the two of you and takes both your hands and holds on.

Jake looks at you over her head. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to.

The reception is everything. Mrs. Kim dances with Mia for forty-five minutes straight and neither of them stops. Sandy cries every time someone gives a speech. Jake’s father gives a toast that makes the whole room laugh and then immediately cry. Your own people hold you and tell you they knew, they always knew, from the moment you started talking about the little girl next door like she’d hung the moon.

Jake dances with Mia first — tradition, he’d decided, she gets the first dance — and you stand at the edge of the floor and watch her stand on his feet, both of them swaying to something slow, her head against his chest, his hand spanning her whole back.

You take a photo. You will look at that photo for the rest of your life.

Then he passes her off to his mother and comes to find you, hand extended, and you take it and let him pull you out onto the floor. “Hi wife,” he says, like he’s trying the word out.

“Hi husband.”

He smiles. Pulls you closer. “How’s it feel?”

“Same,” you say honestly. “Exactly the same. Just— more settled.”

“Yeah.” His hand moves on your back. “Like it’s been true for a while and now the paperwork caught up.”

“Exactly like that.”

You dance. The room moves around you, warm and full of people you love, and Mia is somewhere in it, probably telling someone about Dave the worm or Gerald or the structural integrity of forts, and it is — all of it, every piece — everything. All of it everything.

She falls asleep at nine fifteen. Mid-sentence, apparently — Jake’s mother told you later she was explaining the color organization system for the stuffed animals and then she simply stopped explaining and was asleep, curled in the chair with her flower crown half off and her shoes long since abandoned and the last of her sunflowers still in her hand.

Jake carries her out to the car at the end of the night, limp and certain and completely trusting the way only sleeping children are, and you tuck the seatbelt around her and push the flower crown gently back from her face. She doesn’t wake up.

She won’t remember being carried, won’t remember the drive home, won’t remember being tucked in. But in the morning she’ll wake up and come and stand at the side of your bed and breathe on your face until you open your eyes, and you’ll ask her how she slept and she’ll say good and you’ll ask if she had fun at the wedding and she’ll say yes I was the flower girl with the proprietary satisfaction of someone who performed their role excellently and knows it. And she’ll be right. She was, without any competition, the best part.

Later. Much later. His penthouse — your penthouse, it still catches you sometimes — quiet and dark except for the city light through the windows. Mia asleep down the hall. The flower crown on the kitchen counter. Your bouquet in a glass of water because you couldn’t throw it, it was too pretty.

Jake’s jacket over the chair. Your heels by the door. You and Jake on the couch the way you’ve been a hundred times before, his arm around you, your head on his shoulder, the easy comfortable weight of each other. “Hey,” he says quietly.

“Hey.”

“Mia told Theo’s mum today that she picked you.”

You lift your head. “What?”

“At the reception. Apparently she walked up to Theo’s mum completely unprompted and said—” He’s smiling. “She said I picked her first. Before Daddy even knew.”

You stare at him. “She’s four and a half,” you say.

“I know. She’s extremely perceptive,” Jake says. “Always has been.”

You think about a Tuesday morning and duck pajamas and the end of a hallway. The hand on your cheek. You’re nice. The absolute certainty of it. The way she gave you her fingers without hesitating like she already knew. “She did pick me first,” you say softly.

“Yeah.” Jake presses a kiss to your hair. “She really did.”

The city does its quiet nighttime thing outside the windows. Down the hall, Mia sleeps. You and Jake stay where you are, warm and settled, in the ordinary extraordinary life you built one Tuesday at a time.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Three weeks later, on an ordinary Wednesday morning, Mia sits between your knees on the couch.

You’re doing her braids. Jake is in the kitchen. Coffee is happening. Gerald is on the windowsill. Mr. Bunny is in the orange section of the stuffed animal shelf. Everything exactly where it should be. “Mama,” Mia says.

“Hmm?”

“When I’m big can I be a flower girl again?”

“When you’re big you can be whatever you want.”

She considers this carefully. “I want to be a flower girl and a paleontologist and a cat.”

“All three?”

“On different days.”

“That seems manageable.” She nods, satisfied. Swings her feet.

From the kitchen, Jake: “Braids today?”

“Braids,” Mia confirms, with the authority of someone whose hair decisions are final. You finish the first one. Start the second. The morning does its ordinary thing around you.

Mia tilts her head back to look up at you, upside down, grinning. “I love you, mama.”

You smooth a hand over her hair. “I love you too, baby,” you say. “So much.” She rights herself. Goes back to swinging her feet.

Outside the window the morning is doing what mornings do, indifferent and ongoing and full of ordinary things.

In here it is warm. In here everyone is exactly where they are supposed to be. This is just the beginning. And it is everything.

⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆

Hi lovelies! If you made it all the way to the end I hope you enjoyed. I’ve had a few people ask for a drabble or two based off this. if you want to see this click this and comment below your suggestions and what you want to see.

warnings 𖢥⊹ ࣪ ˖ mentions of violence, blood, wounds // mild cursing // multiple kiss scenes bc jake is just so kissable whoops // slowslowburn // jakehoon bromance keeps me alive // jake pines & yearns & longs & yearns.. // concept of 'casual' dating // superhero & mcu elements & easter eggs :3 // jake is a loser but spider-man is a smooth-talker heh

°˖➴ .ᐟ 𖢥 addie ── FINALLY !!! i have finally, finally finished a full fic for the first time in literal forever and i'm actually so excited for this one bc i freaking love mcu & spiderman & jake so freaking much you guys dont understand...spidey was my first ever childhood crush i think i literally made a post abt it somewhere here on my blog ages ago...so my reaction when i got this anon request for this fic?? i cheered. ꉂ(˵˃ ᗜ ˂˵) ty for being patient with me and for all the words of support & encouragement & love throughout the process <333 if you've been here some time and read my other works you know i literally get myself way too indulged into the whole process,,,but i really did have so much freaking fun writing this so i really hope you guys like all 25k words of spidey!jake :3

sim jaeyun has a lot of secrets.

like the fact that he’s secretly (but not so secretly) a giant nerd and, frankly, a genius with the probable IQ of someone who can calculate pi to the 500th decimal in his head just for fun. or maybe the fact that he’s definitely smart enough to hack into the school’s database and find copies of the finals’ answer keys under ten minutes flat.

but he doesn’t. because again. sim jaeyun is a genius (and because he’s scared of getting caught. but mostly the genius thing).

sim jaeyun pours his milk before cereal. he sleeps on his stomach. he doesn’t separate his white socks from his colored ones. he’s terrified of cats. he loves rom-coms. he’s spider-man. he can’t fall asleep without his favorite build-a-bear. and he doesn’t know how to ride a bike.

but his most important secret? he has the biggest crush on you.

so big that he’d say it’s more top-secret than the fact that he uses 5-in-1 men’s soap and being the city’s web-slinging, crime-fighting, red-and-blue spandex-wearing superhero.

and in all honestly— it’s not like the latter is even that secret anymore.

because another thing about jake? he sucks at keeping secrets.

he figured this out about two weeks into accepting his new life post-radioactive-spider-bite—right around the same time he decided yeah, sure, i can totally handle having powers and a double life. and not freaking out every time he accidentally shot a web out in his sleep.

he figured this out when park sunghoon, his longtime best friend, accidentally found jake’s suit in his room. and by accidentally, we mean jake just…left it lying out. on his bed. in plain sight. because he forgot to put it away the day sunghoon came over to share his history notes.

that was the day sunghoon declared himself jake’s “guy in the chair.”

so yeah. jake sucks at keeping his spidey secret…a secret.

but his crush on you? oh yeah.

that one’s highly classified (except from sunghoon. because again—guy in the chair).

“you should probably stop staring before it gets creepy.”

jake blinks.

he stops staring at you—across the cafeteria, laughing with your friends, completely unaware of how he’s most definitely about five seconds away from writing your name in bubble letters with a pink glitter pen on his notebook cover.

he turns his head toward the voice. sunghoon, of course.

“actually, too late. it’s creepy,” sunghoon adds before casually chewing on the cafeteria pizza that’s always a little too suspiciously rubbery but no one ever questions it for their own sake.

jake sighs, his eyes going back to your figure across the busy room. “you think she’ll talk to me in chemistry today?”

sunghoon doesn’t even blink. “she has to talk to you. you guys are literally lab partners.”

“that’s different,” jake mutters, chin in his hand, eyes never leaving you once. “i mean, i could ask what her favorite color is or something…”

sunghoon stares. jaw slack. full deadpan.

“that’s a joke, right? please tell me that’s a joke. because i don’t know what funnier—the fact that you have the pick up lines of a first grader, or the fact that even i know that you know you don’t have the guts to say anything to her that’s not directly related to ionic bonding.”

jake whips his head to his best friend, the look in his eyes being nothing less than betrayed, “i so totally can!”

“jake,” sunghoon says slowly, voice lowering, “you broke the test tube in your hand last week when she asked what your weekend plans were.” a pause. “then you ran out of the room. without saying anything.”

jake groans. drops his head into his arms on the table. “okay, i specifically remember saying we would never bring that up ever again.”

sunghoon chuckles, hands raised, “just saying.”

a brief silence falls over the table as jake lifts his head up in despair. he goes back to probably-definitely-not-so-subtly watching you from across the cafeteria.

“you should just…y’know—” sunghoon nudges jake’s side. “—get your lil buddy to help you out.”

jake freezes. turns to his best friend in horror, “my…lil what now?”

sunghoon’s palm smacks the side of jake’s head before his voice drops to a whisper, “your alter ego, idiot.”

jake rubs the side of his head, staring at the way sunghoon is casually sitting there like this is a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

“you heard me,” sunghoon continues when jake makes no sign of responding, the look on his face enough to tell sunghoon he thinks he’s probably borderline psychotic. “go up to her as spider-man. be mysterious. say something cool. i bet she’ll be super impressed and instantly fall in love with you.”

“that is literally the worst idea you probably could’ve ever thought of.”

“is it?” sunghoon shrugs, smug as he leans back in his chair. “because seeing as your track record so far is either a) breaking glass around her, or b)…actually, no. yeah, that’s it. that’s all i got. your track record sucks, bro.”

jake groans for the nth time and lets his head thunk onto the table this time with a soft clunk. “i hate it here.”

“you’re not even going to consider it?”

jake lifts his head just enough to glare his eyes at sunghoon, “do you hear yourself? you want me to flirt with her…while wearing spandex. in full mask. while i talk like this—” his voice drops to the deeper, definitely-not-as-disguising-as-he-thinks-it-is tone he uses while saving the city at night. “‘hey. i know i’m wanted by, like, a hundred bad people out there, but also, what’s your favorite color?’”

sunghoon grins. “add a little web trick and shoulder touch and boom—she’s yours.”

jake deadpans at him, his voice returning to normal, “do you even like me? are we even friends?”

sunghoon shrugs. pops a fry in his mouth. thinks for a second. “you’re entertaining.”

jake groans again. slumps dramatically into his seat, staring at the too-bright fluorescent lights in the ceiling above him. “i can’t flirt as spider-man me,” he mutters. “that sounds like a nightmare. i can’t even talk to her as me me.”

“duh. that’s kinda the entire point.”

“and then what, huh?” jake dramatically throws his hands up. “i take her on a date while web-swinging through the city? and if i drop her?”

“i dunno,” sunghoon takes another unbothered bite of his rubber pizza. “use two webs? you’re the one with the sticky powers, i don’t know it works!”

jake lets out an exasperated sound.

sunghoon pats his back, attempting to be the supportive friend he is. “face it. it’s the only way she’s ever gonna know you’re slightly even remotely cool and do anything more than read books on like…i don’t know—how physics makes the earth spin or something.”

jake pouts. “i am cool!” “you own a build-a-bear named woofy.” “he’s a comfort object!” “exactly. that’s why spider-man has to take the wheel from now on.”

jake stares at sunghoon, shakes his head, and starts packing up his completely untouched lunch.

“whatever. i’m going to chemistry,” he mutters, swinging his backpack around his shoulder with a huff, despite the fact that class doesn’t start for another twenty minutes.

and it’s not like he needs to get to class early to ask the teacher questions or get extra help on the homework or anything normal and productive like that—don’t be ridiculous.

because here’s the thing. jake getting to class early means one very important thing: he gets to his seat—the one next to yours—before you do.

which means you have to acknowledge him first. which is crucial.

because if the roles were reversed—jake does not trust himself to be able to acknowledge you first and say hi without choking on his own air or probably knocking over a glass beaker that wasn’t there before but would somehow magically appear because that’s just jake’s luck in the process.

regardless, it works. the system works. he’s perfected it by now. because it’s about half way through the school year and without fail, every time you walk into class and jake’s already sitting there—busy pretending like he’s reading some article on his laptop when in reality his senses are going haywire over being overwhelmed by your entire presence that he already felt from down the hallway—you always greet him first with the same airy, cheery tone in your voice, bright smile, hair flowing, perfume floating in the air—

"hi jake!"

jake's soul ascends.

he looks up (too fast), catches himself (too obvious), and tries to play it cool with a little nod and smile that definitely looks a little more like a grimace (too tragic).

"hey." nailed it.

you smile casually as you plop your backpack down on the lab table you share with him and start pulling out your notebooks for the day. and jake just stares ahead like a soldier at war. his hands are sweating. his feet are bouncing. his entire nervous system is screaming at him to say something, anything.

and as if the universe decided to play a casually cruel trick on him—

"...so what's your favorite color?" "so, any fun weekend plans?"

both your voices overlap. you both freeze. turn to each other at the same time. blink.

"oh—" "—sorry, you go—" "no, you first—" "okay—wait—i, i forgot—"

silence. you hold back a smile. jake wishes to melt into the earth and hopes he never reincarnates.

"i was just gonna ask," you say, a small smile still playing on your lips that it makes jake's brain actively start doing 360s, "if you're doing anything this weekend."

jake short-circuits.

say something. be mysterious. be cool. be normal. channel spider-man. but maybe...not spider-man when you talk to him. spider-man when he talks to everyone else. "i'm...uh." he clears his throat. tries again. "probably just, y'know. working."

you tilt your head, eyes sparkling with curiosity, "working?"

"yeah," jake nods, too quickly for his own liking, then stops himself. "like—side gig."

if a side gig came with at least two new bruised ribs some nights and meant saving a city from criminals, but yeah, okay. sure. side gig.

your brows raise. "that's cool! what do you do?"

jake freezes. panics. what does he do.

he can't say spider-man.

he also can't say he has the molecular build of an eight-limbed arthropod and can stick onto walls with only his bare fingers.

and he definitely can't say i spend 70% of my free time thinking about you and the other 30% swinging off buildings.

"...delivery." he says it like he's mysterious. cool. totally normal.

you blink. as if waiting, as if expecting him to elaborate.

he blinks back at you.

"delivering...what?"

"...pizza."

(and he did once deliver a stolen pizza order back to its rightful owner after webbing the thief to a lamppost. that totally counts.)

"oh," you nod slowly, giving him a genuine smile. "that sounds fun!"

jake gives a thumbs up. mentally smacks himself in the face repeatedly. but then, his brain suddenly catches up to the situation at hand and before he can stop himself, he blurts—

"wait—uh, why do you ask?"

and then you break eye contact, glancing down at your notebook, and jake pretends not to notice your fingers suddenly fidgeting with one of your many too-colorful pens.

"well," you start, and jake is trying his very, very best to ignore the fact that his senses can pick up on your heart beat. "we've got the final coming up next week, and i don't know—you always seem like you know what you're doing in class, so—"

she thinks im smart? oh my god. she notices me? even when i’m not breaking glass? oh my god oh my god oh my—

"—i was hoping maybe we could study together?" you look up at him again, your eyes wide. "or go over the study guide one last time or something. but it's totally fine if you're busy working! and that makes sense, you probably don't even need to study, you're, like, uber smart and stuff, so—"

"no."

your words come to a halt and your mouth is left slack.

jake smacks himself. mentally. again. and again.

"...oh, um—"

jake coughs suddenly, a little too loud, a little too forced. "sorry! i mean—no...no, i'm not busy. yes, i'm down. down. to study. together. yeah."

he takes note in the way your shoulders slightly relax and the way you release a breath of what sounds like relief and amusement at the same time.

then, a soft smile makes its way to your face again, "okay! okay, cool!"

jake doesn't know if he should scream, sob, or launch himself into the sun.

he smiles back. "cool."

there's a pause.

"wait—but what about work?" your head tilts slightly, a soft crease forming between your brows.

shit.

"oh. right," jake mutters, clearing his throat as his hand casually brushes through his hair as if he thought this one through (he, in fact, did not).

quick, lie—wait, no. casual lie. lying is not cool. don't lie to the girl you like. you're simply protecting her. be mysterious. be cool. be normal.

"i'm...sure the pizzas will be okay for a night! yeah. they have flexibility. my job, i mean. not the pizzas. my manager's chill."

your smile brightens at his answer and jake decides launching himself into the sun is dramatic. in fact, he thinks the sun came out today just for him.

"okay, yay!" you're beaming. "sounds like a plan."

jake also thinks his heart just tripped over itself.

"here, let me—" you rip off a corner of your notebook and start scribbling something down with one of your pens before sliding the slip of paper over to his side of the table, "—give you my number and you let me know when and where works best, yeah?"

and jake is simply a guy. a guy entirely entranced.

it's the way you lean a little closer to the desk, tongue peeking out at the corner of your mouth in concentration. the way your hair shifts when you tilt your head, the gentle swish of it brushing over your shoulder. the way your bracelets softly clink together when your hands move. the way you smoothly push the small slip of paper with your number and name signed with a small smiley face towards him like it's no big deal.

jake stares at the paper like all those nights of manifesting finally paid off and this small slip of notebook paper is first proof that a manifestation journal really does work.

your name. your number. a tiny smile doodled next to it.

it's the cutest thing he's ever seen.

he looks at the note. then at you. then back at the note.

how did this happen. what did he say? was it the pizza lie? no, it couldn't have been the pizza lie.

"cool," jake eventually says, but he realizes he's said cool one too many times and it comes out so high-pitched, he's genuinely unsure if he said it out loud or just squeaked like a mouse.

and you just simply smile back at him, soft and sweet and light, and jake decides to revisit the potential idea of self launching into orbit.

and when the teacher enters the classroom, immediately starting the lecture, jake turns back to the front of the class, trying his very best to focus—

"pink."

it comes out as a low and soft whisper. jake's head jerks slightly towards you, and you're leaning in, just slightly enough for your shoulder to brush against his.

"...i—what?"

you smile, your eyes crinkled at their corners as you look at him, "my favorite color. it's pink."

then, you turn back to the whiteboard, already scribbling down your notes like you didn't just change the entire trajectory of jake's future.

jake doesn't move. jake, in fact, doesn't hear a single word of whatever the teacher is saying about the synthesis and characterization of something-something-carbene-molecular-something.

all he knows is:

he's seeing you this weekend.

your favorite color is pink.

and tucked into the back of his phone is now a piece of corner notebook paper with your number on it.

and, of course, it's written in pink.

jake doesn’t know what he’s going to tell sunghoon about first—the fact that the favorite color pick-up line potentially worked, or that he has an actual study date with y–

wait.

“do you think it’s a study date?” jake’s voice is muffled by a peanut butter protein bar, his legs dangling off the edge of some random apartment building he deemed clean from bird poop to sit on.

there’s a long beat of silence from the other end of his phone that’s perched beside him on speaker, before sunghoon finally answers.

“i think it’s your chemistry lab partner…who needs to study for an exam…with her super genius bench partner,” sunghoon pauses. “but yeah. it’s definitely also a study date.

jake fist-pumps the air. “right?! that’s what i’m saying!” he leans back on one of his palms, staring down at the blur of streetlights and car headlights below, watching the tiny dots of normal people go about their normal people lives after their normal people days.

“god, i’m gonna say something dumb. i always say something dumb. i’m gonna probably tell her my favorite element is, like, carbon, or something. that’s not even a fun one,” jake sighs as he watches the sun slowly set along the skyline in front of him.

there’s a long, suffering sigh from the phone. “please, for the love of God and everything He created, do not tell her what your favorite element is.”

jake frowns, even though he knows sunghoon can’t see it. “you don’t think it’s charming?”

“remember what happened in the sixth grade when that girl asked for a pencil and you gave her an entire lecture on valence electrons and then she never spoke to you ever again?”

jake makes a face. “okay, but she didn’t specify what kind of lead she needed—”

“just…be normal,” sunghoon cuts in. “be jake.”

jake goes quiet. because that’s just the problem, isn’t it? because jake isn’t normal.

“normal” and “jake” haven’t belonged in the same sentence since he woke up one random morning with super strength, freakish reflexes, and abs (not that he’s complaining about the abs. but still. he knows his two-day-a-week gym habit and occasional protein bar didn’t cause them).

normal isn’t waking up in the middle of the night because your fingers literally fused to your bed frame. normal isn’t learning how to navigate puberty while also learning how different wrist angles shoot out different types of webs. normal isn’t lying to your mom about why your laundry always smells like burnt rubber and concrete dust and weirdly enough, hot dogs.

and normal definitely isn’t sitting a hundred feet above the city at 10PM on a friday night with your best friend on speaker and your spandex suit hidden under a hoodie, trying to decide if your biggest life crisis is:

a — the rise of petty city crime or b — the way your ridiculously pretty chemistry partner smiled at you and made you question your entire being in 0.2 seconds

but when he thinks about you?

when jake’s with you—he’s just jake. no suit, no webs, no…fear of potential death. 

he feels like a regular teenage boy. the kind who worries about history finals and likes stupid memes and builds lego sets with his best friend on saturdays and has a crush on the cute girl in his chemistry class.

with you, he doesn’t feel like a science experiment. or a secret. or an accident waiting to happen.

he just feels like…jake.

“i just—dude. i didn’t even have to pull the spider-man card!” jake sits up a little, legs now swinging. “like. at all. she said i was smart! jake-smart. i didn’t need to save a cat or catch a bus or—”

“—instead,” sunghoon’s monotone voice cuts in, “you told her you deliver pizzas for fun and somehow it worked.”

“you’re the worst guy in the chair.”

“and yet, here we are. you’re still call—”

“wait” jake freezes. sits upright. his head tilts slightly. “hold on.”

something in the air hits him. his senses prick. muscles tense. tingling. sounds slow, scents sharpen. the world zooms in all at once.

“i gotta go,” jake stands up, his voice muffled by shoving the rest of his protein bar into his mouth, already slipping his mask over his head.

“duty calls,” sunghoon replies casually, like this is the third time this week (it is). “be safe!”

“love you, bye!” jake says before the hanging up and shoving his phone into his backpack and thwipping it to the rooftop wall in one motion. it’ll probably still be there later. hopefully.

on most nights, it is still right where he left it, waiting patiently after the hours of his city-saving. but right now, jake couldn’t care any less about his belongings. he’s already airborne, swinging building to building with smooth, practiced ease. he follows the tug in his chest, the sense of something being slightly off. a scuffle. somewhere just a block or two away.

and on most nights, you’re careful. you’re observant, aware. you know how to check left, right, then left again before crossing the street. you stick to the well-lit sidewalks, don’t take shortcuts, avoid the sketchy alleyways your parents used to warn you about growing up.

and you also know, deep down, that you probably shouldn’t have stayed at this library this late. but here we are.

you’re barely a block from the bus stop you just got off at when it happens. a shadow moves—quick, low, but intentional. he’s stumbling. smirking. slurring.

your stomach drops immediately.

