sour candy

‎‎‎‎‎ㅤㅤㅤIt was one of those days where Yunho was picked up from his violin classes by his nanny, a short, middle-aged woman with sunshine in her eyes and soft hands. He preferred it that way; it was better than his mom picking him up in a rush, only to make him sit in the clinic for hours until she was finished with her patients.

He licked a lazy stray drop of vanilla ice cream, sitting on a bench while Mrs. Yoon waited for her coffee. He liked it this way—with Mrs. Yoon taking care of him, life always felt easier. It was as if the air was too heavy for a nine-year-old around his parents, yet felt fresher the moment he was away from them. He glanced toward the playground, unable to remember the last time he’d been allowed to go on the swings he liked so much. Swinging made him feel like he had wings; like he was free.

Suddenly, a bit of ice cream melted around the cone, dripping onto his hand and down to his navy shorts. His mother would see the beige smear and her lips would thin into that familiar, razor-sharp line—the one that signalled an hour-long lecture on discipline, poise, and the “expectations of a Jeong.”

The heavy clatter of a bicycle hitting the pavement snapped his attention forward. A boy with dark, long hair, pushed his bike to the ground right in front of him. He didn’t just sit; he collapsed onto the grass, his knees digging into the dirt as he stared at a mangled bicycle chain with a focused, desperate intensity. Yunho couldn’t remember the last time he had enough time to ride his bike. His breath hitched suddenly as his eyes landed on the boy’s arms. They were a map of fading bruises—blooms of yellow and green stretching up under the sleeves of a T-shirt three sizes too large. The boy’s fingers were stained a deep, oily black, the grease carved into the crescents of his fingernails.

“Shit,” the boy muttered low, heavy with a frustration that seemed too old for his frame. He yanked at a long strand of his fringe.

“That’s not a nice word, really,” Yunho said. The correction came out on instinct, polished and prim, the voice of a boy who had been taught to speak in cursive.

The boy’s head snapped up. His face was sharp, his eyes narrowed as they swept over Yunho’s pristine polo and the melting evidence of his failure on his lap. A slow, mocking twist pulled at the corner of the boy’s mouth. “That’s not a nice situation, really,” the boy deadpanned, his voice raspy. He gestured with a grease-stained hand toward the bike, then pointedly at the beige smear on Yunho’s shorts. “You’re bleeding vanilla, Princess. You gonna cry about it?”

Yunho felt the heat climb up his neck, a prickly sensation that made his skin itch. He looked down at the stain, then back at the boy. There was something magnetic about the dirt on the other boy’s shins—it was a type of mess Yunho wasn’t allowed to have. “It’s not... it’s just a stain,” Yunho whispered, though his hand trembled as he reached for the napkin Mrs. Yoon had tucked into his pocket. “My mother will be angry.”

The boy snorted, a sharp sound that lacked any real humour. He turned back to the bike, his fingers dancing over the greasy metal links. He didn’t seem afraid of the mess. He seemed used to it. “Mothers are always angry. It’s what they’re for.” He gave the chain a violent tug, and the sound of metal grinding on metal echoed through the quiet park. “I’m Mingi. And if you’re gonna just sit there and judge my vocabulary, you might as well hand me that napkin. This chain is being a real bitch.”

Yunho blinked, his mouth falling open slightly at the second curse word. He looked at the clean, white linen in his hand—the one embroidered with a small ‘JYH’ in the corner. Then he looked at the boy—Mingi—whose hands were trembling almost as much as his own, though for very different reasons. Slowly, Yunho slid off the bench. Mrs. Yoon was still inside the coffee shop, the bell at the door chiming as someone else walked in. He looked back at the black sedan idling at the curb—his father’s driver was already waiting. He had maybe two minutes of freedom left. He threw the remaining ice cream away, and took three steps forward, the grass soft beneath his loafers, until he was standing over the boy on the ground. The smell of Mingi was different from anything Yunho knew—it was metallic, like coins, mixed with the scent of sun-warmed pavement and like sweat that had dried and been forgotten. “I’m Yunho,” he said softly, kneeling down, not caring about the grass stains on his knees anymore. He held out the napkin. “Do you... do you want help? I’m good at puzzles. This looks like a puzzle.”

Mingi paused, his grease-streaked face tilting up. He looked at the expensive napkin, then at Yunho’s wide, earnest eyes. For a second, the bravado flickered, and Yunho saw the hollowed-out exhaustion underneath. “It’s not a puzzle, Yunho,” Mingi said, his voice losing its bite. “It’s broken.”

“Everything can be fixed,” Yunho insisted, though his voice sounded unsure.

Mingi let out a breath that sounded like a ghost of a laugh, reaching out to take the napkin. His black-stained fingers brushed against Yunho’s pale, soft skin, leaving a dark smudge behind. “Fine,” Mingi exhaled, the word coming out like a surrendered secret. He shifted his weight, making a small space on the patch of dead grass. “But don’t go crying when you get your pretty hands all messed up.”

“I won’t,” Yunho promised. He reached out, his fingers hovering for a second over the teeth of the gear. Then, he touched it. The grease was thick and slick, feeling wet against his skin. Feeling real. Unlike the smooth, resin-coated bow of his violin or the sterilized surfaces of his mother’s clinic “The link is caught on the guard,” Yunho observed, his brow furrowing. He pointed a stained finger at the metal lip. “If you hold the pedal still, I can hook it back over.”

Mingi gripped the pedal, his knuckles still showing those faint yellow bruises. “On three?”

“On three.” Yunho’s small fingers guided the stubborn, oily chain while Mingi provided the strength. When the chain finally snapped back into place with a sharp, satisfying clack, they both jumped. Yunho looked down at his hands. They were ruined. Black streaks covered his palms, darting up his wrists. He should have been terrified. He should have been thinking about the lecture and his mother’s disappointment. Instead, he looked at Mingi and felt a strange, bubbling heat in his chest. “We fixed it,” a wide smile broke across his face.

Mingi wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, leaving a new smear of dirt across his brow. He looked at the bike, then at the boy beside him who looked like a fallen angel covered in soot, a small grin mirrored Yunho’s. “Yeah. I guess we did, Princess.”

The moment was shattered by the chime of the coffee shop door. 

“Yunho-ya? Oh, heavens!” Mrs. Yoon’s voice was frantic. She stood on the sidewalk, her eyes wide as she took in the scene: her golden boy, the pride of the Jeong family, kneeling in the dirt with a boy who looked like he’d been dragged through a coal mine.

Mingi’s smile vanished instantly. It didn’t fade; it was snatched away, replaced by a cold, guarded mask. He scrambled to his feet, grabbing the handlebars of his bike with a white-knuckled grip. “I gotta go,” Mingi didn’t look at the nanny but straight at Yunho, his dark eyes flickering with something that looked suspiciously like regret.

“Wait!” Yunho scrambled up, reaching out a hand that was still dripping with black grease. “Do you... do you come here often?” Yunho asked, the words tumbling out of him in a breathless rush. He took a half-step forward. “Do you want to play? Tomorrow? I have a ball, and—and we could go on the swings.”

Mingi froze with one foot already on the pedal. He looked back over his shoulder, his dark fringe parted just enough to reveal eyes that looked startled, almost fearful. Nobody asked him to play. People usually asked him to move, to leave, or to stop making noise. “I don’t play,” Mingi looked at Yunho’s outstretched, dirty hand, and for a split second, his gaze softened. “And you shouldn’t be hanging out with kids like me, Princess. Your dress-up clothes are already ruined.”

“I don’t care about the clothes,” Yunho insisted, his voice cracking. “Please. I just... I like the way the chain sounds now. We fixed it together.”

“Yunho! Your hands! Your clothes!” Mrs. Yoon was beside him now, her soft hands fluttering over his shoulders, her face pale with worry. “What have you done? Your mother... oh, she’s going to be so angry, Yunho-ya, she’s going to have my head!”

Mingi didn’t wait for the lecture. At the sight of an adult instinct took over—the need to disappear before the blame was shifted onto him. He didn’t say goodbye. He didn’t promise to come back. He just kicked off, the bicycle chain humming a smooth, perfect tune that mocked the chaos he was leaving behind.

“Wait! Mingi!” Yunho called out, but the boy was already a blur of dark hair and oversized cotton, pedalling away as if his life depended on it.

“Yunho-ya, stay still!” Mrs. Yoon was over him now, frantically pulling a pack of wet wipes from her purse. She grabbed his wrist, scrubbing at the black grease with a desperation that made his skin sting. “Why would you touch that bike? Look at you!” Yunho stood like a statue, letting her scrub the dirt off. He let the flowery scent of the wet wipes drown out the smell of the bicycle grease. But as he watched Mingi disappear around the corner, he slowly curled his stained fingers into a tight fist. The grease was forced deeper into the creases of his palms, getting under his fingernails. “We have to get you home,” Mrs. Yoon’s voice trembled. “We have to try and bleach these shorts before she sees them. If we’re lucky—if we’re very, very lucky—she won’t notice the red in your skin from the scrubbing.”

But as they walked toward the car, Yunho felt a cold dread settling in his stomach. He knew his mother, she noticed everything. She noticed a hair out of place, a note played flat, a second of hesitation. He climbed into the back seat, the leather cool against his skin. He looked out the window, praying for one last glimpse of a boy on a bike, but the street was empty.

‎‎‎‎‎ㅤㅤㅤ

‎‎‎‎‎ㅤㅤㅤThe leaves had started to turn from green to yellow and orange by the time Yunho saw Mingi again. It wasn’t in the park, though; Yunho was sitting in his father’s car in front of the supermarket, waiting to be driven to the dance classes he had begged to be signed up for all summer. Despite the pressure of his schedule, Yunho’s heart gave an innocent, excited thump the moment he spotted a familiar shock of hair. But Mingi wasn’t alone. He was being dragged along by a woman who looked far too young—his mother. Her dark hair was a mess and her clothes were disheveled, her hand tight around Mingi’s as she pulled him toward the store. Mingi still looked thin, but he seemed to have grown even taller in their time apart, his lanky frame moving with a heavy sort of exhaustion that didn’t belong on a child.

Yunho unfastened his seatbelt and flung the door open, almost falling over as his trembling feet scrambled to catch his weight. He was already halfway to the entrance when he let out a shout. “Mingi!” He didn’t think about his dad in the driver’s seat or the dance clothes he was wearing; he just ran, his excitement bubbling over as he raced toward the familiar boy.

Mingi flinched at the sound of his name, his shoulders hunching before he even turned around—a habit of someone used to bad news. When he saw Yunho skidding to a halt in front of him, his eyes widened in genuine shock. “Yunho?” Mingi looked even more tired up close, his face sharper, but he was definitely taller now, towers over Yunho by an extra inch or two.

“I’ve been looking for you!” Yunho panted, his face flushed with the thrill of the escape. He was beaming, oblivious to the messy state of Mingi’s mother or the way she was staring at them with glazed, impatient eyes. 

The sound of the heavy car door thudding shut was like a starting pistol, but it was followed immediately by the click of the driver’s side door opening. “Jeong Yunho!” His father’s voice boomed, sharp and cold, cutting through the parking lot noise. It was a tone that usually made Yunho’s blood turn to ice but he didn’t stop, even as he felt the sudden weight of his father’s stare on his back.

Mingi’s mom’s hand was still anchored to Mingi’s wrist and the boy stumbled forward, forced to follow her, but he looked back over his shoulder at Yunho. The excitement in Yunho’s eyes seemed to hurt him. “I have to go,” the taller boy looked at Yunho’s clean clothes and the expensive car idling nearby, then down at his own worn-out shoes. “You shouldn’t be out here. Your dad is gonna be mad.”

Yunho ignored the looming shadow of his father, his eyes locked onto Mingi’s. He reached out, his fingers catching the rough fabric of Mingi’s sleeve. “I—I have a dance class today,” Yunho rushed out, the words tumbling over each other in his desperation. “But please, come to the park tomorrow! My parents won’t be there, I promise. We could go to the playground, or... or you could ride your bike! Just for a little bit?” He gripped the sleeve tighter, his small face pleading. He just wanted to feel those wings again, even if it was just for one afternoon in the dirt with his friend.

Mingi’s eyes flickered toward Yunho’s father, who was now only a few feet away, then back to Yunho’s hopeful, innocent face. He didn’t answer right away. He looked at his mother first, searching her face for a permission she was too distracted to give, or perhaps checking if she’d even noticed the invitation. Finding no answer there, he turned back to Yunho and gave a small, hesitant nod. Before Yunho could even breathe a sigh of relief, the automatic glass doors of the supermarket slid open with a hiss.

His mother emerged.

She looked exactly as she always did: perfectly composed, her lab coat replaced by a sharp designer blazer, her hair pulled back without a single strand out of place. She stopped dead when she saw the scene—her husband standing by their son, clutching the sleeve of a disheveled boy in the middle of a parking lot.

Her eyes swept over Mingi’s mother—taking in the messy hair, the tired clothes, and a faint smell of vodka—with a cold, detached flick of her gaze. Then, her focus snapped to Yunho. Her lips began to move, thinning into that dreaded line. The fresh air Yunho had felt just moments ago vanished, replaced by the suffocating scent of her expensive perfume.

The heavy click of his father’s leather shoes against the pavement sounded like a countdown. Before Yunho could get another word out to Mingi, a large, firm hand landed on his shoulder, pulling him back with enough force to make his sneakers scuff against the asphalt. “Jeong Yunho,” his father didn’t look at Mingi, and he certainly didn’t look at the disheveled woman standing there. He kept his eyes fixed on the back of his son’s head. “You do not exit a car without permission. You do not run across a public parking lot...” He finally trailed off, his gaze flicking toward Mingi and his mother with an expression of pure, unfiltered judgment. He adjusted the cuff of his sleeve, looking as though he might catch a disease just by standing in their vicinity. “You have a dance class in twenty minutes. You are acting like a child who hasn’t been taught a lick of discipline. Get in the car before I decide you don’t need that class at all.”

Yunho shrank, his excitement turning into a ball of hot shame in his chest. But before his father could steer him away, Mingi’s mother spoke up. She swayed just a little on her feet, her hand still white-knuckled around Mingi’s wrist. She looked at the towering, polished man in front of her and didn’t blink. “He’s just a kid—er, mister,” it was a raspy, tired sigh that should’t belong to a woman her age, yet it held a strange, protective weight. “Let ’em say hi. It don’t cost you nothing to let ’em be kids for a second.” She wasn’t trying to be mean; she just sounded exhausted by the world and its rules. She looked down at Mingi, her thumb mindlessly brushing his wrist in a gesture of love that she was too detached to fully express. “Mingi’s a good boy. Your kid is too. Don’t gotta be so loud about it.”

The silence that followed her words was suffocating. Yunho’s father stiffened, his face hardening to pure, icy disbelief. He didn’t argue with her—to him, she wasn’t even worth the breath—but his grip on Yunho’s shoulder tightened, his fingers digging into the fabric of the boy’s athletic jacket. “We are leaving,” his father said, his voice clipped and final.

“Yunho, get in the car,” his mother commanded, her voice not loud, but possessing a chilling authority that was far worse than a shout. “Now. I won’t tell you again.” Yunho looked at Mingi one last time. The boy looked small—smaller than he had a moment ago—as he watched Yunho being steered away like a prisoner. 

As the car door thudded shut, muffling the sounds of the outside world, Yunho watched through the tinted glass. He saw Mingi’s mom stumble slightly, her hand still anchored to Mingi’s wrist as she led him toward the store. She looked young—almost like a girl herself—lost in a world that was far too heavy for her to carry.

“Wash your hands before you enter the class,” his mother said from the front seat, not looking back. “You don’t know where that boy has been.”

Yunho didn’t answer. He just pressed his forehead against the cold window, watching the orange and yellow leaves blur into a smear of colour as the car pulled away, leaving his friend behind in the dust.

‎‎‎‎‎ㅤㅤㅤ

‎‎‎‎‎ㅤㅤㅤMrs. Yoon didn’t suspect a thing when Yunho asked her to go to the park, even though he looked exhausted from the hours spent at the language academy. He was pale and his eyes were heavy, but he insisted. It was a beautiful autumn day—the kind of day where the air felt crisp and the sun was low and golden, casting long shadows across the piles of fallen leaves. As they walked, Yunho kept his gaze darting toward the trees and the playground, his heart thumping with hope. He had spent the whole day reciting foreign verbs and perfecting his posture, but all he could think about was the small, hesitant nod Mingi had given him in the parking lot. He just needed one hour of feeling like a kid again.

Yunho’s heart skipped a beat when he saw a familiar silhouette near the edge of the playground. Mingi was there, leaning against an old, rusted bicycle that looked a few sizes too small for his long legs. He looked like he had been waiting for a while, kicking at a pile of dried leaves with his worn-out sneakers. When he heard the crunch of footsteps, he looked up, and for the first time that day, the heavy, grown-up shadow over his face lifted just a little.

Mrs. Yoon looked at the same direction as Yunho, and recognised the boy immediately. How could she not? He was the reason she had been severely scolded and nearly fired after Yunho’s last encounter with him. If it hadn’t been for Yunho sobbing and begging his parents to let her stay, she would have been sent away weeks ago. She felt a sharp prickle of anxiety. To her, Mingi wasn’t just a boy; he was a threat to her livelihood, a reminder of the “bad influence” Yunho’s parents were so desperate to keep away. She glanced around the park nervously, half-expecting Yunho’s mother to materialise from behind a tree. But then she looked at Yunho. The exhaustion that had weighed down his small shoulders all afternoon had vanished, replaced by a bright, frantic glow of happiness. She sighed, her heart winning over her fear. She would let him have this, but still she remained on high alert, her eyes scanning the park like a lookout. She couldn’t lose this job, but she couldn’t bear to snuff out the only light Yunho had left, either. She gave Yunho a gentle pat on the shoulder, “Go on, then,” she said with a warm smile, already heading toward her usual bench. “But stay where I can see you, Yunho-yah.”

Yunho didn’t need to be told twice. He ran—not the stiff, disciplined jog he was taught in his athletics club, but a wild, clumsy sprint. “You came!” Yunho panted as he reached the bike, his cheeks flushed pink from the cool autumn air.

Mingi gave a shy grin, his hands gripping the handlebars tightly. “I told you I would, didn’t I?” He looked Yunho over, noticing he was still wearing his neat academy clothes, such a sharp contrast to Mingi’s faded green hoodie. “You didn’t get in too much trouble? Your dad looked... scary.”

Yunho shrugged, trying to act braver than he felt. The lecture had been long, but standing here in the golden light with Mingi made the memory of his father’s voice feel far away. “It doesn’t matter now. You brought your bike!”

Mingi patted the cracked leather seat. “It’s not much, but it’s fast. Want to see?”

For a moment, they weren’t the “Jeong heir” and the boy who grew up too fast; they were just two kids under an orange sky, stealing a few minutes of freedom before the world turned heavy again.

Mrs. Yoon watched them from her bench, her heart thumping nervously against her ribs, but she didn’t call him back. She saw the way Yunho’s laughter finally sounded light, stripped of the heavy expectations of his name. And so, on that autumn afternoon, Mrs. Yoon became the silent guardian of their blossoming friendship. Every Monday and Thursday, after hours at the language academy, she would steer the car toward the park instead of the clinic. She would sit on her bench, and let Yunho play with Mingi until the sun dipped too low and the shadows grew long.

For those few stolen hours each week, the “expectations of a Jeong” didn’t exist. There was only the rusted bike, and a freedom that felt, for the first time, like it might actually last.

The days in the park became their sanctuary, a fragile bubble of childhood protected by Mrs. Yoon’s eyes.

There it was. That tone again.

Plastering a fragile smile onto your face, you forced yourself up from the living room couch and turned to face him, your eyes still heavy and reddened. “Hi,” the word came out weaker than you’ve liked. You padded into the kitchen space, trying to deflect. “How was wo—”

“You’ve been crying?” he interrupted immediately, his eyes locking onto your face. He let out a shaky exhale—you couldn’t tell if it was born of irritation or some lingering, buried sense of worry. “Again?”

The lump in your throat returned, heavier this time, joined by a knot in your stomach that stole the air from your lungs. Yunho wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t blind. But the voice in your head insisting that nobody cared was stubborn. Unyielding. Even after promising yourself thousands of times that you’d speak up—that you’d finally let him see the hurricane in your mind—the second the opportunity arose, your brain slammed on the emergency brakes. “What are you talking about?” you muttered, “I was just—”

“For God’s sake.” Yunho rolled his eyes, taking in your clearly broken-down posture. “Will you ever just talk to me?” He sounded angry, or maybe that was just the distortion of your own defence mechanisms. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Your eyes are all red and puffy.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” the words slipped out, you swore they did, cold and definitive. You took a step back, intending to disappear into the darkness of the bedroom, but you didn’t even make it half a step when Yunho’s hand, still chilled from the outside air, clamped down on your shoulder, keeping you in place.

“What happened?”

Panic clawed its way up your chest and neck, squeezing tight. Total silence fell over the kitchen, though your ears were ringing with the frantic thud of your own heartbeat. You hated that question, or maybe it was more a fear of it? “Nothing.” You forced your voice to remain flat. You failed. “Let me make you something to eat.” Avoiding his gaze, you reached past him for the grocery bag.

Yunho laughed once, short and humourless. “Right. Same answer as last week.”

You stiffened, your fingers wrapping tightly around the paper handles of the bag. “I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

Desperate for a distraction, you began pulling plates out of the dishwasher, unpacking them just to give your trembling hands something to do. “Can you just drop it?”

“No.” The answer came so fast, so sharp, it forced your eyes up. Yunho dragged a heavy hand down his face, a gesture of pure exhaustion. “No, I can’t just drop it.”

“I said I’m fine.”

“You are very obviously not fine.”

“Why does it even matter?” The question slipped out before your brain could filter it. Next came a total silence, heavy and suffocating. Yunho just stared at you, his face freezing but you couldn’t quite get the emotion behind it. You looked away, regretting the words the instant they tasted real. “Forget it.”

“No. Explain that.”

Your chest tightened, the pressure built until it finally burst. “Because what difference does it make?” you snapped, the sudden volume surprising even yourself. “You knowing doesn’t magically fix anything!”

Yunho’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched in his cheek. “So that’s it? You just cry by yourself until you can’t breathe, and then pretend nothing happened?”

“You wouldn’t understand.” The moment the words left your mouth, you wished you could violently pull them back.

Something painful flashed across his face. “Wouldn’t understand?” Yunho repeated, his voice rising for the first time. “No, actually, I don’t. I don’t know what you mean because you never tell me anything.”

Your eyes burned fiercely, a fresh wave of tears threatening to spill. “Because I’m tired!”

“So am I!” The admission hit harder than any physical violence ever could. You flinched, and Yunho looked away as if he needed a second to calm down, shaking his head. “I’m tired of guessing what's going on in your head,” he confessed. “I’m tired of waking up and wondering if today’s gonna be a good day or a bad day. I’m tired of watching you fall apart and pretending I don’t see it, because every single time I ask, you shut me out.”

The room felt microscopic, and the walls were closing in, trapping you both in the wreckage of the conversation. You wrapped your arms tightly around yourself, trying to hold your shattering pieces together. “Then stop asking.”

Yunho stared at you. For a fleeting second, the anger completely vanished, leaving him looking genuinely, deeply hurt. “Do you really want that?”

You opened your mouth, but no sound came out. Your throat was completely closed up. Because the truth was: no. You didn’t want him to stop. You wanted him to ask. You wanted him to keep asking. You wanted someone to finally notice—but you just didn’t know how to survive the vulnerability of being seen.

Yunho let out a slow, defeated breath, the fight leaving his shoulders.

“That’s what I thought.”

And there they were. Tears, again.

You sniffled, blinking rapidly as if it could somehow stop them from spilling over. “What difference does it make if you know? It’s not your fault I feel like this. It’s not anyone’s. It’s all on me.” You dragged a trembling hand through your hair, gripping the roots just to feel something grounding. “Do you really want to fucking listen about what it’s like?” The words tore out of you, broken in half by a sob. “To wake up every single morning wishing you could just disappear? Wishing everyone would just forget you ever existed so you could stop being a burden?” Yunho took a sudden step toward you. Instinctively, you flinched and stepped back, leaving his hand hovering in the air near your waist, desperately wanting to steady you, but you kept moving out of reach until your lower back hit the hard edge of the kitchen counter. You couldn’t handle being touched in this satate. You were trapped by the room, and trapped by your own skin.“Do you know how hard it is?” you cried, the act of being fine completely breaking now. “Just getting out of bed every day? Taking four different fucking medications just to stay stable, and still feeling like absolute shit anyway?” Your chest throbbed with ache. Every single breath felt too sharp, like your lungs were getting cut open. “I’m trying,” the confession came out small, and pathetic in your ears. You hated how weak you felt when you met Yunho’s eyes for a brief moment, before looking away again. “I’m trying so hard.” Another sob tore violently through your throat, robbing you of air. “And it’s never enough.”

For the first time since he’d walked through the front door, Yunho didn’t interrupt. He didn’t argue. He didn’t demand that you talk to him, and he didn’t roll his eyes. He just stood there, completely paralysed, listening.

Because maybe, after all this time, you were finally saying something.

“And then you come home,” you choked out, gesturing wildly to the space between you, “after I’ve been sitting in my own rot all day, and you demand answers like I have any!” You let out a harsh laugh, though it sounded far more like another sob. “I’m so tired.”

Yunho took another cautious step forward, his hands half-raised. “Hey—”

“No!” You shook your head violently, the movement making the room tilt. “No, don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t look at me like that.” Your chest heaved, desperate for air that wouldn’t come, lungs refusing to work under flood of tears.

“Like what?”

“Like you care!” The silence that followed felt endless, it swallowed the whole space between you. You immediately wished you could yank the words back into your throat, but it was too late. Once the words started, they refused to stop. “You don’t get it,” you choked out.

“Then explain it to me.”

“Why? So you can tell me it’ll get better? So you can give me some hollow promise that you’re here for me?” Your vision blurred into a smear of kitchen lights and shadow. “Look at me!” You spread your arms wide, gesturing to your trembling, broken form. “Look at me,” your voice broke to a whisper, “I’m miserable all the time. I can’t keep my shit together.” You pressed a fist hard against your sternum, right over your aching heart. “I take medication every single day and I’m still a complete disaster.” You swallowed against the burn in your throat, pushing through the final, terrifying truth. “And you know what the worst part is?”

Yunho didn’t answer. Looking at him, you weren’t even sure he could breathe, let alone speak.

“I’m trying so hard,” you wiped angrily at your face with the back of your hand, but it was a useless, desperate gesture that only smeared the hot tears further across your cheeks. “I’m trying,” you whispered again, the repetition sounding more like a plea to the universe than a statement. “And for what?” You didn’t let him speak. If you stopped now, the momentum would die, and you would dissolve into nothing. You let out a bitter, ugly laugh. “For what, Yunho? So I can swallow my meds, force myself to go to work, come home, pretend I’m absolutely fine, and then wake up to do it all over again? Is that the grand prize?”

“That’s not what this is about,” he interrupted, his voice dropping low as he looked at tears restlessly falling down your cheeks.

“Then what is it about?”

His jaw tightened so hard the muscle along his cheekbone twitched. He closed the small distance between you, his eyes locked onto yours. “You won’t talk to me.”

A sharp, hysterical laugh escaped you before you could stop it. “Because there’s nothing to say!”

“That’s bullshit,” the sudden, whip-crack sharpness in his voice made you flinch, shoulders violently jerking backward. For a fraction of a second, a flicker of pure guilt crossed Yunho’s face at your reaction. But the softness vanished as quickly as it came, swallowed by a wave of frustration. “No,” he said, his voice steadying, “I’m serious. That’s absolute bullshit.” You could only stare at him, your hands gripping the countertop behind you so tightly your knuckles turned white. “You cry when you think I’m not looking,” he said, taking a deliberate step closer. The cold air from the outside still clung to his jacket. “You lock yourself in the bedroom for hours.”

Another step.

“You barely sleep. I lie awake and I listen to you toss and turn until the sun comes up.”

Another step.

He was entirely inside your space now, the warmth of his body a direct contrast to the icy panic flooding your veins. “And every single time I ask you what’s wrong, you look me dead in the eye and tell me it’s nothing.” You hated how right he sounded. You hated the absolute, undeniable logic of his words, and more than anything, you hated him for being the one to hold it against you.

“What difference would it make if I told you?” you cried, your voice pitching higher.

“Maybe I’d know how to help.”

A ragged laugh tore out of you, loud and mocking. “Help?” The word dripped with a bitter, venomous disbelief. “That’s funny. That’s really funny, Yunho.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

You looked away, unable to hold his gaze any longer. You focused instead on a small scratch on the kitchen cabinets. “Nothing.”

“No. Say it.” The kitchen suddenly felt microscopic. The walls were pressing in from all sides, trapping the two of you in a space that lacked oxygen. You could feel your heartbeat throbbing violently in your throat, choking you. “Say it,” he demanded again.

Your eyes burned fiercely, a fresh wave of tears blurring the sight of his socks on the floor. “You really want me to?”

“Yes.” The answer came instantly. No hesitation or fear.

So, you gave it to him. You took the most toxic, deeply rooted fear in your soul and you threw it directly at his chest. “You don’t love me anymore.”

The silence was immediate. It was a violent and suffocating, sucking any remaining air out of the room.

Yunho just stared at you. The anger on his face completely froze, his features slackening into an expression of total, uncomprehending shock. “What?”

“You heard me.”

“Say it again.” His voice was frighteningly calm now. The storm had suddenly vanished, replaced by quiet that made your instinct scream at you to run.

You swallowed past the lump in your throat. “You don’t love me.”

His laugh was short, sharp, and completely humourless—a sound that made you flinch worse than his yelling had. “Wow.”

You felt tears spill over your eyelashes, tracing burning paths down your face and onto your neck. But you couldn’t stop. The floodgates were shattered, and your broken brain was running the script it had spent months writing in the dark. “You come home because you don’t have anywhere else to go,” you sobbed, gesturing vaguely to the apartment around you.

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, dragging a hand over his face.

“You stay because it’s easier than leaving.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“You stay because you’re used to me!” By then, his eyes were shining, glassy tears finally gathering in them. You looked at them and felt a sick twist of validation. “You stay because it’s a habit.”

“You really believe that?” he asked, his voice cracking on the last syllable.

You didn’t answer. Because the truth was: yes. You did. Every single day, that was the reality your mind constructed for you, and standing here, broken and exposed, you couldn’t tell the difference between the delusion and the truth. Yunho’s head dropped for a second, his chin pressing against his chest as he let out a long, ragged breath. When he looked back up, something about him had changed. It wasn’t love, and it wasn’t the fiery anger from before. It was hurt. Ugly, bleeding hurt.

“So every time I’ve tried to help you—”

“Yunho—”

“No!” His voice rose, cutting you off completely, echoing off the walls. “No, we’re doing this now. We are doing this right fucking now.” The volume of his voice made you stand straight up. Your stomach dropped, making the first hit of nausea hit you. “Every single time I’ve sat up with you until three in the morning,” he started, his hands shaking as he began to count on his fingers, throwing the evidence of his love between you. “Every single doctor’s appointment I drove you to.”

“Stop,” you whispered.

“Every prescription I ran to pick up because you couldn’t face the outside world.”

“Please.”

“Every fucking panic attack where I held you until my arms went completely numb!” His voice shook violently, the tears finally spilling over his eyelids. “And you think I did all of that because I was bored? You think I did that out of habit?”

Tears completely blinded your vision, turning him into a broad, trembling silhouette. “I didn’t mean—”

“Then what did you mean?” The question hit like a slap across the face. Yunho stepped closer, “What exactly do you think I am? Some kind of martyr? A heartless asshole who just plays house because it’s comfortable?”

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. Your vocal cords were paralyzed.

Yunho laughed again, and it made the blood in your veins go cold. The sound was terrifying in your ears. “Do you know what the worst part is?”

You wished he would stop talking. You wanted to cover your ears, to scream, to crawl into the floorboards—anything to make him stop. But he didn’t. Not anymore.

“The worst part is that none of this is ever enough.”

You flinched. Immediately. The words struck you in the chest, echoing the exact, terrifying thought you had spoken only moments before: And it’s never enough. The second you moved, regret flashed across Yunho’s face. He blinked, looking down at his own hands as if shocked by the weapon he had just used. But it was too late. The syllables had left his mouth. The damage was done.

“Oh,” you whispered, the sound barely clearing your lips. “Oh.”

“That’s not what I meant,” he said quickly, taking a step forward, his hand reaching out instinctively.

“But you meant it.”

“No, I didn’t—”

“You did.” Fresh, hot tears spilled down your face, your defenses completely crumbling into ash. “You finally said it.”

“For fuck’s sake!” Yunho shouted, running both hands through his hair.

“You finally admitted it,” you choked out, your voice small, trembling, entirely defeated.

“I didn’t!” His hands shook as he dropped them to his sides. “I am so tired of everything I do being twisted into proof that I don’t care about you! I am so tired of fighting a voice in your head!”

You let out a sharp, bitter laugh through your tears. “And I’m tired of feeling like a fucking obligation!”

The words hung between you. Heavy. Ugly.

Obligation.

Yunho went completely, terrifyingly still.

An obligation. Not a partner. Not a girlfriend. Not the person he loved. An obligation. Something to be checked off a list. A burden to be carried.

You saw that one land. You watched the word hit him, saw the way his shoulders subtly dropped, the way the last remnants of fight drained out of his posture, leaving him looking entirely hollowed out.

Good, a small, vicious part of your brain whispered. You wanted it to hurt.

And the very second that thought crossed your mind, a wave of self-loathing washed over you. You hated yourself for it. Because suddenly, this wasn’t about defense anymore. You weren’t trying to protect your heart; you were actively trying to wound his. Just like he had tried to wound yours.

The realisation made you feel sick, a knot tightening in the pit of your stomach.

Neither of you spoke. The apartment felt impossibly quiet now, the silence heavy with pieces of everything you had just smashed. The hum of the refrigerator felt too loud.

Then, Yunho looked away. He couldn’t even look at you anymore. He stared at the kitchen floor, his voice dropping until it was very soft, entirely devoid of the anger that had sustained him. “I don’t know how to love someone who refuses to believe they’re loved.”

The remaining breath left your lungs in a sharp gasp. It didn’t hurt because it was cruel. It hurt because it sounded undeniably, fundamentally true. And that truth cut so much deeper than any shouting ever could.

“I’m trying to protect you from this,” you whispered, your hands curling into fabric of your shirt, right over your aching heart.

“By pretending nothing’s wrong?” Yunho asked as he finally looked back up, his eyes dull. “By letting me guess every single day what kind of mood I’m walking into?”

“What am I supposed to do when I can’t even trust my own head?” you cried, the defense finally dropping entirely, leaving only the raw, terrified human underneath. “How am I supposed to tell you what’s wrong when everything feels wrong?”

“Tell me that,” Yunho pleaded, a single tear tracking down his cheek. “Tell me you’re scared. Tell me your head is lying to you. Don’t look at me and tell me I don’t love you. Don’t erase everything I am because you’re hurting.”

You swallowed hard, the final truth rising up from the darkest corner of your mind. “I’m terrified that one day you’re going to wake up and realise I’m just too much. That the medication isn’t working, that I’m a disaster, and that you’re going to leave.”

Yunho let out a broken, shuddering breath, shaking his head. “And I’m terrified that one day I’ll come home… and you won’t be here at all.”

You froze. Your entire body went rigid, every muscle locking up as the air in your lungs turned to ice. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t blink.

Because he wasn’t just talking about you packing a bag and leaving him.

He was talking about that.

The dark, quiet corner of your mind that you never, ever spoke out loud. The place you retreated to on the worst days, where the urge to just stop existing became too much. You had thought about it. More than once. You had stood in the bathroom looking at the pill bottles; you had laid in bed wishing your heart would just forget to take its next beat. You wanted it. God help you, there were days you wanted it so badly just to make the noise stop. But you were terrified of that desire—terrified of how seductive the emptiness felt, terrified of what it meant that you were losing the will to fight your own skin. You had kept that horror buried so deep, hidden beneath layers of deflection and forced smiles. You thought it was your secret. Your private shame. But as you stared at Yunho, the absolute panic in your chest gave you away. Your pupils dilated. Your jaw slackened just a fraction, a tiny, involuntary gasp escaping your throat. Your hands, still pressed against your chest, began to shake violently.

And Yunho saw it.

He didn’t just hear your silence; he watched the exact moment the realisation registered on your face. He saw the guilt that flashed in your eyes before you could mask it. He saw the confirmation.

The look that crossed Yunho’s face in that microsecond was the most horrifying thing you had ever witnessed.

The last remaining color completely drained from his skin, leaving him a sickly, ghostly pale. His eyes widened, turning completely hollow, as if he were already looking at a corpse. The breath he took got caught in his throat. He hadn’t actually known. It had been his worst, most irrational fear—the nightmare that kept him awake at night. But seeing your reaction? Seeing the truth written plainly in your terrified eyes?

It turned his nightmare into a reality.

“Oh my god,” the words were barely a sound, just air scraping over his throat. He took a half-step back, his knees visibly trembling, as if the weight of the truth had broken his legs. “Oh my god. You... you actually...” He couldn’t even finish the sentence. The anger from before was gone, replaced by terror. He looked at you like you were slipping through his fingers right that second, like if he took his eyes off you for even a moment, you would vanish.

The realisation that he knew—that he had looked inside your head and seen the darkest thing you were hiding—finally broke the last of your strength. Your knees buckled, the energy entirely draining from your body, and you sank directly to the floor. You pulled your knees up to your chest, wrapping your arms tightly around yourself, bury your face in your shirt as a fresh wave of tears took over.

Yunho watched you collapse. He took a step forward, his hand twitching as if to reach down and pull you into his chest, but he stopped. He saw the way you were curled into yourself, and he knew if he touched you right now, you would only pull further away. Slowly, he lowered himself to the floor. He sat a few feet away from you, his back leaning against the opposite kitchen cabinets, his long legs stretched out in the space between you. He didn’t try to cross the gap. He didn’t offer a hollow promise that everything was going to be okay. He just sat there in the quiet aftermath of the storm, breathing the same heavy air, refusing to leave you alone.

The silence didn’t heal anything. It didn’t sweep away the wreckage, and it didn’t patch the tears in the fabric of whatever was left of you. It just stayed, breathing heavily alongside both of you.

Eventually, Yunho shifted. The movement was slow, and stiff, as if his joints were made of lead. He dragged a trembling hand down his face, his fingers pressing hard against his skin as if the touch might somehow clear the paralysing shock still stuck behind his eyes. He stared blankly at the edge of the counter, then down at the pattern of the floor—anywhere and everywhere except directly at you.

You stayed curled in on yourself, your forehead pressed against your knees, small and tucked away in your own body. Minutes passed. Or maybe it was only seconds. Time didn’t feel like it belonged to either of you anymore; the clock had stopped the moment the truth was laid bare.

Then, quietly—so quiet the words barely cleared the barrier of your lips—you spoke.

“Did you get the milk?”

Yunho didn’t move his head, but his eyes tracked toward the sound of your voice. The simple question seemed to travel an impossible distance through the space between you just to reach him.

A beat passed. The hum of the refrigerator filled the space between you.

#Mingi

Mingi was in peak drunk form—a little too touchy for a club, arm draped over your hips, and lips always chasing yours for a kiss. You were trying to get him to drink some water when suddenly, his eyes went wide, and he gasped as if he had just remembered a life-saving piece of information. “Babe,” he whined, leaning his entire body weight onto you, his face burying into your neck. “Babe, I gotta pee. Like, so bad. My bladder is going to explode.” “Okay, let’s go then,” you laughed, shoving his heavy frame toward the bathroom. Mingi let out a whining noise, but he let you guide him, his body stumbling slightly against yours as you dragged him down the crowded club. You kept your hand firmly planted on the small of his back until you finally reached the bathroom door. You grabbed the doorknob, turning it to make sure it was empty, and looked back at him. “Alright, in you go. Don’t fall asleep in there.” Mingi pulled you right along with him as he stepped backward into the bathroom, shutting the door behind the both of you. “Can you hold it for me?” he blurted out, deciding this was the perfect time to use his “stage voice.” Your jaw dropped. “What are you talking about?!” you hissed. “I’m tired!” he protested, his lower lip trembling as he did a little dramatic stomp. “My arms are so heavy, babe. I can’t do it by myself, I’m gonna miss and pee my pants.” “I am not holding it while you pee,” you backed up until your spine hit the door. Mingi leaned one hand against the wall right next to you, trapping you easily. “Why not?” he leaned down, warm breath fanning across your neck. “Don’t be shy now. It’s not like you haven’t held it before.” Your face exploded into a violent pink. “Oh my god!” you gasped, swatting his chest. “Not for peeing! That is completely different and you know it!” “Same object, different context,” he nudged his knee between yours, looking down at you with a teasing grin that was definitely fuelled by more than just the alcohol. “Come on. Just give your boyfriend a hand. I’ll even let you do whatever you want with it after.” “Jesus Christ,” you huffed, rolling your eyes at him, but your hands were already moving, settling onto his zipper. “I'm helping you because you’re a drunk mess,” you clarified, looking up at him with completely unbothered expression. “But that’s all you’re getting in here. If you think we’re doing anything remotely sexy in a disgusting club bathroom, you’re out of your goddamn mind. So stand still, look at the wall, and let’s get this over with.” “Yes, ma'am,” he whispered, his voice entirely dazed as he quickly snapped his gaze on the bathroom wall, completely frozen in place. You kept your face blank, focused on the task at hand to avoid dying of secondhand embarrassment. Taking careful aim, you made sure your grip was secure, steady, and—most importantly—completely void of any sexual motions. As the stream started, Mingi let out a long, dramatic sigh of relief, his shoulders slumping. “This is crazy,” he mumbled, a love-struck smile taking over his face. “You’re so cool baby. Most girlfriends would just leave me to pee on my own shoes, but you’re here with me. That’s true love.” “Mingi, if you keep talking, I’m letting go,” you threatened, though the corners of your mouth twitched with a smile. “I’m quiet!” he squeaked, squeezing his eyes shut. The second he finished, you didn’t waste a single moment. You tucked everything back in, zipped him up, and slapped his chest. “Done. Wash your hands.” Mingi turn around to look at you as you immediately began scrubbing your own hands with an aggressive amount of soap. A massive, smug grin spread across his face as he leaned against the sink next to you, nudging your shoulder with his. “So...” he hummed, his voice dropping back into that low, suggestive register. “You said nothing sexy in here. Does that mean the ride home is still a green light?”

#Wooyoung

You slid over from your side of the sofa, plopping down right beside Wooyoung, your shoulder bumping into his. You folded your hands neatly over your knees, a wide, suspicious smile plastered across your face. Wooyoung’s thumb instantly froze on his phone screen. Without moving his head, his eyes flicked sideways to look at you. “Oh no,” he gasped as he tossed his phone onto the coffee table. He turned his body to face you, pulling a throw pillow into his lap. “Why do you look like that? What did you do?” You smacked his arm, the dull thud followed by a loud whine from him. “Nothing! Just answer honestly.” “That sentence has never led me anywhere good,” he muttered, narrowing his eyes as he tried to read your expression. You cleared your throat, trying desperately to keep your posture straight and your face completely blank. “Can I hold your...” You paused, the words catching in your throat for a split second as you looked down. Wooyoung tilted his head, his gaze following yours. “...wee-wee.” Wooyoung looked down at his own lap, then looked back up at your face, “My what?” You pointed vaguely toward his lap, your cheeks starting to burn. “Your wee-wee.” “Are you five?” “Stop interrupting!” you hissed, swatting at his knee. “Do you also call cars ‘vroom-vrooms’?” he shot back. “Can I finish?!” He threw his hands up, gesturing dramatically toward you. “Please. Go ahead. This is apparently a very important kindergarten discussion.” You took a deep breath, ignoring the fact that his shoulders were already shaking with suppressed laughter. “Can I hold your wee-wee when you pee?” “What?!” he shrieked, his voice cracking into high-pitched, laugh. The dam broke, and you immediately started laughing, burying your burning face in your hands. “Just answer the question!” you yelled over his laughter. “No! Explain yourself!” Wooyoung gasped for air, his face turning a shade of pink as he pointed a trembling finger at you. “There’s nothing to explain!” “There is everything to explain!” He shifted on the couch, leaning in close. “Why do you want to hold it?” “I don’t know!” you wailed, your shoulders shaking from a mix of laughter and embarrassment. “Do you have some kind of pissing kink?” “NO!” you screamed, throwing a couch pillow directly into his face. Wooyoung caught it easily, tossing it aside with a smug smirk. “Then why is this your dream?” “It’s not my dream!” “You’ve been thinking about this," he accused smoothly, leaning closer until his nose almost brushed yours, thoroughly enjoying how flustered he was making you. “You’ve been plotting. You sat there, looked at me, and thought, ‘Yes, today is the day I want to hold his wee-wee in the bathroom.’” “I HAVE NOT!” Wooyoung was already shaking his head, sighing heavily. “Unbelievable.” “What?” you asked, wiping a tear of laughter from your eye. “I let you into my life, my home, my heart—” “Oh my god,” you groaned, knowing exactly where his dramatic ass was taking this. “—and now,” Wooyoung continued, his voice dropping into a whisper before he suddenly snatched your wrist, “you’re trying to steal my job.” Before you could even process the words, Wooyoung exploded into action. He leaped off the couch, using his grip on your wrist to haul you right along with him. “Wait, what are you doing?! Let go!” you laughed, your socks sliding across the floor as he effortlessly dragged you down the hallway. “No way! You made the request, now you have to see it through!” Wooyoung yelled back, throwing the bathroom door open with a dramatic bang. He pulled you inside, backing up against the sink and leaning against it with a challenging, intensely suggestive grin. He reached down, his fingers playfully tapping the waistband of his sweatpants. “Come on then, my little pervert,” he teased as he raised an eyebrow at your bright red face. “The stage is yours. Let’s see what you’ve got. But if you miss the bowl, you’re scrubbing the floor!”

#Jongho

Your eyes practically burned holes into Jongho’s back as he walked towards the bathroom. You knew this was a high-risk gamble. Your boyfriend was, after all, an absolute menace, and if you actually went through with this, he would never, ever let you live it down. In his mind, this trend was undoubtedly the stupidest thing the internet had ever conceived. “Honey?” you called out the moment you heard the click of the bathroom door swinging open. “Wait a minute!” You quickly scrambled out of bed and rushed down the hallway, turning the corner just in time to meet his completely unamused, deadpan stare. He hadn’t even stepped inside yet; he was just waiting for you, one hand resting on the doorknob. “No.” That was all he said as he immediately began to pull the door shut right in your face. “No?! What do you mean no?!” you gasped, throwing your weight against the door to stop it. Jongho didn’t even look surprised. “I know exactly what you’re going to ask, and the answer is no.” You quickly shoved your foot in the doorframe right before it could click shut, forcing it back open. Jongho let out a heavy, long-suffering sigh, standing with his hands on his hips. “Jongho, come on, you don’t even know what I was going to say!” “You’ve been staring at your phone for hours, you had a weird smirk on your face, and you just followed me to the bathroom,” Jongho listed off, entirely unamused, his voice perfectly calm. Then, he reached into his pocket, holding up his phone. “What's that?” you asked. “Evidence.” “Evidence?” On the screen was the exact video you’d been watching. You gasped. “HOW DID YOU FIND THAT?” “You reposted it.” “Oh.” “I am not doing it baby. Now, get your foot out of my door.” You gasped, genuinely offended by how well he knew you. “It’s a bonding exercise! It builds trust!” “It builds a mess on the floor,” Jongho corrected immediately, not breaking eye contact for a single second. “I am a grown man. I pee on my own for over twenty years. I do not need a supervisor, especially one who is probably going to try something stupid.” “I won’t try anything! I just wanna hold it!” you whined, taking a bold step inside the bathroom anyway. “Just let me try once. Please?” “No.” “Just once?” “No.” “Five seconds?” “No.” “Three?” “No.” “Are you seriously telling me you’re too scared to let your own girlfriend help you out?” You delivered the line with a sly grin, completely intentional. You knew exactly what you were doing, aiming right for his pride, fully expecting him to crack a competitive smile and challenge you right back. Instead, Jongho just stood there. The silence stretched between you for a long moment until a tiny, knowing smirk finally broke. Slowly, he raised his hand. You braced yourself, but instead of pushing you out, he just reached over and fondly ruffled your hair. “Nice try,” he hummed, his voice entirely calm as he dropped his hand back down. “But no.” “Jongho—” “You can hold it in our bedroom whenever you want, though,” he added carelessly. He leaned in just an inch closer, his gaze dropping to your lips for a split second before meeting your eyes again. “Now get out,” Jongho chuckled as he gently but firmly gripped your shoulders and spun you around, pushing you out into the hallway. “I actually have to use the restroom. Go think about what you’ve done.”

#Seonghwa

“Do you think I could hold it when you pee?” you blurted out, a forkful of spaghetti frozen halfway to your mouth. Seonghwa choked violently on his white wine. His eyes widened, staring at you in absolute terror as he tried to clear his throat. “I’m sorry... what did you just say?” He placed his glass back down on the table with gentleness. Without it, he suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands, which now hovered in the air. You chewed your pasta calmly, holding his gaze. “You know what I said...” Seonghwa’s mouth opened, then closed, then opened again, looking exactly like a fish out of water. A blush crawled rapidly up his neck, staining his cheeks. “I—I really don’t think I do,” he stammered, his voice pitching slightly higher than usual. He finally folded his empty hands neatly in his lap. “Because it sounded like you just asked to... to assist me. In the restroom. While I am...” He couldn’t even bring himself to finish the sentence. He looked around the restaurant, suddenly terrified that the waiter, the couple at the next table, or God himself had overheard you. “I did,” you confirmed, entirely unbothered, taking another bite of spaghetti. “We are eating dinner!” Seonghwa hissed, leaning across the table, his eyes darting around frantically. “We are eating pasta, in public, and you are asking to hold my—” He choked on his own breath, cutting himself off. He pressed two fingers to the bridge of his nose, taking a slow, deep, shuddering breath. “Why would you even say that? Where did that thought even originate in your brain?” “I’m just curious...” “Curious?” he repeated, his voice slightly cracking. “Curious?” He leaned across the table, lowering his voice to a whisper, his hands gesturing wildly. “Curiosity is for things like... wondering what the weather will be like tomorrow! Or wondering how a movie ends! It is not for offering to act as a tripod in a public restroom!” “I mean, it's a valid question,” you countered, swirling another forkful of pasta. “It is the least valid question in human history!” Seonghwa pressed his palms to his flaming cheeks. “Curious about what, exactly? I am a grown man, I have been handling this solo for decades!” He let out a defeated sigh, slumping back into his chair and staring at the ceiling as if asking the universe why he was being tested like this. “I just wonder what it feels like from your perspective.” Seonghwa’s face went through three different shades of red in a matter of seconds. He covered his face with both hands, letting out a long, defeated whine that was entirely muffled by his palms. “Please stop talking,” he pleaded from behind his fingers. “I am begging you. The waiter is coming back with the bread basket and you are discussing my... my peeing perspective.” He dropped his hands, giving you a dramatic glare that was completely ruined by how flustered he still was. “The answer is no. Absolutely not. Curiosity killed the cat, and it is currently killing my appetite.”

#Yunho

Yunho was in the middle of closing the bathroom door when you suddenly slid between the frame and his body. You looked up at him with wide eyes and a slightly awkward smile on your lips. He stopped mid-motion, looking down at you, and raised a single, amused eyebrow. “Can I help you?” “Can I hold it?” you blurted out. Yunho didn’t even blink. He didn’t stutter, he didn’t turn red, and he certainly didn’t look terrified. Instead, he just leaned his shoulder against the doorframe, crossing his arms as he looked down at you with amusement. “Sure,” he said smoothly, stepping back and gesturing into the bathroom like a host inviting you into a five-star lounge. “Come on in. Be my guest.” Your jaw dropped slightly. “Wait, really?” “Yeah, why not?” Yunho leaned down a bit closer. “But if you’re going to hold it, you gotta aim it too. Teamwork makes the dream work, right?” “Yunho, oh my god, no—” You started to back away, your face suddenly burning hot. “Hey, where are you going?” he laughed, reaching out to wrap a hand around your wrist, tugging you back with a giant smile. “You’re the one who asked! Don’t back out now, let’s go!” You didn’t pull away. Taking a deep breath, you squared your shoulders, looked him dead in the eye, and stepped into the bathroom. After all, you were his girlfriend. You didn’t bluff. And you also were pretty competitive. It was time to get down to business. Yunho followed you in, completely amused and slightly bewildered by your determination. You took your position, hands ready, aiming carefully before the stream even started. Yunho looked down at your hands, then up at your hyper-focused face, and let out a quiet laugh. “You’re going to miss the bowl.” You frowned, adjusting your grip slightly, and looked up at him. “How do you know that?” Yunho burst out laughing, “Because I’ve been doing this for a very long time, baby. Trust the expert. A little more to the left.” You adjusted according to his professional feedback. “Don’t doubt my skills.” “Oh, I’d never doubt you, I just don’t wanna pee on the wall. Just don’t let go.”

#Yeosang

Yeosang was completely locked in, utterly obsessed with whatever mobile game he was playing, while you lay beside him on the couch, mindlessly scrolling through social media. Suddenly, he stood up without a word, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Are you... going to the bathroom?” you asked, immediately jumping off the couch and following his footsteps down the hall. Yeosang paused, turning around to look at you with a slightly confused gaze. “Yeah. Why? Do you need to go first?” You stopped right in front of him, looking up with a completely straight face. “No. But... can I hold it?” Yeosang stopped dead in his tracks. He blinked twice, his large eyes seemed to process the words in slow motion. Then, a faint pink tint started at the tips of his ears. “You... want to...” he murmured, his voice turning into a squeak. He cleared his throat, trying to regain his composure, but his eyes darted frantically to the floor, completely weirded out but trying hard to understand your logic. He fiddled nervously with the hem of his shirt, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot. “I mean... I guess... if you really want to... it’s okay?” He rubbed the back of his neck, incredibly stressed-out smile forcing its way onto his face. You had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from bursting out laughing at how genuinely conflicted and sweet he was being. “Are you sure?” you teased, taking a step closer. Yeosang immediately took a half-step back, his hands coming up in a gentle, defensive gesture. “I—I mean, yes, but also... why? Is this a new internet trend? Did Wooyoung put you up to this?” “I’m just curious...” you said, tilting your head and looking up at him with total sincerity. “About... you know, how you do it.” Yeosang’s hands dropped to his sides as his jaw went slack. “How I do it?” he covered his face with both hands, fingers pressing against his eyes as a muffled groan escaped his lips. “There is no secret technique! You just... you stand there!” “I promise I won’t tell Wooyoung,” you laughed, crossing your arms. “That doesn’t make me feel better!” he let out a dramatic sigh, shoulders slumping in total defeat as he looked at you looking at him with big eyes and a pout. “Please?” “Fine,” he muttered, stepping aside to let you into the bathroom first. “Just... if you’re really going to do it... please don’t squeeze it, okay?” You snorted, a laugh slipping out before you could stop it. “I’m serious!” Yeosang’s head snapped back to look at you, eyes full of panic. “Don’t laugh! It’s a delicate situation! I am putting my full trust in you right now, so just... handle with care, please.”

The door opened. It didn't click like the hospital door. It swished, heavy and well-oiled. A man stepped in. He wasn’t wearing scrubs. He was wearing a polo shirt and khakis, looking more like a golf instructor than a nurse, but the lanyard around his neck said STAFF. He was big—shoulders broad enough to block the exit.

“You’re up,” the man said. His voice was pleasant, neutral. “You slept for fourteen hours.”

“Where am I?” San asked. He leaned heavily against the nightstand. “This isn’t the hospital.”

“This is the Cedar Clinic,” the man said. He walked over to the bed and set a tray down. Water. A banana. Two pills in a paper cup. “You were transferred early this morning.”

“My sister,” San rasped. “Haneul. Where is she?”

“Ms. Choi arranged the transfer,” the man said. He gestured to the water. “Drink. You’re dehydrated.”

San ignored the water. He took a step toward the man. “I need my phone.”

The man didn’t move. He didn’t look intimidated. He stood with his hands loosely clasped in front of him, a stance that screamed security training. “No phones,” the man said. “Policy.” the man replied. He picked up the water cup and held it out, a clear command. "Drink."

San slapped the cup away. Water splashed across the expensive wood floor. The cup bounced soundlessly.

“I said I need my phone!” San shouted. The volume hurt his own head.

The man didn’t flinch at the water. He didn’t even look at the mess. He just watched San with calm, brown eyes. “No phone for the first seventy-two hours,” the man said. “Isolation protocol.”

“Isolation?”

“Your sister signed the order,” the man said. “Complete privacy. No visitors. No contact with the outside.”

San froze. Haneul had signed it. She had put him here. She had looked at the mess he made—the bridge, the scratching, the breakdown—and she had decided to bury him in the woods.

“Drink the water, San-ssi. Or I’ll have to put an IV in, and you won’t like that.”

San stared at him. Then he stared at the window. The trees were thick. Impenetrable. He walked to the glass. He pressed his hand against it. It was cold. He looked down. He was on the ground floor, but there was a fence. High, black metal, hidden tastefully behind a row of hedges.

He had wanted to disappear, hadn't he? He had stood on the bridge and prayed for the silence.

Now he had it. The silence of the woods. The silence of a room with no phone. The silence of Wooyoung not knowing where he was.

San rested his forehead against the glass. The condensation cooled his feverish skin. “Does he know?” San asked quietly. “Does Wooyoung know I’m here?”

The man paused. For the first time, the professional mask slipped just a fraction.

“I don’t know who that is,” the man said. “I just know the instruction on your file.”

San turned his head slightly to look at him. “What instruction?”

“Do not acknowledge inquiries from anyone other than the guardian.”

She had cut the line. Haneul had actually done it. She had severed the limb to save the body.

San slid down the glass until he was sitting on the floor, the expensive wood hard against his tailbone. He looked at his bandaged arms. He wasn’t dead. But to the rest of the world, to ATEEZ, to Wooyoung... he might as well be. The fight drained out of him, replaced by the heavy, leaden weight of the sedatives still circulating in his blood.

The man set a new cup of water on the nightstand. “Dr. Park will see you in an hour,” he said walked out.

The door swished shut. The lock engaged. Not a click this time. A magnetic thud. San sat on the floor of his beige cage and watched the mist move through the trees, waiting for the grief to kill him.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ The hotel apartment smelled wrong. Like industrial carpet cleaner and someone else’s lavender detergent, like the ghost of a hundred other temporary lives. The air conditioning hummed too loud, a mechanical wheeze that filled the silence where the dorm’s familiar creaks and sighs used to live.

Wooyoung sat on the edge of the bed—a bed, not his bed—with San’s duffel bag at his feet. He hadn’t unpacked it. He couldn’t. If he unpacked it, it meant accepting that this sterile box was where they lived now. That the dorm was gone. That San’s room was empty. That San was still in that hospital, alone.

His phone sat in his palm, screen dark. He’d been holding it for twenty minutes, thumb hovering over San’s contact.

Call him. The thought was a drumbeat in his skull, relentless and maddening.

You can't call him. He doesn’t have his phone. He’s in a psych ward.

But Haneul might answer. She might tell you something. She might—

“Woo.” Seonghwa’s voice cut through the static. “You should eat.”

Wooyoung didn’t look up. His eyes stayed fixed on the black mirror of his phone screen, watching his own reflection warp in the curved glass. “I’m not hungry. ”

“You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”

“I said I’m not hungry.” The words came out flat, mechanical. Wooyoung’s voice didn’t sound like his own. It sounded like someone doing a bad impression of him.

Seonghwa sat down on the bed beside him. The mattress dipped. It was too soft, too new. The springs didn’t creak the way San’s bed used to when Wooyoung climbed in at three in the morning because the nightmares were too loud and San’s heartbeat was the only thing that made them quiet.

“The seventy-two hours started last night,” Seonghwa said gently. “That means… maybe by tomorrow night, they’ll let us see him.”

Wooyoung’s thumb moved. He opened San's contact. The profile picture loaded. It was San mid-laugh, head thrown back, eyes crinkled into crescents. Wooyoung had taken it two years ago at the beach. San had been happy. He had been whole.

“It’s off,” Seonghwa whispered. “His phone is off. They took it,” Seonghwa said while hand found Wooyoung’s shoulder, warm and grounding. “It’s protocol. They don’t let patients have phones in the psych unit.”

“But what if—” Wooyoung’s voice cracked. He tried again. “What if he wakes up and he doesn’t know where we are? What if he thinks we left him?”

“He knows we wouldn't leave him.”

“Does he?” Wooyoung turned to look at Seonghwa. His eyes were too bright, wet and glassy. “Does he, Hyung? Because we left the dorm. We packed his stuff and we left. We let the company throw us out like trash while he’s locked in a room and we didn’t even fight.”

“Wooyoung—”

“I should’ve stayed.” Wooyoung’s hands were shaking now, the phone trembling in his grip. “I should’ve told the CEO to go fuck himself. I should’ve refused to leave. What’s he gonna do, sue me? Let him. At least then San would know I—”

The door to the adjoining room opened. Hongjoong stood in the doorway. His hair was unwashed, sticking up in odd angles. His eyes were red-rimmed and sunken, bruised shadows sitting in the hollows beneath them.

“I called Haneul,” Hongjoong said. Wooyoung’s head snapped up.

Hongjoong stepped into the room. His movements were slow, careful, like a man walking on a frozen lake, testing each step for the crack that would send him plunging into the dark water below.

“She didn’t answer,” Hongjoong said. “I left a voicemail. I asked if we could visit today. I told her we’d follow whatever rules they have. We just… we need to see him”

“Call again.” Wooyoung demanded.

“Woo—”

“Call her again, Hyung.” Wooyoung stood up. The duffel bag tipped over, spilling one of San’s hoodies onto the carpet. It lay there, grey and soft, like a body. “Maybe she was in a meeting. Maybe her phone was on silent. Call her again.”

Hongjoong looked at Seonghwa. Something passed between them—a silent conversation that Wooyoung wasn’t part of.

“Okay,” Hongjoong said quietly. “I’ll call again.” He lifted his phone. His thumb hovered over Haneul's contact for a second and then he pressed call. The room went silent. Even the air conditioning seemed to hold its breath.

Then: “Hi, you’ve reached Choi Haneul. I can’t come to the phone right now. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

Beep.

Hongjoong opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He stood there, phone pressed to his ear, staring at the carpet like it held the answer to a question he was too afraid to ask.

“Try the hospital,” Wooyoung said. His voice was rising now, thin and desperate. “Call the hospital directly. Ask to be transferred to the psych ward. They have to tell us something. He’s our—” His voice broke. “He’s our brother. They have to let us know if he’s okay.”

“They won’t tell us anything,” Seonghwa cut in. His voice was soft, but it had an edge now. A blade wrapped in silk.

“Then we go,” Wooyoung said. He was already moving, grabbing his jacket off the chair. “We go to the hospital. We walk in. We ask to see him in person. They can’t turn us away if we’re standing right there.”

“Wooyoung, stop.” Hongjoong’s hand shot out, catching Wooyoung’s wrist. “You can’t just storm into a hospital demanding to see a psych patient. They’ll call security. They’ll—”

“I don’t care!” Wooyoung wrenched his arm free. His breathing was coming faster now, shallow and ragged. “I don’t care if they call security! I don’t care if they throw me out! At least I’ll be doing something instead of sitting in this fucking hotel room waiting for a phone call that isn’t coming!”

“We have to wait for Haneul,” Hongjoong said. “She’s the guardian. She’s the only one who can authorize visits. If we show up without her permission, we’ll just make it worse.”

“Worse?” Wooyoung’s laugh came out sharp, jagged. “Worse than what, Hyung? He’s already in a locked room. He already tried to kill himself. How the fuck does it get worse?”

“If we violate the hospital’s policies, they could extend the hold,” Hongjoong said. His voice was quiet now, deadly serious. “They could keep him longer. They could move him to a different facility. They could make it so we never—”

He stopped. The sentence hung there, unfinished.

They could make it so we never see him again.

Wooyoung’s knees gave out. He sat down hard on the edge of the bed, the air punched out of his lungs. He bent forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

“I can’t do this,” Wooyoung whispered. “Hyung, I can’t. I can’t just sit here and wait. I need to see him. I need to know he’s okay. I need—”

His phone buzzed.

All three of them froze.

Wooyoung grabbed his phone so fast he nearly dropped it. His hands were shaking as he looked at the screen.

Yunho

Wooyoung answered. “Yun?”

“Did Haneul call you?” Yunho’s voice was tight, strained.

“No. Why?”

“She’s not answering. I’ve called six times. Yeosang tried too. Nothing.”

Wooyoung’s stomach dropped. “Maybe she’s with San. Maybe she’s—”

“I called the main hospital line,” Yunho interrupted. “I told them I was family and I needed to know the status of a patient admitted two days ago. I didn’t give a name. I just described the situation—suicide attempt, seventy-two-hour hold, family member trying to get visitation clearance.”

“And?” Wooyoung’s voice was barely a whisper.

“They transferred me to three different departments. Every single one of them said they couldn’t help me without the patient’s name and date of birth. So I gave them San’s name.”

Wooyoung’s heart was hammering now, a frantic bird beating against his ribs. “What did they say?”

Yunho was quiet for a beat too long. “They said they have no patient by that name.”

“What?” Wooyoung breathed.

“They said Choi San is not currently admitted to their facility. I asked if he’d been discharged. They said they couldn’t confirm or deny that he was ever there.”

“Then it’s the wrong hospital,” Seonghwa said, leaning in. “There are multiple hospitals with psychiatric units. Yunho must’ve called the wrong one.”

“I called three,” Yunho said. His voice was strained now, fraying at the edges. “All three said the same thing. No patient by that name.”

Hongjoong’s face had gone white.

“Maybe they moved him,” Hongjoong said. His voice was too fast, the words tumbling over each other. “Maybe the first hospital didn’t have space or—or maybe they transferred him for privacy reasons. High-profile patient. They might’ve moved him to a private facility.”

“Without telling us?” Wooyoung whispered.

No one answered. The silence stretched, heavy and suffocating. Wooyoung’s phone was still pressed to his ear. He could hear Yunho breathing on the other end—short, shallow breaths like he’d just finished running.

“Yunho,” Wooyoung said. His voice sounded far away, like it was coming from the bottom of a well. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” Yunho said.

“Where the fuck is San?”

“I don’t know, Wooyoung. I don’t—” Yunho’s voice cracked. “Haneul moved him. She has to have moved him. And she’s not telling us where.”

The phone slipped from Wooyoung’s hand. It hit the carpet with a muffled thud. Wooyoung stared at the wall. The cream-coloured paint. The thermostat blinking 22°C in sterile blue digits.

“She cut us off,” Wooyoung said. His voice didn’t sound like his anymore. It sounded like it belonged to someone else. Someone hollowed out. Someone who had just realised that the person they loved most in the world had been erased.

“She cut the line.”

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ The fluorescent light in the medication room had a flicker. It wasn’t constant—just a micro-stutter every seven or eight seconds, like a heart with an arrhythmia. San had counted. He’d been counting a lot of things lately, because counting was something his brain could do that didn’t require him to feel anything.

Seven ceiling tiles from the door to the nurses’ station. Nineteen steps from his room to the common area. Three pills in the morning. Four at night. The yellow one tasted like chalk dust and old batteries.

“San-ssi,” Nurse Kim said. She was the morning shift nurse, the one who wore her hair in a tight bun that pulled her eyebrows up slightly, giving her a look of perpetual mild surprise. “Medication time.”

San stood by the counter. The paper cup sat between them like a tiny white coffin. The pills sat in it and he looked at them.

White. Blue. Small yellow oval.

He’d asked, once, on Day 2, what they were. The answer had been a wall of syllables that sounded like Latin translated through a broken radio: selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, mood stabiliser, anxiolytic. The words had meant nothing. They were just the medical names for the chemicals that were supposed to turn him back into a person.

“Open,” Nurse Kim said.

San opened his mouth. The gesture was automatic now. He didn’t fight anymore. Fighting required energy, and energy required caring, and caring required being alive in a way that went beyond the mechanical operation of lungs and blood.

She tipped the cup. The pills hit his tongue, bitter and pharmaceutical. He’d learned not to let them sit there too long—the coating started to dissolve, and the taste underneath was worse.

He swallowed. Dry.

Nurse Kim leaned forward slightly, her eyes sharp. “Tongue up.” San obeyed. She checked both sides, then had him open wide so she could check his cheeks. It was humiliating, this ritual. Like he was a dog that had learned to spit out its worm pills when no one was looking. But San didn’t spit out the pills. He didn’t have the energy for rebellion. He didn’t have the energy for anything except the basic biological functions that his body performed without asking his permission.

“Good,” Nurse Kim said. She made a note on her tablet—a quick swipe of her finger, the digital sound of completion. “Dr. Park wants to see you at ten. That’s in forty minutes. You should eat something first.” San nodded. It was a lie, the nod. He had no intention of eating. But nodding made people stop talking to you, and stopping the talking was the closest thing to peace he could get. He turned and walked out of the medication room. His slippers—hospital-issued, grey, with rubber treads—made a soft shushing sound on the linoleum.

The hallway was wide and bright, designed to feel open and calming. It didn’t work. It just felt like a very expensive cage. He passed the common area. Two other patients sat at the table by the window, playing cards with the slow, underwater movements of people on heavy medication. One of them looked up as San passed. Their eyes met for half a second. San looked away first.

He walked back to his room. Nineteen steps. The door was open—they kept it open during the day, unless you were on isolation protocol—and inside, everything was exactly as he’d left it. The bed, made with hospital corners. The chair by the window. The tray on the desk with a protein bar and a juice box that had been sitting there since breakfast.

San sat on the edge of the bed. Not lying down—if he lay down before ten a.m., someone would come check on him, make a note about “low motivation” or “depressive behaviour”.

He looked at his hands. The bandages were gone now. The scratches on his forearms had healed into thin pink lines, like the tracks of very small animals. They itched sometimes, when the skin was knitting itself back together, and he’d learned to ignore it. Scratching would just start the whole cycle again—concern, intervention, more medication, more watching. So he didn’t scratch. He just looked.

The pills were starting to work. He could feel them, like a slow tide rising in his blood. The edges of things got softer. The panic that used to live in his chest like a trapped bird went quiet, sedated, wrapped in chemical cotton. But underneath the softness, there was nothing. No relief. No comfort. No peace. Just… absence.

San closed his eyes and waited for ten o’clock.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ Dr. Park’s office was on the second floor. It had a window that looked out onto the pine forest, and a desk made of pale wood that matched the floors. There were two chairs—one behind the desk, one in front of it—and a small table in the corner with a box of tissues and a ceramic bowl full of smooth stones. San had stared at those stones for thirty-seven minutes during his first session. He’d counted them. Eighteen stones. Grey and white and one that was almost black.

He was staring at them again now.

Dr. Park sat across from him, her hands folded on top of a leather portfolio that held his file. She was in her mid-forties, maybe, with short hair cut in a precise bob and glasses that sat low on her nose. She dressed like someone who shopped at expensive stores but didn’t care about fashion—neutral colours, clean lines, a watch that cost more than most people’s rent.

She’d been talking for three minutes. San had been counting that too. “San,” she said. Her voice was patient, but there was a thread of something else underneath it. Frustration, maybe. Or worry. “I need you to engage with me. Even a little. Can you do that?”

San looked at the stones. Eighteen. Grey, white, almost-black.

“I’m going to ask you some yes or no questions,” Dr. Park continued. She uncapped her pen—a fountain pen, expensive, the kind that made a specific sound when it moved across paper. “You don’t have to speak. You can nod or shake your head. Does that sound manageable?”

Manageable. The word sat in the air like a stone in water, sinking slowly.

San didn’t nod. He didn’t shake his head. He just kept looking at the bowl.

Dr. Park wrote something. The scratch of pen on paper was very loud in the quiet room. “Are you experiencing suicidal ideation right now?”

The question was clinical. Detached. Like asking if he had a headache or if his stomach hurt.

San’s throat moved. A swallow. Automatic. But he didn’t answer.

“Do you feel safe in this facility?”

The pine trees outside the window swayed. There was wind today. He couldn’t hear it through the glass, but he could see it in the way the branches moved, bending and releasing, bending and releasing.

“Do you understand why you’re here?”

San’s jaw tightened. Just for a second. A microscopic shift in the muscle under his skin, tension gathering and then releasing like a wave that didn’t break.

Dr. Park saw it. He knew she saw it because her pen stopped moving.

They sat in silence.

One minute.

Two.

Five.

The clock on the wall ticked. It was the old-fashioned kind, with actual hands that moved in discrete clicks rather than a smooth sweep. Tick. Tick. Tick.

San counted the ticks. Sixty per minute. Three hundred in five minutes.

“Okay,” Dr. Park said finally. She set the pen down with a soft click. “That’s okay. We can try again tomorrow.”

She stood up. San stood up too, because that was the cue. When she stood, the session was over.

“San,” she said as he reached the door. He stopped. He didn’t turn around, but he stopped. “I want you to know that I’m not going to give up on you,” Dr. Park said. Her voice was softer now, less clinical. Almost kind. “You’re in here somewhere. I know you are. And when you’re ready to come out, I’ll be here.”

San’s hand tightened on the door handle.

Then he walked out. He walked down the hallway—thirty-two steps to the stairwell—and back to his room, and he lay down on the bed even though it wasn’t rest time yet, and he stared at the ceiling until someone came to tell him it was time for lunch.

He didn’t eat lunch.

He didn’t eat dinner either.

By the time the evening nurse brought his nighttime pills, the yellow oval had gotten bigger.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ San heard her heels first. It was raining outside, and the sound of the rain on the roof was a constant white noise, but underneath it he could hear the sharp, precise click of Haneul’s heels on the linoleum. She walked fast, always had. Like she was late for something important.

The footsteps stopped outside his door. San was sitting in the chair by the window, watching the rain run down the glass in chaotic rivers. Each drop followed its own path, merging with others or breaking away, creating temporary streams that dissolved as quickly as they formed.

The door opened.

“Sannie,” Haneul said. Her voice cracked on his name. Just slightly. Like she’d been holding it together in the car, holding it together in the elevator, holding it together through the security check and the sign-in process, and now that she was actually here, actually seeing him, the structural integrity was failing.

San didn’t turn around. He heard her come in. Heard the rustle of her coat as she took it off, the scrape of the other chair as she pulled it closer to his. Not too close—she left space between them, like she was approaching a wounded animal that might bolt.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

The rain kept falling. The drops kept merging and breaking, merging and breaking.

“The doctors say you’re not talking,” Haneul continued. She was trying to keep her voice steady, professional. Like this was a business meeting. Like if she just used the right words, she could fix this. “They said you haven’t said a single word since you got here. Not to them. Not to the nurses. Not to anyone.”

A particularly large drop hit the window and split into three smaller ones, each racing down a different path.

“I know you’re angry with me,” Haneul whispered. The professionalism was gone now. Her voice was raw, scraped clean. “I know you think I—I know this feels like a punishment. Moving you here without telling you. Cutting you off from…” She stopped herself. Swallowed hard. “But you’re safe here, Sannie. You’re safe and you’re alive and that’s all that matters right now. That’s all that’s ever mattered.”

San’s breathing didn’t change. In. Out. In. Out. The same rhythm he’d maintained for ten days, mechanical and precise. Haneul shifted in her chair. He could hear the leather creak, the rustle of her hands smoothing over her skirt—a nervous gesture she’d had since they were kids.

“Do you remember,” she said, her voice softening, “when you were seven and you fell off your bike? You scraped your knee so badly, and you were so embarrassed that you cried. Not because it hurt, but because the other kids saw you fall.”

The rain drummed against the window.

“Mom had to carry you home. You were so small then. You kept saying ‘I’m okay, I’m okay’ even though you were bleeding everywhere.” Haneul’s voice wavered. “You’ve been doing that your whole life, haven’t you? Saying you’re okay when you’re not.”

San stared at the rain. A drop near the top corner of the window was moving slower than the others, picking up smaller droplets as it descended. “I brought you some things,” Haneul said. The sound of a bag unzipping.

“Your favourite candy. And I… I printed some photos. From before. Just you and me.” She set something on the desk. San didn’t look.

“You don’t have to talk,” Haneul continued. Her voice was gentler now, like she was reading him a bedtime story. “The doctors said that’s normal. That you need time. That pushing you will just make it worse. So I’m not going to push. I’m just going to… be here.”

Silence. Just the rain. San’s hands rested on his thighs, palms down. The bandages were gone now, replaced by thin pink scars. Evidence of the night he’d tried to claw his way out of his own skin.

Haneul saw them. He knew she did because her breath caught, a small, wounded sound.

“Sannie,” she whispered. “Please look at me. Just once. I need to know you’re still in there.”

The rain kept falling. San kept staring at the window.

One minute passed.

Then two.

Then five.