“hey, pretty thing,” he calls out, “where you off to this late?”

“not interested,” you mumble, clutching your bag closer to your body, steps picking up faster.

“oh, come onnn,” he draws. you hear his footsteps behind you. too close now. “just a little chat—”

you turn over your shoulder just in time to see his hand land slightly on your shoulder, just where your bag strap sits.

but before you can even react—

THWIP.

it happens before you can even blink.

the guy disappears. yanked off his feet. with a yelp, he’s slammed against the nearest parked car on the street with a heavy thud, followed by a line of white, sticky substance trapping his sides.

and suddenly, another one hits his hands. then his ankles. then his chest.

until it’s all around him and he’s stuck to the car like a decal himself.

you freeze, not knowing what just happened or what the hell you’re supposed to do now. your heart is racing, your brain playing catch-up, your breathing paused.

and as you’re staring at the man-shaped cocoon, wondering if this is what finally wills you into full-blown psychosis—

a figure drops from above. with absolutely zero subtlety. and lands directly in between you and said webbed-up guy in a crouch.

dressed in red and blue. head to toe. and so much spandex.

spider-man.

“wow,” he says deadpan, turning to point at the man-turned-car-decal. “okay. that was, like, a solid ten out of ten on the creep scale. would’ve been a nine, but then you touched her. so. automatic point deduction.”

the guy groans beneath the webbing. “what the—who the hell are you?”

spider-man throws his arms up in exasperation, gesturing to himself like it’s obvious.  “spider-man, dude. the webs? the spider logo on my chest? keep up.”

he then turns to you, brushing off the imaginary dust from his hands. “you know, if i had a nickel for every time some scuffy guy tried the whole grabby in an alley thing this week, i’d have like…four nickels.”

a beat. you’re still frozen. eyes wide. jaw slack.

“which isn’t a lot. but it’s weird that it happened that many times. should probably do something about that. or i guess that’s my job.”

the man groans from behind him, squirming, “get this shit off me man—”

“shhh,” spider-man shushes him, raising a hand. “don’t speak. we’re in a delicate moment of justice here.”

then, he turns back to you, head tilting. the eyes of his mask dilate as they squint at you.

his voice softens. “hey. everything okay?”

and you’re still frozen.

because there are many things you don’t believe in. you don’t believe in narwhals. you don’t believe that tarot cards can predict your love life. you don’t believe in flushing ice down the toilet to make it snow the next day, and you probably, maybe, sometimes don’t believe in birds being government spies.

but spider-man? you didn’t know if you believed in him or not. sure, you’ve seen the headlines. heard the rumors, watched the blurry phone footage. but never with your own eyes. until now.

“uh…” you nod quickly, eyes still wide, mouth still slightly ajar. “i...yeah. thank you. for that.”

and jake tries his best to keep his cool. exhales behind the mask, trying to not completely lose it.

to not completely combust when the literal crush of his life is standing in front of him, somehow glowing even under a dim, flickering street light. to not think about the very real fact that he just saved you from whatever-he-refuses-to-think-about that he just saved you from.

so he gives a casual shrug.

“that’s what they pay me for.”

you blink. “you get paid?”

jake stills. “uh, well. no. not technically. emotionally, yes. and sometimes sweet old ladies buy me churros.”

you blink again, but this time, your lips twitch slightly. “…okay. right.”

jake clears his throat, straightening up, placing his hands on his hips all awkward again and then putting them down when he realizes he probably looks like a cheap superhero mascot like that.

this part—this part—he’s usually good at. web the creep. leave a note for the cops. call them in. that’s how it usually goes. what doesn’t usually happen is…this. saving the girl he likes. the girl who doesn’t know she’s the girl he likes. the girl who definitely doesn’t know he sits next to her in chemistry and pretends to read when she walks in.

the creep behind him groans again. jake spins around on his heels and double thwips a neat string of webs over the guy’s mouth.

“aaaaand silence,” jake mutters, nodding to himself. “look at that. instant peace. should’ve probably done that twenty seconds ago.”

he turns back around. and you’re smiling now. it’s small and slightly shaky, but it’s there. jake notices. of course jake notices.

“are you sure you’re okay?” his voice dips again, gentler now.

you nod. “yeah, i think so. seriously…thank you so much.”

and jake hesitates—heart thumping, nerves sweating, because you are literally standing in front of him and he has the mask of spider-man on right now but the confidence of jake from chemistry. but still, he manages, "get home safe, yeah? you shouldn’t be walking alone this late. city’s full of creeps and…men in spandex.”

you let out a quiet laugh. “noted.”

“cool,” jake lets out, throwing up an awkward thumbs up and he makes a mental note to stop using the word ‘cool’ and to stop using thumbs ups as a defense mechanism.

he clears his throat and takes a casual step back as you watch him, still unmoving, as if you’re still trying to convince yourself he’s real.

“alright,” jake says, pointing his hand up to the building behind you before saluting you goodbye with the other. “spider-man…away?”

he fires. latches perfectly. but the fact that he actually, out-loud, said ‘spider-man away’ gets to his head and so he doesn’t time the swing quite right and his foot hits the top of a recycling bin on the way up. and he really hopes you didn’t see it happen (you did).

he lands on the rooftop above you, immediately crouching down out of view, chest heaving as his brain catches up to his body, still processing what just happened. heart still hammering, fingers still tingling.

then, after waiting a few seconds, he peers his head carefully over the line of buildings down the street and watches your figure walk away. head down, bag hugged close, pace quicker now.

and of course, because he’s jake—and spider-man (but mostly because he’s jake)—he follows you from above. quiet, careful, out of sight. just to make sure you make it back okay.

and when you finally reach your apartment building and unlock the front door, he still waits.

waits until he sees a light flicker on in your bedroom window. waits until he sees your figure draw your curtains closed. waits until he knows you’re safe. only then does he finally exhale.

he drops onto the roof of a nearby pizza place—the one that claims they sell dollar pizza but it’s really $1.49—pulls off his mask with one hand and runs the other through his completely wrecked hair.

“jesus christ, jake,” he mutters to himself, a hand dragging down his face. “spider-man away? really?”

he shakes his head at himself, partly in shame, partly in disbelief, but mostly in shame, then stretches out his legs, groans at the ache in his biceps, and swings back towards the first rooftop where he left his backpack.

and thank god it’s still there. because once he unwebs his bag and fishes through his textbooks, unknown food wrappers, and decathlon club fliers to take out his phone with just merely 12% battery left, he clicks on your contact. stares at the blank message field. then he types.

JAKE (10:42PM) : hey! it’s jake (from chem lol) hope your night’s going okay :) also still good to meet at the cafe near school tomorrow? maybe around noon?

he stares at it. rereads it six times. changes lol to haha. then back to lol. deletes the smiley face. then the whole message. then retypes it word for word.

eventually, he hits send.

and jake, bless his heart, keeps staring at the screen. forgets it’s nearly 11PM. forgets that his mom, who thinks he’s in bed, is probably gonna check in on him any second now (and yes, jake is nearly a legal adult. but he also grew up with chronic nightmares, so. check ins are necessary at times).

but then his screen lights up. your name. a single message.

Y/N (10:43PM) : yes :)

he feels his entire body exhale. or light up on fire. he’s not sure of the difference, honestly. and jake’s also not sure how long he sits there smiling at his phone like an idiot.

he doesn’t remember swinging back home. he doesn’t remember sneaking back into his room through his fire escape. he doesn’t even remember showering and wincing at the sting of soap against his fresh cuts and scratches.

because all he’s thinking about is your text. which is probably why he also forgets to set an alarm.

so when he wakes up the next day at 11:45AM, twenty minutes away from the café he promised to meet you at in fifteen minutes, and absolutely zero minutes ready to leave his place—he’s in full blown panic.

“oh crap, crap—ow, damn it—crap,” he’s mutters, runs into a chair, accidentally smears toothpaste on his hoodie sleeve, and grabs the first protein bar he sees—cookies & creme this time—before sprinting out the door. but not before kissing his mom on the cheek goodbye.

his hair is still damp. his backpack is half-zipped. he’s 85% sure he applied deodorant twice and toothpaste once. or maybe the other way around.

and by the time he barges into the corner café that sells overpriced matcha lattes with the grainy oat milk but has good lighting and free wifi and outlets to use so it’s deemed a good study spot anyways, he immediately zeroes in on you at the small corner table—pen in hand, sipping from a cup casually and not at all aware that your mere existence and the way the little beam of sunlight shining through the café windows reflecting on you is already sending his sleep deprived state into overdrive.

he makes—or more like stumbles—his way over, just in time for you to glance up and catch his eye.

“hey!” you smile, so warm and relaxed that it almost makes jake forget he sprinted over in mismatched socks. “you made it.”

“yeah—sorry,” jake exhales, pulling out the seat across from you and placing his stuff down. “i stayed up late, forgot to set an alarm, then couldn’t find matching socks, i had this blue one on and then a red—“

jake stops himself. looks at you. gives you a sheepish smile. “sorry. you don’t need to hear about the whole sock saga.”

you giggle as you look up at him, “what a shame, i was kinda invested to see where that was going.”

jake tries not to float.

“and it’s fine, jake. really. if it makes you feel any better, you’re only like twelve minutes late.”

jake lets out a nervous chuckle as he slides into the seat across from you, “thanks. i’m usually only, like, ten minutes late, so this is all new to me. including the study date part.”

jake freezes. your eyebrow quirks. why did he say that. why. did. he. say. that.

a small smile tugs at your lips, “study date?”

jake’s eyes are frozen and blown wide as he stares at you in horror from across the table, stumbling over his own words, “i mean. i—no, not a date! unless…unless you wanted it to be a date, which is fine! not just fine! i mean, it’s fine if you wanted—i just assumed that—well sorry, i shouldn’t have assumed—that would be non-consensual and i’m really big on, like, mutual respect and consent and—”

he stops.

jake needs to stop. he should stop talking about consent before he even got to ask you how your morning’s been like a regular human being does.

your stare lingers for a beat longer before you break into laughter, hand flying to your mouth, the other holding onto the table in front of you to support yourself as you snort. “jake.”

jake sinks slightly in his seat. wishes he was sinking into the earth. “yeah?”

your laughter softens into something gentler, and you look up at him, sure and simple and steady. “it’s okay. let’s call it that. a study date.”

you know how your laptop sometimes freezes because it’s firing a million tasks at once and then the fan starts whirring violently before the entire thing decides to just shut off and it has to take a few minutes to recover before rebooting itself back up to be able to fully function again?

yeah. that’s what’s happening to jake. right now.

“oh. okay. cool. cool, cool, cool,” he tugs at the collar of his hoodie. stop it with the cool, jake, we talked about this. and whatever you do, do not throw up a— he throws a thumbs up at you. puts it away. tries to recover. “i’m very…pro…studying.”

you grin at him. “clearly.” the dating part? not so much.

and after that, thing settles. in that warm, weirdly comforting way things do when you’ve either known someone your entire life or just long enough to know you want to.

textbooks open, laptops propped, flashcards highlighted, questions exchanged, your iced matcha is slowly disappearing while jake’s iced americano just sits there untouched—slowly watering down because jake forgets coffee makes him jittery but he was in a state of panic when he got to the counter so…here we are.

“wait, can i ask you something kinda random?"

you glance up from your notes, giving jake a small nod. “yeah?”

jake’s eyes land on the back of your laptop and he gestures vaguely to it. “why is your laptop covered in like…fourteen different beluga stickers?”

your head tilts as you follow his gaze and—yup. it’s true. it’s covered with not only fourteen little cartoon belugas, but also otters, starfish, and a little whale in the corner that isn’t so little and cost you a whole whopping five dollars at the book fair.

you blink at it. “oh, right.” a small smile then tugs at your lips. “i’m kinda obsessed with ocean life. it’s, like…one of my things.”

and jake is silent. not because he’s judging. no, he recites the periodic table in alphabetical order to help him fall asleep at night, so he can’t judge. but because—god. you say that like it’s the most casual thing in the world and not the most adorable sentence he’s ever heard.

“like, belugas are my favorite sea animals,” you continue, your own voice picking up from your own excitement now. “they’re just so cute and squishy looking. and they always look like they’re smiling? and granted i’ve never met one, but if i did meet one, i just know it’d be kind.”

jake is still not saying anything. he’s watching the way your hands move animatedly, the way your eyes light up, the way your voice lifts when you say the words “if i did meet one” like it’s the most natural thing in the world to meet a literal beluga.

“they do look pretty nice,” jake adds eventually, absolutely trying his best to fight the grin off his face. “for a whale, i mean.”

your eyes widen as you suddenly gasp and lean in over the table towards jake, catching him off guard. “okay, i’m gonna pretend you didn’t just say that.”

jake freezes. and he doesn’t know how and he doesn’t know when, but he’s pretty sure he messed up somehow just by trying to impress his crush by complimenting a beluga.

“belugas aren’t whales,” you say, matter of fact, “they’re actually a type of dolphin, despite the name. common mistake.”

“oh,” jake just blinks and nods like this is a totally normal conversation. like he isn’t currently being lectured by the cute girl from his chemistry class about beluga whales. beluga…dolphins? not whales.

his eyes flick briefly to your hands, still hovering mid-air, animated from your explanation. then to your face, your eyes sparkling just a little bit too much for him to blame it on the café lighting. and everything—every little detail jake seems to notice and learn about you—makes jake feel like his heart is about to beat out of his chest.

“sorry,” you pause, noticing his stare. “i just…i really love this kind of stuff. it’s all just so fascinating to me. it’s kinda like whenever you start freaking out over, i don’t know…cis-trans isomerism in alkenes?”

jake chokes on his spit. smooth.

“wait,” he’s coughing, sitting up straighter, “how do you know that i—wait, how do you even know about cis-trans isomerism?”

“what can i say? i’m observant,” you look at him over the rim of your cup as you take a sip, casually shrugging, a small smirk on your lips.

and jake just casually tries not to freak out.

because, sure, jake has had his fair share of realizations through out his lifetime. like the day he woke up and found out he could suddenly stop a bus with his bare hands. or the time he discovered he’s mildly allergic to cauliflower. but this? this might top the list.

because you notice things. about him. him. and it short-circuits his brain. just a little. maybe a lot.

jake tries not to smile too hard. tries not to read too much into it. tries not to wonder if you notice the way he leans closer during chemistry labs or the way his voice raises half a pitch when you talk to him or the way he purposely gets to class early just so he could talk to you before.

they’re the kind of thoughts that keep him up that night. the kind that plague his entire mind until the only thing he’s thinking about when he falls asleep that night and the only thing he’s thinking about when he wakes up the next morning is…you.

and for the next few days, that’s just about the most exciting thing that happens to jake. the next few days for him go pretty normal.

and by normal, jake means boring. and by boring, i mean on monday, spider-man stops a bodega robbery and gets a pat on the back from the police officer and a sprained ankle. on tuesday, he wakes up late and almost misses his history final (which honestly would’ve been preferable). and on wednesday, you text jake for help on a chemistry review question. which is actually very exciting and not at all boring nor normal, despite how hard jake tries his best to act normal.

on thursday, however, jake stays late in the school computer lab to tinker with his web shooter tech. and that’s when sunghoon pulls up in front of him, dropping two small pieces of paper on jake’s mess of wires and tools and notebook doodles.

“bada-bing, bada-boom,” sunghoon announces as he plops into the chair next to jake.

jake looks up. sunghoon’s spinning awkwardly slowly in the swivel chair, arms out like a king clearly waiting for applause.

jake squints at the slips of paper. then back up.

“sunghoon.” “yes?” “why are we binging and booming and why are there clown fish on my web shooters?”

sunghoon beams. the kind of beam that makes jake’s spider tingle feel immediately and instinctively nervous. "because, my friend,” he begins proudly, “i am your guy-in-the-chair and thanks to me, you are now officially going on an aquarium date this weekend.”

jake blinks down at the two tickets. then looks up at sunghoon. blinks again. “wait. i’m going on a what with who now?”

sunghoon’s face falls flat. “with y/n, you idiot. who else would i be sending you to the aquarium with? me?”

jake’s jaw slackens. eyes widen. heartbeat pounding, “what—why, why, why, would you do that?”

sunghoon’s brows furrow as if the answer is the most obvious one in the world (and it is), “because you like her? and now you can take her to see those things she has fourteen of on her laptop that she likes so much. beluga whales or whatever they were.”

jake opens his mouth to argue—then shuts it. looks at sunghoon very, very, seriously. “beluga dolphins. they’re beluga dolphins. common mistake.”

and sunghoon could give two flying farts about beluga whales versus beluga dolphins versus beluga birds for all he knows, but because jake’s his best friend, he tries not to judge.

“…okayyyy, beluga dolphins.” he claps jake on the back and jake flinches. “anyways! you. y/n. aquarium date. this weekend. bada-bing. bada-boom.”

friday is the most un-normal and the most un-boring day of them all.

because on friday, right when jake slams his locker shut at the end of the day—ready to go home and debating if he should build his brand new imperial star destroyer lego set or practice different swinging techniques off the library roof—

“JAKE!”

and jake’s spidey sense could not have predicted what happens next. because before he can even register his own name, jake’s slammed into. stumbling. arms flailing. back hitting the lockers behind him.

and it’s you. you, clinging to him in a hug. smiling. glowing. and jake is dying. screaming. ascending.

“I GOT A 99,” you smile as you look up at him, eyes sparkling and wide.

jake swallows hard. his hards are still awkwardly hanging at his side, unsure whether to hug you back or just spontaneously combust into dust right then and there.

“wait. the chemistry exam?” he manages, voice higher than usual.

you nod so fast it’s a blur. “yes!—i think it’s a little stupid she docked me a single point just because i rounded wrong on that molarity question—which, yeah, i know you warned me about. but it’s fine. i’m literally a chemistry genius.”

jake lets out a breathy laugh, looking down at you—still warm, still wrapped around him, still lighting up like the literal sun in the middle of the school’s halls.

“you are,” he says, and it comes out softer than he expected.

and then you’re looking up at him again—close, glowing, happy—and jake swears the whole world pauses. like the only thing that has ever mattered to him is this exact moment. like someone hit pause on everything except you. the shouts, the lockers slamming, the overhead announcements—he doesn’t hear any of it.

all he knows is you. the way your smile curves just slightly more on one side. the scent of your shampoo. the feel of your arms around him and the way his pulse has never been louder in his entire life.

jake doesn’t think he’s ever felt this way about someone before.

and like you suddenly realize how long you’ve been holding onto him, or maybe just how close the two of you are—you slowly pull back. not all the way, just a half-step, your arms slipping from around his middle. you clear your throat, eyes flickering to a locker, then to a ceiling.

“um—thanks to you, though. seriously,” you say, voice softer now, “for all your help. and studying with me.”

and jake is still staring. still dazed. “oh! no, yeah. yeah yeah. totally. i had fun. it was fun.” he swallows again. please stop saying fun. “so fun.” yeah. he’s absolutely a lost cause.

but you laugh. and god, jake loves your laugh. he wants to bottle it up, carry it around in his pocket, and use it like a power-up when he’s out fighting criminals at night.

and it’s in that moment, somewhere between your grin and the sound of your giggle still ringing in his ears, that it hits him.

this is it. this is the moment.

jake clears his throat. wipes his palms on the sides of his jeans like it’ll help. glances off to the side before looking back at you.

“listen, so um—” he’s already fumbling. “i was wondering—like if you’re free this weekend, and only if you really, really want to, seriously no pressure at all because i know you’re probably busy, but—”

he pauses. breathes. tries again. “—but if you’d be down, i, uh—i have two tickets to the aquarium. and since you’re really into the ocean and stuff i thought—”

“oh my god,” you interrupt, eyes lit up. “you got tickets to the aquarium?”

jake nods so fast he swears he looks like a bobblehead.

“yeah! well—no. technically sunghoon got the tickets but—”

“ohhh, like you and sunghoon were going to go together?” you tease, grinning now. “that actually sounds kind of fun—”

“wait. wait—no.” and jake nearly panics, his hands waving. “no, no, no, i mean—i’m trying to—”

jake inhales sharply. gets a grip. “do you want to go with me? this weekend? to the aquarium?”

“oh!” you blink up at him, clearly surprised—but not in a bad way. your voice goes a little softer. “like…just us?”

“yeah,” jake nods, trying to sound chill and not at all like he’s internally combusting. which is definitely, 100%, happening right now. “i mean—if you want. if you don’t, it’s totally cool. i’ll just…give the ticket to my mom or something. she likes fish. i think. probably. i’ve never actually asked—”

“jake.”

jake stops. looks at you again. “yeah?”

you smile. all fond and amused and sweet. “i’d love to go to the aquarium with you.”

and jake completely loses the grip he thought he had a strong hold of.

“wait, really?” “really.” “oh,” jake breathes. “cool. cool, cool, cool.” you tilt your head, “you’re doing the repeating thing again.”

“i know,” jake groans, dragging a hand down his face. “i literally had a whole mental intervention about this, it’s not working—

you laugh. again. and jake ascends. again.

“okay,” you say, stepping back just enough. “aquarium this weekend. it’s a date.”

jake ascends a third time.

“right,” he says, barely recovering. “totally. i’ll—uh, i’ll text you the details?”

you nod, already backing away towards the main doors, “can’t wait!”

and forget the imperial star destroyer set or brand new swinging techniques. jake 100% knows what he’s doing tonight—and it’s sounding a lot like googling beluga dolphin facts. 

later that night, jake’s perched on the edge of a random rooftop—one leg dangling off the ledge, a protein bar in one hand, his phone in the other, glowing with an article titled: top twelve facts about belugas that will shock you.

but then—his spidey senses prick.

because at exactly 10:32PM, like clockwork, your usual bus pulls up to the stop below the building he’s seated at.

okay. so maybe it’s not exactly a coincidence he’s here. and maybe this roof isn’t that random after all.

and maybe, just maybe, he’s made it a habit to make sure you get home safe every night. it started with just one night—making sure you got home safe after last week’s incident. then it turned into two. then three. then…every night. at exactly 10:32PM. now it’s a full-blown instinct he hasn’t admitted to anyone (especially not sunghoon) because, well…he likes making sure you get home safe. sue him.

when he sees your figure step off the bus, jake immediately straightens. the hairs on his arms prick up. his pulse quickens. his palm slightly sticks against the protein bar wrapper. and this is just a regular friday.

except—it really isn’t. because today, you—you, the very smart and very funny and very pretty ocean-loving girl who sits next to him in chemistry—hugged him today and agreed to go on a date with him and oh god.

so actually, nothing about today was regular. not even close. and nothing about what jake is about to do is regular.

instead of just watching from above like he has the past week… he swings.

with a few quick, practiced motions, he webs himself building to building, bouncing off a wall to land neatly right in front of you on the sidewalk.

and you scream. “what the—oh my god—” you jolt back mid-step, instinctively clutching your bag closer to you.