Haneul didn’t leave. She just sat there, breathing in rhythm with the rain, waiting for a sign that would never come.

Finally, she stood up. San heard the chair scrape back, heard her footsteps as she moved toward him. She didn’t touch him. She just stood there, close enough that he could feel her presence like a change in air pressure.

“I’m going to fix this,” she said. “I’m going to fix what they broke. I’m going to bring you back. I don’t care how long it takes.” Then she walked to the door. She paused at the threshold. “I love you, Sannie. More than anything in this world. Don’t forget that.”

The door closed. San sat alone in the rain-grey light, watching the water run down the glass. Outside in the hallway, he could hear Haneul’s voice—low, urgent, talking to Dr. Park.

“…still no verbal response…”

“…any change at all…”

“…how long until…”

“…weeks, potentially months…”

The voices faded. The rain kept falling.

San went back to counting the drops.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ The apartment smelled like nothing. That was the first thing Seonghwa noticed when he unlocked the door with the passcode Wooyoung had texted him—reluctantly, after Hongjoong had threatened to call a wellness check if he didn’t.

No cooking. No coffee. No body spray or laundry detergent or the faint citrus of the cleaner Wooyoung used to use obsessively on the counters.

Just air. Stale and recycled, like a space that had been sealed and forgotten.

“Youngie?” Seonghwa called out. His voice echoed in the empty hallway. “I brought food.” No answer. Seonghwa stepped inside, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

The apartment was beautiful—a two-bedroom, modern and pristine, with floor-to-ceiling windows that let in streams of grey afternoon light. Wooyoung had bought it six days ago. Paid in cash. The kitchen furniture still had protective foil on the surfaces, untouched and gleaming.

Wooyoung didn’t tell anyone until Yunho had shown up at the hotel and found the room empty, Wooyoung’s stuff gone, just a note on the bed that said I can’t do this anymore. I’m fine. Don’t come looking for me. Of course they’d come looking for him. It had taken Hongjoong four hours and three phone calls to track down the address.

Seonghwa walked through the living room. It was furnished—barely. A couch. A coffee table. A TV that didn’t look like it had ever been turned on. But it was the other things that made Seonghwa’s stomach turn.

San’s grey hoodie, draped over the back of the couch like someone had just taken it off. San’s sneakers by the door. The ones Mingi had grabbed from the dorm. San’s duffel bag in the corner, still packed, still bulging. And on the coffee table—Shiber. The plushie sat upright, facing the couch, like it was waiting for someone to come home.

“Wooyoung,” Seonghwa said again. Softer this time. Not a question. A plea. He walked toward the bedroom. The door was open.

Wooyoung was sitting on the floor. Not on the bed. Not in a chair. On the floor, his back against the side of the mattress, his knees pulled up to his chest. He was wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing three days ago when Seonghwa had last managed to get inside—grey sweatpants, a black hoodie that was too big, the sleeves pulled down over his hands. He looked small. He looked like he was disappearing.

“Hey,” Seonghwa said. He crouched down a few feet away, not getting too close. Wooyoung startled easily lately. “I brought soup.”

Wooyoung didn’t look at him. His eyes were fixed on something across the room. Seonghwa followed his gaze. San’s jacket. Hanging on the back of the door.

“Did you eat today?” Seonghwa asked. Silence. “Woo. Did you eat?”

“I tried,” Wooyoung said. His voice was a ruin. Hoarse and cracked, like he’d been screaming. Or crying. Or both.

“When?”

“This morning. I think.” Wooyoung’s eyes didn’t move from the jacket. “There was bread. I ate half a slice.”

“And?”

Wooyoung’s throat worked. A swallow that looked like it hurt. “It didn’t stay.”

Seonghwa’s chest tightened. “Okay. That’s okay. We’ll try again. Soup is easier. Your stomach can handle soup.”

“I don’t want soup.”

“I know. But you need to eat something. You’re—” Seonghwa stopped himself. He’d been about to say you’re wasting away, but the words felt too close to the truth, too sharp.

In eight days, Wooyoung’d lost weight he didn’t have to lose. His face was gaunt, shadows sitting in the hollows under his eyes and cheekbones. His wrists looked fragile where they poked out from the sleeves, the bones too prominent.

“How long has it been?” Seonghwa asked. “Since you kept something down?”

Wooyoung’s brow furrowed, like he was trying to do math that was too complicated. “I don’t know. Wednesday, maybe?”

Today was Monday. Five days. Wooyoung hadn’t eaten a full meal in five days.

“Okay,” Seonghwa said. He kept his voice calm, steady. “Okay. We’re going to try the soup. Just a few sips. And if it doesn’t stay, that’s fine. We’ll try again later.”

“It won’t stay,” Wooyoung whispered.

“Why not?”

“Because every time I eat, I think about him. I think about how he’s in that place and he doesn’t have his favourite food and he doesn’t have anyone and I’m here eating soup like—like he’s not—” Wooyoung’s voice broke. He pressed his palms against his eyes, hard. “And then my stomach—it just—” He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to.

Seonghwa moved closer. Slowly. He sat down next to Wooyoung, their shoulders almost touching. “He’s not dead, Woo.”

“Isn’t he?” Wooyoung dropped his hands. His eyes were dry. Red-rimmed and raw, but dry. “She moved him somewhere and won’t tell us where. She won’t answer our calls. It’s been eight days and I don’t know if he’s okay. I don’t know if he’s eating. I don’t know if he’s still—” He stopped. Took a breath. It rattled in his chest. “I don’t know if he’s still alive,” Wooyoung finished. “And if I don’t know that, then what’s the difference?”

“The difference is that he is alive,” Seonghwa said. “Haneul’s protecting him. She’s keeping him away from us because she thinks we’ll make it worse.”

“We wouldn’t make it worse.”

“Wouldn’t we?” Seonghwa’s voice was gentle, but the question landed hard. “Woo, I love you. But if you walked into his room right now, looking like this—” He gestured at Wooyoung’s frame, at the visible weight loss, at the bruised exhaustion in his eyes. “What do you think that would do to him?” Wooyoung flinched. “He’d think it was his fault,” Seonghwa continued. “He’d look at you and think I did this to him. And whatever progress he’s making—if he’s making any—it would shatter.”

“So what am I supposed to do?” Wooyoung’s voice rose, thin and desperate. “Just sit here? Just wait? Just pretend I’m fine when I don’t even know where he is?”

“No. You’re supposed to take care of yourself. So that when he comes back—”

“If he comes back.”

“When,” Seonghwa corrected, firm. “When he comes back, you can actually be there for him. You can’t help him if you’re dead.”

The word hung in the air.

Dead.

Wooyoung laughed. It was a broken, bitter sound. “I’m not going to die.”

“You’re not eating. You’re not sleeping. You’re sitting in an apartment full of his things like you’re building a shrine.” Seonghwa’s voice cracked. “Woo, I’m scared for you.”

“Don’t be.”

“I can’t help it.”

Wooyoung turned his head, finally looking at Seonghwa. His eyes were hollow. Empty. Like someone had scooped out everything that used to make him Wooyoung and left only the mechanical function of a body that didn’t know how to stop.

“I cried for three days,” Wooyoung said. “After we found out she moved him. I cried so hard I thought I was going to throw up my organs. And then on day four, I woke up and I tried to cry and... nothing. My eyes were dry. Like I’d used up all the tears I had.” He looked back at the jacket. “I can’t cry anymore, Hyung. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep without seeing him on that bridge. I bought this apartment because I thought—I thought if I had my own space, if I wasn’t in that hotel with everyone’s grief pressing down on me, I could breathe. But I can’t. Because I brought all his stuff here and now it’s worse. Now I’m living with his ghost.”

Seonghwa followed Wooyoung’s gaze around the room. He saw it now. The hoodie. The shoes. The jacket. The duffel bag. This wasn’t an apartment. It was a mausoleum.

“The company hasn’t called,” Wooyoung said. His voice was flat now. Mechanical. “Not once. Eight days and they haven’t asked how we’re doing. Haven’t asked about San. Haven’t sent a single message. It’s like we don’t exist anymore. Like we’re just... inventory they wrote off.”

“They’re probably figuring out—”

“They’re figuring out how to erase us,” Wooyoung interrupted. “How to spin this so it doesn’t hurt their bottom line. Like he didn’t stand on a bridge and almost—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I called the company,” Wooyoung continued. “I called and asked to speak to someone. Anyone. I just wanted to know if they’d heard from Haneul. If they knew anything.”

“What did they say?”

“They transferred me to a voicemail box. I left a message. No one called back. It’s a dead end, Hyung. All of it. Haneul won’t talk to us. The company doesn’t care. The hospitals say he was never there. It’s like he vanished. Like he never existed.”

“He existed,” Seonghwa said fiercely. “He exists. And we’re going to find him.”

“How?” Wooyoung turned to look at him again, and this time there was something sharp in his eyes. Desperate. “How, Hyung? We’ve tried everything. Hongjoong called every private psychiatric facility in Seoul. Yunho tried to file a missing persons report but they said he’s not missing, he’s with family. Yeosang tried to hack Haneul’s email—”

“He what?”

“It didn’t work,” Wooyoung said. “My point is—we’ve tried. We’ve tried everything and we have nothing. No leads. No information. No hope.” The word hope broke something in Wooyoung’s voice. He turned away, pressing his forehead against his knees. “I’m so tired,” he whispered. “I’m so fucking tired. And I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to keep going when I don’t know if he’s okay.”

Seonghwa put his arm around Wooyoung’s shoulders. Wooyoung didn’t pull away. He just sat there, a fragile collection of bones and grief, barely holding himself together. They sat like that for a long time. The light outside the window shifted from grey to darker grey. Finally, Seonghwa spoke.

“I’m going to heat up the soup. You’re going to eat three spoons. If you throw up, you throw up. But you’re going to try.”

“Hyung—”

“Three spoons, Woo. Then I’ll leave you alone.” Wooyoung didn’t argue. He just nodded, a tiny movement.

Seonghwa stood up. He walked to the kitchen and found the container of soup. As he poured it into a pot, he looked around. The kitchen was spotless. Unused. The fridge was empty. On the counter, there was a stack of takeout containers. Unopened. The dates on the receipts ranged from three days ago to yesterday. Seonghwa had brought them. He’d brought food every day for the past week, and every day, Wooyoung had accepted it with a quiet “thank you” and then never eaten it.

The soup started to steam. Seonghwa poured it into a bowl and carried it back to the bedroom. Wooyoung was still on the floor. Still staring at the jacket.

“Here,” Seonghwa said, sitting back down next to him. He held out the bowl and spoon.

Wooyoung took them. His hands shook. He lifted the spoon to his mouth. The soup trembled on its surface. He ate one spoonful. Then another. On the third, he stopped. His face went pale. He set the bowl down carefully and pressed his hand to his mouth.

“It’s okay,” Seonghwa said. “It’s okay, just breathe—”

Wooyoung lurched to his feet and bolted to the bathroom. Seonghwa heard the sound of retching. Violent and wet. The sound of a body rejecting everything it was offered because the grief was too big to make room for anything else.

When Wooyoung came back, he was even paler. He slid down the wall and sat back on the floor, pulling his knees up, making himself small.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Don’t apologise.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t eat. I can’t function. I can’t—” His voice cracked. He looked at Seonghwa with eyes that were dry and desperate and so, so tired. “I can’t do this without him, Hyung. I don’t know how.”

Seonghwa didn’t have an answer. He just sat down next to Wooyoung again, and they stayed there on the floor, surrounded by San’s things, waiting for a phone call that wouldn’t come.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ Dr. Park had stopped expecting a response.

Fourteen days. Twenty-eight sessions. Not a single word. Not a nod. Not even a shake of the head. Just San, sitting in the chair across from her, staring at different points in the room like he was cataloging the architecture of his own prison.

Today, he was looking at the window. Again. The pine trees outside were losing their needles, the branches going bare. Winter was coming early this year.

“San,” Dr. Park said. Her voice had lost the careful patience from the first week. Now it was just tired. Professional, but tired. “I want to talk about discharge planning.”

No response. She hadn’t expected one.

“Your seventy-two hour hold expired eleven days ago,” she continued, clicking her pen. The sound was sharp in the quiet room. “You’re here voluntarily now. Legally, you can leave at any time. But I’m recommending against discharge because you haven’t engaged in treatment. You haven’t spoken. You’ve barely eaten. You’re not participating in therapy or group sessions.”

San’s eyes didn’t leave the window.

Dr. Park set down her pen. She took off her glasses and rubbed the bridge of her nose. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. Less doctor, more human. “I can’t help you if you won’t let me in,” she said. “I know you’re in pain. I know you’re angry. I know you feel like you’ve been abandoned here. But San—” She leaned forward. “Staying silent isn’t protecting you. It’s just... prolonging the suffering. For you and for everyone who loves you.”

Nothing.

Dr. Park sighed. She picked up her pen again and started writing in his file. The scratch of ink on paper was the only sound.

Day 14. Patient remains non-verbal. No engagement with therapeutic interventions. Recommend continued inpatient care. Discharge risk assessment: VERY HIGH. Patient continues to present as—

“When can I go back?”

Dr. Park’s pen stopped mid-word. The voice was so quiet she almost thought she’d imagined it. Hoarse and unused, like a rusted mechanism that hadn’t been oiled in weeks. But it was real.

San had spoken.

Dr. Park set down the pen very carefully. She kept her voice calm, neutral, even though her heart was suddenly hammering in her chest.

“Back where, San?”

A beat of silence. For a moment, Dr. Park thought that was it—that those five words were all she was going to get.

Then San turned his head. He looked at her directly for the first time in two weeks. His eyes were hollow, dark bruises sitting in the sockets. But they were focused. Clear. Terrifyingly clear.

“The bridge,” San said.

The air in the room went very still. Dr. Park’s training kicked in immediately. She kept her expression neutral, her body language non-threatening. She didn’t reach for the phone. She didn’t move. She just held his gaze and spoke very, very carefully.

“You want to go back to Mapo Bridge?”

“Yes.” The word was simple. Final. Like an answered prayer.

“Can you tell me why?”

San’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Something colder.

“Because I didn’t finish,” he said.

Dr. Park’s stomach dropped. “Didn’t finish what, San?”

“Jumping.” He said it like he was talking about a grocery list. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like the only logical conclusion to being in this room, in this facility, in this life, was to go back to the bridge and complete what he’d started.

“San,” Dr. Park said. Her voice was still calm, but there was steel underneath now. “Do you understand what you’re saying?”

“Yes.”

“You’re telling me you want to die.”

“I wanted to die two weeks ago,” San corrected. His voice was flat, mechanical. “Now I need to. There’s a difference.”

Dr. Park’s hand moved slowly toward the panic button under her desk. Not fast enough to startle him. Just... close enough.

“What’s the difference?” she asked.

San looked back at the window. The pine trees swayed in the wind. A crow landed on one of the branches, black against the grey sky.

“Two weeks ago, dying felt like relief,” San said. “Like I was choosing peace. But I fucked it up. I let Haneul pull me back. And now—” His voice cracked, just slightly. The first real emotion she’d heard from him. “Now I’m here. And they’re out there. And every day I’m alive is another day they’re suffering because of me. Another day Wooyoung is waiting for me to come back. Another day the company is deciding whether to destroy them because I’m broken.”

“So you think dying will fix that?”

“I think dying will end it,” San said. “They’ll grieve. But grief has a finish line. This—” He gestured vaguely at himself, at the room, at the world. “This doesn’t. This just goes on and on and I keep dragging them down with me. I’m the anchor. You cut the anchor.”

Dr. Park pressed the button. It was silent. No alarm. No flashing lights. Just a small vibration that would alert the nurses’ station that she needed immediate backup.

“San,” she said. “I need you to listen to me very carefully. What you’re feeling right now—the belief that your death would help the people you love—that’s not reality. That’s your depression lying to you.”

“It’s not lying.” San’s voice was getting quieter now. Distant. Like he was already halfway to the bridge in his mind. “I’ve done the math. Seven is better than eight if the eighth one is broken. They can rebrand. They can move on. Wooyoung can—” His voice broke again. “Wooyoung can find someone who doesn’t make him cry.”

“Do you really believe that?” Dr. Park asked. “Do you really think Wooyoung would be okay if you died?”

San’s jaw tightened.

“He’d be more okay than he is now,” San whispered. “Because right now, he’s waiting. And I’m never going to be the person he’s waiting for. I’m never going to be fixed. So the kind thing—the merciful thing—is to stop making him wait.”

The door opened and two nurses stepped in. They didn’t rush. They didn’t make sudden movements. They just positioned themselves near the exits, calm and professional.

San saw them. He looked at Dr. Park.

“You pushed the button,” he said. Not angry. Just observational.

“Yes,” Dr. Park said. “Because you just told me you’re actively planning to kill yourself. I can’t let you leave, San. I’m sorry.”

“You’re not sorry,” San said. “You’re doing your job. Keeping the suicidal kid from finishing what he started. I get it. It’s fine. I’ll just—” He looked at the window again. “I’ll wait. Eventually, you’ll have to let me out. And when you do, I’ll go back. I’ll finish it. And everyone will finally be free.”

“San—”

“Can I go back to my room now?” San interrupted. His voice was flat again. Mechanical. “I’m tired. The pills make me tired.”

“Yes,” Dr. Park said quietly. “You can go back to your room. But San—we’re going to be keeping a closer eye on you now. You understand that, right?”

“You were already watching me every fifteen minutes,” San said. “What’s closer than that? Every ten? Every five?” He stood up. His movements were slow, careful. “It doesn’t matter. You can’t watch me forever.”

He walked to the door. The nurses flanked him, not touching, just... present.

At the threshold, San stopped. He turned back to look at Dr. Park.

“Thank you,” he said. “For trying. I know you think you’re helping. But some things are just... broken past fixing. And I’m one of them.”

Then he walked out.

Dr. Park sat in the silence for a long moment, staring at the empty chair where San had been sitting.

Then she opened San’s file and wrote one sentence at the bottom of the page, underlining it three times.

Patient is not improving. Isolation protocol has failed.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ San had been told it wasn’t optional anymore.

“Dr. Park’s orders. You don’t have to talk. You just have to be in the room,” the nurse had said that morning, her voice kind but unyielding.

So here he was. In the room. It was on the first floor, past the common area, past the medication room, down a hallway he’d never walked before. Thirty-seven steps from his room. He’d counted.

The space was designed to feel less clinical than the rest of the facility. A circle of chairs—real chairs, upholstered, not bolted to the floor. A small table in the corner with a coffee maker and a stack of paper cups. Soft lighting. A potted plant in the corner that was probably fake but looked real enough.

And a calendar on the wall.

San sat in the chair closest to the door. He didn’t look at anyone. He kept his eyes on his hands, folded in his lap.

There were five other people in the circle. An older woman with short grey hair, knitting something blue. A man in his thirties with a hospital bracelet still on his wrist, bouncing his leg compulsively. A teenager—seventeen, maybe eighteen—with headphones around their neck and a thousand-yard stare. Two more patients San didn’t register. He didn’t have the energy to catalog them.

“Welcome,” Dr. Park said. Her voice was softer here than it was in her office. “We’re going to start today by going around the circle and sharing one thing we’re grateful for. It doesn’t have to be big. It can be as small as the coffee being hot this morning. Just... something.”

San stared at his hands. It went around the circle. Each person offering up a small piece of themselves, a fragment of gratitude pulled from the wreckage of whatever had brought them here.

Then it was San’s turn.

The silence stretched. Ten seconds. Twenty.

Dr. Park didn’t push. She just moved on to the next person.

The session continued. Dr. Park talked about coping strategies. About recognising triggers. About the difference between a thought and an action. Her voice was a low hum, white noise that San’s brain filtered out almost immediately.

He went back to counting.

Twelve ceiling tiles. Fifteen chairs. Eight people in the room.

Seven is better than eight if the eighth one is broken. His own voice echoed in his head. The words he’d said to Dr. Park yesterday. The truth he’d finally spoken out loud.

San’s eyes drifted. He didn’t mean for them to. They just... moved. Across the circle. Past the fake plant. Past the coffee maker.

To the calendar on the wall. It was one of those simple tear-away ones. Big numbers. Each day on its own page.

November 26

San’s breath stopped.

November 26.

Wooyoung’s birthday.

The world tilted.

San’s hands curled into fists in his lap, nails digging into his palms. The pink scars on his forearms burned like they were fresh.

How was it November 26?

Wooyoung’s birthday.

The one day San had never, never missed. Not in nine years. Not since they’d become friends. Every year, San woke up early. He made seaweed soup—Wooyoung’s favourite, the way his mom used to make it. He wrapped presents in terrible, lopsided paper because he’d never learned how to fold the corners right. He planned surprises. Small things. Big things. Things that made Wooyoung laugh until he cried.

Last year, San had rented out a karaoke room for just the two of them. They’d sung until their voices were raw, until Wooyoung had collapsed on the couch, flushed and happy, and said This is the best birthday I’ve ever had, Sannie. You make everything better.

San’s vision blurred.

November 26.

Wooyoung’s birthday.

And San was here. In a beige room in the woods, forty minutes outside the city, surrounded by strangers. Sedated. Watched. Erased.

Wooyoung didn’t know where he was.

Wooyoung didn’t know if he was alive.

The air in the room felt too thin. San’s chest tightened, his breathing shallow and fast. He pressed his fists harder into his thighs, trying to ground himself, trying to stop the room from spinning.

But he couldn’t stop looking at the calendar.

November 26.

The number burned into his retinas like a brand.

“San?”

Dr. Park’s voice cut through the static.

San didn’t respond. He couldn’t. His throat had closed up, his vocal cords locked.

“San, are you okay?”

The teenager was staring at him now. So was the man with the hospital bracelet. Their eyes felt like weights pressing down on him.

San stood up. The chair scraped loudly against the floor. Every head in the circle turned toward him.

“San—” Dr. Park started.

But San was already moving. He walked to the door. Not running. Just walking. Mechanical. One foot in front of the other.

“San, the session isn’t over—”

He didn’t stop. He pushed through the door and into the hallway. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed. Thirty-seven steps back to his room. He counted every single one.

When he reached his door, it was locked. Of course it was locked. They locked it during programming hours. To keep patients from isolating.

San pressed his forehead against the wood. His hands were shaking. His whole body was shaking.

November 26.

Wooyoung’s birthday.

And San had forgotten.

No—worse than forgotten. He’d been erased. Cut off. Buried in the woods like a body they were waiting to decompose.

San didn’t even get to say happy birthday.

He slid down the door until he was sitting on the floor, his back against the wood, his knees pulled up to his chest.

The hallway was empty. Quiet. Just the hum of the lights and the distant murmur of voices from the common area.

San wrapped his arms around his head and tried to remember what Wooyoung’s voice sounded like.

But it was fading. Two weeks of silence had scrubbed it away, note by note, until all that was left was static.

San opened his mouth.

No sound came out.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to rip the walls apart. He wanted to run the thirty-seven steps back to that room and tear the calendar off the wall and make the date not be November 26.

But he couldn’t move. He just sat there, in the hallway, staring at nothing.

Footsteps approached. Soft. Measured.

Dr. Park.

She didn’t say anything at first. She just sat down on the floor next to him, her back against the opposite wall. Far enough away that he didn’t feel cornered. Close enough that he knew she was there.

They sat in silence for a long time.

Finally, Dr. Park spoke.

“What did you see, San?”

San’s throat worked. A dry swallow.

“November 26,” he whispered. His voice was so quiet, so hoarse, it barely sounded human.

“Is November 26 important?” she asked.

San’s breath hitched. Once. Twice.

Then the dam broke.

“It’s his birthday,” San choked out. The words ripped out of him, raw and jagged. “It’s Wooyoung’s birthday and I’m not there. I’m not—I’m not there.” His voice cracked on the last word. He pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to stop the tears, but they came anyway. Hot and fast and humiliating. “I’ve never missed it,” San sobbed. “Not once. Not in nine years. I always—I make him soup. I make him seaweed soup and I sing to him even though I can’t sing and I—I’m supposed to be there.”

Dr. Park didn’t say anything. She just let him cry.

“He doesn’t even know where I am,” San continued, his voice breaking. “He doesn’t know if I’m alive. It’s his birthday and he’s probably alone and it’s my fault. It’s all my fault. I left him. I left him and now he’s—” He couldn’t finish. He just curled tighter into himself, his whole body shaking with sobs he’d been holding in for two weeks.

Dr. Park waited until the crying slowed. Until San’s breaths were just ragged gasps instead of full-body convulsions.

Then she spoke.

“San,” she said quietly. “Do you want to call him?”

San’s head snapped up. His eyes were red, swollen, wet. He stared at her like she’d just offered him oxygen. “What?”

“Do you want to call Wooyoung?” Dr. Park repeated. “To wish him happy birthday?”

San’s breath caught. “I—” His voice broke. “I’m not allowed. Haneul said—”

“I’m your doctor,” Dr. Park interrupted. Her voice was firm now. “And I’m telling you that isolation isn’t working. You just spoke more in the last two minutes than you have in two weeks. That means something, San. That means Wooyoung matters. And maybe—maybe that’s what you need right now. Not less of him. More.”

“She’ll be angry,” he whispered.

“Let her be angry,” Dr. Park said. “You’re my patient. And I’m making a clinical decision. You need this.”

She stood up and held out her hand.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to my office. You can use my phone.”

San looked at her hand like it was a lifeline thrown into dark water.

Then, slowly, he reached out and took it.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ San sat in the chair in front of Dr. Park’s desk. Dr. Park had dialed the number. She’d held the receiver out to him. And now it was ringing.

San’s hands were shaking so hard he could barely hold the phone. He pressed it against his ear with both hands, his knuckles white.

He’s not going to answer. He doesn’t have this number. He doesn’t know it’s me. He’s not going to—

Click.

“Hello?”

Wooyoung’s voice.

San’s breath stopped. It had been two weeks. Fourteen days. And he’d started to forget what Wooyoung sounded like. The exact pitch. The exact texture. The way his voice did that thing where it went up at the end of a question even when he wasn’t asking one.

But now it was here. Real. In his ear.

And it sounded wrong. Hoarse. Thin. Scraped raw.

“Hello?” Wooyoung said again. “Who is this?”

“Wooyoung,” San whispered.

The line went silent. Not the silence of a dropped call. The silence of someone who’d just heard a ghost speak their name. San could hear Wooyoung breathing. Short, shallow gasps. Like he’d been punched in the stomach.

“San?” Wooyoung’s voice cracked on the word. It shattered into a thousand pieces. “Sannie, is that—is that you?”

“Yeah,” San breathed. His vision was blurring. “Yeah, it’s me.”

A sound came through the phone. Not quite a sob. Not quite a scream. Something in between. Something animal.

“Where are you?” Wooyoung demanded. His voice was rising now, frantic. “Where the fuck are you? I’ve been—I’ve been calling everyone. I’ve been—San, where are you?”

“I don’t know,” San said. The words came out broken. “Somewhere outside the city. A clinic. Haneul moved me and I didn’t—I didn’t know. I just woke up here and you were gone.”

“I’m not gone,” Wooyoung said. He was crying now. San could hear it. “You’re the one who’s gone. You disappeared. Haneul won’t tell us where you are. She won’t answer. The hospitals say you were never there. San, I thought—I thought you were—”

He couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I’m alive,” San whispered. “I’m alive. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Wooyoung choked out. “Don’t—just tell me where you are. I’ll come get you. Right now. Just tell me where—”

“I can’t,” San interrupted. His voice was shaking. “I don’t—I don’t even know the address. And they won’t let you visit. No visitors. Haneul signed—she signed something.”

“Fuck what Haneul signed,” Wooyoung said. “San, I’ll break down the door. I’ll call the police. I’ll—”

“Woo,” San said softly. “Woo, stop. Please.”

Wooyoung went quiet. But San could still hear him breathing. Ragged and wet.

“I just wanted to call,” San continued. His throat was so tight it hurt to speak. “Because I saw the date. And I realised—it’s your birthday. And I’ve never missed it. Not once. Not since we met. And I couldn’t—I couldn’t let the day go by without you hearing my voice. Even if it’s just for a minute. Even if—”

His voice broke.

“I’m so sorry,” San sobbed. “I’m so sorry I’m not there. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry I went to that bridge. I’m sorry I ruined your birthday. I’m sorry I ruined everything.”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Wooyoung said. His voice was fierce now. Desperate. “You didn’t—listen to me. You’re alive. That’s all that matters. You’re alive and you’re talking to me and I can—I can hear you. That’s the only birthday present I wanted. Just to know you’re okay.”

“I’m not okay,” San whispered.

The truth fell between them like a stone into deep water.

Wooyoung was quiet for a long moment.

Then: “I’m not okay either.”

San closed his eyes. The tears were hot on his cheeks.

“Have you been eating?” San asked. Because even now, even broken and buried in the woods, he needed to know.

Wooyoung didn’t answer.

“Woo,” San said. His voice was gentle. “Have you eaten today?”

“I tried,” Wooyoung whispered.

“And?”

“It didn’t stay.”

San’s chest seized.

“How long?” he asked.

“I don’t know. A while.”

“Wooyoung—”

“Don’t,” Wooyoung interrupted. “Don’t tell me I need to eat. Don’t tell me I need to take care of myself. I can’t, San. I can’t eat when you’re—when you’re in a locked room somewhere and I don’t know if you’re okay. I can’t—” His voice broke. San could hear him trying to breathe, trying to hold himself together.

“The doctors here keep asking me if I’m eating,” San said quietly. “And I keep lying. I tell them I’m fine. But I’m not. I can’t eat either. Because every time I try, I think about you. I think about how I left you. How I stood on that bridge and I almost—”

He stopped. Swallowed hard.

“I almost made you live in a world where I wasn’t in it anymore,” San finished. “And that’s the worst thing I’ve ever done to you. Worse than the lying. Worse than the disappearing. I almost made you bury me.”

“But you didn’t,” Wooyoung said fiercely. “You didn’t jump. Haneul found you. You’re still here.”

“I don’t know if that’s better,” San whispered.

Silence.

“Neither do I.”

The words hung there. Honest. Terrible.

“I bought an apartment,” Wooyoung said. His voice was flat now. Mechanical. “They evicted us from the dorm. I couldn’t stay in the hotel. So I bought a place. And I brought all your stuff. Your hoodie. Your shoes. Shiber. Everything. I packed it all because I thought—I thought when you came back, you’d need it.”

“Woo—”

“But you’re not coming back, are you?” Wooyoung’s voice cracked. “Haneul’s not going to let you. She’s going to keep you there until—until what? Until you forget about us? Until you forget about me?”

“I could never forget about you,” San said. The words came out raw. “Wooyoung, even if I tried—even if I wanted to—I couldn’t. You’re in every thought I have. Every breath. You’re the reason I’m still—”

He stopped. Because that wasn’t true, was it?

If Wooyoung was the reason he was still alive, he wouldn’t have gone to the bridge in the first place.

“I don’t know how to do this,” San admitted. His voice was breaking. “I don’t know how to be alive when being alive means you’re suffering. I don’t know how to get better when getting better means watching you destroy yourself waiting for me. I don’t—I don’t know how to fix this.”

“You don’t have to fix it,” Wooyoung said. “You just have to come back. That’s all. Just come back to me and we’ll figure out the rest.”

San squeezed his eyes shut.

“What if I can’t?” he whispered.

The question sat there. Heavy. Final.

“Then I don’t know what happens to me.”

The truth of it was unbearable.

San looked at Dr. Park. She was watching him with careful eyes. She made a small gesture with her hand. Wrap it up.

“I have to go,” San said. His voice was shaking. “I’m sorry. They’re only letting me—I’m not supposed to have phone calls. Dr. Park is letting me break the rules but I can’t—”

“No,” Wooyoung said. Panic rising. “No, don’t go. Please. Sannie, don’t—”

“I’m sorry,” San said. The words came out fast, desperate. “I’m sorry. For all of it. For being broken. For making you love someone who—who can’t be fixed. I’m so sorry.”

“San—”

“Happy birthday, Wooyoung.”

“San, wait—”

San handed the phone back to Dr. Park.

She took it gently and placed it back in the cradle. The click of disconnection was very loud in the quiet office.

San sat there, staring at his hands.

Then he stood up.

“Thank you,” he said to Dr. Park. His voice was hollow. Empty. “For letting me call him.”

“San,” Dr. Park started. “I think we should talk about—”

“Can I go back to my room?”

Dr. Park looked at him for a long moment. Reading something in his face that made her eyes tighten with concern.

“Yes,” she said finally. “But San—”

He was already walking to the door. He walked the thirty-two steps back to the stairwell. Then the nineteen steps to his room. The door was unlocked now. Programming hours were over.

He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

He walked to the window and looked out at the pine trees.

He’d called Wooyoung.

He’d broken two weeks of silence to say happy birthday.

And now he knew.

Wooyoung was dying. Maybe not literally. Not yet. But he was wasting away in that apartment, surrounded by San’s things, unable to eat, unable to function, unable to live without San there.

And San was here. In this beige room. Taking pills that made the edges soft but didn’t make anything better. Sitting in therapy sessions where he didn’t speak. Counting ceiling tiles and waiting for the urge to go back to the bridge to become unbearable.

They were killing each other.

Not with violence. Not with cruelty.

With love.

The kind of love that was too big to survive. The kind that consumed everything until there was nothing left but ash.

San rested his forehead against the glass.

He had not told Wooyoung he loved him.

But he wanted to.

But maybe love wasn’t enough.

Maybe some people weren’t supposed to be saved.

Maybe the anchor was supposed to be cut.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ The phone slipped from Wooyoung’s hand and hit the floor with a dull thud. Seonghwa, who’d been standing in the doorway the whole time, rushed forward.

“Woo? Woo, what happened? Was that—”

Wooyoung was staring at the wall. His face was pale. Bloodless.

“He’s alive,” Wooyoung whispered.

“San? That was San?”

Wooyoung nodded. Once. Mechanical. “He called to say happy birthday,” Wooyoung said. His voice was flat. Dead. “He doesn’t know where he is. Haneul has him locked up somewhere. He can’t leave. He can’t—” His voice broke. “He sounded so tired, Hyung,” Wooyoung choked out. “He sounded like—like he’s giving up. Like he’s already gone and his body just doesn’t know it yet.”

Seonghwa knelt down in front of Wooyoung. He put his hands on Wooyoung’s shoulders. “But he called you,” Seonghwa said. “That means he’s still fighting. That means—”

“No,” Wooyoung interrupted. His eyes were dry but his whole body was shaking. “He called to say goodbye.”

“You don’t know that—”

“I do,” Wooyoung said. “I heard it in his voice. He was saying goodbye.”

Seonghwa opened his mouth. Nothing came out. Because he’d heard it too. In the way Wooyoung’s voice had sounded through the apartment. In the desperate, final quality of the words.

Happy birthday, Wooyoung.

Not I’ll see you soon. Not I’m coming back.

Just: Happy birthday. Like it was the last thing he’d ever say.

Wooyoung stood up. His movements were slow. Unsteady. He walked to the bedroom. Seonghwa followed. Wooyoung picked up San’s duffel bag. He unzipped it and pulled out the purple hoodie. He held it against his chest, burying his face in it. And then, finally, he cried. Not the violent, body-shaking sobs from before. This was worse. This was quiet. Broken. The sound of someone who’d just realised that the person they loved most in the world was never coming home.

Seonghwa wrapped his arms around Wooyoung from behind. He didn’t say anything. Because there was nothing to say. They just stood there, in the bedroom of an apartment that smelled like nothing, surrounded by the belongings of a ghost.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ San lay on his back, staring at the ceiling. The medication had worn off hours ago. He’d felt it leave his system like water draining from a tub—the soft edges getting sharp again, the chemical cotton dissolving, the trapped bird in his chest waking up and starting to scream.

He hadn’t taken his evening pills.

Nurse Kim had brought them at 8 PM. She’d stood by his bed with the little paper cup, waiting.

“Open,” she’d said.

San had opened his mouth. He’d let her tip the pills onto his tongue. He’d pretended to swallow.

“Tongue up.”

He’d lifted his tongue. But the pills were already tucked into the pocket of his cheek, bitter and dissolving slowly. He’d held them there until she left, then spat them into his hand and flushed them down the toilet.

The phone call played on a loop in his head. Not the words. The sounds.

Wooyoung’s voice. Scraped raw. Hoarse. Wrong.

The way he’d said “It didn’t stay.”

The way he’d admitted “I don’t know what happens to me.”

San had done that. Not the company. Not Haneul. Not the bridge.

Him.

San had stood on that ledge and he’d let Haneul pull him back and now Wooyoung was dying.

Not quickly. Not mercifully.

Slowly. Starvation. Grief. The kind of death that took weeks and left a body that looked like it had been hollowed out from the inside.

And for what? So San could sit in this beige room and count ceiling tiles and take pills that didn’t work and tell Dr. Park that he wanted to go back to the bridge? So he could drag this out? Make it last longer? Make Wooyoung suffer more?

San sat up.

The room was dark except for the sliver of light coming from under the door. The nurses made rounds every fifteen minutes. He’d been counting. The last check had been three minutes ago.

That meant he had twelve minutes. Twelve minutes to do what he should have done two weeks ago.

San stood up. His legs were steady. His hands weren’t shaking.

He felt calm. Clear. The way he’d felt on the bridge before Haneul had ruined it.

He walked to the bathroom. The polished steel mirror warped his reflection into something monstrous. He looked at himself—the hollowed-out eyes, the grey skin, the ghost that hadn’t realised it was dead yet.

Some things are just broken past fixing.

He’d said that to Dr. Park. He’d meant it.

San looked around the bathroom. Everything was designed to be safe. Rounded edges. Sensor faucets. No exposed pipes. No sharp corners.

But they’d forgotten one thing.

The shower.

It wasn’t a traditional shower. It was one of those hospital-grade setups—a handheld sprayer attached to a flexible hose. The kind that could be detached.

San reached up and unscrewed the showerhead. It came off easily in his hands. He set it on the floor.

Then he looked at the hose. It was rubber. Flexible. About four feet long.

Long enough.

San’s heart was beating fast now. Not with panic. With something else. Relief. Purpose. The knowledge that he was finally, finally going to finish what he’d started.

He wouldn’t be found for at least twelve minutes and it was more than enough.

San wrapped one end of the hose around his hands, testing the strength. It held. It would work.

He walked back into the main room. The bed was bolted to the floor, but the frame had a crossbar underneath—metal, sturdy, low to the ground.

Perfect.

San knelt down beside the bed. He threaded one end of the hose through the crossbar, creating a loop. Then he tied it off. His fingers moved with surprising efficiency. The body just knew how to do this when the brain was desperate enough.