“ah—sorry! sorry!” jake holds his hands up, immediately regretting his dramatic entrance. he straightens up from his crouch, brushing dust off his suit. “that probably looked a lot cooler in my head.”

you narrow your eyes, still trying to catch your breath, looking not totally convinced, “right.”

jake rubs the back of his neck awkwardly.

then, like it’s the most normal thing in the world to be nearly ambushed by a red-and-blue-suited vigilante, you simply adjust the bag on your shoulder, sidestep him, and continue walking down the sidewalk.

jake blinks behind the mask, stunned for a second, before quickly scrambling to catch up.

“you know,” he says, effortlessly falling into step beside you, “if i didn’t know any better, i thought we agreed you wouldn’t be walking home alone this late.”

you glance over, the corners of your mouth slightly tugging upwards, “and if i didn’t know any better, i’d say you’re starting to follow me, spidey.”

“woah,” jake fake-gasps. fake-clutches his chest as if offended. “spidey? oh wow. we’re already on nickname basis and i don’t even know yours.”

you snort. “y/n,” you say, finally looking at him fully. “it’s y/n.”

jake’s heart does a triple flip. he thinks he’s heard your name a thousand times already—slipped through conversations with sunghoon, when your teacher calls out your name during attendance, in his dreams—but somehow, this feels new.

he flashes a smile you can’t see behind his mask, “y/n.” he repeats it like it’s the most important thing he’s ever learned. he then points to himself. “spidey.”

you laugh again, this time loud and real and soft and sweet. and suddenly, jake’s night feels warmer.

“yeah, i got that,” you say, shaking your head. “thanks for the clarification, spidey.”

there’s a short silence after that—comfortably quiet, but not empty. both your footsteps crunch against a thin blanket of scattered leaves, the echoes of your steps bouncing off the dimly lit sidewalk. somewhere in the distance a dog barks faintly. a bus drives by.

“shouldn’t you be out—” you finally speak again, glancing up at him, “—stopping carjackings or getting churros from old ladies?”

jake hums, the sound low in his throat. be mysterious. be cool. be normal. "well yes,” he clears his throat and adjusts his web shooter just to do something with his hands, “but it’s also part of my duty as your friendly neighborhood spider-man to make sure the citizens of this city get home safe.”

you raise a brow, smirking, “is it also part of your duty to walk every single citizen home after saving them?”

“…well. not exactly,” he tries not to sound nervous. tries. “just the ones i think are…pretty.”

you freeze mid-step. your breath catches, feet stopping entirely.

jake does the same. his heart might actually fall out of his chest. “that’s—” he coughs, scratching the back of his neck. “that’s just you, by the way. if that wasn’t…super clear.”

your mouth parts. but no words come out. only your eyes react—wide, soft, blinking.

“oh—" you eventually say, softly and unsure, as if you’re trying to figure out if the literal spider-man is trying to flirt with you. “thanks? i think.”

and jake is 98% pretty sure he’s redder than his own suit right now. “yeah, yup. of course,” he says, voice cracking ever so slightly as his mind searches for anything, something else to talk about. “uh…so any fun plans this weekend?”

smooth. so smooth.

you blink, still looking at him a little weird, but your smile comes back almost instantly as you two start walking again, “actually yeah! i’m going to the aquarium tomorrow.”

jake’s heart does another little flip. yes. yes, yes. she still wants to go. she’s still going with me—

“with this guy,” you add casually, kicking a pebble in your way.

jake feels his heart do a little pause. “a guy?” he says, wincing when it comes out just a little too quickly, a little too high-pitched. “oh. a guy guy. wow. a guy.”

you nod along, completely oblivious, mind clearly elsewhere, “yeah, he’s pretty great. got us the tickets and everything.”

jake nods stiffly, staring straight ahead like the lamp post across the street is the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen in his entire life, “nice. that’s…really nice. sounds like a pretty solid dude.”

“totally,” you grin up at him, and it’s the kind of grin that makes jake’s lungs forget why they exist in the first place. the crinkle of your eyes, the curve of your mouth, the gentle ease in your voice—it all hits him at once. the most perfect storm.

“a little awkward,” you continue. “says ‘cool’ way too much. but he’s really sweet. and funny. and a genius.”

and jake combusts on the spot. jake thought he knew what happiness was. he thought getting accepted into the school’s robotics team felt good. he thought shaking hands with the mayor after saving him from a limo crash was peak fulfillment. he even thought finishing the millennium falcon lego set with sunghoon in a single night was the height of his serotonin levels. but this? hearing you talk about him—about jake—with that softness in your voice, that tilt in your smile, that warmth in your eyes?

oh yeah. this is what true happiness is.

and by the time jake returns back to earth, the two of you are approaching your apartment now—he recognizes the street by heart at this point.

you come to a stop in front of your building, turning to face him beneath the glow of the overhead lighting, “thanks for walking me, by the way.”

jake shrugs, hands shoved into the sides of his suit awkwardly, “it’s part of the job description. gotta make sure my favorite citizen gets home safe.”

you give him a look. one of those lingering ones that makes jake wonder. the kind that lasts a beat too long.

“…favorite, huh?” you raise a brow, lips quirking into a soft smile. jake’s heart stutters. “top three, at least.” you giggle again, shaking your head slightly, “night, spidey.”

“night, y/n,” he murmurs quietly before you go in, watching as you head inside. the door clicks shut behind you, and jake’s world immediately feels a little dimmer.

jake stands there in the quiet for a second. and then— he fist pumps the air in celebration, kicking his leg up like an animated character, “yes, yes, yes!”

with the goofiest grin under his mask, jake flings a web up toward the apartment building across the street and launches himself in one fluid motion. he lands with practiced ease, sitting in his usual spot just as the light flickers on in your bedroom window.

he’s still grinning. still breathless. still absolutely unable to believe what just happened.

with a newfound confidence, jake pulls out his phone from one of his suit pockets and unlocks it.

JAKE (10:54PM) : hey! just wanted to say im excited for tomorrow :) hope you have a good night y/n

he doesn’t hesitate before hitting send this time.

and when he wakes up the next morning, jake is still smiling.

no nightmares. no forgotten alarms. no dreading history finals. just the lingering memory of yesterday—from the hug to the walk last night, from the way you smiled at him to the way you said ‘night, spidey’, from the way he swears your laugh is not permanently stored in his brain’s top five sounds of all time.

now, he’s staring up at the massive curved glass in front of him, a large ‘beluga whales here!’ sign above him. you’re already right up against the glass, peering inside like you’re looking at the most fascinating thing in the world.

and to you—it is. to jake? his answer would be very different. his answer would look a lot like you.

because you’re right there, next to him. shoulder brushing him. looking effortlessly beautiful in the soft dim blue light of the tank.

and jake is trying very, very hard to look calm, cool, and collected. despite the fact that he’s sweating through his button-up because he’s nervous, giddy, and definitely sprayed way too much cologne (two spritzes max, sunghoon said. jake did six. he panicked).

but you—you look completely at peace. you’re smiling, your eyes lighting up with wonder, one palm pressed gently against the glass as you watch one of the belugas swim past.

“they’re literally smiling,” you whisper, completely in awe. “look at them. they’re so pretty.”

jake glances at you. then the belugas. then back at you.

he’s not entirely sure who you’re talking about anymore.

“yeah,” he says, a little breathlessly. “they’re…really pretty.”

at that, you turn to look at him and jake has to force himself to not look away. he smiles at you when your eyes meet his. and your smile is soft. soft and amused. like you knew what he was saying. like you’re choosing not to call him out on it.

“so,” you eventually say, tilting your head to look up at him. “on a scale of one to ten, how ridiculous does this shirt make me look?”

jake glances down at your outfit—you’re wearing an oversized t-shirt now layered over the outfit you picked out for today. it’s bright blue, has a cartoon fish giving a thumbs up, and across the front in bubbly letters sits, ‘fish makes life betta’.

your eyes landed on it the second you two walked past the gift shop. and you had to have it. immediately, of course.

jake had laughed at first when you turned to him, holding up the shirt against you, eyes wide. “should i buy this?” you asked, not a hint of sarcasm in your tone.

and that’s when jake realized, you meant it.

and that was also the exact moment jake realized he’s absolutely, undeniably, hopelessly gone for you.

“negative twelve,” jake says now, very seriously, despite the smirk on his face. “you look unironically very cool.” you scoff, “you’re such a liar.” jake shrugs, still grinning. “did that get me a couple more points at least?”

one of your eyebrows quirk, like you’re surprised by the sudden confidence. and honestly? so is jake.

there’s a beat—one of those soft, lingering ones carrying a silence that feels full with something unspoken. the kind that hums quietly below the surface. the kind jake could live inside forever.

then, your lips twitch into a smile. “mmm…maybe half a point. you’re up to, like, an 89.5%.”

jake lets out a soft, breathless laugh, eyes still on you, “i’ll take it. that’s like…a B plus.”

“better than what you got on the history final,” you say, already smirking.

jake’s eyes widen as he gasps, “hey—what!? that was so uncalled for.” you laugh again, clearly enjoying this. “you got a 73, jake.”

“a 74!” he corrects you, his voice now a pitch higher. “it was curved! and i woke up late! blame it on sleep deprivation.”

“that…still sounds like barely passing to me.”

jake narrows his eyes at you playfully, “okay, you know what? i’m deducting your points for emotional damage. 99.5%.”

you gasp dramatically. “you can’t deduct points!”

“better than what you got on the chemistry final,” jake says, eyebrows quirked, feeling ridiculously proud of himself for that one.

your eyes widen—equal parts shocked and impressed, “touché, jake. touché.”

and jake just grins, heart pounding so fast he swears it’s about to break out of his ribcage and up and run.

your smile lingers for a little longer before you glance away for a moment, returning your gaze back to the tank in front of you, watching as the belugas swim past lazily, weightless and floating like clouds. and you think there’s something oddly calming about them. it makes the whole world slow down.

jake watches you instead.

the lights from the tank dance against your skin, your features glowing blue and soft and perfect. your hands are simply at your side, head tilted slightly as you follow their movements with your wide eyes. you’re not even saying anything—but you don’t need to.

jake swallows hard. takes half a step closer to you.

“hey,” he says quietly. you look over. “yeah?” “i’m really glad you came today.”

your expression shifts—just a little. surprised, maybe. but then, it softens. into something gentle and honest. “i’m glad you asked,” you say, just as quiet.

and jake is so close. so close, that he can feel the slight brush of your pinky against his own. and suddenly, the air feels heavier. tighter. packed with nerves and possibilities and hope and everything that makes jake’s senses want to scream into a pillow.

and jake, because he’s still jake, blurts out the first thing his brain lands on— “let’s take a picture with a beluga!”

you blink. but then, your laugh bubbles up again as you nod, stepping close behind him as he’s already fumbling to pull out his phone.

the photo is slightly blurry. your shirt is bright and front and center. jake’s smile is too wide, and yours is somewhere between a laugh and a look—

one that’s angled towards him instead of the camera.

the walk back later that night is quiet. not the awkward quiet. not the quiet filled with weird tension. but soft quiet. warm quiet. the kind of quiet that settles over jake like his favorite blanket—thick and safe and familiar, the kind that jake feels whenever he’s tucked into bed after a night out around the city.

and when you two walk side by side, you’re close enough that jake can feel your sleeve brush against his every few steps. and the sidewalk is wide. but neither of you move away. not even once.

street lamps shine above you, the city hums quietly around, and jake—who literally has the ability to swing between skyscrapers and soar through the air—feels like he’s floating for the first time in his life.

because he’s definitely not thinking about how he can catch the small traces of your perfume or how your hand keeps brushing his. and he’s definitely not spiraling over whether or not you’re thinking about how his hands keep brushing yours back.

and right when he’s mentally trying to calculate just how fast his heart is currently beating (and if his calculations were correct, he thinks he’s at 142 beats per minute)—

you stop walking.

jake halts a half step ahead, blinking in surprise as he turns back to face you, “everything okay?”

you bite your bottom lip. squeeze your eyes shut for a second. “yeah. yeah—i just…” a breath. “i have to tell you something.”

and that knocks the air straight out of jake’s lungs. he steps towards you instinctively, his steps quiet against the pavement until he’s standing right in front of you—frozen under the soft glow of the streetlight overhead.

“okay,” he says, trying to sound normal. which is hard. because jake is currently experiencing what can only be described as sensory overload. 

he tries to not notice the way you’re fiddling with the hem of your incredibly bright blue shirt. or the way you’re blinking too many times. or the way he can literally hear your heartbeat from where he’s standing. and he calculates 143 beats per minute. maybe 144.

“i—um…i actually didn’t really need help with chemistry,” you blurt, eyes still focused somewhere near his shoelaces in front of you. “i know exactly what cis-trans isomerism in alkenes is. not only because i thought it was really cute when you explained it in class that one time, but because i genuinely think it’s super cool so i did my research project on it last—”

you pause. “…which is super irrelevant. oh my god—wait, let me backtrack.”

then your words start tumbling. “i just—i thought you were really cute. and smart. and witty. and honestly, probably a little awkward too but, like, in a cute way. and i didn’t know how else to talk to you outside of class. i figured you were too busy or not really into random girls asking to hang out. so i panicked. even though i have a 98 in chem right now.”

you stop. take a breath—finally.

jake, however, does not. jake’s entire being has stopped functioning. his brain is blank—no thoughts, just the steady, continuous static of oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. every nerve in his body is on high alert. his spidey senses are firing—heart pounding, breath caught, fingertips tingling. it’s like his body’s trying to prepare him for a fight, when really? he’s just trying his hardest not to melt into the ground.

and jake can feel everything. the warmth of the streetlight on his back. the shift in the breeze between you and him. the exact distance between your body and his. it’s all too much and not enough and jake is losing his mind.

and when you notice his frozen stare, you wince—your eyes squeezing shut again as you start mumbling, “oh my god. i’m so sorry. okay, let’s just forget i said—”

and jake, because he’s still jake, doesn’t think.

jake kisses you.

it happens before he can overthink it. which is entirely a lie, because jake always overthinks.

but this time, it happens before he could spiral through every worst case scenario. before he could remind himself of all the ways he could possibly screw this up.

all he knows is that you were standing there—rambling, flushed, perfect—and he just had to.

his hand finds your cheek instinctively, warm and unsure and trembling ever so slightly. and when his lips meet yours—it’s gentle. so gentle, like a question asked without words. like an answer given all at once.

and jake is still spiraling. his senses are everywhere—you smell like faint citrus and something a little like vanilla, your grip on his shirt is tight, and your lips are soft, so soft, moving with his like you two have known this rhythm forever.

everything is heightened for him. blurred and focused at the same time. and the kiss isn’t perfect—his nose bumps yours and you step too close and accidentally hit his shoe—but none of that matters.

because this is real. because it’s you.

and when jake finally, slowly, pulls back—just barely—both of you are breathless.

both heartbeats loud enough for jake to hear. quite literally.

“you think i’m smart?” you let out a small scoff as your eyes meet his, his shirt still under your grip, “out of everything that just happened, that’s what you’re focusing on?” “i mean,” jake shrugs, helplessly smiling, “i’m just making sure i heard that part correctly.”

you laugh louder now—relieved and warm and everything jake wants to hold onto forever.

the rest of the night moves slower for jake. literally slower. like neither of you want the moment to end—your steps gradually slowing the closer you get to your apartment building. jake keeps his hands in his pockets, fingers still tingling, goosebumps still on his skin. every now and then, he steals a glance your way, just to make sure this is real. that you’re real.

and when you reach the front of your apartment building, jake’s chest tightens the tiniest bit. you stop at the base of the stairs. so does he.

“well,” your voice is quiet as your eyes flick up to his. “i’ll see you at school on monday?”

jake nods, trying to look cool, calm, and collected even though he’s pretty sure he’s still at 142 beats. “yeah. for sure. monday.”

you smile, soft and a little shy. “night, jake.” “night, y/n,” he echoes, offering a tiny, awkward wave that makes you smile as you slip through the door.

jake lingers for a second longer, watching until the door clicks shut. then he spins on his heel, a giddy smile on his face, stumbles three steps down the sidewalk and—

“holy shi—” he physically clamps a hand over his mouth to keep himself from screaming.

jake fist-pumps the air. once. twice. spins in a circle. nearly trips and eats it on the curb. but he doesn’t care.

he kissed you. he kissed you. and you kissed him back.

and jake is back to nearly launching into orbit.

his fingers are still trembling as he pulls his phone out from his pocket, text message already full of typos from typing too fast when the screen lights up—

incoming call : GUY IN CHAIR 🧠

“DUDE,” jake answers instantly, breathless and borderline yelling. “i was just about to text you—I KISSED HER!”

a beat.

“WHAT?!” sunghoon’s voice explodes over the phone. “you KISSED her? you KISSED HER? oh my god.”

jake is pacing now, still walking down the street but barely aware of it. “i know. it just happened. i don’t even know—like, we were walking, then she stopped and told me she didn’t even need chemistry help and that she just needed an excuse to talk to me and i literally blacked out so i don’t remember the rest—”

“oh my god. oh my god.” “i KNOW.” “like, wait—you kissed her-kissed her?” “i KISSED her-kissed her, dude.” “bro.” “i know.”

they’re both beaming. celebrating. somewhere above him, a very confused old lady stares at jake from her window as he dances in the middle of the sidewalk like he just won the lottery.

“wait. wait, crap—” sunghoon cuts in, tone suddenly serious. “hang on, i called you for a reason.” jake freezes mid-spin, “huh?”

“guy in chair duties,” sunghoon’s voice shifts. “there’s a call coming through the police scanner. armed robbery. bank on 23rd and main. it just came in, like, thirty seconds ago.”

jake stops. groans. “you’re kidding me,” he mutters under his breath.

“sorry, man.”

without missing a beat, jake glances around for any people—then ducks into the nearest alleyway.

“can’t a guy catch a break?” he mumbles, already yanking off his button up, his suit already underneath (because—obviously, you can never be too prepared), then bunches up the shirt and webs it to the brick wall in one fluid motion.

sunghoon’s voice buzzes through his phone, “good luck, spidey.” jake pulls the mask over his face. “i’ll just tell you the rest on monday.”

“copy that.”

“thanks, hoon. spidey’s on it.”

turns out—spidey, in fact, was not on it.

he doesn’t know if he should blame it on the fact that he was mildly (extremely) mentally distracted by the memory of kissing you under the warm streetlight, or the fact that those robbers had insanely good aim, but either way:

jake comes home with a black eye, a rapidly darkening bruise on his cheekbone, a bullet graze burning across his left side, and what he’s 97% sure is a dislocated ankle.

“crap, crap, crap,” he mutters under his breath, wincing as he carefully locks the window behind him. he drops down from the ceiling with a thud, trying not to yelp out in pain when he lands on the ankle that he’s now 99% sure is dislocated. the apartment is quiet. his mom’s probably asleep. hopefully.

jake rips off his mask and immediately grimaces at his reflection in the mirror, “jesus.”

his right eye is already swelling. there’s dried blood going down the side of his face. his suit is slightly torn and singed and still sticky over the wound at his ribs. he presses a palm there, breathing through his teeth.

it’s fine. he’s fine. totally fine.

the shower was probably the most painful part of the night. every drop stings, and there’s something really, really humbling about trying to wash off dirt and dried blood while also replaying the moment you kissed him in perfect clarity over and over again in his head.

and jake’s been at this for a while now. out patrolling, out fighting crime, out throwing dad jokes to creeps at night. but he’s never had a night like this. not with this much chaos, not with this much feeling.

an unexpected bullet. a slam against concrete. some dumb goon with a perfect punch. but right before it? you. you in an obnoxiously bright blue t-shirt saying ‘fish make life betta’. looking at him like that. kissing him like that.

by the time jake stumbles out of the bathroom, patched up with some teenage mutant ninja turtles bandages and wrapped in an oversized hoodie, he’s exhausted.

every limb aches. every muscle screams. every brain cell thinking of you.

and by the time monday rolls around and he wakes up to his alarm at 6:32AM—because he snoozed it for 32 extra minutes—jake frowns at what he sees.

his black eye looks worse, his face is, at least, five different shades of blue, purple, pink, and his ankle is still swollen. every step sends a jolt of pain up his body that even breathing feels like a core workout.

so jake does what any emotionally and physically fatigued teenage superhero would do.

he fakes food poisoning.

when his mom knocks on his door to get him up for school, jake meekly groans out a quick, “mooom. i’ve been projectile vomiting since, like, 3AM. i think it was the fish tacos.”

jake did not eat fish tacos.

but she buys it anyways, says something about him getting rest, and how she’s going to the store for medicine.

and jake sighs. mentally blesses his mom’s heart. attempts to fist pump weakly. fails. winces in pain. then, he turns his phone completely off, buries himself under his blanket, and with nothing but the hazy image of beluga whales, a reminder that he needs to wash his bloodied suit, and you—jake finally falls asleep.

the next thing jake can comprehend is more than twelve hours later. a lot more than twelve hours later. when he blinks awake—it’s pitch black, his body is still aching, his phone is dead, and—

there’s knocking. soft, but persistent.

he stumbles out of bed with a groan and a wince, croaking out a low, “coming..” while he limps over with one arm holding his side before he whips his door open and—

it’s you. jake blinks. you blink. your jaw drops.

“y/n,” jake blurts out, eyes wide. he rubs them once. twice. hopes, prays, this is just one of those weird fever dreams that feel way too real that he gets whenever he sleeps for too long.

but then you rush forward, brows furrowed and eyes flicking from his black eye, to the bruise on his cheek, to the way he’s leaning heavily on one leg with the other slightly elevated—

yeah. this is not a fever dream.

“what are you—what—how—what are you doing here?” jake stammers, instantly turning around, nerves spiking as he quickly scans his room for any incriminating spidey-like props.

suit? mask? web shooters? where did he put that damn mask—

“i texted you, like, fourteen times,” you say following him in, concerned painted all over your face. “you didn’t show up to school. you weren’t answering. i panicked and your mom let me in—jake.”

you stop. jake stops. your voice drops.

“what in the world happened to you?”

jake did not plan for this part. well, he didn’t plan for any of this. “i—uh,” he turns to you, eyes wide. “i…fell.”

your eyes flick down to his knuckles—bruised, battered, and definitely the aftermath of punching something hard. you raise a brow.

jake follows your gaze. panics.

“jake—did you…get in a fight?” “what?!” his voice goes an octave too high. he clears his throat. tries again. “no. no, no. i don’t—fights? me? no. i don’t—i don’t get into fights. that would be very…un-cool.”

you give him a look that says you clearly don’t buy it, but to his relief, you don’t push.

but because jake is still jake, he continues anyways. “i…i was biking—” jake doesn’t know how to ride a bike. “—without a helmet. bad idea, don’t do that. and then i hit this…massive pothole. huge. basically fell off and hit the curb and…and yeah.”

you blink at him. and jake’s panicking, so he’s still going.