He sat down with his back against the bed frame. He took the other end of the hose—the loop—and held it in his hands.

This was it.

This was the moment where he stopped being the anchor.

This was mercy.

For Wooyoung. For ATEEZ. For Haneul. For everyone who had been waiting for him to get better when better was never going to come.

San lifted the loop.

He thought about Wooyoung’s voice on the phone. “You didn’t ruin anything.”

But he had. He’d ruined everything.

He thought about the last thing he should have said. The words he’d swallowed.

I love you.

He should have said it. But maybe it was better that he hadn’t. Maybe it would hurt less if the last words were just happy birthday. Maybe Wooyoung could pretend it was just a phone call. Not a goodbye.

San put the loop around his neck.

The rubber was cold against his skin. It smelled like plastic and chlorine. He tightened it. Not too much. Just enough to feel the pressure. Just enough to know it would work.

He thought about the bridge. About how close he’d come. About how the water had looked soft and quiet and right.

This was the same. This was just finishing the job.

This was—

The door opened.

San’s hands froze.

Light flooded the room. Bright. Blinding.

“San?” It was Nurse Kim. But her voice was wrong. Higher. Panicked.

San didn’t move. He sat there with the hose around his neck, the loop loose in his hands, staring at nothing.

“Oh my god—” Nurse Kim lunged forward. “CODE BLUE! ROOM 7! CODE BLUE!”

Her hands were on him, pulling the hose away, unwrapping it from his neck. San didn’t fight. He didn’t have the energy.

The hose came loose. It fell to the floor with a soft thud.

More footsteps. Running. Shouting.

“Get Dr. Park—”

“Is he breathing—”

“Check for a pulse—”

Hands on his wrists. On his neck. Someone shining a light in his eyes.

San just sat there.

He was back. Back in the noise. Back in the pain. Back in the cage where they could watch him and medicate him and tell him that dying was a cognitive distortion when it was the only thing that made sense anymore.

Someone was crying. He realized dimly that it was Nurse Kim. She was kneeling beside him, tears streaming down her face, saying something he couldn’t hear over the ringing in his ears.

Dr. Park appeared. She looked at the hose on the floor. Then at San.

Her face went very still.

“Get a gurney,” she said. Her voice was calm. Professional. But her hands were shaking. “We’re transferring him to the acute unit. And call Ms. Choi. Now.”

San closed his eyes.

He’d failed.

Again.

He’d stood on the bridge and Haneul had pulled him back.

He’d tied the hose and Nurse Kim had found him.

The universe kept dragging him back from the edge, kept forcing him to stay in a world where his existence was killing the person he loved most.

They lifted him onto a gurney. Strapped him down. Not tight enough to hurt. Just tight enough that he couldn’t move.

San opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling as they wheeled him down the hallway.

He counted the fluorescent lights as they passed.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

He got to twenty-seven before they pushed through a set of double doors into a room that was whiter and brighter and more sterile than anything he’d seen before.

This was the acute unit. This was where they sent the ones who couldn’t be trusted. This was where you went when you stopped being a patient and became a liability.

They transferred him to a bed. A real bed this time. With rails. With restraints.

Someone was talking to him. Asking him questions. But the words slid off his brain like water off glass.

A needle slid into his arm.

Warmth flooded his veins. Chemical. Numbing.

The edges got soft again.

And San

closed his

eyes

and

drifted

into

the

cotton-wrapped

nothing.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ Haneul’s phone rang. The phone screen lit up the dark room. She jerked awake, her heart hammering. She’d fallen asleep on the couch, still in her work clothes, a glass of wine half-finished on the coffee table.

“Hello?”

“Ms. Choi.” Dr. Park’s voice. Calm. Too calm. “I’m calling about your brother.”

“What happened?” Haneul was already standing, already reaching for her keys. “Is he—”

“He’s alive,” Dr. Park said. “But there’s been an incident. We found him approximately twenty minutes ago attempting to—” She paused. Clinical terminology failing her. “We intervened before he could complete the attempt. He’s stable now. Sedated. But Ms. Choi—we need to talk about next steps.”

Haneul’s legs gave out. She sat down hard on the couch, the phone pressed so tight against her ear it hurt. “He tried to—” She couldn’t say it. “In your facility? How did he—you said he was being watched—”

“Every fifteen minutes,” Dr. Park said. “But fifteen minutes is a long time when someone is determined. Ms. Choi, I need you to understand something. Your brother is not improving in isolation. If anything, the lack of contact with his support system is making him worse. The phone call he made today—”

“What phone call?” Haneul’s voice went sharp. “I didn’t authorise any calls.”

“I did,” Dr. Park said. Her voice was firm now. “He saw a calendar. He realised it was someone named Wooyoung birthday. He had a breakthrough—the first time he’d spoken in two weeks. So I let him make the call. And Ms. Choi, whatever he heard on that call? It’s what pushed him to this.”

Haneul pressed her hand against her mouth. She was going to be sick. “You let him call Wooyoung,” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“And now he tried to kill himself.”

“Yes.” The word hung there. “Ms. Choi,” Dr. Park continued. “I’m recommending that you reconsider the visitation restrictions. Your brother is not getting better in isolation. He’s getting worse. And tonight—” Her voice cracked, just slightly. “Tonight he almost succeeded.”

Haneul closed her eyes. She’d been so sure. So certain that cutting San off from ATEEZ, from Wooyoung, from the life that was crushing him—that it would give him space to heal. But she’d been wrong. She’d locked him in a box and he’d tried to claw his way out the only way he knew how.

“I’ll—I’ll be there in forty minutes,” Haneul said. Her voice was hollow.

“Ms. Choi—”

“And Dr. Park?” Haneul’s voice broke. “Don’t let him be alone. Please. Just—don’t let him wake up alone.”

“We won’t,” Dr. Park said gently. “I promise.”

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ Haneul stood outside San’s room, her hand on the door handle. She hadn’t slept. She’d driven straight from her apartment to the clinic, arriving to find her brother sedated and strapped to a bed, a livid red mark around his neck where the hose had been.

Six hours had passed.

Haneul took a breath. Then she opened the door.

San was finally awake. He was sitting up in the bed, his back against the pillows. His wrists were in soft restraints—not the leather kind that left marks, but the padded fabric ones that looked almost gentle. His eyes were fixed on the window. The view was just sky. Grey. Featureless.

He didn’t look at her when she came in.

“San,” Haneul’s voice came out smaller than she intended.

San didn’t respond. He just kept staring at the window.

Haneul walked closer. She pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down. She didn’t touch him. She just sat there, close enough to see the red mark on his neck, the bruised hollows under his eyes, the way his chest rose and fell with mechanical precision.

“Dr. Park told me what happened,” Haneul said.

San’s jaw tightened. Barely.

San’s hands curled into fists in his lap. The soft restraints prevented him from moving more than a few inches.

“I thought I was saving you,” she whispered. “I thought if I moved you here, if I cut you off from them, if I gave you space away from all the pressure—I thought you’d get better. I thought—”

Her voice broke.

“I was wrong,” Haneul said. “I was so fucking wrong. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

San’s breathing changed. Just slightly. A hitch. A catch. But he still didn’t look at her.

“I called Hongjoong,” she said.

San’s head snapped toward her.

For the first time since she’d walked in, he was looking at her. His eyes were wide. Terrified.

“What?” His voice was a rasp.

“I called him,” Haneul said. “I told him where you are. I told him what happened. And I told him—” She took a breath. “I told him he could see you. All of them. If they want to.”

San’s face went white.

“No,” he whispered.

“Sannie—”

“No.” San was shaking his head now, frantic. “No, you can’t—Haneul, you can’t let them see me like this. You can’t—”

“They’re coming,” Haneul interrupted. Her voice was firm. “They’re on their way.”

“No!” San lunged forward, the restraints catching him, holding him back. “Haneul, please. Please don’t do this. I don’t want them to see—I can’t—”

“You need to say goodbye,” Haneul said.

The words dropped into the room like stones.

“What?”

Haneul’s hands were shaking. She clasped them together in her lap to hide it.

“You need to say goodbye,” she repeated. Her voice was steadier now. Clinical. Like she was delivering a diagnosis. “To all of them. In person. Today.”

“I don’t understand,” San whispered.

Haneul looked at him. At the brother she’d raised. The little boy who used to grab her finger when he was scared. The young man who’d called her crying from the dorm because he missed home. The ghost sitting in front of her now, held together by restraints and medication and sheer stubbornness.

“Dr. Park and I talked for hours when you were asleep ,” Haneul said. “About next steps. About treatment options. And we both agree—you can’t stay here. This facility isn’t equipped for the level of care you need.”

“So transfer me,” San said. His voice was desperate. “To a hospital. To another clinic. Just—don’t make me see them. Please.”

“I’m not transferring you to another clinic in Seoul,” Haneul said.

San went very still.

“There’s a facility,” Haneul continued. She pulled a folder out of her bag. Set it on the bed. “In upstate New York. It specializes in treatment-resistant depression and complex trauma. It’s residential. Long-term. Minimum six months, potentially longer.”

San stared at the folder like it was a bomb.

“New York,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“That’s—that’s on the other side of the world.”

“I know.”

“Haneul—”

“You tried to kill yourself again last night.” Haneul’s voice was hard now. Sharp. “You’re not getting better here. You’re getting worse. And every day you stay in Seoul—every day you’re in the same city as them—you’re going to keep trying. Because as long as they’re close, you’ll never let yourself heal. You’ll just keep breaking yourself apart trying to protect them.”

San’s breathing was coming faster now. Shallow. Panicked.

“So you’re sending me away,” he said.

“I’m saving your life,” Haneul corrected.

“By taking me away from everything that makes life worth living?”

“If staying kills you,” she whispered, “then yes.”

San looked at her. At the exhaustion in her face. The grey in her skin. The way her hands shook even though she was trying to hide it.

“You’re not asking,” San said. “You’re telling me.”

“The plane leaves tomorrow night,” Haneul said. “I’m flying with you. I’m staying for the first two weeks to help you settle in. And then—”

“And then what?” San’s voice was rising now. “And then I just—what? Stay there? For six months? A year? Forever?”

“As long as it takes,” Haneul said.

“And what about them?” San demanded. “What about ATEEZ? What about—” His voice broke. “What about Wooyoung?”

“That’s why they’re coming today,” Haneul said quietly. “So you can say goodbye.”

San shook his head. “I can’t.”

“You have to.”

“Haneul, I can’t look at him and tell him I’m leaving. I can’t—I heard his voice yesterday. On the phone. He’s not eating. He’s dying. And if I tell him I’m moving to New York—”

“Then he’ll finally be able to let go,” Haneul interrupted.

The words were brutal. Final.

“Right now,” Haneul continued, “he’s waiting. He’s waiting for you to come back. He’s waiting for you to get better. He’s waiting for a future that isn’t going to happen. And that waiting is killing him. But if you say goodbye—if you tell him you’re leaving, that you’re choosing treatment over him—then he can stop waiting. He can start grieving. And grief, San? Grief has an end. Waiting doesn’t.”

“You want me to break his heart,” San whispered.

“I want you both to survive,” Haneul said. “And right now? This is the only way I know how to do that.”

San closed his eyes. The tears leaked out anyway.

“I don’t want to go,” he choked out.

“I know.”

“I don’t want to leave him.”

“I know.”

“I love him,” San sobbed. “I love him so much it’s killing me. And you’re asking me to—you’re asking me to look him in the eye and tell him I’m choosing to go. That I’m choosing to leave. He’ll never forgive me. He’ll—”

“He’ll live,” Haneul said fiercely. “He’ll be devastated. He’ll be broken. But he’ll live. And so will you. And maybe—maybe in a year, or two years, or five—when you’re better, when you’re actually better—maybe you’ll find your way back to each other. But right now? Right now you’re both dying. And I can’t watch that anymore.”

“You’ve already decided,” he said.

“Yes,” Haneul said. “The paperwork is signed. The facility is expecting you tomorrow. This isn’t a negotiation, Sannie. This is me using every legal right I have as your guardian to keep you alive.”

San laughed. It was a broken, bitter sound.

“So I get to say goodbye,” he said. “And then you’re locking me in a facility on the other side of the world where they can’t find me. Where they can’t visit. Where I can’t leave.”

“For six months,” Haneul said. “After that, it’s voluntary. You can stay or you can go. But for the first six months? Yes. You’re locked in.”

San looked at the restraints on his wrists.

“I’m already locked in,” he whispered.

Haneul didn’t have an answer for that.

They sat in silence for a long time.

Finally, San spoke.

“When are they coming?”

“Nine-thirty,” Haneul said.

“And how long do I get?” San asked. His voice was hollow. “How long do I get to say goodbye to the only person who’s ever made me want to stay alive?”

Haneul’s hands tightened in her lap. “As long as you need,” she said quietly.

“That’s the problem,” San whispered. “There will never be enough time.”

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ Wooyoung’s hands were shaking. They’d been shaking since Hongjoong had walked into Wooyoung’s apartment and said Haneul called. We can see him. But Woo—we need to hurry.

Now they were here. In a facility forty minutes outside Seoul that none of them had known existed. Walking down a hallway on the second floor. Following Haneul to a room at the end.

Haneul stopped outside a door marked Acute Care 7.

She turned to face them. Her eyes were red. Swollen. She looked like she’d aged ten years overnight. “Before you go in,” Haneul said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I need to prepare you.”

“Prepare us for what?” Hongjoong asked.

“He’s—” Haneul’s voice broke. She took a breath. Tried again. “He’s in restraints. Soft ones. Just wrist restraints. Because last night he—”

She couldn’t finish.

Wooyoung’s knees went weak. Seonghwa’s hand shot out, catching his elbow.

“He tried again,” Yunho said. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes,” Haneul whispered. “We found him in time. But there’s—there’s a mark. On his neck. And I need you to know that before you go in. So you don’t—” Her voice cracked. “So you don’t react in a way that makes him feel worse than he already does.”

Wooyoung pressed his hand against his mouth. He was going to be sick.

“Can he talk?” Mingi asked quietly.

“Yes,” Haneul said. “He’s awake. He knows you’re coming.” She looked directly at Wooyoung. “But I need you to understand—this is goodbye.”

The word hit like a physical blow.

“What?” Wooyoung breathed.

“He’s leaving tomorrow,” Haneul said. “For a facility in New York. Long-term treatment. Minimum six months. And he needs—” She swallowed hard. “He needs to say goodbye. To all of you. So you can all start to move forward.”

“New York?” Wooyoung’s voice was rising. “You’re sending him to fucking New York?”

“I’m saving his life,” Haneul said. Her voice was steel now. “He tried twice in two weeks. If he stays here—if he stays in the same city as you—he’s going to keep trying until he succeeds. So yes. I’m sending him to New York. And you get today to say goodbye.”

Wooyoung lunged forward. Hongjoong and Seonghwa grabbed him, holding him back.

“You can’t—” Wooyoung was shaking. “You can’t just—Haneul, you can’t take him away. He needs—I need—”

“You need him to live,” Haneul interrupted. Her eyes were wet. “Even if that means he has to leave. Even if that means you have to let him go.”

Wooyoung stopped struggling. He stood there, held between Hongjoong and Seonghwa, his whole body trembling.

“How long do we get?” Jongho asked. His voice was hollow.

“As long as you need,” Haneul said. “But his plane leaves at 8 PM tomorrow. So—” She looked at her watch. “You have today.”

She reached for the door handle. “I’m going to give you privacy. But if you need me—if he needs me—I’ll be right outside.”

Then she opened the door.

And Wooyoung saw him.

San.

Sitting in a hospital bed. Wearing a grey hospital gown. His wrists in soft fabric restraints that were clipped to the bed rails. His hair unwashed. His face grey. His eyes hollow.

And around his neck—a livid red mark. Horizontal. Unmistakable.

Wooyoung made a sound. Not quite a word. Not quite a scream. Something between.

San’s head turned. Their eyes met.

And San’s face crumpled.

“No,” San choked out. “No, Haneul, you said—I told you I didn’t want—”

But Wooyoung was already moving. He crossed the room in three steps. He collapsed beside the bed, his knees hitting the linoleum hard. He reached for San’s face with shaking hands.

“Sannie,” Wooyoung sobbed. “Sannie, oh my god, what did you—”

“Don’t,” San whispered. He tried to turn his head away, but Wooyoung’s hands followed. “Woo, don’t look at me. Please don’t—”

“I’m looking,” Wooyoung said fiercely. His hands cupped San’s face, thumbs brushing under his eyes. “I’m looking at you and I’m not letting go. I’m not—”

His voice broke when his thumb brushed against the mark on San’s neck. The skin was raised. Raw. Red turning to purple at the edges.

“I’m sorry,” San sobbed. Tears were streaming down his face now, wetting Wooyoung’s hands. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you to see. I didn’t want you to know. I just wanted—I just wanted it to stop hurting and I didn’t know how else—”

“Shh,” Wooyoung whispered. He pressed his forehead against San’s. “Shh, it’s okay. You’re okay. You’re here. You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

Behind them, Wooyoung could hear the others. Yunho’s broken breathing. Mingi’s choked sob. Jongho saying something in a voice too low to hear. But Wooyoung couldn’t look away from San. Couldn’t let go.

“I can’t do this,” San whispered against Wooyoung’s forehead. “I can’t. She wants me to say goodbye and I can’t. I can’t look at you and tell you I’m leaving. I can’t—”

Wooyoung pulled back. Just far enough to look San in the eyes. His face was a ruin. Tears and snot and devastation.

“I’m leaving,” San choked out. “Tomorrow. For New York. There’s a—a facility. Long-term. Six months minimum. And Haneul says I have to go. She says if I stay here I’m going to keep trying to—” He couldn’t finish. “And I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you. But she’s right. As long as I can see you, as long as I know you’re here waiting, I’m never going to—I’m never going to choose to stay alive. Because staying alive means watching you suffer. And I can’t—”

“So you’re leaving,” Wooyoung said.

His voice was flat. Dead.

San squeezed his eyes shut. “Yes.”

“For six months.”

“At least.”

“On the other side of the world.”

“Yes.”

Wooyoung’s hands fell away from San’s face.

He sat back on his heels. Staring. Like he was seeing San for the first time. Or the last time.

“So this is it,” Wooyoung said. “This is goodbye.”

“Woo—”

“No.” Wooyoung stood up. His movements were mechanical. “No, I get it. I understand. You’re choosing to leave. You’re choosing treatment over—over us. Over me. And that’s—that’s fine. That’s your choice. I just—”

His voice broke.

“I just wish you’d chosen me,” Wooyoung whispered. “Even once. I wish I’d been enough to make you want to stay.”

“You are enough,” San said desperately. He strained against the restraints, trying to reach for Wooyoung. “Wooyoung, you’re more than enough. You’re everything. That’s the problem. I can’t watch you destroy yourself waiting for me to get better. Leaving is the only merciful thing left.”

“Merciful,” Wooyoung repeated. He laughed. It was a broken, bitter sound. “You think leaving me is merciful?”

“I think letting you move on is merciful,” San said. “Because right now you’re waiting. You’re not eating. You’re wasting away. And as long as I’m here, as long as there’s hope that I might come back—you’re never going to stop waiting. But if I leave—if I tell you I’m choosing to go—then you can stop. You can grieve. You can let me go.”

“I don’t want to let you go,” Wooyoung sobbed.

“I know.”

“I want you to stay.”

“I can’t.”

“Then take me with you,” Wooyoung begged. He dropped back down beside the bed. “If you have to go to New York, take me with you. I’ll get an apartment nearby. I’ll wait. I won’t visit if they don’t let me, but I’ll be close. I’ll be there when you get out. Please don’t make me stay here without you. Please—”

“No,” San said. His voice was firm. “Wooyoung, no. You have to stay here. You have to live your life. You have to—”

“What life?” Wooyoung demanded. “ATEEZ is gone. The dorm is gone. The company doesn’t care if we exist. My life was you, San. It was us. And if you leave—if you go to New York and I’m here—then I don’t have anything. I don’t have a reason to—”

“Don’t,” San interrupted. His voice was sharp now. Terrified. “Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t you dare.”

Wooyoung closed his mouth.

They stared at each other.

“You have to find a reason,” San whispered. “You have to find something that makes you want to stay alive that isn’t me. Because I can’t—Woo, I can’t be that for you. I can barely keep myself alive. I can’t carry you too. And if you’re telling me that me leaving means you don’t have a reason to live, then I can’t leave. And if I can’t leave, I’m going to die here. Do you understand? If you make me choose between your life and mine—I’ll choose yours. And I’ll die. Is that what you want?”

“No,” Wooyoung choked out.

“Then let me go,” San begged. “Please. Let me go so I can try to get better. So maybe—maybe in a year, or two—when I’m actually better—we can try again. But right now? Right now we’re killing each other. And I can’t do it anymore.”

Wooyoung bent forward until his forehead was resting on the edge of San’s bed. His shoulders shook with silent sobs.

San looked up at the others. At Hongjoong, whose face was wet with tears. At Yunho, who looked like he’d been gutted. At Mingi, Yeosang, Jongho, Seonghwa—all of them standing there, watching their family fall apart.

“I’m sorry,” San said. His voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry I’m breaking us. I’m sorry I went to that bridge. I’m sorry I’m not strong enough to stay. I’m just—I’m so sorry.”

Hongjoong moved first. He walked to the bed and sat down on the edge. He reached out and took San’s restrained hand in both of his.

“You don’t have to apologize,” Hongjoong said. His voice was thick. “You’re sick. And you’re choosing to get help. That’s not something to apologise for.”

“But I’m leaving you,” San said. “I’m leaving all of you. And the group—”

“The group is seven people who love you,” Hongjoong interrupted. “That’s it. That’s all it’s ever been. And if you need to go to New York to get better, then we’ll be here when you get back. Okay? We’ll wait.”

“I don’t want you to wait,” San whispered.

“Too bad,” Yunho said. He’d moved to the other side of the bed. His hand landed on San’s shoulder. “You don’t get to decide that. We’re waiting whether you like it or not.”

One by one, the others moved closer. Jongho took San’s other hand. Mingi stood at the foot of the bed. Yeosang and Seonghwa flanked Wooyoung, who was still bent over, still crying.

They stayed like that for a long time. Just touching. Just breathing. Just being together one last time.

Finally, Wooyoung lifted his head.

His face was blotchy. Wet. Destroyed.

“Can I—” His voice cracked. “Can they take the restraints off? Just for a minute? I just want to—I need to—”

He couldn’t finish.

San looked at the door. At Haneul’s silhouette visible through the frosted glass.

“Haneul!” San called out.

The door opened immediately. Haneul stepped in, her eyes scanning the room.

“Can you—” San’s voice broke. “Can you take these off? Please? Just for a few minutes. I need to—I need to hold him. Just once. Please.”

Haneul looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded. She walked to the bed and unbuckled the restraints. The fabric fell away from San’s wrists. Red marks underneath. Pressure sores.

Wooyoung saw them and made a wounded sound.

San sat up fully. He swung his legs over the side of the bed. Haneul steadied him, her hand on his back.

“Five minutes,” she said quietly. “Then I have to put them back on.”

She stepped back. Gave them space.

San looked at Wooyoung. At the boy he’d loved for years. At the person he was choosing to leave.

“Come here,” San whispered.

Wooyoung moved. Not walking. Stumbling. He crashed into San, his arms wrapping around San’s neck, his face burying in San’s shoulder.

San’s arms came up. He held Wooyoung so tight it hurt. Tight enough that he could feel Wooyoung’s heart beating. Tight enough that he could smell him—soap and unwashed skin and grief.

San opened his mouth. Closed it. His throat was too tight.

He’d never said it. Not once. He’d shown it in a thousand ways—in seaweed soup and midnight comfort and the way he’d memorised every expression Wooyoung made. But he’d never said the words.

And now he was leaving. And if he didn’t say it now, Wooyoung would never know.

“Wooyoung,” San whispered. His voice was shaking. “I need to tell you something. I need you to hear this. Okay?”

Wooyoung pulled back just enough to look at him. San cupped Wooyoung’s face in his hands. His thumbs brushed away tears that wouldn’t stop falling.

“I love you,” San said.

The words hung in the air.

Wooyoung went completely still. His eyes went wide.

“I love you,” San repeated. His voice was breaking now. “And I never said it because I was scared and stupid. I was too busy running away from myself. But I’m leaving tomorrow and I can’t—I can’t go without you knowing. I love you, Wooyoung. And I’m so sorry it took me this long to say it. I’m so sorry the first time I’m saying it is also goodbye.”

Wooyoung’s face crumpled. “You can’t—” he choked out. “You can’t tell me you love me and then leave. San, you can’t—that’s not fair. That’s not—”

“I know,” San whispered. “I know it’s not fair. But I needed you to know. I needed you to know that every birthday and every late night and every time I held you when you were sad—that was love. All of it. It was always love.”

“Then stay,” Wooyoung begged. His hands fisted in San’s hospital gown. “If you love me, stay. We’ll figure it out. We’ll—”

“I can’t,” San said. His forehead pressed against Wooyoung’s. “I can’t. If I stay, I’ll die. And if I die, you’ll die too. And I love you too much to let that happen.”

“I love you too,” Wooyoung sobbed. “I love you and I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to let you go. I don’t know how to do this.”

“Neither do I,” San admitted. His voice was breaking. “But we have to try. We have to try to let each other go. Just for now. Just until I’m better.”

“What if you don’t come back?” Wooyoung pulled back just enough to look San in the eyes. “What if you go to New York and you—and you realise you’re better off without me? What if you forget—”

“I could never forget you,” San interrupted. His hands came up to cup Wooyoung’s face. “Wooyoung, you’re in every breath I take. Every thought I have. Every reason I’m still here. I could go to the other side of the universe and I’d still be yours. Okay? I’d still be yours.”

Wooyoung’s face crumpled. “Then why does this feel like you’re dying?”

San didn’t have an answer.

Because it did feel like dying.

Like his heart was being pulled out of his chest. Like every cell in his body was screaming to hold on. To not let go. To choose this. To choose him.

But he couldn’t.

“I have to go,” San whispered. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I have to go.”

“I know,” Wooyoung said. Then he leaned forward. Slowly. Giving San time to pull away.

San didn’t pull away.

Wooyoung’s lips touched San’s. Soft. Gentle. Not a kiss of passion. A kiss of goodbye. San kissed him back. His hands tightening in Wooyoung’s hair. Holding on for just a moment longer.

When they pulled apart, they were both crying.

“Time,” Haneul said gently from the door.

Wooyoung’s hands fell away. He took a step back.

San reached out. One last time. His fingers caught Wooyoung’s wrist.

“Live,” San said. “Promise me you’ll live. That you’ll eat. That you’ll find a reason to stay. Promise me, Wooyoung. Please.”

Wooyoung looked down at San’s hand on his wrist. At the red marks from the restraints. At the thin pink scars on his forearms.

“I promise,” Wooyoung whispered.

It was a lie.

They both knew it was a lie.

But San nodded anyway. He let go.

Haneul moved forward. She gently guided San back down onto the bed. She picked up the restraints.

“Do we have to?” San asked quietly.

“Yes,” Haneul said. “I’m sorry.”

She buckled them back on. One wrist. Then the other. San was trapped again.

Wooyoung stood there, watching. His hands hanging at his sides. His face a mask of devastation.

“I think—” Hongjoong’s voice cracked. “I think we should go. Give San some time to rest before—before tomorrow.”

No one moved.

“Guys,” Seonghwa said gently. “We have to go.”

Slowly, one by one, they moved toward the door. Each of them stopping to touch San one last time. A hand on his shoulder. A kiss on his forehead. A whispered “I love you.”

Wooyoung was the last one left.

He stood at the foot of the bed, staring at San. Memorising him. The shape of his face. The exact colour of his eyes. The way his hair fell across his forehead.

“Goodbye, Sannie,” Wooyoung whispered.

“Goodbye, Woo.”

Wooyoung turned. He walked to the door. He didn’t look back. Because if he looked back, he’d never leave.

The door closed behind him with a soft click.

And San was alone.

He lay back against the pillows. He stared at the ceiling. He didn’t cry. He was too empty to cry. Tomorrow he would get on a plane. Tomorrow he would fly across the world. Tomorrow he would start the long, brutal work of trying to piece himself back together.

But today? Today he had said goodbye to the only person who’d ever made him want to stay alive.

And it felt like dying.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ Wooyoung didn’t remember walking out of the building.

One moment he was in that hallway, staring at the closed door of Acute Care 7. The next he was outside, squinting in the too-bright November sunlight, his lungs pulling in air that tasted like car exhaust and dead leaves.

The others were somewhere behind him. He could hear their voices—Hongjoong saying something about the van, Seonghwa asking if anyone needed water. But the words were muffled, like they were speaking underwater.

Wooyoung kept walking.

He didn’t know where he was going. Just away. Away from that building. Away from the room where San was strapped to a bed. Away from the goodbye that felt like a grave closing.

The parking lot stretched out in front of him—rows of cars glinting in the sun, a few people walking to and from the entrance. Normal people. People whose lives weren’t ending.

Wooyoung’s vision blurred. Not from tears. He didn’t have any left. Just from exhaustion. From the way his body felt like it was collapsing in on itself, ribs pressing toward spine, bones grinding against each other with nothing in between.

He’d promised San he’d eat.

He’d lied.

Wooyoung stumbled. His foot caught on nothing—just the uneven pavement, just his own legs forgetting how to work. He put his hand out to catch himself against a car.

And collided with someone instead.

“Oh—I’m sorry, I—”

The voice was soft. Female. Concerned.

Wooyoung mumbled an apology, trying to step around her. But her hand caught his elbow. Gently. Not restraining. Just steadying.

“Hey,” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Wooyoung said automatically. His voice came out flat. Dead.

“Okay,” the woman said slowly. She didn’t let go. “But you just—you almost fell. Do you need to sit down? There’s a bench over there.”

“I’m fine,” Wooyoung repeated. He tried to pull his arm away, but the movement was weak. Pathetic.

The woman’s grip didn’t tighten, but she didn’t let go either. And then she went very still.

Wooyoung felt her gaze on him. Not the way most people looked—the quick glance, the polite smile, the immediate dismissal. This was different.

This was recognition.

“When was the last time you ate?” the woman asked. Her voice had changed. Sharper now. Direct.

Wooyoung’s eyes snapped to hers. She was maybe thirty. Dressed casually—jeans, a sweater, a jacket. Her face was kind but her eyes were hard. Knowing.

“I—” Wooyoung started. His mouth was too dry. “This morning.”

“Don’t lie to me,” she said. Not unkind. Just firm. “I know what I’m looking at. When was the last time you kept something down?”

Wooyoung stared at her. His heart was suddenly hammering.

“I don’t—” He tried to pull away again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” the woman said. She let go of his elbow, but she stepped closer, lowering her voice. “You’re shaking. Your lips have that bluish tint. The way you’re standing—like you’re trying to take up less space, like you’re folding in on yourself. And your wrist—” She nodded at where his sleeve had ridden up. “I can see your pulse from here. That’s not normal. That’s what happens when your body is eating itself.”

Wooyoung’s breath caught. “I’m fine,” he whispered. But the words had no conviction.

“No, you’re not,” the woman said. Her voice softened. “And I know because I’ve been where you are. Seven years ago. I was twenty-three and I weighed seventy-three pounds and I genuinely believed I was fine. That I was in control. That I could stop anytime I wanted.”

Wooyoung just stared at her.

“I’m guessing someone you love is in there,” the woman continued, nodding toward the clinic building. “And I’m guessing you’ve been so focused on them that you haven’t noticed you’re dying too.”

“I’m not dying,” Wooyoung said. But his voice was shaking now.

“You’re not eating,” the woman corrected. “How long? A month? Two?”

Wooyoung didn’t answer.

The woman’s expression shifted. Something flickered behind her eyes—not pity. Recognition. The kind that comes from shared experience.

“Listen to me,” she said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a card. “I don’t know you. I don’t know your story. But I know what an eating disorder looks like. And you—” She pressed the card into Wooyoung’s hand. “You need help. Professional help. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today.”

Wooyoung looked down at the card. It was for a clinic. Eating disorder treatment. Seoul address.

“I don’t have an eating disorder,” Wooyoung said. His voice was automatic. Defensive.

“Okay,” the woman said. She didn’t argue. “Then answer this: When you look at food, what do you see?”

Wooyoung opened his mouth. Closed it. Because when he looked at food, he saw San. He saw the empty chair across from him at the dorm table. He saw the meals he couldn’t eat because eating felt like moving forward, and moving forward felt like leaving San behind.

“That’s what I thought,” the woman said quietly. “Look, I’m not going to force you to do anything. I can’t. But I’m going to tell you what someone told me seven years ago, and it’s the only reason I’m still alive.”

She stepped closer. Her voice was gentle but unyielding.

“Grief doesn’t require a sacrifice,” she said. “Whoever you’re losing—or have already lost—they wouldn’t want this. They wouldn’t want you to disappear with them. And if you keep going the way you’re going?” She looked him directly in the eyes. “You won’t have six months. Maybe not even six weeks.”

Wooyoung’s hand tightened around the card. The edges dug into his palm.

“I can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t eat when he’s—when he’s in there and he’s—”

“Then you go back to that room,” the woman interrupted, “and you tell him what’s happening to you. You tell him you’re not eating. You tell him you’re disappearing. And you let him decide if that’s what he wants for you.”

Wooyoung’s face crumpled. “He’s leaving. Tomorrow.”

The woman’s expression softened. “Then you have a choice. You can disappear because he’s gone. Or you can fight to stay alive so that when he comes back you’re still here.”

“What if he doesn’t come back?” Wooyoung’s voice broke.

“Then you live anyway,” the woman said. “Not for him. For you. Because you deserve to be alive even if he’s not here to see it.”

Wooyoung stared at her. This stranger. This woman who had looked at him and seen the truth that everyone else had been too afraid to name.

“I don’t know how,” Wooyoung admitted. His voice was so small. “I don’t know how to do this without him.”

“You start with one meal,” the woman said. “One bite. You don’t have to keep it down. You don’t have to enjoy it. You just have to try. And then tomorrow, you try again. And the day after that. And eventually—maybe months from now, maybe years—you’ll realize you’re still here. And that will be enough.”

She squeezed his shoulder once. Gently.

“Call that number,” she said. “Today. Promise me.”

Wooyoung looked down at the card in his hand. The edges were still digging into his palm. He could feel the indent they were leaving. Physical proof that this moment was real.

“I promise,” Wooyoung whispered.

This time, he meant it.

The woman nodded. She gave him one last look—sad, knowing, hopeful—and then she walked away, disappearing into the parking lot.

Wooyoung stood there, alone, holding a card for a clinic he didn’t want to call and a promise he didn’t know how to keep.

Behind him, he heard Hongjoong calling his name.

Wooyoung looked down at the card one more time. Then he slipped it into his pocket.

He turned around. Hongjoong was standing a few feet away, concern written all over his face. Seonghwa was beside him. Yunho. Mingi. Yeosang. Jongho.

His family. What was left of it.

“Wooyoung?” Hongjoong said carefully. “You okay?”

Wooyoung opened his mouth. He was about to say I’m fine. The automatic response. The lie he’d been telling for weeks.

But then he felt the weight of the card in his pocket. The woman’s words echoing in his head.

Grief doesn’t require a sacrifice.

“No,” Wooyoung said. His voice was barely above a whisper. “No, I’m not okay. And I need help.”

Hongjoong’s eyes widened. Seonghwa stepped forward.

“Okay,” Hongjoong said. His voice was careful. Steady. “Okay. We can do that. What do you need?”

Wooyoung pulled the card out of his pocket. He held it out with a shaking hand.

“This,” he said. “I need to call this. Today. And I need—” His voice broke. “I need someone to make sure I do it. Because if you don’t, I won’t. And she said—the woman who gave me this—she said I might not have six months. Maybe not even six weeks.”

“I don’t know anymore. I just—I can’t keep doing this. I can’t—” He looked at all of them. At the faces of the people who’d stayed. Who hadn’t left even when everything fell apart. “San told me to find a reason to stay alive that isn’t him. And I don’t know if I can. But I have to try. Don’t I?”

“Yeah,” Yunho said. His voice was thick with tears. “Yeah, Woo. You do.”

Wooyoung nodded. He felt empty. Hollowed out. But somewhere, buried deep beneath the grief and the exhaustion and the desire to disappear, there was something else.

Not hope. Not yet.

But maybe the willingness to try.

Dr. Kang didn’t flinch. She just adjusted her glasses, the light reflecting off the lenses so he couldn’t see her eyes. “We need to finish the assessment first. You understand why you’re here, don’t you?”

San looked at the wall behind her. Someone had taped a generic landscape poster there—a green field, a blue sky. It looked fake. It looked like a lie.

“I didn’t do anything,” San mumbled.

“You were standing on the wrong side of the railing at Mapo Bridge,” she said. No judgment, just facts. “Your sister found you. The police brought you in.”

San flinched. The memory was a glitch in his head—stuttering, skipping frames. He remembered the height. He remembered thinking the water looked like oil. He remembered thinking it would be quiet down there.

“I was just looking,” he lied. It was a lazy lie. He didn’t have the energy to construct a better one.

“You were hypothermic and unresponsive,” Dr. Kang noted, glancing down at her clipboard. The sound of her pen scratching against the paper was excruciatingly loud in the quiet room. Scritch, scratch. Like a rat in the walls. “Do you remember climbing over?”

San picked at a loose thread on the blanket. “I don’t know.”

“Mr. Choi.”

“I don’t know,” he snapped, the sudden sharp tone startling even him. He clamped his mouth shut, his heart giving a single, hard thud against his ribs. “I was… tired. I just wanted to see.”

“To see what?”

“If it was easy,” he whispered.

The words hung in the air, heavy and poisonous.

Dr. Kang stopped writing. She leaned forward slightly, invading his space. “And was it?”

San finally looked at her. His eyes felt dry, burning in their sockets. He felt stripped open, flayed, like everyone could see the ugly, rotting machinery inside him that had stopped working weeks ago. He hated her for asking. He hated Haneul for finding him. He hated himself most of all for being sitting here, breathing, when he was so sure he was supposed to be done.

“No,” San said, his voice flat. “It was cold.”

“Are you glad you didn’t jump?”

San looked back at his hands. He flexed his fingers, watching the tendons shift under the skin. Am I?

The question felt like a trap. If he said no, they’d lock him up. If he said yes, he’d have to go back out there. Back to the dorm. Back to Wooyoung’s face—god, Wooyoung. The thought of Wooyoung made his stomach roll over, a wave of nausea so potent he had to swallow back bile.

“I’m tired,” San deflected. He pulled his legs up, curling in on himself, building a wall of knees and elbows. “Can I just sleep? I just need to sleep.”