“—and then a pigeon flew into me…?” you blink again. “a pigeon.”

jake nods quickly, as if that could convince you anymore (it doesn’t). “a pigeon! you know how they are. dumb pigeons.”

there’s a pause. you stare at him from halfway across the room. jake stands there awkwardly with his hands by his side.

you sigh. cross your arms. “you’re a really bad liar.”

jake looks at the ground. his ears turn red. then he looks back at you with a small, sheepish smile on his face. “yeah,” he admits softly. “kinda am.”

jake moves to sit on the edge of the bed, and you take that as an invitation to sit next to him. there’s a silence between you two again as jake fiddles with the ends of his hoodie, his face warm from either the bruising, the fact that you just called him out, or the fact that somehow, someway, you’re here. in his room. on his bed.

you glance sideways to look at him. then at the floor. then back at him again. you nudge his knee with yours. “…well,” your voice comes out quiet. “are you okay? at least?”

jake looks up. meets your eyes.

and they're wide and worried and so completely focused on him. and for the second time in twenty-four hours, jake thinks his heart might literally give out.

he nods once. swallows. “yeah. yeah, i am. thanks, y/n.”

the moment lingers as the same warm hush settles again between you, like some kind of quiet, mutual agreement—like hey, i’m here, and yeah. i care. and no, i’m not going anywhere. and jake doesn’t know what to spiral about first.

the fact that:

you haven’t left.

you haven’t pried about why he looks like a literal punching bag.

you care.

you shift a little, reaching into the backpack that jake hadn’t even noticed you brought, and pull out a packet of neatly clipped papers.

“i brought the chem notes from today,” you say, holding them out in between you. “there was a pop quiz, and i figured you might want the stuff we reviewed after.”

jake blinks down at the packet, then up at you. then back at the packet. he tries to act normal when he brushes against your fingers when it takes he from your hand. fails spectacularly.

“and,” you continue, eyes flicking to his for a second before focusing somewhere behind him. notably, the crooked bill nye ‘science rules!’ poster taped to the wall. “i just…wanted to see you.”

and jake, quite literally, forgets how to form words for half a second, but you don’t notice. your knee is still against his and he thinks he’s memorized the smell of your shampoo at this point.

“anyways—” you clear your throat and the shyness in your tone makes jake forget how to breathe. “—there’s this documentary they’re playing at the theater tomorrow.” you pause, as if gauging his reaction but jake’s pretty sure he’s blacked out right now. “it’s about—um—deep sea ecosystems? something about bioluminescence and predator-prey adaptations and this super weird jellyfish migration they just discovered.”

jake blinks hard. shakes himself back to reality. realizes this definitely, 100%, isn’t a fever dream. but surely, he’s dreamt of something like this before.

“that…sounds amazingly weird,” is all he can manage to say, nodding slowly.

“i figured,” you give a little half-shrug, “maybe you’d wanna go with me?” then you nudge his shoulder this time. “if you’re not still crippled by then, that is.”

there is a full three seconds of stunned, stunned silence. then, jake scrambles to sit up straighter, eyes wide, “yes. yeah—yes, i’d love to. with you. to see the jellyfish. yeah.”

you smile at him, “cool.” and jake can’t stop smiling back. he’s 98% pretty sure he looks like an idiot, but 100% knows he doesn’t care in the slightest.

you push up from the bed before grabbing your backpack and slinging it over your shoulder. “alright then,” you say, clapping your hands together. “i should go. rest up, okay?”

“i will. i will,” jake nods quickly, still a little dazed. “can’t be too crippled for tomorrow.”

you let out a soft laugh as he follows you to the front door. and when you step outside, you pause in the doorway—hovering like there’s still something on the tip of your tongue.

jake’s hand lingers on the doorknob. you glance up at him. open your mouth, then close it again.

then finally, quietly—you try again. “i, um…” you tuck a loose strand of hair behind your ear. “about the other night…”

jake’s heart rate spikes. your eyes flicker up to meet his, and they’re a little unsure. as if searching.

“i wasn’t sure,” you admit. “when you didn’t show up to school and didn’t answer my texts…i didn’t know if maybe—”

you trail off for a second, then finish in one quick breath: “if maybe you regretted it.”

and jake—bruised and aching and completely out of his mind for you—feels the air knocked out of him all over again.

his entire body goes still before he reboots all within 0.5 seconds. “no,” he says. fast. too fast, jake. “god, no.”

your eyes lift again.

“i didn’t regret it. not even a little bit,” his voice stumbles, his nerves are on fire, and his chest tightens with something dangerously close to hope. “i think…i think i relived it a million times in my head, honestly.

jake lets out a small chuckle—partly pathetic, but entirely sincere. “i meant it,” he murmurs. “every second of it.”

you shift your weight from foot to foot, “okay.” a reassured smile rests on your face. “just checking.”

jake exhales, rubs the back of his neck, and looks at you with something boyish and sorry. “i don’t regret it, but i do regret not checking my phone. that was stupid.”

you smirk at him, “a little bit.” jake grins, releasing a short breath of relief as he leans a little against the doorframe, “i’ll do better.”

you hum, giving him a certain, knowing look. “i’ll hold you to it,” your voice drops a little, and before jake can fully process the shift, you lean in—just barely, but yet just enough—and place the lightest kiss to his cheek.

and jake goes completely still. because it’s not dramatic, and it’s definitely not cinematic by any means.

not when you’re both standing in the middle of his apartment hallway, under a flickering light his super refuses to fix no matter how many maintenance requests his mom files. not when there’s a suspicious cloud of weed-scented air coming from the new college neighbors, who obviously do not care about the no smoking indoors sign. and especially not when jake’s ankle is still swollen, his ribs still sore, and he’s wearing star wars pajama pants with a hole in them that he’s praying you didn’t notice.

but it’s warm. and real. and so vulnerable it makes jake’s heart yearn in the most inconvenient way. like breathless honesty wrapped in nothing but silence and the glow of someone who cares.

you pull back slowly, your cheeks a shade pinker than before, your eyes still on his. and jake—well, he’s pretty sure his entire body is red head to toe. his cheek tingles from where your lips just were and his senses are so hyper-focused on you, he doesn’t even notice the pain of his wounds anymore.

“goodnight, jake,” you say finally before turning and going down the hall. and jake stands there, watching you—entirely, irrevocably, shamelessly, gone.

when you’re finally out of sight, jake finally stands up straight, snapping himself out of it and shuts the door behind him, limping his way back to his room when—

his eye catches the clock. 10:43PM. crap. you really need to stop walking home this late.

and suddenly, jake’s adrenaline kicks back in. not from the kiss. okay, maybe a little from the kiss. but mostly because it’s you, and you’re walking home alone, and, yeah, you live a five minute walk away from his but what if something happened, and then— yeah.

with no hesitation, jake locks his room door, goes into his closet, and grabs his suit—still battered and bloodied and roughened up, but it’ll do. two minutes and one-struggle-to-put-on-a-suit-when-half-crippled-later, jake is quietly hobbling out of his window, praying his mom is asleep.

he swings himself easily onto the rooftop of his own building, easily spotting you already a block down. he keeps to the rooftops, stealthily going from building to building until—

his damn ankle. his ankle—which he clearly forgot about for a hot business second—catches on a loose gutter and the next thing jake knows is pain, the taste of concrete in his face, and a loud-and-not-so-subtle crash, bang, clang.

“crap, crap, shit—” jake stands up, dusting his suit off, one leg propped up as he balances on his good one. “ouch, god—” “spidey?” oh god. jake freezes. peeks over the edge.

and there you are—fifty-something feet below, staring up at him, brows furrowed, arms crossed. “oh—” jake gives an awkward wave from where he is. “—y/n! hey! hi. what’s—uh—what’s up?”

jake steps back to duck out of sight, muttering a stream of whispered curses to himself before inhaling sharply and flinging himself down from the rooftop, landing right in front of you with the composure of someone with a screaming ankle and bullet-shaped wound in their abdomen.

you arch a brow. “…is this the part where you admit you are following me, after all?” jake straightens up slowly. and painfully. “i—what? no. i was, uh…” he gestures vaguely down the block. he has no idea what he’s pointing to. “getting pizza. dollar slice. late night craving.”

“uh huh,” you squint, clearly not believing him. “if i promise to stop walking home this late, will you stop stalking me from rooftops?” jake pauses. tilts his head. “define stalking.” you let out a small laugh, half-exasperated, half-fond.

“fine then,” you say, shrugging, “c’mon then. you’re already out. i’m coming with you.” jake blinks. “…coming with me to…where?”  “to get pizza,” you’re walking now, already turning without second thought. “duh.”

ten minutes and two lukewarm pizza slices later, you’re sitting shoulder to shoulder on your fire escape. the air is thick with humidity and smells faintly of marinara, melting cheese, and rusted metal. there’s a low buzz of cars below in the distance, and the stars up above are mostly hidden.

you’re chewing in silence. jake, on the other hand, is holding his slice in his hand in fear—too nervous to even lift his mask up to eat it. thankfully, you don’t notice. or if you do, you don’t mention it. either way, he’s relieved.

you knee bumps his. “so why do you do it?” jake startles slightly, his eyes dragging over to you beneath his mask, “why do i…do what?” you take another bite, still staring out across the street. “spider-man. why do you do what you do?”

he follows your gaze to the building you’re looking at. gives a weak shrug.

“i…didn’t really have a choice, i guess,” he offers quietly. that makes you turn. “you’re being forced to do this?” “no—no, not like that,” he’s quick to shake his head. then he pauses. thinks for a second. “it’s more like…one day, i woke up with these powers. and i realized i could do something with it, you know? like something good. and if i have the chance to…shouldn’t i?”

you’re silent for a second. then you glance over, studying the smooth fabric of his mask like you’re trying to see the face beneath it.

“so you fight crime and get beat up on the daily…willingly?” you shake your head, a small scoff escaping your nose. “you’re better than me, spidey.”

jake lets out a short breath—half of a laugh, half of a sigh. “someone has to. i mean, if i just sit back and watch bad things happen…then it’s like the bad things happen because of me.”

you nod slowly, your lips pressing together in thought. “yeah. that makes sense.”

there’s another pause. quiet, mutual. a pocket of space in the noise of the city where nothing exists but your knees pressed side by side and the pizza box going cold between you. you shift beside him, letting your legs dangle freely off the fire escape. “you’re a good guy,” you say eventually, turning to shoot him a soft smile.

jake swallows hard. his heart’s somewhere in his throat, and he doesn’t quite trust his own voice not to crack, so he simply nods—just once—and turns his gaze back out to the horizon.

“welp,” jake finally says, voice low, a little reserved, “i should probably get back to…you know. my thing.” you tilt your head, eyes narrowing playfully. “like walking your favorite citizens back home?”

“that part—” jake scoffs under his breath, then smirks behind the mask, “—is already done.” then, because spider-man is still jake, he throws up a finger-gun for good measure. he hates himself.

you roll your eyes, but the same smile stays on your face, “you’re unbelievable, spider-man.”

“i try.”

jake slowly rises to stand on the narrow ledge, glancing down at you one more time. the moonlight hits your cheek just right. you’re still holding the crust of your pizza slice, legs swinging, your eyes slightly narrowed like you’re trying to figure something out. and for the third time in twenty-four hours, jake still feels like his heart might give out.

he gives you a little salute, meant to be casual, but he feels anything but. and then, without thinking—he says it.

“see you tomorrow.” a beat of silence. jake’s face blanks. his body completely stills. you blink up at him. “…tomorrow?”

crap. crap, crap, CRAP.

jake’s silence goes for a second too long. then he scrambles for cover. “i mean—uh—hypothetically,” jake stammers, waving a gloved hand vaguely. “like, if you’re…out again. tomorrow. late at night. which you shouldn’t be. because, you know. laws.”

you give him a look. “laws?” “yup,” he taps his chest with two fingers. “spidey laws.” you let out a small giggle and lean back against the railing, arms loosely wrapped over your knees. “right. goodnight, spidey.”

jake clears his throat and bids a small, “night, y/n,” before shooting his web to the corner of the next building and swinging himself out of sight.

and jake doesn’t stop smiling the whole way home. not even when he peels the suit off with a small wince. not even when he collapses into bed, muscles aching and bruises throbbing and heart racing.

but the panic eventually sets in. and it’s early evening the next day by the time it does for jake.

jake stands in front of his closet, yanking hangers out as he quickly skims and tosses another outfit into the rejected pile.

sunghoon lies on the bed behind him, sprawled out horizontally, lazily twisting a rubik’s cube with one hand and scrolling on his phone with the other.

“you know,” sunghoon says without looking up, “it’s literally just a movie. actually, it’s barely even that. it’s a documentary.”

jake whips around, ignoring sunghoon’s comments, holding up a navy button-up in one hand and a graphic tee in the other. “which one says i-tried-but-didn’t-try-too-hard-because-i’m-not-100%-sure-what-we-are-quite-yet-but-just-enough-try?”

“…okay,” sunghoon says, twisting the cube into a perfect, one-colored side. “i’m just…gonna ignore everything you said. but go with the navy.”

“perfect,” jake grins at first, before his eyebrows furrow slightly. “wait, wait, wait. do you think she suspects anything?”

sunghoon lowers the cube. looks at jake. “about you liking her? bro, you kissed her—dude, it’s so obvi—she knows, trust me.”

“no,” jake hisses, yanking off his shirt and then buttoning the navy one on. “about me. like me me. like, spider-man me.”

sunghoon pauses. eyes jake. “what? why? what did you do?”

jake tries to fight back the dumb grin growing on his face as he runs his hand through his hair. “i walked her home.”

“okay…” sunghoon gives him a look that says he’s not impressed. “and i walked my grandma home last week, what’s your point—”

jake rolls his eyes and glances at him through the mirror. “as spider-man.”

“wait—” sunghoon gasps. “so you did end up using your lil guy!”

jake turns to sunghoon, face horrified, “can we please stop calling it my lil guy—”

but before sunghoon can respond, a sudden crackle of static cuts through the air from where jake’s police scanner sits on his cluttered desk.

“—reports of an assault in progress near 37th and bay. suspect is armed. five victims. officers en route. any nearby units respond.”

the air stills. sunghoon immediately sits up. jake’s head jerks towards the tracker. sunghoon’s already reading the look in his best friend’s eyes, “don’t.” jake doesn’t answer.

his eyes are locked on the scanner. his jaw tightens. his mind already racing.

assault in progress. you. suspect is armed. documentary. weird jelly fish. 37th and bay. you. five victims. y/n. y/n. y/n. y/n.

sunghoon watches him carefully, like someone trying to talk a bomb out of detonating. “jake. don’t even think about it.” “i’m not!” jake blurts, too fast, too high, and the crack at the end gives him away.

sunghoon groans. “dude. you have another date. with y/n. you’ve been waiting for this for so long.” “i—i know,” jake’s voice rises in panic. and he’s trying so hard not to panic. “but what if no one gets there in time? w—what if…it’s close. i can handle it. i’ll be quick.”

“jake.” sunghoon gapes at him. “quick? you literally limped up the stairs today. you barely beat that guy from the other day!”

jake doesn’t hear him. in fact— jake’s navy button-up is already off.

“i’ll be fine!” “you still have a bullet scar in your stomach!” “exactly, sunghoon. scar. practically healed. no biggie!” sunghoon throws his hands up. “you can’t be serious—”

“i’ll be done and early to the theater. i swear, hoon.” jake is already tugging the suit halfway over his upper half, wincing at the movement but powering through. “i’ll swing in, swing out. three minutes, tops.”

sunghoon groans louder. and jake is already yanking the window open. “jake.” his friend’s voice softens slightly. “don’t blow this. you like her. she likes you.”

jake pauses, foot on the ledge, mask in hand. he turns back towards sunghoon, lips tight, shoulders tense. “i do like her,” he murmurs.

he pulls the mask down over his head anyways.

“but you know me, sunghoon. you know i can’t be the guy who looks the other way.” and sunghoon does know. of course he knows. this was always a losing battle from the start. because he knows his best friend, he knows jake. knows his heart wasn’t just made of gold, but forged in it. soft and stubborn, foolish yet fearless. the kind of heart that doesn’t back down, even when it knows it should. the kind that tries anyways.

so sunghoon doesn’t push any further. he presses a hand to jake’s shoulder and gives it a firm pat.

“you better not be late.”

jake offers a crooked salute with two fingers—part promise, part apology— and falls backwards out the window.

a flick of his wrist, a few shots of web, a sharp whoosh of air as jake swings into the wind—and the night cleans the rest of his loud thoughts out of his head.

because as much as he wants to see you—as much as he’s worrying about being late—he can’t think about that right now.

and so one fight, a couple hard punches to the gut, a potentially dislocated shoulder, and a webbed-up criminal later—

jake is limping his way back across a rooftop ledge, blood in his mouth and the taste of guilt already rising up like bile behind it.

he lands with a grunt just outside his window on the fire escape, cracking it open and tip-toeing in. he stumbles into his room—still half-messy from earlier—navy button-up on the floor, rubik’s cube on the bed.

jake groans softly, one hand pressed into his side, the other slowly dragging his mask off. his jaw aches. his ribs throb. his other ankle is definitely going to bruise. but his heart? sinks when he finally turns on his phone.

6 missed messages. 3 missed calls. all from you.

Y/N (7:41PM) : hey! just got here early :)) but no rush!!

Y/N (7:57PM) : are u on ur way?

Y/N (8:03PM) : jake? is everything okay?

Y/N (8:16PM) : im going in now…meet me inside when u get here?

Y/N (9:45PM) : jake if u forgot u can just tell me

Y/N (10:12PM) : i hope ur okay

jake stares at the screen. sits on the edge of his bed, defeated. like he might fall apart.

because jake has seen a lot in his short lifetime. he’s seen back alleyways soaked in red. he’s seen broken glass way too many times a teenager ever should. he’s seen someone take a swing at him with a crowbar. he’s seen bruises bloom on his ribs and vanish before anyone could ask questions. he’s seen criminals twice his size fall, and he’s seen friends—good people—get hurt anyways.

but this? this wrecks him. this has jake in shambles.

because he missed it. he missed you. and before he could talk himself out of it—before he even knows what he’s going to say—he’s tapping on your name and pressing the call button.

it rings once. twice. three times.

“jake?” your voice is soft. cautious. like you didn’t know if you should answer, but did anyways.

jake swallows hard, voice caught in his throat.

“i’m sorry.” a pause. it hangs in the air and jake already wants to scream. “i’m so sorry,” he says again, voice low, words falling out fast, as if trying to outrun his own guilt gnawing at him. “i—i didn’t mean to—i was gonna be there, i swear i was gonna be there, but then something happened and—”

“hey,” your voice cuts through. not loud, not pressing, not angry. “it’s okay.” but it’s far from it. not in jake’s head. not when the image of you sitting alone in the dark theater has already carved itself into his brain. not when he can hear the disappointment in your voice.

jake licks his lips. he can hear the shift of your weight rustling against your bed. maybe you’re curled up somewhere in the dark. maybe you’re still in the outfit you wore to the movies. maybe you cried, and maybe you didn’t. and maybe jake will never know.

“no, no it’s not,” jake manages. he winces—at the pain growing at his ribs, at the mess he’s made, at himself. “i—i didn’t even text, i—god, i’m such an idiot—”

“you’re not an idiot, jake,” you say. and your voice is tired, but never cold. “i was just…worried.”

“i’m okay. i promise. and i promise i didn’t forget,” he whispers. “not even a little.” and there’s so much more jake wants to say.

“…did something happen?” you ask gently. jake’s fingers tighten around the phone. “yeah,” jake says, the sound barely coming out. “kind of.”

another beat passes. a small exhale from you. “do you want to talk about it?” and jake’s throat closes up.

because he wants to. god, he wants to. he wants to tell you everything—about the fight, the chase, the guy with the knife, the way his side still burns, the way he pictured you waiting outside the theater for him with every swing and every hit he took and every punch. he wants to tell you he didn’t forget. that you were the only thing on his mind the whole time.

but he can’t. he knows he can’t.

“…i—i can’t.”

you’re quiet again. but this time, jake can feel the shift even over the phone. and it’s not annoyance, it’s not cold. jake doesn’t think a single bone in your body could ever hold an ounce of bitterness. just disappointment. sadness.

“…okay.” your voice barely goes through. jake squeezes his eyes shut. his fist balls up the sheet under him. “i’m sorry,” he whispers again.

you inhale through your nose, “it’s okay. i just—i didn’t know if something happened. i didn’t know if you were hurt...or if i said something wrong.”

jake’s stomach twists—sharp and awfully close to throwing up. and this time, it’s not from the amount of times he took it to the gut today.

“no,” he blurts, too quickly but he doesn’t care. “no, it wasn’t you. you didn’t do anything wrong.”

another long, still silence.

“alright…well,” you murmur eventually, voice light in that way people use when they’re trying not to sound disappointed. “i’ll see you at school then, i guess?” 

“yeah,” jake nods, even though you can’t see him. “yes. yeah, tomorrow.”

you don’t say anything else. and neither does he. you end the call first.

and jake stays frozen, still on the edge of his bed, phone still pressed to his ear even after the line goes dead with a soft click.

he shuts his eyes, letting the dark swallow him whole. and as he groans, rubbing a tired hand over his face—wincing at the physical pain, but mentally cursing at the emotional one—jake can’t stop hearing your voice in his head.

everything is too much.

halls buzzing, lockers slamming, sneakers squeaking. the overhead lights are way too bright, and the air smells like gym socks and cafeteria mystery meat.

and it’s all overwhelming. well, it should be, at least. especially for someone who has heightened senses that feels everything a hundred times more than the regular human being. sharper, louder, closer.

but jake barely notices any of it. he’s already halfway down the corridor, eyes immediately locking in on you the second he walked through those doors. and as far as he’s concerned, nothing else matters. 

you’re at your locker, spinning the combination without looking, when jake finds himself next to you before he knows it.

he clears his throat, “hey.” you glance over. “oh,” you say, blinking. “hi.”

jake steps a little closer, a little hesitant, nerves jumbled in his gut. “look, y/n. i’m really sorry. i still am.”

you shake your head almost immediately, pulling out a book and shutting your locker gently. there’s a polite smile on your face as you look over at him, “jake. it’s okay. really.”

"it’s not—” he says, frowning, his voice coming out rougher than he intends. his ribs still hurt. his ankle’s still swollen. his face still bruised. but none of that stings half as much as the way you’re not meeting his eyes right now. “you had every right to be pissed—”

“i wasn’t pissed, jake,” you cut in gently. “i told you. you just worried me…that’s all.”

that makes jake shut up. his throat closes up. because worried might be worse. worried means you care. and he let you down anyway.

and that’s it for a moment. the silence that follows stretches a little too long—lockers clang in the background, someone yells about running late to class. the world keeps moving—but jake doesn’t.

“i’m glad you’re okay,” you finally say, voice quiet as your gaze skims across his face, lingering just a moment too long on the faint bruise along his jaw.

jake exhales slowly. tries not to flinch under the weight of your concern. because how? how can you still look at him like that—with care, with softness—when he doesn’t know what he even did to deserve it?

and the worst part is, he’s terrified he already lost you before he ever even earned you.