“We need to establish safety, San. I can’t discharge you if I think you’re going to go right back to that bridge.”

“I won’t,” he said dully.

“How can you be sure?”

San let his head thud back against the wall. The fluorescent lights overhead buzzed like angry wasps. “Because I promised my sister,” he said. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was the only thing anchoring him to the room. Haneul’s face, wet with tears, her hands gripping his jacket so hard her nails had dug into his skin through the layers. You don't get to leave me.

Dr. Kang studied him for a long, agonising minute. She was looking for the cracks. She was looking for the “hard to break” idol persona to slip so she could see the boy underneath.

But San was good at this. He was good at endurance. He clamped his jaw shut, made his face a blank mask of exhaustion, and refused to give her anything else. He turned his emotions off, flipping the switch in the back of his mind that deadened the panic and the grief, leaving only a cold, grey static.

“I’m not going to do it,” San said, looking her dead in the eye. His gaze was glassy, impenetrable. “I just had a bad night. Let me go home.”

Dr. Kang sighed, a small, defeated sound. She capped her pen.

“I’m recommending a 72-hour hold for observation,” she said.

San’s head snapped up. Panic, cold and sharp, pierced through the numbness. “No.”

“Mr. Choi—”

“No,” he said, his voice rising, cracking. He swung his legs off the bed, stumbling as his feet hit the cold tile. He felt dizzy, the room tilting dangerously. “I can’t stay here. You don’t understand. I have… I just can’t be here.”

“You are in no state to leave.”

“I’m fine!” San shouted, the noise tearing out of his throat. He backed away from her, hitting the counter behind him. Instruments rattled in a metal tray. “I’m fine. I just got cold. I’m fine.”

He was shaking so hard his teeth chattered. He felt like a trapped animal, cornered and feral. He needed to get out. He needed to run. If he stayed here, in this white room with this woman who saw too much, he would shatter. And he didn't think there was enough glue in the world to put him back together.

“I want to see someone else,” San choked out, his breathing turning ragged. “Get… get Hongjoong. Or Haneul. Just… get me out of here.”

Dr. Kang didn’t argue with him. She didn’t try to physically restrain him when he stumbled away from the bed. She just looked at him with that maddeningly calm expression, turned on her heel, and walked out.

The door clicked shut.

San stood in the middle of the room, swaying. The tile floor bit into the soles of his bare feet. The silence rushed back in, louder than before, filling his ears with a high-pitched ringing.

Get out. Move. Go.

His hands were shaking so badly he couldn’t make a fist. He looked around for his clothes—his jeans, his jacket, anything—but they were gone. Replaced by the paper scrubs and a plastic bag of personal effects on the counter that looked like evidence.

He reached for the bag.

The door opened again.

San flinched, spinning around, ready to snarl at the doctor, ready to scream at Hongjoong, ready to fight his way out if he had to.

But it wasn’t the doctor.

Haneul stood in the doorway.

She looked wrecked. That was the first thing that hit San—a physical blow to the chest. She was still wearing her coat, but it was damp, dark patches of rain clinging to the shoulders. Her hair was a tangled mess, plastered to her cheek on one side. Her eyes were red-rimmed, swollen, and terrifyingly wide.

She didn’t look like his confident, sharp-tongued sister. She looked like a survivor of a natural disaster.

San’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. The anger died instantly, replaced by a suffocating wave of shame.

“Haneul,” he whispered.

She didn’t move into the room immediately. She stayed by the door, her hand gripping the handle so hard her knuckles were white. She was breathing fast, shallow, wet sounds that scraped against the quiet of the room.

“Dr. Kang says you’re trying to leave,” Haneul said. Her voice wasn’t steady. It was thin, like glass about to shatter.

San leaned back against the metal counter, his legs feeling like water. “I have to. You know I have to. I can’t just stay here…”

“Stop it.”

It wasn’t a shout. It was a plea.

Haneul let go of the door and took a step toward him. Then another. She moved like she was walking through deep water.

“Sannie,” she said, and her voice broke on the syllable. “You were on a bridge.”

San looked away. He looked at the floor, at the ugly beige tiles. “I wasn’t going to jump.”

“I saw you.”

The words were soft, but they hit him like bullets.

“I saw you let go of the railing,” she whispered.

San squeezed his eyes shut. The memory flashed—the weightlessness, the wind, the terrible, seductive pull of the drop.

Did I?

“I slipped,” he lied. It tasted like ash.

“You didn’t slip.” Haneul was in front of him now. He could smell the rain on her clothes, the cold scent of the city night, and underneath it, the familiar, warm smell of her shampoo. “You were saying goodbye.”

San tried to push past her. “I need to go home, Haneul. Please. Just get me out of here. If I stay… if the press finds out…”

She grabbed his arms.

Her grip was shocking—tight, desperate. Her fingers dug into his biceps through the thin paper gown. She shook him, just once, hard.

“Look at me!” she cried out.

San forced his eyes open.

Haneul was crying. Silent, fat tears that tracked through the grime on her face. Her chin was trembling.

“Do you have any idea?” she choked out. “Do you have any idea what it felt like to see you there? Do you know what I was thinking while I was running toward you?”

San couldn’t breathe. Her pain was radiating off her, hot and blistering, burning through his numbness.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “I’m sorry, Noona.”

“I don’t want your apology,” she sobbed, the anger finally leaking through. “I want you to stay alive! I want you to stop acting like… like you’re some product that can be thrown away when it’s broken!”

She released one of his arms to cup his face. Her hand was freezing cold. She forced his head up, making him look at her.

“You are my brother,” she said fiercely, staring into his dull, dilated eyes. “You are San. You are not KQ’s asset. You are not the Nation’s Performance Idol. You are my baby brother, and you almost killed yourself tonight.”

San crumbled.

The fight went out of him all at once. His knees buckled, and if Haneul hadn’t been holding him up, he would have hit the floor. He slumped forward, his forehead hitting her shoulder.

He didn't cry. He felt too hollowed out for tears. He just shook, a dry, rattling vibration that started in his chest and took over his whole body.

“I’m tired,” he whispered into her wet coat. “I’m just so tired, Haneul.”

“I know,” she soothed, her hand coming up to cradle the back of his head, her fingers threading through his hair. She held him tight, supporting his weight. “I know you are. That’s why you have to stay. Just for tonight. Just let them help you.”

“I can’t stay here,” he mumbled against her shoulder. “It’s too bright. It’s too loud.”

Haneul pulled back slightly, just enough to look at him. She used her thumbs to wipe the cold sweat from his temples.

“If I take you home,” she said, her voice dropping to a steely whisper, “you are not going to the dorms. You are coming to my apartment. And I am not letting you out of my sight. Not for a second. Not to pee, not to sleep, not to make a phone call. Do you understand?”

San nodded weakly. “Okay.”

“And you are going to talk to a doctor tomorrow. You are going to agree to outpatient treatment. Or so help me god, San, I will sign the papers to keep you here myself.”

He looked at her. He saw the terror behind the threat. He saw that she meant it—she would become his enemy to save his life.

“Okay,” he said again. The word was barely air.

Haneul let out a breath that sounded like a sob. She pulled him into a hug again, fierce and crushing. San let his arms hang limp at his sides for a moment before slowly, painfully, raising them to wrap around her waist. He buried his face in her neck, breathing in the scent of rain and fear.

“I’ve got you,” she whispered, rocking him slightly. “I’ve got you. I’m not letting go.”

Over her shoulder, through the open door, San saw movement in the hallway.

Dr. Kang was standing there. And behind her, looking pale and ghostly under the fluorescent lights, stood Wooyoung.

San recoiled.

It was a visceral, physical reaction, like touching a hot stove. He scrambled backward, his heels sliding uselessly against the slick tile, until his back hit the metal cabinets with a hollow clatter.

Wooyoung was standing in the doorway.

Seeing him felt like being skinned. It was a violent, immediate exposure that made every nerve ending in San’s body scream. He wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready to be seen like this—hollowed out, shivering in paper scrubs, with the bridge’s wind still phantom-echoing in his ears.

Wooyoung looked… devastated. He was wearing a hoodie that was too big for him, his hands hidden in the sleeves, his face stripped of all its usual colour. His eyes were wide, dark pits of terror that locked onto San and refused to let go.

San couldn’t breathe.

The shame was a physical weight, crushing his lungs. He had tried to end this. He had tried to remove himself from the equation so Wooyoung wouldn’t have to look at him like this—with that agonising mixture of love and horror.

“No,” San wheezed, shaking his head. He tried to pull his arm out of Haneul’s grip, but she wouldn’t let go. “No, he shouldn’t be here. Tell him to go.”

“San—” Haneul started, her voice tight.

“I left a letter!” San shouted.

The sound tore out of his throat, raw and desperate. He looked wildly between Haneul and the figure in the doorway.

“I left a letter,” San rambled, his voice pitching up, cracking. “I wrote it down. I signed it. I resigned. I’m not… I’m not in the group anymore. I’m not his problem anymore.”

“I quit,” San choked out, tears finally leaking from his squeezed-shut eyes. “I quit, so why is he here?”

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Then, a sound. The scuff of a sneaker on linoleum.

“You think that was a resignation?”

Wooyoung’s voice. It was soft, trembling, but it carried a terrifying weight.

San didn’t open his eyes. “I terminated my contract. I cited… personal reasons. It’s over.”

“You didn’t write a resignation, San.” Wooyoung’s voice was closer now. He had stepped into the room. “You wrote a goodbye.”

“It’s the same thing!” San screamed.

“It is not the same thing!” Wooyoung shouted back.

The raw anger in Wooyoung's voice made San flinch. He had never heard Wooyoung sound like that—not angry at him, but angry for him. Furious at the world.

“You don’t get to do that,” Wooyoung said, his voice breaking into a sob. “You don’t get to leave a piece of paper on a desk saying ‘I’m sorry’ and think that fixes anything. You don’t get to decide that I’m better off without you.”

San felt a hand on his knee. Not Haneul’s.

This touch was different. It was hesitant, trembling, but warm. It burned through the thin fabric of the scrubs.

San finally looked up.

Wooyoung was in front of him. He was crying, his face wet and red, his lips pressed together in a trembling line. He looked angry, he looked scared, but mostly, he looked like he was in physical pain.

“I know you are tired. But we can work through this San, together.”

San looked away, his jaw trembling. “I am breaking everything that I touch, there's nothing to fix anymore.”

“Then keep breaking me,” Wooyoung said.

The air left the room.

Haneul let out a small, stifled sound and stepped back, giving them space, though she stayed close enough to intervene.

Wooyoung grabbed San’s hand. He gripped it hard, lacing their fingers together, squeezing until San’s bones ground together. It wasn’t a gentle hold.

“Break me more, then,” Wooyoung demanded, staring into San’s eyes with a fierce, terrifying intensity. “If you’re poison, then poison me. If you’re a burden, then crush me. I don’t care. But don’t you dare try to leave me behind again. Don’t you dare tell me I’m ‘free’ when you’re dead.”

San stared at him, stunned. The cold numbness that had protected him for the last few hours began to crack. The heat of Wooyoung’s hand, the ferocity of his voice—it was melting the ice, and underneath, the pain was unbearable.

“I just…” San’s voice was a broken whisper. “I don’t know how to be here anymore. I don’t know how to do this.”

“I know,” Wooyoung wept, lifting San’s hand and pressing his forehead against their joined knuckles. “I know. We don’t have to do ‘this.’ We don’t have to be idols. We don’t have to be anything. Just… stay.”

San looked at the top of Wooyoung’s head, at the dark hair, at the way his shoulders shook. He looked at Haneul, who was leaning against the wall, face in her hands, silently crying.

The letter didn’t work. The bridge didn’t work. He was still here.

San didn’t have an answer.

He just slumped forward, his forehead resting against Wooyoung’s shoulder, surrendering to the gravity that had been trying to pull him down for hours. He breathed in the scent of Wooyoung’s hoodie—damp cotton and the faint, salty tang of dried tears—and felt the fight drain out of him completely.

He was trapped. He was alive. The escape hatch had been welded shut by Wooyoung’s grip on his hand.

For a long minute, the only sound in the room was the harsh hum of the ventilation and the wet, hitching drag of Wooyoung trying to steady his breathing.

Then, Haneul moved.

She wiped her face with her sleeve, a rough, aggressive motion, and stepped back into the center of the room. Her voice was thick, but steady.

“We have to go,” she said. “Now. Before they change shift. Before anyone notices who is in this room.”

Wooyoung nodded against San’s chest. He didn’t let go of San’s hand, but he shifted, pulling back just enough to look at San’s face. His thumbs brushed over San’s knuckles, back and forth, a repetitive, soothing rhythm.

“Sannie,” Wooyoung whispered. “We need to get you dressed.”

San looked down at the paper scrubs. They were ridiculous. A costume for a ghost.

“I can’t,” San croaked. His limbs felt like lead.

“I’ve got you,” Wooyoung said.

Wooyoung didn’t offer a hand; he just hooked his arms under San’s armpits and hauled him to the edge of the bed. San stumbled, his bare feet sliding on the tile, but Wooyoung was a solid wall against him, catching his weight instantly.

Haneul was already there with the bag. She pulled out his pants and the oversized hoodie he’d been wearing earlier. It was still slightly damp.

“Here,” she said, holding out the pants.

San stared at them. The coordination required to lift his leg seemed impossible.

Wooyoung took the pants from Haneul.

“Lean on me,” Wooyoung murmured. He crouched down.

It was humiliating. It was intimate. San gripped Wooyoung’s shoulders to stay upright while Wooyoung guided his feet through the pant legs, pulling them up with a gentleness that made San want to scream. He was being treated like glass, like something precious, when he felt like debris.

When Wooyoung stood up to pull the waistband into place, their faces were inches apart. Wooyoung’s eyes scanned him—checking for injuries, checking for breaks in the facade.

“Arms up,” Wooyoung instructed softly.

San obeyed like a doll. Wooyoung pulled the hoodie over San’s head. For a second, San was in the dark, enveloped in the smell of his own distress, before his face popped out the other side. Wooyoung smoothed the hair back from San’s forehead, his fingers lingering on the cold skin of San’s temple.

“Okay,” Wooyoung breathed. “Okay.”

Haneul shoved San’s feet into his sneakers. She didn’t bother tying the laces.

“Hood up,” she ordered. “Head down. Do not look at anyone.”

She grabbed the discharge papers from the counter and opened the door to check the hallway. Her decision was made. She needed to get him out. She needed to get him to safety before the reality of what he had done solidified into a medical record that would follow him forever.

“We’re leaving,” Haneul said spotting Dr. Kang waiting in the hallway, her voice shaking but resolute. She reached for the discharge papers on the counter. “Where do I sign?”

The room went cold.

“You don’t.”

The voice wasn’t the soft, professional tone Dr. Kang had used earlier. It was steel.

Dr. Kang stepped fully into the room. She wasn’t looking at Haneul. She was looking at San. Behind her, two nurses had appeared in the hallway, standing silent and impassive.

Haneul froze. “Excuse me?”

“I heard him,” Dr. Kang said calmly. She tapped her clipboard with her pen. “He just admitted to writing a suicide note. He admitted that the incident on the bridge was a premeditated attempt, not an accident. And he is currently expressing continued instability.”

San’s head snapped up. His eyes were wide, the pupils blown so large the irises were barely visible.

“No,” San whispered. He scrambled to his feet, pulling Wooyoung up with him. The sudden movement made him sway. “No. I didn’t. I was just talking. I’m fine.”

“You are not fine, Mr. Choi,” Dr. Kang said. She didn’t move, effectively blocking the only exit. “You are a danger to yourself. I am placing you on a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold.”

The air was sucked out of the room.

“You can’t do that,” Haneul snapped, stepping between the doctor and her brother. Her posture shifted, becoming predatory. “I am his guardian. I am signing him out against medical advice. That is my legal right.”

“Not when there is immediate threat to life,” Dr. Kang countered, her voice rising just enough to drown out Haneul’s protest. “If you try to remove him from this hospital, Ms. Choi, I will call the police. And given that he was brought in by emergency services from a suicide hotline site, they will side with me.”

Police.

The word hit San like a physical blow.

He backed away, retreating until his legs hit the exam bed. His breath started coming in short, sharp gasps that sounded like tearing paper.

They’re going to lock me up. They’re going to lock me up and everyone will know.

“Haneul,” San choked out. “Haneul, please.”

Haneul turned to him, panic flaring in her eyes for the first time. She looked back at the doctor, desperation bleeding into her anger.

“He can’t stay here,” she pleaded, her voice dropping. “You don’t understand. He’s an idol. If the press finds out he’s on a psych hold… it will destroy him. It will kill his career.”

Dr. Kang’s expression softened, but her resolve didn’t crack. “His career is not my patient. He is. And if I let him walk out that door tonight, in this state, I don’t believe he will survive the week.”

“I will watch him!” Haneul cried. “I won’t let him out of my sight!”

“You are not a medical professional. He needs stabilisation. He needs medication. He needs to be in a secure environment where he cannot hurt himself.” Dr. Kang signaled to the nurses in the hall. They took a step forward.

San flinched violently.

“Don’t touch me!” he screamed.

The sound was raw, feral. San grabbed a metal tray from the counter and threw it. It hit the wall with a deafening crash, instruments scattering across the tile floor.

“San!” Wooyoung yelled, grabbing San’s arm, trying to restrain him. “San, stop! Look at me!”

“Let me go!” San fought him, thrashing blindly. He wasn’t seeing Wooyoung anymore. He was seeing a cage. “I have to go! I have to go!”

“Sedative,” Dr. Kang ordered, her voice cutting through the chaos.

The nurses moved in.

“No!” Haneul screamed, throwing herself in their path. “Don’t you touch him!”

One of the nurses gently but firmly moved Haneul aside. The other moved toward San.

San backed into the corner, sliding down the wall, curling into a ball. He covered his head with his arms. “Please,” he sobbed, the fight draining out of him as quickly as it had come, replaced by abject terror. “Please, I want to go home. I promise I won’t do it again. I promise.”

It was the most pathetic, heartbreaking sound Wooyoung had ever heard.

Wooyoung didn’t let the nurses get to him first. He wrapped his body around San’s curling form, shielding him.

“Don’t touch him!” Wooyoung snarled at the nurse, his eyes wild and wet. “Back off! I’ve got him! I’ve got him!”

He turned his face into San’s neck, hugging him so tight it must have hurt.

“San” Wooyoung whispered urgently into his ear, his hands rubbing frantic circles on San’s back. “Sannie, listen to me. Calm down. You have to calm down. If you fight them, they’ll tie you down. Please, just breathe.”

San was hyperventilating, a high, thin keen escaping his throat. “Don’t let them take me, Youngie. Don’t let them.”

“I’m here,” Wooyoung sobbed. He looked up at Dr. Kang, his expression pleading. “Please. Give him a minute. Just give him a minute. Don’t sedate him. Please.”

Dr. Kang held up a hand, stopping the nurse with the syringe. She looked at the two of them on the floor—the Nation’s idols, reduced to a trembling pile of limbs and terror.

“He stays,” Dr. Kang said, her voice quiet but final. “He stays for 72 hours. If he calms down, no restraints, no sedation. But he does not leave this floor.”

Wooyoung nodded frantically. “Okay. Okay. He stays. Just… give us a second.”

He turned back to San, cupping his face, forcing San to look at him. San’s eyes were unfocused, swimming in tears.

“San,” Wooyoung whispered, thumbing away the tears. “You’re staying. You have to stay.”

San shook his head weakly.

“I’m staying too,” Wooyoung lied. He didn’t know if they’d let him. He didn’t care. He would chain himself to the bed if he had to. “I’m not leaving you here alone. I promise.”

San looked at him, his lip trembling. “You promise?”

“I swear on my life,” Wooyoung choked out. “I’m not going anywhere.”

San’s body went limp. He collapsed against Wooyoung, weeping silently, a defeated, broken thing.

Haneul stood by the door, her hand covering her mouth, watching her brother shatter. She had lost. The system had him now. And she didn’t know if that saved him or condemned him.

The nurses retreated, but they didn’t leave. They stood at the end of the hall, white shapes in the periphery, waiting for a reason to come back.

San didn’t see them anymore. The world had narrowed down to the two square feet of linoleum he was curled up on, and the crushing, terrifying weight of Wooyoung’s arms around him.

“I’m here,” Wooyoung kept whispering. It was a mantra. A prayer. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”

San’s cheek was pressed against the rough fabric of Wooyoung’s hoodie. It was wet with tears—San’s, Wooyoung’s, he couldn’t tell the difference anymore. He could feel Wooyoung’s heart hammering against his own ribs, a frantic, bird-like rhythm that hurt to feel.

It took a long time for the trembling to stop.

It didn't stop because San felt safe. It stopped because his body simply ran out of fuel. The adrenaline that had carried him from the bridge to the hospital finally burned out, leaving him heavy and cold, like a stone at the bottom of a river.

“San,” Dr. Kang’s voice drifted in from a great distance. “If you can stand, we need to move you to your room. The floor is cold.”

San squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to move. If he moved, it became real. If he stood up, he was admitting he was a patient.

“Come on,” Wooyoung murmured, shifting his grip. “I’ve got you. Up we go.”

It was a struggle. San was dead weight, his legs rubbery and useless. Wooyoung took the brunt of it, grunting with effort as he hauled San upright. Haneul stepped in to take San’s other side, but San flinched away from her—a small, instinctive recoil that made Haneul’s face crumble.

She didn’t force it. She let Wooyoung do it.

They walked him down the hall. Not to the exit. Deeper in.

The room they brought him to was different. It was stripped bare. No cords. No sharp edges. The furniture was heavy and bolted to the floor. The window was made of something that wasn’t quite glass—thick, unbreakable, and locked.

It was a cage. A sterile, beige cage.

“I need to process the paperwork with your sister,” Dr. Kang said to San, though she was looking at Wooyoung. “Mr. Jung, you may stay for now. But if his heart rate elevates, or if you become a disruption, you will be removed by security. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Wooyoung said. His voice was hoarse.

The door clicked shut.

Silence rushed in, heavy and suffocating.

Wooyoung guided San to the bed. It was low to the ground. San sat on the edge, staring at his hands. They were still stained with the grime from the bridge railing.

Wooyoung didn’t sit. He hovered, vibrating with nervous energy. He pulled the blanket back. He fluffed the thin pillow. He poured water into a paper cup.

“Here,” Wooyoung said, holding out the cup. “Drink something.”

San stared at the water. The surface trembled because Wooyoung’s hand was shaking.

San looked up. Under the harsh fluorescent lights, Wooyoung looked gruesome. His skin was grey, his lips chapped and bitten raw. There were dark, purple bruises under his eyes that hadn’t been there a week ago. He looked thin—frail, even.

And he was shaking. A fine, constant tremor that ran through his whole body.

He looks like he’s dying, San thought. The realisation hit him with the force of a physical blow. I’m killing him.

San didn’t take the water.

“Why are you here?” San asked. His voice was a wreck—scratchy and flat.

Wooyoung blinked, lowering the cup. “What do you mean? I told you. I promised.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” San said. “You should be… away. Anywhere but here.”

“Don’t start,” Wooyoung said, a flash of panic entering his eyes. He set the cup down on the bedside table with a little too much force. He sat down on the chair next to the bed, leaning forward, grabbing San’s hands again. “We are in this together. Remember? Amicus ad aras. To the end.”

San looked at their joined hands. Wooyoung’s grip was bruising. Desperate.

“This isn’t ‘the end,’ Wooyoung,” San whispered. “This is just… broken.”

“We can fix it,” Wooyoung insisted. He sounded manic. “You’ll do the treatment. You’ll rest. We’ll take a break. The company… fuck the company. We’ll figure it out.”

“Wooyoung.”

“I’ll cook for you,” Wooyoung rambled, his eyes wide and wet. “I’ll make that stew you like. We can watch movies. We don’t have to talk. I’ll just… I’ll be there. I can fix this.”

“Look at you,” San said softy.

Wooyoung froze. “What?”

“Look at your hands,” San said. He lifted Wooyoung’s hand, holding it up in the light. It was trembling violently. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m just cold,” Wooyoung lied.

“You’re terrified,” San corrected him. He felt a strange, cold clarity washing over him. The panic was gone, replaced by a terrible, hollow resolve. “You’re terrified every time you look at me. You’re afraid I’m going to disappear.”

“Because you tried to!” Wooyoung’s voice cracked, high and shrill. Tears spilled over his lashes again. “Because you were on a bridge, San! So yeah! Yeah, I’m terrified! Is that allowed?”

“It hurts,” San whispered.

“What hurts?”

“Looking at you,” San said.

The words landed between them like stones.

Wooyoung recoiled as if he’d been slapped. His mouth fell open, a silent oh.

“I look at you,” San continued, his voice void of emotion, “and I see how much I hurt you. I see how much I broke you. And it makes me want to die more.”

Wooyoung shook his head, tears flying. “Don’t say that. San, please. Don’t.”

“I can’t get better if you’re here,” San said. It was the cruelest thing he had ever said, and he meant every word. “I can’t breathe when you’re looking at me like I’m a bomb about to go off. You’re suffocating me.”

It was a lie. Wooyoung wasn’t suffocating him. Wooyoung was the only air he had left. But San knew that if he kept breathing Wooyoung’s air, Wooyoung would suffocate too.

Wooyoung stood up. He knocked the chair over. It clattered loudly against the floor.

“You don’t mean that,” Wooyoung gasped. He was hyperventilating now. “You’re in shock. You’re pushed. You don’t mean it.”

“Go home, Wooyoung,” San said. He laid back on the bed and turned on his side, facing the wall. Facing the beige paint. “I don’t want you here.”

“San!”

“Nurse!” San shouted. It took every ounce of strength he had left. “Nurse!”

The door opened almost instantly. Dr. Kang was there, looking between San’s curled form and Wooyoung’s devastated stance.

“He’s upsetting me,” San said to the wall, his eyes squeezed shut, hot tears leaking out onto the pillow. “Please make him leave.”

“San, no!” Wooyoung lunged for the bed, but the nurse caught him.

“Mr. Jung,” Dr. Kang said sharply. “You need to leave. Now.”

“I promised!” Wooyoung screamed as the nurse pulled him back toward the door. He was fighting, thrashing, completely undone. “I promised I wouldn’t leave him! San! Look at me! San!”

San didn’t turn around. He bit his own lip until he tasted copper, forcing himself to stay still, to stay cold.

“Get him out,” San whispered.

The door dragged Wooyoung out. His screams were cut off by the heavy click of the lock.

Then, there was only the hum of the air conditioner.

San pulled the thin blanket over his head. He curled into the smallest ball he could manage. And only then, in the dark, did he let himself shatter.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ The hallway was too bright.

That was the first thing Wooyoung’s brain registered as the heavy door clicked shut behind him, sealing San inside the silence. The hallway was an assault of aggressive, sterile white. The floor shone like ice, the walls were the colour of old bone, and the fluorescent tubes overhead hummed with a headache-inducing frequency that seemed to vibrate directly against his skull.

Wooyoung didn’t walk away. He couldn’t.

He made it exactly three steps before his legs simply resigned. He drifted sideways, his shoulder hitting the wall with a dull thud, and then he slid down. The plaster was cool against his back, snagging slightly on the fabric of his hoodie as he collapsed until he was crouching on the linoleum, knees pulled to his chest, hands clawing at his own hair.

“I can’t breathe when you’re looking at me.”

The words were echoing in the empty corridor, bouncing off the tile, louder than the air conditioning.

“You’re suffocating me.”

Wooyoung gasped, a wet, tearing sound. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets until sparks exploded in his vision, trying to push the memory of San’s dead, flat eyes out of his head. But the image was burned there. San, looking at him with nothing. San, looking at him like he was a disease.

He heard a door being opened.

Wooyoung flinched, curling tighter into himself, expecting security. Expecting to be thrown out.

“Wooyoung.”

It wasn’t security. It was Haneul.

Her voice was different now. The steely, protective rage she’d wielded against the doctor was gone, replaced by a raw, exhausted rasp.

Wooyoung didn’t look up. He couldn’t bear to see the confirmation on her face. If Haneul looked at him with pity, if she agreed with San—if she told him that he was making it worse—he would die. He would just stop breathing right here on the floor.

He heard the rustle of her coat, the scuff of her boots. Then, she was sliding down the wall next to him. She didn’t touch him. She just sat there, shoulder to shoulder, her presence a solid, warm weight in the freezing corridor.

“He didn’t mean it,” she said.

Wooyoung let out a choked, hysterical laugh that sounded more like a sob. “He looked pretty convincing, Noona. He looked… he looked like he hated me.”

“He hates himself,” Haneul corrected sharply. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, fumbling with them before remembering where she was and shoving them back in with a curse. She rested her head back against the wall, staring up at the lights. “He hates himself, and you’re the only thing he loves, so he’s trying to cut you off to save the rest of the limb. It’s surgical. It’s stupid, but it’s surgical.”

Wooyoung lowered his hands slowly. His face felt tight, the skin stretched over his bones, sticky with tears. He turned his head to look at her.

Haneul looked old. In the unforgiving hallway light, the lines of strain around her mouth and eyes were deep trenches. She wasn’t the invincible older sister right now; she was just a terrified woman who had lost a fight with a doctor.

“He said I’m suffocating him,” Wooyoung whispered. The admission tasted like blood.

Haneul turned to him. Her eyes were red-rimmed, furious, and fiercely kind.

“Jung Wooyoung,” she said, her voice hard. “Look at yourself.”

Wooyoung blinked. “What?”

“Look at yourself,” she repeated. She reached out and grabbed his hand—the one that had been shaking violently in San’s room. She held it up between them. It was still trembling, a tremor so deep it looked like his bones were vibrating. “You’re grey. You’ve lost like fifteen kilograms since I last saw you. You’re shaking like a leaf, and your lips are blue.”

She dropped his hand, not unkindly, but with a point to prove.

“San didn’t send you away because you’re suffocating him,” she said. “He sent you away because he thinks he’s killing you. And looking at you right now? He might be right.”

The words hit Wooyoung like a physical slap.

He stared at his hand. He stared at the bruise on his wrist where he’d banged it against the doorframe days ago and hadn’t noticed. He thought about the food he hadn’t eaten, the sleep he hadn’t slept.

“I can’t leave him,” Wooyoung said, his voice cracking. “I promised. I swore on my life.”

“You can’t help him if you pass out in the hallway,” Haneul countered. She shifted, turning her body toward him, her coat rustling. “Dr. Kang is right about one thing. He’s safe in there. He’s in a box. He hates the box, but he can’t hurt himself in the box. The nurses are watching him on a monitor right now.”

“It’s a cage,” Wooyoung choked out.

“It’s a life raft,” Haneul said firmly, though her chin wobbled. “It’s a shitty, miserable life raft, but it’s keeping him above water for tonight.”

She reached out and pulled Wooyoung’s hood up, tugging it forward to hide his face from the passing nurses station down the hall. Her fingers brushed his cheek—her touch was cold, but gentle.

“You’re not going home?” She asked him.

Wooyoung shook his head. “No.”

“Okay.” Haneul sighed, a long, rattling exhalation. “Then we wait.”

“Here?”

“Here. The waiting room. The parking lot. I don’t care.” She rubbed her temples. “But you need to eat something. And you need to stop shaking. If San wakes up tomorrow and you’re in a hospital bed next to him because your heart gave out from stress, he will never forgive himself. Do you understand that?”

Wooyoung swallowed. The lump in his throat was the size of a fist.

“I’m scared, Noona,” he whispered. The confession was small, childish. “I’m scared that if I stop looking at him, he’ll vanish. Like... if I take my eyes off the door, he’ll find a way to leave.”

Haneul’s expression crumbled.

She moved then, abandoning her tough posture. She wrapped an arm around Wooyoung’s shoulders and hauled him sideways until his head was resting on her shoulder. She smelled like rain and menthol cigarettes and San—some faint trace of San’s cologne that had rubbed off on her coat when she hugged him.

“I know,” she whispered into his hair. She held him tight, rocking him slightly, the way she used to rock San when he was little and afraid of thunder. “I know, Wooyoung. I’m scared too.”

They sat there for a long time.

Down the hall, a phone rang. A cart rattled by, wheels squeaking on the linoleum. The mundane sounds of the hospital continued, indifferent to the crater that had just opened up in Wooyoung’s life.

“He lied,” Wooyoung mumbled against her coat, the realisation finally sinking in, fighting through the panic. “He said he didn’t want me there.”

“He’s a terrible liar,” Haneul agreed.

“He is,” Wooyoung sniffed. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, not caring how gross it was. “He’s the worst liar.”

“He loves you so much it makes him stupid,” Haneul said. Her voice was thick. “He thinks he’s poison. He thinks... if he pushes us away, we’ll be safe from the blast radius.”

She tightened her grip on his shoulder.

“He doesn’t get to decide that,” she said fiercely. “He doesn’t get to decide when we leave. We’re not employees. We’re not fans. We’re family. And family stays even when you’re ugly. Even when you’re mean.”

Wooyoung closed his eyes. He felt the hard tile against his hip, the ache in his legs, the exhaustion dragging at his eyelids like lead weights. But he also felt Haneul’s arm, solid and grounding.

“We’re not leaving,” Wooyoung promised. He wasn’t talking to Haneul. He was talking to the door across the hall. To the boy curled up in the dark on the other side.

I’m not leaving.

“No,” Haneul said. She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes, tears leaking out from under her lashes to track silently down her cheeks. “We’re not going anywhere.”

The silence stretched, thin and brittle, measured only by the rhythmic, mechanical thrum of the vending machine down the hall.‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ Haneul had left for five minutes, returning with two paper cups of coffee that smelled like burnt beans and lukewarm water. She pressed one into Wooyoung’s hand. He didn’t drink it. He stared into the black liquid, watching the reflection of the overhead lights tremble on the surface.

“Hongjoong was right,” Wooyoung whispered.

The words were so quiet they almost didn’t survive the air conditioning vents.

Haneul paused, her own cup halfway to her mouth. She lowered it slowly, turning to look at him with furrowed brows. She looked exhausted, her eyeliner smudged into dark bruises under her eyes.

“About what?” she asked. Her voice was guarded, wary of any more bad news.

“About me,” Wooyoung said. He lifted his head, resting it back against the hard plaster of the wall. He stared at the ceiling tiles, counting the little pockmarks so he wouldn’t have to look at the door across the hall. “I fell in love with him, Noona.”

He said it to the ceiling. He said it like he was pleading guilty to a crime.

Haneul went very still, her eyes softening with a sad, weary kind of knowing. “I know,” she murmured.

“He knows too,” Wooyoung said, his voice trembling. “But he wouldn’t… he couldn’t accept it. He looked at me like I was diagnosing him with a disease. He’d kiss me—he’d hold me like he was drowning—and then the he’d look at me with this terrified, sick guilt. Like we’d done something criminal.”

Wooyoung squeezed his eyes shut, the memory of San’s internalised shame burning behind his lids.

“I got tired of him hating himself for wanting me,” he whispered, tears leaking out of the corners of his closed eyes.

He opened his eyes and turned to Haneul. His gaze was wrecked, imploring her to understand the cruelty of what he’d done.

“I fell in love with him,” Wooyoung repeated, the words tasting like ash. “And then I punished him for it.”

Haneul frowned, the confusion finally creasing her forehead. “What do you mean you punished him?”

Wooyoung had always known how to punish people. Not with fists. With absence. With coldness. With precision. He could turn his affection into a weapon so quietly no one noticed until they bled.

He’d done it to San.

He’d fallen in love, and then he’d made love feel like a courtroom.

Prove it.

Choose me.

Say it right.

Don’t flinch.

Don’t hide.

Don’t make me beg.

Every time San failed, Wooyoung had punished him for it.

And somehow—somewhere between the loving and the screaming and the hospital and the ash on his nightstand—Wooyoung had started punishing himself too.

Not eating wasn’t an accident. Not really.

It was a slow, private way of saying look what you made me become to a person who wasn’t listening. A way of making his body match his heartbreak. A way of making the inside visible.

He’d called it stress. Schedule. Comeback. Discipline.

He’d called it anything except what it was.

Self-harm without the drama of a blade. Self-harm you could excuse with “idols are busy” and “I forgot” and “I’ll eat later.”

He didn’t even remember when it started, and that terrified him most.

Because it meant it had become normal.

He swallowed again and felt the same hollow ache in his stomach. Hunger, but muted. The body’s signals blunted by repetition.

Wooyoung laughed once—thin, wrong—and pressed his knuckles to his mouth.

“I did this,” Wooyoung rasped. “I confirmed every bad thought he had about himself. He thinks he's unlovable because the one person who was supposed to love him unconditionally decided he wasn’t worth looking at anymore.”

Haneul shifted, turning her body fully toward him. She tucked one leg under herself on the cold floor. “Wooyoung, you didn’t do this. The depression, the pressure… that’s not on you.”

“Isn't it?”

Haneul reached out. She took the coffee cup from his shaking hand and set it on the floor. Then she took both of his hands in hers. Her grip was tight, bordering on painful.

“You were scared,” she said firmly. “You’re twenty-something years old and you’re in an industry that tells you love is a liability. You were scared.”

“That’s not an excuse,” Wooyoung argued, trying to pull his hands away, but she wouldn’t let go.

“I stopped seeing him,” Wooyoung continued. “I stopped looking at him. I put up this wall. I thought… I thought if I took my love away, if I stopped being ‘easy,’ it would force him to wake up. I thought it would make him realise he couldn’t live without it.”

He took a ragged breath, his chest heaving.

“But I forgot who San is.”

Haneul’s face twisted. She looked at the closed door of room 304, then back to Wooyoung.

“He didn’t think you were waiting for him to wake up,” she whispered. It wasn’t an accusation; it was a realization.

“No,” Wooyoung shook his head violently. “He thought I finally saw him clearly. He thought I finally realised how ‘disgusting’ he was—the way he thinks he is—and left.”

Wooyoung dropped his head into his hands, “He told me just now… ‘I can’t breathe when you’re looking at me.’” Wooyoung sobbed, his voice muffled by his palms. “I starved him, Noona. He was fighting a war in his own head, hating every part of himself that wanted a man, and instead of helping him, I confirmed his worst fears. I proved that if he let himself want me, he’d lose me.”

He looked up, his face wet and splotchy, his eyes wild with self-loathing.

“I did this,” Wooyoung rasped. “I pushed him until he felt like the only way to be ‘clean’ again was to disappear.”

“But you are the only one who can fix it,” she said, her voice dropping to a fierce whisper. “Because if you leave now? If you walk away because you feel guilty? Then you let him win. You let that voice in his head—the one that tells him he’s wrong, that he’s broken, that he’s unlovable—you let that voice win.”