“…so,” he says, the word catching in his throat awkwardly yet hopeful all at once, “how about we try again?” your head tilts, an unreadable curiosity replacing the worry in your eyes.

jake lets out an uneven breath of nervous laughter as he searches your eyes. “tomorrow night? you, me. that corner diner with the insane milkshakes and greasy burgers. then we can regret it together afterwards.”

you only look at him for a beat. then, just slightly, your shoulders relax. and jake watches it happen in real time—the way the tension lifts just slightly, the curve of a small smile tugging at your lips.

like sunlight cutting through a cloud. like a sign from the universe that maybe, just maybe, he didn’t completely ruin everything.

“okay,” you breathe, a small laugh escaping with it. “that…actually does sound kinda fun. maybe not the grease part, but…yeah. at least we can suffer together.”

you then step closer, nudging him lightly with your shoulder, a playful glint in your eye, “you’re paying, by the way.”

jake grips the straps of his backpack with both his hands, smiling at you like a child offered candy. “done and done.”

“alright, well,” you step back with a glance down the hall, “i should probably head to class.”

jake nods back, eyes still watching you, “yeah, yeah, right. me too.” but he doesn’t move. just keeps watching you, unsure if he should try pinching himself.

you look back at him one last time, “jake?”

jake’s half-way on his heels when he stops at the sound of your voice again. “yeah?”

“it really is okay,” you reassure. and it’s real. honest. grounded. and everything jake needs to hear.

he smiles, a little too lopsided and voice a little too fragile when he speaks again, “i’ll see you?”

“counting on it,” you grin before turning back and making your way to class.

the rest of the day blurs for jake. he aces the pop vocabulary quiz in english, he steals some of sunghoon’s fries from his tray, he accidentally dents his locker door when closing it because he forgets he has literal super strength.

but it all passes in a haze. muted and unimportant. because the only thing that cuts through the noise is the thought of you.

every hour stalls. every minute another reminder that the best way to distract himself from the chaos of his head is the same thing that causes it in the first place—

seeing you. obviously.

“you know,” his voice comes from above, playful and easy, “i probably sacrifice at least two churros a night just making sure you get home safe instead of saving the world out there.”

“jesus christ—” you jolt back, nearly tripping over your own feet as jake—spider-man—drops down beside you later that night on your walk back home. you instinctively swat at the air as if that threatens him. at all.

“wrong guy,” he quips, sticking the landing in a crouch and straightening up. “but i do appreciate the enthusiasm.”

your face drops and give him a deadpan stare. “you really gotta stop doing that.”

“me?” jake clutches his chest dramatically through the suit before jutting a thumb behind him towards absolutely nothing. “i could totally leave right now and earn myself some churros.”

you huff out a breath, rolling your eyes even as your lips twitch towards a smile, “then why are you still here, spidey?”

“because,” jake answers simply, falling into step beside you, “it’s part of my friendly-neighborhood-spider-man-civic-duties to make sure my favorite citizen gets home safe.”

you snort, shaking your head lightly as you tilt your head at him, “fine. let’s get going then.”

jake smiles beneath the mask—too wide, too hopeful, too much. and you don’t see it, but he feels it—feels you—in every corner of himself. and jake hates how badly he wishes this could just be him. no mask, no lies, no secret. just jake. just you.

once you two make it a block or two (jake lost count), jake coughs a little too awkwardly, breaking through the quiet, “sooo…what ended up happening with that aquarium guy?”

you falter for half a second. it’s quick, but jake notices. not because his jake-tingle makes him notice everything, but because he’s watching. especially you.

you start walking again just as fast, trying to pretend the question didn’t rattle you at all before you clear your throat, “what guy?”

“y’know,” jake gestures vaguely, hands flailing, “the guy-guy. the one who took you to see the belugas—”

oh no. jake stops. shuts his mouth. he did it again. you stop too. turn to look at him slowly.

“…how do you know about the belugas?” jake looks at you. the lenses of his mask widen. then narrow. blink. squint.

“i—uh—” jake rubs the back of his neck, the suit suddenly feeling a little too tight, a little too warm. “i saw a billboard. yeah. i was swinging around the other day and—and there was this massive ad. big and blue and very…beluga-like.”

there’s a beat. reason #1115 why jake’s going to launch himself into orbit. but you buy it anyways, settling with a small side-eye before walking again, “okay…right.”

“yeah,” jake exhales under his mask, recovering with a casual shrug, “anyways. belugas…the aquarium guy?”

you hum, the sound barely audible as if you’re thinking, “he’s…cool. he’s alright.”

and jake’s heart caves in a little. okay, maybe a lot. he pretends to nod, to be chill, to not feel like maybe he’s witnessing his entire world fall apart in front of him right now and he can’t do anything about it.

“damn,” he manages to squeak out, voice lighter than how he feels. “just alright?”

you glance at him briefly before looking back at the sidewalk, “no, no—he’s…he’s really nice,” you say and jake swears he can feel the syllables in your voice individually bruise his ribs. “he’s just…confusing. i don’t know.”

and jake, because he’s jake, watches you. watches the way your voice dips quieter. watches the way your shoulders curl in just a little, watches the way your mind trails off.

“confusing…” he says slowly, carefully, testing the ice. “like you…don’t like him?” and jake doesn’t know why he asked that. he doesn’t know if he wants to hear the answer.

“yes. no. i—i don’t know. i think i do.” a small pause. you kick a pebble. “but sometimes it’s hard to tell if he…if he actually cares? or if i made the whole thing up in my head.”

jake blinks hard. looks away. swallows. bites the inside of his cheek to keep everything in. because you didn’t make it up. not even a little. and god, if only you knew how desperately he cares—how much of his life he’s unintentionally rewritten around you.

his heart screams to tell you everything. that this is his chance, that he can fix everything right here, right now. but his brain knows better.

“i think…you should give him a chance.”

you look up, surprised. and jake doesn’t know why—but that hurts too.

“seriously,” his eyes flick forward again. “he’d be lucky. you’re smart. and thoughtful. and…even though you have the survival instincts and awareness of a sea turtle, you’re…fun. and honestly kind of unbelievable.”

and for a spilt second, jake forgets. forgets that he’s not just jake. forgets he’s not just a teenage boy talking to his crush. forgets that to you, right now, he’s not the awkward guy that stammers next to you in chemistry and accidentally breaks glass beakers in his hand. forgets that he’s spider-man—the one you seem to trust a little more freely than the boy who let you down.

and that’s what hurts the most. because when you glance up at him now—there’s that feeling again. the pocket of air that only ever exists between you and him. a space that feels warmer than the rest of the world, like the universe took a breath and exhaled only around the two of you.

and it’s always there, somehow—whether he’s wearing the mask or not. whether it’s spider-man and you eating cold pizza on your fire escape. whether it’s you and jake laughing over a lame pun your teacher used in class. and jake knows that air. craves it. has memorized the shape of silence it holds.

but right now, it feels more like spider-man gets to live in it. not jake. and that realization twists something sharp and quiet inside his chest.

because jake’s the one who likes you. jake’s the one who knows you like your matcha lattes even with the grainy oat milk that makes the texture weird. the one who knows you only ever take chemistry quizzes with your favorite pink pen because you think it gives you good luck. the one who gets to share sour patch kids with you under the lab table when you both think no one is looking. but jake’s the one who messed up.

and spider-man’s the one who gets to be here now.

he looks at you—you standing there, eyes soft, smile just a little sad—and he’s willing himself not to say anything stupid. not to ruin the moment. not to cross that line he drew. not to let it get to his head every time he realizes the only way he can be close to you right now…is by being someone else.

and so jake locks in.

the next morning, he wakes up early—which, in jake terms, really means waking up at his regular time and only hitting snooze twice instead of his usual six. he throws on a hoodie that he sniffed to make sure it smells like detergent and not like it’s overdue for a wash, looks in the mirror, and brushes his hair. like actually brushes it, and not just run his hands through it and hopes for the best. he walks the full twenty minutes to the café where he studied with you, orders your usual—the matcha latte with the grainy oat milk—adds a smiley face and heart on the side of the cup next to your name, and books it to school. he arrives early to school, for once, and goes straight to your locker—not before dodging a frisbee mid-air, a frantic girl running with an art project in hand, and a couple making out aggressively by the vending machine.

when you close your locker door shut, you look up surprised—jake in your view, holding the matcha out like an olive branch. if olive branches wore oversized hoodies and had a mild existential crisis fifteen minutes ago.

you blink. then you smile and take the cup. jake gives himself a mental high five. nailed it. and when you softly ask him to walk to you to your first class? jake nearly does a backflip. (he doesn’t. he plays it cool. barely.)

when chemistry rolls around later in the day, jake’s the first one to say hi this time. when the teacher is busy not looking, jake leans in and says a really, really stupid joke about ionic bonds and valence electrons and regrets it immediately but you laugh. you laugh and jake’s day is immediately better than any other day he’s had this week. at some point, you nudge his knee and when jake looks down—your hand is there, holding out a pack of sour patch kids. jake takes it as a good sign. or maybe a sign of impending life-long romance. either way, he takes one and tries not to make it weird. (and he still does. he accidentally eats two at once and chokes a little. but it’s fine.)

when the bell rings and class is over, you’re both packing up when you glance over and smile at him, “I’m excited to see you later tonight.” and jake thinks he misheard. thinks he’s hearing things because just three weeks ago, the most he’s ever said to you was either something about the periodic table or…running out of the classroom after breaking a glass beaker with his bare hands. but then your hand lands on the sleeve of his hoodie and gives him the slightest squeeze, and jake malfunctions.

jake gives you a thumbs up. because he panicked. he panicked and thumbs-upped (he will never learn). but you smile anyways and say your cute little goodbye before leaving class.

and the rest of the school day is irrelevant to jake because the rest of the school day doesn’t involve you. well, except in his head. sure, jake goes to lunch. sunghoon won’t stop talking about the new valorant expansion pack and how his computer lags everytime he tries to peek a corner—but jake’s just thinking about how your hair looked in the sunlight this morning when you asked him to walk you to class. sure, jake gets his pop quiz back in history with a big, fat, b minus written on top in red marker. normally, he’d spiral, because he really should be getting his history grade up. and normally, he’d wince at the mental image of his mom scolding him later over it—but he’s too busy replaying your laugh in his head. sure, jake goes to robotics club after school. he’s supposed to help calibrate the parts for their new battle bot but he accidentally installs a cord backwards, and now the bot is stuck running in circles—because jake sim is currently preoccupied.

preoccupied mentally drafting a speech that goes something like, “hey, i like you. a lot. possibly way more than i should but i don’t really care because you always smell good and your smile makes me want to rip my hair out and the memory of kissing you is in my dreams everynight. can i be your boyfriend? please? maybe? i’ll buy you weird oat milk drinks forever and buy you more beluga stickers even though, respectfully, you probably shouldn’t own any more.”

it’s still a work in progress.

and later that evening, jake is pacing back and forth in his bedroom, mentally preparing himself for tonight. his spider-man suit lies crumpled somewhere in the back of his closet half-covered by a flannel, a calculus textbook, and one sock he still can’t find the missing half to. he makes a mental note to wash the suit. eventually. later. not tonight. tomorrow. whatever. not important.

because tonight, he’s just jake. just jake, a regular teenage boy. just jake, a regular teenage boy with no responsibilities except to make his crush and hopefully soon-to-be-girlfriend happy.

just jake, nervously fixing the collar of his nicest hoodie, debating whether or not to wear the cologne his mom got him two birthdays ago. just jake, combing his fingers through his hair and wondering if you like it better pushed back, down, up, messy, styled, or, hell, shaved off entirely because he will do it if it gets him one (1) smile from you. just jake, practically grinning to himself because he’s going to see you.

jake checks the time again. 7:24PM. he’s early, which is good. which is the plan. because early gives him time to get to the diner first. early gives him time to find the best booth, which is the one near the corner window so you two can watch the sunset together and sit far from the kitchen door to avoid the smell of peanut oil. early gives him time to breathe and mentally run through everything he wants to say.

hi y/n. you look really pretty. i missed you—wait no, you saw her literally three hours ago, don’t say that—i was thinking we could split the strawberry milkshake together—wait is she lactose intolerant?

jake grabs his phone, wallet, the flowers he picked up at the corner deli on the way home. it’s wrapped in too much plastic, a little crooked, one of the carnations is sticking out, but it’s pink and soft and entirely you coded.

and jake makes his way to the diner, sneakers scuffing against the sidewalk, heart doing backflips in his ribcage as he turns the corner and sees the neon lights of the diner come into view just a few more blocks down. one of the lights of the sign is flickering in and out, going back and forth from diner to din_r. it’s perfect. you’re perfect. he just needs to get there.

buzz. buzz. jake looks down at his phone in hand.

incoming call : GUY IN CHAIR 🧠

“yo, i’m gonna call you in, like, a few hours,” jake answers without thinking, barely breaking his pace, “i’m on my way to the—” “jake.” and sunghoon’s voice is tense. urgent. the kind of urgent that tightens something in jake’s chest. jake stops.

“it’s bad. really, really bad,” sunghoon’s voice is strained and jake doesn’t like it. doesn’t like that feeling in his gut. the pull, the weight, the way his skin pricks, the way every muscle in his body tenses.

jake shuts his eyes closed. exhales sharply. runs a hand through his hair. “how bad?”

“like…warehouse near the port is up in flames and there’s a hostage situation and no one’s close enough to get there in time.”

and just like that, jake feels it. the way the air changes, that familiar shift in gravity. that tug in his chest like a string being pulled into two opposite directions.

jake doesn’t say anything. he looks back down the street, stares at the diner. he’s so close. so close to getting there. so close to getting to you. “i can’t, sunghoon. not tonight,” he swallows hard, his voice cracking on the words. “i—i don’t even have my suit.”

there’s a beat. “jake,” sunghoon says, softer yet not any less urgent. “they’ve got kids.”

jake’s eyes flutter closed again. presses the heel of his hand to his forehead like he can press the guilt away. he doesn’t move. and for a second—just one—he thinks maybe, maybe, he could keep walking. just this once. just tonight.

but he knows better.

the responsibility. the pull. the price of the mask. it’s never not there.

his grip tightens around the bouquet. the plastic crinkles. he sighs, slips out a curse word or two under his breath, and—

“jesus christ,” jake mumbles, already turning on his heel. “tell the fire department i’m on my way. and tell them to hurry.”

and jake’s already running—sprinting back in the opposite direction back to his apartment. sunghoon hangs up and jake?

jake doesn’t stop. he doesn’t even look back.

jake doesn’t know what time it is. doesn’t care. smoke still clings to his skin, the faint sting of ash burned into the fabric of his suit. his lungs ache, and his hands are scraped raw from tearing open too many metal doors and carrying too many people to safety.

but he’s alive. they’re alive. 

and yet. all jake can think about—is you.

you, maybe waiting in that booth. you, maybe sipping a milkshake through a striped straw, twirling it slowly and glancing at the door every couple minutes. you, maybe checking your phone. frowning. getting up. leaving.

god.

he doesn’t even stop to change. just swings home, crawls through his fire escape, throws a hoodie over his soot-covered suit, runs a wet hand through his hair, and jumps back out the fire escape again. he swings and swings until he lands in an alleyway near the diner, tripping over a trash can and throwing a curse word at it as he stumbles into the street and—

runs into you.

your arms are crossed tight against your chest, your head’s down. you’re walking the other way, unaware of the chaos behind you.

jake’s voice cracks before it can even form your name. “—y/n. y/n, i—”

you stop mid-step, your head turning at the sound. and when you turn and see him, you pause—the expression on your face unreadable.

“jake?” your brows furrow. “what the hell—where did you even come from? and why do you smell like—” you stop yourself. exhale shortly. shake your head. “you know what? never mind. i—i’m going home.”

you turn again. and jake panics. he starts after you, picking up his pace to match yours “wait—look, y/n, i’m so, so, so sorry. i swear i can explain—”

that’s when you stop in your tracks. you turn, finally facing him. and the emotions written on your face are everywhere—confused, hurt, tired, and somewhere beneath all of that—still soft.

“okay,” you say, looking him in the eye. “then explain.”

jake opens his mouth. closes it. he swallows. his lips open again.

"i—" his throat burns. and it’s not from inhaling a building’s worth of smoke from earlier. "i can’t. it's...complicated."

silence.

you stare at him. eyes wide. quiet. sad. disappointed. the kind that hurts jake more than if you were angry.

when you speak up again, your voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, “look, jake. i don’t know what’s going on with you. and i’m not mad. but…you’re just really confusing. and clearly, you’ve got something going on.”

you take a breath and fold your arms tighter around yourself, “—and while this was fun and all…i just—i don’t know if this is going to work out anyways.”

jake blinks. his stomach drops. he takes a step closer. “wait—no, y/n, i—”

and you keep going. “plus,” you let out a small laugh but it’s the worst kind of laugh—the kind that’s awkward and forced, like it’s there only to preemptively make up for the words coming after. “i’m just gonna be honest with you.”

jake doesn’t breathe. you look him in the eyes.

“i think i like someone else anyways.”

and that does it. jake’s world tilts sideways. the words hit him like a punch—no, worse, because he’s felt bad punches before. this feels like that moment in freefall right before the web catches you, except this time there’s no web. just the fall.

“you…like someone else?” is all jake manages to let out before the words get caught in his throat. he thinks he might throw up.

you nod. slowly. hesitantly. and jake feels like he’s unraveling.

he doesn’t know what to say. he wants to scream, he wants to cry, he wants to tear his stupid hoodie off and tell you everything. that he missed the date because he was saving lives. that he wanted to tell you he’s falling for you. that he bought the damn bouquet and practiced a stupid speech and picked the booth with the best view and no peanut oil smell. that he only missed it because he was trying to be good. good enough. worthy.

but all that comes out is air. because he can’t tell you. because he shouldn’t tell you. because spider-man doesn’t get to be selfish. because jake doesn’t get to be just jake.

your fingers fidget as you glance back down at the ground. you rock slightly on your heels before your voice breaks the silence again, “but hey. no hard feelings, yeah? friends?”

and that might be the final blow. and jake doesn’t even know how to respond. his brain stutters. because what is he supposed to say—”friends? no? actually, i wanted to ask you to be mine tonight, and now i can’t even tell you why i missed it?”

so instead, jake does what jake always does. he pretends. he nods, forces a smile—too quick, too wide, the kind that pulls at his cheeks but doesn’t reach his eyes.

“yeah,” he says. his voice cracks, but he clears his throat like that’ll fix anything. “yeah. of course. friends.”

you nod back and offer a tight smile, “i’ll see you at school, then. goodnight.”

then you turn. and you walk away. jake doesn’t move. the weight of your footsteps fade, but the words still echo in his ears.

friends. someone else. no hard feelings.

his chest feels hollow. like someone scraped everything out and forgot to fill it back in. like he just lost something he never even got the chance to have in the first place.

and spider-man’s the one who saved the day. and it should feel like a win, but it doesn’t. because although spider-man saved the day, jake’s the one who let you down. 

jake was too late. too late, too secretive. too much of everything and still not enough of what you needed.

“maybe it’s not as bad as we think.” sunghoon’s voice is cautious, but not exactly convincing from his slouched position in jake’s desk chair, spinning slowly like he’s debating whether now’s a good time to leave (it’s not. he’s been trying for the past hour. jake made him stay.)

jake lets out a guttural groan in response, already face down on his bed, limbs sprawled out in distress. a pillow is smushed over his head, in attempt to block out the agonizing, soul-crushing reality that is his life.

“it’s over, sunghoon,” jake muffles into his mattress. “over with a capital O. capital V. all the damn letters—over before it even started.”

jake flips over, sending the pillow to the other side of the room, “she likes someone else,” he says hollowly, staring blankly at the ceiling. “i was so preoccupied with everything else that i didn’t even notice she—who else could she even—”

jake cuts himself off mid-rant. because it doesn’t matter. doesn’t matter who you like. doesn’t matter how it happened.

it just matters that it’s not him. that you like someone. and it’s not jake.

jake presses a hand to his head, “god. i’m such an idiot.”

sunghoon lets out a low whistle and starts fiddling with one of jake’s pens, “okay. you’re not an idiot. you did what you had to do, and you did the right thing.”

jake lets out a small sigh, quiet and defeated, finally looking at his friend, “but when do i get to stop sacrificing to do the right thing?”

silence stretches out between them. the ceiling fan above them whirs. the clang of metal pots and pans echo from down the hall—which means jake’s mom is attempting to make meatloaf again. which means the fire alarm will probably go off in ten minutes, maybe eight. the room smells faintly of jake’s two-birthdays-ago cologne, and the burnt tinge of unwashed spandex crumpled somewhere in the room.

sunghoon taps the pen against the desk, eventually breaking the silence, “so talk to her. as spidey.”

jake sits up in his bed and gives sunghoon a look.

“talk to her as spider-man, tell her to give ‘jake’ another chance,” sunghoon repeats, throwing air quotes around his friend’s name.

jake gestures to the ceiling. the wall. the existential void of absolute nothingness around him. “sunghoon. that’s…messed up. morally. ethically. logistically. probably emotionally.”

“i mean,” sunghoon shrugs casually as if this is the answer to all of jake’s problems, “spidey’s already friends with her, anyways. and you told me yourself—it feels like she’s closer to him than she is to you.”

jake throws both hands in the air. “WE’RE THE SAME PERSON.”

he then lets out an inhuman noise and flops backwards onto his bed again, “whatever, man. this is probably for the best anyway,” he mutters. “spider-man should’ve never gotten involved in the first place. it’s safer this way. especially for her.”

a beat passes. jake stares up at the glow-in-the-dark stars still stuck to his ceiling from the sixth grade. he blinks once.

“plus, let’s be honest. i’d probably screw it up more somehow. say something dumb and let it slip that it’s been me all along.” jake pauses. “—or honestly, she probably already knows i’m spider-man. which is even worse, because now she probably hates both versions of me.”

sunghoon’s quiet for a moment. just keeps spinning slowly in jake’s chair, the wheels creaking faintly. “…so what? you’re just gonna stop walking her back home now?” he finally says, lifting a brow. “isn’t that for her safety too?”

and yeah. yeah, he has a point. so jake doesn’t stop.

he just stops being seen. and that’s what jake does for the next few days.

so jake falls into this routine without really meaning to. he goes home from school, puts on his suit (it’s clean now, don’t worry), and spends the next few hours either returning stolen bikes or webbing carjackers to brick walls or showing tourists the right direction.

and somehow, someway, jake still finds himself in the same spot at the end of the day—sitting crouched on the ledge of the rooftop across from your bus stop, a hoodie pulled over his mask, hands stuffed in his sleeves.

at 10:32PM, your bus rolls up right on the dot.

at 10:33PM, you step off. same oversized totebag on your shoulder. same way you pull your phone out and unlock it in the same three motions. same streetlight that flickers just before you pass it.

and jake watches you go home. makes sure you’re okay. makes sure you’re safe. all without making himself seen.

and only when your apartment window lights up does he finally feel okay, finally swings away, the wind cold and sharp in his lungs—but not as cold as the air around him whenever you’re not there.

he does this again the next night. and the next. and the next.

and at school, jake falls into rhythm here, too—if you can call it that.

you still sit next to him in chemistry. still copy formulas off the board. still hand in the same worksheets, laugh politely when the teacher makes a pun about avogadro’s number.

but you don’t share your sour patch kids anymore. and jake doesn’t make any stupid chemistry jokes to make you laugh either, because…he can’t think of any. because all the funny ones were ones he saved for you, and they don’t feel worth saying out loud anymore.

you talk to him, sure. when you need the answer to question six, or to ask if he got the quiz grade back. but there’s space between you now. quiet, aching space. and jake doesn’t know how to fill it.

but by the end of the week— all routines fly out the window.

because it’s friday night. and jake swings to the usual rooftop across from your bus stop, a half-eaten churro in one hand—courtesy of the sweet old lady who bought it for him after he showed her where her train station is. because it’s 10:30PM when jake lands on the roof, tossing his backpack to the side when he looks up and—

he freezes.

because sitting there, cross-legged on the ledge—on his ledge—backlit by the moonlight and the yellow glow of the streetlamps below—is you.

jake chokes. he stumbles back, the eyes of his mask blown wide immediately, “what the—y/n?! what are you—how did you—wh—”

and you’re sitting there, blinking and staring at him, unfazed. like you’ve been waiting. you don’t move. you just raise a brow.

“okay, so first you start walking me home every night, then you stop showing up, but still choose to stalk me from a distance? i don’t get you, spider-man.”

and jake is so confused right now. “i—what’s going on?” jake sputters, arms half-raised in shock and disbelief. “how are you even here right now, how did you even get up here?”

“you’re not exactly subtle, y’know,” you deadpan, ignoring his question as you tilt your head up at him. “every night you walk me home? i know this is where you drop your bag off and wait for me to get off that bus. i know you sit on that rooftop across from my place to make sure i’m okay every night. your silhouette is literally not that subtle.” then you gesture vaguely around the rooftop. “also, the webs everywhere? kinda a dead giveaway, don’t you think?”

jake’s mouth opens. nothing comes out. and if it weren’t for the mask, he’d be catching flies.

you stand now, arms crossed tight as you take a step closer to him. you take a deep breath before you ramble, “i don’t know. i’m just—i’m so confused, spider-man. i told the guy i like that i liked someone else. and i don’t even know if that was true or if i just panicked. but the truth is, i don’t even know if the guy i actually like likes me back, or even knows how to talk to me, or if i’m just completely losing it—”

“—wait.” jake tilts his head, still frozen in his spot. “wait, which guy? like the guy-guy? aquarium guy?”

you groan and start pacing, squeezing your eyes shut like you’re trying to make sense of the situation as well.

“yes. yes, of course the guy-guy, aquarium guy—who else would i be talking about? there’s no other guy—”

“you just said you told the guy-guy you liked someone else.”

“i did! i think! i—look, i don’t know! maybe i said it just to protect myself from the fact that the guy-guy doesn’t like me back. but now i might actually like this other guy—”

“okay, okay—hold on, back up,” jake steps back to process. holds up both his hands. “so there’s guy-guy you maybe like…and now a new guy…?”

jake’s mind is reeling. his insides might come out. who is the new guy? is jake even guy-guy? no. yes. maybe? jake has to be guy-guy. or else he’s gonna scold sunghoon for being very unoriginal for the aquarium date idea.

you stop pacing. you turn to him with wide eyes, like you’re mentally begging yourself to shut up, don’t do it, but your mouth moves anyways.

“…you,” your voice is quiet. barely audible. but yet, so loud and clear and more than anything else jake has ever sensed before. “i like you.”

and for a second there, jake thinks maybe he misheard, because it sounded a lot like you just said you liked him. spider-man. and there’s absolutely no way. there’s no way you said that. there’s no way you meant that.

there’s no way this is happening.

there’s no way the girl he’s been hopelessly staring at from across the cafeteria for god knows how long now, the girl he’s been walking home at night to make sure she’s safe even she didn’t know, the girl that witnessed him choke on two sour patch kids at once in the middle of chemistry—is standing here. on this rooftop. telling him that this entire time he’s been tangled up in a love triangle…with himself?

and jake? jake is actively malfunctioning. he says nothing. he does nothing. he thinks nothing.

and you seem to take jake’s stunned silence as pure horror— because you panic.

“oh my god. oh my god—i’m insane,” you whisper, moreso to yourself than him. “i knew it. i knew that guy-guy shattered my brain and messed me up so bad i’m actually losing it.”

you start pacing again. and jake’s legs don’t work, so he just watches.

“like—i don’t even know what you look like under that mask. what if you’re, like…thirty? what if you don’t even have a nose?” your voice rises in disbelief at your own choices. “what if i’m just projecting everything onto this idea of you, because you’re sweet and funny and walk me home and call me your favorite citizen and—god, i’m actually going delusional—”

jake takes a few more steps back, shaking his head once, then twice, like he’s trying to physically undo the entire past five minutes of his life. or reset his entire nervous system.

his hands fly to his hair as he turns away from you, staring up at the sky, muttering incoherent words to himself before he lets out a groan, “i—what the hell—i can’t believe i’m doing this, i’m gonna hurl. oh god—”

then, he turns around. takes one unsteady step towards you. his heart is racing. but without another word—

he yanks the mask off. and his hair is a mess (from the mask). his cheeks flushed like he’s been sweating (he has). his eyes wide like he’s terrified (he is).

“y/n.” your jaw drops. you blink once. twice. you stare at his face. at his hair. at jake.

“…JAKE?!”

your voice echos—loud. probably throughout the entire city, if jake’s being honest. your arms flail so wildly it looks like your brain is about to evacuate your body. you blink hard, like if you do it enough times, this fever dream might just break.

“are you kidding me right now?!”

jake flinches. his eye twitches.

you immediately start pacing again—back and forth, borderline hyperventilating, “YOU? you’re spider-man?! YOU??” you shout again, turning to point at him like he committed fraud. “how—hell—you literally broke a glass beaker last month—this can’t be real—”

jake raises his hands defensively, “okay, to be fair, you caught me off guard by asking me—”

“OH MY GOD,” you groan, throwing a hand into your hair, fisting a small bunch. “i told you i liked you while you were you pretending not to be you. that’s…that’s messed up, jake!”

“okay—yes, i see how that was a little—”

“you…you called me pretty but ignored my texts but still walked me home that night and…i’m so confused right now.”

jake scratches the back of his neck with one hand, the other dropping uselessly to his side, mask still in hand, “well…yeah. but also, like, i thought you picked up on it.”

“WHY WOULD I THINK YOU’RE SPIDER-MAN?” you practically screech, your steps halting as you spin to face him, full disbelief painted all over your face.

jake blinks. “i don’t know! i figured the voice, the walk…literally anything—”

“i don’t listen to people’s walks, jake!” you pace faster now. like if you don’t move, you might actually implode.

jake makes a desperate, helpless noise before he tries again, “look, y/n—can..can you just stop for a second and—”

“no, jake! i’m spiraling!” your voice hits a new level of pitch that makes jake wince. again. “i told two different guys i liked them this week and it turns out they’re the same guy and somehow that makes it worse?! do you know how emotionally unstable this makes me? i ranted to you about YOU—and you let me! oh, you’re so done for jake si—”

and that’s when he does it.

jake shoots a web. it catches your waist. and your rant cuts off mid-sentence as you’re suddenly pulled into him.

with a small yelp, you crash into his chest, hands reflexively splayed across his alarmingly solid chest. your nose is inches from his collarbone, and jake’s hands settle on your waist, immediately grounding you in place.

and you don’t have time to orient yourself—and jake doesn’t give himself time to pause or doubt it before he does it.

jake kisses you.

no hesitation, no overthinking, just all of jake—crashing his lips onto yours, immediately silencing you.

and you don’t stop him. you can’t stop him.

because your lips are already moving against his, messy and fast and a little too much. your fingers fist into the fabric of his suit like you’re trying to anchor yourself and you swear—you swear—you can feel his heartbeat under your fingertips. and all of the sudden, you’re hyperaware of everything. how his mouth is warm and desperate and tastes a little like cinnamon churros and familiarity. how the air between you is sharp, your noses brushing, breath mingling in short gasps—all too much and not enough all at once.

and when you pull away briefly to take a breath—realization hits you. your palm smacks against his chest once. then again. then rapid fire.

“wait, wait. wait. did you just web me?” the words tumble out of you in a half-laugh, half-accusation. and to be frank, you don’t know if you should be angry or attracted right now.

and jake’s still breathless, forehead practically resting against yours, as you feel his chest rise and fall with each shaky exhale. his voice is low, steady. a little hoarse.

“y/n—” jake whispers, so close you can feel the shape of the words against your mouth, “—shut up.”

and then he kisses you again. slower, this time. deeper. like an apology, like a confession, like something that feels way too big to name.

jake’s hand curls tighter around your waist, the other sliding up gently, carefully, until his fingers find the back of your neck, holding you there like he’s afraid you’ll disappear in his hold.

and all you can do is lean in. closer and closer, like if you press hard enough, you’ll disappear into him. disappear into that small pocket of space that only exists between you and him and never come back out.

it’s uncoordinated, a little too frantic. but it’s everything. the shock, the nerves, the confusion all blur into static. and this time, when jake pulls back, just barely, you cant help the tiny, unintentional whine that escapes your lips as you chase his without thinking.

jake exhales a breathless, shaky chuckle against you before he kisses you again. a quicker one this time. and then another. then one to the corner of your mouth. and then your jaw. and then he’s pulling back again, this time slower, eyes fluttering open just as yours do too, his hands still around you, the web still holding you against him.

“hi,” jake whispers. it’s soft and raw and boyish. and so, so real. “it’s me.”

his thumb brushes along your jaw as he swallows hard. your heart stumbles, your eyes searching his face—his stupidly soft brown eyes, the little scar on his chin, the mole near his cheek you’ve always noticed. it’s all him.

the boy who walked you home. the boy who doesn’t know how to talk to you in class. the boy you fell for. all this time.

you’re still pressed to his chest, body still tangled up in his arms, lips still tingling, mind still fuzzy. your voice comes out in a whisper, “i can’t believe it’s been you this entire time.”

he nods, a shy, crooked smile on his face, “it’s always been me.” and then his expression falters, just slightly. “i didn’t mean to lie to you. or miss our dates. i just…i didn’t know how to be this,” he gestures to his suit, “and how to be just jake, either.”

and you just blink, unmoving in his arms, still a little breathless. because there’s something in his voice. something fragile.

“so…so that day you missed school? and you were all beat up?”

jake presses his lips together, guilt painted all over his face, “yeah, i actually did get into a fight. i lied about that part.”

your eyes narrow, “with who, jake?”

jake shrugs like it’s no big deal. “some guy with six arms. real tentacle problem. you should’ve seen the damage i did on him though.”

your mouth gapes.

“i’m kidding—” jake laughs, eyes sparkling now as his nose slightly bumps against yours. “it was a bank robber. kind of. honestly, it’s all a blur now. all i remember was thinking about kissing you that same night after the aquarium.”

you let out a scoff, part processing, part amused. “and the diner night? when you suddenly showed up out of no where?”

jake nods, pulling you in just a little tighter. “suit was under my hoodie the entire time. not fun, by the way. spandex gets sweaty…fast.”

“gross,” you mutter, scrunching your nose as you instinctively tug your hands away from his chest—only to stop halfway, leaving them right where they are anyways. then, after a beat, you slap his chest again. “i can’t believe you told me to give yourself another chance. i don’t know if i should be mad at you or kiss you again.”

jake makes a face and gives a tiny shrug, “well, if you’re asking for my opinion…” he tilts his head. “i definitely have an answer. but i might be biased.”

you roll your eyes, letting out a small laugh as your hands find the back of his neck now. “this is insane, jake. you’re genuinely insane,” you whisper quietly, eyes flickering from the spider emblem on his chest then back to his face.

jake grins down at you, eyes bright, one hand brushing a stray strand of hair away from your cheek.

“yeah? well you like both jake and spider-man,” he tilts his head. “so i think that makes you just as insane.”

you gasp dramatically, smacking his arm like you’re offended. jake laughs, that easy, familiar sound filling the room between you—and the air goes warm again.

there it is. that space. the one he’s always had with you—except now, it’s his. fully his. not just spider-man’s, not a half-version hidden behind a mask.

just jake, who also happens to wear spandex and save the city. just jake, who sucks at high school history and has feelings for the pretty girl in his chemistry class. and just jake—who finally doesn’t have to choose between you and the suit.

you breathe in, watching him carefully. “so…” you begin. “now what?”

jake pauses. and then he smirks. that boyish, reckless, completely jake smirk.

”how about i take you on a proper date?”

your brows lift, your head tilts. “yeah.” you beam up at him. “i’d like that. tomorrow?”

jake shakes his head slowly, leaning in briefly with a mischievous smile on his face.

“now.” you blink. “…now?”

“JAKE—” your scream cuts through the sky as you’re being flung between skyscrapers, clinging yourself around jake’s neck, legs around his torso like your life depends on it.

which, to be fair, is quite literally the case right now.

“—WE’RE NEVER DOING THIS AGAIN—”

jake just laughs, a breathless, exhilarating sound—his mask back on, one arm tight around you as the other shoots another web out, latching onto the building you two swing past.

“are you sure?” he yells over the fast wind. “because you look like you’re having so much fun—“

“JAKE—“

another swing. another scream. another terrified, stupid, perfect laugh.

the city blurs below. the stars blur above. and somewhere in between it all, you feel his heartbeat against yours.

jake’s grip tightens—instinctively, protectively—as you fly past neon signs and glowing windows and the tiny people beneath and the hum of a city that never sleeps.

and in that moment, your panic settles into something else. something warmer.

so don’t try to stop him.

you just hold on tighter.

𖢥⁺₊°˖ tenk u again for all the love & support, always <3 (& special ty for my love ronnie @heejamas for the beluga dolphins fun fact & being my support throughout this entire proces <333 hehehe)

m.list here!

☆

☆

Nishimura Riki — RIDING OUT

Obsessed is an understatement. You practically took every breath with Niki’s name. Ever since you saw him race you knew you had to have him. After he agreed to be your model for your clothing store, you were feeling over the clouds. Until the moment he broke your heart, so you decided to move on with your life and get over him without a second thought. However, you didn't expect his sudden change - because now he would do everything in his power to win you back.

PAIRING: — Street Racer Ni-ki x Clothing Store Owner Reader (f)

GENRE: fluff, angst, super suggestive, smut (mdni), illegal street racing au, nonchalant x sunshine trope (reader is really down bad for Ni-ki)

WARNINGS: heavy making out, violence, mentions of alcohol, cursing [...] more tba

WC: (esp 20k+) — COMING SOON

☆

☆

Lee Heeseung — KILL ME HEAL ME

After recovering from an accident as a child, you swore that your greatest purpose in life was to save lives, which is why you became an extremely competent nurse. You have always been focused, dedicated and professional, until you met Lee Heeseung, the most complicated patient of your entire career. However, in the midst of the strange connection you created with him, you will discover that Lee Heeseung's secret life makes him intense, mysterious and above all dangerous, especially for your heart.

PAIRING: — Street Racer Heeseung x Nurse Reader (f)

GENRE: fluff, angst, super suggestive, smut (mdni), illegal street racing au

WARNINGS: heavy making out, violence, mentions of alcohol, guns, car accident, cursing, hospital facilities [...] more tba

WC: (esp 20k+) — COMING SOON

☆

☆

Park Jongseong — CRIMINAL LOVE

You are beautiful, talented, seductive, and a criminal. Ever since he landed his dream promotion, Jay’s biggest goal has been to capture you, the notorious art forger from a case that kept him up at night. After months of strategic escapes, he finally arrested you. But when a deal is offered and you’re chosen to become a consultant and help him fight white-collar crimes during your sentence, Jay will discover that working with you will mess his heart more than any police chase ever could.

PAIRING: — Cop Jay x International Art forger Reader (f)

GENRE: fluff, angst, super suggestive, smut (mdni), forbidden love

WARNINGS: heavy making out, violence, guns, mentions of alcohol, cursing [...] more tba

WC: (esp 20k+) — COMING SOON

☆

☆

Kim Sunoo — MASTERMIND

After landing an internship at STOCK CAR, Sunoo will need to use all his automotive knowledge to keep his superior assistant, you, from jeopardizing his perfect academic record. But amid racing and perfect reports, Sunoo will discover that you are much more than just a strict boss.

PAIRING: — Administrative Intern Sunoo x Superior Assistant Reader (f)

GENRE: fluff, super suggestive, smut (mdni), racing au, small age gap (reader is 3 years older)

WARNINGS: heavy making out, violence, mentions of alcohol, cursing [...] more tba

WC: (esp 20k+) — COMING SOON

☆

He finds it amazing the possibility to reach deep into society and cause a stir with some well-founded arguments. For Heeseung, there was a kind of freedom in knowing how the legal system in his country worked that fascinated him intrinsically. Heeseung has always been curious, especially because he wanted to understand why so many injustices could not be easily resolved. What was stopping a country from truly delivering justice?

But despite being an idealist, Heeseung learned that people can be hypocritical, cold, fake and especially selfish when it comes to something that is about their own interests. And perhaps that is the main reason why the system is so flawed.

Personally, Heeseung can't stand hypocrisy and in his opinion, everything about you screamed 'hypocrisy'. From the way you dressed and carried yourself to the way you spoke – everything irritated him. Initially, he didn't have this curious aversion towards you. He didn't really care about your presence, despite noticing that you drew attention wherever you went.

The hypnotized looks around you and the sneaky approaches trying to create some kind of bond with you demonstrated a clear situation: you were from an important family, or your beauty was a factor that contributed to that. This type of approach was expected within the law school, which was full of people who only cared about other people's backgrounds.

However, Heeseung only confirmed his suspicions when your surname began to be whispered in the hallways. Y/N Park, the famous daughter of a renowned attorney with a giant office in the city center.

Heeseung laughed at the irony: Of course, you are just another privileged rich girl who is only in college as a rite of passage with a ready and perfect pass to a job already premeditated by your father.

There were many people like this in law school, but for some unknown reason you affected Heeseung differently. The way you presented yourself perfectly, without any flaws, almost theatrically bothered him.

But even though he knew you were the type of girl he wouldn't want to get close to, his disdain began to increase after a specific episode. It all started when you were in Criminology class and there was a free debate going on about the ‘Historical Development of Criminology' and what impact it had on law in the modern world.

You were explaining about the evolution of the concept of crime, and how Cesare Beccaria had contributed to the Classical School of Criminology, in which the concept of crime is based on what is in the law with a focus on restoring social order and the criminal justice system, given that the free and conscious choice of a delinquent to commit a crime affected not only the victim, but the entire society.

According to your train of thought, there are social factors that influence people to commit petty crimes and that would eventually be appreciated in other modern schools. But even with your impeccable contribution, Heeseung couldn't take you seriously when he saw you using an overpriced bag while criticizing the dry theory of the classical school.

Heeseung was no fool, he knew that life wasn't fair and there would be people in better financial situations than him. In fact, he had fought hard to get into a good university and study law, so he had a pride about his academic achievements, but there was something about you that drove him crazy. He couldn't put it into words, but you triggered specific emotions in his brain — and the main one was agitation.

So, for every argument you brought up, he inevitably countered with something new. What was supposed to be just a friendly debate between classmates turned into a heated argument between you and him.

“I agree, however, if you allow me to make a brief criticism, we know that even with social issues involved, the key point of free will and the delinquent’s conscious choice to commit a crime – an argument that came from the classical school – is taken into consideration today as well.” Heeseung countered, making you sigh for having cut off your train of thought.

“Of course, but it doesn’t change the fact that social issues have a great weight in this matter.” You leaned over the table and he chuckled “Yes, I agree that they do have an influence, but you must admit that even with all the influence in the world, we know that it's not that simple to understand the conscience of an individual who commits crimes.”

Even though he didn't say much, Heeseung saw how irritated you were: you seemed out of breath, your eyebrows were furrowed, and your gaze was fixed on him. And it was at that exact moment — when your eyes locked for a few seconds and he smirked — that he knew that irritating you would be his new entertainment.

For the first time in his life, he had seen you make an expression other than your serious one or the one with that meticulously adjusted smile you gave when you wanted to appear overly polite. Seeing how he pressed the specific buttons to irritate you was the new entertainment that was missing in Heeseung's college life, and it made him more elated than it should have been.

And this brief rivalry that was born unexpectedly in a debate, continued to extend to test scores, projects and final evaluations in the following semesters. Heeseung couldn't deny that you were very intelligent because he had lost 1st place in many situations, but that didn't discourage him and instead motivated him even more, because each perfect 100 that he achieved and threw in your face was absolutely satisfying.

So Heeseung's college life became hectic, as he was the famous student brave enough to face the "queen" of the course.

The one and only— Lee Heeseung —the reason for your extra study sessions, as you swore you would never let yourself lose to Heeseung in any aspect of academic life.

After all, nothing was better than the feeling of beating Heeseung at the very game he created.

☆

Your reflection in the bedroom mirror seemed to show that everything was in perfect order. Your hair was neat, your clothes were well-ironed, and the hydrated glow of your skin was even more noticeable that late afternoon. But in reality, you were distracted, reflecting on your past.

When you were in high school, your father gave you two options for college:

1) Med school or 2) Law school. That's it.

Unfortunately, you had no choice or desire of your own regarding your future, because according to your father, all that mattered was studying something with a “financial return”. In a way, you understood your father's vision, because he was a man who had suffered from poverty and hunger in the past, and became who he is with a lot of pain and sacrifice. However, the pressure and responsibility that came with being his daughter were very heavy.

A man who had been brutalized by the hard life he had led could not think of other realities in life. Your father didn’t believe in “talents” or “gifts” that couldn’t pay the bills. It didn't matter how good you were at some sport or art-related hobby. If it didn’t bring money home it shouldn’t be pursued – or worse, desired and dreamed of.

When he wanted to talk to you about something specific, he would always call you to his personal office. The same office that you found terrifying because it was so impersonal. The dark gray walls, the low lighting, and the plain furniture, without any memorabilia, photos, or any kind of decoration that would indicate any personality trait — everything gave off a cold, indifferent, distant air.

Since work had consumed his life, you knew you had to take advantage of these minutes of interaction with your father. He would often sit there, typing and reading cases on the computer, with his attention 100% focused on the screen that must have contained sensitive information (that was what your curious mind used to believe).

“You understand, right sweetie? I only want the best for you.” Your father would often take your hand and squeeze it gently as wrinkles crept into the corners of his eyes with the small smile he gave you “Yes, father. I understand.” You would respond like a perfect little doll who obeyed without questioning his ideas.

But even though you’d done everything your father had told you to do up until now, you knew that this wasn't the path you wanted to follow forever.

You wanted options. Options for what to do with your future that didn’t involve working in your father’s office. This expectation that everyone around you has that you will become the next face of your father's office is like a weight that you have to carry, but you’ve already decided that your path will be different.