Wooyoung stared at her, his breath hitching.

“You said you punished him for his fear,” Haneul said. “So stop punishing him. And stop punishing yourself. If you love him, Wooyoung… then you have to go back in there—maybe not now, maybe tomorrow—and you have to prove that voice wrong. You have to look at him until he believes that loving you isn’t a mistake.”

Wooyoung looked at the door.

It looked like a vault. A heavy, impenetrable barrier between the world and the boy who thought he was debris.

“I don’t know if he'll let me,” Wooyoung whispered. “He looked at me with dead eyes. He’s built the wall so high.”

“Then climb it,” Haneul said, releasing his hands to rub her own face, smearing a tear that had escaped. “San is stubborn, but he’s weak for you. He always has been. That’s why he’s in there. Because he couldn't handle wanting you and thinking he couldn't have you.”

She picked up her coffee again, taking a grim sip.

“So we wait,” she said. “We sit on this cold floor and we wait for the drugs to wear off or for the sun to come up. And then you try again. And you don’t stop looking at him this time.”

Wooyoung pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his shins. He rested his chin on his knees, his eyes fixed on the sliver of light beneath the door of Room 304.

The hum of the vending machine seemed to grow louder, filling the silence where Wooyoung’s confessions hung suspended.

Haneul didn’t pull her hands away. She didn’t scold him for the cruelty he had just admitted to. Instead, she leaned back slightly, her gaze traveling over his face—taking in the hollowed cheeks, the dark circles that looked like bruises, the way his body seemed to vibrate with a tension that never shut off.

“Wooyoungie,” she said. Her voice was incredibly soft, barely louder than the hum of the overhead lights.

Wooyoung didn’t look at her. He was still staring at the gap beneath the door, as if waiting for a verdict.

“You need help, too,” she said.

Wooyoung flinched. The reaction was small, a sharp twitch of his shoulder, as if she’d poked a fresh wound.

“I’m not the one in the hospital bed now,” he rasped, his voice brittle. “I’m not the one who—” He cut himself off, biting his lip hard enough to turn it white. “I’m fine. I’m just… I’m just the one who broke him. I don’t get to be the victim here.”

“Stop it,” Haneul said. It wasn’t a command; it was a plea.

She shifted, reaching out to tilt his chin until he was forced to look at her. His eyes were glassy, swimming with exhaustion and a frantic, defensive kind of guilt.

“Look at me,” she said. “You’re not fine. You haven’t been fine for months.”

Wooyoung tried to jerk his head away, but she held firm.

“You fell in love with a boy who was at war with himself,” Haneul said, her thumb brushing the sharp line of his jaw. “San was… he was sick with fear. He was delusional with it, trying to convince himself that what you had wasn’t real so he wouldn’t have to face what it meant. And you?”

She sighed, a sound that rattled in her chest.

“You were trying to love someone who wouldn’t let you,” she whispered. “And when that hurt too much, you tried to cut it out. You tried to numb yourself. That’s not being a villain, Wooyoung. That’s being a casualty.”

“It feels like I was killing him,” Wooyoung whispered. “Every time I ignored him. Every time I walked away. It felt like… like I was holding a knife.”

“And where did you think that knife was pointing?” Haneul asked gently. “You think you walked away unscathed? You think punishing him didn’t punish you?”

She let go of his face, gesturing vaguely at his entire trembling frame.

“You’re starving, Wooyoung. You’re not sleeping. You’re carrying so much guilt I’m surprised you can stand up.” She paused, her eyes searching his. “You can’t pull him out of that room if you’re drowning right next to him. You can’t be his anchor if you have no ground to stand on.”

Wooyoung squeezed his eyes shut. A single, hot tear escaped, tracking through the grime on his cheek.

“I don’t know how to stop,” he admitted. The words were small, terrified. “If I stop worrying… if I stop punishing myself… then what happens? I deserve this.”

“No,” Haneul said firmly. “You don’t. And San doesn’t want you to bleed for him. He wants you to see him. And you can’t see anything clearly when you’re in this much pain.”

She reached into her bag and pulled out a tissue. She pressed it into his hand.

“We’re going to get San help,” she said, her voice steeling over with that protective resolve again. “Real help. Dr. Kang, or someone better. But you…” She poked him in the chest, right over his heart. “You need to talk to someone, too. Not just Hongjoong. Not just me. Someone who can help you forgive yourself for trying to survive.”

Wooyoung crumpled the tissue in his fist. He felt exposed, raw, stripped of the armour of anger he’d been wearing for weeks.

“I’m scared,” he whispered.

“I know,” she said, pulling him into her side again, tucking his head under her chin. “I know. But you don’t have to do it alone anymore. The secret is out. The war is over. Now we just… we clean up the mess.”

Wooyoung closed his eyes, leaning his full weight against her. For the first time in months, he allowed himself to admit that he was tired.

“Okay,” he breathed, the word dissolving into the fabric of her coat. “Okay.”

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ The door lock played its cheerful little digital melody mocking the heavy silence of the hallway.

Hongjoong stepped inside. The sensor light flickered on, bathing the foyer in a harsh, sickly yellow glow. He didn’t take his shoes off immediately. He just stood there, his back pressed against the door, listening.

The dorm was quiet. It wasn’t the peaceful quiet of sleep; it was the suffocating, heavy silence of a house holding its breath. The air smelled of stale ramyun soup and the lily scented cleaner Seonghwa was obsessed with, but underneath that, there was the metallic scent of his own stress-sweat clinging to his shirt.

Hongjoong squeezed his eyes shut. He felt like a general who had just been told his army was already dead, but he still had to go back to camp and tell them to shine their boots.

He pushed off the door. His body felt brittle, like dried clay. If someone touched him, he would turn to dust.

He walked past Jongho’s room and Wooyoung’s empty one. He moved toward the kitchen, needing water, needing to wash the taste of the hospital out of his mouth.

The kitchen light was already on.

Seonghwa was sitting at the island. He was staring into a mug of tea that had stopped steaming a long time ago.

When Hongjoong entered, Seonghwa didn’t jump. He just lifted his head slowly.

The look on his face stopped Hongjoong dead in his tracks.

It wasn’t the look of a bandmate waiting for a leader. It was the look of a man waiting for the person he loved to come home from war. It was open, raw, and terrified.

“You’re back,” Seonghwa whispered. His voice was wrecked—rough from the cold air and the unshed tears Hongjoong could see swimming in his waterline.

“Yeah,” Hongjoong said. He sounded like a stranger to himself. “After you dropped off Wooyoung to the hospital Haneul told me to go back home and sleep it off.”

He walked over to the fridge, avoiding Seonghwa’s eyes. He couldn’t look at him. Not now. Not after Haneul had flayed him open with her accusations.

You turn feelings into tasks.

If he looked at Seonghwa, he wouldn’t see a task. He would see the confession that was still hanging in the air between them like a guillotine blade.

I love you.

I’ve loved you for years.

Hongjoong grabbed a water bottle. His hands were shaking so hard the water sloshed violently inside the plastic.

Seonghwa didn’t move from the island. His fingers were wrapped around his mug, knuckles pale. He hadn’t drunk it. He hadn’t looked down. He’d been watching Hongjoong like he was waiting for him to stop pretending there was an order to things.

“Did you… see him?” Seonghwa asked quietly.

Hongjoong’s jaw tightened. He stared at the water bottle like it might give him permission to lie.

“At the bridge,” Seonghwa clarified, as if Hongjoong could misunderstand. His voice caught on the word, then steadied again, thin and forced. “What did it look like when you got there?”

Hongjoong swallowed. His throat clicked. He set the bottle down because he didn’t trust his hands.

He had seen the railing each time he closed his eyes. The police lights flashing wetly on the metal. Haneul’s silhouette braced like a human anchor. San’s body, wrong in the air.

He kept his eyes on the counter. If he looked at Seonghwa, he would have to admit how close it had been. How easily the night could have ended with a phone call to a manager and a statement written by someone who didn’t know San’s laugh.

“He looked dead, Hwa.” Hongjoong’s voice came out flat, like it didn’t belong to him. “Dead.”

Seonghwa’s breath stuttered.

Hongjoong forced himself to keep talking, because silence would become a place for Seonghwa’s brain to go, and Hongjoong had seen what happened when a person was left alone with images like that.

“He wasn’t,” Hongjoong said quickly, too quickly. “He wasn’t. But—” He pressed his palm into the edge of the counter until it hurt. “But his eyes… he wasn’t in them. It was like—”

Like San had already stepped out of his own body and left the rest of them to deal with the consequences.

Hongjoong couldn’t say it.

“When I drove Wooyoung the hospital,” Seonghwa said softly. “I sat there beside him and watched him look like he was going to stop breathing.”

Seonghwa’s grip finally loosened on the mug. He set it down with a careful clink, like he didn’t trust his hands not to shatter it.

“You know what I did when I heard?” Seonghwa asked.

Hongjoong shook his head.

Seonghwa’s mouth twitched — not a smile. Something bitter and exhausted. “I pictured his hands,” he said, voice rough. “Because I kept thinking… if he went over, his hands would be the last thing he felt.” He swallowed hard, throat working. “And all I could think was: he uses those hands to hold microphones. To hold us. To hold the world together when he’s smiling. And then—”

He stopped. His breath hitched once.

“I’m sorry,” Hongjoong said.

Seonghwa’s laugh broke out — one sharp breath of it, disbelieving. “Stop saying that,” he snapped, suddenly. “Stop apologising like it means you’ve done something. Do you know what sorry feels like right now?” He leaned forward, eyes full of unshed tears. “Sorry feels like you’re already practicing the speech you’ll give when he’s gone.”

The word gone hit the room like a thrown object.

Hongjoong’s throat tightened until he couldn’t breathe for a second. He looked down, fast, because he couldn’t let Seonghwa see what that did to him — not when Seonghwa was already holding himself together with bare hands.

I will bury him. And I will bury each one of you with him.

The CEO’s voice was a sudden sound in Hongjoong’s skull.

I will bury him.

“Fuck,” Hongjoong choked out. “Fuck.” He slid down until he was crouching on the floor, his head in his hands.

He felt a presence kneel in front of him. Warm hands covered his own, prying them away from his face.

Seonghwa was there. Close. Too close.

“Joong,” Seonghwa murmured. His thumbs brushed over Hongjoong’s knuckles, a gentle, repetitive motion that felt agonisingly tender.

Hongjoong looked up.

Seonghwa was crying now. The tears were falling silently, tracking through the exhaustion on his face, but his gaze was steady. He wasn’t looking at the Captain. He was looking at Hongjoong.

His Hongjoong.

And in that gaze, Hongjoong saw the confession again. He saw the love that Seonghwa had offered him—the love Hongjoong had categorised as “impossible” and “dangerous” and “later.”

Don’t pull him close when you’re scared, Haneul’s voice hissed in his ear.

Hongjoong tried to pull his hands away. “Don’t,” he rasped. “Seonghwa, don’t look at me like that.”

Seonghwa tightened his grip. “Like what?”

“Like I can fix this,” Hongjoong said, his voice cracking. “Like I’m worth… that.” He gestured vaguely between them, at the intimacy, at the love. “The CEO said he’s going to destroy us. If San is sick… if the contract is breached… I can’t protect you. I can’t protect any of you.”

“I’m not asking you to protect me,” Seonghwa said softly.

“Then what are you doing?” Hongjoong snapped, finally pulling his hands free. He pushed himself up, needing distance. He paced to the other side of the kitchen. “Why are you looking at me like that when everything is burning down? I failed, Seonghwa. I failed San. I failed Wooyoung. I’m failing you.”

Seonghwa stayed on the floor for a moment, then slowly stood up. He didn’t chase Hongjoong. He just stood there, watching him with that unbearable, patient love.

“You didn’t fail,” Seonghwa said. “You’re just human. You’re allowed to be scared.”

“I’m not allowed to be scared!” Hongjoong shouted. The volume startled them both. “I am the Leader! Being scared is a luxury I don’t have! If I’m scared, the company eats us alive! If I’m scared, San dies on a bridge!”

He was panting, his chest heaving. The confession rose in his throat—a weapon he could use to push Seonghwa away, to save Seonghwa from the sinking ship that was Kim Hongjoong.

“You said you loved me,” Hongjoong said. The words tasted like ash.

Seonghwa went still. “I do.”

“Well, stop,” Hongjoong said cruelly. He saw the flinch in Seonghwa’s eyes, saw the way his posture crumpled, but he couldn’t stop. He had to sever the limb to save the body. “Look at this mess, Seonghwa. Look at me. I am turning feelings into tasks because if I feel anything right now, I will collapse. I don’t have room for your love. I don’t have room for us. I just have tasks.”

The silence that followed was louder than the shouting.

Seonghwa stared at him. The hurt was visible, a physical wound opening on his face. But then, something shifted. The hurt settled into a deep, resigned sadness.

Seonghwa walked across the kitchen.

Hongjoong braced himself for a slap. Or for Seonghwa to walk out.

Instead, Seonghwa stopped inches from him. He reached out and unzipped Hongjoong’s jacket. He slid it off Hongjoong’s shoulders. He tossed it onto a chair.

Then he pulled Hongjoong into his arms.

It wasn’t a romantic hug. It was a containment hold. Seonghwa wrapped his arms around Hongjoong’s shoulders and squeezed, burying his face in the crook of Hongjoong’s neck.

“You’re a liar,” Seonghwa whispered against his skin.

Hongjoong stiffened. “Seonghwa—”

“You’re a liar,” Seonghwa repeated, his voice shaking. “You think if you push me away, it’ll be easier. You think if you pretend you’re a machine, the CEO can’t hurt you. But you’re shaking, Joong. You’re shaking in my arms.”

Hongjoong squeezed his eyes shut. A sob caught in his chest, painful and sharp.

“I’m terrified,” Hongjoong whispered, the confession finally leaking out. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I know,” Seonghwa soothed, one hand coming up to cradle the back of Hongjoong’s head, fingers threading through his hair. “I know. But you don’t have to do it alone. You can treat me like a task if you want. You can use me. You can yell at me. But you don’t get to tell me to stop loving you. That’s not your choice.”

Hongjoong crumbled.

He grabbed the back of Seonghwa’s sweater, his fists clenching tight, and buried his face in Seonghwa’s shoulder. He didn’t cry—he couldn’t afford to cry—but he let himself lean. He let himself be held by the one person he was trying so desperately to push away.

For a moment, in the harsh light of the kitchen, with the spectre of the company hanging over them and their friends falling apart in a hospital across the city, they just held on.

Because Hongjoong had loved Seonghwa for years too.

He had loved him since the basement practice rooms, when they were starving and desperate and dreaming of a stage that seemed impossible to reach. He had loved him through every failed evaluation, every injury, every terrifying meeting where they were told they weren’t good enough.

He had loved him in the quiet moments backstage when Seonghwa would bring him coffee without asking. He had loved him in the way Seonghwa’s laugh could pull him out of the darkest spirals. He had loved him in every shared glance across a stage, in every late-night conversation that felt like coming home.

But love, for Hongjoong, had always been a threat. A weakness the company could exploit. A distraction that could unravel everything they’d built.

He hadn’t kept it a secret because he was ashamed. He had kept it a secret because he was superstitious. He thought that if he didn’t name it, the world couldn’t touch it. He thought that if he turned everything else in his life into a strategy—the music, the fans, the members—he could keep this one thing, this one person, safe in the quiet, untouched corner of his heart.

So he had locked it away.

But standing here, with Seonghwa’s arms around him and the weight of the night pressing down on his chest, Hongjoong realised something brutal: later wasn’t a promise. It was a lie he’d been telling himself whilst the world burned around them.

Hongjoong let out a shaky breath, the sound muffled by the fabric of Seonghwa’s sweater. He unclenched his fists, his fingers slowly flattening out to press against Seonghwa’s back, feeling the solid, rhythmic thud of a heart that beat for him.

“I’m not…” Hongjoong started, his voice barely a whisper. He had to stop to swallow the lump in his throat. “I’m not going to treat you like a task, Seonghwa.”

Seonghwa pulled back just an inch—just enough to look at him, though he didn’t let go. His eyes were soft, rimmed with red, searching Hongjoong’s face with a tenderness that made Hongjoong’s chest ache.

“Then what am I?” Seonghwa asked quietly.

Hongjoong looked at him. He looked at the mole on his cheek, the way his bangs fell into his face, the exhaustion that mirrored his own.

“You’re the only thing I have left that isn’t work,” Hongjoong whispered. “You’re the only part of me I haven’t sold to them yet.”

Seonghwa’s expression crumpled. He leaned his forehead against Hongjoong’s, closing his eyes as a fresh tear tracked down his nose.

Seonghwa’s breath hitched like the sentence had punched air out of him. For a second he didn’t move at all, just stood there with his forehead against Hongjoong’s, eyes shut, as if he was trying to decide whether he was allowed to believe what he’d just heard.

“You shouldn’t say things like that,” Seonghwa whispered.

Hongjoong’s laugh came out rough. “I know.”

“Because then I’ll start wanting more,” Seonghwa said, voice almost steady—almost. “And you’ll hate me for it later.”

Hongjoong’s jaw tightened. He pulled back enough to look at him properly.

“I don’t hate you,” he said.

Seonghwa opened his eyes.

Hongjoong didn’t flinch away from what was in them. That was new. That was the point.

“I hate myself,” Hongjoong corrected, quieter. “For how easy it is for me to disappear inside the job. For how I make everything… a system. I keep doing it and then I act surprised when the people I love start feeling like—” He swallowed. The words fought him. “Like they’re just another part I can replace.”

Seonghwa’s throat worked. “You said it.”

Hongjoong nodded once. “Because it’s true.”

Silence spread between them, thick and humming. Hongjoong could feel his heart beating like it was trying to climb out.

Seonghwa’s hands were still on him, but gentle now. Not a grip. Not a hold. A question. Then he laughed—one broken sound—and it turned into a sob he tried to swallow back too late. He dragged his sleeve across his face like he was angry at his own tears.

Hongjoong didn’t tell him not to cry.

He just stepped in and pulled Seonghwa into him again, firmer this time—his arms locked around Seonghwa’s waist like a seatbelt.

Seonghwa’s forehead hit Hongjoong’s collarbone. “You’re going to leave the room in ten minutes,” he said into the fabric, voice muffled and ugly. “You’re going to get a call and you’ll turn into Captain again and I’ll just—”

“—be the thing you put back on the shelf.”

“Stop,” Hongjoong said.

He didn’t shout it. He breathed it out, sharp and desperate. He pulled back just enough to slide his hands up from Seonghwa’s waist to his face, his palms framing Seonghwa’s jaw, his thumbs brushing away the salt-streaks on his cheekbones. He held him with a reverence he usually saved for master tapes—like Seonghwa was something precious, something irreplaceably rare that he was terrified of dropping.

“I tried to make you hate me,” Hongjoong whispered, his eyes searching Seonghwa’s wet, red-rimmed ones. “I thought if I was cruel enough, you’d leave before the ship went down. I thought I was saving you.”

Seonghwa shook his head, the friction of his skin against Hongjoong’s palms warm and grounding.

“You can’t save me from this, Hongjoong,” Seonghwa breathed. “I’m already in the water with you.”

Hongjoong let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. The fight finally drained out of his shoulders. The Captain’s armour clattered to the floor, invisible and heavy, leaving just a twenty-something boy who was tired of drowning alone.

“Then don’t let me go,” Hongjoong murmured, his thumbs tracing the line of Seonghwa’s bottom lip. “Even when I get loud. Even when the lawyers call and I start acting like a general. Don’t let me push you out the door.”

Seonghwa opened his eyes. They were liquid and dark, filled with a terrifying amount of devotion.

“I won’t, I love you too much to let go.”

Seonghwa said it simply. Not as a question, not as a demand, but as a fact. As undeniable as gravity.

“I love you,” Seonghwa repeated, quieter this time, leaning in until their lips were a breath apart. “I love you, Hongjoong.”

Hongjoong didn’t answer with words.

He closed the distance.

The kiss was soft.

It wasn’t the desperate, clashing kiss of a movie reunion. It was slow and aching. It tasted of salt and exhaustion and cold tea. Hongjoong sighed into it, his body finally, finally going slack against Seonghwa’s chest. He felt Seonghwa’s hands slide up his back to cradle his neck, holding him steady, anchoring him to the tile floor so he wouldn’t float away.

Hongjoong kissed Seonghwa with everything he had left—with all the fear, all the exhaustion, and all the silent, terrifying hope he had been trying to kill for years.

I am here, the kiss said. I am yours.

When they pulled apart, they didn’t go far. Hongjoong rested his chin on Seonghwa’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around Seonghwa’s waist and squeezing tight. He squeezed until his knuckles turned white, holding on as if Seonghwa was the only solid thing in a world that was rapidly dissolving.

“Tomorrow,” Hongjoong mumbled into the damp wool of Seonghwa’s sweater, his eyes sliding shut. “Tomorrow, we figure out how to survive.”

Seonghwa pressed a kiss to the side of Hongjoong’s head, his hand stroking Hongjoong’s hair, rhythmic and soothing.

“Yeah,” Seonghwa whispered into the dark kitchen. “Tomorrow.”

Hongjoong didn’t say anything. He just took Seonghwa’s hand—fully this time, fingers lacing together—and started walking.

Past the island. Past the cold tea. Past the places where they’d learned how to be quiet.

Seonghwa followed like he was afraid this was another dream he’d wake up from.

Hongjoong’s room was dark, the curtains drawn tight against the city. The air smelled faintly of fabric softener and his shampoo—clean, familiar, human.

Hongjoong let go of Seonghwa’s hand to turn the bedside lamp. Then he started to rummage through his dresser. The sound of drawers sliding open was loud in the quiet room.

“You can’t sleep in jeans,” Hongjoong murmured, his voice rough with exhaustion. “And that sweater is damp.”

He pulled out a bundle of grey cotton—sweatpants that had seen better days—and a black t-shirt that was soft from a hundred washes. He turned and pressed them into Seonghwa’s chest.

“Here.”

Seonghwa took them. His fingers brushed Hongjoong’s as he gripped the fabric.

“Thanks.”

Hongjoong turned his back to change, shucking off his own jeans and sweater. He pulled on a pair of shorts and an old hoodie, the fleece lining instantly warming his chilled skin.

Behind him, he heard the rustle of fabric. The heavy thud of denim hitting the floor. The soft swish of a shirt being pulled over skin.

It was a sound Hongjoong had heard a thousand times in changing rooms and backstage areas, but here, in the dark, it felt different. It felt like trust.

Hongjoong turned around.

Seonghwa was standing by the bed. He was wearing Hongjoong’s t-shirt. It was tight across his shoulders, the sleeves riding up slightly on his biceps, but it looked right. It smelled like Hongjoong’s detergent. It marked him.

Seonghwa looked down at himself, then up at Hongjoong, a shy, hesitant curve to his lips.

“It fits,” Seonghwa whispered.

“Barely,” Hongjoong huffed, a small, genuine smile finally cracking through the tension on his face.

He walked over to the bed and pulled back the comforter.

“Come on.”

Seonghwa didn’t need to be told twice. He climbed in, the mattress dipping under his weight.

Hongjoong followed, sliding under the heavy covers. He reached out and clicked off the bedside lamp, plunging them into total darkness.

There was a moment of shifting—limbs tangling, the rustle of sheets—and then, they settled.

They lay face to face, legs intertwined, the space between them non-existent. Hongjoong buried his face in the curve of Seonghwa’s neck, inhaling the scent of Seonghwa’s skin.

Seonghwa’s arm came around him, heavy and solid, pulling him closer until there was no air left between their chests.

“Is this okay?” Seonghwa whispered into his hair. His voice was terrified.

Hongjoong closed his eyes. He felt the steady, thumping rhythm of Seonghwa’s heart against his own ribs. It was the only thing that made sense.

“It’s the only thing that’s okay,” Hongjoong mumbled against his skin.

He felt Seonghwa relax—physically melting against him. Seonghwa’s hand moved up, stroking the back of Hongjoong’s head, fingers threading through his hair in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.

“I’ve got you,” Seonghwa breathed. “Sleep, Captain. I’ve got you.”

Hongjoong shifted slightly, lifting his chin just enough to find Seonghwa’s mouth in the dark.

It wasn’t a question this time. It was a period at the end of a long, terrible sentence.

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to Seonghwa’s lips—feather-light, tasting of exhaustion, but mostly just tasting of him.

“Goodnight, Seonghwa,” Hongjoong whispered against his mouth.

Seonghwa let out a long, shaky exhale, finally surrendering the last of his tension.

“Goodnight, Hongjoong.”

Hongjoong buried his face back into the curve of Seonghwa’s neck. The warmth was a drug. The safety of Seonghwa’s arms was a fortress he had been denied for too long.

For the first time in years, Hongjoong didn’t set an alarm. He didn’t check his phone. He just exhaled, his body going heavy, and let the darkness take him, held tight in the arms of the man who had loved him through the war.

Outside, the rain began to fall again, washing the city clean. But inside, the room was quiet, and for a few hours, the world couldn’t touch them.

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ Tomorrow came whether they were ready or not.

Hongjoong woke to the grey light of dawn filtering through the curtains, painting Seonghwa’s sleeping face in soft shadows. For a moment—just one fragile, stolen moment—he let himself pretend that this was normal. That waking up tangled in Seonghwa’s arms was something he deserved.

Then his phone buzzed on the nightstand.

It wasn’t a text. It was a continuous, angry vibration that rattled against the wood.

Hongjoong’s stomach dropped. He reached out, his hand trembling slightly, and flipped the phone over.

A stack of missed calls, all stamped within the last forty minutes.

LEGAL TEAM

MANAGER

PR DIRECTOR

UNKNOWN NUMBER

MANAGER again.

And beneath that, the lockscreen preview headlines.

The trending bar was a list of horrors.

#MapoBridge

#MaleIdolEmergency

#PrayForATEEZ

Seoul University Hospital

Hongjoong stopped breathing. He clicked the first tag. The feed refreshed, spitting out a torrent of speculation, grainy photos, and panic.

kpopinsider_v2: Exclusive: Police and ambulance spotted at Mapo Bridge. Witness claims a male idol was pulled from the railing. No official statement yet.

netizen_buzz: Rumour: It’s San from ATEEZ. Fans are matching the hoodie in the witness photo to his live from last month. Is it true? Did he really try to jump?

anti_account_77: Typical attention seeker. If he wanted to die, he would have done it quietly. Doing it on a public bridge is just a performance.

ateez_protect: REPORT THE RUMOURS. WE DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. PLEASE JUST PRAY. #ATEEZ_WeLoveYou

sasaeng_eye: I saw Seonghwa’s car at the ER. Wooyoung was crying. It’s real. It’s definitely real.

Hongjoong felt bile rise in his throat. The world was watching San’s darkest moment in real-time. They were dissecting his pain, analysing his “performance,” and sharing photos of the ambulance like it was a comeback teaser.

The phone buzzed again in his hand.

Director Kang (PR)

Hongjoong answered. He didn’t say hello.

“Did you see it?”

“I see it,” Hongjoong croaked. His voice was rough, sounding like he’d swallowed glass. “They know it’s him.”

“We are losing the narrative, Hongjoong,” Director Kang said. His voice was cold, clipped, void of any sympathy. “The ‘Mapo Bridge’ detail is trending. We can’t spin this as ‘exhaustion’ or a ‘minor injury’ anymore. The public knows it was an attempt.”

“So tell them the truth,” Hongjoong snapped, sitting up. The movement woke Seonghwa, who shifted, blinking blearily at the sudden aggression. “Tell them he’s sick. Tell them he needs help.”

“We do not confirm suicide attempts. It’s brand suicide,” Kang cut him off. “Investors are already calling. If ATEEZ becomes the ‘unstable group,’ the tour insurance is voided. We have to contain the damage.”

“Damage?” Hongjoong’s voice rose. “He’s a person, not a stock price.”

“He is an asset under contract. And right now, the group is a liability. We are issuing a statement in thirty minutes.”

“What kind of statement?”

“San’s withdrawal from the group. The current hiatus being extended. Indefinitely. Effective immediately. For the entire group.”

Hongjoong froze. “The tour... the comeback...”

“Cancelled. All of it. We are citing ‘severe psychological anxiety and health deterioration.’ We are shutting everything down until the heat dies.”

“You’re shelving us,” Hongjoong whispered.

“We are hiding you,” Kang corrected. “Which brings me to the second point. You are to vacate the dorm by noon.”

“What?” Hongjoong’s voice cracked with panic. “Director, we live there. Where are we supposed to go?”

“The address is compromised. We have reports of reporters camping in the parking garage trying to get a quote about the ‘suicide idol.’ It is a security nightmare. Go back to your families. Go to hotels. I don’t care. But the dorm is a focal point for the press, and we are shutting it down.”

“You can’t just kick us out.”

“It’s asset control, Hongjoong. Pack your essentials. A security team will be there in two hours to escort you out. Do not speak to the press. Do not post on social media. Do not contact San.”

Click.

The line went dead.

Hongjoong stared at the phone. The screen went black, reflecting his own terrified face.

“Hongjoong?”

Seonghwa was sitting up now, the sleep completely gone from his eyes. He reached out, his hand hovering over Hongjoong’s shoulder.

“Is it about San?” Seonghwa asked, his voice trembling. “Is he...”

“He’s alive,” Hongjoong said numbly. He didn’t look up. “But ATEEZ is dead.”

He turned to look at Seonghwa. The devastation on his face was total.

“They’re putting us on indefinite hiatus,” Hongjoong whispered. “And they’re evicting us. We have to leave. Today.”

Seonghwa’s hand dropped. He looked at the window, where the grey light was getting brighter, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air of the room they would never sleep in again.

“Where will we go?” Seonghwa asked quietly, his voice barely above a whisper.

Hongjoong didn’t have an answer. He looked around the room and realised that after eight years of living together, none of them had anywhere else to call home.

“I don’t know,” Hongjoong admitted. The words tasted like ash. “Director Kang said families. Hotels. He didn’t care. ”

Hongjoong sat on the edge of the bed, burying his face in his hands. His shoulders shook, a violent, silent tremor.

“I failed them, Hwa,” came the muffled voice from behind his palms. “I promised I’d protect this. I promised them we’d sail together until the end. And now I have to tell them the ship is sinking and there aren't enough lifeboats.”

Seonghwa didn’t offer empty platitudes. He didn’t tell him it would be okay, because it wasn’t.

Instead, he moved. He sat beside Hongjoong and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in hard. He pressed his cheek against Hongjoong’s temple, holding him together physically because he couldn't do it emotionally.

“You didn't sink the ship,” Seonghwa said, his voice fierce and low. “The storm did. You just kept us afloat longer than anyone else could have.”

Hongjoong took a ragged breath, leaning into the touch. “How do I look them in the eye?”

“You don’t have to do it alone,” Seonghwa promised. He pulled back, gripping Hongjoong’s hand. “I’ll be right there. I’ll pour the coffee. You just say the words.”

Seonghwa squeezed his hand once, hard, then stood up. He walked to the wardrobe and pulled out a fresh hoodie for Hongjoong—black, oversized, armour.

“Put this on,” Seonghwa said gently. “We have some time before the press release drops. We need to own the narrative between the members before the world destroys it outside.”

Hongjoong stared at the hoodie. He stared at Seonghwa, who was already masking his own terror with the calm, efficient facade of the eldest.

Hongjoong stood up. He took the hoodie. He put it on, pulling the strings tight.

“Okay,” Hongjoong whispered. The Captain was back. Or at least, a ghost of him. “Let’s go.”

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎ ‎‏‏‎

He stops. The shift is sudden—your body still clenching around his dick, desperate for friction that’s no longer there. His hand fists in your hair and jerks you up hard, arching your spine until your back meets his chest. One arm locks around your waist, ribs pressed to his forearm. The other grips your jaw, fingers pressing into the hinge until your mouth falls open.

You can feel his pulse against your cheek.

You can feel your own everywhere.

“What did you just call me?” His voice is low, dangerous, a heat against your ear. You feel it more than hear it, vibrating through your ribs where he’s got you pinned. The air is hot and thin.

Your breath comes shallow, uneven. “I—”

“Say it again.” Hongjoong’s hips shift, just enough to make you gasp, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t give you what you need. His thumb drags across your bottom lip, smearing spit at the corner. “Go on.”

You swallow. Your pulse hammers against his palm. “Da—”

He tsks, the sound soft and cutting. His grip tightens on your jaw until your eyes sting. “Wrong answer.” His thumb pushes your chin up.

His hand slides from your jaw to your throat, not squeezing yet. “You know better.” The words are barely above a whisper, but they land heavy. He pulls out almost completely, the drag lighting every nerve, then slams back in without warning.

Your body jerks forward with the force, a broken cry tearing from your throat. The slap of skin is sharp. The mattress stutters under your knees, the headboard slams again.

“Daddy—” The word comes out garbled, desperate, exactly what he wanted to hear.

“Good girl.” His grip on your throat softens, becomes almost tender. “Again.”

“Daddy,” you gasp, the word punched out of you with another sharp thrust. Your fingers curl uselessly in his grip, your whole body wound so tight you think you might shatter. “Please—addy, I need—” Your own spit threads from your mouth to his thumb where it drags your lip and you taste metal from your bitten tongue.

Hongjoong’s laugh is dark, satisfied. “Need what, love?” The hand on your throat slides down to palm your breast, rolling your nipple between two knuckles until heat spikes. He pinches it and the pain blooms sweet and mean. “Use your words.” His breath hits damp hair stuck to your temple.

You moan uselessly, the sound ragged and broken. Words won’t come—just desperate, incoherent noise that makes him groan against your ear.

“That’s what I thought,” he murmurs, satisfaction dripping from every word. Your knees skid an inch on the sheet and his hand leaves your breast to clamps your hip and hauls you back so you feel the blunt head punch deep again. He holds you exactly where he wants you as he starts thrusting deep inside you. “Can’t even speak anymore, can you?”

You shake your head frantically, or try to—his hold on you barely allows the movement. Everything’s gone white‑hot and overwhelming, your body trembling in his arms as he takes you apart piece by piece. Your mascara is a damp smear at your lashes; a tear salt‑burns the corner of your mouth where it meets his thumb.

“Mmpf—please—” The words break on a sob as the tension coils impossibly tighter, your walls fluttering around him. Your thighs tremble uncontrollably. The mattress squeals. Hongjoong groans when your cunt strangles him, like the sound is dragged from somewhere he doesn’t show anyone.

“I’ve been a good girl, Daddy, please—” Your voice breaks on the words, desperate and pleading. “Please let me—fuc—k—let me cum, I need—”

“Not yet. Listen to yourself—messy little thing, slobbering on my hand and still trying to think you get a say.” His pace doesn’t falter, each thrust hitting that devastating spot that has your vision blurring. He changes nothing just to prove he controls everything. “You’ll cum when I say.”

“Daddy—” It’s a sob more than a word, your body trembling violently as you fight against the edge. “Please, I can’t—I can’t hold it—”

“Yes, you can. You’re a hole when I tell you to be a hole.” His lips brush your ear, voice dropping lower, amused and cruel. “Be useful.” His teeth take the soft flesh of your shoulder, a quick bite that stings and his tongue soothes, then he bites again, harder.

A broken whimper tears from your throat as tears prick at your eyes. “Yes—yes, I’ll wait—fuck—please—” The word breaks because he drives in meaner, holding you down with his forearm across your ribs until your breaths come shallow and quick.

“That’s all you’re good for, isn’t it? Taking.” The room narrows to the slick drag and the hot thud of him and the damp heat where your bodies meet. “Just a wet little thing I wreck.”

Your eyes sting, vision blurring as the first tear slips free. It tracks hot down your cheek, and Hongjoong’s rhythm stutters for just a beat like he’s savouring it. His grip on your jaw shifts, thumb catching the wetness before it falls to the sheet.

“Look at you,” he breathes, hungry. “Crying because you can’t keep up. Cock‑drunk already and I’m not even trying.” He drags the tear across your cheekbone, reverent and mean at once. “So fucking pretty when you beg with your eyes.” He licks the salt from his thumb, eyes fixed on your wrecked mouth. “Open that useless mouth and try again.”

Another tear follows, then another. A sob catches as he drives deeper. His groan vibrates against your spine. “Pathetic,” he murmurs, almost fond.

Hongjoong’s hand moves from your jaw to cup your face, fingers gentle even as his hips maintain their brutal pace. “Let me see what a mess you are.” He turns your face just enough to catch the tear‑tracks in the low light, pupils blown. “Crying so pretty on Daddy’s cock.”

The praise and the cruelty braid together and break something in you. “Please—” Your voice frays to a thread.

“So good for me,” he says, and then ruins it: “Good for nothing but this.” He catches another tear with his thumb. “My perfect little toy.” His palm slides down your belly, heat making your muscles jump. “Say it.”

“T—toy,” you gasp, shame and want tangling.

“Show Daddy how pretty you look when you break.” He hooks two fingers in the corner of your mouth, yanking it open so spit strings glitter from your lip. “There. Pretty mouth.”

His thumb presses your bottom lip then pushes past. Two fingers follow, flattening your tongue until drool pools at the corners of your mouth. “Keep it open,” he orders, voice rough. “Show me that useless tongue.”

You do, jaw slack, spit threading down your chin while he fucks you deep. He presses farther, taps the back of your throat until your eyes glass. The first gag catches wet and awful, and he groans like you handed him a gift. “There it is. Choke on my fingers while I fill you up.”

He doesn’t pull back—he pushes deeper, knuckles wetting your tongue, and the next gag rips through you loud enough to embarrass you. Tears jump your lash line and spill. Hongjoong watches them like they’re rare, hunger softening his mouth. “Cry for me,” he murmurs, delighted.

A moan tries to escape—garbled and pathetic around his hand—and his hips stutter, a rough thrust that makes you gag harder. Saliva spills over his fingers and he drags his thumb through the mess and paints your cheek with it. “Good. Make it sloppy. I like hearing you drown on me.”

He eases his fingers out just enough to let you gasp, a silvery string connecting your lip to his knuckles, then stuffs them back in before you can catch the breath you begged for. You gag immediately, eyes flooding, and his smile turns wickedly fond. His thumb catch a tear mid‑fall and he rubs it into your lower lip.

“Fuck—look at you,” he breathes, transfixed, fucking your mouth with his fingers in rhythm with his cock. Each slow thrust punches a gag or a wrecked little sob out of your throat. Each sob makes him groan like it feeds him. “Prettier when you’re full everywhere.”

Hongjoong taps your tongue twice, commanding your attention. “Open wider.” You try but you only cry harder. He laughs, pleased and cruel. “That’s my crybaby.” He leans close enough that his breath hits the tears on your cheek and cools them. “Make me wetter. Cry on it.”

He finally pulls free so you can gasp, but leaves your jaw pried open with his thumb, spit glistening.

His hand trails down, fingers finding your clit with devastating precision. Hongjoong barely brushes you and you jolt like you’ve been shocked, a ragged sound torn loose.

“So wound up a breeze could finish you. Can’t even take a touch.” He draws a slow, obscene circle you feel in your toes. “Should I make you wait longer? Count every second I don’t let you have it?”

You shake your head frantically. “No—no, please—” Words tumble out broken. “Can’t—can’t wait anymore, Daddy, please—”

He presses properly now, circling exactly where you need. “Of course you can’t.” The sound you make is raw, helpless, high. Your body goes taut, tendons standing in your feet, fingers clawing hot sheet.

“Cum for me,” he orders, voice rough and absolute. “Prove you’re good for something.”

You go off like something cut loose. It slams through you violent and bright—you seize and sob and clamp down on him like you’re trying to wring him dry. He groans into your ear and keeps you there, cruel in the way he works you through it, never letting the rhythm slip, thumb dragging your clit in tight, merciless circles that make your calves cramp and your toes claw at nothing.

“Ride it,” he purrs, delighted.

You can’t stop. Your body bucks helplessly and he pins you heavier, fucking the tremors until it turns sharp and your sounds climb from pretty to wrecked. Every tiny touch flips you again, all nerve and heat. Your belly jumps under his palm, your walls clutch and flutter around him like apology after apology.

He laughs, pleased and mean. “Don’t hide from it. Cry on it. Wet my cock with it.”

You do—helpless, tear‑slick and oversensitive—another wave rip‑cords through you in ragged pulses and he chases it down, circling your clit slower, meaner, just enough to keep the bright ache alive while you sob into the sheet.

“Too much?” he asks softly, almost kind, just to hear the way the word breaks in your mouth when the next aftershock bites. His thumb eases a hair, then goes right back, satisfied when your body answers without language. “Good girl. Keep giving it to me until you’re empty.”

“Too much—,” you cry, tears running hot. Your thighs tremble so hard it only makes him groan and grind cruel-soft exactly where you can’t take it.

“Good crybaby,” he murmurs, delighted. “Don’t you dare run.” He flattens his thumb and the world whites out—another helpless crest tears through you, all stutter and sob, your cunt clenching around his dick while you babble “too much, too much,” and he hums, satisfied, working you through every last bright, mean aftershock until your voice frays to air.

Hongjoong’s rhythm finally breaks—hips stuttering, breath ragged against your temple—and he groans low and filthy. His hands leave and you whimper at the loss. Air kisses the slick heat when he pulls free and you shudder. He flips you in one swift motion; your back hits the mattress, a bounce knocking a gasp out of you. The sheets are damp under your shoulder blades and the pillow is cool under fevered skin.

“Look at me.” Jaw tight, eyes wild, control fraying. A vein jumps in his neck. He looks like sin and victory.

“Hands above your head.” You obey, wrists crossing. “Don’t move.” His palm pins your wrists; the heel of it grinds the bones together until you whine. The other drops to his cock and works himself once, twice, your slick shines on his length.

“Eyes on me.”

“Fuck—” The word breaks as his release lashes hot across your stomach and chest. Cum splashes your throat, a line streaks your collarbone. He doesn’t look away from your face while he watches it drip. Ragged breath. Shuddering shoulders.

He drags two fingers through the mess and paints your lips with it, slow. He pushes his fingers past your tongue. “Suck it up like a good little slut.” You do, cheeks hollowing, and he hums approval when you gag around his knuckles then he pulls free with a wet pop.

Hongjoong smears the rest of his cum across your cheek and jaw, then rubs what’s left into your throat.

“Hands stay.” Your wrists ache deliciously. His palm presses your sternum, shortening your breath; he lifts it just enough to give you air, like charity. Then he kisses you deep, filthy, tasting salt and himself on your tongue. He palms the back of your thigh and hikes it high to his hip. “Round two,” he says like a sentence.

“No—no—” Your thighs slam shut on instinct, trembling violently. Oversensitive doesn’t begin to cover it—every nerve ending feels raw, exposed, like touching a live wire. Your knees knock together as you try to curl away, breath coming in short, desperate gasps.

Hongjoong’s hand catches your knee before you can fully close yourself off. His grip is firm but he doesn’t force—not yet. He watches you shake apart, eyes dark and assessing.

“Too much?” The question sounds almost curious, like he’s cataloging your limits for future reference.

“I can’t—” Your voice breaks on a sob. “Please, I need—just a minute—”

His thumb traces idle circles on your kneecap, a mockery of gentleness while your body still trembles from the aftershocks. “That’s not how this works, love.” He leans down, lips brushing your temple. “You don’t get to decide when we’re done.”

His hand slides up your thigh, not forcing your legs open yet, just resting there with casual ownership. “You know how we end things.” It’s not a question. His eyebrow arches, that familiar challenge, and your stomach drops because you do know. You know exactly what he’s waiting for.

The word sits on your tongue—red. Simple. Final. It would stop everything.

But it won’t come.

“No?” His thumb strokes once, twice, maddeningly gentle against your feverish skin. “Then I’ll make it easy for you.” His voice drops, taking on that edge that makes your pulse stutter. “Three seconds. Say it or I’m not stopping.”

Your breath catches. Every nerve ending screams that you can’t, that you’re too wrecked, too sensitive, too much—

“One.”

The word is right there. Red. Your lips part.

“Two.”

His fingers trail higher, barely a whisper of touch, and you tremble. Your mouth stays open, empty.

“Three.” He waits one more heartbeat, eyes locked on yours, searching. When nothing comes—when you just stare back at him, panting and wrecked and silent—something shifts in his expression. Satisfaction, dark and absolute. “That’s what I thought.”

“Let daddy in.”

Your thighs fall open slowly, a surrender that feels like defeat and relief tangled together. He drags the blunt head through your slick and slaps it against your clit—wet, obscene—once, twice, just to watch your whole body jump. When he pushes in—slow, deliberate, watching every micro-expression that crosses your face—the oversensitivity makes you keen, a broken sound that's half-sob, half-moan.

“Good girl,” Hongjoong murmurs, and doesn’t move. He stays buried to the hilt, making you feel every inch, every slow pulse. Your walls flutter around him and he hisses through his teeth. “Still.”

“Daddy—” You twitch, trying to adjust to the obscene fullness, and his hand clamps your hip hard enough to bruise.

“I said still.” His voice is steel. He shifts a mean millimeter deeper, a promise you’re going to hate loving. “You said you ‘can’t’ anymore? Cute.” He settles like a stake driven into the earth. “Then be useful.” Hongjoong’s hand lifts your thigh and hooks your knee higher, forcing the angle open until the stretch sits deep and electric. “Keep Daddy’s dick warm,” he says, bored and cruel.

Heat licks up your spine. Hongjoong doesn’t thrust. He doesn’t have to. You try to breathe around it. He shifts another millimeter—just a cruel reminder of his thickness—and the sound that leaks out of you is humiliating.

You twitch—instinct, pathetic—and his cock slides against a nerve that makes your whole body jolt. You try to chase it, hips rolling a greedy inch before you can stop yourself.

“Did I say you could move?” His voice cuts through the haze, razor-clean. His palm slams your hip back to the mattress, pinning you flat with bruising force. “Greedy little sleeve. One rule. You can’t even manage one.”

A wrecked whimper leaks out. The stillness is torture—every ridge, every vein, the obscene stretch of him pulsing inside you while your body screams to grind, to rub, to take. Your thighs tremble. Your toes curl like you’re trying to scratch at the air.

“Please—” you gasp, voice shaking. “I need—”

“You need?” He laughs, low and mean. “You need to learn to take what you’ve given.” His fingers dig into your hip, owning the flesh. “Move again and I pull out. I leave you empty and leaking with your little hole clenched around nothing. Is that what you want?”

“N—no, Daddy, please—”

“Then be fucking still.” He settles a breath deeper, a hateful inch that makes you sob, and holds you there like a knife sheathed to the hilt. “Keep me warm like I told you.” His mouth brushes your ear, the smile audible. “Stop acting like a desperate slut who can’t control herself.”

You feel the words burn through you; your walls flutter helplessly around him. You can’t stop the tiny drag of your hips—barely there, shameful—and he feels it immediately.

“Ah‑ah.” He smiles against your cheek.

“Please—” It scrapes out of you, ragged.

“Please what.” Flat as a verdict. “Use your stupid mouth.” His thumb strokes your jaw, mock‑gentle.

Your body shakes with effort. Your calves cramp. “Please—” The word fractures before it can form, dissolving into a sound that’s barely human—just need and surrender wrapped in breath.

The fullness skates the edge of too much; oversensitivity turns every slow beat into bright heat. Hongjoong only watches, pleased and dark, while you struggle to hold still around him. A whimper leaves you, broken and desperate.

“Quiet,” he says, almost bored. “Toys don’t whine.” He shifts deeper just to hear the noise you make. “Hands flat. Eyes open. Count your breaths if you need to. Don’t twitch.”

You count breaths because he told you to and lose the thread at eight, at nine, at nothing, because your body betrays you—tiny flutters you can’t control. Each one earns you a hum against your temple, a lazy squeeze at your throat that says he felt it.

“Pathetic,” he croons finally, sounding pleased.

“Daddy—” slips out again, ruined.

“What do you think you’re going to ask for? You’re full. You’re not getting more. You’re keeping me.”

“Please—”

“Please what?” His voice goes flat. “No babbling, no noise. Full sentence. Ask to be used.”

Shame burns hot. “Please use me, Daddy.”

“Mhm.” He rewards you with a single, slow grind that rolls through you like thunder, then stops dead. “Ask better.”

Your throat tightens. The words stick—humiliating—but his silence is worse, patient and hungry, like he has all night to watch you crack. “Please use me however you want, Daddy,” you whisper, voice breaking. “I’m yours—I’m just—please, I need you to—”

“Need me to what?” His thumb traces your bottom lip, almost tender in a way that makes you want to sob. “Say it clear or I’ll sit inside you and watch you shake until morning.”

“Please fuck me,” you gasp, shame scorching every syllable. “Please—use me like the toy I am. I can’t—Daddy, wreck me, please—”

“There it is.” His smile cuts wicked against your jaw. “See? Useless little mouth can learn.” He drags out of you slow—obscenely slow—until only the tip sits at your entrance. The loss rips a whimper out of you. “Since you asked nicely.”

He slams back in with no warning. Your toes curl hard enough to hurt. Your nails bite your palms. You don’t move. You don’t dare.

“Better,” he decides, and finally gives you motion—small, shallow, nothing like mercy. Short, ruthless strokes that never leave you, just rock deep enough to make your breath hitch on every one. “Count them.”

“One,” you whisper. “Two.” By four your voice shakes. By seven it thins to air. By ten you’ve lost the number and he has to murmur it for you against your mouth, amused.

“Ten,” he says, and nips your bottom lip. “Hopeless little counter.” He pulls out to the edge again and you whine without meaning to. He catches your chin hard. “What did I say about whining?”

“Toys don’t whine,” you breathe, panicked and obedient.

“That’s right.” He slides back in, the stretch a bright, tearing relief, and sets a new pace that is nothing like earlier—just deep and slow and devastating, like he’s proving he can keep you here forever.

You feel it rising again—desperation clawing up your throat, that helpless way your body starts chasing friction on its own. Your hips twitch forward, greedy without permission. His fingers bite down instantly.

“Stop.” Ice-cold.

But you don’t. You can’t. You’re wrecked and stupid with need, and your body rolls again—small, hungry little pulses that betray every order he’s given you. A whine slips out, high and broken.

“Daddy, please—I can’t—I need more, please—”

“You can’t?” His voice drops to something dangerous. “Or you won’t?”

“I can’t—” Another whimper. Your hips buck again, chasing the friction he’s withholding, and the sound that leaves you is pathetic. “Please, Daddy, I need—need you to move, need it harder, need—”

He goes dead still inside you. The absence of movement is worse than any punishment.

“Greedy little thing,” he says, tone flat with disappointment. “I give you my cock to keep warm and you can’t even manage that without turning into a whining, desperate mess.”

“I’m sorry—” You’re babbling now, words tripping over themselves. “I’m sorry, Daddy, please—just—please fuck me, I’ll be good—”

“You’ll be good?” He laughs—sharp, cruel, joyless. “You’re not being good now. You’re being a greedy slut who can’t follow a single fucking instruction.” His hand slides from your hip to your throat—fingers wrapping lightly. Your pulse hammers against his palm. “I don’t like you like this.”

It hits like a slap. Shame floods hot and immediate, and still your body trembles, still clenching around him, still needing.

“Please—”

“Please what? Please keep giving you what you clearly can’t handle?” He shifts just enough to make you whine, then stops again. “You’re not ready for more. You can’t even take what I’ve already given you without falling apart.”

“I can—I can take it—” Your voice breaks on a sob.

“No.” Firm. Final. “You can’t. Look at you. Shaking and whining and begging like you forgot how to be still.” His thumb strokes your throat once—almost gentle, which makes it worse. “I told you to be useful. Instead you’re being pathetic.”

The disappointment punches something open in your chest. You force yourself still—every muscle screaming—swallowing the whine clawing up your tongue. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, small and wrecked. “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

He watches you for a long, measuring beat. Then, slowly, he withdraws completely. The emptiness is a knife.

“Daddy—no—please—”

“Quiet.” The word drops like a brick. He stays out of you, cock wet against your slit, heat without mercy. “You want more when you can’t even fucking hold still?” His laugh is flat and ugly.

Your chest hitches. “Daddy, I—”

“Don’t talk.” He drags the swollen head through your slick once, slow, and you gasp like a drowning thing. The emptiness screams. “You don’t get my cock. You get consequence.”

“Do you want Daddy to go find himself another hole?” His words hit like acid, eating under your skin. “A quiet one. An obedient sleeve that doesn’t twitch, doesn’t whine, doesn’t make me repeat myself like I’m training a puppy.”

“No—” It tears out of you, small and panicked. “No, Daddy, please—”

“No?” Hongjoong sounds almost curious, like he’s already halfway out the door. “Because you’re not acting like you want to keep me. You’re acting like a spoiled toy that forgot what it’s for.”

“I do—I want to keep you—” Your voice breaks. “Please don’t—I’ll be good, I promise—”

“You promised to stay still five fucking minutes ago and look where that got us.” His thumb drags across your bottom lip, cruelly tender. “Maybe I should find a hole that knows how to listen. One that doesn’t babble, doesn’t beg, and doesn’t forget every rule the second it gets full.”

The image scalds—him leaving you empty and shaking while he goes somewhere else—and the sob that rips free is ugly.

“Please, Daddy—please—I’ll do better, I swear—don’t leave, please don’t, I need you—”

“Need me?” His voice goes flat. “You need to learn to fucking behave.” He drags the head of his cock on your swollen clit like a threat and your body jerks up desperately. “See? Even now you can’t stay still.”

“I’m sorry—I’m sorry—” Tears slip hot into your hair. “I’ll be good, I promise, please just—stay—”

“One. More. Chance.” Soft and lethal. “You twitch, you whine, you breathe wrong—and I’m done with you tonight. I’ll go find that quiet hole, and you can hump the sheet and think about why I left.”

The burn in your eyes sharpens.

“Say the rule.”

You swallow. “Keep—keep you warm.”

“At a minimum.” He taps the head against your clit again—light, mean—once. Your twitch and his hand locks your pelvis to the mattress with bruising pressure. “And you couldn’t even fucking do that.”

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, shaking.

“I don’t want sorry. I want silent, still, useful.” He lays the fat tip at your entrance and holds it there. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to keep me right here and not twitch. You breathe wrong, we reset. You beg wrong, we reset. You whine, you don’t get me at all.”

“Daddy—”

“Start.” His thumb presses your throat, not choking, just owning. “Five breaths.”

You count, voice wrecked and tiny. One. Two. Your body claws for friction and he hears the minuscule drag in your hips like it’s a confession.

“Reset,” he says, bored. The head lifts off you. The loss is a knife. He sets it back and you whine before you can strangle it.

“Reset.” He smiles without warmth.

Shame burns through you. “Please—” You bite it off and force your lungs to move. One. Two. Three. At four he ghosts the head forward—no entry, just stretch on the skin—and you hiccup a sound you barely recognise.

“Reset,” he repeats, almost amused now. “We’d be done by now if you weren’t such a needy fuckup.”

“I can do it.”

“Doubt it.” He pats your cheek condescendingly. “But try again.”

You count, lips trembling. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

He stares down at you, unimpressed. “Now thank me for not fucking you.”

The sentence scrapes your throat raw. “Thank you for not fucking me, Daddy.”

He hums, pleased—and disappointed anyway. “Again, like you mean it.”

“Thank you for not fucking me,” you rush the words out, “For making me still. For making me useful.”

“Finally.” The head presses, a murderous inch, then stops dead inside—no thrust, just fullness that feels like a verdict. You choke on a sound; his fingers tighten on your jaw.

“Now you hold me there and you don’t move,” he says, low and lethal.

Your body locks into place, every muscle screaming against the stillness. The stretch sits there—barely inside, not enough, too much—and he doesn't move. Just watches you shake around that single cruel inch, his expression flat and clinical, like he's studying how long it takes before you break again.

He watches your thighs quiver around that single inch like he’s timing a lab experiment. “Three breaths,” he says, voice clinical. “Earn another inch.”

You breathe. One. Two. On three your belly flutters; he feels it. The head slides in a second inch and stops dead. You whimper through your teeth.

“Again. Three.”

You make it, barely—every nerve screaming—and he feeds you another inch like he’s measuring with a ruler. “See?” he murmurs, disappointed anyway. “When you shut up and follow orders you almost pass for useful.”

“Daddy—”

His palm covers your mouth, not to mute, to own.

He waits, indifferent to the shake, then seats the rest in a slow, inevitable push and locks your hips to the mattress. Utterly full. Utterly still.

“There.” His fingers tap your jaw, condescending. “Now ask me for nothing.”

You swallow hard, nod against his palm because language might ruin you. He smiles—cold, pleased—and starts the smallest motion imaginable, a cruel internal drag that never lets you chase. Your body tries anyway. He feels the microscopic reach.

“Aaand there she is,” he sighs, disgusted.

“On your fucking knees,” he says, voice flat and final. “Ass up.”

He pulls out completely—the emptiness is brutal—and you scramble to obey, limbs clumsy with need. Your knees hit the mattress, your chest drops, and you arch your back the way he likes, presenting yourself like an apology.

“Higher.” His palm cracks across your ass—sharp, unforgiving—and you gasp, lifting until your spine curves obscene. “There. Now stay exactly like that and think about why you're here instead of full of my cock.”

The air feels too cold on your exposed cunt. You hear him move behind you, deliberate and unhurried, and the anticipation is its own kind of torture. His hand smooths over the curve of your ass once—almost tender—then his palm comes down again, harder. The sound cracks through the room.

“Count.”

“One,” you breathe, shaking.

Another, lower—right on the tender hinge where ass meets thigh. You jerk, then wrench yourself back into place.

“Two—”

“Louder. Like you fucking mean it.”

The next lands before your mouth can catch up. You yelp. “Three!”

“Better.” He pauses, fingers trailing through the slick mess between your thighs, not giving you anything, just reminding you what you're not getting. The touch is featherlight—clinical, almost—and it makes you ache harder than if he'd pressed down with intent. Your clit throbs where his knuckles barely graze it, swollen and desperate, and the emptiness inside you feels like a wound. Every nerve ending screams for more.

“Why are you here?”

“Because I couldn’t stay still—couldn’t—”

“Because you’re greedy.” The slap is vicious and precise. “Four.”

“Four,” you sob.

“Because you take what I give you and immediately beg for more like it’s not enough.” His hand comes down again, twice in quick succession, and you lose count, scrambling to catch up.

“Five—six—“

“Pathetic.” He sounds disgusted and pleased at the same time. His knuckles skim the burn, then slide meanly through your slick, circle your clit once and abandon it like a test you failed. The touch makes you clench around nothing, empty and aching, every nerve ending screaming for more pressure, more contact, more of him. The abandonment feels like a punishment you can’t name—your body chasing something he’s already taken away. “Still dripping. Still desperate. Still not listening.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy—”

“You will be.” His fist knots in your hair, yanking your face off the sheet. “We keep going until your body remembers how to obey. You twitch or gasp wrong, we reset to one.”

The next strike lands; you choke the whimper into your teeth and hold. “Seven!”

“Let’s see you make it to ten without falling apart.”

Eight snaps high on the curve; nine brutal on the sit spot. You bite the inside of your cheek until you taste iron and force the numbers out steady—“Eight. Nine.”—and you don’t move.

Ten comes down perfect, right where it hurts prettiest.

“Ten.” Your voice is raw but even. Silence drops heavy around it.

“Look at that,” he murmurs, palm smoothing over the heat, reverent like he’s polishing his work. “Directions aren’t complicated when you’re not busy failing.”

His fingers trace the marks he’s left, then slide lower, through the slick mess between your thighs. You bite down hard on your lip to keep from making a sound, from pushing back into his touch.

“Don’t you dare chase,” he says softly.

You lock your hips but Hongjoong rewards you with nothing. Then—finally, cruelly—one slow circle on your clit that makes your calves charlie-horse and your lungs forget.

You wait. You hold perfectly still, thighs shaking, breathing shallow through your nose. You wait for the praise—for him to tell you you’re good, that you’ve finally done it right, that you’ve earned something. The silence stretches. His thumb stays maddeningly light, circling without pressure, and the words don't come.

They’re not coming.

The realisation settles cold in your chest even as heat coils tighter in your belly. He’s not going to give it to you.

“Please,” you whisper, a thread. “Please tell me I did good.”

Hongjoong’s hand stills. The silence stretches, and you feel the weight of his gaze on you.

“Ask properly.”

You swallow hard, forcing the words out even as shame and need tangle in your chest. “Please, Daddy. Please tell me I’m good. I need to hear it. I need to know I did well.”

His thumb resumes—tight, deliberate circles that you meet with perfect stillness because you want the words more than air. “You want praise?” he asks, almost curious. “After the shitshow you put on?”

“I made it to ten,” you rasp. “I stayed still. I didn’t move.”

“You finally did what you were told,” he concedes. Pressure sharpens and every muscle in you locks so you don’t grind into it. “Miracles.”

“Please,” you breathe. “Please, Daddy—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Hongjoong says, voice flat. His thumb stops mid-circle and lifts off entirely. “I didn’t ask for begging. I asked for obedience.”

The loss of contact is devastating. You bite back a whimper, holding position even as your thighs shake.

“You think making it to ten earns you anything?” He sounds almost bored now, disgusted. “That’s the bare minimum of not being completely fucking useless.”

Your eyes burn. You keep your face pressed to the sheet, don’t move, don’t speak.

“You want praise for doing what you should’ve done the first time?” His hand comes down once more on your ass. “For finally shutting up and following a simple fucking instruction?”

Silence. You don’t answer because he didn’t ask a question you’re allowed to respond to.

“That’s what I thought.” His fingers trail back between your thighs, maddeningly light, and you hold so still you forget to breathe. “You don’t get praise for meeting expectations. You get my cock when you exceed them.” His voice drops, cruel and clinical. “And you? You’re so far below the bar I’d need a fucking shovel to find where you started. You think ten slaps and some tears make you special? You’re not even average. You’re just finally less of a disappointment than you were five minutes ago.”

His fist knots in your hair again and yanks you upright—sharp, brutal—until your spine arcs and your knees scream against the mattress. Your scalp burns; your throat opens on a gasp you can’t swallow back.

“Look at me.” His voice is low, final. You force your eyes open, vision blurred, and meet his gaze. It’s flat. Clinical. Like he’s deciding whether you’re worth the effort.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” He tightens his grip until tears spring hot and immediate. “Attention. Validation. My fucking time.”

You can’t nod—his hold won’t let you—so you whisper it, wrecked. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Then stop fucking wasting it.” He drags you closer by the hair, your body folding backward, chest exposed, throat vulnerable. “Stop begging for praise you haven’t earned. Stop moving when I tell you to be still. Stop acting like you don’t know exactly what I expect from you.”

He releases your hair and you collapse forward, gasping. Before you can catch your breath, his hands are on your hips, hauling you upright and off the bed entirely. Your legs don’t work right—numb and shaking—but Hongjoong doesn't care, dragging you across the room until your palms hit cold glass.

“Hands flat,” he orders, positioning you facing the window. The city glitters below, oblivious. “Don’t you fucking move them.”

You press your palms to the glass, the chill biting into your overheated skin. The window is floor-to-ceiling, and you’re on the twentieth floor—exposed, visible if anyone bothered to look up. The thought makes your stomach drop.

“Daddy—“ you start, voice thin with panic.

“I don’t remember asking you to speak.” His hand lands between your shoulder blades, forcing your chest forward until your breasts press flat against the glass. The cold shocks through you, nipples hardening instantly, and you gasp at the contrast. “You wanted my attention? Congratulations. Now everyone down there gets a front-row seat to what happens when you finally shut the fuck up and do what you’re told.”

His breath is hot against your ear as he leans in closer, caging you against the window. “Look at them. All those people going about their boring little lives, and if even one of them glanced up right now, they’d see you—spread out, dripping, desperate. They’d see exactly what kind of slut you are. The kind who begs for cock pressed against a window twenty floors up.”

He grinds his hips forward slightly, not entering yet, just letting you feel the threat of it. “Think about it. Some guy walking his dog. Some woman coming home from work. And there you are—tits against the glass, ass out, waiting to be fucked like you’re on display. Like you’re a show I’m putting on for the whole goddamn city.”

He kicks your feet apart, wider than stable, until you’re on display—open, vulnerable. His hand trails down your spine, over the burning marks on your ass, then lower.

“Stay exactly like this,” he says, voice deadly calm. “Hands on the glass. Don’t move. Don’t make a sound."

You feel him line up behind you, the blunt pressure of his cock against your entrance. Your breath fogs the window. Every instinct screams to push back, to take what you need, but you lock your muscles and hold.

“Everyone can see you,” he says, breath hot against your ear as he leans over you, caging you between his body and the glass. “See how desperate you are.”

The angle is punishing. He bottoms out so deep you feel it in your throat then he pulls to the edge and shoves back in in one rude stroke. Your gasp splashes white on the glass. Hongjoong watches it bloom and fade and times the next thrust to erase it. He does not tease. He does not test. He just takes—hips snapping in a pace with no mercy—each impact a proof that your body belongs exactly where he’s putting it. When your thighs start to shake he only tightens his hand at your hip, grinding you into the glass so the cold bites your nipples and the heat bites everywhere else

Your reflection stares back at you—fucked out, wrecked, mouth open on silent gasps you’re not allowed to voice.

“This is what you needed,” he continues, rhythm brutal and unrelenting. “Not praise. Not softness. Just someone to put you exactly where you belong and fuck the desperation out of you until you remember how to behave.”

Your legs are shaking so hard you can barely stand, but his grip on your hips is iron, holding you in place, keeping you upright and on display as he uses you against the window.

You’re e so full. The stretch is devastating—not painful, but so complete it rewires every nerve ending, makes you hyperaware of every inch of him inside you. Your body clenches reflexively, trying to adjust, and the friction makes your breath stutter. He’s so deep you feel it in your stomach, a pressure that borders on too much but somehow isn’t enough.

The heat of him is overwhelming. You can feel every throb, every shift of his hips, the way he fills every space until there’s nothing left but him. Your walls flutter around his length, trying to accommodate, trying to hold on, and the sensation makes your head spin.

You feel owned. Claimed. Like your body was made specifically for this—for him to fill and use and shape however he wants. The thought makes you clench again, and you hear his breath catch behind you.

Hongjoong’s hand clamps your hip and drags you back onto him while his mouth finds the slope where neck becomes shoulder. He bites—hard, deliberate—until your breath splinters on the glass, then sucks wickedly slow to pull the bruise up dark and pretty. “Mine,” he says into the mark, not for you, for the mirror of your face in the window.

Rings grind into your skin as his fingers hike your waist higher, leaving crescent dents along your side. He shifts his grip to your ass and you almost hiss—the flesh is still burning from before, hypersensitive—but he doesn’t care, squeezing until your skin crests his knuckles. Then he smacks the same handprint in place—once, twice, a third time—each impact landing on already-raw skin that makes you gasp sharp and broken into the glass.

His mouth trails lower, teeth scraping the curve where your shoulder meets your throat. He sucks hard enough to sting, working the skin until you feel the heat bloom under his lips. When he pulls back, you know there's a mark—dark and obvious, a claim you'll see tomorrow and every day after until it fades.

“Everyone’s going to know,” he murmurs against your skin, moving to a new spot. His teeth catch again, sharper this time, and you whimper before you can stop yourself. He doesn’t scold you for it. Instead, he hums, pleased, and works his way across your throat, your collarbone, the top of your shoulder—each love bite deliberate, territorial. His tongue soothes over the marks before his teeth return, and the contrast makes you dizzy. Your reflection in the glass shows the trail he’s leaving. A constellation of bruises that spell out exactly who you belong to.

“Prettier when you bruise,” he murmurs, and you feel him smile against your throat. He shoves your wrists wider on the glass, laces his fingers over yours so you can’t hide the way you shake, and fucks you harder—short, piston drives that press your chest flat and stamp the rhythm into your spine. Your breath paints messy halos on the pane. Hongjoong leans forward and bites your ear, low laugh ugly against your skin.

His mouth moves to the curve of your neck, lips dragging slow over the sensitive skin just below your ear. The gentleness is unexpected—devastating. Your body doesn’t know what to do with tender after brutal, and the contrast hits like a live wire. He kisses once, soft, then again lower, and your breath catches wrong in your chest.

“Daddy—“ you try to warn him, but it comes out broken.

“Quiet,” he murmurs against your throat, and kisses you again. His lips are warm, almost reverent as they trail down to your shoulder, and the rhythm of his hips never falters—still deep, still unrelenting, but now paired with this impossible softness that’s unraveling you faster than anything brutal ever could.

It builds wrong. Too fast. You weren’t ready for it—one second you’re holding on, the next you’re free-falling, your orgasm slamming into you without warning. Your whole body locks up, spine arcing away from the glass as the pleasure rips through you in violent, uncontrollable waves. He feels the clamp coming—a greedy, panicked grab—and rips out in one brutal drag.

The world snaps wrong. Heat turns to air, slick to cold, friction to nothing. Your cry out raw and too loud, fog exploding across the glass in a white star. Your thighs slam together on instinct and find only his palm, flat and merciless, forcing your knees wide again. Everything skids, your body still pitched for impact while the impact is gone, nerves misfiring, the ache in your belly pitching higher with nowhere to go. Your clit throbs, your calves seize, your nipples spark on the pane.

“Did I say you could cum, you filthy slut?” His voice is ice and venom.

”Please-” Your voice cracks into a ragged wail you can’t swallow. The sound embarrasses you even as it keeps coming-thin, high, animal-your chest scraping the glass as you shudder.

“Shut your fucking mouth.” Hongjoong’s hand clamps your jaw brutal and drags your open mouth to the window so you hear yourself against the pane-hot breath, pathetic little whimpers bouncing back. “Disgusting. Look at this mess.” Two fingers slide through the slick pouring out of you and slap your clit mean, the sting bright and metallic and your whole body jerks like a current ran through you. “Dripping like a bitch in heat. You’re fucking pathetic.”

He does it again-lighter, crueler-just enough to sharpen the ache and keep it blooming. “Greedy cunt couldn't wait, could she?” The cold on your front feels like punishment, the heat at your back feels like a dare. You can taste blood where you bit your tongue, you can feel his ring scrape your hip as he drags your pelvis higher and pins you there, open and empty and shaking. “Worthless little whore. Can’t follow one simple fucking rule.”

“Could’ve asked. Could’ve been good. But no-you had to be a desperate fucking cumslut,” he snarls at your reflection, voice dripping contempt. He paints your hipbone with your own slick like a stripe, degrading, then presses his thumb into the fresh bruise on your shoulder hard enough to make you gasp. “Now hold it and suffer.”

Your body argues in every language it has—fluttering, pleading squeezes at nothing, a pulse between your legs that hurts, a tremor you can’t stop—while he gives you exactly no motion where you need it and too much where you can’t take it. He bites the hinge of your jaw, sucks until colour swells up pretty and dark, and when your breath stutters toward that helpless climb again, he taps your clit once—just once—and the wave collapses with a sob that fogs the glass and runs. “Filthy fucking thing. This is what disobedient sluts get.”

Your body is betraying you—hips rolling in tiny, desperate circles even though he’s not inside you anymore, chasing friction that isn’t there. The orgasm he denied you earlier left everything raw and oversensitive, and now every nerve ending is screaming for release. Your clit throbs in time with your pulse, swollen and aching, and the emptiness inside you feels like a physical wound.

You can feel it building again—that terrible, inevitable climb. Your thighs are shaking so hard they might give out. Heat pools low in your belly, coiling tighter with each ragged breath. It’s different this time—sharper, more desperate, edged with something that feels dangerously close to panic because you know what happens if you fall over without permission.

“Daddy—please—” Your voice cracks on the plea. “I need—I can’t—”

The pressure builds and builds, your body pulled taut as a wire, every muscle locked in anticipation of a release you’re not allowed to have. You’re so close it hurts—that edge right there, shimmering just out of reach, and your body keeps reaching for it anyway, mindless and greedy and completely beyond your control.

His fingers barely touch your clit, just the ghost of pressure—and begin to circle with agonising slowness. Not enough to give relief, just enough to make everything worse. Each lazy pass sends sparks shooting through your nerves, stoking the fire instead of quenching it.

“You gonna try cumming again without permission?” His laugh is cruel against your ear, all sharp edges. His hand spreads over your throat, thumb under your jaw to keep your face to the window, forcing you to watch yourself fall apart. “Be still. Feel every second of what you don’t deserve. Feel it, you needy little whore.”

Your body doesn’t listen—can’t listen. The orgasm crashes through you anyway, ripping a broken cry from your throat as you clench and pulse around nothing. Your legs give out completely, only his grip on your throat keeping you upright against the glass as pleasure tears through you in waves you can’t control.

“Did I fucking say you could?” Hongjoong’s voice is ice.

Your vision blurs with tears—shame and oversensitivity and the cruel ache of cumming empty. “I’m sorry—I’m sorry—I couldn’t—”

“Pathetic.” He releases your throat and you crumple, legs buckling, but he catches you by the hips before you hit the floor.

Hongjoong peels you off the window by the back of your neck and walks you to the bed like he owns the hinge of every joint. The mattress hits the backs of your knees, he doesn’t guide you down so much as throw you, a bounce knocking a breathless sound out of you.

His hand cracks across your face—not hard enough to hurt, but sharp enough to snap your attention back to him. The sting blooms hot across your cheek, shocking you into stillness.

“Eyes on me,” he commands, voice low and dangerous. “Don’t you dare look away.”

He slaps you again—same cheek, harder this time—and the sound that rips from your throat is pure, shameless need. A moan, broken and desperate, that makes his eyes go dark.

“Fuck,” he breathes, almost reverent. His thumb traces the reddened skin, the heat of it blooming under his touch. “You like that, don’t you?”

Before you can answer, he slaps you again—lighter this time, almost playful—and watches your pupils blow wide. “Yeah,” he confirms, reading your body like a book he’s memorised. “You fucking love it.”

He’s on you a second later—knee between yours, shoving them wide—hands mean on your hips as he lines up and drives in with one brutal stroke that punches the air out of you.

“Quiet,” he snaps, palm clamping over your mouth. “Swallow it.”

Your moan dies behind his hand, trapped in your throat where it burns. No easing, no rhythm—just slam, slam, slam—his pelvis clapping your thighs, the headboard starting to complain in hard little knocks that match your pulse. The angle is obscene with your hips tipped; each drag feels like he’s stripping you to the studs and hammering you back together wrong. Every sound you want to make gets caught behind his palm, building pressure in your chest until you’re choking on your own desperation.

“Look at me,” he grits. You do—eyes glassy—and it only makes him rougher. Heat builds thick and fast in your belly again, that off‑the‑cliff drop, the ache and burn at your clit. The sounds are wet and humiliating and loud, but your moans stay trapped—swallowed down like he ordered, leaving only the whimpers that leak through your nose and the desperate way you’re breathing against his palm.

Hongjoong’s close—you can feel it in the way his breathing saws, in the vicious set of his mouth, in the way his rhythm goes intent and ugly, grinding at the end of each thrust like he’s carving his name into the spot that makes you see static. His hand stays firm over your mouth, forcing you to take it in silence, to keep every wrecked sound locked inside where only you can feel how thoroughly he’s breaking you apart. You catch the first stutter in his hips and reach for him without thinking, greedy, pleading.

“Don’t.” The word is a snarl. He stuffs you full and holds there, cock thick and pulsing inside you, then drags out slow enough to scrape sparks and snaps back in hard enough to jolt your spine. “You don’t deserve Daddy’s cum.”

The sentence lands like a slap. Heat spikes behind your eyes; your body clenches around him in panicked apology.

“Please—” you manage against his palm, the word muffled and desperate.

“You need to learn.” Another slam—deep, punishing—and the next rolls through you like thunder, heavy grind at the end that drags a high, torn sound from your throat.

Your hands scramble for purchase on his shoulders, nails digging in, but he catches both wrists in one hand and pins them above your head. His other hand finally leaves your mouth.

“Please,” you sob, shameless now. “Please fill me—please let me have it—I’ll hold it—I’ll be good—”

He laughs—short, cruel—breath burning your cheek. “Will you?” His hand slides to your throat, thumb under your jaw to tilt your face up so he can watch you fall apart. “Say it properly.”

“Please, Daddy,” you gasp, voice breaking on the word. “Please cum inside me. I need it. I need you. I’ll keep it. I’ll—” Your voice knifes up because he grinds just right and the lights stipple again. “Please—I’ll be useful—please—”

His control frays; you feel it in the nasty little shiver that runs through him, in the way he clamps your hip like it’s the only thing stopping him from painting you from the inside. He bares his teeth, eyes sharp and dark. “Beg better.”

“Please—use me properly—mark me from the inside—please, Daddy—”

“Mhm.” The sound is a threat and a promise. He slams you deeper, deeper, harder—headboard knocking time, breath brutal at your ear—then rips out at the last second and fists himself once, twice, the wet slick of you shining his length while you wail.

“No—no, please—" The words tumble out desperate and broken. You reach for him with shaking hands, shameless now, all pride dissolved. “Please fill me up—mark me—use me—” You’re babbling, hips canting up obscenely, trying to tempt him back.