But no one besides your best friend knows about it.

Luckily, you had always liked law, so you had delved deeper into the careers you could pursue over time. The prosecutor's office seemed interesting, after all, criminal law is a passion of yours. Unlike your father, who liked corporate and civil law, which is why he had all kinds of demands in his office.

However, you could try to become an attorney at another firm and gain experience in another area of law. There were certainly many options for you to explore, and fortunately there was still time for you to figure out what you really wanted to do, and the next steps to take.

As you wandered through thoughts about your future, your best friend and roommate, Gaeul, snapped you out of your prolonged reverie.

“Are you going out?” she was holding a bag of potato chips when she appeared at your bedroom door “I’m going to another extra study session.” You gave her a delicate smile and picked up your bag before heading towards Gaeul who looked at you suspiciously “Again?”

“Sure, why not?” Gaeul sighed “You know you don’t have to do all of this to beat Heeseung.” she followed you through the small dorm “You’re already too good, I don’t understand this rivalry between you two.”

“Gaeul, it’s much more than rivalry.” You took out your keys to open the front door “It’s a matter of honor! I can’t lose to that prick.”

“Yeah, yeah. Sure...” she laughed before taking another bite of the potato chip “Have fun babe!” You blew an air kiss that made Gaeul make a funny face “I will!”

☆

The library was quiet, with the perfect atmosphere for a late afternoon study session. This time of day was always your favorite, the sun setting through the window and the tranquility of the place made the environment completely cozy, even if you had to read something grueling.

You were reading the work of a famous criminal law scholar when your peace was interrupted by the soft tapping of fingers on the table in front of you. “Busy?” Heeseung’s unmistakable ironic voice made you take a deep breath, trying not to get irritated by his mocking manner.

One of the rules you strictly follow is that you won’t interact with Lee Heeseung unless it is absolutely necessary. Even though you are a calm and reserved person, the slightest interaction with Heeseung somehow stresses you out.

“Can’t you see I’m obviously studying?” Heeseung felt the vein in his neck throb in irritation and clicked his tongue when he saw how you didn’t even look at his face to answer him.

“Well, I think you need to see this.” he placed the paper in front of your eyes. Reluctantly you placed the book on the table and held the sheet up, looking at the contents of what was there “What is this?” You asked in disbelief as you saw your name paired next to Heeseung’s under a title that said ‘international law project’.

“Are you surprised?” You turned to Heeseung with wide eyes “As you can see, we are partners in Mrs. Jung’s project.” for the first time that day, all of your focus faded in a matter of seconds.

'No. No. No. This couldn't be happening. Me and Lee Heeseung together? In a project?'

“What do you mean? How the hell did this happen?” Heeseung took the liberty of sitting next to you. He leaned back in his chair and ran his hand through his hair “I don’t know either. Earlier I was leaving an extracurricular activity when Jay called me to look at the bulletin board because the pairings for the new project in the international law class had been announced.”

You stopped for a moment and began to remember that in the last international law class, Mrs. Jung had said that there would be a new project for that semester and that she didn't like to draw pairs, so she would choose the pairs herself.

And with the immense luck you had, she decided that the partner who would suit you best would be Lee Heeseung, out of the entire class.

“When I got close to the mural, Jay was staring at me with a hilarious face.” Heeseung gave a clearly frustrated sigh as he ran his hand over his face “I just didn’t expect it to be because of this.”

“This has to be a mistake.” It couldn’t be true. You couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Unfortunately, it’s true, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Your eyebrows furrowed at Heeseung, who seemed too resigned for your liking “I’m not going to do this project with you, I– we have to talk to the teacher.”

Heeseung gave you a wry laugh “You can try talking to her, but it won’t work.” he picked up the paper from the table and analyzed the names again as if to confirm that it was real “The seniors already told me that Mrs. Jung is strict and doesn’t make exceptions for anything. She never changes her plan.”

Your stomach began to feel heavy with the anxiety that was building up. You also heard these rumors from a senior who had given you tips about the worst teachers she had to deal with.

“I don’t care, I’ll talk to her.”

“Do whatever you want, I warned you.” Heeseung gave you one last pitiful look and got up from his chair “Are you going to leave like that? We need to talk about this.” he looked at you and shrugged his shoulders putting his hands in his coat pockets “The teacher isn’t here right now, we’ll look into this tomorrow.”

If there was something about Heeseung that really stressed you out, it was his attitude like he knew everything and had everything under control. As if he was better than everyone else.

“But we need to align what should be said!” You countered and Heeseung sighed, running his thumb and index finger over his furrowed eyebrows “God, you’re so annoying.”

Your breath stopped for a moment. How could Lee Heeseung have the audacity to call you annoying? Him of all people? The most insufferable person of all?

“What did you say?!” You stood up from your chair “Say that again!”

He smirked and took a step closer to you “You’re annoying.” Your blood was boiling as his face was just above yours “Everything about you irritates me.”

“Look who’s talking.” You scoffed and pointed at Heeseung with your index finger “You’re completely unbearable and you want to talk about me?”

Heeseung's jaw clenched, and you smirked, seeing how he was also clearly irritated by your response "Heeseung, I'm gonna be honest with you. I think you're just an arrogant prick, and I have no interest in working with you." You gave him a false smile while he frowned.

"Well, I feel the same." he said through gritted teeth and walked away "We'll sort this out tomorrow."

"Great." You took the paper and put it inside your book and closed it. Your desire to study had completely disappeared, and now you needed to think about how to talk to Mrs. Jung, because no way in hell you are going to pair up with Heeseung.

No way.

☆

The international law class was lasting longer than usual that Wednesday.

Your legs were shaking as anxiety corroded your entire body. Heeseung looked calm, his head resting on his right hand as he sat a few chairs in front of you. He had no idea of the storm that was happening inside you.

You had to convince the teacher that she needed to choose another partner for you. Anyone would do, even the slowest human being you could handle, except Lee Heeseung. Not him. Doing a project with him would be extremely stressful. You even felt a pang in your head when you imagined the stupid arguments you would have over simple things.

The truth is that initially you didn't care much for Heeseung, but you started to notice that since the beginning of college he did everything he could to talk back to you. He could never agree with you 100%, no matter the topic. So over time you started to nurture these feelings of rivalry and irritation towards him.

It was unbearable how he acted as if he was better than you and tried to prove it at all costs. That's why you made the decision to never let him surpass you, even in simple college activities. You would beat Lee Heeseung, even if it cost you a few more hours of studying.

However, now with this shared project this would certainly be a problem.

When class ended and the students left one by one, Heeseung calmly put his materials in his bag, as if he knew that his stoicism would irritate you. Mrs. Jung was sitting in her chair as she finished organizing some papers when you slowly approached.

“Uh, excuse me, Mrs. Jung. Can I have a few words with you?” Your soft voice drew the teacher’s attention away from her papers, who smiled back at you “Oh, miss Park, of course. How can I help you?”

You bit your lower lip hesitantly as the teacher looked at you carefully “It’s about the recent international law project; I saw that it’s going to be in pairs.” the teacher’s smile widened “Yes, I think it will be a great project for you.” she stood up from her chair holding the sheets “Is there a problem?”

“Actually, there is.” You were hoping internally that your nervousness wouldn’t show too much “I noticed that you chose Heeseung to be my partner, but since we’re not very close, I don’t think it’ll work out.” the teacher’s eyes seemed attentive to you “Then I’d like to ask about the possibility of changing partners.”

Mrs. Jung gave you a small sigh before offering you a gentle smile “Unfortunately, that won’t be possible, miss Park. Since I’ve already separated all the pairs, they’ve already started their research. Besides, it would be problematic to disrupt this entire system because of a request.” You started to feel despair set in your bones “I understand, Mrs. Jung, but it really will be difficult to work with Hees–”

“Miss Park, I chose Heeseung to be your partner because I think you two would be a great pair.” she interrupted you, leaving you speechless “What do you mean?”

The teacher seemed to think for a moment “I think you are a good match. You bring out the best in each other, and I think you will do a fabulous job with this research.”

Heeseung had arrived at exactly this time and stood frozen beside you.

“But—” You were cut off again by the teacher “The pairings will not be changed and this is final, miss Park. Okay?”

“Alright… Thank you for listening to me, Mrs. Jung.” she smiled before grabbing her bag “You’re welcome. I’m looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with.”

Heeseung watched you from the corner of his eye as the teacher left first. You were paralyzed as if a lightning had struck you.

“I told you she wouldn’t change her mind.” he broke the silence and you grimaced in pain.

“Oh, shut up.” You left first trying to accept the idea that you would have to put up with Heeseung as your partner for the rest of the semester.

Heeseung was having an internal debate as he waited for class to end. He didn't know whether he should talk to you and decide to start this research right away or wait for you to say something.

He had sat a few chairs behind you and saw how focused you seemed in class. For the first time this semester, he couldn't pay attention to what was being taught. How was he going to work with the girl he couldn't stand? And worse: for an entire semester? Not even in his worst dreams did he imagine something like this would happen.

As he pondered what to do, Jake glared at him with the corner of his eye “Dude, you’re making a scary face.”

Heeseung looked away and ran his hand through his dark hair “Sorry, I was distracted.”

“Distracted?” Jake smirked “You looked like a creepy staring at her.” Heeseung sighed “I  have to do the international law project with her.”

Jake put his hand over his mouth to contain the laugh that was threatening to escape “Oh man, you’re screwed.”

“I know.” Heeseung leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself “I need to talk to her.”

“Good luck.” Jake gave him a side smile and shook his head as Heeseung remained with his eyes closed.

When class ended, Heeseung gathered all the courage he had and walked towards you. You also looked haggard. Although your clothes were perfect and your hair was as shiny as ever, the circles under your eyes showed your tiredness as you put your materials in your bag.

A small smile began to form on Heeseung’s face, but he held it back. He couldn’t laugh at your face when he knew that he also had to accept the reality that you would have to put up with each other for the next few months.

“Hey.” that was all Heeseung could say as he watched you approach him “Hi.” Your dry response made the atmosphere heavy.

“I need your phone number to schedule the meetings about our project.” he was trying to be civil, no one could complain about that.

You sighed, showing your clear lack of interest in any conversation with him “Okay.”

Heeseung was really holding back his sharp mouth, but you weren't making it easy.

The way your hand handed your phone while you looked away irritated Heeseung deeply “Do you always have to be this petty?”

“What?” You asked confused as he finished putting his number into your phone “Can’t you interact for 5 minutes without being petty? Is it that hard?”

In your mind you couldn't believe what you were hearing. Lee Heeseung wanting to lecture you about pettiness?

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re the one who can’t go 5 minutes without criticizing anything I do.” Heeseung bit his lower lip, trying to hold his tongue. He was already upset, and you weren’t helping.

“Probably because you don’t make it easier?” he sighed and ran his fingertips over his temples, trying to regain his former calm state “You know what, forget about it. Have you saved my number?” his patience was running out, and so was yours.

“Yes, unfortunately.” You whispered the last part, which didn’t go unnoticed by Heeseung.

“See you after class.” he put his phone in his pocket and his backpack on his right shoulder.

You just nodded and left first.

'Yeah, this is really going to be difficult.' Heeseung thought before leaving the room with his mind messed up by the simple interaction you two had.

☆

The library was relatively crowded, but since you previously arranged with Heeseung, you managed to arrive together at the same time.

“Well, look at that. Lee Heeseung isn’t late, I'm surprised.” You teased as you sat down and took your laptop out of your bag.

“Tsk.” Heeseung clicked his tongue as he placed his notebooks on the table “Of course. The sooner we start, the sooner I can leave.” he replied, thinking about how he wanted this torture to end once and for all.

“Finally you said something I agree with.” You retorted as you opened a blank Word document and began sorting through your materials.

Heeseung had already noticed that you liked everything organized. Your materials were always organized in the same way: pens, laptop and a notebook lined up.

“Well, do you have any ideas or suggestions on what we can do?” Heeseung was a little surprised by your question, after all, he expected you to decide everything at once and create a big fight if he disagreed.

“I think this subject is too extensive, we can’t do a generic theme.” You nodded as you stared at the laptop screen “That makes sense. I think we should dive deeper into some specific subjects.”

“I usually research and read about the subject superficially before diving into complicated concepts.” Heeseung showed the sheet of paper from his notebook that had some sketches of past summaries he had done in other subjects.

“International law is a pain because if we read about everything, we’ll waste a lot of time.” You commented, scratching your head, feeling frustrated “Let’s choose some subjects we like and see which ones are the best.”

“Fine.” Heeseung just wanted to get it over with.

For the next 10 minutes you were in complete silence. As if it was a silent mutual agreement that you would only speak if it was absolutely necessary.

Interestingly, the discomfort was bearable. Was it strange that you were sitting side by side without saying anything? Yes, but at least when you didn't say anything, you didn't fight, and that was enough for the moment.

“These are my suggestions.” You looked at the list Heeseung had made, but one suggestion in particular caught your eye.

“Post-war law?” You tilted your head to the side “It’s too generic and complicated, we need to think about it.” Heeseung sighed “How can this be too generic? It’s literally about the law after wars.”

You mockingly laughed “Exactly. What kind of wars are you talking about? Because we can’t talk about every war in existence.” Heeseung felt a stab of anger in his head.

“So, what are your suggestions, genius?” Heeseung’s pejorative tone wasn’t enough to make you lose your patience, so you turned the laptop screen to show your contribution.

“We can talk about certain differences in the legal system in some countries and filter out only the most interesting ones.” Heeseung snorted and pointed at your laptop screen “That’s as generic as my suggestion!”

“Of course not!” clearly the discussion would not end there “We can only choose a few countries.”

“And we could talk about a few wars, for example the most famous ones? Like World War I or World War II?” his ironic tone gave you the creeps, in a bad way.

“It’s still a very simple theme, we should do something more elaborated.” You turned your laptop screen towards you and Heeseung took a deep breath.

“And isn’t your topic simple?” he approached you and looked into your eyes “You just want to do what’s convenient for you, as always.”

“What do you mean by that?” The tone of your voice clearly showed that you were now very mad. How could Heeseung make a single task so difficult?

“Forget it, you wouldn’t understand.” he whispered, clearly irritated.

Another 10 minutes of complete silence. Neither you nor Heeseung wanted to say anything else. It was clear that this would be a difficult task, but you tried to be rational and calm down.

What was at stake here was your grade, your academic record, and your future. You couldn't let Heeseung be an obstacle in your path.

“Look, let’s get one thing straight.” You turned to Heeseung who gave you a lazy look “It’s clear we don’t like each other.”

“Hm.” Heeseung nodded and waved his hands in the air as if he wanted you to get to the point quickly.

“But I don’t care about that. What I really care about is my grades, so if I have to do this damn project with you, I’ll do it.” Heeseung kept looking at you, waiting for you to finish “So, if you put your childishness aside for a moment and really help me, we’ll be able to finish this today.”

You were clearly nervous and out of patience.

“Then, can you please cooperate with me?” Heeseung somehow felt a bit remorseful, thinking that perhaps he had overreacted with the way you seemed to beg for the two of you to end this quickly.

“Okay, we clearly can’t reach a consensus, so let’s use another method.” he pulled his chair closer to you “What are you doing?”

“What do you like?” his bright, dark eyes stared into yours with intensity “What are you most comfortable with in international law?”

“I like the criminal part.” You whispered a little shyly as he got closer to you “Good.” Heeseung began to write in his notebook “I like the human rights part, especially the Post-World War II issue.”

You watched as he outlined the topics you both liked.

“Let’s research these themes and at the next meeting we’ll decide what to do.” he said and leaned back in his chair, looking at you.

“Okay. This might work.” You nodded, thinking it might be a good idea.

“It’ll work.” There it was. The tone of absolute certainty in Heeseung’s voice that usually irritated you, but this time you were satisfied that you had managed to reach a consensus.

“Okay, I’ll start now.” You stood up and headed towards some books in the international law section of the library, while Heeseung decided to research on the internet.

The rest of the meeting you were silent, researching the topics, but this time it wasn't awkward or heavy. You were just two students focusing on what you needed to do.

And that was enough for now.

“So, how is your international law project going?” Jay brought up the topic while he, Jake, and Heeseung were gathered in the campus cafeteria.

“Don’t remind me of that.” he sighed as he sipped on a soda “We managed to have a fight before the first meeting.”

“Damn, you guys are too complicated.” Jake commented with a smile “Luckily my partner on the project is Jay.” he fist bumped Jay.

“You guys are lucky. We’re trying to be civil, but sometimes it’s unavoidable not to get angry.” Jay narrowed his eyes as he studied his friend trying to understand why Heeseung seemed so reactive to you “You guys should see the way she acts. It’s like she does this on purpose to irritate me!”

“Can you believe the Mrs. Jung said she put us together because she thought we were a good match?” Heeseung gave a wry smile while Jake and Jay looked at each other with a knowing look and mocking smiles “She said I brought out the best in her, some shit like that.”

“Well, I somewhat agree.” Jay countered Heeseung “Since you two started interacting, you’ve become more dedicated to your studies.”

“Real, brother. You worry more about her than yourself when exam week comes.” Jake blurted out, and Jay laughed, making Heeseung stunned by his friend's confession.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this.” Heeseung sighed “I don’t care about her. I just like being the best in the class! That’s all.”

Jay smirked and put his arm around his friend's shoulder “Sure, sure… but you can't deny she's hot.”

Heeseung stood frozen in place at what Jay had said. He wasn't blind, he knew you were a beautiful woman, but that didn't change the fact that you were annoying to him.

“None of that changes the fact that she’s annoying.” Heeseung looked away as Jake and Jay chuckled.

“In my opinion, I think you lowkey admire her, but you can’t admit it and that’s why you act like that.” Jake teased Heeseung who was stunned “Just admit you’re into her man, it’s okay.” Jay said and Jake snickered “Huh? You guys are crazy.” he got up from his chair and decided to leave while Jay and Jake laughed.

“C'mon Heeseung! Don't run away like that!” Jake and Jay stood up and decided to follow him while Heeseung went ahead.

So what if you were pretty and attractive? That didn't change anything.

You were still the rich girl he couldn't stand.

☆

After a few days of research, you and Heeseung decided to have a meeting to decide on the final theme for your project.

It was already 16:24 in the afternoon and he still hadn't arrived, which was strange because Heeseung was always on time. Being late for more than 20 minutes wasn't like him.

Before you could text him, Heeseung hurried into the library. He was more casual than ever, wearing a dark gray sweater and a beanie, and you noticed that he was pale with slightly red cheeks and nose.

“Sorry for the delay, something’s got in the way.” he sounded haggard and strangely tired. His voice was hoarser than usual and you could tell he wasn’t doing very well.

“Are you okay?” You asked worriedly. Even though he was annoying, he clearly didn’t look okay “If you’re not okay, we can postpone it and–”

“I'm fine.” he cut you off in a harsh tone “Let's get this over with.” You stared at him in disbelief at the way he was acting.

“Wow.” You spoke ironically and didn’t hold back “Heeseung, what the hell is wrong with you?”

He closed his eyes temporarily, trying not to say anything. As if any noise would hurt like hell inside his head.

“I was just worried because you’re clearly not okay. If you want to be a jerk, then you can be by yourself.” You got up from the chair trying to leave and Heeseung grabbed your wrist “Let go of me.” You looked at his hand around your wrist and felt tortured by how soft and large his hand was compared to yours.

“I’m sorry.” Heeseung opened his eyes slightly and looked at you in a way that you swore you almost saw some kind of affection “Don’t go, please.”

You swallowed hard and sat back down on the chair, seeing how regretful Heeseung looked. “I didn’t mean to be rude, it’s just…” he sighed as if he didn’t want to admit his weakness “The truth is, I caught a cold and I’m not feeling very well, but I didn’t want to postpone our meeting.”

“Heeseung, you’re sick! We can do this in a few days, we still have time.” You looked at Heeseung with pity, who coughed a little “You need to recover, come on.”

He let go of your wrist, turning his gaze to you, who stood up again “But what about choosing the theme for our project?” he clearly seemed worried about the project, and you sighed.

“You’re not in a position to study, you need to prioritize your health.” Heeseung watched you grab your bag “We’ll decide that after you recover.”

Heeseung just nodded. At that moment he didn't want to argue or study, he just wanted his bed and sleep for the next 10 hours straight.

“Come on, I’ll accompany you.” You waited for Heeseung to leave first and followed him, after all, how could you trust a guy who was clearly sick.

Before he could leave campus, you bought a warm drink from a vending machine that was right next to the door.

“Here.” You handed the can to Heeseung “It’s good for you, it’s orange juice so it must have vitamin C.”

“Okay, thanks mom.” he replied and your eyes widened at his audacity “Hey!”

“I was joking, silly.” Heeseung gave you a smirk that disconcerted you.

It was the first time he had ever genuinely smiled at you. It wasn't a mocking smile or a fake smile after he said the most passive-aggressive thing possible. He was actually giving you a genuine, real smile.

And you definitely didn't want to admit that he had a very beautiful smile.

“Well, uh… anyways, take your medicine and recover. We’ll reschedule the meeting.” he looked down at the hot drink and gave you another smile before looking back at you. “Okay, see you later.” He – shockingly – kindly said “Thank you.” his gaze was fixed on yours, and for some reason, it made you feel embarrassed.

“It’s nothing.” You looked away “See you later.”

He gave you one last smile before leaving first. As you watched him walk away you began to wonder what kind of man Lee Heeseung was, who insisted on going to your meeting even though he was sick.

☆

You were choosing a movie to watch with Gaeul when your phone vibrated. Gaeul was putting the freshly popped popcorn in the bowl when you saw on your phone that surprisingly Heeseung had texted you.

[Lee Heestupid] — Hey

[Lee Heestupid] — Just wanted to say thank you for the orange juice.

21:46 pm

You smiled a little, seeing that he had the courage to send you a message about something that isn’t your project.

[You] — It's nothing. Are you feeling better?

21:48 pm

[Lee Heestupid] — Yeah, I'm way better now.

[Lee Heestupid] — If you're free, let's meet tomorrow for our project.

21:51 pm

[You] — Sure, it works for me.

21:52 pm

[Lee Heestupid] — Great

[Lee Heestupid] — See you then

21:53pm

[You] — See you.

21:53pm

“Who are you talking to?” Gaeul asked suspiciously as she approached your couch “I was just rescheduling the project meeting with Heeseung.” You locked your phone and tapped the fabric of the couch next to you indicating that you wanted her to sit there.

She stopped in her tracks and gave you a mischievous smile, looking at you. “I can’t believe you were smiling like that while you were texting Heeseung.” You rolled your eyes at Gaeul's suggestive tone “What do you mean? I was normal.” You looked away to the TV “Nuh-uh.” She was clearly enjoying the whole thing “I think you’re starting to like him after all this time.”

“Girl, you’re crazy.” You sighed thinking about Gaeul’s fertile mind and she sat next to you hugging your arm “Come on, admit that you changed your conception of him. Even if it’s just a little.”