His eyes darken as he watches you fall apart, a cruel smirk playing at his lips. “Look at you,” he breathes, voice dripping with condescension. “Begging like a bitch in heat.” His fist keeps working himself, slow and deliberate, making you watch every stroke.

Your thighs spread wider without him asking, presenting yourself like an offering. “Please cum in me—I'm begging—I'll do anything—” Tears stream down your face, your voice cracking. “Need to feel you—need Daddy’s cum so bad—please don’t waste it—please use my hole.”

“Shut the fuck up.” His voice is dead calm, which makes it worse. “You think you deserve Daddy’s cum?" He laughs—short, cruel. “No. You’re going to lie there empty and watch me waste it. Watch what you don’t get to have.” His eyes are vicious, mouth twisted. “Pathetic little cumslut can’t even follow simple fucking rules. Open your eyes wider. I want you to see every drop you’re not getting.”

“Please, Daddy,” you sob, voice breaking on every word. “Please use your cumslut—please fuck me —I’ll be so good—I’ll take everything—please.”

You look at him—eyes glassed, mouth open, body clenching on nothing—while he edges himself cruelly, letting every half-breath of relief flash and die on his face. He squeezes himself hard, strangling the tremor, and lets the edge bleed away while you sob beneath him, trembling empty and open.

His hand fists in your hair, “What are you?"

“A slut,” you whimper, shame burning through you.

“A what?” He pulls harder, making you gasp.

“A pathetic slut—Daddy’s pathetic slut—”

“That’s right.” He releases your hair with a shove, letting your head fall back against the mattress. “And you love it,” he continues, voice dark with satisfaction. “Love being Daddy’s desperate fucktoy. Love being used and degraded and filled up like the greedy whore you are.”

“Yes,” you sob, because it’s true, because you can’t deny it when your body is still trembling with need.

“Tell me what you are.”

“I’m Daddy’s greedy whore,” you gasp out, shame and arousal twisting together. “I’m a desperate cumslut—I’m pathetic—I need you—”

“Fucking right you do.”

Then he flips you onto your stomach before you can process it, one hand shoving between your shoulder blades to pin you flat. The sheets are hot against your cheek, your breath trapped in the mattress.

“Stay down," Hongjoong orders, voice low and mean behind you. You feel him shift, feel the mattress dip as he repositions, and then his hands are on your hips, dragging them up, arching your back until you’re presented exactly how he wants you. You’re face-down, ass up, completely exposed with no way to see what he’s doing, no way to brace for what comes next. Your fingers twist in the sheets.

“Daddy—” you start, voice muffled.

“No,” he cuts you off. “You don’t get to look at me. You don’t get to see if I’m close. You just take what I give you and be grateful.”

He lines up and shoves in without warning, the angle deeper like this, meaner. Your cry gets swallowed by the pillow as he sets a brutal pace, hips slamming against your ass with each thrust. The sound is obscene—skin on skin, the wet slide of him inside you—and you can’t see any of it, can only feel and hear and drown in it.

“You’re lucky Daddy loves your hole,” he growls, and the words hit like a brand. His hand comes down hard on your ass, the sharp crack echoing in the room. The sting blooms hot and immediate, and you whimper into the pillow.

“Lucky I don’t leave you empty and aching.” He punctuates it with another thrust, deeper, meaner, grinding at the end until you’re sobbing. “This greedy little cunt,” he mutters, almost to himself. “Always so desperate for me. Always begging so pretty.”

“Say it,” he demands. “Say you’re lucky.”

“I’m—I’m lucky,” you gasp out, voice wrecked and muffled. “I’m lucky Daddy loves my—”

“Louder.”

“I’m lucky Daddy loves my hole,” you sob, shame and arousal twisting together until you can’t tell them apart.

“That’s right.” His rhythm turns vicious, each thrust punching the words back into you. “Don’t you forget it.”

“Please, Daddy—please—I'll do anything—I'll be so good—please just fill me—please cum inside me—” You sob again, pushing back against him even though you know better, trying to take him deeper. His breath hitches and you chase it, sensing weakness.

His hand finds your clit immediately, two fingers pressing down with just enough pressure to make you jolt. “This what you needed?” he asks as he starts to rub tight, mean circles that have you gasping.

“Yes—fuck—yes, Daddy—” You can barely get the words out, your whole body arcing up into his touch. His fingers work your clit in ruthless little circles while he fucks into you, the dual sensation making your vision blur at the edges.

“Gonna make you cum on my cock this time,” he growls. “Gonna feel you squeeze me while you fall apart.” His fingers speed up, the pressure perfect and devastating, and you’re already so close you can taste it.

“Please—Daddy—I can't—” Your voice breaks, thighs shaking so hard you can barely hold yourself up. The pressure builds too fast, too much, coiling tight in your belly until it feels like something’s going to snap.

“You can,” he snarls, “You will. Show Daddy what a good little slut you are.”

The angle shifts just enough and suddenly you’re there again—past the point of holding back, past the point of control. Your orgasm slams through you with brutal force, and this time it’s different. Wetter. Your whole body locks up as you gush around him, soaking his cock, the sheets, making a mess you can’t stop even if you wanted to. The sound that rips from your throat is inhuman.

“Fuck—” Hongjoong chokes out, and his rhythm shatters. “Fuck—that’s it—” He feels you clenching and pulsing around him, feels the hot rush of your release, and it destroys him. Three more brutal thrusts and he’s gone, slamming deep and grinding as he finally, finally fills you. You feel every pulse, every throb as he empties himself inside you, his groan low and wrecked against your spine.

His hips stutter through the aftershocks, grinding shallow like he can’t bear to pull out yet. Your body is still twitching, still clenching around him in weak little aftershocks while his cum starts to leak out around where you’re joined. He stays buried deep, breathing hard against your shoulder blade.

“Good girl,” he finally murmurs, voice hoarse. “Such a good fucking girl for me.”

He doesn't pull out. Instead, his hips roll forward again, fucking his cum deeper into you, the obscene wet sound making you whimper. “One more,” he growls against your ear, his voice rough and commanding. “Give me one more.”

“Daddy—I can’t—” Your voice breaks, oversensitive and wrecked, every nerve ending screaming. It hurts—the drag of him inside you feels like fire, too much sensation on already brutalised nerves. You try to squirm away but his grip on your hips is iron.

“You can.” His hand slides back to your clit, fingers still slick, and starts those same ruthless circles. The first touch makes you sob—it’s too much, bordering on painful, your body trying to reject the stimulation. “You’re going to cum on my cock again with my cum inside you. Going to make a bigger mess.”

The sensation is overwhelming—too much, too sensitive—and it hurts. Each thrust feels like he’s grinding against raw nerves, the wet slide obscene and filthy but painful in its intensity. You can feel his cum leaking out around him, coating your thighs, but all you can focus on is how much your body is screaming at you to stop.

“Daddy—please—it hurts—” you sob, tears streaming down your face.

Hongjoong stills immediately. Completely. His fingers freeze on your clit, his hips lock in place, and the sudden absence of movement is almost jarring after the relentless intensity.

“Colour,” he demands, voice cutting through the haze with sharp clarity. “Give me your colour right now.”

You’re gasping, trying to process the question through the overwhelming sensations coursing through your body.

“Green,” you manage to choke out between sobs.

“Don't lie to me.”

“Green,” you repeat, more firmly this time despite how wrecked your voice sounds. “Promise—it's green—just hurts—overwhelming— don’t stop”

“I know,” he murmur gently, his hips moving again. “I know it hurts, baby. Just breathe through it.”

You try to obey, gasping for air, and somewhere in the burning oversensitivity, something shifts. The pain doesn’t disappear, but it starts to blur at the edges, transmuting into something else. Your body adjusts to the intensity, and suddenly the hurt starts to feel good—sharp and bright and desperate.

“Feel that?” he asks, grinding deep. “Feel how full you are? That’s all Daddy’s cum, and you’re going to squeeze it out when you cum again.”

“Please—” The word comes out broken because you don’t even know what you’re begging for anymore. His fingers work your clit with practiced cruelty, and the oversensitivity that was making you sob is suddenly driving you higher. You can feel it building again—impossibly, devastatingly—your wrecked body finding another peak despite everything.

“That’s it,” he encourages, voice dark with satisfaction. “Knew you could take it. Feel you getting close again. Such a greedy little thing. Can’t get enough of daddy’s cock, can you?”

“No—no, I can't—” you gasp, pushing back against him mindlessly. The pressure builds impossibly fast, sharp and brutal and bright now instead of painful. Every nerve that was screaming in protest is now singing, driving you toward the edge with vicious intent.

“Come on,” Hongjoong growls, his fingers pressing harder, circling faster. “Give it to me. Show Daddy what a mess you can make.” His cock grinds deep, hitting that devastating angle. “Cum on Daddy’s cock right fucking now.”

Your body obeys before your mind catches up, the orgasm ripping through you with devastating force. You clench around him so hard it hurts, your walls spasming and tightening in a vice grip. The sound you make is broken and desperate, somewhere between a scream and a sob.

“Fuck—” Hongjoong chokes out, his rhythm faltering. “Fuck—you’re so tight—” His voice breaks on the last word because you’re squeezing him so hard he can barely move, your body milking him with each brutal pulse. “Gonna make me—fuck—”

He doesn’t get to finish the sentence. Your cunt clamps down on him one more time and it destroys him completely. He slams deep with a guttural groan, grinding against you as he cums again, harder this time, filling you even fuller. You feel every throb, every pulse as he empties himself inside you for the second time, his whole body shuddering against your back.

“That's my good girl,” he gasps out, voice wrecked. “Making such a pretty mess for Daddy. So fucking tight—milked it right out of me.”

You gush again—harder this time, wetter—your body wringing itself out around him in pulsing waves while his cum floods you. The release is so intense it borders on violent, liquid heat flooding between your legs, soaking everything. You feel it run down your thighs, hear it drip onto the already-ruined sheets, and the humiliation of it only makes you clench harder, forcing more of his release to leak out around where you’re joined.

“There it is,” Hongjoong breathes, reverent and filthy at once. “So fucking messy for me.” His hips keep grinding shallow, working you both through it, forcing every last drop out while you shake and sob beneath him. “Such a good little squirter. Making Daddy so proud.”

Your whole body goes limp, muscles giving out completely. You collapse face-first into the mattress, boneless and used, trembling with aftershocks. Hongjoong finally stills, cock still buried deep, and lets his weight settle against your back. His breathing is ragged against your neck.

“Perfect,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your sweat-slick shoulder. “You did so fucking perfect, baby. Squeezed me so tight I couldn’t help it.”

You can’t move, can’t think, can barely breathe. The sheets beneath you are soaked—cum and your own release mixing in a cooling puddle. Hongjoong shifts slightly, cock still buried deep, and you whimper at the oversensitivity. You can feel how full you are, how much he’s filled you, and it leaks out in thick rivulets with even the smallest movement.

When he finally pulls out, the loss is immediate and devastating. You whine—high and broken—feeling unbearably empty after being so full. His cum starts to leak out in earnest now, thick and warm, dripping down your thighs in slow rivulets. The sensation makes you shudder.

“Shh,” Hongjoong soothes, his hand stroking down your spine. He shifts his weight, hands sliding under your shoulders as he carefully rolls you onto your back. Your body settles against the mattress, and you feel more of his cum leak out with the position change, thick and warm between your legs.

“There we go,” he murmurs, settling between your spread thighs. “Look how much Daddy filled you up. So much it can’t even stay inside.”

You whimper, hips twitching uselessly, body still trying to clench around nothing. The emptiness feels wrong after everything, like you’ve been carved hollow. More of his release spills out with each aftershock, and you can feel it cooling on your skin.

“So pretty like this,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “All fucked out and dripping. Made such a mess of you.” His thumb drags through the slickness, spreading it further, and you keen at the oversensitivity. “My perfect mess.”

You can’t form words, can only lie there trembling while he touches you with a gentleness that feels almost cruel after everything.

“Good girl,” he whispers, and the praise makes something warm bloom in your chest despite your exhaustion. Your body is wrecked, oversensitive, every nerve ending raw and singing. But when his fingers brush over your entrance again, gathering more of the mess he’s made, you find yourself pushing back into the touch despite the sensitivity.

“Oh?” Hongjoong’s voice lifts with surprise, his fingers stilling. His eyes darken as he watches you move against his hand—mindless, instinctive—seeking more despite everything. Despite being so thoroughly fucked out that coherent thought is impossible. “Still greedy for it, baby? Even with that pretty head all empty?”

You can't answer with words—don't even fully understand the question—but your body knows. Your hips roll weakly against his palm, chasing the touch with clumsy desperation. A soft whine spills from your lips, needy and thoughtless. Parts of you crave the continued touch. The emptiness feels worse than the sting.

“Greedy thing,” he murmurs, but there’s wonder in it now, not just teasing. His fingers slide through the mess again, more deliberately this time, and you whimper. “Even after I fucked you senseless. Even after you came so hard you soaked the sheets twice. You still want Daddy’s touch.”

“Puh—please,” you manage, the word barely forming through drool-slicked lips, voice completely destroyed and slurred beyond recognition.

Hongjoong’s expression shifts—something possessive and tender at once. “Okay, baby,” he soothes. “Daddy’s got you. Always got you.” His fingers circle your entrance gently now, gathering the cum that’s still leaking out and pushing it back inside with careful pressure. The sensation makes you gasp, oversensitive but good, filling that devastating emptiness just slightly.

“There,” he whispers. “Is that what you needed? To stay full?”

You nod frantically, pushing against his hand, and he obliges—two fingers sliding in deeper, keeping his release inside you. The stretch is almost too much on your abused walls, but it’s what you want. What you need.

“Such a good girl,” he praises softly. “Taking everything Daddy gives you and still asking for more.”

His fingers work slow and steady inside you, and something in your brain just... shuts off. The constant buzz of thoughts, the ability to form coherent words—it all dissolves into nothing but sensation. Your mouth falls open, soft moans spilling out with each gentle thrust of his fingers.

“There she goes,” Hongjoong murmurs, watching your expression go slack with satisfaction. “There’s my girl. Nothing left in that pretty head but how good Daddy makes you feel, huh?”

You can’t even nod properly, just a loose movement of your head, eyes unfocused and glassy. Another moan slips out, breathy and mindless. His fingers curl slightly and your hips twitch, but there’s no urgency to it—just your body responding on pure instinct while your mind floats somewhere far away.

“Look at you,” he says softly, almost reverent. “Fucked you so good you can’t even think anymore. Just my empty-headed baby now, aren’t you?”

“Mm,” is all you can manage, the sound quiet and blissed-out. Your eyes flutter, struggling to focus on his face. Everything feels distant and warm, your body heavy and pliant beneath his touch.

“That’s right,” Hongjoong coos, his free hand stroking your cheek. “Don’t need to think. Just need to feel. Just need to let Daddy take care of you.” His fingers maintain that slow, gentle rhythm, keeping you full, keeping you floating. “Such pretty sounds you’re making. Can’t even form words anymore, can you?”

You shake your head—barely—another soft moan falling from your parted lips. The oversensitivity has melted into something dreamlike, each movement of his fingers sending lazy waves of pleasure through your wrung-out body. There’s no edge to chase anymore, no building tension—just the mindless contentment of being touched, being full, being his.

“Perfect,” he whispers. “Absolutely perfect like this.”

His hand slides up from your hip, palm warm against your ribs as it travels higher. When he cups your breast, thumb brushing over your nipple, you keen—high and broken. The sensitivity is different here, less raw but somehow more direct, each touch shooting straight through you.

“So responsive,” Hongjoong murmurs, watching your face as he rolls your nipple between his fingers. Your back arches weakly, pushing into the touch despite your exhaustion. “Even here. Every part of you is so fucking sensitive for me.”

His fingers inside you curl slightly in time with the pinch of his other hand on your nipple, and the dual sensation makes your eyes roll back. Another mindless moan falls from your lips, your body responding without thought, without control.

“That’s it,” he coos, switching to your other breast, palm kneading gently before his fingers find that peaked bud. “Just feel it, baby. Don’t think. Just let Daddy play with you.” He tugs slightly and you whimper, hips twitching against the fingers still buried inside you. “So pretty when you make those sounds.”

His touch alternates between gentle and firm—thumbs circling your nipples, palms pressing against the soft weight of your breasts, fingers occasionally pinching just hard enough to make you gasp. Each touch keeps you floating in that mindless space, pleasure washing over you in slow, lazy waves.

“Could play with these all day,” he murmurs, dipping his head to press a kiss to the curve of your breast. “Watch you fall apart from just this.” His tongue flicks out, circling your nipple before his lips close around it, and you gasp—the wet heat of his mouth making everything sharper, more intense.

Hongjoong sucks gently, tongue working the sensitive bud while his fingers continue their slow rhythm inside you. Your hands find his hair, holding on weakly, not pulling—just needing something to anchor you. When he grazes his teeth across your nipple, your whole body jolts, a strangled sound escaping you.

“Good girl,” he whispers against your skin. “Taking everything so well. My perfect, empty-headed doll.”

Your thighs shake harder now, trembling under his attention, muscles twitching with aftershocks that won’t stop. Each suck of his mouth, each curl of his fingers inside you makes them quiver more violently, until you can’t keep them still even if you tried.

“Joong,” you whimper, his name barely coherent, your voice destroyed and small. His mouth releases your nipple with a wet pop, switching to the other side, and the attention makes your back arch off the mattress weakly. “Can’t—too much—”

“Shh, I know, baby,” he soothes, releasing your breast to press kisses along your sternum. His fingers slow inside you, gentling their rhythm as your thighs continue to tremble uncontrollably. “But you’re doing so well for me. Just a little more, okay? Let me take care of you.”

You nod weakly, unable to do anything but submit, your body no longer your own—just something for him to play with, to care for, to keep floating in this mindless space. Your thighs won’t stop shaking, trembling against his sides as he settles between them again, and you can feel more of his cum leaking out despite his fingers still working to keep it inside.

“One more, baby,” he whispers against your lips. “Give Daddy one more and then I’ll let you rest.”

You manage to look at him through heavy-lidded eyes, vision blurred and unfocused. It takes effort to keep them open, each blink longer than the last. His face swims above you, features soft and concerned, and you can barely make out the dark intensity of his gaze.

“There you are,” he murmurs, his free hand cupping your face, thumb stroking your cheekbone. “Stay with me, baby. Just a little more. Can you do that for Daddy?”

You try to nod, but your head feels impossibly heavy, movements sluggish and uncoordinated. Another weak sound escapes you as his fingers curl inside you, and your eyes threaten to slip closed.

“Eyes on me,” Hongjoong coaxes gently, tapping your cheek to keep you present. “Want to see you when you fall apart one more time. Need to watch my baby come undone.”

It takes everything you have to keep your gaze on him, eyelids fluttering with the effort. His fingers work inside you with deliberate care, coaxing your body toward that edge one more time despite your exhaustion.

“That’s my good girl,” he praises softly. “Keep those pretty eyes on me.” His thumb finds your clit, circling with barely-there pressure, and your mouth falls open on a silent cry. “Almost there, baby.”

His hand moves from your face to slide two fingers past your parted lips. The touch is unexpected, gentle but insistent as they press against your tongue. Your eyes widen slightly, trying to focus on him through the haze.

“Suck,” Hongjoong commands softly, his voice dropping lower. “Show Daddy how good that mouth can be.”

You obey automatically, lips closing around his fingers, tongue working weakly against them. The taste is clean, just skin and the faint salt of sweat, and something about the act—the fullness in your mouth matching the fullness between your legs—makes you whimper around his fingers.

“Pretty,” he murmurs, watching your lips wrap around his digits with dark satisfaction. “Such a perfect mouth. Takes everything I give you so well.” His fingers inside you curl harder and you moan around the ones in your mouth, the sound muffled and desperate.

He pushes them deeper, making you gag slightly, and your eyes water as you struggle to accommodate them. “Shh, relax,” he soothes, easing back just enough. “Just like taking my cock. You can do it.” The comparison makes you clench around his other hand, and he groans. “Feel that? Your body knows what it wants.”

His thumb on your clit presses firmer now, circling with intent, and you keen around his fingers. Drool starts to leak from the corners of your mouth as you struggle to keep sucking, your jaw slack and uncoordinated. Everything is too much—the stretch in your mouth, the fullness between your legs, the relentless pressure on your clit.

“So messy,” Hongjoong says with satisfaction, watching the spit drip down your chin. “Can’t even keep it together anymore, can you? Just my brainless little toy.” He pulls his fingers from your mouth with a wet sound, dragging the saliva down your neck, your chest, leaving a glistening trail. “Open.”

You obey without thought, mouth falling open, tongue out. He leans down and spits directly onto your tongue, the act filthy and possessive, and you moan at the degradation of it. “Swallow,” he commands, and you do, throat working visibly.

“Good fucking girl,” he praises darkly. His fingers push back into your mouth, pressing down on your tongue, keeping your mouth open and exposed.

Your hand moves without thought, fingers wrapping weakly around his wrist. You pull it down, guiding it to your throat, settling his palm against the vulnerable column of your neck. The request is silent but unmistakable.

Hongjoong’s eyes darken immediately, understanding flickering across his face. “Yeah?” he asks, voice dropping lower. “Want Daddy’s hand around your throat while he makes you come?”

You nod as much as you can with his hand there, a desperate whimper escaping you. His fingers curl around your neck—not squeezing yet, just holding, the weight of his palm a promise.

“Please,” you manage, the word barely a whisper, and that’s all he needs.

His hand tightens around your throat, pressure building slowly, controlled. Not enough to cut off your air completely—just enough to make each breath something you have to work for, something you have to earn. The restriction sends your body into overdrive, every nerve ending lighting up as his fingers inside you curl relentlessly and his thumb grinds against your clit.

“That’s it,” Hongjoong growls, watching your face flush darker as the oxygen thins. “Give it to me. Come for Daddy one more time.” His grip shifts slightly, thumb pressing against your pulse point, and he can feel your heartbeat racing beneath his palm. “Feel how hard your heart’s pounding for me? Your body knows who it belongs to.”

Your vision starts to blur at the edges, stars dancing across your sight as the pleasure builds impossibly higher. His fingers don’t let up, working you with practiced precision, and you’re teetering right on that edge—desperate for release but unable to tip over without his permission.

“So fucking beautiful like this,” he murmurs, voice rough with awe and desire. “Completely at my mercy. Taking everything I give you so perfectly.” His hand loosens slightly, letting oxygen rush back in, and the sudden clarity makes everything sharper. “You'’re doing so well, baby. So good for Daddy. Just let go—I’ve got you.”

The praise combined with the pressure returning to your throat is what breaks you. The orgasm hits different this time—slower, deeper, rolling through you like a wave pulling you under. Your mouth opens on a silent scream, no sound escaping with his hand locked around your throat, and the deprivation makes everything more intense.

“Perfect,” Hongjoong breathes, watching you fall apart beneath him. “That’s my perfect girl. Look at you—so beautiful when you come for me. Did so fucking well, baby.” His hand stays firm on your throat through every wave, controlling even this, drawing it out until you’re shaking uncontrollably.

When he finally releases your throat, you don’t even gasp for air. Your body just goes limp, every muscle surrendering at once. Your eyes slip closed despite trying to keep them on him, and the last thing you register is his voice—distant, concerned—calling your name.

“Baby? Hey—” Hongjoong’s hand immediately cups your face, patting your cheek gently. Your head lolls to the side, body completely unresponsive. You’re still breathing—he can see your chest rising and falling—but you’re utterly gone, consciousness slipping away into the exhaustion he’s wrung from you.

“Fuck,” he mutters, but there’s no panic in it. Just concern mixed with something like awe. He carefully withdraws his fingers from inside you, and you don’t even twitch at the loss. More cum leaks out onto the sheets, but you’re too far gone to notice or care.

He shifts immediately into caretaker mode, moving with practiced efficiency. His hand stays on your face, thumb stroking your cheekbone as he checks you over. Your pulse is steady under his fingers when he presses them to your throat—the same throat he was just restricting. Your breathing evens out into something deeper, more peaceful.

“Did so good,” he whispers, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Too good. Gave me everything.” There’s pride in his voice, but also guilt—he pushed you right to your absolute limit and over it.

He stays close, watching the slow rise and fall of your chest, making sure you’re really okay. After a moment, he tries again, voice soft but insistent. “Hey. Baby, come on.” His hand cups your jaw, thumb brushing across your cheek. “Need you to wake up for me.”

You don’t respond, body still limp and unmoving. He sighs, shifting to sit beside you, one hand sliding to your shoulder to shake you gently. “Can’t let you sleep yet. We need to get you cleaned up first.”

Still nothing. Your breathing stays deep and even, completely out of it. Hongjoong’s expression softens, guilt flickering across his features again. He really wore you out this time.

“Okay,” he murmurs, more to himself than to you. “Guess we’re doing this the hard way.” He slides one arm under your shoulders, the other beneath your knees, lifting you carefully against his chest. Your head lolls against his shoulder, body pliant and unresisting.

He carries you toward the bathroom, your weight comfortable in his arms. “You’re going to be so mad at me later if I let you sleep like this,” he says quietly, nudging the bathroom door open with his foot. “All sticky and messy. You’ll complain for days.”

He sets you down carefully on the edge of the tub, one hand staying on your shoulder to keep you upright while he reaches for the faucet. Your head tips forward, chin nearly touching your chest, and he has to catch you before you slump completely.

“Baby,” he tries again, patting your cheek a bit more firmly. “Come on. Just need you awake enough for a bath. I’ll do everything else.” The water starts running, warm steam beginning to fill the small space as he tests the temperature.

Your eyelids flutter—barely, but it’s something. A soft, incoherent sound escapes you, and Hongjoong takes it as a victory.

“There you are,” he encourages, both hands cupping your face now, lifting your head. “Let’s get you in, okay?” He helps you into the tub, supporting your weight as he eases you down into the warm water. The heat envelops you immediately, and you let out a small, contented sigh.

He kneels beside the tub, one hand still steadying you, about to reach for the washcloth when your fingers weakly grasp at his wrist.

“With you,” you mumble, eyes still closed, the words barely coherent but unmistakable.

Hongjoong’s expression softens immediately, a quiet laugh escaping him. “Yeah? Want me to get in with you?” He doesn’t wait for another response—just climbs into the tub behind you, pulling you back against his chest. His arms wrap around you, steadying you in the water, and you let out a small, satisfied hum as you melt into his warmth.

“Stay still,” he murmurs against your skin, voice soft and gentle—so different from how he sounded minutes ago. His lips press to your shoulder, kissing over the marks he left there. Some are already darkening into bruises, others are just faint impressions of his teeth. He maps each one with careful attention, like he’s cataloging the evidence of what he did to you.

You lean back into him, boneless and pliant, letting him support your weight completely. The warm water laps around you both as he reaches for the washcloth, soaping it up with one hand while the other stays wrapped around your waist.

“You’re going to be so sore tomorrow,” he says quietly, dragging the cloth along your arms with gentle strokes. His lips find the curve of your neck, pressing soft kisses to the red marks his hand left on your throat. “I’m sorry, baby.”

“Don’t be,” you mumble, the words thick and drowsy. “Wanted it.”

He makes a soft sound—half laugh, half sigh—and kisses the bruise at the junction of your neck and shoulder, the one from his teeth. “I know you did. Doesn’t mean I can’t take care of you after.” The washcloth moves to your chest, your stomach, washing away the sweat and evidence of everything that happened.

His other hand comes up to tilt your head to the side, giving him better access to your neck. He kisses every mark there too, lips tender against the sensitive skin. “So pretty,” he whispers. “Even covered in bruises. Especially covered in bruises.”

You hum contentedly, eyes still closed, completely surrendered to his care. His hands are so gentle now—washing you clean, touching you like something precious. The contrast makes your chest ache in the best way.

“I love you,” you murmur, barely audible.

Hongjoong's hands still for just a moment before continuing their careful work. “I love you too,” he says against your shoulder, punctuating it with another kiss. “So much. Even when I’m mean to you.”

Especially when he’s mean to you, maybe—but that’s something you both understand without saying.

He brings the cloth to your inner thighs, cleaning away the evidence of your releases, his movements are especially gentle, aware of how sensitive you must be.

“Almost done,” he murmurs, pressing another kiss to your shoulder. The washcloth moves down your legs, over your calves, taking his time to make sure he’s gotten everything. You feel yourself drifting again, lulled by the warmth of the water and his tender care.

When he’s finished, he sets the washcloth aside and just holds you for a moment, his arms wrapped securely around your waist. You can feel his heartbeat against your back, steady and reassuring.

Something stirs in your chest—gratitude, affection, love.

With effort, you turn your head slightly, just enough to press your lips to his cheek. It’s a soft kiss, lazy and uncoordinated, but full of feeling.

Hongjoong goes still, then lets out a breath that sounds almost like relief. His arms tighten around you, pulling you closer against him. “What was that for?” he asks quietly, though there’s a smile in his voice.

“Thank you.”

His hand comes up to cradle the back of your head, turning to press his own kiss to your temple. “Don’t thank me for taking care of you,” he says softly. “That’s my job. Especially after I’ve wrecked you like that.” But his voice is warm, fond, and you can hear how much your simple gesture affected him.

You shift in his arms, turning more fully despite the exhaustion weighing down your limbs. The movement sends water sloshing gently against the sides of the tub, but Hongjoong adjusts easily, his hands sliding to your waist to help stabilise you as you face him.

His eyes meet yours—dark and searching, still carrying traces of the intensity from before but softened now with concern and affection. You lift one hand, fingers trembling slightly as they trace the line of his jaw, then cup his cheek.

“Hey,” he whispers, his own hand coming up to cover yours against his face. “You okay?”

Instead of answering, you lean in and kiss him. It’s slow and deep, nothing like the desperate, hungry kisses from earlier. This one is grateful, reverent—a thank you and an I love you and an I trust you all wrapped into one. Your lips move against his with deliberate tenderness, and you feel him sigh into it, his body relaxing as he kisses you back with equal softness.

His arms wrap around you properly now, one hand sliding up to cradle the back of your head while the other stays secure at your waist. He angles his head to deepen the kiss just slightly, still gentle but more present, more him. When you finally pull back, it’s only enough to rest your forehead against his, both of you breathing the same air.

You catch the softness in his expression—the way he’s looking at you like you’re something precious—and a small, teasing smile tugs at your lips despite your exhaustion. Your fingers trace lazy patterns on his chest.

“You know,” you murmur, voice still thick with exhaustion but laced with amusement, “for someone who just fucked me unconscious, you’re being awfully soft right now. What happened to the mean Joong from like ten minutes ago?”

Hongjoong’s eyes narrow slightly, though there’s a smile tugging at his lips. “Are you complaining?”

“No,” you say, still trailing your fingers down his chest lazily. “You’re just being so sweet.”

His eyes narrow slightly, though there’s amusement flickering in them. “You want him back? Because I can arrange that.”

“Mm, no,” you hum, leaning in to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “I like this version too. All gentle and worried about me.” Your smile turns a little wicked. “It’s cute.”

“Cute,” he repeats flatly, though you can see the way his lips twitch like he’s fighting a smile.

“Very cute,” you confirm, your fingers walking up his chest to tap against his collarbone. “Taking care of me, kissing all the marks you left, being so—” You pause, pretending to search for the word. “—domestic.”

Hongjoong’s hand slides up to catch your wrist, his grip firm but not rough. “You’re lucky you can barely move right now,” he says, voice low, “or I’d remind you exactly how un-cute I can be.”

You laugh—soft and breathless—and let yourself collapse back against his chest. “See? Cute. You’re threatening me while holding me in a bubble bath.”

He groans, but his arms wrap around you again, pulling you close. “You’re impossible,” he mutters against your hair, but there’s no heat in it. Just fondness, and maybe a little exasperation. His hand strokes down your back in slow, soothing motions. “Rest. You’ve earned the right to be a brat for a few minutes.”

“Only a few minutes?” you tease, already feeling yourself starting to drift again.

“We’ll see how long my patience lasts,” he replies, pressing a kiss to the top of your head. But his tone is warm, and you know he’s not actually annoyed. If anything, he sounds relieved that you’re coherent enough to give him a hard time.

You shift again, the water rippling around you as you turn to face him fully. His hair is damp, some strands clinging to his forehead, others pushed back haphazardly. His eyes are dark and deep, watching you with that same careful attention he always has, like you’re the only thing that matters.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he murmurs, close enough that your breaths mix. His thumb strokes your cheek like he’s checking you’re really here.

“Like what?” you ask while your fingers starts tracing idle circles on his chest.

His gaze narrows, suspicious. “Like you’re about to start something.”

You tilt your head, considering him with exaggerated seriousness. “Maybe I am.”

A quiet, disbelieving laugh slips out of him. “You can barely keep your eyes open.”

“And yet,” you say, letting your fingers trace his jaw again, feather-light, “you’re still watching me like you’re trying to figure out what I’m thinking.”

His hand closes around your wrist—not tight, not controlling. Just there. Grounding. Possessive in a way that doesn’t hurt.

“I don’t have to figure it out,” he says. “I know you.”

“Oh?” You lean in, just enough to brush your mouth against the corner of his—almost a kiss. Almost. You stop a heartbeat short, letting him feel the tease in the pause. “Then tell me.”

His eyes drop to your lips. “Don’t get cocky,” he warns, but the warning sounds thin, like it’s already losing.

You hum, pretending to think about it. “I’m not cocky.”

He gives you a look that says liar.

You meet it without flinching. “I’m just… curious.”

“About what?” he asks, voice low.

You press a soft kiss to his cheek, then his jaw, then the place under his ear where you know it makes him go quiet. You feel his breath hitch, and it makes you brave.

“About how long it takes,” you murmur against his skin, “before you stop being sweet and start being mean again.”

He exhales a laugh—one of those quiet ones that means he’s trying not to show how much you got to him. His hand slides to the back of your neck, thumb brushing your pulse. “You’re teasing me,” he says.

You blink slowly, innocent on purpose. “Am I?”

He leans in, close enough that his nose brushes yours. “You should rest.”

You let your smile widen, just a little. “Make me.”

His gaze drops, then returns to your eyes, darker now. “Careful.”

You press a final kiss to his lips—soft, brief, unhurried—then pull back before he can deepen it.

“Or what?” you whisper.

He looks at you for a long second, like he’s deciding how honest to be. Then he tucks you closer, forehead to yours, and his voice goes quieter.

“Or I’m going to stop pretending I’m patient.”

You sigh like you’re satisfied with that answer, and let your eyes fall closed, still smiling.

“Mm,” you hum. “There you are.”

His jaw ticks. You feel it more than see it—the subtle shift in his expression that says you’re walking a line.

“You’re pushing,” he says quietly.

“Am I?” you ask again, tone dripping with false innocence. Your fingers trail down his chest, nails dragging just lightly enough to make him inhale sharp. “I’m just sitting here. Being good.”

“You don’t know how to be good,” he mutters, but there’s heat creeping into his voice now, the kind that makes your pulse kick up.

You tilt your head, letting your smile turn sharper. “That’s not true. I was very good earlier. You said so yourself.”

His hand tightens on your waist—just enough to make you aware of it. “That was different.”

“How?” you challenge, leaning in until your lips brush his ear. “Because you were in charge?”

Hongjoong goes still. Dangerously still. The kind of stillness that means you’ve officially gotten under his skin.

“Baby,” he says, voice dropping into that low register that usually makes you shut up and listen. But right now, it just makes you bolder.

“What?” you ask sweetly, pulling back to look at him with wide, innocent eyes. “I’m just asking questions.”

His thumb presses into your hip—not hard, but deliberate. A warning. “You’re being a brat.”

“Me?” You press a hand to your chest in mock offence. “I would never.”

“Liar,” he says flatly.

You bite your lip to keep from grinning too wide. “Prove it.”

His eyes flash. “You really want to do this right now?”

“Do what?” you ask, all fake confusion as your fingers walk up his chest again, tracing the line of his collarbone. “I’m just sitting here in this nice bath you drew for me, being so grateful—”

“—being a pain in my ass,” he interrupts, but there’s a crack in his composure now. You can see it in the way his gaze drops to your mouth, then back up. In the way his grip on you shifts, like he’s deciding whether to pull you closer or push you away.

You lean in, close enough that your breath ghosts over his lips. “You love it,” you whisper.

He stares at you for a long moment, expression unreadable. Then, slowly, deliberately, he smiles—and it’s not the soft, fond smile. It’s the dangerous one. The one that means you’ve successfully woken up the version of him that doesn’t play nice.

“Okay,” he says simply. His hand slides up to cup your jaw, thumb brushing your bottom lip. “You want to be a brat? Go ahead. But don’t complain when I remind you what happens to brats who push too far.”

Your stomach flips—half anticipation, half genuine thrill. You should probably back down now. You’re exhausted, barely recovered, and you know he’s serious.

But instead, you smile back at him, just as sharp. “Promises, promises.”

His eyes narrow. “Last chance.”

You press a quick, teasing kiss to his lips—there and gone. “Make me stop.”

He exhales slowly through his nose, like he’s physically restraining himself. “You’re going to regret this.”

“Maybe,” you say, trailing your fingers down his chest again, slower this time. “But that sounds like a future me problem.”

Hongjoong’s eyes sharpen. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” you ask, innocent as a knife. “Use your words.”

His jaw ticks. For a second you can see the exact moment his patience runs out.

Then he moves.

His hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, grip firm enough to make your breath catch. “You want me to use my words?” he says, voice dropping low and dangerous. “Fine. Stop teasing me before I forget I was trying to be gentle with you.”

You roll your eyes at him, the gesture slow and deliberate—practically daring him to do something about it.

His grip tightens fractionally. “Did you just—”

“What?” you interrupt, blinking up at him with exaggerated innocence. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You rolled your eyes at me.”

“Did I?” You tilt your head, playing dumb.

Hongjoong’s stare lingers, heavy and unimpressed, like he’s deciding how much patience you’re allowed to borrow before he takes it back with interest.

“Yeah,” he says quietly, almost thoughtful. “You did.”

Before you can respond, he shifts—slow, deliberate—until you’re pressed back against the edge of the tub, his body caging yours.

He kisses you then—deep and consuming, the kind that steals the air from your lungs and replaces it with heat. His hand tightens at the back of your neck, holding you, and you can’t do anything but take it. His mouth moves against yours like he’s proving a point, like he’s reminding you who’s in control here, and it works. God, it works.

When he finally pulls back, your eyes are half-closed, breath coming in short, uneven gasps. You feel dazed, unsteady, like the world tilted and forgot to right itself.

He’s watching you, and there’s that smirk—slow, satisfied, dangerous. “Is this what you wanted?” he asks, voice low and rough.

You nod, still catching your breath, unable to form words yet.