You paused for a moment and thought “He’s still insufferable, but this time he was polite.” Gaeul chuckled, taking a handful of popcorn. “Oh, this is going to be interesting.”

“Babe, let’s just watch the movie.” You changed the subject and Gaeul was laughing beside you “Okaaaay.”

☆

As much as you didn't want to admit it, the atmosphere between you and Heeseung had certainly changed a bit. It was noticeable that although his thoughtless sarcasm hadn't changed, you two fought less about your project. Heeseung's posture was still as confident as ever, but a part of you had gotten used to this eccentric trait of his. Maybe he was naturally like this in any area of his life, or maybe he was forced to be like this.

“While I was recovering, I thought about how to combine our interests in our project.” Heeseung looked much better. His face had a healthy glow, his lips were pinker and, curiously, you noticed how his nose was perfectly shaped. Did he always have this insane profile?

“What’s your suggestion?” You asked, adjusting your seat, trying to dispel the strange thoughts that were distracting you “We can talk about criminal accountability and the evolution of post-war human rights within international law.”

You thought for a moment “That might work.” The smile that formed on your face didn’t go unnoticed by Heeseung who was taken aback “It’s just going to be harder than expected, since it’s a topic that we’re going to have to delve into in depth so we can’t leave any gaps.”

“I accept the challenge.” He smirked while looking into your eyes “And what about you? Are you scared?” You rolled your eyes, seeing how he never misses an opportunity to tease you.

“Of course not.” You snorted “You know I never run away from a challenge. After all, I’m the best in the class.” Heeseung’s eyebrow twitched slightly at your insinuation “Actually, we’re tied and you know it.”

“Fine, maybe you’re right.” You sighed “But it doesn’t change the fact that we’ll have to work hard with this topic.” Heeseung gave an airy laugh through his nose seeing how excited you were “Indeed, but at least we were able to officially set the theme of our project.”

“Now we need to define the next steps.” You stretched your arms and Heeseung couldn’t help but see part of your waist when your shirt rose slightly “I guess that’s a good idea, because we also have to study for that civil law presentation in three weeks.” He looked away to the screen of his laptop.

You widened your eyes and turned to Heeseung “Oh my God, I thought it would be in a month!” Opening your tablet's calendar you came across the date marked on a Tuesday in three weeks “I was so worried about our project that I lost track of time.”

“You're welcome.” Heeseung said without looking at you as he researched the subjects he needed to study for your project “It seems like I’m taking up too much of your mind for you to forget a presentation.” He snickered and you grimaced.

“Ugh, you wish.” You sighed as you typed on your laptop causing Heeseung to give you an enigmatic smile.

Yeah. As you thought, Lee Heeseung was still a pain in the ass.

Miraculously, after weeks of not going out, Heeseung was at a party. Contrary to what many people think, Heeseung doesn't go out to many parties. Since he has a scholarship to take care of, his main focus is on studying. However, when he has some free time, he allows himself the luxury of enjoying some kind of fun.

Today was no different as Jake managed to convince him that he needed to clear his head after being sick.

Since part of the international law project was well underway and he had made progress on his civil law assignment, he allowed himself to relax for a few hours at that random party on a Friday. Jake and Jay seemed more lively, taking advantage of the opportunity to play beer pong with boys from other courses.

Heeseung had been drinking for a while now, but nothing seemed very interesting. The music was great, but he was still feeling tired from working twice as hard during the week, so he decided to sit on an old couch that was empty. As he slowly drank, he began to analyze his surroundings, and noticed that he was surrounded by couples or people who were there with the aim of flirting and hooking up with someone.

Personally, Heeseung didn't have many girlfriends. He had gone on a few dates, talked to a few girls, and even had a serious girlfriend for a year and a few months during high school, but nothing had lasted that long. Life hadn't been easy for Heeseung's family, so all he could think about was how he needed to help out at home with the money from tiring part-time jobs and how to pay for his upcoming college expenses.

Love was a distant topic for Heeseung.

Most of the time he was worried about his future and the reality he wanted to improve. That's why love and relationships were foreign subjects on his mind. Jake used to say that he needed to relax a bit and at least try to meet someone during college, but he was too busy.

Too busy studying, working and self-improving but mainly busy thinking about you.

The amount of times you wandered through his mind seemed unhealthy. It was as if you were always there unconsciously, terrorizing the corners of Heeseung's mind. Like a presence he couldn't get rid of, like you were a sticker glued in the album of his thoughts.

He always swore he didn't care much about your appearance, but his breath caught for a moment when from afar he saw you with a short black skirt and a brown turtleneck blouse clinging to your torso. Heeseung felt his body sober up in an instant and he leaned over his knees so he could confirm his suspicion.

That shiny hair and that unique smile were unmistakable in his eyes. Yes, it was you.

Heeseung swallowed hard and felt strange for not being able to take his eyes off you. “Sure, sure… but you can't deny she's hot.” Jay's sentence from that day kept echoing in Heeseung's mind as he tried to convince himself that this was no big deal.

You've always been beautiful. No, you're always impeccable. As if you never had a bad day, you're always well-tied up, wearing a sweet perfume, unbeatable, gorgeous... stunning. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. In a way, your determination to always show your best version is impressive, especially in the world of law where Heeseung knows how much appearances matter.

But he never really stopped to look at you. Heeseung’s judgment was always clouded by his anger at what you represented. At the spoiled, privileged girl who would never experience what it was like to suffer from not having enough money for leisure or having every penny counted to pay the bills.

Your existence was almost an affront to him—even though you had never done anything to him.

But even though he knew all of this. Even though he had convinced himself that you were his rival, his eyes couldn't take their eyes off your figure. Maybe it was the alcohol in his system, or the fatigue, but your legs seemed even more toned under the dark blue light of the place.

He swallowed hard, seeing how your eyes seemed to sparkle as you talked to a girl beside you that he assumed it was your best friend. Have you always had an outfit that adorned your waist flawlessly like that?

'It's okay, I can admire a beautiful woman.' Heeseung argued in his own mind as if he needed to justify himself for the thoughts he was having at that moment.

Thoughts of how hauntingly attractive you are.

Heeseung bent the cup he was holding a little from squeezing it so hard and ran his hand over his face. He was wondering if he should talk to you or just let it go. Even if he decided to go to you, what would he say? 'Hi, good to see you project partner.'? Absolutely not. That would be too pathetic of him.

After a few seconds of struggling, he decided to stay still. It could have been really awkward if he tried to say something out of the blue. Besides, you were with your friend, so he decided he wouldn't bother you.

However, as if life was playing tricks on Heeseung, he saw a weird man approaching you. A guy he had seen before at the party, and who was clearly not feeling well after drinking way past his limits. From afar Heeseung watched with his eyes as the clueless guy approached and tried to say something to you, which showed instant discomfort.

When the guy dared to touch your shoulder, Heeseung stood up at the same time, feeling his blood boil. You had a frown on your face and were obviously saying no. Even with the loud music, he could tell that you weren't enjoying that approach by the gestures you were making as you got away from the guy.

As he couldn't contain himself, Heeseung stomped towards him and pushed the guy back hard with his forearm. In a single movement he hugged your waist and pulled you towards him, slamming your back into his chest.

“Hey! Are you stupid? She said no!” Heeseung spoke harshly and you turned your face to him, shocked by the situation “Get the hell out of here, son of a bitch!”

“Ahh shi–” before the guy could finish his sentence Heeseung pushed him hard and the guy staggered back while cursing some swear words. The people around started staring at the guy who was clearly drunk and out of his mind.

“Let’s get out of here.” He whispered in your ear, sending a shiver down your spine. You just nodded and turned around with Heeseung as the other guy walked away aimlessly, bumping into other people.

As Heeseung led you through the crowd, your heart was racing. In less than 10 minutes of partying, Gaeul had gone to the bathroom, a drunk man disturbed you, Heeseung had saved you and now had his arm behind your back and his right hand firmly gripped on your waist while the other made room for you to pass.

It was almost like a scene from a movie where the security guard makes room for the protagonist to pass without touching anyone.

Your mind was spiraling when you arrived at the backyard near the kitchen that didn't have many people and had a bench for you to sit on. Heeseung let go of you and closed the kitchen door behind him seeing how shocked you looked at everything that happened.

“Are you okay?” Heeseung’s gentle tone made you finally look at him that night.

Your breath hitched and your mouth hung open seeing that he was wearing a white tank top showing his collarbone, a silver chain over it, an open dark gray jacket and dark jeans.

“Yes...” You felt your cheeks heat up as you noticed how his intense dark eyes didn’t look away from yours “Thank you, Heeseung.” You shyly mumbled feeling your stomach stir as he sighed, running his hand through his hair which was slightly messy, showing a bit of his forehead.

Even if you wanted to deny it, it would be an obvious lie, because clearly Lee Heeseung was so hot that you were at a loss for words.

“Are you sure you’re okay? I can get you a water or something.” He looked genuinely concerned and didn't know what to do to make you feel better, but you smiled gently. “It’s okay, really.” You sighed in relief “You really helped me out back there. Thank you.”

“It’s nothing, as a man it’s what I should do.” He sat down next to you “That guy is an idiot; I should’ve kicked his ass.” You laughed and propped your face on the back of your hand looking at Heeseung “It would have been great entertainment, but you don’t need to harm yourself because of a drunk idiot.”

Heeseung allowed himself to relax after what happened “I guess you’re right… but what really matters is that you’re okay.”

“I am, thanks to you who saved me.” Heeseung gave an almost imperceptible smile, slightly embarrassed by the tone of your voice, but he calmed down when he saw how you looked fine and out of danger. You continued to observe Heeseung's face thinking how curious it was how different he looked when he genuinely smiled.

Heeseung's smile is splendid, like the perfect complement to his handsome profile.

He turned to you and suddenly you felt aware of his gaze.

“To be honest, I was surprised to see you here.” Heeseung confessed “I don’t remember seeing you at the parties I went to.”

He noticed how you gave a weak smile and looked up at the starry sky “It’s because I’ve only been to a few parties since I came to college.”

“Because of studies?” He asked and you nodded “That’s all I care about honestly.”

He gave an empathetic side smile “I know how it is… I can’t fail my grades.”

“You gotta be on top of the class, don’t you?” You teased him with your sarcastic tone and he rolled his eyes smiling “It’s not just that.”

“So, what’s the reason?” You turned and asked him, feeling curious, as he looked at you for a few brief seconds.

Heeseung hesitated for a moment as he didn't know what your stance would be towards his answer, but a part of him wanted to be honest.

“It’s because I need to keep my scholarship.” He confessed and looked at you hesitantly, expecting some kind of exaggerated reaction. Maybe a joke, disdain or humiliation, but he was surprised by your bright face.

“A scholarship?! Wow, that’s impressive!” You were surprised and your face showed it “I had no idea you were a scholarship holder, that’s amazing! Only the best students get a scholarship in our course.”

Heeseung was stunned by your reaction. Maybe he had misjudged you for expecting the worst, but your relationship wasn't the best, so he didn't know what to expect.

"I mean, it's not that impressive. I just worked my ass off to get this scholarship, so yeah... I need to keep it.” Heeseung scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. He didn’t know how to react to being praised, especially a compliment coming from you. His rival.

For Heeseung, the feeling of receiving recognition from someone who doesn't like him very much is more real and impactful than anyone else. Especially because you have all the weapons to criticize him, so receiving a praise from you hits different.

“It’s just the truth.” You moved a little closer to Heeseung, adjusting your skirt, making him glance at your smooth thighs “You know, I just realized something.”

Heeseung’s eyes rose and met yours again “What?”

“I think this is the first time we’ve talked about something that doesn’t have to do with our project.” You laughed and he noticed the gloss you were wearing. Your lips were shining in a mesmerizing way.

“You’re right…” He smiled “I mean, you haven’t cursed at me yet, so I say it’s an improvement.”

“Huh?” You dramatically let out a breath of air and pointed at him. “Heeseung, drop the act. You’re the one who always provokes me and starts bickering.”

Without letting go of eye contact, he brought his face closer to yours and you suddenly felt butterflies in your stomach “You’re not innocent either, you’re always teasing me.” He whispered, making you snort and look away.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Heeseung laughed and you noticed how warm the sound of his laugh was “Yeah, let’s pretend you don’t know.”

You were surprised. He seemed different that night, as if he wasn't the Heeseung you knew. The rival you felt so much despise for.

Beneath that serene air he looked like just a normal college boy. And you liked that — but you wouldn’t admit it to him.

“I need a drink.” You suddenly commented and he looked at you “Me too.” Heeseung got up from the bench and stood in front of you “Let’s go inside, the party isn’t over yet.”

“I know and Gaeul must be worried about me.” You stood up sighing thinking about how you’ll have to find your best friend in the middle of the crowd.

“Ladies first.” Heeseung opened the kitchen door and made room for you to go in first.

You rolled your eyes with a smile and walked through the door with your arms crossed “Who would have thought… Lee Heeseung is such a gentleman.”

Heeseung smiled and whispered as you stood beside him “There are still many things about me that you don’t know.”

Heeseung's deep voice was like sweet poison that seemed to penetrate your skin with ease. You swallowed hard, feeling your body heat up slightly, and just walked in without saying anything.

Normally you hated losing any kind of argument with Heeseung, but tonight you would let it slide.

As the night unfolded and you entered the venue together again, Gaeul watched the interaction from afar with a satisfied smile on her face.

Heeseung and you together? Without fighting? You guys would definitely talk about it later.

☆

“Okay girl, spill.” Gaeul leaned against the doorway of your room as you changed the sheets on your bed “What the hell happened between you and Heeseung?”

“What do you mean?” You pretended not to understand her insinuation as you finished fluffing the pillows so you could lie down.

“You know what I'm talking about.” Gaeul came in and sat on your bed, looking at you with that look she only did when she wanted to tease you “I saw you and Heeseung interacting at the party.”

“And what about it?” Gaeul sighed at your stubbornness “I thanked him for helping me with a drunk idiot there who tried to hit on me.”

“What do you mean? Did something happen?” Your best friend looked at you worriedly and you sat down next to her “It was nothing big. When you went to the bathroom a guy was completely wasted and tried to hit on me, but Heeseung helped me.”

Gaeul put her hands over her mouth in shock and her eyebrows furrowed “Babeee, I didn’t know! I’m sorry I left you alone, I never imagined something like this would happen.” She touched your hand and you smiled.

“It’s okay Gaeul, I’m fine.” You squeezed your best friend’s hand, and she smiled sweetly.

“Sooo, you were saying Heeseung saved you?” She looked at you with a teasing face and you laughed “He helped me, like a good human being, okay?”

“Girl, there’s no point in hiding it. I know something has changed between you two.” She seemed 100% convinced and you just rolled your eyes “You’re very creative Gaeul.”

“Come on, don’t tell me you didn’t feel anything different after he saved you.” She approached you, watching you ponder her question for a moment.

In fact, since that event and the brief conversation in the backyard, you started to see Heeseung in a different light. Not to mention how much more attractive he seemed.

“Okay, maybe he’s not that bad.” You confessed and Gaeul’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened in shock.

“Oh. My. God. You totally like Lee Heeseung!!!!” Gaeul stood up excitedly and you made a face “And don’t try to deny it! Your eyes don’t lie! You’re falling for your rival!”

You chuckled and shook your head “Gaeul, I don’t like him, I just think he’s improved as a person… that’s all.”

Before leaving your room, she turned and looked at you with affection and a sweet smile on her lips “Okay, you can keep denying it. But just know that when you are ready to admit your feelings, I’ll be here for you.”

You sighed knowing that Gaeul wouldn't change her mind about this.

But you couldn't help but feel that strange feeling deep in your chest when you remembered how he had held your waist tightly and protected you. The way his eyebrows were furrowed showing the anger he was feeling against that idiot on your behalf. How protective he was at that moment…

His strong hands, along with the bright smile he gave you and how his dark hair seemed to fall perfectly over his forehead.

Okay, you can admit that Lee Heeseung is attractive, but that doesn't mean you like him.

Right?

Heeseung was walking down the halls while Jay was talking about some random basketball topic when he saw your beautiful figure from afar grabbing his attention. You were stunning, as always, but you looked different.

You were smiling as you watched something interesting a boy was showing you on his phone. He recognized the boy as Jungwon, the president of one of the clubs you were a part of. Heeseung couldn't help but feel awkward about the scene. You looked so comfortable and relaxed as you talked to the boy who was undeniably handsome and put together.

A wave of sour feelings flooded Heeseung's chest. His throat tightened, and he swallowed hard, trying not to make it too obvious how much he was staring at you. Heeseung, who had always had this chill aura, felt insanely bothered when he saw how excited the boy seemed while he was making you smile so easily.

It was nothing special. Even he could make you smile if he wanted to, there was nothing special about this guy.

“Hey man, are you listening?” Jay asked and Heeseung looked away trying to ignore the dissatisfaction bubbling inside him “Sorry, can you repeat?” He ran his hand through his hair and Jay sighed “Dude, if you’re going to be jealous of her, please be more discreet, you look like a creepy staring at her like that.” Heeseung dumbfounded stared at his friend “I don’t know what you’re talking about, and I’m certainly not jealous.”

“Give me a break man, you were practically staring at the girl.” Jay gave a smirk and Heeseung kept walking trying to resist the urge to look back and see your smile one last time “I'm fine. Let's go.” Jay shook his head and continued walking alongside Heeseung who remained silent for the rest of the way.

He wasn't jealous, was he?

☆

Civil Law was fun until you had to do a detailed essay and slides on dispossession in your bedroom on a Wednesday night. It was already past 11pm and you were still halfway through the paper. Your presentation was due next week, and you were still going over the details of the requirements for reinstatement of possession.

Being a perfectionist was a characteristic of yours that hindered you more than it helped you most of the time. You wanted your work to be perfect and meticulous to the point of not leaving any room for questions. The problem was that this cost you precious nights that you could have been having fun and enjoying life like a young university student.

You were stretching your arms when you were surprised by the sound of your phone ringing on the table. Your heart skipped a beat when you saw Heeseung's name on the screen. What was he doing? He had never called you before.

'Is this an emergency?' You instantly thought and worriedly answered the phone.

“Hello? Heeseung?” The hesitation in your voice was clear “Hm—” Heeseung’s deep voice and breathing suddenly startled you “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry for calling you so late.”

“It’s okay. Did something happen?” Your heart was suddenly racing, and you couldn’t explain why. His laughter on the other end warmed your ear “No silly, I wanted to talk about our project.” The way his voice sounded deeper over the phone made you swallow hard and cross your legs instinctively.

This was pathetic. How could you feel nervous about a phone conversation? And worst of all — with Heeseung?

“Oh, right.” You gave an awkward chuckle “What is it?” It was like you could feel his smile through his breathing on the phone call.

“I was just thinking… maybe it would be interesting to talk about criminal liability for crimes committed during the Second World War with the creation of the Nuremberg Tribunal.” Heeseung said in a calm and soft voice. As if he was flirting, but you knew that couldn’t be possible. He had no reason to flirt with you “Ah, you mean the International Military Tribunal?”

“Exactly.” Was his voice always this sexy? “I think it would be a good topic, and I know you like the criminal side of things, so it could be interesting for us to address this.” Your stomach turned as you realized that Heeseung had paid attention to what you had said weeks ago and thought of this idea based on your personal taste.

“I think that’s a great idea!” You gave him an excited smile as if he could see it “I think it would be wonderful to include this part.”

“Yeah.” He laughed in a way that made you feel like a little girl interacting with her crush “I’m glad you liked it, we can work on that at our next meeting.”

God, you were hating yourself mentally. How could you let yourself be affected and have impure thoughts while Heeseung was talking about the Nuremberg Tribunal?

“Sure!” Was all you could manage to say before he interrupted you “Speaking of which, are you free in the afternoon on Friday? We can start right away.”

“Wait, I’ll check my schedule.” He laughed at your answer and said playfully “Of course you have a schedule.” You usually can’t stand it when Heeseung answers you sarcastically, but this time it was different. It was like he was teasing you, but not with the intention of irritating you, but just joking with you. “I’m an organized person, of course I’ll schedule my appointments in advance.”

“Alright, Miss Organized. Are you free?” You could hardly believe that you were having a friendly conversation with Heeseung over the phone “Yes, we can schedule it at our usual time.”

“Great, it's a date then.” The way he said it was normal, you know that, but the butterflies that invaded your stomach made you feel like a loser. He wasn't asking you out on a date, it was just the work meeting you always had, but you couldn't stay calm like before.

“Uh– Heeseung can I ask you something?” You gathered the courage to continue the conversation “Sure. What is it?” He seemed curious and you bit your lower lip trying to get the courage to ask what was eating you up inside “Why did you call me? You could have texted me…”

Your anxiety reached its peak when he was silent for about 5 seconds and all you could hear was his breathing “I guess I just wanted to talk to you directly about the subject.” He broke the silence and you let out an ironic chuckle “Woah?! I never thought I would hear those words from Lee Heeseung.” Unbeknownst to you on the other end of the line Heeseung had slightly pink cheeks while he had his hand over his eyes “Seriously, this topic is quite detailed so I wanted to get my point across as easily as possible, and over text it would be a hassle.”

“And why didn’t you Facetimed me?” You argued as you jumped onto your fluffy bed “I can’t.” He replied seriously and you hugged your pillow “Why not?”

Heeseung stopped for a second and laughed through his nose, which you could hear through the phone “Because I’m already in bed and I’m shirtless.” You froze, feeling your cheeks heat up at what he said and blamed yourself for imagining him shirtless calling you in the middle of the night “So… it would be a little complicated for me to have to get up, put on a shirt and turn on the lights just to say that.”

“I see… that makes sense.” You swallowed, feeling like an idiot for not knowing how to react with this bombastic information. Shirtless Lee Heeseung calling you at night is something you never expected to happen to you.

'I hope he doesn't think I'm weird.'

“And you? What are you doing up so late?” He asked and you laughed seeing how you needed to turn off your laptop and organize your materials “I was doing my civil law essay.”

“Yeah, this essay is really tiring. It took me a long time to research my topic, but you’ll finish it soon.” He said with that usual confidence with absolute certainty that you would kill the subject “Well, unfortunately I had the misfortune of getting the subject of dispossession, so it's more complicated than it seems.”

“Damn, dispossession is full of details.” He sighed, feeling his eyes grow heavy “My topic is about inheritance law. Heirs and shit like that.” You laughed, noticing how his voice was getting slightly choked with sleep “Are you sleepy?”

“Hmhum.” He nodded even though he knew you wouldn’t see it “I’m tired, I had a lot of work today.” Your legs were swinging in the air as you listened to Heeseung “Well then, I guess it’s time for you to sleep.”

He laughed and agreed “Yeah, you're right. Good night, Y/N.” His sleepy voice tickled your ear and you smirked “Good night, Heeseung.”

With one click he hung up the call and you buried your face in the pillow, giving a liberating scream after the unexpected call.

'Damn it, Lee Heeseung, what did you do to me?'

☆

Despite your good mood, this civil law essay was taking up a lot of your free time and it was tiring you out. You had been reviewing your paper and making slides for your presentation for 3 hours straight.